Pokémon from Galar

"There's only one challenger a day. As the person in charge of the lobby, I basically have nothing to do after I've finished greeting everyone. It's not as lively here as next door."

"Well..."

Yuri pouted. The Fighting-type gym next door and this one were starkly contrasting, like two extremes.

"You can watch it here later. It's noisy and crowded here, but you can sit on the sofa and have some hot tea."

The older sister's gaze fell on the huge screen beside her, which was playing Galar's official Pokémon channel, announcing the progress of this year's gym challenges.

So far, no one has broken through the Fairy-type Gym. Several players who were progressing very quickly are stuck in Dance Town, and there are also more than ten players stuck in Legend Town.

Further along, at the Grass, Water, and Fire gyms, most people are still stuck and unable to break through.

It has been almost four months since this year's dojo challenge began. Just recently, the top three dojos started limiting the number of challenges and the intervals between challenges for the participants, in order to prevent the three dojo masters from overworking themselves to death.

In four months, the gym challenge in the selection phase will end, and then the most anticipated elimination rounds of the year will begin.

The elimination tournament is held annually by contestants who have broken through gym challenges and ten gym leaders. After the final winner is determined, they will then challenge Leon, the insurmountable mountain in Galar.

Strictly speaking, before going to Alola, Yuri, who had already broken through the Fire-type and Fighting-type Gyms, was also among the top-tier fighters. However, due to the delay caused by Marie's situation, Yuri's progress has fallen behind.

Yuri even saw her own and Mary's names on the channel, and Mary's ranking was quite high in terms of popularity.

Although Marie herself is reluctant to admit it, in the eyes of the audience, she is young, strong, good-looking, and her ace is Dragapult, a pseudo-legendary Pokémon in Galar. Any normal person who likes Pokémon would want to follow her.

Not long after, Mary, who had changed into her challenge outfit and was wearing gloves, came out and handed her backpack and Xiao Mo and the others to Yuri for safekeeping.

"Go for it, Mary!"

"Well, don't worry."

Without much delay, Mary followed the dream demon's guidance and entered the side passage, where she would have to engage in three 1v1 battles.

As Mary walked, she glanced at the dream monster floating beside her and asked with a smile:

"I didn't know you were in charge of this job."

'That guy just slacked off again...'

The nightmare demon held up the sign with its hand behind its back, looking as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

After passing through an automatic door, you enter an indoor battle arena where three trainers dressed in gym uniforms are already waiting.

"Everyone has arrived, you can begin."

A man who looked to be around thirty years old walked over with a smile and said:

"Oh, thank you so much, Dream Demon. Are you free later? Want to grab a drink after the challenge?"

'Okay... but don't say that in front of the challenger!'

"Haha~ Alright then, Mary, let's begin now."

"bring it on."

Ignoring the uncle's agreement to drink with the dream monster, Mary nodded in agreement and walked towards a section of the battlefield.

"Little Chiu, you go for the first match."

Without much hesitation, Mary pulled out the deluxe ball and summoned Little Bird.

"Gah—! (ojbk—!)"

The middle-aged man opposite me smiled, took out a Poké Ball, pressed the switch to throw it, and said:

"Am I going to run into Corviknight the very first thing I encounter...?"

A pumpkin monster suddenly appeared on the field.

Mary sized up the pumpkin monster; it was probably small or medium-sized, meaning it was fast but weak in attack.

"Alright, both sides prepare—the battle begins!"

As soon as the referee announced the order, the two Pokémon started moving on their own without the trainer's command.

Little Chick spread its wings, creating a gust of wind, and flew straight into the sky, while Pumpkin Monster unsurprisingly unleashed its ultimate move, Halloween Night, right where it was!

A strange fluctuation enveloped the entire area, and Little Chirp, with nowhere to hide, was successfully given a temporary ghost attribute.

Without Mary saying a word, Little Bird sensed this strange change.

"Don't worry about it, it's an air slash!"

"Flying Leaf Blade, dodge!"

Quickly calming down, Little Chirp angrily glared at the pumpkin monster below, forcefully flapping its wings, sending more than ten white air blades shooting downwards.

Pumpkin Monster was a beat slower than Little Chirp and had no intention of parrying the attack. Quick-draw leaf blades quickly appeared around his body, while he tried to avoid the attack by moving to the side to a safer area.

But Little Chirp's attack came even faster. The Flying Leaf Blade didn't even have time to be launched. Seeing that he couldn't dodge several of the air blades, the Pumpkin Monster hurriedly gathered the leaves that hadn't been launched yet in front of him.

Boom! Boom!

Four air slashes exploded at a very close distance to the pumpkin monster. Although they did not hit it directly, the aftershocks of the explosions still blew the lightweight pumpkin monster away.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Mary quickly called out to Little Bird:

"Iron Wall!"

"Don't even think about it, strange light!"

Strange Light is a difficult attack to dodge. Unless you run directly into another dimension like a stealthy attack, being hit by the light will cause you to fall into a state of confusion.

"Little Chirp, Divine Bird Strike!"

"Gah—! (I...I know!)"

After erecting the iron wall, Little Chiu, who was quickly struck by the strange light, gritted her teeth and responded to Marie's expectation. Her gaze fell on the pumpkin monster below, which had barely regained its balance. The confusion in her mind caused a delay in her movements, giving her opponent a chance to recover.

In a moment of haste, Xiao Qiu mobilized all the energy she could muster, spreading her enormous wings to envelop her entire body in energy, transforming into a divine bird. Due to her clumsy control, the energy slightly dissipated, forming a dazzling tail flame.

Ignoring her own energy control, Little Chick continued to unleash her energy, then gritted her teeth and swooped down!

"Shadow attack! Deflect the opponent's attack and you'll win!"

Seeing that Xiao Qiu was even more imposing than before, with her huge wings spread out and an energy tail flame with a huge attack range of nearly seven meters, the Pumpkin Monster knew that it would be too late to just dodge. It had no choice but to take a gamble!

"Wu—!"

The shadow beneath its feet was instantly stretched, transforming into a black curtain that blotted out the sky and enveloped the wings of Little Chirp in mid-air, attempting to disrupt Little Chirp's balance. If it succeeded, the battle could continue; if it failed, the Pumpkin Monster would definitely not be able to withstand the damage from this attack.

boom--!!

Little Chick's massive body crashed down! The tremor was so strong that even those outside the arena instinctively grabbed onto whatever was beside them, staring in slight surprise at the dust billowing up from the arena.

Chapter 221 Battle against Onio

After successfully completing three battles, as Marie handed her Pokémon to Nurse Joy to heal, she suddenly realized why gym leaders were allowed to set up such qualification challenges in gym battles.

Most of the time, it's to roughly test the challenger's strength. If the Pokémon hasn't reached its final evolution, then the strength level can be roughly judged based on its stage and the usage records of some moves.

So, teams like Mary's, which take on challenges, are all the final, evolved types of competitors. Given that each public challenge is spaced at least half a month apart, or even longer,

Since gym leaders can't personally observe the condition of every Pokémon, additional battles are needed to make predictions in order to select Pokémon with appropriate strength.

For example, in today's three battles, it's clear that the three Pokémon chosen for the battles were selected after a deliberate analysis of Marnie's strength and growth rate.

Even so, it still underestimated the strength of Marie's Pokémon. Her experience in Alola made Marie's Pokémon stronger than expected, even without considering their dominant aura.

Without such pre-match battles, if Onio had chosen two relatively weak Pokémon, the difficulty of the gym challenge would have plummeted significantly.

Thinking about this, Mary also felt a little emotional. No wonder there are so few trainers who manage to complete all eight gyms each year...

Starting from the five gyms in Strangetown, the strategy is the same: deliberately selecting a team of Pokémon with a strength close to that of the challenger to battle is quite a test of the basic skills of both the trainer and the Pokémon.

Marie sat alone on the sofa next to her and sighed softly. "They don't treat me like a new trainer at all... I'm just as much of a newbie as Yuri."

"Miss Marie, your Pokémon has recovered!"

I wasn't seriously injured in the battle, so I recovered quickly and retrieved my Pokémon before long.

"You're even stronger than I expected."

The nightmare demon floated over again at some point, then held up the whiteboard and handed it to Mary.

"Really? Thank you."

Marilyn looked up at the Misdreavus. Because there were no wild Misdreavus in the Galar region, Marilyn didn't have much information about them, but this one... at least it seemed very powerful.

The illusion magic was so sophisticated that Ichigo and Suzu wouldn't have noticed anything unusual unless they were fully focused on perceiving it.

At this level, the whole team can easily be wiped out if you're not careful, since you don't have the energy to carefully identify things during a match.

'Onio is already preparing; the challenge will officially begin in about twenty minutes.'

"Pfft... Whose job did you take this time?"

'I came here of my own accord. I've heard about your story. In the Mystic Forest, I'll be one of your trump cards.'

"..."

Seeing this, Mary subconsciously looked up at the Dream Demon's calm face. She knew that Qibana would definitely arrange some backup plans for her, but she didn't expect that the person in front of her would be one of them.

'After the match, Onio and Ayaka will come to see you. Now focus on the challenge.'

"Um... thank you for your help."

Mary nodded, feeling that this matter was more troublesome than she had imagined... otherwise, why would she have allowed the dream demon in front of her to secretly follow her?

Did I underestimate the value of intelligence in the underground of Hammerlocke City?

These things couldn't be figured out in a short time. Mary closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Right now, the important thing was Onio's gym challenge.

……

"Marie, the gym challenge is about to begin. Please enter now."

"Okay, thank you for your help."

After responding to the staff member who came to inform her, and then turning to smile at the Dream Demon, Mary stood up and walked into the passageway next to her.

Onio, the gym leader, is quite mysterious. While the other gym leaders are intentionally or unintentionally engaging in idol-like behavior, Onio insists on wearing a mask and not showing his true face.

Marie touched the Moon Ball at her waist, stepped into the battlefield, and then saw Gym Leader Onio walking towards her for the first time.

Although the Ghost-type gym was not crowded, the battle arena was just as lively as the other gyms.

Finally standing in front of Gym Leader Onio, Mary sized up the little boy in front of her. He was about half a head shorter than Mary, wearing a slightly oversized Ghost-type Gym uniform top and shorts with suspenders.