At this thought, Kairos couldn't help but shake his head slightly.
Oh well, judging by the current game leaderboard progress, Cynthia should be the first to challenge the Flying-type gym anyway.
Although with Mega Altaria's strength, even Cynthia would probably be caught off guard at first, she had been playing Emerald for so long that she'd quickly figure out a counterstrategy.
What's more, from yesterday's stream footage, her Sceptile seemed ready to Mega Evolve at any time. He had specifically arranged for Steven to appear before the Flying-type gym to give players the Key Stone, an essential item for Mega Evolution.
He believed Cynthia... should be able to clear this gym pretty quickly.
As for the other players challenging the gym, well...
All he could say was good luck to them.
Kairos shook his head and continued controlling his character toward the next gym city.
Meanwhile, in Iono's livestream room on another platform.
"Is everyone ready?" she asked, looking at the Electric-type Pokémon in front of her as she made one final rallying cry.
"We absolutely have to take down this gym as fast as possible!"
Several Electric Pokémon responded with excited sounds. The Joltik that had evolved into Galvantula was now waving its two front limbs, shooting out excited sparks of electricity as if responding to Iono's call to action.
Iono scanned her current team and began her final analysis.
All the Pokémon in her party had reached level 45. Joltik had long since evolved from its original form into its final evolution, Galvantula, with its battle power increased several times over.
The Pikachu she'd caught in Viridian Forest had also been evolved using the Thunder Stone reward from the game, successfully transforming into Raichu after she followed her viewers' suggestions.
What disappointed Iono slightly was that Pikachu hadn't evolved into the same form as the Raichu from the Electric-type gym. To this day, she still didn't understand what was up with that Raichu, but its ability combined with Electric Terrain was clearly much stronger than her Raichu's current Lightning Rod ability...
Next was the Magnemite she'd caught later, which had evolved into Magneton, and her ace starter Pokémon, Ampharos, which had long since reached its final evolution.
Scanning her team's condition, Iono immediately formulated her battle strategy.
At the start of battle, she'd lead with Raichu to set up Electric Terrain.
She directly switched her team lineup, putting Raichu in the lead position, and addressed her stream chat.
"Since this is a Flying-type gym, the gym leader will definitely have countermeasures for Electric types, that's a given."
"Raichu is fast and knows Iron Tail, which can effectively hit Ground-type Pokémon, plus he's the one who knows Electric Terrain, so we absolutely need him in the lead position."
"If the Flying gym leader dares to use a fast Pokémon to compete with Raichu on speed, we're not afraid after all, our Raichu has a speed stat of 110 in this game!"
Iono's analysis naturally earned praise from viewers in her stream chat.
"I knew that decent person from before was putting pressure on the streamer. Now she's actually analyzing and strategizing before gym battles, haha."
"Finally seeing the streamer get serious! This is the skill a gym leader should have."
"Go for it, streamer! Try to get it in one shot, too."
"I just checked the game leaderboard looks like Cynthia hasn't cleared the Flying gym yet. She didn't stream today, probably had something going on. If you clear the Flying gym, streamer, you'd become number one!"
This comment made Iono pause. She'd assumed Cynthia would have already cleared the Flying gym by now, but apparently, she had some business to attend to.
While becoming first place by clearing the Flying gym this way seemed a bit like winning by default...
But thinking about being number one on this game's progress leaderboard still made Iono feel a little excited. She took a deep breath, made her final preparations, and walked forward.
What appeared before her was a platform inside the gym, with a woman standing on the elevated stage.
She had deep blue hair, wore a blue and white flight suit, and had large goggles on her head. Her whole presence radiated calm composure while still being quite beautiful.
This was none other than Winona, the Flying-type gym leader of the Hoenn region.
"Oh, a challenger?"
After the gym leader's standard opening line, countless Poké Balls flashed across the screen. Along with stirring music, Iono's gym battle officially began!
Iono naturally sent out her planned lead Pokémon, Raichu, just as she'd strategized.
But as Winona threw her Poké Ball, a familiar figure appeared directly before Iono's eyes.
It was unmistakably a level 47 Swellow!
This Pokémon's appearance naturally caught Iono off guard.
She'd already discovered that starting from a certain gym leader, the gym leaders and other NPCs in the game all possessed considerable AI, even seeming able to read players' team compositions in advance and send out the most suitable Pokémon to counter them...
If she had to say, Roxanne from the Rock-type gym had already been going easy on her back then; otherwise, if she'd led with Archen right away, her team would have been completely helpless...
But now, facing her all-Electric team with Raichu as the lead, this gym leader was actually sending out a Flying-type Pokémon?
Her trainer's intuition made Iono vaguely sense something ominous.
But thinking it over, she really couldn't imagine what threat a Pokémon like Swellow could pose to Raichu.
Raichu wasn't just extremely fast, its durability wasn't particularly low either...
Surely this Swellow couldn't one-shot Raichu, right?
Besides... if it came down to speed, Raichu might not be slower than Swellow!
At this thought, Iono's eyes sharpened. Steeling herself, she directly selected "Thunderbolt" to attack.
Since the opponent had led with a Flying-type, she obviously didn't need to waste a turn setting up Electric Terrain! Take one down first!
However, the next moment, as she input her command and the turn began, a prompt appeared on screen along with a cluster of flames bursting from Swellow's body.
"Swellow's Flame Orb activated."
"Swellow was burned!"
Seeing this scene, Iono's heart jumped in alarm as some traumatic memories began frantically assaulting her.
Flame Orb...?
Wait, could it be?
The next moment, brilliant light and energy waves suddenly erupted from Swellow's body.
"Swellow's Guts ability activated!"
"Swellow used Brave Bird!"
As Swellow's body ignited with brilliant fiery light, it dove from above and slammed hard into Raichu. The latter's HP bar began dropping at an alarming rate, instantly hitting zero.
Raichu was directly one-shotted by Swellow's Brave Bird, enhanced by both the move and Guts ability!
Forget Electric Terrain, she couldn't even get Thunderbolt out before losing a key team member.
In front of her computer screen, Iono felt completely petrified. In her stream chat, viewer comments were flying everywhere.
"Haha, bet you didn't see that coming, Norman and I learned from the same teacher."
"Thought the streamer was finally getting serious, but turns out Iono forgot. She just got slammed by a Swellow not too long ago, and she's already forgotten."
"Pokémon Emerald lesson one: Watch out for any Pokémon that ignites with flames at the start of battle, because they very likely have Guts ability and will kick you to death in the first turn."
...
The stream chat was quite lively, and Iono finally snapped out of her dazed state.
If it had just been Guts ability enhancement alone, Swellow would have had some difficulty one-shotting Raichu, since it didn't have any moves that were super effective against Electric types.
But the problem was that it had used Brave Bird, a physical move with extremely high power. She'd seen in this game that this move actually had 120 base power, 20% higher than Thunderbolt.
However, such a powerful move did come with certain risks and negative effects: the Pokémon using this move would take some recoil damage, though she didn't know exactly how much.
As the turn ended, a prompt quickly appeared: Swellow took recoil damage.
Its HP bar immediately dropped by half.
This made Iono breathe a sigh of relief. Although Raichu had been defeated, at least the opponent had taken some damage. If it had taken down her Raichu without any loss, that would have been too much to bear...
Pulling herself together, after brief consideration, Iono directly sent out Magneton as a defensive measure.
Its Steel typing could resist Swellow's Flying-type moves.
Thinking about it now, she should have led with Magneton for defensive purposes the moment she saw the opponent.
But she couldn't entirely blame herself, who could have predicted that instead of losing the speed battle, her Raichu would get one-shotted by a Guts-boosted Swellow with Brave Bird...
As the new turn began, this time Iono didn't hesitate and directly selected "Thunderbolt."
Even a Guts-enhanced Swellow couldn't tank Steel-type resistance and one-shot Magneton with Brave Bird. After all, the latter not only had type resistance but also far superior physical defense and durability compared to Raichu!
However, the next moment, instead of the familiar deep blue light, Swellow's body erupted with brown energy waves, with the shadow of a fist materializing in front of it.
Seeing this icon, Iono immediately got that bad feeling again...
Wait, this is...?
The next moment, the game prompt appeared.
"Swellow used Reversal!"
"It's super effective!!"
Iono: ???
Wait, what kind of move is this?
The current situation didn't give her more time to think. As brown-gold brilliant light flashed across the screen.
Magneton's HP bar once again began plummeting at a familiar rate!
Just as its HP bar was about to be completely depleted, it stopped at the last sliver barely visible as just a red dot. A prompt appeared:
"Magneton's Sturdy ability activated it hung on!"
Only then did Iono snap back to her senses and breathe a slight sigh of relief. Everything had happened so suddenly that she'd almost forgotten Magneton's ability prevented it from being one-shotted by an opponent at full health.
But seriously, what was this "Reversal" thing?
It was super effective against Steel types, and with that fist-shaped icon just now, could it be a Fighting-type move?
She'd never heard of this move before!
On the battlefield, brilliant light flashed from Magneton as it barely survived, and golden electricity, accompanied by a "super effective" prompt, naturally and decisively took away Swellow's remaining half HP.
However, the current situation was clearly very unfavorable for Iono.
Not only had Electric Terrain failed to be set up, but she'd also traded Magneton at critical HP and Raichu's complete knockout just to take down one Swellow, without even understanding the opponent's other Pokémon...
Even worse, with Magneton's low speed stat, being in such low HP against other Flying-types was practically the same as being knocked out.
A series of comments appeared in the stream chat.
"Bros, I looked it up. This 'Reversal' is a Fighting-type move. The more HP the user has lost, the higher the damage. Normally, people rarely use this move, so I didn't expect to see it in the game."
"Haha, didn't expect that, did you streamer? Flying-type Pokémon can learn Fighting-type moves too."
"The NPCs in this game really have broad movesets... I'm guessing there'll be a Ground-type Pokémon coming up next, haha."
Looks like... she won't be getting through in one attempt again.
Iono couldn't help but feel somewhat resigned, accepting this reality.
The gym leader teams in this game were just... way too powerful, weren't they?
But in this situation, she could only grit her teeth and continue. At least she'd figured out the first Pokémon's setup, so it wasn't a total loss.
Thinking this, Iono scanned her team, considering which Pokémon to send out after Magneton went down.
But the key question now was, who was the opponent's next Pokémon?
Just then, a red light flashed, and the gym leader's second Pokémon appeared on the battlefield.
When she saw that figure clearly, Iono couldn't help but pause again.
This one is...?
Gliscor?
Wait, what type is Gliscor again?
If it's flying through the air, it should definitely be Flying-type...
But why does something feel off?
Whatever, Magneton's going down anyway.
With this thought, Iono casually selected "Thunderbolt."
But the next moment, she suddenly realized.
Wait, isn't Gliscor a Ground-type?
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