In an instant, the conference room turned pure white.
Snowflakes filled the air. Beedrill's wingbeats slowed, and it was forced to raise both stingers to shield itself.
With the battlefield buried under Blizzard, its power might not have increased, but the area it affected certainly had.
"Use your usual way—cut it apart."
Seeing Grey try to hold his Beedrill back with such "parlor tricks," Giovanni gave his order in a calm, almost bored tone.
Whooo, whooo—
The howling Blizzard swept through with crushing force. The floor, already cracked like a spiderweb, was quickly buried under a thick layer of snow, swallowing everything beneath it.
All Grey could see ahead was a blinding wall of white. As soon as Beedrill received Giovanni's command, its silver stingers condensed Fighting-type energy, and a brownish light flared at their tips!
The Fighting-type move Brick Break!
With a single strike, the Blizzard before it was cleaved clean in two.
A clear path opened straight up in front of Grey, the accumulated snow from Blizzard swept away like it'd never been there.
"Now! Ditto, use Double Team and rush in. Articuno, use Ice Beam to make some noise and cover Ditto's approach."
Grey transmitted his commands directly into their minds through Aura.
"Bzzz—"
Ditto answered with the hum of beating wings, and the next second, a white flash split into countless afterimages, scattering in all directions as they launched a joint assault on Beedrill!
A storm of needle-shadows rained down from above. Each stinger looked ordinary enough—but the real killing blow was hidden among them!
At the same time, Articuno drew its wings in. Where the tips met, a beam of frigid light erupted!
Where the azure column passed, the steel floor froze over at a speed visible to the naked eye, layers of ice racing outward beneath it!
For a moment, Giovanni's Beedrill was threatened by two moves at once.
With its style of extreme single-target offense, it could only properly handle one opponent's attack at a time—at least at first glance.
"Pin Missile."
"Bzzz—!"
Beedrill's wings sped up, and from its tail stinger, a barrage of energy needles shot out, dense as rain. The hail of glowing spikes shredded Ice Beam into glittering fragments.
It flicked its tail, and the remaining Pin Missiles smashed apart every charging afterimage, leaving only Ditto—hidden in the snowstorm—barely escaping the barrage.
"Tch. That Pin Missile is that strong?"
Grey couldn't help frowning, a little shaken by the power of that one Pin Missile.
As expected, it all came back to the huge gap in strength between them.
If his own team's Pokémon were stronger, they wouldn't have been pushed this close to the edge.
"Speaking of which, Mr. Boss of Team Rocket, are you really only going to use three Pokémon? With your strength, you've got to have others just as powerful, don't you?"
Grey took the chance to needle Giovanni a bit, trying to drag things out.
All he had to do was hold on until the League sent reinforcements. As long as Lorelei could make it here in time, everything could turn around.
"Heh. Gym Leader Grey, you'd be better off worrying about the present. My Beedrill is about to flush your Ditto out."
Giovanni didn't answer Grey's question directly.
In fact, he couldn't answer it at all.
Among all the Pokémon he had, aside from Persian and Beedrill, the only others at Champion level were Ground types.
And there were only a handful of people in all of Kanto—no, the whole world—who could use Ground-type Pokémon at that level.
Anyone who knew those names would have no trouble connecting them to his true identity.
So unless he had absolutely no other choice, he wouldn't send those Pokémon out.
Besides, using his ace Beedrill to deal with a monster like Grey was already more than respectful enough.
It wasn't like Grey could just throw out a few more Champion-tier Pokémon of his own, right?
"Ditto, wait for your moment. Aim to take a solid chunk out of its HP bar in a single blow."
Grey guided Ditto's evasions from inside his head, and only that kept it from getting skewered by Pin Missile.
But there were just too many projectiles. Once his Aura couldn't keep up, Ditto's position would be exposed.
Which meant the situation was teetering on a knife's edge.
They had to pick the right moment and go for a kill shot!
Then he'd have the rest of his Pokémon swarm Beedrill and wear it down!
Ditto's expression grew more and more tense.
Its mood, too, was stretched tight.
It was just a plain, ordinary Ditto, and its very first major battle was a high-end match like this?
Fortunately, it had backup helping from the rear—that was the only reason it could barely stand its ground against such a powerful Beedrill at all!
And if it was being honest… it felt pretty good.
There was a certain beauty in fighting on the edge.
For Ditto, a Pokémon whose whole gimmick was "Transform," chances to fight like this on the front line, as the main attacker, were rare.
So it had to make the most of this one!
It, Ditto, was not just some weak little blob that only knew Transform!
Even a Ditto had a heart that wanted to dive into a real war as a main force!
With that thought, Ditto's wingbeats sped up, its speed climbing to the limit in a short burst.
It came in from the side with its silver stingers raised, and just as it neared its target, a subtle white glow passed over its body, merging it perfectly into the surrounding Blizzard!
By the time Beedrill's instincts screamed danger, that lethal stinger was only three centimeters away!
Three centimeters—so short it would land in the very next instant.
Three centimeters—so long that if it connected, Grey and Ditto's tactics would land perfectly.
Unfortunately, Giovanni had no intention of giving Grey that chance.
A white streak of light wrapped around Beedrill, and its body went feather-light, slipping away from the killing blow with absurd ease!
The Flying-type move Aerial Ace!!!
"Trying to use Ditto's max HP together with Endeavor just to brute-force Beedrill's HP down—your idea really isn't bad. But the difference between their strengths is simply too great."
As someone who understood Beedrill better than anyone, Giovanni caught onto Grey's plan immediately.
Endeavor was an almost unfairly terrifying move.
As long as the gap between two sides wasn't overwhelming, it worked just fine.
And once Ditto transformed into Beedrill, it managed to slip through a little loophole: Endeavor could actually affect Beedrill in that mirrored state.
That was exactly why Grey wanted Ditto to find an opening and close in.
For one simple reason: if it hit, they'd make a massive profit.
Even Giovanni, back in his early days, had thought about using it that way.
But now that he'd become this strong, he obviously had no intention of relying on that kind of move.
Realizing this was what Grey had in mind stirred something in Giovanni.
This young man's scheming really wasn't normal at all.
"To push me this far with only Elite Four–class strength… you're the first, Gym Leader Grey. The more I fight you, the more I feel it."
Giovanni applauded, unable to help himself. "Gym Leader Grey, you really do know how to tug at my heartstrings."
"Likewise. But Mr. Boss, aren't you mistaken about something?"
Grey's lips curled upward. "From the very beginning, Endeavor was just a decoy."
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