June 28th, Sunday.
Ever since he used that exclusive Z-Move "ended before realizing what happened" a few days ago, Professor Kukui had completely latched onto him, insisting on figuring out what was going on with him and Sylveon's move.
Of course, the results of several subsequent tests could be described in three words:
Terrible but addictive!
Sylveon was already proficient with Sketch, and had long developed the small technique of releasing aura when Sketching Blood Moon, so its control of Z-Move power was also perfect.
Under such preconditions, the Z-Move "Mirror Flower Water Moon No Eternal Dream" that Aiden and it developed together naturally couldn't be underestimated.
Whenever Professor Kukui was hit by it, he would instantly lose consciousness and become immersed in the most regretful fragment of his memory.
Until his consciousness returned to his body.
After trying several times over consecutive days, time was about to enter July, and the Paldea Victory Road was about to open. As the "number one tough guy" of this Victory Road, Aiden naturally needed to return as early as possible.
Because of this, although Professor Kukui still wanted to experiment more on whether repeated hits could eventually form resistance to the "dream," he also knew priorities and had to temporarily stop.
Thus, declining Professor Kukui's warm invitation, Aiden returned to his most loyal Sunshine Gym.
This Alola trip actually took about the same amount of time as his last trip to Sinnoh, but it was much more relaxed and leisurely.
After all, in Sinnoh, humans took the initiative to decipher mysteries. Most of his time was spent communicating with Legendary Pokémon, plus assisting Cynthia's archaeological work—he had to process a lot of information every day.
Although he thus gained their friendship and could summon the Sinnoh trio as his backup support at any time, he was also physically and mentally exhausted——
As for Alola, he basically didn't need to worry about anything.
Before the Light God Necrozma awakened, Alola's crisis only remained at the Ultra Beast level. Even without him, the International Police and Island Guardians would be responsible for quelling it.
Therefore, this trip was his real vacation.
And the gains were also quite good.
Besides Sylveon's Z-Crystal, there was also the complete set of 18 type Z-Crystals that Professor Kukui gave as "commentary wages," once again expanding his arsenal.
Mega Evolution and Terastallization he had already played to perfection. Now with Z-Moves too, only Gigantamax remained before he could call himself a "four-system master"—possibly truly the first time in the Pokémon world.
"However—with my Pokémon's current strength, going all out in the Victory Road would be too much bullying, wouldn't it?"
After returning home, sitting on the living room sofa, Aiden couldn't help but fall into contemplation.
There were only a few days left until the Victory Road. Students were all nervously preparing for battle. These past few days, even the post count on Naranja Academy's forums had decreased significantly.
If he made students full of expectations stop at his place, it felt like the Sunshine Gym's already precarious positive rating would hit new lows again——
But if he didn't show his strength and let too many people pass through, he also couldn't give Chairwoman Geeta a proper account.
Moreover, the Champion would likely need to go to Area Zero for training with him. If too many students passed the Victory Road this year with overall weak strength, they might get into trouble when encountering Paradox Pokémon down there.
What method could both prevent him from fighting too cautiously, afraid of making opponents cry with one move, while also letting students adapt to his strength?
Yes, brother, yes.
Aiden suddenly recalled his playstyle when he first became a Gym Leader.
Back then, to expand students' knowledge and because he didn't have that many Gym Pokémon, he chose the rental + rotation battle assessment mode.
Regarding his endless stream of tactics/routines, students gritted their teeth in hatred while having to admit these moves were indeed useful. Their strength improved very quickly, and many students only officially stepped onto the path of becoming trainers at this time.
Then, using the same old trick on the Victory Road—revealing his Pokémon tactics to students and letting them come up with counters against him—wouldn't that work?
Aiden nodded and quickly walked out of the Gym.
Having been away from Paldea for many days, his ace Pokémon were now all lying outside the small house he expanded outside the Gym, leisurely sunbathing around Miraidon.
"Pon~"
When Aiden appeared, Ogerpon was the first to notice him and warmly waved its hand.
Because it was sunbathing time, Ogerpon had retracted its mask into its clothes at this moment, revealing its child-like innocent round face, its smile also somewhat silly and simple-minded.
Completely opposite to the appearance when wearing the mask that gave opponents a sense of oppression, one couldn't tell at all that they were the same Pokémon.
"I'm just wandering around randomly, don't mind me."
Aiden said with a smile, then actively walked over, leaning against Salamence's somewhat rough wing, while shifting his attention to his main team members.
If counting Mewtwo, there were three Legendary Pokémon in the team, and even the other Pokémon each had their own signature moves——
Ogerpon need not be mentioned—when serious, even Nemona's main team would likely struggle to withstand one hit from it. When the Victory Road came, he definitely needed to repeatedly remind it to hold back a bit.
As for Miraidon, although theoretically it was the highest base stat total member of his team, for various reasons (especially personality), it had instead become the existence Aiden was most at ease with currently.
After all, he could hardly imagine this chubby dragon that did nothing but eat and sleep going on a rampage. Its acting skills were also very professional.
Then there was Sylveon.
"Syl?"
When Aiden cast his gaze over, Sylveon also simultaneously turned its head, looking at him curiously.
"Nothing, just thinking about the Victory Road in a few days. It's better to temporarily seal your Z-Move, otherwise I'm afraid of leaving psychological trauma on the students."
Aiden rubbed its head and explained with a smile.
At the same time, he also secretly broke into a cold sweat in his heart.
Pure fanatics like Professor Kukui were after all a minority—otherwise how could he become a regional Champion?
If he repeatedly played on students' "nightmares," he might directly break them, until they finally didn't even have the courage to challenge him.
So, Z-Moves were more suitable for high-end matches.
Moreover, even without the exclusive Z, Sylveon's strength was already very impressive, with all sorts of strange and bizarre dirty moves learned through Sketch.
If possible, it was better to minimize using damage-type moves like Blood Moon and assess students through mechanics.
Aiden then shifted his gaze to Lucario in the distance, focused on sword practice.
Ever since obtaining the Sword of Ruin and learning sword techniques and attack methods targeting "giant creatures" from the Sword and Shield duo, Lucario had begun its path of dual fist and sword cultivation.
In close combat, it not only had fist as big as a sandbag, but also wielded a sword vigorously, capable of unleashing Ice-type sword energy and possessing the embryonic form of Behemoth Blade.
The only small problem was——it also hit a bit without knowing its own strength, so for the Victory Road, it was better to confiscate its sword for a while first.
This way, several little ones in the team that gave him headaches had their strength suppressed considerably. Even students should be able to exchange a few moves, or even fight back and forth——right?
Aiden sighed and looked at Salamence behind him.
Because it hadn't evolved long ago, Salamence's combat power wasn't too strong yet. If not counting the autonomous Mega Evolution that didn't lock held items, its strength in the team might even rank below Indeedee.
However, it still had its advantages, namely making up for the air combat capability most lacking in the team. In actual combat, it could rely on extremely fast flight speed to repeatedly harass opponents.
It also gave students a special exam question—
If they couldn't air battle with Salamence, they should at least have a Pokémon capable of dealing with aerial enemies. Otherwise, when encountering flying opponents, they could only be completely helpless.
Small tests on ordinary days were fine, but to become Champion, one definitely couldn't have obvious shortcomings to be balanced.
As for the last one, Indeedee——
"Indee?"
Facing Aiden's gaze, Indeedee also blinked, somewhat curious.
"Nothing, I'm most at ease with you."
Aiden smiled and shook his head.
This Indeedee that actively came to his door asking to be adopted, in terms of pure combat power, was perhaps just an ordinary Gym main team level. Its strongest move was limited to Expanding Force.
But when it came to being cunning——tactical literacy, Indeedee was instead the one that left the entire Gym in the dust.
Besides Mewtwo, even Sylveon who could Sketch had to bow down.
Whether it was the "Hypnosis Field" comprehended after learning Dark Void from Darkrai, or emotion control that could absorb opponents' negative emotions to nourish itself—the more frustrated the opponent, the harder it hit—using her power to test students' mentality was perfect.
Speaking of this, Aiden suddenly recalled what he saw and heard during his Ice-type Masters Tournament commentary.
Although Lorelei's tactics could be called simple and rough, in the key factors for winning the championship, there wasn't only that obviously somewhat broken Articuno.
The Perish Song tactic designed around Lapras was equally valuable. Aiden would call it the "Charge Perish Song" or "Ice Perish Song" tactic.
Completely different from the Perish Song playstyle he imagined, but there was no superiority or inferiority between tactics themselves—as long as it could win, it was a good tactic.
But Perish Song——
Speaking of this move, what Aiden first naturally thought of was that famous Shadow Tag Perish Song tactic.
This tactic had indeed been used in the Pokémon world. Elder Agatha from the Kanto region, who was contemporary with Professor Oak, was a pioneer among them.
The Shadow Tag Perish Song tactic's thought process was very simple: using Perish Song's effect as the core, making opponents be locked on the field by the Shadow Tag ability during the time Perish Song activated, then using Protect to stall for time as much as possible.
Especially in doubles, this tactic could be called the most shameless kill mechanism. Once caught by it, often the only result was slow death.
Four Pokémon immediately reduced by two, and the win rate would from that moment plummet into the abyss with no return.
But in the Pokémon world's singles battles, this move's returns weren't that high, but it excelled at stably causing reductions and was very suitable for testing opponents' levels.
It was the purest mechanism kill, also fitting the Victory Road's goal of filtering out elite trainers.
So——
Aiden immediately made a decision in his heart and looked at Sylveon.
This "final exam" would use the Perish Song tactic as the test paper!
Pokémon that could learn the move Perish Song actually weren't too many. Normally speaking, there shouldn't be any in his team that could learn this move.
But Aiden asked himself honestly——the Pokémon in his team seemed to have never been legal from the start.
As the Arceus-designated Arceus-Eevee, using Sketch to learn a Perish Song should also be very reasonable!
Time arrived at 6:30 PM.
Although Aiden had bailed on tactical streams for some time recently, busy streaming the Ice-type Masters Tournament, many students and trainers from other regions would still habitually open Poké TV at this time, expecting "Teacher Azure to return like lightning."
[To be honest, the Victory Road opens in two days, why is everyone still squatting in the livestream room, don't you need to prepare?]
[Hot knowledge: The first Elite Four member of this Victory Road is Teacher Azure, so I've already given up all hope, just treating it as going to join in the fun——]
[Teacher Azure is already someone who sits at the judges' table, why does he still need to assess us newcomers!]
[——Is there a possibility that Teacher Azure seems to also be a newcomer, didn't he only become a Gym Leader last year?]
[??? Are you writing a novel here, from rookie Gym Leader to Type Masters Champion in one year—wait? Damn, the intel seems to be true!]
Just as students were chatting idly and suddenly discovering extremely ridiculous truths, a flash of white light suddenly passed across their phone or computer screens before them, and then Aiden in a cool, island-style attire appeared before them.
"Yo, everyone, Aloha~"
Aiden greeted with a somewhat Alola-flavored greeting, instantly making chat explode.
Of course, regarding what chat were discussing, he didn't really look at it much.
Today was the important stream before the Victory Road opened, to give students one last highlight key points for the exam, so he had to make them quickly get into the zone.
"This stream is mainly to give Paldea students advance expectations. After all, everyone should already know that Teacher Azure will temporarily serve as an Elite Four member, becoming the first examiner of the Victory Road."
"Like previous Gym challenges, before the Victory Road begins, I will introduce the tactics I plan to use to students. As for how to break through——"
"You'll have to use your clever little brains!"
Aiden's emotions suddenly became excited, shouting with a smile—
"So today, let Teacher Azure teach you the last lesson of this semester!"
"This stream room's title, let's change it to 'Teacher Azure Teaches You How to Play Perish Song'~"
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