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Chapter 77: Slaking the War God
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 14:30:55 +0000 UTCIt took Cynthia quite a while to recover from the shock of encountering Leftovers again and refocus her thoughts on this battle.
With Leftovers triggering, Slaking's HP bar, which hadn't dropped much to begin with, was restored once more.
How the heck was she supposed to deal with this?
You have to understand, Leftovers' activation didn't conflict with Slaking's Truant ability at all. Even though Slaking couldn't act next turn, Leftovers would still continuously restore its HP.
With Pelipper's Water Pulse at such high power, only managing to take away less than one-third of its HP, you could see just how ridiculous and absurd this Slaking's bulk was.
Among the remaining Pokémon on her team, probably only Bewear, being a Fighting-type that could counter Normal-type Pokémon, could hope to deal effective damage to it.
But the current problem was that Slaking's Giga Impact was no joke either—once unleashed, it could pretty much instantly KO any Pokémon on her team.
And the only Pokémon that could be immune to this Normal-type move, Rotom, had already lost its battle capability in the initial HP trade with Swellow.
Cynthia couldn't help but feel a headache coming on. Just as she had initially feared, Rotom was indeed the best counter for this Normal-type Gym.
But if she didn't use Rotom, that Guts ability Swellow with its Flame Orb from earlier wasn't so easy to handle either.
Plus, there was the crucial point that after using Belly Drum, Linoone had access to the priority move Quick Attack. Even if Ludicolo took the field boosted by Rain Dance, it wouldn't be able to inflict confusion on it, and naturally, couldn't deal with that Pokémon.
So Rotom had to go up against those two Pokémon.
Which brought the problem back to now—how should she handle this Slaking in front of her?
At this critical moment, Cynthia quickly made the wisest decision, directly switching in Ludicolo.
This final turn that Slaking's Giga Impact had left open was her last chance to turn this battle around—she had to make good use of it.
The only way she had any chance of winning was to use Teeter Dance to put it in a confused state. At this moment, as the new turn began, Slaking's turn was naturally skipped.
Meanwhile, Ludicolo on the opposite side immediately began performing a swaying, ethereal dance, causing golden stars and swirls to appear above Slaking's head.
[Ludicolo used Teeter Dance. Slaking became confused!]
Just like with the earlier Linoone, the more powerful a Pokémon's original attack, the more damage it would deal to itself when confusion triggered.
If Slaking used Giga Impact while confused and ended up attacking itself instead, it would probably seriously wound itself with one hit!
This was already the wisest approach available.
But at that moment, Cynthia suddenly realized something.
When she first started playing this game, she had thought that relying on status conditions and gambling on probabilities wasn't the right way to battle, or rather, it wasn't the fighting style she preferred.
She would rather win battles through tactical design and cooperation between Pokémon, not by placing everything on luck and probability.
But as she went deeper into battle after battle, she suddenly realized this game's difficulty was indeed a bit too high. These NPCs' teams were more reasonably configured and threatening compared to players' Pokémon.
Either several Pokémon would cooperate with each other, using various abilities and moves to form systems that covered each other's weaknesses seamlessly.
Or like this, Slaking in front of her and the earlier Linoone, a single Pokémon could possess the powerful threat of sweeping an entire team.
The thing was, the moves, abilities, and items these Pokémon possessed were all obtainable by players along their journey—it's just that these players never thought to raise such Pokémon in this direction, to make them such powerful forces!
So looking at it this way, it wasn't actually that this game's difficulty was too high—
Rather, this game was truly showing these players what the upper limits of these Pokémon actually were!
Cynthia couldn't help but fall into reflection.
As a Champion-level trainer, she actually needed to rely on the probability of status conditions as a gamble to have any chance of victory in battle.
Perhaps after this battle ended, she would have to face this reality.
Maybe each Pokémon on her team had infinite potential that could be developed.
And she was still far from fully unleashing their potential!
As Cynthia pondered, with Slaking falling into confusion, a new turn had already begun.
After brief consideration, Cynthia selected Water Pulse again.
Although using Zen Headbutt could stack with paralysis probability like before, giving Slaking a high chance of being unable to act.
The problem was that Zen Headbutt, a non-STAB physical move, wasn't Ludicolo's specialty.
Given Slaking's bulk, this move probably wouldn't be able to deal much damage to it. With Leftovers present, such chip damage was meaningless.
Right now, she could only use her highest power move and gamble for a chance at victory. At this moment, with Cynthia's choice, intense water currents gathered in a ring formation in front of Ludicolo and accurately hit the opposing Slaking.
However, you have to know that Ludicolo's Special Attack wasn't as strong as Pelipper's. This move didn't even drop a third of its HP bar, only dealing about 1/4 of its maximum HP in damage.
This damage output looked somewhat despairing.
But the good news was—Cynthia's luck was still good this time.
As Slaking's turn began, the golden stars swirling above its head started dancing rapidly, and its movements began to sway unsteadily.
[Slaking is confused!]
[Slaking is hurt by confusion!]
[In its confusion, it attacked itself!]
Giga Impact's powerful energy poured out, all falling on Slaking itself. Its HP bar finally began to drop visibly fast, directly falling to below half.
This scene lifted Cynthia's spirits. It seemed that even with Leftovers' recovery effect, if Slaking triggered confusion again next turn, combined with two Water Pulse attacks, it should be just enough to take away its remaining HP!
With this thought, Cynthia hesitated no more and directly selected Water Pulse again.
But as the new turn began, a scene she would never forget appeared!
Norman suddenly appeared behind the battlefield, revealing himself as he threw a small purple bottle at Slaking. The bottle instantly shattered, its liquid flowing out and covering Slaking's body.
Deep green light filled with life energy began to emerge, accompanied by a notification.
[Gym Leader "Norman" used "Hyper Potion"!]
[Slaking's HP was restored!]
The next moment, Slaking's HP bar, which had finally dropped below half, instantly filled completely back to full health!
And immediately following were two other notifications.
[Slaking is loafing around.]
[Due to the effects of the move just used, Slaking cannot act.]
Cynthia: ???
Wait, what?
She could understand that Giga Impact's required cooldown turn could stack with Truant ability, thus covering its drawback.
But why could trainers still use healing items during this turn when it couldn't act??
At this moment, not only was Cynthia losing it, but the chat was losing it too.
[Holy crap, the poet's got maximum turn efficiency—Norman really figured this out...]
[Referee, I demand a thorough investigation of Norman! Why can he use one turn like it's three turns?]
[Genius! What does "can't act" have to do with me using items?]
[Oh snap, all that work for nothing.]
Just as the chat said, that one potion directly restored Slaking to full HP, meaning all of Cynthia's previous efforts were completely wasted.
However, in the following battle, Cynthia discovered good news and bad news.
The good news was that when Slaking's HP dropped below half again, Norman didn't use that kind of item like before. In one battle, he seemed to only use such an item once.
The bad news was that, in a certain turn, Slaking ended its confused state at the beginning of the turn, so the confusion didn't successfully continue.
Without confusion's effects, Ludicolo was undoubtedly taken out by Giga Impact in one hit.
Faced with this situation, Cynthia took a deep breath, clicked the top-right corner of the game window, and chose to restart the game again.
After seeing this Slaking's power, she clearly knew she would probably spend the foreseeable future in repeated challenges and attempts.
After all, this guy's strength was just too powerful...
The situation was exactly as Cynthia had predicted. Just the process of using Rotom's Thunder to defeat Swellow had to be repeated several times, since Thunder itself didn't have that high an accuracy rate and often missed.
Cynthia also tried several other tactics in the following dozens of minutes, hoping to preserve Rotom's condition so it could face Slaking.
But facts proved this seemed to be the optimal solution against Norman's team. The other Pokémon on her team didn't have the ability to counter that Swellow. If she forced Pelipper to trade states with Swellow, it would be completely counterproductive.
Not only would the key unit Pelipper be lost, but one of Ludicolo or Sceptile would also be in great danger, having to face Swellow.
Going that route would basically be a two-for-one trade.
More importantly, Norman's Linoone also knew Shadow Claw, a move that was super effective against Rotom.
If Cynthia didn't choose to have Rotom appear first turn to trade states with Swellow, Norman would directly bring out Slaking!
Soon, Cynthia also discovered that Slaking didn't seem to only know Giga Impact. On the contrary, it was also equipped with Shadow Claw, an attack that countered Ghost-types.
When Cynthia first chose to switch Rotom in against Slaking, without question, Rotom was also directly one-shotted by a super-effective Shadow Claw.
Through repeated challenges, Cynthia found that during Slaking's idle turn, sending in Bewear to use Bulk Up to boost its Attack and Defense stats—after boosting twice, it should barely be able to withstand the damage from Slaking's Giga Impact.
After all, that was a physical attack move. Boosting Defense twice was equivalent to negating half its damage.
A twice-boosted Bewear using its Fighting-type super-effective moves should be able to take down Slaking in one hit, regardless of how amazing its HP and bulk were, without having to slowly chip away due to its Leftovers.
But ideals were full while reality was harsh.
When Cynthia implemented this plan and found an opportunity to successfully have Bewear use Bulk Up in the second turn, preparing to strike...
The expected Giga Impact never came. Slaking suddenly stood up and beckoned to Bewear with its finger, three big exclamation marks and a smiley face appearing above its head.
A question mark immediately appeared above Bewear's forehead.
[Slaking used Encore!]
[For the next three turns, Bewear will repeat the last move it used!]
[Bewear used Bulk Up!]
Watching her Bewear uncontrollably use Bulk Up again, Cynthia understood this was a major problem.
For the next three turns, Bewear would continuously use Bulk Up, which meant Slaking would have two opportunities to attack.
But on second thought, as Bewear kept using Bulk Up, its Defense level would keep rising, so the damage Slaking could deal should get lower and lower.
But... when Bewear used Bulk Up and Slaking's next turn was skipped...
Slaking suddenly stood up, and a brilliant pale light began gathering in its mouth!
[Slaking used Hyper Beam!]
That energy formed into a beam of destruction and slammed into Bewear's body. Unlike Giga Impact, this move wasn't physical—it was special!
The brilliant white light made even the screen tremble. When everything settled, Bewear's HP bar had dropped to only the last third, flashing red light...
