Xiao Zhang stared at the Pawniard waving its bladed arms at him.
Then he glanced at the students of Haicheng First High School, who had eagerly formed a wide circle around them, clearly waiting for a good show.
A vein throbbed on his forehead.
Annoyed, he pulled out a pair of gloves and tightened them firmly onto his hands.
He cracked his knuckles—clang!
A crisp, metallic sound echoed as his fists collided.
"Pei Jingguo! I'm seriously disappointed in you!"
"I've always considered you my greatest rival… and now you've fallen for this whole contract beast fad?!"
"Fine then! Let me, your fated rival, snap you back to your senses!"
Clearly, Xiao Zhang still thought Pawniard was just another contract beast.
After all, in the eyes of someone who hadn't witnessed a Pokémon before, the only logical assumption was that it must be some kind of rare contracted creature.
But his words instantly rubbed Pawniard the wrong way.
Proud and serious by nature, the Steel-type Pokémon was not having it.
It raised its blades and shouted angrily at Xiao Zhang in a series of robotic cries.
Although no one could understand the exact meaning of its words, the intent was crystal clear:
"Master, can I beat this guy up?"
Pei Jingguo couldn't help but chuckle and nodded helplessly.
Somehow, Diancie had already floated to the center of the field.
She grinned and waved one sparkling hand.
"Alright then—Diancie officially declares: Battle, start!"
The moment the signal was given, Pawniard sprang into action.
With bladed arms gleaming, it launched itself straight toward the brash blond boy!
"So fast?! And that beast just spoke?"
"Am I dreaming?"
Xiao Zhang barely had time to process what was happening when Pei Jingguo's voice echoed from across the field.
"You'll regret underestimating Pawniard."
"Pawniard, don't rush in. Fighters are fast. Use Scary Face first!"
Pawniard grunted in acknowledgment, leapt into the air with surprising agility, and ran both hands across its face.
A fierce, ominous energy erupted from its tiny form.
Its glowing yellow eyes gleamed with a savage, ruthless glare.
Thanks to Su Bai's intensive crash courses recently, most students now understood the value of status moves.
Charging in blindly with brute force only placed you at a disadvantage.
Especially in this case—Pawniard was arguably punching above its weight class.
Pei Jingguo wasn't about to let that opportunity go to waste.
Xiao Zhang looked at Pawniard's actions and nearly burst out laughing.
After all, the small, blade-armed creature did look... kind of adorably fierce.
But a moment later, the rules-based effect of Scary Face kicked in.
Suddenly, his skin crawled.
An overwhelming sense of dread and danger gripped his chest.
His body felt like it had frozen up—his speed, visibly slowed.
Scary Face, a move Pawniard normally only learns at level 20 in the games, dropped the opponent's Speed by two stages.
A rules-based debuff—once it lands, it can't be shaken off.
"What… is this thing?!"
Xiao Zhang was stunned as Pawniard came flying straight at him, blades out.
He reflexively raised his fists to block—but the drop in speed made his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.
A flash of cold steel—clang!
The clash of metal-on-metal rang through the field.
Pawniard landed nimbly with a backflip, blades gleaming brighter than ever.
"Metal Claw's hidden effect just activated!" Su Bai's eyebrows lifted with interest.
"Now, is this good luck for Pei Jingguo… or just bad luck for Xiao Zhang?"
"The stat gap just got a lot smaller. His chances of winning just shot up."
Metal Claw, a Steel-type move with 50 base power, was already quite potent for a base-form Pokémon like Pawniard.
In fact, its raw attack power wasn't far off from a second-stage Pokémon like Grotle.
And the move came with a 10% chance of increasing the user's Attack stat by one level.
To trigger that boost on the very first hit?
Well… let's just say things weren't looking great for the blond brawler.
"This contract beast… is a little too crazy!"
Xiao Zhang gawked at his own gloves.
The high-end gloves, crafted from reinforced metallic fibers, now bore a deep, fresh slash—and several filaments had already been severed.
"Heh… told you. It's not a contract beast," Pei Jingguo replied coolly.
"And what's coming next? You won't see it coming either."
This was Pei Jingguo's first time commanding a Pokémon against a human Awakened fighter—and wow, now he understood the rush Wang Tao must've felt.
The advantage of information asymmetry made this kind of battle ridiculously satisfying.
And Pawniard? Pei Jingguo had trained it seriously.
The sharpening stones he gave it were the same grade he used for his own weapons—top of the line.
If you tossed this Pawniard into the wild, it'd probably wreck every other one of its kind.
"Pawniard, attack! This time—no Metal Claw. Use Fury Cutter!"
Pawniard raised its arm to acknowledge the command, then dashed at the still-dazed Xiao Zhang.
"You're coming at me again?! Do I look like some pushover?!"
Even though his speed was crippled, Xiao Zhang was still a B-Rank Awakener.
More than that, he was second only to Pei Jingguo among the school's top students.
He wasn't someone an average B-Ranker could match.
He took a firm step forward, exhaled sharply, and braced himself.
His muscles rippled with tension as he launched a rapid-fire volley of punches!
Fist shadows filled the air.
"He can still punch that fast with his speed down?"
"Guess he really has improved…" Pei Jingguo raised an eyebrow but remained calm.
He gave no further instructions.
Pawniard rushed fearlessly into the barrage of punches.
Blow after blow landed on its small body—
—but its blade-arm still struck back, connecting with Xiao Zhang's gloves in rapid, escalating bursts!
A faint light flickered across Pawniard's body.
Pei Jingguo finally spoke again: "Keep going—Fury Cutter!"
Pawniard didn't respond—it just kept slashing, determined to keep pace with the storm of fists!
But the repeated smack of punches landing echoed again and again.
One particularly heavy strike cracked part of the blade on its arm!
Clearly, Pawniard was getting the worse end of the exchange.
The audience watched in anxious silence.
Pei Jingguo's expression was tight, but he remained stone-faced.
Wang Tao couldn't hold back any longer.
"What's he doing?!" he said. "Pawniard's getting pummeled out there!"
"At this rate, he's going to lose!"
Su Bai raised a brow. "Ah… so this was Pei Jingguo's plan all along…"
Before Su Bai even finished speaking—
A sharp crack of snapping metal echoed across the battlefield.
A heartbeat later, Pawniard's gleaming blade rested right on Xiao Zhang's forehead.
Just a little more pressure—and that blade would pierce skin and bone.
Xiao Zhang froze.
He instinctively clenched his fists—only to feel the gloves shatter completely in his grip.
Forged from expensive, high-density alloys, the gloves had completely fallen apart.
Yet Xiao Zhang wasn't looking at Pawniard anymore.
He stared down at his trembling hands.
"Each slash was heavier than the last… until I couldn't block them anymore…"
"I actually… lost to a contract beast—no, wait. This is… a Pokémon?!"
Pawniard gave him a cold glance—the kind you'd expect from a disciplined warrior finally acknowledged.
Then it spun around smoothly and limped back toward Pei Jingguo.
Despite fragments of its blade falling with each step, it walked tall and proud—its aura cold and indomitable.
Diancie floated down, beaming.
"This match's winner is—Pawniard!"
A wave of cheers exploded from the crowd!
The battle had been short, and didn't have the flashy strategic layers of Su Bai's Ditto vs. Grotle match…
But the sheer impact and raw intensity of the final exchange had everyone's adrenaline spiking!
Especially the moment Pawniard pressed its blade to Xiao Zhang's forehead—
That. Was. Epic.
Dragging its battered body off the field, not looking back—
That was pure style.
"Holy crap! That Pawniard is such a badass!"
Wang Tao watched it vanish into the Poké Ball, feeling a bit jealous.
That's the power of a humanoid Pokémon.
Unlike the beast-like Grotle, it didn't have size going for it—but when it came to cool factor?
It nailed it.
Ignoring Wang Tao, Su Bai chuckled and accepted the Poké Ball back from Pei Jingguo.
He smiled. "Your reactions were sharp—but I bet a lot of people still didn't understand what just happened."
"Want to explain it, or should I?"
Pei Jingguo shook his head. "You do it. I'm not good at talking."
Su Bai nodded and addressed the crowd of dazed-but-thrilled students.
"Alright, class. That last clash—how many of you understood what actually happened?"
"Let me break it down."
"First, we need to clarify: Awakened Fighters are not part of the Pokémon-type matchup system."
"If they were, Pawniard wouldn't have stood a chance."
Steel-type is weak to Fighting-type under Pokémon battle mechanics.
But since Xiao Zhang is an Awakened human, not a Pokémon, that type disadvantage didn't apply here.
Likewise, elemental type advantages in Death Beasts—like water vs. fire—aren't true multipliers.
They're just simple elemental counters, not governed by battle rules.
"The moment Metal Claw first clashed, Pei Jingguo sensed this."
"And so, he immediately shifted tactics—he decided to rely on Pawniard's Fury Cutter to win."
"That decision required total trust in Pawniard's training—and in-depth understanding of his opponent."
"Scary Face crippled Xiao Zhang's speed, removing his biggest advantage."
"And with Metal Claw's Attack boost activated, the damage output rose significantly."
Su Bai smiled and patted his pocket.
Rotom zipped out of his phone and floated up.
A light hologram appeared in the air.
Simple, cartoonish animations replayed the sequence of battle events clearly and concisely.
The students gasped in awe.
Rotom was so handy!
If students could vote for which Pokémon they wanted to partner with, Diancie might be first…
But second place?
Forget Meloetta—it'd probably go to this multifunctional Rotom!
Su Bai continued, "Fury Cutter starts at 40 base power, but each successive hit doubles the power."
"It can go all the way up to 160."
"That's why Xiao Zhang felt the attacks growing heavier each time."
"Ultimately, Pawniard's final Fury Cutter shattered Xiao Zhang's enhanced gloves—and won the fight."
"But to pull that off, Pawniard had to tank every hit head-on."
"Had he flinched or dodged, the combo would've broken."
"That tells you a lot about how well-trained this Pawniard is."
"Otherwise, Xiao Zhang's punches would've broken its blades before it could finish the combo."
On screen, cartoon Pawniard slashed down with a stylish finishing move.
A red X appeared over Xiao Zhang's chibi face.
The breakdown ended.
Pawniard's injuries had been treated.
Su Bai handed the Poké Ball back to Pei Jingguo.
Then he turned to the dazed Xiao Zhang, offering a hand.
"Thanks for helping with our class demonstration."
"My name is Su Bai—owner of Su's Pet Shop."
"And now, the newest Pokémon course instructor at Haicheng first High."
"Welcome back to school."
Xiao Zhang snapped to attention and bowed deeply, flustered.
"A-ah… uh, thank you, teacher!"
"Pokémon really are amazing…"
He clasped Su Bai's hand, bowing with sincerity.
"Please take care of me, Professor Su Bai!"
"My name is Xiao Zhang—Zhang as in Nervous!'"
Nervous Zhang...?
Su Bai's lips twitched slightly.
Haicheng No. 1 sure had its share of colorful students…