POSTWICK, Galar — Local Pokémon trainer Hop was caught completely off guard when his 32-year-old rival made clever use of type advantages to win their first battle, sources close to the matter confirmed.
“Wow! I can’t believe you figured out that Water Gun would do double damage to Scorbunny,” Hop shouted at rival Zachary Preble, 15 years his senior. “You must be some kind of genius to have realized that water is strong against fire so quickly! It’s almost like you’ve been doing this for a very, very long time!”
Professor Magnolia, a local authority on Pokémon ecology, said that the strategy showed an uncanny understanding of the creatures’ biology.
“It took me a decade of studying and even more time researching these animals to understand why some moves do extra damage to certain Pokémon,” said Magnolia, standing in a library full of books detailing the intricate biology that leads to type vulnerabilities. “This young man is clearly a prodigy. I wish I had taken him on as my assistant instead of wasting all these years training my granddaughter.”
Preble stated that he did not understand what was so impressive about the feat and that he has understood the mechanic for quite some time.
“I mean, most of them are just common sense,” said Preble, who was looking through a PC Box full of recently caught Yamper in order to find the one with the best Attack stat. “Like, obviously Flying is strong against Bug, because birds eat bugs. I’m an adult. It shouldn’t be surprising that I can remember that. I admit that I have to Google some of the weird ones, like Steel being strong against Ice. I can just do that in the middle of a battle, though, lickety-split.”
At press time, Hop was reportedly taking solace in the thought that he would still have the chance to teach Preble about status effects.
