Chapter 52: Pokemon: I Transmigrated Twice [52]
The TV news once again defended Lance, one of the Indigo League's Elite Four, stating:
["Alliance-level Class A criminals fear Lance's strength and dare not confront him directly. They can only resort to threatening civilians in an attempt to exploit Lance's weaknesses. Fortunately, under Lance's protection, there were no casualties in the Cianwood Department Store incident. We have reason to believe that shortly when Lance succeeds Agatha as Champion, he will lead the Indigo League into a new era."]
Anyone who isn't blind and has read the news—or anyone with even a bit of real-world combat experience—can see it.
Yesterday's battle? Lance lost.
Even though the two sides never actually engaged in direct combat, this was, without a doubt, a defeat in terms of strategy. Lance was too careless. Seeing that the opposition wasn't making any overt moves, he closed the distance far too much. When the Sleep Powder was unleashed, he visibly panicked. He even made a rookie mistake by using Hurricane to blow the powder toward the ground.
Honestly, Lance is still young. After all, he's only just become an adult. That said, the News TV belongs to the Johto region, so it's understandable that they would try to say nice things about their local Elite Four to save face. Plus, people in the Pokémon world tend to have more forgiving attitudes overall. Sure, there are keyboard warriors here too, but nowhere near as toxic as in Stephen's previous life.
As for media coverage in other regions, they haven't been so kind.
From the Unova region, Flycloud Daily wrote:
["Although Lance is one of the youngest and most outstanding trainers the League has seen in recent years, he still lacks experience when dealing with rogue organizations like Team Rocket, who fight dirty. We hope he can improve in this regard. However, considering Lance recently defeated Joker, we have reason to believe this was merely a moment of carelessness, and he won't make the same mistake again."]
Regions like Unova, Hoenn, and Sinnoh offered relatively neutral and objective commentary, though they leaned slightly in Lance's favor. This makes sense—after all, Lance is an Elite Four member of the League. Even if he's not from their region, he's still one of their own.
But two regions stood out.