Bruno

It seemed that Lorelai was also busy. So their plan to visit her home was a flop plan. Lance asked Axel to take him to meet Red but Red had still not come to the hotel room. 

He didn't know where he was. He tried to call him a couple of times but it just went to voice mail. He didn't have to worry about Red, so he didn't care for his safety and he didn't need Red during the preliminaries. 

He might need Red in round robin. So, he hoped that Red would arrive at that time. 

###

Next day,

Today, his battle was at the last. The crowd was very curious about Axel cause his Pokemon showed the power that was not achievable in pseudo-king rank. It was all due to the system but they didn't know that. 

That was why, they put his battle at the last. They wanted the crowd to sit all day for the battle and the strategy worked out. The stadium was not as empty as before. 

Mostly, the crowd would start to lose interest after watching the battle for a couple of hours and they would start to leave the stadium. So, when the announcers announced Axel's battle at the last turn, there were many who wanted to see the battle. 

Finally, his turn came. He hated waiting for this turn and today he had to wait till night. He knew why the league did it but he was not liking it one bit. 

It was already night by the time his turn came and he went to the stage.

A well-built man with board shoulders came to the stage. Axel immediately recognized the man. The man was older than Axel and he gave Axel a deep bow before the referee said anything. 

Axel's face showed started to change to a happy smile. He knew who his opponent was now.

"I didn't think that you would also participate in the league battle.", said Axel.

"Yes sir. I also didn't think about it but I have heard a lot about league battles from you and decided that I should try it. I didn't know that my journey would fall so short.", said the man. 

"You have grown strong, Hector. I can just see it.", said Axel. 

"I trained a lot after the tide. I realized that I would died if not for you. We all would have died if not for you. I felt so small and weak. So, I started to train hard. 

We now have a group. The group members consist of all the soldiers under you. We didn't call you in the group till now cause we believed that we are still weak and we should train till you could be proud of us.", said Hector.

The man who was talking to him in a respectful way was Hector. Hector was the lieutenant of Axel when he was appointed as the zone commander for the tide. 

He was a good lieutenant. He followed all of Axel's commands without any question, he had a good head on his shoulders and he had some powerful Pokemons. He was also the one to calm Axel down when Axel was very heated and angry during the tide. 

Hector was the second man of Axel during the tide. 

"Oh, who are in the groups?"

"Almost all of the north base. Some of us decided to leave the life of the soldiers after the tide. Some of them were from the village and didn't want to join us cause they wanted to be in the village for their lives and some of them wanted to choose another team.

Except for those, all of us are in the group. We have not decided on the name of the group till now. We want you to name it.", said Hector.

"Hector, I am not a full-time soldier like you. You know that right?", asked Axel.

"Yes, but you are capable and we want a capable leader."

"Let's talk about it after the battle. I also want to meet them.", said Axel.

Hector turned towards the referee and said, "There is no need for battle, I forfeit."

Hector took the mike before he spoke the words so his voice could be heard by all the people in the stadium.

The crowd was shocked by his statement. 

The referee cleared his throat and asked again, "Contestant Hector, do you really want to forfeit? You cannot change your decision after you have said it. So think carefully.", said the referee.

"Yes, I am sure. I want to forfeit."

"You would be knocked out from the league battle after you forfeit the battle. Are you aware of that?"

"Yes, I know."

"Can you tell me the reason for this?"

"Why would I fight a battle that I am going to lose?", said Hector and started to step out of the battle stadium.

"Contestant Hector has forfeited the battle. Axel wins!!!!"

The crowd was not happy with this development. Most of them had waited all day for Axel's battle but they could not see it cause the opponent had forfeited. They could not blame Axel or Hector for it. So they started to blame the league for their wasted time. 

That was why the referee asked Hector to consider it again. Cause he didn't want the league to feel the burn from the crowd. 

Axel didn't care about all this. His head was spinning on what Hector had said. They had a group of soldiers that Axel commanded and they wanted him to be their leader. 

Hector said that he would call Axel cause most of them are not here. So, he would call all of them for a meeting. 

###

The next day,

Axel's turn came out after an hour of waiting. The league had realized that it could not use Axel as propaganda.

He had faced another soldier and that soldier didn't even have a pseudo-king rank Pokemon. He won it very easily. Meanwhile, the crowd was pissed again. 

Since the soldier only had elemental rank Pokemon, Axel finished the battle in under a minute. So, he didn't have to use any battle strategy to win the battle. He had used Gogoat for this fight too and he wanted to use it till the end of the preliminaries.

The crowd could not see the extent of Axel's powers and they were disappointed. Then, they were angry at the league again. 

###

"Why can't the league arrange the fight more nicely? How could a soldier with elemental rank Pokemon do anything to Axel?", shouted someone from the crowd.

"You are right. This has been a waste of time. I am going home.", shouted another.

This was happening all over the stadium. The name and battle sequence of the contestants were decided by lots and it was not the league's fault that Axel got to fight a weak opponent. 

Yesterday, they personally manipulated Axel's fight by selecting a strong opponent and making him fight at last but that backfired them. So, today, they didn't do anything and now the viewers were pissed off again. 

The organizers didn't know what to do at this point. 

Axe had won 3 battles till now. 

He easily won till the 7th battle. Some of them were soldiers who didn't even have a pseudo-king rank Pokemon and those who did were not very strong. 

Axel realized that he must have gone a lot harder in his own training. 

###

Today was the 8th day. Lorelai called Axel and Lance, finally inviting them to her home. 

Hector also called Axel and said that they would meet him tomorrow when the preliminaries would be finished. 

Axel was happy to get 2 invitations in 1 day. He was getting bored with these preliminaries. The battle was slightly manipulated in such a way that strong trainers would almost never meet each other in preliminaries. They would only meet in round robin.

So, all of Axel's opponents were very weak and he was able to win it easily. He had been using Gogoat in all these fights. Gogoat was not tired or injured after fighting for 7 days straight cause the battle would be finished after a few minutes. 

Since it was the final day of preliminaries, the size of the trainers participating had decreased to 64 and only 32 of them would go to the second round. That meant that there would be 32 battles today. 

Most of the battles would be finished in a few minutes but some of them took a lot of time. However, all of them could be completed in a single day in a single stadium.

The hype was real and this time, the league had manipulated the battle sequence and Axel was fighting at last. Lance was fighting at the 10th battle while Axel was fighting at the 32nd battle. 

The battle went on and there was a 15-minute break after every battle. This was the time when the commentator and the judges made wild predictions on who would win the league battle. 

Axel's name would come up in these discussions and the crowd would go wild again. Somehow, Axel had become the crowd favorite. He didn't know why that happened but getting on the crowd side was a huge bonus for him. There was also pressure on Axel's shoulders now. It was to win the league battle. 

So, he started to see the battle very seriously. He started to analyze every opponent in every battle. These were his future opponents. The 10th battle came and Lance won the battle with ease. 

The opponent was using Venusaur. Coincidently, that guy was from the Venu family but Lance was using Arcanine. The battle finished after 5 minutes. Axel could see that Arcanine had grown to be a powerful fire-type Pokemon. It was in pseudo-king rank and Axel could tell that Arcanine could reach king rank after some months with enough training. 

###

The battles came and went. It was not as boring as previous days as it was the final of preliminaries. The 30th battle came and the referee announced,

"Only 3 battles are left for today. Let's welcome our contestant Rohit and he will be battling Bruno."

Both of the trainers came onto the stage and Axel starred at Bruno. At first, he got confused. He knew that he had seen that man before and then he remembered.

He was the same Bruno that had thrown Marcus and Axel had taken Marcus in as a part of his team. He knew that Bruno was a capable trainer but he didn't know that Bruno would be able to participate in the league. 

This was something crazy cause he had an idea of Burno's age. Bruno may be a year older than Axel but that was it. If Bruno could be at this stage at such a young age, it showed that he was a powerful and genius trainer. 

If he was such a genius, why had Axel never heard of Bruno in the news? This was very surprising but he wanted to see how much Bruno had improved.

###

"Contestant Bruno has won the toss. Rohit, call out your Pokemon.", said the referee.

"Come out Arbok!!!", shouted Rohit. 

Bruno gave an evil smile. He was acting as if he was going to win this battle for sure and threw his ball into the sky.

"Come out Crobat!!!!", shouted Bruno.

A purple, chiropteran Pokemon appeared. It had long, pointed ears, yellow eyes with red pupils, and a small mouth that usually had its teeth bared. On its body were two pairs of wings: an upper pair that was slightly larger and a lower pair that developed from its hind legs. Both pairs have green-blue membranes, but the lower pair's membranes were only visible from the back. The upper wings have two claw-like fingers near the middle. On the bottom of its body were what appeared to be a pair of stubby feet or tufts of fur. 

It was Crobat!!!

"WHAT!!!!!", shouted Axel and stood up from his seat. 

Crobat was a Pokemon that had still not been discovered in this world. Axel had secretly told the way of Golbat's evolutions to K and his Golbat had evolved to Crobat. After that, he told the process to Mark and Angela and told them to only tell this evolution process to those they trusted the most. 

So, Bruno should not have Crobat right now. Most of the Venu family members never participated in things like league battles and they only cared for the family. So, most of them never went on a journey except for K. So, how could Bruno have Crobat right now?

Bruno turned his face and directly looked at Axel with a smile. He knew exactly where Axel was standing and Axel could see that Bruno was mocking him. 

He and Bruno never had a good relationship and the league battle would fuel up that relationship. Axel could tell that Crobat was a powerful Pokemon in pseudo-king rank and Bruno was a capable trainer. 

The league battle had gotten interesting cause he could tell that this Crobat could beat Lance's Arcanine with ease. So, Bruno would be able to give him a good challenge. 

"Let the battle Begin!!!!"