Meeting Lance and Lorelai

"Brother, are you ready for the league?", asked Agnes. She was too excited about the league battle. She was more excited than Axel himself. 

She had seen her brother's Pokemon and how powerful they were. She had also seen the battles on TV and in Blaze competition. She was confident that her brother would win it. 

"I am. Don't worry, I will win it."

"You must."

She was talking like she was the one training him, not Red. She wanted to be a Pokemon trainer after seeing her brother's journey. So, she wanted him to win.

Today was the last day. Tomorrow he would go to the Kanto league and book a room in the hotel. Rooms were packed during this time in the Kanto league. It was so packed that the hotels in Kanto League would not take any online bookings. People have to be present on the hotel premises to book the room. 

That was one of the reasons why Axel was going there so fast. Because it would be filled up and he may not have any rooms to live in. 

"Red, what are the chances that Axel would win the league battle?", asked Noah.

"Above 90%. Axel has 4 king-rank Pokemons now. That is huge for a trainer who had started his journey 2 years ago. There would be hardly any trainer that has a king-rank Pokemon.", replied Red.

His mother was very religious and superstitious. So she was praying to Arceus every day for her son. She also told Axel to do it and he had to do it.

Kanto league battles were also called the Indigo League. Since it was the first region to be formed in history, the Indigo League was very popular. Trainers and people from all around the world would come up here to see the league battle. 

The League battle would be hosted every 2 years and the winner of the league battle would get a chance to fight with Elite 4. If the trainer lost to the Elite 4, s/he would be given 2 more chances to fight with Elite 4 every 2 years and if they could not win, then they had to join the league battle again. 

That was why Red said that Axel's win rate was not 100%. Cause if those losers were to participate in a league battle, there might be a chance that Axel might lose. 

However, such cases were very rare. The cases of losing to Elite 4 was not rare, it was actually normal but when trainers lose repeatedly to Elite 4, almost all of them give up being a trainer. 

Cause each fight with all the Elite 4 had 2 years gap. If a trainer could not even beat Elite 4 again after 2 years and after 2 years, then what would be the point of being a trainer? 

Sadly, there were many cases like this. Ranking up Pokemons when one reached pseudo-king rank was hard and there were very few trainers who had king-rank Pokemons. Even if a trainer had king-rank Pokemons, it would be hard to defeat the Elite 4 of the the Kanto region. 

###

Axel called out all of his Pokemons in the balls. Red and Axel then proceeded to use 'Teleport' towards the the Kanto League. 

Pokemons were not allowed to teleport inside the Kanto League. They could but it was against the law. They had to get proper permission and the league had their ways to know who teleported and where they teleported. 

Fortunately, Red had the permission to do it. They reached Kanto League within 20 minutes of continuous teleportation. 

It could have been 15 minutes, but Axel needed time to get accustomed to long-distance teleportation. 

After reaching Kanto League, the first thing both of them did was to book a hotel. Red knew a famous hotel that he went to whenever he came here. The owner knew Red personally and there was no problem in getting 2 rooms. 

Axel took a shower and got ready to start his day. It was 8 am in the morning and he wanted to explore this place. 

He had been here a couple of times before but never had the chance to visit the place. He picked up his phone and called Lance.

"Hey Axel, are you finally here?", shouted Lance over the phone.

"Yes, I am in XXXXX hotel. Where are you right now? Is Lorelai with you?"

"Yes, she is with me. Let's meet at the same restaurant. We also want to talk to you."

Axel knew the location of the restaurant. Apparently, Red had something to do, so he refused to go with him.

"I have to meet some old monsters. Don't worry, we will catch up here in the evening.", said Red.

Axel asked around and finally found the place. He knew the streets and the places around the restaurant but he had only come here one time. So, he got confused along the way.

Lance came and gave a big bear hug to Axel while Lorelai gave a handshake. All three of them went to the restaurant, booked a private room cause Lance was rich, and ordered some of the dishes.

"So, how powerful are you?", asked Lance directly. He really wanted to know about Axel's progress.

"You will see in the league battle. Don't worry."

"Oh, come on. I am your friend. It is not like I will be able to win against you if you have a king-rank Pokemon. So do you have a king rank Pokemon now?", asked Lance.

"Yes, I do."

"Giratina wings!!!! You really do? You actually ranked up a Pokemon to king rank in 2 years' time? How many king-rank Pokemon do you have right now?", asked Lance.

"You will see in the league battle. Don't worry."

"Oh, come on!!!!", shouted Lance.

"Lance, if Axel doesn't want to say it then we should not force him but having a king-rank Pokemon within 2 years is very impressive Axel.", said Lorelai.

"How many pseudo-king rank or king-rank Pokemon do you guys have now?", asked Axel.

"You will see in the league battle. Don't worry.", replied Lance in the same way.

"I am not competing in the league battle this time but Lance is. Lance has 6 pseudo-king rank Pokemon. He has worked really hard for this.", said Lorelai. 

Lance wanted to show off to Axel and talk about his achievements but hearing that Axel now had a king-rank Pokemon, made him feel embarrassed. 

"That is a good progress. Okay, I will tell you, Lance. I have 4 king rank Pokemons now.", said Axel.

"4? Really? That much? How were you able to do it? Who are they? No, don't tell me. Let me make a guess. Shedinja and Nidorino?", guessed Lance.

"Obviously. But it is Nidoking now. It had recently evolved.", said Axel.

"NIDORINO CAN EVOLVE TOO?", shouted Lance in a loud voice. It was a big thing. Nidorino was already a strong Pokemon. How powerful could it become after evolving into Nidoking? Lance could only imagine.

"Yes, as it turned out it could. A lot of things happened and now it is Nidoking. You only guessed 2 of them. Can you make a guess for other 2?", asked Axel.

"Steelix.", said Lance.

"Yes, and the last one?", asked Axel.

"Beedrill.", said Lance.

"You are wrong. It is actually Charizard."

"Charizard? Really? The last time I met it, it was not even a rare rank. Now, it is a king-rank Pokemon? How did it rank up so fast?"

"It is a long story. We went on to an adventure and it powered up."

"If only my Pokemon could power up after going on an adventure.", sighed Lance.

Lance realized that he was now way behind Axel. A king-rank Pokemon was not a joke. He believed that there would be no one who could compete with Axel in a league battle. 4 king-rank Pokemons. That was the dream of Lance. When was he going to reach such a stage? 

He also knew that Axel worked harder than himself. He could not just say that it was due to luck. One time may be a lucky encounter but 4 times? He could be lying to himself if he believed that. 

Lance had started to train harder after meeting Axel but he now realized that Axel was also training harder and he needed to work extra hard to be at Axel's level. 

This league battle may be Axel's platform but the next would be his. He promised himself that he would work extra hard to reach Axel's stage. 

###

"So, 5 days are left for the start of the league battle. I don't think we would be any problem with the preliminaries.", said Lance.

"But fighting in the preliminaries also consists of luck. What if we encounter a powerful trainer?", asked Axel.

"Axel, that would never happen. The league is not stupid. It would not match up with powerful trainers in the preliminaries. It also earns a lot from league battles. So, naturally, it would want those powerful trainers to fight at the finals or quarter-finals.", said Lance.

Lance was very educated in this kind of things. Axel could also have asked Red about it but he simply didn't care. He was not here to play politics and know about his opponents. He was here to win and he didn't care who would come after him.

He had trained a lot in these 7 months with Red. He was now confident that he would win the league battle.

Any trainer would have to get 8 gym badges to participate in the league. A normal person would think like this but that was wrong. If a trainer who was also a soldier happened to serve and contribute a lot to the region, he or she would be given merit points and he or she could exchange those merit points for gym badges and they would also be able to participate in the league battle.

So, these soldiers could also have Pokemons who were not in pseudo-king rank. For the Kanto region, when a trainer challenges the latter half of the gym, he or she would challenge gym leader as a master-rank trainer. So, the trainer should also have pseudo-king rank Pokemon, if they wanted to win against these gym leaders.

However, soldiers may not have pseudo-king rank Pokemons. The preliminaries were basically to weed them out. It may have been intentional from the league side but almost no soldiers who got access to the league battle by that method would survive till the end of the preliminaries.

"Can you give me that letter again? I am forgetting the battle line ups.", said Axel.

"How could you forget it? I personally spent 1 hour each day reading these lineups and making strategies. Have you not done that?", asked Lance.

"No. Lance, let me tell you something. Power is not will or strategies. It is the phenomenon of physically making things happen. So, I trained all these months. I don't have to make strategies if I am able to utterly crush them.", said Axel.

"Well, you have the power to be so arrogant. You have 4 king rank Pokemons."

"That is right and I trained hard to reach there. Whenever you compare yourself to me, remember that not only you are training harder, but I am also doing the same. So, you have to be intelligent, clever, hardworking, and relentless if you want to beat me."

This was the first time Axel had said anything like that to Lance. Lance was the one who thought Axel was his rival but Axel never responded well. This time he did and it fired up Lance to train harder.

###

The league battles were divided into 3 parts. Preliminaries, Round robin, and the finals.

No matter how many trainers applied for league battles, only 32 of them would go to the next stage, Round Robin. 8 trainers would go to the finals and the winner of the finals would be able to win the league battle. 

The preliminaries were knockout rounds. A trainer would send out 1 Pokemon and fight with another trainer with his/her one Pokemon. And the winner would move up and the loser would go home. It was simple as that but the fight was determined by only 1 Pokemon's performance.

So, trainers had to decide which Pokemon he/she wanted to use. There were some cases where a powerful trainer used a weak Pokemon thinking that it was the preliminaries and lost horribly. 

Looking at the number of trainers who were going to participate in the league, Axel had to fight with 8 trainers to reach round robin stage. He was okay with it. 

There would be one fight every day and there were multiple battle stadiums for the league battle, especially for preliminaries. 

There were 10 stadiums that were going to be used for the preliminaries. The league had spent trillions of dollars on these stadiums. The size of the battle stadium was standard but the seats for the crowds were so many that even Axel was getting a headache looking at it. 

He didn't have a habit of being starred by so many people when he was battling. 

Among the 10 stadiums, the stadium with the least seating capacity was around 700,000 and the one with the highest seating capacity was 4 million seats. 

4 million!!!! That was a huge number. 

Axel didn't know how much money the league had spent on these stadiums but it must have been trillions and trillions of dollars. 

"The battle would start after 5 days. What are your plans for these 5 days?", asked Lance to Axel.

"Frankly, I don't have any plans. I just want to roam around and mentally prepare myself for the league battle."

"Oh, I know some places that we could visit. Let's go!!!", shouted Lorelai. 

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A/N: The battle of Axel with Cynthia has finally happened. It has been uploaded to my pat-reon channel and the result of the battle is surprising. Subscribe to my pat-reon channel to known more