641 CH22 (636), Time Well Spent

The guy who stepped up tried his luck by declaring that his first Pokemon was going to be of the iron stage and proceeded to call out a (mid) iron stage Wingull. Unfortunately for him, the Pokemon I went with was the electric variant Spearow that had recently joined my reserve team after growing out of the stageless phase. Both Pokemon could fly, and while Spearow was only at the (low) iron stage, Thunder Wave and Thundershock allowed him to beat Wingull rather handily.

I naturally recalled Spearow after praising him and then waited for the guy to declare the grade for the second round. Apparently, he decided to go "big", or at least as big as he could, since he went with silver and called out a (high) silver stage Golduck. His Golduck got to face Borr/Eevee and I had to admit that their fight was much closer than I thought it would be, even if Borr ended up winning.

Following that victory, I asked for a few minutes to settle my tab at the bar since I had already promised to pay for 5 people including the most recent one, whom I accompanied to the bar counter. Truth be told, I disliked the smell of liquor, so I had to dampen my sense of smell a bit upon approaching the bar counter since the smell of liquor got a bit too strong there. Still, I had a reason to come here, so I waited for the man to order a drink before asking the barkeeper if he knew about my bet which he confirmed.

Happy with that, I asked him for the bill for the drinks I promised my opponents so far and he brought it over. Upon checking the bill, I saw that the sailors had all drunk some kind of hard liquor, which was not all that expensive, while the lady had drunk a cocktail. Funnily enough, her drink nearly matched that of the 4 sailors in cost, and that was with me paying for two of Tim's drinks. Not that I had a problem paying a mere 500 Poke to settle the bill. I just found the difference funny.

With the bill settled, I headed back to the battleground and saw that no one had used the opportunity to start a battle. Diana was waiting on the field, talking to a sailor, whom she introduced as my next opponent. Gustav surprised me by declaring that his first Pokemon would be at the gold stage. The majority of my gold-stage Pokemon were either rather far into their limit-breaking or about to complete their limit-breaking, so I chose to go with Gwen/Gardevoir instead since I did not want to totally curb-stomp whatever Pokemon Gustav was going to send out.

He ended up sending out a (high) gold Cloyster and proceeded to Spike the field. Cloyster put up a decent fight against Gwen and it actually Spiked the field twice more during their battle. In the end, when it was apparent that Cloyster would lose, it spread a bunch of Toxic Spikes before going out with an Explosion, which Gwen thankfully managed to dodge by teleporting to the other side of the field and using Protect. Cloyster's explosion caused the barrier around the battleground to crack, but thankfully it held on.

Nonetheless, we had to wait for a few minutes after recalling our Pokemon for the barrier to go back to full force. The good thing was that the explosion had, as far as I could tell, taken care of any of the spikes Cloyster had set beforehand, which made Cloyster's last act a bit redundant, so I did not have to worry about them when making my choice regarding my next Pokemon.

Once we were free to continue, Gustav declared that his second Pokemon would be at the gold stage as well, so I decided to go with Alphabro/Slowbro from the reserve team. While he was probably too strong for Gustav's Pokemon considering that he was an Alpha at the (high) gold stage, it was still slightly better than the way things would go if I sent out a main member. Besides, it would allow him to fight his first official battle as my Pokemon.

Anyway, Gustav sent out a (high) gold Floatzel, which cemented his place as my strongest opponent so far by far. Alphabro's appearance caused quite the hubbub, and I heard more than one person exclaiming "So big", including Diana, who threw me a teasing look while she said that. I stoically ignored her and focused on the battle between Floatzel and Slowbro, though I had to release a snort when one of the sailors in the crowd shouted "I've seen bigger" before quickly adding Pokemon, probably realizing that his words could be easily misunderstood when a few ladies laughed.

Regardless, the fight between Floatzel and Slowbro went decidely in Slowbro's favor. The only advantage Floatzel had was its speed and nimbleness, but that was not enough to make up for the advantage Slowbro had pretty much everywhere else. Whenever Floatzel tried to keep its distance, Slowbro attacked using psychic moves, and when it tried to come in close, Alphabro was not afraid to use his superior defense and strength to nail Floatzel with close-range moves.

At least its speed allowed it to put up a decent fight, but eventually, Floatzel was too exhausted and hurt to continue. Gustav left for the bar after I thanked him and promised to pay for his drink. Diana then called out for the next challenger, and I ended up facing someone who once again tried his luck using (high) iron-stage Pokemon. I beat his Machop with a Slowpoke from the reserve team, and his Mearnie with a Tangela also from the reserve team. No one else used iron-stage Pokemon after that.

I kept fighting against one challenger after another until midnight, and by the time I stopped, I had fought against 5 more trainers using silver stage Pokemon and 3 more that tried their luck with bronze Pokemon. I had to bring out a Butterfree from Mothra's minion group to make up the numbers for those since only Mankey from the reserve team did not have a distinct disadvantage against water types among my bronze Pokemon, which was why I did not want to send out either of my Houndour even though they were at the bronze stage. I did not want them to go into their official debut fight at an unnecessary disadvantage.

Before I left the bar/club I settled the rest of the bill, which brought my total expense to only 2000ish Poke. That was much less than what I paid for many of my bigger meals. It was definitely a good investment since it allowed my Pokemon to exercise and gain some fighting experience. Happy with the way the night went, I found myself an empty alleyway and entered Utopia to sleep.

The next morning after breakfast, I began a review session with everyone from the main and reserve teams present. I had naturally streamed the whole evening, so everyone had seen the fights, and we talked about what had been done well along with what could have been done better in their opinion. This discussion replaced our usual morning training session, but the occasional tactical session was important as well, especially for the younger/less experienced members of our family.

After concluding the discussion, I went ahead and pampered Hestia for 15 minutes just like I had promised. It was to be expected, but that had a bunch of the others eagerly come up to me for some pampering as well. Unsurprisingly I caved in nearly immediately and proceeded to spend 10 minutes pampering each one. By the time I was through half of the main team, nearly 4 hours had passed. Heck, I had to stop for lunch at some point before I could continue.

Since I had already done so for more than half of them, I naturally had to do so for the rest as well, so I promised them that I would pamper them as well. I even included the reserve team members in that promise much to their joy. Nonetheless, I told them that they would have to wait until tomorrow and likely the day after tomorrow since we already had 4 p.m. and I still had places I wanted to visit.

My initial plan for today had been to visit both museums before ending the day by visiting the Night Market, but due to the way things developed, I did not have enough time to visit both museums, so I had to postpone one visit to tomorrow. I decided to visit the Lilycove Art Museum today and the Lilycove Sea Museum tomorrow. After promising to stream what I saw to Utopia I left my haven and headed for the Lilycove Art Museum.

The museum was of considerable size and divided into multiple sections according to certain themes. Displayed in these sections were all kinds of drawings, pictograms, poems, sculptures, tapestries, and even some rock or metal plates. In short nearly anything that could be considered art in physical form had a representative in the museum. The section I was especially looking forward to was the one on myths and legends, though I was also interested in the art of the arrival at/settlement of Hoenn.

I paid for the ticket and made my way to the closest section, which happened to be on the history of Hoenn. The first piece was a rather large drawing showing a fleet of vessels and its crew braving the tumultuous sea with various sea Pokemon on, below, and around the ships, as well as in the background. The next few pieces also displayed scenes on the sea, showing the difficulties and challenges the settlers/sailors faced on their voyage towards the land that became Hoenn.

Aside from these voyage drawings, there were also a few ship replicas/models of the ships displayed in the drawings, along with a few busts and drawings of famous people, sailors, as well as trainers of the time. The next few pieces were on the landing. There were quite a few drawings of the people building settlements and there were just as many drawings that showed them facing the wild Pokemon whose territory they entered. There were a few intricate leather and metal armor as well as some swords, shields, bows, and spears on display, along with miniature replicas of some of the early settlements.

After that came drawings/art on the expansion, which pretty much meant that nearly all the drawings/art in this part were of/related to battles. The final part of this section had drawings/art on the present or the recent past and the majority of these showed a harmonious picture. There were a few pictures that showed scenes of battle which showed that not everything was peaceful but there were also pictures that showed people and rangers negotiating with wild Pokemon.

As a whole, this section allowed one to get a visual glimpse into the history of Hoenn, even if it might not be entirely historically correct. Still, I certainly enjoyed the whole experience, and I was looking forward to checking out the rest of the sections. The next section I visited was on nature, more specifically forests and vegetation. It was a soothing section focused on nature and harmony.

After that came a section on the sea, which had a mixed theme of tempestuous and soothing. Then there were the sections focused on mountains, the desert, volcanoes, and cities/humans, which were all just as impressive as the previous ones. The last section was dedicated to the gods/legendaries, and even though there was art on the creation group and the many other legends, I was not surprised to see that the majority of the art present focused on a particular set of Legendaries, namely Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, the Eon Duo, the Regi Trio, Jirachi, and Deoxys.

Each legendary had a dedicated sculpture the size of an adult, and I made sure to check each one of them. Beside each sculpture was also a drawing of the Legend, showing them in color. After having my fill with those, I started to check out all the other art, and some of them stood out compared to the rest. One of the drawings had Groudon and Kyogre working together while another beside it showed them clashing.

There was a picture with Rayquaza coming down from the heavens to stop Groudon and Kyogre, while another had the two retreating with Rayquaza being highlighted as a savior. Yet another showed them hanging out harmoniously. One drawing showed Deoxys coming from the sky and clashing with Rayquaza, while yet another drawing showed Deoxys peacefully staying in a forest surrounded by "weak" Pokemon.

There was even a drawing that showed a Latios, a Latias, a Jirachi, and a Togepi, which alluded to the myth/tales that the origin of Togepi was related to the Eon Duo. Anyway, I ended up staying a bit longer than I had planned since I lost track of time while checking out everything. I only noticed that it was already 8:45 p.m. when I was informed by the museum staff that the museum was closing.

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