195 CH64 (194), The Champion Is?!? (1)

Mom joined us in our seats and we tried to comfort her. However, there was not much comforting to do, since mom was not as sad as dad and I had expected.

In her words, she gave her best, had a good showing, and made it to the Top 8. She was obviously a bit sad about her loss, but that much was normal, and she put it aside pretty quickly.

She even joked that she lost just so that she and dad did not have to face each other in the next round since she was loath to kick his ass. I had to laugh when she said that and dad had to chuckle as well after he mock-protested for a bit. We were both just happy that she was not hung up on her loss.

We watched the next two matches together since one of the 4 trainers involved would face dad in the finals. Once all quarterfinal battles were over a 90-minute lunch break was announced.

Since Indigo Plateau did in general not have to deal with such a huge amount of people, the restaurants available were not enough, so the alliance had erected temporary large restaurant pavilions.

Those that did not want to eat there could teleport to Indigo City, but our little family chose to eat at one of the pavilions offering noodle dishes. While we ate we talked about Valentina and her Pokemon since she was dad's next opponent.

After lunch dad spent roughly 30 minutes talking with his Pokemon about their next adversary and planning how to react in certain situations after going over Valentina's reaction during the previous battles.

Afterward, we leisurely walked back to the stadium. Dad had to be in the waiting room 15 minutes before the start of his fight and we made it to the stadium with 5 minutes to spare.

We wished him success for this fight as well as the finals since he would be staying in the waiting room until the finals began. After a final hug from me and a kiss from mom, dad went on his way, while mom and I went to our seats.

At 3:00 p.m, dad, as well as Valentina, appeared on the field and their battle set off the semifinals. During our discussion at lunch, we theorized that the Pokemon Valentina would use in their battle would not change from her battle against mom.

She would most likely still use her Seismitoad, Zebstrika, Excadrill, Liepard, and Emboar. I was curious if she would prove us wrong or not.

Still, that discussion reminded me that not everyone was as fortunate as me and that nearly everyone had to focus on a small/certain number of Pokemon, my parents included. There were many factors for this, including resources, talent, time, space, and so on.

This meant that like with Valentina most were unable to swap out their top roster. Thankfully, I had no such problem and everyone on my main roster could make it to the top roster of others at the same stage.

Anyway, after the standard introduction and referee speech their battle began and Valentina tried to get a strong start with her (high) gold-stage Excadrill. She probably also thought he would do pretty well in case dad went with Titan/Nidoking as his first choice.

However, dad's first pick was Agni/Arcanine, who was just as strong as her Excadrill. Knowing that with Agni's speed and type advantage Excadrill was at a massive disadvantage Valentina immediately recalled her Excadrill before Agni even had the chance to perform his opening move. I was honestly surprised at how fast she reacted.

She swapped in her Seismitoad, and dad simply switched Agni with Duke/Crobat. Probably leery at using her last switching right at the start of the battle or because she underestimated Duke, Valentina kept her Seismitoad, who was weaker by a sub-stage by the way.

That swiftly proved to be a bad idea since dad had him stay in the air and toxic bomb him from above. When he tried to hide inside the stream Duke poisoned the water. Anyway, just three or four minutes in Seismitoad was hurt and poisoned quite badly. It was freed from its misery after being hit by a Venoshock.

Valentina recalled it calmly and released her Zebstrika next. Dad kept Duke on the field since he was nearly unharmed and only mildly fatigued from the previous fight.

Despite being weaker by a sub-stage as well, Zebstrika delivered a wonderful performance attacking Duke with electric-type moves while dodging as many poison attacks as possible. Duke obviously did the same with Zebstrika's electric moves, and succeeded many times, even if he got hit a few times due to the speed of electric moves.

They could not use the grounding tactic to block the moves since Duke would have to come in contact with the earth for that one and Zebstrika could have made use of that time to attack it physically due to its speed especially after it used a few Flame Charges to up its speed.

Still, their cat and mouse game ended with a draw, or rather a double knockout. Duke managed to knock Zebstrika unconscious after roughly 10 minutes of back and forth, but by that point, he was quite hurt and out of energy. Still, he took out two of Valentina's Pokemon, so he earned his rest.

Both trainers had to call out new Pokemon and what appeared on Valentina's side was her Liepard, while dad called out Agni once again. That was a pretty bad match-up as far as I was concerned because I believed that Agni would wreck Liepard since he was such a good boy. I was not biased or anything, but Arcanine was just superior to Liepard.

Anyway, Valentina seemed to agree with me since she changed her Liepard with her Emboar, bringing out her trump card this early into their battle, while also using up her final switching right.

She was probably betting on his superior strength and fighting-type moves since she had to know that Agni was immune to Emboar's fire-type moves. Instead of using Agni to exhaust Emboar, he did something I had not expected him to do.

He swapped Agni with Azure/Kingdra. The reason I had not expected that was that Azure was at the (mid) gold stage, so him beating Emboar, while not impossible, was pretty improbable. Still, after thinking for a bit I understood why he swapped out Agni.

He did it because Agni was best used against Liepard and Excadrill, especially Excadrill. He was making sure to not leave anything to chance.

Anyway, as soon as Azure appeared the crowd went wild, and the reason for that was pretty simple.

Azure was a dragon and everyone, or rather nearly everyone thought dragons were awesome. Moreover, they were pretty rare, so most people did not get to see them that often.

I mean, believe it or not, more than 10 royal starters from multiple regions, mostly Kanto, had appeared until now. However, this was the first dragon type that appeared in the tournament so far, so the crowd was excited.

Azure fought valiantly much to the joy of the spectators, successfully causing moderate damage to Emboar. Nonetheless, Emboar, by the virtue of its much higher strength, still managed to take down Azure after a nearly 10-minute long struggle.

That equalized the score at 2:2, with Liepard and Excadrill being on standby for Valentina, while dad had Agni on standby. After he recalled Azure dad went straight for the kill and called out Titan/Nidoking.

The two (low) dark gold stage Pokemon put on a great fight, but thanks to Azure's efforts Emboar went into their battle moderately hurt and fatigued, so Titan came out on top of their struggle. Yet, he was hurt quite a bit due to Emboar going berserk, trying to cause as much damage as possible, once it became obvious that it was going to lose.

Near the end, it set more than half the field on fire with an Overheat followed by a Burn-Up, which would have been pretty bad for Emboar if it had not already been at its last leg. That was also where most of the damage Titan received came from.

Everyone was really happy about the force shields around the stands when the fire engulfed the field and there were a lot of screams of fright at the sight of the approaching flames, even if they were ultimately blocked. I was positive a few spectators had probably wet their pants in surprise.

Valentina seemed a bit disappointed that her Emboar did not manage to drag down Titan with it, but her face quickly changed to a determined look and she released Excadrill on the field.

The fight that ensued was pretty even thanks to the damage Titan suffered, but in the end, Excadrill managed to take down Titan while getting hurt pretty badly in return. Still, that it managed to knock out Titan was already an accomplishment that made the crowd go wild.

There was nothing that riled people up more than seeing underdogs beating the odds, well except maybe the fall of successful people, which was not mutually exclusive. Yeah, people were weird like that.

Anyway, dad recalled Titan and called out Agni, who made quick work of Excadrill. No, one made fun of its quick loss since they had seen how injured it got to take down Titan.

Valentina wordlessly recalled Excadrill and released her Liepard, she obviously had no intention to give up. Liepard did its best, but it could not win against Agni who was nearly fresh after his swift victory against Excadrill.

Their battle actually resembled a high-speed chase since long-range attacks were mostly dodged by Liepard using its speed, so Agni began hunting it down to deliver a paw of love, Garp-style.

Once Liepard was down dad was declared the winner, and he won quite decisively since he still had another available Pokemon slot besides Agni. Dad exchanged a few words with Valentina before returning to the waiting room under the cheers of the crowd.

With his victory, dad became the first finalist in the senior tournament. Once the field was clear, a few Pokemon appeared and reset the field to its condition before the fight.

Afterward, the other semifinalists came up and held their battle. The battle itself was great, but the winner and new finalist won his battle even more decisively than dad did, which honestly worried me and mom a tiny bit.

The winner, a man called Richard Savant from Pallet City, only used three Pokemon to win his semi-final match. Those three Pokemon were a (high) gold-stage Snorlax, a (high) gold-stage Lapras, and a (low) dark gold-stage Charizard.

Those were some impressive Pokemon and strong to boost, and who knew what his other Pokemon were like. Were they as strong or stronger than that? Was Charizard his only dark-gold stage Pokemon? Mom and I certainly were hoping that was the case.

Anyway, to give both finalists a chance to prepare mentally and physically for the final battle of the tournament, the alliance prepared a 45-minute performance that was held after Richard returned to the waiting room.

A construction team spent less than 5 minutes setting up a stage in the middle of the battlefield. The performers were a group of famous singers I had not really bothered learning about, but since mom told me they were famous I chose to believe her.

I was pleasantly surprised by the impromptu concert, the songs were pretty nice and all 3 women had pleasant voices. Their choreography was great as well, the background dancers meshed pleasingly with the singers without stealing their thunder or overcrowding the stage.

The audience was going wild as well, and before many people knew it around 30 minutes went by and the singers finished their performance. After the idols left the field with their entourage the construction group returned and cleaned up the field.

Less than 3 minutes after everything was done and the field was cleared, the break was over and dad, as well as Richard, appeared on the field ready to battle for the "crown".

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