197 CH66 (196), The Champion Is?!? (3)

As soon as dad and Cell/Magnezone noticed that Lapras had gone undercover, Cell directed Discharge at the stream. Yet, the expected reaction did not come. It looked like Discharge showed no effect despite the electricity being conducted by the stream.

Upon command, Cell moved to the stream and used Lock-On to locate Lapras. Once he had locked onto his target, he began gathering electricity and fired a Zap Cannon into the water.

The move seemed to have hit something because a big explosion happened that threw large amounts of water into the air. The sharp ones noticed ice splinters being thrown in the air as well, but everyone else saw the pieces of ice floating to the water surface.

It seemed Lapras had frozen the water around itself while it was underwater to prevent any electricity from being passed on to it. Which was a clever move and explained why she did not hesitate to stay inside water against an electric type.

Still, it looked like Zap Cannon had broken the ice shell she had created, and Cell lost no time to follow up his attack with another Discharge. This time Lapras got hit since bubbles came up in its position and the water showed movement indicating screaming, and thrashing associated with getting shocked.

At least the commentator agreed with me since he said as much. Cell was trying to keep up the Discharge for as long as possible, but Lapras was obviously not going to let itself be shocked unconscious.

A Hydro Pump came out of the water, crashed against Cell pushing him away, and broke his concentration along with the ongoing Discharge. That was quickly followed by a wave, probably created through Surf with Lapras riding on top of the wave.

Lapras swiftly swam down the other end and stopped on top of the grass field, while the wave kept going, heading for Cell. While Cell was splitting the sea, I meant wave with a Flash Cannon, Lapras began using Ice Beam to freeze a big part of the battlefield.

By the time Cell had weathered the Surf Lapras had covered nearly half the field in ice. It began sliding on the ice and expanding the ice field while dodging Cell's Flash Cannons and Discharges.

Cell was doing its best to damage and exhaust Lapras, hoping to beat it by steadily wearing it down. However, Lapras was slowly boxing Cell in, raising ice walls around Cell to reduce its moving space.

Cell obviously would not allow that and used Gyro Ball to move around, breaking any ice walls in its way. Still, that alone reduced his movement speed.

It became harder for Lapras to keep up the ice after the Hail settled, so it had to reapply it, which Cell used to get rid of all the walls Lapras had created so far.

That back and forth with Cell attacking as well as dodging and Lapras trying to freeze and box in Cell went on for a while. Until a moment came after a Blizzard where Lapras found an opportunity to close in on Cell where he could not dodge.

Lapras wanted to finish the battle using a Sheer Cold, but Cell had an objection. While frosting over, Cell lit up in an Explosion, trying to drag down the close by Lapras. The explosion threw up dust and ice everywhere.

After the aftermath settled one could see Cell on the ground knocked out, it looked quite banged up. Lapras did not look much better, yet it was still conscious.

Honestly, it looked like it was barely hanging onto its consciousness, yet that was enough. The referee declared Cell unable to battle and dad recalled it. I was wondering if Richard was going to recall his Lapras since it did not look like it could continue, but he didn't.

Dad called out Azure/Kingdra and an excited murmur went through the crowd. The people's fascination with dragon types was a really curious thing. Well, it was a curiosity that I shared, so I had no right to criticize anyone.

The referee gave the signal to resume the fight and Richard gave just one command. Lapras performed Perish Song before it used up the last of its energy and lost consciousness.

Lapras managed to make sure Azure would lose at least a part of his strength before she fainted, and that persistence earned it, as well as Richard, some respect from everyone.

Richard recalled Lapras and called out a Venusaur. Seeing one of the royal Pokemon of Kanto excited the crowd, especially since it was going to go up against a dragon.

Honestly, the matchup was not that great for dad. While Azure did not have a weakness towards grass-type moves, his water moves became pretty useless, which made up like 70% of his move pool. Azure would have to fight using dragon and ice-type moves.

As soon as the referee gave the signal both Pokemon jumped to action and coincidentally both their objectives were the same. Azure was using Rain Dance, while Venusaur was using Sunny Day since both wanted to get rid of the Hail.

Moreover, Azure's Swift Swim would activate under the rain, and Venusaur probably had Chlorophyll. Besides Solar Beam was a threat both sides were aware of, so we would have to see how the fight over the weather would go.

Surprisingly, the two moves canceled each other out. Not only that they also canceled the Hail. Still, it seemed like no parties were unwilling to concede because both performed their weather moves once more. Still, it seemed Azure was a tad faster since the rain clouds already began brewing before the effects of Sunny Day began.

Due to its headstart, Rain Dance managed to overcome Sunny Day, and it started to rain. The rain began to mix with the ice left from Lapras's stunt and turned into slush since the ice drastically slowed down the sinking of the rain.

Kingdra who had been in the stream, used his water energy and the water available in the stream to flood the area covered in slush raising the water level in that area turning the place into a small shallow lake.

Venusaur reacts accordingly and uses an Earthquake to break the ice keeping the water from sinking as well as creating rifts in the ground so that the water can sink even faster. It partially worked since the water level lowers but the ground was turning to mud.

Analyzing the situation dad orders Azure to keep flooding the area with Surf and it quickly becomes clear why. The water keeps sinking into the ground and quickly turns nearly two-thirds of the field into a liquid mud area, which Azure can somewhat move in.

On top of that, it restricts and slows down Venusaur's movement extremely, since it risks sinking. I had to admit dad and Azure made good use of the previous state of the field, and their opponent's move.

Seeing the situation, Richard did not even try to let Venusaur in such a disadvantaged situation. He recalled Venusaur and used his second substitution right to switch in his Charizard.

The crowd is excited to see another royal Pokemon of Kanto, but many wonder why he switched to a fire type against a water dragon, besides its obvious ability to fly.

Meanwhile, Charizard immediately took stock of the situation, and as soon as the referee gave the starting signal it released a Sunny Day that cleared the rain. Its strong lingering energy was enough to prevent Azure from reapplying Rain Dance for a while.

Then while dodging Hydro Pumps from Azure it began using Heat Wave and Fire Spin alternatively, quickly drying out the field. Without Rain Dance, the water outside the original stream quickly evaporated, despite Azure's effort in keeping it up using Surf.

The soil was rapidly hardening once more, which forced Azure to return to the stream. At least he managed to force Charizard to expend some of its energy to succeed in drying the field.

Moreover, Titan and Agni needed the dry ground to move around as well, so this actually worked out pretty well for dad anyway. Once the area was completely dry, dad simply recalled Azure and called out Duke/Crobat instead, making use of his second substitution privilege as well.

Once the referee gave the signal, Duke boosted his agility and used his higher speed to dodge any of Charizard's attack attempts. While he succeeded, it was obvious that Duke was expending more energy than Charizard in their game of cat and mouse.

Moreover, Charizard had bigger energy reserves thanks to its higher stage, so dad had to improvise if he wanted to win. The next time Charizard fired a Flamethrower at Duke, he did not dodge and instead used his full power to block it with a Sludge Bomb.

The Sludge Bomb managed to stop the Flamethrower from hitting Duke but completely evaporated, which was actually part of their plan. Duke swiftly flapped his wings, sending the poison cloud towards Charizard with a Gust.

The plan succeeded and Charizard became poisoned, officially putting it on the clock. Both Charizard and Richard realized that as well, so Charizard completely gave up the notion of preserving any energy and overpowered all of its moves.

This made it extremely hard for Duke/Crobat to dodge or block any of its moves. In just two and a half minutes Charizard managed to nail Duke with a Flamethrower for the third time, which finally knocked him out.

Dad recalled Duke with a smile while praising him for doing a good job before he sent out Azure once more. He ordered him to buckle down, and Azure did his best to drag out the fight. The Perish Song previously cast by Lapras cost him part of his energy, but Azure did not let that bother him too much.

He blocked any attacks it couldn't dodge using Hydro Pump, not really bothering to conserve his energy. Whenever he could, he dove underwater to briefly hide or dodge attacks, and thanks to that along with his water/dragon typing he managed to hold out for nearly 7 minutes despite being even weaker than Duke.

Had it not been for the Perish Song, he might have even held out for 10 minutes. Still, by the end of the 7 minutes, Azure lost consciousness and looked a bit cooked, but Charizard was on its last legs as well.

Not due to anything Azure did really since he already had his hands full surviving Charizard's onslaught, but thanks to the poison inflicted by Duke. That he managed to hold out for 7 minutes under a poisoned state, while actively fighting was already a testament to its great strength.

Moreover, it looked as if Charizard had managed to weather through the poison on its own. Thankfully, it was about to keel over, so its recovery from the poison was acceptable.

Dad quickly recalled Azure while praising him for holding out for so long, and released Titan/Nidoking. Thanks to the work of Duke and Azure, Titan managed to take out Charizard in under a minute, after finally nailing him with a Thunderbolt.

Honestly, that victory was more Duke and Azure merit. The crowd had been in a constant state of excitement since Charizard's appearance, and when Charizard finally fell unconscious, they went wild.

I was pretty excited as well. Dad lost four Pokemon so far and still had Titan as well as Agni/Arcanine on his side. Meanwhile, Richard had lost 3 Pokemon and still had Venusaur, Pikachu, as well as a mystery Pokemon on his side.

Yet, even if he had one more Pokemon available than dad, Titan was at the (low) dark gold stage, while Richard's (low) dark gold stage Charizard was out of the race. So, dad's chances of winning the whole thing were not bad, I would even say they were pretty good.

At least, that was the case as long as that mystery Pokemon did not ruin everything. I felt the world freeze for a moment when I thought that and all I could think was 'please, don't count that as raising a flag'.

Richard coolly recalled his Charizard and sent out his Venusaur. Dad decided to play it smart and used his last swapping right to call out Agni. Richard followed suit and switched in his Pikachu, which meant both had used up their substitution opportunities.

What followed after the referee's signal was a high-speed battle that even I had problems following, not to say about the regular crowd. If not for the slowed-down replays on the screens they probably would have missed most of the fight.

Agni and Pikachu kept clashing, dodging, and running at extremely high speeds, only stopping while delivering a physical attack, clashing directly, or performing a long-range move.

Moves like Thunderbolt, Electro Ball, and Discharge, as well as Flamethrower, Fire Spin, and Heat Wave, were thrown all across the field. Their physical clashes involved moves like Iron Tail, Quick Attack, and Spark, as well as Play Rough, Extremespeed, and Flame Wheel.

It was honestly the most visually appealing and interesting battle so far. Their fight went on for a bit more than 5 minutes before both Pokemon as if in silent agreement initiated a final clash using their strongest moves.

Pikachu sped towards Agni, shining in yellow due to the Volt Tackle it was performing, while Agni was doing the same in red due to the Flare Blitz he was using.

Their clash created an explosion of epic proportions that sent Agni sliding back tens of meters while hurling Pikachu even further away. Once the dust settled everyone saw that Pikachu was unconscious, while Agni was still on his feet. He looked pretty banged up and seriously tired, but he could still fight.

I heard many people in the crowd exclaim in surprise what kind of beast that Pikachu was to force an Arcanine into this situation while being on the same stage. One should not forget that a Pikachu could still evolve once, while an Arcanine was at its final stage, not to mention its racial value.

Richard recalled his Pikachu after praising it before he called out his Venusaur once more. Once the battle resumed Agni directly attacked with Heat Wave which Venusaur blocks with a Leaf Storm.

It quickly followed that up with a few Grass Knots that were simply created to slow Agni down a bit. Agni took care of the knots by keeping up an underpowered Flame Charge to burn down the knots while running. Venusaur blocked as many of Agni's attacks as it could while tanking the rest.

However, it returned to factor by attacking Agni with Leaf Storms, Energy Balls, and Earth Powers. All that along with the damage he previously suffered took its toll on him and he got knocked out by a well-timed Earthquake.

Nonetheless, Agni managed to cause some damage to Venusaur, even in the state he had been, so the crowd cheered for him while dad recalled him. They obviously kept cheering, this time doing so for Venusaur, these two-timers.

Dad released his final Pokemon, and Titan made his appearance once more. Since Richard still had that mystery Pokemon available dad and Titan decided to take care of Venusaur as fast as possible, so once the signal was given Titan releases a strong Earthquake.

Venusair dodged the attack by raising itself to the air with its vines, and Titan used the time the Earthquake bought him to get closer. Once he was close enough, he performed an Earth Power which removed Venusaur's vines from the ground.

That caused it to crash onto the floor and Titan/Nidoking released a Flamethrower at Venusaur, who got surrounded by a protective bubble a la Protect.

Titan reacted immediately and destroyed the Protect through Brick Break. However, Venusaur used the time Protect bought it to perform an Earthquake, forcing Titan to neutralize it with an Earthquake of his own. Capitalizing on that Venusaur attacked Titan with Power Whip, but he endured a few slaps and caught ahold of them.

Then he pulled Venusaur in and delivered a point-blank Fire Punch followed by a Flamethrower. This proved to be enough to knock out Venusaur, and once that happened the crowd went wild once more.

Both trainers were down to their last Pokemon and there was nothing more exciting for a final than something like this. The host seemed to agree since he was on fire. He kept praising the performance of dad and Richard, emphasizing that either of the two could get the championship.

However, the whole venue turned quiet once Richard released his last Pokemon before they erupted in even more excited cheers. I sat here with a bitter smile on my face thinking that it seemed like dad was not going to win this after all.

I looked to my side and saw that mom seemed a bit disappointed as well. However, I knew and felt that she was not disappointed with dad, but on his behalf. Neither of us nor anyone else in the crowd had expected Richard's final mystery Pokemon to be a motherf***ing Dragonite.

I had honestly expected a (high) gold Blastoise or Espeon, not a freaking pseudo-legendary. Those two would have been bad enough but still somehow manageable with some luck.

However, a Dragonite was another story. What the energy Dragonite released, probably due to its happiness at finally getting a turn, revealed made the situation even worse. Just like Charizard, Dragonite was at the (low) dark gold stage as well.

The crowd began to settle once the referee gave the signal to resume the battle, and from the looks on Titan and dad's faces, they were not planning to give up.

The following ten minutes were pretty intense, with Titan doing his best to take Dragonite down, but thanks to Dragonite's ability to fly many of those attempts were dodged. While some managed to land, others were blocked, and Dragonite was obviously returning fire as well.

Dragonite's advantage, on top of the damage as well as fatigue Titan accumulated before led to Titan being unable to continue the fight. He refused to fall even after using up all his strength and becoming unable to budge.

Thankfully, the referee noticed Titan's situation nearly instantly and declared the end of the battle, before he could get hit by another attack from Dragonite.

On Dragonite's side, it was hurt but not overly so which proved its strength. Once the referee declared it the winner Dragonite released a cry of victory before it flew over to Richard to hug him.

The crowd began cheering loudly, and mom took hold of my hands gripping them in hers. She had a slightly sad look on her face while she was watching dad figure.

While all this was happening, dad recalled Titan after hugging and praising him. Afterward, he just stood there with a blank look on his face, not showing the sadness and disappointment he no doubt felt. That alone was praiseworthy on his part, and I was sure many people took note of that.

That he went up to Richard to congratulate him for his victory without a fuss, after Richard called down Dragonite and recalled it, was another thing that was no doubt noticed. Such behavior was remarkable and I was sure dad won many browny points with the way he dealt with his loss.

The host praised their sportsmanship as well before he asked them to move to the waiting room for a bit while the field was prepared for the award ceremony.

Dad as well as Richard did as asked, and once they left, the construction team appeared. They returned the field to its previous pristine condition in less than 2 minutes, before they began setting up a stage.

The whole thing took about 5 minutes, and once they were done the host invited the Top 4 and the alliance representative to the field for the award ceremony.

Dad, Richard, Valentina, as well as some other dude whose name I forgot, went up the stage and waited for the alliance representative. Everyone was surprised when the big man, Professor Oak himself appeared on the stage with an Alakazam by his side.

The spectators went wild and began cheering "Oak, Oak, Oak". The cheering went on for a while before the main man himself raised his hand to signal everyone to quiet down, and as if he did some magic they did turn quiet.

Once everyone calmed down, Professor Oak began his congratulatory speech, praising all trainers that made it into the Top 16. He gave extra praise to those in the Top 4 while giving the greatest praise to dad and Richard.

After the verbal congratulations, he had two certificates to the two semifinalists, before handing over a silver-colored cup to dad. He gave congratulated him before saying something to him in private that was not broadcasted.

Once he was done with dad, he handed over a bigger golden cup to Richard before patting him on the shoulder and congratulating him. At that moment a pleasant and calming cry was heard through the stadium.

Everyone was able to feel the overwhelming strength the owner of the cry possessed, and the only reason everyone was not soiling their pants or fainting was the calm and safe aura that the source projected.

Every single individual looked up to the sky and saw something no one present would forget for their whole lives. A Ho-Oh, no idea if it was the OG one or a descendant, hovered above the stadium for a moment before it flew away.

If I had any doubt before if Richard was Red then that doubt died the moment Ho-Oh appeared. Anyway, it took a few minutes before everyone snapped out of it, and the excited chatter began. However, Professor Oak swiftly took control of the situation, finished the ceremony, and closed the tournament.

The participants along with Professor Oak left the stage and everyone began to leave the stadium while discussing Ho-Oh's appearance and what it signified.

While the tournament was officially over, the festivities at Indigo Plateau went on for the rest of the evening, and our family stayed to enjoy them as well once we reunited with dad and had our own little congratulation ceremony that involved a lot of hugs.

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This chapter came out nearly twice the size of a regular chapter.

I wish everyone Ramadan Mubarak, a Happy Easter, and those who celebrate other holidays, or none at all, I wish happy holidays.😊

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