The Knockouts (3)

With the top 128 coming to an end, the top 64 started, today is the day Julian will have to battle again and by now the trainers won't be chosen randomly, even though the league will advertise it as being randomized by a computer but Julian knows that is not the case.

The league deliberately chooses trainers of their liking to face each other so that the final rounds will be more exciting and bring in more eyes on them.

The league earns a lot of money from these league tournaments so they will do anything to get more eyes on the final rounds of this tournament, Julian also knows that he won't encounter any big names here in this top 64 as well.

When the herd is finally thinned down to the best of the best, that is when the league hits its highest point, the league also knows this so they manipulate the selection of trainers.

The fans also don't think much about it as well as they really don't care, they get to see the best of the best duke out on the grandest stage of them all so why would they have anything to complain about.

And as Julian had thought, his next opponent was someone who is the weakest trainer in the top 64 and it was not just him, every strong trainer was put up against very powerful trainers, by now the league has an idea of who is going to make it to the final rounds.

And if by some chance a weaker opponent by their standard wins, it's even better for them as this trainer will be seen as a dark horse who appeared out of nowhere and defeated the odds.

The league also had to be careful and not allow this mysterious trainer to get eliminated before the big leagues so they made sure to match up Julian with the weakest trainer they know of.

If they had just randomly chosen a trainer who happen to be this hidden master, he would have been eliminated and forgotten by everyone, if this mysterious dark horse existed they wanted them to shock the world by making an upset.

So if this trainer who could be a potential dark horse comes across Julian in the very first round, they will miss out on an opportunity, so this is why the league always manipulates these match cards, making the weaker opponent face stronger opponents based on their battle records.

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Now that Julian has a name of his opponent, he looked into this girl, she is a very good trainer but not the best here, she already has a loss in her record because of a loss from the preliminary rounds, she is very lucky that she made it to the top 64.

From now on, it doesn't matter who she faces, she will be going home, every trainer here is stronger than her, maybe a few of them were on her level but they soon will be eliminated as well.

Julian got ready and headed towards the grand stadium for his upcoming battle with this female trainer.

When he got to the grand stadium and entered the waiting room, it was the same reaction as before, trainers were nervous around him.

Since he is not the first person to enter the battlefield this time, he found himself in a nice quiet corner to sit down and watch the upcoming battles, the tournament soon started, and the first trainers were called in to start the top 64 tournaments.

The first trainer to walk in is a big buff man who is shirtless showing off his massive muscles, he also has tribal paintings all over his body, this trainer had a big grin over his face as he expects to demolish his opponent and advance easily.

The crowd also cheered for him as he seems to be one of the favorites to reach the finals in this league tournament, the crowd cheered for this buff man as he is a reoccurring participant in the league, last time he came and dominated the scene before his run was put to an end in the finals by the previous winner of the Kalos league who went on and defeated the four elite four members but lost to Diantha.

"This time, I am going to win the league and become the champion!" He declared caused the crowd to burst, they were a mixture of boos and cheers, cheers are from his fans while boos were from people who supported other trainers in the league and most of them were from Julian's fans.

And since most of the people are here to see Julian, the boos were much louder than the cheer, even though he heard the boos from the crowd the smile on the big buff man didn't disappear.

He is confident in his ability to advance to the finals and take on Julian.

Then his opponent entered the battlefield, the announcer announced his name is Julio, this trainer is tall and wearing a black long coat similar to Julian but unlike Julian, he has his head covered with a hood so people are not able to see his face.

The crowd didn't know who this person was as they never noticed him nor did he have any presence up till now in the league but they continued to cheer.

Julian also carefully watched this guy named Julio because he has taken notice of him because of his battle style which is very similar to his.

Julian 'I wonder how much he can imitate me'

Julian thought and smirked as he wanted to see how much similar Julio is to him.