Day 4 (1)

Lukas, "Charmeleon dodge and use Dragon Claw." 

Cindy, "Hehe not with me, Empoleon use Metal Claw." 

*boom* 

On a private training field belonging to the Indigo City FC branch, Lukas and his Charmeleon are currently engaged in a heated spar against Cindy and her starter Empoleon. 

It is still early in the morning and the 4th day of the tournament won't commence until 2 hours later. 

Lukas asked Cindy to help him prepare for some of his later opponents. Because of that, both of them are currently sparring with each other. 

Although he doesn't know exactly when, Lukas has a feeling that the time he will be pitted against Gold-Rank Pokemon is getting closer and closer. 

When going over the remaining participants, he learned that only 15 of the trainers participating are at the Junior Elite-Rank. Since trainers above the age of 30 are banned from participating at the Junior League tournament, he found nothing wrong with that low number. 

*Boom* 

While he was lost in his thoughts, the spar between Charmeleon and Empoleon continued. 

Cindy, "Use Body Slam." 

"Empoleon!" 

Lukas, "Stop it with Brick Break." 

*Boom* 

In the end, despite having the Full Buff III trait that closed the distance between Charmeleon and Empoleon's stats, the latter is still a fully fledged (high)Gold-Rank Pokemon. 

Seemingly ignoring the fact that Charmeleon's move is supposed to be effective against a Steel-type Pokemon such as himself, Empoleon clashed against his opponents move without hesitation. The result of their clash was Empoleon's victory in the end. He managed to beat Charmeleon without even using a single Water-type move. 

"Good job Charmeleon, don't mind the loss, this spar was only to test our current limits anyway." 

Lukas comforted his Pokemon for a bit before turning to his cousin. 

"How do you rate my chances?" 

"Well, it's basically impossible for you to win." 

Rolling his eyes at her answer, Lukas gets more specific. 

"What I mean his how far do you think I'll manage?" 

"Depends, as long as your opponent has as many Gold-Rank Pokemon as you, there might be a chance for you." 

Pondering over her words, Lukas realizes that it makes sense, since a Junior Elite with only three Gold-Rank Pokemon is likely to be a recently advanced trainer like himself. Considering that the Full Buff trait alone almost puts his three Pokemon on par with (mid)Gold-Rank Pokemon and with the speed of growth slowed tremendously, the likelihood of a trainer that just advanced to Junior Elite-Rank having a (high)Gold-Rank Pokemon is minimal. 

Of course, there is always the chance that a trainer ignored his team's balance and put all their effort and recourses into turning a single Pokemon as strong as possible. 

But the flaw of this method is obvious, considering that even a (high)Gold-Rank Pokemon will lack the stamina to fight 4 battles back to back. 

"Hopefully I'm not paired against one of those old guys too soon." 

When saying old guys, Lukas is referring to trainers that did not take part in any Junior League Tournament after advancing to Junior Elite-Rank, instead they wait until they're almost too old to participate and spend all their time until then training. 

"Tsk, don't mention those guys." 

Hearing Lukas mention those trainers, Cindy got a frown on her face. In her and many others' opinion, trainers who intentionally delay their participation like this at a Junior League have very little chances to get anywhere in their career as trainers. 

"Well, at least there aren't too many of them here this year." 

Lukas only shook his head at his cousins' reaction. Since the rules don't forbid them to participate, there is nothing anyone can do about it. 

"Lucario!" 

Their conversation is interrupted by Lucario who returned from his own sparring session. 

"How did training with mom go?" 

*hmpf* 

A dissatisfied snort was all Lukas received as an answer for his question. 

'So it seems he wasn't able to get his revenge.' 

"Alright, then well only have to wait on-" 

"Dabra" 

Before he could even finish, he was interrupted by Kadabra teleporting right next to him, almost causing him to jump back in fright. 

"Never mind, let's go to the Poke center and get you all checked up before the round of 64 starts." 

Recalling all their Pokemon Lukas and Cindy make their way out of the private training field to the nearest Poke center. 

Speaking of which, her personality aside, Lukas realized having an aunt who is very famous in the local FC circle can be very beneficial. Otherwise, he would've been forced to pay a decent sum of money to book a private training field. 

Yet, with just a few phone calls from her, he was allowed to use on from the Indigo FC. 

… 

"Jolteon can no longer continue, Gabite won. Trainer Blue is out of Pokemon thereby trainer Red won the battle and will advance to the round of 32." 

Hearing the referee declare him the winner, Lukas felt some tension leave his body. 

His opponent for the round of 64 was another Expert trainer. 

In the end, Lukas used Pidgeotto to set Gabite up by having her deal high damage to her opponent before recalling her mid-fight and then having Gabite finish the fight, making use of Moxie and Extreme Fighting Spirit to snowball the remaining two opponents. 

Unfortunately, Pupitar fell prey to a well-timed Destiny Bond in the first fight, making him Lukas first Pokemon to actually faint during a battle at this competition. 

Nevertheless, at no point during the battle did Lukas feel they might lose. 

His tension mainly comes from the fact that ever since the amount of battlefields per stadium have been reduced to 2 and with ever-growing numbers of spectators, he began feeling a bit nervous. A possible side effect of this being his first large scale tournament. 

Leaving the field, he met up with his family, and together they went eating lunch again. While he was alone with Cindy, Lukas decided to ask her about his nervousness on the field. 

"Aren't you a regular at the Fight Club? Shouldn't you have gotten used to people watching at this point?" 

Lukas could only sigh at her reply. 

"Did you forget already? I'm still only at the Silver-rank there, since I mainly use the FC to train my lower ranked Pokemon." 

"Oh, I forgot." 

Only at the Gold-Rank are matches at the FC open for live spectators. 

"Why didn't you just set up some training fight then?" 

Although the only way to rise in rank at the FC is through winning randomly assigned battles, it is totally possible to arrange fights with other trainers there as well. 

"With whom? Aside from Saffron City, I almost never spent more than a month at any FC branch I've been to. While I made some acquaintances during that time they are: A, casual at best, B, divided over multiple cities and C, most of them are still at the Expert-Rank or below." 

"Such is the life of a busy trainer. Maybe you should travel in a group once you continue your journey after the Junior League." 

"Yeah, maybe." 

*beep* *beep* 

Lukas didn't even have to look to know that this message was a notification from the organizers about his next opponent. 

Seeing Lukas straighten his back after looking at the message, Cindy got curios. 

"Are your easy days coming to an end already?" 

Glancing at her, he replies, "Kinda, my next opponent is called Thomas Fisher, apparently he is only a single Gold-Rank Pokemon away from reaching Junior-Elite." 

Hearing about his next opponent, Cindy clicks her tongue, "Tsk, another Expert? Booo, and here I was hoping to see you finally sweat a bit." 

Meanwhile, Catrina and Lukas mom return from getting their food, seeing Cindy's antics they naturally got curios. 

"What going on?" 

"There you are finally, I was already starving. About that, it's that Lukas next opponent is just another Expert-Rank trainer." 

Hearing her complaint, Catrina's eye began twitching.

"If you're so hungry, how about you get your food yourself next time." 

It was Lukas mom who focused on the second part of what Cindy said. 

"What did you expect? With the small amount of Junior Elites participating, it's difficult for any of them to meet outside the top 16." 

After eating, the group spend some time chatting before Lukas excused himself. He headed to the waiting area until it was finally his turn to fight. 

Taking a deep breath, he slowly made his way to his designated field, his opponent already waiting for him.