Final day

After the day long recovery break was over the tournament continued in a heated fashion as only a quarter of those left would get a prize. That meant that fifteen of these twenty people were going to walk away with nothing but the experience. Unfortunately this also meant that competitiveness got the best of several of them and they used more powerful moves than they should have for a tournament like this. Unlike gym battles where you are supposed to go all out since you will have plenty of time to recover afterward tournaments had a sort of unspoken rule that you were never supposed to go for truly serious damage.-

Broken bones, flesh missing, things of this nature that were next to impossible to recover from in a sort amount of time were pretty much off the table according to this rule. A few trainers however got too invested in winning that they ignored this and effectively settled for mutual destruction in order to win. On paper causing your opponents to drop out due to long recovery type injuries sounded good but it was a foolish decision since the moment you show this line being crossed your opponents wouldn't heed it either anymore.-

This means while you may win the match your team gets seriously hurt in the process forcing you to either put them in danger of worse injuries or to drop out. It was self destructive at best and downright shameful at worse with everyone in the VIP booth condemning those that did it. Even I with my tendency for aggressive tactics understood and utilized restraint when I was supposed to. It's a bit like going into a spar only for what is supposed to be a friendly training exercise to devolve into a slugfest instead.-

It did fair more harm than good as what little you learn is wasted by the several days to weeks of time needed to recover from your injuries. "Looks like these seven are entirely out of the running for top five. A pity since i was hoping to see how Brendan might handle some of them." I said while crossing out seven names from the roster. "Aye lad, Those psychics would have given him a run for his money. Those few got a bit ahead of themselves though so theres nothing for it." Watson said in agreement.-

"Can't expect every new trainer to understand to value of control in their first year but you can be certain that after this it'll be a lesson they take to heart if they've got a brain about them." Drake said sternly and we all agreed with him. Inexperience might be what lead to this situation but it was a harsh mistake that they would learn not to make again as a result. Judging from the looks a few of them got after the heat of the battle ended I'd say they also figured out the problem.-

I didn't just let those few trainers ruin the experience for their opponents though and personally stepped in to heal their teams so that they could try and challenge their way back into the tournament. As an added bonus this earned me some brownie points from those in the VIP booth since I honestly had no reason why I needed to go out of my way like that. Didn't mean I didn't have one though as frankly I was unwilling to see my event get ruined like that. While I could heal the bodies of the pokemon with my ability and potions I couldn't do anything about mental exhaustion.-

I wasn't going to offer any of my energy drink either as that would only make the inevitable backlash much worse. The way the drink worked was that it caused the body and mind to operate under the premise that it had all the energy it needed but when used while out of energy all it would accomplish would be to drop your energy to dangerously low levels once the burst faded. Instead of doing that I simply left the matter of recovering enough to challenge up to the trainers and the pokemons innate recovery factor.-

You'd be amazed how many pokemon directly took that advice to take a nap in hopes of speeding up the process. True to my prediction the seven that went overboard dropped out once they found out that I wasn't going to be healing their teams as well. Two of them claimed I was being unfair but the glare they got from Hades and the disappointed look from Watson who came with me since he wanted to encourage these youngsters shut them up really fast. Watson was sort of the league recognized grandpa if you would so his disappointed look was super effective.-

Hades was Hades so I didn't even need to explain the effect getting glared at by it would have. Eventually there was only four trainers who hadn't lost a match with May and Brendan being two of them. The other two were a twenty five year old man named Floyd who specialized in fighting types and a twenty year old man named Gregory who was a generalist that preferred tanky pokemon but didn't have a type preference. These four were allowed a break that lasted until the left over nine battled over who got the fifth spot.-

After that brawl finished all that was left was for the top four to get cemented in place by having those four duke it out. May ended up matched with Gregory and lost unfortunately as her team simply couldn't match the stamina of his team that was built entirely around defense. It was pretty close though as she knocked out four of his six pokemon while all of hers got knocked out. The pokemon that really sealed her loss in was his Walrein that he specifically saved until her Sceptile and Tropius were both gone.-

"Prefight planning based on his knowledge of his opponent, pretty basic but takes patience to pull off like this after seeing most of your team get knocked out." I said complimenting the tactic. I meant it too as while it sounds like an easy thing to do while you are in the heat of battle it becomes hard not to jump the gun as your mind races with each new move or reaction your opponent does. My emotion suppression helped me remain calm and rational in battle but these trainers likely didn't have it so it was far from easy to pull off.-

"Indeed, it is quite clear if you look over the clash as a whole that he was baiting out the two pokemon that were a threat to him from her before sending out his ace. He'll go far with what we've seen." Sidney said and we all agreed. Gregory had very good potential from what he had shown in this tournament even in the face of another extraordinary trainer like May who clearly trained her team well. Brendans battle with Floyd was more interesting as he sent out his Machamp straight out the gate alongside his Pidgeot.