CH61 (191), Senior League Tournament (2)

I spent most of Grouday on my own, either roaming around Indigo City or watching replays of the more interesting battles that happened during the preliminaries that I had missed.

The reason for that should be pretty obvious. My parents spent a big part of the day with their Pokemon, going over strategies and making sure they are ready for the main tournament.

They left for breakfast, returned for lunch before leaving again, and came back for dinner. After that, we watched a stand-up show before they retired for the day.

The next morning at 9:00 a.m a Hypno sent by the alliance teleported my parents to the main stadium on the Indigo Plateau. The two along with the other 254 participants that qualified for the main tournament were all teleported there for the official opening ceremony.

The alliance president of the Kanto branch presided over the ceremony. No legendaries made an appearance, which to be honest would have been overkill and would have made no sense. I mean regional tournaments happen everywhere and I was sure they had better stuff to do than to play mascot.

That did not mean that they could not spontaneously show up if a mortal/trainer piqued their interest, but I wanted to establish that it was not something regular as in the anime with the whole flame of Moltres thing they had going on.

Now, an interesting side note. While I was researching the league tournaments I actually found out that legendaries showed up six times in the last 2179 years since the tournaments became a thing.

Mew, herself, showed up for the very first Senior League Tournament, held here in Kanto, which had also been the first official regional tournament of the current era.

When I read this my first thought was awesome, but then I thought back to all the history books I had read till now, as well as the knowledge I had inside my mental super-library, and I came to a realization.

Out of the Big 5, those being Arceus, Mew, Giratina, Palkia, and Dialga, only Mew bothered with Terra. The other four pretty much had a hands-off attitude towards our planet, and only Mew bothered acting when she deemed it necessary.

The running and observation of the planet were pretty much done by the other legendaries, with Mew as the big boss behind them. I had no idea if they were only in charge of Terra or if there were other planets as well, but it seemed, at least to me, as if from the creators (of the whole universe) only Mew was active. Well, at least in our corner of the universe that seemed to be the case.

Anyway, back to the legendary appearances. Mew appeared a second time when the first Global Tournament was held, and the other four appearances were by members of the roaming Legendaries.

A Moltres appeared during a Grand League Tournament that happened to be held in Kanto roughly 1500 years ago. A Landorus appeared during a Global League Tournament that was held in Unova roughly 1100 years ago.

A Zapdos appeared during a Grand League Tournament that was held in Sinnoh roughly 600 years ago, and a Suicune appeared during a Global League Tournament that was held in Kalos roughly 300 years ago.

Each time one of the roaming Legendaries showed up, a rare super-genius with the potential to become a Legend-class trainer appeared in that generation.

Now, taking that info into account, it was pretty normal that no legendaries showed up.

Anyway, I had to stay in the hotel room and watch the whole thing on TV since only alliance personnel and participants were allowed to take part in the ceremony, so there was no place for family members like me.

The whole thing took 30-ish minutes and within an hour my parents were back. Apparently, the draw was not shown since it was, overall, pretty boring. They seemed pretty happy with their placement, and my mom seemed to feel my curiosity.

"We were pretty lucky during the draw. We'll only meet each other during the semi-finals, so your dad can still get third place when we inevitably meet and he loses." She explained and I only raised my eyebrows in disbelief at the second part of her sentence.

Meanwhile, dad broke out into laughter, and I mean I could understand where he was coming from. Strength-wise his Pokemon were a lot better than mom's Pokemon. Still, I didn't want to be "rude" so I didn't laugh, not too sure how serious she was.

She did in fact look a bit offended at dad before she broke out in giggles, which I joined with my manly chuckles. Once we calmed down, Dad told me there would be two rounds today, so by the end of the day only 64 participants would be left.

Unlike the preliminaries, the two rounds today would be 3-vs-3 battles. The stadiums, opponents, as well as rough timetable were already prepared, and dad had his first battle scheduled in 1 hour, but he was told to be there 15 minutes prior in case the previous battle ended earlier than expected.

I could still enter the stadium for free since I was a family member of a participant, and my mom was a participant herself, but everyone else had to cough out some dough for a seat ticket.

The preliminary battles had been free, which had honestly surprised me since the alliance would have made some good cash even then, but they had not even bothered to sell a day ticket.

Now, however, each battle had its own ticket, so they probably thought that they could cover the expenses and earn some extra using just the main event.

Depending on the seat, the tickets cost between 20 to 100 Poke, so they were not really expensive, but with the number of battles and the number of tickets sold/seats it did add up to a nice sum. Still, I was sure the ticket price would increase the closer we got to the finals.

I kept getting distracted by details since it was my first tournament. Anyway, back to dad. The terrain was a grass field and his opponent was a slightly chubby man called Josh Peck.

From our research, before the fight, Josh had revealed a (high) gold-stage Snorlax, which was impressive since they were rare and hard to train, a (low) gold-stage Lickitung, and a (mid) gold-stage Bibarel.

Now, I did not want to assume things, but that gave me and my parents the feeling as if the guy was trying to specialize in normal types. Still, since he could have done that on purpose to trick the other participants, we choose to not bank on that assumption.

Dad was prepared to use Titan/Nidoking, Duke/Crobat, and Tangela for the battle. At 10:55 a.m dad and Josh appeared on the field. The referee like always went over the rules, but this time around I noticed something new.

They were only allowed to change/swap their Pokemon once. I did not know if that was only for the 3-vs-3 battles, but I was hearing that rule for the first time.

Once both sides confirmed that they had understood the rules and were ready, the referee gave the starting signal, and both trainers simultaneously released their first Pokemon.

Josh proved that he had been playing everyone when an Ampharos appeared on his side, which was pretty unlucky since dad had decided to use Duke first.

Dad's immediate reaction was to recall Duke since he did not want to waste Duke's energy trying to win an uphill battle. Josh's little trick in the preliminaries forced dad to waste his one recall/swap chance.

Dad sent out Titan in return which forced Josh to swap his Ampharos since the guy had no plan to work around Nidoking's immunity to electric moves.

He sent out his Snorlax which made me think it might have Immunity as its ability. Otherwise, Bibarel would have made more sense, strength aside. Maybe he just knew that Bibarel would lose pretty quickly despite having a type advantage. Who knew?

Honestly, I found it just a smidge funny that the first actions of the battle were a series of swaps. Anyway, the battle finally began and it turned into a drawn-out affair. Dad had Titan attack Snorlax from afar and anytime it tried to get close Titan would make sure to keep his distance.

The difference in their speed ensured that the distance was preserved ultimately forcing Snorlax to attack using long-range attacks as well. Unfortunately, for Josh and Snorlax, it seemed they did not bother learning enough of those since it only used Water Pulse and Belch.

In the end, it took a long ass time, nearly twenty minutes, for Titan to wear down Snorlax, especially since it managed to use Rest twice before it was knocked out. Also, seeing as it did not get poisoned during the fight despite being hit pretty often by poison moves my guess regarding Immunity got confirmed.

Thanks to Snorlax's endurance and vitality, Titan was fatigued quite a bit, despite not being hit once, due to his own offense. Still, Titan managed to beat Bibarel as well using Thunderbolt and a few poison moves before being unable to continue due to being out of energy/stamina.

Still, Josh only had Ampharos left, while dad still had Duke and an unknown. Duke was the last option for obvious reasons, but instead of using Tangela as he had planned before the fight, he called out Vibra/Rhydon.

He practically decided to cut off any hope, and as expected it didn't take long for Vibra to take down Ampharos. She used Earthquake to destabilize it, Rock Blast, and Stone Edge to maneuver it into position before finishing it off with a Drill Run.

Dad was declared the winner and we directly left the stadium. The whole battle took roughly half an hour, with two-thirds of that time being spent on Snorlax. Anyway, it was currently 11:35 a.m so we decided to walk around the city for a bit before eating lunch in a restaurant instead of returning to the hotel.

Mom's fight was only at 3 p.m, so we had time to kill until 2:30 p.m before we had to make our way to stadium no.5, which was the arctic one.

Her opponent was a slim man called Drake Bell that had so far revealed a (mid) gold-stage Wigglytuff, an honest to Mew (low) gold-stage Kricketune, and a (mid) gold-stage Exploud.

Once it was time, we went there and took our seats. Mom went to the waiting room, but due to the fight before hers taking a bit longer than expected her battle only began at 3:10 p.m.

Mom's first Pokemon was Titania/Nidoqueen. Drake actually released a low-key Toxtricity but seeing Titania he quickly switched it out with his Exploud. Not that it changed all that much since Exploud still got beaten by Titania.

Still, at least it managed to cause enough damage for Drake's Wigglytuff to take her down while suffering some damage. Mom called out Rivers/Poliwrath next, and Rivers managed to win without getting too hurt.

Unfortunately, Toxtricity was Drake's final Pokemon, and being practically fresh and an electric type, it managed to beat Rivers while only getting slightly hurt.

Nonetheless, good old Rivers managed to hold out long enough to tire out Toxtricity quite a bit, despite causing only a slight amount of damage to it. Still, I knew that mom was now in a dilemma. Toxtricity was at the (low) gold stage and all of mom's Pokemon that were strong enough to battle it were at a type disadvantage.

Those that could have an advantage like Roselia, with electric and poison moves being ineffective, were not only weaker but also had a field disadvantage due to the arctic field, which was practically a snowfield with cold air.

She ultimately chose Epona/Rapidash who was also at the (low) gold stage. The cold forced her to expend more stamina to stay warm and use more energy for her fire moves, but that was somewhat acceptable.

The fight between Toxtricity and Epona was much narrower than I would have liked. While she managed to win after a final High Horsepower, there were multiple moments where I thought she would lose. Thankfully she won and moved on to the next round.

Dad's next fight was an hour later at 4:45 p.m, and mom's second fight was at 6:30 p.m. Thankfully, both won their second fight as well, which allowed them to enter the top 64. That meant that they would be battling at the Indigo Plateau tomorrow.

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