Chapter 37

As the Grand Festival and Ever Grande Conference are approaching, Evan, Ash and May are training intensively to fulfill their goal.

"Brother, how are you doing recently?" Evan leaned on his chin as he was talking with Steven on the phone after a long time.

"I'm doing good, I also found new rare stones!" Steven was wearing his formal attire.

"Where's brother Wallace, I heard that he was with you from uncle Juan" Evan asked.

"Oh Wallace, he went for a shopping!" Steven shrugged and said "So the next step is Grand Festival and Ever Grande I guess"

"That's right and I'll do my best to win as much as I can" Evan nodded.

"To think our cute little brother who used to be on my lap have grown up!" Steven said emotionally "after the end of the conference let's celebrate for you at home!"

"Okay brother, wait for the good news"

As they talked after a long time, Evan shared the news about the Deoxys and Rayauaza he caught.And one of the Deoxys was sent to Steven for the time being.

Evan's current Pokémon linup are: Rayauaza, Deoxys, Salamence, Sylveon, Milotic, Blaziken, Gallade, Sceptile, Absol and a Feebas he caught at Sootopolis city.

After staying on the island training their Pokémon, Evan and his friends took the cruise ship prepared for the contestants to the Slateport city, the venue of the Gorgeous Grand Festival.

"Wow so this is the venue for Gorgeous Grand Festival! We are finally here!" May said excitedly.

"Do your best,Evan and May" Brock encouraged them.

"Alright, thank you Brock" Evan and May responded together.

The venue is indeed specially build for Gorgeous Grand festival, the dream stage of countless coordinators. It is no worse then league competition in terms of scale.

The first thing Evan and May did after coming was register for the Grand festival.

"Alright I've got your information, then can you show me the contest ribbons" The staff registered Evan and May.

"The registration for the Grand festival is done, this is the guide book about the conference it contains maps, contest rules and even a location of restaurants" The staff explained briefly to Evan and his friends.

Evan took the guide book and thanked the staff.

After the registration Evan part ways with May and the others and came to a training area and released all of his Pokémon except Salamence "Everyone, come out!"

"Sylveon~" Sylveon directly rushed towards Evan and rubbed against Evan's arms.

"Let's do our best for the Gorgeous Grand festival everyone!"

"Sylveon~" "Mmmm~" "Blaziken~" "Gallade~" "Sceptile~" Evan's Pokémon responded to him saying they understood.

After looking at the rules and regulations, Evan decided to use Gallade and Milotic for the first and second round of the competition.

After choosing the Pokémon for the appeal stage, Evan met up with May and the others and went to a park to prepare for the first round of appeal performance.

When Evan and his friends arrived at the park, the place was already full of coordinators, training for the festival.

"It's very stressful" May said nervously as she looked at the coordinators.

"Don't worry May it's a natural feeling, every competition along the way is full of tension and excitement. Just relax and treat it as a normal Pokémon contest" Evan comforted May.

"Okay.!!" May's spirit got lit up again.

At dusk,Evan and his friends came back to the contestants dormitory, and while May's Combusken was training with my Blaziken it evolved.

"Is this the dormitory, it's so luxurious" May said in surprise.

Everyone was satisfied when they saw this luxurious dormitory.

Suddenly a pair of slender hands covered May's eyes and said sofly "guess who I am?"

Hearing the familiar voice,May turned around excitedly, and the owner of these slender hands were none other than May and Max's mother, Caroline.

Everyone turned around and found out that it was not just Caroline who arrived, but also Evan's family,Joseph and Steven "Dad, brother why are you here!"

"Of course we are here to cheer for our one and only youngest!" Steven responded with a smile.

"But this is not even a Pokémon league!!" Evan was speechless.

"It is your first time travelling outside and participating in a competition, is there a reason that says we can only cheer on Pokémon league" Joseph responded this time.

It turned out that after Evan told Steven that he was participating in a Grand festival,Steven directly made a plan to visit Evan with Joseph to cheer him on his first ever competition.

As for May and Max they directly threw themselves in the arms of Caroline.

"I missed you mom! " Max said as he hugged Caroline.

After glancing here and there May couldn't help but ask "where's dad,mom?"

"Your father is very busy with the gym so he couldn't make it, but don't worry I believe your dad will be watching your performance on TV." Caroline said wirh a smile.

After hearing her mother's words May calmed down from her disappointed expression.

The dormitory assigned to Evan and May is a luxurious room where you could view the sea from the window.

May also received a lot of letters of encouragement from her rivals and friends she met along her journey.

Looking at the nervous May, Caroline smiled and changed the subject "by the way have you all understood the rules of the competition?"

Brock the most reliable person, took out the conference guide book and explained "the Grand festival Pokémon contest is divided into preliminaries and Main competition,moreover, out of 247 contestants only 64 contestants will advance to the main competition."

"Only 64 contestants out of 247, Grand festival Pokémon contest is more crueler than I thought" Evan sighed.

In the evening, Evan took his father and brother to a night market along with his friends and Caroline, the marketis very lively.

Under the influence of delicious food May's nervosness also washed away.

The next day, The Grand festival Pokémon contest officially started.

Vivian, the host started to introduce the Grand festival "ladies and gentlemen the patience has finally came to an end and the Grand festival Pokémon contest here at Slateport city will officially begun, the coordinators who have won five ribbons in various Pokémon contest will stand on stage and perform in the preliminary stage. On the stage the appeals of Pokémon, it's unique moves, your cooperation and a brilliance performance will be the key in the competition. And only a 64 contestants who score the highest among 247 coordinators will advance to the main stage."

As the introduction of the Grand festival Pokémon contest ended the preliminaries officially begun.

"Roselia, petal dance!" Drew was the first to appear on stage with his veteran Roselia, used a petal dance scoring a high score of 95 points.

"Come out, my cool and loyal partner, Cacturne, use bullet seed" The insidious Harley relied on his partner Cacturne to achieve a score of 84 points.

Like Robert, whom I met in Slateport Pokémon contest, he almost got a perfect score.

Finally it was May's turn "okay let's get on stage,Beautifly!" Beautify appeared with a glittering scales and used it's silver wind move to perform scoring a points of 88.

"Next let's welcome Contestant no.[ ] Evan Stone from Rustboro city"

"Gallade, time to shine" Evan send out his Pokémon with a smile. "Gallade~"

"Gallade use double team, followed by psycho cut " Following Evan's instruction several Gallade appeared and several psycho cuts were sent to the sky.

"Now Gallade, signal beam" As soon as Evan's words fell the psycho cuts were scattered, creating a fireworks.

Evan and Gallade bowed to the audience and the cheers erupted, in the end he got a score of 98 points tied for a first place with Robert.

"You're really awesome Evan!" As soon as the performance ended May came up to him immediately with an admiring expression.

Everyone was astounded by Evan's performance.

~To be continued....