CH65 (295), Road To Quarterfinals

The next morning, my phone rang and I groggily opened one eye to look who was calling me before my alarm had the chance to go off. A look at the clock showed that it was 8 a.m, so it was 30 minutes earlier than I was originally planning to wake up.

The caller was my mom, so I just sighed, and reluctantly opened the other eye as well before accepting the call.

"Morning mom," I greeted her while suppressing a yawn.

"Good morning, honey. We've already arrived in Dawn City, and are walking toward the hotel you're staying at. We should be there in 15 minutes, so try to be down in the lobby by then. Mommy wants to see you before the competition starts," she said and all I, as a dutiful son, could say was "yes, mom".

I heard dad laughing happily in the background probably enjoying the byplay. I ignored his laughter and told mom that I would be waiting for them downstairs before hanging up.

I quickly jumped into the shower and got dressed in record time before going down to the lobby, and I made it with nearly 5 minutes to spare so I proceeded to wait for them. As soon as I made eye contact with my parents, mom brushed dad aside and rushed up to me before she began crushing me in a hug.

"Sweetie, how are you?" She asked me without letting me out of her embrace.

"I'm fine mom," I returned slightly quieter, conscious of the fact that we were in the middle of the hotel lobby. I saw dad leisurely approaching us and I could feel the amusement oozing out of him.

"Yo, squirt. How's it going?" He asked mirthfully, using his dad privileges to call me squirt despite our similar sizes.

"I'm fine dad," I said after mom reluctantly stopped crushing, I meant hugging, me.

"Say, dad, are you two not a bit early? I seem to remember writing both of you that my first fight today was scheduled for 9:30 a.m," I asked him curiously.

That was also the reason why I set my alarm to 8:30 a.m since I did not expect them to show up so early. In my thoughts, they would arrive around 9 a.m. Well, I was proven once more that reality did not always conform with our plans.

"Yes, you did," he returned with a nod. "But your mom wanted to come early to spend some more time with you before your turn," he finished with an expression that said, "what can you do?"

"That's right," mom agreed while taking my hand in hers. "We can talk while slowly heading to the venue of your fight."

"Alright," I acceded, not really believing that we could stretch the walk to the venue to 75 minutes even if we tried walking really slowly, but I knew that mom did not believe that either.

She was properly simply thinking that we would sit on one of the benches around the venue until it was time for my fight. We began making our way to the venue and they asked me what I thought of the competition so far.

I told them that I adhered to the requests by the academy before I began telling them about my fights. They were both happy to hear that I was willing to go easy on those much weaker than me as well as my accomplishments.

They also praised me for my performance while holding back a lot, adding that they knew that I was one of humanity's greatest geniuses and that they would always support as well as believe in me.

By the time we arrived at the venue we were done with our talk on the competition and there were still close to 30 minutes until my fight. They were curious, so I told them about my next opponent.

I, or rather one of my Pokemon, would be fighting against Maria, a girl from a neutral academy. Yeah, those were a thing as well. Normal energy manipulation was kinda like working on pure magic/mana techniques, like mana/normal ropes, arrows, swords, shields, boosts, and stuff like that.

They could not manipulate the elements or terrains like other energy types, but they could create energy constructs. Still, I was facing her in a Pokemon battle, so her personal combat capabilities were not important.

Maria had shown 4 Pokemon so far, and I doubted that she had more than that. Well, even if she did, it probably did not exceed more than two extras.

The four Pokemon she had revealed so far were a (high) bronze stage Vigoroth, a (low) silver stage Raticate, a (low) silver stage Ursaring, and a (mid) silver stage Pidgeot.

They were impressed with her Pokemon but it was not that surprising since she not only had to be one of the strongest students in her academy to participate in this competition, but she also had to be one of the current strongest secondary students in Rota to make it to the round of 32.

In short, she was part of the exception with her strength, or rather that of her Pokemon, not the norm. In fact, all the students I was paired against so far belonged to the stronger ones participating in the competition.

I had seen a lot of students participating that had no silver stage Pokemon in their team, and that was actually what applied to the majority of students participating in this.

Yet, even with that, they were exceptional among those of their age, since most other kids their age had either no Pokemon or some that were at the iron stage. Among them, those with Pokemon at the bronze stage could count as a rarity.

Anyway, I also told them about Sam, the boy from a ground academy I would be facing in the personal combat category at 10 a.m. From what I learned about him, his fighting style was kinda familiar.

He used earth to capture and crush his opponents, while also using it as an armor as well as a cocoon or wall if necessary to defend himself. The armor was something he applied instantly, while the wall or the cocoon were created only when needed.

It was clear that if I wanted to beat him while only using my aura, I would need to use mostly brute force. Anyway, back to my upcoming Pokemon battle, I decided to let Hashirama/Venusaur fight, since he lost his chance to Mars/Ursaring the last time I considered him.

After I made my decision, we kept talking about other stuff, and 5 minutes before my fight we headed inside. My parents took a seat in the spectator area, while I made my way to the battlefield. At 9:30 a.m our fight began and I called out Hashirama, while Maria's first Pokemon was her Raticate.

While Raticate were pretty fast, Hashirama had a solution for such foes. He used his Leech Seed to create, or rather plant, traps/obstacles in Raticate's path while using moves such as Razor Leaf, and Sleep Bombs to impede him from moving too far away.

Sleep Vines were used to entangle and attack Raticate, and it eventually fell to Hashirama's onslaught within the first three and a half minutes of the fight.

Maria called out her Pidgeot after that, and it proved to be a much bigger challenge since it could fly. Most of Hashirama's moves did not have the necessary range to hit a Pokemon flying above a certain height.

He was left with no choice but to use Sunny Day, and switch between Solar Beam as well as Razor Leaf to attack Pidgeot. Meanwhile, Maria/Pidgeot chose to stay in the air and purely attack from above. It turned into an endurance contest between the two, and thanks to Synthesis among other things Hashirama came out on top between the two.

He managed to hit Pidgeot with a Solar Beam once it slowed down due to being fatigued. That finally knocked it out, and Maria recalled her Pidgeot before it could crash onto the floor.

Had it not been a regulated Pokemon fight, Pidgeot could have retreated/escaped the whole time, so Hashirama would have most likely failed to take it down in the wild.

Oh, he would have still "won" due to Pidgeot flying away, but he would have failed to "beat" it, and if it returned with its flock, Hashirama would be the one forced to flee.

That was why most people/Pokemon avoided flying types that tended to live in flocks unless they were confident of beating them without giving them a chance to escape.

Anyway, since Hashirama was mostly at full strength/health thanks to Synthesis and co, he managed to take out Maria's Ursaring without too many problems, by keeping it at a distance and attacking it with Solar Beams as well as Petal Blizzards.

After thanking my opponent as usual and wishing the referee a nice day, I left the battlefield and headed to the exit of the venue, where my parents were already waiting for me.

Dad patted me on the back while telling me I did a good job. Mom on the other hand was more expressive and pulled me in another hug while gushing about how great I did.

Well, to be honest, I drilled enough strategy, and combat awareness into all my Pokemon so that they could fight autonomously. We did enough fights with me directing them as well as with me only observing while going over the fights afterward, that they became pretty good at fighting.

I only gave out commands when I deemed it necessary. Anyway, we quickly made our way to the next battle venue for my fight against Sam, the Tier 2 Second-Class Earth Elementalist. Well, we made it on time, and after greeting Sam and the referee, the fight began.

Deciding to fight smartly, I created small platforms that only needed to last long enough to serve as a foothold for me. Yes, I chose to avoid most of the danger of facing a ground/earth Elementalist by walking in the air.

After that, I just clad my limbs in aura to increase their durability, while boosting my strength. I gather extra momentum while air-walking to increase the damage/impact I could cause and delivered devastating strikes toward Sam, successfully breaking his defenses enough to cause damage, before he restored them.

The damage I caused stacked up, and it took close to 10 minutes to take him down, despite hitting as hard as I could using only my aura. I had to admit that his tenacity and endurance were praiseworthy. I could have had won easier if I had used a different strategy, but I decide to go with brute force this time around.

After I was declared the winner, I thanked Sam for the fight and left the venue with my parents, who once again congratulated me on my victory.

The round of 16 would begin at 11 a.m and would be held in two venues for each category.

My next Pokemon battle was already determined, and I would be battling against Kyoji, some boy from a water academy. Our fight would be at 11:20 a.m, and the Pokemon he had shown so far were (high) bronze stage Floatzel, (low) silver-stage Tentacruel, (low) silver-stage Gyarados, (mid) silver stage Poliwrath.

While we made our way to the venue, mom and dad asked me who I was planning to use for the battle, and I decided to go with Osiris/Marowak. His standardized water relation would come as a surprise for many, and his mastery of some electric moves along with other neutral moves would make sure he would perform "adequately".

By the time, we arrived at Harley Stadium where I would be fighting, the opponent of my next personal fight had been determined as well. I would be fighting against Raj who came from one of the martial academies.

Our fight would be at noon, and I would be using a pair of metal arm guards as well as shin guards since Raj used both his body as well as a saber.

Anyway, it was soon time for the Pokemon fight, and it went roughly as I had expected it to go. Osiris managed to take out Kyoji's Tentacruel after tanking its Hydro Pump and using Thunder Strike to shock it. He then used its momentary lapse to deliver a one-two Thunder punch combo. Tentacruel tried to resist but failed as it got knocked out by a Club Rush.

Gyarados was much harder to beat since they noticed that water moves were less effective than they should be, but that ice moves worked as they should.

So, by the time Osiris managed to beat the much larger Pokemon, he was decently tired, which was why I was not surprised when he fell over due to exhaustion once Poliwrath was down.

Yet, due to him falling over just a second or so after Poliwrath the referee counted it as a double knockout. This meant that, while Osiris managed to beat all 3 of his adversaries, he became the first one of my Pokemon to be knocked out during this competition. Well, this did not stop me from praising his performance since he did truly well.

This victory allowed me to advance to the quarterfinals in the Pokemon battle category, and I had to rush to Dawn Stadium since just 20 minutes later I had to fight myself. I won that one too and advanced to the quarterfinal in the personal combat category as well.

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