CH135 (499), It’s Okay (1)

This break was a rather special one because Mom was giving the Senior League Tournament that was taking place another shot. Dad had to sit this one out because he was already over the acceptable trainer rank as an official Ace-Class trainer. That's why he was focused on the upcoming Grand League Tournament.

Anyway, the preliminaries of the Senior League Tournament would begin on Arcday, 08.08.2184, and would go on until Kyoday, 13.08.2184. The 256 trainers that made it to the main tournament that would take place on Arcday, 15.08.2184, would then proceed to battle for the next three days until the Senior League Champion was determined.

As someone that made it to the Top 8 in the previous tournament, Mom got to skip the preliminary rounds. She was entitled to directly take part in the main tournament as a seeded trainer. Surprisingly, or maybe not too much, considering how strong Mom's Pokemon had gotten over the last 5 years, the league officials actually checked the stage of all of the Pokemon Mom registered for the tournament.

They wanted to ensure that she did still count as an Expert-Class trainer instead of being someone that already qualified for the Ace-Class but simply insisted on delaying the official rank-up to win the Senior League trophy. The reason they were this attentive in her case was that she had already fulfilled the other conditions for the upgrade.

They were not entirely wrong since that was exactly what Mom was doing, but at least she was smart enough to delay the breakthrough of her third dark gold stage Pokemon. There were apparently some people that forgot or ignored to do that and lost the right to register for the tournament.

I had to facepalm when the official shared that and I was pretty sure the league/alliance had left the loophole on purpose since even I managed to immediately spot the issue with that rule.

Moreover, while a trainer could at most have 2 dark gold-stage Pokemon before the start of the tournament to avoid losing the right to participate, nothing stopped their Pokemon from breaking through after the start of the tournament.

At least, as far as I knew, there were no rules in the rule book that asked for the disqualification of a trainer in the case that a third Pokmeon broke through to the dark gold stage during the tournament. I had made sure to read through the whole thing, so I was pretty confident that I was right.

In Mom's case, Titania/Nidoqueen and Rivers/Poliwrath were at the (low) dark gold stage. Though Titania could probably advance to the (mid) dark gold stage at any given moment considering that she had been training consistently ever since she broke through close to 3 years ago.

Aside from those two, Aomi/Lapras, and Epona/Rapidash were both capable of breaking through to the dark gold stage at any given moment. Frankly, both Pokemon had reached the point where they no longer saw any real returns while training, and the only reason they had not broken through yet was to avoid disqualification for the Senior League Tournament.

Was it a bit mean toward the other participants of the tournament? Probably, but "c'est la vie" as they say. Besides, Mom was within her rights to do that, especially considering her rather "young" age. She was only 34 years old this year after all, which was quite a bit off of the age limit of 60 they set for the Senior League Tournament.

Anyway, the way things stood, Aomi and Epona were free to break through as soon as Mom had won her first battle, but honestly, none of us thought that she would need either of them breaking through to the dark gold stage for her to win the tournament. Unless of course, another freak like Richard or I ended up taking part in the tournament.

Actually, in the eyes of the other participants, Mom herself probably seemed like a "monster", so we had to adjust the sentence to another "monster"-level candidate aside from Mom, but what were the chances of that happening? Exactly, the chance of that happening was close to zero since geniuses of that caliber are not supposed to grow on trees.

Well, now that I thought about it, there was also the possibility that some "veteran", who had kept training for years for this moment, finally decided to aim for the senior league championship and ended up participating before he or she exceeded the age limit of 60. No way that would happen, right?

Honestly, even if Mom's luck turned out to be horrible and either of these two possibilities occurred, or even if both occurred, Mom still had the choice of facing them with 4 dark gold stage Pokemon, so she should win the tournament regardless.

Seriously, those 4 aside, Mom also had her (high) gold stage Rose/Roserade, Fearow, Star/Starmie, and Emerald/Butterfree in reserve, so if she ended up losing for some unbelievable reason, I would say that some deity was messing with her. I saw no other way that such a situation could end up happening otherwise.

Anyway, neither Mom nor her team was slacking during the two weeks up to her first tournament battle. Hence, Mom was cool as a cucumber when we arrived in Indigo City on Grouday evening, 14.08.2184, to avoid having to rush over the next morning when the main tournament finally began.

She maintained that cool as well as confident air during the opening ceremony and it certainly helped impress her competitors and the commentator once she stepped on the field for her first battle. The host did mention that Mom took part in the last tournament and speculated that Mom might be here to earn herself the "crown".

The host's pretty accurate assumption aside, Mom had promised even her weaker Pokemon a chance to fight in the tournament, and she kept her promise by using Golbat, who was her current weakest Pokemon at the (low) silver stage, along with her (mid) gold stage Weavile and Roserade to win the first battle.

On the first day, only the first two rounds took place. During her second match, Mom used her (high) silver stage Aggron along with her Lapras and Fearow in order to smoothly advance to the third round taking place the next day.

During the first battle of day two, Mom used her (high) silver stage Mimikyu as her first Pokemon, completing her promise as far as her "weaker" Pokemon were concerned. Star and Emerald/Butterfree were the ones that finished up the battle, ensuring Mom's entry into the Top 32.

Her fourth battle overall, and second/final one of the day, was a 4 vs 4 fight, and Mom chose to go through it without "revealing" Titania/Nidoqueen or Rivers/Poliwrath. Mom's opponent managed to take down Emerald and Weavile in exchange for three of his Pokemon while exposing his fourth/final Pokemon. Rose/Roserade had no problems taking down that Golduck.

In the end, it did not matter that we had been fully confident that Mom would win her battles, because once it came down to it, all of us were still really happy once she actually made it to the Top 16 and hence the final day. We celebrated that by going to one of the fancier all-you-can-eat restaurants of Indigo City before Mom dragged me to one of the flower gardens, where she had me sing some songs for her and her Pokemon.

Dad refrained from calling out his Pokemon as well since Mom's Pokemon already took up quite a bit of space. The garden was a public place after all, so taking up too much space was impolite even if he probably could have done so if he truly wanted to. I mean, I did not believe that anyone would have dared to come up to us to complain if he had done it.

Anyway, my impromptu concert attracted a few bystanders that happened to enjoy the scenery of the flower garden. They all listened in while maintaining a respectable distance from us. The presence of Mom's team might have been the reason for that. Nonetheless, seeing how they were not disturbing us, we let them be.

The next morning, the girls surprised Mom by coming over. Jessie had taken the day off for this, while Weiss, Rose, and Erza had temporarily paused their journeys to show Mom their support. Unlike Rose who had been in Kanto anyway, Weiss and Erza teleported/flew in from Johto and Rota respectively.

Misty was the only girl among the ones that came that had nothing, in particular, going on right now. Still, she came to support Mom and it was the thought that counted. Their actions definitely managed to make Mom really happy, and frankly, she seemed happier seeing them than she did winning yesterday.

Anyway, from the boys, only Aaron was currently on the northern continent, so he was the only one that was able to come over. Though Kinji, Wendy, and Yu, along with the others, who were currently on another continent and thus unable to come over, called Mom to congratulate her on reaching the final day. They all also declared that they believed that she would win the whole thing.

Mom seemed happy enough with their support over the phone, and she was full of smiles when she headed for her first battle of the day, which was the last 4-vs-4 fight before the format changed to 5-vs-5. Mom obviously won the match without any real problems, losing only her Fearow in the process, and thus moved on to the quarterfinals.

Her quarterfinal opponent was pretty good and Mom decided that he deserved to face one of her aces, so she used Rivers/Poliwrath against the guy. Though she only used Rivers after her competitor had taken out two of her Pokemon so that Rivers could clean up the guy's last two Pokemon.

Seeing how she used Rivers during the quarterfinals, Mom ended up sending out Titania/Nidoqueen during her semifinal battle to keep it fair for her Pokemon. Less so to her opponent who had to face her strongest Pokemon.

The poor woman's ace, which also happened to be a (low) dark gold stage Pokemon, did not help her at all when it had to face off against Titania. That said Ace happened to be an Ampharos certainly did not help their odds either.

Still, thankfully Mom wanted to give more of her Pokemon a chance to fight, so she only used Titania as her fourth Pokemon and she did not use Rivers. That meant that Lucy still got to give a good enough performance, avoiding a humiliating loss.

Anyway, Mom finally made it to the finals, reaching the same stage Dad had been on 5 years ago, but unlike him, she did not have to face an anomaly. The other finalist was a man called Thomas, who was just a few years shy of the age limit.

So far Thomas had only revealed a single (low) dark gold stage Lickilicky as far as dark gold stage combat power was concerned, and honestly, the rest of his team was made up of rather common Pokemon as well, who were all at the (high) gold stage.

Frankly, Thomas' team seemed like they were part of a motivation ad trying to convey that even a team made up of common Pokemon could become a championship contender as long as one had enough patience, diligence, and a good training plan.

Well, it seemed that Mom felt the same way and agreed with the message since she apparently decided to use all 6 available Pokemon spots for the battle instead of leading with one of her strongest Pokemon.

The first confrontation was between Emerald/Butterfree and Thomas' Pidgeot. Emerald managed to eke out a victory at the end, but she ended up losing against Thomas' second Pokemon. Persian managed to make use of its speed and large move pool to take down Emerald, who had already gone through a hard fight.

Still, I had to admit that the number of long-range moves the Persian used was rather impressive. Power Gem, Swift, Thunderbolt, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball, Water Pulse, and Shock Wave were the ones it used to deal with Emerald. Thomas had done a pretty good job with that one.

Nonetheless, Rose/Roserade ended up taking care of Persian before having to face Thomas' Fearow. Their confrontation was the longest one so far and in the end, Rose dragged Fearow down with her despite her type disadvantage. Her poison, no doubt, played the biggest role in that. With that draw, Thomas was the first to lose half his team.

The two sent out their next Pokemon and a Kingler appeared on his side as his fourth Pokemon, while Fearow appeared on Mom's side as her third one. Neither tried to switch out their Pokemon and instead let their Pokemon duke it out.

The fight took a while since Fearow had the air superiority which made it harder for Kingler to nail Fearow with its attacks. Still, Kingler certainly tried, and the two fought for over 15 minutes before Fearow managed to nail Kingler with a Giga Impact.

It was not surprising that Fearow was tired after the fight against Kingler, so no one was surprised when he lost against Thomas' fifth Pokemon. No, it was Thomas' choice for his fifth Pokemon that took everyone by surprise. No one had expected him to already use his dark gold stage Lickilicky, having believed that he would leave his ace for last.

Well, he surprised us all by using it early and Lickilcky had no problem taking down Mom's already spent Fearow. Still, seeing how Thomas had already taken out his biggest gun, Mom decided to match him, so she called out Titania/Nidoqueen as her fourth Pokemon.

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