CH65 (195), The Champion Is?!? (2)

"And there they are. Both our finalists have entered the field. On the right side of the field, we have Edward Geo from Hope Town, who made it all the way to the finals on his first time at the Senior League Tournament. He's only going to turn 30 this year, so Kanto officially has another genius, that I'm sure will go far in the future.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that he has the same surname as our quarterfinals, Arya Geo, that's because they are married. The two are what one would call a power couple.

On the left side, we have Richard Savant from Pallet City. He has reached the finals despite this being his first Senior League Tournament as well. Not only that, but he has managed to reach the finals while only revealing three of his Pokemon, so I'm sure everyone is curious to see who else he has on his team.

Moreover, Richard is only going to turn 20 this year, so he can be considered a bonafide super-genius. With him hailing from Pallet City I'm sure the great professor Oak has been keeping an eye on him.

I have to admit, we truly had a tournament where the newcomers showed their brilliance, and with how young both finalists are they can definitely participate in three more senior tournaments.

So, we might see the start of a string of tournament finals between the two if no one else emerges to challenge them." The commentator announced, and he did a great job at hyping up the atmosphere.

The air was vibrating due to the excitement of the spectators. They made a slight ruckus when dad's fresh age of 29 was revealed to those that did not bother looking up the available info on the finalists, which was the majority.

Understandably, they made an even greater ruckus upon hearing Richard's age, and I was really shocked when I learned that as well. The guy was still 19 years old and his Pokemon were already this strong. Honestly, in my opinion, this Richard was straight-up MC material.

He had even had the eye color for it. Richard had red eyes which was a pretty rare eye color, but his hair was black, which was rather common. Still, he had worn a red cap for the whole tournament, so that could be considered a gimmick that made up for the common hair color.

Height-wise he was around 179 cm, so tall but not too tall, rather average even. He had a lean build, probably forged by plenty of outdoor activity. His healthy (medium) tan supported that outdoor theory. Though honestly, nearly all trainers had some form of tan outside of winter as long as they were active.

On another note, I was not sure how many people noticed, but I was pretty sure the host straight up used good old Professor Oak's name to threaten/warn anyone with ambiguous motives and ideas. Ok, it might not have been straight up, but I was sure that was the idea behind his mention of Prof. Oak.

As for the "three more participations" part, that had to do with the rules and regulations set by the alliance regarding the senior league tournament participation. First was the age limit, which was set to 60 years, which might seem pretty high, until one considered the prolonged lifespan of trainers.

This was mostly to prevent the participation of someone that went into a super-long retreat like some xianxia character and decided to wreck some youngsters after coming out of secluded training.

The second rule, he hinted at was the participation limit, which was set to four. No matter how young one was or how early one got disqualified, everyone could only participate in four senior league tournaments at most.

So, the highest number of senior league championships anyone could get if he or she bothered repeatedly attending was four. Anyway, under all the hubbub dad and Richard reached their positions and the referee began his part.

"The battle is going to be a full-on 6-vs-6 battle with 3 permitted substitutions. The battle starts as soon as I give the signal and in the case of a switch or knockout, the fight only resumes after I give the signal. Usage of items during the battle is forbidden.

If I deem a Pokemon unfit for battle I shall declare it as such and you'll have to recall it. In case you have a complaint regarding my decisions, you can bring that up and the ruling shall be checked by a panel of judges." The referee kept going for a bit more before he raised his flag in preparation.

As soon as he lowered the flag dad and Richard released their first Pokemon. Snorlax appeared on Richard's side, while Skye/Pidgeot appeared on dad's side.

While both Pokemon were similar in strength, Snorlax as a species were beasts, so that could get pretty bad for dad pretty fast if they were not cautious, but if they went at it the right way they could take down Snorlax.

Skye immediately increased her altitude and began using Heat Wave to attack Snorlax. Meanwhile, Snorlax was increasing its defense, both physical and energy, through Stockpile, Defense Curl, and Amnesia.

While Snorlax seemed to ignore Skye, she began alternating between Heat Wave and Air Slash to attack it. She even threw in the occasional Agility and Tailwind to make sure she was fast enough to dodge any attack from Snorlax.

By the time it seemed like Snorlax was done boosting its defense, Skye had managed to cause some damage to it. However, that proved to be for naught when Snorlax used Swallow to return to perfect health.

I had to admit it was a brilliant idea and explained why Snorlax could afford to ignore Skye's attacks to boost its stats. It first used Stockpile to quickly raise both of its defense aspects to the max before switching to Defense Curl and Amnesia to make sure the boosts remained.

Afterward, it swallowed its stockpile to heal from the damage it received while boosting. The only reason it could afford to use this as an opening move/sequence was that it was a freaking Snorlax. There were probably only one or two species that could try to do the same.

What was admirable was that Skye did not get discouraged by Snorlax's full recovery. She simply added Hurricane to the moves she used and dodged any Ice Beam and Rock Slide thrown at her by Snorlax, who had switched to offense. Her increased speed was helpful in that regard.

That exchange dragged on for a while before Skye released a cry of happiness. I saw that Snorlax finally got burned by Heat Wave, and the constant damage would help beat Snorlax, especially since the damage caused by her individual attacks was small due to Snorlax's stat boosts and high energy density/defense.

Nearly 10 minutes in, Skye had managed to cause a considerable amount of damage to Snorlax, so it tried to Rest, but Skye created an Uproar to prevent that.

Despite Skye's success so far, she was starting to get tired due to the moves she kept using and the maneuvers needed to dodge Snorlax's attacks.

Even though she had yet to receive any damage, she could not afford to drag out the battle any longer. So, letting Snorlax heal itself was something she could not allow.

Hence, once Skye noticed that Snorlax was starting another round of Stockpiles, she moved in a bit closer to deliver a strong Hurricane to interrupt it.

Yet, it seemed like Stockpile was only used as bait, since as soon as Skye was close enough, Snorlax swiftly released a Hyper Beam so big that I was wondering if Snorlax managed to add/infuse the one Stockpile it managed to use into the Hyper Beam.

That was a pretty scary thought, but also a great idea that I made sure to note somewhere in my mind. Thankfully, Skye managed to react fast enough to swerve to the right, barely dodging the Hyper Beam. I did not doubt that Skye would have been knocked out if she had been hit by that Hyper Beam.

Yet, she did dodge, and now she was capitalizing on Snorlax's temporary inability to move after Hyper Beam to counterattack. She rose straight up before diving back down at Snorlax.

One of the screens shows a zoomed-in picture of her, and it was possible to see that her wings had taken a metallic hue. On top of that, she was "falling" in a corkscrew motion while shining in the telltale light of Giga Impact.

It took only a few moments in reality for her to arrive on top of Snorlax and at the final moment, she focused all the energy of her dive/fall and Giga Impact on her Steel Wing, colliding with Snorlax's head.

The collision created a big dust cloud and once the dust settled we could see a knocked-out Snorlax with a hurt Pidgeot sitting on its prone body. The crowd was going wild, cheering for the great spectacle they just witnessed.

The referee declared Snorlax unable to battle, and Pidgeot moved away while Richard recalled his beaten Pokemon. He swiftly called out his next Pokemon, which was one he had not revealed before this. It was a Pikachu, and as soon as it appeared on the field, I got a nagging feeling that I could not identify.

It looked like dad had no intention of switching out Skye, which I thought was not a good idea. Still, Skye stayed on the field, and as soon as the referee gave the signal to resume the battle, Pikachu lost no time to perform a Rain Dance, which was quickly followed by an enormous Thunder.

The two moves were performed so swiftly and smoothly that poor Skye had no time to react, giving her no chance to dodge. That performance speed was definitely abnormal, as was the strength of that Thunder.

I was pretty sure another electricity boosting move was involved on top of the rain boost because even with Pikachu being at the (high) gold stage the move was too strong.

It probably was Charge, which was something Pikachu could only get as an egg move. Not only that, but Pikachu looked only slightly winded by the moves it used. While I was thinking about the abnormal Pikachu it made "click", and I understood where that nagging feeling had come from.

The Snorlax, Lapras, Charizard, and now Pikachu, combined with the black hair as well as red eye color, on top of his red cap and Pallet City as his hometown. Richard Savant was motherf***ing Red or at least a version of him.

My dad was fighting against one of the MCs of the Pokeverse, and it was one that could be considered one of, if not, the most monstrous genius(es) of the franchise. That would explain how a 19-year-old managed to reach the strength he and his Pokemon had achieved.

I mean the host has actually kept the feat a bit on the down-low, but it was unbelievable for a 19-year-old to reach such a height.

I did not like it, but if I was right and Richard was really Red, then as much as I was reluctant to admit it, dad was most likely going to lose. If he was Red, then his last two Pokemon were either Venusaur and Blastoise or one of them plus some other super-strong species.

Still, there was a part of me that was extremely excited at the thought of him being Red, because that would mean I would definitely have someone in my generation that could keep up with me somehow. Someone that could be a decent rival. He could stimulate me and keep me from slacking off.

While I was going through a minor crisis, dad and everyone else finally reacted. The crowd went into an uproar while dad recalled Skye before blankly looking at her Pokeball for a moment. Still, he recovered pretty quickly and let out Titan/Nidoking.

Before the referee could give his signal Richard recalled his Pikachu and released his Lapras, using his first swapping privilege. Dad, knowing for certain that Richard had at least a (low) dark gold Charizard in waiting, chose not to waste Titan's strength on Lapras and used his first substitution right as well.

He called out Cell/Magnezone, and it seemed like Richard did not plan to swap out his Lapras in return. As soon as the referee gave the starting signal, Cell discharged a Thunder to make use of the Rain Dance started by Pikachu. Meanwhile, Lapras tried to use Hail to prevent exactly that situation.

Unfortunately, for Lapras Cell's move was released before the rain changed to hail and Lapras received the full brunt of the Thunder which made Lapras release a cry of pain.

Nonetheless, it reacted quickly and released a Blizzard that together with the Hail obscured Magnezone's vision. Lapras used that moment to dive into the water and hide, presumably to heal.

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