CH64 (294), Preliminary Rounds (2)

The next day, which was Dialday, I had my first fight at 10:45 a.m. It was my last Pokemon battle before I qualified for the round of 128 in the Pokemon battle category.

I faced some girl from a ghost academy, and I have to admit that she had been surprisingly chipper. It might sound somewhat cliche, but I had been expecting her to look kinda gloomy when I learned that she was from a ghost academy, and just like her, her Pokemon were pretty lively as well.

Still, that did not stop Manami/Lapras from taking out her Haunter, Misdreavus, and Banette. Bannett had been her strongest one at the (mid) silver stage, while Misdreavus was the weakest one at the (high) bronze stage.

Yet, none of them held out under Manami's cold downpour. She fried them with Thunders, while her freezing rain hurt them and slowed them down slightly as a bonus. It further healed her from any damage she suffered from the ghosts. Truly, even after she had beaten all three of her opponents, she was in a nearly pristine state.

After that battle was over, I moved towards the venue of the final personal fight I had to win to qualify for the round of 128 in the personal combat category. That one was going to be against some guy from a fire academy located in Spark City, I think.

I did not know if the boy had been inspired by the global champion two years ago, but his fighting style resembled his, which meant it kind of looked like fire bending plus some form of martial art.

I used my aura to block the flames I couldn't dodge from harming me and engaged in close combat with him. My aura kept me from being burned, but it still felt really hot, so I preferred dodging.

As someone that fought in close combat against fighting type Pokemon, and experienced aura users, I managed to beat him handily, but I gave him three minutes to show off his prowess. I did not want him to look bad by taking him out too fast since he was pretty strong all things considered.

He was simply unlucky to be paired against me. Otherwise, he, as a Tier 2 Second-Class Fire Elementalist with a pretty good fighting style, might have even made it to the quarterfinals.

I thanked Hiro, that was his name, for the fight and he jokingly told me that I had to win the whole thing now that I had beaten him. I put on a smile and told him that that had been the plan all along before leaving for the hotel. There I checked when my next fights would be.

The round of 128 was going to start at 2 p.m, but it seemed that I would have to wait a bit longer than that. My personal fight was scheduled for 3:15 p.m, and my Pokemon battle was at 4 p.m.

During the round of 128 and 64, each category held their fights across 8 venues simultaneously, so all venues were fully occupied the whole time.

The round of 128 went on until around 4:45 p.m, and the round of 64 began at 5 p.m. After that, the day would be over.

I met up with everyone from our academy and we went to eat together. We talked about our day so far while eating, and out of the seven of us, four had made it to the next round. Jeanine was the one that lost her last battle.

Mr. Cameron praised everyone, even those that had been disqualified, and after that, we separated once more. I made my way back to my room where I stayed until 20 minutes before my personal fight at 3:15 p.m.

I used the twenty minutes to walk to the battle venue, and once the battle began I kept the fight going for a bit more than three minutes so that the girl from the grass academy could show off her prowess. She grew vines from the ground that she tried to use to entangle me before using them as whips, but I blocked or dodged them all.

Once I thought I had given her enough time to show off, I closed the distance between us and did a one-two combo that robbed her breath, before placing an aura spike on her throat to signal the end of the battle. While she had been pretty great with her ability her body could use some work, but I kept quiet since I did not want to sound like a smartass.

After thanking Pamela for the fight, I made my way to the next venue where my Pokemon battle was going to happen in another 45 minutes. I arrived with 25 minutes to spare which I used to check out my opponent on the competition website.

My opponent was a boy called Ray from a water academy, and the Pokemon he had revealed so far were a (high) bronze stage Seaking, a (low) silver stage Golduck, a (low) silver stage Kingler, and finally a (mid) silver stage Azumarill.

After seeing Ray's lineup, I decided to let Enji/Arcanine deal with this battle. Well, I have to be honest, the fight began and by the end of it, I could genuinely say that I had expected Ray to last longer since all of his Pokemon were water types, and with Enji being a fire type, but the whole battle took less than 10 minutes. It was closer to 6 minutes actually.

Like with the previous battles I left most, if not all, of the battle to my Pokemon, but this time around I did not give any instructions at all. Well, that meant Enji did not hold back, and switched between Quick Attack as well as Extreme Speed to move around, and alternated between Wild Charge, Iron Tail, as well as Thunder Fang to beat all of Ray's Pokemon.

Each Pokemon only lasted for roughly two minutes, and that was because Enji did not want to appear as too much of a bully. Ah, who am I kidding, he tried to stretch out the battles a bit since he did not get to fight as often lately due to everything that was happening.

After patting Enji's head and rubbing his side while praising him I recalled him and went up to Ray to thank him for the battle. He did not look all that devastated despite losing against only Enji and even went so far as to praise my Pokemon for its (his) strength.

A quick glance at my watch told me that there were still 50 minutes until the start of the round of 64, so I took a look at the website to check which venue my personal fight was going to be at.

I found out that it was going to be held at the "Rising Star Gym", so I made my way there. By the time I arrived, my opponent was determined as well, and it was some boy from a dark-type academy. From what I learned from Mr. Burns, such academies taught their students how to be stealthy and silent, they were basically assassin characters in fantasy games.

Accordingly, their fighting style, outside of ambushes, was based on speed and agility. Most preferred to use daggers, and they mostly used their dark energy manipulation for cover and other subtle effects. That did not mean that they couldn't create tendrils of darkness or spikes, because they could. They simply preferred the more subtle arts.

Something that applied to them was, that just like with dark-type Pokemon, they could not be directly targeted or affected by psychic abilities. So no telepathy, or telekinesis holds on them. Well, I was only going to use my aura anyway, so that did not affect me for now.

My fight was going to start at 5:30 p.m, so I still had another 40 minutes until then. Having nothing better to do, I thought about ways to take out Hanzo, which was the name of my upcoming foe, as efficiently as possible, while refreshing the competition website to check the information on my Pokemon battle as well.

It was only 20 minutes later that the information got updated, and I learned that I would be fighting at the Dawn Stadium at 6 p.m against a girl from an electric academy. Violet, that was her name, had shown 3 of her Pokemon so far.

A (low) silver stage Magneton, a (low) silver stage Electrode, as well as a (mid) silver stage Ampharos, and seeing her Pokemon, I pondered whom I should choose for the battle against her. After eliminating everyone else, I was left with Hashirama/Venusaur and Mars/Ursaring, but I ultimately decided to go with Mars.

I got a bit startled when I was called over the loudspeakers since I had not noticed that the time for my fight had arrived. I stood up and made my way to the ring where Hanzo and the referee were already waiting for me.

After the standard referee talk, we began to fight, and it became obvious that being forced into a direct fight reduced his effectiveness a bit. Hanzo noticed that as well and directly opened up some distance between us before using his dark energy manipulation to create some black mist, which I had to admit was pretty cool.

Hanzo vanished behind the black mist, and shortly after the whole ring was covered as well. I began using aura to boost my hearing and sight, while also trying to sense his life sign. I could barely hear him shuffling through the mist, which showed that he had learned how to silence his movement as much as possible.

Furthermore, while I could perceive his lifeforce and thus his position, it was somewhat subdued, so much so, that I was sure someone with less proficiency in sensing the life force of others would have had a hard time detecting him while he was moving around, trying to capture the perfect moment for an ambush.

Anyway, two or three minutes later I heard as well as felt him approaching from behind and successfully blocked his ambush attempt before spartan kicking him in the stomach. I felt his surprise while he was rolling backward before he regained control of his emotions and suppressed them once more.

He sprung back to his feet at the same time he regained control, probably deciding that the distance between us was enough. He immediately reentered his stealth mode and resumed stalking me.

I followed him with my senses while he was circling me, this time even more cautiously, waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack. I opted to wait for him to act, and it took nearly five minutes before he once more dared to approach me from behind.

I let him come really close, and when he tried to swipe at the back of my head, I ducked and captured his outstretched arm. I immediately dragged his arm down, while doing a leg sweep that cause him to fall.

The force of me dragging him down caused him to slam on his back, with his head pointing in my direction. It seemed the occurrences broke Hanzo's concentration because the dark mist began to lift.

Regardless, I instantly moved to place him in a headlock, after which I aimed my aura spikes at his throat. Once I did that, the referee declared me the winner and I let go of Hanzo, before standing up.

I stretched my hand out to him to help him up to his feet, and after thanking him for the fight, I left the "Rising Star Gym". There were only 18 minutes left until my Pokemon battle against Violet, so I resorted to boosting my legs with aura while running toward the Dawn Stadium.

I made it to the battle area in just ten minutes and spent the last 8 minutes "resting and recovering" from my short run. Not that I really needed it, but I used the excuse to lie down on the bench there.

I stood up on time and made my way to Violet and the referee, who did the usual spiel. Once the start of the battle was declared I released Mars and took a look at what appeared on the other side.

It seemed Violet decided to start with her Electrode, which immediately began rolling around, building up speed. I left the fight completely to Mars, who began to use Bulldoze and Hyper Beam just to force Electrode to face him head-on. The Hyper Beam served as a lure to attack him.

It worked and they began clashing or rather crashing in Electrode's case, but it was clear that Mars had the upper hand, which roughly two minutes in, forced Electrode to Self-Destruct.

Unfortunately, for it, Mars escaped mostly unharmed from the explosion thanks to a timely used Protect that absorbed most of the damage before breaking.

Her next Pokemon was her Magneton which thanks to being able to levitate did not have to worry about the ground move Mars showed off. Still, he did not need it, since he knew Fire Punch, Brick Break, and Hammer Arm, so he managed to take Magneton out using the style he liked the most, which was the one that involved punching others.

Violet's final and strongest Pokemon Ampharos got ultimately beaten as well, even if Mars looked ready to fall over as well by the end of the fight. Ampharos had proven to be pretty strong and dealt out nearly as good as it got hit.

Yet, Mars proved to be stronger and took it out using a final High Horsepower. Once the referee declared me the winner, and I thanked Violet for the fight, I made my way to the hotel. With this victory, I had officially made it to the round of 32 in both categories, and those would take place tomorrow on Kyoday.

My parents were going to come over as well to watch the last stretch of the competition. They had originally wanted to watch the whole thing on site, but I persuaded them to wait until tomorrow instead.

Anyway, after I arrived at our hotel, I met up with the rest of our group and asked them how it went. It turned out that only Sorrel and Marlene managed to make it to the next round. That meant that the last boy not in our class also lost his fight, which left only the people in our class in the run.

-----------------------------

***A Big Thank You to David PONS for becoming a Patron***

***A Big Thank You to Blood_Prince for becoming a Patron***

Advertising plug-in:

The first goal has been completed, so for the duration of August the lowest number of advanced chapters available is 4, while the highest number of advanced chapters is 8. Those want access to them can find them on my patre*on.

If the second goal gets fulfilled, the lowest number of advanced chapters available will be 6, while the highest number of advanced chapters will be 10.

Help me stay motivated.

patreo*n/Azrail93