Fight Club

"Ahem, who?" 

Hearing Lukas counterquestion, the receptionist released a slightly disappointed sigh. 

"Ah forget it, it must be a coincident then, I'm sure you'll find out about her after spending some time at the FC." 

"Ok, if that was all, I'll take my leave then." 

"Yes of course, have a nice day sir, and don't forget to download the FC app in order to schedule your matches." 

Lukas made his way to one of the empty seats in the lobby while thinking about the last question. 

Of course, he lied when he acted as if he didn't know who Catrina Emerald is. Considering the fame of his youngest aunt among the FC circle, however, he reckons he did the right thing, otherwise he'd probably get swarmed by her fan girls/boys. 

Catrina is a rising star from the Sinnoh region where Lukas was born, of the 7 ranks in the fight club (Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master) she is only a few wins away from getting to challenge one of the Masters. 

Although the FC ranks follow the Pokemon ranks until Master, the way to increasing your rank has nothing to do with the strength of your Pokemon but only the results of your matches. 

It takes either a win streak of 10 or 100 wins in total in order to apply for promotion. 

During promotion, you'll be put into the match pool of the rank you're trying to achieve and get three attempts at winning one of the matches. 

If you do win one of the three matches you'll be promoted, if you lose on the other hand you'll have to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements for promotion once again. 

There is one exception to this rule however, the rank of master, there can only ever be 100 Masters so after you fulfill the req. for promotion to Master rank, you'll only get to challenge one Master for his/her seat. 

Since Masters are basically the 100 strongest trainers active in the FC, Lukas doesn't think highly of his aunts chances at securing one of these spots for herself. 

Opening the FC app, Lukas immediately entered the matchmaking, getting a notification detailing his upcoming match shortly after. 

Looking at the arena number, he makes his way to one of the many underground battlefields. 

Half an hour later Lukas turn finally comes up, yet considering that he has to start from the Iron rank like everyone else, the first match was without any suspense. 

Matches below Silver rank are 1v1 only, his opponent used a (mid)Iron-rank Caterpie which was no problem for Abra. 

Seeing the ease at which his Pokemon dispatched the opponent, Lukas only has a single thought, 'Ah shit, here it goes again'. 

Receiving his prize money, 250 PD because of his Iron rank, Lukas wasted no time immediately entering another matchmaking, determent to reach the threshold for promotion as fast as possible. 

… 

5 hours later... 

After 5 hours of fighting and winning match after match, Lukas, with the fall of the opposing Rattata, finally achieved a win streak of 10 and therefore one of the req. necessary to go for promotion. 

Not wanting to take any chances, Lukas decided to use Riolu in his first promotion match starting off with his strongest card from the beginning. 

His opponent send in a (mid)Bronze rank Geodude which thanks to his limit training plus type advantage shouldn't be too much of a problem for Riolu. 

After the fight started Lukas had Riolu immediately start with Agility, raising Riolus speed. 

He then let him utilize his speed to keep Geodude who apparently didn't know any long range moves, at a distance and attacking with Aura Sphere whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

Despite his valiant struggle, Geodude eventually fainted after the fourth Aura Sphere connected. 

Getting his rank updated to Bronze and his future prize money thereby increased to 1,000 PD/win, Lukas decided to stop here today and continue where he left off tomorrow. 

… 

For 3 weeks, Lukas and his Pokemon spent their time with nothing other than 4 hours of regular training and 8 hours of fights at FC. 

During the 8 hours, Lukas had an average of 16 matches a day, alternating between all three of his Pokemon. 

Despite Charmander and Abra losing most of their matches in the end, Lukas still managed to accumulate a total of 104 wins. 

Of course because he lost more than a hundred matches he had to fight two demotion battles which he fortunately both won. 

Thanks to his wins he also got exactly 104,000 PD in Prize money, also by merit of his Royal starter Charmander and Riolu who is a pretty rare Pokemon he also got his first money from ad revenue, although it isn't much. 

Half of the money he earned was later spent to produce Abras training potion, who managed to increase all her stats to high 2 weeks ago. 

Charmander also made some progress, reaching peak rank for his E.Strength stat. 

Riolu on the other hand managed to increase Strength and Agility from (low) to (mid) which is good considering he doesn't have a special training potion for the Bronze rank yet. 

"Hello, mom? Yes, it's me, I'm just calling to tell you that the package arrived here in Honey City." 

"Yes, I'll pay it back, don't worry." 

"No, I insist." 

"Alright I know you're usually busy, so I won't take up more of your time, love you, bye." 

Finishing his call with his mom, Lukas, currently in his rented room in the Poke center, turns his attention to the package on his lap. 

Opening the package up reveals three tightly wrapped objects. 

After unwrapping the first one a small scale present itself, this is no ordinary scale of course but rather a dragon scale belonging to a Silver-rank Turtonator. 

Object number two turns out to be a pinkish gem cut in the form of a traditional diamond. 

Inspecting the Silver-rank psychic gem in his hand for a moment, Lukas turns to the last object. 

It is a bundle consisting of four Bronze-rank special training weights, optimal for a Pokemons physical training, though also very expensive. 

Even though Lukas didn't want to rely too much on the financial backing of his family when he first started off, he saw no choice but to do it anyway. 

Since Charmander and Abras advancement to Bronze-rank are only a few weeks away, Lukas wanted to make preparations similar to Riolu for them but thinking about the cost of the Silver rank items he had to buy to do that he gave up. 

He could have of course spend a few months battling at the FC to earn enough money and then head back to Viridian City to use his special voucher allowing him to buy Silver items, but that would have been a massive waste of time in his humble opinion. 

Especially considering that while, leaving out the training weights, the psychic gem is a rather common item here in Kanto, the same can't be said for the dragon scale from a Turtonator. 

While he could have bought another Pokemons dragon scale, the typing of Turtonator (fire, dragon) makes its scale a prime item for the plans Lukas has about Charmander in the future. 

Knowing the total cost of the items and having made up his mind to pay everything back eventually leaves Lukas about 660,000 PD in debt. 

"Listen up, one month. In one month, I want both of you to reach the stage where you can finish your limit training with the help of the R.C potion." 

"Abra!" "Char!" 

"After both of you reach Bronze-rank, well spend another month or two training and at the FC until we feel ready to Challenge our first gym, understood?" 

An affirmative cry coming from all three of his Pokemon was the answer Lukas received for his question. 

"Then let's get to it."