634 CH15 (629), Final Stretch (1)

They chose to stay away and Lucario began to send Vacuum Waves and Aura Spheres at Gaara/Gabite. "SC, block them," I gave Gaara a free pass to use his Sand Control to block the moves however he wanted. The distance between them allowed him to do so easily.

He blocked the Vacuum Waves by raising Sand Walls in front of them, completely stopping them from advancing any further, while he shot out Sand Bullets from the sand pits to destroy the Aura Spheres mid-flight well before they could even reach the halfway point between them. Gaara did not often have the chance to flex his Sand Control in a real fight, so I let him have his fun while observing closely to see if there were any outstanding mistakes or points that could be improved.

I had to admit that Lucario was tenacious if nothing else since it actually kept up that long-range bombardment for close to three minutes even though Gaara was seemingly easily stopping its attacks. I did not mind since aside from giving Gaara a chance to test his Sand Control, this had to be quite a burden on its energy reserves. Gaara on the other hand did not have nearly as high a consumption because he was making use of the sand created by Sandstorm and the Sand Tombs.

Nonetheless, Lucario's patience did pay off and the Sand Tombs settled turning to regular sand. "Quick get closer, then MM," Rahul ordered immediately which had his Lucario stop releasing attacks and instead blur forward. "Tie it up," I countered, and Gaara took control of the sand left behind by the Sand Tomb that was between them. A considerable number of tendrils/ropes of sand rose in front of the approaching Lucario, and while it managed to dodge and blast through quite a few of them, one eventually managed to ensnare its foot causing it to stumble, which led to more ropes entangling it.

"Screech at the ropes to break free" Rahul yelled, which Lucario promptly followed. It aimed its mouth at the ropes on its body and released a loud Screech. The vibrations of the Screech caused the sand to loosen, which allowed Lucario to break free after flexing its body.

As soon as I heard Screech, I had an idea of what Rahul was planning, so I immediately gave a command of my own. "Switch to Burial," I shouted and sand rose around Lucario who was Screeching at itself. When Lucario managed to break free, the sand had already encircled him, and before Lucario could enjoy its freedom, the sand swiftly enclosed it.

Still, Lucario being a steel type undoubtedly had an easier time than others would have. The best proof of that was when Rahul yelled "BREAK OUT!" and deformations began to appear on the Sand Ball. "Crush, stop it from moving," I ordered, making use of Lucario's better resistance to order something I would have otherwise not dared to use in a competition.

Gaara compressed the sand, and the depressions stopped, at least for now. I could still see some slight movement that indicated that Lucario was not out of commission even if it had trouble moving. "Vacuum Wave, I know you can get out," Rahul spurred on his captured Pokemon, and the floating Sand Ball started to vibrate afterward, showing that Lucario had heard him.

We had to act before Lucario could break out, and I quickly determined our next move. I was still uncomfortable with the idea of glassing someone in this situation due to the danger/risk it posed for the target, so instead I went for plan E.

"Close in and use Quake," I instructed and Gaara took off towards his Sand Ball, while simultaneously controlling it to float toward him, shortening the time it took him to reach it. "Iron Defense as much as you can," Rahul hurriedly shouted as Gaara jumped up and landed on the floating Sand Ball.

It was a smart decision on his part since the next thing Gaara did was raise his leg and stomp down, using Earthquake on the ball, though it was questionable if a mere Iron Defense or two was enough to withstand a point-blank Earthquake in a situation that mirrored one being hit while using Dig, namely with one's whole body.

The might of the Earthquake was such that the sandball broke apart, letting Lucario fall down. Gaara jumped down when the Sand Ball fell apart and he watched as Lucario crashed onto the ground. Lucario demonstrated its tenaciousness when it actually began to struggle onto its feet. Unfortunately for it, Gaara did not plan to let it do so and he used Flamethrower without me having to say anything.

Lucario got bathed in flames and cried out in pain before going limp, which had Gaara directly cut off his attack. Rahul recalled his beaten Pokemon before the referee could declare it unable to battle. The referee did so either way, and while I did not know if Rahul had a third Pokemon that he was going to use, I recalled Gaara as well just in case since I wanted to give Jean/Espeon a chance to fight if he ended up doing it.

I saw Rahul put away Lucario's ball before taking out another PokeBall after hesitating for a moment. I naturally followed suit and held Jean's MindBall firmly in my hand. When the referee asked if we were ready, I nodded, but Rahul didn't. He seemed hesitant, at least that was what I was feeling, his face showed none of his hesitation or the brief struggle he seemed to undergo before he eventually shook his head.

He put the PokeBall he had taken out away before raising his hand. "I admit defeat," he declared which the referee accepted. Following Rahul's surrender, I was declared the victor, making me the champion of the tournament. I was pretty sure Jean would need to be pampered for a bit to overcome the disappointment of not being able to fight in the finals after I told her that she could expect to fight. I didn't mind doing that so everything was fine, but that would have to wait until I was done here.

Rahul and I were requested to not leave and wait while they asked the others who managed to reach the Top 16 to head to the field for the award ceremony. While they were doing that, I approached Rahul. "That was a good fight," I opened up before moving on to the important bit. "I thought you would send out a third Pokemon when you brought out the new PokeBall. Can I ask what made you change your mind?"

"I don't know if you've looked me up," he paused a bit, "I certainly did look you up," he threw in before he continued, "but I'm actually a Gym Trainer from Sinnoh, and similar to you, my main team is too strong to participate in this tournament. However, unlike you, I don't have enough Pokemon in reserve. I'm currently training up some Pokemon to add to my main team and Lucario as well as Scizor are the strongest among them.

The other two, including the Skarmory I briefly considered sending out, are not strong enough yet to face your Pokemon. Both have only recently broken through to the silver stage and have yet to fully acclimate to their new strength. Besides, even if Skarmory had somehow won against your third Pokemon, he would have had to face your Charizard and Gabite, so there was no way for us to win. I didn't want Skarmory's first official battle after his breakthrough to be a clear-cut loss," he finished his explanation and I had to acquiesce that his reasoning made sense.

"I can understand why you wouldn't send out your Skarmory," I said with a nod. "I wish you luck with it and the other three," I added which earned me a "thank you". "So, I'm going to start my journey in Hoenn. Any specific reason you're heading there?" I probed and he chuckled before giving me a look that said, "Real subtle there".

"Nothing big really," he answered with a shrug. "As I said, I'm expanding my team and I want to catch a Mawile and Nosepass there since I heard they are not as rare as they are back home in Sinnoh. It's the same reason I stopped at Kanto and Johto first for my Scizor, then Scyther, Skarmory, and Forretress. Still, once I manage to capture those two, I might challenge some Gyms as well to train and test my Pokemon," Rahul elaborated and I heard murmurs of agreement from the other contestants who had gathered on the field.

I ignored the others, who obviously had not learned that eavesdropping was not polite before smiling at Rahul. "In that case, I wish you good luck with Mawile and Nosepass. If you do challenge a Gym or two, we might run across each other, so we can have a rematch at the time if you want," I offered and he returned a "Sure" with a smile.

That was when a staff member called for everyone's attention. They began the awarding ceremony and handed out little gifts to those who ranked 16th to 5th. Once that was done, they handed a 5k PokeMart gift card and a 15% discount coupon to the 4th place. 3rd place got 15k and a 20% discount card, while while 2nd place got 30k and a 30% discount card.

Those prizes were pretty great considering that this was a tournament held on a cruise for entertainment's sake. Still, their worth was nowhere near that of the final prize, and finally, after having to watch them hand over all the prizes, it was my turn to receive the grand prize. I thanked them when they handed me the Munchlax egg and directly took it out of the incubator to observe it.

I first did a proper check-up and from what I could see the egg was in good condition. While I was touching and eyeing the egg, the emcee told me that the egg was supposed to hatch within a month or two, which was not ideal since it gave me less time to help raise its potential while it had yet to hatch, but it was still better than nothing. Besides I could understand why they chose to offer an egg that was close to hatching. It was simply to make it easier for the winner since not everyone liked or wanted to care for an egg for half a year or more.

I thanked the man for the information before finally "observing" the egg, after having confirmed the normal way that the egg was in good condition.

'Species: Munchlax

Gender: Male

Type: Normal

Potential: Deep Green

Stage: None, PokeEgg

(Genetic) Modifiers: None

Abilities: Pickup, Thick Fat

Talents: None

Affinities: Normal'

It seemed that I had gotten quite lucky with the egg since the Munchlax ended up having deep green potential. Since the only thing I/they had known was that the egg was supposed to have 4-star potential, there had been a real possibility that the Munchlax could have had light green or green potential.

However, my luck had come through and I had gotten a Munchlax with the best possible potential a 4-star Pokemon could have. Now it was up to me to see if I could help the Munchlax inside the egg to grow to 5 stars, or rather light blue before it hatched, and if not that, then as close to light blue as possible.

Once it hatched and went through Utopia's optimization, Munchlax would then be able to enjoy a blue start, or at least I was hoping he would. The only way I could think of that would/could not happened was if he currently had a percentage at or below 20 or so percent. I did not know if I could push that kind of percentage above 40 within just a month or two. Nonetheless, that was a worst-case scenario and I was sure that it would not come to that.

Anyway, after confirming the egg's situation/potential, I placed it back inside the incubator before excusing myself to hurry back to my cabin. I politely waved off everyone who tried to strike up a conversation with me on the way there, and as soon as I made it to my cabin, I locked the door behind me and entered Utopia with the incubator in my arms.

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