652 CH33 (647), Contests (2)

After roughly 20 minutes I was asked to head to hall no 4 before. Once there I was led backstage, where I proceeded to wait with the other 19 participants of the Visual Beauty Appeal Contest for my turn. I had already used my clone to communicate my expectations to Tiamat/Milotic and when I got called up, I had clone-me recall Tiamat to her ball before taking the ball out of Utopia.

After greeting the judges, I was given the go-ahead signal and released Tiamat. Just like planned she immediately used Aqua Ring, but instead of forming complete Aqua Rings, she only condensed the move enough to create water vapor around her body, which caused her skin/body to glisten. That combined with her shiny coloration created a picturesque scene, which became even more fabulous due to the gentle and slightly disarming trill she released.

Her debut appearance was purposefully "basic" like this since I fully believed that this was enough for her introduction to the judges. The visual appeal contest did focus on presenting a visually appealing picture focusing on the Pokemon itself after all, and everything Tiamat had done emphasized her natural beauty, without drawing away attention from herself.

From the reaction of the judges, I knew that we had succeeded. Unlike the other 2 categories, the visual category only gave each contestant up to a minute for their appeal, though Tiamat's entrance was all she needed to have the audience entranced, which was enough to carry the whole appeal. After the judges praised Tiamat extensively on her beautiful appearance, going so far as to call her one of the most exemplary Milotic they had ever seen, I left the stage assured that we got this in the bag. Not that I had any doubts on the matter before.

Anyway, the contest itself was a three-rounder, so we still had to go out two more times. Nonetheless, we still had to wait for the first round to finish. Once everyone had their chance, the points were displayed on the big screen, and half of the contestants got disqualified. Consequently, the second round went by faster than the first. Our turn ended up being the last one, so roughly 15 minutes into the second round, Tiamat made her second appearance.

This time she used an underpowered star shield, and let the stars collide and go out as sparkles behind her back while she sang a short but captivating section of a song I often time performed for them. Even when Tiamat was done with her part, the audience and judges were still mesmerized by her captivating mini-performance. They only broke out of it when I cleared my throat after waiting for close to 20 seconds. When they began to clap, Tiamat bobbed her head in acknowledgment and we left the stage after the judges lauded Tiamat's appeal.

Tiamat was once again ranked first, and this time around only four Pokemon advanced to the next round. Similar to the second round, our turn ended up being the last one during the final round as well, which I felt was a good move on the organizer's part since this way the others at least got to do their thing before being overshadowed by Tiamat.

Anyway, once Tiamat appeared on the stage she did a pretty simple combo, though I had her keep it low-powered. She first used Charm and Captivate before finishing with a minimal Attract that she used along with Safeguard which caused her to shimmer. Similar to the effect of the water vapor in round one, it looked pretty great, especially with her coloring.

It came as no surprise when Tiamat ended up being crowned the winner of the Visual Beauty Contest by a wide margin, and they handed her a blue one-star Ribbon to commemorate her achievement. Tiamat was quite happy and preened when they offered her the ribbon. I congratulated Tiamat on her new ribbon before recalling her. All in all the whole contest only took an hour, which was pretty short all things considered, but I was not complaining since I thought that it was great.

Regardless, the next contest I had signed up for was scheduled to start in just 10 minutes, so I made my way to Hall 6 for the Visual Cuteness Appeal Contest. Since the contest belonged to the same category as the previous one, just with a different theme, the appeals here were also only up to a minute long. Like all amateur appeal contests, there were twenty of us waiting for the first round to start, and as soon as it was my/our turn, I had clone-me recall Jean/Espeon to her ball.

Ball in hand I went up to the stage and released Jean upon receiving the go-ahead signal. Jean went with our usual opening move since it fit the cuteness theme. She first used Charm before chaining Baby Doll Eyes, while tilting her head and releasing a soft cry. There were some awws coming from the crowd.

Jean then sat down and whirled up some dust which had her release a cute sneeze, which she followed up by using her front paws to cover up her nose for a moment. She closed up her show of acting cute by going back to her relaxed sitting position before tilting her head and releasing a super low-powered Disarming Voice/Cry for the sole purpose of sounding cute.

I felt she deserved an Oscar for her performance, and for those who felt her actions were degrading for a psychic type, I just had to say they had no idea what they were talking about. There was nothing silly about weaponized cuteness. Not to mention that Jean liked acting cute with me all the time. Either way, her appeal earned her the highest amount of points in the first round.

When we were called out for the second round, we went with an entirely different routine. Jean played cute, quite literally. She used a low-powered Star Shield to conjure some pink stars, and she then began to "chase" after them while they circled her. The "chase" looked quite cute, and when she "finally" managed to catch/bite into one of the pink stars, it, along with the other stars burst apart into pink sparks, making her shake her head and tilt her head in wonder where all the other stars had gone to.

Obviously, there was quite a lot of awws this time around as well, and the judges were once more taken in by Jean's cuteness, so it came as no surprise that Jean once more ended up with the most points. I guess I should get used to it, but we once again ended up being the last to go on stage during the final round. This time around Jean created a pink ball through an underpowered psionated Shadow Ball that she then levitated around and played with as if it was a play ball.

She did that for roughly a third of her appeal time before her tail hit the pink energy ball and it burst apart in sparkles. It then appeared as if her tail got her attention since she began to "try" to catch her tail for some time, and roughly 10 seconds before her minute was up, she managed to bite onto her tail, which caused her to release her tail with a cute yelp. Jean then looked at the judges and the crowd. Her eyes glistened with fake tears as Jean released a pitiful whine, that had everyone aww, and I knew with absolute certainty that we had this in the bag.

As I had expected, Jean ended up being crowned the winner of the Appeal Contest and she was handed a pink one-star ribbon to commemorate her achievement. While Jean lapped up the attention, I could feel that my praise of her performance pleased her the most, and I gave her a final pat on the head before I recalled her.

I then returned to the lobby to look up where the next contest I signed up for would be held. Finding the information on the Cool Move Appeal Contest in which Fortuna/Togekiss would be participating, I learned that there were only 13 minutes or so left before the show began, so I made my way to Hall 3. The move appeal took place in one of the larger halls since many move demonstrations/performances tended to need more space.

I took in the partly nervous partly excited ambiance while I was waiting for the contest to start, and while I was doing that, my clone went over our contest plans with Fortuna. Both excitement and nervousness rose among the participants when the contest finally began, though I was still as cool as a cucumber since I was sure that no one could outshine Fortuna as far as moves were concerned. Well, maybe except for Mothra/Butterfree and Tatsumaki/Alakazam, but those were our people, so we had this thing in the bag. Everyone else just did not know it yet.

Anyway, about halfway through the first round it was our turn, so I had clone-me recall Fortuna before taking her ball out of Utopia. I called her out upon receiving the signal, and Fortuna cheerily waved at everyone in greeting first before she began to flap her wings to release an Air Cutter. She then chained Fairy Wind on top and created a pink tornado, much to the audience's excitement. Fortuna then blasted apart the pink with Moonblast and then basked in the audience's excited cheers.

At the end of the turn we saw that Fortuna did not get a perfect score for her performance, but it was still the highest given score, so she came in first during the first round. As usual, only 10 made it to the second round, and Fortuna ended up being the 8th to go on stage. This time around we were going to make use of her trump card, so Fortuna went ahead and used Metronome after waving at/greeting the judges as well as the audience.

She performed 4 Metronomes one after the other, and with each consecutive Metronome, the audience's excitement as well as shock grew. The first Metronome resulted in a Solar Beam, the one that followed was a Hydro Pump, while the third Metronome resulted in a Fire Blast. People were excited to see Togekiss drawing the iconic "super" moves of the elemental trio, and her finishing with another "super" move, namely Focus Blast, had them all cheering in excitement.

Fortuna probably could have squeezed in another Metronome or two into her minute if she had to, but I felt that these 5 moves were enough, so she stopped after Focus Blast. I was quite satisfied with the way that went since Fortuna had actually managed to draw the exact moves I had asked her to aim for, which was a bit lucky even for her since there tended to be a bit of variation when so many Metronomes were involved.

It came as no surprise when Fortuna once more got first place for this round, and this time around the judges actually awarded her the highest possible amount of points. During the final round, Fortuna went last, and I had her go with Metronome this time as well. She used only three Metronomes, but oh did those Metronomes kick up a storm. The impressive moves they resulted in knocked everyone off their feet. Fortuna's first Metronome had her release an Eruption, which had some of the audience scream in either panic and/or excitement.

After a breather, she used a second Metronome, and this time she released a Water Spout, which once more caused some screams, but they were out of excitement and awe since they were less afraid of this one. The water she released caused me, the judges, and the audience to get a bit wet since the shields did not bother blocking harmless stuff but no one minded that. Her final Metronome, released a Leaf Storm, perfectly tying up Fortuna's demonstration of a "finisher-level" elemental move trio.

Fortuna stopped after that and once more excitedly waved at the crowd, which earned her a standing ovation. Shortly after the crowd had calmed down, they revealed the winner, which naturally ended up being Fortuna. I would have cried foul if anyone else had won since no other performance was even close to as impressive as hers. Anyway, they handed her an orange one-star ribbon to commemorate her achievement and I praised her for her brilliant performance before I recalled her.

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