653 CH34 (648), Contests (3)

I got ambushed as soon as I made my way out of the contest hall. It appeared that the appeals of Tiamat/Milotic as well as Jean/Espeon had attracted them, and now Fortuna/Togekiss' appeal just stoked their excitement even more. There were actually more than three reporter duos, aka news crews, as well as 5 regular reporters that surrounded me as soon as I stepped out of the hall.

They directly began to bombard me with questions, but I managed to at least temporarily fob them off using a very valid excuse. I told them that I had to hurry to the next competition which would begin in less than 8 minutes. The good news was that it worked, and the reporters proved themselves to be understanding enough to let me leave without any problem. The bad news was that the news only excited them even more and they followed after me as I made my way to Hall 7 for the technique-themed Dance Appeal Contest.

Ignoring the reporters, I stepped to the competitor/waiting room of Hall 7, where they could not follow me. Another two participants entered the room after I did and they excitedly mentioned that a lot of reporters were out there in the audience. That caused some excitement as well as nervousness among my competitors, and I had to suppress an amused laugh at the situation. I then ignored their excited chatter and calmly waited for the competition to start.

Meanwhile, copy-me and Melinda/Mienshao went over the choreographies she would be performing. Her usual training drills, especially the flexibility ones already felt quite artistry due to her talent, so it was not hard for her to make the switch to a proper dance choreography. We referenced the Kimono Sister's dance for the first choreography since the fur extending over her hands just gave a matching feeling.

Since the "inspiration" for her dance came from professionals, the choreography was as technically sound as it could get. Well, if you could call copying a few seconds from many of their dance choreographies and combining them into a minute-and-a-half-long well-flowing choreography simply getting inspired. Yeah, apparently Dance Appeals were half a minute longer than Visual and Move Appeals.

Anyway, I had no idea if that really counted as pure copying since it was just a few seconds per choreography or if we could call it taking them as our source of inspiration, but either way, no one could find fault with the professionality of Melinda's dance, especially since she was able to pull it off perfectly during our three practice tries before she/we got called up. I had copy-me recall her and went onto the stage with her ball in hand.

I let her out upon receiving the signal, and she gave a refined half bow in greeting, which the Kimono Sisters also did in the videos we watched, so I guess she copied that off of them. Either way, after her half-bow, Melinda began her dance performance, and she managed to pull it off perfectly. It looked harmonious as well as elegant, and she performed another half-bow at the end of her dance, which was followed by a lot of excited cheers as well as claps from the audience.

The jury lauded her performance as well and one of them even mentioned that Melinda's performance reminded him a bit of the Kimono Sisters, which he meant as a compliment. Still, I was thankful that the second choreography I had prepared was not as heavily inspired by the Kimono Sisters. Instead, it was a mix of the usual Tai-chi-esque training I had her usually perform along with some pieces of the Kimono Sisters' choreographies. I had chosen 4 5-second parts that went/flowed well with her training moves to maintain a certain level of professionalism.

Now back to the situation at hand, it was not surprising that Melinda's performance earned her the first spot in the first round, so we simply acknowledged that and focused back on performing a few practice rounds inside Utopia to ensure that Melinda could smoothly pull it off on stage. By the time we got called back to the front, she had gone through the second choreography 7 times, and the last 2 of them had gone perfectly.

Anyway, Melinda had her second appearance and once again started things off with a polite half-bow. She did her dance and finished it with another half-bow, earning her a round of applause from the audience and judges. The judges actually praised this choreography more than the first one since according to them it resonated more with Melinda, and once the two participants after Melinda had their turn, the results were displayed with Melinda once again topping the list.

The final round began after that, and once again Melinda ended up being the last one to go up. Her final dance choreography was a completely original one if you could call it that since it was based on two of her moves. Yes, for her final dance, we had taken Rain Dance as well as Surging Strikes and had turned it into one smoothly flowing dance performance. She naturally did not use any energy during her dance, so no rain or water attacks were triggered, but the dance looked natural and pleasing to look at with a certain vigor that captivated everyone present.

The audience definitely loved it and the judges did as well considering they declared her the winner before handing her a green one-star ribbon to commemorate her win. As soon as that was over I hurried out of the hall in hopes of leaving for the next contest before the reporters could ambush me again. I mean they had to have stayed to take photos and/or videos of the ribbon awarding right?

Well, wrong, or at least partly. The reporter duos and one or two of the regular reporters were missing yes, but the rest of them as it turned out were waiting for me at the contest hall's entrance. I naturally did not release a disappointed groan when I saw them. Instead, I once again told them that I had no time for an interview since I had to hurry back to Hall 3 for my next contest, which was the Move Appeal Contest.

I once more had a bunch of them follow after me when I made my way to the contest hall, but I saw one of them move back inside Hall 7, presumably to inform the others about this development. While I made my way to Hall 3 I began to ponder how I could lose these reporters by the time I finished taking part in the last contest I signed up for since I was not really in the mood for an interview. My notice me not field would not be enough for this since their focus was on me nearly the whole time and I could hardly vanish inside Utopia while I was at the Lilycove Contest Hall.

The excuse of teleporting away would not work since teleporting was not only forbidden but also blocked inside the building unless it happened within the bounds of the contest battlefield. As things stood, I still had two more contests ahead of me, so more than enough time to come up with something. Ignoring that for now, I made it to Hall 3 and proceeded to wait for the toughness-themed move appeal to start and for us to get called upon while my clone went over his upcoming performances with Tyson/Machamp.

When we finally got called out, I released Tyson onto the field, and he gave a nod in the judges/audience's direction before stomping his right foot, which caused an Earthquake. He did a second stomp, which resulted in a pretty big stone spike coming out of the ground. He then broke the spike at the base with a Low Sweep, before grabbing onto it and jumping up to execute a Seismic Toss that absolutely obliterated the stone spike.

Afterward, he stomped his foot once more, and this time three large rock spikes grew out, which he then proceeded to destroy one after the other. The first received a frontal Mega Kick which obliterated the rock and sent gravel everywhere. The second one got destroyed by a Mega Punch, which once again sent little rock pieces flying everywhere, while the final rock got broken in half by a Headbutt. The upper part of the rock that came in contact with Tyson's head was reduced into little pieces, while the lower part got split into larger pieces.

After delivering that devastating Headbutt, Tyson simply looked up and gave everyone a big smile along with four thumbs up, signaling that he was done. He received a lot of applause and a few wolf whistles for his performances, and the judges praised him for the perfect execution of his moves. We vacated the stage after that so that the next contestant could come up. The first round continued and once it was finally over and the results came out, I saw that Tyson shared first place with a Snorlax, with both having full scores.

Still, that was fine. We still had two more rounds ahead of us, and I was sure that Tyson would win since his performance was only going to get more impressive. When Tyson went up a second time, he first stomped onto the ground and raised a lot of stone spikes using Stone Edge before he began to show off our original move, the Punch Barrage. He was speeding from stone spike to spike using the Mach Punch-derived speed boost and destroying them without pausing for a single moment.

After he destroyed all the spikes he raised, he stomped his foot once more and raised a bunch of stone spikes side by side to produce a "single" wide rock. He then initiated another Punch Barrage, but this time to properly show off the custom moves continuity. We were pretty proud of that one since we only had Double Hit as well as Double Chop as source material and Punch Barrage had surpassed both moves in that aspect by far.

Currently, a single Punch Barrage was able to deliver up to 7 hits, but Tyson was able to use two of them in conjunction using his second set of arms, so it appeared as if he was delivering a seemingly unending barrage of punches. That was especially true if he managed to time it right since he was able to chain another Punch Barrage on top after the previous one ended as long as everything went well.

Not that he could have shown that off right now since the rocks all crumbled away by the time he delivered the eleventh punch, forcing him to shadow-box the air for his last two punches. He finished his performance by flexing his arms, and the crowd cheered him on quite loudly. The judges were suitably impressed by Tyson's performance and they asked if I could tell them what exactly Tyson just used, so I shared with them that it was a move we came up with, which caused quite a few exclamations of surprise and earned us some more praise.

I believe it came as no surprise to anyone when Tyson ended up being first in this round as well, and this time he did not share it with another Pokemon. I had already gotten used to my Pokemon being the last one to go up in the third/final round, so I simply closed my eyes and sat back to wait for our turn while using my clone to talk with Tyson.

We were discussing if we should simply have him show off all his punch moves, which involved punches of an incredible 9 types, along with his ability to use 4 of them in conjunction, or if he should show off his various kick moves, which were mostly derived from his punch moves. Neither of us mentioned him using Elemental Combat since that was his ace move.

By the time we got called up, we decided to go simple and show off the punch moves since showing off nearly 9 custom kick moves seemed a tad bit over the top even for us. Heck, Tyson was going to keep back two of the custom punches, namely the Dragon Fist and Dark Fist, for the same reason. I was already being hounded by reporters and I was pretty sure that Punch Barrage had already fired them up quite a bit. I did not want to see what would happen if Tyson showed off so many custom moves. Some of them might go nuclear just to ensure that they secured an interview with me.

Anyway, Tyson showed off Mega Punch, Thunder Punch, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, Bullet Punch, Poison Jab, and Drain Punch during his final appeal along with his ability to smoothly chain them using all four of his fists. His performance caused more than one exclamation of awe and earned him a standing ovation from the audience. The judges were mightily impressed and showered both of us with praise. Tyson for managing to do what he did and me for helping him achieve his impressive feat.

I don't think it could have gone any different, but Tyson was declared the winner of the Appeal Contest and they handed him a yellow one-star ribbon to commemorate his achievement.

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