673 CH53 (667), Unexpected Gratitude

Since I had nearly 10 minutes until the start of my Gym Battle, I made my way over to the area of the stands where my family and friends were located. I then jumped up, much to the surprise of the ordinary spectators, and made my way over to their side to talk with them. Some of the spectators tried to talk to me, but I politely fobbed them off by saying that I came up to speak to my family, though I did sign the shirt of the one kid who happened to be among those who tried to talk to me.

Anyway, even if it took longer than one would expect 20 meters to take, I did make it to my goal and I saw Ace, Aaron, and Yu openly laughing at me, while the others were just chuckling or smiling.

"Well, this is quite the surprise," I conceded with a smile. "I did not expect you to know about the Gym Battle since I kept it to myself," I admitted and Mom gave me a glare at that before she pulled me into a hug. "And I'm not happy with that at all young man," she admonished me while squeezing me a bit tighter.

"If not for the girls keeping an eye on the Lilycove News feed and the Gym's homepage for any news on you we would have missed your first Gym Battle," she said, sounding decidedly not happy with the prospect. "What were you thinking not sharing the date of your very first Gym Battle," she straight up glared at me while asking that.

"Son, you're usually so smart. How did you come to the conclusion that keeping the date of your first Gym Battle a secret was a good idea?" Dad chimed in at that moment and patted Mom on the arm to tell her to loosen her grip a bit before he patted me on the shoulder. "Seeing the first Gym Battle of their child is something all parents would like to do if possible," he added, somehow managing to not sound chastising while doing exactly that.

"Yeah, not only them, but us as well," Ace chimed in. "You've been to mine, but were not going to let me come to yours," Weiss added. "And to mine," Rose spoke up as well. "Me three," Jessie said before giving me a reproachful look. "It's bad enough that we missed your first contest participation, and only learned about it afterward," she continued, and Rose gave me a look at that as well.

"You're lucky that you told us about that before it hit the local news since I would have been very cross with you if I had heard about it that way," Rose chided me and there were a multitude of agreements all around. "Hey, I already got chewed up by you girls for that and I still believe that traveling all the way to Liliycove City just to watch me take part in the contests is too much. Besides, I told you that it was an impromptu decision on my part," I defended myself, which earned a few snorts.

"That's why we did not complain too much the last time, but you had to have known about today for some time now, so you could have told us about it weeks in advance," Jessie refuted and the girls echoed her with "That's right" and "True". "I just did not want you to have to travel all the way to Lilycove City when you could later on watch the Gym Battle online," I began justifying my decision.

"I know that you would not have minded doing that. Your presence here speaks for itself," I said before anyone could interrupt me. "However, we've already agreed that you'll be coming over to Lilycove City on the 10th for my birthday and I still think that you could have congratulated me on my first Gym Badge then. It would have saved you from having to travel to Hoenn twice. Not to mention that many of you had to have freed a whole day for this," I finished presenting my reasoning and I saw that it did mollify them.

"I understand why you did it," Kinji spoke up. "I just think that it would have been better if you had just shared the news and then left the decision whether to visit or not up to us," he said with a shrug and the others agreed with him. "Well, I felt like that would have forced you to decide whether to make the trip or not, and depending on how many chose to do the trip, the others might have felt bad for not doing it," I tried to defend my decision a bit, though I knew that it was a bit of a weak argument.

"Leaving us aside, you really should have at least told your parents about it," Kinji said and I knew he was not trying to admonish me but simply tell me that I had erred, so that I may not repeat the same mistake in the future. "You're right," I conceded. "I was just so sure that the news would have passed to all of you if I had done that, which is why I kept completely quiet," I explained, which had Dad throw Mom a look while chuckling. Mom just hmphed but did not deny that she would have likely shared the news with the girls.

"Still, I apologize for keeping mum, okay," I said, accepting that I had not handled the situation as well as I could, even if I had been thinking of them when I made the decision to keep quiet on the matter. "It's rare that we get to win an argument with you. Let me enjoy this for a moment," Yu said jokingly, and his words elicited smiles and chuckles from everyone, myself included. Nonetheless, we closed the matter with that and began to talk about their thoughts on the Gym Challenge so far.

Less than a minute before the 10-minute break was up, the referee requested that I return to my position on the battlefield, so I excused myself and made my way back to the battlefield after hugging nearly everyone starting with Mom. There were still 15ish seconds left when I took my position, and the host began to talk as soon as those were up.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, dear guests. We have seen several exciting battles so far as our challenger Mikail Geo has fought his way through the Gym Trainers in hopes of challenging our brilliant Gym Leader Stephanie," the man narrated and the crowd cheered when he mentioned Stephanie's name. "Stephanie! Stephanie! Stephanie!" resounded throughout the Gym, and the host waited for close to 10 seconds, letting the people cheer for a bit before he continued.

"Mikail now has earned the right to fight for the Platinum Badge of Lilycove City, and from what he has shown so far this promises to be an exciting battle. The challenger has surprised us with the various Pokemon he fielded so far and I'm sure you've enjoyed seeing the many interesting Pokemon as much as I have. I don't know if I should say as expected of the youngest Junior Professor in history or not. His starting with the Senior League Circuit during the first year of his journey seems to be a matter of course compared to that, though his decision to opt for the S-Rank challenge during his first ever Gym Challenge is unbelievable, even if he has shown without a doubt that he has the capital to do so.

Looking at his performance so far, I believe no one doubts that we can look forward to the battle that's about to take place. I certainly do look forward to seeing his Pokemon duke it out with the Pokemon of our very own Stephanie Stone," he hyped the crowd up, and I heard quite a few cries of disbelief when the host mentioned my status as a Junior Professor, and some more when he disclosed that this was the first year of my journey, which theoretically made me a rookie trainer.

I knew some had known who I was including the kid whose shirt I signed, but I was not surprised that many had not recognized me. I stoically listened to all of this, silently waiting for the Gym Leader to show up and the battle to begin. Thankfully, it appeared that the host was about done with his speech.

"I won't keep you waiting anymore. Please welcome with me the mistress of steel, the leader of our Lilycove Gym, STEPHANIE STONE!!!," the host cried out and everyone looked at the entrance opposite of me, where Gym Leader Stephanie slowly stepped onto the battlefield under the cheers of the audience.

Shouts of "Stephanie! Stephanie! Stephanie!" reverberated and if not for my enhanced hearing I would have likely not heard the "Mikail! Mikail! Mikail!" chants that were being droned out by the Stephanie fans. Yet, I heard them, so I broke my stoic pose for a moment to wave in the direction I heard the shouts coming from as a "thank you for the support" gesture. The majority came from the direction of my family and friends, but there were a few others aside from them as well.

Anyway, Gym Leader Stephanie took her position, and when she began to speak, the crowd quietened down. "I thank all of you for your support," she first addressed the audience before turning her focus to me. "I have naturally followed the battles so far, and I have to say that you've surprised me quite a bit, Challenger Geo," Stephanie admitted.

"The relative ease at which your Pokemon won some of the challenge battles is surprising, and I have to say that I am looking forward to facing the Pokemon you have prepared to face me," she finished, showing that she knew that I had yet to use any of the Pokemon I was going to use against her.

I was not surprised by that since I did not believe that it would be hard for a Gym Leader to gather the information on the Pokemon I had shown/revealed so far, and once they had that information, everyone would be able to see that I had yet to use a few of my strongest Pokemon.

"Before we begin our battle, I would like to thank you for your part in the discovery of Ferreon. I am always happy to hear about news related to steel types, but finding out that a steel-type Eeveelution has been discovered was one of the best news I have heard in years. I've always loved the Eevee-line, so hearing about a steel Eeveelution made me incredibly happy, which is why I am quite thankful to you and the others who worked on the project. I naturally have added a Ferreon to my team roster as well, and I would have liked to use my Ferreon against you, but unfortunately, Spike is not strong enough yet to take part in S-rank challenges like this," Stephanie revealed, sounding genuinely thankful as well as enthusiastic when she thanked me and talked about Ferreon.

"You're welcome, and I'll make sure to pass your words of gratitude to the other members of the project team" I returned after acknowledging her appreciation for our work. I had honestly not expected her to mention Ferreon, much less thank me/us like this, but I guess it was not that surprising that one of the leading steel-type specialists in the world would be happy about the discovery of a strong steel-type Pokemon.

"That would be much appreciated," Stephanie returned before putting on a much more serious look. "Now that I have thanked you, it is time for our Gym Battle. I hope you give it your all since I am taking this battle very seriously," she declared, after which the referee took the reigns, while the audience cheered at her declaration since it meant that she was likely to use one of her platinum-stage Pokemon during the battle.

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