201 CH70 (200), Going Around Visiting Friends (2)

The following week, I did not leave Rota, I just met up with Erza and Yu on Kyoday. We went around Rota visiting a few interesting places, or rather it was the two showing me a few nice stores.

Among those was an arms store, that sold some weapons and protective suits. It was interesting to see so many different weapons and the various forms of protective gear. I made a note to visit the store with my parents someday to show them the protective stuff.

I knew that mom and dad already had protective clothes but I wanted to know if it was as good as the one in the store. If not I would make them upgrade their gear.

We ate lunch at RFP and then they brought me to a field close to the Knight Academy that students apparently use for personal and Pokemon fights. The place was deserted since we were in the middle of the holidays, so Erza, Yu, and I spent an hour sparring against each other, before doing a few mock battles between our Pokemon.

Erza was the one with the most wins for our individual fights, but I creamed them as far as Pokemon battles were concerned. I invited the two to dinner after we were done sparring, but Yu declined since he had to go home, and Erza declined as well after Yu did.

Enter Arcday I gave good old Samurai/Kinji a call to ask him how it's going. He told me that everything was going swimmingly and that he had qualified for the Northern Crysalis Championship, which was basically the grand league tournament for Bug-type specialists at the Ace and Elite class.

Well, actually Bug Lords/Ladies and Bug Dukes/Duchesses were the ones that could qualify for the Crysalis Championship, but those were in general equal in prowess to Ace and Elite-class trainers.

Since he qualified for the Northern Crysalis Championship, the participants were from the northern continent. So, bug specialists from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Orange Island, Sevii Island, and the Rota Kingdom were going to be present. Unlike regular league tournaments, foreigners could not participate in this one.

Kinji invited me to accompany him to the tournament. This time the tournament would be held in Azalea City in Johto, and the event would go from Kyoday, 23.13.2179, to Grouday, 24.13.2179.

Kinji said that the organizers were going to provide him their teleportation services on Dialday evening and that he was allowed to bring along two people. The return journey was included as well.

Apparently, Aaron was the second person he was planning to invite. I had been the one to introduce those two to each other after I had noticed that Kinji did not really seem to have any other friends apart from me.

Well, he had been on a long retreat before I met him, so it kinda made sense, but I still decided to be that meddlesome guy and introduced Kinji to Aaron. Both were genuinely nice guys and both liked nature, so they got along rather swimmingly.

Since Kinji had no family to speak of, it made sense that he invited us two to accompany him. I briefly thought about it and decided to agree. I had nothing better to do on those days anyway. Besides, he may have sounded casual while he was inviting me, but I knew he would be sad if I declined.

After agreeing to meet up in front of the Bug Club of Leaf City at 6 p.m we hung up. I directly called my parent to inform them that I was going away during the weekend, in case they spontaneously decided that they wanted to come home.

A lot of drama could be avoided by informing them beforehand, which was why I did it. They were curious, so I told them that I was going out with the boys for a tournament Kinji was participating in.

Dialday afternoon I cleaned up a bit, locked the door, and made my way to Leaf City via the Horus Express. I arrived in front of the Bug Club with 30 minutes to spare, and Kinji, as well as Aaron, showed up within the next 10 minutes.

After our traditional greeting hug, Kinji told us that we were going to first teleport to Ivory City, which along with Indigo City was one of Kanto's border cities.

From there, we were going to grab a long-distance Teleport to New Bark City, which was the closest Major City of Johto to the border in the direction of Kanto. There was quite a bit of wilderness between the two regions, which was why we needed to grab a long-distance teleport in the first place.

So, we walked towards the teleportation hub of Leaf City and teleported to Ivory City. There we had to wait for 30 minutes until it was time for our appointment before a Gardevoir brought us to New Bark City. Another Teleport curtsy of a Xatu later and we arrived at Azalea City.

I always had to marvel at how fast we could travel vast distances thanks to psychic Pokemon. I mean seriously, we traveled over 6000 kilometers in less than an hour, with the majority of that hour being waiting time.

On another note, the distance was only 6000 kilometers in a straight line, if we took official roads/routes and the stretch of wilderness into account, it would be closer to 9000 kilometers. So, Psychic Pokemon and Teleport banzai!

Anyway, we, or rather Kinji, were received by someone from the Bug Club who led us to the hotel that participants could stay in for free. Kinji was informed that Room 309 had been reserved for him, and Aaron and I went to the reception to book a room for ourselves.

Kinji offered us to sleep in his room, but we declined since it was a single room and we did not want to crowd the room. Luckily, there were free rooms on the third floor, so we paid for a stay of two nights and three days. I got the keys to Room 312 and Aaron got the ones for Room 314.

We briefly went up to our rooms to let in some fresh air, and to wash our faces as well as hands. We left the windows tilted when we left the hotel to find a nice place to eat dinner.

This was my first time in another region, Rota did not count, so I was a bit excited. Still, it seemed like the other two were just as clueless as me, so we asked the always reliable web about good restaurants in Azalea City before asking the locals for their opinion to cross-check if the web was telling the truth.

We ultimately settled on a sushi restaurant that had a great rating online and got the approval of the locals as well. The sushi was as good as advertised and I especially like the Lanturn sashimi. That madman Aaron took a liking to Qwilfish, but Kinji and I stayed away from that one.

We drank some tea after our meal and just talked about the things that happened to us lately. Without us noticing close to two hours went by, and I was happy that we were not asked to leave. Even if that was probably due to us ordering all those snacks and tea.

We managed to agree on splitting the bill and checked out the location of the four stadiums, one in each cardinal direction before we returned to our hotel. This was actually the first time outside of Indigo City that a city I visited had so many stadiums.

I asked the others and they told me that some select cities had the privilege to host certain events whenever they happened in their region, so those cities maintained more stadiums to host the events. Azalea City was one such city.

Anyway, Kinji had to go through two battles tomorrow, if he won his first fight, and that one was at 9 a.m. The second/final day was the pretty busy one. If he made it to the finals, he would have to fight five battles. So we wished each other good night and went to our respective rooms.

I woke up at 8 a.m since we agreed to meet at 8:15 at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. 15 minutes were more than enough to freshen up after all. I made it to our appointment with 3 minutes to spare and the others did as well.

Actually, we met each other on the way to the hotel restaurant, so I would say we all left our rooms around the same time. After a quick breakfast, we made our way to the stadium. Aaron and I wished Kinji all the best before heading for our seats, while Kinji headed for the waiting room.

We got first-row tickets thanks to being Kinji's two permitted companions. The fight began on time and was a relatively quick thing. Well, maybe not considering that it was a 3-vs-3 battle that took roughly 20 minutes.

Nonetheless, seeing so many dark gold-stage Pokemon fighting against each other was pretty cool, even if the bug types were of the common kind. Kinji's Pinsir had been the rarest among those fighting. Still, I was sure that no one that witnessed this fight would dare call bug types weak.

After the battle, we met up with Kinji. His second fight was going to be at 4 p.m, so he had nearly 6 hours before he had to show up in the waiting room. We decided to use a part of that time to explore Azalea City. Well, at least a part of it.

Call it a leftover from the past, but I wanted to see the Slowpoke Well, so I persuaded Kinji and Aaron to visit the place. The well had actually been turned into a tourist spot, so we had an easy time finding it, and managed to enter without any problems, for a fee of course.

Calling it a well was the biggest underestimation I have ever heard. It was a giant karst cave that really deserved the Slowpoke part of its name. There were a lot, and I mean a lot of Slowpoke all around the "well" but due to their peaceful nature, the whole thing was not dangerous.

At least that was the case, as long as one did not attack the Slowpoke unprovoked. I mean, we saw quite a few Slowbro, and even a Slowking, so the security of the place was ensured.

One of the personnel there told us the alliance had made a deal with the colony which was why they allowed people to enter the "well" without being afraid.

After that time we went to eat lunch before we walked back to the stadium to give Kinji time to prepare for his fight. He won his second fight without any problems as well and advanced to the Top 64.

We went out for a bit before having a slightly early dinner since Kinji wanted to use some time to prepare for the battles tomorrow. His first battle was at 10 a.m and he won that one without too much trouble, moving onto the Top 32.

The second match went pretty smoothly as well, and he officially entered the Top 16. The quarterfinals and semifinals were 4-vs-4 and he managed to win both, even if he only barely won the semifinals.

His opponent during the semifinals was someone called Forrester Franklin, and his two strongest Pokemon had been a (high) dark gold-stage Ariados and a (high) dark gold-stage Yanmega. According to the host, both were not too far from breaking through to the platinum stage.

Kinji only won by revealing a trump card that he had hidden until now. He called out a (high) dark gold-stage Volcarona that brought him the victory. I made a note to ask him where he managed to find himself a Volcarona or Larvesta.

The final battle was 6-vs-6, and against someone I recognized. Kinji's opponent was a man called Bartholomew "Bugsy" Bridgestone, an Azalea City native. Kinji put up a great fight, taking out three of Bugsy's Pokemon with four of his own, but then Bugsy called out a (low) platinum-stage Heracross that took out Kinji's Pinsir and nearly Volcarona as well.

Afterward, he used an Araquanid to finish off Volcarona. That fight revealed that Bugsy had one foot in the champion class, so he deserved the first place. Nonetheless, Kinji had proven that he was a great trainer and that he was at the top of the Elite Class.

Before this, I had guessed that he had managed to reach the Elite class if not that, then the top of the Ace class, but he blew my expectations out of the window. Aaron was just as surprised as me, probably more, but one thing was for sure we were happy for him.

There was a closing ceremony where Kinji was handed a silver cup. He and Bugsy exchanged a few words and everyone left the stadium. We met up with Kinji in front of the stadium and immediately congratulated him for his awesome performance.

He humbly accepted our praise with a happy and satisfied smile on his face. He said that he now knew where he stood and that he just had to train more in the future. I asked him where he managed to find a Volcarona or Larvesta and saw that Aaron also pricked up his ears.

However, he replied that he had made an oath to keep it a secret, so I did not insist, knowing he was not going to say anything. Anyway, we held a celebratory dinner, before making our way back to Kanto/Rota.

-----------------------------

***A Big Thank You to Paul Becker for becoming a Patron***

Advertising plug-in:

Help me stay motivated.

patreo*n/Azrail93