CH92 (322), Global Competition Day Two

The next morning, at 8:15 a.m, I met up with Mr. Cameron at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. After exchanging morning greetings as well as assembling our plates from the breakfast buffet, we found ourselves an empty table and sat down.

"Once again good work on reaching the round of 16 in both categories, even if there had been no doubt in my mind that you would do so. Also, don't mind the fact that you revealed your psychic abilities yesterday.

We had already prepared for you to reveal it, but most of us had started to think that you might finish the whole thing without using any of your psychic abilities, which might have been a bit of a lost opportunity.

You did not hear it from me, but some *cough* all *cough* elders planned to brag about you to the elders at the Psychic Council, but they could not do so without you coming out with your psychic ability on your own.

After you did your reveal, quite a few of our Elders did a few gloating phone calls and visits, but let's keep that between us," he said with a wink and I had to chuckle a bit.

It was nice to know that even these old gentlemen and gentlewomen had not lost that spark of life. At least, it was much better than them being cold and pragmatic as well as all calculating. Especially since they were the ones in the order that was all about life and balance.

"I'll keep it to myself I promise," I said in jest, before looking at him with a bit of curiosity since I had just thought of something.

"Say, Mr. Cameron, you wouldn't have been following how the others from our northern continent are faring, would you?" I asked curiously.

I totally forgot to check that out yesterday, and I just remembered it. Some of them were pretty strong, so I was interested in hearing how many had made it to day two.

"I did," he said with a nod before he began elaborating. "We did pretty well. Including you, 3 made it to the round of 16 in the personal combat category, and 5 in the Pokemon battle category."

I had to agree with him that was not bad since our northern continent secured around a fourth of the available spots.

"Who are the ones that made it?" I asked, wishing for some more details.

"Well, besides you, there are Eren Herb and Haru Saru among the personal fighters, as well as Brian Stone, Hans Rust, Isabel Glaze, and Diana Bright in the Pokemon battle category," he reciprocated readily, and I thanked him for sharing that with me.

'Seems like Erik is the only one among the previous semifinalists that did not make it this far. Sad for him,' I thought to myself.

Odds were that I would be facing one of my fellow northerners during the quarterfinals unless they all somehow managed to lose. Anyway, we talked a bit more about the upcoming rounds. I told him that my parents, as well as friends, were coming over tomorrow and he simply acknowledge it with a nod.

At 9 a.m, I bid Mr. Cameron goodbye and leisurely made my way to the venue of my upcoming battle. My Pokemon battle was scheduled for 9:45 a.m, and out of the 4 venues chosen for the round of 16, I ended up getting the Motochika Grand Stadium as my venue.

My opponent was Barbara Gordon, representing the eastern continent. She was a student at one of the Air/Flying Academies in Orre, and surprisingly she was not a pure flying type specialist since one of the four Pokemon she had shown so far was not a flying type.

Her team, as far as I knew, consisted of a Noctowl, Crobat, Noivern, and Decidueye, all of which were at the (high) silver stage. That seemed to be the norm in the global competition.

Also, I knew that many would complain about my previous declaration that she was no pure flying specialist, and I had to admit that Decidueye only lost its flying typing during its final evolution, but regardless of that, it remained a fact that it no longer had the flying type.

Anyway, I streamed the ongoing battles, which had started at 9 a.m, in conference mode on the official website of the global competition on my phone while I made my way to the stadium. It took me nearly half an hour to arrive since I was a bit distracted and chose to go slow.

Nonetheless, I made it there with 15 minutes to spare, so that was no problem. I made my way to the field and I arrived at the gate just as one of the previous battlers left from there.

It was Chan Huang, I knew that because I watched his battle just now. He had won and made it to the quarterfinals, so he was a potential opponent.

On a side note, I saw Brian win his battle, while Isabel lost. Diana's battle was still ongoing and Hans was going to battle at the same time as me. Well, just 5 minutes later Diana's battle concluded and she made it to the quarterfinals as well, leaving only Hans and me in the undecided category.

5 minutes before 9:45 a.m, one of the staff members signaled me that I could make my way onto the field, so I went through the gate. I heard the host doing my introduction and the crowd cheering at my entrance.

I saw Barbara entering the field from the other side and gave her a nod which she returned. Our exchange was shown on the big screen and the audience loved it.

We made it to our positions, and the referee began his usual run down of the rules before he gave the starting signal. We released our first Pokemon as soon as he did that, and Noivern appeared on Barbara's side, while Shino/Yanmega appeared on mine.

The crowd cheered loudly when they saw the Pokemon, but that was probably more due to Noivern being a dragon and all that. Not sure how many noticed that Yanmega was an Ancient-Variant since the sign for this one were not that obvious.

Regardless of what everyone was thinking, Shino had the complete advantage as far as I was concerned. Thanks to his ancient gene and most likely superior parameters, as well as his abilities Tinted Lens, which meant he delivered neutral damage at worst, and his Speed Boost, which kept increasing his speed as long as he was in battle, Shino would smoothly take down that dragon bat.

Honestly, Speed Boost was a pretty broken ability, especially with species that already had a high agility parameter. Anyway, as soon as Shino appeared he used Sunny Day as his opening move before splitting up and spreading out all over the field using Double Team. He also received his first Speed Boost raising his speed.

On the other side, Noivern used Tailwind as its opening move before it reacted to all the Yanmega and released an Air Cutter to attack them all. Shino easily blocked that by releasing a Silver Wind, which his copies copied, making it look as if it was coming from all around the field.

He followed that up with an Air Slash, making his visual copies follow suit. Noivern tried to counter it with a Hurricane since it covered all directions regardless of which Air Slash was real. It also managed to destroy a big part of the copies it came in contact with.

Still, Shino's mastered Air Slash slashed right through the Hurricane and kept heading straight for Noivern, even if somewhat diminished by the previous clash.

Not having expected that Noivern was forced to dodge to the side which allowed Shino to release another Air Slash. Noivern avoided that one as well but in the meantime, Shino got his second Speed Boost.

Noivern tried to counterattack using Boomburst, banking on the indiscriminate nature of the move. It managed to destroy all visual copies, but Shino managed to block it using his mastered Bug Buzz.

Not only did he block Boomburst with Bug Buzz, but he also released a Signal Beam at Noivern while doing so. The Signal Beam hit Noivern who was in the middle of its attack, interrupting it and causing it to lose height before it manage to re-stabilize its flight.

While it was doing that Shino released Ancient Power towards it, sending a group of large rocks to fly at Noivern, who was forced to perform some serious air Acrobatics to dodge them at short notice.

It fired a Dragon Pulse at Shino trying to retaliate, but my boy blocked that with a Solar Beam that began to overpower its move, forcing it to abort and frantically dodge.

Shino got his third Speed Boost while that happened, and decided to make use of his increased speed. He blitzed around Noivern and fired an Air Slash at it whenever he thought was opportune.

Noivern desperately dodged or blocked them all, but while it was doing that Shino went through his fourth Speed Boost. Noivern decided to resort to Hurricane to slow down the Air Slashes and buy itself time to compose itself.

Still, Shino decided to change gears after his fourth boost. He used an Air Slash to open a gap in the Hurricane that Noivern was trying to keep up, then he slipped through that opening and flashed towards Noivern using Aerial Ace.

Using his superior speed he hit Noivern with one Aerial Ace after another, not only stopping it from keeping up its Hurricane but also keeping it from using any move to effectively defend itself.

During this Shino got his fifth boost and increased his speed even further and honestly, I was starting to feel bad for the pinata, I meant Noivern. Apparently, Shino also felt that it was enough since he appeared behind Noivern, after dodging its latest desperate Boomburst, and released a point-blank Hyper Beam at the back of Noivern.

The Hyper Beam carried Noivern to the ground making it crash there before the complimentary explosion followed, accompanied by the dust cloud, and Shino stopped his beam once that happened.

He waved his wings a bit to clear the dust and we could see the unconscious Noivern lying on the ground. The referee declared it unable to battle and Barbara recalled her downed dragon.

Meanwhile, I also recalled Shino who had been buzzing around the field excitedly while enjoying the applause and cheers from the audience. The referee asked us if we were ready and both of us nodded, so he gave the signal for us to release our second Pokemon.

What appeared on Barbara's side was her Crobat, and coincidentally the same was true on my side as well. Seeing the two at the same time the differences between them became more distinct.

Not only was Moka quite a bit larger than Barbara's Crobat, but she also had patterns that it did not have, denoting her status as a royal variant. Not that many among the viewers knew what those patterns/lines signified. Still, they all saw the difference and everyone got a feel for which one was the superior Crobat.

Honestly, the outcome of their fight was pretty predictable since Moka was superior in every way from size to racial value to parameters with her going through her limit breaking, and after a few exchanges, it became apparent that she was better in the move department as well.

So, it came as no surprise when Moka managed to knock out Barbara's Crobat after roughly five minutes, and even that seemed as if it had been granted by her to her fellow Crobat.

At least that was the image she portrayed, but I knew that she did her best to beat it as fast as possible to prove herself, so she was more tired than she let on. The referee declared her the winner and I recalled her after thanking her for doing her best.

Barbara was now down to her last Pokemon and I readied my third one as well. We released our Pokemon as soon as the signal came, and they materialized on the field under the expectant gazes of the audience.

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