Mothra/Butterfree stayed on the field and Kamila called out her third Pokemon which ended up being an Absol, which pretty much confirmed my guess of her being a dark-type specialist. Mothra stuck to Bug Buzz and Signal Beam for this one. I had told her to hold back on her Aura Sphere and Focus Blast.
Otherwise, I would have let her use them against Houndoom since they were super effective, unlike the bug-type moves she used. My reasoning was quite simple, I was planning on using her during the Gym Battle and I wanted to keep some secrets. Her being able to use Heat Wave and Hydro Pump was already enough for Gym Leader Stephanie to take Mothra seriously.
A gym battle was more than anything a chance for my Pokemon to fight against the best of their stage, so I had no plans to win this by being sneaky. If I employed sneakiness, it would be the kind that did not seem impossible like a Butterfree learning a bunch of moves that were super effective against steel, rock, and ground types.
In my opinion, Mothra having fighting moves was just a bonus after the other super-effective moves had been revealed. After all, if she already has shown to know a few moves that her species shouldn't know, then it was not outlandish for her to know more, so Stephanie should expect the unexpected. This did not mean I would not make use of advantages, just that I would be somewhat aboveboard with them, at least during Gym Battles.
Anyway, Absol managed to hold out longer than expected, but that was more because it was quite adept at evading and running away. It even managed to dodge Mothra after she began to Teleport to close in on Absol. Kamila and her Absol had done a really good job at developing the species's inherent danger sense, but everything had its limits. Eventually, Absol slowed down and Mothra's attacks began to hit more often than not which caused it to slow down even further. That snowballed into Absol succumbing to Mothra's latest Signal Beam.
After she slumped, the referee declared Absol unable to battle and Kamila recalled it before sending out her final Pokemon, an Umbreon. That battle ended quicker than the one against Absol even though Umbreon were hardier simply because Umbreon was unable to dodge as many of Mothra's attacks as Absol had been, and against someone like Mothra, being more tenacious did not help. Especially not when Mothra began using status moves. Umbreon was immobilized and asleep in less than 2 minutes and ended up knocked out before it could wake up.
The referee declared it unable to battle, making me the victor of the battle. My advancement challenge was declared a success and I got promoted to the Lord rank. Starting today I was Lord Satoshi of the Battle Club. Regardless of whether my true identity got exposed later on or not, I was registered as Satoshi with the Battle Club, so that was what I was going to be called/announced whenever I was at the Battle Club. That was going to remain true even after my real identity got linked to my Battle Club alias.
Regardless, now that I was officially a Lord, I could face other lords and ladies, meaning that my dark gold stage Pokemon could finally battle against proper opponents that were not part of our own family/team, and that was exactly what we did for the rest of the whole day. I stayed and fought at the Battle Club until midnight, which allowed all of my dark golden Pokemon to fight at least twice.
Still, while it was great to see my Pokemon have fun while getting in a proper workout, I was not planning to spend any more full days at the Battle Club after this. Instead, I was going to spend 3 hours there each day, which should be enough for everyone to get in a good battle every two days at the latest. I mean, I missed out on the promised spa session because I stayed at the club for so long, and I did not want a repeat of that.
The next morning, I made my way to Devon's Mega Department Store after our usual morning training session. Rather than calling it a mega store, it would probably be better to call it a large shopping complex, though I guess one could call it however one wanted it if one owned all shops inside the complex.
I had to admit that I was taken aback when I found out that all the shops inside the enormous shopping complex belonged to the Devon Corporation. I mean, Devon even owned the food stalls/restaurants inside the complex, which seemed a bit over the top, but what did I know? At least the food proved to be good when I decided to stop at one of the restaurants for lunch.
Still, due to the size of the shopping complex and the number of shops and stalls, I only managed to check out half of the place by the time I decided to leave since it was time for dinner. I did still want to stop by the Cove Lily Motel turned Hotel after all. Not to mention my plan to pay a visit to the Battle Club tonight, so any further exploration of Devon's Mega Department Store would have to be postponed.
Anyway, I first found an empty spot to enter Utopia before I ate dinner with my Pokemon. Afterward, made my way to the Cove Lily Hotel to check it out. Unfortunately, I did not come across any of the famous people/trainers who supposedly like the place, but I did satisfy my curiosity. All in all, I could say that the place looked pretty great and the staff was quite friendly too. They answered all my questions without being unfriendly even after I told them that I was not going to book a room when I was asked if I was planning to book one.
The hotel restaurant along with a few other services was open to nonguests as well if one was willing to pay, and I naturally made use of the offered option, though because I had eaten dinner with my Pokemon not long ago, I only ordered some dessert. The desserts tasted great, and if the regular dishes tasted just as good, I could understand why the hotel was so popular.
Once I had gotten a taste of the hotel services, I left and made my way to the Battle Club to spend a few hours battling other Lords and Ladies. I had already built up a 12-victory streak yesterday, and I managed to raise that by another 6 wins when I left the Battle Club close to 3 hours after my arrival.
12 more victories and I would be able to initiate the advancement challenge for the Duke rank. Since Dukes and Duchesses were pretty much the equivalent of Elite-Class trainers prowess-wise, it would only serve to pose a better challenge for my Pokemon due to the higher ratio of (high) dark gold stage Pokemon Elite-Class trainers had to have.
Anyway, after leaving the club, I directly entered Utopia and spent the next three hours with my Pokemon before heading to sleep at 1:20 a.m. The following morning when we gathered around for breakfast, Jade/Gyarados revealed that she had managed to advance to the (high) dark gold stage after recovering from yesterday's excitement. It seemed the battle had given her agility the push it needed to grow, making it her fourth parameter with a C-value.
The news had all of us congratulate her on her success, and everyone was in a festive mood during breakfast. I had already been planning to head to the beach today to check out both the Beach/Surf Club as well as the Fisher's Club and I decided to let the water types go out into the sea if they wanted while we were already there. Since it was still quite early the beach was rather empty when I made it there.
It seemed that 8:30 a.m. was too early for most of the regular beachgoers, and I made use of the scarcity of people to release all my water types without attracting any unwanted attention. Well, nearly all water types. Anorith and Squirtle were the exception. Squirtle was too weak for me to let him roam about on his own and I did not want to force anyone to watch him, and Anorith was not much stronger. Not to mention the risk of Anorith getting exposed, which was something I did not plan on doing right now.
Anyway, after asking them to take care of themselves and not to do anything too risky, I let them have fun while I headed to the Beach/Surf Club. The club was pretty much the same as the ones I had been to before, renting out regular surfboards, and Mantines for those interested in Mantine surfing. They also offered surfing courses, both of the mundane and Mantine variety.
Surprisingly, they also offered swim courses, which I did not remember being offered in the other surf clubs, though it was possible that I had simply missed it at the time. It was also possible that it was because this was a Beach and Surf Club, unlike the other clubs which had been pure Surf Clubs. In addition to the swimming courses, it seemed the club also organized beach parties, concerts, as well as sand art competitions from time to time, and as luck would have it, they were going to hold a sand art competition today at 4 p.m.
As the sand artist that I was, I naturally signed up for the competition. Afterward, I left the Surf Club and made my way to the Fisher's Club which was close by. I did not bother using an alias when I introduced myself to the fishing enthusiasts and my introduction actually caused them to recognize me. However, they did not care about me being a Junior Professor or anything like that. No, they recognized me as the fellow who won the fishing contest on the cruise not long ago by fishing out a giant Magikarp.
They were quite an enthusiastic bunch and I ended up succumbing to their requests of seeing Giga Chad, sorry the giant Magikarp. They oohed and ahhed while checking out the enormous Magikarp, and all of them enthusiastically thanked me for the chance to check out such a prized capture. The club president actually asked for permission to take a photo, which they wanted to then hang up on the wall of memorable captures. I gave the permission and after the president was done, the other fishing enthusiasts asked for permission to take photos with Magikarp as well.
I recalled Magikarp after the impromptu photo session and began talking with the fishers about the fishing scene around this place. Maybe it was because they were thankful for me granting their requests, but no one held back, and they all happily shared what they thought were the best fishing spots around Lilicove City. Some places overlapped, which raised the chances of those places being truly good, while others only got mentioned by one or two people. Either way, I made sure to remember all the fishing spots they mentioned.
After spending roughly two hours at the Fisher's Club I left and made my way out to the sea. I followed my bond to Manami/Lapras and proceeded to spend the time until 4 p.m. there. Kun/Azuraid also hung out with us for some time before heading back out. Same with Tiamat/Milotic and Abzu/Milotic. At 3:50 p.m. I said my goodbyes to Manami and made my way back to the beach to take part in the sand art competition.
I made it on time and after reporting my arrival at the impromptu reception area they set up for the competition, I together with the other contestants listened to the rules they were announcing. The rules boiled done to no help, be that Pokemon or people, and no sabotaging other people. They did not mention the use of any special powers, so I guess those were okay. Well, either that, or they had forgotten to mention them as well.
Anyway, we were told that we had until 7:00 p.m., which gave us a little bit less than 3 hours, to complete whatever sand art we were attempting to make. I was going to make a sand sculpture of a person (myself) playing the ocarina while being surrounded by (my) Pokemon. Half an hour into my work my phone rang and after checking who exactly was calling me, I saw a string of numbers on the display, which meant that it was someone whose number I had not saved.
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I was hesitant if I should post something on this matter, but I finally decided to so since it involved someone that left a gigantic mark on a scene that all of us here love, namely the Anime, Manga, and Fiction scene. Apparently, Akira Toriyama died on March 1st due to a bleeding in the brain region, and they kept the matter confidential until today. I was certainly caught off guard when I saw the news online.
Not everyone may be a fan of Dragon Ball and its subsequent series, but I doubt that there are many people that have not heard about Dragon Ball. It is indisputable that Akira Toriyama and his work have had a big impact on the Manga and Anime community and that his work has brought joy, motivation, and inspiration to millions and maybe even billions of people.
I'm saddened to hear that he has passed and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. Nonetheless, while Akira Toriyama may have passed, his work(s) remains and he will forever be remembered as one of the greatest mangaka of all time. May he rest in peace.
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