The Pokemon Lily released was a Ninetales.
No wonder Rose favorite Pokemon was a Vulpix, she probably was influenced by her mother's Ninetales.
Mikail had to admit that Ninetales was a gorgeous Pokemon, it looked elegant and refined.
Once it was let out the Ninetales observed its surroundings and Mikail could see it recognized his parents before it focused a bit on him.
At that moment he remembered that despite not being a psychic-type, Ninetales was pretty talented in that area, so he was momentarily worried if it noticed something off from his psionic energy.
He felt relieved when it stopped focusing on him and his previous thoughts were confirmed when she sent an open telepathic message, showing her psionic prowess.
Yes, it turned to her, because the voice Mikail perceived from the telepathic message was decidedly female.
'So we came to visit Arya and Edward.
It certainly has been some time since we have last seen them.
You both look good and I can see that your kit is healthy as well."
His parents greeted her back and thanked her for her compliment.
Lily introduced Mikail to Ninetales.
"This is Mikail, as you have guessed he is Arya and Edward's son.
In case you did not listen in before, I called you out because he wanted to see our partners.
Mikail this is my starter Tamamo."
'Do all trainers on Terra give their Pokemon names?'
Mikail thought while addressing Ninetales after Lily said that.
"Hello, Miss Tamamo.
You are very pretty.
Can I hug you?"
Ninetales seemed amused by his compliment and after a short deliberation on her part, she permitted him to hug her.
'Thank you, little Mikail.
Yes, you may hug me for a bit if you wish to.'
Not one to let such a chance slip through his fingers, Mikail approached and hugged her while simultaneously scanning her.
When he saw her status he accidentally let something slip.
"Woah!"
'Species: Ninetales
Gender: Female
Type: Fire
Potential: Light Green
Stage: ?
Genetic variation: ?
Abilities: ?
Talents: ?
Affinities: ?
She has light green potential, which is not bad.
Seems like my parents are not the only ones with Pokemon that have good potential.
Is it because Lily is a Senior trainer?
Ninetales should be at least (high) silver or (low) gold stage.
So, did Ninetales have good potential from the beginning or did she break her limits a few times thus increasing her potential?
Supplements could be another reason.'
Mikail felt everyone focus on him when he made that sound so he had to explain himself somehow.
"Sorry.
Miss Ninetales your coat is so soft.
I got surprised."
Ninetales accepted his compliment and he walked back to his seat, while Ninetales went to Rose's side.
Thorn took one of his Pokeballs off his belt and released the Pokemon inside.
It seemed like he planned to let them out one by one instead of releasing them all at once.
It was a Wigglytuff.
"Lu here was my starter and during our journey, I decided to specialize in the normal type."
Thorn said to him after which he addressed Wigglytuff, who was observing the surroundings just like Ninetales had done, before releasing his Pokemon one by one.
"Lu wait for a bit.
I'll let the others out as well."
Mikail felt giddy seeing the line up in front of him.
Thorn released a Pidgeot, Tauros, Ambipom, Exploud, and an honest to God Ursaring.
Sorry because of his surprise he fell into old habits, he meant honest to Mew Ursaring.
While not one of the rarest Pokemon, Ursaring still was impressive and rather aggressive so seeing one was unexpected but not unwelcome.
Once all his Pokemon were out, he addressed them and repeated what Lily had said to Ninetales.
After hearing his request Wigglytuff was the first to agree and the rest eventually followed his lead even the Ursaring, who was the last one to agree.
Once he had hugged and checked everyone Mikail felt strangely relieved.
It showed that the Pokemon of senior trainers while not bad, generally did not all have great potential like the ones of his father.
While Thorn was only one trainer, Mikail could tell from the conversations they had inside that he was one of the stronger senior trainers.
So he should be able to represent the majority of them, in that case, his father was still the odd one out.
Which in Mikail's opinion was much better than everyone walking around with green and blue potential Pokemon.
Anyway, their status showed the following.
'Species: Wigglytuff
Gender: Male
Type: Normal, Fairy
Potential: Deep Yellow
---
Species: Pidgeot
Gender: Male
Type: Normal, Flying
Potential: Light Yellow
---
Species: Tauros
Gender: Male
Type: Normal
Potential: Orange
---
Species: Ambipom
Gender: Male
Type: Normal
Potential: Deep Orange
---
Species: Exploud
Gender: Female
Type: Normal
Potential: Light Green
---
Species: Ursaring
Gender: Female
Type: Normal
Potential: Green'
From the exchange that happened between his father and Thorn, once Ursaring was released, Mikail learned how the potential of Pokemon was currently categorized by the Alliance.
His father said that Thorn was lucky to have a 4-star Ursaring, to which Thorn countered that he did not want to be called lucky by someone with two 5-star Pokemon.
From this Mikail could determine that 5-star stood for blue potential and 4-star stood for green potential.
Following that he could deduce that 3-star was yellow, 2-star was orange, and 1-star was equal to red potential.
Similarly one could deduce that purple potential would be 6-stars and aurora potential would be 7-stars.
Whether they knew the existence of purple and aurora potential he couldn't tell, but he doubted it, at least for those not at the top.
Once he was done with checking them out he turned towards Thorn.
"Uncle Thorn, your Pokemon are awesome.
They look strong."
Edward seemed to somehow get triggered by Mikail's admiring words and tone, which caused him to challenge Thorn.
"Thorn how about we show the kids some action.
Nothing too big, 2 one on one battles without any instructions from us, and no wide-area attacking moves.
We can use the clearing that Arya and I normally use to train for the fight."
Lily simply chuckled a bit, while Arya shook her head at the antics of her husband.
She could see that he got slightly jealous and that he wanted to impress their son as a result of his jealousy.
"Sure, no problem.
Let's do it."
Thorn agreed to Edwards's suggestion and they all walked towards the clearing at the west of their house, where his parents trained.
Once they reached the clearing, the two men stood on opposite sides, and his mother walked to a position that was somewhat between them.
The rest sat down on the side, the women had brought along some chairs in their bags to sit on.
Ninetales and the non-combatants were by their side to keep them safe.
After everyone settled down his mother started talking.
"This is going to be a friendly 2 vs 2 single battle.
Once a Pokemon is down, both trainers have to withdraw their Pokemon and send out their next candidate.
The use of wide-area-attacking moves is forbidden.
Both trainers are not allowed to give any instructions to their partners.
Are both of you ready?"
The two men nodded simultaneously.
Thorn send out his Wigglytuff as his first Pokemon and Edward sent out his Magneton.
Thorn softly cursed when he saw that Edward released his Magneton and Edward smirked when he saw the Wigglytuff.
Both told their Pokemon the rules of the fight.
After which Arya lifted her hand and brought it back down to start the fight.
"Begin!"
Wigglytuff immediately tried to send Magneton into slumber by using Sing, which Magneton stopped with a Screech.
The loud noise produced by Magneton made it impossible to hear Wigglytuff's voice and simultaneously forced him to stop singing.
Magneton immediately performed a Thunder Wave following his Screech.
Wigglytuff couldn't dodge the move despite jumping upwards because it was still a little disoriented by the Screech which delayed its action for a bit causing it to get hit.
The paralyzed Wigglytuff decided to take revenge by using Copycat and sent a Thunder Wave back at Magneton.
Magneton not having expected to be attacked with its own move couldn't react at all and got hit as well.
Wigglytuff immediately afterward used a Stockpile for later.
Magneton used that time to rapid-fire three Thunder Shocks at Wigglytuff, which forced him to dodge them.
Unfortunately for Wigglytuff, his paralysis triggered while dodging the third Thunder Shock, which Magneton used to fire a Flash Cannon at him.
The move threw Wigglytuff back and caused some damage to him.
Magneton did not let up and began a Gyro Ball moving towards the Wigglytuff that had yet to stand up.
Wigglytuff saw Magneton coming towards himself while spinning lost no time with trying to stand up and performed a Sing while lying down, which forced Magneton to abort its Gyro Ball to use a Screech instead to counter the Sing.
Wigglytuff seemed to have expected Magneton's move because it used Disable on it to keep it from using that move and quickly began another Sing.
Magneton who had no other direct way to stop Wigglytuff's Sing tried to interrupt him by hitting him with a Thunder Shock.
To its misfortune, Wigglytuff dodged its desperate attack while keeping up his Sing, which caused Magneton to fall asleep.
Surprisingly Wigglytuff did not directly begin to attack his sleeping opponent but instead started to perform consecutive Stockpiles.
He used three Stockpiles before moving towards the sleeping Magneton.
That together with the Stockpile used at the beginning of the fight meant that Wigglytuff could stack 4 Stockpiles instead of three, which was the limit in the games.
As luck would have it Magneton woke up just as Wigglytuff was 4 meters away from it.
Its awakening meant that it could attack Wigglytuff to keep it from approaching it any further, unfortunately, it was still a bit too late.
While it would have been better for Wigglytuff to get a bit closer for its next attack, 4 meters were still near enough to perform it anyway, which it did as soon as it noticed Magneton waking up.
Wigglytuff used the 4 Stockpiles it had to perform a Spit Up on steroids.
The devastating attack caused a big explosion as soon as it hit Magneton.
The shockwaves produced by the explosion could still be slightly felt at the place from where the others were watching the fight, prompting the Pokemon there to stop them.
Once the dust settled one could see a badly damaged Magneton that was still standing, thanks to its steel-typing, despite the terrifying attack it got hit by.
Just as the battered Magneton was going to counter-attack and Wigglytuff was trying to finish off his opponent, Edward interfered.
He halted the fight.
"Both of you stop!
We are forfeiting this round.
Magneton you fought well but in your current condition, your chances of winning this fight are minimal and not worth risking further damage.
You did a good job but you have to return now."
With that, he withdrew Magneton.
"Edward has withdrawn Magneton and forfeited the round.
This means that Wigglytuff has won."
Arya declared Wigglytuff the winner, causing Thorn to withdraw him as well.
Meanwhile, Mikail was in awe at what he had just witnessed.
The fight had been incredible in his opinion.
It was a fast-paced fight and the strategies, as well as counter-strategies the Pokemon had used without any input from their trainer, were impressive.
This gave him a glimpse at how refined and complex Pokemon battles at the higher stages could be.
Mikail had no idea how many battles and how much training it took for the Pokemon to reach this point and he was asking himself if the Pokemon of all Senior Trainers were as awesome as those two because that fight was way better than he had expected.
He was currently intentionally ignoring the fact that a Pokemon with a lower potential and a type disadvantage won against a Pokemon with better potential and a type advantage.
There could be multiple explanations for that but none of them mattered right now, because they would not change the fact that Wigglytuff had earned this victory.
Just as Mikail finished his musing, his mother told both trainers to call out their second Pokemon and both men simultaneously released their next Pokemon.
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