The round of 16 and the quarterfinals took roughly as long as the previous rounds due to them being 2-vs-2. Ace used his Ninetales and his recently evolved Mienshao for both battles.
His Mienfoo had evolved just this Mewday during their turn to hunt for food. It had recently, shortly before the excursion, reached the (high) bronze stage, but had been missing the last push to evolve.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you asked he had received said push when they got pressured by a Fearow while they were hunting Spearow.
Anyway, Ace managed to advance to the semi-finals using these two, even if he barely managed to win his battle in the quarterfinals. For a minute I was really thinking that he was going to lose just because he decided to not use his Feraligatr yet.
Still, he did, which meant he was one of the 4 semi-finalists. The other 3 were, Clarissa Clairemont from Group 2, Arnold Almond from Group 1, and Ranmaru Law from the Knight Academy.
Clarissa Clairemont had shown 2 Pokemon until now, a (low) silver-stage Golduck, and a (high) bronze-stage Lopunny. Arnold Almond had shown only one of his Pokemon, a (low) silver-stage Hitmonform.
Honestly, Arnold could be considered the luckiest of the semi-finalists, because he kept meeting opponents that were weaker than the ones the others got. That was also why he had only needed to reveal one of his Pokemon.
As for Ranmaru Law, the last of the semi-finalist, I would honestly see him as the favorite if I did not know that Ace still had his Feraligatr. He revealed a (mid) silver-stage Gogoat, and a (low) silver-stage Staraptor.
The first match was Arnold versus Ranmaru. The match was not as exciting as I had expected it to be, simply because Arnold's other two Pokemon turned out to be weaker than I had expected.
Arnold first called out his Hitmonform and it battled against Ranmaru's Staraptor. Hitmonform managed to force a draw, or rather a double k.o., despite being at a type disadvantage. After that things went downhill for him.
He called out a (high) bronze-stage Primeape, which got its ass handed to it by Ranmaru's Gogoat. Afterward, Gogoat also beat Arnold's third Pokemon, which turned out to be a (high) bronze-stage Fearow.
The whole battle took roughly 5 minutes, and 3 of those were the Hitmonform battle. Still, with that victory, Ranmaru became the first finalist.
Claire and Ace's battle happened next, and it looked like Ace planned to go all out because he began the battle with his (mid) silver-stage Feraligatr. Claire's first Pokemon was her Golduck, and their battle was a really hard one, for Golduck that is.
It seemed that Ace decided to go full assault for this because his Feraligatr only bothered dodging Golduck's psychic-type moves while moving towards it for a close-range battle.
Any water-type moves were blocked or parried by similar or identical moves. Once it was close enough Feraligatr kept using Slash to attack Golduck forcing it to dodge furiously.
Still, Golduck used Disable to stop Feraligatr's onslaught. It used that moment to counter with an Aqua Tail in hopes of flinging Feraligatr away from itself. Unfortunately, for Golduck, Feraligatr reacted quickly, stopping Golduck's Aqua Tail with one of its own.
The two used the clash of their Aqua Tails to deliver another attack. Bad for Golduck who used Zen Headbutt, good for Feraligatr, Feraligatr's Crunch broke Zen Headbutt and it bit Golduck's left shoulder blade.
To be precise, the location was right beside Golduck's throat, and it only managed to avoid having its throat bitten due to its fast reaction. If it had not tilted its body to the right after its Zen Headbutt failed, Feraligatr would have bitten its throat instead of its shoulder blade.
Due to the dark energy in Crunch, it couldn't use its psychic moves to attack Feraligatr so it could only try to use other moves. However, Feraligatr obviously was not staying idle either.
It used Scratch, aiming at Golduck's belly. Golduck tried to parry the scratches but it only had moderate success in that. Seeing the situation, it switched to attacking Feraligatr instead.
Golduck managed to deal some damage to Feraligatr as well after giving up defending, but it was pretty obvious that Golduck would lose. I saw that the referee was about to call the battle when Claire recalled her Golduck herself.
She called out a (low) silver-stage Bellossom next, and I had to marvel at the Pokemon and their strength I had been seeing in this tournament. I knew that our academy only accepted gifted people and geniuses, but I had neglected how that would transfer to Pokemon training/raising.
All of these students still had about 4 years until their journey and yet a majority of them had two or three Pokemon in the bronze stage, with a few of the more gifted ones even having (low) silver-stage Pokemon.
By the time they would start their journey they would be as strong as Junior-class trainers, with a few even being as strong as Senior-class trainers.
Seeing all this, I would have thought that Aaron was a waste because of the strength of his Pokemon during our first meeting if he had not told me about the rules of his family concerning the obtaining of Pokemon. Except for the Riolu, he had to get them on his own, and the time at the Academy was considered family sponsored.
That was why his Pokemon started out weaker than even the ones I saw right now, but he had caught up and surpassed them pretty quickly after he started his journey.
*sigh*
I went off tangent again. Anyway, back to the battle. Bellossom looked positively tiny compared to Feraligatr, but everyone here knew better than to underestimate a Pokemon just because of their height. At least, I hoped everyone did.
The first thing Bellossom did was use Sunny Day, quickly followed by a Grassy Terrain. Bellossom did not allow Feraligatr to come close to itself so Ace had no choice but to attack with long-range moves.
What followed after that was a proverbial shoot-out. Bellossom kept switching between Energy Ball and Magical Leaf, while Feraligatr used Ice Beam and Hydro Pump to attack.
Both sides dodged as well as they could while they returned fire, but the battle was going in Bellossom's favor. Grassy Terrain healed them both constantly by a small amount, but that was only useful for Bellossom since the damage inflicted to Feraligatr was much higher than the amount recovered.
Making use of its type advantage Bellossom managed to wear down Feraligatr despite its lower strength. So, a perfectly timed surprise Solar Beam managed to knock out Feraligatr.
Meanwhile, Bellossom was mostly fine thanks to the healing effect of Grassy Terrain, at least if one ignored the apparent fatigue. The many moves it used, including the last Solar Beam, had exhausted it a lot, so even if it was fine health-wise, it was still nearly spent energy/stamina-wise.
Ace recalled his beaten Feraligatr and called out his Ninetales. They made use of the Sunny Day Bellossom had been keeping up for her Chlorophyll and probably Solar Beam. Ninetales's sun-boosted fire moves succeeded in knocking out the exhausted Bellossom pretty quickly, leaving Claire with only one last Pokemon.
As expected, her last Poke on was her Lopunny, but it got candidly beaten by Ninetales as well, making Ace the second finalist. This meant Claire and Arnold would have to fight for third place, while the loser would get fourth place.
Before the battle for third place began the teachers allowed the participants a 10-minute rest period. While their injuries were treated after each fight, the same could not be said about their fatigue, so all participants made use of the given time to recover as much stamina as possible.
This was my biggest advantage compared to everyone else, the high number of equally strong Pokemon. Whenever one of my Pokemon was exhausted, I could use another one until the previous one recovered.
Anyway, Claire managed to win against Arnold. She only used her Golduck and Bellossom to beat Arnold's Hitmonform, Primeape, and Fearow. So, Claire won third place and Arnold got fourth place.
I took a look at the faces of our teachers and they all looked rather happy. Even Mr. Koetsuji seemed to have a small satisfied smile on his face. At least, I thought I saw one on his face, because I briefly saw one, even if it had vanished after blinking once.
Directly afterward, the final battle between Ace and Ranmaru was held. They both released their first Pokemon upon the signal of the referee, and Feraligatr appeared on Ace's side, while Staraptor appeared on Ranmaru's side.
Ranmaru ordered his Staraptor to stay up high while using long-range moves to attack. This forced Feraligatr to use long-range ones as well. The exchange turned into a pretty long one because the Staraptor line wasn't that good with long-range attacks.
Case in point being that Ranmaru's Staraptor seemed to only know Air Slash and Air Cutter as far as long-range moves were concerned. Meanwhile, Feraligatr returned fire with Ice Beam and Hydro Pump.
However, since Ace's Feraligatr was stronger than Staraptor and due to Feraligatr being better at close combat than long-range combat, Ranmaru, and Staraptor had no choice but to persist.
Still, a few minutes in Ranmaru seemed to have accepted that he wouldn't be able to win the way the fight was going. While his Staraptor had managed to avoid taking any damage, they only managed to deliver a small amount of damage as well.
So, Ranmaru gave his Pokemon the Kamikaze command, and Staraptor did a nosedive at Feraligatr using Quick Attack. It began shining mid-flight, but I was unsure what it was doing. When it stopped a short distance before Feraligatr, released a huge beam of energy and fell unconscious, I recognized that the move was Final Gambit.
Unfortunately, due to the Quick Attack boosted nosedive Feraligatr had no time to dodge Staraptor's Final Gambit and got hit right in the face with it.
Had it not been Ace's Pokemon that was being in trouble I would have busted a gut at the "Oh! Shit" face Feraligatr put on when it noticed that it had no way to dodge the beam.
I still couldn't stop a snort from coming out, but thankfully I was not the only one. Weiss couldn't keep in a giggle as well, so we looked at each other and nodded, mentally agreeing to keep quiet about laughing at Ace's misery.
I said misery because Staraptor's kamikaze attack managed to knock out Feraligatr. While I was not a fan of self-destructive moves, the result spoke for itself, since Staraptor managed to drag down a stronger Pokemon with it.
Ace and Ranmaru both recalled their knocked-out Pokemon and called out their next ones. Ninetales on Ace's side, and Gogoat on Ranmaru's side, which perplexed a lot of the spectators. Even if it was true that Gogoat was stronger than Ninetales stage-wise, it was also true that it had a type disadvantage.
This showed itself when Ninetales managed to barely eke out a win. Or should it be considered a draw, since she fell just a few seconds after Gogoat did?
Ninetales kept using moves like Flamethrower and Inferno to deliver damage, while Gogoat countered with Stomping Tantrum and Bulldoze. Both dodged whenever possible, but obviously, some moves managed to land regardless on both sides.
Still, the damage Gogoat could deliver was lower than the one Ninetales delivered, and the only reason Gogoat managed to last long enough to drag down Ninetales as well was that it used self-recovery moves like Milk Drink and Horn Leech.
Everyone, me included, was watching the field curious what the last Pokemon on both sides were going to be. I knew that Ace would definitely use his Mienshao since his Chimchar was still too weak to be useful, but I had no idea which Pokemon Ranmaru would use.
This was the moment that would decide who won the final battle. Both recalled the beaten Pokemon and after receiving the signal released their final Pokemon.
As expected Ace called out his Mienshao, and on Ranmaru's side a (low) bronze-stage Seel appeared. Its low strength explained why he had not used it against Ninetales despite it having a type advantage.
Still, Ranmaru had managed to get himself a mount for land, air, and the sea, so I had to take off my hat to him in that regard. Nonetheless, judging from its stage he did not have Seel for that long, and as one would expect Mienshao won the fight between them rather easily.
Not much to say about that one really, Seel tried to keep Mienshao away using Water Gun and Aurora Beam, but Mienshao managed to close the distance between them and best it up for a bit before Ranmaru recalled Seel with a bitter smile.
He commented that he had expected as much but still wanted to see if a miracle would happen, which evidently didn't happen. Ace was declared the winner and Ranmaru got second place.
After the regular combat tournament was over, Ms. Striker announced a 30-minute lunch break, where the teachers once more handed out sandwiches.
Once the 30-minutes were up, she declared the beginning of the mixed combat tournament.
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