The anticipated day came and my parents arrived. There was not much to prepare for our stay in Indigo City, since they already had their change of clothes and care products inside their space bag. The same was true for me as well, and anything else could be procured in Indigo City if necessary.
Horus/Xatu teleported us to Pewter City and we used the service of the Teleportation Hub to jump straight to Indigo City. The check-up was slightly stricter before and after our teleportation to Indigo City, but that made sense since the city was the de facto military capital of Kanto.
This was due to its position and history. Indigo City was one of the border cities of Kanto and in the past helped defend Kanto from an excursion from Johto's direction. It was also close to Mt. Silver and Viridian Forest, which were two of Kanto's biggest danger zones, with Mt. Silver being the most dangerous one.
While Indigo Plateau was located on Mt.Silver, roughly halfway up the mountain, it was not a city but more of a military outpost used to keep the more dangerous Pokemon living there from entering Kanto. It was less than a hundredth the size of Indigo City, which was the city that actually supported the Indigo Plateau.
That was also the reason only the last two days of the tournament were held there. Only those that managed to enter the Top 64 had the honor to battle on the Indigo Plateau.
Anyway, as soon as we were cleared by the personnel of Teleportation Hub select the building. My first impression of Indigo City was stalwart, steady, and enduring.
The buildings were built with hardiness and defense in mind, and apparently the same was true for the whole layout of the city as well. The city was more focused on functionality than on looks.
One immediately knew that this was a city that was built to defend the region and that it had gone through a lot since its foundation. It gave one the feeling that one was safe as long as the city stood.
This was the first time I actually felt a city giving off an aura/feeling, so I was seriously impressed. I could not see the city walls from our current position, but dad said that it was an impressive sight since they were the sturdiest walls in Kanto.
According to him, one could still see many of the marks left behind by tides and wars from the past. My father led us through the streets towards our hotel while I was gawking at the surroundings.
The hotel was an alliance-owned one called "Rising Dragonite". All participants got a room for free and those that could skip the preliminaries like dad got a better room than the others.
We obviously choose to stay in the room offered to dad, and he asked for one with an extra bed for me. Afterward, we left the hotel to walk around, checking out Indigo City. The city actually had 16 stadiums where the battles of the preliminary round were going to be held.
We took a look at each one and they were all medium-sized. Each stadium had a capacity of 75.000 seats, each field was 14.400 m² in size and each one had a different terrain. Unlike the anime, the fields did not have a change mechanism to change the terrain depending on their mood.
No, each arena had a theme and the participants were randomly assigned which stadium they had to battle on. Grassy, sandy, rocky, just water, arctic, forest, swamp, and stream were the eight main types of terrains used for the fields.
Now, one would wonder if the terrains were used twice since there were 16 stadiums but no. The other 8 stadiums were a combination of the previous eight terrains. Like forest and swamp being used for the field in stadium no.12, and just water (sea) as well as arctic being used in stadium no.16, which created ice shoals and icebergs.
Visiting each one took nearly the rest of the day, so after eating a nice Tauros steak with some mashed potatoes at one of the restaurants we just watched a movie in our hotel room before going to sleep.
The next day we visited the wall since I wanted to see it after my father's description yesterday, and I had to admit that it was an impressive sight. The wall was 40 meters tall and 15 meters wide. We climbed on top of it and I looked down the other side to take a look at the marks left on the surface of the wall.
I saw dents, scratches, burnt spots, and dark patches. I was not sure if those dark patches were due to water attacks leaving a mark or blood doing the same.
We came across a group with a guide who was narrating how some of the marks were created. Dad paid some money and we joined their tour for a while.
That night we spent just relaxing and on Arcday, 07.08.2179, the preliminaries officially began. At 8 a.m mom received a message informing her that her first battle would be at 12:30 p.m at stadium no.9, which was a mixed terrain of rock and sand.
The message also contained the latest numbers and information. Apparently, there were 4768 participants in the preliminaries, and the first phase consisted of four elimination battles. Each battle was 1-vs-1 and whoever lost even once got disqualified.
Each stadium had a dedicated channel that streamed the battles that were happening there. All channels were in constant use since there were always battles happening in all 16 channels/stadiums to finish all battles. I mean in just the first round of eliminations 2384 battles had to be held.
We chilled inside our hotel room until 11:45 a.m, switching between channels, searching for the most interesting battles among the available options. At noon we arrived at stadium no.9. Mom went to the waiting room while Dad and I went to the stands.
Roughly a third of the seats were filled, which honestly surprised me a bit since I thought that watching the preliminaries on TV was better due to the option of switching between channels in case a battle did not seem interesting enough.
While we were waiting for mom's turn we saw 4 battles, and none of the trainers were strong enough to pose a challenge to either of my parents. At 12:32 p.m mom appeared on the right side of the field, while a man appeared on the left side.
"On the right side of the field we have Arya Geo from Hope Town, and on the left side, we have Arnold Grundig from Pewter City. Both are participating in the Senior League Tournament for the first time, so we'll have to see how they deal with their first appearance on the big stage." The commentator announced, and I was wondering if he was trying to make them even more nervous or if he was just shit at his job.
The referee went over the rules of the fight before telling mom and her opponent to get ready. Upon the referee's signal, they released their Pokemon and began their fight.
Mom called out Titania since her Nidoqueen was the best suited out of her Pokemon for a mixed sand and rocky terrain. An Onix appeared on Arnold's side of the field. However, despite the big difference in size with the Onix being over 10 meters long, the first exchange showed that Titania was much stronger.
Which I had kind of expected since Titania had recently reached the (high) gold stage, while the Onix seemed to be at the (high) silver stage. It was actually kinda sad how fast the battle ended.
Titania began the battle with Earth Power which actually threw Onix into the air interrupting its Dragonbreath. She quickly followed up her attack with a Water Pulse straight at Onix's head.
I saw her starting another move before the referee called the match in mom's favor forcing Titania to abort her third move. After meeting up with mom in front of the stadium we returned to our hotel room for a bit to watch a few of the ongoing battles before going out to stroll around for a bit.
Mewday was spent watching a few battles and just strolling around as well since the first round of battles was still going on. Mom received a message concerning her second battle on Giratiday. Her second battle was at 3:45 p.m at stadium no.4, which was the one with a water field.
Out of her 3 water types, Mom chose to use Star/Starmie for this battle. Meanwhile, her opponent used a Tentacruel which was a bit unlucky on her foe's part. Despite both Pokemon being at the (low) gold stage, Star made use of its type advantage and kept attacking Tentacruel with Psybeams and Psychics.
While it took Star more than five minutes, it finally managed to wear down Tentacruel. The referee declared mom the winner, and we had to resume the waiting game. This time around we only had to wait for the next day for the message with the date of her battle. Her third battle was at 5:15 p.m on Palkiday at stadium no.2, which had a sandy field.
Mom chose to use Titania for this one as well, while her opponent used a (low) gold-stage Sandslash. Unfortunately, for her opponent, his Sandslash stood no chance against Titania.
It took less than a minute for her to end the battle, and that was because Sandslash kept going underground using Dig. While Earthquake was normally useful in situations like this the Sandslash seemingly escaped the range of Earthquake whenever it felt the ground rumble.
Anyway, Titania managed to hit it with a Brick Break when it tried to ambush her and ended the fight with a near point-blank Water Pulse. On Dialday she had her fourth fight, which was also her last one for the first phase.
She had to battle on a grass field and chose her (low) gold-stage Fearow. Her opponent had a Victreebel that was actually a bit stronger than her Fearow.
Still, Fearow kept his distance, remained up in the air, and used quick diving maneuvers to attack using moves like Aerial Ace and Drill Peck to wear Victreebel down, while dodging any counterattacks.
It turned out to be her longest battle yet, but after nearly 10 minutes Fearow finally managed to wear down Victreebel. By 8 p.m all battles of the fourth round ended and 298 out of the initial 4768 participants were left.
Since the main tournament had 256 spots, and 26 people had directly qualified for the main tournament, 230 spots were free. That meant out of the 298 participants only 230 could advance to the real deal.
To that end, all 298 participants would fight three 1-vs-1 battles on Kyoday, and the 230 with the most wins would advance, while the 68 participants with the worst win-loss ratio would be eliminated.
Mom easily won her first battle using Rivers/Poliwrath who was at the (high) gold stage. However, she actually lost her second battle against a Lanturn using Aomi/Lapras. Both were at the (mid) gold stage but Lanturn came out on top using its electric moves.
Thankfully, she got lucky and her third opponent used a Typhlosion while her Pokemon was Rivers. Add on top of that that Typhlosion was only at the (mid) gold stage and she won that battle without too much drama.
That allowed her to qualify for the main tournament on Arcday, 14.08.2179. Still, I noticed something quite peculiar at the end of the preliminaries.
The title Senior League Tournament had to be a fib, I mean of the 256 trainers that qualified for the main tournament only 23 were regular Senior-class trainers while the rest were either Expert-class trainers or those qualified for that class.
Nonetheless, tomorrow was a break day for everyone and after that, my parents would have to fight in the main event. All of us were hoping that mom and dad would not meet each other in the first few rounds. It would be really awesome if they did not meet until the finals.
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