The opening ceremony went as usual with a motivational speech and an introduction to the schedule. Once the opening ceremony was over, the participants for the first battles, which were the preliminary matches to determine those that could participate in the round of 64, were announced.
I was part of the "lucky" 64, 32 participants for each category, that had to take part in the preliminary rounds. Still, at least I only had to fight an extra battle in the personal combat category. If I had gotten "lucky" enough to have to fight in preliminary matches for both categories, I would have cried foul.
My preliminary fight was set to 10:30 a.m, while my next battle, which was the Pokemon battle in the round of 64, was set to 12:30 p.m. The personal combat fight in the round of 64 was scheduled for 3 p.m.
I spent the next 90 minutes until my first fight chilling around the stadium. At least I was lucky enough that all my battles were going to happen at the Pummelo Grand Stadium, so I did not have to switch venues for each fight.
The time flew by swiftly while I was observing the crowd moving around the stadium, to be more precise, I was observing the Pokemon that were accompanying the people. I did not see any special Pokemon, but at least I avoided becoming bored, so it was not a total waste of time.
Anyway, my preliminary fight was against a Tier 2 First-Class Water Elementalist from Hoenn, whose fighting style consists of using water whips to ensnare and attack at mid as well as short range.
She used something similar to Water Gun for sustained long-range attacks while using water arrows for instant long-range attacks. She also kept a mini river floating around herself to block attacks. Water was a pretty versatile element, and she made use of that pretty well.
It took me around 15 minutes to take her down, but that was because I knowingly prolonged the fight a bit to give her some more time to demonstrate her prowess.
She had been unfortunate enough to get chosen to face me in a preliminary battle after all, so I thought I could at least allow her to show off a bit instead of ending it prematurely.
After I was declared the victor, I thanked her for the fight before leaving the stage. Then I pulled out my phone to inform everyone of my first victory per message, and they all send me congratulatory messages in return.
I obviously called my parents, since they would not be satisfied with a text message. Mom praised me excessively, as mothers tended to do, while dad congratulated me calmly.
In fact, I did not have to inform them of my victory, since they could look that up online or watch the fights through the official live broadcast of the competition, but informing them myself was more genuine which was why I did it.
I had nearly two hours until my Pokemon battle, so I proceeded to visit all the stalls selling food and snacks that had been set up in and around the stadium. I bought some to taste on site and purchased some extra of the ones I liked, which I stored so that I could replicate or at least imitate the taste at a later date.
I did the same with the ones I knew one of my Pokemon would enjoy, since I more or less knew their tastes by now, being the one that was preparing all their meals and snacks.
I lost track of the time during my little taste testing tour, and if not for the alarm I set up beforehand, I might have been late for my Pokemon battle. Still, thanks to the alarm I made it on time. The Pokemon battle was against Britney, a girl studying at a steel academy from one of the islands in the Sevii Archipelago.
Britney actually started with a surprise and used a (high) silver stage Cloyster as her first Pokemon. It was not just any Cloyster, but a steel variant that had a steel typing instead of an ice typing.
Thankfully, she seemed to suffer from the antagonist syndrome, or maybe she simply wanted to promote her academy. I don't know which one it was, but seeing my surprised look, she began explaining how she got her Cloyster.
Turns out that the Cloyster variant was the specialty of her academy. Apparently, they had the only tribe of that variant on the northern continent, and students of the academy could choose a variant Shellder as their partner Pokemon if they wanted to.
Anyway, my choice for the battle had actually been Thor/Raichu since I had not expected any water Pokemon from her, and since he had already appeared on the field, I could not switch him out without forfeiting him or beating her Cloyster, so I left the fight to Thor.
Unsurprising for me but shocking for her, the fight did not take long, despite Cloyster taking refuge inside his shell against Thor's electric moves, while grounding himself with his outer steel shell.
Thor simply cracked open its shell after trying for a while and gave it a shocking surprise. Still, it did hold out for nearly 5 minutes against Thor as a water type, so I would say it did an impressive job.
I was actually interested in getting one for myself someday in the future since I could think of some pretty devastating combinations it could use, especially if it worked together with Thor.
They would become army-, or rather tide killers if it worked, but that was stuff for the future, so back to the fight. Anyway, the second Pokemon she called out was one she had revealed beforehand.
It was her (mid) silver stage Excadrill, which neatly countered Thor's electric moves, so it made sense that she chose it against Thor, and it would have been a really good opponent for any other electric Pokemon. Yet, for Thor, it was simply a matter of using other moves, since we had prepared strategies for such match-ups.
They definitely did not expect him to use Surf to attack Excadrill, and the reaction of everyone, host, crowd, and opponent alike, when Thor rode the wave created by Surf on his own tail, to follow after Excadrill who got swept up by the same wave, was fantastic. Thor then knocked it out with a Brick Break combo on its head after catching up with it.
Her last Pokemon was (high) silver stage Doublade, which turned out to be a tricky opponent for Thor. Doublade actually blocked all of Thor's electric moves by grounding one of its swords through Iron Defense or Iron Head, while the other blade grabbed onto the grounded one's tassel.
Furthermore, Thor was unable to hit it with Brick Break as well due to its ghost typing, and after some back and forth Thor became serious. He used a Rain Dance before slapping Doublade into the air with an Iron Tail. Afterward, he kept it immobilized with Psychic just long enough to bombard it with Thunder, and he kept that up for as long as he could.
Thankfully, that proved to be enough to take Doublade out, but I decided that Thor would have to learn one or two dark-type moves to prepare for future fights against other ghost types. Besides, those moves would also help against psychic types, so we were hitting two Pidgey with one Rock Throw.
The offensive dark type moves Thor could learn, as far as I knew, were Thief, Knock Off, and Brutal Swing. Well, there was also Fling, but I did not count that one since it was depended on outside materials.
Anyway, after beating her, I went out for lunch with Mr. Cameron, who invited me to an eatery close to the stadium, that according to him made a great sea salad that went perfectly with a Lumineon filet.
I ended up following his recommendation and I had to agree with him, both the salad and the filet were really tasty. Moreover, the two enriched the taste of the other perfectly leading to even greater enjoyment, but enough on the taste of the meal.
While we ate, Mr. Cameron praised me for my fights and told me not to worry about the Cloyster part since it was simply bad luck on the part of the girl.
We talked a bit about my plans after the competition, and the professors of Rota also came up, when I told him about the offer from the government I had received after the regional competition.
Mr. Cameron just told me that the choice was mine, but that I could consider them since they were respected professors on the global stage. Once we were done eating, he left after telling me to have fun. He did pay on the way out since he was the one that invited me there.
After leaving the restaurant, I resumed exploring the area around the stadium since I had been unable to visit all stalls the previous time. This time around I made sure to keep an eye on the time and made my way inside for my next personal fight at 2:50 p.m.
My opponent was a local candidate called Frank, and he was from the local ground academy. His fighting style mirrored that of Sam, the boy, I had beaten during the Rota competition.
While I used brute force against Sam to break his earth armor and cocoon, I went for a different strategy against Frank. This time around I used aura-boosted senbons to break Frank's defense.
By targeting his joints I made sure they immobilized him, and once his movement was restricted, I finished the fight using aura knuckle spikes. I applied enough force for them to crumble his defense, forcing him to give up once they actually touched the skin of his throat.
As usual, I thanked my opponent for the fight before leaving the stage, and after that battle, I was free for the rest of the day and informed Mr. Cameron that I was going to look around the city center a bit before exploring the shore.
He told me to have fun and recommended me two places for dinner. The first one was Pummelo King if I wanted to eat burgers and the second one was the Krusty Krab, in case I wanted to eat seafood.
I thanked him for the recommendation and walked to the city center. There I saw multiple streets that had stalls lining up the whole street instead of there being regular shops.
There were obviously streets that were stall-free, and those had regular stores instead, but I decided to explore the stall streets. I wanted to look through the stalls to see if I could find something interesting in one of them.
Moreover, it looked interesting and just a few minutes in I could definitely say that I liked the atmosphere. It was lively with everyone talking and bargaining.
I did in fact see some interesting things, but I had most of them already, and by the end of the day, I had only bought two things. The first was an unranked Relicanth skull that I saw among the items displayed in one of the smaller stalls. I checked its status and saw that it was a C-Class one.
The seller wanted 55.000 Poke for it and I got swept up by the atmosphere so instead of buying it directly, I bargained for a bit just to have partaken in it before I bought it for 50.000 Poke.
The second item I bought was a C-Class Cloyster shell that had been displayed for 100.000 Poke, but I bought it for 94.000 Poke. I was going to use it for Manami/Lapras's shell.
All in all, I had quite some fun checking out the stalls, and I ended up visiting the Krusty Krab for dinner. I ordered some steamed Krabby with a serving of fries on the side, and I had to admit it deserved Mr. Cameron's recommendation.
In the end, I did not get to explore the shore, but I did not mind. By the time I made it back to the hotel, it was nearly 10 p.m, and after a quick check-in with Mr. Cameron to inform him I was back I retreated to my room.
The next day the round of 32 and 16 took place, and just like it went on Arcday, I had no problem winning my battles. I did visit the shore this time but I did not find any special Pokemon. I was hoping I would be luckier on Giratiday.
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