Well, it turned out that Mr. Cameron had also found out that I had been promoted to Duke and he called me to congratulate me on reaching that milestone. He also "casually" asked me what my plans were once I had won the Hoenn Senior League Tournament before suggesting that focusing on the Elite List or my aura training might be more interesting than playing with the trainers participating in the Grand League.
He really did call it playing, and I had to snort at that, which had him release an awkward cough, showing that his true thoughts might have slipped out unintentionally. Still, what a coincidence, right? Somehow both Mr. Cameron and Professor Oak ended up calling me and they both talked about my future plans before suggesting I skip the Grand League and focus on the Elite List, or in Mr. Cameron's case that or my aura training.
Granted I was not surprised that they learned about my promotion to Duke since I did not bother hiding my identity and one of them was THE Oak while the other was an elder of the Aura Guardian Order, which incredibly enough was not as big/influential as Samuel Mf Oak. Either way, it would have been a surprise if they had not been keeping tabs on my journey seeing how I had apprenticed under one and was a member of the other.
The surprising bit was that both parties, likely independent from one another since two calls on the same day were too obvious, had called me to nudge me to skip the Grand League and go straight for the Elite List. While I was sure that they had not talked with each other, I could not help but be curious if the idea was purely their own or if someone from the league had at some point called them and requested that they try to steer me away from following the usual trainer path progression after seeing my performance in the Hoenn Gym Circuit so far.
Maybe my promotion had made the two decide that now was a good time to bring that up, which was why the two called me on the same day. I was honestly not sure how I felt about that idea. Regardless, I told Mr. Cameron the same thing I said to Professor Oak before concluding the talk after Mr. Cameron told me to not neglect my own training too much.
I had to admit that hearing the same things from two respected seniors, who I knew would only have the best intentions toward me, made me a bit more inclined toward the idea they were suggesting. It was not as if I had not thought about it myself after some of the Gym Battles I had. Still, it was too soon to make the decision, so I pushed the issue to the back of my mind and focused on heading to the fourth battlefield since I had been called upon two minutes ago while I was still talking with Mr. C.
I heard a repeat announcement just as I made it to the entrance of the battlefield, so I apologized for the delay after stepping onto the field before I, or rather Igneel/Charizard proceeded to roast my Knight(ly) opponent's Pokemon. Actually, one of his foes was an Azumarill so that one got beat up the classic way since it was immune to his draconic fire/energy and pretty resistant to regular fire.
Anyway, there were less than 12 minutes left after Igneel was done, so I went to the reception and asked them to put my targeted challenge on hold since I did not think that I could finish another fight before my ducal battle at 5:15 p.m. With nothing else to do, I went to the entrance of battlefield no.1 and leaned against the wall with my eyes closed. I thought about who to use if Anubis/Lucario ended up needing some help to finish the battle against Duchess Yunma, but it was not easy to make a choice in advance when it came to substitutes.
Time passed pretty quickly and my internal timer warned me that 9 minutes had passed, so I opened my eyes, pushed myself off the wall, and nodded towards the Lady who was standing not far from me, who I assumed was Duchess Yunma. She gave me a polite smile in return, and after holding the door open for her, I stepped through it right after she did.
We stepped onto the battlefield at virtually the same time, and the referee greeted us after we took our positions. The battle that followed took considerably longer than I expected it to due to Duchess Yunma's specialization, or rather that of her Pokemon. Each one of the Pokemon she sent out was capable of healing itself, and others as well, but in this case it was their self-healing ability that dragged things out. That the first two were pretty tanky was another factor.
Lucario's first opponent was a (high) dark gold stage Blissey; One that used Taunt as her opening move of all things. Blissey then spammed Defense Curl and Rollout for mobility, while healing herself whenever she got hurt. She also timed a Protect whenever Anubis tried to add in a very strong physical move like Hammer Arm. Honestly, even with the type advantage, it took nearly 25 minutes for Anubis to grind Blissey down, and even though he got barely hurt during that time, he still ended up expending a lot of energy/stamina in the process.
Things did not get much better when Yunma followed up with a Miltank that had apparently mastered Taunt and Milk Drink along with the same Defense Curl-Rollout combo as well as the emergency Protect. It was a bit funny to see Miltank milk herself during the fight, but she was quick and professional, so it left barely any opening even if it felt odd to see it happen. Still, at least Miltank was not as cockroachy as Blissey, so she fell in half the time, though unlike Blissey she did cause some damage to Anubis in return.
The Chimecho and Gardevoir that followed eventually finished what the plump duo started, or rather Gardevoir was the one that finally took Anubis down, though my guy still got a few licks in before he fell. I sent out Nyx/Umbreon to clean up after him and she took down Gardevoir as well as the Bellossom Yunma sent out afterward. After that experience, I could not help but be curious if Yunma worked at a hospital or something, so instead of just doing what I usually did, which was to thank them for the battle and then leave, I chose to actually speak with my beaten opponent.
Yunma seemed happy to accommodate my curiosity and I found out that she was a certified field nurse, so she usually took missions/jobs which had her go to places that needed a medic. She said that that was what most trainers who were interested in medicine but thought a hospital/PokeCenter job was boring did. Funnily enough, she mentioned that their field was still mostly made up of Joys, or at least ones with that surname.
According to her, Joy family members probably accounted for more than half the field nurses she had met or heard about. I thought that was pretty interesting, and with my curiosity sated, I thanked Yunma for humoring me before politely but swiftly tying up the conversation. I then went to the reception and asked how things were looking for my ducal battles tomorrow. I learned that 3 of the applicants for tomorrow's battle had already accepted, while 2 had declined the request, and that they were still waiting for the reply of the final Duke.
Hearing that I asked if they could send out 2 or 3 more applications/requests since I really wanted to go through as many battles as possible so that I could quickly satisfy my promise and leave for the Meteor Falls. I could feel the *urgh*/"really" the receptionist lady was feeling at my request and she did warn me that I could end up facing 7 Dukes/Duchesses if everyone ended up accepting. When I insisted that I was fine with that she still followed through.
After fiddling with her PC for a few moments, she informed me that she had sent out 3 more invites and that I would receive the first three battle missives tonight while the others would be sent out as the recipients replied. With that out of the way I asked Zuki to sign me up for some targeted knight battles, and I ended up doing those for the next three or so hours. I only stopped after every last silver member of our family had gotten the chance to fight as well.
Consequently, we ended up having a delayed dinner, but no one minded that. There was an issue that got brought up during our dinner conversation that nearly had me groan, which was that most of the ones that already got the chance to battle felt somewhat unfulfilled with just that fight. Thankfully I had a solution for that even if it was not the same as facing a trainer and their Pokemon. I decided to go through with the idea I had talked about with the ghost chiefs during the desert probe.
Once dinner was done, I called the ghost Chiefs over and talked with them about opening a Ghost Arena, or rather 3 battlefields that could be used for challenges/battles between my main as well as reserve team members and members of their ghostly army. They were quite happy with that and told me we could open as many arenas as I wanted. They assured me that they would make sure that each one was attended to by teams ready to accept challengers at any time, and while I appreciated their enthusiasm, I told them that 3 arenas were enough for now.
Nonetheless, there was the fact that the weakest member of the ghost army was at the (mid) gold stage, and while some of the silver guys/gals could face them, that was not the case for everyone. Not to mention the handful of members that were still at the bronze and iron stage. To address that, I mentally went through the many many Utopians that my second and third thought streams observed whenever they supervised/kept an eye on Utopia.
After filtering through them, I contacted some of the ones who had shown better fighting abilities to hire them as battlers for the mixed arena. I ended up with roughly 300 utopians who accepted the job, and there were quite a few ex-Hoenn Desert dwellers among them. 86 of the hired help were at the silver stage, 53 were at the bronze stage, and the other 149 utopians were at the iron stage. The reason I hired so many of the iron stage ones, even though only Squirtle and Larvitar were currently at the iron stage was that most of the reserve members were at that stage.
Also, basic gratitude for allowing them to live in Utopoia aside, the reason so many utopians agreed to participate and were quite enthusiastic about it was that I promised them bonuses on top of the extra resources/food I promised them for doing the job if they managed to push and even beat the challengers. I even dangled the possibility of joining the reserve team if their performance record was impressive enough.
Once the agreement had been made, I led my Pokemon to their usual sparring area and they then got to watch as I manipulated Utopia to add 9 new battlefields to the place on top of the ones I had set up for them to fight among themselves. 3 of the new battlefields had a spooky vibe since I made sure that spectral energy gathered around there to make things better for the ghost army and harder for my Pokemon. I thought that the ghosts needed a slight advantage like that to compensate for the general superiority of my team members.
Hades/Gengar and Horus/Xatu would have the same advantage, but we would just have to live with that, or they could use one of the other battlefields instead. The other battlefields had their own peculiarities to ensure that many different fighting environments were present, such as a pure water field, and one with mini islands as footholds, along with one that had small lava streams run through which made things harder for water, grass, and ice types.
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