Upon hearing their names, the two friends who had long turned quiet and staid looked at each other with a light smirk in their young faces, after which both of them went serious. To say nothing about Mary, who is a witness to how meticulous her friend is in training his Miltank to the point of having a streak in the cafeteria of being late for all 3 meals, to the point where the cook sets aside a plate of his usuals for him, Anthony has a lot of respect for Mary. Not only is the girl able to train a rare Pokémon with a rather bad history of aggression, but she does so while balancing her life as a child and as an intern, without even making her Pokémon less competitive than the rest.
Anthony can never do that; he has to set aside a lot of things when he's focusing on something to make the most out of his actions, and for that, he's respectful and envious. The two trainers are accompanied by their two Pokemons, their partners, and their long-term internship project Pokémon.
As Anthony and Miltank walked, Zubat slapped the back of Miltank with its wing while also doing the same with Anthony as if to say good luck to its two friends before flying off towards Treecko's side. The two started bonding as Zubat recounted its experiences to its friend. Seeing this, Karen and Hana produced two pairs of small pompoms while gesturing for Treecko and Zubat to come near them, which the Pokémon did.
As they received the pompoms, the two Pokemons started to make random cheerleading moves whilst shouting their names, that seem to be a substitute for 'Anthony'. Anthony froze for a moment before standing in the trainer's area in the battlefield. In his mind, he can't help but facepalm.
_What in the world, your son just saw (possibly) the Pokemons of Elite 4 Agatha, and you still have the time to embarrass him?_
Anthony shot a glance at his mom, but all she did was wave her hand to Anthony while also making faces for Miltank to notice her. In other words, one of the most decorated trainers present in the venue is acting as anything but a decorated trainer. In the crowd, a certain man, specifically Mary's father, as well as his Arcanine, saw this scene before glancing at each other and tacitly nodding.
Looking at this, Mary's eyes widened, and she wanted to shout something, but it was already too late. Arcanine already jumped high, making the spectators look upwards as if seeing a giant bird Pokémon take flight. Arcanine landed on the other side of the stadium and spat out fumes of flame into the sky. The flames then converged and made a large 'Go Mary!' sign.
This stunt made the whole place erupt in cheers and claps as the once-tense atmosphere due to the fate of the interns' grades turned into one of rapturous chaos. Looking at this scene, Prof. Oak sighed in disappointment as he saw how a random stranger was able to kick up more crowd reaction than THE Prof. Oak himself.
As for Anthony, who already started clapping, he can't help but notice that his mom seems to regret not bringing Charizard with her for some baffling reason.
"Your dad and his Arcanine seem to love you so much."
Anthony smiled faintly while Mary blushed in embarrassment.
After 5 minutes of non-stop shouting and clapping, the spilled excitement of the viewers were finally contained, however, it's still boiling. Something that the referee knew, thus he immediately started speaking.
"We all know the rules of all Pokemon battles."
The referee looked at the two interns who nodded solemnly before continuing as if wanting to make this mini tournament as solemn as possible. Well, it did become a little bit more exciting though because of Arcanine's spectacle and the fact that someone dared to out gimmick Hana Dover, so such things might not be necessary.
In any case, the referee continued.
"The match will end only because of 4 things: I, the referee declared a Pokemon unable to battle, I saw cheating, when there is a draw and when the time runs out without any winner."
"If I declared a Pokemon unable to battle, the Pokemon that remains standing and its trainer will be the winner. If I saw cheating like using an outside Pokemon to influence the opposing Pokemon and more, the one using such cheap tricks will be disqualified and according to the Professor, will be kicked out of the internship and also will be deliberated by the ethics council of the world government to be banned from taking care any Pokemons and taking any Pokemon related jobs. Draw will be announced when two Pokemons fainted or the time runs out, in this case the panelists will be the one to decide the winner."
After the referee said such lengthy words in a short breath, he paused for a moment, looking at the two battlers and their smirking and jumping Pokemons.
"Do you two understand?"
Anthony and Mary, who were staring at each other non-stop (at least after Arcanine made a fire show that made Hana ponder if it was a bad choice to leave her Charizard somewhere and bring someone else instead) looked at the referee and made a brief nod. Seeing the resolve of the two students, the referee smiled a little before putting his hands up that have flags on them, causing the cheering to calm down.
Seeing this, the two children looked at each other before nodding, smile evident on their faces. Anthony knew that this tournament is just an assessment, something that he's used to do just fine in his college, but this time, it was an assessment not only of him, but also of his Miltank, and he is so sure to not shame his partner with a shameful performance. Mary on the other hand... well have two reasons: she doesn't want to lose with her idol and father watching and she doesn't want to lose after her father's Arcanine made that spectacle.
This however is not known by the referee, he just swung down his flags and shouted.
"Start!"
Miltank and Pickachu immediately stopped bouncing around and looked at their enemy with sharp, stabbing eyes. Miltank's body exploded with red aura before it jumped upwards and curled itself tightly, so tightly that a dull sound of a boulder falling was heard when he did fall instead of cracking bones.
Miltank then started spinning and charged at Pickachu. Hana and Karen, as well as the field researchers who are not allowed to become the panel of examiners smiled at the sight of a pink cow radiating red aurora charging at the battlefield.
The Bide-Defense Curl-Rollout combo has been unleashed. This is a combination of moves that Anthony has been making Miltank to perfect and was supposed to be a trump card if he is in a real Pokemon League level tournament, it would be a very good surprise given that Miltank is trained so it knows when will the move be needed. However, this is a test first tournament, and thus Anthony wanted to let the panelists know immediately that he doesn't need on-sight command to make Miltank know what has to be done.
_This can also be seen as me giving a command right before the battle... but I think the fact that Miltank never looked at me before the start of the battle to initiate is a good display._
While Anthony is thinking of this and while Miltank is dashing towards the side of the battlefield with, Pickachu also started to move, silver streak of light immediately burst forth form all over its body as Pickachu used Quick Attack to dash for Miltank, seemingly head on. Furthermore, Pikachu's tail started to harden and also turn silver, revealing another move combo of the very first match of the day: Quick Attack and Iron Tail.
_Very simple..._
Anthony thought, though it came as no surprise as he knew that Mary wanted to be like his mom. But his mom is not a simple trainer, though her hard hitters make for simple battles.
_If mom's the one who trained Pikachu for this moment, she might force it learn Thunder and spam it to the side of Miltank..._
Indeed, perhaps because of a combination of Anthony's identity as an old person in a child's body or perhaps because he watches a lot of battle clips of his mom and dad, he was able to tell the countermeasure that Mary thought of to face Rollouts, specially of a species that can envelope themselves in their flesh fully and has lesser vital spots to see.
You see, when a species can do that, that means the head is hidden by the feet and bum while the feet should be held by a central pillar so as to not collapse from the weight of a head to nape or even lower load, the hands. And indeed, that's what Mary has been training Pickachu to do, for the moment the two Pokemons have closed in in the middle of the battlefield, it immediately made a zigzag in the side of Miltank and made a barrel roll towards the middle side part of Miltank, aiming its hardened tail towards it.
"Speed up, Miltank."
Anthony yelled, and Miltank obeyed, stirring up dust in the back of its coiled self as Pickachu missed its mark, making it's two combination moves, Quick Attack and Iron Tail to be cancelled. However, Pickachu and Mary in that regard are not ones to give up easily, Pickachu immediately got enveloped with silver light once more whilst hardening its tail.
"Chase it, Pickachu."
Mary also started to give her commands. Anthony nodded at this, then also made an adjustment.
"Make a big circle and speed up, don't let Pickachu make you zigzag."
The people who doesn't know battle was quite confused of this command. After all, it's hard to outrun an agile Pokemon if one didn't used their own agility, however, the ones who have great experiences in battling, namely the panel of judges, Hana, Karen and Prof. Oak made slight nods at this tactic as if approving to it. The logic to this is very simple, Miltank can't out agile Pikachu no matter how 'talented' it is in fighting, that's like asking a Boieng-747 outs peed an F-35 fighter jet.
Making Miltank try to fight Pikachu's agility with its own will just make Miltank loss the combo moves it has activated.
Seeing that her friend, Hana's son has a very good sense of the battle made Karen quite impressed.
_In short, little Anthony forcefully dragged Pickachu into Miltank's playground. Miltank might not be as agile as its opponent, but it sure can contend to Pikachu when it comes to pure linear speed, now, Pickachu needs to time its attacks harder as the speed of Rollout of Miltank becomes faster and faster, forcing it to make catching up it's primary priority despite it normally not being one..._
Karen looked at her friend, and seeing her smile, she can't help but again nod approvingly.
_I can't wait to see you when you're 10..._
Karen's eyes froze.
_I would have died if Hana heard that._
______________
Hana, while watching the circular cloud stirred up dust while the crowd again started to shout their bets also did the same. In her mind however, he can't help but praise the two combatants.
_This 'drag them to your playground' strategy is very common and is something that's hard to counter once you lose the initiative, this is something that Anthony knew. However, he seem to not have any alternatives to the fact that Pikachus are as fast as they are agile._
As Hana thoughts of that, Miltank and Pikachu are still in a deadlock, no one is in front or at the back of each other, making the audience cheer more for two 'equals' has been battling it out. Of course, they have seen better fights in the Pokemon League, but it's still rather thrilling to see full speed chases that caused gusts of wind and sand to be swept up.
Hana continued.
_Electric types are generally faster when chasing other Pokemons on land, they can be amplified by their electric storage too, given that it's near their feet as their footsteps produces electricity. This means that if Pickachu can just drag its cheeks in the ground and sacrifice some speed for a moment, it would gain more speed than Miltank._
_If Miltank swerved, then the 'playground' would be who's more agile, meaning this is the best position Miltank can be in._
Hana looked at the Professor and smiled, though she still can't stop analyzing the performance of her son.
_Anthony and the girl, apparently named Mary knew of this nuance. Anthony is waiting for Mary for Pikachu to forcefully use electricity and attack the sides of Miltank for the Bide of it to stack to '1' while Mary doesn't want to do that because of this very reason because alongside its speed, Pikachu's Iron Tail would also be amplified with the electricity, causing the energy stacked by Bide to be larger than intended... but she seem to be determined of using Iron Tail nonetheless._
Hana sighed, all of these are not that complicated, in Hana's perspective, interns of this profession should be able to analyze all of these in one go.