"Camerupt, Double-Edge!"
At this point, his opponent went all-in. If I can't win, fine—but I'll trade one for one!
"Camerupt's entire body is wrapped in white light! Facing Mega Charizard after Belly Drum, it shows no fear whatsoever—the entire Pokémon charges forward! Mega Charizard doesn't hold back either—Dragon Claw strikes heavily into Camerupt! But he's also sent flying by Camerupt's charge! Both are down now—the outcome hangs in the balance!"
The commentator spoke rapidly from the booth as the situation on the field shifted.
Both Pokémon had hit the ground simultaneously. Camerupt's eyes went swirly the instant it landed.
Mega Charizard X, however, was breathing heavily, slowly rolling over and rising to one knee in the center of the field.
"Mega Charizard is getting up! He hasn't fallen! Though you can clearly see his stamina is nearly depleted, he's still standing through sheer force of will!"
"Clap clap clap Clap clap clap"
"WOOOOO!!"
After a moment of silence, once Mega Charizard rose to his feet, the audience remembered to applaud.
Watching Charizard forcing himself not to collapse, Auron's gaze softened.
"Come back, Charizard."
After recalling Charizard, Auron looked at the Luxury Ball in his hand and smiled.
"You did great, Charizard. Get some good rest."
The Luxury Ball shook twice, then quickly settled.
After putting away the Poké Ball, Auron turned and headed off the field.
At the same time, in the American Congress—
"Arguing, arguing, arguing! What's there to argue about? It's decided—tomorrow we hold a press conference and announce it to the entire world!"
"Boss, if we do that, we're entering the arena ourselves. That puts us a step below the Dragon Nation!"
The American Boss turned a cold eye toward the white official who'd just questioned him and spoke icily:
"Then what do you suggest we do?"
The white official broke out in a sweat. What can I do? Their nation's top universities had been in session for nearly a month now. The freshman tournaments had long since concluded. What could he possibly do?
It was all the Dragon Nation's fault. When they discovered something new, they should have just announced it directly. Instead, they had to let a freshman reveal it and trigger all this attention.
This caught America completely off-guard. They also had new discoveries—but if they announced them directly, the nation would be stepping into the ring against a freshman. They couldn't afford to lose face like that.
"Well... what if we hold another competition at the schools?"
"BANG!"
"What kind of bullshit idea is that?! Do what I said—tomorrow we hold a press conference and announce our new discovery!"
The American Boss kicked the white official to the ground, left those words behind, and stormed off in a fury.
"Yes sir!"
The remaining officials, no matter how unwilling, could only comply.
Back at Skyspire, after restoring Charizard's stamina, Auron rejoined his friends.
The final match of the round of nineteen to ten was currently underway on the field. The one who'd gotten a bye this round was Zoroark's trainer.
The two battling on the field were the trainer with Snorlax and Greninja, facing off against another trainer.
The situation was already clear. Though the opponent's Pokémon had some type advantages, they weren't much of an issue for the agile Greninja. The battle would be over soon.
Sure enough, right after Auron sat down, Greninja landed a Sucker Punch and finished off the opponent.
"Let's go. Today's matches are done." After watching the referee raise the small flag, Auron stood up.
Having just sat down moments ago, there wasn't even a need to stretch.
Jace also stood, shrugging his shoulders. "Sigh... what a shame. The school's rigging made today's matches pretty boring. The moment people took the field, you could tell who'd win and who'd lose."
"Haha, don't worry—tomorrow will be interesting."
Everyone laughed and nodded. True—tomorrow would feature matches between all the strong contestants.
"It's still early. How about we analyze some intel?"
"Sure. Let's go to my place."
And so, after today's freshman tournament concluded, the group headed together toward Auron's apartment.
"Everyone try to show some restraint, okay? Don't treat this place like your own home."
Watching everyone come in and immediately find their favorite spots to settle into, then watching Jace navigate straight to the kitchen fridge like he owned the place to grab drinks, Auron smiled and cracked a joke.
"Come on—your place, my place, what's the difference? Since when did you start treating me like an outsider?" Jace plopped onto the sofa, tossed Auron a bottle of sweet tea, and grinned.
"Exactly, exactly. Why so formal all of a sudden?"
Auron smiled, opened the sweet tea and took a sip, then looked at Jace with a grin. "Alright then—you're cooking dinner."
"Sure thing. As long as you all think it's fine, I've got no problem with it." Jace wasn't falling for Auron's trick at all. I'm Jace Rowan—what do I have to fear?
"No, no, no—we'd all like to live a few more years."
Before Auron could even respond, everyone's expressions had already changed in unison.
Having had the misfortune of eating Jace's cooking once—that taste... tsk tsk.
"Alright, we'll eat out later. Jace is treating."
"Now that works."
"No problem!"
"Sounds good, sounds good."
"Tch, I'll treat, I'll treat—what's there to be afraid of? I've got plenty in my savings." Jace wasn't worried at all. Setting aside the leftover money from when Tim bought the Dragon Fang a couple months ago, just the royalties from the Key Stone that the research institute had given him a few days ago were a huge sum. He might even be richer than his dad right now. One little meal? Nothing to fear.
"Alright, let's look at Peter's intel first."
After the laughter died down, Auron clapped his hands to draw everyone's attention, then nodded toward Peter.
Peter had been ready for a while. He immediately turned on Auron's projector and cast the content from his phone onto the screen.
"This is the first one—Sikong Ling's Pokémon information."
Everyone looked at the big screen. The first thing that caught their attention was Sikong Ling's bright pink hair, followed by his two Pokémon.
"First one—Delphox. Ability is likely Blaze, because in the last round's match, it suddenly had a power surge—high probability it's Blaze. Though we can't rule out Magician either."
"Commonly used moves: Flamethrower, Psyshock, Shadow Ball. Can set up terrain—Psychic Terrain. Can set weather—Sunny Day."
Everyone watched the battle footage of Delphox on the screen while listening to Peter's explanation, all nodding in agreement.
Suddenly, the footage paused. Peter pointed at the screen and said:
"Here—pay attention to this. Whenever the opponent's vision is blocked, or right when Delphox first enters the field, it uses Future Sight. This is important to note, because many people have been defeated by this sudden attack."
Future Sight as a move took roughly thirty to forty-five seconds from activation to impact. And once released, it couldn't be controlled. So it was actually a fairly easy move to dodge.
But with Sikong Ling's usage pattern, you didn't know when he'd used the move. By the time Future Sight struck, you'd most likely be unable to react in time. Add in Delphox's other attacking moves assisting—that made it even harder to dodge.