Day 52 of the journey to Kanto. Clear.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The salute cannons fired, Pidgey were released into the sky, and the Indigo League opening ceremony finally began.
Who knew how many people had failed to sleep last night? Reiji, blessed with a talent for not worrying about things, was not one of them.
The announcer's voice rang through the stadium, and the atmosphere quickly reached its peak.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Indigo Plateau Conference opening ceremony now begins! To all outstanding Trainers and your Pokémon, show us your moves, your strength, and fight for the championship here at the Indigo League!"
"What you gain here is more than honor as a Trainer. This is a trial every Trainer must overcome on the road to becoming a Pokémon Master. Now, please welcome our competitors. Every one of them has earned at least eight Badges!"
"Look there! The torchbearer is approaching, running past the rows of hundreds of competitors and carrying the sacred flame toward the cauldron!"
Right on cue, Team Rocket's trio showed up again. Reiji honestly had no idea how they kept causing this much trouble without getting locked up. Maybe once someone had enough charges piled up, one more barely mattered.
He did not understand it, but he was certainly impressed. Team Rocket tried to steal the sacred flame again, got beaten by that same flame, and the flame returned to the cauldron. With that, the ceremony continued.
The announcer then introduced President Charles Goodshow. Goodshow, who had been seated in the stands, walked to the front to give his opening speech.
"The Indigo Plateau Conference is a place where Trainers who truly love Pokémon come together and test themselves in battle."
"The sacred flame, Moltres's flame, watches over us. Trainers, fight with honor, and give us battles you will never regret!"
Cheers and applause exploded through the stadium, loud enough to shake the air. The opening ceremony was over, and the matches were about to begin.
The Trainers began leaving the field. Those who had already drawn lots headed to their assigned battlefields, while the others went to the drawing area to find out their field and opponent.
Reiji needed to draw too, but he came down from the stands. He had never entered the field with the other competitors. He had watched the whole ceremony from the audience seats instead.
"That wasn't bad for an opening ceremony, right, Eevee?" Reiji lightly patted Eevee on his shoulder. After watching the ceremony with it, he headed off to draw his match.
"Are you Rai?" Brock suddenly noticed Reiji standing up from the row below them.
"Yo. Brock, huh?" Reiji turned back and greeted him.
"Huh? Aren't you a competitor?" Misty asked in surprise. "Why weren't you down on the field with Ash and the others?"
"That part's just a formality. You can go or skip it. I'd rather watch everyone enter," Reiji said. He had no interest in standing under the blazing sun with several hundred people crowded together in the middle of the stadium.
The stands were much cooler. He could even buy a cold drink there, and Team Rocket's trio would probably be making pocket money during the tournament anyway.
"Thanks for talking to Ash last night," Brock said once he was sure it really was Reiji. "If you hadn't, who knows when he would've fallen asleep."
That morning, Brock had asked Ash who had said those things to him, only to find out it was someone they already knew.
Still, Reiji was about the same age as him. Why did he give off such a worn-out adult feeling? Was Brock imagining it?
"Haha, it was nothing. I need to go draw lots, so we'll talk another time." Reiji waved and left the stands, not taking it seriously. He had watched Ash grow up since he was a kid in his previous life, so he had ended up saying a few extra words.
"Brock, what did he say last night?" Misty asked. She had no idea what the two boys were hinting at, and her curiosity was already up.
"Well, he said…" Brock had no time to explain before Ash came running up from the field, shouting toward the stands.
"Brock! Misty! Come on, we need to go draw lots!"
"Let's go draw first. I'll tell you on the way." Brock looked at Misty with a helpless smile. With Ash in such a hurry, there was no explaining anything properly right now.
Sometimes, Reiji really wanted to complain about Brock. The guy froze up every time he saw a pretty woman, yet he had no reaction to Misty at all. Was he already immune to her? Maybe Misty was too flat and too young to trip Brock's switch. He probably only liked mature, clever older women.
At the drawing area, Reiji listened as a female receptionist explained the Indigo League's draw rules.
"Trainer, please present your Pokédex and eight Badges for registration."
"Here." Reiji took out his Badges and Pokédex again. After checking them, the receptionist returned them to him.
"Trainer Reiji from the Orange Archipelago, your eight Badges meet the entry requirements, and your information has been entered into the system. You may press this button to draw your battlefield, match slot, and opponent. The two competitors assigned to the same field and same slot will face each other."
"Got it." Reiji pressed the red button on the counter, then pressed it again. Once the selector stopped on the screen, his first group-stage match, first battlefield, and first opponent would be set.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The selector stopped, and Reiji saw his field: the Grass Field. His match was the fifth one, scheduled for around eleven in the morning.
The exact time would shift depending on how quickly the previous matches ended. Each field would only host fifteen group-stage matches per day, and once those were finished, the field would close.
A fast group-stage match could end in half an hour. A slow one could take an hour. Trainers unlucky enough to be placed near the end might have to battle at night.
With his field and slot decided, Reiji looked at the portrait on the screen. That was his first opponent.
"Vee! Vee!" Eevee suddenly grew agitated the moment it saw the opponent's face, baring its teeth in anger.
"Eevee, you know him?" Reiji stroked Eevee gently, trying to calm it down.
But Eevee kept crying at him, too worked up to settle. "Vee! Vee! Vee! Vee!"
"This…" Reiji could only understand that it was saying Vee. He had no idea what Vee was supposed to mean. If Darkrai were here, he could have translated.
Just as Reiji was getting nowhere, Meowth jumped onto the counter on two legs, swaying his head like he understood everything.
"Ah, so that's it. That's it…"
"Meowth, what's Eevee saying?" Reiji looked at Team Rocket's Meowth like a lifesaver and quickly asked for a translation.
"Eevee says that human is the Trainer who abandoned it. It wants to battle and beat the rotten human who threw it away."
"So it's him." Reiji remembered that rainy night in Stone Town. This was the person who had abandoned Eevee and left with a Vaporeon, though Reiji had not seen his face clearly at the time.
Now that he could see him, nothing about the boy stood out. Like Reiji, he had black hair and dark eyes, and his face was completely ordinary. Reiji had no impression of him. He was probably just some random Trainer, not an anime character.
"Vee! Vee!" Eevee rubbed against Reiji. It absolutely wanted to battle and beat that heartless jerk, to prove that it was strong, and that he was the one who had failed it.
"Eevee, I'll let you fight. We'll beat him together." Reiji smiled and rubbed the little Eevee's head. This little one was easy enough to cheer up.
"Vee! Vee!" Once Eevee heard that it could battle, it rubbed against Reiji even harder.
Reiji quickly pulled Eevee off his face and turned to Meowth. "Meowth, how about joining me? I still need a Pokémon translator."
"Damn it, don't try to poach me! Don't think Meowth would follow you just for one bowl of instant ramen!"
Meowth was already crying as Jessie came over and dragged him away, looking like he had just missed out on several meals' worth of instant ramen.
"Sorry, Rai. We need to get going," James said politely, unlike Jessie. After apologizing, he hurried off too, because one of Officer Jenny's dogs was chasing them.
Reiji watched the three clowns run off and sighed. Then he headed to the competitors' waiting room to wait for his match.
The moment he arrived, he ran into A.J. again. What a coincidence.
"You're on the Grass Field too?" Reiji sat down beside him and asked about his match.
"Yeah. I'm in the third match," A.J. said, glancing at the big screen. It was showing the matches from the other fields. The Grass Field matches could be watched directly from the waiting room balcony.
"I'm fifth." Reiji looked at the match list on the screen. The two Trainers currently battling in the first match were marked in red. The second match was marked in yellow, and everything from the third match onward was green.
He still had time before his turn, so he looked at his opponent, the boy who had abandoned Eevee. "Do you have any information on my opponent?"
"Him? Yeah, I have some. I gathered it casually back then. He's not that strong. Most of his Pokémon are only Elite-tier, and he mainly uses Pokémon that evolved with Evolution Stones. The Pokémon he's best known for are three Eevee evolutions: Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon."
"Hold on, let me check my notebook." A.J. pulled out his little notebook, found the boy's information, and continued. "His family lives in Stone Town. I heard there are a lot of Evolution Stones there, so it makes sense that most of his trained Pokémon evolved that way."
"Only Elite-tier?" Reiji felt the match was basically secure, but Eevee was only in the twenties. The opponent's main Pokémon were at least in the thirties. Little Eevee could not beat them normally.
If it were only one battle, Eevee might scrape out a win by giving everything it had. But if Reiji wanted Eevee to sweep all three, he would have to use a few dirty tricks and set up the right conditions first.
Once he had made up his mind, Reiji knew how this match had to go. This was Eevee's chance to vent its anger and get past the knot in its heart. It would also help build their closeness and push Eevee closer to evolving into Umbreon.
The matches passed one by one. Reiji went to the balcony to watch A.J.'s match, and as an Advanced-tier Trainer facing an Elite-tier opponent, A.J. won without much trouble.
If a group-stage match was evenly matched, it was usually because both Trainers were weak. Advanced-tier Trainers almost never drew each other this early.
Did Reiji believe the Indigo League was fair? Sure. Did he believe the match arrangements had no quiet handling behind the scenes? Not a chance.
Everyone knew how this worked. No one needed to say it out loud. For the sake of a better show, the organizers had their own little plans.
If two Advanced-tier Trainers knocked each other out in the group stage, that would be a huge loss for the organizers. The knockout rounds would lose too many exciting matches.
Having Elite-tier competitors fight each other in the group stage made much more sense for the tournament.
After A.J. easily defeated his opponent and the cheers died down, the fourth match came next. Reiji was the fifth competitor scheduled for the Grass Field.
He had not transferred Butterfree and the others over. For the first group-stage match, Eevee and Tauros were enough. He was confident he could win this one.
After saying something to A.J., Reiji headed for the battlefield. This was his first time taking part in a large tournament like this. He stood at the entrance to the competitors' tunnel and took several deep breaths before walking out with Eevee.
Under the scorching sun and the roar of the audience, he went straight to his platform and waited for the referee.
Since this was the first day and everyone was appearing for the first time, the audience had no real impression of most Trainers yet. The cheering was mostly just people getting swept up in the excitement, so the noise was loud but scattered.
Later in the tournament, once the crowd had Trainers they liked, they would cheer for them properly. The group stage was basically a warm-up so the audience could get to know the competitors.
"The fifth group-stage match on the Grass Field is about to begin!"
"In the Green Corner, we have Trainer Reiji from the Orange Archipelago! His opponent in the Red Corner is Trainer Kameda from Stone Town!"
"Kameda's Pokémon are all Pokémon evolved with Evolution Stones. That is his signature style!"
"As for Reiji in the Green Corner, he comes from the distant southern islands. What kind of exciting battle will these two Trainers from different regions bring us? Let's find out!"
With just a few lines, the announcer completely fired up the crowd. Even Reiji wondered whether the organizers had hired this guy specifically to hype the atmosphere.
But he had no time to care about that now. The referee raised the red and green flags, and the match was about to begin.
"Each Trainer may use three Pokémon. The fifth match on the Grass Field begins now!"
Clang! Clang!
The bell rang twice. The moment they heard it, Reiji and Kameda had to send out their first Pokémon and start the opening exchange.
"Go, Vaporeon!"
"Go, Forretress!"
"There they are! Both competitors have sent out their first Pokémon! Kameda has chosen Vaporeon!"
"Wait—was Kameda too nervous and made a mistake? Reiji comes from the southern islands, so even if Kameda wanted to test his first Pokémon, he should have opened with his Electric-type Jolteon instead!"
"However, Reiji's first Pokémon is Forretress. He did not send out the Water-type Pokémon Kameda was hoping for!"
"No matter who Kameda chose for the opening round, his prediction would have missed. Now let's see how Kameda handles this rough start!"
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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