The following day, Indigo Plateau Conference venue
"Dear viewers, welcome to the venue of Indigo Plateau Conference, the last two Quarterfinals will take place in our venue today, and our top four contestants will be finally decided."
The host shouted with an excited tone and high emotions.
The audience at the bottom was also very excited.
They responded to the host's call. Waving the supporters in their hands.
On the big screen, the photos of the four remaining contestants of this Quarterfinal kept scrolling.
One photo was their excellent performance in this Indigo Plateau Conference.
Or excited, or somber, or calm, or deep. It appeared in constant rotation on the screen.
Among them, Rope's photo is the most unassuming. It looked as if there was no emotional turmoil at all.
Just calmly commanding his Pokémon. And then, defeating the opponent.
"Let's have let's have, the two contestants of the first match make their appearance."
Amidst the shouts of the host and the applause of the audience.Rope and his opponent made their appearance.
"The two contestants participating in the third match of this Quarterfinal. The first is Rope from Pallet Town, a player we know a lot about. Coming from Pallet Town, he himself is the youngest Pokémon Professor who is very famous in the research world."
"And now he has shown us his trainer talent by defeating his opponents with devastating force."
The audience on stage became even more emotional as they listened to Rope's accomplishments. Some of them might not have heard of Rope's reputation in the research community. But they had seen Rope's performance in this competition that could be described as a flat-out victory over everything.
They also hadn't expected that one of the trainer players they supported so much was actually a Pokémon Professor.Even if they didn't pay much attention to the research community, they knew the status of a Pokémon Professor.
"And our second player. It's Nozomi from Pewter City! This is a contestant who aspires to become a Rock System Master, and her strength is likewise not to be underestimated!"
The host enthusiastically introduced Rope's opponent, a young girl with a small figure and glasses.
The young girl's face was cold, and Rope's first thought when he shook hands with her was that he saw a steep cliff face.
Cold, tough.
"My name is Rope, from Pallet Town."
"The host has already introduced me."
Nozomi and Rope's handshake was a touch apart, and this time it wasn't so much that Rope was too sensitive as it was that Nozomi didn't look like she wanted to make any physical contact with Rope.
Rope's mouth twitched slightly as he felt the female still repulsed by him.
He felt that this girl wasn't even rejecting herself, but utterly hating herself. This left him very, very puzzled.
When had he offended this eye tripping female?
Rope scowled at Nozomi. searching his own mind for the girl's shadow, and came up with nothing indeed.
He shook his head silently. After all, Rope wasn't money and couldn't make everyone like him.
With that thought, Rope also returned to his position.
The referee standing on the sidelines saw both men take their positions and waved the flag in his hand twice in an orderly fashion before slamming his whistle to start the match!
"Come on out Chimchar!"
Rope throws the Luxury Ball in his hand outward, and in mid-air, Chimchar appears.
"Make your entrance, Onix!"
Instead, Nozomi, the small and delicate spectacled trippy girl on the opposite side of the room, threw out an Onix Pokéball.
"Roar~"
This Onix looked smaller than a normal Onix, but the fighting spirit wasn't weak from his eyes. And judging from the shine of the rocks on his body, the breeding wasn't bad.
Then, with such a small size, it's got some kind of special fighting style.
Rope rubbed his chin and thought in his heart.
The spectators in the auditorium had excited smiles on their faces as they watched the pair of opponents in the battlefield with different sizes.
In the end, something like a sparring match was to vent out the violence that reached out from the human heart. Whether it was a trainer or a spectator who loved to watch battles. Their ultimate goal was to vent their nature.
Of course, the trainers also did it so that they could become famous and profitable in the process.
"Chimchar! Sword Dance!"
Rope looked across the room at Onix and gave this order rather amusingly as well.
"Woo!!!!"
Chimchar gathered a flaming long stick in his hand, juggled two stick flowers, and then his body had a red glow that lit up.Sword Dance ended instantly.
Nozomi, who was originally thinking of interrupting his Sword Dance, saw this and knew that she could only attack strongly. He was determined not to let his opponent perform a second Sword Dance.
"Onix! Rock Slide!"
"Roar!!!"
Earth-colored energy surged up, coalescing one large rock after another in the sky above Chimchar. These rocks rained down towards Chimchar.
Rope was also quite speechless as he looked at this Rock Slide whose range was clearly larger and more powerful than a normal Rock Slide... It looked like this Onix in front of him was actually a rare Special Attack oriented????
Well Onix's physical attack and special attack racial values are only 15 points apart.
Generally, Onix are trained as physical shields...
But Rope also basically guessed the characteristics of the opposite Onix.
"Chimchar! Flamethrower!"
The opposite Onix's trait was most likely Broken Armor, and it was unwise to use physical attack skills against the opponent at this time.
Unless it was possible to deal a fatal blow.
So all Rope had to do now was harass and look for opportunities.
Chimchar was rolling around in Rock Slide, and after hearing Rope's command, he stepped on a falling rock, then his body jerked upwards, then stepped on a rock that was still in mid-air to use the force, and rose upwards again.
Then he was above the height at which Rock Slide had fallen.
"Woo!"
Chimchar looked down at Onix in mid-air, then spat a pillar of crimson fire towards him.
"Onix! Stealth Rock!"
Nozomi didn't expect this attack to actually come from mid-air. Between her thoughts she also knew that at this time, rather than ordering a dodge, she should simply exchange injuries for injuries.
Onix's rock energy fluctuated like ripples on the ground, and soon a sharp rock appeared on the ground. There were especially a lot of them right below Chimchar.
Just after Onix finished Stealth Rock, Flamethrower collided with Onix's body.
Onix howled out almost instantly.
"Roar~!!!!"
Nozomi's brows steeply furrowed.
Seriously, when watching Rope's match footage before, she had seen the red-colored flames used by Rope's Pokémon, and this flame was clearly a variant of some kind of flame.
But I didn't expect that the power of this flame would actually be so great, and with just a single contact, Onix, who had specially trained himself to resist heat, just broke.
Nozomi was secretly chagrined. She thought to herself that she should have just chosen Protect instead of fighting Rope to the end.
But now that things had come to this, there was no use regretting.
Nozomi's eyes glazed over, she pointed at Chimchar with great vigor and shouted, "Heavy Slam!"
How much heavier was Onix than Chimchar?
210kg versus 6.2kg[1], even if Nozomi's Onix was smaller and Rope's Chimchar was bigger. But... it's still a huge difference.
(Whisper: Onix is 8.8 meters long and his body is made of rock, yet he only weighs 210kg... hollow????)
Onix's body flashed with a silver metallic luster, and then rushed out of the flames and raised his head high towards the falling Chimchar.
The mid-air Chimchar didn't have any leverage at the moment, so he could only watch Onix's unicorn horn coming towards him.
Generally, people might ignore the unicorn horn on Onix's head because of Onix's huge reminder.
But in reality, many of Onix's attacks relied on that unicorn horn.
This Onix of Nozomi's was especially obvious, the unicorn on his forehead, after being colored with a metallic color by the steel energy, was like a sharp longsword, stabbing straight towards Chimchar.
But Chimchar wasn't the least bit flustered. He had anticipated this situation the moment he took to the air.
"Protect!"
A green light shield lit up on Chimchar's body.
Then Chimchar, who was wrapped in the green light shield, was sent flying.
Nozomi frowned again as she looked at Heavy Slam, which returned without any success.
This guy's thinking was too thorough.
Protect's green light shield disappeared in midair.
Protect's skill itself could only collide with the opponent's skill once. Whether it was just a contact or a sustained attack. Protect's light shield disappeared after the judgment of the attack was completed.
Chimchar's Protect disappeared after colliding with Onix's Heavy Slam and flying backwards.
However, Chimchar still had to face damage from the fall and Stealth Rock.
Nozomi had a big smile on her face.
"Acrobatics!"
Rope's voice reached the crowd.
The crowd in the arena mingles.
"Acrobatics? Isn't that an attack skill?"
"I don't know... crap... it can still be used like that!"
In the eyes of the stunned crowd Chimchar coalesced two flaming baguettes in his hands and threw them to the ground, two flaming baguettes whose hardness even surpassed that of normal metal baguettes poked into the ground just like that.
Chimchar completed a turn in the air with his Flight Department Acrobatics skill, and then landed firmly on the two long sticks.
Chimchar looked at Onix and Nozomi with a smile on his face and made a provocative gesture.
And in passing, he activated the skill Provoke.
I won't eat any of the fall damage or Stealth Rock, come and hit me!
Onix and Nozomi on the opposite side of the room were obviously also not expecting such an operation. They looked at Rope and Chimchar in shock, and instantly felt as if there was indeed a gap between them in terms of the basic skills of a Trainer and a Pokémon.
A Trainer was an existence that helped Pokémon solve problems by fully utilizing their imagination. Pokémon, on the other hand, have to learn to understand the trainer's meaning, judge the situation, and then finish a battle.
That's why trainers often spend a lot of time with their Pokémon to develop an understanding.
Not every Pokémon will be able to easily understand the trainer's intentions, and this requires a lot of long hours of contact training and exercise.
Onix's eyes turned red almost instantly when he was hit with the Provoke skill, and he roared before looking angrily at the Chimchar in front of him.
"Rock Slide!"
Nozomi wasn't going to fall for Rope's trick.
It was obvious that this Chimchar wasn't good at Special Attacks either, and Rope didn't want Nozomi to eat the advantage of Onix's Shattered Armor, so he used provocation to get Onix to attack. Preferably an Object Attack, so that he has room for a counterattack.
After all, if one is preoccupied with attacking, then breakage is inevitable.
With red eyes, Onix growled and gathered a huge mass of falling rocks to blast towards Chimchar.
"Break them!"
Rope looked at the situation and said helplessly.
Nozomi's command was indeed old-fashioned, not at all like a newcomer. The situation on the field right now could easily be a bladder game. But if it really came down to a bladder game, Rope actually didn't have the advantage.
After all, he drank a lot of water (nope) before starting the game.
After all, Chimchar is actually very good at attacking, but his stamina has a lot of room for improvement due to his growth stage.
That is... high offense and then not much else.
After all, Rope didn't allow them to use their flame armor this time.
Nor did they give them maximum energy reinforcement.
It was too much of a bully to beat a bunch of newbies and still both strengthen and use Flame Armor like this.
"Chimchar, Fire Spin!"
Rope shook his head, then ordered.
At this time, using Fire Spin to seek a breakthrough was also, there was no way around it. There weren't many special attack oriented moves that Chimchar could master. But in the twinkling of an eye, Rope also thought of a way to break the game.
"Onix, Dig!"
Nozomi thought about Onix's reaction just now and decided that it would be better if Onix didn't resist the move hard.
If there was a blood bar everyone would have noticed. After taking a Flamethrower from Chimchar, the blood dropped quite a bit.
After all, Onix is only good at Physical Defense, not Special Defense...and all of his Effort is basically added to Special Attack. This also led to Onix's Special Defense being really hyped...
Onix quickly burrows headfirst into the bottom, and Chimchar's Fire Spin falls short.
And down low in the darkness, Onix feels the vibrations coming from the ground, judging Chimchar's position, always ready to give him a big long one.
But neither Nozomi nor Onix saw it, and Rope's face broke into a plan-complete smile.
Chimchar looked at his feet warily. Again feeling the vibrations coming from the stick at his feet.
Noiselessly, only the vibrations coming from the stick became more and more pronounced.Chimchar held his breath and then jumped back violently.
The very moment he completed his backward jump, Onix came out of the ground.
"Smack Down!"
Nozomi commanded.
Rope smiled slightly as he looked at Onix who was gathering rock-type energy.
"Chimchar, Grass Knot…"
[1] that's 462.97 lb and 13.67 lb for you Americans