Chapter 1: Pokemon Battle

It had been at least a few hours since the Video Game convention started. Already challengers bringing along their memory cards, Gameboys, etc to win at becoming a beta tester for an upcoming game titled: "Ultimate Gamers" where they get to command their favorite game character ranging from Super Mario Brothers to Final Fantasy.

Not surprisingly the challengers had been leveled down to four players: Kristen, Mona, Astrid, and Annabelle.

Mona mainly focused her challenges on the Pokemon games. She was also a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog (she always wears a T-Shirt featuring Sonic for this reason), Super Smash Brothers, Amazing Island, and other games having to do with that category. Her strongest Pokemon Team had to be in Pokemon Silver for the amount of time she raised Fraligator and caught different types due to her spending time with them even during school nights. The second strongest was Sapphire since she caught Kyogre and raised it to level 51 along with her other Pokemon, and the third had to be Gold due to her Typhlosion and Ampharos. She barely started on Ruby though and she only had Mudkip and a Wurmple there (Imperfection: lost interest in catching them all over again).

Astrid at first glance looked like an honest gamer, but beneath her mask she was a cheater and a half. She hardly played by the rules and used all sorts of codes to get high level weapons and accessories for her characters before they were even at their required level. In her best game, Final Fantasy VII, she ignored most of the other characters in her group in order to build up Cloud. Astrid equipped Cloud with the Ragnarok sword with a Cheat Code at level 8 when he wasn't supposed to have it until level 48! This threw her team off balance, but she didn't care. All Astrid cared about was winning and moving on.

Kris was an avid fan of RPG games, especially Final Fantasy VII. Her other favorites were Legend of Dragoon, Eternal Eyes, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Game, Yu-Gi-Oh: Forbidden Memories, and The Granstream Saga. She was also an Anime fan, so she liked Bishies from Final Fantasy VII like Sephiroth, Cloud, Rufus, and Vincent (QTSF: yummy! ). But Kris' all time favorite character in the whole series of Final Fantasy games is still and always will be Sephiroth (QTSF: my Bishie!)

Annabelle had to be the biggest brat Mona had laid her eyes on. She mainly traded her Pokemon to build the strongest team. She even traded her starter for Groudon even though she didn't have the right badges. To be precise, Mona had all eight. Annabelle had only around three causing the Pokemon she had to ignore her but win the battles anyway. She won most of the battles in this tournament by tricking the competitors and paying them to lose. Her Pokemon were treated badly as well.

Mona and Kris exchanged grins.

"This is going to be a piece of cake…" Mona smirked. "Ice-Berg (Kyogre) and Sprouter (her Sceptile) must've grown at least several levels by now…"

"And Sephiroth is going to wipe out any opponent that comes our way…" Kristen responded.

Both girls were determined to win. You could see it in their eyes that nothing was going to stop them, not even their rivals.

At that moment, a shrill and annoying laugh caused Mona and Kristen to spot Annabelle.

"Oh…I'm sorry. Did you mention that you're going to win?" Annabelle smirked.

Mona felt her temperature rising faster than her own Typhlosion in the game.

"Yeah! You got a (BEEEP) problem with that?!" Mona snarled, not giving a Chocobo's egg if she cursed.

Kristen immediately glared at Astrid through her glasses as her rival stood next to Annabelle. You could see the light flash off it as her eyes narrowed. Just like Sephiroth and Cloud in Final Fantasy Seven, Kris and Astrid were born rivals; both wanting to surpass the other.

The girls glared at their rivals before Mona stopped and smirked.

"You know…let's see how strong you really are Cowgirl!" Mona said, commenting on how her rival's name matched that of a certain calf in a Christmas movie. It was her biggest insult towards Annabelle…and it almost always worked.

"The first battle will be a Two on Two Pokemon Match between Mona and Annabelle as they use all the Pokemon in their teams!" The announcer shouted as he desperately tried to ignore the tension between the two brunettes.

Before anyone could react, both girls whipped out both their Gameboy Advance SP. Mona's ebony game system containing Sapphire, and Annabelle's violet game system with her Ruby version. Both grabbed different ends of a game link cable before attaching it to the Gameboy Advances.

Mona didn't take her furious chocolate brown eyes off Annabelle. Even though Pokemon was only a video game, Mona saw it more like the Pokemon she caught were her allies and sometimes friends. But seeing one being traded off without warning by heartless power-hungry losers constantly cheesed her off, especially if she was the one who raised it first hand.

A huge screen showed up a bit next to them showing a screen on what was happening on both POV of the combatants.

Mona looked at it before looking towards Annabelle. The girl was still giving off that demonic smirk as their Gameboys switched on. Soon both their characters were on screen. Mona's team of her most skilled Pokemon was in her party. Annabelle had her strongest Pokemon.

Both got into the Pokemon center and Mona healed hers before going in.

"What's taking so long?" Annabelle grumbled.

"Easy there speedy…" Mona grinned before logging on. Soon both their game chars faced and got ready before the large screen flashed signifying their battle had started.

Mona had already got her selected two up front: Minus (Minun), and Tropi (Tropius). Annabelle tossed out Golem and Shelgon. Fortunately, Minus had a fast stat ability so it used Helping Hand to power up Tropi before the plant dinosaur used Magical Leaf which brought down Golem in one hit. This was because Mona trained her Pokemon to increase Power and Speed Status.

Shelgon immediately used Ember on Tropi. It damaged the Pokemon a bit, but fortunately the Pokemon didn't faint and wasn't burned.

In Golem's place, Annabelle released a Xatu. Mona's brow furrowed since she knew her Minun had a type advantage.

Minun was ordered to use Thunder on Xatu. The Pokemon was electrocuted and paralyzed. Mona immediately noticed Minus was paralyzed as well.

"Oh crap! I forgot Xatu has the synchronize ability!" Mona yelped before seeing Minus bowing down a bit and sparkling. She issued a sigh of relief remembering she made it hold a Lava Cookie. "Thank god…"

Sprouter took off flying so it could start off a FLY attack while Shelgon used Protect too soon. Xatu remained fixed in place from paralysis. Suddenly, Tropi did a head-on strike on Shelgon due to Protect only working on the turn it would be attacked draining its HP to the mid-section and Minun used Spark to bring down Xatu. Shelgon had its HP refilled causing Annabelle to lose her turn.

"You're lucky I didn't summon Groudon just yet!" Annabelle shouted.

"You're lucky I didn't release Sprouter!" Mona shouted back as Annabelle unleashed her Exploud. Mona's eyes narrowed. "I…loathe…that…thing…" (Imperfection: I used to dislike Exploud until I figured it could learn Hyper Beam upon evolution so…yeah)

In a swift turn, Mona concentrated on knocking them both out in one move. This worked and Annabelle was down to two Pokemon: Groudon and one other Pokemon.

That other Pokemon turned out to be Annabelle's starter which she traded off: Blaziken.

"HUH?!" Mona's eyes widened before regaining composure. Whoever raised Blaziken must've been very rough since it was at level 70 already. Groudon was still at level 47.

"Give up while you're ahead!" Annabelle smirked.

"Not happening Looney Cow!" Mona retorted.

Minus used Helping Hand on Tropi again before the grass/flying Pokemon took down Groudon with another Magical Leaf. However, that left Blaziken behind. The fire-bird swiftly used Sky Uppercut on Tropi. Even though it was a fighting move, it still worked and KO-ed Mona's favorite Grass Pokemon

"TROPI!" Mona gasped before her eyes narrowed and she glared at Annabelle. Knocking out her favorite…BIG MISTAKE! Angrily, Mona summoned her starter: Sprouter. Sprouter had survived many fire attacks during a battle with Flannery and it was the strongest Mona had worked on.

Immediately, Minus used Helping Hand before Sprouter used STRENGTH and knocking down a lot of HP.

Blaziken returned the Favor by using Blaze Kick which knocked out Minun, stopping the electric power generator. Mona then saw her chance.

"ICE-BERG!!!" Mona shouted before Kyogre showed up on screen.

"It's a water type and you call it ICE-BERG?!" Annabelle asked bitterly before realizing Kyogre's drizzle was dampening the field, dwindling down the fire power on her Pokemon. "Oh…crap…"

Ice-berg suddenly used Hydro Pump and Sprouter finished Blaziken off with Leaf Blade, which was its signature move whenever Mona was in a two on two Pokemon battle with it. Mona grinned.

"YAHOO!!" She cheered before the screen showed the statistics. It turned out the rest of the Pokemon were her Gardevoir (nicknamed Enchant), & Swellow (nicknamed Hawk). They weren't meant for the battle but it would've been a lot closer if she used them.

"Awesome job Mona!" Kristen said as Mona returned from the stage with her Sapphire game and GBA in hand.

"Thanks…now it's your turn to battle." She responded. Kristen nodded and saw that Astrid was already on stage. "Show her what you're made of!"

"Don't worry…I will." Kristen smirked.

To be continued…