I love being meticulous. And I hope I can get my facts straight, but if I mess up I'm going along with it. Also, anybody who is present in the anime AND games will be based off their videogame canon with the exception of Brock. Extra names may be added since I don't even know who will come!
"Welcome to another Grand Festival!" The crowd cheered, forcing Marian to raise her voice a bit.
"Thank you for joining us in the beautiful Sunyshore City! And now, I would to introduce our judges! As always, we are joined by Mr. Contesta, Mr. Sukizo, and Sunyshore City's Nurse Joy! However, we have three special guest judges. Please welcome the Top Coordinators Raine, Solidad and Zoey!"
The three girls ended up in spotlight. All of them were dressed their best. Zoey looked unchanged, with her scarlet hair ruffled, nervously shrugging a little. Solidad smiled sweetly and waved, while the final girl, Raine, glanced around imperiously, looking a little grave but excited.
"This Grand Festival is a double performance! The first round will be as usual, with a performance stage! We will have three separate arenas at once, each with two judges. The judges will evaluate the performances and the top 64 contestants will progress to the battle round! Whoever wins all of their battles will be awarded the prestigious Ribbon Cup!"
Watching from inside the waiting room, Dawn and May looked anxious. Both had decided to enter the Grand Festival in Sunyshore, but neither of them had known that their Top Coordinator rivals were going to be their judges.
"I had no idea that they were..." Dawn murmured, hugging Piplup to her chest.
May shook her head and stared at the screen, "I'm not worried about Solidad. Have you heard about Raine? She's won the Grand Festival three times in a row. It's going to be hard to impress her."
"You're going to be great." Max replied. He was confident in his sister's skills by now, having seen May pull off so many victories in other regions. "She has to pick 64 and you're going to get in. Promise."
"I don't think anyone can overlook both of your skills. May is a Grand Festival semi-finalist and Dawn won the Wallace Cup as well as being a Grand Festival finalist." Brock nodded.
A man came through the crowd and began to announce names. A hundred contestants would head to the B arena and another hundred would go to the C arena. A final hundred coordinators were staying at the A arena.
It was here where the two girls parted. Ash gave Dawn a high five as she left to go to the B arena. Brock joined Dawn for moral support, but they were haggled by Ursula, who popped up behind them and started teasing Dawn.
"Hey Dee Dee."
"Hello to you too, Ursula."
"Another stroke of luck. How lucky can you be? If you're lucky, I will get to beat you!" she sneered and laughed.
Dawn glared in return. "I'm beating you. I'll beat you even harder in return, so hard that they will wonder how you passed the first round!"
Meanwhile, May noticed that Drew happened to be sitting in the waiting room as well, looking at her. May shuddered nervously and forced conversation with Ash and Max.
Dawn's performance went off with no hitches. She was judged well by Mr. Suziko and Solidad, managing to display her Quilava and Pachirisu. The tips of the electricity glimmered with the flames from Quilava skillfully jumping the electricity with Flame Wheel. Mr. Suziko commented with his usual "Remarkable!" and Solidad said how the display was two powerful elements but so beautiful. A few people were jealous as she left the stage, not excepting Ursula and Nando, who had also attended.
Losing her nerve slightly, May had her Glaceon and Beautifly make it snow in the Sunyshore sky with Silver Wind and Ice Shard, but scrapped through the ending with the Iron Tail-Morning Sun combination not as dazzling as rehearsed. However, it managed to impress Raine, who smiled.
The other performances included Kenny's successful Flash Cannon-Whirlpool fusion, Nando making music notes flutter around the stadium with Psychic, Ursula's Wormadam and Gabite dancing in sandstorms, Drew creating an elegant flying show with Masquerain and Flygon and Harley's Carturne and Wigglytuff enchanting with their dark and mystic abilities. The Grand Festival was filled with glimmers and shines, brimming with excitement. At the end of all 300 performances, 64 were to be chosen. There was a tense thread pulled taught inside of everyone, and 236 strings were going to be snapped before the end of the day.
Everyone returned to the middle arena for the announcement of the 64 who would advance to the next stage. The judges stood on a raised platform underneath the board, next to the golden Ribbon Cup. The coordinators stood on the battlefield, looking up at scoreboard. The air was waiting. Everything was waiting.
"The judges have finally decided on the contestants who will move onto the battle round!" Marian said suddenly. Eyes that had been focused on twiddling thumbs flicked up.
Raine was handed the microphone, "We would just like to say that we had a very hard time picking out the contestants who would progress, but everyone did a fantastic job."
"And with that, here are the contestants who will move onto the next round!"
All of the coordinators searched the sea of faces for theirs. Dawn bit her lip and May clenched her fists, but their worries were assuaged. Both saw themselves within the 64, as well as Drew, Harley, Nando, Ursula and Kenny. Sighs of relief met with cries of defeat.
"That is all! We will continue the first round of battles tomorrow! Thank you!"
"You seemed surprised to have gotten in, May." Drew commented lazily as he walked past Dawn and May.
May spun around and laughed awkwardly, "Who wouldn't be nervous? I mean, it's the Grand Festival. Only lost it two times!"
Drew flipped his hair, smirking back. "You've gotten better. Hope I see you at the end."
May crossed her arms and turned to Dawn, "Who does he think he is?"
"I think he just wants to compliment you, May." Solidad was coming through the dispersing crowd, followed by Zoey and Raine.
Dawn chirped, "Hey Zoey! Why did they bring you to the Grand Festival?"
"They changed the rules a little and decided to make Top Coordinators more involved in the Grand Festival. They also don't want us competing all the time." Zoey nodded to Raine.
"I'm perfectly entitled to my wins. And once I stop judging, I'll just go back to being a contestant." Raine waved her hand lazily. "Don't celebrate too early though. You've got to win six more times. More than usual."
"There's a lot of coordinators this year. It's exciting!" Zoey smiled. "And I'm not giving special favors, Dawn!"
"You kidding me? I'll get to the final round fair and square and then I'll pull off a performance so amazing that you won't even be able to judge it!"
"Calm down, all of you." Solidad laughed. "Let's wait until the competition starts!"
"Why don't we go to the beach?" May suggested. "It's a great day for it, isn't it? Let's bring Ash and the others too."
"I have somewhere to be, sorry." Raine graciously bowed herself out of the conversation.
No duh there's more contestants than usual, Raine thought. They better keep on their toes or they'll be in trouble, especially since the coming crowd...
"Nice meeting you here, Melody." a voice called out from the shadows. Raine had self-consciously walked herself to the rendezvous-point. Her partner was waiting for her.
"We've gone through this, N. I'm supposed to be here. Besides, I've got to be here for a reason. The only thing is that you don't have an alibi. That's why we can't see you in public."
I had to get used to him talking fast but there were times when he talked too fast for me to understand. "Excuse me?"
"They're here, aren't they? It's like some big party for them, huh? The biggest event of the year besides the League competition and people from around the world are here."
"Champions like Lance and Cynthia, professors like Oak and Juniper, gym leaders Fantina and Winona, everyone is watching, if not present in the city. Then there's people like me and you, it's a wonder how they think they can pull this off."
"They don't think they can, trust me, but Father may have strong-armed them into this. I remember him commenting about a boy whose friends would be competing, and he is the only one who has bested all of them. So it might not just be domination, but revenge. And that is deadly fuel."
"Who's in the strike force again?"
My first upload, my first piece. It's going to be multi-chapter or at least I hope. Please review/follow or whatever. I'm new. Love you.