Ash and the gang were all eating breakfast in the pokemon center cafeteria. Tyler and surprisingly Ash had skipped breakfast early to do some early morning training.
"Eat up Gary. You'll need your strength for today." Said Brock. As he handed Gary his food
"Thanks a lot Brock." He said has he started to eat.
"I can't wait to see this master strategy of your." Said Misty.
"I also want to see who I'm going up against." Added Gary.
"Well whoever it is you can count that we'll all be cheering for you all the way." Tracy told him.
"You bet." Said Dawn.
"Thanks everyone. With support like that how can I lose?" Said Gary rhetorically making all of his friends feel important.
"Well what do you say we get going. Let's go see who you'll be fighting." Said Brock as they all preceded to get up and walk out of the centre to Driftveil stadium.
Herracross use horn attack
Herracross's horn glew white and charged at Gallade.
Gallade psyco cut
Gallade's blade arms glew as well and it swung and throw at psychic disk of energy that hit Herracross's horn forcing it to stop the attack.
"Nice move Tyler." Said Ash from across the field.
"Thanks. You're not doing so bad yourself." He answered back.
"We're going to need to train a lot, not just for Tobias, but any strong trainer we may get matched up with." Ash said.
"Yeah I know. I've had some close calls In this tournament already."
"So let's continue to give it everything we've got." Said Ash.
"You've got it." Said Tyler as they both looked back to their training.
"So this is it, the last day." Said Iris.
"Yeah that's right, after today round 2 is over." Realised May.
"Yeah! Then after today we get to watch the top 32 battle each other." Max said excitedly.
"Plus the after round party." Said Brock hoping to get a girl. Until Max pulled his ear.
"You need to focus less on the babes and more on the Battling." Reminded Max.
They all just laughed at Brock's misfortune when they heard a shriek from behind.
"OUT OF THE WAY! OUT OF THE WAY!"
Dawn was then hit by someone from behind as they both fell to the ground.
"Oh man." They said as he grabbed their head. "Hey what's the big idea of bumping into me?!" They yelled.
"Huh? Barry?" Said Brock as he recognized the guy in the orange and white striped shirt.
"Who's this little kid?" Asked Iris.
"For bumping into me I ought to fine all of you! Huh?" He said as he recognized some familiar faces in the group. "Hey what are you guys doing here?"
"We all came here to compete in the Driftveil tournament." Said Brock.
"Really? All of you guys?" He said.
"Who is this guy?" Asked Gary.
"This is Barry. He's a trainer from Twinleaf town we met in Sinnoh." Brock said as he introduced him.
"Why were you in such a rush this time Barry?" Asked Dawn.
Barry got a shocked expression on his face.
"Oh that's right, I need to get to the stadium. I'm going to be late for my battle!" He said as he ran off.
"Barry wait up!" Dawn said as they all ran after him.
Use hyper beam
Herracross got on all fours and shot an orange beam from its horn.
Use night slash.
Gallade jumped up over the hyper beam as its forearm was surround by a shadowy darkness. It fell toward Herracross and raked its arm across its face and Herracross fell onto his back in the grass.
"Ok I think that's enough." Tyler said.
"I guess so. Great battle Herracross." Ash said to his bug pokemon as he returned it.
"Not bad Ash. Herracross is pretty strong."
"Hey thanks Tyler. Your skills are looking pretty good too."
"Yeah, Gallade has always been one to try his very best."
"Same with Herracross. Ever since I caught it it has always been a hard worker." Said Ash.
"So what do you think of Tobias. We both saw how powerful he was yesterday, do you really think that anyone can beat him?"
"I don't know. There is no questioning his power. He has never had trouble defeating an opponent in a tournament before. So we'll just have to work really hard to get stronger and be able to beat that guy."
"We should practice like this more often. It really helps sharpen up our skills."
"Next time we should get Brock and Gary involved too. I bet if we all battle together we'll get even stronger." Said Tyler.
"That's a great idea. We could really use their help too."
"Of course that's assuming that Gary wins his battle today."
"Oh wait! What time is it?" Asked Ash.
"Tyler looked at his watch. "Damn. It's already 9:53. We need to get to the stadium if we want to see Gary's battle." with that the two of them hurried along to the stadium to meet up with the others.
And now ladies and gentlemen, here are the final matchups for round 2!
The final match cards for round 2 were displayed up on the big screen.
John vs. Claire
Colress vs. Candice
Paul vs. Gary Oak
Dino vs. Glacia
Riley vs. Anabel
Barry vs. Skyla
Giovanni vs. N
Cheren vs. Brandon
"Hey look it's Paul." Said Dawn.
"And he's battling Gary." Added Brock.
"Wow, so Paul's here too? That's awesome!" Yelled Barry.
"So Dawn who's Paul?" Asked Misty.
"He was Ash's greatest rival when we were traveling through the Sinnoh region." Dawn answered.
"Is he good?" Asked Max.
"Paul has a variety of pokemon that are all very well trained for different battle situations." Explained Brock.
"Don't let your guard down for a second Gary." Dawn warned.
"Why, it doesn't matter what he does. There is no way he's going to beat Paul." Said Barry confidently. All the others just looked at him not knowing why it was that idolized Paul so much.
"Thanks for the heads up." Gary said to Dawn.
Brock, Misty, Tracey, May, Max, Dawn, Iris and Barry made their way into the bleachers while Gary made his way down to the battlefield. When it was his turn he walked out to the field and stood across from Paul.
"This will be a 2 on 2 battle with no substitutions. The battle will be over when both pokemon on one side are unable to battle. begin!"
"Gliscor, Aggron. Stand by for battle."
"Go Nidoking and Arcanine."
The 4 pokemon appeared on the field and were ready to wage battle. the trainers looked confident and jumped right into it.
Nidoking start with earth power
Nidoking shoved its right hand onto the field. Cracks in the ground began to surface and spread towards Paul's pokemon. Gliscor was immune in the air but Aggron took a lot of damage. The purple haired trainer seemed calm and collected and called out his next move.
Aggron flash cannon
Aggron opened its mouth and let loose a stream of grey energy towards Gary's side. It hit the ground in front of the causing damage to both pokemon.
Arcanine flamethrower, Nidoking horn attack
Arcanine let loose a stream of fire from its mouth directed at Aggron while Nidoking charged at it with a glowing horn.
Double edge
Aggron charged forward at Nidoking and met it centre field. Both attacks collided with great power and both pokemon involved suffered from it.
Gliscor guillotine
Gliscor came down on Nidoking from directly above. Guillotine being a 1 hit KO move immediately took out Nidoking while Arcanine's flamethrower had made contact with Aggron and knocked it out.
"Nidoking and Aggron are both unable to battle."
"Whaa, no way." Said Gary in shock. He had not expected to lose one of his pokemon so quickly and so suddenly.
"Paul sure know how to operate his pokemon. Gliscor is well known to swoop down on its opponents, so Paul used that as a factor to place a well hidden guillotine attack." Said Brock impressed.
"So now they only have 1 pokemon each." Said Dawn.
"Then this next battle wins it." Added Misty.
Arcanine fire blast
Arcanine let loose a stream of fire from its mouth that fanned out into a star shaped blast.
Gliscor dodge it
Gliscor flew around the fire blast.
Use x-scissor
Gliscor flew downward towards Arcanine and used its pincers to slash across its side with an X.
Arcanine bite let's go
The legendary pokemon jumped up to Gliscor before it could get away and bit down hard on Gliscor's pincer.
Gliscor get away from it
Gliscor tried to escape but was locked in the grip of the canine's jaw
Flamethrower
Arcanine released its grip and quickly launched a rapid fire stream that engulfed Gliscor before it could react.
Finnish with extreme speed
Arcanine sprinted forward and was surrounded by white streaks as it charged at Gliscor.
Gliscor knock off
Gliscor brought its big right pincer and slammed it down on the forehead of Arcanine.
Now stone edge
Revolving stones materialized around Gliscor and started tp fly pff in the direction of Arcanine.
No, Arcanine look out
Try as it may to dodge the stones Arcanine was battered by the sharp rocks and was rendered unconscious.
"Arcanine is unable to battle, Gliscor is the winner and victory goes to Paul!" the crowd cheered for the winning trainer from Sinnoh, although some were surprised that the grandson of pokemon professor Oak had been defeated. Misty, Tracey, Dawn and others were saddened by Gary's loss. But none of them took it the way Ash did.
It was not because Gary lost that Ash was down, on the contrary. He knew personally how skilled Paul and his pokemon really were. But Ash had been in this place once before. He couldn't help but think back to when Gary had lost at the indigo Platue. When Gary had lost then Ash was starting to doubt himself, unsure of his skills and even thought as much as to quit. Ash was now caught in the same situation.
But then again, that was a long time ago. Ash had grown a lot since then. He had competed in the Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova leagues and made a whole bunch of new friends along the way. Even though in all of the leagues he fell short of victory, he was still fine afterwards, cheering his other friends still in the competition and worked hard to do better next time.
"This is the next time." Ash thought to himself.
Back to reality, Ash looked around and saw that half of the spectators had already cleared out of the arena. Wondering to himself how long he had thought to himself there he jumped up and started out of the area to find his friends.
