As always... Please read and enjoy! ~ Scriffignano
Chapter 54: Showtime!
"Ladies and Gentleman it's Showtime!" The announcer shouted with vigor. "It's the moment you have all been waiting for. My name is Lilian Meridian and I'll be your host for the Grand Festival!"
The entire Indigo Plateau was now focused on what was going to be one of the most exciting events that graces this area and the crowds inside the vast contest hall erupted into a sea of cheering. A single spotlight was shining on Lillian as she continued her speech
"Today we have an exciting event for you. Only the best coordinators have made it this far and now they compete for the prestigious honor of Top Coordinator!"
Lily watched from the waiting room TV with the rest of the coordinators. She was both nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous because the competition was going to be fiercer than ever before, but her excitement was boiling because she was that much closer to following her dream.
"Now it's time for us to meet our panel of judges. The first of which being the Chief of the Pokémon Activities Committee, Mr. Raoul Contesta!" Lillian shouted.
"I welcome you all to the Indigo Plateau!" He stated gladly.
"Next, the head of the Pokémon Fan Club, Mr. Sukizo!" She continued.
"The Indigo Plateau… Remarkable!" Sukizo commented.
"And finally our line up of Nurse Joys!" Lillian ended with.
"Greetings." All of the Nurse Joys smiled.
With the panel of judges introduced, the contest dove straight into the action. Arc watched in the grandstands as the first contestant made his appearance. It was one of the twins that he and Lily first met at the Ocean of Storms, Teagan if he remembered correctly.
"Nyaa, center stage!" Teagan tossed a Pokeball, releasing yet another feline Pokémon.
This one though was a mix of tan and brown and had a rather heavy build for a feline. The most lavished part of the Pokemon was its long flowing red and yellow hair on its head.
"Pyroar. The Royal Pokemon. The male with the largest mane of fire is the leader of the pride. With fiery breath of more than 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, they viciously threaten any challenger. The females protect the pride's cubs." Arc's Pokedex beeped.
"Nyaa, use Flame Charge!"
The Pyroar exploded into a ball of fire, but stayed completely still on the field. The flames continued to dance around, building in intensity until a great fiery version of Nyaa shadowed her every movement.
"Use Solar Beam!"
Nyaa's mane started to glow with the intensity of the sun. As her mane started to glow so did the fiery shadow, it's mane changing from an angry red to a deep blue in coloration.
"Do it!"
His Pyroar fired the attack along with the fiery shadow, combining their attacks into an explosive shower of fireworks. The sparkling powder of the explosion showered over the crowd and earned a massive cheer from the crowd.
"Let's wrap this up! Use Noble Roar!"
Nyaa sucked in the biggest breath she could and delivered a massive roar that pulsated with soundwaves. Everyone in the contest hall was blown away by the force of the roar, making their hair fly about like leaves in the wind. The fiery shadow then dispersed leaving both Teagan and Nyaa on the stage. They both gave a bow, indicating the end of their performance.
"An explosive dollop of attack power. Excellent execution." Mr Contesta was first to comment on the performance.
"Simply remarkable." Mr. Sukizo followed.
"We loved the use of Grass type and Fire type moves." All the Nurse Joys said in synchronization.
Teagan then departed from the stage and the next contestant entered with her Swanna. Lily was only watching from one of the benches in the waiting area, but her nerves felt shot and her breathing was heavy. It wasn't so much that she was overly nervous about performing, but she was nervous about not messing up.
"I've done this before… you got this Lily." She tried to convince herself that she was going to do okay, and it seemed to be working.
The more she spoke positively about how she was going to do on the performance, the more she calmed down. Her hands stopped shaking and her breathing slowed to a reasonable rate to where she didn't feel like she was suffocating on the intensity of the competition.
Once she was finally composed, Lily turned her attention back to the large television to watch the performances. Much like the contests she had been to before, some of the performances were outstanding while some were leaving a lot to be desired. The biggest performance flop that made Lily want to laugh was a young lady who decided to use a Magikarp for the contest. She seemed so proud of her Pokemon and tried her hardest to get it to do something, but it was a total flop. It literally just flopped all over the field, earning nothing but laughs from the audience.
"Wow… I feel sorry for her." Arc just watched as the poor girl broke down and sobbed as she left the stage.
"How did she ever make it here? Foolish human." Snow Storm commented.
"Snow Storm! That was rude of you. She tried her hardest to get here." He scolded her. "I don't see you out there performing."
"You never gave me the chance to." She retorted.
Arc had no way to counter that statement. She was right, he never did give her a chance, but it still didn't excuse her from that rather rude comment. He was about to get up and go get some refreshments when Lillian grabbed the audience's attention.
"Next up is Lily from Mahogany Town!"
Arc immediately sat back down and kept his eyes glued to the stage. The spotlights centered in on the red curtain as Lily entered the stage with her midnight blue dress and matching heels. Her hair was up in a bun with twin pony tails and the necklace Arc gave her hung around her neck. She stood still at center stage and the audience waited to see what she would do. Her eyes were shut, her head was down, and she was more still than a brick wall.
Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she threw her capsule encased Pokeball straight up in the air. "Banana Neck! Action!" The pokeball snapped open, revealing her Tropius adorned with a leafy cape that sparkled like it was covered with fresh morning dew
He flew at a blistering pace around the contest hall, shedding his cape of dew covered leaves and landing right beside Lily. He took a courteous bow and waited for Lily's command.
"Use Nature Power!"
Banana Neck whipped his head around and repeatedly fired silvery spheres of energy. The attacks reminded Arc of Ancient Power, realizing that Nature Power must have its own effect when used specifically in a contest hall.
"Now use Leaf Tornado!"
A spiralling vortex of leaves exploded outwards from her Tropius' body, pulling the ring of Nature Power spheres in and sending them flying around the contest hall. The silver spheres looked like fairies dancing in the trees and Banana Neck was the one orchestrating the whole show.
"Use Giga Drain!" Lily smiled
Her Tropius' body started to glow and a pulsating green light radiated from his body before spreading out through the hall. As the pulse spread, the leaves and silvery spheres were pulled towards Banana Neck's body. They soon became a cloak of silver and green energy that hid Lily's pokemon from view. The crowd watched with great anticipation, wonder how this was going to finish out.
"Finish with Leaf Storm!" Lily shouted, her eyes shining and her smile brightening the entire room.
The winds picked up around Banana Neck's hidden figure and started to pull ever so slightly on the shroud. A few more seconds passed and the shroud exploded outwards into a dazzling display of Grass type power blowing in the wind.
Morning dew and leaves then fell on the crowd as the display ended, leaving Lily and Banana Neck standing proudly as they ended their performance. The whole contest hall bursted with cheering, blown away by Lily's exceptional performance using her Tropius. As the crowds cheered, Lillian ran back on stage to take the spotlight.
"An incredible performance by Lily and her Tropius! Let's see what our panel of judges have to say."
"A unique combination of wind and grass and a very well thought performance. Well done!" Mr. Contesta started while picking a leaf out of his hair.
"It was remarkable." Mr. Sukizo followed.
Each of the Nurse Joys had their own comment about the performance, but they were all positive in their own light. Lily then took another bow before departing from the stage for the next contestant.
Arc clapped as she exited the stage, proud of her performance and of her in general. Standing in front of a crowd is nerve racking by itself. Now she is doing it and putting her reputation as a coordinator on the line. It must be really tough for her to do this and not have any support besides her Pokemon next to her on that stage.
"I will have to do the same thing at the Pokemon League…" Arc understood that they were both at the final trial.
These next few days were going to be make or break for the both of them and only time and their abilities as trainers will decide the outcome for them. Will they make it to the top or will they fall short of victory.
Lily sat down on the bench and gave a heaving sigh before wiping the sweat off her brow. She survived the first round of the contest and now she only needed to wait for the results. Kappa climbed up on the bench and rubbed his head against her waist, comforting her in Arc's absence.
Unfortunately those results were still undecided. There was one more performance between now and then and once the curtain unveiled who it was, Lily went slightly wide eyed. It was Sasha, the young lady Arc and her bumped into earlier today.
She was wearing a snow white cocktail dress much like the one Lily wore on a daily basis. Her hair was still in her unusual ponytails and she wore matching white heels. What was more impressive was that her Pokeball seemed to be studded with jewels.
"Either she is rich or they are fake jewels." Lily commented.
"Let's go Geoffery!" She tosses the Pokeball and releases a yellow and brownish black hoofed Pokemon. It had two bulbous horns on its head, a long neck, and spots that changed from black to yellow in the middle of its body. What was also strange was that it had a second head on its tail with sharp teeth and a blank stare.
"Isn't that a Girafarig?" Lily continued to watch the screen.
"Geoffery, use Psybeam!" Sasha called out and started dancing on the stage.
Her Girafarig let off a glimmer of Psychic energy from his horns and started prancing around the field in synchronization with his trainer. As he pranced, the energy from his horns left a glimmering trail that soon drew an image of a Contest Ribbon on the stage.
"Now use Dazzling Gleam!"
Geoffery's entire body flashed with a bright rose color that made the glimmering image of the Contest ribbon flare with a thousand colors. The audience was struck with awe as the dazzling display radiated across the hall in a beautiful display of light.
"Wrap it up with Stomp!"
As the image continued to shimmer with light, Sasha's Girafarig lept over the dazzling light and slammed his hooves into the ground causing a tidal wave of Psychic and Fairy energy to wash over the field and leave a glittering after effects.
The crowd went wild after the performance and even the judges applauded the display.
"An incredible performance by Sasha and her Girafarig! Now let's see what our panel of judges have to say."
"A thrilling and entertaining performance that only an experienced trainer could have pulled off. Excellent work."
"Not to mention… Remarkable." Mr. Sukizo followed.
"Well done!" all the Nurse Joys said chorally.
With all the performances over with, the entire contest hall took a recession while the judges made their choices. Only the top sixteen competitors were going to make it to the battle round so the wait was absolutely nerve racking.
Arc sat with his Pokemon in the stands and sighed. He was nervous about the results, but he knew that Lily was probably tearing her hair out from the suspense of waiting.
"Finally folks! The moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived! If you turn your attention to the screen you will see the top sixteen competitors that will be moving on to the next round!"
A large scale screen lowered to where the crowds could see it and showed a set of cards with question marks. Everyone's eyes were glued to the screen, the anticipation killing them.
Suddenly all of the cards flipped over at the same time revealing who was going to continue.
Lily's eyes snapped wide open at the results. Not only was she going on to the next round, but she was the first card on the list and followed up by Sasha and Teagan. This was now going to be an all out three way war and there was no way Lily was going to let anyone stop her now. She locked eyes with both Teagan and Sasha who where standing nearby. Fire burned in their eyes and the tension in the room began to build between them to the point other coordinators started to notice.
"It's do or die now… and there is no way I'm going to let either of you take this away from me."
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