Monday, November 13th, 2017

John stretched in his seat next to me before asking, "How much longer until it starts?" He punctuated his question with a yawn that was almost as exaggerated as his stretch had been.

I squinted to look at the countdown clock that was displayed on one of the Metrodome's jumbotrons, "Looks like about forty-five more minutes."

John loudly groaned and slumped into his seat at the news, looking dejected for all of five seconds before he broke character and glanced to his left. Unfortunately for him, Cait gave no signs of paying attention to his antics and John sat quietly for a second while he considered his next move. Switching tracks, he looked back at me and earnestly said, "It's a good thing we got here when we did. Almost all of the good seats are already gone!"

I chuckled as I looked around at the near-empty stadium, and then decided to join in since I had nothing better to do. "You're right, there's barely any spots left. The only open ones I can see are over there, and I think they're going fast." I gestured to a completely empty section of the stands as I spoke, then snorted, trying not to laugh.

John didn't show any of my restraint and laughed heartily, which only got louder when Cait muttered something that I didn't catch. After a few seconds, John quieted down and seriously said, "Getting here an hour early was probably overkill, but actually it's pretty cool watching them work on setup. I've never seen a big event like this in person before."

I wasn't quite in the same boat as John since I'd been to plenty of professional sports games and a few concerts back home, but I hummed affirmatively since there was definitely something special about watching the Blizzard Brawl's setup. One of the noticeable differences between the stadium in front of me and the ones that I was used to was that there was real grass instead of turf on the field. The nicer field was made possible by a group of four Bellossom that were slowly dancing from the western end of the field to the east, leaving a perfectly manicured lawn in their wake.

Following the Bellossom were several Smeargle using white paint to mark the borders of a battlefield. There were also a few more Smeargle painting 'Blizzard Brawl' in icy blue letters on the edges of the field. Once the Bellossom and Smeargle had finished their tasks, a group of Gurdurr took to the field and began constructing a small stage with impressive speed. It only took them a few minutes to make something that looked fairly stable, though I stopped giving them my full attention as the stadium slowly began to fill up.

I'd always considered people-watching an enjoyable way to pass the time, but it was even better in this world because people frequently had Pokemon with them. I was mildly surprised to see that it was no different in this case as many people had small Pokemon with them such as Plusle, Eevee, and Tepig. It felt a little odd to see Pokemon in a space that I would have never seen animals in back home, though I figured that they were trained and that the upcoming show was as much for them as it was for us. I briefly considered sending out Scout to watch the proceedings but decided against it since I didn't want to risk her getting overwhelmed.

About a half-hour later, the stadium was almost as full as John and I had been pretending and all of the setup on the field had been completed. The last pieces to appear were several Magnezone with cameras mounted on them that started to float above the stage while a countdown appeared on the stadium's jumbotrons. The faint music that had been playing in the background slowly grew as the clock ticked down, and I could feel the crowd's excitement growing right along with the music.

The music hit a crescendo when the countdown finally hit zero, and it was punctuated by several small explosions on the field that covered the center stage with multi-colored smoke. A moment later, all of the smoke was suddenly blown away from the stage, revealing a woman and a Xatu standing on the stage. The crowd cheered at the sudden appearance, and she enthusiastically waved as one of the Magnezone slowly drifted down to project her picture on the jumbotrons.

Once she was perfectly framed in the shot, she raised her arms up and announced, "Welcome trainers, spectators, and all to the sixty-second Blizzard Brawl!" I'd thought that the previous cheers were loud, but they were completely dwarfed as the crowd erupted in thunderous cheers, complete with various Pokemon yelling out their names. While I just stuck to clapping, I noticed that my rivals were as excited as the rest of the crowd, with John nearly bouncing up and down in his seat.

The woman on the stage stood there with a wide smile as she let the noise die down slightly before she continued, "For those of you who don't know me, I am Laurel Jude, chairwoman of the Minnesotan Pokemon League. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be the one to commence this year's Brawl! While the winter rages outside, we'll have months of entertainment as the best trainers in the region compete in this very arena. There will be resounding victories, close upsets, stunning debuts, and I can't wait to watch right alongside you all! And what better way to kick off such an event than an exhibition match with your champion?!"

The crowd cheered again and this time Cait was the one who almost jumped out of her seat at the news. When Laurel could finally be heard again, she said, "That amazing match will be right up next, after a quick word from our sponsors!" With that, she winked at the camera before disappearing in a flash of green light as her Xatu teleported them off of the stage. The moment she was gone, the Magnezone drifted back up to join the others near the top of the Metrodome, and the jumbotrons began showing advertisements for various products.

Instead of paying attention to the screens, I watched the group of Duosion that appeared on the field and efficiently dismantled the temporary stage. Once most of the stage had been carted off the field, two of the Magnezone split off and moved to the ends of the arena, cameras pointed at the tunnels leading into the stadium.

A couple of minutes after Laurel's exit, the last advertisement disappeared from the screens and was replaced with the Blizzard Brawl's logo. There were a few seconds of silence, not counting the general buzz of excitement from the crowd before a man's voice filled the entire stadium. "And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: a battle between the two greatest trainers in Minnesota, Paul Austin and Herman Vaugen!"

The crowd cheered again, but it took on some notes of confusion when a man stepped out of the tunnel and onto the field without any preamble. A second later, his image appeared on the jumbotrons and my only real impression about him was that he looked completely non-descript for supposedly being one of the most famous people in the state. There was another brief delay as the announcer seemed to scramble at the sudden entrance, but then he recovered and said, "Herman is never one for ceremony, but you don't have to be when you're as good as he is. If you need proof of just how good that is, he's been the runner-up in the master's league for three years running!"

There was a small pause and the announcer's mic picked up the sound of paper shuffling before he continued, "And now, your champion!" There was a roar of applause as another man walked out of the tunnel on the other side of the stage and his picture replaced Herman's on the big screens. Like Herman, Paul wasn't particularly notable with his checkered flannel shirt and large bushy beard, but there was an oddity in that he was wearing a large horned helmet on his head. It was also hard to be certain because of the camera angle, but it looked like he was at least six and a half feet tall.

"Paul has been your champion for four years and in that time he hasn't dropped a single set! And today he's really showing his hometown pride with that outfit along with his lucky helmet!" I wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to mean but shrugged past it and watched as Paul took a moment to wave to his adoring audience. After a few seconds, he turned to Herman and gave his opponent a two-fingered mock salute. Herman appeared to grumble something and Paul laughed heartily.

"Were... we supposed to hear that?" John asked haltingly.

His question seemed rhetorical but Cait answered, and I leaned over to hear over the noise of the crowd, "Trainers are mic'd up, but it isn't broadcast for the audience to hear. There were some issues with that in the past so they haven't done it in a while. Now it's mostly to make the announcer's job a bit easier and occasionally for the trainers to talk to each other if they agreed to it beforehand."

Cait had barely gotten her explanation out before the announcer said, "And now that both trainers have taken to the field, it's time for the show match to commence! Paul, send out your Pokemon!" Without hesitating, Paul unclipped a Greatball from his belt and, unlike every other trainer that I'd seen so far, actually threw the ball onto the field. There was a moment of hushed anticipation as the crowd watched the ball sail through the air. When it hit the grass, the Greatball opened up and then bounced back to Paul. Then the crowd cheered yet again as Paul's Pokemon appeared.

Standing in front of Paul was a Pokemon that I could immediately tell was a regional variant of Tauros because its general body shape was almost identical to the one that I had grown up seeing in games. This Tauros's horns looked a little bit larger than what I remembered, and it had almost a dozen tails that ended in hardened, spiky fur that made them look like flails. The most striking difference was that the Minnesotan Tauros was at least a foot taller than normal and its mane was bright blue.

"We're in for a real treat today if we get to see Benny in action!" The announcer exclaimed, and I was glad that he and the noise of the crowd's agreement masked my barely contained groan. I decided that I would just have to be thankful that this Paul hadn't also named his big blue ox Babe. Partially to distract myself, I glanced back up at the jumbotron and saw that it displayed a small factoid stating that even though Benny was Paul's fifth Pokemon, he quickly became known as the future champion's ace.

Once again, Herman didn't wait for the announcer's go-ahead and sent out his Pokemon, which turned out to be a Gardevoir. While Benny's appearance had been met with excitement from the crowd, their reaction to Herman's Gardevoir, Cait's included, had a tinge of mild disappointment.

"And it looks like we won't have a battle of aces today with Herman opting to use his Gardevoir instead of his Aegislash for the match," the announcer said. I looked back at the jumbotron just in time for the message to update to say that Herman's Gardevoir was the sister of Paul's Gallade. A moment later, a shimmering barrier appeared at the edges of the field, separating the Pokemon and their trainers from the crowd. "It seems that everyone is ready, so let's start the match in… Three... Two... One... Brawl!"

The moment that the announcer started the battle, Benny began charging across the field towards Gardevoir, who simply closed her eyes. A second later, Gardevoir's eyes flashed back open and a large silver ball appeared directly above her head. She held out her arm towards the rapidly advancing ox Pokemon, and beams of white light began shooting out of the orb, with three of the form beams scoring a direct hit on Benny. The beam that didn't make contact left lightly scorched grass on the field, but Benny shrugged off the attacks and continued his charge.

"A great first few hits for Herman and Gardevoir with those Moonblasts, but how will she fare when Benny gets up close?" As if to answer the announcer's question, Benny lowered his head and increased his speed, closing the last bit of distance between the two Pokemon in a flash. Gardevoir was barely able to dance out of Benny's way but was clipped by his tails as he rushed past. Several of the hardened tails battered Gardevoir before she was able to concentrate enough to Teleport over to Paul's side of the field.

"It looks like Benny's Iron Head and Tail combo were too much for Gard-" the announcer started to say before cutting himself off as Gardevoir began to glow. Benny also stilled at the sight and apart from his flicking tails, he appeared to be completely frozen. The image on the jumbotron was updated to show a split-screen, with half of the image showing the bright white outline of Gardevoir while the other showed Herman clutching a necklace that I hadn't noticed before.

Gardevoir's dress poofed outwards, and her chest spike grew a second prong as the light slowly started to dim. After the light faded, much of her previously green body stayed the same white color of the glow. The crowd had been dead silent during the transformation but burst into cheers as Mega Gardevoir was fully revealed. For my part, I was a bit surprised to see a mega evolution since when I had looked up the full list of Galarian Pokemon a few weeks ago, none of them had megas, making me think that it wasn't a possibility in this world.

"And Mega Gardevoir has taken to the stage!" The announcer exclaimed at the same time that Benny started charging towards his opponent again. He had only made it a few strides when a cluster of stars the size of baseballs appeared around Gardevoir and shot towards him. The regional Tauros skidded to a halt, and he turned his body perpendicular to the attack, using his tails to shatter all but one of the Swift stars. The one star that made it through made Benny wince, prompting the announcer to comment, "Mega Gardevoir's Pixilate is making Swift a much bigger problem than usual!"

Even though the Swift attack had been dealt with, Benny didn't resume his charge and instead, he began to glow light blue. Once again, the jumbotron's image updated to show both Pokemon and trainer, with Paul holding one hand against his helmet. Benny's body slowly began to grow until he had almost doubled in size, completely towering over everyone else on the field. In addition to just growing proportionally larger with the rest of him, Benny's horns and tails grew even longer. When the light faded, his entire body was revealed to be bright blue.

"Speaking of big problems, here's Mega Tauros!" The announcer said though he was barely able to be heard above the noise of the crowd. As if the stadium wasn't loud enough, Benny began stamping his feet on the field, with each contact making a loud thump. Each time his hoof hit the ground, a crater filled with water appeared in a different part of the stage. Someone must have upped the announcer's volume since he could be clearly heard when he added, "Benny's Wetland Surge is sure to make maneuvering around the battlefield tricky!"

Sure enough, the area where Gardevoir had been standing was now completely surrounded by deep puddles, and even more were left in Benny's wake when he resumed charging his opponent. From where she was standing, Gardevoir's only escape options were to Teleport away again or wade through the water, so she opted to stand her ground in the face of the oncoming ox. Another Moonblast moon appeared above Gardevoir and its beams shot towards Benny, followed quickly by a large green orb, a purple blob, and a bolt of electricity.

In the face of Gardevoir's overwhelming offensive power, Benny simply lowered his head and continued his charge, using his horns to deflect some of the attacks. A few of the moves still made contact, making Benny wince at each hit but not slow down. He had almost reached Gardevoir when her outline began to fade as she attempted another Teleport, but one of his tails seemed to elongate and shot forward to hit Gardevoir with unexpected speed.

The force of the blow broke Gardevoir's concentration, making her Teleport fizzle as the announcer called out, "It looks like Gardevoir is cornered! Is there any coming back from this?!" With her back up against the wall at the edge of the field, Gardevoir erected a glowing wall of her own, stopping more of Benny's tails from hitting her. Temporarily safe, Gardevoir created another cluster of Swift stars that darted around her Protect shield towards Benny. Before the attack could reach him, the ox Pokemon's tails began spinning like a large fan and battered away at the stars, Gardevoir's Protect, and the ground, sending water flying everywhere.

"It's Steel Roller, one of Benny's signature moves!" The announcer cried, which I found to be particularly helpfully given that I'd never heard of that attack before, let alone seen it. Having seen it, I certainly couldn't argue with its effectiveness. It only took two seconds before cracks appeared in Gardevoir's shield, which shattered after only a few more blows. With her protection gone, Gardevoir had no more defenses against Benny's onslaught and quickly crumpled to the ground after being smacked a few more times by Benny's tails. The moment his opponent fell, Benny halted his attack and took a step back to give some space to the knocked-out Gardevoir.

"The winners of the Blizzard Brawl exhibition match are Paul and Benny!" Even with his increased volume, the announcer struggled to be heard above the noise of the crowd as he continued, "And this is only the beginning! The Brawl will continue to showcase incredible matches like this one for the next four months, starting this Wednesday!"


Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

John and Thomas sat in the stadium's stands and watched as the Pokemon groundskeepers restored the field after the damage that it had taken during the previous match. They had arrived at the stadium quite a bit earlier than they had needed to since for some reason Thomas had been under the impression that Cait's battle would be at the Metrodome instead of the much closer Midway. Ultimately, Thomas's mistake just meant that they had been able to catch the tail end of the match before Cait's so John was far from upset about it.

The two trainers in the previous match had been at six badges apiece, but even though they weren't that far ahead of John and his friends, he had been very impressed from what he'd seen. The last fight had been between a Snover and a particularly tenacious Whirlipede that had lasted almost five minutes despite the constant damage that Snover's Snow Warning provided. In the process of the battle, the two had dug up or battered the entire field, which is why it was taking longer than what John assumed was usual for the field to be fixed up.

John hoped that Cait's match would be as interesting as that one had been, though, at the same time, he decided that he wouldn't mind it if Cait beat her opponent as soundly as she'd beaten him when they'd first met. If nothing else, Cait's battle would provide a good comparison to what he had just watched so that he could get a better idea of what the difference was between four and six badge teams. Like John, Thomas stayed quiet while the stage was being repaired, but John decided not to bring up the topic and thereby remind his friend that he'd already fallen behind.

Once the field had finally been restored, the stadium's sound system came to life, "Our next battle is between two trainers that have earned four badges and recently promoted into the amateur league! On the red side of the field is Cait Lewis who earned her first four badges and assembled a full team in a stunningly short two months!"

Cait walked onto the field and took her place in the designated spot as she was introduced. John snorted slightly and leaned over to Thomas to say, "Told you she was an overachiever." Thomas grinned but didn't reply, instead turning his attention to Cait's opponent.

"But her opponent is no slouch either! The last gym that Grant defeated was Superior, which is one that many trainers leave for one of their last!" Like Cait had done, Grant moved onto the field as he was introduced. He already had one of his Pokeballs in hand so it looked like he was fully ready to get started.

"How do you think he got out there?" John asked mildly, "Don't you need a pretty strong Pokemon to get to Superior gym? Especially this time of year." While John asked his question, Cait and Grant both sent out their first Pokemon, revealing that the first matchup would be Cait's Machop, Cham, against Grant's Dewott.

"Maybe he Surfed out on that," Thomas answered with a shrug.

While John was pretty sure that Dewott could learn Surf, the viability of actually using one for transportation seemed like an entirely different matter. He wasn't interested in arguing the point though, and turned his attention back to the field as 'Brawl! appeared on the stadium's screens. The moment that the battle started, Cham darted forward while his opponent took a moment to sharpen his scalchops before doing the same.

"Looks like this one will just be a face-to-face brawl," John commented before chuckling at his own joke and was mildly disappointed when Thomas didn't react. To make things worse, Dewott decided to prove him wrong since the water type stopped when it was about ten feet away from Cham. After swinging its scalchops in an 'X' pattern in the air, two blades of water formed in front of Dewott and flew towards his opponent.

Surprisingly, Cham didn't even react to the attack and just barreled through the blades of water, quickly closing the remaining distance between the two Pokemon. Dewott was clearly as surprised as John had been since it moved too slowly and as a result was hit in the shoulder by a clean punch from Cham.

John whistled softly, "Dang, that Machop is tough. He didn't slow down at all."

Thomas nodded absently then paused and looked at John with a puzzled expression. "Not that I don't appreciate your commentary, but shouldn't there be an actual announcer?"

John thought about it for a moment and realized that nothing other than hype music had played over the speakers since the introductions. "Maybe just the big matches get play-by-plays. Something to look forward to, I guess," John answered with a shrug.

While they had been discussing the lack of commentary, the battle on the field had progressed the way that John had initially thought with the two Pokemon trading blows. The one unexpected thing was that neither of them seemed particularly concerned with dodging their opponent's attacks, which was a situation that seemed to be favoring Cham as Dewott looked to be tiring faster.

Cait must have noticed it as well since she suddenly yelled something that John couldn't make out due to the distance and the slight sound distortion caused by the field's psychic barrier. Cham clearly understood the command though since he immediately lashed out at Dewott's right wrist. Unable to move out of the way in time, Dewott lost its grip on the scalchop, fumbling it to the ground.

Without missing a beat, Dewott dove to recover its weapon, but Cham had clearly expected that. The fighting type dug his left foot into the grass and swung his right forward, catching Dewott right in the stomach and sending it flying back to land painfully on the field. For several seconds, Dewott struggled to push itself back up to a standing position, but the otter Pokemon ended up collapsing back to the ground after coughing up some water.

The moment that Dewott hit the ground the second time, the stadium's screens all changed to show 'Knockout' in large red letters. Grant immediately returned his first Pokemon and didn't hesitate before sending out his second, which turned out to be a Clefairy.

"Huh, Clefairy is sort of an odd choice," John commented.

"Why's that? It's got type advantage, right?"

John shrugged noncommittally, "Yeah, it's got a good type matchup, but it's not exactly a great singles battler." It looked like Thomas was going to say something in response, but he seemed to change his mind. Before John could ask what he was thinking, there was a loud noise from Clefairy and they both returned their attention to the field.

Because of the barrier's distortion, it was hard to tell exactly what Clefairy was doing, but John was fairly certain that it was singing. Oddly enough, Clefairy's song was making Cham wince and after a few seconds, John realized that it was using Disarming Voice. Cham shook his head to try to clear out the noise before rushing towards Clefairy. The fairy type maintained its song as Cham approached and was able to jump back to avoid being knocked down when Cham tried to sweep its feet.

After regaining its footing, the Clefairy bounced forward towards Cham, but instead of hitting the other Pokemon, it lightly bopped Cham on the nose. Even more surprising, Cham didn't try to retaliate and just stood there with his arms swaying slightly.

"That's some bad luck," John said with a wince, but after some thought added, "Well, I guess it wasn't too unlikely with Machop being mostly male and Clefairy being mostly female."

Thomas gave John a confused look for several seconds before his face lit up with sudden understanding. "Ah, right, Cute Charm. Honestly, I'm so used to the Clefable line having Magic Guard that I forgot they could have anything else." John had never really given the line much thought and decided that he'd have to ask Thomas later about whatever Showdown teams he'd used that had apparently featured a Pokemon that John had written off. Granted, John didn't intend to ever go back to playing Showdown so it didn't really matter, but he was still curious.

Back on the battlefield, Clefairy had resumed her song and Cham still hadn't made any aggressive moves so Cait ended up just returning her Pokemon. The default format for the Brawl didn't allow for any substitutions, so Cait had effectively eliminated her own Pokemon, but John couldn't fault her for the move. Her next Pokemon selection was even faster than Grant's had been and a moment later there was a flash of red light, but there wasn't a Pokemon visible on the field.

"Oh great, here we go," John said with a slight shudder.

Thomas glanced at John then returned his attention to the field to see what was causing the increasingly loud buzzing noise that began to fill the stadium. As if the noise by itself wasn't bad enough, the barrier around the field managed to make it even worse with the distortion. Slowly, a flying mass started to form in front of Cait on the stage that looked vaguely like a large Beedrill. Unlike a real Beedrill, it didn't have any wings or stingers on its hands, but instead it had a proportionally larger rear stinger and a mouth that reminded John of a Beautifly's. As it finished forming, the mass shook each of its appendages and started to turn its attention to Clefairy, who took an uncertain step back.

"What the fuck is that?!" Thomas exclaimed from his seat next to John.

John snorted at his friend's reaction, "First time seeing a Schooling Cutiefly I take it? You're lucky." Thomas's only response was muttered agreement as he stared at the swarm of bugs. The moment Flit had finished forming her swarm, she jerked forward towards Clefairy in a vaguely unnerving way, making John shudder at the sight. For Thomas's benefit he explained, "Since the swarm is made up of a ton of tiny bugs, it doesn't have to move like a normal Pokemon."

While Flit moved across the stage, Grant finally gave his Pokemon an order, and Clefairy slowly shrunk to half of her original height. Flit barely seemed to notice the change and simply angled her stinger down slightly to stab Clefairy directly in the chest. With the closer look that the stadium's large screens provided, John could see purple ooze secreting out of the hit.

Grant frantically barked another order to his Clefairy, who managed to regather her strength and actually jump into the swarm fist first. Flit's stinger and body were momentarily disrupted by Clefairy's bold attack, but the fairy type quickly became completely obscured by the swarm and vanished from sight. After several tense seconds, Flit floated a few feet back towards Cait, revealing a fainted Clefairy lying on the field's grass. With a wince, Grant returned his Pokemon but then hesitated for several long seconds while he selected his last.

"I wonder what's taking him so long," John wondered out loud. "He should have been able to see Cait's roster before the fight."

"Maybe he wasn't expecting that," Thomas said, still sounding a bit shocked by Flit's appearance.

"Yeah, I suppose you could be right there. Normally a trainer at our level wouldn't have a Cutiefly that can already use its ability. Frankly, not many trainers at any level have a Cutiefly."

Grant's long deliberation finally ended as he selected another of the Pokeballs on his belt and sent out a Geodude. The moment that Geodude materialized on the field, it scooped its hands into the field's ground and pulled out two large handfuls of grass and turf. The loose dirt quickly solidified in Geodude's hands and started to form into two large rocks. While it had been preparing its attack, Flit hovered back towards Geodude, forcing the rock type's hand and making it attack early.

Even though the rocks weren't fully formed, Geodude's Rock Throw was still plenty effective, with the rocks punching holes through Flit as they sailed through the mass of bugs. Flit quickly recomposed her swarm and filled the gaps with other bugs, but as a result, her 'body' was slightly smaller than it had been before Geodude's attack. While Flit reformed, Geodude scooped up more dirt and was in the process of pulling back its arms to repeat the throw when Flit's mouth extended and pressed against Geodude's head.

The rock type immediately sagged at the contact as green energy began traveling up Flit's mouth and into the mass of bugs. A half-hearted throw was attempted by Geodude to try to dislodge Flit, but the mix of rocks and loose dirt went wide, barely clipping Flit. In fact, any effect of Geodude's attack was quickly counteracted as Flit sapped energy from her opponent and slowly grew back to her previous size as she continued sucking energy from her opponent.

With Rock Throw being eliminated as a viable option, Geodude tried to hop away from Flit to put some distance between the two of them. Unfortunately for the boulder pokemon, the significant loss of energy caused by Flit's Absorb made Geodude's movements sluggish at best, and Flit had no issues keeping up as it tried to escape. Geodude's flight only lasted five more seconds before it collapsed to the ground, ending the battle.

The Midway filled with applause and cheers as both trainers returned their Pokemon and began walking onto the field, with Grant carefully stepping around the small craters that his Geodude had made. John whistled loudly as the two trainers shook hands in the center of the field, "A two versus three win is really impressive for Cait's first match. Guess she really did deserve her spot in the amateur league."

"Yeah, definitely looks that way," Thomas commented as Cait and Grant made their way back to the tunnels from which they entered from at the start of the match.

As soon as Cait had gone out of sight, John jumped to his feet and declared, "Let's go find Cait and congratulate her!" Thomas silently nodded and then followed John as he exited the stands to try to track down the winner of one of the first matches of the Brawl. It ended up taking them almost five minutes of wandering around the stadium's halls before John finally managed to spot Cait.

She was talking to a man and woman that John assumed were her parents and he started making his way over to them. John stopped when Thomas loudly cleared his throat, "Maybe we should wait until they're done? Don't really want to just interrupt them."

John started to shrug his acceptance, but then stopped when he noticed that the three of them were making their way over towards one of the outside exits. "Hey, congratulations!" John called across the mostly empty hallway, making Cait stop to turn back around and Thomas softly groaned. John quickly closed the remaining distance so that they wouldn't be talking past strangers, with Thomas following a couple of steps behind him.

When they reached Cait's side, John noticed that she looked oddly nervous as she quickly said, "Mom, Dad, these are my rivals: John and Thomas."

"Nice to meet you two," Cait's dad said as he shook John's and then Thomas's hands. "Where are you boys from?"

"St Cloud," John immediately answered. His promptness made the odd pause before Thomas said 'Coon Rapids,' all the more obvious.

Cait's mom smiled as the two replied but gave extra attention to Thomas after his answer, "Oh, really? You're practically our neighbor then!"

"Practically," Thomas echoed with an uncomfortable smile.

"We should really get going," Cait quickly said before the conversation could continue and her parents looked mildly surprised at the declaration before agreeing somewhat reluctantly. Satisfied, Cait looked back at John and Thomas to ask, "Your guys' battles are this weekend right?" When John nodded she added, "I'll be there for sure. Bye!"

The moment that she'd finished talking, Cait shepherded her parents outside, leaving John and Thomas standing at the Midway's front entrance. John thought that the sudden exit was a little odd, but he didn't want to pry or make a big deal out of it. He instead turned to Thomas and asked, "Hey, so do you want to go get some training in?"

"No thanks, I'm good. I've got some research that I need to go take care of."

"Ah okay. I already looked up my opponent's roster, so I'm good there. Well, I'll see you around then."

"Yep, see ya," Thomas said as he started heading for the skyway entrance that would take him back to their rooms. John briefly considered heading for the skyway as well but instead decided to brave the barely-above-freezing weather so that he could get to the nearest training center even more quickly.


A/N: Couple of things that I wanted to clarify on this one, one for non-Minnesotans and the other for locals. I have no idea how well-known Paul Bunyan is outside of Minnesota, so I wanted to mention that in case someone didn't understand Thomas's groan at my bad joke. The tall tale of Paul Bunyan involves him and his gigantic blue ox Babe, who were supposedly responsible for the shaping of much of the area's geography, hence the mega form and its custom ability.

The other thing that I wanted to clarify was the name of the stadium that the amateur matches take place in. The Midway was the name of the stadium that the St Paul Saints (our AAA baseball team) used to play at. The stadium was named as such because it was halfway between Minneapolis and St Paul, but in this case, the name is because it's for the middle-tier trainers. Ultimately, this is a longwinded way of clarifying that the stadium in the story is in downtown Minneapolis on the off-chance anyone was confused.

Thanks to krazykz and Dosidicus for their beta help. Next up is John and Thomas's first battles of the Brawl with Chapter 18: The Small Stage