I was working with an immense headache today, so this chapter may not be the best-edited one.

Stlix was stood across from another trainer, an older teenager who had travelled for an extra year. On the battlefield Graveler was opposite a Growlithe, the Fire-type Pokémon was favouring it's back left leg from where Graveler had hit him with a Smack down.

It was three days after the St Anne had left Vermillion and it was Stlix's first battle in the tournament. Graveler had attracted some attention at first when he had sent him out, but his opponent had assumed that his smaller size meant he was weaker, despite his odd colouring. The announcer had reassured the audience that Graveler was not a shiny Pokémon as a shiny Pokémon of the Geodude line tended to be of a golden colour and Graveler had been checked by Devon Corporation to ensure the Pokémon's health.

That was definitely in his trainer file as he had gathered some extremely rare Pokémon. Stlix was relieved that both Buddy and Floaty were with him as they would be able to fight off any Pokémon thief or poacher that tried to steal their teammates.

Corsola was perhaps the only Pokémon he owned that nobody would put effort into stealing, even Charmander and Merry were rare Pokémon that had a decent price to people upon the black market. Not that it was illegal to sell Pokémon that were caught but there many rules and restrictions to the process.

One was that you could not catch any rare Pokémon, to own one it had to be bred from a family Pokémon or caught with permission from the League.

Two was that any pack Pokémon could not have more than two of the pack caught, and even then, it could only be younger members.

Three was that it could only be sold with a license, they were only given out if the person had taken a check-up with various specialists to make sure that they sold Pokémon at fair prices and didn't sell them to criminal or terrorist groups.

There were many, many more rules to the process but any aspiring trainer had to at least know those three so that they didn't buy from a black-market merchant and didn't break the rules about taking rare or pack-based Pokémon.

The fight finished as Graveler caught the slowed Growlithe with a Rock slide before finishing off the Fire-type by hitting it with another Smack down. The referee called the end of the match and his opponent recalled his Pokémon, gave him a nod, and walked off.

Graveler gave a triumphant cry before Stlix recalled him too as he vacated the field. The preliminary rounds of the competition were one on ones that knocked out the loser. Upon the second round, there would be two on twos before proceeding to use more and more Pokémon as they progressed through the ranks.

Stlix went to watch some of the other battles after he finished his, most of the trainers here had won their ticket by defeating Lieutenant Surge and to make sure that the most talented trainers reached that point Surge could use Pokémon two badges worth of strength higher than the trainer's level who challenged him.

There were many Ground types he could see battling, Rhydon, Graveler, Sandslash and Dugtrio. It seemed that many trainers focused on type advantage to win against Surge and earn a Thunder badge but there were also many other powerful Pokémon mostly native to Kanto.

Pidgeot, Fearow, Arbok, Nidorino, Nidorina, Poliwhirl, Machoke, Magneton and many more. It was interesting to see such a large gathering of Pokémon all in one place, especially as some of them could be extremely hard to find. Stlix had even managed to see a Blastoise at one point, it blasted away its opponent with little difficulty.

As he was leaving, he managed to see an older teenager with bright purple hair, knowing the person he walked up and tapped Paul on the shoulder.

"Paul." He said with a smile as the other trainer turned back around to face him.

"Stlix you are also taking part in the tournament." The trainer said back bluntly.

"Yeah, I don't think I will ask Buddy or Floaty to battle, it would be unfair to any of the new trainers just starting. I would only ask them to battle if someone else is battling with too strong of a Pokémon." Paul nodded at that; he did not want to face either of the two fully evolved Pokémon.

They talked for a while and Stlix found out that Turtwig had evolved into a Grotle and that if Stlix wanted one he would have to travel to the Sinnoh Region. They were similar to the Bulbasaur line as they were the Grass-type starter for the Region and were fantastically rare in the wild.

After that he went to one of the higher decks to eat his meal as he watched the ocean, he had thought about letting Corsola into the water, but she was not a fast Pokémon and would be unable to swim faster than the ship. Gyarados was a Fire-type and didn't like to swim anymore despite the fact that most Gyarados were an apex predator in the ocean.

It was a beautiful site as Stlix ate fried Basculin with several vegetables and sliced Chansey eggs. It was a special meal specifically designed for maximum nutrients, Chansey eggs were constantly produced specifically for consumption as they were packed with nutrition for any consumer, only when the eggs were fertilised were, they not consumed.

The next day he was back in the field for another battle, he had progressed to the next stage and had two battles to fight in today. Each battle was two on two and on a partial water and rock field with several divots and rises to use as cover. His battle the previous day had been a flat concrete field with nothing on it.

Stood across the field was someone he recognised and not someone he expected to fight right now. He had black spiky hair and a Pikachu sat upon his shoulder. Ash Ketchum.

Team:

On hand:

Steelix (Buddy)

Tyrunt

Gyarados

Corsola

Metagross (Floaty)

Graveler

Away:

Charmander (Treatment)

Chansey (Merry)

Pupitar (Beda)