Previously, in Pokémon: The Lost Child, Piplup and Treecko helped an injured Magby who led them to his village. Piplup and Treecko discovered there was a tournament going on and decided to participate in it. But before they could, the village was raided by a gang of Poochyena's. During the raid, Treecko evolved into Grovlye, and they were able to drive the gang away. Now the tournament can begin.
"Sorry for the delay everyone but now that the Poochyena's have been driven away we can begin the tournament. All of your matches will be the same as before so get into position," Conkeldurr said.
Piplup was facing off against a Magmar and Grovlye was facing a Furret. Grovlye was more confident in the idea of winning, as he had now evolved and was on par with Furret. Piplup was still concerned about having to go up against Magmar, though, despite the advantage he had.
"I should thank you for helping fend off the raiders," Furret said.
"It was no problem; it is the reason I evolved," Grovlye said.
"3, 2, 1, It's time for battle," the robot referee said.
Grovyle immediately got out his leaf blade to attack, but Furret went into the ground to dodge it. Grovlye knew Furret was about to attack from the ground, so he got prepared. Furret came out of the ground and Grovlye jumped out of the way, attacking with a leaf blade. Furret was hurt, but she took the hit well and was back to battling.
Meanwhile, Piplup started his battle with Magmar. At first, Magmar tried to use fire attacks on Piplup, but due to his typing, Piplup shrugged the hits off pretty easily. Magmar, however, knew this kind of situation was going to happen, so he busted out a secret move. He lit his hand up with electricity. Piplup knew it was bad. Treecko had mentioned that he was weak to anything electrical, so Piplup could not afford to get hit by that.
Piplup dodged the first thunder punch attempt and fired his brand new water gun move at Magmar. It hit Magmar and did some decent damage, but Magmar was able to get back on his feet. Magmar chased after Piplup and he tried to run and dodge out of the way, but Magmar caught up and had Piplup pinned to the ground.
"I heard that you helped my little brother," Magmar said.
"You mean Magby? I didn't know he was your brother," Piplup responded.
"Yeah, he is. Don't think this means I will hold back against him. You have been a valiant opponent though."
Meanwhile, Grovyle and Furret were continuing to fight. Both of them were trading blows with each other and taking quite a bit of damage. Grovyle's moves were dealing more damage, so he was winning the battle. Grovlye in his head could hear the crowd of people cheering him on, even though nobody was paying attention to his match. Grovlye had this in the bag, he just needed to get one major hit in.
Furret tried to tackle Grovlye, but he dodged out of the way and got out the leaf blade. He lunged towards Furret, hit him, and Furret was knocked down. The referee announced that Grovlye had won his match and was moving on to the next one. Grovlye decided now that he had finished his match that he was going to go over and see how Piplup was going against Magmar.
Magmar still had Piplup pinned down and was getting his thunder punch ready to deal a massive blow to Piplup. Piplup tried to get free, but Magmar was so much bigger that it seemed hopeless. Magmar hit Piplup with his thunder punch, and Piplup was knocked back, taking a lot of damage in the process. Magmar was very surprised that Piplup was even able to survive that, but was also impressed at the same time.
Magmar continued to try and lay the final hit on Piplup, but this time Piplup was more prepared and was able to dodge most attacks. However, the blow he took made it much harder to dodge hits. Magmar eventually hit Piplup with a flamethrower, and while Piplup did resist, it was still quite damaging when Piplup was already struggling. Piplup was now exhausted and barely able to move, Magmar knew this was his opportunity, so he got ready to end the game with his finishing.
However, Piplup started glowing, much like what happened to Grovlye. Grovyle knew right away what was happening. Piplup was evolving into Prinplup. Piplup also knew what was going on.
At first, this seemed like the boost that Prinplup needed to win the battle, but he was still heavily damaged and couldn't find his way back up, so Magmar used one last thunder punch to take Prinplup down and win that battle.
At first, Prinplup was disappointed, but he didn't want to be a bad opponent.
"Good match, Magmar."
"You too, you were a great opponent. I am glad that we got to have this fight."
"Welcome to the club… Prinplup," Grovlye said.
Now that they had finished their matches, Prinplup and Grovyle were now hanging out in the back room waiting for the next matches to start.
"Don't feel too bad, Prinplup. You did well in the fight and you managed to evolve. I am sure that you can win another fight," Grovyle said.
"Thanks for those words. I am not too disappointed to be honest, though. I mean, evolving is pretty cool."
"I will warn you though, to not get too caught up in this evolution. Obviously, it does give you a massive power boost, but you shouldn't let this make you think that you can just breeze past any opponent with ease," Grovlye said.
"That is some good advice, I will admit."
"These are also not even our final forms, but it will be a while before we get to see our final forms. I don't know much about your final form other than its name, Empoleon."
"That is very interesting. I will be looking forward to that," Prinplup said.
Right after an announcement started with Conkeldurr speaking, "all of the matches have concluded. The victors need to come to the front desk to see their next matches."
"Well, wish me luck," Grovyle said.
"Good luck."
Grovyle walked over to the front desk and saw that he would be facing the same Magmar that had just fought Prinplup. It was a fun coincidence, but it also made Grovyle extremely nervous as he is weak to fire and doesn't have a good way of getting around that.
"You look nervous. What is up," Prinplup asked.
"I am weak to fire. I am going into this battle at a disadvantage," Grovyle said.
"Oh, that makes sense. Well, I am sure that you will still give it your all and even if you lose, there is always something to learn from a loss, as you said."
"Do you have any advice that I could use as I know you faced him?" Grovyle asked.
"I noticed that Magmar likes to rush in for an attack quickly, seemingly without thinking it through first. You might be able to use them to your advantage with smart dodging," Prinplup answered.
"If I can avoid getting hit for most of the battle, I might have a chance of beating him. This is going to be helpful."
Conkeludrr announces that the next round of matches will start in a few minutes. Grovyle heads to one of the arenas where he comes face-to-face with his opponent, Magmar. It is now or never. It is time for him to begin the match. The robot referee starts counting down and the match begins.
Magmar starts the match right away, shooting a flamethrower at Grovlye, but Grovyle, taking some advice from Prinplup, saw this coming and dodged out of the way. Grovyle dropped on top of Magmar and started pounding him, and while it hurt, Magmar used his thunder punch to get Grovlye off his back. It didn't hurt Grovyle much though due to his resistance to the move.
Magmar attempted to hit Grovyle with a flamethrower while he was knocked on the ground, but Grovyle was able to block it though not super well. Grovyle used his speed to his advantage, running all over the place to confuse Magmar into not knowing where to hit him. Grovyle got his leaf blade out, ready to attack magma with it while continuing to run around.
Grovyle did this for a bit, and while this strategy did work to an extent, it wasn't super effective. Grovyle was getting a lot of hits on Magmar, but due to Grovyle's best moves being resisted by Magmar, he couldn't do much damage. Magmar was also starting to adapt to the strategy by not engaging Grovyle directly. The match between the two started stalling to a crawl and would still keep going even after most of the matches ended.
Grovyle had learned about the timer, which would mean that if nobody had fainted before it ran out, the Pokémon with the most HP wins. Since Grovyle was much weaker than Magmar, it was likely that Grovyle was more injured. Grovyle needed to come up with another strategy to take down Magmar before it was too late.
Grovyle had thought of an idea. He was going to redirect Magmar's thunder punch back at him, which would deal quite a bit of damage and guarantee the win.
Grovyle ran up to Magmar and stood right in front of him doing nothing. Magmar had been anticipating some surprise attack after dodging, but Grovyle just never moved at all.
"What is your game, Grovyle?"
"I think you know exactly what it is."
Magmar attempted to punch Grovyle with his thunderpunch, but Grovyle grabbed his hand and was going to redirect it. Magmar's arm was much heavier than Grovyle anticipated though, and he wasn't able to stop it. This allowed Magmar to hit Grovyle point blank with a thunder punch. While Grovyle did take the hit, it hurt badly and there were only a few seconds left.
The time ran out and the robot referee called out, "The match has ended in a draw. The winner is Magmar with more health left."
Grovyle had lost the match, despite his best efforts. He couldn't outlast Magmar. He made a miscalculation in the final stretch and it cost him the match. Grovyle was disappointed, but he wasn't going to give up yet.
"You took quite the hit in that last stretch. Sorry about your loss," Prinplup said, running up to Grovyle.
"Thanks, I am disappointed, but I won't let this get me down. I will just come back stronger."
"You should sit down and get some rest." Prinplup and Grovyle walked to the benches to sit down. Little did they know that forces behind the scene were plotting.
Some Pokémon were watching the entire tournament with mysterious intentions. The tournament was not what it seemed. There was something sinister going on.