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Ben's Team:
Ogrim - Golett
Dart - Beedrill
Cleo and Lacy/The Twins - Doduo
Gauss - Alolan Geodude

Chapter 18: Game Face

"Alright Ogrim, good catch!" I cheer as my little bud succeeds in grabbing the arms of the meditite advancing on him, "Now, pull him off balance!"

"Golett!" Ogrim cries, withdrawing his head and feet and rolling backwards, the meditite strong but not strong enough to counter the momentum granted by Ogrim's weight. Before I can call the next play though, Ogrim decides to take matters into his own hands. "Go!" He shouts, as his foot extends again at the perfect angle to smack the meditite in the face.

I can't help but grin at the sight. That's the first time Ogrim's really attempted an attack without my direction. "Good thinking, buddy! Keep that up!" I encourage, wanting to push my starter to make these kinds of decisions more in the future.

Ogrim seems to take the encouragement to heart, too, retracting his extended left foot and firing out his right. Then he alternates again, and again, battering the poor meditite in the face over and over. And here I thought golett couldn't use kicking attacks! Ogrim sure showed me!

As the blows continue to smack into meditite its trainer starts visibly panicking, clapping his hands to his head and crying out in alarm, "Oh no! Come on, break out of it! Use confusion! Uhh… detect? Ahhh, nothing's working!" And just when I think he can't get any more dramatic about the situation, he screams at the top of his lungs, "NOOOOOOOOO, I can't do anything! It's over! Meditite can't keep taking hits like this! I… I FORFEIT!"

He… huh?

The referee looks over to my opponent in surprise, clearly as taken aback by the sudden declaration as I am. But after a moment he shrugs his shoulders and raises a flag. "Hudson has declared a forfeit! The winner is Ben!"

"Wait, are you kidding me?" I hear Surge shout in outrage, "The round hasn't been going for two minutes! Why show up to a tournament at all if you're gonna roll over and give up that easily!?"

Easy indeed, I muse as Ogrim stops his assault on the meditite. The meditite who, while certainly not unharmed, is still very much fighting fit. Not saying Ogrim's legs are weak or anything, but compared to his arms the damage they can deal is… Okay his legs are pretty weak. They can barely handle walking, what did this guy think a kick was going to do?

"It would seem that Hudson failed to accurately gauge the damage his meditite was actually taking," Koga muses, "In his failure to maintain composure he has completely underestimated the tenacity of his own Pokémon."

"Oh. You're okay?" Hudson blinks in surprise at the bewildered and slightly offended look his meditite is giving him. Then, without missing a beat, he turns to the referee, "Sorry, that's my bad! I thought he was taking much more damage than that! I take it back."

"What?" The referee blinks in surprise, "You… can't just take it back. You forfeited. The match is over."

Hudson's mood once again proves to be a wildly mercurial thing as he explodes into outrage at the referee, complaining loudly about how unfair this is. Let the battle resume, his meditite is fine, so what's the problem? The meditite in question looks absolutely mortified, letting out a miserable groan and clapping a hand to its face, which is enough to set Ogrim toddling over in worry.

This is… an absolute farce. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a prank of some kind. I start looking around the stadium, half expecting one of Surge's trainers to pop up next to me and tell me to smile for the cameras.

I end up locking eyes with Zachary, one of the unseeded trainers who caught my eye yesterday. He gives me a bemused smile from the next battlefield over, shrugs his shoulders, then turns his attention back on the absolutely brutal asswhooping his flittle is dishing out.

You know what? Good call, man. I shrug my shoulders as well, call Ogrim back from his efforts to comfort Hudson's poor meditite, and head for the exit. Ref made the call, I've already won. Looks like I'm through the preliminaries.

I've almost made it up to the private spectator's box when I'm forced to make way for Valeria as she storms out for the second day in a row. I'd like to say she doesn't spare me a glance on the way out, but that would be a lie. She actually glares at me as if she's plotting my murder. No, that's not quite accurate. She glares at me as if she's seconds from carrying my murder out. I wisely say nothing to her as she draws near, which may very well be a lifesaving decision. The way she's looking right now I'll put nothing past her.

Of course it takes me little effort to find out what got her in such a bad mood. When I reach the stands I find Sara still visibly reveling in another victory. At this rate she'll have won more verbal battles than Pokémon battles before the tournament is over. In the seat next to her Keith is slumped over with his face in his hands, clearly having tried and failed to stop the argument from happening.

"So, I take it you decided our conversation last night meant nothing to you, then?" I ask, moving for a seat in the row above my friends.

"Hello Ben," Sara says a bit too brightly, "I'd congratulate you on your win, but let's be honest you really didn't do much to earn that one." Ah, she's got some momentum going, clearly. Looking to keep that win streak going! How annoying.

"See, this is the exact opposite of what we asked of you," I continue, raising an eyebrow at her, "Keith and I asked you, very politely I might add, to not get into any more arguments or pick any more fights with Valeria or any of the other competitors. And instead you pissed Valeria off even more than you did yesterday."

"She came after me first," Sara shrugs, "I'm not going to just roll over and put up with her bullshit."

"Oh, well as long as she started it then I suppose we can just put you in time out for a few minutes and call it a day," I reply with a roll of my eyes, "Glad we've sorted that out."

"You're calling me childish then, is that it?" Sara scowls, twisting in her seat to glare at me.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, realizing that I'm not exactly being my most diplomatic right now. "I'm saying… that this isn't a good way to handle the situation. All you're doing is pissing her off worse and making a scene for the nearest rotom drones to broadcast to an international audience. Remember how you made that plan for us to work together and make sure we're not doing anything to look bad as Koga's trainers? This is the opposite of that." And I'm getting worked up again, let's just take a moment and decompress some more.

"Let her get pissed! She's a snooty twit! She's not even a real battler, so I don't see why we should have to put up with her sitting here looking down on us and being a bitch!" She crosses her arms and glares out into the stadium.

"Not a real battler? Try telling that to her opponents, she's completely slaughtered both of them so far!" I frown, "Look, I don't know what your issue is with coordinators, but this isn't the place to work through it."

"She shouldn't be here," Sara declares stubbornly, "And I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Coordinators aren't real Pokémon trainers, they just do silly little dances and call it a skill."

"No, see, that's Pokémon musicals, it's a totally different thing," I comment dryly, "Pokémon contests are way more technical. Also, I feel like I should point out that dancing is a thing that a lot of people work for years to master."

"So what, now you're taking her side over mine?" Sara demands.

"Nope. You're both acting terribly as far as I'm concerned. But I don't have any kind of working relationship with Valeria, so she's not my business. You, on the other hand, I know well enough to call you out on your bullshit," I wave my hands and give her a sardonic smile, "Lucky you!"

"Screw you," Sara snaps, "Mind your own business."

"We're all here as Koga's representatives, Sara. It is very literally all of our business," I sigh, "Maybe we should have been asking Koga for PR coaching leading up to this tournament instead of trainer tips."

"You're doing well enough," Keith comments suddenly, cutting off Sara's retort. There's a look of desperation in his eyes; clearly he's desperate for a change of topic, "You seem right at home in front of the cameras."

I decide to take mercy on my poor ninja friend and take the distraction. "You kidding me? This is fucking terrifying," I laugh, "I'm just a decent actor. Back in high school I was always a big fan of drama classes."

"So you're just… playing a part, essentially?" Keith asks.

"Essentially," I agree with a shrug. "Internally, I am Ben Wilson, a guy going through the world's wildest mid-life crisis who doesn't really have a clue what he's doing. But that's not the most flattering look to carry around with me, is it?. So instead I play the part of Ben Wilson, calm, cool, and collected Pokémon Trainer who is starting late but putting his life experience to good use on his new career path."

"So, you're just pretending then," Sara says, still looking rather cross with me.

"You know what they say: fake it till you make it!" I declare, "I love being a trainer, but that doesn't mean I'm really comfortable with all this just yet. I've been in front of crowds before, years ago, when I'd put on performances, but those were small time things. Compared to this the experience is barely notable enough to be of any use at all! Still, one of the first things I learned about this job from my time in Unova was that showmanship and marketability is very much a factor.

"So when I'm down there and I can't hear myself think over the roar of the crowds, I pretend to be calm and collected no matter how much I'm freaking out. When I've got cameras in my face asking me about all the crap going on back in Unova I try to keep in mind just what effect my words could have on the people who still live there. And…" I give Sara a pointed look, "When a certain coordinator starts acting like a brat, I don't do anything to show that it's affecting me, because I know that arguing with her would just reflect poorly on me. I'm supposed to be the most mature of the competitors, after all."

"I see…" Sara frowns, "Well I don't know if I can do that. Nice to know you aren't as unaffected by it as I thought though."

"So pleased to hear that you are drawing comfort from my hidden pain," I joke.

Keith is giving me a very serious look, "So, all that stuff you said in that interview yesterday, about Team Plasma and why you came to Kanto…"

"I lied. Team Plasma was one of the biggest reasons I left Unova," I say without hesitation, "I've seen the resources they have at their disposal first hand. They're dangerous and have more than enough influence to make Pokémon training a serious problem for anyone starting out. Koga's sponsorship was a great opportunity, but I'd have been fine with anywhere as long as it wasn't Unova."

"Shit…" Keith says quietly, a stricken expression on his face, "I had no idea it was that bad over there. And… Champion Alder?"

Alder won't be able to do anything, if my knowledge of the games holds any weight. But that's a bit more honesty than I think the situation calls for. "Team Plasma will be stopped, I'm quite sure of that," I say instead, "But I think things will get worse before they get better."

"I… had no idea you had all this weighing down on you," Sara says softly.

"Of course not. I didn't tell anyone. Koga probably knows a fair bit of it, but that's because he's Koga. He's never actually asked me about Team Plasma," I reply, "If I'm being perfectly honest I was more than content to just pretend it all didn't exist as much as possible. I left Unova so I could become a trainer without all of that weighing down on me. It's the coward's way out if anything."

"What about your friends?" Keith asks.

I can't hide the wince at that, "I… have to tell myself they'll be okay. They're stronger trainers than I am. And they have each other. I'm not exactly a critical part of their group, you know? More of a late addition that just hung out with them for a few weeks. I try to support them where I can, but… I still feel like an outsider with them, to an extent."

"Huh," Keith blinks at that, "I wouldn't have guessed that from hearing you and Hilda talk to each other. Seemed like you've known each other for years."

"I think she's just like that," I laugh, "Or, I dunno, when we met we kinda bonded over how screwy the situation was? I'll spare you the details but it was a weird day."

"No, you can't just leave us hanging like that!" Keith grins playfully, "Weird how? What kind of weird do you need to run into to get on a first name basis with one of Unova's top trainers?"

"It's a long story, and the next round is about to start," I deflect, not really wanting to get into the whole thing.

"Oh come on, you can tell us a little bit," Keith says, reaching back and prodding at my knee, "Just a quick summary, before the battles kick off?"

"I was shopping for groceries, got teleported into an ancient ruin, met Ogrim, and then the rest of the day went extremely shitty from there."

Keith opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off as the crowd starts cheering again and out gazes are drawn back to the field. "Damnit, I should have just waited," He mutters, "That's going to be distracting me all day now."

I allow myself a small smirk at his misfortune, then start to settle in to watch the battles. Ulu's going to be fighting his next round, and I want to keep my eyes open in case he busts out a Z-move in the preliminaries.

But right as Ulu's lickitung is taking the field the impossible happens. Somebody calls my pokégear. Okay so it's not impossible so much as extremely rare, of the people who call me regularly basically all of them are here in the stadium and we all agreed not to call each other during matches unless there's an emergency. So either Axel ran into some sort of trouble or it's one of my friends from Unova…

Huh. That's unusual.

I get out of my seat and make for the hallway, drawing curious looks from Sara and Keith. "I have to take this," I explain with a gesture to my phone, not breaking my stride. Once I'm safely out of the stands and in an area where I'll be able to hear things a bit easier I finally take the call, "Hey Cheren."

"Hello Ben. I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Cheren replies, sounding tense about something.

"No, my match just ended," I reply, trying not to show my worry, "Is everything alright? You don't usually call me."

Cheren makes an irritated grunt, "I suppose I don't. Everything is fine, I'm sorry to worry you. I'm calling because I needed… advice."

"Advice?" I blink in surprise, "Not sure what advice a guy like me could have to offer you but I'm listening."

"On the contrary, from what I've seen of your performance so far I believe your insight could be a real help," Cheren lets out a sigh, "I'm sure you know the opening ceremony of the Unova Pokémon League is today, yes?"

"I hadn't forgotten."

"Well… I was hoping you had some tips on managing stage fright," Cheren asks.

"Oh, you're nervous about the crowd, huh?" I say, finally feeling the last bit of tension slip away.

"I'm afraid so. It's a bothersome thing to be so distracted by such a thing but I can't seem to get over it. I tried asking Hilda and Bianca, but Hilda just claimed she didn't think about it, and Bianca offered the old cliche of imagining the audience in their underwear."

"Ah, yeah that last one never really made much sense to me," I chuckle.

"It's complete nonsense," Cheren grumbles, "At any rate, their suggestions were completely unhelpful, so I thought I would try asking you. You seem to have been handling yourself well so far in the tournament, not to mention that interview."

"Thanks for saying so," I comment, thinking the matter over, "Well for starters, I'm sorry to say it but Hilda's got the right of it. The best way to deal with the crowd is to not think about them."

"Far easier said than done, or else I wouldn't have felt the need to call you," Cheren says irritably.

"I know, but just hear me out, alright?" I continue hastily, "It sounds to me like Hilda's just tuning it out from the start. That isn't surprising to me, she's a total battle maniac. And in her case she's not too thrilled about the attention either so it's like she's mentally rejecting a lot of the PR aspect of the League from the start. But that's not the case for you, is it?"

Cheren's quiet for a moment before responding, "I suppose not. I'm not any more thrilled about the sort of attention the League is giving Hilda than she is, but I'm not the one being strong-armed into the spotlight. Instead I'm looking at it from the outside, and it makes it that much more intimidating."

"Right, you're not like Hilda, you're the one who really thinks over all this stuff. Once that attention is on you you're worried about what people will see."

"Precisely," Cheren says, sounding a bit relieved to hear me sum up the situation.

"Okay, well there's good news and bad news here. The good news is that with the way you are there is basically a zero percent chance of you doing something to embarrass yourself. You're way too logic-driven for that to be a serious concern. The bad news is your problem is going to be people dismissing you as being too stiff instead." I wait a moment to see if Cheren has a response, but he just lets out a grumble so I carry on, "What you need to do is focus on why you're there."

"You mean focus on the battle. You want me to attempt to think like Hilda does?" Cheren asks, skepticism plain in his voice.

"Not quite," I reply, "I'm not talking about the battle. I'm talking about why you're battling. What are you going to the League to do?"

"I want to beat Hilda and become the Champion," Cheren replies without hesitation.

Yikes, he really is all business, isn't he? Still, he's got the right idea. "That works! Focus on that. When you go out onto the field don't think about the crowd. You're not there for the crowd. You're there for Hilda. You want to stand against her. You want to surpass her. Everything else is irrelevant, so treat it as such."

"So rather than try to ignore the crowd, I should dismiss them. Accept that they are there… but remember that they don't matter. I think I understand," Cheren says, sounding satisfied, "Thank you for the advice Ben, that was very helpful."

"Hey, no problem."

"I'll let you get back to your tournament now. Best of luck."

"Back at you, man. Later." I end the call, and start to make my way back to the stands…

Another buzz from my pokégear. Cheren sent a text.

I have been making a list of potential training tips for your geodude, by the way. Their battle style looks to hold some similarities with my gigalith. Once I'm satisfied with what I've put together I'll be sure to send it to you at once.

I chuckle to myself, type up a quick thanks, and pocket the phone. He really is too stiff sometimes, but there's no denying Cheren is cut from the same cloth as Bianca and Hilda.

Unfortunately it looks as if the round is already wrapping up by the time I return to my seat. From what Keith told me the two most interesting trainers in the round, Ulu and an unseeded trainer named Kaz, both wrapped up their battles in no time at all. The only trainers remaining are all total rookies whose battles are only continuing because they lack the skills to properly end things.

Well, there is one woman who looks to be playing with her food, but that's hardly fun to watch either. Apparently her name is Quinn Brilletta, from the auspicious and very important Brilletta family. Investor family. Very influential. Doubt anyone there has ever worked a proper day in their lives. Anyways, her golbat moves well but I have better things to do than to watch some rich lady humiliate some poor rookie on international television. There's supposed to be a longer intermission for lunchtime after this next round anyways, so I just walk back out of the spectator box and head for the nearest food vendor.

Nice thing I've learned about food here in Kanto: it's a lot more ethically sourced than back in Unova. The region apparently mostly uses meat grown in labs, as opposed to the farms back in Unova. I've come to appreciate that sort of thing a lot more since coming to the Pokémon world. Eating meat was fine for me back home, but when all the wildlife is self-aware it gets… kinda fucked up, to be honest.

That largely seems to be a me problem though. People don't really hold the same reservations I do about eating Pokémon. They didn't have these artificial meat alternatives until relatively recently, and it's not like Pokémon eating other Pokémon is all that different. There seems to be some sort of unspoken agreement between all parties that it's 'okay' as long as it's for eating, with the labs mostly existing because it's cheaper than trying to farm self-aware super animals. It's like the circle of life has been given some weird, additional understanding of fair play.

I don't get it, honestly. Probably never will. Best to just take my artificial meat and move on. They've invested enough Pokémon world super tech into the process that the stuff tastes as good if not better than any cut of real meat I could afford back home, so there's no downside. Unlike Unova… still doubt I'll ever be able to look at basculin the same way, even if that sushi was delicious. Or maybe because it was so delicious.

So I go to a shop that has a little seating area out front and get myself a fake cheeseburger with fake bacon and some not so fake fries, all looking nice and greasy as only the best vendor food does. Good thing I'm much more physically active these days, because artificial or not this burger looks fully capable of stopping my heart. Utter perfection.

Unfortunately for me though, I'm not the only one who decided to leave the stands early, because the tables are all almost entirely full. Thankfully there is one seat I can spot available. Though it's a gamble to see if I can take it without getting my food tossed in my face.

"Hey," I say to Valeria Eglamore, pulling her attention away from the salad she's stabbing at, "Nobody's sitting here, right?"

She's not looking nearly as murderous as earlier, or else I wouldn't have attempted this, but the look she gives me is still far from impressed. She glares up at me without a word, and raises one of her absolutely fabulous looking boots up to rest on the chair across from her.

A clear enough message, but I press on regardless, "There's no need to be like that. Look, there's nowhere else to sit here, and I know you don't have anyone else with you."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Valeria growls.

I was hoping she'd ask. "Because you'd be watching the battles with them instead of us. I'm sure your friends would make far better company than Sara's been," I give her a somewhat lopsided smile, to show her my words are a way of commiserating with her after what she's been dealing with.

She raises an eyebrow in surprise at the comment. Then, after a moment of thought, she slowly lowers her foot from the chair. Peace offering accepted, if only tentatively.

"Thank you," I give her a genuine smile as I take the seat, "And sorry for being a bit pushy. It's not the sort of thing I normally like to do, but if I'm being honest I'm a bit curious about you?"

Valeria immediately looks as if she's regretting letting me take the seat, and I hastily clarify, "Or rather, I'm curious about this weird, anti-coordinator attitude I've been seeing. Unova doesn't really have much of a Contest scene since there's no Grand Festival there.

"What, your friend didn't tell you?" Valeria asks sarcastically.

"She told me you're not a real trainer, but… come on. I have eyes. Your staravia and floragato completely dominated their battles. Your talent is very clearly the real deal. And Sara's a smart enough girl that she should be able to recognize that. Which tells me there's some sort of weird… cultural thing going on that's getting in the way of good sense," I shrug at that, honestly not at all sure what that cultural thing might be.

Valeria sits back in her seat, apparently mollified for the moment. She thinks on my query for a little while, and I take the opportunity to start digging into my food. Eventually though she raises her gaze once more and I set the burger down to show her that I'm ready to listen to her.

"I'm sure you can guess the basics. Pokémon battling and Pokémon coordinating involve a lot of similar skillsets at first glance, but anyone who understands the sports will tell you that they involve completely different philosophies behind them. Battling is about beating your opponent down until they can't continue, but coordinating is very different. Coordinating is about mastering the aesthetics of Pokémon techniques, to the point where even the moves of your opponents become another tool in your performance. It takes a lot of skill, but not the kind that easily translates well into a Pokémon battle."

"Well sure, there wouldn't be much point in making them their own sport if they didn't involve different skill sets," I reason.

Valeria nods, "Exactly. If that were all there were to it though, it wouldn't be a big issue. Coordinators participating in contests, trainers participating in battles. Neither would need to give a damn what the other thought of them. The real problem comes from the legal aspect."

"There's a legal aspect?" I blink in surprise.

Valeria rolls her eyes at me, "Right, Unovan, you wouldn't have much experience with this part. Pokémon battles are primarily administered by the Pokémon Leagues, whether that's the big official League that oversees multiple regions like Unova and Kanto, or smaller regional leagues like Galar and Paldea."

"With you so far," I nod.

"Right, but Coordinating is a separate thing," Valeria continues, "Pokémon Coordinating is overseen by the Pokémon Activities Committee. Which means it's not officially affiliated with the Pokémon League. Which means the system also has no official connection with the licensing system."

"Oh, I see what you're saying!" I declare. Then the implications fully hit me and I give her a painful grimace, "Oh, shit."

"Yup," Valeria says, a somewhat satisfied look on her face now that she knows we're on the same page, "All these little differences in opinion start to get a lot more bullshit once they translate into a legal bottleneck on the entire sport of coordinating. Suddenly all the dumbasses who think coordinating doesn't take any actual skill have the ability to use that as an excuse to stop coordinators from working with the Pokémon they want to."

"A viewpoint which becomes a lot harder to escape once it has legal precedent backing it. With the only way forward in your career being to support the system, either by going to gyms or by taking licensing tests," I conclude. I think on that for a moment, taking a particularly angry bite out of my cheeseburger. "That… sucks. That really sucks. No wonder you've been so snappy with us. We've all been happily participating in the system that's screwing you over without a care in the world."

Valeria scrutinizes me for a moment to see if I'm being genuine, then lets out a tired sigh, "Yeah, well, I guess that was still pretty shitty of me to keep going after you all like that. McLain may be an asshole, but that doesn't mean I should be going after the rest of you."

"She won't say anything if you don't go after her, you know," I say, giving her a serious look, "Keith and I have been trying to get her to tone it down, but as long as she thinks you're picking a fight she's not going to back off."

"Well she should stop looking at me like something stuck to the bottom of her damn shoe then," Valeria snaps, "Every time I look her way she's giving me this look like she's better than me. It's driving me up the wall!"

I blink in surprise at that. "I… honestly hadn't noticed anything of the sort," I say, feeling a bit taken aback. I'm starting to think there's something personal going on with Sara's attitude towards coordinators. This seems like a bit much to just be a plain old coordinator/trainer feud. "Just to check, you've never met Sara before this tournament, right?"

"I've never seen her before in my life, and I'll be happy to never see her again when this is done. She's absolutely unbearable," Valeria replies flatly.

I want to protest that, but I can't deny that Sara's been pretty awful to her. Apparently even more awful than I realized. "...Fair enough," I concede, "Whatever Sara's issue is, I'll try to make sure she keeps it to herself from now on. Dirty looks and all. If all else fails we can have Arthur sit between you two, he's a big enough guy that she'll have to work pretty hard to glare at you then."

"I'd appreciate that," Valeria says, the faintest hint of a smile coming to her face, "Thank you, Ben."

"Happy to be of service," I reply. The two of us fall into a companionable silence for a while as we finally finish our meals. Then, once my burger is gone and I'm free to talk while slowly picking at my fries, I ask, "So… you have a favorite coordinator?"

The transformation Valeria undergoes is immediate and dazzling as she grins at me, "Honestly, I don't know if I could possibly pick just one. There's Wallace of course, he's the first person you should look to if you want to work with water types, and he's the biggest advocate for improved coordinator rights in the Pokémon League. Then there's Solidad, she's won the Kanto Grand Festival four times, and I learned a lot about training my staravia by watching her and her pidgeot! I think my favorite to watch is Jessilina though. She's got so much energy, and her appeals are always unconventional!"

Well that's an interesting name to hear. "I think I've actually seen some of Jessilina's performances," I comment, "Was she in the Sinnoh Grand Festival at some point?"

Valeria looks shocked at the question. "I barely meet any coordinators who remember that!" She declares, "It was her first appearance, nearly five years ago! She vanished off the radar for years after that, but she started competing again recently. Runner up in Kanto's Grand Festival last year and she's been competing in Johto this year. You really watched her in Sinnoh?"

"Yeah, I remember an appeal round where she had a meowth that made noodles?" I comment, thinking back to my time watching the anime. Sinnoh was the last arc I actually watched. Good times.

"You know they made a rule banning that after the season was over?" Valeria says.

"Really?" I raise an eyebrow, gesturing for her to explain.

"Yup, the judges decided afterwards that having your Pokémon cook for the judges counted as bribery," Valeria continues, an amused grin on her face.

"You know you've made the big leagues when they have to ban your moves," I declare.

We talk for a bit longer until a text message comes from Keith, asking where I am. I blink when I look at the time. "Well, time flies when you're having fun," I comment, getting to my feet and looking over to Valeria, "The next round is about to start."

"Oh, I suppose you'd better get back up there then," Valeria replies, making no move to get up.

"You don't want to watch the next round?" I ask.

Valeria smirks at me, gesturing to the monitor on the wall that shows the battle feed. "I'll be just fine here," she says, making a show of settling into her seat, "Still not all that fond of the company you keep, even if you are going to babysit them properly from now on."

"I see," I frown at that. I had thought I made some real progress with Valeria, but it looks like things aren't going to be smoothed out that easily. Should have guessed as much.

"Oh, lose the kicked puppy look, will you? You're far too old to pull it off anyways," Valeria says, continuing to smirk at me, "Look, I admit I think you're alright as trainers go. But that doesn't mean we're going to just be friends like that. Even if you're a decent sort, that doesn't change the fact that you're acting all buddy-buddy with people determined to stomp all over me, my team, and my entire profession. And it doesn't change the fact that I need to be willing and able to do the same."

Interesting emphasis there. "Need?" I prompt.

"The biggest thing coordinators need is people willing to speak up for their rights," Valeria declares, "People who can speak in the only way they will listen. So me and my team are going to make it big in both battles and contests, starting here. Nobody in the Pokémon League wants to show coordinators any respect? Well they won't have a choice once I'm stomping them into the dirt."

I nod thoughtfully at her declaration, then grin at her, "I can respect that. Still gonna pound you into the dirt if we face each other though."

"You're gonna try," Valeria smirks, "But that's fine. Can't make a statement here properly if you're all holding back. Come at me with your best, I'll show you all coordinators have what it takes to go even further."

"Well then," I hold up a hand, "May the best trainer win. Battler, or coordinator."

"I plan to," Valeria meets my handshake with a bloodthirsty expression.

As one might expect from a coordinator, she manages to make even that look damn good.

Could I have made a proper battle out of Ben's other preliminary match? Sure. But making a dumb gag out of it served about the same purpose.

So. Contests. Definitely not a thing that jives with the whole licensing system I made up for Throne of Mud. Which is... surprisingly enough, not something I planned. Yup, I'll admit it, contests are a thing in this world, but they don't play a huge part in the story, so when I was thinking up my whole legal framework for Pokemon Training I didn't really consider them at all.

Now, I could have just distanced myself from the problem as much as possible and hoped you all wouldn't notice. But once I noticed the problem there was no hope of that. Once my brain finds a problem I have to do something about it. Can't fix it without completely reworking the system I spent so long fine tuning, and can't really rework the system because the story had already started posting when I made the realization that 'oh shit, coordinators are a thing!' Which means that the question changes from 'How do I fix this?' to 'How can I use this?' Enter Valeria Eglamore, a character created primarily to represent the big coordinator shaped hole in all my Pokemon Law brainstorming. This way I can fool all my readers, by letting her point out the issue and making them think I planned for this little slip-up all along!

Or that would have been the case, but I enjoy talking about the mental processes I go through while writing too much so here I am giving up all my dark secrets anyways. I'm sure all the things I learn when I work through these problems will be very useful to me when the time comes that I write an actual book. No individual author notes for each chapter to tempt me into blurting out about all the mistakes I make, lol. Until then though, you can all learn from my mistakes. Including in this case the all too important lesson that even if you can't fix a mistake, you can still harness it to turn it into a strength. Damn, how's that for a nice moral? Good talk everyone!

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