Chapter One (Jasmine's POV)
Lights. They shone brightly on the stage I was standing upon and a few meters away stood my rival, Gina. She held her stance and waited for the announcer to make the call. My heart pounded against my chest, with friends and family screaming in the stands. The stadium was huge, and at night it was beautiful. But, I must not think of that now. I must focus.
"The coordinator that manages to knock their opponent's points to zero or until either opponents Pokémon have fainted by the time the five minute time limit has concluded, they will be crowned the grand festival winner! They will receive this gold trophy awarded by last year's grand festival champion Sally! And the title of this year's grand festival champion!" The announcer looked back at the three judges sitting behind the judging table and waited for their consent to begin the battle. "Let the battle begin!" She screamed.
"Go Tangrowth!" Gina yelled, throwing her Pokéball onto centre stage. Hearts sprouted out of it when her Tangrowth appeared. Ew. It was so ugly. Tangrowth began wiggling its little string like things on its body around. Oh my, it's like Medusa. It retracted them back into its body and awaited my call.
I did a little spin on the spot and pulled out my Pokéball. It enlarged in my hand and I threw it out on stage. "Eve, do your thing!" My little Eevee popped out amongst flares that came out from the seal I placed on the ball capsule the night before. She landed with a soft patter and did a little cry before getting into her usual battle stance.
"It's Tangrowth versus Eevee! An unusual matchup for these two competitors." The announcer commentated on our performance.
"Tangrowth use vine whip!" Tangrowth's vines began to come out of its body and zoomed across the stage towards Eve.
"Eve, dodge! Then use tackle attack!" Eve back flipped out of the way from Tangrowth's vines, and whilst it was retracting the vines back into its body, Eve raced across the stage with lightning speed and tackled into Tangrowth, knocking it back against the wall of the stage.
"Ouch! And Tangrowth gets a whopper hit! And so do their points!" I glanced up to the large screen with our pictures on it and underneath was a circular bar that was yellow and contained our points. Gina's points fell dramatically due to the vine whip missing and Eve landing a hardcore attack on Tangrowth.
Tangrowth plucked itself back up from the wall and walked slowly back onto the stage. It already seemed to have sustained a lot of damage. Eve stood her ground and growled at the Tangrowth which towered over her. "Eve, swift! Then quick attack!" Eve spurted stars from her mouth and began to jump from one to the other, tackling into Tangrowth and then quickly avoiding her own Swift attack so those also hit into Tangrowth too. Tangrowth fell down, and attempted to pull itself back up.
"Come on Tangrowth you can do it!" Gina screamed, trying to motivate her Tangrowth to get up. She desperately glanced at the screen, where her points were already slowly diminishing whereas mine were untouched. She looked back at Tangrowth, who had barely managed to pick itself up again from two hard blows.
"Tangrowth looks exhausted from Eevee's combo attack, will it be able to pull through?" The crowd was quiet, focusing on our battle.
"Finish it off, Eve. Use flamethrower!" The crowd gasped.
"Eevee using flamethrower? That's new!" The commentator shouted into the microphone, as Eevee ran towards Tangrowth with flames bursting out of her mouth. Tangrowth slowly attempting to move to the side as Gina yelled for it to dodge it. I trained Eve solely on speed and elemental attacks, so she knows most attacks a regular Eevee wouldn't know. She pounced onto Tangrowth and burned it with her flamethrower. Once she got off and stood back in front of me, the smog cleared and Tangrowth had fainted. The judges all had X's on their panels, signifying that Tangrowth was out. The crowd was silent as the announcer lifted the microphone up to her lips.
"Tangrowth is out, and so this year's grand festival champion is none other than Jasmine and her Eevee!" The crowd screamed and screamed, cheering for me. I glanced over at my family and friends in the stands who were all laughing and excited for me. I walked over to Gina who was tending to her fainted Tangrowth and returning it back into its Pokéball. "What a battle guys! Jasmine completely took her opponent out, leaving without a scratch!"
"Hey, fun battle." I took out my hand and allowed her to shake it.
"You didn't even let me attack you." She chuckled. She got up and the announcer ushered me to receive my trophy. I bid Gina farewell and walked up onto the podium, as last year's champion and my cousin, Sally, walked towards me holding an enormous gold cup with a white ribbon tied around it. Eve leapt up into my arms as I took the trophy from Sally and held it up into the air. The crowd screamed.
"And that concludes this year's Grand Festival! I hope to see as many of you coordinators out there winning all those contest ribbons to get a place in next year's Grand Festival! This is your MC Mary, signing out!"
That night I stood by the balcony of the Pokécenter, looking out into the illuminated city beneath me. I was tired, my family had chucked a party to celebrate my win and now I guess I needed some air. Eve stood by me; she never went into her Pokéball unless she was going to be introduced into a contest battle. Sally walked up to me, leaned out and looked onto the city. "How does it feel, champion?" She teased.
"Not settled in yet." I laughed.
"Your opponent sucked." Sally chuckled. "How on earth did she even get to the finals?"
"I versed all the hard people before I got to the finals…" I muttered. "Eve had more of a workout with the previous coordinators than in the finals." I yawned. Hm, maybe I should go to bed. Getting sleepy…
"Bring out all your Pokémon, I want to congratulate them."
Yawning, I threw all of my Pokéballs out and they appeared in front of me with sleepy filled eyes. I was like an Eevee obsessed person. Eve's spouse Vin and her recently had eggs and so I had around three baby Eevee's running around before I gave them the Fire, Water and Thunder stones, so I have a baby Jolteon, Vaporeon and Flareon now. Sally all knelt down and patted all of them. I only used them three in the preliminary rounds so they wouldn't get hurt from the battle rounds.
"They're adorable… I wish my Pokémon could be that cute again!" She laughed. Sally was champion in the grand festival, and is due to verse the Elite Four in just a few weeks. We were really close cousins as we used to travel together when I first started my Pokémon journey. Now we all have different dreams and goals so we decided it was best for us to split. Plus, she has a boyfriend now, so now I'm just that much less important to her. I laughed at the thought.
"Okay Sal, I'm going to crash now." She nodded to me whilst playing with Vin. "I'm going to curl up with my babies. I giggled. "Come on Eve, Pourie, Flare, Jolt. Vin you can play with Sally for longer if you want." Vin sort of shook his head and Eve playfully nudged me before leaving with him. The other three babies all jumped onto me and I headed to bed curled up with all of them sleeping around me.