"Whoa, I didn't know that there were this many pokemon in the city!" Eriff said, looking at the huge crowd of pokemon in the stands. We were in the contest hall, waiting for the tournament to start. "What are they all doing here?"
"Since the winner rules the city, it's obvious that everyone is allowed to attend, to see who wins," Lilly said.
I looked nervously at everyone. Ore had his hood up, not wanting to be seen. Auroc and Absolum were wearily looking at the other gangs. Lilly, Eriff, Elric, Mark, and Kykis where looking at the crowd, Kykis blushing pretty bad, since he was still a kirlia. KY had brought some wires and metal and was fiddling with them. Fort and Hana were talking quietly. Kedo was feeling good enough to come, but Gani had given him strict orders not to do anything unless absolutely necessary.
Gani, to everyone's surprise, was going to be competing with us. She had given her reasons for helping us very hotheadedly. "I'm not about to let some stupid gang rule my life! And you all can't walk out the front door without being hurt. Though don't get the wrong idea! The second this is over I'm going back home." We decided it would be best not to object.
"Hey, Lilly," I said, "I've been meaning to ask, but who organized this anyway?"
"The heads of the gangs and the leaders of the Freelands," Lilly said. "We found it would be a great way to end disputes between gangs."
"Hello everyone!" A cheery voice above us said. We all looked up to see a smoochum and infernape standing in a small hot air balloon flying above the battlefield. The one who had spoken was the infernape, and she sounded female. "We are about to get started! I'm Samantha and this is Akiah, and we will be your hosts for this wonderful event. Are we all ready?" The crowd cheered.
"Then we won't keep you waiting too long!" The smoochum, Akiah, said. "We have to explain the rules of this round! We have more or less forty gangs here tonight, seven of them major gangs. Now, in this round, in honor of this wonderful building, we will be doing this contest style!"
Lilly's eyes widened slightly. "Uh-oh."
"It's very simple," Samantha said. "Each gang will send one of their members forward to represent them, and they need to dazzle us with their skills. Let's meet the judges!" She indicated to a small table, where an alakazam, a mawile, and a beautifly sat. "We have the genius who keeps all of our electricity running, let's give it up for Mr. Denik!" There was a loud cheer, and the alakazam nodded to the crowd. "Then we have the cutest steel type around, the one who runs the largest Freeland, Stele, let's hear it for Kasuai!" The mawile jumped up, waving at the crowd, smiling. "And last, but certainly not least, let's hear it for Cho, a five time contest champion!" The beautifly got a really big cheer.
I still couldn't get over Kasuai. "Does she really run Stele?" Stele was a Freeland to the far northwest, and was the biggest Freeland. They had devoted to melting down broken metal and making it into new things, hoping to one day rebuild the city.
"Yep," Lilly said. "Don't let her cute appearance fool you. She is a born leader."
"Now," the two announcers said in unison, "Let the preliminary round begin! First up, the Shadow Eaters!"
A honchcrow flew into the center of the battlefield. It wasted no time, flapping it's wings, creating a huge wall of black smoke. Haze. It then started flying in a sharp circle around it, causing it to bend in, looking like an hourglass.
"Not bad," Samantha said, "but he'll need to do better. Wait! What's this?" Golden feathers started to mix into the smoke. Feather dance. It flew faster, diving into the middle of the smoke. It then broke apart, shattering the feathers, making sparkles fly everywhere. The pokemon was hovering in the middle, it's wings glowing white. Steel wing.
"Not bad," Mr. Denik said. "It was simple, yet quite elegant. I quite liked it."
"That was so pretty!" Kasuai screamed excitedly. "I loved it!"
"It was really nice, but a bit plain," Cho said. I could immediately tell she wasn't going to be easy to please.
"All right then!"Akiah said. "Let's hear it for our next group, the Geoaxes!" There were more cheers, and a quagsire came out to the battlefield. He smiled at everyone, then dug underground. He popped up a distance away, and dove back down. He continued to do this, littering the ground with holes.
"I wonder what he's up to," Samantha said.
He popped up and landed on the ground, then shot water into the hole. The water was teaming, so I guessed it was scald. Soon you could see water from all the holes. He had filled them up. He smiled at the crowd again, jumps up, and lands hard on the ground, causing the ground to shake. Earthquake.
The water from the hole shot up into the air. I had seen something like this before. A drummer had put paint on his drums, so when he hit it, the paint would fly into the air. This was the same concept. The crowd went wild. The ground stopped shaking, and he filled the holes with mud, using mud bomb. The mud dried quickly, fixing the field.
"Very creative," Mr. Denik said. "That was quite neat."
"Are you kidding?" Kasuai yelled. "That was awesome!" I was getting the feeling she wasn't hard to please, the exact opposite of Cho.
"It was nice, but lacked a certain touch," Cho said.
This continued on, gangs going one after the other. Then it was our turn. "Up next, a newer gang, the Unnaturals!"
Lilly looked at us. "Does anyone have anything they want to try?"
I looked at KY, and he looked at me. Auroc saw us, then sighed. "I'm going to kill Ita. I got it." He walked out onto the battlefield. I couldn't help but feel really excited to see what he could do.
He looked at the crowd. Ice started to form around his hands. He raised them up, then slammed them on the ground. Ice spread until it covered the entire battlefield.
"Whoa, look at that!" Akiah said. "You don't see that every day."
Auroc then raised his left foot up, putting his hands on either side of it. Ice formed into what looked like an ice skate.
No way.
He made another skate on his other foot, and stood for a moment, his eyes closed. Music from an unknown source started to play, and he opened his eyes, which were now pink. He was psychically creating music. The song was the Carol of the Bells. He started his routine, which appeared to be very well rehearsed.
"No way," Mark said. "When did he learn to do that?"
"From the looks of it, he's known how to do it for a while," Lilly said. The crowd was perfectly silent. Fine ice streamed from behind Auroc as he skated, creating a very elegant appearance. He was downright amazing.
He finished his routine, and the crowd went crazy, almost everyone on their feet.
"Very nice!" Mr. Denik said. "I've never seen anything like that."
"That was amazing!" Kasuai yelled, jumping up and down in her chair. "Who knows encore? Make him do it again!"
"That was very well done," Cho said. "He is clearly well rehearsed in the art of contests." Auroc gave a bow to the judges, then walked back over to us.
"That was awesome!" Eriff said. "Where did you learn how to do that?"
"I used to enter contests. That was my most popular routine."
"Well we are sure to make it past the preliminaries," Lilly said.
We waited for all the other gangs to go. Once we were done, Samantha spoke. "Alright everyone! It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Only the top twenty gangs will get to move on! Turn your attention to the big screen!" She indicated to the large monitor, where the symbol of each gang was displayed. Our symbol was a flame in the shape of a four leaf clover, which Lilly said she had thought up rather quickly. Some of the symbols started disappearing, and soon we were left with twenty symbols. We had made it.
"All right!" Akiah yelled. "Let's give it up for all of them!" There was a huge cheer from the crowd. "We have food in the back for the winning gangs. Go meet your competitors, and get ready for the next event, which will be tomorrow. What is it you ask?" She smiled at Samantha. They said what it was in unison.
"Capture the flag!"