A/N: Thank you for your support! I've got no other announcements, so here's the next chapter, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon or the picture used as cover (though I did edit it).

Days

The day Harley almost starts a fight

Drew

Thursday, January 16th

"This is so exciting, don't you think, Drew?" Brianna gushed, excitedly looking towards the big screen of the Stadium.

Before Drew had the chance to answer, Harley interrupted, "Psh, hardly. We already know we've passed, there's no other possibility."

"We don't know for sure," Timmy said pacifyingly. Brianna smiled at the brown-eyed man and Drew nodded in agreement, though inwardly he also knew Harley was right; with the kind of performances there had been, he was certain he had passed onto the first round.

Harley, however, didn't seem keen on keeping the peace and instead continued, "Come on, have you even seen the others?" The purple-haired man rolled his eyes and ignored Solidad's warning hand on his arm. "These are amateurs and we're the professionals! They can't even hope to beat us!"

Harley's loud words were attracting attention and other people in the stands were turning to look at them. Solidad gave them an apologetic smile and squeezed Harley's arm.

"Harley, please be quiet," she said, while Brianna and Timmy had turned away from Harley, as if pretending they weren't part of his group.

"I'm only speaking the truth!" Harley protested. He gestured to Drew. "Drew agrees with me, see! The competitive Trainers stand no chance against us, they're all power and no brains!"

"Hey, don't you dare say that! I'm gonna fine you for that!" A few seats away a blond man in a painfully orange t-shirt got up and pointed at Harley.

"Harley, shut up," Drew snapped, sensing that the situation was about the escalate. Harley's words might be true, but it was unnecessary to yell them around a crowd where at least half of the people were competitive Trainers.

Harley looked positively offended by his reaction, huffing and crossing his arms, but fortunately did shut up. Solidad was busy apologizing to the people around them, and Drew breathed in relief when everyone seemed to calm down, though the blond man continued to glare daggers at Harley.

The situation was further defused when the big screen stopped displaying repeats of performances of the selection, and instead switched to showing the words 'Round 1' in huge letters.

Marian Meridian walked into the Stadium and the screen switched to show her, while the crowd applauded loudly. Marian was followed by the judges, Sinnoh Champion Cynthia, and the woman who had created the Tournament, Johanna Natochenny.

Drew clapped along while furtively glancing at the blond man, whose attention seemed fully on the screen now. Well, that was one crisis averted.

Marian welcomed everyone, thanked them and spoke about the wonderful performances they had seen. That was a bit of an exaggeration, Drew thought, what with that girl whose Houndour had set the judges' stage on fire – Harley hadn't been wrong that there had been some terrible performances, though most of them hadn't been as dramatic as that one, just not thought out or badly performed.

No, Drew was certain he had passed onto the next round; his own performance with Flygon and Butterfree had gone perfectly yesterday. The rest of the group's Appeals hadn't been bad, either, so Drew had no worries about their scores.

And as much as he didn't like to think about it, May's performance had been reasonably well, too. Skitty's attacks hadn't been completely straight, but the combination with Wartortle's Bubble had looked well.

"Now, before we go on to announce who have passed the selection-" Drew's attention was caught by Marian's words, and he forced his thoughts back to the here and now. "-we'll first explain what the first round will entail!"

Marian waited until the crowd had quieted some more and then continued, "This selection round has been in Contest-style, so it's only logical that the first round will be competitive battling!" She pumped her fist in the air. "That's right, people, the very first round of the Wayland Tournament will consist of one-on-one battles! There will be no time limit and no points for prettiness, it's beat your opponent and move on to the second round! Because if you lose, you're out!"

There was another round of applause and Drew grinned excitedly as he clapped; now the real challenge would start.

"So, let's see which of you are going to participate in this round! The screen will show the names and pictures of the lucky 128 participants in a random sequence- Now!"

The screen switched to blank and then one by one pictures with names below them started to appear. Nervous muttering sounded around Drew, sometimes interrupted by excited cheers when a group saw that one of their own had passed. Of their group, Solidad's picture was up first, followed by Timmy's, then his own, Brianna, and lastly Harley – who had been right, they had all passed to the next round.

Drew recognized a few more faces and names, and his eyes stayed momentarily locked on May's smiling picture – this would be exciting.

"Congratulations!" Solidad said, smiling around at the four of them.

Drew flicked his hair and nodded. "Of course we knew we would pass, didn't we, Harley?"

But Harley let the joke pass, instead too busy hugging an uncomfortable looking Timmy and Brianna. Drew looked around him, seeing some satisfied and happy faces, but also noting that there were quite more disappointed looks, and a few young girls were openly crying.

"Congratulations to all those who passed!" Marian's voice sounded through the Stadium, calling the attention back to her. "And thank you to all those who didn't pass – you were wonderful participants and we were lucky to have you here!"

A short applause followed, polite clapping by those who lost and excited cheers from those who won.

"Now let's see the match-ups for the one-on-one elimination battles! We'll start with those facing off tomorrow – let's see!"

Sixteen pairs of faces appeared on the screen, Brianna and Solidad's being amongst them, though they were not paired off together. Solidad's opponent seemed familiar, a woman Drew thought to be a Coordinator with short red hair, but he didn't recognize the man Brianna had to face.

"And that's it for tomorrow, don't worry, you can look it back later! Here are the matches for Saturday!"

Once again thirty-two pictures appeared, matched against each other. Harley was up then, against an unfamiliar opponent, and Timmy, and Drew recognized Janet and Chaz as well, who had to face off against each other. That would not be easy for the couple, they would both know the other's tactics very well.

"And for Sunday!"

Drew grinned excitedly when the next row of pictures appeared – but no, his own was not amongst them. May's picture, however, was. He didn't recognize the girl she had to face and guessed it was a competitive Trainer – that would make things more difficult for May.

Not that he cared, of course.

"And last but not least, let's look at our matches for Monday!"

Aha, there he was. He blinked and then grinned when he – surprisingly enough – recognized his opponent. It was the blond-haired, ugly-orange-shirt-wearing man from before; Barry McGonnigal.

Drew glanced in the direction of the man, who had also seemed to realize who his opponent was. He caught Drew's eye and grinned challengingly, and then said something that Drew couldn't hear over the noise of Marian's voice announcing the end of today's session. Still, Barry hit his fist in his open palm and that gesture was clear enough to Drew.

He smirked, flipped his hair and turned away. Now he thought he could hear some angry yelling from that direction. He hoped this Barry guy would be a challenge, and already he was thinking of ways to prepare for the upcoming battle.

"I reserved a training field, so we can go train and prepare. You'll be fine Saturday, you'll see," Brianna was saying to Timmy, and Drew turned his attention back to the group. Harley had taken the lead in walking out of the stands, the others slowly filling out after him. Drew followed after Solidad, glancing back at the battlefield to see Marian talking with the judges, while on the screen the pictures of the 128 participants of the first round were shown.

"You're both Coordinators, Timmy, and it's a competitive battle, so you'll be on the same level," Solidad said, smiling encouragingly at the brown-haired man walking in front of her.

"If you think you're going to lose now, you're definitely going to lose," Harley added in what was probably meant as a comforting statement.

Timmy's smile fell at that but quickly reappeared again. "It doesn't matter if I win or lose, I'm going to give it my all!"

"That's the spirit!" Brianna said happily, while Drew realized he had missed who Timmy's opponent was. He vocalized his thoughts and Timmy answered with a wry smile.

"Dawn Berlitz, two times Top Coordinator of Sinnoh," he said.

Drew nodded at the name, recognizing it not only because of her exploits but also because she had been a friend of May's.

As they were talking, they had walked out of the stands and now stood in the main hall, where more people had remained to chat about the upcoming matches.

"Well, like Solidad said, you're both Coordinators and it's a competitive battle, so you'll be even," Drew said to Timmy.

And that would make the difference here, he was sure. Timmy was a good Coordinator, but he had never gotten very far in the Grand Festival. So usually Drew would say – although he'd never be as unsubtle as Harley and actually say it out loud – that Berlitz would be the obvious winner if Timmy had to face off against her in a Contest, but now…

"I'll help you train. If Berlitz thinks she has an easy match coming, she'll have to think again," Drew said, smiling at the challenge.

"We'll all help each other," Solidad said, looking around the group. Everyone nodded, though Harley only after Solidad had elbowed him.

"And we'll all get to the second round," Drew said, decisively.

"Exactly!"

"That's right!"

Watch out, Wayland Tournament, because here we come.

A/N: Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it's a bit of a set-up for more of the Tournament. I have to admit that the Drew chapters aren't easy, but I hope you liked it anyway, and let me know what you thought about it!

Also, because I'm curious, I've decided to set up two polls: one with the question who you hope will win the Wayland Tournament, and one with the question who you think will win the Wayland Tournament. I'd love to see what your answers are, so please vote!

EDIT: Whoops, looks like I'm only allowed to put up one poll on my profile. So I'll put up the first question first, and then I'll change it to the second question in a few weeks. Sorry for the confusion!

EDIT2: Messed up my own time-line (Timmy's match will be Saturday, not Monday, as it said before), but fixed it now!

Thank you!

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Recommendations are welcome!