So, my laptop is fixed, for now, and I've been shown how to fix the issue I keep having with it. So, I shouldn't be having anymore trouble with it for a bit.
Well, that didn't last long. The method I was shown stopped working, so I brought the stupid thing back, and they explained that it was a Windows 11 issue. They showed me another method, but that one also stopped working almost immediately. So, I'm going to either wait until this glitch is patched, or get a new fucking laptop. Nothing can ever be easy for me. Anyway, now it's time for the grand festival. Now, something I should've checked is how being top coordinator works. I thought it was a bit like being champion, but nope, the top coordinator also competes like everyone else. So, this is going to be a bit tougher than I thought to write. But, I've come this far, so I may as well keep going. Enjoy.
Chapter 88:
The Hoenn Grand Festival
At last, the time has come for the Hoenn Grand Festival. Max and Bonnie wake up at around the same time, and Max immediately grabs the remote control for the television in their room. He flicks through the channels, trying to find the correct one. It doesn't take him too long to locate the right channel, as the tv shows an image of the grand festival in Slateport. "Got it!" He tell's Bonnie. "Excellent," she replies. "It's not the same as watching it in person, but it'll do." She stands up, grabs her clothes, then heads to the bathroom. While she changes, Max takes the time to find out when the festival begins. Once he's found it, he quickly gets changed himself.
Both he and Bonnie are done changing at the same time. When she steps out of the bathroom, Max tells her what time the festival starts. "Cool," she replies. "So, while we wait for that, I'm going out to get us some snack." She goes to leave, but Max grabs her shoulder. "How about we go and get some breakfast first?" he asks. Bonnie nods, blushing slightly. "Sorry, I got ahead of myself," she says. With that sorted, the two of them head down to eat breakfast.
As it turns out, they're not the only ones here to watch the Festival. Many people in the hotel are talking about the Grand Festival, and how annoyed they are that they can't go and see it. "You know, nothing is stopping any of you from just going to Slateport to watch," Bonnie mumbles to herself, which makes Max chuckle. The two of them get their food and eat it, then separate for a bit. Bonnie goes out to get snacks for the two of them, while Max wanders around Ever Grande, keeping an eye on some of the competitors for the Hoenn League. He sees what Pokémon some of them are using, and makes some notes on what kind of plans Bonnie can use. At one point, he spots Trixie training her Swampert, and quickly darts in the opposite direction in order to avoid being spotted by her.
Eventually, it comes time for the Grand Festival to begin. Max and Bonnie eagerly run back to their room and switch the to on. True to her word, Bonnie bought snacks. A lot of snacks. In order to better share them between each other and still be comfortable, they push their beds together, so they can lie on them and not have to leave all the snacks on the floor. In order to avoid anything awkward happening, they leave the snacks in between them. Dedenne watches them do this, already plotting ways that he can get them to actually to 'accidentally' hold hands. But before he can enact any plans, the Hoenn Grand Festival begins.
First up is the preliminary round. According to the announcer, almost 300 people made it to the festival. "That's a lot more than the Master Class in Kalos," Bonnie comments. "Well, you must remember that it's not just people who competed in contests this year that are entering," Max replies. "People who gathered 5 ribbons in previous years, but couldn't enter the festival are also competing, as well as people who didn't gather enough ribbons last time, but got the rest of them this time too." Bonnie nods in understanding. As the round begins, Max quickly explains to Bonnie what's going on. "In order to lessen the number of participants," he explains, "each contestant must have their Pokémon perform one move. The ones who choose the right move, both strong and pretty, get to perform in the Appeals round." Bonnie nods to show she understood, then points to the tv, as May is first.
She steps forward with her Blaziken, and for a brief moment, Max is worried that she'll use her powers in order to get the points. Thankfully, she's smarter than that, and just has Blaziken use Fire Spin, leaping into the air as he does. The judges call for her to stop, then have her move on. Bonnie looks worried about this, but Max is quick to reassure her. "Don't worry," he says, "they do this with everybody. We won't know who won until after they're all done." True to his word, everyone who steps forward gets told the same thing.
After a while, Tierno steps forward. There's a lot of cheering from the crowd at this. The camera pans around, and shows Shauna freaking out, along with a ginger boy that Bonnie identifies as Tierno and Shauna's friend Trevor. Tierno has Blastoise accompany him, and orders him to use Flash Cannon, aiming it downwards so it rises into the air. After Tierno is a bunch of other people that neither Max nor Bonnie know, before the telltale sign of Harley appears, walking with his Cacturne right beside him. He smirks cockily as he steps in front of the judges. When they inform him to begin, he has Cacturne use Dark Pulse to throw shadows around him. Next comes a bunch of other people who Max and Bonnie don't recognise.
Eventually, there's only one person left. By this time, Max has almost completely stopped paying attention, and is instead looking at his phone, waiting for the appeals round to start. As the final contestant steps forward, Bonnie taps his leg. He looks up at the screen to find Kenny (his friend as opposed to Dawn's stalker. Pokémon's reuse of names is confusing) stepping forward. Max beams at this. "Nice job mate," he comments. Kenny is accompanied by his Swampert, and when the judges tell him he can begin, Swampert immediately starts spraying water around like a sprinkler, which looks really cool if you ask Max.
At last, the preliminaries are over, and the judges disperse for a bit to discuss who gets through. Eventually, they come to a decision, and announce the 64 people who got through. May, Tierno, Kenny, and, much to Max's disappointment, Harley all make it through. After a brief ad break, the appeals round begins. First up is May once again, bringing Blaziken with her once again. The crowd cheers wildly as she steps up onto the stage. She waits until the cheering dies down, then begins her performance. Blaziken leaps into the air and starts shooting off jets of fire. He does a bunch of air tricks, while May copies him down below, in order to keep up appearances. Max knows that she has to be extremely careful not to let their thoughts sync up, lest she unleash fire from her hands and give herself away as the Blaziken Mask. Once Blaziken hits the ground, he cracks it, then shoots a jet of flame into it, causing geysers of fire to burst from the stage, much to everyone's amazement. As a final touch, he dances around them, gathering the flames in his hands, then sends them away in a large pulse. When he's finished, the crowd goes wild.
After that are a bunch of performances that neither Max nor Bonnie particularly care about. They watch them, but aren't too enthusiastic about them. They are positive that half of them won't make it to the battle round. After a while, it's Tierno's go once again. He steps out with his Blastoise once more to the sound of applause. Once again, he waits for the crowd to die down before he begins. He starts off by up having Blastoise use Flash Cannon as a jet pack again, but this time he hooks his arms around Blastoise's legs and uses it to propel himself upwards with him. Once they've reached maximum height, Tierno jumps off and rides a powerful jet of water shot out of Blastoise's cannons, somehow landing safely on the ground. Finally, Blastoise uses rapid spin mixed with Hydro Pump to shower the stage with water, using the jets to slowly lower itself back down.
Once again the crowd goes wild, as Tierno bows and exits the stage. Next is a few other people that neither of them know, before it's Harley's turn. Despite how impressive his appeals round is, which involves a small fireworks display by using dark pulse and pin missile, Max refuses to pay attention to it out of sheer spite. Soon enough it's over, and two more coordinators do their pieces, before it's finally Kenny's turn. He comes out with his Swampert and has a nervous but determined look on his face. When the cheering has died down, he begins his own piece. Swampert immediately starts off with water pulse into the air, making it rain and creating rainbows. Then, Swampert uses Mud Shot on the rainbows, causing them to dissipate. Every spot where the Mud Shot lands, a small geyser of water appears. Soon, the stage is covered with them. At that moment, Swampert breaks a small hole in the ground and shoots water pulse through it. When it does, the small geysers become enormous, and create a giant rainbow at the top of the stadium, bringing and end to his performance, and the appeals round as a hole.
There's a small break while the officials fix up the stage and the judges deliberate. After that, they return and announce the 32 participants that will head into the battle round. Much to Max and Bonnie's delight, May, Tierno, and Kenny make it through. Unfortunately, so does Harley.
The battle round is intense, with many matches being forced to go the full 5 minutes, and one or two ending with the winner winning by a hair. May, Tierno, Kenny, and Harley make great progress through the competition, to the point where neither Max nor Bonnie can tell who will be knocked out first. Much to their delight, it's Harley, and May's the one to do it, during the quarter finals as well. Her Blaziken and Glaceon versus his Cacturne and Wiggleytuff. He comes close, but May pulls ahead by knocking out both his Pokémon with 30 seconds to spare. Next to fall is Kenny, during the semi-finals. He puts up a good fight, but his Swampert and Magmorter are ultimately defeated by Tierno's Blastoise and Ludicolo.
At last, it is time for the final round, May versus Tierno. Both Max and Bonnie watch with bated breath, eager to see which of these two will become the Top Coordinator. Once again, the pair wait for the cheering to die down, which doesn't take too long as everyone is eager to watch this match, then they send their Pokémon out. Blaziken and Glaceon versus Blastoise and Ludicolo. Everyone watches this with eager anticipation, knowing this is going to be a close match. Tierno is the one who starts it off by having Blastoise strike Blaziken with Hydro Pump. But, Glaceon is quick to block it with a wall of ice, before trying to counter with Ice Beam. While Blastoise is reeling from the attack, Blaziken runs in and uses Double Kick. Ludicolo uses vine whip to ensnare Blaziken and throw him away. But, before it can strike him with any attacks, Glaceon hits it with Ice Beam as well, causing it to become frozen.
Blaziken tries to use the opportunity to use Double Kick again, but Blastoise gets in the way, spraying Blaziken with Water Pulse. Blaziken is thrown backwards, but manages to get back up. Realising that this will most likely be a battle for flashiness, both Tierno and May mega evolve their starters. Then, Tierno tries to get both Ludicolo and Blastoise to hit Blaziken with water attack, but Glaceon counters Ludicolo with a beam of her own, and a back and forth proceeds between the two. Meanwhile, Blaziken effortlessly dodges the Water Pulse from Blastoise, so Blastoise swaps to using Flash Cannon, just to get Blaziken to stumble. Taking advantage of this, Blaziken uses Flamethrower, and the two attacks connect in the middle. Now, all four Pokémon are in a back and forth, and stays that way for the remainder of the battle, until time is called. By just a single flashiness point, May is declared the winner.
Max cheers loudly as his sister wins the match. The stage is fixed up, and the top 4 come out to receive their medals, or trophy in May's case. Max enjoys seeing a lack of a Harley on that podium. He and Bonnie whoop and clap as Kenny and Tierno receive their medals, and they cheer loudly as May is handed the Ribbon Cup for the 3rd year in a row. Reporters quickly swarm her, demanding to know how she feels, "Proud to be able to retain my title," if the rumours about Drew dropping out because of her are true, "What he does is none of my business, and quite frankly, it's none of yours either," and what she plans on doing next. At this, she looks directly at the camera. "Well, next, I've got a boat to catch," she says. "Because my brother's best friend is competing in the League, and I sure as Reverse World am not missing that!"
Sorry I skimmed so much of the Grand Festival, I have come to the realisation that I genuinely don't enjoy writing performances. As a result I am never doing it again. Unless I need to flesh out a chapter a bit, and even then I'll mostly be skimming through it. But, I felt that I couldn't do that here, not after hyping the Grand Festival up so much, and pulling what I did with the Kalos League. Also, I wrote only one Pokémon for the appeals round, but I seem to recall there being multiple used in it. I decided not to do that in case I'm wrong, and also because 1 Pokémon is a lot easier to write. Anyway, with that said, see you on Thursday or Friday for the 1st round of the Hoenn League!