Chapter 47: Tournament Starts
The sun was setting below the horizon. Its glow reflected on the sea paints an orange hue on the scenery.
Hisoka and the others were currently doing their job as security guards. They were blending into the crowds to look out for suspicious activities without being noticed.
Later at night, they would have to patrol around the cruise ship one by one. Since they had taken this task, they naturally had to do their job properly.
Each person got a two-hour shift. They had drawn lots earlier during the day to decide which shift each person would take. Hisoka was lucky enough to get the first watch. After that, Ryoichi would take the second watch, followed by Lisa and Dwayne.
Dwayne, who drew the short straw, got the short end of the stick as he had to patrol from 1.30 am to 3.30 am. Meanwhile, Hisoka's shift started at 7.30 pm and ended at 9.30 pm, just in time for bed.
S.S. Anne had a total of six decks with three main areas, the rear, the bridge, and the bow. They would start their patrol from the bottom deck and work their way up to the upper deck, which would take around two hours.
Currently, Hisoka was patrolling around the ship, followed by two deckhands. However, they never uttered a single word to him during this time.
"It seems Captain Iron didn't trust the hunters he recruited as security guards,' thought Hisoka.
He knew Captain Iron sent these two sailors to tag along to monitor him. The other hunter would probably get the same treatment too. When he was talking with Ryoichi before, he was able to discern that Captain Iron wasn't really planning to hire outsiders as their security guards.
It was only after Ryoichi's chief, Matthias's persuasion, that he finally allowed the hunters to board the ship. Moreover, holding a tournament to gather many trainers was also Matthias's idea.
Frankly, he was not the kind of guy who ran around eliminating crimes and saving the world like a superhero. He only worked with League right now because it benefited him. Moreover, he also can improve his relationship with the League. At least being with the League can open many doors for the current him. Still, he wouldn't mind cooperating with Team Rocket if the stakes were high enough.
A hunter is a person who walks between the light and the dark.
The two hours shift passed by in a blink of an eye. When he finally returned to his room, the sky was already dark, full of twinkling stars.
He first released Kirlia and Weavile from their Pokeball before he went to the bathroom to fill the hot tub with hot water. At the same time, he released Feebas into a small fish tank since the hot water in the tub wasn't suitable for it.
"Take a good rest tonight. We'll have a competition tomorrow," Hisoka said to Weavile while taking her weight-bearing equipment off her limbs.
"Weavile!"
She nodded her head while rubbing her arms and legs in comfort. Hisoka had increased the weight of her metal bracelets to two hundred kilograms. And this was only for her daily training, not special training like they had done a few days ago on Cerulean Cape.
After evolving to Weavile, her life level was completely sublimated. Her muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance all had improved qualitatively.
He had tested her muscle strength back at the Vermilion City Pokemon Center. Her punching power now was two times stronger than before. Her speed had also increased by half, not as big as the improvement in her power. Even so, it was still good in Hisoka's opinion because Weavile's body size was much bigger than Sneasel's.
On top of that, these were not her current limits. With accumulated training, her power and speed still have a lot of room for improvement. According to his estimate, it would take about two years of constant training before she reached her limits. After that, if she wanted another breakthrough in her strength, she would have to evolve again, which was impossible. And another way was to use some kind of external help, be that an enhancing item or some sort of precious herb.
Hisoka sat inside the bathtub, soaking his body in hot water. After a busy day, taking a nice hot bath helped him relax and reduce some of his fatigue.
Suddenly, a blue-ish sphere of energy covered his whole body as his back was slowly being massaged. Hisoka didn't need to open his eyes to know who was massaging him currently. There was only Pokemon who could do this. And it can't be Weavile because she didn't like to take hot baths because of her Ice typing and had crawled into her bed to rest early. And it can't be Feebas either, because well, she is a fish.
"Aren't you going to sleep yet?" Hisoka asked.
"Hisoka has worked hard all day. So Kirlia should massage your body to help you relax," Kirlia's voice appeared in his mind.
"Thank you, Kirlia," Hisoka nodded and started to relax his body, enjoying her massage.
He had to admit that her psychokinetic massage worked much better than simply relaxing in a hot tub. Moreover, it also helped to reduce the strain on his muscles so that he could sleep much better later.
Years of training allowed Kirlia to control her psychic powers to the most extreme. She only needed to scan his body using her psychic energy to find any knots in his muscles. After that, she would slowly loosen up the affected muscles, making them relax for some time before removing her energy from the affected areas. At least Hisoka never had a day when he had to deal with muscle cramps since she mastered this kind of skill.
...
8.30 am,
The next day,
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the S.S. Anne Pokemon Tournament!"
A man in a yellow suit and black tie was standing in the middle of the arena, holding a mic.
"Good morning, everyone. I will be your host for this tournament," he bowed as the crowd started to applause in unison.
"First of all, I would like to thank everyone for your strong support. We have a total of 320 trainers that have registered in the tournament. Let's hope they can give us a great performance. Now, let me explain the rules of this competition. Firstly, this competition will be held in a one-on-one knockout round. Basically, the loser will be eliminated, and the winner will advance, simple as that. The second rule might be unfair to some trainers, but you are not allowed to use a heavy Pokemon-"
"Not fair!"
Before the host could finish explaining, someone shouted from the crowd.
"Relax, I was about to explain," the man pacified the stirred crowd.
"Let me ask you a question first. What happens if S.S. Anne sinks? Won't we be in danger?" the host asked the crowd.
"Yes!" the crowd responded to his question as they realized the consequences of using a heavy Pokemon on the ship.
"Good!" the host smiled.
Then, he continued, "Since everyone already knows this, I would like to say a few more things about the prohibitions on this tournament. First, no trainer is allowed to use heavy Pokemon during the competition. Second, no Pokemon is permitted to use a move with a power rating higher than 80, such as Surf, Earthquake, Fire Blast..."
As the man kept on reading the name of banned Pokemon and moves, a few people let out a sigh from time to time. Due to the strict rules, many of them would not be able to use their strongest Pokemon or moves, which made the tournament full of uncertainty. They might even be defeated by a weaker trainer.
The total number of passengers on board the ship was around 1000 people or so. After deducting the number of crew members working on the ship, they were probably less than 900 people left. The fact that one-third of the passengers participated in the tournaments showed how tempting an enhancing-type item like Mystic Water can bring to everyone. Though it wasn't ruled out that some trainers might be aiming for the mysterious Pokemon egg hailing from the Sinnoh region.
The booths around the upper deck were cleared out and divided into ten standard arenas. Each trainer had to defeat 10 opponents in a row before entering the finals. You can imagine how difficult this tournament was.
A few crew members volunteered to be the referee for the tournament. Since Hisoka wasn't part of the S.S. Anne internal workers, there was no problem for him to enter the tournament as long as he did his job as a security guard properly. Be that as it may, Hisoka still reported his entry into the tournament to Captain Iron just to be sure.
...
"Misty, are you going to participate in the competition too?" Ash asked Misty with a curious expression after seeing the fiery looks in her eyes.
Misty gave him a blank look and said, "Well, what do you think? Of course, I would! Don't you know how helpful the Mystic Water is to my Water-type Pokemon?"
"Huh? Mystic Water? What's that?" Ash shook his head in confusion.
"You!" Misty gritted her teeth angrily.
"Then why are you entering the tournament?"
"Of course, it's to challenge other trainers!" Ash replied
"It would be even better if I win the tournament, getting the Pokemon egg from another region. Just thinking about it makes me so excited! Isn't that right, Pikachu!" Ash said, clenching his fist.
"Pika!" The Mouse Pokemon on his shoulder let out an excited cry.
"What about you, Brock?" Misty ignored the two excited duos and turned to look at Brock, who was keeping silent during their talk.
Brock shook his head and said, "You guys can go ahead. My Onix isn't allowed to enter the tournament. And Geodude isn't ready for this kind of fight yet. Besides, Mystic Water is useless to me."
"That makes sense."
...
The tournament had officially started. Hisoka was facing an opponent who had sent out a Beedrill into the field.
"Weavile, use Night Slash!"
"Weavile!"
She uttered a loud cry as she ran to the Beedrill at a speed that made her almost invisible to the naked eye. Although Beedrill had an advantage in the type against Weavile, it couldn't react to her speed. Under Weavile's high-speed attack, Beedril only saw a black shadow in his sight. A second later, a sharp pain came from its back as it fell to the ground.
The Beedrill wasn't truly knocked out yet, but its right wings had been cut off by Weavile's sharp claw. Though, the Beedrill that lost half of its wings might as well be declared out of the battle. Without its wings, how would it be able to fly? It can only buzz on the ground uselessly.
"Beedrill!"
The trainer on the opposite side shouted in worry. He quickly recalled the Beedrill and ran toward the infirmary, not far from the venue.
'It's time for you to announce the result," Hisoka then looked at the dazed referee.
'Amateur,' thought Hisoka.
"Oh right!" the man quickly came to his senses and raised a green flag in Hisoka's direction.
"The winner is Hisoka from Viridian City!" he shouted.
"What? So fast!" Everyone outside the stage spoke in hushed voices.
"I was only able to see a black shadow before that Beedrill lost half of its wings."
"That Pokemon's speed is too fast. I think it only took less than 5 seconds for the match to finish."
"Less than 5 seconds? Are you kidding me?"
Hisoka left the field under everyone's surprised eyes. And because he had quickly finished his battle, he would have about 30-minutes of rest time before the next match, more than enough time for Weavile to recover her lost energy.
During the battle just now, Hisoka had actually let the opponent off with a light injury. If the Night Slash hit other parts of the Beedrill's body instead of its wings, there might even be a chance for it to get killed. As a Bug-type Pokemon, Beedrill's body was inherently weak. It was hard for it to withstand Weavile's attack.
Moreover, Pokemon had extraordinary vitality. While it might take some time, Beedrill's wings can regrow. At least this was much better than being crippled or, worst, killed.
...
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