Preliminaries was based on knockout while Round Robin was based on points. The finals were a knockout too.
There were 32 participants left after the preliminaries. For the round-robin, there would be 8 groups with 4 people in each group. Axel was in Group C and he was against:
1. Kross
2. Gayden
3. and Trams
Axel had seen their battles in the preliminaries and they were good. They only used 1 Pokemon throughout the whole preliminaries. They were not like Axel who also used Steelix at the last battle.
Axel didn't know if they had a king-rank Pokemon with them but he highly doubted it.
Lance was in Group D and Bruno was in Group H. Axel would start to obverse Bruno closely. In his opinion, Bruno would be his strongest competitor among these 31 participants.
The battle of round robin would also be decided with 1 Pokemon battle. The winner would get 2 points, the loser would get 0 points, and if the battle ended in a draw, both the participants would get 1 point.
The one with the highest point in each group would reach the finals. There would be 8 participants for the finals.
###
Round Robin would take a lot of time to finish. Axel's battle was tomorrow with Trams. He didn't know what Pokemon Trams would use but he was sure that Trams would not use Golem which he had used during preliminaries.
He focused on his group's battles and Bruno's battles. He also observed other battles for more information. Bruno was fighting today and he took the win easily. He used Primeape and won the battle with ease. His Primeape seemed to be very powerful and it seemed to have trained a lot in fighting type moves.
###
Next day,
His battle was the opening match. There was only one stadium for Round Robin. Trams was a bit weird. He loved to wear girl clothes and also walked like a girl.
Axel didn't care about his personality. He only cared what Pokemon he was going to use.
"Contestant Axel, call for the toss. I am flipping it.", said the referee and tossed the coin.
"Heads"
"Heads it is. Contestant Trams is requested to send out his Pokemon first.", said the referee.
Axel realized that the referee was a bit more polite than in the preliminaries. It looked like they were also giving respect to the 32 participants.
Trams looked very confident in his winning. Everyone had seen Axel's Steelix and all of them knew that it was a king rank Pokemon. It was announced in the media for the past 8 days.
So, why was Trams so confident? Did he also have a king-rank Pokemon?
Even if he had a king-rank Pokemon, Axel was not afraid.
###
"Come out, Nidorino!!!!", shouted Trams and threw the ball in the air.
"NIDOOOOO!!!!", shouted Nidorino and it came out of the ball.
It was a bit bigger than normal Nidorino and it was a pseudo-king rank Pokemon. It looked very powerful for pseudo-king rank Pokemon. Axel guessed that this must be the most powerful Pokemon of Trams.
"If you can beat my Nidorino without using your Steelix, I will respect you and bow down to you.
Can you do it?", said Trams.
"I can do it but why should I? I am not getting anything from it.", replied Axel.
"Oh, so you want to bet huh? What do you want to bet? Money? Resources? I don't have any problem in betting.", said Trams with confidence.
"Hmm… how about 1 trillion Poke dollars for a bet?", asked Axel.
"Do you have 1 trillion with you?", asked Trams.
"Yes, I do. If you don't have so much money, we can dial it down. How about 1000 Poke dollars? That is the minimum amount for any wild trainer battle."
"You think I am poor? Our family deals with poison types and I will show you how superior I really am.
I know that you also have a Nidorino. Why don't you use your Nidorino to fight with my Nidorino?
I will bet 1 trillion Poke dollars. There is no problem from my side."
"How can I be sure that you will give me 1 trillion Poke dollars? I have Oak by my side so you don't have to doubt me but I know nothing about you.", said Axel again.
"I will tell this in the whole stadium. These people would be my witness. Mr. Referee, please announce the bet to the crowd. If you still want to bet with me.", said Trams to Axel.
"I agree with the bet. Mr. Referee, please announce it.", said Axel.
The referee looked at both of them. Betting between the participants was normal in the Round Robin stage. He confirmed it from both of them again and said,
"Ladies and gentlemen. It seemed that we had a bet between the participants here.
The bet is for 1 trillion Poke dollars."
The crowd went wild after hearing such a massive amount.
"Now, the conditions of the bet are:
1. Axel will use his Nidorino for the fight
2. And the winner would take 1 trillion Poke dollars with him.
Contestant Axel, please send out your Pokemon.", said the referee.
Axel nodded his head and threw the ball into the stadium.
The Pokemon that came out was nothing like Nidorino yet it resembled Nidorino a lot.
It was purple in color. It was standing on its legs. It had a big tail and a big horn. Its teeth looked sharp and its hands and claws looked strong.
"ROOOOARRRR!!!!!"
"What kind of Pokemon is this?", shouted the commentator.
"I am checking the Pokemon database and….. There is no Pokemon like that in the database. So, it is yet another new Pokemon species."
The commentator came near Axel to give him the mike to talk to him but the referee stopped him. The battle had already begun. The referee had not said to start the battle but a commentator or any other person could not interfere with them.
The referee took the mike and came towards Axel.
The commentator asked, "What kind of Pokemon species is this?"
"It is called Nidoking. It is the evolved form of Nidorino.", said Axel.
"Does its typing change after the evolution?", asked the commentator.
"I will say that after the battle is finished."
"Fair point. Can you tell me who discovered this evolution?", asked the commentator.
"I did like I discovered the evolution of Golbat.", said Axel. He was serious about it.
"Are you sure that you discovered both of the evolution? If you did, why didn't you publish it to the league."
"I am sure that I did and publishing it to the league is not compulsory."
The commentator wanted to ask more questions but the referee didn't let him do it.
Trams didn't know what to do right now. In the midst of new evolution, most people didn't realize that Nidoking was also a king-rank Pokemon. However, Trams didn't miss it. His Nidorino was only a pseudo-king rank Pokemon.
Nidoking was the evolved form of Nidorino and it was a king rank Pokemon. It was better than his Nidorino in every aspect.
He belonged to a family that focused on poison and poison-type Pokemons. So, when he called out Axel for the battle, he was sure that he would win as he believed that the poison-type attacks of his Nidorino were vastly stronger.
However now, he was not so sure.
"Are you both ready for the battle?", asked the referee.
"Yes." X2
"Let the battle begin!!!!"
"Nidorino, start with 'Sludge wave'", shouted Trams.
"Megalania, start with 'Sandstorm' and 'Sand hardening'", said Axel.
When Nidorino evolves into Nidoking, its size would increase and it would be very heavy. So, it would not be as agile as Nidorino. That was why Axel didn't tell Nidoking to dodge the attack cause he knew that it could not do it.
However, after evolution, Nidoking would have higher defense and higher attack power. So, he was confident that Nidoking would not be poisoned as after it ranked up to king rank, its resistance had also increased.
It was already a poison-type Pokemon so it had higher resistance to poison.
The 'Sand storm' with 'Sand hardening' was effective against Nidorino. Nidorino was weak against ground-type attacks.
'Sand storm' would not hurt much. But after it crossed the threshold, it was sharp and fast. Coupled with 'Sand hardening' it was a powerful area type move.
This affected Nidorino as it could not dodge the attack cause it covered the whole battle stadium.
"Nidorino, use 'Dig'", shouted Trams.
Axel gave a wicked smile to Trams when Nidorino dug up the ground and went inside to avoid the 'Sandstorm'.
Axel knew that Trams only had 2 options right now. Either to use 'Dig' and save his Pokemon or to finish the battle as fast as he could. Since he had a weak Pokemon, he knew that he could not finish the battle as fast as he wanted. So, he used 'Dig'.
When he told his Nidorino to use 'Dig', he made a massive mistake cause,
"Megalania, use 'Fissure'", shouted Axel.
"Oh, shit!!! Nidorino comes out of the ground. Fast!!!"
Nidoking jumped in the air and pressed the ground with its feet. The ground started to shake and rumble. Trams tried to hold his ground with his 2 feet but he was not able to do it. He fell to the ground while Axel was standing there like a statue.
This showed how much he had trained his body. He was using his aura to stand up straight. The 'Fissure' was powerful. It was an upgraded version of 'Earthquake'.
The ground cracked from the middle and started to separate. The stadium was now divided into 2 halves and Nidorino came out from the cracked place.
"NIDOOO!!!"
It gave a painful cry and it fainted on the spot.
In the games, 'Fissure' was a one-hit K.O. move. It had very low accuracy but if the move hit, then the Pokemon would faint. However, such was not the case in real life.
'Fissure' had a low accuracy rate in real life too. However, even if the accuracy was low and it didn't hit the mark, it was still effective due to the shaking of the ground.
The concept of 'Fissure' was simple. There would be a huge earthquake and the ground would shake and rumble. A fissure would open up in the ground and the opponent would be trapped in it.
There was a very low chance for an opponent to be trapped in the fissure. Even if that didn't happen, an earthquake would affect the opponent.
Fissure was also not a one-hit KO move in real life. However, if the 'Fissure' was connected when the opponent was underground, the move would affect it much more.
This 'Fissure' had been connected perfectly when Nidorino was underground. It was a move of a king-rank Pokemon so Nidorino immediately fainted from the attack.
"Nidorino has lost the battle. Nidoking and Axel win and get 2 points.", announced the referee.
"How many king-rank Pokemon does Axel have? Till now we have seen 2 of them and both of them were very powerful. We will have to wait for another battle to see it but for now, Axel has won the battle with flying colors.", said the commentator.
The judges were also surprised by Axel's performance. Axel was the fan's favorite and he was also very powerful. The crowd went wild after seeing the whole battle.
The battle had finished within 1 minute. This showed how powerful Axel really was.
Most of the team members of Axel's new group had also come to see the battle and they were also surprised to see the power of their leader. All of them knew who Nidorino was. They had met and talked with it as it was the first official Pokemon of Axel.
Yet they had never expected it to be so powerful.
###
"All of you are given many books. All of these books are personally written by me for you guys.
You are to read it and understand it within 2 days.
I want to focus on training your bodies too. When your Pokemon ranks up to king rank, you would need to have a stronger body and good control in aura techniques.
I also written about why you should train your bodies and the history of humans during ancient times. I will talk about it in length today…."
Axel was giving his speech to his team members. He didn't call them soldiers as they were not soldiers now. Soldiers were trained to die in the tides but his team members would not die in the tides. They would win the tide and be victorious.
All of his team members had signed the document that Axel had given them to maintain privacy and loyalty. None of them even thought for a second before signing the document.
Axel started to tell them how powerful a human could be, their ranks and the possibility of god ranks.
He also talked about god ranks for Pokemons. He talked for 5 hours and it was already evening. Yet, none of his team members were bored from 5 hour lecture. The lecture was so captivating. They were learning new things every minute.
Internally, they were thanking their luck and decision to follow Axel. They would have never known of such things if they had not met Axel. Axel also talked briefly about other books that he had written.
"I know that the league had harsh conditions for the title of 'Mercenaries' and I am happy that all of you have an elemental rank Pokemon. However, my condition is very harsh.
I want all of you to have a pseudo-king rank Pokemon within 1 year."
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A/N: Volume 3- Johto region has started in my pat-reon channel. Subscribe to my pat-reon channel to read advanced chapters and find out about it.
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