"I forfeit."
Shingo raised a hand, announced his surrender, and stepped down from the Trainer platform.
The stands erupted in confusion. Both Scizor were still conscious, so why give up now?
From the seats, it was almost impossible to see the fine cracks running through The Crimson Streak's armor. Television viewers had a much clearer picture thanks to a brief close-up from the camera crew, and experienced Trainers only needed that glimpse to understand why Shingo had stopped.
Plenty of other people saw something very different.
Rumors of a fixed match began almost immediately. Reiji must have bought Shingo off, they claimed. The Crimson Streak was Elite Four tier, while Reiji's Scizor looked ready to collapse; there was no way an Elite Four-tier Pokémon could actually lose to something below its tier.
The accusation spread quietly through pockets of the stadium, then into the cafés, bars, and other crowded places surrounding Pummelo Stadium. Reiji knew none of it yet.
On the field, the referee had already accepted Shingo's surrender.
"Since Shingo has forfeited, the winner of this full six-on-six match is Reiji!"
The commentator immediately took over.
"He did it! Reiji has done it! Three Pokémon below Elite Four tier managed to bring down an Elite Four-tier Scizor!"
The wording was generous considering Shingo had technically surrendered, but the feat was impressive either way. Rhydon, Magmar, and Scizor had pushed The Crimson Streak far enough that Shingo chose his partner's safety over continuing the match.
"That may be a first for a League tournament! Once again, Reiji proves why so many people have started calling him a tactical specialist!"
The tournament bracket appeared on the screen.
"Congratulations to Reiji on reaching the top sixteen! Tonight's draw will be the final round decided by the tournament system. Once we reach the top eight, the bracket will carry forward from there!"
The crowd answered with another wall of noise.
"Reiji! Reiji! Reiji!"
"Crimson Streak! Crimson Streak!"
The second chant caught Reiji slightly off guard. Until today, most spectators had only associated that title with Shingo and his father. Now they had seen Reiji's Scizor use the same style of speed.
Anyone paying close attention had another reason to be curious. Reiji had accumulated an unusual number of different training influences: Slowking techniques from Mikan Gym, lessons connected to Cinnabar and Mahogany, The Crimson Streak's style, and whatever strange training had produced Poliwrath's explosive power.
The crowd loved it.
Not everyone did.
Hidden among all that excitement were people who had no interest in seeing the Orange Archipelago produce another Trainer like the Madman.
Reiji remained completely unaware of any of that as he left the platform, waving to the crowd on his way down. Shingo was waiting near the exit.
"Rai, I should've realized sooner."
He offered his hand, then continued before Reiji could ask what he meant.
"You're the kind of Trainer who builds a different plan for every opponent. You win with weird setups, specific counters, whatever fits the person across from you."
Reiji shook his hand and let him continue.
"And you almost never make it look easy. Every match is just close enough that people think, 'Maybe I could beat him.' You win without showing too much, which keeps everyone from paying close attention to what you're actually hiding."
Shingo glanced back toward the battlefield.
"But you weren't cautious today. You built that whole plan specifically for Scizor, and you even expected me to save it for last."
Reiji laughed. "Come on. I didn't even know you had a Metagross."
That much was true.
The scoreboard still showed the full match behind them.
Reiji — Shingo
Whiscash [OUT] — Jolteon [OUT]
Swinub [OUT] — Sceptile [OUT]
Slowking [OUT] — Blaziken [OUT]
Rhydon [OUT] — Carracosta [OUT]
Magmar [OUT] — Metagross [OUT]
Scizor [WITHDRAWN] — Scizor [OUT]
"Sure," Shingo said, clearly unconvinced.
Reiji did not bother arguing.
They looked at each other for a moment and both started laughing. Whatever Shingo had figured out about him, the match was over.
"I'm looking forward to the rematch," Shingo said.
"So am I."
Reiji meant it, though for a completely different reason. He had been thinking for days about how to bring Shingo into his group. Planning for Scizor had been important, but recruiting Shingo mattered much more in the long run.
The commentator interpreted their handshake in a considerably more wholesome way.
"What a great sight! Shingo doesn't look bitter about surrendering, and Reiji isn't letting the victory go to his head. After a battle like that, the two Trainers can still shake hands and smile!"
The crowd applauded them out of the arena, and with that, the top-sixteen match came to an end.
Next came the round that truly mattered.
Top sixteen to top eight.
A large number of the remaining Trainers had entered the tournament specifically for the opportunities that came with reaching the quarterfinals, Reiji included.
Whether he could actually get there would depend on tomorrow.
...
Reiji went straight to the Pokémon Center after leaving the stadium, where Cissy was already waiting for him.
"Rai, give me the Pokémon. You go shower."
She took his soaked jacket, Umbreon, and the Poké Balls containing the six Pokémon that had fought Shingo.
Reiji looked exhausted enough that he did not argue. "Tell me as soon as Nurse Joy finishes checking them."
"I will. Here's the room key. I already ran the bath."
He had been under far more pressure during the match than the spectators could have known. If Magmar had failed to set up the environment properly, Poliwrath would have had to come out and save the match. Even the final collision between the two Scizor had been a gamble.
Reiji had trusted that his Scizor's speed was fully built up, that its defense had been pushed as far as Iron Defense could take it, and that the last Giga Impact would produce the damage he wanted before his own Scizor went down.
It had worked, but only barely.
This had been one of the closest battles of his entire career.
The moment the room door closed behind him, his legs almost gave out. He made it as far as the edge of the bed and sat there for a while, too drained to do anything else.
Standing under Sunny Day beside a field of molten rock had taken its toll. His clothes had been soaked with sweat long before the match ended, and by the time he reached the Pokémon Center, he was badly dehydrated.
Fortunately, Cissy had left water in the room. Reiji drank a little, stripped off his wet clothes, then lowered himself into the bath and continued taking small sips while his body slowly recovered.
About half an hour later, someone knocked.
"Rai? Nurse Joy finished the examinations."
Cissy stayed outside the bathroom and read him the results through the glass door.
"Whiscash, Swinub, Slowking, Rhydon, Magmar, and Scizor all need treatment. Their injuries are pretty bad, so... they probably won't be able to fight again during the tournament."
That was about what Reiji had expected.
"Okay. Is there anything to eat?"
"There is. I'll bring it."
Cissy hurried off, mildly embarrassed that her mind had apparently gone somewhere else when he asked the question.
Reiji remained in the bath and started reviewing the match.
All six Pokémon had fought as hard as they possibly could. Expecting any of them to be ready again tomorrow would have been absurd.
From this point onward, the tournament was entering Elite Four-tier territory anyway. Even if the younger members of the team recovered, there was only so much they could contribute. Trading three Pokémon to neutralize one Elite Four-tier opponent had already been an extreme strategy, and technically they had not even knocked The Crimson Streak out; Shingo had chosen to surrender.
With six Pokémon now unavailable, Reiji mentally reorganized the team he still had.
His first group was down to Forretress, Accelgor, Electivire, Poliwrath, Kingler, and Gyarados.
The second group had Umbreon, Dugtrio, and Ludicolo.
His support options were Starmie, Blastoise, Butterfree, and Farfetch'd.
At this stage, the support Pokémon were unlikely to accomplish much in a direct fight. Even Umbreon and Ludicolo were better suited to specific jobs than carrying a full matchup.
Tomorrow would mostly come down to those six remaining front-line Pokémon, with quasi–Elite Four-tier Dugtrio as the only realistic substitute.
If he survived the round of sixteen and reached the top eight, that might be as far as this tournament allowed him to go.
First, he needed to find out who tomorrow's opponent would be.
...
A little earlier, Cissy had watched the end of the match from the Pokémon Center.
When Reiji sent out his own Scizor as the final Pokémon, she had nearly shouted at the television. Poliwrath was still available, yet he had chosen another Pokémon below Elite Four tier after already losing Rhydon and Magmar to The Crimson Streak.
For several minutes, she had been convinced he was hiding too much and was about to throw away the entire tournament because of it.
Then Shingo surrendered.
"Yes! Rai won!"
Cissy jumped out of her chair before remembering where she was.
"Keep your voice down," her mother reminded her with an amused smile. "There are patients trying to rest."
"I know, I know. I'm going to meet him."
Cissy stuck out her tongue and hurried from the room.
Her mother watched her go before turning to the old man beside her.
"Dad, what did you think of that match?"
"Too risky. It didn't feel like him."
Cissy's grandfather had been nervous the moment Reiji's Scizor appeared. He had not expected Reiji to know The Crimson Streak's style either.
The Trainer who had originally made that name famous belonged more to his son's generation than his own. They had rarely crossed paths, although his son had mentioned him before. Apparently, even his Slowking had once struggled against that Scizor.
"He may have had a reason," Cissy's mother suggested.
Her father smiled. "What reason could possibly be worth that gamble? Even if he misses this tournament, he'll have plenty of chances later once he's stronger."
There was little point worrying about it now. Reiji had won, and assuming nothing went terribly wrong, the boy still had a long future ahead of him.
There was something else bothering the old man anyway.
His son had been gone for quite a while now and should have returned by this point. There had been no news at all.
Perhaps the League was keeping whatever happened under wraps.
...
"Reiji-nii made it. Now it's my turn."
Shun left the waiting room with both Bunta and his other round little companion following behind him. If he wanted any chance of standing on the same stage as Reiji later, he had to keep winning too.
Tania remained in front of the screen a little longer.
"So he's gotten that strong already..."
Once the tournament ended, she planned to return home with her grandmother. If staying here was never going to lead anywhere, there was little reason to keep dragging things out.
Up in the stands, Ash had a very different reaction.
"That was amazing! He actually beat an Elite Four-tier Pokémon like that!"
Professor Oak did not even try to reassure Ash or Gary about catching up this time. Reiji's three-for-one plan was the kind of battle other Trainers could study for years.
Gary looked at his grandfather. "It was really that good?"
"Of course. There's a lot more to being a Trainer than what you find in textbooks."
Understanding Pokémon was only part of it. Reiji had won by exploiting how metal behaved under repeated heating and cooling, the sort of knowledge most Trainers never bothered learning because it seemed unrelated to battling.
Nearby, Team Rocket had apparently been watching too.
Meowth stared at the battlefield. "Noodle Rai's still scary good. Good thing we never managed to steal his Pokémon."
Jessie immediately grinned at him. "I heard he likes you. Why don't you go charm him?"
"Yeah, Meowth. Go for it!"
"Are you two crazy? I'm not getting flattened by his Gyarados!"
...
Rudy left the stands with tomorrow's top-eight qualifier already on his mind.
Reiji's ability to trade three lower-tier Pokémon for one Elite Four-tier opponent had caught him completely off guard. By Rudy's count, that meant Reiji had at least two Pokémon capable of operating at that level.
Rudy himself had no illusions about winning the entire tournament. His goal was the top eight, and he had already needed Pokémon from his family to make it this far.
If he happened to draw Reiji tomorrow, then so be it. Reaching the top eight mattered enormously to his Gym, and the League had always been willing to look the other way when Gym families relied on their own resources.
Danny had watched the same battle and reached a similar conclusion from the opposite direction.
He did not have many Elite Four-tier Pokémon to spare either. Facing Reiji could turn into a brutal war of attrition for both of them, even if Danny eventually won.
Hopefully the tournament system would continue keeping Gym Trainers apart when it generated the final random matchups.
Tomorrow's draw would decide everything.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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