The New Normal - 15-11

The New Normal – 15-11 – A New Tournament

Time was quick to pass, and things developed with equal haste. With Unova opening up their borders to business investments, larger businesses such as Silph Co and Devon Corp were very quick to jump in and start setting up their own branch offices in Unova.

Seeing them do so, many other businesses were quick to follow suit, and a nice and healthy amount of foreign investment managed to enter into Unova’s coffers. Likewise, the same applied to us as Unova’s businesses were welcomed with open arms.

Not only that, but dedicated shipping routes were also being planned out so that when their borders did open, and it was looking like they would definitely be opened rather soon, then tourists would be able to reliably travel from one region to another.

It still wasn’t the quickest of journeys, taking several days to go from one region to another, but it was the best we could do for now.

Overall, Unova was on track to opening up to the rest of the wider world.

Of course, we didn’t allow ourselves to be blinded by this enthusiasm. All of our regions were still carefully monitoring the new status quo, making sure that there wouldn’t be any egregious foreign incidents that took place. However, for the most part, things were thankfully rather peaceful.

Even though our borders weren’t open yet, both the communication towers and the PSS system had been successfully integrated in Unova. Not only did that allow us to communicate with the Unovans, but it also meant that trainers from all around the world would now have access to all these new Pokémon, whether they be from our regions or Unova’s, and get to try them out for themselves.

Though with demand being as high as it was, Unova Pokémon were really expensive. Even very common Pokémon like Pidove and Woobat were not cheap.

I had spoken with Iris, who I had kept in casual correspondence with, to see just how she was dealing with this new influx of Pokémon.

“It’s all been very exciting!” She told me happily, “It’s been so interesting being able to see and use all these Pokémon for myself! I already got myself a Bagon, and I can’t wait for it to eventually grow into a Salamence!”

She let out a happy laugh, “I’m so excited to finally have another Dragon on my team, and a Flying one at that!”

“Woah, you definitely moved quickly.” I replied, “How’d you get one so fast?”

“Oh, Drayden got me it when he was visiting Hoenn.” She responded, “Apparently one of the Elite Four there helped him out? It was actually meant for Drayden himself, but he insisted that I take it. He kept saying that he was already an old man and didn’t need to have more Pokémon on his team. I didn’t like that, but he was too stubborn.”

Hearing about how much Drayden cared for Iris made me smile, “Well then you just have to make sure to train it and raise it properly. Though I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that – you already proved to me that you are an excellent trainer.”

“Hehe, thanks John.” She giggled, “Oh, and speaking of which, me and a few other Gym Leaders from Unova were thinking about making a trip out of Unova just to visit your regions soon. We’re still stuck with our Gym Leader duties for now, but it’s been something we’ve all been thinking about.”

“That’d be nice.” I nodded, “Let me know if you do decide to come over, and I’ll make sure to give you a proper tour around Indigo when you arrive.”

At the time, I thought that would be the end of things. Iris would come over, and I’d show her around a few places, maybe battle her once or twice, but that’d be it.

However, as I brought it up in idle conversation with my girlfriend, she revealed that this ‘simple visit’ would quickly become far more than that.

“I’ve been in talks with both Wallace and Lance. With Unova looking primed and ready to open their borders, we ought to make sure that this occasion is marked with the right amount of ceremony. So as Wallace was already trying to do a repeat of the previous Tournament, I thought why not have a new Tournament – but this time with the Unovans. It’ll be a nice way of not only celebrating our new open borders, but also be a nice way of introducing our regions and cultures to their people as well.”

My eyes widened in amazement, “That is a great idea.”

She smiled, “Thanks. Although we haven’t actually spoken about it to Alder yet. However, we hope to get all of the Gym Leaders and Elite Four from Unova to participate if possible – if they’re willing. We won’t force them of course, but the more the merrier. We’ll be speaking with him soon to confirm the details.”

“Oh yeah, before you go.” Cynthia quickly added, “If this does get approved and you do get to come to Sinnoh, I have something important to show and speak with you about.”

“Am I in trouble?” I jokingly asked.

“No, not at all. Unless you think you’ve done something wrong.” She chuckled, “In which case – confess now, or you’re only going to make things worse for yourself.”

I pretended to raise my arms in surrender, while also replying in the most pathetic voice that I could, “I’m innocent! You have to believe me! I didn’t do anything!”

“Hmm… I’ll believe you for now.” She ‘warned’, “But I’ll be checking up on you when you get here. And if I catch a whiff of any deceit, then you’re going to be in big trouble mister.”

“You’re just saying that because you miss my scent.” I teased.

She immediately fired back, “And what if I did?”

“Well then I’ll be sure to spend enough time with you to satisfy any craving.” I deliberately put emphasis on ‘any’.

“We’ll see about that.” She purred oh-so-seductively.

Our flirting around aside, I was very happy to hear that a new Tournament was being planned. And just like she mentioned, unlike the previous Tournament which was hosted in Hoenn, this time the Tournament was planned to be hosted in Sinnoh since it was geographically more convenient.

Furthermore, with Wallace and the rest of the Hoenn Elite Four still wrapped up in Steven’s challenge, the timing of the Tournament was quite delicate. We obviously wanted the Hoenn Elite Four to be able to participate, so the Tournament would have to take place after Steven’s challenge was concluded. It also needed to take place before the start of the next Circuit, so that the Gym Leaders wouldn’t have to return to their duties during the Tournament.

Frankly, I already foresaw that this Tournament would be an absolute administrative nightmare to try and organise. But at least it wasn’t my responsibility.

Sorry, Cynthia. You’re on your own for this one.

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Fortunately, it turns out that Alder was immediately sold on the idea – according to Cynthia, he didn’t even require any sort of persuasion. The man was just instantly on board, and was delighted that we were even hosting such a thing.

So because of this, Alder actually decided to make use of his influence to push through the opening of Unova’s borders as soon as possible. And it quickly became a reality. It was now just matter of waiting for Unova’s Gym Leaders and Elite Four to confirm their attendance.

Cynthia did mention that the Unova Elite Four didn’t have to participate, since she acknowledged the security concerns about having all of Unova’s strongest trainers leave for a foreign region, but Alder assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem as he would be staying back to keep an eye on things.

For once, he would keep a lid on his wanderlust in order for Unova’s greatest trainers to be able to spend time around their new peers. At least, that’s what he told us. But given what I knew of him, that seemed like something he would do. He did seem like the self-sacrificing type.

Furthermore, to ensure that the Tournament could be hosted as soon as possible, all parties involved in Steven’s challenge agreed to accelerate their timetable, meaning that there would be less of a break between each battle. Therefore, given that Steven had already defeated Sidney, instead of having a week break before his next battle against Phoebe, there would only be half a week’s break. As a result, assuming Steven won all his battles, it would only take Steven one and a half weeks for him to fight his way through the Elite Four rather than a full three weeks.

That gave just enough time for the Tournament to take place before the start of the next Circuit came around.

Of course, the upcoming Tournament wouldn’t follow the same format as before. The partner system was kept in place from last time, with each partner being from a different region to foster cooperation. Furthermore, assuming their participation, the Unovans especially would be split up so that they would have an equal amount of partners from each region just so that they would have more opportunities to interact with people from different regions.

Aside from that, the Tournament – which was to be dubbed as the ‘Pokémon World Tournament’ – would also have a ‘preliminary stage’. In this stage, teams would be randomly fighting each other until they can accrue either three victories or three losses. The former would move onto the next stage, while the latter would be eliminated.

Then the Tournament would enter the elimination stage, where it would be a single elimination format for the Top 14 teams that would go until one group remained, who would be the ultimate victor. Just like last time, a single team would be allowed to be kept in the Tournament after the first round of this stage (to make it so that there were even numbers for the Top 8) if they won the public vote.

Going to a point system for the start meant that you wouldn’t have pairs that were eliminated in the very first round like the previous Tournament had. It likewise meant that you would have more time fighting together with your partner, which was the whole point of the Tournament in the first place.

Lastly, after some serious discussion with the other Champions, it was decided that the Champions would not be participating in this Tournament whatsoever – to the dismay of both Lance and Cynthia. This was because with Alder’s non-participation, having the other Champions participate just wouldn’t seem fair. Thus, they were sadly forced to sit out.

Overall, if all went to plan and the entirety of Unova’s Gym Leaders and Elite Four were to join, then then World Tournament would consist of a total of 56 participants. 8 Gym Leaders from each region (totalling 40), and 4 Elite Four from each region (totalling 16). These would be spilt into 28 pairs, which would be announced a week before the Tournament starts – coinciding with the planned arrival times of the visitors from Unova.

We were now just waiting for the Unovans to confirm their attendance. And according to Iris, they were going to be discussing that matter very soon.

Once they did, then all of this could be announced to the public – which we expected was going to be a very exciting moment for everyone.

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(Iris POV)

Their Champion was not normally one to make requests of them, even though it was fully in his right to do so. Everyone knew about how hands-off Alder liked to be when it came to politics, so to have him personally reach out to each and every one of them and ask them to participate in the upcoming ‘Pokémon World Tournament’ hosted in Sinnoh was definitely a surprise.

Because of this, the Gym Leaders of Unova had all gotten together to discuss whether they would be attending or not. Therefore, they had all gathered at Driftveil City, with Clay playing host for all of them as he so often did – given that he was seen as the unofficial leader amongst them.

But to her personally, the choice was obvious. She was absolutely going to attend, no matter what. And she knew that the others were likely going to want to as well.

She realised that this was an opportunity for all of them to start making a name for themselves on the international stage. That was what was so great about this Tournament. No matter what your reputation was like in Unova, the public of the New Regions didn’t know about it. Therefore, even if you were previously considered weak, you had an opportunity to start fresh in the minds of the foreign public.

Not only that, but it was also an opportunity to personally experience just how strong their foreign counterparts were. The Unova Elite Four may have been upstaged and soundly defeated by their counterparts, but she assumed that the other Gym Leaders would be eager to ensure that there wouldn’t be a repeat of this.

“I won’t waste your time now that you’re all here.” Clay began once they had all arrived, “We’re here to discuss whether we’re all going to be participating in this Tournament or not. But let me make one thing clear first – we’re all going to have to be on the same page and act together. Therefore, we can’t just have one or two of us not participating for whatever reason. So whatever decision we make today applies to all of us, got it?”

They all nodded, and Clay continued, “Also, our Elite Four have already confirmed their attendance, probably due to Alder’s influence. So we’re either gonna be joining them or sitting out entirely. What do y’all think?”

Even though she was the youngest person here by far, just like Drayden had taught her to do, she spoke up first, “I think we would be dumb to not join, especially if our Elite Four have already said that they’re going. We can’t miss out on something like this.”

“Agreed.” Elesa nodded, “Staying out of this when everyone else’s participating is just stupid. It’d also ruin our image among the foreigners as well.”

“Personally, I agree too.” Clay said, “This is a big opportunity for us here – to prove that we ain’t just some backward region forced to play second-fiddle to the newcomers. No, we have our own pride too, and this is our chance to show it. Y’all with me?”

Just like she expected, they all were. The Gym Leaders all recognised that this was a fantastic opportunity for them, so they wouldn’t sit it out.

“Great. So now that’s sorted, we do have a slight problem.” Clay pointed out, “Thing is, we’ve got a whole new set of Pokémon to learn about, so that’s a whole lot of studying that we’re gonna have to do. And it’s far more than what the foreigners have to learn about us too. Worse, we don’t have a lot of time before this tournament actually begins to do all this studying. So I reckon we could help each other out by pooling our knowledge together about all these new Pokémon and the notable trainers in the New Regions to save everyone time.”

“Wait a minute.” Skyla interrupted, “Are you sure they’ll play fair with us? I mean, the Sinnoh League’s going to be deciding our partners right? How do we know they won’t just saddle us with the weaker trainers so that we end up looking weak on stage?”

“They won’t do that.” Iris spoke up, unbothered by the many stares that suddenly turned her way. She reminded herself that she deserved to be here, “I have had the opportunity to speak with two of Indigo’s Elite Four members, and I know that they wouldn’t do something as petty as that. Plus, since John is openly in a relationship with the Champion of Sinnoh, I’m confident that what he told me will apply to the Sinnoh League too.”

“I agree.” Brycen nodded, “I also spoke with Elite Drake and Elite John. The former is a very blunt man, but a honest one. They aren’t the type to look down on us, and I believe they wouldn’t condone such match rigging if it did occur. He would call it out.”

Skyla accepted their explanations and backed down, allowing Clay to continue, “Yes, from what I’ve seen the New Regions aren’t the type to be so deceptive with their intentions. I think at the very least they’ll give us a fair shot of proving our strength. Now, let’s get to talking about their trainers first. Who should we be looking out for, and what Pokémon are they going to be fielding? What are their strengths and weaknesses? And how can we counter them?”

They started with their Gym Leader peers in the New Regions first. Amongst all of the new Gym Leaders, they especially focused on Will, Giovanni, Volkner, and Pryce, as they were all publicly considered to be at the Elite Four level despite being Gym Leaders. With Pryce and Will specifically having previously been Champion or Elite Four respectively before stepping down into their current positions.

It also helped that, aside from Will, the remaining three also shared a Type specialty with their own Gym Leaders, making it easier to compare their strengths. To that end, they ended up watching the recordings from the previous Tri-Regional Tournament to see what their potential future competitors or partners were like in battle.

“…If Volkner hadn’t lost to Pryce, there’s no way he wouldn’t have made it to the Top 3.” Elesa was the first to comment after they had watched the highlights of that battle, “Look at those Electric types. No offense to whoever his partner was, but Volkner was easily carrying a bulk of the fighting there. And that… Electivire of his? Definitely one of the most resilient Electric types I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think an Electric type could take that much punishment without going down.”

“But Pryce has clearly not let age slow him down.” Brycen also pointed out, “Just look at that coordination with his partner. Despite all of that power that Volkner showed, they were still able to completely shut them down. Sure, myself and most other Ice specialists could pull off something similar, but not nearly as well as Pryce did. It’s no wonder that man was once a Champion.”

Many of the other Gym Leaders threw in their own comments, but Iris wasn’t listening to most of it. Instead, her eyes remained locked onto Pryce and Candice’s team, studying just how their Ice types fought.

With the point system of the upcoming Tournament, it meant that there was a very high likelihood that you would face off against each pair at least once. And everyone knew that a Dragon’s biggest weakness was to Ice, and maybe that new Fairy type as well, so she was making sure to pay extra attention to how Pryce and Candice fought so she could come up with a strategy to beat them in case she was matched up against either of them.

Nevertheless, one by one, the Gym Leaders of Unova began to pick apart the strengths and weaknesses of each Gym Leader and tried to come up with something to counter them. Of course, everyone knew that they were working with outdated information, so they also made sure to check up in their own time on some more recent battles to see how these trainers had improved. But for now, footage from the Tournament remained the most relevant at seeing how well they fought with a partner.

The mood remained pretty optimistic as they went through all of the Gym Leaders. They were all pretty strong, but nothing they thought they couldn’t handle.

…But it was a different story when they moved onto the Elite Four.

They had all seen the battle between Karen, John, Drake, and Sidney versus their own Elite Four, where the foreign Elite Four members had won rather dominantly. And now they were expected to potentially fight against such monsters in the upcoming Tournament.

Iris had spoken a lot with Karen, so she knew the path that the Dark specialist had to take to make it to the Elite Four. While she had never seen or met Agatha in person, she knew enough about Karen’s character to know that she wouldn’t exaggerate her adoptive mother’s strength and reputation – and Karen had managed to surpass that to make it into the Elite Four.

No wonder she handled Grimsley so effectively.

Then there was John and Drake. Even all the way here in Unova, the two of them had already very formidable reputations among the public’s psyche. They had managed to soundly defeat Marshal, a man that most of Unova saw as one of the stronger Elite Four members. Not only that, but John himself managed to completely dominate Alder’s starter with his own in a 1v1 battle – the recording of which had now thoroughly spread across the region.

If that wasn’t enough, they had also found and bore witness to the battle between Lance and John where their starters clashed against each other. After they saw that? Well, it was crystal clear that Alder was completely out of his depth when he recklessly decided to ask John for a battle.

…It was yet another reminder that their Champion was lacking. A Champion was supposed to be like Lance – a man of uncompromising strength. Even with his defeat to John, there were none that could possibly suggest that Lance didn’t deserve to be Champion. Not after what they had just witnessed.

Still, this just confirmed to her that this tournament was definitely going to be prove very interesting. With so many amazing and remarkable opponents, this was going to be an opportunity of a lifetime for both her and her team. She knew it in her gut that this would be her time to shine.

To start making a name for herself beyond just being known as Drayden’s apprentice.

A.N. I know this was mentioned many, many chapters ago, but with the introduction of Unova I thought it was about time we had another big tournament to celebrate their inclusion and the opening of their borders. So everyone’s going to be here – all the Gym Leaders and Elite Four! Furthermore, I felt that adding the preliminary stage and making it not be single elimination would be better for the tournament. I hope you agree too and that you enjoyed this chapter!