Pokemon: Orbion and the Runes of Chaos [#Wattys2016]

Three: Opening Ceremony

Ash wiped his forehead with a wet towel in an attempt remove the layers of sweat that had built up over the course of the day. He and his reunited army of Pokémon had been training almost nonstop since their arrival in the city. Ash had tried to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the team and train them accordingly, but it had been far from easy. Even with Cilan, Iris, Serena, and Clemont helping, it was still an incredible undertaking. To make things worse, they had only had three days, since the day before the tournament began was reserved for rest and recovery. Today, Ash had taken Tyranitar up into the hills surrounding the beautiful city to work on his balance and precision. It had not gone well. Somehow, Ash ended up dangling from the edge of the cliff while Tyranitar futilely tried to rescue him by lowering a very thick vine for him to grab; a vine which turned out to be covered in wickedly long and sharp thorns. Somehow, Ash had managed to pull himself up without mutilating his hands, but only after several tense minutes of screaming and struggling.

"Long day?" asked Nurse Joy, noticing the cuts and bruises on Ash's arms as she carried in a stack of fresh towels.

"You could say that," he replied, playing back a montage of the training in his mind as he buried his filthy face in one of the fluffy white cloths.

Ash spent the next day sitting in the still-damaged park behind the Pokémon Center, going over potential battle strategies and tactics with each of his Pokémon. He decided who he would use in the first battle, as well as which Pokémon would start off the fight.

According to Tyson, the first three rounds of elimination would be exclusively three-on-three battles to accommodate the huge number of matches taking place. Also, four different battles would be run at once, with force fields partitioning off each fight from the others within the stadium. After round three, the rules would change drastically though. It would switch over to six-on-six fights, with only one match being fought at a time. The reasoning behind it was that by then only the strongest and most entertaining trainers would remain, thus providing a better spectacle.

Ash tried to take these factors into account as he organized his team. He realized that many of the other trainers and masters would have at least one legendary Pokémon, thus increasing the difficulty of defeating them in a three-on-three battle.

"We'll just have to rely on our training and teamwork," Ash said out loud to Pikachu.

That night marked the start of the tournament.

He and his friends entered Master's Stadium about half an hour before the start of the event. It was their first time stepping foot in the imposing arena, and Ash couldn't help but marvel at its beauty. The structure rose high into the sky, the huge columns supporting its tiers intricately carved in geometric designs. He recalled someone mentioning that the coliseum was the oldest structure in the city; a relic first built shortly after its founding nearly two thousand years earlier. It had been refurbished a number of times since, but the monolithic granite pillars were the same ones first used in construction.

The splendor of the stadium extended to its interior. Like most of the city, it was done in various hues of lavender. The group found themselves in an atrium of sorts, its walls lined by mementos of the arena's rich history. One high wall was dedicated entirely to the Grand Master's tournament itself, displaying images of the previous champions and runners up and their teams. All but the three most recent sets of winners were done in thick oil paints; a testament to the tournament's lengthy history. It was not the stadium's true Hall of Fame of course. The brochure picked up in the airport had claimed that the Grand Masters and their winning teams were forever immortalized in stone, their life-sized likenesses sculpted from the same granite as the pillars ringing the stadium. Still, the wall held its significance.