Old Titles (Betrayed) **Revising**

Chapter 4: Tournament Trials (revised)

Of course, Lillie was correct. The week was incredibly long, but the amount of learning that took place for both her and her Pokémon was surprising.

She had finally managed to grab the concepts of fighting close with her Pokémon, and with their limited time frame, Ash and Anabel had taught her some fighting concepts and exercises so she could actually do this type of personal training with her own Pokémon as well. Not to mention that much of this personal work helped her gain confidence in herself as a trainer.

And now, for her own reasons, she switched from her current dress that she had changed into back in Alola, and decided to wear a light blue t-shirt, and a white hooded fleece over it with a pair of jeans and her current boots she has been wearing. Ash asked her why earlier, but she only said it's to show the amount of change she has undergone since Alola.

Now on the day that the tournament is supposed to begin, the group of three, one, a trainer, two, high ranking Frontier Brains, are prepared to leave and fight in the Arc Tournament. They don't know what challenges lie ahead, but they are completely sure that they prepared for this tournament to the best of their abilities and that is all that they can hope.

After gathering their Pokémon, Ash did a final check on the castle and locked up the place, not wanting anyone sneaking in while he was gone. He turned around to Lillie and Anabel, who were preparing their flying Pokémon for the travel to Indigo Plateau.

"Alright, you all set?" Ash asked the pair.

Lillie picked up her bag and nodded, putting it over her shoulders. "Yeah, I am ready."

"Same here." Anabel said as she put her bag on also.

Ash nodded and flashed up his watch. "Noivern, time to fly."

"Togekiss, let's go." Anabel declared.

"Altaria, come on out!" Lillie tossed up a Poke Ball.

Ash and Pikachu hopped onto Noivern, Lillie hopped onto her Altaria and Anabel climbed onto her Togekiss as they took off for the tournament. Lillie sighed as she looked back at the Battle Castle and turned her head back forward, prepared and even more determined to face whatever was in their way no matter how hard.

. . . . . . . .

The Indigo Plateau is one of the most important places in competitive battling history. When Kanto first established their Pokémon gym circuit, they needed an end goal for beating all of the gyms. Not just anybody should be able to fight the Elite Four and Champion after collecting all eight badges after all. The strength gap between Elite Four and Gym Leaders is as large as a chasm, not to mention the Champion that resides above them all.

So in the end, Charles Goodshow came up with the solution. He decided to make a League Conference to test trainers that had managed to complete the gym circuit, and the winner would be able to earn the right to challenge the Elite Four and Champion of the Kanto Region. At first, people were not sure that this would be received well, but in the end, the higher ups decided to give Goodshow's idea a shot and announced the first Indigo League Conference.

Not only was the conference so well received by the public, but it also gave Elite Four members much more time besides sitting at their battle arenas and waiting for the next challenger to come and face them, only to find out that those challengers severely underestimated them. Charles would later earn a promotion from this idea and soon rise to the top of the Pokémon League Association, becoming the director and holding that position for many years.

And that was what resulted in the Arc Tournament. Goodshow knows he can't live forever, so sooner or later he will have to retire. But before he decided to give up the position, he decided that he wanted to gather the greatest trainers from all over the world and have them fight it out in a tournament of the masses to find out who the greatest trainer of them all happens to be.