The tail end of July... the prelude to August...
Under the bright sunshine at Ever Grande Stadium, the flames of the Hoenn League battles continued to burn.
It was the third day of the preliminaries. Young Master Mao had already cleared the first two rounds ahead of schedule and was sitting comfortably in the VIP Lounge, watching the matches.
On the field, Ash was dealing with his second opponent.
The local Pokémon Trainer named Matano seemed fairly popular, with quite a few people cheering for him.
But the trainer's affected gestures, coupled with move choices that completely disregarded effectiveness, made Gary's stomach hurt.
He had Tropius bombard Ash's Torkoal with Grass-type moves, then used Ground-type Sludge Bombs to hammer Corphish...
There really was... a certain brain-stem-deficient beauty to it all~
The result was a flurry of moves, fierce as a tiger, only to look closely and find he hadn't gone anywhere...
The moment Ash took the field, he strengthened his defenses with Iron Defense and Harden.
Then, for once, he actually chose the right tactics, using Flamethrower against Tropius before concentrating his firepower to knock out Swalot in one go, winning easily.
"I never thought I'd see the day even Ash memorized the type matchup chart. My youth is officially over~"
"Heh~ You certainly don't set the bar very high for someone from your hometown~" Steven sat elegantly on the sofa, swirling the red wine in his glass.
Beside him, Poni's eyes sparkled. Champion Steven could fight, had money, and was handsome too... slurp...
Young Master Mao spread his hands, his expression unchanged by Steven's teasing. "Ash is different from me. He's definitely a late bloomer, though right now, he's still twenty thousand years short of my expectations.
"But once he completes his transformation, he'll amaze every one of you."