As expected, the girls — all of them without exception, including my mother and the others, and even Naria who was present — were surprised to learn about my "secret" emotional entanglements. However, after many compliments and shopping trips, I was finally forgiven on the condition that I never hide anything from them ever again.
[Except that you have a system. Remember that.]
Yes… I remember perfectly. Ahem. The point is I was forgiven. Although for some reason Naria kept throwing constant glances at me throughout the day — some with a frown and others while blushing… but I don't think it's for the reason I'm thinking.
[Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll find out in the future.]
Anyway, the problem was solved, and not only that — I also met Leaf's traveling companions, who surprisingly turned out to be Misty and Brock. Yes, Ash's original companions were now Leaf's. Brock and I got along instantly. He was a good guy, though he still had the same fetish as in the anime. The moment he saw Molly's mother he confessed and was dragged away by the ear by Misty, just like I remembered from the anime. Seeing it in person was pretty incredible. On the other hand, I don't think I made a very good impression on Misty because she kept looking at me with resentment for some reason, which made me wonder why, since I had just met her and we hadn't even spoken before. Even though I didn't know why Misty looked at me with resentment, honestly I didn't care and had no intention of finding out. If she didn't like me, then fine. I didn't even know her. Why should I care about her opinion? The important thing is that I have many girls by my side who love me, a little sister who loves me, and a family that also loves me. I simply couldn't ask for anything better.
Leaf also got along very well with Molly, but the same couldn't be said for Molly, who always avoided Leaf for some strange reason. But you can't force someone to like another person, so I just let it go. On the other hand, the rest of the day was a day of tourism around the village. The village had numerous shops, restaurants, entertainment areas, etc. It was simply huge and had everything.
As I said, to be forgiven I had to do a lot of shopping. Even for Molly! Moreover, why did she get mad at me? Girls are simply incomprehensible.
[Isn't it because she likes you?]
If I were 13, 14, or 15 years old I might believe it, but Molly is only 8. How could she like me? It's probably jealousy toward the girls for trying to steal her brother away, just like I've seen in many manga and anime. Yes, that must be it.
[… Sometimes you're denser than a brick.]
I ignored the system, of course.
After many hours of walking around, night fell and we decided to go to a luxury hotel. Apparently everyone had already booked rooms, so there were enough for all of us. Even Naria and her grandfather stayed at the same hotel. Leaf also stayed there along with Misty and Brock. Since participating trainers didn't have to pay for lodging or food, everything was free for me, Leaf, and Giselle, while the rest had to pay. By the way, Joe became friends with Fergus and went with him, so he was staying at another hotel, while Neesha quickly became friends with the girls and stayed at the same hotel as us. We don't know anything about Gary and Corey. They simply left without saying goodbye after Victor explained the rules and we hadn't seen them since. With that said, and before settling into the hotel, Leaf, Giselle, and I had to go to the Pokémon Center to check who we would be fighting the next day.
I was matched against a boy named Tom, and my battle would take place in one of the stadiums to the east of the main stadium. Giselle was matched against a girl named Laura and also got one of the eastern stadiums, while Leaf was matched against a boy named John in one of the western stadiums. All our battles would take place at the same time, so none of us could watch each other's matches and our group would have to split up so Leaf and Giselle wouldn't be alone.
My mother, Molly, Naria, Roxanne, and Celia would watch my battle. Spencer, Celeste's grandmother, Celeste, and Koharu would watch Giselle's, and the rest would watch Leaf's. Yes, they had only known Leaf for one afternoon, but they didn't like the idea of only her mother going to see her battle. And yes, Leaf's mother would come to watch Leaf's battle, but she would arrive tomorrow right at the time the battle starts, so I wouldn't see her until afterward. The good thing is that Misty and Brock would also watch her battle, so along with her mother, three of the people closest to her would see her fight, so there was no problem.
With everything arranged, we returned to the hotel and decided to rest. I was staying in a triple room with Molly and Celeste. The room was extremely luxurious and had a king-size bed and a single bed that went unused because in the end both girls slept with me in the same bed.
The next day I found Molly sleeping on top of me with drool falling onto my pectorals… wait, I don't remember going to bed without my pajama shirt. Why wasn't I wearing it? Probably because Celeste, who was sleeping on my other side in the same position as Molly, was to blame. Now I had both girls' drool on my abs, but honestly, I didn't mind at all. With that said, I was nervous. Today would be my first battle in front of so many people. By the way, the smaller stadiums only had a capacity of 20,000 people, but the good thing was that all battles would be broadcast live. When I heard that, I wondered how they were going to broadcast five battles at the same time. The answer Celeste gave me couldn't have been more obvious, and I even felt embarrassed for asking. The answer was simple: there were five different channels broadcasting the battles, plus streamers who could also retransmit them without restrictions.
After showering and getting dressed, we left the room to meet up with everyone. The three of us — me, Giselle, and even Leaf — were quite nervous but ready to give our all in the preliminaries and advance to the Top 16 and eventually win the Pokémon League.
…
Three days passed quickly, and several things happened during this time that need to be carefully explained.
First and most important: Did our heroes pass the preliminaries? Short answer: yes. As could easily be predicted, everyone passed the preliminaries except Fergus and Joe, who were eliminated just short of advancing. Fergus wasn't really at fault — he just happened to fight against Giselle, and Giselle defeated him easily. Joe lost not because of lack of skill (he was surprisingly talented), but because he got nervous and faced Corey, who surprisingly was not only good at battling but also had quite strong Pokémon. Aside from those two, everyone advanced to the Top 16, even Richie.
But that wasn't all the good news. During these days, Naria also gained a huge number of subscribers thanks to her live broadcasts. Ash's battles quickly became popular, not only because of his powerful Pokémon and his battling talent, but also because he was handsome. In short, he became very popular among Naria's female subscribers and viewers. With Ash's battles, Naria's fame skyrocketed. Yes, there were famous streamers also broadcasting, but none of them had as good a seat as Naria, and of course none were able to interview the winner, Ash, in person. That's why Naria's popularity exploded. Naria couldn't be happier. She had gained more subscribers in the last three days than in the previous six months since she started in the world of streaming and social media. Now she not only had thousands of followers on social networks, but her paid subscriptions were growing exponentially.
This only made Naria like Ash more and more, and without realizing it, she began to develop feelings for him. But we'll talk about that a little later. Now it's time to focus on the Pokémon League.
Having all advanced to the Top 16 (excluding those previously mentioned), this is when the real tournament began. The Top 16 was already serious — not as serious as the Top 8 and beyond, but still quite serious, because from here on the trainers fighting were the most outstanding among the 256. And not only that, but it would only get harder if they won their next battle.
With that said, these were the Top 16 matchups that would take place the next day:
{Note: Only the most important battles will be mentioned}
Ash vs Richie
Verity vs Neesha
Gary vs random opponent
Green vs random opponent
Giselle vs random opponent
Corey vs random opponent
The other two battles were against random people who aren't worth mentioning.
With that said, Molly was also more excited than ever. She had already seen her brother battle once, and even train in Pallet Town, but seeing him here at the Pokémon League was even more exciting. Ash demonstrated a level of skill in battles that made her heart race with excitement. She was proud of her brother, and although the circumstances in which they met weren't the best, she was glad everything had happened because thanks to that she had gained a brother she loved madly. The girls were also happy for Ash and showered him with affection to calm him down during these days — a very good strategy that gave clear results. What did they do? What couples do, of course, although it was a bit difficult to sneak away from Molly, who was always stuck to Ash like a leech.
This was basically a summary of everything that had happened these days, but today, today was destined to be different because today the final phase of the tournament began — the Top 16. Above that were only the Top 8, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and finally and most importantly, the final. So today's battle wasn't just a battle, but a turning point — a point that would demonstrate their true talent as trainers. So basically they were nervous, all of them without exception. Even the usually calm Gary was nervous too.
Still, Ash managed to calm down and, after saying goodbye, headed to the main stadium where all battles would take place from now on. The first battle was Ash's, the second was Verity vs Neesha, and so on as listed.
{Note: The order of the battles is in the list. Check it to know.}
Ash and Richie were scheduled to fight in the Industrial Field, which looked like this:
{Note: image in Patreon. You can see it in the cover of this chapter}