3:00 PM.
The Rustboro City Pokémon Contest, featuring over two hundred participants, had finally reached the conclusion of its first round.
However, following Ursula's performance, only one other high scorer appeared: a female contestant, likely from the Unova region, who earned a 28.9 with an Emolga. The rest of the field struggled to keep up.
In Contests, the second round usually features either eight or four finalists. Given the scoring gap, Kashiwagi predicted a Top 4 cutoff.
Sure enough, the MC announced the results on the big screen. The screen transitioned to show four black squares which flipped over one by one to reveal the portraits of the finalists—Kashiwagi and the three other contestants who had scored above 27 points.
Three girls and one guy. It would take just two rounds of battle to decide the winner.
The waiting room was filled with the sighs of the eliminated as they left with heavy hearts. For many, the Contest stage is more brutal than the Pokémon League; if you fail the first appeal, no matter how beautiful your routine was, you might go viral online, but you'll never reach the Grand Festival.
Soon, only the four finalists remained.
Kashiwagi glanced at Ursula. She shot him a confident, "I'm definitely not losing to you" smile. The other two contestants also had fire in their eyes.
...No doubt about it, he was the target. Probably a side effect of that near-perfect score.
The screen then randomized the brackets. Kashiwagi was matched against the Wigglytuff Coordinator for the first match. Ursula would face the girl from Unova in the second.
Second Round: Contest Battle.
The rules: Five minutes on the clock. Use beautiful moves to counter the opponent's attacks or defeat them outright. While the old rules often forced you to use the same Pokémon from the appeal, the updated rules allowed for flexibility—though most stuck with their stars.
Each Coordinator has a point bar. Successfully landing a hit or "countering" an opponent's move with a more beautiful display drains the opponent's points. If a Pokémon is knocked out, the match ends instantly. If time runs out, the one with more points wins.
It's not just about damage; it's about style. You could technically deal "chip damage," but if you do it beautifully enough, you'll drain their points to zero before the clock hits.
-----
3:30 PM.
To the rhythm of the MC's high-energy rule recap, Kashiwagi and his opponent took their places.
"First Round, First Match—Begin!"
The MC shouted as he beat a hasty retreat to the sidelines. Both Coordinators threw their Poké Balls simultaneously.
Pop! Pop!
Cherry blossoms and pink hearts filled the air as Mawile and Wigglytuff faced off, both radiating high spirits.
In truth, both trainers were a bit stunned. Kashiwagi looked at his opponent with a look that said, "Why didn't you switch? You knew I had a Steel-type."
The girl looked back with an expression that said, "You knew that I knew you had a Steel-type, yet you still sent it out? What's your game?"
Both had expected the other to swap to a tactical counter. Neither did.
"Magnet Rise!"
Kashiwagi didn't care about the mind games. Since he had the type advantage, he might as well take the grounded advantage too.
"Mawile!"
Mawile leaped into the air, but this wasn't its graceful spin from before. She moved with a rhythmic "boxer's shuffle"—a battle dance designed to keep her momentum perfectly balanced. The shift from an elegant lady to a sharp, focused warrior caught the judges' attention immediately.
The opponent panicked slightly. She checked the scoreboard, relieved to see she hadn't lost points yet, but by the time she looked back, Mawile was closing in. Her Wigglytuff, lacking a command, was fidgeting.
"Use Flamethrower!" she screamed.
"Wiggly!"
The anxious Wigglytuff took a massive breath, expanding its body several times its normal size before exhaling. Its tiny mouth became a gaping maw, and a roaring torrent of fire surged forth!
The flames formed a literal wall of fire pushing toward Mawile. The audience gasped, impressed that Wigglytuff could use its lung capacity to amplify the intensity of the flames like that. They looked at Mawile with concern.
But the concern was misplaced.
Kashiwagi and Mawile saw the fire wall and grinned. If there was one thing they had mastered during their week of training, it wasn't levels—it was "Spinning Fire Evasion." Much like Brock's Steelix, they used centrifugal force to manipulate the air and deflect high-temperature flames.
"Spin it! Iron Head!"
Mawile began to whirl. A silver halo enveloped her head, spreading down to its massive black jaws. The jaws became a silver wrecking ball, whistling through the air as Mawile turned into a blur of metallic energy. The Soothe Bell rang frantically, sounding like a countdown to disaster.
The audience watched as the silver blur dived headfirst into the wall of fire. Before they could even scream, the flames exploded into harmless embers.
The opponent's point bar plummeted by nearly a quarter.
"The fire wall has been shattered!" the MC shouted. "In the face of this battle-dancer, fire is nothing more than a toy!"
BOOM!
Mawile slammed directly into Wigglytuff's forehead. Wigglytuff hadn't even finished deflating yet; the impact sent it flying like a popped balloon.
As it tumbled through the air, the panicked girl cried out, "Use Heal Pulse!"
Kashiwagi wasn't giving her the chance.
"Play Rough. Let's end this."
"Mawile~"
Mawile blinked its big, soulful eyes and zipped in front of Wigglytuff. It grabbed the opponent's small hands and began a "partner dance."
Wigglytuff couldn't focus on Heal Pulse. Its vision blurred into a swirl of stars and moons that seemed to jump out of nowhere and pummel it. A few seconds later, it collapsed to the floor.
The points were still draining, but the three lights in front of the judges simultaneously turned into red 'X's.
"Wigglytuff is unable to battle! Mawile and Mr. Kashiwagi advance to the finals!"
The MC's voice boomed as the screen updated. The opponent looked at her fallen Pokémon and sighed, "I didn't expect a Coordinator's Pokémon to have such raw combat power..."
"We won!"
Kashiwagi walked onto the field and high-fived the beaming Mawile.
"Mawile~!"
She was starting to really like this "Pokémon Contest" thing.