The Eye of the Beast

[Aura]

It was March the 14th. The day that Ella Percy – and most of Twinleaf town too. You see, Professor Rowan had organised a friendly competition for relatively new Trainers at Lake Verity. The rules  were simple: It was tourney style, one on one battles for trainers who had less than three Badges. It was one of the biggest events that would have ever happened in the area – excluding the Team Galactic visiting the area and stealing the Emotion Pokemon, who was rumoured to live in the lake. But that had been ages ago. Team Galactic had been disbanded, and their members imprisoned – although nobody knew exactly where…

Out of nowhere, the dark skinned girl was hit by what appeared to be a blur of purple and black fur. Ella didn’t mind. She laughed aloud and hugged the Pokemon.

“Kione,” She crooned. “You’re excited too aren’t you?”

The Zoura grinned deviously and wagged his tail.

From downstairs, there came a yell. “Ella! Come on, we’re going now!”

“Coming!” She called, and scooped up Kione before sprinting downstairs.

***
It wasn’t a long walk to Lake Verity. Rather, the fact that the whole population of Twinleaf and Sandgem town were taking the one thin pathway through the trees around the Lake which was slowing everyone down. Kione growled with annoyance at anyone nearby – he wanted to test himself against the other Pokemon, as, being known as the ‘Evil Fox Pokemon’, he’d never really been accepted in Sinnoh. Finally, they made it through the trees into the wide open space of the bank. The lake shimmered in the cool winter sun as a cold gust of air blew through the trees. While it wasn’t cold enough for it to snow in Twinleaf Town, that didn’t stop it from being cold.

Set up next to the lake was a small makeshift stage. Upon it stood Professor Rowan, flanked by his assistants Lucas and Dawn.

“Gather ‘round everyone!” Rowan roared excitedly. “Gather ‘round! Now can everyone hear me? Good. Alright, you all know the rules for the competition, so we don’t have to go over that and can get on with it. All of you who are competing have signed up earlier, and we have put you all into a tourney style tournament. We have three places where the battles will take place. The grass field, the water field and the island field. Now up here we have the notices of who will battle who. Everyone come and get one, then we can get this show on the road.”

OOC: Yes, you can have Gen V Pokemon now. I mean, why not? Jump in whenever you want, just remember the rules of the tournament when you decide on what character to use. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO JOIN IF YOUR POKEMON ARE ANY STRONGER THAN THAT.

[Nicola]

Carmen rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet in anticipation of the coming tourney. She had been awaiting this day excitedly ever since she had gotten her first gym badge from Roark; she and Meril had been working really hard and after a week of thinking about it, Carmen finally decided that they would participate in the tournament. Carmen adjusted the oversized hat on her head, a mixture of nerves and excitement brewing in her stomach as the crowd moved several feet ahead on Route 201. The crowd was slowly moving ahead into the lakefront. Glancing around at the crowd, she noticed that she recognized a lot of the people as her neighbors.

There were so many people, though. Carmen wondered if she should really be entering a contest with so many people watching. And so many of them were from Sandgem, too. If she lost, she would surely never hear the end of it from her friends. The other trainers were probably really great, and Carmen and Meril could really make fools of themselves, and--

A tug came from her jean leg and the trainer looked down to find a familiar fuzzy creature looking up at her with large eyes. The little Chillarmy gave Carmen a little smile and nod.

"You're right, Meril," Carmen told her Pokemon. "There's no reason to be second-guessing myself. We worked hard for that gym badge, and just as hard for this thing. We can do it!"

The small chinchilla creature seemed satisfied with this answer and the two began patiently waiting for the crowd to move again.

Eventually, the slow movement sped up a bit and most of Twinleaf and Sandgem Towns filed into the Verity Lakefront. A small platform had been erected next to the stage and upon it stood Professor Rowan, with two trainers standing to either side of him. The Professor announced the beginning of the tournament and asked participants to come up near the stage to receive notices telling them who they would be facing. Carmen allowed Meril to climb up her arm and cling onto her hat and then, with none of the hesitation she had shown on Route 201, made her way up to the front of the crowd to get her own notice and find out who she was going to be up against.

[Aura]

(Nobody else interested? Ah well.)

Dawn and Lucas moved about the trainers, handing out the battle schedules. Ella took hers, then stepped backwards and crashed into the person behind her.

"Oh!" She said, crying out in alarm. "I'm so sorry!"

Ella spun around as Kione jumped up onto her shoulder and wagged his tail. She found herself looking straight at Carmen, one of the girls she knew from school (Twinleaf was such a small town that the nearest school was in Sandgem). She didn't know her personally though, having only moved here from Huin City half a year ago. But she had seen her around, and from what she had seen and heard, she wasn't a bad person.

"Hey there Carmen." Ella said with a grin and a wink of one sapphire eye. "I guess you and Meril are entering too huh?"

Carmen confirmed the question, just as Dawn and Lucas finished handing out the schedules.

"Okay people." Rowan called out to the crowd again. "The first three battles will start in about five minutes, so those of you who are up first, you'd best get ready right now hmm? Oh, and just one more thing before you go: In case you didn't know, we are not alone today. As I speak, two other tournaments much like this one are taking place at Lake Valor and Lake Acuity, with the only difference being the skill levels." Rowan paused for a moment. "And I think that's all I have to say... Oh wait. No items may be used during the battles - only held items. And that's it. Get ready everybody!"

Ella and Kione (along with the rest of the crowd) let out a cheer at the news that the tournament was on the road. She glanced down at the schedule and scanned it until she found her name. She was going to be one of the first battles, on the water field against someone called Felix Urban. After a quick glance at her opponent if she defeated Felix, she looked up at Carmen.

"If we both win our first battles, we'll be battling against each other in the second round!"

[Nicola]

Carmen had no more than closed her hand around her battle schedule when she was crashed into from behind, her schedule flying out of her hand briefly.

"Oh!" cried an alarmed voice. "I'm so sorry!"

Leaning over whilst taking care not to upset Meril's balance atop her hat, Carmen retrieved her battle schedule from the ground and fixed the stray strands of her short, dirty blond hair. She turned to see who had bumped into her to find a familiar-looking girl standing there. If she remembered correctly, the girl's name was Ella, and she had just moved here a couple months ago. Ella seemed to recognize Carmen, too, giving her a grin and a wink with one of her intensely azure eyes while asking if she and Meril were entering.

"Yeah, after a whole lot of thinking, I finally decided that we ought to enter. I take it you and Kione are in this, too?"

She didn't get to hear Ella's answer as Rowan began making announcements again, but assumed by the battle schedule in her hand that she had, in fact, entered as well. Rowan concluded his announcement with a cheer for everyone to get ready for the contest to begin. Carmen unleashed a loud cheer, hearing her Chillarmy's excited, feminine squeak from atop her head. Ella, who had been analyzing her schedule, looked up excitedly with her big blues.

"If we both win our first battles, we'll be battling against each other in the second round!"

"Hey, really?" Carmen inquired, leaning over to study the battle schedule as well. According to it, she wasn't going to be in any of the battles going on in five minutes, but was going to be part of the second round of matches. That was good, anyways, because then she could go watch Ella's match and cheer her on. After that, she'd be up against some guy named Drew Durange. "Can't wait to battle you!"

This, of course, was assuming that both of them were going to win their first round matches. She could certainly see Ella winning with her Zorua, but Carmen had not yet seen her opponent's level of skill. She supposed that it would likely rely on that whether or not she would get into the next round to battle Ella. If Carmen did get to the next round, though, she hoped that neither of them would have any hard feelings if the other won. At least they didn't know each other that well; if they had been good friends, this could have gotten hairy.

[Aura]

Ella’s eyes flicked over to the area where her battle would take place: The Water Field. It in the middle of the lake, with rocks jutting out of the water for those Pokemon that couldn’t swim easily, fly or levitate. Kione was one of those Pokemon, and while her other Pokemon, Nerio, was a water type, she wasn’t really prepared to use him in this battle. He wasn’t really a battler. Not yet anyway.

"Hey, really?" Carmen exclaimed. "Can't wait to battle you!"

“Yeah.” Ella grinned, pushing a strand of black hair out of her eye. “It should be good huh?” She pointed towards the Water Field. “That’s where my battle is.” She paused, and once again scanned the battle schedule. “You’re not on in the first three battles… do you wanna watch mine?”

Regardless of what Carmen’s decision was, Ella waited for her response, then headed towards where you could get to the Water Field. There was two larger rocks for the trainer to stand on, roughly in line with each other. Those who were watching the battle could stand on the water’s edge, which was facing the battlefield. There was an Empoleon standing at the waters edge, with Dawn standing beside it. This was probably to take the battlers out to the rocks.

Before she arrived at the waters edge, Ella quickly withdrew Kione. Part of her usual strategy. Moments after she arrived, another boy did. He was taller than Ella was, with light brown hair that hung over his dark green eyes. He was slightly chubby, and wearing old torn jeans and a Charizard t shirt. He didn’t say anything, but just went up to Dawn, showed her his ID then got on the Empoleon and surfed out to the rock.

“That must be Felix…” She murmured to herself. “Well,” she said. “Wish me luck.” And headed up to wait for her turn to ride the Empoleon out to her rock.