Pokémon Court

 The short-haired girl named Clair looked like she was around 14 or 15 years old. She glanced at another girl beside her and asked, “Why are you not warning Kumi?”

“Uh… Kumi collected all her Ribbons in just a year. She seems much more dependable than you,” the male Trainer thought for a moment and said seriously.

“You jerk! I only took one extra year! A lot of people take two years to collect them!” Clair fumed.

“It’s different.” The male Trainer pulled out a notebook from who knows where, under the odd gaze of the four others.

“Internet-addict Trainer.”

“Internet-addict Alan.”

The four of them spoke in unison.

“Shut up! You can find a lot of useful information online! If used properly, you can learn a lot of things in advance!” Alan shouted.

Alan sighed, “It’s been so hard for the five of us to gather together again. Clair, when I found out you could enter the Grand Festival, I researched a lot of information on Coordinators for you. Don’t you want to know?”

Both Clair and Kumi paused, intrigued by the information Alan mentioned. After all, the two of them were about to participate in the Grand Festival and their understanding of their opponents was limited to a few people they knew.

“Is there anything special about any of the Coordinators?” Clair asked.

Alan chuckled and said, “I’m not trying to discourage you two, but even I was shocked when I found this information. The competition in this Grand Festival is going to be fierce.”

“What do you mean?” Kumi asked.

“Take little Kumi, for example. In her first year as a Coordinator, she earned five Ribbons and qualified for the Grand Festival. This is pretty rare and usually marks someone as a dark horse in the competition.”

“But this time, things are a bit different.”

The four looked at him, waiting for more details.

“Here, I found out about some Coordinators with a bit of fame. They’ll probably all be participating in this Grand Festival.”

Alan held up his notebook, showing it to the group, “These one, two, three, four… uh, anyway, these people are all well-known Coordinators online. Their backgrounds are impressive. Let me introduce them.”

“For example, this one, Gayle, was the runner-up in the last Hoenn Grand Festival, losing by just a tiny margin in appeal points to the previous Top Coordinator.”

Runner-up in the Grand Festival… Clair swallowed nervously, clearly losing some confidence.

“And what about that one?” Clair pointed to another name.

“Hani, the most recent Top Coordinator from the Sinnoh region,” Alan said casually. But as soon as those words were out, Clair fell silent.

“Wow, a Top Coordinator,” the other two male Trainers exclaimed. “Doesn’t that mean she’s already won a Grand Festival? Why would she come to compete in Hoenn? You can only earn the title of Top Coordinator once, right?”

“Who knows, maybe she wants to emulate Master Wallace and dominate the Grand Festivals in all regions.”

Clair was on the verge of tears. They’d only learned about two Coordinators, and both were incredibly strong. How was she supposed to compete?

“Then Kumi and I, rookies in this Grand Festival, are as good as doomed.” She said with a scowl.

“Rookie? What’s wrong with being a rookie?” Alan grinned again and pointed to another name, Terrance.

“Look at this guy. He’s also a rookie, but he’s already considered one of the strongest contenders for Top Coordinator this time around.”

“Hmm?” The two Coordinators looked over curiously.

“Terrance, starting from the Verdanturf Contest, he’s participated in four contests so far: Verdanturf, Mauville, Lilycove and Petalburg. That’s his total experience in the Hoenn Pokémon Contests,” Alan said, noticing that the two Coordinators hadn’t fully grasped what he was implying. He added, “Do you know what this means? It means that as a rookie, every time he entered a Pokémon Contest, he won. He hasn’t lost even once!”

“His popularity in this Grand Festival is unexpectedly high. It seems there’s even a nickname for him circulating online, which shows just how influential he is. Let me think… yeah, they call him… right, ‘The Supernova,’ meaning he’s a super rookie in Pokémon Contests and a rising star!”

“That’s incredible.” Kumi and Clair were stunned. Four consecutive contests, four consecutive wins… For them to get their five Ribbons, they had to enter more than a dozen Pokémon Contests.

Though he didn’t want to discourage his friends, Alan’s love for talking was his biggest flaw, one he couldn’t change. “And that’s not all. This Terrance, in every primary judging round… he passed with a perfect score!”

“Wait, that’s not right,” Alan quickly corrected himself as something else came to mind. “There was one time he didn’t have a score!”

“No score?” The four were puzzled.

“Yeah, no score. You won’t believe it, but in the Petalburg Contest, nine people passed the primary judging round.”

“I’ve heard about this!” Kumi remarked. “And that Pokémon Contest… it seemed like there was some sort of problem, and the rules were rewritten afterward.”

“I think I remember that, too,” Clair said.

“Exactly that one!” Alan said. “It was because of this Terrance. He performed some kind of ‘illusion skill’ or something, and it exposed a fatal loophole in the Pokémon Contest. That’s why the rules had to be changed on the spot. What kind of guy competes in Pokémon Contests and forces the competition organizers to revise the rules?”

Alan swung his arms, and Clair and Kumi fell silent. Comparing themselves to others… well, some comparisons just weren’t fair.

“What’s even more puzzling is that this Terrance has only participated in four Pokémon Contests. He hasn’t entered a fifth one yet, so he still hasn’t qualified for the Grand Festival. If he doesn’t collect five Ribbons before the event starts, no matter how much of a monster he is, you won’t face him.”

“That’s strange. Why hasn’t he entered another contest yet? A lot of people are eager to see him perform.”

“Don’t speak anymore! The more I hear you, the more my confidence shrinks!” Clair stood up, exasperated.

“I still want to hear about the other competitors,” Kumi said.

As the five of them continued their noisy conversation, none of them noticed a seemingly ordinary boy with a smile on his face walking past them.

“So, I’m this famous now?” Terrance thought, having overheard their discussion. He was quite intrigued by the talk of Top Coordinators and runner-ups.

After preparing for so long, no matter how formidable his opponents were, Terrance knew he had to give it his all, treating them as stepping stones to his success.

But before that, getting his fifth Ribbon with his Arcanine was the most important task.

“It’s time to eat,” Terrance muttered as he patted his stomach.

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