Returning back to Slateport City after what seemed such a long time, there was already some major changes that have indeed taken place here.
"So that is the big stage for the upcoming Hoenn Region Grand Festival, wow! We are finally back here!" Max couldn't help but exclaim out in excitement.
This very large stage was built specifically for the upcoming Hoenn Region Grand Festival, and right now, as the group looked at it from their perspective, they couldn't help but feel how spectacular it really was.
This was indeed the grand stage where all the Pokémon Coordinators and their Pokémon's dreams were gathered at.
Although the scale of this place was not that inferior to an official Pokémon League Championship, there was still the lack of something here. Something missing. And Ash knew what it was.
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The first thing to do since they came here was quite simple and the most important thing to do, and of course that was to verify their identity and register for the soon to happen Grand Festival.
They couldn't just let all of their hard work and dedication go to waste, could they?
"Thank for your patience."
"Yes, I checked off your information. You are May from Petalburg City, right?" May's information appeared on the system page, including all six of her current Pokémon's.
"And you are Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town in the Kanto Region, correct?" The receptionist blushed a little, wanting an autograph as she was also one of his many fans.
Which Ash didn't mind as he was always happy to do something like this to his more "regular" fans, and not like the ones who tried to go into the stage last time because of he was there.
The Pokémon on Ash's side was his Milotic, Ralts, Dusclops, Meganium and some other Pokémon's that have appeared in some Pokémon Contest. Just these few of them are enough for him to use.
After scanning all five of their official Pokémon Contest Ribbons and confirming their qualifications one last time to out them into the system, Ash and May completed their registration and arrived at the place where they will be staying for the duration of the Grand Festival.
It was a very luxurious apartment that had 3 rooms plus 2 bathrooms, it was easy to see why the whole group was very satisfied.
At this time, a pair of gentle hands covered May's eyes, "Guess who I am."
Hearing this voice, May immediately turned around in excitement and exclaimed in happiness, "MOM!"
It was Caroline, May and Max's mother.
Not only her, but Delia, Ash's mom, also appeared from behind the two of them. Ash was also stunned to see her as he didn't know his mother even knew about this as he hadn't mentioned this to he last time, "Mom, why are you here?"
It turned out that Delia heard that Ash was going to participate in this years Hoenn Region Grand Festival and try to win it from Daisy Oak, Gary's older sister and also a part-time Pokémon Coordinator.
Daisy was one of the few people that the past Ash had a good relationship with but the new (Luke) Ash never had the chance, even when he went back to Pallet Town.
When he was there the last time, she was already busy working somewhere in the distant Sinnoh Region.
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(Daisy is a character that I inserted here for my own personal reasons. I like her.)
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So when she heard it from Daisy, she immediately boarded a cruise ship to the Hoenn Region, it was almost a week ago now. Under the leadership of Professor Birch, she went to Petalburg City to meet up with Caroline, and then these two mothers came to Slateport City together to support their children.
Especially as both knew that they wrere basically in-laws at this point, so they had their fun as future families.
There was also a floating bubble shaped Pokémon beside her, and there are two Poké Balls in her backpack. The other one was Ash's Wobbuffet, who was responsible for protect Delia on behalf of Ash.
Wobbuffet now had some power to fight back thanks to it being some times being trained by Ash's Pokémon's when it goes to the Lab or when they show up to their Trainers home to keep Delia company.
As for Mr. Mime, he was left to look after the house as everyone else was somewhere else.
"Ash, give me a hug!" Delia looked at Ash and smiled and proudly said, "I heard that you are going to perform on stage from Daisy of all people, who did she know before I did? So, how can I sit still? Of course I had to come here to take pictures of you, I can't miss adding them to my collection."
"Yes, May, you look so beautiful, of course I had to come here to see everything! And why did you not tell me sooner? I could have come sooner!" Caroline said the same while hugging May and Max after so long.
The Ralts and Togetics on Ash's shoulders have already run into Delia's arms. They can feel Delia's full care for their Trainer, and their ability doesn't help them here, so this kind of care makes them very willing to go closer to the gentle Delia.
Looking at his excited mom in front of him, Ash smiled and said, "It just happened, ya know. It's really hard to remember everything after traveling from here and there. Anyway, how is Daisy? I haven't talked to her in a while." Ash quickly tried to steer the topic away.
"It's not hard to find out, I'm always very happy to be able to see any of your performances, I have all the copy's of your performances." Delia shook her head and smiled.
She continued, "As for Daisy, you know she sees you like her little brother; how can she not pay attention to your dealings when there is always something about you on the news?"
Ash smiled a bit, remembering his past self and how close he was to her. Even going as far as his past self saying how he would marry her, despite not knowing anything of the slightest about romance or the likes.
But the current Ash was different, he liked Daisy, even though he knew very little about her from the things he remembered. But since he remembered her to be one of the closest people to the past him, he will make sure that there is always a place in him for her.
"By the way, although Molly-chan can't come to cheer you on this time, I brought this to you!" She said excitedly.
"Molly?"
It's been a long time since he last saw Molly, so Ash missed her a bit, but they talked sometime on the special PokéNav Ash had.
Delia took out a box that was made out of wood from her backpack and handed it to Ash.
After receiving it, Ash's eyes suddenly lit up with excitement, and he quickly took out Unown's Book he had from his backpack. Lil G immediately jumped out and came to Ash's side when he felt what was happening.
"Looks like we going to have a new companion, G."
When Ash said this to Lil G, the little guy immediately cheered up. It flew around the wood box and lit up with blue psychic light.
Bzzttt!
Bzzttt!
The sound came out of the box, and the wooden box in Ash's hand also lit up with the same but a more dominant blue light, and many Unown stood up from the wooden box one after another and came to Lil G and Ash.
Including Lil G, there are a total of 12 other new Unowns circling and flying around Ash's body. Now everyone can see that Ash's body was filled with a blue and pink light, which was a very beautiful scene to see.
"So beautiful!" May couldn't help but exclaim. She understood that Ash's ability was beyond her imagination. Although Ash was by her side now, the world he saw was very much different from the world she sees.
The only times she saw Ash like this was when he released his Unown's back when fighting that fake Groudon in Forina.
What the Unowns were currently doing was communicating to one another. Then Lil G came to Ash's side, and the all other new Unowns lined up in front of Ash. Soon Ash understood their intentions.
"Alright, I understand your wishes, Poké Ball!"
He quickly took out some of the empty Poké Balls he had with him, and together with the ones Ash had in his pocket for emergencies, he was easily able to catch all the new Unowns, but these Poké Balls were flashing red and were about to teleport away, but Ash stoped it, meaning they could not be opened for now.
Ash needed to call Professor Oak to complete the Pokémon exchange and store away the Poké Balls with Professor Oak, but the Unowns had to stay with him and his book, so they nedded to stay away from their Poké Balls.
Thanks to Molly, there are now a total of 40 Unown around Ash at all times, and the letters were all basically complete, leaving only the rarest and rarest "?" and "!" to be added.
After Ash finished his work, May looked at her mom and asked, "Mom, where's dad?"
"There are too many people who have made reservations to challenge the Gym at the last moment, so ge can't escape this time." She said bitterly, already missing her husband.
Just when they were leaving their ship and were going to the address that May sent them, some dudes tried to hit on her and Delia, 2 certified MILF's.
But thankfully Ash's Wobbuffet, who was out at that time, beat the crap out of those 3 dudes and sent them to Officer Jenny for some self-reflecting time.
He truly did learn from the best, Scizor in this case, about beating up low-level thugs.
After hearing about the incident, Ash gave his Wobbuffet some special Psychic-type Pokéblocks as a thank you for protecting his mom and Caroline.
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Since the Hoenn Region Ever Grande Conference was about to start and only little time before the deadline, there must definitely be a lot of Pokémon Trainers like Morrison who failed to collect all 8 of their necessary official Gym Badges by now, so during this final period, pretty much all available Gym Leaders will be very busy.
Only stronger ones like Juan, Winona, and Norman will get less compared to their fellow Gym Leaders.
However, this still doesn't mean some of the more confident Pokémon Trainers won't try their luck against these very strong and renowned Gym Leaders.
Seeing May lowering her head in disappointment, Caroline smiled and said, "But your dad did say that when it's your turn to appear, he will cheer in front of the TV with everyone, even if it means using all of his Slaking's to beat his opponents in an instant."
Hearing this, May nodded happily.
Because both May and Ash would be participating in this years Grand Festival l, they got separate rooms to use, meaning two very luxurious and big rooms. Not only were they very spacious, but they also had rooms next to the sea. They could easily see the sea from their windows.
It was really a pleasant view, especially knowing this was all free, even though money wasn't something anyone here was short on.
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The Grand Festival was divided into two stages: the preliminaries and then the officials. The preliminaries will be starting tomorrow and will use the regular official Pokémon Contest format rules, well more so the first round where the participants will use their Pokémon's moves to charm everyone from the stage.
Among the 247 contestants that will make it through, only the top 64 can officially compete in the next round.
Hearing this number, not to mention May, even Ash was shocked to hear the staggering number.
To participate in this Grand Festival, one needs to have 5 official Pokémon Contest Ribbons, and an official Pokémon Contest can only give out one Ribbon per season, which means that in this years season, meaning there were at least 1,300 official Pokémon Contests that have been held for these 247 Pokémon Coordinators that made it through.
However, not to forget that there are even more Pokémon Coordinators who did get some, 1-4, but not enough to be able to get all of their 5 necessary official Pokémon Contest Ribbons and thus were not qualified to participate in this years Grand Festival.
If everything was calculated correctly, there was probably roughly about 2,500 official Pokémon Contests that were held this year alone.
After Brock looked up, they were even more shocked to see that there were exactly 4,269 official Pokémon Contests that were help. Almost 2,000 over their earlier estimated number.
And only 64 of these lucky 247 Pokémon Coordinators could pass the preliminaries and get through to the next stage. One can imagine how cruel the preliminaries was every yet a, but May and Ash were very confident in their own strengths and talents, and since their mothers and friends are here to support them, so of course they needed to go all out.
But first things first: accompanying them for a walk first. This was also relax their mood before the official Hoenn Region Grand Festival begins.
Just like the tournaments held by the different regions at the end of the season, there was also a bustling scene of snack stores and a souvenir stores everywhere the head can turn to. Jessie and James were selling some fried noodles this time, which honestly did taste very good.
Because it was Mays first time on such a big stage, she would inevitably be nervous, but after eating so much delicious food, her nervousness complemented disappeared like it was never there to begin with.
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The long awaited Hoenn Region Grand Festival is about to begin.
I'm planning to make it 6-8 chapters long.
Leave some reviews, I like to see that number increase.