Making his way through the trainer waiting room, Jared hears people talking so he stops to listen for a moment, "I hear Akoni and his vaporeon are about to battle in arena four, you going?"

"Nop, I'm probably getting called up soon, you go."

Jared rubs his chin, (Hm? How do they know that? Is there a live video feed somewhere that is feeding people this information? Oh well, guess I was going to watch some matches anyway, arena four is a good a place as any.)

Putting his phone to his head, Jared speaks up, "Say, Gastly, you gonna get out? I'm freezing here."

Gastly gives a mind snort, then the chill begins to fade.

.

Walking towards the elevator, Jared asks, "Say, Gastly, I got a question for you, are you able to absorb all emotion or only negative ones, and can you absorb emotion from more than one person at once?"

"All emotions, and all humans in my radius"

"Why don't you just go into a crowd of people or something and feast, isn't that more efficient?"

"Stupid human, you know nothing! Pulling in normal emotions costs more energy than it gives me, or else I wouldn't be following your stupid self around."

Scratching his head, Jared sighs, "Can you eat like... normal food too?"

"No"

"Good, because I don't need another mouth to feed", Jared playfully remarked.

"Stupid human"

" Oh I see how it is, you call me stupid all day, so you can dish it out but you can't take it huh?"

"..."

Jared chuckles at the silence, "How about we go check out arena four, partner? Surely even you, the great "Gastly" wouldn't be one hundred percent confident against the number one seed huh?"

"Arrogant human, I liked you better when you were a groveling mess"

"I'll take that as a yes"

.

In arena four, a match was still heatedly underway!

Paras

vs

Poliwag

Walking down the arena stands, dropped popcorn, and spilled juice could vaguely be sniffed, making Jared nostalgic.

Sitting down, a man and his wife could be heard discussing the fight, and Jared soon learns the state of the match.

The poliwag has been struggling after taking a partial stun spore, but the paras can't seem to strike a decisive blow due to inexperience. Due to only knowing scratch and stun spore, Paras could only try to close the distance to deal damage.

Looking into the arena, Paras can be seen hopping a few meters away from the poliwag, as it dodges a bubble.

"Paras, just keep dodging, he's getting tired out!"

The arena was now soapy with bubbles, and after a successful dodge, Paras slips.

Poliwags trainer smiles, "NOW! POLIWAG! KNOCK EM DOWN WITH A WATER GUN INTO A HYPNOSIS!", he shouts.

Jared hums in wonder, (Poliwag knows hypnosis? I thought he was water type?) As he pondered, Paras narrowly avoids a water gun but was once again off-balance, a second water gun strikes true, knocking Paras onto his back.

Poliwag fires a hypnosis, but the now flailing paras coincidentally blocks the blow with his front claw, as his trainer cries for him to get up.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Back on his feet, Paras dodges an imprecise water gun from a now visibly exhausted poliwag.

Poliwags trainer panics, but a closer inspection would reveal a cunning glint in his eyes. He orders a command, which the crowd boos and jeers, "Poliwag, hide in the river, and recover your stamina."

The opposing trainer sees an opportunity, "Paras, close in and scratch him up, he must be on his last legs!"

Heavily breathing, Poliwag makes a beeline for the closest river, but it's eight meters out, while Paras is already within two.

From the blindspot of the Paras, it could be seen that Poliwag was overcharging a bubble in his mouth.

"PARAS WATCH OUT!"

Paras's trainer notices it, but it's too late, shifting his body mid-run, Poliwag fires a torrent of bubbles right into the eyes of the pursing Paras with a condescending smirk.

Blinded, Paras keeps his momentum, then trips, coming to a stop, he begins rolling around on the ground wiping at his eyes.

As if it was all planned, the Poliwag immediately begins charging towards the squirming Paras, and with a front flip to gain momentum, he hammers down his tail with a bone-breaking double slap. Even from far away, the sound of a cracking carapace is audible to all.

"GET UP PARAS, BEFORE HE HITS YOU AGAIN, DON'T WORRY ABOUT YOUR EYE'S JUST RUN AWAY!!!"

Shrieking in pain, Paras tries to obey his trainer, but the limbs on his right side were cracked, nearly limp, so it was slow going.

"ONE MORE TIME POLIWAG, JUST ONE MORE!"

Greedily gasping for air, the Poliwag pauses briefly.

The exhaustion along with the recoil, as well as the partial paralyzation was visibly taking its toll.

Noticing the cracked Paras almost back on his feet, Poliwag grits his teeth with a vicious squeak.

Pulling the last bits of strength from within himself, Poliwag winds back then whips the flailing paras into the ground once more with yet another crushing blow.

An even louder crunching sound is heard. Spiderlike cracks begin to cover an already frail carapace, and then something snaps. Paras' already frail carapace was broken like lobster dinner!

Paras begins spasming, but it soon becomes clear it was just an unconscious reaction, because a moment later he went completely still.

Green blood was leaking from all his orifices and cracks.

.

"STOP STOP, I GIVE UP," With tears in his eyes, Paras' trainer runs up and covers his unconscious pokemon, this was just incase Poliwag decides to strike yet another blow.

Fortunately, the Poliwag was too exhausted to do much more than wobble on his feet. The recoil from his final strike had him reeling.

Jared shakes his head in contemplation, (too interesting, it seems type advantage loses much of its benefit when you don't know an effective move... Poliwag really was on its last legs though, if his trainer wasn't so gung ho to have his Paras wildly charge in, then he probably could have still caught him before he reached the river, and finished him off.)

The crowd cheers loudly when Poliwag and his trainer are declared victorious, many of them even getting to their feet with excited applause.

Tilting his head away, Jared sighs, "These people are quite fickle, it was only a moment ago they were booing him... These people really do enjoy these bloody displays, don't they..."

Gastly mind snorts, "If a little blood bothers you now, It's going to cost you later."

"Heh, shush Gastly, I bleed myself every day, you know I'm not afraid of a little blood.", Jared said with a chuckle.

"Keep telling yourself that, and maybe it'll come true, stupid human"

.

Sometime later, a crew of cameramen could be seen gathering on different sides of the arena, Jared silently remarks while they set up, "It seems it was true, Akoni and his vaporeon are next."

"Pathetic, all the battles were pathetic, and this one will be too, you humans make a big deal out of nothing."

"So you were watching them after all?" A widely grinning Jared said.

"No, I was just bored"

"Suuuuuure..."

"Shut up human, It's starting," Spited Gastly.

.

With the Cameras set up on all sides of the square dome, you could feel a kind of frantic energy building, and everywhere you look people could be seen chattering excitedly.

The number of people watching had now expanded by three-fold.

Leilani was there as well, and two casters on either side could be heard whipping up the crowd into a frenzy.

Jared taps his foot with a frown, "What's the big deal? this is still the round of 480, won't the random opponent Akoni faces just get flattened in half a second?"

Some overfriendly teenagers overheard him from behind, and one of them decides to fill him in with a snarky voice, " Hey old man, he's against Broly, so of course it's a big deal."

"Who's Broly? Jared turned and said, completely ignoring the condescending tone.

The kid just laughs in his face and goes back to talking to his friends excitedly.

A well-dressed wisened man wearing a woven straw hat decides to cut in, speaking slowly, "If my aging mind recalls correctly, Broly should have finished in eighth place three months ago, along with his butterfree."

Coughing painfully, he continues, "Broly's Butterfree is not the average butterfree you see, it has Giga drain."

(Ah! so that's it!)

"Thanks for letting me know sir," Jared said quite gratefully.

With an embellishment not seen in his match, or the ones he had seen so far, a referee down below speaks in a deep tone through the speakers, "Ladies and gentlemen, as you are all aware, we have an exciting match here today!"

He then pauses for dramatic effect, "Today we have our eight place finisher Broly with his butterfree!!! and he is versus the undefeated Akoni and his Vaporeon!!!"

With those words, the crowd erupts with deafening cheers, the building energy, and frantic tension finally released at last.

Jared could literally feel the soundwaves through his body.

The referee waits for the cheering to wane, and then he bellows deeply,

WITHOUT FURTHER ADU,

BROLY AND BUTTERFREE!

VS

AKONI AND VAPOREON!

"BEGIN!!!"