Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

Chapter 1099: Chapter 1316: ChallengerChapter 1100: Chapter 1317: Triple Battle

After waiting for less than five minutes, Julian was scrolling through TikTok when Magearna came over and told him the challenger had arrived.

"Alright, time to loosen up a bit."

Julian stretched lazily, took a few steps forward, then suddenly stopped and said, "Magearna, do you want to battle?"

"Mage?"

Magearna pointed at itself, as if asking whether he really meant it.

"Mm."

Julian nodded.

"Mage!"

Magearna agreed excitedly and immediately followed behind him.

Although it wasn't adept at battling and was part of the support staff, fighting once in a while wasn't a bad thing.

Besides, it had never really fought in an official match before—just the occasional combat tips from its teacher Slowking, but with no actual battle experience.

Despite being the head housekeeper and looking like it held a purely administrative role, Slowking was actually quite strong. It just simply hadn't fought much.

With Magearna in tow, Julian quickly arrived at the battle arena.

The Gym staff and representatives from the Trainers Association were already there.

For National-Level Gym challenges, the Trainers Association always sent people to record the matches.

The recordings served many purposes—such as being used as instructional videos, or checking whether the Gym Leader was throwing the match too obviously.

If the Gym Leader went too easy and let the challenger win, the challenge would be invalidated, and the Gym Leader would face certain penalties.

Today's Gym challenge was Julian's first in several years, so the association took it very seriously and had sent highly professional recording personnel.

"Where's the challenger?"

Julian asked the gym staff beside him.

Upon arriving, he hadn't seen the challenger, even though they had just told him the challenger was already here.

"Went to the restroom," the staff member immediately replied.

Julian nodded and joked, "They aren't so nervous that they had to run to the bathroom, are they?"

These people were all old-timers at the Gym, many having started back in John's generation, so Julian was very familiar with them.

Moreover, Gym jobs could be inherited, and many had taken over from their parents.

One could say the gym staff were practically like retainers of the Walker family, serving the Walker household for generations.

Such people existed not only in the Walker family but in many other prominent families as well.

After all, serving a single family for generations naturally bred a level of loyalty far higher than that of most people.

Soon, someone emerged from the direction of the restroom.

When Julian saw who it was, he said in surprise, "Pierce? What are you doing here?"

The trainer challenging the Gym was none other than one of Julian's few good friends, Pierce.

Julian strode up to him quickly and thumped him on the shoulder with his palm, saying with some excitement, "Why would you come challenge my gym? Isn't this just asking for a beating?"

Pierce had originally been very happy to see Julian, but after hearing the latter half of that sentence, he didn't seem quite as happy anymore.

"Don't tell me you didn't even know the challenger was me?"

From Julian's reaction, it seemed he hadn't even bothered to check who was coming.

"I was just too lazy to look at the profile. But since it's you, then there's even less reason for me to look," Julian shrugged.

"Bast**d, what's that supposed to mean?"

Pierce laughed and cursed.

"You still haven't said why you came to challenge my gym. Has the military suddenly gotten so idle?" Julian asked.

Pierce was one of the military's key talents. He barely had any free time of his own, let alone time to challenge Gyms.

Besides, why would he challenge Gyms in the first place?

If it was just to gain battle experience, there was absolutely no need to challenge Gyms—the military was the best place to gain combat experience.

And Julian certainly didn't believe that Pierce needed Gym challenges to improve his combat skills.

The number of battles Pierce had experienced absolutely exceeded his own.

In terms of sheer combat experience, this guy was probably even more seasoned than he was.

To be honest, Julian couldn't really claim to have an extraordinary amount of battle experience himself. Most of his wins came from simply overpowering his opponents with raw strength.

When both sides were evenly matched, a trainer's experience could indeed influence the outcome of a battle.

But when there was a large gap in strength, even if the weaker side had significantly more experience and could slightly increase their chances of winning, the stronger side would still prevail most of the time.

In Pokémon battles, differences in strength generally mattered more than differences in experience.

"It was a trial mission assigned to me by the military—to challenge seventeen gyms," Pierce explained.

"Seventeen?"

Julian was momentarily confused, then asked instinctively, "Shouldn't it be eighteen?"

"They excluded your Gym."

Pierce rolled his eyes and said irritably, "The military assigned me a training mission, not a mission to get beaten up. Challenging your Gym would basically be delivering myself to the slaughter."

"Mm-mhm, so why did you end up coming anyway?" Julian asked.

Pierce explained, "I've already challenged the seventeen Gyms. Leaving your Gym unchallenged just felt incomplete. Plus, we haven't seen each other in a long time, so this was a good chance to meet up."

Julian nodded. It really had been a few years since they'd last met.

It wasn't that they couldn't see each other—it was just that he stayed holed up at home all day, too lazy to go out, and he never really felt the urge to either.

"So you beat all seventeen of the previous gyms?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

Pierce said, exasperated, feeling once again that Julian was looking down on him.

If it weren't for Julian, then he, Ember, Asher, and Rowan would be the top-tier geniuses. But now, with Julian around, the very word "genius" had been redefined because of his existence.

Nowadays, if someone claimed to be a genius, others would immediately say, "Oh, you're a genius? Are you as much of a genius as Champion Walker?" And hearing that, the person would instantly fall into despair.

Julian's existence had completely overshadowed every genius in the world.

If they could at least barely see his back as he moved ahead, that would be one thing. But the reality was that even if Julian stood still in front of them, they still couldn't catch up.

That was the most despairing and infuriating part of it all.

"Impressive."

Hearing Pierce's reply, Julian gave him a thumbs-up.

National-level Gyms varied in strength, but as long as it was a National-level Gym, the Gym Leader would at least be at peak of the Elite tier.

Meaning the baseline was peak Elite, then on to early, mid, late-stage Pseudo-Champion, and finally peak Pseudo-Champion.

As far as Julian knew, the peak Pseudo-Champion Gym Leader was from the Drake family's Dragon-type Gym, and the leader was the current Dragon Elite, Victor.

"You even beat Elite Victor?" Julian asked.

A few years ago, Pierce had only been a early-stage Pseudo-Champion. Had he already reached peak Pseudo-Champion tier in just a few years?

That rate of growth would be absurdly fast.

"No." Pierce shook his head and explained, "Elite Victor wasn't there at the time. I beat the acting Gym Leader, whose strength was at mid-stage Pseudo-Champion level."

At his age, if he could actually defeat Victor, he'd definitely be Julian the Second, and the military would be treating him like a national treasure, offering him the finest food and drink.

*****

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"That makes more sense."

Hearing that Pierce had beaten the acting Gym Leader, Julian nodded as if that was only natural. He'd almost been fooled for a moment, actually thinking Pierce now had the strength to defeat Victor.

"You MF, what's that supposed to mean? You think everyone's a freak like you?"

Pierce said with a smile, his tone tinged with helplessness.

His own improvement had actually been tremendous.

In just a few years, he'd risen from early-stage Pseudo-Champion to mid, and he was close to breaking into the late-stage.

This rate of improvement was rare anywhere in the world. It just utterly paled in comparison to Julian.

So ever since he'd realized Julian was a complete monster, he'd given up any notion of competing with him.

He was human; Julian was a freak. How could a human compare to a freak? That would just be asking for trouble.

And when it came to comparisons, if you wanted to be happy, you compared yourself to those worse off than you. That was how you realized how outstanding you actually were, and your confidence would naturally rise.

If you foolishly compared yourself to some godlike figure, you'd only be crushing your own spirit.

It was like if you earned ten thousand a month while most people earned only six or seven thousand—then you'd definitely be considered excellent.

But if you compared yourself to someone making a hundred thousand, or even millions a month, there would be no basis for comparison at all. Instead, you'd just end up feeling like you were utterly worthless.

"I'm just too talented. How can you call me a freak?" Julian retorted.

The two hadn't seen each other for so long that they talked for over half an hour before Pierce suddenly remembered his purpose for being there today.

"Alright, enough talk. I, the challenger, am about to begin my challenge."

Julian nodded, then asked, "1, 3, or 6?"

Meaning 1v1, 3v3, or 6v6.

But Pierce simply shook his head. "None of those."

'None of them?' Julian frowned.

"We'll do a triple battle."

"Triple battle?"

Julian wondered if he'd misheard. He knew about double battles, but what the hell was a triple battle? Had the Trainers' Association released a new challenge format during the years he'd been shut away?

"Yeah. Three Pokémon on the field at the same time," Pierce said.

"Got the guts?"

He even added a taunt at the end.

"Fine," Julian nodded without hesitation. "I'd like to see what you've got up your sleeve."

There was definitely a reason this guy had proposed a triple battle. Julian was curious, so he naturally agreed.

Soon, both sides took their places at opposite ends of the battlefield.

The protective barrier was activated, and the Gym staff took their positions. The Trainers' Association personnel had already started up their recording equipment, feeling a fair bit of excitement in their hearts.

After all, even double battles fought by Julian were extremely rare, let alone triple battles. As far as they knew, this might even be a first.

As the challenger, Pierce could have waited for the Gym Leader to send out his Pokémon first before choosing his own. But he had no such intentions and simply tossed out three Poké Balls at once.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

As the Poké Balls snapped open, three Pokémon quietly appeared on the battlefield.

Seeing these three, Julian's expression turned to one of understanding. "So that's why you wanted a triple battle."

The staff on the sidelines were also surprised.

Pierce's three Pokémon were none other than the three Legendary Titans—Regice, Registeel, and Regirock.

Originally, Pierce had only Regirock. Later, he had captured Registeel, and now, he had even captured the last of the three, Regice.

The legendary trio of titans, gathered in full by Pierce—that was truly something. Even Julian was somewhat impressed.

Although there were multiple of the three Regis located across the world, completing the full set was still incredibly difficult.

It wasn't just a matter of defeating them.

While defeating them, you also had to earn their recognition. Otherwise, even if you forcefully captured them with a Poké Ball, their inherent Rule Force would destroy the ball.

Pierce seemed to be only the second trainer in the world to have gathered all three Regis. The first was a Champion-level trainer from Gallia.

All three Regis were at level 86, meaning they really weren't far from the late-stage Pseudo-Champion level.

And with these three legendary Pokémon, Pierce's path to becoming a Champion was as good as set in stone—it was only a matter of time.

Julian looked at the three Regis with an appreciative gaze and suddenly felt that this kind of collection game might be pretty fun too.

Thinking about it, among his own Pokémon, sets he could collect included the three Legendary Birds and the Tao Trio.

For the Legendary Birds, he was still missing Zapdos and Articuno—that was quite a gap to fill. But for the Tao Trio, he was only missing the last one, Kyurem.

Come to think of it, the possibility of actually completing that set seemed pretty high.

Compared to the Black and White Dragons, Kyurem in the outside world wasn't actually that well-known. The legends only said that it was the product of the Black and White Dragons' separation.

Furthermore, Kyurem could fuse with either Zekrom or Reshiram to become an even more powerful Pokémon.

Julian's mind suddenly stirred—this had potential.

More importantly, he also wanted to find something to do for himself. The biggest problem, however, was where Kyurem was and how to find it.

"Julian."

"Julian!"

At first, when Pierce saw Julian staring at his three Titans, he had felt rather proud.

After all, he had managed to gather all three of them. But then he noticed Julian's gaze growing increasingly unfocused.

It looked like he was... spacing out?

"Huh? What?"

Snapping back to reality, Julian responded reflexively.

"You can send out your Pokémon now."

Pierce's face darkened slightly. This guy really had been daydreaming.

"Alright."

Julian nodded, then sent out his Pokémon.

They were: Magearna, level 91; Zeraora, level 93; and Salamence, level 92.

Sensing the aura emanating from the three Pokémon, Pierce's expression darkened even further.

"Don't you have any Pseudo-Champion Pokémon?" he asked helplessly.

Was he really sending Champion-level Pokémon against someone who was only a mid-stage Pseudo-Champion? And not just one, but three of them.

'You really think too highly of me, don't you?'

Julian scratched his head sheepishly. "Right now, my only Pseudo-Champion Pokémon is Kingambit. I also have an Elite-level Larvitar. All the others have already become Champion."

In three years, Julian's progress had naturally been enormous.

Cough, cough—

Pierce nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.

He had thought his own progress over these years was impressive, but compared to Julian's, it wasn't even worth mentioning.

Julian's entire team was practically Champions now.

Seeing that even Magearna had become a Champion, Pierce felt somewhat bitter inside.

After all, he knew that Magearna's role in Julian's team was logistics, and it was also Slowking's little apprentice—the type not adept at battling.

Even though Magearna was a Mythical Pokémon, it didn't really belong among combat-focused Pokémon.

Yet even it had become a Champion.

One could only imagine how much Julian's true battle-oriented Pokémon had grown.

*****

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