"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 parison to Julian.
So ever since he'd realized Julian was a plete monster, he'd given up any notion of peting with him.
He was human; Julian was a freak. How could a human pare to a freak? That would just be asking for trouble.
And when it came to parisons, if you wanted to be happy, you pared 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 pared 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 pared yourself to someone making a hundred thousand, or even millions a month, there would be no basis for parison 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, pleting 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 being 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.
e to think of it, the possibility of actually pleting that set seemed pretty high.
pared 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 bee 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 bee 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 pared to Julian's, it wasn't even worth mentioning.
Julian's entire team was practically Champions now.
Seeing that even Magearna had bee 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 bat-focused Pokémon.
Yet even it had bee a Champion.
One could only imagine how much Julian's true battle-oriented Pokémon had grown.
*****
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