Journey Towards Greatness

The top 32 continued as Tobias also advanced to the top 16, following his the young teen in his 16 also advanced easily, now people started to notice him as well and the name Brian started to come across everyone's mouth whoever talked about the league and who might be this year's winner.

As always Julian has the most vote over 70% of the audience believed that he would win, twenty-seven percent believed that Tobias will cause an upset by taking down Julian and the remaining three percent believed in other trainers as they were family and friends. ​​

Ash advanced as well followed by Paul, Conway, and Barry, the remaining 9 trainers also had a hard battle advancing.

The top 32 is over and the top 16 trainers have to battle against one another to get into the top 8, the quarter-finals.

The trainers were allowed to rest before the top 16 began, during this time Julian didn't train his pokemon, he just let them rest as its no use for training them now because they aren't going to improve in just two days.

While Julian enjoyed the scenery around the Lily valley other participants of the top 16 were training their ass off so they can enter the top eight.

During his walk Julian came across Paul, seeing Julian Paul walked straight towards Julian and stood in front of him.

Paul "This time I will show you how strong I really am"

He said in a confident voice.

Julian did notice some change in Paul but he is still as arrogant as ever but Julian just smiled, it was not his place to lecture Paul into doing something, that is how Paul is, he is a natural talent when it comes to pokemon training and he has the right to be arrogant.

Julian "Good, then I expect you to not lose to anyone until you face me"

Paul "You don't need to worry about that, I will face you no matter what"

He said and walked away to train, Julian smiled as he watched Paul walk away, Julian continued on his walk as he got excited about the upcoming battle.

After Julia returned to his room he noticed that the battle chart for the top 16 has been updated, he looked and his opponent and sighed, it was another random opponent, by now Julian really wanted to face off against one of the top 7 on the leader board, he looked at his opponent, it was a woman, he carefully looked at this woman and noticed something, he realized that he has seen this woman somewhere before, then suddenly realization hit him, it was Assunta, the one he battled in the Indigo League finals.

Julian 'I didn't think I would see her here in Sinnoh'

Julian thought and remembered his battle against her, it was really a one-sided battle so he didn't remember much from it.

Julian 'Well, I wonder what has changed from our first battle'

He thought and turned his phone off before going to sleep.

The day of the top 16 arrived and Julian was once again the first one to start the battle, the Announcer introduced Julian and his opponent Assunta.

Announcer "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a huge rematch between the two finalists of the Indigo league, the undefeated Julian and the runner up of the Indigo League Assunta, in their last battle Julian triumphed over Assunta, will the same thing happen again or with Assunta pull off a miracle and head to the quarter-finals.

Assunta "We meet again"

She said as she looked at Julian, the image of her defeat is still fresh in her mind, Julian's Infernape one punching her Golduck and defeating her.

Julian "I wonder how different things will be this time"

Assunta "I know you have trained new pokemons but I won't play fair, I will use my old team, the same one I used in Indigo League and I will defeat you"

Julian "Interesting, bring it on then"

Julian said and took out a Pokeball from his pouch and waited for his opponent to get ready, the referee started to explain the rules of the battle, this is a three on three battle, once both trainers gave their ok the referee started the battle.

Assunta sent out her Venomoth while Julian sent out Manaphy.

Seeing the Manaphy the whole stadium broke into a loud uproar as Manaphy is a Mythical Pokemon, the audience thought that they are lucky seeing Darkrai in the league conference but now they also saw one of the rarest pokemon in the world, the Manaphy.

The battle started and Assunta decided to paralyze Manaphy using Stun Spore but it was useless, Manaphy sent a powerful Water Pulse towards Venomoth and cleaned up the Stun Spore before it could even reach Manaphy, the Water Pulse then continued and hit Venomoth and knocked it out cold.

Seeing how fast the first exchange ended Assunta is shocked.

Assunta "As expected, you are ridiculous"

She said and sent out her Venusaur.

Assunta "Venusaur, maximum power, Leaf Storm"

Julian "Ice Beam"

Venusaur created a massive tornado of sharp leaf blades that rushed towards Manaphy but Manaphy shot a powerful Ice Beam which went straight through the Leaf Storm and hit Venusaur before the Leaf Storm could even touch Manaphy.

Manaphy froze the Venusaur on the spot as it fainted inside the cold ice, Assunta just laughed it off and sent her Golduck, she knew she is not going to win this.

Assunta "Golduck, Hydro Pump, full power"

Julian "Ice Beam once again"

Both pokemon blasted their attacks at each other and when the moves collided, the Hydro Pump started to freeze on the spot and it created a massive ice wall between them.

Julian "Use Scald and finish it"

Manaphy shot a sharp highly compressed stream of hot scalding water at ridiculous speed, the water jet just tore a hole through the ice wall like a hot knife through butter and hit Golduck and sent it flying and knocked it out hot as steam rose from its body as the burn effect seems to have been activated.

With this Julian won and entered the top 8, right into the quarter-finals.