[attr="class","dannypostlyric1"]come on, fire

[attr="class","dannypostlyric2"]I OUGHT TO LEARN I CAN'T PLEASE MYSELF EVERY TIME

[attr="class","dannypostleft3"]



Challengers were, by no means, a rarity to the person named Champion. While official battles recognized by the League and Association were only ever held every three years, trainers from all walks of life, all levels of skill hoped and prayed for their one chance to test their skills against the main heralded – however inaccurately – the strongest trainer in the region. Never mind the fact that the system was flawed, relying on an elimination process that could evict trainers of greater skill simply for unlucky matchups, or that the strongest trainers the region had to offer weren't even guaranteed to participate at all. That didn't seem to change people's minds, though, assuming the thought ever crossed them to begin with. Child and veteran – run-of-the-mill trainer or gym leader alike – everyone wanted to pit themselves against the standard of “the best”. How many times had he beaten Ryuuna alone already? If the tallies in his notebooks held true, at least twenty, perhaps closer to thirty by now. Tenacity was taken to an entirely new level by that girl, if not defined by her in its entirety; it was some small miracle that she and all of her skill and strength had yet to surpass him. (A calculated trick on her end, surely, although he couldn't quite get a read through all of her glowering that would allow him to make a guess at what she stood to gain from practice loss.)[break][break]

To an extent, the woman across from him was no different. The total number of victories he had earned over her were smaller, of course, but researched into his own past dictated that this wasn't the first time she'd asked for a spar between members of the highest order of the League, and a refresher on her temperament would instruct him that it probably wouldn't be the last. From the sounds of it, he was simply a gloried practice dummy to test out new or optimized strategies on before they were put to use against actual trainers – a glance on the time since she came into her position would tell him that she hadn't even faced her first League tournament, which certainly explained away the need to perfect strategies before hand, but he didn't know that in the present – but fighting against a trainer so highly acclaimed that she'd earned the title of Elite Four at all, much less at such a young age was different than fighting against any random trainer off the street, or even Ryuuna and her gym leader-level army of Dragon-types. Certainly, his string of good luck would not last him forever. He'd need to be as strong as possible for when the day came that it failed it.[break][break]

There were probably better concealed places for a sparring match, but his notes were quick to inform that the best place to hold a battle for the sake of battling, not hiding was right here where they stood opposite of one another, prepped with PokeBall in hand for round... oh, he forgot the number. No doubt he'd forget to shout his starting call if he didn't do it soon.[break][break]

In his hand, Percival trembled with anticipation: the classic start to any battle with the Champion Daniel. If Makio expected any different, she'd certainly overestimated him. “Ready when you are!” he called to her. “The first move's yours!”