Avery Miller
Central Park
Affected RP'ers: @Desolate Divine

Avery followed behind Alyssa as she led them over to a small bench. They waited patiently as she got set up, relaxing their smile a bit. Avery was used to being interviewed by Contest Reporters, so they knew what to expect whether it was a big station like the Performers and Coordinator Programming Network (PCPN for short), or a smaller outlet like Sinnoh Contests Weekly. But they weren’t used to being interviewed by battling networks. Other than a few interviews they did in the Galar Circuit, Avery hadn’t ever really done tournament interviews before. Still, Alyssa didn’t seem like a malicious sort and BattleNet was fairly reputable, so Avery doubted this be something like the content Contest Wars put out.

Avery listened carefully as Alyssa stated her four questions. They took a moment to think over their responses before answering.

The first question was somewhat easy. They had taken the time to come up with a convenient backstory for why they were on this cruise in the first place, especially when they were rather out of place otherwise.

“Well with the Lilycove Grand Festival ribbon being the latest under my belt, I decided to take a bit of a break from contests in order to study more techniques from battling. While I might be among the firsts to dabble and utilize techniques from Pokemon Musicals and other types of competitions, I will not be the last. Other younger coordinators are already stepping up to the plate to challenge me, especially in the battler front. So I thought I might pick back up my own battler styles to compete. One of my friends heard about my decision and passed along an invitation to the tournament which I gladly accepted.

“As for how the tournament has gone thus far, I must admit it’s much better than I anticipated. Candidly, I did not expect to make it this far, but it seems my Pokémon partners are set to prove to me exactly how strong they are.”

Avery stopped to recall the battle from the night before. They had faced off against a Tyson Daveson the previous night. He had been a fearsome opponent that had been neck and neck with Avery for the entire fight. Gloria only managed to snag the win by a hair at the end.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect out of last night’s battle. Mr. Daveson specializes in steel types, which is not something I have much of a counter for. He had definitely done his research on me given two of his Pokémon were an Escavalier and a Scizor. Those two powerful bugs could have easily crippled about half of my team. Thankfully, I anticipated something like that and led with Daybreak, my Rapidash, with Knautia, my Zebstrika, in reserves to handle the two Bug/Steel types. But his Steelix was another matter, of which neither Daybreak nor Knautia could effectively handle. Thankfully, they managed to weaken it enough that Gloria could take out the Steelix, even if it was just by the skin of our teeth. Still, I trusted in my partners and they trusted in me. Ultimately it was Gloria’s quick thinking that got us the win last night. Without it, Mr. Daveson would be sitting here with you now, not me.”

Avery gave Gloria an approving pat as they paused for a moment, wanting to remind the Shaymin of her great accomplishment. “As for tonight’s match…” Avery gave a nervous laugh and began to play with their earring. “In all candor, I’m not too confident. With how close my battle against Mr. Daveson was, even with a Pokémon that had a type advantage against his team, I don’t anticipate the battle for the finals going in my favor. Ms. Cassandra fancies her fire types, of which I don’t have a particularly strong counter. Knautia might be able to weaken her team given he knows Rain Dance, and Daybreak does know High Horsepower, but other than that, my best bet is just to brute force the win, which I don’t anticipate being the most effective strategy for this situation.

“Still, I’m grateful to have gotten as far as I have. My partners have done far better than I anticipated and I couldn’t be more proud of them. Besides, what better opponent to go out against than one of the infamous Diamond Ladies?”

Avery stopped messing with the earring and stopped again in thought before saying, “I think I might continue the battler’s route for the time being. I have five badges from the Galar Circuit so I had been contemplating completing the last three gyms needed to compete in the champion’s cup at the end of the year. But I haven’t fully committed to that idea yet so I might change my mind yet.”

Avery smiled at Alyssa and said, “Hopefully that answers your questions?”