<TIME SKIP TO THE ARRIVAL ON THE ISLAND, JUST SUMMARIZE WHAT YOU DID DURING THE TIME>
<Also huge post>
<Kari>
Kari explored the ship for the rest of the trip stopping by some of the screen that were showing the virtual battles of some of the trainers that were utilizing the virtual battlers. She recognized Max and watched his Flygon battle it out with the virtual Garchomp. And she briefly watched another trainer who was battling with an Eelektross against a virtual Mamoswine. It was all very exciting. Kari found a seat for the remainder of the trip in the lower part of the ship by a window that would normally by submerged underwater if the ship was in water. Shadow sat in a seat next to her. She never thought she would be able to fall asleep but sure enough, she dozed off with her head against the window.
<Approx. 2 Hours Later>
Kari was awoken by Shadow pulling slightly on he jumper and pushing her shoulder. "Wha...?" Kari readjusted herself in her seat while she looked out the window. It seems like the majority of the passengers had gotten over the novelty of the flying ship and had taken seats in various places and comfortably enjoying each-others company and their Pokémon. The Argonautica was descending and Kari had slept through most of the decent, the ship was just skimming the water now, slightly slowing down as it made reentry into the water. The stern of the ship made contact with the water first and slowly the rest of the hull landed in the water. The window next to Kari was completely underwater now and Kari could see countless schools of Pokémon and various larger ones like families of Wailords and Wailmers, Mantins, Mantykes, Tentacruel, Corsola, Lumineon, Seaking, just to name a few.
Kari unbuckled her seat-belt and got out of her seat after the ship stabilized in the water and was cruising along speedily across the water. She went back out onto the deck, a lot more people were present now. Kari managed to squeeze her way to the front of the boat and she could see the Veritas Island in the near distance. Most of all she can see the Battle Spire, spearing proudly into the sky, its reflective surface glimmering in the distance like a flame. She noticed that all around them seemed to be surrounded by a very dense wall of mist and fog, and that they had entered a massive circular clearing in the middle of it. "No wonder this island is impossible to find, it hidden in here." Kari looked up to the sky and strangely it was clear. So they were in a massive hole within the mist and fog.
Flying and oceanic bird Pokémon flew over head of every kind from various regions. some of the more curious water Pokémon swam up near the boat, some greeting the trainers they saw on the railing. As the Argonautica drew closer to the island it slowed down more and more as sail boats were spotted, 1 to 2 person sailboats along with some of the more daring Pokémon surfers on larger Pokémon such as Balstoise, Gyarados, Sharpedo, Kingdra, Milotic, and the like.
Kari let out her Salamence onto the deck after finding an empty spot on the deck. "If you want to fly and follow the boat you can." Kari patted the blue dragon. Sal roared with excrement as he took off into the air, barrel rolling and somersaulting gracefully though the air, startling some of the sea bird Pokémon around the area keeping pace with the boat. Within moments the boat slowed down dramatically as it prepared to dock.
The Battle Spire was a simple yet stunning piece of architecture. The entire outside was covered in reflective windows with eight distinct edges that run vertically along the entire tower in gradual spiral upward into a singular point high into the air at the top of the tower, at its base were three large structures each connected to the base of the Spire with varying sloping and angular architecture, and also entirely covered in reflective windows. The overall shape of the tower was that of a candle flame
The massive dock that the Argonautica stopped at appeared to be specifically built for the skyboat. It pulled into an internal tunnel structure built out over the water, inside, eight bridges connected to the eight exit points of the ship, the interior of the building was massive and spacious, decorated with paintings of various Pokémon and renowned trainers. Machokes and Machops seem to be the primary staffed Pokémon in the area carrying luggage off the boat and running around with various mundane tasks.
Kari exited the boat as quickly as she could after returning Sal. She ran across the bridge, down various stairs, too excited to care about the glandular building with its many glass and crystal decorations. As soon as she exited the building she stopped to enjoy the sight. In front of was a massive plaza various trainers and Pokémon were scattered all over, many battle arenas were it up around the plaza as trainers battled one another for a bit of practice and to size one another up. in the very center of the plaza was a huge circular water fountain embedded into the ground with five other smaller ones evenly spaced around it, very impressive water works interconnected each of the fountains eventually with all five smaller fountains feeding streams into the center. The center fountain was elaborately decorated with the main feature being a huge statue of a Victini, with one of its hands raised in the air with a huge flaming fireball above its hand, the ball was actually on fire. Opposite of the building where the ship docked was the second landmark of Veritas Island. A huge basilica-like structure with four very tall spires even space across the front it, each was intricately decorated with carvings and statues of various Pokémon, there were three huge double doors at the top of the stairs, realistic statues of Arcanines were in bewteen each set of doors, sitting and looking out to the ocean. <For reference look up the La Sagrada Família Basilica>
Tall flag poles were evenly spaced around the plaza each flag had the symbol of the Pokémon leagues of numerous regions. In the Far distance there was another massive structure that resembled am unrealistically huge birds-nest slightly behind and off to the side of the Battle Spire, it was the Grand Masters Arena.
After taking in the sights Kari was joined by her fellow newcomers to the island. In front of her was a young woman in her mid twenties with darker toned skin, long black hair that was pulled into a neat ponytail, and piercing green eyes. She stood with her arms crossed waiting for all the new arrivals. She was dressed in black skintight shorts, a white tube-top and a cropped oversized grey zip-up hoodie, with simple but neat black sneakers, on the center of her tube-top was the symbol of the Battle Spire and around her neck hung a trainer card similar to the one Kari has except there was a bright red glowing outline around it. She was accompanied by a Charizard to her right and a Haxorus to her left, in addition there was a relatively large troop of Obstagoons that were directing all the new comers to gather in front of the woman. Kari tried to read the name on the woman's trainer card. 'Rebecca Violet' why does she seem so familiar ? Kari frowned slightly but kept looking around, she could already tell that the trainers here were absolutely amazing, the battles taking place on the arena's in the distance were incredibly intense.
An Obstagoon ran up to Rebecca a few moments later handing her a clipboard. She quickly scanned it and nodded. "Thanks." she told the Obstagoon. "All right everyone if I may have your attention please!" Rebecca commanded, her voice clear, sharp, and authoritative. "On behalf of the Battle Spire we welcome you all to Veritas Island. I hope the trip out here was not too inconvenient. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Rebecca Violet, I am one of the premier Battlemasters here on the island, some of you might recognize me, I know I recognize some of you, A little bit about myself, my starter Pokémon was a Charmander." she gestured to her Charizard, "I am originally from the Kanto region and a registered member of the Kanto Hall of Fame, currently I spend most of my off-seasons at the Battle Tree in Alola."
"BOWWW!" A strange sound that resembled a bark echoed as an extremely fast flying Pokémon swooped out from behind the tower and landed behind Rebecca, small dragon wings, a yellow body and long tail. It was a Dragonite and it was carrying a large messenger bag. "Bow?" the Dragonite reached into the messenger bad and pulled out a large stack of thin red books with the Spire logo printed on the cover.
"Thanks Joy, right on time." Rebecca nodded at the Dragonite, "Could you pass these out for me?" Joy nodded happily and handed a few smaller stacks to the assisting Obstagoons as he began passing them out himself. "Alright everyone, these little booklets with tell you everything you need to know about the Island, how our challenge system works, the rules, and some general information about notable members of the Spire including the Spire Masters." Rebecca clapped her hands together. "Now! I'm not going to go through the entire book with you all but I will highlight some key points. THE MOST important rule here is do NOT try to cheat the system. Every official challenge and battle is monitored, WIN TRADING is strictly forbidden and you will be escorted off the island immediately and banned from competing in the Spire in the current and future seasons, for those of you not sure what win trading is, basically when individuals agree to throwing a match on purpose to lose then re-challenging later and the other will lose on purpose. Please, please, don't do it, it's never worth it. Now, as Participants you are all welcome to challenge any other participant here. As I said before every battle is monitored and mediated by an official, you will find no shortages of arenas on the island, and especially within the tower. You may only officially challenge the same trainer every six hours and they hold every right to decline. But feel free to challenge people as many times as you want to practice sessions."
Kari was flipping through the book as Rebecca was explaining some of the rules. She turned to near the back of the book and found a page that summed up the core rules and how the overall system works. Official battles can happen at anytime and anywhere. Battling in the Spire is a great way to meet new trainers and a wide variety of them since it functioned similar to the Battle Tower where random match-ups happen and the trainers just go toe to toe in full battles. The more interesting thing that Kari was looking for was the Spire's Point system. They were called Glory and Prestige. Defeating other participants in official matches grants a base of one Glory point. If no additional points are wagered the losing trainer will lose nothing, but if points are wagered then Glory points would be subtracted from the losers Glory points. Once a Participant has collected five Glory points they can spend the points to challenge any Battlemaster of any Tier. Defeating Battlemasters awards Prestige Points, a Tier 1 Battlemaster awards 1 Prestige point, a Tier 2 awards 3 points, and a Tier 3 awards 5. The higher the Tier, the tougher they are. Collecting 5 Prestige points allows the individual to challenge a Spire Master.
"If there are any further questions, please feel free to ask any member of the Battle Spire staff, including myself, Battlemasters are official Spire staff and they will be more than happy to assist you. Battle Spire staff can be identified by their glowing trainer cards," Rebecca held up her own so everyone could see, "They are not all necessarily have red glowing borders, but only staff with the glowing borders. Now if you would all follow me, let's get all your cards activated!" Rebecca led the group towards the massive basilica-like building. Her three Pokémon forming a rough triangle around the group of people and some of the Obstagoons were in between them making sure no one was wandering off.
At the base of the stairs of the large building there was a very long row of tables set up similar to the ones at the docks before they boarded the ship. The group was split into ten different lines to speed the process up. each line was relatively short and Kari was up to the desk relatively quickly, she had been so distracted and excited by the beautiful scenery she almost tipped on herself. The island seemed to be the perfect mixture of technology and nature.
"Your letter and the card you received before boarding the ship please." the lady at the desk asked. Kari drew out her letter once more and handed her the requested items. The lady inserted the card halfway into another machine on the desk and with the letter in hand she held it in front of a scanner.
BEEP
She pulled out the card and handed Kari her card and the letter. The bright blue LED on the left of the card had turned bright green. 'Your card is now active. We will no longer need the letter so do what you want with it. If you would like to be taken to the resort area of the Island where you will be staying there is a group forming by Rebecca and she will take you all once everyone has activated their cards." The lady gestured to Rebecca who was standing and waiting near a stone-paved path that lead down to a lower part of the island. "Or you can explore on your own. The plaza is a fantastic place to meet and challenge fellow trainers, there is a city further into the island you can visit there are numerous trails and roads that lead there, and that is also where the Spire is located." The lady bowed and explained, "Enjoy your stay Miss. Rebane."
Kari smiled and nodded. "Thanks!" Kari left the line ran to the Victini fountain in the center of the plaza and let out all of her team once more. "Gather up guys! Photo op!" She squished her team together and snapped a selfie in front the statue and sent it to Celeste.
