The seventh and final block of competitors in the first round of the Grand Festival is looking a little sparse. Where there should have been four, only two have appeared. The presiding judge finally decides that they can wait no longer for the missing coordinators to arrive, but a fair crowd has gathered despite the reduced number of competitors. The two that remain, Byrus and Kratos Aurion, are both contest veterans and sure to put on an excellent show. Unlucky for them, perhaps, that they have been set against one another in the first round, but good for the audience. People in the crowd titter and fan themselves with their programs but are patient enough until, finally, the judge appears onstage to announce the start of the appeals.
Byrus and Drann
Byrus returns to the contest stage after a long absence from the league, and to start off this grand festival, he chooses to release Drann the gyarados.
The towering serpent is about as out of place as a teenager in a kiddie pool as she juts up from the small pond provided for the first appeal round, but fortunately there is enough space for her to swim around a bit. Drann begins to circle the pond, weaving side to side as she goes. The gyarados picks up speed as a whirlpool begins to swirl in the center of the pond, the air above flickering with green light. With more stirring, a twister shoots up from the center of the water, roaring with blue and green fire as it spins. At the same time, Drann's dragon dance reaches its most frantic, the gyarados thrashing and flailing to some unheard beat as she continues to circle the twister, as though dancing around some weird totem.
The twister begins to spin itself down, and Drann waits until her dance brings her around to its far side, with the swirling flames between herself and the audience, and tenses herself for a powerful lunge. Roaring orange flames dance along the gyarados' scales as she hurls herself through the dying twister and clear out of the water, making for the audience at top speed. The giga impact transforms Drann into a brightly-flaming comet with a long, scaly tail, shooting across the grass at the front row of onlookers. The gyarados pulls to a halt just before crashing into the audience, but those in the first row are showered with water and can feel the heat of the giga impact on their faces as Drann comes dreadfully close into slamming into them all.
Once the audience has recovered from their shock, they respond with hearty applause, though several who toppled out of their chairs in fright are still returning to their seats. The halo of energy around Drann fades away and the gyarados ducks her head in a bow, Byrus following her lead before recalling her and relinquishing the spotlight.
Negrek: 8.5
Overall, it's a nice appeal. The only thing is that the giga impact doesn't quite fit with the actions that come before; perhaps if you could have kept up the eerie dance kind of theme, or done something more with the twister, it would have made this a little more awesome. Using dragon dance was a nice take on the old "create a tornado of some kind, then do X" appeal, rather than just shooting something into the twister or trying to freeze it or what have you.
Metallica Fanboy: 7.0
The Twister and Dragon Dance combination made a solid appeal, but, the Giga Impact ending felt kind of unrelated to the remainder of the appeal.
Mike the Foxhog: 6.9
This appeal went quite well with all the dancing and glowy things, but I was rather under the impression the idea was to impress the audience rather than give them all heart attacks. Aside from that it turned out okay, though the Giga Impact at the audience appeared to have little to do with the first bit. It may have turned out better overall had you stuck to one theme.
Kratos Aurion and Kiboko
Next to the field is contest veteran Kratos Aurion, who chooses the newly-evolved Kiboko for this appeal round.
Unlike his African cousins, the sand-hippo shows no desire to go near the pond and stays high and dry, facing the audience. The hippowdon begins to stomp his legs one at a time, setting up a steady beat that is more felt than heard. As Kiboko's drumming continues, the ports on his back begin to release small puffs of sand, syncopating the regular drumbeats rising from his feet. The tempo increases as Kiboko works up towards his big finish, his jets of sand becoming more frequent and exuberant, and finally the hippowdon rears up on his hind legs and brings his forelimbs crashing down for one final downbeat. A curtain of golden light explodes from under his feet as he unleashes his earth power, and the air is filled with a drifting haze of sand as he blasts a final cloud of it from all his ports at once.
The audience applauds as the air slowly clears of drifting particles, and Kiboko rumbles with pleasure at the attention. Kratos Aurion recalls him and gives a brief bow himself, then walks out of the circle of watchers to make way for the next coordinator.
Negrek: 10.0
I love the creativity on this one. This is the first time I can remember someone trying a real musical appeal like this, and you pulled it off well, with all the attacks coming together nicely to create a coherent and entertaining performance. It also played well to hippowdon's strengths, although drumming hippos might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you look at them.
Metallica Fanboy: 8.5
It was clearly a creative appeal; the rhythm, the inclusion of non-attack movements that set up the appeal well, and the finish as well, though I'm thinking there could be a way to make it fit the whole rhythm idea better.
Mike the Foxhog: 9.3
Overall a very good appeal. Nice use of coordination/synchronisation/whatever to compliment the standard blow-up-everything-in-sight approach. Not much else to comment on; nice job.
It doesn't take long for the judges to come up with their scores. In almost no time at all, the final numbers are displayed:
Final Scores
Kratos Aurion: 27.8
Byrus: 22.4
