Julian has already called it, as soon as Yesh dealt with his opponent with an easy win Ash rushed out and challenged Yesh.
Everybody around the battlefield was surprised by how loud Ash was when he challenged Yesh, they looked at him and thought he was just some kid who is overly excited to battle a strong trainer, this is not something rare as there are many kids who do this.
But some recognized him, even Yesh.
Yesh "You are the finalist from both Hoenn and Sinnoh league"
Yesh said after taking a look at Ash, being the only trainer to have faced Julian twice and both in the finals of the league, Ash also has a very good reputation among the elite trainers in the world, just being a 10-year-old boy he has done much more than anyone in this world.
Ash "You know me?"
Ash asked confused while looking at Yesh, even though some people recognize him, it is not very often because he is just a kid and still hasn't achieved as much as an Elite Four to make his famous, but to the massive league fans, Ash is one of the best in their eyes.
Yesh "Yes, you are the one who fought Julian twice, but both time you got beat up pretty badly"
He said with no emotion, but for some reason, Ash thought he was getting mocked.
Ash "Enough talk, let's battle, I will show you how good I am"
Ash said and pulled out a Pokeball from his back pocket, this will be the first time Julian will see what Pokemons Ash has chosen for his Unova journey, he already knows what Pokemons Yesh has, his Mawile is the strongest in his team but the most troublesome one will be the Croagunk and the last pokemon is Drilbur that Julian gave him.
It is very common for starting trainers to only have two to three pokemons during their third challenges, it not very easy to catch a good pokemon and even if one is able to catch a pokemon, it is sometimes hard to build a relationship with them, most of them caught pokemons are released back to the wild because they don't listen to their trainers and have bad chemistry together.
Julian's Omniforce helps him a lot with bonding with his pokemon, especial in case of Absol, he was the hardest one for Julian to bond with, he always kept his distance for his other pokemons and trained alone, if Absol didn't know that he is not the strongest in the group and there are monsters keeping an eye on him, he would have surly rebelled in the first few days.
When it comes to Ash it's different, Julian is really surprised by how easily he is able to gain a pokemon's trust, no matter what stage they are in, trainers mostly try to catch young first stage pokemons because they are easiest to bond with.
The battle is about to start and Julian focuses on the battlefield, waiting for both Ash and Yesh to choose their pokemons, Ash makes the move and sends out his first pokemon, Scraggy.
Julian looks at the Scraggy and notices that it is quite young, but it is a decent pokemon, Yesh also does the same and sends out his pokemon, Croagunk.
Both pokemons have a fighting typing with another typing, one is a poison and the other is dark, Julian is curious to see how Ash will do now, its been a long time since he has seen Ash train with his pokemons.
Since this is a one on one battle, both of them have to give it their all to win, there is no second pokemon to rely on.
The battle started and Ash made his first move by calling out Headbutt, Scraggy charged at Croagunk while holding onto its looses skin which looks like pants to deliver a powerful Headbutt, these pokemons are known for their very hard skull and they will headbutt anyone that makes eye contact with them.
Yesh just watched as Scraggy got close to his Croagunk, as it was about to deliver the blow Yesh made the call and asked his Croagunk to dodge and then use Poison Sting.
Croagunk did just that and jumped back dodging the Headbutt and then shot needle-like projectiles at Scraggy from its mouth, Ash's Scraggy seems to have seen it coming and suddenly pulled its skin up, the stretchy leathery skin quickly covered its whole body and blocked the needles from doing any damage but they still pierced and did what they were meant to do and that is to poison Scraggy.
Everyone noticed that Scraggy got poisoned as its cheeks became purple, getting poison in a battle is really bad, it will weaken the pokemon and will slowly cause it to faint, from here on the opponent just needs to keep its distance from the one who is poisoned and it can win the battle within a few minutes.
Ash seemed worried by this as he watched his Scraggy struggling to keep its footing when it suddenly started to glow lightly, soon cracks started to appear in this glow and it shattered, once the glow shattered Scraggy became normal, the poison effect was gone.
As Julian saw this he realized that Ash's Scraggy has the ability Shed Skin, this ability helps a pokemon get rid of any status condition it is put in, for example, poisoned, paralyzed, sleep, burned, frozen, confused, infatuated, trapped and, cursed.
This ability is quite helpful for a pokemon in battle.
Yesh didn't see this coming but he is not too surprised, Julian has thought him to stay calm no matter what happens during a battle, even if he is close to losing, he just needs one chance to turn the table against his opponent and this battle hasn't even started.