"This is going to be so great! Who's coming with us so far?"

Froakie was talking excitedly and asking questions about our trip. All the team knew so far was when we were leaving and that our first stop was Toronto. We hadn't taken the chance to tell them anything else yet.

"I think we already mentioned Lilac. Aside from her, Jake, Desmond, Payton, Wilby, and Callen are also coming along." Greninja responded. "Our entire group is there, so not that much pressure, but you still need to behave."

"Okay, fine Dad."

"Shush."

"This is great! We haven't seen Wilby in a while! This is going to be so much fun!"

"It's only been a week-"

"He's excited. Let him blab." Cinderace grinned. "It won't hurt anyone."

We continued walking as Froakie talked excitedly about how we were going to ace all of the gyms. Vulpix tried to tell him that probably wasn't going to happen, but the little frog just wasn't having it. I admired his confidence, but I agreed with Vulpix. Gyms were supposed to be a challenge, and our team couldn't even beat the municipal league. I didn't say anything to Froakie though. I didn't want to ruin his mood for the rest of our walk.

Greninja, Frogadier, Froakie, Vulpix, Pikachu, Eevee, Popplio, Cinderace and I had all decided we needed some fresh air and gone for a walk. The sun was setting and we were headed back home now. Frogadier was carrying Popplio and they were trailing behind. Pikachu and Eevee ran up ahead, but not out of sight. Froakie, Vulpix, Cinderace, Greninja and I stayed in a group right where we could keep an eye on everyone.

"What do you think will be the hardest gym?" Froakie asked.

"Dragon type gym! We barely have anything to fight them with!" Vulpix replied.

"We have Clefable, Clefairy, and Dragalge. I think the electric gym will be the hardest."

"Because the team is mostly water types?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I guess we don't have a great variety of mons for the electric-" Vulpix got cut off there.

"Hey, what's this?" Froakie asked, picking up something he'd found on the ground.

"You dummy, can't you see it's a pokemon card?" Vulpix said. I took the card from Froakie and inspected it myself.

"Good find Froakie. We're lucky this isn't damaged. It's a greninja card." I said after a few moments. "We should let whoever's inside, out."

I released the greninja from their card, and they looked panicked. The first thing they did was look around frantically, probably for their trainer. It was just a regular greninja, a little shorter than mine. Nothing notable about them. He didn't seem to notice us. At the very least he wasn't acknowledging us.

"Hey, are you okay?" Cinderace asked. I tried to say something as well, but the new 'mon wasn't paying attention.

"Hey!" My greninja grabbed the other one by the shoulders, holding him still and shocking him for a minute. "Calm down! What's wrong?"

The other frog ninja said something in their own language, to which my greninja chuckled a bit and told him he hadn't stepped into an alternate universe where pokemon speak human language. After explaining the translator microphones, he went through the bag I usually carried with me and found a spare, then gave it to the other greninja.

"Hello?" He tested the microphone, and jumped back, startled. "What the-"

"See? Aren't they cool? Now our human can understand you!" Froakie grinned up at the new greninja, who only gave a slight nod back.

"So, what's wrong number two?" Cinderace asked. Frogadier, who'd caught up with us, elbowed him.

"Ow! What? I'm just trying to make telling them apart a little easier..." Cinderace mumbled.

"How about we just ask him what he wants his name to be?" I suggested.

"I'm terrible with names." The new greninja spoke up. "I'm open to suggestions."

"Okay Number Two!" Cinderace grinned jokingly, earning himself a water gun to the head from Popplio, who was kind enough to attack Cinderace for Frogadier as he was too busy carrying her to do it himself.

"Not that suggestion." The other greninja sighed, seeming only a little amused by the team's antics. "Anything else?"

"Sometimes we call our greninja A.G!" Pikachu offered, settling into her place on my left shoulder. "Our trainer's initial, then his! How about you use that system?"

"I guess that makes my nickname M.G."

"Okay, now that we have that established, what happened?" A.G. asked.

"My trainer kind of abandoned me."

My team burst into shouting fits over this. They were mad. A.G. was the only one who kept quiet. He glanced at me then back at his team.

"Guys, calm down." He ordered. "M.G, why did they abandon you? Who was your trainer?"

"Max. He was forced into it."

"... Actually that lines up with what we already know of the kid." Eevee commented. "Let us guess. You weren't strong enough to beat his dad's big dumb malamar?"

M.G. actually chuckled a little at that. We couldn't tell if it was out of amusement or bitterness. "Yeah. That's what happened. They challenged Max and I as soon as I evolved."

"That's not fair! Malamar had years longer to level up!" Cinderace protested, even though there was nobody around to protest to.

"Yeah, well they didn't care. After Max's entire team went down his dad made him abandon everyone. I don't know where they are."

"They didn't even let you out of your cards when they left you behind?" A.G. asked.

"They did. I tried following them back. At one point Max's dad decided I was too persistent and made Max put me back in my card before throwing it away. I've been stuck in there since... I think it's been a few months?"

"Holy carp, how are you still alive?" Popplio gasped. "You haven't had anything to eat or drink for months?"

M.G. shrugged.

"You're coming with us." A.G. decided. "No arguing. At the very least you need food, water, and a place to stay for the night. We'll figure the rest out later."

There were no protests to that as we led M.G. back to our house. After explaining to our parents what was going on, we managed to get permission for him to stay for a while. The rest of the night went on mostly uneventful. When we woke up in the morning we started to talk about the situation again.

"So, what do we plan on doing about this?" Cinderace asked. We were sitting in a circle on the deck outside. Most of the team was in the side yard, training. Everyone who was on the walk yesterday was helping figure out what to do with M.G.

"I'd like to go back to my trainer." M.G. said. "I don't care if his dad thinks I shouldn't be on his team. It's Max's team, not his dad's."

"Then we'll make that happen." A.G. promised. "Now, how do we do that?"

"We could beat Max in a battle in front of his dad, proving to him that his old pokemon are better combatants than his current ones." I suggested. "The Guelph City League is today."

"Don't we need local gym badges for that?" Pikachu asked.

I pulled out a case for holding gym badges, then opened it, revealing six gym badges. Grass, fire, water, fairy, ice, and flying.

"Remember when we had those special guests at camp? Well, they were this year's local gym leaders for our city. They came to make sure people attending camp could still participate in the city league if they want. So even though we didn't follow our usual plan, collecting these badges during school and completely taking the week off for camp, we still managed to get the badges."

"A.G, Vulpix and I got to help with that!" Froakie announced proudly.

"We got the grass badge from a lady who helps take care of the community gardens, fire from a local fireman, water from one of the West End pool's lifeguards, fairy from a local artist, ice from one of our city team's hockey players, and flying from one of the guys who works at city hall." Vulpix explained excitedly.

"So, we just have to show up today. We already signed up so we'd have something to do while Jake's at camp." A.G. finished. "Just because we're trying out the country's league this year doesn't mean we can't continue our tradition of challenging the city's league."

"Knowing Max, he's probably signed up for both leagues too." M.G. smiled. "Okay, let's do it!"

"You alright with M.G. taking most of the battles this year A.G.?" I asked.

"Of course! Now let's go beat up Max's team!"

- Several Hours Later -

I took a deep breath as we were called into the final match. As usual, A.G. and I had only seemed to make it this far because we hadn't needed to fight Max yet. The city had noticed our rivalry and seemed to like making sure we always fought each other as late into the tournament as possible nowadays. It was like our tradition had become a city tradition.

The announcer shouted for the battle to begin. Max smirked tauntingly from across the field.

"Malamar, go!"

Malamar went out on the field. The only member of Max's team from what I'd heard, and the only opponent we really cared about beating either way.

"Alright, here goes nothing." 

I took out M.G's card, which seemed to surprise Max. The entire tournament I'd been using the same five pokemon, including my ace. Pikachu to pass the first round, then Eevee, Frogadier, Cinderace, and Greninja in the semi-finals. Each pokemon that I didn't have in the stands had gotten their turn to carry the team and be in the spotlight. Surely I didn't actually have a more powerful pokemon on my team?

I didn't give him too much time to be shocked. I released M.G. from his card, and the battle started. Neither pokemon wasted any time going in for an attack. While Max's dad just looked confused, both Malamar and Max seemed to suddenly recognize M.G.

Malamar fired a hyper beam right away, which was not like him. Usually he'd lead with a brutal swing. M.G. seemed ready for the attack and moved to the side before it could hit. He fired off a dark pulse at Malamar before running behind him. Malamar responded with a brutal swing, which M.G. jumped straight up to avoid. The move nearly hit Max, so Malamar moved to the middle of the field to get more space. Landing near the edge of the field, M.G. was just out of range. He threw a water shuriken from where he was, and Malamar responded quickly with psychic. M.G. seemed panicked for a moment, but took the damage and fired another dark pulse at Malamar a moment afterwards. Malamar just let the attacks hit.

"Psychic did damage... I guess his ability is protean..." I heard A.G. murmer.

M.G. went towards Malamar, in range for brutal swing to hit. He jumped up when the attack came. Just like A.G, he seemed to be trying to tire Malamar out before attacking too much. However, while A.G. seemed to have an unusable ability, M.G. could use protean to his advantage.

M.G. dodged about five more brutal swings before Malamar got fed up and fired another hyper beam.

"That's seven brutal swings, two hyper beams, one psychic..." I counted.

"So thirteen, three, nine, undetermined." A.G. counted up how many shots Malamar had left. "Got it."

M.G. let Malamar use a hyper beam, then recharge quickly and use brutal swing some more. Every time A.G. and counted how many shots he had left on each move before tiring out.

"Seven, two, nine, undetermined."

Brutal swings, hit by a water shuriken, used a failing psychic to everyone's surprise.

"Five, two, eight, undetermined."

The count continued.

"He's running out." I commented. Anyone could see Malamar was already either tired or bored of the repetitiveness of all this. Another frustrated hyper beam was fired off, which M.G. dodged. I could hear Rookie's proud chirping from the crowd. She'd helped him with that.

"Don't count on that." A.G. reminded me. "Malamar's smarter than this... He must be really mad..."

"You're the one counting." I tried to make a joke to brighten his mood, but my partner was lost in his thoughts. I contacted him telepathically instead.

'Something wrong?'

'Malamar is smarter than this... He must be really blinded by anger... Or he's tricking us...'

'We'll keep an eye on that. Don't worry.'

'Alright...'

The crowd's reception of M.G. seemed very positive. There were many cheers that were clearly for him. Maybe they just wanted the underdog to win, or maybe everyone was ticked that this year Max was using a champion's pokemon instead of his own for such a small league. Either way, the cheers for M.G. to win drowned out anything directed towards Malamar. The noise probably distracted it, because it let out a shriek that silenced the crowd before firing another hyper beam. M.G. was not caught off guard, but he had happened to be standing rather close by. The hyper beam grazed him when he tried to dodge. His speed stat and nature were both an advantage to him here.

'He told us he had a hasty nature, right?'

'I could've guessed from the way he moves.'

'Five, zero, eight, undetermined.'

'Good to know.'

Now that Malamar had no hyper beams left, it was forced once again into using brutal swing. M.G. managed to dodge four with some difficulty before the last one hit, throwing him back to Max's side of the field.

'Zero, zero, eight, undetermined.'

'Let's hope he hasn't used that last move yet because it's a psychic move.'

'Not likely.'

M.G. picked himself up and ran back to our side of the field. Malamar made no attempts to stop him and waited patiently for the next attack. M.G. used water shuriken, and Malamar let it hit. He countered with psychic.

No effect.

Everyone was surprised when the attack didn't work. M.G's ability was protean, and by now the crowd had caught onto that. Why hadn't a psychic attack worked on him after he used a water type move?

M.G. fired another water shuriken at Malamar, and this time A.G. and I watched him more closely before Malamar used psychic. M.G. had one hand behind his back, using it to fire off tiny dark pulses at the ground behind him where Malamar wouldn't see. He did it after every water shuriken.

M.G. wasn't affected by psychic because the last move he used wasn't water shuriken when it hit.

This back and forth went on until Malamar grew frustrated again. Apparently after hitting M.G. it had begun to think it was in control of the fight again. Now it was stumped. Max clearly saw what M.G. was doing from his angle, but he wasn't saying anything. No trainers where. The crowd was silent, save for a few whispers, Max's dad was only observing, and A.G. and I only spoke to each other telepathically. The quiet was louder than the crowd had been in its own way.

Malamar gave another shriek and charged up an attack. I recognized it from my dad's hawlucha's moveset.

'That's superpower!'

'He'd better dodge that!'

M.G. didn't have enough time to move out of the way. Instead he opted to throw another water shuriken, changing his type again. Fighting type moves had neutral damage against water types. M.G. was blown back a bit from the hit, but didn't take as much damage as he could've. He got up quickly and boosted himself into the air with a hydro pump to get himself out of the corner and into the middle of the field.

'At least it did neutral damage.'

'Better than it being super effective.'

The next time Malamar used superpower M.G. had enough room to dodge. He managed to stay away from the corners of the battlefield, but Malamar got a lucky hit the next time.

'Two left.'

'He looks sore after the last few hits.'

'Hopefully he can still dodge.'

He just barely made it out of the way of the next attack, cornering himself in the process. Another hit caused major damage, throwing M.G. almost off of the field. Everyone held their breath. A quick glance at Max revealed that even he was nervous. It took a few moments, but through the cloud of dust, a figure could be seen standing up.

'Zero. Malamar has zero shots. M.G. has...'

'Four dark pulses, nine water shurikens, four hydro pumps, undetermined.'

Malamar seemed surprised that M.G. was still standing. So was the crowd. However, nothing compared to Max's reaction when his greninja stood up and continued to challenge Malamar head on.

"My turn now."

Malamar had no time to recover from shock when M.G. made his next move. M.G. fired off every last dark pulse he had before using ice beam, the final move in his set, to try and freeze Malamar. After four ice beams he managed to do it, and quickly followed up with the rest of his hydro pumps. Every last move was fueled by pure rage. You didn't have to have any sort of connection with M.G. to tell how angry he was right now. He had zero intentions of losing this battle, and if he could he was going to hurt his opponent, not just knock him out.

As soon as he ran out of hydro pumps to use, M.G. started to fire ice beams again. The water from the hydro pumps had cracked the ice holding Malamar in place, and he didn't need his victim escaping. Three more ice beams froze Malamar again, but M.G. fired his last few for good measure. I caught Max's father in the corner of my eye, looking furious, but before he could think of anything he could do M.G. used every last water shuriken he had. They were larger than any of the shurikens A.G. had ever formed, and spun faster. The shurikens cut clean through the ice and hit Malamar. Each one pushed him further and further back. He slid to a stop on our side of the field.

A few seconds passed, maybe a minute. M.G. stood frozen on Max's side of the field, catching his breath. A.G. and I held ours. Malamar was frozen for a minute, staring off into nowhere. The rage from earlier had faded from him. Another minute passed, slowly and painfully. Finally, Malamar fell.

Cheers erupted from the crowd. Max's dad stood up and marched towards his son, red in the face. Max himself was grinning like an idiot. M.G. took a few steps towards him and stopped. He looked at Max's father, then back towards us. A.G. and I both gave him the thumbs up to ignore the Ontarian champion and go to his trainer.

M.G. grinned at us and walked over to Max, who ran to meet him in the middle. When they hugged, I saw Mr. Anderson's expression soften. He seemed to recognize M.G. now. Malamar was returned to his card and A.G. and I watched Max and his dad argue across the field from us. Eventually, Mr. Anderson seemed to give in. Max and M.G. were celebrating.

'Looks like things worked out!'

'Yeah! That's good!'

After the awards ceremony I gathered up my team to leave with my family, but Max and M.G. caught up. A.G. and I waited, but we let the rest of the team go home with our family.

"Hey! Congrats on your win." Max smiled. He didn't seem bothered at all.

"Thanks. So I assume your dad let you add M.G. back to your team?"

"Yeah, and some of my other pokemon too! Hey, can we walk with you?"

'Are you okay with that?'

'Yeah, are you?'

'I guess so, but you're not going near him.'

'Fine by me.'

"Yeah, sure."

We started walking around downtown, nobody saying anything. Max and I walked in the middle of the sidewalk with our partners beside us. Finally, Max broke the silence. It started with a thank you, and then an apology that I barely heard.

"... You're kidding, right?"

I barely remember what I started yelling at him. Looking back on it it's all jumbles of loud noise to me now. When I snapped back into it, A.G. and I were walking alone.

- Max's Perspective -

I was now walking in the opposite direction as Alyssa and A.G. were going.

"I can't believe she actually threatened my life out in public."

"I can't believe you nearly killed her partner." M.G. spat back. "You were kind of asking for it."

"I know, but... Look, I only did it because-"

"You had just lost me, you were jealous, you were grieving, it was done in a blind rage, you still felt instant regret, blah blah... We said no hurting others, Max!"

"I didn't know what I was doing..."

"And maybe that's true, but you still did something bad. Now it's on you to fix it, if you can."

"It's easier to just let her be mad... What can I do other than apologize?"

"I'll let you think on that for a while."

"Some help you are..."

"Some help you were when you tore his card and threw me away."