The 18 teams were already beginning to form. You could see a small group of psychic types at the bottom of a small hill as the field eventually sloped down closer to the forest. That was used for a slip n slide at some point in the week. Or it was anyways. The idea was banned after some kid launched himself too far into the forest by making a ramp at the end of the slide using some of the extra tarp that had to be rolled up so that it didn't disappear into the trees. He got jabbed with a few sticks and landed in some poison ivy. We all panicked for a while, especially when he emerged from the forest a bloody mess. There wasn't that much blood, but there was enough that he had to go home for the rest of the week, parents were called, help was needed from the hospital, and for fear of that happening again even without the ramp the slip n slide was banned.

Right near where they used to set up the end of the slip n slide were some ground types, and a little ways away from them were rock types. Halfway up the hill were fairy types, which Maggie and Aubrey went over to with their partners. The dark types were standing by some evergreen trees in front of the building we were all staying in. Greninja and I went over there. The ghost types were beside us, and we could see Callen there with his mimikyu partner. From there the teams went in a circle around the field. Water beside ghost, grass beside water, steel beside grass, poison beside steel, flying beside poison, normal beside flying, dragon beside normal, bug beside dragon, ice beside bug, electric beside ice, and fighting beside electric. Finally, fire in between fighting and dark. Payton was at the edge of Team Water with his Piplup, shouting at some girl with a delphox on the Fire Team, Eve seemed to be getting acquainted with her teammates on the Normal Type Team, Gaia was keeping to herself at the edge of the Ghost Team, and I even saw Aubrey and Flabebe warming up to the other fairy types on their team. With Maggie and Sylveon's help of course. Andrea went with her Jolteon to the Electric Team. Lilac had disappeared into her crowd.

"Hey, you're in my cabin right?"

I turned around and saw Natalie and Umbreon behind me. I smiled at them. "Yep! My name's Alyssa."

"Hi Alyssa! Looks like we're on the same team! Ready to win?" Natalie grinned at me.

"You bet! I'm really excited for camp this year. And there's no way I want to lose. Especially if it's to the psychics again."

"Our pokemon should be immune to psychic types and their moves." Natalie pointed out. "We have type advantage there."

I nodded. Greninja had disappeared into the growing crowd again, probably to explore. He often did that. Another possibility is that he was at the edge of the group by the Ghost Team talking to Callen. Umbreon eventually went off on her own too. The groups got louder and louder as more people joined. There was a shuffleboard court and a shed with shuffleboard equipment beside the field that some of the electric types and water types were playing on. The talking kept up as we all discussed what we thought the activity for tonight would be. We'd have this activity, another activity or game, supper, and a campfire. It was great. Starting on the second day of camp the second activity or game would switch places with supper.

"Hey Alyssa, we're going to beat you!" Payton yelled at me from where he was standing. The Water and Dark Type groups had quite a bit of space between them, so Payton had to yell at me for me to hear. We were both at the edges of our groups. The girl that he'd been shouting to yelled over to me as well.

"Yeah, and if there another team versus team battle again, I'll battle you and win!" The girl shouted confidently. It wasn't mean, just friendly competition of course. Her hair was honey blonde in a bob cut and her eyes were a nice emerald green. She was wearing red leggings, a sunny yellow blouse, and white sneakers. I looked at her, then I looked at her delphox partner.

'Greninja, come here for a sec.'

'Okay, just going to finish my little debate with Callen. I'll be right there.'

"Your partner is the delphox, right?" I asked, just to make sure. She nodded.

"Yep, Delphox is my partner and with her by my side I won't lose to you and your dark type!"

"Good luck, I expect a real challenge from you now. And just so you know, my partner's not only a dark type." I shouted over to her as Greninja appeared by my side again.

She looked shocked for a second before grinning at me again. "I didn't expect that at all! You have a major type advantage! I'll still win though!"

"Alright, you're on!" I grinned back.

"Everyone listen up!" A man in the middle of the field screamed for everyone to hear him. A decidueye stood by his side. The man was middle aged, had a black beard and hair, and wore gray cargo shorts and this year's themed t-shirt, along with black socks and sneakers. He also wore dark, black sunglasses.

"Today we want everyone to get acquainted with their teammates! If you're a returning camper please make sure to make all of the first-timers feel welcome! We're actually going to have supper a little late tonight so that we can have a game before filling up on food, okay?!" He continued to shout for those who weren't in the circle on the field to hear. Everyone cheered or screamed their acknowledgments except for a few shy or quiet people, including me, Greninja, and from the looks of it Eve wasn't fond of the noise either.

Each of the teams were rather small, but altogether they made a large group. Each team had about 10 people. On my team there was a red haired boy with a nickit, a girl with long white hair dyed purple about halfway all the way to the ends with an Alolan meowth, a boy wearing a coontail hat who had a Galarian zigzagoon, another girl with white hair and fake diamond hair clips with a sableye, a green-eyed girl with a scraggy, a black haired boy with a houndour, a blonde boy with a morpeko, Natalie and Umbreon, Greninja and I, and a boy that I recognized from my school. He didn't have a pokemon with him. Come to think of it, I'd never seen him with a pokemon before. Although I should've guessed he was into dark types from his past actions. He had messy brown hair, brown eyes, was wearing black shorts, sneakers, and a black t-shirt. He was fiddling with a card in one hand and looked angry enough to tear it to shreds right then and there, which would of course kill the pokemon inside. I wouldn't have been shocked if he had torn it in front of us all right then and there, not caring about the consequences.

That is what he'd done to Greninja's card after all.

I stared at the card in his hand while my partner stared at the ground. I knew he recognized Max too, and he was still angry at him. Because of Max, Greninja was considered too weak to battle under any circumstances, and he hated that. Max seemed to notice I was staring at his card, so he turned it ever so slightly so that it would be at an angle where I could see it. He was sitting beside Natalie, so only she, Umbreon, Greninja and I would be able to see the card. It was a malamar.

'Heck. I wonder if he wants a rematch or something.'

'If he tries any crap again just listen to him. I don't want to do anything stupid and almost get you killed again.'

'You know I can't do that. If I wasn't willing to fight you back then I'm still not willing to do it now. You know how stubborn I can be with my family.'

'Okay, that's not an excuse. Let the others handle it. He'd never see Froakie, Vulpix, Clefairy, or Pikachu coming. He didn't last time.'

'Clefairy hates battling and I doubt he'd take his eyes off of the others long enough to let them sneak up on him.'

'Clearly Clefairy doesn't hate battling enough to refuse to help in one if a family member's life could be on the line.'

'Either way I hope you have one heck of a plan in case he steals my card again. Quick attacks and double teams might be a good idea.'

'Don't forget Vulpix can use confuse ray.'

'Yeah, use that too. Actually, did you even bring my card?'

'No. But it's always good to have a plan.'

"Uhh... So should we introduce ourselves?" The boy in the coontail hat asked. He actually had red hair and green eyes. He was wearing a short sleeved flannel shirt and blue jeans. "I think that's what we're supposed to do, right?"

"Yeah, I think so too." Natalie replied. "You can start."

"Alright, I'm Kaden and my partner is Zigzagoon. Usually zigzagoons are normal types, but mine is a Galarian zigzagoon, so it's a dark type too."

We went around the circle from there. The other red head with the nickit was named Azzari, the girl with white and purple hair and the Alolan meowth was named Altalune, the girl with fake diamond hair clips and a sableye was Dia, the green eyed girl with the scraggy was Akasuki, the black haired boy with the houndour was Ty, and the white haired boy with the morpeko was Harry. Everyone introduced themselves and their pokemon partners, then it was Max's turn.

"I'm Max, and the pokemon I brought is actually my dad's. I don't have a partner of my own, but that's a private family matter." Max grumbled, clearly not interested in the group.

"What's the pokemon?" Dia asked, trying to be friendly.

"You'll see. I honestly don't want it out unless I get into a battle. It's definitely powerful, but it's annoying too."

"It's a malamar." I told them.

'Why would you do that?'

'Why not?'

'He might still be holding a grudge.'

'I should be the one holding a grudge.'

'Yeah, but you know how he is... He's violent... And you did pull a knife on him...'

'Yeah, there's that. Good thing I didn't bring your card along on this trip.'

'I'm worried about the others.'

'Dragalge and Clefable chose to stay out of their cards in the cabin to guard our stuff. I guess they saw Max from the window.'

'Okay, I guess everyone will be okay then... Just be careful about what you say.'

While Greninja and I were having this conversation Max was glaring at me and our group was questioning him.

"Why did you tell them? I trusted you not to tell them!" Max yelled at me. I stared at him calmly, not showing any sort of emotion in my eyes.

"I trusted you to respect my privacy and not go through my school bag while we were classmates. I trusted you to not steal any of my pokemon cards. And I didn't even think you'd rip one of them past the halfway point, even if it was just barely. But you did all of that."

He slowly went red from embarrassment and stayed quiet after that. The rest of my team immediately shut up too.

'I'm actually kind of impressed. You actually managed to shut up Mr.High-And-Mighty over there.'

'This is why I hate kids like him. Stereotypical cocky rich kid, son of a champion, has the money for all the best pokemon cards but doesn't care for a relationship with them at all of any kind..."

'He may be able to buy the best cards, but a bond with his pokemon is something he can't afford. And that's worth much more than any legendary or mythical his father could give him.'

"So... How about we talk a little bit about how we got our pokemon partners?" Natalie suggested. "I can go first if you guys want."

Everyone agreed and Natalie started her story. I only payed attention for her's. She'd found Umbreon when it was an eevee, abandoned out in the freezing streets of Iqaluit when she'd traveled there with her family to watch her older brother and sister take on the dark type gym. The eevee had brought its card with it and was carrying it in its mouth. She rescued it and took it to a pokemon center. After earning its trust she convinced her parents to let her keep it as her first pokemon and her partner, and they worked very hard all night every night to get Eevee stronger. They both worked best at night. Then one night, Eevee evolved into Umbreon.

After that story I started daydreaming. The look in my eyes kept switching. Energetic, gentle and happy, emotionless, determined, angry... It all depended on what I was thinking about. What was I imagining and putting together in my head for the adventure I was about to go on? How might it be different? I wanted to see all the possible outcomes, even if it took an eternity. But my ideal scenario was that I would have fun and prove that Greninja wasn't weak like every doctor, professor, and even most of my fellow trainers claimed he was. Nobody thought he was strong enough to battle anymore. Heck, he even had to take three pills every three hours just to keep himself from fainting at random even if he wasn't taking damage. Usually if we lost the pill it wasn't a big deal. It was actually so hard to see on his card that it was ripped past the halfway point (by about a millimetre) that most people wouldn't guess he needed medicine for it. And the chances of him actually fainting for no reason without the medicine to help it were less than 0.8%. The only reason Professor Trillium, our province's professor, wanted Greninja to try it was because his chances of fainting without actually getting into a battle rose when he got tired or too stressed. That hardly ever happened, but since we never knew when a challenge was coming and we spent a lot of time training anyways we decided to be safe with this and just deal with the dang pills.

"Alright, time's up!" The man in the middle of the circle shouted, interrupting Max while he was trying to tell me it was my turn now (since he didn't have a partner and all that). "Time for the next activity! We're going to start the first day of camp off nice and easy with a scavenger hunt! You'll have to work with your team to find everything!"

There were a few whispers before the man continued.

"There are coins all over the camp in all different places! On each of them is a symbol! There are 18 different coins with 18 different symbols on them, one for each pokemon type! Find all of those coins and bring them to me when you're done! First team back here with all 18 different coins wins the game! Pokemon battles for a coin that two teams found at the same time are allowed, as well as splitting up your group! You decide what kind of pokemon battle you want to have, whether it's just a one on one or a double battle or anything else you can think of! Ready, set, go!"

Everyone got up and ran off somewhere. My team got up but didn't run. Instead Natalie snapped her fingers a couple times to get everyone's attention.

"We should split up. Choose who you want to go with and go search for those coins! Cover as much ground as you can and pay attention! When you have a coin send any attack straight up into the sky so we know when to regroup!" She instructed, taking on the role of our teams leader. I got the feeling she was going to be a very good one.

"Alyssa, want to come with me?" Natalie asked as everyone else kind of grouped up, except for Max who wanted to go alone. Kaden was fine with being alone too, from the looks of it.

"Sure, I'll come." I shrugged.

"Great! Where do you want to go first?"

"Lets try to find a water type coin. I bet they're near the pool."

"Really, you don't want more of a challenge?"

"Alright, alright. Hey, if anyone wants any tips on fire and water type coins, check near the fire pit and the pool. Ground type coins may be in the holes on the mini golf course and you might find some grass type coins in the forest." I told my team, then turned back to Natalie. "I want to have Greninja scale the wall above the door to the Inn real quick."

"Why?"

"There was a bat up there last year that kind of made itself at home most of the week. I want to see if anyone organizing this game remembered that and left a flying type coin or something up there."

"Alright, lets go then. It's only a few meters away after all, so it shouldn't really be a waste of time even if there's no coin."

We walked to the door and Greninja jumped up onto the white brick walls, climbed to the place where the bat had been and grabbed something from off of the wall. It had been laid down between the bricks and half of it was hanging off. He tossed it down to me and I caught it. It was a rock type coin.

Greninja jumped down again as Natalie took the coin and put it in her pocket. "Good job guys, you called it and there really was a coin up there!"

"Thanks Natalie, but Greninja was the one who got the coin down in the first place." I smiled. "Thanks Greninja."

"Eh, it was your idea." Greninja shrugged before jumping back onto the wall and climbing up, this time heading to the roof of the building and grabbing something. "But this was mine!"

He tossed a flying type coin down and Umbreon caught it. She placed it in Natalie's hands and Greninja hopped back down again, jumping into a tree first this time since he was pretty high up and he didn't want to fall the wrong way or land on someone and get anyone hurt.

"Wow! That's really lucky!" Natalie grinned at us and put the second coin into her pocket. "Good job you two!"

"That one was all Greninja." I shrugged. "We should be thanking just him for finding that one."

"Two coins already. Does that mean two attacks straight into the air?" Greninja asked. Natalie nodded.

"How about Umbreon sends one shadow ball into the sky and you throw a water shuriken?" I suggested. Both pokemon nodded.

"Can I use hydro pump instead? It's kind of hard to throw a water shuriken straight up and expect it to get far. Especially with a giant tree in the way."

"Sure Greninja."

Umbreon and Greninja sent their attacks into the sky at the same time, and hopefully our teammates were paying enough attention to notice. We hadn't seen any attacks yet, or heard any battles, so so far as we knew our team was at two coins and hadn't joined any battles.

"Where to next?" Natalie asked.

"Let's go to the archery area in the forest. I think I know where the ghost type coin is." I explained and started walking, Natalie walked on one side of me with her Umbreon beside her and Greninja walked on the other.

"Why would the ghost type coin be there?"

"Decidueye is a grass and ghost type pokemon that uses arrows against its opponent in battle. Since this year's theme is Sun And Moon, I just thought they might base something off of one of the Alolan starters, if not all of them." I told her. "For all we know they're messing with us with the water type coin and actually have fairy type coins at the pool since primarina is a dual water and fairy type."

"What about fire and dark types?"

"My first thought was that the dark type coin would be at the fire pit actually. But now I'm second guessing that. Where else would they put the fire type coins that makes sense? There are other places to put the water type coin... Like where the slip n slide used to be, or just outside the cafeteria since there's always freezing cold drinking water on the table in there before meals. But the only place where there's ever a lot of fire is the fire pit."

"Yeah, and you'd think they'd put the rock type coin by the rock climbing wall." Greninja said. "I'm still confused about that."

"Not all the hiding spots need to be obvious." Natalie reminded us. "This is supposed to be a challenge, remember?"

"Yeah, that's true."

We walked down the hill of the field, going around a building that used to be an old chapel or something (but was now the camp's pokemon center) to get to the top of it first. The forest had been cleared for three things at the bottom of the hill. There was the volleyball court, which was right at the edge so nobody actually had to walk through any forest to get to it, and a path that split at one point. One way led to the archery course, and the other led to a bunch of team building obstacle courses. We went left, towards the archery.

"Okay, let's search inside these buckets of arrows." Natalie suggested. "The bow rack seems to be clear."

"Alright, on it." I started taking arrows out of the buckets. I worked on one, Greninja did another, and Natalie took the last one. Umbreon poked around the area a bit more, looking for any other places a coin could hide.

"Nothing in my bucket." I sighed after emptying the bucket and inspecting the inside of it, as well as the arrows that had been in it, very carefully. I started double checking every single arrow that had been in the buckets. None of them had anything, so I started putting them back.

"Nothing here."

"None here either."

"Breon. (Nothing.)"

"Darn it. Should we look at the targets over there?" Greninja suggested, pointing at the cubes with targets drawn onto them on the opposite side of the course with all the benches and the mini arrow bucket that Umbreon had emptied and checked (They were used to hold three arrows at a time for anyone trying archery to use before their turn was over. They also marked how far away you had to shoot from.).

"Yeah, try looking under them maybe."

Greninja and Umbreon looked under each target, behind it, on it, everywhere. Still nothing. We saw a few more attacks in the sky. About five. Three of them were straight up, the other two looked like they were just stray moves that had missed in a battle. Our team now had five coins.

"I hope they didn't get any duplicates." Natalie said, now worrying a bit as we had no way of knowing what kinds of coins our teammates had and they didn't know what kinds of coins we had either.

"Well we got a fire type coin at the fire pit, and we ran into Dia and Akasuki earlier. They managed to win a battle for a fairy type coin at the pool. No water type coins there." Ty came towards us with Harry. "We were looking for a grass type coin by the obstacles, but no luck. Then we heard you guys and thought we'd come and help since you don't seem to be finding anything either."

"Thanks Ty. We're looking for the ghost type coin. Since everything is based off of Sun And Moon and decidueyes are grass and ghost types who use arrows..." I explained.

"Say no more. We guessed that Primarina's typing was why there are fairy type coins at the pool too. You have to dive for them, and Dia happened to have a dewpider. The two that they fought against only have their fire type partners with them and didn't want to get their clothes wet." Harry laughed as he started searching through some totally safe looking plants around the area. Ty carefully inspected the picnic tables and benches nearby, as well as a stone wall. I checked the netting behind the targets that stopped arrows from getting shot deep into the forest.

We spent a few minutes searching and it felt like hours. People were battling outside of the forest and they sounded like they were getting closer with every passing minute. Two more attacks flew straight up into the air, but they weren't from us.

"Hey, does anyone have any ghost type pokemon?" I asked after deciding I was too impatient to look around and second guess myself silently anymore. I didn't have any ghost types of my own. Gaia would be disappointed when she found that out.

"I have a marshadow, why?" Natalie pulled a marshadow card out of her pocket. "Please don't tell me we need to make Gaia jealous."

"No, I'm just thinking maybe having a ghost type pokemon around will somehow help us find the ghost type coin."

Natalie let Marshadow out of its card without another word. It looked around for a bit before simply walking up to a bucket of arrows and flipping it upside down, dumping the arrows out onto the ground along with something shiny. Meanwhile there was something else on the ground where the bucket had been.

"Hey, that's a coin!" Ty grabbed the coin that had been under the bucket while Marshadow brought the coin that was in it to Natalie.

"Thanks Marshadow! I can't believe we missed that!" Natlie smiled, taking the coin from Marshadow. "It's a ghost type coin!"

"And this one is a ground type coin!" Ty smiled.

"It's kind of creepy that we missed that. Like someone snuck past us while we were searching for it and placed it in the bucket without us noticing, somehow." Greninja pointed out. "Maybe the only reason we didn't see it really was because we needed a ghost type's help."

"Yeah, imagine what could've happened if Natalie didn't have a Marshadow! I know I don't have any ghost types!" Harry laughed. "And Ty doesn't either! We were talking about the pokemon that we have at camp with us while searching for coins earlier!"

"Marshadow is the only ghost type I have. I'm glad it helped." Natalie grinned. "Thanks Marshadow. Now return."

Marshadow went back in its card and Natalie put the ghost type coin in her pocket, along with Marshadow's card and the fire and ground coins that Ty gave her to hold onto. Umbreon and Houndour sent their attacks up into the sky to let the team know we now had nine coins in total. We knew we had ghost, ground, fire, fairy, rock, and flying, then there were the three attacks we'd seen go into the air before that we'd never investigated.

"At least we know our team is about halfway there. C'mon, let's go look for them! Maybe we'll have lucked out and there'll be no duplicates!" Ty yelled, running out of the forest. "Hurry, we need to make sure we all know what to look for!"

"Okay, we're coming!" Harry yelled after Ty. We all ran after him. He followed the sounds of a nearby battle.

We got to the place we were looking for just as the battle was ending. In the parking lot by the rock climbing walls, behind where everyone hung up their towels to dry after swimming, was Max and his malamar. They'd just defeated Aubrey and Maggie.

"I told you I could take you both on on my own." He grinned at them. "Now I get the coin!"

"Wow, he's being helpful for once." Ty rolled his eyes. "That's a surprise."

"Hm?" I looked at Ty curiously. So far as I knew he and Max had no connection.

"We went to the same school. I watched the whole scene with your Greninja and his card getting ripped. I always knew Max was a trouble-maker, but I never thought he'd actually harm someone else's pokemon like that or try to steal a pokemon to force them into a battle against their own trainer." Ty explained. "It's cool that your Greninja was so loyal to you, but that did cost him."

"Yeah, well I'm just happy he's alive."

Max walked up to us and held out his hand to reveal three coins in his palm. "I got a water type coin, a grass type coin, and a poison type coin."

"Good, no duplicates so far." Harry sighed in relief.

"We have ground, rock, flying, ghost, fairy, and fire." Greninja said, glaring a bit at Max. "So we just need normal, dragon, dark, steel, ice, psychic, bug, fighting, and electric."

"I saw nine attacks go into the air before this, and then I got the poison type coin here. Why do we only have nine coins here?" Max asked.

"We're looking for Kaden, Azzari, Altalune, Dia, and Akasuki right now. One of them has the fairy coin and whatever other coin they've found since then." Ty shrugged. "C'mon, we should go."

"Do you guys want me to get Rookidee out for a bird's eye view of the camp? It should be easier to find them if we can see most of the camp all at once." I suggested.

"Yeah, that would be great!" Natalie smiled. I nodded and took out Rookidee's card. Rookidee had heard the conversation and released herself, then flew high up into the air. She hovered up there for a few moments before swooping back down and landing on my shoulder. She chirped something and Greninja translated.

"She says Kaden, Azzari, and Altalune are on the grass in front of the Inn. Not the field, but that space kind of cut off from all the buildings by the gravel paths where everyone goes to study."

"We have to study here?" Max asked. "I thought this entire camp was just for fun and extra bonding time with your pokemon."

"Nope. We study too! 18 types split into four lessons throughout the week. One lesson for each day. On the last day we learn about the legendaries and mythicals of whatever our camp theme is." Harry smiled. "Now come on, we need to catch Kaden, Azzari, and Altalune before they leave!"

We all ran towards the grassy space with trees all around it for shade, going through the Inn and bast the brick paved sort of porch area around the side entrance of the part of the Inn leading to the lounge. We caught up with Kaden, Azzari, and Altalune just as Azzari hopped out of a tree that he'd been in. He had a coin in his hand. Kaden was holding one too.

"It's going to be a miracle if we didn't get any duplicates!" Harry called out to them.

"Yeah, what do you guys have?" Ty yelled.

"I just got the bug type coin!" Azzari called back. "And Kaden found the ice type coin!"

"Good, we didn't have those yet!" I smiled. We could talk at a normal volume now since we were all in the same spot. We'd caught up to them, finally. "Where do you think Dia and Akasuki are?"

"We don't know." Kaden shrugged. "But we should go look for them now. I'm losing track of how many signals I saw go out."

"How about we send two right here? I didn't send one because I got a bit distracted." Max suggested. "Maybe Dia and Akasuki will notice and come looking for us."

"Okay, there were only nine signals right?"

"Yeah, we've got two more coins since the last one."

"Okay, lets send 'em out then."

Max didn't want to release Malamar from his card again quite yet, so Greninja and Nicket sent out the signals. We waited a few minutes before another signal was sent out by the mini golf course, which was great because it was close by and we could actually see it easily from where we were, just not the people inside. There was a fence with hedges along it, so nobody could watch the people playing mini golf from outside of the course. We all ran towards where the signal had come from and got there just in time because Dia and Akasuki were about to run towards where we'd seen Max fighting Aubrey and Maggie.

"Hey, wait!" Natalie yelled to get the attention of our teammates. They stopped and turned around and waited for us to catch up with them.

"Hey guys! What's up?" Dia asked. "We just got a normal type coin!"

"That's amazing. I must be dreaming. No duplicates so far!" Ty screamed the last bit and we all had to cover our ears.

"Wow, okay then. Uh... Everyone, we have most of the different coins so far. Just look for dragon, steel, dark, psychic, fighting, and electric now." Natalie announced.

"Okay. Who's holding onto all of these coins?" Akasuki asked. Natalie rasied her hand and everyone who had a coin still with them handed them over to her. They went in her pocket with the rest.

"So... Where to next?" Max asked.

"I think we should look around the gym. Has anyone been in there yet?" Akasuki asked. Everyone shook their heads. "Great, let's go then!"

We went into the Inn through the back door of the parking lot. We went down a separate hall from the cabin rooms. We had to be extra quiet here since the hallway with the gym at the end was lined with doors leading to the rooms that the camp organizers and nurse used.

"I'll check the storage room." Max said.

"Hey, I called dibs on that in the hallway!" Kaden yelled at him.

"Well c'mon then, we'll look together!" Max yelled back as they both ran into the storage room.

"Max actually seems half decent today." Ty said. "Let's hope it lasts all week."

"Yeah, I don't want anyone's cards getting torn again." I sighed. I still couldn't get along with Max if I tried and wanted to, but if the others were fine with him I wasn't going to stop them from hanging out with him or being friends.

"Hey, do you guys want to play a game while we're here?" Harry asked.

"Sure. What game?" Natalie replied.

"Okay, so I turn all the lights off and you all stand on that wall over there. Then I turn on one row of lights somewhere in the gym. You all run towards that row of lights and the last one to make it under there is out. You guys keep chasing the lights like that until there's only one person left!" Harry explained as Kaden and Max came out of the storage room with two hockey sticks and a hockey puck.

"Hey, what are you two doing?" Ty raised an eyebrow at Kaden and Max.

"What's it look like? We're practicing our passes!" Max grinned. "Watch!"

They passed the puck back and forth and I almost wanted to grab a hockey stick and join in. Then I noticed an odd sound, like metal scraping against the hard gym floors.

"Hey guys, the puck sounds weird." Dia noticed it too.

"Yeah, anyone else hear that?" I agreed.

Harry had grabbed his own hockey stick and intercepted Kaden's pass to Max. He picked up the puck and turned it over. "Hey, how did you guys miss the steel type coin on this thing?"

"Oops. Guess we were so excited that there was any good hockey equipment in there that we completely forgot what we were looking for!" Max grinned. "C'mon admit it, this stuff is way better than the crap we have to use in school!"

"It is. But that's not the point." Ty said. "For all we know there's a group out there that only needs one more coin, so let's get moving!"

"Dude chill. We only have five more to find." Kaden smiled optimistically. "Let's play Harry's game now. We heard the rules. I wanna add a twist though; Pokemon are the ones running and us humans have to guide them."

"Guide how?" Harry asked.

"Let's just say pokemon moves are allowed."

"Alright, I'm in. Who else?" Akasuki smiled.

We all agreed to play when the thin dark gray wrist band that Greninja was wearing buzzed quickly twice. It was pretty loud in the echoey gym too.

"Whoops. Looks like I can't join. Sorry guys, that was an alert for me to take my pills. My three hours are up." Greninja said. "I'll have to go find the nurse if I want to do any battling or running around."

"Yeah, we don't need you fainting out of nowhere." Ty nodded. "You and Alyssa can go ahead. You never know, you might just find another coin while you're looking for the nurse!"

"In the meantime, wanna leave a pokemon with me and I'll be their guide for the game? I'll let you know how they do afterwards." Natalie offered.

"Sure." I accepted the offer. "I have a few pokemon that would be good choices for this game, but I think I'll go with the one that's probably known best for its speed and accuracy."

I released Frogadier from his card. He'd been listening to the conversation the entire time and was ready to play the game. Everyone else chose their partners.

"Have fun guys!" I smiled and left the gym with Greninja.

'I wonder who's going to win.'

'Frogadier, duh.'

'How do you know?'

'Because he's awesome.'

'He's also your younger brother and he's in your evolution chain.'

'That's part of what makes him awesome.'

'You idiot.'

'That's an achievement.'

'So where do you think the nurse is?'

'No idea. The lounge maybe?'

'The guy who gave us the instructions for the scavenger hunt might know.'

'Alright. He should still be on the field. Let's go ask him for help.'

We walked to the field. It didn't take that long, but knowing how much faster it would be if we could run made it feel long. The guy was still in the middle of the field, so we went over to him.

'Are you going to talk, or should I?'

'I can if you want.'

'Only if you're not going to get an anxiety attack from it.'

'I won't.'

'Alright.'

I walked up to the man. "Excuse me?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Hello! I'm Mike. Do you need help?"

"We're wondering if you know where the nurse is."

"Ah, right. I suppose your Greninja's timer went off."

"Yeah, it did."

"Alright, the nurse should be in the lounge but if not check back with me."

"Okay, thank you!"

"No problem. You kids have fun and take care of yourselves!"

We went to the lounge next. The nurse was there and she saw us. She came over with Greninja's pills and a friend of ours.

"Hello you two. How's camp going so far?" Professor Anna Trillium came up to us smiling. She had white hair in a bun on her head, blue eyes, and wore a blue t-shirt, black shorts, and black and white sneakers. Three pokemon followed her around. A chespin, a fennekin, and a froakie. How Ontario got the Kalos starters I don't know, but since Quebec was the oldest province in the country and it was French-speaking, it actually got both those and all the gen 1 starters.

"Hi Professor!" I smiled back. Greninja was getting his pills from the nurse so I had maybe a minute or two to talk. "Camp is alright. My group already found most of the coins we need."

"That's great to hear Alyssa! But watch out. Team Electric bumped into me on their search, and apparently their group only needs five more coins. And that was a few minutes ago." The professor warned me. "Looks like you better get back to searching! But first, how are you and Greninja doing?"

"We're doing fine Prof T." Greninja grinned. "And I can run again!"

"Good. I'm glad the pills are working, even if they don't seem necessary most of the time. And we're working on a way to fix torn cards. I get the feeling we're getting closer every day!"

"Great. I'll be waiting. Keep us updated."

"I will. I bet you're getting tired of being told you can't battle."

"Why else would Alyssa and I be planning what we're planning?"

"We can't say it out loud right now. My other pokemon are listening from their cards." I explained before Professor Trillium could ask why Greninja wouldn't just say what we were going to do after camp.

"Well I think you'll do really well! Just remember, your health comes before everything. If you run out of medication or get hurt badly during your trip I want you guys coming straight back to my lab here in Ontario, got it?" The professor was suddenly much more serious. Our province's other professor came up behind her with a smirk on his face. He was wearing a white lab coat, blue jeans, and white sneakers, and had black hair and eyes.

"Yeah kids, better listen to your mom or you'll be in trouble." He said sarcastically. Professor Trillium scoffed at him.

"I only say that they should come back if they get into a bad situation because I don't want anyone to get hurt and I don't want Greninja's conditions to get worse! They're bad enough as they are, do you want him to go into another coma?" She scolded her colleague.

"Yeah, at least Professor Trillium cares about our safety, unlike someone else we all know and tolerate." I shot. The other professor, Professor Loon, didn't look offended at all. Honestly his name suited him. He was a loon.

"It's not that I don't care, I just don't think this much caution is necessary."

"I'm not your guinea pig Loon. I'm not risking my health or my life just so you can experiment with how necessary my medication really is, or how much a pokemon with a severely damaged card can take before something terrible happens. I have a family that needs me and would probably break in one way or another if anything bad happened to me. If anyone can help me or fix my card it's Professor Trillium. Not you." Greninja said. He sounded calm, but you could see in his eyes that he was really angry, or getting there at the very least.

"I see I'm still not your favourite person in the world. C'mon, you've known me since you were a froakie."

"You've been a douche since I was a froakie too."

"Just because he's known you a long time doesn't mean he has to like you." Professor Trillium sighed. "He's known me since he was a froakie too. Just try being a little more pleasant to be around."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Professor Loon smirked. "I do know who can fix his attitude though."

Professor Loon released his own Greninja from its card. It didn't look around the room to check its surroundings like mine usually would. It just turned its head to look at its trainer.

"Okay, what happened?" Professor Loon's Greninja could speak English and preferred not to use the translator mics. Mine liked being able to choose his voice, but he could speak English if he wanted or needed to and was excellent at it.

"The Little Froakie never grew out of his attitude. Even after evolving twice." Professor Loon said.

"And you never grew out of your selfishness. Even after a full decade." Greninja shot back.

"Hey, watch your tongue. You may not be a bubble frog anymore, but I can still mess you up badly if you step out of line." Loon's Greninja spoke up again.

"Oh really?" Greninja glared at both Loon and Loon's Greninja, who we're going to call LG for now. "I think I could beat you."

"Wanna bet?"

Both greninjas glared at each other for a while. It was kind of odd to watch. Both of them were above the average height for their species, but Greninja was 5'1'' while LG was at least a foot taller. Greninja was my height and LG was slightly shorter than Loon. I knew it could definitely be intimidating for Greninja at times, but having known these guys all his life he knew how to handle it now. Plus he lived with my dad's pokemon. Nothing that we would encounter at camp could scare him, but there were some people who definitely made him more cautious than usual.

"We're not having a pokemon battle right here in the lounge." Professor Trillium sighed. "Calm down. Loon, put your greninja away."

"If she's going to have hers out mine's staying too."

"Loon. Her's can't go back in his card, you know that."

"So? Either we both put them away or neither of us do!"

Just as another argument was about to begin Frogadier ran into the room with Natalie and Umbreon.

"Hey Alyssa! Frogadier and Umbreon won the game by the way. And we got an electric type coin from it!" Natalie told me excitedly. Umbreon was also very happy from the looks of it.

"Nice! Good job guys!" I smiled at them.

"Thanks!" Frogadier replied. Then he noticed Professor Loon. He wasn't too happy about it, especially when he saw that LG was out and both he and Greninja looked mad. He turned his translator mic on so that Greninja and I wouldn't need to translate.

"Okay, what happened here?" He asked.

"Stuff." I replied. "We should get back to helping our team with the scavenger hunt though. Greninja's good for another three hours."

"Alright, let's go then!" Natalie said. "The others said they were going to search around the old building that's used for church sermons when there's no camp."

"Okay."

"You guys have fun okay?" Professor Trillium smiled at us. "Oh, and here."

Professor Trillium handed me a fighting type coin. I thanked her and Loon started complaining about how Professor Trillium just gave me a free coin and I should have to work for it first. Professor Trilium shooed us away and we left the building, but managed to hear a bit more before walking away.

"Please. Putting up with you is more than enough hard work to earn a coin for some silly game that's only meant to entertain." Trillium teased. Loon scowled and the nurse laughed.

"That was not fun. Sorry we missed watching you two win the game." Greninja sighed, directing his attention to Frogadier and Umbreon instead of LG and Loon's stares.

"That's fine Greninja. By the way, do we have a spare translator mic for Umbreon? Natalie and Umbreon were asking me about it earlier." Frogadier replied.

"Alyssa, do we have a spare mic?" Greninja asked me, unintentionally cutting off my conversation with Natalie.

"Uhhh yeah. I have one in my bag. I can send Rookidee to get it if we need it now."

"It's not urgent. Umbreon and I were just wondering if you had a spare one earlier. We think they're cool, and my family is always curious about what Umbreon is saying." Natalie explained.

"I'll get one for you and Umbreon to keep after we win this game then." I smiled.

We finally caught up to the rest of our group. They were just coming out of the building they said they'd search.

"Nothing." Ty shook his head. "And we've looked everywhere that's not off-limits already."

"Not really. There has to be someplace that we missed." Harry sighed.

"This is going to be frustrating." Greninja said. "But how about we follow some other groups around and see if they lead us to a coin that we haven't found yet?"

"Sure. But where would they be?" Harry asked. "Other than where we've been already, of course."

"I don't know. Maybe somewhere we've already been. You guys didn't find anything at the obstacle course, did you?"

"Nope."

"Well so far all of the coins have had some sort of puzzle involved. Most of them weren't random. You have to dive for the fairy coin and trace the path of the old slip n slide to get the water coin." Akasuki spoke her thoughts out loud. "For the ghost coin you needed a ghost type to find it. You had to play with the lights for the electric coin. You had to climb a tree to retrieve the bug coin from near a bee nest."

"So maybe to get another coin you actually have to complete the obstacle course." Max finished her thoughts. "Okay, I'm up for the challenge! Who else?"

"I'll go." Dia said. "What obstacles are there though?"

"There's one where a team of at least five, a full cabin of campers, has to get from post to post together without any of them falling and only one plank to connect all of the posts. You have to pick up and move the plank when you want to get to the next post." I explained. "Then there was one where you have to swing across a large gap to get from one wood platform to the other."

"I could've sworn there was a third challenge." Harry said. "I can't remember it though."

"Yeah, me either."

"Well in any case, we should go before somebody else wins!" Dia yelled at us, already running towards the forest that the obstacle course was in. "Let's go!"

- Several minutes later -

"Okay, we're done! Nothing!" Ty yelled in frustration.

"Hey, where did Greninja go?" Natalie asked.

"He said he'd be right back." I told them. "Apparently he had an idea about where to search."

"Hey everyone!" Greninja greeted us happily as we walked out of the forest. He seemed to be in a hurry and extremely excited. "Natalie, take these and run!"

Greninja handed the last three coins that we needed, psychic, dragon, and dark, to Natalie. She stared in shock for a few seconds before shoving them in her pocket and running as fast as she could towards the field again. The rest of us charged after her.

"Dude, how did you get those?!" Ty yelled at Greninja happily.

"I have my ways!" Greninja yelled back.