Bright and early the next day, or at least as early as Dawn could wake up, we left Jublife city and headed east. The path was straight forward and Dawn's pokemon got some experience fighting the trainers. At least this time, Dawn seemed to have some idea of what to do.

I stood on the sidelines and watched, making mental notes about strategies and techniques. Why I did so, I have no idea; mother and father would never allow me to own a pokemon. The last leg of the journey was a short walk through a part of , a huge mountain that separated the Sinnoh region into two parts.

It was light enough inside the cave to see without use of flash, but visibility was still poor. Halfway through, we came across a man; he was blocking our way. His spiky blue hair and perpetual frown created an aura of intimidation. Dawn pushed me ahead of her. I tapped the man's shoulder as I scribbled hastily on a page in the notebook.

Excuse me, could you please move out of the way?

Dawn smiled as politely as she could manage about a meter away. He did not seem to notice and was mumbling to himself. I did not catch anything he said and I tapped his shoulder again. This time he turned, I pointed at the message.

"Sorry about that." His phone rang and he answered. "…Yeah. I'll be there right away."

He finished the call and moved closer to the wall, creating a space for us to walk through. Dawn smiled and I nodded my head in thanks and we continued on our way.

"I found some candidates for the experiment. They should head over to this location later. Make sure to pick them up."

Orebourgh was a rather small city dedicated to mining. Dawn's eyes widened at the scene devoid of stores of any sort.

She looks like she wants to leave immediately.

She almost sprinted to the gym, only to find out that Roark, the gymleader was currently in the mines.

We headed inside. Along the way some of the miners had pokemon battles and Dawn complained about how the dust was going to take hours to wash out.

Roark was found in the deepest part of the mine, when Dawn asked about a battle he looked at his watch.

"Oh, I must have lost track of time. Sorry about that. The gym will be ready shortly."

He rushed out of the mine. We followed suit; after resting at the pokemon center, Dawn was ready to take on the gym battle. The field was rocky, reflecting the leader's specialty.

Roark greeted us at the entrance along with a referee. They took their places and the referee explained the rules to the challenger.

"This will be a one-on-one battle between Roark, the gym leader of Orebourgh and the challenger Dawn from Twinleaf town. Let the battle begin!"

Two pokeballs were thrown simultaneously and the pokemon appeared. Dawn had chosen her piplup, due to type advantage. The other pokemon was a cranidos; a medium sized, bi-pedal dinosaur with a very hard head.

"Piplup use Bubble!" The blue penguin sent a stream of bubbles at the cranidos, who dodged the assault.

"Craniados use Headbutt!" The dinosaur rushed forward and smashed into piplup, sending the pokemon flying into the air. Piplup landed harshly on the ground, but stood up with determination in its eyes.

"Piplup use Bubblebeam!" This time a thicker, faster stream of bubbles flew towards cranidos and they hit. The attack was especially effective and now both pokemon looked rather exhausted.

"Cranidos use Tackle!" As the pokemon charged forward, Dawn told piplup to block the attack. Piplup slid back a foot or two but the attack was stopped. Suddenly piplup began to glow.

"What's going on?"

As the light faded away, piplup had changed form. It was larger but retained a resemblance to a penguin. Dawn took out her pokedex and it said, "Prinplup the penguin pokemon. Because every prinplup thinks they are most important, they can never form groups."

The sudden evolution did not turn the tides at the moment however, both pokemon were exhausted. One final attack would decide the victor.

Roark ordered his pokemon to use headbutt again.

Instead of using a water attack, prinplup should probably use metal claw. He could block and damage; he would probably win.

I stared intently at the battle, willing somehow that either Dawn or prinplup would come to the same conclusion I had.

"Prinplup, use Bubble!" Prinplup did not follow the command, instead it stood it ground, flippers crossed against its chest. The two collided, after a moment of silence, cranidos fell, revealing the fact that prinplup's flippers were glowing.

Prinplup learned Metal Claw.

"Cranidos is unable to battle. Dawn and prinplup are the winners!" Dawn did a victory pose to display her victory. I arose in preparation to leave.

"Here is the Coal Badge and a case to hold it. Good luck gathering the rest."

Dawn took the objects and placed them in her bag.

"Thank you very much." She turned to leave; I waved farewell and followed her.

As we were leaving, we ran into Barry. He had transformed into a full fledged Twinleaf citizen: his full attention focused on Dawn.

After a quick conversation, they parted ways and continued on towards the next gym battle: Eterna city. Little did I know however, that we would not reach the destination, fate had other plans in store.