"Okay," said Daikenki. "Now that Maylene and Volkner are safe and everything, can we go home now?"

Dawn screamed in a hopelessly dramatic way. "OH MY FREAKING GOSH YOUR SAMUROTT CAN TALK!"

Ashley sighed. "Yep. I forget who started that. It was probably Infade who first learned how. Now they all can talk."

"Can we go now?" Daikenki repeated.

"Yeah, sure," said Ashley, recalling Daikenki.

Something exploded in the distance. "On second thought…"

Sagitta, Staraptor, and Togekiss were let out of their pokeballs. Ashley, Ash, and Dawn hopped onto their backs.

"Let's go!" shouted Ash.

"Ash, they're not stupid; they could see that explosion through the outside of the pokeball," Ashley told him as the pokemon took off.

"It's a precaution," explained Ash. "I mean, what if Togekiss had been sleeping? Then Dawn would have been left behind and we'd all be happier…"

"Togekiss, use aurasphere," Dawn said.

"Hey!"

Ash fell and was caught by Staraptor for the second time that day. "Dawn…"

A red dot appeared from the direction of the explosion.

"Frack," said Ashley. "Him again? Sagitta, use dragon pulse."

Sagitta shot a ball of dragon energy at the aerodactyl, who dodged.

"He won't win anyways," Sagitta shrugged.

Sagitta got hyperbeamed full in the chest, and suddenly they were falling. Ashley brought the unconscious Sagitta back into her pokeball. Dragon energy whirled around her, and when she emerged, she had wings of her own.

"What the –" shouted Ash.

"Keep going! I'll take care of this," Ashley told them. She rushed at the aerodactyl using dragon claw with her fingers. It hit the immensely surprised aerodactyl, who obviously remembered her. Ashley used dragon rage, which narrowly missed him. He used aerial ace, but missed. Ashley draco meteored him directly, not throwing the ball of energy up first like you're supposed to. The aerodactyl fell down to earth and Ashley beat her wings rapidly to catch up to Ash and Dawn.

"How did you do that?" Ash asked.

"No idea," Ashley replied briskly. "I've been able to do that since I was born. Cloud."

"Wha –" Ash's staraptor flew into a cloud. They emerged soaking wet.

Dawn cracked up. "No, it's a good thing," Ashley insisted, "because –"

A jet of fire rushed at Ash. It would have burned him and Staraptor really, really badly, but since they were wet, it only dried them off.

Ashley used a real draco meteor this time, willing it to hit whatever had unleashed that flame. There was an explosion from down below, and simultaneously, Ashley realized where she was.

Ohmygosh. Ohmygoshno.

She had endless memories of this place, starting from when she was six. She used to have playdates with her friend here. As they had gotten older, they had grown apart, but they knew each other so well, it wasn't saying much. Ashley had come here for a time to study for a competition with her friend, where they pwned most of the other teams. This was absolutely, positively Ashley's favorite place.

Recently, Sagitta had broken a window there singing.

Kyle Delta's house.

Ashley brought herself into a headfirst dive, righting herself just feet above the ground. Half the building was on fire, while the silhouettes of people ran around the other half. But only four people lived here, certainly not that many. And three of them were gone on business and field trips. Only Kyle was home.

Ashley landed and immediately brought a new energy to surround her: ice energy. The blizzard stopped and she had completely changed. Her wings were gone, and her attire as well as her eyes were icy blue. She released an ice beam upon the burning side of the house and ran in.

Men and women in silver clothing were turning the place upside down. They were throwing open doors, upturning couches, running up and down the stairs. A scuffle from upstairs caused a loud thud to resonate through the wall. Ashley knew who had to have gotten slammed against the wall. She ran upstairs and iceblasted her way into Kyle's room.

Empty.

His parents' room?

Still empty.

Study room?

AHA!

Ashley used ice beam on the guys holding Kyle down. She shoved the ice statues out of the way and helped him up. Kyle nodded in gratitude. He had transformed to his fighting form, but had lost his sword. Ashley found it on the bed and returned it to him.

"Thanks," said Kyle. "By the way, I found out how to beat a bunch of guys at once."

"How?" Ashley asked, amused.

"Be really, really nerdy to them." Kyle said with a grin. He slipped his sword into the scabbard hanging at his belt and picked up a Algebra 2/Trig textbook. Ashley followed his lead with a precalculus one and they went into the hall.

A gabite attacked them immediately with dragon rush. Kyle deflected it with the textbook and used it again on the gabite's head. Startled, the gabite dropped to the ground. Kyle and Ashley ran downstairs to find a bunch of treeckos aiming at them.

"Bullet seed!" someone shouted. An onslaught of seeds shot themselves at Ashley and Kyle, creating a cloud of pollen. Ash and Dawn, who had come in, couldn't see a thing.

"Ashley…" coughed Dawn.

The cloud disappeared and Kyle and Ashley reappeared – completely unharmed.

"Your textbook is wrecked," said Ashley. Kyle shrugged. He held the book out in front of him and surrounded it in an focus blast. It was much larger than the typical focus blast, and when he threw it on the ground, it exploded, blasting all the (I guess I'll call them) grunts out of the building. Miraculously, his home was fine.

"You don't know about Cynthia's prophecy?" Kyle really sounded startled.

"Nope."

"Not a clue."

"Never heard of it."

"So what is it?" Dawn was the first to ask.

"It's… Cynthia's prophecy."

Ashley gave him a Look.

"What am I supposed to say? It's a prophecy made by Cynthia that no one understands," Kyle explained. "I wrote it down somewhere…" He started to get up, then sat back down and opened the cover of his precalculus textbook. "It's right here.

'In the eternal battle of good and naught

An epic battle will be fought

The victors will have and know these well

While the losers will evermore stand in…' Um, yeah.

'A heart of steel

That can resist the conquering feel

The mind of a fighter

To vanquish all after

Two wings of lightning

Which confuse the fighting

Eyes of a dragon

To spot the heart's worst abrasion

And the dark's brightest light

That ends the fight'."

"You were right," said Ash. "It made no sense."

"Of course it did," snapped Dawn. "You're just too dim to realize it."

"This coming from you," Ash countered.

"What did you notice?" Ashley interrupted.

"Well, obviously there'll be a fight, and the winning side will have some characteristics. They'll have between them a heart of steel, mind of a fighter, two wings of lightning, eyes of a dragon, and the dark's brightest light," concluded Dawn.

Kyle nodded. Ashley recognized the way his eyes were shining. They always seemed brightest when he was about to go on a nerdy explanation. "Right, so there's all sorts of possible meanings in there. Heart of steel could be a relic, but it could also be a steel pokemon's heart – yeah, I know it's disgusting. Mind of a fighter is also like that, and two wings of lightning sounds to me kind of like Mike. Eyes of a dragon I've never heard of, so I'll go for disgusting, and the dark's brightest light… a candle, a fluorescent bulb, or it could be figurative… you know how sometimes light is symbolic for life? It could be that."

"Hmm…" said Ash, deep in thought.

BANG!

Kyle looked around. "What was that?" he said nervously.

Ash turned red. "My stomach," he admitted.

"…"

"PI – KAH!"

"Do we have enough information, Mystor?"

"We do indeed, Toxica. The energy transmit can be activated any time now."

"We'll wait a little longer, but not much. We also will need the four, like I said earlier. Although we can certainly activate the transmit first."

Kyle threw out a pokeball. He and Ash had decided to have a training battle – after lunch, of course.

"Apade, join us!" Out came his gallade.

"Buizel, I choose you!"

"Use night slash," said Kyle.

"Counter it with aquajet."

The moves formed a small explosion, knocking both back.

"Sonicboom!"

"Apade, dodge it and use close combat."

Buizel definitely didn't seem ready for that. He staggered and used icepunch, creating a spot of ice on Apade's midsection.

"Watergun," called Ash.

Apade was doused in water, knocking him flat.

"Acupressure," Kyle told Apade. The gallade soon got up.

"Sonicboom."

"Deflect it."

It was evident that Apade's special defense had been raised.

"Aquajet."

"Dodge and use acupressure."

Buizel missed, and Apade was ready for anything to come his way.

"Watergun."

"Get away from it! Acupressure once more!"

Apade managed to evade the attack and used acupressure again.

"Now! Stored power!"

A circle of glowing spheres surrounded Buizel. They closed in and hit him. Buizel's eyes widened as he fainted.

"Buizel can't battle! Kyle wins!" Dawn shouted.

"You said it wrong. It's, 'Buizel is unable to battle, the winner is Kyle,'" Ash said grumpily. He recalled Buizel. "Great job," he whispered to the pokeball.

"I can definitely see why you're co-champ," Ashley commented.

"You can battle me next," he joked, discreetly brushing aside the compliment.

"No, I think I'll stick to being a Frontier Brain," Ashley said. "That's really pretty smart, using acupressure and stored power."

"I was really surprised when Apade learned acupressure," admitted Kyle, "since gallades don't normally know it."

"So what?" Dawn retorted. "At least I win sometimes!"

"Oh yeah?" Ash shouted. "Well, try winning this battle!" He rushed at her. Dawn started running away and he chased her. Finally Dawn got bored of running and turned around.

"Uh-oh," said Ash.

Dawn reached back.

SMACK!

A one hit KO!