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Max's POV

"Hey Max! Hey Kirlia!" May greeted with an ecstatic smile. "So, you finally made it to the Kalos Region huh?" She and Skitty both looked so happy to see us. Me and Kirlia could both tell that she was afraid to strike a nerve though. She looked like she had been rehearsing this whole conversation to herself.

"Yeah." I smiled a bit awkwardly. Sadly, since I just wanted to forget about my flop at the Hoenn League that also meant that I didn't think of what to say about it. "Uh...Look. May. I'm sorry about how badly I messed up at the League. I really should've had my act together and-"

"Wait. Why are you apologizing? If anything, I should be apologizing for not coming. I was so caught up with all of the after-events from the Grand Festival that I wasn't even in the same Region to cheer you on with Mom and Dad."

"But..." I said with a sigh. What was I even doing right now? I didn't even know the real reason why I was apologizing. "I guess that...I'm just sorry for making you look bad?" It was the only reason I had really. That is why I avoided her until now.

She caught a flight to meet me at the end of the League, which I had to stay for since all the competitors had to line up for a picture and some 'Final Goodbye' ceremony. Of course as soon as that was over, I left before May could even find me.

Mom and Dad were a little angry at me, but after I explained it, Dad switched over to my side and told the others to give me some space. Because of all that, I didn't talk to May until...Well, right now.

"Max, you and I both know that doesn't matter. Let the news say what they want, you're my brother and I'll stand with you till the end." She told me with a nod. "Now come on, tell me what Kalos is like! Is it as amazing as the brochures say they are?!" She and Skitty both looked at us with wide eyes. Now completely caught up in fantasy land.

"Well, I haven't seen too much of it yet. I called you the second I got off the plane. But still, the airport alone still looks pretty great. Not to mention, I can see Prism Tower from here and it's even cooler than what the pictures showed." I said, looking off to the side. "What do you think Kirlia?"

"It's definitely a sight to see." She said out loud so the phone would pick it up. "Not to mention, I'm mostly picking up a calm yet star struck emotion from the locals. It seems that even those who live here are impressed with what goes on."

They don't call Kirlia the 'Emotion' Pokémon for nothing. At first, I thought that her reading other people's emotions was an invasion of privacy, but since that's how she sees naturally, I couldn't really be mad at her for it. But that didn't mean that I wouldn't be careful whenever trying to hide something around her.

"Really? Even the locals?" May asked. "I guess everything's just that beautiful. Maybe I should just come over and compete in the Kalos Grand Festival..." She mused to herself.

"Nya-nya~!" Skitty said happily.

"Oh-uh-wait-" Kirlia stuttered while shaking her hands in denial. Neither of us wanted May to come with us on our own journey.

"But May," I suddenly said out loud. "Didn't Mom and Dad say that you were planning on competing in the Unova Region with Dawn?!" I asked, hoping that the reminder would be enough.

"Nya~!" Skitty said with a dismissive wave of her paw.

"Skitty, that's the worst excuse I've ever heard." Kirlia deadpanned. "And besides, if Piplup really gets that clingy, just tell Munchlax that he also has a crush on her. That outta keep him away." She told her with a small smile.

"Nya...~" Skitty hummed in thought.

"Well, I guess you've got a point. It wouldn't be fair to Dawn if I just canceled the trip." She said with a shrug. "Besides, Harley's not competing in Unova this year anyway."

"Yeah, you see?" I asked, taking this opportunity. "An entire region that Harley can't bother you in. Nothing is better than that." I said with a smile, glad that I was able to avoid May coming to Kalos.

"Excuse me?!" A whiny voice yelled out angrily. "What did you just say about me?!" Before me or Kirlia could even turn around, we could feel the presence of a freak in a Cacturn costume appear behind us. Glaring directly at me.

Why can it never be easy?


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Alex's POV

"So all of these animals are Pokémon?" I asked, looking at one animal from the next. There were so many of them all in this one spot that I was surprised that they could all live in this bio-dome.

Me, the Professor, and that Garchomp were all in here watching the other Pokémon play around or do whatever they were doing. The Professor was trying to teach me the basics of Pokémon, which was all sounding like one big complex version of rock, paper, scissors.

All of these Pokémon looked way less intimidating than the floating gas ball, which the Professor told me was a Ghost-Type, and Garchomp. I mean there was a small robin called Fletchling, a ferret looking thing called Linoone, and a flying piece of honeycomb called Combee. They all looked like harmless, if not a little weird looking, animals. And they were the usual inhabitants for forests.

And honestly, as long as I could avoid the bigger threats an 'adventure' doesn't sound all too bad really.

Also by this point, I was in some normal clothes that the Professor or one of his assistants got from a local store. So now instead of sweatpants and a grey undershirt, I now had jeans, a buttoned up blue shirt with a black pattern, and normal tennis shoes. It was all guesstimated so the clothes weren't a perfect fit, but it was fine for now. And along with all of that, they gave me a backpack that had plenty of space to pack everything I'd need. Now I just needed money to actually buy any of that stuff.

"Yes. I watch over them to try and discover more Pokémon that can mega evolve. Of course, some of the other scientists are interns that are training to become Pokémon Professors themselves. One of which are trying to conduct research on Pokémon Culture. So we have more Pokémon than usual staying here." Sycamore told me while pointing towards a red and white looking sloth-monkey Pokémon.

That Pokémon, and one other that was the same species, were both doing what looked like sit-ups on tree branches. "You see Alex, those two Pokémon are known as Vigoroth. Their both competing for the a female Vigoroth that's sleeping somewhere else at the moment. What's actually interesting about this though is that whenever the female is near, they immediately stop their competition before she can notice."

"And if you look to the left you can see a Pokémon called Seviper, and to the right you'll see another Pokémon called Zangoose. These two were hatched from a Day Care center without any bias of the other. But as if by instinct, they are nature rivals." He pointed to each of them. They were both kind of small looking, so I guessed that they were really young.

"Huh. Any idea why they hate each other?" I looked towards him, curious as to why that was. From birth these two hate each other. I've heard people say that with their brothers or sisters, but it was always some kind of exaggeration.

"Not yet. Luckily, the intern assistant that's conducting the research is a very promising student of mine." Professor Sycamore said with a nod. Then he spotted something that was apparently very interesting. "Now this is actually the most intriguing of them all. Do you see those two fighting-types over there?" He pointed ahead to two Pokémon that were coming out from behind a tree.

"Uh, yeah. One looks like a yellow sumo-wrestler, and the other looks like a purple boxer." I acknowledged.

"Yes. They're respective names are Makuhita and Tyrogue. And if you look closely towards their torsos, you can see that something's painted there." He explained, pointing towards them to show me what he meant. And as he said, each of them had bronze colored paint that resembled a fist.

"Some fighting-type Pokémon follow a sort of training called 'The Way of the Fist'. What we can gather is that the goal to mastering this type of training is to master every punch move there is. There are other trainings like this as well such as 'The Way of the Kick', 'The Way of the Claw', 'The Way of The Wave', these types of trainings are a prime example of Pokémon Culture."

I looked towards the two Pokémon and saw that both of them were yelling at each other with...There own names...Weird. Still, they somehow understood each other and only got angrier and angrier with each other until the sumo-wrestler Pokémon, Makuhita, finally pointed towards a small tree.

"Seems that they're about to try and have a competition themselves." Sycamore sat back. "I wonder who will win this time."

"This time? What, have they been-" "MAKU!" Suddenly, the Makuhita punched the tree dead center. Shaking it and forcing a Pokémon that was covered in leaves to nearly fall out of the tree. But before it hit the ground, it shot a string out from its mouth and latched on to a different tree.

"Happiny?" A small pink Pokémon with a stone in its pouch asked out loud. It looked a little ticked off as if this was some kind of routine.

"Zang." Zangoose said with a dismissive wave, not looking very impressive.

"Bid-Bidoof!" A beaver looking Pokémon said excitedly. I guess it wanted to build something out of the tree once they were done with it or something.

"Ty-Rogue rogue..." Tyrogue shook his head as Makuhita stepped aside. He then got in a boxing pose and wound up his arm for a few seconds. Resulting in his hand glowing with a white glow. As soon as the glow had reached its maximum potential, Tyrogue punched the tree. Resulting in it shaking even more than when Makuhita hit it. So much so, that the ground started to loosen up a bit around the tree.

"Sssev-Viper." Seviper hissed with a nod of approval.

"Zagoon, zag-zag-zag-zag." A raccoon-looking Pokémon laughed at Makuhita for how weak he looked compared to Tyrogue now.

"I never expected that little guy to throw a punch like that. Heck, I can't even come close to punching something like that." Honestly, how does that little Pokémon the size of a four year old manage to punch that strong?

"That was Tyrogue's Mach Punch. Now I wonder what Makuhita will try to capitalize with..." He leaned forward as if he was spectating a wrestling match.

"Min-Minccino!" A chinchilla-looking Pokémon yelled out confidentally to Makuhita, cheering him on.

"Maku." Makuhita said with a nod as took a few steps back from the tree and held up both fists in a defensive stance. Then he closed his eyes and took in a breath before winding up his own punch. And just before his eyes snapped open, his fist looked as if it had turned into steel.

What happened next was nearly in the blink of an eye. Makuhita had jumped towards the tree at an incredible speeds and connected his punch to the tree. Needless to say, it was much stronger than Tyrogue's Mach Punch as the strength and momentum combined sent dislodged the tree's roots from the ground. Resulting in it flying out of the ground and into a small pile of rocks. Where the one rock on top also had...

"Are those arms?" I asked, pointing towards the rock in question. But before Sycamore could answer, the send was picked up and thrown away from the rocks and towards the glass walls of the bio-dome. Where upon impact, the tree shattered the window with ease.

"GEODUDE?!" The rock with arms then began- floating in the air a few feet off the ground?...HOW?!

"Mak! Maku-Makuhita! Hit-Hit-Maku!" Makuhita immediately began yelling parts of his name frantically as he started to back away from the ticked off floating rock. But that didn't help as the rock began picking up nearby normal rocks and throwing them at Makuhita in rage.

"Geodude, settle down! It was an accident!" By now the Professor was up on his feet and tried very carefully to calm the Geodude down. Sadly, the Geodude wasn't having any of it as it ignored the Professor and started chucking more rocks at Makuhita. Who was now beginning to run away to avoid the rocks. Thankfully dodging all of them. "Alex, can you help?!"

"Uh, right!" I said, getting to my feet. I had to get that Geodude's attention somehow so he would leave Makuhita alone. Well, if he's throwing rocks then...I'll throw a rock too!

I quickly picked up a small pebble from off of the ground and threw it at the living rock. Nailing him in the right arm.

"Geo..." The rock growled before throwing one of his apparently infinite amount of rocks in my direction.

"AH!" I lunged off to the side, narrowly avoiding the rock as I fell to the ground beside the only wall in the bio-dome.

"Zangoose!" Zangoose yelled towards me, pointing behind me towards a watering hose that was plugged into a faucet, but turned off at the moment.

"Geodude, you need to calm down!" "Garchomp!" The Professor was trying to get close, but upon getting within ten feet of the angry rock, Geodude tossed a rock towards the Professor. Which Garchomp caught as if it was a Dodgeball game.

If only it was that easy.

"MAKU!" Makuhita yelled out as he kept dodging every rock thrown. Just running in circles as Geodude kept up his assault.

"Hey, Rock-Head!" I yelled out over all the commotion, making everyone look towards me as I stood as far as the hose could reach. "Here! Have a drink!" I yelled out the best pun I could come up with as I put my thumb over the nozzle of the running hose. Making the water become more pressurized as it propelled towards the Geodude. Hitting him dead center in the face and even knocking the rock he had out of his hand.

"Bull's-eye!" I yelled out, stopping the water spray as I grinned victoriously. "Now can you please just calm- Huh?!" I yelled out as he had already picked up two rocks and thrown them. Giving me no time whatsoever to jump out of the way.

So instead, that Pokémon covered in the leaves from earlier jumped in front of me and used some kind of power. Making a force field looking thing appear in front of both of us. Which the rocks simply bounced off of ineffectively.

"Woah! Thank you...Uh, Pokémon-guy." I said awkwardly since I didn't know it's name.

"Burmy." It said with a friendly nod. Alright, so do all Pokémon only talk with their names? Is that how their named to begin with?

"Geo...Dude!" The rock began throwing rock after rock towards the glowing shield. And with each rock, I saw Burmy flinch just a little each time. But thankfully, the Geodude ran out of rocks that were directly under him and looked around for more.

"Burmy, get outta the way!" I said, aiming the hose back towards Geodude. Burmy complied and moved while I put my thumb back over the nozzle just in time to knock one of the two rocks Geodude had picked up.

He pulled back him arm to throw the second rock, but I pointed the nozzle directly at him. Ready to fire a blast of water any time I needed to. "Up, up, up! Put the rock down!" I commanded, not lowering the nozzle even a little.

"Geo..." He growled again, glaring at me with an ice-cold stare that almost made me shiver. He didn't lower his ammunition either. It was a Mexican Standoff. A Mexican Standoff with a rock... Not sure if that's impressive or just plain sad.

"Put the rock down, and no one gets wet." I said slowly, moving my thumb closer to the nozzle. "I guarantee you that this water will hit you before you so much as twitch that throwing arm. So. Put. The. Rock. Down..." I repeated.

"Geo..." He growled, thinking really hard about testing his luck. But when he looked around and saw all the other Pokémon staring him down, he saw that he was outnumbered. "Dude." He dropped the rock with a sigh. Knowing that he had been beat.

Following my end of our one sided negotiation, I quickly dropped the hose and held up my hands slightly to show that I wasn't making a move for it. "See? No rocks, no water."

"Huh?" Professor Sycamore asked as Tyrogue got his attention. And after doing some Simon Says tricks and pointing towards the broken window, he gasped. "And no Makuhita!" He told me with a frown.

"What?!" I quickly turned towards the window, but instead of seeing Makuhita, I saw a Zangoose with a bow on its ear jump out the window as well. "And there goes the Zangoose!"

"Oh no! If she gets startled, someone might get hurt!" He quickly turned to me. "Alex, I need you to look for Makuhita while I get Zangoose. Can you do that for me?" He asked calmly as he started for the exit where as Garchomp went towards the window to stop anything else from getting out.

"Me?! Dude, I'm not from around here! I don't know where anything is in Kalos!" I told him while shaking my head in shock.

"Well, neither does Makuhita. He's just running on impulse. It's probably best for someone unfamiliar to Kalos to go after him. As soon as I find Zangoose, I'll meet you at Prism Tower! The large building in the center of the city! You can't miss it! Good luck!" He finished his last few sentences as quickly as he could and ran out the door. Leaving me no choice but to sigh in defeat and follow suit.

But before I did, I turned towards the rest of the room. "All of you stay here...And Geodude for God's sake, don't throw anymore rocks!" I told him before running out of the room myself.

"Geo..." He said with a pout before crossing his arms and floating over to a different rocky terrain to rest on.


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Max's POV

After we both got through a thick crowd of people, I finally tried catching my breath. As soon as he suddenly showed up behind me, we and Kirlia started running from him and his Cacturne in attempt to lose him in the giant city of Lumiose. We lost him once, but a few minutes later, we saw him trying to catch up to us stealthily. So we've been trying to get away from him as inconspicuously as possible.

"Did we lose him?!" I asked while trying to look natural.

"I think so. I can't sense anyone with an angry aura...Although up ahead I can sense a few people and Pokémon alike with aggravation." Kirlia told me telepathically.

"Aggravation? Huh, I wonder why...Let's check it out." I told her before she nodded and led the way. We were towards the center of the city now after trying to stay away from Harley, and we could see a small group of others that were around my age, that being almost eleven, and a little older. They were all obviously trainers as shown by the Pokémon that were around them, the Pokéballs on their belts, and backpacks that they carried their traveling gear in.

But the weird thing was that they looked a little beat up and...Electrified? How's come they look like they've been electrified? And not just them, but the Pokémon with them looked as if they've been shocked as well.

"Excuse me," I began as me an Kirlia walked up. "What happened to all of you?" I didn't really know how else to ask the question, so I kept it blunt.

"The Gym Leader." One of them said with a mix of anger and disappointment. "We went in there and wanted him to battle us, but when we told him that we didn't have four badges, then he kicked us out. Painfully." He said as his Pokémon, which I couldn't recognize, whimpered as a small course of static went over its fur.

"I had enough badges though." Another trainer said with a raise of his hand. "As did Ashley here." He said, gesturing towards a girl that was right besides him. They looked to be the oldest out of the four people here. "We walked in and saw this weird guy dressed up as a robot. He beat us without any problem and sent us out of the gym through some kind of trapdoor."

"A trapdoor?!" Me and Kirlia looked at each other. "Well that's a little extreme, don'tcha think?!"

"What's even more extreme is that it leads out through the center of that emblem." The girl pointed us towards the emblem which resembled a Pokéball in the shape of a lightning bolt. "Everyone flies out and falls to the ground. But luckily, it looks like someone was nice enough to set up a cushion for everyone to land on."

"Woah-oh-oh!..." We all kept quiet as we heard a faint yell come from the building as the center circle from the Pokéball-lightning emblem open up. And seconds later an Aron flew out and fell like a rock, no pun intended, towards the cushion. Landing on it but also popping it as a result. Leaving it flattened as the trainer himself came out from the trapdoor's exit. Towards a now uninflated cushion.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" He screamed bloody murder as he plummeted. The trainer looked even younger than I did. So much so that he might've been even younger than ten.

"Kirlia, help him down. Quick!" I said quickly, watching as Kirlia's eyes glowed a light blue when she caught the trainer with her psychic and slowly brought him back down to the ground.

"Okay...That is the last time I try to go into this gym!" The kid said as he stood up. He then picked up his Aron and looked at it with a sad look. "Come on Aron, let's get you to the Pokémon Center."

"Uh, Wallace? I'm pretty sure Aron's not..." The girl sighed. "Come on Dave, let's follow him. Besides, our Pokémon need to go to the Center too. Bye kid." She told me as she and Dave got up to catch up with Wallace.

"Kirlia, let's try and face this Gym Leader ourselves." I told her with a frown. "Someone needs to teach him some manners."

"I agree. It's one thing to be tough, but another to literally throw out your competitors." Kirlia agreed with a nod. "The entrance is over there. And if they say that they're going through a trapdoor, then there must be a set of stairs or some type of elevator that lead upwards."

"Good point. Let's go." I walked forward and she followed as the other two trainers and their Pokémon simply watched. Silently wishing us luck as we walked inside.


And that'll about do it for this episode. For those that are starting to take notice, this story is following parallel to the Pokémon Series. It won't follow Ash and friends, and they won't be coming into the story either. Though they will be mentioned here and there.

See you all next chapter everyone!

QotC: If you were to run into any character from the Pokémon series- not A Pokémon, a human character -then which one would you want to meet?