A/N: Sorry if I confused anyone by saying at the end of the last chapter that two people entered the gym. One is the leader and the other, the referee.

There's also a poll on my profile page about this story, so please take a look.

This had better be good if she's only using one pokémon, Elliot thought as he watched from the sidelines, unless she's just trying to unnerve Amber or something…

"A one-on-three battle between Norma, the gym leader of Larkspire City, and the challenger, Amber Hawthorne from Acacia Town. The challenger may substitute pokémon as often as they choose. Whenever any pokémon is unable to battle, their trainer loses the match." The referee waved her flags in the air and the battle became official.

"Go, Poppy!"

The bulbasaur appeared and Norma threw her pokéball too.

"Huh?"

For a second, Elliot looked as confused as Amber. What the… and then he twigged. Ha! That's brilliant! Can't wait to see this one!

It was a lump of coal. Not a pokémon – not even a rock type – just a bog standard lump of black charcoal, and Norma seemed to be deadly serious about battling with it. She grinned as if to say, 'Look at my totally awesome fighting machine!' or something like that. But it was just a rock.

Amber squinted. Was she missing something? If it was really what it looked like, then she was battling an insane gym leader.

There was silence, and Norma just waited patiently.

"Err, Poppy? I want you to tackle that… thing. Okay? Send it flying."

Poppy nodded unsurely, but broke into a gentle run nonetheless. She collided with the rock and to her surprise, it hurtled backwards. It wasn't heavy at all! Poppy blinked and looked around the room, puzzled. They had all seen the coal fly and hit the ground, but now it was nowhere to be seen!

Norma chuckled. "Tackle it back."

Then, out of nowhere, something charged into Poppy from behind and sent her tumbling. She jumped up and turned around. Much to her and Amber's surprise, she was faced with another bulbasaur!

"Hey – that's not fair!" cried Amber. "I thought you were only using one pokémon!"

"I am. Ditto, show yourself."

The bulbasaur with the strange face began to wobble. Its body disintegrated and reformed itself as a pink gelatinous blob.

I was right all along, Elliot smirked. Genius, but she should have just kept Amber in the dark and watched her panic.

Amber gasped. "Ditto?"

She took out her pokédex and pointed it at the creature. "Ditto can alter its genetic code at will. It changes into a rock to avoid being attacked whilst sleeping."

"I know that now," Amber muttered, and folded the pokédex away into her back pocket. "Poppy, use vine whip!"

Poppy flung out her vines towards the ditto. Before they had even reached the target, Ditto had become a bulbasaur and was batting the vines away with its own. Ditto matched the real bulbasaur blow for blow, and neither was making any significant advances against the other.

"Stun spore – slow it down!"

Spores puffed like fragments of glitter out of Poppy's bulb and drifted around the arena, including over Ditto. They showered the pokémon, and Ditto inhaled them. As Amber predicted, it became sluggish and its vines slowed. Poppy lashed inwards, managing one whip on the ditto's head.

"Regenerate," said Norma, completely unshaken.

Ditto gave up on the vines. It sucked them inwards and they melted together with the rest of its body. Out of the plasma, Ditto emerged again as a bulbasaur, albeit regenerated, with new nerves and new brain cells, free from paralysis. The pokémon was good as new.

Amber growled. "Return Poppy, and go, Terry. Scratch attack!"

The sentret burst energetically onto the scene. When he noticed Ditto disguised as a bulbasaur, he looked up at Amber for reassurance. She nodded, and he hesitantly performed a testing scrape across Ditto's body.

Ditto retaliated quickly with a vine which grabbed Terry by the tail, lifted him up into the air and spun him around in circles. Amber jumped to grab him as he went soaring in her direction, milliseconds after Ditto retracted the vine.

"Sentret!" Terry squeaked angrily from Amber's arms. There was no doubt now that this bulbasaur lookalike was the enemy, and Terry was dead set upon revenge. He broke into a run, then curled up into a ball and propelled himself towards Ditto. Ditto, however, jumped to the side and Terry went careering straight past.

Terry was about to uncurl himself and was slowing down, but Amber yelled, "Don't stop, Terry, keep rolling!"

He chirped in acknowledgement, and then picked up speed, turning a swift corner to avoid colliding with the wood panelled wall. Terry zoomed around the floor and the ditto-bulbasaur charged behind him, though could never catch up as Terry kept on accelerating. The chase went on for some time.

Then, Ditto slowed. Beads of sweat trickled down its scaly bulbasaur skin and out came the vines once more. Terry was still rolling around, gaining momentum and marking a path followed by Ditto's vines. The only problem was that Ditto had to constantly spin around just to see where Terry was headed next, and quickly became dizzy.

"Return!"

Ditto regained its breathing rate, but its movements were shaky.

Amber threw her third pokéball. "Natu, you're up next!"

Natu stood calm; a complete opposite to the rapid, jerky movements displayed by Terry. He faced Ditto, though his gaze appeared transfixed toward an indefinite spot in the distance.

The ditto-bulbasaur started to fade in an effort to transform. The deep, leafy greens that made up its bulb faded to a pallid, ill-looking mint colour. Its body, however, did not turn completely white and it retained its bulbasaur shape. Ditto inhaled a deep breath. It was considerably worn, and the failed transformation showed it.

The sight of Ditto did not faze him, and Natu attacked with perfect precision. Hopping on his rake-like red claws, he was faster than the exhausted creature trying to flee. An array of pecks assaulted Ditto, Natu's golden yellow beak pinching Ditto's skin rapidly. Ditto tried to run on its chunky bulbasaur legs, but did not get very far before Natu had skipped up from the rear and landed on its back. More precisely, Natu landed on the bulb. He dug his beak into the opening and tore at the leafy flesh, ripping off whole chunks from the ditto-bulbasaur's back.

Ditto twisted its head around and stretched up to bite Natu's talons, though a bulbasaur neck was not long enough. Next, it tried flailing around, running quickly for several metres and then stopping abruptly in the hope that Natu would topple forwards. It didn't happen – Natu clasped onto the decaying bulb tightly with his claws, and, being a tiny pokémon, it was easier for him to maintain his balance on Ditto's back.

"Come on Natu, use night shade!" Amber squealed excitedly, her heart pounding like a bass drum trapped inside her chest. She was doing it, she was really doing it!

Much to Ditto's momentary relief, Natu skipped forward and landed on the floor, facing the bulbasaur body. Ditto skidded to a halt and stopped flailing.

It stared into Natu's eyes and Natu stared back, his blank look sucking Ditto mentally inwards. Ditto shook his head and began to thrash wildly again, and then its body started to hover above the floorboards. Ditto tried to look down, but could only move its pupils as the energy was drained from its body. Natu raised it high into the air – almost to the ceiling – and then turned around with a chirp as if nothing was happening. Ditto fell and impacted with a loud thud.

It was over. Ditto's body was falling to pieces. The ripped chunks of fleshy leaf and the animal that carried them regrouped together. Under a faint white glow, Ditto's original body reformed; pink, gelatinous, lifeless and spilt on the floor.

Amber craned her neck to get a better view. "Did I…?"

The referee flung her arm dramatically up into the air on Amber's side. "Ditto is unable to battle. The victory goes to the challenger."

Amber was almost bursting with excitement as she ran out of the gym, hopping and twirling about in the air. In her hand, she clasped a brooch in the shape of a hoothoot's face, with tiny holes removed for eyes – the mask badge. Its beak was sculpted intricately from marble and the brown and black metals representing its feathers glinted in the sunlight. Pirouetting back to the pokémon centre – no doubt to boast to the other trainers – Amber didn't notice that Elliot was not tagging along behind.

He had hung back in the gym and had spoken briefly with Norma about the battle before heading out. 'Anything but normal' was how she'd described her pokémon type speciality.

Strolling leisurely back to the pokémon centre, Elliot glanced through the windows of the curiosity shops. Outside of one stood a girl about his age, who clasped a smoochum tightly in her arms. She smiled meekly at him, and he tried just to speed up and hurry past.

"Good afternoon." He stopped and turned. There it was again. But the girl wasn't moving her lips.

She giggled and beckoned him towards her. "Any souvenirs from Larkspire for you?" He could see now she was using the smoochum as part of a ventriloquist act, probably designed to attract attention and draw unsuspecting customers to her shop. It had worked, and when he entered behind her, a silver bell jingled above the wooden doorframe.

It looked like a junk shop at first sight, the mismatched shelves littered with little trinkets and toys. However, when a shopper looked closely, they could see the tiny details carved into the wooden models and the dolls sewn beautifully to the exact stitch.

The girl squeezed behind the shop assistant's counter and watched intently as he browsed the shelves and rummaged through large wicker baskets of craftwork.

Elliot let out a quiet laugh. This is perfect!

He sat the small, cloth doll on his palm. It was probably intended as a child's plaything, but so what? If anyone asked, it was a souvenir.

"Thanks, have a nice day," said the young woman, barely moving her lips, when he paid for the handiwork. Whether she continued watching him blankly or became preoccupied with sorting his change into the cash register, he did not know. What he did know, however, was that if she did see him casually grabbing a handful of safety pins on his way out, she pretended not to have done.

A/N: So were you expecting that? A lot of people thought it'd be ghosts, which on reflection, I can understand. I didn't really take into account the whole atmosphere of the gym and it wasn't meant to be a clue as such. The closest guess was a Mr. Mime, because of the street performers. That was sort of my idea behind using Ditto – that it's a 'fun' pokémon that would be a good performer and joker.

I've also realised how difficult it is to write a gym battle. This is the first chapter I had any difficulty in writing, purely because of the long battle scene. I hope it was decent.

As for the scene towards the end, the shopkeeper/ventriloquist girl is meant to be Sun and Moon Entity's OC. I don't feel I did the character justice because she's so interesting and unique that I couldn't really capture her essence in a few paragraphs. But I wanted to write that scene anyway, as part of Elliot starting to get some sort of 'revenge' on Amber.