A.S.107

July 27th

Why do people hurt each other? Why do people have to hurt each other?

Lucas 'let' her name the Togepi, since she'd been carrying him around and all. Dawn 'let' him keep the Togepi – Cupid, for the white wings of its evolutions – since he refused to let go of the other boy.

"So much like Lyra's," she muttered, thinking of what to tell her over their chats later. On one hand, their jokes had hit the nail dead-on. On the other, no Togepi wedding.

Professor Rowan's youngest aide had to go on. "I'll be seeing you around," he said. Cupid had initially thrown a tantrum when he was about to be put in a Poké ball, but after Charlotte demonstrated going in and coming out safely, had gone in quietly.

"Bye."

The boy went off on his bike. Dawn let her hand drop before she raced against her Pokémon to the nearest patch of grass. She lost, but that was fine.

Now that she no longer had an egg to take care of, she was no longer spared from the intense training. Dawn had to run and keep up with the others even when she felt like she was going to die of muscle failure.

Neptune poked at her ribs when she collapsed, her legs too much like jelly to support her weight. "I know," she sighed. "You think I shouldn't have given Cupid to Lucas."

Another poke. So why did you?

"Because Cupid looked so happy with Lucas!" she threw her hands up slightly. "He did that weird maternal imprint thing with Lucas and I didn't want to have to break that. Losing a parent isn't fun," she added quietly.

Her starter understood after that, and let her off. They had a lot of newbies, anyways, he told himself, and no time to be taking care of babies.

When she caught her breath, Dawn grabbed her bag and took out ropes made into different knots. "We're going to practice tripping and falling," she told everyone. Grass knot damaged the foe by tripping them through the manipulation of grass. If her Pokémon knew how to fall properly like kids learning martial arts or gymnastics did, then the damage caused by grass knot would – theoretically – be lessened because they would know how to lessen the impact of hitting the ground.

She had borrowed a few mats from the Eterna Gym so that they could get used to falling and instinctively go into the safer falling position when they were in actual battle. The storage room had been well stocked with lots of good, thick mats. Apparently, she wasn't the first to have Pokémon practice falling either.

Now, dragging up memories from her youth back when she learned martial arts and research she'd done to refresh her memory, Dawn began to talk. "When you're falling forward – which you'll most likely be doing a lot – you want to bend at your knees so you fold forwards."

She demonstrated, folding her body so that the impact was lost. "Then you slap your palms to the ground and turn your face while making sure that your head doesn't directly hit the ground."

This was doable for Neptune and Frejya, whose body shapes were similar to a humans enough for them to emulate what she had done. Sekhmet and Minerva just looked at her, not even bothering to try it out.

Dawn told Neptune and Frejya to practice falling on a mat each, and then moved onto the other two Pokémon. "For you," she told Minerva, "when you're being yanked down from the air you make sure that your wings will be safe. Keep them stretched to the sky so that even when a grass knot slams you to the ground, they won't twist or break or anything. After that initial tug, there should be wiggle room in your binds. You have to be quick and get out of the knots before they tighten on you, and to do that your wings need to be ready to go whenever."

They would practice this with Minerva being yanked down onto the ground with the use of a rope knotted around one of her legs. The Noctowl wasn't thrilled at the idea of being constantly yanked down and ruffling her feathers, but Dawn promised that it wouldn't be done too harshly, and she recognized the validity behind it. She didn't want to lose the larger wings of a Noctowl, and she wanted better control over them.

As for Sekhmet, grass knot was going to be tricky. If it was a knot around one leg, it would be easier to recover because she had three other legs and a tail to regain balance, or at least cushion her fall.

If it was more than one leg incapacitated, though, that made it harder to recover from. Any combination of legs being tied down by grass knot was going to be hard.

This problem gave Dawn a bit of trouble. Eventually, it was decided that Sekhmet would try to rip and bite her way out of grass knots to the best of her ability, and fall with her face to the side and tongue tucked firmly away from her teeth to minimize injuries. Sekhmet had to practice throwing herself down onto the mat-covered ground without falling chin-first or biting her tongue. If she was less hurt or stunned by the fall, they could get up faster.

Dawn watched them all fall on purpose and then get right back up to do it all over again. None of them complained, even if it was obviously uncomfortable. They were just as determined as she was to get it right, and one loss wasn't going to stop them from getting right back onto their feet.

There was other training to do after the falling practice was done. Minerva's aerial manoeuvring needed work, and the rest of them needed to have some sort of strategy in mind before the next gym battle. If they didn't practice and prepare, they would lose.

But at that moment, watching them get right back onto their feet after every fall gave her a lot of hope.

"Back so soon?" Gardenia asked.

"You bet," Dawn said, releasing Minerva, who let out a quiet but deadly sounding hoot.

Nodding, Gardenia started with the same Pokémon – a sturdy Turtwig.

Last time, she had relied on power and speed to push through. Pound away with rock smashes and quick attacks and hope that it would work. Because of her experience with Champ, she had thought she knew how to deal with it.

Last time, it hadn't worked. Gardenia's Pokémon had retaliated. Other than the Turtwig, the other two had been quick enough to strike back or hold off her assaults.

So this time, Dawn started off with Minerva, and not just attacking but doing something else entirely. "Hypnosis," she said. Fight status with status. If Gardenia wanted to make the battles long and dragged out, she had to be ready for the attrition and throw in her own dragging into the battle.

Mo the Turtwig blinked, and suddenly deadly serious eyes were looking into his own. They were swirling – almost – and the soft hoots given as commands were so nice to follow . . . .

He didn't even hear his own trainer shouting his name as he slipped off into sleep. His body struggled with the imposed sleep, but by the time he struggled to awake it was too late. Minerva struck the finishing blow and flew up into the air while her foe slumped into the grassy field, all without Dawn giving her a single command after the first one. Loud noises, unless they were something along the lines of an uproar attack, normally didn't wake up Pokémon forced into sleep. Despite that, Dawn didn't want anything to contribute to the foe waking up, noises included.

That was what they had devoted themselves to after the first day of training as a way to stop the foe's Pokémon from wrecking them. In the first challenge attempt Dawn had been reluctant to use hypnosis because it wasn't as reliable as she would have liked, but this was a chance she was willing to take. Forced into sleep on the battlefield, the gym leader's Pokémon would be incapable of attacking for the short period of time their bodies struggled to wake up from the imposed temporary coma in the face of danger. A short time, admittedly, but during which most of their defenses would have been dropped, leaving them as helpless, sitting Psyduck.

It was a gamble worth taking.

The plan was, Minerva would put them to sleep before attacking them continuously with peck. Dawn gave no other verbal commands to let the hypnosis stay on as long as possible. She didn't have to – the foe was knocked out, and no other instructions were necessary after that.

"Sleep handicap," Gardenia noted, recalling her Turtwig. She was smirking, though. "Very smart. Cerise, safeguard."

That hadn't come up in the last battle. "Hypnosis, go!" Dawn shouted, a bit more frantic now. If safeguard got up, then Gardenia was free to essentially wreak havoc. Cherrim would put up a fight, and if Minerva expended too much of herself taking it down, then she wouldn't be able to last long against that Roserade of hers. She could switch, of course, but that would make her lose her momentum, and to properly pull off hypnosis they needed all the momentum they could get.

The flower Pokémon, under her shy violet cloak, began to chant the spells for the mystical veil softly, but Minerva swept down unexpectedly and let out a hoot that could have been a snarl much like Sekhmet's through her beak – something the Noctowl had picked up from hanging around the intimidating Luxio that was her teammate. Surprised, Cerise hesitated in her spell-casting.

"Go!"

Minerva didn't need to be told twice. She began to hoot, softly but urgently, drawing her foe into a hypnotic spell.

Cerise slumped, and Minerva began to peck at the purple petal cloak. Time was of the utmost and –

"Hoot?!" Minerva made a strangled hoot of surprise and flew up into the air, away from the foe. The Cherrim hopped away, clearly awake as the Noctowl began to circle in the air, doing several acrobatic tricks. Almost like she was trying to shake something off.

"Back," Dawn ordered, and Minerva rose higher. She didn't stop her constant, near-frantic movements, though.

By now the safeguard was up for sure, which meant that for some time hypnosis was useless. The question was whether she continued to use Minerva or –

Something green glinted in the air. Dawn stopped thinking and stared again. There – right there, a small green light that didn't have a source in any of the gym's plentiful flora. In fact, it looked like grains of shiny green dust leading to the Cherrim.

Minerva was still doing her tricks up in the air, out of reach as Dawn had ordered, but her movements were clearly slowing at a rate faster than it should have been. Like she was paralyzed – unlikely – or losing health steadily. Losing health steadily as someone – or something – sapped at her stamina.

Cerise. Leech seeds.

Dawn wanted something like defog that could remove the leech seeds so she wouldn't have to give up her momentum and let Minerva wreak havoc on the grass types. She had to settle for returning Minerva instead. Like she had suspected, something green fell to the ground where it squirmed and wiggled for a few moments before falling still.

"That was a leech seed," she said to Gardenia, who smiled widely. She should have picked up on that sooner and realized just why Minerva was making those movements. Instead, she'd been distracted by the safeguard that had gone through to realize immediately.

Lucky a simple recall was more than enough to remove it from the infected Pokémon. After calling Minerva back to her ball, but hesitated on sending the next Pokémon. Who to send? And, while making the choice, Dawn tried to stall to wear down at the spell cast on the other side. Cerise the Cherrim hopped a few times around on the arena, healthy and ready to fight with the mystic glow of the safeguard still going strong. And there was still that Roserade to be dealt with, too.

After a few more seconds of thought – even that was really pushing it, judging from the stink-eye the referee gave her – Dawn sent out Frejya.

Buneary were one of the many Pokémon that only evolved with high levels of 'happiness'. Exactly what determined this factor for Pokémon in the wild was still being investigated – Professor Rowan being one of the lead researchers after he had debunked the former theory of a high-enough dopamine release – but in captivity, it was the connection the Pokémon felt with its trainer that pushed them over to evolve.

Unfortunately, Dawn and Frejya weren't close enough for the Buneary to have evolved into Lopunny.

That didn't mean that she couldn't fight. "Quick attack," Dawn ordered. "Keep an eye out, she's got safeguard up to stop any statuses. It's that shiny glow around the Cherrim."

In a brown and tan blur of movement, Frejya leapt close before body-checking the Cherrim. When the flower Pokémon was knocked over, Frejya didn't stop moving and continued her quick movements until she was out of physical range.

That wasn't a problem for the gym leader. "Follow her with magical leaf," Gardenia ordered calmly. "And use the Buneary's momentum to cause more damage when you can."

Cerise fluttered her purple cloak, and a handful of leaves beginning to glow green detached before shooting out, edges sharp and eager to gouge flesh. Every last one of them hit the Buneary, spade-like leaves cutting and slicing Frejya's skin. Unlike tennis balls and razor leaves, magical leaves simply couldn't be avoided without some external aid. Their magic ensured that they hit their targets.

But she still stood, and the distance made the magical leaves lose some of their strength, after having to travel the extra expanse to reach Frejya. More importantly, the Cherrim hadn't closed the distance achieved through quick attack's continuation. It wasn't a far distance – a few meters, maybe a bit less – but it was close enough for Frejya to watch over the silver glow Dawn had pointed out to her.

Before Dawn could get Frejya to do anything else, though, the glow faded from the Cherrim's body – safeguard had expired. Cherrim immediately began to chant to recast and renew the spell. No time to change for Minerva.

Frejya didn't need to be told that there was an opening. She charged with another quick attack, striking on target again. This time, instead of moving away, she stayed and began to smash the plant Pokémon's body with both her ears, putting enough force behind the punches to smash through weakened rocks.

The grass type winced at the blows to her torso, but didn't relent her chanting. The safeguard sprang back up a few seconds later, and once the defenses were covered Cerise was ready to fight back to defend herself and take down her foe.

Gardenia didn't choose to counter with magical leaf again. This time, she decided to go with – "Grass knot!"

The grass sprang forwards to move, snaking and knotting seemingly on its own just like it had during the last gym battle as if it had a will of its own. The knots all surged towards the foe Pokémon, eager to hold down a foe and tangle them up into tripping down. Frejya's feet tangled up and the grass yanked insistently, knocking her off of her feet and slamming her into the ground. Frejya fell like she was supposed to, reducing the overall damage, but when her back was vulnerable Cerise spat some leech seeds onto it and planted them firmly.

Dawn returned her and opted to send out her Luxio, the one that had taken down Cerise last time. Sekhmet, finally out, charged immediately without any preamble and began to tear at the weakened Cherrim with vicious bites, intent on a repeat performance. Worn out, Cerise finally fell unconscious.

Gardenia recalled her. After thanking the Cherrim, she pulled out the last Poké ball.

As Dawn predicted, it was the Roserade – Viridian – again. The Cherrim's last safeguard was still up – hypnosis was still out of the viable options.

But that was fine, it could still work. Sekhmet was switched for Frejya, who knew what to do.

Gardenia, though, understood what she was up to. "Quick attack to close the distance and either escape after a quick hit," she noted as Frejya surged past the Roserade, "or to get there fast, right?"

Leaves, suddenly glowing green, were pulled from surrounding shrubs and sprinkled in the air instead of being pulled from Viridian. They tracked and followed Frejya as she made a turn and used another quick attack to hit at Viridian. Not even one of them accidentally hit the Roserade even when Frejya was jumping and making hairpin swerves. They hit hard, not losing power behind their strikes from distance like other magical leaves did.

So Viridian had enough power over the magical leaves to make sure that quick movements weren't enough to weaken their blows, not even by a Buneary's speed. That, and she could also use leaves from other places just as well as hers. It wouldn't only be frontal attacks she'd have to worry about getting hit from. Dawn made note of that as Frejya began to charge towards the Roserade in her third quick attack.

"Grass knot."

She'd been expecting this, but it didn't make it any less painful for her to watch when Frejya tripped. Luckily for both of them Frejya was light, and didn't take as much damage as she reduced her impact to the ground in perfect falling form. She was up again after quickly kicking off the knots that had loosened with her fall, stoic as always.

Gardenia saw, and changed tactics according to what she was presented with. "Poison sting."

"Quick attack!"

It wasn't one poisoned barb that was shot out from the Roserade's deceptively pretty rose bouquets, but dozens, far more than during the last challenge. Frejya dodged a lot of them, but she was hit too, peppered with the poisonous stingers.

She still charged towards the Roserade. Hitting with one more quick attack, she did just as Gardenia had predicted and stayed. Then, she began to punch with both her ears in consecutive rock smashes again. Dawn didn't tell her to do something different.

Gardenia frowned in puzzlement at that choice. It was one of the rarer type matchups and she was pretty young, so perhaps Challenger Dawn didn't know that poison types resisted fighting types?

And she had seemed like such a smart trainer, too. Right now, this was a third or even a fourth-badge level kind of battle she was getting.

Dawn was hoping she would have been able to tell when it happened, but just like how Gardenia hadn't yet noticed what Frejya had been up to in the times between the quick attack-dodges, she couldn't see as closely as she would have liked. It was, after all, based on luck. Luck and chance. She could have gotten the results she'd been after in the first few seconds of the engagement, or she might not be able to get it before Frejya fainted.

She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from smiling when she saw it – Viridian winced when one of the punches had hit particularly hard.

Dawn knew that fighting type moves weren't as effective against poison types, but there was a reason why she wanted Frejya to use it in battle whenever she could. The thing about rock smash was, it punched in a way designed to break through rocks. When used on a Pokémon, it weakened their defense by breaking through it like it broke through rocks. Because of this sometimes, when the move was used, it lowered the defense of the Pokémon hit. The damage done to the Pokémon would probably be lower, thanks to the type disadvantage, but if the defense was lowered and more effective, physical moves were used . . . .

She returned Frejya, who had done her part, and sent out Neptune.

Gardenia eyed the water type, weighed out some options in her head, and then ordered Viridian to use stun spore. The Roserade shuffled on her feet, gauging her foe's reaction rate, and then feinted a few times before actually coming close and having her red and blue roses release the paralyzing pollen.

Neptune was ready. He opened his beak and shot a thick, continuous stream of bubble beam until the drifting stun spores were all too damp to reach his lungs. Likewise, the Roserade's bouquets were too wet to properly release stun spores. During extra flour training, Neptune had grown tired of getting flour in his beak and settled to making everything wet with a strong water sport.

Getting the idea from his use of water to disable powder moves, the two of them had experimented to see just which move was best suited for stopping spores from reaching Neptune. Bubble, water sport and bubble beam had almost identical results, but bubble beam caused the greatest amount of damage on top of stopping the spores, and served as a good distraction to hold off the foe while they set something up on their side.

The bubbles from the bubble beam exploded in Viridian's face when met with the irritants of the dampened spores. Feeling pushed, Viridian began to reach for the sitrus berry she held in cases of battle emergencies like this when Neptune dove through the veil of bubbles and began pecking.

No, not pecking – plucking. The Roserade had her berry plucked away from her, and had to watch her foe eat it right in front of her.

Dawn had gone over the footage of the battle to see the mistakes she had made, and noticed what the foe Pokémon had done during the challenge. One of the things, like she had suspected, was that the Roserade had snuck a berry to her mouth to recover from the damage. She guessed – hoped – that it wouldn't be something as specific as a figi berry that could potentially cause confusion and had taught Neptune the move pluck through a TM she had.

Neptune used that move gleefully. Not only was it super effective on the grass type, but it also let him steal and eat the berry in front of his foe. He could have very well been using taunt on the Roserade for the effect it had on her.

Snarling in outrage, Viridian pointed her bouquets in front of her like two deadly projectiles about to be fired, ready to release the magical leaves that wouldn't be hindered by a bit of water like her spores.

Before she could, Dawn switched Neptune for Minerva. At the same time, the mystical veil that had been protecting the Roserade flickered away into nothing.

Safeguard had worn out.

Gardenia changed tactics, recognizing the loss of protection. "Poison sting!"

Minerva shrieked when the stingers peppered her face, but she was still able to hypnotize Viridian after a few attempts. From then on, it was almost too easy, finishing up the battle.

"Much better," Gardenia told her as she handed Dawn her own Forest Badge, along with a TM for grass knot. "You had a strategy to go along with strength and conditioning this time around. It was rigid, and relied on free switching a bit too much for my liking, but it was a good one for the guidelines you had."

Rigid? Dawn had thought that she had adopted to the situation pretty well. She must have pouted a bit, because Gardenia smiled slightly. "Take criticism like medicine," she said. "It's good for you – after all, no one's perfect. Why not allow others to spot what you may have missed?"

It was more of a matter of pride for her. Despite her attempts to murder her ego, it was hard to do given her competition. Barry, after all, hadn't lost to Gardenia or Roark. He had just won in his first try. With his speed, he was probably already at the third city for a badge.

The gym leader sighed. "Do you know why most times, a trained Pokémon will be superior to a wild one?"

Taken back slightly at the question, Dawn shrugged. "Better fed?" she asked, citing the reason she'd grown up hearing.

"Perhaps that could have something to do with it," Gardenia allowed. "But the key difference is the intelligence. Strength can only get you so far – look at history! Eterna was a center of information and knowledge, a place for the intelligent clerics to gather and share thoughts back in Sinnoh's older days. There was a reason why Eterna's past residents survived, and it was because they were smart. They couldn't outfight their opponents, but they could certainly outthink their opponents in battle and war.

"Training is the same. A trainer doesn't just help a Pokémon get stronger in brute physical strength. There's more to the profession than that, no matter what people tend to say and think. Every factor around you can be a blessing or a curse in battle, depending on whether you know how to use it or not. Extensive planning, foresight, coordination and self-knowledge – those are the qualities of a trainer. Not," Gardenia gave her a cool look. "Sheer force."

Dawn nodded, but winced internally. Thinking on her feet – that was something she had to learn and experience more. It was one thing to hear it from Uncle Palmer and another thing to experience it firsthand, but –

Her heart nearly stopped. Both Uncle Palmer and Barry were speedy people by nature. Being a fast thinker, being overwhelming in presence alone . . . there was a reason why Uncle Palmer was so good at what he did. Was that why Barry was doing so well in earning badges quickly?

Despite her attempts to not push through on strength alone, so far she'd relied on sheer force, just like Gardenia had said. Did that make her a bad trainer?

Gardenia's face softened. "It's alright, you know," she said. "Your first battle with me – sure, you relied too much on your Pokémon's sheer strengths – but the one we just had now? I would have put it somewhere along the third, maybe fourth-badge level. And remember, you not only knocked all of my Pokémon out, but had all of yours still standing in the end. That's still something. You've got potential, Dawn. You're going to go far, so don't worry and just work hard."

Dawn put everything away. "Thank you," she said quietly. It might have been something a gym leader said to protect her public image, or just a nice-hearted person saying nice things to not hurt feelings, but it still reminded her that she had a long way to go and moping wasn't going to do anything.

Gardenia was right. She had to bend her pride and take criticism like desperately-needed medicine. She had to learn.

"You're welcome," Gardenia smiled at her.

Strategy.

Dawn remembered going to tournaments with Barry to cheer on Uncle Palmer. The light shows from colliding attacks had been impressive, but beyond the fancy lights there had been a fast and furious dance going on, a battle where two strong minds grappled with each other, trying to win dominance over each other through their Pokémon. A trainer had called out the words dictating a certain step or move and the Pokémon had made it a reality, executing manoeuvres and attacks perfectly.

It involved extensive planning, and more advanced training than the simple 'hit-the-target-as-fast-as-you-can' and 'run-run-run-run-run-dodge' tactics she'd been using. It was something she'd have to work at to use effectively, with all her Pokémon.

She needed more experience. She needed to better connect with her Pokémon – understand them more. She needed practice.

Both Routes 211 and 205 had been trained on extensively by her Pokémon. Dawn wanted somewhere with a bit of an unfamiliar setting, and found their temporary training ground in a small field just off Route 205.

Sekhmet was working on a charge-spark combination when Minerva hooted angrily. Dawn turned and saw to where her Noctowl was gesturing at. A short distance away from the field they were in stood the odd building with spikes on its sides. The residents of the city claimed that it belonged to Team Galactic, and the grunts hadn't said anything to the contrary. Because this wasn't like the case at the Windworks she couldn't quite go gallivanting in, and the police hadn't been willing to do anything.

But Minerva was pointing at the side door, where two grunts were dragging in what looked like an unconscious guy.

"Hey, team?" she asked quietly. "Change of plans."

The police took down her words and politely thanked her. When she saw that the officers were in more of a hurry to reach the donuts an attractive female cop brought in at that moment than to go down knocking at Galactic doors, she decided to take matters into her own hands and marched into the building herself.

Perhaps Gardenia had been onto something with strategy and thinking things through in a short span of time under some pressure, because the moment she walked in the building her arm was grabbed by a grunt. Neptune, at her side, swiped with a deadly metal claw that was dodged hastily.

And luckily, too, because the grunt turned out to be Looker in disguise.

"I already told the police about this like you told me to do," she said before he could get a word in edgewise after revealing his identity.

"I don't care," he said, beginning to shrug his disguise back on. "Leave – this is dangerous."

But there was stubbornness in Dawn, and she knew she could make a bigger difference than the donut-obsessed cops of Eterna who were too scared to act in fear of a lawsuit. The stubbornness in her demanded that she not abandon someplace where she could make a difference, no matter what someone told her. "No," she said, tilting her chin up in obstinacy.

He could have removed her by force, but to do so would have been to cause a ruckus – therefore giving himself away. He saw this as well. "This isn't a game," he tried to warn her.

She shrugged – she knew that – and tried to go by him anyways.

He sighed and cleared his throat. "Be wary of the stairs – there are more of them than needed. It seems that the building's design was made complicated on purpose in order to trap intruders and infiltrators."

Dawn stopped. He wasn't approving of this by any means, but he was giving her advice. "So I shouldn't just go recklessly up any pair of stairs."

"Precisely. But do not worry – these crooks are not smart. There will be an easy way to distinguish between the two. That I am sure of."

He replaced his disguise – she marvelled at the flawlessness – went ahead, looked around a bit before waving her in to signal the all-clear.

She went ahead, and didn't look back. Despite Looker giving her the clear, she knew he didn't approve. She wouldn't have approved herself – this was a really bad idea, and she knew it.

But Dawn felt like she had to do it. She had to stand up against those who would stomp on the rights of others. If someone didn't stand up to bullies, the bullies won. And in front of her, bullies would not win.

"I know this is really stupid," she told Neptune after bringing him out, "but let's actually go and disable whatever traps they have set up for us."

Her starter sent her a flat look. "C'mon, we could totally do it," she coaxed. "And think about it – there's probably more of them upstairs, and if we don't wipe out the ones down then we end up getting ourselves surrounded. We're working on strategy, see?"

Seeing her point about covering their backs, Neptune agreed, if only to make sure she didn't get herself into something dangerous. They headed up the fake stairs.

The traps on the fake set of stairs turned out to be nothing but a few grunts who were easily taken down by a few surprise attacks. "You wouldn't have been able to take us down if everyone was here," one of them snarled at her.

Frejya punched the floor next to his feet with her ear. He quietened down when he saw the floor crack and dent.

The Galactic building, for some reason, was filled with duct tape. Rolls after rolls of the silvery stuff. Under threats of metal claw and rock smash, the grunts she beat stayed still long enough for her to tape them into immobility and then shut them up.

On the fourth floor, she saw the formerly unconscious guy, huddling with a Clefairy and a Buneary. Behind them, a heavily made-up woman stood in a strange jumpsuit, arms crossed across her chest. She had purple hair, long but styled back into an oddly shaped ponytail. Her jumpsuit was missing its left leg, but the black and white fabric covered every other part of her body along with her boots.

She scowled in Dawn's direction, but didn't say anything. She only kept glaring at her.

"Is it a habit for Team Galactic to kidnap people and Pokémon?" Dawn asked, breaking the silence first as she jabbed a finger at the man.

The woman gave her a look of surprise before she burst out laughing, making Dawn flush a bit. She felt very much like a child, despite the fact that this woman's opinion of her shouldn't have mattered. "Did you come to free the Pokémon?" she asked in a falsely sweet voice before dropping it. "Of course you did. Well, little girl, guess what?"

"What?" Dawn asked, guessing and expecting the answer.

The purple-haired woman sneered. "It's not going to happen. Here – take a bite out of this instead."

A Zubat, screeching, dove out of nowhere and towards her. Despite being blind, the Pokémon's screech allowed it to 'see' by hearing rather than sight, and it would have severely hurt her if it made it towards her.

It was a good thing Neptune was out. He shot a bubble beam directly at the incoming assailant before it could get her. The bubbles exploded upon contact, sending the bat veering from its original trajectory angle and flying back away from her neck and face area. "Thanks," Dawn gasped, surprised by the attempted assault.

"Hmph," the purple-haired woman sniffed. She reminded Dawn of Commander Mars from the Valley Windworks, despite their differences in appearances. Perhaps she was a commander of Team Galactic as well. "Giga drain."

"Bubble beam!"

The Zubat, glowing green, shot a bulb at the Prinplup. When the bulb hit, it latched onto Neptune's skin for a while as it sapped at his energy before breaking off into glowing green orbs that flew back to the Zubat. Neptune winced when the super-effective move hit, but he still hit the Zubat squarely in the face with focused bubbles that actually glowed with blue light. The impact of the bubbles hitting and popping the poison type threw it until it hit the ceiling. It chattered weakly as it fell.

"Useless," the maybe-commander muttered and recalled it. "Skuntank!"

Dawn quickly switched Neptune out, telling him to stand next to her while the woman was occupied. That last bubble beam had been powered up by torrent, Neptune's ability. While a power-up was much appreciated, it meant that his health was in critical condition. Far too much for her to be comfortable with, because she knew just how ruthless a commander's Pokémon could be.

And so did Sekhmet, who was sent out snarling a challenge. "Charge up and go!" Sekhmet, still fresher than the others, would be able to power up and then power through. Dawn needed Sekhmet to hit hard, and the boost on her special defense wouldn't hurt, either.

Jupiter's eyes were like flints. "Night slash."

The charging made Sekhmet's body glow with the electricity she was storing in her fur, making the poison type miss all her vitals. She hissed slightly, but it wasn't anything that would hurt her too much.

"Poison gas."

The Skuntank released a purple gaseous cloud that surrounded the Luxio. Sekhmet hissed in pain at the stinging gas cloud washing over her, but she still charged at the Skuntank. "Cover yourself with smokescreen!" the woman growled. "Kid, what do you think you're doing here?"

Dawn wanted to ignore her, but at the same time she wanted to answer. The question was what she could say in response to the question asked to her. Claim that she was just 'dropping by'? Give some self-righteous speech?

"I don't like what you people do," she settled for that instead. It was ridiculously childish – and seeing as how she had only just passed childhood, even more so – but it was the truth. Dawn didn't like how the grunts had threatened Lucas and Professor Rowan. She didn't like how they kept a little girl from her only parent and home. She didn't like how they disturbed such a peaceful, friendly place like Floaroma. She didn't like how they invaded an awesome city like Eterna and set a gloomy mood everywhere.

The woman laughed harshly. "Little heroine, aren't we?" Her laugh turned into a snarl when Frejya and Minerva, who had hidden themselves at the stairs, let out triumphant battle cries. Their sounds were mixed with human cries of surprise and pain.

"Trying for a sneak attack from the back?" Dawn asked with pursed lips as Sekhmet lunged. Mars hadn't done that.

"Just being thorough," she laughed, echoing Dawn's earlier thoughts as the Skuntank parried, though the electric blows gave it grief. "After all, we wouldn't want to have everything go wrong just when we're so close, would we?"

"Close to what?" Sekhmet hissed once more in pain from the poison, but batted off the dark and poison type. Her charged state gave her some more protection, and while that may have been negated by the poison, the additional boost to her spark was certainly paying off. Skuntank looked far worse than Sekhmet, and it wasn't even paralyzed yet.

"Research," the woman was far more composed when her Pokémon fell this time. She called it back and gave her a long, measured look. "I'm sure you know that Eterna happens to be a gold mine of information."

"History," Dawn felt the need to extend a bit.

"History. Myths, really, but you're right. They all have their roots in history. That was my job, to collect and organize them – and I'm done," the purple-haired woman nodded at her. "Just before you came, trainer, this man told me everything that I still needed to know."

Dawn looked at the man, still cringing and conscious. "What's your name?" she asked, sounding a lot calmer than she felt.

"I am Commander Jupiter of Team Galactic."

Dawn made a mental note of this as Jupiter began to turn away. "Oh, and trainer?" she added before fully turning. "You may think you're some sort of hero now, because you're strong, but just keep in mind. Team Galactic's going to gain strength. Power like you could never imagine. Our boss will harness the powers of the legends."

"And take over the world?" Dawn guessed, half-sarcastic. The other half took all of their crazy appearances and words into account and decided that it wasn't a half-bad deduction to make.

Jupiter gave her a smile that chilled her bones. "Perhaps," she said before an acrid smoke filled the entire room. The black smokescreen hid Jupiter's figure, and it was clouding towards her.

If they lost their sight while scattered around, they'd be easy pickings. "Group around me, all of you!" Dawn yelled as her eyes began to water. She pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth and pulled the Pokémon to hide their faces and breathe as low as they could, noses close to the ground. She shuffled to the wall where she had seen a window and struggled to open it while staying low.

By the time the window had been opened and the air was cleared, Jupiter was gone.

Looker had a choice to make when a young trainer decided to break into the Galactic Headquarters. He tried to talk some sense into the reckless girl – just because she had managed to take down some members of Team Galactic the last time she ran in with them didn't mean that she would always end up winning – but the girl refused to leave.

He shouldn't have showed her his face, but the other option was to simply shove her in holding somewhere, which had been unacceptable. He should have dragged her out of the building, kicking and screaming, but to do so would have brought down the attention of all the grunts, if not the Commander in the building herself. He would have been exposed, and all the work done to get him into Team Galactic would have been wasted. Team Galactic would be more cautious, and Interpol wouldn't be able to do enough to gather data and stop whatever they were up to in time.

Whatever Team Galactic was up to, Looker's gut feeling told him that it wasn't going to be good. From the way he heard the Commanders speak, derisively of humanity and the way the world was, he was guessing that the higher ups were radicals, or nihilist. Lower tier members, or grunts of the organization, were only told that by being a part of Team Galactic, they would automatically become part of a better world, which meant that, to some degree somewhere, Team Galactic was after control and power.

People had to be hurt for a group like Team Galactic to seize control and power, possibly killed. It wasn't realistic for a group like this to seize control and power, but they were certainly capable of taking a shot at the effort, and a shot was more than enough to cause plenty of damage.

They were also large enough, and certainly strong and rich enough to be a considerable threat. No plans had been made and announced as of yet, but if plans were to be made and carried out . . . .

One girl, weighed against the benefit of potentially hundreds saved.

Looker made a choice and prayed that the girl would be lucky once more.

The building was relatively quiet. Only a small squad of grunts had been sent to the Eterna base, in case of emergencies, and Commander Jupiter abhorred unnecessary chatter. Looker worked on the job given to him – filing papers and figuring out sums – until the alarm to evacuate was raised. He grabbed the files and followed the other grunts to the evacuation spots, where Pokémon capable of teleporting were waiting instructions.

"What's going on?" he asked aloud.

"Some kid broke in," another grunt in line answered, picking at duck tape on her clothes. "Rumour is, she beat Commander Jupiter in battle."

He made the obligatory sounds of interest and disbelief, but he mentally thanked the heavens. The gods had answered his prayers.

The man who had been kidnapped turned out to be the owner of the famous bike shop, Rad Rickshaw, who was also a local celebrity for being a history buff. After filling out police statements, he bought her a crepe at a stand and gave her one of the latest models in his shop. "Least I could do," he said when she protested out of courtesy. She didn't really put much heart behind her protests because heck, this was awesome. "You saved me and Rodney from them Galactic punks. Way I see it, I owe you."

Rodney the Clefairy nodded in agreement. Dawn didn't argue further.

The police officers had initially laughed when she had claimed to be the one to take down a Team Galactic Commander, but at the testimony of Rad had lost their humour quickly. They didn't seem to know at all about the Interpol agent, so Dawn assumed that Looker was trying to not draw attention to himself.

She asked after him, since he'd disappeared again, but when no one knew gave up and then stocked up on supplies before picking up her Pokémon from the center. "I'm proud of you," she told them. "And . . . thank you."

They smiled at her.

Lyra, on the other hand, was not so proud of her. When Dawn let it slip that she had rescued a man from a Galactic Commander and gotten a free bike in exchange, the Johtoan girl had chewed her out for being so reckless and demanded a video chat. There, face to face, a livid Lyra had demanded to know just why Dawn had thrown herself into a dangerous situation all by herself.

"You did that too, remember?" Dawn asked, trying to stay calm and not get caught up in the argument. She didn't want to fight with Lyra. Hopefully reminding the other girl about the time she had stumbled onto a Team Rocket operation led by an admin would make her rethink her – in Dawn's opinion – rather hypocritical anger.

"I had friends with me!" Lyra sputtered. "And practically the whole town of Azalea!"

"I had my Pokémon," Dawn protested. "Besides, their commanders kind of suck. I battled one already before and-"

"What?!"

For someone who had acted against the criminal organization in their region, Lyra seemed quite paranoid about her doing the same in Sinnoh. After promising to never recklessly go after Team Galactic and commanders – even with friends backing her up – they went back to their usual talk about their Pokémon and what was going on around them. This time, they discussed strategies much more in-depth than they ever had, critiquing styles and choices before making suggestions to remedy problems. She was forgiven.

A few days of rest in Eterna later, it was time to get on the road again if they wanted to cover as much ground as possible before winter came. Hypothermia and cold-related accidents were one of the highest causes of trainer injuries and death in the Sinnoh region, and Dawn wanted to be snugly buried in her home when winter came. They had to get moving again to make as much progress before the famous Sinnoh winters came down upon them.

Looking at the map, they all decided that their next destination should be Hearthome. There were two ways from Eterna to Hearthome. One was through Route 211 and Mt. Coronet, heading around Celestic and Solaceon. The other was to bike down the cycling road built above Route 206's regional park, heading back to Oreburgh and crossing a different section of Mt. Coronet to head to Hearthome.

"We totally got the bike for a reason," she said with a grin. "This was destiny!"

Dawn began to believe her destiny explanation more when she ran into one of the professor's aides – one Michael Yew, aka Lucas's father – at the entrance to the cycling road. "It's very nice to meet you at last," he said, shaking her hand warmly. "The professor speaks very highly of you."

"Thank you," she ducked her head a bit.

"This is quite the coincidence," he said. "The professor actually wanted me to pass this along to you."

Mr. Yew presented her with what looked like a headgear made out of a mass of wires and metals. "Umm . . . ."

He laughed at her expression. "It's an experience share. When a Pokémon wears it, it can gain experience from battles by proxy."

She looked at it again, this time with more enthusiasm. "Cool!"

"The professor wanted you to have it, since you're an excellent trainer. He hopes that you'll continue your hard work on the Pokédex."

Dawn shrugged. "I just battle and encounter Pokémon. I'm not very good at catching Pokémon – but Lucas is!" she grinned. "I bet you're really proud of your son!"

He smiled at her, but she noticed that his expression was a bit more wooden than before. "I am . . . proud of Lucas," he agreed. "Well then, Dawn, it's been very nice meeting you. I wish you good luck on your journey."

She waved, and then stuck her new exp share into her bag's digital storage before getting on her bike.

The cool thing about Route 206's cycling road was that it was an observatory of a sort, built high above a long stretch of land named Grotte National Park. The road was built with tall fences hard to climb in order to prevent people from littering or attempting suicide, and was sturdy enough to host multiple battles on top of it at once.

Most of the bikers preferred quick Pokémon, like Ponyta, Staravia and Pikachu. Quick, they were for sure, but they didn't stand a chance against Neptune, who swept them all easily with his bubble beam. Once the other trainers on bikes saw how strong they were, they began to challenge her. It took much longer than the average estimated time for them to reach Oreburgh, by which time night was falling. Luckily, the Pokémon Center had a few empty rooms.

"Calling it a night," she grunted. No one objected, and she fell asleep as soon as she had showered and pulled on her pajamas.

Coincidentally, she was in the room she had been in when she had first come into the city to challenge Roark. Only Neptune realized this, but even he was too tired to care enough to point it out.

AN: Question - which novelization in this universe would people most be interested in reading? Emerald/ORAS, Leaf Green, or Heart Gold? I'd prefer to get at least one of these out of the way before starting on the later ones like Black, Black 2 and Y.