Disclaimer: Pokémon is still owned by The Pokémon Company, which in turn is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and probably others I forgot. The following fanfiction is me playing around in their sandbox, using characters they envisioned and created, except for the odd character that wasn't. I own nothing of this.

Chapter 20: Secret Revelations

Max's brain suddenly switched on. Or it at least felt like it. From deep sleep to full wakefulness in an instant was a weird thing to experience, but it worked better – and quieter – than an alarm clock to wake someone up on demand. It wasn't the best wake-up he'd ever had, but he could live with it.

At least Team Flare had the good sense to plan their strike around 3 in the morning – James hadn't told Max how he'd found that out – giving Max and Danny at least a few hours of sleep before having to do what was expected of them. With the help of swablu – and Max stepping over his own ego because he hated having to impose on Pokémon for something stupid like sleeping – it had actually been easy to fall asleep without worrying too much, but as he quietly got out of bed, he felt those worries return with a vengeance.

Max navigated the dark room with ease, slipping into the adjacent bathroom to drink some water. Danny joined him a few moments later., a Pokémon hopping in as well. "Never doing that again," Danny told Max softly, his voice still a tiny bit thick with sleep. "That was not fun."

Max shrugged. It wasn't the best thing ever, but Danny made it sound worse than it was. "I told you there's no need for you to come. You insisted."

"As if I was going to let you," Danny said flatly, fixing Max with a glare. "You're not going alone. End of discussion."

Max held his tongue, knowing that what he wanted to reply would only cause Danny to become even more annoyed. Instead, he started pulling on the clothes he had taken into the bathroom, stepping into the shower cubicle to give Danny enough space to do the same. "You ready?" he asked when Danny stretched once after pulling a shirt over his head. "Or do you need—"

Max's words were interrupted by the bathroom door opening, revealing a sleepy-looking Serena. The boys and girl stared at each other for a few moments, before Serena found her voice. "Danny? Max? Why you dressed? 's two-thirty."

Danny put a hand over Max's mouth, stifling the order he was about to give natu. "No, Max. No more secrets. We tell her. Everything," he added, brooking no disagreement.

"Now?!" Max bit out after he wrestled Danny's hand off. "There's no time!"

Danny didn't reply to that, but Serena did. "Can someone explain?" she asked tetchily, sounding a lot more awake than she had half a minute back. "Including why I'm suddenly awake? Like, fully?"

Max sent a half-hearted glare at his natu; the Tiny Bird Pokémon utterly uncaring. "Team Flare is about to attack the Musée Central. We're going to stop them."

"What? How? Why? Just…" Serena spluttered, and despite the situation, Max felt amusement bubble up. "Is this a joke?"

"I wish," Danny replied darkly. "Max got information that they're about to attack, and for some reason, he didn't share it with the police."

"Oh, yeah, a thirteen year old saying that Team Flare is going to attack out of nowhere. I'd be laughed out of the station."

"Then do an anonymous Holo Caster call! Or reveal where you got it from!"

If it hadn't been for James threatening to go through with harming his friends, Max would've done the latter in an instant, and how he wished he could tell them that. "The Holo Caster is compromised. Team Flare can listen in."

"What?" Danny squeezed the bridge of his nose, and Max heard him suppress something like a growl. "When did you… Forget it. Not important now," he backtracked. "Too late now. Have to stop Team Flare."

"I'm coming with you," Serena said, reaching out and digging her nails into Max's wrist before he could speak up. "Not a word. I have my own Pokémon and I can loan some of yours if you want more power. And don't even start about it being dangerous. You have no right to say that."

She released his wrist, and Max rubbed it to soothe the sting. The marks would probably last for a bit. "Fine. Get dressed. We leave in three minutes." He glanced over at the bathroom clock to make his point clearer.

Two minutes and about forty seconds later, Serena rejoined them, wearing simple and loose clothing, her hat uncharacteristically absent. "Let's go."

Natu Teleported them out.

They landed on top of the museum roof, the lights of the city near enough to provide vision to see where they were standing. They were too far away from the edge to be seen from the ground, though. "Good, they haven't—"

As Max said that, someone shouted, and several Pokémon attacks were launched, obliterating something made of metal. The gate, maybe? Oddly, no alarm went off, but metal landing on stone was a good enough substitute to anyone nearby. One of the rods clattered onto the roof, grinding into the gravel. "There should be an entrance here somewhere," Max whispered, looking around, but not finding it immediately. "Try to find it. Natu can Teleport us down."

They fanned out, Max taking care to step carefully to minimise the sound of his shoes on gravel. He didn't know if anyone could hear it – attacks had started to fly all over the place, lighting up the night sky intermittently, and shouting filtered through in the lulls; calls for certain Pokémon to step up and ram the door. That strategy worked apparently, as the It wasn't long before they heard the door give way, granite creaking, cracking, and shattering. That did set off an alarm, but it was quickly silenced. Somehow.

"Here!" Serena hissed, and Max turned around to her, seeing the girl next to a large glass dome. How on Earth had he missed it for that long? "Nobody's there."

Max glanced downwards, half noticing Danny walking up, and saw that they were directly above the central hall of the museum. From what he remembered of the website mini-tour, this was where the history of Mega Evolution was chronicled. More importantly, it was a room that connected the front half – which was all about the Mega Evolved Pokémon – with the back half – which featured the Mega Stones. Every path that went through the inside led through there. "You ready?"

The world blurred for an instant, and natu delivered them to the dimly lit hall. Max took a moment to appreciate the progress natu had made in Teleporting them around – two months back, he had been utterly exhausted after moving three of them half a mile. Now, he wasn't even tired after doing the same over a mile, and doing a follow-up. "Stay together?" Danny whispered.

"For now," Max agreed as the sounds of battle, or rather a Pokémon hitting a wall, travelled down the hallway they were closest to. "Let's ambush them. Klefki knows Spikes, right?"

Danny nodded in return, understanding Max's plan without an explanation. They hastily ran towards the wall, crouching underneath a poster of some sorts. Klefki came out, creating maybe two dozen caltrops from nothing. Serena's zorua also made a few with the help of Copycat and Max's espurr dutifully lifted them high, out of sight of anyone coming down the hallway.

Skorupi and dusclops also came out – the Beckon Pokémon ready to defend them, while Danny told skorupi to lie in wait and flank. The bad lighting allowed the purple Pokémon to hide in the shadows, its small size helpful.

Max returned natu, intent on giving the Tiny Bird a bit of rest while he could, and sent out his own Bug-type, giving it the same order as skorupi, only higher up.

And then they waited.

They didn't have to wait for long. Team Flare members came running down the hallway, some kind of light-on-their-feet Pokémon beside them. Max tapped espurr on the back before starting a countdown with his fingers.

When his fist balled, espurr released the Spikes, the timing perfect to shower the unwanted guests: humans and Pokémon alike. Cries of pain – more human than liepard – echoed through the hall, and Max went on the offensive immediately. "Ninjask, now!"

The world became slightly translucent as espurr threw up a Light Screen to protect them, but they could still see the ninjask dive-bomb the liepard that had been the quickest to respond. The two connected in the middle of liepard's leap for the teens, and the Dark-type was sent down to the ground immediately. Right in front of dusclops, as it happened, and Danny's Pokémon was ready.

A sound behind him was all the warning Max had that someone had come from the other side. "Klefki!" he yelled, and the small Pokémon threw up an amazingly fast Protect that stopped the Dark Pulse – another liepard, how original – in its tracks. "I'll take left. Clefairy, Gravity!"

A second feline Pokémon was forced to the ground, making it an easy target for ninjask to rake claws across; the blue X-Scissor bright enough to cause spots in front of Max's eyes. A Disarming Voice narrowly missed the Dark-type as well, splashing on the wall and causing a few chips of debris to fly off. "Time to move!"

They moved as one, skorupi finally jumping out of hiding to annoy a mightyena while clefairy started jumping around to keep a sneasel busy. Ninjask was dealing with the liepard he had hit earlier – judging by the loud yelping coming from that direction, that was going well. "Zorua, Copycat skorupi!"

Just like the Spikes earlier, there were less projectiles of Pin Missile individually, but it was more in total. Zorua's aim wasn't great, but skorupi's armour just caused the few missiles that hit him to plink off. The same could not be said for the mightyena, whose belly was unprotected. Skorupi took advantage of the canine shielding its belly from zorua by sinking a Poison Fang into a leg.

Ninjask had dealt with the liepard while Max had been looking the other way, but another grunt and two more Pokémon had joined the fray to their left, golett and cacturne turning the odds equal. The sneasel had run over to the other side through where they had been earlier. "Ninjask, cacturne. Clefairy, cover. him"

Magical Leaves kept golett at bay while ninjask dove in, weaving around a flailing arm and delivering an X-Scissor to the side before dipping low to the ground, banking around a plinth and coming back out to start annoying golett. The Ghost-type tried to land Shadow Punches, but those three landed on floor, wall, and plinth, while ninjask charged up a Shadow Ball.

Meanwhile, clefairy had used Encore to lock cacturne into… Spiky Shield? Max counted ninjask lucky he'd been inside the shielded area before delivering the X-Scissor. "Golett now, ranged."

He trusted ninjask's Shadow Balls and clefairy's Disarming Voice to keep their opponents busy, and he turned around just in time to see espurr haul skorupi out of the way of a pouncing mightyena. Its face met stone, and it was dazed just long enough for klefki and zorua to tag-team it with Fairy Wind. "You okay?"

"Skorupi took a knock. He'll be fine," Danny said as he gestured dusclops forward. A carefully controlled Will-O-Wisp appeared, melting an Ice Shard attack. "Not as strong."

Max agreed. It reminded him of the battle in the Glittering Cave, except they'd had five months of training since then, and Team Flare hadn't. "More Spikes?"

Max took Danny sending out magnemite as a yes, and he switched his attention back to ninjask and clefairy, noticing that another Pokémon – a yanma – was dogfighting with his ninjask, leaving clefairy to fend off two Pokémon.

To her credit, she tricked a Shadow Punch into hitting the cacturne with clever jumps, but it was dangerous. "Back!" Max ordered as he released honedge behind him. "Shadow Sneak," he whispered, and a cold feeling passed by his ankles as clefairy rolled through a Poison Sting to get behind the Light Screen espurr had just pushed through. "Not poisoned?"

A dome of Gravity appearing over cacturne, forcing him to stay in place while honedge snuck by to hit golett was her answer. A quick look down also didn't show any of the outward signs of being poisoned.

Max glanced up, seeing ninjask barely avoid an Ancientpower that shot through to smash against a map on the far left wall. "Out, ninjask!" he yelled, not because the Ancientpower was a problem, but because of what followed. "Honedge, up!"

The moment yanmega came out of its evolution, honedge slammed into it with all his might, blade first and sheath after. Yanmega dropped a few feet, and it dropped a few feet more after ninjask Slashed past it. "Clefairy, big Gravity. Espurr, get ready!"

Ninjask and honedge shot out of the way as Gravity enveloped both golett and yanmega. Honedge was behind it, and Max didn't see where the Ghost-type was, but ninjask immediately went back to annoying cacturne, who had launched an Energy Ball at clefairy. Light Screen diminished it, allowing clefairy to hold the Gravity.

Then a wave of Psychic energy blasted outwards, and with it, two dozen spikes went flying. Cacturne ignored the energy, but several caltrops hit it, and golett was too slow on turning incorporeal to avoid several of them from slamming into its belly. It put one arm to the ground, looking tired and in need of a short moment to catch a second wind.

Then ninjask decided to drop a Shadow Ball by, and the Ghost-type sank to the ground.

"Max! Someone's getting through!" Serena yelled from behind him before ordering zorua to use Pursuit.

Max just saw the fat man for two seconds before he went out of view into the rooms to their back. "Shit. Need to go there. Can you hold them?"

"We'll have to," Danny said as he sent lairon out. Skorupi was nowhere to be seen. "Go. We'll keep them here."

"Serena?" Max asked, and the girl gave him a finger snap as she turned around. He handed her two pokéballs. "Honedge, with me!"

He saw a golbat fly down to intercept him as he ran right, but a well-aimed pair of Psybeams intercepted it in turn, and the bat went down to braixen and espurr's combined forces. Other Pokémon weren't close enough to hinder him, and he hurried into the hallway,, the curved path not giving him full vision. "Honedge, lead. Sceptile, rear," Max said as he slowed down, sending his starter out.

He really hoped Danny and Serena could stop the grunts from coming through. The last thing he needed was to be ambushed from behind.

The further he walked into the hallway, the more he slowed down, realising that if someone wanted to ambush, the room up ahead was a perfect place for it. He couldn't see anyone, but neither could he hear anything except vague sounds of battle from behind.

For the second time in less than a day, Max found himself needing to spring a trap, the situation as annoying as the first. Espurr was back with Danny and Serena, baltoy wasn't here. He did have natu though…

"Are you going to try and stop me?" a voice, vaguely exasperated, rang out, and the man it belonged to stepped into sight. Unlike most Team Flare members, this one wore goggles instead of tinted glasses or visors. "Ah, I had wondered who would follow. You're one of those who interfered in Coumarine, aren't you?" The man laughed coldly. "Or your Pokémon did. You were in entirely too much pain to do anything. If you leave now, we won't have to repeat that."

"As if!" Max said, sending natu out for good measure. The bird tittered and jumped up. A malamar floated into view in response. "You want those Mega Stones, you're going to have to fight me for it!"

"How predictable. Malamar?"

A violet sickle flew towards them, sceptile blocking with a Leaf Blade of his own. He skid backwards a few inches under the attack's force, but immediately launched himself back into the fight, dropping the Leaf Blades and lighting up the X-Scissor.

Malamar rapidly fled from the Bug-type attack, the sideways movement allowing an Air Slash to hit sceptile. Two of the blades went on through, hitting the ceiling above Max and causing a sprinkler to be set off. He raised his hand to his shoulder. "Honedge, get that crobat. Natu, Teleport into the room."

In the blink of an eye, he was near three of the Mega Stones on display, sceptile and malamar fighting in the entrance to the room while honedge had flown in to keep crobat busy in the air, and natu joined in with that with his Hidden Power, the Ice-type attack slamming into crobat from a blind spot and allowing honedge to get a Slash in before crobat was able to use its superior speed to get away.

Max looked back down, checking if sceptile was still okay, but he need not have worried. His starter was doing what he did best: keeping the opponent completely on the defensive as X-Scissor after X-Scissor met desperate Psycho Cuts to defend. It was looking good, though Max had to get out of the way before the fight reached him.

Wait, where was his opponent?

Oh, that son of a houndoom… "Hey, stop that!" Max yelled at the man, who was using some kind of device to slice right through the glass cases on the far left of the room. He didn't look up immediately, instead taking the Mega Stone – a reddish one – before turning to face the running teenager.

"Tu!" came the chirp from up high at the same time as Max's neck hairs stood on end, and he threw himself into a dive and roll left, the crobat swooping down missing him.

"Most impressive!" the man commended him, smirking as he adjusted his goggles, his Pokémon hovering to his left. "Learned from your mistakes in Coumarine? Crobat, get him!"

The winged Pokémon vanished from sight with Agility, reappearing close enough that Max heard the air displacement. He ducked on instinct, the Wing Attack bright in the corner of his eye, passing close by his head.

Too close, as he heard and felt one of the arms of his glasses snap, the remainder flying off and turning the world unfocused. That had been entirely too close for comfort.

His opponent laughed; a cold, mirthless laugh that reminded Max of Team Rocket gloating. "Oops," he drawled as crobat swooped in for another round – honedge throwing himself in the path physically to block. The Steel-type was kept in place long enough for natu to hit with Confusion too, if the blue glow was anything to go by. "Na tu-tu!" the bird chirped angrily as he landed in front of Max. Honedge fell, exhausted.

Then white flared out, forcing Max to close his eyes.

~~§~~§~~

Danny followed Max's run out of the chamber, ordering espurr to Psybeam the golbat trying to intercept his friend. Zorua joined in, too; the attack slightly weaker, but still powerful enough to add to the pain. He saw Max safely reach the corridor and turned back around, snapping his attention back to the entrance to see an unwelcome surprise of more liepard and mightyena. "Need to pull back," he said, calling out a target for klefki and magnemite as he did. The sneasel writhed in pain and finally stayed down. "Serena!"

"Got it! Clefairy, Encore, then move back! Braixen, Ember to cover us!" Serena replied before taking steps backwards, not taking her eyes off her battle.

Good. At least she was focused on that. "Oh, for crying out..." Danny muttered as he saw even more Pokémon join the ranks against them on the other side, making it about nine on twelve. Not a lot of diversity, though. "Lairon, go wild on the right!"

Liepard, mightyena, and one lone golbat had no real way of dealing with a lairon, Danny figured.

The other side was more diverse. Danny was surprised to see a manectric there, peppering ninjask with careful jolts, but it made sense. Yanmega had vanished, and that left nothing in the air except ninjask. "Low Shadow Ball left. Fairy Wind lairon."

Dusclops and klefki launched their attacks, the Ghost hitting manectric judging by the loud yelp and the Fairy Wind washing over the frantic fight as lairon sought to keep as many of the quadrupeds occupied with him instead of the group of Pokémon and Trainers. It was working, but at five to one, he needed help. "Swampert, go help lairon!"

His starter appeared in the middle of the fray, immediately being jumped on by a liepard that regretted its decision a moment later as swampert grabbed it, and threw it into the descending golbat. The Pokémon collided, the golbat falling to the ground and the liepard landing on its feet, immediately jumping back in onto swampert with a glowing Shadow Claw. That attack, too, didn't land, as a Water Gun intercepted it, sending the quadruped back down, skidding into golbat. Both Pokémon were returned as a mightyena tried to Fire Fang lairon, with mixed success.

It did bite the Steel-type, but then lairon moved its body up and down, while mightyena kept hold. The landing was hard, and the Dark-type yelped in pain.

The world dimmed as he turned back to Serena's half of the room, seeing clefairy set upon by the manectric, while ninjask came back out as Serena used the return mechanic to pierce through a wall of flame. "Braixen, Fire Spin that cacturne!"

The fire alarm went off, but Danny paid it no heed as cacturne avoided being incinerated with the help of a regular Protect. The shield left it open to ninjask's X-Scissor, though, as well as a Shadow Ball from dusclops. It finally went down, though ninjask had to avoid a furious Thunderbolt as well. "No holding back!" Danny told Serena as he glanced right – everything was going as okay as could be there. Swampert's Protect blocked a few Dark-type attacks, while lairon did what he did best. "They're trying to swarm us."

He really wished he'd taken froslass, but he'd wanted to keep the damage to the museum a minimum.

Glancing around, he realised that his intentions were useless. Even with the amount of short-ranged Pokémon on Team Flare's side, there was a ton of random damage to the museum. Danny ducked for a Thunderbolt, but Light Screen and two Psybeams blocked it anyway, a flash and the smell of ozone the result.

Then swampert roared angrily, punching and swiping without a care what he hit. A mightyena was punched straight through a window, while a brave liepard tried to hang onto the Water-type's back. A violent twist later, the liepard went flying, and Water Gun sent it straight into the Team Flare grunts, though they returned it before could land on them. Lairon was a couple feet away, holding another round of new Pokémon at bay. How many of them were there? "We need to move," he told Serena, not waiting for her to reply before yelling for an Earthquake.

He felt espurr stabilising the two of them with her Psychic powers as the two Earthquakes tore through the room, cracking the wall, upending a plinth or two, and generally taking care of the swarm of Pokémon trying to fight his two Pokémon. Lairon made good use of one mightyena cowering on the floor by sending it flying into another one, but both of them could continue.

They just didn't want to give up. "More!"

This time, espurr didn't stabilise them, and Danny saw Serena trip, the cry of pain immediate. "Are you alright?" he said as he grabbed her and put her back on her feet.

The grimace of pain told Danny everything he needed to know as he helped her walk a few more steps, swampert and lairon still fighting back to back far away, while dusclops covered them close-by. "Ankle. Clefairy, use Metronome!"

"Protect!"

Parabolic Charge arced out, draining at least six Pokémon, sadly including ninjask, who finally went down, but clefairy was ready for round two, judging by the size of the Disarming Voice. It crashed into the manectric on the other end, lifting the canine off its feet and slamming it into the houndoom behind – the Dark-type punished for hiding behind its team mate. "That worked out. It – espurr!"

Espurr was lying where they had been, exhausted, out in the open.

And Max hadn't given them her pokéball.

A fletchinder, coming in from the right side, saw espurr lying there, and Danny recognised it going into a dive attack.

He abandoned Serena, jumping and diving for the small Psychic-type, hoping he was there before the Flying-type was.

He was. Barely. He saw the bird's talons, closed his eyes and…

Biting, sharp, searing, pain. He slammed into the ground, his right temple throbbing, burning, and the wind knocked out of him. Espurr was near his knees, the fletchinder up above. Deathly cold energy forced it away.

And the room trembled. Not with an Earthquake, but with anger.

~~§~~§~~

Xatu was only a few inches shorter than Max was, he noticed. The second thing he noticed was a lack of crobat near him, but sceptile letting out an annoyed cry answered that question. "Xatu, Confusion!"

Did the ground just shake?

Malamar blocked the Confusion with a Dark Pulse, and then tried to swipe at xatu with a Night Slash.

Xatu Teleported away, the attack impacting on the ground near Max's feet, sending slivers of rock raining across his trouser legs. He looked at inkay's evolution floating maybe fifteen feet away.

Malamar instantly built up a Confusion, and Max moved, aiming to avoid being hit by the attack. Once grabbed, he had no way of escaping a Pokémon that powerful, and he knew it. He ran, closer to xatu, away from the Team Flare member.

Then red light shot past malamar, and the world exploded into blue.

He felt himself being lifted off the ground, back first, like a force field expanding, only worse. His arms and legs went behind his torso as much as they could while flying.

The landing was hard and painful. His right hand was stuck underneath his body, and something gave in there, his wrist stabbed by pain. His entire body ached from the landing, but he still rolled out of the way, mindful of the Pokémon.

He looked up just in time to see the malamar squeeze itself through a window. Sceptile ran after it, but a soft "Xa" made him stop and turn towards Max, a soft green glow fading.

By the time his starter reached him, Max had gotten up again, using his left hand to give himself the last push off the ground. His right wrist hurt, but it clearly wasn't broken, or he would have felt it more. This was painful, but it didn't hurt more when he moved or touched it. "Thanks. All of you," Max said, seeing honedge stir on the ground. The Ghost-type must have only just been out of it. "Honedge, get some rest." He took a moment to catch his breath a bit more. "Xatu. Back to Danny."

The xatu spread his wings, one touching Max, the other touching sceptile, and the familiar sensation of Teleportation washed over Max.

~~§~~§~~

Danny opened his left eye, feeling blood run down his face, and saw pure white mingle with Torrent blue. A powerful Water Gun shot across the room, but Danny kept looking at his new aggron, who stood back to back with swampert, and looked angry.

Murderous.

A single well-hit punch sent an unfortunate liepard flying into the wall hard enough that plaster fell down on it, and then he stomped off, the ground shaking with every furious step.

The fletchinder was frozen in fear for a bit too long, and aggron squeezed before throwing the bird away like a rag doll. It landed near Danny, but if it hadn't been for the pitiful moans, barely audible over aggron rampaging, he would've thought it dead. Its wings were covered in blood, and bone was visibly sticking out. It was a revolting sight, but one his stomach could easily handle.

Truthfully, he couldn't even find it in himself to feel sorry for it.

Swampert helped him up, Torrent faded, but his starter still okay enough. "Thanks," Danny said as he put a hand to his temple, feeling for the wound.

It was smaller than he thought from all the blood coming down his face, but it was a head wound. Those always bled like crazy. Blood dripped down from his cheek, and Danny felt it seep into his shirt.

He looked around the room, seeing surprisingly few Team Flare Pokémon, except for a few trying to keep aggron at bay without too much success. Yelps and cries came from the direction; stone shattering as Pokémon were slammed into it. "What happened?" Danny yelled.

"They retreated," Serena said from next to him, a blue glow fading as she leant into swampert. "Thanks braixen. Great work."

With a shout and a smoke bomb, the last Flare Pokémon vanished from sight, leaving a surprisingly quiet room once all was said and done. The fire alarm had stopped at some point – arceus knew when, really – and now it was just swampert, clefairy, dusclops, aggron, and braixen left standing. Klefki had been floating earlier, but he had landed in swampert's palm, looking completely and utterly spent. Not too surprising after how much he had thrown around over the course of the battle. Dusclops wasn't much better, and Danny returned both of them with muttered thanks.

The room was a mess. Walls were cracked, either from impact or from the ground up thanks to Earthquake; water had pooled in several spots from a few Water guns; just about all of the plinths had been demolished outright; a few scorch marks peppered the floor… Anything related to the exhibition in front of them had been utterly destroyed in the fight.

But they were still here.

As was the fletchinder, and a single liepard. "Thanks aggron," Danny greeted the newly evolved Pokémon as he walked back over, the shaking a lot less now. "You were amazing in keeping them busy." He raised his left hand, feeling the smooth metal underneath aggron's chin with his fingertips. "Can you bend a little? I'm not that tall ye-"

Danny's legs went weak, causing him to wobble, but aggron was there, an arm suddenly underneath his butt. His feet left the ground, and he felt the Steel-type's shoulder spike near his side. "Thanks," he said as the Steel-type did the same for Serena, who smiled wordlessly.

Just then, a thirteen year old boy appeared out of nowhere, about thirty feet in front of them, his back to them.

~~§~~§~~

Xatu's Teleport was smooth, not even jarring Max's hurt wrist in the loose grip he had on it with his left hand. He reappeared in the central hall, and it wasn't just the blurring that had changed since he last saw it. Even with his limited vision, he could see the damage dealt to the room. A liepard was off to his right, too, lying unconscious underneath a blown-out window, light reflecting off the shards of glass to tell Max that had happened.

He turned around, and saw a few things. One: some red Pokémon – fletchinder maybe? - was lying on the ground in a pose that did not look okay. Two: Danny and Serena were sitting in the arms of an aggron, and three: there was definitely something red trickling down Danny's face. Blur or no blur, it couldn't be anything else than blood. "The hell happened here?" Max asked as he returned sceptile, who was obviously not needed any longer and was probably tired as anything.

Danny's answer of "Earthquakes" explained the damage he'd seen at least. Swampert was out too, making Max guess he and aggron had done so. "Espurr's to your right. Exhausted, I think. What happened to your wrist? And your glasses?"

"Malamar did a Confusion pulse, and it hit the ground first," Max told them as he scanned the ground for espurr, the pale grey annoyingly good at blending in with the debris. "Crobat Wing Attacked me, but only got glasses. Can you point espurr out?"

"Try looking down," Danny remarked as the sound of sirens filtered into the building. "Took them long enough."

Max returned espurr and carefully walked over to the newly evolved Pokémon. Danny and Serena became a bit clearer, but not much. "We all got banged up, huh. What happened to you, Serena?"

"Earthquake and my foot on some debris. Ankle," Serena said, sounding distracted, and showing the reason for it a moment later as she handed Max two pokéballs. "How'd you know I was injured?"

"A guess," Max admitted as he ran his fingers across the aggron's plates. "Can't think of another reason why aggron would carry you, too."

Just then, a few police officers ran into the room, the crackling of electricity audible and the sensation it brought palpable before Max even turned around. "Hands where we can see them!" a Jenny shouted.

Max turned around, hands obviously away from his belt, seeing at least six manectric all ready to unleash a Thunder Wave, if he recognised the crackling sounds right. "They've already left, Officer. About-"

"What are you doing here?" another Jenny blurted out, and Max turned his head to the left side of the room, seeing one of them step past the manectric. "This is the second time you're at a scene with Team Flare now!" she added, sounding as if she couldn't believe it.

Max, meanwhile, had no idea which of their previous encounters she was referencing. "I'd love to explain, but..."

"You're a mess," the Jenny finished, also confirming her identity to Max. It was the one who'd interviewed him in Coumarine – she'd been sympathetic and willing to speak to him like an adult, unlike the one in Ambrette. "And do I want to know why you're here?"

Yup, definitely the one from Coumarine. He recognised that tone from her questioning his decision to Teleport to Hotel Coumarine.

~~§~~§~~

It was close to six in the evening when the three of them left the police station for the second time that day. The first time had been at five in the morning, when it became clear that they were just too tired to give good witness accounts any longer. Max had been the most awake, but even he had been fighting yawns every few sentences, while Serena had been prodded awake twice already before xatu brought them back to the Center, a Nurse Joy awake and waiting for them.

After exchanging all of their Pokémon – except swablu and cherubi, who had ended up not being used – for three half-doses of concentrated Sleep Powder extract, they pretty much crawled into their beds, the soft mattress blissfully cold to the touch. They'd gotten about six hours of sleep before the day shift Nurse Joy woke them up for a proper medical examination.

Neither Max nor Serena had broken something. Serena was told to take it easy on her ankle for a day or so, while Max's wrist needed to be regularly iced for two days. Both ankle and wrist were bandaged up at the moment, as was Danny's head. "Whereto now?" the turban-wearing teen asked as he looked down the street. A girl looked weirdly at them, but she kept on walking. "I kind of want dinner..."

"I just want answers," Serena said, repeating her words of earlier that day, annoyance surging back into her voice. Then her stomach rumbled. "But dinner first. Restaurant?"

"Could eat in our room," Max suggested as he took his glasses off, rubbing behind his right ear, where the earpiece had sat a little too snugly. "Gets you answers faster."

Danny pointed to their left, and Max put his glasses back on to see him pointing at a pizza parlour. "How about we get pizza, then Teleport back. I'm sure xatu's up for it."

Twenty minutes later, the smell of hot molten cheese spread throughout their room; tantalisingly good and enough to make Max's mouth water. He took his glasses off again, the reason why they were his spare pair coming to the fore.

He hated botched repair jobs on the arms.

They had a second floor room, but espurr still threw up a barrier to block sounds. Just in case, and all that. "Alright," Serena said from her two chairs – the second one to keep her ankle elevated – while waiting for Danny to finish cutting the pizza. "How much did you lie to me this time?"

"Lies by omission are still lies," Danny chimed in before Max could reply. "I think… two things? This time last year and..."

"Yeah," Max agreed without waiting for Danny to find the word he was looking for. He took a deep breath, grateful that he'd taken a minute or two earlier to figure out how to start this conversation. "Have you heard of the Pokémon G-men, Serena?"

She hummed, the sound vague. "Sorta?" she ventured as she took the first slice and put it on her plate. "Don't they go around investigating big international crimes?"

Danny shook his head as he placed his own slice on a plate. "That's the International Police. The G-men are… different."

"The G-men are about stopping improper treatment of Pokémon," Max recited as he waited for his pizza to cool down. He remembered another time of having cheese pizza. "And no, that's not stuff like individual Trainers treating their Pokémon badly. This is more when Pokémon are forced to do things."

"Like what you told me about those attacks in Hoenn."

"Oh yeah," Max said. "That's G-men territory alright. I first met one of them at the groudon and kyogre thing." For a second, he thought about revealing who it was, but he decided against that. "A big part of their goal is to make sure nobody tries to use Legendaries to throw the world into chaos."

"Wasn't the groudon and kyogre thing fixed?"

"And they still caused a good bit of devastation. Like, crops on all the nearby islands were ruined, and the effect was spreading," Max replied as he bit off a small piece. The temperature was perfect, and the cheese perfectly gooey. "And it was maybe half an hour that they were both doing stuff. Now imagine that going on for a few hours."

"What Max isn't saying – because he's too smart like that – is that groudon and kyogre change the weather on a large scale," Danny interjected, making some form of motion with his free hand. "Do that for too long, on too big a scale, and things start getting weird."

"Groudon and kyogre are pretty tame in their effects, too," Max said, drawing Serena's attention once again if he read her movement right. "Imagine someone doing that with dialga or palkia. Legendaries of Time and Space," he added when he saw Serena go for her Pokédex. She froze. "Or for something you know more about… Life and Death."

"But nobody has seen xerneas or yveltal for thousands of years!" Serena protested. "I mean, they exist, but nobody knows where they are or if they're still alive. And what does this have to do with your secrets?"

Max took a slow breath in, weight he hadn't known he was carrying heavy on his chest. "We're both members. Sort of."

There, he'd said it. He slipped his glasses back on to see Serena's expression, finding it… disbelieving? "Yeah. As if. You're thirteen."

"That's the 'sort of' part. It's…"

"Illegal," Danny finished flatly. "Child labour laws or maybe child soldier. R… The one I talked to didn't know for sure. He said they were mostly focused on the Home Regions, but that didn't mean they hadn't heard rumours from other regions. The things they heard about Kalos..."

"So how did they get to you? There's no way that one G-men agent remembered you from years back, Max. You didn't even have Pokémon then!"

Max leant over to his pack before responding, feeling the object he wanted to grab lying on top. "All to do with this," he said as he threw the case holding the ralts figurine over to Serena.

Sadly, his left hand was unused to throwing anything bigger than a pokéball, and the case landed right in the cheese pizza. Max blushed, Danny groaned, and Serena sounded like she giggled. "That's ralts, right?" she asked after Danny had fished the case out of the pizza, wiping the worst of the cheese off with his finger and heading for the bathroom for a moist towelette. "I thought he'd been poached?"

"He had. And then we found him, evolved, but broken."

"Huh?"

"What Max means," Danny said as he walked back into the room, "is that Ash enlisted us for finding a facility somewhere in the north of Hoenn, around this time last year." He hadn't missed a beat, and Max wondered how that was – wasn't the bathroom outside the sound barrier? "It was a facility meant to broadcast a signal, one that made Psychic-types go crazy. Like the first few Ghost-type attacks."

"They were using ralts – kirlia – to power the signal," Max said, feeling a soft burn enter his throat for reasons that had nothing to do with pizza. He squashed it by swallowing. "We beat them, but kirlia was done for. He… He passed away moments after we freed him."

"In Max's arms," Danny added sourly.

Max didn't need glasses to see Serena's expression turn compassionate. "Anyway, that, and some other things made them talk to us, ask us if we wanted to pass information about Team Flare on," he continued. "And we've been doing that for a few months. Just that," he added for good measure.

"Wait, they didn't tell you about the attack?" Danny asked as he threw the case back onto Max's bed. It bounced and hit the back wall softly. "I just assumed…"

Shit. He'd said too much. "It wasn't them. It was someone else. Someone I really didn't miss seeing. At all."

"You're not making sense, Max."

He looked at both of them, noticing that the pizza was pretty much forgotten by everyone. "Yesterday morning, someone sent me a letter. They included pictures of all of us, and threats if I didn't go somewhere." He heard Danny groan exasperatedly. "I couldn't not! Besides, it was a public place. They couldn't do much there."

"They? Who's they?"

"Team Rocket," Danny guessed, exhaling loudly through his nose before looking at Max with tilted head and a resigned expression. "They're the only one who make sense. The only ones Max could have met before."

It was a small surprise that Danny had figured it out with that little information, but Max wasn't going to complain about it. It saved him time. "Yeah. It's them. I met James, and we had lunch." He saw two faces fall in dumbfounded surprise. "That's what I thought, but I think it was to show me that he didn't mean me harm. He gave me the information, told me the Holo Caster is compromised, and… What's that saying? Made me an offer I shouldn't refuse? Couldn't refuse? One of those two. He wanted me to try and stop Team Flare."

"And why didn't you tell us?"

"Because James implied he had people watching you. Us. Whatever," Max answered Danny's question. "They can be competent, and I wasn't about to risk it."

Serena cleared her throat after half a minute of silence as they worked through the threats that had been sent their way. "Back to the G-men… Any more secrets you're keeping?"

A glib response nearly left Max's mouth. Nearly. "Just one. Vulpix's capture went a little different." He quickly explained how that had gone for real, instead of the sanitised version they told everyone else. "And that's it. No more secrets. No more lies. Might have missed some details, but..."

"You're only giving them information?" Serena asked, and Max gave a terse nod in reply, his mouth full with slightly colder pizza. Still tasty, though. "So why do you want to fight Team Flare? You don't have to, right?"

"I'm not going to stand by and do nothing. Every time they attack, people and Pokémon get hurt. They don't care about if you're innocent or if you're fighting against them. All they want is to get everyone else to move out of their way while they take over Kalos. They're pieces of shit who should be behind bars, not out free. And if I can help put them there, or even try to, that's all the reason I need."

Silence greeted the end of Max's short rant, and he blushed slightly, ignoring his body betraying him. There were more important things than even caring about what your friends think, and this was one of them.

~~§~~§~~

A tense silence fell as the commanding officer finished summarising his report of the Durocor Musée Central attack, the summary quick and effective, crafted with brevity and purpose in mind, along with a tinge of repetition; an understandable feeling to have when recounting something for a second time.

Crucially, it matched what Xerosic had told him; that a triad of deceptively skilled teenagers had caught wind of their plans and had sought to thwart them. The police was no issue; never had been. They were adults, and capable of understanding that this world was flawed. Manipulation had led to an ill-prepared squadron of guards; their typical canine Pokémon neutralised by simple Type advantage and superior conviction until the defences had been breached.

And then the vanguard encountered those who had stood against them, and while there had been a breach for Xerosic to utilise, he had been waylaid as well. Granted, the Scientist had been able to fight the teenager off, but it came at the cost of only acquiring a few Mega Stones out of the dozen present. It was still a success, yet this mounting resistance was perplexing in its source. "Very well. Dismissed."

The officer left, leaving two men in the comfortable underground office; the rotund man left wearing a carefully neutral expression. "You are certain they are the same group who thwarted us in Coumarine and attempted to do so in the Glittering Cave?"

"Having examined the data, yes," Xerosic replied calmly, setting himself up for a lengthy explanation that could probably be condensed. A swift gesture ordered him to do that. "The boy I fought had a sceptile, honedge, natu. The Coumarine group Teleported in using a natu, and grovyle and honedge were spotted there. The Glittering Cave incident also featured a grovyle and an espurr, which was shielding the other two in the central hall."

Lysandre weighed the observations in his mind, and found it plausible enough. "I suspect that you are right, though we will have to wait for the police report for it to be confirmed. You may go now."

"Thank you, my lord."

Xerosic left the room, and Lysandre stood up, walking over to the pyroar lounging in the corner of the room: the beautiful regal Pokémon ever watchful. "What do you make of it?"

His unofficial second in command, hidden from all of Team Flare but him, stepped out from behind the fake porous wall, her gait measured and controlled. "I believe that we should seek to accelerate our plans. Resistance is mounting, and even the strongest of convictions can falter against pure might of numbers."

"Yet Project Y lies dormant still, and Project X has yet to be found," Lysandre countered softly, wondering what she would suggest.

"Perhaps we can forego Project X," came the reply, taking Lysandre aback. "As ho-oh and lugia; groudon and kyogre; dialga and palkia; reshiram and zekrom; they too are yin and yang. Unbalance the scales in one direction, and the other will respond, at the cost of more time for fools to intervene."

"Then we had best implement countermeasures for that."

"Of course. Now, if I may?"

Lysandre waved her on, and his second in command left, using the elevator behind the fake wall to take her up to the café above. She, as ever, had raised points that merited careful consideration, and the perspective of one such as her was invaluable in assessing what resistance might be mounted. Her occupation alone ensured that.

When her emotions did not get the best of her, that was. Fire burned bright and beautiful, and Malva espoused that characteristic perfectly.

~~§~~§~~§~~§~~

Due to damage sustained during the Team Flare attack of June 30 and ongoing investigations, the Durocor Musée Central regrets to announce that it will remain closed until further notice. We apologise for those who had intended to visit our Mega Stone exhibition, and urge them to visit our website for more information on our reopening.

Author's Note: One thing that always seems to be a theme for villainous teams is that their Pokémon selection is limited in both the games and the anime. Here we saw the downsides of that: two physical powerhouses commanding the attention of half a dozen liepard and mightyena at a time.