Pokémon: Journey of the Next Generation

by NEBSparky86

10 years have passed since Ash and May have settled down into their positions as members of the Atlantica Islands Elite Four. Now the time has come to pass the mantle on to the new guard of Pokémon trainers. Follow Cynthia Ketchum along with other new trainers as they find new friends and perils. Slight Advanceshipping... sequel to May and Ash's Unova Journey.

17. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and story elements of the Pokémon franchise. Game Freak, Nintendo and the Pokémon Company all have ownership of it. I'm just borrowing them for this story to entertain readers for fun.

16: Traveling Galar (part 1)

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Cynthia Greyson's POV

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"You've gotta admit, she knows how to make an graceful entrance," my husband and love, Lucas, said to me after we watched the opening ceremony for Galar's Gym Challenge with a smirk on his face.

"And from whom do you think she learned how to be that graceful, yet sexy, from?" I asked my Fiery Lucas in a playful and innocent tone as I gave him a flirty wink and a smile.

"Why from you, of course," Lucas replied as he picked me up and set me on his lap, facing him, "my Flawless Golden-haired Angel."

Just hearing Lucas calling me his Golden-haired Angel always excited me and always would set the mood if we wanted to get frisky with each other.

oooooooooooooo

Cynthia Ketchum Summers' POV

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"You think you'll ever find a shiny Nickit like Silver Luna and Twilight?" Benjy asked me as he referenced my bro and Lana's pair of shiny Nickit siblings they owned.

"Oh, I hope so," I answered my sexy husband with a smile on my face. "But there are always other shiny Pokémon for me to try and catch too. "I did hear that this region has a regional variant of Weezing, Ponyta and Farfetch'd. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a regional Farfetch'd and see what its Dream World ability is."

"Of course," replied Benjy as he rolled his eyes and smirked. "You and your fascination with the Dream World. You've had that since we were kids."

'Not to mention you'll be looking for the Galar starters with their Dream World abilities too,' chimed in Big Brother Victini as he remained sitting on my left shoulder, 'as per usual.'

"And you'll do well to behave yourself, Big Brother," I reminded Big Brother Victini.

'I make no promises or guarantees,' Big Brother Victini replied to me with a cool grin as he knew that I still couldn't send him home even if I wanted to.

'So what kind of Pokémon shall we search for?' Lavender inquired of me as we began our search for new Pokémon to catch. 'I know that you wanted to stay in Motostoke a bit longer before setting out on our quest to collect the badges.'

"I wanna go back into the Wild Area and see about training up Pidove and try to find shiny Budew," I answered my wise old protector, Lavender. "But more than anything, I'd like to try and find more local Pokémon, shiny if possible."

'With our luck and the Shiny Charm that Her Majesty provided you, finding shiny Pokémon shouldn't be too difficult for you,' Big Brother Victini said to me.

"Then lets head back to the Wild Area," Benjy said as we headed to the south exit of the city.

"I think Silver Talon said that Budews in the Wild Area are said to pop up in the Rolling Fields sector of the Wild Area," I said in recollection of what our host had told us before we left to Motostoke.

'To the Rolling Fields then?' asked Lavender.

"Yup, we go to the Rolling Fields," I answered as I lead the way back to the Rolling Fields sector of Galar's Wild Area.

oooooooooooooo

A couple days later, we explored the Rolling Fields in search of more Pokémon for us to catch. Benjy had captured himself his own Elektrike and a Pancham which would prove to be very helpful since he had a Dark-type Pokémon with him and we knew that Pancham required a Dark-type Pokémon to be in the party for it to evolve into Pangoro. Benjy even managed to capture a shiny Tyrogue as well because I think he wanted to own a shiny Hitmontop as well. As for me, I did find a shiny Budew, two actually through Max Raids. And one of them had the Leaf Guard ability that I was looking for. One of the other trainers asked me why I was wanting a shiny Budew with the Leaf Guard Dream World ability and what the Houndour a Dream World ability was. So I told him why I wanted a shiny Budew with the Leaf Guard Dream World ability. I explained to him that I wanted to have a Roserade with the Technician ability rather Poison Point or Natural Cure. Then came the part that I usually loathed the most… having to explain what a Dream World ability was. The reason I loathed having to explain what a Dream World ability was is because hardly anyone could understand that Pokémon could live in a world that was fueled by Dream Energy and appear in certain areas within our world. Despite the explanations I tried to give, I figured that it was going to be better to demonstrate what I was talking about. Once I acquired the shiny Dream World Budew, I gave her a Soothe Bell to help increase her friendship with me even though I caught her in a Friend Ball. I did get asked how it was possible that I was able to own so many Apricorn Balls when they were rare in Galar. Benjy told them that our home region and the Johto region are where we get our Apricorn Balls from.

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After a week of going through the Wild Area of Galar, Benjy and I made our way to the first town that held the first badge that we had to get. After taking a four day trek from Motostoke to the town called Turffield, we were ready to try our hand at the first gym. But one of things that I usually did when Benjy and I ever rolled into a new town was interact with the local Pokémon, rather than interacting with the human population, as I followed the 47th Draconic Rule of Accumulation.

"When entering a new village or town, interaction with the local Pokémon will yield you a profit of knowledge rather than relying on the interaction of humans," I recited aloud as we approached some of the local Pokémon who resided in Turffield.

"Babe, I really think we've been hanging around the Dragons of the Draco Ruby Trading Guild a little too much," Benjy said to me as he was a bit disturbed at how easily I knew some of the Draconic Rules of Accumulation so easily.

"Perhaps," I replied to my husband with a smile. "But they have saved us from getting conned or lead into traps here and there."

"Meh, you got a point there," replied Benjy.

Once Benjy and I had gotten to know the layout of the town, we saw Mom and Daddy flying off to the next town on the back of Lord Dracaenas, head of the Draco Ruby Trading Guild. It was our conclusion that Mom and Daddy had won their gym badges already and were heading off to collect their next badge. As for us, a flock of Wooloo had told us that the town had numerous bed and breakfast lodges in Turffield and that staying there would be better than staying at the Pokémon Center where there was almost no privacy. Especially if Benjy and I wanted to get frisky and have sex with each other. We found a quaint little bed and breakfast place, that had such beautiful rustic charm to it, and booked a three night stay as Benjy would go first and I would train a bit longer before going up against the gym leader. Plus I was going to do some shiny hunting and look around Route 4 for any shiny Wooloos or a shiny Yamper, like my little bro. Benjy and I got a few text messages from the others in Team Storm, telling us of how they were progressing in the Gym Challenge. Isabella had been in the Wild Areas and was staying there a bit longer to train up her Pokémon and of course train herself with her "fire bending" abilities. Keith and Lana were on a fishing expedition along the way to Turffield and would take about a week to get to where we were. As for Ren… knowing my royal cousin and her lover, they would take their sweet time getting to Turffield as they were known for getting horny at any known time and wanna stop to cave into their sexual desires for each other.

Once Benjy and I had gotten settled into the bed and breakfast for the night, we found a little café that was recommended to us by a couple Pumpkaboos who said that it had the best pastries and berry smoothie blends in the Galar region. I ended up catching one of the Pumpkaboos as one was a shiny Small Sized Pumpkaboo with the Insomnia Dream World ability. Once I caught her, I made sure to teach her Flamethrower, which surprised her as she wasn't aware that she could learn Flamethrower. I also taught her Mysticalal Fire, Hex, Giga Drain, Seed Bomb, Bullet Seed, and Shadow Ball all before I traded her to Benjy so I could have her as a Gourgeist. But I gave her an Everstone to keep her from evolving.

'Why do you seek to keep me from evolving?' inquired Pumpkaboo. 'Do you not wish to see me evolve into a wonderful Gourgeist that you can use for battle?'

"Oh, I do want you to evolve," I answered Pumpkaboo. "But my husband will take off the Everstone so that when he trades you back to me, you'll evolve into a Pumpkaboo."

And with that, Benjy and I began the trading process. As planned, Benjy received my shiny Pumpkaboo and then took off the Everstone that prevented her from evolving into a Gourgeist. Once my husband took off the Everstone, he returned my Pumpkaboo to me and I gave him back his Mightyena. Once I got my Pumpkaboo back from Benjy, she then evolved into Gourgeist as planned. As for my recently evolved Gourgeist, she was pleased to see that she evolved into a Gourgeist. I then began training with her after we had dinner at the café that she and her friend recommended to us. Gourgeist definitely proved herself in battle against most of the Pokémon out on Route 4. I think even a few of the regional variants of Meowth were shocked that Gourgeist was using Flamethrower against them. A few of them thought it not possible that Gourgeist could learn Flamethrower or even Mystical Fire as they pointed out that Gourgeist was a Grass-type Pokémon and Grass-type Pokémon couldn't learn Fire-type moves like Flamethrower or Mystical Fire. They tried to point out that they could only learn Sunny Day. Despite this, they couldn't hold a candle to Gourgeist or our tactics against them and I ended up catching a shiny banana yellow Galar Meowth, the one who complained about Gourgeist shouldn't be able to know Flamethrower or Mystical Fire. I got a pretty good look at the moves he could learn and I was quite surprised to see that he had a nice smorgasbord of moves he could learn, even Play Rough to counter Fighting-type Pokémon too. So I taught him Gunk Shot, Seed Bomb, Play Rough, Iron Head and Crunch too. Steel Claw, as he wanted to be known as, said that there was a move that he wanted to learn called Steel Beam and described to me what Steel Beam did. At first, I was interested in the Steel Beam move that Steel Claw told me about. But unfortunately, Steel Claw mentioned that Steel Beam also inflicted recoil on the user and that was a big turn off for me. Plus, I was a little disappointed when I saw Steel Claw's ability wasn't a Dream World ability, but Tough Claws was a very good ability to have for him as he liked having to get up close and battle in hand-to-hand combat. Or in Steel Claw's case, it was known as paw-to-paw combat.

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The next day…

"Way to go, my sexy stud," I said to my husband as he won against the gym leader, Milo. "You got your first badge from the Gym Challenge.

"Thanks my Ocean Beauty," Benjy replied to me as we kissed each other. "But that Dynamax Eldegoss was quite challenging to deal with. Guess we need to keep up our guard here."

Before I could respond back to Benjy, he got some text messages from the others in our team congratulating him on getting his first badge after a pretty challenging battle. His Mightyena had gotten knocked out after a battering battle with Milo's Gossifluer and then Milo's Eldegoss took him down. Thankfully, Benjy had his Emboar to help bail him out of that jam. Plus, Benjy's Emboar had an Amulet Coin around his neck to show that Milo needed to pay double the amount of prize money after losing. Milo then gave Benjy a replica of his uniform and Galar TM 10, which was Magical Leaf. After Milo shook hands with Benjy, he then looked at me and said, "Guess, I'll be facing you tomorrow lil' lady. You 'n your friends gave quite the entrance last week at the openin' ceremony in Motostoke. Really 'oping you'll do just as well as your friend here."

"Looking forward to take on your gym," I replied to Milo.

"Better get a good night's sleep lil' lady," Milo said to me. "You're gonna need it."

"Looking forward to it," I replied to Milo as he waved to me and Benjy as the gym was closing for the day.

oooooooooooooo

'So, who will you going to send against this Milo human?' Lavender asked me as she sat poolside while I swam in the shared pool, keeping up my training for the next swimming competition.

"I'm not sure yet," I answered Lavender as I then just floated in the heated pool on my back and let my hair fan out as I laid on my back.

'Do you require my assistance?' inquired Lavender as she trained her blood red eyes on me.

"I think I'm gonna pass on calling on you against the gym leader," I answered Lavender. "Sorry Lavender."

'There is no need for you to apologize, dear young Cynthia,' replied Lavender. 'I understand your strategy against the Grass-type gym leader. But it begs to question, since you've ruled me out to do battle against the gym leader, shall I still play a part in securing your first gym badge?'

"Why would ask me that Lavender?" I asked my faithful and reliable guardian. "You know that I'll always rely on your help against the gym trainers.

"I think that I'll go with Shiva and Gourgeist," I said to Lavender as I swam over to her. "Shiva needs to learn to battle with others and not have you holding her paw."

'That is true,' agreed Lavender before looking and seeing Benjy coming out to meet me. 'It looks like your love is here. Do not breed with each other. You are certainly not ready to breed offspring yet.'

"L-Lavender!" I exclaimed as my wise Fire-type guardian walked away to allow Benjy and I some alone time

oooooooooooooo

'Why do I have to work with that party-sized gourd?' Shiva asked me, the next morning as I prepared for my gym battle against Milo. 'I'm used to battling alongside Lavender. Put me with Lavender.'

"I'm sorry," I replied to Shiva as I shook my head, "but did I say 'if it pleases you, Your Majesty'?"

Shiva didn't like that I paired her up with Gourgeist instead of Lavender for battle against the gym leader. As for Lavender, she would join my other Pokémon in fending off the gym trainers. I gave Gourgeist the Amulet Coin that Lavender usually held and gave Lavender a Heat Rock to properly utilize her Drought Dream World ability. As for Shiva, I gave her an Icy Rock to make use of her Snow Warning Dream World ability. As for my other Pokémon, I gave Steel Claw a Steelium Z crystal, Ariel received a Mystical Water from me and my recently evolved Roselia got a Big Root to go with the Mega Drain and Giga Drain moves that she learned. Once my squad was ready, we made our way to the Turffield Gym and met Milo along the way to the gym. He expressed his excitement in getting to battle a second member of Team Storm as Benjy really put up a fight against him and his Pokémon. Then, Benjy and I got his Trainer Card from him as trainers in the Galar region made Trainer Cards and gave them to each other as a way to try and generate hype about themselves. After meeting with Milo on our way to the gym, we made our way to the gym itself where other trainers had gathered in the gym's lobby. Many were talking to each other about the Gym's mission in order to get to the Gym leader himself. However, silence fell upon them once I entered the gym with Big Brother Victini sitting on my left shoulder and Benjy following me, even though he already collected the Grass Badge from Milo. Benjy headed to the stadium's seats to prepare for me to enter and challenge Milo. As for me, I approached the Gym Lieutenant… I mean Gym Trainer.

"Are you here to challenge our Gym Leader, Milo?" the Gym Trainer asked me.

"Yup," I answered the Gym Trainer. "I'm the second member of Team Storm to challenge your gym."

"T-Team Storm?!" the Gym Trainer asked in surprise. "W-Well… then. Please proceed to change into uniform.

"Am I to assume that since you're in Team Storm, you also have your own special uniform that you'll be showcasing during this year's Gym Challenge?"

"You assume correctly," I answered the Gym Trainer as I gave her a nod.

"Then please change into your uniform then," replied the Gym Trainer, guarding the entrance to the gym.

I complied and then changed into my Mystical Ninetales uniform very quickly. Lavender was very pleased with the look of my uniform. Shiva was hoping that my uniform would look more like her, but I didn't want that. As for the rest of my Pokémon, they gave me a nod of approval as they were ready for their first challenge since competing in the Suicune Valley Conference or compete for the first time ever. Lavender then gave me a slight nod as she said to me, 'We are ready and raring to go.'

"Time for Team Storm to make another impact on Galar's Gym Challenge," I said before recalling my Pokémon after I reviewed them.

Once I recalled my Pokémon, I headed out to the lobby where everyone was waiting for me to come out. As I came out, a few of the other Gym Challengers took pictures of me in my Mystic Gym Challenge outfit. The Gym Trainer looked quite interested in my custom Gym Challenge uniform. As much as she wanted to have me return to the locker room to change, she didn't do that as it seemed as though that the Gym Leaders were told that Team Storm were showcasing new designs for Gym Challenge uniforms and that we were to be left alone.

"Alright then," said the Gym Trainer, "you may proceed."

I then headed into gym and followed the directions to where I was supposed to go to. After walking for another five minutes, I found that the gym wasn't quite what I had pictured in my head. But then again, neither were a few of the gyms in the Atlantica Islands. So I felt as if I was going through the Royal Gym or one of the other gyms back home. I went down the stairs where I was met by a League referee.

"The mission given by the Turffield Gym is this!" exclaimed the League referee. "To chase our unruly Wooloo!"

'The hell?!' I thought in disbelief as I had a look of shock and disbelief and a couple veins popping on my forehead.

"To that blockade we've made from our bales of straw over there!" added the League referee. "Oh by the way, you can call me Dan. I serve as referee, and it's also my job to report the results of battles to League HQ.

"Now, let the Gym mission begin!" Referee Dan finished as he then ran off to let me start the Gym mission.

I shook my head in disbelief as I was hoping for something a bit more interesting than having to become a Wooloo wrangler. I then felt as if I was a goat wrangler from the province of Ordon from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and even had a mental picture of what I might look like in my head too… real embarrassing. Though despite the mental picture I had in my head, I did figure how I would wrangle them in and called on Lavender for help.

'So we are to chase after those Sheep Pokémon, then?' inquired Lavender as we looked at the 20 or so Wooloo that were on the field.

"Oh yeah," I answered Lavender. "Luckily the ref didn't say that I couldn't rely on Pokémon to help wrangle them towards the bales of straw."

'That is indeed true,' agreed Lavender as she gave a thoughtful nod. 'So do you have a plan as to how we shall wrangle them towards the straw bales?'

I got to thinking on how Lavender and I would proceed with wrangling the Wooloo towards the bales of straw. As much as I wanted to ride on Lavender's back as if I were the Hero, Link, I wasn't a little girl anymore and I wasn't going to subject Lavender to have me on her back like those days when I was a kid. About the only other thing I could think of was to have Lavender and I run in a half moon crescent containment pattern or run a crisscross pattern to force the Wooloo to move forward.

"Okay Lavender," I said to Lavender, "we'll run a crisscross pattern to force the Wooloo towards the bales of straw."

'Then let us enact this plan,' replied Lavender as we both got into position.

Lavender and I then moved towards the Wooloo and began moving them towards the straw bales. Getting the 20 Wooloo towards the first blockade of straw bales was fairly easily. Once there was a confirmation that all 20 Wooloo had made it to the first blockade, the 20 Normal-type Sheep Pokémon then broke through the blockade and made their way to the next open field. The next open field had no Gym Trainers, that I could see at first. Nor did I see the Yamper until he made his presence known as he barked and startled a few Wooloo. Seeing the Yamper then made things a little difficult for me… at first. Then I remembered that I had other Pokémon that I could on for back up. I also remembered that Steel Claw told me that he and his clan had a problem with Yampers. Knowing that Steel Claw could battle against Yampers was the solution to keeping the Yamper away from the Wooloo.

"Come out, Steel Claw," I said as I threw up Steel Claw's Level Ball.

'You rang?' asked Steel Claw as he straightened himself.

"Need you to keep that Yamper away from the Wooloo, if you can," I requested of Steel Claw.

My shiny male banana yellow Scratch Cat Pokémon looked and narrowed his eyes at the Yamper. Taking a look at his mortal enemy and then back to me as I instructed him, "Don't engage the Yamper. Just keep him away from the Wooloo. The last thing that I need is to get in trouble with Galar's Pokémon League Commission for injuring the Pokémon belonging to a gym."

'Gotcha,' acknowledged Steel Claw as he then charged at the Yamper.

"Okay then," I said and then looked to Lavender.

'Alright, let us do the same thing as the last time,' Lavender said to me.

"'Second verse, same as the first'," I replied as we got into position and did the same thing that we did like in the smaller field.

While Steel Claw kept the Yamper at bay, Lavender and I pushed the 20 Wooloo towards the second blockade of straw bales. Lavender and I were successful in pushing the Wooloo flock towards the second blockade of straw bales, which the flock were able to muscle their way through. With the flock of Wooloo through the second blockade, I got Steel Claw back from keeping the Yamper at bay. Before I could proceed to wrangle the Wooloo, a Gym Trainer stood in my way.

'A Gym trainer stands in our way,' observed Lavender.

"Welcome, Gym Challenger!" exclaimed the first Gym Trainer. "Sorry, but I'll have to send you packing. It's my job."

"Many have said that," I replied to the guy. "Few have succeeded."

The Gym Trainer then sent out Gossifleur against me. As for me, I responded back by sending out Steel Claw against opponent's Glossifleur. Our opponent was quite surprised to see Steel Claw as he had never seen a shiny Galar Meowth before. As for me, I took advantage of my struts as I had informed my Galar Pokémon about Z-Moves. Once I told my Galar Pokémon about Z-Moves from Alola, they wanted to learn to perform the Z-Moves. Steel Claw knew Iron Head, Metal Claw, Play Rough, Crunch, Thunderbolt. The fact that he had Steel-type moves was a huge plus for me and helped with teaching them on how to work in synch with me on using Z-Moves. With the shock of seeing Steel Claw as a shiny Pokémon over, Steel Claw and I were ready to drop a nasty surprise on the Gym trainer. Thanks to the Z-Ring on my left wrist, Galar was going to get a taste of Team Storm's power. Steel Claw and I got the drop on the Gym trainer. I looked to Steel Claw and he looked to me as we both gave each other a nod of readiness. Focusing energy into my Z-Ring, I then crossed my arms across my chest and then said, "The hardness of steel forged in fire. The strength of iron forged by the bonds of two. The strength of steel to unleash a devastating power!"

The Gym trainer was confused as to what Steel Claw and I were doing as Steel Claw was doing as he followed my motions as well. Steel Claw also crossed his arms across his chest like I did. Then both of us pounded our knuckles against each other before thrusting our fists forward. That was when Steel Claw unleashed his devastating Z-Move attack, the Corkscrew Crash. Steel Claw then charged at the opposing Gossifleur in a drilling-like manner. Not knowing what to do, the Gossifleur took the attack and was knocked out in one swift blow. With one swift move, the battle was over and Steel Claw had a satisfied look on his face.

'I must say that these Z-Moves are pretty powerful,' remarked Steel Claw with a satisfied look on his face.

After the first trainer battle, Lavender, Steel Claw and I went back to the gym mission ahead of us. Steel Claw went towards the Yamper ahead of us and distracted it while Lavender and I worked to corral and wrangle the Wooloo towards the third set of straw bales. Once Lavender and I were able to corral the Wooloo flock to the bales, we turned back to face the next Gym trainer. Against the next Gym trainer, I sent my wise protector, Lavender, against the second trainer. The second Gym trainer tried to use a Budew and Oddish against Lavender, which didn't work. Lavender didn't even bat an eye when sweeping the Budew and Oddish aside. It looked as if my plan for tackling the first gym was working. After sweeping the last Gym Trainer aside and getting the Wooloo flock wrangled to their pens, my two Pokémon and I completed the gym mission.

"Thank you Steel Claw and Lavender," I said to my two Pokémon before I recalled Lavender and Steel Claw to their respective Pokéballs.

Once I recalled Lavender and Steel Claw to their Pokéballs, I walked towards the stairs and then strode up the stairs while the Roto-Cameras were trained on me as I walked up the stairs. As I walked up the stairs, I let out a sigh as I had a few nerves coursing through me. It was something that usually happened when I went through a Pokémon League for the first time. Once I reached the top, I waved to the cameras before turning around to head into the stadium and face the gym leader, Milo.

'That challenge seemed to be quite easy,' Big Brother Victini said as he had remained silent the whole time and wearing his own little Gym Challenger uniform that Aunt Jessica made for him.

"We can't take a victory lap just yet, Big Brother," I replied to Victini.

'Never said anything about taking a victory lap,' replied Victini. 'But I hope that Shiva will be obedient during the Gym Challenge.'

"Despite her clingy demeanor," I said to my big brother, "she's always obedient in battle. I just hope she doesn't try to tackle me while Dynamaxed."

With our brief conversation finished, Victini and I made our way to the stadium where the audience was waiting for me to appear. Letting out a sigh, I forced myself to calm my nervous aura and focus on Master Lucario's teaching. Lavender had let herself out as she knew that I was nervous and having her at my side always calmed me down whenever she sensed that I was nervous.

"Shut out your surroundings when you feel overwhelmed," I said as I recited Master Lucario's teachings. "Shut out the noises that distract you from your focus. Shut out the auras of others who distract you from the aura of your opponent."

'Let's make our names known to Galar,' Big Brother replied with a grin on his face and got a nod from my wise protector, Lavender.

I walked out onto the stadium field to see many in the audience cheering and waiting for the gym leader to come out and meet me head on. The Turffield gym leader certainly was eager to take me on after facing Benjy yesterday or he saw how easily I swept his Gym trainers aside with just Steel Claw and Lavender. Both of us met in the middle of the field and faced each other.

"My Gym's the first one people face, so we get a lot of challengers," said Milo. "That's why I try to keep challenging, but… that didn't stop you from completing it, Cynthia! Proper job!

"Sure seems like you understand Pokémon real well, seeing as how you have two Pokémon at your side," continued Milo. "This is gonna be a doozy of battle! I'll have to Dynamax my Pokémon if I want to win!"

We turned and gave ourselves quite a considerable amount of distance from each other and then readied ourselves for the gym battle. With Lavender behind me and Big Brother Victini moving off my shoulder and sitting on Lavender's head, I was ready to go.

"Time to battle Gossifleur," Milo said as he called out his first Pokémon to battle.

"It's time to shine, Gourgeist!" I exclaimed as I tossed up the Moon Ball containing my shiny female Gourgeist and set her loose against Milo and his Gossifleur.

"Wow, not many people here find shiny Pokémon," Milo commented before taking a deep breath. "Gossifleur, use Magical Leaf."

"Counter that with Mystical Fire," I replied as I was going into the gym battle, guns blazing… figuratively of course.

"Eh? What now?" asked a shocked Milo as it seemed as though he didn't know that Gourgeist could learn a Fire-type move like Mystical Fire.

'Feel the burn!' Gourgeist shouted as she used her Mystical Fire and burned through the Magical Leaf attack and hit Gossifleur.

'Gah! That burns!' Gossifleur screeched in pain as he felt that Fire-type attack burning him.

"Oh boy," said Milo as he wasn't expecting me to come out with a blistering fire right out of the gate.

His Gossifleur was knocked out from Gourgeist's Mystical Fire attack. Seeing that surprised some in the crowd. The crowd was baffled by how my shiny Gourgeist knew Mystical Fire. I think a few of them wanted to shout at me that I was cheating, which wasn't true. I had never cheated in swimming competitions or Pokémon battles in my life. Video games… well… that's a story for another time. It was then that Milo called on his Eldegoss. Seeing Eldegoss, I knew that it was time for Shiva to make her presence known. I recalled Gourgeist and then called on Shiva to take Gourgeist's place. Milo and many in the audience saw Shiva and were surprised to see her. I think that not many in Galar had seen an Alola Ninetales like Shiva or her mother Diamond Flake. It was then that Shiva used her Snow Warning ability and summoned an ice storm. I was glad to see that Shiva was all business right then and there.

"Blimey, never thought that we'd be gettin' snow in the middle of summer," Milo said as the snow fell in the stadium.

"Woohoo!" exclaimed Milo as he was really happy and fired up despite having his Gossifleur burned by my Gourgeist. "We're not going to be done in so easy! We're as tough as weeds!"

Milo then readied himself and his Eldegoss as he then exclaimed in excitement, "Come on then! It's Dynamax time! You're about to be uprooted!" Milo recalled his Eldegoss to his Ultra Ball and then focused his energy into the Dynamax Band on his left wrist as the Ultra Ball increased in size. The Turffield gym leader then tossed the enlarged Ultra Ball behind him and released his now super sized Eldegoss. Seeing the Dynamaxed Eldegoss was quite fascinating to see, but it wasn't that too surprising to see as I had already witnessed the Dynamax phenomenon back home when my little bro and his wife introduced it during the Suicune Valley Conference tournament. Well… technically, someone else introduced it to the Atlantica Islands and then Keith and Lana used it during the tournament. But who's really keeping track of the minute details?

"Ready Shiva?" I asked my shiny female Alola Ninetales. "Ready for your first time to be Dynamaxed?"

'Ready Big Sister!' answered Shiva as she took a ready stance.

"Here we go then!" I exclaimed before recalling Shiva to her Dream Ball then began channeling energy into the Dynamax Band. "Now go get 'em, Shiva!"

Shiva's Dream Ball then became enlarged and I tossed it behind me and set Shiva loose on Milo and his Eldegoss. Seeing Shiva becoming a lot larger just blew me away. Even Shiva was amazed at how she became a whole lot larger. It was then that our amazement had bled off and we were ready to battle.

"Shiva use, Max Hailstorm and take him out!" I shouted to my shiny Dynamaxed Shiva.

'YOU GOT IT!' replied Shiva as she was quick to launch her attack against Milo's Eldegoss.

The Ice-type Dynamax attack hit home and thanks to Shiva's raised Special Attack stats and the fact that she was an Ice-type and it was also paired with my custom Gym Challenge uniform that boosted her Speed and Special Attack, taking out Milo's Eldegoss was no problem as she took him out no problem. Once Milo's Eldegoss was defeated, he fell on his back and then exploded as he reverted back to his normal size before being recalled. As for Shiva, she reverted back to her normal size too after the battle. Though once the gym battle was done and she reverted back to normal size, Shiva then decided to jump on me as usual.

"Wah!" I cried out in surprise. "Shiva, get off of me!"

'I got us the gym badge!' exclaimed Shiva. 'And I didn't need Lavender's help!'

Thankfully, Lavender got Shiva off of me and I was able to recall her and ended the snow flurries inside the stadium. Milo was quite surprised to see that he had been completely decimated by me so quickly. I think a lot of other people in the audience were also quite shocked to see that Milo got decimated so quickly.

"The power of Grass wilted…," said Milo as he wiped some of the sweat off of his brow with his bandana. "Team Storm has an incredible Challenger. I think the other Gym Leaders better watch their backs when it comes to you lads and lassies."

Thankfully, Milo remembered seeing seeing my Gourgeist was in possession of the Amulet Coin I gave her to hold. He made sure that I was paid double the amount. As we had walked up to each other, Milo then said to me, "That must have been a fulfilling Pokémon battle for you! As proof that you have defeated a Gym Leader for the Gym Challenge, allow me to present you with your very own Grass Badge!

Milo finished as we shook hands, "You need to obtain all eight Gym Badges to complete the Gym Challenge. And the only way to gather the Badges is to defeat every Gym Leader!"

'Oh, I do hope that the lovely mermaid, Nessa is waiting for us,' Big Brother Victini said with hearts in his eyes and some hearts even popping just at the thought of seeing the Water-type Gym Leader.

"Quiet, Big Brother," I replied to Victini as I flicked him on his left ear.

'Ow!' exclaimed Victini as he never liked it when I flicked him or yanked him on his left ear.

"Actually, Nessa is the next Gym Leader," Milo said to me and Big Brother Victini.

'Be still my tiny hopeful beating heart,' Victini replied in satisfaction as he still had hearts floating up and popping in satisfaction.

"Just make sure you remember which mermaids are off limits to you," I said to Big Brother Victini as I narrowed my eyes while I walked out of the stadium with him sitting on my shoulder once again.

oooooooooooooo

"Way to go, Babe," Benjy said to me as we walked out of the gym after I decided to purchase all of the replica uniforms that I could purchase after getting a replica uniform from Milo's gym.

"Thanks Benjy," I replied as we walked back to the bed and breakfast for our last night before we had to move on Hulbury for the next Gym Badge.

'Oh goodie, oh yay,' Big Brother Victini said in excitement as he knew we had to face Nessa and he was very excited to get the chance to meet her in person.

'Is there something wrong with your Pokémon companion?' Gourgeist asked the other Pokémon out of concern as she noticed Big Brother Victini as he bursting with excitement.

'The little squirt is always like that,' Benjy's Emboar answered my Gourgeist.

'He is always infatuated with human females who have such, in his words, 'exquisite and flawless beauty',' added Lavender as she wasn't a fan of my Big Brother's antics to get friendly attention and affection from girls and women.

'Hard to believe he's like that,' said the shiny male black Wooloo that I managed to capture on the way back to the bed and breakfast. 'Though ya gotta admit, he must have exceptional tastes in human females if he's able to get such attention and affection from them.'

'Please don't encourage him,' Ariel said to our new shiny Galar companion. 'His swelled head will get even worse if you encourage him further.'

oooooooooooooo

The next day…

'Can't believe you decided to come back here,' grumped Victini as I wanted to come back to the Rolling Fields and see if we could find any new Pokémon to add for our teams.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to find a rare and elusive Dreepy," I shot back to my Psychic/Fire-type Big Brother. "I was told that if I wanted to find one without having to go to the Lake of Outrage, that I should be checking the Max Raid dens here in the Rolling Fields."

I was having some kind of rare luck and catching a shiny Gigantamax Butterfree, a shiny Togepi like the Togepi that Aunt Misty had when she traveled with Daddy, but the Dreepy remained elusive to me and I wanted it really bad, even if I could get it as a shiny. Most of the trainers who I spoke to just laughed in my face and told me that I should just give up searching for a Dreepy, even to get my head out of the narrow pipe because a shiny Dreepy was ridiculously rare and wasn't going to be found so easy. But they should've known that I wasn't going to give up so easily. So I decided to listen to the shiny Applin that I caught and put out a lure for Dragon Pokémon in the Max Raid den and wait.

oooooooooooooo

A few days later, I was almost about ready to give up until I saw that the Max Raid den came to life and a Dynamax Pokémon was there. A rare Dynamax Pokémon was there. Before anyone could get there, Benjy and I got to the den and took a look to see what was down in the den. Sure enough, we could see the shadowed silhouette of a Dreepy in it. Benjy and I gave each other a nod as we got down in the den to take on the Dreepy. Another person came into the Max Raid to join us for the Max Raid. I was quite surprised to see that it was Ren who joined up.

"Saw your gym battle on Pokénet," Ren said to me with a smile on her face. "Way to go, Cynthia. Was surprised that Shiva was willing to battle with another Pokémon other than Lavender."

"She wasn't too thrilled to be battling alongside with my shiny Gourgeist," I said to Ren as one more unknown trainer joined the Max Raid battle.

The Dreepy was definitely a shiny Dreepy as it had a shiny Flygon blue on its head and along its body. Plus it had yellow tips on the head as well. Seeing that it was the shiny Dreepy that I was looking for, gave me a big boost of confidence. I decided to call on Ariel to help take down the Dynamaxed shiny Dreepy. Benjy called on his Mightyena and Ren called on Ronginku to help us. As for the fourth person, she just called on a Wishiwashi. As the Max Raid started, I noticed that Dynamax energy gathered in my Dynamax Band. Wanting to end the Max Raid quickly, I chose to Dynamax Ariel in order to end the battle quickly. Seeing Ariel so big was really a big surprise. But I then took a look at my Pokédex and saw that her Echoed Voice and Hyper Voice would not damage the Dreepy as her it seemed as though her Liquid Voice ability was negated while she was Dynamaxed. Despite her Normal-type Dynamax moves being useless, her Fairy-type moves were not negated.

"Ariel, use Max Starfall!" I shouted as the Max Raid was about to end.

'Here it comes!' Ariel shouted as she used the Fairy-type Dynamax move and struck the shiny Dreepy.

With one swift move the shiny Dreepy was defeated and weakened. He was weakened enough to be captured. I chose to capture the shiny Dreepy in a Friend Ball as I wanted to try and speed up the friendship as fast as I could. Focusing energy into my Dynamax Band, the band increased the size of the Friend Ball I used before tossing it at the shiny Dreepy. The enlarged Friend Ball then sucked the shiny Dreepy inside it and shook three times before shrinking back down to normal size. Once the three of us each caught a shiny Dreepy, there was a lot of excitement from the three of us. As we exited the raid den, others were flocking to the den as they saw that the Max Raid den was a rare Max Raid. Some of those trainers were the ones who laughed at me for wanting to search for a shiny Dreepy. With the satisfied look on my face, it was then that Benjy and I called for a Taxi to shuttle us back to Turffield so we could head to the next gym at Hulbury. Big Brother Victini was certainly looking forward to going to Hulbury and see Nessa since he missed his chance to hit on her for attention and affection while we were in Motostoke.

Two and a half days later, we made it to Hulbury after having so many trainers trying to ambush us in an effort to try and weaken us before we made it to the Hulbury Gym. As we made our way to Hulbury, I once again relied on the 47th Draconic Rule of Accumulation and asked the Pokémon that lived on the outskirts of Hulbury. The Pokémon told us about a seaside hotel that had stunning views, four pools, one of which was a salt water pool, and quite the buffet for each meal that works for Pokémon. After following the directions from the local Pokémon, we checked into the hotel for a few days. After checking into the hotel, we went exploring around Hulbury. As we explored the seaside town, I saw that there looked to be a group of swimmers gathered together at the harbor. While I wanted to go towards the gathering of swimmers, my little Psychic/Fire-type big brother had to wanna go another direction after seeing his ears twitch twice and then have a big smile on his face. Surprisingly enough, he decided to wear the Gym Challenge uniform that Aunt Jessica had made for him as he wanted Nessa to see him looking cute.

"For the love of Arceus, not again," I moaned as Benjy and I turned to follow Big Brother Victini as he went to go find this cute girl that had his ears repeatedly twitching twice like a metal detector.

'Here I come, beautiful girl,' Big Brother Victini said happily as his ears still kept twitching twice. 'You won't be able to resist my cute and innocent Victini charm!'

"Any chance we can leave him to get in trouble with whoever this girl is?" Benjy asked me as we pursued Victini.

"You know that Mom and Daddy will be mad at me if I leave Big Brother to his devices," I answered my husband.

"You gotta be kidding me," sassed Benjy as he rolled his eyes. "Babe, you're a woman now, you don't need Victini as your babysitter anymore."

"I know, I know," I replied to Benjy as we saw that Victini was moving towards someone who looked a bit familiar as she resembled the Water-type Gym Leader from the opening ceremonies and a mental blinking image of Big Brother Victini being in my line of sight was going off. "Wait a minute…. Victini! Get back here you little flirt!"

Of course, Big Brother didn't listen and weaved through the camera crew until he got to the model. Of all the girls and women he had to go after for attention, he had to go after another Gym Leader who happened to also be a model as well. That's right, I did my homework and found out that Nessa was not only the Gym Leader of Hulbury but she was also a well known model too. Of course Victini just HAD to wanna flirt with Nessa and made his way over to her. But even from my vantage point, I could tell that something was on her mind after losing an exhibition match to Milo, the day before yesterday. I didn't need to be a psychic to study her posture. Though I did read her aura… without her permission and that's still kind of a bad habit I've got. Nessa wasn't wearing her Gym Leader attire, but wore a mahogany tank top and a black skirt and black sandals on her feet.

'I couldn't help but see that a lovely mermaid such as yourself was in need of cheering up and some innocent Victini charm,' Big Brother Victini said to Nessa after making himself visible and catching her by surprise before he kissed her right hand two times. 'No gorgeous mermaid should be down in the dumps when Victini is here to brighten your day.'

I caught up to Victini and inserted my right hand on his left ear as I said, "Let's go Big Brother! Some mermaids are just too busy to deal with you."

'Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!' moaned Victini as my Psychic/Fire-type big brother hated when I yanked him by his left ear. 'Why must the appreciation of mermaid beauty be so painful?!'

"Uh, excuse me," Nessa called to me as I was walking away with Victini as she held her right hand out to me. "But your Pokémon isn't causing me any trouble."

I turned to face Nessa and studied her as I slightly loosened my grip on Big Brother's left ear. Knowing that I had loosened my grip on his ear, Victini was able to get loose and floated over towards Nessa, who happily took him in her arms as she began petting him and even gave him a peck kiss on his right cheek. And Big Brother liked getting the peck kiss on his right cheek as he smiled happily.

"I've got to say that you definitely are a cutie pie," Nessa said to Big Brother with a gentle smile on her face. "And I love the Gym Challenger outfit you're wearing too. You're just so ADORABLE!"

"For the love of Arceus," I said as I was getting annoyed by the attention that Big Brother was getting.

"Mind if I take the littl' cutie pie off your hands for a few days?" Nessa asked me as she held my Big Brother close to her with a smile on her face, much to his delight.

My answer was to quickly toss his Cherish Ball at Nessa as my quick response to Nessa was, "Knock yourself out. He's all yours and make sure he doesn't flirt with other girls."

"Oh… he'll be a good… what kind of Pokémon are you, sweetie?" Nessa asked my big brother.

"He's called a Victini," I answered Nessa, "the Victory Pokémon from the Unova region. He's not a Water-type Pokémon. He's a Psychic/Fire-type."

"You may not be a Water-type," Nessa said to Big Brother as she looked to him, "but it doesn't mean that you're not adorable and so cute!"

'Bye bye!' Big Brother called to me as I was quick to grab Benjy and dart off back to the hotel.

oooooooooooooo

"Do you really think that leaving Victini with the Gym Leader was a good idea?" Benjy asked me as I shed my outer clothes to reveal the shiny Ninetales athletic swimsuit I got from Aunt Jessica after winning the Grass Badge from Milo.

"Big Brother Victini will be fine with Nessa," I answered him dismissively while he was in the bathroom of our hotel room changing into his swimwear. "You know how he is whenever I leave him with a beautiful girl. He's always on his best behavior with them."

"Yeah, that I get," replied Benjy as he stuck his head out of the bathroom. "But aren't you worried that he'll tell Nessa about your Pokémon and how you plan to take her on?"

"Well, Victini didn't tell Lana about how I do my strategies," I answered my sexy stud. "Plus I know that Big Brother gets too enamored by a pretty girl's beauty to even talk about my strategies, Gym Leader or not."

"Do you wanna take that chance?" Benjy asked me cautiously.

"Benjy, don't worry about Victini," I answered dismissively. "He behaves himself and he's never been a Stool Pidgey."

"I guess you're right about that," replied Benjy as he relented.

Before we headed to the saltwater pool, I got a text from Daddy. I dunno how Daddy did it, but he would always text whenever it was just me and Benjy with no Big Brother Victini. I was getting really annoyed by Daddy texting me whenever I wanted to be alone with my sexy lover. I looked at the text and saw that he wasn't asking me about Big Brother Victini. Breathing a sigh of relief, I texted Daddy back that Benjy and I were doing just fine and were about to go swimming. Mom, this time, had to be embarrassing by telling me not to get frisky with Benjy in the pool.

"Why did Mom have to tell me that?" I asked in an embarrassed tone as I was blushing profusely as red as a Chople Berry.

"I think she's just trying to make sure I don't knock you up just yet," Benjy offered me weakly.

I shrugged my shoulders and accepted Benjy's explanation and then dove into the pool as Lavender was sitting in her usual stance as she knew what I was about to do once I got on my back and let myself sink into the deep end of the 15 foot pool and then began to glow as I sank into the peaceful crystal clear blue water of the salt water pool, my hair began to fan out in a fan pattern and nine beautiful tails sprouted from shiny Ninetales swimsuit.

oooooooooooooo

3rd person POV

oooooooooooooo

As Cynthia began to sink into the 15 foot section of the salt water pool, those who were swimming noticed that she was beginning to glow an aura blue and panicked as they were quick to get out and run to one of the different pools just to get away from the possibly contaminated pool. As for the firstborn child of May and Ash Ketchum, she began glowing and seemed to be oblivious to the world around her. Despite her love of the water, she had a tendency to wanna hide in calm waters when there was something that troubled her. Once she was deep enough, the young Ocean Princess closed her eyes and began channeling her aura energy as she began her meditation routine. About the only person or Pokémon that even dared to get in the water while she was meditating was her shiny Primarina, Ariel, to make sure that her swimming partner was fine and unharmed. As for Benjamin, he kept his legs in the water, ready to bring his beloved wife up should something go wrong and Ariel required his help. As for Lavender, the 750 year old shiny female Kanto Fox Pokémon kept her composure and watched the pool and then saw the glistening silver full moon.

'There is something amiss for Young Cynthia,' Lavender said as she knew that Cynthia's underwater meditation didn't last longer than 15 to 20 minutes. 'There must be something that is amiss either nearby or somewhere down the road.'

It was then that bubbles began appearing as Lavender kept her calm watch as Cynthia rose to the surface. Cynthia came up out of the water as she then sucked a lot of air after being underwater for so long. Lavender looked to her proxy as she said, 'Easy child. Take slow, consistent breaths to slow yourself.' Cynthia obeyed as she began to slow her breathing as Benjamin then said, "Babe, you gotta work on not being down there for so long."

"Sorry Benjy," replied Cynthia as she swam over to him. "There's something not right. Something going on here in Galar. I dunno what it is, but it's not good."

"We'll worry about it once we cross that bridge," said Benjamin as he then joined his wife in the pool. "For now… let's swim for a bit and we'll go back to our room and I'll make as much as love to you as you want."

"Okay," Cynthia said as she wrapped her slender farmer's tanned arms around her husband and then pressed her chest against his chest in a sexual manner to arouse him. "But I want you to…"

Cynthia whispered what she wanted from Benjamin in his ear and his face became red as heard what she wanted from him. His heart began to beat pretty fast and he smiled as he replied, "You got it my Ocean Beauty."

oooooooooooooo

Cynthia Ketchum Summers' POV

oooooooooooooo

The next morning I felt rejuvenated and relaxed as Benjy and I had sex the night before after we swam in the salt water pool… under Lavender's watchful eye and Ariel wanting to pry me away from Benjy so that we could swim together. As Benjy and I began exploring the city of Hulbury, my baby brother and his wife, Lana had just arrived with silver fox-like Pokémon walking alongside them. The fox-like Pokémon looked like the two shiny Nickit siblings Twilight and Silver Luna, but I wagered that they had evolved from the cute little shiny Nickits that Keith and Lana caught. Looking at my Pokédex, the Pokédex identified them as Theivul and that they were the evolved forms of Nickit indeed. Benjy and I approached them as I waved to them.

'Look Sister Lana,' the evolved shiny female Thievul said to Lana, 'I think that Big Sister Cynthia and Big Brother Benjamin are coming towards us.'

"Hey guys," I said to my baby brother and sister-in-law. "Great to see you two here in Hulbury. Hope Milo's gym mission wasn't too tough."

"Nah," replied Keith with a Mareepish grin on his face. "It was too easy."

"Though I've heard a few people say that Nessa's gym mission is a bit tougher," Lana chimed in as her shiny female Thievul was right there close to her. "Come on Silver Luna, there's no need to be shy with your siblings."

"Let's go get lunch since you're here," I suggested to everyone.

"Sure, I'm game for that," Keith said before he noticed Victini was missing from my left shoulder. "Where's Big Brother Victini? Tell me you didn't leave him with some strange pretty girl, did you?"

"Don't worry about Victini," I replied to Keith dismissively. "He wanted to hit on Hulbury's gym leader, Nessa. So I was quick to dump him off on her. I'm sure he's behaving himself with her."

"Hope Mom and Dad don't get mad at you for doing that," Keith said to me as he shrugged his shoulders. "You know how they are when Victini isn't with you."

"I'm an adult now," I countered back to my baby brother. "Really tired of having them think that I need to be babysat all the time."

"Hope you're right, Sis," replied Keith.

A few hours later, Keith and Lana went to the hotel that Benjy and I were staying at to check in as check in time was around the time we had just finished lunch and they were planning on staying in Hulbury for a while. Benjy and I had followed them back to the hotel and Lana wanted to talk to me for a bit. She confided in me that she was wanting to start a family with Keith. I asked her why she was wanting to start so quickly as she had told me that on their wedding night when they had sex for the first time, she was hoping that he would get her pregnant. I was baffled by that and asked her why she would want my baby brother to knock her up so quickly instead of waiting a while and enjoy life while they could, before making the decision to settle down and plant their roots.

"I wanna have Benjy's kids and have a decent sized family," I explained to Lana as we walked to the hotel, "but I don't feel like I'm ready for Benjy to get me pregnant just yet. So I think we're going to wait until after this trip through Galar is done before we decide to settle down and get pregnant.

"Take my advice Lana," I continued to my best friend from Alola, "don't be so quick to want my brother to get you pregnant. Enjoy your young married life while you can and don't rush my baby bro to get you pregnant either. I'm sure your parents and mine would tell you the same thing too."

"Speaking of which, where's Victini?" Lana asked me as she changed the subject as my big brother wasn't on my left shoulder like he usually was. "I thought you were supposed to have him with you all the time."

"He wanted to charm the gym leader here, Nessa," I answered my sister-in-law. "Nessa thought he was just so adorable and wanted to enjoy time with him for a few days. No skin off my back if Big Brother Victini wants to think he can be charming with the ladies."

"Won't you get in trouble with your parents if he's not with you?" asked Lana as she looked a bit worried at me.

"I'm an adult now, Lana," I answered my sister-in-law dismissively. "I don't need a babysitter 24/7. Besides, Big Brother was happy when I told him he could have fun with Nessa."

"Hope you're right about that," replied Lana in a slightly worried tone.

oooooooooooooo

"Daddy, don't worry about me," I said as Mom and Daddy had called me about them seeing a TV commercial with Nessa and Big Brother Victini was in it with her. "Big Brother wanted to enjoy the company of the Hulbury gym leader and be his usual Victini self.

"Daddy, I'm an adult now," I replied to Daddy as he told me that I still needed Victini with me. "I think it's time that Big Brother stopped needing to hover over me all of the time. I've got Benjy to look after me. Not to mention that Lavender has been more of a protector to me than Victini."

"Doesn't sound like that conversation is a pleasant one," Benjy said as they heard me arguing with Daddy.

"I'll get him back when I go face Nessa for my second badge," I answered Daddy. "Bye Daddy. Love you too."

I looked to my husband, brother and sister-in-law and shook my head. I knew that Daddy was going to be furious with me as usual because Big Brother Victini wasn't with me. If I was lucky, Daddy would probably lock me out of the house again, not that it mattered to me anymore. But if I knew Daddy, when he got furious, he would track us down and have us battle him in a Pokémon battle. I was hoping that Big Brother Pikachu was with Mom and Daddy and would give Daddy a jolting reminder that I'm not a child that he has to shield from every bad little thing.

oooooooooooooo

3rd person POV

oooooooooooooo

"Wagh!" Ash Ketchum screamed as his oldest and faithful companion, Pikachu, had shocked him after being upset after hearing the conversation Ash was having with his firstborn daughter. "PIKACHU!"

'You seriously need to stop trying to shield Young Cynthia, Ash,' the old Pikachu said to his human companion. 'Young Cynthia is now a grown young woman who has someone else who can look after her. Besides, I'm sure that Victini wanted to have a good time with whoever it is he was left with.'

"Pikachu is right, Ash," May said to her husband as she shook her head at her husband. "I think it's time that you stop trying to hover over our children… especially Cynthia. Besides, I've trusted her wise shiny Ninetales, Lavender, more than I've trusted Victini to keep her safe."

"So… where are we going for our third badge?" Ash asked his wife as he got back on his feet.

"We're heading back to Motostoke," May answered Ash. "The third badge is back where we had the opening ceremony for the Gym Challenge, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Ash answered with a grin on his face as he scratched the back of his head.

"Typical Ash," May said as Pikachu hopped into her arms to be petted by her. "Was like that even when we were kids."

'Guess somethings will never change,' Pikachu added as his human's wife was petting him, much to his enjoyment.

"But right now, we have meet with Chairman Rose on behalf of Lord Dracaenas and the Draco Ruby Trading Guild," May reminded her husband. "So going for the Motostoke Gym will have to wait for a couple days."

"Why can't we just focus on the Gym Challenge right now?" Ash asked in whiny tone.

'For one thing,' began Pikachu, 'Her Royal Highness has charged us with helping the Guild establish trading markets here in Galar. Not to mention that our duties to the Kaiou Royal House come first, Ash.'

"You should listen to Pikachu, Ash," May added calmly. "He is right. Our duties to the Royal House and Kingdom come FIRST before anything else."

'Relax Ash,' Glaceon said as she looked to her human's husband, 'the gym isn't going anywhere. It'll be there once the meeting is finished.'

It was then that the secretary of Chairman Rose walked up to the Ketchums as the head of the Draco Ruby Trading Guild also arrived and had descended down from the sky. The woman was in her mid to late 30s, about the same age as Ash and May. At first as she was wondering why the Chairman was dealing with two members of the Atlantica Islands' Elite Four rather than someone who was a government official, in charge of the Kingdom's commerce. But once Dracaenas had descended down with his son, her face became one of amazement when she saw the shiny male 400 year old Salamence as he landed and his son, donning green and red armor, concealing his face with a Mask of Strength and wielding an ornate spear given to him by his father. Oleana then composed herself as she said, "You must be the delegation here to meet with Chairman Rose about setting up markets I assume."

"Yes, that's right," replied Ash. "We're here on behalf of the Queen and we've also escorted the leader of our kingdom's head of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade."

Ash then gestured to Dracaenas, indicating that the shiny male Salamence guild leader was the kingdom's head of all commerce and trading. Oleana looked baffled and confused as she then asked, "I'm sorry, but… a Pokémon is in charge of your kingdom's Ministry of Commerce and Trade?"

"That's right," answered May as she gave Oleana a slight nod. "Lord Dracaenas is one of our kingdom's oldest and wisest advisors. He's even the head of the largest guild in the kingdom. It is said that Dragon Pokémon are known to be the best and pretty shrewd business owners."

"Guess this'll take a while for the Chairman and I to get used to," Oleana said to herself before looking to her quarry. "Very well then. Allow me to escort you to the Chairman."

oooooooooooooo

Cynthia Ketchum Summers' POV

oooooooooooooo

"So… are you going first this time?" Benjy asked me as we approached the Hulbury Gym after two more Victini-free days of relaxing and preparing for the gym battle.

"Yup," I answered my husband as I gave him a sweet kiss that caused him to blush in surprise. "You'll go after me and then we head back to Motostoke for our third gym badge."

"You don't wanna stay and watch your brother or Lana take on Nessa and then head to Motostoke together?" Benjy asked me out of concern.

"Keith and Lana don't need us to be holding their hands while they challenge Nessa," I answered my husband dismissively. "They're adults, just like us.

Benjy and I walked inside the gym and I sighed as I then said before I kissed my sexy bad boy, "Wish me luck."

"I love you," replied Benjy before we kissed and I headed to the Gym Trainer blocking the entrance.

I walked up to the Gym Trainer and she said, "Hey there, Gym Challenger! Shall we start the process to get you ready for the Gym Mission?"

"You bet," I answered the Gym Trainer enthusiastically.

"Normally, we would tell the Gym Challengers to change into their Gym Challenge uniforms, but the Gym Leader has decided to change up her Gym Mission this year," explained the Gym Trainer guarding the entrance to the gym. "Please go and change into appropriate swimwear in the locker room."

"Swimwear?" I asked in the Gym Trainer in confusion as I raised an eye brow.

"Yes, that's correct," answered the Gym Trainer before looking at a frustrated female Gym Challenger as she walked away angry from the locker room.

"That was the only swimwear I've got," the angry female Gym Challenger said aloud as she was walking towards the gym's exit. "What's wrong with showing a lot of skin and sex appeal, with the bikini I had bought, nowadays?"

"We do wish to assure you that two piece swimwear is not discouraged," the Gym Trainer explained to me as she was required to do by the Gym Leader's instruction. "The Gym Leader would just like to ensure, that for girls and young women such as yourself, they wear something that isn't lewd, raunchy or too revealing. This is the Gym Challenge after all and you are not only representing yourself, but you are representing those who have endorsed you in this Gym Challenge. If you have any two piece or even one piece swimwear, please ensure that it is conservative."

'You needn't worry about Young Cynthia,' Lavender said to the Gym Trainer. 'This little one dislikes two piece swimwear… conservative or not.'

"I'm not sure what your Pokémon said," replied the Gym Trainer, "but the changing room is to your right."

I went over to the locker room and then changed into the shiny Ninetales swimsuit I wore the other day, with Lavender and Shiva inspecting it. Both of my shiny female Ninetales Pokémon gave their nods of approval to me. Lavender then looked to me as she then said, 'I am very proud of you. I do hope that you like this swimsuit. Your aunt made this and your custom Gym Challenge outfit upon my request.'

"I love it, Lavender," I replied to my wise protector as I knelt down and hugged her. "I especially love that this swimsuit sprouts tails just like your lovely tails."

Lavender chuckled as she said, 'I suggested that to your aunt. I remember that you asked me once as a little kit if I thought you would look pretty with nine tails just like mine.'

"I remember that," I said to Lavender as I stood up again. "You said that you thought I wouldn't be pretty, but stunningly beautiful with nine tails just like you."

'Indeed Little One,' replied Lavender as she looked to me and Shiva. 'We are ready, are we not?'

'Ready to go and kick some tail!' Shiva exclaimed, bursting with excitement.

'Once we defeat this gym leader, I shall Futterwaken until I can Futterwaken no more,' my shiny G-Max Butterfree answered Lavender as she was demonstrating the dance she would dance.

"I still can't believe you saw the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland," I said to Butterfree with a sweatdrop on my forehead and had a blank stare on my face.

Once I changed into my shiny Ninetales swimsuit, I headed out after recalling Shiva and Butterfree to their Pokéballs. Lavender remained at my side as we headed towards the Gym Trainer guarding the entrance to the gym. Some of the people in the gym's lobby took notice of me in my swimsuit and a few whispered about how they were jealous at how I looked in my swimsuit. I smiled in approval of whispers as Lavender and I approached the Gym Trainer. As for the Gym Trainer, she looked a bit green with envy as she saw me in my shiny Ninetales swimsuit.

"Your swimsuit definitely looks good on you," the Gym Trainer said to me as she gave me a nod of approval. "Not sure where you got it, but I like it.

"Oh yes, that's right," continued the Gym Trainer as she remembered what she had to say to me. "Your swimwear is definitely appropriate and will allow you to gain entry to start your Gym Mission. Head on in to the Gym Mission! Ah, by the way, while you're on Gym Mission, you can't use your Pokémon Box Link."

"I've already got the Pokémon I'm gonna use," I said to Gym Trainer dismissively.

The Gym Trainer then gave me a nod and I took a look back to my sexy bad boy hubby as he waved to me and blew me a kiss for luck. I caught the kiss and winked back at him and blew him a flirty sexy kiss, which he caught with his face and got him to blush as red as a Chople Berry. I always enjoyed seeing Benjy blush every time I blew him a flirty sexy kiss. Lavender and I made our way down to the gym in preparation for our second Gym Mission. We made our way down into gym and saw why swimwear was required rather our Gym Challenge uniforms.

"Whoa," I said as I saw the layout of the gym.

The gym was one large pool that made the pool at Auntie Misty's gym in Cerulean City look like a small kiddie pool. There were various switches that controlled the water flow on islands that were guarded by a few Gym Trainers. A couple of the switches could be reached without swimming, I assessed. The rest of them, I was going to have to swim to reach the platforms and the last switch was submerged and I would have to dive down to reach it unless there was combination of switches that I had to press to make the switch emerge from the pool waters. It almost felt like it was going to be one of those puzzles I would have to solve in the Resident Evil games that Shelby let me play under her watchful eye. I took notice of the two extra Gym Trainers that were in the water. If anything, I was going to rack in some serious cash, but it would be difficult with Ariel since she had the Liquid Voice Dream World ability and I was certain that the Gym Trainers were bound to have Pokémon with the Storm Drain or Water Absorb ability. But I had decided to call in my shiny Cloyster with the Skill Link ability as he was quite the battler with his Skill Link ability and I made sure he had moves that were tailored to his ability. Once I made sure he had an Amulet Coin in his possession along with Roserade having an Amulet Coin with her too, I was ready to take on the Gym Mission.

"Looking spiffy in the swimsuit," the gym referee, Dan, said as I met up with him. "At any rate, your Gym Mission is figure out your way through this maze and adjust the water flow from pipes as you swim and run through this maze. Your Gym Mission begins now!"

With the sound of the whistle, my Gym Mission began. Before I approached the first Gym Trainer that was in my way, I decided that I would take a quick dive into the enlarged pool. After all, to make instant fun just add water. Once I dove into the water, my swimsuit began glowing and it sprouted nine tails, just Lavender's beautiful nine tails. Lavender even smiled and gave me a nod approval, after I climbed out of the water, as she then said, 'It is as I said, Little One. You are stunningly beautiful with nine tails.' The referee said nothing to me as Lavender warily looked at him with caution. With Referee Dan kept in check, Lavender and I approached the first switch, which was blocked by the first Gym Trainer.

"If you think you're gonna approach Nessa, you got another thing coming," the Gym Trainer said to me as she readied herself to defend the first switch from me.

She then sent out a Tympole up against me and waited for me to call on my first Pokémon. Before I could call on a Pokémon, Lavender gently strode up front to face the little Tadpole Pokémon. Lavender then gave me a nod to indicate that she was ready. The Gym Trainer was baffled as why I would allow a Fire-type to battle against her Tympole. But I thankfully remembered that type advantage wasn't all that people made it cracked up to be.

"Tympole, use your Mud Shot," the Gym Trainer ordered her Tympole.

The Water-type Tadpole Pokémon began to try and use its attack, but not before Lavender used her Drought ability to summon intense rays from the sun. With both the Gym Trainer and her Tympole caught by surprise by Lavender's Drought ability, I then said to Lavender, "Lavender use your Solar Beam."

"My Tympole is still going to be able to hit your Ninetales," the Gym Trainer said to me as she seemed to have forgotten one thing. "Proceed with using your Mud Shot."

Before her Tympole could land an attack on Lavender, Lavender fired off her Grass-type attack faster and effectively knocking him out. Both the Gym Trainer and her defeated Tympole were in disbelief as Lavender was able to gather sunlight very quickly and fire it off much faster than the usual two turns that were required to use Solar Beam. Referee Dan, watching in background, came towards the battle and was about to disqualify me until I said to him and the Gym Trainer, "My Kanto Ninetales, Lavender, doesn't have the Flash Fire ability. She has the Drought ability like a Groudon. She's able to summon sunlight without having to waste a move to use Sunny Day. You've never heard of Dream World… or 'Hidden' abilities before?"

Referee Dan then backed away as he accepted my explanation and gave me a nod. As for the Gym Trainer, I said to her, "Drought acts like Sunny Day. It eliminates the need to take a couple turns for charging up to use Solar Beam along with boosting the power of Fire-type moves."

"M-My apologies to you," the Gym Trainer replied to me as she stammered and scratched the back of her head nervously. "Guess I need to study up on Pokémon more."

Once I made my explanations, I then approached the first switch and activated it. As I activated the switch, Lavender and I noticed that the water level of the very large gym pool rose up. As the water level rose up some of the platforms had moved away from the current layout that it was configured into. I was definitely liking this challenge that was set before me and was even starting to like Nessa a lot more by the minute. Lavender took a look at the next platform and saw that she wasn't going to able to make the jump unless set myself in between both platforms… or so I thought until I saw that it was blocked by a torrent of rushing water. But before I could set myself in between both platforms, Ariel let herself out of her Dream Ball and got into the water. Once Ariel had made herself comfortable in the pool, she used her Psychic attack to transport Lavender over to the next available platform while I swam over to the platform where both female Pokémon were waiting for me. Swimming over to the next platform wasn't too difficult for me since I was a professional swimmer. But I also had to keep a close eye out for any hidden Gym Trainers that might try to ambush me on the way to the next platform. I was fortunate enough that no Gym Trainers tried to ambush me on my way to the second platform.

'What took you so long?' Ariel jokingly asked me in a playful tone.

"I was just being cautious," I answered Ariel. "I'm sure that the Gym Leaders have Gym Trainers who are hidden in case Gym Challengers would try to deviate and try to cheat during the Gym Mission. But I think in this case, I think Nessa has those hidden Gym Trainers involved in trying to slow down challengers."

'It would be a wise idea to ensure that she was not to be ambushed along the way to this platform,' said Lavender as she looked at Ariel.

'Looks like another Gym Trainer is blocking your path to another switch,' Ariel said as we saw the switch and the Gym Trainer who was on high alert for me.

"'Second verse, same as the first'," I replied to my two female Pokémon as I walked up to the Gym Trainer and the switch she was guarding.

I motioned for Lavender and Ariel to remain where they were at as I didn't require their help for the next Gym Trainer. I looked at the other four Pokémon that I did have and made sure that they were ready to battle. They were ready to battle and I wanted to try and save the Pokémon I was going to use against for as long as I could before having to rely on them to battle against the Gym Trainers. The second Gym Trainer then spotted me as I walked up to the switch.

"Wow," the second Gym Trainer said as she dazzled by my shiny Ninetales swimsuit and the nine tails that were sprouted from it. "That's some swimsuit you've got there. Where do I find something like that?"

"My aunt made it for me," I answered the Gym Trainer. "However, once I take off this swimsuit, the tails disappear and it goes back to looking like a normal swimsuit."

"That's quite a trick," replied the Gym Trainer with a smile on her face. "But just because you got an awesome swimsuit, doesn't mean you're gonna get to this switch and progress further."

The second battle against Nessa's Gym Trainers had begun as she called on a Krabby to face me. Seeing the Krabby reminded me of Daddy telling me about when caught his Kingler as a Krabby. The Gym Trainer's Krabby looked to be about the same size as Daddy's Kingler when he had caught it as a Krabby. Pushing aside the stroll down Memory Lane, I called on Hinata, my shiny female Roserade to face her Krabby. Getting a nod from Hinata, we were ready to knock down the next Gym Trainer. With Hinata's Dream World ability, Technician, we were going to steamroll this Gym Trainer.

"Use Metal Claw against that Roserade," the Gym Trainer ordered her Krabby.

"Dodge and use Mega Drain," I calmly countered back as both Hinata and I were as calm and cool as cucumbers.

Hinata gracefully dodged the Steel-type attack from the Gym Trainer's Krabby and retaliated by using her Mega Drain against Krabby. The Water-type River Crab Pokémon was shocked by how strong the Mega Drain attack was as it did more damage than it usually did. The Gym Trainer was also shocked to see that Hinata's Mega Drain, an attack with a base power of 40, inflicted more damage than usual. But the shock was temporary as she recalled her fallen Krabby and then asked, "Your Roserade, she has the Technician ability instead of Natural Cure or Poison Point, doesn't she?"

"Very good," I replied as both Hinata and I clapped at the Gym Trainer knowing about Hinata's Technicain ability. "Yes, Hinata has the Technician ability rather than Natural Cure or Poison Point."

"Hmm…," said the Gym Trainer as she was assessing her options mentally.

Then the Gym Trainer, smirked as once she knew that Hinata didn't have the Poison Point ability or even Natural Cure. It was then that I realized that I had goofed up by telling her Hinata didn't have the Poison Point ability. I thought that it would've been better for her to think that Hinata had a Big Root hold item instead since that was a more plausible explanation for her doing more damage with Mega Drain. The Gym Trainer then sent out a Corphish to go up against Hinata. I decided to keep out Hinata as I figured that I could still win despite the mistake I made.

"Corphish, use Aqua Jet and Razor Shell!" the Gym trainer ordered her Ruffian Pokémon as she was quick to try and get the drop on me and Hinata.

"Dodge that Hinata," I countered back in vain as her Corphish was quick to get the drop he and his human were hoping to get on me and Hinata. "No!"

Hinata had a green outline run down her body as it signified that her physical Defense had been lowered by the Razor Shell attack. I gritted my teeth as I wasn't liking the double whammy that came from my carelessness. The Gym Trainer and her Corphish were quick to try and keep up the relentless attack against Hinata.

"Hinata, use Double Team to get out of there," I ordered my shiny female Roserade.

Before Hinata could take another hit and have her physical Defense lowered by another Razor Shell attack, she used her Double Team to increase her evasion and was able to break the streak of consecutive hits that were scored on her. I knew that the Double Team wasn't going to hold forever, as I needed to turn the tide of the fight and counter back quickly.

"Hinata, use Pin Missile on Corphish," I ordered Hinata.

"Use Aqua Jet to dodge it and keep plugging away with that Razor Shell," the Gym Trainer countered quickly.

"Stop it with Protect," I countered back myself. "Then use Pin Missile!"

The Corphish came screaming in for another attack after he had dodged the first Pin Missile attack, only to be met with by Hinata putting up a protective field to block the Razor Shell attack and left him wide open for a counter attack. Once the Protect field had dropped, Hinata made her move and attacked the defenseless Corphish with her Pin Missile. And like with her Mega Drain, Hinata's Pin Missile was strengthened by her Technician ability. With the second salvo from Hinata's Pin Missile, the opposing Corphish took critical damage from the Bug-type attack. Two more salvos from Hinata's Pin Missile put Corphish in quite a predicament. With the Gym Trainer and her Corphish now backed into a corner, Hinata and I took the initiative and struck back before they could regroup.

"Hinata, use Giga Drain and put down that Corphish," I instructed Hinata.

'Gladly,' Hinata replied as she drained the Corphish's remaining HP and causing him to faint.

Hinata partially healed herself with her Giga Drain attack as she regained some of the energy she lost from the fight with Corphish. With the fight over, I recalled Hinata to her Friend Ball and proceeded to activate the switch. Once I activated the switch, I saw that the water that was blocking my way to the first switch that I saw had stopped flowing and that the switch there was another red switch.

"So… the red switches must control the water level of the pool," I surmised as I walked back to Lavender and Ariel.

'So what will you do?' Lavender asked me as she looked to me.

"Let's see if there's a switch ahead that we can push to adjust the water flow blocking the way to our objective," I answered Lavender.

'Then I shall wait here for you,' replied Lavender as she stayed sitting where she was as she seemed to know something that I didn't know.

Shrugging my shoulders, I dove back into the pool water with Ariel following me in tow. We swam further only to be met by a torrent of water blocking my way. As I treaded water, I got a bit frustrated when my Resident Evil logic didn't seem to pan out the way I thought it would. However, as I turned around to go back to Lavender… so I could hear her "I properly informed you, Little One," Ariel and I got ambushed by one of the hidden Gym Trainers as she surfaced from outta nowhere.

"Hope you weren't thinking that you were gonna get a free pass with other Gym Trainers here," the first hidden wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said as she eyed me.

'Guess we're gonna be in for a long haul then, eh Cynthia?' Ariel asked me after we both sighed in perfect synch with each other.

"Looks that way," I answered my faithful swimming companion.

"Go get 'em Quagshire!" the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer shouted as she threw her Dive Ball containing the Water/Ground-type Water Fish Pokémon. "Bet you weren't expecting that."

'Need me to go first?' Ariel asked me before I clung to her and gave her my answer. 'I'll take it as a 'no' then.'

"I'm positive that her Quagshire has the Water Absorb ability," I explained to Ariel.

'Oh… r-right,' said Ariel as she scratched the back of her head. 'M-My ability would only complicate things for us.'

"Go Cloyster!" I exclaimed as tossed up Cloyster's Lure Ball.

'Pearl 5, standing by,' Cloyster said as he came out of his Lure Ball and had Cheshire grin on his face.

"Quagshire, use Rock Slide," the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer ordered her female Quagshire. "We're not gonna let the fact she's got a shiny Pokémon distract us from victory."

"Use Protect and then counter back with Rock Blast," I ordered Cloyster.

'On it,' acknowledged both Water-type Pokémon as they sprang into action.

Quagshire tried to get the jump on Cloyster, but her efforts were shunted by the fact that Protect would always come first before any other move could go first. Once her Quagshire was staggering, Cloyster took to the offensive quickly and used his Rock-type move, blasting the Water/Ground-type with five Rock Blast attacks. The Rock Blast attack didn't do super effective damage, but it did cause some critical damage with the first and fourth barrages from Cloyster's Rock Blast. With the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer's Quagshire still staggered, Cloyster and I needed to press our advantage against them as I then ordered, "Cloyster, use Icicle Spear."

'Firing my frozen proton torpedos,' Cloyster said with a grin before attacking the opposing Quagshire.

'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,' moaned the female Water Fish Pokémon as she was struck by the Ice-type attack fired from Cloyster.

With second and fifth attacks from Cloyster's Icicle Spear doing critical damage, the opposing Quagshire was defeated and knocked out. And Hinata, my shiny Roserade, had gained a couple levels thanks to the Exp. Share that I had turned on. The wetsuit clad Gym Trainer recalled her fallen Quagshire back to its Dive Ball.

"Your Cloyster," the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said to me as she studied my shiny male Cloyster, "it was able to land five hits in a row directly with two attacks in a row. That's nearly impossible for any Pokémon that has attacks that can land two to five hits. Unless…"

'Unless…?' Cloyster asked the wetsuit clad gym trainer as he and I looked at her

"Your Cloyster's got the Skill Link ability, doesn't it?" asked the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer. "There's no other explanation for how he was able to land five direct hits on my Quagshire with Rock Blast and Icicle Spear."

"Maybe," I said to her as I rolled my eyes with a smirk. "Maybe my Cloyster just lucky."

"Well, regardless, that's all I got in the tank right now," the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said to me with a smile. "You're quite the skilled trainer. You really should be a regional champion by now with your skills."

"Nah, I'm happy where I'm at," I replied to the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer.

With that, she let me return back to Lavender after I recalled Cloyster to his Lure Ball. With Cloyster returned to his Lure Ball, I headed back to the platform where Lavender was waiting for me and Ariel. I was anticipating my wise protector was going to say what she was going to say, but instead Lavender said nothing to me. Just a glance from Lavender was enough for her to say, "I properly informed you, Little One," without having to say that to me. I got back on the platform so I could rest for a bit and try to relax my muscles. As much as I wanna say that I've got infinite stamina, I didn't have it and I wasn't going to tap into the Tsunami Aura power that I learned just to regain my strength so I could keep going. The last thing I wanted was to be pursued because I could use aura and magic powers if it was outlawed and was heavily scorned upon in Galar.

"What? No comments from you?" I sarcastically asked Lavender as I sat and left my lower legs in the pool water.

'There is no need for me supply any comments to you,' Lavender calmly answered me. 'The reason of your tardy return back here speaks for itself, Little One.'

'Face it Cynthia,' Ariel said to me as she shook her head, 'You'll never be able to get sarcasm from a Ninetales. Especially not a Ninetales as old as Lavender.'

'Ariel is right, Child,' agreed Lavender as she moved closer to me. 'Now, recover as much of your strength as you can so we can proceed.'

I rested for about another fifteen minutes before Lavender got on Ariel's back and the three of us proceeded back to the switch that was blocked earlier by the torrent of water. I was hoping that I wouldn't trap us once I activated the console. Once I pressed the button on the console, the water behind us poured out of the tubes once again and I gritted my teeth in embarrassment. I felt as if I had fallen for a trap of sorts. Then a trap door opened back into the pool and revealed a new path for me to take. Taking a look down into the pool, I looked to see if there were any surprises waiting for me once I dove in to the pool. As much as I wanted to tap into my aura power, I refrained from doing so as I was instructed to do so from my parents… and Aunt Rhea too. Lavender then got on Ariel's back and Ariel dove into the pool first, followed by me. Once I dove into the pool after Ariel and Lavender, the door above us closed and we saw the path that we had to take.

"Well, no turning back now," I said to Ariel and Lavender before taking the lead and swam towards the next platform I was having to go to.

The trek to the platform was a bit easy for me as there wasn't any hidden Gym Trainers that were waiting to ambush me. Or so I thought. With the next platform in sight I thought it was gonna be easy with the last Gym Trainer standing guard over the last console. About 5 meters from the platform, the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer surfaced from her hiding place and blocked us.

"Oh, so sorry," the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said to me with a confident smirk on her face, "but my job is slow you down and stop you from completing the Gym Mission."

With that, the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer eyed me as she then tossed up a Dive Ball and set loose against me a Pelipper. As the Pelipper was summoned, she then summon a light rain storm, which told me that her ability was Drizzle. As for me, I needed to assess my plan to counter her. Then Shiva burst out of her Dream Ball and was on Ariel's back like Lavender. Seeing Shiva gave me an idea. I motioned Shiva to come and join me. After getting help from Ariel to create an ice platform for her to stand on, Shiva was ready to fight.

"Interesting choice you've got there," the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said to me. "But her attacks aren't going to do Super Effective damage against my speedy Pelipper."

"Oh, we'll find out about that," I responded back as I was treading water as the weather changed from rain to snow, thanks to Shiva's Snow Warning ability.

"Pelipper, use Agility and then use Gunk Shot against that Fairy," the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer said to her female Water Bird Pokémon.

"Counter that Gunk Shot with Iron Tail," I ordered Shiva.

Both female Pokémon sprang into action as the Pelipper used Agility to raise her Speed dramatically before using the Poison-type attack to try and get the jump and a head start on us. Shiva was able to cancel out the Gunk Shot attacks with her Iron Tail. I breathed a sigh of relief as I was thankful that I had indeed taught Shiva the Steel-type attack to use in such instants like the moment I was in. The female Pelipper continued to try and use her Gunk Shot attack against Shiva, only to have it canceled out and Pelipper would get pelted by snow and hail from Shiva's Snow Warning ability. It was then that Shiva and I took to the offense as I then had Shiva use her Freeze-Dry attack against Pelipper as I knew Freeze-Dry would be a double whammy against Pelipper since it was a Water-type and Flying-type Pokémon. The Pelipper dodged the first three Freeze-Dry attacks and got KO'd by the fourth Freeze-Dry attack that hit home and caused her to fall in the pool. The second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer sighed as she recalled her fallen Pelipper to her Dive Ball. She then called out a Barraskewda to go up against Shiva. I thought about wanting to battle it with Shiva, but decided against it and recalled her to her Dream Ball. Replacing Shiva, I called on Hinata to battle again. As soon as I called out Hinata, the snowstorm faded and things were mostly normal. The temperature of the pool water had dropped about four degrees because of the snow and the ice platform that Shiva made with her Ice Beam attack. For the moment, I had to shut out the cold and focus on the battle with the Gym Trainer.

"Barraskewda, use Psychic Fangs on that Roserade," the wetsuit clad Gym Trainer ordered her female Skewer Pokémon.

'Here I come!' Barraskewda shouted as she charged forward to fight Hinata.

"Hinata, counter with Pin Missile," I countered back as I wasn't going to lose so easily. "Then use Razor Leaf!"

'Counter attack, coming right back at ya,' Hinata replied to the opposing Barraskewda.

I was definitely thankful that Hinata was faster than the Skewer Pokémon and was able to cancel out the Psychic Fangs attack and then followed it up with her Razor Leaf. The opposing Barraskewda was nailed hard by the Razor Leaf and Pin Missile attacks, thanks to Hinata's Technician ability. It was really coming in handy for me and Hinata when we needed it to. The second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer then changed her tactics by having her Barraskewda combine her attacks with Aqua Jet so to stop us from getting the speed advantage over them. And the two of them were very smart in countering me, especially when I had Hinata use Protect to stop their 'Blitz Torpedo' strategy. Hinata was starting to get nervous as the Barraskewda was continuing its relentless 'Blitz Torpedo' attack against her and chipping away at the ice platform that she was standing on.

'This doesn't look good,' Hinata said to me nervously before getting blindsided by the opposing Barraskewda as she used her Psychic Fangs on Hinata.

"Hinata, use Mega Drain, quickly," I said to Hinata.

Hinata managed to use Mega Drain, right as Barraskewda was closing in on her. Barraskewda missed her mark on Hinata with her Psychic Fangs and was finally brought down. Then after getting partially healed by her Mega Drain, Hinata collapsed to one knee as she was getting tired from the battling. The second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer called on her last Pokémon… an Octillery.

'Sh-She's really… really pulling out the stops to take us… us down,' Hinata said as she panted heavily.

Then Ariel used her Psychic attack to bring the ice platform back over towards us and used Psychic to put Lavender on the floating platform before swimming forward and said, 'I'll take over from here. Besides, Octillery don't have the Water Absorb or Storm Drain abilities.'

"Interesting choice you made," said the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer as she eyed Ariel. "But it's amazing that you own a shiny Primarina. They're supposed to be rare."

"Well, Ariel became my swimming partner when I got her in Alola," I said to her. "Big Brother Victini was my swimming partner for most of my swimming career."

"Wait, you own Victini?" the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer asked me in surprise as it seemed as if she had heard of my big brother.

"I own A Victini," I answered her. "Why? Does it really matter?"

"Are you kidding?" she asked me with enthusiasm and stars around her face. "Believe it or not, I was born in the Unova region before my family moved here to Galar. I grew up on stories of the legendary Pokémon of Unova. To hear that you own Victini is something else.

"Careful, you'll give my big brother a swelled head if he heard you say such things," I replied to the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer. "At any rate, my big brother is from the same region I was born in, the Atlantica Islands."

"Back to business," said the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer as she then became serious. "Octillery, use Octazooka!"

"Dive under to dodge it and use Shadow Ball," I ordered Ariel.

Ariel dove under the water to dodge the forceful shot of ink that came at her and retaliated by firing off a Shadow Ball at Octillery. The battle between both Water-type Pokémon would go back and forth with neither Ariel or Octillery giving an inch to each other. Ariel did get poisoned by Octillery as she used Gunk Shot on Ariel and had to swim in between me and the Gunk Shot attack that she dodged at first. However, the poisoning didn't last long since Ariel and I were very affectionate with each other and Ariel just expelled the poison from her body. With one good Psychic attack, Octillery was defeated and the second wetsuit clad Gym Trainer had to let me pass and get on the platform where the last Gym Trainer was waiting for me to face her. Despite the bruises and battering that Hinata had received, she proceeded to sweep aside the last Gym Trainer's Remoraid and Chewtle with relative ease and helping her to regain her strength. After taking a look at the puzzle before me, I activated the last console to stop the torrent of water blocking me. With the torrent of water stopped, I recalled Ariel to her Dream Ball and Hinata to her Friend Ball. As for Lavender, she shook off the excess water that was dripping from her lovely lavender-colored fur.

'I must say, Little Kit,' Lavender said to me as we proceeded towards the end of the gym, 'that challenge was definitely something else.'

"It feels like ages since you last called me 'Little Kit'," I said to Lavender with a smile on my face. "Better than being called a pup."

'That is reserved for your royal cousins,' replied Lavender as we took a moment to catch our breath. 'Lord Aurora calls your royal cousins his 'Little pups'.'

"And I know that Lord Aurora still calls Aunt Relena his 'Little Suicune pup'," I responded back to Lavender as we started climbing the stairs till we reached the top.

Once we reached the top of the stairs, Lavender and I turned around because the cameras currently trained on us at that moment and a puff of smoke came from the sides of the stair case we were on. I waved to the cameras at first… then I winked and blew a flirty kiss as a way to add more flare with my stage presence… much like Mom did when she was a Pokémon Coordinator around my age. Once I waved to the cameras and added more flare to my stage presence, the doors behind me opened up and we would be heading into the stadium to go face the Gym Leader, Nessa. As Lavender and I headed to the stadium to face Nessa, I looked to see if there was another locker room to change into our Gym Challenge uniforms but had no such luck. It looked as if was I was going to have battle Nessa, while still wearing my swimsuit… in front of thousands of people in the stands and the millions more watching on their TV sets and on Pokénet. The nerves were starting to set for me again as I was starting to panic. Thankfully Lavender was there to calm me down and help me focus once again.

'Remember what your Lucario master at Cameron Palace taught you, Little Kit,' Lavender said to me gently and calmly.

"Shut out your surroundings when you feel overwhelmed," I answered Lavender as I recited Master Lucario's teachings once again. "Shut out the noises that distract you from your focus. Shut out the auras of others who distract you from the aura of your opponent."

Once I was able to calm myself down, I then stepped out into the stadium where the audience was waiting for me. With Lavender in tow, we walked out the same time as Nessa… and Big Brother Victini, who was sitting on her left shoulder. I was a bit jealous because Big Brother Victini usually never sat on a pretty girl's left shoulder… unless they exceeded his expectations. And even that was ridiculously rare.

'I certainly hope that you have been on your best behavior while I was with Nessa,' Victini said to me with a smile and wearing a new outfit, exactly similar to Nessa's gym leader outfit.

"Better question, Big Brother," I replied back to Big Brother Victini, "were you on your best behavior with Nessa?"

"Oh, the littl' cutie pie was definitely on his best behavior with me," Nessa answered for Victini as she winked at my Psychic/Fire-type big brother. "And now he looks just so adorable.

Nessa looked at me and took in the details of me in my shiny Ninetales swimsuit, including the nine tails that were coming out of it as she continued, "I've gotta say that your swimsuit looks very good on you. You almost look like the beautiful shiny Ninetales next to you."

"Lavender served as an inspiration for this swimsuit," I explained to Nessa.

"Well, I hope you understand why I decided to change things up with my Gym Mission this year," Nessa began as she got to business. "One of our gym leaders went to your home region just recently and told us all about the challenges that she had to face just to get to the gym leaders of your home region."

"It was definitely challenging alright," I replied to Nessa. "Guess I should be thankful that I'm a great swimmer."

"Yes, Victini did mention that you're one of the world's most elite swimmers," said Nessa as she gave me a nod to my comment. "Became one of the best professional swimmers at the age of 11. Not many can hold a candle to you. I'm very impressed."

"Auntie Misty taught me much of what I know," I said the Hulbury Gym Leader.

"You're referring to the current gym leader of Cerulean City in Kanto, yes?" asked Nessa.

'Should you not be getting down to business right now? Perhaps talk later?' Lavender asked me and Nessa.

"Lavender's right," I said to Nessa. "Let's get down to the nitty-gritty on why I'm here, your Water Badge."

"Of course," answered Nessa as she scratched the back of her head, "you and your Ninetales are right. But my Pokémon and I will sink any attempt you make to defeat us."

Nessa and I turned our backs to each other and walked back to an appropriate distance so that we could let our Pokémon battle each other. Lavender of course followed me and stood back a little further so that she wouldn't be caught in the crossfire by accident. As for Victini, I glanced at him and he got off of Nessa's shoulder, getting behind her just like Lavender got behind me to stay out of the crossfire. As the gym battle started, energy gathered around my Dynamax Band showing me that I could Dynamax my Pokémon at any time I want during the gym battle. Nessa called out her first Pokémon, which was a Goldeen. As for me, I decided to call on Hinata first. Not wanting to take the chance that Nessa's Goldeen had the Swift Swim ability, I made the first move.

"Hinata, use Mega Drain, quickly," I ordered Hinata.

'On it,' replied Hinata as she used her Grass-type attack and hitting the Goldfish Pokémon with her third attempt to hit the nimble Goldfish Pokémon and knocking her out in that third attempt. 'Guess it's a thing you had me focus on raising my Special Attack stats along with my physical Attack and Speed stats.'

Nessa's next Pokémon that she sent out was an Arrokuda, just like the shiny Arrokuda that Lana had caught earlier before the opening ceremony. But this Arrokuda was a normal one and not shiny like Lana's Arrokuda. I figured that it was time to change things up and then called on Shiva to handle Arrokuda. Nessa was surprised to see that I owned a shiny Alola Ninetales that looked almost like Lavender. I smirked as I knew that Nessa was about to get a bigger shock besides seeing Shiva. I gave Shiva a nod for her to do her thing and use her Snow Warning ability. Shiva looked at Nessa and and her Arrokuda as she gave them a smirk too before using her Snow Warning Dream World ability. With snow and hail falling in the gym's stadium, some in the audience were quite startled to see the snow and hail falling. Even Big Brother Victini kept silent as me and Shiva eyed him to see if he had indeed been a Stool Pidgey. Much to mine and Shiva's satisfaction, Victini hadn't said a thing about my Pokémon and strategies to Nessa as he shook his head to us.

"My, my," said Nessa as she watched the snow and hail falling into the stadium, "I never would've expected to see snow in Hulbury until about mid-December."

"Shiva, use Freeze-Dry," I said to my Ice/Fairy-type Fox Pokémon.

'Take this, you torpedo wannabe,' Shiva said as she used her super effective Ice-type move.

The Arrokuda dodged Shiva's Freeze-Dry and was already in position and used her Aqua Jet to propel her forward and as she readied to use her Bite attack as well. Shiva didn't like that she had gotten hit with a double whammy attack. Nessa tried to have her Arrokuda trap Shiva in a whirlpool with her Whirlpool attack, but Shiva dodged it… only to get tagged with a Fury Attack. Seeing that we were getting put on the defensive was really getting irritating as I hated being on the defensive. But I had to remain calm in this situation and focus on getting back on the offensive as Nessa's Arrokuda was screaming in for another double whammy attack with her Aqua Jet and Bite combo.

"Shiva, use Protect to stop that," I said to Shiva.

Shiva complied and put up a protective field to block the double whammy attack, stopping it dead in its tracks. With Arrokuda staggered, I knew that we had to strike back quickly before Arrokuda regained her balance. I commanded Shiva to use her Freeze-Dry attack once again and it hit home, freezing and knocking out the Rush Pokémon. Though during the arduous battle against the female Arrokuda, the Arrokuda was getting pelted by the hail from the Snow Warning ability. It was then that Nessa sent out her last Pokémon, the evolved form of Chewtle, Dreadnaw.

"Looks like I'm down to my last Pokémon," Nessa said to me calmly. "I've been saving the best for last!"

Taking a look at Shiva, I saw that she was getting tired and worn out from the dodging and damage from the cheap shot double whammy attacks from Arrokuda. Studying Hinata's aura, she too was pretty beat up from battling during the Gym Mission, despite healing herself with the Mega Drain. Cloyster's aura told me that he just wasn't in the mood to battle right now. Ariel was still nursing her wounds from her last battle as I forgot to heal her up before coming into to the stadium. The only real Pokémon that I had left was my wise protector, Lavender. Lavender hadn't taken any damage against any of the Gym Trainers and she hadn't even broken a sweat against her only opponent down in the pool level. Lavender then gracefully strode forward to face Nessa's Dreadnaw, much to my protest.

"But Lavender," I tried to protest to my wise protector.

'Remember Little Kit,' Lavender said to me , 'type advantage is not always what it is cracked up to be.'

"Wow, I get to see both regional variants of Ninetales," Nessa said with a smile on her face. "And they're even shiny too. This is definitely a rare treat today. But it's not going to save you here.

"Flood the stadium and make it our ocean!" exclaimed Nessa. "Dreadnaw, time to Dynamax!"

Nessa then recalled her Dreadnaw to its Dive Ball and then channeled her focus and energy into her Dynamax Band, causing the Dive Ball to become larger. The Water-type gym leader then turned around and threw the enlarged Dive Ball, to release her Dynamax Dreadnaw behind her. As for me, the snow and hail had dissipated and was replaced by bright and intense sunlight from Lavender's Drought ability. I looked to Lavender and was to recall her to her Dream Ball, but she looked to me and shook her head as she replied to me, 'I have no need to become enlarged to challenge this Pokémon.' Her response was quite a shock to me and even to Nessa as she was baffled by the fact that Lavender had refused to be Dynamaxed. Despite the increase in size for Dreadnaw, she wasn't faster than Lavender. And without instruction, Lavender used her Solar Beam at the Dynamaxed Dreadnaw. With that Solar Beam, Dreadnaw was knocked out due to her double weakness to Grass-type attacks, being a Water/Rock-type Pokémon. Dreadnaw, then fell and was defeated by Lavender as it seemed as if she got lucky… really lucky. A lot of people that were in the audience were completely shocked by had just happened. My shiny Ninetales protector had knocked a Dynamax Pokémon without even undergoing Dynamax process. To be perfectly honest, I would've thought that even the Dynamax Max Overgrow would KO Nessa's Dynamax Dreadnaw, but I guess that Lavender was proud and refused to undergo the Dynamax process. Once Nessa's defeated Dreadnaw shrunk back to her normal size, Nessa recalled her defeated Pokémon and had a stunned look on her face, just like I did. After having the stunned looks on our faces, Nessa and I controlled ourselves and walked back towards each other with Victini and Lavender following us in tow.

"That…," began Nessa, "that was quite a shocking victory. I never thought that a Pokémon could defeat a Dynamax Pokémon without or even refusing to be Dynamaxed."

'Lavender is a proud Pokémon,' Big Brother Victini said to Nessa. 'But I'm not sure if she thinks that Dynamaxing is beneath her or what. I still have yet to understand her.'

oooooooooooooo

"So you're just… letting me keep your littl' cutie pie longer?" Nessa asked me, after returning back to Hulbury three days later after Big Brother Victini was making a scene in the Galar Mines just east of Hulbury.

"Yup," I answered Nessa as I gave her his Cherish Ball and let him glide over to her as he became happy once again. "You must be something REALLY special if Big Brother Victini is willing to cry very loud Totodile Tears just for my husband and I to turn back and dump him off on you again."

"Aww… you cried Totodile Tears just come back to me?" Nessa asked Victini in a cute tone before hugging him affectionately. "That was a littl' mean to do to your littl' sister.

Nessa then looked to me as she held out a Dive Ball to me and said, "Take this Pokémon. Some trainer left it at my gym. Littl' thing was scared to death."

"What is it?" I asked Nessa as she handed the Dive Ball to me.

"Open it up and find out," answered Nessa as she gave me a nod.

"Come on out, Pokémon," I said as I tossed up the Dive Ball.

Sure enough, out came a shiny Scorbunny that almost looked like Keith's shiny Cinderace. Ohhh, he was just so cute and lovable and I hugged him like I did with Big Brother Victini as a little girl. Victini looked very pleased that I had the shiny Scorbunny as he could go be with Nessa a bit longer. As for the shiny Scorbunny, he was definitely affectionate with me and liked that I was better than the trainer who dumped him off at the Hulbury Gym.

"I do apologize for wanting to be a bit more selfish and have your Victini with me," Nessa said to me. "The modeling agency liked the cutie pie and want me to do more shoots with him."

"You know, Big Brother," I said to Victini with a vein popping on my forehead, "you could've just told me that and I would've gladly let Nessa keep you longer. Instead, you had to do your Totodile Tears routine just to get what you wanted."

'Aww…,' Big Brother replied in a cute and innocent-like tone as he looked at me and held on to Nessa, 'but the Totodile Tears usually work on you.

Rolling my eyes and shaking my head, Benjy and I were about to head off when the cute little shiny Scorbunny decided to sit on my left shoulder. However, Big Brother Victini took offense to that and used his Psychic attack to remove the shiny Scorbunny from his usual spot as he said, 'I may not be with Cynthia right now, but no one takes my spot for any reason.' I sighed and then put the shiny Scorbunny, I decided to name Fire Paw, on my right shoulder as we walked away.

'Man, that fluff ball is real touchy about other Pokémon sitting on your left shoulder,' Fire Paw said to me as he enjoyed his seat, nonetheless.

"I agree with you there," I replied to Fire Paw. "He's always been touchy about letting other Pokémon sit on my left shoulder. At any rate, we'll get you trained up and ready to go for the third badge."

As we headed back into Galar Mines #2, I looked at the move set that Fire Paw had and looked at his ability too, expecting it to be the Blaze ability, in my Pokédex. Much to my surprise, it had the ability Libero, the same ability that Keith's Cinderace has. But the move set it had about gave me a heart attack at my tender age of 17.

"What the?!" I asked with fangs barred in anger.

"What's wrong, Babe?" Benjy asked me in a concerned tone.

"Okay Fire Paw," I said to the shiny male Scorbunny. "I'm gonna teach you some REALLY good moves and make good use of your Libero Dream World ability… considering that it's like the Protean ability for Froakie and its evolution line and Kecleon, it'll help you to become more versatile in battle.

'Yay!' Fire Paw exclaimed happily.

I looked to Benjy and said to him, "Whoever the schmuck that dumped Fire Paw off on Nessa is, left him only with the move Growl… not even so much as even knowing Tackle, to defend himself."

"That's really harsh," replied Benjy.

"Okay cutie," I said to Fire Paw, "I'm gonna use some of these TMs from my home region and give you quite the arsenal to make you a well rounded battler. I'm also giving you this Fire Stone necklace so I can tell you apart from my little bro's Cinderace, Blaze."

After putting on the Fire Stone necklace around Fire Paw's neck, I went to work and grabbed some TMs to teach him. I taught him Flame Charge, Flamethrower, Electro Ball, Gunk Shot, Low Kick, Bounce and Mud Shot. Those attacks, I thought, would be a nice move set to make Fire Paw a well rounded battler. After teaching him those attacks, I thought about wanting to go back to Route 1 and start training him, but I decided against it we went through Galar Mines #2 as there would be plenty of opportunities to get Fire Paw trained in the mine. Plus, for the first time in while, there weren't as many shiny Pokémon in the mine while I trained Fire Paw with help from Ariel and the other Pokémon. His training was progressing smoothly until he was able to battle on his own. During the assisted training, Fire Paw evolved into Raboot, his evolved form. Once Fire Paw evolved, he was ready to battle on his own without help. However, his training would have to wait as once he evolved, many of the Pokémon had already gone to sleep and it was bedtime for all of us too. After setting up our camp, we all had dinner and made some curry to eat. That night was the first time that I ever made curry using apples as a main ingredient. The caramelized apples helped to balance out the spiciness of the Tamato Berries that made the curry even spicier. Not to mention that the curry was very delicious too. Once we had dinner and cleaned up, I wanted to cuddle with Benjy for the night… and watch some Netflix movies while we were at it. As for Shelby, I got a text from her that she had gone back to our base camp and wished us good luck as she was wanting to give me and Benjy our space since we were now married. I guess we got lucky that some ding dong had a WiFi network in the mine and forgot to secure it. As we cuddled in our tent and on our blowup bed, we watched some Star Wars shows that were on Netflix. There was even a cooking show called the Great Galar Baking Show, which got me very interested as I had stars in my eyes as we saw some of the scrumptious pastries and desserts they were making. Benjy looked at me and then said, "Babe… you're salivating again." I was a bit embarrassed as soon as I saw that I was indeed salivating from watching all the delicious pastries being made.

After Benjy and I were done binge watching the Great Galar Baking Show, we turned off the laptop and decided that the night was a good night to make love each other and made sure that the tent was closed off to the Pokémon. Lavender laid at the entrance to make sure the other Pokémon couldn't try to get in while Benjy and I were having sex with other. Even though there wasn't anyone near our camp, we made sure that our sexual stuff was muffled the best we could muffle it. The next morning, we went to work on training Fire Paw and getting him up to evolve into a Cinderace. The Pokémon in the area were quite shocked to see that their type advantages were null and void against Fire Paw. As for Fire Paw, he was pleased to see that he was making headway in his training and was getting close to evolving into Cinderace. But I also had to be careful and not push him or let him push himself too hard… not as much as Ariel tried to do when she wanted to evolved into the Primarina she is now. Not to mention that I had other Pokémon that I needed to train.

oooooooooooooo

"Guess I should be glad that Shiva was in a good mood today," I said to Benjy after I had reorganized the team of Pokémon I had after capturing some more Pokémon.

"Yeah, and with Victini back with Nessa, we've got some measure of peace," said Benjy as he looked to me.

"Thank Lord Arceus for that," I replied to Benjy before I kissed him.

I had caught a shiny Noibat with the Infiltrator ability in the mine, a shiny Hatenna with the Magic Bounce Dream World ability, a shiny female Salandit with her Corrosion ability and shiny Roggenrola with the Sand Force Dream World ability. The only Pokémon that stayed with me and Fire Paw were Lavender and Ariel as Ariel refused to leave me when I sent most of Pokémon back home to the Atlantica Islands. As for Lavender, I would never send my wise protector home as I needed her at my side. I kinda wanted Hinata with me, but despite Ariel's refusal to go home, she did point out that I would need a Water-type Pokémon for the next badge. The training of Fire Paw continued at a nice pace. Every time I leveled him up, I would swap him out for one of my other Pokémon to train up as well. As I trained up Fire Paw, the Roggenrola that I caught in a Heavy Ball evolved into a Boldore and like I did with my shiny Gourgeist, I had Benjy trade me his Mightyena to me again while I traded my shiny Boldore to him with the Everstone that he was initially holding when I caught him. And like when I got my then Pumpkaboo back before she evolved into Gourgeist, Benjy sent my shiny Boldore back to me without the Everstone he held on to and evolved into Gigalith much to my delight and joy. I knew that Daddy would be jealous when he learned that I owned a Gigalith… a SHINY Gigalith, while he still had a Boldore from when he was first in Unova with Mom. Once I had acquired the shiny Gigalith, I took a selfie with him and sent it as a text to Mom and Daddy showing them my new Rock-type buddy that I had caught and raised up into a Gigalith. After taking the selfie, I returned to training my Pokémon in preparation for the third badge. Once I had spent enough time training my Pokémon, Benjy and I were ready to take on the third Gym Leader, Kabu. As we entered Motostoke, once again Benjy and I saw Mom and Daddy taking off to the next town on the back of Lord Dracaenas once again.

"Every time we get close to catching up to Mom and Daddy," I said to Benjy, "they're always flying off to the next town."

"Well, maybe they use some of their more experience Pokémon rather than capturing new Pokémon," offered Benjy as we headed towards the Budew Drop Inn and checked in for a few days worth of training before I decided to take on the gym leader, Kabu.

"Oh no," I replied back to Benjy as I shook my head, "not Daddy. I know Daddy pretty well. He'd never pass up on catching new Pokémon.

"Babe, don't worry about your parents," suggested Benjy as he came up behind me and gently massaged my shoulders to calm me down. "Let them do what they wanna do and we'll do what we wanna do."

The one thing that Benjy did to annoy me was when he massaged my shoulders. Don't get me wrong, I love it when he massages me, but any time I wanted to try and play catch up Benjy was there to calm me down and soothe me out of wanting to play catch up. I had to admit, my hubby did an excellent job as always when when he massaged my shoulders. After checking into the hotel, Benjy and I went through the city to do some exploring. As we explored Motostoke, I got a text from Mom asking if Victini was back with me. I texted back that Nessa had requested that Big Brother Victini stay with her a bit longer as the modeling agency she worked for wanted to do more shoots with her and Victini. Daddy didn't like that Victini wasn't with me, but he apparently relented and told me to make sure that I got Victini back as soon as Nessa was done with him.

"I got a feeling that Nessa will be holding on to him much longer," I said to my sexy hubby.

"Given that Victini will wanna stay with her as long as he can, I can see that," agreed Benjy as he gave me a nod.

"Hey, let's take a small trip to the Wild Areas that Ren went to," I suggested to Benjy. "Maybe we can find some pretty good Pokémon."

"Man, I can't believe that I got this Farfetch'd," a passerby said as she was walking by me and Benjy. "That guy swindled me into trading off my shiny Ponyta and gave me this shiny Galarian Farfetch'd."

"Whoa, hold up there," I said to the passerby and got her attention. "You looking for a Kanto Farfetch'd?"

"Yeah, that's right," answered the passerby. "You got one? Don't get me wrong, this shiny Galarian Farfetch'd with the Scrappy ability is nice and all, but I was hoping to get a Kanto Farfetch'd."

"I've got a couple at home and both of them are shiny," I said to the passerby. "You up for a trade then?"

Within five minutes, I became the prouder owner of a shiny Galarian Farfetch'd and with the ability that I was looking for too. After reorganizing my Pokémon party again, I decided against going to the section of the Wild Areas where Ren caught her shiny G-Max Lapras and decided to stay in the area and train my Pokémon with Benjy. Shelby sent me a text saying that she'd be in Motostoke once it was confirmed when her brother and I would be going through the Motostoke Gym for our Fire Badge. I missed having Shelby with us, but she wanted to hang back at base camp and hold down the fort. I texted Shelby back that Benjy and I would be Victini-free for a while if she wanted to come up to Motostoke and meet up with us.

'The offer is tempting, since I already know your fluff ball big brother is with Nessa,' Shelby texted me back, 'but I'll have to decline the offer. You two kids enjoy yourselves and don't be trying to make little Benjamins and Cynthias just yet. You're not ready yet.'

My face went Cheri Berry red when I saw that last part from Shelby. Honestly, I didn't like that I was being told that I'm not ready for Benjy to get me pregnant just yet. Though the thought did cross my mind to have my sexy stud to get me pregnant. I knew if I did that, I'd be going against the advice I tried to give Lana. Like I told Lana, I wanted to enjoy my younger years of marriage before I was ready to start having my sexy bad boy's kids. Unfortunately for me and Benjy, when man plans and Lord Arceus laughs, as we would find out later down in our journey.

oooooooooooooo

"You did an awesome job, Babe," Benjy said to me a few days later after I won my Fire Badge in a nail biting finish.

Ironically, when Benjy went up against Kabu, he swept the Fire-type gym leader's Pokémon without so much as batting an eye. The Gym Mission in the Motostoke Gym was to capture Fire-type Pokémon or battle them with help from the Gym Trainers. I caught three Sizzlipedes and Benjy had caught two Litwicks and a shiny male Vulpix. I was a bit jealous of of my hubby because the three Sizzlipedes I caught weren't shiny. After that came the Gym Battle against the Gym Leader, Kabu and his three Pokémon. Like I had said, Benjy got lucky and swept them aside. As for me, I had a few close calls and thanked my lucky stars that I listened to Ariel and kept her in the team. With both of us defeating Kabu, we were ready to begin making our way towards Stow-on-Side, which was going to be a two week hike from Motostoke. We found out that the rail service was unable to get us to the next major town from Motostoke. With the rail service out of commission for a while, Benjy and I would going to Stow-on-Side on foot, which didn't bother me. More time for me and my hubby to be closer to each other. Benjy and I had Milo, Nessa and Kabu come to see us off as we looked to progress further into the interior of Galar where the other gyms would be located. With the three gym leaders… and Big Brother Victini seeing us off, Benjy and I headed off to the next town where we'd stop at before proceeding to Stow-on-Side for our fourth badge.

oooooooooooooo

Lana Felicity Ketchum's POV

oooooooooooooo

After the opening ceremony for the Galar Gym Challenge had declared the Gym Challenge was now open, Keith and I headed back to the hotel room as we were going to make our own preparations for our trek through Galar. My sister-in-law, Cynthia, asked me and Keith if we wanted to join them. Keith and I declined the offer as we wanted to make sure that we took our time trained our Pokémon properly. Plus I wanted to be alone with Keith without our teammates bothering us… especially if our moment came and we wanted to make love to each other. The other thing was that Silver Luna and Twilight were close to evolving into their evolved forms and I was interested to see their evolved forms. Both Silver Luna and Twilight had told us that they wanted to evolve as well.

The next day after Cynthia and Benjamin had already set out for Turffield, Keith and I then set out on our way. We gave Cynthia and her husband a day's head start while Isabella decided to backtrack to the Wild Area outside Motostoke as she wanted to do some training to keep up with her "fire bending" abilities, stating that it'd be a while before she made any progress with the Gym Challenge. I looked to Keith as Isabella left the group and headed back towards to the Wild Area.

"That's just how Isabella works," Keith explained to me. "She prefers to let others advance to a certain progress whenever she's in a group. I guess her mom didn't like being in a group when she was younger either."

"Isabella's mom is Cynthia's godmother, right?" I asked my Shy Little Umbreon.

"Yeah," answered Keith as he gave me a slight nod. "Cynthia was named after godmother."

"Then… I guess we should get moving then," I suggested to Keith. "Think we could do some fishing along the way to Turffield?"

"What my Alola Mermaid wants," began Keith as he smiled, "my Alola Mermaid will get. But could we briefly backtrack to Route 2? I wanna see if there's a shiny Purrloin with the Limber ability that I can catch."

I chuckled as my husband sounded just his sister, Cynthia. Both of them were particular about the Pokémon they wanted to catch. I still remembered when Cynthia told me about wanting to catch a shiny Shellder with the Skill Link ability and went on about how the Skill Link ability was the Ribombee's knees. Hearing Keith talk about wanting to catch a Pokémon with a certain ability had me grunt in amusement. But I was also quite intrigued as Keith usually didn't want Pokémon that were bipedal, but I remembered that Purrloin evolved into a quadruped Pokémon, Liepard. So after calling a taxi to backtrack to Route 2, Keith and I went searching for the shiny Purrloin he was after. Twilight expressed uneasiness about his human wanting to catch a Purrloin, shiny or not.

"What's wrong with me wanting to catch and own a shiny Purrloin?" Keith asked Twilight.

'Our kind have a unique rivalry with those dirty Purrloins,' answered Twilight. 'They think that they're the better thieves than our kind.'

"Maybe some of them are the better thieves," Keith offered to Twilight.

'Ha! I could steal a Big Nugget from underneath a human's nose without batting an eye,' Twilight countered proudly.

'Wow, tough talk that comes from a human's pet,' a shiny female Purrloin said as she overheard me and Twilight talking. 'But I'm not a big boaster.'

'Alright, those are fighting words!' Twilight said in anger as he charged at the shiny female Purrloin.

'Not again, Big Brother,' Silver Luna said as she rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Does this happen often?" I asked Silver Luna.

'It's sometimes easy to provoke my brother into fighting,' answered Silver Luna as she shook her head. 'Twilight never likes being called a pet.'

Keith looked to the shiny female Purrloin and then said, "Alright Twilight, use Assurance."

'Here I come you mangy fur ball,' Twilight said as he charged at the shiny Purrloin.

'Yawn, I'm bored,' replied the shiny female Purrloin as she was indeed bored… before using her Sucker Punch attack on Twilight.

Twilight was hit with the Sucker Punch attack, even though it didn't do much damage to him. In response to the Sucker Punch, Twilight replied, 'Thanks for doing that. My Assurance attack will have its power doubled since you were stupid enough to attack me with your Sucker Punch.'

'Oh Snorlax!' cried the shiny female Purrloin as she forgot about the effectiveness of Assurance.

Despite the increased power of Twilight's Assurance move, it too didn't do much damage on the shiny female Purrloin. She responded back in retaliation for tricking her into using her Sucker Punch by using the only real attack she knew that could some damage on Twilight. The shiny shiny Purrloin used the Fairy-type move Play Rough and caused some serious damage to Twilight. Twilight couldn't believe that she knew Play Rough. After getting over the shock, Twilight replied, 'Oh yeah? Two can play rough like that. Here's my Play Rough!' Both shiny Dark-type Pokémon got into a heated fight as they both were using Play Rough on each other. This went on about another ten minutes until they were both exhausted from exchanging said Fairy-type move with each other. With both shiny Dark-type Pokémon exhausted, Keith grabbed a Love Ball and tossed it at the shiny female Purrloin. With her being exhausted, shiny Purrloin couldn't resist being sucked into the Love Ball. Nor could she even try to break out of the Love Ball. Once it was confirmed that the shiny Purrloin was caught, Keith picked up the Love Ball and had a smile on his face. As for Twilight, Keith petted him for a job well done before he was bathed in a soft white glow which meant that he was evolving. Twilight evolved and became taller and slender. There was no color change with Twilight as he evolved and the only real changes that we noticed were that his face seemed to have a mask of sorts across his face and that his whiskers had grown and seemed like they were something out of an old cheesy movie about cops and robbers. The Pokédex identified Twilight as a Thievul and was classified as a Fox Pokémon, like Shiva and Lavender. Twilight seemed very pleased that he had evolved into a Thievul. As for Silver Luna, she seemed a bit hesitant in wanting to evolve into a Thievul like her brother. Once Keith had gotten the Pokémon that he wanted, we back tracked to Motostoke on foot and rail. Keith examined the shiny female Purrloin that he caught and examined everything about her. He looked at her move set and ability that she had. Her move set wasn't something Keith liked, but he noted that she knew Play Rough. Having Purrloin with Play Rough was good for Keith as he wanted her to be able to counter Fighting and other Dark-type Pokémon in battle. Keith took a look at her ability and then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that her ability was indeed Limber. Purrloin looked to Keith and asked him, 'What? You thought my ability was going to be Unburden?'

"Umm… maybe," answered Keith as he had a sweat drop on his forehead and scratched the back of his head nervously.

'The only way for me to have the Unburden ability instead of Limber is if you've got one of those crazy Ability Capsule hold items,' Purrloin said to Keith. 'And even then, Unburden is useless. Nah, I'm a gal who prefers to have an immunity to paralysis over the ability to double my speed after consuming a berry.'

With Keith's Purrloin satisfying him, he recalled her to the Love Ball and we went on our way back towards trekking to Turffield. Thanks to the effective taxi service, we were back on track at the west exit of Motostoke on Route 3. Keith asked the local Pokémon in the area if there were any good places for me to go fishing along the way to Turffield. Many of the Pokémon explained that Water Pokémon could not be found on Route 3. I was confused as to why Keith asked the local Pokémon if there were any Water Pokémon in the area.

"'A journey armed with knowledge will yield you a profit for future endeavors'," answered Keith as he recited another one of those Draconic Rules of Accumulation. "The 50th Draconic Rule of Accumulation."

"How many of those rules are you supposed to remember?" I asked my husband.

"I don't have to remember them," explained Keith as he looked to me. "But some of their rules are really wise and can really get you out of a jam. Just remember not to look at a Dragon Pokémon's mate with lust. Not that you'd do that, but some Dragon Pokémon might take offense."

'That's true about Dragon Pokémon,' agreed Keith's shiny Purrloin. 'They're more territorial than Growlithes who think you're stepping on their chosen profession.'

Despite the fact that there weren't any Water-type Pokémon, it didn't mean that I couldn't train my Pokémon in preparation for the first badge in Galar's Gym Challenge. Primarina hung back as my team leader and support in the unlikely event that my Pokémon would need some backup. I had Silver Luna, my shiny Chewtle and shiny Milotic to train. I really wanted to find more Water Pokémon, but I would've had to go back to the Wild Area outside of Motostoke to find anymore Water-type Pokémon. I looked to Keith to see what he wanted to do.

"Do you think we could head back to the Wild Area and see about catching some more Water-type Pokémon?" I asked my Shy Little Umbreon.

"Let's get to Turffield first before we backtrack to the Wild Area," answered Keith as he looked to me. "Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of Ground and Rock-type Pokémon you can train your Water Pokémon against."

"Yeah, you've got a point," I replied in agreement as Chewtle and Milotic needed more training before I would go up against the first gym leader. "But I also need to catch a Wingull that I can bring against the gym leader, Milo."

"Can you wait until we at least get to Turffield?" Keith asked me sweetly.

"Sure," I answered Keith.

Keith and I traveled though Route 3, training and battling other trainers along the way. Some of the trainers had heard about us Team Storm and wanted to put a lot of pressure on us before we reached Turffield. Despite their efforts, Keith and I were able to repulse them and show them our skills. After doing enough training on Route 3, we decided to stop for the night at the entrance of the Galar Mine. Keith's Purrloin that he named Midna, after a character from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, was getting some decent training herself. Having learned Pay Day from one of the TMs that Keith and I brought with us, Midna was certainly pleased… before she started taking an interest in Twilight, a romantic interest. I think Twilight was a bit smitten with Midna himself. I never could understand what it was about video games that drew Keith and his sister towards them.

After Keith and I gotten our camp set up for the night, we made dinner for us and the Pokémon. It was the first time that we ever made curry, after having someone teach us how to make curry. Using some of the ingredients that we had collected along way through the Wild Area, we were able to make a sweet apple curry using Pecha berries. The Pokémon enjoyed the sweet treat as their dinner that night. After cleaning up for the night, Keith and I went into our tent to relax and cuddle with each other. I did have to make sure that the laptop wasn't within Keith's reach as he liked to use his laptop to play games on it or binge watch any movies that were based off the type of video games that he liked. As Keith and I cuddled with each other, I got a group text message from Vanna Seabright… sorry, I mean Vanna Kaiou.

"My Prince and I have decided that we're going to take the year off from joining any Pokémon League competitions," Vanna said in her text to the group.

"We are considering traveling to Galar to cheer you guys on as you storm through Galar," Hayato added to the group text. "We've taken a look at Galar's Pokédex and it looks like there are some interesting Pokémon for both of us to catch."

"You sure we can't convince you to change your mind?" Ren asked Vanna and her baby brother.

"We did the Sky Fortress Conference, the Suicune Valley Conference and the Royal Cup all in one year," answered Hayato. "Our Pokémon are a bit tired and really wanna rest."

"How many Poképuffs did Ichigo bet Oberon that you two were gonna say that you're taking the year off?" Cynthia teasingly asked Hayato and Vanna.

"Three," answered Hayato before leaving an emoji with a blank stare.

With Hayato and Vanna not participating in the Galar Gym Challenge, it was a bit of a relief to hear. But I could also understand their viewpoint and wanting their Pokémon to rest and recharge before even considering doing another Pokémon League competition. As for me, after Galar's Gym Challenge was finished, I wanted for Keith and I to go home and start having a family before we even considered taking on another Pokémon League. I really didn't want my husband to be like his father and try to look for an excuse to go traveling and not stay at home. Cynthia had told me about how her dad would look for any reason to go traveling instead of staying at home and take the family with him. Hearing about that worried me and I really didn't want Keith to end up doing that. Just the thought was enough to make me cling to Keith and kiss him hard and passionately.

"You okay?" Keith asked me as we pulled out of the kiss.

I gave him no answer as I kissed him again and set him on top of me. Once Keith was on top of me, he knew what I wanted and we began to make love to each other during the night until we were exhausted. The Pokémon outside the tent could hear us moaning and some of things we said as we made love with each other. It was Midna's first time hearing us having sex with each other, she would tell us later, but she didn't seem annoyed by it. Once Keith and I had finally fallen asleep, things quieted down and we could barely make out someone making a comment about us. Even though we couldn't hear what was being said about us, Keith and I slept peacefully in each other's arms throughout the night and into the early sunlit morning hours. Breakfast was quiet for us and I decided that I would wear the sundress that I got in Wedgehurst from the bed and breakfast owners. I knew how much Keith loved seeing me in the Primarina blue and pink sundress. Though this time, I chose not to wear the hat. Once I had changed clothes and gotten out of the tent, my Shy Little Umbreon was quick to pick me up and kiss me on my cheek as he loved seeing me in the dress again.

'Maybe she should wear the sundress more often if Keith likes seeing Lana wearing it,' Shadow said to my Primarina… before she scooped him up and started being affectionate with him. 'AHHHHH! MAKE THIS FAIRY LET GO OF ME! EEEE!'

'I think you're right, Shadow,' Primarina replied happily as she nuzzled Shadow affectionately.

oooooooooooooo

Keith was right about the Pokémon in the Galar Mine as I was able to train Milotic and Chewtle with not much resistance. Chewtle was close to evolving to her evolved form and with her Strong Jaw ability, things were looking good. As for Milotic, she was making good progress with her training. Adding Ice Beam was certainly going to be a key helping factor when I went in to the Turffield Gym for the first time. After battling a couple trainers in the mine, we made our way to the exit of the Mine where we saw the same jerk that Isabella swept aside with little difficulty in Motostoke. The jerk, Bede, turned around and saw us and had a look of contempt for me and Keith.

"So, you two are part of that Team Storm, eh?" Bede asked me and Keith in a mocking tone. "I think the storm is going to fizzle out. So why don't I just snuff it out right here?"

"I'm gonna get you," Keith said to Bede as he was getting angry with him.

"I'll take him on," I said to Keith as I stepped forward.

"What's this?" Bede asked Keith as he snickered at my husband. "Your girlfriend's gotta fight your battles for you?"

"No," I answered Bede. "I just don't like that you have no respect for others and think you can step on others. So let's go, right now."

Bede then called on his Solosis to face me. In response, I called on Silver Luna to face him… with an Amulet Coin around her neck next to her diamond necklace. Bede didn't like that his Solosis had no other counter measures against Silver Luna. With one swift move, Silver Luna used her Night Slash and inflicted a critical hit, effectively knocking him out. Bede's other two Pokémon didn't fare any better as Primarina took the reigns and knocked them out without so much as batting an eyebrow. Once the fight was over, Silver Luna evolved into a Thievul like her brother. Once more, Bede didn't like he had to cough up double the amount of prize money after he lost.

"You're a real pansy," Bede said to Keith as he looked at Keith in contempt. "You're not even a real man if you let your girlfriend fight for you."

As much as I wanted to punch Bede, Keith lost his cool and the rage that he inherited from his mother kicked in. Keith clinched his right fist and thrust it not at Bede's face, but went below the belt and aimed for the groin. The cocky trainer had his eyes widen as large as dinner plates. Keith then kicked Bede with enough enraged force to launch him out of the mine and land somewhere out in Route 4. With Bede dealt with, I was lucky that Keith calmed his rage down since food wasn't involved. Once we exited the mine, both of us could see Turffield in our sights. There was some fishing to do on Route 4, but the Water Pokémon there were Pokémon that I had already caught back on Route 2. As for Keith, he was looking for a Pokémon called Wooloo. Twilight just rolled his eyes and shook his head as he didn't like that Keith wanted to find a Wooloo. But Keith explained that he was looking for a shiny Wooloo with its Dream World ability, Bulletproof and with Dream Charm he was giving Twilight, the chances would be increased. After scouring Route 4 for four hours, Keith finally found what what he was looking for. A shiny black Wooloo with the Bulletproof Dream World ability, which surprised Twilight and even me. Keith used a Quick Ball to try and catch the shiny Wooloo, but it broke out and was about to run away until Twilight moved to cut him off. Twilight had used Pursuit on the shiny black Wooloo as he tried to get away. The shiny Wooloo didn't like getting hit with the Pursuit attack and decided to turn and fight back. But that plan would not come to fruition as Keith had a Dream Ball materialize in his hands and he caught the shiny Wooloo. Once the shiny Wooloo had been caught, Keith became excited that he had caught another shiny Pokémon for his collection. As for me, I would be patient as we made our way to Turffield and saw Cynthia entering the Turffield gym with Benjamin following her in tow.

"Guessing Sis is about to challenge the gym," Keith said as both Cynthia and Benjamin had gone into the gym.

"Do you wanna go watch her?" I asked Keith.

"Nah, she doesn't need me watching her," answered Keith as he shook his head. "Let's get our Pokémon healed up we'll head back to the Wild Areas so you can catch some Water-type Pokémon."

"Okay," I replied as I gently kissed Keith on his left cheek.

oooooooooooooo

Three days into my search, I had caught a shiny Wingull, with its Rain Dish Dream World ability, a shiny Krabby with its Shell Armor ability and much to my own surprise, I caught my own shiny Shellder with the Skill Link ability in a Max Raid Battle. I was really liking the haul of Pokémon that I caught. As much as I wanted to catch all of the Water Pokémon in the area, I knew that time was a luxury that Keith and I didn't have if we stayed in the West Lake Axwell area of the Wild Area. After rearranging my party of Pokémon, Keith and I hailed a taxi back to Turffield so that we could get to our first Gym Badge. Of course I made sure that Primarina and Silver Luna stayed in my party. Both female Pokémon were pleased to see that they were staying. As for the other four Pokémon that I chose to stay with me, I kept the shiny Wingull because I needed him in the incoming Gym Battle. I also kept Milotic, Shellder and called for Sandy from home as I wanted to make sure that she wasn't forgotten about and unloved. With a Water Stone, I decided to evolve Sandy into a Vaporeon. As for my shiny Shellder, I decided too follow Cynthia's lead and teach it moves that would be tailored to her Skill Link ability.

As we hailed the taxi to head back to Turffield, Keith decided to head back to Route 4. I was baffled as to why Keith wanted to go back to Route 4 instead of flying directly back to Turffield. But since I had been with him and his family and their friends, the one thing that came to my mind was that they followed the Draconic Rules of Accumulation… maybe not of all them, but some of them made sense and were helpful to them. I was just thankful that there weren't any Feraligatrs here or their pre-evolved forms either. Once we landed at Route 4, Keith went straight to the local Pokémon and asked them about where to stay in Turffield and if there were any hotels. The local Pokémon of the area told him that he was the second person to ask them that question and directed him towards some bed and breakfast lodges and even recommended some cafés to go eat at. Once we made our way into Turffield, I looked to Keith and asked, "Why did you talk to the Pokémon instead of the local inhabitants? Is it a reason that doesn't involve the Rules of Accumulation?"

"Nope," answered Keith as he shook his head. "Ever since we've been taught the Rules of Accumulation, they've become an essential part of our travels."

"So… which Rule of Accumulation were you following this time?" I asked my husband curiously.

"When entering a new village or town, interaction with the local Pokémon will yield you a profit of knowledge rather than relying on the interaction of humans," answered Keith. "That's Draconic Rule of Accumulation number 47."

Once we got into a nice little bed and breakfast place to stay for a few days, Keith and I began training our Pokémon to get ready for the Turffield gym leader, Milo. Before I began training my Pokémon, I gave my Pokémon some TM moves that they could learn. My Wingull, learned Aerial Ace, Ice Beam, Icy Wind and Steel Wing to go with her Water Gun and Wing Attack. Keith suggested that I work towards evolving my Wingull into a Pelipper and evolve my shiny Shellder into a Cloyster and gave me a Water Stone as I had used my last Water stone to evolve Sandy into a Vaporeon. Once I evolved my Shellder into a Cloyster, I made sure that her attacks were still tailored to her Skill Link ability. I made sure she knew Icicle Spear, Rock Blast, Spike Cannon and Pin Missile. Along with knowing Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Aurora Beam and Razor Shell, I'd say that my Cloyster was looking pretty good as I was planning on using her in the gym battle against Milo. As for Keith, he was planning on using Shadow and Twilight against the gym leader Milo, while his other Pokémon would act as reserves and handle repulsing the attacks made by the gym trainers. Pokénet was certainly abuzz with activity on how Team Storm was progressing through the Gym Challenge. Some of the commentators had made note that Isabella really hadn't made any progress at all. Not even to advance through the Challenge itself, which lead to many ridiculing Isabella Greyson for not making an effort to advance.

"Meh, don't worry about those what those yahoos are saying about Isabella," Keith said to me as he massaged my shoulders gently and much to my pleasure. "Isabella takes her time and makes sure that she's got a since of discipline whenever she goes through a regional Pokémon League. I think her mom was like that once she became the Sinnoh League champion.

"I've trained up my Pokémon good enough," Keith said to me as he finished my massage. "Let's go get some dinner and then we'll turn in for the night."

"Okay," I replied cutely. "When we turn in for the night, do you think we could…"

I whispered in Keith's ear what I wanted from him. No, I won't tell you what I said to him, but I will say that Keith blushed as red as a Cheri Berry when he replied to me, "You got it. Anything for my beautiful Alola Mermaid."

Author's Note: And I think I'll end on that for now. Let me know what you think. I won't give you guys an exact time in which the next chapter will be posted. All I can say is that I'll work on getting the chapter up within three months at the most. Until then, SEE YA SOON!