A/N: To those that may have wondered the past couple of chapters, the team in this story are still not in name Team Flare. I'm just saying that for convenience's sake from now on.
"Greninja, use Dig!" Ash commanded. Greninja, whom was already in her Battle Bond state, dug underground facing against Mega Aggron, Serena's newest catch after they found Squishy. The shiny water starter dug underground.
"Counter with Brick Break against the ground!" Serena countered. The hulking pure steel type's right arm glowed white as it proceeded to punch the ground, his enhanced strength allowing him to split the ground and expose the Ninja Pokemon.
"Counter with Water Shuriken!" Jumping from the crags, she formed stars made of compressed water on her back and threw three right into Aggron's face, whom even with its almost unequaled defense, the attack appeared to have hurt quite a bit based from the closed eyes and groaning.
"Dark Pulse!"
"Stone Edge!" As the two had their attacks connect, a guy walking by heard the explosions, and even felt a shock wave come from the left. "Iron Head!" The steel plate on the top of his head started to glow white, and he charged, although it wasn't going terribly fast.
"Ice Beam!" From her mouth she fired a zigzagging ray of icy neon blue energy, but it paled against the incoming charge of Mega Aggron, and proceeded to ram itself into Greninja, whom croaked with pain as she was sent flying back, but did a backflip to land on her feet. She did have to take a knee however.
"You good to keep going?" Ash asked his starter, to which she nodded.
"Stone Edge, let's go!" Forming white orbs that turned into rocks, he fired them at the Ninja Pokemon.
"Dodge!" With her superior speed, she leapt out of the way. "Now use Water Shuriken!" Forming more stars, she threw them at key points she spotted in between Aggron's buffed armor, and made 3 critically precision based strikes which resulted in watery explosions and a pained cry. Serena gasped as she saw that her Aggron turned back into his regular form, and collapsed to the ground.
"Aggron is unable to battle! The winner is Greninja!" Trevor declared. Monique clapped for her friends.
"Greninja's so cool." The hex maniac complimented.
"So even something as bulky like Aggron can't beat his Greninja." The tomboy uttered to herself. For the first time, she wondered if she had any chance of beating her childhood friend. Did he have something truely indomitable?"
"Whoo, great match Serena!" She got pulled out of her thoughts when Ash called to her. "Aggron sure is strong, but I'm sure with the proper training, he'll be harder to beat for sure!" As he laughed, her confidence began to rise again.
("No, Aggron is still freshly caught. After some training and a bit of protein and zinc in its diet, he'll be even more durable and hard hitting. Thank you Ash.") She smiled as she replied, "That was great. Let's get these two healed up."
"Yeah." Unknown to them, the same teenage guy was watching them, both impressed by the display, and glad he finally found them. By tomorrow in the morning after waking up in Couriway Town, they were about to depart when they heard a voice.
"Finally." Turning to their left, they spotted the guy. He looked angry. "I finally found you. The ones who disgraced him."
"Disgraced?" Trevor asked, not liking what he was saying.
"You've ruined Professor Sycamore's reputation. He had a dream, I was helping him. I was going to be like him, but you had to destroy what I was aspiring to be." Serena scoffed.
"Well, to be fair he wasn't that great-"
"Shut up." The tomboy looked shocked by his shout and composed, yet enraged voice. "You had no right to devastate my professor. You had no right to make him quit his job. You had no right to desecrate something special. You. Me. Battle field. Now. One on one with Greninja and my Charizard. If you win, then nothing happens. If I win, you hand over all your Mega Stones."
"That's crazy!" Serena called him out. "Like we'll hand them over even if you win!"
"Wait." Ash stopped her. "I'm confident I can beat him."
"But Ash!" Trevor complained. What if he's strong enough to fight the Elite Four?! Even with Greninja's super form you'll get creamed!"
"Please don't take mine." Monique pleaded with Alain as she covered her ring which had her key stone. "My mother gave me my own Gengarite and key stone. They're all that I have left of her." Turning his gaze, his face briefly shifted from furious to somewhat sympathetic.
"Alright then. She can keep hers, since I won't take mementos." Then he went back to mad. "But all the rest of you will have to."
"You're on." Ash agreed.
("Does he truly believe he can beat this person?") Serena thought to herself. Going over to a battle field, all the others sat away, none as the referee this time as the two determined teenage boys stared at each other, this battle determining whether an adventure stops, or continues. Greninja was already in her Ash-Greninja form by defeating a near by wild Pokemon first.
"Charizard, come out!" Alain sent out his fire starter. He had a metal plate necklace containing a Mega Stone in the center. Pressing a key stone in a bracelet on his wrist, he shouted, "Beyond Evolution! Mega Evolve!" Once that was done, the battle began.
"So that's what a regular colored Mega Charizard X looks like." Serena commented.
"That's certainly cool. A black one." Trevor noted.
"Water Shuriken!"
"Dragon Claw!" As the Ninja Pokemon threw three stars, Charizard's claws glowed with green aura and slashed them apart.
"Use Dig!" As soon as the shiny water starter burrowed into the ground, Alain shouted,
"Use Flamethrower into the hole!" Ash gasped as the soaring fire/dragon type fired blue flames into the hole, which caused an underground explosion which sent Greninja flying in the air having burst through the ground against her will. "Dragon Claw!"
"Counter with Water Shuriken!" Recovering quickly, she formed a water star on her back which she grabbed to slash against the green claws of Charizard X. A mini explosion forced the two back, aiding Greninja to land on the field. "Dark Pulse!"
"Flamethrower!" Rings of darkness and a plume of blue fire clashed in between the two Pokemon, and this caused an extra powerful explosion that made every trainer brace against it. There was a lot of smoke in the air. Nodding with his eyes aimed somewhere else, Ash ordered,
"Use Dig, once more!"
"That trick again? Flamethrower down the hole!" Breathing fire where he believed he dug, the attack instead just hit solid ground. "What?!" Ash grinned.
"Who said we had to make a new hole?" Greninja burst from the ground normally and rammed into the surprised Charizard, causing him to groan.
"Counter with Dragon Claw!" The Flame Pokemon tried to slash at the water starter, but she managed to jump off just in time. "Keep it up!"
"Water Shuriken!" Forming another star, the two clashed with surprising amount of equal reactions. While Greninja was definitely faster, it appeared Charizard was not struggling to catch up.
("His Charizard is faster than a normal one. Did he feed it vitamins?") Ash thought to himself.
"Use Blast Burn!" Charizard combusted into blue flame with a roar, and punched the ground in between them, causing the ground to crack and glow with heat.
"Jump!" With a blitz of speed, she managed to avoid the fiery explosion Charizard caused. "Water Shuriken!" Before Charizard had a chance to recover, Greninja formed and threw three water stars at the Kanto starter, which caused both a watery and steaming explosion considering the heat. The Ninja Pokemon landed gracefully as everyone saw that as the smoke cleared, Charizard was back to normal and knocked out.
"Yay! Ash won!" Shauna cheered as everyone ran to Ash and Greninja, whom reverted back to her normal state.
"Charizard, are you okay?" Alain asked her comrade, whom grunted with a nod. He then called out to them. "This isn't over. I will avenge my missing teacher, and take your Mega Stones. You're not worthy of them. My name is Alain Silver. Remember that." Returning his Pokemon, Alain walked off.
"I didn't think Sycamore quitting would have such an effect on someone." Shauna remarked.
"Hopefully we won't see him in the Pokemon Tournament." Trevor gulped.
"I don't know. We'll definitely meet again." Ash pondered out loud. "I can feel it."
A/N: I considered giving Alain the surname Argent because it's French for Silver, like Alain's VA's last name, but Argent doesn't sound as cool as Silver so I went with that. What do you think? Did I make him too antagonistic for such a composed character? Let me know so I can make some possible changes in the future.