After 10 years, you'd think our jokes would get old. I assure you, it happened way before this.
Victor had considered borrowing Harry for the battle, but it was too late to ask now.
Dash was doing fine, given the circumstances. He'd won against Scrafty, which was the one that Harry most likely could have one-shotted with a type advantage. But he'd taken enough damage that Victor swapped him out for Corviknight, who had a problem with Malamar that led to Victor swapping him out for Drednaw to take on Obstagoon.
Luckily, Drednaw had plenty of experience dealing with the Obstagoon line. Unfortunately, he had never faced Obstruct before.
"You're actually a good Gym Leader," Victor said, impressed.
"I do hear that now and then," Piers agreed. "And my response is always the same – I'm good at battling, not paperwork."
"His sister does it for him," Marnie confirmed, with a sarcastic eye roll that told Gloria who the sister in question was. Not that she'd suspected otherwise – she only mocked Victor and Hop behind their backs because they were her brothers in all but blood.
"What's it like?" she asked, and Marnie huffed.
"Paperwork is paperwork."
"Not that. Having a Gym Leader for a brother."
"I suppose it's a lot like having Victor for a brother."
So Marnie was under a completely different wrong impression about the relationship than Bede had been. "I don't know. Victor's mum has never run over her own son." She put on an exaggerated frown. "Well, I don't think so. We're not siblings, really, though we love each other like we were."
"Huh. I mistook you for twins. Both of you have brown hair and brown eyes, similar skin tones, and the same age…" She shrugged it off. "Having a Gym Leader as a brother is a lot like having Victor as an honorary brother, but I got to witness nearly all of the bad decisions he's made since I was born. When I was first learning to walk, he tried to race me against another baby."
Gloria's howl of laughter got the attention of the battlers, and Piers smiled softly at his sister's clear happiness. He returned his attention to the battle first and took notice of how Victor wore the same expression…and focused on the same girl.
"Looks like I'll have to play the overprotective big brother sooner than I planned," Piers thought and sent out his Skuntank to finish the match. Victor, by now deciding that using his full team was a good idea and having a small advantage in the type department, chose Excadrill.
Sonia was along the shore outside of Spikemuth, trying to see if there were any anomalies to see if she could find a correlation between the events of the Darkest Day and Spikemuth's Power Spot, or lack thereof. She was examining the icy water as it began to shift into large waves just before a burst of strange energy passed over the area. "What the..." she began, but before she could even finish the thought, she heard a groan coming from a short distance away.
Upon approaching it, she discovered that it was a Grapploct glowing with the same aura as the strange energy wave. It held its head in pain as it tried to fight the strange energy, groaning loudly once again. Sonia cautiously drew closer to see if there was any way to help the creature, but it roared, slamming the ground with its tentacles in an attempt to frighten any other creature away from it.
Finally, the energy took full control of the poor creature, and it slowly began to grow.
Sonia jumped back a bit. "B-But there's no Power Spot in Spikemuth," she sputtered. "None!"
The Grapploct didn't seem to get the memo as it began to tower over Sonia and kept growing. The Pokémon, now becoming maddened by its newfound power, glared at the woman who would dare stay close to it and reached out a tentacle towards her. She was about to send Yamper to defend her despite knowing how little effect that would have, when suddenly...
"Charizard, use Air Slash!" a familiar voice called out, and the orange lizard cut down the large foe with a gust of wind. The Grapploct fainted after just one opposing attack, and began to shrink back down to normal size.
Sonia turned her head to see Leon standing there, with his main partner landing behind him. "Are you alright?" he asked, and she looked at him in surprise. The last she'd heard from him, he was going to be held up in Hammerlocke for a few days, but he had managed to miraculously be here when she was in trouble.
Giving it a bit more thought, it seems that he had a bit of a knack for helping people when they needed him in spite of time or space.
"I'm fine," she answered after a moment. "Thank you."
Leon smiled a Cheshire cat grin. "What was I going to do?" he asked. "Not save you? I try to be as much like the dashing knights from the fairy tales as much as possible."
"I'm pretty sure most of those knights were able to find their castles," Sonia said with a smirk.
Leon shrugged. "Makes sense. I was in Macro Cosmos when I went to find the snack table, and now I'm here."
Sonia laughed, which made Leon laugh himself. Once the giggles died down, Sonia turned her gaze back to the shoreline, noticing that the Grapploct recovered enough to make its way back to the water and swim away.
"It's an amazing scientific anomaly," she said as her mind was brought back to research. "If there's no power spot here, then how was that Pokémon Dynamaxing? And how did it do so on its own?"
Leon's face fell as he remembered that his last opponent might have had a bit of help after all. "The short answer," Leon began as he raised his palm to his brow, "Rose is an idiot."
Giving Marnie time to refuse to take her brother's place as Gym Leader, Victor and Gloria went to heal his team before leaving Spikemuth. They were stopped in their tracks by a loud explosion, and rushed off before they were even told about what was going on.
They found a panicking Sonia and a mildly confused Leon, and quickly approached to see what was going on.
"There was a rogue Dynamax incident," Leon said, trying to downplay the encounter with the Grapploct. "Bit of a problem, but it's nothing to worry about."
"A Grapploct on Route 9?" Victor asked, and Leon's confusion increased.
"What do you mean, Route 9?"
There was another loud bang, and more screaming.
"Ah," said Leon. "That."
Strangely, he looked ready to punch something now. Gloria stepped in at once.
"We can help," she offered, and Leon immediately brushed her offer away.
"No, we've got it. Victor needs to focus on the Gym Challenge, and you need to focus on cheering for him and Hop."
"They don't need my cheering," Gloria protested, but Leon dismissed that, too.
"Then you should enjoy yourself at the matches. Have fun. Do…" he turned to Sonia. "What do normal teenage girls do?"
Sonia, who by now had stopped panicking, gave him a pointed look. "Do you really think that I was a normal teenage girl?"
"Good point," said Leon, and the explosion went off again. "Right, we were dealing with that. What is wrong with me today?"
And he started to go, Sonia leading the way. Victor and Gloria made eye contact.
"Are we going to follow them?" Gloria asked, and Victor shrugged.
"I don't see a quicker way to Hammerlocke, unless you want to send a Flying Taxi into the range of a rogue Dynamax."
"Good point," Gloria conceded, and the two of them started off together, following the fluttering of Leon's cape until they lost him in a crowd.
Victor: Dash (Cinderace) Corviknight, Drednaw, Excadrill, Fraxure, Clobbopus
Gloria: Ace (Inteleon) Dishwasher (Obstagoon) Rogue (Thievul) Hattie (Hattrem) Harry (Morgrem) Stabitha (Pawniard)