And I am back once more. Last chapter… well, it happened. It was pretty interesting. Kadabra seemed a little less restrictive on the rules, though he didn't look very happy. He was quiet and brooding. And Ivysaur has completed his mission. He got Crystal. When writing I hadn't expected to go that direction, but I'm glad I did. It allows me to tackle Crystal's plotline sooner than I had hoped. Which is pretty sweet! But let's move on to the next bit of the story. I do not own Pokemon.

When Damien woke up, he saw the usual arrangement. Poochyena was sitting on his chest, Ivysaur was out of his Pokeball, Crystal was sitting next to him in a chair - hold on a minute, something's not right here. Damien bolted up, scaring Poochyena off him.

"Crystal?" Damien asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Ivysaur got me." Crystal explained. "Trust me, I wasn't planning on getting woken up in the middle of the night with an Ivysaur trying to drag me off to see you. There was some resistance on Kadabra's end, but he eventually relented. After some… events, I'll say."

"The contest yesterday." Crystal said. "I didn't watch, but Liara told me you made it to the finals before being beaten."

Damien sighed. "Yeah. Way to screw it up at the last minute. The points say I brought her down to half, but she trounced me. I had no chance."

"Hey, don't feel bad about it." Crystal said. "You made it to the finals! That's better than Mike! He got beat after the first battle round. And he's in a higher class than you!"

"I also may or may not have promised Karek to go on a journey with him after the school year is done." Damien muttered.

"Damien, that's not a bad thing." Crystal said. "People drop out and go on journey's a lot."

"But I've already gone on a journey." Damien said. "I'm not eager to have another so soon."

"Damien, that was three years ago." Crystal said. "That's not exactly yesterday."

"It feels pretty recent to me." Damien told her. "And besides, why would I go on a journey again? I failed at the last minute there too. I'm just not good enough for all of it."

"Damien, failure isn't a bad thing." Crystal said. "How many times did you try to beat Drayden?"

"About 30 or so." Damien replied.

"You never gave up then, why give up now?" Crystal asked. "You have, and determination. Even I can tell that. Your Pokemon loved competing in contests. Not because they liked performing, which I'm sure they did, but because you were so driven to do it. They were excited because you were excited. So you shouldn't give up. Because you can do it. I'm certain that the next contest you enter, you'll win the ribbon."

Damien sat there for a moment, thinking. He knew exactly why Ivysaur brought Crystal here. And damn it, it was working. He felt himself getting more hopeful for the next contest, more driven to succeed. He supposed that he couldn't sit in his room and wallow in self-pity all day, could he? Not when his pokemon wanted to compete. Not when Crystal supported him. And Karek, and Liara, and presumably everyone else. And he had even promised Liara he'd get two Diamond Ribbons, just to prove it was possible. With all these thoughts, his determination grew. He took a deep breath, then said, "You're right. I can't stay in here all the time." He got up from his bed. "Let's go."

"Oh, I actually need to go home now." Crystal said. "I might have left without notifying my grandparents."

"Wha- Crystal!" Damien said.

"It'll be fine. They're normally asleep at this time anyway." Crystal said.

"You and your Froakie are more alike than you think." Damien sighed. "How will you get there?"

"I think Kadabra will take me, as usual." Crystal said, letting the Psychic-type out of his Pokeball.

"Wait, shouldn't he have notified your grandparents?" Damien asked.

"I think he and I are starting to understand each other." Crystal said. "He's actually letting me finish my conversation with you instead of taking me out in the middle of it."\

"Yeah, that was terrifying." Damien said. "We'd thought you'd been kidnapped."

"Anyway, see you later." Crystal said. She teleported away. Damien looked at Ivysaur, who had woken up at this point. He doubted the Grass-type starter had been asleep in the first place.

"You manipulative boy." Damien told him. "You knew exactly what you were doing, didn't you?" Ivysaur just looked at him, his face betraying nothing.

"Well, I suppose we should start practicing, shouldn't we?" Damien said. "Gotta be more prepared for the next contest, whenever it is." Damien walked out of his room to go eat breakfast.

Damien stood outside, having changed out of his day-old clothes and put them in the washer. "Alright, last time we got through the appeals round because Eevee was super smart and took my commands to make a good performance. This time I will not let that happen. Ivysaur, I'm taking you for the appeals round. After you I'll use Mareep. Then Bagon. Then Aron. Luxio, Nidorino, I'll use you in the contest after."

"Lux." Luxio said.

"Anyway Ivysaur, we should get started." Damien said. "Hmm. I'm thinking that we use your powders, but I really think Poison Powder is the way to go. How do we amplify it?" Ivysaur poofed a small amount of Poison Powder over him and then used Seed Bomb on it, just one seed. The interaction caused a bright light as well as some purple powder to rain down. Damien grinned. "Yeah, I like that! And then we can use Take Down through that, show off your flower! Although I wish we could have you do something ranged that wasn't Seed Bomb to collect it. I know your line can have Razor Leaf, but I don't know where you can learn that. It's not a TM, as far as I know, but it would be nice to have. Because you could then use it to catch the falling powder after Seed Bomb, have it go through the light, and that would be an awesome way to get that flower on center stage. We just need to teach you Razor Leaf somehow. Speaking of which, why did I have you learn Sleep Powder? We've never really used it." Ivysaur had no answers. "Hmm. Have you seen it used?" Damien got out his Pokedex. "I never scanned Mightyena, did I?"

"Mightyena, the Bite Pokemon, and the evolved form of Poochyena. Mightyena travel and act as a pack in the wild. The memory of its life in the wild compels this Pokemon to obey only those trainers it recognizes to possess superior skill." Mightyena barked at the Pokedex.

"Alright, now that that entry has been filled in, it's time to look at Razor Leaf. Surely we've encountered an opponent who used it before." Damien muttered. He scrolled through his battle history, searching with the keyword "Razor Leaf" so that he'd find a Pokemon with it. Almost immediately, he did. A Roserade. Now that he thought about it, Rose's Roserade had used it. It had gotten a lot of critical hits. But Rose was all the way in Striaton City. And she was the Gym Leader. There was no way he could just pop over and ask for a demonstration. Not to mention, that had been three years ago. It was incredibly unlikely that it still had that move. He clicked on the move anyway. He'd never actually used this function of the Pokedex, but the Pokedexes in Unova allowed you to see descriptions of the moves you recorded in it. Damien had simply never used that feature.

On the page, Damien saw a description of the move. Sharp-edged leaves are launched to slash at the opposing team. Critical hits land more easily. Also on the page was the move's type, that being Grass, and a button labeled "Who can learn", likely being a list of Pokemon who could learn the move. But it's what was last on the page that Damien was interested in. A blank square that said "Insert TM". Damien knew that there was a slot at the bottom of the Pokedex where you could insert a TM, and a video would play, where your Pokemon would then learn the move. It explained how to gather power for the move, how to release it, where to aim, and other things. Along with the occasional chart or diagram, it was very informative. But he hadn't expected a TM for Razor Leaf. Then again, there were TMs for many moves, so he really shouldn't have been surprised. Problem was, he didn't have many TMs, and he knew he didn't have the one for Razor Leaf. And Anville Town didn't have a TM store.

"So, uh, any chance you can just learn the move?" Damien asked Ivysaur. The Seed Pokemon just looked at him. "I figured not. But I mean, how hard can it be?"

It was now noon and Damien and Ivysaur had no luck. His other Pokemon had started wandering about, going through their day without much worry, but Damien and Ivysaur were attempting to learn Razor Leaf. Which was hard when they had no reference for it besides a text entry and vague recollections of the move's use. Eventually the two retired inside and were now sitting at the dining room table, eating sandwiches they'd made.

"Come on, how is learning a move about using sharp leaves so difficult?" Damien complained.

"Saur Ivysaur." Ivysaur said.

"I know, right?" Damien said. "There should be some kind of move tutor or something." Ivysaur nodded. It would make things so much easier.

"But alas, no dice." Damien said.

"Damien!" A voice called. Damien spun around and saw Karek and Blaziken. They'd probably just barged in. They did that sometimes. "You and I are going to go train! I can't have you being a sad boy forever!"

"Crystal already beat you to the punch." Damien said. "I'm training right now."

"Sorry, I'm not taking no for an- wait what?" Karek asked. He looked around. "But, wait, where's… Huh?"

"Crystal's not here. She went back to her house already." Damien said. "But she did stop by this morning to cheer me up."

"Come on, really?" Karek said. "I had this big thing prepared and everything! I spent the whole morning planning it!"

"We can still do it." Damien said. "I was having trouble anyway." He stood up. "So, let's go."

"So you're really not upset anymore?" Karek asked.

"Eh, what's the point in being sad?" Damien said. "Ivysaur was proactive and got Crystal, and the two of them made me feel better. Besides, I have to get good at contests, don't I?"

"Oh. Well that's great!" Karek said. "Come on, let's move!"

"Also Liara is sleeping so be quiet please." Damien said.

"Oh." Karek whispered. "Right. Let's sneak out! Like ninjas!" He and Blaziken went out. Damien returned his pokemon to their pokeballs and followed him.

"You're so energetic today, what's up?" Damien asked.

"Well, I may or may not have had three coffees this morning." Karek said. "And then two energy drinks. And another four coffees. But I'm fine, let's get moving!"

"Karek, that is extremely dangerous! You already have so much energy, you don't need more!"

"Well, I may or may not have gotten up at like midnight to start the planning, You know I'm bad at planning." Karek explained. Honestly, Damien shouldn't have been surprised. Karek had done this before. "Now, time for the first thing. We're heading to the practice field!"

So, stuff has started happening. Karek is very hyper, Damien's feeling better, and Razor Leaf is an astonishingly hard move to teach. But it's been a while since our last team showcase, so let's do Marcus's team! Just letting you know, all his pokemon are in the level of 70 or higher. He is very powerful.

Character: Marcus

Team: Infernape, Electivire, Dragonite, Milotic, Krookodile, Tyranitar, Roserade, Beartic

Infernape:

Level: 80

Ability: Iron Fist

Nature: Hardy (Neutral)

Moves: Thunder Punch, Shadow Claw, Flamethrower, Close Combat

Electivire:

Level: 77

Ability: Motor Drive

Nature: Naughty (Up Atk, Down SpDef)

Moves: Fire Punch, Thunder, Giga Impact, Low Kick

Dragonite:

Level: 78

Ability: Inner Focus
Nature: Brave (Up Atk, Down Speed)

Moves: Outrage, Thunder Punch, Flamethrower, Hyper Beam

Milotic:

Level: 70

Ability: Marvel Scale

Nature: Calm (Up SpDef, Down Atk)

Moves: Ice Beam, Light Screen, Scald, Recover

Krookodile:

Level:73

Ability: Intimidate

Nature: Lonely (Up Atk, Down Def)

Moves: Dig, Dragon Claw, Crunch, Fire Fang

Tyranitar:

Level: 75

Ability: Sand Stream

Nature: Adamant (Up Atk, Down SpAtk)

Moves: Crunch, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Strength

Roserade:

Level: 76

Ability: Poison Point

Nature: Modest (Up SpAtk, Down Atk)

Moves: Giga Drain, Shadow Ball, Toxic, Sludge Bomb

Beartic:

Level: 72

Ability: Snow Cloak

Nature: Hardy (Neutral)

Moves: Brine, Ice Punch, Slash, Swords Dance