Welcome back. Been a while but hopefully this story could make up for the time I was gone for! Also, performance time part 2 will be the next chapter after this one for sure this time.

Test of Courage

Kalos Region, Vaniville Town

8 AM

It was another morning day in the Kalos Region. No evil was stirring and the world was all at peace. X woke up and stretched his arms and legs. He looked around his room and fell back onto his bed. Waking up like this was perfect for him as there was nothing in his presence that was bothering him. X took a deep breath as he closed his eyes to fall back asleep. Just then, he heard someone with a familiar voice yelling as they pounded on the window.

"X, get up! We gotta go now!"

X groaned as he heard Y's voice echo throughout his entire house. He turned to one side of his bed and covered himself with the sheets. But that didn't stop Y from barging into his room.

"X, c'mon now. We're late!" Y slammed his door open and threw off the covers on his bed. X curled up into a ball to keep warmth and sighed.

"What do I have to get ready for this time?" X replied groggily.

Y started to dig inside X's closet and pull out his day clothes. "We have to meet up with the rest of the dex holders today."

"Yeah but for what?" X sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes. A shirt flew over and fell on his face.

"Don't you remember? We promised the others that we would go on a picnic today," she replied as she threw another piece of clothing at X. The Kalos dex holder fell back into his bed and dozed off with his shirt covering his head. Y finished taking out all of X's clothes and dumped them on his bed.

"We're gonna get yelled at if we don't hurry, so get up already!." Y ran downstairs to pack all of their belongings. X sat back up and took off his shirt.

"What a great way to start a new day," X sighed as he began to strip his clothes.

10 minutes later

X was standing outside at the front of his house as Y brought a big basket full of berries with her.

"What's that for?" he asked.

Y sighed. "Each dex holder needs to bring something to the picnic. Thankfully I'm covering for you so you don't have to bring anything."

X shook his head, "Where are we meeting up anyways?"

"We all agreed to meet in the Sinnoh Region since most of the dex holders haven't been there yet. Dia, Pearl, and Platinum agreed to be our tour guides there."

"Why is it that I don't remember discussing any of this with the others?" X asked again.

"Ok X, I think that's enough complaints for a day. We should hurry, or we're gonna be late for our ship at Coumarine City."

Y took out her Absol and started to ride away.

"Hey wait up!" X called out as he took out his Manectric and got on to catch up to Y. 'Its really gonna be a long day' he thought to himself as the Kalos dex holders made their way to Coumarine City.

3 hours later

Sinnoh Region, Canalave City

11 AM

X and Y stepped off the boat and made their way down to the streets of Canalave City. As soon as they made their way to the Canalave Library, they saw Diamond waving and ran up to him.

"Hey X and Y! How are you guys doing?"

Y cheerfully replied, "We've been doing great. Right X?" she turned to X.

"Ehh, more or less," X sighed with a solemn expression. Y hit him in the head afterwards. "Ow! What was that for?" X angrily shouted as he started to rub his head.

Y crossed her arms. "We gotta show respect to our seniors X."

Diamond chuckled. "No need to fight you guys. We all came to have a fun time remember? Anyways, I think everyone else is here already waiting for you guys so let's get going," Diamond said cheerfully.

Y kept her smile up as Diamond turned around, then frowned a she looked at X. "Can you for once act like you're not depressed? Like could it really kill you to just enjoy the company of others?"

X just looked away not responding to her at all. He wished that time would go quicker so he could go back home and have some alone time for himself. Y walked away following Diamond. X simply stared off into the waters of Canalave City, then trailed Y slowly, making sure there was a couple feet in between them to reduce their interaction with each other.

1 hour later

12 PM

Eterna Forest

"Hey everyone, X and Y are here!" Diamond yelled out to the rest of the dex holders who were currently all huddled around a picnic table. Green, Red, Gold and Silver were cooking off a barbeque grill. Blue, Crystal and Yellow were setting up the table to eat. The rest of the dex holders were either sitting down on the picnic blanket that was spread out and talking to each other, or running around and playing. When Diamond yelled out, Red and Green turned his direction. They put down their cooking utensils and walked over to Diamond, X and Y.

"Hey there, how's it hanging?" Red gave a big smile as he approached his junior dex holders.

"We've been doing great senior!" Y replied with a bigger smile. She quickly nudged X to get him to respond. This time X actually forced himself to look happy.

"Yeah, its been good," was all he could manage to say while forcing out a fake grin. 'Just a few more hours of this and we're done' he thought to himself. X then looked at Green who had a straight face.

"Well you guys arrived just in time. We're about to start eating so come on to the picnic table," Green remarked as he slowly started to walk back to the grill. Then he stopped for one second and looked around. "Red I think we should hurry back now," Green quickly said as he started to run back.

"Wait why?"

"I smell something burning. Probably wasn't a good idea to leave the grill to Gold and Silver, don't you think?"

"Yikes." Just then Gold started to shout at Silver.

"DAMN IT SILVER, I SAID WATCH THE HOT DOGS SO THEY DON'T BURN!"

Red and Green both took off to clean up the "mess" that Gold and Silver created. X and Y looked at each other and gave a slight look of worry. Diamond clenched his fists together and sighed hard as if he were angry. Y noticed this and decided to ask him quietly.

"Umm, Diamond are you okay?"

Diamond turned around and tried his best to calm down a bit. "Yeah, I'm okay. Its just that..."

"Its just what?" Y asked again.

"Its just that...I should've stayed here to make sure they didn't mess up the food instead of waiting for you guys at Canalave. My apologies if it doesn't turn out great."

Y shook both her hands as she started to talk fast. "No no its okay Diamond. This is why we all brought some food right? Here I brought berries for everyone." She then handed Diamond the basket of berries. X just shook his head.

'Yeah just a few more hours alright.'

2 hours later

The dex holders were all finished eating and sitting around in a circle playing games on the picnic blanket. Blue then stood up and announced their next activity.

"Alright guys time to spice things up a bit. This time we're gonna be doing a little test of courage." Most of the male dex holders groaned after hearing this. Green simply just raised his hand.

"But its the middle of the day, how do you expect us to be scared during this hour?"

Blue smirked at his question. "Don't worry Green, I have a plan for that. Everybody follow me." The rest of the dex holders stoof up while Green just rolled his eyes.

"Yet another one of your stupid plans." Blue ignored this statement as she proceeded to lead the rest of the dex holders to their next location.

10 minutes later.

Diamond and Pearl looked at each other and groaned. "Aww man, I knew we were coming here," Pearl sighed as he shook his head. In front of them was the Old Chateau, peaceful as can be.

"Right you are Pearl," Blue replied. "Now this time were gonna be splitting off into groups of two and doing a test of courage inside this here Old Chateau. Now I put a list of everyone's names in this basket and you guys are going to randomly choose your partners. Whichever pair finishes the test in the longest amount of time gets a punishment."

"Easier said than done," Gold remarked. "Can I choose first?"

Blue smiled, "Sure why not."

Gold dove his hand into the basket and reached around to find a name. After grabbing one he pulled it to his face and read the name on the slip of paper out loud. "Ruby...aw damn it. Prissy boy's gonna freak out over everything and we're gonna come out last."

"Oh no. Anyone but Gold, please!" Ruby started to panic. "He's gonna keep scaring me the entire time."

Gold went over to Ruby and dragged him over to the doors of the Old Chateau while Ruby tried to break away from his grip.

Blue waved at the duo as they entered through the doors. "Have fun in there!" she said with a big smile.

"You sadistic woman." Green glared at Blue with sharp eyes.

Blue ignored him and turned back at the rest of the dex holders. "Now, who wants to choose next?

10 minutes later

"C'mon X. Its our turn." Black stood up and motioned towards the doors.

X stood up and followed him with a gloomy expression. 'Let's hope this is the last thing they planned for today.' X tried to get rid of all his thoughts as he entered the Old Chateau with Black. Words of encouragement could be heard left and right from the other dex holders as the door to the Old Chateau closed on the duo. Black took a deep breath.

"You ready?" Black inquired.

"Nope." X replied without even thinking.

Black looked at the notecard that Blue gave them. "Ok it says here we need to go to the furthest room in the left hallway and write our names in the journal on the desk. Seems simple." Black started to fidget as they walked over to the left hallway.

X took a quick glance at him. "You're not really good with this stuff are you?"

"Yeah not so much." Black gave a nervous smile and rubbed his head. "So don't mind me if I all of a sudden grab onto you and-"

Suddenly a Gastly pokedoll fell down from the ceiling right onto Black's head. Black shrieked as the doll hit him and jumped over to X wrapping his arms around X's body. X was not startled at all. Instead, he gave a demonic stare over to Black who was currently giving X a bear hug.

"Get off me," X sighed as he slipped through Black's arms and continued to walk to the left hallway.

"Don't leave me here!" Black whimpered as he started to run after X. As soon as he caught up, he slowed down to match with X's pace.

"You okay?" Black asked him.

"I'm fine," he quickly replied. "Just woke up to a bad day."

Black sighed. "I think there are other who had it worse," he said as he thought about the time where he went back in time to change the events of his bad day.

"Yeah like who?" X replied with anger in his tone.

"Never mind," Black said quickly as he tried to change the topic. He then quickly asked X, "You got any ghost type pokemon? I think maybe they can help us out here, you know."

X sighed, "You really don't want me to take him out. He probably won't even help us out right now."

"C'mon, any pokemon is better than no pokemon."

X crossed his arms. "Don't say I didn't warn you." X then took out his Gengar's pokeball and threw it to release his ghost type pokemon. As soon as Gengar popped out, it jumped over to Black and gave a funny face trying to scare the Unova dex holder.

"WAHHHHH." Black jumped in surprise. "Oh wait, its just a Gengar. But why exactly won't it help us?" Black questioned X.

"Its not that he won't, its just he only wants to impress others. So do me a favor please."

Black looked puzzled, "Do what now?"

But X ignored him as he walked over to his Gengar and whispered something to him. Then, Gengar jumped up and started to sink into the shadows in the walls.

Black watched in amazement. "What's it doing?"

"I told it that if it could help us locate all the traps set up in this place then you'll probably be impressed. So just look surprised the whole time, got it?"

Black simply nodded as him and X followed Gengar to get to the room they needed to be. After a couple minutes of avoiding traps and keeping guard for other ghost pokemon, the duo finally made it to the furthest room in the left hallway. As they entered, a small table lamp was turned on and shining on a piece of paper on a desk. Black ran in and grabbed the paper to see what it said. As X closed the door, Black threw his fist in the air.

"All right now lets right our names on this baby for proof," Black said as he pulled out a pencil.

X then stopped him. "Wait, read the mission card again. Didn't it say that we need to write our names in a journal not a piece of paper?"

Black pulled out the notecard from his back pocket. "Oh you're right," he exclaimed as he read the notecard. "Then I guess we gotta find the journal."

X sighed as he started to dig around the room. His Gengar also started to help him as it went under the bed and desk to look for the journal.

"Hey X?" Black's voice could be heard from the other side of the room.

"What?" X looked up from the bookshelf he was looking near.

"You know I'm really glad that we got to be partners for this activity."

X narrowed his eyes. "Dude what're you trying to say?"

"Nothing nothing," Black replied nervously. "It's just if I had anyone else as a partner, it probably wouldn't go smoothly as this. So thanks for putting up with me."

X looked away. "Don't mention it. We're still not done yet so thank me later."

"Yeah alright." Black and X both went back to searching for the journal. "But seriously, I thought you would be a lot more harsh today for some reason," Black said as he continued to look for the journal.

"Who said I was harsh?"

"Y did. At least she never really sees you in a bright mood."

X stopped looking for a second and stared at Black. "Can we stop talking about me and start looking for the book?" he said in a harsh tone.

"See there was the cruel attitude I was looking for."

X stood up and was about to kick Black when his Gengar popped out from under the bed and had a journal in its hands. X went to his Gengar as it gave the journal to X.

"Good job," he said as he pat his Gengar on the head. "Alright Black, hurry up so we can get out of here."

Black and X both wrote their names in the journal and closed it. They then stepped out of the room and followed Gengar, avoiding traps and making their way back to the entrance. Before long, he duo finally made it to the door. But before Black opened the door, X grabbed onto his arm.

"Hey Black, I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Black looked puzzled. "For what?"

"I've just been in a bad mood this whole day and Y even told me to change my behavior so I don't ruin the mood with the other dex holders. But I didn't think ti would really affect them, so sorry for just acting rough to you."

Black put his hand on X's shoulder. "Hey its okay. Don't think of us as bad people. We'll always be there if you're having a rough time," Black said as he pat X on the back.

X smiled. "Thanks. Please don't tell anyone about this."

"Don't worry, I won't." Then Black opened the door and stepped out. "You hear that Y?" Black yelled across the field to the other dex holders.

"Loud and clear!" Y yelled back at him.

X look confused. He had no idea what was going on. Black then put his hands together and started to apologize to X.

"Sorry dude but I kinda made a deal with Y and had to make you say all that stuff."

"What?" X spoke in frustration.

Y walked up to the duo. "I had Blue bug Black so that I could hear your conversations and I'm glad that I did because now I know that you can change your personality. And by the way, everyone was listening to your conversation. So like, Black are you gay or something?"

Black turned red. "What? No! What makes you think that."

Y chuckled as she shook her head. "You know that conversation you guys had really made it seem like it was romantic comedy."

X glared at Black and took off toward the picnic blanket before him. Black quickly followed X and tried his best to clear up the misunderstanding. When they got to the blanket, the other dex holders stared at them as they started to sit down. Then Gold took out his pokegear and pressed play on the recording he made.

'You know I'm really glad that we got to be partners for this activity.'

Black started to turn bright red as the other dex holders laughed their asses off. X watched as Black tried to clear up the misunderstanding and looked away so that no one could see him smile.

'Y was right' he thought. He then turned back to the group and put on an emotionless face and joined Black to clear up the misunderstanding they had in the Old Chateau.

This chapter seemed a lot longer than I expected it to be but I hope you guys enjoyed it. Now the next chapter I will attempt to finish off part 2 of Performance Time (hopefully) so stay tuned.