Note: As you can probably imagine, Smeargle having three tails is something that's explained in the first story, or more specifically, the direct continuation, The Ultimate World Team Tournament.

Six days remained until the tournament would begin and the heroes from the future along with Tokyo's former protectors had their teams. And of course, they were all prepared to face Dialga and Palkia if the situation called for it. They may have had no surefire way to expose them, but as long as the dragons were defeated, that was all that mattered.

Shaymin and Melmetal were hard at work in a highly advanced training facility. Luckily, Shaymin had brought a ton of money with her and had even exchanged it for yen, thus she was able to rent out the entire building.

While she and the cyborg trained, he looked around and said, "You know, at first I thought renting the entire building seemed excessive, but we got a lot of space in here now. Good job, Miss Chairwoman, I mean Shaymin."

The hedgehog giggled and squealed, "Well, I do run Hero Planet's government in the future, so nothing's too much for me!" a proud grin on her face.

Morgrem and Rolycoly, meanwhile, were off in the mountains. Both used various rocks as practice dummies to try their team moves on. And they seemed to be more than ready when Morgrem lifted up a rock and leaned backward before Rolycoly rose up behind it, grabbed onto it and threw his arms down to add to the force of the slam.

Afterwards, Morgrem leapt onto Rolycoly's back and held onto his arms like motorcycle handles. The golem then sped toward a large boulder before propelling himself off the ground. Both spun around like a twister and exclaimed, "GRIZZLY CHOPPER!"

It was at this exact moment they realized exactly why this would not work, Morgrem's eyes wide with terror when they rammed into the rock and fell backward. The goblin pushed herself up, rubbed the back of her head and sighed while looking down. For most of her life, she had used a long lock of hair as a blade, but a long time ago, a wolf named Zacian had sliced it off. And to make matters worse, that part of her hair never grew back.

As such, she was no longer able to use her blade-based techniques. This would make things especially tough as that one lock of hair was the source of almost all of her signature moves.

Rolycoly noticed this and let out a sigh. He then rubbed her shoulders and said, "Hey, don't look so down. You can still kick ass even without that sharp hair of yours."

Morgrem nodded and uttered, "Right, of course," biting her lower lip. As much as she wanted to be confident, she was not so sure of that.

Either way, there was no way she would back down. After all, she was with Rolycoly. Even though they had never won a team match together in their lives, she had a feeling they could win at least one this time. Or at least she wanted to more than anything.

Of course, Scorbunny and Blaziken trained really hard together. When the chicken saw the rabbit's other abilities, she was beyond impressed. And it did not take long for her to come up with all sorts of combo moves. After all, when her partner fought with a similar style, such a thing was easy.

When Gallade saw Drizzile's powers in action, he knew he had made the right choice choosing him to be his partner. And Aipom was certainly happy to fight alongside Rillaboom. Unlike when she teamed up with Machoke, she was not quite as dead-set on victory, but she would still do her absolute best regardless. After all, she did the same thing when Garchomp forced her to be her partner in a three-legged race. And when the monkey saw the gorilla's Rose Bush Boulder, she knew exactly how to work with that.

Although the one with the most focus was Vaporeon who had Zeraora unleash a barrage of punches on a punching bag in a gym that had no other clients today. She watched him deliver an onslaught only to notice that his swings were sloppy. In fact, despite the target not even moving, he wound up missing with almost every attempt due to the fact that his eyes were closed for this.

Vaporeon took a deep breath and said, "Okay, first step to being a fighter. You can't be afraid of your opponents. If you are, it'll throw you off significantly. Now, strike the bag with your eyes open," Zeraora nodding and uttering, "Right, of course."

He once again swung his fists forward, this time keeping his eyes open when he punched the bag. However, he found himself intimidated when it swung back and forth, thus he stopped his assault and held up his forearms defensively. Vaporeon pinched her forehead and grumbled curses under her breath. She had a feeling it would be difficult to train someone like this, but to think he could not even pull off something as simple as a barrage of punches.

As such, she took a deep breath and said, "Alright, you're at least able to swing a punch. I guess that's okay for now. But can you pull off slam moves?"

Zeraora blinked as she pulled out a sandbag and said, "Lift this up and deliver a suplex," the cat tapping his chin before asking, "What's a suplex?"

Vaporeon's eyes and mouth were wide open with shock. How could anyone be this uninformed? Even people who had never watched a fight before knew what a suplex was. It was one of the most well-known wrestling techniques of all time.

Even so, she breathed in and out, thinking, 'No, this is good. This just means that when he inevitably becomes a powerhouse, I can honestly say I taught him everything he knows,' gritting her teeth while her eye twitched, 'Literally everything he knows.'

With that in mind, she walked over to the sandbag and said, "Do what I do," wrapping her arms around the sides before she lifted it up, leaned backward and slammed the top of it into the floor.

Zeraora tensed up and uttered, "I could break my back doing that!" only for Vaporeon to utter, "But you're a cat. Aren't you supposed to be super flexible?"

The cat stared briefly and blinked before he rested his hand behind his head and laughed, "Oh, of course! How silly of me! I've always been able to bend my back far! Thanks for reminding me!"

The fox tried her hardest not to let this get to her while she watched him grab hold of the sandbag. But while he managed to pick it up, he panicked after bending backwards and released his hold. This allowed the bag to fall on top of him as he forced it off of him and panted heavily. He then bit his lower lip and said, "Don't worry. I'll keep trying until I get it. I'm sure I can do it."

As such, he continued to try over and over again while Vaporeon's eye twitched. As such, she attempted to have him perform a variety of other moves, such as kicks, elbows and piledrivers. And yet he could not get any of them down. She even resorted to having him try scratching the punching bag and he could barely even pull that off.

When the fox saw this, she was truly at a loss for words. How could a feline be this incapable of scratching? While Vaporeon had always been nice and friendly up to this point, she had just about lost patience. She could not help but think Zeraora might have been right before.

As a result, she could no longer control herself as she snapped, "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU DOING THIS ON PURPOSE!?" Zeraora staring at her while she grunted, "No wonder you get picked on so much! You're so much of a literal fraidy-cat that you can't even do the most basic things! Screw figuring out how to control your element! I bet if you knew how to use it, you'd probably end up hurting yourself with it!"

Zeraora's eyes were wide with shock while a light tear formed in his eye. Thus Vaporeon clasped her hands over her mouth and gasped, "Oh my god, I am so sorry!" before rubbing her temple, "I'm just a little stressed right now. Keep practising while I clear my, uh, head."

She then raced out of the room while Zeraora watched her. He lowered his head and turned toward the exit, figuring it might be best if he just accept his punishment from the bullies tonight. But just as he was about to leave, he turned toward the punching bag and furled his brow. He then clenched his hands into a fist and raced toward it.

Vaporeon sat in the bathroom and breathed heavily. She looked up at the ceiling light and thought, 'Oh my god, what is wrong with me? I wanted someone I could teach for a change, just like when my parents taught me how to fight. How did they have the patience to deal with me back in the day?'

She then looked back to when she was seven and just starting to learn how to fight. While she was relatively good at delivering karate chops and the like, she was terrible at everything else. Even the simple task of whipping an opponent with her tail eluded her since every time she tried, she would wind up either tripping herself or missing the target completely.

It had taken her a long time, but she was still able to pull it off. And during all of it, her parents never gave up on her or stopped being supportive. Even when she would break things during exercises, they never got mad. They always told her to train at her own pace.

With that in mind, Vaporeon took a deep breath and exited the bathroom, saying, "Zeraora, I'm-" her eyes wide with shock when she saw him deliver an onslaught of scratches to the punching bag. And while he did so, tiny sparks of electricity formed around his claws.

After a while, he panted heavily as the bag was now covered in claw marks. Sure, he had not dealt a whole lot of damage to it, but it was still something. Even so, his form had not been perfect. He had swiped his arms around blindly without any real sense of direction, but it was a vast improvement.

This was all Vaporeon needed to see, thus she smiled and said, "Good job. It could have used a little work, but hey, baby steps."

Zeraora blinked and turned to face her. He then looked back to the punching bag and spat, "OH MY GOD, DID I DO ALL OF THAT!?" his eyes sparkling while he uttered, "Oh my god, did I do all of that?"

"Yes, you did," Vaporeon replied with a smile before taking a seat, "Hey, Zeraora, I'm sorry for my outburst earlier. It's just, well, you're not the only one experiencing something for the first time today. While this is your first time training to fight, this is my first time teaching someone. I guess I just expected better results too quickly."

The cat took it all in and nodded before she uttered, "I promise I don't normally get angry that easily," Zeraora sighing, "Yeah, you didn't really strike me as the angry type before. And to be fair, it is kind of pathetic that I can't even get something as simple as a punch down. But, well, I guess what motivated me to do all of that was just the fact that, well, you actually seem to believe in me. When you lost your temper, I felt like I had let you down, so I figured I had to keep trying until I got something right."

Vaporeon grinned and replied, "Well, again, it needs work, but what I saw was pretty good. I noticed you even managed to unleash your element."

"Wait, I did?" Zeraora uttered with his eyes wide open, the fox nodding and saying, "Yep. While you were scratching that punching bag, sparks flew from your claws."

The cat stared blankly before he uttered, "Wow." He then held his claws up in front of his face and added, "That must make me an electric type," Vaporeon lowering her eyelids and thinking, 'Seriously? He actually didn't know what his element was even with all those lightning bolts on his body?'

Even so, the fox refused to say that out loud at this point. While her outburst may have motivated Zeraora to try harder, she still felt bad about it. As such, she simply smiled sweetly.

She then took a deep breath and said, "We can take a break for now, but now that I know you can use a few good scratches, we can start with some other moves. Believe me, you're gonna need them later tonight." Zeraora stared at her for a few seconds before he remembered what she meant and narrowed his eyelids.

With all said and done, the cat only took a short break before he went back to the same training he had attempted before. Now with his new motivation, he was finally able to pull off various strikes. While it may have been too early to attempt really advanced slam moves, he was at least able to pull off kicks, punches and headbutts.

And after quite a few attempts, he had also managed to pull off a suplex. Sure, it was not exactly hard enough to cause any real damage, but he figured if he worked at it enough, he would eventually be able to show the right amount of force he needed. Of course, Vaporeon could not have been more proud right now.

Later that evening, Zeraora and Vaporeon both headed to the area where they first met. The cat took a deep breath and marched toward the tavern's back alley before he noticed Vaporeon stop in her tracks. As such, he followed suit and turned to face her.

"What's wrong?" he enquired only for the fox to fold her arms and state, "This is as far as I go. I'll watch from a distance, but you have to confront this issue on your own."

While the cat had been confident before, now he was not so sure. He was no longer using moves on a punching bag. These were real opponents. Sure, his plan was just to instill fear in them, but what if that failed? What if they actually attacked him and stuffed him in the dumpster?

Unfortunately, he had no time to think about this when he noticed a set of cold stares within the shadows. Thus he gulped nervously and slowly made his way forward, the tall boy from before standing before him with his hands in his pockets. He gazed upon the cat, smirked and asked, "So, you got the money?"

Zeraora let out another gulp and thought, 'Come on, pull it together. He's a human, a measly, weak human. You're better than him in every way, shape and form.'

With that in mind, he clenched his fists, gritted his teeth and growled, "No, I don't," the boy holding his hand up to his ear and asking, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Did you say no?"

The other teens pounded their fists against their palms while Zeraora snapped, "Yeah, you heard that right! I don't have the money! But even if I did, I wouldn't give it to a bunch of hoodlums like you!"

The tall boy took a deep breath, shrugged his shoulders and remarked, "It's a crying shame. We really didn't wanna do this," all of them advancing forward only for Zeraora to hold up his fists defensively. The teens hesitated briefly only to break out into hysterics seconds later, a girl exclaiming, "Oh man, look at that! The kitten thinks it can intimidate us!"

Their laughter lasted a few seconds longer before the tall boy wiped a tear from his eye and sighed, "Hey, thanks for that. I didn't know you could be so funny. Almost makes me wanna take a hundred yen off of what you owe us."

He made his way over to Zeraora and added, "Almost." But when he reached out to grab Zeraora by the arm, his eyes widened when the cat lifted up his free paw, took hold of the human's hand and lightly jabbed his claws into his wrist.

The tall boy stared silently before Zeraora started to twist his arm and growled, "I'm not taking your shit anymore, Akio! I did nothing wrong, therefor I do not deserve this treatment! Now leave me alone before I tare your arm off!"

The tall boy let down nervous sweat while the other teens trembled. But after a few seconds, he forced a smirk and grunted, "Alright, go ahead, tare my arm off!"

"Um, Akio, maybe you shouldn't provoke him," another boy uttered only for the tall boy to retort, "He's clearly bluffing! This guy is a loser! He may look like the heroes you hear about on the news, but he's just a timid wittle fwaidy-cat!"

Zeraora took a deep breath, latched his other hand to the same wrist and flipped Akio over his shoulder. When the boy's back hit the pavement, his eyes widened before the cat placed his foot on his gut and growled, "Well, do you give up now!?"

"Yes, yes!" Akio cried, "I give! I give! Please let me go!" And when Zeraora saw tears well up in his eyes, he released his hold and removed his foot. Thus the tall boy backed away, rose up to his feet and fled from the area, his friends following suit.

Zeraora stood there with his jaw dropped and his eyes wide open. He took many deep breaths, looked at his paws and uttered, "I don't believe it," a big grin forming on his face, "I did it! I actually did it!"

Vaporeon stepped out from behind a corner and clapped while she approached him. She then patted him on the shoulder and said, "You sure did. And come next week, you'll perform much bigger feats against stronger opponents!"

The cat smiled at the fox and stated, "You know, after that, I actually believe I can." He then held her in a tight embrace, her eyes wide with shock as he added, "Thank you so much, Vaporeon! I never would have attempted anything like that if it weren't for you!"

After a few seconds, a light smile formed on Vaporeon's face before she wrapped her arms around him. There was no doubt in her mind, now. She and the cat would rise to the top for sure. Although she seemed to have forgotten that the plan was to take down Dialga and Palkia, not win the whole tournament.

And sure enough, for the remainder of the week, all of the teams worked diligently to perfect their moves and teamwork. Shaymin found that Melmetal was a surprisingly good match for her despite the massive size difference between them.

The other teams improved greatly as well, though while Zeraora had certainly gotten the hang of fighting, there was one problem. Within that time, he had not figured out how he managed to get sparks to fly from his claws. In fact, he had not used a single electric move since that moment.

By the sixth day, the final spot had been filled by a blue dog with a cream coloured torso and black markings named Lucario. On his chest was a white hole where he used to have a spike before a villain named Absol cut it off.

His partner was a small blue pistol shrimp named Clauncher. As soon as they signed up, the dog breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Well, look at that, we made it just in time."

The shrimp nodded and replied, "Didn't I tell you we had nothing to worry about?" before uttering, "Though still, we did pretty much show up at the last minute. I think some of Machoke's luck has finally rubbed off on you."

Lucario blinked and uttered, "You're right. This is totally the kind of miracle he'd pull off," a smile forming on his face as he added, "I hope I get to face him at some point. He may have beaten me in a sparring match, but so far, we still haven't had a proper rematch since I became Olympic champion."

Soon enough, the next day came. Many assembled at Nissan stadium and made sure to be there by eleven thirty. After all, the main event started at noon and they all wanted to be there nice and early to get the best seats.

Beedrill and Butterfree were both seated behind a podium along with a middle-aged woman named Nori. She beamed bright and squealed, "I'm so excited! It's been too long since I announced one of these!" Beedrill patting her on the shoulder and chuckling, "Not only that, but you get to see Machoke and Gardevoir in action again."

"Um, why would that matter to me?" Nori uttered only for Butterfree to sigh, "Everyone knows you're their biggest fan. Literally everyone."

The woman laughed nervously and sighed. Thus she suddenly removed her top to reveal a T-shirt underneath with a picture of Machoke and Gardevoir kissing. Both bugs stared awkwardly at this before Beedrill remembered he had no right to judge her off of this. After all, he was a pretty big fan of Machoke as well.

Once everyone was seated and noon came along, though, he implied a smile and exclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the third Ultimate World Team Tournament!" the crowd cheering wildly, "The last one was really exciting, but we hope this one is even more exciting!"

"We also hope that no villains have snuck into the competition again," Butterfree sighed, "Seriously, we need a way to figure these things out in advance," Nori chuckling, "Anyway, without further ado, let's meet the teams, shall we!?"

And so, the area erupted with cheers and applause when the heroes entered the field and stood tall and proud. Scorbunny had a big open-mouth smile on her face while she waved to the crowd, Machoke and Gardevoir both doing the same while also blowing kisses. After all, it had been four years since they last received this kind of attention.

Blaziken grinned and waved while she thought, 'Just you wait, Machoke. With my awesome new partner, I'll be world champion this time,' Gallade holding his fists in the air along with Drizzile.

Needless to say, the audience was certainly intrigued by the rabbit and chameleon. After all, they had never seen either of these two before, so they could not help but wonder what they were capable of and why two of Tokyo's heroes would choose them.

Though what shocked the audience even more was not only Aipom actually joining but also having teamed up with another hero none of them had ever heard of. Rillaboom held the monkey up on her shoulder and waved while Aipom did the same with her tail hand.

"Wow, this is so cool!" the monkey squealed, "This is so much better than when I joined Machoke for the Olympic opening ceremony!" Rillaboom blinking and uttering, "Oh yeah, I read about that. Didn't you both dress up as Brazilian dancers?"

Aipom nodded and sighed, "Now that you mention it, I still have the outfit," before smiling at Machoke and thinking, 'Still, as embarrassing as his entrances usually are, they've always helped to relieve stress.'

Of course, there were plenty of others who received all sorts of attention. Lucario was among the most popular heroes in the world, so of course he received a huge round of applause along with Clauncher. Another pair to get that kind of feedback was a green dinosaur-like insect named Scyther and the orange falcon, Talonflame.

Along with that were the dark-blue dragon, Garchomp and the silver dinosaur, Lairon. Next to them stood a red and black knight with white gloves and an axe on his forehead named Bisharp. His partner was the orange gecko with a red Mohawk, Scrafty.

There was also a white and brown beagle with three tails that had pen tips on their ends named Smeargle and his wife, a tall slender flower girl with a white upper body and a green lower body. With a red ornate bouquet around her neck, she was Florges, a famous singer from Paris. There was also a blue kabuto with tape around the middle of his horn named Heracross and a brown rabbit named Lopunny. The grey sylph, Diancie, also stood next to her partner, a red, white and green parrot who resembled a luchador named Hawlucha.

As soon as all of them saw Machoke and his friends, they smiled and nodded their heads at him while he returned the gesture. He hoped to face at least one of those teams since they were all good friends of his.

Dialga and Palkia stood among the crowd while the blue dragon grinned and said, "This is too perfect. All these heroes have gathered and by the time this is over, a total of eight will fall to us. That's good enough for me."

And of course, this was only a small sample. Although Shaymin, Melmetal, Morgrem and Rolycoly did not get much attention. After all, not only did no one in this time line have a reason to know them, they were not teamed up with anyone famous. But while the hedgehog seemed annoyed by this despite how much sense it made, Rolycoly simply smiled and said, "They may not be cheering for us yet, but they will be."

Morgrem nodded with a light grin and uttered, "Yeah, of course," the golem once again concerned. He was not used to the goblin being this unsure of herself. It was usually her giving him confidence.

But of course, Zeraora looked at the huge crowd along with all the other heroes and tensed up. He then trembled and uttered, "You know, Vaporeon, I'm starting to have second thoughts," only for the fox to pat him on the shoulder and sigh, "It'll be okay."

"Are you sure about that?" the cat enquired, "I still haven't mastered one electric move," Vaporeon replying, "Yeah, but you've gotten everything else down pretty well. You see my friend over there, Rillaboom?" pointing at the gorilla in question.

Zeraora blinked as he said, "Oh yeah, I haven't met your friends yet," Vaporeon explaining, "She actually didn't know how to use any grass type moves for a while. In fact, she didn't even have any signature moves. And yet before she finally mastered a few, she won the most matches out of all of my allies back home."

The cat's eyes sparkled as he uttered, "No way," a big open-mouth smile forming while he held up his fists with excitement, "That means I could be like her someday! That's incredible!"

Vaporeon nodded and said, "Right now, we'll just focus on making it through the first event."

Although she was curious as to what it was. After all, tournament rules dictated that there always had to be a total of sixteen teams in the fighting portion itself. Before that, there was always to be at least one elimination round. In the previous team tournament, it was a mountain climbing race. One could only guess what Beedrill had in mind this time.