The elimination round of the Ultimate World Team Tournament had come to a close and all of the heroes from the future along with their partners had come out on top. Needless to say, they could not have been happier. And while they could not forget why they had all come to the past in the first place, right now they felt like celebrating.

All of them were assembled at the Tokyo Day Club since they still had two hours before the evening came around. Zeraora was beyond nervous as he sat on a sofa with all these other heroes near him. Sure, he felt fine around Vaporeon's friends, but to think he was hanging out with Machoke and his friends as well.

The reptilian man held up a glass and exclaimed, "Here's to all of us qualifying!" the group clinking their glasses together before Gallade gulped down a bit of his drink, exclaiming, "I haven't felt this happy since my wedding day!"

Gardevoir nodded and squealed, "I wish I could have seen it!" the green man sighing, "Yeah, it was a thing of beauty. Still, though, I probably wouldn't have won as easily if not for my amazing partner."

Despite Gallade having said this multiple times already, this still made Drizzile blush while he bit his lower lip out of embarrassment. But even so, he still could not believe that he had gotten such an opportunity. As such, he took a deep breath, nodded and said, "Yeah. I'll make sure we both make it to the top."

Blaziken grinned and chuckled, "Still, Gallade, I imagine you must have helped out a lot," Drizzile nodding and replying, "Of course he did," Machoke saying nothing while Gardevoir gave her brother a big hug from the side.

Scorbunny took a sip of some carrot juice only for Blaziken to pat her atop the head, stating, "Still, can your super awesome partner compare to mine? Seriously, it's like fate brought us together," the rabbit placing her hands against her cheeks and swaying her body left and right.

Aipom took a sip of fruit punch and said, "You know, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that Rillaboom actually helped me more than I helped her," the others staring at the gorilla who simply chuckled, "No way. You helped me out plenty."

"You should have seen Morgrem out there," Rolycoly added while he rested a hand on the goblin's shoulder, "She was incredible."

Morgrem grinned with pride and replied, "Well, I wouldn't say incredible, but yeah, I've realized I don't need my old hair blade to be awesome." Machoke and the others stared at her before the goblin explained, "Oh yeah, I used to have really long hair that I could use as a blade. Some villain cut it off three years ago."

"Wow, it's just like what happened to Lucario's spike," Machoke uttered before Vaporeon uttered, "Oh yeah, I read about that. It's because of that he can't use his London Bridge technique anymore, right?"

Machoke shrugged and replied, "Even if he could, he prefers not to anymore ever since I defeated it in the Olympic finals," Gardevoir nodding and adding, "Besides, he's happier without it. He says it makes hugging his family easier. That's so cute."

Zeraora simply gulped down his own drink before Vaporeon asked, "Hey, you okay? You haven't said anything since we arrived," the cat uttering, "Oh, uh, right."

"Speaking of which, we haven't really had a chance to talk, have we?" Scorbunny enquired, "So, um, Zeraora, Vaporeon tells us you live by yourself. Is that right?"

The cat blinked and replied, "Yeah. My parents work in a different city and send me money so I can afford to pay for food and other such things," not sure what else to say. Deep down, he felt like that was the only interesting thing about himself.

Vaporeon chuckled nervously and whispered, "He's never had friends before, so he's pretty shy." Thus the others nodded in understanding before Gardevoir smiled and took Zeraora's hand.

The cat blinked as she squeaked, "Hey, how about we try out the karaoke machine?" Zeraora tensing up and whimpering, "But I'm not really a good singer."

"It's okay," Machoke replied with a grin, "It's just a fun activity," the white woman leading him toward the machine and flipping through the songs. She thought hard about a good one, and while Zeraora felt like it would not matter, he noticed one particular title on the list that caught his eye. Thus he pressed the button to select it without even thinking.

Gardevoir beamed and squealed, "Good choice!" only for the cat to tense up. But just as he was about to back out, Vaporeon simply smiled at him with confidence, thus he took a deep breath and thought, 'I beat up a hero today. I can handle this.'

The song began as he and Gardevoir sang together. While Gardevoir had the best singing voice of everyone in the group, Zeraora seemed to come pretty close to her level. As such, the others watched with big smiles on their faces. And by the time the song was over, the cat's cheeks turned bright pink when everyone gave him a round of applause.

He turned toward the group and uttered, "You're all just being nice," only for Morgrem to shake her head and remark, "Oh no. You're way better than me," Rolycoly chuckling, "Me too."

Blaziken nodded with a grin and added, "Seriously, you got some fine chops," the others expressing their own agreement. Zeraora took many deep breaths and smiled lightly while even the many human customers gave him their own words of encouragement.

It was at this exact moment that Zeraora truly realized just how grateful he was to have met Vaporeon. If she had never entered his life, something like this would not have happened. As such, he smiled at her and made a solemn vow in his mind that he would do all he could to win the tournament and not let her down.

After another couple of hours, the group was ready to head off. Machoke and Gardevoir were headed home as they waved goodbye to Aipom. The monkey grinned and squealed, "We should meet up again later! I forgot how fun this place was!"

"Seriously," Rillaboom replied, "It's so simple yet it's so inviting. I think I might have said that already," Zeraora nodding and saying, "You can say that again."

Vaporeon gave each of her friends a hug and said, "See you all later," before Drizzile replied, "Yeah. You sure you don't want us to help you and Zeraora train for the next round?"

The fox nodded and replied, "Trust me. I'm fine. I got my partner here." But while she seemed confident, Zeraora was not so sure. A part of him wanted to ask the others for help, but he also had to remind himself that they were technically his competition as well. If anything, it would feel weird to train with them only to face them in a later round.

With that in mind, he nodded his head and walked away from the area with Vaporeon by his side. He was certain of it. After tonight, there was no way he could feel nervous around big groups of people again. After all, he was a fighter now. He could handle this.

When Scorbunny and Blaziken arrived at the hotel they were staying at, the rabbit's eyes widened when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She turned to notice a certain grey rabbit behind her. As such, she smiled lightly and uttered, "Oh, hi, Raboot. Are you also staying at this hotel?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," he replied with his hands by his side, "Ninetales is thinking of heading back to Korea tomorrow, but I think I might just stick around," as Scorbunny smiled and said, "Well, that sounds nice. You gonna cheer us on?"

"Hell yeah I am," Raboot stated with a big smile. He then turned toward Blaziken and enquired, "Hey, um, could you maybe leave us alone for a while? I have something I need to discuss privately with your partner here."

The chicken blinked and nodded in understanding. While this felt a tad suspicious at first, she could tell that the male rabbit could be trusted, and thus she headed inside and told Scorbunny she would be in their room. The female rabbit nodded and turned back to Raboot.

"So, what is it you'd like to talk about?" she enquired, Raboot gazing deep into her eyes, resting his hands on her shoulders and saying, "I know you're hiding something, and I know what that something is."

"Uh, what?" Scorbunny uttered before he chuckled and quipped, "Don't play dumb with me. I could feel it from the moment I laid eyes on you. Yep, there is absolutely no denying it."

The female rabbit could tell just from the wording and the look in his eyes that he really had figured it out. By all accounts, this made no sense, but it was plain as day. As such, she braced herself only for the male rabbit to nod and state, "Yep, you're a distant relative of mine, aren't you?"

Scorbunny slowly opened her eyes and stared blankly at the male rabbit who had his hands up against his hips and a proud smile on his face. While he was not entirely off the mark, this was still a relief. As such, she took a deep breath and chuckled, "Yeah, you got me. I guess I couldn't pull the wool over your eyes."

"Damn straight," Raboot laughed, "Though if you don't mind me asking, why didn't you say anything before we fought?" Scorbunny uttering, "Well, I was afraid if I did, you might go easy on me since, you know, we're family and all that."

Raboot stared at Scorbunny briefly before a big smile formed on his face. Thus he slapped his knee and laughed, "What are the odds!? That's exactly why I didn't say anything! God, you are so cool!"

The female rabbit blushed lightly and chuckled, "Well, thank you," before enquiring, "Would you like to come into our room for a while?" the male rabbit shrugging and replying, "Eh, why not?"

And so, both rabbits entered the hotel together, Scorbunny having so much trouble believing this. She was about to spend quality time with her great grandfather. To think she would actually have a chance to do this in her life time.

After Machoke and Gardevoir returned home, the reptilian took a deep breath and said, "Hey, I was thinking maybe after a bit of training, we could go and check up on Hawlucha and Diancie in the hospital," the white woman replying, "Of course. I feel a little bad that we didn't do that today. If only we'd been allowed to see their fight, then we could have cheered them on."

"Yeah," Machoke sighed, "Those two advisers must be tough. I'm sure they didn't mean to be that rough, but still, it's kinda scary to think we might have to face them at some point."

After a few seconds, he chuckled, "You know, honey, this really takes me back. As painful as it was to see our friends wind up in this kind of condition, this is what it was always like back then."

Gardevoir nodded and giggled, "You're right. Even though it's a competition between heroes, this sort of thing has always been put on the same level as good and evil struggles. Even though no one's allowed to die, these matches can be just as brutal."

"Yeah, I kinda hated it the first time I had to deal with it," Machoke sighed, "I still remember back when Hero Planet's government tried to have us replaced and forced us into that tournament with those new graduates and it was up to me to win the whole thing. At the time, that was the most frightening thing I'd ever had to deal with, and that was a competition between heroes."

"Well, they did threaten to separate us," Gardevoir whimpered, "I still think about what life would have been like if we lost and had been sent to different parts of the world."

Machoke nodded and sighed, "Yeah, and even though there were less stakes, every other tournament has been much more stressful than it should be. Yet, it always feels so satisfying to partake in them," before groaning, "You know, that hedgehog with the others, she was raving about Dialga and Palkia being villains. You think she might have been right about that?"

Gardevoir took a deep breath and replied, "I've been thinking about that, and that wouldn't surprise me. Every tournament has had at least one villain partake in it while posing as a hero. I'm just hoping they're not."

Both would certainly need to look into this, though. After all, Melmetal was not the only villain who had ever snuck into a tournament for heroes. Both Talonflame and Ninetales used to serve the side of evil before Machoke defeated them. It was certainly not out of the question for something like this to happen again.

During this time, Dialga sat in front of a computer given to him by Hero Planet's government. After all, since he and Palkia had been hired as advisers, it only made sense to give them access to any information that could help them.

"You know, even though it was under strict rules, that felt really satisfying," Palkia said with a grin, "They put up a better fight than Shaymin, but we still beat them easily."

"Indeed," the blue dragon replied before closing up his laptop, "I swear, we don't even need to train for any of these matches. According to the official Hero Planet website, there is no one who can oppose us in this time line. The current world champions are a mere fighting type and a psychic fairy. We made the right choice."

"Wait, that's what you were looking up?" Palkia uttered, "I thought you already looked that up shortly after we came to this time," the blue dragon replying, "Yeah, I did, but I felt like I had to double check. We can't be too careful."

The purple dragon nodded and folded her arms behind her head. She then narrowed her eyelids and enquired, "But just to be certain, are you sure we shouldn't worry a little bit about that Mach guy and that Garden something?"

"I'll admit, that is a good question," Dialga replied, "From what I've seen, these two have pulled off some impressive feats. However, nothing I've seen would suggest that these two really are as amazing as their reputation suggests. Machoke, for instance, defeated a mighty demon named Giratina roughly five years ago, but only because his strength had lowered significantly due to him having been out of practice for ages before that point. And while this Hoopa he defeated in the last Ultimate World Team Tournament sounds like a major threat, he and Gardevoir only came out on top because his partner turned against him in the middle of their match."

"Wow, so they're not even really that impressive," Palkia remarked, "They're just super lucky," Dialga chuckling, "That's right. On top of that, Hoopa's partner was that elf girl we beat earlier today. Even if we have to fight those two at some point, it won't make a difference."

This certainly put Palkia at ease, thus she decided to doze off for a little nap. But while Dialga had said they would not need to put in any real effort, there was no way he would allow himself and his partner to just sit around and do nothing to prepare for each round. After all, they could not be too careful.

The following day, everyone trained long and hard. Gallade and Drizzile worked hard at a gym that the green man and Gardevoir used to use together back in the day while she and Machoke used a facility they had set up in their basement.

Rillaboom worked on her moves while she helped Aipom build up her physical strength. After all, both knew full well that was the monkey's biggest weakness, and if they could prevent her from being knocked out again, things would certainly be a lot easier.

Morgrem and Rolycoly went to a forest this time. Morgrem used this chance to not only work on her new signature moves but also come up with new ones. After all, they would have a much bigger crowd soon, thus they would need to put in far more effort than before.

Meanwhile, Zeraora worked hard to improve himself. Since Vaporeon had been unconscious when he knocked out Golduck, she could not exactly describe the moves he had used to him. And of course, none of her friends had seen the match either, so it was not as if he could ask any of them to relay such information.

But despite all of that, he was determined to help out a lot more than he had today. After all, Vaporeon had almost lost because of his lack of confidence. He would make sure that would not happen again.

Of course, the two who did their absolute best during this time were Melmetal and Shaymin. This was their big chance to stop Dialga and Palkia and there was no way they would hold back. In fact, the hedgehog even had a special plan just in case their skills were not good enough.

After a ton of training, Machoke and Gardevoir went to check up on Hawlucha and Diancie in the hospital. It was still hard to believe that of all the friends who had lost, these two were the only ones to be hospitalized. Even Mawile and Octillery had not taken in this much pain.

And while Gallade would have gladly joined them, he was much more focused on Hitmonchan right now. While she was still unconscious, the doctors confirmed that she would be awake within the next week or so. All Gallade could hope was that he and Drizzile would keep winning so that she would be awake to see at least one of their matches.

After they were done at the hospital, they along with their new friends all got together for the celebratory dinner they had planned earlier. While there was a lot on their plate, they figured something like this could help to relieve the stress of the situation. But of course, all of them would continue to train extra hard tomorrow.

Once all three days had passed, many were gathered at Nissan Stadium. They simply could not wait for the first round to officially start. While the matches each portion of the crowd had seen were exciting, they could only imagine how much better these ones would be. On top of that, everyone would get to see a variety of heroes whose skills they were yet to witness.

Sure enough, the bleachers were filled and all of the contestants not competing in the first match had been given front row seats. Beedrill, Butterfree and Nori all sat behind a desk as the wasp exclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we are gathered here today as Nissan Stadium to witness the official first round of the Ultimate World Team Tournament!"

The crowd cheered before Butterfree explained, "Now, here's how it's gonna work for those who didn't see the last one. After each match ends, the next teams to fight will have ten minutes to prepare their entrances. The only exceptions will be after the third and sixth matches, in which we will take an hour-long break before the forth and seventh matches can begin."

"One last thing worth note is that the rules will be a little different as well," Nori stated, "Before, we actually had a rule where the first five minutes would follow traditional tag team rules. Then if the match was still going, it would change to tornado tag. However, since the audience loved the tornado portions, we decided to have the matches work like that from start to finish."

Machoke nodded and said, "So I guess there's no possibility of simply taking out one target and winning that way," before Blaziken shrugged and replied, "It's not like that made much of a difference before, anyway."

Scorbunny blinked and uttered, "This should be interesting," Raboot nodding while he sat behind her and replied, "Yeah. The old rules were fine, but this should be much more fun."

The young rabbit turned and uttered, "How long have you been there?" the male rabbit chuckling, "Wow, I really am light on my feet."

Meanwhile, Zeraora and Vaporeon were both in a training area as they got in a little bit of last-minute practice. The cat sent a barrage of punches into a bag with a smile on his face. He then turned to the fox and sighed, "It's amazing, but I actually feel like I might be ready for this."

Vaporeon nodded with a sweet smile and replied, "Yeah, I can see that. And don't let the large crowd intimidate you, alright? Just think, those bullies who used to pick on you might be watching. This is your chance to give them even more of a reason to fear you."

Zeraora nodded with a smirk and replied, "You're right. Once this is over, no one will ever underestimate me again." But just as he was about to thank Vaporeon, he stopped himself and simply smiled at her. After all, it was like he said. He had already thanked her hundreds of times.

"And so, without further ado, let's introduce our first two teams to compete!" Beedrill exclaimed, "In the red corner are two newcomers to the hero racket! One is a spirited young fox who may be similar to Leafeon and Jolteon's family but claims to have no connection to them! The other is a feisty feline who apparently really impressed those who saw him in combat three days ago! Give it up for the Atlantic Catfish!"

Zeraora tensed up, turned to Vaporeon and uttered, "That's the team name you thought up for us?" the fox shrugging and remarking, "What's wrong with it?" the cat letting out a sigh. After all, now was not the time to argue.

With that, the cat leapt up onto Vaporeon's shoulders before she leapt into the air and leaned forward. Surprisingly enough, Zeraora was able to work with her perfectly as the two performed a somersault toward the ring. They then propelled themselves high into the air before Vaporeon landed perfectly on her tail with her arms spread out.

The crowd cheered wildly while Machoke grinned and exclaimed, "THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL!" giving them a round of applause before Gardevoir chuckled, "For such a lack of resources, that was a really good entrance."

Gallade nodded and uttered, "Oh yeah, you did say Vaporeon's father worked at a circus in his teen years, right?" turning to Drizzile who nodded and replied, "It really shows, doesn't it?"

The others were of course equally impressed as Palkia gasped, "Dialga, we have to put on an entrance like that!" the blue dragon sighing, "It seems pointless, but I am quite intrigued."

Zeraora blushed bright and uttered, "Wow, they really loved that," Vaporeon nodding and replying, "Yep. Now you just gotta make sure you fight on that same level."

Once the crowd settled down a bit, Butterfree stated, "And in the blue corner, one is a mighty bug from Hungary and the other is a powerful boulder who's much stronger than his size suggests! Both form a very strong team! Give it up for the Steamrollers!"

Everyone watched while Scolipede rolled toward the ring with Geodude using his hands like feet to run in place on top of her. Once they were close enough, the rock propelled himself off of the centipede's back and landed against the ring. Scolipede then bounced high into the air and landed as well, the crowd cheering heavily for them.

Vaporeon looked at them with ferocity in her eyes while Zeraora took a deep breath and struck a fighting pose. There was no way he would hold back, not this time.