{Author Notes}

I was in somewhat of a hurry, so I couldn't remove all the mistakes I wanted to. I'll come back for them later. Sorry.

Episode 30: Resetting the Dominoes.

Jamie just stared.

"Umm Jamie?" Wes raised his brow as he put the pocket watch away. For some reason, Jamie was still in a stupefied manner. "Hello, earth to Jamie?"

"…"

"… OK… should I take that as a yes?"

"…"

"I didn't break you, did I?"

"…"

"… You're a worse conversationalist than Anto—and he's mute."

[One day later…]

All things considered, Anto had a pretty good morning. Kryx was not creating new mechanical abominations on accident. Ohko didn't break anything. (Though his uncanny ability to recognize when an afternoon soap opera was on was unnerving) Sentinel didn't accidentally traumatize anyone. Lily didn't make annoying comments and Takezo was meditating.

So of course, because of all the peace and tranquility, Anto was paranoid as all heck.

"You really need to learn how to relax Anto," White spoke out from the opposite end of the booth she was sharing with Jamie while Wes and Anto were on the opposite end. "I mean just looking at you is making anyone stressed out."

Anto looked over to his Donphan mug which was shaking uncontrollably because his hand was shaking uncontrollably.

"Do you think Anto has PTSD?" Jamie wondered out loud.

"Nah, doesn't fit the main symptoms." Wes commented in. "It just looks more like he's having a panic attack."

White saw the rather worried look on Anto's face he was making at the suggestions of his current mental health. "OK, maybe we should try something else: you're going for the Driftveil City gym, so do you have a game plan?"

Anto visibly seemed to relax at the thought of it. If there was one form of chaos that soothed him, it was Pokémon battling, the amnesiac absolutely loved having Pokémon battles. In the back of his mind, he was always excited to battle, as if before he couldn't quite participate in it as much as he could before.

Anto stopped twitching, and mentally projected to the three about his plans. Considering Clay uses ground type Pokémon, he already told them his plans.

"See? Just relax, I mean what's the worst that can happen—whoops!" Jamie placed a hand on his mouth.

Anto was left frozen in fear at the thought of anything going horribly wrong.

"Jamie!" White scolded.

"I forgot OK!?"

"Well then… this is obviously going to be a long day." Wes said as he looked back at Anto who started to twitch under his left eyelid.

The group made their way to the gym, since it was just Anto taking the challenge Wes, White, and Jamie were left to take a different route to watch the battle.

Anto sighed deeply before taking a step forward to the platform and pressing down.

His gym challenge had started.

White had taken a detour to understand some of the business venues Clay had opened up when he lead the underground expedition to expand the subway system all across Unova, she marvled at how Clay took inspirations, even helping hands from the gym leaders from Sinnoh Roark and Byron who had their own experience with Sinnoh's massive underground cave systems.

But while she was looking up with the gym receptionists, Wes and Jamie were alone again as Anto was in the middle of fighting a random gym trainer to get to Clay.

"So… you're a girl?" Wes asked quietly as the two sat nearby each other.

"… Please, please don't tell anyone!" Jamie spoke out with a blush on… her… face and making her face point down to the ground in shame.

"Why are you hiding your gender in the first place?" The Snagger raised his brow after looking away from an idiot gym trainer using magnitude on their flying platform.

"It's… complicated. Really, really complicated."

" …You're not being chased by a mysterious group of people, are you?"

"What? No!"

"Oh good because Anto is already covering that quota."

"Look," Jamie looked at Wes. "Just… I…"

"Are you a cross dresser?"

Jamie buried her face into her hands. "…mrph…"

"What?"

"Can we please just watch Anto's match?"

[Meanwhile...]

The person sat down alone in the room, looking at the large screen in front of them before pressing a button and receiving a video call.

"Hello? Are you my contractor?"

"Yes, I am. I was told that you are the best of the best."

"Enough with the small talk, I'm sure someone with your 'public image' would want to make this deal quick and easy without the risk of being traced back to you."

The person on the screen simply went along with it. But there was amusement in the eyes of this person despite them being on a screen. "They had told me you were straight to the point. I've already sent the down payment and the data on your most recent target, do you accept these terms?"

"Usually I would accept a contract like this since it follows all parameters."

"That's a strange way of saying no. Is there a particular reason why you are refusing?"

The person sitting down continued on. "Let me finish. I wasn't refusing; it's just that I am in the middle of a contract."

The caller on the other end let that settle in their thoughts before realizing something. "… Playing stake out are you? Is that why you're taking time off to message me right now?"

A smirk appeared on the 'employee's' face. "How astute of you. Yes, I've laid a trap for one of my targets, it's simply only a matter of waiting."

"It speaks volumes if you're taking this time to talk to me in the middle of your hunt. Doesn't sound quite professional of you to take risks like this."

"You made the offer while in the middle of our contract. And judging by the expense you were already willing to pay, I assumed it would be at least proper business to inform you of my predicament rather than let you think we are ignoring you."

Now the contract-er was smiling at his end of the call. "I suppose that makes sense. Well then I wouldn't want to keep you from your job, finish your contract here, and call me again soon."

With that, the two agreed and ended the communication. The person would admit: some polite manners here and there was quite the breath of fresh air from the usual frustrated and demanding contractors.

As soon as it ended, a grunt came in to the 'employee'.

"Sir! Target has been identified! She's been spotted near the Viridan Forest."

Taking an electronic visor that was placed on a nearby desk, the contracted person stood up from their seat.

"Good, start jamming communications, tell Bravo and Charlie Team to run distractions on Viridan and Petwer City on my command."

"Yes Hunter J!"

"Come on men, let see how well this 'hero' of Kanto will hold up," The silver haired woman placed on her visor and armed her gauntlet.

In the main southern exit and entrance of Viridian Forest, there was someone wearing a straw hat ridding on a fast moving Dodrio.

"Come on, Dodosk, we don't want to be late for Brock's Doctorate Party! Everyone's been invited!"

All three heads of the Dodrio squalled. They were more excited for a different reason.

"Hey, just because Brock is offering his special food to everyone doesn't mean we're there to just eat his meals for him! It's bad enough Gold thinks the same way…" The kind trainer trailed off, remembering how much of a good cook Brock actually was. The way his food reached a perfect of both crispy, delectable, mouth-watering, elegant….

OK now the trainer was drooling thinking of the good doctor/breeder/cook/gym leader's food.

"You know, now that I think about it," The trainer went on. "Brock has pretty much everything a regular girl is looking for: he's kind, caring, multi talented, has more than one steady job, and can handle children well, yet he can't get a date with a single girl. It's kinda ironic if you consider all of that."

Dodrio laughed.

"H-Hey don't laugh!" That didn't stop the giggles coming from her voice.

What did stop them from laughing was the sudden explosion on the opposite end of the forest.

"Sorry, Dodosk, Brock's party is going to have to wait." Then they were off in the opposite direction of wildly panicking Pokémon.

To the duo's surprise, as they nimbly made their way towards the start of the fire, they saw golden statues of horrified Pokémon around the middle of an open field.

The trainer gasped and went towards the frozen Pokémon before getting of Dodosk.

"Oh no! What happened to you all!?" The trainer with a straw hat spoke before kneeling down to a small Caterpie frozen with fear.

Suddenly, Dodrio squawked in pain before a bright flash of light happened behind his trainer.

"Dodosk!?" The blonde trainer was horrified to see Dodosk frozen just like all the other Pokémon there.

"Hmm, I thought for sure you would see that as a trap. How careless of you… Yellow of Viridian Forest."

Yellow turned at the sound of the voice, her eyes widened then narrowed at the female with silver hair walking towards her. "You! You're…" She silently reached for her Poké Ball.

"I wouldn't do that If I were you," With a snap of her fingers, several flying disks appeared and quickly covered all of the gold plated Pokémon, even Yellow's Dodosk. "I was honestly quite surprised. I truly expected you to be wary of a trap. But then again, I had heard that the older Dex users were in a relative time of peace."

"Leave them alone!" The girl cried out, before noticing that more armed soldiers were coming out from the area, carrying their own Pokémon containers.

She was surrounded.

Hunter J stepped forward, pressing something in her gauntlet and making the hover platform of Dodrio fly higher.

"If you make any movement, I will set a frequency off in my gauntlet, turning both your and those other Pokémon into permanent gold statues."

She tried to keep her composure and trailed her hand slowly towards one of the frozen Pokémon beside her.

"What do you want?"

Hunter J smirked before Yellow felt something gooey in her hands. She quickly looked back to see an Ariados, once fully gold, slowly be released from its gold casing and had shot a String Shot at her hands, making her unable to touch a Pokémon.

"It's simple really, girl," Hunter J spoke out as Ariados continued to tie up yellow in silken web. The bounty hunter looked over the young hero and pointed her blaster in front of her face. "I'm after you… and I admit some payback against your Ketchum and Oak friend is a plus."

She fired the gun point blank, freeze the girl along with all the other Pokémon.

"Alright, move out! Our next location Unova! Tell Bravo and Charlie teams to retreat at my command!"

"Yes sir!" They all declared.

As Hunter J made her way back to her ship, she started to look at the forwarded files on her next target:

A boy named Anto.

She noted the pictures of her new target, an above average trainer with no recorded past.

Yet… what piqued her interest the most was not the new target she was contracted to capture, but rather who was with her target.

She stared at the close up picture of the tanned boy with silver hair and a long blue overcoat standing smugly next to her target in a picture taken with him, a Pokémon ranger, and the famous assistant of Professor Oak.

"…"

"Interesting! So these platforms are all held up by magnetism! Quite clever considering all the metallic ore and potential the underground has!" Kryx took notes as she and Anto descended down deeper into Clay's gym.

Kryx was doing quite well for her first few battles, seemingly studying different Pokémon and being very very hard to hit due to her teleport move. Anto was pleasantly surprised to be able to have a Pokémon that could blink across the battlefield in an instant, much like how Summer and Tracey had described what the False Team Plasma grunts had done.

But that was then and this was now, Anto was now descending down into the final level where Clay was waiting for him.

He marveled briefly at the large crystals behind the Gymleader, and more so at the many working machines in the far corners of this massive cave turned battlefield. When the platform he was on completely stopped, he stepped off towards the man who ran Driftveil.

"Well then. You must be this Anto kid I heard about from the others. Tell me, can ya do that cooky psychic thing?"

"Oh my gosh, a human cowboy!" Kryx telepathically squealed, earning a surprised look from look only worsened when Kryx took out a large alien needle. "Allow me to probe yo—"

Anto recalled his eccentric friend back into her Premier Ball before that sentence could be finished.

"Did… that… that Pokémon just talk?"

The challenger rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well… yeah. It's sorta the same as me—telepathy. So… I guess?"

Clay blinked several times, but impressively seemed contemplative. "Well, considering them psychic trainers and our own Elite Four, I suppose Telepathy ain't too farfetched. Though, I hear from the others, you ain't quite conventional."

"Oh, the other gymleaders told you about me?" Anto asked, thinking back to everyone he fought against so far.

"We keep in touch. You're one of the two trainers we've been told to keep an eye on."

"Who's the other one?"

Clay smiled. "Now I can't tell yuh everything, not good business to conduct. … This battle will be a four on four singles match. First to have all useable four Pokémon down, loses, agreed?"

Anto nodded and reached for his belt.

"Go, Seismitoad!" Clay cried out as he brought a powerful fully evolved water and ground type Pokémon.

Anto smiled and threw out Lily in response.

Everyone was watching as the opening Pokémon were thrown out.

"Quad advantage to Anto right from the start." Jamie noted out.

White added in as well but didn't remove her eyes from the screen. "Yeah, but Clay seems unfazed. Either he has a good poker face, or he has a counter to grass types with that particular Pokémon."

At the battle, Anto wasted no time, hit hard and hit fast, so he told Lily to launch a fast Magical Leaf against her opponent.

Clay's smirk only grew. "Now! Use Sludge Wave!"

Clay's Seismitoad inhaled before belching a large poison goop from his mouth that instantly melted all of Lily's attack and forced the shiny grass type to avoid being drenched in poison.

"Oh look another grass type Pokémon. Whatever shall I do?" Clay spoke sarcastically before telling his Pokémon to launch another Sludge Wave.

Lily dodged the attack with a Double Team before forcing a bright Flash attack to blind nearly everyone but Anto. As the light died down, Clay and his Pokémon say all Lily images dancing, Quiver Dancing.

"Not bad kid, but not good enough! Use Muddy Water on the whole area! And do that special mix!" Clay added in as his ground and water type Pokémon slammed his palms to the ground, and made a large wave of muddy water surround him and encompass the entire field.

Something felt wrong immediately as he said that, so Anto warned Lily to stop what she was doing and avoid the attack by rising above with her Magical Leaf platform.

Clay seemed kind of amused as he saw the flying pure grass type. "Well, I admit, I ain't ever seen that before. Seismitoad, use Stealth Rocks!"

'Aww crap.'

Anto looked around as large, floating boulders were set up on his side of the field. Now he had to be careful about switching out his Pokémon or else they would get hurt.

But there was one more thing that was bothering him: the muddy water, it looked… weird.

"Now! Shoot up the Muddy Water at her with Stone Edge! Knock her down!" Clay yelled as his Pokémon launched a large spike of rock from the ground, rocketing towards Lily in the air from under the water. Thankfully, Lily was able to jump off her first platform and construct another one beneath her. However, her first platform, which was pierced by the rock, started melting as the muddy water drenched it. Anto and Lily was surprised that muddy water would melt leaves like that, but then the amnesiac spotted the purple hue mixed with the mud.

The challenger quickly looked down below on the Muddy Waters one bubble was building up and looked to have a combination of both brown and purple color to them. In fact, there were traces of purple all around his side of the arena where as Seismetoad's side was filled with the muddy waters only at the edge of his corner, but leaving a huge gap of untouched earth on his side.

'So that was what he meant by special mix,' Anto thought. 'He mixed a poison attack in the waters so it would have a sub element of poison in it, or at least melt off Lily's grass attacks. There's also the fact since the place is covered with water, I can't really predict where the Stone Edge will come out from the ground at least not the same way that move is used. But good thing there's one advantage going for me: not all of Lily's attacks are pure leaves.'

Lily received her order and charged up an Energy Ball before blasting it towards the Seismtoad in the dead center of the only safe zone left.

However, the response of such a Pokémon was simply to use his Stone Edge move defensively and erect it in front of him between the colliding attack and the target. The attack exploded, but as the smoke died down, Seismtoad was looking more dusty than injured.

Then it launched another Sludge Wave, forcing Lily to move away in her platform. Lily was commanded to hide behind one of the floating Stealth Rocks, but then Anto noticed Seismitoad ready to punch the ground—it was another Stone Edge right behind the boulder.

Anto quickly warned Lily to get out of the way again, but as soon as the Stone Edge pierced the ground, drenched in mud and slime, Seismitoad continued to launch Sludge waves, leaving Lily in a very distressing position of having to dodge Poison attacks or take on a poison drenched Stone Edge.

"So kid? How do you like my anti Grass Type Pokémon? I'll tip my hat to ya and admit that your grass type is lasting a lot longer than the others, but there ain't no way you can win like that."

If Lily did get knocked out here, that would leave the rest of his Pokémon to deal with the poison muck and the Stealth Rocks at entrance. That wasn't a good sign, so there had to be a way out of…

Wait… don't Seismitoads have a special ability?

Well it was literally a one in third chance of this happening, but then again…

Anto smiled.

"Lily, I have a plan!"

"Don't just say it; tell me!" The grass type cried as she motioned her leaves to go above another Sludge Wave.

Lily seemed confused at the order to launch an Energy Ball directly beneath her, but did so anyway.

The attack detonated and started to part the waters, Anto stepped back to higher ground to avoid any chance of this liquid being corrosive, while the explosion sent some of the water towards Seismitoad.

The water and ground type stepped back before Clay ordered him to use a lesser Muddy Water to push the poison back.

"Yes!" Anto mentally screamed before pointing to Clay. "He's not just your grass type counter is he? He's also your water type counter Pokémon as well!"

Clay looked surprised. "Now how'd you figure that out?"

"I'm aware of all three abilities a Siesmitoad can have: Poison Touch, Swift Swim, and easily the most efficient of all of them, Water Absorb. I wouldn't put is past you to have that Pokémon be the counter of both water and grass types since everyone likes being efficient, but what really sealed nail on the coffin was the fact you kept the area around your Pokémon dry as possible, Water Absorb can heal you if water attacks are used on you, but your Seismitoad needs to absorb it. But! If you absorb poisonous waters, your ability becomes more of a hindrance than an advantage!"

Clay smiled. Well then, he was expecting a fight to begin with. Looks like he was right to bring his A-game for this challenger.

"Lily, blast the waters toward Seismitoad!" Anto pressed the offensive, with his Grass type obliging quite happily, angling her attacks to push more of the poisonous waters towards the Seismitoad. To push the water back, Seismitoad had to use his own Muddy Water attack to wash back the poison mud. However, the more Seismitoad this, the higher the water levels rose, and the higher it rose, the less free land the water ground type had.

It finally came to the point where Seismitoad was trapped in a tiny little island of dry land.

"Finish it!" Anto pointed as Lily quickly readied another Energy Ball.

"Now! Stone Edge!" It looked like Clay was not out of it yet and his Pokémon punched the ground the moment Lily unleashed her attack, making a powerful spike of rock shot up right beneath Lily after her own attack was launched.

Both attacks made their mark, Seismitoad had a direct hit and fell back intot he water, while a spike instantly melted the leaves Lily was on and forced her to flal towards the poisoned muddy waters.

An idea clicked in Anto's head as he saw Lily falling into the poison.

The evolved shiny looked over to her trainer as the message was sent, and as she dropped into the water, she started shinning.

She was using Aromatherapy in the muddy water to purge all the poison laced in it.

"Whoo! Yes!"

Then the water all started going in one general direction.

"Eh?"

It looked like all the recently purified water, even with mud, was being absorbed by the Seismitoad, bringing the guy back to full health even from fainting.

"Boo!"

"Ha! Kid! Nice try but it looks like—"

Clay was interrupted when another Energy Ball hit Seismitoad squarely in the face, knocking him out cold this time.

Both Clay and Anto looked over to an unamused Lily.

"That… was for the annoying attack patterns." She said as she slumped in fatigue. She could heal many wounds, but it looked like her stamina was drained a lot keeping herself afloat and moving in the air.

Clay smiled in amusement; it had been quite some time since a grass type Pokémon had gotten past his Anti-Grass type Seismitoad.

He recalled his first Pokémon, as did Anto, Lily wasn't in good condition to fight the next battle.

Anto went first, brining out Ohko into the fight next.

"Yo! I'm here to—!" The one armed Sawk was rudely interrupted by several flying stones coming into to crush him.

"Whoops, Stealth Rocks. I don't know why I forget they exist sometimes even though they're very obvious…"

"Wow Clay's Seismitoad really looked to have a lot of answers against normal grass types." Jamie commented, watching the screen at the edge with laser focus and interest.

"Yeah, I honestly wouldn't know how to deal with that if I had to battle him." White spoke out.

"Well that is odd." A gym attendant spoke out nearby the trio of friends.

Wes looked to the attendant. "What is?"

"Well that Seismitoad of his… it's usually only used in his Eight Badge battles, for when he has to fight trainers with seven badges or more."

"Wait, but Anto only has four badges!" Jamie called out.

"Weird," The attendant spoke out. "But your friend seems to be doing quite well against Clay's strongest team."

Wes stared at the screen, wondering what the Gymleader here was up to.

"Now then, since the ground has been cleared of the water as fast as it was filled, I'm bringing out Golurk!"

Anto, Jamie, White, and Wes already knew the typing of a Golurk: ground and ghost. Not the best match up against Ohko who knew mostly fighting type moves.

"You have got to be kidding me."

[Meanwhile]

Summer honestly missed the Ranger HQ in Almia, the fresh air, the green pastures, the peaceful and serenity—

"Wow this place is completely boring."

Summer felt an aneurism come up and looked to Flow, the sweet Delta Ivysaur looking quite flustered looking at the floating (and somewhat invisible) object nearby Summer.

"Flow…" Summer began with infinite patience. "Why is he still here?" Her voice may have scared the little delta in her arms/

"Umm… I… I don't quite know how to undo mental projections?" Delta whispered softly as she tried to hide in shame within Summer's arms. "Please don't hate me!"

"Oh don't be so cruel to the girl, Nerd." Wes—or rather, Summer's mental projection of Wes said as he floated around her like a ghost.

Interestingly enough, Flow may have had practice with dream and mental powers that the vast amount of psychic type Pokémon are known for, but the glaring fact was that she wasn't a complete master over her own powers due to the fact she has been genetically re engineered to have different types than her species usually would have. As such, most of her powers come off with different effects that natural Psychics would be capable of.

But what was the problem as of right now you ask? That little help Flow had tried to make to help Summer snap out of her nightmare lock, had evolved into an astral projection—something akin to Summer's own personal phantom that only she and Flow could see. And it was a potentially more sarcastic version of the Wes she knew.

Arceus hated her as much as Anto, didn't he?

"Flow, please, please get rid of him as soon as you can."

Ghost Wes tried to stand beside her casually. "Your words hurt Nerd. So by any chance can we stay in the same room as that green haired chick a while back? Cause she is fine…"

Flow seemed to try accessing her powers. "OK, let me try! Hurrgh!"

On Summer's opposite side, an Astral Projection of Anto appeared.

Summer just gapped. "Oh Arceus."

"Sorry! Sorry!"

Ghost Knoll looked over to the others.

Ghost Wes raised his hand as a hello. "Sup Mute! She got to you too?"

"Oh no, even a false me isn't free of the dark world that surrounds us all. Woe to us all. Woe to us all."

Summer stared at the drooping mental Anto. "Flow, why does Anto sound like a manically depressed wordsmith?"

"That… might be how you view him?" The fairy psychic type offered weakly.

"That is not how I view… hmm… umm…" Suddenly, Summer found it a lot hard to finish that sentence.

"Hey Flow, trying bringing Headband here, you know might as well make it complete, and I wanna see how Nerd views him." Ghost Wes nudged carefully.

"Flow, please tell me that they'll go away." Summer spoke with a hint of desperation.

"Y-Yeah! They definitely will! It's just that maybe they would leave sooner if you met the real Wes and Anto. So your mental images of them will change and weaken them?"

"Alas, even now, my own friends conspire to end my pitiful existence. Why does the sunlight torment me so? Making my sorrows visible to the world around us?"

Ghost Wes looked to the increasingly depressed looking Astral projection of Anto. "Uhh Mute? Only Summer and Flow can see us."

"And the bitter truth reveals itself. Showing me how the people of the world are ignorant to my suffering and are unable in any way, shape, or form offer me freedom from the shackles of despair…"

Summer looked up to the sky. "Anto, wherever you actually are, I am so so sorry for thinking you're like this."

[Back With The Real Anto]

That didn't go well. Ohko tried his hardest, but he only had one move against Golurk, so the ghost ground type over powered the fighting type easily.

"It's OK." Anto blinked in stupor for a second before placing Ohko's Great Ball away. It was weird, he felt the need to… tell someone it was OK. Huh.

Anyway, the challenger brought back Lily into the field, facing down the giant Ghost Pokémon before getting blind sided by a bunch of floating rocks.

The shiny grass type trotted out of the dust coughing somewhat before dusting herself off.

"Hello?" The shiny grass type spoke out.

Anto felt a head ache coming as the ground ghost type did what he did when Ohko first appeared: pose dramatically. "My Fist is the Fist that will Punch The Heav—"

"I regret talking to you." Lily interrupted the majestically posing Pokémon that somehow had a spotlight on him despite being underground.

"You will never stop our evolution! We'll keep on going cause—" It was at this point, both Lily and Anto decided to tune him out.

Lily started off with a Magical Leaf, but just like with Ohko, the Golurk faded away with Phantom Force. It was an annoying tactic that he had honestly used with Sentinel, and he was finding out how annoying it really was, but there was one particular reason why he had chosen Lily for this particular move.

Golurk appeared behind Lily, but obviously Clay had overlooked one of the moves Lily was capable of using right now.

"Flash!"

In a bright burst of light, Golurk missed his punch, allowing Lily to gather up another energy Ball right for his torso.

The grass type move exploded with a direct hit. Lily got out of the smoke cloud, but it looked like Golurk was down and out.

"I honestly forgot how troubling Grass types were." Clay spoke out before he brought out his third Pokémon, it was his trusty Excadrill.

And unfortunately, he too posed.

"Who the heck do you think we are!? My Drill—" Just as quickly as his friend, he was tuned out.

"Now Excadrill, Metal Claw!" The ground type gym leader cried out as his ace Pokémon put his claws together, and suddenly started spinning like a bullet towards Lily. In defense, the grass type raised a magical leaf barrier between them. However, the barrier didn't do much to slow down the Steel Ground type a little, or at all as he burst through it as if nothing was there and bashed right into Lily, making her fly into the opposite end of the gym wall and crash.

Anto sighed as he saw Lily out cold for this battle and returned her into her Poké Ball.

Takezo hit the field, but then quickly jumped and avoided being smashed in by floating rocks.

"Unbelievable, I still must deal with boulders attempting to crush me!?" The little swordsman called out after looking around the flying boulders. Apparently, he was now becoming an expert in boulder dodging.

Then Takezo and saw his opponent taking out a pair of familiar, spiky glasses.

"Now listen up! I'm the leader of the Kick Ass Driftveil Digging team! A paragon of…" Anto tuned him out again and looked to Clay.

"Are you aware of your Pokémon's quirks?"

Clay folded his arms and thought about it for a second. "Now that you mention it, some of my Pokémon have been watching more TV lately… don't really see much harm in letting them do so, I mean they can't understand our language."

"Wait a sec, even my Pokémon have trouble understanding things from the TV with a translator, how did these guys watch and understand it?"

"Manliness is Universal! It needs no words to express the sheer awesomeness!" Anto heard Excadrill scream.

Thankfully, Clay had ordered Excadrill to attack with Metal Claw again, making the Pokémon spin in a spiral before launching himself at Takezo. The swordsman side stepped the attack, allowing Excadrill to keep going and land on the other side with a slide. It looked like Excadrill seemed to realize that type of attack wouldn't work, so he sharpened his claws with a shinning glow. Takezo unsheathed his blade, and a dark energy enveloped over it.

The two stared down each other before going at each other. Excadrill struck first, trying to launch a quick and wide horizontal swipe, only for Takezo to easily dodge it by crouching under and hitting the hilt of his blade right into Excadrill's lower chin and staggering back. Takezo took advantage of that, unleashing a furry of Dark imbued slashes on the Steel type as a combo starting off with his own horizontal slash quickly following up with reversal in the opposite side he swung, following it up with more slashes and eventually jumping over Excadrill, putting both hands on his wooden blade, and then swinging his empowered blade right into the back of the Excadrill in order to make him fly towards his trainer.

Takezo readied his blade as he stared at Excadrill's body on the floor. Just before Clay could reach for his Poké Ball, Excadrill stood back up, the shine on his glasses and the smile on his face did not look any weaker—but rather it looked much more vivid.

"Listen up! You ain't going to beat me like that! I'm Excadrill of the Badass Driftveil Dig Team! Just who do you think I am!?" Excadrill cried out in a rather epic manner before throwing himself back at Takezo. Anto could have sworn he even saw flashy lights come from somenwhere.

The master swordsman used Detect to avoid the first blow before following up another furry of slashes before ending it with one large push to force away the Excadrill.

However, this time Excadrill held on as the attack puish him away, his body only slid, but he still remained standing.

He did one more call about him being the best, before launching himself again at Takezo, only this time his claw reach seemed mysteriously longer. Takezo jumped out of the way and saw the ground tear beneath him where he last was.

Anto realized it. "Crap Takezo! I underestimated him! He was using some kind of Sword Dance Variant whenever he shouted! That's why he was glowing whenever he did that!"

"Ahh.." Takezo nodded before he also used his own Sword Dance move.

Excadrill smiled and went for it again, but Takezo once more showed a little more mastery over swordplay over Excadrill, yet something was off this time. Excadrill was now shrugging off Takezo's attacks.

"How are you doing that?" Takezo asked with curiosity.

"Dumb ass! It's not about how much power, or skill you got, it's about the power drill and what I'm meant to do!"

"Excuse me?"

Excadrill proudly fisted his chest, making a loud clanging noise. "My drill! My universe to believe in the me that believes in myself! I never run from a fight nor do I back down!"

Anto looked lost, but Takezo looked strangely silent for some reason.

"I'm the bad ass member of Driftviel's Digging team! Who the hell do you think we are!?" Excadrill cried out before launching straight for Takezo.

Anto noticed that Takezo seemed distracted. "Hey, Takezo!"

"Hmm?" Takezo snapped back only to get hit y a clean Metal Claw attack that launched him into the wall from all the way back and knocked him out cold.

Anto wondered what that was about, before sending out his last Pokémon, Sentinel.

"Down to your last Pokémon, but I still got two left!" Clay spoke out. But he had never seen his opponent's Pokémon before.

"Sentinel Ready?"

"Let's do this!" Sen complied and activated his Dragon Claw move, but then he was smashed by some left over flying rocks that had a delayed reaction to the new combatant. As the dust settled, Sentinel coughed. "Wait? … But I thought I didn't have lungs? How did I cough?"

Excadrill looked pleased at his new opponent and unleashed a lot of power into this next Metal Claw, it looked as if the damages Takezo piled up were starting to affect him, but this Pokémon was going out with a bang.

The two Pokémon rushed for each other—

"AAHHH!?" Sentinel suddenly dropped his attack and writhed in pain. Excadrill stopped his attack the second before it connected on his opponent.

"Sentinel!" Anto cried out as he ran to his Pokémon with worry. The young boy held his Pokémon in his arms, despite him trashing in pain. What was happening to him?!

Clay looked up to a camera. "Someone call Nurse Joy, now!"

Back in the satnds, everyone quickly got to work, while Anto's friends stared in shock.

"What's going on!?" White cried out in shock before they all got off towards Anto.

[Torren Region]

"… Hmm…"

"Why are we going over these files again?"

"I simply wanted to reassess the conditions of the earlier Delta Pokémon Prototypes we had before sending them to Unova."

"I thought we sent them over because they were obsolete. They had an error in their DNA Sequence that will cause them to expire sooner than most Pokémon."

"Well that's partially true. While in our lab, Delta Ivysaur and Delta Wartortle had regular checkups, so most of their faulty coding was… fixed. They now would live like any normal Pokémon, if not just a little less, but Delta Charmeloeon refused our help no matter what we did. By the end of the year he will die. And that is only if he doesn't keep putting out so much power in his moves and abilities."

"Aren't ghost Pokémon already dead though?"

"No-no, I mean he will disintegrate. His DNA strands will start deteriorating from the inside, leaving nothing but dust when he fails."

"Ouch."

"Why should we worry? He's not our problem, he's someone else's."

[Driftveil Pokémon Center.]

"I'm sorry, I do think we have the equipment to help your Pokémon…" Nurse joy spoke out to the mute.

"Why… why is that?" White asked for the horrified Anto.

"Our scans didn't detect anything… at least not on the surface, but deeper scans show… there's no easy way to say this, but this Pokémon isn't a real Pokémon."

Anto clenched his fist. "He's real to me. That's more than enough." He glared.

"S-Sorry. What I meant to say is that his entire body… it almost looks artificially created, and well… long story short, the things that should have kept together are now failing and breaking apart."

Anto looked over to Sentinel relaxing on a bed, put under a special ghost type sedative.

"Not to mention, we don't know what kind of Pokémon this is, and are basing off the outlines of bth Dragon and ghost type Pokémon, there's nothing we can do to stop it. … I'm sorry."

Everyone became silent.

"I will at least say this: your Pokémon will survive longer if you stop letting him use Pokémon moves. He's stable right now, so he should be fine as soon as he wakes up, but it'll be up to you to… I… I'm sorry… I 'm… needed elsewhere." She looked over her shoulder, seeing other Pokémon in need of her help.

"Sentinel… is going to die?" Jamie asked.

Anto started to shiver as he thought back. "Back in Nimbasa… Sentinel just suddenly stopped being able to move. I didn't know he was dying… I thought… I thought… oh Arceus, I pushed him to his death didn't I? With all of our training and battles?" He was starting to cry—did he push his friend to an earlier grave?

White placed a caring hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hey-hey! Don't think that, no one knew about that. It's no one's fault…" She and Jamie tried to calm the boy down.

Wes stayed at the corner of the door, he felt a little bad that he wasn't very good at comforting anyone. Then he saw Clay come in through the hallway.

"How bad is it?" Clay asked.

"Would you believe worse than it looked?" Wes passively asked before explaining the gist of the Pokémon's condition.

Clay sighed. "That Pokémon did look unnatural to me. … But," Wes looked at him. "The kid looked horrified seeing his buddy in pain. And you can't fake genuine concern."

At this moment Clay took something and placed tossed it to Wes for him to catch. The boy from Orre looked at it and saw that it was the Driftveil Gym badge, The Quake Badge.

"When the time is right, give that to the boy." Clay said.

"Why? Didn't he lose?" Wes asked quickly.

"Well… if we're being honest, I may have used my strongest team against him…" Clay scratched the back of his head.

"Now why would you go and do that?"

"… Let's just say, I underestimated the last trainer. Oh, and I was going to give him the badge if he beat at least one of my Pokémon. But something tells me, even with a 2v1, and with my last Pokémon being a Krookodile, he still would have gave me a run for my money…" Clay fixed his hat and left.

"Hey, where are you going?" The Snagger looked quite curious at the sudden leave.

"I have other business to attend to son, urgent business. Anto there was supposed to be my last gym battle for a while. Now if you'll excuse me." Clay spoke out before he left.

Wes looked on, wondering how Anto would actually get through this.

{Author Notes}

Edit: Made a mistake and forgot to include the Stealth Rocks in the fight, lost track of them honestly. I also added some new dialogue that came in with that.

Well thank you for reading! This battle was inspired by Saphroneth's Ash's Squirtle. I mean seriously, He's a drill, how could I not make the reference?

Next up, if you will recall around a few chapters back, you'll notice that Sentinel suddenly stopped moving. This was the reason why. He's dying.

…

Originally, I thought I would include all the Delta Prototypes, but I thought against that since it would not make much sense if they were being tested on a lot by the Torren Region scientists.

Also, we find out that Hunter J is in the running for the chase after Anto. And she just Kidnapped Yellow from the manga?! Why!? Who is after her?

Oh wait I'm the author, I already know.

Silly me.

Even though Anto lost his match, technically, he still gets the badge because as stated, I made Clay use his higher level team against him.

Putting him at five out of eight badges! Whoo! ERmm… too soon?

Looks like I'm a liar again, I thought I woulnd't stay here for long, but bang! Now there might be one more chapter left in Driftviel before we leave for the sixth badge.

Oh and for those paying close attention. If you have paid attention to the Black and White Manga, you'll probably guess what's actually going to happen soon by the time Anto arrives to the 'sixth' gym if Clay is already leaving. (He was technically supposed to leave sooner but…)

Plus maybe in the later chapters, we'll start to see how things are fairing with Tracey and Summer.

See you all soon! I can't wait for you guys to see the up and coming chapters!

[?]

"Hunter J has done her job, and now she's heading towards Unova as planned."

"Good we're all meeting there ASAP."

"I'm already here, so what am I supposed to do?"

"… Why don't you look after our… initiate?"

"Her? Her job is to keep—"

"I am aware, but lately she hasn't been reporting."

"Alright fine, I'll go check up on them. I'm curious as to who the new Host is anyway."

[Deleted Scene]

Anto made his way towards the Metal Platform.

For some reason, it seemed to spark to life as he pressed the down button. He didn't like how that looked.

He also didn't like how it went down afterward.

… It also didn't look to stop where it was supposed to.

… And it was accelerating…

OK he was falling to his death again, wasn't he?