Lance was great at pokemon go. Well, scratch that- he was a master. He was the first of his friends to reach level 10, and always caught new pokemon on his first try, unless they broke free, of course. Still, his aiming accuracy was why everyone called him the Sharpshooter, which was also his username.

"Nobody calls you 'Sharpshooter'" Pidge said one morning. She and Lance's other best friend, Hunk, had stayed the night at Lance's house.

"That's not true- Hunk does!" the "sharpshooter" protested.

Hunk shook his head. "No. I do not."

"Aw, c'mon buddy, you're supposed to be on my side!"

"Besides, you've only won, like, one battle." Pidge said, rolling her eyes.

Lance gave a mock gasp. "And my victory went down in history! Plus," he added, placing his hands on his hips. "I'm the reason Team Mystic reclaimed the gym yesterday. That's right, you heard it here first! Altea Park is blue territory."

"Not anymore." Pidge handed him her phone. "Look, it's yellow now."

"WHAT?!" Lance screeched. "That's impossible- I had Shakira guarding it- with 2,000 CP!"

"Shakira?" Pidge raised an eyebrow.

"It's the name of one of his Pokemon. A Flareon, I believe." Hunk clarified.

"And she is beautiful!" Lance stated. "But seriously, Hunk, you have to tell your friends on Team INstinct to stop claiming the gyms!"

Pidge sighed. "If it's bothering you so much, why don't you go reclaim it?"

"Yeah, well I would if it wasn't being guarded by a 3,000 CP Arcanine!" Lance yelled. "Arcanines are hard enough to defeat on their own, let alone a 3,000 CP one! Tey're so big! Oh, and there's also a 213 CP Gyrados, a 500 CP Ditto, and a- holy crap they have a Porygon-"

"Lance! Chill out, it's going to be fine." Hunk said, trying to comfort his best friend since fifth grade. "I'm sure it will get reclaimed by the end of the day."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Lance said, slumping down.

But, when the evening came, the gym still remained property of Team Instinct.

"What?! C'mon, these guys are too good." Lance pouted. Currently, he was sitting in Altea Town's local cafe with Pidge, Hunk, his rival, Keith, the dad of the group, Shiro, Coran, and his crush, Allura.

Keith nodded solemnly. "I tried claiming it for Valor, but all I managed to do was defeat the Gyrados."

Coran agreed vigorously. "That Arcanine managed to make all my pokemon faint within seconds!"

"Well, you are a level eight." Allura laughed. Lance loved the sound more than anything in the world. "But it still annoys me that we aren't able to reclaim it. It does seem rather excessive to have that many pokemon, powerful ones at that, all guarding one gym."

"Yeah, I mean, there are other gyms they could take!" Lance concurred. Pidge smirked. Of course he would agree with Allura- his crush wasn't exactly subtle.

"I really do not know what you guys are talking about," Shiro said. He was the only one in the group who didn't play pokemon go; he thought it was a waste of time. He had more important things to do, like study or work out.

"That's honestly a good thing. It's addicting. Once you start, you are unable to stop." Pidge joked. "Will you be next?"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "No. How hard is it to take a gym, anyway?"

"This one is pretty hard. They have lots of powerful pokemon guarding it." Hunk said. "The porygon's mine."

Lance glared. "And you're just mentioning this now?"

Hunk raised his hands to show his innocence. "Hey, in this game of treachery, I play for my team!"

"You are banned from this table! Banned!" Pidge said. Allura joined in. "We banish you!" the pale blonde said.

Keith chuckled. "While that does sound appealing- sorry, Hunk," he said to the yellow team-er, who looked quite offended. "We still need a plan if we're going to take back that gym."

"Correction- Mystic needs a plan." Lance objected. "Sorry, Valor."

"Hey, I'm on your side here!" Keith growled.

"There are only two sides, Mystic and Valor!"

"It's not like I could take the gym by myself, anyway!" Keith huffed, annoyed.

"Keith's right, we need teamwork for this. I, personally, will give it my all to make sure Mystic reigns victorious." Allura declared.

Lance grinned. "Nice speech, princess."

Allura's eyes widened for a moment, before she resumed speaking (though, she did still look a bit flustered). "Thank you, Lance. Anyways, I will not rest until we take back what was ours. Are you with me?"

"YEAH!" Team Mystic shouted, pumping their fists in the air.

"They know they're not the only team here, right?" Hunk whispered to Keith, who was crossing his arms. Shiro just sat back, equal parts amused and confused.

The next day, Pidge, Lance and Allura met up at the Altea Park to try and reclaim the gym. Unfortunately, they were in for a surprise when they got there.

"What? How is it red now?!" Lance shouted, flailing his arms.

"Oh my. The tables are really turning." Pidge said sarcastically. Allura laughed.

"Dang it, Keith, and your red 'Blades!'" Lance cursed.

"Well, the good news is that there's less pokemon then there were before." Allura pointed out.

She was right. Instead of the four pokemon that had been there under Instinct's watch, there were only three, and their CP was halfway as it was- only about 500 per two of the pokemon. But the third was going to be the hardest to defeat. It was an Arcanine, and at 5,000 CP! Lance became frustrated when he saw that Keith had placed it there.

"True," Lance said, consoling himself. "Alright. We can do this."

And they gave it their best. Allura and Pidge took care of the two smaller pokemon fairly fast. However, a good portion of their pokemon fainted in the process. Lance, since he was the highest level out of all of them, went after the Arcanine. It was tough. It was brutal. It was excruciating, and in the end, he only managed to bring the Arcanine down to 4,000 before all of his pokemon fainted. Ten times. Ten times, and he only got 1,000 off!

Pidge and Allura also managed deplete some of the Arcanine's points, but by the time their pokemon were unusable, too, the big, scruffy, dog looking pokemon still had 3,200 CP left.

"Gosh darn it!" Allura said, kicking a rock. "How did it's CP get up that high?!"

Lance looked up at her. Her face was all red; this was the most upset he'd ever seen her get about something. Even he accepted the fact that the gym wasn't theirs for the taking, and, unlike he would like to admit, he was prone to "tantrums".

"Hey, it's okay; we'll get it next time." Lance promised.

"That doesn't change the fact that my phone is practically dead." Allura huffed. "We've been out here for hours- it's almost sunset!"

Pidge hopped down from the tree stump she'd been sitting on. "It is getting late; we should probably head home and let our pokemon recharge. We can come back tomorrow."

Allura sighed angrily. "Yeah, we should get home. It's sad that we can't get our gym back, though."

Suddenly, Lance had an idea. "Hey, you too head back, I'm going to stay here a bit longer."

Pidge raised an eyebrow, and opened her mouth to question him, but Allura spoke before she got a chance.

"Okay, see you tomorrow, Lance!"

Pidge shrugged, waved, and walked with Allura back to their bikes.

Meanwhile, Lance was busy reviving his pokemon and using potions to recharge their XP. He'd seen the determination in Allura's eyes, and he was going to take back this gym.

For Allura, he thought as he marched into battle once more.

It wasn't easy. It took Lance until late until the night, well after the moon was risen and full (especially since he only managed to knock off a hundred or two of the Arcanines CP per battle and had to keep on reviving his pokemon), but eventually, he finally did it- he defeated Team Valor.

After choosing his strongest pokemon to guard the gym, he rode his bike home against the wind, victorious.

The next morning, when the group had gathered at their usual coffee shop, Allura's face lit up in delight when she saw the status of the gym on her phone.

"Team Mystic?" she said in disbelief. "Unbelievable! We got it back!"

"Yeah!" Pidge said, pumping a fist in the air. 'IN your face, Keith!"

Keith glowered, sipping his coffee.

"But how did this happen-" Allura tapped the screen, then gasped. "Wait a minute- Lance, that's your pokemon! You did it!"

Lance blushed, smiling. "Well, they don't call me the sharpshooter for nothing," he gloated, ignoring the looks he received from the group, besides Allura.

"I can't believe you stayed back for that; it must have taken a very long time." she said, looking up at Lance with stars in her eyes. "Thank you, Lance."

There was an undertone in her voice, as if Lance had done something much more trivial than reclaim a gym. It probably was nothing, but Lance still felt like his heart was about to burst.

"Anytime, princess."

And, until the next day, Team Mystic's gym stood tall, guarded by Lance's Vaporeon, which he had named Voltron.