A/N: Hi guys. I'm back. Uuuh this might sound like something I've said often times before, but I would like to properly apologize for suddenly letting this fic go on an indefinite Hiatus like I did the past few months. Things... haven't been working out well for me. I mean, I'm going to my senior year and, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I can't cope well with the sudden repeated questions of what am I going to be.

I don't know if others felt the same pressure I do or is it just me being a weirdo and overthinking about stuff that is totally unimportant, but I'm feeling really, really down about everything. I lost my grip on my fics, lost appetites, spending hours doodling Spongebob and Patrick playing Poker with Lady Liberty and all other stuff I'm not too proud about.

Anyway, now that I'm back, I'll try to update this as regularly as possible without dropping my scores in school. God knows my mom'll go Super Saiyan on me if I did. So, yeah, without further ado, Review section!

JaguarSpot: Hehehe. True enough. The General needed more than just his one good eye to intimidate Danny. And yes, I did say that understanding Poke-speech is rare, which is probably something concerning Leo's apparent ease in conversing with Grovyle, isn't it? Grovyle and Leo is kinda like Pikachu and Ash in a more complex way. They've been through a lot for a long while. I can't say anymore since I'm going to bring this up later in the future. If not, in some kinda Omake.

Kimera20: Thank you for the support, as always. You're awesome too!

Firebird0315: An explosion will give it a Power Ranger sort of fibe, huh?

Basket in A Nutcase: Actually, I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I'm making her. Was I high? Alcohol? Meh... Not really sure, but it worked out nicely.

GirlFish: Hmm... That is actually pretty interesting. A gyarados is pretty fast though, isn't it? I'd hate to break Leo's well-maintained them of having Pokemon's with little to no brakes. Their future confrontations will involve a lot of Danny teaching them some common sense and Leo breaking their antics with his even more epic Leo pattented shenanigans. As for the last two, it's really up to everyone, really. I'll make a poll about it one day.

Duskrider: Again, I'm not sure what I'm thinking when I made her a Yandere, but since everyone liked her, I'd say fuck it and roll with it.

Matt: Haven't decided on anyone yet, currently.

PhantomSpirit12: In order; Thank you, Thank you, Triple Thank you, Hyper Thank you! Damn, man! Thank's a lot! Where would I be without all these supports?! Probably rotting in a ditch somewhere... Lolz. Your suggestion has a lot of merits with them, such as him getting hounded by Frosslasses later in the mountains to be taken as a husband or something.

Guest: Thank you!

Dialga213: Thanks for the review. So, as I've stated with JaguarSpot's review, Leo and Grovyle is a lot like Ash and Pikachu. They've got this strong bond going on between them, kinda like having a heart-to-heart connection. I'm glad you liked that scene. Everyone seems to like those for some odd reason. Rotom's creepiness is my way of showing that despite his very Grovyle-like attitude, he's a very different kind of character underneath. The hidden mad-scientist is hopefully spot on.

Ivangenev1992: Thanks for the review. I'm glad you liked my story despite the imperfections. Read and stay tuned to know more!

Guest: Thanks a bunch!

ZyteWCDb: Thank you for your support! You're totally right though! Expect more reference and easter eggs popping randomly in this fic. Lol.

FariyFlare: Yes, they will definitely appear. Comedic relief is a must and Leo definitely cannot fill that role for too long.

Matt: Here it is, as requested! :)

Well, that's it for the review section. Gosh, 15 reviews! That's such a wonderful number. Now, I'm feeling really bad about leaving this fic to stew too long in my documents. Tsk. Dammit! Oh and by the way, I'm trying my hands on some Omake for next chapter. If you've got an interesting Idea please share to me either on Review or PM. Speaking of which, don't forget to click on like and follow as well as leaving some comments in the review box below.

Enjoy!

Chapter 18

"My second badge!" Leo cooed, nuzzling his cheeks against the cool metal of the badge in his hand like a little kid with their favourite plushie. The redhead Hoenn native was positively glowing, happiness literally flooding out of him in waves that Danny wouldn't be too suprised If a horde of Ralts were to suddenly teleport over to him just to enjoy the positive emotion he leaked out. "I can't believe I actually managed to get this Badge!"

"What I can't believe is Grovyle getting proposed to." He admitted, a wry smile plastered on his face as a sweatdrop slowly trailed down the back of his neck. That was the only thing he would underline with a neon green highlighter from his Gym battle, aside from Turtwig getting suffocated by Ponyta's butt that is. Other than that, it was all the standard Leo-patented shenanigans that he was fairly used to. "Still, good for you." He congratulated.

"Thanks." Leo grinned, pulling his face away from the badge and pocketing the tree-shaped piece of metal in its container, finally stopping the off-putting act of rubbing his cheeks against the object as though it was the cutest eevee to ever exist in the world. Seriosly, it was so bad that the pedestrians and passerby momentarily stopped in their track to shoot funny glances at Leo and, by proxy, Danny. Luckily, the small talk managed to stop him. "For your information, it's really not that uncommon for Grovyle to get mating proposals like that."

"Really?" The halfa asked, slightly interested.

"Yup." Leo nodded. "This'll make it the eleventh time he got proposed to since I started my journey. I keep track of it, see?" He said, pulling out a notebook where a tally was untidily scribbled under the title [Grovyle's Rejected Mate].

"You... keep track of this subject?" Danny couldn't help but ask at the face of the absurdity that was his travel companion.

"Uh-huh." He nodded, a proud smile slowly stretching across his face. "I also keep track of Grovyle's embarrassing moments from our childhood in another notebook." He said, the proud grin on his face now practically beaming in glee.

"Hmm..." Danny closed his eyes, deep in thought. "I wonder If I should get a notebook or a camera to keep track of Zenith's and Torch's embarrassing moments?" He wondered aloud, comparing the pros and cons to both objects.

"Definitely the camera!" Leo snickered, eyes gleaming with mischief at the prospect of getting visual evidence of Grovyle's fail moments.

Meanwhile, inside their respective Pokeballs, Zenith and Torch shivered in fear for their pride while simultaneously trying to plot the gruesome demise of the redheaded Hoenn-native for supplying the idea to their Trainer. Grovyle, however, just heaved a world-weary sigh inside his Pokeball, already long used to the antics of his Trainer.

"By the way." Leo began, just as he finsihed depositing his injured Pokemon to Nurse Joy's care. "Are you still dead-set on letting Riptide join the Gym Battle?" He asked.

Danny nodded resolutely. "Yeah. I've given some thoughts to what you've said and I stand by my decision." He answered. "Besides, Riptide has come along a great deal since we begin his training, I'm sure he can do it."

"Oooh~ Do you have a secret trump card or something?" Leo asked, eyes glittering in excitement.

"Perhaps." Danny smirked, trying his best to imitate Clockwork's signature infuriating smirk. Inwardly, Danny thanked the Master of Time for the lesson in being a cryptic bastard. For an added extra, Danny decided to give Leo a taste of Clockwork's catchphrase as well. "All in due time."

He gave him a pout. "I hate cliffhangers."

"Deal with it." He patted the shorter boy on his head, grinning all the while. "C'mon, I need to make a call to Prof. Rowan."

The Following Day, Eterna Gym...

"The battle between challenger, Danny Fenton of Sandgem Town vs. Gym Leader of Eterna City, Gardenia, shall now begin!"

With that Declaration, Danny and Gardenia swiftly plucked their respective Pokeballs from their belts and released their Pokemon, Danny with much less fanfare than Gardenia simply because he felt no such need to give out battle-cries and such stuffs. In a flash of white light, Gale and Gardenia's Turtwig made their appearance on the field, ready for battle.

"I'll start us off!" Danny called out, signalling for the slightly insane Staravia to ready his moves. "Gale, Agility and follow it up with Wing Attack!"

Without much comment, Gale took off into the air with a mighty flap of his wings, a pink outline glowing along his form before he disappeared in a blur of white and grey, circling around his target like a hawk would a hapless rabbit.

"Turtwig, Withdraw quickly!" Turtwig cried out a positive before swiftly, if slightly comically, pulled in his limbs into his shell one by one, his head having entered just in time before Gale could slam his glowing wings to deal some damage. Save within the confines of his shell, Turtwig was sent flying into the far off wall with no damage to show for his experience. "Counter-attack him with Razor Leaf!"

Turtwig's head popped out of his shell, momentarily disoriented from the change in light intensity before his eyes locked onto the speeding form of the Staravia and started to swing his head from side to side, shooting razor-sharp leaves from the sprout on top of his head.

"Dodge it, Gale!" Danny ordered. "Throw in some Air Cutter while you're at it!"

Gale hastened to follow the command and sped up his flight, easily dodging the incoming projectile by performing some aerobatic manuevers and impossibly un-needed loop-de-loops. ::Kids, eat your vegetables!:: The quip was easily ignored by most of them as Gale flapped his wings downward, sending out several wind scythes at the Grass-type below.

"Destroy those Air Cutter with Razor Leaf!" Gardenia commanded. "Follow it up with Mega Drain!"

Turtwig cried out in acknowledgement before he began to swing his head as though his life depended on it, spamming Razor Leaf like a fotocopy manchine high on steroids. The Razor Leaves crashed onto the incoming wind projectiles, obliterating each other with an impressive explotion. Finished with the projectiles, Turtwig charged into the smoke, Mega Drain at the ready.

"Guard up, Gale! The turtle's coming with a Mega Drain!" Danny called out, earning an oddly delighted 'Roger!' out of the Staravia.

Suddenly ten Turtwig leapt out of the smoke, catching the Staravia off-guard with their sudden increase in number. Acting out on pure self-preservation instinct, Gale activate Steel Wing and spun in place, slamming his wing to the incoming Turtwig-clones, all of them fizzling out of existence the moment his wing slammed on their heads.

"Gale, Air Cutter to the ground, he's below you!"

Unable to comply with the orders in time with Turtwig suddenly leaping out of the ground, Gale was left to compromise by jerking himself to the side, barely dodging the Mega Drain. He quickly retaliated with an Air Cutter, sending the airborne Grass-type down to the ground and successfuly delivering the first hit in the battle.

"Nice one, Gale! Press on with Wing Attack!" Danny shouted, hands blurring to snatch the white flag with a picture of a Staravia from Leo's grip. Where the red haired boy even got it in the first place, he never knew.

"Turtwig, get into position!"

"What is she planning?' Danny thought to himself, watching as Gale steadily glided closer and closer towards the stationary Tiny Leaf Pokemon, wings glowing with power, ready to strike.

Just as the Staravia came withing striking distance, Turtwig moved with an agility that shouldn't be possible for a Pokemon of his build and side-stepped the slash of Gale's wing before spitting several green seeds towards the Starling Pokemon. The seeds sunk into his skin just as the Flying-type made his way back into the air.

"Dammit! Gale, he just threw a Leech Seed on you!"

::Can I be a Marijuana tree or something?:: They faintly registered the fact that every Pokemon in hearing vicinity spluttered at the question. ::Sounds like a whale of a time if you ask me..::

"No! It's better to be an apple tree so I can eat some of the fru- Oh, to hell with this, Air Cutter!" Gale screeched before he began spamming the the Flying-type move, throwing scythes of wind towards Turtwig who tried his best to dodge the barrage. Sadly for the little Grass-type, the speed in which Gale could cast his moves is much too fast for a Pokemon of his build to be able to dodge out of and, as expected, the Tiny Leaf Pokemon ran out of juice too quickly to dodge the next couple of Air Cutter, getting another Super-Effective hit.

::Urk..:: At the same time, Gale has to content himself with the fact that his body was half-covered with vines, something he was a bit too anxious about. ::Such a fashion disaster..:: He groaned to himself, either from the fact that he looked like a walking bush or the fact that his strength was slowly siphoned away from him was up for debate.

Turtwig struggled to get back to his feet, the energy gained from Gale was helping, but it wasn't even nearly enough to fully heal him from consecutive Super-Effective hit by several Air Cutter he'd suffered through.

"Turtwig, Sunny Day!" Gardenia called out.

With a wordless nod, Turtwig unleashed the Fire-type move, causing the room to get brighter and warmer.

"No way! Is she planning to use Solar Beam!?" Danny wondered, ready to call out an order for Gale to use Protect to nullify the destructive Grass-type move. However, realization struck him a second too late when he reassesed Turtwig's condition. "No! Like hell I'll let you use that move! Gale, Air Cutter!"

"Too late! Photosynthesis!" Gardenia smirked.

The little sprout on Turtwig's head glowed a dazzling white, absorbing the power provided by the light around him to slowly but surely heal his wounds and reenergize himself even as he continued to drain bits of Gale's strength through the connection provided by Leech Seed.

Without any useless, lack-a-dasical quips, which was somehow weird considering that it was Gale we're all talking about, the Staravia fired off several more Air Cutter before propelling himself forward to the stationary Turtwig, beak elongating into the standard Peck attack.

"Dodge it and then use Take Down!" Gardenia ordered, quite pleased to have metaphorically turned the table.

Turtwig gave a cry of acknowledgement before he dashed away from the incoming air projectiles, this time safely evading all of them before sharply turning and rammed right into Gale's side, eliciting a grunt of pain from the bird-like Pokemon before sending him skyward with a push of his head. The Tiny Leaf Pokemon followed suit, leaping with enhanced legs before slamming the Staravia back down with a headbutt.

Turtwig leapt back, wincing from the recoil damage but otherwise, he looked as fine as he was before.

"Gale! Are you oka- Wait, dumb question! Can you still fight?" There was a muffled screech in the dust, and Danny sighed in relief as Gale suddenly emerged from the cloud of dust, looking slightly roughed up but nonetheless quite fine. That is, if you ignored the large bush on his back and, from his expression, anyone could tell that the Starling Pokemon doesn't feel any love for the growing vegetation on his back. "Alright, Gust!"

Strong wind currents ripped through the arena, kicking up dust cloud and throwing pebbles with every flap of Gale's large grey wings. Before long, the battlefield was concealed within a curtain of dust and debris, Gale disappearing into the chaos. Grovyle would've been very proud of the trick.

"Peck that turtle!" Gale torpedo-ed out of the cloud, beak elongated into the sharp spear that was the classic Flying-type move.

::Penetratiooon!::

"Don't go around shouting something like that!" Danny screamed, his voice a tad too high with a squeaky undertone as he screamed, a blush rapidly spreading over his face. "This is supposed to be a T-rate, you know?"

::French ki-::

"Just get on with it!"

The peck somehow connected, something Danny was somewhat thankful for, sending the Turtwig reeling with a cry of pain. Gale spun in middair, swerving to turn back and once again dealing super-effective damage to Turtwig. This continued on for a while until Turtwig was sent flying with one particularly hard Peck attack.

"Turtwig was unable to battle, the winner is Gale and Danny of Sandgem town!" The referee declared, holding up the red flag in his hand towards Danny's side of the field.

"Yesss!/Yippieee!:: Danny and Gale cheered, the Staravia throwing himself at his trainer before doing a synchronized hug/spin combo. "We did it! We freakin' did it!"

Gardenia chuckled from her side of them field. "Haha.. yeah, well, I'm not done yet. Thanks for the effort, Turtwig." She retrieved the unconscious Turtwig back into his Pokeball, swiftly plucking another one from her belt. "Ready when you're." She called out.

"Right. Gale, switch." The Staravia was promptly retrieved back into his Pokeball in a flash of red light, the Pokeball closing back with a muted click afterwards. Swiftly, the Halfa pulled out another Pokeball from his belt and, as usual, released the Pokemon inside without much fanfare just as Gardenia released her next Pokemon with her own battle-cry.

"Let's go, Riptide!"

"Bloom, Cherubi!"

Inwardly, the raven haired Trainer released a sigh of relief. If it had been Roserade, then he could kiss Riptide good night and very well forfeit the match, unable to bear the sight of the lcute little otter getting whipped by poisonous, thorn-whips. Well, since it was Cherubi instead, he could at least expect a hard, but not impossible to win fights.

"I'll start us off! Magical Leaf, Cherubi!" Gardenia ordered, fingers pointed towards the still giddilly-hopping Riptide like Hitler about to blast a village of Jewish out of the face of the planet. How she pulled that look with a green cloak, a pair of burnt orange khaki and short black shirt was something he found really questionable.

With a cry of effort, Cherubi released a salvo of rainbow-colored leaves at Riptide, snapping the Water-type off of his giddy babbling. Without waiting for orders and using his common sense as taught by his seniors and surrogate father, Riptide performed a cartwheel and successfully evaded the first wave of the attack.

"Counter with Water Gun, Rip!" Nodding to his Trainer, Riptide hastily complied with the order, opening his mouth as wide as he can to release a torrent of high-pressure water, throwing the incoming leaf projectiles off-course. Not done with just that, Riptide spun on the balls of his feet and aimed his Water Gun towards Cherubi, hitting the poor Grass-type in the face and knocking her back several feet.

"Cherubi!" Gardenia called out, slightly worried for the cherry-like Pokemon. "You're gonna pay for that! Cherubi, Attract!"

Before Cherubi could even initiate the technique, Danny had already went full protective Papa-Bear mode on Riptide, moving with a deliberate use of his ghostly power to literally zoom on to him and grabbed him up, using his own body to protect the young Pokemon from the seducement technique.

"Y-You craddle-robber, how dare you seduce my own kid in front of my eyes!" He screeched, face aghast at the prospect of his not even a year old son getting a crush on an old, crumply cherry like the Cherubi in front of him. He'd much prefer it to be a Milotic, to be completely truthful.

On the side, Leo pulled out a foldable chair out of his bag and promptly relaxed on it with a red&blue 3D glasses on his face and a big bowl of popcorn. "I love drama!" He cheered.

Beside him, Grovyle rolled his eyes, but indulged himself with some handfuls of the popcorn anyways. ::You're rubbing up on our voice of reason, Leo.::

"Go, Riptide, show her your standards! Ice Beam!" Holding the little other on both hands, Danny shoved Riptide forward towards the still flabbergasted Cherubi's direction as he opened his mouth to let loose a jagged beam of icy-blue eyes, sub-zero mist trailing around it.

"Dodge to the side! Lucky Chant and follow it up with Magical Leaves!" The familair glow of the cheat skill known as Lucky Chant enshrouded the cherry-like Pokemon before she dodged to the left, the Ice Beam seemingly bending lightly where it would graze her with its jagged flow. Immediately, the grass-type released a salvo of rainbow leaves, all moving through the air like throwing knives towards Danny and Riptide.

"Hiyaah!" Danny threw Riptide to the side before leaping back with a graceful somersault. "Continue on the Ice Beam!"

::Roger, dad!::

More magical leaves appeared in the air, all flying towards the Unova Water-type Starter. Realizing that he was neither fast nor nimble enough to dodge a hail of Magica Leaves, Riptide once again fired the move he had trained hardly with tears and blood by the help of his Trainer all week long; Ice Beam.

Large Ice flowers erupted from the ground as the jagged line of Ice Beam crackled haphazardly like a lightning bolt, freezing and neutralizing whatever threat the Grass-type move might possess for the Water-type. Riptide wiped a few beads of sweat off of his face from the strenuous activity he's engaged in for the past ten minutes, eager to take a breather.

"Now's our chance, Cherubi! Solar Beam!"

The Ice flowers shattered and exploded inwards, blown apart by the massive beam of pure, concentrated sunlight rapidly heading towards him.

*KABOOOOOOOMMM!

TBC

A/N: Well, that was a thing! What'll happen to Riptide, eh? This is his first official battle too... Stay tuned and find out next chapter! ...Shit, I sound like a bad commercial for a TV series! Don't forget to leave lots of REVIEWS guys! They're LOVE!

Silvershark Out!