Indigo League Challenge, Mt. Moon Task – 6 drabble collection (excluding extras), third drabble 600-650 words.
Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts #494 – satisfying

And here's where it no longer conforms to canon. XD

A Trail of Dust Particles – Alain's Journey
Drabble 06: Runner Up

They didn't meet again before the Kalos league. Instead, there were other battles, each as unsatisfying as the next and the desperation for strength – his original motive – increased. Mairin still didn't smile. Lysandre needed more mega evolution power. Whispers about the unfairness of mega evolution continued to rise and Alain worried, and tried to get stronger to overcome it all.

His desire to battle Ash again became slightly less noble, but he smiled when he saw Ash on television, smiled when he saw him at the banquet, smiled when he saw him plough through the competition, and smiled when Ash won his semi-final match and would meet Alain in the finals.

Though he frowned elsewise. He saw Professor Sycamore but avoided him. Associating with him in such a public venue would not only add fuel to the haters of mega evolution, especially considering how often he used his mega Charizard in battle. One might say he overused it, and unnecessarily but any and all amounts of experience were important. But some of his opponents could use mega evolution as well. By the time the quarter finals were underway, Ash Ketchum was the only competitor who wasn't capable of it (and that was just an assumption, as he hadn't seen him use it before – nor had he any pokemon on hand that could undergo mega evolution).

But his partner was a Pikachu. Pikachu were native to Kanto and Kanto alone. So he could very well have pokemon elsewhere, from other regions. Pokemon that could be capable of mega evolution after all.

But even after the six on six battle of the semi-finals, he didn't reveal a mega evolution or even a pokemon capable of it. Just his mysterious Greninja – who had compressed the curtain of water that had veiled it before into a mega shuriken on its back. But that was enough. The mysterious Greninja who came close to his mega Charizard was more than enough. More exciting than the battle between two mega Charizards. More exciting than the rematch that pitted six pokemon against only his two.

And then the finals. He was sure he'd win, because not only had Ash never defeated him, but his team was woefully one-sided and he'd come too close in the semi-final match against Sawyer to bring an advantage to his record. But perhaps that was cockiness. Perhaps he'd never expected to lose, just to enjoy the thrill of battling such a trainer and pokemon and bond until it was wrung dry –

But he lost the thrill somewhere towards the middle when he realised he stood a very real chance of losing this six on six battle. The first battle had pitted Noivern against Metagross and this time Noivern won, despite the clear disadvantage, the fact that Metang had won before and the evolution that had followed. And the rest of their battles were so closely matched. Like the match between Ash and Sawyer, and he'd watched and thought Ash was a little too inexperienced still.

He'd been wrong. So wrong. Sawyer was far more formidable than he'd appeared, battling Ash. It definitely would have taken Alain more than two pokemon to win, even with the lack of data on his side. Ash had faced familiarity, and Ash's spontaneity and trust had still broken through all that.

Ash's spontaneity and the undiluted trust in his pokemon was breaking him now as well. Breaking him until he made a clumsy mistake and lost Weavile without doing any damage to Greninja at all.

And suddenly, it was the final battle he'd waited too long and yet not long enough for. Mega Charizard X fought against the mysterious Greninja. Struggle fought, came close – but he lost sight of Charizard in that battle when they moved to fast and too far, and Ash and Greninja won.