Eight hours later Kyle woke up to voices. Before moving he felt something in his hands and quickly remembered it was Rachel. He smiled for a moment before realising where he was and before he opened his eyes he heard something else "Wow. I always knew he was a weirdo but this is just disgusting". It was Jarrad, looking over the two nearly naked together. "Oh piss off" Kyle said as he got up slowly but Jarras was already heading back to tell Hayley what happened. Kyle didn't care any more what they thought. He pat Rachel on the head one before getting dressed. The two got ready slowly, Rachel was silent.

"The other two are gone up ahead, let them go I don't need them anyway" he said. Rachel was just staring at him, only one thing was on her mind. [Are you going to keep me?] Kyle smiled back "Of course, now lets win this thing."

The couple packed up Kyles stuff and walked down victory road together. It was still going to be a week at least until they got to the pokemon league so they took their time training. Rachel was 100% focused on training to be as strong as possible and so were Abomasnow and Blaziken. Kyle and Rachel both relieved their urge, they didnt have a need to be intimate for that week as they knew exactly how they felt about each other and all that mattered was training and getting good nights sleeps before the championship.

During that week though Kyle had absolutely no problem with public displays of affection towards Rachel and in the final day before the event with the annual fair with hundreds of pop up stores, the couple spent the day shopping holding hands the entire time. They got plenty of stares but Kyle knew if this is what he had to deal with to have Rachel fight at her best, it was worth it.

The big day finally arrived and Kyle eagerly awaited to see who his first opponent was, but it was a bye. This upset him, he went to take a look at who his opponent was. There was no photo, just a name "Domino". As he thought about how strange it was they had no last name, he heard a TV in the distance, it was a preview for an interview show. "I pretended to be an agent for a year, they don't know my real name, I did this to find who killed my uncle. Last week while on a mission rumours started to grow of our target being a pokemon that had killed dozens of people in the past. I quit that day, it wasn't worth the risk." "Which pokemon was that?" "They called it... Mewtwo. I don't know what happened to the people I worked with..." Kyle thought that was all very interesting and looked back at the outline of who his next opponent should have been, he really didn't know what to think.

Kyle sat there waiting for his first, or second round match as it was before finally coming up against a female trainer called May. Kyle was used to pressure, but battling beneath a stadium crowd was something else altogether. Kyle was ready for this and sent out Blaziken first, the girl looked like she favoured water types. It was a rocky stage they were battling on and he wondered if this girl would be an easy match. Nervously he waited until she shouted. "Go, Zapdos!"

"... what" Kyle said. "Where did you get that!" He pulled out his pokedex as fast as possible. "Zapdos: Level 80. Th-" He closed it instantly. "This is the pokemon league, kid, did you think it would be easy?" she replied back to him. "I'm not a kid I'm like 5 years older than you!". As Kyle freaked out the official yelled "TRAINERS, BEGIN."

It was over before he even knew what happened. Zapdos started with thunder, one-hit KOing Blaziken. "This can't be normal!" he said as he threw out Abomasnow. "Abomasnow, Ice Beam" and just like it did to Dragonite, it landed a powerful hit on Zapdos but it didnt freeze it. "Zapdos, Thunder again!". 3 seconds later a gigantic thud echoed throughout the stadium as Abomasnow slammed into the ground. Kyle was almost in tears. This wasn't how it was meant to be. "Lucario... go" he said without any effort. Rachel had no idea what had just happened but saw the Zapdos infront of her, a little weak. "Only you can do this Rachel, bone rush it!" he said, regaining a little confidence.

She was just as high a level as the zapdos and to Kyles amazement leapt high enough into the air to hit it with the bone, knocking it down and KO'ng it. As she landed she turned around happily to look at Kyle but he didn't seem any happier, confused, she looked around to see the scoreboard and that it was 2-1. She had to defeat two more pokemon, but she was ready.

"Good job Zapdos. Lucario... hm well that needs a fighting type. Go Machamp!" May yelled, throwing out the largest Machamp Kyle had ever seen. "You never had a chance, Machamp is super effective versus ice and steel!" she taunted Kyle. "Is this how it ends..." he said to himself looking clearly depressed. Rachel figured out all of what was going now and without Kyles guidance, fought the Machamp as Kyle slumped to his knees, it was impossible. Nothing Rachel could do was going to make any difference, Kyle was hopelessly outclassed.

Rachel fought with everything she knew and started with a metal claw but it barely took a chunk off the Machokes health. She had no time to react as it grabbed her and used seismic toss. Rachel had never been hit so hard in her life, that one move nearly knocked her out. As Machoke stood over her, ready to end it, she slammed her paws into the ground to knock herself back up and used her strongest attack, close combat, landing the powerful blow right in the Machokes face. Kyle saw that and looked up with a glimmer of hope and Rachel looked pumped and ready but to her horror the Machoke got up, it barely looked half hurt. "Fighting move against a fighting type? How did you even get past the first round?" May taunted Kyle as Machoke wound up a close combat of his own and Rachel had a flashback of the dragon gym.

"FORFEIT!"

"BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT"

The stadium went quiet and all eyes looked to Kyle as he slammed down the forfeit button on his pedestal.

"DONT FINISH HER, WE GIVE UP!" Kyle said as the Machoke relaxed and May started celebrating. Kyle drowned out the cheers of the crowd and the announcer declaring the winner to go up and hug Rachel in front of tens of thousands of people. She was already crying knowing that once again her use of Close Combat caused her to lose and now cost Kyle the entire championship. She backed away from Kyle as he walked up to her, repeatedly saying [I'm sorry! I'm sorry] and limping from that seismic toss still.

"Rachel, you were incredible... I wasn't ready for the league... Don't feel bad, you did everything I ever wanted of you." Rachel was terrified of what would happen now that they lost [but I lost... I didn't meant to do that!] "No it was me, I thought I could win with only 6 months training. I'm proud of you" He let go of her to look her in the eyes. [So you're not mad?] Kyle laughed a little "No, I failed. I wasn't strong or smart enough. I think...we need many years more together before I can ever win this." [Are you sure?] Rachel said still feeling worried about it all. "I love you" Kyle said as he kissed her on the head and walked to the centre of the stage. Rachel was still worried but those last few words had meant so much to her, more years together, he must have really been looking forward to it. She finally managed a smile after wiping away the last of her tears.

Kyle begrudgingly went up to shake hands with May. "Sorry about taunting you, its part of battling though." she said as Kyle replied "I know, I've done it too. I just cant believe I was out so early." "Yeah the pokemon league is not for new comers, my first opponent came at me with a Latias can you believe it! I've looked ahead and seen that my next opponent is running around with an Entei, this is crazy" she said. "I never would have even got past the first round no matter who I faced... I misjudged this badly. Nice Zapdos by the way" Kyle said as he walked off and out of the stadium.

Kyle sat down on a bench outside, looking towards the stadium and hearing all the cheers of the crowd. For the last 6 months, everything he had trained for was in there, but he didn't belong. He was just one of many who didn't make the cut. He looked around and saw other people in the exact same contemplation as him and he realised in a top 64 bracket, he was just one of 32 people who lost in the first round. 32 people who probably trained just as hard as him, and thought they deserved it just as much. The entire time Rachel sat there in silence thinking the same thing in how she had dedicated her life to one thing and failed but if Kyle was happy, she was happy.

Eventually Kyle walked up to the large monitor near the stadium entrance to see how his old friends were doing. To his surprise, Jarrad was actually knocked out first round and it looked like he lost in a 0-3 clean sweep. "wow... he did worse than me. Jerk" said to himself, Rachel heard it too. He looked around to find Hayley and saw she made it into the top 16 bracket meaning she had won 2 rounds. He waited a short while for her next round and decided to watch. Hayley didn't annoy him like Jarrad had done anyway.

With his participant lanyard he was allowed to watch with Rachel next to him in the close up stands and got there just in time to start. Hayley didn't see him there as she pulled out her first pokemon to start the match and Kyle was left wide eyed again as another legendary was thrown out, she had somehow caught a Heatran. The other trainer responded with a Kyogre. Kyle had never seen anything like it before. The two giants attacking each other with blasts powerful enough to blast a hole through the stadium walls and Heatran went down in an instant to a single Water spout. Hayley looked shocked as she pulled out the pokemon she had travelled with until that point and it was the same story, a single water spout ending her run with a 0-3 loss.

Hayley seemed just as devastated about it as Kyle was as she walked out and he spoke to her "that was rough, you got top 16 though!" He said. "Yeah I'm actually ok with that. What are the chances I get a Kyogre against me though..." she said. "Where did you find that Heatran?" "Oh I found it in victory road, it basically got me to top 16 by itself. Have you seen the top 8 though? Everyone has at least one legendary and some have 2!" she added.

As they walked, Hayley directed Kyle to a more quiet area before sitting down with him. "If you're wondering where Jarrad is, hes gone and I dont care. He was so jealous I caught that Heatran, I've never seen him act so... pathetic. Then he lost the first round, said I was lucky and stormed off so stuff him" Hayley said. Kyle just laughed. "I didn't see your match though but I heard you lost in the second round, how did it go?"

"It wasn't close. I don't know if I can ever win this thing, it seems impossible." "Yeah I feel that way too" Hayley said, which shocked Kyle. "You put in all this effort and its like, nope I have more legendaries than you. I win. Wheres the fun in raising pokemon if you only use them to catch legendaries who have no personality whatsoever, not to mention you can't even travel with them because they are gigantic!" she said laughing.

Kyle and Hayley spoke for a little longer before heading their separate ways. From their conversation it seemed like Hayley had no idea what happened between Kyle and Rachel that night on victory road, or maybe she did and she didn't care. Maybe she thought it wasn't that abnormal and she would be the same if she found the right pokemon. Kyle didn't really want to know.

It was a long walk back to his home and Kyle knew he was not going to be welcome by his mother with Rachel by his side but he didn't care. He just wanted to go back to his home town and maybe enrol in some classes, for what he didn't know yet but training for the pokemon league was as far from his mind as possible. Rachel never did tell him what happened at that ravine and never intended to. The couple became closer in the few months it took to wander cross country back to their home.