A/N: First of all, JayFan67, it occurs to me I forgot to answer one of your questions. Regarding the ExtremeSpeed meme, I think that it is a meme, but I also think that Brock did say it once in the anime, though of course I don't remember. I thought it was funny enough to mention though.

Thanks for your reviews, Julie Togepi and Mew292400. Yes, Selena was really sneaky, which was why the others were so shocked. And yes, you can Skill Swap Wonder Guard, but the problem is Sableye (or Spiritomb) or Shedninja can't learn them normally, which is why I added the thing with the Replay Badge. And as for ways to counter Wonder Guard, yes there are a lot, which I can mention. You can use Skill Swap on the Pokemon again to take away its Wonder Guard, you can eventually whittle its health down using Sandstorm or Hail, you can use Toxic or a move that inflicts Burn, you could use a Fairy type attack (this wasn't possible before Generation VI, so that's one thing that should be mentioned), if your opponent uses a physical based move then Rough Skin or holding a Rocky Helmet could work, you can change your opponent's type with a move like Soak, or you could change its ability using a move like Simple Beam. There are a lot of options actually, but they aren't very common ones that I'd suspect a normal Trainer would have and Freyja made sure to limit them by poaching Pokemon.

Once Freyja knew where Ash was, it was child's play finding him. He was trying to escape the observatory - and she noticed with someone who looked familiar somehow- and was at the bottom of the peak.

"You won't run away so fast!" she screamed giddily while Hamnet, who was riding behind her on her Altaria (well it was not her's but Hamnet's technically, but whatever), tried not to vomit.

Freyja didn't take notice of it, but perhaps it was her Badge that let her avoid physiological problems like nausea and vertigo.

"Stop right there, child!" Freyja said. "We're going to fight! A single Double Battle, and you will be defeated!"

Ash looked up, and saw Lady Freyja and Duke Hamnet riding towards him and Celera. As a matter of fact, Lady Freyja was diving him at an angle so that with her ridiculous outfit with its skirt (which was almost the same as her earlier dress, except it was blue and covered with stars) and the wind billowing… eh, Ash would try hard not to think about it later and just averted his gaze.

"So you've found us," Celera snarled. A wave of despair fell over Ash and Celera, they knew they had nothing to counter Freyja's technique and now there was no way for Ash to run.

"Uh-huh," Freyja said. "Oh, now I remember, you're Emily's little bratty sister. My, how you've grown old. So you were the one who took the child away as I was about to beat him? Doesn't matter, I'll finish him first, and then you later."

"Milady, would you prefer I battle him first as a Gym Trainer?" Duke Hamnet asked. "You know, just in case-"

"No, I want this over with quick," Freyja said. "And I know he won't be able to beat me. Now, you know the rules, a Double Battle."

Freyja began immediately and sent out a Shedninja and Sableye. The Pokemon seemed to be glad just for having been let out and the Sableye seemed to quite literally kiss the earth, or maybe it was just mining for minerals- Ash had heard something like that about Sableye and he couldn't check it in his Pokedex now that the battle had started. He wondered what it would feel like to be trapped in a Pokeball for so long… and he felt a surge of rage towards Freyja.

"Nothing to it then," Ash said and sent out his Arcanine and Pikachu. He would have used Extremespeed to take out Shedninja quickly and so ruin Freyja's strategy, but the thing was that both of those Pokemon were Ghost types. "Quick! Arcanine! Use Flamethrower on Shedninja! Pikachu, use Thunderbolt on the Sableye!"

Freyja however, had been anticipating this strategy. Sableye jumped in front of Shedninja and used Protect, so both attacks merely bounced off of it. Shedninja then used Skill Swap as Protect wore off, and the deed was done.

"No!" Celera said, almost pulling her hair in frustration. "No!"

Freyja grinned maliciously. "Oh, I've heard the jokes for a long time about me. How all the rest think I'm stupid and crazy. Well, tell me, who's stupid now?"

"I think they were right about the crazy part though," Ash said.

"Bah!" she said, snarling. "Your head will prove a nice decoration for my dining table- I don't think I'll give you the honor of being trampled under Rapidash."

And that was that. Shedninja fell easily once it was stripped of its Wonder Guard and because the only move it knew was Skill Swap thanks to the Replay Badge, but beyond that, Sableye was now untouchable, a fact that Freyja did her utmost to take advantage of.

Still, it might have been untouchable, but it was also still very weak. As such, Ash had another idea: exhaustion. His Pokemon would simply move very fast, and eventually the Sableye would become too tired to battle. One by one, his Pokemon fell though, because being hit with attacks, no matter how weak, was much worse than simply jumping around.

And the thing was that Ash could never order them to blatantly run away or his Badges started humming. Clearly, being a Gym Leader unlike Celera, he couldn't run away form this fight, which made him remember what Mr. Jennings had said, "Power is never without price." It didn't help that his thoughts kept drifting to what would happen to him, Celera, and the rest of the people who had supported him if he was going to lose. Ash had no doubt that he and Celera would both be killed now unless Celera ran, which he would ask her to do if things go too bad, and he tried to divert his mind from what would happen to Gulliver, Mr. Jennings, and the others. From what he had seen, Freyja, and all the other Gym Leaders as well, were very, very vindictive.

Their battle continued for the next six hours as Sableye grew more and more exhausted, but Freyja wouldn't let it stop and it didn't seem that it would collapse for at least a few more hours. By then though, Ash was down to just two Pokemon: his Haunter and his Grimer.

It took twenty minutes for Grimer to faint.

Then, as Freyja tried ordering her very exhausted Sabeleye to do something else, her Badge began humming. Ash's Badge was humming also. He found that he couldn't order his Pokemon to do anything- the words would dry up in his mouth, and neither could Freyja.

"What happened?" Ash asked.

"I don't know, we must be breaking the rules somehow," Freyja muttered. "Wait- this is a Double Battle, you have to have two Pokemon out at all times if you can. Do you have another Pokemon?"

"No, my Skorupi was lost in that weird glitch, and all I got back was an empty Quick Ball," Ash said. He tried giving another command, but he couldn't. And he hadn't miscounted, he had sent out all five of his Pokemon.

"What are you doing?" Freyja asked. "Quit stalling! We've been fighting for over six hours! You can't escape either, since your friend over there can't interfere."

"I'm not stalling," Ash said. "I don't know what's wrong!" And then he thought of something.

It was insane, but seemed to be somewhat of a possibility, or rather the possibility of a possibility being there. What if that Quick Ball… hadn't been empty?

Ash hesitantly took it out and opened it. He expected it to reveal nothing inside, but instead a brilliantly colored Roserade appeared. It wasn't a Shiny, but its health clearly showed through the sheen of its leaves and petals.

"When did you catch that?" Celera asked.

"I didn't! It isn't mine!" Ash said. "It just came out from that Quick Ball we got!"

Ash didn't even have to give the Roserade directions or any orders. Once it was out, by it's own volition it simply used a move on Freyja's Sableye that shot a seed at it that Hamnet recognized as Worry Seed, and then used a Vine Whip to take it out. The Vine Whip did damage, surprisingly, and the Sableye fainted. Freyja had no more Pokemon left, for she had never thought that she'd need more.

"That move must have been Worry Seed, it changes the opponent's ability to Insomnia," Celera said. "Wait- why did I have to wait over six hours then if you had that all along?"

"I told you, I didn't know I had it!" Ash said.

Freyja gave a loud cry of despair as her Replay Badge moved away from her and pinned itself to Ash's chest.

Like with Thomdolt, Ash felt his feelings of being in a foreign land wash away. No, this place wasn't foreign- it was his home, his kingdom, his territory, his-

"Um, well done Sir Ash," Duke Hamnet said, interrupting his train of thought. "Ur, I hate to be the one to ask this now that you've won, but can I keep my job? I really never liked Freyja anyway."

"Traitor!" Freyja snarled and tried striking Hamnet but was stopped by his Altaria.

"No, no, Hamnet is not your slave anymore," Hamnet said with a grin.

"Alright, if you're well behaved you can keep your job," Ash said. He wiped his brow and healed all his Pokemon.

Then, his Pokedex began beeping as he received another message from his mysterious benefactor. As always, the message was spoken by four different voices all overlapping with each other, and one of them was one that Celera recognized very well. The message went:

We hope that you enjoyed our gift, and your victory handed to you thanks to our Roserade. Feel free to keep it.

"First of all though, I want to sleep," Ash said, ignoring the message for now. He would have to check what the Roserade could do later on. "This has been a long day."

"Yes, though I think first of all, Sir Ash, given our circumstances, I'm assuming that you'll want some food transported back to your other regions?" Duke Hamnet. "Yes, I believe I should get in touch with a certain Mr. Jennings regarding this."


Selena and Linnea were having another one of their conferences.

"How did she lose?" Linnea asked. "You reassured me that she had a brilliant strategy- and though I'm loath to admit it and quite shocked she could have thought of something as brilliant as that- it should've worked! What in the name of Landorus went wrong?"

"Well, see, I blocked the Pokemon transfer by shutting the system down," Selena said. "But, well, you know how the system gives out a Quick Ball when that happens as compensation for the inconvenience caused or if a Pokemon were to show up? One was never sent from my company to the boy, but someone else managed to get into my systems somehow and instead sent a Quick Ball holding a Pokemon- a Roserade apparently, and it helped that brat win. I tried to warn Freyja that the boy had a sixth Pokemon, but she disconnected before I could."

"Someone hacked your system?" Linnea exclaimed. "No one in Galea has that much skill!"

"Exactly what confounds me," Selena spat out reluctantly. "There is quite literally no one I know better than me at what I do and yet someone got the upper hand. It isn't just about being more skilled though… no one can possibly get the equipment needed to make something that rivals mine. All of the best transistors and chips are manufactured in my domain- the best Thomdolt could do was to make a few wires. Who could've done this? I would almost believe Wade… could it be possible that Wade has had more help from outside? That he managed to bring someone from outside who knows more about technology than I do?"

"What is that but a theory?" Linnea said. "Anyway, he will be coming for me next. How is our plan to starve him out?"

"Not going as well as I'd have hoped," Selena said. "I would've hoped for them to have stooped to resorting to cannibalism, Trainers eating their own Pokemon, you know, like they did at the Siege of Alamut during the reign of Hoplite IV, but this pretender's realms are currently well-stocked as far as I can tell for at least a few weeks more, and Freyja didn't agree to burn her reserves of food as Thomdolt did. As such, her domain didn't really have much surplus food anyway, but it will slow down their demise due to starvation."

"He will try to reach me then," Linnea said. "I will be more than ready though. If he thought winning a victory over those three was a victory… he was sorely wrong."

Selena nodded. "Take care then."

A/N: And that ends that! I hope you enjoyed the surprise as to how Ash won. I know it might seem a bit like a deus ex machina, but I did sort of hint that the Quick Ball wasn't all it seemed last chapter and that Selena had something to say so it wouldn't seem too much random or as if it had been pulled out of nowhere.

That said, onto something that Mew29240 said, and something that I've been wondering about also: getting someone else into Galea. It probably won't happen until we reach around Wade, but I think I have two choices. I could either go and add someone for comic relief, like Team Rocket, or perhaps something romantic, most likely Serena I guess since she was the most recent, though I confess I know nothing of her character as I haven't seen X & Y. I was also maybe considering Brock, but I don't want to start bringing in too many people... which is why I want to know what you guys think.

I will point out though that regardless of who I add, the change will only be superficial really, and though it might add a bit more of fun to the story, the plot will essentially remain the same and won't change much by adding one character, and the main focus of the story will still be mystery and adventure.

Thanks for reading, as always, and do review if you liked! It reminds me, at this point, we've crossed the 50k word mark, and we've just only slightly ended Freyja now.