It didn't take long for Sabrina's initial attitude to reassert itself after her loss to Roy. Her green eyes studied Antonia closely and she smiled at the younger trainer before cooing, "Cameron told me that there were two challengers. Are you ready for our rematch, Antonia?"

Antonia's eyes widened behind her glasses, but to her credit she didn't look away from Sabrina's face. "I hope so," she said so softly that only she could hear and then started towards Roy's former spot on the gym's battlefield like a condemned prisoner.

Roy finished returning his charmeleon to his poké ball before beaming at Antonia. "You can do this, Toni! If I can beat Sabrina, you should be able to handle her no problem!"

"Thanks, Roy," Antonia said woodenly to Roy. She wasn't smiling and her palms were clammy with nervous sweat as she grabbed for her poké ball, only to stop when Sabrina beckoned her over.

"Don't you remember how this works?" Sabrina asked Antonia with playful reproach. She took two poké balls out of her purse again and sent them swirling through the air between the two of them. Antonia watched them, her mind working rapidly, but, in the end, there was nothing to do but reach out and grab one of Sabrina's poké balls. Antonia's hand closed around one of the floating spheres and quickly released it as Sabrina clapped patronizingly. "Well done, Antonia," she said, "looks like we'll be doing a real sequel to our last battle." Without touching it, Sabrina triggered the poké ball's release mechanism and her kadabra appeared in a flash of red light. "Antonia, you remember, Kadabra, don't you?"

Antonia swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and nodded at the gym leader and her yellow-furred pokémon. Kadabra's eyes were as harsh as Antonia remembered them, and she felt herself wilting under the combined judgement of the pokémon and its trainer. "Yes, I remember," Antonia said, and she backed away to her end of the battlefield. To, the match's referee, Antonia said, "I have three pokémon to choose from, Cameron."

The boy acknowledged Antonia with a node and then announced to the battlers and spectators, "A match between the gym leader Sabrina and the challenger Antonia! The leader will be allowed one pokémon while the challenger will be able to use three pokémon, with substitutions!"

Now that she at least knew which pokémon she was going to have to defeat, Antonia's nerves settled enough that when she found gyarados's poké ball, her grip was sure. "I'll choose Gyarados!" she shouted in a brittle voice and sent out her newest pokémon.

The light which exploded out of the small capsule in Antonia's hand was brighter than any that she or Roy had ever seen before so that it was almost as dazzling as the blinding attack Sabrina's abra had used in her match with Roy. The shape that emerged from the poké ball stretched to tower over the trainers, and it looked as though Gyarados could scrape its head against the beams of the ceiling if it reared back to its full height.

"Oh boy," AJ muttered while Roy, standing next to him, held his breath. Even Sabrina's usually reserved demeanor took a hit as she took in the ferocious pokémon that her challenger had chosen and frowned.

"The challenger has chosen Gyarados to face the gym leader's kadabra!" Cameron's voice rang out. "Trainers, pokémon, begin!"

But before Cameron had finished talking, Antonia's gyarados had lowered its body to the ground and swung its long tail towards where the smaller pokémon was standing. Kadabra's eyes glowed blue, and Gyarados's attack slowed, but did not stop. The attack caught Sabrina's kadabra in the chest and knocked the pokémon off of its feet. Instead of an uncontrolled landing, however, Kadabra used its psychic powers to halt its momentum through the air and lower itself safely to the ground.

"Gyarados," Antonia started to say, but her voice was drowned out by her pokémon's roar. "Gyarados, please, I need you to-"

Any order that Antonia was going to give her pokémon died in her throat as she watched her pokémon hurl its humongous body at Kadabra again. This time, Gyarados led with its head and its jaws snapped viciously as it tried to land a savage bite on its opponent. All of the trainers watched the pokémon lunge towards Kadabra with surprising speed. Kadabra leapt nimbly backwards to avoid the first crash of Gyarados's head into the floor of the gym where it had been standing scant moments before. With a mouthful of splintered wood, Gyarados pulled itself free of the battered floor and then tried to lunge at Kadabra again.

This time, instead of avoiding the attack, Kadabra held out its hand and, with its face twisted in strained concentration, the psychic pokémon first halted Gyarados's mouth from closing around its arm and then managed to force its furious foe's jaws open wider and wider.

"Frankly, Antonia, this is insulting," Sabrina said sharply from across the battlefield. "You thought that you would challenge me with an untrained pokémon? In what world would that showcase your abilities as a trainer? Why would you think that this would work?"

"I didn't," Antonia said softly, but Sabrina cut her off with a harsh bark of, "Psywave attack, Kadabra!"

Kadabra's psychic control of Gyarados's body slackened as it drew a hasty circle of blue energy in front of them and then sent the hollow disc hurtling past the larger pokémon's teeth. Only then did Kadabra release its hold, and Gyarados's jaws snapped down on the psychic attack which shattered under its powerful jaws. But there was no sign on either Sabrina or her kadabra's face that they were fazed by this turn of events.

Indeed, when Gyarados rose back to prepare itself for another attack, it came to a stop with a jerk so sudden that it looked painful for the large pokémon. A queasy expression came over the giant pokémon's face and it started to sway back and forth. "Gyarados!" Antonia cried. "Please!"

In truth, Antonia wasn't sure what she was pleading for her pokémon do. She only wanted its pain to end, and, somehow, for it to listen to her so that she could win this battle. Sabrina, on the other hand, knew exactly what she wanted, and she ordered, "Kadabra, keep attacking! Take that gyarados down!"

Kadabra's narrowed eyes grew blue and it started moving its hand to rapidly draw circle after circle of psychic energy in front of it until there was a thin barrier of glowing blue hoops floating between it and Gyarados's unsteady body. Then, with a contemptuous flick of its wrist, Kadabra sent all of its accumulated missiles speeding towards its foe.

The psychic attacks crashed against Antonia's pokémon like a barrage of artillery. Each blow made Gyarados reel back, and its angry roars were soon replaced by howls of pain. Antonia watched, shivering, at the sight of her mighty pokémon, the one she had hoped would help her beat Sabrina, was bludgeoned by Kadabra's psychic attacks until it finally fell over onto its side and lay still.

Even unconscious, Gyarados was still an intimidating force with its body stretching nearly the length of the battlefield which Antonia and Sabrina bracketed. Cameron studied the fallen pokémon's blue body carefully before he raised his flag and announced, "Gyarados is unable to battle! The winner is Kadabra! The challenger will send out her next pokémon."

"You aren't ready for this," Sabrina said as Antonia silently recalled her gyarados back to its poké ball. "You haven't learned anything since our last battle," continued the gym leader with a shake of her head. "The trust between a pokémon and a trainer that is needed to beat me, the kind of trust that your friend showed in his battle, isn't blind faith, but something deeper. If you can't show me that you trust your pokémon, you should just quit."

"I won't quit," replied Antonia, but her voice was less steady than her words. She automatically grabbed Beedrill's poké ball and let the yellow and black pokémon out so that it could zip around the field, its wings beating rapidly enough so that the gym was filled with Beedrill's telltale buzz.

"The challenger has chosen her beedrill!" Cameron announced. "Trainers, pokémon, begin!"

Sabrina barely waited for the words to leave the referee's mouth before she snapped her fingers and barked, "Attack!"

Kadabra pressed its free hand to its forehead and held out its spoon with its other. The yellow-furred pokémon's eyes glowed blue for a brief moment and then a stream of multicolored light erupted from the bowl of Kadabra's spoon. Beedrill flew frantically around the oncoming attack so that the beam of mingled pink, yellow, and blue energy passed under its body to strike a far-off wall.

"Beedrill!" Antonia shouted, finding some of her old battling instincts coming back to her. "Fight back with your poison stings!" The order came too slowly for the resulting salvo of missiles to take Kadabra by surprise. Instead, Sabrina's pokémon merely held out its hand to halt the projectiles in midair and then swept them away, just as it had during Kadabra's last encounter with Antonia's beedrill. For a moment, Antonia's uncertainty was drowned out by the frantic activity of her brain as she sought to remember Kadabra's capabilities and predict what the psychic pokémon would attempt next. When she saw that Kadabra was starting to reach its hand towards Beedrill, Antonia shouted, "Keep moving, Beedrill! Don't let it lock onto you!" Her pokémon beat its translucent wings even more rapidly and took off like a shot through the air over the battlefield as Sabrina's pokémon tracked it with its cold eyes.

On the sidelines, AJ shook his head ruefully and said to Roy, "I don't how Antonia's going to turn this battle around. She's given up the initiative to Sabrina, and unless she gets it back, it's just going to be a slow walk to defeat."

"That's not true!" Roy shot back. "I don't know what 'initiative' is, but I know that Antonia's going to win this! She's going to figure it out!"

AJ glanced over at Roy. "I hope you're right, Roy."

Above the battlefield, Beedrill continued its erratic flight over Kadabra as it waited for its opponent to let down its defenses long enough for a successful attack. The opportunity came when the gym leader's pokémon finally gave up on trying to hit Beedrill with a direct attack. Instead, it closed its eyes and, just as it had during its battle with Gyarados, began drawing a series of circles in the air that resulted in a multitude of blue hoops of energy filling the air before Kadabra.

"Now, Beedrill!" Antonia shouted, and her pokémon quickly reoriented its body so that the large stinger on its abdomen was aimed properly. Beedrill fired a string of three poisonous needles which struck Kadabra in the back, but though the pokémon took one staggering step forward under the blow, it continued its work. "Again!" ordered Antonia, but by then Kadabra had finished crafting its psychic discs and blocked the next attack with another display of telekinetic power.

Then, while Beedrill was cowed by that show of Kadabra's power, the psychic pokémon started to direct the hoops it had created to different spots around the battlefield without touching them. With steady, sure flicks of its wrist, Kadabra soon had the air filled with a dizzying array of the glowing blue rings created by its psywave technique.

Beedrill halted its flight to study the changed battlefield, only for Antonia to shout, "Look out!" when she saw that Kadabra was starting to aim its spoon at her pokémon again. With a start, Beedrill took off flying again, only it was much more difficult to build up the required speed and perform the necessary maneuvers to keep Kadabra from lining up a good shot for its other psychic attacks due to the obstacles littering the air around the clashing pokémon.

As it flew, Beedrill had to slow to avoid running into a ring, only for a burst of multicolored energy from Kadabra's spoon to graze its wing. Beedrill buzzed in a panic and frantically flew away from the danger, only to collide with a ring which had moved into its path. Antonia's eyes shot from her endangered pokémon to Sabrina's kadabra to see that it was directing the rings with its free hand. Looking back to her pokémon, Antonia saw that her beedrill was struggling to stay afloat while circle after circle of psychic pure slid over its body until the yellow and black pokémon was enclosed in a blue cage.

"Beedrill's stopped buzzing," Antonia murmured to herself, and then her heart sank as she heard Sabrina order, "Finish it off, Kadabra."

The gym leader's pokémon nodded and then it brought up its clawed hand above its head and then brought it down with a slap against the gym's wooden floor. Matching the kadabra's movements, the orb imprisoning Beedrill plummeted and shattered when it struck the ground. Without the psychic energy obscuring her pokémon, Antonia could see that her beedrill was lying motionless. "Beedrill," she said quietly.

Antonia was already reaching for her poké ball when Cameron's voice rang out, "Beedrill is unable to battle! The winner is Kadabra! The challenger will send out her final pokémon."

"My final pokémon," Antonia said. It was easy for her to put Beedrill's poké ball away, but somewhere between picking out Bulbasaur's capsule and letting out the pokémon inside, Antonia hesitated.

"If you want to forfeit now, go right ahead," Sabrina said calmly. "I don't need my powers to know that your last pokémon is your bulbasaur, and you and I both know how well it fared against my kadabra the last time you faced me. If you haven't changed your attitude towards your pokémon, then don't expect things to go any differently."

Antonia's jaw set and she said simply, "My pokémon trusts me," and she thrust the red and white poké ball out in front of her and shouted, "Bulbasaur! It's up to you!"

Roy and AJ had been watching the match's progress with mounting unease, but when Antonia's bulbasaur emerged from his poké ball and croaked his battle cry, Roy couldn't help but smile. "She can do this," he told AJ eagerly, " they can do this!"

"We'll see," AJ said slowly. "Do you know what Sabrina meant when she made that comment about Antonia's attitude towards her pokémon just now?"

"Well," Roy started to say something without thinking, but he stopped and frowned before finally explaining, "Well, Toni and Bulbasaur have had some trouble in the past. She doesn't like it when he loses, but I'm sure they've worked that out."

AJ grunted noncommittally as he studied Antonia and her pokémon. Both of them looked fierce, but fragile.

There was no time for either of the spectators to offer any advice to Antonia, or anything besides their support, because Cameron raised his flag and said, "This is the last battle of the match! Trainers, pokémon, begin!" Then, he swung his flag down and the trainers and their pokémon all sprang into action.

"Look out, Bulbasaur!" shouted Antonia as Kadabra fired off a stream of energy from its spoon which Bulbasaur nimbly leapt over. Then, Antonia ordered, "Vines out! Go!"

Sabrina shook her head and said, "The same tired strategy as last time." The gym leader held up her hand and the gesture was matched by her pokémon. The vines which Bulbasaur had sent surging towards his opponent suddenly froze as they were seized by the invisible force of Kadabra's telekinesis.

As Kadabra started to raise its hand and pull the captive vines into the air, Antonia blurted out, "Retract, Bulbasaur!" Her pokémon grunted and then he started trying to pull back the appendages which he had sent out for his opening attack. Due to Kadabra's strong psychic grip, Bulbasaur's efforts pulled him toward Sabrina's pokémon as he returned the vines to the twin pouches underneath his bulb.

Sabrina watched Antonia's pokémon draw nearer to her own before realization dawned on the young woman's sharp features. "Plug his bulb, Kadabra!" Sabrina ordered, and her pokémon obliged at once. The hold on Bulbasaur's vines was released and Kadabra instead closed its hand as it invisibly clamped down on the plant springing from its foe's back. Bulbasaur's bulb swelled, but it was unable to release its poisonous payload because of Kadabra's countermeasures. Instead, the plant bulged and then deflated while Bulbasaur's expression suggested something akin to indigestion.

"Not a bad try, Antonia," Sabrina admitted. "You certainly have a well-trained pokémon, but that won't be enough. Not by itself." She snapped her fingers and her kadabra lifted bulbasaur into the air by his bulb, so that the flailing pokémon was upside-down as well as drifting higher and higher above the battlefield. "A pokémon and its trainer need to trust each other, Antonia," said Sabrina sharply. "That trust cannot be a one-way street. I knew what you lacked from the moment I peered into your thoughts and feelings."

"Stop it," said Antonia as Kadabra started twirling its hand to send bulbasaur spinning around in the air like a top.

Ignoring the younger trainer's protest, Sabrina continued, "You have a lot more confidence in yourself than in your pokémon, Antonia. You wrote the story of your pokémon journey in your head before you even received your bulbasaur. When things go wrong, you blame your pokémon for falling short of your idealized story. When you see others succeed, you measure yourself against them and still manage to find them lacking."

"Stop it!" Antonia shouted.

" You can stop this just by forfeiting, Antonia," Sabrina snapped. "You don't think that your pokémon can win anyways, so why bother putting yourself through this?"

"Because," Antonia started, "because-"

Sabrina shook her head in disgust as she interrupted Antonia, "Enough! Kadabra, finish this. The same way as you did the last time Antonia challenged us."

Antonia mouth hung open as she watched Kadabra lift its hand and then bring it down to slam Bulbasaur into the ground three times in quick succession. While Roy and AJ winced and shied away from the beating Antonia's pokémon was taking, Antonia watched her pokémon get pummeled without looking away. Even so, each time that Bulbasaur landed heavily on his bulb, it made his trainer's heart grow tighter and her posture grow stiffer. Finally, Kadabra halted its psychic attack long enough for Bulbasaur to try and catch his breath with great gasping wheezes.

"Go ahead," Sabrina said to her opponent. "Get your pokémon out of harm's way. I know it's what you want to do."

With a start, Antonia realized that her hand had already found Bulbasaur's poké ball and she forced her fingers to loosen their grip on the red and white capsule to something more comfortable. She looked in turn at Sabrina, Kadabra, Roy, AJ, and Cameron. Bulbasaur was the last subject of her miserable survey, and she expected to see pain in her pokémon's eyes. But, to Antonia's surprise, her stout pokémon's red eyes held a sharp rebuke. It was such a shock that Antonia instinctively looked down and noticed that while Bulbasaur's bulb was battered, the rest of his body was remarkably clear of the bruises and scrapes which he bore after his last encounter with Sabrina's kadabra.

Antonia knew that there was no time for her to think about what she was about to do. Any hesitation would let Sabrina and Kadabra prepared their defenses. All she could do was to take the plunge into the unknown. Her voice cracked at first, but by the end of her order Antonia had found a well of strength that she never knew she had possessed as she shouted, "Bulbasaur! Hit it with everything you've got!"

A small smile played at the edge of Sabrina's mouth, but it was quickly replaced by a frown as the gym leader watched Bulbasaur flip himself upright with his vines and then send them flying at Kadabra. The psychic pokémon batted away the attack with ease, knocking first one then the other vine to the side with invisible force directed by its hand. But Bulbasaur followed up the vines with a telltale swelling of the bulb on his back. Kadabra's fierce eyes widened and it hurried to seal the top of the plant before it could spew forth its poisonous cargo.

That only meant that Kadabra was unable to prevent Bulbasaur's vines from swiping towards it. The besieged pokémon jumped awkwardly over the first attack, but the second one caught Kadabra in its spindly leg and the pokémon sank to one knee with a cry of pain, the first sound that Roy or Antonia had heard the pokémon make.

The vines swung around for another pass, and Kadabra seized them both with its two hands held out to either side. That only left the suddenly overwhelmed pokémon vulnerable to the thick cloud of noxious purple pollen which erupted from Bulbasaur's bulb. Sabrina's kadabra's face was coated with the toxic spores and it coughed and gagged as it breathed in Bulbasaur's poisonous powder. The hands holding off Bulbasaur's vines released them so that Kadabra could try to wipe the spores off of its face and away from its vulnerable eyes, nose, and mouth, but that only meant that Bulbasaur could start to batter Kadabra again.

Kadabra was a surprisingly frail pokémon given its size advantage over Bulbasaur and it was only after a few blows that the yellow-furred pokémon staggered and fell to the ground, its spoon slipping from its grasp as it collapsed. Cameron needed no further encouragement to hold up his flag and announce, "Kadabra is unable to battle! The winner is the challenger's bulbasaur, and the winner of the match is Antonia!"

"We did it," Antonia said as Cameron's words sent her slumping to the ground. The pain of her knees striking the hard ground did nothing to dull that smile which spread across her face. "We actually did it. Bulbasaur! We did it!" Her pokémon ran to her arms and leapt at his trainer with enough force to send Antonia crashing backwards, laughing as Bulbasaur hopped excitedly on top of her chest.

Across from the celebrating trainer and pokémon, Sabrina lifted one finger and, with a small flick, sent Kadabra's wayward spoon back into the unconscious pokémon's grasp. She returned her kadabra to its poké ball and then strode over to Antonia and Bulbasaur. When Antonia saw the gym leader looking down at her, she blanched. "I'm sorry to interrupt your celebration," Sabrina said with a wry smile. "Believe me, it's nice to see you and your pokémon so happy, Antonia. Even if I had to lose to witness it." She bent down and took Antonia's hand so that she could deposit a round yellow badge and a boxy technical machine into it. "Take these gifts, the Marsh Badge and a TM for the psywave technique, as a testament to the trust that exists between you and your pokémon," Sabrina said and then she stood up and flicked her long black hair casually over her shoulder. To Cameron, the gym leader said, "If there aren't any other challengers lined up, I'll be taking my pokémon to the pokémon center for a rest. Keep an eye on things while I'm gone." With that, Sabrina walked past Roy and AJ, paused long enough to give the latter an unreadable smile, and then exited through the gym's front door.

Sabrina's departure seemed to give Roy the permission that he was waiting for to go to Antonia and Bulbasaur. He helped them both up off of the floor and then gave Antonia a hug that forced the air from the girl's lungs. "Toni! That was awesome! I knew you could do it!" Roy cheered.

"He's right," AJ agreed. "He never stopped believing you were going to pull off a win." The older trainer smiled sheepishly and added, "He's also right that it was an awesome battle." AJ gave Antonia a firm handshake and then let her go so that she could pick up her bulbasaur and swing it around as she continued to laugh until tears slipped past her glasses to run down her cheeks.

Roy and AJ watched Antonia spin her bulbasaur around in the nearly empty gym, and Cameron came over to join them.

"Well," the younger boy said, "you guys did it! Great work, Roy, and tell Antonia the same thing when she's done making herself dizzy!" After the three boys shared a laugh, Cameron asked, "So, Roy, what are you and Antonia going to do next?"

"Isn't it obvious?" replied Roy. "We're going to go beat some more gym leaders, get some more badges, and then win the pokémon league!"