This is going to be another short chapter without much going on in it. If I wasn't trying to make sure this story had the same number of chapters in both halves of it, I'd have just made this a part of the next chapter. But, I need to space these out a bit more, so here we are. Don't worry, I have a proper plan for the rest of the story, more or less, so we've got nothing to worry about there. But anyway, for now, let's get on with it.

Chapter 82:

Terra-ble Planning

Lilycove is in sight. After spending several more days traveling back to that city, the pair are finally about to reach it. From there, all they have to do is take a boat from Lilycove to Mossdeep, Bonnie wins the badge, then they head on to Ever Grande City, where Bonnie can enter, and hopefully win, the Hoenn League. If all goes exactly to plan, Bonnie should be trying to compete in the World Coronation Series by the time both of them turn 12. Thinking about all of this has Bonnie so excited that she starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. Max puts a hand on her shoulder to get her to stop. "I know you're excited," he says. "But you need to calm down a bit. We're almost there." Bonnie nods and stops bouncing. Instead, she takes his hand and pulls him along down the path, running towards Lilycove.

Meanwhile, on a hill overlooking the route that Max and Bonnie are on, Sarah and Sam stand there, monitoring them. They stare at the young duo as they run towards the town, looking through binoculars in order to see them better. "Are you ready?" Sam asks. "Completely," Sarah replies. "They won't get away this time. Especially since Deb-... Those two dickheads aren't here to get in our way!" She was going to say Debbie and Cooper's names, but stopped herself when she saw Sam wince a little bit. "Sorry," Sarah says. "I know you don't like me saying their names." Sam waves her off. "No, it's fine," he says. "Since... Debbie and Cooper... aren't here, it will be easier." Sarah puts a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder. "Don't worry about what those backwards losers think about you," she says. "I will always accept you for who you are, no matter what!" Sam can't help but smile at that.

Then, he turns to look at Maple and Citron again, and does a doubletake. "They're in position!" he exclaims. "Maple and Citron are within range!" Sarah looks at them, and sees that her partner is right. The two kids are walking through the clearing that she and Sam had marked a few hours before. Now, it was time for them to strike. After quickly checking around to see if there are any playful Manectric or pesky planes around, Sarah pulls the grappling hook they planned on using before, and shoots it. It sails over Maple and Citron's heads, and attaches to a tree beyond them. As they'd hoped, neither Maple nor Citron notice this. Sarah and Sam grin to each other, then Sam pulls out a large blanket. The two of them grip onto it, and each other, then Sarah pulls the trigger of the grappling hook, and the two of them whizz off in Maple and Citron's direction.

Back with Max and Bonnie, the two of them come to a large clearing, where a lot of pokémon surround them. Feeling inspired, Max pulls out his notebook to write about them. But before he can start, Bonnie looks at him with exasperation. "Can you not do that now?" she asks. "We're so close to Lilycove!" Max looks a bit disappointed at this. "But with all of these pokémon here, it would be a shame not to write something about them!" "Then why not use your audio logs?" Bonnie asks. Max goes a bit pink at this. "They've run out of space," he admits. Bonnie can't help but giggle a little bit. "Why not delete a few things?" she asks. "I can't do that!" Max replies. "What if Team Terra successfully steal my notebooks? At least with the logs, I can rewrite them!"

Bonnie stops walking at this. "Then why not give them the notebooks?" Bonnie asks. "If they take them, and you have the logs, they'll leave us alone." "The same reason I didn't hand over the Jade Orb," he replies. "If I do, bad things will happen!" He keeps walking for a bit, before adding, "Besides, I don't have everything I've written in those logs, so there will still be a few missing pieces. Not to mention I don't want to have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch." Bonnie laughs at that. Of course that's one of the reasons he doesn't just do that. "Still, you have a camera, can't you just take a picture of these pokémon and document them later, we're almost there!"

At that moment, something comes flying out from over their heads, snatching the notebook from Max's hand. The pair watch as Sarah and Sam sail overhead using a grappling hook, with Max's notebook in Sarah's hand. "Now Sam!" she shouts. "Deploy the chute!" Sam pulls out a tattered blanket and raises it over their heads. Instead of slowing them down however, the blanket flies out of Sam's hands, causing them to fly into the tree the hook is attached to. Luckily for them, they fly past the tree, and hit the ground instead. As the two struggle to their feet, Max runs over to take his notebook back. However, despite being dazed, they are able to dodge out of Max's way and avoid him taking his notebook back. "Well now, look what we have here," says Sarah, a triumphant grin on her face. "Well Maple, it seems the us have finally have your notebook," she declares. "So, why don't you just save us all the trouble and hand over the second one!"

Max and Bonnie glare at the two of them. But then, Max smirks. "I could do that," he says. "Or you could hand my notebook back over before I kick your ass!" Both Sarah and Sam chuckle at that. "And why should we do that?" Sam asks. "We need to save this world, and to do that, we need the notebooks. So, help us heal the world and give the other book to us!" Sarah waves the notebook over her head at this, in order to prevent Max from snatching it away. But this only backfired in her, as at thst moment, Grovyle, who Max had released after he failed to grab his notebook from Sarah, snatches the book from her hand and hands it to Max, who grins and pats Grovyle's head affectionately. Grovyle looks like he's smiling at this, but it doesn't quite meet his eyes. Max decides to worry about that later. For now, he refocuses on the double pains in the neck in front of him. "Right, I have my notebook again, so why don't you clear off!" he says. Sarah and Sam only smirk at him. "Well, I suppose we could do that," says Sarah. "Or we could just take them from you by force!" Sam nods at this. "I like that idea better actually," he says. Then, they charge.

Immediately, the pair are wrapped in vines from Grovyle and Shiftry, who Bonnie just released. Then, they're lifted into the air and thrown through the tree they grappled themselves to and away out of sight. Max and Bonnie watch for them, but they're nowhere to be seen. "Must've already been thrown away," Max comments, before turning to Bonnie. When he does, he sees that she looks rather pleased. "What's with you?" he asks. "I think your plan worked," she says. "You're whole, 'avoid Mossdeep for a bit', plan I mean." "What makes you say that?" Max asks. "Because Sarah and Sam just attacked us," she replies. "Haven't you noticed that almost every single time Team Terra have sprung a trap on us, those two are nowhere to be found. This even happened in Kalos." Now that Max thinks about it, she has a point. "So, if that's true," he says, "It means we'll be able to head to Mossdeep without any issue!" Bonnie nods at this, and the two of them high-five, before carrying on to Mossdeep.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Sam haven't actually flown away. When they were thrown through the tree, they managed to avoid blasting off by gripping very tightly to the branches. Now they sit in the tree, waiting for Maple and Citron to walk off. Once they're sure that they're gone, the two of them climb back down. They look in the direction that Maple and Citron went, and are about to follow them, when Sam's radio goes off. Both of them panic a bit, before Sam answers it. "Have you completed your mission yet?" asks the voice of Admin Bannai. Sam stops panicking and grins. "Yes sir," he says. "Maple is on his way to Mossdeep City right now, and his guard is down." "Good," Bannai replies. "The trap has been set. And now that he isn't looking over his shoulders anymore, he'll fall right into it."

So, that turned out better than I thought it would. The idea was barely able to cover 1000 words originally, but I was able to expand upon it as you can see. Now, on Thursday, if all goes to plan, you should be seeing just what kind of plan Bannai has for Max and Bonnie.