She was shaking. That was obvious, the crowd was loud, a lot louder than it had been when she'd faced the Alolan trio last match.
She shouldn't have been suprised though, she was up against a group of Kalos natives that she knew all too well. Of course all the friends they'd made were there to watch them, even if they themselves weren't competing.
She finally heard the referee announcing her, a signal to step out into the field.
She gripped Delphox's Pokéball tighter, she small shake bringing her comfort. She reached inside her pocket, ready to take out the flute when she heard Delphox's voice inside her mind, berating her for even considering it. Shaking off her moment of weakness she fully turned her attention to the referee.
"For the first round it will be a performance round, with Y facing last year's Master Class runner up, Shauna." She also heard the commentator saying, filled with both pride in her friend and worry for the incoming performance.
"Both trainers will use two Pokémon and will be allowed to disrupt the others performance. However, if a move causes the opposing Pokémon to faint, it will result in an instant loss for the trainer who uses the move. Please can both trainers release both of their Pokémon."
The referee looked at them both expectantly, waiting for them to make a reach for their Pokéballs.
She reached to her belt, placing Delphox's ball back onto her belt and taking out Gardevoir and Altaria and releasing them from their Pokéballs.
Shauna gave her an excited smile as she released her Ivysaur and Flabébé and moved to her side of the stage.
She grimaced slightly, remembering Altarias flair for using strong moves and hoped that she'd be able to use it to her advantage, thinking about what would happen if altaria didn't listen.
The referee soon called for the performances to begin and she called for a hyper beam from altaria, silently asking gardevoir to contain it.
The large beam of energy shot into the sky, slightly startling Shauna who had begun to set up a small veil of leaves using fairy wind and razor leaf.
Gardevoir then released a magical leaf, which collided with the hyper beam, causing a small cascade of rainbows to spread across the stage due to the flashing leaves reflecting the light around.
She then called for Gardevoir to use energy ball, with Altaria following them with incinerate, which caused a light shower of ash to fall around them.
Shauna asked Flabébé to use sunny day and Ivysaur to use solar beam at Altaria but before the beam hit Altaria, Serena told her to use the attack and incorporate it into a Dragon Dance and Altaria began to spin, slowly moving away from Shauna until she had built up enough speed to join the Solar Beam into the attack.
Altaria curved mid flight, moving up as it changed the Dragon Dance into Sky Attack, with Altaria releasing the bright light, acting as a beacon like she'd hoped it would at the beginning of the performance.
The large flash, as well as using her opponents move in her favor had definitely gained the attention of the crowd as they cheered loudly for her.
She quickly glanced to Shauna who, besides losing the performance was still dancing alongside her Pokémon, just enjoying the peace.
The performance was coming to a stop as the time limit was approaching and she went for a grand finale.
Altaria flew up, suddenly halting in the air before facing down to charge up a Dragon Rush and began accelerating straight down into Gardevoir, who used Moonblast to block the incoming Dragon attack.
This forced out purple and pink particles, which emanated from the stage as Gardevoir and Altaria held the pose, the strong Dragon style staring down the part Fairy Pokémon that stared back defiantly.
At the same time she saw Shauna, Ivysaur and Flabébé holding a small bow to symbolise the end of their performance, the scattered leaves on the ground suggesting that the Shauna had used fairy wind, and magical leaf to create a leaf veil effect.
The crowd roared in approval as she turned her attention to the screen that showed the results of the performance. She'd beaten Shauna by 65% of the votes to 35%, meaning with the next round being the battle round that if she won then she'd win the whole match.
She shakily returned her Pokémon after thanking them both, the loud crowd that shouted her supposed name filling her mind, memories of her travels with Ash through Kalos and her Pokémon through Hoenn.
Shauna copied her, reaching out to hold her hand into the air, to celebrate with her, even though she herself had lost.
She smiled inwardly at Shauna's reaction, her caring personality shining through as she wordlessly thanked her for the match.
The referee asked them both to return to their waiting rooms so they could prepare for the battle round.
Steven looked across at Lance, catching eyes with Cynthia momentarily as they shared a concerned glance about their champion friend.
They all knew why the tournament had been put on but Lance had seemingly thrown himself carelessly into his work, multiple files covering the small table and seat that made up his area of the champions box. He would occasionally glance towards the monitors, which showed all of the matches that were taking place, but just as quickly turned away, scribbling down some note about one of the competiting teams or trainers.
He was about to stand up to stop him when someone knocked on the door, making him quickly rush out of the room before any of them could even react to it.
"What's up with him?", he asked, looking at Cynthia and Diantha, who's attentions were locked onto one of the screens which showed two of the competing teams locked in a double battle, a Charizard and Blastoise facing a Vileplume and Delphox.
His question startled the other two champions, who tore their eyes away from the battle as the bright glow of Mega Evolution filled that stadium.
"He'll have some kind of lead, he always seems to do." Diantha said shrugging, "He needs to relax, the 5 others in the past half an hour didn't lead anywhere.
"Do you think there's something he's hiding," he asked, causing both of their expressions to flicker as they though about it.
He got up, moving towards Lance's desk, and opening a folder that was simply labelled 'sightings'.
He flicked through the file, pulling out the occassional picture, all similar in the presence of a legendary Pokémon in the background, all of which were dated, to within the last few days and showed locations from around Kalos.
He also found some letters, all of which had a similar signature on them, an LK with a small printed line, naming it from the International Police.
"Well he's confident", a voice behind him said, making him almost jump back in suprise.
He turned to see Wallace stood behind him, peering over his shoulder at the letters on the desk.
Wallace picked one up, opening it and beginning to read it out loud.
"Somethings wrong. Much more than we anticipated. We expected some sure. But only a few members, all from different regions. There is something worse going on than we initially thought. Almost all of them are there.
We've collected reports of hundreds of sightings of Mew and Mewtwo in Kanto, the latter of which has been seen maybe 3 times since its creation. it's a similar story in Johto as well. Lugia and Ho-oh are being seen much more than we thought.
It's the same with Rayquaza in Hoenn, Kyogre and Groudon are also growing restless.
The Lake guardians are sat in the middle of their lakes, disappearing when anyone gets near. Palkia and Diagla fortunately haven't been sighted yet.
N hasn't been seen with Reshiram and Zekrom in a while but we can assume that they've been travelling together.
Xerneas and Yveltal have remained silent but Zygarde is known to be travelling with the Lumiose City gym leader's sister.
We're working our hardest to prevent panic and so far we're doing well. Apparently all the legendaries have been acting strange since the major crises a few years ago so locals don't seem to be afraid."
After finishing reading the letter Wallace looked up at him and the others with a raised eyebrow.
"Well now we know", Wallace said simply, putting the letter back where he'd found it. "Just let him sort it out. It is his job."
He looked at Diantha and Cynthia, who looked conflicted about what to do and then to Wallace who followed Lance's example and left the room.
"What do you think we should do?", Cynthia asked him and Diantha.
"We should leave it to him until he decides to tell us. He should know he shouldn't and can't keep anything from us.", Diantha said, making both him and Cynthia reluctantly sit back down to watch the matches, him taking interest in one of the battle rounds, where an upcoming Hoenn trainer was fighting a Pyroar with his Gallade.
To say she was afraid would be an understatement.
She sat in the waiting room, Delphox outside her Pokéball comforting her.
They'd announced that the battle would be a 2v2 as a double battle, with her likely facing Trevor and Tierno.
She heard them announcing that they had 5 minutes until they had to leave to start the battle and began to panic again.
What if she'd only gotten lucky in her first match?
What if she lost? 3 years of training for nothing?
She felt Delphox, lightly lay her hand onto her shoulder and saw her offering the Pokéflute she'd been given by Mewtwo.
She took it, weighing it in her hand, that kind of power locked into the small item.
She then brought it to her mouth, not playing anything in particular as she let herself naturally flow between notes, her panics and fears fading as she felt a warmth enveloping her.
Her playing stopped, the warmth slowly fading away as her fears were still kept at bay.
A sharp noise sounded, taking her by surprise, announcing that it was time for the trainers to leave for the battle.
She looked up at Delphox who gave her a look of determination as the pair stood up and begun to walk their next battle. And their next step to carrying out their dreams.