12 - Birch's First

Jacqueline found them once more at the Pokemon Center, packing their meager belongings. Tossing her two pokeballs from hand to hand, the tallest of the three found Haruka stuffing her change of clothes into her backpack, and Quentin with his head in his hands. The atmosphere in the small room was tense.

"What happened?" inquired Jacqueline, a little cautiously. Quentin, despite the path his journey had taken over the last few days, had always remained relatively unaffected by most of it, as long as he was on his Pokemon training trip. What could have caused him to be clutching his head in his hands?

Haruka answered for him; curtly and to the point. "His mudkip got hurt, and he overreacted. Rampaged through the gym with a hesitant Ralts. He realized the extent of the damage only after getting a badge, and he's been moping ever since."

Jacqueline cocked her head to one side, thinking. So he had swept the gym with a type advantage, and maybe pissed off the little psychic? What was so bad about that?

Wordlessly handing Haruka her fishing rod, Jacqueline went to sit by Quentin. "Hey moron;" she began. "Tell me what happened."

Bitterness. "I forced Brasidas to attack the trainer's pokemon without restraint. They were hurt badly. I might have killed the idiotic over-enthusiastic machop that hurt Turnus in the first place." He refused to take his head out of his hands.

Not knowing any good way to console him in this circumstance, Jacqueline hesitantly placed a hand on his back, patting reassuringly. Rising silently, she moved to pack her own bag. If that was the machop she thought it was, she wasn't sure she could face the gym again.

Haruka spoke up from her Pokenav. "Yuki's at the abandoned ship, on the trail of Magma. He's asking if we'd like to join him there."

-Idealism-

When they arrived at the island's east pier, Jacqueline realized she didn't know how they were getting to this abandoned ship. The whole 'meeting Haruka's acquaintance on an abandoned ship' just seemed sketchy. Hell, they had known Haruka for less than a week.

"How are we getting to this place?" Quentin asked, his mind clearly running on similar lines to Jacqueline. "And who are our opponents?" Okay, divergent lines of thought.

"Surfing, of course."

And stepping out to the pier, Haruka whistled, piercingly, before staring out at the waves.

She has another pokemon?

The sudden spout of water announced the arrival of a simply massive Wailord in the bay, which pulled up besides the dock. Affectionately patting the damp blue skin, Haruka said, "This is Walo, he's gonna be our ride today."

After a fifteen minute wait of trying to convince a suddenly fearful Quentin to ride the whale, the three began their ride east.

-Idealism-

"Hello?" called Steven softly as he stepped through a brightly painted doorway. "I'm home," he called out. Taking off his shoes, he carefully laid them to one side, before stepping into the house, blue-gray eyes bright with emotion.

"Daddy!" came an excited shout from farther inside the house, and Steven knelt down in time to take a blonde blur impacting his chest. "You're home!" babbled the little girl.

Embracing the girl with the utmost care, a smile made its way onto the stoic Champion's face. "What are you doing out of bed, sweetheart? Aren't you on the treatment cycle today?"

A little bashfully, the girl muttered into her father's chest, "I just wanted to come see you. You haven't been home in weeks."

A pang of regret hit Steven's heart as he realized that his desperate search was keeping him away from the very thing he sought to protect. Looking downwards, he made eye contact with the eyes so much like his own. "I'm sorry I've been away so much. But you still shouldn't come rushing out here; you know how tired you get at this part of the treatment," he scolded gently.

"I brought you a present," interjected the Champion, not able to bear his daughter's sadness. "Come on, I'll carry you back to bed." Lifting her in his hard arms, so very, very, carefully, he carried her deeper into the house as she talked on and on about what she and the Metang Steven had left in her care had played. Steven idly noted that apparently it was teaching her to play chess.

"Daddy, I don't to go to bed yet! I want to keep talking to you," pouted the little girl as she realized she was being tucked in by familiar calloused hands.

"I won't ask you to sleep yet, I just got home." soothed the man with hair grayed far past his age.

"Look what I brought you!"

And from the depths of his suit, he removed a rough, glittering orb that shone like morning, despite the dim light of the bedroom. "It's a Dawn Stone," he revealed to the star-struck girl, willingly giving forth the earth's prize to his daughter's outstretched hands. "Do you want me to put it with the others?"

The pale little blonde girl bobbed her head up and down in agreement, busy watching the interplay of light through the semi-transparent object. Her eyes tracked the shimmer to the low shelf beside her bed, where her father placed the stone alongside a slew of other shining trophies, the rarest of stones Hoenn and Sinnoh had to offer.

"Here, I'll tell you a story before it's time to go to sleep." smiled the Champion with tender care that those who did not know him well would not think him capable of; and as his daughter swiftly rearranged herself under the covers, he pulled a book from its shelf with nimble fingers. "This is the story of a great dragon who built a faraway continent..."

-Idealism-

Quentin still did not take well to the Wailord trip; perhaps it reminded him too much of the rogue trainer who had turned her power upon the innocents in Dewford; perhaps he didn't like sitting on a giant whale. Shaken from his gym challenge, he sat on Walo's broad back and stared apathetically towards the ocean.

The vast float whale he sat on did little to help; it reminded him a little too much of the trainer who had set her own whale to flood the beach. Given his own transgressions in anger, he found himself terrifyingly close to understanding. Trainers, depending on how long they've been training, can become immensely powerful. They can easily turn on the rest of the population, or other trainers, and in the wrong hands that kind of power can be devastating. Quentin had a brief mental image of himself commanding a large Swampert to collapse a building, and shuddered.

"Do you know why Quentin's so bothered?" muttered Jacqueline to Haruka as an aside. "He won a gym badge, right?"

Haruka turned away from where she had been polishing Rono's back plates, quirking an eyebrow. "He got angry, did some things he shouldn't. Now he's ignoring us from the depths of woe-is-me mode."

"Think you could snap the moron out of it? My solution would be to splash him, and I don't think that would help right now."

Standing up, and dusting off her silvered hands, Haruka moved to sit down by the boy in gray. "You still all torn up about the gym?" she asked with no preamble.

'You don't get it." he flatly stated. "Brasidas brutalized some of those pokemon under my orders. What makes me different from that girl with the Wailord?" he asked, flinging an arm out to indicate the quiescent Wailord still waiting for its trainer. "I can't train pokemon when I can't control my own anger. I was always pushed to be the best, but what good is this head of mine when I can't even use it?"

Lowering his hand, he sighed. "And my parents never permitted me to go on this journey in the first place. I should probably go back to Rustboro."

Something about his last statement, even if it was half to himself, sparked Haruka into action. One black-and-white gloved hand lifted up his chin, forcing tired gray eyes to make contact with burning blue.

"Listen to me," she practically growled, as a wide-eyed Quentin was rendered immobile by surprise and fear. "Stop sitting around and pitying your own existence. Everyone- and I mean everyone- loses a bit of themselves in anger. So what if you burned a path through a gym? Your miniscule outburst has already happened, and nothing you do can change that. All you can do is try to stop it from happening again."

Something told Jacqueline that she wasn't quite speaking hypothetically.

"All you can do;" her voice was a half-whisper, raw emotion audible, "is try to stay in control."

She abruptly stood, before pacing back up to the front of her whale transport.

Quentin looked after her, lost, before turning back to his own Pokemon and bringing out his Ralts. There was some talking to do, even if it wasn't between the Trainers riding the whale.

-Idealism-

Soon, a vast off-white hulk rose out of the rock-studded ocean, barely recognizable as the remains of a ship.

Jacqueline was the first to break the long, long silence. "So some guy asked if we wanted to meet him at an abandoned ship? In connection with this... Team Magma? Doesn't that sound weird?"

"He asked me if I wanted to join up with him," emphasizing that she was the one asked, "and as good as he is, he isn't good enough to take on a good number of Magma goons on his own. He's gonna get hurt unless I step in."

"Then... why is he doing it in the first place? Magma showed up a lot on TV, but I don't remember them actually doing anything bad..." the taller girl trailed off, narrow eyes focused in recall.

Haruka sighed, now conscious of Quentin paying increased attention. "Yuki's the kind of person who always wanted to be a hero, and... Magma is at once better and worse than the TV says. Better because they aren't the evil terrorists Hoenn TV likes to brand them as, but worse because they are people who believe only in a cause. Anything against their cause is against them. And Yuki threw himself into all this."

Even as she finished speaking, the wailord began to slow, its gigantic bow wave slowing and crashing over itself, even as Haruka lightly leaped onto the ruined deck, Jacqueline following a little more awkwardly. Quentin's descent was more of a controlled fall, as his foot punched through the deck as he landed, and he caught himself with his hands just before hitting the deck, as he dragged his leg back up through the splintered wood.

Haruka waved cheerfully as the great whale began to submerge, before a footstep caused her to whirl back towards the torn and sagging doors leading inside the ship. As her hair fell away from her face, a bright smile broke out as she dashed towards the figure in red and black who emerged from the interior.

"Yuki!"

"Haruka?..."

Quentin felt a little awkward standing around as the two embraced, talking excitedly. He shared a rather nervous look with Jacqueline, before patiently waiting for the two to stop hugging and start introducing.

It was a long, long wait. Birch's two proteges had a lot to say to each other, it seemed.

Quentin's eye twitched. Jacqueline had attempted to sit on the railing, but had given up when it had groaned ominously.

Still waiting.

And when finally, finally they deigned to introduce the new guy to Quentin and Jacqueline, Quentin shot a searching look at the person who had been hidden behind Haruka.

Haruka's friend was a boy several inches taller than Quentin, wearing a collared shirt with geometric designs in black and red. Quentin unconsciously smoothed out his gray t-shirt in an effort to look slightly more presentable compared to the perfectly clean newcomer.

As he detached from Haruka, he readjusted his strange white beanie to more fully cover his black hair. An easy, friendly grin stretched its way across his face as he shifted his gaze to the newcomers. "Hey, I'm Yuki! Haruka mentioned you guys, pleased to meet you." Something about him rubbed Quentin the wrong way. He was so easily cheerful, well-dressed, and clearly a rather experienced trainer; Quentin would have had no way to get to this ship on his own for a long, long time, and the boy was here on his own. In short, he was all the things Quentin aspired to be as a trainer, and not much older than him, if looks were to be believed. So when the boy- Yuki, he corrected himself- stuck out a hand to shake, Quentin merely stared at it in a puzzled fashion, and Yuki's confusion was short-lived as Jacqueline took his hand instead, introducing herself happily.

Introductions were done for him, thankfully, and that guy began to brief all three of them on the situation.

He claimed to have followed a pair of Magma grunts to this ship, as they were in search of an unknown item that had been lost when the ship went down. In impressive detail, Yuki described the capabilities he had witnessed from them and their pokemon, common mightyena, golbat, and a single camerupt; Quentin had to grudgingly admit that he knew what he was doing. If he had been the one dumb enough to take on Magma employees, he wouldn't have paid enough attention to learn of the camerupt's prodigious smoke production or how it was used as cover for area-based fire attacks.

So, despite his misgivings about Haruka's friend, he listened closely as the boy easily folded the three of them into his previous plan to incapacitate the grunts, as their motley group now outnumbered the two grunts he had reported.

And when he informed Quentin they'd be the two going after the female grunt, he simply nodded. They had a goal, a way for him to prove to himself he could do this.

-Idealism-

Quentin followed the boy in red down a sagging, damp corridor deep inside the former SS Cactus. He was forced to tread carefully to avoid the most fragile and loudest parts of the wood floor, and noted with some small satisfaction that he was quieter than his companion. But his gloating was forced to wait as a white-gloved hand pulled him away from the upcoming intersection, flattening him against a wall.

Turning angrily towards Yuki, he made as if to protest, but kept the words from leaving his throat as Yuki's finger hovered in front of his lips. Quentin waited, eyes shifting nervously around the corridor, to the intersection, back the way they had come, towards the boy with the eyes tinted red, and what were they waiting for?

Then, a chattering arose from around the corner, and the pressure on his shoulder intensified as two small, yellow pokemon dashed past, sparking and chattering in their own communication.

The boy in gray and the boy in red didn't dare twitch until they bounded far out of sight and hearing, suddenly relaxing away from the wall with deep breaths.

"Those didn't look like a threat," interjected a puzzled Quentin.

"Plusle and Minun, Hoenn's strain of electric rodents. Relatively weak individually, but they can use each other's electric current to bolster their own, so they attack in packs. There's a whole nest of them on the floor below us."

Mouth silently open in an oh of understanding, Quentin nodded, as they padded down another corridor.

It wasn't long until a roving beam of light crisscrossed their path from a doorway. Perhaps this doorway had once held a door; the jagged splinters along the edges seemed to suggest as much. But the rest of the door was nowhere to be found. The beam of light was cut off by the other edge of the doorway before it reached the two, once more completely still; it no doubt continued on its way inside whatever room in had originated in.

Yuki padded closer to the door, and caught the trailing edges of a human voice. "Cam, get me some light!"

Another wave of light, accompanied by heat, illuminated part of the corridor they stood in, bringing in its wake a shattering crash. Looking obliquely through the doorframe, Yuki could discern that something- most likely the Camerupt that he heard snuffling- had blown a jagged hole in the ceiling of the multi-story room, letting in a few isolated patches of sunlight that nevertheless made the room much easier to discern.

The high-ceilinged room had perhaps once been a ballroom, or an elegant meeting place; two large, ornate staircases led down from the sides, one from their own former door and another matching it. Three wooden tables had been carelessly overthrown onto the scorched tile.

Hidden safely in the shadows of the stair landing, Yuki moved to the railing, peering through a gap in the banister. Recognizing by sound that Quentin was now crouching behind him, he focused his attention on the origin of the noise: the man and woman in red standing in the largest patch of sunlight.

"Damn, Tabitha'll be annoyed if we can't find the scanner that he said was in this ship." grumbled the woman, absentmindedly stroking the shaggy Camerupt.

"You know how easygoing he is, unless he gets into one of his moods," replied her partner. "He'll be disappointed, but he won't give us to R&D for a month like he did to that one poor bastard."

"There's always a chance of that unless we find the blasted thing. Briefing said this device will help R&D find undersea mountain ranges to raise, and we don't wanna piss off R&D."

Yuki narrowed his eyes. That particular scanner could only refer to one thing on this wreck of a ship: a navigation device that had belonged to Captain Stern of Slateport. The Professor's son vividly remembered the kindly sea captain from the Ever Grande Conferences, where he had been an honored guest along with his father. The deep-sea scanner deserved to be returned to its creator and user, not a ragtag team of rogue climate scientists in tacky red thermals.

A thought led him to look across the room at the opposite stair, where he made contact with sharp blue eyes deep behind the doorway. Thinking quickly, he rolled one pokeball to fall off the balcony into one of the flooded pools ringing the room. When Yuki thumped the ground once, the Magma workers reacted slowly, as they did not realize there were other people in the room, let alone the ship; the first thing to announce this to Magma was Haruka landing feetfirst on the shoulders and neck of the man, driving him to the floor with a grunt. The red-garbed salvager was stunned momentarily by the force of a muscular teen dropping from a floor above onto his neck. Even as the man attempted to push himself off the ground, one black-and-white glove seized the back of his head and slammed his face into the cracked tile. Yuki threw himself down the stairs three, four at a time; Haruka had stunned the man with her customary ruthless efficiency, but she was in very close range of the woman, whose Camerupt was already out of its pokeball and ready to battle. Yuki spun round the post at the end of the railing and rushed forward, hands falling to his belt; the woman was quick, and had called out a Mightyena and Golbat.

She was flanked by her pokemon, the Camerupt standing a little closer, clearly offering ranged support; the snarling Mightyena was another three paces away, offering a check to physical attackers. The Golbat circled in the air, shrieking. All this was catalogued and analyzed by the Professor's son within about a second. However, people are unpredictable.

As the room echoed with "Cam, a lava plume!" Yuki flung out his Taillow to go after the Golbat, Haruka skipped backwards away from the body to bring out her Combusken, and twice as close to the woman as Yuki, Quentin slammed to the ground, having jumped from the balcony above, his Mudkip already beginning to spit mud towards the expanding wave of heat.

Haruka ducked behind an unnecessarily ornate pillar (Yuki reckoned a simple Ionic column would suit the decor better), his Taillow body-checked the bat in a tumble of wings, and Quentin barely managed to withstand the heat with his little Mudkip's aid. The son of Professor Birch fastened white-gloved hands around his third pokeball and released his starter close to the Mightyena, where Pine the faithful grovyle threw out his leg in a low sweep. Pine knocked out the legs from under the snarling wolf-dog, causing its snapping jaws to miss even the leaf on the grovyle's head as it rebounded with astonishing agility.

But the speedy little lizard was forced back as the heat of the Camerupt's Lava Plume followed him; the sheer temperature generated by the omnidirectional blast of fire incinerated the formerly wooden tables and caused the shallower pools of seawater to evaporate. Haruka's Combusken weathered the heat with nary a problem; Quentin and his mudkip were saved by a timely supplemental blast of water, which Yuki's eyes tracked to a Staryu. Looking up from the starfish, he made eye contact with Jacqueline, who winked, turning him back to the matter at hand. She could protect the idiot with the mudkip.

The mightyena was down, and had scrabbled to evade the plume of fire, something it was apparently accustomed to doing; but it had been thrown off by Pine's leg sweep, and now the fire rolled over it as well. The golbat, fluttering low, was taken in by the massive jaws of Rono, as the Lairon crunched its jaw shut, grinding the poor creature to paste within its metal-plated maw.

But the Camerupt, clearly cognizant of the fates of its comrades, bellowed and continued to unleash its fire, to the point of beginning to burn its trainer through her fireproof clothing. The Staryu and Mudkip were locked up in defensive action, his taillow and grovyle were pointless here, and Haruka's pokemon weren't at liberty. Even as his skin began to heat up from the fire, a smile cracked its way across his face as he clapped his hands together, unleashing the failsafe he had engineered at the start of the conflict.

A grotesque sound like that of a solid object hitting a slab of meat sizzled in the air as the fire suddenly cut off, the Camerupt bellowing in agony as pinpoint torrents of heavy water cannoned into its head and the volcano-esque protrusions on its back. The smoke slowly began to clear, as powerful water jets hit the camel with bone-breaking force, cooling its fire; the beat-down only ceased when the woman recalled her Camerupt, shocked by the violent tear -down of what was no doubt her strongest pokemon.

"H...how? Cam should have been camouflaged in the smoke!" stammered the woman- no, closer to a girl, scarcely older than the four trainers arrayed against her.

Haruka, lounging against the utterly tasteless pillar, answered for her.

"Yuki's Seadra..." she cocked a finger gun at the prone camerupt, "is a sniper." With an exhale, she fired the mock gun, imitating the sizzling of the actual water bullets.

Yuki stepped forward next, face solemn. "It pains me to hurt your pokemon in such a way, but I have to ask you to take your partner and leave this ship. If you do, I won't be forced to hurt either them or you further."

Quentin clambered to his feet, still closer than any of the others, but thankfully remained silent, watching to see what the more experienced trainers did. She had been defeated, so how would Haruka and Yuki send her off?

"What, you think something like this ends when your pokemon are defeated? Team Magma took me in, gave me this uniform, and something to believe in. I won't tarnish their trust by surrendering to kids like you!" Accurately judging Quentin as the least experienced of the three trainers closest to her (Jacqueline remained on the balcony with her ranged support), a flash of silver showed in her hand before a glittering knife was flung, aimed for the center of his torso.

Yuki did not take this kindly, offering another warning as he sprinted to deflect the knife, knocking it off course with sturdy white gloves. He turned to make sure the other boy was okay, and mentally commended his instincts as he had already thrown himself to one side; this momentary lapse earned him a boot to the stomach as the Magma agent followed up on her advantage, kicking him out of the way. Instinctually curled up on the floor several meters away, he had no say in her continued assault on Quentin.

Quentin, back on hands and knees, stumbled backwards as she launched a spin kick that missed his abdomen by far too little; understanding very well that he was outclassed, he chose to trust his instincts and ran, dodging and placing his faith in his agility and ability to change direction quickly. Even as he evaded attacks by the providence of wreckage and the fact she mainly attacked by kicking (rather difficult to do while running), he watched, measuring and calculating, analyzing how she placed her weight and spun for those shattering kicks, where she kept her arms, and after she splintered another charred obstacle, he felt he understood what she had been doing. The next savage kick was met by a mostly functional copy.

Of course, Quentin couldn't kick nearly as hard, and staggered back, limping. But she was taken aback, stopped, and in pain as well; she was in no position to retaliate when Haruka's black and white glove took a firm hold of her collar and dragged her into a right cross before flipping her over an outstretched leg to land flat on her back.

The Magma grunt, charred hood fallen away, stared at the foot lightly resting on top of her throat. Her hands, left free, drew another hidden knife and aimed for Haruka's ankle, but were interrupted mid-motion by a pinpoint bullet of water. A startled Quentin looked back along its path to spy Jacqueline directing Yuki's seadra.

Haruka beckoned over Toro, who came growling at the now terrified Magma grunt, moving dangerous talons close to her hands in an unspoken threat.

"Don't..." came Yuki's pained grunt as he staggered back to his feet. "We need to call law enforcement to pick these two up. It's the best way to put them away for good."

"I know another way to put them away for good..." hissed Haruka, to be cut off by a sharp chopping motion from the Professor's son.

"No, Haruka. We don't kill the helpless. That- that is a line we will not cross."

The pressure on the Magma grunt's throat eased slightly.

Quentin was the next to interject. "They don't need to die. Not here. Not now." It was rather impressive how he managed to keep his voice so calm when his heart was clouded by white-hot anger.

Jacqueline weighed in from where she had been praising the seadra. "Tie them up and leave them for the police."

The male grunt, coming slowly back to registering the outside world, shivered at this discussion. The woman, still under Haruka's shoe and menaced by her Combusken, was pale and still with terror.

Haruka finally relented, accepting some line Yuki scavenged from the deck to restrain her prisoner. Soon, both Magma grunts were tied back to back in the center of the broken and scarred tile floor.

Jacqueline and Yuki, chatting animatedly as they led the walk back up to the deck, missed the dark, scheming look that passed from Haruka to Quentin. Quentin said "I think something fell out of my bag down there, I'm gonna go get it. You guys go on without me," while silently palming Rono's pokeball which Haruka had slipped him.

"Oh, sure! We'll be on deck waiting," beamed Jacqueline.

-Idealism-

"Not here, and not now." spoke a voice in the now-silent ship's ballroom, causing the Magma grunts to flinch.

"I don't think being jailed for a while is really a fair punishment for a simple salvage operation, right?" questioned the brown haired trainer, emerging from the shadows of the staircase.

The male Magma Grunt indignantly defended himself. "Salvage isn't even that illegal! We shouldn't get any time at all!"

"Right, right," agreed the trainer sweetly, his hair shadowing his eyes. Crouching between them, he fiddled with the ropes, before speaking up once more. "I've loosened the ropes. You can get free with a little effort now, and you'll have a fighting chance. I'm only doing what I think is fair."

"Thank you! What's your name, so that we can tell our teammates to watch out for you?" asked the girl, voice cracking.

"Quentin Russell." he spoke smoothly, smiling.

"We're-" began the male grunt, but Quentin cut him off. "I won't remember your name,"

"But you're saving us!"

"Saving? Oh no." he continued, in the same sweet tone. Dread began to pool in the man's stomach, as he watched the boy smiling with shadowed eyes.

"I'm only doing what I think is fair."

As he began to walk away, Quentin gestured to Rono, who stamped hard on the battered floor. Again. And again. Three hundred pounds of saurian muscle and armor reverberated through the worn floor, as the cracks began to spread wider and wider. And as the first massive hole opened the lower floor to the air, Rono was recalled and the room was deathly silent. Then a pair of red and blue ears peeked above the edge, before moving on more boldly, even as the Magma grunts began to loudly struggle further, and the Plusle and Minun began to stream out of their nest towards these large, immobilized prey objects.

"A slim fighting chance," he revised his earlier statement, limping back towards the open air.

"Jail time for salvage? Unlikely. Retribution for attempted murder?" he asked the empty room, drowned out by the crackle of electricity. Because, you sought to steal and then tried to kill me with no provocation. You fought your hardest, and still lost badly. You're violent cowards, and you are weak.

-Idealism-

Author's Note: A rather dark chapter, but we've introduced the last member of our wonderful group of protagonists! Brendan Birch, who goes by Yuki, has joined us along with his hat!

On another note, ORAS hype! Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre's new abilities have been revealed, with Primal Groudon's ability summoning super-intense sunlight that evaporates water moves and cannot be manually changed, and Kyogre summoning heavy rain that makes fire moves fizzle out. That's a lot better for Groudon than Kyogre, really, as it becomes immune to its 4x weakness, and who was gonna use a fire move on Kyogre anyway? We have yet to see how this new phase of the weather wars interacts with its counterpart or other abilities involving weather. Their new signature moves Origin Pulse and Precipice Blade have been revealed, but we don't know their move power or effects or typing.

Also Mega Gallade hype, the best M-Khan killer (I hope)! Inner Focus fits perfectly thematically for a Psychic/Fighting type, but it's a rather pointless ability in singles. The most common flinching move in singles is Togekiss' Air Slash which probably 2hko's Gallade anyway. But in doubles? A fighting type that doesn't get flinched by Fake Out, probably OHKOs M-Khan with Drain Punch or Close Combat, and isn't half bad on its own?

CHARACTER STATUS

Quentin

Badges: 1

Pokemon:

Turnus (Mudkip). Known moves: Water Gun, Growl, Mud-Slap.

Brasidas (Ralts). Known moves: Confusion, Teleport.

Jacqueline

Badges: 0

Pokemon:

Terry (Vulpix). Known moves: Ember, Tackle, Tail Whip.

Staryu. Known moves: Water Pulse

Haruka

Badges: 2

Pokemon:

Rono (Lairon). Known moves: Roar, Metal Claw.

Toro (Combusken). Known moves: Growl, Peck, Flamethrower, Ember, Double Kick. (Look guys, four move limit doesn't matter in non-simulator battles)

Yuki

Badges: 3

Pokemon:

Pine (Grovyle). Known moves: Low Sweep

Wings (Taillow). Known moves: Quick Attack

Seadra. Known moves: Water Pulse

Steven Stone

Badges: 8

Known Pokemon:

Skarmory. Known moves: Fly.

Metang. Known moves: Flash, Magnet Rise.

Aggron.

MINOR CHARACTERS

Sam: Realized the Ranger is probably the only reason he's alive. Hero worship incoming.

Ranger Norris: oh god why is this kid following me around

Norman: It has been revealed to the newcomers at Petalburg's main bar that he is a weepy drunk.

Brawly: Feeling not-so-good about losing two badges in one day.