"After sixty-two incredible battles and over a hundred incredible performances, we've reached the final match of the Grand Festival!"

As Marian's voice echoed out over the audience, I adjusted my gloves to make sure everything was just right. In a way, this would be the last time Robin would make an appearance on a main stage, so I wanted everything to go exactly right.

"Two amazing Coordinators will battle it out for the right to be called a Top Coordinator! It takes skill, grace, and most importantly, the determination to win it all to make it to the top!

"In the red corner—"

A stage assistant, a woman holding a clipboard, waved me to start walking out. I cooled my expression under my mask and made sure my Pokémon's Pokéballs were in their correct slots in my gloves, too. I then headed out onto the field with the most confident stride I could muster.

"...is the enigmatic Robin!"

The audience burst into cheers as I, as Robin, strode onto the field. I could hear "my" name being chanted in the stands, and funnily enough, there was a good number of people wearing cheap, knock-off, imitation masks of the one I was currently wearing.

A staircase brought me up onto an elevated platform that overlooked a dirt field. Marian continued.

"Robin is a Coordinator of mysterious background, and as far as we can tell, a powerful Fairy Type specialist, too. They're notable for winning the Wallace Cup, but that doesn't make their other Contest victories any less impressive."

Marian paused for a moment to let the cheering die down.

"And in the green corner—"

Excited screams and shouts exploded into deafening noise as Dawn emerged onto the field. Countless people yelled her name as she gracefully waved to the audience.

I eyed the stone she was wearing around her gloved wrist.

"...is Dawn!" Marian's voice continued. "Daughter of Johanna, a previous Top Coordinator, and winner of not five, but six different Contests, her skill as a Coordinator is not to be doubted! “Already, she has demonstrated impressive control of her Pokémon in previous rounds, and I know there isn't anyone around who isn't excited to watch these two battle it out!"

Dawn took up a spot on her own elevated platform, and we locked eyes from across the field. I wasn't going to underestimate her in the slightest, and I knew she was striving to do the same.

Marian went over the rules—discussing how this would be a two-on-two match where points would be adjusted based on how well the Pokémon showed themselves off—before telling us to send out our Pokémon.

I brought my arms up to cross in a V-shaped posture, causing a Heavy Ball and a Heal Ball to "magically appear" in my hands. Tossing them forward, both Florges and Mawile appeared on the field, the pair or them prepared to give it their all to win this match.

Dawn, at the same time, spun and tossed forward her own pair or Pokéball, sending out her Lopunny and Togekiss onto the field.

My eyes lingered on the Togekiss, as its appearance was a slight surprise to me. Not only was Dawn bringing out her own Fairy Type for this match, but she was bringing out a Pokémon she had obtained as part of a fortuitous encounter.

If the anime had any truth in it, Dawn would have received Togekiss from a random princess who looked exactly like her. The coincidence was astounding, but it wasn't like I could complain with how many things worked out like that in my own life.

I mean, Togepi was pretty much randomly given to me by Cynthia, as well. Perhaps that species could only be obtained through random strokes of luck?

As our Pokémon puffed themselves up in preparation for the match, my train of thought was interrupted by Dawn doing something dramatic.

"Alex!" she yelled to get my attention.

Dawn brought up an arm, revealing the stone I had been focusing on since she first entered the room. As part of a bracelet filled with stones representing each individual Pokémon on her team—which included a purple one to represent her handed off Ambipom—there was a brilliant, rainbow Key Stone ready to be used.

I pulled back my sleeve to expose my own bracer, but shouts from the audience started to be called out.

They were no longer calling out for "Robin," but now they were yelling "Alex" intermittently.

I hadn't caught it when Dawn had done it, and clearly neither had she. As someone who knew Robin's identity, she had mistakenly used my real name instead of my disguise's name.

Dawn's hand immediately smacked down to cover her mouth as she stared at me with wide, apologetic eyes. I let out a half-disappointed sigh, but in truth, it wasn't as if Robin was ever going to last forever.

And, if there was ever a place to unmask, the finals of the Grand Festival was a pretty good option.

To the absolute delight of practically everyone in the room, I started to move my hand under the edge of my mask. My movements were slowed and drawn out just to build the tension even more, and as my gloved fingers wrapped around my mask's bottom edge, I paused.

"I have to say, I've enjoyed performing as Robin, but for this battle, the finals of the Grand Festival, you all deserve something more. There's no point in holding anything back, so let's make this a true battle.

"It's been fun, everyone."

My mask was torn off my face, the long, braided wig coming off with it. I shook my head to make sure my hair wasn't being pressed down and gave the world the best smile I could make.

The audience was near deafening. Marian desperately tried to describe the reveal that just occurred for the people watching at home, but her voice couldn't be heard over the people shouting here.

Though, one voice stood out from the rest of the shouts. As my eyes scanned the field just to take in everyone's surprised and excited reactions, my eyes lingered on where Ash Ketchum sat in the audience.

"Robin is Alex?!" he yelled, absolutely stunned.

I gave him a small, amused wave.

It was hard not to laugh at how crazy the crowd was going. This reveal hadn't been planned, but it was still funny enough.

Turning back to Dawn, we locked eyes once more, and she seemed a little less upset at accidentally causing the reveal now that all was said and done. We gave each other a short nod, and I opened my mouth, not quite ready to start the battle just yet.

"So you want a Mega Battle, then?" I asked.

The audience cheered excitedly once more.

"I do," Dawn replied.

Both of us turned to face our Pokémon.

"Mawile," I said.

"Lopunny," Dawn said.

Our two team members turned around.

"We're winning this match."

Mawile locked eyes with me, as Lopunny did the same with Dawn. Both Pokémon looked as confident as ever as they returned to facing the field, and Dawn and I held up our arms.

The room was overtaken by two points of brilliant, rainbow light. On one side, its source was Lopunny, and on the other side, its source was Mawile. Mawile's jaws split and became cruel, and Lopunny's legs extended and became much more sleek and muscular. Mawile increased in height whereas Lopunny's ears gained long, tight braids.

When the light faded, it was clear the two Mega Pokémon were now significantly stronger than before. Lopunny rapidly hopped back and forth between each foot and threw some practice kicks while Mawile's jaws opened and closed in preparation for the match. At the Mega Pokémon's sides, Florges and Togekiss floated in the air, ready to assist their Mega Evolved partners.

"In a precedent-setting match, we have two Mega Pokémon facing off!” Marian practically screamed over the speakers. “You're seeing history being made here, folks, as both sides use Mega Evolution against each other in a worldwide Grand Festival first!"

Dawn and I both gave one another a confident grin. For a match that would determine the victory of the Grand Festival, we would both give it our all.

The buzzer went off.

The match began.

“Double Kick, Aura Sphere!” Dawn yelled.

“Wind Defense,” I ordered.

Mawile began to charge forward with Lopunny doing the same. In the back, Togekiss did a loop in the air to send a pair of Aura Sphere’s Mawile’s way. She was forced to dart to the side to try to avoid them, but the attacks curved and homed in before slamming into her side.

With the Aura Spheres landed, they burst into sparkling light. Lopunny tried to use this distraction to kick forward at Mawile, but Mawile was already prepping an Iron Defense to shield with her jaws. Not only that, but Florges had already used one of her famously fast Fairy Winds.

Mawile was surrounded by crackling Fairy Type energy. A faint, pink mist floated around her thanks to Florges’s attack. Mawile resisted the move and thus was able to avoid reacting to it, but Lopunny, who had gained the Fighting Type upon Mega Evolution, was forced to jump back to avoid taking the super effective damage.

“Now, Moon-Shadow!” I yelled.

“Lopunny, send it back!”

Florges and Mawile sent forward a Moonblast and a Shadow Ball respectively, but Mawile purposefully delayed her attack to linger behind Florges’s. The end result made it seem like the moon itself, shadow and all, was being launched at Dawn’s team, but Dawn was already prepared.

Lopunny purposefully took the attack head on. Dawn didn’t lose any points, however, as a glowing kick easily reflected the two attacks.

Its Mirror Coat, a move I was genuinely not expecting, forced Mawile to brace for impact. Thankfully, Ally Switch let Florges sustain the move as she was better at resisting special attacks like that.

Then, Togekiss swooped in. Hidden by the shadow of the reflected move, it slammed into Florges, dealing a fair chunk of damage with a perfectly accurate Aerial Ace. Florges was still able to handle it pretty easily, as physical attacks weren’t Togekiss’s strong suit, but it did cost us a significant number of points.

Funnily enough, Dawn and I were about tied, at two-thirds our remaining points each. The Mirror Coat into Aerial Ace combo had netted her a slight advantage, but just like how Mirror Coat had stopped her points from being chunked away, the sacrificial Ally Switch had been impressive enough to stop ours.

There was a brief delay on the field as both sides of the battle paired up. Lopunny glared at Mawile, and Florges glared at Togekiss. As that happened, two glowing, healing stars formed in the air above both Florges and Togekiss, and the pair of Wishes slowly entered the two standing Mega Evolutions.

Dawn and I both seemed to come to the same conclusion:

Always take out the healer first.

“Florges, Mawile. Homing Stones,” I ordered.

“Ping-Pong!” Dawn yelled.

I blinked at the strange name as both sides burst into action.

Mawile moved to stand in front of Florges, and Togekiss shifted to be behind Lopunny. Following my commands, Mawile went ahead and used Stone Edge, but instead of sending many small shards of rock forward, she had them appear in both lesser numbers and larger sizes.

Across from her, all around Togekiss, tiny Moonblasts formed and floated in the air, not doing anything but sitting in one place without being launched forward.

Then, the attacks were launched forward.

With Florges, she took advantage of the time Mawile used to form the stones to grab them with Psychic and fling them at our foes. For Lopunny, the rabbit’s long legs rapidly kicked each Moonblast, causing the attacks to be fired out like bullets right into each of the incoming rocks.

In the center of the field, countless Stone Edge shards and Moonblast balls struck each other and burst out into a sparkling dust cloud. Florges tried her best to aim her telekinetic projectiles while Lopunny tried its best to kick the balls accurately, but some attacks leaked through on each side.

Togekiss, the target of our attacks, took it a lot worse than Florges. Where Moonblast was a neutral move against Florges, the controlled Stone Edges dealt super effective damage. Dawn quickly gave up and ordered her Pokémon to move out of the way.

As she lost a good portion of her points for “losing” that clash, strangely enough, I saw Dawn stumble for some reason. She took a few rapid steps to keep upright then blinked a few times to try to regain her focus. I was unable to question what had happened any further before she ordered her team to try a different combination of moves.

“Skywards!” Dawn yelled.

With the way her expression hardened, I could tell she was trying to bring herself back into the lead.

My Pokémon took this moment to rest while they could as Togekiss flew over, grabbed Lopunny’s extended hand, and flew straight up into the air. Florges and Mawile’s attacks could technically hit, but I refrained from having them do anything for now since their accuracy would be so poor at such a distance.

High in the sky, the flying Pokémon and rabbit stared down at my team. The carrier of the pair, Togekiss, began to glow, then Lopunny suddenly twisted around with the grace of a carnival acrobat and kicked its ally.

Togekiss disappeared.

Togekiss reappeared.

Like before, physical attacks weren’t Togekiss’s specialty, but the sheer velocity of Extreme Speed more than made up for that. Not only was the move fast on its own, but Lopunny’s kick had provided it with an initial thrust to make it even faster. Florges wasn’t able to dodge in time; she wasn’t even able to blink.

It took Mawile a moment to try to respond to the unexpectedly fast move, as Florges had been hit right next to her. I was forced to call out an “Above!” to remind her about the Mega Lopunny crashing downwards.

Thankfully, she brought up her jaws to defend herself just in time.

With Mawile and Lopunny battling it out, Florges tried to push back to an upright posture, but Togekiss laid into her with an Air Slash. The blade of solid air managed to catch Florges just right, causing her to flinch, then she flinched a second time from a second Air Slash, then a third.

I felt an eye twitch. That Togekiss’s luck was absurd, but then again, its ability, Serene Grace, was what was causing Florges to suffer from its moves without any resistance. How nimbly it flew in the air, and how visceral Florges’s reactions were, made this assault look all the worse for us.

Our points ticked down, and soon enough, Dawn was starting to pull ahead. Unhappily, Florges was still unable to retaliate. We desperately needed to use a different strategy.

“Mawile, change targets!” I yelled.

Right as a kick impacted Mawile’s jaws, she flung them up to launch Lopunny into the air. She jumped to the side and lashed out with one of her jaws to catch the distracted Togekiss between her teeth. An Ice Fang then sent chilling energy piercing into it, freezing its wings before slamming it into the ground.

Florges, just barely hanging on, began to prepare herself to heal. Unfortunately, Lopunny had a move that was able to land first.

“Quick Attack!” Dawn ordered.

Through an unexpectedly powerful Extreme Speed, a series of infuriatingly lucky flinches, and one last priority move, the wall that was Florges fell to Dawn’s Pokémon.

I felt my hand clench when I saw her faint. I couldn’t hate on Dawn’s strategy as it had worked, but completely shutting down Florges like that had been wholly outside my expectations. Flinching a Pokémon so easily with the combination of Serene Grace and Air Slash felt unfair, but I couldn’t really complain about a strategy I planned to copy in the eventual future.

At least Dawn’s Pokémon didn’t get out unscathed. With Lopunny shifting its focus over to Florges, Mawile had an easy time taking out the pinned Togekiss with an Iron Head. Having two sets of jaws made such an act a breeze.

Both of us returned our fainted Pokémon and spared the scoreboard a brief glance. As Florges and Togekiss both fainted at the same time, the judges weren’t able to call the battle in either of our favor. Instead, it seemed they had settled on bringing both of our remaining points to be roughly ten percent.

It was almost as if they were telling us to have our Mega Pokémon finish it off.

...Well, I wasn’t going to let our practice with Mega Evolution all be for naught.

“Play Rough!” I yelled.

“Jup—” Dawn paused, her words stumbling, “Jump Kick!”

I cocked my head at the strange and out of place mistake but quickly refocused on the battle.

Mawile used her jaws to kick herself up into the air with each set glowing pink. She slammed one towards Lopunny, but the rabbit kicked it aside with its legs before just barely dodging the follow up attack that came immediately after. Now upside-down, Mawile spun to reorient herself and let a Sucker Punch impact a sharp punch from Lopunny’s Close Combat. A Headbutt came down onto the falling Mawile’s head, but she countered with her own, non-move version of the attack.

Once she landed, Mawile shot forward to lay into Lopunny up close and personal. Counter to her, Lopunny tried its best to dodge and block Mawile’s furious punches, kicks, and swings with her jaws, but it was clear that despite Lopunny’s greater speed, it was already wearing out.

My eyes widened as I finally put together what had been going on. Dawn’s strange behavior now made sense to me. Not only did Lopunny look strained, but Dawn was swaying on her feet. Mega Evolution was wearing them out.

Dawn only had access to phenomena for roughly a month. She may have successfully Mega Evolved her Pokémon, but it was draining her stamina and making it hard to stay focused. She would soon be forced to forfeit, or she would succumb to exhaustion and Mega Lopunny would rampage. I would say we had this in the bag, except Contests were about appearances, not battle ability.

Dawn seemed to come to the same realization as I had, as she used both hands to slap her cheeks to wake herself up. Lopunny, too, jumped back and rolled its shoulders, forcing itself to go through a second wind before Dawn’s points reached zero.

“One last Bounce!” she yelled, clearing intending to finish this off.

“Mawile, show that it’s pointless,” I responded.

I glanced over to our points. I had about five percent, but Dawn only had a sliver. Blocking this attack and showing that Mawile could easily withstand it would grant us the win.

In accordance with Dawn’s orders, Lopunny high up into the air. Mawile’s two jaws were brought to her front, becoming even stronger with solid Steel Type energy being infused throughout them.

Then...

Lopunny didn’t follow up on its Bounce.

Dawn changed her order while Lopunny was still in the air. As fast as she could, she yelled out “Ice Beam!” trying to get her Pokémon to act before we could. Unfortunately, for all of Mawile’s strengths, it was speed where she lacked, and she was too slow to properly respond.

When the Ice Beam landed, the move didn’t even affect her—she could have easily kept going—but the sparkling, crackling Ice Type energy shooting through the air looked far more beautiful than Mawile’s relatively simple Iron Defense.

Not only that, but the move was a special attack that struck a defensive move specialized for physical attacks. With that also going for her, the buzzer went off.

We had run out of points.

“And our new Top Coordinator is... Dawn, from Twinleaf Town!”

The audience burst into cheers as everyone remaining on the field looked shocked. The only one who seemed to see this coming was Lopunny, who had dealt the final, devastating blow.

Mawile looked crushed as both Mega Evolutions faded. She was trying her best to keep her expression level as she returned to having only two mouths.

To save her face, I returned her to her Heavy Ball and whispered a few short praises.

“You did a great job. You were incredible as always. There’s no need to worry,” I said, unintentionally quoting Dawn.

As Dawn looked around at the cheering audience, having a moment, I lightly clapped to cheer for her. I kept my expression in a tight smile as I knew she deserved to win.

She’d tricked us. She had her Mega Lopunny, a species incredibly dedicated to up close fighting, stick to what it was best at. We had been lured into a psychological trap she had cleverly laid out as we started to get into the mindset that Lopunny would only attack with melee. Mawile had performed admirably, but I couldn’t be too upset to have lost from such a wonderfully placed trick.

It just told me I needed to get better at doing the same, myself.

In a way, I had somehow found myself in the role of a much more powerful trainer Dawn needed to surpass to prove herself as a Coordinator. It wasn’t a perfect comparison, but I certainly felt that way with my loss to a less experienced trainer. Yet, I was proud of her and her performance. For a Grand Festival finals, I couldn’t have asked for a better match.

Turning around, I walked off the field, placing my mask back on the face. Marian shouted for one last round of applause for me as I left, but the true focus was still on Dawn. Flowers were being thrown onto the field for her as I disappeared back into the connecting hallway. Despite losing here, I looked to the future.

We lost the Grand Festival. That was clear. However, our journey wasn’t done. We might have been preparing for this tournament recently, but truthfully, the true focus of our preparation was the upcoming Lily of the Valley conference.

Tobias would be there. So would Ash. Two powerful trainers stood in our way to making it to the finals, and that didn’t even account for the rest of the powerful competitors that would be in the Conference. My team showed off here, but they hadn’t shown their true power. In less than a few weeks, we would be facing off against the strongest trainers competing in this year’s Sinnoh League Conference.