When I grabbed the Dive Ball containing Azumarill, my opponent almost immediately returned their Golem.

“Bronzong, go!”

“Azumarill, get in there!”

Azumarill’s burns were basically all healed, but it took her personally begging a nurse to get approval for the fight today. Surface-wise, there were only a few points of slight discoloration, but she had to promise not to use Belly Drum. The self-damage it inflicted was a bit too much for right now.

This match-up started with Azumarill bursting forward with Aqua Jet, but Bronzong didn’t let her use it for long. Its trainer called out an order, and the field started to warp. The ground appeared to be wobbling as if under the effect of a hallucination or heat from a fire, yet there was no such thing actually in place. The water shooting out from behind Azumarill suddenly started to splash in random directions, and she hit the ground face first.

“That was Psychic Terrain! Priority moves like Aqua Jet won’t work!” I yelled to inform her.

Azumarill pushed herself up, spitting some water out of her mouth, then ran towards Bronzong on her feet. Bronzong's eyes glowed, and then her feet suddenly weren’t touching the ground.

“Psychic!”

Bronzong’s telekinetic move brought her up into the air, and it launched Azumarill back across the entire field. Aqua Jet still didn't work, but it was enough to allow Azumarill to reorient herself before crashing into the ground.

She tried to run to approach again. The same thing happened.

My lips pressed into a thin line as I considered her situation. Bronzong’s Psychic prevented her from getting close, and Psychic Terrain prevented her Aqua Jet from bypassing that. I had to give it to our opponent, he had found a solid counter, but it wasn’t like Azumarill would allow herself to be fainted here.

“Around the side. Flood them with Surf,” I commanded.

Azumarill grinned. Her speciality wasn’t ranged, special moves, but Surf was a slight exception. The move would let her conjure a wall of water to crash down onto her foe, but it also allowed her to ride that wave as a propulsion not too dissimilar to Aqua Jet.

Azumarill didn’t create too much water with the move, just enough to let herself be picked up by it. Bronzong's body glowed with Steel Type energy before shooting out several slow but powerful Flash Cannons.

Each attack exploded into the wave, causing water to burst out in all directions. One of the attacks was aimed to hit Azumarill dead-on, but she angled her body not unlike how Florges could to turn that direct hit into a glancing blow.

“Now, Superpower!” I yelled.

The Surf pushed Azumarill forward, and she leaped out of the water. Bronzong’s eyes glowed for another Psychic. To counter it, Azumarill used a move that I don’t think anyone here expected to see.

Keeping with the sudden, recent theme of special attacks, a long unpracticed Bubble Beam left Azumarill’s mouth. The bubbles popped against Bronzong’s steely face, stunning it out of its psychic focus.

That let Azumarill crash her body against the Steel Type Pokémon, and she pushed against its top to begin to tip it over. Bouncing off of it, she then landed on the ground and gripped her hands around its body’s exposed lower lip , where she heaved it up into the air.

“AAAAZZZUMMMAAARRIIIILL!” she screamed. The field almost seemed to shake from her roar.

Bronzong was slammed into the ground, creating a loud “GONG!” sound from the impact the bell Pokémon’s body made. It glowed then pulsed with a move that resembled the Psychic Terrain—a Psychic Type attack called Expanding Force, which became significantly stronger with Psychic Terrain up—but Azumarill grit her teeth and managed to withstand it. Another Liquidation caused a dent to appear on Bronzong’s metal side.

By the end of the match, she was panting. I could already tell the nurses would get upset with us from how much damage she took. This wasn’t like her battle against Entei; she had no special defenses against Bronzong’s moves outside of her own grit and determination.

Even still, Azumarill stayed on her feet. She held up her arms to the cheers of her adoring public. I did my best to ignore the rabbit-ear hats stylized after Azumarill in the audience.

The rest of the battle went smoothly in our favor, as Ninetales’s Ice Type moves were good enough to faint the last two members of our opponent’s team. However, Azumarill’s battle against Bronzong lingered in my mind. It managed to force her to use special moves, and it was only through a raw difference in power that Azumarill won. My team’s capabilities were essentially all public, though few could match up to their current level of strengths. The strategy used to counter Azumarill stood out to me because it countered Azumarill.

A stronger Bronzong, a less determined Azumarill, and she would have fainted there. A Pokémon that took out a Legendary alone was almost just taken out by a clever application of moves. I was reminded that even with our victory against Tobias, my team still had exploitable flaws, just like Tobias’s own team had flaws exploited by mine.

The further along we got, the more likely such a thing would occur. There were only so many battles left in the Conference, but I couldn’t afford to let my guard down anytime soon.

With today’s match a victory, my team was significantly outperforming our placement in the last Conference.

In Hoenn, I finished the tournament in the Top 16, having lost my match to Thomas. Here, over a year later, not only had my team beaten a trainer with several Legendary Pokémon under his command, but we were still going strong in the Top 4.

Out of everyone competing in this year’s Lily of the Valley Conference, there were only three other trainers who had reached this high of a placement. Tobias had been like a bottleneck, one that, once cleared, the trainers afterwards hadn’t been matching up.

In a way, I should have expected something like this, as, in the anime, Tobias had beaten almost every other trainer here with only his Darkrai. If I could beat Tobias, it would make sense I could beat the other trainers just as well. At least, most of them.

My silent musings continued as I stood in the lobby of the Pokémon Center, awaiting the announcements for the next match-ups. It was late afternoon to let the people at home have a chance to tune in for this moment, and, as it stood, a surprising number of trainers were loitering around to see who would fight who.

I didn’t see Ash or the rest of his traveling companions nearby. I expected them to be here. Likely, he was out training with his team and would find out later.

Since I was down in the lobby for this announcement, I had disguised myself with a scarf wrapped around my face and a pair of glasses. Perhaps if it were earlier in the tournament, I’d be less concerned about talking to my fans (which felt weird to admit I had some), but I didn’t want to have to delay any of my preparations for my next match. There was a battle each and every day, giving still competing trainers only so long to prepare between them.

The screens mostly sat on a list of trainers who had healed Pokémon ready to be claimed, but one of them contained a stream of a major television channel playing the Conference. It was showing the final moments of the battle between Ash and Paul earlier today, a battle that had been Ash’s victory.

A familiar voice unexpectedly spoke up next to me.

“I previously avoided rewatching my battles in the past. They were records of my past weakness. Now...”

I glanced over to Paul, who had somehow found his way next to me. His face looked as serious as ever, but I could tell that was just his resting face. Honestly, it was just the way his eyebrows were shaped. He always looked like he was upset about something.

“Paul,” I said to acknowledge him. “You know you’re only the second person to see through one of my disguises? The first was Kenny, back in Sage Town.”

“You say that like I know who Kenny is. Your disguises are basic. I don’t understand how people don’t recognize you when you wear the same outfits all the time.”

I frowned, but that didn’t show under my scarf. Paul frowned as well.

“I apologize. That was harsh. My brother told me I need to work on being more polite to people.”

“Well, you’re usually polite to people in positions of authority. Maybe just treat others like you treat them?”

Paul grunted somewhat acknowledging my words. He nodded slightly as he did.

“I’ll try,” he said.

“So what brings you here, anyway? I could have sworn you would have left after your battle with Ash earlier.”

“I was going to leave initially,” he said. “Ash beat me, so I have no reason to stay any longer. But as I started to walk off, something about doing so felt wrong.”

I hummed. On the monitor above, it showed Paul’s Electivire dealing a decisive blow against Pikachu, and Ash calling back Pikachu to send out Infernape instead.

“I wanted to apologize for my actions in the past,” Paul said.

My eyes broke away from the battle to look over to Paul.

“Ah. I see you had a heart to heart with Ash, right?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

This time, I actually laughed.

“It’s Ash. He does things like that.”

Paul grunted again and looked away from me once more, focusing back on the recording of his loss.

“In the past, I thought you were a worthless trainer after you lost to me in Veilstone,” he said. “I spent so long thinking you were just weak and that your casual approach to training your Pokémon was wrong. I understand what you and Ash were trying to tell me all along. My Pokémon are my partners. I can’t ignore that.”

“I don’t think you need to apologize. You kind of already did this after our battle outside Snowpoint.”

“I’m aware. I don’t think I truly understood back then. I do now,” he replied.

I turned back to the screen, unfortunately missing the final moments of the fight. A pair of announcers popped up, discussing potential match-ups between the four remaining trainers.

“I plan to take on the Battle Frontier,” he continued. “My brother contacted Scott and allowed me to sign up. The challenges will allow me to refocus how I’ve been training my team, and from there, I will go on to beat Brandon.”

“Awfully cocky there,” I chuckled. “‘Will go on?’ There’s no doubt about it?”

“Yes. I will beat Brandon,” Paul declared.

I had to give it to him, the way he said that made me believe him. Honestly, with his skill as a trainer, I didn’t have a reason to doubt it, either.

Our conversation petered out into silence, and we watched the screen shift to names. My name and face was front and clear on the television, and next to me, were three others.

Each trainer moved to overlap one another in the center before they were spread out, organized into two matches. One was on the bottom, and on the top, my name was listed right next to Ash’s. He would be my next opponent.

“Well,” I said.

“It’ll be a tough fight,” Paul said. “I never expected your victory against Tobias, but don’t expect Ash to be a pushover.”

“I won't,” I said, staring at the screen. “In fact, I almost think this battle will be even harder.”

With the Top 4 matches decided, I said goodbye to Paul one last time, and he headed off, aiming to return home before heading out to challenge the Battle Frontier. I, for one, had a match with a certain protagonist to prepare for.

“Let’s talk about Ash Ketchum,” I said to my team.

My Pokémon, seated in the room with me, all moved up to attention—with the exception of Dedenne, who continued to casually relax within Altaria’s fluff.

“As all of you know, Ash was the protagonist of the primary Pokémon anime of my old world, and as a result, I have a slight insight into how he battles. What I’ve seen in the past and what I’ve seen in my research here implies that Ash tends to win battles through relatively simple methods, though he's capable of pulling off victory-deciding tricks if needed.

“What I’m trying to say is...” I paused, moving my lips around as I tried to formulate a proper way to state this. “Expect a lot of shounen anime bullshit.”

Dedenne snorted, and I pointed the stick I was holding directly at him. He froze, not expecting the sudden attention.

“It sounds funny, but it’s not. In the first arc of the Black and White anime, Ash’s Pikachu withstood a direct attack from the Legendary Zekrom. Zekrom is a Pokémon at the same level as Kyogre, Groudon, and even Xerneas. I expect you to understand what that means.”

Dedenne slowly nodded, but then Ninetales let out a bark. She couldn’t exactly speak, but I could tell she was trying to remind me about what happened in Kalos.

“Yes, yes. I know almost everyone here withstood an attack from Xerneas, but that’s different. Xerneas wasn’t explicitly trying to deal any significant amount of damage. The sheer number of times Pikachu has withstood attacks from Legendary Pokémon and other powerful foes means that Pikachu is likely to be the biggest threat on Ash’s team. That doesn’t mean the rest of his Pokémon are pushovers, however.”

I moved over to the computer, pulling up a video I had prepared beforehand. The League’s website was still a great resource to find recordings of battles from the past, and it even had recordings from today.

“We tend to struggle against Fire Types,” I started. “And Ash has two of them we need to be especially aware of. The first I want to mention is a more recent one, one that most of you are probably familiar with.”

I hit play on the video, and the final match-up between Ash’s Infernape and Paul’s Electivire appeared. It showed Infernape rushing forward at Electivire while Electivire swung a punch towards its foe. However, Infernape wasn’t just running forward, as its body was completely encompassed by flame, appearing to be a walking inferno rather than the lanky monkey it actually was.

I hit pause right when Infernape landed its Flare Blitz on Electivire. Pausing the video there clearly showed Electivire’s eyes rolling back up into its head in unconsciousness.

“How many of you think you can withstand that?” I asked, referring to that Flare Blitz.

Since Azumarill wasn’t here, no one spoke up. Ninetales called out her name, but the stare I gave her made it clear that was only false bravado.

“That’s Infernape, formerly Monferno, formerly Chimchar. It’s a strong Pokémon, but it's true power comes out when it makes the most of its Blaze ability. If any of you match up against that, either knock it out quickly, or expect it to gain a significant power-up once weakened.”

I resumed the video, and the final moments of the match were displayed on the screen. After both Pokémon landed their attacks, they rushed past each other. There was a very dramatic moment where each stood, facing away, until Electivire crashed into the ground, unconscious.

I didn’t stop it there, letting it play for a bit longer. The video showed Infernape collapsing into Ash’s arms before it ended.

“And that’s it’s weakness, right there,” I said, my stick hitting the screen. “Its Blaze ability is strong, but it exhausts itself quickly as a consequence. You’ll have to make a split second choice between either trying to faint it while its ability is activated or avoiding its attacks until it faints to exhaustion. Though, be aware of its Mach Punch, since that move is a good counter to any attempts at trying to outspeed it.”

I minimized the video while my Pokémon digested that, and I switched over to the next.

“Now, this is—”

Dedenne let out a squeak as Altaria suddenly stood up, having been knocked onto the bed by Altaria’s sudden movement. The bird’s body puffed up aggressively as he glared at the dragon on the screen.

Except, it wasn’t technically a dragon.

“Charizard,” I finished.

I eyed Altaria carefully as his feather almost seemed to bristle to intimidate the displayed Charizard. Next to him, Dedenne looked almost just as upset, but for a completely different reason.

“I take it you want to battle Charizard if he comes out?” I said to Altaria.

Altaria’s determined expression answered the question for me, and I let the video play without comment.

This was an old video, displaying Ash’s match against Gary in the Silver Conference in Johto. Charizard’s Flamethrower didn’t do much against Blastoise, but Ash recognized how the attack heated up the field. He went onto manipulating Blastoise into using a Water Type attack on the superheated rocks to create steam.

Blocking Blastoise’s line of sight is what allowed him to pull off a victory, in the end.

“Just to note, this video is from over two years ago,” I said. “Charizard is likely much stronger, and Ash is a much more experienced trainer. Most of Ash’s matches for the Battle Frontier weren’t recorded, but I do know that Charizard did take out the Legendary Articuno one-on-one.”

From there, I made sure to go over all of the significant threats on Ash’s team, which included things like his Snorlax, Sceptile, Swellow, Heracross, and even his Tauros. Most of his Pokémon only traveled with him for one or two regions at the most, but each one was a powerhouse in its own right, even the ones that weren’t evolved.

To an extent, it was the ones that weren’t evolved that posed the largest threat.

After going over his Pokémon, I talked about notable strategies I could remember. Things like his Counter Shield, developed in Sinnoh, and even Swellow’s impossible Thunder Armor were pointed out. Ash also had a tendency to use the field to his advantage, so if it seemed like his attacks were purposefully missing, we would have to keep an eye out for tricks.

My team had beaten Tobias, but there was no way I was going to take Ash any less seriously. Our training might not have been specifically designed to beat Ash like our training for Tobias, but if Tobias had beaten Ash in the anime, if I beat Tobias, I did have a decent chance to win.

I made sure my team was rested, we went over some practice moves and strategies. Yet, overall, we didn’t really have a set plan for our next battle. Ash was simply too much of a wildcard to prepare anything specific for his insane strategies and dozens of Pokémon, so we had to go in expecting anything and everything.

None of us wanted to lose.

The audience was already cheering when I positioned myself in the hallway to the field. Neither Ash nor I had emerged just quite yet, but whatever was being displayed on the screens was apparently exciting enough to pump them up.

I could hear the sounds of Pokémon fighting, but it wasn’t a live battle. Likely, highlights were being displayed on the screens above the field.

A few League staff members rushed by me, all of them wearing hats with headphones and microphones on them. A nearby nurse with a Chansey at her side sent me a smile as she stood off to the side, both of them at the ready in case of an emergency.

Finally, I heard the fanfare that designated the match was about to start, and the voices of the announcers began to echo over the arena.

“The battles to determine the final two trainers of the Conference are set to be underway. I’m your host, Billiam—”

“And I’m your co-host, Killian. The four trainers competing today have undergone numerous trials and challenges to be here in this Conference, and you all are looking at some incredible upcoming fights.”

“For the first match scheduled today, we have two trainers, each one with an impressive list of victories under their belts.”

“Stepping into the red corner, is none other than the Professor Oak sponsored Ash Ketchum!”

The arena practically exploded into cheers. The announcers desperately tried to talk about Ash’s countless experiences, but they were forced to settle on mentioning the fact he’d competed in three different League-sanctioned Conferences before this one. Ash’s previous highest placement was in both the Ever Grande and Silver Conference, where he reached the Top Eight for each.

And then the announcers tried to mention the fact Ash had completed the Battle Frontier, and the audience cheered even harder.

“Even with such an impressive resume, it isn’t like Ash’s opponent is any less powerful.”

“That’s right, Billiam. This trainer has not only battled it out with some of Sinnoh’s Gym Leaders’ personal teams, but their team’s performance in a previous battle was, in a way, quite Legendary!”

“Stepping into the green corner is the Fairy Type specialist almost everyone is talking about, Alex!”

I took a deep breath then stepped onto the field, emerging into the light and bringing my hand up to wave at the audience. I was much better at maintaining a smile on my face than before, purposefully trying to walk with a confidence that didn’t quite meet the level of arrogance.

As I ascended the staircase up to the elevated trainer box, I soon saw Ash staring at me, his eyes looking as determined as ever. At the same time, his mouth was stretched into a wide grin, and he was already holding a Pokéball in one hand.

“Alex! I’ve been looking forward to this battle for a long time,” Ash shouted out.

As he said that, I found myself grinning as well.

“You know, I have too. You’re a great trainer, Ash. I think almost everyone from where I'm from would jump at a chance to battle against you.”

I left out the fact that most of those people watched his journey on a television screen and some even wanted to be him.

In a move that told me Ash was getting serious, he grabbed the front rim of his hat and turned it around, ensuring that nothing would block his view of the match.

The referee went over the rules—stating it would be a six-on-six single match with five switches each—and then she called out for us to send out our Pokémon.

“Mawile! You’re up first!” I yelled.

Mawile appeared on the field. She’d known she would be out first, as Ash was unlikely to have any response to Stealth Rocks. Every little bit of damage would count, and I trusted Mawile to serve as a strong lead against our opponent.

Then, Ash tossed forward the previously prepared Pokéball.

“Sneasler! I choose you!”

The Pokémon that coalesced from the light of the Pokéball wasn’t a common species. It was now only found in The Underground’s hidden biomes, and it served as the evolution of the previously thought-to-be-extinct Hisuian Sneasel.

A Sneasler, an unexpected Fighting and Poison Type Pokémon, appeared across from Mawile. For all of my preparations, I didn’t know Ash had this Pokémon. He didn’t have it in the anime, after all. Already, he was throwing an unknown into the mix.

This match would be more difficult than I thought.