The next room we enter is a perfect replication of a forest, with suffocating vines on all sides and massive trees leaning over our heads as we approach the battlefield, which is thick with dark, tall grasses. Our next opponent stands at the other side, smiling as if he's already won.

I remember him from a magazine I read once- he's the former leader of some gym in Kanto. He must have been promoted here from his former position. I wonder who's watching his gym now... if Morty's taught me anything, it's that requirements for gym leaders are always looser than you think they are.

"Well, well, you must be the newest challenger. My name is Koga, and as you may have guessed, I am the second member of the Elite Four. I prefer to live in shadows, though I suppose you hope to blind me with your skill. Do not expect this battle to be so straightforward. Sleep, confusion, poison... I hope to put you through the gauntlet of strange and wonderful tactics involved in Pokemon battling, instead of making this battle simply a show of brute force. Prepare to become victim to my web of sinister techniques!"

"Oh yeah? Good luck catching Pisces in anything." cheers Fang from the side.

Koga throws out his first Pokemon without a word, and a sneering Ariados enters the field.

"Minerva." I say, and the golden Ninetails steps forwards, still full of adrenaline from the last battle.

The Ariados throws a net of webbing at her paws, a direct hit, and Minerva falls flat on her face. Her opponent wastes no time scuttling across the battlefield, its pincers chittering in excitement as it closes in, but just as Reginae threw the Slowbro in the last battle, the distance makes all the difference. She hits it with a Fire Blast straight to the face, and as it falls at her feet, the webbing boils up. She's melting it with her paws, I realize.

She looks to Koga instead of me, as if begging for her next challenge, and Koga releases his next Pokemon, this time a Forretress.

"Bug and steel?" I ask, more than a little incredulous. "That's your strategy? Alright then, we can play this game. Minerva, Fire Blast." I swipe my hand dramatically to the side. Minerva reacts in perfect unison, her glorious star of fire sweeping the field and blazing through the grass in its wake.

Koga makes a quick upwards motion with his hand, and the Forretress closes itself into its shell and deflects the attack with a wall of blue energy. It's Protect.

The two Pokemon face each other, both of them silently sizing up the other. Minerva's face splits into a growl but the Forretress doesn't react at all. Its unblinking eyes stare back at her, daring her to try anything smart, and she paces the ground.

Let's finish this. Minerva says.

"Not as easy as you thought, is it?" asks Koga, hands folded behind his back.

"That won't save you twice." I tell him.

"Oh? It doesn't need to." Koga says, gesturing outwards.

"What do you-" Minerva starts, and the Forretress goes into its shell again, spinning faster and faster. With firepower to rival Minerva's, it generates a massive shockwave of energy, incinerating all the grass in its wake and brightening the entire clearing.

The Forretress lies at the center when the blast clears, tilted over, and Minerva lies on her side. Explosion. I run to her, inhaling embers, and fall to her side. The ground is still hot and my pants are burning up but it's all worth it when I see the faint quiver of motion as her sides rise and fall. Her eyes are open, too, open and conscious. Oh thank Arceus.

"I'm alive." she tells me, though her eyes swim with pain. I want to pick her up, but she's much too heavy, and Fang at my side drops a Hyper Potion onto my lap. The Pokedex dings, and out of the corner of my eye I see 3 HP for Minerva and 1 PP for Fire Blast. This is what happens when you let your guard down. If she had been pawsteps closer, this would have ended far differently.

She struggles as I apply the Hyper Potion and stroke her fur, though the pain forces her to lie back down, squinting to keep the mist out of her eyes. "Get your rest." I tell her, "We'll need you for later."

"I would hope so. If I died now, I wouldn't have made much of an impact, now would I? I want... I want to be remembered..." She sucks in a breath and I withdraw her, eyes watering. Though it's fading now, her pain lights up my veins like someone set them ablaze.

"Alright." I say. "Ten. This one is on you."

"Touching," Koga says, "Though I hope you don't plan to use sentiment to worm your way out of a proper battle."

"Me?" I ask. "No, I would never."

Ten hoots in agreement, soaring onto the field, and is greeted by a massive Muk. The remaining grass that wasn't burned or exploded away is now struggling beneath its poisonous, disgusting, odorous mass, which festers everything around it. Even Ten, whose sense of smell is abysmal, takes a whiff and is on the verge of gagging just seconds before the Muk tries to swallow him whole.

He flies out of the way with another scared birdcall, coming to rest on one of the trees, and the Muk looks glumly up at him before shooting its hand an impossibly long distance, reaching out to grab Ten, who takes flight just in time and circles above, looking mortified.

"What am I supposed to do? I can't touch him, that's for certain." he calls down to me.

"Extrasensory." I call. "Wait..." Try it on his hand.

I can't see him clearly from down here, but I think I register a nod. Sure enough, when the fist comes out again, Ten's eyes glow pink and he catches it in his hand. To both our surprises, the arm recedes from the rest of the body, leaving a formless blob in Ten's grasp. I suppose lack of status effects aside, this battle has been nothing if not unpredictable on both sides.

"Oh goodness." Ten says, levitating the ugly sludge. "You wouldn't need this, would you?"

Another fist comes hurtling at him, causing him to lose his focus. The sludge drops to the ground and returns to the rest of the Muk, which seems unharmed.

"Blast." Ten says, and the Muk gurgles deep in its throat. A huge stream of sewage comes flying through the air, even more rancid than previous attacks, and Ten is right in the crosshairs.

Through some miracle, Ten's pink energy shoots out again, this time forming a mirror-like shield, and the Gunk Shot blasts back at the Muk, hitting it right in the eye. It roars in pain, groaning awfully, and Ten takes advantage of the time and hurls a Shadow Ball into its body, then another. The Muk recoils, but its on the defensive now, and a few more Shadow Balls settle the deal.

Ten lands, wings shuffling back into their usual position, looking proud of himself. I can't blame him.

Koga just withdraws his Muk and sends out a Crobat. Ten launches into battle, and the two Pokemon duel in a trial of aerial grace, using quick melee attacks instead of any discernible special moves. Ten is fighting bravely, and his endurance is good, but any time he tries to flee the Crobat catches him on the other side. I've given no commands, and his eyes dart to me, awaiting some answer.

I hadn't noticed until the minute how transfixed I'd been by the battle. I can't help it. Even after all this time, seeing a Crobat, here, just reminds me how close I was. Just one more battle and we could have been standing in this very room together.

Ten notices my distraction, and a soft voice enters my mind. We'll see them again, Ashley. We'll see them together.

"I... you're right." I say, watching them clash on the battlefield. I sense his panic and see the yellow bar on the Pokedex screen, knowing I have to make a move now. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and reach out to him, offering a hand. Well, shall we?

"We shall." cooes Ten, and my eyes go gold.

It's been far too long.

At once we can see my teammates, the battlefield, our opponent, all of it in crystal clarity. Ten's surprise lets me know this is an upgrade for him as well, and I have to wonder why we don't do this more often.

The Crobat no longer reminds me of Sky, instead, it is an obstacle in the way between Sky and us. With a decisive motion, we catch it in mid motion by the wing as it tries to cut us off from behind. Using a firm Extrasensory grip, we hurl it across the room, flinging it right past Koga and into the wall. Koga looks us up and down, admiring us, I'm sure, but then he shakes his head and exchanges Pokemon. "I'm not going to let you go that easily."

A Venomoth takes the field, its wings fluttering at an insane rate, and though Koga says otherwise, we both know this will be no problem at all.

The Venomoth begins to form copies of itself, illusions flying out left and right from the main one until we're surrounded by a full circle. It's an old, tired trick, especially since other Elite Four members have already tried it on us. Fat chance.

"We aren't doing this again, are we?" we ask, but there's already no question. We can sense the beating heart of the real Venomoth without having to dissipate a single illusion.

Looking it straight in the eyes, call out with the same dissonant melody that almost took Minerva in the last battle, and the real Venomoth's wings stop twitching. Copies disappear all around us and its eyes blankly stare into the distance while we soar up for the finishing blow.

Our wings lock and we aim straight down, going so fast we can feel everything, twisting into a perfect dive. This is why humans dream of flying, I think, before being launched into my own body on impact. I look up, getting up from where I was apparently slumped against Reginae, and see Ten descend, the deed done.

Koga withdraws his final Pokemon.

Ten cheers, "We did it, Ashley! We were bloody incredible!" He lapses into that strange half-British accent of the Peckers I once knew, and I hug him, the silly owl. He's hard to pick up but I manage and we're soon a flurry of wings and hair, smiling and trying not to break each other's limbs, like friends do.

Had you told me I'd be able to keep one of them with me, I never would have guessed it would be him, but over the course of our adventure it's become impossible to imagine managing without him. Ten, the senior member. Ten, the advisor. Ten, the nerdy puff of owl that made it all the way this time and did so in stride.

Oh, we'll see them alright. The prospect of both of our reunions is something worth fighting for.

Knowing that, I bid farewell to Koga and continue on to the next member of the treacherous Elite Four.

(A/N: AND SHE DOES IT! *DABS OUT LIKE A SIXTH GRADER*. Pretending these battles were interesting is legitimately the hardest part of writing these. I could tell you how my team one-shotted half of Koga's Pokemon, but that would be a bit of an anti-climax, wouldn't it? Enjoy my futile attempts at strategy and exciting Pokemon battles instead.)