It took a few hours to get to the town's gym. While on the way, a nervous feeling persisted in my stomach. Maybe it was not an omen... but you can never be sure. But my feelers weree tingling, and not in a good way. 

The gym doesn't look any different from other gyms. But tension reigns heavily. 

I found out the reason for my nervousness. 

When we went in to fight, the gym leader had his face shrouded in a hood. But familiarity struck anyway, and I found out why when he sent out his first pokemon. 

"Serperior, go!" 

"Sylveon, go!"

I stared, mouth agape. Serperior. The same Serperior who had cared for me when I felt lonely after being captured. But she didn't recognize me; she hadn't seen me since I was an Eevee. But I still stuttered in my dramatic entrance. Then, the reality hit full force.

The gym leader was Trevor. 

I didn't want to fight Serperior. But she was intent on winning the match. I had seen her fight. Her strikes were swift and precise, but I was able to work around it and dodge it as were my usual fashion. I wanted Serperior to recognize me, so I went and executed one of the only attacks I still knew that I learned an Eevee: tackle. Serperior easily shook of the blow, but did a double take; she recognized me. I gave her a friendly smile but shrugged apologetically as I readied another attack. She got the general idea: Though we were friends, we were opponents now, at least for the next couple minutes. There were no hard feelings. 

We both fought hard. But to my amazement, Serperior was the first to teeter and keel over in defeat. I saw Trevor. He was angry. Very angry. The look on his face made it very clear that I had just made it personal. The look in his eyes did something. It shook loose some memories that had become stuck fast in the back of my mind. Again I recalled his hand as it struck me on the face, hurling me to the side like a doll. I became petrified. 

"Zweilous, revenge!" 

He also didn't recognize me. But I didn't care much anymore about jogging memories. The painful memories of the arguing, the Scalchop shattering against the wall that lost me one of my friends. It brought me fear.

Then strength. 

I somehow drew strength from it. Lots of strength. I somehow breached some kind of barrier in my limits, and loosed a strain of attacks I didn't know I could do. My leaps and dodges took me more distance, and I darted and weaved with relative ease. Zweilous went down under the onslaught. 

The battle was intense and very taxing. But one after another, I somehow managed to bring them down.

It took several minutes, and I was nearly exhausted, but a Luxray fell over onto his side, unconscious. Trevor was fuming. His last pokemon had been defeated. His entire lineup of deadly looking pokemon had been brought to second place by none other than one of the most effeminate looking pokemon in the world. But he knew this was defeat. 

Milly ran out to me, picking me up in her arms and administering a healing formula. I saw Trevor's eyes widen. This trainer was familiar. He recognized her. He walked up to her, but Milly stood up. She didn't know who it really was. 

Trevor removed his hood. Milly was shocked, and froze for a moment. Then I found myself in the middle of their embrace. 

"I'm sorry Milly... so sorry..." Trevor said, a single tear trailing down his face. Milly practically had waterfalls running from her eyes. 

"I forgive you, Trevor..." 

So, long story short, Trevor paid for a full heal for me, and they spent a few hours catching up. It makes me happy knowing that they've made up. It makes me feel warm an fuzzy... I like it!

Good night.

-Vincent