Archive of Our Own ^beta

Light was pouring through the tent, casting over the sleeping friends faces. Denki groaned and turned over. His Pikachu whined as well, crawling inside of his sleeping bag. However, Rockruff was wide awake and energetically jumping on his trainer's stomach. Eijiro stirred awake laughing as he shoved the small Pokemon off. Rockruff buried its face in the redheads neck, causing his laughter to quicken in pace as he tried once again to shove it away. Impatiently, the Pokemon grabbed his sleeping bag and aggressively yanked it away until Eijiro had no other choice but to get up. Just because he wasn’t going to be the only one suffering, he kicked Denki hard in the legs.

“Get up man, we’re supposed to be in Lumiose City by lunch!”

“Come on dudeee,” the blonde whined, “what's the point? I’m just going to get knocked out in the first round like always!”

Pikachu heard that and electrocuted him in irritation.

“ARGHHH Eyyyyyy.”

“That's what you get,” Eijiro laughed heartily, “now let’s get moving! Rockruff is impatient.”

“Like Pokemon, like trainer,” the blonde grimaced as he picked the female Pikachu up.

The two quickly packed up and headed the rest of the way down Route 16. When they walked into the city it was packed full of both residents and trainers. Eijiro gaped at the sectioned off matching houses and lines of trees. Denki elbowed him, pointing at the Pokemon Center. Both young men headed for it, feeling ecstatic at being this close to the competition. Just like they figured, it was full of trainers. Eijiro ended up carrying Rockruff inside so it wouldn’t be stepped on, while Pikachu was on the blonde's shoulder. A few people pointed at them smiling, and he waved back sheepishly with one hand, still trying to keep Rockruff still. Denki glanced from the people to the redhead and laughed.

“See, no one bats an eye at a Pikachu, but bring a Alolan and all of the sudden you’re special!”

Eijiro shook his head, “they’re just being friendly.”

“You can always throw Onix out. That’ll shut them up.”

The redhead laughed harshly, “that would scare them! Although.. I wonder how many people from Kanto are going to be at the competition?”

“Probably not a lot, I mean.. we aren’t exactly home. I bet it’s going to be mostly Kalos trainers we’re competing against. I would be actually blown away to see a Kanto Pokemon!”

“You have a Kanto Pokemon on your shoulder,” a dry voice responded.

Denki shrieked as he jumped, almost slinging Pikachu off his shoulder. He grabbed her last minute to look at a fancy dressed young man around their age with half white and half red hair and bicolored eyes. Eijiro pushed past Denki to shake the man's hand.

“Hello! I’m Eijiro and this is Denki, we’re from Kanto actually.”

The man stared hard at the Pokemon in his arms before he shook it back, “my pleasure to meet you, my name is Shoto. Pardon me, but that is an Alolan Pokemon yes?”

“Huh? Oh yea! This is my partner Rockruff!”

Rockruff barked energetically at the man, and Shoto smiled softly, “I’m from Sinnoh but I visited one of the islands for vacation a couple years ago and caught a vulpix there.”

“Awesome!” Eijiro smiled genuinely at him, “I just caught Rockruff this summer. We’ve been training mad crazy, he should evolve soon!”

“What does it evolve into?”

“Lycanroc!” Denki added, “that's all he does is talk about it..”

“Lycanroc actually has two forms, although there's been rumors of three..”

The blonde rolled his eyes, “there's just two.”

Eijiro went to argue with him but another voice cut him off, “who are your friends, Shoto?”

They both turned to see a beautiful ginger approach them. She smiled at Kirishima and Denki before introducing herself, “my name is Itsuka and I’m from Sinnoh.”

Both of them introduced themselves before Shoto added, “Itsuka and I are here for the competition. I’m assuming you both are here for it too?”

“Honestly only Eijiro is but.. Might as well since I’m here,” Denki shrugged.

Pikachu confirmed it with, ‘chu!’

Itsuka smiled at her before meeting Eijiro’s eyes, “do you train a specific type? I’m a fighting type and Shoto is ice.”

“hell yea! I’m rock all the way!”

“I’m electric,” Denki smiled, “but that was probably obvious.”

“WOAH!” a voice shouted from behind them. Before Eijiro could process where he heard the voice before, a guy was jumping on his back roughly, “EIJIRO!?”

He glanced back and screamed, “TETSU!”

“So confused,” Denki whined as the two embraced each other harshly before drawing back. Then the new intruder caught sight of Itsuka and flushed.

He cleared his throat and kissed her hand softly, “sorry for my outburst ma’am. My name is Tetsu from Johto, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Eijiro dragged him back from his ear, “who are you fooling!? That's the most civilized I’ve ever seen you!”

“Not in front of the ladddy,” he whined, trying to shove the redhead off.

Itsuka laughed, “so I take it you two are friends?”

“Hell yes,” Eijiro fist bumped the other man, who was similar in looks but with long messy grey hair and prominent pale markings around his eyes, “we met in Alola on vacation!”

“Yeah! I was there with my friend Yosetsu! He originally grew up there with a cool guy called Togaru, but moved here several years ago. We’ve been best friends since-”

Eijiro couldn’t help but interrupt him, “are they both going to be here!? Togaru has a CRAZY strong Pokemon!”

“Tch, did you hear that Deku. Some of these assholes think they’re strong.”

“Shhh, Kacchan! You can’t pick fights before the competition!”

The redhead froze, and their growing group turned to watch a spiky haired blonde glare at him before pushing a messy green haired man away, “whatever, lets go.”

“HEY! Hold up!” Eijiro shouted after them. The blonde froze and visibly quaked in anger before turning to face them.

“You talking to me, Shithair!?”

“Shithair?” Denki frowned, “lets just go Ei, this guys crazy.”

“No, that's not cool dude! You can’t just talk smack and not follow up! I challenge you to a battle!”

The blonde smirked unhinged, “and who the hell are you to challenge me.”

“My name is Eijiro Kirishima and I’m from Kanto!”

The green haired man stepped forward sheepishly, “my name is Izuku Midoriya, and this is Katsuki Bakugo. We’re from Johto.”

“Can’t he introduce himself.”

“No reason to,” the blonde shirked, “you look weak as hell.”

“WHAT!?”

The blonde gestured at Rockruff, who growled at him in response. Eijiro pressed on, “one on one, right now!”

Shoto stepped forward frowning at the blonde, “there's a arena not far from here. I’ll take you there.”

“No way I’m missing this!” Tetsu bellowed before side glancing at the curious girl, “would you like to come with us?”

“Sure, besides I can’t exactly leave Shoto. I came with his family.”

Eijiro continued glaring at the blonde as he begrudgingly followed the half haired man. Denki introduced everyone to Izuku and Katsuki, but Katsuki was hardly listening. The blonde was too busy returning the glare and his fingers reflexively wrapped around the pokeballs at his side. They separated on opposite ends of the arena before Shoto announced himself as the referee. Eijiro put Rockruff down and turned to face the volatile blonde. His face was scrunched up pissed, and Eijiro’s own was irritated. This guy had a lot of nerve.

“One on one battle, no substitutions. Basic rules and all that. Send your Pokemon out in one, two, three-”

Eijiro grabbed the pokeball on the side of his belt and threw it the same time the blonde did, “I choose you, Onix!”

“Come out, Typhlosion!”

Izuku shook his head and whined, “did you really have to go all out Kacchan!?”

“Shut up nerd!”

Eijiro watched the pair curiously before Onix turned to look at him equally as confused. He shook his head before instigating the first move, “Onix, use Rock Slide!”

Giant rocks caught the monster fire creature and it bellowed in pain. The trainer screamed, “DAMMIT! Typhlosion use Fire Blast!”

“Onix counter it with Dig!”

His giant rock Pokemon plummeted immediately under the ground. The blonde became more enraged, and his Pokemon screamed with him, “use Earthquake!”

The ground shook dramatically and Onix jolted out from beneath the earth bellowing. Eijiro glanced worriedly at him, “are you okay!?”

It bellowed at him before turning back toward the opponent, “then use Rock Slide again!”

Typhlosion tried to avoid it by his trainers orders, but was hit hard in the head by a flying rock. It hit the ground with a giant bang, and the blonde screamed at it twice worse. It roared in outrage as it pushed itself back up, a similar look of fire in its eyes. The fire on its back blazed ridiculously large, and that seemed to only heat up the pair worse.

“Your fires are no good, use Earthquake again!”

Terrified, Eijiro shouted, “Onix, Slam into it as it does it!”

With a massive bellow the rock Pokemon rushed the fire beast and slammed into it just as the ground shook horribly, shards of earth slapping Onix around. They both hit the ground with a roar, and Eijiro held his breath. After a few shaky moments Typhlosion picked itself back up angry, but Onix was barely stirring. In a last desperate attempt to not lose completely, Eijiro shouted at him.

“Onix!”

It slowly turned its head to look at him, “SELF DESTRUCT!”

The blondes triumphant smile faded as the rock snake's tail wrapped around his Pokemon and lit up bright. A massive explosion shook the arena, sending smoke billowing in all directions. Eijiro held his breath until he heard Shoto shout, “both Onix and Typhlosion are unable to battle! It is a tie!”

“NO!”

Eijiro sighed with relief before calling Onix back. He crossed to the blonde and smirked, “your name was Katsuki right?”

“Tch, self destruct was a cheap shot.”

Eijiro laughed, “not really. It was a close match though! I can’t believe your fire type lasted that long against my Onix, it must be really strong!”

“Tch. What's your name again.”

“Eijiro.”

“You’re from Kanto?”

“Yea you’re from Johto right? Basically neighbors!”

The blonde shoved his hands in his pockets and grunted, “whatever. You’re not weak I guess. See you around.”

He started to storm off and Eijiro called after him, “wait! Does that mean you’re joining the competition tomorrow?”

“Duh.”

Izuku trotted forward, “that was an intense battle! We’re about to head to sign up, are you fighting in it as well?”

Tetsu smirked, “hell yes we are!”

Eijiro slammed his fists together, “we’re here to win it!”

“Tch, you get against one water user and you’re done.”

“Same with you,” he frowned at the blonde, “honestly my Onix should have won. Your Pokemon is out of this world!”

Katsuki shrugged, “it was almost finished.. but so was yours.”

“So what you’re saying is if I would have hit it with another Rock Slide it would have dropped.. Dang.”

The blonde smirked at him, “maybe.”

Denki glanced between them, “I don’t understand you at all man. This guy called us weak and now you’re all buddy-buddy?”

Katsuki glared at him before shrugging off, Izuku trotting after him. Shoto frowned at the two departing men, “he is uncivilized, but he seemed to calm down after the battle. I think you definitely proved your strength.”

“He’s a little cocky,” Eijiro nodded, “but most trainers are. I’m hungry, let’s get some food after signing up!”

Denki pulled up directions to the battle arena on his phone before he gasped, “oh no!”

“What!?”

“With all this going on we forgot to sign up for a room! They’re probably booked full now..”

“Well, looks like we're tenting it again!” Eijiro laughed.

“No way dude! Yosetsu, Togaru, and I rented a hotel! One of you will have to sleep on the floor- but it's better than being outside!”

“Wait… then why were you at the Center?”

“I uh-” he rubbed the back of his neck, “kinda already got in a Pokemon battle and needed to heal up Steelix.”

“Wow, you two really are friends,” Itsuka giggled, “you both have similar Pokemon!”

“Except I’m a steel trainer!” He responded proudly, “I only have Steelix with me, but I’m using my friends Meltan for the battles. It’s pretty good, just needs more training. Yosetsu spoils it.”

“We were also at the center healing our Pokemon,” she responded warmly, “some thugs caught us outside of our own hotel and picked a fight with us.”

“They lost.”

Everyone laughed as they followed Denki’s directions to the stadium. After they were all signed up, they stood back and observed the trainers coming in and out. There were too many of them to keep track of, but he did notice the spiky haired blonde in the distance.

“So what do you think his deal was?”

Denki glanced around curiously before staring at him blankly, “what?”

“That blonde from earlier.. Katsuki.”

“He was just a jerk,” his friend aired, throwing his hands in the air. Rockruff pulled on the cuff of his pants, so he scooped it up with one arm.

“Yea but like, he was incredibly strong and his personality switched after the battle.”

“Probably just knew he was in the wrong,” Denki nodded.

“Shoto and I need to head back, it was nice to meet you all!” Itsukas voice pulled them away from their private conversation. They all said their goodbyes before watching the pair disappear.

“They were nice.”

“She was HOT,” Testu breathed out before turning to the pair dope eyed.

Eijiro laughed, “well maybe we will run into them again!”

“I hope so!” his friend whined before the three of them left to get lunch.

“Wow,” Denki commented as they left the stadium, there seemed to be more people filling in, “looks like we got in and out just in time.”

“Lots of last minute additions..”

“Don’t worry man! Onix is strong as hell!”

“I hope dude,” he nervously answered.

The boys hung out in the city taking in the scenery and stopping in a few shops before heading back to Tetsu’s hotel. He opened the door and stormed in like he had lived there for years, “Yo, Tog!”

“Don’t call me Tog,” the Alolan frowned, before his eyes fell on the two new guests.

Tetsu pointed at them immediately, “this is Denki, he’s friends with Ei!”

“Holy shit!” Yosetsu called from the other side of the room, “is that really Ei!?”

“Yea man! How are you?”

“Good, nice to see you again dude!”

Togaru smirked, “can’t wait to kick your ass in the tournaments.”

“I hope you make it that far,” Eijiro shot back immediately before the two fist bumped.

“Wow, I’ll fit right in,” Denki rolled his eyes and set Pikachu delicately down on one of the beds, “bunch of rabid battlers.”

They looked at him like he lost his mind so Eijiro explained, “Denki isn’t much on battling. He hates training, and hates losing worse.”

“Hey man, we’re all friends here,” Yosetsu smiled, “I don’t battle either. Tetsu’s been training Meltan for me honestly.”

Denki’s yellow eyes lit up, “Oh right! I take what I said back then.”

“I know we can be a little battle fierce dude, but we’re still fun,” Tetsu hit the blonde on the back before barking with laughter, “although Togaru takes it a little too far sometimes.”

“Speaking of too far-” Denki frowned.

“Oh yea!” Tetsu’s dark eyes lit up, “Togaru you missed the sickest battle! Ei challenged some surly looking blonde to a fight after he called you weak! His Pokemon was killer strong!”

“Where is he.”

“Huh?” Eijiro asked.

“I want to battle him.”

“Ei already defended your pride, don’t worry.”

“If he lost to Eijiro then he wasn’t strong enough to face me anyways.”

“He actually.. didn’t lose. It was a tie.”

“What?” the green haired man startled. He had the appearance of a bug with pinchers, which best described his preferred type, “I’ll make him cry, where is he!”

“We don’t actually know bro, chill out.”

“Is he competing?”

“Yea?”

“I’ll destroy him there then.”

“Geez man,” Eijiro laughed before elbowing Denki, “now you know why Denk hates battling so much.”

Pikachu made a stained ‘piikkkkkaaa’ sound.

Denki whined, “See? Even she thinks its stupid!”

The three trainers rolled their eyes, but Yo gave him a weak smile. By the time the next day rolled around Eijiro was too excited to stop pacing. They woke up early and rushed to the stadium. After scanning in, they maneuvered through the thick crowd to the trainer check in. The young men waited patiently in line, Eijiro watching Yo release Meltan and hand him off to Tetsu. He waved goodbye as he disappeared in the crowd to the stands to watch with everyone else. Denki watched him go sadly, half wishing he decided to just watch as well.

“Man, why did I do this again?”

“Because it's fun dude!”

“Why are you here if you don’t want to battle.”

It wasn’t one of their voices, and it wasn’t a question either. Denki glanced around quickly until his eyes fell on a mass of long wild purple hair. He flushed immediately as he looked down into a handsome face with bored purple eyes.

“I-uh-”

Eijiro smiled at the stranger, “he wants to be, he just isn’t very confident!”

Denki elbowed him hard and cursed him under his breath before smiling at the stranger, “my name is Denki, what’s yours?”

He looked the blonde up and down before smirking, “Hitoshi.”

Eijiro rolled his eyes at his friends' horrible flirting and started a conversation with Tetsu instead. Denki smiled wider, “where are you from?”

“Kanto.”

“No way! We’re from Kanto!”

“I figured, you have a Pikachu.”

“Oh yea,” he stuttered as Pikachu introduced herself.

He pet her roughly on the head and she let out an amused, “chuuuu!”

“She’s cute.”

“Thanks! What kind of Pokemon do you have? Oh! What city are you from? Eijiro and I both grew up in Pewter City, we’ve been friends forever.”

“I’m from Saffron City, my dad Shota is the gym leader there. So naturally I have physic Pokemon.”

“No way! We were there a couple years ago when we got our badges!”

“It’s strange you’re from Pewter City but have a Pokemon that's weak to rock.”

‘Pikaaaa.’

Denki immediately comforted her, “well I like electric Pokemon, and we also travel a lot.”

“So you’ve been traveling since you became trainers?”

“Pretty much,” he laughed, “we’ve gone to all kinds of regions. Ei actually has a whole arsenal of rock Pokemon, but the competition only requires two so he only brought that.”

Hitoshi glanced up to see the Rockruff pacing around the redheads legs, “that one is Alolan, isn’t it? Those are pretty rare on main land.”

Denki made a psshh sound in his mouth before replying, “he is obsessed with it. How about you? What made you want to compete?”

“For fun,” the man shrugged, “so why aren’t you confident in battle?”

“Oh uh.. I don’t know. I don’t mind battling but I just don’t obsess over it like my friends do you know? There's better things to do.”

Hitoshi dryly laughed causing Denki to freeze concerned. Did he say something wrong?

Then the purple eyes slid to his yellow amused, “that would piss off a lot of people here.”

“I know that but.. I don’t know. It would just be more fun if everyone wasn’t so competitive all the time. I think the Pokemon would enjoy it more too.”

‘Pika!’

Hitoshi smiled at them softly before pulling out his own pokeball and releasing it. An Espeon stretched and yawned loudly before cocking its head at Denki. He gushed in excitement, “no way!”

He dropped to his knees to stroke it, and it made a cooing sound, ‘espy!’

“Huh, it likes you. It usually avoids people.”

“What's not to like,” Denki laughed to himself mostly before petting it more.

He missed the amused smirk on Hitoshi’s face. Eijiro glanced back to see them deep in conversation, then double took at the Espeon. Tetsu tapped him on the shoulder and he turned away to talk to the receptionist that had just finished with his friends. She stamped him in and gave him a pamphlet of his first battle and where he was expected to be before tournaments, during, and after. Eijiro handed it to Rockruff to hold in its teeth before calling Denki over. The blonde jolted from where he was talking with the purple headed guy and awkwardly waved. He smiled warmly at Eijiro, his face still slightly flushed. Ei smirked at him before gesturing to the lady.

Denki quickly got stamped in and took his own pamphlet. The redhead started to walk toward where Tetsu and Togaru were waiting, and didn’t realize that Denki hadn’t followed until Tetsu pointed it out to him. He turned around frowning before catching the blonde exchanging numbers with the guy he had been talking to earlier. He came back twice as flushed and refused to even mention it to them as they made their way to the waiting zone. Once they were seated and watching the stadium as it filled up, Eijiro took the pamphlet back from the energetic Rockruff. It barked a couple times before curling up at his feet content. He checked the paper and was startled to see that he was in the first wave of competitors, and went over the information of his opponent.

It was a ten year old girl from Kalos. He frowned at it. He shouldn’t underestimate her because of her age, but at the same time, he was confident in Onix and Rockruff. This wasn’t an official tournament like the others where six Pokemon were used and you needed eight badges. In fact, this was just for charity. There were no level restrictions. Someone could compete with weak Pokemon, or over powered ones. The only rules was they couldn’t use any advanced moves or mega stones. Nothing that would give them an advantage. This was just a strength test and he hoped that he fell in the middle. Eijiro wanted to at least make it a few rounds.

Denki made a scoffing sound next to him, “my opponent is a middle aged guy, and he looks like a Kalos rock trainer look!”

Eijiro glanced at the picture and frowned, “yep, he’s from Cyllage City.”

“What about yours?”

“Some young girl.”

“Wait..” Denki paused as he looked at the picture, “you can’t even start your journey until sixteen, how is a ten year old in this!”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t compete with your parents Pokemon.. That and there's no age or level restrictions.”

“Dude, decimate her before she makes you look bad,” Tetsu laughed next to him.

He smiled weakly at him before their group was called and he left his friends to walk out on the field. The referees directed him to his opponent, and she was even smaller than he had imagined. They faced off to each other and he waited patiently for the round to begin. He hoped wherever the blonde was that he didn’t see this. Never underestimate a wily kid, he knew that better than anyone, but losing to one was downright embarrassing! He was tempted to send Onix in, but last minute changed direction and looked down at the barking Rockruff.

“Ready?”

It glanced up at him and barked twice more before taking the field and growling.

The girl eyed it and cooed, “aww it’s so CUTE!”

He barely suppressed rolling his eyes as the referee explained the two on two rules and gestured for her to throw her Pokemon. She adapted the most serious face she could manage as she threw the ball and yelled, “go, Fletchling!”

Eijiro laughed eternally, and Rockruff’s growling choked. He barely glanced at the opponent as he breathed out, “Rock.. Rock Tomb.”

A few seconds later the referee shouted, “Fletchling is unable to battle, please send out your second Pokemon!”

“Okay..” the girl whined before trying to fight tears, “go- Zigzagoon!”

Eijiro almost sat down on the battlefield, he looked so bored it was probably noticeable by people. He actually let her get the first scratch in before he sighed, “Rock throw..”

Rockruff decimated it before trotting back to him happily, wagging his tail. He shook the crying girl's hand and gave her a big smile, “better luck next year, okay?”

She nodded stiffly before gathering up her Zigzagoon and leaving. Eijiro crashed on the waiting bench annoyed, rubbing his temple just as a rough dorky laugh pierced his ears. He glanced up to meet the very amused red eyes of the spiky haired blonde.

“Doesn’t it just piss you off to be fighting school children?”

He conceded, “It was.. Irritating.”

“They should screen competitors. That was just embarrassing, for BOTH parties.”

“At least it's over now, all of the weak ones should be eliminated before next match.”

The blonde nodded before gesturing at the small barking Pokemon, “I saw Rock Tomb and Rock Throw. What else does that pup got?”

Eijiro glanced down at Rockruff, who was rushing to the blonde’s side and pawing at his pants whining. Katsuki rolled his eyes before patting it on the head once, “needy shit, ain’t it.”

“You’ve no idea,” Eijiro smiled at the blonde before calling it back to his side, “tell me why you were watching me first?”

“Just curious.”

He smirked and folded his hands behind his neck, leaning back into the chair, “about what?”

“Don’t get all coy with me,” the blonde snorted.

“Then you’ll just have to keep watching me if you want to know its full move set, hmm?”

His face froze as he gazed into Eijiro’s own confident red eyes, “you little-”

Eijiro pushed himself off the chair and gave him a teasing wink, “I should go, my friends are probably waiting for me and Rockruff doesn’t need healed.”

Katsuki gaped at him as he disappeared into the crowd. Eijiro caught Denki smiling at his phone from behind, and snuck behind him and whispered in his ear, “who are you talking to?”

Denki jumped nearly a foot before whining, “come on man! That's not cool!”

“That purple headed guy huh?”

“Yea,” he frowned at Eijiro, not sure how he was going to react, “his name is Hitoshi and he’s cute!”

“Is he? It was hard to tell, your heart eyes were nearly as bad as Tetsu’s!”

“Who does he have heart eyes for?” a soft feminine voice asked.

Kirishima’s jaw dropped as he noticed Itsuka smiling at the both of them, her hands behind her back. Denki started stuttering a hundred miles a minute before Eijiro smirked, “Itsuka right?”

“Yes! If I remember right.. You are Eijiro and the rambling blonde here is Denki?”

“Spot on,” he laughed.

She seemed to momentarily forget about her question, because she turned around and frowned, “I don’t know where Shoto ran off too-”

“You can stay with us until you find him if you want.”

“That sounds great, thanks!”

She sat down next to Eijiro and watched the other competitors walk past, “so where’s your friend at?”

“Togaru was in the second round, so he’s cheering him on from the sidelines. They’ll be back soon.”

“Who’s Togaru?”

Denki turned to her and smiled, finally catching his breath, “he’s an Alolan trainer! There's also another guy named Yosetsu. He is in the stands watching, Tetsu is using his Meltan to battle!”

Eijiro explained better, “Yo moved to Johto a bit back and they became friends. Togaru was Yo’s childhood friend, and they all met this summer when the two took a vacation out to the main island. That's actually where I met them too.”

Rockruff barked in agreeance, so she scratched behind his ears, “and where you got this guy I bet!”

Denki shrugged, “most people travel for specific Pokemon these days.”

“That's true,” she nodded, “my second is from Unova.”

They chatted lively until Denki left to prepare for his own battle, leaving Eijiro alone with the girl. She sat in silence for a while until Tetsu and Togaru returned, arm in arm laughing. As soon as he saw her his face panicked and Eijiro barely suppressed a laugh. He trotted up to Togaru and steered him away to the vending machines, asking him about his battle. Eijiro was jealous that he actually had a fight and wasn’t stuck with a kid. He still managed to finish both battles with just his Scyther. Togaru frowned at something to his right, and Eijiro glanced curiously in the direction. Only to feel his heart freeze.

“That's the asshole you fought right?”

“How did you know that?”

“He was in the same tournament I was in. He fought with a Charmeleon.. Can you believe it?”

“Yes actually. That totally sounds like a Pokemon he would have.”

“No, I meant he fought with just a Charmeleon and destroyed a fully evolved Serperior with nearly one move.”

“That is a grass Pokemon dude.”

“A much stronger grass Pokemon with apparently Solar Beam.”

“Oh shit.”

“Exactly. I want to fight him so bad I’m shaking.”

Eijiro glanced to his right to look at the blonde one last time, then startled when he caught the blonde glaring at them. He deflected his eyes away and instead bought a lemonade, “stop staring dude, he sees you glaring at him.”

“Good. I want him to remember my face.”

The redhead couldn’t resist laughing, “well that's easy!”

“Eat a bug,” he snorted before they walked back toward where Tetsu and Itsuka was, “you pulled me around so he could flirt with her right?”

“Absolutely. Love is in the air apparently.”

Togaru frowned, “we’re supposed to be focusing on our battles!”

“A little love never hurt anyone!”

A little love became quite a lot. Denki never returned despite winning, and Tetsu ran off with her as well. He was stuck with the agitated Togaru the entire morning. He started to wonder if Shoto was really missing or if that was just her excuse to steal their friend. Then he caught sight of him. He was walking with a small group. There were two girls, one .. pink skinned one? Then he double took at the man following them. He stood up and excused himself as he and Rockruff trotted up to Shoto waving. The man paused confused until he recognized him and curtly nodded. The girls gave him a curious glance and he sheepishly smiled at them before waving at Izuku.

“So it seems you two met up again?”

Shoto glanced back momentarily before nodding, “yes we did. This is Mina and Ochako. Mina is from Kalos and Ochako came from Galar. They’re competing together.”

The pink girl smiled and shook his hand, “I have a fairy Pokemon and Ochako a flying.”

Then he shook the brunette's hand, “it's nice to meet you-?”

“Oh sorry!” he fumbled, “Eijiro! I’m from Kanto!”

“Oh cool!”

Then the green haired boy spoke up, “can I apologize on behalf of Kacchan? He can be a bit.. abrasive.”

“No problem but.. I’m surprised you’re not with him right now?”

“Why would I be?”

“With those cutesy nicknames I just assumed-”

“NO! No, no, no!” he frantically gestured, “we’ve been friends since diapers! JUST friends.”

“Sorry man, I didn’t mean to offend you..”

“It's understandable,” he smiled widely, “it must seem strange to outsiders but nope! Kacchan is VERY much single.. Just so you know!”

“Wait.. why would I-”

“We should go, right Shoto? Didn’t you say you are next to the field?”

Shoto frowned unsure at him before nodding, “see you next round Eijiro.”

How cocky.. Eijiro shook off the confusion and plopped in the seat next to Togaru, who was staring at him strangely, “what the hell was that.”

“Honestly not sure.”

When Togaru left himself for his battle, Eijiro became lonely. He passed the time on his phone, but then Togaru never came back either. He assumed he had found Tetsu, so he went back to scrolling on his phone while Rockruff slept next to him happily. Soon the first rounds were over, and Eijiro went to get food while he waited for them to arrange the next battle. Eventually when they got down to a little over a dozen or so, they would post the names on the big screen. As for right now though, there were still way too many competitors to do such a thing. Half an hour passed before he got in line with about a hundred others for his brochure. That's when an eevee playfully pounced on his Rockruff.

He glanced at it surprised before its trainer ran up to him panting, apologizing profusely. He had long straight black hair, black eyes, and quite large teeth that seemed permanently trapped in a smile, “sorry about that! Eevee gets out of hand when it gets excited- WAIT! Is that a Rockruff!?”

“Yea it is, and no problem!”

He gathered up the little brown Pokemon before smiling wider at him, “my name is Hanta, what’s yours?”

“Eijiro. Where are you from? That doesn’t look like Kalos clothes..”

“I was going to say the same thing about you,” he laughed, “I’m from Unova!”

Eijiro extended his hand which he gladly shook, “Kanto.”

“I was going to assume Alola because of the Rockruff.”

“Nah, Pewter City born and raised.”

“No shit? I’m from Driftveil City! We have a rock type gym there, although I’ve never been in it before.”

“Woah, I’ve been there once for a badge. The gym leader there is really cool, you should check it out sometime!”

“I’m afraid I’m probably not strong enough,” he nervously laughed.

They talked the entire time as they waited in line for their pamphlets before parting ways. He couldn’t help but think about how nice everyone was here. Eijiro couldn’t help but yawn as he walked back to the hotel, hoping beyond hell that the idiots were back by now. Sure enough they weren’t and he waited boredly in the lobby until Togaru and Yosetsu showed up. They let him in the room, and he crashed on the bed exhausted. His pitchy fit made Togaru laugh outlandishly.

“You act like you actually did anything today.”

“I was bored to death though, that's exhausting itself!”

Sure enough he fell asleep and Denki had to shove him awake to go get dinner. After eating around six, Eijiro walked to the arena he fought the blonde in earlier to train. He released Onix and his two Pokemon went at it. After about an hour, Rockruff started to act crazy. It’s attacks were becoming more and more sporadic as the sun started to set, and then just as Onix pinned him, the little dog Pokemon completely lost it. Something flashed in his eyes that Eijiro couldn’t understand and he kicked Onix off of him with his hind legs. He slid across the arena and skidded to a stop growling at Onix. then he glanced up into the setting sun and started howling, over and over again. Eijiro watched mesmerized until the whole Pokemon lit up a bright blue.

His jaw dropped as he watched Rockruff evolve into Lycanroc. He knew he was close to evolving, but not this close! His shape twisted and distorted, bearing a longer snout, a larger frame, an extremely fluffy neck spiked up, a down set tail, an orangish body and green eyes. Eijiro double took at the Pokemon as it howled again, much deeper than before. He couldn’t help but use his phone as a pokedex to get information on it. It wasn’t like any other Lycanroc he had ever seen before. It couldn’t have been a shiny, his Rockruff wasn’t one.

He nearly gagged as the pokedex identified his Pokemon as the dusk form. The dusk form!? The rumored mythical one that everyone was discussing on the island over summer!? Lycanroc finished howling and rushed to jump him. It nearly knocked him off his feet and started licking all over his face before rubbing its fur on him roughly. Eijiro laughed uncontrollably and heard Onix approach them curiously. Then he heard a elated dorky laugh, and both he and the Pokemon froze. Eijiro slowly tilted his head back to notice a man approaching him with a unhinged smile. Walking beside him was a surly looking yellow Charmeleon. Wait.. yellow?

“Thats-”

“That's a rare ass Pokemon!” the voice huffed.

Lycanroc stared at the intruder aggressively before realizing who it was and rushing to greet him. Eijiro pushed himself off the ground to gap at the blonde that was critically examining his Lycanroc, “how did this even happen?”

“I-I don’t know. We were just training and then it evolved into this. The pokedex called it the dusk form, it has to do with the time of day..”

“It’s badass!” the blonde snorted amusedly, petting the happy Pokemon between it’s tall ears, “it was already cool but now it's even more dope.”

“That's a shiny, where did you even find it!”

Katsuki frowned at the Chameleon, who looked annoyed at being addressed entirely, “searched Kanto for six months straight. It has an attitude problem, but I can’t blame it considering it deals with me everyday.”

Eijiro laughed heartily before realizing that might not have been a joke at all. He froze momentarily, but the blonde was smirking at him, “I wasn’t stalking you. I came to train too.”

“Well..” Eijiro glanced at the stoic Onix, “it’s all yours I guess. My head is too fried right now to go on anyways.”

“Hell no. Chameleon is sick of fighting Typhlosion, let him kick around your Lycanroc for a bit.”

Lycanroc growled at him and dug his claws into the ground irritated, but Eijiro stood between them, “nice try, but there's a decent chance we will be fighting you in the stadium. I rather not give you any kind of advantage.”

Then he pulled out both pokeballs and recalled them, “but have fun training, see you tomorrow?”

The blonde’s face was blank with surprise as he stared at him, then he puffed out, “yea, sure.”

He flashed him an energetic smile before waving goodbye. He felt the red eyes bearing into his back, but pretended to ignore it as he trotted back towards the hotel. The truth was he was too overwhelmed and excited not to show off Lycanroc immediately to his friends. Togaru examined it thoroughly before smirking. While Tetsu, Yo, and Denki all gushed over it. He ended up still leaving Lycanroc out of the pokeball and it curled up beside the blonde on the floor next to Meltan and Pikachu. Denki laughed at the Pokemon laying around him before Eijiro stole the blonde's other pokeball and threw it open. Jolteon stretched loudly before energetically piling on top of the blonde, causing Eijiro to smirk.

“That Hitoshi has a Eevee evolution, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah?”

“Does he know you have one too?”

“No actually,” Denki’s voice sounded so small, “I only fought with Pikachu the first round.”

He heard Tetsu turn over next to him, “that didn’t come up in the literal hours you were talking to him?”

Denki shrugged under the large masses of Pokemon, “surprisingly no. I don’t even know what he has besides Espeon.”

“Itsuka has a Mienfoo and an Infernape. I win.”

Eijiro reached across the bed to hit the gray haired jerk, “it's not a competition dude!”

“Yea, what the hell!?” Denki whined.

The redhead rolled his eyes before closing them to sleep, “just ask him tomorrow man.”

Eijiro almost missed his next battle. The others had split off to prepare for his and he was never that good at keeping the time. They were practicing extensively that morning at the arena from the night before, and Lycanrocs new speed had distracted him too badly. He was rushing inside the stadium, desperately trying to make it to the arena before their division was called. That's about when he ran straight into Izuku. Their bodies hit with a harsh thud and Eijiro fell on his ass. He immediately jumped back up and apologized while running.

“Sorry man! I’m almost late!”

Izuku watched the redhead runoff frowning. He found the blonde shortly later and pulled him off to the side, “that redhead we met the other day just ran straight into me. I think he is going on next because he said something about being late before running off.”

A smirk crossed the blondes face and he drug the green haired man toward the arena, “then lets fucking watch!”

“You’re way too interested to be normal..”

“SHUT UP and MOVE!”

Izuku rolled his eyes and followed him. Eijiro made it just in time. One of the referees nodded to him before leading the rest of the trainers out onto the smaller sized battle grounds made for the pre-rounds. His opponent was a boy just a couple years younger than him. The referee called it and Eijiro threw out Onix immediately. Now that anyone who was paying attention realized, they ‘knew’ both of his Pokemon. Lycanroc was his ace and he was going to play it right. The boy sent out Turtonator and Eijiro gaped at it. How the hell did a boy that was obviously from Kalos get a Alolan Pokemon!?

He shook his nerves off and treated it like nothing but another fire Pokemon. It was a brutal battle but Onix eventually triumphed, slamming the fire turtle harshly into the ground as a final blow. Then the kid sent out a Charmander. Eijiro gave him a strange look and the kid shrugged in response. So he only had one formidable Pokemon to battle with. It was a one hit KO. After shaking hands with the kid he pulled Onix back and headed to the waiting room to get him healed. Time passed before he felt someone staring at him. He glanced around but saw nothing, so he went back to scrolling on his phone. After Onix was healed he dropped in the chairs they were in yesterday and closed his eyes.

It was going to be another long day, he just knew it. An hour or so passed before he heard someone crash in the seat next to him, “I thought you were with a ton of idiots. Everytime I see you now you’re alone.”

Eijiro opened one eye to see the blonde smirking at him before closing it, “Tetsu’s chasing some girl, and Denki’s chasing some boy. No idea where Togaru is. Knowing him he’s bullying people to battle with him. I thought you came with the green haired one.”

“Tch, Deku is also chasing after a group of idiots, but I don’t know which one. Probably the brunette.”

“I met her, she was nice.”

The blonde scoffed and leaned back in the chair, “what's the real reason you didn’t battle me last night.”

“Honestly?” he opened both of his eyes to smile toothly at him, “that was it. That and I was tired. We had been out there for over an hour before you showed up you know.”

“You didn’t seem like the type to deny a challenge.”

“Oh trust me, you’ll get round two.”

The blonde’s dorky laugh hit his ears again, and Eijiro suppressed a smile as the blonde said, “if you keep getting easy ass opponents I for sure will!”

“Oh?” he teased, “you watched me again?”

“I tried to trade that kid for his Turtonator. Anything that can keep pace with that brute Onix you have is worth my time.”

The redhead laughed, “and what did he say?”

“I offered him a shiny Rapidash but he wanted my Infernape. So I told him to fuck off and now I’m planning a trip to Alola.”

“How do you have so many shinies!?”

“I hunt them,” he said matter of factly.

Eijiro gave him a horrified look but then he laughed, “I’m messing with you! I got it in a trade about a year ago. It’s too weak minded for my team so I’m honestly not surprised the kid didn’t want it. But that Turtonator isn’t worth my Infernape. Maybe if it would have beat you..”

“I’m glad I’m the deciding vote whether a Pokemon has value or not,” Eijiro laughed, trying not to think about his joke too much.

“More like the contemplation if my literal year of training is equal to a Pokemon who lost.”

“Alright, thats fair.”

“What about you. There's no damn way all you have is Onix.”

“No I’ve got quite a few at home, but I didn’t bring them. Onix was my first Pokemon, and Lycanroc is my newest and needs the most attention.”

Katsuki nodded, “same for me. I caught Chameleon a few months ago and Cyndaquil was my first Pokemon when I turned sixteen.”

After a long pause, Eijiro willed himself to ask the question he had been struggling with for awhile, “this is going to make me seem like an absolute asshole, but why do you keep talking to me? I mean, I don’t mind at all but.. After our first impressions of each other you should hate me?”

“Why, because you put me in my place and proved me wrong? I was being a dick.”

“You were right though, there were a ton of weak people who signed up.”

“But you weren’t, were you.”

Eijiro frowned, “you know.. there could be someone in this competition a lot stronger than us.”

“Then next time I invite you to train with me, fucking do it,” the blonde snarled, “that Lycanroc of yours might be rare, but its still stupid weak. Train it.”

“I was almost late this morning training!”

“Yea, Deku told me you ran him over.”

“Ah- please tell him I’m sorry!”

The blonde sneered at him and started to say something, but the intercom went off calling the next group and his face fell, “gotta go.”

That was all he said before he jumped out of the chair and shrugged off, hands in his pockets and looking as surly as ever. Eijiro watched him go smiling softly. There was something about this blonde that he couldn’t quite place. He was rude and cocky, but at the same time was easy to talk to. It didn’t make any sense at all. Then there was the fact that he kept watching all of his battles and the blonde still wouldn’t explain why. At first he thought it was because he had seen him as a worthy opponent and was trying to get an idea of his fighting style, but now he wasn’t too sure. It almost seemed like the blonde just enjoyed watching him battle. Or maybe was hopeful he would make it long enough for the pair to battle again.

Time passed and the first rounds finished. Now they were down to about fifty, and they only wanted twenty four for the bracket. Which meant what he feared. A mass ring full of trainers with only one Pokemon to save their asses. They were all led out into the arena, hyper aware of the stands screaming and hollering. Eijiro quickly caught sight of Tetsu and the others and trotted over to them. Tetsu fist bumped him before Togaru frowned in his direction. He had Scyther walking behind him, and that's when Eijiro noticed that Tetsu had no apparent Pokemon on his person. He glanced around just in case he missed the giant steel snake, but was disappointed.

“Where’s Onix?” Togaru commented.

Eijiro pulled out his pokeball, “right here. I was going to wait until we were farther away, he’s kind of big. Is that where Steelix is?”

Tetsu frowned and reached behind his back, pulling out Meltan, “unfortunately I have to use him since I don’t have a pokeball.”

“Oh shit.”

“We are taking a corner and we want Onix to be the boundary line, can it do it?”

Eijiro met Togaru’s determined eyes and sneered, “hell yea it can!”

They siphoned through the crowd before Eijiro’s eyes widened and he desperately glanced around, “where’s Denki!”

Both of them chuckled amused, “with that purple headed boy, I say he’s fine.”

Eijiro nodded before trotting to catch up with them. The announcer explained the rules. It was a fight to the death. The last twenty four standing moved on. So not only did you not want your Pokemon to faint, you also didn’t want to use any moves that would cause it like Self Destruct. There was no reason to anyway, not with their plan. The announcer called for everyone to release their Pokemon and Eijiro threw his high in the sky. Onix roared as usual when being released, and a few people glanced over at them curiously. Then they were released and Eijiro yelled at his Pokemon.

“Onix! This is a surviving game, only twenty four from over fifty! Use dig repeatedly, protecting our lines!”

Onix nodded before plummeting into the earth and out of sight. Their first opponent was a cocky girl with a Torterra. The thing about these free for alls is there are no rules. So Meltan used Headbutt the same time Scyther used Air Slash. The giant turtle roared before gearing up for a Solar Beam. Scyther chucked Meltan in the air, and the little steel glob used the force to hit the turtle again with another high powered headbutt. Both Pokemon deflected away when the turtle started to unleash its Solar Beam, but then the ground shook under it as Onix burst through the ground and hit the turtle harshly. Torterra went flying, causing dust to overtake their battle grounds. Eijiro held his breath while their Pokemon returned until Torterra was announced to be out.

He glanced around for Onix but was pleased to see it had returned back under the ground. They fought for their lives, or rather their positions. Onix did the final blow on Pokemon after Pokemon until their corner was basically untouched. No one dared to come near them in fear of their strength. Strength only Scyther and Onix provided, they were basically carrying Meltan. The ground was utterly destroyed, there was a thick layer of dirt floating around the field, and they were all getting tired and the Pokemon sleepy. It seemed their positions were guaranteed until a Pokemon that they never expected to see growled. Eijiro glanced through the smut to see an Incineroar flexing its muscles, it was pushing back something yellow and Eijiro was terrified it was Pikachu and rushed forward.

Eijiro shouted at the ground as he ran, “Onix, follow the sound of my footsteps!”

He slid away from their protective circle and into the swirling dust to confront the massive fire cat. It paused and gave him a questioning expression, and he nearly folded from its piercing aura. About then was when Eijiro noticed the yellow Pokemon that was running from it wasn’t Pikachu but Charmeleon. It was-

“What the hell are you doing here!?” The blonde shouted.

Eijiro got a better look at his Charmeleon and it almost looked ready to faint. It had a strained look on its face like it was refusing to go down but still had no juice left either. This wasn’t going to do. He wanted to fight Typhlosion again. He rounded on the blonde pissed, “you can’t get out! I want a rematch, dammit!”

The Incineroar trainer laughed then, “with him? What a waste. On top of that, you don’t even have a Pokemon! Why are you even in here?”

Eijiro’s face twisted into mock laughter and he felt the blonde stifle his own, “fight us and I guarantee you won’t survive to the brackets. Which would be a shame because I would love to steal that snotty smirk off your face properly.”

“What a cocky little asshole! Incineroar, use Darkest Lariat!”

“Onix, jump out and throw it away!”

The trainer's face fell as his Pokemon started spinning, he didn’t have the time to shout a different command and the giant cat disappeared with a yowl toward the other masses of trainers. Onix lowered its massive head in challenge to the trainer, and he watched the cocky man bite his lip annoyed. Eijiro puffed out annoyed and snappy, “run along and go save your wittle kitty.”

He turned back toward the blonde smiling ear to ear, “you okay man?”

The blonde had a dark expression on his face, but it wasn’t anger, “what was that. Why would you come and help us.”

Charmeleon made an aggravated grunt that he took as a thanks before sheepishly responding, “honestly I saw yellow and thought Denki was in trouble, but I’m just as glad to help you so it worked out. No offense to Charmeleon, it’s fought well, but why wouldn’t you use your stronger Pokemon? You almost lost the round!”

“Because what's a surprise if everyone knows about it!”

He started to respond but then the announcer cried loudly over the intercom, “we have our twenty four! All competitors make your way to nurse Joy in the waiting room and get signed up.”

Eijiro sighed before flashing a goofy smile at the blonde, “well looks like we made it!”

“Did your friends?” he smirked back.

Fear gripped Eijiro as he called back Onix and rushed away, “oh crap, I’ll see you later!”

He tried to make heads or tails of them through the settling dirt, but ended up waiting at the waiting room for them after he got checked in. A dirty faced Denki came trotting up to him, Pikachu right on his heels, “dude! Hitoshi and I got in, did you!?”

Eijiro couldn’t express how ecstatic he was that his oldest friend was once again excited about a Pokemon battle, “yea man. Any sign of Tetsu or Togaru? I had to leave them at the end and-”

“We’re in!” Tetsu shouted from wherever the hell he was, “so is Itsuka and Shoto!”

They both glanced around hurriedly to locate the messy gray hair but he was simply not there. Denki snorted, “well that was weird.”

“He’s as bad as you, you know,” Eijiro laughed, “chasing after a pretty face-”

“Oh, whatever dude! I saw Onix come out of nowhere and hit a giant striped Pokemon through the dust, who were YOU protecting.”

The redhead faltered before snapping, “I thought he was YOU and rushed to save you!”

“Uhuh,” he teased, “only one I can think of that has a yellow Pokemon and is also a blonde is that angry dude from earlier.”

“So what,” Eijiro argued, “he owes me a rematch.”

Denki started to say something more but the billboard started flashing sporadically. The twenty four must have all signed up finally because Eijiro was staring at twenty four names dancing wildly around until they settled in an order. The redhead was looking at where his name fell. He was sixth in line, and was versing some guy named Kan. He was much older than him, could probably be his dad if not shy a few years. His stomach twisted at the thought. The man had probably been training his Pokemon for years. This was a formidable opponent. Trying to keep his lunch in his stomach, he instead glanced around for other names that he recognized and found quite a lot in this order:

1: Kinoko vs. Denki
2: Shoto vs. Ibara
3: Tetsu vs. Juzo
4: Neito vs. Izuku
5: Keigo vs. Itsuka
6: Kan vs. Eijiro
7: Togaru vs. Fumikage
8: Mina/Ochako vs. Setsuna
9: Toru vs. Hanta
10: Katsuki vs. Tsuyu
11: Hitoshi vs. Nemuri
12: Dabi vs. Kota

He stopped to get a physical copy before turning toward his friend, “holy crap Denki! Everyone we met made the board!”

The blonde double took at his own pamphlet before the color drained from his face, “I’m the first match..”

An energetic voice called from behind them, “don’t worry man! You’ll do great! Oh, and let's all watch the rounds together! I didn’t before because there was no guarantee who would get in, but now I’m stoked to see some battles!”

They both turned to see Tetsu and Itsuka smiling at them. Denki frowned, “why didn’t they do that free for all at the beginning? It would have saved a lot of time.”

“Thats easy,” Itsuka answered, “a stronger trainer could protect the weaker ones. This way the weaker trainers were mostly eliminated before. That and it kept a bunch of weaker ones from teaming up to tackle worthy opponents.”

“Yea,” Tetsu nodded, “a weak opponent could also hide the entire time with that many people.”

Denki nodded before laughing, “well I’m hungry! Let’s get dinner?”

“I’m down!” he laughed before inviting Itsuka to join.

She nodded, “let me go find Shoto real quick-”

They watched her trot off and Tetsu was simply beaming, “she is smart, beautiful, and a great fighter. Dude, I don’t think I could hope for better!”

“Uhuh,” Eijiro laughed, “you say that like you are actually dat-”

“So good news guys!” Her voice sang, cutting him off, “we have four more joining us?”

They glanced in her direction to see Izuku, Mina, and Ochako. Who was the fourth? Izuku followed their eyes before darting out of sight and dragging a very salty blonde with him, “just in case you haven’t met yet, this is Katsuki and he is VERY sorry for his rude comments before.”

Eijiro had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. The blonde looked anything but sorry. Unfortunately for them, that's when Togaru and Yosetsu decided to show their faces. Togaru took one look at the blonde and bellowed, “YOU!”

He got a nasty glare in response, which only fueled his anger worse, “you better not lose tomorrow, you owe me a match!”

“Who even ARE you,” the blonde spat out.

Eijiro nervously stepped between them, raising an arm on both sides to separate them, “Togaru meet Katsuki, and vice versa. Remember when you overheard me say someone had an extremely strong Pokemon and you made that snide comment? I was talking about Togaru and he’s wanted to battle you ever since.”

“Get in line. Red here challenged me first.”

“Can you even handle two losses in a roll?” Togaru shot back, an unhinged smile replacing his furious glare.

“Please, you look like a bug trainer. Nothing you have can compare to mine.”

“I’ll take you on right now! I don’t care- I-”

“It's against the rules, dumbass! We will get disqualified now!”

“That's true,” Shoto nodded before glancing between them, “you’ll just have to win every match until you can properly battle.”

Izuku sighed loudly, pulling Katsuki away, “not the time Kacchan! Stop picking fights with our new friends-”

“They’re not my damn friends!”

Togaru shot the blonde another heated glare before rounding on Eijiro, “whether it's you or me, burn that asshole into the ground.”

Then he turned away heatedly and stormed off to walk with a very uncomfortable Yo. The only one who had their Pokemon out was Denki, who absolutely refused to put Pikachu in her ball for any reason. So when they gathered around a large circular booth at a diner, Pikachu was set delicately down on the floor with her own Pokemon food. Tetsu slid in the middle with Itsuka, and Shoto slid in the booth to the left. Then Izuku, Ochako, and Mina followed. Leaving Togaru and Yo to slide in next to Tetsu, followed by Eijiro himself. He glanced up to see both blondes staring at each other hard. It was obvious they couldn’t decide who was going in next until Denki nervously responded.

“I actually invited Hitoshi, so I should probably sit on the end-”

“Oooooooo,” the entire booth of people cooed, causing Denki’s face to flood red.

Katsuki nodded curtly before sliding in seamlessly and sitting next to the redhead. He manspread and sunk in the chair with a huff. The waitress came by and nearly had a heart attack. She quickly recovered and stammered, “so umm. Eleven?”

“Twelve,” Denki responded, “ones on their way.”

She nodded curtly and took their drink orders. The talking was too loud for Eijiro to follow to join any particular conversation, so he just watched them with a small smile on his face. A pink faced Izuku was chatting with the pair of girls. Shoto, Itsuka, and Tetsu were deep into conversation. Togaru and Yo were arguing about the islands. It seemed like Togaru was trying to convince him to move back. However the two blondes on his left were completely quiet until Hitoshi showed up. Then the two started a hushed conversation, and he honestly didn’t want to know what they were talking about at all. Leaving him and the volatile blonde alone to their thoughts.

The waitress then took their food orders, shushing them all momentarily, before they went back to loudly chatting. After a minute or so he felt someone elbow his side, “hey.”

He turned to meet the fiery red, so much more intense than his own, “yea?”

“Train with me later.”

“What if they take it as a battle..”

“They won’t because we won’t be out there with the Pokemon. There's no rules against training and both Charmeleon and Lycanroc need it.”

Eijiro hesitated and the blonde huffed out annoyed, “I’m trying to help you!”

“I know that, it's just odd? I mean.. why?”

“I just want to, so stop asking questions!”

“Hey Eijiro! When are you and Denki heading out after the competition?” Tetsu called, pulling the redhead's attention away from the blonde.

“Uh.. probably immediately. Why?”

“Mannn.. I was going to ask if you wanted to check out the city with us all!”

“You two should stay in town for a bit,” Itsuka smiled, leaning on the table slightly, “Ochako already said she is staying, and we’re going to hang back for a bit too!”

“Wait,” Izuku turned his attention to the ginger haired girl, “everyones hanging around after the competition?”

“Hell yea!” Yosetsu chimed in, “Togaru hardly ever gets to leave the Islands so this is a good experience for him!”

“So a sheltered bug huh,” the blonde next to him snorted, “all the more fun to squish then.”

Togaru rounded on him pissed, “you’re the one going to end up under my foot!”

“Knock it off, both of you!” Eijiro snapped annoyed. Just in time too, because the waitress came back with their food.

They ate mostly in silence before Izuku added back to the previous conversation they abandoned, “I have nothing to do back in Johto for awhile, I’d love to hang out with you guys more!”

“Alright man!” Tetsu smiled, “we’re glad to have you!”

That seemed to set a spark in Eijiro’s ass, because he leaned over the brooding blonde to nudge Denki. Who was STILL lost in conversation with Hitoshi. He jumped about a foot before smiling at Eijiro, “whats up dude?”

“Did you not hear everyone?”

He flushed slightly embarrassed, “uh- actually no. I was kind of distracted.”

“They’re all hanging around after the competition. Do you want to or are we heading out?”

“Probably leaving, right dude? Don’t we have the league to start training for?”

“League?” Katsuki asked, “it's not time for the Kanto league.”

Eijiro met his confused eyes, “actually we’re heading to Hoenn. We’ve got a few of the badges there but still have to get the rest before it starts.”

Denki beamed, “We kind of dart all over the world, we’re always moving!”

“Then how the hell do you only have a Pikachu?”

‘Chu?’

Denki looked down at her before laughing, “I have way more electric Pokemon than the two I brought! I have a Luxio, a Zebstrika, a Heliolisk, and a Ampharos-”

“You’re kidding me right. You have Ampharos and you DIDN’T bring it!?”

Eijiro shot in, “it’s kind of a mother hen and is watching the rest of our Pokemon at Professor Yagi’s. We were going to just bring all of them, but they’re happier there with him than being stuck in their pokeballs all the time. He’s going to send them to us once we get in Hoenn.”

“So you’re going badge hunting,” he breathed out dryly.

“Yea! But-” Eijiro leaned further into the table to meet eyes with Denki again, “it is cool if you want to hang around a bit longer. I mean..”

He purposely trailed off as he gestured at the distracted Hitoshi with his eyes. Denki flushed harder and cursed him, “dudeeee!”

Katsuki smirked and leaned back in the comfy booth more, folding his arms behind his head amused, “don’t all three of you live in Kanto though.”

“What's your point?”

“You won’t be in Hoenn forever. When you get back Sparky will hardly be a Taurus ride from his boyfriend-”

“Arrrhhh! Shush dude!”

“What are you shushing him for,” the purple headed man turned to the blondes curiously.

Katsuki smirked and started to answer, but Eijiro cut him off loudly, “so Katsuki, what are YOU doing after the competition?”

“Taking my trophy for winning home,” he teased.

“Fat chance!”

Then after a moment the blonde shrugged, “like the nerd I have nothing planned but training.”

“Hymm,” Eijiro thought about it before an idea hit him, “hey, I have an idea! Come with us! You seem pretty cool and I don’t think Denki will mind your company-”

“You just met me.”

“So? Trainers travel together ALL the time! Besides, then I can compete against you in an official league,” the redhead sneered, loving the idea of a challenge.

Katsuki silently thought about it while staring at the ceiling, “it's not a completely shitty idea, but I don’t have any badges in Hoenn either.”

“Oh come on, you’ll easily catch up to us. I know we can make it before the league starts. Besides, you just said you need to train. Training for a league is the best kind of training there is!”

“I’ll think about it, first you’re training with me tonight.”

That's all there was to it. The group finished eating and parted ways, and soon Eijiro met the blonde where and when he promised. They trained for several hours before parting ways to get some sleep. By the time the next day rolled up, Eijiro was once again pacing excitedly. He basically drug Denki out of the hotel, and the other three rushed to catch up to them. Since they made it into the final twenty four they were given their own front roll seats plus a spare ticket for Yosetsu so he could sit with them all. After checking in, they all headed to their seats but Denki. He had to sit back in the waiting room until he was called to take the field.

The field looked completely different than it did for the pre-rounds, and there were way more people in the stands. Eijiro glanced around excitedly as a familiar blonde sat down to his right, “looks like more people care about the real rounds than watching a bunch of weakass kids fight.”

Eijiro didn’t bother to look at him as he responded, “yea, and the field looks great too! Denki’s Pokemon are going to look so small out there honestly.”

“Speaking of which, what other Pokemon do you have.”

“Sudowoodo, Golem, and a Pupitar.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. How about you? I know you mentioned an Infernape.”

“Yea and that fucking awful Rapidash.”

“Oh yea, sorry about that I forg-”

“ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! My name is Hizashi and I will be your host this fine day! Welcome to the first ever charity Yueii tournament! The-”

The host droned on and on about the rules before he shouted louder, “It seems the first competitors are taking the places! Most of our trainers are pretty young it seems. On the left we have Denki Kaminari from Kanto-”

Eijiro and the others howled and stomped their feet, catching an exasperated expression from the ridiculously nervous Denki. Pikachu screamed from the arena at them.

‘PIKKKAA-CHUUUU!”

The host laughed at that before continuing, “then on the right we have Kinoko Komori from Galar!”

The girl was a brunette that was significantly shorter with long bangs and in a red and white mushroom dress. He watched Denki place Pikachu down as the host yelled, “are you ready on both sides?”

Both opponents nodded the heads and he called the match and they threw their balls at the same time. Jolteon hit the ground and cried while her Pokemon, an Amoonguss swayed slightly where it was. Katsuki cursed under his breath, “she's got the type advantage. Your friend better get creative.”

“He will,” Eijiro responded immediately, not an ounce of concern laced in it.

Her Amoonguss was crazy strong, and after a couple hits Jolteon was feeling it. Denki didn’t even bother using his electric moves, and pretty much spammed Quick Attack. Both for offensive and defensive. Every time the mushroom almost caught it, it spun last minute and dashed away. Slowly chipping away at its strength with each go. It was a genius move, because the mushroom Pokemon was obviously a lot stronger than it. The trainer became more desperate and shouted at her mushroom to make a more direct hit. Even from this distance, Eijiro didn’t miss the triumphant smile on the blonde's face as he raised one arm testily.

“Now! Jolteon use Double Kick!”

The girl's face fell as the Eevee evolution kicked itself on the ground before striking the mushroom directly twice. It fell over with a high pitched groan and the referee called it. Denki sighed with relief and threw his head back to the sky as if thanking it. Eijiro chuckled and turned to the impressed blonde.

“Told you he would figure it out.”

“I want to see what Ampharos can do.”

Eijiro smirked and glanced away from him, “then you’ll just have to come with us then, won’t you.”

He felt the eyes bare into him, but he ignored it as she revealed her second. A Vileplume, and a nervous one at that. It seemed she threw her best Pokemon first, but Jolteon was severely injured. It barely got two hits in before Vileplume put it to sleep. Too exhausted to fight it, Jolteon was knocked out. Pikachu energetically ran onto the battlefield without even being asked, gaining a lot of laughter from the stands. Denki embarrassedly rubbed his arm before the battle resumed full force. The two clashed harshly over and over. Pikachu skirted around the wide Pokemon, hitting it over and over with quick attacks. Just as it was about to release a stun spore, Denki shouted.

“Pikachu, use Iron Tail right on the top of it!”

‘CHU!’

Pikachu whirled around in the air fast before directing its hardened tail directly on it. Vileplume made a grunting sound before wavering on its feet, then it fell over. Pikachu waited until the match was called before rushing back to her trainer's side and jumping in his arms. He swung her around once ecstatic before she took her rightful place on his shoulder blades, gaining more cheering from the crowd. Then he crossed to shake the girls hand and they both departed the stadium. Everyone was energetically talking about the battle, but Eijiro was just glad that Denki made it to the next round. He had a bad habit of shutting down when he loses, so now he could at the very LEAST say he was in the final twelve of hundreds.

Then they all watched Shoto take the arena with a girl with long braided green hair just after watching Tetsu leave for the waiting room. The host once again introduced them as, “-for our second round! On the left we have Shoto Todoroki from Sinnoh and on the right we have Ibara Shiozaki from Galar!”

Katsuki huffed annoyed, “are all these damn girls from Galar!?”

“Hey!” Ochako whined from further down the line, “there's nothing wrong with Galar girls!”

He rolled his eyes, “If you’re into that kind of thing!”

It was meant to be a stab at the red faced Izuku, but instead it got Eijiro thinking, “wait. What?”

“Nothing,” he immediately deflected, turning back to watch as the opponents released a Glaceon and a Leavanny.

“Oh wow,” Eijiro startled, glancing closer at the girls Pokemon, “I haven’t seen a Leavanny in awhile-”

Denki just returned and energetically slapped Eijiro on his back, “dude! I’m already missing the show!?”

He scaled the chairs to sit in Tetsu’s spot, nodding curtly at Itsuka before turning back to the arena, “you’re right though! I haven’t seen one either. Glaceons though? Dime a dozen.”

Itsuka frowned at him, “I could make the same argument about Jolteon.”

“No way! My Jolteon is superior,” the blonde laughed, completely kidding.

“All the Eevee evolutions are common,” Eijiro laughed harshly, “most basic Pokemon. People only want them because they're cute!”

“Hey!” Mina shouted from down the line, “My Sylveon is way more than just cute!”

“I’m just saying!” he argued back at her.

“Oh stuff it,” Denki sneered, “if there was a rock version of them you would TOTALLY have it.”

Eijiro huffed annoyed, “well that's besides the point.”

“SEE!?”

“Watch the match!” Katsuki snapped, tearing their attention back to Shoto who easily dropped the Leavanny despite her clever strategy.

Then she threw in her second and the group all stammered in shock and Katsuki leaned forward hungerly, “no fucking way.”

Standing in the ring looking completely killer was a rather large Rillaboom. It was as strong as it was intimidating, because it disposed of the little Glaceon like it was nothing more than a bothersome fly. Itsuka sighed loudly, “you can almost see how stiff he is..”

“That Rillaboom is no joke,” Togaru bragged, looking just as heated as Katsuki was, “I’d love to fight that.”

“He might lose this one,” Itsuka added.

“What's his-” Eijiro started but cut himself off as Shoto threw his next Pokemon. An elegant all white ninetails emerged with a graceful cry.

Shoto wasted no time, “Ninetails use Extrasensory!”

With a beautiful cry the graceful fox attacked, causing the monkey to stumble. Shoto shouted after the fox, “use the opening with Blizzard!”

The monkey actually fell backwards from the force of the attack and the stadium was going wild. The girl nonchalantly asked, “Rillaboom use Knock Off!”

The move hit its mark and Ninetails cried loudly before jumping away from a second attack. Shoto stepped forward, “rush it with an Aurora beam!”

“Drum Beating!”

Eijiro only flinched for a second, but when he opened his eyes both Pokemon were picking themselves up off the ground. Ninetails pushed itself up on all fours, hunched over with its refined head lowered toward the ground, and Rillaboom was on one knee to brace itself. Both trainers tensed, waiting for their chance. Ninetails was the first one to lift its head and dramatically cry. It refused to go down, it refused to lose. Shoto had trained it well.

“Finish it with Blizzard!”

Rillaboom tried to deflect the storm, but it was impossible. It fell dramatically and the referee called it, “trainer Shoto is the winner!”

Eijiro fell back in his chair with a relieved huff, “man that was close!”

“Yea it was!” Denki laughed, “that Rillaboom must have been stronger than his Ninetails!”

“Well next is Tetsu!” Itsuka smiled, leaning forward energetically.

Eijiro watched the green haired man walk past him nervously. The blonde glanced back momentarily to grunt at him, “don’t lose nerd.”

Tetsu walked on the arena and shook hands with a sandy haired man with abnormally large teeth. The announcer introduced both men, his opponent being called Juzo Honenuki from Unova. He was a ground type trainer, which meant Juzo had the type advantage. The battle had Eijiro on the edge of his seat in fear, but Steelix pulled through with Slam and Crunch. Finishing off what little energy Sandslash had after Meltan, and finishing another close battle with an incredibly strong Krookodile. When the giant croc went down the blonde snorted annoyed next to him. Eijiro flashed him a concerned look.

“What kind of shit was that. There's no way a Krookodile lost to a damn Steelix.”

“Don’t underestimate Tetsu man, that Steelix is crazy strong!”

“Hmph.”

Eijiro just smiled softly at him before they watched the next matchup line up. Izuku shook hands with a blonde named Neito Monoma, and he was also from Kanto, “huh. I honestly thought we would be the only trainers here but there seems to be quite a lot competing.”

Denki looked at him laughing, “you know the guy you're battling today is from Kanto too right? I heard he has Nidoking and Nidoqueen.”

“Awesome, I like a challenge!”

“I’m trying to hear dumbasses!” Katsuki snapped before turning back to the battle.

“Sorry,” Eijiro sheepishly responded, it was his friend battling after all.

Izuku literally wiped the floor with just his Machop, destroying both Neito’s Ditto and Smeargle. The Ditto put up quite a fight, but in the end the victory went to the green haired man. Eijiro glanced at the blonde, not the least bit surprised to see him pleased. Winning with only one Pokemon was such an achievement. He couldn’t help but wonder what else Izuku had, but figured it was probably just as strong as his Machop. His curiosities must have been clear on his face because the blonde laughed curtly at him.

“The answer is no. His second isn’t as strong as Machop.”

“Oh? What is it?” Shoto’s dry voice called from further down the line of chairs curiously.

“None of your damn business! You’ll find out when everyone else does!”

“Thats fair,” Eijriro nudged the blonde playfully as they watched Neito and Izuku shake hands before parting.

Then Itsuka and a guy named Keigo were taking the arena, and Eijiro stood up and stretched, “looks like it's my turn!”

“Kick ass Ei!” Denki beamed.

“Yea man! We’ll be cheering for you!” Tetsu added before giving him a fist bump.

He laughed heartily before disappearing out of sight. The waiting room was empty besides a hulking man in the corner, who was giving him a piercing glare. Eijiro almost went up to introduce himself, but thought better of it last minute and scrolled on his phone to keep his mind off it. Eventually they got the call and both he and the brute split ways in opposite directions. He stood just before the entrance watching a triumphant Itsuka shake hands with an equally put out man with sporadic dirty blonde hair and yellow visors. The man was on his side, and tipped a finger toward him as he walked off, hands in his pockets.

Eijiro gave him a curious amused look before he gestured to walk in. He tightened his grip on his pokeballs momentarily before stiffly walking out onto the field. The redhead locked eyes with his opponent, and didn’t even tear them away for a second while the announcer bellowed, “our next round is Eijiro Kirishima from Kanto vs- OOOH! We have two Kanto trainers battling today, what a treat! Eijiro is versing Kan Sekijiro! I’m expecting to see all Kanto Pokemon, I don’t know about you guys!”

The referee rolled his eyes and gestured at the pair after regurgitating the rules, “throw you Pokemon in three, two, one!”

Nidoking hit the ground the same time as Onix, and Onix bellowed at it in challenge. Nidoking gave an equally earth rumbling roar, and the two were in a pissy staring match. Eijiro wasted no time to take the advantage, “Onix use Rock Slide!”

He got a hit right out of the gate, but then Nidoking managed to counterattack with Earth Power. Onix bellowed harshly and Eijiro rushed to its aid, “Dig!”

Immediately the giant snake disappeared underneath the ground before another Earth Power could hit him. Then he found himself yelling, “jump out of the ground behind him and use Slam!”

“DODGE!” Kan screamed, but Onix was too quick. The Nidoking went flying and Eijiro held his breath. The dust was so high he couldn’t see, and it seemed Kan was using it to his advantage, “use Megahorn!”

Onix bellowed but he knew it couldn’t have taken that much damage, “Onix! Find it and use Rock Slide!”

The sound of falling rubble was a blessing to his ears, only strengthened by the cries of the Nidoking. It was too quiet for his own comfort, neither side making a peep. Slowly the dust cleared and to his relief the referee called the Pokemon fainted. Onix moved back to his side just as Nidoqueen was thrown out. She cried in outrage, obviously annoyed that her mate was beaten. Onix screeched back at her and Eijiro held his breath. He really wanted to beat Kan with just Onix, he needed to hold on to ‘Rockruff’ as long as possible.

She rushed Onix to hit him immediately with a Fire Punch. It would barely do any damage So Eijiro and Onix seized the close proximity by using Slam at the same time. They both slid back and then Eijiro shouted, “Dig!”

Onix buried itself just as Earth Power was released. If they got hit with too many of those it was over. Kan called at his Pokemon, “listen beneath your feet! Then Jump away and use Crunch!”

Onix came up directly beneath her feet last minute, and Nidoqueen didn’t have time to deflect the hit, although she did manage to land Crunch. Onix shook her off aggressively as Kan bellowed, “Superpower!”

Shit. Shitshitshit, “Onix use Rock Slide to deflect it!”

The force of the attack hit the rock, shatting each one to rubble. Onix remained unscathed, and he sighed, “rush them with Slam!”

“Let it get close and use Crunch again!”

The two backed away from each other hurt, and Onix faltered.

“Earth Power!”

“Dig!”

Just as great pillows of dust were shaken blocking his view, there was a great scraping sound. He held his breath, but met Kan’s blank eyes instead of a knocked out snake. Before either had the chance to process what happened, Onix came up from the ground once more and hit Nidoqueen harshly, sending her flying. She tried to push herself up, but then weakly fell back on the ground. Onix bellowed at the same time the referee called the match in his favor. He wanted to jump up and down excitedly like a kid, but he was also overwhelmingly relieved. Of course it wouldn’t have been such a close match if he planned to use both Pokemon, but for one this was an achievement.

He shook hands with Kan before calling back Onix and trotting off to Nurse Joy. She healed Onix quickly and he was back on his way to his awaiting friends. Upon entering he was jumped with pats on the back and compliments, but he just shrugged them all off. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and he wasn’t the only one who beat his opponent with only one Pokemon! He barely had sat down before Togaru took the arena, a wicked expression on his face. The blonde next to him rolled his eyes at the man before meeting Eijiro’s.

“Good job.”

“Thanks but.. I mean, I totally had it. The only reason it was stressful was because I didn’t want to show my hand just yet.”

“No one does. Everyone is using the ones they used in the mass battles. Unless they’re forced.”

“Are you going to do the same thing?” Eijiro asked before pausing as he waved goodbye to Mina and Ochako. They were next to battle and were heading to the waiting area.

“Duh. Only a couple of you idiots know what I have and I plan to keep it that way.”

Eijiro nodded in understanding as he heard the announcer call Togaru’s opponent as a guy named Fumikage Tokoyami from Unova. He had a large black cloak on, not revealing his face. The redhead frowned at him, but was ecstatic after he threw his first Pokemon, “he’s a Dark trainer!”

“What an easy kill.”

An easy kill it was, Togaru quickly chopped down the man’s Honchkrow with his Scyther. There was hushed silence as Zoroark was released, but after minutes of intense battling it as well fell unconscious. Declaring Togaru the absolute winner. Katsuki snorted next to him annoyed, “so the bug is strong.”

“Uh yea? I’ve been saying that this entire time.”

“You said that wasn’t his strongest Pokemon?”

Denki leaned over amused, “no he has a-”

“A much stronger one, yes.”

The blonde lifted an amused eyebrow before demanding, “what is it Sparky.”

“Better not Denki. Togaru has a short temper you know,” he responded to his friend without even turning to look at him. He never wavered his red eyes from the spiky blondes.

Katsuki growled, “so do I.”

“Sorry man, Ei said no and he’s kind of like my brother.”

“Lame.”

“NEXT ROUND WE HAVE A TRIPLE BATTLE!? Trainers Mina Ashido and Ochako Uraraka team up against Setsuna Tokage! Mina was born and raised here in Kalos!”

There was mass cheering before he went on, “Ochako is from Galor and their challenger Setsuna is from Hoenn! Please prepare your first Pokemon!”

The referee called it and his friends and him watched as Ochako threw out Vivillon and Setsuna a Druddigon. Despite the apparent size difference Ochako did a good job at keeping pace with the monster dragon Pokemon. Then it hit her Vivillon with Metal Claw and they all watched it fall to the ground fainted. The stands erupted in cheers, and both girls frowned as Ochako recalled it. The pink skinned girl clutched onto her pokeball tensely before throwing it. The crowd then awed as Sylveon let out a singing cry, stealing the whole show. Setsuna frowned when she caught sight of it. Fairy Pokemon had a strong advantage over dragon Pokemon, and her Sylveon was no push over.

It only took one hit from Sylveon before Druddigon fainted. It seemed to stretch boredly, and that enraged Setsuna further. She threw out her next Pokemon, and Mina shrieked when a Flygon took to the skies with a cry. Eijiro laughed to himself as Katsuki actually jumped out of his seat to lean over the bar mesmerized. Flygons were pretty rare, he himself had only seen them a handful of times, and only in competitions like this. Sylveon cocked its head at it in mock interest before Flygon spun in the air straight for it. Sylveon used its ribbons to avoid the hit, until it used Earthquake to combat it. Sylveon screamed as it hit, and Mina ordered it to counter with Moonblast. It screeched when the move hit, but soon was flying back toward Sylveon heatedly.

Setsunna yelled, “now, Dragon Tail!”

“DODGE!”

Sylveon tried to jump out of the way but Flygon changed directions last second and slammed the little cute Eevee evolution into the ground harshly. Mina cried, “Sylveon!”

It wasn’t moving, it was done. Eijiro sat shocked. None of their friends had lost yet, and although he knew the girls couldn’t have been that serious since they didn’t even show up with two Pokemon, this was still slightly a surprise. Then Katsuki laughed harshly, “what did they expect!? Thats a fucking Flygon!”

“Setsuna moves on to the next round!” the host screeched, “thanks for coming out girls!”

Mina scooped up Sylveon before her and Uraraka shook hands with Setsuna and departed. Eijiro only then smirked, “hope you’re prepared for it then, because that's the first trainer that won that we don’t know.”

“Bring it on!” He smirked back.

Then Denki turned to them and laughed, “speaking of bringing it on… isn’t it your turn to leave? You can’t beat the dragon lady until you beat this guy!”

“It's a girl actually,” Eijiro added amused.

“Whatever, I’ll crush her!”

Izuku popped in excited, “I wouldn’t be too sure about that Kacchan! Tsuyu is from Johto to and she-”

“I don’t care where she’s from, she’ll regret getting matched with me!”

Eijiro watched him storm off and out of sight with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Izuku finished, “..trains water Pokemon.”

Denki and Eijiro lost themselves in uncontrollable laughter, he choked out, “no way!”

“Yes, and one of her Pokemon I personally know is ridiculously strong. I’ve fought it before.”

Togaru sneered, “then it's time to see that strong ass poke-”

“Well look at that!” Eijiro shouted over him excited, “I know that trainer!”

“Who?” Denki leaned forward to look at the arena.

It was an odd question considering there was only one trainer on the field, “oh the black haired guy. When did you meet him?”

“You guys were all off talking to other people and I ran into him. His name is Hanta I think.”

Izuku plopped in the vacant chair next to him, “I wonder where she is?”

They gave the opponent a couple minutes to show up before it was called a forfeit. Hanta crossed his arms annoyed, hating being just given the spot. His Eevee pawed at his pants and he scooped it up before leaving the arena.

“I wonder who he was supposed to fight.”

Izuku added immediately, “it was a girl named Toru Hagakure, she is from Sinnoh. We met her the other day and I trained with her for a bit. She had a Sableye and a Mismagius. The Mismagius is pretty strong. She was excited to battle.. I wonder what happened.”

Then the girls came rushing back winded, “Toru she-”

“We saw,” they all nodded.

“No, someone attacked her and stole her Pokemon! They stopped the games until they find them. Come on, let's help!”

They all tore out of their chairs and followed the girls out of the stands and into the main lobby. Eijiro was in the lead and took a corner too fast, running straight into a Pokemon. He hit the ground hard, and rubbed his temple as a clawed hand offered to help him up. He glanced better at it and felt his heart clench as the yellow Charmeleon was standing over him with what he could only describe as a smirk. He took the help and stood up, glancing around. When he couldn’t find Katsuki he became worried, and honestly? Charmeleon looked extremely agitated.

“Where is he?”

“Meleon.”

“Show me?”

It shook its head and he sighed, “where did you see him last?”

It looked around before shrugging. Around that time a girl with large canines and blonde pigtails ran up, “oh thank heavens you found my Charmeleon!”

“What.”

“I looked away for one second and it just disappeared!”

She called it back in a pokeball and waved goodbye at him, “thanks for finding it!”

“Wait… WAIT!”

She kept walking away with the Pokemon and he chased after her, his fingers closing around the pokeball. Her attitude shifted from sweet and innocent to aggravated, “what-” she huffed as she tried to keep a hold of it, “ARE YOU DOING!?”

“This isn’t yours! This is my friend's Pokemon!”

Her eyes widened but then a few people around looked at them concerned and she shifted to fear, “HELP! He’s trying to steal my Pokemon!”

Eijiro managed to pull it away and release it, “It’s NOT YOURS! THIEF! WHERE'S KATSUKI!”

“Katsuki?” Izuku asked, trotting up to them confused. Then his eyes fell on the very confused yellow charmeleon and his face fell harshly, “WHO ARE YOU!?”

A horrible sneer crossed the girl's face as she threw out a pokeball, “take care of the trash Weaville!”

Then she turned and ran. Eijiro shoved past it shouting at Izuku, “take care of this, come on Charmeleon!”

“Char-!”

It ran after him, a new found vengeance in its soul. They followed her halfway across the stadium before she slid out an exit and out of sight. Charmeleon was on her tail and managed to hit the hem of her clothes with Flamethrower. She shrieked before ducking behind a building, and they spun the corner after all before freezing in fear. Standing before them was a whole group of assholes, and a bloody unconscious Katsuki. A man in a black and white mask stepped forward, he was wearing a black cape and top hat.. strange..

“It looks like we have another volunteer! Let’s make this easy. Hand over the Charmeleon and any other Pokemon you have, and we will let you live.”

The girl hissed at him, “it's a friend of blondie here-”

“Obviously. He has the Charmeleon with him,” a dry voice answered from the shadows. He couldn’t see who it was, but it was obviously evil.

Eijiro glanced between them nervously, “when hell freezes over!”

“Then you leave us no choice!”

Several pokeballs flew at him and released. Leaving Eijiro staring at a Gengar, a Alolan Marowak, and a Dodrio. He gaped at them before his hands slid to his own pockets, “you’re a piece of shit. Stealing Pokemon, beating people up, and then ganging up on one person. What do you even get out of this, the risk is too high!”

“Easy,” the creepy voice answered, “Himiko liked that girls Pokemon, and one of my other members wants that Charmeleon. I’m sure you understand.”

It growled next to Eijiro, causing him to smirk, “like it would ever listen to you!”

“He has more to offer it than this loser does. It can go further, get stronger-”

“Katsuki spent six months looking for Charmeleon, and even longer training it! You can’t just steal it from him, it didn’t choose you it chose him! Go catch your own!”

The voice sighed, “so troublesome. If it doesn’t obey us I’ll just force it to breed with a ditto to get our own shiny Charmanders. Either way, I don’t really care.”

“Thats horrible!” He reached for his pokeballs and secured them around his fingers before turning to Charmeleon, “will you fight for me, for Katsuki?”

“Meleon!”

“You’re wasting your time. What will one Charmeleon have against three fully evolved Pokemon..”

“You’re ignorant if you think I don’t have my own!” Eijiro shouted before throwing out both Onix and Lycanroc, “fight for your life guys, Katsuki and the other stolen Pokemon depend on it!”

Lycanroc lowered itself to the ground growling just as Onix bellowed. The man in the shadows stepped forward curiously, “oh now that's interesting.”

He had long pale blue hair and a creepy auror as his red eyes swept over Lycanroc hungerly, “I’ll take that one too.”

“The hell with that! Onix Slam, Lycanroc use Rock Slide!” Then he glanced right to meet the fiery eyes of Charmeleon, “uh- I don’t know what you have… Flamethrower!”

It made an annoyed grunt at him before it rushed forward and attacked with his Pokemon. The Gengar used shadow ball against Charmeleons flames, and Lycanrocs rocks hit Dodrio head on. It screeched and fell down, and Lycanroc used Bite before it could pick itself back up. Meanwhile Marowak was using its boomerang to repeatedly beat on Onix, who couldn’t shake it off despite its many attempts. There was too much going on to really focus on even one Pokemon, and to his horror, he watched the people start closing in on him. Obviously the Pokemon was just a distraction to secure him. He backed up nervously before Onix’s tail whipped around quickly, catching the four of them and throwing them harshly away.

“Thanks Onix, use Dig! Charmeleon, use..” His head basically spun as he tried to remember what kind of moves it could have, “Fire Fang?”

It growled before completing it, Eijiro nearly sighed in relief until an unconscious Dodrio came flying at him. He jumped out of the way just in time, to watch Lycanroc growling and twitching uncomfortably. It’s eyes were red and it looked infuriated before it used Bite on Gengar unprovoked, sinking into the purple ghost's shoulder. Marowak jumped to knock him off, but Onix resurfaced, hitting the smaller Pokemon harshly into the building Marowak fell unconscious just as the other two finished Gengar. Lycanroc was still completely shaken, and Eijiro slowly approached it. Gently laying a hand on its shoulder blade near its fluff while Charmeleon gave it a concerned look.

“Hey,” he softly responded, running his hand into the fluffiness around its neck affectionately, “its okay, you did it. Calm down, you gotta calm down now..”

It had been breathing so unsteadily, but with one massive grunt, it shook itself hard and its eyes faded back to green, “there you go!”

“Ruff!”

Then Eijiro’s own red eyes slid up to the group that was recalling their Pokemon, the top hat one whined, “I can’t believe Kurogiri’’s Gengar lost..”

“What about my Dodrio!” a man whined, he was in complete black with no recognizable face.

Lycanroc growled and advanced them the same time as Chameleon. Eijiro crossed his arms, “let's make this easy then. Tell me who you are, give back the stolen Pokemon, and release Katsuki.”

“We’re the League of Villains!” the girl energetically answered, despite the fact they all were Pokemonless.

“Fitting..”

“Don’t think we will just give you back all of our hard work just because you beat our Pokemon,” the blue haired one snapped back before they all made to run.

“Onix!”

Onix moved to capture them but Charmeleon was faster. He breathed out a massive wall of fire directly in front of the exit and stood in front of it pissed. Katsuki was now abandoned, so Eijiro didn’t understand why it-

“Give back the stolen Pokemon. It isn’t kidding around.”

With a disappointed sigh, the man with the top hat slid it up and pulled two balls from it before throwing them in Eijiro’s direction. Lycanroc caught them in the air and hit them with his paw to open them, revealing the two Pokemon that Izuku mentioned earlier. Something twisted in his gut and he approached the four that were still trying to get past Charmeleon, “give it back.”

“What are you going on about now!?” the blue haired one snapped.

“Typhlosion. Give it back now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Charmeleon, use Flame-”

“ALRIGHT!” he screamed before chucking the ball harshly at Eijiro, who caught it one handed and released it. It glanced around until it saw Katsuki’s feebly stirring body pissed, roaring.

“Typhlosion, these jerks hurt your trainer. Can you finish them off please?”

Pure rage filled the Pokemons face as it chased the four out of sight, slinging fire moves at them left and right. Eijiro nearly collapsed in relief, but held on to run over to Katsuki. He started to wake up and looked up at him through a bloody eye. He mumbled weakly, “Eijiro?”

Then realization hit the blonde and he struggled to stand up but couldn’t as he was tied, “my Pokemon! They got Charmeleon and Typ-”

With another Pokemonish smirk, Charmeleon used one claw to cut the bindings on the blonde before walking around to face him. As soon as Katuki’s eyes fell on the Pokemon he relaxed significantly, “what happened..”

“Well.. I think we owe the girls quite a lot to be honest. We were waiting for you to walk into the arena when they came up screaming about a girl's Pokemon getting stolen. All of us split up to find them but then I ran into a confused Charmeleon just standing in the middle of a crowd…”

“I managed to release it right before they grabbed me.. It must have been looking for me.”

“Honestly it looked like it had no idea where you were at all, or why it was released. That's when a girl showed up with its pokeball, thanking me for finding it for her.”

“Hah! Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened to me or them if you hadn’t found it before.”

“Honestly.. If it wasn't shiny I might not have thought too much about it. I knew it was yours as soon as I saw it and it helped me up.”

“Wait.. it helped you!?”

“Yea, it even battled with me?”

Katsuki glared at the Charmeleon who puffed out smoke annoyed, also crossing its arms to mimic its trainer. Eijiro added, “I’m sorry if it helping me offends you, I just- I needed the help to save you-”

“Thats not fucking it. I had to sweet talk this asshole for TWO MONTHS to get it to listen to ONE thing I said. Now it’s just blindly following random strangers!? I don’t care how cute they are that pisses me off!”

Eijiro’s jaw dropped, “wait a minute..”

He realized what he said and his face drained even more of color before deflecting away, “I said thank you, what else do you want!?”

Katsuki untied his legs before shakily standing up, leaning on Charmeleon for support, “Where's Typhlosion?”

About as soon as the words came out of his mouth, the surly giant fire Pokemon stormed back toward them. It took one look at Katsuki before rushing to him and hugging him harshly. The blonde groaned under the grip, heavily bruised after being beat up. It must have realized that because it backed off of him and purred, ‘typhlo!’

Eijiro honestly was still considering the ‘cute stranger’ comment, but while he was he explained what happened to the two stolen Pokemon and returned them all to their pokeballs. Katsuki returned his own Pokemon before they parted ways. Katsuki needed to heal before his battle, and Eijiro needed to return the Pokemon. The battles were delayed by a couple hours and when they all returned to their seats to watch them continue, Denki was chatting mad fast. Telling him all about how the girl denied the rematch and said she was going home after that scare. Which meant Hanta really did win by forfeit. It wasn’t the best way to win, but at least they now had a reason why. Eijiro plopped down in his seat with a huff listening to the host go off on a tangent.

Right before the next opponents took the arena, Eijiro turned to Denki curiously, “so when someone calls you cute.. What does that mean?”

Denki stared at him scandalously, “did a girl call you cute!? Dude that's awesome, which one! Do I know her?”

He shook his head, “I’m not sure what it even meant. Their Pokemon had tagged along with me and they said that it angered them that the Pokemon was so trusting to follow a stranger, even if it was a cute one. It was said indirectly to me though. It’s not like they looked me in the eye and called me cute! I think it was just a compliment?”

“Have you ever seen this girl before?”

He was still assuming it was a girl despite Eijiro specifically saying they, “yea. I’ve talked to them quite a lot and have even battled with them a couple times.”

“Oh snap! So she is in the tournament! Uh, well I don’t know man. If it wasn’t said to you directly it could just be a compliment, but if she doesn’t seem like the type then it could have just been an accidental confession. How did she react after she said it.”

He just ended up playing along with it, “they kind of looked shocked and deflected away.”

“Oh she’s shy! How cute, dude you gotta ask her out!”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not!?”

Eijiro frowned as he looked away from his best friend and trained his eyes on the blonde as he entered the arena, his face bandaged just above the eye, “because he would kill me.”

“..He?” then Denki turned toward the arena and gasped loudly, pulling on Eijiro’s arm dramatically. Eijiro tuned him out as he started blubbering both excitedly and confusedly.

To change the subject real quick he glanced down at a red faced Itsuka who was in the middle of a conversation with Tetsu, “hey Itsuka! That guy you battled, he had a fun energy! I missed the battle though unfortunately. What kind of Pokemon did he have?”

“Oh! He was really fun to battle! He had a super tough Braviary and Staraptor! It was quite a challenge, my Infernape struggled I will admit!”

“Nice, he seemed like the type to have Flying Pokemon. I’m guessing he was from Unova then.”

Denki pulled on his arm again, desperate to talk more about it, but the announcer was yelling once more, “AFTER THAT DELAY WE ARE BACK! Our next competitors are Katsuki Bakugo from Johto versing Tsuyu Asui also from Johto! Oo, we have another matched set!”

Even from this distance he couldn’t help smirk when he caught the blonde annoyingly glance away in a pout. The referee called it and they both sent their Pokemon in at the same time. Charmeleon faced off with a Poliwrath, and both trainer and Pokemon froze.

“Holy crap, I forgot to warn him about what Izuku said!”

Izuku called down from the line, “don’t worry about it, he’ll figure something out! Besides, you had enough on your mind saving them and probably trying to control Charmeleon! It’s quite… stubborn.”

“I had no trouble with it at all actually but-”

He was cut off by Denki making more choking sounds, fully putting two and two together. The blonde whipped around to say something but an earth shattering roar tore their attention back to Charmeleon who was just hit with Hydro Pump. Katsuki looked troubled, and when Poliwrath tried to hit it with Ice Punch, he screamed after it to dodge. Last minute the yellow Charmeleon ducked out of the way and countered with Slash. Poliwrath cried in anguish and used Dynamic Punch in retaliation. Charmeleon flew back several feet with a groan, falling on its knees. Katsuki was shouting at it again, something he could just barely make out.

“We don’t give up, we never quit! Get up and fight, dammit!”

Charmeleon pushed itself up and roared in response. Tsuyu looked startled before shouting at her Pokemon, “hit it with another Hydro Pump!”

“Counter with Flamethrower, then hit it with Dragon Breath!”

Water met fire, and Charmeleon pushed back until both Pokemon were within touching distance. The moment the water faltered, it hit the Poliwrath point blank with Dragon Breath. This time it was Tsuyu’s Pokemon on the ground. It hesitantly pushed itself up but Katsuki was on it back in a second. Both Pokemon were attacking each other like mad, a barrage of slashes and punches. They broke apart huffing, and Katsuki sneered at the girl. One who was growing more worried with every passing moment. She had relied too much on type advantage and not skill.

“I can go all day!” Katsuki shouted at her, getting mass cheering from the crowd, “bring it frog girl!”

“Hydro Pump!”

“Flamethrower!”

The water broke through the fire this time and hit Charmeleon, but the Pokemon didn’t back down. He rushed against the water to close the distance between them before Katsuki screamed, “Dragon Breath!”

The water shot up in the air, creating a heavy rainfall that blocked their view as the move hit. As soon as the water cleared they all sat on the edge of their chairs gasping. Charmeleon stood over Poliwrath victoriously, although he looked worse for the wear. It seemed that Katsuki would have to end up using his secret weapon afterall. Charmeleon was spent, and if her second was as strong as her first then he was in for some trouble. That was until she threw it, revealing a Froakie. Katsuki’s jaw dropped before he hysterically started laughing. He was still rudely chuckling to himself as he choked out at Charmeleon.

“S-Slash-”

One shot, one kill. The referee called the match and after shaking hands, Katsuki threw his arms behind his neck stretching boredly. Eijiro shook his head as the blonde disappeared inside, wondering how one man could be so cocky yet powerful. From the same door Katsuki disappeared in, Hitoshi appeared from. He was walking proudly to the point it was nearly intimidating as he took the arena. The purple headed man stared down his opponent, who was a middle aged woman with long dark purplish hair. She was wearing an controversial outfit, and he worried at that moment just how many kids were here for this competition.

“Ooo yes! It's finally Hitoshi’s battle!”

Eijiro turned toward him amused, “so I know he has an Espeon, what about his second?”

“You’ll see!”

“It’s a battle of the Eeveelutions then,” a voice grunted from behind them. They both turned to see Katsuki walk in sneering at them.

“How's that, Kacchan?” Izuku asked.

“I saw that chicks Pokemon earlier,” he grunted in response before forcing Izuku to move so he could sit next to Eijiro.

“Where's Charmeleon? There's no way it healed this fast.”

“It’s with Nurse Joy.”

Denki shouted, “YOU LEFT IT UNATTENDED!?”

“It’s not helpless! Dammit, stop screaming!”

Izuku frowned, “but Kacchan, after it almost being pokenapped-”

“It’s fine! You know as well as I do how prideful that damn thing is..”

Eijiro just shook his head and glanced back at the battle. They threw their Pokemon at the same time, revealing as Espeon and Umbreon, “oh cool! I always liked the looks of Umbreon.”

Izuku thought out loud, “another type disadvantage battle…”

“Yea, I don’t see how he’s going to win this,” Denki whined.

Izuku considered, “maybe they’re extremely weak?”

“That's hopeful thinking,” Eijiro laughed as the two Pokemon clashed in heated battle. They ended up fainting at the same time, and Denki sat on the edge of his seat worried.

“Man the suspense is killing me!”

Katsuki scoffed, “they’re obviously weak as shit. There's no other way they knocked out at the same time.”

“I don’t know about that, Kacchan. I’m pretty sure that Poliwrath was stronger than Charme-”

‘MELEON!’

They all turned to see the yellow Charmeleon glare daggers at Izuku before sauntering over to the redhead and blonde. Eijiro laughed, “I don’t think it appreciated that.”

“Besides, I WON. Doesn’t matter how strong that ridiculous frog trainer was..”

“She had a Froakie,” Eijiro added, “I wouldn’t call her strong anyways.”

‘CHAR!’ It was still angry, and it stood behind Eijiro as if to make a point.

Denki gave it a gaping expression whereas Katsuki just looked irritated before calling it back. Eijiro gave him an amused look and Katsuki glared back at the arena as if that hadn’t just happened. The lady's name was Nemuri and she was from Hoenn. She just threw out her second, and absol. They watched in suspense as Hitoshi threw out Alakazam. Denki groaned loudly and buried his head in his hands, not liking the chances at all. It was bad enough to have one type disadvantage, but two was ridiculous. The one thing it had going for it is it was probably extremely strong and the Absol could be weak. It was wishful thinking.

“Damn. Sparky's boyfriend is about to lose.”

Denki made a crying sound while the rest of his friends started laughing at him, “come on man! He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Might as well be,” Eijiro snickered before flashing the blonde a challenged look.

Katsuki gaped at him before clearing his throat and looking back at the battle. It was a close match. Everytime the Absol managed to gain one hit, Hitoshi landed two. Alakazam was becoming shaky on its feet, and Absol looked worse for wear. The battle lasted another few heated minutes until a loud crash pulled the attention of every single guest. The dust was high in the air, and when it settled, they were staring at two Pokemon laying on the ground. The referees stared between the Pokemon and started to call it a tie but then last minute Alakazam pushed itself up. Just like that Hitoshi narrowly held on to his victory and moved on to the next round.

“Huh.”

“Wow!”

Denki cheered, “I’m so glad! I want to battle him soooo bad!”

“I wonder who we will be fighting,” Eijiro thought out loud.

Izuku hummed from his seat, “there's still one more to battle first, guys!”

As Hitoshi shook the woman's hand and left the arena, he was replaced by the one person Eijiro didn’t care to see again. The Incineroar trainer from before. The host boomed, “all the way from Alola is Dabi! He has a dark aura.. Hm? Battling him is the young trainer Kota Izumi from Kanto!”

Katsuki growled annoyed, “Dabi huh!? What's his last name, who doesn’t have one!?”

“Calm down, dude,” Eijiro leveled with him.

Izuku glanced between them confused before adding, “I heard about that kid. His parents were firefighters and died in an accident. The Blastoise he has was theirs, he’s also training a-”

Both trainers threw their Pokemon, and Dabi maliciously laughed when a Magikarp appeared. His Alolan Marowak twirled its bone menacingly as it rounded on the poor fish. It wasn’t a one hit kill, but a two. Eijiro thought that was more because of the type advantage than the skill level. Kota dipped his head defeatedly before throwing out Blastoise. The Pokemon roared, and Dabi grimaced. After the Magikarp he probably expected a clean battle to the next round. The kid wasn’t going that easy, and the Pokemon immediately hit the Marowak with Hydro Pump. Then Eijiro found himself looking at the Marowak as it picked itself up, remembering something.

‘One of my other members wants that Charmeleon…’

Eijiro’s eyes widened at the dark version of Marowak, so close but so far to the Kanto version. He weakly pulled on Katsuki’s sleeve, gaining him a dirty look, “hey.. Katsuki?”

“Yea?”

He let go of the sleeve and shook his head. It was impossible but.. It was also so.. so suspicious. What that guy said, the fact they were there watching the Pokemon trainers. How they knew their schedules and where they would be.. How the blue haired guy had an Alolan Marowak too. Something that was rare. Alolan Pokemon were hardly seen on the main lands. Then there was how this guy had been targeting Katsuki and trying to knock him out of the battles. Plenty of time to test out Charmeleons strength. Katsuki shoved him hard on the shoulder to bring him back to earth.

“It’s probably nothing,” he found himself saying, “it's just.. How rare are Alolan Pokemon really?”

“Pretty rare. There's quite a few here but you hardly see them in the streets or anything.”

“So if I said the people who attacked us had an Alolan Marowak and said that his friend wanted your Charmeleon..”

“I’d be fucking concerned. Wait..”

Katsuki glared at Dabi as he recalled his unconscious Marowak and cursed, “son of a b-”

Eijiro cut him off, “I have no proof but.. He was kind of shady!”

“I’ll kill him!”

Eijiro shook his head, “no, we don’t know for sure! It could just be a coincidence.”

“Coincidence my foot!”

“What are you two screaming about?” Denki turned them concerned.

They watched Incineroar take the arena and Katsuki frowned worse, “I’m so angry I could scream.”

“You are screaming,” Izuku laughed from next to him, “I agree with Eijiro by the way. You don’t know for sure it is him. Let’s just wait for more evidence?”

“Stop eavesdropping nerd!”

“Hey, you’re the one talking loud!”

The two of them started arguing, so instead of getting mixed up into it Eijiro watched the battle. Blastoise put up a good fight but was weakened already from Marowak. It was a close match, but Dabi prevailed. Eijiro’s stomach twisted, he had hoped the kid would have made it. The kid reached to shake the man's hand, but Dabi simply glared at him and turned on his heel. Incineroar roared at the audience annoyed before strutting after its trainer. There was mass outrage in the stands as watchers and trainers alike screamed in protest. The kid hung his head ashamed, and walked out with his hands in his pockets defeatedly.

“What an asshole,” Katsuki snapped.

“Honestly I’m not surprised,” Eijiro frowned.

Denki cocked his head at the blonde, “I kind of half expected you to do that if we’re being honest.”

“Kacchan can be harsh, but he would never snub his nose at a trainer who gave him a fair fight!”

Katsuki glared at Izuku before rounding on the other blonde, “yea, so stuff it Sparky!”

They giggled amused before the group rose up to meet down in the waiting area. The people who had lost were already gone, which made it extremely uncomfortable for their group of friends who were staring at Dabi and Setsuna. Then Hanta broke the ice by trotting over to Eijiro to start a conversation. He introduced himself and his Eevee to the group. Shoto, Hitoshi, and Denki responded by releasing their eeveelutions. Espeon, Jolteon, and Glaceon ran around the waiting room playing with the little Eevee. Pikachu eventually got too excited and jumped off of Denki’s shoulders to join the fun. They all laughed accordingly until a buzzer went off.

Eijiro glanced up to see the giant screen flash multiple times before the next match ups were released. It took him a second to process it, but it read as follows:

Due to the fact that this is a twelve trainer bracket, four trainers have been pulled from the battles until next round. This was based off of their performances so far. A total of eight trainers will battle tomorrow, and the winners will face the four pulled. The battles are as such:

Itsuka vs. Hitoshi
Tetsu vs. Dabi
Shoto vs. Setsuna
Hanta vs. Denki

Eijiro gaped at the screen just as Katsuki lost himself to a fit of laughter. He felt his arm be punched as the blonde sneered, “you and I are too powerful for this damn competition!”

“You aren’t the only ones,” Izuku smiled, crossing over to them.

“I’m glad,” Togaru smirked, “fighting these weak ass trainers was starting to get to me!”

Izuku wondered, “how do you think they decided who got to skip?”

“That's easy,” the blonde cockily aired, “the trainers that only needed one Pokemon in the first official battle!”

“That.. actually makes sense!” Eijiro energetically agreed, “I only used Onix and Katsuki only used Charmeleon!”

Izuku nodded in understanding, “that has to be it. Honestly I’m surprised Dabi wasn’t pulled. He is ridiculously strong.”

Togaru frowned, “he used both Pokemon.”

“Needless to say,” Izuku frowned as well, “he’ll make it to the final rounds.”

“Damn bro,” Tetsu whined, just walking over with Itsuka, “that's harsh!”

“Ah- UH! I’m sorry! I was- That was rude of me-”

Katsuki rolled his eyes before crossing his arms at Tetsu, “he has type advantage and I bet his Pokemon are better trained. That's just the facts Tin-For-Brains.”

Eijiro hissed, “Katsuki!”

“No, he has a point,” Tetsu considered it, “but I won’t go down without a fight!”

“That's the spirit!” Denki cheered.

Itsuka smiled at the gray haired man before turning to Izuku, “I’m nervous about mine as well. Hitoshi has physic Pokemon.”

Katsuki sneered to himself before replying, “calling it. Mind Fuck, Asshole, Half n’ half, and Sparky.”

“Whatever dude,” Tetsu countered.

The blonde riled, “I would bet on it!”

“You’re just betting on the type advantages!” Togaru bristled.

Eijiro left them to argue and headed out of the arena to go train. Not battling tomorrow just gave him all the more time to strengthen Lycanroc. They had been grinding so hard, and it was starting to show for his Pokemon. However, first, he needed to contact his professor for something special. He ran inside to the Pokemon center and straight to the phone. It rang three times before he was staring in the face of the Professor. He had long blonde hair, two of the tufts sat straight up like bug antennas. His bright blue eyes met Eijiro’s red as he gave him a large welcome.

“What can I do for you, young Eijiro?”

“I was wondering if you can transfer something to me?”

“Like what?”

Eijiro smiled and told him his plan. Afterwards Yagi beamed, “certainly! Here they are, take care of those Pokemon of yours!”

While his new TM’s were transferring, Eijiro asked, “how are the others?”

“Good my boy! Good! They’re waiting to rejoin you.”

“Awesome, we’ll be on our way out soon!”

After securing the disks he said goodbye to the professor and ran out of the Pokemon Center to train. There were a few kids there battling, so he jumped in the stands and waited patiently until they finished before he sent out his Pokemon. Onix glanced around curiously before Lycanroc tackled Eijiro, rubbing all over him. He laughed warmly as he tried to shove off the giant canine. As soon as he was free, he pulled out the disks and placed them affectionately on his Pokemon.

They lit up momentarily as they took affect, and Lycanroc barked in approval as it set in. He smirked at them, “our secret weapon guys. There's a good chance we will be fighting Katsuki in the finals.”

Onix roared and faced the other Pokemon, ready to train. Eijiro sat back on the sidelines as the two practiced. They used their new moves until he felt they mastered them, stopping just in time as he noticed spiky blonde hair coming. The Pokemon broke apart and he told them to rest as Katsuki stepped inside the ring, his eyes widening when he saw the Onix and Lycanroc. He pointedly looked around until his eyes fell on Eijiro and smirked. He slowly crossed over to him while throwing out his Charmeleon and Typhlosion. The four Pokemon started playing together as Katsuki plopped down next to him on his bench.

“I didn’t expect you to be here. You left before everyone else, I figured you were tired.”

“No, I’ve been here the whole time.”

“You didn’t even eat!?”

“No,” Eijiro commented, watching Lycanroc start training with Charmeleon without direction. He wasn’t worried about it, he told them it was their secret moves so he knew they wouldn’t use them.

Katsuki noticed the two facing off and scuffed, “unruly bastards. You need to eat.”

“I’m fine,” Eijiro laughed, “my Pokemon needs to train. Being pulled from the battles makes me feel like I have something to prove. I don’t want to get knocked out after they made a big deal about me being strong enough to skip.”

“Makes sense, but I’m taking you out for dinner afterwards.”

Eijiro choked on air before turning toward the smirking blonde, who was staring at the Lycanroc instead of him. Lycanroc was scaling up Onix’s back and jumping off to land on Typhlosion, who looked all too aggravated for their own good. Charmeleon crossed his arms at them and tried to scold them, but Lycanroc just threw rocks at him. Much to the lizards irritation. The two got into a heated battle and Eijiro started to raise up to stop it, but Katsuki pulled him down.

“Just watch.”

Eijiro froze and turned back toward them. Typhlosion was facing off against Onix, and the other two were fighting as well. Katsuki smirked, “it’s a perfect match up because they’re similar in strength.”

“Lycanroc is acting like a brat though..”

“So is Charmeleon, as usual.”

After a few hours Eijiro’s stomach got the best of him and he called his Pokemon back. Katsuki did likewise while smirking at the redhead and gesturing out of the ring. Eijiro nodded and followed the blonde as he led them to a fancy restaurant. Eijiro gaped at it before pulling on the blondes sleeve startled. The cocky grin on the blonde was too much for him, and they released their Pokemon outside before entering as the building wasn’t big enough for them to go inside. Eijiro felt extremely uncomfortable as the host led them to a table and Katsuki ordered Pokemon food to be brought out to the four and their drinks. The redhead clutched his nervously as he peered around the fancy establishment.

“This place is like.. super fancy.”

Katsuki laughed, “I said I was taking you out. What did you honestly expect?”

“Some place affordable? You know, Onix eats quite a lot..”

“So do you, I’m not worried,” Katsuki hummed softly before flipping through the menu.

Swallowing back the insecurities swirling inside him, Eijiro took a deep breath and opened his menu as well. After ordering their food and getting it served, Katsuki slipped from the table with their pokeballs to retrieve their Pokemon. When he returned back, he found a practically drooling Eijiro. He laughed at the redhead before sliding back in the booth across from him and the two started eating. Once their bellies were full, they walked out of the restaurant together after Katsuki paid. The blonde refused Eijiro when he offered money, insisting it was his treat. Something Eijiro didn’t understand at all. He thought about it for a bit before he cracked.

“Okay man, I’m just so confused.”

The blonde grunted, “bout what.”

“Nothing I guess,” he conceded, before scratching the back of his head nervously.

Katsuki turned to stare at him hard, his expression blank, as he tried to decipher just what was bothering the redhead. Then he smirked and evenly replied, “if you’re that worried about it, you can take me out next.”

Eijiro sighed in relief, “are you cool with that?”

The look in the blondes eyes was full of challenge, “I’d fucking love it.”

He choked again and started stuttering, “..y-you would?”

“Absolutely.”

“W-why?”

“You’re not really grasping it, are you?” the blonde teased.

“Not at all.”

“Then I look forward to watching you struggle,” he shot back immediately before waving goodbye and disappearing back toward the Pokemon Center.

Eijiro wasted no time running back to the hotel and filling his friends in on the recent events. Denki stared at him slack jawed, Tetsu contemplating, Yosetsu curious, and Togaru annoyed. Then he asked, “so uh.. What am I missing here?”

“The fact that this guy is totally head over heels for you!” Denki screamed, his voice cracking from effort.

Yosetsu added, “Denki is right, he obviously likes you.”

“I mean,” Tetsu thought hard about it, “he seemed thrilled you were training, and then demanded you go out to eat with him. Then he took you to a fancy restaurant and refused to let you pay. When you seemed confused about it, he suggested a future da- I mean dinner where you pay. You asked him if it's cool and he responded he would love it? Guy seems pretty whipped..”

“You’re forgetting the most important part!” Denki screeched, “he already called Ei cute by accident in front of him!”

“WHAT!?” the other three boys yelled.

Eijiro hid his flushed face behind his hand before releasing Lycanroc. The canine immediately became a wall between him and his persistent friends, “forget I asked.”

Denki riled, “no way man! You gotta ask him out!”

“Eijiro needs to concentrate on the competition,” Togaru snapped, “something Tetsu and you are FAILING at.”

“Togaru has a point.”

The two riled on Yosetsu annoyed, and Eijiro was glad to have the distraction. The next day they headed back to the stadium in high spirits. The first battle was Hitoshi vs. Itsuka, and he was excited to watch it. Tetsu and Denki didn’t bother to join them. Eijiro had half a guess that Denki wanted to cheer on Hitoshi personally. Especially considering he wasn’t until the last battle. However when Shoto never showed up either, Eijiro just wondered if all of their friends were just waiting it out in the waiting room. Togaru was sitting on his left and Yosetsu next to him. Eventually Katsuki and Izuku arrived. Despite them technically not having to show up at all.

Of course Katsuki sat next to him, but it was Izuku who talked, “I’m so excited to watch these battles! Who do you think is going to win, Eijiro?”

“Uh,” he responded, frankly surprised the green haired man had started talking to him, “I’m not sure honestly. Hitoshi had the type advantage but Itsuka is really strong. It could go either way.”

“She has an Infernape,” Togaru commented off handedly, before giving the blonde a challenged glare. As if daring him to reply something snarky.

Katsuki simply scuffed and turned his attention to the arena as the two trainers walked out. The host bellowed, “We’re in the final twelve now ladies and gentleman! Our first match is two young trainers, Itsuka Kendo from Sinnoh vs. Hitoshi Shinso from Kanto!”

The referee called the match and Eijiro sat at the edge of his seat as Hitoshi threw out his Espeon the same time Itsuka threw out Mienfoo. He gasped when he saw it. Of course he already knew she had it, but in his opinion they were still incredibly rare. Even with the type advantage, Itsuka still gave him a run for his money. In the end it was Mienfoo who fell, gaining Hitoshi the first victory. Her face was scrunched up as she recalled her Pokemon and sent out Infernape in its place.

“Espeon is done and Infernape can just use fire moves,” Katsuki boredly grunted.

“That's true,” Izuku added, watching with interest as the fire/fighting Pokemon landed hit after hit on Espeon until it fainted.

“Alakazam is no pushover,” Togaru snapped at the pair before turning back to the fight. Alakazam managed to put Infernape to sleep. After that it was an easy victory. Two direct physic hits later and Infernape was out cold literally.

“Boring. One down bug, still want to bet me?”

Togaru turned toward the sly smirk on the blonde's face before giving his own, “alright. I’ll bet on Tetsu’s match. I win if Tetsu does and vise versa!”

“Hah! Bring it Cockroach!”

Eijiro shook his head at them until he watched Tetsu and the shady man walk onto the arena as the host called, “Our next match should be a heated one! Ha, get it? On the left is Dabi from Alola, and on the right is Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu from Johto!”

“Holy shit,” Katsuki laughed, “his full name is Tetsu repeated four times!?”

“Yea,” Eijiro chuckled, “that's why he just goes by Tetsu.”

“That's ridiculous!”

“Honestly Kacchan, this isn’t the first time the announcer said it.”

“He wasn’t paying attention,” Eijiro teased as the two sent out their first Pokemon.

Yosetsu added from farther down, “oh no..”

They glanced down to see Meltan rush from the grey haired man's side to the arena right before Dabi threw out the Incineroar. Eijiro immediately found himself saying, “dammit.”

“That tiny thing doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Watch it!” Togaru snapped at the blonde, “Meltan is Yo’s!”

Meltan put up a good fight and managed to get a couple hits on Incineroar, but the giant fire cat quickly disposed of it. Tetsu was pacing uncomfortably after retrieving the small Pokemon before sending out Steelix. It bellowed before charging the other Pokemon, and the two crashed against each other. He heard Tetsu call Iron Tail, and watched the massive Pokemon hit the tiger across the arena. It picked itself back up immediately and bellowed, before charging toward Steelix with Darkest Lariat. Steelix dug under the ground right before it came, causing the giant cat to pause and wait. Just like Onix before, Steelix came up from underneath and slammed into it. Just as the massive steel Pokemon made its mark, he heard Dabi shout.

“Grab onto it and use Cross Chop!”

“Get out of there, Stee-”

‘Rahhhhhrrgh!’

Steelix fell to the ground startled from the hit, and Dabi jumped on it mercilessly, “Flamethrower!”

Steelix tried to Dig again but Incineroar was quicker. When the flames subsided there laid an unconscious Steelix. Depressed, Tetsu called it back. The referee called them to shake hands but Tetsu met Dabi’s eyes and scoffed, tearing out of the arena flipping the man off as he went. There were some shouts from the audience, but not nearly as much as the day before. Tetsu knew the man would snub his handshake like he did his opponent yesterday, so he just went ahead and made himself the bigger dick first. This way his pride wasn’t hurt. He lost, and he knew Dabi deserved the win, but he wasn’t letting the cocky asshole pretend like Tetsu was beneath him. That simply wasn’t the case.

Katsuki was beside himself laughing, “I like him more now.”

Eijiro frowned as he watched a surly Dabi step off, “the guy started it by denying the kids handshake yesterday.”

Togaru grunted, “who is next.”

“Hmm, I believe Shoto and the dragon trainer,” Izuku answered.

Sure enough they watched the green haired dragon trainer and the two toned man enter the arena. Just as the fight was about to start, Katsuki grabbed his arm and pulled him out of his chair. He let himself be dragged a few feet before ripping his arm away. The blonde gave him a snarky look before disappearing out of sight. Begrudgingly Eijiro followed, finding Katsuki at a refreshment stand for snacks. He laughed in his head. At first he thought the blonde was up to no good but he just wanted someone to follow him to the concessions? Why couldn’t he just ask? He walked up behind the surly waiting blonde and tapped him on the shoulder, causing the other to turn toward him.

“You could have just said where you were going and I would have come.”

“Didn’t care enough.”

“I think you totally did,” he laughed while nudging the blonde in the ribs. He caught a small smile from him before adding, “so it's pretty cool we get to skip a round, huh?”

“Tch. Not that big of a deal.”

“Oh I forgot,” he nudged the blonde harder, “you’re mister unbeatable.”

“Damn right.”

“That's why I completely saved your ass from being knocked out by Dabi.”

“Shut up!” the blonde snapped without turning toward him.

He bought two drinks before chucking one at Eijiro and stalking off back to the stands. Eijiro stared at his flabbergasted before smiling and running after the blonde. When they got back Shoto was shaking hands with the dragon lady, and Katsuki was frowning. He followed his eyes to the large board to see that Shoto had won. Katsuki dropped into his chair annoyed and started cursing under his breath. Izuku gave him a concerned look whereas Togaru was giving him a death glare. Eijiro took his seat back and glanced at the bristled blonde. Why in the world was he so mad that Shoto won? It was exactly what everyone else wanted to happen.

“Alright spill. Why are you so angry?”

“How the hell did he beat that Flygon!?”

Togaru snapped out, “if you wouldn’t have ran off you would know!”

“Shut up, bug!”

“Shoto won fair and square, Kacchan. I know it's not what you wanted but-”

“Shut up nerd!”

“Katsuki you’re being ridiculous. Why do you want Shoto to lose so badly anyways?”

“It’s not that,” Izuku added, “he just really wanted to battle Setsuna.”

“Ah, well there was a chance you wou-”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! This is our last battle for today! Afterwards we have the Showcase finalists! Our last battle is Hanta Sero from Unova vs. Denki Kaminari from Kanto!”

The pair smiled at each other from across the arena, and Eijiro forgot everything he was about to say. He might have got distracted from the last battle. One that was probably awesome, but there was no way he would get pulled away from his best friends. Katsuki must have sensed his determination because he caught the blonde smirking at him from the corner of his mouth. Pikachu leaped off Denki’s shoulder and took the arena, and Hanta’s Eevee followed suit. He couldn’t honestly remember what Hanta’s second was, but he knew it was stronger than the little Eevee. Just like Jolteon was stronger than Pikachu. They were throwing in their weaker Pokemon first. This was going to be an interesting battle. The referee called the match and Denki threw his arm forward energetically.

“Pikachu, Quick Attack!”

‘Chu!’

The female Pikachu rushed the little Eevee and Hanta screamed, “copy it!”

Eijiro watched startly as Eevee ran away from Pikachu with its own Quick Attack before rounding on the little yellow mouse Pokemon. Denki shouted, “jump in the air and use Thunderbolt!”

The move hit its mark and the little Eevee screamed. Hanta shook his head agitated and countered with, “Swift!”

“Dodge it!”

Pikachu ran from the attack and then jumped in the air last minute, “now use Electroweb!”

‘Pika-CHU!’

Eevee screamed under the trap and Hanta looked desperate, “Eevee! Try to Bite your way out!”

“That won’t work!” Denki laughed on the other side, “Pikachu finish it with another Thunderbolt!”

A huge explosion of electricity filled the arena. When it disappeared Eevee lay on its side dizzy and unable to continue. The referee called it out and Hanta picked the little Eevee up sadly. Once positioned back in place, he threw out his second. Which turned out to be a Herdier. Eijiro frowned at it and Katsuki laughed harshly. It was already strange to purposely keep an Eevee as an Eevee instead of evolving it, but he also only had a Herdier? That was fine for a trainer starting out but against some of the trainers here he couldn’t hope to really win. Despite him trying desperately to not be so pessimistic, Eijiro couldn’t honestly see this guy beating that Toru girls Pokemon. He was lucky to win by default.

“How boring,” Katsuki dropped back into his chair with a huff, “lets just go home.”

“No way man,” Eijiro half smiled at him, “win or lose I’m seeing him through.”

The loud annoyed groan that escaped the blonde caused the four of them to burst out laughing, “arrgghhhhh.”

Despite Eijiro making a point about watching Denki, Katsuki kept distracting him. At first it was just small grunts and groans. Then it became poking, followed by the blonde pulling on his sleeve needily. Finally Katsuki became so insufferable that Eijiro snapped, “you’re being a brat, dude!”

“Entertain me.”

“Entertain yourself!”

“Kacchan… seriously.”

“Shut up, Deku!”

“He has a point though!” Eijiro leveled with him, “I’m trying to watch-”

“Too late Ei, it's over,” Yosetsu called from further down.

Eijiro froze and glanced at the arena to see Hanta calling back a defeated Herdier, “dammit Katsuki!”

“Why are you hassling me for!?”

“Why do you think!?”

“Honestly Kacchan, you deserve it.”

“Stop defending him dammit!”

“Hey angry Dandelion, shut up!”

“Cockroach!! Take that back or I’ll kill you!”

Katsuki jumped out of his chair and Eijiro had to pull him away before he punched Togaru, “seriously. Is this what I’m signing myself up for!?”

The blonde froze wide eyed as he was ripped away by the redhead, “what!”

“You heard me!”

“I thought you said-”

“You’re causing a riot. Be quiet and lets go!”

Katsuki allowed himself to be pulled another two feet before pulling his arm away and walking past Eijiro pointedly, “don’t walk in front of me!”

The redhead rolled his eyes, “you really do have a terrible temper.”

The blonde frowned and stared at his feet as they walked. Once they were alone in the lobby he turned back to Eijiro, “sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he sighed before turning toward the big screen. Katsuki followed his eyes before standing next to him, one hand laying casually on his hip.

“Who do you think we’re fighting?”

“Well not each other for sure.”

It wasn’t long until the four matches flashed on the screen:

Togaru vs. Hitoshi
Dabi vs. Izuku
Eijiro vs. Shoto
Denki vs. Katsuki

The blonde desperately searched the screen before busting out laughing. About the same time Eijiro heard a strained scream followed by distressed footfall. Something large ran into his side and Eijiro nearly buckled under the weight as it whined, “Eiiiiiiii, tell me I don’t have to fight that crazy ass boyfr-”

Eijiro flushed and shoved him hard on the floor, “Denki, get a hold of yourself!”

Denki pushed himself off the ground the same time Eijiro felt an arm wrap around his shoulders. Katsuki leaned off him with the most unhinged and terrifying face the redhead had ever seen on him before as he hissed out, “prepare to die Sparky…”

“EI!”

“I didn’t make the line up!”

“Besides,” Izuku hummed, appearing out of seemingly nowhere, “I’m the one with the challenge.”

“How do you figure?” Hitoshi added. He had walked up behind Denki and was dusting the dirt off his back from where he hit the floor, “I’m the one fighting a type disadvantage.”

“Because I feel like a win between any of us would be a win for all of us. Unless he wins.”

Katsuki scoffed. He still hadn’t pulled his arm away as he snarkily replied, “the only win is if I win.”

“Same goes for Togaru I bet,” Eijiro added, still trying to contemplate why his heart was beating so fast over what Denki had foolishly tried to insinuate.

“Mannnnnn, I can’t believe I lost! You better look out Izuku, that Dabi is fierce!” Tetsu cried from across the room, running toward them with Eijiro’s other two friends.

Tetsu pulled Izuku into a heated discussion over his opponent, while Togaru was grilling Hitoshi about theirs. It seemed like cheating, and Eijiro was honestly glad he didn’t have to talk to Shoto before their own match. Of course it would be fun to treat it like a battle between friends, but they couldn’t forget it was a competition and only one was moving on. He had to go focus on a last minute training session, that much he was sure on. Eijiro heard the tide of conversation shift and glanced up to see Katsuki arguing with Izuku over something. Had he really been that tuned out? Eijiro glanced over to the pair to overhear Izuku inviting Katsuki out to lunch before the showcase started. He seemed way too excited to attend, and the blonde was sniffing out the underlying reason way too fast.

“You’re so pathetic.”

“W-what!?”

“That brunette’s in it.. Isn’t she?”

“N-no- you mean Ochako? No way-”

“Liar!”

Denki leaned into the conversation, apparently recovered from the shock of having to verse Katsuki, “ooh yea she totally is! Her and Mina! That's why they were here in the first place you know!”

“That actually makes.. so much sense,” Eijiro sighed in relief, “I was wondering why they showed up with only one Pokemon each.”

Katsuki sneered in a self indulging way, “little simp.”

“Like you’re any better!” Izuku riled on him getting pissed. Katsuki froze and he felt the arm tighten around his neck. How long had it been there now?

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

“The rest of us do,” Denki laughed excitedly, glancing between Eijiro and Katsuki.

His face started to heat up again, but Katsuki was on the other blonde in an instant, tearing his arm off his shoulder to grab Denki’s collar, “after tomorrow you’re going to piss your pants when someone even mentions a battle!”

“EEP!”

Hitoshi threw Katsuki’s hands off and stepped in front of him, “leave him alone.”

“You wanna go!?”

Togaru laughed, “back off, he’s my kill!”

Hitoshi shot the bug a evil look but Katsuki started laughing as well, “let’s fucking bet. I can kill Sparky with just Charmeleon!”

“Hah! I’ll take purple out with Scyther, no problem!”

“Use two and you owe dinner for the entire group!”

Eijiro sighed annoyed, “you two are ridiculous.”

“I’m not done with you either,” Katsuki snarled, “you owe me a rematch!”

“Then you better not lose,” Eijiro sneered before turning back toward Denki and leading him away, “come on Denki.”

Hitoshi glared between the two riled trainers before following after Eijiro and Denki, “they’re insufferable.”

“Tell me about it,” Denki whined.

“I left Tetsu and Yo with Togaru. Hope that was a good idea,” Eijiro deflected.

“So, uh.. Ei..”

“One word and I swear Denki.”

“Come on dude, you can’t just keep avoiding me!”

Hitoshi glanced between them curiously, “what am I missing?”

“Oh just that Cacturne back there has a massive crush on Ei and-”

“That was obvious though.”

Eijiro let out a whiny note, “come on guys, this isn’t cool.”

“I’m just saying!”

“I’m going to head out, catch you guys later?”

“Wait, Ei! Where do you keep running off to? You’ve been gone every night since we got here!”

“Training dude, what else?”

Denki got a mischievous look on his face. Eijiro immediately knew he was about to say something he would hate, so he waved goodbye and disappeared before the blonde had the chance. Luckily it was free of trainers and he was able to throw out Onix and Lycanroc immediately. His Pokemon stretched and bugged him for attention before they both started training hard. Eijiro talked to them for over an hour about their new opponent and the type of Pokemon he had. Eventually he started to doze off and felt a massive weight lay on his lap. His hands instinctively ran through Lycanroc’s rough fur around his neck before he slipped off completely. That was until a boot kicked him in the ribs lightly.

“You call this training!?”

Eijiro grumbled sleepily, and felt Lycanroc stretch on him with a massive gravely yawn, “who's there?”

Another kick to his side had him jolting awake, “argh!”

A brisk goofy laugh filled the area as Katsuki kneeled down next to him, “I brought you food. Get up.”

“W-what?” Eijiro pushed himself up and Lycanroc off before his eyes fell on the white paper bag, “no dude. I was supposed to take you out-”

“It’s just two Malasadas.. I got you sweet.”

Eijiro thought about it for a second before his eyes widened, “wait.. They have a Malasada stand here!?”

“Yea, at the stadium.”

“That was.. extremely thoughtful of you. Thank you,” Eijiro shot him a goofy grin before the blonde hauled him off the ground and to a bench to eat.

“So what even are these things,” Katsuki snarled, unwrapping his own. A spicy one. Eijiro took a mental note of that.

“It’s like a type of fried donut. They’re extremely good!”

Then he thought about it for a second, “wait.. If you’ve never had them why did you buy them?”

Katsuki turned away from him pointedly before saying, “it said it was from Alola. Seemed like something you would like.”

Eijiro’s heart froze as he stared at him, “hey.. Uhh.. Katsuki?”

“What.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, “nevermind. Thanks man.”

“No problem.”

They helped each other train the rest of the day while the rest of their friends stayed behind to watch the showcase. After a few hours, Eijiro crashed back on the bench with a huff and looked at Katsuki, “so why did you come here instead of watching the showcase?”

“Why the hell would I want to watch a bunch of frilly girls twirl on a stage.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing harshly, “wait, but that's why every guy wants to watch it?”

“Then why aren’t you there.”

Eijiro frowned and stared at Onix, who just slung rocks at a dodging Typhlosion, “doesn’t bother me to miss it. Besides, my Pokemon needed the training. You said so yourself.”

“You just contradicted yourself.”

“I know. If I had nothing else to do I would have gone. It is interesting to see how the Pokemon utilize their moves to make their trainers look cool. I don’t really care about the girls though.”

“Do you not find them attractive.”

It was so flat and cold that Eijiro startled. He thought about it hard for a moment before squeaking out, “honestly I always found myself watching the Pokemon more than the girls. I mean, I do know a pretty face from an ugly one, they just don’t interest me.”

“Hey..”

Eijiro turned to look in the calculating red eyes of the blonde, “you should probably figure out what you like, shouldn’t you?”

“I think I already have honestly,” Eijiro shot him a challenged look before smirking.

Katsuki’s face drained of color and the redhead barked with laughter, “come on, let's get back to training.”

They trained in silence the rest of the night. The next morning Eijiro and Denki were the first two up. Which was surprising as it was usually Yosetsu waking them up in time. They both were jumping in excitement and Denki pulled Eijiro out of the hotel and to the stadium before they could even eat breakfast. Instead of going to the stands, they just stayed in the waiting room. Shoto was already there when they arrived, but no one else of the eight was yet. He waved curtly at them and came over to say hello. They talked for nearly thirty minutes before Hitoshi walked in looking cross. Almost immediately after he came in Togaru and Katsuki walked in together arguing over something as usual. Hitoshi took another annoyed look at them before turning toward them.

“Insufferable.”

“What are they fighting about now?”

Hitoshi met his warm red eyes with purple rage, “Denki and I!”

“Oh no,” Eijiro laughed, “that stupid bet?”

Denki whined, “seriously? Battling is supposed to be for fun..”

Hitoshi laid a hand supportively on his shoulder, “have fun with it.. don’t let that sour fruit ruin it.”

“Hey Denki, faint Charmeleon and I’ll buy you lunch for an entire month.”

“SERIOUSLY!?”

“On my honor,” Eijiro smirked while casting the blonde a furtive look.

“Hell yes! I’ll put my all into it now!”

Denki took off with Hitoshi, leaving him with Shoto. The two toned man watched them go with interest, “has he really accepted defeat already?”

“Hell yea, we know what Katsuki has.”

“It’s just a Charmeleon. Jolteon should be able to beat it.”

“He has a second Pokemon you know. We all do.”

“That's right,” the icy man remembered, “that's why you four were pulled. What was yours again?”

Eijiro smirked and looked away, “you'll just have to battle it out of me.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he dipped his head in understanding before departing.

Eijiro was pretty sure he should have known it was Rockruff, but maybe with the hundreds of trainers at the beginning no one remembered. It wasn’t long until the first battle was on its way. Kirishima snuck out to the tunnel with Denki to watch Hitoshi battle. Togaru was on the opposite side cracking his knuckles menacingly. The referee called the match and both boys sent out their Pokemon at the same time. Eijiro wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Scyther, but he was to see Alakazam right out of the gate. He was probably hoping that Scyther was the strongest Pokemon Togaru had. If he beat Scyther he would have a chance at winning. There was truth in that.. If Eijiro didn’t know what the Alolan boys second was. Scyther managed hit after hit, and Alakazam was starting to feel it.

It slid backwards with a grunt just as Togaru yelled, “x-scissor!”

“Wait, what!?” Eijiro leaned forward curiously, “when did Scyther learn that!”

“Just yesterday,” Denki answered immediately, “I hate to say this but..”

They both watched as Alakazam hit the ground with a groan. Eijiro finished for him, “he’s absolutely screwed.”

Sure enough Scyther dropped Espeon too quickly. The pair shook hands and Hitoshi walked out of there looking defeated. Eijiro pretended not to notice when Denki patted the purple haired man on the back in comfort. They fist bumped Izuku as they passed him and headed back into the waiting room. Eijiro glanced around and noticed that Katsuki was missing. Which wasn't particularly weird but he would have gone with the blonde for moral support as he watched his friend. He didn’t have long to think about it because Denki had pulled him into a deep conversation about poke puffs. They heard giant crushing sounds coming from the arena and knew it had to be Incineroar fighting Izuku’s fighting Pokemon, but they tried their best to ignore it. With any luck Izuku would win the match and they could kick Dabi goodbye.

They were never that lucky. Eijiro headed to his designated tunnel on Dabi’s side and watched the giant cat drop an unconscious Lucario. Dabi laughed maliciously, “you’ve been hiding it this whole time, but it was weaker than your first! How pathetic!”

For the first time since Eijiro could remember meeting Izuku, the man looked pissed and shouted back, “you don’t know the meaning of sportsmanship!”

“Get over yourself. I’ve broken no rules.”

Directly after the match being called, Dabi turned away from Izuku as he called Lucario back and strutted back toward the tunnel. Eijiro stood up straight and as menacing as possible before giving a heated glare into those evil turquoise eyes, “you’re an asshole. I hope I get to battle you.. I’ll make you regret it.”

“That's the same threat that cocky blonde gave me,” Dabi sneered, “you four foolishly thought you were special because you got this far with only a single Pokemon right? How naive. I just burned that theory.”

He said nothing else as he passed Eijiro smirking. He bristled in rage and stormed out to take his position. Not that he really meant to, but his face was still distorted when he faced off with the quiet cold two-toned man. One who was giving him a curious gaze, “did something happen?”

“Uh,” Eijiro corrected himself, “sorry! Are you ready to battle, Shoto!?”

His switch from angry to energetic appalled the man worse but he replied, “yes, of course.”

He heard the announcer call their names and locations before the match. Eijiro threw Onix out at the same time as a beautiful nine-tails. Eijiro couldn’t help a small smirk at it. Shoto was starting out with his strongest Pokemon in the ring, which meant he didn’t at least underestimate Eijiro. He appreciated that, and he would pay the same courtesy. Onix wasted no time to curl around itself and prepare for an attack, and Eijiro was ready to jump on the opportunity.

“Dig!”

“Ice Beam.”

Onix tunneled under before the fast shooting ice could hit them, leaving the other Pokemon trainer unnerved.

“Aim Extrasensory at the ground to locate it!”

“Niinnee,” it called back elegantly before doing just that.

It’s head whipped to its left and Eijiro swallowed. He didn’t know that move could work like that, and waited patiently for Onix to show itself. Shoto started to command the Ninetails to do it again when the giant rock Pokemon shot up out of the air behind the fox before hitting it harshly with its tail. Ninetails went flying with a devastating cry before tumbling nearly a hundred feet away. It pushed itself up, covered in dirt and no doubt bruises, but it wasn’t giving up yet.

“Extrasensory!”

The move washed over and hit Onix, and the giant rock snake ignored Eijiro’s command as it flinched.

“Quickly, Blizzard!”

An entire snow storm came shooting fast at his Pokemon, and Eijiro wasn’t sure what to do, “Onix, Rock Slide!”

He heard the Pokemons rawr just as the storm hit, but soon after heard loud pounding before a high pitched cry. When the storm disappeared, Eijiro was staring at an annoyed Onix trying to hide the hit he took, and a very weak Ninetails struggling to stand.

“Finish it with Slam!”

Ninetails tried to use Aurora Beam against Onix, but it was simply too fast and crashed into the fox’s body before it could so much as shoot off the first movement of the attack. It went flying across the ring, dropping unconscious right at Shoto’s feet. Eijiro breathed out in relief as they called it, taking time to recompose himself. For having the type advantage, Shoto didn’t go down easy. That was saying a lot for his strength. However, Glaceon wasn’t a fraction as strong as Ninetails was. Although Shoto was creative and did his best, Eijiro still managed to take down the Pokemon with Onix. Even though Onix was running on fumes and was moments from collapse. The match was called and he immediately called his Pokemon back before shaking hands with Shoto.

“That was a good battle,” Eijiro smiled warmly.

“Yes, it was. Unfortunately I lost, but the chances of me winning this competition against two fire trainers and a rock was already low.”

“Two fire trainers?”

Shoto nodded curtly, “we both know who is the winner of the next match.”

He swallowed hard and dipped his head respectively before turning away. Even if Katsuki was a lot stronger than Denki, he couldn’t bring himself to give up on his best friend that easily. He found Denki at the end of the tunnel looking sick, and immediately pulled him into a hug.

“You got this man. Remember, you only gotta take down Charmeleon for the bet!”

“Mannn,” Denki whined, “this is such a waste of time!”

“No it's not,” he laughed then, “go out there and have fun, and don’t let him scare you!”

The blonde gave him a pointed look, “take out Charmeleon..”

“Yea man! Free food for a month!”

Denki nodded with the most serious expression he had ever seen on him before he shoved past the redhead and disappeared in the tunnel. Eijiro walked slowly back to the waiting room, not really wanting to see the fight at all. Watching his new friend attack his old, and probably destroy Denki’s confidence, was not something he wanted to watch at all. He heard the sounds and cries of battle, but tuned them out as he paced toward where they would all meet up for the final match up. As soon as he entered the waiting room he knew something was up. Staff members and Togaru were crowded excitedly around the television and Eijiro managed to look up just as a final blow sent dirt and fire flying in all directions, masking the cameras.

He caught Denki’s worried expression, as well as Katsuki’s focused. Then the blockage dispersed, revealing a downed yellow Charmeleon. Eijiro’s heart jumped out of his chest as he ran toward the television.

“Is it unconscious!?”

Togaru started to speak but then the announcer did it for them, but he didn’t just call out Charmeleon. The rest of the dirt settled to reveal an equally knocked out Pikachu. Eijiro gaped at the screen, “Jolteon.. Was it..?”

“Knocked out,” Togaru nodded slowly.

The match was called in Katsuki’s favor and he watched the blonde adopt a confident sneer as he called back his Charmeleon and shook hands with the other blonde who was now cradling Pikachu. Eijiro lost his shit when Katsuki petted the small mouse Pokemon, before saying something to Denki that looked like it gave him a mental breakdown. Then Katsuki turned away from him, raising one hand in goodbye as he disappeared in the tunnel and out of sight. There was mass hysteria from the stands as everyone discussed the last fight, but Eijiro was just still too shocked to comment back to Togaru who was chatting determinedly about strategies. He was still in a daze when a soft hand on his shoulder pulled him around.

“What's wrong with you.”

Eijiro looked into Katsuki’s piercing red eyes before chuckling, “what did you say to Denki to make him go all stupid?”

The blonde deflected away immediately, “not important. What's important is I won my bet, and you lost yours.”

Realization hit him and he was shortly after tackled by Denki, “I did it! You owe me food for a MONTH, Eijiro!”

“No, no, no,” he immediately teased, “I said knock out Charmeleon to reveal his second. You didn’t do that bec-”

Katsuki bopped him on the head amused, “don’t be a sore loser.”

“HAH!” Denki laughed in his face, “even HE agrees with me!”

Togaru frowned at them all, “I wonder which one of us gets-”

The screen flashed up brightly and the four of them immediately turned toward the flickering lights. The four names darted off the screen sporadically before ending so abruptly that Eijiro had to blink to process what it said:

Katsuki vs. Togaru
Dabi vs. Eijiro

He felt his stomach fall and barely registered Denki’s arm around his shoulder trying to comfort him. Katsuki and Togaru were too busy clashing their heads against each other, literally, as they screamed bloody murder at each other. Eijiro didn’t really have the energy to deal with them and instead allowed Denki to lead him out of the stadium and out into the crisp afternoon air for a long awaited dinner. He poked at his food for too long before Denki finally sighed and kicked his shin from across the table.

“Dude. Stop looking so gloomy!”

“I’m just thinking..”

“No you’re brooding and that's not like you!”

“I’m in the final four, man. This battle is going to be high stakes and intense!”

“You have the type advantage!”

“Yea, but that Incineroar-”

“Is just a push over!” Denki finished confidently.

“Denki-”

“Come on man, get ahold of yourself! You’ve never been this depressed about a fight before!”

Eijiro gave him a small smile before eating. They split up after that so he could go train. Surprisingly he found Katsuki already there with Typhlosion arguing with it. He plopped down in one of the stands and watched the two scream and growl at each other. Charmeleon had his arms crossed at the pair before noticing Eijiro and giving that Pokemon smirk that the trainer took as it being pleased.

“Char.”

“Hey,” Eijiro smiled at it as it crashed in the stand next to him and leaned part of its back against the trainer boredly, “how long have they been fighting.”

It raised both of its arms annoyed and full of sass, “MELEON!”

He laughed at it, narrowly avoiding its heated tail as it whipped around, “should we break it up or do you just want to watch the place burn?”

The Pokemon seemed to think about it entirely too long before reaching for Eijiro’s belt and pulling off his pokeball containing Lycanroc. The giant wolf materialized and nearly barked, but the Charmeleon shushed him. He could see the mischievous look in the creature's eye as it gave the Lycanroc instructions. It nodded it's fluffy head before crawling on all fours toward the pair sneakily. The smirk grew on the yellow Pokemons face as Lycanroc tackled the blonde to the ground and attacked his neck with kisses and nuzzles. Katsuki screamed annoyed, but Lycanroc didn’t give up until Typhlosion picked it up effortlessly. Lycanroc barked happily at it, wagging its burly tail fast.

Katsuki wiped at his neck disgustedly before glancing around the arena until his eyes fell on the two in the stands, “what the hell!?”

“You looked good like that,” Eijiro shot back laughing.

Charmeleon gave the redhead an amused look that only pissed Katsuki off worse, “I didn’t know trainers could use Attract. Thats bullshit!”

Eijiro glanced at the Charmeleon still leaning against him, “on it or you?”

Katsuki froze, the color draining from his face, “w-what!?”

He laughed then, eating up the frazzled look, “so are we training or are you going to keep yelling at poor Typhlosion all night.”

“No! Tell me what you meant by that!”

Eijiro shrugged and stood up, calling Lycanroc back, “I guess see you tomorrow then.”

He jumped from the stands, ignoring Charmeleons annoyed grunts before Katsuki yelled, “wait- where are you going!?”

“To a different arena?”

Katsuki looked visibly wounded, “..why.”

“I really need to train man,” he shook his head, “Lycanroc is still weak and-”

“And now I’m not a good enough sparring partner!?”

“Not if you’re just going to scream at your Pokemon all night,” he frowned, “I know you might think you have it in the bag with Togaru, but you’re seriously underestimating him! He beat me and I had the type advantage too.”

Katsuki gaped at him, considering the words before turning to look at the very much annoyed Charmeleon, “stay. We’ll get serious.”

Eijiro smiled softly at him with one hand on his hip before throwing out both of his pokeballs, “that's what I like to hear!”

When they finished, all four of their Pokemon were worn out. Katsuki leaned against Eijiro yawning, and he laughed at the whole situation, “it's hilarious that to calm you down I have to wear you out.”

Katsuki leaned his head back annoyed, “oh shut up.”

“I’m frankly jealous.”

“Hah?”

“Fighting Togaru is a lot of fun but Dabi…”

He trailed off upset, showing his insecurities for the first time that night. That was until Katsuki bonked him on the head again, “win or lose you’re strong as shit.”

“I don’t want him to win though,” Eijiro’s face fell worse, “I want it to be one of us three.”

Katsuki snorted, “it’s going to be me.”

“Uhuh,” he teased back before standing up. Katsuki barely caught himself before he could fall backwards, “well I’m going to head back. Probably should get a good night's sleep and all.”

“Hey..”

“Yea?”

“That Attract thing you asked about..”

Eijiro glanced away long enough to call both of his Pokemon back, “what about it?”

Katsuki thought about his next words before shaking his head, “nothing. Don’t lose tomorrow.. Kay?”

He froze, suddenly feeling uncomfortable, “I’ll try.”

“What kind of attitude is that shit!?”

“A bad one.”

“Well do better!”

“Yay!” Eijiro boasted with false energy, “I’m gonna kick ass!”

“Close but MEAN it!”

He smiled at the annoyed blonde softly, “I’m just kidding. Of course I’m going to give it my all, I always do!”

“As for after,” Katsuki tried, lost in thought again, “you offered me going to Hoenn with you...”

Eijiro’s eyes lit up, “no way dude! Are you coming!?”

“I might.”

“Hell yes dude!”

Eijiro flashed him a sunny smile, and the blonde cleared his throat before looking away, “but I only have four on my team.”

“Oh,” Eijiro faltered before counting off on his fingers, “well I only have five. I’m planning to catch an Aron in Hoenn to finish my team.”

Katsuki smirked, “shooting for an Aggron?”

“Yea man,” he smiled back, “it looks badass!”

The blonde smirked slightly before it fell one sided, “I’ll need two more..”

As they left the arena, Eijiro thought out loud, “alright. You have an Infernape, Rapidash, Charmeleon, and Typhlosion.”

“Yea, though the Rapidash sucks.”

“Trade it for something then,” he commented softly before adding, “you still need two more... I got it!”

“What,” he asked, smirking slightly.

“We're in Kalos right now, go catch a Fennekin! I know they’re kinda too cute for your taste but.. Delphox is part physic! You could use the edge like that.”

Katsuki considered it, “that's not a completely shitty idea..”

“As for your fifth, what about Torchic?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Why not!”

“I’m not raising a glorified fire chicken! Besides, I already have a fighting type..”

“Galar has Scorbunny?”

“Thats WORSE!”

Eijiro thought about it hard before snapping his fingers, “Togaru!”

“Hah?”

“He lives in Alola! I got an idea!”

Before Katsuki could question him further the redhead disappeared, leaving the blonde gaping after him. Eijiro slid into the Pokemon Center and called Professor Yagi. On the third ring he picked up.

“Eijiro my boy! How did the tournament go?”

“It’s still going, sir! I’m in the final four with two friends!”

“Oh? Who might they be?”

“A crazy strong fire trainer named Katsuki and Togaru from Alola!”

“I’m not the least bit surprised Togaru made it that far,” the man smiled widely, “is there something you need, or were you just checking up?”

Eijiro paced on his feet, “actually yes! I left a lot of my gear there with you along with my Pokemon. I’m pretty sure I have a metal coat.. Can you check?”

“Of course, give me a second.”

The professor came back holding the item as well as being accompanied by a shaking Sudowoodo, “wooo-do!”

“Hey Sudowoodo! How are you feeling?”

“Sudo!”

“It misses you quite extensively. Make sure to call me as soon as you get into Hoenn so I can send you it and the others!”

“I will,” Eijiro promised, “can you send that over please, professor?”

“Is there anything else you need young Eijiro?”

He shook his head, “I don’t think so!”

“So why do you need this item anyways?”

“Oh! You need a metal coat to evolve Scyther!”

The Professor gave him an odd look, “Eijiro my boy. You have Rock Pokemon.”

“I-I know that!” his face heated up embarrassed, “its for a friend!”

“That's very kind of you to give that to Togaru.”

“Not exactly,” Eijiro flushed harder, “my friend Katsuki wants a Pokemon from Alola and I know Togaru could find him one. But Tog won’t do anything unless it benefits him, so I have to sweeten the pot?”

“I see. You’re giving it to this Katsuki so Togaru will help him out by trading his Scyther to evolve it.”

“Yes!”

“That's pretty smart. However, are you sure Togaru will be okay with this?”

“I have a plan for that too,” Eijiro smirked as the Professor transferred the item. He said goodbye to both man and Pokemon before running back to the hotel.

The next day he caught the blonde by the wrist at the Stadium. It was still really early, but Eijiro was hotblooded and ready for battle after a morning training session. Katsuki raised one eyebrow at him so he released the blondes wrist and dug in his bag for the item. He shoved it in Katsuki’s hand with a wild smile. He looked it over curiously before giving the redhead an annoyed glare.

“Why the hell do I need this.”

“That will allow Scyther to evolve through trading.”

“..and?”

Eijiro smiled at him too excitedly, “you like bets. Bet on your match today. If you win, he’s gotta catch a Turtonator for you. If he wins, you help him trade his Scyther to evolve it.”

Katsuki stared at the item before a malicious smile crossed his face, “holy crap that's genius! I’m pissed I didn’t think of it!”

“I know you like very competitive Pokemon with attitudes. Togaru is the best person to pick you out a Pokemon because he battles in a similar sty-”

Eijiro couldn’t finish his sentence before Katsuki jolted forward, hugging him tightly. His voice cracked and his eyes widened as the blonde gruffed out quietly, “thanks.”

His face flooded red and he hugged him back weakly, “y-you're welcome..”

“Holy... EI!”

They both broke apart startled to see Denki staring at him wide eyed, “is THIS why you left early this morning!?”

“N-NO! I was training!”

“Uhuh,” Denki flatly spat out, “shouldn't you both be in the waiting room??”

Katsuki cleared his throat and turned away, disappearing in the crowd of people who came to watch. Denki elbowed Eijiro in the side, “so uh… what was that?”

He choked out, “he just randomly hugged me!”

“I SAW that, WHY!?”

“Oh uh-” he paused, realizing he probably shouldn’t talk about the bribing bet, “well I did say it was random?”

Denki gave him a hard gaze that meant he didn’t believe him, “whatever man. Just ask him out before he ‘randomly’ kisses you.”

“DUDE!”

Denki glanced at the time, “you better go-”

Eijiro followed his eyes and jumped, “yea, see you later!”

“Good luck!”

Eijiro walked into the waiting area to find Katsuki and Togaru head to head arguing. He sighed at them before crashing on a chair. Once they seemed to have come to an agreement, the blonde confidently strutted over to him before plopping down next to him.

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

He smiled at the blonde, “you’re helping him regardless, right?”

Katsuki smirked at him, “maybe.”

Eijiro shoved him laughing, “what about the trade?”

He thought about it for a second, “what kinda bug Pokemon do they have in Hoenn?”

He checked his pokedex before answering, “you can get a Wurmple, Surskit, Cascoon, or a Nincada”

“Tch,” he responded, not liking the answer, “Nincada is the only acceptable one.”

Eijiro scrolled through his pokedex again, “we can check route 116 for one then. I’ll need to go to Granite Cave at some point to search for an Aron.”

Katsuki nodded as an announcement called him to the stadium, “times up.”

He jumped too energetically on his feet before flashing Eijiro a cocky smile. The redhead just smiled back and responded, “good luck man.”

“Luck? I’m gonna win it!”

“EH!?” Togaru called from across the room, “bring it on Blondie! You’ll all buzz and no bite!”

Eijiro shook his head amused as the two left the room arguing amongst each other, trying his best to ignore the harsh set dark headed trainer in the corner of the room. Eijiro glanced up at the television as he watched his two friends take the stage, glad they were now streaming the fights on the giant screen. Katsuki and Togaru shook hands too roughly, both sneering at each other as they took opposite ends of the stadium. The announcer took the attention once again as he called out toward the cheering crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, today is IT! Three battles, ONE winner! We will have two consecutive fights followed by a short break for healing, then the final two will go at it until we have our champion!”

The crowd roared louder before he beamed, “our first fighter is Katsuki Bakugo from Johto! So far all we know is he has a shiny Charmeleon! What could his second be!?”

Even from down here he could hear the mass thumping personally of everyone stomping their feet, “Katsuki isn’t the only one who hasn’t revealed their second yet! Battling him today is Togaru Kamakiri from the Alola Islands!”

More cheers before the announcer went on, “all we know is he has a crazy strong Scyther! What could his second possibly be!?”

Eijiro smiled as Togaru confidently prepared his first Pokemon with a smirk as the announcer finished his tirade and yelled, “and begin!”

They threw at the same time as per rules, and Eijiro leaned over his chair as he watched Charmeleon take center stage followed by-

The redhead choked and double took. Togaru’s plan this entire time had been the same as Katsuki. He didn’t want to reveal his hand before he had to, however he PURPOSELY sent out his second Pokemon BEFORE Scyther was taken out. Eijiro desperately tried to think of the reason as he watched Katsuki’s stunned expression on the big screen before he decided on something. Togaru knew he had the type disadvantage and knew he had to be creative. So he was going to grandfather his strongest Pokemon in before he had too much trouble with the fire. It was brilliant, it was- It was perfect for Golisopod after all.

Togaru sneered and shouted, “First Impression!”

Katsuki had been too stunned to move and it cost him. Golisopod sped forward and hit Charmeleon harshly in the gut. The lizard Pokemon stumbled backwards with an annoyed grunt, and Katsuki bellowed back.

“Flamethrower!”

“Use Sucker Punch!”

Golisopod braved the flames to attack the Charmeleon again. This time it went flying back, and the massive bug Pokemon rawred in triumph. Charmeleon pushed itself off the ground determinedly, its face screwed up and furious. Katsuki was shouting at it heatedly but he couldn’t hear it over the massive cheering. Eijiro watched as Charmeleon squared off with it, using Flamethrower and Fire Fang while Golisopod used Sucker Punch repeatedly.

Each Sucker Punch did major damage to Charmeleon until the Pokemon dropped to his knees again. Charmeleon forced itself to stand again, but Golisopod was already on it. The yellow Pokemon jumped out of the way from another attack barely, and panted heavily as it watched the giant bug stalk towards it determinedly. Katsuki’s face was cold and he was shouting at it a new strategy. Then Togaru shouted a command that was equally as heated, and he watched the blonde’s face fall as he realized just what was about to happen. Before Liquidation could hit Charmeleon, Katsuki called it back. Thus eliminating the Pokemon from further use. The cheering stopped with the surprise, and Eijiro could once more hear their voices.

“I don’t know whether to be embarrassed for you or impressed!”

“Oh shut the hell up!” Katsuki snarled back, “there was no coming back from that and it deserves better!”

The blonde shuffled on his feet annoyed as the referee called him to send out his second. Togaru looked simply hungry. They never did tell him what Katsuki had, and he had been patiently waiting. Eijiro chanced a glance back at Dabi as Typhlosion hit the ring, getting a mass array of gasps and cheers. Dabi however, looked completely unaffected. Not a hint of surprise on his face at all. Like he knew exactly what the blonde had already. Eijiro bit back his insecurities and instead faced the television again where he saw Togaru double take at the massive fire Pokemon. Katsuki was now sneering, bellowing just as loudly as Typhlosion was as it faced off with what would have been an equal opponent had Charmeleon not chipped its health down to basically nothing.

The two went at it hardcore until he heard Katsuki scream, “Fire Blast this asshole!”

“Liquidation!”

The two moves hit, canceling each other out but Katsuki wasn’t down, “get in there and use Hidden Power!”

It landed, and he watched mesmerized as Golisopod jumped back to recover. Togaru mercilessly shot back in, “Sucker Punch!”

“Stop him with Earthquake!”

Togaru’s eyes widened but it was too late. Typhlosions foot came down, shattering the entire ring and destroying everything in sight. Golisopod’s feet came out from under it and it struggled to stand back up. While it was trying to get a handle on its footing, Katsuki sneered triumphantly at it and yelled at Typhlosion to finish it.

“Kill it with Fire Blast!”

He watched Togaru reach for his Pokeball the same as Katsuki did, but the Fire Blast was simply too fast. Golisopod bellowed in pain and when the fire lapped into the air and disappeared, the Pokemon was lying unconscious. With a heavy heart Togaru called it back, looking sick to his stomach. Eijiro watched Katsuki’s face relax and knew he was talking to his Pokemon to prepare it for the next battle. Shortly after Togaru recovered enough to throw out Scyther and the two wasted no time to crash together just as before. The only issue was that Scyther had no ace up his sleeve like Golisopod did. He had three flying moves and one bug, and Typhlosion was taking them like an absolute champ.

“Lava Plume!”

“Air Slash!”

They both grunted, but neither refused to go down. Despite Scyther looking worse for wear.

“Hit it with a Wing Attack!”

“Fire Blast it into next week!”

Scyther managed to miss most of the Fire Blast, but it cut it enough that the Pokemon lost his momentum and ended up falling short on its own attack. Katsuki capitalized on it and screamed.

“Hidden Power!”

Scyther screeched as the move hit, and skid backwards digging its massive blade arms into the ground to stifle its impact. Then Togaru shouted, “X-Scissor!”

“That won’t work!” Katsuki shouted back, “Fire Blast!”

The bug Pokemon tried to dodge the Fire Blast again, but wasn’t quick enough and stumbled. The fire hit it full force and everyone heard its cry. It was on the ground, but it wasn’t out. Everyone held their breaths as it forced myself to stand weakly but determined, looking pissed at being that beat up. Katsuki gritted his teeth and started gesturing with his hands, Typhlosion copying his movement silently. Togaru gaped at them, but soon recovered.

“You’re alright Scyther, get up close and use Slash!”

It sped toward Typhlosion, but it was running. Another mistake.

“Earthquake!”

Scyther tried to fly over the debris, but it jumped up too late and got caught in the jolting rock. It wasn’t enough to finish it, but it slowed it down enough for Katsuki to scream, “finish it with Lava Plume!”

“Wing Attack!”

There was a massive cloud of dust and banging as the two Pokemon hit each other, but it quickly settled to see Scyther on the ground knocked out, Thyplosion looked heatedly down at it like the match had ended too quickly. There was stunned silence as everyone processed the winner before he heard the announcer scream Katsuki’s name out to the crowd. They both called their Pokemon back before stiffly shaking hands. Katsuki’s nerves looked shot to hell, and Togaru looked annoyed. They had just started to turn away when Eijiro and Dabi were gestured out of the room by staff members. His fingers slid around Onix’s Pokeball nervously. Then the other spoke to him, voice dry and quiet.

“I know EXACTLY what you have, so don’t be stupid enough to think you have a edge.”

Eijiro swallowed. Originally he hid Lycanroc to have an edge over his opponents but then all of his friends made it to the finals. He thought that versing Dabi might have still given him that chance, but then he figured out that this asshole was probably affiliated with the ones who tried to steal Katsuki and the girls Pokemon. Even so, it was still a major accomplishment to have got to the final four with really only his Onix. He stiffly walked to the entrance, pausing to notice Togaru waiting for him leaning against a wall. He looked highly irritated, but relaxed slightly at seeing Eijiro there. He smacked the redhead hard on the back to try to encourage him, immediately reading his broken expression.

“Whatever that fuckwit said, ignore him. Go out there and battle with all you got, and don’t regret anything.”

“He knows I have Lycanroc.”

Togaru startled, “that's impossible!”

Eijiro shook his head softly, “it's not. I revealed it to the criminals who tried to steal Katsuki’s Pokemon. We’re uh.. Pretty sure that he is with them.”

His face fell from shock to bristling anger, but Eijiro was being called to the stadium so he couldn’t stay and discuss it further. Eijiro walked stiffly out to take his place, not missing the bored expression on his opponent's face. It wasn’t the nerve of it that irked him, it was the simple fact that Dabi knew what he had and was capable of, but wasn’t the least bit fazed. His mind was racing fast, trying to desperately come up with a worthy counter attack. Onix would be the one with the best chance against Incineroar, but.. He would expect that. Marowak was strong but not indestructible. In fact from previous fights Dabi relied more on the cat than the bone loving Pokemon. His thoughts were ripped away by the announcer shouting again.

“First in the ring is the blood thirsty Dabi from Alola! These Alolan trainers I’m telling you! They are pretty tough for only just now starting their own league!”

Dabi visibly scoffed and rolled his eyes. Eijiro had half a mind to wonder if he was really even from Alola or he was just using that as a front the same as his single name. It would be easy to fake as both of his Pokemon came from the Islands.

“Dabi has been a consistent victor in these battles, but this should be an interesting battle! Due to placement issues, four trainers were given the go ahead to sit OUT one of the brackets due to their killer skills! Dabi has already successfully knocked out the fighting trainer Izuku to claim this spot! Now once again he is fighting another of the selected four! How.will.this.end!?”

There was mass uproar, and Eijiro just glared at the bored man detestfully. Then the announcer jumped back in, “fighting Dabi is the rock lover Eijiro Kirishima from Kanto! Eijiro has used his Onix for nearly this entire tournament! However, there was an instance at the very beginning where the fiery haired boy used a Alolan ROCKRUFF! Will Dabi manage to pull the little pup out today? Let's-get-this-going!”

Eijiro clenched onto Onix’s ball as Dabi prepared to throw his first Pokemon. It was a rouse. He called the bullshit. He wanted to scare Eijiro into showing Lycanroc because of that comment. No, there was a chance the fire user had no idea what he had up his sleeve. He would start with Onix and see how far it got him. Then Lycanroc could sweep in and clean up the mess. Besides, he had an ace up his sleeve too and Onix just learned a new move all on its own. Eijiro suppressed a smile as the referee waved his hand and he threw out his Pokemon. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Incineroar, but Dabi had been to see Onix. Which only confirmed what Eijiro feared worse.

“Stealth Rock!”

Dabi’s eyes slid to the Onix as it bellowed. It was the ace. The secret move that no one knew he had. One of two he hadn’t shown. Several jagged rocks broke out on Dabi’s terrain, instantly damaging any Pokemon he calls out. The only trick was Eijiro actually had to beat Incineroar to wipe out a large portion of Marowak’s health. Dabi wasted no time in his assault. The massive fire cat running straight toward Onix at blazing speed.

“Cross Chop!”

“Stop it with Rock Slide!”

Incineroar closed in on Onix, and the giant rock snake set the entire stadium up with massive slating rock. Incineroar tried to dodge but was having trouble, and got caught on a few of the boulders but didn’t stop his advance. He caught Onix in its exposed front, and the Pokemon let out a strong bellow.

“Now use Darkest Lariat!”

Incineroar cried in anger before starting the move, spinning like a top. Eijiro waited for him to come within range before shouting, “Iron Tail!”

He watched Dabi’s eyes light up surprised but it was far too late. Onix hit the cat to the other side of the ring, cutting off its move and hurting it. Incineroar bellowed as it pushed itself up, scraping the dirt off itself and giving the Onix a look equal to murder.

“Get up close and use Fire Fang, avoid the rocks.”

Eijiro glanced up at Onix, who was giving him a curt nod. They needed no words to be able to avoid that attack. Just as Incineroar closed the distance, Onix bolted underground. The cat paused in front of the hole and Dabi looked lived.

“Use Flamethrower down it!”

Incineroar roared and copied but Eijiro was ahead of them, “come out and double up on Iron Tail!”

There was a strange pause and he watched Incineroar bolt away from the hole, his feet planted wide trying to listen to the movements. Onix must have teased it underground, because both trainers watched the giant cat dart to the left from an area just to be jumped mid air from below. Onix came shooting out of the ground hitting Incineroar right in the gut before twirling away to knock the cat back to its side of the ring with a brutal uppercut from Iron Tail. Incineroar let out a pained growl as he skidded across the ground, before Dabi gave it another command and it started running back toward Onix at lightning speed to attack again. The two clashed harshly again, hitting a mixture of Iron Tail and Cross Chop.

“Don’t let it get away, Flamethrower!”

“Rock Slide!”

The rock slid through the flames effortlessly but did little to stifle the heat. Both Pokemon growled in agony until Eijiro shouted, “Iron Tail!”

Onix’s tail hit the cats crossed arms, and they both were pushing back and forth trying to get the drop on the other. Everytime one would get a good hit, the other would manage to come back swinging harder. It's as if the challenge fueled them worse and it felt like a never ending battle between them. Until another Cross Chop had Onix stumbling, and Dabi managed to get in with Darkest Lariat. Onix bellowed painfully, and burrowed underground to protect itself. Eijiro was panting from the sheer tense feeling and Dabi no longer looked cool and collected. He had an annoyed look on his face, barely visible through his attempted stone faced mentality. Incineroar paced the ground pumped up, ready to throw down again.

All of the sudden Onix popped up behind Incineroar and the cat whirled around and caught it before it could attack. He lit the rock Pokemon up with a Flamethrower before chucking Onix away. It went flying, rolling several times before weakly lifting its head. Incineroar seemed to calm down then and almost seemed sympathetic with it. It hesitated, and Dabi was furious with its initial weakness.

“Kill it, Darkest Lariat!”

It growled annoyed at Dabi before crossing its arms in defiance. While it was refusing, Onix managed to recover enough to use Iron Tail on it. Incineroar went flying out of sight and Eijiro shouted back, “Rock Slide!”

“Flamethrower!”

The two collided again for probably the third time and the whole arena was covered in thick dirt. Eijiro held his breath before shouting, “Onix?”

The dirt subsided, and Eijiro was staring at two unconscious Pokemon. They both were called out and just as he was calling Onix back he watched Incineroar push itself up. It was looking directly at Eijiro with a determined look and he realized just what it had done. It faked fainting. He gaped at it as it gave him a smirk similar to Charmeleons before it was called back. He retrieved Onix and watched as Dabi cursed his Pokeball before chucking Marowak out. Eijiro stared at it as his fingers closed around Lycanroc’s ball. He didn’t miss how Dabi’s interested smirk grew, and suddenly he decided on something. This asshole didn’t deserve Incineroar. It had a fighting spirit, but it seemed to disapprove of Dabi’s training methods. It faked losing to help Eijiro.. He wanted to help it.

He held his Pokeball high in the air before clicking it. Lycanroc came out growling, shaking its head and the smirk grew on Dabi’s face. Eijiro glared at him from across the stadium, “alright Dabi. I’ll tell you what.”

The man’s face fell harshly to detestment, and Eijiro went on, “let's make a little wager.”

Interest tore through Dabi’s face as he considered the rock trainer, “what.”

“If I win, you have to give me Incineroar.”

Dabi faltered, his face widening partially in shock before snapping, “and if I win?!”

Eijiro kneeled down to pet Rockruff between his ears sadly, “can you win this?”

“ROC!”

He swallowed before pointing down at the Lycanroc that the stadium was losing their mind over, “my Lycanroc.”

Dabi seemed to consider it before a sneer crossed his face, “you’re stupid if you think that the mutt has any chance against my Marowak. I’ve been training it for years, you’re just giving your Lycanroc away.”

Eijiro riled pissed, “then you should have no problem with the bet then, huh!?”

He glanced at the referee before looking back at the determined face on Eijiro, “whatever.”

“You agreed to this in front of thousands of people. There's no turning back.”

The referee nodded between them before calling the match. Dabi wasted no time, “Will-O-Wisp!”

A whitish blue fire hit Lycanroc, and he was burned. The dog growled through it, preparing itself to fight before Eijiro yelled, “get close and Bite!”

Lycanroc shot through with blinding speed, but Marowak deflected the hit with a Shadow Bone. Eijiro shouted, “Rock Tomb!”

Dabi startled, but it was too late. Marowak tried to jump between the rocks but was crushed, and Lycanroc used that to put distance between them.

“Flame Blitz!”

Marowak came shooting out of the rock with a vengeance, his head low and dangerous as he charged Lycanroc with fire. The dog tried to jump out of the way but was caught on his hip. He went lying with a large whine, and braced himself by digging his giant claws into the ground.

“Bite!”

Dabi almost sneered at the move, “Shadow Bone!”

Lycanroc ended up biting the bone, and the two were pushing each other until Marowak managed to dislodge the wolf Pokemon and hit it away. Lycanroc came back around immediately, growing more and more agitated, “Rock Tomb!”

It howled as it attacked again, and once again Marowak took another hit but managed to avoid most of the damage as it came back around with Bonemerang. With every hit Lycanroc was taking damage from the burn, and was starting to wear down. It barely avoided the bone, and jumped in personal for another Bite. Marowak took it before hitting him point blank with Shadow Bone. Lycanroc flew backwards and braced itself as it growled lowly. It was panting in pain, and its anger pushed itself over the limit to the point its eyes flickered red again. Eijiro worried it was losing its mind and shouted over it.

“Control it Lycanroc! Utilize it, don’t let it consume you!”

The wolf growled harsher, digging his claws in the ground while Dabi considered it curiously, “Flame Blitz.”

“Stop it with Rock Throw!”

Lycanroc paused confused, before something flashed in its eyes defiantly. Instead of singer rocks chucking at the smaller opponent, a massive rolling mess of boulders and rocks shook the ground and hit it. Marowak wasn’t expecting it and took the full force of the hit whereas both trainers just gapped at it. That was Rock Slide. Something Lycanroc must have just taught itself or learned and Eijiro hadn’t noticed. Sheepishly, he recovered before Dabi shouting.

“Good job, follow up with Bite!”

The Pokemon tore through the destroyed ground to catch Marowak, who countered with Flame Blitz. It caught Lycanroc before it could land its hit, and once again the wolf flew back injured. It pushed itself up growling, but Dabi was sneering.

“Give up. You have no hope. Hand over your Lycanroc before we have to hurt its confidence by destroying it.”

Eijiro had never seen red so much, and the wolf copied his anger physically. Its eyes slid red, and it growled harsly as it approached Marowak. The trainer screaming back, “we’ll never go down! We’ll never give up! You can break us, leave us crippled, but we will get up twice stronger! Right, Lycanroc!?”

It howled in answer, eyes infuriated and heated. The two clashed again, move after move being caught and once again the stands were losing themselves. This had been the longest fight they have had yet, and neither Marowak or Lycanroc was giving up.

“Rock Tomb!”

Marowak tried to beat the falling rubble away with Shadow Bone, but there was simply too much and it was buried again. It kicked it away furiously before charging Lycanroc with Flame Blitz. Eijiro called Rock Slide and he watched as the Pokemon helplessly tried to jump over the rumble but its foot eventually got caught and dragged under. It pushed itself up shakily, equally as worn out as Lycanroc. The burn was doing its job, and the wolf was panting worse than ever before, its head drooping slightly. It’s eyes were still red, but the fire was nearly gone.

“Don’t give up, keep pushing! We never back down, Lycanroc! Think of the consequences!”

It howled back at him before it braced itself, “Bite!”

Marowak threw another Bonemerang and it barely clipped Lycanroc before the wolf got a good bite out of the Pokemon slamming it into the ground. It cried in anguish and tried to hit Lycanroc with a Shadow Bone but the wolf had already leaped away and used Rock Tomb. Once again the Marowak was incased, and time passed without it showing itself. Lycanroc crawled on its stomach as it approached it, waiting for it to come bursting out. As soon as it did it used another Shadow Bone with half its normal power, Eijiro gave no time for it to recover.

“It's weak! FInish it with Rock Slide!”

Dabi screamed, the first time Eijiro had ever heard him freak out, “DODGE!”

It scaled the rocks once more, but Lycanroc was just too powerful. It got caught under the mess again and as soon as it peaked its head over the rubble caught, Eijiro bellowed, “Rock Tomb!”

“NO!”

Marowak desperately tried to pull its foot loose, but it wasn’t quick enough to avoid or hit away the rocks falling from above. There was dead silence from the stadium as the referee walked forward calling the near faint Lycanroc back. He shifted through the rubble before his eyes fell on the knocked out Alolan Marowak.

“Marowak is unable to battle, trainer Eijiro Kirishima wins!”

The stadium erupted in nonsense and Eijiro didn’t bother to call Lycanroc back at all. Someone handed him burn heal and he sprayed it. Lycanroc licked his face appreciatively before following behind Eijiro to confront the surly Dabi. He expected the man to deny shaking his hand again, but the man bitterly offered his hand. Eijiro stared at it before smiling and shaking it firmly. The man tsked and called his Marowak back, still eyeing the Lycanroc that was wagging its tail happily at winning.

“It’s strong. They both are.”

“Thank you. Your Pokemon are incredible too.”

Dabi snorted and glared away, “ones yours now I suppose.”

Eijiro considered him before stating, “I guess it is.”

“Why.”

“Why what?”

“Why did you want a fire/dark type? You're a rock trainer.”

“Ah,” Eijiro thought about the answer before smirking borderline unhinged, “one of my friends wanted Incineroar. I’m sure you understand.”

Something akin to slight recognition crossed his face, and then fell borderline hatefully, “well you aren’t getting shit out of it. It’s a defiant cuss no matter how much I train it!”

Eijiro shrugged, “meet us at the Pokemon Center to trade in a half hour.”

He turned away then, smirking to himself as Lycanroc continued to growl at the man. He found Katsuki waiting for him at the end of the tunnel, rushing up wide eyed, “what the FUCK!”

“What?” he smiled innocently.

The blonde grabbed his shoulders and shook him, “why would you take such a risk!”

“Risk?” Eijiro blinked, trying hard not to smile at Lycanroc’s growling. It’s eyes were back to a pleasant green, but it still seemed rather annoyed at the blondes lack of confidence in it.

“Yes, RISK! Why the hell would you put Lycanroc on the rock for that idiots Incineroar!”

“Simple. Incineroar threw the match,” he smiled warmly, “it faked fainting because it didn’t want Onix to lose. I wanted to save it.”

“What if you lost!?”

Eijiro glanced down at the now snarling Lycanroc, “I don’t think it would ever give up on us that easy.”

Katsuki glanced down at it before relaxing, “fine. What are you going to even do with an Incineroar.”

“Oh,” he startled, “it's yours! Duh!”

“WHAT!?”

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “I got it for you! It deserves a better trainer but also one that still loves to fight. Besides, you need more strong fire Pokemon?”

Katsuki’s jaw dropped, “you’re nuts. You officially lost it.”

“We gotta meet him soon so we should probably go,” Eijiro smiled, leading Katsuki through the busy crowd out of the stadium. They had a couple hour intermission before their battle was scheduled, and Eijiro explained everything to Katsuki until they stopped just outside the Center's door. Katsuki frowned at him, as if he was still contemplating the whole exchange.

“But why.”

“Huh?”

“You helped me score a Turtonator, and now you’re giving me a fully fucking trained Incineroar!? This is too much!”

Eijiro considered it before elbowing him softly, “I really REALLY want you to come with me to Hoenn. Consider it a repayment for that date the other day?”

He walked away before the blonde's face could flush or voice stammer, and entered the center. Dabi was leaning against one chair looking burly and hateful. Katsuki followed in stone faced, trying to control his heated emotions both for the redhead and Dabi. Eijiro helped him call his own Professor for a Pokemon to trade, and was surprised to see Katsuki ask for Rapidash. They approached the man, who barely glanced up at them. Katsuki released his shiny Rapidash, a bright blue tearing all of their attention. Dabi smirked at it, and Katsuki relaxed.

“I don’t give a shit if it's a bet winning or not. I’m not giving you some fucking scrub for a Pokemon you’ve been training for years. It needs work, but it's still strong. You like blue fire types.. Right?”

He nodded curtly before releasing Incineroar. They barely exchanged looks at the Pokemon before both called them back and dropped them in the trading machine. Eijiro held his breath as the transfer took place, and only released it when Katsuki released the Incineroar who looked extremely confused until its eyes fell on Eijiro who just smiled weakly at it. Katsuki watched Dabi approach the Rapidash, petting its nose. Something it never allowed Katsuki to do. He tsked and turned away from the idiot.

“Take care of it or whatever,” he bit out harshly.

Then he gestured Eijiro toward the counter to heal their Pokemon, calling back both the Incineroar and Lycanroc who seemed rather pleased by the exchange. Once they were all healed and healthy again, the pair left the center together. They managed to make it back to the stadium but was stopped by Dabi who was blocking the entrance. He leaned back against the door looking indifferently at them both, and it pissed Katsuki off. The blonde stormed up toward him, his hand on Typhlosions ball threathinly. Dabi considered him before shaking his head.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“You’re the one barring the door like a phycopath!”

“Do you honestly think I would pick a fight with you after losing to carrot top here?”

Eijiro startled and Katsuki stepped protectively in front of him, “what the hell do you want!”

Dabi glanced boredly back at the building before shrugging, “the League is my home, but I still respect those who can beat me. So I’d hate for your Pokemon to be stolen before I can get a rematch.”

“Is that a threat!?” Katsuki bristled, now pulling the pokeball of his belt.

Eijiro frowned, “no, it's a warning.”

The other trainer pushed himself off the door and started to walk away boredly, one hand in the air, “catch you later.”

They both frowned back at the door to the stadium, “there's going to be trouble.”

“Lets just battle as normal and be ready,” Katsuki nodded, “maybe I’ll kick Onix’s ass around before they fuck it up.”

“Hah,” Eijiro mocked him, “you’re delusional if you think I would ever let that happen!”

“Bring it on, Red,” he smirked back.

They were walking through the crowd before Eijiro paused, “wait.”

“What.”

“If he really is part of the group who steals Pokemon, why would he actually show up to trade out Pokemon? He could have just bolted and we wouldn’t have been able to do a thing!”

“Maybe he has pride or some shit. I don’t know, don’t ask me to explain idiots like that!”

Eijiro frowned before Katsuki sighed, “thanks by the way.”

He smiled warmly at the blonde before throwing his arm over his shoulder, “no problem, Katsuki.”

“No seriously,” he tried to stress, “how the hell am I ever supposed to help you pay this back!”

“I’m sure you can think of a few things,” he laughed warmly before they stumbled into their friends.

Denki tackled him into an energetic hug, “holy crap, Ei! You won! You beat that jerk and made it to the final two!”

“Quite an achievement,” Shoto nodded.

Izuku sighed, “we all started to think he was unbeatable.”

“Not only that but you won an Incineroar? What was with that?” Itsuka asked sweetly.

“It didn’t seem happy with him,” he shrugged, “besides Katsuki needs more Pokemon for the league.”

They all screamed and he realized too late how suggestive that was. The blonde’s face heated up and he glanced away as he threw out the Pokemon. Incineroar came out bellowing cockily before looking around confused. It saw Eijiro and pulled him into a hug, purring. He braced against it turning as red as its fur as everyone gaped at him. As soon as he put it down he saw the blonde’s pleased smile, his ears were still slightly pink. Then Incineroar turned toward Katsuki curiously before offering its paw to shake. Katsuki double took after it before giving it the faintest smile and shaking it harshly. Everyone around was still gaping speechless, but Katsuki managed to find his voice.

“You’ll fit right in. The other Pokemon love this redheaded sunny asshole too.”

A wide fangy smile appeared on Incineroar’s face before it turned toward the still flushed Eijiro pointedly growling softly. Eijiro cleared his throat, “I just- you looked like you needed a better trainer? Katsuki is amazing. He’ll push you hard but he really cares and-”

Eijiro was pulled into a crushing hug and felt his back pop unnaturally, “u-rgh-”

“Hey!” Katsuki snapped, hitting the cat's giant arms repeatedly to release Eijiro. As soon as he dropped Katsuki flooded around him protectively, “watch it! You’ll break him dammit!”

“T-thank you,” he choked out, using the blonde’s shoulder to stand back up right, “it’s just excited.”

“I know that!” the blonde riled back.

Eijiro crashed on a chair to catch his breath as everyone flooded Katsuki with questions. Once everyone was caught up, as well as Katsuki accompanying them to Hoenn, they all calmed down and relaxed. Denki wished him good luck before disappearing in the crowd with Hitoshi, and the others eventually disappeared as well. Katsuki then led them to the empty waiting room, releasing all of his Pokemon. Eijiro cocked an eyebrow at him curiously, but Katsuki had already attacked him to steal him from his belt. As soon as the blondes fingers closed on them he startled, but it was far too late to stop him as they both materialized in the room. Onix had to lower its head slightly to not scrap it on the ceiling.

Katsuki glanced up at the giant rock Pokemon, “okay, maybe that was a stupid ass idea.”

“I’d say,” Eijiro laughed, “it's going to have to really duck its head to get out.”

The blonde hummed amused before stating, “I just thought it would be cool as shit to walk out with them already ready to go. Like a power move.”

Eijiro watched the poor Incineroar be brutally judged by Charmeleon and Typhlosion. Then both Pokemon glanced past the cat and gave annoyed looks at Katsuki that was equivalent to ‘what the hell is this shit.’

He suppressed laughter as Katsuki snapped heatedly at them, “it’s part of the team now, whether you like it or not!”

“Pokemon drama aside, sure man we can do that! Onix be careful not to destroy anything, alright?”

It growled at him softly and he smiled at it as Lycanroc tried to jump on Charmeleon playfully. They watched them interact despite the fact they were about to battle each other to the point of knock out. Then he felt something be pressed in his hand. He looked down to see two full revives.

“What is this man?”

“If that asshole was telling the truth, we need our Pokemon immediately after each fight. We can’t be caught with our pants down.”

He nodded as he pocketed them, “I’m going to go find the police and war-”

“I already sent that half n’ half one to do it,” Katsuki interrupted before smirking, “relax. You’re going to need it considering who you’re battling.”

“Cocky aren’t you,” he laughed warmly, “mmm, I think we can take him. Don’t you Lycanroc?”

“RUFF!!”

“It says you’re screwed.”

“HAH!” the blonde riled, “that mutt doesn’t know what power is!”

“Well we DO have the type advantage..”

“Then let's make this interesting,” Katsuki sneered.

“No way,” Eijiro held his hands up in defeat, “your bets are going to be the death of me.”

“What are you, scared!?”

“No, just not stupid,” he smiled.

“Weak,” he snorted before turning toward his three Pokemon who all looked curiously at them, “accepting defeat already.”

“Fine!” he shot back heatedly, blood pumping faster than before, “what's the terms!”

Lycanroc barked loudly before bounding over to him to half crawl in his lap like he was still a Rockruff. Eijiro petted him absentmindedly as Katsuki sneered, “Onix versus Typhlosion. First one to faint of the two pays for dinner. A nice one too, not some cheap ass joint.”

He startled, looking up into a pair of confident red eyes the opposite of his own, “a-are you trying to indirectly ask me out?”

Katsuki considered it too long before he pushed his head up cockily, “Ya. Got a problem with it?”

He let out a choking sound, and all of the Pokemon around crowded them interested in the commotion. His face heated up and it just caused the blonde’s confident sneer to widen harsher.

“So? Yes or no.”

Eijiro swallowed hard before extending his hand. Katsuki took it and shook it harshly just as he responded out, “yea man, you’re on! But I won’t lose so you better have that wallet ready!”

“Hah, you don’t even know what you’re walking into! I-”

“Attention trainers, Katsuki Bakugo and Eijiro Kirishima to the arena.”

They exchanged looks before fist bumping, Eijiro laughed, “lets just have fun, alright?”

The blonde smiled back, “then you won’t mind if I take the trophy!”

He took off running out of the room like a defiant child, his three Pokemon startling and rushing after him. Eijiro looked up at Onix’s blank expression before busting out laughing, “come on guys, lets go kick that snarky blonde into next week!”

Onix did have trouble getting through the halls, but managed it alright. He glanced at both of them as he walked through the dark corridor and into the arena. The Announcer was going nuts about them already, “Eijiro Kirishima the rock-hard trainer all the way from Kanto vs. Katsuki Bakugo the fire supernova from Johto! These two young men are incredibly talented, and have extremely strong Pokemon! Let's give them a round of applause for making it to the final bracket!”

The cheering was ridiculous but heightened even louder when they noticed the Pokemon already out of their balls, “oh-woah! What's this!? Both trainers are walking into the ring with their Pokemon already out! Even more big news! What's that the blonde has, an INCINEROAR!? The very one that Eijiro won yesterday in his battle against Dabi? What is going on!?”

He saw the smirk on the blondes face from across the arena as Incineroar made a big scene flexing its muscles and growling. Charmeleon basically rolled his head annoyed, and Typhlosion just smirked at it. Katsuki waved it off since it wasn’t fighting, and it leaned against a wall cockily, preparing to watch from the sidelines. They both stepped up to the plate, listening to the referee without breaking eye contact. There was something feral in Katsuki’s eyes, and only then did he realize that he hadn’t fought the trainer since they first met. He smirked teasingly at the blonde, which made the other snottily throw his nose up. There was no need for Pokeballs, Onix and Typhlosion took their spots without the go ahead from the referee. He glanced between the two young mens confident faces before shrugging and calling it.

“Onix, Stealth Rock!”

“Close the distance while it's distracted and hit it with Hidden Power!”

It found its mark, and the two clashed against each other.

Katsuki shouted, “don’t let it use Dig, Fire Blast!”

Typhlosion bellowed, throwing a massive close distance fire attack. Eijiro clenched his teeth and shouted, “Dodge!”

Onix tried to avoid it but it was far too slow. Katsuki burst out laughing from the other side, “seriously!?”

“It’s distracted, Iron Tail!”

“FUUU-”

Onix slammed the Typhlosion away before Eijiro laughed, “you have Earthquake stupid! Why would we dig!? Rock Slide!”

“You can’t win spamming two moves! Typhlo use Lava Plume!”

The flames washed over Onix, burning him but otherwise did little damage, whereas Typhlosion bellowed in pain. Onix closed the distance again and used another Iron Tail the same time it used Hidden Power. They crashed against each other for what felt like an eternity, slowly wearing each other down before Katsuki got irritated and lost his cool.

“Enough of this shit, EARTHQUAKE!”

“Use Rock Slide and ride it out! Don’t give him a chance to use it again then Dig!”

Onix bellowed over his commands, and Katsuki could barely react as Typhlosion grounded his feet to start the Earthquake. Both Pokemon were struck around the same time before Onix bolted underground. Katsuki screamed pissed, getting an equally irritated rawr from his Pokemon. When the Onix didn’t resurface, the blonde lost all patience entirely.

“Earthquake aga-”

Onix came up from directly under Typhlosions feet, slamming it several feet while it rolled over. It shot out a Fire Blast in self defense, but Onix pushed through the heat and pain once again to close the distance with another Iron Tail. Typhlosion grit through the attack and hit Onix with Hidden Power again. The two went at it once more for what felt like an eternity until the snake's head dipped weakened, and Typhlosion looked moments away from falling over. Eijiro seized his chance.

“Rock Slide!”

“Earthquake!”

The moves hit the same time again, and Eijiro held his breath as Onix held strong. He lost Typhlosion in the mess and was hopeful it fell. That was until it jumped through the dirt and hit Onix point blank with Hidden Power. It bellowed and fear gripped Eijiro.

“Grab it with your tail and throw it in the air, then use Iron Tail!”

Its grumbly cry was all he needed to know it was well received. He watched mesmerized as Onix’s giant rock tail grabbed Typhlosion around the middle and chucked it up. It tried to escape but Onix was surprisingly quicker, hitting it right in the center with an overpowered Iron Tail. It went flying across the room but still managed to chuck a Fire Blast at them weakly. Onix took the brunt of the hit as Eijiro shouted at him to use Rock Slide again. The move hit just as the massive fire Pokemon was pushing itself up, and it fell once more. Eijiro stepped forward hesitantly to get a better look while ignoring the blondes outraged screaming. The referee called it before he could tell for sure, but he nearly fell backwards relieved as Typhlosion was called out.

Eijiro almost celebrated his luck until Onix let out a whiny cry and fell forward exhausted. Katsuki’s eyes widened before he started busting out laughing shrilly, “are you shitting me!?”

The redhead simply smirked back at the blonde as they both stepped forward to retrieve their Pokemon. He whispered just loud enough for only Katsuki to hear, “looks like you owe me a dinner date, Katsuki.”

He looked up with a happy sneer, “better this way. I have a feeling you think fast food is good.”

“Oh no,” Eijiro faked looking affronted at the insult below the belt, “this isn’t going to work out between us, Denki and I NEED junk food!”

“Hell no,” he laughed goofily, “If you travel with me you’re getting homemade food EVERY NIGHT!”

Eijiro smiled at him warmly before giving the near faint Onix a pick me up. It slowly groaned and rose up before trudging off without hesitation to rest. He watched it go before turning back to Katsuki. The blonde was supporting his just revived Pokemon that looked like it was still catching its breath.

“That sounds amazing actually. I’m glad I met you.”

He stuck his tongue out at the blonde when Katsuki’s ears turned red, and turned back to take his position as the blonde led Typhlosion off the arena. Lycanroc jumped forward eagerly, staring down Charmeleon who was smirking back at it. Katsuki lazily flicked one hand and Charmeleon unfolded its arms to take its position. The blonde gave him a confident look before shouting over the Announcers loud ramblings.

“Wanna bet on this one too?”

“Nah,” Eijiro laughed, “my lucks bound to run out!”

He scoffed, annoyed, “whatever.”

“Ready?” the referee asked, obviously amused at their blossoming relationship.

They both nodded and the match was called. It was frankly brutal. Charmeleon, even being friends with Lycanroc, held nothing back. Still managing to avoid several of its attacks damn near flawlessly. It was crazy how fast both Pokemon could be. Charmeleon avoided as many Bites as Lycanroc avoided Fire Fangs to the point both trainers just stopped trying. Katsuki tried a new tactic involving Dragon Breath and Flamethrower, but Lycanroc would just counter back with Rock Slide and Tomb. They both were hiding their fourth move and Eijiro just knew he had an ace up his sleeve. He desperately tried to figure it out as he revealed the power he had been holding out on. It wasn’t particularly strong against fire types, but was strong enough itself.

“Giga Impact!”

Katsuki’s eyes widened as Lycanroc closed the distance between them and hit Charmeleon right in the chest. It fell back with an annoyed growl, taking a heavy damage loss from the sheer power of the punch. Then the blonde started laughing.

“You messed up, Eijiro!”

“H-huh!?”

“Charmeleon!”

It turned back toward him and the blonde nodded curtly. The sneer on the creature was near terrifying as it charged Lycanroc, “brace yourself!”

He watched as it dug its claws into the ground just as Charmeleon hit it point blank with Brick Break. Eijiro gaped between the move and the blonde, who looked entirely too proud of himself.

“You did that just to beat my Pokemon!”

Katsuki laughed shrilly, not the fun goofy sound but the focused one that made him sound intimidating, “another Brick Break while it's recovering!”

Charmeleon bellowed and attacked the whining Lycanroc again. The wolf went flying back, unsteady on its feet. Before it got angry and that drove it to win. Now, against its friend, it simply didn’t have the will to do it. Eijiro frowned at it before trying, “Rock Slide again! We’re not giving up yet!”

“Another Flamethrower as it runs toward you!”

Fire and rock. Rock and fire. Eijiro was sick of the headgames. Lycanroc started its move and watched Charmeleon be pelted before rushing to break the distance, but the fires slowed it down to the point it dropped to its stomach with a whine. Charmeleon stood over it uncomfortable, and Eijiro sighed in defeat. The referee was stock still. Lycanroc wasn’t out, but it wasn’t fighting either. Charmeleon could easily finish it with one move but refused to, the same as Incineroar did before. Eijiro caught the cat watching intensely, and shouted over the confusion.

“Don’t you DARE hold back on me, Katsuki!”

“What! But-”

“Charmeleon! Fight! Don’t insult Lycanroc, it's a lot stronger than you’re giving it credit for!”

That seemed to stir both of them, including the wolf itself, because Lycanroc forced itself to stand its eyes shining a beautiful crimson to match his trainers. With a massive howl it snapped at Charmeleon's ankles as Katsuki hesitantly called out.

“Your funeral. Use Brick Break again!”

Charmeleon went in for the kill, and Eijiro shouted over it, “one final hit, Giga Impact!”

It was make it or break it. They would either knock each other out, Eijiro would get lucky, or he would be unlucky and Charmeleon could fight through it. They hit another the same time, once again bathing the ring in a loud explosion and dirt in all directions. Eijiro held his breath, his nerves shot to hell and sweat falling from his forehead. The referee ran forward in the muck and it felt like they were waiting for ages as the man tried to locate the two Pokemon in all the nonsense. Just as Eijiro was sure something was wrong, the man screamed as loud as possible.

“Lycanroc is unable to battle! The winner of the tournament is Katsuki Bakugo!”

Eijiro nearly fell to his knees disappointed as the crowd and announcer lost control. He managed to accept the defeat with a grain of salt and walked through the still swirling bile to find his knocked out wolf Pokemon. He kneeled down next to it to use the full revive Katsuki had handed him. Lycanroc stirred awake with a soft whine before licking his face. He buried his hands in its rough fur before his own face to hide his emotions before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up to see Katsuki and Charmeleon standing over him smiling. He took the hand and stood up before hugging the blonde in front of the entire stadium. He ignored his friends cat-calling and whistles, and allowed his smudged face to stain Katsuki’s flawless.

“Hey, what the hell,” he whispered in the redhead's ear, “losing to me can’t be THAT bad.”

“It's not that,” Eijiro barely managed to let out, “it's all of it. This was just supposed to be a silly thing to pass time with Denki.. for fun! Then it became this huge battle and I got really far. I met you and saved you from a bunch of criminals. I made a lot of new friends and.. and I betted one of my most prized Pokemon to save another. It's been nothing but nerve racking!”

Katsuki sighed against him, “well get it together. Everyones watching and this hug has been ENTIRELY too long.”

He pulled back with a smirk and Eijiro was nearly overwhelmed by Lycanroc jumping up on his shoulders to lick his face. He laughed as he shoved the Pokemon off before Katsuki grabbed his hand and lifted it upwards with his own. The crowd went crazy about it and he watched elated as Lycanroc ran circles around Charmeleon playfully, biting at it to instigate play. Annoyed, Charmeleon shot weak Flamethrowers at it while Lycanroc easily avoided them. They walked arm and arm until Katsuki climbed up to take his trophy and winning flowers.

He chucked the trophy at Typhlosion who caught it one handed, then smirked before throwing the flowers at Eijiro. It would have been a romantic moment had Lycanroc not jumped out of nowhere and stole them midair. There was mass laughter from the stands as an even more annoyed Charmeleon chased after a too elated Lycanroc. Eventually Onix joined in on the pursuit to get the flowers away, and Eijiro watched amazed as Incineroar eventually pursued them as well. Katsuki jumped off the podium and landed next to him after he got pictures taken, smirking.

“What absolute idiots.”

“They’re our idiots,” he shot back with a small smile.

Katsuki considered him before scoffing, “dumb dog ruined the moment.”

“Probably for the best,” Eijiro flushed a little brighter, “everyone might think you went soft on me in that fight.”

“I did,” Katsuki sneered, barely avoiding Eijiro’s punch.

“Take that back!”

“Never!” the blonde shouted before scaling up Typhlosions back and sitting on its shoulders, “hah! Fuck off!”

“Onix!”

Katsuki’s eyes widened and he hit his Pokemon repeatedly on the head, “move it asshole! Fast- go!”

Eijiro barely extended one hand before Onix’s massive head dipped down and lifted him up like he was nothing. At this point the crowd should have been thinning out, but they were far too entranced in watching the two fool around with each other as Onix chased Typhlosion out of the arena, the other three right on their tails. Flowers still triumphantly in Lycanroc’s mouth. They called back Onix, Typhlosion, and Incineroar for easy healing before they realized that the League never did strike. They were discussing it quietly as they walked toward the front of the building. Standing just outside was their ragtag group of friends, including an overly excited Denki who hugged him.

“I thought you were going to go all moody over losing, but then you two put on quite a show!”

Eijiro laughed warmly while the blonde rolled his eyes and snapped, “had to do something to cheer him up! He looked like a kicked puppy!”

“No,” Izuku smiled, “Lycanroc looked like a kicked puppy.”

The wolf cocked its head confused at him, tilting the flowers down. It was distracted enough that Charmeleon managed to rip the bouquet out of its mouth. Lycanroc growled and snapped back, but the lizard boredly held the trophy and flowers high out of its range. They started bickering back and forth in Pokemon speech, and Katsuki couldn’t help but smile at them before taking the flowers from Charmeleon and shoving them in Eijiro’s chest. Denki’s eyes flashed dangerously as the others made a ooo~ sound. The blonde just returned Eijiro’s flushed face with a confident sneer.

“Consider this a small start toward your repayment.”

“R-repayment?”

“Although it's gonna take a lot of petty shit like this to make up for two strong ass Pokemon.”

“TWO!?” all of their previously quiet friends shouted.

Katsuki sneered at them before gesturing toward Eijiro, “it was HIS idea to bet Bug-face for a Turtonator.”

“EIJIRO KIRISHIMA!” Togaru bellowed, pushing his sleeves up to punch the frazzled redhead.

“Wait, dude!” he tried, “it's not like that!”

Katsuki rolled his eyes and pulled out the metal coat, “yah, Cockroach. I’m still trading with you.”

Togaru faltered slightly, “what..”

Eijiro smiled at him, “I asked him to, don’t kill me!”

Tetsu glanced between them before busting out in laughter, “this is just great! See, after we tour the city we’re all splitting up ourselves! Yo, Itsuka, and I are heading to Alola with Togaru so we can all go hunting for one! Also, Izuku is going to Galar with Shoto, Mina, and Ochako-”

“WHAT!?” Katsuki bristled, turning toward the nervous looking green haired man.

“Well,” he deflected, “we usually always travel together but you’re running off with Eijiro so-”

“So you just weren’t going to tell me where you were going!? IDIOT!”

“I was going to later!” he argued, “I just decided today!”

Hitoshi stepped forward annoyed, “that Hanta guy already left and I’m heading home too. I’ll see you two around, okay?”

Denki pouted, “I thought you were sticking around to tour the cityyyyy.”

The purple headed boy shook his phone at him, “something came up. Text me when you get back to Kanto, I’ll meet you in Pewter City… promise.”

Eijiro returned a small cat-call that caused the entire group of people to burst out laughing and Denki to flush, “EI!”

“What?” he asked innocently.

Katsuki elbowed him, and it was nearly impossible to avoid laughing. They walked down the street after that to get something to eat together one last time. Everyone was lively discussing the battles, and only then did Eijiro and Katsuki overhear what happened regarding the league. Shoto leaned forward and told the entire table how Officer Taishiro caught a few shady individuals sneaking in through a back entrance and cut them off. They managed to catch a young blonde lady who fit Eijiro’s description and another, but the rest had run off. He was sure they would eventually come back, but they did manage to eliminate the threat before it became an issue again. Katsuki scoffed from where he was sitting, throwing his head back on the booth annoyed.

“Cowards. Eijiro and I had full revives on hand, we were prepared to knock their teeth in.”

“Again,” he added with a soft laugh, “I hope they are eventually caught though. Anyone who beats up innocent trainers and steals their Pokemon needs to be jailed.”

“I don’t know if I would call Kacchan ‘innocent.’ More like temperamentally aggressive.”

“Shut up Deku, you fucking nerd!”

Eijiro shook his head, “regardless he was the victim a-”

“I wasn’t a victim! Shut up!”

Then the blonde slammed the trophy he got stuck carrying due to calling Charmeleon back on the table, “if I was weak I wouldn’t have won!”

“Technically you got physically beat up too,” Togaru sneered, “your Pokemon couldn't’ save your ass then like in battle.”

“Shut up, Bugspray!”

“Classy,” Shoto frowned at him before turning to the others, “it has been fun hanging out with all of you. We all should meet up again one day.”

“Oh we will,” Denki smiled, “with Hitoshi too I hope! Oh, I also have Hanta’s number too!”

Yo, who had been strangely quiet that entire time, added with a smile, “that's great! Honestly when I came here with Tog and Tetsu I didn't expect to run into Eijiro. Much less meeting any of you. It’s been great, guys.”

“It has,” Togaru nodded, “you aren’t nearly as bad as I thought you would be.”

“I think that's a compliment?” Deku asked nervously before smiling at the beaming Itsuka.

“I believe it is,” she giggled, “and Shoto?”

“Yes?”

“Take care of yourself.”

There was short laughter as they all turned to stare at her, but she had already started a quiet conversation with Tetsu. Shoto stared at his plate with a frown before Deku distracted him. Katsuki regarded them all disinterestedly before nudging Eijiro.

“This dinner I owe you.. Three's a crowd.”

They met eyes and Eijiro stifled an amused laugh into a soft cough, “don’t worry about it.”

“But-”

“I got this,” the redhead beamed at him before turning toward Kaminari, “hey dude!”

“Yea?” the goofy blonde smiled.

“While you’re all touring the city with everyone, I’m gonna head out for a bit!”

The smile fell, “wait, what?”

Eijiro pointed at Katsuki matter-of-factly, “we’ve got to find a Fennekin before we head to Hoenn and we’re on a time crunch.”

Denki glanced between them before a knowing smirk crossed his face, “alright man, but hurry back! We’re already pressing for time before the league!”

“I know!” he smiled back, ignoring the catty smirk from his friend, “we’ll be there in no time, I swear man!”

The other turned back to talk to Tetsu, leaving Eijiro to beam at Katsuki, “see?”

“You brilliant bastard,” he scoffed out amused.

Eijiro laughed warmly before elbowing him in the ribs, “so where are you taking me?”

Katsuki thought about it before smirking, “there's a battle food court.”

“That doesn’t sound very fancy,” he teased back.

“No, but we’ll get to kick ass?”

“I’m down, where is it?”

“Mauville.”

“Is that anywhere where we might find one?”

“Not sure,” he shrugged, “we’ll have to ask around. Sure you want to go with me?”

“Hell yea!” Eijiro beamed, “try stopping me!”

Katsuki smiled at him softly before stretching, “then we’re leaving tomorrow morning. Meet me at the Center at daybreak.”

“THAT early!?”

“Be there or I’ll leave you,” he threatened, but there was no heat in it.

They split up after dinner and Eijiro filled the others in at the hotel with their plans. That next morning he slid out of bed yawning before shaking Denki awake, “hey man I’m heading out. You’ll stick around here until I get back right?”

“Yeee dudeee,” the blonde mess grumbled sleepily.

Pikachu crawled out from the covers, “pika?”

Eijiro petted her between the ears, “be back soon. I promise.”

He met up with the blonde who nodded curtly at him. They passed through the barren streets side by side quietly until they were outside the city. Then Eijiro released Onix, and clambered up on it yawning. He leaned back against it, propping his hands up behind his neck. Katsuki gave him a strangled look.

“Are you shitting me right now..”

Eijiro yawned more dramatically, “too early..”

He heard the blonde tsk at him, but he just closed his eyes and took a nap until he felt Onix pull harshly to a stop. Eijiro rubbed at his eyes before glancing around to notice the stream that the Pokemon had paused at in fear. Katsuki was already across it, one hand on his hip annoyed.

“We are NOT backtracking up the river for a bridge just so your lazy ass can sleep. GET UP!”

He groaned before cracking his back and sliding off the Onix, calling it back after a curt thank you. Eijiro hopped from stone to stone across the river, but stumbled on the last one. He flew forward flailing his arms hopelessly, but Katsuki rushed forward to catch him. The blonde pulled him tight against his chest as he swung him away from the water with a loud huff.

“You’re heavy.”

“Thank you?”

“That wasn’t a compliment!”

Eijiro smiled at him softly, “to rock trainers it is!”

The blonde’s annoyed glare disappeared as he scoffed, “whatever, let's just go.”

Eijiro nodded shortly at him before following quietly behind. They walked the entire rest of the day without a single food break. It was nearing sundown before Eijiro’s pestered whining finally caused the blonde to give up and set up camp. They released all of their Pokemon while Eijiro set up his tent, leaving Katsuki to prepare the food as he had promised. Eijiro was grateful, he was used to just eating energy bars and fruit with Denki. They were both terrible cooks. The redhead crashed against Onix with a loud ground as he watched Lycanroc interact with Typhlosion. Charmeleon and Incineroar however were busy helping Katsuki cook by cutting up vegetables and fruit with their sharp (recently washed) claws. He watched them amused.

“Oi,” Katsuki called, distracting him from his thoughts, “how did you and Sparky even survive on your own.”

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “uh- a lot of preserved food and Pokemon Centers.”

“Tch, hopeless..”

The smell of the cooking food wavered over to him, and he fought his growling stomach to ask, “so after Fennekin, we’re rounding up Denki and flying to Hoenn right?”

“That's what you said. We could always just leave him behind..”

“Katsuki!”

He smirked before stirring the food again, “so why did you suggest Delphox anyways.”

“Oh thats easy,” he smiled, “it's pretty and flashy.”

Katsuki froze in rage, “do I look like I carry Pokemon for that!?”

“No,” he smiled wider, a slight sneer to it, “but it still reminded me of you all the same.”

The rage shifted to shock, and he watched the blonde’s face heat up, “hah?”

“Yea,” Eijiro shot back teasingly, “you’re kinda shifty like a fox and just as eye catching.”

He was gaping at Eijiro now, his face a pretty pink that he couldn’t tell was from the heat of the fire or the compliments.

Eijiro pressed on, “you also always wear baggy pants and Delphox's legs are so fluffy they resemble it. OH! It also has red eyes like you!”

“ENOUGH!” Katsuki snapped, hiding his face pointedly.

Charmeleon smirked at him in approval, “Char.”

“Shut up,” the blonde groaned at the Pokemon before turning back to Eijiro, “what are you trying to do. Give me a heart attack?”

Eijiro cocked his head at him playfully, “you’re the one who asked why.”

“Well forget I asked! Damn! I didn’t think you’d have such a sappy reason..”

He could have quit there, but he was enjoying the look on Katsuki’s face too much to fold that easily, “you know something…?”

“What,” the blonde gritted out, trying his best to cool his face off as he finished cooking.

“You know Pokemon showcases?”

“Yea. You didn’t go to the one at the tournament.”

He nodded at the memory, “I really think you should compete in one once you train up Fennekin.”

“HAH!?”

“Seriously man, you could throw a hell of a show!”

“Have you lost your mind!?”

“No,” he stressed, “you’re extremely talented, creative, probably an outstanding cook… and you have a handsome face! With a Delphox complimenting you there's no way you wouldn’t win!”

“That's it, you’re done!” Katsuki snapped, chucking some food in a bowl and shoving it in Eijiro’s hands before bitterly turning away, “one more word out of you and I SWEAR I’ll-”

“You won’t do anything,” he confidently responded before taking a bite. The flavors popped in his mouth to the point he saw stars, “holy SHIT! This is so good!”

Katsuki wanted to curse or kill him for the first comment, but the second one had him pausing. A slight pleased smile escaped him as he made his own bowl while Incineroar and Charmeleon passed out food to the other Pokemon. He crashed against Typhlosion with a huff, eating silently thinking about everything Eijiro had said. Katsuki tried his best to ignore his no doubt still flushed face as he ate. It had to be the heat from the fire. Yea, he wasn’t getting this flustered over a boy. The heart pangs were from overworking himself on the trip. Not the sappy shit coming from Eijiro’s mouth. It wasn't this easy to fall for a still near stranger.. but that was a lie and he knew it. Katsuki glanced up at the redhead as he laughed at the way Lycanroc was eating, feelings swirling in his heart warmly.

“Eijiro.”

“Yea?”

He looked up from Lycanroc, eyes swimming brightly in sunny goodness that was always too much for Katsuki to handle. He cleared his throat to gain the confidence to ask, “..After the Hoenn league. What do you have planned?”

Eijiro thought about it for a second, “we usually just hop around. Whatever sounds fun at the time... Why? Do you have an idea on where to go? I know Hoenn was our idea, but you’re more than wel-”

He relaxed before softly interrupting, “just like that huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just insinuated the three of us were permanent traveling companions.”

Eijiro’s face drained of color, “uh- sorry! I didn’t mean to, I just thought..”

Katsuki smiled before adding, “and no, I don’t plan on going anywhere!”

He sighed with relief, “phew.. I really thought you were going to leave and I started freaking out!”

“You like me that much, huh?”

This time he got to watch Eijiro’s face heat up as he started stumbling, “I- uh.. I didn’t SAY that, you-”

“Can dish it but can’t take it? Weak,” Katsuki laughed goofily, causing his face to flood red again.

“You have no room to talk!” he popped back off pettily.

Katsuki jumped off the ground, abandoning his half eaten meal to pull Eijiro up by the collar. The redhead’s jaw dropped as Katsuki sneered at him, “I fully intend to know more about you than even Sparky by the time we get back to Lumiose City. Fucking bet on that.”

Eijiro slowly swallowed before giving him a challenging smile, “bring it on, Katsuki.”

He wasn’t sure how or when it happened, but Eijiro kissed him. It was just a soft innocent brush, but it set off a fire in Katsuki that he didn’t even know he had as he returned it. The rock trainers' warmer red eyes were fixated on his own, testing him every step of the way. Katsuki couldn’t help but smile back at him, feeling more elated than he ever had before as he dropped Eijiro’s collar and pulled him into a quick rough hug.

“Holy shit, you really just did that!”

Eijiro worriedly asked, “did you hate it?”

“Do I look like I hated it!?”

“I was kinda scared you were going to kill me for a second!”

“Tch, don’t be stupid.”

Katsuki released him to find five Pokemon staring at them blankly, “WHAT!?”

They all turned away, Charmeleons smirk ever larger.

“You just wait,” Eijiro laughed, poking the blonde in the side teasingly, “these two are pretty chill compared to my other three. Sudowoodo is extremely protective and Golem is real grumpy… kinda like you towards most people. Pupitar.. Well..”

Katsuki huffed and crossed his arms, “I can handle them.”

Eijiro smiled at him before slipping an arm over his shoulder, “great. Because I plan on keeping you real close, Katsuki.”

The blonde smirked at him, “same.. But mine are already smitten with you and Infernape is bound to be too.”

He dropped his head against Katsuki’s shoulder to hide his blush, “first we gotta find a Fennekin!”

Katsuki nodded before glancing at their abandoned dinner, “first we need to eat and get some damn sleep.”

The redhead pulled away, glancing at the tent, “you don’t mind sleeping with me right? I mean. I know guys are usually cool with that kinda thing but since-”

“Don’t act all chivalrous.. its gross,” Katsuki snapped, picking up his plate to finish eating, “I have my own sleeping bag anyways, stupid.”

Eijiro smiled back at him, “alright man. I just didn’t want to come off too strong.”

“Says the one who kissed me.”

He choked, “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, “I was kidding. Relax.”

There was an awkward pause before the blonde pointed his chopstick at Eijiro heatedly, “actually what does that even mean.”

“What?”

“Kissing me. Did you just blow past the dating steps or-?”

Eijiro laughed awkwardly, “no.. I just kinda got swept up in everything and.. Well.”

Katsuki smirked, “then you meant all that shit about the Pokemon Showcase?”

“Of course!”

“Huh,” the blonde considered it before genuinely smiling, “no ones liked me that way before.”

“Same,” Eijiro relaxed, smiling more sunnily at him now that he knew he wasn’t in trouble for sneaking in a kiss.

“Well they’re stupid.”

He laughed then, a light sound that made Katsuki’s heart strings pop, “I could say the same thing you know...”

“Enough sappy crap. Eat so we can go to bed.”

“Righto firelord, Katsuki!”

“Don’t.. Don’t ever say that again..”

The campsite was filled with boisterous laughter from Eijiro as the two talked for a bit longer before turning in. There was still so much to do and see, but at that moment. In that very instant, Eijiro Kirishima was happier than ever before. He had new friends, met more Pokemon, a loud mouthed love interest, and the prospect of competing in the Hoenn league to look forward to. The excitement of it all left him so exhausted that he slept heavily that night. Lycanroc was spread out against his back like always and his free hand was lazily intertwined with Katsuki’s who was lying beside him. The blonde was sleeping soundlessly while turned toward him. His face was entirely relaxed and way too pretty for Eijiro to fully process in one night. A fiery blonde trainer with a damn near killer hidden soft side that still managed to melt his heart effortlessly.

His fingers curled tighter against Katsuki’s that night in his sleep.

Content and warm with happy dreams of the future.