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Marnie still remembered the battle between Ash and herself. It may had been a 1 on 1 but it did leave an impact on her. She locked herself inside her room to watch both his reminding battles to get into the Master Eight, and cheer for him with all she had. When it came time for the Master Eight, she wanted to go in person, but Piers thought that it would be the perfect time for some sibling bonding. Not wanting to reject her brother, she watched the Master Eight with him. Piers would talk about how Leon had no challenges besides Cynthia,and that it would be the same as last year. Deep in her heart, Marnie wanted to say Ash would be the winner, yet she kept quiet.
The battle that Ash had with Steven showed Marnie how creative Ash was with his battles. Ash's battle with Cynthia was close and she feared that he would lose. However, Ash pulled it off and was going to battle Leon and she smiled. Piers made a comment that she was too invested in that battle which wasn’t even the final. Ash’s battle with Leon was the best she had ever seen in her life. When Ash won, she let out a huge cheer forgetting that Piers was even there. Piers never saw her cheer so much for anyone else that wasn’t himself. When the cheering ended, Marnie and Piers stared at each other for a few seconds. Nevertheless, she ran and locked herself in her room again from embarrassment.
The day after the Master Eight ended, there were supposed to be two interviews, but Ash left before he was even told about it. When she heard about that, she let out a sigh. If Ash had to say anything, she hoped that he would had talked about himself so that she could have gotten to know him better. However, Diantha and Cynthia were still there and were asked to be interviewed to fill in for Ash to which they both agreed. Leon was the first to be interviewed, but he didn’t add much. All he said was that he and Ash met a few times and he was happy that Ash was now the World Monarch. Marnie wasn’t going to bother to watch both Diantha and Cynthia's interview, but she decided to do so since Cynthia may talk about her battle with Ash. She was going to ignore Diantha, but the first question in the interview was about her thoughts on Ash. That made Marnie start to pay attention.
She said that Ash was someone she met in Kalos one day, but he made an impact on her. The bond that he has with his pokemon made her excited to see how he would perform in the Kalos League. She then also talked about how he was trying to find an answer with a Greninja he had. What caught Marnie's attention was that many of the reporters started to ask about the Greninja, but Diantha told them the reason Ash didn't used Greninja was due to him doing something very important back in Kalos. Diantha was then about to say something else, but she stopped herself. When she was asked what she was going to say, she said that the thing she was going to say would open wounds that haven't healed yet. She then said that she was proud of how Ash has grown in a matter of a short time. That was how Diantha's interview ended.
It was then Cynthia's turn, but she didn’t say anything. She would open her mouth with no words coming out and then she would close it. It was the first time many saw the great Cynthia hesitate. It was a minute in when she finally got her mind together and started to speak. She told the world that Ash was like a son to her. She recalled the first time she met him and the encounters that they had afterwards. Each time she would say something, her tone started to become more excited. When she started to talk about the Master Eight, she sounded defeated. She even admitted that she was about to retire battling after the tournament, but then she smiled. The battle between her and Ash made her remember why she even started to battle in the first place. There was a pause before she ends it off by saying that she apologizes that she didn’t help him during “those other times” but she was proud of the person he has become. Many reporters wanted from her but she told them that it was none of their business. That was how the interview ended.
Those interviews led to Marnie having many questions that needed to be answered. What was so important about a Greninja and what happened that made Diantha not say anything else. Her main question was why Cynthia was so hesitant about what she was going to say and why she wanted to keep a lot to herself? Ash was a mystery she wanted to know more of. Without a second thought, Marnie decided to look up Ash’s records. Within a few clicks she found the placing that Ash had in all the leagues he has been in. Top 16 in Kanto, Top 8 in Johto and Hoenn, Top 4 in Sinnoh, Top 8 in Unova, and second in Kalos. She knew that Ash was the first ever Alola champion, so winning the Alola League was a given. She was unable to find any battle that he had, but she found some online forums that were looking for any of Ash’s battles. Many people talked about how they met him and others gave stories about the battles that he fought which she read about. There were even some who had small clips of battles that Ash had, but most didn’t have the full battle which she didn’t mind. After a few hours of refreshing the page and reading the new posts, she saw two videos posted. One of which was 1 of Ash’s matches from Sinnoh and his whole Kalos League run. Without a second thought she played them.
The Sinnoh match she was able to get was Ash against a trainer named Tobias. The first thing she didn’t expect was the Darkrai, but she was surprised at the pokemon that Ash used. She didn’t know Ash had other pokemon besides Mr.Mine since he only used the same pokemon in the World Coronation and the Master Eight. She wondered why he didn’t use his other pokemon in at least the World Coronation. She would think about it later when she started the video.
To say that it was a clean sweep was to downplay Ash’s effort. From what she found in the forums about Tobias other matches, Ash did the best out of everyone. They even said that Ash got second place despite losing in the top 4 which she can agree with. Taking out Darkrai was a major accomplishment that no one else was able to do, and yet he did more than that. Even though Pikachu went down, he took down Latios with him. Ash took down 2 pokemon from a person who never lost even one.
In the beginning of the Kalos League run, there was a little tribute to those who lost their lives. Confused, Marnie looked at the date that it took place and many memories came back. The Kalos Crisis was something she experienced from afar in real time. She remembered seeing videos popping up everywhere when it was happening. She remembered the panic that was happening all over Galar. She remembers that fear she felt when Piers told her to stay inside the house and keep the news on. The news did nothing more than to let her fear grow. She remembered Piers on the phone talking to the other gym leaders about the course of action if it came to Galar. The news even floated with the idea of Leon being sent there to help. It was a scary day that she didn’t want to remember more of. Now knowing what Diantha meant by old wounds and that Ash was there first hand was something she didn’t know would hit her hard. She debated on watching the run, but she decided that she should and see what happened to Ash during the crisis.
Marnie giggled when the recording mentioned that Ash was late to his match like their own match. When both of the battlers released their first pokemon, she was surprised that it was another pokemon that she hasn’t seen Ash used before. She then wondered if this was the same Greninja that Diantha said was still in Kalos and the importance of it to have many reporters ask about it. It wasn’t even 20 seconds when everything clicked into place. A Greninja that has a form it can transform into. It even swept the team that Ash was facing with each pokemon being knocked out by one attack.
All the ups and downs that happened during the battles made Marnie more invested in what was going to happen next. It was in the finals when Marnie realized that Ash's opponent was Alain. Even though Ash lost, it was a very close fight that could had gone either way, and, in another universe, Ash could have won. It was kind of unsettling how no one knew how much would happen in the next hour as the crowd cheered at Alain's victory. The recording ended there and that was the cue for Marnie to see what Ash was doing during the Kalos Crisis.
The first place that she went through were news sites, but most of it was not from Kalos. Many Kalos new sites had many videos that people recorded themselves. Vines growing and destroying Lumiose City apart. Many videos were censored as it showed vines killing people and some building structure falling onto many other people. There was one video that showed Prism Tower and a vortex of water erupting upwards, but there were no other videos that showed what actually happened there. In the end of most of the news articles had a statement about a stone statue of a pokemon moving in and it was destroyed first by strong trainers and then by a legendary pokemon.
Figuring that the vortex had to do with Ash in some way, she went back to the forums to find out what was happening there. Looking through the recent post took hours, she was able to find a poor quality zoom-in footage of the top of Prism Tower. She saw Ash being cuffed along with his pokemon. There was Alain in the side looking conflicted and another person who looked like they’re in control of what was happening. The sound quality was also poor, but Marnie can clearly hear the scream of pain from Ash as he was zapped in what seemed like red energy. After Pikachu called out to Ash was when the water vortex came. That battle ended with the unknown person purposely falling off Prism Tower and Greninja tongue failing to catch him.
The video ended and the replay button taunted her to press it. She just stared at the screen for a few seconds then let out a loud sigh. The last battle of the Kalos league and the crisis happened all within a few hours and Ash was there for it all. Cynthia must had apologized to Ash for not being there, but what were the other times? She looked at the time to see that it was 2 in the morning. Piers would probably be worried about her for missing lunch and dinner, but she will deal with it tomorrow. For now she would eat a snack and go to sleep. Her plans for the morning were simple. Get scolded by Piers then eat breakfast, afterwards, she would try to find out where Ash went to ask him to train her. Finishing her snack, she wondered what kind of pokemon he has and how strong they were. Maybe with his help, she would be equal to him. If he was to go through something like Kalos again, she wanted to be there helping him. She fell asleep dreaming of seeing Ash again.