Colors swirled on a canvas, reds and purples were mixed together and there were also hints of blue and orange present.

All the colors formed to what could only be described as art!

"How extravagant!" I gasped "Look at the way those colors uh... Mix around each other! Truly the artist have put all their heart and soul into this."

I nodded sagely.

My eyes trailed onto the next piece of artwork I found. A plain looking marble statue....

"Oh wait this one is actually kinda great."

The statue is a simple sculpture based off the legendary pokemon Rayquaza.

My Dad actually used to tell me tales about Rayquaza. The ruler of the skies and the flying serpent hidden within the lost tower.

This sculpture of Rayquaza was almost exactly the same as he'd describe them.

A large, green, serpentine pokemon that has rudder-like wings on its shoulders and down its body, and similarly patterned fins on the tip of its tail. Ring-like symbols run across the length of its body and it also has an additional ring on top of its head.

The pokemon's presence shouted legendary and the sculpture actually managed to capture the feeling of legendaryness the real one was described as.

"It looks so cool! Right Ralts?" I turned my head towards the side and saw Ralts tinkering with two different objects.

He was lifting both of the objects up and observing them very closely.

"Training time is over Ralts." I grabbed the two objects with my hands and hid them from his eyes.

Ralts flinched and then he glared at me as I put the objects into my pocket. Before he could say anything, I flicked his forehead and said.

"No!"

Anger erupted in my head but I quickly brushed them off.

Ralts may act silly sometimes but when it comes to battling or training he gets so hyper focused at it that he won't stop until he gets a move right.

Hyper fixation is a common trait found on psychic types and while battling is indeed one of the common fixations.

I didn't know it would be this bad.

"Come on, look at this sculpture of Rayquaza, I told some stories of them to you didn't I?"

Ralts didn't even bother looking at the statue, his pupils were moving so erratic and his hands were shaking very wildly along with that, frustration, anger, and tiredness exploded into my head and some form of anxiety popped in and out of my mind.

If I hadn't known Ralts I would have thought he's on drugs.

I picked Ralts off the ground and he snapped out of his trance, trashing his legs and screaming emotional outbursts into my mind.

"Okay! Okay! I'll put you down, just try and follow me" I had to comply with his demands as people started to look at us.

As I put him back down the floor, I urged Ralts to follow and he actually managed to do so.

I led him to what I deem like a necessary piece of artwork to make a lesson out of. It was definitely an art made to inspire and motivate someone to get out of their comfort zone, the perfect piece to make someone think, imagine and to be creative!

A blank canvas!

Not the weirdest thing they have put on this museum honestly.

I coughed to catch Ralts's attention.

"What do you think of when you see this Ralts?" I asked him.

He stared at me blankly and looked at the empty canvas before him. Confusion bubbled up inside me and he uttered one single word.

"Ralts...?" His eyes narrowed as he said thay

I couldn't understand poke speak but I could hear him saying, seriously....? Perfectly clear

"That's right! It's a masterpiece!" I shouted

Ralts just stared at me again like I'm insane

"This canvas may seem empty to you but an expert such as myself could see the deeper meaning behind this artwork."

I moved closer to the canvas as close as I could and pretended to inspect it in greater detail.

"It has one of the elements that all good paintings possessed, it raises a question" I turned my body around and my back faced the painting as I stared at Ralts.

"Why is it empty? What kind of person would the artist be to make such an art? What was their thought process when making this."

I turned around again and looked at the canvas.

"Look at this my friend, an empty space free for creativity to do their work, it let's the audience see what they want to see in a painting whether that may be a raging sea with clouds filled with thunder or a mountain that looked vaguely like a sleeping human."

I rubbed my eyes and tried to summon a tear to my eyes right this instant—I failed yet again. "This has to be one of the best pieces of our time."

Ralts rolled their eyes.

"Uh excuse me sir, could you please step away from the canvas, a live painting performance would be held here soon."

I flinched.

A lady dressed in professional attire had appeared along with a guy that had a wide smile on his face.

"Uh um-right! Sorry" I walked away slowly from the empty canvas and let the girl take the canvas off the wall and place it on an easel.

Had they heard!? The question burned inside my head as Ralts silently snickered beside me.

"Hey."

I stopped within my tracks and looked back, the guy had called for me and he pointed at me while holding a paintbrush.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"I might not be the greatest painter of our time but I'd made sure to make this piece one of the best there is!" He grinned.

"Cool... uh good luck." I said quietly.

I turned my head back. Walked as fast as I could and disaster from their sight.

Ralts burst out of laughter as we arrived to a less populated area of the museum.

"Hush!" I tried to quiet him down but he didn't stop laughing and it reached the point where he had to choke for air as he had been laughing for a straight minute.

Embarrassing as that may have been I guess it had proven effective in getting Ralts out of his hyper fixated state.

"Let's just get out of here." I covered my face with my hands and walked to the direction of the exit.

Ralts followed along while erupting into chuckles after a few seconds.

I sighed, we hadn't even achieved our goal of getting inspiration for our contest.

We only have a week of preparation and if we don't figure out what kind of thing we would do early on, we wouldn't have enough time to practice!

Maybe a more direct method is required.

I needed something to focus on after that shameful incident so let's go fight someone! With style!

The guard bid me farewell as he saw me exiting and I rushed off to find someone that shortly resembles a trainer.

How powerful they are doesn't matter, we wouldn't even fight seriously, just find someone that has a pokemon.

"Hello are you a trainer?" My feet led me to a girl wearing a belt that had pokeballs clipped on it.

The girl halted and seemed surprised to see me before relaxing.

"Yes?" She hesitated before saying.

"Battle me!"

"What?" "Ralts?"

Both the girl and Ralts said in unison. I kinda forgot to tell Ralts about this but whatever, revenge for laughing at me.

"Battle me!" I said again.

The girl stared at me up and down with a piercing gaze.

I felt like I should've worn more trainer appropriate clothes if I had known I would be judged by my clothing but wearing those inside the museum would be weird.

"Kid, you don't like you're even a trainer." She glanced at Ralts "And fighting me with a Ralts? I have four badges already."

Ralts huffed when he heard her call out his name.

"Please? Just once! And I already have a gym badge, here!" I begged her and even showed her my badge case which contained my rain badge.

She narrowed her eyes at my badge.

She couldn't possibly suspect it as fake, the consequences of faking a gym badge is too high for anyone to try it.

The girl stood there for a while and inspected my face once more.

"Even if you have a rain badge, you couldn't possibly expect to win against me? A four badged trainer."

"If you win I'll give you five hundred pokedollars."

"Deal." She said blazingly fast.

"So where are we fighting? The side of the road? I'm fine with it as long as you take responsibility." She asked.

I froze a bit. I really had just invited someone to fight without thinking first.

"Uhh let's go to the Pokemon Center, they should have a training area we can use."

"Too far, I have to buy some supplies at the store later and the Pokemon Center is in the opposite direction."

Hmm the beach should be near here and if we find a place with no one around it should be fine.

"How about the beach?"

The girl thought about it and nodded. "Sure."

________________________________

"What will be the rules kid? The name's Nyx by the way"

"Andrew, standard league rules, one versus one." I said and picked up a rock off the sand. "When this rock lands on the sand that means the battle starts."

"Alrighty, don't back out now if you lose." She grabbed one of the pokeballs on her belt and released her pokemon to the field.

A tall bird had appeared with 3 heads sprouting out from its body and all three heads roared their name.

"Dodrio!"

The pokemon had looked confused at first and they warily stared at me before Nyx explained the situation to them.

My excitement reached unnatural heights after seeing the Dodrio. A fully evolved pokemon! This would be interesting

Excitement doubled within me again, some of it must be from Ralts

Speaking of him, he had already taken his place in front of me, inside the rectangular battlefield I had drawn earlier. Anticipation could be seen from his face and it felt like he might explode at any moment now.

It had been a while since he'd last battled and I guess he wanted to test out the new trick he learned of confusion and perhaps perfect it.

No time delaying it then, let's start this.

"Are you ready?"

Nyx opened her mouth to speak but her pokemon beat her to it, with all three heads cawing at us.

She laughed. "I guess we are."

Smiling, I threw the stone up into the air and as it landed on the sand, I took hold of the opportunity and shouted the first command of the battle.

"Double team!"

Ralts heard me and quickly splits himself apart and forms 3 clones beside him.

"You're pretty confident to use that move in front of a bird!" Nyx grinned "Find the real one baby!"

She was right, to deceive a bird's vision is pretty ambitious. A bird can easily tell the difference between two extremely similar looking things without a problem as their eye sight is eight times better than humans or even more than some pokemon.

But my little terror is a perfectionist and I'm confident in their ability to produce a 100% copy of themselves.

That didn't stop Dodrio from trying though as they strained their eyes to discern which of the four Ralts is the real one.

'Ralts' didn't let them figure it out and all of them rushed towards Dodrio

Nyx frowned and scratched her head. "Darn it! Don't even bother figuring out which is which, just attack!" She shouted.

Dodrio cawed and ran towards the nearest 'Ralts'.

"Teleport!" I gasped at the sight of the bird casually moving from one side of the field to the other in a matter of seconds and reached one of the 'Ralts'.

Their trainer and them smiled at my reaction and Dodrio quickly raised its heads up to peck at Ralts.

Only for their beaks to pass through him and hit the air

"Oh you cheeky brat!" Nyx yelled as she realized what happened.

I smirked at them. "Psybeam," I said towards the remaining 'Ralts's'.

The three of them raised their hands and shot multicolored beams of psychic to the flying type.

Dodrio saw the attack coming at them but due to their size they couldn't get out in time and got hit by several beams, either real or fake.

"Ignore the beams! Just barrel through them, most of them are fake anyway." Nyx command.

The bird obliged and ignored the beam, forcing 'Ralts' to stop their barrage and ran around the field.

Dodrio watched the frantic running of all the 'Ralts' and their heads locked in on one of them.

I knew I couldn't do anything to save that 'Ralts' from their attacks but with all of their heads focused in one of the 'Ralts' the real one can take advantage of it.

"Double team again Ralts!".

As I said my order, the 'Ralts' had started fading already as Dodrio reached them in an instant.

"Ah!" Nyx yelped, pointing at the Ralts that stood beside the edge of the rectangular battlefield.

Two clones appeared at their side and they all shuffled positions with each other before Nyx could point out the real one to Dodrio.

"You surely are an annoying guy" Nyx groaned "We need more speed baby, agility!"

Dodrio shook their heads and furrowed their brows, scratching the ground below them with their talons and focused heavily on breathing.

"Keep creating more clones Ralts!" I said.

I'm a bit worried about the move they're using, Dodrio is already stupidly fast and if they go even further than what they already have, Both I and Ralts wouldn't be able to react at all.

Ralts had now produced 6 more clones, totalling into 9 clones plus him.

Ralts tried making more but that was when Dodrio screeched and took a giant leap into the air.

And... wow, I let out a genuine gasp.

With just one leap, Dodrio managed to cover half the distance of the battlefield.

Although the battlefield is actually pretty small that leap is still impressive.

"Destroy them all!" Nyx happily cheered, snapping me out of my trance.

"Quickly sand their eyes!".

Dodrio's feet were a blur and within a few lightning quick steps, they reached a lone 'Ralts'.

They snapped their beak and the 'Ralts' got destroyed.

'Ralts' tried to throw sand at its eyes but it had already moved on to the next 'Ralts' and it too was destroyed.

They leapt and another 'Ralts' faded away.

They jumped and 'Ralts' returned back into energy.

They dashed and 'Ralts' disintegrated.

All the 'Ralts' were quickly being slaughtered and their numbers kept decreasing in frightening speeds.

During Dodrio's onslaught, Ralts tried all kinds of things.

Making a wall of sand to stop the bird from getting another clone, levitating a group of rocks to trip them up and even trying to push him away with a wave of sand.

All of it wasn't enough.

Dodrio simply broke through the wall of sand and they had noticed the group of rocks waiting to trip them up and simply went around them and they overpowered the wave of sand with one blast each of fire, electricity, and ice.

Now, only 2 'Ralts' remains.

'Ralts' stumbled forwards as he tried dodging Dodrio, he managed to get behind the bird and fired a psybeam at them.

The other 'Ralts' was shooting psybeams at Dodrio as well but they might as well be ineffective as Dodrio just shrugged them all off.

One of Dodrio's heads turned to the 'Ralts' behind them and shot a weak beam of electricity.

The 'Ralts' then faded away and only the real one is left, still shooting out psybeams with a grin on their face.

What do I do...?

No more clones means no more distraction for Ralts and it didn't seem like any confusion status is affecting Dodrio

"Well this has been fun if not a bit annoying!" Nyx spoke up.

I didn't respond. I don't want to interrupt my thoughts by thinking of a response.

Ralts had a limited number of moves to work on here, using confusion wouldn't work here, Dodrio's far too fast and heavy at that.

Using confusion on the sand wouldn't help either or any other material, The bird would just break through them.

Buffing up with calm mind would be too late now. Psybeams couldn't hurt Dodrio and we can't rely on a 10% chance confusion status.

Nyx continued speaking, voicing out her thoughts about the battle and giving some advice.

I didn't respond.

Zen Headbutt would probably damage Dodrio but Ralts would faint before he even got to use it.

The only move we have left is Teleport.

Do we have even time for it? Can Ralts use it in time? I don't know, but we must try. I glanced at Nyx, it seems like she's about to finish talking.

"Good bye! Finish this Dodr-"

"Wait-" I said all of a sudden.

Dodrio was about to dash in and crash onto Ralts but Nyx held up her hand as she tilted her head.

"What? Got anything to say?"

I steadied my breathing, look natural.

This is a contest. She is both the judge and the audience and I have to perform a show. Impress them, make them surprised.

"I just wanna say.... RALTS TELEPORT ON DODRIO'S BACK!!!" I screamed.

Nyx was taken aback, Dodrio tried to rush towards Ralts with all their beaks pointed forward.

Ralts's grin grew wide then he disappeared.

Dodrio was mere inches before his face but he managed to get out of time and he appeared behind the flying type.

The flying type's heads snapped towards their back and saw Ralts standing on the sand and then he disappeared again.

Now appearing on the bird's back, Ralts horns glowed purple and hit the center head of Dodrio

All the heads seemed to recoil at the attack despite the other 2 heads being unharmed.

"Tri attack!" Nyx shouted.

I smiled.

The heads shook off the attack and fired three different types of energy beams. Electricity electrocuted Ralts, fire came to burn him and ice froze his body up.

Ralts grinned one last time before fainting and he slid off Dodrio's back and crashed on the sand.

Nyx winced. "Ouch sorry, Dodrio might've overdone it there."

I exhaled, taking out Ralts's pokeball and recalled him, Nyx saw me do that and decided to do the same after saying thanks to Dodrio

"Good battle." I said.

"Good battle! You surprised me there." Nyx returned the gesture.

We haven't won but that was fun, if Ralts were to have more stronger attacks and a more diverse move pool we might've won but winning was not the goal of this battle anyway.

"Thanks for battling with me!" I smiled at her. "I appreciate it, here's your money by the way."

I took some money out of my bag and handed it to her.

Nyx pushed my hand away. "Nah it's fine, I enjoyed the battle and actually learned something from it."

"It's that double team is a cheat," She grimaced. "Keep the money."

"You sure?" I asked.

Nyx sighed. "Don't tempt me."

I laughed and we talked for some more before Nyx checked the time and said she has to go.

"Have to go shopping now, my friends are waiting for me."

She stood there for a while and I wondered if she's not gonna leave any time soon but then she handed her phone.

"Add your number, call me again if you wanna battle! Make sure to do that when you get your fourth badge ok?"

"Alright then! I'm sure Ralts would like to fight again!"

Nyx smiled softly. "Dodrio would feel the same way."

I gave her my number and that was when she finally left and I waved her good bye.

I decided to go away too and walk back to the Pokemon Center as I reviewed our battle in my head.

Double team was surely the mvp in that fight. Without it, we would have lost much faster.

"Double team huh..." An idea struck my head.