Despite being a great protector of the natural order Alba seemed rather frail, and before her conversation with Greninja began she had to lay down on one of the spare beds. Once she had gotten herself situated on the cot she let out an exhausted sigh and a glowed an emerald green color. As she continued to glow a few dozen beams of green light scattered off of her and vanished into the walls. When the light show ended Alba had shrunken down to the size of a melon and looked like a single eyed green slug with a large white diamond on her belly and back.

"Ahh, that's much better." Alba said as she stretched out on her cot; although said isn't quite what she did since she had no mouth and, instead, spoke directly into the minds of those around her.

"Greninja, when this is all over you'll have to thank Rouge for me." Alba said sincerely, but only managed to confuse Greninja.

"Who's Rouge?"

Alba blinked at Greninja in confusion. "I'd been told you'd been sent by the Zygarde core of Kalos; perhaps it was Azuré that sent you?"

"No I was sent by Squishy. I have no idea who those other two cores are, I've only met Squishy and the other one with the blue core."

Alba narrowed her eye at Greninja. "Does Squishy have a diamond in his chest that's similar to mine except red?"

"Yeah, you know him?" Greninja asked, not putting two and two together.

Alba, for her part, handled the misunderstanding of her brothers name rather well. only laughing at his nickname for a minute, after which she composed herself to a quasi giggling state. "Ah-ha, that was rich. I'll have to use that name the next time I see him."

She saw that Greninja still had a blank look on his face and filled him in. "Your Squishy is my Rouge, and I'm going to guess the blue core you met was Azuré."

Greninja made the O face as realization finally dawned on him. Seeing that everyone was up to speed on who was who in the Zygarde family tree, Alba continued. "Names aside we have to talk about our plan to deal Team Shade tomorrow."

Greninja sat down on the bunk adjacent to Alba's, ready to discuss the serious topic. "I was thinking you could lay down a blanket of cover fire and we'd just charge in while they're recovering, you know the old shock and awe." Despite the gravity of the situation Greninja was rather peppy and presented the idea with commendable enthusiasm.

Alba chuckled sadly at his idea. "I'm sorry Greninja but that won't work."

"What, why not? It sounds like a pretty good plan to me." Ziva chimed in.

"It's because I no longer have the power to unleash an attack of that magnitude. The device that Team Shade is using has almost completely depleted this area of all my cells, making it nearly impossible for me to even transform into my hound form let alone gather enough power for that kind of attack."

"Oh yeah, I'd nearly forgotten about their machine. Guess we'll need to change the plan a bit." Greninja said with a forced laugh.

Alba didn't return his laughter. "We need a new plan to deal with these invaders." She said mirthlessly. "And I believe I have the perfect strategy to grant us victory."

Alba then proceeded to tell Greninja and the girls her plan and, once they worked out some of the finer details, set out to put it in action. Ziva and Freya each left in opposite directions; Ziva heading to The village of Stoney Steel, while Freya went to the Lake of Reverie, the third Pokémon village of the area. As the girls traveled to these places Greninja and Alba went to explain the plan to the village.

"Okay so here's what's going on." Greninja said to the roughly fifty Pokémon in attendance. "The plans have changed, we're no longer going to just wait for the enemy to come knocking at our doors. We're taking the fight to them."

There was a panicked murmuring among the attending Pokémon. They had been so prepared to bunker down and repel the enemy from behind their brand new walls, that the very notion of abandoning that plan was alarming.

"What Greninja meant to say was that in addition to holding the enemy at bay, we're going to launch a simultaneous assault on the enemies base. The assaulting team will have to be fairly small to get past the enemy, no more than six or seven Pokémon, and will be lead by Greninja."

From somewhere in the crowd someone asked, "What about his foot injury, won't that jeopardize the mission?"

Greninja was about to argue that his foot wouldn't slow him down but before he could two of his captains stood up for him. "Greninja wouldn't let a flesh wound like that stop him from doing what's needed." Rosemary said assertively.

"And besides," Vincent said humorously, "the boss could run circles round all of us, even if he was missing his whole foot."

Both of these remarks rekindled the Pokémon's faith in Greninja and even lead to a round of joking about what fresh pain the enemy had coming from them. Greninja didn't really hear those jokes, he was to busy processing what Vincent had meant when he'd called Greninja the boss, and he only returned to reality when Alba finished with the debriefing and asked for volunteers for the surprise attack.

Greninja looked out at the assembled Pokémon and saw more than a few faces turn away from his gaze, knowing that this mission would be dangerous and they might not make it back. The first ones to in list for this opp were Arthur and Cristina, they both felt it was important to get payback for what these Shade scum put their friends and family through. Looking back on this time, it would probably have been better to keep at least one of the two Village heads behind it's protective walls; not just to keep them safe but also to boost the morality that a leaders presence brings their troops. No one considered this though; simply thinking they could turn to Alba for leadership, despite how weak and weary she was from being deprived of her cells..

The next few volunteers were a variety of Pokémon from Greninja's four teams and, somewhat surprisingly, among them was Rosemary who said he'd need someone to watch his back out there, and to help carry him back when he's to worn out from beating on bad guys.

Nobody argued with her statement and thusly the assault team was born. Seven Pokémon who would risk their lives to deliver a crippling blow to their opponents. Seven champions who would slip out of the Village and past scores of enemies without alerting them to their presence. A heroic seven that by the end of it all would become a tattered three.

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I had a thought the other day, as to what would happen if I mentioned all of the people I fallow in my story, so if you're wondering why your name is here that's probably the reason. Also if I'm following you it's probably because you have good stories or are just nice people😋 _-Wendy_Marvell-_ AmiyaJones AmourAndEgo5ever DatPikachuLover Escavalierlegacy Ginachu22 Catadioptric Shadow_Ice_King ebraeroll AmourAuraGaurdian19 Ash-GreninjaGirl TrainerElliora xXxBraixenGirl20xXx AmiyaJones Ballisticfrog82 Anglewolf5 rojin_capan Amourshipper444 Amourshipper1 Dawnanimations charmanderflame ebraeroll Amourboy15 Charizard139 jey032001 EliteKing717 DatPikachuLover Cyko-Path DestinyProduction Snow_Ice_Queen Assassin25 FennecF0x SXSDUDE pokemonashxSerena Xxraven_zombiexX AmourZard Grace_Everdeen Jonathannn99 EnigmaUnseen prettygirly1106 I_LOVE_AMOURSHIPPING GamingEmpire XxPokemon_KingxX jirachi8 I'm stopping here because I think I got everyone, if I didn't get you my bad leave a comment and I'll mention you at the end of the next chapter. Also I'm never doing this again cause it is very space consuming and I don't want to bother you guys too much. 😅

Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and I've already begun writing the next one so it shouldn't take to long. Until then, see ya.