Greninja crossed his arms and looked towards the water, where the mob had quieted down and was looking at him with pleading eyes. He then looked at Ziva and Freya, asking for their input into this only to receive uncertain shrugs from them. He looked to Rosemary as well but found no help from her either. Realizing that his friends were leaving this decision solely up to him, Greninja turned to Saru and stared her dead in the eye searching for any sign of malice intent.

After an uncomfortable ten seconds Greninja's face softened and he held out his hand to Saru. Saru smiled gratefully and accepted Greninja's hand, forging an agreement between the two parties of Pokémon.

"Thank you, you won't regret this." Saru said as she continued to shake Greninja's hand.

"I certainly hope not." Greninja thought as he felt his hand getting crushed in Saru's ridiculously strong handshake.

"So..." Rosemary said as Greninja freed his hand from Saru, "you mentioned something about more of their friends coming." She said with a gesture to the eight enemy Pokémon tied up to a tree.

"Right, we should get aboard your ship as soon as possible." Saru said and began walking towards the lifeboat Ziva and Freya were sitting in. Greninja, Rosemary, and Martin followed her to the boat and came to a realization all around the same time.

"This boat isn't big enough for everyone. We're going to have to make at least two trips."

"We should load the civilian Pokémon first and come back for the warriors when we can." Saru stated before helping a family of rabbit like Pokémon into the craft.

Greninja moved forward and helped hand six small brown and yellow bunny Pokémon up to a pair of larger, similarly colored, rabbit Pokémon. "Ziva and Freya have to go first too, they're the only ones who really know how the ship works and we'll need them to be there if we want the boat to get out of the water."

Saru nodded, "Anything else?" She asked as she passed up a baby Pokémon to its mother.

"Yeah I'm going to stay on land with you four, incase those Pokémon you mentioned decide to make an appearance." Greninja said, after helping the last of the civilian Pokémon into the boat.

"That's fine with me, but I'm not sure how much your friend likes that idea." Saru said, gesturing to an annoyed looking Rosemary.

"She does not like this idea." Rosemary said with a disapproving look at Greninja, who mouthed the word please to her. Rosemary sighed, "But I'm going along with it anyways."

"Thanks Rosemary." Greninja said with a wide smile.

Rosemary waved a dismissive hand at Greninja's thanks as she wadded into the water. "Yeah yeah, no problem. But if I find out you're just doing this to avoid doing work neither of us are going to be happy"

Rosemary then grabbed the ropes tied to the crowded boat and began pulling into further into the water, until she and it were gliding through the water. Once they were out of earshot Martin turned to Greninja and asked, "You didn't just have her do that to avoid work; did you?"

"No, I actually have some questions that I thought would be better asked in private." Greninja said as he made his way over to a chair shaped piece of driftwood. "So who are you fleeing, why are you fleeing them, and why did none of those Pokémon offer any form of assistance when you guys were under attack?"

Saru seemed unfazed by Greninja's questioning and simply took a seat on a rock across from Greninjas driftwood chair. "Well," she began, "I'm going to answer your final question first because it's going to save us a lot of time in the long run."

"It's not going to save us to much time, her stories go on and on for hours." Martin loudly whispered to Greninja.

"My stories do not go on for hours." Saru said defensively, having heard Martin's intentionally loud whispering.

"Oh they so do. Remember when you tried to tell the ambassador of the province of Rehn the reason why your fur had turned purple, and by the time you finished..."

"Ahem!" Greninja said loudly, indicating to Martin and Saru that they were getting off topic.

"Right sorry." Martin said sheepishly before walking off to join the other two Pokémon on the beach. Once he had joined them, and was fully invested in them, Saru turned her attention back to Greninja.

"So where were we?" She asked, forgetting what they'd been talking about in her banter with Martin.

"You were about to tell me why those other Pokémon didn't fight."

"Ah, right, yes. They didn't fight because they don't know how. They're a bunch of village Pokémon who are more civilized and accustomed to using their skills to create and entertain. Most of them couldn't even fight a Magikarp." Saru said with a giggle, though Greninja didn't find any of this amusing nor giggle worthy.

"Alright I guess that explains that, but how did you all end up in this situation; and you should really fix that whole can't fight a Magikarp thing."

"Noted. And as for how we managed to wind up in this mess, I have to take you back roughly ten years..."

"Which is how long your story is going to take!" Martin shouted from a few yards away, somehow having been able to hear Saru from that distance.

"It will if you keep interrupting!" Saru shouted back loudly, making Greninja slightly uncomfortable feeling as though he was watching a lovers quarrel. Saru managed to see this discomfort on Greninja's face and, when he stated his thoughts about their arguing being similar to that of a funding couple, Saru, Martin and the two other Pokémon burst out in uncontrollable laughter.

"Oh, oh that- that is rich." Saru said after she managed to stop laughing. "Me and Martin aren't a couple. We're..."

"Siblings in law." Martin interrupted, holding up his arm to show a gleaming gold bracelet around his wrist, undoubtedly acting similarly to a wedding ring.

"In case you've forgotten, you haven't married my sister yet." Saru said with a smug look of superiority on her face.

By this point Greninja was getting lost and asked for them to just tell him, how they wound up running for their lives on a beach.

"Right, so roughly ten years ago this small group of humans manages to find their way onto our island. They all wore dark fabric that seemed to engulf most of their bodies in shadows. Naturally I didn't want anything to do with these spooky humans and tried to remove them from the island. Unfortunately not everyone agreed with me..." Saru turned and scowled furiously at the eight tied up Pokémon, who all shifted uncomfortably under her glare.

"They were probably blinded by the riches and power the humans brought with them, and could not see them for the vipers they were. The humans convinced several nobles of my island to offer them shelter and even managed to convince them to start a war with the nobles still loyal to the throne. Needless to say it has been a long and bitter war, numerous lives have been lost; entire families and villages wiped out, so many innocent lives have been stolen, and I've lost many dear friends and loved ones in these past eight bloody years." Saru looked pitifully at all the sand on the beach, as if each grain were a someone she had lost.

"I'm so sorry for your losses; I've lost some friends too." Greninja said sadly, the memory of Cristina and Arthur surfacing into his head for the first time since the battle with Keshiram. He realized that none of his friends had actually talked about what happened, and made a mental note to check on them after all of this.

"I am sorry as well." Saru said as she wiped away a stray tear. "But we are not here to grieve over fallen friends, you wanted answers and I intend to give them to you. A week ago, I received a message from an old friend of mine, Lieutenant... uhh, Martin why don't you go interrogate the prisoners or something, I know you and him were close."

"Say no more, I was just about to go do that." Martin said heavily, something about this Lieutenant was causing his normally playful self to become rather solemn and secluded.

Saru waited for Martin to begin interrogating the prisoners, before she went to speak the Lieutenants name. But even with Martin distracted by his interrogating Saru decided to move into Greninja's personal space and would only whisper to him the lieutenant's name, before continuing the story normally. "My old friend Lieutenant Yeltsin, gave me a message from a village a six day march from my castle. The message said that they had information about the whereabouts of the nobles who had turned traitor to my crown, but would only share it with someone they knew couldn't possibly be working for the enemy."

"You?" Greninja asked, despite already knowing the answer.

Saru nodded and continued her story. "I found the whole thing rather suspicious and I voiced my concern to... the lieutenant," She said, carful to avoid using his name too much, "And he agreed with me on how suspicious it sounded; but he also pointed out that if the information they had was viable we could end this war in days. So me Martin and thirty eight of my guards ventured out to the village only to find..."

"That they knew nothing about the message, Yeltsin made it up and set you up for an ambush. You, Martin and those two guards, along with the thirty something villagers, managed to get away from the ambush and have been fleeing from them for the past day." Greninja said as he managed to fit most of the puzzle pieces together.

"Y-yes that's, that's basically what happened." Saru said, shocked that Greninja was able to get to that point of her story so quickly. "How did you manage to figure that out? My story wasn't nearly finished."

"I guess I just have good intuition." Greninja replied, having a sudden realization that Martin was right about how long Saru's storytelling took.

"So does Martin, he usually figures out the end of my stories long before I finish them." Saru said with a sour glance at Martin's back. "But my point manages to get across one way or another so I can't complain too much."

"Yeah now I have a decent idea as to what's happening on this island, and who's behind it." Greninja said with a scowl as he thought about the humans with the shadowy appearance. He figured it was no coincidence that they had followed a Team Shade ship to this island, only to learn about a similar sounding group of humans already causing trouble here.

Greninja realized what had to be done and looked to Saru with a fiercely serious look of determination. "I'm going to help you with your war."

Saru stared at Greninja for a few seconds before blinking rapidly in confusion with what he had said. "You're going to what?" She asked sure that he had not just said what she thought he'd said.

"I'm going to help with your war." Greninja repeated, completely serious about doing this.

"Why!? How!? We've basically just met, you have no reason to fight my war, and unless you're hiding an army in that ship of yours I doubt you'll be much help."

"I have every reason to fight your war; for starters these humans that started all of this, sound an awful lot like a group of criminals that have cost me several of my friends, so taking them down would be my pleasure. Secondly it's what is right, you said that innocents were being killed in this conflict and that is something I can not let slide. And besides I've already helped you once so I figure I might as well finish what I started.

"Fine, you have some good reasons but you still don't have the means to make a difference in this war; you're just one Pokémon."

"One Pokémon who has three very skilled friends and a what could potentially be a floating fortress." Greninja replied with a witty smile.

Saru looked at the dark outline of Greninja's ship and began formulating all sorts of ways they could use it to win the war. "Oh that is fabulous," Saru said, reveling in the possible miracle Greninja was offering her. "Absolutely fabulous."

"What's fabulous?" Rosemary asked as she stepped out of the surf, having returned undetected to shore just a second ago.

"Greninja has offered up the use of your ship to help me end the nearly decade long war on my island, as well as lay the hurt to a common enemy of ours." Saru said, managing to sum up everything rather quickly and utterly surprise Greninja.

"He did what now." Rosemary said flatly, dumbfounded that Greninja had managed to involve them in another war so soon after their last one.

"I offered her the use of our ship to fight off Team Shade and the rebel Pokémon who are fighting alongside them." Greninja replied.

"Both of which we won't be doing." Martin said as he approached them with the two guards at his sides.

Saru looked at him in confusion and slight annoyance, "Why won't we be doing either?" She asked.

"Because Yeltsin... Yeltsin's betrayal extended further than just the attempt on your life. According to the prisoners he also crippled the castles defenses and lead the enemy in a raid against the castle that proved too much for our already weakened forces." Martin glumly sat down next to Greninja. "They also said the enemy has taken our base of operations and either killed or turned all our remaining supporters. The war is over, we lost."

Saru looked at Martin in disbelief. "Are you certain, perhaps they were lying." She suggested hopefully, but in reality was just grasping at straws.

"No, Lector questioned them himself and no one can lie to him." Martin said as he looked at the guard to his left, a tall green and white Pokémon with a red sideways half heart protruding out of the center of his back and chest. Lector was a dual Psychic Fighting type Pokémon known as a Gallade, and was apparently very gifted at interrogations, for once Saru heard that Lector had done the interrogating she believed every word of what Martin had told her.

"So I guess that's it then," Saru said somberly, "all those years of dying and suffering were for nothing."

Saru's attitude suddenly changed from that of regret and grief, to concern and proactivity as a thought surfaced in her head. "What about my family, do you know what happened to them?!"

Martin nodded. "They're being held prisoner in the castle dungeons, which is why I said we wouldn't be doing the earlier plan. We need to go on a rescue mission to free Saru's family and my fiancée." Martin looked at Greninja with the eyes of a Pokémon hell bent on doing everything he could to save the ones closest to him. "Greninja can I count on your help to save my beloved?"

Greninja smiled and looked to Rosemary. "I don't know, what do you say Rosemary? Want to help them with their quest to save their loved ones and free a captured princess?"

Rosemary looked into the eyes of Martin and saw the pleas for help and concern towards his fiancé, swirling amid his fiery ambition to save her. Smiling kindly Rosemary bobbed her head, "I think we can do that."

The plea for help in Martin's eyes quickly changed to unfathomable gratitude which he expressed to Greninja and Rosemary in a hug before he climbed aboard the small boat, with Saru, Lector, and the unnamed guard following him in. Greninja was about to follow them aboard when he felt Rosemary put her hand on his chest.

"Oh no you don't. I brought it ashore now you have to bring it back." She said before climbing aboard the boat with the other four Pokémon.

Realizing that he had no other option, Greninja walked into the chilly moonlight water and began dragging the boat towards the ship. Temporarily separating them from the immense danger prowling the island.

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I am super sorry for not publishing this story sooner. I had some serious writers block and when it cleared I focused more on my other story when I should have been balancing my effort more evenly between them. I'll work on my publishing consistency but I hope you guys understand if I'm not writing a thousand chapters a day.

Anyways I hope you all enjoy the chapter, feel free to vote and comment at your discretion and I'll see you all in the next chapter.

Shoutouts:Flareon11 FleurAsklfJacobsson FreakingTyphlosion FennecF0x & ferisam