Greninja and the girls got out of the cave just as the explosion went off. They could feel a cold blast of air follow them out of the entrance and chill them for a second. Once it passed though they were still cold, only this chill wasn't from the explosion.

They didn't have time to properly grieve though because there was still a sizable battle raging on. Despite, or perhaps because of, the loss of the Admiral the members of Team Shade were still fighting with the army of village Pokémon. The battle looked like it should have ended a while ago, the massive numbers of Team Shade should have overwhelmed the villagers, but they were still hanging on.

Greninja thought this was from Albas leadership and was surprised to see Vincent orchestrating the fight; he was even more surprised to see the stag not seeking glory for himself but coordinating the various groups of Pokémon to advance, withdraw or hold their positions, so they stood the best chance of victory.

As Vincent continued to lead the troops Greninja and the five Pokémon who'd made it out of the cave approached him. As they got closer a smile of relief spread on the stags face. "It's about time you guys got back, they've got us on the ropes and I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold them off."

"Well you seem to be doing a pretty good job holding them back." Iron Jaw noted with respect.

"I guess I have, hang on a second; tell the center flank to fall back ten paces, and have the vanguard of the left wing push the enemy in the centers direction. Sorry about that I've been having to pick up the slack since we lost Alba."

"What!? What happened to her?" Greninja asked fearing the worse.

"Well after your messenger told us of the trap, Alba split us up into three groups and lead the charge into the ambush; ten Pokémon died before we could get to them, one of them was one of the messengers you sent. That messenger saved a lot of lives, going into the front lines and pointing out the enemy's positions let them react faster than they could have normally, unfortunately for her this made her a target and they took her out.
As my group rushed in from the side I managed to see Alba push her way further into  the enemies lines, as if driven by rage or grief, and was cut off from her escorts; then this man in a black and gold cloak pulled out a weird weapon and blasted the green off of her."

"So she's dead too." Greninja said, feeling guilty for letting another soul go.

"No I mean he literally blasted the green off her. All the cells holding her together dispersed in a light show of green and all that was left was her white diamond center. The same man picked up her diamond and put it on a necklace with a similarly shaped black diamond before he ran off the battlefield." Vincent explained as he received another report.

"Which way did he go!" Greninja asked, his hope of saving Alba burning up the icey guilt that hung over him like a frosty blanket.

Vincent gave a series of orders to the messenger before answering Greninja. "According to the last report I got from Craven, the man is at the docks leaving port by way of a silver speed boat."

Greninja was about to rush off after the man who had taken Alba, but stopped as he remembered his two new charges and the army of Pokémon fighting with everything they had just to keep the enemy at bay. He turned back to Vincent as a morality war raged inside him; one side said to leave and save Alba, the other argued that saving her would be abandoning all these Pokemon when he could help. This struggle was written across his face and lucky for him, Vincent read it loud and clear.

"What are you still standing around here for?" Vincent said with militaristic authority. "You've got a P.O.W. to rescue."

"Vincent, are you sure? You look like you need every man you can get." Greninja said as his last effort to stay behind.

"Don't worry about it, I was doing just fine before you came along I think I can handle things without you. Besides I've got two of the toughest Pokemon at my disposal now." Vincent gestured with a head nod at Iron Jaw and Maskara, who were less than pleased to be at Vincents disposal.

Iron Jaw leered down at Vincent trying to be as intimidating as possible. "Kid when this is over you and I are going to have a long talk about who's at whose disposal."

Vincent just looked him in the eye and calmly said, "Fine but until then I need you to cause some havoc on the enemy's right wing, or do we need to have a talk about that too?"

The two pokemon stared at each other for a moment seeing who would back down first; after a few seconds of the staring contest Iron Jaw laughed a soulful laugh, deep rich and full of amazement. "Arthur was right you would make a fine leader; alright Vincent I'm heading over to the right wing, I've got some frustration to vent and these Team Shade fellows seem like the perfect punching bags."

As Iron Jaw ran across the battlefield, Maskara sighed and said he was going to follow the brute to make sure he didn't do anything too reckless. This left Vincent, Greninja, Ziva, Freya and Rosemary by themselves; the five pokemon looked at each other with new eyes, so much had happened in the short time they'd known each other and saying goodbye was harder than they thought it would be.

"Vincent you've grown a lot since we first met, I'm sure you'll be able to lead the village out of this mess. I wish you the best of luck."

"You too, Frog Face." Vincent said with a friendly smirk. Greninja smiled back, appreciating that despite what they'd been through Vincent could still find the time for the little things, like calling him by the ridiculous nickname.

"One more thing before you go." Vincent said before walking over to a Pokémon sitting next to a pile of letters; he picked one from the pile and gave it to Greninja. "It's Cravens report with all the details of Albas abductors, it should serve you well in your hunt for her captors. Good luck, Greninja."

Greninja thanked Vincent for the invaluable information and then turned to Ziva and Freya, asking them if they were ready, and willing, to go with him. The girls shared a look before telling him they needed to grab somethings from their home before they could leave. It was only then that he realized he'd almost run off without his things and was practically kicking himself for doing so.

Going as fast as they could Greninja, Ziva and Freya ran back to the barren village with their escort of Rosemary following behind them, a curtsy of Vincent. The three Pokémon set to work gathering their things and when they had finished, were surprised to find Rosemary waiting by the villages gate with a bag of her belongings thrown over one of her shoulders.

"Rosemary are you coming with us?" Greninja asked more surprised than resistant to the idea.

"Yup. Vincent asked me to accompany you on your journey. He said, and I quote: "Rosemary I want you to go with them; I think it's safe to say that Greninja can be a bit reckless at times  and I'd sleep better at night knowing you're watching their backs." So are we going or what?"

"Yeah, welcome to the team." Greninja said, a little pouty that his former students thought of him as reckless.

"Alright then, what's the plan?" Rosemary asked as the group ran out of the village. "We're obviously going to need a ship, but I don't think any humans are just going to hand one over to us."

"I've already got a ship in mind that will accommodate our needs quite nicely; and don't worry about the humans, if everything goes to plan they won't even realize they've given us the ship until it's too late." Greninja said with a reckless and mischievous smile. "

As the three Pokémon, who weren't plotting nefarious deeds, approached the human settlement they couldn't help but feel uneasy with Greninja's plan.

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(A short while later at the docks)
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"Ticket sir?" A cruise line employee asked a mountain of a man shrouded in a deep dark cloak. The man wasn't a man though, in reality he was a pyramid of Greninja, Ziva, Freya and Rosemary stuffed inside Greninja's cloak; Greninja had it pretty rough for he was not only carrying the three girls on his shoulders, he was also burdened with all of their belongings tied to various parts of his body. It was an awkward set up, but was crucial part of Greninja's plan to get aboard the ship and acquire the vessel.

From inside the cloak Rosemary moved some things around before finding Greninja's ticket in a pouch strapped to his head. She passed the ticket out to the employee who examined it and checked the ID number off of his check list.

"Welcome back Mr. Chicanery." The employee said reading the name Greninja had assumed off the list. "We're right on schedule and are just waiting for the last of the supplies and passengers to arrive; feel free to enjoy all our accommodations until we're ready to depart."

"Thank. You." Freya said in stiff voice as she strained to speak in human tongue.

Her speaking startled everyone, but Ziva, and the employee looked a little creeped out by Freya's attempt at human speech; he let them pass nonetheless, chalking the strenuous dialect as another oddity of the mysterious cloaked passenger. Once aboard the ship Greninja had Ziva and Freya navigate him to his cabin and they made it there within a few minutes, only bumping into the walls twice along the way.

Once inside they piled out of Greninja's cloak and recapped their plan for taking the ship, with some alterations involving Freya's unique ability to speak with humans; a skill she apparently acquired from reading days upon days of dialect and language books. After their brief reconvene they moved out, Rosemary and Greninja heading for the Bridge while Freya and Ziva rushed to the engine room.

Greninja and Rosemary arrived just in time to hear the captain recieve a call from engineering about a fire erupting near the main engines and was spreading to the fuel chambers. There wasn't any actual fire threatening the ship it was, in fact, all an illusion of Ziva had crafted up. Her ability to make such illusions was a nifty one that Greninja had encountered in both of his battles with the tricky fox and was now serving, in combination with Freya shouting "Fire! Fire!", to cause a panic on the ship requiring an immediate evacuation of all personnel.

The illusion worked and the captain ordered everyone to evacuate the ship, as he shut down and sealed off parts of the hull to slow down the flames as best he could. He didn't get very far though because Greninja and Rosemary rushed in subduing him and his crew before they could turn off the engines and seal the fuel chambers.

As they tied the captain and crew up Rosemary asked Greninja an important question. "Are you sure we should go through with this? If we stop now and leave the ship we could get away unnoticed and no one would be after us; but if we go through with this we'll be wanted fugitives and hunted by the law across the whole world. This could be our last chance to turn back, so are you sure about this?"

Greninja hesitated for a moment and looked out at the people scrambling to get off the ship, fleeing in fear for their lives; the sight made him think of what would have happened if Kashiram had been freed and that though hardened his resolve harder than the very prison that holds the accursed dragon. "We can't let them do anything like what they tried to do with Kesiram." Greninja said in an authoritative voice. "We can't turn back, they need to be stopped and we need to rescue Alba; now go get Ziva and Freya we're beginning stage two."

"Aye aye, captain." Rosemary said sarcastically before sprinting off to find the girls.

A few minutes later they returned and Greninja had them carry the tied up crew member to the lifeboats as he continued to raise the anchors and cast the ship off. As the girls loaded the crew onto the lifeboats, and Greninja continued to work on their departure plans, Rosemary began gathering the belongings the passengers and crew had left behind in their evacuation and began loading that onto the lifeboats too; she also searched for any stowaways who were swiftly dealt with and tossed on top a lifeboat as well.

All of this was a part of Greninja's orders, he was able to cope with taking the ship, it was a matter of necessity, but he would feel eternal guilt if he stole these people's belongings or got any of them wrapped up in the drama around him.

The whole escapade took around half an hour to complete, during which time Ziva had to conjure up some more flames and an explosion or two to keep the curious onlookers at bay; but they eventually got the anchors raised, the engine's purring, and the remaining people and belongings on roughly half the lifeboats. Everything happened very quickly after their preparations were complete; the ship pushed off from the docks causing quite a ruckus but not one as intense as when the nearly forty lifeboats were lowered to the water and left for the frantic people to claim as the ship made a clean getaway.

Nearly three hours later they hit open water and were cruising at around twenty three knots. They felt they'd reached a safe spot and Greninja produced Cravens report so they could chart their path to follow the kidnappers. "Alright according to this intel Albas abductors are headed West North West."

"Isn't that just North West?" Ziva asked as she spun around on the captain's chair.

Greninja sighed and explained that West North West is more westward than North West but not west enough to be West. To which Ziva asked why it wasn't North West West and had Greninja spend the next few minutes explaining the fundamentals of a compass until Freya put a stop to it by convincing Ziva to follow her to the galley to tryout human cuisine.

After the pair had left Greninja turned to Rosemary, "It looks like they're either planning to go through, or to, this chain of islands. If they're going to those islands we'll probably be able to tack them down and find Alba within a week or two."

Rosemary looked up from the map with a troubled expression. "And if they're just passing through the islands, what then?"

Greninja moved his head to look at a large continent that somewhat resembled a small mountain chain and stared at it with such intensity Rosemary was afraid it would combust. "If they aren't staying in the islands then we follow them to the Sinnoh region and search the whole continent until we find them."

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Sorry for the wait, and sorry for the wait to come, I've been a bit busy and was struggling with a few parts of this story,(I'll give props to anyone who can guess what parts I struggled with.) but I think every turned at alright. I hope this chapter can satisfy you guys for a while because I'm going to put this on hiatus for about a week or two; I haven't updated my other story in nearly that long and need to show that it's still being written.

Hope you guys can forgive me, I'll leave a bit of extra stuff to let you think about what's next for the story. There was a much more important reason I had Greninja steal such a large ship compared to smaller and faster ships, other than the fact that he had easy access to the vessel.

Anyways I'll see you guys in the next chapter, until then please vote and comment, and thanks for reading! 😁

Shoutouts: Amourshipper444, Ash-GreninjaGirl, AmourAuraGaurdian19 (⬅️These three pretty much always encuraging my work which let's me write even better.) limenightsky (⬅️This guy asked a really good question that has opened up new ideas to me and has given me a really phenomenal idea for a later chapter.) and finally indigoflames and Dawnanimations. I choose you two because you're both fairly new to my stories but have been really active and supportive. So thank you all and have a wonderful time, until next time😊.