Pokémon Gladion x Moon - More than a Friend

Part 44

~Flashback~
Moon's perspective
I see the three members of team skull walk away from me. That Gladion... he's very interesting. "Uhhh... Earth to Moon?" I hear Hau say. "What? Oh, sorry. I was spacing out." I repond. "Need me to heal your Pokemon?" he kindly asks. "Nah, the center is just up there."
"So, uh... That Gladin guy, huh?" Hau says. "It was Gladion." I correct him. He was cool. Those grunts were really rude to him. "I hope we see him again." I say. Hau giggles.
~End of Flashback~

Narrator's perpective
Gladion and Moon are outside the training area, just finished with a battle. "Good job!" Moon congradulates. "You're not... upset you lost?" Gladion asks. "Oh yeah, this is the first time I lost to you." she thinks out loud. Gladion chuckles "Hey, don't get the wrong idea!" he defends. Moon loved seeing Gladion happy.

"Hey... can I ask you something, Gladion?" Moon asks. "What is it?"
"Umm... What was it like to work with Team Skull?" she asks. Gladion was a little taken aback, "Why do you ask all of a sudden?" "I was just thinking of when we met... and how rude those grunts were." Gladion sighed as he put this elbows on the table they were sitting at. "I wasn't really a part of Team Skull. Even though they were thugs, they were a really tight knit group... like a family..." This reminded Moon of what Plumeria said... about how the grunts were her siblings. They did seem to care a lot about Guzma when he went to Ultra Space. "They didn't want me, they just needed more hands to do more jobs." Gladion frowned. "What... what kind of jobs did they send you on?" Moon asked while she moved closer to Gladion. "I... I stole pokemon. God, I hate saying it out loud. Trainers, farmers, and even people who just had pokemon as pets... we took them all. The grunts rarely succeeded because of their stupidity, but I was smart about it. I can't imagine how many pokemon I stole." Moon put an arm around him in support. "I didn't look back. I thought of it as just a job. Get the pokemon, get the money. Thats how I got through it." A tear formed in Gladion's eye, so he closed them. "I did so much more than any of the grunts, but they still treated me as an outsider. Everyone but Guzma and Plumeria treated me like I was nothing."
Moon pulled him into a tight hug. "I promise, I'll never let anyone treat you that way again."