The next morning Joey and Fantasia climbed on to the bus and sat down at the small kitchen table. They took out their Pokemon decks and damage counters and started to set up to play. Just as they started the game, Chris came into the room to get a Mountain Dew out of the refrigerator.

"Isn’t it a little early for soda?" Fantasia asked without taking her eyes off the game.

"Nope." Chris replied taking a big gulp of his favorite drink. "What are you two doing anyway?" he asked walking over. He looked down at the cards neatly laid out on the table. "You play Pokemon!"

"Duh!" she replied trying to ignore Chris.

"Can I battle you next?" he asked bouncing around.

"Only if you can sit still." she said gesturing at his soda bottle. Chris put his drink away and went to find his Pokemon deck.

Twenty minutes later Joey was down to one Pikachu with no energy while Fantasia had six Pokemon; most of them fully powered up. Her active Pokemon being a Rocket’s Mewtwo with four energy cards on it.

"I thought you said you weren’t very good at this?" Joey asked.

"I’m not… not compared to the other players at my league back home."

Joey’s eyes narrowed and he groaned. He looked through the cards in his hand for the fifth time. There was nothing in there that could help him. He decided to go with a less conventional tactic. He slipped off his sandal and started gently running his foot up and down Fantasia’s leg.

"You can try and distract me all you want, it’s not going to help you." she said without even looking up at him.

Joey sighed and slipped his sandal back on. He slapped the cards in his hand down on the table and said, "Go. I can’t do anything."

Fantasia drew her card, put an energy on one of her benched Pokemon, and played a couple trainer cards. She knew she didn’t need to do these things. She could knock out Joey’s Pikachu with one hit and win the game. She just wanted to tease him a bit.

"Would you just kill me already!" he said getting a little annoyed. Fantasia finally used her attack and won the game.

Chris had been watching them play and started teasing Joey about getting beat by a girl. Joey collected his cards so Chris could battle Fantasia.

"She’s not as easy as she looks." he said getting up.

"That’s cause your deck sucks." Chris said plopping down in the seat across from Fantasia.

They shuffled their decks and set up their cards. Chris started with a Charmander, a fire type Pokemon, and no other Pokemon on the bench. Fantasia started with her favorite Pokemon, Lapras, a water type. Two turns later Fantasia had put out Chris’s fire and won the game!

"What!?! That’s not fair! I want a rematch!" he shrieked.

"No, it’s my turn." Lance said nudging Chris to get up.

Chris gathered up his cards and moved out of the way. Lance sat down and Chris patted him on the shoulder saying, "Good luck, man."

"I think I can take her." he replied with a confident smile.

"You sure about that?" she asked just as confident.

Joey stood there a little surprised. He’d never seen Fantasia have so much confidence in her abilities before. It may be just a game to the guys, but to her it was much more than that.

Lance wasn’t as easy as Joey or Chris though. He had an electric and psychic type deck. Fantasia’s water and psychic deck was weak to both of those. She was a little nervous, but she didn’t let it show. Lance quickly evolved his Pikachu into Raichu and got him loaded up with energy.

At first Fantasia was only able to find water Pokemon, like Lapras and Magikarp. They were the ones that were weak to Raichu’s electric attacks. She wasn’t even able to find her Gyarados so she could evolve her Magikarp. Fantasia was just about to give up hope of winning when she drew her Rocket’s Mewtwo. In the end her league training paid off and Fantasia was victorious!

As she shuffled her cards, Fantasia looked at the guys and asked, "Do you want me to help you with your decks?"

"Sure." Joey replied. He’d do anything to help boost her confidence.

"Ok, let me see what other cards you have." The three guys just sort of looked at each other. "You do have other cards, right?" she asked.

"I have some." Lance said getting up.

When he returned a minute later he had a small stack of about twenty cards. "That’s it?" she asked shocked.

"Well, after we made our decks, we donated the rest of the cards to charity." Chris explained. Fantasia slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and sighed in frustration.

"That’s a nice thing to do, but what if you need to change your deck?"

Once again the guys kind of looked at each other.

"We didn’t think we’d need to." Joey replied.

She sighed again and shook her head. "Ok, let me see what you got."

Lance handed her the small stack of cards. Fantasia looked through them, but didn’t see anything too special.

She set the cards down on the table and said, "Ok, during your lunch break we’re going shopping."

The three guys looked at her stunned. Fantasia had never even asked for a shopping trip, let alone demanded one. "It’s not for me, it’s for you." she said, "You want to have a chance at beating me, don’t you?"

"Yeah…." Lance said, wanting to know where she was going with this.

"Well, then you need better decks. And I can’t help you with your decks until you have more cards." she explained.

"Ok, but you’re not touching my deck until I get a rematch." Chris said pointing his finger at Fantasia.

Just then the bus turned into the parking lot of the studio where the photo shoot was being held.

"That’s fine." she said, "We’ll have plenty of time while they’re taking pictures of Justin."

The guys couldn’t help snickering at that. They always did seem to want more pictures of Justin than anybody else.

As the guys went to work, Fantasia sat down at a table and opened her laptop. She started searching the Internet for card shops in their area that carried Pokemon cards. She found five different shops. After finding their phone numbers, she called each one. She wanted to know which expansion sets they had in stock and how much they would cost.

After a couple hours the group pictures were finished. For the solo pictures they started with Lance. Chris was the first one to come over to where Fantasia was sitting. "Can I get my rematch now?"

"Sure." she replied pushing her laptop aside.

As he sat down Chris rubbed at the ten pounds of make up that had been applied to his face and grumbled, "I hate photo shoots."

"I don’t blame you." Fantasia replied not looking up from shuffling her deck.

He looked at her a little confused as he got out his cards. "What do ya mean?"

She shrugged and said, "You hate wearing all that make up, right?"

Chris’s mouth dropped open a bit before he shrieked, "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" she asked innocently.

"Knowing every damn little thing about us!"

Fantasia couldn’t help laughing. "Oh, yeah, Chris. You’re the only guy in the world that hates wearing make up." she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "Like I said, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to wear all that make up either." Now Chris looked at her even more confused. "Don’t give me that look. Just cause I’m a girl doesn’t mean I like wearing the goop."

As they set up their cards, Joey sat down next to Fantasia and kissed her on the cheek.

"Dude, did you know your girl hates make up?" Chris asked Joey.

Honestly, Joey hadn’t noticed one way or the other, but he didn’t want to tell Fantasia that. Instead he said, "So? I think she’s perfect just the way she is."

Fantasia looked over at him and said, "You didn’t even notice, did you?"

Joey hung his head and sighed. He looked back up at her, smiled and said, "I can’t get anything past you, can I?"

"Nope." she said patting the side of his face and giving him a quick kiss.

"Are we going to battle or what?" Chris asked. Fantasia turned all her attention back to him and their game of Pokemon.

Chris got off to a much better start. The game lasted much longer this time. Joey watched every move Fantasia made very closely. He wanted to learn to play as well as she did. Chris was able to get out his Charizard, but in the end his fire deck was no match for Fantasia’s water Pokemon.

"I want a rematch!" Chris demanded.

She smiled and agreed.

After loosing three more games in a row, Chris said, "I wanna battle Joey now."

Fantasia giggled and said, "Ok."

She and Joey switched places. A few turns into the game, Joey wasn’t sure how to go about his next move. Fantasia looked at the cards in his hand and whispered something in his ear. Joey followed her instructions and was able to knock out Chris’s Pokemon.

"Hey, no fair! That’s cheating!" Chris whined.

"Ok, you’re right." Fantasia said. She got up and walked around the table to see what Chris had. After looking at his cards she whispered some instructions in his ear.

"I can do that?" he asked shocked. Fantasia nodded and Chris did as he was told. By doing that he was able to knock out Joey’s only Pokemon and win the game.

"Some girlfriend you are." Joey grumbled as Fantasia walked back around the table. When she reached him she smacked him playfully. "I’m just kidding. You know I love you." he said wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her tight.

Without saying a word, Fantasia took his face in her hands and kissed him. Joey pulled her onto his lap and held her close as they kissed. Chris groaned and said, "I guess we’re done playing Pokemon."

After the photo shoot, the guys went back to the hotel to scrub off the make up before going out to lunch. Fantasia gave the list of card shops to Joey and he talked to their driver. It turned out that one of the card shops was right across the street from where they were having lunch! After they got to the restaurant they all ordered their food. Then Fantasia, Joey, Chris and Lance went over to the card shop.

Luckily, the shop didn’t have any other customers at the moment. Each of the guys bought a full box of Pokemon booster packs and a theme deck. Fantasia made sure that they each got a different expansion set. That way they would have a wider variety of cards to work with. Fantasia bought herself a theme deck, a few booster packs and a new pack of plastic card sleeves.

While they were in the small shop Fantasia asked the guys, "So why don’t Justin and JC play?"

"Justin thinks he’s ‘too old’ to play a ‘kid’s game’." Chris replied mockingly. Fantasia groaned and shook her head.

"We tried to teach JC, but he just didn’t get it." Lance explained.

"I guess I’ll have to try." she said.

"Good luck." Joey scoffed.

"Hey, I teach kids to play all the time at my league. I think I can handle JC." she replied. The group paid for their items and went back across the street.

As they sat back down at the table, Justin asked, "Where’d y’all go?"

"Just over to the card shop." Chris replied. Their food wasn’t there yet so he was already opening his booster box. Justin looked over at Fantasia to see her opening one of her booster packs.

"Not you too." he groaned. She just rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to get into it with Justin in public.

Fantasia was sitting between Joey and JC. As she opened her booster packs JC leaned over to look at them. "Get anything good?"

"Yeah, a couple things. That’s going in my deck." she replied pointing at a trainer card.

"I wish I could play." JC sighed.

"You want me to teach you?" she asked.

"The guys already tried." he replied.

"Yeah, I know. But I think I’m a little better at the game then they are." she said with a grin.

"Hey!" Chris whined.

Fantasia looked at him and asked, "How many times do I have to kick your butt before you admit that I know what I’m doing?" The rest of the guys burst out laughing.

Joey and Lance decided to start opening their boxes too. Joey let Fantasia open some of his packs. Fifteen minutes later the table was covered in Pokemon cards and foil wrappers! Their waitress arrived with both her arms loaded down with plates. She stared down at the table for a few seconds, wondering what she was supposed to do with all this food. The guys quickly cleared their stuff out of the way. During lunch Fantasia found out what type of decks each of the guys like to use and some of their favorite Pokemon. Information that she would need when building their decks.

After lunch the guys had some interviews to go to. Fantasia staid on the bus so she could work on the guys’ Pokemon decks. She took the cards to the back room, put her advanced copy of Celebrity in the stereo and sat down on the floor. Soon the floor was cover in Pokemon cards. She worked on Chris’s fire deck first. He still wanted a Charizard deck, but she added some other colorless Pokemon that would stand up to water attacks. Lance’s deck needed the least amount of work. It was pretty good as it was.

Joey, on the other hand, needed a whole new deck. The deck he had made contained electric, grass, fighting and psychic Pokemon. Decks with more than two types rarely work. Fantasia built him a strong grass deck with some colorless Pokemon that he could use against Chris’s fire Pokemon. Then she got to work on JC’s deck. Since he was having trouble understanding the game, she made him a simple yet effective fighting deck.

Just as she finished the decks, the guys came back from their interviews. Joey and Lance went to the back to see how Fantasia was doing. When they saw her sitting on the floor surrounded by cards they just stared at her.

"What?" she asked confused, "This is how I work."

"How many decks did you get done?" asked Lance as he tried to maneuver his way over to the couch.

"All of them." she replied as she started picking up the extra cards. The two guys looked at her a little surprised.

Fantasia gave Lance and Joey their decks so they could look over them. As soon as there was enough space, Joey sat down on the floor with his girl. As she finished picking up the remainder of the cards, Chris came into the room and asked, "Hey, Fantasia. Did you finish my deck?"

"Yup." she replied tossing it to him.

"Did you make yourself a new deck?" Lance asked, noticing the fourth deck.

"No, that’s for JC."

"Ya really think you can teach him?" Chris asked still sounding unsure.

"Yeah…." she replied sounding very confident. Lance and Chris thanked Fantasia and left to go try out their new decks.

Joey wrapped his arms around her and asked, "Why can’t you be this confident all the time?"

She just shrugged her shoulders. Honestly, she had no idea why she had so much confidence when it came to Pokemon.

After all their public appearances were done for the day, the guys went back to the hotel to relax. Justin met up with Jamie and they went out for the evening. Lance and Chris ended up in Joey and Fantasia’s room and the four of them were playing Pokemon.

Fantasia and Joey were sitting on the bed playing a game. Lance and Chris were stretched out on the floor having their own battle. Fantasia was just about to knock out Joey’s Pokemon and claim her last prize card when Chris and Lance started arguing over their game. She got up and went over to see what the problem was. Chris explained what he was trying to do.

"But he can’t do that, right?" Lance asked.

"Actually, he can. That’s why I put the card in his deck." Fantasia showed the card to Lance and explained how it worked with Chris’s deck. Once they were both satisfied, Fantasia got up to go back to Joey.

As she was walking back to the bed there was a knock at the door. She groaned a bit and went to answer it. It was JC.

"Hey, Fantasia. Are you still willing to teach me to play Pokemon?"

"Sure." she replied letting him in, "Just let me finish kicking Joey’s butt."

"Hey!" Joey whined.

"You’re getting better." she told him encouragingly, "You did knock out one of my Pokemon. Besides you’re still getting use to your new deck. Just give it some time."

JC watched as Fantasia finished her game with Joey. Joey picked up his deck and moved out of the way so JC could sit down. Fantasia got out the deck that she had made for JC. Joey staid on the bed so he could watch Fantasia. He wanted to know what they did wrong when they tried to teach JC to play.

Fantasia started by showing him the different types of cards and explaining how they worked. She showed him how to set up the cards before starting a game. Then she explained the steps each player takes during their turn and how to attack.

"That’s it?" JC asked surprised, "You guys made it seem a lot harder than that!"

Just then Chris and Lance finished their game and came over to watch.

"Do you want to try playing a game?" Fantasia asked JC.

"Sure, why not." he replied.

"Ok, you battle Lance and I’ll help you." she said.

"Me?" Lance asked surprised.

"Yeah, half your deck is weak to JC’s. It’s the best match for him to learn with." she explained. Lance shrugged his shoulders.

Fantasia moved so she was sitting next to JC and Lance sat down on the bed across from him. Joey and Chris went back to the floor to play their own game. Fantasia walked JC through the steps of the game. She made sure he followed the rules, but let him decide what he wanted to do. She only gave him advice when he asked for it. After a couple games JC was really starting to get the hang of it. Fantasia and the guys staid up until almost two in the morning playing Pokemon.