Disclaimer: I don’t own pokemon, strangely enough, and im not an evil rich 
American businessman. Shame…

1: Guess Who’s Back…

[This story is based on the cartoon series, set in the advanced league. I 
hadn’t watched the show for years, so I didn’t have a clue who many of the 
new characters were, of what had happened; here’s a synopsis: Misty and 
Brock leave, Gary quits after losing to Ash in the Johto league(whatever 
that was), Ash joins some random girl May, Brock reappears. And that’s it, 
apart from Ash changes all his pokemon except for pikachu. But seeing as I 
don’t know any of the new pokemon(or even that many from the gold/silver 
games), I’ve let him keep his old ones!]

The hot, angry sun glared down on Dewford Island, at the two trainers who 
faced each other off. One, a tall, dark man with black hair and a short 
black beard, gritted his teeth in frustration, as his pokemon, a bellsprout, 
was knocked out by his opponent's noctowl. He glanced across at his 
opponent, a short boy, who looked no older than fourteen. He wore a Pokemon 
League hat, whipped back in an almost arrogant manner, and there was a huge 
grin on his face.

"Bellsprout, return!" commanded the angry man. 'So, he thinks he's already 
won, eh? Well, he's in for a surprise!' he thought. “Jynx, go!” he 
commanded. The icy pokemon appeared from it’s pokeball, an icy valkyrie, its 
hideous face partially covered by banana coloured hair.

The boy, the grin suddenly gone from his face, glanced over to his two 
companions who were standing on the sideline. One of them, a young dark 
haired girl, who looked to be about fifteen years old, merely shrugged. The 
other, a young man with spiky black hair, and no eyes, who appeared to be 
17, looked meaningfully at Noctowl; “Jynx is ice, it has the advantage here, 
Ash!” he warned.
“Noctowl can handle it, don’t worry Brock!” replied Ash.
The young man, Brock, sighed, and said to the girl, “I don’t know why I 
bother sometimes…”
There was a distinctly icy sound, followed by a hoot of dismay, such as from 
a noctowl that has just been knocked out of the sky. Brock didn’t even have 
to look round.
“Waaah! Noctowl!” wailed Ash. His rival merely smirked. “Good going, Jynx. 
Come on, ya little punk, lets see what you’ve got!”
Ash growled in anger, his fighting spirit roused. “O.K., lets go for real! 
Noctowl, return! Pikachu, go!”

The little yellow rodent, who had been standing on the floor, ran out to 
face the jynx.
“Hah! You call THAT a pokemon! Haha!” The man was almost doubled over with 
laughter. “Jynx, crush that squirt, and then lets get out of here!”
Brock whispered to the girl, May, “Famous last words…”
Without even waiting for Ash’s command, Pikachu ran forward, and fired off a 
huge thunderbolt. The bolt slammed into the jynx, sending it flying back, 
into its trainer, who only just dived out of the way.

“Yeah! We did it! You were great, Pikachu!”
“Oh great, here we go again” sighed May. “Come on Brock, let’s ask that guy 
for directions before Ash really annoys him!”
She and Brock walked over to the man, and started to talk to him. Ash, 
meanwhile, was in his own world, as always after a victory. He was so happy, 
that he almost forgot about his opponent. He walked over to him, and offered 
his hand. The man took it.
“Well played, kid, you were too good. I guess I’d better apologise to your 
pikachu too. Damn, but that’s a tough little guy!”
“Gee, thanks.” Replied Ash, a little embarrassed. The elation of the victory 
had died down a little. “Uh.. bye!”
“Good luck, kid!” With that, the man started to walk away down the path. 
Brock and May congratulated him.
“Good job Ash!” said May.
Brock was less impressed, however, and he let Ash know. “You should have 
changed your noctowl when he brought out his jynx! Know the strength of your 
pokemon Ash! This is going to be a tough gym on this Island, and you wont 
win by simply  hoping that you’re powerful enough!”
“Yeah, ok, I get the idea! Lets get going.” Ash looked up the path, in the 
opposite direction from the one the man had taken.

A large mountain loomed up in his vision; the road led up to it, and became 
a narrow path that wound its way up the side of the mountain, and round. A 
dense forest of tall, dark pine trees crept up one side of the mountain, 
almost reaching up to the path. The entire thing made Ash shudder.
“We have to climb up that thing!?”
“No, we’ll just follow the path; it only goes up to about halfway. Come on 
Ash, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover!”

They had just started walking, when an all too familiar voice called out 
from behind them, “Hey, Ashy boy, did you miss me?”
“Gary!?” cried Ash in surprise, as he turned round to see his old rival Gary 
Oak standing about fifty metres behind him. With him was another young girl, 
with striking red hair, who seemed about 15 years old. Ash was even more 
shocked, “Misty!?!?! What are you guys doing here? I thought…I…” Gary cut 
him off, “I decided that I didn’t want to become a researcher quite yet and 
that I didn’t want to quit becoming a pokemon master either. I can research 
and battle at the same time! I reckon I’m too young to become”
Misty spoke up as well, “I got really bored once my sisters returned. It 
suppose it was nice to see my sisters for a while… for about ten seconds! I 
couldn’t take it any more! So when Gary was passing through and said he was 
going to Hoenn, I thought maybe I’d go too, to find you and, uh, get my bike 
back!”

Ash was still speechless.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?” asked May.
“I think his brains overloaded, too many thoughts for one day” said Gary. 
“I’m Gary, pokemon master to be!”
“Hi, I’m Misty, I’m here cos Ash still owes me a bike!”
“Wow, he owes me a bike too!” said May.
“How did he ruin yours?” asked Misty, sympathetically.
“I hate to break things up here”, said Brock, “But if we don’t get moving, 
then we’re gonna be stuck on some mountain overnight!”

And so, the now larger group headed off towards the ominous mountain…

To Be Continued…