Yatta! Episode 34! *Authoress does a little dance of joy*

Ash: Hi!

Shadow: Hey! Didn’t I lock you up so you would leave my muse alone?

Ash: What do you mean? I am your muse?

Shadow: *looks around nervously* Well, I guess.

Ash: Anyways, this is the next arc! You’ll get to see me do all kinds of cool things, like change pokemon cards into-.

Shadow: Shh! You’re giving away the plot!

Ash: *sheepish grin* Oops. Well, at least you’re still writing. You know, some fics out there portray me as nothing more than the idiot.

Shadow: Well, in the anime, you’re not exactly that appealing…

Ash: *big teary eyes*

Shadow: But I still write cool fics about you, right? Besides, I love the way they portray you in the manga.

Ash: *relieved look* Well, I guess that’s it. People, thanx for reviewing, and if you didn’t, Sunny will hunt you down and shock you! Ja ne!

Shadow: And that’s the end of this little intro! *Winks*

Disclaimer: Pokemon is not mine. Destiny is. It’s not that hard to understand. If you want to borrow anything, e-mail me. As long as you give me credit in your Author’s notes, I’ll probably say yes.

Disclaimer 2: I do now own CCS either, as it belongs to CLAMP, Kodansha…

Note: If you’re a new reader, great! For your convenience, here are the symbols. ** Is thoughts, <> is telepathy, and italics is translated poke speech!

Silver – thanks! But I already did that! It’s already up!

John Eon – who said I wasn’t going to continue? Of course I will!

Tmp – Yes, I know how to deal with the Vulpix situation… Hehehe…well, Ash does find out about the transforming card bit during his gym battle. Sorry! But he doesn’t know what’s wrong until later… going to have to wait a while for Todd to return, to give those people who don’t’ like him a break….

Pikacar/Marle – thanks! And yes, I did read your fic. Of course we need mysterious figures! *Smirks*

Goldfox133 – who said Giovanni was bad just because he runs TR?

Ranma – Hi! I’m not sure if I want to do Lance/Sabrina, since I’d rather do championshippy, but Lance isn’t going to appear for a while. Sorry! But doing stuff with flames is fun! Besides, I still get some sometimes. *Growls*

Eevee64 – Your favorite fic on ff.net. Wow! I feel so proud…

The Eevee Master – oh no! Now you’re all confused! Hmm… how can I help? I guess you can decide for yourself if Giovanni is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, I say he’s both, but mostly good. And when is my fic not a cliffhanger? Oh well. *Ducks behind shield of eevelutions to prevent from being attacked* Female photographer thing… you’ll have to figure out yourself!

LadyHornetLinda – Wow, Thanks! I love getting e-mails from my readers! It’s a great way to make shadowphantomness really happy!

The Pokemon Reader – I see! Don’t worry, I will write more soon! It’s just that it takes time to write and I’m chock-full of Hw all the time…

The Mistress of Richard Cox – A creampuff? Well, we all need some fluff from time to time… Photographer, Hehehe… not telling! *Hands her a candied apple* I love candied apples too!

Ihire – Yay! Another review! I love to write when I get encouragement!

Eevee99 – blushes “Thanks!”

Note: Oh, and just in case you guys didn’t notice, I updated Dragon’s Love too. *Poke, poke* and I’m sorry for not updating for so long… *Sobs* ff.net locked my account for a week and my internet was down too…

Episode 34: Losses and gains

The gym leader stepped out. It was a girl dressed in a vest made out of shiny pink material, over a white short-sleeved t-shirt and black jeans. She had light pink hair in two pigtails and black eyes.

“Hi! I’m Candice, the Seismic gym leader! As always, I’m open for battles from nine A.M. to two P.M. every day! And if there are any new challengers, please go to the front of the line!”

Ash blinked. He walked up to the front, but nobody else did. They all looked dejected.

“Good luck, kid.” One hiker commented. “You’ll need it.”

“Joe is right.” Another trainer said. This one was a fisherman. “Candice is hard to beat. I’ve lost to her ten times already.”

“Okay. Thank you for your advice.” Ash said. His fingers tightened on his poke balls.

“Shall we start?” Candice asked. She led Ash into the room and closed the door behind her. Bright light shone onto a platform in the center of the gym, like a boxing rink or a fighting pokemon stage.

“This is intense pokemon training, so don’t think you’re going to win easily. The trainer and pokemon have to fight together.”

“Fine by me.” Ash replied.

“Okay, in that case, as soon as the referee has finished his coffee break, this battle will now begin!” Candice said.

Soon, the referee appeared.

“Start!”

“Machoke, go!” Candice said.

“Oddish, I choose you!” Ash countered.

Oddish immediately started spraying sleep powder towards Candice and Machoke. Machoke yawned and began to doze off. Candice rubbed her eyes and pinched herself to stay awake.

“Machoke, Counter!”

“Vine whip restrain!” Ash sallied. Oddish nodded and two whips bound Machoke tightly. (Yes, I know Oddish normally can’t learn vine whip but this one is special.)

“Machoke, Low kick!”

Oddish shrugged and hurled Machoke into a wall. It stayed there.

“All right, you won the first round.” Candice said, recalling her pokemon. “Pretty good. But can you beat my next pokemon? Sandslash, Fissure!”

Oddish eeped and stood frozen in place as the fissure streaked towards it.

< Oddish, do something! > Ash shouted telepathically. But Oddish looked like it was hyperventilating, so Ash recalled it before it was hurt.

“Hypno, I choose you!” There was a flash of blue light and Hypno appeared in front of the Sandslash.

< Psychic. > Ash commanded. < That should take it out. >

Hypno obeyed, but for some obscure reason, the beam was totally off target and Sandslash took it out with Fissure.

“What?!” Ash was shocked. Hypno was a pokemon card! How could it lose so easily? Hypno sagged and resumed card form, landing in Ash’s hands.

“Guess you’re not such a hotshot trainer.” Candice said.

“In that case, I’ll use Alakazam!” Ash said. This psy pokemon was a lot more powerful than Hypno, and if she had a psycho Sandslash, he was sure Alakazam could take it out.

But Alakazam fared no better. So it was with a shocked look that Ash left the gym.

“Pika-chan, what’s wrong? When I used the cards, they wouldn’t respond. It was like they were dying or something!”

Pika-chan rubbed her chin. “I’m afraid that this may be more serious than anything we’ve faced before. When Clow died, he sealed off a good portion of dark energy to keep the cards alive. But now, that energy source is almost out and they can’t draw any from you.”

“Why?”

One of his poke balls popped open. Skymew appeared, before transforming into Sabrina, who regarded him carefully.

“Your power is ‘star’. If you had darkness, then you could sustain them, but at this rate, I’m afraid there is nothing you can do…”

Ash looked so distressed that Pika-chan hastened to help. But there wasn’t much she could do…

Later that night…

Rain fell, pouring over the land in rivers. The water level began to rise, slowly at first, but then quicker.

Pika-chan woke from her light sleep. She gasped. The water was already two inches past the sidewalk!

“Ash, wake up!” Pika-chan said, shaking the sleeping trainer awake. Ash had softly cried himself to sleep. Pika-chan finally had to resort to a thundershock.

Ash jumped up from bed, one hand on his necklace. “What is it?!”

“It’s flooding! We have to get out of here! This isn’t a normal rainstorm.”

“Indeed.” Sabrina said from behind them, causing Ash to jump. “That’s Clow’s aura…”

Ash tentatively reached out with his magic, and was surprised to find that it was, indeed, that comforting aura of darkness he had felt after the Final Judgment.

“Let’s go out and check.” He said. “Key that hides the power of the stars, reveal your true form before me! Your master under the seal of contract Ashura commands you, Release!” The gold magic circle formed under his feet, as usual, while wind energy whipped around him and the key glowed and extended into the staff.

“Wait! You forgot something!” Pika-chan said. She dragged Ash into a bathroom and presented him with an outfit.

“What?”

“I figure that you should wear this in memory of Todd. After all, he did help you on your quest a bit… and he had a lot of extras!”

Ash sweatdropped. “Okay…” The outfit turned out to be a dark blue cape and hood, trimmed with white, all waterproof. This went over a white long-sleeved t-shirt and pants trimmed with dark blue, and white rain boots. Todd had even thoughtfully included a pair of goggles that went over his eyes.

Ash dressed himself and then silently slipped out of the door of the pokemon center, with an illusion covering him so the cameras wouldn’t spot him.

Sabrina and Pika-chan followed, also cloaked in invisibility. Pika-chan thoughtfully transformed into her ‘Eternal Pikachu of Greatness’ form and padded on behind him.

They decided to head up to the roof, since that was the safest place. Pika-chan flew Ash up on her back.

They were just looking around when the rain clouds suddenly parted and a great waterspout enveloped Ash.

“Ash!!” Pika-chan and Sabrina shouted. They both flew over to aid him, but partway there they were struck with paralysis.

“I can’t move!” Pika-chan said, shivering all over.

“This power…” Sabrina said softly.

“It must be…”

Ash shuddered as his air supply was cut off. * I can’t die like this! And what will happen to Sabrina and Pika-chan? I have to find a way out of this! * A magic circle suddenly spun into being under his feet. Pika-chan and Sabrina both looked up.

“That’s not Clow’s magic circle!” Sabrina said, shocked.

Ash held up a card, spinning it in one hand. * Cards created by Clow, please work hard together with me! * He threw it into the air and struck it with his new staff.

“Moltres!” The wings on his staff suddenly expanded and glowed, as the card itself also glowed brightly. Moltres cawed and swiftly dissolved the typhoon, exploding the water all over the place.

“It worked!” Pika-chan cheered.

Ash stared at the card. “It changed…” Instead of the blue border and backing, the card was now white with a star on the top.

Pika-chan and Sabrina ran over. “Ash! Are you okay?”

“Pika-chan, Sabrina, this…” Ash did not get to finish his sentence before he fainted.

Sabrina caught him.

“Is he all right?” Pika-chan asked worriedly. She bounded over to take a closer look.

Sabrina sweatdropped. “He’s… asleep.”

Pika-chan fell over.

In the shadows…

“Not bad.” A voice said. “This new magic will pave your future…”

But since Ash was unconscious, he did not hear this. Sabrina tensed and looked around, but she couldn’t see anything. She sighed and followed Pika-chan back into the pokemon center.

Pika-chan tucked Ash into bed. Then, she turned to Sabrina.

“Do you know what is happening?”

“I cannot say for sure yet.” Sabrina said, before she faded away into the poke ball.

Pika-chan nodded and kept vigil over Ash while he slept that night.

End Episode 34!

Hi! C&C accepted! Flames will be used to bring Firey to life so she can burn down Nelvana for me. *Cackling laughter* Mwahahaha!