Episode 35! Woohoo!

P.S. Since I was not on ff.net for two weeks, I decided to post two chapters. Hope that makes you happy!

Cute lil’ quote of the day: ‘I’m not cool, and that’s okay! My god loves me anyways!’ from I’m not Cool, by Scott Krippayne.

Disclaimer: *waves a pendulum in front of her reader’s eyes over and over* Chants. I own pokemon, I own pokemon, I own pokemon I own pokemon…

Disclaimer: *holds up stack of Clow Cards and Sakura cards* I’m going to burn down Nelvana so they don’t own CCS anymore! Ohohohoho! But Clamp and Kodansha still have their rights!

Note: Day after Episode 34, Ash is still in the pokemon center. Poor guy seems to be getting sick. Awww, and remember, ** is thoughts, <> is telepathy, and italics is poke speech!

Episode 35: In which some important questions are answered

Sometime in the middle of the day, around noon, Ash woke up. He yawned. “Wow, the sun’s bright. What time is it, Pika-chan?”

“Exactly one thirty-eight P.M.” Pika-chan said primly.

Ash jumped. “What? But I never oversleep this late!” He immediately tried to jump out of bed, but found himself curiously tired.

“Don’t move.” Pika-chan said. “Sunny, please bring me the Wand.”

Sunny trotted over to Ash’s backpack. Rifling through it for a few seconds, she trotted back over with the Wand of the Water Guardian in her teeth.

“Thanks.” Pika-chan said. She waved the wand over Ash for a few minutes, as its healing power began to work. Ash sighed in relief when he felt energy flooding back into his tired body, but he was unsure of why he was missing it in the first place.

“What’s wrong with me?” Ash asked, perplexed.

“Why don’t I show you?” Pika-chan suggested. “Here.” She floated over to his backpack and took out the pokemon book. Opening the latch, the cards all floated out in swirling patterns, before laying themselves down on the floor neatly, in a circle pattern.

Pika-chan picked up the Moltres card. “Look.” She said simply.

Ash stared. Instead of the normal blue backing and gold sun and moon on the front, there was now a golden star at the top of the card. And the magic circle on the back had changed to a ten-pointed star flanked by a moon and the sun, still in gold though. Most of all, the card was now white. Moltres itself also looked slightly different, it now had a golden star at its throat and one next to each of the three flames on its head.

“This is the only one that changed.” Pika-chan said.

“Really!” Ash said.

“And the magic circle on the back of the card is like the one you used yesterday.” Pika-chan stated.

“I remember… the wings expanded when I used Moltres last night.” Ash said.

“This card, ‘Moltres’, is the card you changed from the original Clow card?”

“That means I created a ‘Clow Card’?” Ash asked in disbelief, his mind whirling frenziedly. * That’s impossible! I don’t have that much magic! I can only do weak spells that Pika-chan teaches me, there’s no way! *

< Then they should be called Ash cards! > Sunny piped up.

“Ash cards?”

< Why not! > Sunny said, wagging her tail. < This is so cool! >

“A-ano… Ash cards doesn’t sound that good Sunny…”

< Then we’ll call them Ash tree cards! > Sunny said cheerfully. Both Pika-chan and Ash fell over.

Sunny drifted off into her own little world for a bit.

“Ash, there’s something else I need to talk to you about.” Pika-chan said, suddenly turning solemn. “Last night, neither Sabrina nor I was able to help you when you were in danger.”

“But that’s over! I’m okay now!” Ash said, to reassure Pika-chan.

“No, I can’t just disregard this important fact.” Pika-chan suddenly looked very strange. “If Sabrina and I were in our false forms, then it would not matter, but both Sabrina and I were in our true forms! And you couldn’t use the pokémon cards either.”

“What does that mean?” Ash asked. Sunny had finally come out of her daze and was paying attention.

“To cause the Clow Cards to defect, and disable Sabrina and I so we couldn’t move, besides the current pokemon card master Ashura there is only one person.”

< Who is it? > Sunny questioned.

“Clow Reed.”

Elsewhere…

“Come to me.” The singsong voice intoned. The book of Sakura cards in the temple shook, before zooming through the protective barriers. The priest hid under a table and gaped as fifty-two cards detached themselves from the book, opening the lock with ease. They all floated out into the distance.

“Oh no!” The priest said, dismayed. To his shock, the force field suddenly dispersed. When he gathered up enough courage to enter, he saw the book lying open with a single card lying in it.

“The Hope…” But before he could say anything else, the book itself also took off, leaving Sage Chow there with nothing more than legends passed down through generations, and a single pink card lying in his trembling hands, that had fallen out.

“Are you okay?” A voice asked. Gary rubbed his aching head and looked up. There was a girl dressed in blue jean overall shorts and a pale yellow t-shirt. She had light purple hair in a ponytail, and brown eyes.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Cary. My Spinarak and I found you lying in the woods near my house, so I brought you back here.”

“Thanks for your help.” Gary said. He ached all over, like he had been through hours and hours of physical education class.

“No problem.” Cary said, helping him up. “The bathroom is over there. My aunt has some soup on the stove ready for you. I hope you like Chicken Noodle soup.”

Gary nodded and made adequate use of the restroom. When he was done showering and brushing his teeth, now dressed in a clean outfit, he headed out to the dining room.

“Hello.” A voice said. It belonged to a lady in a dark brown dress and apron, carrying a plate of sliced ham. “I see you’re up. That’s good, you’ve been out for several days.”

“Oh.” Was all Gary managed to say. He sat down at the table, next to Cary, who was already there, pouring gravy over her mashed potatoes.

“Hungry?”

“As a bear.” Gary replied. He piled his plate with sliced ham, two pieces of cornbread, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salad. He ate with a hearty appetite.

“So, Gary.” Cary’s uncle asked. “How did you wind up half dead in the woods?”

“Pokemon training.” Gary replied. “My memory is very foggy, but I seem to remember fighting a very powerful pokemon.

“That’s odd. I don’t remember any really strong pokemon in this parts.” Cary said, pouring herself a glass of water.

“Neither do I.” Ed, her uncle put in. “It seems to me that most of the pokemon around here are just standard basic pokemon, like Caterpies, Weedles, and Pidgeys.”

Gary shrugged. They ate in silence.

“You can stay here tonight.” Cary told him with a cheerful smile. She led him back to his room. Gary found to his surprise that his bed had been made and aired while he had been watching T.V. with Cary and Ed.

“Thank you.” Gary said. He climbed into bed, pulled on his purple pajamas, and soon fell asleep.

Now, back to the main group, a.k.a. the group at the pokemon center…

“Clow Reed? But…”

“Clow is dead.” Pika-chan said. “We know that. But it is his aura that we felt last night.”

“But how is this possible?” Ash asked.

“I don’t know…” Pika-chan confessed. “Next time, if this occurs again, we will have to keep an eye on it.”

Ash sighed. “Just when I thought that everything was over already…”

Sage Chow stared in disbelief at the spot the book had occupied mere moments ago. Something was dreadfully wrong, but he did not know what to do.

“I must contact the Card Master, and tell him/her of this. But how can I do that?” He looked around for something to help, but found nothing. Then, it occurred to him that he had no clue who the Card Master was.

Sage Chow finally lugged a basin of water into the area and began drawing a simple magic circle around it (and himself) out of white chalk. When the circle was complete, he sat inside and poured a drop of silver liquid into the water. The water turned cloudy and swirled for a few seconds, before a picture finally revealed itself.

Sage Chow saw a young boy, dressed in dark blue pajamas, sitting on a bed. He was talking to a Pikachu with wings on its back. There were other pokemon in the picture too, a Jolteon, a Pidgey, an Oddish, but the Pikachu seemed to be the most important one.

“Ah, so this is the new master. Where is he?”

As if in response, the picture shifted revealing an old, tattered sign with the words ‘Lavender Town’ written on it.

“Lavender Town?! I must hurry!” So, Sage Chow quickly packed his few belongings, pocketed the Hope card, and took along a plentiful supply of ofudas to protect himself from the evils he would encounter in the town.

Gary yawned as he climbed into bed. * Oh yeah, I have to call Gramps, tell him that I’m all right. I’ll do that later. * He snuggled deep into the warm covers, grateful that they were heavy, because it was autumn and soon, the days would grow colder and shorter.

Eevee curled up next to Gary and slept on his pillow. Unlike Gary, her memory had not been altered, but she had no way of giving him the necessary information. There would be nothing she could do, so why worry about it?

Ash finally climbed out of the bed and headed to the bathrooms outside. He brought his necessary supplies with him, and took a long, hot bath with peach flavored bubble bath (Pika-chan splashed him while trying to keep a lookout). Then, he got out and dried himself off with his fluffy towel. Sunny brought his green backpack, just in case he wanted anything.

Ash dressed himself in dark blue jeans and a dark green t-shirt, before he put his blue-and-white league jacket on top. Then, he went downstairs to see if he could get some food.

“Can we go to the restaurant across the street?” Pika-chan asked, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Well… I’m sort of broke since I lost to Candice.” Ash confessed. He looked sheepish.

< Maybe we shouldn’t eat out until we have enough money. > Sunny suggested.

“But hospital food tastes bad! I know from experience!” Pika-chan protested.

“Let’s just use the fruit basket!” Ash said. He pulled it out and requested poke food for all his pokemon, as well as peanut butter and banana sandwiches for himself and Pika-chan, French fries with ketchup, green salad, and sliced pears. The fruit basket was happy to oblige.

While they ate, Oddish kept a lookout for suspicious looking characters lurking around. But there were none.

“Maybe I’m just paranoid…” Ash said. “I guess that if I fight Candice again, I can’t use my pokemon cards.”

“You’ll have to do it the hard way.” Pika-chan affirmed. She petted him on the head. “Don’t worry. I know you can do it.”

Ash nodded as he ate.

And Sage Chow walked closer to Lavender Town.

End Episode 34! C&CC accepted! 9 reviews for faster updating! Flames will be used to call Loop, to trap Nelvana in time-space so they can’t dub anymore! Yay!