Episode 39! *Evil cackle* I admit the last one was a cliffhanger!

Disclaimer: Shadow does not own pokemon. Okay? *Smiles and nods*

Notes: Okay, I didn’t put this in a few chapters. Just to refresh your memory, <> indicates telepathy, ** indicates thoughts, and this indicates poke speech. Unless of course, the italics are in the middle of a sentence…

Ranma – yes, I know. Giovanni’s pretty nice isn’t he? Actually, a lot of people are dubbies, so… besides, I hate flames and I hate Nelvana, so why not combine the two? Yes, guess the cloaked male figure! He’s not going to be revealed for a while… Hehehe…

Matthais-8888 – Ah, I see. I wouldn’t know. The story is choppy? I try to make it flow, but I’m not that good… Thanks for your compliments though!

Pikacar/Marle - *Pets Jewel* Thank you! Hmm, maybe AP Bio won’t be so bad after all… or Spanish honors… Save the Vulpix! Yep, Ash has fainted yet again…

Tmp – okay, I’ll try to answer all your questions. Pika-chan zaps her wings away in case if people w/magic can see her, then they’ll just think she’s a normal pikachu. The Vulpix card was scratched and torn because it was damaged (loss of energy), while being separated from the other cards. Pika-chan wasn’t surprised because Ash turned into Destiny during the Final Judgment; remember? Yes, Giovanni & Doc Mullins will be quite surprised. Pidgey is a real pokemon, but a magic-type. It evolved back in Episode 17… go back and read it if you’re confused.

The Pokemon Reader – thank you! Um, it’s usually not good to do characters that seem kind of SI when you begin writing. Other than that, I think your fics are fine.

Eevee99 - *Hands you a pancake* Here you go! Vulpix is fine now, but Ash is not…

Satoshi – that wasn’t long enough? *blinks* Usually on Word they’re about five pages long… but I’ll try…

SnowTiger – heh, so I’m not the only one suffering… of course it won’t be good! Poor Ash… of course Giovanni will suspect something. *Evil laughter*

Usagi Serena Yui Cosmos – A/L is good! Which stories? FY or pokemon?

Seeker – so you want Sabrina/Ash… that’s going to be hard to write… *Sighs* I’m definitely leaning more towards championshippy right now… but of course, you never know.

Episode 39: Recovery and revelations

Doctor Mullins looked at his watch. It had been twenty minutes. He decided to wait two more minutes, before informing the boy that visiting time was up.

Two minutes passed.

Finally, Doctor Mullins had had enough. He walked in.

And was totally unprepared for the sight that met his eyes. The Vulpix had managed to free itself from all the complicated apparatus, and now looked fine and perfectly healthy, as it was jumping up and down on the bed. However, the boy, Ash? He was lying on the floor of the room, unconscious.

“Oh great. Why did this have to happen on my shift?” Mullins asked himself. “What am I going to tell Giovanni?” He did not relish the thought of what might happen if Giovanni’s ‘heir’ was harmed. On the other hand, there was no good reason why a perfectly healthy boy would just topple over. Unless the air in the room was somehow contaminated with disease-causing pathogens, gas, poison, some deadly inhalant…

Mullins sighed and walked over to check on the kid. There was a pulse, to his surprise. And he was breathing normally. In fact, the only thing wrong with this picture was that the kid was sleeping during the day.

“Wakey, wakey.” Mullins said, shaking him.

Ash groaned, as he was jolted into consciousness, thanks to Pika-chan. He looked up into the concerned eyes of the pokemon doctor he had just met.

“Ugh…”

“Are you okay, son? You look unwell.” Mullins commented. He discreetly checked that Ash was breathing normally, and wasn’t exhibiting any signs of possible assassination.

“I’m just tired.” Ash said drowsily. He would have fallen asleep again had not Pika-chan given him another jolt.

“Ow!” Ash said.

Mullins looked at him strangely. Was the kid having hallucinations now? Maybe he should give him a blood test before letting him leave the facility.

“You don’t look too good. Stay here, I’ll get you some water.” Mullins said. He poured Ash a glass of water from the pitcher sitting on the table in the staff’s ‘dining room’, while discreetly adding a few teaspoons of super potion. It wouldn’t hurt the kid, anyways, and it might help him.

Pika-chan tsked. “Ash, when are you ever going to learn not to overstress yourself?”

“Um, never?” Ash asked.

Pika-chan sweatdropped. She handed him a Super Potion. After all, Pika-chan had been carrying around potions for a while, as Ash tended to hurt himself a lot. *Sweatdrop*

Ash drank the super potion. When Doctor Mullins came back, Ash drank the water as well, just to make the man happy.

Doctor Mullins sighed in relief. Ash’s color had returned and he looked a lot better. Apparently the potion had done its work. He decided that he didn’t need to report this to Giovanni.

“Well Ash, I’m glad that your Vulpix seems to be well again.” He said.

Ash grinned adorably. “Me too! Maybe Vulpix was so happy to see me that it got well by itself!”

“Did you talk to it? Sometimes hearing voices brings people out of comas.” Mullins suggested.

“Yeah, a little bit. And I hugged her. Is that okay?”

Mullins sweatdropped. “Er, yes… it’s not exactly standard procedure, but since it seems to have helped your pokémon…”

Ash nodded. “Well, I’m going to go now. I have to get a badge!”

Ash waved goodbye to Mullins and Vulpix, after giving her a hug and a bag of presents – a dark red collar, poke treats, a fluffy cat doll, two bones, and some vitamins and rare candies.

Vulpix waved back. < Bye, Master Ash! > She said telepathically. < Good luck on the rest of your journey! >

< Bye! > Ash sent back to her.

Mullins sighed. Well, if the boss weren’t going to question him about this incident, he wouldn’t mention it either. Better off not knowing.

Ash left and took the elevator back to the gym.

“Well, how did it go?” Giovanni asked, looking up from a huge pile of paperwork.

“Pretty well. Vulpix is all right now, so I think you can take her out of isolation.” Ash replied.

Giovanni dropped his pen. “What?! But it was in a coma! How did this happen?”

Ash crossed his fingers behind his back. “Well, I don’t know. I talked to her and told her to wake up, and after a few minutes she did.”

“That’s amazing!” Giovanni said. * He has potential. Perhaps, when he is older… he would be a valuable asset to my organization. He is emphatic, from what his mother told me, and if he has hidden abilities that we could develop… *

“Well, I have to go now. I’m still trying to get a badge.” Ash said.

“All right, Ash.” Giovanni said. “I was going to let you battle for the Earth badge now if you wanted to, but if you’re busy…”

Ash’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Well, you are here now, aren’t you?”

“Yep!” Ash said. “Okay then!” He ran across the gym to the second battle platform. Giovanni stood up and dusted himself up, and told Persian to turn off the electricity. He didn’t want to shock his newest recruit.

Persian slunk off to do as it was told. Finding the switches, it flipped them off and sat back to watch the show.

Pika-chan sat on Ash’s shoulder. She knew that Giovanni could see her. Hence, the wings were gone as not to attract undue attention.

A Fury Swipes rudely woke the sleeping referee up across the face. Persian hissed at him.

“Wha?” The terrified man asked. Had he done something wrong? Then, he noticed that there was a trainer at the other platform and Giovanni was holding his poke balls. “Oh. A match.”

The ref dusted himself out and went over to the score box. “All right, this will be a 3x3 match between the gym leader Giovanni and our challenger, er, what’s your name?”

“Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town.” Ash said. Was the referee not paying any attention? Or was he just out of it?

“All right! This match will now begin!” The referee said. “Challenger picks first!”

Ash rubbed his chin. * Hmm… I remember that Giovanni has a lot of pokemon. So whatever I pick, he’ll have something good against. I’d better use something that actually has a chance… *

“Pidgey, go!” Ash said. Pidgey flew out of her pokemon ball and looked around, before hovering in the air, waiting for her opponent.

“Kingler, go!” Giovanni said. The giant crab came out and snapped its claws menacingly. Pidgey turned pale.

< Calm down, girl. Focus. > Ash said to his pokemon soothing as he ran healing chi over her, ignoring the dark look Pika-chan was giving him for using magic right after he had collapsed. “Use Whirlwind!”

Pidgey began beating her wings furiously. The wind picked up and threw Kingler into Giovanni’s platform. Giovanni blinked in surprise.

“Well, that was unexpected.” He said dryly. “Kingler, use Bubble and knock it out of the air.”

“Pidgey, dodge! Then, I want you to follow-up with Desert Storm!” Ash called.

Pidgey almost seemed to grin. It easily got out of the way when the bubbles came its way. Then, it began to glow with gold energy. A mix of ground, electric, and flying-type energy shot at the Kingler.

Kingler really didn’t have a chance. Pika-chan looked impressed. < Wow, Ash. I didn’t know magic-type evolution would do so much. Or did you cheat and meld Pidgey like you did Butterfree? >

Ash looked indignant. < No, I didn’t cheat! > He turned to Pidgey. “Great job, girl!”

Pidgey looked proud.

“Kingler, return.” Giovanni said. * Well, he is creative… a good quality. Let’s see how well he does if I use a direct type advantage this time. *

“Pidgey, return.” Ash said. He gave Pidgey a pat on the back before he sent out his next pokemon. “Sunny, I choose you!”

Sunny popped out and yawned. < Oh, I see. A battle. > She shook herself and prepared to fight.

“Machamp, go!” Giovanni said. Ash gulped when he saw the towering fighting-type. However, Sunny didn’t look phased at all.

< Sunny, are you sure you can handle this? > Ash asked. < I don’t want you to get hurt. >

< I’ll be fine, little brother! > Sunny said.

Ash sighed. “All right. Sunny, use Thunderbolt!” Sunny nodded, as a bolt of electrons streaked towards the Machamp.

“Karate Chop.” Giovanni said. Machamp powered up and charged Sunny, who dodged out of the way easily, since she was much faster.

“Use Quick Attack!” Sunny darted in, nailed Machamp, and darted back out. Machamp roared in frustration and blindly charged.

“Eep! Sunny, use Reflect!” Ash said, starting to panic. Giovanni was shouting at his Machamp, but it was already too far in berserker rage to respond. Unfortunately, Sunny froze when it charged – directly at Ash’s platform.

Two hundred and eighty-seven pounds of fighting pokemon crashed into the structure, sending Sunny flying, as well as Ash.

Several things happened at once.

One, the referee took cover under bleachers.

Two, Pika-chan transformed into her ‘Eternal Winged Pikachu of Greatness’ form and dived down after Ash.

Three, Ash’s poke balls popped open. Skymew appeared for a brief second before Sabrina took over and also dived for Ash.

Fourth, Sunny, being a legendary pokemon, revealed her wings and saved herself from flying into a wall.

Fifth, Storm popped out of her Great ball and took care of the Machamp with a well-aimed hyper beam.

Sixth, Giovanni’s Persian darted onto the field to try and stop the commotion.

When the chaos was finally sorted out a few minutes later, Giovanni was in shock, to say the least. And that was a rare thing.

Ash finally found his voice. “Um, I can explain this…”

“I hope so!” Giovanni said.

Ash sighed. “It’s a long story…” He would have said more, but than Pika-chan whispered something in his ear.

“You can’t erase his memory. It’s one of those inevitable things. Plus, Serebii chooses these things. This is a turning point. And she said no.”

Ash’s eyes widened. Then, he bowed his head in defeat. “All right…”

End Episode 39!

Leave a review! Plotbunnies are withering faster than the central vacuole of an Elodea plant placed in a bowl of salt water! Ugh, too much AP Biology isn’t too good for you…

Flames will be used to forge Wood – so she can grow over the Nelvana Headquarters and prevent anything from coming out! Hehehehehe!

POLL: If Shadow wrote a lemon and posted it somewhere, who would read it?