Episode 66! *Shivers* Ooh, double numbers. Scary!

Disclaimer: Shadow does not own pokémon. She is not making any profit off this fanfiction anyways, so if you try to sue her, she will hurl fireballs and lightning in anger.

Notes: <> indicates telepathy, ** indicates thoughts, italics indicates translated pokémon speech! Oh yes, and Teresa is evil. Heh. Or maybe she’s just possessed.

Ranma – well, you know, I can’t keep Ash in Cosmos 4ever, I’d get too many complaints… and yes, darkness is good. ^_^

Hell Flame Vulpix – um, well, hmm… that depends, though I think Pika-chan is just rubbing off on Sunny.

SnowTiger – well… actually, haven’t thought of who designed the cities yet. *Sheepish look* Scarlet will have a rather intriguing role later on, I think.

Digifan – Teresa is dark! *Cheers*

Guy Shani – well, that’s good. At least someone appreciates my evil genius.

Fire Eevee – think about it, why not Teresa? She’s close to Ash, and I don’t think Charlotte would be easily controlled…

Mathais-8888 – well, I don’t know why ppl don’t like Teresa, but heck, I always hated Tomoyo in CCS anyways… so… *Shrugs* anyways, at least I’m keeping her.

Where in the world is Tmp?

Episode 68: Diversions

“Jolteon, Thunder!” Charlotte said, calling down electricity on the monster with the aid of her lightning eevelution. But the attack was simply absorbed by the Minotaur, who flung it back at her in double.

Charlotte shuddered as the electricity coursed through her system. * Good thing I’m fire-blooded. * She thought, before she pulled out another sun card. “Fine then, try this! Jynx, go! Blizzard!” The devastating ice attack was slightly more effectively, but not that much.

The Minotaur staggered only slightly, before it actually picked up a lamppost and swung it at her.

Charlotte jumped out of the way. * I hope Ash gets here soon… *

“Jynx, use Blizzard again!” Jynx nodded and flung the ice fragments at the Minotaur’s face, which proved to be rather prejudicial to its health.

The monster pawed the ground and roared, before charging again and flinging Jynx into a tree.

Charlotte winced. * This is not good! * “Ninetails, go! Flamethrower!”

Just then, Ash arrived. “What is it?”

“Some time of monster that’s resistant to ice and electric!” Charlotte said as her ninetails flamed the Minotaur.

Ash threw out a card of his own. “Arcanine, I choose you! Go help Ninetails!” Arcanine growled in reply and charged.

Two blasts of fire toasted the Minotaur, which fell over and exhaled a poof of dust before it turned to ashes.

“Phew.” Ash said, as he recalled his Arcanine. “Hey, it wasn’t that bad.”
Charlotte would have said more, but than she noticed something else. “Don’t talk yet, Ash. Look up.”

From one of the tall buildings leapt another Minotaur.

“Well, you’re tired, I’ll take care of it!” Ash said.

Charlotte nodded. * The sun’s going down and my magic wanes with the sun. * Her eyes turned gold for a bit and she encased herself in a shell of golden light, shrinking her wand back into a key and hoping that Ash could handle this one his own.

Ash nodded and pulled out a card. * Well, if they’re weak against fire, I’ll use more than one fire pokemon! * “Vulpix – wait, she’s still at home. Okay then. Growlithe, Arcanine, go!” The two canine fire-types charged and attacked.

However, this Minotaur was different. It seemed wholly resistant to fire attacks, and flung Growlithe and Arcanine’s attacks back at them, knocking both of them out.

“What?!” Ash asked, shocked.

“Careful.” Charlotte warned. “They seem to be able to change type so they’ll be strong against your attack types.”
Ash thought quickly. * Then it must have changed to rock or water type… all right then, I’ll use grass! *

“Card created by Clow, please accept this new star power and take your new form! Your new master Ashura commands you, Release!” Ash said, tossing a card into the air and touching it with the wings on his staff. “Tangela!” The walking bundle of vines hopped out and immediately lashed with Vine Whip at the Minotaur, which roared in pain and toppled over.

“Great! Now use Bind!” Tangela nodded and bound the Minotaur up tightly, so it couldn’t move.

Ash breathed a sigh of relief. * Thank Serebii! It worked! * Unfortunately, his relief was short lived as the Minotaur burst into flames. Tangela shrieked and returned to card form, landing in his hands.

“Now I need a water type.” Ash said. “Fine then! Staryu!” The star shape pokemon appeared and blasted the Minotaur with water. But it alone wasn’t strong enough, so Ash threw out another water type.

“Goldeen, go! Waterfall!” Together, the two managed to subdue the Minotaur. Ash sighed in real relief this time.

“Let’s go.” He said.

Charlotte nodded and wrapped her jacket more tightly around herself. * It’s so dark at night… no light… *

They went back to the pokemon center. Pika-chan and the other guardians were waiting.

“Where were you?” Pika-chan demanded. “We thought you’d be back here around five!”
“Sorry, but we were attacked.” Charlotte said.

“What?!” Instantly, the guardians became very attentive. “Who was it? When? How?”

“Not sure.” Ash said. “But it seemed like a summoning spell.”

“Oh, a monster?” Angel asked as he stretched. “Interesting.”

“A monster?” Teresa asked curiously. “Did you get hurt?”

“Not really.” Ash said. “Just kind of tired…” Pika-chan noticed the slightly glazed look in his eyes and nodded.

“Get to bed, Ash! You’re running low on chi and magic!”

“Yes, mom.” Ash murmured as he headed upstairs. On the way up, though, he blacked out from energy loss.

Charlotte picked him up. “Wow, he’s light. I’ll take him to bed.”

“You should rest too.” Vulpix-chan said. “The sun’s down, and…”

Charlotte nodded. “I know.” She tucked Ash into bed, leaving Sunny there to guard him, before going upstairs to her own room.

“How did I do?” Teresa asked Scarlet, safely back in her own room.

“Very well. The master will be pleased.” Scarlet said, showing his teeth.

Teresa smiled cutely. “I’m glad. What can I learn next?”

“Well, now we will move along to more advanced summoning. I can also teach you charms for beauty and stuff if you’d like.”

“Really?” Teresa’s eyes turned shimmery and she stared at Scarlet.

“Yes. But it will take a lot of hard work.” Scarlet said.

Teresa nodded. * I never knew magic was so complicated… *

Ash didn’t sleep well that night.

****************************Dreamscape**********************************

Ash was once again standing atop the tower, facing the shadowy figure. In his dreams, he knew that he had dreamt this before, but when he woke up he always forgot what the dream was.

In front of him, cards fell like snowflakes from the sky. When he reached out to touch one, it vanished in a flow of magic.

Pika-chan and Sabrina stood next to him and beside him, respectively.

Ash wanted to ask whom the shadowy figure was, but his voice would not utter a single syllable.

And when he tried to activate his staff, he was once again frozen.

His opponent – was it truly his opponent? Moved his? Her? Own staff slightly, just slightly. Ash could see the faint outline of the designs on it. It looked like… a sun, a moon, and faint bits of stars?

Why wouldn’t they step out of the shadows and face him face to face?

Was there a reason?

Who was it?

Power, dark blue, began to gather in their staff.

Ash wanted to cry out, to beg them to stop, but he couldn’t talk…

He couldn’t move…

He was stuck, and he would die…

A ball of energy formed… it flew towards him… he still couldn’t move, couldn’t shield himself with a spell, he couldn’t do anything at all…

And once again, cards sprang up to protect him. His Ash cards…. More of them were present this time, but that was to be expected, because he had changed them…

Blue flashed before his eyes and vanished…

******************End Dream********************************************

“Wake up, Ash.” Charlotte said as she shook him. Ash stirred and opened his eyes blearily. “What happened?”

“You’ve been asleep for almost a day.”

“Again?” Ash asked, incredulously. * I should have gotten used to the energy drain by now… *

“But you did use a lot of magic yesterday.” Pika-chan chimed in. “And you fell asleep before we could use the Wand on you.”

“Oh.” Ash said in a small voice.

Sabrina floated over, carrying a tray with tea, waffles and syrup, sausages, orange juice, a glass of milk, and some berries on it. “Eat up.”

“Thank you, Sabrina.” Ash said.

The moon guardian shrugged nonchalantly and put the food down. * Of course, I had to protect this from those two gluttons… *

<Hey! I heard that! > Pika-chan said.

<Is it untrue, my dear? >

< Grr…. >
< Well? >

< It’s not fair! >

“This is spelled. Eating this food will help your magic energy increase.” Charlotte said.

Ash nodded and dug into his meal with a good appetite. * Mmm, this is great! *

Teresa came in and hugged Ash. Nobody noticed the slightly dark aura that hung over her…unfortunately…

End Episode 68! Woohoo, it’s over! *Smirks* Well?

Shadow has actually drawn fanart! Unfortunately, my artistic skills are pretty much nonexistent and the picture scanned pretty badly, but… just in case you want to see a picture of lance-chan, here’s the link.

http://www.geocities.com/sailorsun_charmander/lance.jpg

Tell me what you think about the pic, it took me one hour to get it right… ^_^()