186 the episode!

Disclaimer: I really don’t claim to own pokemon

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, and italics for pokemon speech.

Timeline: 4 days later

Episode 186: Test of the Shadow Master

Ash took a deep breath as he entered the cave. This was it. He had to become a shadow master before becoming taking the test of guardianship, and he could not fail. There was too much at stake.

“I won’t let you down, Lance-chan…”

Charlotte looked slightly bemused. “You haven’t called her that for a long time.”

‘I know, I always called her Crys, but…”

“You’re getting some more of your hidden memories back.” The guardian inquired.

“Hai.”

He was dressed in a dark gray silk shirt and pants, tucked into black leather knee boots. Over this went white chain mail, as well as greaves and armlets, covered with gold swirling star patterns. His wings were outspread behind them, Destiny’s wings, dark gray streaked with the barest hint of gold, and the tail feathers trailed down. It was much easier to stay in a half-transformed state.

In his hands, his staff rested, with a few subtle changes. Inlaid beneath the golden star, inside the light blue moon, flanked by white wings, was a silver-inlaid black gem as well as a crystal ring. Both Destiny and Hope’s symbols, together as one, shimmered faintly. Black feathers framed his face slightly.

The black marble stone doors, inlaid with gold feather patterns, slowly opened.

Inside, six pokemon waited. They were the guardians of the shadow power, the ones who jealously guarded the sacred plane. The unworthy they rooted out and destroyed without mercy. None passed their test of mastery, save those destined.

Skarmory’s darkened gray feathers ruffled slightly. He was the first of the testers. Most tried to get past him using fire pokemon, but victory was never certain. A jagged mountain of steel loomed behind him.

Next, Slugma waited. It seemed like a weak pokemon, but appearances could never be certain, especially in this realm of illusion and fantasy. A volcano bubbled and smoked to the anterior.

Supposing one actually got past the first two, and few did, Sharpedo was in line, patrolling the boundary of water that had to be crossed to advance to the next level. That was the last known pokemon.

Ash narrowed his eyes slightly as he walked in.

< Welcome, Shadow’s child. > A voice said. < One destined to be the master of shadows. >

< Welcome to the shadow plane, the realm beyond the dream realm. >

< Welcome, guardian of Thunder. >

Ash respectfully inclined his head and bowed. < I salute you, guardians of the sacred power. >

< Children of both night and day. >

< Passing the judgment of the heart and soul. >

< Are you prepared to take the test of Shadow Mastery? >

< Yes. > Ash replied, his golden eyes glinting with a hint of green. < I swear by the guardians above, by the nine sacred flyers, by the family of rainbow colors, by the sun, the moon, and the stars, and by my own immortal spirit. >

< Very well. And you know the punishment for failure? >

< That eternal darkness shall envelope this realm and I shall be sacrificed to the spirits of everlasting night. >

< Very well. Begin. >

The darkness swirled around him, and Charlotte sighed.

“This will not be a fair test… I never told him the whole truth…”

As Ash faced Skarmory above the steel mountain, a faint feeling of warning tingled in his nerves. He ignored it, disregarding it as nervousness about the test.

However, a few seconds later, he realized why.

Skarmory started off with Double team.

Normally, this would not be a problem, and Ash started destroying the copies, but discovered, to his shock, that the remaining number of Skarmory kept multiplying and increasing. And the worst part was, that all the attacks, whether from the real or fake Skarmories, hit.

(Note: There is an explanation for this, so I’ll give it now. In Chinese, Double Team is ‘Shadow Clone’. Therefore, when taking the test of shadows, Ash fighting a Skarmory that would normally use Double Team would be in effect facing that Shadow Clone attack, and all the clones are capable of attacking on their own, and counting as separate pokemon with the same amount of HP. That’s why its so hard for him.)

Ash winced as several beaks drilled into his armor, and flung them off with a Dark Thunder attack, instead of the normal electric and fire attacks he had used. That finally got rid of some of them. He followed up with Flaming Thunder, but since it was one of his special magic-induced attacks, it worked as well. Finally, Ash spread the area with fire and lightning, by combining Eternal Thunder and Eternal Flame with Dark Hypnosis Ring. And that finished off the Skarmories.

Ash dropped to his knees, breathing deeply from the cuts and slashes on his arms, not covered by the armor. * Using this power takes a lot more out of me, because it drains my cards as well… *

He faintly glowed as he used Recover, and then grimly began climbing the steel mountain.

Spikes cut into his armor, renting it and jarring bits of it off. Ash set his teeth and kept climbing, until four, long, tortuous hours later, he had reached the top.

There, Skarmory waited. < You have passed my test. Rest now. The second test will begin tomorrow. >

Ash respectfully bent his knee to the pokemon and inwardly sighed. He barely had time to lift his head again before weariness overcame him and he fell into dreamless slumber.

The next morning, dressed in shellacked dark green armor with gold threads running down it, instead of the white armor of the day before, Ash headed down the mountain and towards the volcano that beckoned to him, where Slugma waited patiently beneath the boiling surface of the fiery lake.

< Are you prepared to take my test, potential candidate? >

< Yes. >
< Then we shall begin. > Instantly, the lava in the volcano surged up and lashed at Ash, like a living thing. Ash dodged the first few bursts and retaliated with Surf, before he realized that using a normal attack was much too weak, so he powered up surf with Sapphire storm, and threw the combined attack, breaking off one of the long ‘arms’ of the lava. Then he spread Diamond Dust over the area, freezing most of the volcano, and forcing Slugma to emerge.

This Slugma was huge, almost fifty feet tall and quite long. It began spitting bursts of shadow fire at Ash, who dodged and then threw up his light shield.

The shield didn’t hold for long though, so Ash went on offensive. He summoned forth a water dragon and had it attack. This held Slugma off long enough for Ash to seal its connection to the volcano, severely weakening the pokemon.

Slugma then started using Fire Blast.

Ash ducked the first one, and then panicked as his armor superheated. He quickly doused himself with Hydro Pump, and then sent a Bubblebeam at Slugma to distract it, before summoning up Eternal Flood.

The magic powered water attack splinted the pokemon into pieces. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as it created fifty miniature Slugmas.

Ash glared, and then flew up into the air, as dark lightning crackled around his body. “Dark Thunder Strike!”
That knocked out a good portion of the slugmas, but then some of them began hurling themselves at him and then using explosion. Ash growled and replaced his armor with pure shadow magic, before using his staff to knock them away. His staff started sending out beams of starlight, further getting rid of more Slugma.

Finally, Ash in desperation, used his Restoration Rain attack. Strangely enough, this healed him as well as dissolving all the Slugma. The tester reappeared.

< Very well. My test is complete. Now cross the volcano and rest. >

Ash cast a ‘Fire walk’ spell on his legs and slowly walked across the bubbling lava. The heat was intense, and he had to stop often and rest, as well as drink countless bottles of Fresh water to rejuvenate, but he finally collapsed on the rocky ridge at the other side.

Ash took a deep breath. * I must… keep going… *

His eyes closed as he fell into a restless sleep.

Several pairs of eyes watched.

< Do you think he will make it? >

< Perhaps, but the future is uncertain. >

< Yes. >

< And he does not know what the last two stages hold. >

End Episode!

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Completed 10/12/2003