Eh, chapter 2

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Bleh, I hate training… can’t wait until its over… leave me alone bloody VECTOR corporation! I’m not a robot!

Phantomness = dead… no time to write, grr…

Chapter 2

“He’s all right.” Lorelei smiled. “Admittedly, since he’s Dragon Master now, I can’t feel his presence as well as I could before, but it’s there, if muted.”

Agatha nodded. < I feel such as well. I am glad. >

Bruno didn’t pay any attention to the two women, frowning. Lance had been their leader, and now he was gone… now what?

Now what…

Would they become the Elite Four? Would they draft another member? The League had decreed that out of the memory for the deceased Champion, they would move the Championships back four months…

So they would probably just pick someone else to become the first of the Elite Four… that would make Agatha Champion and himself the Third…

“I have to wait eight months now?”

“Yes, out of courtesy for the deceased Champion, they moved the tournament back four months. It will take place in the winter instead of late summer.” Joy smiled.

“I see…” Ash murmured. Ouch… well, at least he would have more time to train right? And he would have time to capture more pokemon too, right?

Right.

Unfortunately, it was still raining outside. It’d been raining for two days. Well, the Indigo Region was suffering from a drought, but he hoped it stopped soon…

He spent the day in the pool with Squirtle, swimming. He hadn’t gone swimming in so long… it was nice to relax for once.

Tired…

Ash yawned. So tired…

It really made no sense. He had no reason to be tired, right? After all, he wasn’t stressed or anything…

Well, if he were honest with himself, he would admit that trying to raise the cash for a new bike was quite difficult, but he was almost there…

Only thirty more dollars to go!

“Hey kid, want to battle?” a Cool trainer in a red suit demanded. Apparently Ash was not the only one suffering from cabin fever. A bright smile lit the Pallet trainer’s face as he stood up, brushing off his blue jeans.

“Sure!”

“Great!” The boy grinned, brushing back green-streaked hair cockily. “Well then, I’ll choose Sandslash!”

The sand mouse materialized in a bright streak of crimson, resolving into poison-tipped dark brown and sandy yellow. Black slitted eyes waited for an opponent.

Pikachu squeaked uncomfortably and dove into Ash’s backpack.

Ash smiled. “It’s all right, Pikachu. I choose you, Squirtle!” Brilliant blue resolved into a small turtle, smiling. Immediately, the Sandslash launched forth a Sand-Attack, knowing that if a water attack or two landed, it would be in danger.

Squirtle ducked into his shell with the Withdraw move, drawing all limbs inward as outward spewed several shots of water. Eyes closed against possible stinging sand, waiting… there! A sound to the right, and out snapped a Surf attack. A wall of water ten feet across surged in Sandslash’s direction, sweeping it up, no matter Defense Curl or no, and now, a Hydro Pump to finish!
The Cool Trainer’s smile faltered a bit, but he quickly sent out another pokemon. A Kadabra…

Ash winced. He remembered his battle against Sabrina’s Kadabra all too well… and now he had no Haunter…

What to do? What to do?

While he deliberated, Kadabra had already started attacking, pinning Squirtle with a Disable. Angered, the turtle sank his teeth into Kadabra’s leg…

There was a psychic wail of agony. Ash blinked. “Squirtle, bite again!”

No encouragement was necessary, as Squirtle repeatedly chomped as fast as he could before Kadabra finally fainted…

Apparently it had not yet learned the Recover move necessary to heal minor injuries. Thank goodness…

By now, the Cool Trainer was no longer smiling, but scowling deeply. With an impatient flick of his wrist, he released a Venusaur…

This time, Ash quickly recalled Squirtle.

“Venusaur, Razor Leaf!”

“I choose you, Pidgeotto! Up into the air!”

Pidgeotto tried, but inside the pokemon center, she couldn’t fly too high. Venusaur growled, and shot out its vine whips, trying to tie the bird up. She dodged agilely, although the roof of the center did lose two light bulb fixtures…

The grass pokemon was getting rather agitated, and although the Cool Trainer was trying to command it to use Stun Spore, it was no longer listening…

“Now! Sky Attack!”

Pidgeotto nodded as she finished charging up the move, before slamming into Venusaur. Angered, the flower dinosaur let out a loud bellow and charged forwards with a Tackle. Pidgeotto buffeted it away with a Wing Attack, and then finished with a Gust.

Sighing, Johan handed Ash $25 and then went up to the desk to heal his pokemon. Nurse Joy told him to fix the lights as well.

Glaring, Johan nodded and his Kadabra used some psychic nifty stuff to fix them. Ash went back to his book after praising Pidgeotto and Squirtle.

Maybe this rain wasn’t too bad…

About an hour later, another trainer stumbled in.

“Welcome to our Pokemon Center. We’ll heal your pokemon back to perfect health. Would you like us to heal your pokemon?” Nurse Joy recited.

The girl nodded. “That would help.” She handed over two poke balls.

“Say, want to battle?” Ash offered.

She gave him a quick look. “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry. I have a gym match in a few minutes.”

“Oh…” A few seconds later, he did a double take. This person looked familiar… wait! “Erika? What are you doing in Fuchsia?”

“I was challenging Koga to see if our gyms would move up or down.”

“Wait, what?”

“Didn’t you know? The gym system in Kanto isn’t fixed. Our ratings will move up and down depending on how well we do inter-gym. Now Misty and Brock will never move up, because they’re never at their gyms and Misty can beat Brock. However, for the rest of us six leaders….”

“Wait… what?”

“Ah… you got your badges in this order. Boulder, Cerulean, Thunder, Marsh, Rainbow, Soul… and next is Volcano and Earth.”

“Um… all right…”

“So if I beat Koga, you’d have to fight him for his badge first and then mine.”

“Oh! I see…”

“See you around, Ash.” She smiled. Ash waved goodbye and then checked out the copy of Pokemon Pal sitting on a table… hmm…

It said that Blaine was hot-tempered and used fire pokemon. Interesting… well, he could use that. He had Squirtle and… oh! He had Krabby too, at Oak’s. Hmm… he ought to train Krabby…

End Chapter

Completed 6/11/05

Phantomness: Ash finally starts to think a little…

Ash: Well, that’s good!