Disclaimer: I don’t own pokemon; it belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This is non-profit, non-copyright infringing work and its mine since I wrote it…
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks
Chapter 7
“Light Beam!”
A beam formed in Ash’s hands and hit the target. Lance checked the scanner and smiled.
“You’re up to forty base damage.”
Ash sighed. “Yes, but its draining…”
“You still need to work on endurance. Or, you can simply use less taxing moves.”
“But I only have Ice Spore…”
“What about the bubbles?”
“That’s only ten damage, they’re annoyances…”
Lance shrugged. “I can teach you some more TM moves?”
“That would work, but…”
“But what?”
“What if I lose control?”
“You won’t, and that’s why I’m here.” Lance smiled, as Ash munched a chocolate cupcake.
“Okay…”
Lance opened a portal and in a few minutes was back with an armful of TM’s. “Here you go… pick some.”
“How?”
Lance smirked. “This will be another test. The ones that feel right… start scanning.”
“But I don’t know how to scan!”
“Of course you do.” Lance said, before he waltzed out.
Ash looked at the gigantic pile of TMs. Most of them didn’t look ‘real’, though… but then, Lance had magic, so… never mind!
That would get too confusing.
He closed his eyes and began ‘feeling’. Soon, he found three in his lap. Shrugging, Ash opened them all.
Three streaks of energy went into him, and then the TMs closed up again like normal…
Ash nodded and focused, keeping his mind a blank and just letting the energy flow through him.
The first move turned out to be Thundershock. But that was normal enough, he would occasionally see lightning sparks around his fingers and this was just focusing them. It was all about focus again.
The second was Teleport, very useful, very handy, and psychic-based in either case so his body accepted it easily.
And the third…
Well, that was a bit more difficult to explain. Agility? He didn’t really like using the booster moves unless he had to in battle…
But it wasn’t dangerous!
Maybe that was why…
Ash practiced Thundershock and Teleport until Lance called him in for biology, where he went back to his study of fungi.
So it all turned out pretty good.
“Three?”
“I would have gotten more, but I was kind of scared.” Ash confessed. “What if I can’t control my power?”
“That’s why we’re taking it slowly.”
“Hai!”
“After dinner, we can make a few potions to unwind. Would you like that?”
Ash beamed. “Hai~! Arigato, Lance-kun!”
Lance blinked. Well, that was different… but if suffixes came into play sooner or later ‘Lance-chan’ would pop up, and well…
That would be good.
So pretty, little light, and I’ll teach you and protect you and you’ll always be by my side…
It was lucky Ash didn’t know how the fires burned.
Lance stirred the faintly blue potion as his mind wandered. He had already mixed the ingredients, and now they only had to wait.
Super potion…
Maybe not that handy for pokemon on higher levels, but humans could utilize potions better, and get more out of them.
Ash didn’t need anything higher yet. Yet being the operative word, of course…
He would grow up.
But, hopefully it would be a smooth transition.
Ash looked down into the cauldron, as the clear liquid on top evaporated, leaving the base.
Nice…
The shiny purple reflected back at him, a sign that he hadn’t botched the delicate occupation.
It wasn’t too hard, just a mixture of some berries and powder, but goodness, if anything went wrong it would either explode or implode.
Basically, a mess would result.
Ash gave a few more stirs and then let the gelatinous mass settle. Reaching for a tray of empty potion flasks and a pipette, he began drawing off the rest of the liquid.
And a few minutes later, the purple potions were being poured and drawn off into individual bottles.
Ready for spraying use on pokemon anytime, anywhere.
This was actually kind of calming. They worked quietly and efficiently in the lab located behind Lance’s quarters. There were actually a couple of rooms, one a spare bedroom where Ash slept, in bright yellow wallpaper with a rainbow and mew painted on the ceiling.
Ash didn’t mind, sleeping in a real bed every night was heaven compared to camping out on the road…
Sure, he was tired just the same, but it was a kind of relaxed tiredness, if that made any sense. Lance-kun was a very good teacher…
Ash smiled.
“Have you finished?”
Ash poured the last of the solution into a bottle and corked it, nodding. They cleaned up and put away the remaining empty flasks, as well as the leftover ingredients, which numbered few.
Then, they took the cauldrons outside and scrubbed them with fine-grained river sand and cold water. Using magic to clean magical items usually caused spell melting, which was why they didn’t just do a cleaning charm. Not that Ash actually knew how to do one yet, but that wasn’t the point. At least he knew soap bubbles to do his own laundry.
And water came pretty easily to him, at least the magic type. He idly wondered why he hadn’t learned a water move, and then shrugged.
His nerves had probably caused it, but he would learn to grow stronger and move past that.
End Chapter
5/13/04