Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. CCS belongs to CLAMP and Kodansha. Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. Runescape belongs to Runescape LTD… what a lot of disclaimers I have to do! *sighs*

Notes: This will be a harem fic with both shonen-ai and het. I think Lance won’t mind as long as he’s still Ash’s favorite… *cough* and there aren’t any other boys. Lance doesn’t really consider other girls competition…

<> For telepathy, ** for some thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Chapter 44 – Ash

It’s been two weeks. So far I’ve found another useful advantage of having Hotaru around. She can heal me up to half of my HP bar. That’s pretty good.

She can also heal up to 1/2 of my Magic bar. That’s even better. And she can cook. She likes me, but I’m not sure how to break it to her that this is only a game…

What happens when I leave?

Well, I won’t think about that now. She’s just made this really nice potato and carrot soup. Apparently NPC’s do eat out of sight…

“Thank you, Hotaru.”

“It’s nothing, my Lord.”

“You know, I keep telling you, you can call me by my name. It’s Ash.”

“But Lord Ashura…”

“Come on, Hotaru. It isn’t that hard.” Or maybe it’s part of the code? Never mind then. “Just call me whatever you like.”

“Yes, my lord.”

This soup is quite good… I’m on my third bowl. I haven’t done any more quests, mostly we’ve just been exploring. I killed a lot of different monsters though, when we got lost in the two dungeons near Lumbridge.

Ah well.

I did get a lot of EXP that way! Plus I’ve added a couple new cards to my deck – high level monsters can be useful, and even some of the lower ones. Green Dragon, Red Dragon, Blue Dragon, Lance will love these… and a Shade…

No goblins for me!

Well, I’m in Draynor now, and I’ve got another quest… to help a witch named Eudial find the three ingredients for her beauty potion.

I need… the eye of a newt, the tail of a giant rat, and the eggs of a deadly red spider. Oh joy.

Well, I’ve heard that a store in Port Sarim sells newt’s eyes, so that won’t be bad… and there were giant rats near Varrock…

But where do I get Red spider eggs?

I’ll figure that out as I go I guess…

We fly on Pidgeot to Port Sarim instead of walking another day, and sure enough, I pay a gold coin for a newt eye from Becky the witch. One down…

Hm… giant rats… if I walked to Varrock it would take four days. Lucky I’ve got Pidgeot. I love my reliable girl.

Giant rats sighted!

Hotaru looks pale. She doesn’t like rats…

“Don’t worry, Hotaru. Stay on Pidgeot.” I jump down lightly and land quietly. I’m just wearing a normal shirt and pants, and a leather vest. It seems lighter than the armor and more protection than the mage robes.

Now… oh yes. Kill the rat. “Scyther, I choose you!” The Scyther card materializes and turns into a sword in my hand. I charge at the rat and manage to chop off a piece of tail.

Is that enough?

Ow! Hey, it bit me! I didn’t know – but then again, anything can attack you, almost, in this world, even the trees…

Fine then. “Slash!” And there is one dead rat… eew, raw rat meat. I will never, ever, ever eat that!

Hotaru looks rather pale. Is she okay? “Hotaru?”

“I feel unwell…”

Oh no! that’s bad… um, okay. Mint and peppermint usually help. I dig half a roll of Wintergreen LifeSavers out of my backpack and hand her one. She quickly eats it with a surprised look.

“What is this new delicacy, my lord?”

“Wintergreen LifeSavers.” I didn’t know they were a delicacy. I guess they don’t exist here though….

And chocolate is only rarely used in cooking since its 3 gold coins a bar… and most people only make a few gold coins in months…

I guess I am considered rich here.

“Oh!”

Good, she looks better now… “Hotaru, do you have any idea where to find Red Spider’s eggs?”

She shakes her head.

I don’t remember any red spiders in the Lumbridge dungeon… hmm… where else could they be?

This is a pretty big world.

“Nothing at all?”

“Well… spiders live in the tropical islands…”

Hm… tropical islands… where’s my map? After some digging, I’ve found it… yep, this place is pretty big…

Karamja? Brimhaven?

One of those two… Miscellania and Eceteria are too far north… maybe Entrana and Crandor?

Ugh.

I don’t feel like flying across the sea… maybe that’s some of Charlotte’s influence in me.

Nah… it’s just that it looks like it will take days…

“Lord?”

“No, Hotaru, it’s fine…” Wait a minute. The witch didn’t give me a time limit, did she? Nope… and if I remember correctly…

I can overlap quests!

Wait a second, how did I know that? Maybe I’ve played this game in some lifetime and can’t remember?

That makes sense.

Well… Port Sarim does have a ship that goes to Karamja. It’s thirty coins to cross. Now I know why rich people are so scarce here.

Lucky I still have a couple thousand coins from the other quests. Okay, thirty coins for Hotaru and I…

Apparently Hotaru counts as an item .That’s disturbing…

… Very disturbing!

But in a way, aren’t my pokemon cards and guardians items too? Never mind! Am derailing line of thought right there! Now!

It seems this journey will only take an hour or so. Well, that’s good. Hey! There are dolphins out there!

Cool….

Pretty dolphins… ooh, I’ll make a dolphin card too. It’s different from Delphinis after all. And I like dolphins!

Now I think I know why Misty loves water pokemon so much, but I’ll never tell her that. She’s too bossy and annoying.

Yes, Hotaru is a much better traveling companion. Ron and Hermione can go screw each other for all I care.

Bastards.

I know… Gary and Misty in odd form, but I still think it’s them, unless its Tracey or Todd… yuck. No more on that!

We’re almost there. Palm trees! Banana trees! Okay… definitely a tropical island. I don’t see any red spiders yet though…

End Chapter

Completed 4/7/05

Ash: Child at heart, still?

Phantomness: Hai~!

Lance: Hotaru… heh, guess it could be worse…