Chapter 6

Ash had never had so much fun at Ken's house before. Ash had heard about the 
infamous food fights, but had never experienced it. Ash had mashed potatoes 
down his shirt, rice in his hair and a whole plate of vegetables down his 
pants. Ken was in the same boat as Ash only he had the rice stuffed down his 
pants instead of vegetables.

"I think there is even some rice in my ears," giggled Lisa. John got the 
worst of the food fight since he was standing up.

"Oh yeah? I have it in my shoes," laughed John. Ash and Ken were ushered 
into the bathrooms first. Ash did a quick change of clothes and said 
goodbye, saying that he could use his own washroom at home. That's not what 
happened.

The tree house…

"Hey! I know that I'm covered in food but, HEY, stop it." Ash was getting 
his 'licks' from his pals.

"Dra-tini-ini-dra!" cooed a content Blue. He was draped from Ash's shoulder, 
licking the soy sauce from his hair. Digger wasn't helping mush either.

"Lar-vit-tar!" Digger was in Ash's backpack, scouring for the odd vegetable. 
Ash was changing his clothes to go to the underground cavern's river works. 
Or as he liked to call it: the underground waterslides.

"Yaaaa-hooo!" Ash squealed in delight. Ash was blasting down a riverbed with 
Digger and Blue in tow. Ash was having the time of his life, rocketing down 
the natural rock waterslides. Laughter and yelling echoed in the caverns. 
Ash knew where they would end up and sighed. It would be over all too soon 
for his liking.

"Lar-vi-tar," laughed Digger. Digger was pretending to surf on Ash Blue was 
right behind the pair, also laughing. Ash was suddenly blasted out into the 
biggest cavern, which he had ordained 'crystal lights cavern'.

"That was a blast!" Ash giggled. "I'll never get tired of this!" In response 
to the blast comment, Blue gave Ash a watergun attack. Ash was sputtering 
out water when he felt something scaly beneath his feet.

"Gyyarr!" Magic surfaced right beneath Ash and took the Dratini by surprise. 
A watergun attack that was almost twice as powerful as Blue's rained onto 
the poor pokemon. Digger by now had gotten out of the way and was perched on 
a small island in the middle of crystal light, blowing more than just one 
gasket, laughing.

"Lar-lar-vi-tar!" yelled Digger in a fit of laughter. Ash was taken over to 
the island and he sat down on the mossy banks. Blue, a very irritated 
Dratini, swam over and joined Ash. "Lar-tar?"

"Dra-tini-dra-dra?" snapped Blue. Ash began to wash up when he noticed that 
Magic was a bit sad.

"Something the matter, Magic?" Ash asked. Magic snapped out of its thoughts 
and blushed.

"Gyrrr, raaaaa, raaaa." Ash blinked twice trying to make sense of what Magic 
said when Digger grabbed Ash's hand.

"You understand what's wrong?" Digger nodded and led Ash to another side of 
the island inside the cavern where he had some stowed scuba gear. Digger 
handed Ash an old breather like the one used at the Cerulean gym.

"Gyyr!" Magic's eyes lit up when Digger brought Ash over fully geared.

"So this is what you wanted?" Magic wanted to give Ash a ride underwater. 
Ash climbed onto Magic's back and literally strapped himself in.

"Lar!" Digger and Blue were heading up to the treehouse.

"I'll be back for my clothes later." Ash called out before Magic dived. Ash 
hung onto Magic tightly as they went into an underground adventure together. 
It was just the right time of day to go underwater. The fading light 
illuminated that water's underground decore. The reason Ash called the 
cavern the crystal lights was because of the entrance by the cliffs. It was 
a cave covered in crystals that reflected the dusk sunlight directly into 
the crystals that would reflect for miles underground.

'It's so beautiful down here.' Ash thought enjoying the view. Ash then 
realized something and did his best not to cry. 'I bet Misty and Brock would 
have loved to see this.' Ash traveled into the underground water cavern maze 
that only Magic and Blue knew about. Later.

"See you tomorrow." Ash called out over his shoulder as he left for home. 
Ash looked at his watch and it was thirty minutes until curfew. Ash almost 
flew all the way home.

'One minute to go.' Ash thought in triumph as he stopped on the landing. Ash 
reached for the door as he heard a click.

"Come on dad! I'm right here!" Ash yelled through the door. To Ash's 
surprise, the door opened.

"I was unlocking it." Mark said as the door swung wide.

"Oh!" Ash felt a pang of fear bolt through his mind. "Why are you waiting 
for me?" Ash asked in a cold sweat. Marks expression went grim.

"We're about to have a talk about your training pokemon under my nose." The 
world around Ash seemed to shatter like glass. Ash was lead inside by Mark 
(by the ear) and sat down on the livingrooms only chair. Mark looked down at 
Ash, crossed his arms and waited. An uncomfortable silence passed for a few 
minutes. Ash took a deep breath and decided to get it over with.

"How much do you know?" Ash asked in a small voice. Mark began to pace 
around the room. "And who told you?" Mark stopped in front of Ash and 
sighed.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about. You never told me where you were in 
cadet training. Officer Jenny phoned to tell you that she caught Silvermane 
sneaking out of the kennel." Ash could've fainted from relief.

'He only knows about Silver.' Ash let his face fall back into the 
I-know-I'm-in-trouble look. Mark sat down on the couch opposite to Ash.

"She did?" Ash asked in a small tone. Mark nodded.

"Ash, why did you keep your pokemon cadet partner a secret?" When Ash looked 
away, Mark knew the answer. "I see, you're still moping about your other 
pokemon friends.

"I'm not moping dad. It's just that I miss them. I-I haven't been away from 
Pikachu more than a day or two since we started out our pokemon journey 
together. It's been three months since I've seen my mother or my friends." 
Ash saw the look in Marks eyes whenever he mentioned his mother so he 
hastily added his friends.

"Ash, do you take your responsibilities seriously?" Mark asked suddenly. Ash 
was a little caught off guard but responded well.

"Dad, responsibilities are just that. Responsibilities are like privileges, 
you can lose them or use them. I take my responsibilities very seriously." 
Mark sat back and seemed to be debating something.

"Tell you what sport. This tournament the Jenny mentioned. You can prove how 
serious you've been these last three months. If you can come in any place in 
the events, I might consider you going back to pokemon training after cadet 
graduation." Ash couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Y-You mean if I win something, anything in the tournament you'll consider 
letting me resume my pokemon training?" Ash's eyes went wide.

"I know I'm going to regret this but yes. I'll let you resume pokemon 
training, not your pokemon journey." Mark said reluctantly. Ash couldn't 
contain his excitement.

"You mean it?!" Ash gasped. Mark saw the look of pure joy on Ash's face and 
knew it was the right thing to do.

"Yes." Before Mark could say another word, Ash jumped up and gave him a hug.

"THANK YOU! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" Ash yelled as he scurried upstairs to 
his room. Ash dumped out his secret stash of badges and dexter. Ash smiled 
as he began to clean the tarnish and age from his badges.

'It's been a long time.' Ash thought with a grin. 'I'm finally going to see 
Pikachu!' Ash was certain of that. Not only was he going to win this 
tournament, he was going to cream the competition!

"This is going to be fun," Ash said with a mischievous grin.

Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon blah, blah, blah...