Working Sinnoh With Skill(old) - Chapter 12 (Patreon)

“What the hell Dee-Dee!” Kenny exclaimed loudly as he shook Dawn back and forth by the shoulders, “How the hell did you get a freaking Kabutops of all Pokemon!” He pushed on, his voice just as loud in question.

Ash raised an eyebrow at the scene as he swiftly entered the Coordinator waiting room. “Am I interrupting something?” He inquired with an amused smile tugging at his lips.

Kenny turned to look at him before shaking his head rapidly in the negative. “No, I just want to know how the hell she got a Kabutops!”

“Ah.” Ash said in response, “That was just luck really, he broke out of a Museum in Oreburgh City and attacked Dawn.” The amber eyed teen stated, before he pushed on. “Then she battled Kabutops, defeated him and caught him.” He finished smoothly.

“Yup!” Dawn chirped in as she moved over to beside her boyfriend and held the victory sign up at Kenny, grinning mockingly at him.

Kenny sighed dejectedly, “Oh mannnnnnn…” He trailed off in a whine, “I was hoping to go catch one if you found it somewhere in the wild.”

“Uh-uh.” Dawn replied, shaking her head from side to side, “It was just luck on my part really Kenny.” She explained.

Ash wisely looked away when they both tried to catch his eyes. He didn’t need to inform him of the underground cavern at Grandpa Canyon back in Kanto where there was a slumbering group of Kabuto, Omanyte, Kabutops, Omastar and one rather testy Aerodactly.

Nor did he need to tell them about the Kabuto filled island over in the Orange Islands.

And he definitely didn’t need to tell them about the underground springs over in the Johto Region where a massive family of Omanyte and Omastar were living out their lives.

And then again, he probably also shouldn’t tell them about the island over in the Hoenn Region where a couple of scientists had revitalized a group of Lileep, Anorith, Cradily and Armaldo.

Ash sweat-dropped slightly. ‘Damn, I get into some crazy ass adventures sometimes.‘ He thought to himself.

He wasn’t quite sure if he was one of the luckiest trainers alive, or one of the unluckiest. What with how many times he’d found rare and valuable Pokemon, yet came close to losing his life on multiple occasions during these finds.

…At least his life was never boring…?

Ash was broken from his musings by the speakers over-head blaring with Marian’s voice, “Now the second round is about to begin, and our first battlers up are Dawn and Ginger.” She revealed, “Coordinators, please report to the battle field!” She followed up.

“Already?!” Dawn squeaked, holding her face in worry.

Ash chuckled, “No need to worry.” He said, quoting his girlfriends favourite phrase. Leaning forward, he pecked her on the lips light, ignoring how Kenny grimaced slightly and looked away, “Just keep your head clear, and you’ve got this battle in the bag.” The Ranger told his girlfriend.

“Right!” Dawn replied, bouncing on her heels suddenly losing all of her nervousness.

Ash grinned, and held his hand in the air causing Dawn to grin in return. Reaching up, she high-fived him before walking towards the door, “Just watch me win this guys.” Was her last parting remark as she disappeared out of the door frame.

Shifting Pikachu on his shoulder a bit, Ash sent Kenny a nod, “Well, I’m going back up to sit in the stands.” He told the younger boy, ” Good luck!”

“Kay’.” Kenny replied, tossing him a wave, “And thanks!”

“No probs.” Ash told him with a grin as he made like his girlfriend before him and disappeared through the door frame, making his way back towards his seat in the stands so he could watch her battle.

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Ash looked intently down at his girlfriend, once again shifting Pikachu back down on to his lap, ‘Show me how far you’ve come, Dawn.‘

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With both Coordinators situated on opposite sides of the battle field, Marian swished her hand down the air, “Coordinators, begin!” The brown haired MC declared, taking a few steps backwards from the battle field.

“Take the stage!” Dawn’s opponent Ginger called, releasing the Pokemon from within the Seal encased Pokeball in her hand. She was a tall woman, with a deep maroon coloured hair that fell halfway down her back. Her outfit consisted of a light green party dress, with black stilleto high heels and elbow length white gloves.

The Pokeball burst open, allowing a large pink heart to materialize in mid-air before it exploded sending hundreds of smaller hearts flying over the arena floor, dying down moments later to reveal a Miltank landing in front of its trainer Ginger and her obvious choice for the battle.

Miltank was a mostly pink colored bipedal cow Pokemon with blue eyes, small horns and a long, cream-colored tail with a black ball attached to the end. The Normal Type Pokemon had a cream colored belly with an udder, and black spots on it’s back, as well as a black hood that covered the Pokemon’s head which the small white horns sprouted from.

Dawn smirked, “Ursaring, spotlight!” She shouted, releasing her own Pokemon from his Pokeball in a massive flash of lightning that roared up high into the air, before dispersing as Ursaring appeared from within the lightning and slashed it in half with his powerful claws.

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Kenny, who was watching Dawn’s battle intently on the surveillance TV quirked an eyebrow, “That’s an interesting choice of Pokemon for a Contest Battle.” He commented to himself, before he narrowed his eyes in thought, “What are you planning Dee-Dee?” He questioned the the thin air in front of him in a whisper.

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“Miltank, Rollout!” Ginger called out, pointing her finger in Ursaring’s direction with a flourish.

“Mil mil!” The Miltank responded before jumping into the air and folding its body inwards until it resembled a large pink ball. Landing, the Miltank began to spin rapidly before shooting off towards Ursaring.

Dawn was ready for it though, “Ursaring!” The bluenette Coordinator called to her Pokemon, gaining its attention, “Use Bulk Up, and then catch it!” Dawn ordered.

Ursaring nodded, and gave a roar as he flexed his arms. The Normal Type Pokemon glowed a deep red before situating his legs firmly on the arena floor, and just in time brought his paws out in front of him and caught the rolling Miltank.

Ursaring was pushed back slightly, but held firm.

“Hammer Arm!” Dawn followed up quickly, before Ginger could get a word in edge wise.

Ursaring obeyed and allowed a disoriented Miltank to drop to the floor and brought down a glowing with white silvery energy arm on its head.

“Miiilll!” Miltank screeched in pain, rolling onto its back and clutching its head in pain.

Up above the arena, the yellow circle below Gingers picture lost a quarter of its yellow colouring, leaving that part black, signifing she’d lost a quarter of her points already, and as the clock read the match was only thirteen seconds in.

“Thunder Wave, and then roll backwards!” Ginger snapped out, her voice tinged with desperation.

Miltank, while in a lot of pain from the Fighting Type attack, seeing as it was a Normal Type and weak to Fighting Types, obeyed and rolled backwards, firing a stream of blue electricity from its udders at Ursaring as it went.

“Slash it apart!” Dawn commanded hurriedly when she saw the electricity.

Ursaring’s claws glowed a bright white and he brought down both claws over the stream of electricity, dissecting it and turning it into harmless vapours of energy just like he had the lightning from the pokeball seal.

Dawn growled when she noted that Miltank had got to its feet, ignoring the large purple bruise adorning its forehead.

“Miltank, use Milk Drink!” Ginger ordered.

Dawn wasn’t about to let that happen though, she recognized it as a recovery attack her boyfriend had told her about when he covered them. It was a recovery technique, that was original to the Miltank line and no other line of Pokemon could learn it.

“Stop it!” Dawn cried out, “Use Focus Blast, ring style!” The blue haired Coordinator continued in one breath, wasting no time at all.

As Miltank began to glow a light pink, Ursaring launched large turquoise ball of energy from between his hands that speed across the arena to fast for most to follow.

“Stop using Milk Drink and dodge!” Ginger shouted to her Pokemon desperately.

Miltank abandoned healing itself, but as it went to dodge the sphere that was Focus Blast split apart into ten smaller turquoise orbs which began to rapidly encircle the Dairy Cow Pokemon.

“Now, implode them!” Dawn commanded.

Ursaring grunted and raised his arms into the air, before sharply pulling them down and close together as if pulling two parts of a string over one another.

The ten small orbs of turquoise energy jetted from all around Miltank, straight into the defenceless Pokemon and exploded with enough force to make the arena shake slightly and kick up a large cloud of smoke.

“No, Miltank!” Ginger screamed, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Dawn held her breath, waiting to see the outcome of the attack yet ready to act without a moments hesitation to enable her to win this round and move on, she was accepting no losses this time around.

The blue haired Coordinator released a sigh of relief when the smoke cleared to reveal Miltank. The Normal Type Pokemon was flat on its back and completely out cold and unresponsive to its Trainers commands.

“Whoooo!” Marian cheered along with the now roaring crowd, “What a win! 56 seconds into the first round Dawn Berlitz walks away as our winner of this battle in a flawless victory!” The announcing woman declared into her microphone loudly.

Up above, Gingers picture on the large screen was knocked off and Dawn’s picture increased in size and took up the entirety of the screen, with a large banner declaring ‘WINNER’ above it.

Smiling, Dawn patted Ursaring on the arm before returning him to his Pokeballs and took a short bow to the crowd

Standing up from her bow, Dawn gave a short wave before hurriedly walking of the stage.

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“So that’s Dee-Dee’s plan!” Kenny realized, snapping his fingers, “She used Ursaring’s immense strength and durability to stop Miltanks attacks in its tracks, and then followed up with a pair of powerful yet diverse attacks and overwhelmed her opponents.” The young red-haired Twinleaf native explained to himself.

He raised an eyebrow when he noticed something else, “She’s implementing a lot of the same tactics Ash battled me with earlier.” He said aloud in realization, “Could it be that because Ash taught her how to battle, she intends to mimic his battle style but use a bit more flare to draw in more of an appeal in contests?” Kenny wondered.

He gulped slightly. He was suddenly a lot more nervous about his chances. He’d used his strongest Pokemon in Prinplup against Ash, and he’d been out-matched and out-battled from the very beginning.

Could he beat Dawn if she was being taught personally how to battle by an experienced and powerful trainer like Ash?

Shaking his head, Kenny slapped both of his cheeks to rid himself of such thoughts, ‘No!’ He declared loudly within the confines of his mind, ‘Dawn only started her journey a little over a month ago, there’s no way she’s experienced enough in using Ash’s battle style, she isn’t Ash so she’ll be nowhere near as good as he is with it.’ Kenny continued to think confidently.

“Our next battling pair is Kenny and Rolando!” Marian shouted out over the intercom, “Will our contestants please report to the battle field?” She requested.

Shaking himself once more, Kenny straightened out his posture and literally marched out of the waiting room, “Ash or no Ash, I’ll still beat Dee-Dee!” He declared, a finger raised for dramatic effect.

He ignored the fact that there was nobody in the hallway to receive his dramatic declaration.

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Ash smirked as he saw his girlfriend leave the stage, idly scratching a once again snoring in blissful sleep Pikachu behind the ears, ‘That was almost a mirror copy of how I battle.’ The teen thought to himself proudly, ‘Though she’s still got a ways to go before she’ll be able to use it as fluidly as me and my Pokemon can.’

“Still,” Ash conceded, his tone implying he was impressed, “That was a good little trick with that Focus Blast, I’ll have to remember that one.”

He settled down and focused more as he saw Kenny walk out onto the stage, ready to battle. Ash sweat-dropped slightly, “Is he… marching?” He questioned dubiously.

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Indeed, Kenny was marching. A flaming determination shone clearly in his eyes as he marched his body straight up to his side of the battle stage. His body was tense, ready to react to anything and everything.

His hand clutched the SEAL encased Pokeball in his palm tightly, poised to release the Pokemon from the confines within at a moments notice.

His opponent, Rolando confidently made his way to his own side of the field. He was a young man, albeit still quite a bit older than Kenny seeing as he looked to be nearing the end of his teen years. He was tall, with a slight muscular build and windswept brown hair and the teen near enough man was donned in a pristine black tuxedo.

Marian looked back and forth between Kenny and Rolando, before swinging her hand straight up into the air, “Alright! Everybody the next match between Kenny from Twinleaf Town and Rolando from Sunnyshore City is about to begin!” The brown haired MC spoke loudly and clearly into her microphone, her voice travelling across the large contest hall easily, “Are you ready?” She questioned next, building up suspense.

When the crowd roared loudly in reply, she grinned and swished her hand back down, “All right then!” She declared, her grin stretching her face. “Coordinators, begin!” Marian conceded, taking a few quick steps back from the battle field so she didn’t get caught up in what was no doubt going to be an exciting battle.

As one, both Coordinators pitched their Pokeballs releasing the two Pokemon within.

“Claydol, let’s rock it!” Rolando declared loudly, releasing his Pokemon in a burst of purple psi energy that swelled together before bursting and revealing Claydol floating gently in front of its Trainer.

Claydol had a large black body with two small, stubby legs. The gently floating Pokemon had a wide, rounded head with a protrusion on the top and a remarkable, encircling pattern. The pattern consisted of a wavy white frame on its circular pink eyes, each with a dot-like pupil and seemingly alternating expressions on each eye with small, beak-like yellow segments between each eye. Claydol’s chest had white ring-like patterns with extensions of the design pointing downward and yellow circles in the middle. The cannon-like segments that worked as the Pokemon’s arms were kept firmly to its sides.

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“What kind of Pokemon is that?” Dawn inquired into the air. She’d never seen or even heard of ‘Claydol’ before.

Turning around, she reached into her small handbag that came with her pink contest dress and withdrew her pink Pokedex

Lifting the Pokedex to the waiting room screen, she hit the scan button and awaited the results.

“Claydol, the Clay Doll Pokémon. Claydol is the evolved form of Baltoy. These ancient Pokémon are said to come alive when a mysterious light instilled life into clay creatures created in ancient times. Claydol can fly and are able to fire beams made up of powerful energy from both arms.”

“Oh wow, it’s a dual Ground and Psychic type Pokemon.” Dawn read from the additional information on the Pokedex. “That must be a unique typing.” The blue haired Coordinator guessed. She knew quite a lot about Pokemon nowadays thanks to her boyfriend, yet this was the first time she’d ever heard of a dual Ground and Psychic Pokemon.

Trailing further down the information provided, she was rather surprised to find that there were very few set areas that Claydol lived.

According to the Pokedex, they tended to live away from human societies and usually took up residence in abandoned temple’s or deserts.

The only two areas that were known to house families of the Pokemon were the Sky Pillar over in the Hoenn Region near Pacifidlog Town, and the Relic Castle that was located somewhere called the ‘Desert Resort’ in the Unova Region.

The last part stumped her, seeing as even her boyfriend had admitted that he’d seen very few Unova native Pokemon and they were all on TV, for the most part.

The only one Ash had revealed to her that he’d actually seen in person was a Hydreigon. And it belonged to Drake of the Hoenn Elite Four.

Hydreigon, Ash had told her, was the Unova Region’s resident Pseudo-Legendary Pokemon line. It was a rather unique family of Pokemon even amongst Psuedo-Legendaries seeing as it was a dual Dragon and Dark type Pokemon.

But other than that, they were known for being extremely powerful and very hard to tame. Just like the rest of the Psuedo-Legendaries, those being Dragonite the native of the Kanto Region, Tyranitar the native of the Johto Region, Salamence and Metagross native residents of the Hoenn Region and finally Garchomp the Pseudo-Legendary native to the Sinnoh Region.

Dawn shook her head, feeling suddenly confused. Despite these Pokemon being native to specific Region’s it wasn’t unheard of to find some of each family line throughout every Region because of migration.

Although, it was very unlikely that you’d find a Hydregion outside of Unova or any of the others in Unova because of the sheer distance between that Region and the others.

Shaking her head once again, Dawn rid herself of her thoughts and focused on the waiting room TV screen once again. ‘Let’s see how good you really are in battle Kenny, I didn’t get to see much because you battled Ash the last time.‘ The bluenette thought to herself as she watched the screen intently.

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Kenny was undeterred by his opponent’s Pokemon being released first, and continued on releasing his own.

“Prinplup, let’s hit it!” Kenny called his own signature ‘phrase’.

Nowadays, every Coordinator had a specific phrase they declared upon entering battles and the like. Although, it was considered bad taste and the act of an amateur to use someone else’s ‘battle phrase’.

Prinplup burst out from inside its Pokeball riding a wave of glistening golden stars. They died down after a moment and allowed Prinplup to land deftly upon its feet and raise a challenging wing in the direction of the Claydol floating at the opposite side of the field from the Water Pokemon.

“Sandstorm, now!” Rolando commanded his Pokemon sharply, starting the battle off.

Claydol obeyed and spun rapidly mid-air. The air became heavier with condensed grains of sand conjured by the Pokemon, before the air from its rapid spinning kicked up and became a violent churning storm of wind and sand that blew rapidly towards Prinplup.

“Counter it with Mist.” Was Kenny’s own command on reaction.

Opening its beak Prinplup released a large thick sparkling cloud that met the Sandstorm head on. Both weather effecting attacks clashed and held steady for a few moments before imploding unto each other and raining down upon the battlefield slowly and gently as flickering light blue and brown sparkles of energy. The energy that made up said attacks.

Up above, both Coordinators lost a quarter of their yellow bars.

Kenny smirked though, and he waited.

He didn’t have to wait long though, because Rolando fired right back into attacking. “Hit it with Psybeam!” The older Coordinator ordered.

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Up above, Ash smirked. ‘It’s a good thing I had Bayleef hold back on that Solarbeam or Prinplup would still be recovering.’ He thought.

Although, his smirk wasn’t because of his thoughts. It was because he noted Kenny’s own smirk. Ash had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next.

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Claydol lifted both cannon-like arms from its sides and fired two multi-coloured beams of powerful Psychic energy towards Prinplup.

‘Let’s use an Ash tactic, with a little twist.‘ Kenny thought, his grin stretching just a bit.

When the two beams were mere moments from reaching Prinplup, Kenny acted. “Return to sender with Metal Claw!” The red haired TwinLeaf native commanded.

Prinplup obeyed without a moments hesitation and swung two arms of glowing white energy out and deftly batted both beams of Psi energy back towards the Claydol with a nimble spin.

But Kenny wasn’t finished there, and as his Pokemon came out of its spin facing Claydol once more he continued on his offensive commands, “Now, wrap that present up nicely with Bubblebeam!”

Prinplup seemed to get the gist of what its Trainer was telling it to do, and so once more opened its jaw. From its beak, Prinplup fired a large multitude of glowing turquoise bubbles of energy that rapidly spiralled around the two beams of Psi energy and forced both of them to combine into a larger and thicker beam of multi-coloured energy.

“Shit!” Rolando cursed, “Defend with Rapid Spin!” He called out to his Pokemon desperately, the combined attack of Bubblebeam and Psybeam was approaching too fast for him to think of an appropriate counter attack.

Claydol obeyed once again and began to spin rapidly in place, just as the combined force of Bubblebeam and Psybeam crashed into it.

Claydol ground into the combined attacks as hard as it could in an attempt to defend itself from the onslaught, but it wasn’t to be.

It seemed to hold up against the attacks, but after a few moments the combined attacks slowly overpowered the defending Rapid Spin before completely overwhelming Claydol and blasting the dual Ground and Psychic Pokemon into the field harshly in a powerful explosion of energy.

Up above, as the timer went past the 3:30 minute mark Rolando lost another large chunk of yellow from his score bar and was left with barely a third remaining.

When the smoke died down, Claydol came back into view. Two of its eyes were completely closed off and the eyelids coloured a vibrant purplish blue with bruising and it was bleeding from a large gash on its side. But the Pokemon held strong and steadily floated back up into the air.

“Yeah, way to go Claydol!” Rolando congratulated his Pokemon, pumping his fist into the air happily. “Now power up and fire both Hyper Beam and Solarbeam!” He quickly followed.

Claydol slowly lifted both arms, the canon-like protrusions that were its arms glowing brightly, one with a deep orange light and the other a bright silvery white.

Kenny gulped slightly, there was no way Prinplup could stand up after being hit by both extremely powerful beam attacks in quick succession, especially seeing as Solarbeam was a Grass Type attack and Prinplup as a Water Type Pokemon was weak to such attacks.

‘Gotta end this here,‘ Kenny thought. His mind was a rapid blur as he tried to come up with a strategy to take out Claydol before it could fire its combined attacks, ‘No other choice! We’ll have to useIT and hope for the best!’

He’d been working with Prinplup to perfect this attack for over a month now, actually nearing two months now.

“Finish it now Prinplup! Use Hydro Cannon!” Kenny commanded sharply, albeit rather reluctantly.

Prinplup was his starter Pokemon, and as partners trusted his judgement above all else. Holding both wings around its beak, a large sphere of glowing turquoise water filled with powerful energy began to condense and take form.

The energy flickered a few times, as if the energy within the attack was about to give out and lead the attack to failure.

‘C’mon, c’mon!‘ Kenny’s thoughts went.

Prinplup held strong though, and finally jumping up into the air Prinplup cocked its neck backwards along with its arms holding the Hydro Cannon attack in place before launching its neck forward and blasting the large sphere of energy, almost the same size of its body rocketing towards Claydol.

Claydol looked up at the rapidly enclosing attack and lifted both arms, ready to fire the attacks at a moments notice.

“Fuck!” Rolando cursed once more, “No time to wait for the attacks to charge fully, fire now Claydol!” He ordered desperately.

The Hydro Cannon was just a few fight away from Claydol when the Pokemon fired both the large orange beam of Hyper beam and the silvery white glowing beam that was Solarbeam.

The most powerful Water Pokemon attack met the strongest energy based attacks of the Grass Type Pokemon and Normal Type Pokemon.

It was hard to say which force won, because all three exploded powerfully in a rain of scalding hot energy that blasted straight into Claydol and sent it soaring flying across the hall where it impacted into one of the concrete walls and was cratered into it by the force of the explosion of energy.

The whole sequence of attacks lasted less than three seconds, and Prinplup nimbly landed on both feet panting and sweating harshly from the energy it expended to form and control the Hydro Cannon attack.

Up above, the clock stopped on 1:53 minutes and Rolando lost the rest of his points bar, the yellow being replaced completely with a void black.

Rolando’s picture was knocked off the monitor and Kenny’s face took up the entirety of the screen with a large banner declaring ‘WINNER’ above his picture.

Rolando sighed in defeat. Lifting his Pokeball, he returned Claydol back inside in a beam of red energy. Looking at the Pokeball, he gave it a fond smile, “Good job Claydol, I couldn’t have asked for a better performance.” He whispered to the Pokeball, “You take a nice long rest now.”

Rolando looked up after stashing the Pokeball away and met Kenny’s eyes, giving the younger Coordinator a nod of respect, before giving the crowd a short bow and then leaving the stage.

Kenny grinned at the exhausted form of Prinplup, “Well done Prinplup!” He congratulated, “Take a break, and rest up before our next battle.” He told his starter Pokemon, returning it to its own Pokeball in a beam of red energy.

Marian took that as her cue and stepped back onto the stage, “And after an intense action filled battle, our winners of this battle are Kenny and Prinplup!”

The crowd once again roared loudly in applause, and Kenny gave a shaky smile along with a bow before swiftly following Rolando’s lead and leaving the stage, intending on heading back towards the waiting room

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Ash whistled in appreciation. ‘I’m impressed, learning Hydro Cannon before reaching the final evolution stage is quite the accomplishment.‘

Sure both Bulbasaur and Squirtle could use both Hydro Cannon and Frenzy Plant in their first evolution stages. But, both Pokemon had been with Ash for over four years and even before he caught them they were stronger than the average Pokemon of their species.

He was about to settle down to watch the next match, when he felt a familiar tug at the back of his mind.

‘He’s back already?‘ The amber eyed teen thought, ‘That was fast.‘ He concluded in his head.

Standing up, he gently opened his backpack and placed Pikachu within making sure to rest his partner comfortably on Ash’s sleeping bag at the top of the pack.

Pausing before he shut the backpack, he reached into one of the side pockets and retrieved a device that looked remarkably like a watch, except the screen was quite a bit larger and had a light red trim as a border.

He strapped it around his left arm, right up beside his Pokétch. He ignored the curious looks he got from those sitting near him and deftly closed the backpack over before slipping it over his shoulder and began making his way out of the audience.

As he reached the stairs and began making his way up them, Ash looked at the device he had just strapped onto his arm.

It was aptly named an Xtranceiver. It was the Unova Regions answer to Johto’s Pokegear and Hoenn’s Pokenav.

But, it completely blew those older models of telephonic devices out of the water. The Xtranceiver was basically, a miniature video phone that could be attached to the owners arm and had a built in memory bank that saved specific peoples Xtranceiver, Pokegear, Pokenav and phone numbers. Not to mention, it could save the calls the user had for later uses, like, say the user had to review a conversation they once had.

Ash usually wasn’t one to really care about popular new cell phones these days. But despite how expensive they were, he was glad Dawn had convinced him to buy one for each of them.

….Well, he was only supposed to buy his own and Dawn would buy her own with the winnings she’d made so far on her journey and the money she received for coming in second place at the Jubilife Contest. But he’d decided to just buy hers as well anyway.

After all, he’d been saving most of his money since the very beginning of his journey and with all the money he received from winning Gym battles, making it to the Elite levels of every Regional League he’d participated in, winning many contests and tournaments as well as defeating the entire Orange League Crew and Battle Frontiers… Suffice to say, Ash was pretty much loaded nowadays.

But still, even he winced at the prices of Xtranceivers. They were new in the market, and so they were still at their highest price and that was between 35,000 and 45,000 Pokédollars.

Considering that the Tm prices for the Hyper Beam and Giga Impact Tm’s were between 5,500 and 6,500 Pokédollars, and that those were the most expensive Tm’s… Yeah, Xtranceiver’s were pretty damn expensive and so Ash was out a whole 70,000 Pokédollars.

Thankfully, he’d got both for 35,000 Pokédollars each because he was buying two.

Still, he was glad he listened to Dawn because they made having a rotation system with his Pokemon at the Oak Ranch all the easier. He could just call Professor Oak or Tracey at the lab and have them send his Pokemon to his Pokedex, and he could in turn use his Pokedex to send specific Pokemon back to the Oak Ranch.

Turning it on, he entered the saved numbers and scrolled down to the ‘D’ section. Selecting Dawn’s name, he hit the button for call and awaited her picking up…

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Dawn smiled brightly at Kenny as he met her in the waiting room, “That was amazing Kenny!” She exclaimed, “I can’t believe you taught Prinplup how to use Hydro Cannon already!” She gushed, eyes sparkling, “Ash told me he wouldn’t even help me teach Piplup how to use Hydro Pump until he either evolved into a Prinplup himself or showed Ash that he was strong enough and experienced enough to handle an attack of that caliber.”

Kenny rubbed the back of his neck and laughed uncomfortably, “That’s probably a good idea on Ash’s part.” He replied to his childhood friend, “I got a bit ahead of myself in teaching Prinplup Hydro Cannon and you saw he can’t handle it yet, nor can he even control it properly but Prinplup is just way to stubborn and won’t wait until he evolves into an Empoleon to master it and so continues to try and master it as he is.” He further revealed.

Dawn gave a thoughtful ‘hmm’ as she answered, cradling her chin on a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think you really need to wait until your Pokemon is fully evolved.” She revealed her own learned information, getting a curious look from Kenny, “Ash told me that he has a Squirtle that can use Hydro Cannon and a Bulbasaur that can use Frenzy Plant.” The blue haired Coordinator continued.

A puzzled look came across Kenny’s face for a moment, before clearing again as he snapped his fingers in realization, “Well Ash has been a trainer for 4 years hasn’t he? And he started out his journey in Kanto right?” He asked Dawn.

Dawn nodded in confirmation, “Yeah, so?” She replied.

“So…” Kenny trailed off, “He probably caught those two years ago, back when he first travelled through Kanto, so even if they’re not evolved they’ll be very experienced regardless, and with Ash as their Trainer they’re no doubt extremely powerful as well.” The matador outfit wearing Coordinator concluded.

His reasoning made a contemplative look take form on the blue haired girls face. “If I remember right…” She trailed off, “That Bulbasaur and Squirtle were on his original team of six Pokemon along with his Pikachu, Pidgeot, Charizard and a Butterfree he released back into the wild.” Dawn continued.

Despite knowing the majority of Ash’s Pokemon, it was still hard to keep track of them all, and remember exactly when he caught them. Especially the ones she hadn’t met yet and both Bulbasaur and Squirtle fell into that category. Sad as it was, because she was sure with how those two Pokemon’s characters were described, they’d be a right laugh to have around.

Especially if the antics Squirtle got up to were true. Who ever heard of a Squirtle that led a gang of pranksters? And wore black shades to define itself as the leader of the ‘Squirtle Squad’?

She had to hold back a snort of amusement just thinking of the Pokemon.

“That pretty much confirms my thoughts on how they know such powerful attacks despite being in their bottom evolution forms.” Kenny replied, he gave ‘hmmmm’ of thought himself before he continued, “No doubt that Charizard of his knows how to use Blast Burn as well.” The red headed Coordinator said.

“Yep, it does!” Dawn chirped cheerfully in reply.

They were interrupted by Dawn’s Xtranceiver. The device’s ring-tone chimed off rather loudly, an upbeat fast paced piece of music began…

“HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!Nakanaka tegowa aite mo Mazumazu moechau batoru (honto?)Furafura yoreyore daipinchi Kimero aian teeru de sumairingu (Everything is Good!) OH! Mezameru pawaa (Never Give Up!) Saa tachiagare oikaze ni notte..“

“HA HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Even against a super strong opponent. The battle burns more and more (really?). Worn out and unsteady, I’m in a mega pinch. Decide! Use iron tail and then we’re smiling…”

“Shakariki narakiri harikiri Minna de susumou eburidei Mori mo kawa mo yama mo koeru Kono kanji saikou! (saikoo!) Yuujou aijou konjou Shinka shiteru yo eburidei Ii ne ii ne ii ne iku ze…“

“(Everything is Good!) OH! A Hidden Power (Never Give Up!). C’mon! Stand up and ride on the tailwind Desperately, Role Play, Hustle Let’s move forward everyday Through forests, rivers, mountains These feelings are the best! (The best~!) Friendship, love, willpower They’re evolving every day Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that nice? Let’s go!…”

“Bokura guddo – konbineeshon Bacchiri komyunikeeshon Itsudatte hai – tenshon WOW WO Sha rara…dakara daijoubu…”

“We’re a good combination With perfect communication Always in high tension WOW WO sha la la…so we’re fine!…”

Dawn allowed it to play out a few of the verses, it was her favourite song nowadays after all.

Kenny snickered into his hand, “Was that ‘The Greatest Everyday’?” He questioned with a snort, remembering how when the song had came out just a month or so before he left on his Pokemon Journey, Dawn had been basically enthralled by the music and made it her all time favourite.

Dawn blushed in embarrassment, she hastily accepted the call and smothered her blush with a bright grin when her boyfriend’s face appeared on the video screen.

Although, by the looks of the tree’s around him he must have been outside..

“Hey!” She greeted. Kenny curious to who called her, leaned over her shoulder and gave a grin as he noticed Ash.

“Yo Ash! How was that for a battle out there? Sorry that I basically stole a tactic you used on me earlier today though.” Kenny greeted, as well as apologized in the same sentence.

Ash on the screen sat down on a tree stump and waved it off, “Hey.” He greeted his girlfriend and new…friend? He and Kenny did get on quite well so he supposed they were quite friendly. “‘No need to worry‘.” He quoted his girlfriend with a grin. Earning a pout from said girlfriend and an amused snicker from the boy next to her, “I made my battle style by combining a bunch of different styles I’d seen implemented against me during my journey, so it would be a bit hypocritical of me to rage at you for imitating mine in any way.” The ranger finished.

Ash paused for a moment before he continued to speak, “That was some great battling out there you two.” He told them, before pressing on, “I was particularly impressed with how that Focus Blast adaption you made Dawn, I’ll have to remember that one. As well as that Hydro Cannon, I’m definitely impressed Prinplup has come so far in learning such a powerful technique just a few months into your own journey.”

Dawn smiled brightly at his praise, where as Kenny blushed slightly and ducked his head, “Oh shucks…” He mumbled slightly embarrassed yet pleased with the praise. He hadn’t met many renown people on his journey, actually he’d met none.

He’d done some research into Ash after meeting him. He had found out that he was one of the prides of the Kanto Region only over-shadowed by the likes of the renown and famous Professor Oak, the Kanto Elite Four and Lance Wataru the Kanto Regional Champion and master of Dragon Type Pokemon.

It was as humbling as it was awe-inspiring to meet such a famous and well along Trainer. The news that he was the youngest Pokemon Ranger in recorded history spread like wildifre through Kanto and along with it interesting tidbits had been revealed about Ash all over the internet and varied from Region to Region.

From his victory over the Orange Crew. Then to his achievement of being the first ever to conquer the Battle Frontier, renown for its toughness and the Elite level of every Frontier Brain. Along with those pieces of information, lesser well known tidbit were soon revealed. How it was thanks to him that Lance Wataru had captured his rare coloured Red Gyarados, which was now one of his most powerful battlers. How he’d foiled the plans of Team Rocket time and time again, to how he’d stopped Team Magma and Team Aqua from getting control over the Legendary Pokemon Groudon and Kyogre.

It was soon known that he’d defeated three Legendary Pokemon in one on one battles. His Charizard defeating an Articuno. His Sceptile taking down a Deoxys and finally his starter Pokemon, Pikachu defeating Brandon of the Battle Pyramid’s Regice.

And even some lesser known achievements that nobody had any idea he had involvement with. From saving the world from being plunged into a never ending storm thanks to a mad collector going by the name of ‘Laurence The Third’ when he captured all three of the Kanto Legendary bird Pokemon in an attempt to draw out Lugia. How he’d saved a Celebi from a famous Team Rocket Mercenary known as ‘The Iron Masked Marauder’ who was known for his ruthless cunning and ‘do anything’ to win attitude.

It was even known that his Pikachu had, 2 years ago, almost defeated Agatha the strongest of the Kanto Elite Four’s strongest Pokemon, her Gengar in a one on one battle.

And his Pikachu had supposedly grown in leaps and bounds since then, according to Dawn anyway. Man was he ever glad when that Pikachu denied his request to battle it with Prinplup, he would have been lucky if Prinplup would have recovered within a month never mind in time for the contest he was currently competing in.

Yes… That was a very good turn of events for him, even if he still lost and rather badly at that.

He was broken from his private thoughts by Dawn speaking up once again, “So why are you outside amongst what looks to be like some kind of forest instead of waiting for the next matches?” She asked quizzically.

Kenny was also intrigued to his answer, so leaned in further and awaited Ash’s explanation.

Ash waved the question off rather easily, “I’m meeting up with an acquaintance of mine, he says he has something that might interest me, a deal of some sort with some rare evolution stones I think…” As he finished, he look pointedly at Dawn and then at his neck where Kenny could see some type of silver chain like necklace disappearing into his shirt.

“Oh…” Dawn breathed out in realization. ‘Mewtwo must be back and wanting to talk to Ash.’ The bluenette thought.

“Don’t worry though, I’ll definitely be back in time to see both of you compete against each other in the finals.” The amber eyed teen pressed on.

While Dawn beamed at the indirect praise, Kenny blinked rather confusedly at it. “How do you know we won’t be put out by our opponents?” He inquired of Ash questioningly.

Ash chuckled amusedly before he replied, “I’m fairly certain you’re both above your opponents in skill and that your Pokemon are much stronger than theirs, hell I’d be surprised if you two didn’t make it to the finals…”He started confidently, but trailed off rather suddenly and they both just heard him mutter, “I’d be pretty damn annoyed as well seeing as I put 7,500 Pokédollars on each of you making it to the finals at 10-1 odds for Kenny and 15-1 odds for Dawn…”

“You’re gambling on us!?” Dawn burst out angrily.

“Hehehe…” Ash laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey these Xtranceivers were freaking expensive, and at those rates on you guys making it to the finals I’d make all my moneyback and then some, it was a bloody sell and a half to bet on you guys at those rates…”

Dawn pouted at him petulantly, accepting his reasoning but still rather miffed about him betting on her and Kenny without asking at least, “And what if we didn’t make it to the finals?” She questioned her boyfriend.

Ash gave her a deadpan stare, “I would have lost 15,000 Pokédollars and then made that back when I defeated the next Gym Leader I challenged for a badge.” He answered promptly.

Dawn let out an “Oooh!” Of understanding. Despite the bias many Coordinators felt at it. Defeating a Gym Leader was known to be even harder than winning a contest. Gym Leaders were tested by the Pokemon League committee, and their battle prowess was tested by the Elite Four. If they were deemed capable of battling at the needed level to test challengers, and had sufficient experience and maturity to run a Gym, then said Leader would be granted with a Badge design of their choice as well as a specialized Typing.

Although generally, the typing didn’t really matter as long as any Pokemon used could use attacks and techniques of the specific Typing.

For instance, if it was a Gym that specialized in Grass Type Pokemon. Her boyfriend Ash could use a team of three consisting of his Bayleef, his Turtwig and his Haunter. Because despite not being a Grass Type Pokemon, Ash’s Haunter could still use the technique ‘Energy Ball’ which was a Grass Type Pokemon attack.

Dawn groaned internally, it made her head hurt just thinking about the many rules and regulations that went into Pokemon Gym’s and the Pokemon League Challenge.

…And her boyfriend Ash had literally made her listen to him lecture on about such things for like three hours in succession, all the while simultaneously helping her train her Pokemon.

Suffice to say, she had no desire to repeat such a boring and long winded occurrence ever again. Her boyfriend was just too damn passionate sometimes when it came to Pokemon and the Pokemon League Challenge.

“So, I’ll be back to watch you guys in the finals in roughly 30 minutes.” Ash told them. That should be enough time to make it back. Five minutes per battle, and in counting their was two battles left of this round of the Contest and then the four Semi-finalists would battle it out to decide the two that would move onto the finals. So that would be twenty minutes all in from the four battles and ten minutes for the break periods between each round.

“Later.” Ash continued, giving them both a wave. He finished off by giving Dawn a wink and then the screen went completely blank.

Kenny decided to break the rather awkward silence that Ash left he and Dawn in. “So Dee-Dee… That boyfriend of yours is quite the character… eh?” He said, and rather lamely at that what with the half-hearted wave he tossed her.

Dawn looked at him incredulously for a few moments, before she burst into a loud uproarious laughter. She kept laughing loudly for near enough an entire minute before calming down, to wipe tears of amusement from her eyes and stop the random spasms that jolted her body because of the many giggles she tried to contain, “… Oh Kenny… you’re such a goof!” She managed to force out, before once again bursting into another fit of loud uproarious laughter.

Kenny pouted at her, annoyed. She could at least give him the benefit of the doubt! He didn’t see her trying to break the awkward silence between them after Ash hung up.

“Hmph!” He grunted, unamused by her amusement. Turning he walked over to an empty seat a few feet away and began to watch the next battle of this round in the contest on the TV screen. Attempting to ignore Dawn’s hearty chuckles all the while.

… It was a very hard thing to do when she was laughing so loudly, especially with the odd looks she kept getting from the other two occupants of the room… Although the bluenette deftly ignored them.

Kenny wisely decided to just act as if he had no idea who she was. Forget his slight crush on the girl, she was bloody well crazy! Ash could freaking have her all he wanted! Kenny would be satisfied to find a nice, pretty and normal girl to date. Dawn, despite being his childhood friend and crush, was obviously way too high maintenance.

                                                                    ________________

Ending his call to Dawn and Kenny, Ash reclined on the tree stump gently making sure to not aggravate his wounds.

“Alright, I’m alone now!” Ash called out loudly into the empty clearing he was currently positioned inside. “You can show yourself now.”

The clearing around him was eerily silent for a moment, before the sound of rushing wind met Ash’s ears and Mewtwo flickered into view in front of him.

“So, what’s so interesting that it couldn’t wait until the Contest was finished?” Ash inquired, sitting up a litlle higher with a wince. He rubbed his side gently, trying to massage away the sting of his injuries.

Mewtwo ignored his inquiry, “You’re injured?” It was a statement rather than a question.

Ash winced slightly once again, deeming the statement as something he should expand upon for the better of Mewtwo’s inquisitive nature. “Yeah, I was spending time with Chimchar alone for the day a couple of days ago and we ended up getting ambushed by bunch of Zangoose.” Ash replied to the Legendary Pokemon under his ownership. “You can take a look at my memory of the event if you want.” He continued.

Mewtwo marvelled slightly at Ash’s genuine display of trust. Opening up your mind to a Psychic Pokemon was considered to be the biggest show of trust a Trainer could show in their Pokemon. Because opening up your mind to a Psychic allowed them access to your every thought, feeling and memory. From every dirty fantasy, to a persons highest expectations and most astounding dreams.

… Ash had offered Mewtwo the same privilege long ago, even before Ash had officially captured the Legendary Psychic Pokemon.

“Very well.” Mewtwo replied in kind, his eyes glowed a deep blue, swelling with his inner well of power, but before he delved into his Trainer’s memories Metwo began to glow a light pink as his form was encased in a shroud of pink energy, “But, as I read your memories to review the event that left you injured, I shall use the technique known as Heal Pulse to heal your wounds.” That now said, Mewtwo allowed his consciousness to enter the confines of Ash’s mind, all the while leaving his body on auto-pilot. His mind was so advanced he could manipulate his body with it even when it was not within the confines of said body.

Ash sighed in relief and part pleasure as the pink energy pulsed outwards from Mewtwo and washed over him. A sense of euphoria overcame Ash, and it took all of the young Pokemon Rangers self control not to moan out loud from the pleasure he felt as his wounds slowly but surely mended. New fresh skin growing over the scabbed off gashes that once rushed with blood, and bruises slowly softened in colour, turning from a dark purple, to a light violet fading into an almost unseen blue that disappeared altogether just a few moments later.

Finally, when the pink energy died down Ash gave a relieved sigh and stood up. The teen stretched his body nimbly, sighing once again in satisfaction as he felt stiff bones that were held tight together over the past few days pop in places.

“Arceus I love that technique.” Ash said out loud, almost reverently.

He heard an amused chuckle from Mewtwo as the Psychic Pokemon finished reviewing his memories. “I’d think so, what with how many times you’ve been injured and me healing you and relieving you of said injuries.”

Ash gave the Legendary Pokemon a shrug and grin in response, accepting what was said for the truth. It was in fact true after all.

It still rattled him at how oblivious his friends were when they didn’t notice that injuries he’d received throughout their journeys mysteriously disappeared.

Sheesh, talk about ‘looking underneath the underneath’.

“I see that you’ve improved greatly in your fighting ability, although you were still clearly far outclassed by those three Zangoose.” Mewtwo stated.

“Meh,” Ash waved him off, “Next time something like that happens, I’ll be much better prepared and there won’t be a terrified and vulnerable target for my opponents to take advantage of, I promise you that.” He pressed on.

Ash pushed on further before Mewtwo could get a word in edge wise, “Now quit with the stalling and tell me what you wanted me to meet you somewhere secluded for.” He ordered sharply. He wasn’t one for mind games all that often, and right now he definitely wasn’t in the mood for cryptic bullshit.

Mewtwo Sighed, “…Very well…” The clone of Mew relented, “It has started…”

Those three words were enough for Ash to get the general gist of what was going on. “Already?!” He questioned his Pokemon incredulously, receiving a nod of confirmation in reply. “Fuck!” Ash cursed.

Ash growled angrily, swiping his hand through the air.

Pausing, he took a deep breath and pinched his nose to stem his rage. The honorary Pokemon Ranger mentally counted backwards from ten.

’10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…0…‘

Once he was done, he returned his attention back to Mewtwo, “Have you found out anything else?” He inquired.

Mewtwo nodded in the positive, “I have found a few things out, mainly that the name of the criminal syndicate of this Region goes by the name of Team Galactic and they plan to use the Legendary Emotion Trio Mespirit, Uxie and Azelf in an attempt to control both Dialga and Palkia in order to use both of their powers over space and time to create an entirely new world…”

Ash cursed once again, “Arceus above! Fucking Shit! Mother-fuckin’ Arse Munchin’ Queer Bastards!” He raged up and down the clearing angrily.

“Don’t you just fuckin’ miss Giovanni and his whole ‘I just want to rule the world’ gig?” He questioned Mewtwo rhetorically. He didn’t even allow the Legendary Pokemon to answer his sarcastic comment, “Why can’t any of the crazies I run into these day be less insane? What kind of moronic doped up cock-jockies come up with these plans! Honestly?!” Storming over to a nearby adjacent tree, Ash proceeded to lay his forehead against it and breathe in deeply.

Mewtwo, off to the side observing him calmly, had been joined by Pikachu watching Ash’s ranting in amusement. The small Electric Type Pokemon had been awakened from his comfortable slumber by Ash’s loud and angry voice.

Before the conversation could go any further, Mewtwo decided to helpfully point out, “By my calculations, you only have another thee minutes and thirty-seven seconds before the finals of that Contest you were watching are set to commence.”

Ash jolted away from the tree with another curse barrage of curses, some of the words enough to make a sailor. Turning on his heel, he swiftly lifted the Pokeball up from around his neck and returned Mewtwo in a beam of red energy, “We’ll continue this little chat later, but for now I’ve gotta go watch Dawn and Kenny battle it out for that Contest Ribbon.” He told the Pokeball. He ignored the amused chuckle he felt in his mind coming from Mewtwo.

He gave the snickering Pikachu a volatile glare before walking over to his backpack that he’d set down beside the tree stump he’d sat on earlier. Opening the flap, he pointed to the insides of the bag and then at Pikachu, and then back again, “Right you! Back In there and go back to sleeping like the lazy ass you are nowadays I need to high tail it back to the Contest Hall.” He ordered his partner.

Pikachu raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the order but followed through on it regardless. Padding over to Ash, the small yellow rodent easily jumped right into the confines of the bag and snuggled back into Ash’s comfortable and soft sleeping bag.

Hey! He would much rather sleep than watch some boring ass battles between Pokemon he could defeat in the blink of an eye. At the moment, the Pokemon competing, even Dawn and Kenny’s were so far beneath his level that he didn’t even deem it sufficient to watch their battles.

… After all, if anything of interest truly happened his partner Ash would either wake him up to view it live or fill him in on it later when he was actually awake and coherent enough to understand.

Ash felt his eyebrow twitch as Pikachu jumped inside the bag to go to sleep without a moments hesitation. Truly his partner was the epitome of laziness these days.

Pushing that to the back of his mind, Ash shut the flap over, securing the bag over his shoulders next and then took off sprinting towards the Contest Hall.

…He had to pick up his winnings as well as watch the finals between Dawn and Kenny.

                                                             ______________

Four minutes later, a heavily breathing and sweating Ash collapsed back into his chair in the shadowed audience above the battle stage. Despite his lungs burning in his chest, Ash couldn’t keep the brilliantly smug grin from his face.

….He was now 187,500 Pokédollars richer than he was when the Contest started earlier that day. Which by every definition was cause for jubilation and celebration.

Smug grin still in place, Ash settled down to watch both Dawn and Kenny as they reached their positions on the battle stage.

                                                             _______________

“And now…” Marian trailed off to build suspense. She waved her arms in the direction of both Dawn and Kenny from her position just to the side of the battle field and standing beside the judge’s desk. “Without further adieu, let the final match between both Dawn and Kenny from Twinleaf Town begin!”

Dawn gave Kenny a confident smirk as she released her Pokemon, “Ursaring, Spotlight!” She declared. Ursaring was released from inside the confines of his Pokeball in a massive flash of lightning that roared up high into the air, before dispersing as Ursaring appeared from within the lightning and slashed it in half with his powerful claws.

Kenny though, replied in kind with a confident smirk of his own. “Sorry to say Dee-Dee, but I’m the one claiming this victory and the Floaroma Town Ribbon along with it.” He told her, punctuating the statement by releasing his own Pokemon. “Prinplup, let’s hit it!” The red headed Twinleaf native called out.

Prinplup burst out from inside its Pokeball riding a wave of glistening golden stars. They died down after a moment and allowed Prinplup to land deftly upon its feet, both arms/wings crossed as the penguin Pokemon met Usaring’s challenging glare with its own.

“Alright on, we’ll start straight off in the offensive!” Kenny declared. Pointed his index finger in Ursaring’s direction, Kenny ordered, “Prinplup, hit it with Bubblebeam!”

Opening its beak, Prinplup fired a multitude of large turquoise bubbles of energy rapidly towards Ursaring.

Dawn countered quickly though, with a swift order of her own. “Don’t back down, plough straight through that barrage of bubbles with Hyper Beam!” The bluenette Coordinator commanded.

Ursaring reared back his head, a sphere of orange energy glowing ominously in front of his open mouth before he jerked his head forward and launched a large orange beam of destructive energy flying towards the Bubblebeam, ready to take it head on.

The Hyper Beam cut a large swathe through the glowing bubbles of energy and continued undeterred on its true path towards Prinplup. Albeit a bit slower and less vibrant in colour.

Up above, Kenny’s bar of points lost almost a sixth of its total amount due to Dawn’s overwhelming counter towards his first attack.

“Repel it with Drill Peck!” Kenny shot back with a counter of his own.

Jumping into a rapid side spin, Prinplup shot off towards the Hyper Beam with both crown and beak glowing a bright silvery white.

Because the orange beam of destructive energy had lost some of its potency when it ploughed through Prinplup’s earlier Bubblebeam attack, Prinplup easily met the blast of energy head on and drilled straight through it sending sparkles of orange energy flickering through the air.

And just like the Hyper Beam it had just drilled through. Prinplup continued to roar through the air rapidly towards its own true target, Ursaring.

“Take the hit and then catch it!” Dawn ordered her Pokemon, receiving a nod of understanding.

Ursaring stood strong and allowed Prinplup to crash straight into him, Drill Peck and all. Ursaring roared loudly in pain as Prinplup’s beak pierced his shoulder, but held strong despite the pain and wrapped his powerful muscular furred arms Prinplup in a true to word ‘Bear Hug’.

“Shit!” Kenny cursed, realizing he’d been had.

“Take it down now with one more Hyper Beam!” Dawn commanded quickly.

Ursaring opened his gaping maw and revealed another deadly orange orb of energy that began to condense and become more powerful with each passing moment.

Just before the Hyper Beam was fired though, Kenny managed one last desperate act, “Blunt the damage with Flash Cannon!” He shouted desperately towards his starter Pokemon.

Prinplup obeyed without hesitation and within a moments notice its beak glowed a bright silvery white before it opened it and unleashed a pale silvery blue beam of energy point blank at Ursaring’s face, just as said Normal Type Pokemon unleashed his Hyper Beam.

Both energy beam attacks met head on and exploded violently, flinging both Pokemon rolling across the battle field on opposite sides of each other. Only separated by a few feet at most.

Ursaring grinned challengingly and roared his might proudly over the noise of the cheering crowd. Despite having large amounts of his fur singed from the heat of the explosion of attacks, and a large patch of fur matted and dyed red with his blood, he stood strong and was ready to continue at a moments notice. If anything the powerful bear Pokemon was even more excited to continue battling than ever, despite it’s injuries that should have hampered it at least a little.

The same though, could not be said for Prinplup. The penguin Pokemon was situated on one knee, panting harshly. One of its eyes was swollen shut thanks to a large teeming purple bruise that swelled the eyelid up fatter than normal. The Water Type Pokemon’s body was covered in burned feathers and a few gashes here and there that dyed the feathers an off purple colour thanks to it mixing in with its blue coloured feathers.

Up above, both Coordinator’s points dropped dramatically from the damage both Pokemon had taken. Dawn’s bar dropped to exactly half where as Kenny’s dropped to a little under a quarter of the total points left.

Kenny looked at his partner in dismay. There was no way he could win this the way he was now. Kenny lifted Prinplup’s pokeball and was about to return his starter Pokemon and forfeit the match, but was stopped in his tracks when Prinplup turned his remaining eye towards Kenny and gave his Trainer a confident nod.

…And then Prinplup erupted into a truly awe inspiring pillar of silver light. From within the light, Prinplup began to expand in size.

It was evolving, and Kenny along with the majority of the crowd was in to much of a stupefied awe to react any further.

Dawn though, she remembered what happened during her first ever official battle with Nando, and how she’d become complacent and allowed the Budew after evolving into Roselia to deftly defeat her Buneary.

‘When Pinplup reaches its fully evolved form, Empoleon. It changes from a primarily Water Type Pokemon to a Dual Water and Steel Type Pokemon.’ The blue haired Coordinator remembered with a grin.

“Focus Blast!” Dawn commanded quickly.

Ursaring thankfully was not stupefied or in awe of Prinplup’s evolution – it was in fact rather annoyed at the showy display interrupting their battle actually – into an Empoleon and punched both palms together before pulling them apart to reveal a large turquoise-green energy of power swelling between his claws.

Punching both palms outwards towards Prinplup/Empoleon. Ursaring unleashed the attack and sent it rocketing through the air towards the evolving Pokemon.

When the sphere of Fighting Type energy was within a few metres of the evolving Pokemon. The bright silvery tower of energy died down to reveal Prinplup’s new form as an Empoleon.

Prinplup, now Empoleon, was a large penguin-like Pokémon. The newly evolved Pokemon’s entire colour scheme had changed, where as in its previous forms it was mostly of normal blue and light blue colouring, now it was a prominently navy-blue coloured Pokemon. The Penguin Pokemon’s feet actually appeared to have webbing on them, its wings were tipped with blue metal and had three golden claws sticking out at the bottom. Empoleon had a short, blue, metal tail sticking out of its back and fin that was on the front of its body and extended to where its chin would be then split to form a sort of collar. There was a lace-like pattern of white coloration on its front, and it had two gold-coloured spots on its upper-back. Empoleon’s most prominent feature was the three-horned trident-like crest that extended from its beak.

If Dawn remembered right from what Ash had told her about the final evolution of her Prinplup, the larger the crest an Empoleon had on its beak the more powerful or experienced they were, and usually the one with the largest ‘horns’ would lead the school of other Empoleon, as well as Prinplup and Piplup.

Not that the evolution done Empoleon any good though. In fact, when it came out of its evolution the newly evolved Pokemon was in an even worse spot than before, because it had no time to dodge the large glowing turquoise-green sphere of energy that ploughed straight into its face and exploded powerfully on impact.

The Fighting Type attack dealt a massive amount of damage, and despite its evolution. Empoleon just couldn’t stay standing when the damage it received from the Focus Blast was added on to the injuries it had sustained from Ursaring, as well as the exhaustion it felt from its earlier battles.

And so, Empoleon was promptly blasted off of its feet and sent rolling into a tumbled heap of unconscious limbs in front of Kenny.

“Aaaand there you have it folks! Our winner of the Floaroam Town Ribbon is Dawn from Twinleaf Town!” Marian declared.

Dawn stood stock still for a moment, completely shocked. She had actually won an official Contest!

Her shock was broken a moment later when a massive grin exploded across her face. “We won! We Won! We Won!” Dawn shouted happily, jumping on the spot giddily. Rushing forward, she leaped up onto a surprised Ursaring and wrapped her arms around his neck holding the large Pokemon in a tight hug. Ursaring accepted the hug and returned it, happily roaring to go along with Dawn’s cheering that ‘they won’. Its gleeful jumps were less cute than Dawn’s as it tried to emulate her, because they actually shook the raised platform they were standing on.

Kenny ignored most of the festivities and rushed over to his fallen Pokemon, leaning down he cradled Empoleon’s head gently, “I’m sorry Empoleon, I just wasn’t strong enough as a Trainer to help you take the win.” He apologized sadly, his head bowed in shame.

He was therefore surprised when his face was lifted up to meet Empoleon’s by one of the newly evolved Water Type Pokemon’s fins. “Em..Pol..eon!” His starter Pokemon declared with a confident raise of its fin.

Kenny grinned, slightly teary at the gesture. “Yeah, next time we’ll definitely take the win.” Lifting up Empoleon’s Pokeball, he returned the exhausted Pokemon back within the confines of the ball in a beam of red energy. “You take a nice long rest for now though, you deserve it.” He whispered to the Pokeball softly.

Standing up, he grinned as he looked towards Dawn being spun around by a happily roaring Ursaring in celebration.

“Next time, definitely.” He whispered. Longing slightly to feel that sense of victory Dawn was no doubt feeling at this very moment.

                                                                           ____________

Up above in the audience, Ash grinned ruefully. ‘Well done done, you’ve definitely come a long way since you started Dawn, and to think that was only just a little over a month ago.” The teen thought fondly, clapping all the while along with the crowd. Sticking his thumb and index finger in his mouth, Ash gave an extremely loud whistle that echoed loudly along with the roaring in applause crowd.

                                                                           ______________

Within a few minutes, the top eight Coordinator’s were situated on the field, with the very best, Dawn, standing atop a few steps with both Kabutops and Ursaring standing by her sides, looking almost like imposing bodyguards protecting a beautiful princess from harm.

Up above the stage, the large screen broadcast Dawn’s picture proudly with a large banner declaring ‘WINNER’ above her picture.

“And now, Mr. Contesta will present the prestigious Floaroma Town Ribbon to our winning Coordinator, Dawn!” Marian declared loudly into her microphone, to the excitement of the audience who were once again roaring in applause.

“Congratulations.” Mr. Contesta praised Dawn, as he presented the orange and white colored ribbon that was sitting on a blue velvet cushion to the blue haired girl. “I understand this is your first Ribbon right?” The red tuxedo jacket wearing man inquired.

“Right.” Dawn replied softly, still trying to control the thundering of her heart within her breast. It was making her jittery, and extremely hard to control herself.

“We’re expecting great things from you in the future.” Mr. Contesta told her honestly, a smile tugging at his own lips.

“Thank you so much!” Dawn replied happily as she accepted the ribbon.

As Mr. Contesta stepped back from her, Dawn grinned deliriously and threw her arm into the air above her head, brandishing the Floaroma Town Ribbon proudly and showing it off to the crowd, who roared even louder in response to Dawn’s celebration.

“No need to worry now, because the Floaroma Town Ribbon is all mine!” She declared loudly.

“And that Ladies and Gentlemen…” Marian began, “This has brought us to the end of this years flowery and fragrant Floaroma Town Pokemon Contest, but don’t forget there is many more exciting events in this year’s calender to come!” She continued to a massive applause and barrage of cheering from the audience filling the seats.

                                                                                   __________

Later that very day, as the sun began to set and bathed Floaroma Town in a beautiful orange glaze. Ash, Dawn and Kenny stood at an empty street.

“So where are you guys headed now?” Kenny asked.

Ash gave a grin as he answered, “We’re heading on towards the Eterna Forest and from there, to Eterna City and my next Gym Battle.” The raven haired ranger replied.

“You’re welcome to come with!” Dawn piped in, getting a nod of agreement from her boyfriend.

Kenny though, waved them off. “Nah I don’t wanna get in the way of you guys doing coupley stuff.” He replied with his own grin, “And besides,” He continued, “I caught a Machoke on my way here and want to head over to the mountains located beside Oreburgh City to do some intense training.”

“…Well Okay..” Dawn conceded with a pout, earning a chuckle from Kenny.

“Call us if you need us, yeah?” Ash told him, “I’ve got some pretty fast Flying Pokemon so if you ever need us we can get to you to lend a hand pretty quickly.”

‘Not to mention Mewtwo could just Teleport us to him, if he ever actually needs us.’ Dawn thought with a giggle.

“Alright, I will then, thanks for the offer.” Kenny replied cheerfully. He tossed them both a wave and began walking backwards away from then, “Later Ash,” He said with a nod in Ash’s direction, before turning to Dawn and giving a mischievous grin, “Dee-Dee!” He teased in amusement, before promptly turning on his heel and running off in the opposite direction of them.

“KENNY YOU ARE SO DEAD NEXT TIME I SEE YOU!” The blue haired girl declared angrily, before pouting petulantly when he was to far to hear or respond to her anger filled shout.

Ash chuckled at both his new friend and girlfriends antics. Wrapping his arm around Dawn’s shoulder, he brought her head down to rest on his own shoulder, “Ready to go?” He questioned his girlfriend, giving her a small smile.

“Yup!” Dawn chirped cheerfully, standing on her tiptoes she quickly engaged Ash in a short but passionate kiss before pulling back and resting her head once again on his shoulder.

And together, they walked off into the sunset towards Eterna Forest, the first step of their journey towards Ash’s next Gym Battle.