Well, readers I hope things are going well for this story! ^-^ And alot of you are liking the changes I've made and I hope you'll enjoyed til the end!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon

Ash woke up to a knocking on the door. Groggily he got up, grabbed his cloak, put it on, hiding his face, and opened the door. There stood the gang. Max, May, Brock, Misty and Dawn. 'Damn' he thought, trying not to slam the doors in their faces. What a wonderful thing to wake up to. "Oh..." He said.

"Satoshi?" asked May. "What are you doing here?" she asked a bit rude, still a bit peeved at how he acted to them yesterday. "And what's with the hood?"

"Visiting my old friend." He answered calmly, debating whether or not he wanted to blast them with his Charizard. "To answer your second question, none of your business and what do you want?" he questioned back.

"Here to visit the professor. Need advice on how to beat everyone in the competition." answered Max smartly.

"Mhmm...and if you face against me?"

"You got lucky but I'll be the victor." he said, crossing his arms.

'Good luck with that.' He thought. "I'll get Gary. GARY VISITORS!" he called.

He heard footsteps coming from behind. "Hey guys, common in." he said cheerfully as he gave Ash a look to let them in. "Follow me into the lab. I'm just feeding the Pokémon. You can help."

"COOL!" cried an energetic Max.

"Calm down Max." laughed Brock.

"Follow me." he said.

As they walked, Gary contemplated on what to do next. He knew that Ash was not happy with him at the moment, and didn't blame him. He too would be mad if Ash invited his betrayers to his house.

After a few moments they made it to Gary's Pokémon field. Hundreds of different types of Pokémon species were running about without a care in the world. At a far corner there were Pokémon were fighting one another.

"Gary, you should stop them before they hurt one another!" Misty yelled in alarm at what she was witnessing.

A Blastoise had soaked Charizard's tail badly as a Staraptor was being blasted with a Thunder from a Pikachu and Manectric combined.

"Calm yourself Misteria." Ash spoke, using her full name. She flinched, hating that name and hating him more. How could he not care about the welfare of those Pokémon.

"GARY!" Brock shouted as he saw Sceptile being burned with an Eruption from a Typhlosion. "You should stop them!" he barked, not understanding why they weren't doing anything.

"They won't stop until they are finished with their training." Ash spoke, sternly. "They'll be fine."

"How do you know?" Dawn asked a flabbergasted as she witnessed a poor Torterra being attacked from all sides by fire types, while doing nothing to defend itself.

"Because, their my Pokémon."

"THIS IS HOW YOU RAISE YOUR POKEMON?" Brock shouted in anger. "HOW COULD YOU? THEY COULD GET SERIOUSLY HURT!"

Ash and Gary both rolled their eyes. "Chill. Satoshi has been training them for years like this, to build their defense power. If they raise their endurance against attacks that cause damage, they grow a lot stronger, especially in battle." explained Gary.

"Besides, how I raise my Pokémon is none of your business. They'll be done soon."

A little while later Ash blew a whistle to them. "That's enough for warm-ups." He said as the gang opened their mouths in shock.

"This is warm-ups?" May thought.

"Flying 20 miles." he ordered as his bird Pokémon flew to do just that, barely resting from their shocks. "Gary, you got any boulders, trees or something?" He asked.

"Yeah...there's a forest over there, you can cut whatever you need. Just not too much." he said pointing to a nearby forest.

Ash nodded. "Scizor, cut down 10 trees." he ordered as Scizor did just that. "The rest know what they need to do." he said as the ones that were used to their daily exercises picked up a tree each, doing their daily 200 tree presses.

"The lake, 15 miles." he said as the others did just that. "And 10 miles running for the rest."

"Satoshi, that's too much!" growled an angry Brock. How could he treat them like that?

"Brock, these are not your Pokémon. I've trained them like this for the past 5 years. They're fine!" argued Ash. He took out a pokeball. "Lucario!" he shouted. He decided that until they left, he wouldn't bring out Mew, Mewtwo, or Meowth. I hope you can understand. He thought to them.

Master. Lucario bowed his head respectfully.

"WHOA A LUCARIO!" shouted Max in amazement.

"Let's train." He said, not bothering with introductions. Immediately Lucario attacked his master as the others gasped a warning at him. He easily blocked his punch, giving Lucario an upper arm thrust as he kept his hood on. He didn't want the others to see his face.

30 minutes of non stop fighting Lucario raised the bar, sending out his aura sphere.

Ash forced his own as they collided, exploding.

The others could only watch in amazement as they fought with such grace and beauty.

"RAWR!" grunted Lucario in pain as Ash hit his chest. He gave him a force palm as Ash staggered back a bit. He brought out his bone dagger as he swung it at him, as Ash dodged most of them.

In the end it was Ash who won as he spun a kick to Lucario's neck, knocking him out cold.

He stood there, bloody and sweaty as he wiped the blood off his face. He walked over to Lucario as the others just stared in shock. "Good job my friend." He said, helping the hurt Lucario up.

Thank you master. It spoke, bowing again as it went over to the shade to meditate.

"Wow Satoshi, that was...awesome." Max said star struck.

He nodded as he walked over to the middle of the field. Ash could hear the other Pokémon finishing up as he blew his whistle. "Alright, that's enough for now, breakfast." he shouted as they ran to the forest to hunt for their own food.

"Satoshi, they can have some of my Pokémon food." Brock offered.

"No thank you." He said curtly. "They have their own special diet of berries and fish. Disrupting it with your food, no matter how well, would be unwise." He explained.

"Sure..." Brock said unsure of what else to say.

As they ate, he called for his Pokémon. "Guys, relax for an hour" meaning training. "And I'll be with you shortly." They nodded as they went back to what they were doing in the morning.

"Do you ever give them a break?" asked an agitated Misty as May and Dawn glared at his 'abuse.'

"Yes. But they like training, as do I. They don't like losing so we train to get stronger. Any more questions?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, how did you beat Lucario and more importantly how did you use aura. I thought only a certain number of people could use it." asked an intrigued Max.

"Well, Satoshi here has been training with that Lucario for years, learning the power of aura from him. So he's practically a master himself." boasted a proud Gary.

"Wow." said Max, a bit dazed.

"Anyways we better get going." said Misty. "I need to stop by the Cerulean Gym before the Top 100 tournament." she explained.

"Okay..." sighed Max.

"Bye Gary, Satoshi." they said as they left the lab.

Several moments later Ash sighed, taking down his hood. "God I feel like they are stalking me." he grumbled as he took out Mewtwo, Mew, and Meowth. "Sorry about that guys." he apologized.

"Nothing to worry about Ash." Mewtwo said, shrugging as it got into a meditation state.

"Mew Mew." it danced as it went to play with the other Pokémon.

"I don't blame you for keeping us in, boss." Meowth said softly.

"Want to talk?" Mewtwo asked.

"Not really."

"Hey Ash." called Ritchie from inside.

"Yeah?"

"How long you staying?" he asked.

"A few days, then heading to the snowy mountain part of Kanto to train a bit more before the competition starts. I can't deal with anymore 'interruptions'."

"Oh. Okay." he said sullenly, a bit sad he was leaving.

"Hey by the way, where were you through that whole ordeal?" Ash raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, didn't want to get involved with them much. Besides, I'll see them at the competition." he shrugged.

"True. Anyways, I'm going back to training. See ya."

"Bye Ash." Gary and Ritchie called as he ran to his Pokémon. Ash, I hope you know what you are going to do when they find out... Gary thought as he went inside to finish his research.

I hope this gets better and better! XD Well, so long folks!