yO MAN HAPPY(6 days late) 2017 !
Ash finds that it's slowly becoming more common for Pikachu to hitch rides on Ash's shoulders - it's a substantial improvement from when they first met. Ash can't blame him for doing it, though. The hike to Mt. Moon is tiring, and he doesn't think a Pokemon with low stamina like Pikachu could manage it. Not that they weren't working on it - Pikachu was plenty better from when they'd first met, anyways.
At the moment, Ash had other Pokemon out, as well. Butterfree rests atop Ash's head, and Froakie on the shoulder opposite of Pikachu. Overhead Pidgeotto glides, glad to take the chance to spread her wings. It's not like Ash was able to let his Pokemon out very often - Froakie and Pikachu, certainly, but only because they were smaller Pokemon. Ash is disappointed to say he'll be less capable of letting Froakie out once he evolves.
It was all a matter of what people were comfortable with. In the city, he couldn't let Pidgeotto out very frequently, though the rest of his team was fine. In fact, Ash doesn't think he'll be able to let most of his future Pokemon out of their Pokeballs - unless they were small, cute, and generally unintimidating, it just wouldn't work out, and Ash doesn't think that most Pokemon stay that way upon evolution - if they wanted to evolve, that is.
Ash was getting ahead of himself, however - he had no planned team after all, it was simply a matter of what Pokemon he ran into on his journey. Ash wasn't about to go desparately searching for Rare Pokemon or whatever else - there wasn't really a point to it. More common pokemon could be stronger than rare pokemon, after all.
Abovehead, Pidgeotto lets out a sudden screech as she dives, coming to level with Ash and Brock, wings flapping as she intercepts with them.
"Huh, Pidgeotto ?" Ash yelps, alarmed. She doesn't seem to be hurt ... Pidgeotto continues making noise, however, and Froakie takes it upon himself to translate. Froakie motions quickly, and Ash blinks.
"I think they want us to follow them !" Brock attempts to translate unhelpfully - Ash had already gotten the idea, but he appreciates the thought.
Pidgeotto leads them to the mouth of Mt. Moon, where a man in a lab coat is being assaulted by Zubat, hunched over as he shouts. Ash is almost surprised they hadn't heard him to begin with.
"Butterfree, use Sleep Powder !" Ash shouts, though gives Butterfree a sort of look - they didn't want to put the man to sleep as well, but it wouldn't be too much of a bother if they did. He'd sleep much shorter than the Zubats after all, being much larger. Pikachu grumbles, presumably because he could've helped, too. Ash just doesn't trust Pikachu's control enough to let him.
The Butterfly Pokemon flutters over the swarm, a a sort of Powder falls from his wings. A sort of shield forms over the Scientist - it looks like it's made of confusion, though it was only good at deflecting the powder. Sort of like Safeguard, he's pretty sure - huh, maybe he should teach that to his Pokemon at some point.
As the Zubat slowly fall, Ash sees Brock grabbing out a Pokeball. Ash briefly considers catching a Zubat as well, but decides against it. He doesn't really want a Zubat, and besides, he was only allowed six pokemon at a time. Unlike Gary, who Ash has heard catches Pokemon like mad, Ash would rather only catch Pokemon he wants, so he doesn't have to spread his attention out too far.
"Are you okay ?" Ash asks the scientist, concerned. He doesn't think the Zubat did much, though - generally they didn't do much to humans, unlike Spearow, who were much more aggressive.
"Thank you so much !" The scientist cries. Ash lets out a loud yelp as the man jumps to his feet and embraces Ash tightly. Ash finds he does not appreciate this show of gratitude
"It's bright as noon in here. The Pokemon here can't handle the bright very well, that's why the Zubat got confused." Having escaped from the man's hug, only but use of Froakie's Frubbles, Ash and Brock trot alongside Seymour, who was explaining what was happening.
"Couldn't you have just taken down the lights ?" Ash asks. Seymour stops dead, then considers.
"Well, probably not ... Whoever's after the Moonstone would probably put them right back up." The Scientist sighs. Ash huffs, but nods. He supposes it was true, in the end.
"Clefairy !" A Pokemon chimes behind them. Ash turns, eyes widening as he spins around. A Clefairy bounds behind him, a Moonstone held in it's arms. Ash briefly wonders why it isn't evolving ?
"Found you !" Something cries, interupting Ash's thoughts. A Meowth dashes out, intercepting the pink creature. He almost recognizes it from the Pokemon center, but a few weeks ago - it's not like he could forget, after all. It involved a talking pokemon and two weirdos. Ash gives a look to Froakie, who nods in turn and throws a handful of Frubbles. Not exactly what he was asking for, but Ash isn't going to complain. It kept Meowth from doing anything. Meowth whirls, alarmed when he found he couldn't move his feet. "Wh-What are you guys doing here ?" He snaps, struggling.
Pikachu hops over to Clefairy and begins to speak to it. Froakie's attention seems split between the interaction and Meowth.
"Prepare for trouble !" Ash groans.
"Make it double !"
"To protect the world from devastation !"
"To unite all people within our nation !"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love !"
"To extend our reach to the stars above !"
"Jessie !"
"James !"
"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light !"
"Surrender now, or prepare to fight !"
"Meowth, that's right !"
"... Are you going to do that every time ?" Ash asks, reluctant. He's only seen the trio but twice, but he finds that he really doesn't feel like hearing it every time. Did they expect for him to wait for them to finish ?
"You're just jealous !""Because we won't let you join us."
"... Not that I'd want to." Ash answers, flatly. Team Rocket seemed like a bunch of cowards, to be honest. Not to mention stealing Pokemon ? He couldn't imagine what trainers were going through.
"So you're the ones who put up the lights ! You're why the Pokemon are so confused !" Brock is the first to sound, anger sounding in his voice.
"What a shame." The Rockets say, clearly sarcastic.
"We want the moonstone to power up our Pokemon !" Meowth spoils the plan, clearly confident. Ash frowns.
"...That's not how it works." Ash answers simply. The Moonstone was really only good for Evolution, and Ash is certain that they only have Koffing and Ekans. Who don't evolve with the moonstone.
"Shut it !" Jessie snarls. Froakie just throws another few Frubbles out, locking them to the ground. Ash notes that Meowth hasn't found his way out.
"Sleep Powder !" Ash calls to Butterfree as he releases him. The Butterfly Pokemon seems to agree, breezily fluttering over the Rockets and offering a heavy dose of Powder. "...That's going to knock 'em out for a while." Ash grins crookedly. Sleep Powder was rarely dangerous, even in high dosages. With Meowth and the Rockets stuck to the ground, Ash moves to more important things.
The moonstone ceremony is ... Oddly pleasant. Ash even let out his Pokemon to watch as the Clefairy sing and dance. It all went without a hitch. In fact, the Rockets were stuck to the ground fairly tight, and probably still asleep.
A Clefairy bounds over to him, Moonstone in hand. Ash blinks as it places the Moonstone in his hands, as the boy turns over and inspects it.
"You want me to have this ?" Ash asks, surprised. Clefairy nods, though seems to consider something. Then, out of the blue, the Clefairy grabs one of the empty pokeballs off of Ash's belt. He yelps, alarmed, as it presses the button itself. It rocks a few times, then falls still, and Ash is left staring at the ball, puzzled as he picks it up.
"Normally I'd say you're not allowed to catch the Clefairy, but I don't think you had a choice there." Seymour voices, seeming almost amused. Ash simply nods, confused. So he'd just had a super rare Pokemon catch itself. He's really not sure how he's supposed to respond.
"So you make your own Pokemon Food ?" Ash asks, curious as he flips through a book. Behind him, his Pokemon are training. Froakie is teaching Pikachu Double Team, Butterfree is further working on Energy Ball, Pidgeotto is working on Agility, and Clefairy is simply working on perfecting her moves. Out of all of them, Clefairy knows the most moves, but only four of them were actually harmful - Copycat and Metrenome didn't count, as far as Ash is concerned.
"Sure do !" Brock answers. Ash beams and kicks his legs. He's supposed to be reading up on Pokemon from other regions right now, but he's sure nobody would mind if he did this instead.
"Do you think I could help ? I know how to make it, but it's not perfect." Ash explains. Someday, Brock will leave Ash on his journey, and Ash simply wanted to be prepared for then. Not that Ash could even be prepared for feeding himself, but he'd rather his Pokemon get better food.
"Oh ! Sure ! Maybe we can share some tips." Brock answers, rather enthusiastically. Ash isn't sure he himself will have very good tips, but nonetheless.
"... Well, they don't have challengers today." Ash sighs as he exits the gym. Pikachu is grumbling, now perched on Ash's shoulder, though lightly. Ash has found that Pikachu has just about come to fully trust Ash, enough to follow through with Ash's crazy plans. Ash is almost certain the only reason it's come this far so fast is because Froakie has been talking with the Electric rodent.
"Gym Leaders aren't supposed to turn down challengers." Brock tells Ash with a sigh. Ash nods in agreement. Sure, turning down Challengers right before a Performance was one thing, but after one ? Not as much. There were supposed to be Pokemon specifically for Gym Battles, but ... Ash groans.
"At least we have more time for training ..." Ash grumbles. Maybe just another two days would do it ? He looks over his Pokedex. Okay, so they didn't have Performances in the next week, so they'd have no excuse then. Ash wasn't about to just up and take a Gym Badge without actually earning it, it just felt sort of like ... Cheating, to be honest.
Ash had a tendancy to start working against his Pokemon's weaknesses before he starts with anything else. Well, that was how it was at the moment - he'd captured most of his Pokemon having fully mastered their typings. Perhaps if he ever got a Pokemon who wasn't, he'd have to work with the Pokemon on their typing first.
For example, the reason Ash was mostly teaching Pikachu evasion moves was because his Evolution line was known for having very low endurance - hence why they worked specifically on that, as well. And once Ash finished up on that, he supposes it wouldn't hurt to teach Pikachu Grass Knot. Iron Tail was good on Rock Types, but Ground Types were what Pikachu was really weak to - it just happened that Rock was what Ground Types were paired with most often. After that however, Ash was planning on teaching Pikachu Feint, and then more Electric Attacks - it was a long-term plan, to be honest, and Ash wasn't sure if they'd even get to it all. But it would be a solid movepool, allowing Pikachu to fight fairly against just about any Pokemon. Pikachu was the only Pokemon Ash had done such thorough research on, though, as Pikachu was near the end of the dodging and endurance stage.
Froakie tended to do things his own style, though, and the rest of his Pokemon didn't have as much of a glaring weakness. Butterfree and Pidgeotto could fly, for one - and Butterfree would also be underestimated, being a Pokemon rarely used in league battles, being rather weak. Pidgeotto was harder to work with - she would learn mostly Flying type moves, making it rather hard to provide full coverage. For this reason, Pidgeotto was the one Ash was going to do more thorough research on in the future. Clefairy, however, Ash had little clue what to do with at the moment - nobody was quite sure all the moves Clefairy could learn, being as rare as they were, but they were fairly extensive, being able to learn moves from amost every type. It'd be useful in later battles - after some training, Ash is fairly certain Clefairy will end up as a to-go Pokemon. With only weaknesses to two of the less common types, and the ability to learn so many moves, well, she'd be very useful in the future.
"Alright ... Froakie, we're going to learn Ice Beam." Ash explains first. The primary reason for this is because of how useful it was against Grass Types. Secondly, it's ability to freeze opponents could come in handy. That was kind of it, if he's honest. "I'm not sure how we're going to do that, but we'll figure it out." He kind of wishes he had an ice-type, if only to explain how ice-type attacks work - or at least had an ice-type around to explain. Ice Types were, well, extremely rare in Kanto - in fact, none of their native Pokemon were Ice Typed, so it was highly unlikely he'd get one.
"Pikachu, now that you've got Double Team mostly down, we'll work on Agility." It was one of the moves Ash had to teach Pikachu before he evolved - if he wanted to evolve, that was. There was a pretty big difference between Raichu and Pikachu, after all - not to mention the changes in behavior that occurred, unlike with some other Pokemon. In other words, it wasn't extremely uncommon for Pikachu to not want to evolve. But, along with Feint and a handful of Electric attacks, Ash had to teach Pikachu some moves before even asking about Pikachu's preferece.
"Butterfree, we'll be learning Protect." He's still not sure how to do that - he's fairly certain that they start it off with making it out of confusion, then edge it away to make it almost type-less - no need to have a Dark Type breaking through the barrier anytime soon. The plan is flawed, though, and Ash knows it. Hence why he needs to look things up in the Pokedex first - no matter how much research Ash has done on Pokemon, he can't memorize everything, after all.
"Pidgeotto, we'll learn Twister !" They'd have to test it out on Clefairy later on - it's not like she'd be affected anyways, and it'd prevent some pretty bad damange to the environment. That wouldn't be for quite a while, though - being able to harness, and control, dragon type energy would take a long time. While the Pidgey line could harness it to some extent, it was hardly enough to do more than a twister. Perhaps if Ash ran out of things to teach her, they could try and teach her more Dragon Type attacks, to hell if the Pokedex said she could learn it or not.
"And Clefairy ... How about we just work on your speed ?" Unlike his other Pokemon, who mostly needed help expanding their movepools, Clefairy was new. Compared to his other Pokemon, she was much weaker, being slower and with much lower endurance. That's fine - in time she'll catch up, then he'll allow her to join in with teaching her some more moves.
"Alright ... Pikachu, Clefairy, I'm pretty sure you both know how to do it." Pikachu already knew the basics to agility, from much earlier on, after Pidgeotto had learned agility herself. Clefairy simply had to run around. As for the rest ... Ash sighs, scrolling through his Pokedex.
"Okay, gather around. Pidgeotto, this is what the Pokedex says ..."
funfact i finished this weeks ago but couldnt upload it bc internet lmao
anyways, im never going to directly ask for reviews, but i love seeing that people are reading and enjoying the fic, or asking questions ! yes, ill be replying to reviews, though only if i feel the need - no need to make the a/n just as long as the story lmao
this chapter is mostly made up of training because i wanted to work up the word count lmao ? without adding a gym battle in there ? oh well ? aka this is like,,,, a lot of filler again,,,, u can(or couldve) ignored the goddamn training
anyways ! ive already decided on literally all the pokemon ash is getting in all the regions um ? but if theres a pokemon u rlly rlly want him to get feel free to tell me ! ill def consider it if its not on the list ;o however, i dont suggest suggesting shinies, as im trying to limit it to one shiny per region(theres only like 3 regions w/o a planned shiny lmao) and even then thats p insane luck considering how rare shinies are ! not to mention im only giving him the ~cool~ shinies how does he manage it lmao
tl;dr : suggest some pokemon if u want but shinies arent as likely to be chosen
beutiful-liar13 : awsome chapter will he still get eevees ?
a : the umbreon espeon duo, correct ? yes, he will ! now that ive reached a conclusion to the charmander thing, ive decided to keep them both ! he should get them in the next few chapters !
ash's pokemon : froakie, pikachu, butterfree, pidgeotto, clefairy
