Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon, though i wish i did.

Always thanks to Define-Origanality for proof reading this.

Rivals, and something more.

Hikaru's Pov:

Both of us woke up at the same time, which was surprising, got dressed, grabbed our backpacks and our pokemon and went to eat breakfast. After breakfast, and making sure our pokemon were full, we set out through the forest this time.

"So, why couldn't we have taken the road, where there is less chance of me getting in trouble?" I asked, looking around for my next possible accident.

Jonny laughed and spread his arms out into the open. "Why would we want to take the road?" He asked, then went on; "I thought that you wanted adventures, with dangers lurking in every corner?" We kept on walking through the light, airy forest.

I sighed. "I do like adventures, but dangers I can live without, I get enough of that already, with things trying to hurt me all the time." I said, being, for the first time, cautious that I might get seriously hurt whilst being nowhere near a hospital.

"So," Jonny started, jerking me from my thoughts. "Do you want to wait until we hit the ocean today or just have our training in the woods?"

I looked around at where we were currently walking, it looked spacious to train in. "We should train here." I decided. "It's better to keep changing your surroundings, you never know where you might end up fighting." Jonny agreed with me, as usual. We let out our pokemon and then paired them off. Piko with Angel and starly, Sole with buizel, and Ace against chimchar. We put our backpacks down, and I made sure that the egg was safely inside my backpack so that it wouldn't fall. After warming up, doing our forms, and sparring for a while, I got everyone together for something fun.

"Since we have some more time to kill, I though we should play a game of tag." I grinned. I loved to have fun. All of them were excited about more playing too, I calmed them down enough to tell them the rules; "The rules- you can only tag the person, or pokemon, with your paw or hand; no attacks on them. But you can attack the area around them, just make sure you don't harm any of us. The limit for playing here is a half of a mile in a circle. Everyone got it?" I asked, looking at all of them, knowing that some of them were mischievous at times. They all agreed, Piko jumped down to the ground, to join the rest of our pokemon. I yelled; "Game start!" then tagged Jonny. "You're it." I grinned and the rest of us scattered off, leaving Jonny surprised for only a moment, then we heard him coming after us, thus the game of tag had begun.

After a hour of a vigorous game of tag; everyone had become it at some point. Except for me. Sure, sometimes they would see me, but that was only because of the stupid accidents, partly due to my clumsiness. Luckily, my egg was in my backpack. But, back to the point; Jonny was now trying to find me, no one else, just me, with the help of his pokemon. I guessed he had learnt who hadn't been tagged.

When Jonny had come close to cornering me; I heard something, like a yell, but I wasn't sure. I stopped to listen.

It came again, this time louder. "Hikaru!" I knew that voice.

"Time out!" I called out to Jonny, just when he was about to tag me. "I just heard Sole's voice, I think he's in danger. I need to check it out." I informed him, bringing two of my fingers up to my mouth and whistled loudly. Hopefully, my pokemon would know it was me, and that something was wrong. "Find your pokemon, grab our backpacks, and meet me when you do." I instructed, urgently, to Jonny. He nodded and went to gather his pokemon. Racing towards the general direction of the call, I wondered what in the world could have happened to Sole. It must have been something bad if he needed me there with him, considering he was an already experienced pokemon.

As I approached the sound of his voice, I heard the sounds of a battle going on. Fearing the worst, I sped up, hoping that it wasn't Team Galactic. When I reached the area where Sole was battling, I saw it wasn't Team Galactic, thank goodness, but a guy around my age. He was wearing black pants and a dark purple and black jacket that matched his hair. But he wasn't alone; a small-ish, yellow pokemon was in front of him, pausing the battle with my absol as I came into view.

"Who are you?" The purple-haired guy asked, more like grunted, me. He looked a bit annoyed that his battle had been interrupted.

"My name is Hikaru, and you are?" I asked, intrigued, since he was battling an absol. He must have been a powerful trainer.

The guy stared at me for a while, before answering my question. "Name's Paul, now if you will excuse me, I'm in the middle of fighting this absol."

I shrugged, then took my 'Dex out to figure out what the small, but kind of cute in his own sort of way, pokemon was.

'Elekid the electric pokemon. Elekid waves its arms to produce a strong electrical charge and gains strength when lightning is present.'

'So it's a elekid, too bad it isn't that strong against Sole.' I thought, then heard my pokemon finally catching up to me. Piko was always first, mainly because he was, just a little bit, protective of me. The rest of my team came quickly after. I put them into their balls, and told them I would explain the situation later.

"Use thunder punch!" Paul instructed elekid to attack Sole. Elekid nodded and sprinted towards my absol. As he did so, his arm glowed white, sparks fizzling all around it.

I sighed, not wanting Sole to get hurt any more then what he was. I called out; "Sole, come here."

Sole's ears perked up and dodged elekid's attack like it was nothing. "Ok." He said and trotted over to me, rubbing against my side once he reached it. I ignored the astonished look on Paul's face, and rubbed Sole's back, hoping he wasn't too injured.

"Let me get this straight, that absol is your pokemon?" He asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

"What? Can't a girl be powerful? Just look at Cynthia, you're not complaining about her." I rolled my eyes. Men always thought girls weren't good at anything. At this time, Jonny had arrived. When he saw Paul, he immediately glared at him, for what reason I do not know. "Paul, this is Jonny, my best friend. Jonny, this is Paul, the trainer who thought he could capture my absol." I accused, making quick introductions. They both were now glaring at each other. It took a few minutes, plus me glaring at both of them, for them to finally nod a hello, which was the only greeting I was going to get out of them. Jonny handed me my backpack and I grabbed the egg, making sure it was safe, and because I just wanted to hold it. I guess I was slightly too overprotective of it.

I then tried to distract them; I grinned and looked at Paul. "How bout a battle, one on one?" I asked, I hadn't had a battle in a while.

Paul shrugged. "Fine by me, lets use our pokemon already out." His elekid took a battle stance, sparks had already started flying from his hands.

I grinned and looked at Sole, who was already taking his own battle stance in front of me. I decided to take the first move. "Sole, use night slash!" I ordered, still grinning. It's always good to start off a good battle with a good attack. Sole's paws glowed a dark purple colour, as he launched towards elekid.
"Block it with thunder punch!" Paul cried. Elekid's arm, once again, glowed white with electricity. Sole's attack collided, leaving both pokemon only a little hurt. "Now use thunder bolt!" Paul ordered, and before I could say or do anything, elekid had launched a powerful thunder bolt, hitting Sole dead center.

Sole was thrown a couple feet back. He landed on his feet, but winced from the static that was dancing on his fur. "Are you ok?" I asked, worried.

"I'm ok." He assured me, awaiting my next order.

"Good, use Razor Wind!" I commanded. White, curved slashes came out of Sole's horn, and went straight towards elekid.

"Thunder!" Was the only thing Paul said. Once again, both attacks collided, and our pokemon were more tired then before. It looked like the next attack would decide the winner.

"Dark pulse!" I almost shouted.

"Shock Wave!" Paul yelled, at the same time.

Both attacks hit each other, leaving both pokemon unconscious on the ground. It was a tie. We were both surprised, and, at the same time, we recalled our pokemon. I walked over to the other side of the field, where Paul was standing, and grinned. "You are really good." I held my hand out for him to shake.

"You're not that bad either." Paul responded, taking my hand for a moment then dropping it.

"Want to exchange numbers?" I asked, getting out my Pokegear, hoping to run into him again.

"Sure." He took his out too. We traded gears, then inserted our numbers, then handed them back. "Well, hope to see you later." Paul grinned, and with a wave, he left.

"He was really something." I commented, as we walked in the direction opposite to the one Paul had taken. Jonny just grunted. "What's the matter with you?" I asked him, Piko face palmed, he apparently knew what was wrong.

He glanced at me. "Nothing." He said, but his face said; 'Don't ask.' so I let that go... for now. We had walked for several miles, before I started to get really hungry, so we set up lunch, or, as I call it, a picnic! Jonny started to make sandwiches, whilst I looked for some berries, otherwise we would have just had sandwiches. I found a lot of berries; Sitrus, Oran and Leppa. I grabbed as much as I could, and headed back to our camp. After, we let our pokemon out, so they could eat, and have some fresh air, and the minute we finished making lunch, all of us dug in. We cleaned up after, devouring all of the lunch that we had made, including the berries, and then we walked through the forest again, only this time, there were more trees and bushes around, than walking space.

We walked yet another couple miles, before a girl came crashing into us. Not me, for once, but into Jonny, I think it was on purpose. She was wearing a dark purple blouse, a pink mini skirt, and purple knee-high boots. Her hair, shoulder length, was the same kind of purple as her boots, her eyes were baby blue. From what I could see she was nothing more then a preppy girl, who had gotten lost in the big bad woods by herself.

"My name is Jessica, but you can call me Jessie." She announced, only looking at Jonny. "I was walking down the road when a pokemon come out of nowhere, and chased me. Now I'm lost, and cant find my way." Jessie had tears in her eyes.

Well what do you know, I was right. 'Just keep it in Hikaru, maybe she's not that bad.' I thought, trying to look on the bright side.

"My name is Jonathan, and this is Hikaru." Jonny said, introducing both of us. She glared at me, like I wasn't supposed to be there. "Where do you need to go?" He asked, Jessie looked back at Jonny with innocent eyes.

"I am not sure." Jessie said, then brightened up. "Can I come with you?" She asked, holding onto his arm.

Jonny blushed, then nodded. "Sure you can come with us, we are on our way to Sunnyshore." He said, not even looking at me, who was opened-mouth in disbelief.

Jessie squealed, and started to drag Jonny in the direction we were heading, I followed behind, grimacing, already beginning to dislike her. Piko patted the back of my neck. "Just go along with it." He whispered.

"Easy for you to say." I murmured back to him, whilst watching Jessie flirt with my best friend. About a half hour later, she was still clinging onto Jonny, asking him what he had done, and why he was on a journey. I started to wonder if I was even needed here. After several minutes of Jessie asking questions, and Jonny, not minding, answering all of them, I decided to slip away and broke into a quiet run, still in the same direction.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Piko asked me, as I slowed down into a jog, putting my egg away in my backpack, I wanted my hands free.

I nodded. "He, apparently, likes her, and wont even notice me gone, it is better this way." I replied, tears threatening to fall. After going back into a run for a while, I decided to stop at a cliff overlooking the ocean. I sat there, knees to my chest, letting the tears fall, trying to stare off into the distance. After what seemed like hours, I let out my team to tell them; "We are going to travel alone now." Shock ran through the pokemon, they had gotten used to Jonny by my side. They started to ask questions, I held up my hands. "Jonny found a girl, and I have decided to leave them be." I explained to them. They respected my decision, but did not like it at all. I looked at Sole. "Can you take me to Sunnyshore?" I asked, wanting to do some thinking, and not run into any trees, or fall off a cliff.

"Sure." Sole said, probably reading my mind. I recalled back my team, then climbed onto him, loosely holding him around the neck. I closed my eyes, letting the scenery go past without even looking at it.
I was starting to regret leaving him so soon, but he seemed happy with Jessie, and plus we would probably run into each other, every once in a while.

"We are here." Sole's voice broke through my thoughts like thunder, I looked up at a cave entrance, but it wasn't a long cave, as I saw light, a short while in.

"Thanks." I took out his pokeball, a red beam shot out at Sole, and encased him in the red light. I minimized it, and put it on the back of my belt with the rest of my pokemon. Taking a big breath of salty ocean air, I entered the cave, then almost immediately I came out, looking onto Sunnyshore.
The city was a few small islands gathered on the sea, with a lighthouse at the end of the city, and bridges connecting it all together. Since I didn't feel like challenging the gym today, I went to explore the city to familiarize myself with it. For once, after I had looked around at everything, I remembered were they were, so I decide to check inside the lighthouse. I climbed up the tons of stairs and reached the top. There was only one other person in there; a guy in his twenty's, with blond, spiky hair, a blue jacket and blue and black pants, looking, sadly, out into the ocean. Wondering what his problem was, I stood at the opposite end of the small room, and stared at the ocean too. Opening my pokegear, I checked the information about the city's gym leader.

"Ok." I murmured to myself and Piko. "His name is Volkner, and he deals with electric pokemon. He has a raichu, jolteon, and electivire." Then I found a picture of him, to make sure it was the right guy, when I saw him. The picture contained a guy with a black and blue outfit, blond spiky hair, and a raichu sat on his shoulder. He was smiling; he was a gorgeous guy, if I might say so myself. Then reality reached my brain, I realized I had just seen this guy. I turned towards the other guy that was in the room, and compared the picture to him. A perfect match.

"Volkner!" I said out loud, before I could even think.

He looked up when I said his name, the sad look still on his face, and stared at me.

"I challenge you to a gym battle." I said, all of a sudden, courage in my voice.

He said only one word, that confused me all the way down to the core, that no gym leader should ever say. "No."

Author notes: its a lil bit longer, words just seem to write itself. I love leaving cliffhangers! They are so much fun! Well for me anyways. Mwahahaha. Anywho, i was thinking of changing my pen name...any sugjestions? Review if yall want, untill next chapter!