Chapter 8:

'Up there, that is the gym.'

A collective gasp rose up from the group as they stared up at the building; it wasn't like any Pokémon gym any of them had seen before. It was a large white stone building, with constant windows along the sides, a long path of white stones lead up to the tall archway that lead inside. The ceiling was high and arched, and it seemed there was a large portion of the ceiling that had been turned into a skylight. Just above the door, there was a large symbol that marked it as the gym. It was a bright silver circle, with a bright white, six pointed star in the middle. The sun glinting off the star symbol sending rainbows across the grass that surrounded it, the turquoise ocean rising up behind the building and the magnificent oak trees that slowly wilted bright green leaves in the lazy sea air.

'Now this is a coordinator's kind of gym,' Drew commented.

'That's your excuse for being slightly metrosexual isn't it?' Nixie offered.

There was a snort of laughter from the group, Nixie in the half hour it had taken to get them here, had seemed to have an endless supply of sarcastic comments at the ready to come flying out of her mouth at a split second warning. But she seemed to bring back some of the over top happiness she'd had at the café where Brock, Misty and Ash first met her, and occasionally, she'd just start rolling down one of the hills laughing her head off. She seemed to take to Max well, constantly babbling on about different battling tips and breeding tips and just about everything, a self-proclaimed expert on whatever she wanted to talk about at that moment. But despite Nixie's effortless conversation with the group, at the same time, Brock still wasn't allowed to talk to, or look at her, you could see it physically pained him not to be spurting compliments and strange attempted pickup lines every time he got a vague glimpse at her.

'So this is an Eclipse Island gym huh?' Ash grinned.

'Tien will have been up for hours, by now she'll be bored, I can't understand why though, she gets so many more challengers than the rest of her siblings.'

'How many more?'

'The top five haven't had a challenger in six months,' Nixie commented.

'Six months?!'

'Most of them get stuck when they try to take on Lectron or Malina.'

'Lectron? Malina?'

'The electric gym leader, and the dragon leader, they're nearly as good as the top five, ridiculously gifted. Lectron keeps trying to knock Demetrius, the ground trainer out of his position in the top five, but seeing as it's such a severe type disadvantage and Demetrius knows what he's doing, they keep getting down to Lectron having one Pokémon and Demetrius having two and then Demetrius will win. Sibling rivalry has never been so extreme.'

'I can imagine,' Brock said, the words coming out of his mouth and then slamming his hands over it, flinching like he was about to be hit.

Nixie just flat out ignored him, and began walking towards the gym, 'Come on Ash, Tien won't bite… much.'

'Hey! Tien! I have a challenge for you!' Nixie called loudly as they walked down a corridor.

'Really?' came a sweet, high voice, 'I'm on the battle field, bring them through!'

Nixie laughed, and continued walking to the end of the corridor before she swung the door open, revealing the large room beyond. An immense field, seeming slightly bigger than the usual fields was open before them, a shiny, chrome floor stretched out, marked with white battle lines. The walls were mostly made of glass panels, turned at slight angles to let the sea air flow in and the roof was a glass arch, lined with strips of silver metal to keep it intact. At either end of the battlefield there was a white stone platform, clearly for the trainers use, but on the far end, facing them, was someone who looked way too young to be a gym leader.

She had bright brown hair that went to around the middle of her back; it was a mess of waves and curls, it blew gently in the breeze that came from all angles in the room. Her eyes were large and blue, glowing like the ocean on a summer's day, wide and innocent, with a glint of good humor. She was dressed in a three quarter sleeve, white and blue striped top, a small brown skirt tied with a pink bandana to hold it up was swishing a little over half way to her knees. Her hair was held back by a string of white and blue material, and pinned to her shirt was a silver badge with a six pointed star, just like the symbol outside her gym. Her feet were bare as she swung them back and forth from where she was sitting on the balcony of the battle platform.

'Hello there, I'm Tien Carinthia, the Normal Type specialist and the leader of this gym, your first challenge in the Eclipse League. If you can defeat me you shall be allowed to progress to the next stage of the league, competing against my other siblings and maybe you will even face my brother Asterion, and assert yourself as the forth trainer to ever to master our league.'

'Do you use that rehearsed drabble on everyone Tien?' Nixie observed loudly.

Tien for the first time seemed to notice Nixie, and a grin lit up her face, 'Long time no see; usually you just let the junior staff lead the challengers to my gym.'

'Well, this one actually seems to have potential, remember the kid at the Indigo League a few years back that nearly got slaughtered by a machine and had to get his ass saved by the Moltres?' Nixie laughed.

Brock and Misty burst out laughing, instantly remembering what was possibly one of Ash's dumbest decisions, one of the many that almost got him killed, but somehow it was still funny. May and Max were exchanging confused looks. Dawn was looking at Ash with a very clear confused and annoyed look. Drew simply sighed, expecting he was missing out on some sort of inside joke.

'Wait a second, you know about that?!' Ash exploded.

'Of course I do,' Nixie laughed.

'It was Pyra's Moltres,' Tien pointed out.

'Your sister has a Moltres?'

'Sister of fire, of course she does,' Tien giggled, 'Are you my challenger? Because there are an awful lot of you here.'

'Yeah, I am, Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town.'

'Oh you're the kid who bombed out in the-'Tien suddenly cut off, like she didn't want to say something, and she noticed the look on Ash's face, 'I think I've heard of you, I'm not sure where from.'

'So what type of battle are we having?' Ash asked.

'Haven't you told them anything?' Tien asked looking at Nixie.

'All battles in the Eclipse League are six on six battles Ash, that's also part of what makes it so hard, not all trainers have six elite Pokémon, and even then, they don't have any more that they can switch in between in order to not fall into a pattern,' Nixie explained, 'Tien can I have a word with you for a sec?'

Tien nodded and Nixie ran over, muttering quietly to her for a few moments, and after a second Tien nodded, rolling her eyes, 'whatever you say Nixie.'

'I'll ref, if you're ready to start Ash,' Nixie called.

'Definitely! I'm ready to earn my first Eclipse League symbol,' Ash shouted confidently.

'No chance,' Tien smirked, pulling herself back onto the stand properly, 'Don't think for a second this is going to be easy.'

'Tell him that all you want, it's not going to work,' Misty sighed, 'He's got a permanent big head; we're still working on deflating it.'

'You know it's a big problem when the girlfriend sees it,' Tien giggled.

'Hun,' Nixie said sharply as Misty and Ash both glanced at each other and took a big step away.

'Oh… My bad,' Tien said awkwardly, and then noticing the large group of people still standing, she grinned and called loudly, 'Braviary!'

An incredibly large eagle like bird flew into the room through one of the windows, spinning the glass panel as it did and landed at Tien's feet, 'Brav!' it squawked.

'Braviary, be a dear and bring in some chairs for our challenger's friends, actually, just bring the big sofa,' she said, gently petting its feathery head, and then she hit a button, which opened a hatch in the roof.

'Don't you think it's a little, I don't know, difficult for a flying Pokémon to bring in a couch?' Dawn asked.

'Darlin' Braviary's can lift a car while flying when they've first evolved, Tien's Braviary can probably lift half the building without breaking a sweat,' Nixie said boredly.

Suddenly there was a loud thump, and in the middle of the field landed a large sofa, with a lounge on the side, 'Thanks Braviary!' Tien called, 'Stand by.'

There was a loud squawk and Drew and Brock looked at each other, shrugged, and then began dragging the couch to the side of the field, before dumping themselves down on it. May, Dawn and Max ran over to join them, but Misty touched Ash's shoulder lightly.

'You can do it Ash,' she smiled before walking to join the others.

'That Braviary is brilliant,' Ash complimented.

'If you think it's brilliant now, I might as well start with it,' Tien offered, 'Braviary! Time to shine!'

Braviary landed on the field, it's claws making slight clings on the metallic floor as it raked them along the ground, clearly all to ready to start the battle, 'What do you think Pikachu? Think you can take it?'

'Pika-pika!' the electric rodent cheered and jumped onto the field, although being only up to the top Braviary's claws, Pikachu seemed ready to go.

'This battle between the gym leader Tien, and the challenger Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town shall now begin, this will be a six on six battle, either trainer may substitute their Pokémon, no time limits, trainers ready?' Nixie called.

'Ready,' Ash said.

'R- What is it Braviary?' Tien asked frowning.

The eagle Pokémon seemed to freeze, it's sharp eyes seeming to be searching for something, and then suddenly there was an explosion of smoke. The room seemed to shake like there was an explosion, because they could hear the windows vibrating.

But in the minute or so it took for the smoke to finally cleared, they finally saw that in the smoke, the battle field was empty, and Braviary and Pikachu were gone. A terrible shrieking cry seemed to tear it's way straight out of Tien's mouth, her eyes overflowing with tears as she yelled out again and again;

'Braviary! Braviary! Braviary!' she screeched.

'What happened?!' Nixie yelled, looking at the gathered group, all still choking on the smoke, like it was there fault.

Ash didn't even seem to care, 'Pikachu!' he yelled.

Brock seemed to have completely forgotten that he wasn't allowed to talk to Nixie he said instead, 'What always happens, Ash, I thought you said that Team Rocket had stopped following you!'

'They had!' Ash cried, looking around wildly.

'Well clearly not, no one else would go straight after Pikachu, Braviary must have just been because they thought it must be powerful as well.'

'Since when do Team Rocket do anything without reciting their stupid motto? Are we positive it's them?' May asked.

'Who else could it be?' Dawn asked, 'Come on, they can't have gotten to far, and there's always something, always something that'll get the Pokémon back when Team Rocket tries to ruin everything.'

'What on Earth are you going on about?!' Tien demanded, 'Where's my Braviary!?'

'Ever since I started my journey over six years ago, I've been followed by this trio from Team Rocket.'

'Team Rocket?' both Tien and Nixie asked cluelessly.

'They've spent a lot of time on this island Ash, they probably wouldn't know about them. It's a villainous league who basically want to steal the world's most powerful Pokémon for their own profit, and from day one, they've been after Ash's Pikachu and any other powerful Pokémon they run into along the way,' Brock explained, 'But we can get them back, I know we can, now come on, we've got to go find them.'

Tien barged straight past Brock, Ash on her heels, still yelling sounding completely deranged, 'Braviary! Braviary! Braviary!'

...

'I can't believe that was so easy!' James said sounding thrilled.

'Meowth thinks it's because you two weren't yammering on as always before we actually get anything done,' Meowth said.

'Well... we're not on the team anymore so I guess the motto isn't necessary... I miss it!' Jessie yelled dramatically.

'Jess, calm down, remember, if we bring powerful Pokémon to the boss, he'll take us back, and now that we've got Pikachu in this handy dandy electricity proof box and this huge bird in a cage, we're sure to be back in his good books.'

'I know James, we have to be back in Team Rocket I barely know who I am without it... apart from exceptionally beautiful of course,' Jessie said with a toss of her long pink hair.

'Now all we have to do is get off this island before any of the twerps catch up to us or the girl who gave us this big b'oid.'

'Did it seem to either of you two that the Twerp wasn't alone, or with those two from Unova? It seemed like their were a lot of them,' James remarked.

'I wasn't looking, I was to busy grabbing this pathetic bird while you got the easier task of picking up Pikachu you lazy sod!' Jessie snapped.

'Well it wasn't part of our plan to grab anything else-'

'But we take whatever we can get that's good! That's the Team Rocket way!' Jessie declared.