Last time on Contest Conundrum...

*Guitar solo*

Rolling around at the speed of caterpillar! Got Osha fans to escape, gotta protect Buneary!

Can't stick around, have to keep unlikely rivalry-ing on! Guess what battle's ahead, only one way to find out!


Chapter 9: Rare Rivals


Pikachu walked towards the middle of the arena, with Buneary doing the same. As he did so, the mouse couldn't help but notice that whenever he looked at any of the spectators in the stands, they would flinch in response. Gosh, he hadn't been that intimidating, had he? Well, whatever. Even if everyone on the planet found him scary now for doing what he did, he would've still done it to keep Buneary safe from blame.

As the mouse and rabbit approached each other, passing by the host, Hoste, in the process, Pikachu gave the bunny a friendly wave. "[Hi, Buneary!]" he said while, of course, disguising his voice.

Buneary giggled and waved back. "[Teehee! Heya, Femchu~]"

"[Man, it really sucks that you had to go through that stupid madness, earlier. Hope you're alright,]" Pikachu said, speaking over the host's announcements for the upcoming battle.

Buneary nodded, smiling. "[Oh, totally, thanks to you!]" She quickly closed the distance and gave him a small hug, which he eagerly returned, earning them a 'D'awww' from some of the audience. "[Thank you so, so much!]" As the hug continued, he tried to ignore the fact that his heart was beating faster than hers… After a short while, they broke off. "[Man, if it wasn't for you, I'd have been…]" Buneary shivered. "[Holy Raikou, I don't even wanna think about it…]"

Pikachu gave a nervous chuckle. "[Heh, yeah… Oh well, don't mention it! You're a lovely girl, so I just had to stick up for ya. Anyone who thinks that you'd do something like that on purpose is missing some brain cells.]"

She smiled. "[Teehee! Yeah… Well, thanks again, Femchu! You're super, mega nice, you know that? You really remind me of my… er, my best friend.]"

Pikachu raised an eyebrow while smirking knowingly. "[Oh yeah?]"

"[Yeah! He's really nice, too. I dunno if he'd ever do something like that for me, though. I mean, maybe, but… hmm…]" she said, trailing off while frowning to herself.

Pikachu stopped smirking. "[Er, something wrong, Buneary? You sound like you don't have much faith in me- err, I mean, this friend of yours.]"

"[Huh? N-no! I do!]" Buneary exclaimed, shaking her head. "[I totally trust him! I'm just… I dunno, don't mind me! Hehe!]"

Jeez, what was that reaction? Did she have something to hide? It was sounding like it…

Before Pikachu could ask anything, however, he noticed that Hoste had already begun flipping her turn-deciding coin, meaning that the battle was imminent. Tsk…

The coin landed tails-side up, revealing that Pikachu was the one to move first. As the lights dimmed and a spotlight hovered over Pikachu, Hoste moved over to her table and spoke into her mic. "Alrighty then, girls… begin!"

"[Oops, time to start!]" Buneary said, sounding pleased.

"[Yup, seems like it,]" Pikachu replied, sighing. Afterwards, he clenched his fist. "[Oh well. May the best woman win, Bun!]"

Buneary nodded back determinedly as she moved out of the way. "[Yeah, same to you, Femchu!]"

"Okay, Pikachu!" Ash yelled, disguising his voice. "Use Electro Ball towards the sky, and then smack it towards the ground with Iron Tail!"

After hearing that, Pikachu started to gather electricity in his cheeks, which soon traveled down to his tail, letting off many big sparks in the process. "[Electro Ball!]" Doing a backwards flip, he launched a large ball of electricity into the air from his tail, which traveled a long way before hanging in the air. After a while, it fell back down towards the mouse, who was more than ready for it. "[Iron Tail!]" After some glowing, his entire tail started to shine like polished metal (save for the tip, which he hoped nobody would notice). Once the falling ball of electricity reached him, the mouse slammed his metallic tail into it, launching the projectile into the ground and causing a big explosion of electricity.

After the smoke dissipated, hundreds of floating, glittering sparkles could be seen hanging in the air, with electricity occasionally leaping from one sparkle to another. It was like watching stars in the night sky, complete with the occasional meteor. Not half bad!

As the crowd clapped in response, Pikachu was quick to inspect the tip of his tail for damages. Thankfully, the heart-tip stood strong, allowing Pikachu to sigh in relief. Ash must've used some real strong paper for this thing! Either that or paper was strong against electricity and steel, even after a smashing impact. On that thought, the mouse really hoped that he would never have to go up against a paper-type pokémon. They sounded surprisingly tough all of a sudden…

"Wow, folks! Such a shining start to the match!" Hoste yelled into her mic excitedly. "Let's see if her pal can top it!" A spotlight shone over Buneary.

Noticing the sparkles, Dawn ran a hand through her hair while frowning. Afterwards, she dismissively shook her head and pointed forwards. "Buneary, use Ice Beam on those lights to make a big block of ice!"

"[Best of luck, Buneary!]" Pikachu shouted, moving a fair distance away to give the bunny some space to perform.

Buneary nodded cheerfully in response. Afterwards, she faced the sparkles as a light blue ball of energy formed in front of her mouth. "[Iiiiice Beam!]" Afterwards, a streak of icy cold energy shot out of her mouth and engulfed the sparkles, encasing them in ice. Afterwards, she hopped around the arena while continuously shooting her beam at the block of ice, which caused it to rapidly grow.

As the sculpture grew and grew, Pikachu noticed that, thanks to the sparkles, the ice was glowing a bright yellow, with sparks of crackling electricity occasionally flying out of it.

Eventually, after lots of freezing, Buneary stood in front of a big block of charged, luminescent ice which extended all the way to half the hall's height.

Pikachu's eyes widened in awe. It was like staring at gold! Especially when the lights in the hall were turned off, showing off just how brightly the thing shined.

Despite that, though, Dawn still had something else to add. "Great! Now use Dizzy Punch and Bounce to turn that block into a sculpture!"

Ears glowing, and with a cry of, "[Dizzy-Dizzy-Dizzy Punch!]", Buneary lunged forwards and slugged the massive block of ice with a long string of punches, which rapidly caused many key parts of the block to crack up with each strike. Afterwards, she used Bounce to reach the higher parts of the ice, which were also viciously punched into splintering.

After a lengthy boxing session with the ice, Buneary landed, jumped towards the sculpture, and then kicked it in its center with both feet before rebounding off, spinning all the way back down to a perfect landing. As she landed, all of the ice's cracked sections came crashing down due to her kick, leaving behind a giant, electrical heart of ice.

…Hoo boy. With moves like that, Pikachu was, to put it politely, screwed. How could he compete with beauty like hers!?

…He wondered if anyone could see his flushed face in this dim hall, as he realized that he'd basically called Buneary beautiful. Jeez, what was with him today!? One would think that the mouse had taken a page from Brock's book, if not taken the entire book itself…

"Gosh, what a counter, folks!" Hoste's voice blared out, accompanied by the audience's applause. "Though I'm sure Ashley has something to respond to it with. Let's find out what!"

While Buneary preemptively moved out of the mouse's way, Ash started his next instructions. "Pikachu, use Thunderbo- Err, I mean, use Iron Tail to turn the sculpture into a thunderbolt!" He scratched his wig. "Err, into a… lightning bolt, even." Pikachu shook his head bemusedly. His trainer really needed to take a break from being a trainer for a while.

Either way, Pikachu followed the instruction and, using Quick Attack for an extra speed boost, ran towards the sculpture while his tail started to glow. Once he was close enough, he leapt into the air, twirled around once, and then yelled, "[Iron Tail!]", slamming his metallic tail into the side of the heart, which instantly caused a humongous, jagged crack to form down the side of the ice.

As Pikachu prepped himself to whack it again, he stopped as he realized, in amusement, that the crack in the sculpture kind of made the thing look like a broken heart. He chuckled as he spotted that, and turned his head to see if Buneary had noticed it too. He was surprised, however, when he saw Buneary looking disturbed by the sight, as if she'd just seen something particularly shocking. Afterwards, she began to stare down at the floor, as if lost in her thoughts.

How weird. Was she annoyed by the way that Pikachu had broken her lovely ice sculpture? Well, probably not. It didn't explain why she was sighing right now, and distractedly looking at the ground...

"C'mon, Pikachu, we're not done yet!" Ash's feminine voice rang out, snapping Pikachu out of his thoughts. Whoops! He'd forgotten that he was contesting right now. Oh well, he'd worry about Buneary after they were finished. Right now, he had some ice to smash!

After taking a step back, Pikachu lunged forwards again and slammed his tail into the other side of the ice, causing another similar crack to appear. Afterwards, he forcefully shot a small surge of electricity out of his cheeks, which energized the tower even further, causing its cracked parts to burst outwards and crash to the sides.

Finished, he stepped back to admire his work, and was pleased to see that the sculpture now looked like a giant, golden lightning bolt with a heart-shaped tip, just like the one on his tail! The yellow light from within was even pulsating, making it look really authentic!

Amongst the sounds of cheering, Hoste spoke again. "Despite her little distraction, it looks like Pikachu's pulled off a successful counter! And not a bad one, at that! It's gonna be a tough one to beat, for sure!" With that said, the spotlight focused back onto Buneary, who was absently looking down at her feet.

"Okay, Buneary, jump onto the top of that lightning bolt with Bounce!" Dawn yelled, pointing towards the tip of the sculpture.

Buneary… did absolutely nothing in response, save for continuing to stare off into space.

Dawn started to look concerned. "…Er, Buneary?"

Still no response.

After a few more seconds of inactivity, Pikachu moved over and tapped Buneary on the shoulder. "[Er, yo, Bun?]"

Her coiled ear sprang up as she panickingly turned to meet his gaze. "[H-huh!? What's up?]"

"[Well… it's your turn. Dawn was just telling you what to do.]"

She looked down at the light around her feet, her ear recoiling. "[…Oh, whoops! Er, eheh, what did she say again, sorry?]"

He pointed towards the tip of the lightning sculpture, and told her Dawn's instructions. That wasn't all he said, though. "[Is something wrong? Ever since I broke your heart- er, sculpture earlier, you've been acting a bit… distant-y.]"

"[Oh, eheh, nah, it's okay. It just… reminded me of something when it got cracked, is all. Don't worry about it. Anyways, I'd better go get this done!]" And with that, she quickly hopped towards it.

Pikachu slowly shook his head as he watched her go. She'd used that voice again… the one that she'd used earlier, too, after Pikachu's real identity was nearly discovered. A really shy, almost saddened kind of voice. It still reminded Pikachu of something, though he still wasn't quite sure what.

Well, either way, it didn't suit her at all…

As Buneary reached the foot of the bolt, she yelled, "[Bounce!]" before leaping up the sculpture, using one of the jagged edges as a foothold as she went up. Once at the top, she landed onto a round tip of the heart-lightning on one foot, and then balanced there while waiting for her next orders.

"Okay, now spin around while using Ice Beam to create lots of mist!" Dawn yelled.

Buneary responded by quickly spinning around on her one leg like a ballerina. As she did so, she shot out a weak Ice Beam, which only extended for a meter or two before dissipating. However, as the beam faded, it left behind lots of mist, which soon built up into a very, very large cloud of thick, fog, making Buneary very hard to see.

As the cloud expanded, it eventually touched the sculpture and, in turn, became electrified, making it dark and thunderous, just like a heavy, rainless raincloud. A short while afterwards, Buneary emerged from the raging, foggy storm, and landed using Bounce.

Man… the sculpture alone looked really awesome, but when combined with that electrical fog, it looked like a big storm cloud was shooting down a huge bolt of lightning! To say the least, Pikachu was impressed, as were the now-applauding audience.

"Gosh! Talk about putting someone else's moves to good effect, folks!" Hoste said energetically. "I'm almost tempted to make a comment on how 'electrifying' her performance was! …But I won't." Pikachu thanked his lucky stars. "I've no idea how they're gonna manage it, but let's see if Ashley and Pikachu have anything up their sleeves for the counter!" The spotlight hovered over Pikachu again.

Well… Pikachu had no idea how that could be countered. Looking over to Ash, he could see his trainer giving the lightning storm a completely blank look, as if unsure what to do. Oh no, could this be it…? Eliminated from the match because of the mouse's own element working against them?

Looking around for inspiration, Pikachu noticed Buneary waiting out of the way, and acting more alert than before. He also noticed that she was patting down her fluff, which had puffed up, due to being around the static from the sculpture for too long. It was pretty adorable, if not a little goofy. Quite like her…

…Gah! Now was not the time to be thinking about how cute Buneary was! Again! Pikachu shook his head and stared at the ceiling, attempting to distract himself with the shadows cast by the ceiling's safety equipment. Jeez, if he kept up that line of thinking, he really would turn into Brock….

…Wait a second.

Pikachu stared intently at the ceiling's electronics. Brock…


Years ago…


Pikachu watched as Ash held out a pokéball and opened it. "Pidgeotto, return!" As he yelled that, a red energy completely covered the dazed bird on the rocky field, and pulled it into that scary capture device which Pikachu wanted nothing to do with.

Poor pigeon. How anymon could go into that prison and still keep their sanity was beyond Pikachu.

"Are you giving up again, Ash?" Brock, the leader of this gym, asked with his arms cockily folded.

As he said that, his pidgeotto-beating geodude floated downwards, like some kind of freaky puppet on strings. While the geodude did that, he glared at Pikachu while flexing, as if to try and intimidate him. Hmph, he'd teach that rocky punk a lesson or two! Him and his cocky rock-trainer!

"No way!" Ash responded to Brock, before thrusting an arm outwards. "Pikachu, I choose you!"

Yeah, speaking of kicking rocky butt, it was show-time! Full of confidence, Pikachu nodded and walked out onto the rock-filled arena. "[Yeah, let's go!]"

"The pikachu again… I feel sorry for it; being raised by such a weak pokamon trainer," Brock sneered, being the smug jerk that he was.

"Pikachu! Now's our chance to show him how 'weak' we are!" Ash yelled, unfazed by the rock-obsessed housewife's words.

Gathering electricity in his cheeks, the mouse smirked. Damn straight it was! "[Thunder… BOOOOOOOLT!]" Lightning launched forwards from Pikachu's cheeks, engulfing the geodude in a super large dose of electrical, hot death, which made him yell. After a little while, the electricity caused a small explosion of smoke, covering the geodude in soot, and possibly first-degree burns. If living rocks could even get those.

After that, the geodude didn't stay floating for much longer. "[Guhh….]"

Aww yeah! The electrical torture- er, training that Pikachu had gone through the other day worked! This move was way better than Thunder Shock! Not even being part ground-type would save anybody from the mouse's wrath, now!

Brock looked shocked, no pun intended. Soon afterwards, he frowned and brought out a pokéball. "Return, Geodude!" The ball's red energy enveloped the rocky guy and pulled him into the ball. After that, the pokéball shrunk in Brock's hand, giving Pikachu the unpleasant image of Geodude being squashed down in that thing. Ughh…

"It looks like you've trained it better…" Brock started, putting the ball away, "but still, it's no match for Onix!" He pulled out another pokéball and threw it. "Goooooo!"

While in mid-flight, the ball opened, releasing a white energy that soon materialized into the humongous, rocky snake that Pikachu hated so much.

The mouse very nearly wet himself as the towering abomination locked eyes with him, smirking. "[Heyy, well if it isn't Mr. Squishy! Back for more, I see…]" the onix growled tauntingly.

Pikachu tensed very hard as he heard that. Oh no… he didn't want to be squeezed again! Jeez, why were snakes always such jerkheads!? This guy, the ekans from Team Rocket and just about every snake on the planet could just go to Hell forever, as far as Pikachu was concerned. Something that he was sure he would never regret thinking.

Not wanting any of this snakey guy's business, Pikachu immediately charged up another Thunderbolt. "[Th-Thunderbolt!]" Panicked, he began shooting off electricity with reckless abandon, not really caring where the bolts ended up, as long as they kept that thing at bay.

As he fired off bolt after bolt of lightning, he heard Ash yelp, as if dodging one of them. Hearing that almost made Pikachu stop, but then he reassured himself that Ash was pretty much used to being a lightning rod anyway, so the mouse decided to ignore him. He'd live! Hopefully.

After some more zapping, Pikachu saw one of his bolts strike the side of the onix, causing the guy to cry out in pain. As he saw that, the mouse grinned. Yes! If that could hurt the snake, then it meant that Pikachu had a chance to win! Invigorated by his newfound hope, he pumped up the voltage. As he did so, he heard something shatter above him. Whatever it was wasn't important enough to distract the mouse, though.

"Hey, Pikachu! Watch where you're aiming, huh?" Ash loudly criticized. Pikachu decided that he would take those words into careful consideration later, when he wasn't fighting for his freaking life!

All of a sudden, though, before he could continue zapping, he smelled something burning. Eh? Stopping the electrical onslaught, he followed the scent upwards to the ceiling, where he realized that he'd accidentally set some of the lights above on fire with his lightning. Whoops…

As he was distracted by the burning lights, Onix quickly took advantage of the situation and surrounded Pikachu with his rocky tail. Oh… crap.

Immediately afterwards, Pikachu once again found himself wrapped up in this jerk's tail, which soon tightened and lifted him up into the air, squeezing the breath out of him.

Ash gasped in shock. "Pikachu! Give it a Thunderbolt!"

Pikachu panted a few times before yelling, "[ThunderBOOOOOLT!]" He then unleashed everything he had on the onix, causing the snake to scream in pain. This mouse wasn't going down without a fight!

"Hang in there, Pikachu! It's working!" Ash shouted.

"Onix! Bind it!" Brock yelled.

From there, it was a battle of endurance for the two pokémon. Pikachu felt his entire body getting squeezed into a ball, whilst Onix yelled in agony at the intense amount of electricity being pumped into him. Both of them were giving it everything they had, but as each of them increased the pressure, the other one did so doubly as much. It was an endless cycle of agony.

Pikachu gasped painfully. He couldn't… give up! He had to… win this thing… and get Ash his badge…! They had to become… pokémon masters… Ugh…

Unable to take any more pain, Pikachu couldn't keep going. His electricity fizzled out. "[Damn…it…]"

"Pikachu…" Ash said sympathetically.

"[Aha…! Nice try, squish ball!]" the onix roared, triumphantly, having already recovered from the intense shocking. Had Pikachu's attack really accomplished that little…?

Before his thoughts could continue, he suddenly felt his body getting contracted again, with no resistance on his part this time. Eventually, the pain grew so much that he shrieked.

Ash groaned desperately, sounding conflicted. Oh no, he was going to call the battle off again, wasn't he? Ughh, Pikachu couldn't believe he'd let Ash down again…

Before he could say anything, though, Brock stepped in. "Onix, stop!"

As soon as that was said, Onix obeyed by unfolding his long tail, allowing Pikachu to feebly droop to the ground. Wow… was it natural to feel like a plate of yellow jello? The mouse was too dazed to decide.

"No, Brock! I wanna play this match to the end!" Ash yelled defiantly.

"There's no point in going on," Brock responded. "I really don't wanna hurt your pokamon."

Knowing that the guy was right, Ash could do nothing but groan disappointedly in response. Pikachu felt sorry for him. His trainer had really wanted that win, too, and Pikachu really wanted to have not been squashed half to death. Unfortunately, it looked like the miracle hadn't happened for either of them…

As the room grew silent, Pikachu could swear that he heard some crackling. It was getting louder, too. Following the noise to the ceiling, he reali- Holy crap, the whole ceiling was on fire! The fire from the lights must have spread! Aghh!

Before the mouse could panic, however, water started pouring from little, metal prongs that were in the ceiling, which quickly doused the flames. Huh, was that some kind of human invention to stop fires? If not, then it was the luckiest torrential downpour that Pikachu had ever experienced in his life, especially seeing as they were indoors.

The fire wasn't the only thing that the rain was dousing, though. Before too long, the onix began to scream in pain. "[Oh, dear helix fossils! My skin! It burns!]"

Huh, what was with that guy? For a while, Pikachu wondered if someone had put acid into the watery things above… but that wouldn't make sense. Pikachu felt absolutely fine, and he was getting soaked too. How weird.

"Ash!" a female voice from above called out. Both Pikachu and his trainer looked towards the voice, and saw the nice, but weird, orange-haired lady that kept stalking Ash. She was currently standing on a spectator balcony, surrounded by Brock's many brothers and sisters, or the 'Brocklings' as Pikachu had taken to calling them. "Rock-pokamon are weakened by water!" she continued.

Ohhh, of course! No wonder that stuff was having such a super effect on Onix! The water must have been eroding him, or something! That was… pretty gruesome-sounding, actually. Ouch…

Hearing the ginger girl's advice, Ash found his lost determination and yelled Pikachu's name, as if it were an instruction.

Pikachu nodded in understanding. He knew what he had to do! "[Thunder… BOOOOOOOLT!]" He let loose a humongous stream of electricity, which travelled across the water and struck the soaked onix, frying him like bacon and causing his screaming to intensify.

Eventually, after lots of relentless zapping, the rocky giant toppled over, allowing Pikachu to cut the electricity off.

"[Oh nooo! Timberrrrrrruurgghh!]" Onix yelled as he painfully slammed into the ground below him. Afterwards, he lay there, twitching and groaning in pain.

"Onix!" Brock yelled exasperatedly.

H-he'd done it. Pikachu'd actually won!

He stood in front of the fallen behemoth, letting a few sparks noisily escape his cheeks for effect. Yes! Thanks to the power of cheating, they'd finally done it! They'd finally beaten that closed-eyed punk, Brock! Yeah, if they kept this up, there was no way that they couldn't beat the pokémon league some day! They were the bes- …Hey, why were the Brocklings climbing down from the balcony?


Currently…


Pikachu shook his head, clearing away the memories that had just flashed by. Whoa… that was more than a little crazy. And since when had Pikachu been so much of a chubby jerk? He didn't remember having such a filthy mouth…

Still, he remembered that day well… the day when he and Ash had gotten their very first gym badge, the Boulder Badge. It still seemed so surreal, though; before Ash could order Pikachu to finish off Onix, the Brocklin- er, Brock's family had grabbed a hold of the trainer, and caused his conscience to flare up, making him end the match in a draw, sparing Onix from getting harmed any further.

That should have been the end of that… but then, surprisingly, Brock had run after the duo as they'd left the gym, ready to give Ash the badge anyway for showing such compassion towards pokamon- err, pokémon, even though he'd had a chance to win otherwise. After that, Brock's father, Flint, had came out of hiding, taken on the duty of caring for the family that he had abandoned long ago, and allowed Brock to join Ash on his bizarre adventure. After that, the rest was history.

Pikachu sighed nostalgically. That'd been a good day… he also liked to think of that day as the one that had changed his views on being such a jerk forever, thanks to the compassion and fairness shown by Ash in that battle… though, judging by all of the electrocuting that he'd done to his trainer on days afterwards, he knew that it was a load of tauros crud.

Oh well, either way, at least the mouse was a much nicer mon now. Heck, he hadn't even fried Iris' bike yet, which was a mountain of improvement for him! …Then again, she didn't even have a bike, so… hmm, maybe not. He'd have to watch where he aimed in the next region, just in case…

"Alrighty, everyone!" Hoste's voice called out, snapping Pikachu out of his thoughts. "Only a few seconds to go until we close shop on everything, and hand the victory over to Buneary and Dawn! Please hurry, Ashley!"

…Oh yeah, the contest. Man, it was a good job that the mouse was fast at having flashbacks, or that could have ended pretty badly.

Looking around, Pikachu saw Ash frantically playing with his wig in thought, still unable to come up with a counter-performance, Leavanny staying close to Ash while looking worried, and Buneary watching all of them with interest. The stakes were really high, it seemed.

"Going once…!"

Despite that, though, Pikachu didn't panic, unlike his trainer. Heck, he even smirked. Thanks to the flashback, Pikachu already had a plan. It was that 'power of cheating' that was gonna get them through this!

…He tried to ignore all of the unfortunate implications that had just entered his mind from that statement. He'd make a really terrible role model.

"Going twice…!"

Without Ash's input, and without a second to spare, Pikachu ran towards the stormy lightning sculpture as quickly as he could.

"Aaaand- Oh! Never mind, folks! It looks like our little Pikachu has a plan! If it doesn't work, however, then this victory belongs to Dawn's team!"

Still running, Pikachu nodded to himself. He only had one shot at this… but he could do it! If he could take down a giant rock-snake when he'd barely even known what Thunderbolt was, then this was gonna be a piece of mago pie!


TO BE CONTINUED!


Finished: 08/03 (March)/2015

Brockling count: 4,620

VGS2's pointless notes: Y'know, going off of that 'Last time on who cares' reminder at the top, I've just thought of something. If I, for whatever reason, wanted to, I could accurately replace all of the characters in this fic with Sanic the Hedgehag ones, couldn't I?

Pikachu would be Tails because he's a sassy nerd, Buneary would be Shadow because angst, Oshawott would be Sonic because he's a trainwreck, Leavanny would be Cream because he's Fluttershy-tier, Togekiss would be Vanilla (Cream's mum) because of gentleness and the shipping implications (hue), Snivy would be Knuckles because unlike Osha she don't chuckle (she'd rather flex her muscles), Piplup would be Eggman because Oshawott!Sonic obsession and, of course, Ash would be Big the Cat because hurpderp.

It would be the greatest fic of all time, except not at all. It would actually be horrible. I'm sorry I even brought the idea up. I mean, I enjoy the Sanic series, of course, but yeah…

…Don't mind my unrelated to the chapter ranting, I'm just procrastinating. I've barely written the first line of dialogue at the time of writing these pointless notes, y'know! Er, but that's terribly unprofessional, so don't tell anyone.

Oh, also, for anyone who's wondering, that Brock section was actually from episode 5 (Showdown in Pewter City). Episode 5! My, how far we've come…
I didn't really need to include a flashback to it, but wynaut, right?

Edit: Oh god, you guys. I just found out that, apparently, Cilan, Ash's Scraggy and Trip's Snivy all share a voice actor with Sonic and Shadow, during their 'Jason Griffith' days.

I'm so amused, you have no idea. "Gotta cook fast! Uh oh, it's speed up time! Smile, Princess Iris, smile! Where's that damn fourth mago berry!? Etc..."

Shameless self-promotion: Follow me! Set me faves! Review me and we will escape from this shi**y fic. I'll make it through, prove it to you! Follow meh! Oh yeah! (etc)

Y'know, if it wasn't for Security Hall, and… *shivers* Mad Space, I would actually totally play that game again. Bloody Rouge the Twat. It's a shame her levels aren't anywhere near as lovely as you people for all of the support you've shown so far, including ravengal, my lovely pre-reader! :3

Welp, with that said, I've gotta go, fast. Tata for now! c:


Next up: All gone to plan?