Hellooooooooooooo READERSSSSSSS! Let us celebrate because this is chapter 10 man! For everyone who's supported the story thus far, give yourself a pat on the back.
I am on fire! And it is burning out. Oh well, possibly updates will be slower but on the good news I got the first chapter of 'Renegade of Keyblades' up so after this story go over to it and enjoy yourselves to a least a novice quality Kingdom Hearts Fanfic. Seriously I have searched ages on that archive and I can hardly find a decent story on it.
But on side note here's what's coming up on today's chapter:
Ash is still having a bit of confidence problems but since he now knows what it is, he can fight against the voice better, now he is going to learn the method on improving not only his Pokémon but himself as well. Which I have to say is a method that is familiar and I have often wondered why he didn't use this more often. Plus Anabel is slowly becoming a pillar of strength and support for the boy, which is kind of a formula that I have to actually make their relationship seem like a possible event. As from last chapter Anabel is now Ash's equal, which was the first step, now he's has to depend on her and learn from her which is the second step to… I'll let you figure that on your own.
And I hoped you all enjoyed a good 4th of July people in America.
Warning this chapter contained contains filler. But please enjoy it anyway.
Disclaimer: The rights to Pokémon belong to Satoshi Tajiri, and obviously not me.
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'From One side to Another'
By True-InTha-Blue
Chapter 10
Fight with them, Fight like them
(Week 1 of the initiation)
Ash woke from his slumber and stared at the ceiling from his bed. It had been five days since his break down and his talk with the Salon Maiden. Anabel actually wanted to start with the training right away but then had a bombardment of paper work thus halting her before she got started. From sunrise to sunset, the Salon Maiden worked in her office on the top floor in order to get done as soon as possible. However this didn't stop Anabel from teaching our hero some basics of the Battle Frontier. So far he's learned how to fill out paperwork , how to look over a battle faculty and the PROPER way to handle phone calls.
Needless to say, Anabel was a great teacher. She was patient with him when he goofed up, explained complex subjects when he needed help and encouraged him when the voice or his own wavering self esteem started to beat him down.
He was a bit tired of waiting around though. Both he and Pikachu were surprised that he could last this long without going nuts. But yesterday night, Anabel was finally done with the very last piece of paper to fill out. Now today was the day that she will show him how to beat the voice and to help not only of his Pokémon to get stronger but also he himself.
With a sigh Ash helped himself out of bed and woke Pikachu up as he got dressed. He finished when Pikachu helped himself of his trainers shoulder. The kitchen was empty differing from the normal scene of Pokémon eating their breakfast and Anabel watching over from the counter they had grown use to. This told the two that they were already out and about.
"Pika-pipi Ka Pi." Ash stared from his breakfast to see what Pikachu was going on about. The electric type was excitingly pointing towards the window. When Ash peered outside, he saw Anabel talking to a very tall Pokémon in front of her. It looked like they were in a deep discussion about something important.
"Do you want to see what they're up to buddy?" He asked Pikachu. The Mouse Pokémon nodded in affirmation.
"Pi-pika Ka-Chu Pika." They both headed out to meet them.
Closer inspection showed that Anabel was back in her normal Frontier Brain gear.
Now that they were nearer to Anabel they could see who the Pokémon was. It was covered in bright red feathers that seem to spark with fire and yellow feathers layering its feet. White feathers covered it head and shoulders covering it like a jacket. The arms were muscled and its sharp beak grizzled and cracked signifying old age. The Pokémon turned his razor eyes at the two. "Blaziken." He alerted Anabel to their presence.
"Oh, Ash, good morning, did you sleep well?" Anabel turned to the duo with a smile.
"Um… yeah I did. Thanks for asking Anabel. So who's this?" Ash pointed to the blaziken ignoring the funny feeling that had been coming more often this week.
"Blazzi KenBlaze!" The Blaziken interrupted putting a protective arm in front of her. Ash stepped back a bit obviously intimidated by the larger then average Blaziken.
"It's alright, they're the ones I was talking about." She soothed the Blaze Pokémon. "Ash and Pikachu, it is my pleasure to introduce to Rook the Blaziken*." She gestured to the Pokémon with flair.
Ash looked to Pikachu for a moment. "Rook?" He asked her. He never thought Anabel would be one who nicknamed name a Pokémon.
"I didn't name him." She said as if she read his thoughts. "It's not uncommon for an ol- elderly Pokémon to name themselves while their still wild*."
"Oh I didn't know that." Ash scratched his head. He felt a little ignorant now.
Anabel smiled. "Don't worry Ash. Even Pokémon Professors do not know this; Rook is the one who told me and you know that most people can't communicate on that level with Pokémon." This made our hero feel better but now he had to ask about training
"So what about the training? You said we would start today." He stared at her as she started to walk past him.
"Indeed I did. Would you follow me please?" Ash, Pikachu and Blaziken walked behind Anabel as she led them deeper and deeper in the forest. Soon the overgrowth was so thick that it blackened the entire ground.
"Uhhh… Anabel, not to be judgmental but don't you think that this is kind of… dangerous to be walking this deep in a forest without a path?" Ash looked around, strange Pokémon sounds were echoing throughout the woods but it was so dark that you couldn't see them.
"Don't worry Ash. I know where I am going; just keep following me." And just when she said that light started to burst through the branches. A few more steps, the trees cleared out completely. The scenery showed a huge open meadow with a clear pound shimmering in the sunlight. Anabel stepped out further in the meadow and turned around to face them. "Gentlemen, I present you to my personal battle ground. Hear I learn how to focus myself to be a better trainer and help my Pokémon to learn about tapping into their inner selves."
Ash and Pikachu's eyes widen at her speech, they could feel the excitement rising in them with every word.
Anabel continued. "It is here that my Pokémon and I learn to work together with nature and our surroundings to bond further than any trainer we will fight."
This is it. This was where Pikachu and he could finally get pass his handicap. They will now learn Anabel's secret to strength and power. It was now the time to—
"And now to start us off, you will be fighting Blaziken Ash."
…Wait…
What?
"Pi?"
"WHAT?" Ash wasn't sure he was hearing right. Anabel wanted HIM to fight a Pokémon? He stared at Rook the Blaziken, who was staring at Ash with the face that could only be described as 'This is going to hurt you'.
Anabel smirked a bit. It was really fun to see his expressions. "Yeah." Was all she said.
"But… but… but WHY?" Ash eyes were bulging out of his sockets. "I'm not a Pokémon! I can't fight a Pokémon!"
"But you need to. You need to learn how they fight. Haven't you ever personally trained with a Pokémon just using yourself?"
This stopped Ash in his tracks making him think back to the time he battled Miki and her skarmory with his cyndaquil; on how she shared her tale on personally training her duel steel/flying type and he applying the same thing to help Cyndaquil learn to control his fire type moves. The results were awesome; Cyndaquil learned so much in just one day!
"Yeah… I did once." He said.
Now she had him. "And let me guess, it was a huge improvement." Ash shifted his poster telling her all that she needed to know. "I've been doing the same all last year Ash. That's how I have been getting so strong and it's given me so much insight to what a Pokémon is. Now it's your turn to learn, I know you can do this."
"But the ability to—"He was interrupted when Anabel threw a small object at his direction, he managed to catch it. He saw it was a small gold coin.
"You know what that is, don't you?" She asked.
"Yeah, it's the Ability Symbol. But I don't understand, I've already have one." Ash stared at it in confusion.
"I know that silly. But do you know why I give that out to trainers?" Ash and Pikachu both shook their heads. "It's because I use my abilities to help out trainers learn their ability. To test them on how they handle the battle field. Now I'm going to use the same thing to help you get that fighting spirit back."
Ash looked at Pikachu before saying. "Oh… I think I get it now. But I still don't get why I have to fight Blaziken."
"Blazi!" Rook shook his fist at him.
"I mean Rook." He corrected his mistake.
"That's because you need to get use to fighting a Pokémon. Rook here can teach a human that without harming them… much." She added on hesitantly "But first I need to get you in the proper gear." She started to walk off but stopped when Rook cried out.
"Blaziiii!"
"Wait Rook, he can't—"Suddenly Ash felt Rook's fist collide in his stomach; the trainer was thrown back on the ground from its force. Pikachu jumped away from his shoulder in time and stared in horror at his trainer as Anabel instantly went to Ash's side.
"PIKAPI!"
"Rook! Why did you do that?" She began to look over Ash for any sign of anything being broken.
"Blazi-ken ken!"
"What do you mean he's alright?" Then Anabel watched in amazement as Ash got up with little effort as though he didn't just receive a punch from a powerful fighting type Pokémon. "Ash, stay down, you might have something broken."
Ash gave her a pained and confused look. "What are you talking about? I'm fine, it just hurts a bit."
"What? I don't understand how—"Rook placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Blaziken kan Ziken." This seemed to make her calm down some.
"You sure?"
"Blaiken."
"…Alright."
"Uhmm, is there something I'm missing here?" Ash stared at the two in confusion. He was now realizing how awkward it was to be in a discussion he didn't understand.
"Pika? Pi Pikachu Chu Pikapi?" Pikachu asked.
"Don't worry about it Ash and Pikachu just something I need to figure out.*" Anabel said, than she beckoned Rook to step in front of Ash. "Alright now Rook here is going to show you the basics. I need to run to the Battle Tower to get things settled."
Despite of the situation he was in Ash grinned. It was nice that she was looking after for him. "Alright. Come back soon, okay?""
"Just try not to get yourself killed okay?" With that she left out to the woods and Room called to his attention.
"Blazi blaziken blaze!" Rook tried to communicate with the human trainer the best he could. The Pokémon pointed to his fist and back to Ash, our hero thought hard about the message.
"You're going to try to hit me right and you want me to dodge right?" He asked the Blaziken. The Pokémon nodded and then got into fighting stance. Ash, awkwardly, did the same. "Like this?"
For an answer he got nailed in the cheek and once again thrown down to the ground.
"Pikachu…" The electric type sighed this was going to be a long, long day.
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Ash eventually got the hang of learning to dodge when Rook threw a punch at him. However this didn't make much of a difference because he still got hit by the Blaze Pokémon. It took another hour for him to dodge the first attack than throw a fist back. Then again it was blocked by Rook's arms and he got hit again. Pikachu gave encouragement to his trainer. Often zapping Ash when he got slightly dreary and nuzzling him when the boy thought down on himself.
But little did the duo know that this exercise Anabel set up for them had alternative effect. The more Ash got into the fight the more he felt, well, confident better in himself than he had previously. And when the voice tried to get in the way, feeling the actual rush of battle and the burning freedom that came with it helped him overcome it. Slowly he was re-learning what it was like to enjoy battles again.
"Alright let's go again!" Ash charged again at Rook; the fire type just smiled and just side-stepped the attack, sending Ash going face down to the grass.
"Pika Pika-pi-chu Pikapi." Pikachu giggled at his trainer antics. It didn't take the electric type long to figure out what the Salon Maiden was trying to do with this. All it took was the look of blissful enjoyment on Ash's face to tell Pikachu that this would help him in furthering himself in his own self esteem.
"Pikapi! Pika chu-chu ka!" Pikachu encouraged his trainer to get up and try again. Ash rose to his feet without much of a problem and got ready to attack Rook again. But then Rook raised his hand to stop him.
"Hey, what's going on Rook?" Ash asked walking up to the fire-type with Pikachu hoping up on his shoulder. Rook pointed to the forest clearing with his thump appendage.
"Blazi blaze kan." Just when he said it out came Anabel with Metagross in tow. Ash looked at them for a bit and then noticed that a box was right behind them floating by the blue glow of psychic.
"Hey… Anabel. What is with the floating box?" Ash asked when he came up to her.
"You'll know soon enough." She said to him before turning to her steel type. "Metagross would you set those down now please?"
"Meta." Metagross replied cheerfully. With careful thought, the box landed with a soft 'thud'.
"Thank you my friend." Anabel called him back to his Poke'ball and then went to the box. "Well do you two not want to see what's inside it?" She asked Ash and Pikachu.
"Oh right." They reached out to open the lid and revealed the contents to be— "Poke'balls?" Ash asked confused. "Uhmm, Anabel, why do we need a bunch of Poke'balls; are we going to catch something?"
The Salon Maiden took one out of the package. "Oh these are not empty Poke'balls Ash. They have Pokémon in them; yours to be exact and I am excited that you have so many friends to meet."
Ash and Pikachu's eyes widen. "Hey, how did you get those?"
"I called Professor Oak to make the transfer. As your Battle Frontier teacher, I have the authorization to do that. " She smirked.
"You at least could have told me." Ash voiced sounding a little disappointed.
Anabel's smirked faded. "I kind of wanted to make it a surprise. I didn't mean to offend you." She said sincerely.
Ash accepted that with good grace and took the Poke'ball from her hand. "I understand. Well let's see everybody." He threw the capsule device. "Come out!"
A flash of white light revealed a small crustacean Pokémon with oversized claws. "Cor Corphish!" He cried with excitement of being let out. The Ruffian Pokémon then sensed something behind him and turned around to his trainer first. "Cor Cor!" The crayfish like Pokémon greeted his trainer by placing his claws in his hands.
"Hey Corphish buddy. Good to see you again." Pikachu jumped down from Ash's shoulder to say hello to his Hoenn friend.
"Pika Pipichu! Pi ka Pi-chu."
"Corrr phish! Phish!" Then Corphish realized that there was someone else there too. He turned around to see Anabel.
"Hello Corphish, remember me?" She greeted him.
"CORPHISH COR!" The water type squealed in delight and then scrambled up Anabel's back and on to her head while making happy sounds. Anabel laughed at this and Rook narrowed his eyes at the Water type's antics.
"I'll take that as a yes." She giggled and took him of her head to pet him.
Meanwhile Ash stared at the sight with an odd thought. Most girls would have cringed on having a large crustacean Pokémon walking all over there back with pointy legs. Anabel, however made it seem like it was natural to her. Then it occurred to Ash that Anabel didn't have much of a preference of Pokémon like most girls he met had.
Misty preferred water-types. May liked Pokémon that were cute and had lucky moves. And Dawn also liked Pokémon that were cute and small.
Anabel didn't have any preference for a Pokémon, they just had to be… well Pokémon. And he liked that, particularly, for some reason, in a girl.
"Ash what are you staring at?" Anabel asked amusingly while stuggling to hold the water type. Corphish was being overly excited at Anabel's presence and continued to scramble over her arms and back. She was almost blushing at his gaze and decided to make him stop by teasing him about it.
Ash for some unknown reason had his face heat up and felt the funny feeling again. "Oh I didn't notice." He then remembered the box full of his Poke'balls. "Do you think we should get the rest out?"
Anabel laughed a bit when Corphish started to nibble of her collar. "Alright, but (hey stop that) –do you think (hehe) that you could get Corphish off of me?"
"Oh right. Come get off of Anabel Corphish. You can visit her later." You could see the disappointment in the water type's eyes as he grudgingly got off the Salon Maiden.
Now that she was free from her friendly captor, Anabel headed to the box and took some Poke'balls and begun to release the creatures inside. Ash joined her after releasing his Sinnoh team and with their combined effort Ash's Pokémon were out and about looking around the meadow and greeting their trainer and Pikachu.
They were so busy with the Pokémon that they almost didn't hear Anabel when she called out to them. "Hey everyone! Can you all gather together?" It was almost like a spell was cast over our hero's Pokémon (minus Rook who right behind Anabel) and they gathered behind Ash and Pikachu without so much as a peep. This obviously wigged Ash out and when he looked at the Frontier Brain he spotted a small camera in her hand that he recognized from her other outfit.
"Hope you don't mind that I take a small photo of you and your Pokémon?" She asked.
"Ah,.. sure. No problem, right guys?" Ash asked his Pokémon. The loud chorus of agreement came from behind him. "I'll take that as a yes."
"Pi Ka."
"Alright, now smile!" Anabel called out. As any Pokémon could, they showed their grins to the camera while surrounding their smiling trainer and his starter.
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After the photo the Pokémon were still around each other, the only difference being Ash, Pikachu, Rook and Anabel being in the front. Ash gave an uncertain look towards her before turning to his team. "Well guys… I'm sure you're wondering why you are here… Well I—" Anabel held up a hand, silencing him. She also made another mental note to teach him how to be ready for a speech.
'I need to get a pager to keep track of all of them.' She thought with a sigh. "I'll take over from here." She said to him before turning to the crowd of Pokémon. "All of Ash's Pokémon. listen. Your trainer, Ash, is now learning from to be a Battle Frontier Brain by me. And he needs all the help he can get. (Hey!) He is now learning a new way of training to help of you all, and that involves all of you to give him your support!" Loud cheers came from the Pokémon. "Ash will be training with you personally, that means that he will take your attacks, handle your tackles and be your opponent in the fight. Can you do that for him?" a louder cheer came from them.
'I know this might be cruel, but I really want to see his face.' Anabel thought with a smirk. "Now go beat him up!"With this said, Ash's eyes widen when the Pokémon with much enthusiasm charged towards their trainer.
Soon enough Ash was being bombarded by them all and Anabel was high fiving Rook. When he did get out of the mess, Ash marched up to Anabel with anger. "Why did you do that?" He yelled. Anabel laughed at his face; her mission a success.
"To get them in the mood." She fibbed. "Now which one do you want to start with?"
They talked about which Pokémon Ash should start begin to battle. The Pallet town trainer said he should begin with Pikachu as the electric type would be careful about harming him too much. Anabel thought about it, but then said that wouldn't be a good idea. Pikachu is a very fast and powerful Pokémon (Pikachu thanked her for that), Ash needed to work on a Pokémon that still needed work and was big enough to handle it. So they decided on Bayleef, who agreed with Anabel to be careful around her 'Precious Trainer'.
Ash and Bayleaf started off simple such as dodging, tackling and few Vine Whips and Razor Leaves here and there. Anabel observed the two with a smile on her face. Ash was looking like he was having so much fun as he fought with his Pokémon and he was lasting much longer than when she first started out, once the trainer got the hang of it, other Pokémon begun to join in as well.
"Hey Ash!" Anabel called for him. Ash, who was currently dodging Quilava's Flame Wheels, stopped.
"What is it?" He yelled out catching his breath. Though he just started a few hours ago, already he could see improvement in their moves and the voice wasn't being a hindrance like it normally was.
"Do you mind if my Pokémon and I join in?"
"Yeah, sure! We'll love to meet your Pokémon." He watched her smile and closed her eyes for a while. "Aren't you going to call them?" he asked.
"I already did.*" She said opening her eyes. Just then the trees rustled behind her and out came all her Pokémon. Espeon, Alakazam, Cherim, Beautifly, Drifloon, Dratini, Scizor, and Luxray. Anabel then released Metagross to join them. The Pokémon , including Rook didn't need orders to know what they needed to do next. They immediately went to work with Ash's Pokémon with the training. Of course they weren't going full out but enough to work each other in to a sweat.
When it was time to take a break Anabel offered to go and get them some Pecha Berry Juice while Ash looked over the Pokémon. Ash himself was a little flattered by the offer, normally the girls he traveled with would have made him get the juice. "Umm thanks Anabel!" He watched her smile and then headed off to the trees. He also observed Scizor and Rook follow after her but his attention was turned elsewhere when Gible began to chew on Luxray's mane. "Gible. GIBLE! THAT IS NOT EDIABLE!"
"LUUUUUUUXXXXXX!"
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Switching to Pokémon Translations…
"My lady Wait Up!" Anabel halted when she heard Rooks grizzled voice. She turned around to see her two eldest Pokémon following her.
"What's wrong?" She asked, it a bit unusual to see the two together, especially with their fierce rivalry for being the strongest.
The two caught up with her and bowed slightly. "It is nothing much." Scizor said. "Not with this hot head at least."
"Hot Head! You have nerve to talk young one!" Rook shook his fist at the bug type. Before he could say anything else though Anabel interrupted.
"What's nothing much?" Anabel was curious to what they could be concerned about.
The two stopped there quarrel and the blaziken spoke first. "It concerns the young Human in your care. Do you think that teaching him how to fight will be enough to get that curse from his head?"
She sighed. "Well… it is not exactly common for someone to have a negative second voice caused by a magical evil king but battling seems to work. Brandon was able to expel the King of Poke'Lantis by defeating Ash, so I'll follow the same method. The only difference is that Ash had to do it himself." Anabel explained even though she herself didn't understand it.
"We understand trainer. Is there anything we can do to help maybe? " Scizor asked.
"No it is alright. I'll let you know if anything comes up." They reach outside the woods. "But what do you think of him though? He's different from the normal type of trainers."
Rook huffed. "I admit, he is better than the average. But he reminds me of a young torchic I taught when I was still wild. The Pokémon was talented and had potential, but the young one was very inconsistent and still unseasoned. The boy is the same. If you can remind him of some of his past battles, you could help him further to triumph his opponents in battle, it what I taught the torchic."
Anabel thought about this. "That's not a bad idea honestly."
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For the next few days Ash kept battling and training with his Pokémon. Sometimes he had to fight against the Salons Maiden's Pokémon as well. Our hero managed to get bruises, scratches, light burns and sore muscles; he felt great. He discovered new ways to battle. One involved using each of his Pokémon's body size to emphasize their attacks and another one was to use close combat counter shields for physical attacks. Anabel even offered to pair up with him against the Pokémon. Much to Ash's surprise Anabel was a good fighter, this was proven further when he went up against her and soon found himself on the ground with his arm twisted painfully behind his back. That day Ash and his Pokémon swore he would never ever get on her bad side, ever.
It was one lazy afternoon when Ash held a huge grin on his face with Pikachu on his shoulder looking equally proud. Anabel notice this. "You two look like you just one a Pokémon league. What's going on?"
The trainer pointed his thumb towards his chest. "I finally perfected the two new strategies just now." He declared proudly.
"Well congrats Ash. I'm impressed that you did it so quickly." Of course, he had a lot of help from the Frontier Brain, but she didn't want to ruin the moment.
Ash noticed this and quickly fixed his mistake. "Well you helped out a lot Anabel. It would have taken much longer if it hadn't been for you."
Though Anabel was getting better at handling Ash's compliments, there was still a ghost of a blush that peeped on her face.
"Thanks Ash but do not forget you're the one who thought it on your own on the second day. That itself is impressive."
"Thanks. I can't wait to try these out against my next battle!"
"Then why don't you try it now my dear lad!" A voice came from behind them.
Then two trainers turned around to a figure wearing a black business suit, with giant white buttons. His rouge hair was done oddly in appendages sticking out against his face but lacked the ones on top of his head.
"Tucker?"
End of Chapter 10
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Okay, short chapter. Please don't hate me. I have been trying to think of ways to extend my chapters more, but when I do that I usually wind up with pointless dialogue. Now for the stars.
*1 That little detail about old wild Pokémon naming themselves is just something I made up. I thought it would be interesting honestly; kind of makes since though, an elderly Pokémon that's seen it all, making himself different from the others of his kind. Also Rook will be the Pokémon mentor for Ash and sometimes Anabel.
*2 I am 95% sure that I am not the only who thinks Ash has some type of special ability to stand attacks, whether they are a physical force or a actual Pokémon moves. Seriously, that boy has tough skin and bone structure. Which is also going to be part of the plot latter on.
*3 I know Anabel claims that she has only a empathetic ability, but one can't help but think that it is something much, much more. No, she is not a psychic who can move things with her mind and has telepathy. It's more of a power of heart than of mind. Cheesy I know.
Some thoughts about this chapter, Ash is slowly becoming a more mature individual, plus he is slowly… very slowly starting to feel something more for Anabel. And his training is suppose to make him more of a independent individual.
Yayyy! The Battle Dome Ace is hear. Next chapter Ash vs Tucker! Will Ash be able to triumph over the voice this time? Tune in!
I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and once again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the reviews.
Please review and go check up on Renegade of Keyblades!