It had been three days since MOMO and Jr. had learned their new jutsu, MOMO had been getting to know Ash better and vise-versa, things had been going pretty smoothly and Ash was so amazed at how much he had learned about his heritage. He was looking forward to finding out about his home and was eagerly waiting for Lady Tsunade to approve the mission to look for the location. But until that happened, he thought he'd enjoy what the village had to offer, and get to know MOMO a little bit better. But unknown to him, in the bushes were three crafty and sneaky, okay they were the worlds least wanted thieves, members of Team Rocket, there's a surprise, not, who were waiting for the moment to take Ash's Pikachu.
"James do me a huge favor and tell me why we have to wear these ridiculous disguises?" Asked a girl with fuchsia colored hair.
"Because Jessie," Replied a boy with blue hair, "we don't won't to be caught like we did last time."
"Yeah well maybe if yous two haddena been doin' da motto we wouldda gotten dat twoip's Pikachu an' gotten away." Said a cat like creature with a golden charm on its head.
"Oh really?" Asked a very cold and familiar voice, "And tell me how stupid do you feel right now?" The three turned around to see Ash staring hatefully at them. Pikachu climbed up onto his head and caught the thieves' attention, "Pikachu's within arm's reach." Ash taunted with a grin on his face, "So, what are you waiting for? Are you going to try to grab Pikachu or what?" Jessie, James, and Meowth were stunned, but greed overcame confusion and they made a grab for Pikachu. But, before they came within a millimeter of touching the lightning bolt-tailed rabbit-like pokemon, Ash vanished and they somehow ended up tied to a light pole. "You three are… slower then when we last met." Ash called down from the top of the pole, "You'll never be able to commit any serious crimes here, you know. Here, you're not top of the line criminals, you're only D-Ranked amateurs in the Leaf Village bingo book."
"What are you talking about you twerp," Jessie retaliated, "we're high class criminals. Meowth cut this rope so we can grab that twerp's pokemon and get out of here."
Meowth tried to cut the cord that bound them to the light pole but for some reason his claws couldn't cut the cord even though it was very thin and delicate. But it was virtually impossible to cut; he noticed a thin blue aura on the edge of the cord. "Hey what gives?" He asked angrily, "Dis stupid string ain't breaking?"
Ash grinned and said, "That's because that's a chakra thread. If chakra is flowing through it, it can't be severed. You can only cut it with an enchanted weapon. You need to have special type of charm to be able to give it that kind of power. But of course you three aren't smart enough to know anything like that or you'd have cut yourselves free and taken Pikachu." He looked up at the creature on his head, "Right buddy?"
"Pika, pika." Pikachu replied.
Ash looked back down to Jessie, James, and Meowth and commenced producing hand seals, "Hitsuji, Mi, Tora. Shadow Clone Jutsu." At that moment, a screen of white smoke exploded from under him and out jumped an exact replica of Ash. The clone had attached the chakra threads to his fingers continuing the flow of chakra that made it unbreakable. The real Ash jumped down, turned to his clone and said, "Hey, I'm going to go get something to eat. Do you think that you could stay here and make sure that these three knuckleheads don't try to escape."
The clone looked over his shoulder and said, "Okay. I'll make sure they don't try any funny stuff."
---
Ash was feeling phenomenally hungry today, so he headed to the Ichiraku Ramen Bar and ordered the Ketchum Special; it was his personal favorite that he had created. "So, I can see that your still eating that same Specialty, eh Pokefreak?" Naruto said over Ash's shoulder.
"Yeah I still am Nari." Ash said aggressively, "I take it that you're still eating the Ketchum Special too?"
"You've got it," Naruto glared, "and I think that we should see who can eat the most."
"All right," Ash said, "I accept. But let's make it interesting."
"I'm listening." Naruto said intrigued at the idea.
"The loser pays the bill." Ash told his friend. "So what do you say? Deal? Or…"
"I accept!" Naruto shouted.
"Well, are you gonna shout in my face all day," Ash slammed his fist onto the table and turned his glance towards the chef and said, "We'll both have the Ketchum Special, and keep it coming."
"You've got it." Said the chef. He placed a bowl each in front the boys and said, "All right, here are your bowls. Now I want a good, clean match, that means no rough stuff. No physical contact, no spiking your opponents ramen, and no tricks." He held up a napkin like a flag, dropped it and said, "Begin!"
The two took their chopsticks and began wolfing down bowl after bowl of ramen. MOMO and Jr. pulled back the curtain, as Ash held up his bowl and said, "More please." Jr. was surprised about seeing the competitive side of Ash this early in the day. MOMO just giggled at the sight but Ash paid no attention to her and continued on eating his ramen. It didn't matter about Naruto's progress at all he was falling behind as Ash was concerned. Ash's blinding speed and appetite combined proved incredible in the contest.
Naruto was on his fourth bowl and Ash was on his eighth bowl and Naruto didn't seem like he was going to show any signs of giving up. But Ash wanted to obey the rules; after all, he didn't want to make it look like he was a cheat, because he never was a cheater. KOS-MOS and Shion were walking in the direction of the contest and noticed the commotion. They walked over to the front of the shop and Shion asked, "What's up with those two? They look really intense."
"Yes," KOS-MOS said, "I've never seen either of them this competitive before."
Jr. looked at KOS-MOS and said, "Well apparently, Ash challenged Naruto to an eating contest, and the loser has to pay the bill."
"I see," KOS-MOS said still looking a bit puzzled, "and it appears as though Ash's winning."
"Leave it to a human to go and make a fool of himself in front of people like this." The four friends turned to se T-elos standing behind them with her hand on her hip.
Ash only had to turn his eyes to see T-elos at the corner of his eye and finished his nineteenth bowl of ramen. He turned to Naruto and said, "Naruto why don't we just end this, I mean I've already eaten twice as many bowls of ramen as you and you'll make yourself sick if you try to push yourself to try and win."
"Ugh," Naruto groaned as he put belched and put his hand on his stomach, "I guess you're right, I guess I admit that you're better than me at this. I'll pay the bill as promised."
"Hmph," T-elos scoffed, "typical human nature. That is why machines will always be better than humans in the long run."
She blinked and as she opened her eyes again, Ash was only a fraction of a second away from punching her in the face. She only ducked back and kicked Ash in the bottom jaw, back flipped onto her feet, and caught Ash a swift uppercut to his face. But instead of Ash flying backwards, he just stood there while something that looked like a faceplate flew through the air and shattered as it hit the roof of the Ichiraku Noodle Bar. T-elos was surprised about what had happened next. Ash flung the upper half of his body, which should've been torn off because of the force behind the punch, and revealed what was behind the faceplate. It was the face of a shinobi puppet, but Naruto had never seen one like this on, the eyes were red and demonic, the wood was pitch black, and there were no strings protruding from the joints. The puppets head came level so fast that it began clacking insanely. "Well, well, well looks like someone had to go and attacking the second most powerful shadow-demon puppet in the Hidden Shadow Village." Ash said as he came out of the side of a building behind T-elos.
T-elos turned around and saw where the real Ash was. KOS-MOS had been making an analysis on the shadow puppet but she was having no success in the matter. She found no energy levels, no place of origin, and no data on who created the puppet. She turned to Shion and said, "Shion I cannot find any data on the origin of the object that is about to engage T-elos in battle."
Shion looked quizzically at the puppet and put on an analyzer that looked like ordinary glasses and… she too had no luck in gathering any data. "I'm not having any luck either, KOS-MOS." She said disappointedly.
"Oh, please." Ash said with a grin, "Just give it a rest, you can't anything out about that puppet because it doesn't exist."
Naruto, being the clueless nuisance that he is, asked Ash, "What are you talking about? How can that puppet not exist if we can see it standing right in front of us? And another thing, if it's a puppet, where are the strings that make the thing move?"
The puppets head clicked and rotated to where it could speak to Naruto, "You really are an idiot, the answer to your last question is an easy one, my controls are on the inside. As for the question of me not existing, I'm afraid if I told you that, you wouldn't understand."
"You stupid wooden doll prepare to say your prayers." T-elos said.
The puppet turned back to T-elos and said, "Bring it on you worthless mechanical hunk of junk, I'll send you crawling back to the scrap yard you crawled out of with a ball and chain attached to your leg."
"I'll make you eat those words." T-elos threatened.
"No thanks, I ate before I got here." The puppet said making MOMO and Jr. laugh. "Now enough of the chit-chat, my dear, let's cut the chase." The puppets currently functional part was its head and neck. It launched its head at T-elos with its teeth buzzing, popping, and crackling like a power cord. T-elos jumped extended the sword blade in her left hand and sliced off the puppet's right arm which shattered like a piece of frozen glass.
When T-elos landed, she turned around and chuckled, "Looks like I've disarmed you."
But the puppet was more clever than T-elos, a long black arm extended and clicked as it began moving, "Let's not cut any corners in the combat handbook." The arm lifted the covered body of the puppet up into the air and made it harder for T-elos to reach it. "Going up." It said as it rose up. When it was at a decent height, it shouted "Time to pump up the bass line." T-elos was confused but she soon found out what she soon found what the crazed puppet meant when she was blasted back by a powerful shockwave. But she recovered wall kicked up to an even height with the puppet and sliced through its left arm. The same thing happened as the right arm, another arm clacked and clicked as it began to move.
Ash just laughed as hew saw the puppet being cut by T-elos' sword. "She's cut gonna keep cutting that puppet and the puppets gonna keep growing new limbs until its body is hit. And then it'll be all over and the puppet will tear her apart."
"Are you serious?" Jr. asked.
"Don't worry about it I'm not gonna let her cut his legs off. Let alone his torso." Ash said as he snapped his fingers and made the puppet disappear. Ash looked down at his shadow and pointed at T-elos. His shadow seemed to move like a large tentacle towards T-elos, a long black arm shot out towards her and grabbed on to her. Ash cocked his head to side and the arm pulled T-elos back towards the group. Naruto, MOMO, Jr., and Shion just stared in horror as T-elos was released and flew face first into Ash's open hand. Now's my chance to show T-elos what I can do, Ash thought, Opening of the Third Eye. Ash channeled his chakra into his hand and opened an eye-like object in T-elos' subconscious and linked it to her optic nerve.
"Shion," KOS-MOS said, "Ash appears to be loading a small observational probe into T-elos."
"What are you talking about KOS-MOS?" MOMO asked.
KOS-MOS turned and said, "Ash is somehow creating an eyeball shaped configuration of energy inside of T-elos and linking it to her optic sensors."
Shion caught on to what KOS-MOS meant, "What you're trying to say, is that with that eye connects with T-elos' eyes, he'll be able to see what she sees?"
"Affirmative." KOS-MOS said with a nod of her head.
Ash released T-elos from his grip turned and walked away. Little did he and his friends know, that Team Rocket had watched the whole thing Jessie, looked at here two partners and said, "I can't believe it, I guess that the twerp is more powerful than when he was a pokemon trainer."
"Yah," Meowth said, "did yous two see what dat twoip can do?"
"Ugh," James groaned, "don't remind me."
The thieves decided to keep a low profile to avoid confrontation with Ash at the risk of being crushed by his puppet. But that would not stop them from keeping an eye on getting a hotshot promotion. Stay tuned to find out more.