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alter altera alterum
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As the seemingly endless night for the young man comes to a close, Ash got up from his bed in his room in the mansion of his late father-like figure. He rubbed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. The man just was not able to forget the incident that happened the night before. "Heh." Ash chuckled heavily. "Can't move on that easily, can I." He stated as he rubbed the back of his head. He pressed both his palms against his face, and felt the urgent need to let out the surge of anger that was making its way to his body. He fought the urge, and proceeded to take his morning shower.

8:50 AM
Indigo Plateau
Main Reception Area

The day was the second round for the Grand Conference, where all the participants were inquired to gather at the main reception area in the city. It was an open park, with a medium-sized stage placed in the middle, close to the fountain. The time showed that it was ten to nine, and almost all the participants who passed the first preliminary round were present.

"Now then." a league official just spoke into the microphone, speaking a little too loud for the sound system causing a feedback. "Pardon me." he coughed, signalled something to the soundmen, and continued. "Congratulations to all of you for passing the first round of the Grand Conference. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the second round of the Conference. Unfortunately, the organizer of this round is not able to attend this little gathering. I will take the responsibility of explaining the rules and regulation for the second round, for it is quite different from the first round."

Ash had just arrived then, and asked the person closest to him if he had missed anything. Confirming that he was safe, he leaned on the tree next to him. Dressed in his usual attire, he let his partner Pokemon climb his body and rest on his shoulders.

"As you all may have heard, the second round will not be a battle-type bout." The official continued. Many murmurs were heard throughout the crowd, signaling the unrest that was spreading. "I haven't heard about this." Ash thought. He looked to the official who was standing on the stage, and saw a line of persons consisting of the Elite fours and the Champions. "It seems they will be participating too. I thought this was still the preliminaries?" He eyed the big-shots for a short moment, and fixed his gaze back at the official. "Right. As you all know, there are a total of four rounds in this Conference's preliminaries. However, an incident that occurred recently has triggered a change in the league set-up. The second, third, and fourth round will be completed in one go." Murmurs in the crowd were getting louder and the uneasiness were spreading faster by the second.

"There will be breaks in between, of course, although they are optional. Now, for the briefing." The official cleared his throat and began. "This next batch of rounds will filter the trainers into an approximated number of 60. Before the first round, there was a total of 800 nominated trainers, and now there is only 400. Therefore, the Elite Four and the Champions will be joining the next rounds." "That's not fair! They're already qualified to participate in the main battles of the conference from the beginning!" a man shouted from the crowd, declaring his disagreement with the roster. "Calm down, young man." The official snapped back at the the person. "This conference has no need for weak trainers. The fact that you have been nominated to qualify for this tournament has already shown us that you have the potential. However, to be the champion means that you have to be the best of the best. The elite among the elites. If you are disheartened just because the Elite Four and Champions are joining, then you might as well withdraw now, young man." Taken back by what the official said, the young man stayed quiet.

"Now, I will be explaining what the second round will consist of." After pausing, the middle-aged man took out a piece of paper from his inside pocket of his suit. "As you are well aware of, another mountain and cave system is present relatively close to the Victory Road. This natural wonder is called Mount Silver." Ash raised one eyebrow at the name of this mountain, as before he resided in a small cave near Victory Road, he used to frequent this mountain quite a number of times to train. He knew that whatever challenge that they will be given is not going to be an easy one. He looked over to the rest of the crowd, which to his surprise, stayed quiet. "That name alone is enough "Shock and Awe", I guess."

"There are three checkpoints located in this mountain. One is on the southern entrance, which will signal the start of the challenge. The second one is on top, which is your half-way point. The third one is one the northern exit, which will signify the end of the second round. You will have to be able to complete and get to the other side of Mt. Silver in four days. Rations will be your own responsibility. Alliances are allowed." With this, the crowd went into an uproar. Half of them was complaining to the official about the unprecendented challenge and time limit, and the other half was already thinking what preparations they should make.

"I'm not finished yet!" The official shouted. "I have one other rule that I need to state." He took out another piece of paper. "Each trainer should be allowed to carry six Pokemon with them, unless stated otherwise." The crowd went silent. "What do you mean?" one of the trainer shouted. "It means that you will not be the ones deciding how many Pokemon you will carry. The judges and referees will decide, along with the higher-ups. But do not worry, they are not allowed to take off more than two, meaning the minimum party number all of you will have is four. I am just going to say it bluntly, since this is no secret. The Elite Four members and the Champions are only to take four with them. Meaning that unless you are as strong as them, you will have more than four Pokemon in your party. However, there is always exceptions." Again, the official's statement silenced the crowd.

"Now, please line up to determine your statuses."

"Hey May, what did you get?" A blue-haired trainer asked with a cheery voice. "Oh, hey Dawn. I'm allowed to take five with me. It's not bad, I guess." The brunette girl answered. "Me too! It seems most of the people in our group got five, with Max as the exception." Dawn said while looking at May's younger brother. "Hey, it doesn't mean that I'm weaker than you guys, even though I'm allowed to take six with me."

"I guess they're really being strict with the experience levels here, eh." A man with slanted eyes walked over to them accompanied by a young woman with orange hair. "I find this rule really strange though. Although I'm glad the allocations are pretty fair. I don't see anyone complaining as of yet." The rest of the group agreed and nodded with the Cerulean Gym leader, and they decided that as usual, they were going to do the round as a team. As they were going to prepare their rations for the trip, they were greeted by a familiar face. It was the Sinnoh champion.

"So, I assume you guys don't have any complaints about the number of Pokemon you're allowed to take?" Cynthia said while greeting the group with a wave. "Yeah, I'm content with this, I guess." Brock answered. "Us too." the others joined in. "So you're all going to prepare rations for the trip? You'd better hurry though. We're supposed to rendezvous at the mountain in about six hours." the blonde champion said while walking in the direction of the city shops with the group. "Yeah, but we'd be okay, we think. We're used to sleeping and walking around in caves. We pretty much know what to get." Max answered with great enthusiasm. While they were walking away from the main reception area, they were stopped because a loud noise from the main area. Somebody just slammed the table. Hard.

"Two?" A young man wearing an overcoat shouted to the official. "That's all I'm allowed to take with me to Mt. Silver? Two? This is a bit unfair, no? Just a bit." The young man said with a high tone of sarcasm in his voice. "Sorry, Mr. Thanatos, sir... But that's the info we got from the higher-ups. We have no power to change it." The scared official said with a shaky voice. "Right. So all these other trainers get to bring four or more Pokemon in their parties, and I get to bring two. Two. Two!" shouted Thanatos while holding up two fingers to the official.

"That's... Thanatos, right?" May asked Brock while looking at the scene. "He's only allowed to take two?" said the Pewter Gym leader. The group continued to watch the scene for a little longer.

"I'm sorry sir, but... there's really nothing I can do." "Tsch." Thanatos clicked his tongue while punching the table. He know the one that organized this whole sequence. The leader of the sponsor company of the conference."Then tell me this. What's waiting for us on the other side of Mt. Silver?" he asked while grabbing the collar of the official. The security guard immediately took action and held Thanatos by the arms to try and separate the two. Seeing this, the official that was announcing the rules came over. "Calm down, young man" He said while putting his hand on the young man's shoulder. Thanatos' Pikachu was staring at him and was ready to go. "Whoa! What a perky little fellow we have here." the official said without flicking an eyebrow. He took a piece of paper from his suit pocket and handed it over to the seemingly short-tempered participant. He went closer to the young man and whispered, "It'd be best if you don't make scenes here, Mr. Ketchum." Hearing that, time stood still for Thanatos.

"You.. You're the director-" "-You know well what our leader's trying to do. If you go berserk here, then you'll fall into his scheme. It's only normal that you are a little.. on edge, after what happened yesterday. Stay low." The official said with a bright smile. He placed his hand on one of Thanatos' shoulder and continued, "Win this. Bravo's with you." "...and why should I trust you?" Thanatos said while looking at the older person in the eye. "Let's just say I'm not willing to sacrifice myself for a world only for him. As for Bravo, the captain's set on helping you. Who knows what's going on in her head." Thanatos shook the hand off his shoulder, and started to walk away.

"Do whatever you want."

"You lost your cool." Pikachu stated telepathically to his partner. "Not now, Pikachu." Ash said out loud, ignoring the fact that other people may have heard him. The young man clicked his tongue once more. "It's not like you can't get through Mt. Silver with only two Pokemon."

"I know, I know." Ash answered out loud, turning a few heads towards him. He noticed this and realized he must have seemed like a mad person, talking out of the blue. "I know that, buddy. But it still pisses me off that we're the only ones that is limited severely. It's one of those things." He sighed, then he went on to give his analogy of the situation. "It's like this. Imagine if you're invited to a dinner party, and they serve steaks. The other people that was invited was given a fork and a knife to eat, accompanied by sparkling water and red wine. But, we're denied that right of a fork and knife. We get chopsticks. Chopsticks to eat steak. Accompanied by avocado juice and chocolate milkshake. It's not like we can't finish the damn thing, it's just with these conditions it's going to take us that much longer. And not to mention we pretty much won't be able to enjoy the meal." Finishing his analogy, he walked a bit slower than before.

"Although..." He sighed again. "Pika?" Pikachu perked up his ears.

"It doesn't matter if we have forks, knives, or chopsticks. Given the proper cutlery, one can still finish the meal. However, if the foundation of the process is weak, in this analogy the chemical breakdown which is performed by the teeth, one will have difficulty finishing this meal. A toddler with a newly grown set of teeth will have extreme difficulty chewing a cut of meat, let alone finishing it." Stopping completely, Ash thought about where he wanted to go. He decided he would finish his preparations for the upcoming round and choose the two Pokemon he would bring.

He recalled a time where he was still with Team Galactic. He was on a break where he happened to overhear the commander of Bravo Team talk to her men.

"In a battle, any battle, getting swayed by your emotions means the end of you. Without the ability to make rational decisions, you're as useless as a Magikarp on land. If you do win, and that's only a big if, it's by pure luck."

Ash thought about the incident the day before and felt another surge of anger going up his body. His hand is itching for something to grab, his fist ready to punch steel, his feet ready to break bricks, his teeth itching to bite, and his lungs with the capacity to scream as loud as a lion's roar. He sucked in the inside of his right cheek in his mouth and bit it hard to release some of the vent up anger. Realizing that he was tasting his own blood a second later, he released the bite and resumed walking.

"I guess I'm back to the toddler stage." whispered the young trainer under his breath.

Foot of Mt. Silver's Southern Entrance
(Silver Town's Northern Outskirts)
02:55 PM

"Welcome to the Second Round of the Grand Conference!"

Anticipation can be felt among the four hundred participants that was gathered on the foot of Mt. Silver. With the presence of the Elite Four and the Champions, most of the trainers were anxious to show the viewers what they are made of.

"As you all know, this round will too be broadcast in inter-region television. For that reason, a camera- we call them spybots- will hover around you during the time of your participation in this round." Like they were triggered by voice command, the spybots appeared around each individual. "We care not how you get to the other side. You can climb the surface of the mountain, manage your way inside, or some other way you can find." The official stated. "What we do care about is your presence on the other side of the mountain. But of course, we have prepared... surprises for you all. Naturally, further briefing will be conducted once you get to the other side. Now, without further ado..."

The trainers were taking stances to get head starts. Ash, standing a bit further back from the crowd, saw that many trainers had formed alliances with other participants.

He scanned the mountain quickly and sighed. "I don't like the look of this."

"The Second Round of the Grand Conference qualifications is now underway!"

I do apologize for the short chapter and the long time I took to update this series, but I've got a (somewhat) valid excuse. I think.

About a week or two after I posted chapter 1 of Pokemon: Ridevil, I was actually finished with this chapter, and it was around 4000 words, like usual, and was editing it and whatnot. And then, exams came. Being completely oblivious to the new exam formats, I was caught off guard. So I had to study a bit more for university. I completely forgot about my fics (=p) and was planning to post them on New Year's. But then, 'that' happened.

My laptop fell.

Yeah.

It did. (I hyper ventilated MLG style at this moment)

I was so pissed, since it had all my stuff and I didn't have the chance to put this in the Document Manager just yet [I lost the LP (Let's Plays) footage I recorded too, which was even more frustrating.] So I kind of did a 'rage quit' on writing the fic for some time, and finally picked it up again. And I kind of forgot what I wrote for this chapter, so I decided to cut this short in preparation for the next. (In case you were wondering, my laptop isn't fixed yet, I tried everything but it just won't get past start-up/boot. I even tried reformatting it. I assume it has come down to the hardware, since it fell and all.)

In any case, my rant ends here.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and once again I apologize for the short chapter and the 'hiatus'.

Please do review, I do appreciate constructive criticism on my writings and hope I can improve from them.

Stay MLG.
Dutch