For those of you that are wondering, The reason I made Surge give Ash a challenge is because unlike the previous two leaders he's quite experienced in battling. Brock doesn't want to be a gym leader so he spends more time helping his pokemon with breeding techniques. As we all know Misty is inexperienced as well. And between the two of two of them, they don't have the firepower that a disciplined trainer does, like Ash. Surge has been training, and/or battling a lot during his time as gym leader, he also won't hold back as we can see with all the pokemon sent to the emergency room.
Another thing, I tried to make this chapter as realistic as possible in certain events, please don't judge or criticise, one of the things I added something I haven't seen in many stories at all, but should be in them, it's called mandatory procedures.
'Aura speech/telepathy'
'Thoughts'
'Speech'
Ash POV
It was in the early hours in the morning...
I'd just woken up, trying to remember the dream I'd had the previous night but being unable to remember the details but only the general idea.
All I'd remembered was that I was on a ship, and that that ship had sunk.
Momentarily I briefly reflected whether or not it was a warning or not, as I'd had that dream a lot lately, either way I was going to find out soon as I was about to go on one of the few ships I'd travel on for a long time.
Right as I was about to reflect further, I heard my companions starting to stir. Lucario was the first to have awakened, then Pikachu. Next was the twin ralts, the last two though were sleeping in their pokeballs as their enormous size would destroy the building from the inside out. Gyarados's body was quite large thanks to his irregularities and the same could be said for dragonite.
We went through our normal morning regiment. Just practicing the strength of their moves, of course they normally just practiced their four favourite moves. You see, pokemon were highly intelligent beings that had a lot of power inside of them. They had the knowledge to remember a lot of their attacks, but a few of the older ones escaped them. Also, the more they used a certain attack the more the power increased, and the more they don't use one, the less powerful it'd be. Unless it would have a connection to another attack. For example, if one were to use flamethrower a lot, then their flames would grow in power, meaning that this'd power up future fire type moves at the same time since the majority of them used the same concept as the said move. So if said pokemon were to use ember, its power would've increased as well. But, if instead with the same scenario, the same pokemon used a different elemental attack, they'd have to practice that one separately.
So pretty much, instead of practicing certain moves like a noob, I would train the whole element. Though just because the power would increase doesn't mean the charge time differs, so the main 4 moves the said pokemon practiced would normally be from different elements.
After some light training, we headed back to the pokemon centre, after returning to the pokemon centre, the sun was high in the sky signalling it was around noon. The S.S. Anne didn't leave for another 4 or 5 hours depending if everyone boarded on schedule as well as any maintenance problems with the boat itself. So I decided to finally have that chat that I'd been putting off for a while, I was finally going to call the professor again. So I went over to the videophones and dialled his number. After a couple rings he finally answered.
"Hello," the professor said cheerfully.
"Hey professor, it's me, Ash, I'm calling to ask if you could help me out with a couple things." I replied with a serious tone. He immediately got what I was implying so he got his business face as well.
"What can I help you out with, young man."
"Well I know you saw one of my more recent captures, so I was wondering if you could keep this from reaching the public. I don't mind if you tell the scientific world you found a giant pokemon, but if the media finds out, I'll be hounded by pokemon hunters, criminal organizations, and fans alike."
Professor Oak looked up at that, seeing how simple of a task it was. The only way for the media to find out about a new scientific breakthrough, there were numerous steps. The first one was that the breakthrough had to be 100% proven. Step two, the scientist who discovered it had to say whether or not they wanted it to go public. Step three, the science council had to have a vote to decide if it went public. Forth step, the league had to approve of it. The last step was the easiest, they had to have a press conference, and there the scientist would go into deep detail of the breakthrough.
So really it would just be a matter of if professor Oak had any annoying interviewers coming over while dragonite was out an about. Of course, if that happened he could just threaten to sue them if they released a single article on the topic. So I pretty much Knew I'd be safe in that domain.
"On to my next question professor, I was wondering if you could remove my limit of six pokemon and could instead increase it to eight or maybe even ten?" I pitched to him.
"Well let me check, the law says that any trainer that has proven him, or herself enough to the regional sponsor, has the right to have their limit increased at the sponsor's discretion. I think, by my point of view that you are ready to handle 10 pokemon at once, as long as you have either your Umbreon or Blaziken on you at the same time, at any other time, I'd say you are allowed your usual limit. The reason being, is that they seem to have the same knowledge and wisdom as you in raising pokemon." He fired back.
This went well with me, as I was already planning on doing so. I may have been raised by a legendary and her friends, but I'll always want to have a companion of my father with me at all time. Some may call it weakness, I call it emotional support. They'd help me out since they'd been through something similar on my father's journey.
"Okay thanks professor, for now I'd like for you to send over dratini please, it really soothes dragonite when she's with him, I don't know if it's a species thing, but it happened. And could you also send umbreon and fearow?"
I got a nod in response from him, before he disappeared from the camera, presumably off to get the mentioned pokemon from the corral.
After returning, and transferring the little dragon over to me, as well as the bird and black cat, I bid farewell and hung up the phone. Next I checked the time, realizing I had only burned off a half an hour with that chat. I decided to wander around the city for this time, before realizing even if I was going on a luxurious cruise, it'd still be good to have a good supply stock. So during my little wander, I kept a lookout for the familiar blue roofed building.
Reaching it after another fifteen minutes of casual searching, I entered the building finding that the vast majority of the shelves were stocked. There was a difference with this one though. All the other ones mostly just had trainer supplies, not this one though, this one had all sorts of other things too. Comparing this one to the others, this one was a Walmart and the others were a corner store. In this one they were also selling pokemon merchandise, as both me and my pokemon were looking through the merchandise, Pikachu absolutely fell in love with a plush version of herself. So I added it into the basket I had, next we started to look at something different, they had a card game for pokemon. I almost fell over laughing at the names of the moves on the Blaziken, there were the moves clutch and burning shot, the next one made me laugh harder, but Pikachu just huffed and started to pout. The Pikachu card that I'd seen had the move pika punch. The Lucario ex card was also funny, missile jab, corkscrew punch, and somersault kick. The names were just too funny and I fell to the ground laughing, along with my companions, who got over their emotions held toward whoever created the game. I decided against buying those, knowing they'd just enrage the rest of the team, especially the young ones, who weren't that emotionally stable.
After skipping the rest of the merchandise, I went over to the medical area. This was the area where went to see if there was anything I couldn't make myself. I didn't train with meema and papa for nothing, I could make medicine from the herbs around me, and also knew the soil and area they grew in, meaning I could make a lot of different remedies for different needs. Of course I kept a large stock of these, making sure that I didn't use too many, and made a large quantity without hurting the nearby ecosystem whenever I found a rarer ingredient. These remedies also normally wouldn't spoil for a long time, not that they'd go unused during that time.
Then after finding nothing new, I went over to the pokeball section, of course there were a lot, but I believed that only the worthy used the basic pokeball. Everyone else would cheat and use a more powerful type of ball. While that would be helpful, why would you need a more powerful pokeball, for a pokemon that you could have tired out more in certain ways. For instance, it wasn't a video game, when a pokemon was exhausted they couldn't really escape the ball through anything but sheer willpower. This willpower could only do so much though, and normally when it did a lot, that meant that the pokemon had something keeping it from being caught, like a family, or a mate, or maybe even not wanting to be caught by an evil individual. So when they escaped the ball they'd normally have enough adrenaline left to escape the person who was trying to catch them.
After getting a few more itemsfor his trip, he went to the cash register to pay. After doing so he saw that it was starting to get a bit later in the afternoon, he started making his way over to the dock. It took a bit, but he finally made it, only having to ask for directions once. Upon arrival, he found out they'd just started allowing passengers to start boarding.
Going through several security levels, having to through extra thanks to my two pokemon who didn't like pokeballs. I finally made it onto the fifth floor of the boat. As I went to the other end of the boat, I looked around, there was a lot of tanning chairs layer out on the deck, already a few of them were occupied by some tanning males and females alike.
After a little searching around I found my room on the second floor. I got one of the smaller rooms, nevertheless there was one giant bed in the middle and there was a small 4x4 foot bathroom there too. There was also a recliner as well as a small flat screen tv up on the wall. After putting all of my equipment down, I sat down and relaxed, waiting for the announcement to come on the PA system. After a little waiting I heard the announcement commence.
"Hello, all passengers are expected to go to the third floor and go to their lifeboat for further instructions. All who fail to attend this meeting will be kicked off the cruise. We thank you for choosing the ss Anne as your cruise ship for the week."
With that, I ascended to the third floor and went off in search of lifeboat G. After being directed around by the staff, I finally made it over to the the correct lifeboat, in front of it was mostly adults, but there was two other kids there. One of the kids looked to be 13 or 14, while the other one seemed to be 16 or 17. The older of them seemed to be a middle classes individual, but he knew looks can be deceiving, while the younger one seemed to be a rich boy, with an expensive outfit and how he talked with the other adults with his snobbish accent. They faced towards me when they realized I was on the very same lifeboat as them, and also started admiring both my pokemon.
"Dad, I just have to have his pokemon, a shiny Pikachu would look marvelous in my collection, along with that other unknown pokemon!" The rich boy said while pointing at me.
His dad was about to respond and take action when he met my glare. My glare was enhanced with aura, burning holes and causing him to freeze up. While maintaining it I made my way over to the boy, and pulled him up roughly against the walls in my hands. Both Pikachu and Lucario holding angered expressions while looking at the boy.
"Lookey here boy, if you so dare as touch one of them, you'll be nothing more than a man overboard, I don't care about the law, no one messes with my family with ought answering to me." I threatened him.
After saying this, I let him fall from my grasp, and fall onto the ground. He tried to get back up, but the fear paralyzing him from the tone in my voice kept him on the ground. Everyone else seemed to go into shock when they heard this, reeling back from the anger of the pokemon and of myself. Seeing a ten year old threaten someone like that was shocking to say least. Soon after a couple more people arrived, feeling the tension in the air from the earlier encounter. The rich kid still hadn't gotten up, and the older kid seemed to have something akin to respect in his eyes.
The staff member finally ran us through the procedure for if the boat was sinking and similar occurrences when we'd need the life boat. During the whole procedure me and the rich kid glared at each other, while he had rage on his face, I held rage mixed with amusement. Something about diva rich kids being quite funny. It also caused all the other witnesses of the event to loosen up a little.
Soon enough it was all over, and I went on my way. I searched for the activities deck, to try and sign up for the battle tournament as well as see all the other activities planned for the vacation. While doing so I found out that there was a miniature pokemon centre on board. I say miniature, because they didn't need rooms inside of it for travellers, so instead there was just the rooms for patients.
After a little more looking around, the ship finally started to leave the port, and as we were just about to leave the bay, the ship let loose two prolonged horn blows. Signalling that we were leaving the port.
Soon enough I'd found the activities are, and signed up a moment later. After this I found a map of the boat, on the first floor, it was dedicated to trainers. Since it was at the bottom of the ship, it was10 feet of reinforced titanium. This made it so any stray attacks didn't sink the ship. This floor was divided in half, half for training, the other half as battlefields. And since it was such a large ship, There was roughly a dozen battlefields, and all had just enough space between them that stray attacks weren't much of a problem.
The second to fifth floor were all residential floors, although the fifth floor was where the majority of the suites were. The fifth floor had doors to the outdoors.
The sixth floor held the restaurants, buffet, church, pool, and chocolate store. It also had an outdoor deck.
The seventh floor was dedicated to merchandise, there were all sorts of stands, ranging from trainer needs, to business guides. It also has exits to an outdoor deck outdoors.
The eighth floor had the courts, there was a couple volleyball courts, as well as tennis courts, badminton courts, and squash, etc. etc. so there was a lot to do on this floor. This floor was also had doors to a deck outdoors
The ninth and last floor, had a workout gym, as well as a lounge, the rest of the deck however, was outdoors.
He whistled as he finished looking at the map, although he wanted to go and train his pokemon again for the tournament that started tomorrow, and went on for the next five days. His Pokemon wanted to do otherwise, though it was kinda funny to see Pikachu hugging her plush version while trying to pull me after her towards the floor when all the stalls were.
The deck was enormous! It was also bustling with activity. I searched around, looking for anything of interest. Finding a couple stalls that had games, like dunk tank, and ring tosses. The prizes on the majority weren't for me as I saw them. They were mostly stuffed pokemon, and a couple accessories that were designed around pokemon. I finally stumbled upon a unique stall, this one was different from the rest as it was rather out of the way, it was on the side of the whole room, this was one of the few spots where there wasn't all that many people around.
The stand was selling jewelry of all sorts, just not in the best quality. The prices were a lot cheaper, though, which made me smile a little. Growing up with a pokemon who absolutely adored jewelry was an entertaining experience, especially when her earrings were longer than herself. So in memory of my favorite pink devil, I looked for something nice.
The vendor watched on as I looked at the whole selection, eyes held with amusement at my facial expressions as I browsed through the collection. I, unnoticed by all, subconsciously activated my aura sight as I searched through the collection. The majority of the jewelry was flowing with aura, signifying that they had, at some point, been a part of mega stones. Maybe not the main part necessary for the evolution, but the shell that they were naturally found in.
(A/N: think of a bug stuck in Amber, you only really keep the amber surrounding the bug, the rest is still valuable, but not as much. Therest of the Amber is what I was trying to get at, but instead of Amber, it was crystal)
I finally found a pair of earrings, they were beautiful. They had a gold 32 karat gold frame, as well as 32 karat silver designs or the frame, but that was only part of the beauty. What was inside of the frames was what made me want to buy them. In them was two mega stones, shaped like pearls. These were the two mega stones of the ralts evolution.
The vendor saw me pick them up and approached me with the machine to pay for them.
"How much for them?" I asked.
"I was thinking around twenty thousand poké dollars" she replied.
"Sold!" I answered back.
I payed for the pair of them, although it was a little expensive, it was gold and silver as well as the mega stones, not to mention hand crafted. Even if it wasn't the best that I've seen crafted, it was still a pretty good job.
The rest of the deck's stalls had nothing but crap on display. I mean, sure it might be useful to someone else, but to me it had no value at all. Seriously, how would a bunch of books on psychology be useful to me. I already knew my Pokemon well enough not to need to use psychology with them.
After fighting through the mob of people on the floor, I and my companions managed to escape to the eighth floor. Where I decided to learn how to play badminton, see that's one of the few things I hadn't learned while growing up. None of my guardians saw any usefulness in teaching me how to play sports. They had other ways to teach me the stuff that you learn from playing sports. Instead of getting into shape through playing sports I did it through different excercises. Instead of learning teamwork with sports, I learned it from doing double battles against meema and uncle Riley along with Lucario, who was a riolu at the time. I learned strategies through watching all the wild pokemon's battles, be it for territory or for resources, heck they even had better strategies than some trainers that I've seen.
So finding the nearest staff member on the deck my lesson started. He immediately pulled me over to the nearest court which had the equipment on the side. Pikachu, her plush, and Lucario went off to the sidelines to watch the entertainment about to be provided.
"Okay, first off you need to go get a racket and a shuttlecock (birdie). The racket is the thing that has a long handle that's thin as a small stick, and one end expands into a small oval with a bunch of strings running into a bunch of small squares. The shuttlecock is the thing with a ball at one end, and has plastic 'feathers' running along the other," He instructed.
I went over to the side, finding the described objects, and bringing them back to where he was.
"Next, we'll start with how to hold the racket. While holding the racket, hold it with your dominant hand, also when you have your arm straight out, and the racket vertically from the ground," he instructed further.
I did as told, with him correcting my grip as well.
"There, next step is the court. The court is one giant rectangle, divided into two sides, with a net separating the sides. The goal of the game is to get the shuttlecock to hit the ground on the inside of the lines. If you do so, you get a point. Also, on each side of the court there are two boxes side by side, the sole purpose for these boxes is for the serves. Off the serve, you're trying to go from one box, diagonally from the other. Which brings us to the second last thing you'll need to know, serves are strictly underhanded, any overhand serves do not count and are a forfeit of a point. The last thing is, to get a point you must hit the shuttlecock over the net, and for it to land on the other side," he explained. "Now, are you ready to start playing some badminton?" He asked.
"Why not, can't wait to see how much I mess up," I said sarcastically.
He just laughed at this as we both went to our chosen sides. We began slow, me getting a feel for the game, and him warming up. But the more we rallied, the more competitively I started to play, which in turn made him kick his playing up a notch. Every now and then the tempo would switch, from hard volleys back and forth, to slow drop shots. To a smash that would be blocked. This went on and on, until more and more people started to fil, the nearby courts. They of course did not play at our caliber, more of a friendly match, unlike ours, which had become a competition. I of course in the end lost, terribly, because I played more defensively rather then going on the offense.
After the match I thanked him for teaching me how to play, then got Lucario to switch places with him on the court. He of course gave up his racket willingly then went over to the sidelines to referee the match. This match would be one of the most competitive rookie badminton match to take place on the boat.
I started off the match with a hard serve that went rocketing over his head, he had sharp reflexes, as he whacked it out of the air and back to my side, I hit it lightly, going for the drop shot. Fortunately for me, Lucario did not have the experience to know how to hit the shuttlecock back, and it was one-zero for me.
After fifteen minutes of playing, the score was quite even, though I was winning it was only by one. The score was twenty-nineteen. It was my turn to serve again. So far all match I'd served with powerful overhead serves, so Lucario went into a more distanced stance, prepared for when the shuttlecock arced downwards. But this time, I decided to switch it up, I did a nice soft serve, he wasn't expecting it, but still lunged to hit it. Barely making it back over, I finished up by giving a powerful volley, that went rocketing over his head, giving me the point.
We went for another couple of rounds, with Pikachu cheering while holding her plush version. I, the instructed, and Lucario all rotated around on who went when. Before I knew it it was starting to get dark, meaning it was almost time to eat. So bidding farewell to the instructed, I went over to the buffet to eat. Now, I may be young, but I'm a growing boy. Meaning, I grabbed a lot of food, particularly from the salad bar. Nothing beats a good salad after a long amount of being competitive.
Also included on the cruise, was a food supply for our pokemon. Now, normally the Pokemon's food was made by me, instead they had a professional pokemon breeder on board who prepared the food herself. At least that was the rumour that was circulated around the deck. I decided to let all but dragonite out to eat, and let them dig into their meals. They of course we're happy to eat something of this caliber, not meaning to brag, but they loved my food, so when they devoured their food, I was shocked at first, then happy. Happy that someone else in this world knew how to make a tasty, and healthy diet for pokemon.
After eating a nice and large meal, I returned all, but the usual of my pokéfriends, then went out to the back of the ship. By now it was dark out, there was a lot of people out and about on the decks. Mostly couples enjoying their time together, along with their pokemon.
Both I and lucario went down to the third floor, here there was a small bit of deck space outside. I checked the outside on the starboard, only to see that there was only one couple enjoying the stars in peace.
Not wanting to interrupt them, we went to the port side, and found out there was only one person there, although he was just staring out to sea.
He had a white hat on, with a single tuft of hair sticking out. He also had a cape, it was pure white on the outside, and pure sea green on the inside. He was wearing a sea green shirt as well as purple pants.
To say he looked eccentric would be a true, and hard fact.
We walked outside, while I prepared gyarados's pokeball for departure from the boat. But before I made it to the railing he was stopped by the lone man striking up a conversation.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The man asked while staring out into the ocean, the waves five foot tall at the very least, were no match for the giant ship.
I froze in my tracks, lucario doing the same, and decided to put off training with dragonite for a little longer, for the chance to talk with the random man.
"Pardon me, are you talking about the ocean, or the sky. They both have their own beauty this time of night," I replied.
And indeed it was true, the sky was pitch black save for the half full moon, as well as the millions of tiny sparkles of white, representing the stars. The clouds were scarce in the night sky, the wind, a nice calming breeze.
"That is true, but the ocean is quite beautiful in the moonlight, as well as the tides being pulled by the moon." The man said.
Deciding we'd taken long enough, I walked right out the railing, seeing the long ten metre drop, I realized I'd have to drop about two metres if I wanted to board gyarados.
"Well sir, I'm sorry but I have training to do, and it can only be done out at sea. Before I go, what is your name?" I asked politely
"The name's Wallace, it was a pleasure to converse with you," Wallace answered equally as polite while staring at me straight in the eyes."Have fun training."
Wallace then returned his gaze to the ocean, I then tossed gyarados's pokeball over the railing, releasing him from the ball. Luckily, he didn't call out upon arrival, he instead looked up waiting patiently for me to jump onto him.
I waved goodbye to Wallace before we hopped onto gyarados's large scaly head. After bracing for impact, and steadying ourselves, We then traveled out of view of any vessels in the nearby vicinity.
The next 4 hours was dedicated to training myself, dragonite, Lucario and gyarados. At the very end we did a few tag battles, with both I and lucario always opposing each other. For the most part of these events, it was gyarados and I, versus dragonite and lucario. It's safe to say I got my ass handed to me, since although gyarados was powerful. Dragonite was on a whole new level of strength.
After finally finishing up, I returned gyarados, after climbing onto dragonite of course. We flew until we could see the ship in the distance. They of course probably saw us on the radar a while back it oh well. I then called fearow out, and transferred onto him before returning dragonite.
Flying the last little distance before landing on the ship was smooth. Although the part after that wasn't, luckily I'd remembered I had my ticket for the vessel, as well as my pokedex and cruise card.
(A/N, for those of you who don't know, the cruise card is pretty much a card that the cruise gives you before you board the ship. It's hooked up to your credit card for easier transactions, and also identification purposes.)
When I landed, I was immediately surrounded by at least a dozen league trainers, and more so than that of Pokemon who were all sporting defensive postures. After one of the superiors arrived, I was separated from my pokemon, and was pulled into questioning, and after a long time of answering questions, and double and triple checking my alibi and identity. I was finally allowed to leave, receiving my Pokemon on my way out, and a warning not to do it again.
After apologizing again I left to go back to my cabin, to sleep the rest of the night.
That concluded my first day on the ship.
Line break
On a secluded Island
A bunch of scientists were mulling around the lab, chatting about their success, now they only had to make sure that the experiment was 100% alive, and ready for testing.
In the test tubes there was a rather large, roughly 5 foot and 8 inches tall, violet cat. With a deep purple tail. He was hooked up to about a thousand different wires, that were meant for different things. Ranging from heartbeat monitoring, to monitoring the strength of said subject.
Then before their eyes, the cat's eyes opened.
Sorry this took so long, I could give a bunch of excuses as to why it took so long, but you guys probably wouldn't care.
First off, I mean no offense to anyone.
Why do you favourite stories? For me, I think when you favourite a story or author, it means they're in their number one spot for a certain topic. For example out of all the stories about Ash being betrayed, one of them really sticks out to you in a pleasant way. It also means, that you don't think that there's any other stories that can hold a candle to it in greatness.
Next, the pikachu evolving question still needs answering, I want everyone's answer on their opinion. I don't care if you give me an essay on it, or a one word answer, just give me an answer.
Lastly, if you have any specific parts of the anime done in this story, tell me, because at the moment, I'm just doing whatever comes off the top of my head that I can remember that went on during the anime.