So, now that Leo's here, everything should be good, right?

Not so fast…

Disclaimer: No characters that don't belong to me are mine.

"Pleeeeease?"

"No!"

"Pretty pleeeeease?"

"No!"

"Pretty pleaaaaaase with a cherry on-"

"For the last time, no!" Ash snapped at their annoying tagalong.

Leo's shell sagged. "Aw, come on, you gotta let me join you guys and fight the dragon! I helped save your behinds from Mewgle, didn't I? I also found the drawbridge keys into the castle buried under all of Mewgle's junk! That proves I'd be a major asset to your adventuring party!"

Ash sighed. "While we are grateful for your help back there-"

"Seriously, we probably would've been doomed without you," Pikachu agreed. "Though we probably would have found those keys eventually."

"Skill in a tabletop RPG—whatever the heck that is, I still don't know even though we spent most of the afternoon playing one—doesn't necessarily translate into the same kind of skill you need to hold your own in the real world," Ash finished.

Leo scowled. "Skill? Ha! You're talking to the guy who's memorized the fighting moves of every character in every martial arts movie, cartoon, or video game ever made; studied so much about tactics on real and fictional battlefields that my brain's a virtual military encyclopedia; learned every kind of variation conceivable on your basic and more advanced quests and adventures so that I can predict where the plot is flowing and see twists and tropes coming before anyone else; has totally unmatched hand-eye coordination due to MASTERING pretty much every rhythm, shooting, and timing-based game known to Pokemonkind, AND…" He paused for a very long moment. Ash initially thought he was trying to build up dramatic tension, but the Squirtle had actually just stopped to catch his breath, he wasn't used to all this walking, especially with all the stuff he was carrying around in his shell. "AND I have a personal vendetta against the dragon! I got skills, motivation, and a heart full of burning justice! What more do you guys need? Sign me up!"

Ash rolled his eyes, while Pikachu chuckled. Ever since Ash had told Leo in flat-out terms that he absolutely was not coming with them to fight the dragon, that it was too dangerous, the Squirtle had been doggedly pursuing them halfway across Green Meadow, stubbornly trying again and again to change their minds. While Ash was somewhat impressed by Leo's persistence, especially since he looked to be exhausting himself just keeping up with them, he still had no intention of taking the young untrained turtle into dangerous territory. Sighing, he turned around to face their follower. Leo was covered in sweat and looked to have a little trouble breathing, but his expression was just as determined as Ash's own whenever he absolutely refused to give up on something. Ash considered the young turtle for a moment, thinking he saw a bit of himself in the Squirtle.

He wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing. "Have you ever traversed a ninety-nine floor dungeon before?" Ash asked finally, intent on making Leo understand.

"Ha! Ninety-nine levels? I've beaten FIVE-HUNDRED floor dungeons!" Leo boasted. "Not to mention all the ones that didn't have as many floors but were still stupid hard…"

"Have you ever killed someone before? Not just defeated, but KILLED?" Ash asked.

"Thousands!" Leo bragged.

Ash nodded. "And have you ever slain a dragon?"

Leo's eyes narrowed. "Plenty."

The Lucario gave Leo a hard look. "Okay. How much of that stuff have you ever done in real life and not just in a game?"

Leo hesitated. "Uh…well…"

Ash nodded, unsurprised. "That's what I thought. And that's why you can't come with us. You haven't had any real-life experience with any of the sorts of things we're going to be doing today. Video games and board games and every other sort of game are no replacement for the real thing. No matter how skilled you are in the fantasy worlds you hang out in, Leo, you don't have what it takes to survive in our world. Not yet, anyway."

"Then why don't you let me come with you, so I can get that experience? To learn what I need to do to survive?" Leo begged Ash.

Ash frowned seriously. "Because, if we're going to add another member to our party, we'd prefer it to be someone we can trust. Someone we know can watch our backs. Someone we know can take care of him or herself if he or she has to, because we can't defend him or her all the time. Do you think you can be any of that, Leo?"

"Y-yeah! No problem!" Leo said…although he didn't look so sure this time.

Ash shook his head. "You may think so…but we don't. And that's why you can't come with us. We're going to have to fight for our lives in that monster's castle, and bringing along someone who's never really fought before could be more of a liability than an aid. And that liability might just get us eaten alive. And then your village would be no better off than before, would it now?"

Leo's shell sagged. "No…I guess not…"

Ash nodded and turned away. "That's what I thought." He kept walking.

"A little harsh, don't you think?" Pikachu murmured to his partner.

"Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind," Ash said.

"You got that from a fortune cookie," Pikachu said flatly.

Ash's face flushed. "Yeah…well…fortune cookies say lots of smart things sometimes!"

"Didn't one say you were a very pretty woman once?" Pikachu recalled.

"No, that was Mom's," Ash insisted, his face red. "We swapped cookies."

"Suuuure you did," Pikachu said, a grin on his face.

"WAAAAAAIT!" Leo yelled.

Ash sighed. "He doesn't give up, does he?"

"Remind you of someone?" Pikachu joked.

They turned around to see Leo running towards them. The Squirtle stopped a few feet away, huffing and puffing, held up a finger, used his inhaler, then calmed down as he regained his breath. "You're right," he said, voice still a little winded from his very brief run. "I don't have the real-life experience that you guys do. And I probably would always need to get rescued. But that doesn't change the fact that I absolutely HAVE to come."

Ash frowned. "And why's that?"

"Like I said, I have a personal grudge against the dragon!" Leo told them.

"I understand that you want to help your town by getting rid of this monster, but-" Pikachu started.

"It's not just that," Leo said angrily. He clenched his fists. "I want revenge. The dragon ate my father."

There was a pause as the brothers processed this. "Was he one of the ones the dragon ate when your town couldn't give it enough food for the month?" Ash asked.

Leo shook his head. "No. He was one of the warriors who died on the first day the dragon came to our village, when all the fighters in town went out to slay it…and died trying." He took his glasses off and squeezed his eyes shut, holding back tears.

"My father was my hero," Leo said after a moment. "Always has been. Still is, really. He was one of the best fighters in the village, and was training me to carry on our warrior legacy once he died." Pikachu nodded, understanding at once. That was how his family worked, after all. "He always had high hopes for me. Even named me after one of the warriors who liberated us way back in the day and inspired my ancestors to learn martial arts so we wouldn't always just hide in our shells every time there was trouble."

"Wait, one of the warriors who saved your town was named Leonardo?" asked Ash, who thought that a very odd name for a warrior.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, he was the leader of a group called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtles, time-displaced heroes from another world who landed in our universe on a journey to save their father."

Ash and Pikachu stared at him. "Time-displaced heroes," Pikachu said after a moment.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtles?" asked Ash. "In what way were they mutants?"

"Well, they were supposed to be really tall," Leo recalled. "And have longer and thicker arms than usual. Like most higher-leveled Fighting Pokemon. No tails, either."

"Ah," said a disturbed Ash.

"And…they came from another world to save you?" asked the incredulous Pikachu.

"Well, not us, per se," Leo clarified. "See, their master and father Shard the Raticate, who had raised the Squirtles since the day they had hatched from ooze-irradiated and mutated eggs, had his molecules scattered across time and space by accident while he and the Squirtles were traveling back to their own time from the future-"

"Wait, they traveled to our world from another world from another time altogether?!" cried an astonished Ash.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, they have all sorts of far-out adventures. Anyway, the smart Squirtle, Tom, rigged up a machine that would help them locate the pieces of Shard in all the other universes, and a few happened to be here in ours, so they came to our world. They found that the bits of their dad in our world were in the stronghold of the wicked bladed Scizor warlord named Slicer and his clan of Toe ninjas, the guys who'd taken over our land, so defeated the lot of them and collected the molecules, saving the countryside and the lot of us in the process. Then they went back to their world to continue their hunt for the splinters of Shard."

"Neat," said Ash.

"…You just made all of that up, didn't you?" asked a very skeptical Pikachu.

"Hey, it's the truth! Honest!" Leo cried indignantly. "At least, that's what the graphic novel historical adaptation said happened." Ash and Pikachu facefaulted. "Anyway…so like I said, my dad was training me to be the next big hero of our village. He felt, right from birth, that I'd make a legend for myself…or something like that." His face fell. "And then the dragon came…and everything changed. It showed up from out of nowhere, about six years ago, and rather rudely demanded we give it two-thirds of our crops every month or else it would destroy us all. Naturally, my dad and the other fighters in town weren't going to take that lying down, so they banded together in a large mob and set out for the castle where the beast had made its lair. Everyone in Turtle Town came out to send them off, and I cheered my dad on louder than anyone else. They were our best and our brightest, and we knew without a doubt that they'd defeat this threat to our well-being, just as they'd defeated so many others over the years.

"And then the dragon returned a few hours later, looking none the worse for wear, dumped a pile of bones in the village square, and told us that if we attacked it again, it would destroy the entire town. It left, and took all our hopes with it. If our strongest fighters couldn't stop the dragon…if my DAD couldn't stop it…then what chance could we possibly have of saving ourselves? All of us fell into despair…"

"Were your father's bones among the pile the monster returned?" Pikachu asked, feeling a kinship with Leo, who, like him, looked up to his father and was the son of a warrior legacy…though he clearly hadn't adhered to it as much as Pikachu had.

Leo shook his head. "No. My dad's bones are probably still in the dragon's castle…assuming they weren't completely digested, anyway. That's another reason I need to go…to get my father's remains and lay them at rest. And also because my father had the family heirloom when he died…an artifact which has been in our bloodline for generations, and has been wielded by countless turtley heroes in the battle against evil."

"Ooh, was it a sword? Pikachu has one of those," Ash said.

Pikachu nodded. "I do, it's rather nice."

Leo shook his head. "Nah, nothing that fancy, just a pair of sunglasses."

Ash and Pikachu stared at him. "…Sunglasses?" Ash asked in disbelief.

"Totally RADICAL sunglasses!" Leo corrected them, causing them to sweatdrop. "So radical that anyone who wears them is automatically the coolest of the cool, and can defeat any enemy! They're just that awesome."

"…Right. So, you're saying that, in spite of the fact that you're not exactly physically fit enough to do it and that the dragon swore to destroy the town if its inhabitants ever tried to oppose it again, you want to storm the monster's castle, slay the wyrm to avenge your father, and claim his remains and your legacy, even though it's just a pair of sunglasses?" Pikachu asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," said Leo. "And remember, they're totally RADICAL sunglasses, not your regular pair of shades." They sweatdropped again.

"Aren't you worried about the fact that if you lose—which is quite probable, given your physical condition—the dragon will kill everyone in Turtle Town?" Ash asked.

Leo scoffed. "You're assuming I'll lose! Once I find those shades, I'll be so badass nobody can defeat me!"

"Wasn't your father wearing those? And didn't he get defeated?" Pikachu pointed out.

Leo paused. "Huh. That's a good point. Never thought of that before…" They facefaulted. "But still, it won't be a problem, since I'll be fighting alongside you guys! With the unstoppable combination of a kickass samurai Pikachu with a holy sword, a Lucario Aura Guardian in-training, and the font of limitless information that's me wearing the sunglasses of sheer AWESOME, how can we possibly lose?"

"You're still assuming we're going to let you come," Ash said.

"Ah, but you will…" Leo said knowingly. "After I finish telling you my backstory, you'll have a change of heart and let me join the party! It's the rules."

"Yeah, maybe in your video game, but not in real life," Ash said, turning away. "Bye."

"Hey, you can't leave before I finish telling my backstory! This is a character-building moment! Plus, it's just rude," Leo protested.

Ash groaned. "Do I have to?"

"Oh, just hear him out. Besides, I love a good story," Pikachu said soothingly. Grumbling, Ash acquiesced.

"So, where was I?" Leo asked. "Oh, right, our greatest heroes were dead and we all fell into bleak despair. The Mayor desperately tried to get people to come here and help us by slaying the dragon, but the dragon ate them too and encouraged the Mayor to keep luring more people here so that it could have a steady diet of hapless adventurers. It even got Mewgle in on the act. As weeks turned into months and months turned into years without any glimmer of salvation in sight, we lost most of the hope we had left and accepted our grim fate."

"How depressing," Pikachu said sadly.

Leo shook his head. "You have no idea. When we weren't working the fields to feed ourselves and the dragon or doing all the other countless relevant tasks necessary to keep ourselves going, we were doing everything we could to escape the miserable dead-end situation our life had become by immersing ourselves in pointless hobbies or becoming totally obsessed with the fantasy worlds and ideal lives presented to us by television, which the dragon had been kind enough (or cruel enough) to let us keep having. Everyone got hooked on a different type of media. My mom developed a craving for soap operas. Our next-door neighbor got addicted to game shows. And the mayor, he loves reality shows, especially the ones where a bunch of clueless Pokemon are dumped on a shithole island in the middle of nowhere and forced to fend for and fight amongst themselves. And me? I got into video games, MMORPGs, tabletop role-playing games, anime…anything that distracted me from the reality I was stuck in and allowed me to pretend that, for a little while, I was somebody else. Somebody who could make a difference. A hero…" He shook his head. "Looking back, I think part of the reason I got so caught up in those games was because they made me feel closer to my father.

"Rather than becoming an actual hero, of course, all I did was get fatter and fatter as I ate lots of junk food and allowed my health to decline so that I could spend more time playing my games and blot out the rest of the world, so that I could forget that my father was dead, that our town had been enslaved by an evil dragon who could eat us at a moment's notice, and that I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole of…of…" He frowned. "Something. Not sure what."

"Didn't your mom try to stop you?" Ash asked.

Leo snorted. "At first. But she was the same way…she didn't want to deal with my dad's death, either. Guess that's why she started packing the pounds…and smoking again." He shook his head sadly. "Of course, she is a Torkoal, so it's not exactly bad for her to smoke, but you know what I mean."

"Wait, if most of Turtle Town was farming food for the dragon, why weren't you?" Pikachu asked. "Wouldn't that have kept you fit and in shape?"

Leo flushed. "Uh, funny story…"

Ash smirked. "Let me guess, you were banned from the fields, weren't you?"

"It was an accident!" Leo blurted. "How was I supposed to know harvesters didn't work that way?! Oy…and I really scratched up Old Man Grotty's shell something fierce. He sure gave me a tongue-lashing for that, let me tell you…" He paused. "Speaking of which, what was I telling you?"

"How your depression was turning you into an obese entertainment addict who spent all his time eating junk food and playing games in his mother's basement?" Ash guessed.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, that…wait, how'd you know it was in her basement?"

The Lucario shrugged. "Lucky guess."

Leo frowned. "Right…anyway, yeah, I was turning into a couch potato. I'm amazed my shell was even able to hold all my…fat, seriously. So I kept on playing as time went on, living vicariously through heroic characters and going on epic fantasy (and sci-fi) adventures that I'd never be able to experience except in my dreams (or in fanfiction), slaying countless digital dragons and feeling as if each one were the monster terrorizing our town, but killing them never saved us or brought my father back. I knew what I was doing to myself, on some level, but I had stopped caring long ago. Without my father, it didn't seem like life mattered anymore.

"And then I finally got my wake-up call. One day, a couple of years back, the dragon came a' calling and we didn't have enough food for it. We'd had a bad growing season, but the dragon didn't care for excuses, so took what we could give it and ate a friend of mine who lived just down the lane, someone I'd been pals with for years and had known ever since I was a little kid. And…it wasn't just the fact that he died so suddenly that brought me to my senses, but the fact that everyone grieved for a bit and then kept going like nothing had happened. Like his death hadn't meant anything, because we were too busy feeling sorry for ourselves to care about anyone else. And that made me realize the full enormity of what we had become, and of what I had done to myself. I had come way too close to shutting out the real world forever and losing myself in the fantasy worlds of my games, leaving everyone else to suffer in their own way. What kind of hero does something like that? I realized my father would have been immensely disappointed in my behavior. So I swore that I'd change, that I'd get myself out of my rut, get back in shape, and do whatever it took to kill that stupid dragon and get things back to normal again!"

"So that's when you quit video games and started training again?" Ash guessed.

Leo paused. "Uh…actually, I played even more games than ever…and I started reading comic books and watching cult sci-fi shows and movies, too." Ash and Pikachu facefaulted. "But it was for a purpose this time!" the Squirtle insisted. "Like I said earlier, I played the games to better myself…to understand the world outside Turtle Town, and to make me ready to be an adventurer! I also started exercising again to try and get back into shape, and let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. I've been working out for about three years now, and I'm still not back to my original weight and build! Maybe my bones got bigger or something…or my shell expanded to make room for my bulk and won't get smaller now that I'm not as fat as I used to be. On the plus side, at least I have more room to store my things in here!"

Ash stared at how…well, pudgy Leo already was. "If you're more fit than you used to be, I'd hate to see what you looked like befpre…"

"Trust me, this is a HUGE improvement compared to that," Leo assured him. "Anyway, it pretty quickly became clear to me that getting in shape again wouldn't be enough to make me ready to fight the dragon…especially considering how little effect my workout routines were having…so when I wasn't exercising or playing games, I did research on the Internet, so that I could arm myself with knowledge, the strongest weapon of all, aside from thermonuclear missiles or antimatter bombs. I had already decided I wouldn't be able to defeat the dragon on my own, but thought that if I could store enough information in my head and make myself into a real asset, I might be able to convince one of the bunches of mercenaries or adventurers who periodically came to town to try and slay the beast to take me with them.

"I ate up everything I could find. I learned the complete anatomy of every kind of Dragon-type Pokemon, including their strengths, weak points, and what every part of their body can be used for. I studied demonology, learning some of the forbidden lore of the Abyss, especially what I would need to defeat Mewgle and all sorts of other unholy abominations, should I ever encounter them. I played games and simulations for just about every kind of emergency or situation I might find myself in, and read a bunch of Nurse Joy's medical textbooks so I could figure out how to help clean and bind wounds, mend broken bones, and fix other things that might happen out in the field, far from any Pokemon Center. I learned about every kind of Pokemon and monster there is, both real and fictional, in case I might bump into one and need to know how to fight it. I took tons of online courses to learn as much as I could in every field imaginable, until I knew things guys twice my age don't! I practiced martial arts moves to try and get fit, like I said before, though since mostly I wound up wearing myself out and just making a fool of myself I resorted to my mom's old fitness videos instead.

"Once I was thinner, I started trying to convince the adventurers who came through town that I'd be a big help to their quest, what with my head full of near-infinite knowledge and not-entirely-useless trivia. However, most of them weren't really impressed and either politely told me that it was too dangerous for a kid like me or rudely told me to get out of their way." Leo frowned. "And I'm not a kid. I'm fifteen. Geez. Anyway, their rejections didn't keep me down, and I kept trying, knowing one day the right group of heroes would come…and I was right. You're here, aren't you?"

Ash rubbed the back of his head, flattered and a little embarrassed. "How come you didn't ask to come with us?" Pikachu asked. "When we first met you, I mean."

"I was too intimidated by your sheer…coolness," Leo confessed, somewhat embarrassed. "It's never happened to me before. Sorry. But…none of the other heroes and mercenaries and whoever that came through town were ANYTHING like you guys. I mean, seriously, an honest-to-goodness samurai and Aura Guardian, even if he's just in training? Those are wicked cool! That's how I knew, when I was listening to your conversation with the Mayor from outside his window-"

"Wait, you were eavesdropping on us?!" asked an alarmed Ash.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Well, duh, how else would I know whether the latest bunch of adventurers coming to try and slay the dragon were worth helping? I do that every time a new gang comes in town."

"Oh," Ash said, rather disturbed.

"Anyway," Leo continued. "While a lot of the guys who've turned me down over the years were pretty cool, none of them impressed me in quite the same way you did. And that's why I overcame my fears and total fanboyism and followed you guys to Mewgle's place, when all the other times I'd just let the other heroes go off and do their own thing and get eaten." He smirked. "It probably helped that you hadn't actually turned me down at that point, like the others did…"

"We're turning you down now," Ash said. "So why are you still following us?"

Leo shrugged. "Hey, I made it this far, didn't I? Might as well go all the way."

"Be that as it may," said Pikachu. "I'm still afraid we can't let you come with us."

Leo's jaw dropped. "What?! No way! I just poured my heart out to you and told you my backstory, you're supposed to let me go!"

"Life isn't like a video game," Ash said. "And in any event, while I'm impressed that you've spent all this time training…well, in your own way…to be of assistance to someone, I still don't think you're ready."

"Why not?" Leo asked angrily.

"Do you happen to have anything in that shell of yours right now that doesn't consist of hardware, software, boards, dice, tokens, and other assorted gaming items?" Ash asked.

Leo paused. "Uh, well…I have some DVDs…and a book or two…"

"Do you have any food? Water? Rope? Weaponry? Curative items?" Ash pressed.

Leo fidgeted. "Not…as much, no…I mean, I have some snacks, and a couple of soft drinks, and most of the stuff from my mom's medicine cabinet…and some of her silverware…not the good stuff, though, she'd kill me if I lost it…"

"And that's why you can't come," Ash said. "I mean, aside from all the other obvious reasons. A good adventurer always packs for any contingency. All you packed for was to deal with Mewgle, and maybe to go over and play at a friend's house."

Leo frowned. "Well, we don't exactly have a lot of things good for storming castles or slaying dragons in Turtle Town, you know. But…" He sighed, giving in. "Maybe you're right. I was in a bit of a hurry to catch up with you, but I guess I could have packed better. I don't suppose you'd be willing to wait for me to go home, drop some of my junk off, and get some more useful things?"

"No," said Ash.

Leo nodded sadly. "Yeah, that's what I figured. Well, good luck fighting the dragon, then." Rather dejected, he turned and started walking away.

Ash couldn't help but feel a little bad for Leo. "I didn't mean to crush his hopes," he confessed to Pikachu. "But everything I said was true, you know that. He's not ready for this sort of thing. No matter how much useless trivia is crammed in his head, it's not the same thing as actual experience, or at the very least, a finely-toned fighting body. He doesn't have any of that. All he's got is a shell full of games."

Pikachu froze. "Wait," he said, an odd look on his face. "Do you remember Sabrina's last prophecy? The one she gave us before we left Pokemon Square?"

Ash frowned in thought. "Uh…no, but I remember it was something pretty stupid. Wasn't it?"

"She said, 'You'll have a shell of a time getting the first treasure key if you don't have a shell,'" Pikachu recalled. "Now, what exactly does Leo have that we don't?"

Ash gave him an incredulous look. "No," he said, shaking his head in denial. "No, you can't mean…"

"If not him, then who?" Pikachu asked.

"You know how weird prophecies are," Ash argued. "How its actual meaning could turn out not to be what you thought it would be."

"Do you really want to risk ignoring what she might have meant in her prophecy, then?" Pikachu asked. "And maybe getting us killed?"

Ash hesitated for a moment. "I…no. No, I guess not." He sighed. "Hey, Leo!"

Leo stopped. "Yeah?"

"Come back over here. We need to talk to you," Ash said resignedly.

It was almost pathetic how quickly Leo's mood changed as he eagerly ran back over to them, stopped, gasped for breath, used his inhaler, and then slowly walked the rest of the way. "What is it? Did you change your mind?"

"Something like that…" Ash said.

"A friend of ours back home, a seer, gave us a prophecy before we left," Pikachu told Leo. "One which seems to imply we need your help to defeat the dragon."

Leo's jaw dropped. "OH. MY. ARCEUS. Are you freaking kidding me?! I'm in a prophecy?! Dude, that is so cool! What is it? Tell me, tell me!" he begged eagerly.

"'You'll have a shell of a time getting the first treasure key if you don't have a shell,'" Pikachu recited.

Leo frowned in thought. "Huh…kind of an odd prophecy…but I've heard worse. Yeah, I can see why you'd think I'd have something to do with it. But what's this about treasure keys? Oh! Wait, I know, it's that star-shaped jewel you told the Mayor about!" he exclaimed before Ash or Pikachu could tell him. "Let me guess, it's one of a set of approximately seven cosmic or magical Macguffins that, when brought together, can cause untold destruction in the wrong hands, so you guys need to gather all of them up before the bad guys, a shadowy organization that seeks to rule the world, can get them! And those ladyfriends of yours you told the Mayor went missing looking for the jewel must have gotten kidnapped by the bad guys, and you think that if you can collect all the keys you can save them! Am I right or am I right?"

Ash and Pikachu gaped at him. "How…how did you…" Ash asked, stunned.

Leo snorted. "Please, most overused fantasy plot ever. Saw it coming a mile away. So, what are these treasures, and what can they do? Who're the bad guys? Tell me everything! If I was in a prophecy stating you'd need my help to get the first of these things, then you'll probably need me for the others, too!"

Somewhat reluctantly, they told him about the full extent of their mission. Leo ate it all up ecstatically; clearly overjoyed to be in the middle of the sort of adventure he'd only experienced before in video games. "Whoa…seven Star Badges, a big evil door beneath Treasure Town, and a mysterious group called the Nihilators? Well, it fits the formula for quite a few games I've played, but…oddly enough, I've never heard of any of those things before. Well, the legend of the treasure beneath the town, yeah, but none of the other stuff. And that's weird, because the Internet's supposed to know everything."

"We think that the dragon has the first of the seven badges," Pikachu explained.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, that'd make sense…well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go slay the beast and get that badge!"

"Not so fast," Ash said abruptly. "While the prophecy may have said you should join us…I'm still not entirely sure you're ready."

Leo gave Ash an incredulous look. "Oh, come on! What do you want from me now?!"

"Hit me," said Ash.

Leo blinked. "Huh?"

"Hit me," Ash repeated. "If you can hit me with one attack, then I'll let you join us."

"Oh," said the surprised Leo. "I see. Like in anime, huh? Okay, hold on a sec…"

"You sure this is a good idea?" Pikachu asked Ash.

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on him," Ash smirked…and almost got hit by a series of large Bubbles Leo spat at him. He jumped to the side just in time, the Bubbles bursting where he and Pikachu had just been standing. "What was that?!" he demanded angrily.

"Oh, I'm sorry, were you not ready?" Leo asked with a grin. "You didn't say I had to wait for you. After all, it's not like in a real battle your enemy's going to wait before making his move, right?"

"He has a point," Pikachu said.

Ash fumed. "I'm the one who's supposed to be teaching him that!"

"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter, because I win," Leo said.

Ash blinked. "Huh? No you didn't, your bubbles didn't hit me."

"No, but when they popped some of the water from them got sprinkled on your fur," Leo said. "Just look at your arm if you don't believe me!"

Ash glanced down at his arm. Sure enough, some of his fur and the tip of his knuckle spike were damp. "That doesn't count," he protested, his face turning red. "It wasn't a direct hit!"

Leo threw up his arms in exasperation. "Oh, a direct hit he says! Well, why didn't you say that in the first place! Geez! Could you be any less clear!" Ranting, he stomped over to the confused Ash, still waving his hands in the air. "How's a guy supposed to accomplish a stupidly biased challenge if the arbitrary rules aren't made explicitly clear right from the start?!"

"Hey, they are not arbitrary-" Ash started, letting down his guard in annoyance and allowing Leo to turn and, with astonishing speed, ram his head right into the Lucario's crotch. Ash gasped and fell to the ground, clutching himself in pain.

"You really need to be more careful defending yourself," Leo lectured Ash, waving a finger mockingly.

"Shouldn't you be the one humiliating himself and slowly learning from your mistakes as Ash easily fends off your attacks?" Pikachu asked Leo.

Leo snorted. "Dude, I've watched every martial arts movie ever, remember? Like I'm really going to fall into that cliched pattern."

"Low blow," Ash grunted, staggering back to his feet. "One more time!"

Leo rolled his eyes. "One more…oh fine. Here we go." He clenched his fists and tensed his muscles. Ash crouched into a fighting stance. Leo abruptly gasped and pointed behind Ash. "OHMIGOD, IT'S THE DRAGON!"

"What?!" Alarmed, Ash whirled around, gathering Aura to his fists…and yelped loudly as Leo bit his tail. "OUCH!"

"Ptoo! You need to wash more," Leo complained as he spat black fur from his mouth. "Ugh, that tasted disgusting!"

Pikachu fell to the ground, clutching his sides with laughter. Wincing, Ash turned around, an enraged look on his face. "I…you…you…."

"Yeah? What about me?" Leo asked wryly.

Ash glared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter and offered Leo a paw. "Okay, I admit it, you might have some skills after all. I forgot, sometimes it's not the size of your muscles but the strength of your brain that can win a battle, and the ability to think outside the box."

Leo rolled his eyes and shook Ash's hand. "Well, obviously, why do you think I've been spending all this time cramming stuff into my brain? So, this mean I'm on the team?"

"Definitely," said Ash. "Welcome to Team Aurabolt!"

"Awesome! Do I get a badge and nifty bandana like you guys?" Leo asked.

"In fact, you do," Pikachu said, taking the Team's tool kit out of his knapsack (Yes, it fit in there somehow. If Leo can stuff all that crap in his shell, why not?), flipping it open, and removing a bandana and a plain badge from inside, both of which he handed to Leo. "I brought along a few of these just in case we made any new friends," he explained to both the Squirtle and his partner. "It's not a Diamond-rank badge like ours, since we couldn't exactly cart that many jewels around safely—and because you're new—but if you work at it, you can raise your rank and experience enough to earn one of the more prestigious badges later."

"Dude," whispered Leo, his eyes watering up and his face a frozen mask of joy. "This…this is…this is the happiest moment of my life!" he squealed, bursting into comical anime tears. "If only Dad could see me now, he'd be so proud of me!"

"Yes, we're proud too, can you stop the waterworks please?" Ash asked.

"Huh? Oh, sorry." Leo calmed himself down. He pinned the badge to his chest, wrapped the bandana around his neck, and then struck a pose. "Yatta! I did it! I've taken my first step towards becoming a true hero!"

"What does 'yatta' mean?" asked Ash.

"It means 'I did it', pretty much," Pikachu explained.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, it's my catchphrase. Well, actually it's the catchphrase of one of the main characters on one of my favorite TV shows—he's a lot like me, actually--but I don't think he'd mind if I borrowed it, do you?"

"Uh, no, I suppose not," said Ash.

"Awesome," said Leo. "Now…the only thing that would make this cooler would be if we all had matching color-coded jumpsuits. I don't suppose you guys would happen to have some giant robots lying around and a hankering to be Power Rangers, would you?"

Ash and Pikachu exchanged uncertain looks. What had they just gotten themselves into?

The dragon's lair looked like your standard medieval castle. There were big, imposing stone walls with lots of crenellations, tall towers with turrets and conical roofs, and a great looming keep squatting in the center of it all. The castle was also surrounded by a moat, but, rather than water, this protective trench was a surprisingly wide and deep chasm with several thousand incredibly sharp spikes lining the bottom, a truly impassable obstacle for someone who couldn't fly.

"So, this is the dragon's lair, huh?" Ash asked, appraising the gloomy edifice. "It's in much better shape than Mewgle's dump."

"Other than the few glaring giant holes gaping open in the sides of the structure here and there…like that one," Pikachu said, pointing to an especially large opening in the wall at the top of the tallest and thickest tower.

"The dragon must have made those so it could go in and out of the place easier," Leo reasoned. "It's probably sitting in that tower right now, watching…and waiting…"

"What makes you think it's up in that tower, rather than in the keep or anywhere else?" Ash asked.

"Because the bad guy, be it a dragon or anyone else, is almost always at the top of the tallest tower," Leo said, as if it were obvious. "Where else would they be?"

As Ash rolled his eyes in exasperation, Pikachu said, "He may have something, actually. From a tactical standpoint, there aren't many better places the beast could choose to make its roost. The tower's big enough to support it, and from up there it not only has a good view of everything for miles around, but it would also be able to take flight fairly easily from such a high altitude, rather than needing to work to get itself off the ground."

"Hmm…" Ash closed his eyes and examined the castle with Aura-vision. "You're right," he said. "I can see a HUGE life-form in that tower…it must be the dragon. Its Aura is…odd, but it's definitely the dragon."

Pikachu looked at Ash. "Odd? In what way? It's not a Shadow Pokemon, is it?"

Ash shook his head. "No, definitely not. And it's not like Mewgle's place or Treasure Town, it…I'm not sure. Just seems weird somehow. Not the sort of Aura most living things give off." He frowned. "I also detect what look like…maybe more Auras in there with the dragon. I can't make out what they are from here, though."

"More Auras? As in other living things?" asked the puzzled Pikachu. "That's odd…why would the dragon have something like that in its lair?"

"Maybe they're prisoners that the dragon's saving to eat later?" Leo suggested. He gasped. "Oh! Which means they might be some people from my town, or another bunch of failed adventurers! But…" His face fell. "No, my dad can't be one of them…that was six years ago…"

"I don't know what they are, I just know they're with the dragon," Ash said. He took a look at the rest of the castle. "There's nothing else living here. The residual Auras are a little strange, but nothing that seems…I dunno, striking. This place doesn't seem to have as much of an evil presence as Mewgle's lair or Treasure Town, like I said before."

"Really? Weird," commented Leo. "From what I hear, the guy who used to live here was pretty nasty."

"You called him the Slicer, didn't you?" Pikachu recalled.

Leo nodded. "That's right. He was the merciless leader of the Toe ninja clan…until the Teenage Mutant Squirtles defeated him and caused the clan to leave here, that is."

"Well, a warlord isn't quite on the same level as a demon from the Abyss, or…whatever that door is," Pikachu said.

"Good point," Leo admitted.

"So," Ash said, opening his eyes again. "How do we get in?"

They found the answer to that a little ways around the perimeter of the moat. A pair of waist-high stone pedestals stood on the edge of the incline leading down to the spike pit, separated by about five feet. They were placed directly across from a large and imposing portcullis lowered shut over the huge main archway that was the main entrance leading into the castle. There was a wide slot of some kind in the rock wall directly underneath the arch, and a pair of thick chains ran out from the inside of the slot and fed into holes on the opposite side of the moat, right beneath the two pedestals. "This is the drawbridge mechanism," Leo explained to the senior explorers as they examined the strange contraption. "We need to insert those keys Mewgle was holding onto into those slots on the front of the pedestals to get into the castle. Simple design."

"Why hasn't anyone ever just walked across those chains and climbed up the castle wall?" Ash asked.

"Not everyone has your sense of balance," Pikachu said dryly. "Plus, that thing's pretty sheer, I doubt it would be easy to do. Considering all those skeletons impaled on the spikes down there, I think some people have been desperate enough to try anyway."

Ash looked down into the moat. "Ah," he said. "I see. That's an awful lot of bones."

"Maybe the dragon dumps some of them down there once it's finished eating its prey," Leo suggested. He hesitated. "Do you think…"

"Leo, even if your father's bones were down there, I wouldn't recommend trying to go get them," Pikachu said. "It's pretty much a guaranteed death."

Leo sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right…"

"So, let's get inside," Ash said. He pulled one of the keys from his knapsack. Rather than looking like a regular key, it was a small dull stone shaped like a sun. Pikachu took the second key from his knapsack Fittingly; it was shaped like a moon. They walked over to the pedestals and placed the stones in the appropriate slots.

The ground beneath them rumbled slightly. The chains rattled, creaked, and began to move as ancient machinery beneath their feet reeled them in. As the chains were dragged out from the slot across the chasm, they pulled something else with them; a rectangular stone platform which turned out to be long enough to span the entire moat and fit neatly into a groove between the two holes the chains were being pulled into that the trio had not noticed before. The near end of the platform sank into the groove with a thud, creating a great gray bridge which provided the heroes with passage across the spiky pit.

"Neat," said Ash.

"Eh, I've seen cooler bridges," Leo said dismissively.

"Look, the portcullis is rising," Pikachu said, pointing towards the archway across from them. The barred gate was slowly rising up into a recessed niche above the entrance, giving the Rescue Team a way into the castle.

"Why's it doing that?" Ash asked.

"The drawbridge and gate are connected to the same mechanism, obviously," Leo said. "After all, there isn't really any point in activating one but not the other, now is there?"

"Wouldn't it make for better security if they were activated separately?" Ash asked.

"If you kept the bridge up but closed the gate, you would allow invaders to be able to bash their way in," said Pikachu. "While if you left the gate open but retracted the bridge, there's a chance somebody might be able to jump or fly right through. I suppose it's more efficient for them to be hooked up to the same machinery."

"I guess so…" Ash murmured.

They crossed the bridge and passed through the archway. Leo glanced back over his shoulder as they went down the wide tunnel leading into the castle, a surprised look on his face. "Huh. I was expecting the portcullis to come crashing down and seal us in the instant we went past it."

"Why?" Pikachu asked.

"To keep us from escaping, of course. And to be scary," Leo said.

"That's silly," Ash snorted.

"Don't be so sure," Pikachu murmured, glancing upward. "Let's try not to give the dragon any ideas, shall we?"

As they walked down the passageway, they did not see what had appeared to be a perfectly innocent patch of grass lift itself off the ground, a dark figure climbing out from under its faux green cover and dashing across the bridge and into the castle with surprising speed and silence, unnoticed by the adventurers as it traveled from shadow to shadow behind them.

They continued through the tunnel, ignoring the myriad passageways branching off on either side of them (their unseen follower, on the other hand, did not, and disappeared into one of them), and came out the other end to find themselves in a broad courtyard. The looming towers surrounding them on all sides blotted out the sun and cast long shadows that covered the ground.

Shadows weren't all that covered it, though. "Ew," said Ash, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the literally thousands of old yellow bones, many of which looked as if they had either had the flesh burned off of them or been thoroughly nibbled on by something with very large teeth, scattered about in piles all over the courtyard. "Well, I guess the dragon doesn't throw the remains in the moat, after all."

"Ugh…this is horrible," whispered a stunned Leo, looking around at all the bones lying around. "All this can't be from the turtles the dragon's taken from town. These must be what's left of all the warriors and heroes and adventurers we've been sending to fight the dragon…geez…it doesn't look as if any of them stood a chance." He turned pale, looking as if he were going to throw up. "So many…all this…this is our fault…we begged them to come here, we asked and we paid them to save us, and all that happened was…was…" He started trembling and covered his hands with his eyes. "This…"

"Hey," Ash said firmly, putting a hand on Leo's shoulders. "This isn't the fault of you or the villagers. All the people here came of their own free will, hoping they'd slay the dragon and do a good deed, or at least earn some prestige and cash. It's the dragon's fault that they're all like this, not the people of Turtle Town."

Quivering, Leo looked up at Ash. "Even if you're right…what's to keep us from winding up just like these guys? Like…like my dad?" He looked like he was either about to cry or start hyperventilating or both.

"Leo," Pikachu said quickly. "It's not too late for you to turn back. There's still time for you to leave if you don't think you're ready for this."

Leo pushed Ash's hand off his shoulder, shaking his head adamantly. "N-no way! I can't leave! You guys need me, that seer friend of yours said so! And…and if I turned back, after making it this far…I'd never be able to forgive myself. I have to do this, for my dad, and everyone else in town, and everybody the dragon's eaten! I have to go on!"

Ash nodded, hiding a smile. "Okay, then. If you're positive. But keep close, okay?"

Leo nodded fervently. "Absolutely! If there's anything that horror movies have taught me, it's that the geeky unpopular guys are always first to go if they don't stick to the main group! Of course…they usually get killed anyway…"

"Life isn't like a horror movie," Pikachu said.

"You can still say that looking at all this?!" Leo asked incredulously, gesturing at the hundreds of broken skeletons surrounding them.

"We've seen worse," Pikachu said a little uncertainly.

"At least all the flesh is gone from the bones," Ash said morbidly. "You should see fields and trenches full of the freshly killed. That's really something worth throwing up at."

Leo grimaced. "Ew."

"Guess you don't see much of that sort of thing in your games, huh?" Pikachu asked.

"Hmm? Oh no, there's actually a few shockingly realistic battlefield games that are surprisingly good at simulating blood and death and gore and trying to get the horrors of war across to the player," Leo said. "With corpses and severed limbs and organs flying all over the place! They're totally awesome! It just seems different seeing it on a screen as opposed to real life, though."

"Reality is always different from how you imagine it," Pikachu said.

"Hey, speaking of which, have you ever decapitated someone? What was it like?" Leo asked Pikachu.

Pikachu sweatdropped. "Not as cool as my father and brother seem to think it is…"

Ash used his Aura-sight again to pinpoint the dragon's location. "It's still in the tower, and it still has those strange other energy signatures with it. No clue what they are. And that weird Aura I mentioned before is all around us, but…it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Not like the Aura in Treasure Town."

"Around us? As in, we're breathing it in?!" asked an alarmed Leo. "Oh crap, what if I'm allergic to it?! I have enough trouble breathing as is, why do you think I carry an inhaler around all the time?!"

"No, Aura is incorporeal. It passes through you and permeates your body and spirit," Ash said. "It runs through all things, living or otherwise."

Leo sweatdropped. "Wow, that really reassures me. Hmm, sounds like the Force."

"The what?" Ash asked.

"A mystical energy force flowing through all things that a heroic order called the Jedi Knights can use to do all sorts of cool stuff. They're totally awesome…like Aura Guardians, but most of them are aliens, and they've got kickass laser swords," Leo said excitedly. He sighed. "I wish I had a lightsaber."

"Yes, well, these 'Jedi' and their 'Force' are fictional, whereas Aura Guardians and Aura are real," Ash said a little stiffly, secretly wishing that he had a laser sword too. That sounded neat. But then Pikachu might be annoyed, since he was supposed to be the 'sword guy' of the team…

"Actually, since the Omniverse has an almost infinite number of alternate worlds, there's actually a pretty good chance that the Jedi do exist somewhere-" Leo started.

"Okay, we really don't need to waste anymore time talking about this," Pikachu interrupted before they could get into a huge metaphysical debate. "Ash, it's in the tallest tower, right? Then that means we should probably go…that way," he said, pointing at the front entrance of the keep at the far end of the courtyard. The structure was so big that its facade made up a fourth of the walls surrounding the courtyard, and was covered in broken carvings, scorch marks, and frighteningly large claw gouges that had ripped enormous chunks of stone from the face of the building. "I think the tower we want is growing from near the back of that place. So we need to get inside."

"Good thing the door's open," Ash said.

"Actually, the door's over there," Leo said, pointing to a pile of very large burnt wooden splinters lying near the jagged opening in the front of the keep that had at one point been a gateway.

Ash sweatdropped. "Whatever. Let's go."

"Right! And, uh…if you see a skeleton of a Wartortle with a really wicked-looking pair of glasses, let me know, okay?" Leo asked.

They walked across the scorched and blasted courtyard, picking their way through the haphazardly scattered piles of bones. "Seriously, why does the dragon keep these things around?" Ash asked. "They're not even trophies like this, just…garbage. But if it's garbage, why doesn't the dragon just dump them in the moat outside rather than leaving them to gather dust out here?"

"Maybe it still likes to chew on them from time to time?" Pikachu suggested.

"Or maybe it's just really possessive. Dragons are supposed to be like that," Leo added.

"Could be…" Ash's ears twitched. He stiffened. "Did you just hear that?"

"No Ash, our hearing isn't as good as yours," Pikachu said flatly.

"Really? Those ears look pretty big…" Leo said.

"They're actually more for show than you might expect," Pikachu explained.

Ash frowned. "I thought I heard something. Bone clattering against bone. Lots of bones."

"It was probably just the wind knocking over a loose shingle on the roof. Or some of the bones in the piles we've passed shifting from our touching them and dislodging other bones, causing them to tumbles down the sides," Pikachu said rationally.

"Or it could have been the bones pulling themselves together to form an army of undead skeletons to rip us to shreds," Leo said seriously.

Pikachu snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."

Leo gave Pikachu a hard look. "Dude, haven't you ever seen a horror movie? Or played a survival horror game?"

Pikachu sighed. "Leo, life is not like-"

"LOOK OUT!" Ash yelled, firing an Aura Sphere over Pikachu's head. It smashed into the immense jaws of the animated Loudred skeleton that had been sneaking up on them from behind, exploding and blowing the monster apart from within. However, the skeleton was only the first of many, and all around them the bone piles clattered and shook as body parts flew together from all over the courtyard to reassemble the various scattered corpses into an army of the walking dead.

Pikachu's jaw dropped. "How…how did…"

"I told you, dude! I TOLD YOU!" Leo shouted, throwing his arms up in the air.

"Guess this explains the weird energy I detected," Ash grunted.

"But how…how is this possible?! DEAD BODIES DO NOT GET UP AND START TRYING TO KILL PEOPLE!" Pikachu yelled.

"You're carrying a holy sword, live in a world full of magical things including GHOSTS, just got here from the lair of a literal demon from Hell and you still think that?!" Leo asked incredulously.

Pikachu paused. "…That's a good point, actually."

"There sure are a lot of them!" Ash said, generating another Aura Sphere and hurling it at a group of rabid undead Mareep rushing towards them, blowing the lot of them to bits and not even putting a dent in the steadily increasing numbers of the skeleton horde as more and more bones pulled themselves together.

"Oh, don't worry, skeletons are pushovers when they're not carrying any weapons," Leo assured his friends. "As long as these aren't the regenerating kind, anyway." It was at that moment that the bones of the Loudred that Ash had blown apart flew back together and reassembled themselves to form a complete skeleton, which roared at them furiously. "Ah. Never mind, we're screwed, then."

"Not helping!" Pikachu snarled, firing a Thunderbolt at the undead Loudred and causing it to collapse into a pile of bones again.

"Okay, hold on, let me get something…" Leo rummaged in his shell for a moment and pulled out…a music player?

"What are you doing?!" Ash yelled as he generated a Bone Rush staff to fend off the blades of a quadruplet of skeletal Farfetch'd.

"Finding a good soundtrack. Can't have a fight scene without music!" Leo explained, scrolling through the list of songs he had downloaded on his player.

"LEO!" Ash and Pikachu shouted at him.

"Okay, okay! Hold on! There." He pressed a button, and rock music started playing loudly throughout the courtyard. "That's better. Now…eat holy, you dirt-munchers!" Leo pulled out his blessed dice. Nothing happened.

"Was that supposed to do something?" Pikachu asked, cleaving a squealing Piloswine in two with his sword.

"I don't get it…these things must be broken or something!" the disbelieving Leo cried, shaking his dice frantically. "These things are holy! Undead are WEAK against holy! Basic tenet of supernatural physics!"

"Maybe these skeletons aren't unholy?" Ash suggested, thrusting his staff into the rib cage of a Machamp and jerking it upward to knock off the thing's skull. Unfortunately, the four-armed monster kept coming, even without a head, so Ash had to bash it to pieces until it stopped moving.

"In what way are the walking dead not unholy?!" Leo yelled, still shaking his dice.

"Well, seeing as how my sword doesn't seem to be having any additional effect on them, they must not be," Pikachu commented, bisecting six Nidokings with one swipe and zapping the Piloswine he'd killed earlier to knock it to pieces again.

"Crap…there's gotta be some way to stop them, then…" Leo murmured, putting his dice back in his shell. "Think, Leo, think-" He lost his train of thought when an undead Clefable hissed in his face, thirsting for blood. Leo screamed and spat a Water Gun in its face, blasting it to smithereens. He blinked in astonishment. "Whoa, did I just do that?"

"Killing an enemy in real life isn't quite the same as killing them in a game, now is it?" Pikachu asked, firing off a Vacuum Blade which cut off the upper bodies of at least a quarter of the skeletons…not that that stopped them, since their legs were still walking about and the severed torsos could still drag themselves along by their hands.

"No…it's WAY COOLER! DUDE!" Leo laughed a little too eagerly as he spat Bubbles in random directions, the water spheres bursting on contact with the skeletons that approached him and blowing them into bits of wet bone.

Pikachu sweatdropped. "I don't think he's taking this seriously."

"Or maybe he's taking it too seriously," Ash said as he locked bones with an undead Marowak, who…didn't look too different from how it had in life, actually.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Pikachu asked.

"…I'm not sure, actually," Ash admitted. The Marowak managed to knock his bone out of his hands and reeled back to crush in his skull. Ash ducked beneath the blow and hit the Marowak with an Aura-powered uppercut that knocked its head off. The skull flipped through the air and landed near an undead Cubone, who curiously tried to fit the skull on, but since it already had its own skull and its mother's skull on top of that, the new headpiece wouldn't fit, so the skeleton just threw it away. The headless Marowak lurched about awkwardly trying to find its head, accidentally kicking it and flinging it further away in the process. Ash sweatdropped. "Are these guys taking this seriously?"

An undead Rhyhorn, its bony plates as thick as they ever were in life, roared and dashed towards Pikachu, its nose drill spinning. Pikachu quickly raised his sword to block it, and the rhino's horn clashed against his blade, throwing up angry sparks as it forced the samurai back a few feet through sheer brute force. "YES!" Pikachu yelled loudly.

"Then maybe we should, too!" Ash cried. He charged towards a big, mean skeletal Hitmonchan, who threw a punch at his face. Ash jumped over the attack and landed on the dead Fighting Pokemon's skull, then pushed off and jumped even higher into the air, gaining a view of the entire battlefield. Gathering his power, he twirled in the sky and fired Aura Spheres in every direction, causing blue-tinged explosions to erupt all over the courtyard. "Take that!"

"Hmmph. You're not the only one who can do something like that!" Pikachu scoffed. Fending off the claw swipes of a Gligar, Pikachu backflipped and landed on his tail, which coiled underneath him then sprung upward, launching him into the air. He charged electrical power into his sword, then drove it back into the ground in a brilliant flash which sent ludicrously powerful discharges zigzagging outward in every direction, tearing up the pavement and blasting dozens of skeletons to pieces. Not finished, the mouse sheathed his sword, charged energy into his body, then abruptly started dashing forward on all fours, electricity crackling out around him to create a golden nimbus. Moving at super speeds, he ran all over the courtyard, smashing apart any skeleton unlucky enough to get in his way with the force of his Volt Tackle and annihilating any undead goon who had managed to get out of his way with static bolts that crackled off from his energy trail.

"Ha, that's nothing! Watch this!" Leo bragged. Without warning, he retracted completely into his shell and sat on the ground, immobile. The skeletons stared at him in confusion. A Slaking snorted and kicked Leo's shell scornfully. This turned out, however, to be the worst thing it could possibly have done. The force of the kick gave Leo the momentum he needed to trigger his Rapid Spin attack, allowing him to fly around and through the mob of skeletons that had surrounded him, smashing through their spines and rib cages like a spinning turtle shell from another video game series in an outward spiral pattern which spread out to crush more and more skeletons. A normal turtle wouldn't have been able to pull off this kind of a Rapid Spin, but Leo's practice in playing incredibly finicky characters with very sensitive controls and the rather heavy stuff in his shell allowed him to make the move go farther and hit harder than most others would have been able to. When he finally ran out of spin and slowed to a stop, he popped out of his shell and looked proudly at the hundreds of broken bones he had scattered all over the place. "Yatta! Take that, you clichéd-" His face turned green, and he threw up rather copiously before he could finish his witty taunt. "Ugh…remind me not to do that again," he moaned, the world spinning around him.

The skeletons were not particularly impressed by the heroes' actions, even though they had felled dozens of them in but a few moments. And why should they have been? It took only seconds for the bits of bone and dead matter to reassemble themselves, and the army of the undead was back on their feet once again, and hungry for vengeance against the living. "It's no good…no matter what we do to them they won't stay down!" cried an alarmed Pikachu.

"The energy that sustains them seems to be infused in every particle of their bodies…and I'm not skilled enough yet to know how to do anything about that!" Ash said anxiously.

Leo pounded himself on the head. "Come on Leo, think, think! Holy doesn't work on these things, for whatever reason; they're clearly immune to sunlight, otherwise they wouldn't be walking around outdoors; and explosions and fire apparently don't do anything, so…what else are skeletons weak against?" His eyes lit up. "Wait, that's it!" He turned to Ash. "Ash, do you have any Potion?"

"Why, are you injured?" Ash asked in concern.

Leo shook his head. "Well, I'm feeling a bit dizzy, but…no, I have a plan! I'm going to need some Potion to pull it off, though!"

Ash shrugged. "K." He tossed Leo a Potion.

Leo grinned, his eyes glinting underneath his glasses. "Excellent…" He shook the spray bottle vigorously, and then whirled around to face the skeletons, who had surrounded them while they were talking. "Okay, boneheads…which of you wants to be the first to die? Again, I mean." A ravenous Houndoom snarled and lunged for his jugular. Leo smirked. "Works for me!" With the reflexes and precision aim acquired from countless hours of shooting virtual zombies in the head, Leo brought up the Potion and sprayed it right into the skeleton's face. The undead Houndoom howled in agony and collapsed to the ground a few inches short of Leo, wailing and scratching at its snout in pain as the bone that had been touched by the curative sizzled and started dissolving. "Yeah, how do you like them apples, Cujo? Still thirsty for more? Here, I've got plenty!" He sprayed more Potion at the Mightyena. The bone hound yelped and tried to get out of the way, but its left foreleg got hit by the spray and immediately fell off at the shoulder, rotting away into nothingness as the mutt whimpered and limped away on its three remaining limbs.

The other skeletons gaped at this spectacle, stunned. So did Ash and Pikachu. "What…how…how did you…" asked the incredulous Ash.

"Duh, undead are weak against healing items! RPG 101!" Leo told them triumphantly.

"But…they're dead. Wouldn't they want to be healed?" asked a very confused Pikachu.

"Don't question the logic, just spray! Spray for your life!" Ash shouted, taking another Potion from his knapsack and spraying it in the face of an Aggron, who shrieked like a girl and ran back into the horde of skeletons, hands clutching its disintegrating face.

"This is such a waste of supplies," Pikachu complained, even as he took out a Potion of his own and sprayed it at a bony Linoone, who recoiled in pain.

As more and more of their comrades succumbed to the wasting effects of the Potions, the skeletons drew back from the heroes, allowing them to push their way to the entrance of the keep, spraying all the way. None of the monsters followed them. "That went pretty well," Ash said, once they were safely inside the building.

"Yatta! I did pretty good back there, huh?" Leo said proudly. "Couldn't have done it without me!"

Ash laughed and rubbed Leo's head. "Yeah, but don't let it give you a swelled head."

"You were pretty handy," Pikachu admitted. "Though I'm somewhat loath to admit that we only survived because of your knowledge of video game logic…"

"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll use that logic to save us many more times in the future!" Leo said cheerfully.

Pikachu's eye twitched. "Joy."

"No, that's a nurse, and she's not here," Ash joked. Pikachu and Leo stared at him. Ash frowned. "What? I thought it was funny…"

"Nobody else did," said Pikachu. "Now, where to?"

"To the top of the tallest tower, duh!" Leo said excitedly. His tone grew serious. "And once there…we avenge my father."

"And all those other people the dragon's killed?" Ash asked.

Leo blinked. "Huh? Oh yeah, them too."

They continued into the depths of the keep, unaware that the shadowy figure from before had already beaten them inside.

Meanwhile, back in Kanjohenn…

"Monkey King's balls, where is he?!" snarled War Chief Vulkus Furniciferous, the Infernape commander of the Mt. Freeze base. He was standing on top of the walkway built on the interior of the palisade wall which ringed the base and kept arctic predators out, staring hopelessly into the sheer white terrain stretching out in every direction, his flaming hair buffeted by the constantly-blowing icy winds all around them. "That worthless son of a baboon should have been here by now!"

"Maybe his life-flame went out?" one of the War Chief's lieutenants, a Monferno, said hopefully.

"Or maybe he got buried in an avalanche," suggested another lieutenant, this one an Ambipom.

"Or maybe he got eaten by Abomsanow!" the Monferno suggested.

"Do Abomasnow eat meat?" asked Ambipom, curious. "I thought most Grass-types ate insects or absorbed energy through the sun or from the earth."

"You see any bugs, sun, or earth up in this wasteland?" the Monferno said pointedly. "I hear they like to catch their prey frozen half-to-death, hang them upside-down from the ceilings of their caves, and then-"

Vulkus smacked both of his idiot henchmen on the head. "Shut up, both of you! It doesn't matter how that failure died, so long as we can be certain he did. And don't celebrate his digestion too soon, there's still a chance that he might show up in another hour or so."

"We're going to have to stay up here that long?!" whined the Ambipom.

Vulkus hit the two-tailed monkey so hard that he was knocked off the walkway and landed in a convenient pile of soft snow below. The Monferno and all the guards nearby snickered at his misfortune. "We will stay up here as long as it takes!" Vulkus shouted, spit and embers flying from his mouth. "We are soldiers of the Monkey King! We can thrive and conquer in any environment! Anyone who does not is unworthy to be called a Pokemon and would be better off in the slave barracks with the other weaklings and inferiors! Do I make myself clear?!"

"Y-yes sir," the Ambipom stammered in fright.

"Good! Now bring me some lava juice, my flame is burning low in this blasted cold!" Vulkus barked.

"Yes sir!" The Monferno ran off, grateful to be still alive.

"I hate this weather," Vulkus grumbled, looking back out at the frozen mountainside.

"Look on the bright side, sir, at least all our fleas have died from the cold too!" his remaining lieutenant said cheerfully. He gasped. "Sir, look, over there! Atop that ridge! I think I see something!"

Vulkus immediately squinted and shaded his eyes as he peered in the direction his subordinate was indicating. He preferred to use what nature gave him, as all of the Monkey King's soldiers did, since technology was for weak city-folk after all. "It's so hard to see out here…is that Ignik, here at last?"

"I can't say for sure, sir…it looks a little too tall," the lieutenant said.

"Well, he was supposed to be coming here on a Rapidash," Vulkus murmured, leaning out over the side of the palisade to try and get a better look. "Hmm…it looks like he's…throwing something?"

It was at that moment that a wooden staff with a large crystal at its tip encircled by a metal ring with a pair of weights dangling from the sides impaled him right between the eyes, the sheer force of its momentum yanking the War Chief off the wall and carrying him halfway across the compound before the sharp end of the staff (which was protruding from the back of the Infernape's head) imbedded itself in one of the supports of a tall signal tower rising from the middle of the base. Vulkus dangled from the midpoint of the scepter, blood and brains oozing out through the hole it had made in his skull.

The various soldiers across the base gawked in disbelief. Then the Monferno lieutenant shouted, "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! ALL TROOPS, MOBILIZE!" He whirled about to check on the assassin who had killed his superior, and found to his surprise that the mysterious figure was gone.

No, wait, there he was, he was standing right in front of him, balancing on top of one of the spikes of the palisade wall, pointing a paw glowing with blue fire at him. "Oh shi-" The blindfolded hat-wearing Lucario fired a blast of blue energy which completely vaporized the fire monkey. As if in response, the crystal on the scepter he had thrown started glowing faintly.

The Lucario leaped off the wall and landed on the snowy ground covering the base's interior. "Get him! Get him!" an enraged Magmortar corporal bellowed, the flames on his body burning hotter with fury.

As several dozen monkeys and Fire Pokemon surged out of the various barracks and buildings scattered across the compound, Magby and Aipom archers positioned on top of watchtowers, roofs, and the palisade walkway all started launching fireballs and Swift stars at the intruder. The hundreds of projectiles arced high into the sky then shot down towards the Lucario, who didn't look the least bit concerned. They converged on him with an explosion that threw up lots of smoke and bits of snow and sent vapor up into the air as the nearby snow was melted by the blast. The mustering forces paused a few feet away from the roiling cloud, sneering in anticipation at the sight of a corpse or at the very least a badly wounded foe…and so were very surprised when the cloud faded to reveal nothing at all, save for a patch of ground where the snow had evaporated. "Where'd he go?" asked a Primeape.

They got their answer when the Lucario, who was now balancing along the length of his scepter high above them, starting flinging the Swift stars he had gathered with his bare hands while evading the fireballs paw-over-paw at the forces gathered below him. The barbarians shrieked in pain and surprise, pushing each other over to get out of the line of fire and in the process making it only more likely for them to get hit, the energy stars, now glowing blue due to Aura the Lucario had infused in them, exploding on contact with their bodies and blowing them to smithereens.

And with each death, the crystal on the intruder's scepter grew steadily brighter.

A swarm of Mankey and Ambipom, shrieking with rage, scrambled onto nearby buildings and leaped into the air towards the Lucario, claws and paws extended with the intent to kill. The Lucario leaped into the air, put his hands together, and generated a bone staff from blue energy…then abruptly squeezed and reshaped it with one hand, causing it to change from a staff into a blazing sword! As the monkeys' eyes widened in astonishment, the blindfolded Lucario glided past them, his blade swiping through the air several times as he went. He landed on the ground in one piece. The monkeys landed too, but in several pieces.

A furious Primeape, screaming bloody vengeance, charged towards the Lucario, drawing a fist back to smash his head in. The Lucario easily ducked under the blow then hit the pig monkey with a haymaker that sent him flying through the palisade wall and of the base, indeed, out of the entire mountain range! As more soldiers ran at him, armed with fists and swords and spears, he dashed right towards them at incredible speeds, punching each one lightly in the chest as he went and moving to the next one before any of his targets could take a swing at him. As he skidded to a halt several feet away, the soldiers gave each other confused looks, wondering what the heck that had all been about…

Until they spontaneously exploded in pillars of blue fire. The crystal grew ever brighter. "How is he doing this?!" the Magmortar from before, now the commanding officer in the base, shrieked in disbelief. "He's just one Pokemon! And blind! Kill him! KILL HIM!" The soldiers were a bit reluctant to do so, considering how many the Lucario had already defeated, but a few Flamethrowers to their tails convinced them it might be in their best interests to attack, even if they were just as likely to die.

Unimpressed, the Lucario made a series of complex hand movements. His body blurred, and suddenly there were five hat-wearing blindfolded Lucarios where one had been standing just a moment ago, all of them glowing with an eerie blue Aura! This impossibility stymied the troops for a moment, until one overconfident Quilava shouted, "It's a trick, one of those illusions or Double Team things! Get him!"

All five Lucario smirked and charged forward…and the army discovered, to their horror, that all of them were very much real, or at least capable of wiping the floor with them. As the soldiers either ran screaming or, driven onward by their superiors, struggled to engage the group of Aura fighters, one Lucario slipped away unnoticed and headed for the building where they kept the slaves locked up, trusting in his Substitutes to keep the base's population occupied for a few minutes.

The slaves, mostly Mt. Freeze locals who had been captured by the Monkey King's forces when they claimed this territory or Pokemon from other areas that had been transported up the mountainside for extra labor, looked up from their cramped bunks in surprise when the Lucario kicked the door open, letting in light as well as a much-needed gust of fresh air to clear out the stench of sweat and unwashed bodies forced to share too small a space. It didn't let in the cold, though, since it was already about as cold in the building as it was outside. The Monkey King's army didn't bother providing heating for Pokemon they considered disposable. "You're all free," the Lucario grunted in a deep, scratchy voice that brooked no arguments. "Let's go."

He ignored their cries of surprise and confusion and myriad frenzied questions, having little time for them seeing as how his clones had a limited lifespan and would only keep the soldiers occupied for so long. In an efficient, business-like manner which implied that he had done this sort of thing many times before (he had), he broke the chains binding them together, got everyone out of the barracks, assigned the stronger slaves to carry the children, elderly, and sick, and led them towards the palisade wall. All of this only took less than five minutes, and it might have been three if he hadn't paused for a moment to punch the earth and cause the pack of Chimchars that had been following him underground to burst out from their tunnels and get picked off by a few Aura Spheres.

Once they had reached the wall, the Lucario flicked a weak spot with one finger, causing an entire section of it to immediately disintegrate into wood dust. "Go," he said as the freed slaves gawked at what he had just done in disbelief. "Now. Get as far from here as possible." Trusting that they didn't need to be told that twice, he left them to their escape and rushed back to the battle just in time to see the last of his clones get felled by what was left of the Monkey King's army (which wasn't much, at this point). He felt a severe twinge of pain as his facsimile was destroyed, but ignored it, just as he had ignored the pain from the destruction of his other three Substitutes. He scaled the signal tower and stood on top of his scepter—noting, as he did so, that it was almost at full charge--just as the exhausted and relieved Magmortar said, "There! That's the last of them! That will teach those fools that no one, not even Aura Guardians, can defeat the Monkey King's forces!"

"Don't count me out yet," the Lucario called from his perch, causing the remaining soldiers to wheel around in shock and disbelief. "We Guardians are a bit more resilient than you'd think."

"H-he's immortal!" shrieked one excitable Cyndaquil. "We can't kill him!"

The Magmortar clouted the mouse/hedgehog thing hard enough to cave his head in. "Ridiculous! We killed the other four, now there's just him left to deal with! He'll fall in no time!"

The Lucario smirked. "That would be true…if the clones you hadn't just killed weren't only about a tenth as strong as I am. Each."

The soldiers gaped. "A-a tenth?!" the Magmortar cried in disbelief.

The Lucario nodded. "Yes, though I may be exaggerating. Plus, none of them could do THIS!" He made another set of complex hand motions…and suddenly his Aura ignited around him, surrounding his body in a blazing blue corona which abruptly wrenched itself off of him and transformed into a huge serpentine blue energy dragon which glared down at the soldiers with remorseless eyes of azure flame.

"Oh, COME ON!" the Magmortar yelled incredulously.

The Aura dragon bellowed loud enough to cause most of the soldiers to void themselves, then swooped down towards them. They screamed in terror and ran away as fast as they could. The dragon flew off in pursuit of them, destroying any building that might be in its path in the process.

However, not all of them went. "This is our chance to attack him, he can't retaliate while he's using his concentration to control that dragon! Burn him!" barked an Arcanine, hoping to earn himself some glory by killing the being who'd wiped out at least three-quarters of the troops stationed at Mt. Freeze. The few Pokemon that had stayed behind nodded in agreement, then fired Flamethrowers up at the signal tower, aiming for the immobile Lucario…

And were stunned when the blind Pokemon leaped off his scepter before the flames could hit him, causing the fire streams to consume Vulkus' corpse instead, and landed behind the attacking Pokemon. They gaped at him, stunned. "What?! H-how did you-" the Arcanine stammered.

The Lucario smirked. "What, you didn't really think I needed to concentrate that hard, did you?" They didn't get a chance to reply before he fired a ludicrously huge beam of blue Aura energy at them that looked like something out of Dragonite Ball Z (not that any of the soldiers watched it, being avid technophobes), vaporizing all of them in a flash. His energy dragon, its power not even remotely diluted by its master's brief distraction, continued terrorizing what was left of the soldiers and burning the base to the ground.

The Lucario smirked and glanced up at the crystal on his scepter, which glowed brighter with every barbarian soldier his dragon consumed. It just needed a little more power…

He cut off that thought and sidestepped out of the way of the rather large Overheat that had been about to charbroil him. "You!" the Magmortar corporal snarled from his position on the back of a very large, very angry, and very heavily armored War Camerupt. "You've ruined everything! The base, our slaves, our soldiers…the Monkey King will kill me for this!"

"Assuming you survive," the Lucario pointed out.

"I have no intention of leaving this world without taking you with me!" the Magmortar shouted. "FIRE!"

The Camerupt bellowed, steam rising from its red skin as it heated itself up. The twin volcanoes on its back spewed lava. The snow around the camel's feet melted. The beast opened its jaws and belched out a tremendous blast of fire which roared towards the Lucario…

Who blew on it. Just like that, it dissipated. The Magmortar's eyes bulged out of their sockets. "No! IMPOSSIBLE!"

Nearby, the dragon roared, rearing back its head as barracks crumbled around it and its victims lay before it in burning blue heaps of char. The Lucario glanced up and saw that the crystal on his scepter was glowing like a sapphire sun. "I believe we're done here." He reached out, and the scepter abruptly wrenched itself out of the signal tower (dropping the dead Vulkus in the process) and flew into his hand.

"Wait, what are you-" the Magmortar started as the Lucario slammed the butt of his staff on the ground once.

The escaping slaves fell over as the earth shook and the air screamed around them, the base they had just vacated vaporizing in a tremendous blast as a great blue mushroom cloud rose into the skies. They stared at the smoldering ruin they had been imprisoned in for the last several weeks in awe. "Whoa," a Smoochum said at last in a statement Leo would have completely agreed with. "That was awesome!"

The Lucario, completely untouched by the explosion, calmly walked out of the flames. His crystal was no longer glowing, having fully discharged all the purified Auras of the corrupt and evil barbarians its master had slain. Their energies would flow back into the universe and perhaps undo some of the evil they had wrought in life, and with any luck, the souls of the Monkey King's soldiers would be the better for it in their next incarnation. After glancing in the direction of the slaves he had freed to make sure that they were all okay, confident that they would be able to get to safety on their own, he turned his back on the blue flames which ravaged the blighted ground the military base had once been standing on, continuing his trek up the side of Mt. Freeze.

A few minutes later, several thousand tons of snow, dislodged by the explosion, tumbled down the mountainside in an avalanche and buried what was left of the compound, covering it in pristine whiteness and making it seem as if it had never been there.

Dude…that guy was totally badass, wasn't he? Oh, and Ash and the guys weren't bad either.

Now that you know Leo's backstory, what do you think of them? Think they have a chance against the dragon?

And who's the weird figure that's also inside the castle? Find out next time!