Chapter 11: The Final Departure
The two and a half months came and went almost as if they were never here to begin with since their departure from Vermilion city and it was time for the gang to meet up again for their final journey to the Pokémon league headquarters.
"Ahhh…", said Ash while en route back to Cerulean city to pick up Misty.
As Ash also had new clothing that his mother had made for him on this last and final journey. As his hat was about the same except the Pokéball was blue, his vest instead of a navy blue it was blood red, and his pants were still blue jeans, but they were adjusted to fit him in the length as he had grown taller. Finally his shoes where now black instead of red.
"Well at least you know what you have to look forward to when the journey's over", replied Brock.
As Brock's attire had changed too, but not as much as Ash for the final journey with his best friend. He had simply picked up the largest back pack for carrying supplies that he could find and picked up a pair of black all-purpose, go anywhere tennis shoes.
"Yeah, two kids and a job as a gym leader for the next couple of years and heck I even called Scott on that frontier brain offer", Ash said walking with his hands behind his head and Pikachu walking along side him.
"So you really are going to take on that even though you have no gym or structure to get it in?", asked Brock.
"Well yeah, I'm sure we shall work something out", replied Ash confidently.
"And we even managed to look up an old friend and get the house nearly finished and even get married, so we should have something to work with by the end of the championship."
About an hour later the two of them arrive at Cerulean gym.
-Ding!-
Ash and Brock walk into the gym waiting area and begin calling for Misty.
"Misty! It's time to go", called Ash to the relatively dead quiet gym.
"Hey Misty!", Brock called.
"Pikachu!", called Pikachu.
"I'm coming guys just give me a minute, I gotta make sure I have everything", replied Misty from a speaker nearby.
Misty appears at the stairwell with Azurill in her arms, Ash's jaw drops.
"Misty just what on earth are you wearing?", said Ash in a shocked tone.
Misty was wearing a very tight revealing shirt that showed off all of her features perfectly in every way, a skirt so short if it were any shorter you'd have a constant nosebleed just by looking at her and a pair of flip flops with her bag strapped over her left shoulder.
"Whatever do you mean Ash?", replied Misty confused.
Ash's brain clicked out of its pervert mode back into live mode and saw what she was really wearing.
She simply wore a pure white skirt that dropped below her knees, a black t-shirt with a green short shirt on top, and a pair of red tennis shoes with her trademark red sack strapped to her back.
(A/N: by now Misty is about 4 months and a week pregnant)
"Oh, nothing", replied Ash.
Misty gave him a knock on the head with her fist and said, "Stop that, now is most certainly not the time for jokes."
"I'm sorry, my love", replied Ash slyly as he gave her a quick peck on the lips.
"Shall we get going?", replied Brock with a scared look on his face.
"Yes let's, don't want to be late", replied Misty cheerfully as she grabbed Ash's arm and followed them out.
So Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, and Azurill made their way to Vermilion harbor where they would meet up with May and Dawn and start their final adventure together.
As Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, and Azurill were walking on Route 6, Misty felt a familiar chill shoot down the back of her spine. All of a sudden a Wurmple trot's out of the bushes looking for food and spots Misty; Misty hears the rumbling coming and creeps her head around to spot the little red worm coming right at her. The little worm leaps into the air and lands on her arm. She begins to run, scream, and wiggle her arms around trying to get it off, yelling ecstatically
"A bug, a bug, a bug, get it away, get it away, get it away, get it away."
She finally manages to dislodge it from her arms and grabs Ash's left arm while still crying her eyes out.
"Let's just hope the kids are not like this when they get older", Ash thought.
Azurill simply leaps from Misty's arms and shoots and water gun at it in an attempt to scare it. The water gun accidentally hits the little thing, and as it falls it lets out a loud cry.
"UH-OH, in all my experience as a trainer if I'm right I think we had better start running right about…", thought Ash.
Soon a loud buzzing could be heard from the distance, a semi-large swarm of Beedrill had appeared from the nearby forest. Azurill jumped back into Misty's arms.
"Uh guys…I don't suppose we have any repel right now do we?", asked Ash.
Both Misty and Brock shook their heads scared.
"Then maybe we should start running and try to get to town before they catch up, agreed?", asked Ash.
"Way ahead of you Ash", Brock yelled.
Brock had already begun to sprint ahead of the two of them.
"Well darling hang on tight", Ash declared as he picked up Misty bridal style and began running for everything he was worth.
Moments later he thought, "Hey why are we running, we are Pokémon trainers why don't we defend ourselves?"
Ash stopped turned around to face the squad and placed Misty on her feet and said, "Ok Misty get behind me I'll protect you, and you just stay put and keep yourself safe."
Misty nodded in acknowledgement, while her close friend and husband got ready to fight a small army.
"Infernape, let's go!", Ash declared.
"Infer-nape"
"Alright use flamethrower and go into fire spin to shield the Beedrill from us, and then use fire blast to push 'em back", Ash declared again.
"Nape, infer-nape", replied the fighting monkey prepared to fight off the swarm.
A stream of fire shot from Infernape, and then began to wrap the attack into a tornado trapping the Beedrill. Finally began charging up for his fire blast to knock them all out in one attack.
…
And out came the star of fire, as it impacted the tornado of fire it dissipated and the tornado collapsed. All of the Beedrill were burned to a crisp.
"Phew…that was a close one", said Ash and Misty as they breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ash can you not pick me up like that again, I don't have anything on underneath this skirt and I don't want you to hurt me or the babies if you trip and fall with me in your arms", said Misty as she began rubbing her slightly swollen stomach where the babies had begun to grow.
"Ok sure, whatever you want my love", replied Ash quietly.
"It's alright, don't worry about it, I won't be wearing this the entire time just at least until we get to the island, I had your mom fix me up a pair of jeans that I can wear, and they stretch too", said Misty cheerfully.
"Ok, well…shall we", said Ash as he recalled Infernape to his Pokéball and continued to walk with Misty hand in hand.
"So Ash where's Rilou", asked Misty?
"Well, Mr. Goodshow gave me a call last night and told me to not have him running around until we got on the boat, much less even have his Pokéball in sight, especially because of the incident that happened at the Sinnoh league, so Rilou is taking a nap in his Pokéball and is somewhere in my backpack", replied Ash.
"Also just before he said goodbye he mentioned that since they had given me Pokéball seals, I may as well change the way the actual Pokéball looks as well.
He had explained that the color and the design can be modified as we see fit and as long as we don't go overboard. He also said that every trainer we be getting one of these kits on the ship and has free use of it until we arrive at the island, also that we may keep the kit as long as we don't abuse its use or modify it in any way (without their approval of course)", continued Ash.
"Wow, they really must be serious if they don't want these Pokémon getting into the wrong hands", replied Misty.
"Yes, I think so too, just don't forget to figure out how you wanna make them look, because you will be doing them as well", said Ash.
"Everyone even has their own room on the ship, he said it's almost like a cruise liner", continued Ash.
"Oh", replied Misty with a depressed sigh.
"But don't worry I asked him to make special accommodations for us considering… well you know, so we shall have a room all to ourselves just as long as we don't make too much noise", replied Ash.
Brock stopped dead in his tracks; uh, what's the matter Brock, asked Ash as he turned around to look at Brock, but saw the impending doom that loomed only a few minutes away from them.
Ash looked pale and replied, "son of a…"
But the buzzing sound came in seconds later and muted their speech.
Ash thought for a second, and placed a hand on Misty's now petrified shoulder to calm her, took a notebook out of his backpack and wrote.
Can you make it rain?
Misty nodded rather hesitantly, and continued to write, Pikachu I need you to charge all the energy you can and launch a thunder with everything you've got, ok?
Pikachu also nodded and begun to charge energy, Misty placed Azurill down and signaled it to use the rain dance it had learned only days before, Brock grabbed their raincoats out of his bag and handed it to each of them to put on.
Azurill started the rain while Pikachu was still charging the swarm was within range to start attacking, but was still being rained on, "Come on just a few more seconds!" Ash thought.
Pikachu gestured that it had the power ready and was emanating a glow that covered his entire body and the surroundings light a mini light bulb. Pikachu looked at Ash and awaited his signal. Ash gestured as he would have if he were in a gym battle a Pikachu launched the omega thunder bolt into the sky, almost engulfing the path they were standing on. Seconds later after charging the sky the buzzing was overwhelmed by the thunder claps that they could speak and hear, but only a little bit.
The thunder bolt came down upon the upcoming swarm as they came almost close enough to make a direct strike on anyone, for about 30 sec. the swarm was electrocuted and it lit up the area with a yellow light.
As the electrocution continued Ash grabbed Misty and Brock and they all made a run for it, Pikachu grabbed Azurill and happily jumped on Ash's shoulder with what little energy was left in him and sighed very deeply, just as they reached the edge of the forest, a loud consistent crash could be heard.
"Woah that's a lot of Pokémon", Misty said as she grabbed Azurill.
"Well let's hope that the last we see of them", replied Ash with a scared tone.
"We better hurry and get to the docks we've wasted too much time here", replied Misty.
"Agreed", Ash and Brock said together.
About 30 min. later they arrived at Vermilion city harbor where they began searching for the ship that would be taking them to the island
"Excuse me!, where can we find the ship that goes to the Pokémon league headquarters?", Ash asked a local sailor.
"Yes, it will be at dock 42B section A", replied the sailor.
"Thank you, thank you very much", replied Ash as he gave the sailor a slight bow.
Next they began searching the port, "on 42B…42B…42B…ah, forty…two…B?", Ash said as their hearts dropped like a ton of bricks.
"That's the ship! It's a piece of shit", said Misty.
"That's not even big enough for the three of us let alone a ship full of young adults; I thought you said it was a cruise ship not a hunk of garbage."
They all let out a deep sigh and look down at the pier.
"Wait what section did that sailor say, section A right?", asked Brock.
"Yeah, wait this is section Z, let's turn around and check the rest of this platform for the ship", replied Misty.
The three of them turn around (in slow motion) and each of their hearts dropped before becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
"Wow", they all said at once.
"Ash!",
"Misty!",
"Brock!", said a familiar voice as it called out each of their names again.
They each looked in the general direction of the voice and saw May, Dawn, Blaziken and Piplup waving at them cheerfully.
"Hey! It's been a while, and Dawn nice outfit, really suits you", said Ash as they ran over to meet one another.
Dawn was wearing a black under shirt with a red top, black skirt, and black stockings with a pair of red tennis shoes.
"Oh Ash before I forget, Professor Rowan gave me these before I left from Twinleaf town, there's one for each of us", said Dawn as she pulled out a suitcase almost too big for her to even think about carrying and slowly removed the contents and handed them out.
"Wow what is it?", asked Brock.
"Well, it's supposed to mark our Pokéballs' with a bio reader coating so that once its coded with our DNA anyone whom we don't trust that touches the Pokéball (even with a device) is zapped with many volts of electricity", replied Dawn
"So, even more protection for our Pokémon, they are really pulling out all the stops", replied Misty.
"What do you mean by that", asked Dawn.
"Well…", said Ash as he began to explain what he was told by Mr. Goodshow.
As Ash finished up an announcement came up, "Attention, attention, to all passengers boarding the S.S. Eclipse, please make your way to the loading dock and prepare to board, the ship we be departing within the hour, again the P.A. system broadcasted with a repeat following the first.
"Well we had better get on board then", replied Ash.
