Ok, well, it's not exactly 5000 words, but it's close enough to what I wanted. I'm still trying to get chapters up faster, not as fast as it used to be (1 chapter a day), but around 2 chapters a week is my goal. Doing that is kinda hard seeing as exams are coming up soon, but I'll try!

Enjoy!

Red looked at his opponent from his side on the arena, seeing the look of determination on his face, and even the slight overconfidence. The man had been trained by the league to remove overconfidence, but old habits die hard.

As Red studied his opponent, his opponent did the same, feeling a vague feeling of recognition. Had he battled this man before? Possibly, he had battled many people – and beaten them all, he added as an afterthought.

The two trainer locked gazes, watching each other carefully, preparing for the intense battle ahead. The referee, noticing that the two were ready, started to signal the beginning of the battle.

"This will be a three-on-three Pokémon battle between Red of Pallet Town and Takuto of Alamos town! There will be no time limit and substitutions are not allowed! Trainers, send out your Pokémon!"

"Pikachu, it's your turn buddy!" Red shouted, as Pikachu jumped from his shoulder, onto the battlefield, with a look of fierce determination to win in his eyes.

Takuto smiled before saying, "Celebi, I am requesting your assistance!"

Red, of course, was stunned by this. His trainer record hadn't shown Celebi, and even if he had Celebi, where was she?

Suddenly, as if in answer to Red's question, a time portal tore itself onto the battlefield on Takuto's side, as Celebi flew out of it, a smile on her face.

"B-But… How? I thought Celebi wouldn't be captured, and she certainly did not show up on your trainer record! Nice to see you again by the way, Celebi." Red said, still stunned by the fact that Takuto was using Celebi.

"It's quite simple actually. I know how good you are, and I didn't want to take any risks, so I asked Celebi if she would help me out here, seeing as she owes me a favour." Takuto replied, clearly disinterested and looking forward to the battle. "May we continue?"

Red simply nodded and turned to Pikachu, before saying, "Pikachu, let's go, S technique!"

Pikachu then seemingly disappeared, before appearing a few metres closer to Celebi, disappearing, moving again, disappearing, but then moving BACKWARDS, completely confusing the spectators.

Takuto, however, was not fooled, knowing that Pikachu was probably using a combination of Quick attack and Agility to seemingly shimmer out of existence to confuse his opponent. "Celebi, Future Sight, followed up with Psychic!"

Celebi did exactly that, with the Future Sight predicting an attack, but with the side effect of finding out exactly where Pikachu was going to move next. Celebi then proceeded to grab Pikachu with a powerful Psychic attack, suspending the poor, confused rodent in mid-air, then proceeding to fling him into the air.

Ash however, was prepared for a Psychic attack, and he and Pikachu had trained to get rid of it from their weaknesses.

"Pikachu, Slam Shock-Tail!"

Takuto was unable to respond to this, seeing as he had no idea what would happen, so all he could do was to wait and be ready.

Pikachu spun in mid-air using the momentum of an iron tail attack, before shooting down towards the stadium with a powerful slam attack, before disappearing from sight, startling Celebi, and reappearing behind her. Celebi turned around, but was not fast enough, as Pikachu slammed his now electrically charged tail into Celebi's face, sending her flying into the ground.

"Sorry!" Red shouted, with a sincere tone in his voice. Red had had a run in with Celebi, and it wasn't in his nature to hurt friends, but he had on other choice.

As Pikachu landed gracefully onto the floor, he convulsed in pain as he was hit by the violent Future Sight attack. It didn't do as much damage as the Slam Shock-Tail, but it still hurt nonetheless.

"Press forward, Celebi, use hyper beam while Pikachu is on the floor!" Takuto shouted, finally saying something after watching the combo Pikachu pulled off with a stunned look on his face, clearly not expecting his Pokémon to be hit so easily.

Celebi grinned, charging up a hyper beam, while Pikachu lay on the floor, still recovering from the Psychic attack.

She fired the beam, and with a tremendous BOOM, the whole arena was clouded with black smoke, the audience expecting the Pikachu to have stood no chance against the powerful attack.

Red however, knew better and simply stood there smiling, before shouting, "Pikachu, Volt tackle!"

Takuto was wondering why Red was still calling orders to his Pokémon when it clearly was either fainted or exhausted from the damage. However, completely contrasting his thoughts, Pikachu came running out of the smoke, surrounded by lightning, as he chanted, "PikaPikaPikaPikaPika". To Takuto, it sounded like a chant of doom, knowing Celebi wouldn't be able to move and would have to take the attack head-on, which would damage Celebi considerably.

Pikachu slammed into Celebi with enormous force, knocking her down to the ground, twitching with electricity flowing through her.

"But… How? That hyper beam should've been a direct hit, how could Pikachu come out unscathed?" Takuto said, with a tone of sheer disbelief in his voice.

"Protect." Red said, smirking as he saw Takuto's eyes widen as the man realized his fatal flaw – overconfidence.

"Pikachu, thunder, let's finish this!"

Pikachu nodded, his cheeks sparking as he shot a powerful bolt of electricity towards Celebi, which was joined by an even stronger bolt of electricity from the sky.

Takuto was desperately looking for a way out of this, when he suddenly thought of an idea.

"Quick Celebi, double team!" He shouted, hoping Celebi had recovered enough by now to hear him.

Celebi groaned in pain, but complied, splitting into many more copies, which then proceeded to surround Pikachu, whose bolt had only managed to take down one illusion. Even surrounded, Pikachu didn't look scared in the slightest.

Red also didn't look scared, but instead looked happy, as if one of his plans had gone perfectly. "Ahh, perfect, you've played right into my hand! Pikachu, use counter shield, let's finish this battle!"

Takuto's eyes widened again at hearing the unfamiliar move, and as such could only watch with surprise as Pikachu spun around on his back, emitting lightning around him, taking down all the illusions and shocking the real one.

Celebi fell to the ground, swirls for eyes, as she warped back through time to a place where she could rest, her debt repaid.

Red smiled, about to congratulate and thank Pikachu, when Pikachu also fell over, fainted. Red gasped in shock, unable to comprehend why Pikachu had fainted.

Takuto however, smiled knowingly. "Don't think you're the only smart one here. A little bit before, when the battlefield was obscured with smoke, I decided to play it safe and psychically told Celebi to use a perish song, just in case Pikachu made it out."

Red nodded, acknowledging his opponents smart strategy, as he walked towards the field to pick up his old buddy, who looked disheartened at the fact that he had also fainted, even though he had beaten a legendary Pokémon. Red muttered some words of encouragement to Pikachu, before returning to his place on the field, pulling out a Pokeball and enlarging it.

Takuto smiled once again, seeing the close bond the two shared, as he pulled out and enlarged his own Pokeball.

The referee, however, was looking forward to returning to his room to watch random, generic, mind-rotting cartoons, and decided to hurry along the match.

"Trainers, please send out your second Pokémon!"

Red threw his Pokeball onto the field, along with Takuto's, as two Pokémon burst out of the balls, rapidly changing from a beam of aura, into a Pokémon.

On Takuto's side, the aura changed into a shape similar to that of a scrunched up towel, with a large white crest-like thing coming out of its head, and a red crest around its neck. It was pitch black – the colour of the night.

On Red's side came a green, lizard-like figure, which had a narrow head with two crests on top and a huge, bushy, spiky tail, along with two sharp leaves on each arm, resembling blades. Along its back were six yellow seeds pods.

The nightmare Pokémon looked at its opponent, looking forwards to a fair rematch, and the forest Pokémon was doing the same.

Takuto, wanting to take the initiative in this battle, quickly shouted, "Darkrai, end this quickly with dark void!"

Red however, was expecting this, and even as the dark energy made its way towards Sceptile, intending to incapacitate it by putting it to sleep, he stayed calm.

"Sceptile, stop it with Sunny Day!" Red said, knowing that the light would cancel out the darkness of the Dark Void, and even if Sceptile was put to sleep, he would wake up instantly due to the internal clock inside most grass-type Pokémon.

Sceptile fired and orb of light from his seeds, which flew into the sky, illuminating the whole arena with harsh sunlight. The Dark Void seemed to cower in the light, and Red could swear he could hear it shriek in pain as it was banished by the sunlight.

Takuto frowned, knowing the battle was going to be much harder seeing as he couldn't put Sceptile to sleep. If he could find a way to take down the sunny day though maybe he could…

Takuto was lost in thought, trying to think of a way to stop the sunny day, while Sceptile was charging at Darkrai with a mix of Quick Attack and Leaf Blade. Darkrai was worried, looking at Takuto, as he didn't know what to do. Should he evade attack? Parry the attack?

Takuto's eyes lit up, as he snapped his fingers and started, "Darkrai Rain Da-"before noticing the predicament. He was too late however, and Darkrai was knocked back by a powerful dual leaf blade.

Darkrai, pushed to the edge of the arena, grunted in pain, before countering with an instinctive dark pulse, which knocked Sceptile back a little, but ultimately didn't do too much lasting damage.

Now Takuto really was worried, knowing that there was a very real chance of him losing this battle. Losing two in a row would be bad for his image, but he never ran out of ideas.

"Darkrai, Nasty Plot!" He shouted, hoping to boost Darkrai's Special Attack enough for it to do some real damage to the very resistant Sceptile.

Ash grunted, facing towards Sceptile, before simply saying, "Boost up."

Sceptile nodded, closing his eyes as he performed a dual Swords dance and Agility attack, giving him a boost only otherwise obtainable by two dragon dances.

Red nodded in the direction of Takuto, before saying, "I think it's time to end this."

Takuto nodded in response, "Indeed it is."

Together, they shouted towards their Pokémon, "Sceptile/Darkrai, Leaf Blade/Dark Pulse!"

Sceptile began running towards Darkrai at an incredible speed, raising his two blades, while Darkrai prepared a Dark pulse.

Moments before Darkrai released the Dark Pulse, Red shouted, "Sceptile, Agility-Detect!"

Sceptile seemed to teleport behind Darkrai, making a show of dodging the Dark Pulse… which then proceeded to hit him a moment late, sending him flying towards the wall.

Red was actually surprised for the first time. He hadn't expected this to happen, but then again, it made him remember how fun Pokémon battles were and why he used to participate in them.

That didn't mean he didn't have a counter though, "Sceptile, Leaf Storm, full power! Put everything you have into one last effort, please!"

Sceptile complied, firing hundreds, maybe thousands of leaves towards the startled Darkrai, who was directly hit by them and knocked out. Moments later, Sceptile slammed into the wall of the arena, thus being knocked out as well.

The two trainers returned their Pokémon, knowing fully well the next battle would determine who would proceed past the preliminary rounds.

"Ahh Ho-oh. Tracking down your servants to summon you took a while, but here you are, in all your magnificence. Ho-oh looked quite proud for a moment, before remembered who this person was, and firing a sacred fire towards her.

The girl just stood there and waved her hand, extinguishing the oxygen the fire needed to burn, thus extinguishing it.

Ho-oh looked in awe at the girl – No other human had managed to do THAT before. However, that didn't excuse her for the act of capturing her servants and threatening her, and she sped towards the girl, spinning into a drill peck, intending to kill her.

Leaf just waved her hand again, stopping Ho-oh in mid-air, as the great phoenix squawked in surprise.

"Hey, that wasn't very nice, was it?" She said, a smirk on her face."

She then simply flicked her wrist, and Ho-oh was sent crashing to the floor. She walked up to the phoenix, and said, "Just surrender, it'll make it easier for both of us."

Ho-oh, sensing that the girl's intentions were not pure, but instead, were tainted with evil, roared in anger, sending a powerful Sacred Fire attack at the girl. At point blank range, Ho-oh was sure that the attack would kill the girl, as it engulfed her completely.

Instead, the fire cleared, revealing Leaf standing there, completely untouched by the fire.

"Was that meant to hurt?" She said, grinning, before unleashing a huge psychic attack, utterly disabling Ho-oh and sending her onto the ground writhing in extreme pain, as Leaf walked up to her and tapped her on the head with a Pokeball.

And thus Ho-oh and her servants fell.

"Welcome back folks, to the final battle of the preliminary rounds, and what a battle it's turning out to be! Both trainers are down two Pokémon, and Takuto has amazingly shown us TWO powerful Legendary Pokémon, while Red has shown us Pokémon that are equally as strong, being able to draw even with the legends! This truly is a battle of the legends, and if what I'm expecting is right, the real battle has just begun!"

"Well, well, well. Isn't that Takuto boy the person who defeated Ash in the semi-finals of the Sinnoh league? I guess Ash is finally going to get his revenge." Professor Oak said quietly, watching the television screen which was currently showing the final battle of the Tournament of Arceus preliminaries.

Red threw his Pokeball, with a very dramatic and impressive pose, which ended with the Pokeball flying onto the field, falling onto the floor with an anti-climactic "Clunk".

Red muttered a curse under his breath, as moments later the air shimmer above the Pokeball, revealing an impressive red and white dragon-like Pokémon, Latias.

"Oops. Guess I forgot she wasn't in her Pokeball." he explained to everyone else, most of whom sweatdropped upon hearing this.

"Riiiiight," Takuto said, with a confused look on his face. The boy in front of him seemed so serious, yet here he was, like a little kid who had made a mistake.

Nonetheless, he threw out his own Pokeball, which exploded in flames as it burst open, making a far more climatic and dramatic entrance than Red's, as a similar dragon-like Pokémon came out of the Pokeball, except it was blue and white, instead of red and white. It was Latios.

The two eon twins looked at each other, both of them seeing their own counterpart. They looked at each other with a look of interest in their eyes, until they prepared for the upcoming battle and tensed into battle positions.

"No using recover, alright? Otherwise the battle will drag on for far too long." Red asked, mentally preparing himself for the upcoming battle.

"Agreed. Why don't you begin?" Takuto replied, also preparing himself.

Red nodded, before saying, "Your mistake."

Suddenly, Latias disappeared from sight and began speeding towards Latios, before seeming to stop in front of Latios, who then proceeded to fire an energy ball at Takuto's command, which slammed into Latias, creating a cloud of smoke.

Latias, however, was behind Latios, and the one that he had hit was a substitute. Latias used the moment she had to fire a powerful dragon pulse at Latios' back, causing him to fall to the ground in pain.

Takuto raised his eyebrow in surprise, clearly not expecting this. "Telepathy eh? Not even I have managed to be able communicate to Latios through telepathy yet. I take my hat off to you."

Red merely acknowledged the compliment with a smile, before Latias charged towards the fallen Latios, charging up a shadow claw.

"Latios, safeguard!" Takuto shouted, as Latios was surrounded by a blue bubble-like barrier, upon which Latias hit, but couldn't penetrate.

"Now retaliate with Psychic!"

Latios' eyes glowed blue, as a similar blue outline surrounded Latias, immobilizing her, as Latios prepared to throw her to the ground.

Latias' claws began to glow blackish, as she thrust them out in a show of strength and willpower, breaking out of the psychic attack. She then sped towards the surprised Latios, slashing him across the chest with the shadow claw.

Latios was not out, however, and retaliated with a powerful close range dragonbreath attack, damaging Latias, but not as bad as Latios currently was.

Then, Latios, using a combination of Dragon Dance, Substitute and Double Team created at least three rings of copies surrounding Latias. The rings constantly moved back and forth making anyone who looked at it dizzy.

Latias however, was unfazed, and released tentacle-like beams of light, which impaled all of the copies, hitting the real one as well.

However, due to the dragon dance, Latios recovered quickly, charging at Latias with a powered up dragon claw, which struck her directly in the chest, doing a significant amount of damage thanks to Dragon Dance.

Latias fired a point blank mist ball at Latios, which exploded, covering the arena in… well… mist. Incidentally, Latios felt his powers being drained by the mist, but could see no way out of the mist.

"Latios, use hyper beam!" Takuto shouted, hoping that Latios would be able to detect Latias, even in the psychically charged mist, which served to both drain and hinder Latios' psychic powers.

Latios, however, managed to find Latias and fire a hyper beam at her. Latias retaliated by firing a hyper beam of her own, culminating in a huge explosion in the middle of the battlefield.

After what seemed like an eternity, the smoke cleared, revealing… Latios on the floor, fainted, with Latias seemingly unhurt from the final attack.

"B-But how?" Takuto said, clearly stunned by the fact that he had lost. HIM, the champion of Sinnoh, had lost to a nobody!

Red, finally snapping out of his trance, replied by saying, "Simple. Firstly, Latios' hyper beam was weakened by the mist ball, so Latias' was more powerful, resulting in Latios taking more damage from the two attacks. Secondly, Latias also used safeguard to negate most of the damage, before hitting Latios in the back with a shadow claw."

Takuto dropped his head, "I lost… I had three legendary Pokémon fighting for me… and I still lost…"

"Indeed you did. You still don't understand that even though a Pokémon is legendary, it can still be defeated, just like any other Pokémon." Red said, before walking out of the arena, the cheering crowd behind him.

As Red walked out of the arena, Takuto continued to stand there, and the longer he stood there, with the crowd cheering his opponent and ignoring or pitying him, the more his anger grew.

As his anger peaked, he raised his head, the fire of vengeance in his eyes.

"I will get my revenge… Be warned, Red, I am coming for you…" He said quietly, swearing to himself that he'd never give up until he got his revenge. But how could he get it?

"I can help you get that revenge… I can help you kill Red."

'Counter shield… Counter shield… Where have I heard that move before? I swear I've heard it before, it sounds so familiar! Is it one of Max's moves…? No… May's? Nah… maybe it's one of Dawn's! I don't think so… Wait a second… Isn't that… Ash's move… Of course! But then how does Red know it? And how come he seems so familiar… Is Ash back?' Brock thought, once again going into one of his philosophical trances to think. Everyone was either training, or in Tracey and Gary's case, had mysteriously disappeared… again.

'Nah… I'm probably overreacting. Maybe he saw Ash's Pikachu use the move on TV sometime and decided to use it. Yeah, that must be it.' He thought, deciding to drop the issue before he spent too long thinking about it.

Just as he thought that, he heard a gasp of astonishment from outside his window.

As Brock walked out of the Pokémon centre and into the clearing behind it, he too gasped with astonishment. On the ground in front of Max and May, was an Articuno, a very injured Articuno, but an Articuno nonetheless.

"W-What's an Articuno doing here?" Brock asked.

"I don't know! It just flew in here, and collapsed." May replied, slightly stuttering as she did.

"Wow! An Articuno! I'm going to catch it, and then I'll be able to win the tournament! Yeah, it's already weakened so all I have to do is catch it!" Max shouted, pulling a Pokeball off his belt.

Max threw the ball at the injured Pokémon, but before it could hit the Articuno, it was enveloped by a blue outlined, and then exploded, the bits and pieces littering the floor.

"I wouldn't do that."

The voice was calm, but imposing. The owner of the voice was soon discovered as a figure walked out from the trees, an Espeon by her side.

"Leaf! What are you doing here?" Max shouted, angry because Leaf had stopped him from catching a legendary Pokémon.

"Claiming my reward." She said, just as calm as before.

Max stood there dumbly, not knowing what she meant. May, however, saved him from embarrassment from saying, "What? No! You can't take Articuno like you captured Entei! I won't let you!"

She then fired a burst of Psychic energy at Leaf, trying to smash her face into the ground, but for some reason, the energy backfired, blowing her backwards as she clutched her head, which felt like it was about to explode.

"I have powers you could only dream of, little girl. Do not challenge me. I can crush your mind with a single thought; destroy everything that is you with a flick of my wrist. Don't tempt me.", said a voice in her head. Every word made May's head throb painfully, as if every word was a hammer strike driving a nail into her head.

As Max saw May writhing in pain on the ground, he noticed Leaf seemed to be concentrating entirely on May. Taking the opportunity, Max ran at the girl, forming two blades on his two arms, and slashed forwards at her face.

Leaf simply flicked her wrist in his direction, not even turning to look at him as he flew backwards, before slamming into a tree and falling unconscious.

Brock snapped out of his trance, and looked towards the girl.

"I may not have any powers like they do, but I have my Pokémon!" He shouted, throwing his Pokeball at her, "Forretress, Explosion!"

After the dual bug/steel Pokémon burst out of its Pokeball, it started spinning and flying towards Leaf, preparing to blow up.

"Aww, did Reddy decide you weren't good enough to get powers? Poor boy, if only you knew his secret." Leaf said in a teasing tone, before the bagworm Pokémon exploded next to her, covering the area with thick, black smoke.

Smoke which she cleared with a single thought, before psychically throwing the Pokémon at Brock, which then slammed into him, with the surprised look still on his face, pushing both of them onto the wall of the Pokémon centre, knocking them out cold.

"Pathetic. Oh well, time to claim my prize." Leaf said, taking out a pokeball and capturing Articuno, before walking back into the forest.

A few minutes later, Ash ran into the clearing. Seeing three of his "friends" sprawled on the floor unconscious he angrily said, "Damnit! I was too late!"

Ash had come running to the clearing after hearing (And seeing) a large explosion. Seeing the ice on the floor, he had figured Leaf had captured another legendary Pokémon, namely Articuno.

"Damnit… How am I going to explain this to Arceus?"

Random note: My ultimate goal is to get a 10k word chapter.