Time Gears - I
Steam Cave
5:45PM
"It sure is hot in here." Ash commented while wiping off a bead of sweat that was starting to form. The party had just entered the cave, but they could already feel the change in the temperature. The atmosphere felt dry, and heat could be felt entering their lungs with every breath they take. "Huh.. Wouldn't want to fall in that." Said Ash while pointing to a nearby water pool that seemed to be boiling.
While making their way through the naturally made maze, the party encountered a number of Pokémon living in the cave. It was apparent that the cave and the Pokémon living inside it had made little to no previous contacts with humans.
"There seems to be a lot of fire type Pokémon here." Max spontaneously commented.
"You don't say, little guy?" Carmine sarcastically replied.
"Who're you calling little guy, helmet wearing freak?" Max retorted.
"Whoa, sorry, I didn't know you were so sensitive about it. It was just a little joke. Lighten up, will you?" Carmine apologized, which seemed to be a genuine one.
"I'll have you know, freak, that not only I'm not a little guy, but I also qualified for the Grand Conference! And at such a young age!" the trainer from Petalburg confidently claimed.
"Is he always like this?" Carmine asked while turning his head in the direction of the rest of the party.
Brock laughed and shrugged. "You'll get used to it."
"Ah, wonderful." Carmine laughed it off and walked on ahead, now beside Ash.
"Done with your idle chatters?" Ash asked.
"Well, I guess. Why?" Carmine answered.
"We've got a split here." Ash replied while pointing to the two paths in front of them. "I'm guessing we'll have to split up."
"It seems so." Carmine walked up to the path on the right, "I'm taking this path. Anyone want to come with me?"
Ash, in response, approached the path on the left. "Guess I'll be going here."
"Then I'm taking the left one also." Cynthia promptly responded.
"Then I, Dawn and Max will take the right one, with Carmine. Right guys?" Brock replied almost immediately. Max agreed, while Dawn gave a little bit of a protest.
"But Brock, I wanted to go with Ash!"
Brock grabbed Dawn's shoulder and dragged her towards Carmine and Max. "Yeah, yeah, plenty of time to catch up later. We'll see you guys at the top!"
Ash smiled and waved, followed by his Pikachu doing the same thing. "Be careful on your way up."
The couple walked down the maze in no hurry, seemingly wanting to cherish the chance to be alone that was given to them. "It's been a while since it's just the two of us." Said Ash, breaking the silence first.
"Yeah, things have been kind of.. hectic." Cynthia replied.
The two walked some more, with Ash catching Cynthia taking glimpses at him a couple of times. "Something wrong, Cynthia?" he asked.
"Oh, no, not really." She answered. "I was just wondering if you've been okay.. Ever since that.. you know. Ever since Dr. Raito died."
Ash smiled and avoided her gaze. "It's been hard, sure. But I want to move on. I have to move on. And if I don't succeed in stopping Cyrus.. I'm scared that his death would have been in vain." He answered, his voice cracking. "There hasn't been a day where I don't regret being so careless that day."
Cynthia looked at Ash and saw that he was holding in his tears. She held his hand and leaned against him. " You don't have to hold it in, you know.. Men can cry too."
Ash cleared his throat and looked at Cynthia. He patted her head while smiling. "Thanks, Cynthia."
The two continued the rest of their walk in silence, before finally witnessing sunlight from the end of the cave.
They exited the cave, to see a rocky clearing leading to a small path. The path seemed to make its way to a body of water. "That must be Fogbound Lake up ahead." Ash said. "We should hurry."
Right as they were about to step on the path, a tremor appeared. They stepped back from the path, only to see a large, red Pokémon emerging from seemingly nowhere. A massive, bipedal, dinosaur-like creature with a gray underside and covered in red, segmented plates of thick skin which act as armor stood in front of them, ready to crush them within a moment's notice.
The place had suddenly risen in temperature, along with the appearance of the Pokémon, which Ash had figured to be the guardian of the lake that he had read from the reports he found.
The two were frozen in place. The Pokémon had four claws on each hand, three claws on each foot, and four dozer-like blades on the end of its large tail. Ash had seen this Pokémon before. "Impossible.. One of the three weather trio.." He thought to himself.
"Impossible! Why is Groudon here?" Cynthia whispered to Ash while stepping back from the legendary fire Pokémon.
"How am I supposed to know that? I'm as shocked as you are!" Ash replied. He was also stepping back cautiously, careful to not anger the Groudon. However, it was all too late. The Groudon raised one of its arms and smashed in onto the ground, causing debris to fly towards them. Instinctively, Ash dove towards Cynthia to cover her from said debris.
Ash recovered quickly, and grabbed one of his Pokeball. "Tsch, it seems I have no choice." He threw the Pokeball high in the air to have it release his Pokémon. "Salamence, go!" he shouted. The Pokeball proceeded to reveal a blue dragon type Pokémon. "Dragonbreath!" he shouted once more, instructing his Salamence.
The blue dragon let out a powerful beam from its mouth, hitting the legendary Pokémon on the belly. The Groudon groaned, however, regaining its footing shortly after. Groudon opened its mouth, revealing a shiny ball of light, ready to be released. "It's going to use Solarbeam! Salamence, get out of the way, it can shoot the Solarbeam right away because of the drought it brings about!" Ash instructed his Salamence without any hesitation. The Groudon fired its Solarbeam, however, Salamence dodged it with amazing reflexes. "Quick, follow up with another Dragonbreath!" the trainer shouted.
The Salamence released its Dragonbreath attack, but to no avail. The attack went right through the Groudon. It looked like the Groudon vanished into thin air for a millisecond, but then returned again. "What.. What is this!" said Ash in disbelief. The Groudon flickered a couple more times, before disappearing completely. "What the hell just happened?" he uttered, still not understanding what he had just seen.
"Thanatos! Are you alright?" A person from behind asked while running towards him. It was Carmine and the others.
"Ah, Carmine.. Yeah, I'm fine." Ash answered while looking at Cynthia, seemingly regaining her composure.
"What was that Pokémon just now? Was that a Groudon?" Carmine asked with great curiosity.
"Apparently it was.. It just disappeared though." Ash answered with a low voice. "I don't know myself."
Carmine looked around and shrugged. "Ah, your arm, it's bleeding." He said while pointing at Ash's arm. "That's quite the wound you got there."
"Ah, you're right." Said Ash, just noticing the wound he got. "I must've gotten it when that bloody thing hurled rocks at us."
"Let me see!" Cynthia pushed Carmine aside and immediately tried to bandage up his arm with the first aid kit she had brought for the round. "You've lost so much blood!" she cried in worry.
"Ah, I'll be fine." Ash smiled to her while letting her treat his arm. "It's much better than letting a lady's face get injured." He commented casually while patting her head.
Cynthia immediately looked down to hide her beet red face upon hearing his comment, and protested. "You idiot.. You're so smug! Trying to act like a cool knight!"
"Well, it seems like they'll be fine." Said Carmine while letting out a sigh. Brock returned to his invisible corner for another round of insta-depression.
Fogbound Lake
6:15 PM
Now reunited, the party continued on the path and arrived on Fogbound Lake. The sun was beginning to set and can be seen over the horizon of the lake. Far in the center of the lake was a green metallic object, shining over the lake. "This view isn't half bad." Said Ash while looking for a place to sit down. His Pikachu agreed, jumping off his shoulder and walking to the edge of the lake. "Be careful Pikachu, you don't want to fall in the lake." Ash warned his best friend.
"Hey, Thanatos." Carmine tapped Ash's shoulder. "There's something coming over there." He pointed at the path they went through earlier, noticing a presence of a Pokémon hidden somewhere in the path. "Quickly, place the Master Balls somewhere so the others can find it. I'll try to stall this Pokémon if it comes out." Whispered Ash to Carmine. The former Galactic member quickly jumped into the shallow shore of the lake and pretended to look for something.
"What are you doing, Carmine?" Max asked upon seeing Carmine looking for something in the water.
"The objective, whatever it was." Carmine answered.
"Then count us in to help." Brock said while coming over to help, followed by Dawn and Cynthia.
The trainers looked for the objective all over the place before Carmine thought it was a good time to drop some of the Master Balls, letting Max find one of them. Excited, Max shouted loud to tell everyone of his findings. The others, now aware what to look for, followed suit to look for other precious balls. Not long after, they had found all the Master Balls scattered around by Carmine.
"This is a precious item, isn't it?" Cynthia commented while inspecting the Master Ball she found.
"I hope they let us keep it!" said Max in excitement.
"Ash, Carmine, have you found it yet?" Brock asked.
"Not yet." Ash answered. "Tell you what, why don't you guys go on ahead and finish this round, we'll be right behind you. I'm sure you guys are all tired. We're probably going to find it sooner anyway, we'll be right behind you."
After some convincing pretty words from Ash, the rest had finally agreed to leave first. Now left alone with Carmine, the two looked at the object at the center of the lake.
"So that must be the Time Gear." Said Ash while stretching his back.
"Yeah. Strangely mythical, isn't it?" Carmine added.
"So you are after the Time Gear." A voice came from behind them. "I'm afraid I cannot let you do that."
The two turned around to see a Gardevoir approaching them. "So it was you, the one who was hiding in the path." Ash said while walking towards the psychic Pokémon. "But rest assured, we're not here to take the Time Gear. Rather, we're here to protect it."
"I find that hard to believe." The Gardevoir answered.
"Is this Gardevoir speaking to us via telepathy?" Carmine asked in confusion.
"Yeah, it's not that uncommon for psychic Pokémon."
Ash explained the situation to the guardian of the lake. About Cyrus, the Time Gears, and how many trainers are going to come up to the lake in search for something. Believing the story told, the Gardevoir agreed to hand out Master Balls to the trainers who made it to the lake after fighting the Groudon, who the two learned, to be an illusion made by the Gardevoir to protect the lake from unwanted guests.
"So it was you who took the Time Gear from Treeshroud Forest?" The Gardevoir asked while looking at Carmine.
"Yes. At that time, I was still under Cyrus' commands. No longer will I be a dog for Team Galactic." He answered. "That is why, after this, Thanatos and I are going to Treeshroud Forest to return the gear to its rightful place."
The Gardevoir turned to them and made an expression that looked like a smile. "Please do so. And let us hope time will return to the Forest."
After apologizing for the ruckus and trouble, the two headed back to the resting point to stash in their Master Balls.
"Aah, that took quite a while." Said Ash after finally being done from the formalities of the second Round. He was now through to the third round, which consists of Pokémon battles among the 24 trainers left in the competition. Finally, he thought.
"Shame they didn't let us keep the Master Balls." Max said in disappointment. "I really hoped they would. I mean, think of the possibilities! We can catch anything we want with that thing! Man, they're so stingy." The young trainer kicked a pebble in response.
"At least they provided transportation back to the hotels." Brock added while checking his map. "But I didn't know they had a road leading up to this place." He looked around to check which route the transports were going to take them.
"They don't." Carmine chimed in. "It's going to be off-road. Bumpy."
"So when's the next round going to start?" Ash asked while taking out his Pokedex.
Brock looked at the tournament schedule he had in his pack. "In four days, I think."
"Hey, Ash!" Dawn called Ash after being quiet for some time. "You still haven't told us how you're still alive, and where you've been for the last four years. I think it's time to do some explaining, mister."
"Ah, well.. I'll tell you about that later. Right now, I have to go somewhere." Ash answered as he got up. "Let's go Carmine."
"Lead on, boss." Said Carmine as he walked with Ash.
"Ash, where are you going?" Cynthia asked.
"I'll tell you later! See you in a couple of days!" He replied while waving.
"Geez.. He always disappears like that."