By the time Ash wrestled his eyes open the next day it was nearly lunch and the first thought he had was that he'd forgotten to call his mom. Still bleary eyed, he left Eacus and the rest of his team in the bed with the surprisingly chipper Bacchus to watch over them and spent the next half hour or so at the phone kiosks, reassuring his mother that he had not been effected by the blackouts or temporary forest fire the rolling storms had caused. He also told her about his new Pokemon, named after an old moniker for Cobalion, but it somehow seemed to slip his mind to explain the exact circumstances in which the Houndour was obtained. He was sure it had nothing to do with his mother reacting badly to hearing about the danger he willingly put himself in.
Finished, he made to stumble back to bed only to be accosted by all of his Pokemon in desperate need of food. By the time they, and he, finished their meals he felt more alive and was more than ready to go back on the road.
About half an hour into walking the group had to stop. Little Eacus was having significant trouble keeping up with the rest of the group, and no one could carry him as they were all resting their arms for Triton (who was becoming increasingly heavy) and battles. Bacchus and Tyche split off from the group and came back a few minutes later to lead them to a clearing a quarter kilometer or so away from the road, just far enough that they would not be accosted by random trainers, and Ash set to spending the rest of the day training.
Tyche, newly evolved, set to getting a better grip of her own body. Ash felt this would only take a day because the Ralts line were well known for their grace: already Tyche was moving as if she'd had her body for weeks. Given that, Ash also had her working with her Psychic energy in preparation for learning one of the most powerful psychic moves a Gardevoir could learn.
Breloom set off to practice his newly created 'Master Punch', as Ash had decided to call it. As he felt that true perfection of the move would take at least a week, Ash didn't saddle him with any other goals.
Boreas was still working on take down, but Ash also had him simply practicing taking damage to help him get the most of his reckless ability.
Triton, even though he still acted like a child, was obviously close to evolving, so Ash had him practicing a move that according to the Pokedex Horsea always learned just before they evolved: Brine. A water type move, it was characterized by the user pulling salt out of its own body and forcing it into the attack, which helped boost the damage caused, so to help Triton learn it Ash had brought many of the tiny packs of salt the Pokemon Center cafeteria offered and was having the pseudo-dragon Pokemon gorge himself on them and then try to expel the excess through a Water Gun. It was… an ongoing process.
Finally Ash turned to the newest member of the team. First he rescanned Eacus with his Pokedex, and then sat down with the little creature to go over the results.
"Alright, so you have some great moves Eacus! You're obviously pretty young, but you inherited a move called Beat Up from one of your parents, and that's awesome, so we'll focus on that."
Ash spent the next few minutes showing Eacus various clips of dark type Pokemon using the move on the Pokedex and about an hour after that practicing with him, however by that point the little Houndour was exhausted. Training obviously no longer possible, Ash didn't really know what to do. Eacus was still to hurt to be put in his pokeball, even for a little while, but he and the rest of his team were already carrying Triton and wouldn't be able to take on the extra weight. As he sat petting the little puppy napping in his lap, thinking about how to proceed, he felt a nudge on his shoulder.
Triton had hopped out of his tank and to Ash, several meters away despite his need to stay in water as much as possible. He nudged Ash again and then nodded to the pokeballs that lined Ash's belt.
"Are you sure?" Ash asked. He'd never ask one of his Pokemon to stay in their pokeball. For him a large part of the journey was spending it with them. But the Horsea nodded, obviously knowing how much Ash itched to challenge the Vermillion City Gym before the tickets were gone, so Ash got out the little dragon's pokeball and returned him.
His team now moving again, but this time with Eacus in Tyche's arms, they headed south.
Route 6 is a very hilly road, with bumps and ridges that made it as hard to see ahead as Route 1 or 5, even if it was theoretically a straighter route. Perhaps if Ash had seen straight ahead he would have chosen another way around, but it was unlikely. The second he reached the peak of the hill that had been blocking his view of the next dozen or so meters of road, he grinned. He'd been itching for a fight and who lay ahead but the person he most wanted to fight with?
The Damian and his gang sat in the small valley between hills, watching what looked like a Hitmonlee and a Hitmontop duke it out. The Hitmontop took a bad hit to his side and stumbled, before falling to the ground, fainted. One of the teens in the gang quickly returned it as he braced against the jeers of his 'friends'. The Hitmonlee was returned to the Damian as he smirked and said something to the boy who lost. The teen flushed, before handing Damian a pokeball from his belt.
"What are you doing?" Ash shouted as he and his Pokemon made his way down the hill.
"Oh look, it's the loser and his Pokemon again." Damian laughed, his gang quickly copying him.
"I thought you already had six Pokemon!"
"Well, I must have lost one…or two." Damian smirked, glancing at the whimpering Houndour in Tyche's arms.
"I challenge you to a battle!" Ash shouted. Here was his chance to pay Damian back for all the pain he caused Eacus.
"I accept." Damian sneered, gesturing for the other guys to give them room. Before long the two stood on opposite sides of the path, using the road itself as their arena. Ash gestured for Tyche to move forward. She handed Eacus to Ash and did so. Across the field, Damian laughed.
"Let's try out my new weapon." He shouted, before throwing out a pokeball. Light flashed and a Tentacruel appeared, obviously newly evolved. As it rematerialized it turned to one of the teens on the sidelines, who looked distraught but pointed behind what must have been his former Pokemon at its new owner.
"I'm your master now, Tentacruel! Let's see what you can do."
On the sidelines, only audible to Ash because of how close the teen was standing, Tentacruel's former owner whispered something under his breath. "I'll miss you, Sea Lord." Ash firmed his jaw. He'd win not only for himself, not only for Eacus, but also for all of the Pokemon who'd been given away by their owners to the Damian just because they'd lost.
"Tyche, Confusion. Calm mind if you have the time." Ash whispered.
"Sludge Wave!" Damian screamed.
The two Pokemon leapt at each other and attacked. Tyche managed to get the Confusion off, but in attempting to Calm Mind she was hit by the Sludge Wave. She teleported a few meters away and fired off another confusion, this time missing Tentacruel's wide-ranged attack. The two duked it out, constantly avoiding and aiming and being hit in a dance that their two trainers quickly lost track of. Eventually, though, Tyche's superior evasion skills won out and the Tentacruel teetered back and forth, attempting to stay standing as its master bellowed behind him, before eventually giving up and collapsing.
Damian growled, before grabbing another pokeball and releasing it. The beam materialized into a Krokorok, a native Pokemon of Unova if Ash remembered correctly. The Krokorok, in a move eerily reminiscent of its already fainted teammate, glanced to the side at another trainer, and then back at Damian, before slouching. Nonetheless, the Pokemon was obedient, and when Damian told it to attack it did with all of its power.
Tyche barely damaged it at all before she fainted just as the Tentacruel had and Ash had to return her.
"Bacchus, get in there! You know what to do!"
The grass/fighting type hopped into the field and glowered at his opponent, who snarled back, before the two began to fight. Given that Breloom was resistant to both Ground and Dark types, it only took a few moves to avenge his fainted sister. Again Damian roared, before tossing out his third Pokemon—a Nidoking.
Ash grinned.
Almost immediately the Nidoking managed to poison Bacchus—Ash had to admit that the Pokemon was well trained, but in this case that worked in his favor. Now with the benefit of poison, even if he'd lost his poison-speed advantage through evolution, the Breloom went all out, pounding his opponent to the ground before finishing his second opponent off with a well-timed Mega Drain. At this Damian outright screamed before grabbing and releasing his next pokeball.
Bacchus's new opponent was the Manectric that Damian had been bragging so much about the day before. It was here that Bacchus's loss of the ability quick feet came into play—he simply couldn't keep up as the Manectric zipped around him, wearing him down with one neutral move after the other. Finally, just as the damage became too much for him, Bacchus managed to get off one Master Punch, before succumbing to his wounds and falling.
"Bacchus, return!" Ash shouted, before sending out his only option—Boreas.
The Staravia, who had been watching the match the entire time, was a bundle of coiled up energy as he entered the field. Without waiting for orders, Boreas attacked. Over and over again he hit the Manectric with Quick Attack, then Steel Wing, then Aerial Ace, then Tackle. Every so often he'd fly out of the electric type's reach and use focus energy, before zooming back down to hurt his opponent some more.
It took less than three minutes for the type-advantaged Pokemon to faint.
Damian by this point was nearly incoherent with rage, which certainly hadn't helped the obvious recent addition to his team be able to hear, much less follow, orders. Without a single hesitation the Damian returned Manectric and brought out his next Pokemon, this time a Larvitar.
"Only two Pokemon left!" Ash shouted across the field, even as his heart thudded. This was another hard matchup for Boreas, and he had a third opponent to faint after this. Ash wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it.
The normal/flying type certainly tried, but Larvitar wasn't effected at all by his flying moves and had super effective rock type moves to return fire with, so even as Boreas pushed himself to the limit the Larvitar was able to keep up. Finally Ash whispered for Boreas to use the Endeavor technique, and Boreas used the move, quickly following it up with a Quick Attack, but not before the Larvitar was able to through a Rock Slide at him. The two, simultaneously, fainted.
Damian laughed as he released his final Pokemon, the Hitmonlee that had been fighting earlier. "Is that it? Are you going to give up or are you going to send out that traitor Houndour? Let's see how quickly I can remind him who's really in charge!"
Ash grit his teeth, before his hand went to his final pokeball—sending out Eacus wasn't an option. As he released his final fighter, Ash was terrified. As Triton materialized on the battlefield his trainer couldn't help but feel like he'd made a big mistake. Horsea, after all, couldn't be outside of water for very long at all.
Ash could see the moment when Triton realized that his trusty tank had been emptied to allow Houndour to be carried. He could see the moment Triton realized how bad it had to be that Ash was having him fight. He could see the moment Triton recognized the Damian from Ash's angry rants earlier that day. He could see the moment when Triton firmed up, determined not to fail Ash or his new brother.
Across the field Damian laughed almost maniacally. It was obvious he knew that Horsea couldn't fight well without water, and it was equally obvious that Damian was counting the battle as a win then and there.
But if there was anything Ash knew it was that you could never give up. If someone told you you couldn't do something then you just had to prove them wrong. Between heartbeats Ash remembered every time someone told him to give up—his kindergarten teacher, who'd told him that with Gary in his age group he had no chance of becoming champion; his neighbor, Jen, who laughed in his face when he told her of his goal to be the youngest to ever get that position; Gary, who had reminded Ash of his superiority on every given occasion; even AJ, before their fight, when the battle-tested teen saw Ash as just another wannabe.
Between heartbeats Ash remembered every time he kept going—when he told his kindergarten teacher that she would regret her words; when he laughed right back in Jen's face; when he'd tied with Gary on the FPTE; and when he'd defeated AJ on the other trainer's 100th battle.
Ash grinned, and opened his mouth to spout his first near silent command.
Triton was hopping on borrowed time, and Hitmonlee was a mighty opponent. Even as Ash and Triton pulled out all the stops—Water Gun, Twister, Water Pulse, and even his newly learned, if not perfected, move Brine, victory seemed to be so far out of reach as to be an optical illusion. However, just as Triton began to weaken from the lack of water, just as his bounces began to slow and he began to stagger to one side and then the other, the Hitmonlee stopped fighting. He stopped, and he turned slightly, listening as Damian screamed himself hoarse shouting both orders and obscenities at his Pokemon, and then he looked forward, straight at Ash, who was begging Triton to hold on for just a little more. All this took place in the space of a second, but it was a very important second. With a bow to Ash, not his master, Hitmonlee started on his next—unordered—move: Rain Dance.
As Triton began to wobble so much it looked like mere moments before he fell raindrops started splashing down on every surface on the road. More and more and more rain fell and Triton began hopping faster and faster, picking up speed as he unleashed one attack after another, before finally he was consumed in a beam of bright light. As the light lifted a newly evolved—un-hopping—Seadra could be seen, shooting out the last Water Gun to faint his opponent. As Hitmonlee fell Ash made sure the Pokemon could see him bow back, in thanks of his sacrifice.
Across the field Damian was seething. He screamed at the unconscious Pokemon even as he returned it, and without thinking began to pull out another pokeball. Beside him one of his cohort grabbed his arm, flinching away as Damian turned on him before finally mumbling something about six Pokemon. Damian glared for a few seconds longer before spitting on the guy's face, but returning the pokeball to his belt. Ash also returned the newly evolved Triton, leaving only Eacus there to see Damian pull out some money only to throw it onto the ground, grinding it into the dirt and tearing it apart with his shoe before ordering his gang to grab the supplies and leaving. Behind him one Pokeball was left sitting in the dirt.
Ash picked it up and brushed it off, before pocketing it. He couldn't keep it—that would be illegal—but perhaps when he turned it in to Professor Oak the good Professor would keep the ball and its contents for when he did earn his third badge. As Ash turned back to retrace all the steps he'd made that day—Kanto law stated that any found pokeball containing a Pokemon had to be immediately turned in at the nearest Pokemon Center—Ash smiled tiredly. While this was the toughest battle Ash had faced since his first with Misty, it also felt cleansing. Damian was still out there, sure, but at least he'd gotten a few Pokemon out of the man's 'tender mercies' and planted the seeds of doubt in many of the his lackeys. It wasn't a total victory, no, but it wasn't a Cadmean victory either, and that was the most Ash could ask for. As he continued to march Eacus squirmed out of his arms, running around with more delight and energy than the little puppy had shown in the entire time Ash had known him. Ash's smile grew a little wider. Yes, it certainly wasn't a Cadmean victory.