A/N: Thanks for your reviews. Julie Togepi, that would be funny... but sadly she isn't allowed to do that. Great, well, I will be giving another hint regarding the battle strategy in this chapter, so sit tight JayFan67. Also, yes, Duke Hamnet will be crossing over, just not yet
The villa looked nearly as magnificent inside as well as outside. The rooms were nearly as magnificent as those of Parfum Palace back in Kalos, and they were led to the gardens adjoining the lake.
The most massive dinner table Ash had ever seen was there, and he had seen some massive dinner tables in his time. A tarp had been set up and air conditioning was set up outside, despite it being out in the open and hence a large waste of electricity in Ash's opinion. This was a huge relief for Duke Hament and his crew, who immediately collapsed in the chairs and began chugging down water with no regards to who was watching.
A woman who was sitting at the head of the table got up, and with the way everyone looked at her, it was almost certain she was Lady Freyja.
One of the things that Ash had noticed (or rather, characteristically, completely failed to notice until he had seen it several times) was that fashion choices for women in Galea were rather old-fashioned compared to other regions, and certainly emphasized covering oneself far more than what he was used to.
That was why Ash was sure that Mr. Jennings, and probably Selena and Linnea as well would have called Lady Freyja's dress 'hideously decadent and indecent' despite the fact that her skirt did at least cover her knees (Ash could only imagine how Mr. Jennings would react if he could see Dawn). She had light brown hair that curled downwards all the way towards her waist and her dress was a dark red color covered with frills and ribbons, and her eyes were the color of cotton candy, and though they were beautiful, they seemed oddly vacant. She was wearing short sleeves and there didn't seem to be another place where one could put even one more ribbon into her hair.
All in all, something about her attire instantly came across as extremely fake to Ash- like he was looking at some doll for display in a shop instead of a real person, and as she got up to greet him she almost tripped (How did someone stumble like that? The ground was flat and she wasn't wearing high heels!), came over and vigorously shook his hand. She was hardly a head taller than Ash despite clearly being an adult and smiled far too friendly for his, or his Pikachu's, liking.
"Oh, you're so far younger than I expected!" she exclaimed. "But I had heard the stories of course, but you can never trust rumors, and you can trust anything that Selena says even less, you know. Now do come sit, I've reserved the place of honor right for you, dear."
Ash followed her towards the table, and the rest of his entourage followed and sat opposite Duke Hamnet and his crew. The food was already laid across the table and had clearly been there for a while.
Ash had eaten around a campfire and at times consumed nothing but instant noodles. He had also eaten, at times, the finest foods available in the world, and the things laid on the table somehow knocked all of them out of the water.
There were many things that he didn't have a name for, or had not even seen before which he guessed were dishes native to Galea. Conspicuous was the fact that everything seemed to be present in huge proportions and in huge excess as if trying to assure whoever sat at the table that the host was rich beyond measure.
It was extraordinarily extravagant, something that coincided with everything that Ash had seen so far from the costumes to the villa to the air conditioning outside.
Ash pulled up a chair for Pikachu to sit in. This did not go unnoticed by Freyja
"Oh, it is so nice to see how you care for your Pokemon," she said. "After all, what are we Gym Leaders without them, hmm? And why, if you will forgive the question, is your Pikachu not in a Pokeball?"
"It doesn't like to be in it," Ash said.
"Oh," she replied. "And then look at me. It's been so long since I've last had to take my Pokemon outside of their Pokeballs…. over fifteen years, if I'm not mistaken."
Ash found this impossible to believe, but he didn't think that she was joking. Fifteen years!
"I have a rather large sweet tooth, as you can see," Lady Freyja said. Ash looked at the food laid out carefully and noticed that most of them were cakes with elaborate frosting as well as other things which were almost sparkling with sugar crystals. "Everything besides them tastes rather like metal to me. Thank goodness for the Replay Badge, otherwise I would have certainly become a diabetic by now, and certainly unable to keep this figure of mine." She took a slice of cake in her plate and began eating, which meant that Duke Hamnet and his crew also started.
Ash on the other hand, and his crew didn't. It was then that Ash suddenly remembered what Mr. Jennings had told him.
"I, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, challenge you to a Gym Battle," Ash said.
Lady Freyja, instead of looking offended or scared, merely showed a triumphant smile.
That itself should have run alarm bells in Ash's head, but he was distracted by Pikachu leaping up and taking a bite out of some biscuits. While Ash was mostly sure that Lady Freyja hadn't poisoned the food, and that Pikachu could (probably?) smell to see if it was alright, it was still worrying. Pikachu seemed fine though.
"Ha ha, I haven't poisoned anything, you know," Lady Freyja said. "No, Thomdolt wouldn't give me the formula, no matter how much I whined. I take it that you finished him off with dignity?"
"Do you mean, kill him?" Ash asked. "No, he's been imprisoned for now." Thomdolt had not yielded anything meaningful on interrogation, being bound as he was, like Marley, by his oaths and basically just repeated what Marley had said on his defeat.
That did certainly surprise Lady Freyja.
"Imprisoned?" she asked. "And Marley is as well?"
"Yes," Ash said.
"How… foolishly kind of you," Freyja answered with a derisive snort as she now tackled a piece of key lime pie.
Ash however, was not hungry in the slightest. Instead, his mind whirled around with dozens of questions, questions that he doubted that Freyja would answer truthfully, but still, he figured she might let something slip.
"I take it that you know of my special rule?" Freyja asked him. "We'll be having a double battle."
"Only a double battle?" Ash asked, remembering the rule that Mr. Jennings had said being different.
"Yes, I am rather skilled at double battles, and another will not be necessary," Freyja said, a twinkle in her eye. "But let us finish with dinner first."
Freyja asked a few more questions about where Ash had come from which he answered half-heartedly. Conversation had sprung up among the other members of the party and Freyja's people, but they were confined to whispers amongst a single faction.
"So, you don't know who sent me here?" Ash asked. "Or a way I could get back?"
"Sadly no," Lady Freyja said. "Selena might, but then again sending you back might truly damage the barrier too much. I don't have much experience in these things, so she might be right. Too bad she's too busy being paranoid and searching for things like Gregor's sixth Pokemon to bother doing something real about you."
"What's Gregor's sixth Pokemon?" Ash asked.
"Oh, you don't know?" she asked in a know-it-all fashion, which was rather ironic coming from someone who had, up till now, showed a rather complete dearth of common sense. "You see, long back before all this happened, there were the Four Heavenly Kings, right? So, each of them had five Pokemon, but then they later decided that having a full arsenal would be a good idea, so they each began training a sixth one. Except for Gregor of the Elite Four. He still had only five Pokemon, but some sources said that just before they fell to us, he had confirmed catching a sixth one. But surprise, surprise, Selena and His Majesty, the ones who mostly held them at bay, found that he only had five with him. So where did the sixth one go, if there ever really was one? All of us passed it off as nothing important, but it turned into a sort of obsession for Selena. She's spent years trying to scour the land looking for it. Gregor was the wisest and craftiest of the Elite Four, so he may have predicted our… well, I suppose you would call it betrayal? And then, have made some sort of failsafe in case he fell. " Freyja shrugged. "At least that's what Selena says. She has far too much time on her hands. What could a single Pokemon do anyway, if it did exist?"
Ash's mind though was already racing. A sixth Pokemon somewhere, and one that was probably trained by the Elite Four! If the ones in Galea were as strong as the ones back home, it would be a force to be reckoned with. If only he could find it… then defeating the Gym Leaders would be so much easier!
Ash's thoughts of securing a potential ally were interrupted as Freyja added, "Speaking of Selena, I've heard some… interesting rumors about her."
Ash could tell that Freyja was the type of person who wanted him to ask what they were so she could tell him, so he decided to bite. "Really? Like what?"
Leaning closer dramatically, Freyja said, "I've heard, from some spies I installed in her domain- don't look so shocked, all of us have them- that she would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Screaming about some nightmares that she was having, and that she continues to have. They say that she always feels like someone is watching her and monitoring her. Poor girl." She took a sip of some liquid chocolate. "I'd almost feel sorry for her, if it wasn't for the fact that she was so stuck up."
True, Ash didn't like Selena, despite how she looked.
At the same time though, he harbored no illusions regarding Freyja. Though she seemed to be chatting friendly enough, Ash knew that she wouldn't hesitate to stab him through the heart if she had the chance.
After all, such was what power did to a person.
A/N: Thanks for reading. As for Freyja's special strategy, I will now lay down the three hints I've given:
1. She'll use a Shedninja.
2. Her Badge can let Pokemon learn moves they normally couldn't.
3. It will be a double battle.
Do review if you liked and keep guessing! All will be revealed as the story progresses, of course.
Also, I need to point out that Wonder Guard blocks only attacks that do damage. It would not block something like Tail Whip.
Also, there's the thing about titles in Galea. Basically, anyone will be called anything, whether it is Sir Ash, Lord Ash, King Ash, Prince Ash, or Duke Ash, basically the titles are pretty wishy-washy here and only the Gym Leaders or the Elite Four are true ranks.