Pokémon

Well hello there, fabulous people. I tis here with the next chapter. So, as you guessed I got lazy and delayed my "few days" update. But hey, I'm pretty sure it's still earlier than usual! Oh, and Happy belated Valentines Day! Now, some news from me :D

Well, I realized that last chapter I neglected to mention at the end that Kyler Kendrick will be an important character later on. He wasn't just a random apperance. So remember that name! And if you don't know who I'm talking about right now then you need to go read chapter 24 again!

And the lovely people who reviewed :) Cyber hugs for everyone!

Crimson. light. of. Death : o.0 It's been a while. Anyway, that S word is the worst, right? It's even painful to write! :) Thanks. And message!

Ashuri : YOU'RE WELCOME! xP And abandon my dear (I almost wrote dead :P) little Alex? Never! Awww, thanks a bunch :3

Rikka : Forget? Lol, no, I'm just lazy. I'm trying to work through that. Oooh cake! :D Thanks! Wow, not many people like him. He's one of my favorites as well, but he doesn't get aired in the anime very often and I find it sad :( I missed him too ;P But he's back for a while now so it's okay! Thank you very much! I try.

And a thanks to those who favorited/alerted or is reading this story. Enjoy!

Chapter 25 – Triple Knockout

"What do you say, Paul?" She smirked at him. "Wanna have a battle?"

A few minutes later Alex and Paul had found a small area in the city off to the side of a more barren street. There weren't as many things to destroy there, making the two deem it suitable. Buildings were far off in the distance, as well as the constant sounds of the city people.

Alex stood gleefully on one side, brimming with excitement since she had never actually had a proper battle with the boy. Eevee stood confidently at her side, once again happy with the purplette now that the whole disappearing thing was behind them. Swinging the heavy straps off her back, the brunette flung her bag off to the side and stretched her arms out, cracking her knuckles. "So, what are the rules of this battle?"

"Three-on three. The first one with two wins is the victor," Paul called back. His face remained indifferent though he was reasonably eager to train with the girl, especially since he had recently found out she grew up in the same place as Ash. In some ways, he could see similarities in the two, which he didn't like at all. But on the other hand Alex was more so different than his rival.

Both trainers nodded in agreement at the decided rules and plucked a pokeball from their arsenal. The red and white capsules soared high in the air and burst with a glow of white, unleashing the creatures within.

For the girl's side was a mid sized brown ground type in its fully evolved form with a skull mask and a bone club. "Maro-wak!" he cheered, twirling its weapon like a baton and finishing with it pointing at its opponent like a swordsman.

Its opponent on the other side was an inky black pokemon twice its size with a shell-like body in a shape that rather resembled a scorpion and a bat mixed together. Fangs peeked out from its lips and it looked down at it with big, completely yellow eyes. Its hands were jagged crab-like claws that it were snapping together like chomping teeth. Its inner ears, skinny arms and torso were all banded with red, and attached to the end of its arms all the way down to the start of its scorpion tail were two black gliders.

"You have the first move," Paul said, crossing his arms. His face was pensive as he stared at the ground type on the opposing side, but you couldn't have been able to tell if you didn't know him well.

Alex smirked and nodded. "Ok, let's go with bone club!" With a spin of its white weapon marowak threw its arm back and gave it a good whip towards Paul's gliscor, with it rotating so fast it looked like a disk.

"Knock off," Paul called, holding two fingers out on his right hand and slicing the air in front of him from left to right in a diagonal pattern. Gliscor took a rock hard claw and smashed the attack easily, sending it straight back.

"Ok, let's go marowak," Alex nodded, sending the pokemon charging forward. On the way, he snatched its bone back from the air and jumped.

Paul watched it go up and said, "In the air, go. And use x-scissor."

Marowak had begun to descend as its opponent launched itself up as well. "Nah-un," Alex shook her head, "Bone rush, but dodge the blow first." The club held in the bone pokemon's small hand sparked and coated with a white/blue cover and extended by at least three times. It put itself in a sharp nose dive and somersaulted over the X slice incoming for it. Then, it used gliscor's back to turn again and slam its lengthened weapon on the tail end of the pokemon's side, making it suddenly change course in a downward fall.

Like a professional gymnast, marowak landed lightly on its feet and flipped back, its club returning to normal size and color. Fixing a stare up from his kneeling position, the pokemon watched as the purplette trainer shouted for its pokemon to pull up. It did, but not with some trouble and a small crash. He twirled his baton and got back into his previous position with the bone pointed out.

Paul growled. "Sandstorm."

"Ditto, marowak."

A fierce wind whipped up in their vicinity with sharp particles of sand aiding the assault. The gales collided they shot out, blowing in every direction imaginable and causing both trainers to shield their faces away. Nothing was visible anyway, and it had twice the power from it coming from both creatures. The wind was there to stay for a while, with both pokemon concealed within its wrath.

Alex's hair lashed about like it had its own mind, and she felt the grains of sand stinging her bare arms and legs. She cupped one hand over her mouth and buried her eyes in the crook of her arm. She couldn't hear Paul over the howling storm, but yelled in hope her pokemon could still hear her. "Focus punch!"

Paul grimaced, hearing the faint cry for an attack. He was doing much the same as the girl, covering as much of his face as he could while his baggy clothes and hair billowed about. "X-scissor!"

It was quite for a few moments in the eye of the storm, but then there was a clash and a detonating light with a boom! The trainers grunted as they skidded back from the explosion.

"Mar-owwww," The tan particles settled back down to where it belonged, and a ground pokemon cried it's tan eyes out, wailing on the ground with an X carved into its skull mask. It was right smack on the forehead with a crack running down to one of its eyeholes and a jagged chip on the bottom. It had discarded its club recklessly on the flattened, dusty grass and held its hands to its clenched, tear-filled eyes.

Paul and gliscor –who also endured a large amount of injuries - were dumbfounded, and watched as the brunette rushed over to the pokemon and soothed it while cradling it in her arms. "It's your win," she called over with a consoling smile, taking her pokemon back with her.

Alex set marowak down with eevee by her feet, rubbing it affectionately on the head. She kneeled down in front of it and smiled. "It's okay, Skull. You were great. It just means we'll have to train a little bit more, okay?" The pokemon blinked up at her with its watery eyes and nodded slowly, bringing its short arms up to feel the damage to its mask. "Good boy, now take it easy and have some oran berries." She took a handful out of a container from her bag and placed them in front of marowak. Eevee tended to the sniffing pokemon while her trainer put her mind back on the battle.

Paul had returned his pokemon and was patiently waiting as she took her spot. "Alright, time for round two," he said, holding out his next pokeball.

Alex nodded and unclipped her choice of pokemon and tossed it out.

A huge brown and green turtle-shaped pokemon took Paul's side of the field with a small head with a steel horn on each side where ears should be. On the left side of its shell grew a baby tree, while the other side contained three more steel protrusions. The head and shell were leafy colored and the shell rimmed with more steel and a bold, ragidy line splitting the two halves apart. Its underbelly and four trunk-like legs were a dirty brown.

Doom, Alex's black, red and silver houndoom, snuffed its head into the air, drawing its red eyes away from the hefty creature. It always appeared with an uncaring stance, to which Alex now had to laugh as it somewhat reminded her of the purple-haired opponent. "You won the last battle so you start," she stifled a snort and grin.

Paul, with crossed arms, shrugged uncaringly, noticing the girl crack up again. He quirked a brow but didn't mention anything as he called, "Torterra, use stone edge." Pieces of rock magically appeared in the air and shot forward at the half fire type with blinding speed.

The canine's blood cold eyes wretched opened and after a whip of its arrowhead tail, it was gone. Alex smiled happily as the ground was peppered with diamond stones and broke the surface while her canine bounded speedily towards the turtle. "Yeah houndoom," Alex cheered with a fist in the air, "faint attack now!" A dark aura overtook the dog as it rammed torterra's head with its curled horns.

Torterra, feeling relatively fine although a tad baffled at first from the unexpected dash and strike, crossed its eyes to stare directly at red ones. The two were locked in a sort of headbutt, each pushing from the base of their feet up through their powerfully built legs and leaned in with their horns brandished. "Now use leaf storm," Paul shouted, throwing his hand out again. Another gale was blown into action, coiling it's way around the sleek, horned dog and therefore sending it skidding backwards until it reached its own side of the field having its own personal little cyclone of razor like leaves.

Houndoom raked the grassy arena with steely claws to prevent the gust from veering it backward any further. The typhoon continued to slice at it and obscure the outside world, except for its dear trainer calling, "Bring on the fire, houndoom!" So raising its red snout out of its defensive crouch, the canine let ruby flames burst from its fangs, the wind carrying some of it back to engulf its entire body while the rest found their way through the tunnel and sparking the offending grass-type.

The cylinder of wind and surrounding vegetation died away with a shake of houndoom, the flames causing a small detonation and creating a shower of sizzling, combusted leaves. Of course, the heavy turtle flinched away from it as it scorched its rough skin. It was short lasted, however, and soon torterra was back to normal, as was houndoom.

Paul stared at the girl before shaking his head and smirking. "Torterra, use giga drain." The three spikes on the pokemon's back began glowing a metallic green and shot out like vines, arching through the air toward the black dog.

"Not good," Alex sucked in. "Try your best to dodge, houndoom." Her pokemon sailed off like a bullet as the first vine crashed into its previous spot, then made a zigzag pattern to its larger opponent so the attacks would stop. It had no such luck. The vines created a circle around it and before it could figure out which way to go, it was snatch by the midsection and got some of its energy taken before they retreated back to the turtle's body.

"Houndoom, are you alright?" Alex cried worriedly. The creature pulled itself on all fours and nodded. "Ok, I have an idea, go in fast," she commanded confidently, and the pokemon bounded off again at her word.

Torterra, feeling more refreshed, stomped the ground enough to give off a short rumble. "Frenzy plant." Now, actual thorned vines bloomed within the blades of grass and tried to create a sort of barricade for houndoom so it couldn't reach its target. "Tor!" the turtle roared, sending out more of the stalks at the dog, who was running at full speed with its tail and fangs lashing out to destroy any possible threats.

"Now, slide under and use flame thrower!" Alex called anxiously, jumping each time her pokemon nearly got swatted by a giant plant, but now in close proximity, the canine dropped slightly on its side and skidded under the big creature. As it was going through in its slouch, houndoom let loose another flare on torterra's brown belly.

Torterra groaned in pain, collapsing a bit as if to shield its stomach from further harm. Paul grimaced and growled, "Stone edge."

"Quick, fire fang!" The speedy dog used its claws again to halt and throw itself in the other direction, leaping on the grass pokemon's back and sinking its orange flickering teeth into the creature.

Another pained cry drawled out of torterra, trying to get the canine off its back with a collection of glowing stones. This also backfired as its opponent's brunette trainer called for her pokemon to get out of there just as the rocks struck the shell of their creator. The sturdy grass type collapsed completely with exhaustion with swirled eyes.

"Amazing as always, Doom. You really need a good rest now," Alex praised, touching her nose with the canines. Houndoom barked in acknowledgement and allowed its cut up self to be sucked into a red beam.

"Return," was all Paul said, nodding at Alex.

"And last, let's see…" Alex contemplated, pursing her lips. "A-hah!" She plucked her decision off her belt and allowed it to soar upwards. The pokemon that emerged was a blue crocodile, but her totodile was no longer and instead was its evolution, croconaw. Alex smiled fondly, remembering the moment she swiped the evolution stone from Dimentio's supply, and then stuffing a few more in her bag, for "losing" her luxio, then sold a few for some extra money.

Flashback

"Oh, Shadow dear!" Dimentio cooed from the hallway, opening the door to their House of Chaos' vault of pokemon. The tall, dark man trapsed in, sweeping his bangs away as he found a red-faced girl in the midst of the library of pokeballs. Her nearly black coffee eyes flared as they fell upon him. Lips pulled into a thin, pale line, long, black hair beating against her back as her boots stomped over. He simply gazed down at her shorter frame with his silvery emerald orbs and his famous charming smirk. "Oh how wonderful, I was looking for you."

"I specifically remember having seven pokemon when I arrived here, left all seven here under your orders, and come back after a month and…oh wait! Let's count them together," Alex snapped, trying to put on her best Dora the Explorer impression possible. "One…Two…Three…Four…Five…Six! Where is number seven?"

"Well, dear, that is what I wanted to talk to you about. I have some bad news." Dimentio grazed across his face with a false mask of sorrow following after it. "I regret to tell you that your luxio seems to have escaped from our confines and possession." He peeked out between his forth and middle finger to gauge her anger level, which was exponentially rising.

"You lost my luxio?" Her voice rose past exasperation and furiousness. "You evil bastard, you better not have hurt her!" She screeched, chucking the closest solid object she could get her shaking hands on at the head of the ever-smiling man.

He ducked, even though there was no need since the weaons weren't a fraction close to hitting their target. "Those are sharp when they break, Shadow dear. They could be dangerous so do be careful. Ciao!" He slithered out of the room as a rock broke, showering the door with pebbles.

Looking down at her bandaged palm, Shadow saw a precious stone, which were sprinkled in with the rocks and other blunt objects. With a huff, the sappire stone with bubbles fossilized within was pocketed along with a few others. Her eyes slowly inched around the room and out the glass door, top lip crinkling in a small snarl. With a growl, she set out to wreak havoc on another part of the plane. She wanted revenge.

End Flashback

Alex shook her head sourly at the memory that fizzled into view. She remembered that she was currently in battle and slapped her cheeks to psyche herself back up.

The newly evolved mid-sized reptilian was mostly baby blue with pale yellow accentuations and red clusters of spikes, three on its head, two on its back, and one on its tail. Its jaw was even bigger, with four visible fangs showing from its closed mouth.

Eevee whimpered and her ears drooped in disappointment. "Sorry Isis, I thought Chomp could use the training more than you. Okay?" The eevee gave in and nodded with a foxy grin.

Before the croc had fully become visible, Paul let his hot-tempered grisly bear, AKA ursaring, onto the field. It had a scowl on its harsh face and arms crossed over right above the circle on its tummy. This time Alex couldn't help but burst out with fits of giggles. "What?" Paul growled, taking his cold stance.

"I'm sorry," Alex chuckled, wiping her eyes from tears, "but I couldn't help but notice the resemblance. Like pokemon like trainer, I suppose." She gave him a foxy grin.

Paul glanced from the girl to the fox by her ankles and gave a small smile. 'Got that right.'

Croconaw gurgled, waddling from foot to foot, making Alex sweat drop at the childishness still bottled in the hyper crocodile. With a sigh and a demanding finger shooting out she said, "Anyhow, it's my turn. Lets start off with water gun, full force."

A big bear paw shot up, making the water disperse in different directions, which mostly meant it landed with a splat on Paul's head. The purplette glowered from under the soaked mop. "Hammer arm," he growled out.

Alex stifled another grin, "Now ice fang, but keep up the water gun."

Ursaring charged through the stream of water with its arms raised and clenched together over its head while the blue liquid continued to bounce off its stomach. But, croconaw's fangs glowed an icy tint and the steady stream slowly became solid until in encased the big bad bear within an ice coffin.

"Arg!" Paul exclaimed at his now frozen pokemon statute.

"Awesome!" Alex cheered. She clasped her hands under her chin, "So pretty," she stated as the sun glistened against the structure.

From with the confines, ursaring blinked, stunned. Then there was a cracking sound, followed by sizzling and the strong scent of smoke fumes. Starting from the top, the ice melted down like an erupting volcano with black smoke tingeing the air. The whites of ursaring's eyes were now lined with red and fire ignited on its back. Once it was freed, it get loose a mighty roar and beat its chest with its fists like Tarzan, then targeted the little monster that had froze it and charged again.

"GAHHH!" Alex and her pokemon shrieked at the raging pokemon as it hurtled with them in sight of its red vision. "What the hell? Ursaring's a normal type, not a fire-type! Run!" Alex darted away, croconaw struggling to do the same as scalding flames scorched the ground. The brunette got to the other side of the field and ducked behind Paul, peeking out to see if she was still being followed. "Hmm," she hummed, watching croconaw running haphazardly around the field with a crazed bear stomping not far behind and gaining fast. She reached around in her backpack after having a lightbulb moment and held something to the purpette's back. "Note to self: Chomp is no longer super fast." She said while writing it in a small notebook.

"Cro-ca-nawww!" the little blue croc wailed as the bear graced a nail across the tip of its tail. It rushed for some kind of safety and pushed its stubby legs faster.

"Oh no," Alex gasped. "No, no, no, no!"

"Ursaring!" Paul snapped, also showing signs of nervousness, but not fazing the bear in the slightest.

"Eh, pokeball…where's the goddamn pokeball?" Alex fumbled with her belt.

"It was in my hand a second ago!" Paul exclaimed as he searched for the same thing.

The grisly caught its prey at last and scooped the croc into its claws, up above its head, and slammed it into the duo of trainers, sending them all tumbling to the ground. For good measure, the bear jumped on the pile a few times then retreated. It pounded its chest in triumph.

"Wow, your ursaring is almost as scary as my charizard." Alex groaned from the bottom of the pile, which was followed with a grunt from Paul as ursaring's pokeball fell from the heavens and hit him smack in the back of the head, rolling down his back and landing near his feet. "You guys are really heavy," she stated to Paul's face, which she realized was very, very close to hers since had turn to get away upon noticing the incoming tackle, and now croconaw was knocked out on top. Both trainers turned rather red and turned their heads away, attempting to squirm their way out of the dog pile without rousing the violent bear.

"And it's a triple knockout! The winner is ursaring!" somebody off to the side cheered using an announcer's voice. As the group looked up, they saw a head of violet and the sparkling of gold.

"Agh," Paul nervously tried with more motivation to move away from the sort of sandwich so he could get as far away from the newcomer as possible. Too bad he was hit by a second pokeball smack in the forehead, which slowly rolled down his face and landed beside the brunette's head.

Alex pulled her arm out from the tangled mess to grab the object with a sheepish smile. "Found the pokeball." With that, some of the pressure was relieved and Paul's back was able to roll off as Alex sat up and clipped the found object on her belt.

"What are you doing here?" Paul demanded, brushing himself off.

The girl pouted. "Paul, why do you always say that when you see me?"

"Because you always show up at the worst times," Paul grumbled in response, snubbing the girl completely while returning his gloating, fire-raging, bigheaded, rioting ursaring into safe confines. His eyes closed as he ignored his slightly older and childish cousin in front him.

"Xena, I heard you were in the hospital. Are you alright?" Alex asked, full of concern unlike the purplette boy. She recalled her marowak as well and allowed eevee to climb into her arms.

"Psh," Xena waved it off without a care, "I'm absolutely, positively fine. But, I'm sorry I can't say the same for…" Xena paused, tears in the corner of her eyes as she gave a sorrowful sniffle. She noticed she had both people's attention now, took a deep breath and continued, "For my poor, innocent juice box!" the girl whined.

"…"

Paul smacked the back of the girl's head as he walked away with an irritated expression.

"Party pooper," Xena shouted after him, increasing the maturity of the statement by sticking out her tongue.

Alex giggled, causing the purplette to smirk at her. Her golden eyes glittered with mischief as Xena locked their arms together and began to skip back into the busy city. "We don't need him," she huffed. Her purple ponytail bounced with each bound and slapped against her black jacket while her combat boots clopped over the cement. "So, what's it like being a super secret agent?" Xena asked, eyes glittered as she eased up on her pace, elbow still linked like a chain around the brunette.

'She's definitely not as naïve as she acts. She already realizes I'm Alex, even though Paul never introduced us.' Alex shook her head. "Not as fun as you think. But are you sure you're okay, I mean, when the medical staff took you away you looked in pretty rough shape."

Xena nodded furiously. "Totally. After that big meanie typhosion destroyed my juice box, making it explode all over me, I was really upset and still really tired because we hadn't slept in like over 24 hours and the ground is actually so much more comfortable than it looks so I'm just like 'hey, I could really use a nap' but I was also really hungry so I asked Paul to get me some peanut butter but I guess I was so tired I just fell asleep. Then when I woke up this morning the doctor said I was free to leave so I did because it smelled like disinfectant and blood which made me feel kinda sick to my tummy yummy, plus they said I couldn't have any peanut butter while I was there because of allergy reasons – stupid excuse – so I was outta there but the nice lady at the resception desk gave me a sucker on my way out and they all looked so good so I snatched them all and ran. And then I went for a nice run around the city because I had a lot of energy and I saw Pauly and Secret Agent Roxy, who was Alex! So, you and Paul, eh?"

The brunette, who had unintentionally zoned the girl out just nodded throughout the entirety of the conversation. She also made a mental note not to ever give the purplette girl sugar or caffeine. She pretty much didn't hear a thing until the last sentence finally registered in her mind, slightly delayed after the girl said it. She frowned and flickered her dark eyes over to Xena. "Wait, what about me and Paul?"

Xena detached their arms to walk backwards in front of the brunette. "You guys are dating, aren't you?" she demanded bluntly, yet still with delight sounding light and cheerful.

"N-no!" Alex said with shock, reaching out and setting the girl straight facing the direction she was walking before she collided with an innocent, inattentive citizen. "Why would you say that?"

"Oh," Xena frowned with heavy disappointment, like she was just told she wasn't going to get the pony she always for her Birthday. "But Paul is so nice to you. He's never like that to anybody else," she stated as though thinking out loud. Her walked slowed even more as she put on her hypothetical thinking cap. "Ooh, lightbulb!" she exclaimed with a snap of her fingers, her energy coming back full force like a boomarang. "I'll just have to get you together. I'll be like a matchmaker! Like Cupid, but without the diaper. And I'd have wings, how cool would that be?"

"Please don't," Alex groaned weakly, knowing pretty well what Xena's response would be before she uttered it.

And she was right, just for the record. The girl scoffed – much the same fashion as the rest of her family – and said, "Now, now, don't get you're panties in a bunch. Some relationships just need a little…push."

'With that girl it'll be more like a shove off a cliff' Alex thought with exasperation.

"And I have the bestest idea too!" the purplette continued.

'I'm in trouble now. Maybe she won't notice if I quietly slip away…'

Xena abruptly stopped Alex and held her in place with her gloved hands on her shoulders. There was a dangerous sheen in her rich honey eyes and a conniving grin growing horribly large on her manipulative little face. And right there and then, Alex felt unbelievable fear flood over her.

Paul began what seemed like an extremely long walk back to the Pokemon Center with his hands stuffed in his pockets, silently pondering what his cousin and Alex were planning on doing. He also wondered what he had done to be tormented by both of the Verboom siblings in the same day. His taller male cousin flanked his side, tensely talking his ear off. By the time the boy had found Paul, it was already dusk and the skyline was highlighted with fluorescent pink and scorching red. It was too late to be flying to another city safely, and he had just been informed that his brunette companion had truly been kidnapped this time…. by his demon cousin. He shuddered at the horror.

On the plus side, the childish young man at his right had managed to get a location so they could pinpoint the captive and her captor. And Paul had a very bad feeling about the whole, ironic situation. But seriously, how difficult could it be to find Alex if she was with his obnoxious cousin?

But should finding her going to be his real concern?

Hmmmm, I wonder what Xena has hidden up her sleeve? Do we even want to know?

Well, that's it until next time. Read, review, message, I'm so very tired. Bye-bye! Good night.