Chapter Twenty Five:

It was sunrise when Ash awoke, it had become a habit of his, he knew he didn't have to, but lately he'd been having trouble staying asleep. He crept out of the room, careful not to wake the others, and walked into the lounge of the Pokémon Centre. Stretching he looked around to find a mostly empty room. No one was there except for the trainers who'd slept on the couches last night, apparently with the Eclipse Island's rising fame the centre's would all be expanded soon to deal with the extra numbers that they hadn't been built to support.

He shook out his arms to loosen his muscles before walking over to the recovery room, glad to see that all of his Pokémon were here now. And he was happy to see Pikachu, already awake, stretching its arms towards him, wanting him to closer.

'Hey buddy, you feeling okay now?'

'Pika Pika,' the electric type chirped happily, 'Pi Pi Pikachu?'

'Couldn't sleep again, I haven't been able to for months remember?' he reminded, giving his partner a scratch behind the ears.

'Pi Pikachu Pi,' it insisted.

'I'm not blaming anyone Pikachu, it's my fault that-' Pikachu swatted him with its tail making Ash give the Pokémon a slightly amused grin, 'Okay, I guess that's blaming someone, but if I'd been a better trainer-'

'Pikachu!'

'Hey, don't strain yourself, you're still injured,' he insisted.

'Pika Pika,' it insisted shaking its head in irritation before getting up and jumping slightly.

'What? You want to train?' he asked.

'Pika, pika!' it insisted loudly.

'You can't till Nurse Joy clears you-'

'Pika!'

'Ash?' came a voice, and Ash turned around to see Nurse Joy standing at the door.

'Yes Nurse Joy?' he asked.

'You can take Pikachu out now, it has a very good recovery speed so it should be fine to train if it really wants to,' she said, clearly finding Pikachu's determination amusing.

'Pika! Pika!' Pikachu cheered, punching its little fists in the air.

'Wow, you are really fired up this morning aren't you?' he asked of the little Pokémon, 'Okay, okay, let's go for a run.'

…

'Do you know where Ash is?' Misty questioned as she came to join the May at the table.

'According to Nurse Joy he's been up since about five, training with Pikachu already,' May explained, brushing a bit of hair out of her eyes.

'God knows Ash will always use Pikachu in a rock gym,' Misty laughed, 'Against Brock and Roxanne he did even though it doesn't make much sense.'

'Against Roark as well according to a story Brock told me,' May grinned, 'but when you get this high up in this level of battling, type advantage doesn't actually mean to much does it?'

'It does, but not as much as it does at the beginning of your journey,' Misty shrugged, 'it makes it way for single type specialist like me to be able to make it.'

'Water always seemed like a powerful type to me, I mean two of the biggest contest greats in the world are water type trainers, Wallace as well as Hydra Carinthia are really the only Coordinators with a type specialty.'

'And both are clearly powerful battlers I mean really, Wallace was the Champion up until a few weeks ago, and Hydra is a gym leader here, and in the top five of the Carinthia's as well,' Misty acknowledged.

'Wait isn't Wallace the Champion anymore?' May asked in confusion.

'No, some guy named Steven beat him out last month, he's a steel type trainer but he still knocked Wallace off his throne and by default knocked Sidney clear out of the Elite Four. He's going back to his gym in the ABC Islands now,' Misty explained, 'I thought it would have been big news in Hoenn now.'

'Oh so that's what happened, Dad was annoyed that he was no longer the next runner up for the Elite Four, must be because of Sidney getting knocked out,' May exclaimed in surprise, 'Where did this Steven guy come from?'

'He's the son of the owner of the Devon Corporation; he disappeared on a journey, came out of nowhere and took out the nearest competitor in the Hoenn League with only three Pokémon.'

'Wow,' May exclaimed, 'He does sound really good... wait a second, I think I've met him, did he have an Aggron? A really powerful one?'

'Yeah, he did, you've met him?' Misty exclaimed in surprise.

'His dad took a liking to Max when we were in Rubustro City, and then we met him when he was in Dewford Cave looking for evolution stones,' May said, 'Wow, I didn't realise that a trainer that good was right in front of me and I had no idea!'

'What trainer?' came a curious voice.

Both girls looked up to see Dawn standing there, looking eager to join the conversation and Misty paused before deciding that she shouldn't be rude, 'May met the new Champion of the Hoenn League and had no idea how good he was at the time.'

Dawn shifted into the booth next to May before responding, 'I watched the battle just before the Grand Festival began, he's ridiculously good, he destroyed Wallace, it wasn't easy to watch,' Dawn sighed, 'I mean Wallace was really helpful when I was on a losing streak.'

'Oh yeah, May mentioned that you met him when you were in Sinnoh, when she was telling me about the Wallace Cup,' Misty explained.

'Yeah, everything he did was with an incredible grace and precision, it was amazing to watch him,' Dawn sighed dreamily.

'Maybe his focus on contests was what affected him so much in his battle against Steven,' Misty commented.

'Excuse me?' Dawn asked testily, 'Are you implying that Contest Battling is less powerful than usual battling?'

Misty was about to respond, and probably not overly wisely, but thankfully Nixie showed up, 'Morning Ladies, you're up early enough.'

'Well unlike you we didn't stay up too late last night,' May laughed.

'Hey I'm older than you, I don't exactly have a bedtime,' Nixie insisted stubbornly squeezing in beside Misty.

'Barely, there's what, a year between us?' Misty questioned.

'Fourteen months, and it makes a difference,' she insisted, 'besides, it makes me two and a half years older than May and four years elder than Dawn.'

'Seriously?' Dawn asked, seeming partly put out, she'd known she was the youngest of the girls, but she didn't realise Nixie was that much elder than her.

But Nixie just laughed, noticing her expression, 'Don't worry about it, you're probably more mature than me.'

...

Ash and Pikachu wandered back into the Pokémon Centre, and instantly flopped back down on the couch. They'd been training like mad for the last four hours and were completely exhausted by now. But he hadn't been lying there for long before someone came up to him.

'Ash?' questioned a voice.

'Yeah Brock?' he replied, not even having to open his eyes to see who it was.

'What do you think of Nixie?' he asked.

Ash opened his eyes a crack, to see Brock perched on the arm on the couch looking confused, 'Okay, this is the first time that I've got a question like that off you.'

'I've never felt the need before,' Brock admitted.

Ash sat up, dislodging Pikachu slightly who didn't seem happy with the situation, 'Wow, usually you're pretty consistent.'

'I don't understand her, I can't pin her down,' Brock admitted.

'You not understanding girls sounds pretty much usual to me,' Ash commented.

'Hey!' Brock exclaimed throwing a cushion at Ash, who just laughed.

'Where is this conversation going Brock?' Ash asked.

'I don't even know, Brock sighed, 'We were talking last night, and somethings that she was saying just... I kind of was a little mad, but at the same time...'

'But at the same time?' Ash repeated, raising an eyebrow.

'She hasn't stopped fascinating me for a second,' Brock shrugged, not entirely sure by what he even met by it.

'Wow...' Ash said, oddly one step ahead of Brock in thought.

This was a situation neither of them were used to.

...

'What do you mean we're not leaving today?' Ash asked in shock.

'Simple,' Nixie replied, 'There's no way we could get to any island in the hours of daylight we have left.'

Ash sat, staring at Nixie, Pikachu perched on his shoulder. he and Max had come over to talk to her and see when they were heading out, but now he was very disappointed.

'But I thought-'

'You didn't come in till about ten this morning, we would have had to leave three hours ago if we wanted to get anywhere,' Nixie replied simply.

'Why didn't you tell me last night?' Ash asked.

'I told you to read the bloody handbook and you still haven't,' Nixie replied, 'If you had, you would have known that Perry's gym is equal distance from Tien's island as Aura's is. It would take two days by boat to get there. And I was planning to stop off on Tien's island along the way to stock up on fuel because I don't have enough for the full journey.'

Ash looked disappointed, clearly wanting to have set out already to challenge the next gym as soon as possible, 'It's not a big deal Ash,' Max spoke up, pushing his glasses up his nose, 'It'll give you time to train for the next gym as well as figure out who you're using against Perry.'

'And may I suggest not using Pikachu for once?' came a voice.

They all looked up to see Drew standing there, the usual smirk on his face as Nixie commented, 'Wow, look whose finally awake.'

'I figured if there was anything interesting going on someone would have woken me up,' he said casually, 'You need a better strategy against the Carinthia's Ash, or at least a strategy of some kind.'

'No offence Ash, but he's kind of right,' Max pointed out, 'If things had went even slightly differently against Aura there is no way you would have won.'

'What?' Ash asked.

'If Corphish hadn't evolved, if you're Pokémon hadn't learnt so many new moves, if Muk wasn't as stubborn as it was, or Pikachu or Sceptile hadn't held out, or if Charizard hadn't taken Aerodactyl with it, you probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off,' Nixie said, before everyone looked at her strangely and she said, 'What? Aren't I allowed to have an opinion? It's not like I haven't seen my fair share of battles.'

The boys shrugged and moved on as Ash processed her point, 'Okay, you're probably right, well except about not using Pikachu, it trained really hard this morning and deserves to fight.'

'Then you're going to need to some work on your Iron Tail,' Nixie said scooping up Pikachu off his shoulder and rubbing it behind its ears, 'I do have an idea of a method you could use to train it.'

'You do?' Ash asked looking interested.

'Yeah, it's a way I've seen Aura train before, you know how powerful her Altaria's Iron Tail attack was, we'll leave first thing tomorrow morning, I promise,' she assured, 'But let me give you a hand with your training, I have a bit of an idea of what you need to improve on.'

Back again everyone! And with an attempt to improve Ash's abilities and training habits ahead, what shall happen next?

Thank you to my brilliant reviewers:

Lightningblade49- Why thank you, and it shall be a good opportunity, now to calculate when the opportunity should be taken.

Pikachu0311- I think more of the point was to develop Nixie's personality rather than reveal her identity, but soon enough more shall be revealed. I can't send you more hints, part of the fun is in the speculation, but I'll be sure to integrate them more heavily into the upcoming chapters.

Kyndig- Who knows? She might be.

IhateMarySue'sSooooMuch- Well it's Ash, so this chapter might answer your question. And the mysterious Gypsprit shall arrive soon enough.

So let me know what you all thought off this chapter, I shall update sooner the more reviews I get :D

~Selina