Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

Chapter 25: Voyage to Cinnabar

The ship going ton Cinnabar Island left port only a few short minutes after Bolt and his traveling companions had boarded. Christine had breathed a sigh of relief once the voyage had gotten underway, as it meant that whomever her stepmother had probably sent to take her back wouldn't be able to get to her. The trip to Cinnabar was to be relatively short. It was only going to take six hours for the ship to get to the island, which meant that Bolt and his friends had nothing but free time on their hands. With nothing else to do, the six stood out on the deck of the ship and looked out over the waves.

"Wow! I never imagined that taking a trip out over the ocean could be so awesome!" Lorain told the others.

"I don't see why we couldn't have taken a plane to Cinnabar instead." Ross remarked. "I mean I'm sure Quinton could've gotten his dad to send us a private jet to use or something."

"What's with you man? You've been in a bad mood ever since we got aboard." Bolt observed.

"I'm just not crazy about being out at sea like this, okay?" Ross told him.

"You afraid of drowning, Ross?" Quinton asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hell no!" Ross snapped. "I've just never gotten what the hell's so great about the ocean."

"Ross?" a voice suddenly interrupted. The gang looked, and standing before them was a sailor who appeared to be in his mid-forties, though he seemed a bit older because of his white hair.

Ross scowled upon seeing the sailor. "Oh great! Of all the boats we could've gotten on, I had to end up on yours."

"I never expected to see you here either." The sailor replied with a scowl. "I would've thought you'd be home looking after your mother and sister."

"Yeah? Well the last time I checked, I thought that was supposed to be your job." Ross responded. "Things are fine at home. Kirsten is looking after mom."

"She always did have a better head on her shoulders than you did." The sailor replied.

"Cram it, old man!" Ross snapped. "If anyone should be looking after mom, it's you! You know, she had to go into the hospital for an operation!"

A look of shock appeared on the sailor's face. "Is… is she okay?"

"She's fine, no thanks to you!" Ross answered. "Just do me a favor you bastard and stay the hell out my face while I'm on this damn tub!"

With that, Ross stormed off the deck to another part of the ship. The sailor let out a heavy sigh once he was gone.

"Harsh!" Skins declared.

"No kidding!" Lorain agreed. "What was all that about anyway?"

Bolt calmly walked up to the white-haired sailor and held out his hand. "You must be Ross' dad. I'm a friend of his, Bolt Hanson."

"…Dale Jones." The sailor finally responded as he shook Bolt's hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"No way!" Skins spoke, his eyes widening behind his sunglasses.

"Are you really Ross' dad?" Quinton asked.

"Yep. I'm guessing my son hasn't painted a flattering picture of me." Dale assumed as he put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the railing.

"He mostly just said that you were a sailor, and that you served aboard a cargo ship." Lorain recalled. "Which means this ship mostly hulls cargo, doesn't it?"

"That's its main purpose, but we also give trainers like you rides to Cinnabar Island." Dale confirmed. "So that's all my son said about me, huh?"

"I've never even heard him talk about you." Quinton admitted. "Course Bolt and the guys have known him longer than I have."

"He did mention that you kinda rode his ass a bit." Bolt recalled.

"Only to keep him in line. Ross was a real troublemaker when he was younger." Dale revealed. "He was a little too much for his mother to handle. Maybe if I had been around more… I don't know."

"Is that why Ross is so angry at you?" Christine asked.

"This job has me away from home for months at a time." Dale answered as he turned around to look at the ocean. "That's the one thing I hate about it. But the truth is there's no other job I'd rather be doing. The sea has always been in my blood." He turned back to face the others. "Besides, this job is the best way to provide for my family. Mona, Ross' mother, has always had poor health, even before Ross was born. This job is the only way to pay for the help she needs. I only wish my son could understand that."

"He probably does, Mr. Jones." Bolt assumed. "But that doesn't make it any easier for him."

"No… I suppose it doesn't." Dale agreed. "Well, it was nice meeting you all. Ross seems to have picked a good group of friends." And with that, Dale left the deck of the ship.

After the little incident with Ross and his father, the rest of the gang decided to split up and search the ship, such as it was. As Dale had told them, the ship was nothing more than a cargo carrier that ferried trainers to Cinnabar Island from time to time. Which meant that there were no guest quarters, no restaurant or any of the typical amusements that one might expect to see aboard a luxury liner. Bolt and Christine had ended up in the cargo hold and decided to hang out there for most of the trip. When they found a good spot, Christine let Clefairy, Meloetta, Swablu and Dratini out of their pokeballs for some air.

"Sorry you had to see all that drama with Ross and his dad." Bolt told Christine. "I wasn't expecting that to happen on this boat."

"It's fine." Christine assured him as she fed Dratini some berries from the small bag she had with her. "You know if you ask me, I think that Ross is lucky to have such a caring father. He's willing to sacrifice a lot in order to provide for his family. If only I was that lucky."

"You don't think your dad loves you?" Bolt asked.

"Oh… I think he does." Christine answered as she walked over to stand next to him. "But most of the time I think he just sees me as a tool to advance his fortune, someone he can marry off for a corporate merger with another family."

"Like he wants to do with Richter's family." Bolt remarked.

"…If it weren't for that, I don't think my father would've even bothered with me." Christine sadly assumed. "After all… I'm just the little accident that happened because of his fling with a lounge singer."

Bolt took Christine's hand and removed their sunglasses. "Your dad may not think you're anything more than a tool, but you're a hell of a lot more than that to me."

Christine looked deeply into Bolt's brown eyes. Before they both fully knew it, they were moving in to kiss one another.

"Oh awesome! A Clefariy!" Quinton's voice suddenly cut in only a second before Bolt and Christine could make the kiss. "Is this yours Christine?"

"Uh… why yes!" Christine answered, her face a heavy shade of red. "Clefairy there is actually my first Pokemon."

"Wow! Well you are so lucky to have such a fascinating Pokemon." Quinton told her as he kneeled down to take a closer look at Clefairy. "Did you know that Clefairy are thought to have originally come here from space? In fact I've read stories about how a bunch of Clefairy once stole some odds and ends from a couple of small towns and used them to build some fairly advanced spacecraft. Has your Clefairy ever shown that it's able to use tools?"

"Dude! Christine and I were kinda having a moment here." Bolt told him. "Besides, didn't you notice that Christine also has the fabled Meloetta?"

"Oh yeah. Cool." Quinton responded, only glancing at Meloetta for a brief moment. "If you're willing Christine, I'd like to show your Clefairy some simple mechanical components to see if she can assemble them into a more complex device."

Clefairy seemed quite pleased at all the attention she was suddenly getting. Meloetta meanwhile had puffed out her cheeks in annoyance.

"Whatever man." Bolt sighed as he put his sunglasses on. "Where the heck are Skins and Lorain?"

"They went to go talk to Ross about his dad." Quinton answered as he reached into his jacket pocket, not once taking his eyes off the Fairy Pokemon. "Okay Clefairy, I'm going to write out a few mathematical equations for you and I want you to try your best to solve them."

"Well, this probably just turned into a long six hour voyage." Bolt assumed as he leaned against the wall.

"I'll say." Christine agreed with a heavy sigh. "I just hope that Lorain and Skins are having a better time with Ross."

Lorain and Skins found Ross out on the back of the ship. The white-haired bass player was leaning against the railing and looking out over the waves.

"Hey." Lorain spoke, getting Ross' attention. "How're you doing?"

"…Okay, I guess." Ross answered. "I'll feel a hell of a lot better once we get off this damn boat though."

"You know… I kind of understand how you feel." Lorain told him. "My parents are away from home practically all the time on expeditions to study all the different Bug Pokemon of the world. There've even been a few times when I got mad at them because they couldn't be home for Christmas or my birthday, not that I ever let them know of course. But even though my parents haven't been around as much as I'd like, I know that they still care about me."

"Yeah… well at least you have parents who actually give a damn about you." Ross told her. "The few times when my dad has been in the picture back home, he's always treated me like some no good punk. Maybe he does care about my mom and my sister, but he doesn't give a Rattata's ass about what happens to me."

"Ross, that just isn't true." Lorain told him. "We've still got a few hours before we reach Cinnabar Island. You should use this chance to talk to your dad."

"It's better if he and I just stay away from each other while we're on this tub." Ross replied.

"Dude, talk to him." Skins told him.

"And why the hell should I?" Ross asked.

"You've still got a dad. Mine's dead." Skins answered. "You're a lot luckier than I am."

With that, Skins put his hands and his pockets and walked off. Ross brushed off Skins' comment and went back to looking out at the ocean with a scowl on his face. Lorain sighed and went off after Skins.

It was at least two and a half hours before Bolt and Christine finally emerged from the cargo hold. Quinton was following behind them closely as he read the notes he had taken in his little notebook in deep thought.

"Sorry my Clefairy wasn't some super genius, Quinton." Christine told him.

"Oh, don't worry about it." Quinton assured her as he scratched his head. "It could be that most of the Clefairy on this planet have been here for so long that they lost the technical knowledge needed for space travel over the course of several generations. Those other Clefairy from the incidents I read about might've been a more recent expedition from their home world, wherever that might be. If it's okay with you Christine, I'd like to see if I could arrange for the lab on Cinnabar to do a cat scan on your Clefairy when we get there."

"Um… I'll think about it." Christine told him.

As the three headed for the deck of the ship, they ran into Ross who was walking in the opposite direction.

"Oh. There you guys are." Ross spoke. "You haven't come to talk to me about my dad too, have you?"

"Nah. That's your business, man." Bolt replied. "We're just out here to get some air. For the past few hours we've been down in the cargo hold while Quinton did some tests to see if Christine's Clefairy was some kind of super genius."

"He thinks she's from space." Christine added.

"Seriously?" Ross asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a well-known theory." Quinton replied. "In fact there are other Pokemon who have been thought to come from space as well, like Staryu."

"Yeah, not sure if I buy that." Ross told him. "If you guys will excuse me, I'd like to be alone until we get to the island."

"Ross." A familiar voice spoke. Everyone looked and saw that Dale had shown up.

"What the hell do you want?" Ross asked.

"I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to you." Dale told him. "I know I haven't been around you as much as I would've liked to be."

"You can take your apology and shove it up your ass!" Ross shot back. "I'm not interested in it!"

"Dude. Chill out." Bolt told him. "Your dad's obviously trying."

"I thought you were going to stay out of this!" Ross told him.

"Just making a friendly observation." Bolt assured him, raising his hands in surrender.

Dale sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I guess there's only one way for us to talk this out." With that, the sailor pulled out a pokeball. "Go Blastoise!"

Emerging from Dale's thrown pokeball was a large bipedal tortoise-like creature that stood at over five feet tall. Much of its body was encased in a thick brown shell that had a yellow underside and a white rim around the edges. Its arms, legs and head were blue, with its head having a yellow jaw and two small pointed ears.

"I'm challenging you to a battle, son!" Dale declared. "Right here and now! Think you can take your old man?"

After a moment, Ross pulled out his own pokeball. "Like I'd pass up a chance like this to kick your ass! Go Machamp!"

Ross' muscular four-armed fighter burst out of his ball to confront Blastoise. Bolt and the others quickly stepped aside to get out of the line of fire.

"Looks like you've been training hard." Dale observed. "Still, you never could beat me. Blastoise! Use Gyro Ball!"

"Fight back with Vital Throw!" Ross commanded.

Blastoise retracted his head and limbs into his shell. The shell began to spin on the floor of the ship and took off into the air as it glowed with a white light. Machamp spread his legs and raised his arms as if preparing to catch Blastoise. The turtle Pokemon's shell rammed into Machamp, but Machamp grabbed onto the shell as it pushed him back. As soon as the attack finally ended, Machamp hurled Blastoise into the floor of the ship with enough force to break the floorboards.

"Now use Thunder Punch!" Ross ordered.

As Blastoise emerged from its shell and got out of the hole Machamp's attack had made in the floor, the four-armed Pokemon charged over as the fist on his upper right arm began to crackle with yellow electricity. The fist made contact with Blastoise's left cheek, nearly knocking the turtle Pokemon off his feet.

"Fight back with Scald!" Dale ordered.

As soon as Blastoise recovered from Machamp's attack, it opened its mouth and blasted the muscular Pokemon with a stream of steaming hot water. The attack pushed Machamp back a few feet and even left a pronounced red mark that covered his whole chest.

"Ouch! It looks like Blastoise's Scald attack managed to burn Machamp pretty badly." Quinton observed.

"I remember when I helped you teach your Poliwag that attack." Dale recalled.

"The only good thing you ever did for me." Ross told him.

"Ross, I'm sorry I haven't always been here for you." Dale told him. "But this job has been the only way for me to help your mother."

"Yeah, like you've been a real big help to her all these years!" Ross shot back. "I was the one who had to bust my ass to pay for her operation!"

"You paid for it? How?" Dale asked, seeming to become angry. "What did you do son?"

"He won a gold nugget in a tournament we were both in." Bolt answered. "That's actually how we met. Your son ended up beating me pretty badly, by the way."

"A tournament?" Dale repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"That's right. What, did you think that I stole the money?" Ross asked. "I'm not surprised that you'd think that. You've always thought I was a screw-up!"

"Ross, I…" Dale began.

"Cram it, old man!" Ross shot back. "I already know what you think about me, so save it! Machamp! Use Thunder Punch again!"

Machamp charged in again and struck Blastoise in the stomach with another electrified punch. The force of the attack was so strong that the turtle Pokemon was knocked into the air. Blastoise managed to land on his feet but seemed to have trouble moving.

"It's time we end this!" Ross decided. "Use Bulk-Up!"

"Bulk-Up?" Christine repeated.

"It's a move that boosts a Pokemon's physical attack and defense strength." Quinton explained. "Ross is going to have Machamp power up for a final attack."

Machamp spread his legs and flexed all of his arms. The four-armed Pokemon then began to glow with a blue aura as the veins on his body began bulge and his muscles seemed to get thicker.

"Finish it with Superpower!" Ross commanded.

Machamp cried out and his entire body became shrouded in a white light. The muscular Pokemon leapt high into the air and came down towards Blastoise like a missile. When he came in range, Machamp punched Blastoise in the chest, creating a massive explosion of white light. Once the light finally cleared, both Pokemon were still standing and breathing heavily.

"Dang! That's one tough Blastoise that Ross' dad has." Bolt remarked.

"I would've thought that an attack like that would've ended things." Christine spoke.

"Blastoise's shell must've been just strong enough to keep the attack from being a fatal blow." Quinton assumed. "And the downside of Superpower is that it drains the power of the Pokemon that uses it. The bottom line is that Ross' finishing move failed."

"Dammit!" Ross cursed.

"You came close son, but not close enough." Dale told him. "Use Hydro Pump!"

The segments of Blastoise's shell above its arms opened up and two grey metal cannon barrels emerged. Both cannons fired out a powerful blast of water that struck Machamp and knocked him to the ground. When the attack was over, Machamp was lying face-up on the floor of the ship unconscious. With the battle at an end, Ross and Dale called back their respective Pokemon.

"Ross, I've never thought you were a screw-up. I've just always been concerned about the choices you sometimes make." Dale told him. "I will admit that I did assume the worst when you said you paid for your mother's surgery yourself, and that I shouldn't have done. The reason why I've always been so hard on you is because I was trying to keep you for making bad decisions. But I can see that you've turned out pretty okay. I'm proud of you, son."

"You're… you're what?" Ross asked with a look of total disbelief.

"I said I'm proud of you." Dale repeated. "Now, if you've calmed down, how 'bout you and I have a little talk?"

"…Yeah, okay." Ross finally agreed.

"We'll give you guys some space." Bolt told them.

With that, Bolt, Christine and Quinton left to go find Skins and Lorain.

Within a few hours, the ship transporting Bolt and the others finally reached Cinnabar Island. When the ship docked at the port, Dale saw the gang off the ship personally.

"I'll go back home to see your mother as soon as I'm able to." Dale told Ross. "Is there anything you want me to tell her for you?"

"Just that she shouldn't worry about me." Ross answered.

"I'll make sure she knows that. Well… I better get back aboard and help unload the ship." Dale decided. "Take care, son."

"You too, dad." Ross replied.

With that, Dale headed back aboard the ship. Meanwhile, Bolt and the others headed straight for the island's Pokemon Center.

"So things okay between you and your dad?" Bolt asked Ross.

"We're in a better place than we were, I guess." Ross answered. "By the way, why the hell did you tell him that I was the one who won that Nugget Tournament? You were the one who kicked my ass in that final round and won the whole thing."

Bolt shrugged. "Just trying to make you look good. Figured it was the least I could do."

Ross chuckled. "Yeah? Well I don't need you to make me look good. If anything, you need me to make you look good."

"Is that so?" Bolt asked.

"So, what's the plan now guys?" Lorain asked.

"Well, once we swing by the Pokemon Center and take care of Ross' Machamp, I say we head straight for the gym." Bolt decided.

"And once you beat the gym leader here, you'll have seven badges." Quinton realized.

"That's right!" Bolt replied. "This Kanto tour is getting close to an end. Look out, Indigo League! I'm coming for ya!"

Author's Note: I apologize if this chapter wasn't my best work. Truth be told, I had actually thought about cutting this chapter entirely, but it seemed like too good of an opportunity to do some character stuff with Ross. I hope that everyone at least liked the scene where Quinton goes nuts over Christine's Clefairy. He was actually referencing a couple of old episodes from the anime where Ash and co. encounter a gang of Clefairy that stole stuff in order to build a spaceship. One of the more notable items that they stole was the "microphone" that one Jigglypuff would use.

Please review and let me know what you think.