Act 29: Hook , line , and battle


It was early in the morning at the lake of rage and the group was at the end of the dock beside Quint's boat as he sat in a chair and held a fishing line.

Quint was silent as Emily and Kaoru waited impatiently.

"Should we say something?" Kaoru asked.

"Not yet."

Moments later Quint yanked up another Gyarados, pulling his head onto the deck before letting him back.

"Alright I understand you want to challenge the battle frontier here."

"Yes." Emily said.

"Those who do come aboard. The rest must stay back."

"I guess we'll see you guys later." Arkanes said.

"Good luck." Jack said.

Emily and Kaoru got on as Quint started the boat and drove towards the middle of the lake.

"The battle frontier is called the battle lake, normally I would battle someone individually, but since there's two of you we can have a double battle."

"Are you sure?" Emily said.

"I don't mind. But before we do that, you must complete my challenge. There are certain wild pokemon in the lake I've trained. Those who I've trained have been marked with a red ribbon. Find one of those pokemon and defeat them, after you do take the ribbon and present it to me. Also you aren't allowed to use that pokemon in our battle, so choose wisely." Quint said before handing them each a good rod.

Quint lead the two to a pair of dinghys on the side of his larger boat.

"Good luck." He said as they each got in the boat before Quint lowered them down and they rowed off, Quint sitting back down and casting his super rod out.


Meanwhile, Takeru and Quinn were on the Leviathan.

"I miss you too Mako, yeah they were really turned gold." They heard Arkanes say love this e-reader phone.

"Hey, you feel like going out for some lunch?" Takeru asked, Quinn smiled and blushed before nodding.

She held Takeru's hand as they walked off the ship.

Meanwhile Alex was inside the market looking for ingredients to make his pokemon's food. Croconaw was beside him and looking in interest at the food.

"Why do small town stores have things chain stores don't?" Alex said as he picked something up.

Alex turned and bumped into someone , almost knocking them over.

"Ah I'm sorry I." Alex started before he saw it was none other than Jasmine.

"Jasmine!"

"Alex." She said.

Croconaw growled a little when he saw Totodile.

"Hey, sorry about."

"It's fine, I guess we both bumped into each other."

"What are you doing at the lake of rage?" Alex asked.

"Well there was a show I got hired to do in Mahogany town, but it got cancelled because of a police investigation so I thought I'd visit the lake while I was here. What are you guys doing here?"

"Well Emily and Kaoru have a battle frontier challenge."

"It is nice seeing you, I've missed you since the dome." She said taking his hand and rubbing her head against his shoulder.

"Well since we are here together, did you want to go out and get some lunch?"

"Sure!"

Despite seeing Alex and Jasmine mating with each other, Croconaw still wanted to keep an eye on her.


Emily was in the lake with Dewott swimming around her.

She had been sitting there for nearly an hour.

Moments later she pulled up another Magikarp.

"Sigh" She turned to Dewott who came up.

"Any luck?" Dewott shook his head.

"Great, ok there has to be some kind of truck to this , maybe I need a certain bait." She said taking out some food made specifically for water pokemon.

"This might work." She said casting it in.

Moments later she felt a stronger tug on her line.

"Oh this could be it!" Emily said before she reeled in none other than Dewott.

"Dewott!"

Dewott sweat dropped nervously as he held his arms up.

Emily sighed as she let the line loose, dropping Dewott into the water.

"Well this is still going better than the last one, I'm still dry." She said before feeling another tug on her line.

Emily tried to reel it in, but the pokemon on the line leapt out at her, Emily's eyes widening as she saw a large Poliwrath with a red ribbon tied around his right arm. The Poliwrath knocked the boat over and hurled Emily into the water.

She came up and saw Poliwrath holding his arms up as he stood on the capsized dinghy.

"….I blame myself." She said as the Poliwrath laughed before Emily jumped out and knocked him off as she grabbed the Poliwrath.


Kaoru was with Omanyte as he swam from the bottom of the lake to the top.

Kaoru pulled up another Magikarp and gave an irritated look.

"So many Magikarp." She said before letting him go.

"Maybe we're in the wrong spot." Kaoru began rowing with Omanyte swimming beside her.

She entered the flooded forest section of the lake with trees around her until she saw something interesting.

A Marill was laying down in some tree branches resting in the sun as Kaoru noticed a red ribbon tied around her tail.

"Bingo." She said smiling as Omanyte swam in front of the boat.


Meanwhile, Takeru and Quinn came to a local restaurant.

"Best ramen in Johto?" Takeru said looking at the sign.

"It looks like a nice place." Quinn said as they walked inside.

As they did they saw none other than Alex with Jasmine already there.

"Alex."

The two turned.

"Takeru, so you guys are having some lunch too." Alex said.

"Yeah, I didn't know Jasmine was here." Quinn said.

"We only have one table available." The hostess said.

"Hey we could share a table." Alex said.

"Alright." Takeru said.

The four were lead to a table and sat down.

"Is this a double date now?" Jasmine asked nervously.

"I guess so." Quinn said.

Jasmine had a nervous look. She had seen the others before but didn't really know them. Jasmine looked down at Croconaw and saw the untrusting look. She had figured that he realized her old intentions of destroying Alex a while back. Alex was a bit dense in that regard, but she was afraid this Takeru and Quinn wouldn't be. Jasmine didn't want to hurt Alex, not anymore, but if Croconaw still thought she did and made the others think.

Quinn noticed Jasmine looked a little nervous.

"Jasmine are you ok?"

"Ahhh! I'm sorry, I've just never met a samurai and samurai lord in person before. It's just such a great honor." She said nervously.

Takeru and Quinn didn't buy it, they could tell something else was making her nervous.

"So Jasmine, Alex says you're half kalos like him."

"Oui." She said nodding.

"I can tell, Kalos girls all have lovely eyes." Takeru said in Kalos.

This surprised Jasmine.

"I didn't expect you to know Kalos." She said in kalos.

"A good lord should know the languages of the world, Hikoma told me that."

"That's nothing, my mom taught us kalos before Kanton. That made school interesting." Alex said in kalos.

Quinn sweat dropped hearing the three speak in kalos , unable to understand anything they were saying.

"Please can we go back to Johton." She said.

"Sorry." Takeru said.

"So you guys really fight those monsters on a regular basis."

"You get use to it." Quinn said.

"Your ambition is to be a top performer right?" Takeru asked as Jasmine nodded.

"Ever since I saw mama as a performer it was my dream to be a great one like her."

"I still think you should meet my mom, she's a performer too. I have a feeling you'd get along great." Alex said as Jasmine looked more nervous, Takeru and Quinn noticing this, Takeru also noticed Croconaw growling at her.


Meanwhile Emily shoved Poliwrath off the flipped over boat before climbing onto it.

The Poliwrath leapt back at her before Dewott slammed into his side with Aqua jet.

Dewott landed beside Emily as Poliwrath shook his head.

Poliwrath unleashed Bubble beam at the two, but Dewott readied his shell.

"Razor Shell!" Dewott slashed apart the bubbles before reaching Poliwrath and slashed him.

"Poliwrath responded with Dynamic punch, hurling Dewott back into Emily, knocking them both into the water.

Poliwrath leapt onto the boat and danced around in victory before he noticed the water below him was glowing white.

He gave a confused look until Emily came out holding onto a large Samurott, the Poliwrath now looking afraid.

"Oh yeah! Samurott use Aqua jet!" Samurott covered himself and Emily in water before smashing through Poliwrath's submission and hurling him back into the water.

"Mega horn!" Samurott smashed his horn into Poliwrath, hurling him several feet into the air before crashing into the water.

Moments later Samurott saw Poliwrath's hand come up waving a white flag before he tossed Emily the ribbon.

"Alright, wait a minute, where did get a white flag?"


Croconaw finished his food as he sat down and let out a satisfied growl.

"And that's how I caught Turtwig." Alex said.

"That's creepy."

"You're telling us." Quinn said still remembering the ruins of Alph and the voices.

Croconaw grunted as he crossed his legs.

"Croconaw do you have to go to the bathroom?" Alex asked.

Croconaw nodded.

"Go outside." Croconaw left as Jasmine had an idea.

"I need to go too."

Croconaw gave a relieved look as he came out from behind a tree.

That was when he saw Jasmine in front of him and started growling.

"Ok you clearly have a problem with me, and I'm not going to pretend to not know why. You clearly know what I wanted to do with him when we first met. I assume you had something to do with all of those things that happened to me. But you have to believe me know when I say that I'm done doing that. I just want to keep dating him seriously, I adore him, but your aggression towards me is making his friends suspicious. I don't want to put our relationship at risk, please for my sake and his just stop with the growling and stuff."

Croconaw was still unsure, considering if this was all a ruse to get his guard do so she could humiliate his partner.

Jasmine got down on her knees.

"Please just stop. I'm begging you, come on you saw me sleep with him on the beach, why would I do that if I didn't really care about him. We didn't even use protection, I was willing to have his baby."

Croconaw started to realize that despite his ignorance, Alex did seem happy with her, and if she was being sincere , outing her would only hurt Alex. It was a risk, but one he would have to take.

Croconaw smiled and nodded.

"Oh thank you." She said sounding relieved.

The two returned to to the table.

Jasmine's Totodile noticed Croconaw's expression changed, he seemed less aggressive and more devious. If she wanted his approve, he'd give it to her, and more.

"So Jasmine where are you performing next?" Quinn asked.

"Well I." Croconaw jumped up onto Jasmine's lap, nearly nocking her over as he had a playful look on his face and licked the side of her face, Jasmine cringing as Alex laughed a little.

"Easy there Croconaw, she's taken." He said lifting him off as Croconaw tried to get back to her, Licking Jasmine's face again.

Totodile seemed angry about this, but Jasmine noticed Takeru and Quinn seemed less suspicious upon seeing Croconaw act so playful around her.

She let out a relieved breath as Croconaw came down beside Totodile who was growling at him. Croconaw responded by giving her a big lick across the side of her face, Totodile's face shooting red as her tail wagged.

The four continued eating ramen as Jasmine set down her chopsticks.

"You know I would have thought that a noble lord would be set up with an arranged marriage." Jasmine said.

"I was, now Arkanes's is dating her." Takeru said as he kept eating.

"Huh?"

"I had feelings for someone else." Takeru said as Quinn blushed and smiled.

"How did you two start dating?"

"Well he asked me out to dinner and we went to a karaoke bar. We ended up singing a song together." Quinn said putting her hand on his.

"Let's not bring that up." Takeru said sounding embarrassed.

"Come on baby, you sang beautifully."

"I have many skills Quinn, singing is not one of them."

"Still I loved every moment of it."

"I guess you would rather be with someone you wanted. I understand, when I was younger my mother tried to set me up with a baron's son. At first I was smitten , until I got to know him. My god he was a slob, at the end of the day my papa actually punched his dad after I said no and the baron claimed I was some trashy reject."

"I think I like your dad already." Alex said as Jasmine nervously sweat dropped.

"I remember when my sister went out to her first dance and our older brother told us that dances involve a lot of grinding, my dad crashed it with Dragon Cae…" Alex quickly stopped himself.

"He uh, scared her date into dancing cleanly."

Jasmine smiled hearing this.


Kaoru and Omanyte looked at the sleeping Marill and thought for a minute.

"If we're careful, we could untie it without waking her." Kaoru said as she slowly rowed the boat over and carefully tried to untie it.

Marill's eyes shot open a she saw Kaoru before pulling her tail away and blasting Kaori with water.

Marill got to the top of the tree and shook her tail at Kaoru in a mocking manner.

"What? Ok, game on bitch." Kaoru said as Omanyte climbed onto her shoulder.

"Mud shot!"

Omanyte unleashed a shot of mud at Marill who blasted it with Bubble beam.

The mud blasted apart before the bubbles nearly knocked Kaoru off her boat.

Marill laughed and shook her tail again before Kaoru and Omanyte looked angrier.

Kaoru ran forward and jumped off the boat, grabbing Marril's tail and nearly dragging her into the water.

Marill grabbed the top of the tree and held on as Kaoru hanged from her tail, she looked down and blasted Kaoru with water gun. However, Kaoru held on tight and undid the ribbon before letting go.

"Ancient power!" Omanyte raised up rocks from the bottom of the lake before smashing them into Marill and hurling her onto the lake.

Kaoru came up holding the ribbon.

"Time to battle!"

Eventually the two couples went their separate ways.

Quinn and Takeru rode Gyarados across the lake, Quinn sitting behind Takeru with her arms around his waist.

"Is it just me or did that Jasmine girl seem nervous around us?" Quinn asked as she rested her head against Takeru's shoulder.

"Oh she definitely did, and Croconaw seemed like he didn't like her until they both disappeared then he was all over her. Something's going on with that girl, but we can't babysit Alex, he seems to like her."

"I guess. I don't want to worry about them right now." Quinn said before kissing Takeru's cheek.

"How is that girl you helped doing?" Takeru asked.

"Mei's parents said she's doing better, she still in recovery though."

"It's bad enough the Gedoshu are here, the last thing we need is Team rocket monsters."

"Well Amber and Nathan seem like they have it under control for now."

"I hope."

Kaoru and Emily stood drenched in front of Quint.

"I see your challenge didn't go without incident."

"We have your ribbons." Kaoru said.

"Yes I can see that, I hope you have pokemon that can fight over water. Back in your dinghys."

"I wish I could use Samurott." Emily said.

The two got two their boats and rowed beside each other.

"Alright we can do this, we work together." Emily said as Kaoru nodded.

"Go Celebi!"

"Go Gyarados!"

The red Gyarados roared as she came out in front of Kaoru, while Celebi came out in front of Emily.

"So you did catch the red Gyarados, and is that a Celebi! This will be an interesting battle after all." Quint said before taking out two pokeballs and hurling them forward into the water.

A Golduck came out of one while Mantine came out of the other.

"Let's make this interesting." Quint said as his pokemon came together.

"Gyarados use Twister!"

"Celebi use Magical leaf with it!"

Gyarados unleashed a tornado of dragon energy as Celebi let lose colorful leaves into the twister, the leaves speeding up.

"Ice beam!" Golduck shot up out of the water and blasted the twister with ice, freezing it solid as well as the leaves.

"Wing attack."

Mantine leapt up from underwater , shattering the twister and hitting both pokemon, knocking them back.

Both of Quint's pokemon returned underwater as Gyarados and Celebi regained themselves.

"Gyarados try to dine them underwater." Gyarados swimming underwater before seeing the two.

"Confusion."

Golduck's eyes glowed red as he held Gyarados in place with Psychic energy.

"Psybeam!"

Mantine blasted Gyarados out of the water and at Celebi.

"Confusion!"

Celebi's eyes glowed as she caught Gyarados and held her in place.

"Twister on top of the water!"

Gyarados roared as she unleashed another tornado of dragon energy, however, this time the tornado stayed near the top of the water and began to suck much if it up, revealing Golduck and Mantine in the whirlpool.

"Icebeam and Psybeam!" Quint smart enough not to use the same exact tactic twice in a row.

Gyarados's attack was frozen solid before Psybeam shattered it and went right at Gyarados

However, Celebi ended confusion and dropped Gyarados into the water before avoiding the Psybeam.

"Dragon rage!"

Gyarados opened her mouth and blasted both of Quint's pokemon back with Dragon rage.

"Leech seed!"

Celebi unleashed two seeds into Golduck and Mantine which sprouted and ensnared them before energy began to get sapped from the two.

"Mantine use Supersonic, Golduck use Confusion."

Golduck held both of his opponents in place with psychic energy before Mantine unleashed supersonic, confusing them both.

"That's not good." Kaoru said in concern.

"Psybeam! Zen Headbutt!"

Mantine unleashed Psybeam into Celebi while Golduck launched himself into Gyarados, smashing his head into her stomach, forcing Gyarados back as the two kept swirling their heads around in confusion.

"Ice beam and Wing attack!" Quint called out before the leech seed sapped more of their energy and made them stop.

This pause was long enough for Gyarados and Celebi to recover from their confusion.

"Twister!"

"Magical leaf!" Gyarados unleashed a tornado of dragon energy while Celebi unleashed colorful leaves into it. The combined attack flew through the air and crashed into both of Quint's pokemon, the combined attacks hit them hard, particularly the magical leaf.

They both landed stomach up with swirly eyes.

"Well that's that then." Quint said.

"We did it!" Emily shouted in excitement, Celebi flew over and into her arms.

Kaoru was excited until she saw Gyarados give an excited face and leap at her.

"Oh no."

Emily and Celebi saw Gyarados smash through the boat a she landed on Kaoru.


Elsewhere, Alex and Jasmine were sitting together near the water with Croconaw and Totodile in the water.

"I'm glad you were able to meet Takeru and Quinn."

"So how did you become a Shinkenger again?"

"Well it started when I met Takeru. He's a master swordsmen, but his martial arts needed some work. So we trained each other."

"Why did you want to be trained as a Samurai?"

"Well, I guess a part of it was regaining a bit of my Johton heritage, living in Alola my whole life. I thought it would be a good way of…Well, there was another reason too."

Jasmine noticed Alex's tone with interest.

"Alex?"

He sighed.

"Jasmine I take it you probably know who my family is."

"You could say that."

"Living in their shadows hasn't always been easy, always being compared to them, people questioning when I couldn't do something they could."

Jasmine never thought about Alex's situation like that before.

"I guess I just thought that if I could have the skills of a shinkenger… But I guess I never imagined I'd become one." Alex said smiling.

"I'm glad you were able to."

"You know I don't think I know enough about your family." Alex said as Jasmine looked nervous.

"Well, it's me, mama, papa, and my little brother Lucas."

"You have a little brother?"

Jasmine nodded.

"He's fifteen and competing in the Kalos league right now. I just got his first badge the other day."

"You said your dad runs battle chateaus and your mom works in showcases right?"

Jasmine nodded.

"I still think our mothers should meet, considering my mom's a top performer in Alola. They would probably really get along well."

Jasmine sweat dropped.

"I doubt that."

"So I'm guessing your dad taught you how to fight?"

Alex nodded.

"Did he want you to be a great trainer like him?"

"I think he did, but he didn't push me down this path." Jasmine taking note of this.

"He didn't?"

"No, I wanted to become a trainer on my own. I mean how couldn't I be."

"Mama wanted me to be a performer." Jasmine said as Alex turned back to her.

"I always liked watching her perform, but when I was a little girl she'd make me practice a lot, tell me I needed to become the best in the world. It could sometimes get strenuous."

Alex saw her look down a little.

"Papa was the same with Lucas, sometimes they would spend the entire day practicing."

"Your parents really wanted you to succeed."

"I guess." Jasmine said before Alex put his arm around her shoulder.

"Are you happy with what you're doing? Do you wish you were doing something else?"

Jasmine thought hard, and truthfully she loved performing. Even if her mother was hard with practicing, she did enjoy it none the less, Lucas seemed to be excited for his journey as well.

"I am happy performing." Jasmine blushed a little before closing her eyes and giving Alex a kiss.

Totodile and Croconaw were watching from the water, Totodile nervously looking at Croconaw before she held her hands together and took a deep breath. Croconaw felt her lick the side of his face before turning to her as Totodile's face turned red.


Kaoru and Emily stood on Quint's boat as he opened a case and revealed two golden coins with fishhook symbols on them.

"The patience symbol is yours now."

"Arigato." They said.

"I wish ya both luck." Quint said before he sat down and cast out.

The two sat there for a minute.

"He's not going to drive us in is he."

"Nope." Emily said taking a deep breath.

She saw her cloths were still soaked and climbed up onto the edge before jumping in and swimming away.

Gyarados's head came up as Kaoru gave a confused look.

"We could have given her a ride."

Gyarados looked at Kaoru then Emily, then Kaoru.

Quint heard a splash as Gyarados knocked Kaoru in.

"Gyarados!"

Gyarados laughed a little.


Author's note

Another battle frontier down,

We got to learn a bit more about Jasmine as well

So until next time,

Please review, comment , suggest, or ask(VIA PM)