Ash's Pokemon:
1) Pikachu - Male - Electric
2) Pidgeotto - Female - Flying, Normal
3) Raticate - Female - Normal
4) Primeape - Male - Fighting
5) Gloom - Male - Grass, Poison
6) Butterfree - Male - Bug, Flying
7) Rhyhorn - Female - Ground, Rock
8) Golbat - Poison, Flying
9) Poliwag - Female - Water
10) Shiny Gyarados - Female - Water
11) Bulbasaur - Male - Grass, Poison
12) Charmeleon - Male - Fire
13) Squirtle - Male - Water
14) Seadra - Male - Water
15) Bellsprout - Female - Grass, Poison
16) Haunter - Male - Ghost, Poison
17) Parasect - Male - Bug, Grass
18) Nidorina - Female - Poison
19) Muk - Male - Poison
20) Magnemite - N/A - Electric, Steel
21) Dugtrio - Male - Ground
22) Ponyta - Female - Fire
23) Espeon - Female - Psychic
24) Eevee - Male - Normal
25) Umbreon - Male - Dark
26) Glaceon - Male- Ice
27) Jolteon - Male - Electric
28) Snorlax - Male - Normal
29) Jigglypuff - Female - Normal, Fairy
30) Venomoth - Male - Poison, Bug
31) Togepi - Female - Fairy
32) Spearow - Male - Flying, Normal
33) Clefairy - Female - Fairy
34) Tangela - Male - Grass
35) Dratini - Male - Dragon
36) Scyther - Male - Bug, Flying
Louise's Pokemon
1) Squirtle - Female - Water
2) Cubone - Male - Ground
3) Psyduck - Male - Water
4) Staryu
5) Starmie
Brock's Pokemon
1) Geodude - Male - Rock
2) Rhyhorn - Female - Ground, Rock
Chapter 36 - Pokemon Abandonment
After their visit to the Safari Zone, Louise became the proud owner of a Staryu and Starmie. Brock had found an injured Rhyhorn that was much smaller than the Pokemon's average height and weight. This had suggested to the group that it had been kicked out of the herd after being deemed too weak. Ash had caught the Scyther that had been following the group on their journey and an Elekid, which had decided to play around with one of the balls that Ash had dropped. The result, getting itself caught.
Elekid was a yellow, round-bodied Pokemon with black strips. It had bulky arms and three claws instead of fingers. There were two horns on top of its head which resembled the prongs of a plug, complete with holes in their sides.
It was while Ash was walking towards his bike that he traded all his Pokemon. This time selecting them based on whether he has evolved them yet. So, he now carried with him Elekid, Dratini, Spearow, Bulbasaur, and Bellsprout. His aim was to battle with them as much as he could, in hopes that they will evolve with the experience.
It felt weird being in a city after spending three days in the Safari Zone and another one riding through the forest. It was a shock to your eyes and a sensory overload for your ears. However, it was nice to come back to civilisation. In truth, it almost felt like time did not exist for the group whilst in the wilderness. It was too peaceful.
The group was now on their way to the Pokemon Centre of the city. It had surprised the boy, who had been here before that there was no way near as much traffic as there used to be. There were no cars zooming past, but instead driving leisurely down the road. The Ash remembered the bridge. It must have been complete by now!
As soon as that thought came into mind the large, zig-zagging bridge came into view.
"Wow," Brock gasped at the sight. "It is so big."
Ash nodded at the dark skinned teen, "It goes all the way to Sunny Side City, but only those with bikes and cars can go."
"That is way Ash wanted us to bring our bikes on the journey," Louise told Brock. "That and they are much faster than walking."
"At least this means we can take our time in the Pokemon Centre. It would only take about a day to get to Sunny Town, whereas it would take about four days to go around."
In the small Pokemon Centre, Ash greeted the Nurse Joy before handing her his Pokemon on the white trays that are stacked on the side by the door. He had remembered fulfilling her request and helping deliver medicine to a sick Shellder in the Town across the bridge.
The Pokemon Centre was small but welcoming with a sand yellow body and a bright red roof. Inside, the walls were filled with posters - one was about this years Pokemon League with a hand grasping a Pokeball in the Centre and then there were different elemental symbols surrounding it. The poster said, " Today's winners are tomorrow's Pokemon Masters."
"Ash!" Nurse Joy smiled at him. "I am so glad you came back to visit. I wanted to thank you for all your help last year."
"That is okay, Nurse Joy, I was happy to help. How is Shellder doing?" the boy responded, ignoring his friends as they looked on in confusion.
"He is now one hundred percent healthy, physically at least," the pink haired woman sighed sadly.
"What do you mean?" Brock jumped in, not sure how Ash knew the Nurse, but completely understood that there was something wrong with the Pokemon.
"Well, you see, the trainer that dropped Shellder off did not come back for it," Nurse Joy informed the group.
"That is horrible!" said Louise shocked how someone could do that.
"It is and now Shellder is depressed," the woman nodded sadly.
Then, before Nurse Joy could say more, a bell rang throughout the Pokemon Centre.
"Ah," she said. "Your Pokemon have been healed now."
"Great, thank you," Ash said as he picked up the Pokeballs on the tray and Pikachu leapt onto his shoulder. "Hey, Louise, do you fancy having a battle?"
"Okay," the blonde girl said thinking that she could use this opportunity to get to know her knew Star Pokemon.
As the two trainers went outside to the Centre's battlefield, they each took their place at either end. Brock became the referee after volunteering.
"How about a two on two?" Ash suggested, thinking that this way Louise will have the chance to use both of her new Pokemon in the battle.
Louise nodded her acceptance.
"I choose Elekid," Ash said. Whilst Louise called out her Starmie. The two then pulled out their Pokedex.
"Elekid, the electric Pokemon," Dexter's voice said through Ash's Pokedex. "It rotates its arms to generate electricity, but tires easily, so it charges up only a little bit. This Elekid is male and knows the moves quick attack, thundershock and low kick."
"Starmie, the mysterious Pokemon," Louise's Pokedex said. "Its central core glows with the seven colours of the rainbow. Some people value the core as a gem. This Starmie is male and knows the moves hydro pump, rapid spin, recover, swift and water gun."
"The match against Elekid and Starmie starts now," Brock shouted dropping his raised arms.
"Starmie uses rapid spin," Louise ordered, not entirely sure what the move was. To the girl's relief, the move dealt a small amount of damage to Elekid, who could not dodge fast enough. Rapid spin was exactly how the word describes it. It was Starmie spinning its body so fast whilst soaring towards the electric type ready to tackle it.
"Thundershock, Elekid," Ash ordered.
As Ash spoke, sparks began to gather between the two plug horns on top of his head. The electric Pokemon then bowed slightly and shot the yellow energy at the Star Pokemon.
"Dodge Starmie," Louise ordered and the mysterious Pokemon quickly moved out of the way. "Great, now use swift."
"Instead of asking Elekid to dodge normally the time, the boy commanded him to use quick attack. This allowed the electric Pokemon to breeze past the swift attack and follow up with a low kick that sent Starmie flying. However, the battle was not over yet.
"Starmie recover and then use rapid spin," Louise ordered.
Starmie focused its energy, first on its purple body in order to heal any damaged done from the previous attack, which was not much as the Pokemon was damaged normally by normal type moves. The water and psychic type Pokemon then moved towards Elekid in a rapid spin. However, Ash was already one move ahead.
Elekid was dancing from spot to spot, ensuring that it did not stay in one place too long. This way the rapid spin attack could not hit the Pokemon.
After Starmie realised that his attack would not work, he instantly stopped.
"Now use thundershock," Ash ordered, hoping that this time it would hit.
"Dodge and use swift," Louise said, missing the yellow attack once again.
Unfortunately for Ash, the swift hit Elekid causing the Pokemon to stumble back and collapse on the ground.
"Elekid is unable to battle. Starmie wins," Brock announced proudly. Louise's hand managed to beat Ash, which would now hopefully help her build up her confidence on the battlefield. After all, the teen was starting to believe that the blonde would make a great Pokemon coordinator.
"Elekid return," Ash shouted and then pulled out another Pokeball. "Scyther, I choose you!"
Louise, noticing that Starmie was tired, quickly returned her Starmie to his Pokeball and called out Staryu.
Once again both Louise and Ash scanned their recently acquired Pokemon:
"Scyther, the Mantis Pokemon. With ninja-like agility and speed, it can create the illusion that there is more than one of it. This Scyther is male and knows the moves quick attack, false swipe, fury cutter, double team and x-scissor.
Staryu, the star-shaped Pokemon. An enigmatic Pokemon that can effortlessly regenerate any appendage it loses in battle. This Staryu is female and knows the moves harden, tackle and water gun."
"Scyther, use double team," Ash ordered as soon as Louise was finished taking in what her Pokedex said about her Pokemon.
The green Pokemon immediately began to move extremely fast causing two, then four, then eight images of itself to appear. Staryu looked from one to the other, unable to decipher the real Scyther from the illusions.
"Staryu, use water gun on all of them," Louise ordered.
The star-shaped Pokemon quickly began to shoot a water gun at one of the illusions causing it to disappear. She then slowly turned in a full circle continuing her water attack. However, as soon as one illusion went down another had replaced it.
"Scyther, use x-scissor," Ash then ordered.
The Staryu froze as all of the Scyther's, real and illusions, made the knives on then arms glow as the crossed them over into the shape of an 'X'.
"Harden," Louise shouted out and then water type quickly did as it was told.
While this move did not stop the strong bug and flying types attack it did raise Staryu's defence and, thus, minimise the amount of damage she took.
"Quick attack and then go into fury cutter," Ash ordered the Mantis Pokemon, growing excited as he could see himself winning this match.
"Dodge it," Louise shouted.
However, there was no need for this. Scyther was faster than Staryu, with his ninja speed. Therefore, even as the Pokemon tried to dodge, Scyther fluidly followed.
The bug and flying type Pokemon slashed repeatedly at the star shaped Pokemon, resulting in a wipeout. It was only a matter of second but without any ddefencesStaryu was vulnerable.
"Staryu," Louise shouted and ran over to her Pokemon.
"Staryu is unable to battle. Scyther wins," Brock announced. "The match end in a draw."
After, once again, getting their Pokemon healed, the group sat in the Pokemon Centre eating lunch and staring at the dark clouds. It looked like they would not be crossing the bridge any time soon.
Finishing their meals, the group then sat in fron of the crackling fire discussing who Ash's next battle will be against. However, not only had Ash met the next gym leader, but he had battle with Blaine as well.
This gave Ash an advantage as he knew what Pokemon the gym leader had. A Ninetales, Rhyhorn and Magmar. Although, upon further research, the boy discovered that Blaine also battles with an Arcanine and Rapidash. This meant that the boy could build a team based on that information.
So the group began to plan. Since Ninetales was weak against ground, rock and water types, Ash chose to use his Rhyorn. Rhydon was weak against grass, water, steel, ground, ice and fighting types, so he decided on using his Squirtle, hoping that the Pokemon's small body could easily outmanoeuvre the larger Pokemon's big body. The Pokemon could also double as a back-up for any fire types. While Magmar was weak against the same types as Ninetales, everyone agreed that Charmeleon should be used in a fire on fire battle. The there was Arcanine and Rapidash, both fire types. So, Ash selected his Poliwag and Ponyta.
As it would be a while until the group went to Cinnabar Island, Ash did not trade his Pokemon yet. After all, he was not going to give up on evolving them only after a few mock battles.
As day turned into night the group paid for some rooms in the tiny Pokemon Centre, hoping that it will be a clear day tomorrow. It was not that they were in a rush, in fact, they had lots of time. However, Ash really wanted to check on that Shellder in the other Town.
The next day the sun was breaking through the clouds, pushing the white and grey masses away. Today was a lovely day to take a ride to Sunny Town.
So, the three jumped onto their bikes and waved goodbye to Nurse Joy.
The bridge was just how the black haired boy remembered it, without the building signs of course. It was a white suspension bridge, like the Golden Gate bridge but with more suspenders rising and falling. The water below sparkled under the sun, blue as a sapphire.
Due to it being so early in the morning, there were not that many bike riders on the path, nor were there that manny cars on the road. However every few miles the group did see the occasional rider or driver.
As the sky grew darker, the group finally arrived in Sunny Town and rode towards the Pokemon Centre. Surprisingly, this Centre was much larger than the Cities, with three floors. The outside was painted yellow with a large red 'P' for Pokemon Centre, while the roof was red and the double doors were white.
After asking the Nurse Joy of this Pokemon Centre, if he could see Shellder, the pink haired woman smiled and led the black haired boy and his friends into the back of the Centre where they kept the more permanent staying Pokemon. It was there that the bivalve Pokemon sat, depressed on the sandy floor of a large tank.
"Hey," Ash smiled at the small Pokemon. He then put his hand on the glass and said, "Do you remember me?"
This caused Shellder to look up, revealing its black pearl body to the boy. Yes, Shellder did remember him. After all, he was the one that rode through the storm to ensure that he got the medicine that he so desperately needed in order to survive.
"I heard your trainer did not come back for you," Ash continued sadly.
This caused anger to spike through the small water Pokemon heart as it looked down at the sand heatedly. It was because of his trainer that he was ill in the first place and, then, when he got better said trainer abandoned him.
"Poor Shellder," Louise said. "I wonder who his trainer was?"
"His name is Damien Tanner," Nurse Joy suddenly said. "I am not supposed to tell people this, but I am just as upset about the situation. Never have we had someone abandon their Pokemon so callously. We only know his name because he had to sign in for Shellder to stay in the Centre overnight.
"Damien?" Ash muttered and then walked over to peek at the file that the Nurse had been reading from. "Ah! I know him."
To Ash's horror that same boy who had abandoned Charmander, now Charmeleon, had now abandoned another Pokemon. Why is he treating them this way? What stupidly height expectations could he have for his Pokemon that he saw fit a so readily abandoned them?
"You know him," Brock frowned. "How?"
"He abandoned his Charmander just before a storm hit," Ash tried to explain shortly, but ended up telling the whole story about how he had tried to bring the Pokemon to the Centre and how it had refused so he built a shelter and stayed there with it.
Suddenly, the group heard a pop of a Pokeball and Ash was then face to face with his Scyther. The green Pokemon was frowning at the picture of the blue haired teen, with narrow eyes.
"Scy! Scyther," ranted the mantis Pokemon.
"Pika!" gasped the yellow mouse Pokemon that sat on Ash's shoulder comfortably. "Pi, Pikachu?"
"Scyther, scy. Scy!"
The humans of the group had no clue what the electric type and the buy and flying type were talking about. So, they just stood there watching the pair back and forth as the conversation seemed to escalate into shouting.
Once the two were finished, Pikachu turned to Louise, Brock, Ash and Nurse Joy. He then pointed his yellow paw at the photo of Damien and then to Scyther, who was practically steaming with anger.
"I think," Brock started. "That Pikachu is trying to tell us that Scyther was also Damien's Pokemon."
"What? No way!" Ash cried out. "Then that would mean that Damien abandoned him in the forest."
"Yes," hummed Nurse Joy. "It appears that this Damien boy is clearly neglecting his Pokemon."
"But that means there may be more Pokemon out there that he has abandoned," Louise said.
"Yeah and his only excuse it that they were all weak," muttered Ash. "That is what he said when he abandoned Charmander when he was showing off to his friends."
"So what is going to happen to Shellder now?" Ash looked towards to depressed, yet slightly curious water type Pokemon. At least it had not lost all hope in humans, the boy thought.
"Well, we will have to release him back into the wild," Nurse Joy said. "We have been trying to hold off the release date, hoping that it trainer has just lost track of time (which can happen sometimes), however now that we know this is not true, it will need to leave. We cannot keep it here forever, after all."
At hearing this, the back haired boy stared intently at the bivalued Pokemon's white eyes. Shellder stared back just as intently, begging, pleading with Ash to not force him back into the wild. The boy's heart broke for the Pokemon.
"I want Sheller," Ash voiced, shocking everyone into silence. "I already have experience looking after Damien's abandoned Charmander and Scyther. I am going to show him just how strong the Pokemon he left are and that he is the reason for not training them properly."
"That is very honourable of you Ash," Nurse Joy smiled.
"I would have done it too," Brock suddenly announced pushing the serious conversation away as he once again became obsessed with yet another Nurse Joy.
Ignoring the dark skinned teen, Ash smiled back before saying to Shellder, " So, do you want to come with me?"
At this, the black, pearl-like Pokemon rose up from the floor of the tank. That was all the agreement Ash needed.
Hey, guys, I know it took me a little longer to publish this chapter, but here it is. I hope you like it!
I also want to say that it looks like Ash will be catching an Aerodactyl, however, I think that I will have him catch some from other regions as well, especially Tyrunt and Amaura, who were the second most popular answers. Thank you for voting!