Spot Inspection

Chapter 6

-Ash-

Face seemingly stuck in a wide grin, Ash entered Cerulean, fingers laced with his girlfriends. Girlfriend, wasn't that something he hadn't expected to come out of all this. The teasing that had come from his mom and her sister though? That he had admittedly seen coming when they called to share the news. "How do you think this one will go?" Ash asked Jane as they walked around a large crowd surrounding what looked like a robed store, the front window clearly smashed as one of Jane's local police relatives seemed to be having their hands full making people step back.

"Not sure honestly." Jane frowned, "This gym…well it's recently changed leaders. A few years ago, there were a husband-and-wife duo who both ran it together, but they passed away leaving the job to their four daughters from what I've heard. Never met em myself but most inspectors have been giving them a lot of slack given how new they are to the job and how suddenly they got it."

"Well lets hope for their sake they have their shit together." Jane shook her head as they remembered the last Gym leader and his pitiful showing. Continuing on through town, they finally reach the water gym, this one at least a little more original than the Pewter one, showing various water and wave artwork along with a massive dewgong sculpture on the roof.

"Shall we then?" he gave her a flirty grin, blushing when she pecked his cheek smugly.

"Yeah, I think we will lover boy, so come on." Jane tugged him inside as they walked past an oddly empty front desk, noting various aquariums along the halls as they followed the sound to what was apparently the main battle room of the gym. Inside he saw the bleachers all packed to bursting with various people, mostly guys, and in the field instead of a battle there was…a water ballet.

"What?" Ash blinked confused, checking his GPS to see if they'd gone into the wrong building by mistake "I thought this was a gym."

"You haven't heard?" one of the guys in the bleachers turned towards them, a wide grin as he kept glancing back at the three bikini clad women "The Sensational Sisters tend to do these shows whenever they don't have battles. They haven't had a lot of those recently but I'm not complaining at more shows!" Ash shot Jane a silent confused look as the spectator went back to his ogling, Jane just as flummoxed at the statement of the Gym having few challengers, especially so soon in the League circuit period.

"We'll wait for the end of the show and figure it out." Jane whispered in his ear, "Gym leaders are allowed to do side work, but I have a bad feeling."

"Sounds good." Ash whispered back before kissing her cheek, grinning when he made her be the one to flush this time. The ballet drug on, taking far longer than Ash felt it should have given the Gym leaders main job, the one they were paid to do by the government, involved battling challengers which they couldn't do if this kept up. It took over an hour before they finished and had clearly been well into it when they arrived.

"Excuse me, but the shows over so you'll have to go." One of the sisters noticed them after those in the stands had cleared out.

"Yeah, we like, don't do autographs or interviews." Another one sniffed haughtily.

"I'm here for a battle, not a ballet." Ash gave them a flat unimpressed stare as he opened his jacket to show the shining Boulder Badge.

The trio make a face before whistling as a small seal swam up to the surface of the water, sticking out their tongue which had a water badge on it "If that's all you want then here." One sister offered the badge with an uncaring shrug.

"We're like, not into that gym battling thing anymore." The second frowned.

"Not…into it?" Ash seethed, his indignation at someone screwing with the league, and therefore his girlfriend, raising his hackles.

"We kept doing battles but then these three trainers from Pallet town came by and totally thrashed us!" the third sister shivered "So we decided why bother! We can give the trainers who come the badge so they get what they want, and we can spend even more time making ourselves pretty and doing our shows. Everybody wins!" Wrapping an arm around Jane's waist, both to keep her from blowing up as well to help his own fury, Ash scowled prepared to tell them to shove it and let Jane go 'badass inspector woman' on them when the doors slammed open.

"HOLD UP!" a furious voice snarled as Ash turned and saw that Orangette from his first day as a trainer huffing and glaring.

"Oh, it's you." The 'sensational sisters' were sneering down at the orangette "I thought you said you weren't going to come back until you were a water Pokémon master."

"I…yeah I said that." The angry orangette stammered before glaring at the three older women "But when tracking those two bastards I learned you two were just giving badges away!"

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Jane sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"I'm Misty, the fourth sensational sister." The orangette glared angrily.

"There are only three sensational sisters, and one runt." The blonde sister snorted snidely as Misty snarled and brought out a mallet.

"Regardless, I came here for a battle." Ash stepped in before an actual fight could break out "Are you even registered as one of the Gym Leaders."

"…I mean…technically." One of the other sisters shrugged "But she's always been useless."

"Not into makeup and not getting spoiled by mom and dad doesn't mean useless!" Misty yelled at her sisters before turning to glare at Ash with renewed fury "And I'll gladly crush you in a battle. This will be a two-on-two battle for the water badge." She snapped before stomping over to her side of the field, clearly having something to prove.

"Scyther, you're up first!" Ash sent out the bladed bug type, planning to save Pikachu in case he was needed afterwards. What he never could have predicted was Misty's response.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Misty screamed, scrambling away from the field as she curled in on herself "A bug! Get it away from me!"

"Hey, are we going to battle or what here?!" Ash frowned, feeling a hit to the pride he felt in his region after seeing the Gym leaders he'd seen so far.

"NO!" Misty yelled, flailing her mallet in the air "You can't use that Pokémon! No bugs allowed! NONE!"

"I've seen enough." Jane fished out her badge, flashing it as the three sisters paled, Misty joining them once Ash returned a frustrated Scyther who'd wanted a good fight "I'm with the league inspections office. You four have just failed, and failed hard. I'll be contacting the league to inform them of you admitting you've been giving away badges to several trainers. Those badges will have to be deactivated and at this point I doubt you four will be allowed to keep your Gym Leader status."

"What?!" All four sisters shouted, apparently on the same page for once.

"Neglect of duties, refusal to actually battle, violent tendencies." Jane listed, the last two directed at a very angry Misty. Before the chastised leaders could respond the wall blew open, revealing a giant robot with a vacuum hose, the tube entering the giant Gym pool which he noticed had several Pokémon in it that could be called on to battle even if they seemed tired from being forced to do ballet for hours at a time.

"Prepare for trouble!" an unfortunately familiar voice began as the hose began sucking up water.

"And make it double!"

"To protect the world from deve-"

"Scyther, come back out and cut that hose." Ash ordered, sending the bug type out who didn't even hesitate to fight, slicing through the hose as the water and water Pokémon fell back into their giant pool.

"Hey! How dare you interrupt us!" the same two members of Team Rocket from Viridian stepped out of the giant machine.

"Eevee, shadow ball if you would." Ash called over his shoulder, a fluffy head poking out of his backpack.

"Vee!" the happy ball of fluff called out before spitting a massive orb of darkness at the machine which probably wasn't all that durable if it exploded on impact, sending the two thieves blasting away over the horizon.

"Weak." Ash scoffed at them even as he scratched Eevee's ear, a glance showing that Misty had fainted from the shock of sudden robot and return of a bug. "Shall we go report their failure and the thieves then Jane?" he gave her a confident grin "I think we have better places to be than this."

"Right indeed Ash." Jane grinned and swiped the water badge from the stunned airhead trio "You three have failed your inspection and if you warn the other gyms you'll be arrested. You can verify my identity with the league." With that, Jane grabbed his hand and lead him out of the building.

"You know, I do need that badge." Ash chuckled as they walked towards the path to the next Gym town, noting Jane still admiring the badge.

"Hmmm, I don't know." Jane stuck her tongue out playfully, "Maybe you'll have to pay me for it. I accept kisses as currency by the way."

"I think I can get behind this deal." Ash grinned, wrapping an arm around her waist before pulling her close "I'll be sure to pay…plus interest." Their lips met and damn if kissing her make his day every time.