How Freakachu Came to Be (Lilja, a trainer?!)
Part 9
By Freakachu

Lilja paced around the barn, muttering to herself.

"That was so embarrasing. Why did I say that? Damn." She figured he was insulted that she left, and never wanted to talk to her again. She thought she better go out and apologize. One Freakachu that hadn't been put in a pokeball was following her back and forth, and then back into they gym.

"Ash!" She called starting towards him. He seemed surprised by someone calling his name, stood up, leaving his Pikachu to make small talk with her Ditto.

"Hey! Where did you go to?" He asked her, looking around the gym and up at the ceiling, anywhere, but directly at her it seemed.

"Hey, Ash?! Are you finished your battle yet?!" A loud voice broke the silence, saving them both from embarrasment.

"There you are Ash!" A dark skinned, tall boy called, as he and an orange haired girl sauntered over. "Who's the girl?" His face got a stupid goofy look.

The girl that was with him, swatted him.

"Oh! This is Lilja." Ash then explained what had happened during the battle and how Lilja helped him. The red haired girl then said something about how fast someone without brains to make extra body weight could go flying through the air. Then Ash came back with a remark just as insulting towards tom-boyish girls, and soon they were involved in a scuffle. Lilja and the brown haired guy just stood there.

"You are now experiencing what I have to go through every day. My name's Brock, and that girl that's about to beat up Ash, is our friend Misty." He introduced himself and explained.

"Shouldn't you stop them?!" She exclaimed. "One of them is going to get hurt!"

"Don't worry!" He laughed "They'll cool off soon."

"...yeah well, Miss Know-it-all, I happen to resent that remark, and if you want to..." Ash was cut off in mid sentance by Pikachu, who was tugging on his pantleg.

"Pika pika pi, pika!"

Ash swiveled to see what Pikachu wanted, and as soon as his back was turned, Misty gave him a shove. Down onto his stomach he went.

"Hey!" He said into the floor. Then he glanced up and saw what Pikachu had wanted him to see. He lay sprawled out on the floor (thanks to Misty)and gasped. One of Lilja's Freakachu had followed her into the gym!

"Darn.." She muttered. She didn't really want just anyone seeing her Freakachu. Especially when people had been watching her walk through Cerulean. She remebered Misty sitting at the gym watching Lilja battle her sisters. Obviously, Misty didn't recognize her, and obviously Brock didn't either. She battled him for her Boulder Badge. He had seen the Freakachu before, and so had Misty.

"Uh, I knew a Ditto could mix and match Pokémon, but I've never seen it do one like this!" Ash exclaimed as he picked himself up off the dusty gym floor.

"Oh, that's not Xerox, that's my own Pokémon. It's kind was sort of an accident." Lilja explained. "Come here, my little Freakachu!" She called to the cute looking creature.

"Freaka freaka!" Freakachu chanted.

"Freakachu?!" Ash, half-yelled and fell to the ground again. Brock and Misty both smirked.

"Hey, I remember you now. You had a whole backpack full of Freakachu a while ago when you battled my sisters at the Cerulean Gym!" Misty commented.

"Yeah, I remember you too! You battled me also." Remarked Brock.

Lilja scratched the little Pokémon behind it's ear. An ear that didn't seem to look right on it. "Any one of you want to battle against me with it?" She asked.

Ash slumped back down on the floor.

"I don't feel much like battling right now." He whined.

"I'II battle you!" Misty cried. "I could beat your Freakachu! My water Pokémon should do the trick! That's a fire Pokémon you have, right?"

Lilja didn't answer her question. But she did laugh, because Misty didn't know what she was up against.

"Ok, Misty. What Pokémon are you going to use?" Brock asked her.

Misty pulled a Pokéball out of her little red knapsack and yelled, " Misty calls Starmie!" Before the Pokéball could leave her hand, out of her knapsack popped a Psyduck.

"Aughh! No, Psyduck! Come back you stupid Pokémon! I didn't want you, I wanted Starmie! You don't look like Starmie to me." She squealed.

From his spot on the floor, Ash started muttering about how dumb she was.

"You'd think she'd know by now to leave Psyduck someplace where he can't get out. Maybe she should just tape its Pokéball closed." He moaned.

Brock walked up beside where Ash sat on the gym floor. Lilja was decided to let Misty exchange Psyduck with another Pokémon.

"I have to give you a chance," She said, "Fighting against a Psyduck would be too easy." She said that partly because she didn't want her Freakachu to be bashed around with Confusion. Not that it couldn't handle it, though.

Misty ordered Starmie to use Watergun, but the water did little to hurt Freakachu.

"That's one pumped up Pokémon! Why didn't the water weaken it? It's part fire, I can see that." Brock questioned.

"Yeah, but this Pokémon is also part plant, and absorbs the water." Lilja explained, while Freakachu used Thunderbolt, which zapped the water pokémon.

Lilja grinned as Starmie fainted. Freakachu was special, no doubt about that.

Brock decided that it was time to go back to where they were staying, and started towards the door. Ash seemed to be lagging behind just so he could see the Freakachu and what other kinds of stuff it did.

"Wait!" She called. "You guys can come to my place for supper. Then maybe I can tell you about my Freakachu, and my other Pokémon!"

The first one to agree was Ash. Lilja picked up her Freakachu and at the same time, grabbed Xerox and pulled it along the floor.

"Stupid Ditto." She muttered.

"Where is your mother?" Misty queried asked Lilja as everyone was finishing eating. That question
hurt.

"Uh.. well," She couldn't tell them that she didn't have any parents. The last person she told teased her and called her an orphan, "She, uh, she knew I had friends coming over so she went out." She felt like banging her head into a brick wall. That was the lamest excuse in the world. How on earth would her mother know, if she even had a mother, that she was going to have friends over? It was a spur of the moment thing.

Brock then stood up and said something about leaving that left Ash looking hurt.

"We have lots of time left!" He muttered, "Lilja, you can tell us how you got your Freakachu."

"I want to hear this. Sit down." Misty snapped at Brock. She glanced at Lilja. Lilja could tell that she didn't really like her much and she couldn't figure out why.She pushed her thick dark-red hair out of her eyes.

"I guess so, if you want to know, then I guess I can tell you." She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands.

'Damn,' She thought. 'I can't tell them that I broke into Cinnabar Lab.' She thought for a couple seconds for a good excuse then continued.

"About two months ago, two of my Pikachu were playing in the room where I keep the Pokémon supplies. Food, potions, things like that. I had a box with different evolution stones that I collected. I had meant to sort them out and put them in separate boxes, but I never got around to it. Well, anyways, my Pikachu were fooling around, pushing each other and stuff like that. They both fell in the box, and all of the stones combined made for a freaky evolution. Then the-"

"Wait a second!" Interupted Ash "If the Pikachu evolved with the stones, wouldn't that make funny looking Raichu?"

Lilja sighed. "I was coming to that part."

"Yeah Ash, it wouldn't hurt you to listen once in a while instead of making your mouth go all the time!" Misty taunted, sticking her tongue out at him.

Ash seemed to get mad, and snapped a comment at her.

"Anyways," Lilja continued, "Since the Pikachu fell in the stones, yes, they were evolved into weird Raichu like Pokémon. After they evolved, they had a litter of Freakachu. There's six. There was seven but one became very sick, and it died."

Misty seemed if she was about to cry. If she disliked Lilja for some reason, she wasn't showing it now.

"What's your problem?"Ash asked her.

"Isn't it sad? That cute little Pokémon dying?"

"Misty! I thought you only cared about water Pokémon!" Ash laughed.

"Freakachu is part water," She reasoned, "And I love water pokémon! They are so cute, and they have such-"

"WE KNOW! WE KNOW!" He yelled back at her.

"Not again! Can't you guys get along for two seconds?! Why are you always at each other every single day?!" Brock was on the verge of yelling at both of them.

Lilja got up and went out a door that led into the livingroom. She searched around for a second until she found her leather knapsack.

"Want to see my other pokémon? One of them is one of a kind, or so Martin says." She pulled a Pokéball out of the bag.

Ash picked up his glass and took a gulp.

"Who's Martin?" He asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Oh, silly me. Of course you don't know Martin. He's a friend of mine. He works at Cinnabar Lab. When I caught my Pokémon, I took it to him to see what it was, because nobody I asked knew. They had never seen any pokémon like it before. Martin kept my Pokémon at his place over night to study it. Afterwards, he told me that he'd never seen a pokémon like it and he even asked some of the other scientists there at the lab. None of them had a clue either. One of the scientists wanted to run tests on it, and possibly experiment.When Martin told me that, I went and got it, and told him I didn't want anyone doing things like that, especially to MY pokémon." She nonchalantly tossed the Pokéball into the center of the room and out popped out her Liquiot.

"What is that?!" Ash, Brock, and, Misty all asked at the same time.

The blue otter Pokémon looked around the room at the three surprised kids, then ran towards Lilja, and hugged her leg.

Everyone stared at the Liquiot that had latched itself to Lilja's leg. She felt her face grow warm in embarrasment as she looked around the room and realized that all three of them were staring at her and her Liquiot. She picked it up and hugged it to comfort it.

"Liqqqq" It cooed.

Ash recovered from his shock and asked her what it was.

"This is my Liquiot. It's very shy. I think-"

She was interupted for the millionth time that day, this time by Brock.

"Ash, we should be leaving now. It's almost dark, and we need to be up early so you can get your badge, then we can leave tomorrow."

"Not yet! We don't have to leave yet! I want to see more pokemon!"

"Fine then. We'll just leave you here. You know the way back to the house right?" He turned and left, with Misty following.

Ash stood, dumbfounded. He slumped back down into a chair in the livingroom.

"So, now that your friends are gone, tell me about yourself." Lilja asked him, sitting down beside him.

"Uh, well, how should I start?" He mumbled, acting shy, still holding Liquiot. "You said you have other Pokémon..."

She smirked at him. "Now don't be changing the subject..." She scolded. "For starters, how old are you?"

"Eleven."

"No kidding! I'm going to be eleven this summer!"

Soon, a full fledged conversation was taking place, about all sorts of stuff, but mostly about Pokémon training and Lilja told him about her Pokémon journey.

"You should be getting back to where you're staying now... it's quite late and I have to be up early to help Uncle Blaine in his gym." She commented. "By the way, thanks for dropping in. I enjoyed your company alot. It's not very often that I have guys over." Lilja opened the door for him. "I'll see you again soon."

Ash looked confused.

"How do you know that you'll see me again?" He asked, puzzled.

"You lost your match at the gym, so you'll be back there tomorrow. I'll be there too."