Disclaimer: Do I have to write one of these for every chapter? I don't own pokémon and I probably never will. So don't sue me! The only things I come close to owning are the characters for Lupusa and Casey, and the plot for this fic. So don't take them! …or I will send a flaming growlithe after you!
Author's note: Words in 's and 's are pokémon speech translated. Words in *'s are thoughts, pokémon or human. *****'s in a row mean that I'm changing the point of view.
Friends to the End
By Ark9
Chapter Five
Misty turned around. She looked at the girl. She was a taller than Misty few quite a few inches, and had straight, blond hair. Misty thought that she reminded her of her sister, Daisy, because of that. She wore blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt. Daisy wouldn't have thought that was appropriate for girls, but Misty never thought that they had the style that they thought they had. Only one question was really bugging her though: how did she know her name?
"Y-ya. B-but, how did you know who I am?" Misty asked warily, and took a step back.
The girl walked across the center. "I'm sorry. I didn't introduce myself!" she said menacingly. "My name is Casey." She held out her hand.
Misty relaxed a little bit as she shook her hand. "Hi, Casey. Are you a competitor here?"
"Nope! Just came to watch Brock try," she said with a laugh. "I guess he didn't tell you? I am his girlfriend."
"What?!" Misty yelled. "Brock?" she said in disbelief.
"You got it! He told me about how you and him used to travel with Ash around on Ash's journey," she paused. "Personally, I have my own theory about why everyone stayed together for so long!"
Misty waited uneasily to see if she was going to add yet another person to the I- know-you-like-Ash list.
"Too bad Ash will never say anything to Pikachu!"
"What? But Pikachu has always been like Ash's brother, and besides! Pikachu's a boy!" (AN: If you think Pikachu's a girl, sorry. I think that he is definitely a boy, 'cause he wore a tuxedo a couple of times and also on the "Pikachu's Jukebox" thing, so don't bug me about it!)
"So what if Pikachu's a boy? That doesn't matter," she said and waited for Misty's answer.
"Ash is not gay!" Misty shouted defensively. "and if you think that Pikachu is gay, then you better watch out!"
"Watch out for what?" she questioned.
"Pikachu pika!" Pikachu shouted, running in the door ahead of Ash. It came in, in time to hear her comment, and let's just say it wasn't too happy about it.
"What's a little rat going to do?" she asked it.
"Wait!" Nurse Joy shouted and ran from the other side of the pokémon center. "This is a pokémon hospital. Please! Have some respect for the pokémon here and battle outside if you need to."
"Well, Pikachu and I were just coming so that you could make sure that he didn't have any problems," Ash said honestly, and then lowered his eyes. "We didn't know someone would choose to act like a moron and make Pikachu mad."
Casey started laughing uncontrollably. "It's love, I tell you! Too bad you are both in denial! Ha, ha, ha…I'm going to go find Brock, now!" She continued laughing as she skipped around the buildings asking for Brock.
Ash sweat-dropped. "That was weird."
"Pika pika," it agreed, as it sweat-dropped and scratched its head.
"Ash, your Pikachu looks perfectly healthy," Nurse Joy said, happily. "Here you go!" she said and handed Pikachu an apple for letting her give it a check-up.
"Cha!" it said excitedly and started munching on the apple.
"Well, that's a relief," Ash said and picked Pikachu up. "No problems, huh?"
"Pikachu!" it said in its still-over-excited tone.
"You guys ready to go swim?" Misty asked.
"Are you ready Pikachu?" Ash asked.
"Pika!" Yea!
"Then let's go!" Ash yelled and ran outside towards the pool with Pikachu on his hat, once again.
"Wait up!" Misty called, chasing after him.
The Pool
"Pikachu, I just can't go in there. I forgot about Gyridos. I don't want Misty to see what it did before…and what if it tries again?" Ash asked with a confused look on his face.
"Pikachu pika." It'll be fine.
"I don't know, Pikachu. I just hope that you are right." Ash said nervously, as he walked out of the locker room. "I choose everybody!" he yelled, releasing all of his pokémon.
"So you finally made it," Misty said. I just have one more pokémon to let out."
"Gggoooorrrr!" the pokémon (you guessed it), Gyridos cried.
"Help!" Ash yelled. "Misty, stop this thing before it eats me alive!" Ash ran around the pool, certain of his horrible fate. He was at the far end of the pool before, but now he was running back towards the way Gyridos had come, hoping to make it spin out. Unfortunately, that meant running towards Misty.
"Gyridos, return," Misty said sadly. "I'm sorry, but I can't have you attacking Ash. I don't know what you have against him, but he is a friend."
"Thanks," Ash said, clearly out of breath.
"Come on!" Misty yelled, diving into the water.
"Alright," Ash yelled excitedly, hoping that she couldn't see under the water very well.
"Come over here!" Misty called from the shallow end of the pool.
Ash's face turned white. What could he do? He swam over anyway, wondering if he looked like anything was wrong with him.
"…you wanna race?" she asked.
"Uh…" Ash tried to think of what to say, silently relieved.
"Whoa! What happened Ash? Did Gyridos do that?" Misty asked, looking at the two jagged scars across his chest and back.
Ash swallowed hard. "Ya," he said finally. "I told you before, I think that he wants to eat me."
"You shouldn't have tried to catch it, Ash!" Misty yelled. "It was too dangerous. Even pokémon masters have limits!"
"I-I-I…I knew you would…I give up!" Ash stammered, fighting back tears. "I'm sorry. No one deserves to have to be around someone like me. Sorry about everything." Ash climbed out of the pool and started to run away. "Bye Misty!" Soon he disappeared into the locker room again.
*I can't believe it.* Misty thought. *He did that for me?* "Pikachu, will you come here for a second?"
"Pikachu?" What happened?
"Pikachu? Do you thank…do you think Ash would really do that…" Misty struggled with what she wanted to say, "…for me?"
"Pikachu!" Did he ever!
"Oh," Misty thought about what she should do for a minute. "Pikachu? Could you do something for me?"
"Pika?" Like what?
"Could you tell Ash that I'm not mad at him?"
"Pikachu." I'll try. Pikachu scampered off and returned shortly, with a sad look on its face. It carried a small piece of paper in its mouth and six pokéballs in its arms as it ran towards Misty.
"Can I read it, Pikachu?"
"Pika. Pikachupi." Yes, he actually wrote it for you.
Misty read it out loud, "Dear Misty. I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't think until it was too late. Sorry about being stupid. If you would give my pokémon to Pikachu, then it should be able to find me. Your (former) pal, Ash.
"Pikachu, this is terrible. How could I be so careless?" Misty asked herself as she recalled her pokémon and Pikachu recalled Ash's pokémon. "Do you know where he is Pikachu?"
"Pi-kaaa." I think so.
After dropping off her pokémon (including Togepi) back off in her room, Misty and Pikachu went outside to look for Ash.
Break up?
Soon Pikachu lead them to a river. As predicted, there sat Ash, his back to them and his face buried in his hands, in between his knees.
"I'll settle this, Pikachu," Misty whispered, taking his pokéballs and walking up to Ash. *He doesn't even know that I'm here.* "Ash?" Misty said quietly sitting down beside him. "I have your pokémon."
"Thanks," he said, taking the pokéballs and looking back at the river. *She'll probably leave forever, now, and I wouldn't blame her.*
Misty wrapped her arm around his shoulder. "Look, Ash. I'm sorry about reacting that way. It wasn't very nice and was kind of thoughtless of me, but you can't pout around here forever."
"But you said—"
"Forget what I said!" Misty snapped. "Does it take Gyridos to make you believe me?"
A sudden look of terror came into Ash's eyes before he realized that she was joking.
"I'm sorry. I didn't even bring Gyridos. Won't you come back to the hotel anyway?"
"Ok," he said with a reluctant smile.
Once they got to the hotel, Ash let his pokémon go in Misty's room, and then he went into his room, where Misty already was, little to his knowledge, hiding behind the door.
"Gotcha!" Misty yelled, blindfolding Ash.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Ash yelled helplessly as Misty made him sit down on his bed. "Misty? Where'd you go?" *She probably is just changing out of her swimsuit. That would be a good idea for me, too.*
*Ok, now where did I put that?…Ah, ha!*
Ash sat there wondering if she had just decided to leave him there, when he felt something cool on his back. "What in the world are you doing?!"
"Um…oh," Misty said, startled and blushing a little. "I found this stuff that might make the scars less noticeable," she answered.
*I wonder what Pikachu told her…why else would she?…that little rat is going to get it!* "Hey, that tickles! Knock it off"
"Hold still!" Misty yelled. With some trouble getting Ash to hold still, Misty finally finished with the cream. "I thought the blindfold would make you hold still! Oh, well. All done!" Misty finished, frowning as she took off the blindfold, still sitting on his lap.
"Hello, Misty!" Ash said with a mischievous smile on his face. He threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran into the room next door. "Come on, Pikachu! Round up the other pokémon! Back to the pool!" he yelled running down the hall and doubtlessly disturbing a few of the other people who were staying at the hotel for the pokémon league tournament.
"You put me down this instant!" Misty yelled, pounding on his back with her fists as hard as she could.
Surf's up!
Soon they were all going through the side entrance of the pool, this time, instead of through the locker rooms, since they were already dressed.
"Ash Ketchum, put me down now!" Misty shouted, glad that no one else was in the pool.
"All right!" he said and threw her into the pool.
"Pikachu, pika!" Come on out, everybody! Pikachu giggled, letting the other pokémon out of their pokéballs.
"Gggoooooorrr!" Gyridos yelled, using its water gun attack to push Ash into the pool.
"Pika!" Pikachu shouted, trying to recall it. After it realized that only Misty could do that, it thought of another plan to get Gyridos to stop attacking Ash. "Pika pikachu?" Why are you attacking?
"Gggoooorrr, Goooorrrraaaaassss! Because he deserves it. He thinks that you are all his, just to win battles with.
"Chu! Pika pikachu. Pikachu pi pikachu chu pi." No! We're his friends. He trains us so we can win battles so that we don't get as hurt.
"Ggggoooraaa!" You'll see! Gyridos then jumped into the water and swam over and started talking to Misty, who along with Ash, was very surprised, as they had not quite understood their pokémon's conversation.
"Ok! Gyridos says that it wants a competition to see who is right. There will be three events, like in some of the Orange Island gyms. What do you say? Are you going to try or are you too scared that I'll beat ya? Misty asked, feeling glad that she could get her "revenge."
"I'm not scared!" Ash said, trying not to look Gyridos in the eye. "You're on!" he said with his old exaggerated confidence.