Disclaimer: Pokémon do not belong to me in any way.
Author's note: This is a sequel to "Olivine Lighthouse: Light Into My Heart" for all of you who wanted one (and those who didn't read it before). It's not quite as shippy, but I'm mainly writing it to take a break from my other series, so…
This takes place a few months later, when Ash has reached Blackthorn City and has already battled and defeated Clair, the Blackthorn City gym-leader. Now is when he should get a badge…right?
Blackthorn Dragon's Den: Dragon of the Soul
By Ark9
"Yippee!" Ash shouted excitedly. "We won, Pikachu! Good job, buddy!"
"Pikachu!" Pikachu smiles and jumps into his arms.
"Humph!" Clair snorts. "You were just lucky. I don't think that you deserve a badge. Pikachu should have lost."
"…B-but I won!" Ash complained with wide eyes.
"Yeah, you won the match. There's more to pokémon than winning matches," she stated in a snobby tone. "You aren't ready to join the Johto League. Come back another time and try again."
"That's not fair!" Misty shouted.
"Yeah," Brock joined in, "Aren't you required to give him a badge?"
"No, I'm not," Clair sneered back. "I am supposed to give a badge to whoever I feel is worthy. I could give a loosing trainer a badge if I thought that they deserved to get it. His," she points to Ash, "pokémon training skills are sloppy and often too late. He needs more practice before he tries in the Johto League," she finished and turned her back to them.
"That's not fair!" Ash shouted.
"Life isn't fair!" Clair mocked.
"That's beyond unfair! You have to give him another chance, at least," Brock yelled. "He won. You can't refuse him a badge unless you have one more thing that all trainers are required to pass."
"Well, then!" Clair snapped. "You must have been a gym-leader yourself, from what you know."
Brock stood up proudly.
"…but no one has beaten me before Ash," she finished. "So I could give him infinite tasks."
"Only two," Misty interrupted. "Unless you each win one, that is."
"Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh," Clair growled. "You are lucky, Ash, to have these friends of yours with you. Okay I will give you another try."
"Thanks, guys," Ash smiled as brightly as he did when he first won.
"Don't be so sure of yourself," Clair threatened. "Your task is to find the Dragon's Fang. It is hidden somewhere in the Dragon's Den, behind the gym. Here are passes," she handed each of them a pass and continued, "Show this to the guard and you shouldn't have any problems."
"I won't disappoint you!" Ash shouted and started out the door.
"You'll probably drown!" Clair snarled.
Brock, Misty, and Ash continued running, trying to ignore Clair's comments that chased them out of the gym.
"That sure was different," Brock said once outside.
"I don't like her attitude!" Misty added, glaring at the building.
"Well, as long as I get a badge, who cares?" Ash shouted brightly, unmoved by the disapproving tone of Clair.
"He'll never learn," Brock sighed.
Misty just smiled and chased after Ash, who was already half-way across the field that led to the entrance of the Dragon's Den.
Brock grinned at the two following Pikachu, wishing that one day he would be like that. He would accept anybody who loved him. Maybe that was his problem. No girl liked him because he tried to get to know her in a romantic way. It just didn't make sense at all to him at all. Now he had stopped trying, hoping that some day, someone would feel the same way he felt with any girl, towards him. He couldn't help feeling just a little jealous of Ash, who hadn't gone fishing for it but got a girlfriend anyway. Well…it was Misty for crying out loud! If he had to deal with her screaming wherever he went, he'd go crazy!
Laughing at the wind blowing against there faces, they raced up to the man, Ash on Croconaw, Misty on Starmie, and Brock using Onix to get on top of the nearby wall, which ran around to the entrance. Once back on the main level of land, they saw a older-looking man, dressed with dark clothing, who was obviously the one guarding the closed-off area. He stood without a visible reaction until they slowed down and stopped in front of him.
"We need to get in, sir," Brock said.
"Who are you, why do you want to get in, and why should I let you in?" the guard asked in a monotone voice.
"I'm Ash Ketchum," Ash said pointing to himself. "These are my friends, Misty and Brock," he continued, Misty and Brock flashing peace signs that were ignored. "I need to get in to look for the Dragon's Fang for Clair."
"She knows where it is. Nice try," the guard interrupted. "If you have more excuses, feel free to try them, but they won't work."
"It's my task for a badge," Ash explained. "She gave us these passes so that we could get in." All three of them showed the guard their pass.
"Since Clair, the dragon master, has allowed it, you may enter," the guard rigidly stepped out of the way to let them pass through.
"Thank you, sir!" Misty smiled and then frowned when he made no reply.
"Come on!" Ash walked through the opening to the cave, glad that it got enough light inside without using flash.
He walked over to a narrow hole in the ground and looked down into it while Misty and Brock caught up.
"Is the Dragon's Den a cave?" Misty wondered out loud.
"Could be," Brock answered.
"D-do dragons really live in there?" Ash asked.
"Are you scared of them, Ash?" Misty sneered.
"No!" Ash defended, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I just want to know how many I will beat before getting the Dragon's Fang."
"Chu?" it looked at Ash, scared.
"Sure," Misty said sarcastically.
"Are we ever going to go down there?" Brock asked impatiently.
"Why don't we let Ash go first, since he is so brave," Misty continued.
"Fine! I will!" Ash sneered back. "Just watch me!"
"I'll be watching your face when you come up too scared to find it!" Misty retorted at Ash's form disappearing down the ladder, Pikachu riding sitting on top of his backpack, drifting off to sleep until he was needed.
"Please! Just give it a rest!" Brock shouted, exasperated.
"He started it!" Misty said, pointing down the ladder.
"…and my siblings say that, too. Do you want me to give you the answer that I give them?" Brock asked, not able to stick out of it anymore.
*Thank goodness* Ash thought from down the ladder. He walked out of the cave into the daylight. *Just wait Misty…*
Misty went down the ladder, annoyed that Brock compared her to his siblings that were almost five years younger than her. But she didn't find what she expected at the bottom. A little darker, due to depth, but she could still see well enough to notice that Ash wasn't there. Panicked, she looked around the cave until Brock yelled from above.
"Are you out of the way, yet?"
"Yeah!" Misty called back. "But I don't see Ash anywhere!"
"Hm," Brock teased. "A second ago you wanted him to go on ahead. Now you want him back. Are you scared, Misty?"
"No," she replied weakly. "Well, maybe a little…"
"I'll be down there in a minute," Brock called, ending the discussion.
*I bet that's where he is. Going on ahead to prove he isn't scared even though he is…* Misty walked out the tunneled exit and look around from a fence that had been put up to keep people from falling into the water.
"Boo!" Ash shouted from behind her.
"Aaaaaaahhhhhh!" Misty screamed and jumped up into the air. She turned around viciously and glared at Ash before realizing who it was.
"Did I get ya?" he asked, smirking.
"No. You j-just surprised me a little. T-that's all!" Misty stammered.
"Not even a little," Ash whined, mocking her. He looked to the side and started to walk away. "Hm…" he said thoughtfully.
"Get back here!" Misty shouted and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him back. "You've done enough scaring!"
"But I didn't do any scaring!"
Misty rolled her eyes. "You had me scared, alright?" Misty said and grabbed his hand, running ahead.
"Hey…wait a second! I'm gonna fall!" Ash complained as Misty dragged him along the fence to the end of the rock.
Brock watched from the exit. With no water pokémon, it was going to end up back up the wall for him. He let Onix out once again and then recalled it when the rock underneath them started to break apart.
"Heh, heh… Sorry, guys," he laughed, nervously, and called out Graveler (his Geodude evolved) instead. "I going to need you to help me," he said and pointed to the water where Ash and Misty already were.
"Ler!" it responded and through him up onto a rock in the middle of the water with what normally would have been a rock throw attack.
Brock groaned and rubbed the back of his head as Graveler spun up the rock in a few seconds. He turned around and looked back to where Ash and Misty had come to the end of the slab of rock.
They released they're surfing pokémon and surfed around the rock he was on and another one ahead. After that, they came to another rock slab, with a creepy looking building in the middle of it.
"Graaa!" Graveler grabbed Brock and then spun, bouncing from the rock ahead of them and then barely reaching the rock slab. It rolled to upright and let go of Brock, who took a few dizzy steps before holding himself by a sign. Wait! A sign?
"What is this?" Ash asked, looking at the balancing rocks, and the boarded up door.
"I don't know…" Misty said softly, in awe.
"Dragon Shrine," Brock read. "A shrine honoring the dragon pokémon said to have lived in Dragon's Den."
"Why would they have a cemetery here?" Misty asked. "No one is allowed to get back here besides Clair and that guy guarding the place."
"Maybe Clair doesn't want them to be bothered," Brock suggested.
"I doubt it," Ash replied. "It's not even being taken care of. Maybe if was put up before the area was closed off and they didn't want to mess with it."
"It is pretty spooky," Misty commented.
"Do you think the Dragon Fang is in there?" Ash asked, peering through two of the boards.
"Yyyeaah! Yeah! Yeah!" the building called before at least thirty zubats flew out of the holes in the building.
"I don't think that it looks like anyone has been in there since it was built," Brock said, edging away.
"Yeah, I think we should look someplace else, Ash," Misty agreed, tugging on his arm.
"Okay, then. We know that it's not on the rock over there and we know that it's not on this one," Ash thought out loud. "I don't think that she'd put a rare item like that under the water, and if it was on any shelf where we can surf directly to it, then I've overestimated her."
"What about those boulders piled up around here," Misty asked. "I wonder if it would be somewhere behind it."
"Let's see," Brock sparked. "Graveler, try to bread through that wall!" He pointed to the smooth build-up on the left.
"Raaaaaa!" it shouted and grabbed Brock before spinning through the top of the wall.
"Nnnoooooo!" was the last they heard from Brock before a sickly crunching noise from the other side.
"Brock!" Ash yelled, desperately trying to climb the wall, but not being able to grasp any of the rocks on it.
"Looks like we'll have to find another way to get through," Misty said sadly.
"We'll get you, Brock!" Ash cried as he surfed on Croconaw around the left wall but finding no other openings from Brock's.
"Give up?" a psychic voice, sounding noticeably like Clair's, echoed around the cave.
"Who is that?" Misty asked softly, surfing behind Ash.
"Never!" Ash shouted, turning around to try to find the source of the person who was taunting them.
"Your friend is being looked after by Nurse Joy as well as his pokémon," the voice continued.
Ash and Misty both snickered. *Poor Joy…*
"Be careful…" the voice warned in a threatening tone. "…and don't let the dragons get you!" Then it was gone.
Ash glared through the dark fog, hovering around the water, not wanting to see the dratinis and dragonairs waiting under the water for them to fall to their doom…
He grabbed Misty's hand and raced around the perimeter, looking for an opening, but finding rocks in every direction.
"Look over there!" Misty pointed to a spot only a few meters away that looked almost completely black.
Ash's eyes lit up. "That might be it!" he grinned and closed in on it.
"Wait!" Misty shouted suddenly, pulling Ash onto Starmie as they jerked to a stop, less than a meter away. Croconaw went that little bit further and was sucked into a whirlpool.
"Croconaw, return!" Ash yelled, hitting it with the red laser from its pokéball. "That was close!"
"Yeah," Misty sighed. "But how are we going to get through a whirlpool? No wonder she said that she thought we'd drown!"
"Croconaw, come back out!" Ash threw the pokéball onto the rock nearby.
"Croconaw!" it cried and swam over to Ash, its pokéball returning to his hand automatically.
"Use your whirlpool attack the opposite direction of that one!" Ash pointed ahead to the spinning water.
"N-n-n-naw!" Croconaw narrowed its eyes and sent water out powerfully towards where it was coming from.
The water fought the new current and then settled with a small stream going through it.
"Come on!" Ash shouted.
Starmie raced through the opening and Ash recalled Croconaw from the other side.
"Thanks, Croconaw. I couldn't have gotten through without you," Ash whispered to its pokéball and then clipped it back onto his belt.
"There's a shelf of rock over there!" Misty pointed in front of them. "Maybe it is on it!"
"Starmie surfed over to it and let them climb off, waiting patiently in the water, for when they needed to get back.
"Do you have any idea what a Dragon's Fang looks like?" Ash asked as he crawled along the ground. "Is it just a tooth?"
"I guess it could be, but my guess is that she would have it in an item ball like most things laying around here are," Misty said as she copied what Ash was doing. "The question is how big will it be?"
"I have no idea," Ash replied as he got closer to the other end. "but I don't think that it is here."
"We can't give up," Misty yelled. "Not after what happened to Brock!"
"No, that's not what I meant," Ash shouted. "I think that it must be further on down in this cave."
"Alright…" Misty agreed while climbing back onto Starmie. "…but I don't know how much further we'll be able to make it if we have any more obstacles like that whirlpool."
"Don't worry," Ash whispered in her ear as he climbed onto Starmie. "We're gonna make it. I know it!"
Misty couldn't help but smile as they surfed through the narrow water. It went for a few minutes before it dead-ended into another rock slab.
"Well, it's this one or else it is in the water," Misty said, looking back fearfully into the inky blackness.
"Let's go for it, then," Ash said and smiled at her. *She is shaken about something, that's for sure. I wonder if it's something about what a dratini can do to you…let alone dragonair…*
Ash wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "You gonna get scared, now?" he asked softly. "There is nothing wrong with being scared, Misty."
She looked shakily into his eyes for a few seconds before burying her face in her hands.
*Wonder what has come over Misty all of a sudden.* Ash hugged her against himself, rubbing her back lightly. "What's wrong, Misty?"
"It's just, well, my dad was the one who ran our gym before, you know?" she asked and Ash nodded. "But he went away on a trip for the league one time to figure out what was happening with the water pokémon somewhere.
"He went of course and we all felt proud because our dad was great enough for the league to call him away," Misty paused. "Mama wasn't though. She knew the danger that Lilly, Violet, Daisy, and I hadn't been told about.
"See…what happened was that a group of seal was rapidly loosing numbers. Nurse Joy visited every day and none of them were sick. Eventually they brought those seels to the center to take care of them. That's where my dad went.
"He took his best pokémon and carried his cell-phone to tell them what was going on. But the problem wasn't oil, it wasn't a disease that we couldn't detect, the problem was that a family of dragonairs had decided to live in it, but the ice that the seels were learning how to use hurt them a lot.
"So they battled it out. The seels weren't ready for the attack and then couldn't see them because they moved too fast. My dad had a cloyster as his best, so when they sensed it, they knew that he had the power to wipe them out. No hyper beam can compare to their outrage attack…"
Ash looked down mournfully at her. "So you're scared that they'll attack us if we try to go into their territory underwater?"
"Yeah," she sniffed.
"Here," he said and nudged Pikachu, still sleeping on his backpack. "Pikachu? I need you to do something, but not until we get out of the water.
"Chu!" it agreed and hopped onto the side of the ledge.
"Starmie, get out of the water!" Misty said.
Starmie turned slightly sideways as it hovered onto the ground. Ash stood up, Misty standing with him.
"Pikachu, use your thunder on the water!" Ash ordered.
"Piiiiii…kkkaaaaaaaa…CCCCHHHUUU!!!!" it shouted, releasing a paralyzing electric shock into the water.
"None of them are going to attack after that," Ash smirked at Misty.
She looked at the water, sparks occasionally jumping across the top of the surface, lighting the cave for a split second. She smiled.
"Thanks, Ash," she said softly and then recovered herself, finally reassured that it was all right. "Let's get that badge, now!"
"Hey, aren't I usually the one annoying you with that?" he laughed.
"I guess you're rubbing off on me," she grinned.
"Pikachu," it sighed. *Humans were so silly. But what was that?! Something shiny…* "Pika!" it chirped excitedly and put its paw on the globe-shaped plastic.
"You found something, Pikachu?" Ash asked and walked over to it. "Now what is this?" he asked curiously.
"What is it?" Misty looked over his shoulder.
Ash opened it to reveal what looked like an arcanine's canine tooth. "Whoa! I think this is it!"
"You would 'think' right," the psychic voice returned, but this time Clair teleported in front of him as well. "Such a shame…my poor dragons…but you did it. You should be proud!" she pointed to the side of her and Brock appeared, a pokéball appearing by his side.
"Wha?" Brock looked up, dizzily.
"We did it, Brock!" Misty shouted.
"And we're glad that you're okay, too!" Ash ran up and hugged his friend. "See? It's really a Dragon's Fang, Brock!"
"Right," Clair laughed. "I'm sorry I seemed mean before, but I have never been beaten before. I didn't think that it would happen unless it was a fluke," she returned her gaze to Ash. "But you deserve it. You proved that it wasn't a fluke and that you have the soul of a dragon. I am proud to present to you, the Rising Badge!"
"Now I can compete in the Johto League!" Ash shouted, striking his trademark victory pose.
"Pikachu!" it cried happily, copying the pose from his shoulder.