Chapter 22 - Battling Daisy

'You may have beaten my sisters,' said Daisy. 'But you'll never beat me! I choose you, Seaking!'

Daisy's pokemon appeared in the water, splashing around happily.

'OK, it's your turn Pikachu,' said Kash. I nodded.

'I'll do my best,' I promised. I leapt onto the mat that was floating in the water and faced the Seaking, preparing for battle.

'Not even your Pikachu will beat Seaking!' said Daisy. 'Seaking, use your horn attack!'

Seaking jumped and hit me straight in the stomache with its horn. I cried out and fell back. This Seaking was powerful.

'You can do this, Pikachu,' said Kash encouragingly. 'Use your thundershock!'

I jumped towards the Seaking and sent a bolt of electricity down to it, and then jumped back onto the mat. The Seaking seemed to be hurt, but Daisy wasn't going to give up.

'Seaking, tail whip!' said Daisy. The pokemon jumped out of the water towards me, and slapped me with its tail. It didn't hurt at all, but it was annoying me. I tried to push the pokemon out of the way but it was no use. It kept hitting me with its tail.

'Pikachu, quick attack!' said Kash. I crashed into Seaking as fast as I could, sending it back into the water with a splash.

'Seaking, peck it!' said Daisy. Seaking jumped towards me and bit me hard. I fell back, hurt.

'Come on, Pikachu,' said Kash encouragingly. 'You can do it!'

I pulled myself up and faced my opponent.

'Pikachu,' said Kash. 'Give it a thundershock!'

The Seaking tried to dodge my attack but it was no use. My electricity paralysed it, and it fell into the pool of water with a big slpash.

'Seaking!' Daisy exclaimed. She held out her pokeball, pulling Seaking back inside to safety. She looked, disappointed, at her pokeball for a few seconds, then looked up at Kash. 'Well done. Looks like you've beaten us!'

'Yeah!' shouted Kash.

'We won!' I smiled, jumping into his arms. He hugged me.

'Well done, Pikachu!' he said. I climbed onto his back as he walked over to Daisy, Lilly and Violet. Daisy took out a small blue object in the shape of a water drop.

'I think you deserved this,' she said, holding it out to Kash.

'Thanks,' he said, taking the badge. 'Alright! We got our second badge!'

'Yeah!' I cheered. Kash attatched his badge to his jacket as Ash, Misty, Christy, Jock, Pikachu and Togepi walked over to us.

'Good work, Kash,' said Jock. Kash smiled.

'Well, I couldn't have done it without Pikachu!' he said. I blushed.

'It wasn't just me, the others helped too,' I said truthfully.

'Now that you have the Cascade Badge, we can head through to Vermilion City!' said Jock.

'Great!' said Kash enthusiastically. 'We'll head on there, and go to the next gym right away!'

'You can't go right away, Kash!' said Christy. 'You'll have to train a lot harder before you can just beat the next gym leader!'

'I'll train along the way!' said Kash. 'And besides, why do you care? I thought you were leaving us now that we're in Cerulean City!'

Christy's four sisters looked at her.

'You mean you were planning on staying with us?' Misty exclaimed. Christy looked over at her sisters, Ash and Brock, then looked back to where I was standing with Kash and Jock.

'Actually..' she started. Again, she looked from one group to the other.

'Christy, please stay with us!' I called. Christy looked at me. Although she couldn't understand the pokemon language, she could obviously tell by my tone of voice that I wanted her to stay.

'What's that, Pikachu?' she asked, walking over to me and bending down.

'I want you to stay with us!' I said. 'If it wasn't for you, Kash and I couldn't have come this far! Your sisters don't need you in the gym, but Kash does need you to come with us!'

I hugged Christy, realising that what I'd said was true. If she left, who would be there to tell Kash what he was doing wrong? I didn't know Jock very well, so I wasn't sure if he would be any help. To me, Christy was the only one who Kash really needed to come with us.

'It looks like Pikachu wants you to stay with them,' said Ash. 'Obviously, Kash hasn't trained it enough to make it like him, so it's grown fond of you, Christy!'

'Shut up, Ash!' said Kash angrily. 'Pikachu likes me just as much as it likes Christy, if not more!'

'But even so, Pikachu doesn't want Christy to stay here...' said Violet. 'Christy, I think you should go.'

Christy sighed. 'Alright, I'll keep travelling with you guys...'

'Yay!' I cheered, and hugged Christy again.

(-o-) PiKACHU (-o-)