Disclaimer: Still don't own it. Working on it…maybe in about 1366986 years or something they might actually consider my request.

Chapter Four

Of the Re-naming of the Fellowship and the Arrival of Stantler

 "Okay," Ash said loudly, once they had been ceremoniously dumped out of the Ignored Isle, "since I am the guy who has the most important job, I am thus also the leader! And everyone must do as I say!"

The pause that followed was one of the most pronounced yet. The looks on the three Legendaries faces could not be more stunned if one of them had suddenly dropped dead. Lugia's jaw was hanging open; Ho-oh's wings were hanging limply by his sides, Suicune's eyes were starting to resemble dinner plates, and Mewtwo was standing stiffly, his eyes narrowed to the point of no return-any narrower, and they would simply cease to exist.

"No way…"

"Yes way," Ash grinned happily, impressing upon the throng his implausible debating skills, "and I say that I don't want us to be known as the Fellowship anymore." He folded his arms, "It's such an old name…I want something more hip and up-to-date. Like 'Asho's Band of Poke-Hunters' or something,"

Lugia's expression was akin to someone praying for patience, yet finding it very hard not to reach for a chainsaw. "We are not hunting pokemon…" He growled.

Ash snapped his fingers. "You're absolutely right!" He smiled, much to the amazement of everybody present, "I prefer the 'Poke-troopers'."

Ho-oh looked as though he'd been asked to take a bath. A cold one. Without a rubber ducky. "The Poke-troopers?"

"Mmhmm…" Ash's grin was starting to fray Mewtwo's already waning patience, "You-" He pointed at Lugia, "will be known as 'Loggia'.  You-" Ash's finger drifted over to Ho-oh, who looked like he would have thoroughly relished the opportunity to bite it clean off, "will be known as 'Grimly'. You-" He ignored Ho-oh's splutter of rage and turned to Suicune, "will be known as 'Sammy' and you-" he pointed at Mewtwo, whose face was growing darker by the second, "are 'Poppin'." Ash looked pleased with himself, but the moment was short lived as Ho-oh fried him thoroughly, and Lugia sent him flying into a nearby palm tree.

Mewtwo restrained himself with great difficulty and asked, "What about your two friends?"

"Oh, they already have their codenames," Ash said shakily, "Bedrock and Moody,"

Judging by the way "Moody" was attempting to use her Togepi as a hand grenade, the trainers weren't happy about the idea either.

The day dragged on in a monotonous series of arguments, scuffles, and the occasional Fire Blast or two. Travelling with Ash proved to be a more challenging prospect than previously expected. The boy seemed apt to visualising rare pokemon out of the strangest of things, such as a pile of leaves, or rocks. Finally, when Suicune had to use a Gust attack to keep Ash from falling off a cliff, Lugia simply tied the over-enthusiastic boy to Brock's backpack and left him like that. Ho-oh added the finishing touch by stuffing an old dishcloth in his mouth. To top it all off, Mewtwo discovered that Misty had been reading the map upside down.

"Didn't you notice the "right side up" print was the wrong side up?" The cat-like pokemon was close to strangling the unfortunate girl.

"What are we going to do?" Suicune sighed and sat down, "my legs are killing me, and we could be anywhere…"

"I suggest dropping her into a river and seeing if she really will point north…"

Before Misty could begin getting nervous, however, the unfortunate group found themselves assaulted by a barrage of rubber-tipper peppermint arrows.

"Chipolata!" A strangled war cry rang out from a distant thicket, "All shall fear the Cookie King!"

 All eyes turned towards the cloaked stranger who had charged into sight, his deadly plastic sword drawn and at the ready. "I am Trekkie!" He proclaimed, "The Ranger of many names. Who goes by the name "Hey, You!" to strangers; "Pay up!" to barmen; "The-Dude-Who-Owes-Me-Cash" to the Dwarves; "Smackhead the Odd" to the Elves-"

"That's all very nice," Ho-oh cut in irritably, "but what can we call you?"

 "Well, I generally prefer not to be called by my real name," The Ranger winked conspicuously at Lugia, who did his best not to notice, "so I guess you can call me Stantler,"

"All right, Mr. Stantler," Lugia put on a very wide and very fake grin, pointedly ignoring the stick-on rubber antlers and brown furry cloak, "now can you tell us where we are, and how we could get to the One Ring?"

Stantler readjusted his custom-made Zorro mask and clicked the spurs of his knee-high boots together. "The One Ring…" He rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully, "I heard a bunch of weirdo's in Powerpuff masks talking about it…Very hush-hush business, but it seems they are heading down to Lavender to pick it up from a nutcase in a tutu…goes by the name of Grovel or something…"

"Uh huh…" Suicune's eyes were in danger of melding with his crest, "So…do you know how to get there?"

"Sure!" Stantler whistled through a gap in his front teeth, and an obese purple Ponyta trotted obligingly out of a nearby tree. "Just follow me!"

Five minutes later, the disgruntled group, now decorated with assorted twigs and leaves in addition to the already annoying Hoppip bites, emerged from the forest and stumbled ungracefully into the centre of the derelict ghost town known as Lavender.

"Seeya later, Smiley," Stantler waved happily as the Ponyta assaulted a nearby woodman and started chewing his shirt right off his back. "Don't worry sir," He tipped his Butterfree-print cowboy hat at the petrified man, who was now reaching for a suspiciously sharp and shiny object, "if he has rabies, you could always go get a shot later."

Mewtwo looked away as the man started swearing at the top of his voice. "I suppose you would know that…"

Brock dumped Ash at a nearby food stall, whose owner had long since fled, for fear of catching that terrible disease known as idiocy. Ash, being Ash, immediately started to eat all the food he could get his hands on. And the stall itself, for that matter. Stantler, now sharpening his plastic sword with a flat rock, was looking at him with interest.

"You're that Ketchup kid, aren't you?" He jerked the sword in Ash's direction, and narrowly avoided gouging Lugia's eye out, "the one who travels with a Poker Card?"

"Pikachu," Mewtwo corrected.

"Poliwag?"

"Never mind…"

Ash hiccupped and blinked, amazed that someone had actually asked him a question which would require a marginally higher-level of thinking than the typical 'yes' and 'no'.  "I'm Asho Ketchums," He grinned, exposing the wooden splinters lodged between his teeth, "And I'm not related in any way to Ash Ketchup. I mean Ketchum. At least, I think it was Ketchum…" He scratched his head, "Too many names…but it's not like it matters or anything. I mean, there's no way that I could actually be him or anything. Definitely not. I mean, I don't come from Pallet Town or anything. Nope. Sure don't! And it's not like my mom has a Mr. Mime called Mimie or anything either. No-siree; not me! And I definitely do not have a pokedex with the code 655H65T. Nope. And er…what was the question again?"

Stantler looked surprised. Or, to be more precise, he stared for a minute, then laughed so hard that he almost fractured a rib. "Whatever you say, Mr. Ketchums,"

Mewtwo looked as though he considered plankton to be more intelligent. "The irony of the situation would probably amuse me too, had I not been caught up in the middle of it," He grumbled.

"Woe betides those who eat it for breakfast," Stantler said wisely, taking out a couple of grappling hooks from a concealed pocket. Swinging them over his head a couple of times, the Ranger then proceeded to fling them in the general direction of the PokeMart Motel. He quickly desisted when they landed about ten meters off course and brutally stunned a passing Dugtrio.

""Why…don't we just use the door," Suicune suggested quickly, as Stantler reached back into his pocket with the intention of extracting yet another useful little gadget that would give rise to a number of potentially deadly situations. "It's a lot less…complicated…"

"And safer," Lugia confided to Ho-oh, as the Poke-troopers boldly entered the premises. The old lady at the reception swallowed her pipe in shock at the sight before regaining her composure.

"Welcome to Lavender's PokeMart Motel," She said throatily, watching Ash with the kind of attention one usually reserves for untrained house pets. "Would you like a room?"

"We'd like more than one room," Mewtwo's concern was shared by all. "We'd like…many rooms," His gaze drifted across the party, as though daring some unfortunate idiot to object. Of course, one did.

"But I can't sleep on my own!" Ash whined, clinging onto Mewtwo's feet, "And I need a nightlight too!"

The pokemon's eyes glowed blue, and Ash found himself securely embedded in the ceiling.

"We'd like eight rooms," Lugia said firmly, as the old receptionist stared in a state of disbelief. Mewtwo folded his arms.

"Let the human sleep in the Tower," He snarled, "I hope the Gengars steal his soul and get it away from us for good!"

"I doubt they would want it," Ho-oh sighed, as Ash crashed headfirst to the floorboards and squished Misty like a bug, "I know I wouldn't,"

"Fair point," Lugia nodded, turning back to the receptionist who, despite her age, was resisting a heart attack quite resiliently, "and I would drop the charges, if I were you," He added in a conspiratorial undertone, "this is his good mood. You should see him in the morning-"

The sentence was cut short by a Shadow Ball, which bounced off Lugia's head, smashed into a banister, and did nothing at all to alleviate the poor old maid's worries.

"Here!" She yelled hysterically, so that her dentures fell right out of her mouth, "Take the keys! TAKE THEM!" She pushed a set of rusting keys into Stantler's hands. "Take them! Take the rooms! Just let me live!" And with that, she hobbled screaming from the scene, stopping only when she walked straight into the glass door (which quite clearly read "PULL", not "PUSH"). Stantler jangled the keys about happily.

"Wow!" He grinned, "I should have found you guys earlier! Just imagine the amount of travel cost I could have saved!"

~End fic~

Sorry for the reeeeally long wait. I've been moving, and my parent's cut off my internet a couple of weeks too early (Nooooooo!!!). So there you go, Trekkie-you get to play Aragorn! Or Stantler, as he's now known …XD And no, you can't have the Oreos! They're ALL MINE!! Muahahahahahaa!! *grabs a few boxes* XD Hmm…a pixie stick? Well, I suppose…*turns Karen into one and hands it over* There ya go! ^_^

Oh yeah…HP movie's coming out in months!!! I can't wait that long!!! ;___; *knows that she will anyway* Bleh…but on the bright side, ROTK ruled!! Whooo!!! *Now officially thinks that Gollum resembles her obsessive Math teacher* My precioussss…*teacher huddles over tests papers, crooning and muttering to herself* XD That Steward guy was a real jerk, though. Toasting his own son…I was seriously rooting for the Nazgul's flying fiends to swallow him whole…-_- Or for Pippin to hack off his knees. One of the two. *chop chop scream* XD

Ideas? Comments? Suggestions? Juz click on the lil blue button below. ^-^