::Evolution::

Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the stuff. Pokémon and its characters do not belong to me, yadda yadda yadda...

Here is the sixth chapter to my new Pokémon high school fic! Enjoy, and don't forget to review when finished!

- BansheeGirl.

Ages:

Jessie – 17

James – 17

Ash – 13

Misty – 13

Cassidy – 17

Brock – 15

Gary – 13

::Evolution – Chapter6::

Before opening the front door of her house, Jessie turned and waved to the black limousine as it pulled out from the curb and disappeared down the road. The tinted windows, of course, prevented her from knowing whether Franz had waved back.

Jessie entered the house and quickly poked her head into the kitchen where she knew Delia would be busily preparing dinner.

"Hey aunty Delia, I'm home," she greeted.

Delia looked up from the bench where she was chopping up some vegetables. "Hi hon, how did your studying go?"

"It was good. We got a lot done on the assignment, which is a relief. Mr. Livingston told us today that it's due in on Friday."

Delia smiled. "Well that's great. So you and James have sorted everything out, then?" Jessie wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a certain implication in her aunt's voice.

"Yeah, I guess so," Jessie mumbled, quickly retreating from the kitchen before Delia noticed the scarlet emerging on her face. Not in the mood to go up to her room to complete the dreaded maths homework she had in her bag, Jessie walked into the living room where Ash was sitting on the couch watching television. She dropped her satchel by the door and plonked herself down beside her cousin.

"Hey. How was your extra study?" Ash said, daring to say more than what his mother had hinted to Jessie.

Jessie's eyes widened. Why did everyone think that she and James were already 'more than friends'? Was the attraction she seemed to feel for him that obvious? She wouldn't have been so annoyed if James and her actually were 'more than friends', but they hadn't even done anything!

Ash was met with a pillow in the face, and a deathly look from the fiery-haired girl. "Quiet, you," she threatened, a little seriousness in her otherwise playful tone.

"Fine, fine – I guess we'll talk about my love life then," said Ash nonchalantly.

Jessie raised an eyebrow. A couple of afternoons with Misty and Ash was already getting a big head. She sighed exaggeratedly. "Alright Ash, tell me the latest news in your blossoming romance." An excessive roll of her eyes prompted Ash to throw the pillow originally slammed into his face into that of his cousin.

Jessie laughed incredulously, setting the pillow back down onto the couch. "Come on, tell me already," she said.

Ash crossed his arms and formed a knowing expression on his face. "Well, I asked Misty if she'd go to the formal with me," he started, trying to hide the absolute excitement from his voice in his attempt to convey an experienced character.

Jessie leaned forward intently. "...And?"

Ash grinned. "And... she said yes!"

Jessie couldn't help but feel an immediate happiness for Ash. He really had been stressed out about asking Misty to the formal. She didn't know how Ash would have reacted if his orange-headed crush had rejected him.

She reached forward and scruffed Ash's already characteristically messy hair. "Well done, Romeo."

Ash pulled away from Jessie's reach, but Jessie responded by jumping forward to grasp the boy in a giant hug. "Awww, I'm so proud of you!" She cried in a mother-to-baby voice.

Ash laughed in surrender. "Okay, okay!"

Jessie released her grip on him before standing up from the couch. "It's no surprise, really. In just the few times I've seen her I can already tell that she's head over heels for you."

Ash looked up at his cousin. "Really?"

Jessie smiled. "Really." She paused before going on, "Though, I don't know what she sees in you..."

The older girl narrowly dodged yet another pillow while swiftly exiting room. Grabbing her satchel, she headed upstairs to her bedroom and turned the light on. Jessie dropped the bag on the floor and fell back onto her bed, resting her head on the pillow.

The formal... Jessie's mind played on Spire City High's most anticipated annual event, and pushed her arms up underneath her pillow so that her hands rested beneath her head. She had always hated the formal, and in recent years had not even bothered to attend. Yet this time, Jessie was strangely compelled to make an appearance. If only a certain someone would ask her to go with him...

Ash walked briskly down the steps leading outside from the cafeteria, his heart pounding with the very excitement of being able to see Misty. It was lunchtime the next day, and he and Misty had arranged to meet in the year-eight common room after eating lunch to spend the rest of the break together. Now that she had actually agreed to go to the formal with him, Ash's thoughts had initially wandered towards bigger things. He wanted to ask Misty to be his girlfriend, but decided to wait until after the formal before making that step. For now he was just delighted that she enjoyed spending time with him.

He pressed ahead in the direction of the junior section of the high school. Instead of heading towards the main entrance, Ash wove around the side of the junior block which would take him to a door leading directly into the common room. Little, did he realise, that there was somebody else who had anticipated this move and was waiting intently on Ash's arrival.

Ash's stomach tightened at the sight of Gary Oak leaning casually against the trunk of a tree, a group of his associates standing close by. Ash looked around, hoping that a teacher might be in the vicinity. Gary wouldn't dare abuse anyone in the presence of a prominent character. His grandfather was a respected researcher and if any esteemed person ever found out about Gary's aggressive behaviour, his family's reputation would not fare well.

Unluckily for Ash, Gary had again caught him in a place where teachers or any other adults hardly ever came. Ash walked on swiftly, his head down in a fruitless attempt to bypass Gary.

"Where do you think you're going, punk?" Gary called, pushing himself away from the tree and striding over to Ash.

Ash contemplated making a run for it, but as the other boys who were standing with Gary also began to make their way over, he knew that there was no escape.

Gary suddenly brought his arms up to give Ash a violent push. "I thought I told you to stay away from Misty?" Gary again pushed Ash, and Ash stumbled backwards. "And now what's this I hear about you taking her to the formal?

Ash stood wordless, rubbing his arm where Gary had pushed him.

"Answer me, loser!" Gary yelled, pushing Ash with increased force.

This time, Gary was shocked to receive an equally aggressive jolt from Ash in response. "That's right, I'm going to the formal with Misty. She's not your girlfriend anymore Gary," spat Ash, surprised at himself for retaliating.

Gary's eyes widened, and then narrowed to glare at the boy standing opposite him. He suddenly gripped Ash by the shoulders and jerked him forward so that their faces were mere inches apart. "You'll wish you had never opened your mouth, rodent," growled Gary, and before Ash knew it he was doubling over, clutching his stomach after Gary had brought his leg up to knee him in the gut.

Ash heard Gary and his followers laughing, while he stood helplessly bent over with pain. He suddenly noticed that there were other students standing several metres away, quietly observing the fight. Anger seemed to unexpectedly erupt from Ash, as the image of Misty again flared in his mind.

"Get over it, Gary! Beating me up isn't gonna make Misty like you!" He screamed, rushing towards Gary with a fist raised. Gary's teeth clenched as his opponent again had decided to bite back. But Gary had much more experience in fighting, and before Ash's fist had time to connect with any part of Gary's body, Gary lifted his own in an upper cut to Ash's stomach.

Ash reeled back, once again clutching at his stomach in a bent-over pose. One hit had been painful enough, but two blows to the abdomen made Ash feel like he wanted to throw his whole insides out. Focusing on his aching stomach, Ash did not see Gary's fist coming towards him again, this time connecting with the side of Ash's face.

The unexpected blow sent Ash sprawling to the ground, causing further pain to his newly-punched head by thumping it on the ground during the fall. Ash groaned, one hand clutching his aching stomach and the other reflexively covering the injured side of his face.

He opened the eye on the uninjured side of his face to see a couple of students standing in the growing group of submissive spectators move forward to either help Ash or attempt to stop Gary. Gary's minions, however swiftly intercepted them, physically holding the activists away.

"You should have listened to me, Ketchum. Here's what you get for messing around with my girl," Gary scowled, and Ash cried out in pain as Gary kicked him in the back, twice.

Ash tried to push himself up from the ground using shaking arms. His abdomen, face and back were throbbing with pain, and he didn't know how he was going to get out of this predicament until Gary finally decided he'd had enough. But as he opened his good eye to see Gary walking again towards him with fists balled, Ash dreaded the realisation that that might not be happening very soon.

And that was definitely not a good thing.

James struggled to push through the tide of junior students sweeping down the corridor. He cringed as two people ran, carelessly knocking several people over in the process, yelling at the top of their lungs. The junior section was always so much louder and rowdier than the senior section.

James, however, had to make a trip to the disorderly building every Tuesday lunchtime in order to take part in a student advocate program. He, along with several other senior students, had volunteered at the beginning of the year to act as advocates for some of the new year-sevens. The program involved becoming a sort of guide to a year-seven student to help in the transition process from primary to high school, and to help with any problems along the way. James considered the program to be a real drag most of the time – but it would look good on his application for university. Or so his parents told him.

Being the beginning of the second semester, most of the year-seven students had settled into high school by now anyway. But the contract at the start of the year had stated that the program had to continue all the way throughout the year. So unfortunately the lunchtime sessions were still required to be run, even though nobody really had any problems to talk about.

James remembered that there was a door leading outside from the year-eight common room, which was fast approaching on his right. Instead of continuing his struggle through the crowd of students in the corridor, James quickly ducked into the year-eight common room and exited the building from there. He was relieved to have daylight shine upon his face, fresh air to breathe and the ability to actually hear himself think.

He began walking in the direction of the senior block. James frowned when a group of students crowding around something came into view. A scene like this usually didn't mean good news.

James approached the group of students. As he came closer, a small gap had formed between a couple of kids. James was shocked to see a young boy whom he recognised as Samuel Oak's grandson walk up and kick another boy in the ribs who was lying on the ground. As the boy on the ground rolled over, letting out a cry of pain, James was even more shocked to see that the Oak boy's victim was none other than Jessie's younger cousin – Ash.

Upon this realisation, James quickly ran over to the scene. The students crowing around the fight looked up and promptly parted in order to let the year-twelve through. Gary's followers did not even attempt to prevent James from interfering. He was a year-twelve, had high authority, was popular and was of course extremely rich. It would be folly to mess with him. Like Gary, they had no interest in acquiring the public reputation of school bullies.

"Cut that out right now," yelled James, sternly. He seemed to grow in height, towering over the other students in a menacingly authoritative stance.

Gary looked up at James, a sickened expression appearing on his face. He had been caught.

James looked around at the other students still surrounding Gary and Ash. "Get out of here, you lot," he ordered, a severe edge to his voice. The students, including Gary's associates, rapidly scattered. James turned back to Gary.

"Bad idea, Oak. Don't think that the teachers won't find out about this." James felt nothing but repulsion for the young boy, and knew just how to elicit fear in him. "Not to mention your family."

Ash dared to open his good eye and look up at the two people standing above him. Just a minute ago Gary had been physically abusing him like there was no tomorrow. Now Ash's attacker was cowering at a few mere words from this lavender-haired saviour.

"Don't ever touch Ash Ketchum, or any other kid again, got it?" James pressed, inserting a little more venom into every word.

Gary tried to maintain a malevolent expression on his face, but it was evident that his insides were churning at the realisation that his payback was suddenly backfiring.

"Go it?!" James repeated, glaring at the brown-haired boy.

Gary hesitated before slightly nodding his head. He then swiftly spun on his heel and ran to disappear around the corner of the junior block.

James quickly bent down to help Ash up from the ground. He helped him hobble over to a bench near the tree where Ash had first spotted Gary.

Ash groaned. His whole body was aching.

"Are you okay, Ash?" James said concernedly, scanning the younger boy's body to see if there was any seriously permanent damage.

Ash paused for a moment, running his hands first over his stomach, chest, then what he could reach of his back, and finally his face. His fingers lingered over his left eye, which had already begun to turn an interesting purple colour. With some hesitation, he found that he could still actually open the eye. Ash looked at James.

"I think so. Just a few bad bruises, I think," Ash finally replied. As he moved himself on the seat to take a better look at his rescuer, Ash winced and clutched at his stomach again. "Make that a few really bad bruises," he added, chuckling only slightly so as not to create any further pain in his chest.

James smiled with incredulity. "You'd still better visit the school nurse, just to be sure. You were getting pretty beaten up there."

A pitiful look appeared on the younger boy's face. "Please don't remind me."

"Why was he beating you up, anyway?" James questioned.

Ash closed his eyes, seeming to visualise an image in his mind. "I'm going to the formal with his ex-girlfriend... and he kinda doesn't like that."

James' eyebrows rose with disbelief. It was amazing what would tick some people off enough to go and beat someone to a pulp.

"Thanks, by the way," said Ash, turning to James. His face suddenly contorted, as if cogs inside of his head were finally turning to make a revelation. "Hey, you're Jessie's James, aren't you?"

James' eyes widened at being referred to as 'Jessie's James', and he was lost for words for a few seconds. "...Well, if you mean to say that I'm Jessie's Biology partner, then you are correct," he half-laughed, attempting to throw off his adulation at being named as a possession of Jessie's.

Ash's eyes stared at James with a peculiar admiration. "I didn't really know what to expect of the famed James Morgan. Well, I guess I can forgive her for talking about you so much, seeing as I kind of owe you now."

James tried to maintain a casual expression. What did Ash mean? Did Jessie talk about him at home? If so, in what way? James' heart pounded in his chest. He was about to press Ash for information about what Jessie actually said about him, when a girl's voice caused both the boy's heads to turn to the left.

"Ash!"

James recognised the approaching orange-haired girl as Misty, Ash's 'current infatuation', or so Jessie put it.

"Ash, I just heard what happened! I'm so sorry!" She said, running over and sitting on the seat beside Ash. She wrapped her arms around the younger boy, continuously apologising.

"Ouch!" Ash cried, as Misty knocked against his sore chest. "Careful Misty!"

Misty launched into another round of apologies, before Ash was finally able to calm her down.

"It's okay Misty! Everything's fine now!" He soothed, silently laughing at the fact that he was the one comforting her.

"Where's Gary now? That scumbag, I can't believe he'd do something so rotten!" She exclaimed.

"James here," Ash said, motioning to the older boy sitting next to him, "took care of everything. Hopefully Gary won't bother us anymore."

Misty smiled at James. "Thanks James, we owe you one."

James laughed, standing up from the bench. "So I've been told. Just make sure he gets to the school nurse, okay Misty?"

Misty nodded. "I'll take care of him."

"Hey, thanks again James," Ash said sincerely.

As the school bell suddenly sounded, James waved to the young pair before leaving them to it. He laughed to himself, catching a few words that were uttered by the year-eights behind him.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through all this, Ash. It's all my fault."

"Misty, it's okay, trust me! Any pain was worth it for you, anyway."

Jessie sat at her desk, only half listening to what Ms. O'Brien was saying at the front of the room. It was fifth period that day, and she was in for yet another double period of English. Jessie had been silently excited, and also quite nervous about being able to see James since going to his house the night before, but peculiarly, he had not turned up to class yet. She found herself worrying about him – had he gotten sick? Her stomach tightened at another thought – maybe he was avoiding her?

Her worries were put to rest when a lavender-haired figure appeared at the door. Ms. O'Brien stopped talking and turned to look at James.

"So, you decided to join us this afternoon, Mr. Morgan?" She queried, peering over the rims of her glasses.

James scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, Ms. O'Brien. I got caught up in a bit of an... issue," he said quickly, glancing around the room to find a spare desk. There was one right by him, but James strode over to a spare one beside Jessie without hesitation.

Jessie smiled at him as he slid into the seat. She noticed James' eyes darting from her to Ms. O'Brien, who had resumed talking at the front of the room, and realised that he had something important to tell her. Jessie raised her eyebrows at him, but James signalled for her to wait until the teacher set them to work.

Jessie turned back to face the front of the room. What did James want to tell her? ...Maybe he was going to ask her to the formal! Her heart quickened with expectation, and she silently willed Ms O'Brien to just set them to work already so James could finally talk.

Minutes passed before the English teacher stopped talking and arranged the lesson's work. As the room filled with sounds of papers ruffling and people talking, Jessie turned to James with a look of anticipation glowing on her face.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Ash got into a little trouble at lunchtime," James said, leaning over a little closer to Jessie so that he could talk at a quieter volume.

The glow on Jessie's face disappeared, and she immediately felt her insides knotting.

"What?" She started, the concern obvious in her voice, "... What happened? Is he alright?"

He motioned for her to keep her voice down. "Misty's ex-boyfriend decided to beat Ash up for asking her to the formal, or something along those lines. Anyway, I was luckily in that area of the school and broke up the fight. Ash was getting pretty beaten up, but he's relatively okay now. A few pretty bad bruises. Misty was going to help him to the school nurse to have everything checked out."

Jessie's eyes widened and her face seemed to turn a little paler. She slowly exhaled, trying to calm down all of the worries rushing about in her head. "Are you sure he's okay? Maybe I should go and see how he's doing," she began, still clearly troubled by this news.

James placed a hand on Jessie's shoulder, and she was astonished to find that his warm touch immediately began to calm her down. "It's okay, Jessie," he assured, "he's fine. You'll see him tonight after school. I just thought I should let you know so that you didn't faint out of worry when you saw him tonight with a black eye, among other things." He smiled, and Jessie's insides began to unknit.

James dropped his arm from her shoulder and turned back to his work. Jessie slowly picked up her pen. She stared at her workbook in front of her, her mind still mulling over the situation.

"You stopped the fight?" She finally said.

James stopped writing and turned his head to look at her. "Yeah. The kid who was bashing Ash up knew who I was, and how much trouble I could get him into. Just goes to show that status around here always beats brawn."

Jessie smiled, eternally grateful that James had been there to help Ash. "Thanks."

James laughed. "Well, I wasn't just going to stand around and let your cousin get killed, now was I?"

The pair returned to their work. Jessie started copying down the analysis questions from the board that had been assigned for the lesson, and thought about James. How had she stumbled across such a person? He just seemed to be getting better and better with each day. With just one look from him she could feel her whole body melting. He made her feel like a lovesick teenager from some teeny bop movie.

...And Jessie liked that feeling.

Alright!!! SIXTH chapter completed! I hope everyone's happy that I'm getting these chapters out a little faster than before. I'm working hard! Really, I am!

First of all, another big thankyou to EVERYONE who has reviewed all previous chapters to this story. You guys keep me going!

Second, I just want to apologise to anyone out there who is an avid Gary fan, and doesn't like him being portrayed as the bully in this story. It's not that I don't like Gary, honest! I actually do like him, but I just wanted someone from the TV series to fit the role, and thought that Ash's rival would be the best to fill it.

Also, a lot of people have asked me to include a lot more actual Pokémon in this story. I'm really sorry to all these people for not really including Pokémon in this fic. I'm not very good at it, actually. I really like writing more about the people from the show. In any case, I don't think I can just start putting them in now when I haven't done so in the last five chapters. I'm so sorry! I'll try and do better in my next fic!

Anyway, please review no matter what you think. I love any sort of feedback!

Till next time,

BansheeGirl.

PS. Did I mention it'd be really great if you'd review this story? o.O