Ok, I must admit that I get a little disheartened when I put so much heart and effort into a chapter and it doesn't perform as well as I feel it should. My biggest problem is that readers new to the story don't read till the end of the story. I wonder if it is because people don't like the first chapter and feel that the rest of the chapters are the same. Please readers, if you want to read more chapters quicker, you should leave more reviews, even if you have nothing much to say.

I must commend the guest reviewer who accurately guessed what was going to happen in this chapter. I wonder whether I'm predictable or the reviewer was a good guesser.

Also, this story is picking up pace faster than I expected. I estimate that we'll reach the pokémon league by chapter 30 to 35. Maybe though before the league, I'll have Ash challenge the Orange League. I think this particular story is going to end after the conclusion of the Indigo League. Maybe, I'll write an Ash Gamer fanfic like I've been meaning too.


Route 4, Next day

Thanks to some help from Clefairy and Trapinch, Ash was finally able to find his way out of Mount Moon and onto Route 4. Before, he started on his way to Cerulean city, he wanted to check out Clefairy's pokédex entry. He pulled out Dexter and pointed it towards Clefairy.

Clefairy – The Fairy Pokemon

It can be found in quiet mountain areas on a full moon's night. Its dancing and its tiny, faintly glowing wings confer upon it a lovely fairylike quality

Gender – Female

Ability – Magic Guard

Known Moves - Sing, Sweet Kiss, Disarming Voice, Encore, Charm, Pound, Copycat, Growl, Defence Curl, Stored power, Minimize, After You, Life Dew, and Metronome

"Wow Clefairy you are very strong and know tons of moves. Do you want a nickname like Saur here? It's okay if don't want one" asked an impressed Ash. Clefairy voiced her consent and after trying different names for a while, Clefairy decided to choose the name Faye.

Ash had to admit that Clefairy was quite a bit stronger than his current pokémon. While she didn't know many attacking moves, she would serve as an excellent support pokémon during battle. He resolved to teach her Thunder Wave and Protect later, using the TMs he had brought in Pewter City.

For now, Ash was going to make his way to Cerulean city to challenge the Sensational sisters. According to his research they gave out a free badge to anyone who wanted one, so Ash was looking forward to a free victory for once. While the idea of not earning the badge did bother him, only an idiot would turn down a free badge.

Though he did wonder why the League hadn't stopped them from handing out free badges, he did concede that with the Team Rocket stuff going on, they had bigger magikarp to fry on their hands.

Though he wanted to get to Cerulean City as soon as possible, he was going to take his time and explore the route a little bit. He had heard that trainers in a rush to get to Cerulean City Pokémon Center often dropped some valuable items on the route.

He decided to see if he could find something worthwhile on the ground. He was also going to keep his eye out for the Charmander that were said to inhabit this route.


Cerulean City, Two Days Later

Ash's trip to Cerulean city from Route 4 had been fruitful to say the least. He picked up 5 great balls, 3 pokéballs and even an ultra ball. He had also stumbled onto a Razz berry tree, allowing him to harvest plenty of Razz Berries. They could be used to entice pokémon into being friendlier, making them easier to catch.

Ash had also been furious to see that Gary had written that "Gary was here! Ash is a loser!" on a local road sign. He had scratched that out and written "Call Gary for a good time" and listed Gary's number below. He hoped that Gary would be bombarded with calls and learn a lesson.

The best thing of all was that Saur had evolved during a battle with a Picknicker. As Ivysaur, he was bigger, faster, and stronger. With his newfound power, Ash was having him work on the move Seed Bomb, which would take him a week or so to learn.

But other than Saur evolving, most of his pokémon had been taking a little break after the excitement and danger they had faced in Mount Moon.

Ash was glad after checking the papers that no new information about him leading the raid to destroy Team Rocket's base had emerged. He knew he would have to tell his mother and Professor Oak the truth eventually and he wasn't looking forward to it.

For now, he was just headed on his way to the Pokémon Center to get his pokémon checked out and get a room for the night.

Walking into the Center he noticed that the Center was packed to the brim with trainers and wondered whether this was just regular traffic or there was something going on. He went to Nurse Joy at the counter and asked her "Hello, Nurse Joy could you book me a room and check out my pokémon please. Also why is the Center so full? Is there something going on?"

"Oh of course, such a polite boy. It's good that you arrived just in time, for nearly all the rooms are booked and you just got one of the last ones left. The reason the Center is so full is because the annual Nugget bridge tournament is taking place in 4 days. If you want to register for it, I suggest you do it today because tomorrow is the last day of registration" explained a bubbly Nurse Joy while taking his pokémon for treatment and handing him a pamphlet with information about the tournament.

He thanked her and got out the line while scanning the pamphlet over for information. Apparently, the Nugget Bridge tournament was an annual local event that was quite popular with trainers in Cerulean City. There were 3 categories, Beginner with up to three badges, Intermediate with six badges, and Advance with up to 8 badges. The top 3 winners in each category would receive prizes and cash winnings.

Ash was going to participate and win this competition. He wondered what the prize for the tournament would be, Ultra balls or TMs would be sick. He was a little wary about strong 3 badge trainers though, but hopefully he could overcome them using his wits and strategy.

For now, he was going call Professor Oak while his pokémon healed and then go register for the tournament at the event tent near the Nugget Bridge. He walked up to the videophone and dialed Professor Oak number.

"Hello Professor, I'm just calling you to let you know that I reached Cerulean City. I also wanted to tell you about something important. While going through Mount Moon, I managed to find two complete fossils in the rocks and I took the whole chunk of wall with them inside, so as to not damage them" he explained, whispering the part about fossils to avoid alerting other trainers about his discovery.

"That's great Ash. I figured that you made it out of Mount Moon when I received the notification about you catching a Clefairy. The fossil thing is truly astounding, most people struggle to find one, but you somehow found out. I'm going to send an aide to Cerulean tomorrow to collect the fossils and then I'll inform you about your options" gushed Professor Oak about his discovery.

Ash then thanked the professor for his help and then they chatted for a while about Ash's training methods and battle strategies for a while. Even though Professor Oak was retired, he was once the longest reigning Champion of Kanto, with Agatha as the head of his elite four, and he still was extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of Pokémon training.

After finishing an extremely productive talk with Professor Oak, he went to collect his pokémon from Nurse Joy and headed out to Nugget Bridge. While walking through the city, he was a little shocked at how much larger Cerulean was compared to Pallet and Viridian.

He also saw the infamous Cerulean Cave, where only trainers who had come in the Top 16 at the Indigo Conference could enter the cave. The cave was home to ferociously strong pokémon, and many trainers went in there to test their strength against the wild pokémon.

On entering the tent near Nugget Bridge, he headed towards the counter where a boy was signing up people and was surprised to see Leaf in front of him in the line. He walked up to her and tapped on her shoulder "Hey, Leaf it's good to see you. You must be here to register for the tournament too, right? Why don't we have a battle after we finish registering?"

"It's good to see you too Ash. Sure, we can have a battle so that I can whoop as your ass as I used to in school" taunted Leaf in a friendly way. After they both registered, they headed out an empty area outside the tent to commence their battle. They both agreed o 3, since Leaf only had three pokémon, with standard League rules.

Ash released Saur and she released a Pidgeotto. While Ash could switch out Saur, except Shinx none of his pokémon would be of much use and he wanted to keep Shinx in reserve for now.

He decided to test Pidgeotto by ordering Saur to use Magical Leaf. Thankfully, the move couldn't be dodged but Pidgeotto's attempt to do just that gave a good sense of its speed.

"Hit Ivysaur with a wing attack Pidgeotto and batter him with Gust after that continuously" said Leaf in a happy tone.

Ash was waiting for just such an opportunity and as Pidgeotto came closer he yelled "Tank the hit Saur and use Sleep Powder on it. After that, wrap it using Vine Whip and pound it into the ground."

Pidgeotto was unable to change its course so late, but it did a lot of damage to Saur, who was able to hit it with Sleep Powder at point blank range. Pidgeotto fell out of the sky asleep, and Saur started pounding it with his vines. He also ordered Saur to use Leech Seed, allowing him to regain some energy while he was hitting Pidgeotto.

But before Saur could knock it out, Pidgeotto was able to wake up and escape from his vines. He ordered Saur to pelt him with Magical Leaf, even though it was a not very effective move, but even as he continued pelting him Leaf ordered Pidgeotto to knock him with another Wing attack.

Ash could only watch as Saur was knocked unconscious by Pidgeotto. He released Shinx and commanded her to use Fake Tears and then knock it out with Thunder Shock. Pidgeotto tried dodging her Thunder Shocks but since it wasn't at full strength, it was soon knocked out.

Leaf pulled out a pokéball and released a Nidorina onto the battle, Ash decided to switch out to Trapinch since it was the best option against Nidorina, even though it would expose his last pokémon.

He switched in Trapinch, and Leaf ordered Nidorina to use Double Kick. He yelled for Trapinch to try and dodge but was he was too slow, thankfully the attack didn't do too much to Trapinch.

He ordered Trapinch to use Bulldoze continuously, trying to keep Nidorina at a distance from him. Leaf knew what he was trying to do and commanded to jump in the air and use Poison Sting. Ash decided to try out a risky strategy and ordered Trapinch to use Bide.

Bide was a weird move. It took nearly two minutes to power up, but it unleashed such damaged that the only way to circumvent it was to not use damaging moves or try to knock out the user in under two minutes.

Here, Trapinch was able to use the move before he was hit by Poison Sting, so Leaf couldn't just order Nidorina to use a status move until Bide's time passed. The only choice she had right now was to try and knock Trapinch out before the two minutes passed.

Leaf was a little surprised that Trapinch knew Bide and was aware that she had few options left. She ordered Nidorina to constantly use Poison Sting on Trapinch, trying to poison him before Nidorina fainted from Bide. She did succeed in her aim and Trapinch was soon poisoned, though he managed to perform Bide soon after and Nidorina was knocked out.

Ash grimaced on seeing the poison and was impressed that Leaf had managed to make the best of a bad situation, but he expected nothing less from her. He hoped that Trapinch was able to survive the poison through Leaf's last pokémon and inflict some damage on it.

He wasn't surprised when Leaf released her starter Eevee, he had expected her to go with either Budew or Eevee. She ordered Eevee to use Headbutt to on Trapinch and Ash yelled at Trapinch to take it on and use Bite.

Ash was shocked at how much Eevee's Headbutt had done to Trapinch, after tanking the move, he was on his last legs and just managed to pull of Bite. While Bite did do a significant amount of damage, Trapinch fainted just after performing the move from poison damage.

Seeing how much damage Headbutt had done to Trapinch, he wondered whether Eevee had the ability Adaptability that powered up its moves. Putting it out of his mind, he released Shinx onto the field, aware that it was his last pokémon and he was close to losing a pokémon battle for the first time ever.

He grimaced at thought of losing but put it out of his mind for now. He ordered Shinx to start the battle off with a Thunder Wave. Shinx was able to do but was hit with a Headbutt in return, thankfully the headbutt was weakened by Shinx's Intimidate ability.

Ash knew that Shinx would probably be able to tank only one or maybe two more headbutts. He commanded Shinx to use Thunder Shock and try to dodge Eevee's headbutt, but while Shinx was able to nail Eevee with a Thunder Shock, he couldn't dodge Headbutt in time.

Both Shinx and Eevee were on their last legs and both trainers knew that the next move would decide the and Leaf simultaneously yelled for their pokémon to repeat their last moves and knock their opponent out.

Just before Eevee hit Shinx with another Headbutt, it stopped because of Paralysis acting up. Shinx taking advantage of the Paralysis managed to hit Eevee at point blank range with a Thunder Shock, knocking Eevee out and winning the battle.

Ash was grinding his teeth from the anticipation but jumped with joy on seeing that Shinx had managed to win the battle. He was even happier when he saw that Shinx was covered with a blinding white light, in the process of evolving to Luxio. He waited for the evolution to finish and recalled the newly evolved Luxio, promising to check her out later.

"Wow, Leaf that was intense. I must that admit that this is the first time I've come so close to losing and it feels weird," said Ash.

"C'mon Ash, you have to give yourself credit. You have a very well-trained team and are an excellent trainer. Where did you find a Trapinch in Kanto though?" consoled Leaf.

They talked for a while, rekindling the close friendship that they used to have during their school days. Ash had a massive crush on Leaf back then but had been too afraid to ask her out. The time apart had lessened his feelings for her though.

They toured Cerulean together, going from shop-to-shop window shopping, talking, and eating. After it over, Ash was sad that they could only spend a few more days together, till the Nugget Bridge Tournament lasted. Today had almost felt like they were a real couple out on a date together. He was going to miss her when they went their separate ways.


Cerulean Gym, Next day

Ash had come to challenge the Cerulean Gym alone; Leaf had already gotten her gym badge earlier and was currently training for the Nugget Bridge Tournament. He had also trained with Luxio for a while, to get her used to her new body and check the move Spark, which she learnt after evolution. Although Ash was expecting the whole gym affair to take less than 5 minutes, he was still prepared for a battle.

He really hoped that the Cerulean Sisters were still giving out badges, because Ash could use the extra time to train more for the upcoming tournament and spend more time with Leaf. He walked inside the gym and asked the receptionist about a gym battle. She replied that they were currently free and to go inside.

He started going through the gym and eventually came across a huge pool filled with pokémon waddling, battling, and sleeping inside it. He saw that only one of the Sensational Sisters was present, the oldest sister Daisy.

"Hello, I'm here to challenge the Gym Leader to a battle" he said.

"Oh, another cutie here to challenge me. How wonderful, but unfortunately we've decided to give up battling, and are giving the Cerulean Gym badge to anyone who wants one. So come here and collect yours" she explained in a sweet voice. Ash blushed due to her comment but started moving towards her to collect his badge.

He was just about to receive the badge from her but suddenly he heard a shout and a girl about his age came up to them and snatched the badge from Daisy's hand.

"Daisy, I told you that you cannot just give out the badge without battling. It harms the reputation of the gym and you, what kind of trainer are you that you would accept a badge without earning it," yelled the banshee pointing towards him.

"Excuse me, who are you to lecture me about accepting a gym badge and what authority do you have to stop her?" asked a furious Ash.

"I'm the fourth Sensational Sister Misty, and if you want the gym badge, you're going to have to defeat me," said the newly christened Misty.

"What? There are only 3 sensational sisters and you're not one, and if I have to beat you for the badge then so be it. I'm going to enjoy defeating you" promised Ash with a cold anger surrounding him.

"Aww, you're even cuter when you're riled up sweetie and you're right that she's not a sensational sister. But she is our younger sister, and you will have to defeat her for the badge I'm afraid" said Daisy in an attempt to calm down Ash.

Misty blustered at her comment about not being a Sensational Sister but moved to one end of the pool to start the battle. They waited a few minutes for all the pokémon to exit the pool before Daisy acting as a referee started explaining the rules.

"This a battle for the Cerulean Gym Badge. This wil battle, with only the challenger being able to substitute pokémon" she said in an official voice.

Ash released Faye from her pokéball and told her that they were in a gym battle. Misty released a Staryu in response and started off the battle ordering Staryu to use Water Pulse on the Clefairy. He smirked and said, "Use Protect Faye and then use Pound it repeatedly."

Misty smiled at his arrogance and said "Staryu use Harden and render his only attack useless." Her thinking was that Clefairy only had one attacking move and that in his arrogance, Ash had revealed his only useful move early, while he didn't know all of her moves.

Misty then watched in horror as Ash ordered Clefairy to use Encore and trapped Staryu into continuously using the move Harden.

"Great job Faye, trapping it. Now use Thunder Wave and paralyze her, before using Disarming Voice to knock her out. Misty could only watch in shock as Staryu was trapped and knocked out so easily, without even having done any damage. She robotically recalled Staryu and released Starmie, still in shock from the massacre that had just occurred.

Ash smiled coldly at seeing Staryu get knocked out and was a little surprised at seeing Misty release a Starmie. Starmie were dangerous pokémon but seeing one at a 2nd badge gym battle had Ash thinking that this one was young or weak or both.

Evolving pokémon earlier before fully training them, often stunted the growth of those pokémon and lead to them never achieving their full potential.

That was the reason rookies never had full trained Behemoths like Nidoking or Arcanine at their disposal. That's why trainers who recklessly forced their pokemon to evolve before they were ready were often seen as incompetent by most trainers. He hoped that wasn't the case with Misty, otherwise this gym was doomed.

He decided to keep Clefairy in the battle for now, to scope out what kind of moves Starmie had. Misty decided to play it safe and ordered Starmie to use Swift, a move that was guaranteed to hit. "Faye, use Copycat and destroy the Swift stars. Then use Minimize to raise your evasion," said Ash.

Misty was a pinch; most her moves had been rendered useless by Ash. The only hope she had now was to use Water Pulse in rapid succession and hope that Clefairy would be unable to dodge.

She tried to put up an aura of confidence and ordered Starmie to keep using Water Pulse until Clefairy was knocked out. Ash suspected that only useful moves Starmie had in reserve would be Bubblebeam or Water Pulse. "Faye, dodge the move and then use Sing. Then pound it using Stored Power" he said triumphantly.

Misty watched helplessly as Starmie was put to sleep through Sing and then hit repeatedly by Clefairy's powered up Stored Power. Starmie was soon knocked out and Misty handed the gym badge, TM and cash to a smiling Ash before running from the room crying.

Seeing Misty run-away crying was difficult for Daisy. Even though they had their differences, Daisy still cared about her a lot, and it was difficult for her to see Misty get demolished so easily.

But she knew that even though the loss was difficult for her, it would encourage her to grow and become a more level headed and humble trainer. Qualities that were essential for both a future gym leader and Water type Master.

But while Daisy was concerned about Misty, she was still shocked by what she had witnessed. Ash had shown a level of skill and ruthlessness she hadn't seen since Red. She knew that one day, he would become the Champion and she feared for whomever stood in his way.


Ok, this was an interesting chapter. Here, we see Ash nearly lose to Leaf, proving that even though he's a prodigy, he still has a long way to go. We also see him basically demolish Misty without making a single mistake. This is down to Ash being angry and acting more ruthlessly than usual but it's also because Misty is kind of an inexperienced trainer, with some bad luck. There's no way for her to have won that match and making Ash needlessly struggle just for the sake of it would be terrible for the story.

The Nugget Bridge Tournament was going to be in this chapter, but the chapter was getting too long, and I decided to split it into two parts to make it easier to read. I think I'm going to start uploading chapters on Fridays and Sundays.

Ash's Pokémon list:

Ivysaur (Saur) – Lv 18 - Tackle, Growl, Vine Whip, Growth, Leech Seed, Razor Leaf, Sleep Powder, Poison Powder, Protect and Magical Leaf.

Luxio – Lv 17 - Tackle, Leer, Charge, Thunder Shock, Thunder Wave, Charge, Bite, Protect and Fake Tears.

Trapinch – Lv 16 - Bite, Sand Attack, Bide, Mud Slap, Bulldoze, Protect and Feint Attack.

Clefairy (Faye) – Lv 20 - Sing, Sweet Kiss, Disarming Voice, Encore, Charm, Pound, Copycat, Growl, Defence Curl, Stored power, Minimize, After You, Life Dew Metronome, Thunder Wave and Protect.