(Last time, our heroes met up with one of the ghost Pokemon Ashly met on her first journey. What will this tricky Gengar do now that she has come back at last?)

(Music: Creeping shadow)

Brock and Gary walked down a hall following the Gengar. The latter (Gary) was holding Ashly in his arms.

"That was really good food, I'm not going to lie" he said.

"Yeah, I bet that's because you were eating it off of a girl, wasn't it?" Ashly replied.

her trainer looked down at her. "Um…if I say yes, will you hurt me?"

"Most likely, I'm not gonna kill you though, I'll probably just injure you to the point of you passing out."

"That's good to know because I was going to say yes."

She turned towards him, used Metal claw on his face, and fired her dragon breath into his gut immediately afterwards sending him into a wall.

"Owwwwwww…" He groaned.

"Just be happy I didn't use Slash" she huffed.

The Gengar led them to what looked like a training room. It had several punching bags hanging from the ceiling, a couple of mats, and a few training items in boxes like Macho Braces and things.

"Alright, Serena, I guess just listen to the Kind and Generous Ghost" Gary said as he held her pokeball out in front of himself and let her out.

"Generous, yes. Kind, no" Ashly growled in pokespeak eliciting a laugh from the Gengar before it faced Serena towards a punching bag then used shadow punch and sent her careening into it. She slowly fell to the floor.

(End music)

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Ashly asked it.

"Well how do you expect her to learn to phase out of existence to use phantom force is she doesn't have a good reason to do so?" It asked.

"Eh fair enough, just don't hurt her too badly. Gary on the other hand, you can go nuts on as long as you don't kill him" she said to it.

"Ashly, what are you two talking about?" Gary asked.

"Oh nothing…" She relayed.

"Well, that Gengar does have a point though….if I'm gonna learn to use phantom force, I need to learn to phase out of existence and I do need an incentive to be able to learn how to do that" groaned Serena. She flapped her wings and flew off of the floor.

"Of course we could use more hastened means…" A ghastly suggested, while levitating a katana off of the wall.

"Oh hell, no I'm not doing that shit" she snapped while tuning away, landing, and then crossing her wings.

"Ok, suit yourself kid" the Ghastly replied as it put the Katana back.

The Gengar punched her back into the punching bag.

"And there has got to be a better way, can't you just throw her!?" Asked Brock.

"You do realize what you just said, right?" Gary asked him..

"Yeah…I just realized how bad that sounded" he answered.

Gengar lifted Serena back up by her tail and then carried her back over before throwing her at the punching bag.

She suddenly seemed to vanish into a puff of smoke and then reappear in the other side of the bag.

"What…just…happened?!" She asked Ashly.

the ghost type chuckled. "See girls, we're making progress."

"Don't ever say that again…" she muttered

"Hehehe, why not?" It asked.

Ashly's front right claw extended a bit. "Because I'll cut you…."

It just inched away from her and picked up a TM.

"Ok, here, just don't use the rusty spoons downstairs" it said as it handed the disk to her.

"Gary, can you use this on me?" She asked.

"Shadow Claw, huh? Sure thing, how you're going to be able to use this move, I'll never know but…here you go" he said, holding the disk up. A blur of energy left the disk and flowed into Ashly.

"Well that just happened I guess…" She relayed

"What does that feel like?" Brock asked.

"Well…It doesn't really feel like anything"

Gary weighed his hands. "I mean it's like an instantaneous Seminar for Pokemon. All it really does is download information into Their heads. To be honest, even many Pokemon Professors don't know how exactly those things work."

He bent down and picked Ashly up and then began to pet her head absentmindedly, she didn't mind however, and pushed her head into his hand.

"Ok, Now you just need to stay phased out long enough to sneak attack your target" the Gengar said to Serena.

"Um, let's see here.." She replied as she vanished from sight, then the punching bag began to swing backwards before she appeared again where it was.

"Hehe, I wouldn't stand there" Gengar laughed.

She gasped as the bag swung back and sent her flying into Gary, knocking him over. Ashly skillfully leapt out of his arms and landed on all fours.

"Nice one, Serena" Ashly congratulated her. Serena blushed under her feathers while Ashly turned to Gary who was finishing getting up.

"Now my slave, continue to pet me" she demanded.

"I was saving this for when you attempted to blackmail me with bad social media posts, but I think now is a good time to use this" he said angrily. He pulled an Incense out and held it under Ashly's face. She fell onto her belly.

"What...was…that?" She asked tiredly.

"Full incense. It makes Pokemon much slower and induces laziness as well as a feeling of their stomach being overly full and even bloated. Maybe this will teach you to treat your trainer with respect" he said.

Brock picked Ashly up and began to rub her belly, much to her delight. "Ooooh….keep going" he heard her coo.

Gary sent out Dawn as well. "Did you need me?" She asked.

"Here, I got a TM for shadow claw" he said as he held it up once more. As it had with Ashly, a blur of energy came off of the disk and went into Dawn's body.

"Huh, neat…that's what having a TM used on you is like….and what's with Ashly?" She asked.

"I made her smell a Full Incense. Now her stomach feels like she just overate and she just wants to sleep it off. That's what she gets for calling me her slave" he scoffed.

"Gary, that was mean."

"So was her calling me her slave!"

Dawn rolled her eyes at them. "Whatever, let's just go and fight Sabrina."

They turned to leave only to see Gengar standing in their way.

"Can you let us leave?" Gary asked.

"Gar, Gen, Gengar" It replied.

"It said first you have to battle it" Dawn translated.

Ashly leapt out of Brock's arms and walked forward only for Dawn to stop her. "Let Serena handle this" she said, "also, how are you feeling better already?!"

"Hey, if you get woken up by a thunderbolt attack each day, you start to recover quicker and quicker.".

Serena flew down in front of the Gengar.

(Music: kanto wild Pokemon battle)

It grinned and formed a shadowy fist behind her and punched her.

"New moves you forgot to check on, dumbass" said Dexter. Gary flipped it open then pointed his finger to the Gengar.

"Use Hurricane!" He shouted.

Serena flapped her wings and sent a whirlwind into it, blowing it into a wall which it phased into.

"Try and sense where it'll attack from!" Ashly called.

Serena shut her eyes and then she managed to see a faded shadow moving across the walls. She opened her eyes again and suddenly a series of blades of air formed and flew into the shadow causing Gengar to appear out of the wall.

"What was that?!" Ashly asked.

"Razor Wind. The user makes a whirlwind on the first turn them attacks on the second using that wind. Serena likely modified her Hurricane attack in order to pull that off" Brock answered.

The Gengar seemed to vanish for a short time, then appeared behind her and was about to lick her. "Now, shadow force!" Gary shouted. She disappeared from sight confusing the Gengar.

Then a powerful blow sent it flying into another wall. It disappeared into it and reappeared directly in front of her and then punched her with it's shadowy fist before she blasted it with hurricane.

It was now visibly weak and was struggling to stand. It laughed darkly, then looked at Dawn and Ashly. A pair of purple chains wrapped around the three of them for a moment then vanished.

"Oh no, it just used Destiny Bond on them!" Brock exclaimed, "if it faints, so will Ashly and Dawn!"

"Go for it Serena!" Dawn called.

"Don't worry about us!" Added Ashly. Serena hesitated though.

"I don't want you two to get hurt" she said.

"We can't leave unless you beat him!" Ashly reminded her.

Serena nodded. Then she vanished and once again a powerful force sent Gengar flying.

"Gaaaaarrraarrr…." It groaned as it fell over with swirly eyes.

Ashly and dawn both fell onto the ground as well also with swirl eyes.

(End music)

"Great! Now straight on to safferon!" Gary said eagerly.

"Now wait just a minute. First we need to find a way to get Gengar to a Pokemon center. And you also need to Recall your team. They all took quite a bit of damage in that fight, mainly Ashly and Dawn since Gengar used them as hostages" Brock said as he grabbed Gary's shoulder as he was walking off.

"You're right….Brock, do you have an empty pokeball on you?" Gary asked as he returned Serena, Ashly, and Dawn.

Brock nodded and tossed the ball at Gengar which pulled it inside and wobbled once before clicking.

They hurried out of the tower after collecting Gengar's ball.

(Well, after beating Gengar and learning a few new tricks, our heroes make their trek back to saffron. What kind of gym battle will they have with Sabrina this time?! Stay tuned!)