Standing there was a woman that looked to be about 20. She had long raven hair tied back into a thick ponytail somewhat reminiscent of Ino's Shippuden hairstyle. She wore a knee-length short sleeved dress that was mostly black but on the sides of the skirt and around the waist red fabric was apparent. For shoes, she had on black high-heeled boots that came up mid-calf. In her hand she held a key ring with a total of two keys on it.

Naruto's eyes were instantly drawn to the keys. The woman smirked, "I'm Mavis; I'm the head of the operation in Mt. Moon. If you want these keys, then you'll have to beat me in a Pokemon battle."

Naruto nodded, "Okay, I'll fight you, and I'll win, dattebayo!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Let's go, Kunai!"

The Squirtle stepped forward and got into a battle pose.

Mavis spun the keys around on her pointer finger before stuffing them into a pocket on her dress. Then, out of a different pocket, she pulled out a single pokeball and threw it up in the air, "Go, Mankey!"

The monkey-like Pokemon popped out of the pokeball and instantly took up a battle stance.

Mavis gave her orders first, "Mankey, use Scratch!"

"Kunai, dodge it!"

Kunai attempted to get out of the way of the sharp claws of the Mankey, but was too slow and got hit full force with the attack. Kunai let out a grunt of pain before standing up to let Naruto know that it was alright.

"Kunai, use water gun, keep it at a distance!" From what Naruto could tell, this Pokemon seemed like it needed to get up close and personal to get any attacks in, so he was hoping if he could keep it at a distance it couldn't get an attack in on Kunai.

There was only one problem with his plan – Mankey was fast.

Kunai used the water gun, and Mankey dodged to the side, only getting hit on the right side of its body.

"Mankey, use Low Kick!"

Mankey followed the orders and ran in close to Kunai.

"Kunai, use Bite!"

Kunai bit down hard as soon as Mankey kicked. It managed to latch onto the other Pokemon's leg and was swung around wildly like a ragdoll as it attempted to keep hold as Mankey tried to shake it off.

"Kunai, use Water Gun!"

Kunai leapt off of Mankey's leg and into the air, instantly using the attack which hit Mankey square in the face. Kunai landed on the hard stone ground and Mankey was breathing hard and looking quite tired.

"Finish it with a tackle!"

Without and hesitation, Kunai leapt forward and tackled Mankey, the larger Pokemon fell onto the ground, and lay there, knocked out.

After that fight, Kunai looked almost ready to pass out as well.

Mavis took Mankey's Pokeball and called it back, then took another Pokeball out as she out Mankey's away. She looked distraught as though she didn't want to use the Pokemon she had. "Go, Ponyta."

The fire type Pokemon came out and Naruto realized that she didn't want to send it out because Kunai was a water type and of course fire was weak to water. Naruto looked at Kunai and wondered if it could handle another fight with how tired it looked. He decided to risk it, "You can do it Kunai!"

Kunai nodded its little head and looked straight at its opponent. Naruto knew that a couple good hits with a Water Gun would knock it out, so that's what he tried first.

"Use Water Gun!"

Kunai used the attack and the water hit the Ponyta straight on.

Naruto was surprised it hadn't even tried to dodge.

"Ponyta, use Agility, then hit it with a Body Slam!"

Suddenly, the fire horse blurred and without warning hit Kunai.

Kunai flew across the battlefield and ended up hitting a wall and instantly fainted.

"Kunai!" Naruto yelled, running over to go pick up his friend. He brought it over to where he was standing before and placed it on the ground.

Mavis smirked at him, "Pfft, little water Pokemon wasn't that hard to beat."

Naruto was not happy with this turn of events, "Okay Kurama, it's up to you now."

The Vulpix said nothing, but leapt onto the battlefield.

"I guess I'll have to fight fire with fire," Naruto mused.

Naruto wasn't entirely sure what to do to win this fight, Kurama was the faster of his two Pokemon, but this Ponyta seemed a lot more agile. He decided that he would just try to beat it by putting more intensity and ferocity behind the attacks.

"Kurama, don't hold back on any of your attacks!"

Kurama let out a short yip to show that it understood.

"Try a Tackle!"

"Ponyta, dodge it," Mavis commanded. The Pokemon stepped out of the way with plenty of time to spare and Kurama had to stop the attack so it wouldn't run straight into a wall.

"Ponyta, use Bide!"

The Pokemon stopped moving and just stood there with its eyes closed.

"Kurama, use Quick Attack again!"

Kurama ran forward and hit the Ponyta with the attack, it didn't even attempt to dodge.

Kurama hit it with attacks time after time before eventually the Ponyta opened its eyes and a red energy was released from its body, when it hit Kurama, the Pokemon squealed in pain and collapsed onto the ground. After a few seconds, it stood up and glared at the other Pokemon. Both Pokemon appeared to be quite tired. Naruto knew he had to end it soon or else he would lose. Mavis also wanted to end it quickly, so she decided to use one of her stronger attacks.

"Use Double-Edge!"

Ponyta used the attack and Kurama looked like it was about to faint, but then the recoil damage from the attack kicked in and Ponyta fell over, exhausted.

Kurama stared at the Pokemon in front of it, then hobbled back to Naruto.

"You did a good job Kurama," he said, picking up the fox, "You did well too, Kunai," he told the Squirtle that was beginning to regain consciousness.

Mavis returned her Ponyta back to its Pokeball and fell to her knees, "I can't believe I lost…"

"Well you'd better believe it." Naruto told her, Kurama jumping down from his arms.

Mavis stood up and produced the keys from her pocket. She threw them at Naruto and he reached out instinctively to grab them.

"Well, I'll be taking my leave now, bye-bye!"

"Wait!" Naruto called, starting to run after her.

"Naruto!" Red called, "Let us out of her first."

"Oh, right," Naruto said, walking over and opening the giant cell door with one of the keys. "I wonder what the other key opens," Naruto said out loud.

"I don't know," Red said, but I suppose we could find out.

After that, all the Pokemon Trainers that had been in the cell came out and thanked Naruto for all that he'd done.

After everyone dispersed, Naruto and Red walked into the main room of this hideout.

"Hey Naruto," Red said.

"Yeah?" he answered back. He noticed Red's face looked a lot more red than normal.

"Um, I just wanted to thank you and you were really cool back there." She said quickly.

He smiled, "It's no problem."

"Anyway," Red said, changing the subject, "I wonder what they were up to here."

Suddenly, Naruto remembered something, there was a huge pit in the center of the room where Pokemon were being kept.

He ran over to the pit and looked down inside of it. Because of the darkness, it was impossible to see inside of it, but he could still hear the faint sound of wild Pokemon cries.

"What is it?" Red asked, running over to the pit.

"There are Pokemon down there."

Red looked down at the pit and instantly looked away, it was a long way down. She didn't like to admit it, but she was somewhat afraid of heights.

"Uh, is there a door or something leading down there?" Red asked.

"Not that I know of, but we can look."

A few minutes of searching later and they had found a door that appeared to lead to a long stairwell going down.

Red and Naruto looked down into the seemingly endless darkness before starting down the stairway.

It took them a few minutes to get down to the bottom, and as they walked, it was complete silence as neither of them knew what to say. When they finally reached the bottom, it was still really dark, but after the descent, their eyes had adjusted to the darkness so they could see at least a little bit.

As soon as she saw what was down there, Red said, "There are so many Clefairys…"

There were probably a hundred of the pink Pokemon occupying the room.

"Hey," Red called, "You guys can go up this staircase and be free."

All at once, the Clefairys turned in the direction of her voice and started to head toward the staircase. Surprisingly, they all made a single-file line to head out and by the time Red and Naruto made it back to the top, they had all disappeared.

"How did they all leave so quickly?" Naruto asked her as they reached the top of the staircase.

"Well they are wild Pokemon that know this area, it's not too surprising," Red told him.

"I guess so," Naruto replied.

"So, I guess we should continue on our way to get out of here," Red said.

"Yeah, but you don't get to lead at all this time."

Red crossed her arms over her chest, "Fine, but if we get lost, it's all on you."

"I'm fully prepared to accept that responsibility." He told her.

(…)

About two hours later, Red and Naruto stepped out of the mountain.

"All right," Red said, "We're almost to Cerulean City!"

(-)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I actually kind of had fun writing it, and also, I'm sorry if the battle scene was terrible, I don't think I'm that good at writing things like that. One more thing, you may have noticed that there's a new cover photo for this story, I would like to thank blue-hart for it. There's also a bit of foreshadowing in it for the next chapter.