AN: Sorry about slow updates everyone. Writer's block plus an unrelenting amount of insomnia has made it hard to do anything recently. I'm working on pushing through it though.

Spot Inspection

Chapter 8

-Ash-

"So, think Surge is going to make a hat trick?" Ash asks as he and Jane walked through the forest, continuing on their route to Vermillion.

"I hope not." Jane slumped, "So many stupid Gym Leaders. It hurts my pride as a Kantonian. One, I just need one to be good. Please Arceus!" Jane groaned as they started across a bridge over the river canyon.

"More than one!" Ash hastily shouted to the sky, eyes wide "More than one ple-aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" his plea turned into a panicked shout as the bridge gave out right as they hit the halfway mark, twisting to dry and dump them into the raging rock filled river below.

"Ash!" Jane cried out, her hands grasping his ankles as he held onto the ropes "Can you get us across?!"

"I can try!" Ash grit his teeth, working to not loose his grip on the unstable bridge, moving fist over fist to get back to solid ground. As he went, each motion made the wood creak ominously under his grip, straining and threatening to break.

"SCYTHER!" Ash shouted out, straining as he focused, using what little psychic ability he had as well as his grip to move and hold the bridge pieces together. At his cry, the flying bug came out and saw the situation, understandably panicking at the situation.

"Scy! Scyther!" his loyal bug type seemed to get an idea as they flew beneath Jane, helping push her up so she had a grip upon the rope bridge too.

"Alright, now-" Jane's question was cut off as Scyther then cut the rope behind them, grasping the severed cord with teeth and feet. On the other side of the Chasm, Vigoroth came out of his pokeball at Scyther's cry, hastily grasping the ropes to begin pulling them up to safety.

"You two!" Ash panted, adrenaline still surging as he and Jane hugged Scyther and Vigoroth tightly "Are getting ALL the treats when we get to Vermillion!"

"Agreed!" Jane was hugging the still fretting Pokémon just as hard. He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, calming down from what could have very easily killed them if they'd been less lucky.

"Can you call your family." Ash was holding her hand tightly as they continued walking, refusing to look back at the canyon "They should know the bridge went out."

"Good idea." Jane nodded, pulling out her phone "Hey Sis. Yeah, still heading to Vermillion." He gave her hand a squeeze as he heard the shake in her voice, adrenaline crash hitting them both as she explained to her sister what had happened. "What do you mean there shouldn't be a rope bridge in the area?" Jane's eyes narrowed as Ash felt a surge of suspicion.

"Well, there was a rope and plank bridge over the river Canyon, and it gave out on us halfway through." Jane insisted "So what? Was it just some old thing that got forgotten about? It looked too new for that. It looked perfectly safe before…before it snapped." Jane shuddered as Ash rubbed her back.

"I…okay, we'll see you soon sis." Jane ended the call as she leaned into Ash. Within a few minutes, there was the flash of teleportation as Jane's older sister, the one who'd first come to his report of Professor Oak's abuse of power, appeared.

"Thank Arceus you two are alright." The older cop breathed out in relief, checking them both for injuries before giving Scyther and Vigoroth some treats.

"You said there wasn't supposed to be a bridge here?" Ash asked as he saw her looked back at where the bridge had been and checking the coordinates on a map.

"Not at all." Jenny shook her head, "There's an actual bridge a few miles to the north and a crossing a few miles to the south after the river hits waterfall and isn't over a canyon. But there's no record of a sanctioned bridge ever being here. I don't trust it."

"So, you're here to look around?" Ash asked as Jenny finished taking photos of the area.

"Exactly." Jenny nodded, "I'm worried there might be more things like that so I'm going to see you two through before I do more digging. Things are finally getting settled up at the lab itself so at least I don't have to worry about that front."

"Settled?" Ash blinked in surprise "Already?"

"I mean going through all the documents and records he had there." Jenny shook her head, "And even then, it's just gathering them all to have them shipped to a major league facility to go through them in more detail to prepare for a trial. This is going to take quite a while but that won't be your concern till you're brought in to testify."

"Got iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Ash shouted out as the ground beneath him collapsed, dropping him into a pit fall trap "Ow."

"Okay, now I know this is intentional." Jenny scowled darkly as Jane helped him out of the hole, "Someone's deliberately trapping this area."

"But why?" Ash groaned as Jane managed to get him out, feeling sore from the impact of landing down in the hole.

"I don't know…yet." Jenny scowled as they continued, finding close to a dozen other traps as they went. Some were pitfalls like he'd fallen into earlier. Others were snare nets designed to hang their victims from the trees. There was even a trap that when triggered opened containers of what seemed to be sleep powder from a Pokémon.

"This is clearly well planned out." Jenny scowled as she took photos and bagged some of the sleep powder containers for evidence, "How many trainers got caught up in these and never made it back out?"

"I see smoke ahead." Ash narrowed his eyes as he looked up "Narrow, like it's coming out of a chimney."

"Then let's go." Jenny nodded, "You two stay behind me, got it?"

"Got it." Ash and Jane agreed, albeit reluctantly, knowing that the more experienced cop was definitely a more powerful battler then either of them at the moment. Moving closer, they entered a clearing where a blue haired woman was standing by a cabin with a bunch of Pokémon. Ash only had a moment to observe this before one of those Pokémon, a Bulbasaur, charged to attack them.

"Alakazam." Jenny didn't even bat an eye as her powerful psychic starter appeared, pinning down the grass starter with psychic energy.

"Bulbasaur!" the blue haired woman rushed towards them, "Let him go!"

"Hold it right there." Jenny's voice was firm as she pulled out her badge, "Are you the one responsible for the traps in this forest?"

"I…I needed to protect these Pokémon." The woman insisted, "They were all abandoned by their trainers, they need me to look after them and get them back on their feet."

"Kazam!" Alakazam pointed a spoon at the woman.

"Do you even have a license or qualifications to run a medical facility? Is this place up to code?" Jenny pressed, her hand subtly moving to the cuffs on her belt.

"I…I'm not qualified to be a doctor." The woman admitted as Alakazam pipped up again, Ash realizing he was testing for honestly like he did when they first met.

"Ma'am, you have the right to remain silent." Jenny pulled out the cuffs, expression hard as she continued to read the woman her rights, Alakazam keeping the various Pokémon from bolting.

"But why? I'm just trying to help these abandoned Pokémon!" the woman insisted as Jenny called in more officers.

"Ma'am, you filled a forest, a publicly accessible forest, with traps that could have easily killed someone." Jenny scowled as she tightened the cuffs, more officers getting teleported in by one of her coworkers with a transport Pokémon, "Not to mention having Pokémon in the area that attack people on sight." As she spoke, the other officers started rounding up the Pokémon, others being sent to disengage all the traps that would have been placed there.

Meanwhile, Ash and Jane just watched, unsure of what to do as the various cops hurried about. Jenny eventually had them give statements before escorting them out of the now crime scene being investigated, and they were set to continue from the strange experience.

"Thanks for filling us in Jenny." Jane smiled as she ended the call with her sister, looking over at Ash as they continued down the route to Vermillion "Well, the situation with that crazy forest lady is handled. The Pokémon were sent to a proper rehab center to both recover and learn to stop attacking people on sight. The woman was sent to prison for trying to practice medicine without a license as well as the various illegal traps she set up. They're…still looking for who all might have been caught up in them." Ash winced at that, wondering what would have made someone think those traps were a good idea.

"So…Surge. What should I do to show I'm ready for badge three in case he fails?" Ash asked, trying to change the subject to a more comfortable topic.

"Ah, I actually have something for that." Jane perked up, seemingly glad for the change of topic as she latched onto it, "I've heard of an 'unofficial' Gym on our way to Vermillion you can battle.

"…Unofficial gym?" Ash asked flummoxed.

"Yeah, apparently some guy made a training area in the woods and refuses to do the league challenge until he's won one hundred battles in a row." Jane rolled her eyes at how extra the concept was, especially to build something like that with the intent of abandoning it.

"Alright, let's go find this guy." Ash nodded, letting Jane take point and lead to where she heard this trainer was. Eventually, they came upon a large walled enclosure with its own fully constructed training facility and a board stating ninety-eight wins and zero losses.

"Well, looks like my next win is here." A trainer with green haired smirked at them from the gate.

"Pretty cocky to think you've already won." Ash gave the trainer an unimpressed stare. If this person went out of their way to build a facility like this with the express purpose of abandoning it and built a giant score board like that then they probably had an ego to rival Gary.

"Not cocky if I'm that good." The trainer smirked, "Name's AJ, you ready to lose?"

"Let's just get this over with." Ash rolled his eyes "You're up Pikachu."

"Hah, easy win." AJ crowed, sending out a Sandshrew and pulling out a whip, cracking the air rather than shouting orders as the yellow ground type began to dig.

"Pikachu, thunderbolt when it comes back out." Ash ordered, wanting to try something.

"You stupid or something?" AJ scoffed, "Come on up and let em see how useless it is Sandshrew."

"Sand!" the ground type came to the surface before yelling in pain as the electric attack hit "SHREW!"

"What?!" AJ gaped as Ash smirked.

"Quick attack into iron tail." Ash ordered, his yellow rodent zooming towards the still twitching opponent and hitting them hard. Seeing the flow of battle change, AJ growled, cracking the whip again only this time it struck Pikachu who was zipping about to strike and dodge Sandshrew, bringing out a startled noise from the electric attack.

"YOU BASTARD!" Ash surged forward, throwing a hard punch at AJ's face knocking out the trainer who'd whipped Pikachu while the Sandshrew backed away from getting caught up in the mess.

"Hey sis…yeah, we got another one." Jane sighed behind him as they called in the cops…again.

AN: Sorry about how long this took to get out after the last chapter. Along with the in and out writer's block, I wanted to take my time given what I planned to do with Bulbasaur given their popularity. I know how popular Bulbasaur is, so I wanted to be careful.

As for AJ I originally intended for him to just get sent to trainer school to learn how to train more reasonably but then I rewatched some of the clips and saw he wasn't cracking his whip to the side, he was doing it over the field and this thing was long enough that it almost hit Ash on the far end. That's just asking for trouble.

So yeah. AJ was dangerous to his Pokémon and other trainers while the 'hidden village' was no doubt illegal given all the dangerous and potentially lethal traps, plus she admits she isn't qualified to do medical care to anything.