Theres a new Prologue. You should go check it out after you read this.
Also, I noticed that the last bit of the chapter was cut off... So here's the full version, WITH the reviews this time :)
'Man Pikachu. Aren't you glad that we remembered to ask Hoopa for some heavy coats before we came here?' Ash asked.
...Or at least that's what Ash thought as he was shivering through his light vest. Headstrong as usual, he had charged into Ice Island before even realizing the possibility that the island dedicated to ice types might be cold. At least Pikachu was comfortable- Hoopa had dropped in a thick fleece jacket for Pikachu not long after Ash took his first step into the snow. Trudging forward, it didn't take long for Ash to trip and fall into a snowbank, face flat to the ground. Standing up and shivering, he thought, 'Could this day get any worse?'
Yes, yes it could. For suddenly the heavens opened up, exposing the warm heat of the sun to Ash, and all was calm until a massive portal opened up and Ash heard a high-pitched, booming voice yell,
"MURPHY'S LAW, BITCH!"
And then all hail broke loose. Ice balls the size of golf balls started to plummet down to the ground, some hitting Ash and Pikachu, much to their annoyance. However, Ash had a plan for hail.
"Altaria, come on out!" As soon as the dual-type emerged from her ball, all the hail stopped, much to Hoopa's confusion.
"Hey, what gives?"
Ash just smirked and yelled back,
CLOUDNINE, BITCH!"
Not much longer after that, Hoopa had dropped Ash a warm fleece coat as a sign of defeat. At first the trainer was skeptical about putting it on, but eventually the cold won out and Ash slipped the coat over his shoulders, hoping nothing would happen. Thankfully, nothing seemed to happen, so Ash kept walking towards the point he had been wandering towards the whole day- the Ice Shrine.
Or at least that's what he thought it was, but the island he was on bore a striking resemblence to Ice Island on Shamouti, just as the Fire and Lightning Islands did to their Orange Islands counterparts. Finally, after wandering for what seemed to be ages, Ash came across his first Pokemon- a snowy Castform. Smiling at it, Ash called upon Steelix to battle the ice-type.
"Rock Polish!" Ash started. Steelix shook himself, using some of his power to smooth his body out and raise his speed. In retaliation, Castform shot a Fire Blast, which Steelix barely dodged by going underground. Ash raised an eyebrow. 'Well that was unexpected.' Suddenly, Castform shot a fiery orb into the sky, changing the weather and blinding Ash. Still though, knowing what he did about Castforms, he still warned Steelix,
"Hey! Castform is a fire-type now! Use Earthquake and other ground moves!" All he got in reply was a faint roar. Ash grimaced, not knowing if Steelix had fully understood what he had said, but decided to trust the Iron Snake and stepped back a few meters. Sure enough, the ground started shaking.
Ash could hear the sounds of the battle- mostly Steelix roaring and Castform squeaking in pain, but couldn't actually see, so he had no idea what was going on. However, when the Sunny Day faded a few minutes later, Ash saw a smug-looking Steelix standing in a crater over a downed Castform. Smiling, Ash gestured for Steelix to move before throwing a regular Pokeball at the fainted Pokemon. It was an easy capture by Ash's standards, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and simply picked up the Pokeball then recalled Steelix with a word of praise.
Trudging on through the snow, Ash shivered his way to the mountain, where he assumed Articuno was. Looking around, he tried to spot any sign of a trail, but found no sign of one. Sighing, he was about to start climbing when something caught his eye. About halfway up the mountain was a massive house with many ice-types congregating near it. Smiling, he called upon Salamence for a lift.
"Hey Salamence, can you give me a lift to that house up there?" When he received a small roar and a dip of the head, Ash smiled and climbed on with a "thanks" When he was settled, he gave Salamence the word and the dragon-type shot off towards the house, making what would've been a long trek up the mountain into a ten second flight. When they got there, Salamence let Ash off right at the doorstep and then was recalled. Without bothering to knock- Candice probably wouldn't hear it- he stepped inside and looked around. It was a suprisingly cozy entryway for the ice-specialist, with a calm fire flickering in the center of the large room on top of light blue fiberglass. The walls a darkish blue that featured many paintings of ice-types in a light blue color, making them stand out from the wall. Ash could see an Abomasnow, Glaceon, Walrien, Cloyster, and a Beartic were all featured in the first room. After he had looked around, he decided to find Candice, if she was even here.
"Hey Candice?" Ash yelled, "Are you here? It's Ash!" When no reply came, however, Ash left the beautifully designed room and continued his trek up the mountain. When he finally reached the peak, he had to do a double take. The arena that he found himself looking at was absolutely breathtaking. The surface of the field was made with pure, untainted ice, which reflected the sky back onto the field. In periodic increments across the battlefield were what looked to be frozen boulders, which reflected the sun giving them the illusion of being made of sunlight. Suddenly, Ash heard a melodic cry from the top of one of the pillars. Looking up, he saw an Articuno looking down at him. Suddenly, the pillar that Articuno was perched on started spinning, revealing that the pillar was actually Regice in disguise.
Instinctively, Ash grabbed two Pokeballs, as whenever he had seen two legendaries in the previous islands, there was always a double battle. He was proven right when Articuno spoke.
"Ash! Welcome to Ice Island! Sorry about the heat, it's hot season right now," Articuno apologized. Ash blanched. 'This was the HOT season? I don't even want to think about what the cold season would be like.' He shuddered at the thought but stopped when Articuno continued.
"Does a double battle sound good to you?" Ash smiled and nodded. This was his forte. Throwing his two Pokeballs, Empoleon and Blaziken appeared on the ice. He frowned, noticing that Blaziken was having some trouble balancing on the ice. Regardless, however, he addressed his two chosen Pokemon.
"Alright guys, this is what you've been training for. This isn't training anymore, so be careful. Emploeon, you take on Articuno- watch out for her Freeze-Dry, it's super-effective on water-types. Blaziken, you take on Regice, and I'll be directing you. Are we good?" When he recieved two nods, he started.
"Blaziken, Flamethrower!" The fire-type opened his maw and a giant stream of red-hot fire shot towards Regice. In response, the legendary shot an Ice Beam, which headed straight towards the Flamethrower. The two powerful attacks met in the middle and fought for dominance. Regice's Ice Beam fought valiantly, but in the end the super-effective attack powered through and hit Regice, knocking the heavy pokemon back a few meters. Without needing to be told, Blaziken shot another Flamethrower at Regice, but this time the colossal Pokemon was ready. Using the ice to its advantage, Regice skated around Blaziken's Flamethrower and started towards the dual-type at an alarming pace.
Before he got to Blaziken, however, Regice had to dodge a Flame Burst. Unsurprisingly, the legendary did, coating most of the arena in a Mist attack, and a few moments later Ash saw Blaziken shoot out of the smoke and onto his back, on which he slid for a few feet. Seeing the fire-type's grimace, Ash encouraged,
"C'mon Blaziken, you can do this! Get up and hit him with a Brick Break!" Blaziken nodded and tried to get to his feet, but ultimately couldn't due to the ice. Seeing this, Ash frowned.
'I've got to find a way to get rid of this ice... Wait... I've got it!' Out loud, he yelled,
"Blaziken, roll left!" Without knowing why, the fighting-type rolled to his left, barely avoiding Regice's Hammer Arm attack that came from the Mist.
"Now! Amp up your leg flames! Melt this ice!" With a roar, Blaziken's leg-fire shot out to extreme lengths and melted all the ice within ten feet of him. With no ice for him to slip on, Blaziken quickly rose to his feet and instinctively avoided a Giga Impact, dodging to the right so that a very shocked Regice could sail right past him. Ash smiled: his plan was going perfectly. Now he just had to eliminate all the ice on the field to eliminate Regice's advantage.
"Alright! Blaziken, keep that fire going and hit him with a Blaze Kick!"
Blaziken nodded and started running towards Regice who was still recovering from the attack while melting the ice wherever his feet touched. When he was close enough to Regice he fired up the flames on his right leg even more and hit Regice with a roundhouse Blaze Kick, sending the legendary flying. Ash fist-pumped.
"Yeah! Finish it with a Fire Blast!" Without letting Regice have any time to recover, Blaziken shot a massive kanji-shaped blast of fire at Regice, hitting it head-on and knocking the beast out. Ash smile widened until he thought it would fall off. Throwing an Ultra Ball at the legendary, however, he remembered Emploeon and Articuno.
Looking over at the two Pokemon still battling, Ash noticed that Articuno had a very prominent advantage: the third dimension, otherwise known as the sky. Articuno would stay out of Empleon's reach until she swooped down just long enough to attack Empoleon who was sliding around on the ice Blaziken didn't melt. Every once and a while, Empoleon would fire a Metal Burst at Articuno, but the legendary would always dodge. Frowning, he devised a plan.
"Hey Blaziken." The fire-type turned his head from the battle to Ash "Next time Articuno swoops down to attack, I want you to shoot it down with a Fire Blast. Got it?" When the fire-type nodded he smiled and gestured at the two.
"Sneak over there now, I think Articuno's about to attack again."
Sure enough, when Blazkien finally crept over near where the action was happening, Articuno swooped down at Empoleon charging a Steel Wing. As he expected, Articuno dodged the retaliating Metal Burst, but was directly in the path of the much larger, much more painful Fire Blast which nailed her flank and forced her to the ground.
"Blaziken! Stone Edge! Empoleon, Steel Wing!" While Articuno was downed, the duo hit her with their respective super-effective attacks, knocking the bird out. Ash grinned.
Good jobyou two! Return now and take a long rest." He called, recalling the two and lobbing an Ultra Ball at Articuno, which shook thrice and then dinged, signifing the capture of the beast. He smiled at the results of the battle, but then went silent in concentration.
'Do I call it quits now, or do I go hunt for more Pokemon.' He scoffed. 'Nevermind, that's an easy one. More Pokemon, duh, but first things first, how do I get back down this mountain?' I don't want to use Altaria because if we get attacked, she's weak to ice-type moves... Wait, I still have Charizard with me!'
But before he could sent out the behemoth, he heard a slow clap pierce the silence. Whipping his head around, he saw Candice clapping for him while seemingly hovering over the side of the cliff. Raising an eyebrow, Candice got the hint and started talking.
"Hey Ash! Long time, eh? Good battle by the way. I only caught the end of it, but it still looked pretty good. It took me forever to capture Articuno here- I'm actually pretty sure the battle took over five hours even with all eighteen of my pokemon at that time battling her." Ash's jaw dropped. She had already captured an Articuno? In answer she suddenly rose up, revealing a smaller Articuno on which she was standing.
"Well then congrats to you too, I'm pretty sure that none of the others captured a legendary yet. Have you captured Regice or Kuyrem yet?" He asked. She fowned at the question, and said,
"NO! Regice, that darned thing, has been barely avoiding me ever since I've gotten on the island! Leaving just enough behind to let me know that he's there, but never letting me see or battle him! And with Kuyrem, I know I'm not ready for that kind of challenge yet."
Ash nodded, "Well it's good that you know your limits. Still though, that Regice sounds mischievous. I hope mine doesn't end up like that. Arceus knows I have it bad enough between Spiritomb and Hoopa..." At this it was her turn for her jaw to drop.
"You caught Regice too?! But I didn't see one when I flew up here!" she yelled. Ash shrugged.
"Blaziken had already knocked it out a couple minutes before we took down Articuno. It was a double battle." She nodded, accepting his answer.
"Well that explains the scorch marks on the field and the Regice-shaped crater here. Ugh, that's gonna be a pain to clean up." She said that last part while sending a mock glare at Ash, who just sheepishly rubbed his head.
"Heh heh, sorry about tha- OH LORD IS THAT A REGICE?!" Candice whipped around, trying to find the elusive creature, but couldn't. When she turned her attention back to Ash, she found that he had vanished.
"Well played Ash, well played."
"Did we lose her?"
"Chu" Came the affirmative reply from Pikachu. Ash breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness. The Distortion World hath no fury as a woman scorned." Pikachu sagely nodded, remembering a certain Buneary and Glaceon.
"Anyways though, lets keep moving on. Theres some more Pokemon I want to catch while we're here." The duo was currently at the base of the mountain, after Ash had used the prospect of Regice as a distraction before releasing Charizard and shooting away. Trudging forward, Ash saw absolutely zero Pokemon within sight. Grimacing at what he was about to do, he opened his mouth and called for Hoopa. When the familiar portal appeared over his head, he heard Hoopa's voice ring out,
"What you need."
Ash closed his eyes before hesitantly saying, "Can you send an Abomasnow, Glaceon, Cloyster, Froslass, and a Walrien over to me?" Hoopa giggled,
"Why? Surely the infinitely-energized Ash isn't getting lazy, is he?" Ash shook his head.
"I wouldn't call it that, it's just that the only Pokemon I've seen today are Castform, Articuno, and Regice." Hoopa scoffed at his reply.
"Well duuuuuuhhh. The rest of them are all hanging out in the catacombs beneath the surface, you doofus."
Ash's comically dropped onto his back.
"You mean that all the Pokemon are in caves I didn't even know about?"
"Yup"
"And no one thought that I would need to know this?"
"Pretty much."
"I hate you so much right now."
At this Hoopa giggled and simply opened up a portal, dropping the requested Pokemon out of it. Ash's left eyebrow rose. Two of the Pokemon Hoopa had dropped in were shiny. Cloyster was a dark purple and Abomasnow had blue markings where green should've been. Deciding that he had had enough of the island, he simply sent out Charizard, Typhlosion, Infernape, and Emboar and gave them very simple instructions.
"Fire Blast then Blast Burn."
Calling out Metagross to create a psychic barrier to shield him from the inevitable explosion, he averted his eyes as he saw his Pokemon charging up the most powerful fire-type attack. For a second, nothing happened, and then-
...Still nothing. Wondering what had happened, Ash snuck a peek through the barrier and his jaw instantly dropped.
'Candice is going to be pissed.' Indeed she would be, because instead of a small crater like he had envisioned, Everything in a fifteen foot radius was just gone. The only ground left standing was the small plot of land that Ash's fire-types stood on. The unfortunate ice-types were lying unconscious at the bottom of the crater. Quickly recalling his four smug-looking fire-types and Metagross, he lobbed five Pokeballs at the downed ice-types- which didn't even shake- and sprinted away. When he felt that he was far enough, he released Latios and flew back to his island. But before he got out of hearing reach, he heard a very distinct, very loud shriek.
"AAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU"
Not so far away
"Uncle, when can I go outside the cave?"
"I told you. Once you master your gifts."
"I already HAVE!" The girl yelled, shooting a Rock Wrecker at a nearby boulder, shattering it.
"Hmph. I still think there could be improvement. Plus I don't want you to get hurt.
"But Uncle, you've been saying that for months! And do you really think he will hurt me? After all, you hold him in such high regard."
"Your Pokemon-"
"All able to take on any Champion and win without breaking a sweat. PLEASE Uncle, take me to him!"
"...Fine. We will go to to him tomorrow. For now, get your things packed. I don't think you'll be staying here for much longer after he meets you."
The girl nodded, going into her room to pack what little she had. The other being sighed.
'I know you'll be fine with Ash. I just don't want to see you get hurt any more. Not after what they did to you, Zero.'
This chapter sucks. Not even gonna try and say otherwise. I just had zero ideas for Ice Island. None. Nada. Zilch. I looked at the page I had dedicated to Ice Island in my notebook and other than the Pokemon he was going to capture and an idea for the Ice Treasure, (which Articuno is holding BTW), I had no ideas, period. But anyway, I should probably address why I've been gone for so long:
America.
Yep, I took a trip down to everyone's favorite bacon-loving country and had an absolute blast. It was awesome!...But I didn't bring my laptop. But then, when I got back, some stuff happened and I ended up breaking my collarbone, making this chapter a bitch and a half to write. (Another reason why it's so short- it hurts to type.)
(Day two of typing this AN)
I actually had to take a break from typing because my shoulder hurt so bad :/
But anywho, onto REVIEWS!
The Creator: Told you she'd be in! :) Now lets see if you can use the hints I've been dropping to see if you can figure out who her 'uncle' is... And much wow to getting the reference in Hoopa's note. Also, MUUUUURRRRRRICA! BACON! FREEDOM! And about Steve Erkel... LOLOLOLOL. I died reading that! Speaking of things I died from reading, I read the fic you recommended. HILARIOUS! And I've got you'r friend code registered. Look for the Mario Mii whose name starts with 'J'. And I've got plans for Jack... Lets just say he's not the guy he is in TbaM... And yeah, you giving Zero those Shadow Powers was actually a huge reason why I picked her :) Also, Gardevoir will be her signature now :)
Little Lazuli: SOL MEANS EARTH IN FRENCH! I think. Anyway, Jack's a pretty cool character. I absolutely died reading the Roomba comment. I'd really like to use him too. However, would you be up for a name change? I already have a character of the same name that will be playing a major role in the upcoming events, so would you consider Mark, or John, or something?
random guy: I really like Omimphia (Olympia?) I probably would use her character... If it weren't for the fact that I don't need a Psychic-type trainer. I thought I made it clear that I only needed Ground, Dark, and Fairy-type OC's, but hey, no hard feelings. Cool character bro, and thanks for reading the story!
TheGamingPyro. Yes, yes it was. Kuraidesu. I LIKE IT!
deant33: Same as random guy. Sorry man, but I don't need a fire-type trainer. Sorry man, but thanks for reading anyway!
snowwolf12132: I don't know what to say to that, other than thanks man. It means a lot to me to know that you really like this story.