Here you go, finally. End of the first little 'arc'. Hope you enjoy!

"Well, isn't that sweet." Nate said mockingly through gritted teeth, breaking the prolonged silence. "I have to hand it to you, though. Your Butterfree really did come in handy a few times."

"My - what?" Lily shouted in surprise. "What are you talking about? Butterfree's right here with me!"

"Yeah, of course it is. And your Leafeon's with you, too, isn't it?" Nate said, gesturing to his fallen Pokemon on the side of the field.

"Leafeon?" Lily cried, staring at it in disbelief.

"And I suppose you are going to tell me that this is my Venusaur?" Spenser chortled, gazing at Nate's Venusaur curiously.

"Yeah, that's right." Nate replied, smirking.

"It doesn't take much to dethrone that poor excuse of a declaration." Spenser said, cheerful as usual. He reached to his waist and tossed one of his Pokeballs into the air. "Venusaur, to my side!"

"Vee-nu-saur!" Venusaur roared, appearing next to Spenser in a flash of light.

"There now. You see?"

Nate stared across the room, dumbstruck. His face slowly screwed itself in anger, his psyche cracking once again. "D - damn you! You freed all your Pokemon!"

Ash and May were still staring in disbelief. "But - if that's your Venusaur...then who's - ?"

"I thought something was off about his Pokemon, ever since we first met him outside the city." Brock said in a calculating tone.

"Huh?" Ash said, turning to the chamber's entrance.

"What?" May said almost at the same time, turning to face the entrance as well. They were met with the sight of Brock and Max entering the room from the dark tunnel that led to the outside. "Max! Brock!"

"Pika!" Pikachu cried happily.

"You guys were in here for so long!" Max exclaimed, running over to his older sister. "We were gettin' worried about you!"

"I thought something weird was going on." Brock added, nodding as he approached Ash and May. "Nate's Pokemon always acted a little differently than they should have."

"What do you mean?" Ash asked, shifting his gaze across the room to Nate's Venusaur and Leafeon. "What's wrong with them?"

"Grr...I guess there's no point hiding it any more." He said resignedly. "Ditto! Do it!"

At his word, his Venusaur began glowing a harsh white, similar to the light of evolution. It began to rapidly shrink and change shape, and in a few seconds, the light dissipated, leaving in Venusaur's place a somewhat small, shapeless blob of pink goo with a face.

"Ditto!" The Pokemon said lightly.

"What the - ?" Ash cried in surprise.

"A Ditto!" Max added, equally shocked.

"A...a what?" May said, producing her Pokedex from her fanny pack.

"Ditto, the Transform Pokemon. Ditto are able to rearrange their cell structure to transform into any lifeform they see."

"I thought something was up with your Pokemon, too." Trey said as May put away her Pokedex. "You might wanna train your Ditto a little better next time."

"Shut up!" Nate roared, as Leafeon reverted back into a Ditto as well. He quickly recalled the fallen Pokemon, focusing his attention on the battling Ditto. "You might know my secret, but how much will that help in a battle? Go, Ditto! Transform!"

"Huh - ?" Ash muttered, as Nate gestured away from the field to Pikachu. "Pikachu!"

"Pi-ka!"

A second later, Ditto had shapeshifted into a visual double of the Mouse Pokemon.

"Now!" Nate bellowed, gesturing to the roof of the chamber. "Use Thunderbolt on the ceiling!"

"What?" Trey cried. He'd been expecting the attack to be launched against Crawdaunt.

"Piika!" Faux-Pikachu cried, in perfect imitation, shooting a massive Thunderbolt skyward from its body. It collided with the ceiling head-on, causing it to start collapsing.

"Again!" Nate cried hysterically.

"Pika!" It cried again, shooting another Thunderbolt to the roof.

"What do you think you're doing?" Trey shouted. "You'll bring this whole place down on top of us!"

"EXACTLY!" Nate boomed in triumph. Giant stone fragments had already begun littering the ground as the room began to collapse on itself.

"Venusaur, return!" Spenser cried, actually concerned for once. "Come! We must get out of here!"

Trey and Lily nodded. "Return!" Trey cried, recalling Crawdaunt before taking Lily's hand and disappearing into the entrance tunnel.

"Come on!" Brock yelled, raising his voice merely to be heard over the deafening sound of the stones hitting the floor. "We've gotta go!"

"Right!" Ash agreed, nodding, as Spenser took off ahead of them, disappearing into the tunnel after Trey and Lily.

Pikachu lept up on Ash's shoulder as the four of them dashed for the exit. Suddenly, a huge fragment crashed into the floor between May and Max, who was in the back of the group, knocking him over on the ground and nearly smashing him into pieces.

"Ahh!" Max cried in fear, more stones slamming into the ground around him as he remained on the floor, paralyzed by fear. "M-Maaay!"

"Max!" May cried, turning and reaching out for him as she began to run back toward him. Another shard smashed down in front of her, though, blocking her path. She tried to run around it, but another one loomed above her out of sight. She noticed its shadow beneath her a second later, and shot her head up just as it was about to hit -

Then she was thrown backward, all the way back to Brock, who quickly steered her toward the tunnel.

"Ash!" She cried helplessly, turning her head to see him running past the falling stones to her brother.

"Come on! We've gotta get out of here!" Brock urged, guiding them both toward the exit.

Ash quickly made his way back to Max, pulling him up off the ground in an instant. "Come on!"

Max didn't reply, instead holding his hands over his head and shaking heavily in fear and shock. Ash grabbed one of his hands and took off running back for the exit, as another fragment streaked through the air toward him.

"Huh - ?" Ash grunted, not even stopping as he noticed the shard. Pikachu leaped off his shoulder as its tail shone white, beating the fragment away in midair and landing nimbly back on Ash's head. "Thanks, buddy!"

Ash, still guiding Max by the hand, ran into the tunnel just as a rock fragment crashed into the ground behind them, blocking the tunnel mouth. He still didn't stop, continuing down the dark tunnel until he saw the other side.

Minutes later, everyone was standing near the front of the Palace, waiting for the authorities to show up. Spenser had taken it upon himself to call the police, although nobody was sure whether Nate had gotten out of the collapsing chamber in time or not. Of course, not many of them cared, either.

Max had instantly run to May's side after Ash emerged from the facility, tears running down his face as he embraced his sister. Trey and Lily had embraced as well, distancing themselves from their companions for a moment to spend a private moment together.

Brock, on the other hand, had spent a short time asking Ash about what had happened in the Palace, but then took to waiting around with Spenser, presumably to await the arrival of however many Officer Jennys were going to show up.

Ash simply took to sitting on a bench, processing everything that had happened to them that night. Pikachu climbed down from its perch and stood on the bench next to him.

"Pika?" Pikachu piped up after a few moments of silence.

"Hey, buddy. You doing okay?"

"Pika, pika."

"So, you helped May find me in those tunnels?" Ash asked. "How did you even get out?"

"Pika, pikachu." Pikachu answered, shaking its head.

"You weren't even put in the cell?" Ash said, confused. "Well...whatever you did, good job."

"Chaaa." Pikachu cooed, grinning. Ash mentioning May had reminded it of something it had been meaning to ask, though. "Pika, pi...?"

"Huh?" Ash replied softly, his eyes following Pikachu's outstretched finger, which was pointing across the area to May. "What about her?"

"Piika..." Pikachu began, trying to figure out how to say it. "Pika, pika, pikachu." It waved its arms around, trying to get its point across.

"What about us in the tunnels?"

"Pi-ka..." Pikachu sighed. It perked up again as it saw Trey and Lily return from the side of one of the buildings. "Pika, pika!" It continued, gesturing to the couple.

"What?" Ash asked, looking over to see the two of them walking back hand in hand. His eyes shot back to Pikachu in surprise as he realized what his partner was saying. "You think I...?"

"Pika." Pikachu replied, nodding.

Ash didn't respond right away, shifting his glance to May, who was still talking to Max. "I don't...think of May...like that. We're just good friends. You should know that by now."

"Pika, pika!"

"Look, I don't - "

"Piika!"

"I told you, I don't think about her like that!" Ash told him, more forcefully this time. "I don't know where you even got the idea. I mean...me and May...come on."

However, as Pikachu sighed to itself and curled up on the bench to take a nap, Ash couldn't help but think back to the dream he'd had two nights prior. He'd never figured out why he'd had that particular dream, and had almost forgotten about it entirely. But now, it seemed more curious to him than ever.

"Pikachu wouldn't just bring up something like that out of nowhere..." Ash thought to himself. "But what would've given him that idea?"

At the very least, Ash found it difficult to keep his eyes away from May for the remainder of the night.

It wasn't long after that before the police arrived on the scene. Unfortunately, however, they quickly concluded that even if Nate was still alive in there somewhere, there was no way for anyone to get in or out. They decided to set up a twenty-four hour watch around the remains of the structure, at least for a while, but no further help was provided.

"So what now?" Ash asked, Pikachu perched on his shoulder as usual as the majority of the officers left the area.

"Well, I can't very well use the Palace in its current state, can I?" Spenser answered. "And all of my Symbols were in there, as well. This is not good...I will have to speak with the other Brains tomorrow. We will figure something out then."

"I guess that doesn't leave much for me to do for a while..." Lily said sadly.

"Speaking of which..." May began, turning to face the other girl. "What exactly were you doing back here? If you're with Trey, shouldn't you have been...well...with him?"

"Well, we kind of had this thing going..." Trey started slowly, scratching his head. "We were both doing the Battle Frontier at the same time, but we thought it'd be cool to make sort of a race of it."

"Right." Lily continued, nodding to him. "He already beat the Battle Palace, so he was going ahead to the Battle Tower. I...was a little behind."

"But...you hardly ever get to see each other!" May argued.

"We still call each other from the Pokemon Centers and stuff. And we do meet up every now and then, like right before I caught the boat to Chrysanthemum Island." Trey explained, shrugging.

"Oh, that's right!" May exclaimed suddenly. "I almost forgot about my Contest! It's in two days!"

"Yeah." Brock said, nodding. "We should probably get back and get some rest. If we miss the boat tomorrow, we probably won't make it to the island in time."

"I guess that's that, then." Trey said with a sense of finality. "Good to meet you guys. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime."

Ash nodded back. "Yeah. Maybe then we could have a battle!"

"Sure. I'd like to see how tough your Pikachu really is."

"Pika!"

And with that, Ash, May, Max, and Brock began to walk back to the Pokemon Center, waving goodbye to Trey and Lily as they went.

Please R&R!