The Serperior glared at Pikachu, and Ash could tell that his Pokemon was nervous. He was pretty nervous too.
"I have the type advantage now," Marley said. "And your Pokemon is weakened. Though I will remember about the Static ability. Serperior, Leaf Tornado!"
"Pikachu, dodge using Quick Attack!" Ash said. It was difficult to dodge the whirlwind of leaves with the plain terrain and nothing to hide behind, but Pikachu was exceptionally nimble and not only managed to evade the leaves, but also struck the Serperior.
The only problem was that the attack seemed to have done close to nothing and the Serperior merely shook it off.
Marley then attempted a few other attacks. Vine Whip, Razor Leaf, Mega Drain, to no avail and to have Pikachu dodge it using the same technique. If he wanted to, he could have probably struck Pikachu down using a swift Slam attack, but didn't want to risk getting afflicted by Static.
This frustrated Marley, but Ash was almost equally frustrated, given that the attacks didn't seem to faze the Serperior at the least.
"Let's see you dodge this then," Marley snarled. "Serperior, Magical Leaf!"
"Pikachu, dodge it!" Ash said, though a faint memory of that move seemed to come to him. It was special somehow, he knew, though what exactly it was seemed to escape him…
And then he remembered. The attack couldn't be dodged. The leaves that the Serperior shout out flashed different colors, and seemed to be able to hone onto Pikachu.
Pikachu took a couple of more hits from the same move, and Ash knew that he had to do something. In a moment of desperation, he said, "Pikachu! Thunderbolt!" with little regard for the fact that it was a disadvantage to do so, given the type mismatch.
But, some god or higher being seemed to have favored Ash that day, as familiar sparks once again began to hum around his enemy's Pokémon.
"Paralysis," Marley snarled. "Lucky brat. Serperior! Light Screen!"
The tide seemed to turn in Ash's favor then. While Magical Leaf was still not possible to dodge, the Serperior was unable to use it for long due to being unable to move sometimes, and Ash and his Pikachu kept pummeling it relentlessly using Iron Tail.
It seemed that Ash was winning… for a few seconds. Then, the Serperior began to glow a deep shade of forest green.
"You're not the only one with an ability," Marley said. "Feel the wrath of Overgrow!"
After that, as far as Mr. Jennings could tell, the two of them were evenly matched. It seemed, according to him, that the outcome of the match would not be decided by who had more skill, but rather by luck. All it would take was for Serperior to be unable to move for a few times in a row due to Paralysis, or for it to be able to move freely for a few moves, and that would be all that would determine the outcome.
Still, Mr. Jennings had to give this child, Ash Ketchum, credit, for being able to go toe-to-toe with Marley's Serperior, even against a type disadvantage.
"Time for this to end," Marley said with a strange gleam in his eyes. "Serperior! Frenzy Vine!"
Ash had never seen an attack so powerful, save for perhaps from a Legendary. The very ground opened up completely, and vines almost as thick as Ash came out, spreading out and covering the entire field, and much beyond. They destroyed everything in their path. The very earth seemed to tremble under the attack's sheer power.
It was a spectacular, awe-inspiring move.
The only problem was that it had missed.
"Pikachu! Iron Tail!" Ash said and dealt the final blow.
"Serperior is unable to battle!" Mr. Jennings said. "The challenger, Ash Ketchum is the winner, and the new Gym Leader, and lord and commander of this territory!"
"No!" Marley screamed and his hand went for his Gym Badge, but it had already left him, and was now suspended several feet over his head, before it drifted over to Ash and pinned itself to his coat.
Mr. Jennings walked over to Ash and said, "Congratulations, Sir Ash. We all wait for your orders."
"You turned on him pretty quickly," Gulliver said.
"Not without reason," Mr. Jennings said. "I've seen this man torture, humiliate, and create a general decadence in rule for the last thirty-two years, him and his band of seven other comrades. "
"Traitor!" Marley screamed, nearly foaming at the mouth. He turned to his Serperior, who was still fainted and said, "One attack! You made one attack, and in that very moment, you just had to miss!" He then added, "And those other seven… I was so close to defeating you! If they had just lent me but a single Pokemon…"
"Let's ignore his ramblings for now, Sir Ash," Mr. Jennings said. "As you can imagine, there is much to do. The river that you no doubt saw needs to be placed back into its proper course if supplies are to reach our city, and there are several incarcerated people who were imprisoned without trial, not to mention there are several homes which are currently starving and-"
"Just wait for a minute," Ash said. "I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't really care about all that for the time being, or it can come later. I just wanted to know how to get home." He then recited the bit about the storm, and how he had ended up in Galea.
Marely seemed to have stopped fuming and came to his senses. He seemed to have realized that being trampled was perhaps the best thing that would happen to him if he didn't say something soon. "I believe I may have some information for you in that regard, Ash."
Mr. Jennings whirled around. "Quiet man, we have had enough of your talk for several decades and-"
Marley waved Mr. Jennings aside. "Tell me child, who do you think could possibly give you any real information? That man, a glorified lieutenant, or one of the Gym Leaders themselves? From what you have said and described, I can only assume that you were lead astray from your world through the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world. And, I do believe that your, ah, Pokedex has been modified? The voices in it are those of the Elite Four."
"What did you do to the Elite Four?" Ash asked. "What happened all those years ago?"
Marley shook his head. "We are sworn to secrecy in those matters, upon the Gym Badges themselves as part of the Accord. You are free to attempt to force me to tell the truth using the Irresolute Badge, but you cannot force me to tell that which I swore upon the Gym Badges to keep secret. We cannot speak of the calamity that graced our land, or the identity of the eight Gym Leader, His Majesty, the only one with leave to do that is His Majesty himself. And the problem is that furthermore I do not know what happened to the Elite Four. It was Selena and His Majesty who fought them in the final battle, and I do not know what happened afterwards, though if Selena had her way, the four of them are most certainly dead."
"Selena? Who's that?" Ash asked.
"The seventh Gym Leader, and probably the one who is going to oppose you the most should you continue on a path of conquest," Marley answered.
"Then how would I get back?" Ash asked.
"I do not know," Marley said. "The barrier is maintained mainly by His Majesty, and Selena in part. For that matter, I do not believe that there is a way you could go back."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Gulliver said. "If Ash managed to get in here somehow, shouldn't he also be able to get out?" Pikachu nodded emphatically.
"Again, I do not know, but most likely the only one who would know that is His Majesty, the eighth Gym Leader, and he is certainly not going to help you," Marley said. "His territory is separated from all of Galea and lies towards the north, and for some reason telephones don't work in his domain. The only way to communicate with him is through Pokemon delivering mail, and I have not received a missive from him in the past thirty-two years, so I doubt that he will help you, or even bother to read your mail. Not to mention that the other seven Gym Leaders will not like that an outsider has come to upset our rule."
"There is little they can do to combat that," Mr. Jennings said. "The Accord forbids them from attacking another Gym Leader, or interfering in his or her property. And if this eighth Gym Leader wishes not to listen to Sir Arthur, well, he can very well go and collect the other Badges."
"I thought you just said that the Gym Leaders couldn't attack each other?" Ash asked, confused.
"Incorrect, they signed a treaty, and so cannot attack you," Mr. Jennings said. "You have signed nothing Sir Arthur, and so are not bound by it, but only by the ancient rules governing the Gym Leaders." He then smiled. "I do not doubt Marley was not going to tell you that."
Marley did look rather put off by it, but didn't seem to mind that much. "But you cannot hope to defeat them, Ash. You barely scraped by with me, and I have hardly been doing anything for the past few years. You will never be able to take down Selena, let alone His Majesty. And you no doubt know little about running a state. I do not doubt your skill in battle, but you are but a child. It is better that you abdicate, and return the Gym Badge to me. In return, I will try to look for a way to get you back where you belong…"
Mr. Jennings snorted, but paled when he saw that Ash actually seemed to be considering it. "Sir Ash! You mustn't trust him! He was just a few minutes ago thinking about the best way to kill both of you! You haven't seen how cruel he can be."
"I admit it, my rule may have been slightly harsh," Marley said. "But you must understand that it was not so without reason, Ash. In my position, it was necessary to do what I did. If news got out about the calamity and the Elite Four, it would cause mass mayhem, so we swore to keep it a secret. As such, most of Galea has been kept in ignorance as to what happened, and believe that we, the Gym Leaders, were the villains. While I cannot give you the details, let me suffice it to say that we were forced to do what we did to save this land. And to prevent uprisings we placed such rules into motion. However, I see now that it I may have gone slightly overboard with it. I will keep that in mind during my future reign should you be kind enough to return my Badge to me."
"If I give you the Badge you'll just kill us," Ash retorted.
"Not necessarily," Marley said. "We can make a deal upon the Irresolute Badge. I will not harm you- or your friends, and we can together attempt to find a way to return you back to Kanto. It is a simple matter, you need merely hand over the Badge to me and speak a few words solemnizing the deal. The Badges cannot be taken, but they can be given with free will."
"Don't do it!" Gulliver said.
"Sir Ash- I must protest-" Mr. Jennings began.
But, truth be told, Ash knew he didn't belong here. He wasn't supposed to become some sort of feudal lord in a foreign land. And he certainly wasn't ready to carry its burdens on his did he know about running the place? His mother wouldn't have trusted him with an RV, let alone a small country!
It would be so easy… to let someone older- to let an adult worry about how to feed a city and a million of other things he wasn't ready for.
A/N: It occurs to me that I didn't explain the Rapidash trampling people to death thing. That was a bit of stuff borrowed from the Mongols, who had a superstition that it was wrong to spill the blood of a royal person on the ground, so instead they would take their enemy princes or head religious leaders and have them sewn into carpets and later trampled on by horses or by feasting on top of them. This was actually considered merciful in a way because they weren't shedding royal blood.
How did this custom get into Galea? Well, Galea has a bunch of rules, and while you may point out that Ash isn't royalty, though maybe we could kind of say Marley might count, but he sort of just wanted to say that he didn't think Ash was a peasant and all and maybe deserved something grander.
