A/N The first part of the poll is now closed, with the winner being the legendary dogs, thanks to everyone who voted. The second part will be posted after this chapter is uploaded so please vote for the dog you think Ash should capture. (This will obviously be later on in the story).

As always, thanks to Uranium235 for beta reading this story (and fixing my screw-ups ^_^")

Reviews:

Freedom Zero - for Jessie and James I felt that they should have improved as the show progressed since they could have been like another rival instead of "Pikachu, use thunder!" every episode like in the show. As for Meowth, this was something that came to me during typing, but I noticed that Meowth was really overlooked in every battle, usually just helping via some kind of ridiculous machine that gets blown up. I wanted to make Meowth actually be like an intelligent Pokémon, since every other Pokémon that can talk is pretty much a total badass (examples, Mewtwo, Lugia, Entei, Darkrai, Lucario) to me Meowth just felt like wasted potential, so I made him like an actual Pokémon rather than the joke he is in the anime.

To people recommending Pokémon - -I will be keeping any and all recommendations in mind while writing this, but if you want a Pokémon from another region, it will most likely not be used until that region so as to avoid the multiple clichés that plague stories like this. Any further suggestions would be appreciated in pm's though so I won't have to hunt them down in the reviews.

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"Insert words here" machine voice

"Insert words here" telepathy

Disclaimer: If I put together a payment plan, maybe one day I can own Pokémon, but for now I don't own Pokémon.

Ch. 8 - A Mess at Mt. Moon

Ash and Cynthia had been walking for roughly half an hour, since they left Brock behind back in Pewter City. Both of the trainers felt bad for the gym leader, but they realized they couldn't really do much to help him out.

Along the path they were taking, there were several trainers that were battling the wild Pokémon along the route, no doubt as training for future challenges. The Pokémon that they had seen hadn't exactly been diverse, but Ash had seen a couple that were somewhat interesting.

He'd seen a trainer battling against the Spearow on the route with a snake-like Pokémon that had been revealed to be called Ekans. Aside from the snake Pokémon, the only other Pokémon that were really of much interest were the Nidoran and Jigglypuff.

Along with seeing the trainers battling, Ash had been challenged by a few of the trainers, though sadly they were bug catchers, so the battles were fairly underwhelming for them.

Both trainers looked up when Pikachu started to call out while pointing at a crowd of people that were gathering around a hiker holding up an oddly shaped rock.

"I found it in a deeper section of Mt. moon on my way here from Cerulean City," the man responded to a question that neither Ash nor Cynthia had heard. Now that they were closer, both trainers recognized the rock, and understood why the crowd had gathered. The man had found a Pokémon fossil on a hike through the mountain.

Deciding to leave before they got too interested, Ash and Cynthia left the crowd behind and continued towards Mt. moon, though Ash noticed a somewhat sad and envious look in his blonde companions' face. "Do you want to look around Mt. moon to see if you can find anything?" Ash asked, bringing his friend out of her thoughts.

"No, it wouldn't really be a good idea," Cynthia said with a slight sigh. Internally, she was having a fairly one-sided battle with herself, between her love of history and her own logical mind, 'It takes months for entire dig teams to find anything when they are looking, we would be there for at least the rest of the month if we're lucky,' she thought, while she gave Ash a grateful smile for the thought.

Seeing that she had made up her mind, Ash nodded and the silence once again resumed as the two trainers continued walking down the road to Mt. Moon.

At the Mt. Moon Pokémon center…

Ash and Cynthia finally arrived at the Pokémon center that was standing just outside the tunnel that leads through Mt. Moon. They both noticed a very small number of people were actually around, both in and around the Pokémon center as they made their way to the counter that Nurse Joy stood at, looking immensely bored.

Seeing the two young trainers approaching, the pink haired young woman perked up and smiled at them. "Welcome to the Mt. Moon Pokémon center, did you need me to treat your Pokémon?" she asked.

Both Ash and Cynthia were somewhat surprised at the apparent one-eighty that her personality had gone through before shaking it off and replying to the question. After roughly half an hour of waiting, the nurse returned with the treated Pokémon.

Ash thanked the nurse as he grabbed his Pokéballs and Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder. After looking around the lobby, Ash was somewhat unnerved by the emptiness of the center so he spoke the question on his mind, "Is it always this empty around here?" he asked, receiving a mild glare from Cynthia for his complete lack of tact.

With a sigh Joy nodded, "Yes it is unfortunately, people just stop in here to have their Pokémon treated then go through the mountain, and even then they usually camp outside even if they don't make it in time. This is probably one of the most boring centers that anyone in my family has been stationed at," she said with another sigh.

Ash felt somewhat bad because they would probably wind up doing the same thing. Thinking back, he was reminded of something, "What about the people that are looking for fossils around here? We just passed a group of them on the way here," he asked curiously.

The nurse shook her head and sighed again at this, "They are spending more time in the cave than the center regardless, not to mention they are more than a little rude," she said.

Ash nodded at this while Cynthia spoke up, "I'm sorry about this but we need to get going if we're going to make it through the mountain today," she said while looking genuinely apologetic to the unappreciated nurse.

Joy waved them off, "It's no problem, and I'm glad that you took the time to have a conversation at least, instead of just leaving after getting your Pokémon back."

Both of the young trainers said their goodbyes as they left the center and made their way to the tunnel that was directly to the side of the Pokémon center. There was a fairly surprising amount of people entering the tunnel, most of which had digging equipment. Putting two and two together Ash and Cynthia came to the same conclusion, the people must have been enticed by the man on the road and his display of the fossil he had found along the way.

Making their way through the small crowd of people, one of the first things that was noticed about the cavern they had entered was that it was surprisingly well lit, for being a cavern in the side of a mountain. There was also an abundance of Pokémon skittering about (first time I've ever said or written this phrase in my life… feels weird), ranging from Geodude and the occasional Paras, to the extremely well known and fairly rare Clefairy. The Pokémon that drew the most attention though was the Pokémon that every trainer in every region of the world dreaded the very name of: Zubat. Thankfully, the flying nuisances were bothering the other people around the cavern and leaving the trio free to continue to make their way through the cave.

After walking past numerous groups of people that had been digging all around the tunnel, Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu reached the ladder that went down to the second level that they apparently had to go through to make it to Cerulean City.

Looking down the ladder, Ash took the opportunity to ask a question that was bugging him since he heard about the tunnel having two floors, "Why did the tunnel get dug with two floors instead of just digging straight through?" He received only a puzzled look from Cynthia at this, who was now wondering the same thing for this and many other caverns that were scattered around the regions.

Shrugging it off, Ash simply began descending the ladder to make his way through the mountain, with Pikachu holding onto his shoulder, and Cynthia following after.

Mt. Moon B1F…

Both of the trainers immediately noticed the sound of digging, which verified that people were digging on this floor of the tunnel as well. There weren't quite as many people, but the tunnel was still extremely packed with very little room for them to make their way to the ladder to the next floor down.

Carefully maneuvering so as to not disturb the people digging, Ash and Cynthia eventually made their way to the ladder, occasionally exchanging a look with the people that they passed.

With a last look around, the two trainers descended into the last floor of the tunnel that would lead them to the exit.

When they got down to the bottom floor of the tunnel, it was immediately noticed that there were no sounds of tools striking stone, indicating that there was no one digging down here.

Thinking for a moment, Cynthia decided to voice her thoughts, "I guess they haven't moved the digging down here yet, since they are still searching the first two floors," she thought aloud.

The floor was eerily silent, not having seen nor heard a sign of anybody around, neither human or Pokémon. Ash and Cynthia would occasionally glance around to hopefully find something, anything, in the lower levels, but would come up fruitless. The silence was beginning to unnerve them as they now wanted to be out of the cave as soon as possible. On Ash's shoulder, Pikachu was starting to develop a very bad feeling that, as time went by, things would only get worse.

Looking on ahead, the trio breathed a collect sigh of relief as the exit started to come into view.

They immediately halted, however, when a fairly large earthquake began to shake the cavern, causing stalactites to start falling from the ceiling! Both trainers rushed to opposite sides of the room to take cover from the rain of stone.

Both of the trainers were shocked when they saw an Onix, a much larger one then Brock's had been, come smashing through one of the walls of the cavern, which was soon followed by a new Pokémon stepping through the newly made hole in the wall.

The Pokémon immediately rushed up and smashed one of its stony clawed fists into the face of the massive Rock Snake, sending it once again flying back through the air into another point of the cavern's wall. The impact of the Onix caused a fresh rain of stone shards to fall from the ceiling.

From her position, Cynthia instantly recognized the Pokémon, which even when premature, was still known to be very powerful.

Ash, however, had no idea what the Pokémon he was looking at was; it simply looked like a boulder with a reptilian head sticking out with four sturdy looking limbs, two three clawed hands and two four clawed feet sticking out of its body. Raising his Pokédex with a shaky hand Ash promptly scanned the Pokémon.

"Golem; the Megaton Pokémon. Golem is the fully evolved form of Geodude. This Pokémon is rarely found in the wild due to the normal conditions for its evolution being unknown, usually requiring a trade between two trainers to stimulate the process. Golem's boulder-like body is extremely hard, and can easily withstand dynamite blasts without taking damage. Golem sheds its hard skin once a year to grow larger. This Pokémon is capable of blowing itself up, and uses this explosive force to jump from mountain to mountain," the red box stated.

As Ash was listening to its quick debrief on Golem, Onix had gotten up from where it had landed and released a massive roar. Golem merely looked on at the Rock Snake with disinterest as it simply waited for Onix to attack again.

It wasn't a long wait as Onix rushed forward as quickly as its body would allow it, smashing the rocks that were in its path to little more than pebbles. Golem stared at the oncoming Rock Snake and at the last second, grabbed Onix by the horn like a bull and smashed a glowing fist into the helpless Pokémon's face as it released its grip on the horn. The end result was Onix once again being tossed across the room and this time, meeting the wall on the edge of the cavern.

The impact of the massive rock-type was another stone shower from the weakening cave ceiling. Ash and Cynthia were forced to leave their shelter as the stones slammed onto their previous hiding places.

Golem, in the midst of taunting Onix with a turn of its head, caught sight of the two trainers and decided to see if they could provide a better challenge than the weak Pokémon it had been fighting up to that point.

Cynthia was quick to deduce what the Megaton Pokémon's intentions were as it turned its attention towards them. With little thought needed, she grabbed a Pokéball from her belt and tossed it while Golem looked on in anticipation. In the familiar flash of light that all Pokéballs are known for, Cynthia's Milotic stood on the field awaiting an order against whatever opponent she would have to face.

"Milotic use Water Pulse!" Cynthia ordered, hoping to make the fight end quickly. Milotic raised her tail, which was covered in a deep blue mist with condensation dripping from the ends of it, and swung it across the ground towards Golem.

On the Megaton Pokémon's end, it was shocked when a massive wave of water formed in the wake of the water serpent's tail and rushed to form a defense by smashing a foot down to try and open a crevice for the water to fall through.

Unfortunately for Golem, this tactic was ineffective due to the sheer size and power of the wave, which continued rushing towards it before smashing into the Pokémon. The resulting collision launched Golem across the room where it began to struggle to stand, stubbornly refusing to give up in spite of the insane amount of damage that it had obviously just taken.

Milotic looked on impassively as the Pokémon eventually managed to stand on its feet before her eyes widened as she saw what seemed to be sparks converging towards Golem's mouth, a reaction shared by her trainer.

"Milotic use Ice Beam!" Cynthia called out urgently, desperate to stop the Golem's attack before it was launched. The Tender Pokémon raised her head, where the air suddenly began cooling to freezing levels, forming a sphere that had mist radiating off of it. With a cry, Milotic swung her head down, upon which time the sphere burst and a long thin stream of energy shot towards Golem, whose eyes widened as it fired the prematurely formed hyper beam that had been charging.

Seconds before the Ice Beam hit, Golem's Hyper Beam launched and crashed into the jet of energy, causing steam to begin forming at the point of contact before the orange beam from Golem was smothered by Milotic's attack and Golem was bathed in the energy and the frigid air that it dragged with it.

Ash and Pikachu had been forced to cover their eyes as the beam kicked up massive amounts of dust and dirt from the general direction that Milotic's Ice beam had gone. When the dust had finally settled, both Ash and Pikachu looked at where Golem was standing and were shocked and a little disturbed by the sight that greeted them.

Golem, still in the stance of when it had fired its Hyper Beam, was now frozen solid, with the only change being the widened eyes due to the shock of the attack that had frozen it and the half of the cavern that it stood on.

While staring at this, Ash was once again reminded at the gap between him and his blonde friend as a trainer.

Cynthia walked up to Milotic and smiled as she stroked her neck, drawing a pleased cry from the Tender Pokémon. "Thanks, girl," Cynthia said as she raised the Pokéball and returned Milotic who was smiling as if to say 'any time'.

Ash looked around the cave, remembering the Onix that had been fighting Golem in the first place, finding no sign of it, though he did spot a large hole near the edge of the cavern, signaling that Onix had simply used the first opportunity to get away from Golem.

"Hey you okay down here?" a voice called, drawing the attention of both trainers as they just now remembered that there were people on the upper levels. Heading towards the section of the cave where the ladder was, both trainers were somewhat surprised to see that even all the way back here there were numerous fallen rocks, one of which had apparently destroyed the ladder and left the bottom floor for the most part inaccessible.

Seeing one of the men from before that had been digging, Ash yelled up at the man, "Yeah we're fine, but the ladder is broken." The man gave a confirmation before asking what had happened, "There was a fight between a Golem and an Onix," he yelled up drawing shock from the people who were listening, since Golem were very rare in the wild.

Cynthia spoke up now, "We'll be fine, the exit's still open so we're going to continue on to Cerulean City!" she yelled up as they both turned and started to head out.

As they were leaving, Ash took another look at the frozen Golem that was showing no sign of going anywhere anytime soon. Looking at Cynthia as she paid the frozen Megaton Pokémon no mind, Ash was once again amazed at just how powerful the girl was.

Cynthia, noticing that Ash was falling behind, looked back and caught him looking at the multitude of sheets of ice that blanketed half the cavern they were walking through. She also caught notice of something that she remembered seeing a few times when she had used the same power to completely crush several trainers during her time traveling through her home region. "Ash, you coming?" she called out, causing a slight jump from both Ash and Pikachu before they both made their way over to her.

"Sorry about that," Ash said in a somewhat sheepish voice as they started walking.

Cynthia noticed that the look that she had seen was still there, 'I guess I'll need to talk to him later' she thought.

The two trainers exited the cavern and noticed that it was starting to get late, as the sun was just now starting to descend. They both noticed a sign that said there were still a few miles to go until Cerulean City, causing both trainers to let out a slight sigh.

"Well I guess we should start setting up for the night," Cynthia said, getting a nod from Ash, who began to unpack what he would need for the night while she did the same.

After the better part of an hour, both trainers had finished setting the camp up, though they had foregone the tent due to the fact that they didn't really much feel like pitching it unless needed. They currently sat waiting for the food to finish cooking, with all of their Pokémon sitting around the camp doing their own thing.

Looking around the camp, Cynthia watched Ash's Pokémon and Ash himself, 'well, nothing better to do,' she thought as she noticed Ash still a bit more quiet than normal. "Hey Ash," she started, while she was trying to think how to approach this without causing the younger trainer to become defensive. Internally she was completely clueless how to approach this and had to sweat drop, 'This is a lot harder than I thought,' she said to herself.

Ash made his way over and sat down at the fire where Cynthia had been working on the food, "What's up?" he asked after taking a seat.

Cynthia was somewhat startled out of her thoughts as Ash had already put her on the spot, 'Well I guess I'll just wing it,' she thought before she posed a question she hoped Ash wouldn't take the wrong way. "Well, I was thinking about it and I was wondering if you felt like training with me and the team tomorrow?" she asked while she was praying that he wouldn't take offense to it.

Ash looked somewhat downtrodden at this, "You're already a lot further along than me so how would you benefit from me helping you with your training?" he asked causing Cynthia to wince at his wording.

"Well to tell the truth it's cause I saw you looking at Milotic's Ice beam back at the cave," Cynthia said after taking some time to think how to say this.

"Well, it is kind of amazing just how much power that one move had," Ash said while blushing a little.

To his surprise, Cynthia looked down and seemed somewhat ashamed when he said this. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked, causing her to look up and shake her head.

"No. It's just, I noticed something when you were looking at the ice," she started, "To tell the truth, I wasn't actually the most pleasant person to be around while traveling," Cynthia admitted. Seeing Ash about to interrupt, she raised a hand and stopped him, "I didn't get along with people very well, and spent a lot of time just pushing my Pokémon to get stronger, not really thinking much on the pain it might cause them," she said while again looking ashamed. "To tell the truth, a lot of people quit as trainers because of how harshly I battled," she said, causing Ash to gape at her in surprise.

Seeing the connection, Ash spoke up, "I wasn't planning on quitting as a trainer Cynthia. It just was a bit demoralizing to see just how much of a gap between us there is," he admitted, causing Cynthia's eyes to widen.

After a moment, Cynthia spoke up, "How do you know what demoralize means?" she asked, causing Ash to face plant at the randomness of the question and all the Pokémon to chuckle, if not laugh outright.

"It's not really part of what we're talking about is it?" Ash said, hoping to stay on topic, if only to avoid any more laughter directed at him.

With a light laugh, Cynthia got back onto the topic they were discussing, "Well the main reason I was asking you to train with me and my team was to help you get better, since it can't really hurt to train anyway right?" she said, drawing a nod from Ash.

"I guess I see where you're coming from," Ash said as he could understand her point. "So I guess we'll start training tomorrow then?" he asked, receiving a nod from his blonde haired friend.

Seeing that their conversation was done, Cynthia turned her attention back to the food, which was now starting to burn, "Ahhh!" Cynthia yelped as she started to do whatever she could to save dinner from being ruined.

Ash openly laughed at this along with the Pokémon that were watching Cynthia rush around the cooking fire, causing Cynthia to shoot a glare at them.

With a huff Cynthia spoke up, "It's still edible at least, unlike…" she left the last bit of the sentence hanging in the air, causing Ash to stop laughing and blush while all the Pokémon now directed their laughter at a new target.

Ash grabbed the dish that Cynthia offered him while mumbling under his breath, "My cooking is edible, it just doesn't taste all that great," he said as he defended his cooking ability.

Everyone in the camp sweat dropped at this, sharing a glance, Cynthia decided to voice the group opinion; "Ash, your cooking could poison a Grimer," she deadpanned.

Ash deflated at this while Pikachu patted him on the shoulder comfortingly as the group laughed.

The group continued to eat and talk as the night started to settle over them. Before long the group was sleeping peacefully at the base of the mountain, with the clear sky overhead.

Mt. Moon

Golem blinked as he looked around, seeing that he had been thawed out from the ice that had engulfed him. In front of him stood a man with the Onix that he had been fighting, and a Zubat sitting on his shoulder.

"Return," the man simply said as he held up a Pokéball and Golem disappeared with a grunt. Repeating the process with Onix, the man was left with the Zubat sitting on his shoulder. He then pulled what looked like a phone out of his pocket, "Tell everyone to pull out, we have all the data we're going to get from this place," he said before hanging up. As the man walked away a black uniform was all that could be seen about him, though the chest bore a red R on the front.

Several of the diggers looking for fossils would find a number of their fellow diggers had seemingly given up, though it merely meant less competition so they paid it no mind.

that's it for chapter,

i'm really sorry about the randomness of my updates, this chapter in particular was harder than i thought to get working since i was having trouble with keeping my ideas in mind while typing. also, i was trying to at least have a decent length chapter so that it at least kind of made up for the wait that everyone was putting up with.

as i stated above, i'd really appreciate pokemon suggestions being submitted in pm's so that i can keep track of all of them for future reference.

i'm always open to constructive criticsm, so long as it's something i can learn from.

once again sorry for the wait,

thanks for reading,

Akkeiton