Koraidon slowly lead them through the cave. Suddenly, houndours surrounded him.
"Meoaa!" Sprigatito cried in distress as she was facing a houndoom.
"Oh no! Pikachu…!" Ash started. But when he turned and faced Pikachu, he saw Pikachu got bit by another houndoom and flinched from the attack.
Fuecoco ran to Sprigatito's rescue and used Ember, but the Ember did absolutely nothing to harm the houndoom and the houndoom blasted its powerful Ember at Sprigatito.
The poor sprigatito fainted.
Fuecoco gave a worried look as the houndoom smirked at him.
Pikachu used Thunderbolt to get the houndour attacking him off, then slammed it into a wall with Quick Attack. Pikachu went to stop the houndoom in front of Fuecoco, when a bunch of other houndour surrounded him.
Quaxly went in to help Fuecoco. He figures since he's a water type with water type moves, that it'd be a sinch to take down these fire type pokemon. Quaxly went to use Water Gun as Fuecoco charged in to use Scratch.
The houndoom slapped Fuecoco out of the way with its paw, then hit Quaxly with Smog.
"Q-Q-Quack…" Quaxly started sweating and panting, then the poison it got from the Smog knocked it out.
"No! Quaxly!" Ash ran towards it and held onto it. "It'll be okay… I'll just give you a pecha berry that my mom gave us for lunch, and you should feel all better!"
"Slee…" Quaxly weakly cried out. It can't believe it got defeated like that.
As soon as Ash found a pecha berry, he looked up and saw the houndoom glaring right at them. "Uh oh…" He held Quaxly tightly as the houndoom came closer with a worried look.
Koraidon finally took care of all the houndours in its way, then noticed Ash and Quaxly in trouble and slammed the houndoom into the wall, which caused it to faint.
"Alright! Thanks, Koraidon!" Ash shouted.
"Gyao!" Koraidon replied.
Pikachu finally took care of all the houndour attacking him.
Ash gave Quaxly the pecha berry. Then looked around and went over to Sprigatito who was still knocked out and picked her up. "Let's find a way out before we run into any more houndour or houndoom!"
All the pokemon agreed.
"What the heck are you doing in here?" a man's voice shouted.
Ash looked up and saw a guy with blonde hair that goes a bit past his shoulders and blue eyes further in the cave on a path that's on a higher level. "We fell down a cliff and our trying to get back up. What about you? Do you live here?"
He gave an unamused look. "Of course not! I'm not dealing with a crazy pack of houndour and houndoom! Everyone knows they're extremely territorial here!"
"Well, I didn't… I'm just seeing Paldea for the first time today…"
He sighed. "Alright… Well, if you come up this way, you'll be out of here and be where it overlooks the beach…"
"Perfect! Thanks!"
They got out of the cave and everyone let out a sigh of relief.
"Hey, do you know if there's a pokemon center here?" Ash asked.
The guy pointed to a town. "There's one at the entrance of that town over there!"
"Alright! Thanks so much!" He then turned to Pikachu, Fuecoco, and Koraidon as he held Sprigatito. "Let's get going!"
"WAIT! What are you doing here?!" The guy shouted at Koraidon.
"Gyao?" Koraidon responded.
"You're not supposed to be here!"
Ash gave a confused look, then glared at him. "Is this your pokemon?"
He crossed his arms. "No! It's my mom's pokemon! How did you… you know what, whatever! Just get that thing out of my sight! And take this with you!" The man handed Ash a purple pokeball with a 'M' on it.
"…What's this?"
"Koraidon's pokeball, of course! My stupid mom tasked me of finding it and helping it, but I have school to worry about!"
Ash gave him a harsh look. "I have school I'm starting too! However, I'm fine with taking care of Koraidon!" He then took the pokeball and left to the pokemon center.
"Fine with me! I don't want that thing that ruined my life…"
Nurse Joy took all of the pokemon with Ash, and Ash went to call his mom to see if Clavell was back.
The screen showed his mom and she had an irritated face. "Ash, where have you been?! We've been here waiting for you to return!"
"Sorry mom… but we all ran into some trouble," Ash responded.
Delia gave a concerned look. "Trouble?"
"Yeah…" Ash explained what happened. "… So right now, I'm at the Pokemon Center in Los Platos and Nurse Joy is treating all the pokemon's injuries…"
Delia put a hand to her face. "Oh, Ash…"
"I see. Are the pokemon going to be alright?" Clavell asked.
"Yeah. Nurse Joy said they'll be just fine. Just need some time to recover," Ash said.
"What a relief…" Delia said.
"Yes. Well, I shall come over there then. Thank you for filling us in."
Ash frowned. "Of course… Sorry for letting harm come to the starter pokemon that you entrusted me with."
"It is not your fault, Ash. I should've done a better job warning you about that area. Anyways, I'll be there shortly, so hang tight."
"Right."
After some time, all of the pokemon were as good as new.
"So, Ash… have you thought about what pokemon you'd like to choose?" Clavell sent out all three starters.
Sprigatito just curled up with an uninterested look, not really looking forward to going though anything like with what happened again.
Quaxly and Fuecoco happily ran up to Ash, hoping he'd chose them.
"Wow, you two really want to come with me?"
Quaxly liked how Ash came and did his best to protect him when he got attacked by houndoom and made him feel better with the berry.
Fuecoco liked how supportive Ash was with him and feels he can become a lot stronger with him seeing Pikachu.
Quaxly and Fuecoco glared at each other.
Quaxly then started talking, and Fuecoco nodded. Then turned to Ash and Clavell.
"Hmm, if I understood correctly… Quaxly asked Fuecoco to battle to see who goes with Ash, Fuecoco agreed and both are wondering if that's alright with you, Ash," Clavell stated.
Both Quaxly and Fuecoco nodded in confirmation.
Ash smiled. "Yeah! That's totally fine with me! I enjoyed spending time with both of you, so I wasn't really sure who I wanted to take anyways!"
They went outside to a battle area and Fuecoco and Quaxly starred each other down.
"Let the battle begin!" Clavell shouted.
Quaxly started off by quicky throwing out a Water Gun. He was determined not to lose to another fire type.
Fuecoco slammed down to the ground to avoid the attack, but just left himself more vulnerable. When Quaxly shot off another Water Gun, Fuecoco tried to block it with Ember, but while it did weaken the attack a little Fuecoco still got hit by the super effective move and grunted in pain.
Quaxly flipped the hair on top of his head, thinking he's got this.
Fuecoco isn't ready to give up. He stood up and use Leer on Quaxly, lowering its defense.
Quaxly shoot out a Water Gun, but this time Fuecoco dodged it. Missing angered Quaxly, so he started rapid firing his Water Guns at Fuecoco.
Fuecoco sweated as he dodged all the Water Guns the best he could. While Quaxly was catching his breath, Fuecoco scooped up some mud in its mouth, and spat it at Quaxly.
Quaxly started freaking out, being unable to see and slammed into a boulder.
Fuecoco then Tackled it into the boulder after it slowly got up to knock it out.
"Quaxly is unable to battle. Fuecoco is the winner!" Clavell announced.
Ash gave a confused look and looked at his pokedex. "Wait, Fuecoco can use… Mud Slap? Spit Up? Mud Spit Up?"
"I'm sure that was something Fuecoco thought up to get close and not an actual attack." Clavell explained.
"Woah! Clever! I'm glad to have a pokemon like you Fuecoco as a part of my team!"
Fuecoco happily cheered.
Quaxly looked down with a sad look, wondering why it has such bad luck with fire pokemon.
Ash knelt down and patted Quaxly on the head. "Don't worry, Quaxly! You were amazing! You'll be a great help to any trainer that chooses you!" he said.
Quaxly cheered up a bit.
Clavell returned Quaxly and Sprigatito. "Well, I should be off. I got a lot of work to catch up on! You all take care!"
"You too! Thanks for everything!" Ash said as he waved goodbye.
Ash stayed at the hotel and trained with Pikachu and Fuecoco. Days passed and it soon became time for him to head off. He gathered his things and headed in a car his mom rented and they drove off.
Dawn sighed as she walked her way towards a school she enrolled in. "This uniform is terrible… do we really have to wear it?" she wondered.
"Hey!" a female voice shouted.
Dawn looked over as a woman in the Ava uniform with back hair with a little green in it, and yellow eyes, ran up to her.
"You must be new! I never seen you at our school before!"
Dawn smiled and nodded. "Yeah. I've been… struggling with my goals and came to this school to see if coming here could help." She has lost another Cup to Kenny and now wonders if she even has what it takes to get one.
She smiled. "That was a great idea! And hey, I can help you find the school and get everything you'll need!"
Dawn smiled. "That'd be great! I'm… a little lost."
The girl laughed. "I see that. You were heading the complete wrong direction!"
Dawn let out a nervous laugh with an uncomfortable look.
"Anyways, I'm Nemona!"
"Nice to meet you, Nemona! I'm Dawn!"
Nemona noticed Piplup. "Hey, you have pokemon with you! Let's battle!"
Dawn gave a confused look.
"We got plenty of time!"
Dawn smiled, being reminded of someone she's friends with though Nemona. "Sure. Why not."