Sweat poured down form her forehead. Out of the craziest days of her life, Sabrina Bellelba never expected to face such an opponent that had defeated her so utterly. She feared for her life, she feared for her sanity, she—

"Under the water!~ Under the water!~ Down where it's denser, and it is darker, take it from me!~"

"Man this singing, robotic Corphfish is a really good singer." Ash and his Riolu innocently looked at the robotic red creature singing that ear-bleeding song on loop in front of the Cerulean City Gym.

Finding out she was actually grinding her teeth by the annoying song, and seeing Ash seemed to have no urgency in getting away from it, Sabrina used her powers to unplug one of the wires inside the machine and cause it to stop. It took her a lot of self control to not destroy the thing outright.

After the singing Corphfish dropped, the two in front of the older psychic looked at her. "Did you just use your powers just now?" Ash asked.

Sabrina didn't even answer them and just started walking towards the door. "Let's go inside." Of all the times for the boy to be questioning her, it had to be at that moment—wait a second. He sensed her powers? She thought she was being subtle as possible, even some other psychics would have barely felt her pow… was the boy more sensitive to powers because of his Riolu's aura? Come to think of it, she never had heard of the two powers intermingling so much as these two have.

Bah, she could think about that later, right now, she just wanted this to be over with.

The Cerulean City Gym was far more extravagant than the other Gyms Ash has been so far. Granted, he only has been in four tops, and three of those looked more oriented in research than a proper gym stadium, but it still looked pretty showy with the decorated walls, spot lights, and etc.

"Ahh?" Sabrina, Ash, and Riolu looked over to see a tall, gorgeous blonde woman looking at them with a hangar of a costume held up in one hand. She looked over to the other side of the stadium and cupped her remaining hand, "Lilly! Violet! Did either of you leave the door open?!"

Across the other side, two other stunning, beautiful women stood up and looked back towards the blonde. "No, I think Misty was in a hurry to leave though!" One of them, with blue hair, shouted out a response.

"What!? Why did Misty leave?"

"She said something about finding a Gyarados, Daisy!" The pink haired beauty screamed back.

The one named Daisy sighed before looking back at the two with a smile that seemed insincere. "We're sorry, we're closed right now. Our next show is tomorrow starting at 11:45 AM—"

"Wait, but I'm here for a Gym Battle!" Ash quickly stated. The second those last two words exited his mouth, Daisy and the other two girls blanched.

Sabrina sighed and put a hand on Ash's shoulder. "Ash, these girls may do battling, but it's their youngest sibling that is the proper Gym Leader of this gym."

"Their youngest sibling?" Ash repeated while Sabrina nodded. However, Daisy seemed to huff at the accusation.

"Hey! We're not as bad as three years ago! We're actually decent Gym Leaders even without Misty!" The blonde declared before looking over towards the raven haired teen. "You! You wanted to battle right? We'll battle you!"

While Ash was caught off guard, Sabrina on the other hand, smirked. "Oh this should be good."

The aspiring Pokemon master had this feeling, with how the two older women kept glaring at each other more than him, that he got into something that was more than just a battle for a badge.

The raven haired teen had this feeling that was just so complicated. On one hand, he was getting his gym battle he wanted, but he didn't think it would be a gym battle he wanted, not with how three of the older sisters were all looking bitterly towards him from across a large pool of water with scattered floating platforms.

"This battle will be a three on three triple battle!" Diasy from the opposite end screamed out loud.

"A triple battle?" Ash repeated to himself as he tried to recall what that type of battle meant. "You mean, three on three in one battle?"

"Yes!" The blue haired sister, Violet, cried out. "This gym challenges a trainer's ability to manage multiple happenings at once!"

"So you have to defeat all of us at once!" Lilly, the pink haired sister before all three of them threw out a Pokemon: a Tentacool, a Seaking, and a Seadra that all cried out in the air before diving into the waters below in a rather spectacular manner.

Ash thought for a second before picking his three for this fight. "Riolu, Spearow, Nidorino!" He cried out as the fighting type jumped and landed on one of the platforms, Prince Nidorino landed on one nearby, and Spearow was above the two.

"Ready? And begin!" The three sisters cried out before the battle was started.

Right off the bat, the water from several areas started to bubble, Ash's eyes widened before ordering everyone to scatter before they were hit by high pressurized water blasts form striking them. However, the attacks kept coming, forcing the trainer to command the defense.

Sabrina sighed. In her mind, she knew that a three on one seemed unfair, but at the same time, a strong trainer could easily overcome such a disadvantage. However…

Ash ordered Riolu to scan where his enemies where and fire back. The fighting type briefly scanned the area while dodging. When he found the nearest target, he shot a Vacuum Wave into the water. However, the attack slowed down greatly after entering into the water; it slowed down even more to the point of vanishing the more it traveled, not even reaching half way to it's intended target.

Sabrina was wary of that very thing. Ash's Pokemon were all at a disadvantage just by the very water of the battlefield. It served as the ultimate defense in this scenario: it allowed high mobility for water Pokemon while the deeper pressures weakened attacks greatly coming above the water levels. Ash would not only have to get past three trainers commanding one Pokemon each against his managing of three, but he would have to blow past the great home field advantage of his opponents.

It was then that the sisters pressed their attack, instead of shooting water blasts like before, this time they started using their attacks to flip over the platforms. Ash again cried out for specifically Riolu and Nidorino to keep moving, but that was all they could do. Spearow was on standby, not really able to do anything but watch, while the Sensational sister's water types were decimating the battle.

Ash himself didn't know what to do. However, it seemed like his own Pokemon had something coming up.

Nidorino posed dramatically after landing on a platform while most of their opponents were focused on Riolu. 'I will take care of this nuisance!'

'What are you going to do?' Riolu cried out before jumping just before his platform was flipped over again.

'Hmph!' Nidorino scoffed. 'Watch and be amazed!'

Nidorino started gaining speed, jumping form platform to platform, the opponents saw tried to stop him, but he was too nimble, to quick!

Then he jumped into the water! Then he… then he…

…

Why was he just slowly drowning where he jumped into?

Ash, feeling a little worried, made the link to his poison type. (Uhh, your majesty? You do know how to swim right?)

(What is this 'swimming' you speak off?)

Sabrina facepalmed, hearing the link between her pseudo student and his Pokemon.

Ash on the other hand, was a little more hopeful. (So what is your plan, your highness?)

(Ah yes! Behold, my subjects—AAAHH!? What is this strange taste in the water?! I can also feel a tingly sensation in my eyes!?)

(… You mean… chlorine?) Ash hesitantly asked as he probably imagined that pool water was different from freshwater Nidorino was used to.

Sabrina face palmed again.

(You're just going to let water burn your eyes?! Pull yourself together, princey! That water is challenging your honor! Defeat it!)

(Gasp! You are right flying man-voiced woman! How dare this fake water attempt to dishonor me!) Speraow's words have obviously touched Prince Nidorino as he stayed strong and his Life Orb started glowing.

Ash had a second for his face to give his best impression of an 'oh snap!' moment before a giant rock shot out of the ground, and lifted water and some platforms out of the pool/arena due to space, it cuased the trainers of the battle some grief.

'Ha! Take that water! You are inferior to Prince Nidorino's water! Mwahahahaha!' Nidorino declared as if he was fighting the water and not the Pokemon in it. He was also panting for air since a massive rock in the middle of the arena did take a sizable chunk of his stamina.

Ash smiled as he realized that this was finally what they needed to go on the offensive. He ordered Riolu and Spearow to converge on the miniature isle that Nidorino made since it had much higher ground than the platforms.

Ash was tempted to simply command Nidorino to continue making summoning large piles of rocks, but he recalled that while Prince Nidorino had powerful attacks, they drained a lot of his energy. He didn't want to risk exhausting the poison type so much.

"Hey!" The raven haired teen looked towards the three older women. "We need this place for our shows! We can't have that rock in the arena!"

As soon as she said this, all three of the sisters Pokemon jumped into the air with energy gathering from each one of them.

"Spearow, Riolu, now!" Ash swung his arm as the Spearow and Riolu blasted off from where they were with speed from Agility and Quick Attack respectively. The flying type rammed into the Seadra and brought it higher into the air while Riolu speed past the Tentacool, grabbing one of it's tentacles and yanking it back so the fighting type could slam him down into one of the platforms.

However, this left the Seaking to charge up a Megahorn attack towards the mountain. Prince Nidorino saw this and ignited his own Horn Attack and met with Seaking head on. Yet, when the two attacks made contact, neither user backed down from the impact, and were now clashing and locked with each other.

Meanwhile, while Riolu slammed Tentacool into the platform he noticed that his opponent still held focus and quickly used his other tentacle to Constrict Riolu whole.

'Hey! How come you didn't look hurt from that?!' Riolu cried out as he tried to get out of the Tentacool trapping him.

'Listen, monn, I be tellin ya that I have no bones or muscles in da first place! Me body be made out of something like jelly, mon.' Riolu actually stopped struggling for a second when he heard the exotic accent of his opponent. 'I feel nothin but Reggae, mon!'

Riolu tilted his head after hearing that. 'What's Reggae?'

The Pokemon that belonged to Violet paused abruptly before suddenly going through full force in trying to suffocate Riolu. 'Ya be deservin more than dat, ya rap-drunk swine!'

The young fighting type could feel the lack of oxygen getting to him, but… 'W-What's… rap?' He managed to gasp out.

Spearow on the other hand was bringing Seadra higher and higher towards the roof when Seadra returned to his senses and fired a Smokescreen in the air.

The flying type was caught in the black cloud and quickly flew out. As she did, she noticed Seadra was diving for the water again. Not wanting her opponent to regain her advantage, Spearow dove down and managed to smack Seadra to land into a nearby platform.

Lily's Seadra shook their head. 'Like, could you not keep hitting me, you brute?'

'Brute?! I am the next Chieftain of the Spearow Clan!'

'Like, what does that even mean? I bet half those words are made up, like, OMG!'

'You are the one making up the words that I am sure do not exist! AAAAHHHH!' Spearow yelled before gunning straight for Seadra, who then fired another Smokescreen.

Ash noticed all of this. He noticed Riolu unable to shake off Tentacool, he noticed Seadra getting back into the water and continuing to blind Spearow, and he noticed how Nidorino was losing stamina fast, with how his attack was starting to crack faster under the clash between him and Seaking.

The Trainer calmed himself down. Things were looking bad for everyone, there had to be a way to turn their situation… around… hold on a second. This was a three on three, not three 1 versus 1. Memories from the fight with Nidoking flashed back to Ash's head. It took everyone together to defeat the powerful evolved Pokemon. They worked together, even using moves together… to win.

Which meant...

"Spearow fly up!" Ash shouted out quickly as Spearow did so. The raven haired teen then pointed down towards where Tentacool and Riolu was. "Use Mirror Move!"

The flying type blinked and was briefly confused, but she then summoned an image of the Seadra using Smokescreen and blasted a dark cloud to where Tentacool and Riolu where.

Ash cupped his hands. "Riolu! He can't see! You can!"

Hearing the voice, Riolu closed his eyes and found out that Tentacool was distracted and soon broke free of the hold from the water and poison type. He then heard an extra command from Ash and using his aura, Riolu tossed Tentacool into the air and fired a strong Vacuum Wave to send the dual type flying through the air… and ended up crashing behind Seaking!

Seaking was momentarily distracted, and Ash quickly capitalized and sent a message through his link for Prince Nidoriono. (Now!)

Prince Nidorino saw the hesitation and then jumped, pushing through Seaking's attack and hitting them both right for the water!

The sudden explosion of water all shot up… and drenched Sabrina all the way in the benches.

The Sensational Sisters, despite all being young adults, could help but act like school girls, poorly trying to hide their laughter at the misfortune of the psychic user.

The raven haired trainer swallowed his spit when he felt a dark chill coming over form his travel companion. He focused back into the battle where Nidorino landed in the same platform as Riolu.

Ash pumped his fist, finally they were getting some—

Thud!

To the surprise of the challengers, Spearow suddenly dropped to the platform they were on. Her team and trainers were obviously surprised, but Spearow had this bad look on her face and was convulsing weakly…

It took another half second for Ash to realize: Spearow was fighting a water and poison type Pokemon. During her fight with Seadra, sometime in the smoke, Seadra must have poisoned her!

However, before Ash could think of his next move, the platform all three of his Pokemon were in suddenly flipped over. Ash noticed that all three of the sensational sister's water types were already moving back in the water.

Riolu was the first to get back up, Nidorino followed, trying to help up a weakened Spearow, but now all three of them were in a worse state than before!

Three noticeable movements in the water started to circle around Team Luckless. The Sensational Sister's Pokemon were circling their prey like Mandibuzz.

(Ash!? Any more ideas!?) Riolu screamed in the link as the circling was slowly but surely getting smaller. Spearow couldn't fly anymore, and Prince Nidorino was too weak to perform another miniature island summon.

(I-I have one) Team Luckless looked towards Spearow who said that in the link. (Riolu, it's up to you and Nidorino, I've got strength for one last move…)

The idea she had was simple, it borrowed Ash's idea of all of them working together, but this time more on support rather than helping each other out. However, time was short as all three of their opponents rushed them, giving them no more time to plan.

Spearow started glowing and summoned another Mirror Move Phantom of Seadra unleashing another Smokescreen, blinding everyone from the point of impact. There were sounds of splashing and soon, Riolu was seen as if shot out of the water by a secondary force and skyrocketed near the ceiling.

At the apex of his jump he focused both his palms together and brought them behind his back while facing the arena. Blue and gold—wait, inside his palms… it was Nidorino's Life Orb! Riolu was combining his aura along with the energy converting power of the Life Orb into one massive attack!

As Riolu was channeling Vacuum Wave, something else happened, the raw power he was channeling and inputting was far more potent than any of his strongest aura powered up Vacuum Waves before. In fact, he could feel something in the back of his head, a power he had never accessed, but felt so right to have...

There was a brilliant light coming from the small fighting type as he started to push his hands out and scream…

'F-FO-FOCUS BLAAASSTTT!'

The light suddenly condensed before exploding with likeness to a star, and what was shot out was a blue orb of energy moving so fast and vibrating so wildly, it almost looked like the rules of physics that forced things to go straight were struggling to control the nearly uncontainable attack.

Said spinning orb of energy pierced through the smokescreen and made a solid splash noise. For a second, nothing seemed to happen.

Then light started shinning out of the smokescreen—followed by a large explosion blasting all the water out of the arena, and creating a large wave that threatened to swallow everyone unfortunate enough to be on the ground floor.

Ash's brown eyes widened when seeing the giant wave about to sweep him away. "Oh cra—!"

The Sensational Sisters were also swept away by the wave, while this time, Sabrina was chuckling under the safety of a personal psychic barrier she erected.

As the water washed away by the drains around the gym, Sabrina spotted Ash on the very end of his side of the field with both Nidorino and Spearow on him. She looked over towards the other side and saw the Sensational Sisters all washed up—huh water pun—and had all three of their Pokemon on them with swirls on their eyes.

Noticing the missing member, Sabrina looked down towards the now empty pool of water to see lone Riolu looking up to the giant walls around him.

'Hello? … Did we win?!' The little fighting type shouted out loud while cupping his hands.

"WHAT IN ARCEUS NAME HAPPENED HERE!?" Sabrina looked towards the door to see a red haired girl in a tomboyish style of clothes walk in and look utterly exasperated and baffled.

Sabrina put a hand on her chin. "Ah, she must be Misty."

"For winning the Cerulean City Gym Challenge..."

"And for making us have to repair the storm drains we put inside the Gym," The youngest and technically true gym leader of Cerulean City, Misty muttered darkly.

Daisy laughed nervously before continuing what she was saying. "For winning the Cerulean City Gym Challenge in an overwhelming knock out… by knocking out not only your opponent's Pokemon, but your own, the trainers your were facing against, and yourself..." Daisy wondered why she needed to spell that out and instead got out the Gym badge, "Its our honor to bestow you this Cascade Badge for… having a creative—"

"Expensive."

"Way of winning." Daisy finished and gave the badge to a drenched Ash before looking back to Misty for that previous comment.

"Thanks!" Ash said as he looked at his newest badge! Now, he needed at least six more… eight if he wanted that challenge…

But now, his goals were that much easier to reach!

Misty sighed before she started talking and pushing Ash out the door. "Okay, now we have no choice but to close the gym down and fix everything. Thank you for coming, and come again—never!"

Ash couldn't even open his mouth before the door was slammed behind him. However, soon Sabrina and Riolu walked out, with the former looking very happy.

"It's the first time I've witness both Pokemon and trainer working together like that to overcome hard odds. I must admit your battles are at least entertaining." The Psychic trainer spoke up.

"… Why did you and the older sisters glare at each other so many times?"

The older psychic paused at the question before shrugging her shoulders. "I heard nothing but rather underwhelming things about them for some time. I wasn't expecting them to be actually decent in a team rather than singular trainers."

Ash absorbed that before smiling. "So that means I'm pretty good in a team battle, huh?"

"You call that a team battle? I've seen more coordination from strangers than with your team."

The raven haired teen blanched at the fact his pride was shot down so fast.

"Still," Sabrina began, oddly finding herself smiling for quite some time. "As long as I've been with you, you and your Pokemon seem to have this ability to make the unexpected happen. And I find that rather interesting."

As soon as she said this, suddenly, the robotic Corphfish booted back up by some bizarre miracle and started singing again.

"Under the water!~ Under the water!~ Down where it's denser, and it is darker, take it from me!~"

Sabrina's smile died faster than when she shot down Ash. "On second thought..."

Riolu suddenly had a look of realization on his face when hearing the robotic singing machine. 'Oh! By the way, what's Reggae… and rap?'

"… I don't know what those are." Sabrina stared incredulously at Ash before he turned to her. "Do you know Sabrina?"

"It's official: I find this odd occurrences more annoying than interesting now."

+Author Notes+

Okay! So a short chapter, it's basically a gym battle, so… yeah, nothing really too crazy here. I wanted to try and make battle more than just commanding attack and orders. What do you guys think of the battles so far? (Also, Riolu learns Focus Blast! Whoo! I wanted Aura Sphere at first, but I thought about it a bit more, and I feel that should probably later on for a much more special event.)

Anyway, I'm excited for the next chapter! It's going to be a doozy!