On the eastern side of Mount Moon, four curved wings cut through the air.
Crobat sped up, beating all four wings at once, then did a split-X with his hind wings to veer off course from the path he'd been taking. The sudden swerve brought him practically spinning around in mid-air, and Butterfree made an appreciative noise.
"Not bad," he said. "You've improved."
"I could say the same about you, but then again I never actually saw what you looked like before," Crobat replied, circling around and orbiting their trainers below. "So I don't know. Maybe you were this good before."
Butterfree flapped his wings. "I like you," he decided. "That's a nice thing to say because it doesn't matter if I agree or not, I look bad."
"Poison-type has to show up somehow," Crobat shrugged. "It's great to be on the road again with Brock, though."
At the same time as the two Flying-types were discussing being on the road, Ash and Misty below them were discussing what was at the far end of it.
"So, Misty, I guess I'm challenging you for the Cerulean Gym badge again," he said. "Only, what kind of challenge is it? Do you want some help getting it ready?"
He shaded his eyes. "We're too far to tell yet, but I could probably restore your Gyarados if you had a close connection to them? I don't know for sure though, it's one of those things that we can't tell yet… James' Growlie wasn't."
"I guess we'll find that out," Misty agreed. "But don't think I'm going to rely on Gyarados, Ash Ketchum! In fact, I bet you'd like that because it'd mean you could have Pikachu blast him!"
She folded her arms. "So! I'm going to challenge you to a battle that means you can't rely on a single overpowered Pokémon! Three one on one battles, the winner is whoever passes the majority of them."
"Okay, I get it," Ash said. "Though, uh… you know I could just take the badge from your sisters, right?"
"Don't you dare, Ash Ketchum!" Misty said sharply.
Ash held up his hands. "I wasn't going to actually do it! Besides, my Pokémon would riot."
"You bet we would," Pikachu agreed. "It's a shame I can't handle Misty's gym by myself though."
"You already called dibs on the Electric gym," Riolu complained, with a huff. "You don't get to have them all!"
"Who's the team leader here?" Pikachu asked. "Isn't this insubordination or something?"
"I'm a Riolu, I know what a just leader looks like!" Riolu replied. "And it's not like a tyrannical Pikachu, hoarding all the gym fights to himself!"
Ash tried not to laugh. "Guys… don't leave me feeling like I'm in the middle of this…"
"But you are in the middle of this," Pikachu said.
Ash turned to Brock. "Is it weird to feel nostalgic sometimes for when I didn't understand exactly what my Pokémon were saying?"
"Don't look at me, Ash," Brock replied, watching Crobat overhead as he tried his best to show off Cross Poison to Butterfree and found it very hard to line up a hit. "I still can't understand anyone, except Butterfree, and I think after last night I'm not sure if I want to learn the Aura stuff."
"Last night was both of us trying to learn from Riolu," Ash protested, thinking about it.
His arm still ached slightly from turning his own Aura into the Electric-type, which had paralyzed Riolu and also his own arm, so Pikachu had won more-or-less by default.
"It's not actually necessary to do that, I just… well, I was supposed to teach Riolu, and I want to catch up enough so that we're at least learning from each other."
"You already do teach me things," Riolu protested.
"I want to do more for you, though," Ash explained. "And to… live up to Sir Aaron, I guess. That's why I've been working on this stuff."
He frowned. "Uh… how close are we to Cerulean?"
"Several hours at least," Misty said. "We might get there late today, or it might not be until tomorrow."
"Got it," Ash replied, taking a notebook from Aaron's bag. "Hey, Dexter, remember that idea I had?"
I will do my best, the thinking Pokédex replied, and Ash got Dexter out.
Juggling Dexter and the notebook made it impossible to do what he actually wanted, until Pikachu took pity on him and took hold of the Pokédex, but after that was done Ash held the notebook up and flipped through it at high speed.
OCR complete, his Pokédex reported.
"What's this about?" Brock said.
The notebook is about healing, including healing with Aura.
"Oh, right," the Pewter leader realized. "So you've read the notebook like that?"
"That's the idea!" Ash agreed. "And, uh… headphones, right…"
"Are you turning wisdom from two thousand years ago into an audio book?" Misty said. "I… actually, honestly, that's not even at the top of the list of weird things you've done. It even makes sense, kind of."
"It's this or I have to sit there reading for months to get any idea of how this all works!" Ash defended himself.
"And we all know you couldn't sit there for half an hour, let alone months," Pikachu said sagely.
They didn't make it to Cerulean, that day, and Ash sat down with his Pokémon in camp that evening.
"There's something I need to check," he began. "Pidgeot, I don't think you can battle in the Cerulean Gym, not like last time. It's too small for you."
"Probably true," Pidgeot agreed. "I'm a lot better at working in small spaces than you'd expect, but… yes, the wide open sky is my battlefield now, more than anything else."
"Thanks for understanding," Ash said, putting his hand on her side. "And, Butterfree… I think you're ready already?"
"I sure am," Butterfree confirmed, wings flapping. "I'll make a point of showing what Bugs can do!"
"I bet you will," Ash agreed. "Pikachu, I know you're good to battle Cerulean Gym, and Riolu, you're great with Aura… and what I really want to focus on at the moment is your Aura, Pikachu. You've got Force Palm, which is great, but that's close-in – and if you wanted to use it at Cerulean Gym, you'd need to be able to launch an attack at range."
"Right…" Pikachu said, considering. "I suppose it'd be nice to be able to attack Steelix without getting close enough for him to knock me flying. If he was about to knock me flying otherwise, I mean."
"Exactly," Ash agreed. "So… oh, uh, Pidgeot, Butterfree, you can go to bed if you want. I just wanted to check you were okay with the plans for tomorrow."
"Thank you for checking, Ash," Pidgeot said, and returned herself.
"I'm sort of interested," Butterfree demurred.
"Okay, so…" Ash glanced at Riolu. "I guess, point out if I'm getting any of this wrong? So, for an Aura Sphere, you need to get used to releasing Aura constantly, and then stopping once it's the right size. The right size depends on the situation, but there's a classic size which is easiest."
"Releasing Aura constantly," Pikachu repeated, holding out his paw. "Um… like this?"
Blue and yellow light fizzled around his paw, then just blue. It glowed and sparked, getting stronger and then weaker, and Riolu winced.
"Um," he said. "Is it okay if I tell the truth?"
"Ouch," Pikachu decided.
"Basically, um, if you tried to use that in an Aura Sphere you'd hit yourself, because it would explode," Riolu summarized. "When Ash says constant, he means a constant and steady flow."
"That would have been useful to know," Pikachu admitted, focusing on his own paw and trying to control the fizzing blue energy. "So, um, push harder if it's weaker and hold back if it's stronger?"
"That kind of thing," Ash agreed. "That's what you need to know to get started, then after that what you have to do is contain it. It's something you do right at the start, but you need a steady flow first because otherwise it'll just explode as you try and build it and you won't know if you're doing it right. It's like… well, the idea is that it only lets energy in?"
He waved his hand. "So it grows larger, then it's not until it hits something that the energy comes out again. But if your aura stream fizzes then it'll burst the sphere."
"Right," Pikachu said. "And then you throw it?"
"That depends!" Ash answered. "You pick how big you want it to be, that's a more advanced bit. There's a natural normal size, and then bigger ones are more destructive overall while smaller ones are more focused and agile. That's the normal rule. But yeah, then you can throw it…"
He held up his hand, and formed an Aura Sphere himself.
"It's still so cool you're doing that, have I mentioned?" Riolu asked.
"Thing is, if you just throw it, it usually misses," Ash said. "Spinning it means it's stabilized, like Drill Run attacks are and things like that, and it goes straighter… actually making it track in on a target is harder and I guess we should work on that later."
"That makes it sounds like I'm going to get anything like that far tonight," Pikachu said, ears twitching. "This is really hard."
"Try damping down your flow a bit more," Riolu suggested.
"That's going to help?" Pikachu asked.
"It might, but more importantly it'll mean you can keep practicing for longer," Riolu replied.
"Don't get frustrated, Pikachu," Ash advised. "This isn't easy."
"You're telling me," Pikachu grumbled.
"Half an hour, okay?" Ash said. "Then, well, I had this idea that's going to finish off the other project."
"That sounds much more interesting," Pikachu said, then flicked his tail down, switched to electrically-infused Aura, and formed a spinning sphere out of it before launching it into a nearby tree with a wham.
"Congratulations," Riolu announced. "You used Electroball, only it was way more tiring."
Pikachu sighed. "I know, I know, I'm just… frustrated. It's a new thing and I can't build on most of my experience."
The next morning, at Cerulean Gym, Ash knocked on the door.
The door opened, which was half the point of a door, and Violet greeted him. "Oh, hi – wow, that's a cute Pokémon you've got there."
"Which one?" Ash asked. "I think Pikachu and Riolu are both neat!"
"Well, I know what Pikachu look like, so that must mean it's the Riolu," Violet decided. "Anyway, like I said, cute."
She stepped back. "Welcome to Cerulean Gym! I guess you're here for a gym battle, right?"
"We're the Sensational Sisters!" Lily agreed.
"And we're the Cerulean Gym Leaders," Daisy continued. "Though, there's a bit of a problem… you see, our Pokémon have been working hard already today, and we've got this thing later… we have to ration out our gym Pokémon. So we can do a one Pokémon a side battle?"
Misty looked like she was about to grind her teeth away.
"I'll battle him!" she said. "I'll only use one Pokémon of the ones you think are good for gym battles, one of my own team, and I'll use a third Pokémon too! That's going to be a much better challenge, and trust me, that's going to work better."
"Are you sure?" Violet asked. "You're the runt. Why should we let you look after the honour of Cerulean Gym?"
"I did the test, same as you!" Misty retorted, overheated. "I'm as much a gym leader as you three, in fact I'm more of one if you're doing whatever else it is that means you can't even give a trainer a proper work out! You didn't even ask how many badges he has!"
"I don't think I ever asked," Ash admitted, leaning over to Brock. "What's the test?"
"It's a test of how well you know your type," Brock answered. "You have to battle the Elite Four. There's a lot of strong, varied Pokémon available for you to rent and use in the battles, and you know what they're going to use ahead of time, but you need to really impress them and ideally win the matches… from what I heard, Misty beat Bruno and Lance."
He shrugged. "I managed to beat Lorelei, but that was close. She's a tough trainer, as well as being a total babe!"
Pikachu's cheeks sparked.
"She's not even here!" Brock protested.
"Okay, that's it!" Misty declared, from in the middle of the argument. "I'll show you what I'm talking about!"
She headed for one of the nearest doors, one leading deeper into the gym and its tanks full of a wide variety of Water type Pokémon.
A few minutes later, and Lily had been persuaded to act as referee.
"It's three matches a side," she said. "Each is one on one. Neither winner nor loser can join another match. Understood?"
"Yeah!" Ash agreed.
"Of course," Misty confirmed. "Choose your Pokémon, Ash!"
Ash had three choices, like he'd discussed last night.
"Riolu, you first!" he decided, and his Fighting-type stepped forwards before jumping onto one of the platforms in the middle of the pool.
Then Misty sent out her Starmie.
"Uh oh," Ash decided. "Riolu, I hope you learned a Dark-type move since last time we talked?"
"Nope, no such luck," Riolu replied.
"Then just do your best!" Ash called. "I guess Misty's been sneaky today…"
"Planning on it," Riolu replied, closing one eye.
"Begin, I guess!" Lily said.
"Open fire!" Misty ordered.
Riolu immediately leapt into the water as Starmie opened with a Thunderbolt, keeping one forepaw on the edge of the platform, then yanked himself back out again as Starmie followed up their Thunderbolt with a Water Pulse.
"Aura Sphere," Ash called, prompting Riolu to spin one up. "And watch out for wet paws!"
An Ice Beam came his way, then another Water Pulse, and Riolu burst the Water attack with his Aura Sphere before it could reach him. That splattered him with water, though, and Starmie sent another Thunderbolt his way- and, even though he dodged it, paws slipping slightly on the now-wet platform, the edge of the electrical effect caught him anyway.
"Psychic!" Misty instructed, and Riolu crossed his forearms and formed a pair of Shadow Claws from the nubs on his wrists. He adjusted his stance for a fraction of a second, watching as Starmie's attack built up and approached, then swiped out with one Claw and did a jumping roll through the hole he'd slashed in the attack.
Violet gasped, definitely sounding impressed.
"Since when did Starmie know all those moves?" Daisy said. "I didn't know they could do all of those!"
"Riolu, go for it!" Ash called.
Riolu knew what he meant. They'd talked about it, and it was what he'd been working on alongside Shadow Claw, so he bent down into a starter's crouch for a moment before breaking into a sprint.
He crossed the floating platform in a moment, and kept going – running across the choppy surface of the swimming pool on blue-glowing feet as if it were slightly springy but solid ground.
"What the-" Misty gasped. "Starmie, get up, away from him!"
"Too late!" Riolu announced, springing off a wave. "Shadow Claw!"
The flickering phantom claws struck home, one catching onto Starmie's arms and the other swiping across their core, before a burst of Psychic energy blew him back into the water.
"Riolu, are you okay?" Ash called.
I'm fine, Ash, Riolu sent, focusing on their bond to try and get across the sensation of being okay, then tried to form his next plan.
One idea was no good because he didn't know everything Starmie could do, another wouldn't work because there wasn't a convenient palm tree, and he decided to see if Ash had any better ideas.
The moment he broke the surface of the water, though, Starmie hit him with another Thunderbolt.
"I thought this was the Water gym!" Riolu protested.
"Down to the bottom!" Ash called. "Swim down!"
Riolu did as Ash wanted, swimming down to the bottom of the pool, then stopped and tried to work out what his trainer and friend was actually thinking of.
Above him, the water rippled as Starmie used Psychic and Thunderbolt, but neither attack actually reached Riolu… but he'd have to come up soon.
Then Riolu realized it.
Ash had known that, which was why he'd known Riolu would work that out.
He tensed up, crouching on the bottom of the pool, then kicked off and swam up as fast as he could.
Bursting out of the water, Riolu swiped out with his Shadow Claws again at the apex of his climb. He'd known exactly where to aim, thanks to Aura Sight, and he got in two more good hits on Starmie – the second one reducing their core's bright glow to a flashing warning.
"Recover!" Misty said, as Riolu splashed back into the pool again.
Riolu wondered if he was old enough to know any words strong enough to express his feelings about that, but then Starmie hit him with another Thunderbolt and a trio of Water Pulses in quick succession.
"He's out," Ash said, holding up Riolu's Pokéball and recalling him, then sent the Fighting-type out again. "Brock, do you think he needs to be checked up? He was underwater when he fainted."
"Hmm," Brock replied. "I'll check on him during the rest of the battle."
"Thanks," Ash replied. "Okay, Misty, that's one to you, but I'm still earning that Cascade Badge!"
Ash sent out Butterfree, next, and Misty responded with a Seel.
Daisy looked uncomfortable. "You're using Seel?"
"He's not a combat Pokémon," Violet agreed.
"You'll see," Misty replied, smirking.
"Butterfree?" Ash said. "You know your style better than I do, so go ahead!"
"With pleasure!" Butterfree said, hovering in front of Ash and waiting for the go-ahead to begin, then Lily brought her hand down.
"Battle!"
"Double Team, Seel," Misty instructed.
Butterfree's first move was to blast forwards and use Energy Ball, but it hit one of the duplicates, and he pulled up rapidly with a flare of his wings as Misty gave her next order. "Ice Beam!"
"Stun Spore?" Ash said, phrasing it as a suggestion, and Butterfree took it. He shed a cloud of powder from his wings even as he dodged away from the Ice Beam, then blew it in Seel's direction, and Misty ordered Seel to scoot forwards into the water to avoid being doused in the paralyzing powder.
"Quiver Dance, I think," Butterfree decided, starting to boost himself, then Seel popped their head above the water.
"Safeguard!" Misty called quickly. "Now, Aurora Beam!"
Butterfree found it a lot harder to dance all of a sudden, as Seel's horn glowed and he began shooting beams of ice upwards into places which – inconveniently – happened to be where Butterfree wanted to go.
"Okay, wise guy, you want to have some of this?" Butterfree asked, his eyes and then his whole body glowing. "Psychic!"
A wall of force slapped down, hitting around Seel and dishing out the water around him. That left Seel out of the water for a moment, and Butterfree hit him with an Energy Ball while he was vulnerable, but then Seel slipped deeper under the water.
"Okay, um, apparently Seel is a good combat Pokémon," Violet admitted. "Wow, I did not expect the little guy could pull this off."
"Seel, Aqua Ring!" Misty instructed.
"The water's clear!" Ash said. "Sunny Day!"
"Sunny Day," Butterfree agreed, and the clouds overhead rippled and moved aside. Sunlight shone through the ice blasts that had already hit the ceiling, and Butterfree glowed as he prepared a Solarbeam.
"Rain Dance, Seel," Misty countered, and the clouds closed in again. It began to rain outside, and inside as well, and Seel popped up to shoot a Bubblebeam up at Butterfree – prompting him to roll to one side, and then the other, to evade being hit.
"I'm going to have to insist," Butterfree said. "Sunny Day."
Another pulse of energy, and the indoor rain cleared up while the rain outside stopped.
"Hail and Blizzard!" Misty ordered.
A surge of ice came blasting out of the water as Seel launched another attack, this time one which caught Butterfree's wing. The rest of the ice splashed against the ceiling, joining the layers of ice covering the glass, and Daisy looked nervous.
"You know, this is a bit more intense than we usually do?" she tried.
"Perhaps you didn't hear me," Butterfree declared, dodging through the hailstones, and lit up with a cheerful green-yellow glow.
"I."
"Said."
"Sunny."
"Day."
The hailstorm stopped.
Outside, the clouds boiled away from Cerulean Gym in every direction, forming an area of clear sky several miles across.
Inside, Butterfree glowed with solar energy. "Now, where were we?"
"Aurora Beam!" Misty commanded.
"No, that wasn't it," Butterfree replied, and used Solarbeam.
The attacks collided about halfway between the floor and the ceiling, sending flashes of snow and ice fragments all over the inside of the gym. The backscatter made the ice shapes on the ceiling sway dangerously, and after a moment the two beams slid past one another as Butterfree kept moving.
His Solarbeam was now no longer stopped by Seel's own beam attack, and it cannoned into the water in a plume of spray and hit Seel's tail hard enough to send him spinning around.
That came as too much of a surprise for Seel to let him turn off his Aurora Beam in time, meaning Seel fired it down, and ice formed around him that buoyed him up.
"Whirlwind!" Ash said. "Get him in the air!"
"Seel, break that ice!" Misty called, but too late. Butterfree's Whirlwind slapped into the water, knocking it aside and leaving Seel further up, and Butterfree himself darted down close enough to fling Seel bodily into the air with Psychic.
"Whirlpool!" Misty called, but Butterfree wasn't going to let Seel get away now. He curled around in loops and whirls in mid-air, flinging Energy Balls at Seel from a dozen different directions to keep the Water-type juggled.
A few of them missed as Seel tried to get his Whirlpool going, and left splintered holes in the walls, then Butterfree swirled up another Whirlwind to keep Seel in the air for just long enough and pulled up into an outside loop.
"Solarbeam!" he concluded at the apex of his circle, firing a thick beam of light down hard enough to slam Seel right back into the pool and drench everyone in the room.
"Gah!" Lily yelped, flinching back from the spray. "That's too cold!"
"Nice work, Butterfree!" Ash called. "Is Seel out?"
"I think he must be," Daisy replied. "I didn't think he could have lasted for half that battle… that means the score's tied now, right?"
She looked around. "We're going to have to get builders in to fix those holes now."
"I'm going to get some more towels," Violet said.
"Now that was satisfying," Butterfree pronounced, and returned himself.
Pikachu already knew he was the third and last Pokémon Ash was using, and hopped forwards onto the driest-looking and least-icy floating platform before rubbing his paws together. "Okay, let's see what you've got!"
As he did, Butterfree sent himself out again.
"Changed my mind, want to watch," he clarified, perching on Ash's hat, and Ash chuckled.
"I think we all want to watch," Riolu said, pacing over from where he'd been up in the stands.
"Oh, great!" Ash smiled.
"I got woken up by a lot of water," Riolu explained. "I'm achey, and I wouldn't want to go into another battle, but I can watch."
Misty had waited while Ash got his other Pokémon sorted out, including Pidgeot who took up a position next to him (and got an admiring ooh from Daisy), then held up the third Pokéball she was using today.
"Chinchou!" she explained, sending the Water-type out. "One of the gym Pokémon!"
"Wow, Misty, what did this guy do to you?" Violet asked.
"Glad you asked!" Misty replied. "Because, thanks to him, my bike is now past tense!"
"Chinchou," Ash said, frowning. "I haven't seen one of those in a while? There was something about them…"
"Begin!" Lily called.
"Signal Beam!" Misty called immediately, and Pikachu dodged to one side before lighting up his cheeks.
He hit Chinchou with a Thunderbolt, then stopped and did a double-take. "Um."
"Chiin?" Chinchou asked, innocently.
"Usually that works," Pikachu replied.
Ash-
"Try harder?" Ash suggested, and Pikachu tried harder. He produced an Electroball in a cloud of sparks, then hammered it in Chinchou's direction with his tail, and it detonated on top of Chinchou in an electrical explosion which obscured Chinchou from view completely for a long moment.
When the sparks faded, Chinchou was still there, and waved.
"Surprised, Ash?" Misty asked.
Chinchou has the ability Volt Absorb, Dexter chimed in. This means it is not harmed by Electric Attacks, but is in fact healed by them. Some Chinchou also have Water Absorb.
"Oh, yeah, it's Water and Electric type," Ash remembered. "Oops… wait, what can Pikachu do to him then?"
He looked up. "Try and get in close, Pikachu!"
Chinchou fired a Signal Beam at Pikachu, then dropped into the water with a splash before Pikachu could get there.
"I knew you'd use Pikachu, Ash!" Misty said. "Of course I prepared to deal with any of the Pokémon you have, I know what they are!"
"It's a shame we didn't come out in a different order," Riolu said.
"Speak for yourself, I could handle any of Misty's Pokémon," Butterfree replied.
"I think he's talking about how he's got Aura Sphere, which would work on Chinchou even underwater," Pidgeot contributed. "While Pikachu could blast through Starmie's Recover."
"Ash, any help?" Pikachu asked, wobbling as a Psybeam hit his platform from underneath and made it rock alarmingly. "I don't fancy trying to out-swim a Water type!"
"I… yeah!" Ash said. "Okay, Pikachu, we're changing the game! See if you can get on the ceiling!"
Pikachu did a running jump from the platform to the side of the pool, scrabbled for a moment on the edge, and hoisted himself up with his tail. That got him out of the way of the Scald attack Misty called for next, and he ran for the still-dripping wall nearby.
"Ice Beam the walls," Misty ordered, and Chinchou popped up onto one of the platforms himself. His antennae flashed, and an Ice Beam hit the wall Pikachu was aiming for.
Over the next few seconds, Chinchou's beam tracked over all the rest of the walls as well, freezing them and covering them in slick ice, then he dropped back into the water before Pikachu could get any ideas.
Pikachu turned, cheeks sparking, and blasted a Thunderbolt at the water.
It didn't do anything, but it made him feel better and that was enough right now.
"Pikachu, don't let that stop you!" Ash called. "Break the ice! Volt Tackle!"
"What's Volt Tackle again?" Misty asked. "Isn't that the one Pikachu used on Butterfree?"
Pikachu's cheeks lit up with fizzing electricity, and he turned to get a better run-up before blitzing the whole length of the room and slamming into the wall. It shook visibly, making a few of the ice sculptures on the ceiling fall off to splash into the pool.
"Did the ceiling just shake?" Daisy asked.
"What kind of building hit me?" Pikachu asked, shaking his head to try to recover, then got hit by a Signal Beam.
"You hit the building!" Ash called helpfully. "Pikachu, climb up to the ceiling!"
Pikachu shook his head a bit more, then looked for the nearest crack and went scampering up it.
"Great!" Ash called. "Look out – dodge left!"
Chinchou fired a Psybeam, and Pikachu evaded it, then deflected away a Signal Beam with Iron Tail.
"That's better," he said, before hopping up into one of the ice sculptures on the ceiling.
"Now, get going!" Ash said. "Start with Counter Shield and go from there!"
"Psybeam your way into that ice sculpture, Chinchou!" Misty called, shading her eyes against the sunlight to look up at the ceiling. "What's Pikachu doing in there?"
There was a visible circle of electricity around him. Then a sphere, then… something that looked odd.
It was moving in patterns, by the looks of things.
"Well, there's no way Pikachu can beat Chinchou so long as he can heal from the water," Ash explained.
"That's not what I asked, Ash!" Misty replied.
"Ready, Pikachu?" Ash called.
"Just about!" Pikachu replied.
"Then let's do this!" Ash called, and Pikachu sprang clear of the ice. There were three rings of electricity around his body, each one rotating independently of the other two, and Pikachu was surrounded by a yellow-white electrical glow.
"Volt Crash!" Ash and Pikachu said, at the same moment.
The three circles locked together into one at a horizontal angle, and a bolt of electricity a foot thick blasted down into the Cerulean Gym pool. Water and mist and steam went everywhere, absolutely deluging everyone in the room with almost the entire contents of the pool, and the impact nearly knocked Lily off her feet.
"Whoa!" she yelped.
"You actually finished it?" Misty asked. "That's where I recognized it from!"
"Now, Pikachu, Force Palm the pool floor!" Ash continued, eyes closed to confirm that Chinchou hadn't been blasted out of the pool himself. "Fake an Earthquake!"
Pikachu clapped both paws together, one of them flashing yellow and the other blue, then drew his right fist back.
"What kind of-" Violet tried, then Pikachu hit the pool floor.
The impact was a lot more than he really should have been capable of, partly because he deliberately tried and failed to form an Aura Sphere at the same time, and the result really did make the building shake.
Ice rained down from the roof. Chinchou flinched. Ash glanced up, in case any of the ice was about to land outside the pool – then his eyes widened.
"Everyone out!" he said. "The roof's about to go!"
Fortunately, Cerulean Gym had plenty of well-placed emergency exits.
Pikachu, meanwhile, mostly took what Ash said as a reason to watch out for falling debris. He avoided two panes of glass, dodged away from a piece of the metal support frame, then – in the interests of fairness – jumped up and hit the one about to land on Chinchou with a Force Palm to smash it to pieces.
In the interests of actually winning the gym battle, he then hit Chinchou with Force Palm as well.
"I can't believe this, Ash!" Misty said. "The bike wasn't enough, you had to break my gym as well?"
"I was trying to win the Cascade Badge!" Ash defended himself. "And I did! What are you complaining about?"
Misty pointed at the gym. "That! That is what I'm complaining about, Ash! This was supposed to be an impossible fight to teach you humility! They're character tests, not just demolish-the-building tests!"
"Is that actually a thing?" Riolu asked, looking up at Brock. "Butterfree, can you ask him if it's actually a thing?"
"Riolu wants to know if character tests are a thing," Butterfree provided. "Honestly, thinking about how Ash got… actually, yeah, I think that must be the main way he got them before."
"We do have a lot of leeway in how we award them," Brock confirmed. "There's three ways to earn one, in general. Battle, and good deed, and then the third one is something to do with the gym. So for Pewter it's to be enduring like rock, meaning, you don't give up and you endure difficulty."
He shrugged. "Most gyms don't advertise them for obvious reasons, and I think Misty might have made this one up a bit. But last time Ash got most of his badges in Kanto because of the strength of his character, not because of his team's strength."
"Didn't Team Rocket interrupt a lot of them?" Pidgeot mused. "That explains a few things."
"Couldn't you just have set me a challenge that I wouldn't have tried to beat my way through?" Ash asked, back over at that argument.
Misty closed her eyes. "Ash? Run. Because I'm going to try and strangle you now."
"Don't strangle him yet!" Lily called. "Like… at least leave it long enough for the insurance statement!"
"I'll go wake up Vaporeon," Violet decided.
"Vaporeon?" Butterfree asked, interested. "Why Vaporeon? Why didn't Misty use that one?"
He fluttered his wings. "I'd have had trouble with that one."
"Hmm…" Brock pondered. "It could be that it's because Vaporeon is specialized in making things instead of battling. At a guess, it would be using groundwater to bring up silica and crystallizing it into opal, but I'm kind of interested to see if I'm right…"
In the distance, meanwhile, Meowth was up a tree without a ladder.
Sure, he was a cat, and it was expected, but still.
"Lessee…" he said, adjusting a pair of large, black binoculars which were the most sinister thing about the whole situation. "Twerps outside… yep, dere's Pikachu, he just got 'im out of the gym… and a hole in the ceilin'. You keepin' track of all this?"
Growlie made a sort of puzzled woofing sound.
"Huh?" Meowth asked, leaning over. "Whadda ya mean you ain't been takin' any notes? Do you think all this is for fun?"
Growlie waved a paw. "Niine?"
"I don't know how you're supposed to take notes, that ain't my department!" Meowth replied. "I'm the seeing-eye cat, you're the writing-down dog. Unless you wanna swap places an' get up the tree?"
Growlie huffed.
"Yeah, but Jessie an' James are all the way over at Lavender Town, so we gotta do the self reliance thing," Meowth said. "An' quiet, or you'll let 'em know we're here!"
The Fire-type said something rude.
"Wow, you ain't wastin' time getting rude, are you, big guy?" Meowth asked, raising the binoculars again. "Wait, where did they go?"
AN:
That's my private theory about the gyms, that their battles are as much about character tests as actual victory or defeat. It explains where Ash got all his from, at any rate.
And Pokemon can help with things other than battle, right? All we see are the combat arts, but in a society like that, there's presumably many others.
Rewrite changes were mostly focused around the battle flow. And, for the record, the original had Volt Crash in it too - this chapter was written before the reveal of Gen 6, let alone Gen 7 or 8.