Dexter went beep. Text message from the Rockets, he reported.
Ash took Dexter out of his pocket, and checked the screen. "Hmm… okay, uh… so they're handling Viridian Gym at the moment, and, uh… they say they have urgent news to tell us, and they'd do it in some kind of subtle code, but if we come over to the Gym then we can literally just talk to them face to face and get it then so they're not bothering. I guess that's fair."
"What exactly are the possibilities, there?" Misty asked. "It's got to be Mewtwo, right?"
"Probably," Ash replied. "I think. Is that early? It feels early, but we didn't know the timing of this on the Rocket end before so who knows."
He stretched. "But, more importantly, it's time to go and get the Earth Badge!"
"Uh," Brock began. "More importantly?"
"It's Ash," Pikachu pointed out.
"...oh, yeah," Brock admitted. "Yeah, never mind then."
The door opened as they approached, revealing a dark space.
Then spotlights clicked on, and Jessie and James stood on the far end of the hall.
"Welcome to the Viridian City Gym," James said. "The philosophy of this Gym is unusual."
Jessie took up the thread. "It's not like any gym you've ever encountered, because this gym doesn't follow type segregation. It never has, and it never will."
"Really?" James asked, cutting off Jessie as she was about to continue. "Doesn't the boss usually use Ground type Pokémon here? That's like type segregation, isn't it?"
He waved vaguely. "Or if it doesn't count, what about Cinnabar? That place has a Rhydon."
"Shut up," Jessie told him politely. "Besides, the gym has a Kingler and a Machamp. Anyway, the gym is based on using the battlefield against the opponent. The earth against the opponent."
"You sure?" Meowth asked, dangling down from the lighting rig, then something went fzzzrt and all the lights came on at once. "Ow! Anyway, uh, I don't remember that from the briefing."
Jessie simmered.
"Shut up," she said, without even the modicum of politesse she'd had before. "As I was saying, the moves most commonly used here are the ones that rearrange, reshape or reorder the battlefield. The Earth of the Earth Badge is-"
Jessie noticed James had his hand up, kicked him in the shin, and finished very quickly. "Can you fight an enemy who alters the rules of the fight itself GO!"
Her Cubone materialized in mid-air, club held in both paws, and brought it down with a slam that cracked the floor around her. It was packed earth, and as Ash sent out Ivysaur the Grass-type materialized on a floor that was already heaving and moving under the influence of Cubone's Earthquake.
She turned away from the Vine Whip attacks Ivysaur sent her way, then slammed down a second blow, and Stone Edge walls appeared between her and Ivysaur. They slammed together to assemble a wall, locking into place with a wham-wham-wham, and Ivysaur barely withdrew his Vine Whips in time.
"Seed Bomb!" Ash called. "How many can you do at once?"
"Let's find out," Ivysaur decided, sticking his tongue out as he concentrated, and fired out a trio of Seed Bombs with a thoom-thoom-thoom sound. They sailed over the wall, exploding on the far side, and Ash closed his eyes.
"Okay, a bit more spread?" he suggested.
Ivysaur fired again, but a bone flashed out this time and burst one of the Seed Bombs as it was going over the wall.
"That was the one that was going to hit, I think," Ash said. "Wait, let's try something else… fire them really high, as high as you can go and have them still land there!"
"Oh, I get it," Ivysaur realized, and fired three Seed Bombs. They went almost straight up, and punched three neat holes in the roof.
"Here we go," Misty sighed.
"Wait, that reminds me, actually," Ash realized, as Ivysaur fired off three more Seed Bombs, then another three, each one punching its own hole in the roof. "Wasn't this place rigged up to give electric shocks to the trainers when they got hurt?"
"We did think about dat," Meowth agreed, then yelped as one of the wires went bzzrp and half the lights changed colour. "Anyway, uh, we decided it ain't much fun to get electrocuted, so we ain't doin' it. Plus, dat Pikachu and all."
"They've got a point," Pikachu nodded sagely.
Ivysaur had fired a lot of Seed Bombs by that point, and James pointed. "Wait, I know what's happening – it's time on target! They're all coming down at once!"
"I should probably get outta da way, then," Meowth said, then fell out of the tangle of wires.
As he hit the ground with a thud, then scrambled upright and ran for it, Cubone began running through her aria – the incantation she'd used in her battle against Riolu. She rattled the whole thing off in only a few seconds, and Ivysaur's barrage of Seed Bombs dissolved in a moment as most of the gym was remade by a flash of power.
Infinity Energy, reshaping the world into an echo of the user. A sphere, coloured and influenced by the fleck of Cubone's soul at its heart like a marble made of reality instead of glass.
"Whoa," Ash said, impressed. "And… poor you."
"I don't want your pity," Cubone said.
"And what you don't have any more is that wall of yours," Ivysaur said. "Sunny Day!"
The sky overhead roiled, clouds seething away from one another, but there were always more to be had. It didn't actually lead to the sky breaking through from an overcast into sunlight.
"Well, then," Ivysaur shrugged. "Sunny Day again!"
This time his flower glowed a bright noonday yellow, and four bright spheres of yellow-orange fire rose into the air to hang overhead.
Cubone rolled her eyes, reaching out a hand, and one of the bones twitched before flying into her hand.
It was round and shining, a Bronzor's metallic body, and she held it like a shield. "You've telegraphed that you're using Solarbeam more than if you'd just charged it."
"Yep!" Ivysaur said, rising up on his hind legs, and dropped back to the floor. "Fissure!"
A glowing crack speared out towards the startled Cubone, and the Bronzor shield slipped from her grip as she made a leap for safety. It vanished down the Fissure as she landed, the bones moving aside to give her space, but Ivysaur's petals were already blazing with green-golden light.
"Solarbeam!" he announced.
Jessie and James held out their Pokéballs at the same moment. Cubone vanished from in the way of the intense beam, and James' Gyarados went plunging into the crack left by the Fissure in the moments before Cubone's Reality Marble lost coherence and collapsed back into the Viridian Gym.
"Hmm," Ivysaur muttered, and looked around.
His Sunny Day was still up, and he trotted forwards a step.
The ground went squish.
"I can't tell what Gyarados is doing!" Ash reported. "But he's making that water somehow!"
"Hmm," Ivysaur said, then pulsed out a Giga Drain. A little energy came back to him, but not much, so the water wasn't connecting him straight to Gyarados.
"Look out behind!" Ash said, just in time, as Gyarados burst out of the ground in a splash of mud. The Atrocious Pokémon exhaled a blast of flame, hitting Ivysaur in the side, but despite the last of the Sunny Day Ivysaur still managed to avoid most of the impact.
"Ow!" he said, trying to catch Gyarados with his Vine Whips, but the Water-type plunged back into the Fissure with a splash.
"Oh, I get it," he realized. "Gyarados can't normally Dig, so the ground needs to be soft and wet enough for him…"
"I know what to do!" Ash said. "Ivysaur, get ready, this will require really good timing!"
Ivysaur looked back and forth, feeling the faint tremors as Gyarados moved around underwater, then dematerialized in a flash of red light as Ash boosted Pikachu into the arena. "Thunder!"
Gyarados had just enough time conscious to regret how the battle was going.
"Not bad!" James said, nodding. "Now, time for the ultimate expression of how terrain affects battles. Abra, out you go!"
Abra materialized. Curse.
Pikachu blinked. "Huh?"
Curse, Abra said lazily. Curse.
Still confused, Pikachu fired a bolt of lightning at Abra, and he teleported out of the way.
"Why are you making yourself-" Pikachu began.
"Thunder Wave!" Ash called. "Stop him!"
Trick Room, Abra said, projecting a field of altered space around himself that was easily large enough to include Pikachu as well.
Ash joined in the general theme of cursing. "Damn – Pikachu, Counter Shield!"
Pikachu wove together a net of electrical energy as fast as he could, but under the distorting effects of the Trick Room that just wasn't fast enough. Abra moved with blurring speed, teleporting inside Pikachu's Counter Shield before it was fully set up, then used a combination of Tail Whip and a psychic shove to launch Pikachu clear out of the arena.
Ash caught him, wincing as the Counter Shield grounded out on him but managing the worst of it. "Ergh – you okay, Pikachu?"
"Yeah, but that was an unpleasant surprise," Pikachu admitted. "I could barely see him, he was moving so fast."
"That's Trick Room for you," Ash agreed. "Uh… okay, that actually makes things difficult, most of my Pokémon are fast…"
"Better hurry up!" Jessie advised. "You don't want to get disqualified!"
Ash reached for one of his Pokéballs.
Most of his Pokémon were really quick. Sure, Abra were fast themselves, which was why James's one had used so many Curses, but…
"Charizard!"
Charizard materialized, roared, and bathed the entire Trick Room in flame. Abra teleported out of the blast, since he had to, but the moment he did he suddenly lost all the speed advantage he'd gained from being Cursed repeatedly – instead slowing down all the way.
Consequently, Charizard just slapped Abra with a wing cuff, knocking him out.
"Bit of an anticlimax," the Fire-type snorted.
"Well done!" Jessie said. "You get the Earth Badge. And I'll just take another one for us as well… that's eight!"
Ash checked, curious. "Huh, that's neat. Same set as mine. How did you do the Saffron Gym, aren't about half your Pokémon Poison-type or something?"
"Less than you'd think!" Meowth said.
"Cubone, mostly," Jessie shrugged.
"Oh!" James gasped. "And we should say – there's a powerful escaped Psychic type that might cause trouble. Hint. Cough."
Ash walked into an invisible wall with an audible thud, bounced off, and fell over backwards.
"Watch out," Pikachu said.
"...not again," Ash groaned, then closed one eye and looked up. "Oh, huh, there we go. I thought it might be him."
"Who?" Misty asked, looking up. "Oh, that Mr. Mime your mom has… Mimey, right?"
"That's him," Ash agreed. "And I can Remind him, too."
He got to his feet, focusing, then used Force Palm on the Reflect wall. Copying a move that he'd seen from Lucario and learned from Sir Aaron's notes, Ash punched a spike of Aura through the wall and then widened it out to pop the Reflect wall entirely.
"Ash, shouldn't you-" Misty began, then the Mr. Mime landed on top of Ash and he fell over again.
"Mrrf!" Ash said, waving frantically from underneath the Psychic-type. "Mrrrpfh!"
"What's he saying?" Brock asked.
"I think it's something about how much Mr. Mime weigh," Pikachu commented. "We should probably lift Mimey off him."
Misty and Riolu did most of the actual work, heaving Mimey onto the grass, and Ash gasped for breath.
"Phew," he said. "You okay, Mimey?"
"I'm fine," Mimey replied. "Confused, but fine. We're back in time?"
"That's it, exactly," Ash agreed. "Sorry, I was going to ask you but the impact was…"
He frowned. "Wait."
"Ash?" Brock asked, as Ash looked towards Pallet Town.
"Oh, no," Ash said. "I never thought about this until now… I can do Professor Oak, and I can do Mom."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm really worried how Mom is going to take it when she finds out how much I got into danger… and how Dad died doing the same kind of thing."
"You'll have to deal with it some time," Mimey said. "She definitely knew about a lot of it anyway, if it helps, but all this coming at once might be a bit much for her."
"I guess, yeah," Ash agreed. "Uh… okay, there was a thing… right! Dexter, can you get an anonymous tip about brewing trouble in the circus to the local Jenny? I think they could do with having someone talk to them, at least."
Good thought, Dexter agreed.
"Right," Ash said, adjusting his gloves. "Now, it's time for a much bigger challenge."
He looked down towards Pallet Town. "Getting out of this without being grounded."
Once Ash had started explaining, it had all sort of… poured out. Not everything, because that would have taken too long, but about how he'd been involved in so many difficult situations and that it felt like he'd lost so many Pokémon and human friends by coming back in time.
About how the weight of the world was on him, and he knew it mattered, but at the same time it was hard to really believe that it was true.
About how he hadn't wanted his mother to worry, or even Professor Oak all that much, because so often he didn't find out about things until they'd already happened and they weren't a problem any more…
Ash sort of lost track of where he was going at least once. Maybe more than once. But finally, after he felt like he'd run out of things to say, he double-checked that it was all right and then reminded both his Mom and Professor Oak.
Both Delia Ketchum and Sammy.
It only took a moment, like with everyone else, but there was a long and silent pause after Ash had done it.
Eventually, it was Oak who broke the silence.
"I'm… astonished, my boy," he said. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined what you and Gary got up to."
"Nightmares, more like," Delia said.
She screwed a hand into a fist, then opened it again."Ash… why? Why did you end up in so much of… that? You're just my little boy, and you were so… and so many times… I nearly lost you, again and again, and I didn't even know about it. And it's…"
Her voice caught. "It doesn't seem right. You understand? I don't want to lose you – I don't see why you have to be in such danger."
"But it's because-" Ash began, stopped, then kept going. "Mom, it's because it was to save someone. Every time. Once it was you, and more than once it was everyone, but…"
He spread his hands. "If I knew about it before it was already happening around me, then it's because it's to help people. To keep them safe… and I want to do that, because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."
"And there really is a reason only Ash can do this," Pikachu contributed. "We don't know everything that Chosen One means, yet, but… it matters."
"Yeah, the Chosen One thing," Ash agreed. "I don't know what would happen if someone else tried doing the thing on Shamouti, or… but… I don't think I want to risk it."
Delia blinked back tears "But, I… I… I don't see why it has to be you! Why is it you who has to do all this, with all the strong trainers in the world?"
"Because…" Ash began. "I think it'd happen to me anyway. My luck has always been weird, and… I don't know if it has to be me. But I'm accepting it anyway."
"I think that went well, actually," Ash said, as they walked down to the beach.
Misty and Brock exchanged glances, then Misty looked back towards Pallet Town proper.
Ash's house was visible, and Misty could just about see Delia on the roof with a pair of binoculars.
"You're not allowed out of her sight for a week! And she's insisted on following you to the Pokémon League, just so she can see how good you are now!"
"It's better than being grounded for a year!" Ash replied. "Which I think was an option, but I don't want to ask. Anyway, I got permission from Gary and the other two trainers who left Pallet Town to borrow their Pokémon for practice teams… I know what your teams are like, but being surprised would really help I think."
He shrugged. "It happened at Silver, it happened at Lily of the Valley, it happened at Vertress… I want to be able to adapt better. And, sure, the other two didn't get past about five or six badges before giving up, but that's still more variety, and Gary's caught dozens."
"Oh, I think I get it," Brock realized. "You want us to make practice teams out of their Pokémon, so you're more likely to be surprised and you can work around that."
"Right," Ash confirmed. "That's the idea… Gary isn't letting me have his main team, though. He's got his Squirtle all the way up to Blastoise now."
"And I bet he's become a positive Attenborough!" Squirtle said, materializing without prompting. "When he arrives, I'll have to see which of us is the stronger in manly spirit!"
"You mean, what, whiskey?" Ash asked. "Or is it, uh, shochu I'm thinking of?"
"Of course that's not what he means," Misty grumbled.
She'd really soured on the Squirtle line since she'd found out they were all otaku.
Then she shrugged. "Well, I'll see what I can do… Brock, want to start him off?"
"Sure," Brock agreed, taking a Pokéball from his belt and sending out his Ninetales. "Ash, you only get two Pokémon for this, for now. This is just a warm-up."
Ash gestured Squirtle forwards.
Delia watched from the rooftop as Brock's Ninetales fought with elegance, grace and fire against Squirtle's flamboyance, water, water, and Aura-saturated water.
He was quite prone to the overuse of water.
Brock switched out Ninetales for Steelix, then Crobat, while Ash swapped Squirtle out for Charizard, and each Pokémon showed off their years of experience in a way that really brought home to her just how much her son's team had blossomed.
Meeting each new Pokémon as they came back to the lab was one thing, but this was something else.
When the battle ended, Charizard had set fire to some nearby trees, but Squirtle had then extinguished them all over again with the help of half of Misty's team.
Which was nice of them.
Delia adjusted her binoculars, wondering who Ash was going to battle next. Misty's Pokémon were still checking over the smouldering tree, and Ash didn't seem to be sending anyone else out…
Then his hands flared blue, and Pikachu and Riolu turned to face him.
And Ash threw a blue sphere from his hands.
Pikachu fired a Thunder Wave at Ash, and Ash retaliated with a flash of Aura against the contact point. It was tricky and it stung, but it was better than being hit by Thunder Wave, and the shimmering burst of blue light deflected Pikachu's attack away before it could paralyze him.
He hit Pikachu with a Force Palm, knocking him out of the battle for a moment, but Riolu had taken the chance to charge up his own Aura Sphere and throw it. Ash burst that with a Force Palm, sending blue light scattering down between them, and launched a series of close combat blows against his Fighting-type.
Riolu fell back from the attacks, blocking or dodging each one without counterattacking and continually giving ground with a slight bias towards his right side, and Ash pressed his advantage… until he felt a chilly wind around him.
That wasn't right.
Ash switched to Aura sight, and saw something strange was going on. There was Aura swirling around them both, hot and cold… and he was hot, while Riolu was cold, with an Ice Punch shimmering on the backs of both of Riolu's paws. And, though he hadn't noticed it, the two of them had walked in a spiral.
As soon as he saw it, the spiral of opposing temperatures began to mix, and Riolu switched back to the attack.
"Flying Dragon Uppercut!" he announced, punching Ash in the chin, and a small but powerful whirlwind hurled Ash into the air.
The Fighting-type landed again, watched how his trick had done, then cupped his paws around his muzzle. "Sorry about that! But it works best on Fire-types and Aura users and I wanted to see if I'd got it working!"
Ash went splash into the sea, sputtered for a moment as he surfaced, then steadied himself with the nearly-instinctual ease of someone who'd been taught to swim at the beach at about the same age he'd learned to walk.
Then he pushed Aura into his hands, then his feet, and climbed onto the surface of the sea like he was getting onto a slightly springy trampoline. "Well, it worked! But why did you come up with it, anyway?"
Riolu shrugged. "It was interesting to try out! And besides, it's planning ahead for if I ever do evolve…"
Then he looked embarrassed. "I didn't think through how the sea would be weird to walk on if it's not calm, though… good thing the waves aren't very big at the moment."
Not that Ash could see, but his mother was having trouble trying to work out what was going on.
"Right, let's keep going!" Ash decided, and charged, which made her problem a whole lot worse.
"Okay, I think I get it," Ash said, about twenty minutes later.
He was wrapped in a towel, since he'd stopped exercising, and Riolu was going through the trick. "So, you need the spiral, especially."
"Right, it gives it momentum," Riolu confirmed. "Without it, it's just Sky Uppercut and you actually need to land the blow, and it's not very strong. I can use Ice Punch and Fire Punch to make the spiral myself, but, again, it's not as strong that way…"
"And can you reuse the spiral? If there's already a whirlwind, I mean…" Ash shrugged.
"Not sure," Riolu admitted.
He scratched his head with a paw. "I could try? That was the first time I'd actually used it, though."
"Sounds like something to try, then!" Ash decided. "Only, maybe on Charizard next time? He can fly."
"True!"
Misty turned up by the time Ash had finished towelling off, along with three baskets of six Pokéballs each.
As she explained, she was going to use just three from the set of six in each case, but the six amounted to a reasonable team.
That had to wait a bit for Pidgeot to go and fetch one of the Tauros, but after that most of the afternoon was just – training.
Working out the kinks in how he used his Pokémon. Making sure he could use them as an extended team, of more than six Pokémon, and making sure that each individual Pokémon was ready.
They had time before the Pokémon League, sure, but you could always do more training. And maybe you needed a break sometimes, but this was the start of a long period of preparation for the League.
Electricity stabbed into the evening sky, spreading out into a disc as wide as the whole battlefield, and Pikachu gestured.
"Shock Wave!" he announced, slamming the whole disc down at once, and the agile Persian that Misty was using took a hit that knocked them out.
"That's all of them," Misty said, recalling the Normal-type. "Nice work, guys."
"You okay, Pikachu?" Ash checked.
"Yeah, but ow," Pikachu replied. "Making a field that big hurts, but it's good for forcing a hit at least. Or a ring out, if the Pokémon dodges."
"True, yeah," Ash agreed. "You've been doing great coming up with more kinds of Shock Wave."
"It's sort of turning into a hobby," Pikachu admitted.
"We should probably stop for the night," Ash added. "Everyone's been doing such great work – and that includes the Pokémon you guys have been using – but by now I think we should head in for food… actually, are we going to head off to Seafoam Island? I think we did last time."
Not much point if you ask me, Dexter said. Mostly you watched a Slowpoke evolve and someone go surfing.
Riolu looked up, interested. "Surfing?" he repeated. "Hmm… I wonder if I could do that with my water walk trick? I'm not even sure it'd need all that much modification, come to think of it."
"Yeah, that would be interesting," Ash agreed. "But the waves there were… big?"
That is a good word, yes.
"So maybe start with smaller waves?" Ash suggested. "Kingler could do it, or Squirtle… we could use the ones on the beach, or even ask Gary's Blastoise for some. I think Gary's planning to come back here before long."
"True," Riolu admitted.
Not to mention, the island was extremely crowded. I'm not sure you could have fitted any more cars on it.
A week or so later, training was in full swing.
Gary's Blastoise spun, firing a salvo of Water Gun shots from his cannons and aiming to box in his Squirtle opponent.
"You know as well as I do that this kind of lame, half-assed series of attacks isn't going to work against me!" Squirtle declared, using Ice Beam and freezing the shots before jumping up onto one of them as a platform. He folded his arms. "My ice-cold dedication is more than enough to overcome your burning ambitions!"
Blastoise steadied himself, cannons lining up on Squirtle together with a click. "But this will! Fire everything!"
"Hydro Cannon!" Squirtle and Blastoise called at the same moment, their attacks colliding with a crash-spaloosh in the middle of their impromptu battlefield and sending out an instant, massive wave of water.
Riolu jumped off Ash's shoulder, took two steps, and sprang onto the gush of water with both footpaws glowing blue. "Woo-hoo!"
While Riolu was experimenting, Blastoise followed up with a second salvo of shots – Water Pulse, this time – to keep Squirtle busy, then tried again with Hydro Cannon.
For his part, Squirtle used Horn Drill Break. He slammed straight into the attack, broke through it in a whirl of water and Aura that deluged the area, and knocked Blastoise clear back into his Pokéball before spinning out and crashing into the marshy ground with a splash-splash-sliiide that left him covered in mud.
Ivysaur went over to help him up. "You okay?"
"Of course!" Squirtle panted. "What do you... take me for?"
He was nevertheless very visibly leaning on Ivysaur for support.
"Good," Misty said, from the sidelines. "The biggest disadvantage of that was always that it knocked you out as well… which you've managed to handle. If barely."
"We're always improving, right, Squirtle?" Ash asked.
"Yeah!" Squirtle agreed, though his vehemence did nearly result in his toppling over onto Ivysaur's flank. "Every moment we progress, like the turn of-"
"We get the idea," Gary sighed.
He tapped an earbud leading to his Pokédex, Dee. "Normally this is really helpful, but when Blastoise is going on about his anime then I do sometimes regret it."
"Oh, right!" Ash realized, as off in the distance Riolu grounded out on running out of water. "That's giving you translation! I figured it was that or the radio, but I didn't want to guess."
"Of course that's what it's doing," Gary confirmed. "I'm a researcher, do you have any idea how useful it is to be able to understand what Pokémon are saying to me? The savings in not trying to confirm things that are blatantly wrong, alone…"
"I guess," Ash agreed. "Being able to understand Pokémon has been really useful for me, so that makes sense."
He looked over at where Riolu was trudging back, then frowned. "Wait, what's that?"
Gary turned to follow his gaze, shading his eyes. "That… yeah, that's definitely a Pokémon. Headed right for us. And it must be fast, if it's getting bigger that quickly."
"Dragonite, I think," Ash said. "Hey, guys? This might be time, I remember this much at least – that must be the invitation."
"Invitation?" Gary asked, then nodded. "Oh, Dee just reminded me. I did see something about this…"
He broke off as the Dragonite arrived, swooping down on them, then stopped to hover just between them and pulled a pair of cards out of a pouch.
Ash took the first one that was offered, and after a moment Gary realized the other was for him. "...Ash, why-"
"Wait, I want to hear this," Ash said, triggering the hologram.
Gary rolled his eyes, but watched as the woman gave her invitation. It was new to him, after all.
By the time she was finished, the Dragonite had flown off.
"Dexter?" Ash asked, looking around with his eyes closed. "There was a camera around that Dragonite's neck, right?"
Well caught. Yes.
"Well, there isn't anything close enough to watch us now… what were you saying, Gary?"
Gary was a bit less offended now he knew why Ash had cut him off, but he still had that question to ask. "Why did I get one, Ash? I didn't last time."
"Huh," Ash frowned. "I didn't actually know you didn't, but… I think they just went out to any trainers who Mewtwo thought were strong enough?"
He shrugged. "I checked over Dexter's records, so I've got a good idea of what's going to happen, but a lot of it is kind of like guesswork? I guess…"
Then Ash brightened. "Wait, that might be it – your Blastoise. If he was using the camera, he'd seen you had a Blastoise. Dexter has clips of Mewtwo using cloned versions of Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise to beat the original versions of them, I guess to prove a point or something? Anyway… that might be why. You're one of the Blastoise trainers he's invited along to beat."
Charizard burst out of his Pokéball. "But he won't beat this Charizard, not this time!"
"Charizard, you don't even remember being beaten," Ash pointed out.
"Dexter does, that's enough for me. Besides…"
Charizard buffed his claws. "I spent years in the Valley. There's standard brute force Charizard tactics, and I know the counters for them. And the counters for those counters. And so on for a bit longer."
He paused. "And Blast Burn. Can't forget that one."
"Well, I don't think Blastoise is looking forward to fulfilling an ego trip…" Gary said. "I've got a few ideas. But you do have a plan for Mewtwo, right, Ash?"
"Uh," Ash began. "I've got something? You could call it a plan I guess. But we've got to try it, or Mewtwo destroys the world with a huge storm."
Which reminds me, Ash – you're going to need to get to New Island somehow. Remember, the ferry can't get through the storm.
"Right," Ash said. "I guess that's why there weren't dozens of trainers there, with how many he invited… Pidgeot should work, right?"
Should do, Dexter agreed. What about you three?
"Starmie and Psyduck," Misty decided straight away. "Between them they'll keep the wind from being too much, and then Brock and I can ride Gyarados. I don't think he can take three, though."
"Hmm," Gary frowned. "Fearow would be willing, but he's a glider. A nasty storm would be too much for him… Krabby's one of those giant Pokémon you get sometimes, that could work?"
"If you can breathe water, maybe," Misty said. "Krabby cross the sea by walking, mostly."
"Blastoise, then," Gary decided. "He should be strong enough… once he's had a quick trip to get healed, anyway."
Ash went through things in his head. "Right… so next we need to choose which Pokémon we're taking."
Dexter beeped. They might well end up cloned, Ash, Gary, but – if you don't have enough strength on hand for that reason, Mewtwo might know something's up. It's my understanding that mind reading requires finesse he might not yet have, at least at a distance, and his actions don't quite make sense if he was reading your minds all along, but if he decides to do it then we could become unstuck fast.
"Right," Ash said, nodding. "So… You and Pikachu, then… Riolu, Squirtle, Ivysaur, Charizard, Pidgeot and… Primeape."
That's eight, but Pikachu's never in his Pokéball and I'm secret. Don't worry, Ash, I'll make sure he doesn't notice me.
Me too, Dee said.
Gary nodded his thanks. "And I'll bring Blastoise, Fearow… Golem, I think… Dee, of course… Nidoking, Nidoqueen and Eevee."
"Still Eevee?" Ash asked. "That's a shame, it would be nice to have a Dark type. Unless she's going to evolve into something else this time?"
"She's always wanted to be an Umbreon, so I don't think that's going to change…" Gary shrugged. "I'd better go and get the Pokémon I'm taking, they're not all on me."
"Got it," Ash nodded. "Meet you at the pier, near the Pokémon Centre down southwest."
"Oh, that one," Gary said. "From those disastrous boating lessons."
Ash winced. "Yeah, I know… I still think they shouldn't give us all that sail if you're not meant to use it all. What's the point of it if you can't use it when there's nice strong winds?"
AN:
Ash lives quite close to the sea, but I can't remember that ever being brought up. Probably because most of the population of Japan lives close to the sea and it's sort of assumed.
The Flying Dragon Uppercut, or Hiryu Shoten Ha, is from the Ranma 1/2 series.
Ash's mum shows up in some of the films, and she's usually shocked at the kind of danger Ash is in. I think she understands how important things really are, and will if pressed let Ash go save the world, but it can't be easy knowing what kind of things he gets up to.
Mostly the rewrite stuff was tweaks in this chapter as I recall.