Just as he'd discussed with Brock, Ash opened with Ivysaur.

"And Ash leads in with his Ivysaur! Ivysaurs have been a feature in all his matches so far. Has? Have… there's been Ivysaurs. How will this go?" the announcer wondered.

His opponent smirked, and threw a Pokéball straight into the water. With an eruption of slightly salty water, a Gyarados appeared.

"Dean, meanwhile, has sent out a Gyarados! We haven't seen this Pokémon before from him, probably because the Grass and Rock fields aren't especially good for Water types like this!"

Ivysaur looked up from his platform at the frankly enormous Water/Flying type. "Ash… can I get a raincheck here?"

"Come on, give it a go!" Ash invited. "Use something your, I don't know, Electric type ancestors knew!"

"I don't have any Electric type ancestors! Or at least, not that I know of, genealogical research is difficult."

"Rock type?" Ash asked. "You have those moves, I know that."

"And how do you expect me to hit them with an Ancientpower?"

The Gyarados had been gradually moving deeper into the water. Now it leapt out, with a great roar, and went flying high into the air.

Ivysaur tapped the platform, which wobbled slightly. "Oh, this is going to be embarrassing…"

Gyarados cannoned back into the pool with a great Splash, sending water everywhere – and the floating platform out of the arena entirely, Ivysaur still on it and hence losing by ring out.

Ash raised his hand. "Hey, uh… I'm curious. What exactly counts as ring out here?"

"Anything that lands or would have landed in the audience, basically," the referee replied, pointing to where Ivysaur was held in the psychic grip of an Alakazam. "Or outside the stadium boundaries."

"Okay, so going what must have been a hundred metres into the air doesn't, because it was straight up. Good to know…" Ash sighed. "Pikachu?"

"On it, Ash."

Pikachu hurried into the arena, stopping at the edge of the pool itself before launching an enormous Thunderbolt at it. The Gyarados promptly rose to the surface, twitching.

"Damn, forgot you had that," Dean muttered.

"Really?" Ash asked. "...uh, how? He was on my shoulder."

"Look, it was a calculated risk," Dean replied, digging through his bag for something. "Aha. Cloyster!"

Ash blinked. "Er, what?"

"Withdraw!"

The Cloyster shut its shell tightly, with a crack, situated on the poolside instead of in the water. Pikachu wandered over and zapped it.

Then he frowned, because Cloyster was still there and that offended him. "Shouldn't something have happened by now?"

"Dexter?" Ash asked, holding up the scanner.

Calcium carbonate, the material forming the base of the shells of Bivalve Pokémon, is non-conductive.

"Well, that's new. Okay, Pikachu… you know what to do," Ash said, deciding to not really bother with telling Pikachu something Pikachu would have to know what to do already.

"I certainly do!" Pikachu steepled his paws, pushing them out to get ready, and drew one back before thrusting it forwards. "Force palm!"

The impact sent Cloyster skidding across the poolside, and its shell opened for a moment before shutting again.

Pikachu followed, paw lit up with blue light, and delivered another palm strike. He tried to send electricity in before the shell closed again, but failed to get his attack in quickly enough. "Ah, great, I'm no good at these reaction time games!"

"Just electrify the water and do it in there!" Ash called, since now Pikachu was struggling.

"Oh, yeah, good plan." Pikachu bodily lifted the Cloyster, winced as his spine gave a sort of creeeak noise, and threw it into the water before anything too permanent happened.

"Now, as I was saying…"

Pikachu's cheeks blazed up, and he electrified the entire pool of water. Then he sprang into the air, doing a somersault for extra momentum, and slammed a Force Palm home with a shout.

This time the electrified water meant that Cloyster took a zap as soon as their shell opened, which meant they couldn't get it closed quite as fast, and that gave Pikachu a chance to get leverage. He swiped his tail into the gap, protecting it with Iron Tail, and pried the shell open all the way between bolts of electricity.

"Done! What's next?"

"By the looks of this guy, another water type," Ash guessed.

"That's where you're wrong!" Dean answered proudly "Diglett, get him!"

"Dig." The little mole Pokémon appeared in front of Pikachu, who kicked at it.

"Lett." Without any discernable actual movement, it was behind him. As he spun, the Ground-type fired a mud-slap at him.

"Ugh. That's really annoying…" Pikachu muttered as he cleaned his face off. "And why isn't it actually saying anything?"

"Dig."

A Magnitude 6 sent Pikachu stumbling. The security Alakazam's eyes glowed as he isolated the ground from the stands, and the ground shook only within the stadium.

Most of the water that had survived the Splash drained away through fissures that opened up in the ground. Pikachu eyed the instability, and decided on a course of action.

Tapping his Light Ball, he jumped into the air and hovered there.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Lett." It disappeared underground again, and came back out with an enormous globule of mud.

"Oh, come on!" Pikachu complained.

He flared his electric aura, and went sliding through the air away from the Mud Bomb. "Ash? How am I supposed to catch this mole if he keeps moving around at the speed of light?"

"Hmm… it sounds impossible… Pikachu, get back over here! Squirtle, you handle this!"

Squirtle ran onto the field as Pikachu retreated, skidded to a halt, and looked around as Diglett appeared from first one hole and then another.

He frowned.

"My enemy moves at the speed of light. They can be anywhere… so I have to attack everywhere! Scald!"

Squirtle pushed out a bubble of superheated water in all directions, and there was a sudden BANG from the direction of one of Diglett's holes.

Confused, Squirtle walked over to it, and found a thoroughly concussed Diglett. "Okay, what just happened?"

Diglett must have run into the water at the speed of light – or very fast, anyway.

"This means I win, right? I'm not actually sure."

"And Ash Ketchum is through to the fourth round, which will be on the Ice field for him!"

"I'm going to guess that means yes," Squirtle decided.

At the start of his next battle, Ash had already been announced, and he looked up to see who he was going to be battling against. He'd been announced first, this time, which meant it was up to his opponent how they entered the field.

"...and his opponent, Eric!" the announcer said.

A large, beefy man strode to the opposing side of the arena. By the looks of him, he'd walked straight over the mountains to get to Indigo rather than bothering with the roads.

"Ice field… nice Pokémon for it," he said. "Dewgong!"

Ash thought for a second. "Pikachu!"

"On it!"

Pikachu had to dodge almost immediately, as an Aurora Beam swept out between two of the pillars that marked the Ice field and barely missed him.

He looked at the frost scarring on the pillars, and winced. "That's a powerful Dewgong…"

A fast one, as well, as it skidded over the ice like it was born to it. Which it was.

Pikachu caught sight of some juice around its mouth, as he dived from one cover to another, and knew what that had to mean. "I hate Wacan berries. They're just not fair."

"You used a berry yourself earlier!" Ash called.

"Yeah, but that wasn't Wacan!" Pikachu shot back.

With a gesture, he created a Shockwave in planar form above the arena and brought it down, but Dewgong reacted quickly.

The Water- and Ice-type sprayed out a fine coating of Brine above and onto a random ice pillar, and Pikachu couldn't adjust his Shockwave form fast enough. The slab of electricity connected with the briny pillar, and discharged into it like it had hit a lightning rod.

Muttering curses about quick-thinking Dewgongs, Pikachu skidded around a corner on a cushion of electricity. Then he used Iron Tail to control his movement, slowing down faster with the ground anchor than he could have done without it, and came to a sudden halt as he disengaged Magnet Rise.

The halt wouldn't have been that sudden without one of Riolu's Aura tricks, but sticking to ice was a bit like sticking to a wall.

Then it began to hail. Pikachu shot an annoyed look at the sky, and charged himself to try to repel the stinging ice.

It worked, to a point, and the impacts didn't sting as much, but they were still there and it was still cold. It meant Pikachu was still on the clock, and he frowned for a moment as he thought about what else a combination Ice and Water type would be weak to.

That gave him an idea.

Pikachu created a pair of Double Team images, and sent them charging alongside him against the Dewgong.

Unable to target Pikachu specifically with a pinpoint Aurora Beam, Dewgong reacted by exhaling a blast of icy cold air. It intercepted the charging Pikachus, eliminating the doubles and slowing Pikachu himself with ice build-up.

Just after being hit by the attack, though, Pikachu used his tail to flick himself slightly into the air. That gave him a good angle and he slammed his palm into the ice with a shout, breaking it up with a Force Palm and causing the heavier Dewgong to slump slightly into the ice.

That earned Pikachu a moment to act, and he fully capitalized on it with an Agility to boost his speed. Lunging forwards out of the cracked area of ice, he readied an Aura Sphere and charged straight at Dewgong.

Panicking, the Dewgong released a Sheer Cold – a blast of freezing air which froze Pikachu in place instantly. The Aura Sphere, on the other hand, kept going and hit Dewgong, sending the Water-type sliding backwards and into a pillar.

Which then fell on it.

The announcer hesitated for a moment, then on the signal of the referee declared that both Pokémon had been incapacitated at the same time and so both trainers should send out their next Pokémon at once.

"Can I get a break?" Ash asked. "I'd like to retrieve Pikachu first, he doesn't like his Pokéball…"

Ash did his best to handle retrieving and defrosting Pikachu quickly.

That done, and while Pikachu was still wrapped in a blanket for warmth, Ash exchanged a glance with Riolu.

"You want to do this?"

Riolu nodded gravely. "I do. Don't worry, Ash, I won't fail you."

"Never even crossed my mind."

Ash smiled gently for a moment, before gathering himself and pointing out onto the field. "Riolu!"

"Onix!" the Hiker replied, sending his own Pokémon out at the same time, then frowned and checked a small guidebook about Sinnoh. "Wait, that's a Riolu? How'd you get one of those, kid, they're rare – not to mention from a long way off!"

Ash gave a half-shrug. "Luck, I guess."

Riolu closed his eyes, feeling his Aura flow as faint wisps thatmisted from his body and began to interact with the aura of the outside world. It was quite impressive, this Ice field, actually – it was so often used for these battles that the area itself had acquired a taste of the glacial. It reminded him of another life, when he had visited the high mountains of Sinnoh.

Presumably the other three arenas had the same attribute, but this was the most incongruous.

Mind you, the enormous rock snake was interfering with the feng shui.

Riolu jumped over a thrown rock, studied a second for a moment and detonated it with a tiny pulse of Aura on the most critical structural point, then landed and set off running. As with a water battlefield, he was using his little pads of Aura to maintain traction rather than skidding out.

Fortunately, the Onix had replaced the Hail from before with a Sandstorm – and Riolu's airslip trick, while not up to deflecting large hailstones, could manage the sand.

So, really, this was a weather condition having no effect at all.

Barrier. Barrier. Barrier.

The wind finally subsided in Ash's box. Coughing, he tried to get the sand out of his hair. "Took you long enough…"

I established shields sufficient for the hail. I did not expect more than one weather condition in the same battle.

"Yeah, yeah, I understand. It's just a bit startling to get a face full of desert. Pleh, I think I swallowed some…"

Riolu skidded around the tail swipe of the Onix, and delivered a Force Palm to one of its larger segments. The impact made it flinch back, but it was clearly a very tough Onix – it didn't go down, and it released an Earthquake that finished what Pikachu had started.

The Ice field was… not how it had started.

Running up the edge of an ice floe, Riolu jumped into the air again – earning a near miss from a ballistic hunk of ice for his troubles – and finished Onix off with a second Force Palm to the forehead.

Slightly altering his Aura walking technique, he flipped once in his air time from the recoil and landed on the icy water. "Right, next?"

The hiker returned his Onix, and got a positively evil grin. "Haunter!"

Riolu heard the words, and as the Pokéball flew began isolating a fragment of his Aura from all his emotions.

A null structure, with no psychic signature… and make it self propagating…

"Dark Pulse."

The Haunter barely had time to look annoyed before the pulse hit, and it dispersed into an irritated cloud of slightly darker air.

"Huh. Didn't know they could learn that," Eric said, agreeably. "You're certainly a smart one, Ash Ketchum. Or your Pokémon are, anyway."

"Hey!" Ash shouted back in protest. "That's hardly a fair thing to do! Either just praise them, or them and me, but don't give me false hope!"

Brock checked the schedule. "Your next match is tomorrow evening. About five. Looks like the rest of today and most of tomorrow are free."

He noticed that Ash was a little subdued. "What is it?"

Ash shrugged. "Ah, just that this is how far I got last time. Remember – Ritchie beat me."

"I do, and I know you lost for a number of reasons, most of them not your fault."

Ash winced. "Wow, that's not great-"

"Some of them were things you learned from, Ash," Pikachu pointed out. "Making mistakes happens, especially that early."

Brock frowned, and checked the schedule again. "Wow, it looks like if you and he both win your next matches, you'll face each other as your entry into the matches with full teams."

"You mean he's here as well?" Ash asked, then frowned. "Well, I guess I should have expected that. Wonder where I can find him…"

He took out one of his Pokéballs. "Hey, Pidgeot? Up for a fly?"

Finding Ritchie turned out to be surprisingly easy, though mostly because there were less than twenty trainers left in the League and so it could just be a process of elimination.

He also seemed okay with Pidgeot landing next to him, and waved.

"Hi, there! I'm Ritchie Getem. Nice to meet you."

Ash smiled. "Ash Ketchum, the same. You're in the League too, I guess?"

"Yeah! Actually, now I think about it I do recognize you. You're that trainer they were calling the Gym Destroyer on the TV commentary, right?"

Ash blushed. "I didn't know they were calling me that."

He paused. "Though… I have to admit it's pretty accurate, thinking about it."

Ritchie grinned, and at that point Ash noticed something… off about him.

"Ritchie, is it me, or is there a Pokémon hiding behind your torso?"

The Pokémon in question made a small, frightened sound and ducked back from where it was peeping. Ritchie sighed. "Calm down, Cid, you can feel he's friendly just like I can."

Ash glanced surreptitiously at Pikachu, who shrugged. "Beats me."

"Oh, come on, now," Ritchie said, and gently lifted a Kirlia out from behind him and up onto his shoulder.

"I should introduce you," he decided. "Cid here joined me about a year ago, said he recognized a great deal of untapped psychic potential in me. We've been working together to draw it out, and he says that eventually we'll be able to go and sort out some problems in his homeland of Almia."

Riolu, Pikachu and Ash looked between one another. Ash eventually spoke up. "Ritchie, mind if my Pokémon and I have a chat for a second?"

"Not at all, go ahead," Ritchie agreed.

"Okay, guys, any idea what's going on?" Ash asked, quietly but fervently. "He's different to last time, and the Kirlia's new."

Riolu covered one eye and looked between the two trainers. "And you say you were uncannily similar then as well?"

"Yes, and I have no idea what could have changed him."

"Well, I've got an idea," Riolu said. "I'm going to make a guess about when he caught Cid. There's this thing I've heard about, it's called… entangled souls, I think, or entangled destinies. It means that two people have corresponding lives, in some way."

He shrugged. "I never studied it, but I've heard stories about it. It doesn't always last a long time and it can be hard to notice because they don't have to be nearby or meet. But what it means is that the things that are different about your life this time would be different about his in some way too."

"Like what?" Ash asked.

"Aura potential and psychic potential, similar Pokémon – this is for you and him, obviously. So his Kirlia and I would correspond together, and I suspect he caught Cid the same day you hatched me."

That is strange to think about, Dexter said. So I would have a counterpart as well? What about Ho-Oh?

"I don't know, for either of those," Riolu shrugged. "It's like a guess, more than anything, but they look similar in Aura sight and it reminded me of the thing I'd heard. I guess we'll find out for sure if you battle him, though."

Ash winced. "That is just strange… can we break it somehow?"

"Would you want to? It's about the shape of your lives, and it's just how you two are."

"I suppose so," Ash said, before shrugging and heading back over. "Sorry about that… Riolu had a guess about something. Anyway, I noticed that we're in the same block, and we'll be in the same last 8 match. I just wanted to wish you good luck."

"Does that mean you're saying you hope I win?" Ritchie asked, grinning.

"Only your next match," Ash shot back. "It's way better for you if you get finally defeated by me, because that'll mean you were only beaten by the winner!"

"Such a lucky situation!" Ritchie said pompously, then sniggered, but kept going. "That the gods would deliver me a quarter final opponent I can defeat in a truly spectacular way, showing off how arrogant he has become."

"Oh, did they change your slot?" Ash asked. "Huh, you'd think I'd know about it…"

The two kept it up for a few more minutes before finally agreeing to call it a no-score draw, and parted ways to prepare for their next matches.

Ash's next opponent, Torren, slammed his fists together with an almighty bang.

"I have seen your Pokémon fight, and they have good Ki. They are tough! I will prove that I am tougher!"

Ash frowned, then shrugged. "If you say so. Didn't I see you at the P1 grand prix?"

"Yes. I was defeated by the one you faced in the finals." Torren took up his first Pokéball. "But enough talk! Machoke!"

Ash threw his own. "You know, I feel kind of bad about this…"

The Machoke landed in a crouch, Focusing his Energy to the optimal concentration for martial arts. Placing his hands on the floor and rising to a starter's crouch, he readied himself to launch across the stadium in a Mach Punch…

Then he saw his opponent.

Butterfree floated gently about ten feet above the stadium floor on slight air currents. "Well, that was all very impressive, but I'm up here."

Not one to give up, Machoke punched at Butterfree so fast that the air from his attack made a bullet – a Vacuum Wave.

The butterfly took the hit, and barely flinched. "That's it?"

He began to circle in a set of loops in the sky, gradually accelerating. "You're not going to make much of an impression with Fighting type moves."

Machoke's fist caught fire, and the Fighting-type crouched to spring into the air.

"…that is a substantial improvement." Butterfree slipped sideways in the air as the first Fire Punch came in, dancing around the fist as it overextended and exploiting the thermals to rise much higher into the air.

"Machoke, use Flamethrower!"

Butterfree's eyes bugged out, at least as much as they were able to do with being made up of ommatidia. "Oh, that can't be normal or safe."

Machoke rubbed the palms of his hands together, vigorously enough that after a second or so a bright glow appeared. Snapping his fingers over it produced a spark, which turned the glow into a pool of burning light, and he blew a great tongue of flame from the kindled fire in his hands at Butterfree.

Riolu took notes."…ignite with spark…"

With a backflip and dive, Butterfree evaded the first few Flamethrower attacks. "Okay, enough is enough. Psybeam!"

The coruscating beam of psychic force hit Machoke in the chest, sending him staggering backwards and breaking the stance he was using to project fire.

Butterfree flashed past, the wake from his wings sharpening and cutting small gashes in Machoke's arms and chest, before dousing the Fighting type in Sleep Powder and finishing him off with Dream Eater.

In addition to knocking Machoke out, that also gave Butterfree back a lot of the energy he'd lost from glancing blows by Machoke's fire jets.

"Most impressive," Torren said, retrieving his Pokémon. "Are you truly a Butterfree, or a martial artist at heart dreaming he is a Butterfree?"

"Was that supposed to make sense?"Butterfree asked Ash uncertainly. Ash shrugged.

"I think it's a Koan. They're supposed not to."

Torren threw a second Pokémon into the arena. "Face Zen!"

A Mr. Mime materialized. Immediately upon doing so, he sat down seiza and began to glow.

"Is that Pokémon called Zen?" Ash asked. "Or are they just Zen without being called it?"

"I think that's a Koan," Pikachu contributed.

Butterfree fired a Bug Buzz at his opponent experimentally, producing a beautiful flare as the energy deflected off a Light Screen – and very little else.

"Oh, brilliant. A Barrier warrior. I don't like these."

Mr. Mime's eye glinted for a second, and a thunderbolt speared down from the sky, clipping Butterfree's rear right wing.

"Gah! Okay, how… right. They can learn that, of course." Butterfree shattered his form into a dozen Double Teams, which began evasion manoeuvres.

Offence… defence… weaknesses.

Butterfree wasn't a barrier master himself, but he knew a lot of the theory.

A defence simply couldn't be invulnerable everywhere, not without an enormous disparity in strength. The attacker always had the advantage of selecting where to attack, the defender an advantage that the same amount of energy was stronger blocking.

And there were three basic types of shield. Point of impact, where the shield only protected the exact places where the attack was coming in. Bubble, which was a globe of equal strength. And plane, where it was a wall of energy.

Butterfree decided to do a bit of experimenting.

He built up a bit more height, then his doubles took up positions with him in an orbit around the Mr. Mime. In unison, they began an Air Cutter, then dropped and gained speed in a blur of movement. Razor wakes forming from their wings, the Butterfrees went shooting around the Psychic type in a circle made of individual hyperbolae and soared up again.

Two feet from the Mr. Mime, the real attack was deflected by a flash of light. But the deflection scatter formed a circle, flickering around Mr. Mime, who then retaliated with a Thunderbolt attack.

That meant it wasn't a plane shield – the circle alone disproved it. That left point of impact and bubble, and both of them could be beaten… in different ways.

Butterfree did a roll, making sure he couldn't be targeted easily, then decided to try point of impact first.

It was a type of shield which worked best against strong attacks, but you couldn't use it to cover a large area cheaply. Which meant…

"Sunny Day!" Butterfree pushed out what clouds there were, and intensified the evening sunlight bathing him as he soared near the top of the arena.

"And now… Solarbeam!"

The Solarbeam was nowhere near as focused as the ones he normally used. In fact, it was spread over the entirety of Mr. Mime's surface and the area around him.

It was present for just a moment, then a fireworks display of shield dazzle outshone it, and Butterfree knew he'd guessed right.

The point of impact shield didn't work well against area attacks. It was far too costly to defend the entire surface, which was one of the big problems with it, and Mr. Mime couldn't even see Butterfree to counterattack… at least, in the few seconds he had before his shield collapsed, leaving him tired enough that Torren withdrew the Psychic-type.

"I can see that you are too skilled in the art of aerial combat to defeat with one who is tied to the ground," he said, putting his hands together. "In that case, you will face my master of Kendo. Scyther!"

The two Bug types opened their fight by circling warily in the air, neither wanting to make the first move.

Butterfree felt the Sunny Day expire, and didn't bother to sustain it. Keeping it up in the evening was tiring anyway, and against a Scyther the move he used with it most often was effectively useless.

Scyther finally attacked with an Air Slash, the bigger brother of Butterfree's Air Cutter. Butterfree slipped around it with an Aerial Ace, and the two began jousting in the skies.

"He's really got good at that." Ash commented absently, as the action continued to climb. Both Pokémon were enhanced by some kind of move, either Quiver Dance for Butterfree or Swords Dance for Scyther, and they were leaving trails in the darkening sky.

"I suppose he's had a lot of time to practice. I-wow!"

Apparently something else had happened, as now every time the points of light met they produced a shower of sparks.

Set up. Analyzing… I think it's their wakes meeting. They're still getting faster, by the way.

"I can explain."

Ash looked around with a start, to see Butterfree on the ground next to him. "Er, hang on…"

He tried pointing without being too obvious. "Shouldn't you be, well, up there?"

"Substitute. It's provoking him into going for an all-out charge to finish the fight. Kendo masters are suckers for that."

"So how's that going to end without the Substitute just falling apart and him realizing the mistake?"

"Iron defence. In the second before it evaporates, it's going to feel like hitting a brick wall."

Torren finally spotted the butterfly and called up a warning, but Scyther was too far up to hear him. A final explosive burst of light lit up the dusk, and the Mantis Pokémon fell out of the sky in a daze.

"And that's me three for zero. Not bad for my debut, I think."

AN:

Destiny Entanglement is a concept from the Charlie Stross books, while Machoke's method of using Flamethrower is based off Dustfinger from Inkheart.

Butterfree is fun. His sweeping this match is a little bit based on Lulu from Petty's Nuzlocke, who completely steamrollered Bruno for no loss.

Like most of the League chapters, not many changes.