A/N: Yes, It's a new chapter. Yes, it took longer than the last one. Yes, I'll try to get the next one out quicker. No, you should not take that as a promise. see notes at the end.
"Murkrow, dodge it and use Haze!"
"Murkrow!" The duel type cried and moved out of the way of Staravia's glowing wings.
Once she'd moved safely out of range, she opened her beak and blew out a stream of black smoke that quickly engulfed Ash's Staravia.
Harry and Ash were currently having a battle at the pokémon center as a way to pass the time.
After Harry's battle, Ash had made it clear that he wanted to battle against Roark immediately. Paul had informed the other boy, with a few less-than-polite words, that he was already scheduled to battle the gym leader as well as throwing in an insult about the other trainer. Roark had stepped in before things could get too heated and told both boys that he would be taking Paul as a challenger the next day, as his pokémon were tired from their battle with Harry, and have Ash's the day after that. Paul had tersely agreed and left. Harry had decided that he would be going to the pokémon center as well to get his exhausted pokémon looked after and the three other trainers had accompanied him there, with Ash and Dawn giving praise and asking questions about his battle strategy. Well, Dawn was asking about his strategy, she had been working on some new combinations and wanted to pick his brain, while Ash was giving an animated recap of his battle and talking about how psyched he was for his own.
Once they had arrived at the center, and Harry had left his pokémon with nurse Joy and Chancy, Ash had challenged him to a battle, claiming that he had promised the other boy a battle the next time their paths crossed. Harry had given the other boy a raincheck for the next day, to his new friend's (?) slight disappointment.
The next morning, the two had gone outside to have a one-on-one battle using Murkrow, to make up for her not participating in Harry's gym battle, and Staravia, to make up for the fact that Ash had decided not to use the starling pokémon in his gym battle either. Leading to the current battle taking place in the air behind the pokémon center.
"Staravia, blow it away with Whirlwind!"
"SarStaStar" Staravia chirped out, as it flapped its wings sending out gales of wind cutting through the Haze.
Harry smirked at the command and was giving his own almost immediately. "Murkrow, now use Feint Attack."
"MurKroow" Murkrow swooped down at Staravia from above, swinging a glowing purple wing at her opponent before, in the blink of an eye the glow transferred to her other wing as she hit Staraviafrom the opposite side.
"Star!" Staravia let out a cry of pain as it was knocked back by attack before righting itself in mid-air.
"Staravia, are you okay?" Ash called, getting an affirming chirp from his current battle partner as it shook itself together.
There had been so little time between the two trainers' directions that Ash didn't even have time to give another command.
"Staravia, get going!"
"Star!"
Staravia gave a flap of its wings before darting forward and upwards towards where the other avian was.
"Murkrow, use Feint Attack!"
"Stop them with Quick Attack!"
"StarRavia!" Staravia cried out as it suddenly put on a burst of speed, leaving behind a trail of white energy, as it darted towards the duel type.
Murkrow let out a squawk of surprise, just as her wings began to glow dark purple, at her suddenly oncoming opponent. Followed by a cry of pain as she was hit and knocked out of the air before she was able to fully ready her Attack.
"Murkrow!" Harry shouted in fright, watching for a moment, as his friend was sent careening out of the air. His fear for his friend was pushed away in a split second as he was hit with an idea.
"Murkrow, straighten out and use Brave Bird towards the ground."
"Krow!?" Murkrow squawked in disbelief at the command. She hesitated for a second before complying with her trainer's instructions. Straightening herself into a dive-bombing position, her body ignited into flames as she dove.
"Alright Staravia, after them with Aerial Ace!" Ash called.
"Star!" Staravia tucked its wings in as it began diving downwards behind Murkrow, picking up speed as white streaks of energy began coming from around its beak surrounding it, as its speed steadily increased.
Harry smiled to himself as he saw Ash doing exactly what he needed him to. He steadfastly ignored the fact that he had no clue if this plan would transition from his imagination to reality.
"Keep going Murkrow!"
"Stay on 'em Staravia!"
"Krow!"
"Star!"
Harry watched, feeling beads of sweat on his forehead, as the other pokémon slowly got closer to his partner and his partner, much more quickly, got closer to the ground. Hoping that Murkrow got within range, for his plan before Staravia got to her.
Everything seemed to be happening both in fast-forward and slow motion. Once Murkrow was only a few yards from the ground Harry made his move.
"Up! Now!"
"Murkrow!" Immediately at the command, Murkrow pulled up whilst spreading her wings, her whole body becoming engulfed in a blue aura as she flew inches above the ground before pulling completely up and heading skyward. As she was going up she passed a very shocked Staravia, still headed for the battlefield.
"Staravia, pul-!"
"Star!"
Ash hadn't even finished his sentence, when the thud and pain-filled cry were heard from Staravia impacting with the ground and sending up a small dust cloud.
"Murkrow, please finish this," Harry said cooly, with a sly smile.
"MurKrow!" The dark and flying type curved upside-down from her position still flying upwards, in a large loop, before coming down and torpedoing straight at a shaking Staravia that was still trying to pull itself from the ground.
Staravia could only let out a startled trill before Murkrow collided with it, sending up a large smoke cloud. A few moments after the impact, Murkrow flew out of the smoke cloud as it quickly began to dissipate.
Once the smoke was cleared everyone could see Staravia lying on the battlefield, its eyes swirled in unconsciousness.
"Staravia is unable to battle the winners are Murkrow and Harry." Called Brock, who was acting as a referee for their battle.
" Sterevia, You okay?" Asked Ash as he walked onto the battlefield and over to his pokémon, where it was just starting to come to.
"StarAvia." It cried, in reassurance.
Ash smiled at his friend before taking out its pokéball " You were great, take a good rest." he said as he returned his pokémon.
"Murkrow, you were brilliant." Harry gushed, holding out his arm for Murkrow to land on.
"Mur!" She cried, impatiently eyeing Harry's waist pouch.
Harry laughed as he reached into the bag and pulled out the basket of poképuffs he knew she wanted. He could also feel that she was feeling proud of her win and very happy at his praise.
Taking out a puff he handed it over to his companion who immediately snatched it up in her beak, instead of pecking at it like she normally did.
"Time for a rest." He said returning her to her ball once she was done with her treat.
" And not a minute too soon." He added, looking at his pokétch and checking the time.
"It's almost time for Paul's battle with Roark. We better leave Staravia and Murkrow with Nurse Joy and start heading over if we don't want to be late."
"Ah, you're right," Ash said, before putting and hand on the back of his head and smiling sheepishly. "I almost forgot about that."
"You really do have a one-track mind when it comes to battling, don't you Ash?" Dawn said, a slight giggle in her voice, as she came to stand near the others on the field.
"Though I can't blame you, that was a great match. Harry, what was that move you pulled at the end with the Brave Bird?" Brock asked as the group made their way into the Pokemon center.
"Well, actually that's something new." He replied, deciding to omit the fact that he had decided to go for it out of the blue with no prior practice or consideration. He actually felt a bit conflicted about whether or not it was right of him to just take a gamble with Murkrow on a stunt like that. When he had seen Murkrow falling he had suddenly thought back to the quittage world cup, and the Wronski Feint he had seen Victor Krum perform and had decided to go for it. He tried to push the feeling away, knowing very well that improvisation was a cornerstone of a great coordinator, and he would definitely be put in a position where his judgment call would be the deciding factor of whether or not his pokémon got hurt. It was something he had talked with Olympia about at length.
"I'm going to call it; The Murkrow Feint," Harry told the trio, coming out of his internal musing.
"So cool!"
"Mmhmm"
Ash enthused as Dawn hummed her agreement with a firm nod of her head.
"It looked incredible, and not just the attack, but the way Murkrow moved at the last second and made that big loop was incredible. I'm sure it would be great in either the appeals or battle round. Are you planning to use it in a contest?"
"Maybe, at some point. But first I want to practice and make sure that Murkrow has it down pat before we try that on stage and in front of an audience."
"That makes sense. Practice makes perfect after all. So are there any other contest routines you've been working on?" The cobalt-haired girl asked, "I'd love to swap ideas."
"Yeah, I've actually been trying to find a good way to use that spinning Dragon Tail move, and the Double Team, Shock Wave combo in the appeals round." Harry started.
Dawn was happy to have run into Harry again, she liked to be able to have in-depth conversations about contests and performance. Ash, while not bad when it came to battles and coming up with new moves and combinations, wasn't the best at conversation about pokémon without going off on gym battle tangents. And while Brock was better at it than Ash, it wasn't anything like talking to another coordinator. She sometimes felt a bit jealous that Ash could always speak with Brock about pokémon battles and get advice and ideas, with Brock being a former gym leader, but she couldn't get the same type of support. She didn't dwell on it too much though and just enjoyed the chance to talk with Harry while they were with the green-eyed trainer.
Harry and Dawn continued to talk contest as Brock and Ash discussed what the upcoming battle would be like, as the four made their way down the road to the gym.
Hogwarts - Headmaster's Office
Albus Dumbledore found himself, once again, pacing in his office. His mind was on the situation that it had been stuck on for the past months; the disappearance of Harry Potter.
The entire situation had started after the boy had been discovered to be missing the morning after a fight he had had with Ms. Granger in the common room. It later came to light that, in her frustration of being put between her only two friends, the witch had let it slip that she had not believed that Harry hadn't put his name into the competition. The argument had escalated and then completely blew up when Mr. Weasley became involved in the argument alongside Ms. Granger. The whole of Gryffindor Tower had witnessed the three, former, friends scream at each other, with two-thirds of them accusing the other of, once again, intentionally seeking out danger/attention. The argument had ended with Harry storming up to his bed alone. Neville Longbottom had gone up to check on him and had seen that the curtains around his bed were drawn but had, apparently heard crying. The next day the Longbottom heir had, once again gone to check on the other boy, only to discover him missing.
The entirety of the castle had been searched upon the news, the staff believed he was just hiding, seeing as his wand was found under his pillow along with his cloak. Initially, Albus had tried to keep the disappearance a secret, but once the extremely thorough search of Hogwarts and the grounds, had netted no results, the news quickly spread out through wizarding Britain. Speculation on where the Boy Who Lived could be ranged from him simply quitting and returning to the muggle world, to him being kidnaped by various organizations. Albus knew the first option to be false, he had gone to see Harry's relatives the day after searching the castle and they had told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't there and they were glad for it.
The vast majority of the students of Hogwarts believed that Harry was simply "hiding like a coward" and would turn up again for the task. No matter what the lion's share of opinions on the boy was, nobody believed he or anyone would risk losing their magic. So for the weeks leading up to the first task, the student body continued the same as they had been before Harry had disappeared. However, once the first task had come and gone the students had gone from mockery and ridicule to confusion and doubt. There were a select few students, mainly in Slytherin, that still wholeheartedly believed that Harry had entered his name in the tournament and chickened out, but the rest weren't so quick to agree. It was one thing to believe that someone would brake rules and put their name into a dangerous competition and go into hiding when they were caught. But to refuse to come back to compete and be rendered a squib? That was a hard potion for anyone to swallow.
The students, along with the rest of the wizarding world learned just how concerning the circumstances around Harry's departure were. A few days after the first task, Rita Skeeter, a journalist that had been publishing some of the more outlandish stories about Harry, had been discovered in Gringotts bank, allegedly attempting to break into someone's vault. She had been an unregistered beetle animagus and had thought that because she had been able to get into Gringotts without issue it would be the same for the vaults. She had been wrong. The wards around the vaults had alerted the guards and forcefully changed her back to her human form. The goblins had notified the ministry of the attempted breach after capturing and detaining the women. Normally the goblins would have executed her, as was their right to do so to any witch or wizard caught stealing from their bank but had run into an unusual problem, the vault she was trying to access didn't have an existing account anymore. The account had been closed out and the vault was empty, so technically there was no way for her to steal from it, meaning that her only crime had been breaking into the bank which was trespassing into goblin territory, which, according to the treaty between the ministry and the goblins, was a crime to be sentenced by the ministry.
Once Skeeter had been dealt with, a lengthy stay in Azkaban for being an unregistered animagus along with additional time added for her breaking into the bank, the ministry had turned to the goblins for information on the missing Boy Who Lived.
It was then discovered that all accounts that could be accessed or could only be owned by one Harry James Potter, had been completely emptied and, by Gringotts police, closed on the last day Harry had been seen. However, the strangest part of the closed-out accounts had been the writing on the banks' ledger records. The huge tome that acted as the bank accounts ledger recorded all the names of everyone who had ever had accounts in Gringotts, with active clients written in gold and deceased clients written in red, and the vault numbers, balance, and status in black. However, the name Harry Potter was written in white next to the words 'Account Closed, November 07, 9:23 PM.
This revelation had given them several answers and left them with several questions. First, they learn that Harry was, thankfully, alive, otherwise his name would have appeared red. Second was that whatever he did to clear out his vaults, he had done it at Hogwarts. and lastly was that wherever Harry was, he had a veritable fortune at his disposal. But the question of how he did it, where he was, and what the white letter meant were things that nobody knew.
When ministry officials questioned why the goblins had not notified them when the transaction had occurred, they were told that it had been done through an approved method transaction and that was all the bank was concerned about. So unless the ministry had asked the bank about any transaction regarding the Potter accounts, they had no reason to inform the ministry about anything.
Despite the information gathered from the bank, it was just a dead-end in actually finding the boy.
Albus stopped his pacing and sat down behind his desk before taking one of his lemon drops from the dish and looking at the yellow candy intently.
From the moment he learned of Harry's disappearance from Hogwarts Albus had been trying every method he could think of to locate him, all to no avail. Even Fawkes, a phoenix that could break through virtually any ward or enchantment, had been unable to find him. He still had several other options to try but the list was steadily shrinking and he didn't know what he would do if they all failed as well.
Sirius and Remus had left for the content, in search of their dead friend's son, despite Albus' worries that they had no leads. They had figured that Harry would go somewhere he could speak the language and knowing he was bilingual, (technically trilingual, counting parseltongue) they had headed off to France. Last he heard they were searching in Nantes.
Albus sighed, putting the candy down on his desk and turning to look out the window over the school, now no longer pondering on what to do next, and reflecting once again reflecting on where things when wrong.
"Perhaps, we shouldn't have restarted the tournament." He mused to himself.
Sinnoh Region - Oreburgh City - Oreburgh Gym
"Cranidos is unable to battle, Elekid wins! The victor is Paul! Ian announced.
On the battlefield, Cranidos was sprawled out, unconscious, across from Paul's Elekid who was visibly banged up from the final collision between their Zen Headbutt and Brick Break.
"Paul did it," Ash noted.
"Yeah, he did," Harry added listlessly, a small frown on his face.
The battle had been very...intense. Harry had known that Paul was a pretty hard-nosed trainer and didn't shy away from the more disadvantageous choices in battle. But to see how he managed to beat a rock-type gym leader with a Chimchar and Elekid was something else. Especially after his Azumarill had been beaten in two hits of Geodudes Roll Out. Paul's battle had certainly had much less, finesses than Harry's but was impressive nonetheless.
Harry wasn't sure if it was confidence in their abilities or disinterest in their well-being but, Paul sure didn't let the prospect of taking an attack stop him from using a move or tactic. He hadn't even blinked at substituting a pokemon even with Stealth Rock in play, or the use of Chimchars Blaze when it was low on endurance. One thing was for sure, Paul got results.
Both Roark and Paul returned their pokemon and moved to the side of the field.
"Here's your Oreburgh Gym badge," Roark said holding out a small tray, the same way he had done for Harry the day before. "Congratulations Paul."
"Thank you very much, Roark," Paul said, still sounding rough but not disingenuous and taking the badge and giving a nod of his head. "I'll be seeing you."
Turning, around he began walking away.
"Ash your battel is scheduled for any time after 10 AM tomorrow, alright?" Harry heard Roark confirm with Ash as he walked over and fell in step with Paul.
"So do have somewhere to be or are you going to stick around for Ash's battle?"
Before Paul could answer him, Ash chimed in. "Yeah, aren'tcha going to watch my battle?" Both trainers turned round around to look at the other. Harry was wondering how Ash had managed to make that sentence sound like a challenge.
Paul just huffed out an amused and derisive laugh at the rather aggressive question.
"What's so funny?"
"That you want me, to watch you lose."
"What!?"
Harry took a step away as Ash took a step forward toward Paul at the last gibe, just as Dawn quickly got between the two her hands raised to each of them, Pikachu mimicking her from her feet.
"Alright, time out!" She then turned towards Paul. "You've already battled Ash once. Why not stay and watch?"
Paul just stared at her intensely for a few seconds.
"What-what's wrong?"
"What's wrong? Who are you?"
Paul's monotone question, throw Harry for a loop. Paul had been there at the pokemon center on Route 203, and he knew that they had met at least once before then too.
"Excuse me, your rudeness! But we've met once before! The names Dawn!" Dawn said, visibly vexed.
"Don't remember."
That seemed to be the final straw.
"You think you're funny, don't cha!"
"Listen, mister. You nasty, insulting, spoiled brat! Apologize!"
Dawn was leaning into Paul's face just as Brock darted over and pulled her back keeping a hold behind her elbows as she began to struggle and kick out at Paul.
"Come on Dawn. Calm down."
Harry jumped back at the initial outburst and hid behind Paul, who was calm as could be, as Dawn continued kicking out.
"Are you going to stay or not?" Harry asked as he tentatively stepped out from behind the taller boy, shooting Dawn a few hesitant looks to make sure he wasn't too close in case she tried to go for Paul again.
"With that enthusiasm how can I refuse?" he said with a mocking smile directed at Ash.
"Good! And I'm going to show you a whole new style of battle."
Ash and Paul glared at each other for a few long seconds. "Great, hopefully, I get to watch the whole thing before heading off ." Harry piped up, trying to break the tension. His plan worked a bit too well as he immediately had the four of them looking at him now.
"What do you mean? You're leaving?" Dawn asked, now calm and sounding a tad disappointed.
Harry nodded taking out his Town map and opening it, and pointing at a blip a bit up Route 204 and opening up a tab. "Yeah, I've been planning to enter the Littlefield Town contest scheduled for next week for a while now. And if I want to get there and have enough time to prepare then I have to catch the bus from here to Jubilife City. And the Bus only makes that trip once a week." He explained, showing a contest announcement.
"I really want to see a great battle before I leave town. So give it your best Ash. You don't want to be the only one to leave her without a badge, right?"
Ash gave a determined smile as he lifted his hand and clenched his fist. " That's right. There's no way I'm leaving here without a badge." He assured his face the picture of conviction.
Harry smiled at the expression, happy to have gotten the other boy's mind off his rival. The happiness was short-lived however when Ash once again glared as he turned back to Paul who was now staring back, his usual hard, analyzing look on his face. Harry let out a soft sigh at seeing back at it.
"Bet on it," Ash said still looking at Paul
"Come on, you should probably get your pokemon to Nurse Joy. And I have to pick up Murkrow." Harry said to Paul as he started making his way to the exit and felt relieved when he heard the footfalls behind him just before Paul fell into step next to him as Ash Dawn and Brock started falling a bit behind them.
'I should call home when I get back to the center.' Harry thought to himself with a worm smile on his face. Not even realizing that he had referred to the research lab as home in his head as he walked out of the gym with his friends.
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I got tangled up, mostly in video games, over the course of the last year and a half. I found out last year that they made Skyrim for the Ps4 and I bout that and beat all of it, and I mean ALL! OF! IT! including DLC. And if anyone has played that game you will understand just how much time that game takes up and also got into Assassin's Creed and fell down another gaming hole. Then early this year I got a new job, which thank God, because it got me out of working in Fast Food. However, I'm now working Full-time so that means less time to write, unfortunately. Also, I got the new Hogwarts Legacy game a couple of months ago, but I haven't started it yet. I told myself I wouldn't start any new games until I had put out one more chapter of this story. Anyways Hope you enjoyed it.