Hi to any returning readers and sorry? It's been 5 years and I'm too lazy to type out all my excuses. Chief among them is I forgot about this story. There is a double update for you though, so there's that!
Dismounting from Noivern's back, Ash rubbed the dragon on his crest, whispering that there would be a lot of berries for him once they were set up for the night. Smiling at the happy cry he received in return, Ash returned Noivern while releasing Lycanroc and turning to the building they had landed in front of. Petting Lycanroc on the head, he entered as his pokemon sniffed at the cold exterior. While the outside of the building looked almost like a fortress, the inside was surprisingly cozy, with a fireplace and couches in one corner of the large space. Much of the room housed a few desks, which all had copious amounts of paperwork spread upon them, although none of them were currently occupied. What looked like a reception desk did have someone there, however; a dark-skinned woman with close-cropped hair who looked quite annoyed to have been stuck with said job. Seeing that her coat had a badge pinned to it denoting her as a member of the Ranger Corps, Ash approached her and lightly coughed into his hand, keeping the other on his pokemon's back to keep him calm.
"Excuse me, I'm Ash Ketchum and-"
Before Ash could get a sentence out he was interrupted by the woman, who had lazily looked over towards him, before slightly perking up once he said his name.
"Oh, you're the kid Professor Oak called about. You sure got here fast."
Ash blinked in surprise, before letting out a sudden chuckle. "Of course the Professor called ahead, what was I expecting. So you might already know this, but I'm looking for an old friend of mine, a larvitar. I wanted to see if he wanted to come with me now that he's grown up a bit. His mother was attacked by poachers years ago and so I raised him from an egg."
"Poachers huh?" the ranger said, turning towards a computer that Ash hadn't noticed before. After typing for a moment, she flipped the computer towards Ash. "This her?" The picture on the screen was of a large tyranitar with a massive scar across its chest, a scar that Ash recognized as belonging to Larvitar's mother. Nodding at the woman, he stepped backwards once more, only to almost trip over a liepard that had decided that the perfect place to lie was behind his feet.
"Whoops, sorry about that," the ranger apologized. "Marsha, get over here." With a put-upon look, the liepard slowly got to its feet and slunk over towards its trainer, taking extra time to flick Lycanroc with its tail as it passed by. As his pokemon growled in response, Ash sighed and put his hand on the rock-type's neck. "It's alright, mine here's a little protective, and quick to anger. Not exactly the best combination."
"Don't worry about it. Now about the larvitar and tyranitar. Unfortunately for you, they actually split probably close to a year back. Nothing bad, the larvitar had just grown up enough to go off on his own. She actually kept him around longer than most tyranitar do, probably something to do with the separation during his hatching. To the best of my knowledge, he won't have evolved just yet, although he might be close. The best chance of finding him is to stick to the more mountainous regions with a lot of clear space, as if he's still a larvitar then he'll need to eat a lot of soil. Pupitar tend to secret themselves away in caves since they can't do much. You'll find the mountainous areas starting a few kilometers to the north of here, best to look for him around there." Even as the ranger had been giving her spiel, her liepard had been attempting to get her attention and had eventually just climbed on top of the desk she was sitting at, lying down in front of the woman. Judging by her lack of response to this, it was likely a frequent occurrence.
"Cool, is there anything else I should be worried about?"
"Not much more than the usual around here, and based on how strong your pokemon looks, you should be fine. There is a flock of territorial skarmory over the mountainous region near here, so if you have a flyer maybe dismount it when you get close. Just keep your wits about you and you'll do alright."
"Awesome, thank you!"
"No problem, just don't die out there. It'd be too much paperwork for me to fill out."
Thinking this was a joke, Ash laughed, until he saw the semi-exasperated look on the ranger's face. Nodding at her with a small gulp, Ash walked back out the entrance, Lycanroc following in his step.
Returning Lycanroc and releasing Noivern in the same motion, Ash gave his pokemon a second to stretch his wings before climbing on his back and slightly digging his heels in to signal he was ready for takeoff. As Noivern beat his massive wings and took to the sky, Ash whispered that they should go north, trusting that his pokemon's fantastic hearing would pick up his words.
Once Noivern began to get closer to what Ash could see as a more rocky region of the area, Ash dug his heels into Noivern's side three times, letting the pokemon know he wanted to descend. Upon landing, the dragon-type looked at his trainer in confusion and gave a short shriek, seemingly asking why they descended.
Taking the time to check on his pokemon, Ash focused on stretching out Noivern's wings for a second, ignoring the question. When Noivern poked his head at Ash, however, the trainer sighed slightly and responded.
"There's a flock of skarmory in the area we're gonna be searching for. I'm sure you're individually stronger than any of them, but you don't have any moves that can do real damage to them. That's why we're going to work on flamethrower and other moves soon."
While this seemed to bring down Noivern's mood for a moment, the pokemon quickly perked back up when he heard they would be working on new moves. With a pleased screech, Noivern licked his trainer's face, before returning himself to his pokeball. Chuckling, Ash wiped his face off before releasing Bayleef and Quilava.
Unfortunately for Ash, his attempt to sidestep Bayleef's tackle was unsuccessful, and the trainer was quickly brought to the ground by his pokemon.
"Oof. Good to see you too, Bayleef. Can you get off please?"
For once, Bayleef seemed inclined to listen and got off her trainer with only a short pause. As Ash got to his feet, he reached down and scratched Quilava behind the ears, before straightening and rubbing Bayleef under her leaf.
"Okay, you two. We're looking for Larvitar, but we probably won't find him for a bit. So keep your eyes and ears peeled both for him and for any danger."
Once his pokemon gave affirmative cries, Ash smiled at them and began walking north, hoping that they would find Larvitar without too much trouble.
They had been walking for almost an hour, Quilava being returned nearly 30 minutes before, as her short legs weren't great for walking for long distances. It had just been him and Bayleef for a while, and she was in her element in the forest, but unfortunately, they had just begun the trek towards the mountain and were moving on rocky terrain.
As the two passed by a couple of caves and started to round a bend, Ash heard an odd noise coming from all around them. It almost sounded like someone was scraping claws on rocks. Lowering his hand to a pokeball, Ash motioned for Bayleef to be quiet and keep moving forward, only to leap back, startled, as a number of dark shapes darted in front of them. By instinct alone, Ash opened the pokeball in his hand even as he was knocked to the ground.
Ash landed on his back and quickly rolled to his left, managing to avoid the claws that would have pierced his chest. Looking towards Bayleef, the trainer cursed as he saw that his pokemon's back legs had been frozen to the ground, and she was trying to fend off an attacker but wasn't having much success due to her limited mobility. Before he could reach down and release another of his pokemon however, Ash felt the pressure of claws against his throat and froze in place.
Looking up, Ash saw the dark blue, nearly black fur, and red feathering of a male weavile. The pokemon snarled at him and poked at his right hand, which had been hovering over his pokeballs. Though his experience with the pokemon was fairly limited, he knew it was a predatory dark-type, but certainly not stupid, so he slowly moved his hand away from his belt, keeping it just to the side of his chest. Daring to look to the side for a moment, Ash noticed some charred boulders on his right and saw that he had managed to release Quilava, who was currently blasting at a sneasel with a flamethrower.
However, Ash had taken his eyes off the Weavile, whose claws dug deeper into the flesh of his throat, drawing blood. This made Ash let out a gasp, which caught Quilava's attention. Snarling, Quilava suddenly stopped shooting flames, leaping into a flame wheel. As the fire-type bashed into the chest of the sneasel she was dueling a moment ago, she used the momentum to begin racing around the group of dark-types, gaining more and more speed as the size of the flames continued to expand in size.
As Quilava circled around the dark-types, a circle of flames began to entrap them, causing the Weavile holding Ash hostage to let out a growl and tighten its grip even further. Ash froze, not wanting to anger the deadly pokemon more, but even as he stilled, his pokemon moved faster and the flames it output grew higher. Quickly as Quilava was moving however, it soon came to a stop directly in front of Ash and the Weavile, before letting out a howl and erupting into bright light and swirling flames.
Typhlosion emerged from the flames and let out a fearsome roar as its back erupted in molten flames and lava, spewing all around the area and blowing the majority of the fragile dark-types from their feet. Ash felt the Weavile retract its claws from his neck, before he saw the wild pokemon glare at his newly evolved Typhlosion and hiss before turning tail and running into the wilderness, leaving a couple unconscious sneasel behind. The rest appeared to have fled as soon as they were hit with what must have been an eruption attack. Blood slowly dripped down Ash's neck as he put his hands on his knees and caught his breath, though as soon as he did so he was nudged by Typhlosion, who seemed concerned.
"I'm okay girl, that just surprised me more than anything. I guess I underestimated the dangers of Mount Silver! It's a good thing we didn't run into anything like those pokemon last time we were here, we might have gotten seriously hurt then."
Noticing that Bayleef was still frozen to the ground, Ash jogged over to her and rubbed her head with one hand while signaling for Typhlosion with the other.
"Typhlosion, can you blow some flames at the ground around Bayleef's feet? That way she doesn't get too hurt from your flames while we get her out of there."
The weasel pokemon nodded at Ash before gently blowing embers around the other pokemon's feet. While Bayleef looked to be in some discomfort, it seemed to be more from the pokemon's legs being covered in ice rather than some weak embers. Soon the ice had largely melted and Bayleef, free to move around, had moved away from Ash, turning away with her head down, appearing to sulk. Seeing this, Ash sighed, while thanking Typhlosion for her work and quietly praising her for evolving and scaring off the other pokemon.
"Bayleef, don't tell me that you're embarrassed about the sneasel getting the jump on you?"
As Ash said this, Bayleef laid down, still facing away from her trainer, and put her head on her legs. Ash shook his head at this, before sitting on the cold ground next to his pokemon.
"It's okay Bayleef, you don't have to be mad at yourself for not seeing them coming, I mean I didn't see them coming either and that Weavile trapped me in place before I could even release anyone other than Typhlosion." Seeing that this speech wasn't working on his pokemon, the young man tried a different tactic. "Look, if you're that upset then we'll just have to get stronger. We can both work on being more aware of our surroundings, and you can learn some more ranged moves in case you get stuck like that again."
This seemed to have a positive impact on Bayleef, as she finally turned around and buried her head into Ash's stomach, cooing happily. Ash let out a sigh of relief, before speaking up again.
"Glad to hear it Bayleef. Why don't I return you and Typhlosion for now, so you can get some rest after that encounter. I'll let out Lycanroc since we should be getting to a rocky area soon." Both of the trainer's pokemon nodded, and Ash returned them before letting out Lycanroc, who stuck his nose in the air and sniffed before bounding over to Ash and nosing at his neck, which had slowed its bleeding. Lycanroc growled softly, his eyes flashing red as he saw the blood on his trainer's neck.
"Whoa buddy, it's alright! Let me grab a plaster out of my bag and then we'll keep moving so we don't stay where we got attacked." This seemed to mollify the dog pokemon, who nodded before looking around, hackles still raised. Working quickly, as he could see that his pokemon was on edge, Ash affixed a small bandage to his neck, before putting his medical supplies away and throwing his backpack back on.
"Alright! Let's keep moving. We only have a few hours until nightfall and I want to see if we can look for Larvitar for a little while before we have to find shelter." With this, Ash and his pokemon continued north.
It had been a couple of days since Ash was attacked by the pack of sneasel and weavile, and it seemed they were no closer to finding Larvitar, despite being in the area that the ranger had pointed him towards. Ash had even checked the map to make sure he hadn't gotten lost, and in finding landmarks around them, noticed that Silver Town was due almost directly west. He could tell that his pokemon were beginning to get frustrated with his search, however, as Lycanroc was quicker to anger and even Goodra seemed to droop slightly when released. Just as his thoughts began to turn towards annoyance, however, Noivern swooped down and let out a cry.
"Hey buddy, did you find something?" Ash called out to the dragon, as Noivern landed and began to screech excitedly, bobbing his head up and down. "Really? Well I guess we should go look!" Ash said happily, returning Bayleef and Lycanroc with a motion, and leaping onto Noivern's back, as the pokemon quickly returned to the air and turned towards one of the larger hills that Ash had sent the pokemon to fly over earlier.
As the two got closer to the hill, Ash could see that something was causing a huge cloud of dust to puff up, and dirt was sliding down the slope. The trainer directed his pokemon to put him down a little ways away from the mess that a pokemon was creating. Once on the ground Ash released Typhlosion and held up a hand to let Noivern know to stay there, then motioning for Typhlosion to follow him as he crept closer to the dust cloud. As he got closer, Ash was able to see that whatever was making the dust cloud wasn't very large, probably less than 3 feet tall. Deciding to risk it, Ash called out to the pokemon.
"Larvitar? Is that you? It's Ash!" When Ash had started talking the pokemon froze, and appeared to be moving away, but upon hearing his name it turned around and let out a cry. With a yell, the pokemon cleared the dust cloud away, and what strode out was a larvitar, about two and a half feet tall and looking much stockier than how Ash remembered him. The pokemon let out what Ash could only assume was a happy cry and jumped at Ash, tackling him to the ground, as he soon realized that this pokemon was much heavier than it appeared to be.
"It is you!" Ash groaned on the ground, as he tried and largely failed to lift Larvitar off of his chest. "You've gotten a lot heavier than the last time I saw you! I was able to pick you up then and I was a scrawny twelve year old then. Now, uh, would you mind letting me sit up? It's a little hard to talk to you when I can barely breathe bud."
Larvitar sat back at this, and pushed off of Ash's chest after one final happy cry, sitting in front of the trainer. Ash laughed as he sat up, rubbing his chest. "Thanks Larvitar, it was getting a little hard to breath there. It's good to see you though! It's been a few years and you've grown up big! Have you been eating a lot of dirt to get this big?" At this Larvitar cried out with a cheer and raised hisfist to the air, before grabbing some dirt from the ground and shoveling it into his mouth. Ash laughed at this, and motioned for Typhlosion to come closer.
"Hey Larvitar, do you remember my cyndaquil? Well, this is her, isn't she a lot bigger now?" Typhlosion gave the rock-type a wave as she stood up and flared her mane, striking a pose. "And apparently a little more dramatic," Ash sweatdropped. Larvitar looked at the fire-type with wide eyes, clapping his hands together excitedly. Laughing, Ash put his hands on his knees as he looked at the smaller pokemon.
"I have a question for you Larvitar. Would you like to come and train with me? I didn't ask you all of those years ago because you were taken from your mom and it wouldn't have been fair of me, but I've always thought of you as one of my pokemon and would love to see you with me. You can think about it for a minu-" even as Ash gave Larvitar the opportunity to think about his offer, the smaller pokemon had already tackled the trainer again, screeching happily.
Ash chuckled as he patted the rock-type on the head. "Well, I guess that settles it. Why don't you meet the rest of the pokemon I have on me when we get to Silver Town, we're going there for a small tournament, assuming we haven't missed it." Ash retrieved a spare pokeball from his belt and held it out to Larvitar, who pushed the button with a cheer, disappearing into the ball, which shook gently before dinging for a successful capture.
Calling out to his pokemon, Ash stood up. "Noivern, are you ready to take me to Silver Town? It should be west of here." Double-checking his map, Ash smiled at his eager pokemon as he returned Typhlosion and tucked everything away in his backpack. "On to Silver Town!"
