Essence

by vincentgrey21

Ash has always wanted to be a pokemon master. When the time comes for him to pick out his first pokemon, he shocks Professor Oak with a peculiar request. One thing leads to another, and he ends up with a loyal Growlithe. How will this unique situation affect the boy's destiny?

7. Kanto 7

Kanto 7: Essence

Despite the many times he had sworn that he would never ride Pidgeotto bareback again, Ash found himself grasping onto his avian's brawny neck like his life depended on it.

The wind was frigid as it smacked him across the face and caused his hair to careen and ruffle. They were entering into the latter half of Kanto's autumn, which meant that the weather was beginning to significantly drop in temperature.

His stomach twisted and turned as Pidgeotto thoughtlessly weaved around Fearow. Ash caught a momentary glimpse of Austin giving him a knowing smirk while he too straddled his very own flying-type.

Austin's experience wasn't brutal like Ash's. Austin was in possession of a rather nice saddle made out of tauros' hide, and Fearow used his adroitly honed skill at manipulating air currents in order to provide Austin with a smooth ride.

On the other hand, Ash's ride atop Pidgeotto was anything but smooth. Pidgeotto was flying at an incredible speed and had yet to become skilled at manipulating wind. To make things worse, because of their current circumstances, Ash's anxiety had already been triggered before he ever even climbed on top of Pidgeotto.

Only about fifteen minutes had passed since Kent's conversation with Bill, and they had been forced to traipse their way up several underground flights of stairs in order to reach the Magnet Train station's surface.

Once they reached the surface, Sabrina got in touch with Kent using her telepathy. The psychic virtuoso let Kent know that she was going to ambush Ariana via teleportation and that she needed back-up. Ash didn't know anything else, but he figured that Wallace must have been forced to stay back at the warehouse, probably to look after Robert.

Their present group only consisted of Kent, Austin and himself. They couldn't fill any of the trainees in on what was going on, primarily on account of the fact that they were short on time. At least, that's what Kent said. Ash and Austin were not a part of the telepathic conversation with Sabrina, so they weren't really sure what was going on. All they knew was that Ariana had escaped the warehouse hideout and that the other team needed their help to catch her.

Ash and Austin were presently riding their flying-types while Kent was hanging onto Arcanine's back as he dashed throughout the city. Arcanine effortlessly avoided the many walking citizens by nimbly jetting around them. With just about every bound the canine took, he garnered the frightened attention of the city's people. However, to them, Arcanine just appeared to be a yellow and black blur. The canine wasn't using Extreme Speed. If that were the case, Pidgeotto and Fearow wouldn't be able to keep up. But, he was moving fast enough to appear as an obscuration to those around him.

As they followed Kent's arcanine, from the sky, Ash could hear the unmistakable sound of police sirens in the distance. The obnoxious noise was loud and belonged to many individual sources. Pidgeotto and Fearow weren't all that high in the sky, so Ash couldn't get a visual of the supposed police squad. Nevertheless, Ash was certain that the sirens belonged to Officer Jenny's squad, heading west towards the Magnet Train station and the warehouse in order to detain the hundreds of incapacitated grunts.

Ash wasn't sure how they were currently tracking Ariana. Ash figured that Arcanine was either following Sabrina's scent, or Sabrina was providing Kent with directions using her telepathy. Whatever the case, Ash wouldn't question Kent's pursuit. Wherever Arcanine went, he would follow. The first-class ACE trainer's disposition when he embarked upon his fire-type didn't depict a sliver of uncertainty.

Whether it was Sabrina's scent or her cerebral communication that was guiding them to their destination, Ash suddenly noticed a thick cloud of smoke that briskly ascended into the sky near the northern edge of Saffron.

The smoke wafted throughout the northern sector of the city, and as they got closer, Ash could perceive it with his sense of smell. It was an atrocious scent. As it traveled through Ash's nostrils, it caused his heart to palpitate and his body to perspire. The smell of smoke corresponded to calamity, and given the circumstances, he couldn't help but worry.

The sight of the smoke didn't just cause a physical reaction, but it also impacted him mentally. The last time he had seen this much smoke was after the destruction of the SS Anne. The ominous, crepuscular haze triggered multiple intrusive thoughts that vividly grated against his psyche. He involuntarily imagined the Rockets: Sid, Reid, and Jack being eaten by a blast of white flame, a product of Wallace and his decision to leave them to fall victim to the explosion.

In concurrence to the initial sighting of the fume bearing horizon, Arcanine hastened his pace. Going off of Arcanine's rapid reaction, it was safe to say that the smoke was somehow related to Sabrina and Ariana. That didn't come as a surprise. However, it didn't do anything to quench Ash's nerves. As they closed in on the smoke, the setting took a perilous shift. The sky was gloomy on account of the smog, and there was a horde of citizens madly trying to escape in the direction of the city's southern districts.

As Ash witnessed the large-scale confusion and consternation, his mind instantly went back to the moments prior to the SS Anne's demise. The look of fear in the citizens' faces caused Ash to shudder and curse the name Team Rocket under his breath.

As they plunged deeper into the calamitous fog, Ash's eyes started to burn, and it didn't take long for him to procure a nasty cough. The smoke was extremely agitating, and the longer they remained in the air, the more aggravating it would get. Until the source of the smoke was put out, it would continue to rise, eclipsing the natural beauty of today's atmospheric conditions.

The sound of the frightened citizens' screams was drowned out by the loud, discordant noise of explosions within the midst of the forthcoming blackened district. Ash could no longer bear to keep his eyes open on account of the thick, caliginous, atmospheric mask. However, his stomach was beginning to drop in response to Pidgeotto's descent. He figured that they were closing in on Sabrina and Ariana's location. As his insides plummeted, Ash tried to open his eyes in order to examine his surroundings.

They had dropped to a much lower altitude. Pidgeotto's talons nearly scraped the roofs of some of the subjacent apartment buildings. Out of the corner of his burning eye, Ash caught a glimpse of Fearow nosediving into his line of sight before liberating his wings in order to level-out.

The fully-evolved bird of prey gave Pidgeotto a conceited look as he showed off his adept aeronautical skills. Ash was also able to make out a small smirk on Austin's face before both birds dropped altitude, once again, and protracted their wingspans.

For the most part, the smoke concealed their surroundings. It wasn't quite as thick now that they had lowered themselves underneath the risen, smoggy confluence. However, Ash could only really see Fearow and Austin, who like Pidgeotto were beginning to descend for a landing.

As they carefully lowered themselves to the ground, Ash noticed Kent and Arcanine, who had come to a complete stop. Kent was currently disembarking from his fire-type as he supervised the boys' landing.

Pidgeotto and Fearow's talons simultaneously hit the street's asphalt surface. Ash grimaced in response to the jarring recoil of the landing as Pidgeotto skid to a turbulent stop. He would have worried about Pidgeotto injuring his talons on the hard black-top surface, but it wasn't necessary. Pidgeotto's talons were rough and durable. They could easily withstand landing on just about any surface.

Once Pidgeotto came to a stop, Ash instantly dismounted from his flying-type and shook his body loose of the rigid tension that he had accumulated throughout the brutal ride.

Staying on Pidgeotto wasn't an easy task, especially when the flying-type was trying to keep up with one of the fastest pokemon in Kanto. Ash's hands were nearly locked in place because of the strain required to hold onto the skin underneath Pidgeotto's feathers, and the insides of his legs were sore and raw from squeezing his flying-type's back.

Ash practically scowled as he watched Austin effortlessly jump out of Fearow's saddle. The chiseled faced teenager showed no hint of displeasure, which caused a pang of jealousy to shoot throughout Ash's being.

Before Pidgeotto and Fearow had an opportunity to butt heads, Austin returned Fearow's saddle into a tiny storage device called a depository case prior to returning his avian. The dark-haired boy followed Austin's lead and returned Pidgeotto, who had been abnormally quiet ever since his attempted murder of the ranked Rocket's persian and arbok.

"What's with the nasty look?" questioned Austin as he clipped Fearow's pokeball to his trainer belt.

"Err…nothing," mumbled Ash, suppressing his overwhelming desire to complain, "Just a little sore, that's all."

"Figured as much," said Austin with a shrug, "riding bareback freaking sucks."

Their brief conversation was interrupted by the sound of Kent's edgy voice, "There's no time for trivial chatter. Release a pokemon that can provide you with protection, and let's go. Sabrina's in battle with Ariana up ahead."

Ash and Austin responded with silent nods as they both unclipped a pokeball from their belt. Ash proceeded to release Haunter, who entered the scene with his typical emanation of ghoulish laughter. Whereas Austin released Golduck, who simply crossed his arms and waited for his trainer to give him an order.

"Hey, Haunter," greeted Ash with a smile while his ghost-type circled him with a look of anticipation. "You know the drill. I need you to protect me from my shadow."

Haunter didn't waste any time. He quickly nodded his body up and down before lowering himself into Ash's shadow. As the friendly apparition merged into Ash's blurry obscuration, he felt a sudden change in his disposition.

He felt a strange chill trickle throughout his body, but his anxiety lessened. Once again, he felt safe. In addition, once Haunter entered Ash's faded shadow, the delineated image thickened and became more discernible. Apparently, despite the lack of sunlight, Haunter's unnatural presence in Ash's shadow made it more visible.

Ash was too busy with Haunter to pay attention to any of the words that Austin was concurrently sharing with his water-type. However, the dark-haired boy did notice that Golduck had surrounded them with a Light Screen—which would help protect them from long-distance elemental attacks.

"Good," drawled Kent as he beckoned Arcanine to lead the group, "now stay in there, and let's move forward."

As the trio and their pokemon moved forward, the smoke got thicker, and the sound of the explosions got louder. It was still blatant that the battle was happening a bit up ahead, but Ash could tell that they were getting close.

Regardless of Haunter and Golduck's presence, Ash couldn't help but feel nervous. Although the initial operation underneath the Magnet Train station had already slightly numbed his apprehension towards Team Rocket. With Kent and Sabrina on their side, they would be just fine.

"Keep your eyes peeled," suggested Kent, "we don't know how many grunts escaped with Ariana. There could be some in the area."

"Gotchya," replied Ash as he rubbed his irritated eyes.

"Yup," answered Austin while attentively swiveling his head.

While the roaring sound of detonations got louder and louder, it still took them about five minutes of carefully trudging through the polluted fog to catch a visual of the battle. Even though they had been expecting to run into something for quite some time, it still didn't prepare them for the chaos that they ran into.

The first thing Ash noticed was the wild group of battling pokemon. It was hard to get clear images because of the thick smoke and glaring, violent fires, but Ash saw some powerful specimens fighting amongst the crowd.

Right off the bat, he spotted a duo of abra taking on a blood-thirsty magmar. The apparent Rocket pokemon spewed fire in every which direction and was obviously one of the main reasons for the large, encompassing patches of fire. The two abra, which without a doubt belonged to Sabrina, had the strong magmar enveloped in a cloak of psychic energy.

However, the shackled beast still managed to spit fire all over the place and appeared to be on the cusp of breaking loose. Its eyes were redder than the flames that it let out, and its tail flame was as big as a camp-fire. It was obvious that the infernal monster was one of the executive's pokemon; no grunt could command such a monstrous creature.

In close proximity to the two abra, and the magmar, were a couple of raticate. The raticate, more than likely, belonged to grunts and not the executive. Other than their ferocity, nothing else stood out about them. They were easily being kept at bay by an oversized drowzee.

Most psychic pokemon didn't show external signs of evolution, but the drowzee line was different. Ash could see where the white mane of a hypno was starting to sprout from the fur around drowzee's neck, and drowzee's upper, yellow coat was beginning to spread out amidst its legs. The only thing that concerned Ash about the raticate was that their trainers were out of sight. As a matter of fact, he had yet to spot a single human amongst the chaos.

"Should we help!?" questioned Austin, trying to be heard over the discordant sound of warfare.

"Not yet!" howled Kent. "We need to find Sabrina! This is merely the outskirts of the battle zone! The abra will be fine, and that drowzee has those raticate under control! We need to keep moving forward. Our help is needed up ahead!"

Both boys nodded their heads as they closely followed behind Kent.

As they passed by the tandem of abra and the drowzee, the psychics acknowledged them with a cold, blank stare. Ash wasn't quite sure what their looks conveyed. He would probably have to train a psychic pokemon of his own in order to understand their stony-faced expressions and lethargic body language. But, then again, even if he did have a psychic of his own, they were almost alien in their behavior. Without the use of telepathy, psychic pokemon were very hard to decipher. It would be like trying to understand Sabrina if she was mute.

The raticate and magmar recognized their collective presence in a different way. The duo of raticate glared at them with fiery eyes, and they showed their fangs while hissing like savages. The magmar roared like a demon, and if it didn't have its hands full with the abra, it would without a doubt charge them with reckless abandon, albeit Ash doubted it would get very far.

Kent's arcanine had its eyes glued to the beast. If the magmar were to somehow break loose, it would be handled in a flash. Despite the fact that the magmar was definitely stronger than anything Ash could throw at it, Kent's arcanine was, by leaps and bounds, the stronger specimen. Just by eyeing it, Ash could tell that the magmar couldn't hold a candle to Arcanine's supreme might.

Disregarding the Rocket pokemon's infernal rage, Kent continued to lead the group forward towards the heart of the battle zone. After passing by the initial fight, there was a brief pause in the action before they came across the next assemblage of vicious battles.

Ash had to say that having Kent with them definitely changed how they approached the situation. If it was just Ash and Austin, they would be forced to track down Sabrina using more covert methods. However, with Kent's accompaniment, that wasn't necessary. Arcanine could incapacitate any pokemon that Team Rocket had, thus they all ambulated forward with confidence knowing this truth.

Their present surroundings were much more chaotic than the edge of the battle zone. If it weren't for Arcanine, Golduck, and Haunter, Ash would be afraid. His anxiety was present, but that was only natural. Ash had been through a lot as of late; he was aware of just how ruthless Team Rocket was.

Not to mention the fact that the anticipation was killing him. He was not foolish enough to think that they would remain unchallenged within Golduck's protective bubble for long. At some point, they would be forced into action. When that would take place, he didn't know.

To his right, Ash spotted a bulky, pink, bipedal pokemon that stood about five-feet tall and had a tan, striped belly that matched its muzzle. It had large, vacant eyes that presently projected an ominous blue, along with two curled ears and two sharp teeth that protruded out of its upper-jaw. On its hands, it had three sharp claws, as well as two sharp claws on its feet.

Attached to its thick tail was another entity. It was clamped on with its razor-sharp teeth. If Ash didn't have any knowledge of the being's host, he would be unsure what the creature was. However, Ash recognized the pokemon as a slowbro. He knew that the creature clamped onto the slowbro was an alternately morphed spiral shellder—which had either chosen or been forced to live its life halfway between a shellder and a cloyster.

The slowbro was at a disadvantage, facing off against a rather hideous looking victreebel. The large, yellow, bell-shaped pokemon spit all kinds of different shades of purple poison at Slowbro, while trying to get close enough to wrap its gaping mouth around the water/psychic duel-type. Its murderous eyes were locked onto Slowbro, while its large, sharp teeth secreted dangerous looking purple liquid that ate away at the asphalt when it leaked to the ground.

If Slowbro was strictly a water-type it would have been done for. Good thing it wasn't. Slowbro's secondary psychic typing gave it a way to fend off the venomous grass-type that probably belonged to Executive Ariana. Slowbro used a few close-ranged, psychic attacks to try and create distance between itself and Victreebel—a lot of which Ash didn't recognize.

However, amidst the carnage, Ash saw Slowbro fend Victreebel off with a pink array of energy. Ash wasn't overly familiar with a slowbro's learnset, but more than likely, it was either Confusion or Psychic. Ash knew this because, unless Sabrina had used a TM, Slowbro was limited in its long-ranged psychic potential.

To Ash's left, a small narrow-eyed abra faced off against a few ekans. And Sabrina's hypno battled against a humongous arbok that put the one used by the ranked Rocket, back at the underground hideout, to shame. It was at least four-feet longer than the one Pidgeotto had almost killed, and its overall girth was tremendous. Its most distinctive feature was its oversized hood, which was nearly twice the size of most arbok. Although it wasn't a giant, Ash could tell that the arbok was a gifted specimen, most likely belonging to Ariana.

As things stood now, it looked like the abra would finish off the two ekans quickly. And no matter how gifted of a specimen the arbok was, it was battling Rin, who was Sabrina's strongest hypno. Ariana's pokemon might stand a chance against some of Sabrina's less experienced pokemon, but Rin was on Sabrina's true team, which meant that the arbok didn't stand a chance. Besides, Hypno had the type advantage. Therefore, the arbok's demise was inevitable.

Straight ahead of them was—

—Ash's thoughts were severed and broken by the sound of Golduck's abruptly shattered Light Screen. Ash was barely able to catch a glimpse of the culprit when the hellish form of a pissed off Haunter frenziedly emerged from Ash's shadow, with a fist glowing of dark purple essence.

Bearing feral eyes and a closed mouth, Haunter buried its shadowy fist into the assailant, causing it to falter and skid across the smoldering street. As the attacker ceased its involuntary roll and gathered itself, Ash was able to visualize its form.

However, the ten-year-old boy's ability to process the pokemon's image was hindered by Austin, who was grimacing while cursing loud enough to be heard over the encompassing psychic blasts.

"Shit, it freaking scratched my arm!" blustered Austin, pain evident in his intonation.

Ash instantly took his eyes off of the menacing creature and looked to his left. Austin was grabbing his right arm, which was leaking a fair amount of scarlet red blood. Ash's eyes instantly widened upon the sight.

A scratch—no, this was a deep laceration. The pokemon that attacked them had taken a good chunk out of Austin's arm. Ash instantly wondered how something like this could happen, but then he saw Golduck, who had been forced to one knee. The water/psychic-type put forth an angry squawk, and his eyes were injected with fury. Golduck's gaze was locked straight ahead on the creature that had injured his master.

Ash didn't recognize the pokemon that hissed in front of them. It was bipedal and weasel-like. The creature had several red feathery areas on its body, most notably its tail feathers and its crown. The devious looking pokemon, Ash guessed to be a dark-type, had a yellow oval marking in the center of its forehead. And it had three ridiculously sharp claws on each paw—one of which was covered in blood.

The dark, definitely foreign, creature barbarically licked the blood from its claw before charging forward.

Ash watched Golduck try to get up to no avail on account of whatever the dark-type had done to him. Simultaneously, Haunter began to creep forward with a demon-like expression in order to defend his master and his friends.

"Haunter, go and get—"

"Arcanine, wreck it!" interrupted Kent in a loud, booming voice.

Arcanine wasted no time. Ash's eyes could hardly follow as the elite level canine seemingly vanished, leaving a yellow and black blur before reappearing alongside the charging dark-type.

Arcanine quickly used the full-force of his momentum to tackle the foreign creature with Take Down. The assailant painfully grunted and grimaced as it collided with the ground. The canine managed to stay on top of the Rocket pokemon while it heedlessly skidded across the asphalt. Within the blink of an eye, Arcanine mercilessly finished it off with a vicious Fire Fang, which made growlithe's bite/ember combination look like a playful act of affection.

Despite the unbelievable display, now was not the right time to gawk over Kent's arcanine's unbelievable strength. As Arcanine used its maw to toss the now unconscious, infernal creature to the side, Ash pivoted his attention back over to Austin.

"Austin, are you okay!?" asked the dark-haired boy with a worry filled intonation.

Ash was surprised to find Kent already tending to Austin's wound. He had ripped a decent-sized patch of red cloth from his uniform and begun to tie it around the teenager's cut in order to stop the bleeding.

"I've definitely been better," replied Austin with a grimace, "but I'll survive. Nothing Nurse Joy won't be able to fix. The only thing I'm worried about is the blood loss. I'd rather not pass out and miss seeing Ariana arrested."

Austin's eyes shifted over to Golduck, who had a heart-wrenching look of solemnness and guilt delineated across his face. Simply put, Austin's strong-willed duel-type looked mortified, probably blaming himself for his trainer's injury.

"It's not your fault," reassured Austin. "That was a weavile: a nasty dark and ice-type pokemon from the Johto region. You know better than I do that dark-types can easily break your Light Screen. Type disadvantage isn't always fair, but it's a trainer's job to help their pokemon counter against it. I dropped my guard. If anything, it's my fault."

Golduck diverted his eyes towards the ground and shook his head, clearly not buying his trainer's attempt at reassurance.

"Ah...come on, Golduck," groaned Austin in between grimaces, "It's not that bad. Just a scratch, that's all. Let's just move past it and be more alert of surprise attacks. Life's about lessons, and we just learned one. What do you say?"

Golduck seemed a little more receptive to Austin's current attempt at making him feel better. It appeared as though the duck pokemon responded better to diluting the blame rather than omitting it altogether.

"Dammit," drawled Kent, "if it's anyone's fault it's mine. That weavile was strong, but it wasn't anything special. Arcanine took it out easily. If only I had seen it beforehand. It had to have been using some kind of dark concealment technique. Even Arcanine didn't notice it until the Light Screen had been nullified."

Ash used his hand to stroke in between the spikes on Haunter's corporeal body as Kent continued. The ghost-type needed to be calmed down. The weavile's assault had caused the ghost pokemon's congenital instincts to trigger, resulting in his present barbarous disposition.

Haunter may be more pleasant natured than others of his kind, but he couldn't squelch the entirety of his species' general behavior. It had taken a couple of dire situations for Ash to figure it out, but he had come to the realization that Haunter could be just as nefarious as others of his kind. However, his malicious behavior only came out when Ash was in danger.

"That weavile more than likely belonged to Ariana," said the yellow eyed ACE trainer as Arcanine returned to the group. "If my arcanine didn't have such an advantage, it would have put up more of a fight."

There was a momentary pause in Kent's speech as he looked Austin in the eyes before gesturing forward, "I know it hurts, but are you good to keep going? Sabrina isn't too far ahead; Arcanine's getting antsy."

Ash soothingly beckoned Haunter back into his shadow as he listened to Austin's response.

"I can keep going," replied Austin with an adamant nod. "What do you say Golduck? Can you put up another Light Screen? This time we'll keep an eye out for dark-types. I promise I won't drop my guard again."

Golduck nodded his head with an expression that resembled a smile before patting his trainer on the head using one of his webbed hands.

"Good," answered Austin, with a smile of his own, before holding up his injured arm and shifting his glance between Kent and Ash. "I'm ready whenever you guys are."

Kent smirked before giving a response, "You kids sure are something."

A smile formed across Ash's face in response to Kent's comment, although he didn't quite feel worthy of the praise. All he did was stand there as Austin was hurt and Kent took care of the perpetrator. Austin was the one that, in Ash's opinion, was something.The chiseled faced teenager had been seriously injured and didn't even hesitate to carry on. Ash could only hope that he could be that brave if he were the one that had been injured instead of Austin.

Ash watched Austin survey his surroundings before speaking up, "Should we help Sabrina's pokemon out before we move forward. The hypno is probably fine, but what about that slowbro? It's having a tough time with that victreebel."

"They'll be fine," replied Kent as Ash watched the Slowbro connect a psychic enshrouded head-butt into Victreebel's body, "Rin will finish off the arbok soon. The slowbro can hold off the victreebel until then. Once Rin defeats the arbok, she'll help out Slowbro. These are Sabrina's pokemon we're talking about. They can handle just about anything Ariana throws at them. It's best we move forward, the real fight is just up ahead."

"Okay…" retorted Austin while grasping his injured arm, "if you say so…"

"Now, let's go," said Kent, "we're wasting time."

Ash and Austin emitted acquiescent grunts before Austin diverted his attention back towards Golduck, "Golduck, Light Screen."

The duck pokemon immediately tapped the jewel on his forehead before raising another translucent barrier. With a heavy squint, you could see a slight purple tint in the encompassing air, but at first glance it appeared to be invisible.

Kent and Arcanine once again led the way as Ash, Austin, and Golduck followed closely behind them. Of course, Haunter was there as well, but he was inside Ash's shadow. If it weren't for the strange sense of comfort Ash got from Haunter's incorporeal presence, he probably would have forgotten that the poltergeist was even there.

As they continued to trudge forward, Ash was able to really soak in the destruction that had been wrought in the area. Buildings were destroyed, cars were crushed, street lights were uprooted, and nearly everything was on fire. Ash wasn't really surprised, pokemon were powerful creatures. And the pokemon that were currently battling were especially strong. Ash was just happy that, so far, he hadn't seen any innocent citizens that were hurt.

Hopefully, everyone had fled the area before any significant damage was done. However, judging by the vastness and severity of the decimated district, Ash had a feeling that he wasn't being realistic. Unless Sabrina had found a way to intervene herself, there had to be casualties. Ash couldn't see how the calamitous setting could exist without having taken the lives of at least some misfortunate people.

The world wasn't that forgiving.

At this point, Ash's lungs were starting to hurt because of all of the smoke, and his eyes were equally as irritated. After looking around, he could tell that Kent and Austin were just as uncomfortable.

Kent didn't show it as much as the boys, but regardless of his intense League training, he couldn't completely suppress the side-effects of being exposed to this much carbon monoxide.

Austin was struggling, but he was hanging in there. The lack of oxygen didn't bode well for someone that had lost as much blood as he had, however, he would endure their current circumstances. Ash had no about it. Besides, if things got really bad, Fearow could just fly him out of the foreboding smog. The avian was a fast flyer and could get Austin to the Pokemon Center in no time if he was in need of treatment…

The sound of the forthcoming chaos was getting louder and louder. The upcoming explosions had completely drowned out the sound of the battles that they had already passed by. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were approaching the epicenter of the pandemonium. With every step they took, the cacophonous blasts increased in volume until Ash was tempted to cover his ears.

Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to do that. The thick cloud of smoke had already caused considerable disruption to two of his five senses. Blocking out another one, under his own volition, didn't necessarily seem like a good idea.

Ash wished that Golduck's Light Screen would block out the smoky fumes, but the transparent shield didn't work that way. Maybe if it was a minute amount of smoke, but there was simply too much for Golduck to keep out.

Light Screen acted more like a defensive detector than an actual shield. It could nullify elemental attacks in small doses, but it wasn't meant for situations like this. If Golduck used his Light Screen to fend off the smoke, it would just be worn down, leaving them susceptible to more dangerous elemental strikes.

Their only option was to endure. The only way to get rid of this much smoke was with an excessive number of water-type pokemon or an appropriately equipped League firefighting squad. Ash would have Wartortle try and put out some of the encompassing fires, but he was still disoriented from the evolution and was in no condition to be released under their current circumstances.

Ash thought about asking Austin to have Golduck extinguish some of the walls of flame, but the water-type had his hands full maintaining Light Screen. Including the battle back at the Magnet Train station, Golduck had been using Light Screen for well over an hour now. That was a long time to maintain any technique, especially one that required a great amount of mental focus.

On account of the fact that Kent had not released his Cloyster, he must have come to the conclusion that it wouldn't really make that much of a difference. The amount of fire and smoke that was violently dancing across the streets of Saffron required a water-type specialist to make a difference.

Wallace would be the perfect person to rescue Saffron's northern district from the perilous fires, but he was probably tending to Mr. Montgomery. Robert was a high-priority to the world that they lived in, and in a situation such as this one, they couldn't afford to leave him under the care of mere ACE trainer trainees.

The smoke would have to be put up with, and the fires would have to wait. The sooner they detained Ariana, the faster the northern district's dreadful conditions could be dealt with. Right now, the capture of Ariana was their top-priority.

After a couple more minutes of traipsing through the scorching, orange and black fog, their eyes widened as they caught sight of the present scene. Ash was aware beforehand that the smoke was probably concealing a large-scale battle, but this was much more than he had expected. It was the definition of chaos. He had never seen anything like it. There weren't even close to as many pokemon as there were in the underground hideout, but in this case, quality greatly outweighed quantity.

The battle was taking place in the middle of a massive four-way intersection. There were several flaming cars scattered amidst the street and two giant traffic lights that had been previously suspended above the roads were grounded and demolished. Utility poles were uprooted, leaving power lines free to wiggle about on the ground spewing up a surplus of electrical currents. The multitude of surrounding buildings were demolished and up in flames.

In short, the sheer amount of devastation was overwhelming.

The exact number of active pokemon occupying the fork junction was easy for Ash to obtain. There were eight elite level pokemon battling upon the asphalt. Sabrina's were easy to track down. All he had to do was look for the psychic pokemon. The fact that three of them were prominent alakazam and one of them was the elegant espeon that he had seen back in the Saffron Gym basement made it rather easy to sort out which pokemon belonged to Sabrina as opposed to Ariana.

Engaged in battle with Sabrina's four stalwart psychic-types were four corrupt creatures that practically oozed vulgarity, one of which literally percolated vileness. Sprawled across the center of the intersection battling against Sabrina's espeon was an absolutely atrocious muk. Its horrible smell could be perceived from the furthest edge of the battlefield, and the mere sight of it made Ash want to wretch up his breakfast.

The disgusting blob of poison sludge was five times the size of one of the grimer that he had seen back at the underground hideout. Due to the fact that muk were actually made up of several melded grimer, Ash guessed that this one consisted of at least four or five.

The dark-haired boy had never done any detailed research on the anatomy of a muk, so he wasn't quite sure how the merging process worked or if the grimer could be separated after. He had never had any interest in training a grimer or muk of his own, thus the only tidbits of information he had gathered involved how to battle against one of the highly toxic creatures.

Of Ariana's four pokemon, two were foreign. Ash recognized one of the two foreign pokemon. It was a Johto native honchkrow, which is a fully evolved dark/flying-type rarely seen in the skies of Kanto. The honchkrow was a decent-sized specimen, but it wasn't even close to matching Pidgeotto or Fearow in terms of height and wingspan.

However, just because it wasn't all that big didn't mean it wasn't a dangerous specimen. The dark blue avian's plumage resembled that of a person wearing formal attire, and it had a large feather crest, resembling a fedora hat, that had spikes extending from the back of it. Honchkrow had circular, red eyes with white sclera and dark blue eyelids. Its yellow beak was curved and looked to be sharp enough to tear through flesh, and its chest was full of prominent white feathers.

The avian's talons were black and razor-sharp. The feathers on the inside of its black wings were crimson red, matching the tips of its primarily black tail feathers. While Ash wasn't quite capable of seeing the full-extent of the muk's malevolence on behalf of its fluidic body, he could clearly decipher the ferocity and ruthlessness depicted across the honchcrow's face. It was a frenetic specimen with an evil core.

It was said that no pokemon were naturally evil, but some species were more susceptible to dark actions. Honchkrow was one of those pokemon, and when trained under the tutelage of a depraved human, they were capable of abominable things.

Under the assumption that Honchkrow had been trained by Ariana herself, its disposition made sense. It was completely corrupt. No amount of League rehabilitation could dilute such a creature's nasty habits of wickedness. All it took was one look to be able to tell that any trace of good was long gone. Honchkrow was a slave to darkness that went far beyond its natural typing. What Ariana had done to it was utterly repulsive.

Honchkrow was engaged in an extremely intense battle with one of Sabrina's alakazam. Ash wasn't sure, but on account of its shorter mustache, the dark-haired boy assumed it to be a female. It looked a lot like Yin. However, Ash had no way to know for sure. Yin had disappeared right after she dropped them off at the underground hideout, so it was possible that she could have teleported to Sabrina's aid afterward..."

Ash was able to get a really good look at the other foreign pokemon because it was battling closest to their group. Although, despite the fact that he could see all of the feline pokemon's features, Ash had no idea what it was. It looked extremely exotic. Ash wouldn't say that he was an expert regarding Johto's native pokemon, but the devious looking mammalian pokemon definitely didn't look like it was from anywhere close to Kanto or Johto.

As a matter of fact, if Ash had to take a guess, he would say that the slender, purple feline was from a faraway region like Kalos or Unova. Other than the simple fact that they existed, Ash knew nearly nothing about either region. He'd heard stories that the indigenous pokemon were very different, but he had never done the research to actually verify them. Foreign pokemon from other continents were rarely seen in Kanto. Maybe this was one of those cases.

The exotic feline's coat was a gorgeous purple speckled with a multitude of yellow rosettes. Covering its green eyes was a pink mask, which accentuated its evident dark nature. Its nose was pink, and it had two pairs of yellow whiskers that sprouted from both sides of its snout. Its muscular legs and underside were covered in a bright yellow fur, and its long purple tail winded into a sickle-like shape towards the tip.

Overall, Ash had to admit, it was a beautiful pokemon. However, now was not the time to admire foreign species, especially when they belonged to a Team Rocket executive.

The exotic feline was facing off against yet another one of Sabrina's alakazam. This alakazam's mustache was much longer than Yin's, so it was rather evident that it was a male. The two alakazam that were facing off against the honchkrow and the unknown cat pokemon were being pushed to their limits. It was obvious that Sabrina's alakazam were the stronger specimens, but that didn't change the fact that they were at an extreme disadvantage.

Ash knew for a fact that Honchkrow was a dark/flying-type, and after watching the feline pokemon battle for only a couple of seconds, he could tell that it was using techniques that consisted of the dark element. The devious feline was evidently a dark-type in some fashion. Whether it was a pure dark-type or a dual-type, Ash didn't know.

Due to their strange and darkened minds, psychics were incapable of cerebral intrusions against dark-types, which meant that psychic attacks didn't work against any pokemon classified as a dark-type. If it weren't for this truth, Ash had no doubt that Ariana would have been detained by now.

However, Team Rocket was smart. Either they supplied Ariana with a team that could effectively battle Sabrina, or she was selected for this mission on account of her powerful dark-types. Whatever the case may be, Sabrina's greatest strength was being suffocated by the Rocket executive, forcing the psychic virtuoso's pokemon to rely on non-psychic techniques to fend off the dark-types...

Despite the presence of the two foreign dark-types, it seemed as if Sabrina had elected to leave her two alakazam to battle them without her supervision. At least, that is the way it looked. She could be using some kind of omniscient telepathic link to command all of her pokemon at once, but Ash didn't think that even Sabrina was capable of such a feat.

She was still a human after all. And, right now, that human had her back turned to the rest of the battle while she commanded what looked like her strongest alakazam, Kaz, against Ariana and a rather crazed gengar.

"Sabrina needs help!" hollered Ash, trying to be heard over the loud sound of turmoil. "Ariana's pokemon are strong and have the type advantage! No wonder she escaped!"

"I see that!" bellowed Kent, "I wasn't expecting this, but luckily we have yet to be noticed! The situation isn't an emergency! I'll steal the advantage in an instant! Leave it to me!"

"What about us!?" queried Austin in between painful grimaces, "how can we help!?"

"Both of you have bright futures!" howled Kent as he reached for two pokeballs that were clipped to his trainer belt, "but you're not quite ready to battle against pokemon of this caliber! Take this moment to learn! Let Sabrina and I do the work!"

"But—!"Ash managed before Kent quickly interjected.

"No buts, Ash! You're not ready for something like this! The risk is too high! Your pokemon would only get hurt!"

Ash and Austin gulped before the older of the two gave a response, "Dammit, alright, I'll stay out of it!"

Ash was reluctant, but he wasn't foolish enough to argue the orders of a first-class ACE trainer. However, Ash was slightly confused. Why would Kent bring them with him if they were going to do nothing but watch? They'd yet to contribute, so what was the purpose?

"Okay...but if we're not going to help, why did we come with you in the first place!?"

"Because…" drawled Kent as he handled both of his pokeballs, "there was no time to grab any of the other trainees! Besides, this is valuable experience for two young trainers aspiring to be masters! I thought you deserved this opportunity to watch and learn!"

Ash and Austin stood by and watched as Kent ran his fingers through his canine's fur, "Are you ready, Arcanine!?"

Arcanine let out a loud, affirmative grunt that Ash could hear clearly in between encompassing explosions.

"Alright then!" shouted Kent, "after I release Electivire and Scizor help Sabrina's espeon take out the muk! I'm going to use Umbreon to help Sabrina and Alakazam defeat that fiend of a gengar! Do you understand!?"

The evolved canine nodded, confirming his comprehension.

Kent subsequently pressed the release button on both of his pokeballs, resulting in a sudden blast of bright light. In wake of the beaming display, two monsters were unveiled.

One of them was Kent's beastly electivire, who Ash had just seen wreck nearly the entirety of the underground hideout. It stood focused and fresh, ready for the upcoming action. It was rather apparent that if Electivire took any damage during the invasion of the hideout, his brief rest in his pokeball had erased it. Electivire was as good as new.

Just as Kent had said, the other pokemon was a battle hardened scizor. The evolved form of scyther opened and closed both of its big, red pincers, eagerly yearning to tear through the flesh of its forthcoming prey.

Scizor was much more intimidating than its pre-evolved form, and the mere sight of it made Ash deeply desire to train up one of his own. It was the first time Ash had ever seen the steel/bug-type in person, and it definitely lived up to all the hype that Ash had accumulated in his head over the years.

Without ever seeing one up close, scizor had always been Ash's favorite bug-type. Its shimmering, red exoskeleton and fierce, yellow eyes were mesmerizing. And its obsession with battle made its pre-evolution a pokemon that was at the top of Ash's "to catch list."

The bipedal, insectoid pokemon's red exoskeleton was made out of a highly-refined metal, and it had gray, retractable forewings and hind wings with simple, curved venation. Scizor's head was kite shaped with three blunt horns extending above its forehead. Its neck and part of its thorax looked to expose black skin while being surrounded by its exoskeleton. Scizor's abdomen was large with three black, pointed stripes below the waist.

Scizor had broad shoulders and thin segmented arms ending in its large, round pincers. Its legs were defined with large hip joints, thin thighs, and wide calves. Its steel body was strong and durable, but it was evident that Scizor was built for speed rather than raw strength. Ash couldn't wait to see what it could do in live battle.

"Electivire, go knock that Honchkrow out of the sky!" commanded Kent, "Scizor, cut down that purple cat!"

Electivire and Scizor wasted no time as they dashed off towards their selected targets. Electivire moved quickly, discharging blue static as he glided across the cluttered intersection. Even though the electric-type was fast, Scizor moved faster, leaving a plethora of after-images while it shot across the battlefield like a red cannonball.

Ash's eyes couldn't keep up with Scizor, so he didn't bother. Instead, the dark-haired boy watched as Electivire enshrouded himself in a jumpsuit of electricity. The dark avian was busy dealing with Sabrina's female alakazam. It didn't even notice Electivire's presence until he was directly in front of its face.

Before Ariana's honchkrow could react, Electivire unleashed a devastating Thunderbolt. It ripped through the air while creating a cacophonous, atmospheric clap. Honchkrow's red eyes widened as the Thunderbolt approached.

There was no time to dodge. The Honchkrow was struck viciously by Electivire's Thunderbolt. As the thousands of watts of electricity coursed throughout the honchkrow's body, it mindlessly shrieked in pain.

Suddenly, despite the lively action, Ash's attention was persuaded to shift back to Kent when he released another pokemon: Umbreon. At the same time, Ash noticed that at some point Arcanine had taken off and was now helping Espee with the oversized muk. The evolved canine was ruthlessly dousing the blob of poison with Flamethrower while Espee continuously hit it with a powerful, bright purple ray of concentrated psychic energy.

Ash's overwhelmed attention-span zeroed in on solely Kent's inauspicious umbreon as the yellow eyed ACE trainer gave it orders. "Umbreon, follow me! We have to help Sabrina with that gengar!"

Umbreon looked up at its trainer with assertive eyes as Kent said a few choice words to the boys before leaving their side, "Stay here! This will be quick! Don't do anything unnecessary!"

Both boys nodded as Kent swiftly turned around and darted off with Umbreon close by his side.

Ash kept his eyes glued on Kent while the ACE trainer and his umbreon charged ahead toward Sabrina and Ariana. While using his eyes to follow Kent, Ash noticed that the elite level trainer was presently the focal point of everyone's attention. All of the pokemon stared at him, out of the corner of their eyes, as they continued to fend off their corresponding opponents.

Ariana's gengar even managed to throw a dark purple, ghostly sphere – which Ash assumed to be Shadow Ball – at Kent, but it was quickly nullified by Umbreon, who used some kind of pulse made up of black energy to intercept the gengar's long-ranged assault. Gengar's attention was subsequently stolen back by Kaz, who used a Shadow Ball of his own to knock the ghost-type's corporeal form back.

Ash was pretty sure that alakazam couldn't naturally learn Shadow Ball, which meant that Kaz had probably been artificially taught the ghost-type technique with a TM. Sabrina had been training Kaz for more than a decade after all. It had most certainly already mastered its congenital moveset. Nowadays, the majority of his training probably consisted of grasping pertinent TM moves, strengthening and honing its current moveset, and creating signature techniques by fusing two or more natural moves together.

Kent had also managed to procure the attention of Sabrina and Ariana. Ash didn't know exactly when they had noticed the ACE trainer's presence, but he assumed it probably happened at the same time Electivire and Scizor engaged their targets. Ash wouldn't put it past Sabrina to have noticed their presence even prior to their arrival, but the ten-year-old boy had a tough time believing that.

Before Kent's intervention, Sabrina had been preoccupied in a stalemate. Despite her incredible skill-level, her pokemon were still at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, it was one of the biggest drawbacks of specializing in a specific typing. Every once in a while, you came across an opponent that could take advantage of all of your weaknesses.

Ariana had a team consisting of Sabrina's natural bane. The fact that Sabrina was matching Ariana blow for blow just showed how good Sabrina truly was. Pure psychic-types weren't supposed to stand a ghost of a chance against dark-types, especially dark pokemon of this caliber. However, Sabrina's psychics were different. They had been trained to battle under disadvantageous circumstances. Their adeptness in this battle proved that.

Unlike Sabrina, who was hard to read because of her droid-like disposition, Ash could see Ariana's feelings towards Kent's arrival depicted on her face. Regardless of her natural beauty, the woman's attractiveness had dwindled now that she was outwardly showing her true colors. The woman had a devilish scowl where her pleasant smile used to be, and her sparkling, red eyes no longer resembled ruby red jewels, but rather projected an image of Hell itself.

Her face had blotches of black soot from the surrounding battle, and her makeup was a sweaty disaster. Ariana's hair was no longer burnished, albeit frizzy and frayed. The Rocket executive's pristine, white uniform had been tattered and charred, and in the places where her body had been exposed, due to the tears in her attire, scarlet red blood dripped through her uniform.

It was pretty apparent that, compared to Sabrina, the battle had had a bigger physical effect on Ariana. Other than a few rips in her battle attire, and some scuff marks on her face, Sabrina didn't look to have taken any considerable damage. For the most part, she appeared exactly as she did when they split up back at the gym.

As Kent and Umbreon rapidly approached Ariana and Sabrina, Ash's concentration was naturally ripped away when he heard an ear-shattering shriek from across the battlefield. The cry belonged to the exotic purple feline, who was lying on the ground bloody and unconscious. Kent's scizor stood over it with one of its claws hovering over the foreign pokemon's throat. At first glance, Ash was worried that the steel/bug-type was going for the kill. But, then he realized that it was simply subduing it.

Scizor's quick defeat of the feline solidified his theory that it was a dark-type. Dark-types were one of the few types that were extremely vulnerable to a bug-type's strange, alien-like techniques. Much like how the purple feline was using its type-advantage to overwhelm Sabrina's alakazam, Scizor probably used a flurry of powerful bug-type attacks to incapacitate the dark specimen.

Sabrina's alakazam that had been previously facing off against the dark-type acknowledged scizor's victory with a slight nod before vanishing from its position by means of teleportation. Ash was curious to find out where it teleported to, but his curiosity was soon quenched while the dark-haired boy drifted his line of sight back over to Kent and his Umbreon.

The male alakazam took no time to rest. He used Teleport to instantaneously come to the aid of Arcanine and Espee, who were finishing off the gigantic muk. Neither Arcanine nor Espee necessarily needed the help, albeit it would quicken the process.

If muk were a typical poison-type, it would have been defeated a long time ago. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Due to their aqueous body-type's, muk were extremely durable life-forms capable of absorbing a multitude of different physical and elemental attacks.

Muk wasn't able to absorb psychic and fire techniques, though, so it was getting shredded by the current onslaught of attacks. Nevertheless, muk had a lot of stamina, and it took an effective sustained attack to defeat it. Its eventual demise was eminent, although it would probably out last the rest of Ariana's pokemon.

As Ash concentrated back on Kent and Umbreon, he saw that the dark eevee evolution and Kaz had already meshed their battle styles in order to quickly take out Ariana's gengar. Umbreon had enshrouded itself in dark energy, and was using a technique Ash recognized as Feint Attack, in order to accurately deal large chunks of damage to the vulnerable ghost-type. Whereas Kaz was using Umbreon's presence opportunistically in order to hit the gengar with super-effective balls of ghostly energy.

While Umbreon and Kaz took care of the gengar, Sabrina and Kent converged on Ariana in order to make the arrest. Ash didn't know why, but for some reason, Sabrina wasn't using her psychic powers to restrain Ariana. Maybe it had something to do with mental barriers, or it quite possibly could be related to the fact that Sabrina needed Ariana's memories so that she could find out Team Rocket's motive for attempting to steal the Master Ball.

Ash was just guessing...he didn't know for sure. However, whatever the reason was, the dark-haired boy was intrigued. He would have thought that Sabrina would have no problem detaining a non-psychic like Arian—

—"Ash, look out!" screamed Austin with desperation in his voice.

Ash frantically turned around in response to Austin's plea. He anxiously jumped and jerked when he spotted a big feral raticate cantering towards him. In the midst of all of the chaos, Ash had failed to notice its approach. His peripherals also registered that two more raticate were closing in on Austin and Golduck, which made sense as to why Golduck hadn't taken out Ash's assailant on sight.

As the impending raticate leaped forward to strike, Ash's instincts triggered, and he curled his fists into a ball. Team Rocket's pokemon were well known for their mercilessness. The impending raticate was, without a doubt, attacking to kill. However, Ash wouldn't go down without a fight.

A ten-year-old boy hardly stood a chance against a mature raticate, but that didn't matter. There was no way he was just going to close his eyes and allow the rodent to dig into his flesh without some kind of retaliation.

While Ash's adrenaline skyrocketed, and he prepared to connect his adolescent fist into the rodent's maw, he was suddenly reminded why he had been able to stand confidently amongst the disarray in the first place. Almost too fast for Ash to comprehend, Haunter emerged from his shadow.

With murderous eyes and malignant intent, Haunter reacted in an instant, thrusting his black, shining fist at the fully-evolved rodent.

The Sucker Punch sent raticate flying into a nearby building. There was a loud crash as the vehement rat heedlessly triggered the destruction of a large glass windowpane.

Ash's eyes instantly pivoted over to Austin and Golduck, who were still busy fending off one of the raticate with the water-type's Hydro Pump. At this point in time, Ash was able to see Golduck's exhaustion clearly. Holding Light Screen for so long had taken its toll. Stamina-wise, he was definitely on his last leg.

"Haunter, help Golduck finish off that—"

"Don't bother!" interrupted Austin. "Golduck can handle this! Take care of the grunts!"

"Grunts!?" blustered Ash, curiously, with raised eyebrows.

"There are two grunts up ahead!" bellowed Austin as he pointed forward at a tandem of fleeing men in Rocket uniforms. "They're the ones that sent out the raticate! Get 'em before they escape!"

"Gotchya!" bellowed Ash as he pointed forward towards the Rockets. "Go take them down, Haunter! Knock them out! No killing!"

Haunter's slanted eyes flickered between blood red and white as he seemingly tried to get a grip over his congenital thirst for blood.

At this point, there was plenty of proof that his murderous instincts came out when Ash was in danger. But, Ash could tell that his behavior was involuntary. Hopefully, over time, Ash would be able to help Haunter dull his inherent bloodlust.

To Ash's evident dismay, now was not that time. The dark-haired boy gulped as Haunter's eyes settled on red, and the rest of his facial expression depicted depravity.

The ghost-type let out a quick burst of ghoulish, sadistic laughter as he took off in a blur. Haunter left behind a trail of ghostly energy while he closed in on his prey. Ash's heart sank as he witnessed his, typically friendly, poltergeist behaving like an utter fiend. The two grunts abruptly looked back in fear as they felt Haunter's looming form.

Once he was close enough, the crazed ghost pokemon used his shadowy hands to simultaneously grab both of the Rockets by the shirt collars. The two corrupt men let out muffled cries as their bodies jerked back, falling victim to severed momentum's nasty whiplash.

Upon hitting the ground, one of the Rockets was instantly knocked unconscious as his head turbulently smacked against the asphalt. Blood leaked out of the back of his head, forming an ominous red puddle on the blacktop. Ash cringed at the sight. The amount of blood that flowed from the Rocket's head made the ten-year-old boy consider the possibility that he was dead.

The other Rocket lay sprawled on the ground. He had a few scrapes, but he didn't look to bear anything that Ash would consider a serious injury. When the Rocket saw Haunter's malicious eyes stare down at him, he desperately tried to crawl away.

Ash's heart sank even deeper as he saw Haunter raise his hands in preparation for a Night Shade attack. Ash stared ahead shocked as he watched Haunter charge his claws with dark, spectral energy.

"No! Please, don't! I won't resist! Just don't kill me!" begged the Rocket, fear evident in his voice.

"Ash, stop staring like an idiot, and call him off!" bellowed Austin, at the top of his lungs, as Golduck finished off the last of the three raticate. "He's going to kill him!"

Ash snapped back to reality as he tried to reach out with his voice. What came out the first time was a muffled squeak, a result of the smoky atmosphere. However, with a second try, he managed to get his vocal chords to breach through the smoke that had penetrated his lungs.

"No, Haunter, stop! This is wrong!"

As Ash's voice traveled across the street, Haunter abruptly froze. Ash whispered a small prayer under his breath, desperately hoping that he had gotten through. He already had three, maybe four, Rocket's deaths on his conscious. He didn't want anymore.

Ash didn't want Haunter to stain his shadowy hands in blood. The dark-haired boy definitely didn't want his friend to be that kind of ghost.

When Haunter suddenly ceased his Night Shade, and the red that filled his eyes faded, Ash unleashed a massive sigh of relief. The dark-haired boy muttered a thank you under his breath as he watched Haunter look around in confusion. It appeared as if his surge of savagery had left him in a state of befuddlement.

With Austin and Golduck following closely behind him, Ash ran over to Haunter, completely disregarding the Rocket that was lying flat on his face having a mental breakdown. He was most likely crazy to begin with, but the near-death experience had sent him into a loophole of mindless rambling.

Ash almost felt sorry for the guy, but right now, his primary focus was Haunter. His pokemon's well-being meant way more to him than the sanity of a Rocket that had tried to kill him. Ash just didn't want his pokemon, or himself, to ever resort to killing. As long as the Rocket was alive, Ash didn't really care what his current condition was.

"Haunter, what happened?" crooned Ash in a soft voice. The explosions had ceased in the background, and all that could be heard was the crepitation of the surrounding flames. "Are you okay?"

The shadowy poltergeist looked at Ash with a disoriented expression, unsure of what his trainer was talking about.

"After you sent that raticate flying, I told you to knockout the grunts," said Ash as he pointed toward the two grunts on the ground.

Golduck was subduing the conscious, crazed grunt while Austin was checking the other grunts vitals.

"You lost control. Luckily, I stopped you. Otherwise, you would have killed both of them."

The apparition looked down at both of the Rockets with curious eyes. Ash thought he saw a look of recognition course throughout Haunter's expression before the ghost-type looked back up at Ash with an extremely guilty countenance.

Despite Haunter's look of guilt, Ash could tell that the ghost-type wasn't surprised by his actions. If Ash had to guess, he would say that Haunter was well aware of his murderous tendencies.

"I know it wasn't what you wanted," said Ash as he patted in between the spikes on Haunter's head, "but we have to get a grip over this. Killing is never okay, no matter what. I know you are protective of me, but you can't lose control like that."

A look of contemplation formed across Haunter's face as he looked down at the ground. It was clear that the ghost-type had been severely convicted, which meant that Ash had gotten his point across. He would never give up on his gem of a ghost-type, no matter what, but the League wasn't very forgiving of pokemon that took lives. They were simply labeled as too dangerous and either locked up or put down.

Ash would be lost if that ever happened to any of his pokemon, thus he would do whatever he needed in order to ensure that Haunter and Pidgeotto remained in control, even when Ash, or another member of the team, was in danger.

"You should get some rest," said Ash as he unclipped Haunter's great ball from the extra docking clip that Sabrina had given him after dinner last night. "We'll talk this all through later."

Haunter responded by solemnly nodding his body up and down as he waited for sequester. In return, Ash proceeded to press the button on Haunter's great ball, returning him, before reattaching the upgraded capture device to his belt.

"I think you handled that well," said Austin as he finished wrapping the unconscious Rocket's head in the ripped up piece of cloth that Kent had previously tied around his arm. "These are the risks you face when you train a ghost-type. At least Haunter has a conscious, it'll make dealing with his instincts a lot easier."

Ash unleashed a sigh as he ignored Austin's comments, "That guy's alive, right?"

"I wouldn't be wrapping his wound if he wasn't," retorted Austin as the blood from the deep cut on his arm dripped down to the ground. "He's lost a lot of blood, and he'll have one hell of a concussion, but he's not dead. His breathing is just fine."

"Thank god..." said Ash as he released a sigh, "What should we do with them—"

—"Please don't kill me!" blurted the conscious Rocket as Golduck used Disable to immobilize him from the neck down.

"We're not gonna' freaking kill you, man!" retaliated Austin, annoyed. "Now, shut the hell up!"

The Rocket ceased his idiotic rambling while Austin regathered his thoughts in order to answer Ash.

"Err...I'll stick back and watch 'em while you go see what's going on with Sabrina and Kent," said Austin with glazed eyes. "We can't carry them, and I need to rewrap my arm before I lose any more blood."

It was rather clear that the loss of blood, and all of the smoke, was starting to make Austin delirious. Ash was honestly impressed that he was still conscious. He didn't necessarily feel comfortable leaving Austin alone right now, but then again, he had Golduck. The water/psychic-type would know what to do if Austin's condition plummeted.

"Okay," replied Ash, "I'll go see what's going on and come right back. Once I talk to Sabrina and Kent, we'll get you out of here. You need to see Nurse Joy as soon as possible."

"Sounds good," replied Austin after taking a deep, exhausted breath, "Don't worry about me too much, though. I'll be just fine."

"Alright," said Ash with a smirk as he started to walk back towards the battle zone, "I'm holding you to that."

"That's fine with me," answered Austin in between grimaces. "Don't forget to release one of your pokemon. In this kind of situation, it's always better to be with a friend. You never know when something might jump out at you."

"You're right," said Ash as he reached for Charmander's pokeball, "now focus on getting your arm wrapped up. I'll be right back."

Austin simply waved him off while Ash turned around and headed back toward the intersection. Along the way, he released Charmander, who was ecstatic to see him. Charmander had a few scuff marks here and there and was still a little winded, but for the most part, his time spent in his pokeball had helped him recover from the battle in the underground hideout.

The fire-lizard responded extremely well to their current environment. The charmander line lived in conditions even hotter and smokier than this after all. To Charmander, the present condition of Saffron's northern district probably felt nice, albeit the fire-lizard was clearly able to tell that the situation was, or had been, dire. His serious disposition corresponded to their present circumstances.

Ash and Charmander walked side-by-side, alert, as they weaved around a large burning building in order to get to the site where the battle against Ariana had taken place. The scene was relieving, but also tragic. From what Ash could tell, all of Ariana's pokemon had been defeated by Kent and Sabrina, but regardless of their affiliation with Team Rocket, seeing pokemon beaten-up as badly as they were was nauseating.

Ariana's honchkrow was lying on the ground battered and unconscious. There was a sporadic trickle of electricity that diffused from its body, and a large scorch mark stretched out across the asphalt.

Electivire sat comfortably against a nearby, bent streetlight. One eye was glued on Ash as he walked by while the other stayed planted on Honchkrow. It was rather clear that the dark avian wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon, but Kent had probably ordered Electivire to keep an eye on it just to be safe. The ACE trainer definitely didn't want to be caught off guard by a desperate honchkrow.

Muk was splattered all over the middle of the intersection. Ash may not have been an expert on the species, but he knew enough about pokemon to assume that it was still alive. Muk weren't solid life-forms. Their bodies were entirely made up of sludge, void of any kind of organ system. They were very durable and tough creatures; therefore, Ash assumed that something like this wouldn't kill one.

Of course, he could be wrong. Ash honestly just wanted to believe that Sabrina and Kent's pokemon weren't trained to be quite so merciless. Killing Ariana's pokemon in such a manner wasn't necessary.

The League had more humane ways to take care of pokemon that were too corrupt to be rehabilitated, such as lifelong detainment or lethal injection. Being silenced by dismemberment wasn't exactly a cordial way to take care of a situation like this, even if the pokemon of topic was a bizarre, fluidic creature like muk.

Arcanine was no longer in close proximity to muk, but Espee and one of Sabrina's alakazam were. They stared ahead at muk's charred and scattered body with focused eyes as if they were waiting for something to happen. Maybe they were weary of the muk's body reforming. It seemed like a logical enough explanation. Ash half-expected them to physically acknowledge his presence while he walked by, but then he remembered an important fact: they were psychics. They didn't need to see him with their eyes in order to be aware of his presence.

Kent's scizor still had its claw hovering around the purple feline's throat. Ash could tell that the steel/bug-type desired to kill the dark-type. Its eyes were wild, but there was an odd hint of restraint.

Scizor had the same kind of look that Pidgeotto had when he defeated his opponents and yearned to finish them off. Much like Pidgeotto, the dark-haired boy had a feeling that scizor was a complicated specimen. Its sadistic nature was probably being suppressed by its reverence for its trainer.

Scizor's self-control gave Ash hope. Its desire was right in front of its face. The feline was about as evil as a pokemon could get. The world would probably be better without it. However, going off of the fact that Kent had stopped Pidgeotto from killing the persian and arbok, it was clear that he didn't agree with killing in the name of justice. Scizor's bloodlust was apparent, but it respected the rules of its trainer. One day, Ash hoped that he could teach Pidgeotto and Haunter how to sustain self-control of this level…

Ash and Charmander had to crossover to the other side of the intersection in order to reach Sabrina and Kent, so they had gotten a chance to take in the entirety of their surroundings. On top of the effect that Ariana's decimated team had on them, the aftermath of all of the fighting was just as appalling.

The encompassing fires were raging even more intensely than before, and the smoke was getting thicker and much harder on the lungs. The asphalt that Ash had chosen to walk on was fine, but there were various other parts that were smoldering and some were even melted.

Street lights and traffic lights were not just uprooted, but at some point a few of them had actually been thrown. How or why? Ash had no idea. All he knew was that they were definitely not in their original location. One had even been pierced through the second-story of a proximate apartment building.

Cars were in ruins. A few had actually been crumpled into balls of machinery, probably the result of one of Sabrina's psychics using their telekinetic powers creatively in order to make an effective long-range weapon.

Ash tried his best not to let any of the surrounding calamity bother him too much, but it was hard, especially as horrific memories of the SS Anne simultaneously pulsed amongst his thoughts.

Charmander used his tiny claws to latch onto Ash's pant leg, not because he was scared, but rather on behalf of the fact that he wanted to provide Ash with support. All of Ash's pokemon had gotten pretty good at sensing when he was troubled. Charmander was exceptional at this, probably because the little guy had already been through so much personal turmoil within his short life.

The ten-year-old boy had yet to get a clear visual of Sabrina, Kent, and Ariana because the smoke was too thick to see across the entirety of the large intersection. He was able to spot a shadowy obscuration that appeared to be a small group of people accompanied by three other strange figures that he assumed were pokemon.

Ash wasn't able to verify their identities, although he had a tough time imagining that anyone other than Kent, Sabrina, Ariana and their pokemon would choose to be in the thick of all of the destruction.

As he gradually got closer to the blurred figures, he began to pick up the sound of muffled conversation. At first, he couldn't make out anything specific that they were saying. However, he was able to comprehend that two of the voices belonged to Sabrina and Kent.

In addition, there was a third voice that was female and deranged.

At first, Ash didn't recognize it. He assumed it belonged to Ariana, but his memory of Ariana's voice was smooth and sultry. This voice was debased and rough, although it did bear a slight resemblance to the SS Anne's beautiful emcee. The more distance Ash covered, though, the clearer the conversation got. It also helped that the discussion seemed to be intensifying. Voices were being raised, and tempers were starting to flare.

"Let me ask you something!" hissed the voice that Ash assumed belonged to Ariana, "how did you become aware of the operation?"

"That's none of your business, trash," replied the disembodied voice of Sabrina while Ash and Charmander continued to draw closer to the scene.

"Let me guess," spat Ariana over the sound of crackling fire, "Robert Montgomery was aware of our pursuit of the Master Ball the entire time! Dammit, I knew this plan wasn't worth the trouble!"

"Like I said," Sabrina scolded in a no-nonsense tone of voice, "You are not welcome to speak until we interrogate you."

"Ah..." drawled Ariana, "but, Sabrina, you don't understand. It's not like an interrogation will do you any good. You won't get anything out of me. My mind is secure. Even a psychic of your level cannot breach my mental barriers."

"Are you sure about that, Ariana?" questioned Sabrina. Her voice was beginning to become clearer. Ash could tell that he and Charmander were getting close. "I'm not sure you comprehend what I am truly capable of. Given time, there has never been a mind that I have not been able to rip information from."

"Psht, compared to what I've been exposed to," laughed Ariana in a sadistic manner, "your psychic abilities are child's play!"

"What are you talking about?" Interjected Kent as Ash got close enough to get a visual of the two masters and Ariana. "Sabrina is the strongest human psychic in the world. There is no mental barrier that she cannot penetrate."

Once Ash was close enough, he saw that Kent, Sabrina, Arcanine, Umbreon and Kaz stood over Ariana who was an absolute mess. Physically, she appeared the same as she did earlier. Her makeup had been replaced by a thick layer of soot, and her body was covered in burn marks. Her clothes were tattered, and her hair was all over the place.

The Rocket executive's body had also been, to some degree, disabled. At some point, Sabrina and Kent had set her, now limp, body up against a brick-wall belonging to one of the few buildings that had yet to catch fire. Because of the way her arms and legs lay utterly lifeless, Ash assumed that Sabrina had turned off all of the nerves below her neck.

It was still evident that she was an attractive person, but with her façade dropped, she no longer seemed like the same woman that was once the presumed figurehead of the SS Anne. Even though Ash had already accepted it, he was still shocked that Ariana truly was a high-ranking member of Team Rocket. Not just that, but the sheer amount of evil and corruption that was evident within her countenance was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Just by the way she looked at Sabrina and Kent, Ash could tell that she was evil beyond understanding. Ariana made the other Rockets he had seen look like cuddly teddiursa. The executive had fully engrossed herself in darkness. Her entire existence depicted sin and immorality. He could see it in her devilish eyes. Ash got the creeps just by being around her.

Ariana's eyes lit up with recognition the second she caught sight of Ash and Charmander. Sabrina and Kent turned around to acknowledge Ash. Neither seemed shocked by his arrival, although Kent gave him a curious look. He was probably wondering where Austin was.

"Ha—I know you!" blurted Ariana with a deranged smile, "You're that boy that came in third in the SS Anne tournament! Err...what was your name again?"

"Ash Ketchum," replied the dark-haired boy without a hint of hesitation.

Despite Ariana's frightening presence, right now, she was hardly threatening. Her pokemon had been defeated, she had been restrained by Sabrina, and he was under the supervision of two masters.

There was nothing for him to worry about. Ariana had been finished. By the end of the day, she would be locked away. There was no reason for him to conceal his identity. Besides, it's not like Ariana didn't know who he was anyways. She did say that she recognized him after all.

"Ah, yes, Ash Ketchum," replied Ariana with a creepy smile, "That's right, the boy with the promising Pidgeotto. I remember looking at you and thinking, 'damn, it's such a shame that a boy as cute and talented as you has to die,' but it looks like everything worked out in the end. You got off in time. What a relief."

'What a relief!' thought Ash to himself as he tried to think of a response. This woman was absolutely insane. She wasn't just evil, she was disgusting. Her sense of morality was twisted beyond understanding. Was this what Team Rocket was really like? An organization made up people like this?

"What's with the long face?" questioned Ariana with a peculiar, concerned expression. "Oh, I know! You're unhappy with your life! Why don't you join Team Rocket!? We always find a way to have fun, and we can always use new, talented recruit—"

Ariana's mouth involuntarily slammed shut. It was rather obvious that it was a result of Sabrina's ability to control the human body with her psychic powers.

"That's enough!" blurted Sabrina in an edgy tone as she closed her fingers, "I've heard enough for now!"

In concurrence with Sabrina's words, Ariana's upper body dropped heedlessly to the ground. She was no longer conscious. Her mind had been sent into a forced coma on account of Sabrina's rage.

"Are you okay, Ash?" asked Sabrina.

"Yeah," replied the ten-year-old boy as he felt Charmander brush up against his leg, "I'm fine."

"Dammit," cursed Kent under his breath, "that woman's a freaking psychopath. Are you sure you're alright, Ash?"

"Yeah, I think so," replied Ash as he used his shirt to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

"Good," answered Kent, "Now, where's Austin? We need to get out of here. We've been exposed to these conditions for too long. Ariana's interrogation can wait until later. Let's go get Austin. All of us need a trip to see Nurse Joy ASAP."

Ash nodded his head as he tried to make sense of the situation. Everything was happening so fast. He was having a tough time keeping up with all of it. But, then again, maybe that was because of all of the toxins from the smoke. His mind definitely wasn't as sharp as usual.

"I'll show you the way," replied Ash shakily. "Austin's not far."

XXX

A couple of days had gone by since they had captured Ariana and thwarted Team Rocket's plan to steal the Master Ball. Ash had spent those days at the Pokemon Center, where he along with Austin, Kent and Sabrina had been getting treatment from Nurse Joy in the hospital wing.

Although none of them had legitimate carbon monoxide poisoning, it was necessary for them to get a few days of oxygen therapy in order to get their breathing back to normal. Considering how long they had been exposed to the nasty conditions of Saffron City's decimated northern district, Nurse Joy stated that it was a miracle that none of them were in a more critical condition.

The only one of them that wasn't ready to be discharged was Austin, who had lost a severe amount of blood after being cut by Ariana's weavile. Saffron City's Nurse Joy had treated Austin's laceration with a regenerative potion, which reminded Ash of his favorite Joy. She had used the same concoction on the second-degree burn he had gotten from accidentally touching Charmander's tail-flame.

Much like Ash's burn, Austin's wound had healed almost instantaneously upon contact with the regenerative potion. Ash hadn't actually been allowed to be in the room with him when it was applied, apparently Nurse Joy had rules prohibiting it, but Austin had shared the painful experience with him afterwards.

Ash didn't really need to be told, though. He remembered the pain from when his burn had been healed. It was short, but nearly unbearable. It definitely wasn't an occurrence that Ash wanted to repeat anytime soon.

Regardless of the fact that Austin's wound had been healed, he had still lost a ridiculous amount of blood, which was the only thing keeping him from getting released from the hospital wing.

Nurse Joy and her staff had performed a blood transfusion immediately after the wound had been healed, and they were now keeping him under their surveillance to make sure that he didn't have any kind of adverse effect to the donor's blood. It seemed like standard protocol for the most part. Austin didn't look to be having any negative effects, so Ash was sure that they would let him out at least by the end of the week.

At this point, there was really no need to be worried about Austin. When they had first arrived at the Pokemon Center, by means of Kaz's Teleportation, everyone was tense because of the wound's severity and the need to find a compatible donor for the blood transfusion.

Fortunately, modern medicine could work miracles, and the hospital had compatible blood stored away. Ever since the blood transfusion, Austin had been just fine. As a matter of fact, the teen was actually in rather high-spirits because of how badass his new scar was.

Regenerative potions could quicken the healing process, by nearly a hundred-fold, but they couldn't eliminate any scarring that would have taken place in subsequence to the body's natural recovery process. Simply put, Austin now had a dark, jagged scar that occupied most of his right arm. Ash had to admit, it was cool looking. It definitely put the slight discoloration on his right hand to shame.

Outside of Austin, everyone else had already made a full recovery. Sabrina and Kent were discharged yesterday. Nurse Joy had healed all of their first-degree burns with low doses of burn heal, and after nearly twenty-four hours straight of wearing rebreather masks, their breathing had gone back to normal.

Ash had just recently been discharged about an hour ago. After getting his minor burns healed, he required nearly forty-eight hours of oxygen therapy. Nurse Joy hadn't fully explained why he had to have twice as much oxygen therapy as Sabrina and Kent, but he figured it had something to do with how much bigger and mature the adults' lungs were.

Whatever the case, Ash didn't really mind the time spent in the hospital wing. Even though he didn't necessarily like the vibe of his boring, colorless hospital room, he did get to rest quite a bit, which was something he was in dire need of. Ever since the SS Anne, sleep had been like a foreign concept to the ten-year-old boy. He felt like he slept more the past couple days, in the Pokemon Center, than he had throughout his entire journey.

He hadn't been allowed to leave the Pokemon Center, so any time he felt the need to train, Nurse Joy would stop him. Essentially, he had been forced to get rest, which was exactly what he needed. It helped take some of the pressure off of his compulsive urge to train his pokemon.

When he first found out that he would have to stay at the Pokemon Center, Ash was worried because he thought that he wouldn't be able to spend time with his pokemon until he had fully healed. His apprehension was quickly subdued, when Nurse Joy allowed some of his friends that had been healed by Nurse Joy's restoration machine to rest with him in the rather large, but boring, hospital room.

Charmander and Clefairy had been with him ever since he had started his oxygen therapy. Nurse Joy had run their pokeballs through the restoration machine when they had first arrived, and they were immediately allowed to join him in the hospital room. The majority of the damage that they had taken during the mission was healed simply by the idle time spent in their pokeballs. Any remaining injuries were completely taken care of by the restoration machine.

Nurse Joy had zero qualms about Clefairy's presence in the hospital room, but she was a little bit weary about Charmander because of his tail-flame. However, Ash promised her that Charmander would be extra careful not to get close to anything flammable. The flooring was tile, so he didn't have to worry about catching that on fire. Ash made sure that the fire-lizard didn't venture near any of the medical equipment or anything made out of cloth. Saffron's Nurse Joy seemed to be a sucker for friendship between pokemon and their trainers, so she eventually agreed.

Haunter had also been with him ever since he had been admitted into the hospital wing, although he didn't think Nurse Joy knew this. The ghost-type hadn't taken any damage during the mission, so he didn't need to see Nurse Joy as a patient. Ash decided that the best plan of action was to allow Haunter to dwell within his shadow while he stayed at the Pokemon Center.

The general public wasn't too keen on ghosts, and although Nurse Joy probably had to treat one every once in a while, they were rare enough to surprise someone even as knowledgeable about pokemon as her.

For the most part, Haunter spent the last couple days hiding within Ash's shadow during the day and coming out at night. Ash had used his time in the hospital wing to help Haunter understand the severity of killing. It would be hard to make any progress with his ghost-type's flaws until he was able to train again. Haunter's murderous switch was only flipped when Ash was in danger, and right now, there was no way to simulate that.

Ash hoped that his talks with Haunter were helping, but he had a feeling that they weren't. Haunter's typical personality was good-natured and humorous. Ninety-five percent of the time, Haunter was incapable of excessive savagery. The Haunter Ash needed to deal with was the one that came out when he was in danger. It acted on an entirely different set of morals.

Ash theorized that when Haunter's eyes turned red, his personality completely morphed. His kind and impish self blacked-out, allowing the murderous fiend inside of him to surface. Ash needed to find a way to help Haunter get a grip over his alternate personality, but he wasn't willing to tackle that obstacle until he left Saffron after his gym battle with Sabrina. Ash needed to be in a place of seclusion, with all of his pokemon's support, before he faced that demon. Until then, quality time with his friend was the only therapy he could think of.

Growlithe and Ivysaur had been permitted to join him as of yesterday. They were pretty exhausted from the mission and needed some extra treatment from Nurse Joy in order to get them healthy. Both were still slightly sore, but by the time Ash left Saffron, they would be more than ready to battle and train again. Neither would be involved in his gym battle against Sabrina, so there was no need to push them.

He may have Ivysaur work on Razor Leaf while Clefairy and Haunter were getting trained by Sabrina to put up mental barriers, but that was about as much as he would allow Ivysaur to do. Growlithe, on the other hand, would be completely out of commission until they left. The pup was still trying to get the hang of Reversal, and the fighting technique was way too physically taxing for Growlithe to practice until he had recovered completely.

Growlithe definitely wouldn't be happy about his lack of activity, but he would have to get over it. The pup was still young after all. Ash didn't want to push him too hard. Rest was an important part of the training process, and Growlithe definitely needed it after his strong effort against Team Rocket.

The only two pokemon that Ash hadn't been able to see much of over the last few days were Pidgeotto and Wartortle.

He wasn't able to spend any time with Pidgeotto for obvious reasons: the avian was too big to stay with him in the hospital room. Not just that, but Ash didn't really trust him not to break anything. The last thing Ash wanted was to have to spend all of his earnings from the SS Anne tournament on replacing some expensive medical apparatus.

He trusted Pidgeotto with his life. However, destroying things was the avian's greatest skill. Squeezing the giant avian into a room full of equipment, worth tens of thousands of dollars, didn't really sound like a smart idea.

The reasoning behind Wartortle's absence was due to his new evolution. Nurse Joy had volunteered to do a check-up on Wartortle to make sure that no complications had occurred throughout the evolutionary process. According to Nurse Joy, she hadn't found any problems thus far. However, they still hadn't finished doing all of the tests. Hopefully, all of the testing would be finished soon.

Apparently, Wartortle was beginning to give the medical staff trouble. He was reluctant to get checked up on in the first place. Ash had seen him for a short while, right after he had been treated with Nurse Joy's restoration machine, and the turtle pokemon was not very happy. Ash was the only human that Wartortle trusted after all. There was no way that he was going to allow a stranger to do tests on him under his own volition.

The only reason Wartortle eventually agreed to do the tests was because Ash had talked him into it and even with Ash's persuasion, it had been a difficult task to get the stony-faced turtle pokemon to oblige. It wasn't until Ash had explained that a thorough check-up would help hasten his time away from training that Wartortle finally gave in.

Now, after two days of tests, Wartortle was once again giving the medical staff a hard time. He was over all of the rudimentary physical tests and mental examinations. Ash figured that Wartortle would probably be mad at him for a couple of days once the tests were over, but Ash didn't really care. As long as Wartortle was healthy, the ten-year-old boy was okay with a few days of his water-type's expressionless anger.

In some ways, all of the news about how difficult Wartortle was being actually relieved Ash. He had been worried that Wartortle's emotions would deteriorate even more after evolution, but apparently those were just misguided fears. Wartortle hadn't changed a bit, which put a smile on Ash's face. No matter how difficult Wartortle's personality could be, it was always pleasant when a small bit of emotion breached his hardened disposition. Those were some of Ash's favorite moments.

Even though Ash loved getting a chance to rest and spend time with some of his pokemon, the highlights of his time at the Pokemon Center were the few times that Wallace, Robert, and Bill visited him.

The first time that they came to the Pokemon Center, they were forced to visit Ash, Austin, Sabrina and Kent separately. It was only a couple hours after they had arrived at the Center, and they were all prohibited to leave their rooms because of the extensive, initial round of oxygen therapy.

So, unfortunately, there was no way for everyone to meet at the same time. Instead, Ash had been visited personally by the trio of famous adults, which actually made him feel slightly special.

He was just a ten-year-old kid after all. The fact that three of the most famous people in the world had come to check on his wellbeing meant a lot.

Ash felt a bit overwhelmed when they first entered the room. Wallace was extremely worried. He questioned Nurse Joy, who had accompanied them into the room, about nearly every little thing involving Ash's treatment. It wasn't until Nurse Joy told him that he would make a full recovery in less than forty-eight hours that Wallace finally relaxed a little bit.

Ash had already been under the impression that Wallace was protective over him. Some people might disagree on behalf of the fact that Wallace allowed Ash to partake in the entirety of the mission. However, Wallace had made that decision because of his personal beliefs concerning trainers in general.

They did not live in a world for the weak. If they did, children would not be allowed to leave home at the age of ten.

Any kid that was brave enough to go out on their own journey was capable of making their own decisions. It's not like they weren't informed of the dangers that could take place while they traveled the world, and it's not as if League distributors gave out a starter to any kid that turned ten. A child had to qualify, and Ash was one of those kids that had made the cut.

He had made his own choice to help save Robert, and Wallace had respected that. If the decision was based off of feelings, Ash assumed that Wallace wouldn't have allowed Ash to take part in anything.

In just a short amount of time, Ash had become Wallace's friend, and friends were supposed to protect each other. The dark-haired boy had a feeling that Wallace had exposed Ash to a difficult situation, under appropriate supervision, so that he would know how to handle tough circumstances on his own.

Wallace was aware of the fact that Ash was traveling alone, and the ten-year-old boy had already procured quite the knack for getting himself caught in crazy circumstance. The Champion had used this opportunity to help Ash learn how to react under a high amount of pressure, and it had worked. Ever since the capture of Ariana, he had felt more confident than ever.

Wallace may have put him in danger, but he had also helped him learn how to overcome dangerous obstacles in the future. For that reason, Ash was thankful for what the Champion had done for him. In the past week, he had learned and matured a lot. Hopefully, his newfound sense of courage translated to his pokemon as well...

Although Wallace was intensely worried, compared to Bill his composure was serene. The pokemon researcher came into the room an utter crying mess. Between being reunited with his father, and seeing Ash with a rebreather mask on, Bill was full to the brim with all kinds of conflicting emotions.

Ash had always known Bill as a dramatic person, so he wasn't necessarily surprised. Howbeit, he'd never seen a grown man cry so much in his life. It was kind of hard to bear. The famous researcher was almost impossible to understand on account of his sporadic, trembling voice. Not to mention the fact that Bill didn't know where to unload all of his emotions. He bounced back and forth between Ash and Robert like a hyperactive pichu as he discharged a flurry of uncontrollable feelings.

It wasn't until Robert had finally beckoned him to calm down that Bill stopped running around the room like an over-emotional teenage girl.

Speaking of Robert, Ash couldn't even begin to explain how relieving it was to see the CEO of Silph Co. safe and sound. Not only was Robert one of the most important people in the world, but he was also the final product of a successful mission.

They had stopped Team Rocket from acquiring a capture device that would further their twisted plot of evil. They may not have been sure what their reasoning was, but it was clear that Team Rocket had a purpose for their attempt at stealing the Master Ball. Once Sabrina was healthy enough to interrogate Ariana, more answers would be unveiled. However, for now, just seeing Robert in one piece was an accomplishment in and of itself. His safety was a monumental victory.

Ash wasn't just happy to see that Robert was physically okay, but he was also thrilled to find out that Team Rocket hadn't managed to do any noticeable damage to his psyche. Robert was in as high of spirits as ever and didn't seem to have been phased in the slightest by the chaos that had occurred over the past couple of days.

The ten-year-old boy was aware that the CEO of Silph Co. was probably putting up a strong facade. There was no way that he hadn't been affected by the kidnapping at least a little bit. Nevertheless, the fact that he was able to put one up at all, in Ash's opinion, meant that he would be just fine.

Robert Montgomery would overcome any kind of trauma that he had accumulated over the past week. He was a strong man. The only way that Team Rocket was going to do him in was if they killed him.

Even though Ash loved seeing Robert, the old man's disposition portrayed that he was even more excited than Ash. From the moment he stepped through the door, he showered Ash with all kinds of heartfelt thanks.

The famous CEO even went as far as to say that he had a reward waiting for Ash at Silph Co. headquarters. Ash had no idea what it could possibly be, but he couldn't wait to find out. Apparently, Austin was getting a reward for his courage as well, so as soon as the teenage boy got discharged from the Pokemon Center's hospital wing, they would be making a trip over to headquarters in order to pick up their gifts.

Throughout their first visit, there was no talk about Team Rocket and Ariana. Ash tried to bring it up a couple of times, but each time Wallace quickly diverted the conversation. It was pretty clear that Wallace wanted to avoid talking about such matters at the time. He probably didn't want Ash to worry about anything too arduous for the rest of the day. In Wallace's mind, the ten-year-old boy had probably already been through enough.

It wasn't until yesterday that they finally discussed some of the details concerning the aftermath of the operation. At this point, the most intense part of the oxygen therapy treatment was over, so everyone was finally able to gather in the same room.

They chose to meet in Austin's room because he was the worse for wear. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he had his blood transfusion, and although he could move, it probably wasn't the best idea for him to be overly active.

Nurse Joy was able to hook Ash up to a mobile treatment machine, so he was able to get his oxygen therapy while he was in Austin's room. He felt kind of strange walking around with a rebreather mask, but if he took it off he would have to stay in the hospital wing even longer, and he definitely didn't want that.

At this point in time, Sabrina and Kent had already been discharged from the hospital wing, so there wasn't anything restricting them from moving about as they wished. It was nice being able to see everyone in the same room, especially after having been involved in such a perilous mission.

The first thing that they had discussed throughout the oddly located meeting was what had taken place on both teams' ends during the mission. Wallace was the first to share as he recounted the events that had unfolded at the warehouse.

Right off the bat, Wallace had explained that the warehouse was unexpectedly housing an entire base full of grunts. They had originally thought that Ariana's group would be small, but that wasn't the case. Going off of what Wallace said, Ash didn't think that there were quite as many grunts at the warehouse as there were in the underground hideout. Howbeit, there were definitely more than expected.

Ash didn't know exactly how many pokemon Wallace and Sabrina used to take down the base, but as Wallace told the story, he continuously referenced three pokemon: Swampert, a gyarados, and a pokemon called Milotic, which Ash was unfamiliar with. However, by the way that Wallace talked about this so called Milotic, Ash guessed that it was one of the Champion's strongest pokemon.

Every once in a while Sabrina would interrupt in order to explain things from her point of view. The pokemon that she mentioned were three of her alakazam: Kaz, Yin, and Yang, Yin's brother. More than likely, these three alakazam were the same alakazam that Sabrina used during her battle against Ariana, which unveiled the identity of the male alakazam that had faced off against Ariana's foreign feline.

With the help of the ten trainees that accompanied them to the warehouse, they easily wiped out all of the grunts. However, during that time, Ariana used all of the chaos as a distraction and escaped. Wallace explained that his initial reaction was to drop what he was doing and chase after her, but then he realized that she had left Robert behind—tied up and blindfolded. Since one of the main objectives was to recover Robert, Wallace was forced to stay behind as Ariana fled via a stupidly fast motorcycle.

Ash was surprised that Ariana had left Robert behind. After the lengths at which they had gone in order to capture him, it didn't make any sense that she would let go of him so easily. The only explanation that the dark-haired boy could come up with was that the preservation of Ariana's knowledge of Team Rocket's plan was more important than the acquisition of the Master Ball. She must have prioritized her escape over the retainment of Robert Montgomery. If that was the case, whatever was locked within her mental barriers was obviously extremely pivotal to Team Rocket.

Wallace proceeded to explain that once Robert's safety had been confirmed, Sabrina used her empathetic clairvoyance to track down and teleport to Ariana's location.

At this point in time, Sabrina interjected in order to briefly explain to them what had happened at the beginning stages of the battle in Saffron's northern district.

According to Sabrina, Kent, Ash and Austin had showed up not too long after the battle began. Sabrina told them that at the start of the battle she was taken by surprise by all of Ariana's dark-types. She wasn't able to read Ariana's mind to find out what pokemon she had, so she was hit hard by the full extent of the type disadvantage.

Sabrina admitted that she was relieved when Kent showed up. Ash had a tough time believing that Sabrina wouldn't have defeated Ariana in the end. Nevertheless, if they hadn't shown up when they did, the battle definitely would have been drawn out a lot longer and the repercussions could have ended up being way worse.

Once Kent's name was mentioned by Sabrina, the first-class ACE trainer took that as his cue to share what had happened next from his point of view. Kent gave a brief summary of what had occurred at the underground hideout before picking up where Sabrina left off. He explained that while he sent out his arcanine, electivire, scizor and umbreon, he asked the boys to stay behind and watch.

Ash thought he could sense a slight hint of guilt in Kent's intonation as he talked about leaving the boys behind, probably because of the fact that they got ambushed by a couple of grunts.

Ash didn't quite understand why Kent felt bad about it. It's not like anything bad happened to them, albeit Haunter's murderous outburst.

Anyways, Kent elucidated the rest of the events that had unfolded, up until their brief stab at interrogating Ariana, before Sabrina got frustrated and knocked her out. Throughout the end of Kent's recollection, Bill continuously pestered him about what had happened to Ash and Austin while he was taking on Ariana's pokemon. That's when Kent gave Ash an opportunity to share what had happened from his point of view.

Ash told them about how the Rockets had attacked them, but left out the part about Haunter's barbarous episode. He watered down the story and shared with them that Haunter and Golduck merely took out the raticate before incapacitating both of the grunts. Ash gave Austin a look that portrayed for him to go along with his fabrication, and Austin instantly obliged.

Ash could also tell that Sabrina was aware of what had really happened. She depicted a subtle hint of curiosity when Ash's story strayed from the truth, but elected not to say anything. When it came to things like this, Sabrina understood. She probably deduced Ash's reasoning and confirmed it as logical. Ash just didn't want Wallace and Bill to worry about Haunter's presence on his team and didn't want Kent to be aware of Haunter's internal demon.

It was highly unlikely that they would do something right now in regard to his ghost-type's infernal shift in behavior, but Ash sincerely doubted that Haunter's abominable freak-outs would go away anytime soon. Until they finally resolved this issue, Haunter would be looked at as a liability to anyone that didn't truly know him. Wallace and Bill were protective of Ash. Who knows how they would handle Haunter if they found out that he had an alter ego that was capable of murder?

Once Ash had finished explaining what had happened, while he and Austin were separated from Kent, his mentioning of the two Rocket grunts that Haunter had disabled sparked Sabrina to bring up a new topic of discussion.

When Kaz had teleported Sabrina, Kent, Ash and Ariana over to Austin's location prior to teleporting them to the Pokemon Center, they had taken the two Rocket grunts with them. Ash didn't think too much about it at the time because of how disoriented he was, but almost immediately after they arrived at the Pokemon Center, Kaz, Sabrina and the three unconscious Rockets vanished.

It wasn't until Ash had finally come to his senses after a couple hours of oxygen therapy that he actually took the time to theorize about what Sabrina had done with them. His initial thought was that she teleported them to the Saffron City Police Department, but it didn't take long for Ash to discard that idea.

There was no way that Sabrina would hand over Ariana to the League before she got a chance to examine the executive's mind under her own terms. No. More than likely, Sabrina would take Ariana to a place of seclusion, where she could interrogate her at her own pace.

Although the number of casualties was minuscule, Ariana's presence in Saffron City had caused a massive amount of destruction, and nothing meant more to Sabrina than her city. Sabrina wanted to know what Team Rocket wanted with the Master Ball before she allowed Ariana to be dealt with by the law.

The twisted Rocket executive had caused too much damage to Saffron and had kidnapped probably the most important person in Sabrina's life: Robert Montgomery. There was no way Sabrina would mindlessly hand over Ariana on account of the League, the gym leader wasn't that selfless.

Taking all of this into account, Ash was almost certain that he knew the location of Ariana and the two grunts. Sabrina had most likely taken Ariana to the cell where the Rocket with the deranged mind was being held, within the Saffron Gym's basement.

Ash had a feeling that Sabrina not only took Ariana there for interrogation, but she also wanted to perversely fulfill the fragmented Rocket's wish to see Ariana. That Rocket had pissed Sabrina off with his mindless babbling about killing everyone important to her. Sabrina had already lost her parents; her emotions weren't stable enough to handle words like that in a placid manner.

Ash suspected that Sabrina wanted to destroy that deranged Rocket's sense of reality by throwing his erroneous goddess in the same cell that he resided in. Sabrina might have a soft spot for those that she cares about, but Ash could tell that the opposite was true for those that opposed her.

He had seen the ferocity that could breach through her expressionless countenance when she was mad. It reminded him of his Haunter. It was like there was a demon pushing up against Sabrina's conscious psyche just waiting to get loose, and when it did, it would go absolutely crazy, until everything that threatened her was bereft of life.

Ash's hypothesis was at least partially confirmed when Sabrina explained that she had Ariana and the two grunts detained underneath the Saffron Gym. Ash had a feeling that everyone else, other than Austin and him, already knew this.

All but Kent simply nodded.

Although Kent didn't say anything, Ash could tell that he was frustrated. He was a first-class ACE trainer after all—a man that had devoted his life to taking care of the League's dirty work. Kent likely didn't agree with the fact that Sabrina was holding onto Ariana for the time being, however, there was nothing Kent could do about it. If it weren't for Sabrina, and the rest of the people in this room, Kanto would be in a lot of trouble.

Simply put, Kent didn't have the right to disagree with Sabrina's judgment. Everyone here had covered the League's ass. The League had failed to handle things on their own; Team Rocket had bested Kanto's government. It was the Champion of another region, a gym leader acting on her own accord, a famous pokemon researcher, and a couple of kids that had thwarted Team Rocket's plan.

The League had become lax while Team Rocket had gone into hiding. That was likely to change. Champion Lance couldn't just sit back idly after the SS Anne's destruction, Robert Montgomery's kidnapping, and the devastation that had come to pass in Saffron City. The people would demand that something be done, and Lance would be expected to get off of his throne, at the Indigo Plateau, in order to put a stop to all of the chaos that had taken place over the past week.

Ariana was just an executive, Team Rocket wouldn't go away until they were decimated in full. Hopefully, Sabrina was able to dig out their true goal when she was healthy enough to examine Ariana's mind. Until then, there was nothing they could do but remain alert.

Once Sabrina finished explaining that she would be investigating Ariana's mind as soon as her psychic powers had fully recovered, the conversation shifted into a discussion concerning everyone's individual, forthcoming plans.

Wallace started the new conversation off by telling everyone that he would only be staying In Saffron for a couple more days. The Champion had to get back to his home region. He had spent way too much time getting involved with Kanto affairs and needed to get back to Hoenn.

However, despite his need to get home, he didn't plan on leaving Saffron's northern districts up in flames.

Apparently, the water-type specialist had spent the past few days having his pokemon work on putting out the fires. He had the help of the Saffron City Fire Department, but they weren't nearly as adroit as Wallace. He did have some of the strongest water pokemon in the world at his disposal after all.

So far, they had eliminated any immediate threats of the raging fires spreading into other districts or the northern routes outside of city limits. Nevertheless, a good chunk of Saffron City's upper terrain was still up in flame, and the city could definitely use a Champion's help.

Wallace did say that Champion Lance had contacted the League officials in Saffron and had offered to send out Gym Leader Misty, in addition to the other Waterflower girls, to help deal with the fires. But, Wallace told him that it wasn't necessary. The foreign Champion didn't have a problem with staying to finish the job.

Besides, Ash had a feeling that Wallace wanted to stay and make sure that Ash and Austin were okay. They had become good friends, and Wallace probably wasn't comfortable leaving them while they were in the hospital.

Ash definitely didn't have any qualms about it. He would miss Wallace, the Champion had become one of his best friends. The longer Wallace could stay the better. It would be ideal if Wallace would be able to watch his gym battle, but Ash doubted that would happen.

The dark-haired boy still had to teach his pokemon how to put up mental barriers, and that would probably take more than a couple days. By the time he was prepared to battle Sabrina, Wallace would most likely be gone.

Ash would still be keeping in frequent contact with Wallace via his xtranceiver, however, he had no idea when he would able to see him in person again. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long. Wallace did have to govern a foreign region, therefore, there were no guarantees.

Sabrina was the second to share. Other than a few details about how she needed to go over the missing persons' list and damage costs with Robert, as well as some of the other League officials that were stationed in Saffron, the information Sabrina shared was a lot less depressing than Wallace's impending departure.

Sabrina would be spending the next couple of days resting at the gym. She had exerted a lot of her psychic power during the mission, and she needed to lay low for a little bit in order for it to replenish. She planned on doing so while teaching Ash how to put mental barriers over his pokemons' minds.

Her pokemon could perform all of the external psychic exposure, so there would be no need for her to use her power. As long as she didn't have to delve into her psychic abilities, she would be able to get all of the rest she needed in order to properly dissect Ariana's mental barrier.

The psychic virtuoso also explained that she wanted to help Ash's pokemon acquire the mental barriers as fast as possible. She knew that he wanted to resume his travels and understood that he couldn't do that until she gave him a gym battle. Sabrina wanted to repay Ash for all of the care that he had shown Robert and her, and she knew that giving him her near undivided attention, over the next couple of days, was the best gift that she could give him.

Ash didn't have any qualms about it. He couldn't wait to get back to training.

Once Sabrina was done sharing her plans, Kent spoke up.

According to the first-class ACE trainer, his next few days were going to be busy. Kent was under direct orders from the commander of the ACE Corps to stay in Saffron City for the next week, or so, in order to clear up the mess that Team Rocket had made.

He would be interrogating some of the grunts that they had detained after the mission – particularly the ranked Rocket – on account of the fact that the League believed he was the highest ranking captured member of Team Rocket's forces. The League had yet to become aware of Ariana's presence within Saffron. Kent, as well as the trainees, had promised to keep their mouths shut unless the League started to get suspicious.

None of them felt comfortable lying to the League, and Ash couldn't blame them. Withholding information was difficult enough. They were supposed to be the dogs of the League, willing to do all of the dirty work. Holding a secret from the very thing that they were sworn to protect sounded torturous.

However, it was the best course of action. Sabrina needed to be able to use her methods at her own pace in order to successfully rip Team Rockets plans from Ariana's brain. Kent was fully aware of this fact, which was why he was willing to go to such lengths to allow Sabrina to have her way.

Apparently, Kent's interrogations would begin as soon as two more high-ranking members of the ACE Corps arrived in Saffron. Ash didn't know if they were first-class ACE trainers like Kent, but Ash assumed that they were strong. After seeing how powerful a mere trainee was, anyone that could assume the role of an ACE trainer had to be skilled.

Because Kent would be busy attending to League duties for the next week, he made it known that chances are he wouldn't be seeing any of them anytime soon. Ash understood, but that didn't change the fact that he was a little sad. In just a few days, he had grown to like Kent. Hopefully, their paths would cross again…

Later today, Robert would be returning to Silph Co. headquarters so that he could address his company. During their meeting, Robert had tried to elucidate his company's current status. Due to obvious circumstances over the past week, Silph Co. had been operating under the impression that their CEO was dead. After the SS Anne catastrophe, Margaret Montgomery, Robert Montgomery's wife, assumed the role as interim CEO.

Robert explained that if he were to actually have died, Margaret would have ran the company until Bill decided that he wanted to leave the lighthouse and take on his father's legacy. When Robert mentioned this, Bill cringed, so Ash could tell that there was a lot of discomfort regarding this topic.

Anyways, immediately after Robert's rescue, he had informed his wife that he was still alive. Ash sort of wished that he could have been there for that scene; he was a sucker for that sort of thing. Besides, Bill most certainly had been there. Knowing his friend's tendency to be over emotional, it without a doubt had to be entertaining. Watching Bill's exaggerated displays was one of Ash's favorite things in the world. It was just way too amusing.

Other than Margaret, only a few high-ranking Silph Co. employees had been made aware of Robert's survival. Margaret Montgomery had ordered a press-conference that was to be broadcasted worldwide, which would be taking place later today. Robert seemed to think that it was a little much, but his wife insisted. According to Robert, Margaret Montgomery was the most dramatic out of the bunch.

Ash had a tough time believing that anyone could be more dramatic than Bill, but then again, his unusual behavior had to have come from somewhere.

Nevertheless, regardless of how they planned on making the announcement, Ash knew for a fact that the world would break out into a momentous celebration. Before Robert Montgomery's supposed death, he had been one of the world's most adored people. As soon as everyone knew that he was alive, not only would he be looked at as a charitable visionary, but he would also be seen as a hero.

Not only had Mr. Montgomery survived the SS Anne, but he had also endured a kidnapping devised by Team Rocket. His strength and perseverance had proven to be just as strong as his empire was gracious. He was a billionaire that people could actually look up to. Robert had already been practically worshipped by the world's populace, and that reputation would only grow.

The more Ash thought about it the more he felt bad for Bill. His friend had a lot to live up to. It was situations like this that made Ash kind of relieved that he didn't know much about his father. High expectations from others had the potential to forge a person's destiny, especially the expectations of a father-like figure.

Of course, deep down inside, Ash wished that he knew his father. However, at least he didn't have the pressure of living up to someone like Robert. He could become whoever he wanted to be without the nuisance of having someone constantly breathing down his neck. Then again, maybe thoughts like that were just his way of coping with the fact that his dad had never been around.

Anyhow, the pressure that followed having a father like Robert Montgomery was just something that Bill would have to deal with. He would be fine. Despite Bill's melodramatic personality, he was a strong man. If anyone could live up to Robert Montgomery, it was Bill.

Speaking of Bill, once Robert had finished explaining his upcoming agenda, Bill proceeded with his own.

Bill planned on sticking around Saffron for a little bit in order to help out his father. Robert had all kinds of obligations and delegations to take care of so that he could maintain good relations with a plethora of his business partners.

The pokemon researcher wanted to help Robert with some of his forthcoming duties. It was the least he could do. His father had been through a lot, and he wanted to be there to help.

Besides, it's not like Bill didn't have the time. The pokemon researcher's only present responsibility involved observing and examining Dragonite back at the lighthouse. Although Dragonite was a high priority to Bill, he could wait for a couple more days. The massive genetic phenomenon wasn't going anywhere.

Another reason that Bill wanted to stay was for Ash. He planned on volleying his time back and forth between Silph Co. headquarters and the Saffron Gym. Bill wanted to be able to provide Ash with company while he was training with Sabrina. Austin would be in the hospital, Wallace would be tending to the fires, and Kent would be busy with League matters. Bill didn't feel comfortable leaving his friend alone with Sabrina for that long.

Bill also explained that he wanted to hang around and see Ash's gym battle. He didn't think he would get another opportunity to see Ash battle before the League conference. Now would be the perfect time for him to see his friend battle in person. It was also worth noting that Bill was most likely yearning for Sabrina's defeat.

Over the past week, it had become vividly clear that Sabrina and Bill didn't get along. Their unusual animosity towards each other had only grown since Robert had been rescued. Bill wasn't joking when he said that Robert considered Sabrina a daughter. The CEO of Silph Co. treated Sabrina like she was just as big of a priority as Bill, maybe even more so. She was the apple of his eye—the daughter he had never had, and it pissed Bill off.

Bill wanted Sabrina to lose to Ash desperately. The dark-haired boy could tell. Although he didn't want to win for the same reasons, Ash couldn't wait to battle Sabrina for a chance at the Marsh Badge. It had been a long time coming.

After Bill finished talking about watching Ash's gym battle, nearly everyone else blurted out their apologies for not being able to attend.

Austin was bound to the Pokemon Center's hospital wing, for at least two more days, and that was only if everything went perfectly. Nurse Joy estimated that he would be in the hospital for two to four more days. That would give his body enough time to adapt to the foreign blood that was now coursing throughout his veins. So, even before he had gotten an apology from his recovering friend, Ash was well aware that he most likely wouldn't be able to come.

Of course, Kent wouldn't be able to make it, which didn't surprise Ash in the least bit. And Robert probably wouldn't be attending due to everything that he had to take care of over the next week. Ash hadn't been expecting Wallace to be able to come, which was still up in the air, but he was desperately hoping that the foreign Champion would be able to find the time to show up.

Ash knew that Wallace had a ton of obligations to take care of in Hoenn, but that didn't change the fact that they had been through a lot together over the past week. No matter how many times Ash rationally thought about Wallace not being there, it still upset him. Austin was already being forced to miss the match. It wasn't fair that Wallace was as well. But, then again, life wasn't fair. So, how disappointed could Ash actually get before he had to admit to himself that his expectations were too high?

Ash accepted everyone's apologies and explained that it wasn't that big of a deal, although it was a slightly bigger deal than he was making it out to be. He then went on to explain his plans beyond his gym battle with Sabrina. Everyone knew that he would be training with her over the next few days, so there was no need to go into detail about it. How Sabrina chose to train Ash was up to her.

The ten-year-old boy shared that as soon as his gym battle was over, and he and Austin had visited Silph Co. headquarters in order to tour the building and to pick up their rewards, he planned on traveling to Celadon City.

Celadon was only about a week's walk west, and although there weren't too many wild pokemon that interested Ash indigenous to the area, it was said that some wild abra and kadabra roamed in between Kanto's two biggest cities. Ash was in need of a psychic-type, and ever since he had seen the kadabra aboard the SS Anne, the species had garnered his interest.

Sabrina's powerful specimens only heightened his desire to train one of his own, although chances of that were still low. Abra and kadabra weren't common pokemon by any means, and their ability to read minds and teleport made them excruciatingly difficult to catch. This gave him all the more reason to let Haunter travel in his shadow during the trip. The poltergeist's Mean Look would be essential if Ash wanted to capture a psi pokemon.

Another thing about the trip to Celadon that really excited Ash was the fact that there was said to be a lot of powerful trainers that could be found trekking between Celadon and Saffron. Route 7 was a long and busy route that was frequently used not only by trainers looking to battle, but also merchants.

Located in Celadon was the famous Celadon Department Store: the largest shopping center in all of Kanto. It put the average pokemart to shame and was labeled as a place that all pokemon trainers had to visit at least once while they were traveling through Kanto. Due to the department store's presence, all of Celadon's encompassing routes were packed with traveling merchants looking to sell their goods to one of Celadon's many buyers.

Ash couldn't wait to visit the Celadon Department Store. One of the reasons that he had spent such a minimal amount of money during his journey was in anticipation for Celadon. He planned on getting his friends all kinds of TMs and rare items that could boost their already potent potential.

However, despite all of the fun and self-betterment that a trip to Celadon offered him, his main reason for visiting Celadon was the gym leader, Erika Mori. Erika was well known as one of the weakest gym leaders in Kanto and served as Ash's best option to pick up his fourth badge.

After his battle against Sabrina, the gloves would be coming off in regard to his gym battles. No longer would gym leaders be required to use a specified team, and no longer would they have to compromise their strength. Some of the more powerful gym leaders might still decide to do so, but there was no guarantee.

Erika was a good up and coming gym leader, but she was by no means a prodigy like Misty Waterflower or Brock Slate. Erika would hopefully be a good warmup for some of the more formidable gym leaders, such as Koga and Giovanni.

Moreover, Ash would have a good matchup against Erika. She was a grass-type specialist, which meant that he had a lot of pokemon with type advantage. Ash wasn't quite sure how many pokemon Erika typically used for battles with more than three badges, but most gym leaders used three or four.

If it ended up being a three-on-three battle, Ash would use Growlithe, Charmander and Pidgeotto. All three of them would have a significant type advantage, and Charmander had yet to compete in a gym battle. Ash wanted to give him the opportunity to prove his strength against Erika. Growlithe and Pidgeotto were no brainers. They had the advantage and were some of his most experienced pokemon.

If the battle ended up being a four-on-four, he would probably use Ivysaur. The typing would be neutral, and Wartortle would be at an extreme disadvantage. He could use Haunter or Clefairy, but they were battling in the gym battle against Sabrina, and he would like to give some of his other pokemon an opportunity.

Anyways, once Ash had finished explaining his plans to go to Celadon, he received a surplus of comments from just about everyone in the room. None were negative, almost everyone seemed to think that Celadon was a good, rational choice.

The only, somewhat, negative response came from Wallace, who warned Ash not to underestimate Erika.

His argument was that, although she was young and inexperienced, she was still a gym leader. Gym leader's were expected to be strong and had to oversee whichever city that they were appointed to. In terms of sheer size, Celadon was the biggest city in Kanto. If Erika managed to become the gym leader of such a prodigious city, she couldn't be that bad.

Ash agreed with Wallace, but also thought that he was telling him to be a bit overcautious, probably because Wallace was a water-type specialist. Water was weak to grass, which is probably what was causing Wallace to speak so circumspectly.

When everyone in the room finished chiming in to give their two cents, Austin coughed to grab their attention.

It took a few moments for everyone to quiet down, but eventually they all ceased their chatter in order to hear what Austin had to say.

Austin refrained from any talk involving his time in the hospital. Everyone knew that he would be there for a few more days, and Ash figured he probably didn't want to talk about it anymore.

Like Ash, he shared his plans for after Saffron.

After Ash and Austin's upcoming trip to Silph Co. headquarters, Austin planned on flying Fearow back to Johto. Austin had a journey to resume, and he no longer could afford to hang around Kanto.

Ash would have been worried about Austin during the flight over to Johto, but he had seen Fearow fly. Austin's fearow was a master at manipulating air currents. It wasn't like flying on Pidgeotto, where he had to hold on for dear life while battling the atmosphere's turbulent wind.

Once Austin got back to Johto, he planned on taking on the region's gym circuit. Judging by Austin's team, he couldn't have been in Johto for too long before the SS Anne. As far as Ash knew, Austin didn't have any pokemon native to Johto, albeit Meganium, who was actually his starter.

He might have a badge or two, but Ash didn't really know for sure. He had never asked, but he guessed that Austin didn't have any. Knowing Austin, he would have most likely bragged about them if he did.

It didn't take too long for Austin to finish sharing his plans, and once he was done, they all chatted for a little bit longer before everyone went their separate ways.

Ash wasn't quite sure what everyone else did after the meeting, but he spent the rest of yesterday in bed relaxing with his pokemon. The meeting hadn't been too long. However, he was still trying to recover from the conditions of Saffron's northern district.

One more day of rest had proven to be the perfect cure for Ash's exhaustion. Now, he and Growlithe were standing in front of the Pokemon Center's front desk waiting for Nurse Joy to finish retrieving Wartortle's pokeball. He had already received the rest of his friends' capture devices at various points throughout the last couple of days.

As Saffron's Nurse Joy swung open the doors to the hospital wing, there was a subtle smirk that appeared across her face. It was a look that depicted amusement. Ash and his friends had put the Pokemon Center through a lot over the past couple of days, and she had handled it extremely well. Ash liked her, although not nearly as much as the Joy that had saved Charmander.

"Your Wartortle's just fine, Ash," said Nurse Joy as she shook her head in bewilderment. "There were no hiccups in the evolution, and he's definitely adjusted well to his new body. Of course, the squirtle to wartortle transformation isn't necessarily a difficult one. Things will be a lot different if he ever evolves into a blastoise, but still, he has adapted better than most."

"Good," said Ash as he reached out to grab Wartortle's pokeball. "Did his behavior ever get any better?"

"Nope," replied Nurse Joy with a shrug while handing the pokeball over to Ash, "but I assume you've got a good handle on him. He wasn't awful, although it's pretty apparent that he only listens to you. The only way we could get him to do any of the tests was if we mentioned that it was what you wanted."

The dark-haired boy smiled at that. It seemed as though he hadn't lost Wartortle's respect amidst the evolution after all. "Yeah, things weren't always that way, though. It took me longer than I would have liked to get him to listen to me."

"I bet," said Nurse Joy. "Once you get them under control, though, pokemon like that are usually some of the most enjoyable personalities to train. I'm sure you guys will have fun together."

Ash's smile stretched even further while he clipped Wartortle's pokeball to his belt.

"Anyways…" drawled Nurse Joy, "All of your paperwork has been processed. You're good to go. I believe Sabrina said something about heading to her gym as soon as you're discharged. Am I correct?"

"Yeah," said Ash as he adjusted the straps on his backpack before fixing his cap, "I'm heading over there right now."

Nurse Joy nodded her head while another smirk formed across her pretty face, "Good luck."

A simple good luck wouldn't have been strange, but the way Nurse Joy said it sent a deep tingle down Ash's spine. It was the kind of feeling that you got when you knew something arduous was in your near future.

"The gym battle is not for a few days," answered Ash with a gulp, "today's just training."

"I know, and like I said," retorted Nurse Joy in the same odd intonation, "good luck. You're going to need it."

"Err…thanks, I guess," groaned Ash as he started to back away from the front desk.

"Bye, Ash," said Nurse Joy with a smile and a wave. "Have fun. Don't forget to see me before the gym battle. I'm sure you're pokemon are going to need the rest after what Sabrina has in store for them."

"Bye, Nurse Joy," stammered Ash as he turned around and headed straight for the door.

As soon as he exited Saffron's oversized Pokemon Center, Ash lowered his line of sight to Growlithe who was looking up at him with concerned eyes. "Dammit, buddy. What the hell have I gotten myself into?"

Growlithe simply shook his head, clearly just as worried as Ash.

The ten-year-old boy took a big breath before releasing a heavy sigh. He had a feeling that Sabrina had more planned for him than he had originally expected.

XXX

Unfortunately, it took Ash and Growlithe nearly four hours to get to the Saffron Gym. Along the way, the dark-haired boy half-expected Sabrina to teleport to his location, but then he remembered that Sabrina was currently resting her powers.

Several times, during his expedition across the city, Ash thought about calling one of his other friends that were in Saffron for a ride. However, he ultimately decided not to bother them. They were busy, and he could use the exercise. It was good for him after being cooped up in a hospital room for so long.

By the time he finally reached the gym, he was out of breath and exhausted. He would be just fine, but he could definitely still feel the after-effects of the ample dose of carbon monoxide. Nurse Joy had warned him that his respiratory system would be weak for a few days, so he wasn't shocked.

Even though it was arduous, there were parts of the tiresome trip that he enjoyed. Hee got to see a lot of the sections of Saffron that he hadn't previously been to. Before today, Ash had seen all of Saffron's northern and southern districts. During the walk over to the gym, he finally got an opportunity to experience almost everything else, most notably Saffron's busy central districts.

The core of Saffron was so much different than the rest of the city. It was bustling and wild—full to the brim with all sorts of activities. There were hundreds of shops, thousands upon thousands of preoccupied people, and the buildings were all massive in size and scope. Life in Central Saffron was the perfect example of what most people stereotyped the city life to look like.

Despite all of the entertaining people and intriguing shops, by far the coolest thing Ash experienced was getting up close to Silph Co. headquarters. He didn't go in or anything like that; he wanted to wait until Robert's tour, but it was still an awe-inspiring sight. The skyscraper was absolutely gargantuan, and Ash nearly strained his neck when he tried to look straight up its imposing face.

Ash couldn't wait to go inside after Austin got discharged from the Pokemon Center. The thought of possibly getting to go to the top made the ten-year-old boy giddy. He wasn't exactly in love with heights, but flying atop Pidgeotto had dampened any fears that would have previously caused reluctance. Going to the top of Silph Co. headquarters wasn't typically allowed by the Montgomery's; there were way too many risks involving potential terrorist attacks.

However, it was rumored that the view was amazing for those few that got the chance. Hopefully, Ash's growing relationship with the family would make him one of those lucky exceptions.

Other than Silph Co. headquarters' staggering immensity, Ash's favorite thing about Central Saffron was the tantalizing scents coming from all of the districts various hole in the wall restaurants. The food at the Pokemon Center was alright, but it was nothing in comparison to the food that he smelt as he walked amidst the heart of the city.

He thought about stopping to eat several times, but there were just way too many choices. By the time he finally came to a decision, he was almost at the gym. He figured Sabrina would have something for him to scarf down, so he chose not to spend the money. He'd be leaving for Celadon in a few days, and his money would be better spent on travel supplies.

Even though there were a lot of things that he loved, there were also some things that Ash didn't care for about his expedition through Saffron's most active districts.

Throughout his journey, Ash had started to get used to the concept of large crowds of people, but this was over the top. Central Saffron was ridiculously congested.

In some of the busiest areas, it was hard for Ash to even walk without bumping into somebody. He was constantly rubbing shoulders with people, and Growlithe was starting to get anxious in the midst of the sea of people.

Despite the fact that Growlithe's social anxiety had almost completely diminished, Central Saffron was not a comfortable environment for the pup. Growlithe was on edge, constantly darting his eyes back and forth due to the many noises and emotional scents.

Ash thought about returning him, however, he elected not to. Central Saffron was the ultimate test for Growlithe. If he could persevere through it than he could handle being around just about any number of people. Essentially, it was his final round of Exposure Therapy.

Another thing that Ash didn't enjoy was the random outbursts of fear that some of the citizens displayed. He had been told back at the Pokemon Center that there was a very short missing persons' list. Most of the fires in the northern districts had been cleared up, and there was only a slight haze of smoke drifting throughout the air in Saffron's core.

Most of the people were relatively calm about what had happened the other day. Ash assumed that the majority of the chaotic aftermath had been taken care of while he was at the Pokemon Center. However, every once in a while there would be a random breakdown or panic attack that took place in the middle of the streets.

It made sense, there had been a big battle in the city a couple of days ago. Nevertheless, it kind of left Ash unsettled. The concept of peoples' loved ones losing lives and citizens living in fear didn't bode well for Ash's mind. It made him hate Team Rocket even more.

Be that as it may, he kept his head up and continued to walk.

There had been some rocky moments, but eventually they made their way through the crowd and to the gym.

Now, Ash stood in front of the familiar Saffron Gym, with sore legs and an exhausted Growlithe, as he tried to calm down his wild breathing.

To the northwest was an ominous, orange glow that could be seen over the horizon, blanketed in a cloud of murky smoke. It belonged to the site of the fires that were still raging in Saffron's northernmost territory.

Ash assumed that Wallace was probably over there right now working to put out the fires. The Champion most likely had his band of powerful water-types exhausting their internal water reservoirs in order to squelch the widespread flames.

It was a nudge up against Ash's pant leg from an anxious Growlithe that got Ash to focus his line of sight back on the gym.

Between being teleported directly from the Pokemon Center into the gym's interior or rushing to leave before the mission, Ash hadn't really gotten a chance to examine the Saffron Gym's exterior appearance until now.

It was a very bizarre looking building. From what Ash could tell, its primary structural shape was that of a dome. It was large in expanse, and its walls were painted a serene indigo blue that matched the building's interior tile. In the center of the dome were two large arching doors. They were made out of some sort of fine, silver alloy that shimmered as Ash stood in front of the building.

What made the building standout, though, was the extensive, violet roof that seemingly swallowed the dome shaped structure. It waved across the top half of the building before jetting outside of the main structure's breadth and plummeting into the ground, creating what appeared to be several pointed pillars.

The Saffron Gym's overall image gave off an extraterrestrial-like feel. Its abstract design didn't look like anything that a human would construct.

Once Ash had taken in the outlandish exterior of the gym, he made his way over to the front door. Due to all of the chaos that had ensued over the past couple of days, there were no impending challengers like there were at the Vermillion Gym.

Then again, the reason for the long line to battle Surge was the prize: the SS Anne ticket. Gyms weren't usually that congested, although they tended to get busier as the League tournament neared.

As expected, when Ash got close, the double doors instantly opened and receded into the walls. Unless the being trying to open them was a machamp, or something else with otherworldly strength, doors made out of such a heavy substance couldn't be moved manually.

He thought about the possibility that the doors had been opened psychically, but that would probably get old for whoever had been issued the rudimentary task. More than likely, the double doors opened and closed using some kind of automated system.

As Ash entered the Saffron gym, he quickly discarded his current train of thought. Leave it to him to waste time mulling over how a door worked. Good thing Sabrina couldn't use her telekinetic powers right now. Otherwise, she probably would have judged his thought patterns as trivial.

The Saffron Gym didn't have a lobby like other gyms. On the other side of the front door was a long, eerie hallway. It wasn't eerie in the same way that the Pokemon Tower had been back in Lavender Town. What made it strange was the odd lack of décor, or anything else for that matter, that existed throughout the corridor.

The vibes that he got from the Saffron Gym's lengthy entryway didn't surprise Ash, though. As a matter of fact, he didn't expect anything else. It's not like it contradicted the rest of the gym that Ash had previously gotten a chance to see. The entirety of the Saffron Gym had the same uncanny feeling. It was only heightened because, this time, Ash and Growlithe weren't with Wallace, Austin and Bill.

It was just Ash, Growlithe, and the sound of their footsteps as they passed by the several grey pillars that cascaded from the roof into the indigo shaded tile. It didn't take long for them to get to the end of the hallway, where it opened up into the gym's vast, torch lit arena.

In the center of the marked arena sat Sabrina, depicting a countenance that was utterly poised. She sat cross-legged as her eyes were closed. It was rather clear that she was entranced in a deep meditation.

The closer Ash got the more uncomfortable he felt. The dark-haired boy wasn't quite sure what to do. He didn't want to interrupt Sabrina's meditation. It just didn't sound like a good idea. Normally, he would have expected Sabrina to sense that he was coming, but her present lack of psychic power made him hesitant.

"Hello, Ash Ketchum," articulated Sabrina, moving nothing but her jaw to speak. "What took you so long? I figured you would have gotten here a long time ago. Nurse Joy called the gym saying that you had left hours ago. You must have walked, am I correct?"

Ash let out a sudden sigh of relief the second Sabrina spoke up. Since she had been the first to initiate interaction, he no longer had to worry about how to garner her attention. She must have heard him as he walked down the hall. Going off of the fact that she had to think about the means of which he had arrived at the gym proved that she was still resting her psionic prowess.

"Yeah, I walked," replied Ash as he closed the distance between himself and the fair-skinned beauty," Wallace is busy putting out the fires, and Bill is with his dad. I didn't want to bother anyone for a ride."

"You could have taken a taxi," answered Sabrina as she opened her distant pink eyes, "they don't cost that much in Saffron."

"Ah, that's okay," said Ash with a wave of his hand, although he was kind of upset that he hadn't thought of that before, "I needed the exercise. Besides, Growlithe and I got a chance to see all of Central Saffron."

"Oh, I see," retorted Sabrina with a blank face. "How did you like Central? It's a bit overcrowded in my opinion, but there are a lot of marvelous things to see. Did you get a good look at Silph Co. headquarters?"

Although Sabrina didn't show it with her emotions, he had spent enough time around her to know that she would if she could. Her love for Saffron was evident in the way that she diligently asked questions about it. It was clear that Ash's opinion of Saffron meant something to her. It was times like this where Sabrina seemed like just another person, going about her life in a very human way.

"I liked it a lot," said Ash with a grin. "The people were a bit overwhelming, but other than that it was awesome. Getting up close to Silph Co. headquarters was amazing. I can't wait to go inside and see it for myself."

A rare smile formed on Sabrina's face before she answered, "Ah, yes, Robert's taking you and Austin Turner on a tour at the end of the week. He's really excited about it. I spoke to him this morning, and all he talked about was giving you two your gifts. You would never guess that today is the day of his worldwide press conference."

Ash let out a chuckle in response to Sabrina's comment before carrying on the conversation, "He's definitely an interesting guy, that's for sure. By the way, what time is the press conference, again?"

"Tonight at seven," retorted Sabrina as she slowly stood up from her spot on the ground.

As Sabrina stood up, he was able to get a good look at her attire. She was wearing an outfit that was similar to the one that she wore the first time that Ash met her. She had on a lavender spaghetti strap tank-top that showed her slender midriff, and black skinny jeans. Sabrina wore tennis shoes that coordinated with her tank-top, and fastened around her waist was her prototypical fully loaded trainer belt.

"As a matter of fact, I will be attending it," added Sabrina.

Ash's entire face lifted as a thought phased through his mind. "Can I come?"

"I do not believe that would be wise," answered Sabrina as she ran her fingers through her blowout styled hair.

"…Why?" questioned the ten-year-old boy with a furrowed brow and a frown.

"Because you would procure too much attention," said Sabrina in a monotonous intonation, "trainers your age aren't invited to events such as this one. All of Saffron's League officials will be there, and it is going to be broadcasted worldwide. I love Robert, but he can be compulsive. He doesn't think before he acts. If you were there, there's a possibility that he would do something stupid like introduce you to the world as one of his rescuers."

She paused.

"If he were to pull a stunt like that, you would instantly become a target of Team Rocket. Right now, they don't know who you are. Ariana may know that you helped thwart Team Rocket's plan, but she isn't in any position to report to her boss that a couple of kids have played a major role in stopping them. The last thing you want is for Team Rocket to become suspicious of you. It would throw a wrench in your plans to have any resemblance of a normal journey."

Ash gulped. He hadn't thought of that. "Err…you're probably right. I think I'd rather stay here."

"That's what I thought," retorted Sabrina. "Anyways, you look hungry. How about I have my cook make you a late lunch before we start our training?

While talking to Sabrina, he had nearly forgotten how hungry he was. As the idea of food percolated within his mind, his stomach put forth a sound that was oddly similar to an angry ursaring.

Sabrina simply shook her head. Ash wasn't sure, but he thought he could see a slight hint of amusement in her eyes.

"I take that as a yes," said Sabrina before walking towards the hallway that led to the kitchen. "Follow me."

Ash let out a brief giggle before he looked down at Growlithe, who glanced up at him with genial eyes, "Come on, buddy. It's time to eat."

Growlithe replied with a jubilant yip.

XXX

After a bowl of macaroni and cheese, courtesy of Sabrina's personal chef, Ash and Growlithe found themselves, once again, standing in the center of the Saffron Gym's arena. Sabrina stood opposite of him as she detached two great balls from her fully loaded trainer belt.

"Let's not waste any time," said Sabrina with a blank expression. "Release Haunter and Clefairy, we will begin the external psychic exposure momentarily."

Ash nodded his head, although he was slightly taken back by Sabrina's forwardness. He proceeded to unclip Haunter's great ball and Clefairy's pokeball before simultaneously pressing both release buttons.

The indisputable sound of multiple pokeball releases rang out amidst the empty arena as two bright flashes of light blended together. They coexisted for a brief moment before abruptly vanishing into oblivion, revealing the alert forms of Haunter and Clefairy.

Ash's two friends' eyes darted back and forth, and they instantly put up their guards in anticipation for battle. As soon as they caught sight of Sabrina, without any of her pokemon, they relaxed. They knew why they were here. Back at the Pokemon Center, Ash had told them that they would be training with Sabrina in order to learn how to put up mental barriers.

"It's time to train guys," said Ash. "Do you remember what I told you? We will be learning how to defend against psychics today."

Clefairy and Haunter nodded their heads in order to indicate that they understood their current predicament.

"It looks like they're ready," said Sabrina with a nod as she prepared to release whatever pokemon were in her great balls. "I am going to release my two oldest alakazam, Kaz and Midna. Do not be alarmed, they will not harm you."

Ash watched attentively as a bright light filled the arena. When it finally faded, two absurdly powerful alakazam stood in its wake.

One of them Ash recognized right off the bat. It was Kaz. His long, aged mustache made him clearly distinguishable. The wise, old psi pokemon looked at Ash with vacant eyes, albeit Ash could see a sliver of recognition. The dark-haired boy simultaneously mused about the eventual challenge of training a psychic pokemon. It would be fun trying to figure out what they were thinking.

This was the first time Ash had ever seen the other alakazam. The alakazam known as Midna looked acutely similar to Yin. Judging by the fact that Midna was female, and Sabrina's second strongest alakazam, the ten-year-old boy assumed that she was Kaz's mate. Therefore, the uncanny resemblance to Yin made sense, since Midna would thus be her mother.

Midna looked at Ash with a curious expression. She was slightly easier to read than Kaz. Although her facial expression remained fixed, like most psychic pokemon, her eyes were very telling. Ash could easily decipher that she was intrigued by him.

After staring at Ash for a few seconds, Midna brought her gaze over to Haunter, Clefairy and Growlithe, who she scanned over just as attentively. On account of the fact that her eyes remained widened and dilated, they appeared to be just as interested in Ash's pokemon as they were him.

"Midna senses your potential," said Sabrina matter-of-factly. "She is my most savvy alakazam. While Kaz is my best battler, Midna is by far my most knowledgeable pokemon. She is an expert of the mind and is very adroit when it comes to performing meticulous psychic feats. She will be the one to perform the external psychic exposure."

In response to Sabrina's words, Midna gave Ash a slight bow. It was rather clear that she was also Sabrina's most sociable alakazam, albeit that really wasn't saying much. In the brief amount of time that Ash had spent around Kaz, Yin and Yang, it was pretty clear that they were very robotic in regard to their emotions, much like their trainer.

Ash reacted to Midna's courteous bow with a simple smile and wave as a question reverberated throughout his psyche. "Wait, if Midna is going to be performing the external psychic exposure, why did you release Kaz as well?"

"Kaz is just here to be with Midna," replied Sabrina. "Because of all of the chaos, they haven't been able to spend a lot of time together. I presume that you have already put together the fact that Kaz and Midna are mates, right? Typically, they are almost inseparable. However, as of late, we haven't had the luxury of downtime. So, I thought it would be nice to give them this time to coincide together."

"Got it," said Ash as he dropped his gaze toward an anxious Haunter and Clefairy. "Anyways, I think they're ready. Can we begin?"

"Yes," answered the fair-skinned gym leader as she also focused her line of sight on Haunter and Clefairy. "However, before we begin, I would like to explain exactly what it is that we will be doing. Even though external psychic exposure isn't an overly complicated process, building a solid mental barrier takes a lot of concentration."

"What do you mean?" asked Ash with a curious expression.

"Essentially, Midna will be using small waves of the technique, Psychic, to directly infiltrate Haunter and Clefairy's minds. She will not strike. She will merely invade and linger. Most of the time, when a psychic pokemon attacks, they do so quickly and efficiently. It is not wise for a psychic to attack with long, drawn out techniques unless they are absolutely certain that their power greatly exceeds their opponents' mental defenses."

"Why?" questioned Ash.

"Because the more a pokemon is exposed to psychic power," retorted Sabrina with vacant eyes, "the less vulnerable they are to it. Basically, the reason why external psychic exposure is such an efficient way to put up mental barriers is because, when done correctly, it is a safe and controlled way to help a pokemon that doesn't bear any kind of affiliation with the psychic typing to gain experience in regard to subconsciously recognizing and repelling psychic incursions."

"You're losing me," said Ash with a befuddled expression, "Can you explain that in simpler terms?"

Sabrina released a sigh as she took a moment to think of a suitable way to get her point across. "Okay, think of your mind like any other part of the body. Without being pushed in a particular way, our bodies' various parts will eventually become feeble and weak. Your body doesn't just naturally develop to be in good shape. Even with the best of genes, you have to condition it. You have to provide it with healthy sustenance. You need to expose it to things that will help it grow correctly."

She habitually ran her fingers through her hair as she paused.

"In this regard, the mind is no different than any other muscle in your body. Without proper conditioning, it is as susceptible to mental assailments as a newborn grass-type is to a wildfire. A non-psychic must learn how to strengthen their mental fortitude and resolve to a point where your mind actually begins to manifest a cognitive shield around what it wants to protect."

"A shield, but how is that possible? Where does it come from?" questioned Ash with a look of bewilderment.

"The mind is a complex thing that we will never be able to fully understand. I do not know the full details pertaining why or how the brain is capable of this. All I can tell you is what I've been able to observe."

"And that is?" queried Ash with an interested intonation.

"The brain is extremely adaptable, and the intricacy that is involved with allowing pokemon and humans to do even the most rudimentary of tasks is absolutely astonishing. The brain is the foundation of everything us humans and pokemon do. Everything starts in the mind: our thoughts, our personalities, our senses, our movements, without the brain and all of its functions none of these things would be possible," said Sabrina with a slight hint of conviction in her voice.

Ash looked down and was surprised to see that Growlithe, Haunter and Clefairy were listening attentively. Apparently, they were just as entranced by what Sabrina was saying as he was, maybe even more so.

"To stretch this concept even further," said Sabrina, "the mind of a pokemon is capable of learning and managing a plethora of absurdly complex techniques. Their brains are even more flexible and adaptable than ours, allowing them to learn moves that exist outside of their natural typing and skill set."

A bit of excitement flashed in Sabrina's eyes as she continued.

"How is it that, with the help of a TM, an alakazam can learn Charge Beam without an internal electrical conductor? A TM doesn't provide a pokemon with anything more than information, so how is it that both Kaz and Midna can use a technique that transcends their biological skill set? Can you come up with an answer, Ash?"

Ash looked at Sabrina with disoriented eyes and a confused expression. "N-no, I can't. I honestly have no idea."

"I didn't expect you to," answered Sabrina. "This is a very complex theory. The reason why a pokemon is capable of performing such a miraculous feat is because their minds can literally make something out of nothing. A TM allows you to upload all of a technique's tangible properties into a pokemon's brain. A pokemon's mind is so powerful that with the right information they can perform almost any move."

Ash's eyes reflected disbelief as he tried to make sense of Sabrina's words. "So, you're saying that any pokemon can learn any move?"

"In theory, yes," replied Sabrina in a monotone intonation, "but in actuality, the chance that, let's say, an arcanine can learn a move contrary to its typing, such as Hydro Pump, is almost zero."

"But, why's that?" asked Ash, "if a pokemon can learn any move by simply processing the technique's information than why couldn't you just give an arcanine a Hydro Pump TM? Wouldn't that work?"

"No, it wouldn't," retorted Sabrina. "Do you want to know why?"

"Of course I do!" blurted Ash, "please, tell me!"

Sabrina crossed her arms as she began to explain.

"The reason that it is nearly impossible for an arcanine to learn Hydro Pump, even with the help of a TM, is because we as humans haven't figured out a way to artificially teach an arcanine that technique. It's rather apparent that Hydro Pump isn't in an arcanine's natural moveset. However, neither is a same-type move like Overheat. In order to teach an arcanine the move Overheat you have to use a TM that has been specifically programmed to work for arcanine and a number of other suitable species."

She brought her hand up to her chin as she continued to explain.

"Every single TM that has ever been invented has been made applicable to a certain list of pokemon. For example, the TM for Overheat is applicable to the arcanine species, meaning that an arcanine can use it. As a matter of fact, with the help of a TM, nearly every fire-type pokemon can learn the move Overheat because it is easy for a TM developer to procure the information required to teach a pokemon of the same typing as the technical machine the specified move."

"Okay," answered Ash, "so—"

"Before you interject, let me finish," interrupted Sabrina, "It is highly likely that I will answer whatever questions you have momentarily."

Ash simply nodded, slightly disappointed in himself for behaving like his overeager friend Austin.

"Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is that, with the correct calibrations, we humans are able to take advantage of the adaptability of a pokemon's brain in order to teach them things that should otherwise be impossible. An example of this would be that under no natural circumstance should a mankey be able to learn Overheat. Even by means of meticulous breeding, it is impossible for a Mankey to acquire the move Overheat without a TM."

The psychic virtuoso took a breath before carrying on.

"The only reason that the Overheat TM works on the mankey species is because Silph Co. scientists, and their collaborators, have found a way to use the species' innate aggression and fury as an ignitor, instead of a congenital internal flame. Man was able to find an alternative route to teach a pokemon a move that should, by all means, be impossible to learn, by virtue of a pokemon's extraordinary brain."

Sabrina paused before giving Ash a look that portrayed that now was an appropriate time for him to speak.

"I think I get it," said Ash, "so you're basically saying that because of the power of their minds, pokemon are capable of learning just about every move out there. However, it takes an artificially made TM that has been written to take advantage of a pokemon's specific mental attributes in order to access the means to learn the technique."

"Exactly," retorted Sabrina, "and the biggest flaw is that figuring out what those mental attributes are happens to be a strenuous and mind bending task. Most of the time, scientists only come up with an end-product by chance, and that's after countless hours of study and experimentation."

Sabrina paused for a brief moment to make sure that Ash was following.

"It's obviously a different story for pokemon learning a technique, by means of TM, when they already have all of the biological parts to perform the technique, such as an arcanine in relation to the TM Overheat. However, the chance that anyone will ever come up with the right formula to artificially teach an arcanine a contrapositive move like Hydro Pump is slim to none."

"I definitely understand what you're saying now," replied Ash with a curious expression. "But, we're not giving any of my pokemon TM's, so what does this have to do with mental barriers?"

"I knew you were going to ask that," said Sabrina with a slight smirk. "In regard to mental barriers, this information is important because it gives you a better understanding of what the brain of a pokemon is capable of."

"If what I've said is true, and a pokemon is actually capable of making something out of nothing just by acquiring the right information, then with a significant amount of knowledge concerning psychic energy, shouldn't a pokemon be able to learn how to create mental protection by means of their own cognition?"

Ash stared forward in bewilderment as he tried to make sense of what Sabrina had just said. "I'm sorry, Sabrina. But, you've lost me again."

Sabrina released yet another frustrated sigh before replying. "Basically, the reason pokemon are able to create mental barriers, by result of a process such as external psychic exposure, is because the action of exposing the pokemon's brain to placid psychic energy gives them an opportunity to subconsciously dissect its properties and obtain the information required to instinctually protect themselves, creating a mental barrier out of a minuscule understanding of psychic powers."

"Um…yeah," drawled Ash as he rubbed his temples, "I think I've maxed out on the amount of information I can digest for the time being. Is it okay if we just start? I've got a basic understanding of what's going on. Any more information will probably just go right over my head."

"Very well," answered Sabrina with a stiff shrug. "I suppose it is a lot of information to learn in such a short amount of time. However, it will be important to comprehend all of this if you ever plan on training a psychic pokemon of your own, or if you want to put up mental barriers over a pokemons' mind without my help."

"Gotcha," replied Ash, "I definitely want you to teach me as much as possible, but you'll have to be patient with me. I'll learn it, although I don't have a lot of experience with psychic-types. This is my first time hearing a lot of the stuff that you're saying, and it's kind of hard to process it all. That's why I want to just start instead of waste any time. We have a few days; I'm sure I'll be able to comprehend everything by then. But, for now, anticipation is clogging my ability to think, and I have a feeling my pokemon are on the same page as me."

In response to Ash's comment, Haunter, Clefairy and Growlithe let out grunts of affirmation, signifying that they were antsy to begin.

"Okay then," said Sabrina with an emotionless nod, "I understand. We shall begin."

A smile crept across Ash's face as he watched Sabrina's eyes pivot over to her wise, female alakazam, "Remember what we talked about, Midna? Keep the Psychic at a low-level to start out."

Midna's mustache wiggled as she nodded her head up and down.

Sabrina brought her gaze back over to Ash before raising a question, "Who will be going first?"

Ash looked down at all three of his pokemon, and was about to ask which one of them wanted to be the first to undergo external psychic exposure, when Clefairy voluntarily stepped forward.

She had a dauntless disposition, although Ash could tell by the look in her eyes that she was slightly nervous, which was to be expected. As far as Ash knew, this would be Clefairy's first time coming into direct contact with pure psychic energy. And even though it wasn't a hostile situation, Ash understood that apprehension towards an unknown feeling was only natural.

"I guess Clefairy wants to go first," said Ash before shifting his attention to address his fairy-type, "right?"

Clefairy nodded her head as she focused her eyes on Sabrina and Midna.

Sabrina gave the fairy pokemon a small smile, which was obviously rare, before bending over to meet Clefairy at eye level. "Your bravery is refreshing. Few females possess the kind of courage I can see in your countenance. You must make your trainer proud."

Ash watched as Clefairy seemingly blushed on account of Sabrina's kind praise. The fairy pokemon had to look down at the ground in order to hide the redness that had invaded her cheeks.

Ash knew that Clefairy's bravery wasn't just inherent, but also stemmed from her desire to not appear as weak to the rest of Ash's male pokemon. Getting praised by an exponentially powerful female, like Sabrina, meant a lot to the fairy-type, who spent the majority of her time trying to outperform the gaggle of boys around her.

Sabrina proceeded to scratch Clefairy affectionately behind the ears, resulting in a purr-like response, before standing up from her crouched over position.

"Now, it's time we actually got started," said Sabrina, "the external psychic exposure itself shouldn't take too long. Clefairy is a mystic element type, so she should be used to recognizing and bending energy that is similar to a psychics. You've chosen two pokemon that will pick up on this fast. With my help, we should be able to do this a lot quicker than usual."

"Sounds good," replied Ash with a smile. "Is there anything that you need me to do?"

"Just step back," answered Sabrina with a bland expression as she waved him away and started to backup herself. "Give Midna and Clefairy plenty of space. It's possible that she might have a bad reaction."

"A bad reaction?" asked Ash as he gestured for Haunter and Growlithe to follow him while he backed away from the center of the arena, "what do you mean a bad reaction?"

"Sometimes, during external psychic exposure, the recipient sporadically lashes out," replied Sabrina. "It's usually not that bad, but it's not wise to get too close. Chances are Clefairy will react just fine, especially since she is a mystic element type. However, we may as well be safe."

"Gotcha," mumbled Ash under his breath as he put a decent amount of distance between himself and Clefairy.

He felt Growlithe brush up against his leg and could hear Haunter's ghoulish laughter while he stared ahead at his lone, female pokemon.

"Good luck, Clefairy!" bellowed the ten-year-old boy as he watched Midna draw closer to the pink fairy pokemon.

Clefairy looked back at her trainer with an assertive expression before she raised one of her fists confidently in the air. It was pretty apparent that the fairy-type was trying to depict confidence to her trainer.

Ash couldn't help but reciprocate his friend by mirroring her movements. He raised his fist in the air, signifying that he believed in her strength. "You've got this, Clefairy! You'll be just fine!"

As Ash's support bearing inflection echoed within the gym's vacant arena, Sabrina's voice suddenly pierced through it, resonating an authoritative tone. "Clefairy, once Midna enters your mind, do not resist! Instead, simply observe the psychic energy and allow your mind to soak in its properties!"

She paused to take a breath.

"It may take a while, but eventually you will feel like you can grab onto it! When that happens, pull! It means that your mind is ready to consume the energy! From that point forward, you should at least have a foundational understanding of how to begin to construct a mental barrier!"

Clefairy nodded her head as Midna began to raise her spoons. They hovered over Clefairy's head in preparation to emit the Psychic wave.

Ash had to admit, he was overwhelmed. The amount of information that Sabrina had just spewed out, while she was trying to teach him about the mind, had the ten-year-old boy's head spinning. Not to mention the fact that Ash had no way to tell what would really be taking place in the upcoming moments. He couldn't see inside of Clefairy's head. He couldn't give her pointers on how to build a formidable mental barrier.

No, this was entirely up to her. She would have to figure this one out by herself. All Ash could do was watch until he could one day garner a better understanding of the complexities of the mind. Ash didn't have the means to give Clefairy advice and help her protect her psyche from psychic assailments. He hated not being able to do anything, but at least Clefairy was in good hands. Midna and Sabrina would help her acquire a suitable mental barrier.

"Midna, now!" hollered Sabrina.

Ash watched as a ray of mystifying, purple energy enshrouded itself around Midna's risen spoons before abruptly leaving the two silver conduits. It rapidly rushed towards Clefairy, resulting in a wide-eyed look of surprise from the pink fairy pokemon.

Ash's stomach slightly dropped as he watched the psychic energy phase into Clefairy's body, but he was able to relax as soon as he saw that Clefairy wasn't displaying any sort of painful reaction. Instead, the fairy-type simply stared in befuddlement as something stirred within her mind.

All of a sudden, a flash of bright blue energy was projected from Clefairy's eyes as she stood still. After the initial pulse, her eyes remained a steady auroral blue, which reminded Ash of the elder, telekinetic clefable back at Mt. Moon.

"What's happening!?" blustered Ash from across the arena. "She's okay, right!?"

"Do not worry, Ash Ketchum!" retorted Sabrina, "The blue in her eyes signifies an inner psychic presence! So far, so good, this is typical protocol!"

Midna kept her spoons held over Clefairy's head as the psychic energy coursed throughout the fairy pokemon's existence. The female alakazam's facial expression didn't show any emotion. However, Ash had failed to notice until now that her eyes were glowing just like Clefairy's, albeit they were pink instead of blue. Ash wasn't sure, but he guessed that this was due to the fact that Midna was maintaining the psychic energy within Clefairy's mind…

This went on for roughly thirty minutes. During that time, their predicament didn't fluctuate. Clefairy remained still and void of emotion. Her eyes continuously glowed a vivid, bright blue. Midna stood over her with a stiff posture. Her eyes never refrained to emit an auroral pink brilliance.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of movement, Ash never took his eyes off of Clefairy. While one of his friends was in such a focal stupor, there was absolutely no way he could check out of the situation. What if something happened? What if she needed him? Until Clefairy came out of her psychic trance, Ash would remain utterly fastened on her status.

Out of his peripherals, Ash could see that Growlithe and Haunter were just as focused as he was. Not only were they observing for themselves what external psychic exposure looked like, from an onlooker's perspective, but it was also evident that they worried about their friend.

Clefairy and Growlithe had been through a lot together, and Haunter and Clefairy had just recently become good friends. Both of them had a good relationship with Ash's female fairy-type, so it was only natural that they would worry. Besides, Ash was convinced that all of his pokemon cared for one another to some degree. Pidgeotto, the most quarrelsome of them all, had proven this when he saved Wartortle's life back in the underground hideout—

—Suddenly, Ash's rumination was severed when the blue in Clefairy's eyes swiftly faded, and she fell to the ground panting excessively. Simultaneously, Midna's eyes ceased their glow as she lowered her spoons.

The dark-haired boy instantly sprinted out toward the middle of the arena with Haunter and Growlithe trailing closely behind him. Concern began to rise within him as he neared his grounded fairy-type.

"Clefairy, what's wrong!?" wailed Ash frantically. "Are you alright!?"

"Ash Ketchum, do not fret," articulated Sabrina as she slowly approached Ash and his pokemon. "Clefairy is just fine. This method may not be painful, but it is extremely exhausting. She's just tired. Am I right, Clefairy?"

A smile stretched across Clefairy's face as she raised one of her tiny fists in the air. Ash wasn't sure whether it was a fist of triumph or simply a way to indicate that she was okay. Whatever the case, he was just happy to know that she was alright.

"Thank God," drawled Ash as he wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead. "I was worried there for a second."

Clefairy looked up at him with gentle eyes, seemingly flattered by Ash's genuine concern.

As Ash crouched down in order to get closer to Clefairy's level, he listened to Sabrina as she interacted with Midna.

"So, Midna, how did it go?" asked Sabrina, "It looked to have been a success from my end."

There was a momentary pause as Midna ostensibly communicated with Sabrina using telekinesis.

After a couple of seconds, Sabrina brought her gaze down to Ash as he gently scratched the fur behind Clefairy's pointed ears.

"What did she say?" Ash asked Sabrina as he felt Growlithe cuddle up next to his side.

A small smile formed across Sabrina's face, for the second time since Ash had arrived at the gym, before she responded. "According to Midna, it went well. She said that your Clefairy is very adept when it comes to manipulating mystic energy."

"She was able to process most of Psychic's properties relatively quickly, and her mind was able to begin constructing the groundworks for a solid mental barrier. Midna doesn't believe that she will need any more external psychic exposure. She has internalized everything she needs. Clefairy can complete the rest of the process on her own."

"Really!?" exclaimed Ash, "that's awesome!"

He quickly shifted his attention from Sabrina to Clefairy, "Great Job, Clefairy, I'm so proud of you!"

Clefairy smiled, once again, as Growlithe congratulated her with a jovial yip, and Haunter used one of his shadowy hands to playfully pat her on the head. The ghost-type flinched when Clefairy's eyes closed, afraid that he had somehow sent her into comatose, but Ash could tell that the fairy-type was just resting her eyes.

"It's fine, don't worry," crooned Ash as he petted in between the spikes on Haunter's back. "She's just tired."

Ash proceeded to unclip Clefairy's pokeball from his trainer belt as Haunter breathed a ghoulish sigh of relief. "She needs to take a nice, long break."

The dark-haired boy pivoted his eyes over to Sabrina before pressing the return button, "That's okay, right?"

"Yes," retorted Sabrina, "that is fine. Clefairy is done for the day. We will continue her mental barrier training tomorrow."

"Gotchya," answered Ash with a relieved intonation as he pressed the button on Clefairy's pokeball.

There was a tranquil smile on Clefairy's face as she was soaked in a blanket of ruby red light. Ash wasn't exactly sure what she was thinking, but it was probably something along the lines of satisfaction. Clefairy was a warrior, and few things made her happier than strengthening herself. More than likely, her serene smile derived from an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

Once Clefairy had been returned, Ash stood up from his crouched over position before centering his focus on Sabrina, "So, what now?"

"Now," retorted Sabrina monotonously, "we repeat the process with Haunter."

A small smirk formed across Ash's face while Haunter let out a confident guffaw.

The next few days were definitely going to be interesting.

XXX

About an hour after their first session of mental barrier training, Ash stood in one of the arena's trainer boxes with Growlithe sitting loyally by his side. Standing directly in front of him was Charmander, who had his hands full trying to draw out enough of the draconic energy that was coursing throughout his veins in order to perform Dragon Rage.

They had started the process of learning Dragon Rage while Ash was traveling with Wallace and Austin to Saffron. During those few days, Ash and Charmander had spent the majority of their one-on-one time learning how to properly access the fire-lizard's draconic energy.

The pokedex said that Charmander's draconic energy was located deep within his internal flame. In order to use Dragon Rage, the lizard pokemon needed to learn how to sift through his inner furnace and separate the parts that were fused with inherent draconic energy.

Up to this point, Charmander was able to put forth a draconically infused ember. Essentially, it was an ember with tiny bits of draconic essence. It was a good start, but they had a lot of work to do before Charmander could filter out the fire and release a pure draconic shock wave.

Moves that were categorized outside of a pokemon's natural typing were always more difficult to learn than same-type moves. So far, Charmander's training with Ash had solely consisted of techniques that existed outside of Charmander's typing, such as Focus Punch and Dragon Rage. Due to this fact, Charmander's growth had been slower than the rest of Ash's pokemon, since he's had to spend much more time ironing out the basics of each move he's learned.

Be that as it may, it would pay off eventually. Charmander was accumulating quite the diverse moveset. In due time, his strength would catch up with his potential, and he would be an extremely formidable member of Ash's team.

Hopefully, Ash would have enough time to really work with Charmander over the next couple of days. Out of all of Ash's friends, he definitely needed the most work. The ten-year-old boy was hoping that his fire-lizard would evolve at some point between now and his battle against Erika. It would give Charmander the extra boost in strength that he needed in order to be a real factor in the battle against Celadon's young gym leader.

For the time being, though, all Ash could do was take advantage of the present moment. Sabrina had just recently left to attend Robert's press conference, so he had some free time to work with his other pokemon.

Ash wasn't quite sure what the exact agenda for tomorrow looked like, but Sabrina had made it clear that they would be working on raising and solidifying Clefairy and Haunter's mental barriers. Both mystic element users had ended their first session with Sabrina having created a solid foundation for their mental barriers.

Haunter ended up doing just as well as Clefairy, which was to be expected. Not only was Haunter a mystic element type, but he was also a pokemon that could be taught the move Psychic: the most frequently used move for external psychic exposure.

Psychic wasn't in a haunters' natural moveset, however, with the help of a TM, the ghost-type could easily be taught how to conjure psychic energy—which meant that somewhere amidst a haunter's incorporeal brain, scientists had garnered enough knowledge about the ghost-type's mental attributes to figure out the trigger for Psychic. And according to Sabrina, if scientists were able to figure out the formula to artificially teach a pokemon a move using a TM, the fragment of Haunter's species that was capable of learning Psychic must not have been that far out of reach in the first place.

Simply put, the psychic energy that Midna used to enter Haunter's mind wasn't so foreign to the ghost-type that he had to undergo multiple rounds of external psychic exposure. Instead, like Clefairy, he could work out the rest of his mental barrier on his own. Clefairy and Haunter might both need some pointers and instruction from Sabrina, but everything they needed to put up a mental barrier now existed within them.

As things stood now, Haunter and Clefairy were well on their way to acquiring strong mental barriers. However, right now, it was time for them to rest. Right before Sabrina had left for the press conference, she had specifically instructed him to let Haunter and Clefairy have the rest of the night off. The external psychic exposure had exhausted them, and they needed time to recuperate their energy.

Since Haunter and Clefairy were out of commission for the rest of the evening, Ash had originally thought about using the computer in his guest room to find a live feed of the press conference. It couldn't be too hard to find given that it was being streamed worldwide.

It definitely would have been an interesting watch, but Ash already had the inside scoop on what was going on. He had been a part of the mission to rescue Robert—it didn't get much better than that. There wasn't anything that was going to be announced during the press conference that Ash hadn't already been told by Robert himself.

The only reason that Ash could think of, in regard to watching the presser, was to see the reaction that Robert got when he stepped out into the public eye. The world would go crazy, although that wasn't really something that you could truly witness by means of a fourteen-inch computer screen.

Therefore, Ash decided that his time would be better spent training some of his pokemon that wouldn't be taking part in the external psychic exposure, especially the pokemon that would be participating in his fourth gym battle against Erika. Since Ash had already decided to give Growlithe some time to rest after the intense battle in Team Rocket's underground hideout, Charmander was the first that came to mind.

The low ceilings of the Saffron gym didn't particularly agree with Pidgeotto, and Ash would have to trek a long way to find a suitable place outside the gym to work with his avian on Agility. So, for now, any training with Pidgeotto would have to wait until he left Saffron.

After Ash finished working with Charmander, he planned on doing some light training with Ivysaur. The grass-type had earned a nice rest after his hard work during the mission, but a little work with Razor Leaf wouldn't be asking too much. For the most part, Ivysaur would just be sifting through his internal seed supply. He had yet to find the seed that could sprout into the blade-like leaf that Ivysaur needed in order to perform Razor Leaf, so until then, his training didn't particularly involve anything exhausting.

Anyways, all of that would come later. Right now, Charmander had his undivided attention. The fire-lizard was periodically spewing out bursts of draconically infused ember, desperately waiting for a breakthrough.

The pokedex said that a Charmander's draconic energy was something that got stronger with repetition. Just like the rest of his internal flame, he needed experience using his draconic energy in order for it to strengthen.

According to the pokedex, eventually it would get strong enough to where Charmander could easily separate it. When that finally happened, his draconic energy would no longer feel the need to latch onto his flames. Instead, it would dwell within him, apart from his internal flame, in a separate furnace-like organ.

"Keep it up, Charmander!" howled Ash encouragingly as the fire-lizard exhaustively propelled a multitude of purple-tinged fireballs.

Intermixed with Ash's cries of encouragement were Growlithe's loud, supportive yelps. Charmander and Growlithe were great friends after all. Whenever one was working hard the other was usually nearby, ready to offer their support. It was a culmination of their bond as fire-types, which was growing stronger each and every day.

Throughout the training session, Charmander's draconically infused fireballs were gradually starting to get purpler as the draconic energy within them increased. There was still a lot of work to do until Charmander's draconic power was potent enough to where he could try separating it from his flames, but at least they were making progress.

They continued this process, of Charmander putting forth draconically infused Embers, for quite some time until the fire-type was completely exasperated. By the time they finally finished, Charmander could barely stand. His short legs were wobbling and he was panting exhaustively.

"Good job, Charmander," crooned Ash as he approached his drained lizard pokemon. "That's enough for now."

Growlithe subsequently put forth a laudatory bark, praising his fellow fire-type for his hard work.

Charmander released a tired, but pleasant, squeal as he grabbed onto Ash's pant leg for support. The fire-lizard loved the feeling of a hard training session, but it was rather apparent that they probably had overdone it. Next time they trained, Ash would have to pay more attention to Charmander's stamina levels.

The fire-lizard liked to overwork himself and had a habit of willfully suppressing his exhausted disposition, during training, so that Ash wouldn't notice how tired he was until he absolutely couldn't hide it anymore. It was an unusual tendency that's sole purpose was to allow Charmander to train past the point that Ash would typically cut him off at.

It was a commendable tendency, but at the same time, Ash didn't like it. At times, it could be dangerous, and the ten-year-old boy wasn't keen to the fact that he couldn't always read His friend. It made him feel like he lacked control over his fire-lizard and that unsettled him.

Charmander had never actually shown this tendency in battle, but the second he did, Ash would definitely confront him. In order to battle healthily, Charmander couldn't be consciously trying to suppress his emotions. Not only was it dangerous, but it was a waste of energy.

Wartortle was different because that was his personality, and Ash and the turtle pokemon had worked hard to figure out ways to overcome it.

The fire lizard's personality was full of lively emotions, so it only made sense that he would wear that personality in battle. It was the personality that Ash had bonded with; it was the personality that the dark-haired boy knew and understood. It didn't bode well for Ash, tactically, if Charmander ever attempted to extinguish that part of himself in battle.

"It looks like you've overworked yourself again," said Ash with a frown. "What did I tell you? You've gotta' stop doing this. It's not safe."

Charmander looked up at Ash with a frown. The dark-haired boy could tell that he felt bad, but at the same time, he'd given Ash this look before and still refrained from doing anything about it. Ash had a feeling that Charmander was going to have to learn the hard way that overworking himself wasn't a good thing.

"It's alright…" drawled Ash as he handled Charmander's pokeball, "just let me know when you've hit your limit next time. Until then, take a rest. You need it.

Ash returned Charmander with a slight frown before looking down at Growlithe, "I'm going to need you to talk to him about that. I don't like it."

Growlithe gave Ash a determined look as he disembogued a grunt of affirmation.

"Thanks," said Ash with a smile. "It means a lot."

The puppy pokemon replied with a joyful yip, happy that he had pleased his trainer. It was times like this when Growlithe needed to step up and assume the role of leader on Ash's team.

Lucky for Ash, his best friend was willing to take on the task.

XXX

"What is it, Ivysaur?" asked Ash while his grass-type exited a deep, meditative state. "Any luck?"

A wide smile stretched across Ivysaur's face as he nodded his head.

"Really!?" exclaimed Ash with bright eyes and a smile of his own. "Are you sure!? If so, let's test it out!"

The saurian let out a low, acquiescent grunt before pushing the seed that he believed would hatch into Razor Leaf out of his internal seed supply and into one of his protrusion slots. He then proceeded to douse it in one of his many internal organic growth hormones in order to trigger an accelerated growth.

Ash watched as Ivysaur's vines pushed out one glistening, verdant leaf. It was fine and unlined, bearing a pristine, blade-like appearance. All it took was one look at it to be able to tell that Ivysaur had finally procured the correct seed.

"Hold still," said Ash as he crouched down to Ivysaur's level in order to examine the leaf even further.

Growlithe, who had been by Ash's side the entire time, followed his trainer's example, leaning forward so that he could get a closer look as well.

As Ivysaur tried not to move, Ash ran his fingers over the flat side of the leaf. It was a strange sensation. The saurian's Razor Leaf felt nothing like a normal leaf. It seemed to be durable and flexible. If Ash didn't know better, he would think that it was artificial.

The dark-haired boy didn't need to touch the edges to know that they were dangerously sharp. The pokedex entry said that a Razor Leaf was sharp enough to penetrate the thickest of hides, although at Ivysaur's current level, it probably wasn't strong enough to cause anything more than a flesh wound.

Ash wouldn't have to worry about Razor Leaf being powerful enough to kill until his friend was well into his venusaur stage. And by that time, his saurian would garner the kind of control needed to make sure that a fatal strike never occurred.

"Yup," said Ash with a massive grin on his face, "this is it. Do you want to try firing it?"

In subsequence to the ten-year-old's question, Ivysaur gave Ash a look that indicated that he was dying to give it a whirl.

"I'll take that as a yes," retorted Ash with a laugh as he looked around Sabrina's gym in search of a suitable target. "Damn, I don't see anything…Have any ideas of what we can test it out on?"

Ivysaur gave Ash an inquisitive look as he tried to think of a sufficient solution. A few seconds went by before Ivysaur's eyes lit up with an idea.

Ash stood up and watched as Ivysaur made his way over to one of the many stone pillars that cascaded from the low ceiling into the ground. He took a moment to size it up before unloading a battery of Leech Seeds at the pillar. Upon impact with the stone, they instantly sprouted leaving a mess of tangled, glowing vines wrapped around the beam.

Once the vines from the Leech Seed had covered a good portion of the pillar, Ivysaur fired another round for good measure. Just like the preceding seeds, they sprouted instantaneously when they connected with their target. When they hit, they covered the pillar even more, resulting in an abundantly thick convergence of vines.

"Good thinking," said Ash, impressed. "Your Razor Leaf definitely shouldn't be able to penetrate all of that. We should be able to get a good feel for how strong it is. Just don't miss. I'm afraid of what Sabrina will do to us if we damage anything in her gym.

Ivysaur nodded before centering his red eyes strictly on the vine covered pillar.

"The pokedex says that you're supposed to use your vines as a catapult to fire them," explained Ash. "I think you're probably going to have to cover the seed in the growth hormone and propel it before it sprouts. Shoot it like Leech Seed—it'll change into Razor Leaf in midair."

The seed pokemon once again emitted a low-toned grunt before discarding his current Razor Leaf. Ivysaur understood what Ash had been talking about when he said that he would have to fire it as a seed. Once Razor Leaf had sprouted, it was difficult to get a good grip on. The stem was short and stubby, which made it hard to hold onto, and the rest of the leaf was too sharp to latch onto without injuring his vines.

Once Ivysaur discarded his original Razor leaf, Ash had Growlithe burn it into nothingness with Ember. Something that sharp was too dangerous to have lying about. Besides, Ash kind of wanted to see how it would respond to being drenched in flames. As expected, it burned like a normal leaf. Its unusual durability wasn't a factor when exposed to its greatest weakness: fire.

After Ash watched Growlithe incinerate the Razor Leaf, it was time to let Ivysaur have a go at propelling it. Ash observed as Ivysaur took a moment to focus his aim before releasing two seeds from his protrusion slots at a high velocity. It was hard for Ash to see, but about a half-second after the seeds were exposed to the outside, they sprouted.

Appearing in midair were two frighteningly fast leaves. They sliced through the air horizontally like two razor-sharp disks. Upon impact with the tangled pillar, Ash smirked as they glided through the first layer of vines before getting stuck in the second.

It was nearly perfect. Ivysaur's Razor Leaf was powerful enough to make a difference, but it wasn't too strong to where it could be fatal. Judging by the damage that Razor Leaf had done to the vines, Ash figured that with most mammalian and reptilian pokemon the leaf would stop well before it hit the bone and would never go through.

As for some of the boneless species out there, Ash and Ivysaur would just have to be careful. The ten-year-old didn't want any pokemon's blood on his hands.

"That was awesome, Ivysaur!" blurted Ash with excitement evident in his intonation before slowly approaching his grass-type from behind. "As a matter of fact, it was just about perfect. The only thing I think we need to work on is ironing out the timing of the release. Unless I tell you otherwise, the longer you can wait with it the better."

He paused in thought as he brought one of his hands up to his chin.

"However, I do think that we could probably do some cool stuff by varying the speed in which you release the seeds. It would probably throw off our opponents' timing if we had some Razor Leafs sprout immediately, while others are delayed. Whatever the case, this is going to be fun!"

Ivysaur nodded frenziedly with joy in his eyes. He had done even better than he originally thought he would.

"What do you say we try it again?" asked Ash. "But, this time, try and delay the release a little bit after you apply the growth hormone. I want to cut down the lag time in between the release and the sprouting of the seed.

The saurian released a grunt of affirmation before plodding forward in preparation to fire another round. He'd only just learned it, but Razor Leaf was quickly becoming one of his favorite techniques.

XXX

A few days had gone by since Clefairy and Haunter's mental barrier training had begun, and once again, Ash and Growlithe stood out in the middle of the Saffron Gym's arena. He had just returned Wartortle, after a satisfactory evaluation of the turtle pokemon's newly acquired strength, when Bill showed up.

The billionaire pokemon researcher was wearing his usual formal garments and looked to be much better rested than he had just a couple of days ago. He waltzed into the gym with a cheerful attitude, although Ash could tell he was hiding the fact that he felt slightly guilty for not having shown up until now.

The melodramatic Montgomery wasn't the best at hiding his emotions.

Bill was supposed to have been commuting back and forth from Silph Co. headquarters and Sabrina's gym, throughout the last few days, but never showed up. Ash was a little disappointed that Bill hadn't kept his word. However, he wouldn't hold it against him. Bill had probably gotten caught up in a bunch of his father's affairs and didn't have as much time as he'd expected.

The aftermath of Robert's press conference had been crazy after all. Ever since the populace had found out that their beloved Mr. Montgomery was still alive, Saffron's streets had been wild. The entire city of Saffron had been turned into one massive party. In Ash's opinion, it was kind of overwhelming, albeit it was nice to see the people celebrate after the last week and a half of terror…

"How did your first couple days of training go?" asked Bill as he leaned over and petted the tuft atop Growlithe's head.

"Pretty good," said Ash with a shrug. "Sabrina says that we should be finishing up our mental barrier training later today."

"Oh, really?" questioned Bill with raised eyebrows. "So, everything went according to plan then?"

"Yeah," retorted Ash with a smile, "I don't think that there were any setbacks. Everything except for the brief round of external psychic exposure was internal, so it was kind of hard for me to tell. Sabrina says that they've made a lot of progress, and Haunter and Clefairy appear to be happy about where they are at, so I don't have any reason to suspect otherwise."

"Gotchya," drawled Bill while standing up from his leaned over position. "Well, if Sabrina says that it's going well than it must be. I can't stand the bloody wench, but it would be stupid for me to deny her expertise in this field. Besides, she seems to have garnered a soft spot for you. I doubt that she would give you anything other than her very best when it comes to training."

"I know," answered Ash. "I trust her judgement. I just wish there was more that I could do. I haven't really been of much use. For the most part, it has been Sabrina training them. I've just been sitting back and watching."

Bill let out a laugh that oozed mockery, "Did you honestly expect anything less? Ash, you're a genius for your age, but you have zero experience when it comes to the realm of psychics. Sabrina is the cream of the crop. Of course, she would be the one taking the lead."

Bill paused as an expression of disgust formed across his face. It was without a doubt a result of the kind words that he had just spoken about Sabrina.

"Ash, how much have you learned over the past couple of days?"

A mishmash of information stirred within his mind at the mere mention of the word learned. Over the past couple of days, Ash had learned more about the mind, and psychics, than he ever could have on his own. There were times when he felt like his mind was going to crash because it was working on overdrive in order to retain all of the information that Sabrina had been bent on drilling into him.

"A lot," replied Ash with dazed eyes.

"That's what I thought," answered Bill with a smirk. "Not only is Sabrina helping you train your pokemon, but she is also training you. She knows how important it is to you that you resume your journey, so she is working as fast as she can to help your pokemon accumulate their mental barriers. However, at the same time, she is trying to ingrain as much knowledge as she can into your head."

He paused.

"Let me ask you something, Ash. Now that you've spent a few days training with Sabrina, do you think that you're better prepared to train a psychic of your own than you would have been beforehand?"

Ash thought about it for a second before replying, "Without a doubt."

"Moreover, do you think that if you had a pokemon that knew Psychic you could use them to help the rest of your pokemon put up mental barriers?"

Ash smiled as he instantly knew the answer to Bill's question. "Yeah, I could. Sabrina has been very thorough when it comes to explaining what she is doing."

"Now, do you understand?" asked Bill. "The whole point of this is to teach you how to handle psychic pokemon and mental barriers by means of observation. Sabrina is doing the work now, so that you can do it later. Even I can see that she is offering you a lot more this way than if she were to simply provide the psychic exposure, and let you flop around like a magikarp out of water, while you try to figure out the rest on your own."

Ash had to admit, he felt like an idiot. Listening to Bill speak the truth helped him see how immature his precedent thoughts were. The ten-year-old boy had been so caught up in the fact that it had felt like Sabrina was training his pokemon, and not him, that he had completely looked past all of the fruits of knowledge that he had been reaping.

"I get it," said Ash with a slight frown. "I was being an idiot. I shouldn't be complaining about anything. What Sabrina is doing is above and beyond anything that I could have asked for. I've learned a lot from her."

"Now, you get it," retorted Bill with a massive grin as he gave Ash a friendly pat on the back. "Save all the complaining for me. I'm the one that can't stand her."

Ash let out a laugh before earnestly looking Bill in the eyes, "Thanks for that, Bill. You're a good friend."

Bill's smile stretched even further as he internalized Ash's words. Ash thought he could see a sliver of a tear cascade from one of his eyes, but it quickly vanished like a shooting star. The ten-year-old boy wouldn't put it past Bill to tear up from a single compliment, especially one that pertained to friendship. The pokemon researcher had proven to be overemotional when it came to the topic. He had shown that during their first encounter at the Montgomery's lighthouse.

"That means a lot coming from you, Ash" replied Bill before having a dramatic shift in countenance.

His disposition went from eemotional to austere in a matter of seconds. It was rather clear that Bill had just thought of something that was a lot less lighthearted, "I don't know why, but I just thought of something I'd like to ask you."

"What is it?" asked Ash with a gulp, sensing the tension that was emanating from Bill.

"Sabrina…" stated Bill with a look of seriousness delineated across his face, "has she happened to mention anything in regard to Ariana? Has there been any progress concerning breaking down Ariana's mental barrier?"

To be honest, Ash had been so busy with his training that he had completely forgotten that the Team Rocket executive was being held approximately seventy feet below him.

It's not like he had been glued to Sabrina's hip, so it was very possible that she had been going down to the basement while they were apart. However, there had been no signs that Sabrina had started using her psychic powers again, so Ash doubted that she had begun the psychic interrogation yet.

"I don't think so," retorted Ash. "I mean, it's possible. But, I don't think her psychic powers have been completely restored yet. Most likely, Ariana is just shackled up, waiting for Sabrina to have a go at trying to breach her mental barrier."

"Oh…" drawled Bill, "I see. Well, I guess that's to be expected."

"Sabrina should be using her powers again really soon, though," said Ash. "So, I'm sure that there will be some progress soon. It might be after I leave for Celadon, but as soon as Sabrina is comfortable using her powers, she'll be down there. I think she wants to figure out what Team Rocket is up to more than anyone."

"Gotchya," replied Bill. "I'll just have to be patient then."

His facial expression lightened up as he prepared to change the subject.

"So, when's your last round of training?" asked Bill with curious eyes. "You said you were set to finish later today, right?"

Now that the tension had left Bill, Ash relaxed. "I honestly don't know. Sabrina didn't give me a time. She just said, be ready."

"Sounds like Sabrina," spat Bill. "Anyway, if everything goes according to plan and you finish your mental barrier training today, can I assume your gym battle will be tomorrow?"

Ash smiled as the thought of earning his third badge pierced through his mind. "Yeah, I think so. Sabrina hasn't said anything about it since we started, but I believe that's what we originally agreed to."

"Brilliant," said Bill. "If it's tomorrow, I think Wallace might be able to make it. He's leaving for Hoenn tomorrow afternoon, and I know he wanted to see you before he left. As soon as you know the time, let me know."

"Awesome," replied Ash. "What about Austin? How's he doing?"

Bill frowned, "You weren't expecting him to make it to the gym battle, right?"

Ash shook his head before answering. "No, I wasn't. I just want to know how he's doing."

"Phew!" said Bill with a look of relief on his face, "in that case, he's doing just fine. Nurse Joy says he should be good to go in a couple days. I just didn't want to be the one to blow up your expectations if you were expecting him to make it tomorrow."

"Good, I'm glad he is getting better," said Ash with a smile. "Even though it would have been nice to have him at the battle, I'm just happy he is alright."

"Same," retorted Bill, "he's a nice chap and a really good friend to you. It's a bummer that he can't make it, but his health is much more important than a gym battle."

"I couldn't agree more," replied Ash, "so what are your plans for the—"

"Ash Ketchum, it's time to apply the final touches to your pokemon's mental barriers," interrupted Sabrina as she ambulated out of one of the many converging hallways and into the arena."

Her vacant eyes were drawn over to Bill for a split second before she disregarded him and fastened her attention back on Ash, "Let's go, release Clefairy and Haunter."

"Not even a hello, Sabrina," said Bill sarcastically with disdain evident in his intonation. "Already having a rough day?"

"It was perfectly fine until you showed up, Bill Montgomery," retorted Sabrina drily. "Now, scurry along. Ash Ketchum and I have some work to do."

"Psht, my father must be a bloody nutter to take you in as a daughter," groaned Bill. "Don't you agree, Ash?"

"Err…I wouldn't necessarily go that far," stammered Ash, wishing to play no part in their frivolous exchange.

Bill shot Ash a look that signified that he was a traitor as Sabrina responded.

"Why thank you, Ash Ketchum," hummed Sabrina, albeit monotonously. "I appreciate your honesty."

"No problem," said Ash before shifting his attention over to Bill, "no offense, Bill, just calling it how I see it."

Bill released an exasperated sigh before answering, "No problem. I understand."

He shifted his eyes over to Sabrina before gesturing up towards the encompassing bleachers, "Do you mind if I watch the last bit of your barrier training? I promise to keep my banter to a minimum if you say yes."

"I do not mind, Bill Montgomery. You may watch," articulated Sabrina with a slight smirk, "but it is not necessary for you to dial back your ridicule. It doesn't faze me in the slightest, and if it did, you wouldn't want to stick around to find out what I do to those that truly rub me the wrong way. My strife with you is nothing but a way to amuse myself. If I really couldn't stand you, I wouldn't allow you to step foot in my gym."

Bill gulped. By the look on his pensive mug, Ash could decipher that he was thinking something along the lines of, 'maybe I should stop showing so much contempt for Sabrina.' However, it didn't really matter what was pulsing throughout Bill's mind. The pokemon researcher was too prideful and bent on his own way to change his behavior, unless he actually had to.

"Thanks," said Bill, through his teeth, while he started to trek over to the bleachers.

"I'll be watching from up there," announced Bill to Ash as he pointed up towards the stands. "If you need anything, just holler!"

"Yup!" blurted Ash. "Thanks for your support!"

"Of course!" retorted Bill from across the gym, "that's what friends are for!"

A smile stretched across Ash's face as he thought about Bill's kindness. That smile stretched even further as he felt Growlithe brush by his pant leg before using his nose to nudge at Clefairy's pokeball and Haunter's great ball.

"I agree with Growlithe," stated Sabrina, "it's time to focus. The faster we get this last bit of mental barrier training done, the faster we can have a fair gym battle.

"Alright," answered Ash with fire in his eyes as he thought about getting his hands on the Marsh Badge, "let's do this then."

"Excellent," retorted Sabrina as she reached for one of the great balls that were fastened around her waste, "Midna will be evaluating Clefairy and Haunter's status before we start. From there, we will initiate the final round of building their barriers."

"Sounds good," said Ash, excited, as he reached for Clefairy and Haunter's capture devices.

By the end of the day, their mental barriers would be up, and tomorrow would be the day of his long awaited battle against Sabrina.

XXX

A day later, Ash stood in one of the arena's trainer boxes, handling Clefairy's pokeball within his sweaty grasp. His nerves had spiked, and there was a slight quiver in his legs. The excitement of a gym battle tended to have that kind of affect, especially when it had been as anticipatory as this one.

Standing straight across from him, in the opposite trainer box, was Sabrina. She was as expressionless and sober minded as usual, and she was wearing the same casual attire that she had on the first time he had met her outside of the Pokemon Center. The psychic virtuoso had one pokeball floating around her body; it was enshrouded in psychic energy, which signified that after days of dormancy, Sabrina had finally recovered her psychic powers.

While the moments prior to the battle subsided, Ash looked up in the stands in order to soak up his support. Sitting to his right, roughly twenty feet above his head, were Growlithe, Bill, Wallace and surprisingly Robert.

Ash had to admit, he was pretty thrilled that Wallace had found a way to make it. Although he would have understood if the Champion couldn't, it still would have been disappointing.

Wallace was like family to him now, and Ash knew that in all likelihood this was the only time that he would be able to see one of his gym battles. Ash presumed that the Champion's duties in Hoenn would make it nigh impossible for him to travel, under his own accord, for quite sometime.

Robert's attendance was an utter shock. Ash could have sworn that Silph Co.'s CEO would have been way too busy tending to occupational matters to attend the gym battle. However, when Ash had spoken to him upon arrival, Robert explained that he had cleared up his schedule in order to make it.

Apparently, a battle between his dear Sabrina and his son's closest friend was way too important to miss. But, then again, Robert was a huge fan of pokemon battles. Maybe he was just using sentiments as an excuse to watch a good battle, which sounded like something that the head of the Montgomery family would do.

Sitting adjacent to Bill was Growlithe, who Ash had made watch the battle from the stands. It's not like Ash didn't want Growlithe by his side. However, without a mental barrier, the puppy pokemon was way too susceptible to psychic attacks to be hanging out in the arena. Sabrina had already ensured that she would protect Ash from any stray psychic assailments, adding Growlithe to that equation would only amplify her workload.

The only other people that Ash realistically wished could be there were Austin and Kent, and unfortunately, neither had a choice. Austin wouldn't be released from the Pokemon Center's hospital wing for another day or two, and Kent had to take care of a plethora of league matters. The fallout of the mission had proven to be more than any of them expected.

A lot of destruction had been accumulated within Saffron, and the league had given Kent the job of figuring out why. He had been busy interrogating the grunts that had been captured during the mission and had yet to find any substantial evidence on their end. Since he was momentarily keeping his mouth shut about Ariana, his progress would remain stationary for a while.

Ash was pretty sure that he wouldn't be seeing Kent anytime soon. The first-class ACE trainer was currently way too busy, and if everything went according to plan, Ash would be out of Saffron sometime within the next couple of days.

Anyways, Ash's attention was focused back on the battlefield when Sabrina spoke up from across the arena.

"Alright, Ash Ketchum," articulated Sabrina, "before we commence the battle, it is required that I state the rules."

Ash just nodded. It's not like he was surprised, every gym leader is required to recite the conditions of the battle before the match begins.

"This will be a two-on-two battle," said Sabrina with a monotonous intonation. "The trainer with the last pokemon standing wins. As you know, I am required to use my league registered team, so it should be no surprise what pokemon I use. Since the pokemon you will be using now have adequate mental barriers, I will not hold back. You will get the very best that my league registered team has to offer."

"Sounds good," said Ash with a smirk as he anxiously grasped Clefairy's pokeball.

"Also," added Sabrina, "there will be no referee. I promise to give you a fair match. There is no need to have one."

Sabrina then used her hand to gesture towards the others in the stands, "Besides, there are some highly astute individuals here to watch the match. If I make a bad call, they most certainly will interject."

"Gotchya," retorted Ash while rapidly nodding his head. He just wanted to get started before he exploded due to excessive anticipation.

"Alright then!" Sabrina blustered as her eyes reflected an auroral purple. "Challenger, Ash Ketchum, prepare for battle!"

Ash firmly gripped his fairy-type's capture-device as he watched Sabrina's enshrouded pokeball levitate into the middle of the arena.

"Begin!"

In subsequence to Sabrina's cry, Ash hurled Clefairy's pokeball towards Sabrina's. It rapidly spun through the air and closed in on the gym leader's floating orb before they both abruptly snapped open, releasing a lustrous explosion of light. The scintillating display lit up the dim arena for a split-second before fading away into abeyance.

Left in place of the radiant surge of light was Clefairy and one of Sabrina's multiple abra. Ash wasn't surprised by Sabrina's first choice whatsoever. He had figured that she would save her league registered kadabra, Merlin, for last.

The abra that Sabrina sent out sat idly in the middle of the arena. If Ash didn't know better, he would have thought that it was asleep because of its iwide, closed eyes. However, abra were well known for using their psychic powers as a way to sense those around them. They usually didn't begin to use their eyes to see until the kadabra stage.

Ash hadn't gotten much of a chance to observe Sabrina's two abra that battled against Ariana's pokemon, but now that he was able to get a better look, the thing that stood out to him the most was the bblack skin that was visible between its joints and long neck. It was a feature that wasn't shared by either a kadabra or an alakazam, which made Ash wonder if, until abra evolved into kadabra, its yellow exterior was more like armor than actual skin.

The ten-year-old boy also took note of the abra's thick, yellow tail, which protruded out of its backside. It wasn't nearly as bulky as a kadabra's tail, but it wasn't skinny by any means.

Sabrina's abra had two brown pauldron-like extensions on its shoulders as well as one brown, fauld-like piece around its chest. The only movement that the abra made existed in its small, pointed ears that continuously twitched atop its kite-shaped head.

Upon release, Clefairy immediately got into a defensive position. Both she and Haunter had been briefed that their gym battle would be today, so she was prepared. Her facial expression was calm and collected, which was one of the results of her training with Sabrina. The gym leader preached that serenity was one of the key components in holding a mental barrier against a psychic.

There was a momentary pause as Clefairy focused her eyes solely on Sabrina's abra before she abruptly began to charge.

Ash's eyes locked onto what was going on in front of him, and he watched with anticipation as abra reacted to Clefairy's advancement by lethargically standing up from its sitting position. Void of emotion, just like its master, the abra raised both of its three fingered hands towards Clefairy and began to emit a purple wave.

It wriggled throughout the air, exactly like Midna's Psychic did, before making contact with a precipitously approaching Clefairy. A sliver of fear coursed throughout Ash's existence at the sight of Clefairy getting hit by a psychic attack, but it was quickly extinguished when Clefairy only made a slightly pained face while she continued to barrel forward.

"She has barriers, Trace!" bellowed Sabrina as Clefairy got within arms reach. "This will be a tough battle! A mere Psychic attack won't knock her out!"

The abra known as Trace instantly tensed up. Its entire body became more alert as soon as it found out that Clefairy had mental barriers.

Of course, if the battle was in a different setting, the first thing abra would have done is check for mental barriers. However, due to the fact that most of a league registered pokemon's gym battles involved battling against weak rookie trainers, the abra probably assumed that Ash's Clefairy was just a foolhardy pokemon that didn't know what she was getting herself into.

Unfortunately for Trace, he was wrong.

Once Clefairy was within arms reach, she used the momentum that she had procured during her sprint to deliver a heavy Pound attack. Her tiny, albeit powerful, fist connected with the abra's face, causing the psi pokemon to unintentionally soar across the arena.

A jolt of excitement stirred within Ash's body as he watched Sabrina's abra heedlessly fly towards the arena's wall, but it was suddenly ceased when Trace vanished into thin air before reappearing right next to Clefairy.

As soon as it appeared using Teleport, the psi pokemon unleashed a more powerful psychic wave. This time, Ash could actually feel the animosity in the strike. Trace was attacking to inflict damage. He was no longer just lashing out in order to cause an effortless submission.

Surprised by the Psychic attack, Clefairy had nowhere to go. All she could manage was an impulsive Minimize, but it only allowed her to evade half of the attack. The other half of Trace's psionic blast was endured by Clefairy's body and her mental barrier while she prepared for a counterattack.

With a wry expression painted across her face, Clefairy retaliated with a quick attempt at Double Slap. She opened her dominant paw in order to deliver the strike when Trace once again teleported, this time, he teleported behind her before raising his hands for another Psychic attack.

Clefairy instantly dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding the psychic strike. On account of the miss, Ash thought he saw a small hint of dissatisfaction on Trace's face, but that was probably just his imagination. Trace's species didn't typically show any kind of emotion toward anything, especially how they fared in battle.

In subsequence to Clefairy's dodge, Trace began to emit another wave of Psychic. Just like the last psionic blast, this one was tenacious. The abra was clearly trying to inflict a considerable amount of damage. The psychic-type was unleashing intense, violet colored blasts in order to incapacitate the fairy pokemon.

Ash wasn't thrown off at all by Trace's repetitive use of Psychic. Abra were well known for having one of the worst natural movesets in Kanto. It wasn't until the kadabra stage that the abra line actually started to learn techniques. The only move that an abra could learn naturally was Teleport, and that was entirely inherent.

Other than Teleport, they were incapable of learning any natural techniques, which meant that Sabrina must have used a TM to teach Trace Psychic. Ash wasn't shocked that Sabrina had used a TM. Abra was one of the pokemon that she had chosen to put on her league registered team, and without using a TM, the psychic-type was essentially incapable of offense.

Abra's shallow moveset wouldn't matter in most cases. Most trainers that walked into the gym wouldn't have mental barriers over their pokemon's psyches, so they would be easily defeated by the weakest of psychic incursions. All Trace would really need was one move, and that move was Psychic.

However, that wouldn't work against Clefairy. She was strong, and she had mental barriers. Psychic and Teleport weren't enough to defeat Clefairy. She likely wouldn't be truly tested until Sabrina sent out Merlin.

"Clefairy, dodge with Minimize, and get in close!" bellowed Ash as he thought up a strategy.

Listening to her trainer's orders, Clefairy shrank to about an eighth of her normal size, narrowly avoiding Trace's psionic wave. Once the wave had been cleared, the fairy pokemon glided to within arms reach of her psychic opponent.

Ash quickly reacted, taking advantage of Trace's shock in order to reach him before he teleported, "Disarming Voice!"

Almost in complete concurrence to Ash's command, Clefairy emitted a bizarre, ominous noise. Ash hadn't heard the technique for quite sometime, but it was just as strange as he remembered. As the ear grating song was sung, it caused his body to shiver and his insides to stir. However, his reaction was barely anything compared to Trace's.

The abra instantly jolted backward upon being hit with the point-blank Disarming Voice. If abra's eyes were open, Ash would assume that they were vacant because of the bewildered look that was delineated across Trace's other facial features.

Ash didn't think that the Disarming Voice would do too much damage. However, that wasn't what Ash was going for. What he wanted was exactly what was happening, and that was disorientation. The ten-year-old boy wanted to put abra in a daze, so Clefairy could perform a technique that would cause significant damage.

With the abra in a confused trance, Ash smiled at the thought of announcing the last move in the combination.

"Clefairy, Stored Power, now!"

Most of the time, Ash had Clefairy use Stored Power after the opponent had benefited from a plethora of status techniques. But, in this scenario, Clefairy would just be tapping into her natural strength in order to emanate a powerful burst of energy at a point-blank range. Teleport didn't provide any enhancements to Trace's status, so he didn't have the option of drawing energy from the opponent. Be that as it may, Clefairy had enough built up energy to cause a vast amount of damage to the abra form this range.

In subsequence to Ash's order, Clefairy's whole entire body started to glow with polychromatic energy. It flickered for a few moments while Trace was in a dizzy trance, and Clefairy procured the entirety of her thaumaturgic energy before she released it.

As soon as the energy had been let go of, Ash had to cover his eyes in order to protect them from the penetrating glare of light that resulted from Stored Power. Once he could sense that the radiant light had subsided, he looked over the crease of his elbow and saw the aftermath of the attack.

Clefairy stood shaky and winded. It was clear that she had put more into the Stored Power than Ash would have liked. She was still in condition to fight, but she had caused way more exhaustion and damage to herself than Trace had up to this point. Maybe he should have waited longer to use Stored Power. He should have known that his fairy-type would be quick to let out everything.

Nevertheless, the result was devastating for Trace. The young abra laid still and unconscious. It was curled up on its side, and its limbs were limp and sprawled out. Despite the abra line's insane potential, their bodies were still feeble, especially in their primary stage.

Oftentimes, one powerful attack was enough to knock an abra out. They had yet to develop any moves to protect themselves. All they could really do was Teleport. No matter if Trace was trained by Sabrina or any other inexperienced trainer, she couldn't change its natural growth rate. It wouldn't unlock its true potential as a psychic until it evolved. For now, it was no match for a pokemon with a mental barrier that possesses an onslaught of physical techniques like Clefairy.

Ash also acknowledged the fact that Trace had probably just recently been added to Sabrina's league registered team. He remembered that when they were down in the Saffron Gym's basement, Sabrina had mentioned that one of her kadabra, Whiskers, had just recently evolved into a kadabra. Ash's guess was that Whiskers had been the abra on Sabrina's league registered team before Trace, and if that was the case, Trace was probably a very inexperienced abra.

Therefore, Ash had just battled an abra that was lower-leveled than what Sabrina usually had at her disposal. He was supposed to win the first round. The next battle would be different. Sabrina's league registered Kadabra wasn't inexperienced in the slightest. It was a beast that buried rookie trainers with its incredible psychic prowess. It had nearly peaked as a kadabra, and according to Sabrina, it was only a sliver of power away from making the jump into its final form.

Up to this point, everything had gone exactly as Ash had expected. Now, things were about to heat up. If Ash wanted to win this battle, he needed to get as much out of Clefairy as possible before releasing Haunter, because the true battle was just about to begin. Clefairy and Haunter would be pushed to their limits, and there was no doubt about it. Getting excited about defeating Trace was futile. Unless Ash was perfect, Merlin was more than capable of defeating both of his mystic types.

"Well done, Ash Ketchum," articulated Sabrina as she clipped Trace's pokeball back onto her belt. "You handled Trace quite well, although at his current power level he is less than a warmup to a pokemon that can endure his Psychic."

She paused as she detached another pokeball from her belt, "Merlin will provide you with your true test. Let's find out just how strong you are."

Ash nodded as he heard a trickle of cheers coming from up above. He had almost forgotten that Wallace, Bill and Robert were in the stands watching his battle. He had been so wrapped up in his match that he hadn't noticed any of the previous cheers. But, then again, it was entirely possible that there weren't any at all. When it came to trainers and pokemon experts of his friends' level, it tended to take a lot to impress them.

Ash zeroed back in on Sabrina as she nonchalantly tossed her second pokeball into the air. It floated in the air for a split-second before erupting in a vibrant array of white light. The luminous outburst existed for a brief moment prior to revealing a stoic kadabra. The kadabra known as Merlin glared ahead at Clefairy with intense, open eyes as he seemingly evaluated the fairy-type.

He proceeded to spin his single conduit spoon amidst his three clawed fingers in antecedence to raising it against Clefairy.

Ash gulped. Just by looking at the kadabra's elongated mustache and shrunken tail, he could tell that Merlin was on the verge of evolving into Sabrina's fifth alakazam. This would be even more difficult than he had originally anticipated. Merlin's disposition and level of focus clearly portrayed its superior experience.

Since Merlin's release, Sabrina had elected to stay silent. Ash assumed that she was probably communicating telepathically with Merlin, but he wasn't sure. She was behaving much more confidently. Even though she hadn't been acting unconfidently earlier, the change was easily recognizable. Ash could tell that Merlin and Sabrina had a lot of battle experience together. Taking them down would be arduous.

"Are you ready, Clefairy!?" bellowed Ash in a sincere voice. "This will be nothing like the last battle! You're going to have to step it up!"

The fairy pokemon turned around and nodded after processing Ash's words. Once she was done reassuring her trainer, she emitted an affirmative grunt as she laid her eyes back on the sagely kadabra.

All of a sudden, within the blink of an eye, Merlin vanished. All that was left where it previously stood was a confluence of fading energy. Ash's eyes went into panic mode as he used them to try and track down Merlin's whereabouts. By the time Ash finally spotted him, it was too late for him to command a counterattack. He would have to rely on Clefairy. Hopefully, her awareness significantly transcended his.

Luckily, it did.

Clefairy quickly pivoted her positioning as Merlin reappeared directly behind her. His eyes were emotionless, and his facial expression was bare, while he enveloped his silver spoon in a layer of psychic energy.

Before the battle, Ash had done some research when it came to a kadabra's moveset, so he was able to discern that Merlin was preparing to use Psycho Cut: a damage dealing psychic-type move, which involves using pure psychic energy to create blades.

Clefairy's eyes widened as she anticipated the forthcoming strike, and as Merlin used his enshrouded spoon to slash sideways at Clefairy, the fairy-type instantaneously minimized to approximately less than a quarter of her normal-size.

Ash breathed a sigh of relief when Merlin's attack missed, but his anxiety suddenly skyrocketed once more when Merlin changed the angle of his spoon and fired a Psybeam. It shot through the air at an amazing velocity, destroying any opportunity that Clefairy had to dodge.

Merlin's aim was dead-on. With his spoon pointed downward, the Psybeam hit Clefairy right on top of the head, sending a psionic shockwave directly toward her brain. Ash watched with fear in his eyes as Clefairy's expression contorted. She depicted images of pain and confusion as the beam penetrated her exterior and attacked her psyche.

"Clefairy!" Ash cried with significant worry in his intonation.

While her trainer's voice reverberated throughout the arena, Clefairy's eyes suddenly snapped open with vigor. As the beam's damage ceased, she squatted down, loading her legs with power, before leaping into the air with her fist curled into a ball.

Right before Clefairy's fist connected with Merlin's chin, the psi pokemon's eyes flashed with surprise. Clearly Merlin wasn't expecting Clefairy to have a mental barrier formidable enough to endure a close-range Psybeam, and quite frankly, neither was Ash.

That Psybeam was cogent and condensed; it wasn't a weak attack. Obviously, the training they had done over the past few days had paid off. Sabrina had gifted two of his pokemon tremendously. She had done all she could to give them a chance at defeating her league registered team. Now, it was up to him to capitalize.

Ash clenched his fist with satisfaction as Clefairy's tiny fist exploded up into Merlin's chin. Immediately after she made contact with the psychic pokemon, Merlin teleported. A smile formed across the ten-year-old boy's face when Merlin reappeared across the arena, directly in front of Sabrina. The kadabra tenderly rubbed his chin, where Clefairy had connected, before developing a small smirk on its face.

At that moment in time, Ash gulped. He'd never seen any kind of emotion out of a pokemon belonging to the abra line before. Kadabra were known for there robotlike dispositions, however, much like Sabrina, they weren't entirely incapable of depicting their emotions.

Judging by Merlin's expression, he had just garnered an extreme interest in this battle. It was the same rare expression that Sabrina made when she was highly interested in something. It was often said that after a while, certain aspects of a pokemon's trainer begin to rub off on them. If that was the case, Ash had a feeling that Clefairy was in trouble.

"What did I say, Merlin?" queried Sabrina as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Didn't I tell you that he wasn't the average challenger? You're going to have to actually try if you want to win this battle."

Ash watched as Merlin turned around and nodded at his master before refocusing his piercing gaze on Clefairy. The psychic-type raised his spoon once again while preparing for battle.

As soon as Merlin got in his battle stance, Ash began to rack his brain with strategy after strategy. One thing was for sure, he needed to be patient. Psychics didn't bear a typing that you could simply strike without thinking.

They needed to dissect Merlin's defense and wait for him to create an opening for them. Otherwise, the kadabra would simply use his ability to teleport in order to instantaneously vanish and counterattack. If Clefairy mindlessly attacked, it would become a tedious game of hit and run, and Clefairy would be the one getting run over.

The ten-year-old boy caught a glimpse of Clefairy preparing to take off into a sprint. Her muscles were contracted, and she was beginning to lean forward. Ash wasn't surprised. Clefairy was a warrior; she wasn't afraid of anything. The last thing that she would want to do was sit back on the defensive, but right now that was their best option. Merlin was too strong to take on headfirst. They would need to find another way. Otherwise, Clefairy didn't stand much of a chance, and Haunter would be stuck trying to defeat a completely healthy Merlin.

"Clefairy, wait," said Ash in a firm voice.

In subsequence to Ash's command, the fairy pokemon instantly relaxed her muscles before looking back at him in a confused manner.

"Be patient," continued Ash, "wait for him to make the first move and then retaliate. You'll be way better off. I'm sure he has all kinds of skills and tricks in order to counter whatever you throw at him. If you want to cause damage, you need to do it on the defensive like earlier. Wait for him to leave an opening, and when you find it, strike with everything. Now, is the time to prove your resiliency against a powerful opponent."

Responding to Ash's words, Clefairy disembogued an affirmative grunt before pounding her tiny fists together with confidence. Despite her brashness, Ash knew deep inside that this wasn't her battle to win. Howbeit, if she could do some meaningful damage, she just might be able to help Haunter take this beast down for the team.

Victory or defeat, this battle would be resolved with Haunter on the battlefield. He knew it, and Sabrina knew it. However, until then, Clefairy would do everything she could to make a difference, and it was Ash's job to help her out as much as he could…

All of a sudden, Merlin vanished, instantly putting Ash on edge. The kadabra's teleportation signified the beginning of chaos. Wherever Merlin reappeared, the next move would be made. The psi pokemon had only been feeling Clefairy out at first. From now on, the intensity of the battle had been multiplied. What happened in the next few moments would be nothing like before.

Seconds after Merlin's disappearance, Ash caught a glimpse of an auroral, purple light burning over to his right. He instantly transferred his line of sight, and as expected, a powerful kadabra stood with its spoon raised, doused in psychic energy. Merlin most likely had several psychic attacks that involved his conduit spoon, so Ash wasn't quite sure what technique the psychic-type was about to use. But, given its positioning, Ash assumed that it was about to unleash some kind of long-range technique.

"Get ready, Clefairy!" howled Ash as Merlin thrusted his hand forward, throwing the psychic energy in what initially looked like another Psybeam.

Clefairy's eyes widened as the strong, psychic wave streaked forward in her direction. At second glance, it definitely appeared to be different than the Psybeam that Merlin had used earlier. Its breadth outstretched Psybeam, and it didn't move through the air nearly as precipitously.

Ash quickly racked his brain in order to figure out what it was: Psychic, Confusion, Kinesis and Future Sight, none really matched. Ash had done some pretty thorough research regarding a kadabra's natural moveset, and none of the techniques he'd read about fit the description.

Psychic wasn't as thick, Confusion was more pink than purple, Kinesis involved bending spoons, and Future Sight was extremely delayed. This technique didn't look like anything that a kadabra could learn on its own.

sAsh cursed under his breath. He should have known Sabrina's team would be seasoned with multiple TM moves. The gym leader probably had access to a surplus of the artificial move tutors.

Getting hit by Merlin's current move could prove troublesome. There was no way he could decipher a technique that he had never seen nor researched. All he could really have Clefairy do is dodge. He didn't feel comfortable allowing her to endure a move that he didn't know the effects of.

"Get out of there!" commanded Ash with passion behind his words.

Clefairy instantly used the fast-twitch muscles in her legs to dash out of the way of the attack. Ash's stomach dropped when he couldn't see through the duration of the psychic shockwave—the thick blast clouded the arena, and Clefairy dodged to the side unavailable to Ash's vision.

When the attack ceased, Ash was relieved to find Clefairy unharmed and upright. She was still slightly winded from the Stored Power and being hit by the Psybeam, but she had managed to go unscathed by the unfamiliar psychic blast that Merlin had just used.

Unfortunately, Merlin gave Ash and Clefairy no room to breathe. He vanished and reappeared again, although this time he appeared on Clefairy's left. When he unveiled himself, his spoon was already drenched in psychic energy, and his arm was already motioning forward in order to release another psychic blast.

"Clefairy move—!" hollered Ash urgently before his voice was cut off by the loud echoing sound of kadabra's psychic assailment echoing throughout the Saffron Gym's arena.

This time, Clefairy dodged to the right, remaining within Ash's line of sight. She managed to avoid the attack for a second time by throwing her body to the side and rolling across the gym's tile floor. As soon as her momentum had slowed down enough to get back up to her feet, she did so. The fairy pokemon leaped up and out of her turbulent tumble before beginning to sprint alongside the wide stream of psychic energy.

Clefairy's back was turned to Ash, so he couldn't get a good look at her facial expression. But, if he had to guess, he'd say it was gallant. It was times like this when Clefairy really showed her true colors, which were those of a brave, female combatant. Whether she was attacking on the offensive or the defensive, Clefairy always battled moving forward. It was what made her such a highly respected member of Ash's team despite the fact that she was the only girl…

Suddenly, Clefairy came to a skidding halt when Merlin teleported right in front of her. Ash's eyes brightened as he witnessed the kadabra's spoon light up similarly to how it did when he used Psycho Cut.

Merlin proceeded to use his psychic lance to try and slash away at Clefairy. He initiated the close combat battle with two horizontal slashes that swiped through the air at an alarming rate. The fairy Pokemon managed to dodge the first one on her own, with a swift duck, before narrowly avoiding the second by using Minimize.

As soon as Clefairy dodged the second Psycho Cut, Merlin brought his psychic enshrouded spoon straight down, trying to catch Clefairy in the middle of Minimize. He managed to land a blow to Clefairy's right leg as she tried to dive out of the way. The fairy-type winced as she was hit, but the full-extent of the damage wasn't seen by Ash until she landed.

The fairy-type shrieked in pain as her right foot made contact with the ground. It appeared as though the kadabra had made pretty solid contact. However, despite her cry, it didn't appear as if she was hobbled too badly by the strike. She was still able to put weight on it, which meant that nothing had been broken, although she would most likely garner a nasty bruise.

Disregarding the pain, Clefairy sprinted forward, catching Merlin off guard because of her perseverance. She used her uninjured foot to leap into the air and managed to connect a two-hit Double Slap to the psychic-type's face. She was trying for a third, but the surprised kadabra finally garnered the sense to teleport away and reappear outside of Clefairy's limited reach.

"Clefairy, use Sing!" shouted Ash, realizing that it was the best way to create a solid opening.

Not wasting any time, Clefairy instantaneously emitted a smooth melody from her vocal chords. Of course, it was toned down and skewed to Ash's ears, so that he wouldn't suffer from its slumbering effects. However, the same couldn't be said about Merlin, who was beginning to rock back and forth due to the forced drowsiness.

"Snap out of it, Merlin!" commanded Sabrina sternly.

Unfortunately, for Sabrina and Merlin, the song was too strong to disregard. The kadabra slowly fell into a sitting position as he was overpowered by Clefairy's lullaby. As his body slouched down even further, his eyelids fought to stay open. Despite the fight, it eventually proved to be futile.

Merlin's eyes closed, and he began to snore. In his current state, his disposition was oddly similar to that of Sabrina's abra, Trace.

Undeterred by the ironic scene, Ash quickly sprang into action. He would have to be an idiot to think that Merlin would stay asleep for long. The kadabra was a powerful psychic-type, and if there was any pokemon that could quickly break free of an involuntary comatose, it was a psychic that spent the majority of its time honing its mind.

"Hit it with Pound as many times as possible!" cried Ash passionately. "This is your chance!"

Clefairy quickly used her uninjured leg to push off of the ground as she prepared to heed her trainers command. The fairy-type severed the small proximity between herself and Merlin in a heartbeat before burying her small, compact fist straight into Merlin's face.

There was a notable groan of discomfort that was let out by the kadabra, and for a second Ash was worried that it had already woken up. But, it didn't. In spite of the pain that Clefairy had just inflicted on Merlin's face, her song had been strong enough to keep him at bay.

Excitement started to stir within Ash's being. Maybe, just maybe, Clefairy could do more damage to Merlin than he originally anticipated.

Once Clefairy realized that her first Pound hadn't woken Merlin up, she immediately proceeded to throw both of her fists into his gut. There was an even louder groan this time, accompanied by an array of flying saliva, as the psychic-type responded to receiving both of Clefairy's fists.

This time, Ash saw Merlin start to stir. He was beginning to awaken. Clefairy's window was soon to close, and one more hit was probably all she would get.

"Wake-Up Slap, now!" screamed Ash at the top of his lungs.

He knew it was a fighting-type move, and psychics had the advantage against all pokemon and moves classified as fighting, but that didn't change the fact that a solid Wake-Up Slap seemed appropriate at the moment. Ash had no idea what would happen when Merlin woke up, although he had a feeling it wasn't going to be pretty.

Maybe getting woken up by a degrading technique like Wake-Up Slap would hurl the kadabra into a rampage of frustration. If Ash could manage that, he would have the advantage. The abra line was most effective when they were cool and collected. A kadabra fighting angrily and impulsively would ultimately help him out when Haunter entered the battle. His apparition would surely be able to handle Merlin in a state like that.

Anyways, hearing her trainer's plea, Clefairy quickly loaded her hand with focused energy before unloading a mighty strike straight across Merlin's face. Ash watched attentively as the kadabra's eyes briskly jerked open while Clefairy connected with the previously sleeping psi pokemon. There was a loud, pained cry as Clefairy's open palm launched Merlin across the arena.

When Merlin hit the ground and tumultuously rolled into the arena's wall, Ash clenched his fists in excitement. Things were going well, really well. He hadn't expected Clefairy to perform like this. Right now, she was winning. She was beating Sabrina's Kadabra. Maybe he was wrong. If things continued like this, it was possible he wouldn't need to use Haunter—

'Don't get ahead of yourself, Ash Ketchum,' said Sabrina, using telepathy.

In subsequence to Sabrina's warning, Merlin abruptly disappeared from his feeble positioning and reappeared right behind Clefairy. This time, the fairy-type was in shock. She hadn't been expecting kadabra to move so quickly. One second he had been pinned against the wall, moaning in pain, and now she could feel him looming behind her.

Ash's nerves flared up, and his stomach dropped, as he watched Merlin's spoon light up in between blinks. It was coated in dark psychic energy and appeared to be much more potent than anything he had shown up to this point.

Under most circumstances, Ash wouldn't be too worried. Clefairy was pretty quick and with the addition of Minimize, she could dodge most attacks. However, right now, she was exhausted. And she looked way too surprised to think straight. In short, this wasn't good. She was in a trouble.

With darkness in his eyes, Merlin thrusted his Psycho Cut straight into the side of Clefairy's head. The sound that his fairy pokemon let out upon impact sent a panicked chill down Ash's spine. He cringed even more when her eyes went blank, and she began to fall face first toward the ground.

"Clefairy!" howled Ash while he helplessly witnessed his fairy pokemon face-plant into Sabrina's indigo colored tile.

After shaking off the shock of Merlin's assailment, there was a moment of silence as Ash prepared to return Clefairy, and everyone soaked in what had just happened, before Sabrina spoke up.

"Clefairy is unable to battle," articulated Sabrina. "She fought well, Ash Ketchum. But it's time for you to return her, and release your next poke—"

—Unexpectedly, Sabrina's voice was cut off by the sound of an explosion. Ash looked up, and temporarily took his finger off of the return button, as he tried to process what he was witnessing.

The arena was flooded with fading, white light while the explosion caused by the immense Stored Power disappeared into oblivion. When the obscuration from the momentous, unexpected energy blast completely disappeared, Ash rubbed the glare out of his eyes before examining the scene in front of him.

What he saw from Clefairy didn't surprise him. She lay flat on her face, clearly unconscious. There was a brief moment that Ash was worried that his fairy pokemon had exhausted too much energy, but from his current position, he could see that she was breathing normally. So, at least she wasn't in any kind of critical condition.

All of his worries were diminished when Sabrina spoke into his mind using her telepathy and said, "Do not fret, Ash Ketchum. Clefairy is just fine. She may need to spend a couple days resting, but her condition is not serious. She is merely exhausted."

Once Ash had realized that Clefairy was okay, he looked out at Merlin, who was upright, albeit clearly looked as though he had accumulated a hefty sum of damage. Ash wasn't quite able to deduce how much of it had been done by Clefairy's Sing/Pound combination as opposed to how much of it was a result of her last-ditch Stored Power.

That didn't matter. What mattered was that Clefairy had done more than Ash had ever thought she would, which meant that they had a very realistic shot at taking down Sabrina.

"Your Clefairy is incredibly impressive," said Sabrina as she looked over her battered kadabra. "During our training together, I could tell she was talented. However, this goes beyond my expectations. To think that she could do this to Merlin…"

She shook her head as she paused, "I never would have guessed. But, then again, I'm not using my psychic powers to foresee the result of this battle. Therefore, I have chosen to keep your clefairy's full-strength unknown to my mind."

Ash nodded his head while he pressed the return button on Clefairy's pokeball. She was instantly blanketed in a ray of ruby red light prior to being sucked back into sequester. In subsequence to the return of his valiant, fairy pokemon, the ten-year-old boy whispered words of gratitude to her pokeball before reattaching it to his trainer belt.

"Thank you for giving me a fair battle up to this point, Sabrina," retorted Ash as he reached for Haunter's great ball. "It means a lot, however, it's time we end this."

"I couldn't agree more, Ash Ketchum," answered Sabrina with one of her rare smirks, "send out Haunter and give us everything you've got. Do not think for a second that this battle is over. Merlin may be a bit beat up, but he has plenty of fight left in him. Do not hold back."

"Oh…I won't!" howled Ash as he winded back his arm in preparation to launch Haunter's great ball. "This is a gym battle after all!"

Ash watched as Merlin looked up at the impending great ball with focused eyes before getting into a defensive position. Despite his present condition, it was clear that Merlin had a fare amount of fight left in him. As a matter of fact, Ash thought he could see a twinkle of enjoyment in the kadabra's countenance. It was probably rare that the evolved psi pokemon was pushed to its limit…

After momentarily soaring through the air, Haunter's great ball clicked open before casting loose an illumination of brilliant light. It lasted for a couple of seconds prior to dying out. When it completely dissipated, Haunter's corporeal form was revealed levitating above the indigo colored tile.

The ghost-type let out his signature guffaw in precedence to looking over Merlin with his slanted eyes. After a quick observation, Haunter drifted down into one of the vast shadows that was being delineated across the floor and immediately reemerged directly in front of Ash.

"Hey, Haunter," greeted Ash as he darted his eyes back and forth between his ghost-type and Merlin. "We're in the middle of our gym battle. Clefairy battled well. All that's left is for you to defeat this kadabra, and we get the Marsh Badge. Clefairy did a lot of damage, so it's up to you to finish what she started. Got it?"

Haunter disembogued another round of ghoulish laughter except this time it bore a hint of sincere emotion. Ash could tell that Haunter wanted to win this battle for him. It was the ghost pokemon's first gym battle after all, and he knew that a win would make Ash proud.

Of course, Ash would be proud no matter how Haunter fared, but he understood where the poltergeist was coming from. On account of his devilish alter-ego, he had caused Ash quite a lot of worry as of late. Knowing the type of pokemon Haunter was, he definitely wanted to repay Ash's kindness with a win.

Now, Ash would never hold a grudge or ostracize Haunter because of his situational, aberrant behavior, but who was he to talk Haunter down from his own personal concept of debt. If giving Sabrina everything he had would help boost his self-esteem, Ash wouldn't stand in the apparition's way.

Besides, he'd have to be a complete and utter fool to talk Haunter down from his current mind state. The ghost-type was clearly focused and ready for battle, which most certainly raised Ash's chances at victory. A resolute Haunter didn't bode well for Merlin. Not only did Haunter have the type-advantage, but he was a dynamic specimen and quite possibly the strongest member of Ash's team.

He could be a bit of a wildcard, and his personality was way more complex than most pokemon. However, one thing was certain. Haunter was strong, and Ash had a feeling he was about to prove that fact once again in this battle.

Ash's rumination was cut short when Haunter blasted forward, leaving a gaseous trail in his wake. He sped through the air at an expeditious rate, causing Merlin's eyes to widen with anticipation.

Ash could feel the adrenaline surge within him as the two evolved, mystic pokemon were about to clash. The climax of the battle was being initiated, and the entirety of Ash's being knew it.

This would be fun.

"Haunter, engage with Shadow Punch!" bellowed Ash, taking the reigns.

Hearing his trainer's command, Haunter raised one of his disembodied fists while charging it with dark purple energy. The ghostly energy stirred throughout the gym's enclosed atmosphere, sending a familiar chill that traveled throughout Ash's body.

"Meet it with Psycho Cut!" howled Sabrina, providing Merlin with her first trainer command of the battle.

Once again, Merlin covered his spoon in a confluence of psychic energy in precedence to raising it above his head. Ash gulped. Without a doubt, this collision would be nasty. The amount of energy that was being emitted by both pokemon was awe-inspiring.

About a second before they engaged each other, Ash crossed his fingers. Haunter's Shadow Punch had the type-advantage, but Merlin was emitting a ridiculous amount of energy in order to nullify it. The psychic energy that was blanketing Merlin's spoon was so powerful that it actually grated against the atmosphere, causing an anguishing hiss.

Be that as it may, Ash didn't have enough time to really process just how amazing each technique was on its own. All thoughts of astonishment were pushed aside when the two powers met.

At first, there was an ear-shatter clap that sounded like a shotgun being fired. However, as the two attacks fought for dominance, the sound that they created resembled that of a howl. It was like both energies were screaming out in pain as they tried to destroy each other's essence. It was as if the energy itself was wailing while it died.

The eventual result was a large explosion that extended to the edge of both trainer boxes. Ash was curious as to whether the explosion had naturally stopped, directly in front of him, or if Sabrina was using some kind of psychic barrier to protect them. Either way, they were unharmed.

However, he couldn't say the same thing about Haunter and Merlin.

Ash's ghost-type hadn't taken too much damage, but judging by the pain depicting cringe that was currently occupying the apparition's face, it was clear that the explosion had stung at the very least.

Merlin was obviously the worse for wear. The explosion had simply added to his already heavy agglomeration of pain. His body was shaking, and his eyes looked tired. The kadabra's grip on his spoon was loosening as his body grew weaker, and his burly shoulders were beginning to slouch.

All of a sudden, amidst all of his exhaustion, Merlin's grip tightened around his spoon as he proceeded to fire a Psybeam at Haunter. It streaked throughout the air at a high velocity, causing Haunter to escape by dropping into the ground and fading out of the corporeal world.

When the Psybeam disappeared, Ash, along with everyone else in the arena, spent a moment trying to locate Haunter until he revealed himself. Unexpectedly, Haunter reemerged from concealment right in front of Merlin. Ash looked ahead with excitement as Haunter swung a fist coated with black energy at the kadabra, but his splutter of joy was precipitously smashed when Merlin teleported away.

Unlike Haunter, Merlin instantly reappeared adjacent to Haunter prior to unloading another one of those slow, widespread psychic waves that Ash was unfamiliar with. This time, Haunter was caught off guard by the psychic-type's teleportation and was unable to dodge or vanish into incorporeality.

Ash cringed as Haunter let out a cry after being hit by the strange psychic move. However, he relaxed a little bit when Haunter dissipated into incorporeality immediately after the duration of the attack and rematerialized behind Merlin.

In subsequence of the reappearance of Haunter's corporeal form, the apparition emanated a dark purple ray that Ash immediately recognized as Night Shade. Once again, the psi pokemon proved just how fast it could move, by means of teleportation, as it vanished in precedence to showing up on the opposite side of the battlefield, directly in front of Sabrina.

"Confuse Ray!" bellowed Ash, "to your left!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Haunter waved his fingers and an ominous, dark purple wave of energy was cast upon the kadabra. It was thick, murky and looked like a cloud full of toxins. Ash wasn't quite sure why Merlin didn't teleport away, but it most likely had something to do with his high-level of exhaustion. Teleportation wasn't limitless after all, it required energy. And energy was something that the kadabra was presently running low on.

As soon as the Confuse Ray ceased, Ash could tell right away that kadabra was confused. Its eyes looked unintelligent and were dilated, whereas its body swayed back and forth, clearly lacking stable balance.

Upon realization that Merlin had been confused, Ash clenched his fist with anticipation. The kadabra was already exhausted, confusion on top of exhaustion didn't bode well for the psychic-type's chances at victory. However, undeterred by the fact that things were leaning towards victory, Ash refused to lose focus until Merlin was completely unconscious.

"Be prepared for anything!" shouted Ash. "It's on its last leg, but the Confuse Ray's made it unpredictable!"

Haunter nodded his entire body in response to Ash's exclamation, while Merlin started to lash out due to his currently deranged mind state. At first, his confusion symptoms were worrisome. He began his rampage of befuddlement by randomly shooting a multitude of Psybeams and by sporadically slashing away at his surroundings with Psycho Cut.

There were several instances where Merlin nearly struck Haunter out of luck, but every time he got close, the ghost-type was able to evade the mindless attack. This went on for quite a bit, all the while, Haunter was using Night Shade from a distance in order to slowly eat away at the kadabra's remaining energy.

While the kadabra was getting closer and closer to comatose, Ash watched as Sabrina stood attentive with her arms folded. She hadn't said a word for a while now, and Ash was starting to get the impression that she had left the battle in Merlin's hands a long time ago.

Either that, or Sabrina was still communicating using telekinesis. However, Ash highly doubted that. Not only was Sabrina more lax than she usually was, but Merlin didn't seem like he was in a position to be receptive to her mental voice. The kadabra was exhausted, and his confusion was overwhelming.

In Ash's opinion, Sabrina's calm disposition could only mean one of two things. Either she knew something that Ash didn't, and Merlin had an outcome altering trick up his sleeve, or she had already accepted the fact that this match was over, and there was no reason to struggle.

Ash was banking on the latter.

"Finish this now!" howled Ash, "Shadow Punch!"

In response to Ash's command, Haunter enveloped both of his fists in shadowy aura. As the ghostly energy stirred, it shrieked within the gym's enclosed, stagnant environment.

While Haunter closed in on Merlin, the psi pokemon remained in a disgruntled and deranged state, using his conduit spoon at random to spew repetitive Psybeams all over the arena. In route to delivering the final blow, Haunter was forced to faze in and out of the corporeal world several times in order to reach Merlin without getting hurt.

Once Haunter was close enough to strike, he disembogued a loud, triumphant guffaw as he buried both of his fists into Merlin's gut. The psychic-type's eyes bulged, and it was clear that he was in pain, but he didn't let out even the slightest hint of a noise.

Kadabra weren't very vocal pokemon to begin with, so Ash wasn't too surprised. However, to get hit by an attack like that and not make a noise meant that he must have had the wind knocked out of him. Within a mere couple of seconds, Merlin's eyes went from full and active to empty and slanted as he passed into comatose. It wasn't until Merlin fell backward, due to momentum, that his unconscious form finally released a loud, desperate gasp for air.

In concurrence to the moment that Merlin hit the ground, the ghostly energy that was blanketing Haunter's fists evaporated, leaving a laughing Haunter levitating above the defeated kadabra's body.

Ash watched in astonishment as Haunter made his way back over to his trainer. He was slightly winded, and he winced a couple of times as he made his way back, but he was in much better shape than Ash would have originally anticipated.

It wasn't until Ash heard the familiar, jovial howl of his best friend, Growlithe, coming from up above that it finally sunk in.

He'd won. He had defeated Sabrina. He had finally won his third gym battle and had earned the right to bear the Marsh Badge.

A feeling of insurmountable joy welled up inside him as Haunter got within arms reach. An enormous grin stretched across his face, and he couldn't help but jump up and down with glee while the entire scope of the win flooded throughout his being.

"Great job, Haunter!" exclaimed Ash as he embraced his ghost-type's corporeal body in a friendly hug of affection. "I don't know what to say! You and Clefairy were unbelievable! I'm so proud of you guys!"

While Haunter let out a cheerful array of laughter, Ash finally noticed the cheers of his friends in the stands, accompanying Growlithe's celebratory howl. All Ash could do was laugh when he heard a surplus of ridiculous praise that without a doubt was coming from Bill. The pokemon researcher's loud, charismatic voice even drowned out Growlithe's as it echoed against the arena's walls.

Taking his eyes off of his ecstatic Haunter, Ash looked up in the stands when he heard Growlithe's proud barks and his friends' triumphal cheers sound closer in proximity. When his line of sight shifted, he saw that Growlithe, Wallace, Robert and Bill were making their way down the stands toward the battlefield.

Ash flashed them a massive smile as they continued to wave and cheer before his attention was suddenly grabbed by the sound of Sabrina's monotonous voice.

"Good job, Ash Ketchum," said Sabrina as she handled Merlin's capture device. "You handled your pokemon very well. Merlin hasn't been beaten like that in a long time. I have to admit, I am impressed."

"Thanks, Sabrina," replied the ten-year-old boy as he petted Haunter between his spikes, "I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you so much for your help with Haunter and Clefairy's mental barriers. It means a lot."

A rare, small smile appeared on Sabrina's face as she reattached Merlin's pokeball to her belt, who she must have returned at some point during the celebration. "It was a pleasure, my friend. It was the least I could do to repay you for all that you have done for Robert and my city."

Ash couldn't help but reciprocate Sabrina's smile, although it wasn't hard since he had been wearing an enormous grin ever since the battle had ended. Just when he thought he couldn't get any happier, he was proven wrong when he was playfully knocked to the ground by none other than Growlithe, who had apparently beaten the rest of his friends down to the battlefield.

After making contact with the ground, Ash had to shield his face with his hands as he tried to avoid getting slobbered on by the puppy pokemon's tongue. Despite the fact that Growlithe was a pup, it was rare that he showed his affection through licking. Nevertheless, when he did, it was usually overwhelming. No matter how much he loved his starter, he'd rather not receive a bath by means of Growlithe's saliva.

While he was being smothered with affection by his fire-type, Ash heard the sound of several converging footsteps accompanied by Wallace's elegant voice.

"Well done, Ash!" exclaimed the foreign Champion as he steadily approached him. "That was a well managed battle. Your pokemon fought well, and you commanded them skillfully when you needed to. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks," stammered Ash, slightly overwhelmed by the Champion's praise. "Was it worth sticking around for?"

"Absolutely," replied the Champion with a definite nod. "Words cannot describe how happy I am that I got to make it."

"Good," answered Ash with a smile, "I'm happy you enjoyed it—"

"It was a bloody damn good battle!" interrupted Robert as he patted Ash on the back. "He better have enjoyed it. You've got even more skill than I remember, Ash. I'm glad Bill talked me into rescheduling my meeting with the board. That was exhilarating."

"You rescheduled a meeting to watch me battle?" asked Ash with curious eyes.

"Bill told me I couldn't miss it," said Robert as he fixed his suit, "and he was right."

"Psht, I don't know how you ever planned on missing it in the first place!" retorted Bill. "It was a battle between your adopted daughter and my friend. I would have left a bloody shit in the middle of headquarter's lobby if you didn't come!"

"Whatever you say, son," laughed Robert sarcastically. "You've been using that empty threat for years. How do you expect me to believe that you'll crap in headquarter's lobby when you're too afraid to use a public lavatory?"

Ash, Wallace and Sabrina snickered while Bill's face turned as red as a tomato.

"Dad…" drawled Bill, "You promised you'd never say anything."

Robert huffed before he responded. "And you've promised me a million times that you would stop threatening to crap in my bloody lobby. Consider us even, son."

"Bloody geezer," cursed Bill under his breath before letting out a forced cough, signifying that he wanted to change the subject.

"Well, anyways…" crooned Bill in a melodramatic tone of voice as he turned his attention back over to Ash. "That was a great battle, Ash! You made me proud to be your friend!"

The pokemon researcher glanced over at Sabrina for a brief moment before looking at Ash in a humorous way, "You really took it to that bloody witch. I've never seen her so frazzled. She didn't know what to do, especially once you confused her kadabra."

In response to Bill's idiotic comment, he received a death glare from saffron's prestigious gym leader. "Bill Montgomery, your idiotic behavior never ceases to amaze me."

"Oh, shut it, Sabrina," Bill sighed with a smirk. "It was just a jest. As much as I hate to admit it, we all know what you are truly capable of."

"Do you now?" queried Sabrina with vacant eyes in precedence to shifting her gaze down toward Ash, Growlithe and Haunter. "Anyways, let's not take this moment away from, Ash Ketchum. This is an important moment for him. I'd rather not spoil it with our trivial banter."

"I agree," interjected Wallace with his arms folded. "Ash still hasn't received Sabrina's badge."

"Your right,"said Bill with a cynical expression. "What the hell, Sabrina, are you trying to screw over my friend here? Give him his bloody badge already."

"Would you please just shut up, Bill," replied Wallace before Sabrina had a chance to wring the obnoxious pokemon researcher out with her psionic powers, "you're being an utter idiot."

"Am not," scoffed Bill, clearly offended.

He proceeded to fold his arms before looking at Ash for support, "Right, Ash?"

"Sorry, Bill," answered Ash with a shrug as he scratched behind Growlithe's ears, "but I'm going to have to side with the others this time. You're being an idiot."

The pokemon researcher froze with a look that portrayed hurt. Ash was one of his only friends after all, so anytime the ten-year-old boy had to give Bill some hard truth, it usually took him a while to process. Nevertheless, it had to be said. What kind of friend would he be if he didn't try and help point out when Bill was acting ridiculous? The stubborn billionaire didn't listen to anyone else, so Ash really didn't have a choice.

He had to be the one that pointed out Bill's flaws every once in a while. It was one of the many roles of being a good friend.

"Well, now that Bill Montgomery's been put in his place, I guess it's time I hand over your winnings," said Sabrina as she drew Ash's attention away from the now sulking pokemon researcher."

Ash's eyes lit up with anticipation. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The Marsh Badge signified his progress as a trainer. Not only was it Sabrina's badge, but it was also his third, which meant that from this point forward, he would no longer be battling gym leader's league registered teams.

He had finally completed the preliminary battles of the Kanto Gym Circuit. From this point forward, his journey was about to get a lot more challenging.

His rumination was cut short when two familiar alakazam appeared out of nowhere. Ash had to carefully look them over to figure out their specific identities, but after a couple of seconds, he was able to decipher that they were Sabrina's two strongest alakazam: Kaz and Midna.

"Ash Ketchum, hold out your hands," said Sabrina as everyone else in the arena remained silent and watched."

The ten-year-old boy didn't question the psychic virtuoso. He held out his hands, obeying Sabrina while he waited for what was about to unfold.

"On account of your victory at the Saffron Gym," said Sabrina, "I, Sabrina Marvil, grant you with the Marsh Badge as proof of your victory."

In subsequence to Sabrina's words, Ash watched as Kaz crossed his spoons. The next thing the dark-haired boy knew he was holding a golden circular trinket in his palms. Its design was extremely simple, consisting of one small circle resting within one larger circle.

Ash stared at it for a couple of seconds in awe, reflecting on its prestigious significance, before placing it in one of his jacket pockets. He would have stuck it in his badge case right away, but he's left it on his backpack, which was sitting on the bed that he had been staying at in the gym.

"Thanks so—" managed Ash prior to an unexpected interruption from Sabrina.

"Hold off on the gratitude," said Sabrina with a minute smirk. "I have one more thing to give you."

"What," questioned Ash, bewildered, "there is something else? But, haven't you already done enough for me?"

"Ash Ketchum, after what you've done for Robert and Saffron," said Sabrina, "I don't know if I could ever adequately repay you. However, that is beside the point. The other thing that I want to give you is actually the final part of your mental barrier training."

"Huh?" asked Ash. "What do you mean?"

"Hold out your hands again," said Sabrina.

"Um…okay," drawled Ash while doing what he was told. "But, how could you give me something that will complete my mental barrier training? I'm confu—"

"Midna, now," interrupted Sabrina.

Ash attentively observed Midna as she proceeded to cross her spoons just like Kaz had moments prior. All of a sudden, Ash's hands got heavier when something abruptly materialized within them.

He reflexively looked down, curious as to what Sabrina had given him. As soon as he laid his eyes on it, they lit up jubilantly.

"Is this what I think it is?" asked Ash with excitement brewing in his intonation.

"That depends," answered Sabrina with a hint of interest in her eyes. "What do you think it is?"

Ash looked over the small, black cardboard box that had the number twenty-nine printed on it in large, white letters. Following the number was the word, Psychic, which happened to be printed in dark purple letters.

"It's a Psychic TM, right?" asked Ash.

"Correct," answered Sabrina with a proud look in her eyes. "Inside of that box, written on a disk, is the information required to teach Clefairy or Haunter Psychic. Both species are compatible with the TM."

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" exclaimed Ash as he joyfully looked up from the box that the TM occupied. "This will be a big help!"

"Sabrina provided the information required to make that TM," said Robert, chiming back into the conversation. "It's applicable to almost two hundred different species spread oute across the world."

"Really!?" blustered Ash. "That's so cool! This is awesome, Sabrina, I can't wait to use it!"

"It's not a big deal," retorted Sabrina blankly. "Robert gets me them for free, since I helped design them. I figured that since you are heading to Celadon, you would be getting a TM case pretty soon. Once you get your TM case, you can apply that Psychic TM to either Clefairy or Haunter. Not only will it be a good technique to use in battle, but it will also give you a means to use external psychic exposure in order to put up mental barriers over the rest of your pokemons' psyches."

Ash took a moment to soak in the significance of the gift before finally responding.

"Wow…" drawled Ash, "that's awesome. I don't know what to say."

"There's no need to say anything," said Sabrina, "You earned it. It is my gift to you for everything that you've done."

Ash simply nodded his head. Words couldn't describe how happy he was. Not only had he won the Marsh Badge, but he had also gotten a TM that would open the door for all of his pokemon to be able to compete with psychics—.

"Ring…"

"Ring…"

"Ring…"

The moment was cut off as everyone except for Ash checked their pockets to see if the pokegear that was going off belonged to them. Ash examined the xtranceiver on his wrist to make sure that it wasn't him.

The situation was resolved when Wallace pulled his flashing pokegear out of one of his pant pockets.

"One second," said Wallace as he walked away from the group in order to take the call in private, "I've got to take this."

"Click."

In subsequence to Wallace picking up the phone, everybody else mingled amongst each other until he returned to the group a few minutes later. As he approached them, a look of disappointment formed across his face prior to addressing them.

"Well…" sighed Wallace, "that was a League official from Hoenn. Apparently, there's a taxi waiting for me outside. I've got to get to the airport ASAP. My flight leaves in a couple of hours."

Ash frowned, although he wasn't surprised. He knew that Wallace would be leaving soon. However, even though he knew that it was coming, it was still difficult to hear. In a short amount of time, Wallace had become like an older brother to him. The last thing he wanted was for that older brother to leave, especially when leaving meant that he would be going to a faraway region like Hoenn.

"Don't give me that look, kiddo," said Wallace as he playfully messed up Ash's cap. "We'll stay in touch. Besides, I'll see you again at the League tournament. Hoenn's season starts later thank Kanto's, so the conference tournament isn't until August. There shouldn't be anything keeping me in Hoenn when Kanto's conference is held at the Indigo Plateau."

"Really?!" exclaimed Ash, excited at the thought of Wallace watching him battle at the tournament.

"Yup, unless there's an emergency, I'll be there," said Wallace before directing his attention away from Ash and toward everyone else. "I take it I'll see you guys there as well."

"It's mandatory for gym leaders to attend," retorted Sabrina, "so I will be there."

"I'll be there," added Robert with a big grin. "I haven't missed the Indigo Conference in twenty years."

"I'm coming," said Bill, gloomily. "I can't miss Ash battle. Besides, I'm pretty sure I already promised Lance that I'd make an appearance.

Ash pivoted his eyes toward Growlithe, and then over to Haunter, as his friends shared their plans to attend the League tournament. "You hear that guys? Everyone's coming to watch us battle; we better not disappoint 'em."

Growlithe let out a proud bark, and Haunter emitted his usual ghoulish guffaw in response to Ash's words.

"Well, anyways," interrupted Wallace as he prepared to make his way around the group in order to give everyone a friendly goodbye handshake, "I probably shouldn't make the taxi driver wait any longer. I'm going to head out. I'll see all of you at the conference."

"Goodbye, my friend," retorted Robert sincerely. "Have a safe trip. We'll keep in touch."

"Farewell, Champion Wallace," said Sabrina. "Thank you so much for coming to Robert and Saffron's aid. We couldn't have stopped Team Rocket without you."

"Tootles, Wallace," crooned Bill, who seemed to be getting over his overemotional mood shift. "Don't get your cape stuck in the front door."

Wallace simply ignored Bill's predictable snide remark as he dropped his eyes down to Ash's level.

"Bye Wall—"

"Ash, could you please accompany me to the taxi," interrupted Wallace as he began to back away towards the front entrance. "There's something I would like to discuss with you before I leave."

"Um…sure," drawled Ash, unsure of how to reply.

As Ash, Growlithe and Haunter started to trail Wallace out of the arena, Bill tried to follow them.

"Just, Ash," said Wallace sternly as he turned around and gestured for Bill to leave them alone. "I'm sorry, Bill, but I would like to talk with Ash in private before I leave."

Ash could tell that Bill was about to protest, so he too gestured for him to stay put. Ash could tell that Bill was slightly hurt that he couldn't tag along, but he would have to get over it. Whatever Wallace wanted to say to him must be important if he didn't feel comfortable saying it in front of everyone else.

"Whatever," snarled Bill as he turned around and walked the other way. "I didn't want to come anyways."

Ash ignored Bill's childish behavior, for now, as he continued to follow Wallace out of the gym. Unlike Bill, Sabrina and Robert let them leave without saying a word. It was clear that they respected a Champion's request for privacy.

"So, what's this about?" asked Ash as soon as they were far away not to be heard.

"Hang tight," replied Wallace as he sporadically shifted his suspicious gaze, "I'll tell you as soon as we exit gym."

Ash nodded as they continued to make their way out of the gym. All the while, his nerves were starting to spike. What was it that Wallace wanted to tell him? Why would he pull him off to the side like this? Was it important? What could it possibly be?

XXX

The ten-year-old boy's stomach dropped, and his nerves heightened, as he watched the taxi disappear in the distance.

Wallace had left.

After the last couple weeks of insanity, the Champion had finally departed for his home region. Under normal circumstances, Ash wouldn't be as upset as he was. He knew he would keep in touch with Wallace; he understood that he would be seeing him again.

However, after the information bomb that Wallace had just dropped on him, he couldn't help but feel sick while watching Wallace leave.

If what Wallace had told him was true, Kanto was in trouble. They needed all of the help they could get, and Wallace was the strongest trainer that Ash had ever met. Kanto needed him, but that wasn't possible because he had his own region to protect.

Of course, they always had Lance. However, Ash had a tough time believing that even Lance could stop what Team Rocket was hiding.

Damn, who would have ever guessed that they had been up to something so sinister?

No wonder they had disappeared for five years. The little bit of information that Sabrina had ripped from Ariana's mind had completely blown him away.

He had expected something foreboding. Austin had opened him up to the thought that Team Rocket could be after a legendary, but this was way worse.

Hopefully, Sabrina had been mistaken. Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding. But, deep down inside, he knew it was true. Wallace believed it, and Sabrina believed it, and both of them were two of the most credible people he knew.

Howbeit, maybe if he denied it, it would never come to pass. But, then again, he knew he was just fooling himself.

Everything made sense now. The facts had finally come together, and everything had aligned.

Team Rocket had a secret weapon—a weapon that they were waiting patiently to unveil.

If it weren't for this mission, they wouldn't have found out about it. At least something good came out of this whole fiasco. Now they knew what Team Rocket was planning. Something so dastardly that even Sabrina had been rattled by what was about to unfold.

He didn't know when, all he knew was that it was soon. Wallace guessed that they would strike before the Indigo conference. The Champion assumed that their secret would be revealed around the end of the League season.

Ash didn't know what he could do to help. He didn't know how he could stop what was coming. The only thing he could think of was to get stronger, so that he wouldn't simply whither away when this storm finally came to pass.

Ariana's mind revealed that a monster dwelled within Kanto: a beast so powerful that it made a dragonite look like something less than a caterpie.

Sabrina couldn't garner a name, but its origin wasn't natural.

It was an abomination, resembling a creature that had only been mentioned in ancient legends. Ariana had said that she had been exposed to psychic levels that even Sabrina couldn't match, and she was right.

The truth behind Team Rocket's agenda was worse than anything any of them could have imagined. There master plan involved a psychic-type, who's DNA was spliced from the legendary Mew itself.

Simply put, regardless of how chaotic the last few weeks had been, they were a walk in the park compared to what was to come.

Sometime in the near future, evil in its purest form would be descending upon Kanto, and even Champion Lance wouldn't be able to put a stop to it

Hopefully, fate had an answer.

XXX

To be continued…

XXX

A/N: Well, there it is Kanto 7. Sorry for the wait, but I honestly couldn't help it. This chapter was super long, and I had a ton of stuff going on. I will try to get a chapter out in October, but my wedding is next month, so that might be kind of difficult. However, I will be diligently working on Kanto 8, which will include a tour of Silph Co., the send-off to Celadon, and the trip to Celadon. It should be a lot fun getting Ash on the road again. Anyways, thank you for your patience. Don't forget to favorite, follow and review! You guys have been great so far. Also, if you have any questions, send me a PM. I'm always willing to answer!

Much Love, vincentgrey21