Here's starting a brand new arc of a brand new chapter up just in time for the holidays, though I actually had this chapter finished about a week or two ago or so. I just thought what with the new arc and all that I'd have it posted for Christmas day.

So here's wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Read, review, and enjoy!

Arc 2

Chapter 37: Rival Gang Battle Part 1

"No!" Charcoal said, crossing his arms. "I refuse to take that nasty stuff."

"Come on, Charcoal," our trainer said, holding a small cup up to him filled with some weird liquid that didn't quite agree to my sense of smell. "You have to take it. Otherwise the infection will break out again and you'll have to be hospitalized for weeks."

"Better that than downing that stuff," Charcoal said, sticking his nose up in the air. "My answer is still no."

I yawned having watched my trainer make the attempt to get Charcoal to take his so-called meds or whatever so that he could heal properly. Unfortunately, that wasn't working out so well upon our leaving Cerulean the previous day. We had been there three days before Charcoal had wanted to resume our journey to the next city, despite the protests everyone gave him. In the end, our trainer was given the meds for Charcoal to take so that he wouldn t wind up back in the state he had been in since the robbery and the gym battle. And we had currently stopped in yet another grassy field with no civilization around whatsoever. Awesome!

"Give it up," Laura said with an exasperated sigh. "If he wants to get himself sick again, I'd say let him. It's like the saying goes: like trainer, like Pokemon."

"Would you give me a break?" my trainer asked with some annoyance in his voice. At least I'm making the attempt to get Charcoal better.

"And you're doing so well with that," Laura said sarcastically with a roll of her eyes as my trainer resumed pleading for Charcoal to take his meds.

"He's definitely not making any headway, is he?" Ted asked from beside me, causing my heart to skip a beat.

"Not in the slightest," was my reply after sighing a bit.

"Don't worry, bro," Ted said. "I got this." I watched as he made his way over to them, walking a bit past Charcoal as he folded his hands behind his back. "You know you should really consider taking that stuff," he said, turning his head back slightly to look at him.

"Hmpf!" Charcoal replied as he turned his head the other way, mainly in my direction so I could see his expression. He was acting rather snobbish in my opinion. "I don't care if it helps get me better. Just having to down that stuff is the nastiest taste in existence, among other such medicines."

"Well you know what they say about medicine," Ted said. "The more bitter the taste is, the better you'll heal."

"And yet my answer still remains the same," Charcoal replied. "I'd rather this run its course than keep taking that stuff."

"If you say so," Ted said, turning back around and starting to make his way back toward me, stopping only after a few paces with his head slightly bowed, eyes closed, and a smug-like smile upon his face. "Of course, I m sure Skitty wouldn't mind having some extra company around to play with."

"Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!" Skitty yelled as she jumped through the air, flailing her paws about like she was making the attempt to fly.

I turned my attention back to Charcoal just in time to watch his eyes snap open, turning his head to look at the cup of meds our trainer held. "GIVE ME THAT BLOODY THING!" he yelled, snatching the cup from his hand and gulping it down in one go. "Yuck! Ptooey! Giratina forbid! That's one nasty aftertaste!" He tossed the cup over his shoulder and got up, walking over to our trainer's waistline and grabbed his ball, expanding it in size.

"Hey Charcoal!" I yelled out to him, catching his attention before he recalled himself. "Don't you want to hear about my battle against the gym leader?"

"Another time perhaps," was his response. The medicine's effect is soon to kick in and I would like to be at a certain level of comfort when it occurs. I do look forward to hearing how your battle faired." With that, he pressed the button in the middle of the ball and was absorbed inside in a blaze of red light, the ball dropping to the ground.

My trainer simply picked the Pokeball up and stared at it dumbfounded as Ted made his way back over towards me, his usual calm-like expression plastered upon his face. "That seemed to have done the trick," he said, stopping before me. "Barely anyone can actually stand being around Skitty."

"And yet you're one of the rare few who can," I made a comment on. "How does she not drive you crazy?"

"Like I told you before," Ted replied. "I just find ways not to be driven so. That and..."

I titled my head to one side, curious what he had to say before he trailed off. "What?" I asked. "That and what?"

Ted shook his head, seeming like he had been in thought. "No," he replied. "It's nothing. Just something I'm really grateful for."

"Like what?" I asked before I decided to change the subject right before Ted could say anything, having craned my head around. "On second thought, you may want to-"

"Say no more, Zack bro," Ted said as he walked into my line of vision, stopping before Skitty who was currently gnawing on the back of my left hind leg.

Raising a claw, Ted gently prodded Skitty in the head with it, my leg being instantly released from her jaws. "Schnark!" Skitty said as she did so.

Ted and I both looked at each other.

Then we burst out roaring with laughter.

The next day still found us in the middle of a grassy plain, only there were several trees scattered about the area, one of which we stopped nearby. Charcoal had been brought out as usual to take his meds. I had taken that opportunity to recount my battle with the Gyarados to him, making sure I covered every bit of detail of my story.

"...And then he fired another Hyper Beam at me, while I'm in the air! At first I thought that was going to be the end of the battle, but to my surprise, the beam missed me completely, only grazing my side. And he's down below me, mouth wide open, panting hard, so I muster what power I have left and fire down the smallest Shadow Ball I m sure the world could ever see as it drops down into his mouth and does massive amounts of damage. So I yell down to him 'I'm Zack,' and slam an Iron Tail down upon his head, thus knocking him out cold as I add in a 'And I'm an Umbreon!'"

Charcoal, listening intently to the description of my battle, pondered deep in thought, recounting said battle within his head. "Sounds like quite the near-death experience you ve been close to," he said after several moments. "Explain to me again how you managed to free yourself to the surface."

"All I did was bite into the Gyarados to suck out what air he had stored in his lungs," was my reply. "It worked too." All Charcoal did was stare at me in bewilderment. "What?"

"And here I continue to wonder how you manage to survive in this world," Charcoal said a little wryly. "Gyarados don t need to store air in their lungs when they're underwater."

"They don't?" I asked. "So then how do they breathe above and below?"

"The lung passage closes off and opens their gills for breathing," Charcoal explained. "Most likely you forced what air you had left into the Gyarados' gill passage, which freed you to the surface. And I continue to wonder how your winning fluke continues to get you by in life."

"Hey!" I said, feeling a little insulted. "That's not a very nice thing to say."

"Sorry," Charcoal said, looking a bit guilty for speaking too much of his mind. "I just need to... I'm just..." He sighed. "I'll just go in my ball now." With that he got up and walked over to our trainer who was currently lying on his back, looking up into the sky as Charcoal recalled himself into his ball.

"Don't worry about him, bro," Ted said from beside me, causing my heart to skip a beat once again. "He just over thinks a little, that's all."

"Try a lot," I said a little grudgingly.

"Chillax, Zack bro," Ted said. "I'm sure Char bro's regretting his choice of words. Before you know it, the two of you will be making up."

"Maybe," I admitted as my ears picked up conversation between Laura and my trainer.

"So,"Laura said, sitting down next to my trainer. "Busy strategizing how you re going to take down the next gym leader?" My trainer made a slight grunting sound in response. "They say the Vermillion Gym Leader's known for his military power in combat. His Pokemon could easily zap their opponents to a crisp. I highly doubt your Pokemon could stand up to them."

"Gee, thanks for having so much confidence in me," my trainer said rather bluntly.

"I'm just picking at you," Laura said, sticking her tongue out at him. Whether he acknowledged it or not, I couldn t tell. "In any case, you should probably train your Pokemon to resist lightning attacks, or at the very least train them to get a feel of what they'll be up against."

"And just who do we know that has lightning type Pokemon?" my trainer asked her, Laura's expression drawing a blank. "I thought so."

"Well how about my pokemon?" Laura asked. "Surely they can learn a lightning attack if we practice battle."

"You can learn lightning attacks?" I asked Ted, turning to look at him.

"Teddiursa are not know for learning such a move," Ted replied. "Skitty, on the other hand, have the capability of learning lightning based attacks through two means."

"And they are?" I asked.

As Ted went to answer, Laura suddenly caught our attention as she had her usual outburst against my trainer. "Well fine then! We'll just hope for the best and randomly find some trainer with Pokemon that know lightning attacks."

"That's interesting," Ted said, catching my attention only to see that his attention had shifted back toward the path we were currently off as a human was just randomly strolling by. Talk about irony. "What are the chances he has Pokemon who know lightning based moves?"

"Hey Mr. Random Trainer Guy!" I yelled out as I got to my feet. "I demand battle against your lightning type Pokemon. "The human casually glanced in my direction as he slowed his walking a bit, but not by much. Why couldn't humans learn poke-speech? It'd make talking a lot easier.

As it was, my yelling had caught Laura's attention as she, too, caught sight of the human. "Well that's some peculiar timing," she said as she got up and ran towards the human. "S'cuse me!" The human's walking came to a stop as Laura ran up to him.

"Yes?" the human asked. "May I help you?"

"I was wondering if I could have a bit of your time," Laura spoke to him. "You see, my friend over there needs practice for his upcoming gym battle in Vermillion and I was hoping you had some lightning type Pokemon on you to help him out."

"I'm sorry," the human said. "I'm afraid I don't have any lightning type Pokemon on me."

"Oh," Laura said, sounding rather disappointed.

"However, I am always up for a battle," the human continued. "At the very least I can help train your friend's Pokemon to strengthen them up."

"Perfect!" Laura said happily. "It will do him some good to battle other trainers rather than me for once."

As they both came walking over toward us, my super acute hearing picked up the faintest sound of self-mumbling coming directly from my trainer. "That voice," he said. "It can't be." Glancing back toward my trainer, I watched as he propped himself up on his arms, recognition dawning in his eyes before he groaned. "I should have known."

My attention shifted back on the mysterious human as recognition dawned in his eyes as well before a small smirk was plastered across his face. "Well, well, well," he said. "Didn't think I'd see you all the way out here. I half-expected you to be in Pewter City by now."

"Shows how much you know," my trainer said as he stood himself up. "I could be asking you the same thing. You started out before me and yet I managed to get ahead of you. How is that possible?"

"You know him?" And cue one for Laura and her never ending obvious questions.

"Know him?" my trainer responded. "We practically grew up together trying to always outrival each other."

"And I've always been one step ahead of you," the rivaling trainer said as he pulled out some weird rectangular object and opened it up. And yes, I did say he due to the fact that the trainer had short hair much like my trainer. Back to the matter at hand, having opened the rectangular object, the rivaling trainer revealed three unknown tiny objects resting comfortably inside.

"You have three gym badges already?" my trainer said in surprise.

"Three gym badges and a total of four caught Pokemon so far," the rivaling trainer replied, putting away his badge box thing. "And just how many Pokemon have you caught so far?"

"The Teddiursa and Skitty are mine," Laura spoke up.

"So I take it that pup of yours is the only other Pokemon you have, aside from your starter, that is," the rivaling trainer concluded. "And just which starter did you wind up choosing?"

"I could ask you the same thing," my trainer replied with a witty comeback.

"I asked first," the rivaling trainer said with a smug smile, one that was really beginning to annoy me.

"Well with the way you're acting, I don't think you deserve to know which starter Pokemon I chose," my trainer said. "Besides, he s busy recovering from events that occurred in Cerulean."

"More like you're too scared to show me in the off chance I might have a Pokemon that can beat him," the rivaling trainer said, crossing his arms as that smug smile of his grew a little.

"Shut up, Adzel," my trainer snapped at him. A low growl couldn't help but escape from my throat at that point, yet no one seemed to be bothered or phased by it. "You still have yet to answer what you're doing out this way. I would have expected you to be on your way to the next gym."

"That's the beauty of it though," Adzel replied. "The Pokemon League is still some months off, so I decided to do a bit of backtracking to see what kind of Pokemon I could come across and capture. And as of the moment, what better way to test their skill than to have them battle your Pokemon."

"Ooh!" Laura said with mock interest. "Are you really going to let him talk smack to you like that? You should battle and teach him a lesson for being a know-it-all!"

"So this is how you operate nowadays, is it?" Adzel asked. "You allow a girl to pick your battles for you. No wonder you got this far already, using her wits and charm to dupe the gym leaders into handing you their badges."

"Uh oh!" Ted said as a deathly silence overtook the area. "That's not good."

"What isn't?" I asked, feeling tension in the air as I took notice of Laura beginning to shake a little.

"What's that you said?" Laura asked rather quietly, yet a hint of pure anger escaping her. "A girl that picks a guy's battle? Using my wits and charm to dupe others? Just who do you think you are talking like girls are nothing more than a guy's tool?" By this point, she was directly in Adzel's face, pointing a finger directly upon his chest. "You insult the true value of what a girl is worth. If you want a battle so badly, we'll give you one. Ted, Skitty, get ready for battle!"

"So who's the one to die today?" Skitty asked as she suddenly appeared out from nowhere; yet again another heart attack barely being dodged.

"Well this should be an interesting battle," Ted said. "Provided he has Pokemon challenging enough to be worthy of such."

"Zack, you too," my trainer said.

"Right!" I said as I took a battle stance.

"Oh ye who know so little," Adzel spoke up, that annoying smirk still plastered upon his face. "If only you both knew just how big the Pokemon world really is. Perhaps a taste of it shall change how you view things. Go my Pokemon." And with that, he threw three Pokeballs up into the air, signaling the start of our battle.