Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of
violence and some inappropriate language.

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                           Pokemon Master 

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.

All parts of this story may be found at the following address:
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm

Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.

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Part 8 - Repercussions


Melvin yawned and then opened his eyes as he lay in bed. The first thing
that he thought about was, why was it still dark? Was it still night
time? He leaned over to the bed side table to see what time it was on the
old clockwork time piece. The metal of the small clock was cold in his
hand as he peered at it by bringing it close to his eyes. Seven in the
morning, it looked like. Yet it was so dark, he couldn't see his hand in
front of his face. For a moment he felt a cold rush of fear. Was he going
blind? He already had to wear glasses.

He quickly twisted himself around on the bed to face the shadow of his
wife. "Martha?" he whispered.

"What is it?" she groaned.

"Can you see anything?"

For a moment there was silence. Then her voice came back, grumpy. "Of
course not. It's the middle of the night. Go back to bed."

"But my clock says it's morning."

"Then it's broken."

Melvin felt intensely relieved at that. "Yeah, it must be." He rolled
back over on to his back and tightened the covers around himself. But
there was still a nagging feeling that something was wrong. For one
thing, he was fully awake. He was a morning person, not a night person.
By all rights, if it really was still the middle of the night, then he
should be dead to the world. He tried to go back to sleep by closing his
eyes. It didn't work.

"This isn't working," he grumbled. "I'm getting up. It must be insomnia."

"Fine," his wife answered.

Melvin gently slipped sideways out of the covers and out of the bed. He
felt around on the bedside drawer for his glasses and put them on. It was
still dark. Clumsily, he navigated his way to the bedroom door. He hit
his shins a couple of times but he kept silent. Martha would get annoyed.

After a couple more collisions, with Melvin promising himself to lose
some weight, he reached the door. He touched the cold metal of the handle
and twisted. The door opened with a squeak and he slipped out.

The wooden floor was freezing underneath his bare feet, but the living
room was a bit brighter, not as dark as inside the bedroom. He walked
slowly in the darkness to the table and picked up the flint. Using it, he
lit the lamp. Immediately he could see better, the flame in the small
lamp dancing, causing the shadows to move eerily from side to side. He
pikced up the lamp by its handle and walked over to the kitchen. The
clock on the wall read seven twenty in the morning.

"Huh?" Melvin mumbled to himself. He walked quickly over to the windows
and drew the curtains back. Outside, it seemed as if it was still
early evening, the tall lamp posts still lit up. The sky looked like a
moving sea of blue-black clouds. They seemed to cover the sun from
letting down any light at all. In fact, it didn't even look like there
was a sun behind all those clouds.

"Honey, I think there's a problem with the weather!" he shouted out as he
ran over to the cupboard and removed his pokemon belt. There wasn't an
answer. She must have gone back to sleep, he thought, as he strapped the
belt over his pyjamas and around his considerable waist.

Then bringing the lamp, he ran over to the front door, opened it with a
light click and stepped outside on the porch. There were a few other
people walking around in the town, looking confused as they stared at the
sky, with a lamp in each of their hands.

"What's going on?" Melvin called out to one of his neighbours. He was the
man who owned the farm out back towards Celadon, but lived mostly in the
town-house next door. He was out on the dirt street in front of their
house looking at the sky. In his hand he carried a lamp of his own as
well as a long pitchfork in the other. On his head he wore a
wide-brimmed, yellow straw hat.

"Don't rightly know!" his neighbour replied. "Dark clouds blocking out
the whole darn sky!"

Melvin looked to the east where the sun should have risen. All there was,
was a dark blue glow on a midnight black horizon. None of the stars were
even visible.

"Darn it!" the farmer continued. "If these here clouds don't clear by
noon time, my crops'll go bad!"

Melvin studied the clouds up above them. "They look like they're moving
on though." 

"Look again! Those dang things are just swirling about, moving on
nowhere."

Then the ground seemed to tremble. Vibrations that began to get stronger
and stronger beneath their feet. Melvin's house began to shake and dust
fell from the roof on to his head.

"What the shadows is this? An earthquake?" the farmer yelled.

A growling interrupted them. Melvin whipped around, shining the
light of the lamp towards the source of the sound at the foot of the
porch. Red eyes flashed, and Melvin jerked back, startled.

"Oh, it's only a rattata! Them critters are always scarin the life outta
people!"

Melvin studied it. It certainly looked like a rattata. Yet it didn't look
like one either. Its skin tone was darker than usual and instead of 
square front teeth, it sported a pair of wickedly sharp fangs. It seemed 
to glow a dark blue colour similar to the hue of the clouds covering the 
sky.

"It looks kind of weird," he cautioned.

"Nonsense!" the farmer scoffed and began to approach it. He extended out
his pitchfork to poke at it.

"Watch out!" Melvin yelled.

But it was too late. The rattata hissed and suddenly leapt on to the
pitchfork at an ungodly speed. It ran up the long handle and then seemed
to rip right through the farmer's wrist. The pitchfork clattered to the
ground with the hand still attached to the handle. The farmer screamed in
agony and bent over from the pain as the dark rattata turned around to
attack him again.

"No!" Melvin shouted. He ripped a poke ball from his belt and enlarged
it in his hand. "Exeggcuter, go! Barrage now!"

His Grass Pokemon shifted outward from the thrown ball in a haze of red
light and then began to attack. But before it could do so, the Rattata
sensed the threat and seemed to flash in some sort of Quick Attack. It
shot into Melvin's walking tree pokemon and then began to melt it from
the inside out. The Exegguter began to bubble up as the Rattata inside it
seemed to feed off its very life force.

"No, Exeggcuter!" Melvin cried. He began to remove his wand from his belt
to execute his Raging Fire spell when the Pokemon suddenly exploded in
dark chunks. A chunk of it landed upon Melvin's shoulder and it began to
hiss like burning acid. Melvin screamed.

"There's more of them!" Melvin's neighbour shouted. Sure enough, along
the horizon it looked like a living tidal wave of Rattatas. The only
sound they made was the scampering of feet upon the earth. It was what
was causing the ground to tremble. It looked like they would reach the
town soon. People yelled in fright as they noticed the flood of rats.

"Let's get out of here!" Melvin cried quickly, rushing back into his
house.

He ignored the pain in his shoulder as he stumbled through the house
towards the bedroom. "Martha, we've got to evacuate quickly!" Suddenly he
tripped, stumbling slightly and the lamp in his hand jerked and went out.
Instantly he was left in total darkness.

No matter, he thought as he opened the door to their bedroom. "Martha?"
There she was, a dark shape on the bed. "Martha, get up!" He ran over to
the shape and pushed the covers aside.

A pair red eyes flashed at him. Then more and more red eyes appeared so
it seemed like the whole room was lighting up with them.

"Darkness, no!" Melvin cried as he stumbled backward.

The rattatas hissed and then leapt upon him.


<><><>


The tapping of the keyboard was unnaturally loud within the small
makeshift lab. The small flames from a single candelabra lit up the
metallic surfaces of the room, the shadows dancing in tune to the candle
flames. Monitor screens and switches along the walls flashed like
fireflies in the darkness. Sitting in a small corner of the room in front
of a computer, a lone scientist in a white lab-coat worked quickly.

Seymour studied the furious readings showing up on his monitor. He
frowned as he noticed something particularly strange. Jumps in the
world's power balance were fluctuating madly. Almost like the disaster of
five years ago. But that was impossible wasn't it?

"Cle-fairy!" His rounded pink pokemon seemed to move about on the table
restlessly.

"Quiet, Clefairy, your master is working now!" he said, his fingers
dancing agilely over the keys. "Lessee, if I ambulate the triangulators
..." he mumbled to himself, "I should see what is causing the disturbance
... Good heavens above!"

"Clefairy!" the pokemon said again, this time more agitated.

"Dear heavens, what is wrong with you? Here we have the end of the world
coming and you ..." He turned around. His eyes widened. All along the
floors, it seemed like hundreds - no, thousands of snakes were slithering
along towards them. But directly in front of him a huge black Arbok
reared its head. Its eyes glowed malevolently in its serpentine face and
its forked tongue darted in and out as it stared at him. Its razor sharp
fangs dripped thick venom which hissed as it met the steel floor and
melted right through.

"Clefairy you should have warned me ..." was the last thing that Seymour
said.


<><><>


At the edge of a forest and the bank of a slowly moving river, a group of
five people were running rapidly to the east. In the lead was a woman
with shoulder length, blue-black hair held in place by a red hair-band.
Her long, green cloak, that matched her eyes, trailed behind, flapping in
the wake of her sprint, as she brightened the way forward with a small
torch held in her left hand. The small group of people leaped over
various debris that lay in their path quickly and efficiently because any
lost speed would most likely mean their death.

Behind them, and gaining rapidly despite their efforts, was what seemed
like a total black tidal wave of hostile flying insects, knocking over
forests and whatever lay in their path like dominos in the short
distance. There were so many, the sheer number of them seemed to
absolutely cover the land and the river in a total blanket of darkness.
The buzzing noises they emitted were so loud that only the sounds of the
destruction they caused were comparative.

"Hurry up, people!" Erika shouted, as she whipped a loose fold of her
cloak over her shoulder with a free hand. She lifted the brightly
glowing torch in her other and deftly navigated the group over a fallen
tree. "We've got to make it to the coast where the Rebel base is!"

Just her luck to be attacked when they had just been separated from Koga
and Aya's soldiers after the battle the night before and were exceedingly
vulnerable. The bugs also held them at a distinct elemental disadvantage.

And if that weren't enough, it was obvious even at this distance that the
beedrills looked so huge, each being about ten feet in length, that it
was as if they were not ordinary pokemon but some sort of unearthly and
deadly new species. In fact, they also seemed to emit an evil blue-black
glow from their bodies. Erika had taken one look and knew they were bad
news. It may have been cowardly to flee like this but heck, sometimes
cowards were the wisest people of all.

"They're catching up!" Joy cried. 

Erika took a brief look behind and realised that it was true. The wave of
huge insects were only about two dozen feet away now, destroying
everything that lay in their path like some sort of horrible plague. She
turned back to the young girl running behind her and felt profound
sadness. She regretted ever bringing the young nurse with her. She was
just a kid! 

"Do you think we should stop to fight them?" one of her guards asked,
fingering the poke-ball at her side.

"Don't be foolhardy!" Erika hissed. "They'd overpower us in seconds! Keep
your pokemon to yourselves."

Then the buzzing seemed to grow louder.

"That sounds like it's coming from right in front of us!"

Erika spotted the trees at the edge of the forest ahead of them begin to
quiver. Then they splintered and a small group of about five beedrills
flew out and charged them directly. Their antennae seemed to quiver in
excitement and hunger. 

"They are!" she shouted. "Stay back!" After throwing the torch to young
Joy behind her, she sped up her foot speed and summoned her long black
staff to her hands with a wave of green energy. As the weapon
materialised along her palms, it lit up the darkness even more than the
torch had.

The first beedrill swooped down, seeming to aim its three huge stingers
at her head and upper torso. As Erika approached she felt the wind
created by its rapidly moving wings blow over her face and through her
hair. Thrusting her staff to the ground, she used it to pole-vault up
above to meet the insect in the air. Once airborne, she completed her
downwards staff movement into a full overhead circle-strike to crack the
the huge insect on the head.

The beedrill seemed to cry in pain and flew crazily of course before it
splashed into the river. Then Erika, still airborne, dispatched two more
of them, by rotating once with a strong horizontal swing of her staff
before she landed, still running, with a thump of her boots upon the dirt
path. Behind her, her group of following guards leapt over the two
quivering bodies which fell, and kept up with her pace.

The last two beedrills blocking their way were slightly trickier to take
care of, one of their stingers scoring a bloody path down her arm,
but Erika hadn't achieved her title of Grass Master for nothing. The
group jumped over the last two Beedrills smashed and quivering bodies
soon enough.

But it was useless, Erika thought, as she checked the distance of the
massive swarm still chasing them with a flick of her head. They were
still about a mile or so from the base and meanwhile the beedrills would
soon overcome them. However there was a chance to save her guards ...

She dropped to the rear of the group and then suddenly stopped running,
her boots scratching twin furrows in the dirt as she skidded. She turned
around with a flap of her cloak to face the oncoming swarm and recalled
her staff away with a flicker of emerald light.

Joy and her guards also stopped running when they realised Erika wasn't
following any more. "What are you doing Mistress Erika?" one of them
shouted.

She lifted her arms and crossed them over each other. "Keep going people!
I'll buy you some time!" Numerous green leaves and pink flower petals
began to float out from the wrists of her long sleeves.

Soon the air in front of her was a veritable wall of floating greenery
and soft petals. It spread outward in a circular shape and then swirled
around in the air like a protective barrier. When the first Beedrills hit
it, they fell confusedly on the ground, their legs twitching as if they
had been swatted. As more hit the wall, the pile of insects began to grow
higher.

Erika closed her eyes and a thin line of sweat dropped from her brow as
she concentrated on spreading the poison barrier. "Now, go!" she cried to
her watching guards.

"But you can't keep this up forever, and then what?" a guard exclaimed.

"We just can't leave you here to save us!" Joy cried.

"We'll all make our stand here!"

Erika sighed. "Stubborn! Fine! If you all have a death wish!" She
concentrated harder on the barrier, making it thicker and more
impenetrable. It looped around to their back and completely closed them
off from harm in a protective bubble. Hundreds and hundreds of beedrills
continued piling up outside.

"Chansey, go!" Joy cried releasing her poke-ball.

"Ivysaur, go!"

"Victreebel, go!"

"Tangela, go!"

"If you see any part of the barrier weakening, you know what to do,"
Erika called out still with her eyes closed.

"And perhaps you won't have to ..." a voice interjected.

Erika immediately opened her eyes and looked around. "Who said that!"

In the corner, within the barrier, stood a figure dressed in a blue
Master's cloak. Artic eyes flared within the hood.

"Misty?" Erika laughed.

The figure whipped the hood off revealing a head of long red hair
reaching to the back of her waist and a beautiful, smiling face. "The one
and only!"

"How did you get here? Where did you come from?"

"So many questions, so little time!" she said. She pointed to what looked
like an opening in the ground by her feet. The edges of the hole looked
blackened and melted. "I came by tunnel express!"

"It seems like you're always saving me in the nick of time," Erika said,
overjoyed. "Misty, you're great!" 

"And don't I know it!"

Erika blinked. "My, aren't we modest today?"

"And don't I have enough reason to be! Now everyone get in the tunnel,
single-file," she ordered. "Erika goes last since she's the actual
person maintaining the barrier."

Soon, out of her group, it was only Erika who had to enter the tunnel.
"Misty, you're going after me?" she asked as she was about to step into
the hole.

"Of course. I'll have to close up the tunnel after us."

Erika took one last look at the horrific numbers of beedrill trying to
get inside. "Then watch out when I release the barrier," she cautioned.
"Get in quick, understand?" Then she released her hold over the poison
barrier and ducked into the dark tunnel after the rest of her group.

The blue-cloaked woman stepped over the hole and watched as the barrier
of petals and leaves began to fall to the earth. As soon as it was
breached, the horrible ear-deafening buzzes of the beedrills leaked
through and then it seemed like a whole black sky of insects were closing
in from all directions. Their eyes flashed red and their antennae
quivered hungrily. Uncountable stingers were all aimed and pointed
directly at her.

"Stupid bugs," the woman said to herself. She lifted her right arm and
extended her fingers into the air. Lasers of white light exploded forth
from her palm and disintegrated all the beedrills in range to fine ivory
ashes. The swarm was startled enough that it left enough time for the
woman to jump into the hole and escape.


<><><>


The stone wall cracked against Brock's back and he gritted his teeth as
another bone-crushing force of unseen energy squeezed him against it.
His feet dangled uselessly above the floor as he struggled to gain his
balance.

"How could you let them escape?" The calm voice came from the shadows at
the end of the room.

Brock thought about turning his body into rock, but then thought better
of it. "The-the psychic hold we held over him was broken, my Lord."

The shadow sighed. "If you had just killed them before trying to show
off..." The strength of the power squashing Brock against the stone
doubled and he grunted as a trickle of blood began to leak from one
nostril and down his chin.

"I-I'll get them now, my Lord," Brock gasped, finding it hard to breathe.
"I know where they are!"

"Do you now? Well see that you do." The voice chuckled. "Nothing fancy
like what you tried earlier, though it was certainly amusing." The voice
grew serious and flat. "Just kill them dead. And just so you won't bungle
up matters this time, I'm sending two more Masters with you that I've
just ported in."

"I can get them myself..."

The voice turned mocking. "If you think you can kill Ash all by yourself,
you're certainly overconfident. Just like last time. The difference is
that he may be forewarned now of just who it is that he's up against."

Abruptly, the force crushing Brock to the wall intensified for an
agonising second before it suddenly gave out, dropping Brock to the floor
like excess garbage. He lay along the ground on his hands and knees,
brown cloak draped over his body, coughing and choking a mixture of
saliva and blood.

Then the voice startled him again. "I'll be waiting at Indigo Plateau.
Bring tangible evidence that you've disposed of them. Preferably their
heads." And then the room was silent in the wake of the League Master's
exit.

For a moment, Brock was content to stay still on his hands and knees
before a different voice startled him.

"It seems Lord Garrick was most displeased with you." It was feminine and
emotionless.

Brock looked up to find a tall but slim figure in a cloak the colour of
twilight. "Gary always was a hot-head," he said softly, not because he
wanted to, but because the force that had just crushed his throat left
his voice weak. He stood up casually and wiped his bloody nose with the
back of his hand. "Let's go." He turned around with a whip of his brown
cloak and left the room.

Sabrina looked at his back and the emotionless mask of her face dropped
into a frown.


<><><>


Darkness. Pain. Anger. Loneliness. Sadness. Those were the first few
frames of mind that Ash went through as he regained consciousness. He
regretted it. He felt cold and wet, yet hot at the same time. Underneath
his back and legs, it felt like a floor of hard, damp stone. In contrast,
something warm and soft was lying on top of him. It felt heavenly, that
warmth in the moist coldness. He opened his eyes, his eyelids feeling
like they were weighted or tied down to his cheeks. His flesh itched as
if something was wrong. Why was it so dark? His night vision was perfect.
Was perfect.

Then a thought came to him. Pikachu? He immediately began searching out
for the awareness of his one true friend in the world. There. Pikachu was
okay, but still asleep, and about a half dozen feet away from him.

He took stock of his surroundings as best as he could gather even with
his decreased vision. He realised he was lying in a cave of some sort.
There was a dim light coming from the rocky, glittery walls. Something
dark red was resting underneath his chin. It was soft and ticklish. Hair.
It was red hair. Who had red hair? His mind felt as if it were shattered
glass, broken, confused and disassembled. Then the red hair rose upward,
and suddenly, large blue eyes, softly glowing a dim azure in the
darkness, were staring down at him. She blinked once. It was a woman
lying on his chest, he realised. Her face was familiar ...

They said nothing to each other, just staring in the mutual silence. And
then the woman pushed herself further along his chest so that her face
was inches from his own. A lock of long red hair fell so that it
caressed his cheek. It tickled like a feather, but he didn't move, just
stared at the brilliant orbs of her eyes. Her arms, encased in blue
material, rose to hold the sides of his head. Her full weight pressed
upon him so that he could feel the twin mounds of her chest upon his own.

Her eyes began to glow brighter, and a brilliant blue aura began to emit
from her body. Ash felt her turn hot, almost too hot. But the warmth was
a lifeline from the cold, uncomfortable air. Her face lowered, as if
seeking a kiss. Her pink-tinged, exquisitely shaped lips descended to his
own. He couldn't move. But did he want to move?

And then her warm lips touched his, first a light touch as if they were
the petals of a rose, then heavier. He couldn't help but begin to return
it. His arms lifted to caress her back. The feel was familiar. And then
the fog in his mind seemed to lift. Misty. She was Misty. The girl he had
loved. But the girl who had broken his heart. He started to push her
away, but found he just couldn't. It felt too good. The feelings he
hadn't felt in a long, long time. It was like the first point of light to
a traveller lost in the darkness. Yet he was still lost, wanted to be
lost, but in these feelings.

She rolled him over so that they were both laying on their sides, all the
while kissing. But then a sharp rock poked him in the waist. The small
pain lifted the hazy fog of sensations from his mind and suddenly,
rationality returned to regain control over his feelings. He broke the
kiss abruptly and rolled away from her.

He lifted himself to a sitting position. "What do you think you were
doing?" He felt ashamed of how rough his voice sounded. He hoped she
couldn't hear the loud beating of his heart. How could he still have any
feelings for her?

Her face seemed to pale in the darkness. Then it darkened. "I'd think
that was obvious," she said dryly. "But then you always were a tad slow."

At the insult, he felt on more familiar ground. "You enjoy one-night
stands?" he asked sarcastically. "Going to run away in the morning?"

Her eyes glared at him. "I've never had a one night stand in my life."
She sniffed condescendingly. "Most probably unlike you."

Ash felt his face redden in the darkness. "And so what if I have? It's
not like you still had a claim on me."

"But what about when I did?" she fired back at him.

"What are you talking about?" Ash said, puzzled. "You know as well as I
do that I was always faithful to you."

"Do I now? Look, let's get this right into the open right now," she said,
her tone turning frosty. "You were as much to blame as I was for our
break-up back then. You didn't love me." She looked down, not meeting his
eyes. "You loved being a Pokemon Master and the popularity it gave you."

Ash crawled over next to her, sat down and sighed. "I can't believe that
you would even think that." He played with a fold of his cloak over the
knee of his trousers. "How many times have I told you it would have
all been worthless if I hadn't had you with me every step of the way? You
didn't have to just leave me without telling me anything, like our being
together just wasn't worth the effort."

She lifted her head and stared at him with accusing eyes. Abruptly she
shot forward and grabbed him about the shoulders with shocking strength.
She flipped him around and slammed his back into the cave wall. Ash's
teeth clicked together at the impact.

"Don't lie, goddamn you!" she shouted. "You were playing with my feelings
just like you've always been accusing me ever since we met again!" A tear
trickled a little way out of the corner of her left eye. "I could see you
were losing interest in me. Otherwise you wouldn't have, wouldn't have-"
She choked not finishing the sentence. She let go of him and turned the
other way, no longer facing him.

"Wouldn't have, what?" he asked softly at her back.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Ash asked, his voice rising higher. But then a piercing pain
skewered his head and suddenly memories assaulted his mind like boulders
against a stone wall. He groaned, falling over forwards, with his hands
tightly clutched around his temples.

The tower. Sabrina. Vague impressions of him fighting. But not who with.
Then a blank. The gate. The gate! He had failed to stop the League from
opening it. Failed! He felt it. Had felt the sheer wrongness in the air
from the start.

When he became aware of his surroundings, he found Misty holding his head
against her, strongly concerned. Her hand was threaded through his hair.

"What's wrong Ash? Speak to me!" Her voice was panicked.

"I-I'm okay," he said, lifting himself away from her. He wiped a thin
line of sweat from his brow with a sleeve. "I-I want to know what's
happened. My memory's not so good."

Her soft voice was hesitant. "You were captured." She paused as if trying
to decide what to say. "We were unable to stop them from opening the
gate." She told him about the vortex and all that she had seen atop the
tower.

"I thought so," Ash confirmed weakly, lowering his hands to the damp
stone floor. This was bad. Very bad.

"I-I managed to take you from them," her voice continued over his
punishing internal monologue. "We were lucky to escape with our lives."

He looked up. She had sat herself down in a kneeling position, her blue
cloak falling around her body in disarray. "Why am I still alive? They
would have killed me. They would have been furious with me."

She hesitated. "Maybe they needed you for something."

"Needed?" He laughed without any humour. "Needed me dead more like it.
I'm sure Gary would have enjoyed having revenge on me for 'killing' him.
He probably would have liked to cut me up in lots of little bite-sized
pieces."

"It was someone else who wanted revenge." Her expression grew troubled.

"Someone else?"

She closed her eyes. "Brock's alive."

He felt happiness lift his soul. "Brock's alive? Why didn't you tell
me sooner? How is he?" He laughed, feeling on top of the world. "I knew
it! That guy is tough as rock. Should have known he was way too hard for
Gary to beat." Then he noticed Misty's serious face. "Hey, how come
you're not happy for him?"

"I'll say this plainly so that there's no misunderstanding," she said,
her voice even. "Brock is one of them. He's one of the League. And he's
never been on our side. He was a double agent."

Ash felt the floor of his happiness drop from underneath him. Shock
replaced it. Then denial. "No ... you must be mistaken," he said flatly.
"I know Brock. He's a good guy. Hell, if after all the time we spent
travelling with him when we were kids, you still didn't know that, then I
don't know what kind of friend you are."

"Ash," she said tiredly. "I know that. I honestly believe that he's a
good person. At heart. But he is the one who was taking revenge." She
opened her blue cloak allowing him a glimpse of the large white bandage
wrapped around her upper waist, just underneath the dark-blue tank-top
she wore underneath. The bandage was slightly pink, the blood beginning
to soak through. 

"My God," Ash said, instantly moving over to her side. "What the hell
happened to your side?"

"He did this. To knock me out so he could have his way with us."

He ignored her and began unwrapping the bandage. The wound must have been
pretty deep to soak through this much fabric.

"Ah! Careful!" she hissed as the last of the bandage tried to stick to
her wound. "What do you think you're doing? You want me to bleed to
death?"

"Just shut up for a second, Misty, and let me take care of this," he said
authoritatively. "This had to be changed anyway, as it was beginning to
soak through."

The cut was a medium-sized circular puncture located just above her
waistline. The wound was beginning to bleed freely in the open air. Thank
the heavens, he thought, as he studied it. Any more inches above or to
the side and whatever pierced her side would have hit something vital.
He sensed out Pikachu with his mind to wake him up. He knew from the low
power level emanating from him that he needed the rest, just like he did,
but this was an emergency.

"Pika?" Pikachu said sleepily as a short shadowy form in the corner,
laying against what looked like his backpack, stood up and stretched.

"Pikachu, hurry over here. Misty needs help."

"Chu!" Pikachu said, folding his paws against his chest. His cobalt blue 
eyes were narrowed as he looked fiercely at Misty.

Ash sighed and sent a telepathic thought to him. I know what you think
about her, he thought, and yes I'm still practically her slave since she
can kill me any time she wants with that damn elemental enchantment, but
this is Misty here! And don't forget, if she dies, I die.

"Pi," his pokemon said, nodding reluctantly. It scampered over to his
side on all fours.

"What were you talking about?" Misty asked curiously.

"Nothing important," he said nonchalently. "Now stay still. Relax. This 
will sting a bit." Then he concentrated his power and rapidly thrusted 
his open palms on top of her wound. His hands glowed a dark blue-black 
over the wound and Misty screamed.

Now, Pikachu! he thought. When he felt his pokemon adding his will to
his, they both concentrated on healing. He probed the wound with his
mind's eye and began to knit the flesh together again. Using the stray
elements of power given off by Misty's body, he strengthened his efforts
and soon he lay on his side, finished and resting. Pikachu just scampered
back over to his backpack and nodded off back to sleep.

Misty was examining her side. She would find nothing there but recently
healed pink flesh. It wouldn't even leave a scar in a couple of days.

"Thanks," she said, looking down at him.

He continued to lie down, breathing hard. Perhaps he shouldn't have
expended this much effort when he was barely alive enough himself. "Now
about what you were saying ... maybe it wasn't Brock. Maybe it was
someone who just looked like him? Couldn't you have been mistaken?"

Misty sighed. "Stubborn is what you are ... I'm telling you, it was-"

"So why did you kiss me?"

She choked. "That again?"

"Well you didn't answer my question before." He waited, smiling slightly
to himself while she seemed to flounder around for an answer.

"You have to be cleared of the blood-bond I put you under," she
finally said. "Otherwise, the effects of the water mastery will kill you
very soon."

"What?"

"Don't you remember? It was what I used to persuade you to come with me
in the first place."

"I know that, but I fail to see what that's got to do with kissing me,"
Ash said, rubbing his forehead. "Besides, I would have thought you
enjoyed having me under your control ..."

She stayed silent for a moment. "Well, obviously I don't have to
'control' you any more, now do I? Unless you want me to control you?" she
added in a humorous tone.

"Ha, you wish."

"As for the kissing part, don't count yourself a stud just yet. The power
I used, fused your very being with mine so that you would die without
more of it."

Ash thought about it for a while. "So in some crazy way, my body's
addicted to you?" he asked with an ironic look on his face.

She smiled, her pink lips turning up at the corners under a lock of red
hair. "I suppose you could say that."

"So, I also suppose, that to cure me of this addiction, we'll have to-"

"Join our spirits, body and soul," she finished.

He stared at her, then groaned. "Maybe you should have just let me die."


<><><>


In a totally different cave some miles away from where Ash, Misty and
Pikachu were recovering, Duplica was just beginning to wake up to the
sound of soft voices talking. 

She opened her eyes and grumbled low in her throat as the various aches
and pains of her body all decided to voice their complaints at the same
time. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness. It was dark, but a
campfire crackled nearby and she was grateful to the light and the
warmth. It wasn't smoky inside the cave so she realised that there must
have been an opening in the roof somewhere to let the smoke escape. 

As she regained her bearings, she recognised the voices which had woken
her up as Laselle and Junior's. She turned her head slightly and spotted
them on the other side of the fire. The young girl looked weary, her
green mantle ripped in several places and her long black hair messy,
while Junior looked about the same, tired, with bags underneath his eyes
and his cap at a low angle on his head. And the big maroon lump over by
the wall was most probably Bruno.

"So, why do you admire Ash so much?" Laselle was saying softly as she
patted her caterpie on the head which was sitting in her lap contentedly.
"Shouldn't you have been going for your boss?"

"Well, Master Bruno's a tough guy, but don't you know who Master Ash is?"
Junior voiced back. "Ash Ketchum was the youngest trainer to attain the
title of Pokemon League Champion ever! He was battling real pokemon while
we were battling with stuffed toys." He paused. "And also, according to
rumour, probably the best darn Master there ever was."

"He's that Ash?" Laselle sounded reverent. "I can't believe this!"

"Yep," Junior said proudly. "Of course he gave up his title to become an
explorer. If he didn't he'd probably still be Pokemon League Master. But
no one ever knew if he did discover any new pokemon on his journeys. When
the Dark Wars erupted about five years ago, he came back a totally
different man. At least, that's what Master Bruno told me."

Duplica finally spoke up as she pushed herself up to a sitting position.
"Well, I'd say, having your heart broken could make you act strange.
Trust me, I know."

Laselle spun around so quickly she almost fell into the campfire. "You're
awake!" she exclaimed.

"We weren't sure if there was anything seriously wrong with you," Junior
explained. "But you and Master Bruno got busted up pretty bad."

Duplica shifted her hand into a small mirror and examined her bruised
face. "Tell me about it," she said dryly. Her hair was an absolute fright
and was caked with so much dried mud that it looked as if she were a
brunette. And not just her hair, her cloak and face also resembled a mud
wrestling battleground. "I hope the smoke from your fire isn't announcing
our whereabouts to everyone in the area."

Junior looked at the fire. "I don't think so. Laselle said she fixed it
up outside so that the smoke would be hard to see."

"Yep," Laselle confirmed. "I did get first in my class for survival
training!"

"That's good." Then as Duplica was examining herself with her literal
hand-mirror, she was suddenly startled by Bruno letting out a low groan.

"Did anyone get the number of that Snorlax?" the big man said as
he sat up slowly, rubbing his head. Duplica gave a small smile. It looked
as if he had also been swimming in the mud. His crusty cloak was more
brown than maroon.

"Master Bruno!" Junior said excitedly. "You're okay too!"

He grunted one of those male grunts. "So, where are we, sport?"

"Well after Master Ash took off after Mistress Misty, we dragged you guys
over to the nearest shelter we could find."

"And where is that?" Duplica asked, as she continued to try to rub away
some spots of dried mud from her face with a finger. But it felt like the
damn things were super-glued to her face.

"As far as I can tell, we're in a cave somewhere around east of the
Saffron ruins," Laselle answered.

Bruno grunted again and seemed to think about something.

"But do you think Master Ash and Mistress Misty are okay?" Junior
suddenly voiced in a worried tone.

Duplica gave up on cleaning herself up the hard way and shifted her hand
back to normal. "Of course they're okay. Even if Ash was acting a little
... how you say, weird, I don't think he could ever harm Misty even if he
wanted to."

"Besides, if anything happened, we would feel it in here." Bruno thumped
his chest. "And right now, I feel they're fine."

"So what are we going to do now?" Laselle asked.

Duplica stood up, bits of dust and dried mud cracking off her violet
cloak and falling on to the ground. "Well right now, I'm getting myself
cleaned up." She concentrated and felt the familiar warmth of her body's
metamorphosis. She felt herself liquefy as she shifted her body to water
and then expelled all the dirt that clinged to her. The mud flowed down
from her liquefied torso and fell to the ground. Then she changed her
body back to its solid state.

She opened her eyes and looked at them all staring at her with amazed
expressions on their faces. She shrugged. "I should have just done that
from the beginning."

Bruno clucked his tongue. "Show off." Then he too cleaned the mud off his
cloak, but by recalling it away, then calling it back with a flash of
light. Although, Duplica thought, smiling to herself, his skin and
underclothes were most likely, still dirty.

"I wish I could do that," Laselle said as she picked sadly at her dirty
forest cloak.

"Me too," Junior added, looking down at his muddy jeans and jacket.

Bruno stood up and stretched his big arms. "Well we can all have a bath
when we get to the Rebel base on the coast, east of the Vermillion ruins
and south of Lavender. I'm sure that's where Misty and Ash would be
headed and we might even meet up with Erika, Koga and the rest. Let's
go."

Duplica frowned as she felt the air with her senses. "Only one problem
with that."

"What?"

She sighed. "You are so dense, Bruno. Can't you feel that the balance of
power has shifted? We'd be murdered if we just went outside along our
merry way."

Laselle gasped, covering her mouth. "Murdered? And I've been scouting
around outside too!"

Bruno snorted. "What are you talking about?"

"In case you didn't notice, the little scuffle last night with Ash
playing tag with Misty means that the League must have succeeded in what
they meant to do. They've put the prophecy of Armageddon in motion."

"The End of the World?" Junior exclaimed.

"Great, just great," Bruno grunted.

"In case we're going to be doing a little travelling, I want no use of
elemental power at all, that means no use of Pokemon special abilities
or," she looked directly at Bruno, "your own," she finished. "Unless we
want to be attracting some uninvited guests from that little place they
call Hell."

"Forbidden Pokemon. I thought we had enough of them during the last Dark
Wars."

"The difference this time is that these one's objectives are to wipe the
earth clear of all life." She folded her arms as Junior and Laselle stood
up and gathered their things. She looked at Junior. "Now that you're
okay, I expect you to use your Ponyta and double with Laselle. No way am
I letting all three of you work my poor back again. Just be careful not
to use any of Ponyta's flame attacks and you should be fine."

Junior threw up his palms. "Fine with me!"

Then she turned to Bruno.

"What?" he asked, scratching his stick-up brown hair encrusted with mud.

She lifted her arm and after liquefying it, drenched him in a steady
stream of water. Bruno spluttered and stumbled backwards as she soaked
him thoroughly.

When she was finished, Bruno looked pitiful, wet and bedraggled, his 
hair plastered to the sides of his face and his cloak resembling a 
filled up sponge. "And just what did you do that for?" he inquired in a
dangerous tone.

Duplica lifted her hand and sucked the moisture from his body with it,
leaving him dry and clean. "Well if you're going to ride me again, I
expect an immaculate rider." She stuck her tongue out at him and then
marched off to the cave entrance.


<><><>


The forest was a tapestry of dark shadows, seeming to be tailored
exclusively of gloomy shades of black and grey. It was so deathly quiet,
not even the sounds of insects or any animal at all interrupted the
strange silence.

Misty hoisted herself up from the cave, or more precisely, hole in the
ground at the edge of some stony ground in a small clearing. When they
had crash landed last night, the fireball they created melted a solid
tunnel deep in the rocky forest floor. Which was quite fortunate
really, since it gave them a place to stay for the night.

After she lifted herself out, she used her remaining momentum to take a
quick forward roll with the dried vegetation crackling underneath her.
Then she hunched down on her ankles, ready. It was dark, but she could
see quite well even in the dimness, and she did so now to search for any
sign of danger. Her eyes took long and quick sweeps all around the tall,
rough trees, that seemed more black than brown in the absence of light.

Then she stood up and dusted her blue cloak off from dead leaves and
grass that had clung to it. "No sun at all, and it's supposed to be
mid-morning," she called out.

Behind her, Ash leaped out of the hole with a backflip. She turned around
to watch him as he settled his black cloak around him and surveyed their
surroundings. "And lo, there shall be darkness," he quoted in an eerie
tone.

"Pika," Pikachu said as he leaped out as well and stood by his master's
feet.

Misty shivered. "Let's get to the base quick. We can figure out what
we're going to do once we get there." She lifted a hand and felt there
was absolutely no breeze either. Except for the three of them, everything
was silent and still. "I don't like this one bit at all." She was about
to reach for Starmos pinned on her cloak when Ash suddenly leaped over
and grabbed her wrist tightly.

"Don't use it," he warned. "If your Pokemon uses its special ability to
fly around, that will attract them."

"Them?" Misty suddenly remembered the millions of tortured voices coming
through the vortex when she was atop the tower at Cerulean. She shuddered
and immediately dropped her wrist when Ash let her go. "So how are we
going to get to the base then?"

Ash snapped his finger and Pikachu leaped up to ride in his backpack. He
looked up at the nearest tree. It was thick and gnarled and so high, she
couldn't see the top of it from here. "Like this," he said, as he
suddenly crouched, then sprang up off the ground in a tall leap. In
midair, he twisted around so that his feet struck the trunk, and landing
upon the vertical plane, he jumped again with a scattering of bark, to
the next tree. Then he simply grabbed on to the lowest branch and hoisted
himself up.

"You mean jump from branch to branch?" Misty asked. Then she followed his
lead, by also thrusting herself upwards and using the first tree as a
springboard to jump over to the branch like him.

"You're a quick learner," Ash said, smiling. "Now let's go higher."

He jumped to a higher branch on to a different tree and Misty followed
him upwards until they were at the upper canopy of the forest. They were
so high up, that she could no longer see the ground but instead could
stare at parts of the swirling black clouds in the sky that weren't
covered by the uppermost branches and leaves.

For a moment, Ash, standing on the branch next to her, also looked at
what they could see of the sky. "You know, I don't see how we're going to
get out of this," he said in a hopeless tone. He combed his fingers
through his black hair, then covered his head with his hood. "I've failed
again."

Misty arranged her red hair around the back of her neck, then also
covered up with her hood. "What do you mean, again?"

He looked at her, his brown eyes shining golden in the darkness. "It
should have ended when I killed Gary." He paused, thinking. "Maybe if I
stuck around for a while and made sure, this wouldn't be happening. Hell,
maybe if I hadn't gave up my title and let Gary be League Master in the
first place, a lot of suffering would have never have been."

Misty held his cloaked arm. It felt warm and strong. She wished he would
just hug her without any of the past interfering with the present. "Don't
bother with the 'maybes' or we'll be here forever." She thought about it.
"Besides, if Gary hadn't been League Master, there's also a chance that
Giovanni would have won the Dark Wars and then where would we be?"

He looked down at her hand clutching his arm. "You're right, I guess."
Then he reached around with his other arm to hold her. For a moment they
just held one another. It felt almost as if they were the only ones on
the world. Misty missed the special closeness they had like this.

Then Ash spoke up again. "It was about three years ago. He was planning
to use the prophesy of Armageddon. Not the partial one that Giovanni used
to further his own ends, but to actually use it for its true purpose." He
let go of her arm and rubbed his fingers through his hair.  "So arrogant,
he wanted to rebuild the world to how he wanted it. I found out and
challenged him. He should have died and that would have ended it. It was
the reason I left the League in the first place. That and other personal
reasons..."

"So this is the true end of the world," she said softly. "Why didn't you
tell us back at the meeting?"

"I-I didn't want to cause a panic. I didn't want a repeat of what
happened last time ..." He paused for a second. "But now, something far
worse will happen."

"But is there a way to stop the Armageddon?"

His voice was flat and dead. "No."

"What do you mean, no?" she protested. "There's always a way. What if we
destroy the towers at the focus points?"

"Once the prophecy has been set in motion? The only thing that would do
would release the others that much faster."

She paused. "Others? What do you mean by that?"

"When the barrier was opened, all of the Forbidden could not come out at
the same time. Think of unplugging a bath tub full of water, with the
water in the tub lying in three layers. Right now, only the first layer
has flowed out and it will take several days for the others to escape
too. But If we tried to destroy the towers currently, that would be like
tipping the whole tub over letting everything go at once." He shook his
head sadly. "But anyway we take it, if all of them manage to come out,
you don't know what kind of terrors will be free to cause destruction."

Misty stared at him. "You're just filled with good news today, aren't
you, Ash?" she said dryly.

He abruptly stepped away from her with a flap of his black cloak and
turned to the next tree. Misty already missed his warmth as the cold,
still air replaced it. "This doesn't mean I'm giving up," he said
determined. "Even if I have to destroy every single damn Forbidden
Pokemon in Hell myself, you know I'll do it, or die trying."

That was her Ash speaking alright. "Never doubted it for a second."

"Now, as far as I can tell, we're north-east of Fuchsia State County. You
know where the base is. Lead on," he waved his arm eastwards. The tall
treetops and branches stretched out before them, dark and still. "My
night vision isn't back to a hundred percent yet anyhow."

"I was wondering why you were being so chivalrous," she said, before she
crouched and jumped off, the branch creaking beneath her feet causing the
leaves to rustle. Ash followed and soon they were making quite good time
as they leapt from branch to branch, moving steadily eastwards.


<><><>


Hours later, Misty's boots thumped as she landed on yet another branch
and crouched, keeping her balance with a hand grasping the rough wood.
She had stopped counting how many she had jumped along, but it had to be
in the hundreds.

The branch shook a few times, causing a few leaves to fall around them as
Ash landed next to her, his cloak billowing around him, like her own.

"Seems like a wind has picked up," he said softly. "Strange."

She felt the air brush against her skin. "It's getting colder too."

And then Ash was suddenly jumping in front of her, his black cloak
obscuring her vision. Something flashed orange and red like fire around
his body. "Watch out, argh!" He fell backwards upon her and Misty quickly
grasped his waist and desperately tried to keep their balance on the
precarious branch.

When Misty saw what happened to him, she expelled a breath as she found
what looked like the shaft of a burning arrow in his shoulder. She
quickly grabbed the end of it in her hand and extinguished the
still-burning fletching with her fingers.

"Not now!" Ash shouted as he grabbed her around the waist and then leapt
off the branch. As Misty turned her head to look back at the branch they
had just jumped from, another flame arrow shot into it. Upon contact of
the arrow, the whole tree glowed red and simply disintegrated into black
ashes which floated around in the air.

Misty grunted as Ash landed roughly on a branch still carrying her in his
arms. The tree limb began to shake hard and Misty abruptly felt Ash's
feet drop from underneath him and they began to fall. Quickly Misty
reached up with a hand and grabbed on to the branch, the rough bark
scratching her palm. She roughly grabbed on to Ash's hand in the other.
They were left dangling up high and swinging dangerously with only
Misty's arm to support the both of them.

Misty gritted her teeth as she strained to keep her hold upon the branch.
"Ash, what's wrong?" she called down to him.

"I-I don't know," his voice said weakly. "I just suddenly felt so tired,
that I slipped."

She looked down at him. His hood had blown off letting his hair get blown
back by the wind. He had his eyes closed. Misty frowned as she noticed
the arrow still sticking out of his left shoulder. Blood had begun to
leak out of the wound.

"Is it the arrow?"

"No, I've actually been feeling pretty bad ever since I woke up." He
coughed. "Of course, the arrow's not helping any."

And then a loud laugh interrupted them. Misty looked up at the direction
of the source. On a different tree some two dozen feet away, a covering
of leaves and branches suddenly flared red and disintegrated, as dark
orange flames erupted outward in a fierce blaze of heat.

When the ashes cleared, it revealed a figure in a long red cloak leaning
against the bough of the tree. Whoever it was, had covered their head
with the hood so that their face could not be seen.

"Blaine?" Misty exclaimed. "But I killed you!"

The red cloaked figure walked along the branch like a tight-rope walker,
cloak flapping around in the high altitude winds. "And that's why *I*
have ta kill ya, darlin." She whipped off her hood, revealing a pretty
woman's face with blue hair tied in a bun at the back of her head. Her
eyes flared the colour of fire.

Ash grunted from underneath, still hanging on to Misty's arm. "Lara
Larame. I should have known you would show up sooner or later."

"Yup. Can't just let ya'll go after having gone and offed my husband."
She clicked her tongue. "O' course, Ash here bein an ol friend o' mine
means I have to spare him, no matter what Lord Gary-boy says, but you my
dear," she stuck her thumb in Misty's direction, "you my dear gets ta be
the first one killed by tha new, improved Fire Master." She lifted her
hands which burst into flame when she pointed them at Misty. Out of the
fires in each hand, a long bow emerged made completely of flame. An arrow
materialised inside it and she nocked it, preparing to fire.

Ash coughed. "Sorry, Lara, but I can't let you. Pikachu, Quick Attack!"

"Pika!"

Ash's black electric mouse leapt from his backpack and shot forth like a
bullet. Lara was startled as it smashed through the join of the branch
she was standing on, completely removing it from its connection to the
tree. As she was distracted by having to jump off the severed wooden
limb, which began to fall down to the ground like a rock, Misty quickly
swung Ash up on to the branch with a flick of her arm. Then she followed
him, swinging around and hoisting herself up.

Lara did a half twist in the air and landed upon a different branch.
"Sneaky lil people, aren't yas?" Her hand began moving in a blur as she
shot fire arrow after fire arrow at them with loud whooshing sounds as
they streaked forth.

Misty leapt right, while Ash leapt left, after Pikachu, who had landed
on another tree after its attack on the new Fire Master. The tree they
had been standing on, glowed red before it disintegrated as a volley of
arrows thunked into the wood.

Misty dived as she fell through the air and caught on to a lower branch
with her hands and pulled herself up. She reached within her cloak for a
poke ball. Then Ash startled her as he suddenly jumped on to the same
branch with Pikachu following, causing it to sway up and down.

"Don't bother fighting," he said quickly. "Let's just get to the base.
The coast is only about less than a mile from here where you said it was.
If we expend more power, you know what that attracts."

Misty stopped reaching for a poke ball. "I suppose you're right."

"Counter attack only, and only with physical blows." He turned his head.
"Jump!" They jumped and scattered as another volley of arrows vapourised
the tree they were standing on.

Misty kept going and leapt from tree to tree, fleeing east, her blue
cloak flapping behind her at each jump. "Of course, that doesn't stop her
from using her powers," she said jealously as each tree behind her flared
and disintegrated with Lara using her as target practise.

Ash and Pikachu followed her a bit to the side using different trees and
branches to jump from as the ones Misty was using were quickly destroyed
in her wake. "I'm sure they've protected themselves from it happening to
them," Ash called back, grunting as he leapt and ducked from low-hanging
branches. "Or maybe they just don't care."

An angry voice shouted from behind them. "So we're playin it this way are
we?" Lara said as she stopped following them and suddenly halted her
stream of arrows. "Well far be it for lil ol me to get tired from chasin
you! Rapidash, darlin, stop them!"

"Uh oh," Ash said as he stopped and crouched on a branch while Pikachu
landed by his side.

Misty also paused upon a branch and crouched low to the tree limb. She
looked back at him, one eyebrow raised. "Uh oh? And what's a Rapidash
going to do when we're way up here?"

"Lara's Rapidash is different ..."

"How different?"

The sound of a horse neighing and fire roaring from in front of them
interrupted her. She turned around and widened her eyes. A wave of fire
seemed to be sweeping directly towards them along the tops of the trees.

"Jump!" Ash shouted from behind her, and she was happy to do just that.
As she leaped up into the air, the horizontal stream of flames just
missed from melting her boots. When the flame cut out and she landed back
on a different tree, she spotted the offending fire horse, looking for
all the world like it was running through air towards them, its single
sharp horn lowered in a charge. Its mane of orange and red flames
flickered in the wind and its elegant white body thrust powerfully as it
moved its legs. Then as it came closer and directly into her line of
sight, Misty realised that it wasn't actually running in midair, but was
flying, using its two large, red feathered wings that were attached to
its torso. The wings beat strongly up and down as it began flying faster.

"Poor Rapidash was just crushed when y'all went and killed her mate!
Reminds me I have ta find the blue-haired harlot as well! But you'll do
to whet our appetites in the meantime, Mistaria, darlin gal!"

The winged Rapidash let out a cry of hate as it dived at Misty, red wings
rearing back so that it sped up. But then it stopped short and tried to
fly away as a severed piece of a tree trunk came flying up at it and
skimmed it on the leg.

Misty turned and saw Ash punch through another tree top with a loud
splintering sound, knocking it up at the flying Rapidash, who this time
dodged it cleanly. "Keep going!" he yelled. "I'll distract it! Pikachu,
Agility now! Combine with Swift!" He picked up his pokemon in one hand
and then threw it up high. In the air, Pikachu blurred so fast, it
resembled a miniature black comet. The Rapidash neighed in pain as
Pikachu shot through the tip of its left wing, breaking off a chunk of
red feathers. It stalled in the air and was about to fall when it
regenerated its wing with a burst of flame and managed to recover.

"Drat," Ash cursed. "I forgot it could do that."

Misty looked at him. "If you're going to stay, then I will too!" she
shouted.

Ash began jumping from branch to branch towards her. "Don't be a fool!
Let's just get out of here then!"

The Fire Master clicked her fingers in a pique. "Land sakes, I was hoping
you would stand and fight! Good one, Ash," she called out sarcastically.
Then she whistled. "Rapidash, c'mon darlin!" At her call, her pokemon
snorted a cloud of smoke before it flapped its wings and flew over to
her. Lara jumped on to its back as it passed and then wheeled her mount
around to attack. "Fire Spin!" she ordered.

Misty dropped off the branch she was standing on and hung down low with
her arms letting the circular tornado of fire pass harmlessly above her.
Then swinging around like a professional gymnast, she swung herself
upwards directly at Lara riding the flying Rapidash. She reached into the
folds of her cloak and grasped a blue poke ball and threw it.

"Go Vaporeon! Quick Attack!"

The ball split open in midair with a flash of cold artic energy and
revealed the blue four-legged and sharp finned marine pokemon with black
circular eyes. "Vee!" it shouted as it used the momentum of Misty's throw
to launch itself up at the Rapidash.

"Rapidash, Flamethrower!" Lara countered. But Misty's Vaporeon seemed to
shrug off the tongue of flame that the horse expelled, before it got a
solid strike at its mid section. The Rapidash floundered in the air and
began to weave out of control.

As it lost altitude so that it began flying around the level of the
branches that Ash and Misty were standing on, Misty ordered her Vaporeon
to attack again. She pointed. "Vaporeon, Tackle that tree!"

Her pokemon complied and it knocked the tree directly at Lara and her
Rapidash. The flying horse, still out of control, was unable to burn the
thick trunk of wood before it hit, sending it further of course.

"Good work, Misty!" Ash said as he saw what she was doing. "Pikachu,
Quick Attack those trees!" Then he too joined in, sending trunks of wood
like spears with massive double handed swings of his arms.

"No fair, that's cheating!" Lara yelled as a veritable avalanche of wood
landed on top of her and her pokemon. She, along with the tangle of her
horse and trees began to fall to the ground like a torn paper aeroplane.

"That should keep her busy," Ash said as he leaned over the edge of the
branch he was standing on to watch them fall until the darkness below
swallowed them.

"Now let's get to the base," Misty suggested as she lifted her hand. A
blue poke ball materialised on her palm in a flash of light. "Vaporeon,
return!" 

After she recalled her pokemon, the two of them continued east until the
forest began to thin out. Then they jumped down from branch to branch
until they reached the ground and ran the rest of the way.


<><><>


Lara grunted to herself as she rubbed a bruise on her breast. "Of all the
dirty tricks," she grumbled as she wheeled her Rapidash around in the air
to retrace her path yet again to search for her quarry. Then she noticed
three cloaked figures standing on an upper branch. She spurred her mount
onwards and floated in front of them, the wings of her horse beating up
and down steadily. It caused the branch to sway up and down, rustling the
leaves from the wind it was creating. "So y'all finally made it," she
said impatiently.

The Master in brown looked towards the edge of the forest where it ended
and the coast began. "You could have waited before trying to do it all
yourself. Not all of us can fly."

The giant in the yellow cloak and the slim woman in the dark purple one
stayed silent.

"I think I lost them, though," Lara said, a bit embarrassed.

Brock closed his eyes and felt the air. After a few minutes he opened
them. "No matter. I know where he is."


<><><>


Ash stared out at the huge black waves of the ocean as they crashed upon
the rocky shore off in the distance. There used to be a massive fishing
wharf here, he remembered. But now, all it was, were sharp rocks that
would slice you to ribbons if you foolishly tried to walk along them.
Trying to fish there at present times were only for people with
death-wishes.

They were in a small clearing within a grove of trees with Misty kneeling
down on the sandy ground by his side. She was still fiddling around with
what seemed like an ordinary seeming shrub. "I could have sworn it was
this one," she mumbled to herself.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Suddenly the shrub slid to the side and a metallic, circular trapdoor
revealed itself underneath. Misty placed her hand on a square panel on
the top of it and he heard a beeping sound.

"Identification scan confirmed. Welcome Mistaria," a small electronic
voice said. It reminded Ash of his pokedex. Then the steel door hissed
with steam as it made a clicking sound. Misty grabbed the edge and
roughly forced it wide open with a creaking of metal.

"You first," she announced, waving him in.

"And I thought chivalry was dead," Ash said dryly as he walked over and
looked inside the opening. There was a ladder that he saw was attached to
the side of the shaft leading all the way down into the narrow vertical
passageway.

"Well I've got to close the hatch afterwards," Misty explained. She
noticed him looking hesitantly at the dark entrance. "It may look like
you're climbing into Hell, but trust me, it gets better at the bottom."

"Trust. That's a good one," he said sarcastically.

Soon, Ash lay against the metallic wall at the bottom of the shaft, tired
and breathing hard as Misty climbed down from the ladder herself. Pikachu
leaned against his feet also panting heavily. He looked around the narrow
corridor they were in. Amazingly, there was electric lighting brightening
up the underground hallway, the light reflecting off the shiny floor and
walls.

Misty threw her hood back and freed her long red hair from its 
constraints. She looked exhausted and vulnerable. "Do you think we lost 
them?" she asked, blowing away a strand of hair that fell in her mouth.

"I hope so, or we just led them directly to us." He frowned as he looked
down at the shaft of the arrow still sticking out of his shoulder. Then
gritting his teeth, he grasped it firmly in his hand and yanked it out.
The sharp knife of pain that stabbed through his shoulder was terrible
but he resisted making any sound. He threw the red shaft on to the metal
floor where it clattered around rolling until it hit the wall. His
shoulder bled profusely until his healing factor kicked in and stopped it
from flowing too heavily.

Misty leaned forward and examined the wound. "That looks bad. But I'm
sure we can have a medic look at-"

"Cease and desist!" a rough voice shouted. "Up with your hands, you two!"

Ash sighed as he spotted the group of guards dressed in purple uniform
come running down the passageway toward them with a pair of Venomoths
flying silently at their sides. Their boots hardly made a sound on the
hard floor but he still should have been able to detect them. It seemed
his senses were still dulled like when he failed to detect Lara's
presence earlier.

Misty turned to face them, with an annoyed look in her blue eyes. "Don't
you recognise me?"

The guards stopped in front of them and looked confused. "Mistress
Mistaria?"

"Who were you expecting?"

They rapidly lifted their weapons to the ready. "Imposter! Sound the
alarm!" the lead guard shouted. A guard at the back, broke off from the
group and ran back the way they came.

Ash lifted himself up from leaning against the wall. "What's going on?"
he asked as Misty was forced backward by pointed spears. The Venomoths
hung in the air looking as if they were ready to attack them at any given
moment, their powdery wings flapping threateningly.

"Imposter?" Misty said, confused, as she lifted her hands, palms first,
to show that she meant no harm.

"That's right. The real Mistaria already arrived a half-day ago, hence.
Right this moment, she is dining with Master's Erika, Koga and Aya.
Therefore, you can't be her."

Misty began to glow blue, her body giving off a cold arctic aura. "This
is preposterous, is what this is! Get Erika here at once, she'll
straighten this out!"

Ash held his bleeding side with his hands, applying pressure. "A thought
just came to me. What would Valdera look like with red hair?"

Misty's eyes widened.

"Now if someone could just lend me a medic," Ash said, just before he
felt too weak to stand and fell backward in a faint. His mind descended
blissfully to darkness.


*** End Part 8

_________________________________________________________________________

                                POKEDEX
_________________________________________________________________________

SHADOW PIKACHU
Type 1 - Shadow
Type 2 - Electricity

Attack : Agility Swift
Type   : Psychic / Normal

An attack combined of the two ordinary attacks, Agility and Swift.
Pikachu gains godly amounts of speed and uses it for a powerful charge
attack.

_________________________________________________________________________

Notes:

Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!


Ace Sanchez
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au
       : aceywacey@hotmail.com
       : acey@i.am
WWW    : http://i.am/acey
       : http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey