Pokémon 1. Chapter 1

**To be perfectly honest. The battle between Ash and Kenny before the Lily Of The Valley Conference really ticked me off. They really underpowered Buizel during the fight, taking away two of his best points. His speed and his durability. All just so they could show-off more childish views in that since Kenny was crushing on Dawn he obviously had to win.**

**In that same episode, Kenny's Empoleon couldn't even destroy a rather small tree with Hydro Cannon of all attacks. When Barry's Empoleon used it against Paul, it completely obliterated multiple large boulders before almost ploughing through Paul's Electivire.**

**So I'll be starting this off from how I believed a battle between Ash's Buizel and Kenny's Empoleon should have gone, and the story will continue on from there. The differences rippling outwards and changing how the future was set – I.E canon.**

**For the record. This chapter is unbeta'd. I didn't really notice much mistakes during my read-through of the chapter and what I did see I fixed up. My beta has been missing in action for like 24 hours and I don't feel like waiting around for him before posting this. It's already just been sitting ready for posting in my finished folder for a good 12 hours.**

**So without further adieu – Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Ash grinned, thumbing his nose as he stared at his opponent eagerly, "Alright Kenny." The raven haired trainer began, "Since you challenged me, the first moves all yours." He stated.

In stark contrast to Ash, his opponent Kenny a brown-haired youth a small bit shorter than him had his eyes set, cold and almost glaring if one were to look closely, "Fine, then." He replied, outstretching his hand and pointing at Ash's Pokemon, "Empoleon Flash Cannon, now!" Kenny commanded.

His Pokemon, Empoleon a large bipedal navy blue Penguin-like Pokemon with a long yellow beak and thee large-pointed horns thrust both its metal tipped wings to its side and tensed before opening its beak and unleashing a narrow beam of silvery-white energy.

Ash allowed it to close in before he made his move, "Dodge it, Buizel." He ordered, amber eyes both calm and eager and a grin still tugging at his lips.

There was truly no excitement quite like a Pokemon battle.

Buizel obeyed in an instant, smacking the ground beneath him with his twin-tails Buizel launched himself a few feet into the air and allowed the beam of the Flash Cannon to harmlessly pass by beneath him and explode against a bush, removing the plant from existence.

"You left yourself open!" Kenny suddenly declared as Buizel dodged, "Drill Peck, now!" He told his Pokemon.

With a running start, Empoleon blasted off the ground in a running jump and blitzed across the air like a vertical spinning top.

Ash was nonplussed though, "Intercept it!" He ordered almost instantly in response.

Buizel met Empoleon's spinning charge head-on in mid-air and punched both fists harshly into Empoleon's beak. Empoleon continued to spin as hard as it could, attempting to break through and pierce Buizel with its glowing beak.

But no such luck. With each passing moment, the strength behind Buizel's grip slowed down Empoleon's spin and the dual Water and Steel-Type Pokemon's attack lost its luster. They landed upon the ground again, Empoleon back on its feet and bent over as Buizel kept a harsh grip on its face.

"Disengage!" Kenny shouted, eyes suddenly darting with panic and his voiced tinged with urgency.

Empoleon obeyed and tried to tug its beak from Buizel's grip, but the Sea Weasel Pokemon held strong. Ash himself continued to grin, "No chance, Buizel use Water Gun!" He said.

At point blank range, Buizel let loose the compressed jet of water right into Empoleon's face and let go of its beak. The jet of water, with enough force behind it to crush stone into fine powder ploughed into the Pokemon's face and carried it metres away through the air and crashing into the stone wall surrounding the battlefield harshly.

The stone of the wall cracked beneath the power of the impact and Empoleon fell to the ground face first, and lay still.

"No!" Kenny cried out, clenching his fists, "C'mon Empoleon get up! You can do it!" He continued, trying to motivate his Pokemon to regain its feet.

He needn't have worried though. Empoleon pushed itself to its feet a few seconds later after regaining its bearings. Its beak was bruised quite badly, and one of its three horns looked misshapen but other than that it looked fine. "Poleon!" It barked out, swiping one of its wings at Buizel in a challenging gesture.

Buizel merely grinned back. His fighting spirit soaring with anticipation for a good battle.

Kenny breathed a sigh of relief, "Alright Empoleon, let's end this here with Hydro Cannon." The brown haired Twinleaf Town native stated. He wasn't willing to risk losing here by getting in close again, he'd just have Empoleon blow Buizel away with the most powerful Water-type attack.

This battle was too important. He had to prove here that he was better than Ash and better for Dawn to travel with. He'd seen the way she looked at him at times, how excited she got when he cheered her on during Contests.

He almost shuddered with anxiety, it was far far too risky.

It took a few moments of preparation for Empoleon to gather the power needed for the attack. But Ash and Buizel seemed to fine to just wait and watch them for now. They seemed to be emulating the way Flint had battled Jasmine the day before, countering each move with as minimal effort as possible and then exploding into full powered devastating attacks.

With another loud bark, Empoleon allowed the power to explode forth from its beak in the form of a small icy-blue sphere of condensed and empowered water.

The attack was almost to fast for the eye to follow. Blinding in its speed, Buizel took action before Ash ordered himself and flipped straight into the air, right over the Hydro Cannon attack.

Ash was just fine with that though as the attack ploughed into the ground with enough power to leave a metre deep crater in Buizel's previous position. "Sonic Boom!" He ordered quickly.

With multiple swift beats of his tails, Buizel launched three sickles of compressed wind straight down at Empoleon who couldn't dodge in time due to the recharge recoil that came with using a move like Hydro Cannon – the drawback that came with calling forth and unleashing that much power so quickly.

Each sickle exploded on impact against Empoleon and pushed the Pokemon harshly into the ground, harder with each exploding strike.

"Looks like Empoleon still has some work to do on that attack." Ash mused as Buizel landed in front of him again and they watched Empoleon shakily struggle to its feet, its metal armour plating dented and charred from the multiple Sonic Boom attacks.

Kenny cursed under his breath, clenching his fists again in aggravation. It was true, no doubt about that. Empoleon had just learned the attack for the Grand Festival, and that went nowhere fast during his appeal round where he failed out utterly.

Empoleon had the advantage here, he should still win this battle hands down. Empoleon was bot fully evolved and of a typing that none of the attacks Ash's Buizel could use would be effective against. Not to mention he'd had his Empoleon long before Ash ever got Buizel.

Going by the statistics this should be an easy win for him. So why?

* * *

Dawn cringed as Empoleon went down again, "Kenny and Empoleon are really taking a beating out there." The bluenette 14 year old Coordinator commented, hugging Piplup in her lap, "And Ash n' Buizel don't seem to have even broken a sweat yet."

Brock sighed, cupping his chin in thought, "I was really rooting for Kenny on this one but this result is to be expected I suppose." He stated in lament. Pity, it didn't look good for another man in love out there right now.

Dawn turned her head to him, raising an eyebrow in confusion, "Why?" She questioned. Kenny was a very strong Coordinator, but he was being taken apart with ease out there.

Brock sighed again, "There's a few reasons really, but the two main ones are Ash has been a trainer since he was 10 so he has much more experience than Kenny who started when he turned 14." The Breeder explained, "And he made the mistake of challenging Ash to a normal Pokemon battle instead of a Contest Battle."

"Okay, I'll give you the point on the experience thing but I don't see how Kenny cant just battle like he does in a contest and put up a better fight now." Dawn responded, confusion showing in her sapphire blue eyes.

Brock shook his head in exasperation. Dawn was a Coordinator aswell, but he thought she would have noticed how much more intense Ash's Gym Battles were in comparison with Contest Battles. Best to placate her he supposed and explain it as un-insultingly as he could, "The thing is, Coordinators are always trying to show off the beauty of their Pokemon and their attacks and for that reason Coordinators do not focus as much on speed or power as they do on controlling the power they already have and learning to make their attacks as flashy and good looking as possible." He explained, "Thats why if you remember right Barry's Empoleon had a much bigger and powerful version of Hydro Cannon in comparison with Kenny's Empoleon."

Realization shone in her eyes, "Oh!" She said softly, hugging Piplup a bit tighter to her.

Brock nodded, "In comparison with Ash who has much more experience and trains his Pokemon day in day out to maximize their power, speed and durability – Kenny falls woefully short just like any Coordinator who hasn't been at it for years on end would be." He told her, voice serious and lecturing. This was a fact she had to learn and work around if she ever battled normal trainers.

"..But." Dawn began hesitantly, "If it's like that, then why doesn't Ash do the same to me when he train with each other?" She questioned. Dawn honestly hadn't noticed during Ash's Gym Battles, to be perfectly honest she realized she had always been caught up in the fast-paced excitement of Ash's battles which were nothing like the Contests she usually watched or participated in which were full of regal movement and beautiful techniques.

Once again, Brock sighed. He was beginning to wonder how many times in this conversation he would, "Because those are just practice battles, as much as for him as they are for you." He explained once again, "You wouldn't have really gotten much at all out of them if just Ash came at you full throttle and blasted away at your Pokemon with devastating attacks and so fast that he gave you no chance to counter or make moves of your own."

What could she say to that? It made a lot more sense than Dawn realized. She was about to open her mouth to reply when Brock continued, "Why do you think you managed to beat so many Coordinators with much more experience than you?" He asked her.

Her eyes narrowed and she suddenly felt quite angry at the implication. Brock saw as much though and raised his hands in a placating manner, "I don't mean to say it like you're a bad trainer or anything like that, infact you're very good but why do you think you managed to go all the way to the finals of the Grand Festival in your very first attempt?" Brock questioned her again.

That puzzled her a bit, "I thought it was just a combination of my skill and luck." Dawn replied, voice low and uncertain.

Brock shook his head, "No, that's not what I mean." He told her, "Let me put it another way for you." The brown haired teen said, cupping his chin and thinking for amount. "Aha! Okay, as simple as it sounds way back at the Wallace Cup May should have crushed you easily in that battle." He told her.

Indignation swelled up again, "Hey!" Dawn shouted at him in annoyance, Piplup glaring at him alongside her from her lap.

Nonplussed, Brock continued, "But she didn't for two reasons. The first was because she abandoned battling the way Ash taught her when he mentored her through Hoenn and Kanto because her Rival told her that was why she lost a contest she was competing in." He told her, holding up one finger, "Boy, that one actually hurt Ash to be honest." Brock continued, shaking his head sadly.

Dawn's eyes widened at that tidbit of information. She never knew, and they seemed so close when they visited. She wondered how Ash could have put what was basically a spit in the face for his efforts behind him. "Okay, then what's two?" She questioned.

Brock smiled at her, flicking up a second finger, "Two, is that you battled just as Ash taught you and still managed to incorporate beautiful and flashy techniques even then." He replied, "The truth is, May quit using a battle style that let her compete on par with the best of Coordinators all because of some bad luck and in the process, while her techniques were more beautiful her skill as a battler is drastically reduced." He lamented with a sigh, before smiling again, "but you did what she couldn't and kept the battle style Ash taught you and modified it to suit you." Brock concluded.

"And that's why you're both a good Coordinator and trainer, just like Ash if you remember his participation in the Jubilife Contest." Brock continued, eyes locked on the battle clashing infront of them, "Ash mentored you in battling, and helped you train your Pokemon to get all the experience, power, durability and speed they would need and the rest was up to you." Brock nodded his head after saying that, "Yup, Ash is quite proud of how far you've come. The guy might be a bit dense when it comes to the technical aspects of things like type match-ups but when it comes to battling the boy is sure something to behold."

"Huh." Dawn muttered in reply. She'd never thought of it like that. But now that she thought about it, most of her early troubles in Contests were during the appeal rounds. When it came to battling she aced it everytime. That brought up another few questions though, specifically about Ash and May.

"But if I done so well with it, why didn't May do so aswell?" She questioned, peering up at Brock from beside him as he watched Empoleon once again fail to land a blow against Buizel.

Brock's answer was simple, "She did." He replied, "She went to the top 8 in Hoenn narrowly losing to her Rival Drew who had a whole year of experience and training on her who then lost in the finals and then to the top 4 in Kanto where she again lost narrowly to a very powerful and experienced Coordinator after defeating her rival Drew – she was called Solidad and she won the whole thing and in my opinion in terms of sheer power and experience would have crushed you or Zoey in a battle." The once Gym Leader continued to explain.

Dawn's eyes widened bit by bit, and her jaw dropped open slightly, "What!? That doesn't even make sense!" She replied vehemently, "If she was that good, why wasn't she anywhere near that strong during my battle with her?" Dawn challenged, her eyes narrowed.

Brock sighed, "There's two reasons to that aswell and it's quite similar to this battle that's going on at the moment." He said in return.

Dawn raised an eyebrow, "How?" She asked. The blue haired teenager was quite confused, how was this in anyway similar to what happened with May?

"Well, to be frank Kenny is jealous of Ash the same way Drew was jealous with him." Brock replied, cupping his chin once again in thought, "Although, Kenny is atleast going about it in a better way in that he's trying to prove he's better than Ash instead of taking little digs at him like Drew did."

"What...?" Dawn said in reply, tilting her head to the side slightly in confusion.

Brock sighed, "No use playing dense now Dawn we both already know that Kenny has a bit of a crush on you and wants you to travel with him, well the same could be said for Drew with May." He said curtly, raising an eyebrow in interest when he saw Buizel slide through Empoleon's legs and trip the bigger Pokemon by hooking his twin tails around its legs as he slid along. That was quite interesting to see.

Dawn's cheeks heated up as the topic was brought up as bluntly as it was, "So? It wasn't like I was going to go with him if he won anyway, I already promised I'd be there to cheer Ash on during the Sinnoh League." She replied, turning her head away so he couldn't see her red cheeks.

Brock snorted in amusement, "I'm sure." He responded dryly, "But anyway, the point is Drew is a little shit who was jealous of how close to Ash, May was so he gave her something to blame for her loss and she did and then she went on to Johto with Drew after the Kanto Grand Festival to try and make her own battle-style but as you remember when she visited it didn't quite go aswell as she thought it would and that little prick Drew managed to both break up our travelling group and really bring down May's overall skill." He explained next, voice flat and filled with an almost cold anger that Dawn had never heard from Brock of all people before.

Her eyes widened significantly when he swore twice, she'd never even heard Brock curse by mistake before. Brock must have saw her reaction to his swearing because he rushed to both apologize and explain, "I'm sorry you had to hear that, but I really hate that Drew guy." He told her, "He was a very arrogant person and very spiteful aswell. He tried to break up the friendship between Ash and May when he blamed her losing on the battle-style Ash taught her, he was hoping for Ash to be more angry about it and cause a big blow-up over it."

She felt the need to point out, "But they seemed really friendly when she visited for the Wallace Cup." Dawn said.

Brock sighed once again, this time sadly, "It hurt Ash yeah, because whether she knew she was doing it or not May was basically saying that the battle-style Ash had created through some of the toughest battles and experiences of his life and then spent the better part of a year teaching her just wasn't good enough for her standards." He shook his head, ridding himself of the swelling anger in his chest. He himself was indignant on Ash's behalf, that was his best friend after all and he wasn't about to let anyone walk all over him, he deserved far more respect than that. "But Ash was really grown up about it despite the hurt he must've felt, he encouraged her to go after what she believed was right and even told her that he had faith she could do it." That was just the kind of guy Ash was, he'd do anything for his friends or Pokemon.

Dawn's thoughts were raging in every direction. It was hard to try and wrap her head around all of that. Her raging thoughts were interrupted by one last statement from Brock before he got back to watching the battle between Ash and Kenny, "Ash and May were closer than he and Misty ever were and I thought he and Misty would end up dating once upon a time. I guess the saying 'If you love something let it go, and if it is meant to be it'll come back to you' is quite true seeing as Ash let May go and when they met back up again they seemed closer than ever." He commented, "Although, it's not like there's a shortage on girls who are crushing on Ash – infact I can think of four of the top of my head with ease." He mused, his voiced tinged with amusement and his head turned to the side so Dawn couldn't see the smirk of amusement on it.

Dawn's thoughts whirled all the faster. She had a lot to think about it seemed.

* * *

Ash chewed his lip in thought as Buizel once again landed infront of him after countering Empoleon's attack. Emulating Flint's battle-style was going well, but he was copying it far too much and he was feeling antsy from holding back for so long. This waiting and countering before attacking style was good, he admitted it worked well but it just wasn't his thing. He'd have to work with it a bit to make it more flexible so it fit in with his own proper style of battling.

"Metal Claw!" Kenny commanded, breaking him from his thoughts.

Empoleon blitzed forward, bruised and dented in multiple places and noticeably limping but attacking full throttle nonetheless. Ash's amber eyes narrowed, time to win this. It was good practice, but the battle was going far too slow to be as exciting as normally.

"Counter Shield." The raven haired trainer ordered simply.

When Empoleon was a few feet from Buizel, Ash's Pokemon slid onto his back spinning rapidly and launching a continuous Water Gun straight into the air. The rapid spinning movements caused the Water Gun to spiral rapidly all around Buizel's spinning form and the area all around Buizel for multiple metres was full of lashing whips of defensive water.

Empoleon was smashed harshly in the face from the front, only to stumble back and be smashed in the back by another whip of water. From side to side Empoleon was battered around by the highly compressed whips of water.

Beaten nearly to a pulp, and dented almost everywhere on its body Empoleon fell to its knees groaning and eyes clenched shut in pain.

That was all the opening Ash needed, "Now come out of that spin into an Ice Punch, Buizel!" Ash commanded, punching his fist forward in triumph.

The whips of compressed water dispersed and Buizel shut up from his spin, fist glowing an icy-blue colour and delivered a spin-momentum enhanced uppercut right into the bottom of Empoleon's beak.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Empoleon briefly cried out in pain, before half of its face was frozen solid and the dual Water and Steel-type Pokemon was launched a few metres high into the air from the force of the punch before landing harshly on the ground, un-moving.

There was silence for a few moments. And then Brock stood up, waving his arm down in the direction of the downed form of Empoleon, "Empoleon is unable to battle, the winners are Ash and Buizel." He declared.

Kenny sighed in disappointment, but he took his defeat like as gracefully as possible, "Well done Empoleon, you did a great job take a nice long rest." He said, holding a Pokeball up and returning his Pokemon into it within a beam of red light.

Ash himself walked over to Buizel and rubbed the Pokemons head affectionately, "Well done Buizel, great job!" He said, grinning happily, "You're definitely ready for the Sinnoh League!" He declared, idly smoothing down the parts of his ruffled fur from the fight and patting him down to make sure he was un-injured.

Buizel pumped a fist to both Ash and Pikachu on his shoulder, "Bui bui bui!" He declared in return, eyes blazing with fiery determination.

Pikachu sparked his red cheeks in reply, smirking back while Ash laughed and held up Buizel's Pokeball, "We'll be leaving for the Lily Of The Valley Conference on a ferry soon, but I wanna work on turning your Water Gun into a Hydro Pump when we get there, kay?" He told his Pokemon.

A power attack like that was the only thing Buizel was lacking for now. And Hydro Pump would go a long way to fixing that up.

Buizel's eyes practically sparkled at the idea of learning a new and powerful attack. "Bui bui!" He said, nodding his head eagerly in reply.

Ash nodded, "Again, good job buddy take a nice long rest before we get back to some hard training." He said, returning Buizel back into his Pokeball and clipping it back onto his belt.

After standing back up to his full height he came face to face with Brock. The older teen was smiling at him proudly, "That was expertly done Ash, I can say with confidence you're definitely ready for whatever gets thrown at you during the league." Brock said to him.

Ash grinned at him, scratching his cheek bashfully, "Hope so, but there's a few other attacks I wanna get down with some of my Pokemon before the battle rounds start." He replied, trailing his fingers fom his own cheek to rub one of Pikachu's ears.

"Chaa." Pikachu moaned out in content as he lay across Ash's shoulder.

Brock raised an eyebrow in intrigue, "Really? What types of attack were you thinking of?" He questioned in curiosity.

Ash rubbed his chin in thought, "Well, I was thinking that Pikachu could use some defensive moves so I was thinking of trying to teach him Light Screen and Reflect." He replied.

Brock nodded his head. Those were some good choices for Pikachu. "Yeah, Pikachu definitely has all the speed and power he needs but durability because of his species isn't all that high and mostly stands back up from extremely powerful attacks through willpower alone, so those two attacks to cut down the effects of attacks and special attacks would be really helpful." He said. He waved his and in a 'go on' motion, "So what else?" He asked.

"Hydro Pump s a definite for Buizel, he lacks an attack of that magnitude." He rattled off next, Brock nodding along in consent, "After battling Flint I definitely wanna teach Infernape Flare Blitz and maybe Thunderpunch."

Brock nodded again, they all made sense to him. Especially Hydro Pump for Buizel to make up for his lack of powerful techniques and Thunderpunch for Infernape to deal with Water-types better. "What about the others?" He questioned next.

Ash crossed his arms behind his head as they began to walk and make their way to meet back up with Flint and Jasmine. "Staraptor is perfect for now I think, although a ranged attack like Hyper Beam would definitely be a big help, with Gible he still needs to master Draco Meteor before he'll be ready for the League and for Torterra I'm not a hundred percent sure but after seeing Paul's Torterra I think Frenzy Plant would be a great idea to teach him." He explained.

Brock nodded his head with each attack given for each Pokemon, "Those are some pretty solid attacks, but the problem is they all take quite a bit of training to master and you only have a month left before the League starts." The breeder replied to his best friend.

Ash sighed before grinning, "Yeah, but I'm certain we can do it. My Pokemon have never let me down before so the way I see it." He said, grin widening, "A month is more than enough time for them to learn these moves."

Brock laughed. Same old Ash, always confident he and his Pokemon could do whatever they put their minds to. But it wasn't a bad disposition at all in his opinion.

* * *

As Brock made his way over to chat with Ash, Kenny had made his own way over to Dawn after returning Empoleon to his Pokeball. Before she could speak up though, Kenny did. "Look Dawn." He began, his voice steady and his jaw set and with all his might trying not to belay his nervousness here. Confidence was the key, and his last shot here. "I'll be over at the lighthouse, if you decide you want to go on a journey with me instead of Ash I'll be waiting there for you." He told her. And with that said, he turned on his heel and made to leave.

Dawn sighed in regret, and grabbed him by the shoulder stopping him in place. "Kenny.." She began softly, "I'm flattered really don't think I'm not, but I have to be honest here when I tell you my feelings for you don't go any farther than friendship." The bluenette confessed.

Kenny stiffened and then he sighed. "I thought so." He said softly, "But I had to try, or I would've regretted it." He told her without telling her.

Dawn nodded, even if he didn't see it due to his turned back. "I understand." She replied, eyes towards the ground.

And suddenly his voice was back, and almost as teasing as it normally was. "So Ash huh?" He questioned, still not turning around.

Dawn sighed, shrugging her shoulders, "I dunno, maybe?" She said, sounding a bit confused. "I'm not sure on my feelings for him yet, do I like him like that or is it just admiration for everything he's done for me on my journey so far? I just don't know, and if what Brock said is true and I do like him I have quite a bit of competition."

Kenny barked a somewhat strangled laugh, "Well I've never known you to back down from a challenge, so if you do like him go get im'...DeeDee." He trailed off with the nickname he gave her during their kindergarten years.

Dawn puffed her cheeks slightly at the nickname, but held her annoyance in. "Where will you go now on your journey?" She asked as the moment passed.

Kenny finally turned to face her, smiling slightly, "I'm thinking Johto, there's still a few months before the Grand Festival over there so if I really push it I may be able to compete over there." He replied.

Dawn smirked lightly at the reply, nudging his shoulder teasingly with a fist, "That's just like you, attempting to get all five ribbons needed to participated halfway through the season." She joked.

Kenny laughed, "You know me DeeDee." He jabbed back.

The blue haired Coordinator giggled, "Well when you're over there if you compete against another Coordinator named Drew make sure you beat him and badly." She told him.

Kenny raised an eyebrow, "Did this guy do something to make you angry or something?" He questioned.

Dawn shook her head, still smiling. "No, but from what I hear he isn't a nice guy and deserves all the misfortune he gets."

The brown haired of the two snorted, "Right then, I promise to cream this guy if I ever battle him then kay?" He told her.

Dawn merely smiled and hugged him lightly before stepping back, "Good luck."

"Make sure you keep an eye on the Johto Grand Festival because you'll definitely see me winning it all." He replied confidently before turning on his heel and walking away, tossing a wave over his shoulder at her. "Later DeeDee!"

Dawn watched him walk away until he turned a corner and left her sight and then she sighed. She looked down at Piplup hugging her leg and smiled, "Let's go Piplup, we've got a lot to figure out before we decide on anything else."

"Pip!" Her starter Pokemon chirped happily, leaping into her arms.

As she turned and began to jog after Ash and Brock. Her thoughts turned to her feelings. What did she really feel for Ash? Was it just a case of hero-worship for her mentor? Or did she really have romantic feelings for him?

And who the hell were these girls that Brock hinted at that were pining after him?

* * *

Later that evening as the dark night sky fell over the ferry travelling to the Lily Of The Valley Island, Dawn sat outside their cabin staring up at the twinkling stars above.

She had a lot on her mind. The idea that she really had come within one successful attack of becoming the winner of the Grand Festival was almost mind boggling. She had thought it would be years before she even came close to such an achievement.

But it hadn't even been a year yet, and she'd been runner up on her first try. Thanks to Ash. It was amazing to think if it hadn't been for him teaching her how to battle she probably wouldn't have got her five ribbons in time for the Grand Festival.

Pokemon Battling wasn't an easy career path for any trainer. It took years to truly be great at it and build your own style. That's why it was such a big deal to her that Ash mentored her in his own battle-style as a basis for her to build her own style off of for contests.

Dawn could understand just why Brock really hated that Drew guy. And there was even a trace of anger in her for May. She could honestly think of no greater insult to Ash than to spit his teachings of his battle-style back in his face as if it wasn't good enough.

It kind of made her want to find this Drew guy and spit in his face.

Her vengeful thoughts of what she would like to do to this Drew guy in penance were interrupted as Ash sat down beside her on the bench she was sitting on. "Couldn't sleep?" He asked, running his hand through his messy raven hair.

"Yeah." Dawn replied softly, smiling at him, "Got a lot on my mind, ya know?" She stated.

Ash laughed lightly, "I bet." He responded, "Coming so close to your goal and falling short just an inch from the finish line must really frustrating." He said, patting her shoulder gently and sympathetically.

Dawn shook her head, still smiling at him. "Nuh-uh." She said, "I'm really proud to have gotten that far this early in my journey."

Ash nodded his head, grinning back at her, "I hear ya." He told her in reply, "I may not have won a League yet, but even then I'm really proud of all of my Pokemon for all of the hard work they put in. So I do understand where you're coming from."

After all, he may not have even gotten runner-up in a League tournament yet. But he may aswell have in the Hoenn League. If the referee had called that battle only a second earlier it would have been his win or a second later it would have been a tie because Tyson's Meowth fainted as soon as it was declared the winner. And then Tyson went on to win his last two matches with ease.

He was particularly proud of that, and in his mind he was more the runner-up than the person Tyson defeated in the finals with only losing two Pokemon in the whole battle.

But that was neither here, nor there. Because, pretty soon he would be the champion of the Sinnoh League.

"Did I ever thank you?" Dawn questioned, interrupting his thoughts on past Leagues.

He looked her in the eye and raised an eyebrow, "For what?" Ash asked in return. Had he done something lately that was worth thanking him for? He didn't think so.

"For teaching me how to battle." Was her almost whispered reply.

"Oh." He realized, before grinning. "'No need to Worry'." He quoted her, grin stretching as she puffed her cheeks slightly, "It's just because it was you and the type of person you are." He told her.

Dawn blinked. Cheeks deflating and turning slightly red, "W-what do you mean?" She stuttered.

"Kind? Determined? Passionate or even just fun to hang with." Ash ticked off, raising a finger after every point, "Pick one, they describe you to a T and I really enjoy being around people like you." He said, leaning slightly closer and allowing his grin to shrink into a soft smile.

With that said. He stood up, stretching his arms out and yawned. "Oh yeah, talking to you always helps me relax." He said, "I can definitely get to sleep now, g'night Dawn." Ash told her, patting her arm gently and then walking off back into their cabin to catch up on his sleep.

Dawn watched him go, her cheeks stained a dark red from what he said. Slowly, she raised a hand up to her chest and pressed her palm flat against her breast where her heart lay underneath. "Oh..." She whispered to herself in realization.

Her heart had skipped a beat when he said that. And she realized, things would never be the same way again when they were just friends.

* * *

**And chapter done. Took me a few hours to write this out. And if you can believe it, more than a quarter of the time put into writing this chapter was just for the last 6 paragraphs alone. Which is around 200-300 words at most. It was hard to figure out what to write for Ash in a way that he wouldn't realize at all were being taken romantically.**

**The fight with Kenny, huh he kinda got shafted there because of all that dialogue between Dawn and Brock eh? But even then, he still got a better end of the stick than Ash did in canon when Buizel got taken out with one Metal Claw. **

**I mean seriously? Steel is bad against Water-Types and when Buizel was wild he took multiple Thunderbolt's from Pikachu and stood strong. The writers need to stop shafting Ash for childish reasons like Kenny having a crush on Dawn.**

**They shaft us Ash fans right along with him. And I don't like being shafted. I'm a sociopath at heart, fear my mighty roar when you mess with my Pokemonz!**

**Anyway, moving on. A few of you asked about Hoenn With Skill. And the truth is, I'm about 2000 words into the next chapter. But the problem with that story is that I mostly have the later plot figured out and very little of the early plot. And the biggest issue is I can't decide on what Pokemon for Ash to catch in it.**

**Three of his team have been decided. Pikachu, Haunter and Treecko are a certain. But the other three are up for grabs. A Feebas or a Vulpix are two maybe's. If any of you have any suggestions I'm willing to listen, just list what Pokemon and why you think they'd fit well with Ash's team or why you think he should catch it.**

**Sadly, suggestions like "Garchomp cuz its fuckin awesome!" Aren't really what I'm looking for though. And will probably not weigh in at all in my decisions except for maybe making me less enthusiastic to add them to the team.**

**And again guys. There's a link to my profile on my profile so if you like to watch streaming feel free to follow me. Every new follower is a big help to me.**

**Anyway, this AN has gone on far too long. So I'll end it here and get back to watching the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl season. I'm at the Lily Of The Valley Conference right now. Good stuff man, the battles are great.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ugh, hey guys. This chapter took way longer than it should have. But seriously, the obscene lack of any good Pearlshipping story makes it hard for me to write this. And then when I try to read Advancedshipping stories to get in the mood for Hoenn With Skill – they always go and pair Dawn with Gary, Paul or hell even Drew a lot of the time. And that's an automatic kill switch for me.**

**Ya know?**

**I'd like it if you guys could hook me up with the best Pearlshipping stories around. But then, a lot of you send me fics to read where the grammar and spelling is terrible and the plots are retarded. I don't even consider my stories good, so sending me stories that are worse is a big no no. No offense.**

**The only thing keeping my Pokemon mood going is listening to AMV's and making plots up in my head. And that can only last me so long.**

**I've decided on Ash catching an Aron in Hoenn With Skill – but I've lost my motivation for Haunter. So I'll probably Oak Ranch Haunter until I'm in the mood for it again.**

**On another note, I let the X/Y anime build up on episodes to watch a bunch of them in a row. And god was I disappointed. Ash is even worse than he was in Black and White. All of a sudden Pikachu can't battle on ice? But what about his battle against Pryce in Johto? Or Brandon's Regice? And he needs help to teach Froakie Quick Attack? Doesn't he have like ten Pokemon who can use it?**

**And even then, he failed at it.**

**Man, Gary and Paul would be ashamed of him. And the series started off so well too. What a pity. Although I wonder what other Pokemon he's gonna get. I'm calling it now, that just like in the games, that Fighting-Type Gym Leader will give Ash one of her Lucario.**

**Anyway remember and tell me about any good Pearlshipping stories you find. I literally haven't read a good one in over six months.**

**And I won't keep you here any longer, this AN has gone on way too long as it is. Keep in mind that this chapter isn't beta'd. But, there shouldn't be many, if any spelling mistakes and few grammar ones.**

**Working The World With Skill**

**Chapter 2**

**Begin!**

* * *

Trainer village, Ash had to admit was a beautiful place. It was a small village built to cater to competitors for the Sinnoh League each season. But even then, buisness was booming.

Trainers could book high-class cabins or hotel rooms to stay in as soon as they collected the eight Gym Badges needed to participated in the Sinnoh League. Some veterans stayed at the village even since the ending of the last league instead of leaving. Training constantly for the next league coming with the next season.

With Pikachu on his shoulder, Ash left the small cosy cabin assigned to him and his guests for qualifying to compete.

"Oh yeah.." The raven haired trainer moaned in pleasure as he stretched his arms upwards and felt his back give a satisfying 'pop' sound.

With that done, Ash looked around the area his cabin was in. The ground was covered in grass and lining down both sides of his cabin were other cabins aswell – dozens of them on end.

He walked on, humming contently to himself as the early morning Pidgey chirped above. There were battle fields assigned to trainers to train in if they arrived early like he did. But there would be far too many other competitors lurking around trying to get an upper-hand against their opponents by learning what Pokemon they had and how they battled.

Instead, Ash made his way behind the cabins and entered the forest that was situated a small ways away. Not coming to a stop until he came out of the side of the forest at an empty clearing beside a small lake.

When he came to a stop in the middle of the clearing. Pikachu took that as his cue and the small electric rodent Pokemon jumped down from his position on Ash's shoulder and stood at the ready in front of his trainer.

Ash smiled at Pikachu, before retrieving the five Pokeball's hanging from his belt and releasing the Pokemon within.

In blinding flashes of light, they appeared beside Pikachu in front of him awaiting his commands.

Buizel, arms crossed in his usual cool pose. Twin-tails twitching in anticipation for the harsh training to commence.

Infernape, bipedal and just as tall as Ash. White and brown furred with gleaming golden markings, flame atop his head shimmering with heat and his blue eyes eagerly awaiting orders from his trainer.

Staraptor, crimson eyes steady with his grey and white feathers neatly arranged. Standing proudly and even taller than his trainer. The red colored plumage hanging from the avian Pokemon's head made him look all the more majestic in Ash's eyes.

Torterra, massive and powerful. The continent Pokemon took position behind the rest due to his immense size, gleaming impenetrable green shell, large proud tree on his back and all.

And finally Gible, the smallest and most recent addition to his family of Pokemon. The small blue and red Dragon-type looked around blankly as if he wasn't even paying attention. But Ash knew better, Gible was a bit slow but there was an energetic fun lover behind those eyes that only ever gleamed when with friends or in the excitement of battle.

"Alright guys." Ash began, pacing in front of his Pokemon and his amber eyes serious, "This is it, we're finally here at the Sinnoh League and we're gonna win it all!" He declared, eyes flashing from serious to a shining determination.

There was a collective cry of agreement from his Pokemon, even Gible at the passion in his voice. "We've got just under a month left to train." Ash told them, continuing on, "So before the time is up, I want each of you to have learned the attacks I've chosen for you."

He looked each of his Pokemon in the eye. Smiling as he saw their steely determination to win mirrored back at him within each iris. "Right then, time to pair up!" He said. He lifted a hand and pointed at Pikachu and then Infernape, "Pikachu, since Infernape is gonna be learning ThunderPunch I want you with him." The trainer told his starter Pokemon, "Use a low powered Thunderbolt at his hand and keep it up until Infernape gets a feel for it enough to generate some sparks for the attack himself, got it?" He questioned at the end of his order.

There were no problems it seemed. Pikachu replied by pumping his small yellow paw into the air and replying with a, "Pi Pikachu Pikapi!" And Infernape followed that up with his navy blue fingered hand held in a salute.

When they both bounded off to train with each other, Ash turned his attention to Buizel. The amber eyed trainer pointed off to the lake, "Alright Buizel, Hydro Pump is for the most part just a more powerful version of Water Gun." He told the Water-Type of his team, receiving a few nods in reply, "In that case, I want you to keep firing your Water Gun across the lake and train with it until you can put enough power into the attack for it to become a Hydro Pump attack."

Buizel barely even waited until he was finished relaying his orders before running off to start firing jet after jet of compressed water across the lake. Ash sighed, shaking his head, "So much like Sceptile it's unreal." He lamented with a small chuckle. When Buizel eventually evolved and had enough power to keep up, he was sure he and Sceptile would become great sparring buddies.

With that done, he turned to the last three. Rubbing Staraptor's red plume affectionately he told them, "And you guys, I'll be working with personally."

The 14 year old trainer turned to Staraptor first, "Right buddy, the only thing you're really missing is a long ranged attack so on that note I've decided I want you to learn Hyper Beam." He told the massive bird Pokemon. It was true, Staraptor was nearly the same size his old buddy Pidgeot had been and could probably easily carry Ash on his back with no trouble.

"Raptor!" Staraptor chirped in reply, saluting him with a wing.

Ash chuckled, "You're quite lucky that I've already taught this attack to a few of my older Pokemon so know how to do it already." He said, "The idea is to focus your energy within your beak and compress it as much as you can into a small orb before unleashing it in a devastating beam of power." The amber eyed teen explained.

They could really focus and compress the power into an orb anywhere on their body. But the best place for a bird Pokemon like Staraptor to do it was within the beak.

Done explaining that. He left Staraptor to his own devices for now to start harnessing his power and trying to compress it – Ash himself turned to Torterra the Pokemon in his team with by far the hardest Technique to learn. Especially since Ash had very little idea as to how to go about teaching it to Torterra. There was very little information on learning the attack in his Pokedex. But He'd seen the attack enough times now to get a rough idea on how to do it, and along with the little information he got from his Pokedex he should be able to piece it together.

"Alright Torterra, you're learning Frenzy Plant." Ash stated simply. It wasn't really that simple. No Frenzy Plant was the most powerful of all Grass-type Pokemon attacks. Only extremely well trained and powerful Pokemon could learn it or its other variants in Hydro Cannon or Blast Burn.

The Pokemon learning the attack had to be all of three things. Powerful, experienced and gifted. That was why the likes of Kenny's Empoleon had such a weak version of the attack. The Empoleon was gifted, no doubt there since it actually managed to learn the attack albeit weak as hell. But Kenny had his Empoleon for at most a year, so it wasn't very experienced in using high powered attacks especially since it wasn't very powerful as far as Empoleon went due to it being a Contest Pokemon.

So Torterra's reaction of going wide-eyed and sputtering was quite expected. Ash merely smiled though, "It's fine, I have faith in you." He stated simply.

That got Torterra to look at him wide-eyed next. But Ash pushed forward, "Like with Staraptor learning Hyper Beam the theory behind using Frenzy Plant is your energy." He started, Torterra listening along with rapt attention, "But instead of compressing it, you need to spread the energy out under the ground beneath you and form the vines of the attack with both your energy and willpower." The trainer outlined.

Saying that, Ash reached out and scratched gently behind one of the large spikes jutting out the side of Torterra's head, "I don't expect you to get this quickly buddy, but I've known you since you were a little Turtwig and I believe in you." Ash told his Pokemon.

It was true of course. He had the utmost faith in his Pokemon, all of them. Turtwig came from a similar background to his Bulbasaur and was always battling and protecting Pokemon weaker than him. Ash knew he had the experience, and he definitely had the power for it - his many battles were proof enough of that to Ash. All that remained to be seen was if Torterra had the skill to manifest the attack, and Ash believed he did.

An honest to goodness red flush appeared over Torterra's brown skin and the massive Pokemon looked off to the side bashfully, "Terra.." The Pokemon rumbled happily at Ash's praise.

Finally, Ash turned to Gible who was once again looking at him blankly and the amber eyed trainer had to sigh, "Alright then, let's take it from the top."

And as Gible powered up and fired the orange orb of Draconian energy up into the air. Ash muttered dryly to himself, "At the very least Piplup is hidden away safely back at the cabin."

As expected. It was another dud and the attack puttered out high in the sky before falling way off into the forest. Rather close to the direction his cabin was in actually...

Poor poor Piplup.

* * *

Four hours. Four hours of blissful, sweat inducing, muscle pumping training was all he got with his Pokemon before distractions ensued. At around Ten, Dawn and Brock showed up where he was training and forced him into taking a break. So on that note, Dawn had dragged him off back towards the small shopping district of Trainer Village while Brock offered to watch over his Pokemon while they took a small break before getting back into their training.

Arms crossed behind his head, Ash sighed, "What a waste of time." He grumbled in annoyance, "You do know I could be getting more training in right now don't you?" He asked the blue haired girl walking beside him.

Dawn merely stuck her tongue out at him before pinching her nose with two fingers, "I think you've done enough for now Ash, you smell enough as it is." She replied, "You know when most people say that they're going to train with their Pokemon – they don't train right alongside them and work up more of a sweat than the Pokemon themselves, Pee-yoo." The bluenette commented with a shake of her head.

Ash frowned at the reply. He made sure she wasn't watching as he lifted his arm up and took a quick whiff off his armpit. The amber eyed teen recoiled in slight disgust at the smell. Either way, he shook his head after lowering his arm discreetly once again.

He wasn't much when it came to kata or the like. But he was no slouch in a fight himself, there was a reason after all he was confident enough to swing a punch at Mewtwo and pick a fight with Lucario. Plus, he found it only natural that if his Pokemon were pushing themselves to their limits that he should aswell right alongside them.

"Besides." Dawn interrupted his thoughts. "Don't you like spending time with me?" She asked, demurely poking at pouted lips with a small feminine finger and her deep sapphire blue eyes glazed with wetness.

It was very cute.

Ash sighed, looking away from her. "No, I love spending time with you." He replied, fingering the brim of his cap with a sudden anxiety. Was it just him, or had Dawn began to act a little different since they got here on Lily of the Valley Island?

He shook it off. He'd think on it later. "So why are we here anyway?" Ash questioned abruptly, turning his head back to face Dawn who was smiling brilliantly at him.

She blinked, "You mean you don't remember?" The Coordinator questioned.

Ash frowned at her in puzzlement, "Remember what?" He asked.

Dawn sighed, but then looked back at him suddenly, her eyes glinting with mischief. "Oh I decided last night that since you're going to win the Sinnoh League and become famous.." She trailed off slightly, before suddenly chirping, "You need a make-over to go with your soon to be fame and infamy."

Ash hadn't really been paying attention truth be told. He'd just been nodding his head along assuming this was another time where she dragged him off shopping and made him carry the bags. That is until what she said finally registered at the back of his mind.

"What?!" The amber eyed trainer shouted, turning to her hastily and waving his hands. "No way Dawn! I will not subject myself to becoming a live dress up doll for you!" He thundered, glaring with all the might he could muster.

That was until he once again saw the cute little demure pout on her face and the watery eyes. And so he gave in and let her have her way. "Fine.." The raven haired trainer groaned. He was never good at denying girls anything unless they were the loud and proud type like Misty or Angie.

"Yay!" Dawn chirped happily, latching onto his arm and dragging him off. Towards his doom and eternal damnation.

He sighed, looking up at the sky in defeat. He should have known this day was going to come. Misty could never get him into being her dress up doll because she was so overbearing when she wanted something. May, well she came close but he'd managed to stutter his excuses and throw Max in the line of fire.

With Misty it was easy to say no. Because she always got so angy and demanding. But May and Dawn always went with the cutesy pouting act when they wanted him to do something. And there was no Max here to throw in the line of fire.

...He should have made Max come to Sinnoh with him. The kid was probably just sitting back at the Petalburg Gym bored out of his mind anyway. There was no way Max would travel Johto with May when Drew was around. The kid did ask him to beat the crap out of the grass haired sissy once upon a time after all.

* * *

Two hours.

Two freaking hours of mind numbing hell. Outfit, after outfit he was forced to try on. And then when they were finally done, Dawn just had to pick out some 'cute' outfits for herself.

Arceus above man. He thought he had some pull with the big guy when he saved his life. What had he done for Arceus to punish him with such torture?

'_I'm onto you big guy...They say you love us all equally, but I'm onto you._'

He drew the line though when she tried to get him to give up wearing a hat and get his hair styled. Small mercy as it was, atleast he thought the outfit looked pretty cool.

Black short boots with blue laces, black cargo jeans tucked into the boots. His torso was covered by a black zipped shirt with white under-shirt and atop his head a plain midnight black outdoors cap.

It was already noon when he finally managed to drag Dawn out of the boutique. And of course, he was the one carrying the bags.

"Never again!" Ash declared vehemently as they walked.

Dawn giggled beside him, her blue eyes alight with amusement, "C'mon Ash, don't be so dramatic." The bluenette replied, "It wasn't that bad."

Ash snorted, "Yeah it was." He glared at his female travelling companion in annoyance, "I seriously thought I was in another Darkrai induced nightmare – that is until I realized even Darkrai couldn't come up with such a horrifying dream."

Let it never be said that he remotely enjoyed shopping with a female. Everything to do with shopping became a thousand times more complicated and trying when they tagged along.

Dawn merely giggled again, before jogging a bit ahead of him and performing a little spin, "So what did you think?" She asked suddenly, "Did that outfits I buy look good on me?" The Coordinator inquired, eyes searching his face and a light flush across her cheeks.

Ash snorted once again as he walked past her and she fell in line with him again, "Dawn, you look great in just about anything." The amber eyed trainer replied bluntly, "Asking me again every time you buy a new outfit isn't going to change that."

She bought some new article of clothing every few days or so after all, literally. It was a good thing they were as good as they were in their chosen professions because the clothes she liked to buy were expensive as hell.

No joke. The new outfit he just bought in accordance with her wishes was a lot less extravagant than the ones she bought. And even then, this outfit costed more than a bag of evolution stones. Considering there were nine evolution stones per bag and they averaged at 2100 Pokedollars, that was a lot of money just to spend on one outfit.

The raven haired trainer didn't think he'd ever spent that much money on clothes before in his life. Trust Dawn to drag him into a boutique that imported all their clothing from the Kalos Region – the fashion center of the world.

Dawn's face flushed a deeper shade of red despite herself. And the bluenette sighed as she saw Ash barely even blink at the compliment he gave her. "Seriously Ash?" She groaned, palming her forehead in annoyance, "You'd be so good at this stuff if you weren't so damn dense."

He was never shy with the compliments at the very least, and he always seemed to know the right thing to say to lift her spirits. She blamed Brock, if he wasn't so obsessed with hitting on every good looking girl with a pulse – Ash would probably have realized that he was actually naturally flirting.

As it was, he'd been travelling with Brock since before he started puberty and had probably thought that the breeder's crazy attempts at wooing girls was how flirting went. And with how Brock usually ended up, Dawn supposed she couldn't exactly blame Ash for being so dense.

"Good at what?" Ash questioned, blinking in puzzlement.

Dawn sighed again, then she allowed a small smile to spread over her pretty face and she bumped her shoulder gently against his, "No need to worry Ash." She said, her voice filled with both sympathy and amusement, "When the time comes I'll teach you all you need to know." She promised, gleaming white teeth showing through her now wide smile.

With that said, the blue haired Coordinator began to skip ahead of him happily.

The innuendo flew right over Ash's head. And the raven haired trainer watched her pull ahead with a blank expression, "...Teach me what though?" He questioned himself.

His eyes were drawn downwards from her back to the swaying pink mini-skirt she was wearing. He let the question rest for now, he atleast had something appealing to look at while they walked.

* * *

Night had fallen, and the clearing was almost silent. The majority of his Pokemon had been returned to their Pokeballs for now to rest. They'd worked hard all day so they deserved a good nights rest before they continued again tomorrow.

There were two of his Pokemon still out though. Pikachu on one side of the clearing, and Infernape on the other. Ash stood off to the side, observing them both. It was always good to get a view from outside the battle – that way he could easier see what they needed to work on.

The practice battle kicked off with Pikachu making the first move. The small Electric-Type Pokemon blurred forward, far to fast for the un-trained eye to keep up with. Thankfully for Ash, he'd been battling with Pikachu for years and so could track the movements of his partner, even if barely.

In less than a second, Pikachu cleared the distance between himself and Infernape and came blitzing out of a spin at the dual Fire and Fighting-type with his tail glowing wit a blinding, silvery white energy.

With lightning fast reflexes, Infernape intercepted the Iron Tail attack with one of his fists imbued with the power of Mach Punch. Steel and Fighting attacks clashed and a small shockwave blasted through the clearing, severing leaves from trees and ruffling Ash's hair.

Infernape had his other imbued with the power of a Mach Punch attack. But had no chance to utilize his other arm because Pikachu proved to be stronger in a show of physical prowess and sent Infernape skidding back, his feet digging deep gouges in the ground below as he pushed with all his might to keep his balance.

Pikachu wasn't about to left his opponent escape unscathed though and his body exploded with a brilliant yellow aura of electricity, before letting loose massive arc of it in a Thunderbolt attack straight towards Infernape.

The attack was dodged with simian agileness as Infernape cart-wheeled off to the side. The ground were Infernape previously stood was rent asunder by the power of the Thunderbolt attack and left behind a charred black pot-hole equal in circumference to the arc of electricity.

Pikachu, still in mid-air was left open to attack. And Infernape took his chance. With a quick opening of the mouth, and a deep breath Infernape launched a corona of fire straight towards Pikachu.

When the Flamethrower attack closed in on its target. Pikachu flipped forward and struck down with another Iron Tail attack, cleaving the corona of flames in half and allowing them to harmlessly pass him by.

Landing on the ground, Pikachu with his tail singed slightly from the heat of the attack blitzed forward faster than ever, a silvery-white trail of energy escaping from behind him.

With his speed augmented by the Quick Attack, Infernape couldn't react in time to dodge or intercept the attack and was speared harshly in the stomach by Pikachu's full body tackle.

Spittle escaped from Infernape's mouth and the fire monkey gasped in pain as he was sent bouncing across the floor of the clearing, painfully.

"Pika pika pika pika pika!" Pikachu chanted the mantra as he followed up with his most powerful attack. Intending to end the battle right there and then as he blitzed forward with an aura of crackling, yellow electricity that encompassed his body ten times over.

Infernape, coming out of his last bounce across the clearing used it to his advantage and as he was coming down punched his way straight through the ground and dug his way to safety under the earth.

Just in time as not even a second later did Pikachu pass right over the hole he escaped into with his Volt Tackle before skidding to a halt as his target escaped.

There was no time to react as the earth beside the hole splintered and Infernape shot upwards with a Mach Punch uppercut that landed straight and true under Pikachu's cheek.

"Pika!" The electric rodent cried in pain. But gave as good as he got, he may have taken a powerful attack from Infernape's fist but even as he was hit and sent soaring he still managed to clip Infernape's shoulder with a hastily performed Iron Tail attack.

They landed at opposite sides of the clearing again, using the momentum they took from the attacks to their advantages. Although, not without consequence. Pikachu panted deeply on all fours, the bottom half of his face purpling from bruising that showed even through his yellow fur. And Infernape's right arm limp from the shoulder down thanks to Pikachu striking it straight on the bone.

Whatever pain they were feeling though, Ash noted that they both ignored it well. Because a second later they were at it again, Pikachu's body exploding with electricity as he released another Thunderbolt and Infernape responding in kind by firing another Flamethrower attack.

The massive arc of electricity met the corona of flames head on. They clashed, pushing against each other for dominance but were far too close in strength for one to over power the other and thus exploded powerful mid-air, filling the clearing with thick black smoke.

"Nape!"

"Pika pika pka pika pika!"

Ash heard the respective cries of his Pokemon before a resounding 'BOOM' exploded through the clearing and blew the entire smokescreen away.

Pikachu's body once again coated in the aura of Volt Tackle clashed against Infernape in the shape of a flaming wheel, pushing against each other for dominance.

Volt Tackle and Flame Wheel pushed against each other seeking to overpower the other. But finally, after a few moment the fire faltered and Pikachu pushed through, winning the clash.

The flaming shield encompassing Infernape's body was cleaved straight through and dispersed. And Pikachu's attack struck Infernape head on. The fully evolved form of Chimchar screeched in pain before he was launched straight into the ground.

The earth cratered beneath Infernape from the force of his landing, and the Fire-type twitched erratically as electrical discharge surged throughout his body.

Bones rattled from the impact, and the white fur on his chest seared and matted. Infernape still wasn't willing to give up. On shaky legs, the fully evolved Pokemon struggled to his feet from the crater he as blasted into.

And all the while, Pikachu biting his lip in pain due to the backlash from Volt Tackle watched with calm, unwavering confidence.

The discharge coursing throughout and over Infernape's body slowly stilled to a stop, and sparks began to ignite around his clenched fist.

But before Infernape could launch into another attack, Ash clapped his hands once and loudly. "That's enough guys." He called out to them.

There was a collective sigh between the two Pokemon and then they relaxed. Pikachu's black eyes turning soft as they took in his team-mate and Infernape allowing the beginnings of the ThunderPunch to fade and falling to one knee.

Both panted deeply, exhaustion from both the battle and training all day settling in. Ash had to admit, they both looked a little worse for wear but nonetheless he smiled. "That was great you two." He praised them, walking over and taking a seat in front of them both, "I saw exactly what we have to work on now!" The amber eyed teen declared, smiling with pride.

"Pi, pikachu Pikapi?" Pikachu said, cocking his small yellow head to the side. Beside him, Infernape nodded eagerly and pumped his fist into the air despite his position on one knee.

Ash laughed. He wasn't able to understand the way Pokemon spoke. But he was so close to his Pokemon that he could figure out the general meaning behind what they were saying. Like 'Pikapi' for instance, that was Pikachu saying his name or the equivalent of it in Pokespeech.

As for what they were saying. Well, he got the feeling that they were asking what he thought they should work on. So, Ash decided to tell them that. "I was right in deciding that we needed to teach Pikachu how to use damage-reducing moves like Reflect and Light Screen." He began, pointing at his first Pokemon, "Infernape only managed to land one clean blow against you Pikachu, despite that though it did quite a bit of damage." The trainer pointed out.

Pikachu sighed, eyes appearing downcast but nodded in reply to what Ash was saying. Pikachu knew that ofcourse, despite all their training in physical aspects they still hadn't managed to work past his species fragility. His speed was off the charts, and his physical strength was unreal for a Pokemon his size – being able to toss a fully grown Milotic as if it were a tiny little Ekans.

There was an instant answer to that problem. But he wasn't willing to submit to that just yet, Pikachu would only ever consent to becoming a Raichu when his Pikapi desperately needed him to and not a second before.

With Pikachu's evaluation done, Ash turned to Infernape who was still eagerly awaiting what they were to train him in next. "You were great as always Infernape, but despite your insane reflexes you still couldn't keep up with Pikachu's speed and you were overpowered a bit too easily when you clashed your Mach Punch against Pikachu's Iron Tail attack." Ash explained to his Pokemon.

"Nape, nape!" Infernape replied, nodding his fiery head in agreement.

So here's what we're gonna do." Ash continued with a grin, "You've got Thunderpunch nearly done, so once your done with that and Flare Blitz well start training you to be faster and get your physical strength up to par so nobody can overpower you like Pikachu did again." He explained. It was just a general outline, because it takes quite a bit of unorthodox training to get physical strength the way Pikachu did. And the same way wouldn't work for Infernape since he was a Fire-type and most of Pikachu's physical strength was gained training under water.

Infernape nodded eagerly once again and Ash's grin stretched a tad, "Right then." He said, standing up and pulling out Infernape's Pokeball, "You take a nice long rest, trust me you're gonna need it." And with that Infernape was struck by the red beam from the Pokeball and sucked inside.

After clipping the Pokeball back onto his belt beside the others, he picked up Pikachu and cradled the small Pokemon within his arms gently, "C'mon buddy, let's me n' you go take a nice warm bath and then hit the sack." He said softly to the Pokemon in his arms.

"Chaaa..." Pikachu moaned contently at the thought of the nice warm water soothing his aching muscles and the feather soft bed that awaited straight after.

* * *

**Aaand Done! Hope you guys enjoyed it. Even if it was kinda short in comparison with my regular chapters – but in my defense this was just a filler chapter for the most part.**

**The outfit I gave Ash is the one I designed for my character in the X/Y games so head on over to Serebi and you'll be able to get pictures of each article of clothing.**

**Got nothing much else to say. So I'll leave this off here. Later guys, hope you enjoyed it and hopefully I can get my muse to flare up better than ever soon.**


	3. Chapter 3

**This chapter was hard to get out. Thankfully now we're straight into the tournament arc though so they should be a lot easier to write from here on.**

**You know what I've noticed lately guys? All the people who seem to think canon Red is the same as in the games. Seriously man, Red didn't even get 50 registered Pokemon in his Pokedex – never mind complete the damn thing.**

**Since they Red fanboys have got a major hard on for his game counterpart. Does that also mean that the Ash from my Yellow version is canon aswell? Because I had all 151 original Pokemon in it and was champion.**

**Honestly, the majority of the Red fanboys can't even get his original team of 6 right. How sad is that? So just remember people, when you see somebody ragging on Ash and spouting bullshit about Red – remember that he never completed the Pokedex, he never defeated a champion and took over as champion master of a region and he never became a Pokemon Master.**

**Well, technically Origins-Red did, but does anyone really think he's in the running?**

**I'll give credit where it's due in that he caught both Mewtwo and Deoxys in canon. And he's pretty good as a trainer in the manga, but this stone cold badass Red that everybody seems to jizz over isn't even a real character.**

**Also, people! Get sending me good Pearlshipping links or write some of your own. I challenge thee!**

**But anyway, I've got nothing else to say so I'll let you guys get on with this.**

**Working The World With Skill**

**Chapter 3**

**Go!**

* * *

The month of training passed by quickly, and before Ash knew it he was standing opposite his opponent of the screening round with a Pokeball in hand.

There weren't many fans in the stadium. Seeing as most of them were attending matches of the crowd favourites – and he just simply wasn't one of them. Maybe in Kanto he would be, but over here in Sinnoh he wasn't well known at all.

That suited Ash just fine. They would all know his name soon enough.

"Trainers, reveal your Pokemon!" The referee suited in a yellow long sleeved shirt and black shorts ordered, swishing both his green and red flag downwards.

His opponent, a large burly man in a karate gi allowed his Pokemon to escape its Pokeball in a burst of silvery white light. The light formed and condensed into the humanoid, overly muscular form of a large four armed Machamp, punching its fists together.

Machamp was a bipedal humanoid Pokémon with four well-muscled arms. Its skin was bluish gray in color, and it had crimson red eyes with pale yellow lips. On its head there were three brown ridges right above its eyes. It had two arms on each side of its body: a pair located in the normal position, and another pair directly above that attached on the top of the shoulders. It wore legless black tights along with a golden power-save belt. Its legs were bulky and muscled to the extreme and its feet had two toes each.

Gah, he wished that thing wouldn't flex directly in front of him. Those rippling muscles and tight spandex did _not_ go well together. Thank God for small mercies that he saw no bulge.

He'd probably have tried to claw his own eyes out if that were the case.

Vomit inducing as the sight was, Ash revealed his own Pokemon at nearly the exact same time. Small and bipedal, the Pokemon had bluish fur at the top half of its body and yellow near from the underbelly downwards. Long snouted, its eyes were near enough fully closed and the Pokemon had four red spots on its back.

"Let's do this Cyndaquil!" Ash called to his Pokemon.

"Cynda!" Was the enthusiastic reply he got, along with the four spots along Cyndaquil's back erupting with fire that cascaded down the small Pokemon's back like a protective coating.

Good, it seemed Cyndaquil wasn't acting like his usual lazy self. He seemed fired up for this. Possibly because he hadn't used the little guy in an official battle since the end of his Johto journey.

Huh, damn he was kind of neglectful to his Pokemon wasn't he?

His opponent, Raymond if Ash remembered right, made the first move. "This should be quick." The burly man commented, "Machamp attack with Karate Chop!"

With great lumbering steps. Machomp broke into a run and sprinted right for Cyndaquil, all four arms glowing a bright silvery white up to the elbow.

"Let it get close Cyndaquil, then dodge around its attacks." Ash ordered calmly in response as the lumbering giant closed in on Cyndaquil.

Cyndaquil didn't deign to reply to him this time. But Ash knew he heard him regardless, it was just the way Cyndaquil was.

Upon reaching Cyndaquil, Machamp swung down one glowing arm. Cyndaquil replied by nimbly jumping back a small step and evading the swing. Not to be outdone, Machamp countered by following up with its two bottom arms.

Cyndaquil jumped back into his previous position, dodging in between both arms and then jumped straight up evading the forth arm that was swung downwards intent on smashing the small Fire-Types skull.

The power behind the final Karate Chop and the size difference caused Machamp to over extend its attack and the large Fighting-Type Pokemon barely stopped itself from landing flat on its face.

Just the opportunity Ash was waiting for.

"Flamethrower." The raven haired trainer ordered.

In the air above Machamp's head, Cyndaquil opened his mouth and let loose a spiralling torrent of searing hot flames.

The flames crashed into the large Pokemon's back and the force behind them drove Machamp to its knees, all the while the hot flames seared into its back.

Machamp roared in pain. Raymond cursed, "Get rid of it with Cross Chop!" He bellowed loudly, clenching his fists.

Despite the pain it was no doubt feeling, the Machamp managed to shakily push itself to its feet and whirled around, all four arms crossed behind each other and glowing with a radiant silver energy.

"Aerial Ace!" Ash shouted sharply in reply.

Like a rocket, Machamp shot forth spearing through the flames and cleaving them its way through with pure physical strength alone in its bid to reach Cyndaquil. Jumping, Machamp continued onwards intent on laying Cyndaquil out with a full powered Cross Chop barrage.

But upon contact, Cyndaquil seemingly winked out of existence. And then re-appeared, small body covered in a white aura spearing straight into Machamp's stomach.

Spittle flew from its mouth, and Machamp crashed into the battle field harshly. The upper part of the Pokemon's back was charred black in a few spots and blood freely leaked from the wound.

Still though, the massive humanoid Pokemon rose. Shakily as it was, the Fighting-Type Pokemon managed to push itself into a kneeling position.

That Flamethrower alone was highly effective, but Aerial Ace seemed to have done quite a bit of damage, Ash noted. Good, despite being in his bottom stage Cyndaquil still had quite a bit of power behind him.

And then Cyndaquil landed and erupted entirely with bright silvery white light. His body grew in size, elongated and another fire erupted from the back of the Pokemon's head.

Never mind then. Previous statements amended.

And then the light died down. "Quilava!" The newly evolved Pokemon declared.

His Pokedex was out in a flash. He didn't really know much about Quilava as a species after all, "_Quilava, the Volcano Pokémon, and the evolved form of Cyndaquil. Quilava intimidates foes with its flame's heat, and when ready to battle, the fire burns with more strength_." His Pokedex rattled off.

He noted with some satisfaction that the attack Eruption had made its way into his newly evolved Quilava's move pool. Brilliant, but he'd put that on the back burner for now. He hadn't practiced with it enough to work it into his strategy for this match.

No, better to go with the rather surprising move Quilava had learned as a Cyndaquil during his time apart from Ash.

Raymond gaped, Machamp right alongside him. And Ash grinned in delight, thumbing his nose in excitement, "Way to go Quilava!" The amber eyed teen shouted, pumping a fist into the air, "Now let's go for the win right now! Extrasensory!" He ordered.

Machamp hadn't even fully gotten to its feet before Quilava was on the offensive once again. His eyes lit up with golden energy and from his mouth Quilava let loose a large multi-colored crescent beam.

The Phsychic-Type attack washed over Machamp before it could react and was immobilized entirely. Once, twice, three times Quilava lifted Machamp into the air and then smashed down into the ground painfully before Ash issued his next command, "Now finish it up with Flame Wheel!"

"Machamp, Hyper Beam!" Raymond issued, desperation lining his voice.

Purple energy flashed all around Machamp's open mouth, condensing together and forming a small orb of deadly energy. Machamp couldn't move because of the Psychic energy immobilizing its body but it could still launch long ranged attacks from within its body.

To bad though, that Quilava put an end to that before the attack was even fully formed. With a quick jerk of his head upwards, Quilava put an end to his Extrasensory attack and ended up slinging Machamp up into the air.

By the time Machamp righted itself mid-air and turned to face Quilava. It was already far too late. Like a speeding train, Quilava enveloped in a massive wheel of deadly orange red flames plowed straight into Machamp's chest.

The collision caused the hastily powered Hyper Beam to explode in Machamps face. And with the combined damage from the exploding Hyper Beam and Flame Wheel Machamp fell the last few feet of its drop limply.

Burned and bruised, it did not get back up.

"Machamp is unable to battle, the winner of this match is Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town!" The referee declared, swishing his red flag downwards in Machamp's direction.

Shoulders slumped in defeat, Raymond returned Machamp without a word and left. Ash himself knelt down and patted his newly evolved Quilava affectionately when he padded over to the Trainer, "Good job buddy." The raven haired trainer praised, "Take a nice long rest, you deserve it seeing as you done better than I could have ever hoped in this battle." And with that said, he lifted Quilava's Pokeball and returned him within a beam of red light.

Smirk proudly adorning his face, Ash like Raymond turned on his heels and left the battlefield to go meet up with his friends. After all, he was done for now. He only had to win that one match to make it through to the Preliminary Rounds of the Sinnoh League.

* * *

Screening battle over and done with. Ash met up with his two travelling companion at Lil Litleo's, a nice little restaurant situated on the street just a few minutes walk away from the Battle Stadiums. The restaurant was named after a Pokemon native to the Kalos Region – Ash was a bit put out that he'd never even heard of it before asking the owner during his month of training when he stepped in for a quick bite to eat.

It didn't take him long to find Brock and Dawn. Seeing as they were sitting at one of the outdoor tables. He couldn't help a grin tugging at his lips when he saw that they had already ordered for him as well. It was nice having friends that knew him so well they could order for him – and correctly at that.

He took a seat directly beside Dawn, placing him opposite Brock and facing the older teen. While down below the table, Pikachu and Piplup chattered and ate from two bowls filled with some of Brock's special Pokemon food.

"So how'd I do?" He questioned them as he sat down, plucking a fry from his plate. His grin was positively gleeful, "Did I awe you with my magnificent Trainer skills?" He questioned, voice laced with amusement.

"As humble as ever I see." Brock noted dryly. "But I gotta admit, you did great during that battle." The breeder conceded.

"Mmmhmm!" Dawn hummed in agreement, smiling brilliantly and nodding her head. "The best part was when your Cyndaquil evolved." The blunette piped in, "I think this is the first time I've seen a Pokemon actually evolve when they're already dominating the battle; it's usually a 'snatch victory from the jaws of defeat' kind of event."

His grin, turned into a full blown smirk. "Well, it's to be expected I suppose." The amber eyed trainer conceded, nodding his head as if in agreement with something, "I'm just that damn good." He boasted, puffing his chest out in an overly proud manner.

Dawn flicked him on the nose, rolling her eyes. "Now now, don't go getting a big head on me." She replied, playfully wagging a finger in his face, "If your head gets any more inflated you may just end up floating away on us." The coordinator teased.

He opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a loud cry of, "Get out of my way if ya' don't wanna get fined!"

Oh great. _Him_ again. Ash groaned internally, he better not come crashing into him once again because damn was it annoying.

The rushed words, the over excited shouting and the rambling about fining somebody left him with no doubt about who it was. Ash sighed, swivelling slightly to the side in his seat just in time for a tall, skinny blonde wearing grey slacks and an orange and white jacket to skid to a stop in front of him, "Ash you'll never believe what I just saw!" The teen shouted loudly, waving his fist in the air erratically and tugging at his green scarf with the other hand.

"Hey Barry how was your screening match?" Dawn questioned him. Interrupting his over excited rambling.

Barry automatically turned his head to reply, flashing the blue haired girl a thumbs up, "Great! The guy had no idea what he was getting into and I smoked him with Empoleon before he even knew what was going on." The blonde teen boasted. "Gaah!" He suddenly screamed, gripping his hair as if in frustration, "Don't distract me Dawn or I'll fine you! I've got something I really need to tell Ash!"

There was a collective eye roll shared between the three of them, but Ash humoured him anyway. "What is it Barry?" Ash asked, waving his hand at him as if to say 'hurry it up'.

Barry's head jerked towards Ash and the teen screamed again. Random passers-bys jumped in fright at the sudden sound and looked at him oddly, but the blonde haired teen wasn't paying attention to them, "I just saw a guy take out his opponents Pokemon in less than twenty seconds using a Darkrai!" Barry declared, loudly as was the norm for him.

Ash's eyes widened. A Darkrai? Man, talk about some stiff competition this year. Still though, unveiling his legendary Pokemon so early? Was the guy really so self assured in his win that he felt no problem in letting everyone know about his most powerful Pokemon off the bat?

Was he just arrogant in his usage of the Legendary nightmare inducing Pokemon? Or did he have something else up his sleeve? A secret weapon maybe? Like possibly another Legendary?

Ash didn't know what to think on that matter. But he wasn't scared in the slightest. In fact instead he felt a thrum of excitement in his veins. The tougher the battle, the more he and his Pokemon got into it. And just one legendary wasn't anything to be scared about, especially one of the low tier ones like Darkrai. They could be beaten one on one, the two wins he scored over legendaries back during his battles throughout the Battle Frontier was proof of that.

It wasn't like it was a Palkia or Rayquaza or something. Then he might have panicked a bit.

The thoughts on such strong opponents led him to thinking about his conversation with Professor Oak the previous night when he was rotating his team around for the upcoming screening match and then preliminaries right after

* * *

"_Got it Professor." Ash said, retrieving the final Pokeball from the transporter and holding it up to the screen to show the older man._

_Professor Oak nodded in delight, "Splendid, Splendid." He replied, "I'm really looking forward to watching your battles on the television, I'm sure you'll do great." The grey haired man told him._

_Ash smiled, "Thanks Professor." He replied, "That's all I really needed you for, so I'll be going now." The raven haired teen finished, lifting his hand and attempting to hang up the video phone._

_Before he could though, Professor Oak spoke up once again, "Ah, Ash there was one more thing I wanted to talk to you about." He interrupted._

_When he looked back at the screen, he noticed that Professor Oak was now holding two objects in his hands. One looked to be a necklace with an orange orb hanging at the center and containing an odd symbol within that looked almost like a small flame. In the other hand a bracelet that held a similar, but smaller orb which was green in color instead of blue._

"_Yeah?" The raven haired trainer asked, curiosity plaguing his eyes._

_The older man held up both objects for him to see better, "I received these objects from an associate of mine called Professor Sycamore – a man studying the theory of Mega Evolution in the Kalos Region." Oak replied._

_Ash blinked. Mega Evolution, what the hell was that? "I'm sorry Professor, but what?" He asked in confusion._

"_Mega Evolution is the theory that some Pokemon have the ability to temporarily evolve past their final forms." The Kanto Region Professor explained._

_Wow. Ash didn't know what to say to that, it was pretty damn awesome sounding. Still though, "What does this have to do with me?" Ash asked._

"_Aha, now we're getting somewhere!" Professor Oak declared, smiling in excitement, "It is said that Mega Evolution can only be triggered by a fully evolved Pokemon that shared a close bond with its trainer and had the Mega Stone needed to advance to its next form." He went on to explain._

_Ash rolled his eyes. "Yeah I understand Professor, but again how does this relate to me?" If Pikachu ever evolved into Raichu, they could probably do it. But that day was a long ways off._

_The good Professor's smile stretched, shaking the large blue stone in his hand, "You see Ash, this Mega Stone goes by the name of Charizardite and it is used to make a Charizard evolve into its Mega Form – Professor Sycamore sent it to me because he believed I would have a much easier time finding a Trainer with a deep enough bond to his Charizard to trigger the evolution." The Pallet Town Professor explained further. It made sense in a way, since there was bound to be far more Trainers with Charizard's in Kanto than in Kalos._

_His amber eyes widened in complete and utter shock. He choked slightly on his own syliva, "What!?" He shouted loudly, such was his shock._

_Oak nodded, "Yes, it's true." He said, as if to confirm any doubts Ash had, "You share a deep bond with all of your Pokemon, so I am sure you will be able to manage it."_

_Before Ash could shake off his shock and reply, Professor Oak continued, "I'll have these delivered straight to you, young man." He told Ash, "When you get them, make sure to send for Charizard – I'll be eagerly awaiting to see your Charizard performing Mega Evolution during the Sinnoh League." And with that, the video feed cut off._

_Ash wasn't sure what to feel as he stared at the blank monitor. There was excitement of course, both to try out the Mega Evolution thing and to see his old buddy Charizard. But should he really be happy being given a hand out like that?_

_Did he really want to become some sort of sell out? No, he shook his head vehemently. Charizard trained day in, day out at the Charicific Valley – if their bond was strong enough for Charizard to Mega Evolve then it just proved they deserved it. It wasn't something that would just _happen_, like tossing a stone at a newly evolved Pikachu to make it evolve again, Charizard would need to want to evolve again, have the drive to grow stronger than his current body would allow. That wasn't common, despite what most would think._

_On a less serious note, he wondered idly, just how awesome Mega Charizard would look, and how much stronger he would he become. That was a bit of a scary thought, actually, since Charizard had already reached the level of power and strength needed to defeat a Legendary Pokemon in a 1 on 1 battle._

* * *

"No way!" Brock gasped in shock, breaking Ash from his thoughts. "He has an honest to goodness Darkrai?"

"Yeah!" Barry shouted, "Damn, somebody should fine that guy! Using a Legendary Pokemon, isn't that like cheating or something?" He continued to rave.

"Sorry!" Dawn suddenly blurted, reaching over and grabbing Ash's arm, "I just forgot we totally have something we need to do!" And then with a mighty tug, she dragged Ash along with her and ran away from the area.

"Wha-?" Ash gasped, "Dawn!" But she ignored him dragging the raven haired teen along behind her all the way.

Brock watched them go, and then turned his attention back to the empty plates on the table and the still raving and ranting Barry, '_Damn it guys_, _You couldn't take me along as well_.' He thought dejectedly.

Not only did he get left with the bill, he had to be the one to indulge Barry's shouting or else he'd just be much worse later. Oh well, he would probably have broken one of the sacred rules of the Bro Code if he tagged along and got in the middle of whatever Dawn was planning for Ash.

Heh, maybe the dense teen would finally start putting his female wooing skills to the test? One could hope at least.

* * *

"So what's the malfunction?" Ash asked when they finally came to a stop.

He cocked an eyebrow when he noticed her shiver slightly. Was she cold or something? "Ugh, I caught Conway creeping around in the corner of my vision." The bluenette finally replied.

And suddenly his annoyance with her disappeared. He couldn't really blame her, Conway was as damn creepy as they came. And he practically stalked Dawn like some kind of rapist or something, the innuendo he always spouted at her didn't really help with the image he had going for him.

That wasn't really fair to Conway. He was a nice enough guy, and he meant well but he really did give off the stalker-rapist vibes at times. And his seeming obsession with Dawn made Ash leery of leaving her alone anywhere near the guy.

Better safe than story he supposed.

"Ah." Ash replied in realization. He patted her shoulder sympathetically, "If he was stalking me, I'd probably run away as well." Good thinking on Dawn's part to drag along a portable meat shield on such short notice.

Kudos to her.

"So how are you feeling?" The bluenette asked, changing the subject abruptly. He couldn't blame her, "Excited since you've made it through to the Preliminary Rounds?" She questioned further.

Ash couldn't say he wasn't. Only the top 64 Trainers would be going through to the Preliminaries. And then he'd need to win two matches in a row to make his way to the Victory Tournament where the top 16 Trainers would be matched up and battle it out.

"Damn right." He replied. What else could he say? He wasn't nervous in the least, more excited than anything. If they got put out early it just meant they weren't good enough yet, but he had faith his Pokemon were strong enough to take him all the way to the top.

Speaking of Pokemon. Ash noticed he didn't feel the usual comforting weight of his partner sitting atop his shoulder. "Shit!" He cursed.

Dawn blinked, "What?" She questioned.

Ash sighed, "I forgot to grab Pikachu back at the restaurant." He replied.

Dawn giggled. Noticing that she was in the same predicament and had forgotten to grab Piplup in her dash away from the approaching Conway. "No need to worry, both Pikachu and Piplup will come running when they want us." She stated.

Ash rolled his eyes, "When you say that, that's when I worry the most. I saw a full bottle of ketchup on every table, it could be days before I see him again." Was his response, another grin tugging at his lips despite himself.

Dawn pouted, "Seriously, stop quoting my mom."

Ash shook his head in amusement, "So where are we going?" He asked, changing the subject.

Dawn raised an eyebrow, "Well I'm going back to our cabin to relax." She replied, "I don't know about you though." The blue haired Coordinator pointed out.

Ash scratched his chin in thought, "Well, I've got a good few hours before I need to head to the main stadium for the Preliminary Match ups." The amber eyed teen said, "So I suppose I'll get some last minute Training in."

He was quite surprised when Dawn leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. He blinked, face flushing slightly as he looked at her, "What was that for?" He asked.

Dawn, face flushed even darker than his own had a small smile tugging at her lips as well, "A good luck charm." Was all she said before turning and continuing on her way towards their cabin.

Ash watched her go, eyes drawn to her skirt bouncing back and forth from the skip in her step, and then consequently a little higher at her swaying hips. Smile stretching a bit as he touched his cheek with one hand. '_Talk about confidence in herself_.' He mused.

"Hey Dawn!" He shouted, suddenly remembering about Pikachu, "When Brock gets back to the cabin with Pikachu wanna send'm on over to where I Train?"

"Sure, no need to worry!" She shouted back without even turning to face him.

He hated to see her go. But he sure did love to watch her leave. It wasn't hard to see why Conway was so obsessed with the girl. She had a lot of good qualities.

* * *

Dawn stood beside Brock in the stands. Clapping along with the many fans as the top 64 participants made their way onto the field of the stadium. Each one with a Pokemon accompanying them.

She whooped and cheered loudly as her blue eyes caught sight of Ash walking confidently in the middle of the pack. Pikachu hanging from his shoulder and making him stand out from the rest who just had Pokemon walking beside them.

Bright lights illuminated the entire stadium. Beams of orange light moving from side to side and shooting high up into the sky, Wailord and Mantine blimps flying overhead filled to the brim with advertisements and firework after firework being set off.

It was truly an exciting event.

"This is really great!" Dawn shouted over the noisy crowd.

Brock laughed in reply, "I forgot this is your first time being at the opening ceremony of a League." The brown haired breeder shouted back, "You shoulda' seen the excitement at the Indigo Plateau when Moltres showed up!"

Dawn laughed, she could scarcely imagine the beautiful Legendary Pokemon just randomly appearing because Team Rocket stole some of its fire. Brock had made sure to fill her in on what League Conference's were like exactly, but it never prepared her for this.

Contests and the Grand Festival pulled in large crowds. But nothing like this, there had to be at least a hundred thousand fans littering the stands and cheering their hearts out.

Two torch runners stood beside the flame pot. And together they lit it, along a large bonfire to roar into existence and tower above the stadium.

"_**And with the lighting of the Sinnoh League flame – the Lily Of The Valley Conference is officially under way**_!" The MC declared, his voice deep and echoing around the entire stadium.

The fireworks above exploded with a vengeance and Dawn couldn't keep the grin off her face as she sat down in her seat and pulled Piplup into her lap.

Brock sat down beside her and grinned at her, "It can get really intense, eh?" He prodded. "Let's just hope it doesn't go to Ash's head."

Dawn snorted, "I doubt there's much room left in that head of his." She quipped back in amusement.

They both laughed loudly. There was no doubt about it, Ash was confident to near the point of arrogance. That was just how much faith he had in himself and his Pokemon. It would be annoying if it wasn't so damn endearing.

* * *

As the crowd roared with screaming fans, and the fireworks erupted with mighty explosive bangs above. Ash smiled in anticipation, "It's finally happening buddy." He said to the Pokemon on his shoulder.

"Pi pi Pikapi!" The little Electric-Type rodent Pokemon replied pumping a small yellow fist.

Ash chuckled. Reaching up, he rubbed one of Pikachu's cheeks gently as his eyes panned over the entire stadium. His amber eyes locked on a compartment above the stands where he could quite clearly see the form of a small old man with a bushy white beard and a beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair and wearing all black, "Check it out." He said to his Pokemon, pointing at them, "It's Mr. Goodshow and Cynthia."

While looking up at them. His eyes actually met hers and she smiled at him, nodding her in congratulations for having come this far.

Ash merely smirked up at her and gave her a nod of his own before turning his attention elsewhere. His eyes panned over the other 63 competitors in the stadium, searching for people he knew personally. It didn't take much to find them, they were all stationed quite close to him. Nando, Conway, Barry and Paul looking as cold as ever stared up at the massive screen in front of them all.

He didn't see the guy with the Darkrai anywhere though, dang. He wanted to get a good look at the guy, but oh well.

He turned his own attention back to the massive screen as he heard the MC start speaking up again, "_**Now**_,_** it's time to unveil the Lily Of The Valley Conference's first round Match ups**_." He began, his voice reverberating around the entire stadium, "_**So...Here they are**_!" He declared.

With a flourish of color, a multitude of faces appeared on the screen. Each two paired together. His own face was near the very top, and he couldn't help the smirk that began to stretch across his face.

His first opponent in the preliminaries, was Conway.

"Lucky us." He commented to Pikachu, still grinning in excitement, "We got somebody strong right off the bat." And it was true. Despite his questionable habits, Conway was a very good Trainer who had some really tough Pokemon. Ash would need to pick his team for this battle carefully because there was a very real chance Conway could beat him.

He couldn't say he wasn't looking forward to it though.

His amber eyes met Conway's glinting gasses through the crowd. And they shared a pair of smirks with each other.

'_Good luck Conway_, _Just because your kind of a friend doesn't mean I'll be going easy on you_.' Ash thought with relish.

Conway, Nando, Barry, Paul or even that guy with the Darkrai. It didn't matter, he'd go right through them all if he had to. He was going to be the one walking away the winner this time.

* * *

**Aaaand done! Damn did this chapter take a lot of work. I had very little idea of what to write for it, but I've got the majority of what comes next all planned out so it should be easier.**

**This is one of the worst chapters I've done in a while. But whatever with it out of the way I'll be able to move onto bigger and better chapters ya know?**

**Anyway, I'm done now. Too tired to think of anything else to discuss here. Reviews and yadda yadda, blah blah. Got any questions you know where to find me. Laterz guys, I'm going to sleep like the dead.**


	4. Chapter 4

**You know. Fanfiction has become more of a chore lately, I just don't seem to be getting any enjoyment out of it. It used to be a way for me to explore Ash's journey, almost like a Pokemon Game all my own. But lately, with rarely anything good updating. I just can't seem to get the mood going.**

**Maybe if I do a re-write of my 'Path Of A Master' story from long ago? Starting off at the beginning of his journey. Either way, hopefully I can get inspired for Pokemon fanfiction again. So remember to link me to whatever good Pokemon fics you find.**

**Yes, I'm really that desperate for some good Pokemon fics.**

**But on the note of Pokemon fanfiction – I did find one quite good story. It's been started quite recently and is already over 100k words in. It's not the usual kind of Pokemon Story I usually enjoy but it's well written nonetheless and reminds me a bit of Angel In The Machine.**

**The Last Guardian Of Aura – by Stjernefald. The story only has 42 reviews despite being over 100k words long and being a really good story. So I recommend you guys go read it. Review it and follow it – this story deserves way more attention than it is getting.**

**Huh, that's all I've got to say. So I'm done here for now.**

**Working The World With Skill**

**Chapter 4**

**Go!**

* * *

Slowly, both the battlefield and the trainers were raised up from underground into view. Ash locked eyes with Conway's glinting glasses and he smirked in anticipation.

"_**The Trainers who will battle it out today on the grass battle field are Conway... and Ash**_!" The MC declared, revving up the cheering crowd, "_**This will be a three on three battle and it will be over when all three Pokemon on either side are unable to continue – so who will be the one to advance to the second round of the Preliminaries**_?"

"Call it." The referee donned in yellow and black shouted, flipping a coin into the air.

"Heads." Ash guessed, while Conway remained silent.

"_**We use coin toss to decide who gets the first attack**_." The Mc explained. Catching the coin, the referee took a look and then pointed at Conway, "_**And it seems Conway has won the first attack**_, _**Trainers reveal your Pokemon**_!"

In twin bursts of silvery white light. Two Pokemon took form before their Trainers. In front of Conway materialized a rather small Pokemon with a red armoured shell covering its entire body and multiple holes which secreted yellow tentacles.

Meanwhile, standing before Ash appeared a large four legged beast. Brown haired, with a grey mane, the Pokemon had two sharp horns, a long snout and three thin tails.

"_**It seems Conway has chosen to start things off with Shuckle**_, _**While Ash has deigned to send out his Tauros**_ –_** Who will be the winner between these two diverse sets of Pokemon**_?" The MC commentated.

Up above on the massive screen off to the side of the battlefield. Both Ash and Conway's pictures with three blank icons below – lit up and each of the trainers had one blank icon replaced by pictures of their Pokemon.

"Heh." Conway snorted, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger and smiling confidently, "Just as I predicted." He said, his voice reaching Ash's ears easily despite the noise of the crowd, "You chose a fast and powerful Pokemon." He explained when Ash raised an eyebrow in question.

'_What's his game here_?' Ash thought to himself. Shuckle were well known for their defensive abilities, but their attack power was severely low. There wasn't really much Shuckle could do in a battle besides play it defensively and possibly use health and stat oriented moves like Toxic.

"Begin!" the referee declared, swinging both flags held in his hands down.

"Withdraw, Shuckle!" Conway ordered.

With a quick retraction of its tentacles, Shuckle escaped entirely into its hard shell. The effect of the move became obvious a second later when the shell began to glow a deep crimson red for a few moments before dying down.

So he was going for a defensive play after all then? Well Ash wouldn't be letting that continue, "Tauros, Horn Attack!" The raven haired trainer commanded.

"Moooo!" Tauos bellowed loudly, taking off in a speeding charge with his horns at the ready.

"Withdraw again!" Conway followed up, smirking all the while.

Shuckle had enough time to perform the technique, just barely, before Tauros was upon it and spearing his horns into the hard shell with all his considerable strength.

A small shockwave blasted through the battlefield. Shell and horns stayed locked in a stalemate before Tauros was the one blasted backwards, grinding his legs so hard into the grass beneath as he slid back he left deep trenches in the grass.

"Heh, you've fallen right into my trap." Conway commented Ash raised an eyebrow once again in as if to say 'oh really?'. "Shuckle, Power Trick!" The glasses wearing trainer let his orders do the talking for him.

Ash's eyes widened as Shuckle re-appeaed from its shell and began to glow with a multitude of colors. He'd forgotten all about that attack – and it was picture perfect for a Pokemon like Shuckle. Still though, there were drawbacks to such a move.

"Now Gyro Ball!" Conway followed up.

* * *

Dawn, hugging Piplup to her chest and sitting in the stands beside Brock and Barry blinked in confusion, "What's Power Trick?" She asked.

"I knew he was gonna do that!" Barry whined, rubbing at his blonde hair erratically, "Somebody should fine that guy, gah!" He shouted.

Brock rolled his eyes, but deigned to ignore Barry and answer Dawn's question, "It's a technique that allows a Pokemon to switch their Defensive power with their Attacking power." He replied, "So it's a great move to pull with a Shuckle who has amazing defense but very low attacking power." The breeder explained.

Dawn frowned, "To be expected of Conway." She said, "To pull off a strategy like that."

* * *

A massive boom resounded throughout the stadium as Shuckle's spinning form struck true. The force behind the blow kicking up a massive dust cloud.

"And that's all she wrote for Tauros." Conway commented smugly

Therefore, so sure in his victory. Conway was mightily surprised when the cloud dispersed to show Tauros still standing, and with Shuckle caught between its horns.

"How!?" Conway was shocked silly, to say the least. Very few Pokemon could compare with a Shuckle's defense, but in return it had such low attack power a young Magikarp could overpower it. So using Power Trick, that should have translated over should it not have?

"You seem to have forgotten, Conway." Ash shouted over, thumbing his nose and smirking. "Not many Pokemon can take on a Tauros in a clash of physical strength, especially one of mine." And of course, Shuckle's strength was fake, a temporary and unnatural boost, and the Pokemon had little experience in comparison with Tauros at using such immense strength.

"You practically handed me this round!" Ash declared, triumph in his voice. It was a good strategy, but Conway, in his arrogance, let it get to his head and left Shuckle defenceless.

Conway's eyes widened as he also realized the implications of having Shuckle caught between Tauros' horns. But it was far too late for him to do anything about it, "Smash it into the ground and Hyper Beam!" Ash commanded.

Wit a mighty heave, Tauros slammed Shuckle into the grass beneath them powerfully. And while Shuckle cried out in pain, an orb of deadly purple energy formed and condensed within Tauros' mouth.

"Shuckle!" Conway cried in worry, raising his Pokeball in a desperate attempt to recall the Pokemon.

Far, far too late.

With a loud cry from Tauros, the deadly beam of devastating purple energy erupted from his mouth and was upon Shuckle before the defenceless Pokemom could so much as blink.

Exploding with searing heat, Shuckle stood no chance with its defensive prowess all but gone due to Power Trick and the small red shelled Pokemon was blasted straight into the wall behind Conway. Leaving a large, crater like dent in the metal surface.

"_**And with a bit of quick thinking and explosive power**_,_** Ash takes the first win of the match**_!" The MC declared.

Conway sighed. Saying nothing, he let the red beam from his Pokeball hit the practically comatose Shuckle and return it inside.

Switching the Pokeball for another, Conway tossed it up and released his next Pokemon. He still had his strategy for Ash after all – with his personality it was obvious to a genius such as he that he would focus on strong and fast Pokemon because that was the way Ash preferred to battle. Even that Torterra of his was fast in comparison with the rest of its species.

"Lickilicky, let's go!" Conway said, releasing his second Pokemon.

The evolved form of Lickitung appeared in front of him. Massive, pink and rotund the Pokemon had a gargantuan tongue that stretched all the way from its mouth down to its feet.

Up above, Conway first icon containing Shuckle's picture went dark and his second icon lit up with a picture of his Lickilicky.

* * *

"Wooh, way to go Ash!" Dawn cheered.

"You better kept this up Ash, or I'm gonna fine you!" Barry cheered on next.

Brock himself was nodding with approval. Ash really took advantage of Shuckle's disadvantages when using Power Trick. Even with all that power, Shuckle was still very slow so had no momentum behind its attacks and was left without any defense to speak of. So one well placed and powerful attack was all that was needed to take that round. He really used Tauros' natural strength to its utmost potential there.

Still though, he couldn't afford to let up here. Conway still posed a massive threat. The teen was incredibly smart, so Brock doubted he didn't have a few strategies in place for if this kind of thing happened.

Even then, predicting Ash would be one of the hardest things Conway could ever attempt. Because even after travelling with him for four years, Brock still hadn't managed to narrow down just how the younger teens thought process went in a battle.

* * *

Ash wasn't content to wait for Conway to attack this time. "Fissure!" The raven haired trainer ordered.

With another loud bellow, Tauros stood up on his hind legs and smashed down upon the grass battlefield beneath harshly.

The ground split from the force of the attack, and from that split an arc of bladed silver energy sliced through the grass towards Lickilickly.

Spinning off to the side, Lickilicky narrowly avoided the blade of energy. But as it dodged, Tauros was already stampeding in.

"Stone Edge!" Ash shouted over the roaring crowd.

As Tauros charged, a multitude of glowing spheres manifested around his charging form and took on the shape of small fist sized rocks. With a jerk of his head, Tauros sent the Stone Edge flying at Lickilicky.

"Power Whip, then follow up with Thunderbolt!" Was Conway's sharp reply to the hail of stones.

Coming out of its spin, Lickylicky threw its tongue outwards, glowing with pink energy and extending to an even greater size. With minimal effort, the massive tongue swiped the barrage of rocks out of the air and then was followed up quickly by a brilliant yellow arc of electricity.

Tauros was far too close to dodge. So Ash did the only thing he could.

"Charge right through!" The amber eyed teen ordered, eyes narrowed and fists clenched.

Tauros kept charging, and the arc of electricity struck true. With a great bellow of pain, Tauros was zapped by the attack and caused continuous damage as Lickilicky kept the attack going.

It was a battle of wills that no side would be the true victor in.

Lickilicky was too slow to avoid Tauros if it let go of the Thunderbolt, so its only option was to keep going and attempt to bring the charging bull Pokemon down before it reached it.

"Horn Attack!" Ash shouted suddenly when Tauros was mere metres away.

Twin horns erupting with bright light, Tauros leaped into the air and jumped the last bit of distance between him and Lickilicky.

The Thunderbolt was stopped, and Lickylicky gave a rumble of pain as the horns pierced its stomach and then sent the massive, rotound Pokemon skidding back a considerable distance.

Lickylicky barely kept standing, blood trickling down from the wound on its chest. While Tauros, fur singed and smoking from the electrical charge collapsed onto his knees.

Ash grimaced. That Thunderbolt had done a lot of damage, and his earlier clash with Shuckle left more damage than he'd shown. He may have caught the attack, but that did nothing to stop the impact from the attack and Tauros took that attack straight to the skull.

This was bad. Even the bulkiest Pokemon could be brought down easily if they took a good blow to the skull, Paul's Torterra was proof enough of that when Cynthia's Garchomp took it out with one blow.

On shaky legs, Tauros pushed himself back into a standing position and stood proudly despite the damage he had taken already.

Conway knew though that Lickilicky was the better off of the two though and wasn't about to let Tauros rest a bit and regain any energy. "Let's end this now Lickilicky, use Surf!" The glasses wearing training ordered sharply.

Ash's eyes bugged. How the hell would he even teach a Lickilicky to use Surf?

A sphere made up of pure water formed at the tip of its tongue, and Lickilicky smashed it down onto the ground below. There was a rumble, and then hardly time for the human eye to blink, a massive surge of water roared up from the depths of the ground below in the form of a massive wave.

Lickilicky stood safely behind the massive wave, taking refuge from any possible counter attack from Tauros. Ash grit his teeth and swore. Tauros had no attacks beside Hyper Beam that could possible obliterate that wave before it made it to him, so that left him with one option.

Brute force.

"Go right through it and end this with Giga Impact!" He commanded.

With a great, prideful bellow. Tauros once again charged into the fray.

Purple energy sparked, and a giant aura of purple energy coated Tauros' body and was then layered over by a spiralling yellow energy. The duo of aura's covering the Pokemon's body made it look like some sort of missile.

With one more last bellow, Tauros met the wave and cleaved straight the raging water like a hot knife through butter.

The wave imploded on itself as Tauros burst through the other end and Lickilicky had no time to react as the charging Pokemon hit it dead on and the stadium was rocked by another massive 'BOOm' that sent a rippling shockwave so strong throughout the battlefield the referee was knocked off his feet.

And when the dust fell, neither Pokemon were left standing.

"_**Well would you look at that folks**_!" The MC shouted enthusiastically, "_**Neither Pokemon are able to continue battling, thus leaving Ash with two Pokemon left while Conway only has one remaining**_ – _**Can he make a comeback**_?_** We'll just have to wait and see**_."

Both icons up on the scoreboard for Tauros and Lickylicky dulled away until the images were blacked out.

Returning Tauros to his Pokeball, Ash smiled fondly at the red and white ball in his hand. "Well done." He whispered in pride, "You done more than I should have asked for, take a nice long rest." And with that said he switched the Pokeball with another on his belt.

Conway pushed his glasses up his nose and chuckled, grasping another Pokeball of his own. "Heh, you may have the advantage right now Ash but I've created a sure fire winning strategy to beat you using this final Pokemon." He commented.

Ash blinked, a smirk stretching across his face. "Oh really?" The raven haired trainer asked.

"Yes." Conway replied, "You see, after all the battles I saw you compete in during your travels through this region I noticed you always prefer to use fast Pokemon – and thus I came up with a strategy to make all of your Pokemon's hard earned speed useless." He explained, glasses glinting in the sunlight as he gave off that creepy chuckle of his again.

Ash blinked again. What? Yeah, sure most of his Pokemon were all pretty fast in their own ways. But he didn't just use speedy Pokemon. If that was Conway's big strategy, then he had no chance in winning.

"Trainers, reveal you next Pokemon!" The referee ordered.

"Dusknoir, I choose you!" Was Conway's next Pokemon.

"Let's do this, Kingler!" While Kingler was Ash's.

In bursts of light, both Pokemon appeared. Dusknoir was a large, humanoid Cyclops like Pokemon that floated easily mid-air and had no legs. Its dark colored arms were thick and muscular and there was a pattern on the Pokemon's stomach that looked almost like a face.

While in response. Kingler was a many legged crustacean Pokemon, colored primarily orange and white. The Water-Type Pokemon had a large crown like pattern atop its head and had two large claws, one almost three times the size of the other.

"What!?" Conway shouted as he got a good look at Ash's next Pokemon. "This did not measure into my calculations at all!" And really, why should it have? According to Ashs' trainer page he hadn't even fought in an official battle with that Kingler of his in over two years. And even before then he used it rarely. He was so sure Ash would pick something like his Pikachu, Sceptile or even his recently evolved Infernape!

No matter! He shook his head, calming himself down. No need to panic, his strategy was just no longer needed. Even without it, Dusknoir had the power to help him win this match.

Up above Conway's final icon lit up with a portrait of Dusknoir, and Ash's second of Kingler. And Ash took that as his cue to jump straight into the action. "Kingler, Brine now!" He ordered quickly.

From his mouth, Kingler launched a powerful, spiralling stream of water.

Conway was nonplussed, "Teleport and then ThunderPunch!" He commanded in return.

Literally phasing away. Dusknoir evaded the jet of water and appeared at Kingler's side, unleashing a fist encased in sparking electricity.

"Crabhammer!" Ash countered as the blow struck.

"Koo...Keee!" Kingler grunted, taking the super effective attack like it was nothing and swinging his largest claw straight at Dusknoirs face, glowing bright with blinding power.

The blow missed as Dusknoir once again used Teleport to dodge, and re-appeared at Kingler's other side, unleashing another ThunderPunch.

Ash cursed as Kingler rolled with the momentum of the blow and used it to leap a safe distance away. Dusknoir merely watching intently with its red and yellow eye.

Dusknoir were usually quite slow Pokemon despite being Ghost-Types. Conway must have really put a lot of work into making Dusknoir master the technique to such a degree. And if his boasting about his strategy was anything to go by, Dusknoir had something else up its sleeve to render great speed virtually useless.

So in effect. Conway had made it so that Dusknoir would always be the fastest Pokemon in a battle, even without training to focus on speed. Ash had to hand it to him, he done a really great job in raising it.

But he still wasn't going to win this.

Switching Pokemon was useless for now. It would just turn out mostly the same, he'd have to lure Dusknoir in and get Kingler to counter at the very last moment.

Good thing he'd made sure Kingler had learned a way to make up for his lack of speed. He'd started the Pokemon he left at the Oak Ranch on a few special ways of training to go along with the usual training they got up to. And left them to it while he came to Sinnoh, so now it was time to put that training to good use.

Kingler was panting deeply, and there were two deep black scorch marks on either side of his body. But the Water-Type still look raring to go.

Too bad for Conway. Kingler was Dusknoir's worst possible match up.

"Brince, once more!" Ash said.

It was a testament to the amount of faith his Pokemon had in him, that Kingler didn't even blink at repeating an attack that failed so utterly before.

The jet of clear blue spiralling water was launched rapidly from Kingler's maw. Conway sighed, shaking his head in mock sadness, "Haven't you realized such 2 dimension attacks will not work on us?" He questioned in return to Ash and Kingler's actions.

He didn't even need to verbally give Dusknoir a command. The fully evolved Ghost-Type already knew what to do. Winking out of existence, it dodged the Brine attack and appeared right in front of Kingler fist cocked back, sparking with rampant electricity and ready to unload another devestating ThunderPunch straight in Kingler's face.

"Quash!" Was Ash's next, rapidly given command.

Before Dusknoir had time to unleash its attack, Kinglers eyes glowed a deep midnight black and Dusknoir was stopped In its tracks as miasmic energy clung all around its form.

Dusknoir was unable to even bring its arms up for a feeble defense as Kingler's massive claw came swinging down enhanced by the power of a CrabHammer attack and was smashed harshly atop the ghost Pokemon's head.

The force of the blow sent Dusknoir soaring back, still in its previous upright position. And it was only after the Crabhammer struck was Dusknoir's previous attack unleashed. With no control over its own body, Dusknoir threw a ThunderPunch attack that met nothing but air.

"What!?" Conway blurted in shock. What just happened? Why did Dusknoir freeze up? What technique did Ash pull out of his ass here? He didn't even hear the command from Ash over the roaring cheers of the crowd.

Until he figured out just what Ash pulled. It wasn't safe to send Dusknoir back in close with Teleport.

"Dusknoir, rapid fire Shadow Ball!" Conway ordered quickly. He couldn't let up on the offence, he had to keep the momentum going one way or the other and keep Ash from controlling the tempo of the battle. If that happened he may as well give up because he couldn't win.

Holding its hands up its head, Dusknoir formed a large sphere of purple miasmic energy crackling with barely constrained power. And then the sphere began to break down into dozens of small sized spheres and launched rapidly towards Kingler.

"Endure!" Ash commanded.

Kingler tensed and his body flashed red for a brief moment. One by one the barrage of tiny Shadow Balls slammed into Kingler, but the crab Pokemon stood its ground taking hit after hit with nary barely a grunt of pain.

* * *

Dawn winced as she watched Kingler be peppered by attack after attack, "I thought when Ash managed to stop Dusknoir teleporting around he had this match in the bag – but it seems Dusknoir is trained to handle any type of battle." The blue haired Coordinator commented.

"Speaking of that!" Barry broke in, "Just how did he do that anyway? The hell is Quash? That was a fine worthy ass-pull!" The hyperactive blonde ranted.

"Quash is a priority technique." Brock piped in, "It's an attack that stops an attacking Pokemon in its tracks and makes it unable to move until the user of Quash follows up with another attack – Ash followed up with a close range CrabHammer in order to knock Dusknoir away from Kingler so that it couldn't land its next attack when the effects of Quash faded." The slant eyed Pokemon Breeder explained.

"Gah!" Barry shouted, rubbing at his head rapidly "Hax! I call hax, somebody should fine him!" The blonde teen continued to shout vehemently.

Brock looked at the younger teen worriedly. Perhaps he was 'special'? It would explain a damn lot.

* * *

When the barrage finally came to an end, Kingler was still standing proudly. Though, there were multiple deep bruises forming on multiple places of the Pokemon's body.

Ash winced. Kingler wasn't gonna be fast enough to dodge, so he had him use Endure and take the hits as best he could. Still though, it wasn't pretty at all. He'd need to get Kingler to learn a defensive technique like Protect or something – because he was pretty much a sitting Psyduck for speedy attacks like that.

He had to end this soon. Kingler had the perfect attack to end this, but the problem was getting close. Conway wasn't going to risk getting in close for Kingler to use Quash and would most probably just pepper Kingler with speedy energy attacks from a far.

"CrabHammer!" The raven haired trainer finally decided on. It was a very versatile move, being good for both close combat and long distance.

"Koo Kee Koo Kee!" Kingler grunted, bringing his massive glowing claw down harshly upon the battlefield. A shockwave erupted from the force of the blow and a small narrow sphere of white energy erupted from the point of impact and roared across the field towards Dusknoir at breakneck speeds.

"CrabHammer and keep it up!" Ash ordered swiftly.

With speed belying his stature, Kingler rapidly began to smash his larger claw into the ground and shot off a rapid barrage of the small narrow energy spheres.

They were not as numerous as the Shadow Ball barrage by Dusknoir, but they were just as fast. Duskoir, like Kingler was far too slow to dodge such attacks and was forced to use Teleport and weave between the attacks in order to dodge.

It was as the barrage stopped and Dusknoir Teleported back in front of Conway that complications arose. While dodging the small orbs of energy, they had exploded on missing and kicked up a multitude of small dust clouds that shrouded the other side of the field from view.

And then a shadow descended and neither Conway nor Dusknoir reacted on time.

Black energy sparked, and Kingler came down like a bolt of lightning. Massive claw encased in black sparkling electricity, Kingler smashed a powerful Knock Off attack straight home on Dusknoir's cranium.

Ghost Pokemon like Dusknoir had the ability to phase through solid objects like walls and such. But in return for such an ability, it meant their physical bodies were rather weak in comparison with other types of Pokemon.

So it was no surprise, after taking the super effective strike from such a physically powerful Pokemon like Kingler – that Dusknoir was rendered unconscious and quite badly concussed before it even registered the pain of the attack.

And when the dust clouds cleared by the rapid fire CrabHammer barrage dissipated. Only Kingler was left standing above his fallen opponent. Larger claw raised, bellowing a victorious cry.

That was the only sound in the stadium, and when it finally ended it seemed to signal that it was the audiences' turn, as they erupted into a thundering applause that left ears ringing.

Up above and off to the side, on the massive wide screen. Conway's final Pokemon's icon darkened away before both the icons and Conway's portrait were knocked off the screen entirely and magnified on Ash's portrait as well as the two Pokemon he used to win the battle.

"_**And there you have it folks**_!_** In an extremely fast paced**_, _**excitement pumping battle Ash has defeated Conway using only two of his own Pokemon**_." The MC declared, his voice ringing throughout the entire stadium once again, "_**Give it up for these great Trainers and the great battle they had folks –**_ _**They sure made sure that the Preliminary Rounds of the Lily Of The Valley Conference started off with a bang**_!"

And as the crowd's roaring and cheering rose to new heights. Conway returned Dusknoir to its Pokeball, "You did well Dusknoir." He whispered to the Pokeball, "It was my fault we lost, I should have come up with a much better strategy to defeat Ash with." Shuckle, LickyLicky and Dusknoir they all done great. It was he who failed them in being arrogant enough to think he had so easily predicted the way Ash would battle.

His glasses glinted once again in the sunlight and he watched Ash happily embrace is Kingler and celebrate their win, "Next time, I'll make sure to predict every outcome and have a strategy ready for any one."

* * *

After congratulating and returning Kingler. Ash's eyes swept up throughout the stands of the stadium, searching for the familiar faces of his friends.

He found them, but he found someone else as well. Far up above even the stands, one cold eyed purple haired Trainer stood and met his eyes. Amber met black and a stare down commenced. It was a battle of wills, but ultimately Paul nodded his head in congratulations before breaking the stare off and leaving.

Ash watched him go. There was a fire raging in his chest. That guy who had the Darkrai? He meant nothing in the long run. Paul was his biggest rival here and that was that. Here, at the Sinnoh League he would be the one to walk away the winner and end their rivalry.

Ash would prove that he was the better trainer, and that abusing his Pokemon the way Paul did was not the way.

What is loved, will love in return. It was a simple concept, one that Paul just seemingly could not grasp. The cold purple haired Trainer had once accused Ash of training just like him, and it was true that they trained in similar ways but they were nothing alike in the long run. Paul ordered his Pokemon into any training he deemed fit, he did not reward them for their hard work and nor did he give them the praise they deserved for taking on such grueling training all for him.

And that was were they differed. Ash cared where Paul did not, and it would be the deciding factor here and the Lily Of The Valley Conference when they battled – he would win and Paul would lose, there was no doubt in his mind.

He was interrupted by a familiar blue haired girl wrapping her arms around his neck and hitching a ride on his back. Along with two more familiar figures in a small blue penguin Pokemon and small yellow rodent Pokemon leaping atop his shoulders, "Wooh you won!" Dawn shouted in delight. She pecked him on the cheek once again, "I guess the one I gave you last night made all the difference, so there's your reward Mr. Future Champion." She teased.

Ash felt his face flush slightly at the rather intimate action. They were still on the battlefield after all and the camera's were still recording. And Dawn had just jumped on his back and kissed him live on a show being broadcasted to the entire world.

Ugh...His mother better not have seen that. She would never leave him be if she got it into her head that Dawn was his girlfriend or something.

The raven haired trainer rolled his eyes, "C'mon then DeeDee let's go so I can take my Pokemon to the Pokemon Center." He replied, making his way over to the entrance carrying Dawn on his back all the way.

Dawn rapped him lightly on his hat covered head, "Oi, don't call me DeeDee!" She chided in annoyance, puffing her cheeks out and pouting.

Despite what she said a while back. It seemed her old nickname still got to her.

* * *

**Aaaand done!**

**Sorry the quality of this chapter is quite low. But like I said, it was more of a chore than anything else. I just don't seem to get enjoyment out of writing anymore. And it will probably be that way until something inspires me again.**

**I hope you enjoyed. But If you didn't, well my bad and sorry but you'll have to make do for now.**

**Later guys. I think I'll go play the Pokemon Glazed version Hack and see if I can't get some inspiration from it.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Ah...Well, I'm back guys. Christ it has been ages since I updated this story last. Disappointing too because I remember being psyched for writing this story.**

**But eh, what can ya do? Life just gets in the ways most of the time ya know? Not to mention, my muse for pokemon hasn't been all that great lately.**

**And sad to say guys, but my updates will still be as sparse as they have been lately from now on. I started a new job on Monday and as you can guess it takes up a lot of my time, leaving me little free time to get shit done.**

**I suppose if I can at least get a few hundred words every night after getting home, or at least a few nights a week will let me update every few weeks at least. I dunno, I'll have to look into it and make a plan.**

**But anyway yeah, here we are guys and finally Working The World has been updated. I've actually, as amusing as it is lost the document I saved my planned plot for this story in somehow. So, I've had to rework quite a bit with what little free time I have.**

**Anyway, can you guy believe just how shit Ash is as a trainer these days? The rivals for X/Y are pathetic, they look primary school kids. Hell, can you believe that little piss ant Sawyer is getting Mega Sceptile?**

**And what the shit is up with Ash's Greninja getting it's own kind of pseudo mega evolution? Greninja is cool and all, but Charizard should have been brought in for mega evolving. Who knows, they just might.**

**Doubtful though, because that Alain idiot already has Charizard X and that stupid little ginger haired nerd kid will probably get Charizard Y.**

**Seriously guys, X/Y is only not the word season of the anime because Unova has already been aired. Whatever happened to Ash advancing and actually making something of himself? Now everyone and their grandmother who just got their pokemon can beat his ass like a tambourine. **

**It's got to the point now guys, where I can't help but sneer in disgust at Ash. He was one of my favourite characters from childhood, maybe my most favourite, but he's been ruined. X/Y literally killed my motivation writing pokemon altogether for a while.**

**It's got to the point where I've got a plot planned out for a branching point in Unova with either Ash creaming Cameron like he should have or him getting Iris' Dragonite. Cuz let's face it guys, she in no way deserved that pokemon.**

**...I fucking hate Iris.**

**Anyway, enough of this ranting shit guys. I've just went on a probably long ass rave about shit you don't give a damn about so I'll stop holding you up and let you get to the reading of the chapter.**

**Working The World With Skill**

**Chapter 5**

**Go!**

* * *

At some point, Ash realized he'd more or less grown up.

He was resting comfortably against the thick and rigid bark of a particularly appealing tree, laying down on the branch not unlike how his old buddy Primeape used to when he wasn't punching everyone in sight out cold.

Leaning against his shoulder, his ever trustworthy Infernape slept away peacefully, while laying on a leg each and resting against his stomach were the small forms of Pikachu and Gible. Staraptor was roosting on a branch above them and Torterra slept peacefully at the foot of the tree they were laying in, the continent pokemon being far to big to sleep with him like he did when he was a spry little Turtwig.

Amber eyes watched as Buizel, one time after another massive pressurized blasts of water, grinding boulders, trees and anything else in the way of the attacks into fine powder.

It was a bit of a wonder to Ash, that Buizel hadn't evolved yet. He trained and pushed himself so hard, that it was a foregone conclusion that the stress should have forced him to evolve already.

Ash just assumed Buizel was holding out until he was ready, milking every last bit of strength out of his form right now before he evolved and that strength was multiplied.

His eyes leaving Buizel, Ash looked up into the night sky. It was true, at some point he'd gone and grown up.

Very rarely these days did he shout his pokemon's name in worry after taking a powerful attack. He knew his pokemon better than anybody else, he knew their strengths, weaknesses, and personalities right down to their very willpower.

Shouting in worry was seconds wasted that could be better used to counter attack or formulate a strategy. Every second counted.

It was a bit of a hypocritical thought, Ash knew. He often gave his pokemon rather long commands rather than short, and to the point.

And that was what was puzzling Ash. He'd noticed it a few months back, just how different he was from other trainers. Even before he had finished his orders, his pokemon had already put the plans into motion when they should by all rights still be trying to figure out how to follow the plan.

It was kind of like that Riolu he met a while back. He always somehow knew more or less what his pokemon wanted, or said and even un-voiced commands hidden to keep the opponent of guard were followed without Ash ever having to voice them.

Even now, as the majority of his pokemon slept and one trained he could pick up what was going on in their minds. Pikachu was dreaming of ketchup, as expected from the little closet glutton. Gible was dreaming both of flying through the air as a massive Garchomp and then biting him on the head, Ash cringed slightly at the thought those bites were bad enough as a little Gible he didn't want to feel a Garchomps maw around his skull.

Infernape was dreaming of a memory, of back when he was a Chimchar and Ash first started playing with him a few days after catching the little guy, one of the first times Ash had recalled feeling joy from the little chimp, at the time.

Staraptor was of gliding through the air at speeds that would make Pidgeot look like they were going in slow motion. Torterra wasn't really dreaming per say, just content to rest away, his mind relaxedly blank.

Buizel, well the over zealous little guy was filled with a sense of satisfaction as his muscles burned and his reserves of power ran incredibly low, yet still pushed himself further and further. Hydro Pump after Hydro Pump leaving his muzzle.

It was a bit of a mystery. A mystery that made Ash realize, that he'd more or less grown up. Even then, it didn't really bring much up in his mind, he'd been of age since he was ten and received his pokedex and trainer license.

He literally could have bought his own house, started his own buisness, drank alcohol, had sex or even gotten married the minue he'd got his license stating he was considered an adult then and there.

Granted, he was still ten at the time and there was little doubt if any girls were freaky enough to get hot and heavy with a ten year old in the first place, that he wouldn't be able to get '_it up_' anyway.

Still, that was neither here nor there. It had just occurred really to Ash as he sat here, resting with his pokemon after another hard day of training that he had really grown up. He was 14 years old now, he was loaded with money due to his experiences as a trainer, he was fairly confident that this year he would be walking away the champion of a league tournament and he even had his eyes on a girl more or less in regards to Dawn.

But She was a whole other can of Magikarp he didn't want to get into right now. It would probably lead him to thinking about May in some form or another, and the urge to track down the grass haired sissy and punch his lights out.

"Nando." Ash tested the name with his mouth, his opponent for tomorrow and without a doubt it was going to be a good battle. Nando was a great trainer, having beat his earlier opponents with skill rather than raw ability and experience. Nando was a lot stronger than the average Coordinator hell he was stronger than even that sissy boy Drew due to his following both the path of Coordinator and Trainer.

Still, he had to rely on skill at this point because of the sheer fact that spending so much time in collecting gym badges and contest ribbons that his pokemon's power wasn't as high as it could be.

Still, Nando would be a good challenge. Far above any average shmuck that usually got kicked out this early in the league.

It was kind of interesting this time around, that other than the shmuck with the Machamp, Ash had been piared up with two strong trainers right after another in Conway and now Nando.

Ash was definitely interested in what pokemon Nando would send out against him tomorrow, hed never seen much of Nando's pokemon in previous meetings and he was eager to battle them.

Ash's thoughts on his battle tomorrow were cut off as he let out a loud yawn. Smacking his lips, Ash levelled a half lidded stare out at the lake edge where Buizel was practicing, "Don't stay up too late buddy, I'm using you tomorrow." He said out loud.

Buizel barely even glanced at him, just giving him a thumbs up and continuing to another volley of Hydro Pump.

Ash rolled his eyes as a massive tear was torn through the lake by the sheer power of the attack before the cannon of water lifted up into the air and exploded outwards, raining back down on the lake and filling up whatever water it lost.

"Well, g'night then." He said through another yawn, settling down a bit more beside Infernape to bask in the simian pokemon's innate body heat.

Buizel wouldn't stay up too long, just enough that he'd be tired out enough to sleep for a while. It was fine really, his next match wasn't till like four in the afternoon anyway and this was his private training area on the island, the leagues power psychic-type pokemon had the area shielded against people entering the area unless he'd already given them permission, like with Dawn and Brock.

* * *

Dawn scowled, Piplup hugged tightly against her chest as she and Brock shimmied their way through the crowded area and towards their seats, "That idiot has got some serious explaining to do." The blue haired girl growled through gritted teeth, "He didn't even come in last night, no doubt training with his pokemon non stop.

Seriously, she usually found Ash's single minded drive an endearing trait but she'd hardly been able to spend any time with him at all since they got to this island. Maddening, considering she'd not even come to terms with her own feelings on the boy yet, and he was making it all the harder for her to try and pursue them.

Still, last night really took the cake. Ash didn't even bother to return to their luxurious and spacious cabin, instead opting to camp out with his pokemon and get more training in.

Seriously, what sane person would do that?

Brock chuckled behind her, absently allowing his eyes to roam over a deep well of cleavage belonging to a shapely woman sitting on the isle below them as he shimmied across, "I wouldn't worry too much Dawn." The once gym leader told her, "He's been like this ever since he competed at the Indigo Plateau, constantly trying to squeeze just a little bit more out of his pokemon with each new battle."

"Bah!" Dawn scoffed, finally coming to a stop at their seats and plunking down on her own in a huff, "He could have at least came and spent some time with m-us, we've hardly spent any time with him at all this past month." She retorted, seamlessly flowing over her semi-stuttered mistake.

And wasn't that the truth? Dawn had at best, other than at times to eat, dragged Ash off for a couple hours every few days and Brock didn't even get that much since Dawn was more or less hogging Ash to herself for now.

Not that he minded at all, the tanned teen mused. With Dawn preoccupied trying to woo Ash, boy did she have her work cut out for her there, and Croagunk being left to relax at their cabin, Brock was free to explore the island to the fullest.

Checking out the babes, discussing pokemon with other possible breeders, checking out the babes, experimenting with new league sold pokefood, checking out the babes, taking in the sights, checking out the babes.

And did he ever mention checking out the babes? Because gloriously, Brock was free of Misty, Max and Croagunk, free to flirt to his hearts content

Brock loved the Lily of The Valley Conference more than he could ever describe. One hot older girl had even given him a kiss on the cheek and her Xtranceiver number.

Granted, he'd have to dip into his funds a bit to get an Xtranceiver of his own to even put the number to good use, but Brock was joyful nonetheless.

Even if he was gonna pay a small fortune just to chat with this one girl. Thank god that Ash was mainly the one supplying their group funding account from most of his winnings through this Sinnoh journey, he didnt get paid quite as much yet as a breeder since he wasn't an official Gym Leader any more.

"No need to worry, Dawn." Brock commented with a cheerful grin, sitting down beside her. "Come the end of this conference Ash will have no set plans and you can work your charm on him till your hearts content." He ribbed her teasingly, slightly jabbing his elbow against her arm in a joking manner.

Cheeks flushing a deep red, Dawn gave a scoff and looked away from the older teen, intent on keeping her eyes on the battlefield down below them where soon Ash and Nando would be battling it out. "Not like I'll need more than the one chance." Dawn couldn't help but fire back at him, "Unlike you who according to Ash has been failing repeatedly since you started tagging along with hm."

Brock merely laughed at the insult towards his flirting skills. "Any man who doesn't learn how to laugh at rejection is completely worthless as a man."

Dawn snorted, eyeing him out of the corner of one eye, "That was almost profound Brock." She replied with a giggle, "Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

Brock shook his head in amusement, "It's a man's romance." He retorted, chest puffing out in manly pride, "You'll understand if you ever manage to get out of that friend zone Ash stuck you in." He continued, mock patronizingly.

Dawn actually found herserlf gaping a bit at that, it flew right over her head. '_What the hell is a man's romance_?'

* * *

Ash found himself relaxing after arriving to his assigned locker room.

Pikachu sat contently on his lap as he lay on one of the benches, idly scratching the little pokemon's ears.

"Chaa.." Pikachu rumbled in content.

As always, he felt no pre-battle jitters at all. Ash wasn't sure what it was, but he'd never felt nervous battling in front of such massive crowds.

They were at very best, ego-boosting spectators and at worst background noise. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Still, with so much free time before his match Ash's thoughts finally drifted to a topic they'd highlighted on ever since he'd called Professor Oak.

Mega Evolution, huh?

It sounded so cool. The young trainer, hadn't been able to put much research into the topic. It was a newly discovered phenomenon...or, re-discovered as it were.

Apparently, from what little Ash understood of the techno-babble all the scientists were gushing out with, Mega Evolution was the act of a closely bonded pair of pokemon and trainer uniting to draw upon the primal power hidden within the pokemon and allow that pokemon to take on the form its species took in ancient times when both humanity and pokemon as a whole were a lot stronger than they were today.

It went on to say that an unknown energy was taken from the trainer to power the evolution. Scientists all around the world were completely stupefied by the discovery of the energy and not one had figured out just what it was.

Ash knew though. He bet the likes of Lance and Cynthia knew as well and were keeping tight-lipped on the subject.

It was aura.

'_It explained a lot_.' Ash mused. When he realized the energy they were raving about was aura, a lot of the pieces fell into place. Very few people from what he had picked up, ever had enough aura to even subconsciously use. Like only one in a million people even had enough aura to match a baby Weedle, never mind something like a Charizard.

Pokemon had it in abundance, it was why they could grow so powerful and had such mystical powers.

This was why so few people had been able to perform Mega Evolution no matter their bond with their pokemon. The only known people that could perform it were Lance, Cynthia, Steven and Diantha.

All champions, they stood head and shoulders above even the Elite Four who served below them. They were prodigies amongst prodigies and in crowds would probably shine like beacons to any who could sense aura.

There was a knock at his door.

Ash smirked as he stood up, gently laying the now snoozing Pikachu on the bench and headed towards the door.

According to three sources in Lucario, Riley and Riolu he had massive wells of aura. Enough, in Lucario's own words to rival Sir Aaron, possibly the most famous and powerful Aura Guardian of all time.

He pulled the door open and his smirk dimmed to a smile, "Hey Nando, what's up?" He said as soon as he caught sight of the older, long haired teen.

Ash had to admit, with his thoughts on Sir Aaron that Nando really pulled off the bard look well. What with the black riding boots, immaculate brown pants, fedora, eye catching green traveller's cloak and golden mew insignia harp.

If this was a few hundred years back, he'd totally get Nando to be his personal bard and spread stories of his adventures.

"Ash, my friend." Nando greeted with a soft smile and a nod. "I thought I would take this small period between our battle to wish you the best of luck." He continued, bringing up his free hand and holding it out towards the younger trainer.

And he was such a nice guy too, it was almost impossible really to not get along with Nando.

Ash took the hand in his own, firmly gripping it as they shook hands. He was un-surprised to find that Nando had both a firm handshake and calloused palms. Nando, while even more of a pretty boy than Drew, wasn't a pampered sissy boy like the grass haired twit.

"Thanks, you as well buddy." Ash replied, ridding himself of thoughts on the spineless coordinator before they soured his conversation with an actual friend.

A smirk replaced his smile once again as the amber eyed teen continued, "Who would have thought way back when I encouraged you to take on both Contests and Gym Battles that we'd be battling each other so early in the conference?" Ash pointed out, amusing colouring his voice.

Nando chuckled, and Ash had to admire how he made even his chuckles sound dignified, "Indeed my young friend." He replied jovially, "Fate is a fickle mistress at times, but let it not be said that she does not partake in irony when the needs arises."

Ash's smirk turned challenging, "I hope you dont mind." He commented, "But even though you're a friend, I plan to win this entire tournament so I don't plan on going easy on you."

Nando chuckled that both dignified and musical chuckle of his again, "T'would be a shame if you did." He replied, "I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to test myself against a veteran trainer of your calibur for many moons now."

Now, anyone else who talked like that would be damn annoying. But Nando managed to make his olden days speech pattern sound endearing. Ash had to admit, it was a real talent.

"I'll make sure not to disappoint then." Was his retort.

"Good, good!" Nando clapped his hands once, twirling his harp expertly into position, "A poem, If you please? To commemorate our upcoming battle." He questioned.

"Fire away, big guy." Ash replied, leaning idly on the door frame and eyeing him with interest.

"It shant be long, till we hear the gong.

Good luck my friend, for one it's the end.

Winner, your blade cuts the string, now tidings you bring

It awaits us, oh battlefield, ending you yield."

Ash snorted as the poem came to an end. "Heh." He laughed a bit, amber eyes alight with amusement. "That's pretty witty of you." He commented.

Nando smiled back. It was a smile that would have the fan girls in the stands screaming in glee. Ash thanked Arceus only staff and competitors were allowed at this point. "I thought so." He replied, voice filled with amusement of his own.

Turning on his heel, Nando left Ash with one last parting comment. "Again, good luck to you my young friend, I will be giving this battle everything I've got and hope to have a memorable experience battling you."

Ash watched him walk down the empty hallway, a smirk still playing on his lips. "Don't worry bud." He said to himself, "I'll make sure this is a battle you never forget."

And with that said, he entered his own locker room again, shutting the door behind him. There was still a good twenty or so minutes until his battle with Nando began, and he planned to get some more relaxation in while he waited.

* * *

There was a general uproar from the crowd as both competitors were elevated up onto their positions on the battlefield

"_Introducing, on the green side folks, the ever elegant Nando!_" The voice of the MC reverberated throughout the stadium, ringing above even the roars of the crowd.

As Nando was introduced, the crowd erupted into a thunderous clash of voices. From cheers, to jeers and Ash quirked an eyebrow in an amusement when he heard one fan, a man at that scream his voice hoarse shouting, "I love you Nando!"

Nando was a good sport about it all, bowing to the crowd and raising the hand that wasn't holding his harp up in appreciation for their support, jeers and all.

"_And on the red side..." _The MC continued, "_You know him, you love him, he's unrelenting when chasing victory, I present to you all folks...Ash Ketchum_!"

Once again the combined voices of the crowd blended together to form a harsh cacophony of voices. If Ash wasn't so used to battling in front of large crowds, it may have given him a headache.

Still, he noticed that he got a lot more jeers from the crowd than Nando. Damn home turf advantage, he should have expected it mind you what with the intense rivalry that used to exist between Kanto and Sinnoh.

Seriously, who even cared what pokemon came first between Arceus and Mew anyway?

"Red trainer has first attack." The referee standing off to the side of the battlefied stated.

Ash nodded, gripping a pokeball in one hand loosely.

Raising his voice, the referee continued, "Trainers, reveal your pokemon!" He shouted, swishing his two flags.

In twin bursts of silvery white light, both Ash and Nando released their pokemon.

"Let's do it Gible!" Ash called out.

At the same time, Nando expressed loudly, "Alright Armaldo, let's go!"

When the light died down, both pokemon stood staring each other down. Gible, short and squat yet undeniably powerful and Armaldo, massive and covered in bony armored plats with sharpened claws and with enough mass to qualify as a behemoth in the same league as an Aggron or Rhydon.

Ash idly noticed the image of Gible appearing under his own image on the scoreboard, but ignored it in favour of snapping his fingers and going straight for the win, "Let's go Gible! Dragon Pulse, then follow it with Rock Smash!"

Before he'd even finished stating his command, Gible had rapidly formed the teal coloured sphere of draconian power and launched it towards Armaldo.

"Armaldo, Protect!" Nando shouted quickly as the sphere of power shot across the battlefield in all the time it took to blink.

A protective barrier of green energy surrounded Armaldo just in time to intercept the attack. The sphere hit the barrier and pushed against it mightily, causing thhe defensive technique to waver slightly but hold strong.

That is, until Gible was suddenly behind the attack itself and launching his small shining fist forward with all the force the small dragon-type could muster.

The shield buckled, but didn't fall. But that was fine as well, because the force behind the two attacks opened up a small hole that was just big enough for Gible to push through, Dragon Pulse attack clasped firmly in his Rock Smash enhanced hand.

Armaldo had no time to react, only managing to drop its barrier and stumble back a few steps before Gible was on top of it, smashing the attack straight into its chest.

Then every piece of energy within the now volatile attack as the fighting-type energy of Rock Smash seeped into the attack exploded outwards in a cone around Armaldo.

The force behind the explosion was enough that Gible ended up being sent soaring right back towards Ash's side of the field, landing nimble on his small stubby legs.

"_Amazing, not even twenty seconds into the battle and already Ash and Gible have scored a devastating combination attack_!"

Ash frowned, but didn't pause for even a moment. "Don't let up, Draco Meteor and don't give it a chance to recover!" He barked hastily.

Gible nodded idly, bright orange light beginning to outline his form and a massive sphere beginning to grow and glow within the confines of his wide throat.

Ash was a tad worried. Nando hadn't even called out in alarm, and he hadn't even heard that Armaldo give a grunt of pain, never mind a shout.

That was worrying in of itself. Dragon Smash, as he'd dubbed that combination move combined the power of Dragon Pulse, with force from being hit with Rock Smash, powered straight into the opponent and being forced to detonated completely around the opponent due to the attack becoming volatile with all the fighting-type energy being pumped into it.

Not even Torterra, one of the most defensive pokemon he had, possible the most right behind Snorlax could take it without being dealt quite a bit of damage.

Gible cocked his head back, sphere burning at the back of his throat and ready to fire within a few seconds at most. But before the little dragon could shoot his attack into the air, he was blind sided by a massive jet of water that tore through the cloud of smoke and smashed into Gible's tiny form and punished him downwards into the ground.

Ash's eyes widened a fraction as the water receded to reveal Armaldo pinning Gible with one claw, while the other reared back and began to shine with a metallic gleam.

Metal Claw!

"Flamethrower!" Ash ordered quickly, growling in agitation. He'd been hoping to keep this attack hidden for a bit to use as a trump card later, yet here it was being forced out within seconds!

Gible screamed, opening his mouth as wide as possible as he lay pinned to the ground. White hot flames burst forth, roaring forward in a searing torrent of orange and red

The flames were rent asunder as the Metal Claw was raked through the river of flames. It did make Armaldo' grip on Gible to slacken enough for him to wriggle free though, the small dragon-type bouncing backwards out of the ancient pokemon's reach.

"Dig!" Ash shouted urgently as the little pokemon landed, sighing in relief as he saw his pokemon immediately burrow underground to safety.

Ash's mind ran a mile a minute trying to think of a strategy here. Armaldo had insane defensive powers, evidenced by the fact that from what Ash could see, it had taken very little damage from Dragon Smash and was only mildly bruised at best and a little scuffed up. It had the pure physical strength advantage, it had the height and reach advantage, hell it even had the speed advantage with that Aqua Jet it showed earlier.

'_Think Ketchum, think_!' The amber eyed trainer ranted to himself internally.

His hastily built plans were rent asunder themselves by Nando speaking up, "Armaldo, Earth Power if you please." He commanded, was even and as pleasant as ever.

Ash's eyes widened in disbelief, and before he could even shout a warning Armaldo stomped its foot and a massive rift formed across the field glowing with orange light.

Gible squawked in disbelief, eyes bugged out in horror as he shot up into the air in front of Armaldo. "Brick Break, then Mega Kick." Nando was quick to follow up.

"Rock Smash, block it!" Ash ordered quickly.

Glowing white claw clashed with glowing white claw as Brick Break and Rock Smash met in mid air, a small shock wave blasting throughout the arena from the force of the two attacks clashing.

Then Armaldo seemingly defied gravity and jumped backwards slightly and falling back, coming up from the legs and volleying Gible straight across the face with a massive, silvery white foot.

Ash grimaced as his pokemon crash landed in front of him, bruised and beaten, hell one of Gible's eyes were even swollen shut.

"_Ketchum started off strong folks! But it looks like Nando is the one controlling the flow of this battle and Armaldo is completely decimating Gible! How will Ketchum come back from this?_"

Ash nearly growled in anger, Arceus above man that guy was just begging to get a jab to the face. "C'mon Gible, I know you can do it." He praised the little pokemon as he struggled to stand.

Then purpled light it up the area and Ash turned, like a Deerling caught in headlights and stared in near horror at the sight of a sphere of menacing purple energy being compressed in Armaldo's mouth.

Shit man! A Hyper Beam attack seriously!? Nando was so damn soft spoken Ash didn't even hear him over the crowd.

"It's do or die Ketchum!" Ash gnashed his teeth, relenting. The attack was fired. A massive dark purple, so dark it was nearly black beam of power and Ash raised his arm, pokeball in hand and made to return his pokemon.

He failed.

Bright light erupted in front of him, nearly blinding him and forcing him to look way, "Gah!" He cried as squinted his eyes in attempt to lessen the blinding glare.

Then all of a sudden there was no light. No blinding light, nor consuming purple darkness.

Ash's eyes widened. "No way!" He breathed as his eyes took in the sight in front of him. Standing there proudly, with glowing talons spread out wide was a Gabite.

"_Well would you look a that folks! Just when it looked like the fat lady was about to sing, Gible evolved into a menacing Gabite! Will this be enough for Ketchum to secure the win?_"

Not only that Ash realized as he saw the flakes of purple energy glittering in the air, but Gabite had also empowered his talons with Rock Smash and cut straight through the Hyper Beam like paper.

Ash smirked, "Way to go Gabite!" He shouted in glee, punching a hand forward. "But the battle isn't over yet."

Amber eyes caught sight of blue flames licking at Gabite's feet as he was about to order another Dragon Smash combination and his smirk widened, "Let's do this with your newest attack, Dragon Rush!" He commanded.

Gabite shot off like a bullet, sprinting forward and then shooting into the air and gliding forward like a jet plane. Blue flames erupted all around Gabite's form, cloaking the newly evolved pokemon in a serpentine, yet draconian aura of power.

Within the time it took to blink, there was impact. A massive cloud of smoke was kicked up and Ash was amused to find the Referee landing on his ass.

A sense of euphoria washed over Ash as he heard the strangled scream of pain coming from what was un-mistakenly Armaldo within the cloud.

The smoke parted. Joy turned to horror.

Armaldo stood, tall and proud. Armoured plates in shambles, leaking purple ichor from multiple areas and bruised deeply around the chest region.

Gabite was crushed between its claws, struggling with all his might against being tightly pinned against Armaldo's chest.

Ash jumped right on the chance that was presented. "Flamethrower, again!" He commanded sharply, clenching his hands tightly into fists.

Gabite howled, tilting his head up and flames licking at the back of his throat.

Denial, in the form of Nando was quick though. "Headbutt!" The bard quickly countered.

With a roar, Armaldo smashed its armoured head straight against Gabite's and forced the smaller pokemon to cry out in agony, skull rattled.

"Hyper Beam, once again if you please!" Nando was quick to follow up.

Ash found himself being unable to do much more than stare as Armaldo tossed Gabite into the air and fired a hastily formed Hyper Beam right at his pokemon at point blank range.

The battlefield shook mightily once again, and Ash sighed as Gabite slid to a stop a few feet in front of him. Bruised, beaten, burned and more but Ash found himself smiling with pride.

"Return." He said, recalling his pokemon in a beam of red. Closing his eyes, he held the pokeball up to his lips and whispered, "Thanks for all your hard work Gabite, you've made me really proud to be your trainer."

Up above, Gabite's newly updated picture on the scoreboard dimmed.

"_With unstoppable power, Nando and Armaldo completely dominate the first match of the battle and show us all that they're here to play keeps and they'll go through anyone standing in their way! The question is folks, can Ketchum step up to the plate and take back the win for himself? Only time will tell._"

Ash ignored the MC's inane babbling. Paying attention to the crap he spewed would no doubt just make him angry, instead Ash quickly and methodically constructed his plan of action.

Nando may have caught him off guard with his behemoth of an Armaldo, but Gabite despite taking a massive beating had still managed to deal quite a bit of damage with the attacks he'd landed.

He switched Gabite's pokeball with his next pokemon's just in time fo the referee to point his red flag at Ash, "Red trainer, release your next pokemon." He stated evently.

Gripping the pokebal tightly for a moment, he then tossed it up and casually released the pokemon inside, "It's up to you now..."

With a burst of silvery white energy, the pokemon was revealed and Ash smirked as he idly caught the pokeball when it came back down. "There's no way they can stop you!" He declared, complete confidence in his voice.

* * *

**..And we're done guys. I hope you enjoyed it.**

**This chapter is unbeta'd since I'm currently without a beta...again.**

**With this chapter I've broke 30k words. Woop dee doo! Hardly comparable to the 200k or so words I had for Sinnoh With Skill, but eh what can ya do?**

**Slow and steady wins the race you know!**

**It doesn't really. That's just words used to comfort fat ass losers. So I guess I need to diet guys, cuz ain't no way this beast will settle for being a fat ass loser.**

**Still, I made you guys wait months and I've only given you a 6k or so word chapter. Sheesh, talk about being a stingy bastard am I right?**

**I want so bad to get writing more content for my pokemon stories, but seriously my motivation for pokemon is soooooo lacking right now. I had to literally force myself to write this.**

**Now, if you want a proper and amazing pokemon story. Check out Traveler by The Straight Elf. It is fucking amazing just how much he writes and how well he writes the story. I'll actually be catching up with his latest update after I post this. I tell you guys, Elf is a man after my own heart.**

**Another good story is Essence by VincentGrey21. Now, this story isn't for me, it has that trope of Gym Leaders going easy on noobie trainers and you guys know how much I hate that, but overall the story is rather well done and is looking to follow similar lines as Traveler, so keep an eye on this one guys. He really deserves way more reviews than he's got, so go check it out, tell him I sent you or whatever and leave him some nice reviews praising his content or whatever floats your boat.**

**I really wanna get my motivation for pokemon...horny again, so guys if you read any good pokemon stories let me know. As long as they don't involve Yaoi or Ash paired with Misty/Annabel/Iris I'm down with it.**

**Anyway, that's all I've got to say. A ton I know, and I'm sorr but I've been M.I.A for a while so I felt a needed to get some chit chat with you guys.**

**I'll wrap this up here now later guys!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Well, here we go again with chapter 6. Yay, another Skill story updated, woohoo!**

**But in all seriousness, this was long overdue.**

* * *

Dawn had to withhold a wince as Ash brought back his newly evolved Gabite. Her eyes took in Nando's Armaldo, marvelling at the beating it had taken but stood proud, seemingly not bothered in the least at its injuries, "That was intense," the blue haired girl breathed out softly, "I've never seen Nando battle like that before, I had no idea his pokemon could battle with that kind of ferocity."

Brock beside her nodded, his mouth set in a fine line, "Nando's usual battle style revolves around elegant movement and music based attacks like Sing and Bug Buzz," the breeder stated, "He knew Ash had already seen his battle style before and most likely already had a counter prepared for those kinds of situations." he continued.

Dawn turned to him, a puzzled look on her face, "That doesn't explain how he overwhelmed Gabite like Armaldo did. Hell, any average pokemon would have went down with ease after taking Ash's Dragon Smash combo." she said.

Brock nodded, "I think Armaldo was specifically trained to take on trainers like Ash." he replied.

Confusion coloured Dawn's eyes, "What do you mean, trainers like Ash?" the coordinator asked.

"I mean that..Ash isn't the most patient guy out there," Brock said in return, nodding down at the trainer in question, "Ash isn't the type to sit and wait for his opponent to come to him, that's why Flint's battle style didn't mesh well with him. He prefers to take off fast and strong and bring the fight to his opponent." he explained.

"Ah!" Dawn exclaimed, nodding her head in a knowing manner as the puzzles fell into place for her, "So what you mean is; Nando instead of training Armaldo to counter and use his opponents attacks against them like Flint, trained Armaldo to take a heavy amount of damage so that they could exploit the small lull between their opponents attacks, right?" the girl asked

"Yes," Brock replied, "More than that though, not only can that Armaldo take a hell of a beating, it's a physical powerhouse as well on top of that," he began, "If it wasn't the sheer momentum behind the two powerful attacks Gabite did connect with would have opened enough space for Gabite to escape Armaldo's return attacks."

Not only that, but even as a little Gible, Gabite was a monster in the making as well. Physically speaking, it was even stronger than Buizel and Infernape as a Gible and that was saying something considering the amount of special training Ash had given those two pokemon to improve their physical abilities. Taking into account that Pikachu was physically strong enough through Ash's training to toss a Milotic and it opened up some rather scary possibilities when one remembered that Ash had only had Gible for around two months.

Gabite definitely lived up to the hype that was given to all dragon-type pokemon. Especially those of the pseudo-lines. But, for Gabite to be overpowered so easily...it really told Brock how much of an exceptionally trained _monster_ that Armaldo was.

Nando, had beaten Ash at his own game. Physical strength and durability were two aspects of battle every single one of Ash's pokemon were trained to excel in extensively. From Pikachu tossing Milotic's, to Swellow stopping a Donphan in a full powered Rollout attack with just its feet and even Infernape newly after evolving holding up a massive and entirely metal robot that had to weigh at least a few tons with ease.

Brock had to admit...he was impressed. Not even Paul had managed to beat Ash at his own game and considering Paul at times seemed like a more ruthless mirror image of Ash, it said a lot. But still, Nando battling down there was like an entirely different person from when he faced Zoey at the Grand Festival.

Without a doubt…, "If he weren't so concerned about giving a fabulous show...he would have destroyed Zoey," Brock admitted, catching Dawn's attention.

The bluenette's eyes widened, "Really?" She breathed, "I mean I know what you said before about trainers and coordinators was right, but is there really that big of a gap?" she fretted. She didn't like the idea, who would? It meant if an accomplished trainer decided to take up contests, they'd have a good chance of demolishing pure coordinators with ease.

It just didn't sit right with her, that the only reason Nando wasn't the top coordinator in Sinnoh right now was because he was more inclined to showing the elegance of his pokemon instead of absolutely destroying the opposition with pure power like he was now against Ash.

Brock merely nodded, "The Nando right now is on a completely different level from the one we saw at the Grand Festival," he replied, "If he didn't care about showing off his pokemon, he would have taken Zoey down before she even knew what was going on."

Dawn noticed something then. He mentioned Zoey, but he made no mention of her, "What about me?" she decided on asking, giving Brock a curious look.

Brock smirked, raising a hand he pointed down at the battlefield below, "Nando may have caught Ash off guard with his sudden change in battle style," he said in return, "But this is still Ash's game Nando is playing and Gabite is still without a doubt Ash's weakest pokemon. Dragon-type, or not."

The breeder patted the blue haired girls head softly, a fond smile overtaking his smirk, "And you've been playing Ash's game for a while now, haven't you Dawn?" he asked, "It's how he taught you after all."

Dawn's eyes widened and she turned just in time to see Ash reveal his next pokemon, a pokemon she knew all too well. A grin of her own came upon her face, "Indeed he did," she whispered.

* * *

Up above, at the very top of the stadium and leaning over one of the railings on the walkway, a stern faced youth stared down at the battlefield, "Huh, now that's interesting." Paul commented, an amused glint in his eyes.

His eyes set on his rival, testing the word slightly in his mouth before he turned his attention to his rival's opponent. A snort left him, "More a coordinator at heart than a trainer, aren't you?" He mused, "You shoulda wore him down first then brought out the Armaldo last, then you might have actually had a chance at winning." the purple haired trainer said aloud.

Snorting, Paul kicked off the railing and turned on his heel to leave, "I've seen enough here," he said aloud as he walked in the direction of the exit, "I already know how this is going to end." with that said, he disappeared into the darkness of the exit tunnel.

* * *

Over in the Johto region, gathered within one of the rooms at the pokemon centre in Olivine City, four coordinators had their eyes glued to the screen.

Drew whistled in apparent amazement, "Damn," he started, "Ketchum is getting destroyed out there." he continued, a smirk that just oozed satisfaction spreading across his face.

He received a smack on the shoulder that forced him to withhold a wince, instead he merely glared at the offender, "Shut up," Solidad told him, an amused smile on her own pretty face, "I don't need to hear you getting into a pissing contest with Ash when he isn't even here."

Over by the wall, leaning on it with his arms crossed and clad in his belly button bearing Cacturne suit, Harley let loose a snort, "Please honey," he said, his voice cattily feminine, "We all know how any battle between Drew and lover boy would turn out." he told her with a girlish giggle, eyes closed in utter delight at the jab aimed at the green haired coordinator.

Drew growled, smacking Solidad's hand from his shoulder harshly, his eyes glancing over the fourth of their little group with her eyes still glued to the television, "Please, I could take him,"he replied with another low growl, "I already did before, didn't I?"

Another snort, this time coming from the girl still watching the television, "Yeah, cuz' beating the Tailow he'd had for less than a month with your starter pokemon that you yourself had for over a year is such a big accomplishment," May replied, not even bothering to take her eyes off the screen as she watched Ash return his downed Gabite.

His next choice of pokemon was familiar to her. A pokemon she'd seen him battle quite well with in the past. A pokemon that actually had a connection to a special moment she had in her life that she shared with the trainer battling on screen right now.

Drew clenched his fist. Plenty of guys flirted with May during their travels of Johto, she was a pretty and accomplished girl that had all the makings of a beautiful woman, but none of them could ever get on his nerves the way Ketchum did. He and that guy could never get along, for one he was an arrogant trainer that relied purely on brute power.

That Gabite of his just proved his point. Of course when Ketchum caught a dragon it would be one of the monsters of the type, not an elegant specimen like his own Flygon.

For another, Ketchum apparently didn't like the way he bagged on the battle style the trainer had taught May. It had been an underlying problem since they first met, and a problem that almost had them coming to blows when Drew had told her that the battle style was what held her back from winning the Kanto Grand Festival.

Not of his own violation, thank you very much. Drew was an elegant, classy gentleman unlike that brute of a trainer. Plus, even if he didn't like it he knew his chances of taking Ketchum on physically were drastically low. He was actually kind of disappointed the breeder had with the help of that Sceptile kept Ketchum from giving him a beating.

He could have both convinced May that he was a violent brute and possibly got charges placed on the trainer, what was a little physical pain for that kind of reward? Still, Ketchum pissed him off. It was always Ash did this, or Ash would do that. It was utterly maddening to get the brute out of May's thought process.

It made helping her create a new coordinator specific battle style quite the task. So what if the last two contest's they'd both been in he'd beaten her without much of a challenge? Creating a new style from scratch took time, it wasn't his fault. The fact she won her first three ribbons with Ketchum's style meant nothing.

Ketchum's style was holding her back from her full potential, that Drew fully believed.

Drew shook his head, he hated thinking about Ketchum, "If he's so _greeeaaat_," Drew made sure to draw the word great out mockingly and with a roll of his eyes, "Just why did he get his ass handed to him right there?" the green haired coordinator challenged.

May turned to him, a frown on her face, "The first thing Ash taught me about battling," she began, "Was that the first move is most often a feint, he wouldn't battle straight forward like that with the same pattern without a reason."

Drew rolled his eyes at her, "And just why would you think that?" he questioned, "Ketchum's a brute, powers all he has going for him, he's like a talking Slaking more than anything else from what I've seen." he continued.

A smirk lit up his face, "He certainly smells like one," he added with a chuckle.

May decided to ignore the little jabs at Ash, she'd never be able to understand the hate both Ash and Drew held for each other. "Because," she decided on replying, blue eyes set with certainty, "I know how Ash battles better than anybody save maybe Brock and Max, he did teach me how to battle in the first place after all." she replied, her voice set and confident.

A high pitched, girlish squeal resounded from off to the side and Harley threw himself forward wrapping his arms around May's neck and leaning on her back, "Look at you, all resolute and stuff when you're defending lover boy's skill," the purple haired coordinator giggled, "What do you think of his new bieau though? Y'know the one we saw kiss him in the highlights of his last battle and beat you down at the Wallace Cup?" His giggle continued, though turned far more sinister and malicious as he went on.

A shudder went down May's spine, but she fought it off with a growl and shouldered Harley back off her, "Shut up!" She shouted, a sudden anger overcoming her, "She was only congratulating him on winning, nothing else! And the only reason she won was because she was constantly using Ash's battle style and I….and I wasn't….." May started off shouting her defense, though near the end her voice got much lower and tapered off as what she said caught up with her.

She still only had three ribbons after all. The exact same amount she had when she last saw Ash.

Harley launched himself back, collapsing onto the couch in the room with delighted, almost evil sounding laughter. Even Solidad who'd kept quiet since she gave her input let out a small snort herself. Drew? Drew growled, storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him, "I'm going to train!" he shouted as he left.

May...she just stared at the screen blankly as the battle renewed with vigor.

* * *

"Let's go!" Ash shouted as his pokemon appeared before him. Arms crossed, a smirk on his face and

unshakable confidence blazing in his eyes, "We'll go with one of our new field combo's, use Rain Dance and Hidden Power!" the raven haired trainer commanded.

"Bui bui!" Buizel nodded, closing his eyes in concentration for but a moment before they snapped open once again. In one paw, a sphere of swirling crystalline water formed. In the other, an orb of crackling lightning vibrated with power. Then, with a grunt Buizel smashed them together and spun on his heel.

Rapidly closing the distance between them, Armaldo had its eyes set on Buizel as it blitzed towards the water-type encased within the aura of water brought upon by Aqua Jet. So, Buizel tossed the now two conjoined orbs at the approaching Armaldo.

The now one orb, darkened to the point where it was nearly grey in colour and letting loose jagged lances of lightning exploded before it even got halfway towards the approaching fossil pokemon.

The Armaldo let loose a wail of pain as a literal wave of water and lightning exploded outwards, washing over it and sweeping it away in a wave of sparking water. While above the battlefield, ominous dark clouds that rumbled mightily began to gather.

Rain began to fall but Nando paid it to heed, his eyes were set upon the sparking wave that carried his pokemon towards him, threatening to swallow him with Armaldo. The referee had already bailed ship as it were and jumped within the safety barrier provided for the referee's of each league battle.

"Hyper Beam, blow it away," the bard commanded sharply, "Let the current and momentum carry you back, gain as much distance as possible."

In an instant, an orb of darkness was compressed within Armaldo's maw. A second later it was fired in a massive, widespread beam of crackling black and purple energy, the sure sign of their training to master the attack. Hyper Beam was an attack that became darker in colour the more a pokemon truly began to master it.

The beam tore through the wave with ease, bisecting it and freeing Armaldo form the electrifying currents. Turning its head, Armaldo angled the beam so that it shot towards the Buizel standing at the opposite side of the battlefield, all the while the power behind the attack pushed Armaldo further and further back.

The Buizel didn't even attempt have time to dodge. The Hyper Beam homed in on it in the blink of an eye and washed over the unprepared water-type within a second.

Only, the attack never hit. Instead, the massive beam tore right through Buizel's form as if it wasn't even there, narrowly missed its trainer Ash and then hit the psychic barrier protecting the audience and exploded outwards, black and purple energy washing out over the barrier like spilling paint.

"What!?" Nando breathed in shock as the image of Buizel faded, leaving nothing but a wide hole underneath its previous position. Double Team! He'd not even seen the switch. That meant….!

His head whipped towards his pokemon sharply, but before he could let loose with another command, not that it would help with his pokemon briefly immobilized to recharge form the powerful attack it just fired. Buizel erupted from the ground right in front of Armaldo, shooting up a few feet into the air and delivered a powerful overhead, glowing blue chop right dead centre on Armaldo's head.

The ground beneath Armaldo cratered from the force of what Nando realized was a Brick Break attack. His breath hitched, but Nando didn't allow himself to panic. He'd trained Armaldo to take more punishment than any pokemon should be capable of taking, this was pushing it but Armaldo hadn't fallen even from that powerful blow.

"X-"

"Hydro Pump!"Ash suddenly shouted, making his presence known once again.

Nando was cut off before he could even form his command. Rolling mid-air, Buizel got behind Armaldo and within an instant, expelled a massive stream of highly condensed water that ploughed into Armaldo with all the force of a cannon.

Armaldo hit the dirt face first, the ground beneath it cratering deeper and deeper as the attack kept up, pushing it deeper and deeper into the very ground itself. All the while, Armaldo bellowed in pain...until it fell silent.

Only then did the powerful water attack cease, Buizel allowing the power behind the attack to propel itself back towards the safety of Ash's side of the battlefield. Landing nimbly, arms crossed and another confident self-assured smirk plastered across its face.

Nando sighed, casting a soft eye towards his pokemon that lay utterly defeated within a crater made by its own body. With pride, he raised up his pokeball and returned the pokemon within it. He touched the pokeball to his forehead, a smile on his face, "Thank you for your hard work my friend." He whispered to the pokeball before proceeding to switch it with another.

The referee chose that moment to reveal his attendance once again, bringing attention to him as he stood behind the psychic barrier, "Armaldo is unable to battle and Buizel is the winner!" he declared, "Green Trainer please release your second pokemon!"

The MC wasn't far behind him either, "_Well folks, it seems Nando didn't keep his lead for long, a beautiful feint was made by Ketchum with two separate combinations, combining Rain Dance with an electric-type Hidden Power. And Double Team with Dig._" he declared, "_Then, with the trap set Ketchum and Buizel got in close and finished the battle in the blink of an eye with an up close Brick Break followed by a devastatingly powerful Hydro Pump, I tell you folks I wouldn't like to be hit with any of those attacks."_

Nando rolled his eyes, the MC made such a sport out of their battle that it left a bad taste in his mouth. While indeed battling was seen as a sport nowadays, to Nando it was just like a contest, where a trainer showed their passion, their dreams and the love they'd raised their pokemon with. To cheapen it the way the MC did was like a stain upon each and every trainer here's honour.

He shook his head, ridding him of his thoughts on the matter. Instead, he turned his eye to his young friend who stood as his opponent today, "It seems that while I caught you off guard with Armaldo's power," he began, "It clearly wasn't enough to defeat you."

Ash merely smirked at him, "It was a good plan." the raven haired youth conceded, "You played me at my own game, you even actually beat down Gabite and threw me off a little, but it's still my game after all."

Nando smiled, "Indeed it seems so," he replied, "To be perfectly honest, I expected after bringing down Gabite to at least wear your next pokemon down a little bit, but it seems you turned the tables on me rather spectacularly." the bard mused.

With a chuckle, Ash thumbed his nose, "I panicked in that one moment you overwhelmed me, and it was enough for you to take the lead," he admitted, "But I'll tell you this now, I won't lose another pokemon in this battle." the amber eyed trainer boasted, his voice resolute in his confidence that Nando would not beat another of his pokemon.

Nando lifted one eyebrow in question, "Hmhmhm, we shall see my young friend," he replied with his own chuckle, "We shall see."

With that, Nando clicked the pokeball in his hand and released his next pokemon. He needed to get rid of that rain cloud above them first of all, there was no telling what kind of effects that thing had, especially seeing as he could still see that while it was raining sparks of electricity were running through the dark cloud.

Plus, his cloak was getting absolutely soaked. Not to mention his hair, it took quite a while to fix his long mane of hair without using a blow dryer after all.

"Roserade, to me if you please." Nando commanded sharply.

In front of him, his partner pokemon materialized. Predominantly green in colour, Roserade did not differ much from Roselia except that it was quite a bit taller, its head blossoming into a white rose that looked almost like hair and upon its body it had a green shading on its face that looked like a half mask and a fluttering green cape adorned its back.

With a click of his fingers, Nando ushered his first command, "Roserade, Sunny Day if you please,"

Roserade nodded, its body beginning to glow with a golden energy. Raising its hands into the air, Roserade was about release the attack into the air and disperse the dark cloud above. When suddenly, Roserad began screaming.

Nando watched in utter shock as a pillar of lightning descended from above, striking down upon Roserade in the time it took to blink, briefly shocking the pokemon intensely before dissipating. "What!?" Nando exclaimed in utter shock as Roserade stumbled back to its feet, shaking off the damage from the attack, though not without effort.

Ash chuckled, catching his attention even across the raining battlefield, "D'ya like it?" Ash asked, a smirk on his face, "I call it Thunderstorm, you wouldn't believe how long it took us to get this combo down." the trainer revealed.

Nando had to withhold a sigh. The name was pretty self explanatory, his young friend had through creating this combination attack had created a literal thunderstorm, although it didn't explain one thing. "Why did the lightning strike Roserade?" he asked.

Ash's smirk almost doubled in size, he was like a cheshire Persian, "Because the lightning was created from Buizel's own Hidden Power, he can control where it strikes." Ash replied earnestly. He had no reason to hide how it worked, either way Nando's goal wouldn't change.

"Interesting..." Nando mused, "Well then, the moment we pause to try and destroy the attack Roserade will be struck with lightning, thus meaning we shall have to keep constantly on the move." he said to himself thoughtfully.

He turned a sudden sharp eye towards Roserade, "Move towards Buizel, use Mind Reader and then follow with Magical Leaf." He commanded.

Roserade nodded. Then it danced. With sudden and elegant movement, it was off, dancing across the field in large leaps. Bright light erupted from its eyes directed at Buizel.

"Agility!" Ash shouted.

Buizel's former position it found. Buizel literally disappeared from site, moving so fast Roserade's eyes failed to keep track of the sea weasel pokemon. In the blink of an eye, Buizel appeared at Roserade's side.

"Ice Punch!" Ash was quick to follow with.

Fist glowing with icy blue energy, Buizel smashed his ice empowered fist straight into Roserade's cheek and sent the pokemon flying, a startled cry of pain leaving its green lips.

* * *

"Again!" Ash shouted swiftly. This combination wasn't just for the pinpoint lightning attacks after all.

Again, Buizel disappeared. Re-appearing right in front of Roserade's flight path and delivering a brutal Ice Punch that changed Roserade's path of flight once again.

Again and again Buizel blitzed Roserade, disappearing and re-appearing in the blink of an eye and delivering one Ice Punch after another. Neither Roserade or Nando could even begin to react to the devastatingly quick succession of attacks.

Thunderstorm wasn't just a field attack. It was an attack made to attack and set it up for Buizel's Swift Swim ability to be activated. Buizel's natural speed, enhanced by Swift Swim and then further empowered with Agility. It was a powerful combination, so powerful in fact that it made Buizel even faster than Pikachu by a decent margin.

It took a hell of a lot of energy to maintain though. Which is why he would be ending this battle here and now.

"Aqua Toss!" Ash declared.

In an instant, Buizel's attack pattern changed. An aura of water erupted around Buizel as he appeared in front of Roserade, grabbing the grass-type pokemon around the neck in a headlock. Then, then Buizel shot off into the sky carrying Roserade into the sky.

All was quiet as Buizel and Roserade disappeared into the cloud His amber eyes sought out Nando and Ash couldn't help but chuckle a little at the slack jawed expression on the bard's face. He had no idea what was going on.

Ash did though. For some weird reason, Buizel couldn't learn Seismic Toss. Weird considering it was little more than a grapple technique where the used tossed the opponent. So he'd made his own version with Buizel, and even put a little spin on it so Buizel could use it to a degree in the same range as his Charizard could. It was powerful when used from a high altitude.

So right now, Buizel was shooting high into the air with Aqua Jet. Once he got to a suitable height he'd about turn and come straight back down, using the headlock on his opponent to drive them face first into the earth after coming down from a massive height and picking up a ton of speed. He may even incorporate Agility into it once he figured out how to get Buizel to survive it without hurting himself.

"Any moment now." Ash mused, raising his eye to the sparking cloud above him. He wished he had a watch, it would be funny if he just started whistling and watching it, he was sure.

"_Folks..I just...what's...I have no idea what's going on,"_ the MC of course felt the need to chime in, "_Where did the pokemon go?_" he received only silence. That guy had no idea what he was doing besides stating the obvious

Nando's stare at him was almost heartbreaking. As if the world had abandoned him right then and there.

Thankfully, Ash didn't need to weather the stare any long. A mighty crash suddenly erupted from the middle of the arena, a small wave of water from the building puddle and chunks of earth flying into the air. Buizel flew off to his side, skidding to a halt in front of him, panting deeply but with a satisfied smirk on his face once again.

Smoke, water and earth gave way to reveal Roserade. A massive crater, almost entirely circular in shape had been forced into existence and almost five feet deep. Right in the centre of the crater, Roserade stood up ramrod straight like a hammered nail, head literally buried beneath the ground.

Ash almost burst out laughing right then and there.

* * *

Harley, back in Johto seemed to have no such reservations. He burst out into loud, uncontrollable and entirely malicious laughter. "No-nobody tell D-Drew!" He managed to get out in between bursts of laughter, "C-can you imagine t-t-the look on his f-face, aha!"

Solidad snorted, "What, you want to see Ash have his pokemon plough his Roserade face first into the ground after a drop from high altitude?" she questioned. Then she grinned, "On second thought, I'd pay to see that."

May rolled he eyes. How was it they were older than her again? Either way she wasn't interested in the Ash-Drew apparent rivalry. She was entirely focused on this battle. That move was ingenious, exactly something she'd expect from Ash and something that would probably go over well in a contest.

The thunderstorm cloud making it seem the pokemon had disappeared could be left out though if she ever tried it, it added a tad too much hilarity to the scene. She could see Ash from here, on the screen struggling not to laugh. May nearly rolled her eyes again

She wondered if Wartortle could learn Aqua Jet?

* * *

Nando clenched his hand around Roserade's pokeball tightly, a frown on his lips. That...that experience was unpleasant. Never before had he been made so entirely useless in a battle. Buizel had been just too fast for him to think of a counter and that finisher attack had taken him entirely out of the equation.

The only option, even now that he could think of would be a widespread attack that erupted from the body. The problem was, Roserade knew no such attack. Still, that speed was just too much.

Was that the kind of power those dedicated to solely training pokemon for battling could achieve? He knew that Gible, now Gabite had been Ash's most recent acquisition, had he only overwhelmed it because Ash had it for such a short amount of time?

No, Nando decided shaking his head. Even after taking that lightning strike and over a dozen Ice Punch attacks, Roserade had still had the power to continue. His pokemon were powerful enough to contend with Ash's, he had just been outplayed that was all.

Indeed, Nando realized. It was not his pokemon that were lacking, but him. He would rectify that, effectively immediately.

"Altaria, to me if you please!" the bard called as he released his final pokemon.

* * *

When the feather winged dragon appeared on the field. Ash decided it was time to wrap this up. From his belt, he retrieved Buizel's pokeball and returned him within a beam of red light. "Good job," he said to the pokeball, "No doubt you could have handled Altaria as well, but you've used up a ton of your energy and I want to finish this quickly."

"_What's this folks!? With the momentum entirely in his and Buizel's favour, Ketchum has decided on a timely switch out!_" The MC blathered on. Couldn't he find anything useful to say? "_What could he be planning now? Are we going to see another amazing combination from him_?"

He took a glance upwards, and as he imagined the weather effect without Buizel to power it was already dissipating, "Torterra, let's go!" the amber eyed trainer shouted, releasing his next pokemon. Torterra landed on the field, his weight nearly enough to shake the entire battlefield as he landed. The dual grass and ground-type roared as he appeared on the field, announcing his presence to all whom watched the battle.

"I will not be so easily outplayed as last time my young friend!" Nando shouted from across the battlefield.

Ash smirked, "That's fine, we're gonna end this in one attack anyway," he replied, full confidence in his voice.

"We're it but anyone else, me thinks it would be but a bluff!" Nando shouted, "But I know you speak nothing but what you believe to be the truth in this bout, but methinks we shall not fall so easily as you seem to believe my young friend!"

"Believe what you want." Was Ash's simple reply.

Then the battle was on once again.

"Moonblast, if you please!" Nando swiftly commanded. Once again forgoing any attempt at his usual Sing routine. Smart of him, Ash decided.

Every single member on his team today had been taught Sleep Talk in preparation for this battle. TM's were expensive little gadgets, but useful if you needed an attack for a quick fix. Bit of a rip off though since they only imparted the very basics of the attack into the pokemon they were used on. He taught his Heracross Sleep Talk a while back within a couple of days, easy stuff but the TM's were needed this one time because of they had less than a days preparation before facing Nando.

"Energy Ball." Ash ordered calmly, his eyes flickering to the Altaria flying above them, "Follow with Rock Climb but don't move from your spot." he continued.

Before he'd even finished speaking, Torterra had created a large sphere of swirling green energy that he sent soaring into the air where it collided with the equally large sphere of Moonblast. The two attacks exploded as they impacted, raining down motes of green and pink sparkles.

With a roar, Torterra was quick to follow up the attack. Claws on his feet glowing a bright silvery white, Torerra reared back up on his rear legs before slamming forward and crushing his front feet against the battlefield harshly.

The very battlefield splintered and shook beneath them as a massive pillar of earth shot from the ground into the air. In the split second before it smashed into Altaria, the part dragon pokemon managed to seamlessly and elegantly weave to the side and completely avoid the attack.

"Energy Ball, barrage." Ash was quick to follow up with.

In but a split moment, Torterra formed an energy ball in front of his mouth, much smaller than the previous one and sent it flying at Altaria. Again, and again Torterra rapidly created the spheres of grass type energy and released them like cannon balls towards Altaria.

None came even close to hitting, one by one Altaria weaved between the attacks with ease, not even close to to being on target. That was fine, though. Ash had a plan, he just had to make them come to Torterra. And a rapid fire of attacks like this, forced them to take action either way.

Nando clicked his fingers, "This is getting us nowhere," he spoke, his voice melodic as always but Ash could detect an under current of frustration in it, "Mist, then charge up please."

Dodging the latest Energy Ball, Altaria let loose a loud squeal and from its mouth a large fluffy cloud of mist began to erupt and take form, billowing across the battlefield and enshrouding the entire arena, hiding everything from view.

Things went quiet. Though Ash could still hear the murmurs of the crowd and a humming noise that he was sure were coming from Altaria. He cast an eye at the pokemon standing merely a few feet in front of him, "Take it head on, protect your skull," he said simply, "You know what to do after that."

Then, he closed his eyes. And waited.

* * *

Dawn growled, cupping her fingers around her eyes as she tried to peer through the fog, "C'mon! What the heck!" she shouted, "I can't see a thing." the coordinator complained.

With a huff, the blue haired girl leaned back, hugging Piplup to her chest as she pouted, "What's Nando even thinking?" she mused, "His pokemon can't see in that fog either."

"Correct." Brock answered her, "He's going for a physical attack, no doubt about it."

Dawn threw him a questioning glance, "How can you tell?" she asked.

Brock took a look at the filed before turning to give her his full attention, "He already had the range advantage with Altaria in the air, unfortunately for him Ash wasn't content to let him keep it which is why he kept Torterra shooting those Energy Balls." he explained, "His only option at this point is to take Ash and Torterra off guard, meaning he used the Mist attack as a way to hide his position from Torterra."

"But won't Torterra just move?" Dawn questioned.

Brock shook his head, "No," he answered, "They were in a bit of a stalemate. Altaria aren't really built for fast flying, they're more physical beasts than speed – with his coordinator training, Nando has done nothing to rectify that and has instead worked on making Altaria fly as elegantly as possible." he explained.

Once again, the pieces began to fall into place for Dawn, "Ah! So you mean Altaria couldn't close the distance fast enough before Torterra could react, right?" she asked, "And most likely that attacking from a distance wouldn't be useful because it would give away Altaria's position and make the fog a moot point, right?"

Brock nodded in affirming her thoughts, "Keep your eyes on the battle Dawn, either way this round is going to end in a few seconds." he told her.

* * *

For a few moments, the entire mist lit up red. Then, there was a thunderous impact. A grunt of pain so loud it reverberated throughout the entire battlefield, followed by another thunderous impact that caused the entire battlefield to shake mightily.

Then there was silence.

Seconds later, Ash opened his eyes and ever so slowly the mist clouding the battlefield from view began to disperse. When it fully cleared, the victor of the battle was revealed.

Torterra was the first thing that came into view, being near enough the biggest thing on the field. The entire side of Torterra's face was blackened, burnt right down to one of the shoulder that led to its amazingly hard shell, even the outer rims of the shell was burnt slightly as well, small red embers clinging to the surface.

Altaria was next to come into view. A shocking sight, the elegant part dragon type lay completely unconscious in yet another large crater. Four absolutely gargantuan roots pinned it in place, looking for all intents and purposes as if they came down like the hammer of a god from above and crushed Altaria beneath their mighty size and weight.

Altaria had managed to deal quite a bit of damage. Even slightly burning Torterra's shell was quite the feat. But in the end, as Ash had predicted….it indeed ended in one clean blow from Torterra.

"Altaria is unable to battle! With two pokemon remaining, the winner of this battle is the Red Trainer, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town!"

And with that, it was over. Ash would be moving on to the victory tournament for the third time in his young life.

* * *

**This...this was an utter mess. Partway through, mostly in the battles I just kind of lost the will to write it, got bored with it even. So I needed to force it, and that never ends well. So we're left with this mess.**

**This might be the worst chapter I've ever written, and that's saying something when you take a look at the mess which is Working Sinnoh With Skill. God, this was pathetic but I don't feel it in me right now to re-write this.**

**Anyway, it's kind of funny. I took a look at this story earlier and noticed my angry rant about XY in my previous chapter. Yes, the sentiments are still the same for me but after watching XY I've come to enjoy it, if only for Serena and Greninja. Pikachu is pretty much a non-entity, he rarely does anything useful. The funny thing is, if this was Ash's first journey, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.**

**As it is, it isn't. And I'm left with the reminder that Ash in both Hoenn and Sinnoh would curb stomp this Ash skill wise. Then there's his battle with Sawyer and jesus christ, it was legit the worst battle bar the one with Ritchie I've ever seen in the anime. Why was Ash the underdog in that battle, the one on the back foot instead of Sawyer, the rookie that admires Ash? That's like Konohamaru at 12 holding the advantage over Sage Mode Naruto. Slaking was retarded, Hawlucha shoulda downed it with ease. Where's the love for my boy Hawlucha man?**

_Anyway, moving on. Y'know guys, there are a ton of stories in this archive that are good but don't get as much love as they deserve. Way better than anything my dumbass can write. Check them out;_

_Into The Wild - By Kronus96 - This story wasn't exactly for me. But the writing is top notch, the length is killer and come on he's clearly way better than me at writing. Why the hell does he only have 71 reviews? He deserves way, way more than that. C'mon, show him some love people. Reviews do help writers to get motivated and he really deserves more for the amount of work he's put in. When Sinnoh with Skill had around his word count the first time around, it had over 2000 reviews and it was shit guys._

_Infinite Conquest - By Shadow1001 - This is a rather recent story, being out for around a week. It features an AU of Ash's Kalos Journey where he traveled alone, with nobody to drag him down or distract him. He won the Kalos League and with the help of all of his pokemon, conquered Diantha herself and became Champion. Now, Ash is looking to pursue his dream, his plans? Take on every single Champion and kick their asses. A little bit shaky on some aspects, like the battles but has the potential for an epic story. The word count isn't bad either, 19k words just for the first chapter alone! That's badass. But get this, it only has three reviews. The crap is that? 19k words and he's only got 3 reviews? That's some bullshit right there._

_Essence - By VincentGrey21 - This is a great story with chapter word counts comparable to Traveler. Only 12 chapters and he's already 394k words into the story, that is epic. It features some new takes on pokemon species, ranging from their sizes, Ash starts with a completely different start in Growlithe and even takes some different turns on some familiar faces. It only has 540 reviews though, that's quite an insult guys. More than double the length of Sinnoh With Skill, yet he barely has a quarter of the reviews it had long ago before it got taken down? He deserves way more, check it out._

_Challenger - By DarkFire1220 - This story, like Essence has a similar feel to it as Traveler. With 11 chapter it already has 145k word count, Ash is a bit lucky with his catches and his battle mechanics are still being expanded upon, but all around this is budding into a great story. Check it out, leave him some reviews to add to his counter. He deserves way more than he has at the moment._

_The Last Guardian of Aura - By Stjernefald - This story is just like Sun Soul, except even more fucked up in some aspects. It's dark, it's gritty and I suggest only a mature audience read it, otherwise you may be a bit put off by some of the aspects in the story. It is written masterfully, the fact that it only has 77 reviews is a travesty. This writer really does deserve more reviews._

**Anyway, as I mentioned about XY before. I really have come to enjoy Serena. I've yet to find any long, good story that features her paired with Ash mind you, except one. Can't remember the name of it, but it had a tournament setting quite like Fairy Tail's Grand Magic Games, was good. The sequel didn't appeal to me much mind you because of the numerous OC's that littered it. So if you guys know any good quality Amourshipping stories, I'd appreciate a heads up.**

**...God this has dragged on. I'm gonna end this right here before I get carried away talking about anything else. Although, remember to check out those stories, leave them plenty of reviews just as they deserve and to all a good night!**


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Pokémon, Adventure, Romance