Thread: Adaptation (Advanceshipping Focus)

I will say this: a villain with no sensible goal always runs the risk of being boring. I do hope you plan to give him more backstory. It doesn't have to portray him in a sympathetic way but there should something on how he got to where he is, how he got a Darkrai, etc.

Originally Posted by Speedy_Fox_IV

Originally Posted by Best in the World

Just spot 4? Hopefully he'll have the number one spot by the time this story is over.

Well to be fair he has beaten Rodyle and Kvar from Tales of Symphonia and The Pig King from MOTHER 3.

lol he's on my hated list now too btw I bet my villain in hunger for more will make your lists too. Lol and you woudnt expect who it is either. No wonder you were talking about being inspired by a movie. You know not only does this rrmind me of dark knight but a little bit like law abiding citizen too. Evil bastard lol. I love your fics. I'm a fan of dark fics so I'm enjoying this. You should post this on fanfic.net also.

Originally Posted by beastmode953

Originally Posted by Speedy_Fox_IV

Originally Posted by Best in the World

Just spot 4? Hopefully he'll have the number one spot by the time this story is over.

Well to be fair he has beaten Rodyle and Kvar from Tales of Symphonia and The Pig King from MOTHER 3.

lol he's on my hated list now too btw I bet my villain in hunger for more will make your lists too. Lol and you woudnt expect who it is either. No wonder you were talking about being inspired by a movie. You know not only does this rrmind me of dark knight but a little bit like law abiding citizen too. Evil bastard lol. I love your fics. I'm a fan of dark fics so I'm enjoying this. You should post this on fanfic.net also.

I did post it on fanfiction.net, but I haven't uploaded anything past Chapter 1 yet. Thanks for the compliment. Also, I wouldn't know about any references to Law Abiding Citizen, as I've never seen the movie. I'll have to look it up.

Chapter 5: Burnt Pancakes

We left the hotel that night. We knew that it was too dangerous to stay. We didn’t have time to say goodbye to Misty. We just went. The previous night had been the most traumatizing of each of our lives, and we tried to burn it out as much as we could, but it would never go away, no matter how hard we tried. I still had reoccurring visions from the day before, and they dug into my mind like a knife thirsting for blood. It hurt so very badly. I remember feeling nothing but pain and agony for that period of time and just waiting for it to be over.

When I went to bed, I had dreams about him. They horrified me, especially since they seemed so real. People have said that once a Darkrai forces one dream upon you, it can force as many as it wants later on. That obviously turned out to be true. One night was worse than usual. I remember waking up in a cold sweat, screaming. The dream horrified me and shook me to my very core.

“Do you want to know why I do what I do?” The leader of Universal said to me. We were in a dark, dimly lit room. I was handcuffed to a chair, unable to move. I noticed scars all over my arms and face. “I’ll tell you. You see, my parents passed away when I was three. I lived with my drunk of an uncle and whore of an aunt. They completely ruined any sense of innocence I ever had. They beat me, threatened me with knives, cut me, and occasionally burned me. You didn’t think that such a… a monster could be terrified of someone, do you? I was terrified of them, boy. So, one night, I had enough. I killed them! I was free! That’s when I learned the one lesson that I’ll never forget, Mr. Ketchup, or whatever the hell your name is. Violence is the answer. You may not believe it now, but it really is. Now, I see the good side. I’m always happy. And, the real reason why I do this? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The world burned me, so I’m going to burn the world to Hell. You see, no matter what these ‘good citizens’ of our society today tell you, the fact remains that people respect a man with a gun more than they respect a hippie with a banner shouting protests for peace. Consider yourself educated.”

His motives were finally clear, but they were that of a madman. No sane man would go to such low levels to get revenge. May was awake as well, with Brock on the other side of the floor snoring.

“Did you have nightmares too?” She asked me, concerned.

“Yeah,” I said. “Worse than usual.”

“Me too. He was in the dream,” She whispered, almost afraid to even recognize him as a human being. “He talked about how his parents had died, his aunt and uncle had abused him… How he was going to send the world to Hell.”

“Sounds like we had the same dream.” I said to her, clutching my chest. My heart rate was up and my breathing had accelerated. I laid down to try and calm myself and stabilize my body, but to no avail.

“You know, at least it shows that he’s human. Or that he was once. He was just a kid, like us, until his life was ruined. To be honest, I almost felt… sorry for him.”

“I can’t afford to feel sorry for him.” I muttered.

“I know it’s wrong, Ash, but he was just like us at one point. He may have become a complete monster now, but he was a person at one point. At least, until he snapped.”

“May,” I said to her, finally sitting back up. “I don’t know if we can do this anymore. I don’t know how much more we can take.”: May looked sadly at me.

“Look at yourself,” She said to me, tears in her eyes. “You’ve never given up before, Ash, and all it’s doing is proving him right. He’s bringing out the worst in us! We can’t allow that to happen or we’ll end up just like him!”

“We’re nothing like him!” I said, almost shouting. “I’m sorry for raising my voice, but we’re not mass murderers or racists like he is.”

“I know, Ash, but people can change.”

After about three minutes of complete silence, I decided to end the awkwardness for a little while, at least.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” May asked, looking over in my direction. Her sapphire eyes gleamed, almost with disappointment that I was letting him do this to me. Letting him break me, destroy who I was.

“That this whole thing had to happen while you were here in Kanto,” I said to her. “I’m sorry that you’ve had to see all of this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you left. I won’t be mad if you do.”

May looked hurt. “I’m not going to leave you, Ash. Not again.” Again? I didn’t know what that meant, but after that things calmed down. We eventually went to sleep, hoping that the day ahead would be better than those behind it.

~~~

Once I woke up, I experienced a feeling that I had not felt in days. Peace. The sun had broken through the dark clouds of night and glowed radiantly, almost like a reminder to keep going. The clock next to my sleeping bag said six in the morning, and since Brock and May were still asleep, I decided to try my hand at making something for breakfast from the kitchen cupboard. The hotel had laid out freshly produced pancake batter that wasn’t set to expire for a few months, some chocolate milk in the refrigerator, a package of eggs, and three sets of bacon. They must’ve been expecting us to stay a while. Any logical person would’ve spared most of the food, but since I hadn’t had a good meal in days, I threw it all out onto the table and decided to start cooking.

Brock was the usual cook, and I quickly discovered why. It was more complicated than setting food inside an oven or putting a pop-tart into a toaster for ten seconds, it seemed. I had no idea what I was doing, but I decided to try anyway. Needless to say, I failed miserably. The eggs burned, the bacon was far more crispy than the package said it was supposed to be, and the pancakes had too much butter on them. There was only one thing to do; call room service, get some more, and wake Brock.

As I grabbed the phone, I realized something; I had no idea what I was doing. At the time, I had no idea what room service was. I thought that since you had paid to get to stay in the hotel, room service was free and would give you anything you wanted. How very, very wrong I was.

“Hello? Room service?” I asked as I dialed the number on the card next to the phone.

“Hello, this is Cerulean Isle Hotel’s Room Service. What do you need?”

A slick smile spread across my face. I could have anything I wanted, for free! I could tell them to take their clothes off and jump in a pool of chocolate milk and they would have to do it!

“Can I get some pancakes, eggs, chocolate milk and bacon?” I asked.

“Sure. Need anything else?” The woman on the other line answered.

“Can I get some chocolate up here? A lot of chocolate? Three packs?” I said. The grin was spreading farther and farther. Soon, I was smiling from ear to ear.

“We’ll see what we can do. Will that be all?”

I decided to not be selfish and get May and Brock something as well. May loved ramen noodles, so I’d get her some of those. Brock enjoyed women, but I’m sure this place didn’t run a whole prostitution ring (I was also a bit young to be ordering women over the phone at the time), so I decided to settle with a massage for him.

“Can I get some ramen noodles? And a massage?” I asked.

“Uh… Sure! We’ll have to go next door to the Johto-Themed restaurant to get the ramen, but we can handle the massage. Can you please tell us your room number?”

I checked outside the door, and said “306” into the phone, and she said that the goods would be up soon. Hopefully, all at the same time. I realized when I hung the phone up that my conversation with the hotel employee had woken up May and Brock.

“What are you doing on the phone?” Brock asked groggily. I smiled a bit.

“I just called room service.”

“Oh, God,” Brock said, putting his hands on his face. “What all did you order?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “Just some bacon, eggs, chocolate milk, pancake batter, chocolate, a massage, and some ramen.”

“What?!” He asked, shouting a bit. His reaction took me aback, as I had no idea what he was getting so offended by. “Do you KNOW how much that is going to COST?!” He asked me.

“It’s not free?” I asked. May just stared at me like I was an idiot, and Brock looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

“You know what? This will all be fine,” Brock said. “Once room service comes up, I’ll tell them that it was just a big misunderstanding. It will all be okay!”

Brock was then left speechless when the massage girl walked into the room. She had all the other delicacies on a red tray that she was carrying. She was bleach-blond with long legs, a large chest, and soft skin.

“Excuse me,” She said. “Someone in this room called for room service?”

“That would be me,” I said. She pulled in a massage table from the hallway. “The massage is for my friend over there. He’s the one drooling.” I mouthed a quick “you’re welcome” to Brock, who seemed to have all but forgotten about calling off the order. May and I chuckled as the woman placed Brock on the table and gave him the massage. He was sweating buckets; he’d obviously never had this much close contact with a woman before.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and I went to go get it. Once I opened the door, I saw Scarlett and Dawn.

“What in the hell is going on in here?” Scarlett asked. Her eyes twitched as she saw the woman massage Brock, while Dawn commented on how thankful she was that I hadn’t actually called up an “adult massage” and how thankful that Brock still had a shirt and some pants on. The hotel employee seemed quite grateful of that fact as well.

“Do you know how much this is going to cost?” Dawn asked me.

“A lot?” I guessed.

“Yeah,” Scarlett said to me, her head shaking as her red hair flowed over her shoulder. “A lot.”

~~~

After we had payed the hefty sum that the hotel required, we decided to hit the showers and go to bed for the night. We decided to check the television, and luckily, there was no news of bombings for the day, no killings… had the police caught him? Maybe it was over. Maybe we had finally woken up from this almost week-long nightmare, but the fact was, we hadn’t. The news flashed on, catching Brock, May and I’s immediate attention.

“Fuchsia City’s Gym Leader, Janine, has been found dead with the letters “T” and “U” carved into her back. No word yet from her Elite Four Member father, Koga. Autopsy shows signs of poison inside her bloodstream. Signs of a struggle near the site of her death found.”

~~~

The reason why this got done so fast is because I had most of it written before I published Chapter Four here on the site. This one is slightly happier, except for the beginning and end, of course. Not everything can be all sunshine and rainbows, you know.

I'd also like to point out that this chapter was exactly 2,000 words. :P So, that's a plus for me.

Chapter Six: Blood on Your Hands

All of us stared at the television, silent at what we had heard. Team Universal had taken the life of one of Kanto's gym leaders. But this wasn't like just killing a gym leader. This was killing a child. Janine was just a child. A child with a bright future that had been extinguished by hatred.

Over the course of the next few hours, it seemed as though the region was giving up hope. More people died every day from the unclean conditions in the cities brought on by the terrorist attacks. More deaths were coming now from the spread of disease than from bullets.

Fuchsia City held a candlelight memorial for Janine the day after the news report. We had left the hotel and were wandering, watching the memorial through the shattered glass windows of TV stores. Janine's father, Koga, sat throughout the entire event. He sobbed tears of sorrow and hung his head as low as he could. When he finally got up to speak, he couldn't manage to get a sentence out before he collapsed on the ground, sobbing hysterically.

About a minute after the memorial ended, the TV in the window faded to static once again. We moved along the same hopeless trail we had been walking along for days now, trying to find shelter but being denied by every person we came across. Even Pikachu, who once was full of boundless energy and happiness, lied on my shoulder, a depressed, dehydrated look on his now pale yellow face.

"The military has to come," Said Scarlett. "Someone has to come. They can't have abandoned us, right? Not now?" Brock looked at her sadly, knowing that any positive thing he said would be a lie.

May seemed to have been affected the worst of any of us. Gone was her delightful, cheery attitude. It was replaced by a gloomy, dark attitude that seemed to have been affecting us all. She and Scarlett could hardly ever be in the same place together, as they would fight whenever they got a chance. Their conflicting attitudes were their main reasons for fighting, but the reasons seemed to change quite often. However, there was no fighting today. Hardly a word was said. We all kept to our own thoughts.

As we walked along the grassy plains of Kanto, I couldn't help but think I saw something off in the distance. It appeared to be a small brick building. It appeared to have a long, stone chimney that smoke was pouring out of. The wooden roof was covered in soot from the smoke.

"Look!" I said, pointing at the house. "I... I think that's a house down there!" The others looked in the direction I was pointing in, and one by
one, their expressions changed from dark and depressing to hopeful. Dawn broke into a huge smile and began running, leading the way to the house.

When we approached the door, we realized that something had been carved into the side of the house by a knife. "NOT WELCOME" it said in all capital letters.

"Didn't you dumbasses read the goddamn sign?" A cold, older voice said from inside the house. It scared us all a bit, making Scarlett jump. A pair of icy blue bloodshot eyes were staring at us from a slit cut into the door. "You're not welcome here."

Brock walked to the door and began to stare at the man.

"Please," He begged in a sad, cold voice. "You have to let us in. We're dying out here!"

The man looked at Brock savagely and grimly said "Dying? You're no special case, boy, everybody out here is dying. I don't care if you are half dead, you ain't gettin' inside this house."

"Sir, you don't understand!" Brock cried. "We have children. We have a woman. If not for me, do it for them. Show some compassion! Please!" Brock said.

"Why should I show any compassion to you?" The man yelled. "The world has shown no compassion to me! You all have ten seconds to get away from my house. If you all are still standing here when I look back through this door, I'm going to blow all of your heads off with my shotgun. You best be hurrying up."

I couldn't believe this man. I pushed Brock out of the way and I marched up to the slit in the door.

"You're killing us!" I shouted while May and Brock tried to hold me back. "Our blood is on your hands! The blood of women and children! You're no better than those men that killed Janine!"

I heard the man marching back to the door, probably to finish us off like he had promised. I stared defiantly at him when he opened the door, knowing that even if I was going to die, I wasn't going to die without a fight. He had grey hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in months. He had on a brown coat and loose blue jeans. On his feet were leather dress shoes, black as night. His pale white skin shone like a spotlight in the grey skies. Pikachu trembled in terror on my shoulder as the man walked closer and closer towards us. He had a shotgun in his hands, but it was not pointed at any of us.

"Get your pathetic asses inside the house."

Intense story. I like your take on the personalities of the known main characters, especially Ash's.

Interesting villain, I'm wondering if a more justifiable driving force behind his actions will be revealed or if he is just 'all bad'. Either way, I'm actually starting to like him.

Your general writing and descriptions are good and I look forward to the next chapter!

I've pretty much got up to Chapter 10 finished, so don't be surprised if you see me posting something like one chapter per day.

Chapter Seven: Professor Courteous

As we all stepped inside the man's house, I could see May drifting a bit closer to my side. I turned my head sideways and looked at her, searching for an answer about what we should do next. She and I obviously shared the same suspicions about the man, who had not put down his shotgun since the six of us came in. His wooden floorboards creaked underneath our feet with every step we took, making an ominous sound. His home seemed bigger on the inside and looked much better kept than the outside.

"I s'pose you all should be making yourselves at home," He said in a grim, mountain-man like accent. "Seeing as it appears you'll be staying here for a while."

"Excuse me sir," Dawn said nervously. "But why will we be staying here a while?"

"Yeah," Brock replied. "I figured we'd spend the night here and be on our way."

The man looked at them like they were crazy. "You obviously don't know where you are. You're on the far edges of Kanto. No town, no houses, no civilization for miles and miles. Just forest full of deadly Pokemon. And while we're on the topic of deadly Pokemon..."

The man pulled a red and white Pokeball out of his coat pocket and expanded it from ping-pong ball size to about the size of an orange.

"This here is my good friend Lucario. If you touch one single thing of mine while you're here, I will personally order him to pummel each and every last one of your faces in. And don't think he won't do it. Judging by his experiences with the last folks that came in here and tried to rob me, he don't like anybody but me very much."

"But we're not going to rob you." May said, looking a bit puzzled at the man's logic.

"Lucario doesn't care." The man said with a smile. "Now, let's get down to business. I don't believe I ever caught any of your names, or perhaps it's just the fact that none of you have told me."

Each of us reluctantly gave our names to the man, who looked a bit disgusted at our parent's name choices.

"Who the hell names their kid Ash Ketchup?" He asked me.

"Ketchum, sir." I corrected him, trying to sound as friendly as I could. After all, the man had a shotgun and a very powerful Pokemon; I wasn't taking any chances here.

"Well, now that all of ya'll have told me your names, I think I should tell you mine. My name is James Lavender. However, I expect every last one of you to either respond to me as Sir, Professor Lavender, or Professor Courteous, since I was kind enough to let you in here in the first place."

"You're a Pokemon Professor?" Brock asked Professor Courteous, who rolled his eyes as though he had heard this same question a thousand times.

"In my younger days, yes I was. I quit so I wouldn't have to deal with young people like you all who think they know everything about Pokemon already and don't need my wisdom."

He set the shotgun down on his leather couch and took a seat on the other couch away from it.

"Now, while you lot are staying here, I figure I should set up some ground rules. Rule Number 1: You do not touch the shotgun. Rule Number 2: Follow rule number 1. Rule Number 3: You will work during your stay here."

"Work?!" Scarlett asked. "What kind of work?" Everybody else, including me, nodded in agreement.

"I run a large farm that runs about five acres back behind the house. I don't want you kids near my crops, so I think it might suit you best to take care of the Pokemon I've got back there. They're mostly Miltank and Tauros, but there's a few back there that I don't want. It's your job to take care of the ones that do need to be there, and it's also your job to eh... exterminate, or capture, if you wish, the ones that don't need to be there. If you fail to complete these tasks, you will be kicked off my land. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor Courteous." We all said in unison.

"Hot damn, you kids might be worth somethin'." He said as he got up off of his couch and carried his shotgun to a metal safe. He opened the safe up, stuck the shotgun inside along with all the other weapons he had in there, and closed the safe, making sure it was locked.

"This guy could run an armory..." I thought to myself.

"Seeing as how it's about eleven o'clock at night, I think you kids best be getting some rest. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow, but I don't have any time for sleeping. Lucario and I are going to stand watch on the porch and make sure none of those Team Universal hippies get through. Think of it as my way of saying thank you for you agreeing to do the backbreaking work that I normally have to do. Get a good night's sleep, because you all are going to be put through cruel and unusual child labor tomorrow." He said the last sentence with a bit of a chuckle, laughing at his own joke.

"He's kidding, right?" Scarlett said after making sure he had left the living room and gone up to his own bedroom.

"I have no idea." Brock said, running his fingers through his hair. He was obviously stressed, but he seemed excited at the prospect of getting to work with Pokemon. After all, he was a Pokemon Doctor before the Team Universal attacks happened. I assumed he would think of it as I way of getting back to his job and having something go back to normal.

May, however was not nearly as excited.

"I'm not built for manual labor or hunting Pokemon!" She said. "How are we supposed to get those things off of the land?" She asked me with a twinge of worry in her voice.

"I have no idea," Dawn muttered under her breath. "But I still don't fully trust Professor Courteous."

"He seems like a nice enough guy," I said in reply to her statement. "After all, if he wanted to kill us, he would've done it while we were at his porch."

"Maybe you're right, Ash," Brock said to me, still running his fingers through his hair. "I think we should give Professor Courteous a chance. After all, until we can get a car or something, we have no way of leaving. I don't think our flying types could even carry us that far.

I felt a twinge of pain shoot through my stomach. I had left all of my flying types back to Oak's lab in Pallet Town. They were probably all dead after the attack, unless they flew away.

"Yeah, they flew away." I thought, trying to comfort myself.

"Oh, and one more thing!" Professor Courteous said after walking down the stairs to come back down to the living room. "So you kids don't have sex or whatever it is people your age do in my living room, the guest room has about five beds. The boy's Pikachu will just have to sleep with him. It's the first room to the right in the hallway. The other room is the bathroom, and the room behind that is the kitchen. Don't go wandering off unless you need to go to the bathroom, in which case, immediately return to the room when you're done. Understand?"

"Yes, Professor Courteous." We all said in unison again. He smiled a bit and walked back up to his bedroom.

We all took turns in the bathroom taking showers and claiming beds. May showered first and came back in a red t shirt and purple shorts. She picked the biggest, most well-made bed in the room while the rest of us scowled at her, full of jealousy. I went second and picked the bed right under the air conditioning, right in between May and Brock's beds. Scarlett chose the bed next to Brock (much to his delight) and Dawn slept on the far right bed.

Pikachu laid down next to me and started cooing softly, voicing his approval that we had a bed to sleep in tonight instead of a sleeping bag.

"Much better, isn't it?" I asked him, his ears standing up a bit.

"Pikapiiii," He responded joyfully. It seemed that all of his distrust of Professor Courteous had gone away. He seemed to be quite enjoying his time in this house.

~~~

"Alright, kids!" Professor Courteous shouted as he walked into the room. "It's seven o'clock in the morning and it's time to wake up for some cruel labor. Earlier, I found a group of Lilligants terrorizing my crops. Me being an old man, and due to the fact that I would be arrested if I shot them, it's your job to drive them off as quickly as possible. I don't care what you do, catch 'em, kill 'em, drive 'em off... Just get 'em off my land."

Scarlett looked a bit excited at the prospect. "My Chimchar should be able to handle this pretty easily. He's a fire type, and if I remember correctly, Lilligant is a grass type, right Professor?"

"BINGO!" He shouted, making us all jump. "Looks like we've got ourselves a human encyclopedia over here, and an attractive one at that!" Scarlett blushed a bit, while Brock looked livid. I found the professor's attraction to Scarlett a bit creepy as well, but shrugged it off and changed my clothes and went outside with the others.

Once we were outside, we realized that the sun was especially bright today and hot. It was going to be miserable.

"I assume all of you know what you're doing?" He asked us. "I know the tall one, Brock, I believe it was, knows what he's doing. You were a gym leader, correct?"

"Yes," Brock said, a twinge of pain in his voice. "I was."

"Well, that's all for the better, because I'm going to need some strong trainers to get rid of these nuisances. Normally I'd get Lucario to do it, but he's been doing it for years, and I figured I'd give him a little time off. Now get to work!"

~~~

This is great, keep the chapters coming.

keep it comming please, btw i think that if this was a videogame then josh, itionobo, and the rest would of put the leader of team universe in there top hated characthers

My God, this is the best fanfic ive read since rival's story. Keep updating,please!

Alright, I'm really sorry for not updating lately, but I've been trying to finish some of these chapters so I'll at least have an idea of how the main plot is going to go and how not to ruin it with these earlier chapters. So, here's Chapter 8.

Chapter 8: Burning Bright

"Hey!" Professor Courteous yelled once he saw us all running off to go handle the Lilligant. "Are you all a bunch of idiots? You do know that those things will see you coming, right? Split the hell up, dumbasses!"

We all rolled our eyes and walked back to where the Professor was standing. He was looking at the silver watch on his arm, checking the time.

"You kids obviously didn't pay too much attention in school, did you?" He asked us. "If you did, then you'd obviously know that Lilligant has the sharpest eyesight of any grass-type Pokemon. Therefore, that means you can't attack them head on. Split up into groups."

The professor walked up to me and pointed towards my face. "You, Mr. Ketchup, or whatever sauce you are calling yourself today, will be with the girl in red over there, with the brown hair. I don't know what her name is, so I'm just going to call her Miss Molly," He looked over at May and pointed in her direction. "Are you okay with that, Miss Molly?"

"Yes, Professor Courteous." She said with a bit of a laugh.

The professor sharpened his glare towards May. "Are you making fun of one of my names, Miss Molly? Because you can call me whatever you like. Such as Professor Man Who's Got a Gun. Maybe that would suit you better, Miss Molly?"

May gulped. "No, Professor Courteous, that's alright. It won't happen again."

"You're damn right it won't," He said, before looking over at Brock. "Well, seeing as how there's three of you left, I think I'll just pair all of you up in a group. Brock, you'll be paired up with the redhead over here and the girl with the skirt." Brock looked absolutely delighted to be paired up with Scarlett. "Now, go split up and get to work, will ya? I'm losing precious crops every second you idiots are over here."

We ran off in opposite directions. Pikachu was panting on my shoulder, obviously hungry due to the fact that Professor Courteous wasn't courteous enough to give us any breakfast. May and I decided to simply walk towards the Lilligant, saving our energy for what was likely to end in a battle.

"Ash, I have a question," May asked me.

"What might that be?"

"How does he expect me to fight these things when all of my Pokemon are back in Hoenn?" She asked me, looking back at the Professor like he was the biggest idiot in the world.

"I don't know," I answered. "Maybe he's got some sort of Pokemon transferring machine like they have at the Pokemon centers? Anyway, it's not like we're staying here in the first place, so why bother worrying about it? Pikachu can handle this task, and once we go after we get done here, we can head to a Pokemon Center and get your Pokemon."

"Why do you say that we're going to leave?" She asked me with a serious tone. "This is the first decent place we've had, Ash. Sure, the guy may be a lunatic, but at least he's been somewhat kind to us since he's let us in. He's given us a place to stay, he has food, he has water. What else could we want?"

"I don't know, May." I replied. "But I just know that we have to leave some time. We can't stay here, we can't stay in Kanto. We need to get my parents and leave for some other region. It just isn't safe here anymore."

"Just give him a chance." May said.

At that moment, we heard a scream pierce through the air and the loud sound of fire off in the distance.

~~~

We ran back towards the source of the scream, praying that it wasn't Brock, Dawn, Scarlett, or even the Professor. The smell of smoke filled our lungs, making the air hard to breathe. After a while, we finally came back to the source of the scream. As our eyes opened wide with horror, we saw that the professor's house had been burned down and his front lawn had the letters T and U carved into it with a knife. The professor himself was laying on the ground outside his house, sobbing. As we looked over, we saw Brock, Dawn, and Scarlett running over as well.

"What happened?" Dawn asked me, her eyes wide with fear.

I struggled to keep my voice steady as I tried to reply to her question. "I... I... I don't know what happened."

Brock looked over at the lawn, and with a terror-filled voice, he said "I do. I know what happened."

"What?" May asked. Her eyes hadn't been taken off of the Professor the entire time.

"Team Universe happened." After he got done saying that, he walked up to the Professor and lifted him onto his feet. He pushed him down to the ground and held him by his shirt collar.

"What were you doing? Why did they target you? What makes you so special to them?!" Brock asked, furious. "Answer me!"

The professor looked at him, his gaze unfaltering. "I gave medical supplies to the cities that needed them. I orchestrated the food drops, I did everything I could. I had a computer in the back that was hooked up to Kanto's government board. I work for the government, or at least I did before this all started. I was the only one who could do anything about what was going on. My section was the only one that Team Universe hadn't taken over yet, and I was the only one that could do the supply drops. They came to destroy the computer and kill me. They succeeded in half of that."

Brock let go of the professor, who had his shotgun laying right beside him and his Lucario's pokeball on his belt.

"We have to stop them." The professor said. "I'm the only one who knows how. But I can't do it alone. I need help."

"Wait," I asked him. My mind was spinning with all the things that had just happened. "Are you trying to recruit us into some little gang?"

"No," The professor answered. "A resistance, more or less. Something for the people to rally behind, a figure of hope, you know?" He asked.

"Why should we help you, when you were the same person that pointed a shotgun to our faces just a day ago?" May asked him, her voice mixed with anger.

"I didn't shoot you, did I? You know why I didn't?" The professor said. "I knew that this day was coming, that they were going to find me, and I knew I was going to need help to stop them. You kids are my last hope. If you won't help me, fine, I'll go do it myself, and probably get myself killed. But now, it's time for me to ask you the same question that you asked me a day ago. Do you want my blood on your hands?"

We said nothing. Instead, we just looked at each other, weighing our possible options.

"Good." The Professor said. "We're leaving right now. I hope you didn't leave too many of your things inside the house."

~~~

Very nice. short, but well written.

Chapter 9: An Insanely Stupid Plan

Wandering aimlessly outside of the Professor's now crispy home, we started to question our decision. This was an old, senile man we were traveling with here, one probably out for revenge now that Team Universe had burned his home into ashes, and one that probably didn't have too much left in the tank physically or mentally. In other words, we were, absolutely, most certainly, doomed beyond hope.

After finally turning and walking away from the cremated corpse of the home, Scarlett finally decided to ask a very good question.

"Professor, you never told us your name," She pointed out. "What is it, exactly?"

The professor sighed a bit and looked back at her. "Missy, I doubt names matter very much anymore, as we are now probably being hunted down like small woodland creatures."

"I was just asking..." She took a deep breath and walked back over and started a conversation with Brock.

Leaning in closer so I could hear what they were saying, I started to hear some valid points being brought up.

"How exactly are we supposed to trust this man if he won't even let us know what his real name is? I'm sick of the adjective names. I want to know who he is." Scarlett said.

"So do I, but we really can't force him to tell us anything right now. His home was just burned down in front of his eyes."

"That's no excuse for not telling us in the first place before it actually did burn down."

I sighed a bit and walked over to May and Dawn. This was going to be quite the long journey if we couldn't agree on something so simple as wether or not a man should have to tell us his name.

"Hi, Ash," Dawn said cheerily. "Can you believe we're actually going out and doing a real mission? A mission to bring down terrorists? It's so exciting!"

"And terrifying," I thought to myself. "Yes, it's... very exciting." I muttered.

Pikachu tugged a bit at my cap and started to sway a bit on my shoulder. It was obvious he was tired. I took him by his waist and slung his limp body over my shoulder as he silently went to sleep, taking all his worries away with him. If only it were that easy.

~~~

After a few hours of walking and what seemed like years of foot pains, the Professor signaled for us to stop.

"Wait here," He said, pulling out his Lucario's pokeball.

"Is something wrong, Professor?" May asked. It was a good question and one that was on all of our minds.

"Not really, other than the fact that we have to cross a forest full of some of nature's deadliest creatures. Other than that, everything is just dandy."

Brock opened his eyes widely. "What exactly do you mean by "some of nature's deadliest creatures"?"

"I mean some of nature's deadliest creatures. Boy, where did you go to school? You obviously didn't get a Master's Degree in Listening Skills."

Scarlett snorted a bit out of laughter and then immediately returned to the fearful state everyone else was in.

"I would highly recommend having some of your most powerful Pokemon on standby. This could, and more than likely will, get ugly."

Great. My most powerful Pokemon, Pikachu, was asleep, and my Corphish had little to no battle experience. My other Pokemon were all back at Oak's Lab, which we had designated early on as the first place we would visit so that I could get my Pokemon back and divide them out among the group, since none of us had more than one a piece.

"Pikachu, you need to wake up right now." I said into the little mouse Pokemon's ear, praying that he would wake up. Once his eyes opened a little bit, I could tell that he was very unhappy about being woken up.

"Pika? Chu, Chu Pika?" He muttered angrily, trying to go back to sleep.

"Pikachu, you need to wake up. I need you right now."

He opened his eyes a bit wider as if to say "fine, whatever" and sprang to the ground, battle ready. He seemed to wonder where the opponent was and why we would be having a battle at a time like this.

"Pikachu, we have to cross that forest. Could you, Piplup, Lucario, and Scarlett's Chimchar lead the way? We need to keep Blaziken and Corphish back here in case anything goes wrong, and it would be wonderful if you would lead the way for us."

He gave a little salute and walked to the front of the group with Lucario and the others after they were released from their Pokeballs by their trainers. It was an almost amusing sight to see, as they seemed to form a military-style defense system, protecting us from any harm.

We took the first step into the forest, and it was stunning to hear so many different sounds going on at once. The wind rustling through the trees, the sunlight up above shining down, the sounds of Pokemon scampering across the brush and the brambles. This forest didn't seem deadly at all.

"I thought you said this was home to nature's deadliest creatures, Professor." May said sarcastically.

"Don't let your guard down, Missy," He responded. "It could be the last mistake you ever make." He said while leading the group through the forest.

After walking for a few minutes, we started to see a little less sunlight and more growls instead of scampering. We started to get a bit nervous, finally seeing the Professor's point about the forest. Suddenly, we started to see eyes staring at us through the bushes, snarling hungrily.

"Uh... What was that?" Brock asked.

"Sounds like a pack of Mightyena." The Professor said.

"So we have a pack of feral Pokemon that want to eat us on us now?" Dawn asked.

"More or less, yes." The Professor confirmed. "We'll have to hold the line, see if they get scared away."

When it became apparent that they weren't leaving, the Professor suggested a different option.

"Yeah, I think now would be a good time to put those Pokemon of your's to work, children."

The pack emerged from the bushes, snarling at us hungrily.

"Pikachu," I muttered. "Use Thunderbolt on the large one. He's the leader. Maybe if we attack him, the rest of the pack will get scared away."

Pikachu charged up his attack, his body glowing yellow with the sheer power of the voltage. The Mightyena, however, knew what was coming and jumped away ahead of time and leaped at Pikachu's throat.

"Lucario, protect the little rodent!" Professor Courteous shouted, sending the fighting type into a defensive stance. Lucario sped in front of Pikachu and delivered a slight kick to the jaw to the Mightyena.

Now the entire pack had its' focus on Lucario, their lips wet with saliva and hunger. The dogs leaped, all at one time, on top of Lucario while the Professor shouted in fear.

"Chimchar, use Flame Wheel!" Scarlett said. The small monkey Pokemon rolled itself into a ball and allowed flames to encompass its' entire body. It rolled toward the pack and struck them all right in the center of the mound, sending them scattering. However, the momentum of the attack proved to be too much. Chimchar, still ablaze, rolled into a bush. This started a fire in the bush, which quickly spread to the trees and all other forms of plant life within the area. The pack of Mightyena quickly fled, but we were trapped within the inferno.

"Run!" The Professor shouted as the fire spread all around us. I commanded Corphish to put out the fires ahead of us with his water type attacks, which proved effective until the fire was started again above us. Branches started falling and we had nowhere to run. Suddenly, I heard a branch crack and felt a large impact on my head, forcing me downward. Hearing the shouts of the group, I felt blood trickle down my forehead as I slowly passed out from the pain.

~~~

Yes, it took me that long to get that idea in my head. Sorry.

ALSO: I will be editing previous chapters to make them make more sense to the plotline of the overall story. It'll be a long process that probably won't start until at least somewhere along chapter 15, because I really need to get the feel of the story going again after taking such a long break.