A BONE-a-fide Master

Chapter 5: Battles of Bones

A young girl fell down a large chasm in a cave in a mountain. She said nothing as she fell into the darkness, just closing her eyes. Chara was a child who was mistreated by humans due to her fascination with monsters, driven to the point of suicide. Thus she climed Mt. Gold to the place the monsters were sealed in. She landed on a soft patch of grass in poor shape. A voice called to her "Howdie!" She sat up and turned to see a young goat monster approach and kneel down next to her. "My name's Asriel, it looks like you took a nasty fall." He said, holding her up and letting her lean on his shoulder.

They moved across a garden and approached an older goat couple. The girl looked up at the monsters, wondering why they were hesitating to kill her.

"My goodness, are you hurt, my child?" The lady goat monster said, kneeling down to her and healing her with magic.

"I found her after she fell!" Asriel said cheerfully, "I always wanted a sister! Mom, Dad, can we keep her?"

With that, the page of the comic shut.

"You know, for such an innocent guy, that's a rather dark start to your comic." Brock said, putting FONT issue #1 away in his backpack.

"Nyeh." Ash said with a thoughtful frown, "It came to me through a dream...like I was seeing a story before my eyes...stories...don't always start happy. It is through hard work and determination that we can achieve a happy ending!"

"That's a different outlook." Brock noted, "But if it's about humans and monsters, why call it Font?"

Ash held up a sketch. On it was a skeleton in a black business suit without a tie wearing a cloak-like black coat draped down to cover his lower body. He held his left hand to a chest, with a completely smooth hole going through the middle of that hand. An arm was outstreched, as if grasping for something. There was a hold in that hand; exactly the same as the last one. His face had a small open-mouth grin. His right eye was slightly u shaped with a crack going from the center of the socket to the top of his skull, and the completely round left eye had a white pupil in the dark socket, and a crack went from the bottom of his socket to below his mouth. A trail of orange magic streamed from his right eyesocket, with a trail of blue magic flowing from his left socket.

On his right side was a toddler skeleton wearing an orange coat, blue shorts and a red scarf, on his left side was a skeleton kid with two white pupils wearing a white shirt and black shorts and had a closed-mouth, toothy grin. Behind the three skeletons was a large, imposing machine on top of a lava pool. Above him was the title, FONT, with the letters F, O, N, T, around middle skeleton in Wingdings characters.

On the bottom of the page was Issue #2: W.D. (WingDings) Gaster, Royal Scientist

Brock gazed upon that unsettling image, before making a note of something. "Gaster has similar scars on his head!"

"Yes indeed! Is it any wonder why I named him Gaster?" Ash said, as a trainer approached him.

As Ash began battling a boy's Rattata with Vegetoid, Misty moved over to Brock's side.

"I feel as if he's hiding something." She said, clenching her hands over her heart.

"So do I...but of course we're relatively new to his circle of friends. I'd be worried if he spilled everything so quickly." Brock said.

"Do you think it has to do with that strange bones and those colored hearts we see if everything turns dark?" Misty asked, hearing the other cry out as his Rattata was knocked out by Vegetoid.

"...Probably." Brock said, as Ash tried to cheer up his opponent.

"You were so strong! Maybe you can take on AJ!" The boy said, wide eyed and awestruck!

"Nyeh? AJ" Ash asked, recalling Vegetoid.

"He's a really strong trainer, he set up an unofficial gym to take on other trainers and train his Pokemon." The trainer said, handing Ash some money and moving further towards Cerulean City.

"Nyeh heh heh! Sounds like a perfect challenge for the Great Ash Papyrus Ketchum! Nyeh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!" Ash laughed, running further down the train in the direction his former opponent pointed in.

His two traveling companions gulped and ran after him, only stopping when he did at a large wooden gate. An electronic board sat above it, with the words "WINS: 99, LOSSES: 0".

"So you're my hundredth win." A boy with spiky dark green hair said, leaning against the wall, reading FONT Issue #1.

"Nyeh heh heh! Or your first loss! Nyeh heh heh heh!" Ash said, following AJ inside as AJ put the comic into a pocket and opened the gate.

"Is one-on-one alright?" AJ asked, as a butterfree flew over and dropped off a backpack.

"I have nothing against it!" Ash said, getting into his "Papyrus battle pose".

"Aright then! Here we go!" AJ said, throwing a Poke Ball that opened to reveal a Sandshrew. It landed and snorted out, hunching over in anticipation.

"Nyeh heh! Your turn Sans!" Ash said, pointing at the battlefield while Sans casually walked out towards the field.

"Your Pokemon is rather lazy." AJ noted, watching Sans' slow movements.

"It's part of his charm..." Ash said, rubbing his head, "Be ready for anything Sans!"

"Alright let's get this done with quickly! Rollout!" AJ said, and Sandshrew curled up into a ball and rolled towards Sans quickly. Sans closed his right eye, as if winking, and stepped to the side and let Sandshrew roll past.

"Wak." Sans chuckled, shrugging.

"What? Turn around Sandshrew!" AJ shouted, and Sandshrew made a wide turn while still spinning.

"Sans. If you get a chance, use Bone Club!" Ash shouted. Sans narrowed his eyes and then planted the end of his bone club firmly into the ground in front of Sandshrew's path and jumped on the other end of the bone. Sans shrugged and giggled a bit, right before Sandshrew spun into the bone itself. It spun in place for a while, but eventually stopped rolling. Sans pulled out his bone and sent it crashing onto Sandshrew's head. Sandshrew stumbled and stepped back before shaking it off.

"Fissure Sandshrew!" AJ shouted and Sandshrew leaped and slammed a fist onto the ground, causing a crack to form and head towards Sans. Sans just smirked and leaped to the side of the crack.

"That's one evasive Marowak..." AJ noted, "Swift!"

"Nyeh heh! Block with Bone Rush! Just like I taught you!"" Ash said, and Sans slammed a hand on the ground and glowing white bones protruded like a wall in front of him. Sandshrew opened it's mouth and fired yellow star-shaped projectiles, but they were blocked by the bones.

"Nyeh heh! Now use Bone Rush!" Ash said, and Sans slammed his hand onto the ground again, and white bones sprouted from the ground and slammed into Sandshrew's chin, knocking him back.

"Nyeh heh heh! Use Ice Beam!" Ash said, and AJ's eyes widened as a glowing ice colored beam struck Sandshrew and sent him flying backwards. Sanshrew sat up and glared defiantly, and pounded a fist into it's hand.

"Tackle it!" AJ shouted, and Sandshrew charged forward.

"Bone Club! Nyeh heh heh!" Ash commanded, and Sans swung his club into Sandshrew's stomach before slamming it into Sandshrew's head. Sandshrew collapsed and fainted.

AJ recalled Sandshrew in shock. "I...lost?!"

"Nyeh heh heh heh heh heh!" Ash laughed, petting Sans on the head as he walked back to him...and fell asleep, "Ugh! Such a Lazybones!" Ash grumbled as he recalled Sans to his Poke Ball, who was chuckling in his sleep.

"Ugh! We were too weak!" AJ grumbled.

"Nyeh? What are you talking about?" Ash said, "It was a GREAT battle! You just need to believe in yourself and your Pokemon!"

"Sandshrew and I had a goal, 100 wins in a row and I would go out and start getting badges to enter the Pokemon League. Now we need to start all over again after 99 wins." AJ said.

"No matter! I can tell your Pokemon are greatly trained. Sandshrew's eyes show absolute trust in you. Use this loss to learn! I spent a couple years learning from Professor Oak before I started my journey, and I still have a lot more to learn! You've got to believe in yourself and your Pokemon!" Ash said. He raised a hand to his scarf, and the wind blew in a way that made his pose look dramatic.

"Heh...You're right...I just have to learn and start again..." AJ said, "I just need to keep training...and maybe...express how happy I am that my Pokemon are with me a little more."

"That's right! I believe in you! You can do a little better, even if you don't think so!" Ash said.

King Asgore and Queen Toriel took Chara in as their own child. Chara was still traumatized by her ordeals in the human-run surface, and Toriel ended up needing to hide the knives and dull any gardening tools, lest they find Chara trying to use it on herself.

An image of Chara handing Asgore a knitted pink sweater with the words "Mr. Dad Guy" on it was shown.

Eventually, the love and support of the Dreemur family won out, and Chara Dreemur became a happy child, even working with Toriel and put all her love into making Asgore a homemade sweater. Asriel became the brother she never had. The next image showed Chara, Toriel, Asriel, and Asgore sitting around a table enjoying some pie.

The comic shut, Brock putting it back into his bag.

The trio and Pokemon walked along the path, soon encountering a thick, unnatural fog. Brock tripped over a log in the path and sat down for a few minutes.

"Nyeh? Is that a light I see?" Ash said, seeing something glimmer within the mist.

"I see it too!" Misty said, narrowing her eyes in that direction.

"Nyeh heh heh heh! Light means that there are people nearby! Let's go!" Ash said, stumbling through the foggy forest. They soon came across a scene of three boys surrounding another running on a treadmill.

"So, what is this Pokemon?" A boy said, holding up a picture.

"I...don't know?" The boy on the treadmill said, making the boy press a button making the speed ramp up on the treadmill.

"Oh come on Joe! Just because it's foggy doesn't mean your brain has to be foggy!" Another boy said.

"Umm...it's Pidgey. Learns gust at level 9." Joe guessed, "Evolves to Pidgeotto at level 18."

"Great. A Boy said, now what is it's final evolution." The first boy said.

"Pidgeot. Evolves into Pidgeot at level 36...um...I forgot what speed it flies at." Joe said, and the boy speed up the treadmill until Joe slipped and was sent flying off.

Joe groaned on the ground as he sat up with the three kids surrounding him. Ash gazed upon the scene with shadowed eyes; Joe's form flickered to a young girl in a green and yellow sweater and to a young skeleton's.

"You're an embarrassment to Pokemon-Tech, Joe." The boy said, and a figure hidden in the shadows of the school watched the scene with a hard, disgusted gaze. Just as the first boy raised his hand and swung down, a red gloved hand grabbed onto his wrist and held it in place.

"I didn't even see him move!" Misty said, looking to the unoccupied spot Ash just stood in a second before.

A wide grin was on Ash's face and the shadow of his cap shadowed his eyes, only a glowing blue left eye was seen. "Do you want to have a bad time?" Ash said in a dark gravelly tone, and the kid gulped and shook his head, "Than don't EVER do that in my sight again." Ash growled out, dropping the kid and taking off his hat and stuffing it into his bag.

The kids ran off, terrified by the display, and Ash shook his head and put on a less terrifying grin.

"Well, that got the job done." Ash said, heading over to Joe, "Are you alright?"

"Why did you do that?" Joe asked, "My...friends...were just trying to help me."

The three travelers looked at him with weird looks.

"It's thanks to them I learned about Pidgey...you...you don't know how things are like at Pokemon-Tech." Joe said, "I'm just a beginner, and expenses are so high here, no one wants to leave without graduating. There are people in their 20s still in the beginner levels!"

"What about seeing the world?" Ash asked, "Becoming friends with Pokemon from all around the world?"

"My parents scraped up enough money to send me here...because I'm in the beginner course, I'm not even allowed a Pokemon of my own yet!" Joe said, making Ash gasp in horror.

"But what about the teachers? Surely they must know about this. This is a clear violation of the anti-bullying and anti-hazing laws for schools." Brock said.

"Either they don't know or don't care." He said, pulling out a picture as the shadowy figure wrote something with a pair of red eyes flashing behind her, "This is Giselle, the top beginner student and is in charge of the beginner students."

"A STUDENT is in charge of other students?!" Misty growled out, "Where is she, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind!"

"Right here." A girl said behind her, and they turned to see a girl in a blue and white school dress with long brown hair and brown eyes. "My beauty and skills make me the top in this school. They treat me like a movie star, but I'm JUST Giselle. And Joe...is an embarrassment to the school."

Shadows covered Ash's eyes.

"Misty...She's mine." Ash growled out with a terrifying grin, making Misty step back at the unusually dark tone, "Let's see if this school poster girl can back up her Pokemon Battle skills."

"Fine by me." Giselle said, leading them to a room with multiple shelves with Poke Balls. The figure hiding in the shadows sneaked in behind the group and stuck in the shadows.

"You don't want to underestimate me, I have been traveling for a month and have two badges." Ash said, the shadows cast by his hair hiding his eyes.

She scoffed at Ash, "Your Pokemon remain outside of Poke Balls. Exactly WHO is training WHO?" With that, she let out a huff, "Against you, I'll use my Cubone." With that, she tossed a Poke ball releasing a Pokemon Ash was familiar with.

"Wak. Marrow." Sans said, eyes narrowed on the rude girl, very serious for once.

"You know what to do Sans." Ash said, eyes still hidden.

Sans jumped forward and glared at the Cubone, who recoiled slightly before glaring back.

"Bonemerang!" Giselle called, and Cubone threw his bone, which Sans blocked with a Bone Club attack before deflecting the bone to the side into a wall.

"What?!" Giselle said, and Sans opened his mouth and used Ice Beam on her Cubone, which sent him flying into a wall. As Cubone emerged from the dust, Sans appeared behind him and struck him with Aerial Ace. The Cubone was sent skidding towards the battlefield, where Sans hit him again with Aerial Ace before striking him with Ice Beam, sending Cubone flying unconscious and landing at Giselle's feet.

"How does a Marowak know Ice Beam?!" Giselle said.

"Look, there's something that school can't teach." Ash said, but Giselle growled and moved over to a shelf and climbed up a ladder and grabbed a Poke Ball with the words "DO NOT USE" underneath it.

"I won't have some NOBODY tarnish the name of the school!" She said, throwing the Poke Ball and a very angry Gyrados emerged from it and roared.

"Giselle! Only Teachers are allowed to use that Gyrados!" Joe yelled.

"Hydro Pump!" Giselle said, but Gyrados roared and hit Sans with Aqua Tail before tackling him, knocking Sans unconscious. Ash quickly recalled him before he could get hurt anymore. Before Giselle could recall it, Gyrados swung it's tail and knocked Giselle down and the Poke Ball went rolling out of her reach. Asriel used a Thundershock, but Gyrados just got angrier and charged up a hyper beam in the small room.

Ash's left eye glowed blue as the beam fired at them, and he slammed his hand into the ground. The beam approached the group and then an explosion happened.

The dust cleared, revealing a cage of glowing white bones surrounding the group with scorch marks on it.

(Megalovania Ultimate Remix: www. youtube watch?v=nL5AHiMvH64 )

"I can overlook insults to me...I can forgive those who attack me within a second...but when you threaten the safety of my friends..." Ash said, standing up. The bones fell as Giselle stood up and Gyrados thrashed about, knocking over shelves.

"THAT WAS A MISTAKE..." Ash said in the same dark tone as earlier. He tilted his head up, eyes closed, "It's a beautiful day today. Pidgey are singing, flowers are blooming. On days like this, kids like you..." With that, his eyes seemed to lose all color, becoming pitch black.

"SHOULD BE BURNING IN HELL."

He snapped his fingers on his right hand, and glowing blue bones surrounded him and a weird thing floated over Ash. It looked like a goat skull combined with a dragon skull and had two glowing white eyes. Ash's left eye glowed blue and yellow, the light trailing off it like smoke. "So, this is what I call a blaster. A Gaster Blaster, to be precise. It gathers energy from the spaces between time and reality and unleashes it as physical energy. As you can probably guess, it hurts. a lot." Ash said, and swirling blue and golden energy started gathering in the skull's jaws as it aimed at the rampaging Gyrados, which fired a Hyper Beam at the ceiling. "It's going to fire soon, so I'll make this message quick. Don't ever attack my friends again."

The Gaster Blaster fully opened it's jaws, right eye vanishing as the left eye turned blue, and fired a white energy beam and knocked Gyrados back. Ash raised his right hand and gigantic glowing white bones surrounded the Gyrados. It tackled the bones, rearing back to roar in agony from the damaged it received on contact with the bones. The Gyrados fired another Hyper Beam at the group, which Ash blocked with the beam from the Gaster Blaster.

"Gengar, Shadow Ball." An aged voice said, and a dark sphere of ghostly energy slammed into the Gyrados and knocked it out in a single hit. A Gengar landed on the battlefield and glared at the girl as debris from the ceiling and room landed and settled. An aged woman with a stern face and graying blonde hair stepped out of the shadows. She wore a purple dress and had a walking cane. The Gengar stood next to her.

"I was wondering what was going on with the sham of a school." The lady said, before looking at Ash, whose eyes returned to normal and the Gaster Blaster vanished into thin air, "Huh. Not everyday I see a trainer bursting with the ghostly energy of the dead." The lady said, lighting a dark purple fire on her palm before brushing it off.

"That's why you have an Alolan Marowak, a dual Ghost and Fire Type." She said, gaze warming up at the sight of Gaster.

"Excuse me, I'm just a rookie, but you look familiar, and how do you know what species Gaster was?" Ash said, letting the blue and white bones fade.

The Lady laughed as Giselle backed up, only to be cornered by her Gengar. "I am Lady Agatha of the Elite Four, and I've been investigating this school." She said, "Every few years, a graduate from this school enters the Pokemon League...and they never make it past the top 32. I was investigating why...and what I found was a JOKE! This course is 90% THEORY! Graduates often don't have a full team even, just using the school's Pokemon with their permission! Then there's the BLATANT ignoring of the school anti-bullying and anti-hazing laws!"

"W-what?!" Joe said, "Than all the money my parents spent?" He begged.

"Don't worry, they'll be reimbursed...after the League CLOSES THIS SCHOOL PERMANENTLY!"Agatha yelled the last part at Giselle, before turning to Joe, "You may be very uncertain, but you remind me of a very powerful former trainer..."

"I...I do?" Joe asked, and a dark purple ball with sinister-looking eyes and a mouth surrounded by purple gas appeared next to Joe. It sniggered before yelling "GHASTLY!"

Joe jumped up and turned, paling slightly before gulping. "Ghastly! You know I am not allowed to have a Pokemon yet!" But the Pokemon ignored him, just settling into his arms.

"You know Joe, how would you feel about learning from me?" Agatha asked, "It's not everyday I see a strong bond between a trainer and a ghost type."

"Ghastly's not my Pokemon...not yet." Joe said, looking at the Ghost and Poison Type, "Ghastly is still wild, we play together every now and then when I was lonely."

"NYEH HEH HEH! THEN I HAVE A SOLUTION!" Ash said, handing Joe one of his empty Poke Balls, "Just catch it, the Poke Ball has a DNA scanner locking it to whoever touched the ball last after a capture."

"It's not everyday someone from the Elite 4 takes on a student" Brock said, "You should take this opportunity."

"I...I want to learn from you Miss Agatha!" Joe said, holding out the Poke Ball, which Ghastly brushed against and caught itself with.

"I won't go easy on you, but...you'll gain more confidence under my wing than in this prison." Agatha said, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Guys...We should head out..." Ash said, smiling at the scene, and the group of travelers quietly slipped from the building.

Still, one phrase echoed through the minds of Brock and Misty: a trainer bursting with the ghostly energy of the dead.