Hello again. Ash was a bit cold at the end of the last chapter wasn't he. I like this chapter a lot more and it was a lot easier to write due to the fact Ash was actually on his journey. Thanks for all the reviews again, I love reading them.

It was raining gently when Ash finally released Riolu, he had already walked over a kilometre from Pallet and the other three trainers were well in front of him on the road to Viridian. In the half an hour he had been walking he had seen many Pokemon; Pidgeys, Rattatas and Spearows frequented the road, however none had really caught his interest or stood out from the crowd.

Ash wanted his team to eventually have a large type coverage so there would be no obvious weaknesses when he got to the conference, all four of his Pokemon so far were different types and had the ability to evolve into dual types. Pidgeys were the most likely candidate as he no normal or flying types so far, apart from a potential Charizard, however they were very commonly caught by other trainers as Pidgeot was a monster on the battlefield that many trainers used due to their mix of lightning speed and they were very easy to train from their pre-evolved forms.

'What do you think Riolu, any of these Pidgeys look promising?' Ash communicated through the bond with the small jackel.

'All have potential master, but none have the ability to stand out from the rest of their species' the jackal informed him once he had scanned their auras giving him a general assessment of the different pokemon's strength and character

Ash continued to walk along the well trodden path, until he stopped and turned to his Pokemon 'do you think I was wrong walking out on my Mum like that' he asked the small Pokemon, looking for solace in the pokemon that acted years his senior even though it was just an infant.

Riolu turned to him 'it is your choice master, yes she didn't tell you what mattered to you most and she knew it would hurt you' Riolu paused for thought before continuing 'but perhaps she did it protect you and your vision of your father'.

'But she betrayed me' Ash exclaimed 'All the others didn't care, so I didn't care. But she was the one person who I cared about, the one person I let in and now she's broken that trust. All I wanted was to meet my father, but no she denied me that' Ash bemoaned.

'Master, you and I both know your memma would never do something to push you away like this unless she had a motive' Riolu reasoned 'she would never hurt you like that and you know it' Riolu stated starting to get tired of his trainers attitude towards the situation. Riolu knew Ash had trust issues because of his upbringing but it never gave him a reason to doubt and push his memma away.

Ash stalked on in stony silence choosing not to acknowledge his pokemon's reasoning 'he must have got the stubborn streak a mile wide from his father' Riolu thought.

'Why?' Ash thought as he steadfastly carried on along the path in the rain 'why does everybody hate me? What did I ever do to Gary and the other kids?' His thoughts continued slowly getting darker 'why did he leave? Everything that ever happened could have been stopped if he was there' Ash started to cry, he hadn't done this since he was 8, shows of emotion just encouraged his bullies, so he locked them away and became in essence a living statue apart from when he was around his pokemon or he was at home. tears ran down his face at the memories of his life so far. When suddenly the clouds opened up and a large bird flew through them that he had never seen before.

The birds wings were like rainbows each of its feathers glistening in the sun as it shone through the clouds like a halo on the bird creating a rainbow with the rain, which the majestic bird rode along. Ash fumbled for his pokedex, almost dropping it in his haste to scan this new Pokemon. He raised it.

Ho-Oh the legendary rainbow pokemon of Johto. Ho-Oh's feathers glow in seven colors depending on the angle at which they are struck by light. These feathers are said to bring happiness to the bearers. This Pokémon is said to live at the foot of a rainbow.

Ho-Oh flew along the rainbow getting closer to Ash, before it sharply turned away, ruffling its wings as it did, a feather dropped from them as the bird turned away from the boy. The Ho-Oh disappeared as quickly as it had appeared disappearing up into the clouds as recovered and once again the sky greyed.

The feather continued its slow descent towards Ash, neither Pokemon nor trainer said a word as they watched it drop towards Ash still stunned by the display they had witnessed just a few seconds before. The feather finally reached Ash and it dropped into his right hand. Suddenly he felt a hot pain on the back of his right shoulder.

The pain increased till it was no longer bearable, even with Ash's high pain tolerance, it was as if he was being marked, as Ash passed out he heard a whisper 'hope', before his vision blackened and he passed out from the pain radiating from the back of his right shoulder.

Ash slowly opened his eyes, everything was blurry and out of focus, his shoulder still hurt like a bitch. It was dark apart from a small glow off to his right, he groaned in pain. At the noise there was a lot of movement around him, he continued to lay there as he heard snippets of conversation around him.

When everything finally came back into focus he saw four pairs of eyes all looking down at him, two pairs were filled with glee, one pair with worry and the other looked curious.

"Why are you lying on the floor dada?" He heard someone ask from close by, then he heard laughing in the background which brought him back to his senses.

Ash gradually sat up looking at the four pokemon around him, he groaned again "finally decided to wake up did ya boss?" Pupitar asked "did ya have a nice sleep whilst we were stuck here waiting for you ya lazy slaking" he snarked.

"how long have I been out guys?" Ash asked, curious as to how long he had been out to make Pupitar so annoyed.

"It is just coming to the end of the second moon master, the sun is just about to rise on the third day since we left home" Riolu responded, he had managed to open up the three other pokeballs whilst his master was unconscious and set up a makeshift camp and fire using Charmander's tail flame to keep them warm. They were in a large field with a few substantial trees in it, obviously off he beaten track judging by the dense woodland all around them apart from a single charred passage.

Realising just how long it had been Ash reached into his pack and pulled a box out of one of the compartments, he started tipping out small mountains of pokechow for the two pseudos along with two smaller piles one for Riolu and a specialist fire type pokechow for Charmander as they had different digestive systems to everyone else.

The box of pokechow acted much like a pokeball compartmentalising all the different foods types and shrinking them like a pokemon in a pokeball, that's how trainers were able to travel large distances with just a rucksack. He had this technology on all of his bags and packs. His rucksack was from Silph co. and it had 7 compartments all for different things like pokeballs, pokechow, tents, human food and anything else useful he carried.

"Thank Arceus, he actually has a brain" pupitar commented again.

"Just shut up and eat pinecone" gabite replied in Ash's stead from beside the floating pokemon, before they both started digging into their food after pupitar had shot a glare at the blue pokemon. Once everyone had finished Ash packed their bowls/tubs away.

By the time they had finished eating and preparing for the day the sun had started to rise and it was beginning to become lighter.

Ash opened up another compartment and took out what look like 5 small grey balls, both pupitar and gabite groaned at the sight of them "time for some training guys, you need to get used to your new bodies", he attached the weights to the two pokemon on gabite's arms, pupitar's spikes and onto Riolu's back "10 times around the field guys, I'll catch you in a minute" he stated. The weights also used the same mechanism as the pokeball, he had set them so they weighed 20 kilos each for Riolu and 100 kilos each for both gabite and pupitar, all three pokemon started jogging around the field without complaint.

Ash turned and scanned charmander again looking at her moves "not bad, now we're going to run through the moves you know to see how well you can do them, is that okay?" Ash asked her.

She nodded nervously "I want you to go to that tree and use scratch please" Ash said, charmander walked over to the tree channeling energy into her claws until they glowed white, before she slashed the tree, making six deep indentations in the trunk.

Ash whistled obviously impressed by the depth of the scratch marks for a pokemon so young "impressive" he said praising the orange lizard "now can you use ember". Charmander paused for a bit channeling energy from her fire core to her mouth, before breathing a powerful if small flame, charring the wood where she had just scratched.

"Good" Ash once again was impressed by the young pokemon, although it could have been larger the ember had a large amount of heat and had managed to burn through the bark on the large tree, all indications of a powerful attack "could you use smokescreen now please" watching charmander as she prepared the attack.

Charmander concentrated, this was her new move that she had learned only a few days before meeting her daddy. Slowly she built up a black ball in her mouth and condensed it before releasing it into the surrounding air successfully.

Ash looked at the smokescreen, it was obviously her newest move judging by the concentration and time it took. Also the smokescreen just wasn't large enough to cover a battlefield and hide he r flame, Ash smiled at his newest addition, it was a very promising base to work from. He didn't need to help teach the move growl, that would just become with age and size as it worked as an intimidatory factor.

"All of them were brilliant, although smokescreen is your newest move isn't it" Ash asked looking up the techniques for learning the move on his pokedex.

"Yeah, I just learnt it before it was sent to you, sorry" charmander looked down obviously disappointed that Ash had been able to realise. Ash finished reading the passage on smokescreen and looked up at his pokemon.

"Hey hey, come on it was awesome it's really difficult to master a new move quickly, especially when your so young" Ash was amazed at how smaller time frame the smokescreen had taken to get to this stage, the first part to actually get the smoke was the most difficult bit, as it required igniting a fire within the pokemon's body so it could produce smoke, after that it was all just repetition and guidance that was needed "it will take hardly anytime at all to master it since you got the most difficult part out of the way".

Charmander looked up hopefully, "really" she questioned.

"Really" Ash replied reassuring the pokemon "all you need to do is increase the size of the fire you created inside of you so it produces more smoke faster" coaching charmander with the move "you will need to concentrate on holding the ball of smoke until it is concentrated enough before releasing it in front of you" he explained.

After thinking for a while and looking into her core at how she created the smoke for smokescreen, she realised Ash was correct. She tried to replicate what Ash had told her, at first all she got was a mouthful of smoke and a coughing fit. Eventually after about 10 tries and a lot of praise from Ash she managed to perform a more powerful smokescreen than her original.

"Now I want you to keep practising that, whilst I go an talk to the other guys" whilst he had been working with charmander two of his three other Pokemon had finished their laps. Gabite had finished comfortably in first, followed by riolu and then pupitar was lagging behind and still had a lap to go.

"This new body is awesome boss" gabite called from where he was standing leaning on a tree off to the right of Ash he had finished quite a while ago, his body had changed to suit speed a lot more although he still needed to work on it. While the two giants massively outclassed all pokemon of their species in regards to power, they weren't as quick or nimble, this is why they practically lived with weights on so when they took them off they would be a lot quicker for battle. Some might say this was in humane treatment, but Ash believed it was what they needed and both of his Pokemon agreed however little they liked the situation.

"You're up first as you finished first" Ash said looking at gabite "use slash on that tree", gabite turned towards the tree Ash had pointed at, his arm turned white and he unleashed a massively over powered slash on the unsuspecting tree. It not only cutting completely through the trunk,but also destroying most of the tree.

"Nice" gabite called looking at his arm with an expression akin to wonder, it was hugely more powerful than when he was a Gible.

All gabite's moves continued in this vein, his Dragon rage had actually managed to erase what was left of the tree from existence. All his moves massively overpowered and wasteful as of regards to energy, it was the same result for pupitar, who had finished his laps by the time gabite had finished running through his moves.

Once they had both finished running through their moves Ash sat them down "you both need to work on your control, everyone of those moves were very wasteful as of regards to energy use" He explained to them "gabite I want you to cut a ring around the field using slash constantly, whilst pupitar I want you too constantly use rock slide on Riolu, try to control the size of your rocks so that Riolu can practise his karate chop"' karate chop was Riolu's most recent move and it needed brushing up and practise so he could master it, "Riolu just continue practising your karate chop till you master it".

Ash had realised a while ago there wasn't much he could do to help Riolu train, he was a fighting type and therefore Ash could only do so much looking up the techniques on his pokedex or computer fighting types were different to normal types in that they were a lot more skilled and precise than their counterparts, however for now it was fine as his Pokemon wasn't overly strong and he could cope just by using normal techniques to help refine.

His three Pokemon listened to his directions before going off to carry them out, whilst Ash walked back over to charmander, Ash would be doing most of the training with him for now as he was the youngest and weakest of their group, add to the fact she was also at a disadvantage to the first three gyms and Ash realised she needed a lot of guidance.

"Charmander, I want you to use smokescreen in front of you", concentrating the orange lizard fired a smokescreen, it was a lot quicker and covered a larger area than when Ash last saw it about 15 minutes ago "that's great girl", there was a massive improvement but it was but no means mastered.

For the next couple of hours Ash worked with Charmander going through her moves improving their power and accuracy by firing at rocks and other debris created by pupitar's rock slides, whilst his other Pokemon ran through their moves trying to control them better and still getting use their new bodies. Riolu ended up meditating trying to strengthen his bond with aura to further enhance his aura augmented moves like Force Palm.

By the end of training all of Ash's Pokemon were worn out. Once Ash had given them all lunch he set off away from the now not quite so picturesque clearing that was covered by rocks, however it was now quite a lot larger thanks to gabite going around the edge of it using slash.

It took Ash about ten minutes to get back to the path and on his way towards Viridian City.

Ash had been in the road for about 2 hours now, it was mid-afternoon judging by the sun 'note to self get a watch when you get to Viridian'. It had started to rain again, quite hard. Ash quickened his pace his Pokemon all out around him, realising this he returned charmander since the rain hurt her.

Suddenly Ash heard a scream coming from the woods off to the right of the path "What was that?" Ash asked his pokemon making sure he hadn't just been hearing things.

All three of them shrugged not knowing "We'd better go check it out" Ash said reluctantly, he couldn't rightly leave someone in danger because of his abnormally large conscience, his mum called it 'his saving pokemon thing'. They had found out from a young age that Ash would do just about anything for a pokemon if it was in danger.

Ash turned a jogged towards where the scream came from, when he heard a roar that made his blood run cold "Gyarados" he muttered under his breath, then he heard another scream and he broke into an all out sprint towards the noises pupitar, gabite and Riolu close behind him.

Bursting out of the trees he saw a small lake with a waterfall in the corner of it and a river heading off on the opposite side towards the sea in between Pallet Town and the Seafoam Islands, more importantly he saw a girl with brown hair and a white Pokemon wide brim hat on her head laying at the base of the waterfall with a Gyarados towering over her charging a hyper beam.

"gabite, go use dragon rage full power" he yelled abandoning all caution a the sight which befell him. Gabite shed its weights immediately dashing at great pace towards the massive sea serpent. A massive burst of blue draconian energy erupted from gabite's mouth striking the serpent in the side disrupting the charging hyper beam making the Pokemon fire it's move prematurely and wide of the target.

Whilst this was happening Ash and his other two Pokemon had run to the girl's side, who was still staring at the atrocious Pokemon eyes wide with fear "pupitar dark pulse, Riolu force Palm, keep it off me whilst I get her away", they turned towards the larger Pokemon to see that it had shaken gabite's dragon rage off already like it was a fly. The giant Pokemon fired off a hydro pump towards the jet Pokemon, which backed off quickly avoiding the high pressure stream of water.

Ash's other Pokemon both simultaneously jumped into action pupitar fired his dark pulse at its head whilst Riolu leaped towards it landing a powerful force palm on its under, this forced the Pokemon back into the surf away from the injured girl.

Gyarados returned fire its mouth filled with sharp teeth covered in dark energy, it looked like a Crunch attack heading towards gabite, "gabite dodge to the side, pupitar with it with a rock slide whilst its distracted" Ash had quickly gauged that the Pokemon they were fighting was way out their league, there was no way he could capture it or defeat it for that matter, only force it away.

Gyarados' crunch attack passed harmlessly to the left of gabite who had strafed to the right avoiding the attack, whilst pupitar's rock slide slammed into the serpents side making it cry out in pain at the super effective attack.

"Keep it busy guys" Ash called from the side of the lake "Leaf" Ash called having recognised the girl now he was close enough "can you hear me", Leaf turned to Ash eyes still wide before she pointed off further down the beach, he looked where she was pointing and saw a small green lump on the sand laying their still. Leaf handed him a pokeball before she passed out.

Ash ran over to the Bulbasaur, it had a large burn on the right side of its face, Ash judged that it had taken a full power thunderbolt to the face for it's trainer, to do that for a trainer after just 3 days shows the trust the pair had managed to build. Pokemon were always a good judge of character so perhaps he was wrong about Leaf, he returned the small grass type to suspended animation to stop anymore damage occurring before it could be treated.

He turned to survey the battle, Riolu was lying on his side on the beach, looking like he had just been hit by a train whilst both gabite and pupitar where still in the fight with the giant creature, which still looked willing to go on. They were a lot hardier than Riolu due to their size and the fact they had been training with Ash for longer.

Gyarados just missed with a hyper beam it had charged and it was vulnerable as it was recharging "Gabite, Pupitar hit it whilst it's recharging, use dragon rage and rock slide make it your strongest yet" both Pokemon let out a cry of their names pupitar released a massive Avalanche of rocks, whilst gabite released a stream of blue flames even larger than the one previous" as one they came into contact with the sea serpent.

Being hit by two seriously strong attacks made the Gyarados scream out in pain and realise it wasn't worth the effort for such a small meal, as a parting shot it released a hydro pump which slammed into pupitar knocking the hard shell Pokemon out cold, before it dived back into the lake and disappeared back up the river towards the Kanto sea.

Ash rushed over to the seen of the battle momentarily forgetting Leaf, he checked over al, his Pokemon, pupitar had suffered the worst taking that last hydro pump straight on, it left bits of its shell chipped by the attack, whilst Riolu had taken a thrash in the side which had knocked him out of the battle on to the lake. Ash quickly returned those two Pokemon letting them rest in suspended animation till he could get to a Pokemon centre, Gabite was fine having avoided the worst of the Gyarados' moves only a thunderbolt had clipped him, but it had no effect as he was a ground type.

Now he had checked his Pokemon he turned back to Leaf, to his horror ear injuries looked a lot worst than he expected 'the hyper beam must have clipped her', she had burns all down her right arm, everything else was fine.

"Gabite I need you to pick up Leaf and run with me to Viridian, that arm needs treatment urgently, otherwise it will be permanently scarred" Ash said a little bit panicked by the state of Leaf's arm.

"Boss I could run ahead" gabite said worry etched into his face at the state of the teenager in his arms, Ash almost said yes before he thought that it would look like Gabite had burned Leaf if he was alone when he entered the city, add the fact he was a giant and he could be in danger if Ash wasn't there with him.

"Nah, I'm just grabbing all her stuff and putting it in my pack" Ash grabbed all her stuff and out it in a separate compartment including her own pack and her pokeballs, "let's go".

Viridian was a good 10 kilometres from where they were Ash found out using his pokenav whilst they were running, fortunately Ash was extremely fit for a sixteen year old, after training with his two starters for the past 4 years.

Gabite easily kept pace with Ash and they got to the edges of the city within about 2 hours, on the edge of the city Ash returned Gabite putting the Pokemon back in his ball, before he continued towards the city with Leaf in his arm, carrying her bridal style. It was much slower going.

Upon arrival in the city Ash spotted a green haired woman standing next to a motorbike. Ash instantly recognised her as one of the Officer Jenny's that littered the region on the police force.

As Ash approached her she called out "halt, what are you doing with that girl" obviously suspicious that a sixteen year old boy was carrying a girl the same age out of the wilderness.

"She was attacked by a Gyarados, I scared it off with my Pokemon" Ash said monotonously adopting his mask he used around people of aloof disregard "she was caught by a disrupted hyper beam and her Pokemon, a young Bulbasaur was hit full on by a thunderbolt from the serpent" he explained to the officer.

Quickly assessing the situation to be serious Jenny exclaimed "get on the bike I know where the pokmon centre is, where she and her Pokemon can be treated", accepting the course of action although none to happy with it Ash grudgingly got on the bike still holding Leaf in his arms. Ash had never liked motor bikes and the Jenny's were infamous for being less than safe drivers.

Jenny drove like a madman as was expected and it took them about 5 minutes from the edge of the city to get to the Pokemon centre, where Ash quickly rushed in looking for the local Nurse Joy, who he had met on errands for the Professor previously.

Quickly locating the red-headed nurse he called "Nurse Joy, I need help. This girl was attacked by a Gyarados and has suffered some serious burns on her right arm".

A hospital bed was quickly found and the last Ash saw of Leaf was her on an IV drip heading towards surgery. Her arm would be fine thanks to the recently discovered ditto cell treatment, that was often used in potions, some doctors managed to convert it for human use.

Once Leaf and her Pokemon had been sent to the emergency theatre Ash then turned to Nurse Joy, "Can you heal my Pokemon please?" He asked "and a key to a single room?" as an afterthought.

"Of course" she said with a smile and pressed a button on her desk as well a grabbing a key from a stack passing it too Ash. Pokemon centres all had rooms specially for trainers which were free due to the league paying for them. A moment later a Chansey came out of the back room, pushing a cart with several indentations were pokeballs could sit. Ash retrieved all his pokeballs from his belt placing them on the indents.

The Chansey walked away from him back into the back room with his pokeballs, whilst Ash went to call Professor Oak, they had a lot to catch up on even though it hadn't even been a week.

Ash approached the video phone station and dialled the number of the lab. After about 10 seconds of dialling it was picked up by one of the Professor's aides who Ash had worked with at the lab and on the corral.

"I suppose you want to speak to him, don't you?" The aide asked once he had determined that it was Ash calling.

"Yeah, could you put me through?" Ash asked, no greetings were exchanged, Ash had never made any effort to connect with anyone at the lab apart from Oak.

"Ash, you're in Viridian already?" Oak asked slightly surprised at the turn of events "I thought you were going to spend some time training on route one?"

Well route 1 is complete now and this was a slightly longer chapter. Sorry for the wait I have been working on this slowly due to my exam revision for A levels. Thanks for all the support again.