AN: Hey guys sorry if this took so long been having a bit of writers block but It's hear so enjoy and don't forget to leave a review

Ch:11

Ash and Gary awoke the next morning still in Bill's house, as he allowed the two boys to stay the night.

The two got ready to leave while Bill saw them off. "So, I take it you boys will be heading to Vermilion city?" He asked them.

"Sure are," Ash said.

"You know, that gym specializes in electric type Pokemon. Do you two have any ground types?" Ash and Gary just shook their heads.

"Well, my Growlith knows dig so that should be enough," Gary said.

"And what about your Pokemon, Ash? " Bill said turning to the black haired boy.

"Well, I have Pikachu of course, and Charmander, Nidoran, Pidgeotto, Butterfree and Oddish, but none of them know any ground type moves," Ash said.

"Well, you have a Nidoran. Tell me, do you have a Moonstone?" Bill asked.

"Huh? Oh yeah! A boy I met on Mt. Moon gave me one, but why do you ask?" Ash said, sounding confused.

"Well, you see Ash, not all Pokemon can evolve on their own. Some of them require a special type of object." Bill went on, "and if your Nidoran should evolve into a Nidorino, you can use your Moonstone to evolve him into a Nidoking which is a Ground/Poison type" Bill added.I

Ash thought about that.

"Oh, and there's one more thing," Bill then retreated back inside his house and within a few minutes he returned, only this time he had what looked like two tickets in his hand. "Since you boys helped me, and it's almost three days to Vermilion city by foot, I wanted you two to have these." He then handed both Ash and Gary each a ticket.

"Tickets?" Ash and Gary said in unison.

"Yeah, for the S.S. Anne. It's a luxury cruise liner which sails the world, stopping annually in Vermilion City." Bill told them.

"That's awesome!" Ash cheered.

"And convenient." Gary smirked. "So we'll each get there at the same time, and be able to take on Lt. Surge. Of course, he'd take me to fight over you first."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ash shouted.

"It means I have more of a name, being the grandson of Professor Oak, and you just have a few badges."

"I'll show you! The moment we get to Vermilion, you and I will have a battle! The winner will fight Surge first!"

"Sure, It'll be a nice warm-up!" Gary smirked.

The two boys wait in line to board the S.S. Anne, along with several well dressed people, some of which had their Pokemon. They waited as the line move forward one group at a time, until finally it got to them. The man up front asked them for their tickets, and they handed them to him.

Once they were on, they went up to the top deck, where there were several passengers and their Pokemon. Somewhere relaxing on deck chairs, others where chatting with each other, there were even some kids play with there Pokemon.

"Yeah. Well I'm going to look around. Maybe see if there's anyone who wants to battle. Smell ya later Ash!" Gary said as he then wandered off, leaving Ash on his own. Once Gary had left, Ash felt it would be a good time to let his own Pokemon out for a bit to allow them to stretch seeing as others have done the same.

Ash then took out all five of his Pokeballs and let out Charmander, Butterfree, Pidgeotto, Nidoran and Oddish

"Okay everyone, stay close. You wouldn't want to get lost now, would you?"

They all nodded and soon started doing there own things. Pidgeotto and Butterfree began to fly around to stretch their wings, while Pikachu, Charmander and Nidoran started to play tag. Ash smiled at the sight of his Pokemon enjoying themselves and having fun. That is, except one. Ash's Oddish was hiding behind its trainers legs, intimidated by all the people around it. Something Ash took notice of.

Ash looked to the sacred grass type. "You okay, Oddish?"

It said nothing and just buried it's face in Ash's leg Ash then knelt down so he could easily pat Oddish on the head. Oddish felt a little more at ease, looking up at its trainer.

That is until a high pitch voice squealed

A young girl, wearing a green dress was briskly coming over to Ash, looking to his leg. "Oh my goodness! An Oddish! How cute!"

This scared the weed Pokemon even more and it hid behind Ash.

Ash looked to his Pokemon, the movement nearly making him fall. "Oddish!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare it."

Ash put his hand up to wave as a reassure gesture. "It's always shy. I'm trying to teach it not to be."

"Oh, I see."

"Come on Oddish, say hi!"

Oddish then slowly made its way out from behind Ash.

The lass knelt down. "See Oddish? I'm not going to hurt you."

She then reached out to let it and instantly Oddish freaked out sprinkling stun spore all over the place causing the girl to pass out and Oddish then made a run for it.

"Oddish come back!"

But Oddish was too far gone to hear him.

Pikachu saw what was happening, and ran to Ash's side along with his other Pokemon

"Come on! We need to go find Oddish!"

But before he could move pikachu pointed at the girl lying unconscious on the floor

"Oh, right..."

Oddish kept running and eventually stopped to catch its breath, but soon realized that it was suddenly lost. It was scared, seeing all the strange people and Pokémon, yet Ash or any of the others were nowhere to be found. Even more frightened, Oddish felt like crying.

"You think you can take on my Pokémon?"

"I don't think, I know I can!"

Oddish turned to the source of the voices and saw two other humans, one of which it recognized as the boy who made fun of it and Ash at the Cerulean gym, Gary.

"Let's go Pinsir!"

"Growlithe, I choose you!" Gary called out.

The sight of both a Bug and Fire-type Pokemon, which dangerous to Grass-types, made Oddish panic and start unintentionally sending Stun Spore in the direction of the two Pokemon. Growlithe and Pinsir caught a whiff of the Stun Spore and within a few seconds they both passed out, paralyzed from the spores.

"Hey!" The random trainer shouted. "What gives!?"

"I don't know, what the heck is going on?" Gary wondered.

"Ah! There's the problem!" The trainer then pointed at Oddish, who jumped in astonishment.

After taking the girl to the ship's infirmary, Ash and his Pokémon continued their search for Oddish. Eventually, they took to splitting up to find Oddish. Each went there own ways but stayed close as not to get lost themselves. Nidoran had been sniffing around trying to pick up a sent but had no lead until it picked up something. It wasn't Oddishs scent, but something else entirely that was familiar. He followed it until he came to the sources, a familiar blue Nidoran.

"What about you guys? Any luck?" Ash asked, with his Pokemon all shaking their heads in response. "Well, we got to keep looking! Oddish has to be around here somewhere we just have to," he hesitated, "wait a minute!"

Ash then looked over the Pokémon that were in front of him and began to do a head count. Charmander, Pikachu, Butterfree, and Pidgeotto. "Where's Nidoran?" Ash inquired. They all looked around but found no sign of the missing Pokémon. "Oh, that's just perfect. First Oddish, now Nidoran's missing!" He could not believe how unlucky he was.

"Nidoran!"

Ash looked up when he heard a voice he was all too familiar and sure enough, it was Leaf looking around frantically. She also had all of her Pokemon out: Bulbasaur, Jigglypuff, Venonat, Sandslash, and a big Bee-looking one that Ash had not seen yet.

"Hey Leaf!" Ash called out to her.

"Ash?"

The two then ran towards each other, however, when they got close the Bee-like Pokemon flew in between then and began pointing its drill-like appendages at Ash as well as its stinger.

"Beedrill!" Leaf scolded. "Stop that!"

"Yeesh, what's wrong with this thing anyway?" Ash asked, sweat rolling down his face over the size of the drills.

"Oh, well, Ash do you remember my Kakuna?"

"The one that would attack me whenever I got too close to you?"

"Yeah!" Leaf replied. "Well as you can see it evolved into a Beedrill."

Ash whimpered in response, seemingly frightened. "Great, not only is it even bigger, but it has drills for hands. As if my luck couldn't get any worse!"

"What do you mean by that?" Leaf inquired.

"My Oddish and Nidoran are missing, and I can't find them anywhere."

With a nervous laugh, Leaf restrained the Beedrill. "Well, that's quite a coincidence, because my Nidoran is missing too."

"What? Do you know where you lost it?"

"No," Leaf sighed, "we must have got separated in a crowd because one minute she was there and the next she was gone!"

"So now we have three missing Pokémon," Ash huffed.

"Well, maybe we can help each other!"

"I'd appreciate that."

"Oddish!" After hearing that peculiar cry, Ash and Leaf looked up and saw and Oddish running towards them.

"Could this be my Oddish?" Ash wondered, in which the Oddish ran and hid behind Ash's legs.

"I guess that answers it," Leaf giggled as Ash knelt down to comfort the little weed Pokemon.

"Oddish, what's wrong?"

"Hey, kid!" A trainer interrupted "Is that your Pokemon!?"

"Er, yeah, why?"

"That little weed of yours just interrupted a battle I was having!" The trainer shouted.

"It did?"

"Yeah! And it's going to pay!" The trainer threatened, frightening the Oddish once more.

"Listen, you're not hurting my Oddish pal! It probably didn't mean any harm!" Pikachu and Ash's other Pokémon then came to Oddish's defense.

"Okay then, I challenge you and your Oddish to a battle!" Ash, Leaf and all their Pokémon gave shocked expressions.

Unsure what to do, Ash then turned to his Oddish, kneeling down and whispering to it. "Do you want to fight Oddish? Because I won't make you do something you don't want to do." The weed Pokémon wasn't certain on what it wanted to do. It looked back at the other trainer and the look on his face was enough to scare Oddish again. That action gave Ash his answer as he then stood up and turned to the other trainer.

"My Oddish doesn't want to fight right now. unless you want to battle me with any of my other Pokemon you can just leave. What do you say to that?"

"I say that makes you a wimpy trainer!" That comment took Ash and Leaf by surprise, offending them both. "If you don't take charge of your Pokémon, they'll never reach their full potential!" The boy just walked away from there, leaving Ash red in the face from rage.

"Who does he think he is? How I want to raise my Pokémon…!"

"Easy Ash, just calm down," Leaf said, "he's not worth it."

"But he is right on some level!"

Ash and Leaf turned and saw Gary standing there. "What are you doing here!?" Leaf demanded to know.

"I was trying to catch that guy and stop him from hurting that Oddish," Gary admitted.

"Really? You were?"

"Yeah. Tour Oddish interrupted a battle we were having and he got mad and started to chase it."

"Wait, your the one he was battling?" Leaf inquired.

"Well duh!" Gary replied. "But seriously if you keep protecting Oddish, it's just going to be afraid its entire life!"

Ash wasn't sure how to respond to this at first until Leaf began talking again. "As much as I hate to admit it, he dose have a point, Ash. You should be trying to teach Oddish how to overcome its fears instead of shielding it from them."

"I got an idea! Why don't you and I have a battle to help train it?" Gary offered. "I'll even give my self a handicap, I'll use my Squirtle sent it's weak against Grass-types."

That was when Leaf remembered why she originally got into this mess. "Ah, maybe later Gary! Right now, Ash and I have some missing Pokémon on the loose!"

"Yeah, Leaf and I can't find our Nidoran."

"Really? Because I just saw a pair of Nidorans running that way." Gary pointed.

"You did!?" They both shouted in unison.

"Where did you see them!?" Ash asked.

"Take us to them!" Leaf demanded.

Startled by their reactions, Gary backed up and rubbed the back of his head. "Alright, alright calm down! Just follow me!"

The two Nidoran had finally found a place where they could be alone, which happened to be the ship's cargo bay. The two were so thrilled to see each other without any intrusion or interruption from their trainers and they soon began to cuddle a bit.

"Are you sure it's in here?" The two Pokemon stopped their actions at the sound of these mysterious voices which suddenly came about.

"Yes, it has to be in here! I promise you!" Both Pokemon began hid behind a crate when they heard footsteps coming in their direction. Ash's Nidoran poked its head out to take a look and saw two people wearing black uniforms with a big red R on them.

"So what are we looking for again?" The one man asked.

"Just look for the crate that says Silph Co.!"

"Oh," the man then stopped, "wait, what does the Co. stand for?"

"It stands for 'company' you dolt! You know, Silph Company? The big corporation in Saffron City? How could you not know that!?" Both Nidoran tilted their heads in confusion.

"Okay okay, geez! Anyway, what does the boss need these parts for?"

Just as one of the two criminals was about to explain, the blue Nidoran began sniffling. All of the dust from the crates had gotten onto her nostrils, tickling her a little bit. Ash's Nidoran, in a slight panic, tried to cover up the nose of the other Pokémon to stop her from alerting the two to their presence. It seemingly stopped, as Leaf's Nidoran settled down.

… Only for the dust allergy to quickly come back.

"Do-ran!" The blue Nidoran sneezed loudly, startling its companion and startling the two criminals.

"Huh? What was that!?" The woman came out first to examine what was going on, only to be pleasantly surprised. "Oh, looks like someone left their Pokémon running amuck in places where they shouldn't be!"

"They were spying on us!?" The one man gasped.

"Why complain? They're just a pair of weak little Nidoran, which we can catch in the name of Team Rocket and sell off!" The woman then tossed a Pokéball from her belt, sending out a blue jellyfish-like Pokémon. "Tentacool, go! Use Wrap so they can't escape!"

Out of seemingly nowhere, the strange aquatic Pokémon started to bind its tentacles around the two Nidoran, both of which squealed in pain, not sure what to do as they couldn't escape the tight wrap.

AN2: special thanks to NK and SneaselXRioul for editing this for me and to ChipmunkOfOz for helping me wright it