Rolling over onto his back, Ash yawned and stretched his arms out. Today was the first day that he had allowed himself to sleep in since coming back to Kanto, and he certainly wasn't regretting it. Deciding that he didn't want to look at the time yet, lest he feel guilty about not training yet, Ash instead looked towards the pokemon who had stayed with him last night.

After his first long day of training, Ash found out that his pokemon had somehow (and no, they wouldn't tell him, no matter how he asked) decided on some sort of system for sleeping with him at night. While he wasn't surprised that they were doing something like this, as he usually slept with his pokemon when he was traveling, he was surprised that they had some sort of system to do so.

Pikachu was, as per usual, curled up on the pillow next to Ash, his tail draped over his nose. The mouse's chest rose and fell with his breaths, and he let out a small squeak in his sleep as Ash ran a hand over his oldest partner's back. Closer to Ash's chest, her snout pushed into Ash's side, was Quilava. The fire-type was half curled up in a ball, although at some point during the night her upper-half had snuggled closer to her trainer, taking advantage of her smaller size. As the pokemon was still asleep, Ash took the time to more closely examine her.

First checking her teeth, he didn't see any real problems, although they did seem to be extending further out of her mouth than in the past. Carefully rolling the weasel onto her back, Ash tested the range of his pokemon's joints and checked for injuries, happily noting that apart from some healing cuts and small bruises, Quilava appeared to be in good health. Allowing the pokemon to naturally roll back onto her side to continue sleeping, Ash noticed that the darker fur on her back seemed to be growing more than before, and was beginning to flare out to the sides. Coupled with the larger fangs and slight aggression that he'd noticed, he would guess that she was close to evolution. Of course, he had no idea when this evolution would take place, but he bet it wouldn't take too long with how hard they were all training.

Finally turning towards the last pokemon with him that night, Ash smiled as he stroked Bayleef's neck. The dinosaur had claimed his feet pretty much when he got into bed, and didn't see a need to relinquish them anytime soon. Luckily, it was easier to tell how Bayleef was doing than it was Quilava, as like most of his grass-types, her health was indicated by her plant-like qualities. Her leaves and buds were in great health as usual, although near the leaf, it seemed that a pair of nubs had begun to sprout. In addition to this, the buds around her neck were beginning to split, revealing the flowering insides that were very close to blooming. It appeared that like Quilava, Bayleef was also nearing evolution. Ash wouldn't be surprised if the evolutions happened simultaneously, as the evolution of one sometimes jump-started the process of the other, especially if both were already close to evolving. Ash sat up slightly, and carefully, as to not dislodge Quilava, pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Bayleef's head.

With a quiet cry, Bayleef began to stir, and rubbed her head against the hand pressed against her neck.

"Heh. Morning Bayleef." Ash quietly intonated, making sure not to move too much, as to not make up Pikachu and Quilava.

"Bay," his pokemon replied, letting out a massive yawn and blinking her large eyes at her trainer.

"You doin' alright today sweetie?" Ash said, scratching his neck with one hand while using the other to rub Bayleef behind one of her ears. As the pokemon leaned into his hand, Ash chuckled. "Guess that's a yes." Running a finger over the nubs on top of her head, he smiled and continued. "I think you're getting close to evolving Bayleef. You and Quilava are both showing the physical signs, and even though you're not quite as aggressive as she is right now, I'm not too surprised by that. If you evolve though, remember to not body slam me quite as hard, since you'll weight much, much more."

Bayleef sheepishly hung her head at that, and lightly shoved at Quilava with a vine. It seemed that the weasel hadn't been quite as asleep as Ash thought, as she snapped at Bayleef's vine with a hiss, and only calmed down once Ash ran a hand over the back of her neck. The slight commotion had also woken Pikachu, who, although obviously annoyed, deigned to not shock the rest of his bed-mates that morning.

"Alright you lot, that's enough," Ash said with a laugh. "I swear, some days I feel like you're all a bunch of children." At their outraged looks, he quickly continued. "Very strong children who don't listen to their trainer as well as they should, of course." For some reason, this seemed to slightly mollify his pokemon, and he breathed a short sigh of relief. "Okay then. Let's get today started, shall we?"

"Hey!" Ash shouted, as the large group in front of him continued making various sounds. "Quiet down you lot!" This somewhat seemed to do the trick, as his pokemon quieted down a bit, although were still loud enough that he had to seriously raise his voice to be heard over them. "That's better. Now today, we're gonna be working on strengthening your existing moves, and making sure that you can use all of them well and with accuracy. I know that sounds a little boring, but if you can't use your current moves well, then learning new ones isn't going to be as successful. And what's more," he laughed, "I know what moves all of you have, or at least had last time I saw you. If you can't show me that you can use all of your old moves correctly, then I won't help you learn new ones. That goes for new moves too," Ash said as an aside, faux-glaring at Donphan, who trumpeted embarrassingly. "But that doesn't mean that I won't help you with those moves if I need to. Everybody break!"

A few days of training had helped Ash's pokemon get used to his new habit of making speeches to the group, and luckily they were all fairly used to being independent, so going into groups wasn't much of a problem. Even if some of them had to have a little more help here. Speaking of groups that needed more help, there was Oshawott's group goofing off again. Well, not goofing off per say, but not exactly doing what he asked. Sighing, Ash signaled to Pidgeot, who had been keeping an eye on them, to herd them towards her group. Oshawott and the others weren't strong enough to train with Pidgeot's group, but that was his most controlled group, so giving them some weaker pokemon to watch wasn't too much of a problem. And speaking of problems, Ash noticed another approaching. Three problems to be exact.

"Hey guys." The three tauros mooed back and dug their hooves at the ground impatiently. "Yeah I know, I know. But you have to trust me when I say that Professor Oak and I are working on a solution. I want to make sure that all of you find good trainers, and good trainers who like to battle at that. So it might take a little while, but we will make it happen, alright?"

The tauros huffed in response, but luckily they all seemed to listen. They had been asking him every day, but maybe this would put them off for a little while longer. Preferably a week, as talking with the professor yesterday suggested that it would take about that long to sort out solid trainers and run background checks on them. The World Trade Organization was available and running as per usual, but the minimal fee they charged for their services multiplied with requests for background checks and direct communication with another trainer. On top of that, he also had to find trainers that wanted to train a tauros, and had pokemon to trade of relatively comparable power levels. And on top of that, the professor thought it would be a good idea to actually look at the pokemon they were trading, since Ash didn't have a psychic-type or a fairy-type. So it really was taking a while, but he didn't quite know how to explain such a thing to a bunch of irritable bull pokemon. He was just lucky that they had even listened to begin with.

Deciding to put the Tauros out of his mind for the moment, Ash headed over to his largest group, who seemed to be somewhat focusing for once, with most of the pokemon practicing the moves they already knew. The vast majority of the pokemon seemed to already have a handle on their moves, so Ash figured he could start helping them on new ones today or tomorrow, but first he needed to help out the pokemon who were already struggling with new moves.

Donphan in particular looked to be having a hard time, Ash thought as he walked up to the ground-type, who trumpeted loudly upon seeing his trainer. With a smile, Ash rubbed the pokemon on top of his head, and grunted as he sat down, to be closer to ground level.

"Hey bud. Still having trouble with the fangs?" At Donphan's embarrassed look towards the ground, Ash sighed slightly. "Don't worry about it. It can be hard to get a handle on elemental moves that aren't of your type. Look, do you remember why I had you start working on these moves in the first place?"

Donphan looked confused at this, and rumbled with uncertainty. "Huh. Well, that's probably on me for not making it clear enough. We both know that you're usually a physical pokemon, but when you're up close and personal, you can't do a whole lot without momentum for rollout or takedown. And the backlash from a hyper beam or hidden power can hurt you almost as much as the other pokemon. So the point of these moves was to give you more options if you find yourself in a sticky situation. And also, there is the benefit that a couple of the moves are super-effective on the types that you have a harder time with. So how about you show me what you've got so far."

Standing up and stepping slightly back from his pokemon, Ash called out, "alright Donphan, start with crunch." Donphan bared his teeth at a nearby rock, and with a deep rumble, bit down, dark energy crackling around his teeth. "Good, now fire fang!" Taking a second to build up the necessary energy, Donphan once more lunged forward, this time with small embers coming from his mouth, leaving scorch marks on the rock. "Great, now finish with thunder fang!" At this Donphan stood for a long moment, concentrating quite hard, but once it appeared nothing was happening, huffed and sat down on his haunches.

Ash frowned. "Okay, you've definitely got the beginnings of crunch and fire fang down, but you're having some trouble with thunder fang. I think that you'll get the first two sooner or later, but it might help to work with Krookodile for crunch and Incineroar for fire fang, as they both already know those moves. I'm wondering if you're having problems with thunder fang because you're never actually felt much electricity. Your hide's too thick for most electrical attacks to really have much effect, and most of it is just grounded right away. I'm thinking that we probably need to go to Pikachu to have him hit you with some electrical moves. That way you might be able to get an idea of what you should be doing. Let's do that right now, and then we'll go find Krookodile afterwards. I trust that you can ask Incineroar on your own?" At Donphan's nod, Ash grinned. "Perfect. Now I think Pikachu's group was over by the lake today, since Greninja was complaining about not having any water to practice with."

It only took a few minutes to find Pikachu's group, which was good, since even though Ash was in good shape, he still found it hard to keep up with a pokemon that used rollout to get everywhere. Once he found the group, he realized that they were only following his instructions in the vaguest sense. While Snorlax seemed to somewhat be practicing, as he was periodically firing hyper beams in-between other moves, and Sceptile seemed to be working on some sort of new move, Pikachu, Greninja, and Charizard were at it again. At least this time they were using a variety of moves, which Ash guessed was how they decided they were doing what they were supposed to be.

"Pikachu! Get your furry little butt over here. Charizard, Greninja, maybe actually do what I told you to do?" Jerking up at Ash's voice, Pikachu launched off of Charizard's back, where he had apparently planted himself, and landed in front of Ash. Charizard growled in their direction and scratched his back. Roaring at Greninja, he then launched himself into the air before landing by Snorlax and immediately firing a fire blast into the air. Looking at Greninja, Charizard smirked and crossed his arms, before being forced to jump back as Greninja manipulated a wave of water to splash directly where Charizard had previously been standing.

Sighing once more, Ash shook his head as he watched his two pokemon begin to posture. At least they had been practicing for a moment. Turning back towards Pikachu and Donphan, Ash gave a weak smile. "Pikachu, I know you know better than that, but I'm gonna let it go for now so that we can help out Donphan. He's been having trouble learning thunder fang, and I think it's because he's never been hit with a strong electrical attack or really felt electricity. So what I'm going to have you do is shoot thunderbolts into his mouth. Donphan should be fine because of his natural resistance to electricity, even if these are avoiding his hide, where most of it's usually deflected. From there we're gonna work on getting thunder fang up to speed. Got it?"

Pikachu nodded with authority and not a little bit of glee at being able to actually use electric moves on a pokemon that usually couldn't feel them, while Donphan visibly gulped and looked quite nervous, but nodded nonetheless.

Ash really felt for Donphan. It couldn't be fun to have to work with Pikachu at the moment, especially considering how ornery his partner had been recently. It was honestly beginning to be a bit of a problem, and Ash was actually thinking of leaving him behind when he left to go look for Larvitar tomorrow. Maybe that would make him shape up and stop picking fights with Greninja at every possible opportunity. And speaking of Greninja, they really needed to practice their forms again soon, just in case of any serious battles. For now though, he should probably focus on what was in front of him, that being Blastoise and Krookodile posturing and comparing sunglasses.

"Hey guys," Ash laughed, "gonna actually work on your moves anytime soon?" While Krookodile looked at least a little abashed by this, Blastoise certainly didn't, and smirked at his trainer before flicking Krookodile's glasses back at the other pokemon and snatching his own. Krookodile fumbled at the glasses, but managed to catch them. Quickly sliding them up his snout, the dark-type shot a glare at the turtle, who cocked his cannons in response.

"Heh. Alright then. Why don't we channel that energy into a battle?" Seeing that both his pokemon seemed to be amenable to his suggestion, Ash smiled and took a couple steps back. "Then let's see it. No holds barred, keep back on new moves unless you think you can use them at full-speed, even if they're not perfected yet. Fight until incapacitation, knockout, or I stop the battle. Ready? Begin!"

As Ash brought his hand down to signal the battle's start, he had to leap back, landing in a crouch as Blastoise shot a high-powered blast of water at Krookodile. Unfortunately for the water-type however, Krookodile's reflexes were more trained for active battle, and the croc had immediately dug under the ground on Ash's command, which gave him the ability to control the early battlefield. This stunned Blastoise for a moment, and before he could recover, his leg was snagged and dragged under the earth. Snapping out of his stupor, the turtle pokemon retracted the rest of his limbs into his shell and blasted water out of all holes, something that Ash hadn't seen him do since he was a squirtle. With this unexpected move, Blastoise managed to hit Krookodile, filling the ground-type's mouth with water. All this really did was piss Krookodile off, and the Unova-native came out of the ground frothing and snapping his jaws wildly.

Changing tactics, Krookodile slammed his foot into the ground, causing a jagged pillar of stone to slam into Blastoise's stomach, even as the water-type got off a quick ice beam, hitting Krookodile before he himself was launched back. Snarling, the crocodile coated his jaws in fire (surprising Ash, who didn't know that the pokemon had been working on fire fang) and latched onto his own shoulder, slightly burning himself but melting the ice that had begun to coat his left foreleg. Blastoise had recovered in this time, and had dropped to all fours, ducking his head into his shell and glowing white as he slowly inched forward. As the older pokemon suddenly sped up and shot forward in a skull bash, Krookodile seemed to consider his options before leaping up as Blastoise charged at him, taking the hit in the stomach.

Even as the breath left Krookodile, he managed to dig his claws into the cracks between Blastoise's shell. Holding on tightly, his jaws flashing black with dark energy, he firmly bit down on the turtle's head, his mouth covering almost the whole skull. As Blastoise struggled, blasting water wildly in an attempt to knock the other pokemon off, Krookodile simply bit down harder, and Blastoise began to slow. Before he could fully fall to unconsciousness however, Ash stepped closer.

"That's enough. Krookodile, let go."

Staring at his trainer for a moment, Krookodile minutely tightened his grip before letting go. Blastoise fell to the ground, gasping for air, before slowly pushing himself up on all fours and then up on his back legs, rubbing at his neck and stomach. Taking a deep breath, he readjusted his sunglasses and gave Krookodile a thumbs-up. In response, Krookodile stepped towards Blastoise and slung his arm around the shelled-pokemon. Grinning at Ash, Krookodile mimed taking a picture with his free hand. Grinning back at his pokemon, Ash grabbed an old pokedex from his back pocket and snapped a couple quick photos of his pokemon. Smiling as he looked at the photo, Ash sat down, and motioned for his pokemon to do the same.

"That was a good fight. But, obviously both of you struggled a bit. Blastoise, let's start with you. You started well, but were thrown off when Krookodile avoided your first attack. If you want to fight in higher-powered battles then you need to be able to adapt on the fly like you used to. It's probably just a matter of practice, since you did well once the battle continued, but at that point you had already taken a bit of damage that stopped you from fighting at your best. The other main problem is that you didn't have anything to help you escape once Krookodile had a hold on you. That's a challenging one, since his species are particularly good at holding onto their prey, but you panicked. A better way to escape would have been through your arms, but if I remember correctly, you don't have any moves that you can perform that way, do you?"

Here Blastoise nodded at his trainer, and scratched his head in confusion. Ash nodded to him, apparently in deep thought. "Well then, we'll just have to fix that. If I'm right, you should be able to learn brick break, as well as another couple of moves that could help you break out of holds. Brick break first, and then we'll consider others." This seemed to please Blastoise, and the water-type grinned in response, canines protruding from his mouth.

"Now Krookodile. You on the other hand, started the battle well, but got a bit flustered when Blastoise managed to hit you. Or really, you got pissed, and didn't have the boosted attack of moxie to make up for it. Taking the hit from Blastoise in order to latch on was smart, but what were you going to do if you couldn't get ahold of him? Then you would have just taken a strong attack with nothing to show for it. While it worked out now, there's no guarantee that it would work in the future, and you wouldn't have been able to fight for much longer after that, would you?"

Krookodile sheepishly scratched at his stomach, where a deep bruise was already beginning to form, and shook his head negatively at Ash. "Exactly. But to be fair, your use of fire fang was quite clever, and you did use a number of techniques that I hadn't seen from you yet, so very good job there. You really just need to focus on being a little smarter with the hits that you take, and a little more variety never hurt anyone either. Got it?"

Seeing both his pokemon nod at him, Ash smiled, and braced his hands on his knees before standing. That fight had gotten him in a mood, and he thought that it might be a good idea to do some hands on training with some of his weaker pokemon, lest he get out of practice. It would be a good idea to do some light training before heading to Mt. Silver to find Larvitar anyway. And while he didn't think anything would happen while there, there had been a feeling building in the back of his mind for days, and he wasn't foolish enough to ignore those feelings anymore. Something was stirring, so he did have to be prepared.

Luckily for Ash, groups two and three had stayed relatively near each other today, so Ash stopped in with a couple of pokemon from the smaller group before finding those that he needed to from the bigger one. His first inclination was to go to some of his pokemon he was more experienced with, like Snivy or Buizel, but maybe something else could work. With this in mind, Ash saw that Leavanny and Kingler were training together today, and made his decision.

"Leavanny, Kingler, come over here for a second!" Once he saw that both his pokemon had heard him and were approaching, Ash continued. "Listen, I have to go talk to some pokemon about a trip that we're going on tomorrow, but after that, I want to train with both of you. We're gonna be doing something a bit different though. You're both going to be working together to hit me, while I do my best to avoid you. Because of this, Leavanny, I want you to make me some quick clothes that will be able to take a few hits. Don't worry about hurting me, I think I've shown that I can take a punch. I'll make sure to get someone to give me something that I can hit you both with though, just to simulate hits, since I doubt I could do major damage to either of you. That sound good?" At their excited cries, Ash smiled, and walked towards the bigger group. Luckily he could see Noivern, even though he couldn't see Bayleef in that group or Quilava in his current one. Bringing his hands to his mouth and making a shrill, high-pitched whistle, Ash quirked a smile as he saw Noivern immediately stop his moves and zoom towards him.

Once Noivern got closer to him, Ash held up a hand, causing the dragon-type to quickly brake before landing in front of him with a cry. The young pokemon then slammed his head into Ash's chest, causing the trainer to cough as he was reminded that Noivern was quite a bit bigger than he used to be.

"Hey bud," Ash gasped, rubbing the pokemon's red crest. "Got something fun for you. You and a few others are going to be coming with me tomorrow to look for an old friend of mine, and I'm gonna be flying on you, since I think you're finally big enough. I don't have a mount, since you're still growing, so we'll have to be a little careful, but it should be fine. First though, I need you to find everyone that I'm taking and let them know. You'll need to find Quilava, Bayleef, Lycanroc, and...Goodra I think. Got that?" Ash barely managed to get the words out of his mouth before Noivern once more shoved his head against Ash and shot into the sky, circling for a moment before heading back towards his group, likely to look for Bayleef. Chuckling, Ash shook his head before turning to find Oak, who had somehow managed to sneak up on Ash while he was talking to his pokemon.

"Gah!" Ash shouted, falling to the ground and landing on his back. "Damn Professor," he said at the old man's laugh, "didn't think you could still be so quiet. Thought more joints would pop or something."

At the trainer's cheeky comment Oak scowled, and reached out to lightly smack Ash on the back of the head. "I'm not that old yet! But I didn't come out here for that. I knew that you were leaving to look for Larvitar soon, and it seems like we were on the same wave-length here. You see, there's a tournament happening at a town in Johto that's pretty near to the base of Mt. Silver. I don't know how long you'll look for Larvitar for, but if you happen to find him quickly, the tournament is happening in about 5 days. It'd be good practice for you I think, especially if what Professor Ivy tells me about you battling Drake again is true. Actually, the tournament is happening in Silver Town, so you'd be able to revisit the town. You can register up to the day of the tournament, but I don't know how big it's going to be, so be ready for a bit of a challenge if you enter."

"Thanks Professor! If I'm back in town by then I'll definitely enter, but finding Larvitar takes first priority. But now I have to get back to Leavanny and Kingler, since I promised I would train with them for a little. I'll see you later Professor!"

In another strange coincidence, Ash found Boldore on his way back, and was able to convince the rock-type to provide him with a couple small stones from a stone edge so he could do his best to give his pokemon a challenge. Thanking the pokemon and sending them on their way, Ash continued back to his other pokemon, who looked to be ready, Leavanny having made what almost looked like chest armor and gauntlets. It definitely looked too complicated to have been made in the 10 or so minutes that he was gone, but that was Ash's pokemon for you. Always surpassing expectations.

Slipping on the clothes, Ash was pleased to find that like all of what Leavanny made, they were light, and what they lacked in protection, they made up for in mobility. Looking up and nodding to his pokemon, Ash immediately had to leap backwards as they went on the attack. Leavanny was charging forward in what looked like an x-scissor, while Kingler was filling the air with bubbles to startle Ash and make him easier to hit. Rolling and landing in a crouch, Ash ducked under the swinging arms of Leavanny and ran towards Kingler, who let out a gurgle and scuttled to the side before suddenly swinging a crabhammer at his trainer. While Ash was able to dodge this attack, it left him open to Leavanny, who grabbed at Ash's arm and took a bite out of the leaves covering it.

Shrugging out of what was left of his arm guard, Ash swung his other arm up towards Leavanny, hitting the bug-type in the side and causing him to let out a shriek. Ducking out of the pokemon's grip, Ash took a step closer to hit him again, but was forced to back away as Kingler slammed the ground where Ash had been standing with a stomp. This proved to be enough of a distraction for Leavanny to recover, and the other pokemon shook his head before charging and firing an energy ball. Cursing, Ash did what first came to mind, and stabbed at the energy ball with one of his stones, causing the ball to explode and mostly dissipate at chest height, but also shattering the stone in his left hand. Realizing that he was about to be caught on the back foot, Ash decided some trickery may be in order, and the moment he saw Leavanny begin to charge up another energy ball, stepped into Kingler's path. Batting away Kingler's attacks with his remaining stone and gauntlet, once he saw Leavanny release the next blast towards him, Ash dove to his left, leaving Kingler to be smashed back by the friendly-fire.

The crab didn't seem to be too pleased by this, and once he had slightly recovered, shook his larger pincer at Leavanny, who was frantically apologizing. Ash had taken this time to sneak behind Leavanny, and managed to slam his stone into the thin part of Leavanny's back, driving the pokemon to his knees. Before he could do much more however, Ash was blasted backwards by what he thought was a hyper beam fired by Kingler.

Gasping for air and quite glad that he had Leavanny give him some protection (that was currently scattered all around him), Ash raised his hand in the air and dropped his stone. "Alright, I give, you guys win." Taking a second to sit up, Ash decided that it wasn't a great idea to stand up yet, and looked at his pokemon, who were staring at him with a bit of worry. "It's alright, I'll be fine soon, just that last hit took a lot out of me. Good job you two. Need to be careful of friendly fire though, and Leavanny I was able to hit you a number of times, which likely would have taken you down if I was a pokemon. You need to remember that you're pretty frail, so you have to get your hits in fast and make them count."

Once his pokemon responded in manners that made Ash believe that they had heard him properly, Ash smiled and gave them a thumbs-up. "You're both well on your way to becoming stronger, ya just need to work on a few things to get there. I'm proud of you both, especially because I know some of the others would have had a hard time taking me out as fast. Teamwork is always good for that kind of stuff." As his pokemon cried out happily to him and each other, Ash blinked and realized that the way the two were acting reminded him of someone else, someone who wouldn't be able to come back as easily Larvitar. How was Poipole doing anyway?

Fleeing through the dark, the purple ultra beast tried its best to keep from making any noise.

The...Creature had started to hunt them soon after the beast left, and though some of its kin had escaped, many had not, and lived in the same sort of fear that it did now. They hadn't known where the Creature came from at first, but then the portals began to open up again. No more Creatures came through, but other things did. Things that weren't as kind as the beasts, and wanted something more substantial than amusement.

As the beast hid and trembled in fear, it heard a noise outside the cavern. It hadn't thought it had been followed, but maybe whatever it was didn't want to harm the beast? Perhaps a quick look wouldn't hurt? Slowly approaching the edge of the cave, the beast carefully poked its head through the opening and looked towards where the noise had come from, only to freeze in terror. Rushing backwards, the beast could only hope that the cave would be too small for the Creature to fit through. As the beast huddled in the back and wished for something to help it, the Creature's long, black arm slowly reached for it.

Poipole screamed.

A/N: Hey y'all, sorry it's been so long! I have a whole lot of excuses I could give, but really I just forgot that every semester of college kicks my ass at the start. But enough about that, how about those anime episodes? Serious crazy stuff there. If you've read this far, then you know that I obviously didn't expect Ash to win the league, or for Hau to be relegated to a one-on-one. But very cool nonetheless, and it's making me think about if I want to actually include a certain pokemon that wasn't going to be around otherwise. Let me know if y'all think it's a good idea. As always, thanks for reading, and let me know what you think about the chapter!