Our Life Together - Chapter 25: Trying to Save Azelf

Yes, I'm back! With a long overdue update to this story, my bad. :-)

I have been active with a lot of things, except writing. For those that kept waiting patiently, respect, hope you will like this!

Chapter 25 of my fanfic about Ash and Angie living together. First chapter inspired by the great "Morpheus Family" drawing, by Endless-Summer181 on deviantART (check the link on my profile page to see it) The main title of this story is a tribute to the great MorpheusShipping fanfic called "Our Time Together" by MisterP in which Angie recounts her time with Ash, "the boy with the Pikachu". As can be expected, my story also involves MorpheusShipping (Ash and Angie being together) so if you really don't like that idea, perhaps you should stop reading here. The rest, I hope you enjoy this fan-fiction.

Short recap of the previous chapter's ending: Azelf was rescued from it's kidnapper, but was in a bad shape. Our friends managed to reach a Pokémon Center, with the help of the other pixie Pokémons' Teleport move. However, even the best of care by Brock and Nurse Joy may not seem enough to save Azelf...

"Ahhh, this is taking too long!" Ash shouted, as he suddenly got up from his chair in the waiting room.

Patience never was one of Ash's strong points, and even as the years had passed by, and him being married with child now, there was still much of the impetuous boy left, inside of him. The boy that was set on becoming a Pokémon Master, and left home at the age of ten. The boy that cared about every Pokémon he encountered, even those that seemed malignant at first, which usually turned out to be a shell that someone needed to break through. That was one of Ash's virtues for sure, reaching out to touch a Pokémon's heart, and often get the best out of it in battle as a result. But this battle was different, Ash had to rely on others for the outcome about Azelf's fate...

Angie looked up as well, and tried to calm Ash with her friendliest smile, but she knew it wouldn't help if Ash was in this mood. Then she felt Amy removing Angie's arm from around her, and quickly sliding off her chair. She stepped towards Ash, who was resting his head in his hand, bent forwards a little. Pikachu, being very tuned it to Ash feelings because of all they had been through, raised his ears and noticed this. The little Pokémon got up, and wanted to get closer to Ash, but...

"Daddy? Do you know what I do when I feel really, really sad?" Amy asked with a voice no one could say "no" to.

"What is it then, pumpkin?" Ash replied, a little surprised, as he lifted his hand from his forehead, and looked into Amy's twinkling eyes.

"I ask Pikachu to do some funny faces," the little girl promptly answered.

"I don't think that will help..." Ash sighed.

"Look, I'll show you..." Amy immediately replied, not allowing Ash to explain himself, and she started to twist her face in the most funny poses.

At first Ash looked at this seemingly unaffected, but soon he couldn't help himself and a little smile gradually formed around his lips.

"See, I told you it would work, daddy!" Amy cheered, as she winked at her father.

"Come here you!" Ash growled, as he menacingly raised his hands, like he was an Ursaring ready to charge.

Amy emitted a little shriek, and soon Ash was chasing her, threatening to give her the dreaded "tickle death". Gary and Angie looked at each other for a moment, but both decided not to spoil the fun, as a little break with all this solemness looming over the current events, had been very welcome anyway. The fun was short lived though, as moments later, the activity light above the entrance to the operating theater went off with a clearly audible "ping". All heads immediately turned towards the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of Brock, nurse Joy, or perhaps even Azelf. Brock was the first to emerge through the opening, with nurse Joy following shortly behind.

"Azelf... how did it...?" Ash hesitatingly asked, as he gently put his little girl down on the ground again.

"It was a close call..." Nurse Joy started, "but we managed to stabilize Azelf's condition," she added.

"Can we go see Azelf yet?" Ash immediately asked.

"Azelf is resting now, perhaps..." Brock started, as he exchange a glance with nurse Joy, as if to consult together for a short moment, then after seeing her nodding in agreement, continued, "... but if you can be very quiet, you can pay a quick visit now."

"If you would all follow me," nurse Joy said, as she turned towards the door.

"Wait!" Ash suddenly said, as he turned away, and walked to the other corner of the waiting room. "You can come along too," he invitingly said to the two other pixie Pokémon, that had been waiting silently along with our friends.

Emitting some high pitched sounds of joy, Mesprit and Uxie came forward, and followed the others as they walked towards the recovery area. They stopped at a large window in the wall, and on the other side of the glass Azelf was seen resting, with some monitoring wires connected to it's body. Nurse Joy slowly opened the door of Azelf's room, then winked the others to get in as well. Apart from the occasional beep from the equipment in the room, everything was very silent.

"How can someone treat a Pokémon so badly..." Ash whispered, as he felt a mix of sadness and anger simmering inside.

"Try to relax, honey," Angie whispered, as she took his hand, "remember how they said Azelf's gonna be fine."

First Ash's grip on Angie's hand tightened a little, but a few seconds later she felt his muscles relaxing again, and she knew Ash was calming down slowly. He looked her into the eyes for a moment, and Angie could see her words had really gotten through. Then, suddenly, the equipment started beeping erratically!

"What is that?" nurse Joy said with a startled voice, "could it be... yes! Azelf is waking up already!"

"That is much sooner than we expected!" Brock responded, sounding both surprised and happy.

Indeed, nurse Joy was right, the little Pokémon's eyelids started to tremble a little, then both eyes were wide open all of a sudden! Azelf's head turned from side to side, then the Pokémon started lifting up from the bed, and floated a little above it, frantically looking around the room, like something was wrong...

"Welcome back, Azelf," Nurse Joy started with her gentle voice, "we were expecting that you would be sleeping a little longer, but I'm glad to see you are recovering much faster than expected. Could you hold still, so I can do some more tests and..."

But before the nurse was able to finish her line, Azelf's eyes started glowing, and one of the devices in the room was lifted up in the air! For a moment it remained stationary, like suspended on a wire, but then the object was hurled at nurse Joy at high speed!

"Look out!" Brock shouted, as he dove forward, and pushed Joy aside!

The device barely missed both, and then hit a wall, where it was smashed to bits! Seeing this, Azelf's two companions moved forward, and tried to calm it down. But both were immediately pushed aside by a similar telekinetic force!

"What is wrong with you!" Ash shouted, as he stepped forward, not understanding why Azelf was attacking the people that saved it's life, and even it's pixie friends.

But all Ash got back was an eerie, angry sounding cry, followed by Azelf raising it's hands into the air, forming a light blue ball, that looked like it was sparkling with electricity! The ball seemed like it dissolved into a few bluish lightning bolts, that shot upwards, through the ceiling, and ultimately through the roof! Before our friends realized what was going on, Azelf disappeared, using it's Teleport.

"Hold on, that is Future Sight!" Brock shouted, as he finally recognized the true nature of the attack Azelf just did.

"But that means we've got to get out off here!" Gary added.

"Oh no, we still have some patients in here!" Nurse Joy cried with a caring voice.

"We'll all help get them out, right Ash!" Brock promptly responded.

"Right!" Ash replied, "Angie, give me a hand!" he added, as they started the evacuation.

Knowing there was little time, our friends quickly checked every single room for still recovering Pokémon, and brought them out one by one! Luckily most beds were empty, as there were no big tournaments going on for the entire week, so very little Pokémon that got injured during a battle, had been brought in the past few days.

"Is this the last one?" Brock asked, as he was catching his breath outside.

"I'm still missing a small Pidove" nurse Joy replied, after performing a quick head count.

"I saw Ash going in again, perhaps he was trying to get it out?" Gary remarked.

"Then he has to hurry, there comes the attack already!" Brock shouted, as he looked up, and saw a few bluish colored lighting streaks descending rapidly!

"Pikaaa!" Ash's little friend cried, as he was not able to spot his trainer anywhere yet.

"Ash! Get out off there!" Angie shouted, as she wanted to run forward to the entrance of the Pokémon Center.

But Brock held her back, knowing it was too dangerous to go back in. In fear Angie saw the blue streaks rapidly coming down! Then the attack hit the roof of the building, tearing through the first floor!

But just as the structure was about to collapse, a shadow jumped outside, rolled over a couple of times, then remained lying still on the ground! A loud explosion followed, as the center's oxygen tanks were hit by the blast! Those that were still standing, were thrown on the ground by the shock wave. Dust was blowing all around, only to settle a little after some minutes.

"Everyone okay?" Brock asked, as he slowly got on his feet and padded the dust of his trousers, then immediately helped nurse Joy on her feet again.

One by one each of our friend chimed in, and Pikachu jumped on Ash's shoulder, glad to see his trainer relatively unharmed, with only a few bruises here and there..

"That was too close for comfort..." Gary remarked, "we can be glad no one got hurt."

"We sure can," Ash replied, "I wonder what has gotten into Azelf though, to make it behave like it did..."

"Ash..." Angie started, "where is Amy?"

"Ehhh, I thought she was with you, I saw you leaving together when I was going in one more time to get that Pidove out in time." Ash said, as his face started to grow a little pale...

"But then... Ash... what if..." Angie stuttered, while they were all looking at the pile of rubble that was a Pokémon Center just a few minutes ago...

(to be continued...)

The 25th chapter of my story in which Ash and Angie are married. I apologize for any typing errors, or grammatically not 100% correct sentences. Remember, I am not a native English speaker or writer. I tried to make this story as close to the Pokémon series as possible, so that the characters will react roughly the same in this fictional story as they do in the series. Comments are always welcome, you can use the review function on this FanFiction site for that.

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any trademarks of Pokémon. Any similarities to the works of others is purely accidental, and not meant as an infringement on anyone's achievements.