Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of
violence and some inappropriate language.

*************************************************************************

                           Pokemon Master

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.

All parts of this story may be found at http://jsa.users.fl.net.au
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.

*************************************************************************

Part 11 B - Regressions (continued)


Ash awakened to the sound of someone stirring beside him. Misty! He
opened his eyes and turned over to sit up on his sleeping bag. Sure
enough, she was about to sit up and was rubbing her face with the back of
one slim hand.

"How do you feel?" he asked, immensely relieved that she had regained
consciousness. He combed his fingers through his hair and examined her
pallor. Her face had returned to its more healthy creamy tone and her
eyes looked clearer and bright: a flawless aqua-blue which she blinked as
she regained her bearings.

She brushed some strands of long, red hair from the shoulder of her blue
dress and looked at him. She licked her pink-tinged lips. "I-I feel
alright." She noticed his tight study of her and blushed slightly.
"Poison?"

He looked away. "Yeah."

Her voice tightened. "Who?"

"AJ." He looked down at his hands again. Although he had washed them off
from last night, he could still feel the itch in them; the stickiness of
the blood that had covered his fingers like evil paint. "We don't have to
worry about him anymore."

She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking, like wild
hilarity, but with grief. "This is all wrong. Wrong! How could we have
degenerated to this? The world is already dead. Should we save it? It's
like it's not even worth saving anymore."

Ash grabbed her hand. "No. As long as there is still life we know we have
to do something. Anything. This prophecy is a suicide, don't you realise
that? And for whatever reason, suicide is always wrong. Life shouldn't be
wasted like that. I've always believed in never giving up." He looked
into her eyes. "If I hadn't, I'd probably already be dead." Then he
quickly looked away as if her gaze into his eyes burned him to the core.
"As for AJ ... the AJ we knew as kids was dead as soon as he failed at
the Pokemon League. His hatred consumed him, leaving him an empty shell
with nothing but a need to prove himself worthy of a worthless title."
Something poked his finger that was grasping Misty's hand. A ring of some
sort? He began to look down.

But Misty pushed away from him. "But you gave up on me."

He looked up, incredulous. "What are you talking about? If anything, you
gave up when you went running over to Brock. Is that why you left on that
day?"

A cold, blue aura began to emit from her body. "What Brock said ...
was a lie! I may have stayed with him, but that was only because he's
always been our closest friend! I couldn't think of anyone else to talk
to. There was never anything romantic between us."

"It seems he thinks differently," Ash said grimly as he closed a fist and
stared at it.

She turned on him, eyes blazing in her fury. "Just like you say AJ turned
into a different person, don't you see how Brock has changed also? For
some ... some reason, he's become fixated on me. I don't know how, I
always treated him as a friend, especially when we were kids. He never
gave any sign that he thought of me as anything different. He was always
after a different girl..."

"He was hiding it ... and love doesn't have to have a reason to emerge,"
he said glumly. "If I knew how he felt back then..."

"What? You would have stepped aside?"

"Why shouldn't I?" he shouted back. "I've always placed my friends above
myself!"

"How dare you?" Astonishingly, she growled as she leaped on top of him,
knocking him over on to his back on the stone-tiled floor. Her grip on
his wrists was painfully tight and he could feel the coldness of her aura
beat his body. "You would have sacrificed us, just to be some noble
idiot? And wasn't I a *friend* too?" Her eyes blazed cold, blue fire down
at him.

But for some crazy reason, suddenly Ash could only think about how
beautiful she was with her long crimson hair splayed over him, eyes
bright with emotion, beautiful face heated with anger. "I-I, but you're
more than a friend, you're just Misty," he said softly. "You've always
been Misty."

And then her fury transformed into another emotion, one just as hot and
demanding as the anger that had spawned it. A confused expression washed
over her face as if she couldn't decide what it was that she was feeling.
"Ash," she breathed, almost like a whisper in the wind. Then suddenly and
shockingly, they were kissing as passionately and with as much feeling as
if they had never split apart - in fact it seemed as if their feelings
had even amplified since then. Her skin felt as soft and as supple as
velvet, and where their lips were united was as hot as the midday sun.

Ash wanted to break away. He wanted to. This was the woman who could
break him like a piece of fragile glass. She had already done it once.

But he was just too weak. 

He needed this. 

He needed her.


<><><>


Erika and Pikachu quietly crawled over to the door in a bit of haste.
They had been awoken by the argument and had silently stayed as still and
as unnoticeable as they could. But now that the two people, oblivious to
everything around them but each other, had begun tearing their clothes
off, now was the time to leave them to their privacy.


<><><>


Later, all was silent as they lay next to each other except for the
steady sound of their slow breathing. The room was still shrouded in
darkness since the campfire had long since died out, but they were as
aware of each other as only two people who had shared the closest act of
all, could be.

Eyes tightly shut, Misty tried to hold reality at bay. As she was doing
what she had done, she had promised herself that whatever came, she could
bear it. If only she could have that pleasure, she could bear anything.
But now that her head had cleared from anger and desire, like an
anaesthetic that had just worn off, the full force of her aching heart
came back to greet her. Sitting up, she tried to locate her lingerie and
dress. Probably the worst part of it was finding it next to her all
ripped up, while she still wore a part of her skirt that had become
caught between her bare legs. She felt like one of those easy women or an
actor in a dirty movie.

She reached over to her pack for a change of clothes and turned away from
him, expecting nothing. It hurt too much to have your expectations dashed
down a cliff. "We should probably go soon."

After a small silence, he turned over toward her, whole body stiffening.
"Huh?"

Resolving herself against hurt, she pulled her bra and underwear on
almost mechanically. "I've already slowed us down enough. We have to get
to Indigo Plateau and somehow stop the full prophecy from unfolding
before it's too late."

"Damn the Pokemon League! You really want to talk about that at a time
like this?" Ash said, glaring at her with those golden-brown eyes that
she could so lose herself within. "We have to talk about the past and
finally resolve this!"

She narrowed her eyes. How could he pretend he not know? Abruptly, she
just felt a pain in her head. A pain which blackened her vision for an
instant before it went away. And suddenly she just hated him. A hate she
remembered feeling just before she had left all those years ago. A hate
that she had gradually lost afterward as she realised that it was her
fault too but had now strangely come back. But what was the most unusual
thing was that she also felt the same love for him that it seemed like
she always had. The conflicting emotions felt as if they would tear her
apart. She felt like her head would explode. And so she lashed out. "Just
let it go, Ash! Maybe we were both looking for closure. Maybe it's now
out of our system and after we stop this Armageddon mess we can both get
on with our lives."

He looked at her as if he could not believe what she had just said. Then
his eyes narrowed to slits and he looked down, his black hair obscuring
his upper face from her view. He began to jerkily force his long,
loose-fitting black pants on and then tightened it at the waist with a
draw-string which he tied in a bow. "Closure? Leave the psychiatric
analysis to that damn Sabrina, but leave me out of it." His voice was as
icy as any cold attack she had ever generated. 

After pulling on his shirt and boots, he stood up swiftly and avoided
meeting her gaze. Dark shadows appeared by his feet and arose in a spiral
fashion to generate his long black cloak. He pulled his hood over his
head, rendering his face invisible in its darkness and stepped over to
the door. Still not looking at her, he pushed the door open. 

"If that's the way you feel," he said unemotionally, "then after this, I
never want to see you again." He stepped outside and slammed the old
wooden door shut so hard, it split vertically down the middle.

Misty stared at the door cracking, even as her spirit felt the same way.
Then she collapsed atop her sleeping bag, face against the ground as she
rolled herself into a ball. She cried.


<><><>


The group travelled on through the ruins in a silence as stony as the
fallen structures around them, with both Ash and Misty walking as far
apart from each other as possible. There was a tension to the air that
seemed even more violent and powerful between the two than the utter
gloom of the prophecy unfolding.

Erika couldn't understand it. Where had they gone so horribly and
tragically wrong? She looked to the front where Ash was leading the
group, gravely quiet as he stepped over fallen boulders and rocks which
regularly blocked the path they were following. He seemed to walk
stiffly, artificially, as if he was an inanimate object incapable of
emotion. Sinister clouds of black shadow hung around his cloaked form
like a vapour of death. His lack of emotion seemed to be mirrored by the
still black pikachu clutched to his left shoulder. It was eerie. It
horrifyingly reminded her of his demeanour when he still shared 
allegiance with the Pokemon League and was their most dangerous enemy.

Misty was much the same way, walking behind even Jessie, James and
Persian at the rear, covered in her blue cloak. Her hooded head was 
casting her face in darkness, but Erika could still see the blank 
expression, like the beautiful face of an unliving china doll. Blue eyes 
seemed unblinking as glass beads.

In total contrast to the two's emotions though, Duplica walked beside her
with a face as sunny as a day on the beach. Shrugging off the cold wind
that howled like a shrill banshee among the deserted wreckage and rubble
of the once lively South Indigo City, she just wore the most scandalous
short dress of black nothing that Erika had ever seen or imagined.
Skipping along, occasionally running her hand through her long
tealish-blue hair like an egotist, Duplica seemed to be having a lovely
time.

"What is your problem?" Erika finally said to her, breaking the group's
self-imposed silence. She made sure to let her eyes flash green at the
ditzy woman just to show that she meant business.

Duplica just arched an eyebrow at her and tossed her long hair over a
shoulder. It was as annoying an action as even Giselle could execute.
"Well, excuuuuse me, Plant Girl, but unlike you spoilsports, I prefer to
keep a happy composure." Then outrageously, her form blurred, grew
taller, then smoothly transformed into an exact mirror image of her.
Green-cloaked woman with grass-green eyes, shoulder-length black hair
highlighted with blue and even the same red hair-band. Erika scowled, as
Duplica-turned-Erika then stuck her tongue out at her and lowered an
eye-lid.

"Oh, look at me, I'm high-and-mighty Erika!" Duplica said in an exact
replica of her voice and flashed her own green eyes back at her. "Always
the perfectly-groomed beautiful princess!" She spun around and curtsied
mockingly.

Erika stopped walking, gaining everyone else's attention as they stopped
too. Feeling angry as she had never felt before. Even angrier than when
her Gym had gotten burned down by Team Rocket and her Gloom had almost
died, she lifted a hand that grew as bright as the sun with solar energy.
"Why, you little..."

"Duplica, you've gone too far," Bruno interjected before a fight could
break out. "You should apologise. We can't afford any discrepancy within
our group."

The Erika clone laughed at him. "Oh bite me, Bruno-baby." She changed
back to her original scantily-clad form and blew a kiss at him. "Besides,
what are you going to do? If you try anything I'll change into you and
kick your own ass." She laughed again. "Although I'd prefer not to change
into an icky male body."

Ash finally intervened, his voice in puzzlement now rather than
unemotional. "Duplica, do you feel alright? You've been acting so odd
lately."

Erika paused. That was right. Yesterday Duplica had been moody, almost
depressed. Now she was acting so annoyingly care-free and over-the-top;
even more than her usual brand of silliness. From extreme to extreme:
that wasn't normal. Perhaps she had been a little too hasty in getting
angry. Duplica was probably heavily troubled.

"Never better," Duplica then said, batting her eyelashes at Ash. "I guess
I just feel a little hyped at the fact we're finally going to destroy the
Pokemon League for good and stop their vile evilness from corrupting the
innocent!"

"I wouldn't say that," Ash said, still a little perturbed. "The League
isn't evil. It's just that the current Master feels that he is in the
right. Life should end so that it can start again."

"We're all going to die?" James suddenly said in the background.

"Shut up!" Jessie and Persian immediately said as they each smacked him
on the head and scratched him correspondingly.

"How do you know so much of what Lord Garick's plans are?" Bruno said
questioningly.

Ash looked away. "He told me himself. Remember, I *was* a Pokemon Master
for the League."

"You don't have to remind me," Bruno muttered.

Misty frowned. "We should go now."

Ash didn't look at her as he twisted back in the direction of the pathway
through the ruins and the forest. He started their procession again.
"Yes. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get out of each other's
sight."

A cold gust of wind blew in front of them carrying a small tornado of
leaves and rocks. The rocks were smashed to dust as they collided with a
huge stone pillar. But the leaves floated away unharmed. 


<><><>


Gradually, as they walked north through the weed-infested ruins, the
pathway grew to better quality stone and the surroundings looked more and
more preserved, with intermittent buildings that actually looked
undamaged. The forest trees by the edges had begun to thin out as well,
to shorter shrubs and grass and there was the light sound of streams
flowing to mingle with the high voice of the wind. However, the horizon
in front of them showed no sign they were nearing the edges of the Indigo
Plateau, the heart of the Pokemon League. By now, the tops of the
buildings of the capital city should have been in view over the top of
the rubble and debris, but instead it was as a blank canvas with an
artist that only used black paint.

Ash stopped walking abruptly, causing everyone else to halt as well. "Not
good," he said cryptically.

"What is it?" Bruno asked, eyes narrowed as he folded his huge arms.

"We'll have to find another way into Indigo Plateau. This way is
blocked."

James strode forward confidently, fiddling with the lowered, black
ninja's veil beneath his chin. "Nonsense! Looks clear to me! Oof!" He
smashed into something hard and fell unceremoniously on to his bottom on
the stone pathway.

"That's why the horizon is black," Ash explained, dusting off his
night-dark long cloak from specks of dust that had arisen from James'
collision.

Erika took a cautious step past Ash and felt the air in front of her with
a hand. "You're right. I don't see anything but there's a wall here."

"How high does it go?" Bruno asked, looking up as if imagining the
barrier that was there in his mind's eye. "Maybe we can go over it."

Ash reached inside himself and prodded forward with his awareness. "No
good. It's like a dome a mile in diameter reaching over and protecting
the whole of the Plateau. It goes underground too."

"Can you break it?" Misty asked in hard tone of voice.

He suddenly punched forward so hard, a blast of air flailed the folds of
everyone's cloaks and clothes back. Black sparks erupted from something
in front of his fist with a small boom of thunder. Then he dropped his
hand and shrugged. "It seems to be generated of Shadow type elements. So
without doing anything short of cracking the planet, I don't think
there's anything I can do to dispel it."

"Pika," Pikachu agreed atop his shoulder.

Suddenly he felt someone clutch on to his arm tightly. It was Duplica,
light-brown eyes looking at him sweetly. "Come, Ash. Forget about this
for now. Let's go over there behind that wall on the grass and have some
fun." She pressed her soft body against him.

Misty growled behind them and Erika gasped.

Ash felt extremely disturbed. "Duplica-" Then he heard a twig snap and he
realised that his senses were screaming at him when he had been
distracted. A flash of silver was caught in his peripheral vision and
reacting lightning-quick, he thrust an arm up to knock the arrow away
that had been shot at him.

>From around the ruins surrounding their sides and back, over a dozen
people in brown forest clothing jumped up from behind cover of boulders,
walls and buildings screaming battle cries and waving swords and shields.
The ringing of steel drowned out the earlier silence of the area as
weapons were drawn in preparation for battle. "Attack!" a man's voice
cried from the direction that the arrow had come from.

"Ambush!" Bruno roared as he threw off his hood and prepared to intercept
his first attackers with hand and foot.

Jessie and James instantly veiled themselves and produced their double
steel sai knives, while Erika summoned her long ebony staff into her
hands with a flash of green energy. Persian hissed as he crouched,
white fur rising up on his back like sharp spikes. Behind them,
a cold arctic glow surrounded Misty's hands as she created her twin ice
blades.

And then it was a general melee as the many attacking people reached them
in a surrounding wave and there was a clash of hard sound and movement as
blows were exchanged.

"Remember, easy on the elemental attacks! And only knock them
unconscious. These aren't League soldiers," Ash demanded as he let go of
Duplica and prepared to join in, Pikachu's cheeks sparking black
lightning as he growled roughly atop his shoulder.

The archer that had shot at Ash earlier raised himself into view from
behind the stone wall he was using as cover. He had long brown hair and
was dressed in a green long-coat and silver chain mail. Surprisingly,
there was something highly familiar about his facial features. "Pokemon
Master scum!" he snarled as he lifted his large, ebony long-bow. "Men,
get the black one first! He seems to be the one in charge!" And with that
he shot forth another volley of arrows surprisingly skilful and quick.

Ash twisted nimbly, dodging the arrows easily despite some of the shafts
piercing through the loose folds of his cloak. A man roared from behind
him, trying to take advantage of his apparent preoccupation, and swung a
huge great-sword to cleave him vertically down the middle. Ash spun to 
the side and stopped the blade by grasping on to it with the forefinger 
and thumb of his left hand, and smoothly, flowed the movement into a 
rotating roundhouse kick, cloak flapping, to strike the heel of his right 
boot into the man's cheek. There was a crunching sound and a scream as 
the man flew away backward several yards and knocked into a nearby pole 
to fall over unconscious. To conclude, Ash spun the stolen blade around 
his fingers and then threw it slightly to grasp on to its hilt.

Next, a woman with short, blue hair and amber eyes ran up to him,
brandishing a rapier as she jumped over the fallen man.  With her free
hand, she threw a poke-ball at the ground. "Kabutops, Slash attack!" she
screamed as the ball split open and released a large bipedal rock
creature with a dome-shaped head and large scythe-like fore-arms like a
praying mantis. It hissed, eyes glowing red, and leaped forward, both
blade-like arms raised to cut him down.

Without a sound, Ash skilfully blocked the slashing of its blades with
the large great-sword and as it was off-balance, he kneed it in the chest 
with a cracking of rock and then struck it on the skull with the hilt of 
his weapon in bone-crushing force. While the Kabutops collapsed into
unconsciousness, he threw Pikachu at the charging woman. "Pikachu,
Submission ... but not too hard."

The woman swung her rapier down at the leaping, black pikachu, but was
too slow for the small pokemon's extreme speed and missed completely.
Pikachu obliged the opening with a powerful headbutt into the woman's
belly and she collapsed, coughing, as the pokemon returned to Ash's side
with an agile backflip.

"Melanie!" the brown-haired archer yelled anxiously, his hand
outstretched in plea. He threw his bow down and drew a long-sword from a
sheathe at his belt with a ringing of steel and leaped over the wall to
charge him. "Bastard! Now you pay!" He raised the sword over his
shoulder.

Ash threw away the great-sword with a clatter and faced him directly,
eyes glowing golden within the shadows of his hooded-cloak. "You attacked
us first, so you should be prepared for the consequences of your
actions."

"Monsters!" the man accused, tears flying out of his brown eyes. "It's
you Pokemon Masters that brought those, those black nightmares of shadow
here! Now because of you ... most of my family are dead!" He slashed his
sword diagonally. Ash dodged. He swung again, this time in the opposite
direction. Ash dodged yet again.

"We had no part with bringing the Forbidden Pokemon to this plane," Ash
said, all the while dodging the man's skilful sword strokes. "Call your
men off before any more get hurt." He nodded his head to the side where
Bruno was nearby brutally hammering any man that unwisely tried to attack
him with his huge meaty fists. Erika held at least four or more men and
women to a standstill with expert defensive blocks with her staff. Misty
had disarmed at least three men and knocked even more of them
unconscious. Even Jessie, James and Persian kept more than their fair
share busy while Duplica was playfully morphing herself into all manners
of forms, annoying her attackers into a frenzy with her confusing style
of attack. One moment, she'd be a growlithe, snapping at their legs, the
next, a fearow pecking at their heads.

"I saw you cloaked devils! I saw one of you with a whole swarm of them
destroy my village! Burning ... and-and eating!" he sobbed, his attacks
now weakening as he tired. Ash thought best to incapacitate this man and
order the rest of his people to stop, using him as a hostage. He was
about to streak forward and do just then when a young girl's voice
interrupted them. 

"Big brother!" the girl cried. "Stop, I recognise that man you're
attacking! H-He's not bad! He saved me!"

He turned around and spotted a girl with dark hair running toward them
from out of cover of the various ruins. He abruptly recognised her as the
girl he had helped all the way back at the Pallet village.

"Honey?" the man exclaimed, as he stopped his frenzy of sword slashes.
"What do you mean?"

The girl stopped by their sides, breathing heavily from her run and her
panic. "Please, big brother ... stop," she sobbed, hands on her knees to
support herself. "Remember when you were on your business trip and the
settlement got attacked that first time? And we were saved by a stranger?
This is him big brother! This is Ash!"

"Ash?" the brown-haired man said in complete shock.

Pikachu leapt up on to Ash's left shoulder and he threw his hood back to
reveal his face. "That's right. Call off your people."

"B-But, I know you!" the man burst out in surprised recognition. He
rushed forward and hugged him tightly and warmly. "Remember me? I'm
Snap!" 

A bit embarrassed, Ash groaned. "Um, your people, Snap? Call them off."

"Oh, right. Sorry."


<><><>


It took some time before all the fighting ceased due to the confusion of
the battle, but finally they all stood before the villagers and their
apparent leader at their 'base' outside one of the large stone buildings
that made up the ruins. Melanie was seeing to all the injured people they
had beaten up after popping a stomach-ache pill for herself. She had
complained that Pikachu's head was too hard.

"I can't believe it's really you, Ash!" Snap was saying as he shook his
head in wonder, long brown hair rustling on his shoulders. "And well ...
on the side of 'good' if that beat all. Last I heard you were cheerfully
working for the Pokemon League."

"Likewise," Ash said, looking him over. "I thought you were a pacifist
myself."

Snap looked down at his feet, brown eyes suddenly sad. "In a perfect
world I might have been able to stick with my beliefs, but you know
that's only a dream with how things really are." He sat down on a small
boulder and rested his forehead on a hand.

"Still taking photos?" Ash asked, hoping to cheer him up with mention of
his old profession which he knew he had loved.

If it was possible, Snap looked even more depressed. "All my camera
equipment was destroyed long ago. That or stolen." He sighed. "And now
where in the world am I going to buy a new camera?" he laughed
depreciatingly.

Misty looked at Ash and shook her head. "Gee, Ash you're really great at
cheering people up."

Ash ignored her. He still felt all the pain resting upon an inner-barrier
he had erected to ward off his emotions. It was like holding off an
avalanche of stone boulders with a shield of wallpaper.

Snap suddenly looked up at her, eyes widening. He jumped off the boulder,
ran and crushed her in a bear-hug. "If it isn't Misty!" he cried
delightedly. "You're so beautiful! I remember even having a crush on you
back then."

"Thanks, Todd," Misty gushed as she stepped back out of his embrace. "You
aren't so bad yourself," she said, looking over his muscled body encased
in the chain-mail and green long-coat. She tossed her long red hair over
a shoulder and smiled flirtingly with exquisitely-shaped pink lips. "That 
long hair suits you."

Ash growled deep in his throat. He was about to step forward and say
something he'd regret when Duplica suddenly clutched on to his arm and
rubbed her scantily-clad breasts upon them. He blushed.

"Well, I think Ashy-boy is so much cuter," Duplica declared with a sniff
of haughtiness. "I love his eyes, they're so beautiful and when they
glow, doesn't it just make your lower body explode?"

Now it was Misty's turn to growl. She jumped to Snap's side and clutched
his arm to the man's complete surprise. "Well look at Snap's muscular
body. More muscles means a sexier body. He looks so rugged and powerful."

"Oh, please," Duplica scoffed, rubbing Ash's torso through his cloak. "I
like them more athletically-built. Too much muscles are sickening.
Besides Ashy-boy's face is a lot more handsome." She sighed as if
weak-willed. "So bishounen..."

Misty had no counter for that and scowled at Duplica, blue eyes shooting
cold azure fire. Then she just stamped her foot and stalked away.

"What was all that about?" Snap said a bit confused after Misty left.

Erika was frowning darkly at Duplica. "Just a bitch-fight," she said,
before turning around to catch up with Misty.

Ash was combing his hand through his black hair in agitation. "Duplica,
thanks, but can you like, maybe stop holding me so tightly now?" was all
he said.

"No problem, Ashy-boy," Duplica said, smiling as she stepped away and
winked at him.


<><><>


Later, when certain hot-heads had cooled off, Snap, Ash, Misty, Duplica,
Pikachu, Erika, Bruno, Jessie, James and Persian all sat in a circle
making plans about the infiltration into Indigo Plateau. They had told
Snap about their targets and what they had to do to stop the prophecy of
death from finally executing its last phase. And then how the dome of
shadow had stopped them from carrying out their mission.

"There is a way into Indigo Plateau," Snap said excitedly, upon hearing
of their difficulty in entering. "One of our spies saw some people coming
in and out of there, so there is a breach in that barrier that people may
pass."

"And where is that?" Bruno said quickly, leaning forward, eyes glowing
maroon in his eagerness.

"You remember Victory Road, right? You were one of the original Elite
Four, after all."

Bruno leaned back, disappointed, and folded his thick arms over his
muscular torso. "Impossible. The tunnels of Victory Road had long since
collapsed during the Dark Pokemon Wars. Even a diglett can't dig through
all that mess."

"Bruno," Ash said quietly, as he brushed some long hair out of his eyes
and behind his ear. "Victory Road was excavated and restored since then.
The Pokemon League were using it for a secret escape tunnel just in case
any large hostile force ended up threatening it like in the wars. In
fact, it was how I managed to get out after I thought I killed Gary."

Bruno leaned forward again, his rugged face lighting up in hope. "Then
that's it then! We can get in if that's where the breach in the shadow
dome is!"

"B-But, a tunnel?" James suddenly whined as he clutched his head in
worry. "Don't you remember last time we were in an underground tunnel?"

"Perrr ... y-yeah," Persian agreed, fur standing on end.

Even Jessie looked more than a little scared, although she tried to hide
it by hiding behind James back. "I have a phobia about tunnels," she said
in a high voice.

"But it's different now," Misty said. She glanced at Ash. "There won't be
a Missingno in there."

Ash didn't blink.

"Wouldn't there?" she asked with a slight tremor in her voice.

Finally Ash looked down at his hands and began to pull on his black,
finger-less gloves. "I agree, it's unlikely. But with two levels of the
Forbidden open, I can't guarantee that we won't meet one in there."

"But, Missingno was a Master Pokemon," Bruno said. "There can't be more
than one of a Master Pokemon can there?"

"True ..." Ash considered, staring down at his gloves. "But do you know
that the Astral Plane, or Hell as it's normally called, is full of Shadow
Pokemon like Missingno? In fact, if I know correctly, the whole place is
like one big Missingno."

"What is a Missingno?" Snap asked.

"You wouldn't want to know," Duplica said with a half-smile.

"Basically, it's a killer black mist that consumes flesh," Bruno offered.

Duplica stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, you. You spoil all my fun."

Snap was visibly shivering in his chain armor. "Then it's just as good
that I'm not going with you then. After all, I have to take care of my
people and my sister; and besides? I'm way too weak to compare to any of
you Pokemon Masters, even Team Rocket."

Jessie and James rapidly flashed a veritable mountain of sharp,
wicked-looking knives in his face. "Hey! We resent that!"

"No offense," Snap said, waving his hands in a gesture of surrender.


<><><>


Some hours after that, they were all laying down flat against the far
side of a forested hill and observing the supposed entrance to the
Victory Road tunnel. Pikachu was next to Ash, glowing softly with a dark
light to help Snap point it out to them since he had terrible
night-vision.

Snap pointed at an old stone structure that looked like an entrance to a
crypt by the ruins of pillars and buildings at the bottom of the incline.
In fact, it probably really was a crypt; the place *was* a graveyard with
many tombstones and cross-shaped stone markers littering the gloomy area
like trees in a forest. There was a stale stench to the air that made one
wonder if they were breathing in the air of the dead. It was a place of
gloomy monotones, everything seeming to be either a shade of grey or
black. Or twilight.

"I'm sure you already knew where the entrance was, but just in case, I
had to point it out to you," Snap stated.

"Well, thanks for escorting us, Snap," Ash said absently as he scanned
the area around the crypt and graves for any sign of movement.

"No problem, man. Anyway, I have to go now. Maybe I'll see you guys
afterward?" he looked anxiously at them with worried brown eyes.

"A word of advice," Erika said softly. "I'd get your people about as far
as humanly possible from the area around here. We haven't got a very good
track record with keeping places tidy."

"Well, thanks for the pointer, Mistress Erika," Snap said, smiling at
her. "I do hope a beautiful lady like you makes it out alive."

Tinges of red appeared on Erika's cheeks and she hurriedly hooded herself
with her green cloak. "Oh, get out of here, flatterer!"

Snap gave them one last smile, smoothed his long brown hair back, and
then got up in a crouch to dash quickly back into the ruins
and overgrown vegetation behind them. He was soon out of sight.

"Okay," Ash said as he got up on one knee and adjusted the straps of his
backpack. "There doesn't seem to be anyone or anything around." He hooded
himself. "Let's go." Pikachu jumped up to ride on his backpack and he got
up and began to run quickly and silently down the sharp incline toward
the graveyard. The others followed in single file, Bruno and Erika next,
followed by the old Team Rocket and their pokemon while Duplica and Misty
brought up the rear.

When they reached the bottom and the first of many tombstones scattered
about the area, Ash slowed down to a more careful walk. No need to wake
the dead, he thought silently, and with more than a tinge of discomfort.
He wrinkled his nose. Down here, the stench of the dead was even more
overpowering and intense. Not so much as the smell of decay but the smell
of actual *death*. It had a distinctly unpleasant aroma and over the
years he had learned to recognise it whenever it was present. Stepping
past yet another gravestone, he was careful not to read the name upon it.
Sometimes it was best to smother curiosity and stay ignorant. Pikachu
tightly pressed his small face against the back of Ash's neck. Pikachu
had never liked places like this either.

The sound of a crow somewhere overhead cried out forebodingly and he
sensed some of his companions jump as they were startled.

"Oh ..." James whispered. "I hate this."

"Quiet," Bruno shushed. Even the rugged Master of Power had a tremor of
fear in his voice.

Around them, dark mists seemed to be rising up from the ground around the
perimeter of the cemetery. With a good imagination, one could call them
spirits rising from the dead. Spirits that accused them of foul murder
and promised revenge. Ash wished that he had a horrible imagination.

Something suddenly hissed, a soft aggressive sound, and Ash immediately
looked from left to right for the source of the sound. Twin points of red
light flared and a sleek black-furred body hopped atop a tombstone about
a dozen feet away from them. Its mouth was open and red saliva dripped
from its many sharp pointed teeth like blood. It was a persian. And yet,
not a persian either.

"Stay back," Ash said as he halted their progress and carefully observed
the hostile black cat with watchful, glowing red eyes.

Jessie and James' Persian whimpered. "Gladly."

"HSSSSSSS!" the black cat hissed. And then suddenly it just leaped down
from the tombstone and silently scuttled over to the crypt whereupon it
slipped within a crack in its slightly-open stone door and vanished from
sight.

"Damn," Ash said as he began to step forward again toward the crypt
entrance. "I should have got it before it went in."

"What if it attacks us down there?" Bruno asked doubtfully. "There may
not be any room to manoeuvre."

"We'll deal with it when it comes," Ash shrugged.

Finally they reached the crypt door. Long black weeds and vines grew all
around it like an infested hell-hole. On its stone surface there seemed
to be some writing on it. Ash looked at it and frowned.

"I can't read it," Misty said as she walked next to him to take a look.
Ash looked at her, surprised. She had been avoiding him and he avoiding
her ever since that disastrous reunion back at the edge of the Western
Viridian Forest. She looked at him. "You seem to recognise it, Ash, can
you tell us what it says?" She seemed to be shivering, although if that
was from the cold or whether she was frightened was hard to say.

Ash stepped up to it and dusted off the engraved markings on it with his
hands. "Alright, here's what it says,


              "Wielder of Light, wielder of shadow.
               Eternally equal.
               But as thunder defeats water,
                 and water defeats rock
               does rock defeat thunder?
                 Or does change defeat all?"


After Ash's recital, everyone fell to a tremulous silence. 

Then Misty broke it. "Is that a part of the prophecy?"

"It seems familiar," Ash said, shrugging his black-cloaked shoulders.
"But I'm not an expert on the old legends like Valdera is."

At the name of her twin sister, Misty's blue eyes narrowed.

"She used to be hooked on the forgotten myths and fantasies. Maybe that's
why she's supporting the League now. After all, it plays up to her ideas
about romance."

"Romance?"

"Believe it or not, Valdera was a real romantic. She's a lot like you,
come to think of it," Ash said musingly.

Misty looked like she was going to get angry, then she just looked away.
"Well, when we were kids, we were kind of alike. But there was just
something ... not evil ... but something that made her a lot different-"
Then she just shook her head. "Just forget it. We should go now before
the ghosts can get us," she said half-jokingly.

"Want me to help pull that open?" Bruno asked, cracking his knuckles as
he indicated the huge crypt door with a nod of his square chin.

"No need," Ash said as he removed his hood and then calmly stepped over
to it to pull the thick stone door open with a loud scraping and creaking
noise.

As soon as it was half-way open, a burst of screeching sounds came from
within and suddenly there was a tight black cloud of scratching and
biting zubats forcing its way past them, wings beating hard and painfully
against their raised arms. Then they were just abruptly gone as the
blood-sucking bats flew away into the twilight sky above them.

"Everyone okay?" Ash asked. "Anyone bleeding?"

After a few seconds of checking, everyone replied negatively.

"Good. Zubats can transmit nasty diseases that rot your mind after all."

They all checked again - carefully this time.


<><><>


Atop the hill overlooking the cemetery, a young girl in long, black robes
and clinking charms watched the group of people enter the crypt - the
entrance to Victory Road.

Pale silver eyes set in an even paler face glowed eerily, as the howling
wind blew her black-as-death hair around her head and jingled the various
charms she wore on her body.

She smiled with full red lips. All was going according to plan.

"Right, Snap?" she breathed as she lifted the pathetic man's head up
level with her white-hot eyes with a pull of his conveniently-long hair.

Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth slowly, like raspberry jam.
"Y-Yes, yes, Mistress," he blubbered like the wretched creature he was.
He had been particularly easy to break.

Chanelle reached down with her little finger and traced the leaking blood
with her fingertip. Then she raised it to her mouth and licked it off her
long fingernail.

Sweet.


<><><>


About the only good thing about the dark, rocky tunnel so far was that
the stench of death had seemed to dissipate soon upon entering the
Victory Road. Not as much as the 'sense' of death though, as the smell of
rigor mortis.

Upon entering the crypt, they had soon discovered that one of the raised
coffins against the wall had a false back and opened into a musty
stairway. Of course, that was after opening many other coffins full of
decaying skeletons before they found the right one. Since then, Ash had
the uncontrollable desire to have a long immersive bath to wash off the
feel of death.

After following the stairway down several levels it ended upon a
stone-walled tunnel about a dozen feet high and wide, such as that they
were following in a northerly direction right now.

Pikachu on Ash's shoulder was yet again using his flash ability to light
the way forward - more for the others benefit than his own. He and
Pikachu could see perfectly clearly on a midnight with a new moon after
all.

Misty was looking around and walking right behind him. Whether she didn't
mind him any more or that she was desperately frightened and had to be
near him was a fact he wasn't sure about. Probably the latter. From her
actions he knew she hated him. Well, damn her. He didn't need this kind
of pain any more. He had lived with it for over five years and he was
sick of it. But why did he have this constant voice in the back of his
mind telling him that he was lying? 

"Well the Victory Road sure has changed," Misty was saying as she looked
around. "It was always meant to be the last obstacle to competing in the
Pokemon League and to be a frightening place. But now ..." She shivered.
"Ash, if it was like this back then, you probably would have won by
default." Then she smirked. "That is, of course, if you wouldn't have
been frightened off too."

"Ha ha," Ash said with a high dose of sarcasm. "If I remember right,
*you* were the one most afraid of ghosts."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Please," Erika said. "You two are embarrassing."

Gradually, the tunnel widened until it opened up into the more familiar
large caverns, ledges and stairways. And pits.

"Careful with the ground," Ash warned. "If the soil or rocks looks loose,
then *don't* step on it."

Persian sniffed the ground in front of him and was startled backward as
it just suddenly collapsed into a black hole with a roaring avalanche of
crumbling dirt and stone. Looking inside, it seemed bottomless; a
never-ending pit of darkness. "Per ... You're da boss, Ash," he said
frightened.

"Excuse me?" Jessie and James said as they turned their heads back
simultaneously.

"Just kidding, you two are da bosses!" Persian thought about it for a
while. "No, what am I talking about, I'm da boss!" he said triumphantly
as he loped forward to catch up.

"Whatever," Jessie said.

They were about to climb a flight of stairs at a many-tunnelled junction
when suddenly Ash heard something. He stopped and concentrated and
Pikachu pricked his pointed ears upward. He looked to the east tunnel
where the sound seemed to have come from. He couldn't see much though
before the shadows rendered anything further invisible, even with his
exceptional night-vision. "Did any of you hear that?"

Duplica tilted her head. "What was it?"

"Someone screaming."

Bruno looked at him seriously. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. My senses have never been wrong when I actually feel
something." He turned to look at Pikachu who was now half-clutching on
his left shoulder. "Even Pikachu senses the same."

"Pika," Pikachu said, cobalt-blue eyes flashing.

Bruno turned to walk past him. "Even so, it's none of our business. You
know what our priorities are. One single life won't matter."

James walked up to him, green eyes blazing, and reached up to grab his
thick shoulder. "And I thought we were evil! We can't just leave a person
to die if we can do something about it!"

"Look, we don't have enough time to go chasing after every
damsel-in-distress!" Bruno roared, looking down at him. His maroon eyes
lit up his face showing all sharp-angles and planes. "Now let go of me,
little man, before I break your arm off."

James produced a long three-pronged sai knife from his sleeve and
gestured threateningly. "You just try it, Mister Spiky-head, and you'll
find something pointy up your bum!"

Bruno looked about to lose control, but then suddenly deflated. He looked
away. "Heh. Are you coming on to me?"

James growled. "Why you-"

Jessie put a hand on his shoulder. "Forget about it, James. We're not
here for that muscle-bound moron, but to find those Pokemon League
lackeys, Butch and Cassidy and maybe even that braided-blue-haired
bitch."

"Yeah," Persian agreed.

James let go of Bruno's shoulder and adjusted the ninja's mask he wore.
"Fine. But I won't be happy until I can wipe that smile off his hard
face."

Bruno shrugged. "We can have a Circle of Masters when this is all over.
Even if you aren't a Master, I'll oblige you. But for now, let's just
go."

But then someone screamed again and it was loud enough to be recognisable
to everyone.

"That was Giselle's voice," Ash said darkly as he twisted toward the east
tunnel. "What the hell is she doing here?"

"It might be a trick," Bruno said sceptically.

"No, I'm definitely sure. I just *know* it's her." He turned back to them
briefly. "I'm going. You people can go on ahead, Bruno knows the way -
Victory Road hasn't changed all that much in layout - I'll catch up
later." He turned and sprinted off, black cloak gliding at his back.

"Ash!" Misty yelled. She turned to follow him and ran quickly.

"We'll go too," James said, pulling Jessie along. "C'mon, Persian!"

"Now I know why we failed at being part of a criminal organization,
James," Jessie said as she let herself get pulled along by James, long
red ponytail gliding behind them like a banner of silk. "You're too much
of a goody-goody!"

Erika looked at Duplica, who strangely hadn't followed Ash, then at
Bruno. "Maybe we should go too."

Bruno avoided her gaze. "You all just don't have your priorities right. I
*have* to destroy the Pokemon League. I have to." He looked down at his
hand and closed it into a huge fist. "I have to..."

Erika glared at him with her green eyes. "Is this a matter of personal
vengeance or do you really want to save lives?"

Shockingly, a tear appeared at the corner of Bruno's eye. "If it weren't
for them ... Lorelei..."

"Bruno," Erika said, sadly shaking her head. "I can't imagine what it
feels like to have the love of your life taken away from you, but I know
this. Personal vengeance will eat you from within until there is nothing
left. Look at what happened to AJ. Do you want that to happen to you?"

"And what if I do?" Bruno burst out in pain, hand threaded through his
spiky brown hair. "After Lorelei ... nothing matters any more to me.
NOTHING."

"Not even your son?"

Bruno collapsed against the side of the tunnel sobbing. "Junior... of
course I care about Junior."

"Then do what your late-wife told you to do and take care of him!" Erika
said hardly, without remorse. "You've been a terrible father. I can't
believe he didn't even know you were his father until he met his mother.
Just before she died."

Bruno fell to silence. Then he straightened. "You're right. When this is
over I'll make it up to him. I will. But first we have to settle things
once and for all. Or there will be nothing left to settle once the full
force of the Death Prophecy kicks in. And that could happen any day now."

"Good," Erika sighed as she brushed some strands of blue-black hair from
her eyes. "That is a better reason to do this than an ugly revenge."

Duplica started clapping. "Bravo, Erika. That was a real tear-jerker."

Erika glared at the blue-haired woman, still in her outrageous black
dress. "Duplica, there's something severely wrong with you. I noticed it
just after Misty was cured from the poison."

Duplica stopped clapping and widened golden-brown eyes at her. "Who?
Moi?" She pointed to the tops of her breasts showing from her dress.

"Yes. I know you're naturally the easy-going, laughing type person, but
lately you've been going too far. It's scary. And you never used to
interfere with Ash and Misty's relationship before - in fact I thought
you wanted them two together even more than me - especially more than me
a couple of days ago. Has anything out of the ordinary happened to you?"

"I promise I'll have a full check-up with Doctor Giselle," Duplica
promised, her fingers raised in a vow. "As long as Mistress lets her live
of course."

"Mistress?" Bruno and Erika said simultaneously.

"Oh, silly me," Duplica said, smiling evilly at them. "I just gave it
away."


<><><>


"Please," Giselle's voice drifted down to him from the depths of the
rocky tunnel, "anyone, help me. It-It hurts..." Sounds of her crying,
followed by more screams.

Ash grabbed a loose flapping fold of his dark cloak and started to run
even faster, his boots crunching the gravel beneath into dust and smoke
at his speed. "Hold on, Pikachu," he said to the side.

"Pikapi," Pikachu said determinedly as it clutched tightly on his
shoulder.

And then the tunnel opened up into a large stone-walled chamber and Ash
stopped running with a screeching of rubber upon granite. He stared in
appalled shock.

Giselle was laying down in the centre of the chamber on her side.
Horrifying streams of crimson red were pooled in a thick puddle by her
body. Intermittently, she moaned in complete pain and agony, tears
streaming down her beautiful face, pale with hurt. Her white-lab coat
looked half-ripped up as if someone had been violent and taken advantage
of her.

Ash ran up quickly, feeling extremely sorry for her. He had to see if he
could at least heal her. She wouldn't like the way he did it - his
abilities were more suited to death than life - but it was a way to save
her at least. He crouched by her side, Pikachu still clutched to his left
shoulder and reached down to her. "Giselle, it's me, Ash. I-"

Giselle looked up at him with surprisingly clear, brown eyes. Which then
flashed white. "Why hello there, Ash," she said, her perfectly-made face
smiling up at him. "I bet you didn't know I could do ... THIS!" Taken
completely by surprise, Ash yelled as Giselle grabbed him by the throat
and sent a painful burst of 'something' into him. It screamed through his
nerves causing excruciating pain. Pikachu yelled too.

What was it? Ash desperately thought. Ground-based elemental energy? From
Giselle??

Giselle smirked red lip-sticked lips at him as she pushed herself to her
feet and stood up, all the while clutching his throat with one hand. Then
she lifted him up into the air, choking him as she looked up at him, long
black-brown hair floating behind her as if coursing with power.

"That was almost too easy!" she shouted with arrogant laughter. "Hard to
believe you have an infinite level!"

A short slender form of white materialised behind Giselle and rapidly
gained colour. Ash choked in surprise upon seeing that girl he had saved
back at Cinnabar Island take form.

"Nice work, Giselle," the girl said, her pale silver eyes examining him
like a toy she was playing with. "The League Master will be pleased."

"Chanelle?" Ash coughed, as he clutched Giselle's wrist of the hand she
was lifting him up with. "What's this all about?"

The girl looked at him and chuckled in express amusement. "Don't you
recognise me by now, Ash? Really now, I know you're obtuse, but you can't
be that dense."

He looked her over. Now that she mentioned it, she did remind him of
someone, but who? He was sure that he had never met anyone who looked
like her before.

"Oh, I suppose it is sort of hard to guess who I am," the girl considered
as she noticed that he still hadn't figured it out. "That was after all,
an academy award winning performance I pulled," she said, fluttering her
eyelashes at him. "Perhaps you'd recognise me with a few more wrinkles
and white hair?"

There was a pregnant silence. Then Ash roared, "AGATHA."

"Finally," Agatha said as she played with one of the charms on her black
robes. "I sometimes wonder why my dear grandson Gary needs you so."

"You old bitch, what have you done to Giselle?" Ash shouted.

Agatha's pale silver eyes shone in her deceptively-young face. "I suggest
you speak more politely to your elders, young man! Giselle, seal his
electric abilities and show him who's the queen bitch around here!"

"Yes, Mistress," Giselle said, her brown eyes flashing a malevolent 
white.

But before she could do anything an arctic flash erupted from the 
Entrance of the enclosed stone cavern and a beam of cold shot into 
Giselle's arm. Giselle screamed as her arm froze into a block of ice 
and was forced to loosen her grip and elemental hold upon Ash's neck. 
Taking advantage of the situation, Ash elbowed her in the forearm and 
escaped her hold to drop on to the floor, coughing and choking blood. 
Pikachu similarly recovered himself as he felt whatever his master 
felt.

Agatha turned to the cavern's entrance where a tall woman in a flowing
blue cloak was still standing, her arms both still raised and steaming
with coldness. Eyes shining as blue as the ocean, her long red hair
floated in the air behind her. 

"YOU!" Agatha screeched. "You were supposed to be eliminated by Duplica
by now! You and the rest of them!"

Ash finished coughing and backflipped back to Misty's side. "Duplica?
What have you done to Duplica you old ghoul?"

Agatha looked at the two of them and then abruptly laughed. "Oh, how
ironic is this? You dare to ask me what *I've* done to Duplica? You two?
Excuse me if I laugh at the ridiculousness of the question!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Enough chatter, now-" She suddenly jerked her hand up, catching a knife
that was thrown directly at her chest. She looked down at it and narrowed
her pale eyes. She looked up. "WHO? Who would dare?"

"Prepare for annihilation!" Jessie said as she stepped by Misty's side.

"And make that double!" James said as he appeared by Ash's side.

Persian hissed as it leaped out to land in front of their legs,
vertically-slit eyes glaring aggressively.

"For the crime of turning us into white-eyed slaves..." Jessie began.

"We shall punish you!" James finished as he flashed a knife.

Agatha had to physically restrain herself to keep from laughing. "Oh,
it's just you two failures! When both of you head butted each other into
unconsciousness back at Cinnabar, I just cracked up laughing! It was your
fault that they noticed me and I had to go with you all in the first
place!"

Jessie's sinister, midnight-blue eyes darkened in fury. "How dare you, 
you little brat! I'll teach you manners your parents never taught you 
with a good spanking!"

"BRAT? Brat am I?" Agatha screamed, a raw nerve rubbed by the name. "I'm
more than half a century older than you!" She jerked her arms to the sky
and there was a boom not quite unlike thunder. A wind began screaming
around like a banshee and rocks and stones lifted into the air in a
sudden mini-tornado. "Do you know who I am, little girl? I am Agatha, the
third of the Elite Four! The Master of Spirits!" They had to step back at
the massive elemental force that she had raised.

"Jessie, you had to get her angry," James accused.

"Oh, shut up James!" Jessie said, whomping him on the head.

Agatha looked at Ash. "Just to make things a little more interesting, I'm
going to summon back two of your friends! How about that?"

Ash just rubbed his nose with the back of his glove and got into
position. "Old Ghoul, Sabrina said that to stop the Death Prophecy from
completing we had to kill the keepers of the gates. She mentioned you
specifically. All I'm saying is that I'm not going to feel the slightest
tinge of remorse when I take you out!"

"Sabrina, ay?" Agatha growled. "That traitor! But forget her, you have to
greet two of your old friends!" She began chanting, her girlish voice
suddenly without emotion.


          "Night beyond light, Darkness beyond Twilight."
    
The cavern fell to rapid darkness, even with Pikachu's Flash ability
lighting up the room.

    "Death shall receive thy due." 
    
An appalling groaning and screaming sound such that they had never heard
began clouding the air all around them.

    "With this crimson offering, I appeal thee."
    
She slashed her arm with her fingernails and dripped long splashes of her
own blood to soak the stone floor.

    "Bring thy tortured souls from damnation!"

The stone before her feet exploded as two pairs grasping hands burst
forth, both as pale as dead flesh.

    "UNHOLY RESURRECTION!"
    

Ash and Misty stepped back in horrified revolt as the reaching hands grew
into arms and then finally with an explosion that smelt of fire and
brimstone, two figures in tattered purple cloaks and ninja-garb stood
before them. Purple veins easily visible through their pale-white, almost
transparent dead flesh with a stink of decay about them, Koga and Aya
stood in silence, each brandishing long, curved silver katanas.

"We'll take Giselle," Jessie, James and Persian hurriedly said.


<><><>


"Mistress?" Erika said as she stepped back, a green glow surrounding her
hands as she summoned her staff and twirled it once, creating a gust of
air to blow her black hair back from the side of her face. "Who's
controlling you, Duplica?"

Duplica stood at apparent ease, hands behind her back, long tealish-blue
hair flowing over her shoulders. Her normally light-brown eyes had
brightened to a silver-white colour. "Controlling me?" she asked in
amusement. "I'm controlling myself."

"Bullshit," Bruno said, his hands raised in a martial arts stance. "Who
is it? We don't want to hurt you, Duplica. You're not yourself."

"And who says you can even hurt me?" Her smirk grew wider.

Erika decided to knock her unconscious and then find the reason for her
mind-control once she had been incapacitated. As it was now, Duplica was
too much of a threat to just let go free. She gathered feeling within her
hand and then sent it surging outward from her palm directly at the
blue-haired woman with a sparkle of powder.

"Sleep Powder? Erika, you can do better than that," Duplica said
patronisingly. She suddenly transformed into a pidgey, brown and white
feathered wings flapping rapidly to blow her sleep powder back at her.

Hastily, Erika spun her staff around to absorb the powder back into her
body before it could affect Bruno by her side.

The pidgey changed smoothly back into a five-foot-eight voluptuous,
blue-haired woman. "Uh, uh!" Duplica said, with a shaking of her
forefinger. "That wasn't nice." Faster than Erika could blink, Duplica
flashed red into a large lizard-like charmeleon and backhanded her with
its clawed hand, powerfully smashing her backward into the wall.
Her jaw closed painfully at the impact and she crumpled to the ground in
pain.

Bruno stepped forward to combination punch the charmeleon, but missed
when it changed into a humanoid-shaped hitmonlee with spiky feet which
kicked him in the back, also sending him crashing into the wall. He
collided into it face-first causing him to sickeningly bounce off with a
burst of blood as a vessel on his cheek was punctured by a sharp edge in
the rock.

The hitmonlee changed back into Duplica with her arms folded. "Now do you
understand the power of change?" she asked them with one brow lifted.

Erika was hunched over on her hands and knees on the ground, blue-black
hair covering most of her face. "Don't be so arrogant!" she cried as she
leapt to her feet and struck forward with her staff, intending to knock
her in the belly. She had to attack her while she was in human form!
Maybe she was vulnerable!

But Duplica didn't even attempt to dodge the blow as it struck her with
the force of a tree falling down. To Erika's shock, it didn't even faze
her, and worse, Erika's staff had gotten stuck in Duplica's belly as if
it had glued itself on. "I think I should show you, just what being a
Change Master entails," Duplica said as she twisted to the side, jerking
Erika's staff out of her hands as it was still attached to her, and then
snapped it in half with an impossible twisting of her stomach. Then she
changed into the boxing hitmonchan and gave three swift punches into
Erika's own stomach before finishing her off with a haymaker right.

Erika landed hard on the tunnel floor on her shoulder, blood slightly
leaking out of her mouth. She spat it out on the ground. This was utterly
ridiculous! How was it possible to defeat someone who could change their
shape to any form at will? Not only that, but manipulate her whole body
like an expert so it was impossible for her to get hurt!

Duplica changed back to her original woman's form and cocked her head to
the side. "I think Mistress is in trouble. I'll have to kill you two off
quick now." She looked down at them with her glowing white eyes. "Say
goodbye."


<><><>


"I-I can't believe they died," Ash said, stepping backward in distress.

Misty was still staring at the two slowly approaching dead Poison
Masters, horrified. "They-They mustn't have gotten out of South Lavender
Rebellion Base before the thunder struck." She swallowed in a throat
suddenly gone dry as cardboard.

Ash looked sharply at her, black hair whipping out of eyes abruptly
glowing with an inner-light. "What do you mean, thunder?"

She swallowed again. "I was going to tell you the truth but I must have
forgotten in all the excitement these past few days. It-It wasn't Valdera
and Brock who destroyed South Lavender ... it-it was you."

Ash closed his eyes and Pikachu on his shoulder did the same. "I
suspected as much but to actually hear the confirmation... I-I..."
Then to Misty's complete distress Ash spread his arms wide in a gesture
of surrender toward Koga and Aya. "Let them kill me, Misty." He
swallowed. "I have to die," he abruptly decided in a voice blank of
emotion.

She thought she had lost the ability to feel anything for him, but at
this blatant attempt at suicide she realised now that she had thought
completely and utterly wrong. Because anger was stronger than sorrow, she
clung to the rising waves of fury that rose when she thought of *her* Ash
dying, clung to it like a lifeline. "How DARE you," she hissed. "How dare
you throw your life away like it's a broken toy! You're nothing but a
liar, Ashura. A liar and a hypocrite!"

Ash looked at her with dull-brown eyes. "But don't you see? There's ...
something about me. Something evil inside of me. I can feel it Misty. I
can feel it! And it scares me... to know that I can be capable of killing
you. Even you!" He looked away as if he was not worthy to look at her.
"Best for me to die first."

Misty could only shake her head, seeing and feeling tears cloud her
vision despite the wave of fury that she clung desperately to. "You were
the one who said that suicide was a waste," she whispered in a voice
tight with accusation. "And I believed you. If you die ... then I PROMISE
you Ashura, that I'll follow you to Hell straight after!"

"What?" Ash said, whipping back to her. "I'll never let you die!"

"Well then, you'll have to watch over me then, won't you?"

"Damn you, Misty!" he shouted in frustration. He blew some locks of black
hair out of his brightly-glowing eyes and turned back to the Poison
Masters who looked just about to attack. Apparently they had been trying
to wait for them to attempt the first blow for some reason, but had now
given up and were now forced to do the bidding of their summoner.
"Pikachu ... Shadow Blade!" Ash cried as he morphed his Pikachu into his
long ebony katana just in time to block Koga's opening slash.

Misty felt her heart explode in happiness. But that was short-lived as
the tall, dead Aya, struck down at her with her own katana, tattered
dark-green hair floating around her like a streamer. Misty dodged to the
side and spun away, summoning her twin ice blades into her fists. Then
deciding that range of weapon would better serve her against a Blade
Master, she merged her two knives together at the hilt and lengthened
each blade to form a double-bladed ice lance.

Especially against Blade Masters who were also *Poison* Masters.
Undoubtedly one little scratch or nick with either of their blades would
result in a quick, painful death.

The battle commenced.


<><><>


"They've finally started to defend themselves," James said gleefully as
he spotted the once-unmoving Ash and Misty, now furiously locked in
battle with the two zombie ninjas.

"Eyes front, stupid!" Jessie yelled and James screeched as he jumped
into the air, just narrowly getting missed by Giselle's Earthquake which
zigzagged across the stone floor with earth-cracking force.

Persian growled as he leaped up to knock the doctor over, but Giselle
spotted him and erected a wall of hard rock in front of her with a
raising of her arms. Persian harmlessly rebounded ineffectively off it.

Then the wall of brown rock shattered as Giselle punched through it,
sending a hail of sharp shrapnel over them in a painful, cutting rain.

"I just hate Pokemon Masters," Jessie said as she desperately shielded
her precious face with a knife.

"She's a Pokemon Master?" James asked as he cartwheeled away, dodging 
as many rocks as he could.

"You tell me what a human is, to be able to wield the power of the
elements as well if not better than any pokemon can," Persian said
matter-of-factly. "We're just lucky that she hasn't thrown out her own
pokemon. Three against one Pokemon Master suits me fine!"

"Marowak, go!" Giselle shouted.

"Crap," James said.


<><><>


Agatha watched the battles raging in front of her with eyes like a hawk.
She especially watched Ash and Misty's battle with the dead Koga and Aya.
Any opening she deciphered and she would let loose a spell of death that
would drop them like flies. Who cared if her grandson wanted him alive?
She just felt like killing them all of a sudden.

"What you have done is forbidden."

Agatha rapidly spun around to find a tall woman in a twilight-blue
cloak standing before her with long dark hair that sported a green streak
through its length. "Why, Sabrina dearie," Agatha said airily. "Nice of
you to teleport in just when I learned what a traitor you are." She
raised her arms to the sides, palms face-down, and black spirits began
rising around her like smoke. "For the crime of treason against your
Lord, the sentence is ... well I'm sure you know what the sentence is."

Sabrina lifted a fist from behind her back. It shimmered and glowed as a
triangular blade of yellow psychic energy spewed forth from her knuckles.
But then the half-foot-long psychic knife curiously darkened to a black
colour.

"So you want to play hard with me, girl?" Agatha said spotting the colour
of the blade. "Well, I can play just as hard." She summoned her own black
psychic blade within her left fist. "Now that I'm younger, I can finally
play knives with you, dearie," she said, smiling girlishly.

The two began their own dance of death, blades of psychic death stabbing
and parrying. Except, while Agatha's face showed a depth of emotion,
Sabrina's stony features offered none.


<><><>


"Butterfree, you hear that?" Laselle asked as she continued to forge her
way through the dark tunnels. She had been wandering hopelessly lost now
for quite some time so anything, *anything* that promised to be anything
other than normality was excitement to her. Unless of course, the
excitement happened to be ghosts. But now she had heard a rhythmic sound
of cries and thumps like a huge battle going on, somewhere in the tunnel
in front of her.

"Free," the dark-coloured flying pokemon agreed as it flew slightly
behind her left shoulder. It seemed kind of hesitant...

"Well, then, let's go see what it is," Laselle said as she combed some
long tendrils of brown hair from her face and then began to run, but
carefully spotting for rocks and loose sand on the ground before her. She
didn't want to make any noise *and* fall into a bottomless pit either.

"Duplica, fight it!"

Laselle's heart skipped a beat as she recognised Mistress Erika's voice.
They were all down here? The tunnel she was following finally gave way to
a more open area of the caverns with entrances of other tunnels and
stairways going every which way upward. She slowed to a more cautious run
and then pressed her back against the wall of the tunnel just before it
opened up into the junction. "Quiet, Butterfree," she whispered as she
carefully took a peek around the corner.

A huge, red charizard was hovering in the air in the centre of the cavern
with slow flaps of its huge demonic wings. White eyes flashed upon the
face of its dragon-like head and tongues of flame were spitting from its
nostrils. Its long powerful tail was snaking around in the air below
powerful arms and legs, claws slowly opening and closing. Shockingly, the
charizard spoke with Duplica's voice. "CHARR ... Fight it? I'd rather
fight you," she hissed.

Laselle quickly scanned the area. There, crouched on one knee on the
ground by a stairway of rock that led up to the upper-caverns was a
green-cloaked woman who looked horribly beaten up, shoulders rising and
falling in deep breaths. Her shoulder-length black hair was mussed up and
damp with sweat and blood as red as her hair-band was leaking out of her
mouth. But her grass-green eyes still looked powerfully bright with her
spirit. Mistress Erika! And over towards the eastern entrance of one of
the many tunnels was a crumpled figure in a maroon cloak ... Master
Bruno?

"Duplica, you're not yourself! Please, don't do something that you'll
regret ... or force me to do something I'll regret!" Mistress Erika
shouted up at the huge charizard. Golden flashes of light were emitting
from her fists and a green aura had begun to rise around her body.

Duplica? Laselle thought again. It couldn't be! Why would Mistress
Duplica be attacking Mistress Erika? It wasn't right!

"It is to laugh!" the charizard snorted sarcastically. It reared its
dragonish head back and inhaled swiftly causing a rushing of air in the
room. Then it leaned its head forward and opened its fanged mouth.
"CHARRRRRR!" There was a massive roaring of fire as a huge tongue of
flame rolled down toward the crouching Grass Master.

Then Erika powered up with a flash of green ki sparks and thrust her
hands forward. "SOLAR BEAM!" she shouted, just as the green energy
suddenly flared and a brightest yellow beam of sunlight flared from her
palms. The red and yellow energy attacks collided in midair with an
ear-deafening crack of sound.

Laselle shielded her eyes as dust flew everywhere, clouding the whole
huge cavern with a thick cloud of debris. Coughing, Laselle waved her
hands to blow away the dust trying to get into her mouth and eyes with
Butterfree helping with gusts of its wings. However, it wasn't until a
few minutes later that the flying clouds of sand and dirt managed to
settle enough for her to see.

She gasped. The huge red charizard, that was apparently Duplica, still
hovered in the air, flapping its wings lazily, unharmed. Mistress Erika
on the other hand lay still on the floor, green cloak singed and some of
it burning.

"Charr ... Fire defeats Grass ... game, set and match," the charizard
growled. She began to rear her head back again preparing to launch 
another devastating Flamethrower.

"NO!" Laselle screamed, tears running out of her eyes. She got up and
desperately ran toward them. "Duplica ... please stop! Please! Don't kill
Mistress Erika!"

The charizard stopped inhaling and then turned to look down at her, white
eyes narrowing as it steadily beat its wings in the air. "Laselle ...
what are you doing here," she said roughly.

"Please!" Laselle begged as she stood in front of the fallen Erika. "I
don't know why you're fighting everyone, but you have to know it's
wrong!"

"Wrong?" she growled, flames flickering from her snout. "EVERYTHING IS
WRONG! Wrong for ME! For once I'm going to do what I want! ME!"

"But you don't want this!" Laselle pleaded. "The Duplica I knew was
friendly and always laughing! She was so nice and caring! Always sticking
up for Ash and others!"

The charizard closed its eyes and surprisingly, tears leaked from within
them and steamed when they touched her blazing-hot skin. "ASH. You're
right..." she exhaled softly. Then she opened them and roared a cry that
echoed everywhere within the cavern. "It's why I'm doing this! The
Mistress promised!" She reared her head back and began to inhale again.
"I HAVE TO DO THIS!"

"Duplica, no!" Laselle cried.

"Free!" her Butterfree chirped as it flew above her head.

Desperately she looked up. "Butterfree, you're my only hope! Please stop
Duplica..."

It looked up sadly at the charizard. Then to Laselle's utter surprise it
landed and began to change shape, almost as if it was like Duplica
transforming. Wait, it was transforming! The butterfree smoothly grew
larger and changed colour until it had changed form to a large bipedal,
turtle pokemon. A Blastoise!

"STOIS!" the blastoise growled as it aimed its huge cannons on its shell
and shot twin pillars of hydro pump.

Duplica-Charizard screamed in shock and pain as the water attack smashed
into her, knocking her back.

"Butterfree???" Laselle exclaimed. "What's happening?"

Duplica-Charizard was spinning crazily out of control in the air until
she flapped her wings once to steady herself. "Char! So it is one of
those!" She swooped to the ground and transformed into a spiky-backed,
yellow dog-like jolteon. "JOLT!" she shrieked as she ran at them, sending
a massive bolt of bright crackling thunder.

"BLAST!" the blastoise cried in pain as the electricity smashed into it
and electrocuted it powerfully. Then smoking, it fell backward and
smoothly transformed into the spiny, sandshrew about to launch an
earthquake. "SHREW!" it shouted as it smashed the stone ground with its
claws and sent the earth attack onward.

Laselle could only watch in surprised fascination as the two began a
bizarre fight of transforming and attacking. It was a battle of
type-advantage, each changing to a pokemon that was super-effective to
the other. 

She could only say one thing. 

"Butterfree, what the hell are you?"


<><><>


Koga crouched slightly, long katana held to the side. His pale-white face
had several slash marks on it from near hits by Ash's sword, but no blood
flowed forth - his dead body had no blood within it. Clumps of spiky
black hair regularly detached from his skull and fell to the floor with
bits of decayed flesh clinging to them.

Ash stood directly opposite about a dozen feet away upon a slightly
slanted incline on the rocky floor of the cavern with his own
black-as-night katana held behind his back by one hand. His dark cloak of
equal colour wavered around him in the air by the unnatural wind that was
blowing around them. "Koga, can you hear me? Is that really you?" he
called out to the tattered purple cloaked ninja.

A horrible moan came out of Koga's mouth in an appalling parody of
speech. There was a tortured look in his red eyes as if he was constantly
in pain from the fires of hell. Then with a flap of the tattered purple
cloak, Koga grasped the hilt of his katana in both hands and began
charging forward, point of the sword facing his rear.

Feeling overwhelming disgust at himself for defending himself against a
man who should rightly be killing him, Ash correspondingly grasped his
own long black katana in both hands and leaped down to meet him, black
cloak gliding behind in his wake.

Slash, slash, slash. 

Afterward, both Masters stood, slightly crouched both facing
away each other, katanas held tightly. Then they turned around. Ash
watched in pity as both Koga's arms abruptly detached themselves from his
body, then his legs, and the torso fell to the floor, limbless.

"I'm sorry, Koga," Ash said with a shake of his head.

Suddenly the pieces of the body stirred and then reconstructed themselves
back into a standing Koga.

"Not good," Ash said as the ninja resumed his charge silently.

Meanwhile, Misty and Aya were locked in a desperate battle of clashing
ice lance and katana. For a while it seemed as a stalemate as Aya tried
offensive strikes while Misty defended with her spinning ice lance.

Then it changed when Misty twisted nimbly, avoiding a diagonal overhead
slash from Aya's sword, but chopped off an inch off the side of her long
red hair. Growling in anger, Misty continued on in a spin move, blue
cloak flapping, and sheared through Aya's waist with the blade of her
lance. Then after the spin, she roundhouse-kicked the torso from the
bottom-half of the body, sending half of Aya flying away, dark-green
ponytail gliding away like a kite's tail. Unfortunately, the lower-half
of her body levitated after her and she rejoined in the air into a whole
person. Executing a backflip, tattered purple cloak floating in the air,
Aya then landed smoothly in a crouch and dashed forward to the attack all
over again.

Someone's back touched hers and Misty almost screamed in fright until she
realised that it was only Ash. "This is getting us nowhere, Misty!" he
said, his cheek touching hers. She felt overwhelmingly warm at the
contact. He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the
cavern where that little bitch, Agatha and ... Sabrina? ... seemed to be
locked in battle atop a raised area of flat rock. "See that?" he
continued. "I'm guessing that if we drop Agatha, then her power over all
the people she's controlling will get cut off. With Sabrina keeping her
busy it should be easier to take her by surprise."

"Good idea," Misty breathed, as she turned back to Aya who was leaping
toward them. "But what should we do about Koga and Aya? We can't exactly
get to her with these two slashing at us. Take our eyes off them for an
instant and we'll be cut down by their poisoned weapons." She blew away a
strand of red hair that had gotten stuck to her mouth.

"Okay, here's what we'll do..."


<><><>


Agatha parried yet another blow of Sabrina's Psychic knife, sending black
sparks everywhere, and spun and rotated into a revolving slash aimed for
the woman's neck. However, before the knife could hit, Sabrina's cloaked
form flashed white and she disappeared. Agatha spun around with a
clinking of charms, expecting her to reappear behind her back but only
found air. She turned around and looked up. "Coward," she said softly in
her girlish voice. "You should be scared of one of the Elite Four. You
never even made it Sabrina, dearie."

Sabrina floated in the air, a golden glow surrounding her form as she
psychically held herself up, long dark hair wavering around her head as
if she was underwater.

"It was not my destiny to become one of the elite," Sabrina said without
sentiment. "And it was not your destiny to reverse your age with the
power of the prophecy."

"Was it not?" Agatha said with false surprise. "Then how come I am
standing here barely fourteen years of age?"

Sabrina began to glow brighter, eyes flaring evilly. "And so destiny
reasserts itself back to the path it once was. PSYCHIC!" She thrust her
hands palm-first and sent down a blazing fireball of pure psychic power.

"Darkness give me the power of LEVITATION," Agatha chanted and her long
ebony hair floated around her head as dark vapour arose from the ground
to lift her into air. The psychic attack missed and struck the rocky
ground instead with the power of an avalanche. The whole of the cavern
shook with violence and rocks began falling from the roof.

"Your destiny is nothing but a meaningless shambles!" Agatha said as she
prepared to meet Sabrina in the air, black robes floating around her like
a clinging shadow.

"I think not." A black shape reflected Sabrina's twilight eyes.

"What?" Agatha said in surprise as she twisted around in the air.

Misty had just thrown her black Starmos pokemon to cut Koga and Aya in
two and as it curved upward toward her, Ash had jumped to land on top of
it, black katana held behind his back in preparation to cut her down.

In panic, Agatha, threw her palms toward him. There was no time to chant
an offensive spell before the Shadow Master reached her with his damn
sword. Only one thing to do.

Invade his mind.

Desperately, she threw her consciousness forward to merge with his. It
was like total complete blackness such as she had never seen before.
Swirling shadows that seemed to not only absorb light but shun it. What
kind of mind was this? She pressed her hands forward, frantically seeking
an edge, any edge to pry up to get at the man inside. It was no use. She
would have to go in blindly.

Blackness. Darkness. Shadows.

She found herself standing in a dark limbo. All around her was infinite
darkness. Before her stood Ashura, covered in his black hooded-cloak,
silent and still. Although who was to say it was him when none of his
features were visible? And the eyes were an evil crimson red...

"You want to violate our memories, bitch?" the cloaked figure suddenly
growled, and Agatha felt frightened - more frightened than she had ever
felt in her entire life of over a hundred years.

She had to get away. Had to, the mind violation had gone all wrong! But
when she tried to leave his mind, black steel shackles abruptly erupted
from the ebony floor and shut around her ankles with a loud merciless
clang. She screamed.

The black-cloaked figure floated forward toward her and she screamed
again as she tried to run away, forgetting about the shackles in her
total fear.

Hands as cold as death gripped her chin painfully and he jerked her face
up towards his. Even at this close distance she still couldn't see his
features, only the blood-red eyes that glowed brighter than the fires of
hell.

"You want my memories ... you got them." He lowered his head and forced
her into a kiss. It was not a lover's kiss, but a brutal kiss of
punishment. She screamed into his mouth but he only seemed to enjoy it as
he thrust his tongue into her mouth. Shockingly she felt a hint of
pleasure at this action and she didn't know if that terrified her even
more than the man.

Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory.

The little boy, two years old, cowers in the darkness of a basement,
hands covering his cute face as he rolls himself into a ball.

"YOU ARE NOT MY SON!" the blue-haired man screams in accusation.

"Please, Daddy..." the little boy pleads.

The man steps forward and viciously kicks the little boy. The boy shouts
in pain but does not cry. Perhaps that fact is the one that enrages the
man even more.

A beautiful woman with long brown hair runs down the stairway and screams
when she sees what the man is doing. "Please s-stop," the woman sobs.
"P-Please, it's only been you!"

The man rounds on her, hands in fists. "You are nothing but a whore," the
man says in quiet anger. 

And that is worse because loud anger is quick to explode and dissipate,
but quiet anger is the deadly anger, long to appear and long to take
place. 

"Look at him. Where did he get that black hair? Not from you. Not from
me. He is a bastard." He steps over to the little boy again and this
time, jerks him up with his hand. Beautiful light-brown eyes the colour
of brandy stare at him. They enrage him. A bastard should be ugly, he
thinks. "You are not my son," the man repeats and then brutally punches
the child in the stomach. The boy collapses but this time he does not cry
out. His young face is calm as a still lake.

"No, don't!" the woman shouts as she runs over to grab the man's arm.

The man backhands her across the face and knocks her into the wall of the
basement. "Whore. This has been a long time coming." He approaches the
sobbing woman with tightly-clenched fists.

The basement is filled with screaming.


<><><>


More and more dark memories savage Agatha's mind. Until she can no longer
bear it. But still they loop and loop and loop and she gibbers
mindlessly, shouts nonsense, saliva leaking from her mouth.

The black-cloaked man with red eyes steps back from her with a smile on
his face. He removes his hood and blows a strand of black hair from his
crimson red eyes.

"Death becomes her."

He laughs long and hard.


<><><>


"No!" Misty screamed as she saw Ash suddenly fall off Starmos before he
could cut Agatha down. Agatha began to fall down too, with him as she
suddenly seemed to have lost her levitation spell.

Misty dashed forward, blue cloak and hair streaming behind her and leaped
just before Ash could strike the rocky ground. She grabbed him in both
arms and then dived forward into a sideways roll breaking their fall.

Agatha had no such luck and landed brokenly upon the hard rock, pale
silver eyes open in death. It seemed as if she had died even before
striking the ground.

Misty desperately looked down at Ash. He was breathing slowly, thank the
heavens. What had happened? What did Agatha do to cause herself to die
and knock Ash unconscious?

As Starmos hovered down over her head, red jewel flashing in worry, a
crack of thunder by her side startled her. She looked over to see Pikachu
reform back into a black electric mouse from katana form. It seemed that
he was unconscious too, eyes closed as if sleeping.

Sabrina landed to the side and watched them in silence. Then she shook
her head. "There is no need to worry. He will just sleep for an hour.
After that he will be awakened and fine."

Misty looked over to the side where Agatha's body had landed. Her eyes
widened as it suddenly began aging rapidly before her. The ebony hair
faded to white, while the skin wrinkled and then she was the Agatha that
Misty knew before in the Pokemon League. But the aging didn't stop there
and the body yellowed and rotted until the flesh had gone and it was a
skeleton which then just turned into dust.

She sat up to look for Koga and Aya. Where she had last seen them were
nothing but two piles of tattered clothing. Two white spirits blew past
her, startling her, and she thought she heard 'Thank you' before they
dissipated into the air.

Jessie, James and Persian leaped up on to the large flat rock where she
lay clutching Ash. James had Giselle in her arms, unconscious.

"Phew," James sighed. "I'm glad you got her before she," He nodded down
at Giselle in his arms, "could get us."

Then at the far end of the cavern where the entrance was, she spotted a
very tattered-looking Bruno, Erika ... and Laselle? all walking tiredly
toward them. Bruno was carrying an unconscious Duplica.

Sabrina walked up to her and dropped a letter. "Here, this is for you.
And you'll also find two more of your companions trapped in the western
cavern. Now goodbye." Her from shimmered white and then she was just
gone.

Erika and Bruno jumped up on to the rock, and after Bruno laid Duplica
down next to them, he helped Laselle climb up. A curious black
amoeba-shaped pokemon sat on her shoulder.

For a moment they were all silent. Then Laselle said, "I'm glad that you
managed to do whatever you managed to do, Mistress Misty. Mistress
Duplica almost had us there. If it weren't for Butterfree - I mean,
Ditorion - here to keep her busy, we might all have been ashes by now."

Misty raised an eyebrow as she looked at the pokemon sitting on her
shoulder. "Ditorion?"

Laselle looked embarrassed as she rubbed the back of her head with one
hand and played with a tendril of her long brown hair in the other.
"Turns out that he's the seventh Master Pokemon and that he's been spying
on us ever since the beginning. But uh ... he ended up liking me so he
decided to join us instead."

Misty shook her head in irony. Then she narrowed her blue eyes as she
looked at the letter that Sabrina gave her. She unrolled it.


 Dearest sister,

     If you wish to learn the secret of our birth then come to the old
 League Housing at the Indigo Plateau City.
 
      Don't be late. And come alone. 
   
   And don't show this to Ashura. 
  
  ~ Valdera


*** End of Part 11


Next Episode: Valdera VS Misty. Lance and the power of Dragons. Suzie and
Brock finally reunited. Jessie, James and Persian VS Butch, Cassidy and
a mysterious new pokemon. Ash and Misty's past revealed. And of
course ... the revelation of Ash and Gary... 

And just who is the eighth Master Pokemon?

Don't miss the final conclusion of ...  Pokemon MASTER.

_________________________________________________________________________

                                POKEDEX
_________________________________________________________________________

SHADOW PIKACHU
Type 1 - Shadow
Type 2 - Electricity

Attack : Lightning Boil
Type   : Electricity / Water
 
Pikachu grabs on to the victim and begins charging up the
victim with electricity. The heat then boils the victim from within. 

Attack : Electric Absorption
Type   : Electricity
 
The power to absorb low-level electricity attacks into a pikachu's body
for its own personal use.

Attack : Lightning Slash
Type   : Electricity / Normal
 
With a slash of its tail, the Pikachu can send a blade of electricity
roaring through the air that may cut the victim into two if it so wishes.

_________________________________________________________________________

Notes:

Cheers again to Rhionae for pre-reading this monster and helping me out
with the grammar and spelling!

Gah. I never expected I would ever be writing 'Ash gets Misty', (or is it
Misty gets Ash?) but it just suddenly came up and it just felt right to
put it there. I'm sick of the two of them always getting interrupted
after all ^_^;;. But now they can both suffer the consequences of their
actions...

By the way, some of you may have noticed a 'Todd' soldier getting
brutally eaten by a Forbidden Sandshrew back in Part 9. He was meant to
be the Todd Photographer guy that never existed on our network. Here he
was called, Snap, so that's the continuity I used. Todd never existed
here so he was just given a horrible, cheap death ^_^.

Anyone notice Agatha's spell style? I sort of got it a bit from Lina from
Slayers. Although I've only seen the first episode of that. I loved the
way she casted, "Dragon Slave" though.

Too much talking? Probably. Especially on the sappy conversations ^_^;; I
know I can get carried away sometimes. But there *is* a lot of action in
this one to make up for it. I hope.

As always tell me your thoughts!


Ace Sanchez
Email: jsa@fl.net.au
WWW: http://jsa.users.fl.net.au



-- 
                 .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List---.
                 | Administrators - ffml-admins@fanfic.com |
                 | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@fanfic.com |
                 |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject    |
                 `---http://www.fanfic.com/FFML-FAQ.txt ---'