Return of the defeated (on hold)

/Part 16/

Ash smiled at his girlfriend, "Thank you May, I just want to make sure that everyone is safe and taken care."

They went to the transfer machines and switched their teams around for the next leg of their journey. Ash sent Venusaur, Blastoise, Pidgeot, Butterfree and Charizard (the fire type wanted to return to the lab to rest and finsh his healing) back. He kept Pikachu, Lucario, Meowth, and received Sandshrew, Krookodile, Donphan, and Snorlax.

May kept Glaceon, Blaziken, and her Ralts. Sending back her Venusaur, Sewaddle, Florges, Wartortle, Swanna, and getting her Ninetales, Ampharos, Shelder and Sawsbuck. Once they collected their pokeballs they began down the path again, they traveled until lunch time. They stopped in a grove of trees were they released all of the pokemon. Ash set to starting a fire to cook, May sat in the grass brushing Glaceon's fur relaxing.

Ash cooked them a thick hearty stew and poured food into all the bowls for the pokemon as well. "Ash this is so good." May complemented.

Ash rubbed the back of his head, "Thanks May, but its just a simple stew."

"It may be Ash but is so delicious." May said happily with a full belly.

While they finished eating lunch they discussed the next part of their route to Vermillion City. Once the cleaned up lunch and repacked the backpacks, they trained for a few hours.

Ash spent the majority of his time working with Sandshrew, the ground type may have been young but his desire to get stronger impressed them all. Donphan and Krookodile focused on helping him with ground type attacks while Snorlax had a special gift that all of Ash's pokemon learned from. Snorlax had helped all of Ash's pokemon learn stronger defenses by showing them tricks he learned when he was younger. He also had helped some of the larger sized pokemon learn how to use their size with speed giving the better dodging skills. Meowth, Lucario and Pikachu would join in occasionally either giving advice or having short battles to test speed. When they weren't helping Ash they would join in with May's training.

May was working on new combinations and fine tuning some of her old ones. Lucario would work with Ralts helping her learn to control her psychic powers and to focus them. Glaceon was helping Shelder learn Hail while Sawsbuck and Blaziken worked out ways to combine their fire and grass attacks for duel contest rounds. Ampharos, Pikachu, Ninetales and Meowth worked on overall strength trianing so they had power to match the flash of attacks.

May and Ash feeling happy with the training they'd done for the day, they recalled their pokemon and set out again. They pressed hard through the day, until they reached the town where Ash had met Blastoise (Squirtle then). They passed through the streets as Ash retold the story of that adventure showing May where the events had taken place. After checking into the Pokemon Center, Ash sent Meowth back to the lab so he could spend time with Meowstic and brought Blastoise back. Setting out for the fire station, they met up with Officer Jenny and the Squirtle Squad. Blastoise happily reunited with his old friends and talked with them about all their adventures.

"Wow Ash, Blastoise looks amazing. Traveling with you after leaving the squad really paid off." Officer Jenny said while they sat around a table.

"Thank you, but working with you and the Squirtle Squad taught more than I could have alone." Ash replied.

"What do you mean by that Ash?" Officer Jenny asked with a questioning look.

Ash looked at the two womens curious faces and began, "I'll explain what I mean, when I was on my journey with all my pokemon it was a lot to take on being in charge of such a large group. Pikachu and Venusaur helped me tons buy it was still a heavy work load. At the time he wasn't one of my strongest all my pokemon respected Blastoise (then Squirtle) because he was on of my original pokemon. He took charge of water types and taught them how to work as team for training purposes or for double battles. When Squirtle evolved into Wartortle the respect grew even more for him throughout all my pokemon." Ash paused for a moment to take a drink and then continued, "One day while we were trianing in a deep section of forest in Sinnoh there was a group of young wild pokemon playing together a little bit away from us. I guess one of their attacks missed or was more powerful than intended but it managed to catch a dead tree on fire. Wartortle quickly got my water types organized and started to put it out. It had been a dry couple of weeks and soon the fire was getting out of control. I was helping with my other pokemon to fight it, when Wartortle started to give orders and got everyone on the same page. They began to make headway on it and had the edges contained. Then from in the fire we heard pokemon crying, I rushed into the flames looking for whatever pokemon was there. The fire quickly circled around me when I found a couple of small Burmy, they had been caught in a tree and couldn't escape. I grabbed them and turned back towards my pokemon but I didn't have a path to get back. I tried to call out to my pokemon but they could barely hear me over the flames, suddenly I seen a bright light that even shone through the flames. A massive Hydro Cannon blasted into the flames extinguishing most of the fire that was around me. I ran to my pokemon and they all were staring and Blastoise who stood tall in the light. Once I was clear we began the fight again, but now Blastoise used his new found strength to douse to fire with powerful water attacks. Within a few more minutes the fire was completely out and It was because of his drive and leadership qualities that he evolved."