Ash's Story (Part 5: Modern Sinnoh)

Chapter 19

Dawn frowns at the mention of the contest, he asks, "Yes, that is me, so are you a trainer? How about we have a battle?"

"I would like to, but I don't have some time. As you can see, we have some problems with the hot spring currently..." Leona says.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Verity asks.

She tells them that a week ago, the spring suddenly stopped receiving water. Since the spring is fed from a pipeline leading down from the mountain, Leona's parents decided to hike up and inspect it.

"If the situation doesn't change soon, then the hotel will be closing..." Leona frowns. "So I wanted to use Swinub to find another hot spring..."

Lillie whispers to me, "Hey, Ash, don't you think this is quite familiar?"

I say, "Yeah. Let me guess, maybe Team Rocket has something to do with the pipeline?"

"Who is Team Rocket?" Leona asks.

"Just a troublesome group that tries to annoy us every time we met." Dawn says.

"If they are the ones that cause this, I think we have to stop them before they are making it worse." Gladion says.

As we try to find the troublesome group, we finally find them trying to open a new hotel that has hot spring water. Not to mention that Leona's family also arrive and confront them for the pipeline that another pipe attached directly to theirs, diverting water away from their hot spring.

Team Rocket loses their disguises and recites their motto. Meowth pushes a switch and summons a mecha, firing water blasts at us. Pikachu wants to launch a Thunderbolt, but since everyone is soaking wet, Pikachu is forced to switch to Iron Tail, but Pikachu slips on the wet mecha, unable to make contact. Leona has her Swinub dig and cause the three-legged mecha to tumble and spill its water all over itself, heating it up. Dawn's Buneary then uses Ice Beam to quickly chill it, causing it to crack. The mecha tumbles backward into Team Rocket and explodes, sending them blasting off. Dawn and Leona celebrate as Leona's parents insist that they stay for the spring, working to fix it.

"Since it is over, how about we have a tag battle?" Leona asks as they agree. Lillie and I are battling against Dawn and Leona. Lillie uses the Probopass while I use Monferno. While Dawn uses Piplup and Leona uses Swinub.

Swinub tries to Tackle Probopass, but it dodges. Piplup tries to Peck Monferno, but it hits Piplup with Mach Punch. Dawn and Leona team up as they switch targets, Swinub's Ice Shard against Monferno and Piplup's Bubble Beam against Probopass. Both dodge as Monferno launches Flamethrower, both dodging. Monferno tries Flame Wheel on Swinub, but Piplup takes the lead.

It appears that Monferno is hit, but neither target is to be seen. That's because Swinub dug underground, taking Piplup with it, springing up to hit Monferno. Piplup hits with Whirlpool, soaking Monferno. We feel the pressure as Dawn and Leona use the tactics that allowed them to take care of the bully. Piplup fires Bubble Beam at Monferno, hitting, as Swinub launches Blizzard. Probopass hits Swinub with Double-Edge, but the Blizzard hits Monferno. Probopass proceeds to use Power Gem as Swinub launches Blizzard, both sides getting hit. The end result shocks all as all four Pokémon have been frozen, resulting in a tie. They decide to end the day with the hot spring.

With the hot spring repaired, We as well as the Pokémon enjoy the hot spring. The Pokémon play and rest, Monferno sitting with its tail above water while Probopass sit near the steam without soaking its body. And both Piplup punches a flowing water stream.

Gladion asks, "So Leona, why is Dawn called Dee-Dee?"

Before she can respond, Dawn pushes her down, keeping the secret locked up. The next day, we leave the hot spring and wave Leona and her parents goodbye, Dawn's confidence is restored as well.