Promises

Chapter 6: Inspirational Promise

"I know. It's just that I want this all over, you know?" Ash slumped back down to hit his head on the dirt again.

"Ouch."

"You need to learn from your mistakes." Siebold joked.

Something struck Ash in the face. Like Pikachu's tail the other day, on the plane to Kalos.

"Of course! We've been doing something wrong this whole time! We've been constantly looking for their base from the air, but we haven't considered that it could be underground!"

"It could be very far away." Siebold pointed out.

"No. They came in too quickly that day we raided their ship. They couldn't have been far away. It doesn't make sense if they had come the moment they were warned of their decoy base being attacked. We were there for an hour. It took about an hour to get to their fake base from around here. They must be near."

"Right then. We'll come back tomorrow and you can dig as much as you want. Which won't be much."

"Who said I'll be the one digging? I have a few friends who'd be willing to do the job for me."

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Ash was up early the next morning. He was ready to do work, not break the wall. Well, maybe he'd break a few walls if he found Team Flare's hideout, but otherwise he wouldn't be receiving any repair fees from Nurse Joy.

He ate breakfast within minutes. Not that he didn't do that already every morning. Without waiting for Siebold, who had joined him the previous day, he left.

He flew to an area halfway between Camphrier Town and Cyllage City. Here he threw three Pokeballs.

What came out was a mostly maroon crocodile, a fire-maned monkey and a navy blue dragon that loosely resembled a shark.

"Krookodile, Infernape, Gabite, I want you to dig around this area. If you find anything special, I will be here. I hope you don't mind me asking. If you don't want to do it, it's okay. I can do some myself."

Of course Ash's Pokemon didn't mind that they were the ones doing the work. Ash had done plenty for them, now it was time for them to do something for him.

All three nodded at Ash, as if telling him to go on, and that they were all going to help. Ash, in return, smiled at them.

"Thanks guys. Now Infernape, I want you going north. Gabite, south please. Krookodile, you're going east towards Camphrier. Come back if you get tired. I won't push you."

Infernape was the first to leave. It had started moving right after it had been addressed. Slamming its paws into the dirt, it went under. Krookodile did the same, only instead of following Infernape, he went east. Gabite slowly looked south and eventually also started digging.

Ash knew if there was something in each of their paths, Infernape would probably be the first to find it. After all, it had dug up basically a whole battlefield before - and so Ash waited, for any one of his Pokemon to return.

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The hideout wasn't large, and therefore most noise could be heard from anywhere within the place.

Lysandre was testing a few things with Squishy, who until this day, Team Flare still called Z-1. Bonnie wriggled around in her seat, watching helplessly as her friend was put under endless tests.

"I think this is good enough, boss."

"Last time it was good enough, my face was the thing that was destroyed, not the world. I want better than 'good enough', Xerosic."