Author's notes: I'm lazy. I know. But I just couldn't get myself to write a new chapter earlier. It's not the school, it's just a MAJOR laziness and a MAJOR writer's block...ugh...but now, here is a LONG one!
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Sephia yawned and stood up. The sun was already shining and it was warm, a fact which Sephia gladly appreciated since it had been too dangerous to let the Pok�mon out while being near a town at night. Moltres, Suicune and Articuno were glowing or sparkling in the darkness and could be spotted even from far away.
So she had slept alone, freezing a lot. But for now, she walked behind some trees and released the Pok�mon. It was just a matter of seconds before Mew nearly crashed into her.
'Cookie! Cookie! Cookie!', she shouted happily.
"Good morning, Mew!", Sephia laughed.
'Good morning! Cookie! Cookie!', Mew answered. Sephia shook her head and gave Mew one of her beloved cookies. Then, she took out the breakfast for the others and everyone sat down.
'So we are getting our last badge today?', Articuno asked.
"I hope so. I've heard this town is famous for dragon Pok�mon", Sephia replied.
"Dragon Pok�mon? A job for Articuno, right?", Suicune asked.
'I already fought yesterday. If one of you wants to fight, go ahead!', the ice bird answered.
"I would like to fight again", Mewtwo said.
'Fine with me!' Zapdos nodded and the others agreed.
"Ok, then it's decided! Since I overslept, let's skip the warm up for today", Sephia sighed.
'Yeah, why did you oversleep, by the way?', Zapdos asked.
"Oh yeah, I haven't told you yet." Sephia smiled and informed them about last night.
'Seems to be a strange girl, this Clair', Articuno said.
'Yeah, but she was really nice', Moltres replied and Suicune nodded. Then, Mew raised her hand.
'One question...Did she have cookies with her?'
Twenty minutes later, they walked towards the town.
"Seems to be a really small town this time", Suicune remarked.
'I like them better than the big ones. They are not that noisy!', Zapdos said and Sephia had to agree.
Suddenly, Moltres, Articuno and Mewtwo, who were walking in front of the others, stopped and started giggling.
"What's so funny?", Sephia asked. The three Pok�mon turned to her and immediately broke out into a burst of laughter.
"WHAT?!", Sephia asked slightly annoyed. Mewtwo stepped to the side and pointed towards a wooden sign in front of him. Suicune walked to the sign.
"What's this...oh, something's written here: 'Blackthorn city. Population: 3000 inhabitants'. And......" she turned to Sephia, grinning, "....it says: 'Welcome to the home town of Lance, the dragon master.'"
Immediately Sephia blushed deeply, causing everyone to laugh even harder.
'I don't get it!', complained Mew, the only Pok�mon who wasn't laughing.
"You don't have to. They are just stupid!", Sephia mumbled embarrassed.
"Maybe you'll meet him! I'll bet he'll like your outfit!", Mewtwo giggled. For a moment Sephia thought about throwing a boot at him, but decided against it. This was one of the moments where she really, really, REALLY hated her outfit. Indeed, she wouldn't mind meeting Lance again, at least she still had his jacket, keeping it like a treasure in her bag. But she doubted that Lance would remember her.
Then, she jumped when Articuno appeared right in front of her, scaring her.
'Well, having daydreams about him?', he mocked.
"NOT AT ALL! AND BESIDES THAT, HE LIVES AT INDIGO PLATEAU NOW!", she growled angrily and without waiting any longer, she called all the Pok�mon back into their Pok�balls and started to walk into the city.
>Hey, that wasn't nice!<, Mewtwo said inside of her head.
>Yeah, but you deserved it!!!<, Sephia snarled back in thoughts.
>Thehehe! Sephia's in love!<, came the answer.
>I AM NOT!<
>Yes, you are. You know, I have a nice new hobby, I learned how to read thoughts. You l-o-v-e him! Ehehe!<, Mewtwo giggled.
>Stop reading my mind!<, Sephia growled.
>Ehehehehe!<
This was the time when Sephia chose to ignore Mewtwo from now on.
Soon, she reached the gym, it wasn't hard to find in a small town like Blackthorn City. Slowly, she opened the door. A wave of heat hit her. The gym was full of boiling lava!
"Hello and welcome!", a young man shouted.
"Hello. Are you the gym leader?", Sephia asked. The man shook his head.
"No, our gym leader is in the back. See the lava? Upstairs are huge rocks and holes, push the rocks down to reach our gym leader. However, it's currently a little bit tricky since we are renovating the gym, it's a little bit chaotic upstairs. Ok, but before you can proceed, you have to fight me and my dragon Pok�mon!" He let a Dratini out of a Pok�ball. Sephia sighed. Most of the gyms were having trainers who tried to stop challengers from reaching the gym leaders and they were quite annoying since everyone had to promise not to talk about her Pok�mon. And the more people knew about them, the bigger was the chance that one of them would talk about them one day.
"Well, ok!", she sighed. Since it was hot and dragons hated ice, Articuno would get a great training out of this. She released the bird. The jaw of the other trainer dropped down.
"T-t-that's...a...a....", he stuttered.
'Whew, it's hot!', Articuno simply said.
"Good training for you. Now, your enemy is this Dratini!" Sephia pointed at the cute dragon.
'Oh, hiya there!', Articuno smiled. 'Ready?'
The Dratini nodded, obviously afraid, but the trainer still seemed paralyzed.
"Hello?", Sephia waved her hand in front of his face.
"A-articuno...", he mumbled.
"Yes, I know. Can we start now?", Sephia asked.
"Ok......Slam....", the trainer said, still in shock, but the Dratini obeyed.
"Articuno, Ice Beam!", Sephia said.
Articuno released his attack and the Dratini was frozen in seconds.
"Well, we got to go, see you!", Sephia shouted, called Articuno back into the Pok�ball and hurried towards the stairs. "And please tell no one about Articuno!", she shouted. Then, she ran upstairs before the trainer realised what was going on.
Upstairs, everything was a mess. Planks, brushes and nails were lying around everywhere. Right in front of Sephia was a really huge rock, maybe about 5 meters high and wide.
"Oh great!", she said. It was obviously a new boulder, it was still wrapped in some kind of foil and Sephia wondered how they got it upstairs.
Next, she looked for the hole and spotted it a few meters behind the block. Then, she released Mewtwo.
"Mewtwo, you must push the block into this hole so it can fall down. Can you do this?", she asked. Mewtwo looked at the boulder.
"No problem!", he said and started to push. Indeed, it moved, but very slowly. When they arrived at the hole, Mewtwo gave it a last push and it fell down - well, it was supposed to be.
"Don't you hate it when things like that happen?", Sephia asked Mewtwo and he nodded. It was obvious that the boulder was ways too big for the hole.
"Not very well organised, even when they are renovating, I think they should make sure that trainers can manage their stupid puzzle", Sephia snarled. It was definitely not her best day. "Blast it!", she said. Mewtwo gave her a strange look.
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's not my fault that I can't go on. They'll have to get a new boulder!", Sephia growled. Mewtwo shrugged, snapped his fingers and boulder started to glow blue before breaking apart. The pieces fell down into the lava.
"Well, I think I know how to solve this problem. Mewtwo, prepare for the battle, ok?", she asked. He nodded and returned to his Pok�ball. Then, Sephia called Moltres and explained the problem.
'All right, sit down and make sure that you can't fall down!', he answered and Sephia sat down on his back.
"Ok, go!", she said and Moltres flew down through the hole, landing in the lava and swimming towards a platform with two dragon statues in the back of the arena.
"Ugh, it's hot!", Sephia sweated, trying not to touch the lava with her feet.
"Well, I like it!", Moltres smiled, but swam a little bit faster. When they reached the platform, a surprise was waiting for them.
"Clair?", Sephia asked. Indeed, the young woman with the violet hair was standing next to the statue.
"I told you we'll meet again, Sephia. I'm the gym leader", Clair explained. "Well, I have seen you fighting and I have to admit that I'll probably lose. So I want to fight just a one-against-one battle with you, I don't need all of my Pok�mon hurt. Alright? But I want to fight against your strongest Pok�mon!"
Sephia smiled. "Yes, that's perfectly fine with me. Then, you may meet Mewtwo now!" She released Mewtwo from his ball. He smiled at Clair.
"Hello, human. So where's my opponent?", he asked.
Clair stared at Mewtwo. "Uh...eh...I shouldn't be surprised, right?...Why did I say that I wanted to fight against strongest???", she mumbled.
Mewtwo grinned. "Well, wanna fight against Articuno instead?"
"What? Articuno?...You are joking.....no, you are probably not...oh, my poor Pok�mon! Dragonair, come out!"
The slender dragon appeared and looked around. When it spotted Mewtwo it wasn't looking happy at all. Clair petted its head.
"I'm sorry, but I fear we have to fight against Mewtwo. Ok with you?", she asked her Pok�mon. Slowly, the dragon nodded.
"Ok, Thunderwave!", Clair shouted. Dragonair released the electric waves.
"Mewtwo, Reflect", Sephia ordered. The psychic Pok�mon build up a field of force and the waves disappeared when they touched it.
"Now Psychic. Don't hurt it too much!", Sephia said. Mewtwo raised a hand. The Dragonair started to glow blue before it was levitated into the air. Mewtwo started to shake his hand and the other Pok�mon crashed into one of the statues, then into the other. Mewtwo released the psychic energy and it fell down, unconscious.
Clair ran to her Pok�mon and it disappeared into its Pok�ball.
"Well, you won", she simply said.
"Yeah, now give us our badge!", Mewtwo replied.
Clair swallowed. It wasn't very clever to mess with Mewtwo, but..."No!", she said.
"What?!", Sephia and Mewtwo gasped.
"Give us the badge! Or I'll blast your gym up!", roared Mewtwo.
Clair stepped backwards, afraid. "I fear there is one more thing you have to do, you have to get the Dragon Fang in the Dragon's Den before I can give you your badge", she mumbled.
"And why?", asked Sephia.
"My gym is usually the last gym trainers visit before going to the Indigo Plateau. It's my duty to test more than their fighting skills, for getting the Dragon Fang you must be able to swim and mess with a whirlpool. Doing this prevents them from getting stuck later on their journey", Clair explained.
"Well, Mewtwo, then let's get this Dragon whateverthing", Sephia said. Mewtwo growled something, but obeyed.
"Then let's go", he mumbled and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, Sephia started glowing and flew up.
"Eep! Mewtwo! What are you doing?", she shouted.
"Getting yourself to the entrance without being roasted!", he replied and started to fly towards to entrance, too, Sephia behind him. They landed next to the young trainer with the frozen Dratini. Mewtwo grinned at him and winked before leaving the gym and Sephia, who walked behind him, saw the young man fainting.
Mewtwo flew them to the cave entrance and they entered. Sephia released all her Pok�mon and they walked downstairs until they reached a big lake. A huge whirlpool was in the middle, unfortunately it was surrounded by walls so they couldn't avoid it.
"I can't swim through this!", Suicune said.
'And the ceiling is too low, we can't fly', Zapdos said.
"And I won't fit through the small passage there!" Mewtwo pointed towards the walls.
So Sephia turned to Mew. "Mew, if you get this Dragon Thingy for me, you'll get a cookie. Deal?"
Immediately, Mew flew away into the darkness. The others waited. Suddenly, they heard a few squeaks, then, Mew returned. Behind her was a floating Dratini, obviously lifted with Psychic.
'Dragon Thingy!', Mew shouted happily. Everyone else groaned.
"No, Mew. I meant this Dragon Fang thing!", Sephia said.
Mew turned to the Dratini. 'Open your mouth!', she said.
"Nonononono!", Sephia interrupted quickly. "It's an item, it should be lying around somewhere!"
Then, the Dratini squeaked something. Mew nodded and it fell back into the water.
'It'll get the Dragon Fang for us! Strangely, it seemed sacred!', Mew said. Sephia shook her head in disbelieve.
But really, the Dratini returned soon, the Dragon Fang with it. "Thank you!", Sephia said, took the item and the dragon Pok�mon disappeared back into the water quickly. In this moment, Clair rushed into the cave.
"Oh, you have it!", she shouted, trying to ignore the fact that an Articuno, a Zapdos and a small Pok�mon she had never seen before were standing next to Sephia. "Here is the Rising Badge and you money!" She handed Sephia the things.
"Thank you!", Sephia smiled.
"Now you can go to the Indigo Plateau, I suppose?", Clair asked. Sephia shook her head.
"Well, we could, but we won't", Sephia answered, took out the red casket and opened it. Clair gasped when she saw that only one space was empty in it, the number '100' written below.
"That's it!", whispered Sephia and looked around. Her Pok�mon looked at the casket, unbelieving that they had finally done it. Then, Mewtwo started to laugh.
"Yes, we have done it!!", he shouted, "Now, let's get Lugia!!!"
To be continued...
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As always, reviews are very appreciated! I hope you liked the chapter!!!
~Faria ([email protected])