Chapter 292: 292. Fireworks
Ash was no longer as angry as he was before. Seeing that these obnoxious teenagers did give him so many of the Exchange Points he had desperately needed, Ash was now even eager for them to challenge him a few more times. As long as they and their Pokémon still have a sliver of strength left in their body, he will make them accept all of his challenges.
From a gaming perspective, with so many people queuing up to give away their experience points to him, this opportunity was one that must be taken in fully.
The biggest gain for Ash, in addition to the large number of Exchange Points he had gained, was also the hard-earned Bond Value for several of his Pokémon's.
Especially his emo, but very docile, looking Absol. When Ralts and Togetic got tired of "playing" with theier new "toys", Ash had simply rotated them out of the field and changed them with Torkoal to beat the large number of Trainers.
Ash has a very high expectations for this Pokémon, especially as he was known as the "Disaster Beast".
Ash promised himself that he will train his already strong Absol to the point of making his opponents tremble and think of his nickname.
Moreover, Absols Mega Evolution was also very cool looking, and his future Bond Evolution with his Absol will definitely not disappoint him.
Like many of his other Pokémon's Mega Evolutions, his Absol will also look very similar to what it looks like in its Mega Evolution form. However, there will be some changes in there that shows his deep connection with his Pokémon's.
"Absol, use Sword Dance!" Standing in front of Absol at this moment were 25 more uninjured new Pokémon's, and their levels were much more higher than those faced by Ralts and others, as these Pokémon's actually belong to real Trainers, unlike those regular people with Pokémon's.
Ash's first command was to improve Absol's main combat power, his Physical Strength.
"Master Norman Fand, Absol is a pure Dark-type, use Fighting, Fairy and Bug-type attacks! Breloom, use your Dynamic Punch attack!" A nerdy looking boy with glasses took the lead in launching their group attack.
The moves were used correctly, and their group coordination was also a little decent, but this was nothing to Ash. He smiled faintly, and his Absol also lowered his head after hearing Ash's command via their Telepathy Bond.
'Humans, you know nothing about power!' Absol thought gleefully.
'Destroy them! Psycho Cut!' This was a powerful Physical Psychic attack, the signature attack of the final evolution of a male Ralts, if he choses and has the right Evolutionary Stine, Gallade.
It was hard to imagine that a pure Dark-type Pokémon like Absol can use such a Psychic-type attack, right?
But under Ash's hard and deliberate training, Absol had learnerd and mastered two sharp blade skills, a Special Normal-type Attack, Razor Wind, and the Physical Psychic-type Attack, Psycho Cut.
Absol's figure disappeared in a white blur, only a flash of pink sword rnetgy was seen other than that, and Breloom, along with a Pelipper, a Nuzleaf and a Medicham behind it, all lost their ability to fight.
"So strong!" This was the first time he faced Ash personally, and this was also the first time Andy felt what true despairing power was.
Their once thought out powerful group members had fallen one after another, and finally one boy couldn't hold on any longer. He turned around and ran towards the Pokémon Center.
The children of the Petalburg City Gym Leader, their Lord and Savior Norman, the youthful, beautiful genius Pokémon Coordinator and Miss May and the young and intellectual Master Max, were still there.
The first two obnoxious teenagers had already been kicked away by Ash, and now they were doubting their life. The teenagers here only heard that some unworthy Trainer was going to challenge their pride and joy, the Petalburg City Gym, they were so unwilling to let this unworthy Triner challenge their Master that they lined up to challenge him to prove him weakness.
They had no idea that Ash was the traveling companion of their master children and was one of the strongest Trainers alive.
So May and Max were quickly carried over by them to challenge Ash and defeat him to restore their pride.
Ash was stunned for a moment and took his perfectly fine Absol back from the middle of the 20 some defeated Pokémon's. "May, Max, what are you two doing here?"
"They said there was a rude Trainer who was saying bad things about us and dad!" May explained the situation to Ash.
Hearing this, Ash understood what was going on here. His girlfriend was essentially being used as a weapon by those unwilling weaklings, "The rude Trainer they told you about was me!"
"What?" Max was the first one to exclaim in disbelief. This means that those so called fans of them and their dad brought him and his sister to challenge Ash?
Of all people, why him? Why her boyfriend?
Max and May both knew that Ash would never say something like that about their dad, someone who he had great respect for and was essentially his future father-in-law.
However, no one noticed his expression, and the so-called Reporter pointed at Ash's nose and said, "We don't want people like you to challenge Master Norman at all!"
"So I see, it's so sad that Mr. Norman has fans like you supporting him!" Ash smiled bitterly and said with a evil laugh. He didn't pay any of those thing at all, but here they are, making stupid claims that hardly anyone but the dumbest of people would believe.
He looked up at May, his almost clueless girlfriend, "Babe, let's have a fight to remember this!"
He also wants to see how May has progressed during this period, in a real fight and not one of their usual training battles.
"Sure, love! But I don't think I want to remember this." Since Ash asked so, May took out her the Poké Ball to accept with a sheepish smile. Both her Beautifly and Skitty had been performing for these fans just now, and they had exhausted most of their energy.
So this time she sent out her Torchic, who had been training but had not had the time to showcase much.
"Then it's up to you, Togetic!" Ash sent out his Togetic to fight over.
After evolving, Togetic's combat effectiveness was actually very strong, and Ash can use his own strength to fully unleash Togetic's power.
"What?! How dare you scoundrel to call Lady May your girlfriend!!"
"Yeah!! We'll beat you down!!"
"Yeeahhh!!"
Those new here said their words, while those who had already been easily crushed by Ash jsut sighed, knowing they can't do jack shit to Ash.
They were simply too damn weak to fight back, and he wasn't even trying.
Ash, May, Brock and Max ultimately chose to ignore these people for the same reason.
"Okay, here I go, Torchic, use Ember!"
The Bond Value between May and her Torchic is actually wuite high, but their training intensity was far less than that of Ash or her other Pokémon's, so Torchic had not yet reached the level where he would evolve.
"Use Sweet Kiss!"
Togetic easily avoided Torchic's fast Ember attack in the air, and landed next to it. In the audiences eyes, this Ember was a very fast attack, but to Togetic, this was a small fireball that was coming towards her in very slow motion. Her friend, Growlithe, who Ash brings to his team from time to time to check on her progress, can do this attack so much faster and stronger than what she was seeing right now from Torchic.
A pink light flashed by, and Torchic was now unsteadily standing on his feet, staggering around as if he was a complete drunk.
"Torchic!" May suddenly panicked out. She doesn't have enough experience to deal with Pokémon's special conditions, as shown now on when she faced the Phantoms Dusclops. "Torchic, wake up! Please!"
"It's over, Ancient Power!" Ash had never shown mercy in a battle, even if the opponent was his girlfriend, maybe he would show mercy in their bed but not in a battle.
Togetic immediately launched the fatal attack towards Torchic. Ancient Power was a Rock-type attack, so its effect on the Fire-type Torchic was outstanding as it was super-effective.
Boom!
Torchic had only activator used one Ember skill in front of Ash and Togetic, and was beaten to the point of losing his ability to fight.
"We lost." May took back her defeated Torchic, but she didn't feel much loss because of this defeat, neither did her Torchic. It was very normal to lose to Ash; it would be strange if she actually somehow won this battle.
But for the people around them, it was like the sky had fallen, figuratively speaking of course. ,
"Oh my Master Norman, Lady May actually lost!"
"That's only natural. Big Bro Ash is the Champion of the Silver Conference. He was even able to beat my father before. That's why we had traveled with him, thanks to his care along the way, we learned a lot!" Max finally showed off and spoke about Ash's strength.
He said, "That strong Ralts was given to him by our father and mother because they deeply trusted Big Bro!"
Regardless of anything else, just the way their Young Master Max addressed Ash shocked these people.
The young genius son, Max, of Master Norman actually calls this man his older brother.
Suddenly, these people who were all against Ash and turned into his "loyal" fans. They all cheered Ash's name and recognized Ash's qualification to challenge their beloved Petalburg City Gym.
But does Ash really give a shit about this and them?
The answer is a a big NO, if you couldn't tell.
Anyway, Ash and his team went to the Pokémon Center to have some food with their Pokémon's.
May was very sad to realize that she didn't have the chance to go on a date with her boyfriend like they had planned. She was in literal tears thinking of this.
Ash had to comfort her multiple times to and promise her of another date to make her stop her crying.
After crossing another of the infinite forests in this world, they finally arrived at their destination of Petalburg City.
For the two siblings, this was their long time hometown. After being away for such a long time, they found that many places and things have quietly changed from what they remember as.
After returning to the Gym, they found that the siblings parents at home, Norman and Caroline, the ever loving couple they remembered had a conflict.
It was simply unbelievable to them. At first, Ash even suspected on why Norman did not hesitate to give an extremely rare Pokémon like Ralts to him, and also let Max and May travel with him. He really did deeply believe that he did that because he wanted to live a two-person life with his wife, Caroline, without needing to be shy or impatient.
Now the two of them actually got into a conflict?
Who can actually believe it?
"Big Bro, Brock, let me take you to see our greenhouse!" The heartless Max didn't seem to notice anything strange about his parents. He took Ash, as Brock was busy chatting with his family, to the greenhouse belonging to the Petalburg City Gym.
The Pokémon in their Gym all live here. In the future, if there are more than 6 Pokémon around May or Max, they will also all be sent to live in this lush and big place.
Although this place was big, it was still in the middle of a large city, and couldn't be nearly big as the one Professor Oak uses.
This place was at max only about 2% percent as big as the one Professor Oak and Ash uses.
A blue light flashed in Ash's eyes, and he smiled immediately, "So that's what is happening, I was wondering how could a person like Mr. Norman do such a thing. Now I know why." Ash said in a voice full of laughter.
"Big Bro, what did you find out?" Max comfortably hugged Norman's Slakoth, as they had known each other for their whole life. This Slakoth still remembered Ash beating him and waved to him lazily.
Ash laughed and took him to the warehouse in the middle of the greenhouse, the part where the large glass dome could retract back, and Max also found something extra inside do it, "Big Bro, what is this?"
"These are large custom fireworks. These large custom ones are ones that are set off the night before every Pokémon Contest, remember?" Ash smiled and said, "Max, are there any special days recently that relate to your parents?"
After Ash's careful reminder, Ash reacted and said in surprise, "Big Bro, today is the day of my mom and dads wedding anniversary!"
This was the reason.