Chapter 30 Pokemon league

"We're on the roo-ad, to Viri-di-an ci-ity…"

"Ash, please stop singing that." Misty said, frowning at him.

"Sorry. I'm just excited, I mean, this is my first Pokémon League!"

She rolled her eyes. "No, it's not."

"I demand written proof." He grinned. "Anyway, it's certainly the first one in far too long."

Riolu raised a paw. "It's my first, does that count?"

"Hey," Brock said. "At least you get to do them once a year. Officially qualified gym leaders aren't allowed to compete in any tournament they faced the Elite Four of to qualify. So neither Misty nor I can even start a Gym challenge until they replace someone."

"Why's that?"

"Hangover from the Shogunate again. Stops regions from becoming too fractious, otherwise the Leaders would just challenge one another constantly and not do their job. Ieyasu Tokugawa really wanted to make sure the unification stuck that time."

Ash nodded. "I can understand that. It was, what, the third attempt?"

"Yes. I don't think he really had to worry, though, by that point everyone was heartily sick of the whole Warring States thing."

A shadow flashed overhead. Ash dropped into a slight crouch, then relaxed upon seeing it was just an overly enthusiastic Pokémon trainer. "Afternoon. Heading to the League as well?"

"I am. Do you want to have a practice battle?"

Ash eyed him dubiously. "You're not going to insist on anything stupid, like the loser having to give up all their badges, are you?"

"What? No!"

"Just thought I'd check. And you kind of sound familiar…"

The other trainer looked eager. "You do? I'm Otoshi!"

Ash, Brock and Misty looked between themselves and shrugged. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Figures. People only know me as a voice actor anyway." Otoshi then waved his hand dismissively. "I voiced a popular anime character for a couple of years, through they put it on hiatus while I did my League Challenge to let the manga build up a lead again."

Brock snapped his fingers. "That character who's a Poochyena youkai?"

"That's the one!"

Ash flipped Dexter open for a second. "Well, I can see why they picked you… forget voice, you look practically identical. Apart from the hair colour, but then hardly anyone has pure white hair."

Otoshi shrugged. "Shall we get on with that battle?"

"Sure! One Pokémon each?"

"A skirmish, then? Fine! Marowak!"

Pikachu bounded forward into the fight, and started with a Magnet Rise to keep him off the ground and away from any earthquakes. "Hah! Not much you can do against me now, Maro-"

WAK!

The side effect of Magnet Rise is that it also means the user is not actually in contact with the ground. This means that 'friction' and 'gravity' barely apply in terms of staying in one place when, say, hit by a large club.

"Ow…" Pikachu mumbled from a small crater in the bark of a tree.

Ash jogged over and pried him loose. "That's what you get for underestimating people, Pikachu. Remember, we're dealing with the Pokémon League now, and everyone's beaten eight gyms."

"Okay, okay, lesson learned, now make the world stop spinning." Pikachu flopped backwards onto the grass.

Ash shrugged. "I suppose I should thank you, he and I both kind of needed that wake-up call."

"Was your Pikachu going against my Marowak even a good idea in the first place?" Otoshi asked, frowning.

"He's overwhelmed Lightningrod before, let alone Ground typing, but it's inconsistent."

"Fair enough, then. Well, nice meeting you and see you at the League!"

"Ah, here we are. Indigo Plateau."

"You know, it used to be called the Quartz plateau…" Brock mused. "It's a huge fault block of metamorphosed Quartzite that can withstand weathering better than almost anything else between these mountains, because…" he tailed off. "Oh, what? I do know quite a lot about this sort of thing!"

"You lost us at fault." Ash replied bluntly.

"Whatever. Kids…"

"You're still a teenager as well!"

"And you're not a teenager yet, so 'as well' doesn't fit. Anyway, they changed the name to Indigo so that all of the Leagues were associated with a colour, like the Orange and the Silver."

Misty frowned. "What about that one in Sinnoh? Or the Ever Grande conference?"

"Lily of the Valley has the official designation of white, Ever Grande is blue, and stop nitpicking." Brock huffed. "Besides, they're not Honshu leagues."

"Whatever."

At that point, the friends heard a faint rumbling from behind them, and prudently stepped out of the way of the Torch procession.

Ash gave a slight smile. "I remember when the Rockets tried to steal that, and…" he tailed off, and closed his eyes. "Thought so. Moltres is shadowing the torch, probably because of curiosity or something."

"What, really?" Misty asked. Ash pointed.

Squinting, she finally managed to pick out a tiny dot. "How did you spot that?"

"Legendaries have a lot of Aura. Now that I actually have a chance to watch, it's really kind of impressive."

The others concentrated for a moment, then engaged their own out-of-practice sight.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Looks sort of like a star in the night sky…"

"Good afternoon. It's the last day for registering, you made it just in time."

Ash gave a weak smile. "Better than not making it at all, right?"

"I suppose. Now, your badges?"

He opened his jacket. "Boulder, Cascade, Thunder, Marsh, Rainbow, Soul, Volcano, Earth."

"Oh, I'm impressed!" the administrator, a Nurse Joy doing double duty, said. "We don't see the Volcano or Marsh badges a lot here any more, most people go to Chubu for some of their badges instead, as that's joint Indigo-Silver territory."

"Yeah, about that…" Brock interrupted. "What happened to the Indigo League regular inspections? I didn't see one in my entire tenure of a few years, then we found that Cerulean sometimes didn't bother with fights, Saffron's leader had been half-mad for a decade and the Cinnabar Gym had basically closed down entirely."

"That's somewhat worrying – sorry, your name?"

Brock flashed his badge of office. "Brock, Pewter leader – on sabbatical at the moment. My father has taken over my position."

"I see. So how did your friend get those badges anyway?"

Ash sighed heavily. "I cured Sabrina and solved something like eighty-odd riddles for Blaine. Seriously, that man needs something a bit more moderate if he's making his supplemental challenge intelligence…"

The Joy taking his registration paused, and looked more closely at him. "Oh, I get it now! You're the one who destroyed Cerulean Gym!"

"It was partly Misty's fault! How else was I supposed to fight a Chinchou with an Electric type?" Ash replied, then glanced at Misty's expression. "I mean, oops, yeah, that was me. Now can we get on with it?"

"Oh, sorry. Yes, you're registered to compete. It looks like your first preliminary is in three days, two after the opening ceremony tomorrow. Report to the Grass field at ten A.M, and you're battling someone by the name of Quinn."

"Thanks." Ash turned away from the counter, noticing that his entry number was #255. "Talk about by the skin of my teeth. Well, guys, looks like we get a day to look around before it's time. Wonder if Ritchie's here yet?"

Brock turned to him as they walked off. "Was that the kid who was basically a clone of you?"

"Yeah, I've run into a few, but he was the closest. Though one of the others had a Pikachu, too…"

More support for your hypothesis that the universe somehow finds you amusing.

"That's not a hypowhatever, that's solid fact. Arceus was betting on my reactions, Dexter. Not to mention the whole prophecy thing."

An image appeared in front of Ash: a Voltorb.

"Ivysaur."

The image shifted. Now it was a Venomoth.

"Charizard."

Inadvisable. Charizard as a surprise is best saved for later in the tournament.

"True. Pikachu, then."

Pikachu would win, but likely be affected by a powder first.

Dexter's projection changed again, this time showing a Mr. Mime.

"Tough one. Riolu."

Prediction is of victory. But be careful showing your cards so early in the tournament – others knowing that Riolu knows Dark Pulse is going to affect their latter decisions.

"I know, but then that's half the point of the League. One of Tobias' biggest advantages against me was that I had no idea what his team was apart from that damn Darkrai."

And then it turned out to include a Latios, yes.

"Ah, end simulations. I don't think they take the nature of a battle properly into effect."

Ash made to get up, but then a thought occurred to him. "Can you contact Butterfree? Let him know that I might be calling on him in a couple of days."

Certainly.

Ash and the rest of the competitors – except for the one carrying the torch - stood on the field of the main stadium as the opening ceremony played itself out around them. Under normal circumstances, there would be precisely two hundred and fifty five people in ranks.

Normal didn't apply this year. There were two hundred and fifty six – or seven, depending on what the official status of a certain Meowth was. Team Rocket had entered as a group, and anyone who might have felt offended hadn't noticed in time.

Not that there were many, not with a man whose very name spoke of good will running the ceremonies.

An important-looking man stepped up to the microphone first. "I hereby declare open the three hundred and ninety ninth Indigo League in this era of the united Home Islands."

Ash suppressed a grin. He'd heard about this – like the Olympics, the Pokémon League officially insisted that every one of its' scheduled tournaments took place, even though they were shut down in wartimes. But as far as they were concerned, the year after Sekigahara had been the first one and it would be counted from then whether or not it actually happened, damnit.

"I would also like to say-"

Mr. Goodshow tapped the other official on the shoulder. "That's enough. You know your instructions, the speech doesn't keep going after that."

"Fine, then." The man, who looked like a minister of some sort, walked off the podium in a huff.

"And now," Mr. Goodshow continued, "The flame is to be lit! This flame, from Moltres itself, symbolizes the virtues of the competition."

Funny how of the two Moltres I've met, one of them attempted to incinerate me… Ash mused. Wonder what that virtue means?

"Will the last of the torch bearers please step forward?"

Ash turned with everyone else to look, then blinked. That's Gary. He hid a snicker. I wonder, did he drive part of the way?

Gary walked up to the steps and began to ascend them, holding the torch carefully, when a whoosh of air nearly blew him over.

"Wow!" came from the speakers. "It seems that Moltres itself has decided to turn up for the opening ceremony! We can only hope that this means it will be a particularly fiery competition!"

The great flame Pokémon slowly turned in place over the bowl, watching as Gary recovered his wits and ascended, bowing to Moltres before touching the torch to kindling. Then the Legendary shot a Flamethrower into the bowl, igniting it with a dull whump.

For a moment, as it began to take flight again, its' eyes swept the contestants, giving Ash a little thrill as its' gaze passed over him.

And was it his imagination, or had it lingered for a split second?

Then the Bird of Fire was gone once more, a lingering scent in the air where wood-smoke from the League flame had been blown around.

Three or four seconds late – understandable, given the shock of what had just occurred – several hundred fireworks shot skywards, bursting in a rainbow of colours that swept quickly through the spectrum to a deep indigo.

Over the four elemental arenas to the cardinal points of the main one, similar firework displays traced out a leaf, a rock, a drop or a snowflake in indigo.

This apparently reminded Mr. Goodshow of what he was supposed to be doing. "Ah, okay, for those who are first time competitors here, at the Indigo League we tend to have four matches going on at once until the last 32, which are held here. The first four matches you will each do will be in one of the four satellite arenas, so those who want to fight in the Indigo stadium will have to show the ability to use terrain as varied as Ice, Rock, Water and Grass, representing the four types of natural landscape. Once everyone remaining has qualified, it's a straight knockout tournament, with the winner facing the Elite Four. I believe Lorelei is the first member this year. Thank you, and I hope to see all of you do the best you can."

"I just had a thought," Ash said suddenly as they watched Gary's first battle. He was using his Arcanine to melt the ice field, making things easier for his starter when he had to use it.

"What isit?"

"Half the League contestants have some kind of dramatic entrance, from sakura blossoms to magic tricks. I'd kind of like to have one as well."

Brock shrugged. "Well, the easy one would be to arrive on Pidgeot. I mean, it does reveal her, but then you're going to do that anyway as she's a better reveal than Charizard this early in the tournament."

"I do like that. And it'd look really impressive, too, given that I'll be wearing the full costume in the arena." Ash had been cutting back on how much he wore the enhanced clothes, recently, mainly because his mother had complained.

Misty chuckled. "You sure your mum will be okay with that?"

"She wanted me to look my best on TV, and that outfit's my best. It's simple logic."

Sir Aaron sighed. "Really? This is the next guy we have to fight?"

Uematsu Hojo rolled around on the floor. "My back!"

Palkia looked uncertain. "That's not as impressive as it could be."

"Tell me about it."

Well, sor-ry. A voice huffed from everywhere at once. I thought I'd add character to them.

"You made the Magoichi of Saica into a time traveller!" Sir Aaron complained. "I mean, guns yes, even shotgun. But a rocket launcher, two machine guns and air support?"

…You enjoyed the fight, didn't you?

"Not the point." Aaron gauged his opponent for a moment, and kicked at Hojo. The old man flinched with the unexpectedly loud crack of the impact, then stood up slowly. "Thanks, youngster, you fixed my back! But this is a battle, you know. Fuuma! Get him!"

Nothing. Hojo looked up. "Fuuma? Where's my ninja gone?"

"Dialga and Ieyasu landed on him five minutes ago."

Hojo gulped as he contemplated the pair of ludicrously good swordsmen (or –dragons) in front of him. "Aheh-heh-heh… no hard feelings?"

AN: Otoshi's character design and voice actor (in some dubs) are carried over from the title character of Inu Yasha. In the original timeline, he had had his badges stolen by Team Rocket and tried to win Ash's to replace them.

Bizzarely, that episode is banned in Korea.

The Kanto gyms are a bit of a shambles in the Anime, aren't they? When you list them all in one go, it really sounds a bit off.

One of the interesting features of the Pokémon world is that their mythology is very present - in this case Moltres. I decided to give Moltres a slightly different reason to be here than the last time (another Team Rocket shenanigan).

The Indigo, Orange and Silver leagues do seem to have a theme in their names - though in the Japanese, Indigo Plateau is instead Quartz plateau. Indigo works well because it's the name of both a colour (Kanto) and a plant (Johto), though with Johto having a different League in the Anime this is less important.

There will probably be mainly battles for the next several chapters. It's what comes of reaching the League. Hope the breather was nice.