Ash and Ivysaur took to one side and Visquez took the other, Surge took the spot in the middle to act as the referee. Professor Cerise took a good spot to observe the incoming battle.
The Ivysaur and Venusaur formed a pseudo audience/stadium circling around to watch the fight.
Visquez took her Pokeball and threw it out revealing her Raichu who jumped looking excited.
Surge raised his good arm, "This is a one-on-one battle between Ash and the challenger Visquez, standard rules apply," then he lowered his arm, "Begin!"
Visquez took the first move, "Raichu Thunderbolt!"
Raichu began glowing yellow and slightly got lifted off the ground with electricity, then when it was ready it got shot out aiming at Ivysaur.
"Ivysaur Magical Leaf and cut through," Ash commanded.
Ivysaur's leaves glowed as they were shot out, they moved through the air and collided with the incoming electricity splitting it down the middle and then shooting into Raichu, causing the large mouse to get shot back to the ground.
"Great now Grassy Terrain and Sunny Day."
Ivysaur charged a seed at the tip of his flower and then shot it into the air causing a firework, the area started turning green and the sun shined brighter.
"Raichu get up, we can't lose, use Wild Charge!"
Raichu used its long tail and jumped into the sky and its entire body ignited in bright yellow electricity as it took off like a rocket and rushed towards Ivysaur.
"No, you don't, Dodge with Grassy Glide then Grass Knot."
Ivysaur's feet glowed green and started floating slightly off the ground, Ivysaur then sped across with the bonus priority to dodge Raichu, and on his way across his vines extended and grabbed into Raichu's feet making it get redirected into the ground.
Raichu had half of its body stuck in the dirt and Visquez was worried but didn't show it, "Raichu take this chance Dig."
Raichu's body spun as it disappeared into the ground before anything could be done.
As Ivysaur looked around to see where the electric mouse could appear Ash yelled out one command "Poison powder into the air."
Ivysaur's flower released purple dust that was added to the green storm in the center from the Grassy Terrain. Then from behind Raichu appeared and used its long tail to Grab onto Ivysaur's body and threw him into the ground.
"Now while we have him there, Iron Tail!"
The tip of Raichu's tail turned silver and hard, then it started spinning into the air like a wheel only to slam into Ivysaur pushing him further into the ground.
But it wasn't without consequence, Raichu cheeks had a purple blush on them indicating that it was poisoned.
"Restrain it with Leech Seed!"
Ivysaur shot out seeds that planted themselves into the ground, then immediately started growing and grabbed onto Raichu's body and hands.
Ash then smiled, "Hey you wanna try 'that'," causing Ivysaur to look back at Ash and give a smile of his own.
"Alright then, Energy ball"
Ivysaur raised his head and started charging it inside his mouth slowly getting pushed out as it got bigger, obviously Raichu and Visquez saw this but couldn't do anything.
"Now eat it.." Ash said, causing everyone present to almost choke on nothing.
Ivysaur's mouth closed as he swallowed, and then his body started glowing green getting a boost in strength.
Visquez gritted her teeth, "Raichu use Discharge to burn the seeds, then thunderbolt"
Raichu's body ignited in electricity and burned off the seeds latching on him, then with the electricity it already had started floating and shooting all of the energy aiming at Ivysaur.
"Ivysaur let's end this Solar beam,"
Ivysaur's flower gathered the energy from the sun that was still shining down on them, gathering the energy and then shooting a large beam of light green energy. Causing both beams of energy to clash in the middle.
Even though Raichu was giving its all, it was also weakened and poisoned, meanwhile with the boost that Ivysaur got after eating the energy ball, pulse the Grassy Terrain it was far more powerful and overpowered the electric mouse.
Raichu's body was enveloped in the beam and was shot out of the stadium, it would have gone flying but one of the Venusaur caught it and brought it back down to Visquez.
Visquez signed and returned Raichu, meanwhile, Ash was giving Ivysaur a high five on his vine.
Visquez walked forward to Ash and held her hand out, "I admit defeat, I can see why the Lieutenant spoke so highly of you."
Ash returned the handshake, "You're not so bad yourself, I can see the old man has been training you hard, makes me feel kinda bad for you-" but he was cut off when Surge appeared and punched him on the head.
"You brat, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm not old."
"When it stops being funny, so never," Ash responded grinning behind him as he also held his head in pain.
Surge sighed in frustration before chuckling to himself and putting his arm on Ash, "Brat when did you get so strong, you weren't nearly this strong when you fought me, it makes me want a rematch with no limitations."
"Just wait for me old man, as soon as I can I'm coming back and getting revenge for my broken arm," Ash said dodging a second punch from Surge.
Meanwhile, the Grass frogs were celebrating and congratulating Ivysaur on his victory, and Cerise walked up to Ash.
"I must say I didn't expect I would get to see all of this, I'm sure everyone will be jealous, but I must go and report my findings before anyone else can."
Ash gave an evil smile, "Sure, and say hello to Chloe for me,"
The professor gave a similar one back, "Alright, anything else you want me to say,"
"Sure tell her that even though she ripped my heart as long as the flowers bloom I'll wait for her."
"Oh I'm sure she'll just love to hear that," Cerise said, chuckling as he walked off.
After that ended Ash turned to the two behind him, "Alright I should get going, I do have some preparations to do since I'm going to challenge the Celadon gym,"
"Wait, what do you mean, if your next gym is all the way in Celadon then how did you get here, better question how are you getting back?" Surge asked.
"I have an Abra how else," Ash said pointing to the back hood showing the small Abra that clearly wasn't there before.
"You know that makes sense,"
"Anyway, I'm gonna grab some stuff while I'm here and head back. It's only about 1:00". Ash said as he went to grab Ivysaur as the grass-frog army started marching back into the forest from which they came.
Pikachu hopped on Ash's shoulder and walked off leaving Surge and Visquez alone in the park.
—
{Hours later}
Brock, Misty, and Yellow were sitting in the hotel room they were at, Yellow was still a bit on edge, wondering what would happen to her as Brock tried to calm her down.
"Yellow I'm sure it's fine, Ash wouldn't do something extreme, your friend remember," Brock said.
"That's the part I'm worried about, you didn't grow up with him, you weren't there for his pranks, not like the sandwich incident, poor Gary could never look at one the same way after that," Yellow said as if she was remembering trauma.
After she said that there was a full 10 seconds of silence until Misty spoke up, "W-what happened when you were kids, because every time I hear something new it feels like it's made up"
"A lot, Ash was… well as most people said perfect, he had good grades, good social skills, and good talent, but despite that, he was still a kid like the rest of us and he showed it, the pranks he would do, no one was spared, and no one could stop him."
Misty took a breath of concern with her hands clasped together on her face, "Why does this sound like a villain backstory, I can't be the only one thinking this can I?"
Brock completely ignored her, "Hey it can't be that bad what's the worst thing he did to you."
"Well, he once invited me and a few of our friends out to lunch by the forest and made all of us lunch."
"That can't be bad right,"
"I somehow almost got kidnaped by Rattata,"
"Am I the weird one, how does no one think this is weird?" Misty said in the corner
"That seems unrelated but ok, well I'm sure nothing bad will happen to you this time," Brock said before Yellow grabbed his collar.
"What have you done, you jinxed me, now something terrible will happen," Yellow said, panicking.
But as soon as she said that the door to the apartment opened and Ash came walking in, "Hey guys I'm back, I grabbed some stuff for us."
Ash tossed one of the bags he was holding over to Yellow.
Yellow freaked out and threw the bag on the floor and stomped on it before kicking it to the door of her room.
Ash looked at what Yellow did and slowly reached into the other bag and pulled out a bag of Mochi, "I thought you liked Red Bean, you told me that was your favorite flavor."
As he said that, everyone turned to the bag, and they could see one of Dody's heads slowly drag it into the room with all of Yellow's Pokemon.
Ash scratched his head and handed Yellow another one, "Here I guess you can have mine then, it's Mango, so if you don't like it don't stomp on it I had to wait like an hour for them."
As Yellow took the bag Ash handed a bag to Brock and Misty.
"Hey by the way Brock, I need your help with something, and yes it's Melanie related," Ash said as he walked into the other room and Brock nearly floated behind him.
"Now I just feel bad," Yellow mumbled looking down at the bag of Mochi in her hands before throwing it on the table, "Unless this is also one of his traps, I can't be sure."
Misty was left dumbfounded, "Seriously, am I the weird one?"
—
{The next day}
Everyone was walking over to the gym, and Brock was looking down, since last night he didn't get the chance to talk to Melanie, she only talked to Ivysaur and then hung up.
Looking at the sky it was hard to see but Summer was over and it was the first day of Autumn, if you looked carefully you might see the leaves starting to turn brown.
The gym itself was not hard to find since it was in the center of town and it had giant solar panels covering it. Not to mention that it was also connected to Celadon University.
Arriving in front of it they saw 2 girls standing in front of the door with a stern face seeing Ash and Brock specifically.
The first girl stepped forward and looked Ash up and down, "What is your purpose here?"
"I'm here for the gym battle," Ash said
"Do you like perfume," the second girl said like it was a life or death question.
"I mean yeah it's nice, but I prefer the ones that don't have much Alcohol, Why?" Ash said, tilting his head.
The girls looked at each other and nodded at the acceptable answer, "Any person who likes perfume is welcomed inside the gym, sir please wait near the battle arena I will go and call the gym leader for you"
Ash nodded as the girls walked in, Ash looked back at his companions who looked dumbfounded by the stupid interaction that just happened, "Get used to it, there are weirder things than a gym willing to ban someone for not liking perfume," Ash said walking in.
Walking inside the gym it was very large, the connecting gym had two main parts, the larger part that led to the classes that were being held, and the other was the large field usually reserved for battling.
Walking over to the area an arrow flew past and hit a target on the bullseye, looking to where it came from they saw Erica in a new yellow and red Kimono, she also had a longbow and a quiver of arrows on her back until she finally noticed the group.
She took off the quiver and bow and handed it over to an assistant, as the girl from earlier walked up to her and gave a slight bow, "My lady, there is a challenger we have deemed worthy." She got back up and looked at Ash presumably about to Ask him to introduce himself until Erica interrupted her.
"Oh hey Ash, good to see you again, finally here to challenge me, you should have called. I would have prepared some tea."
"Come on what's with the formalities, I expected you out of everyone to be against that," Ash said casually.
Then Erica's Leafeon jumped down from the ceiling and cuddled on Ash's leg, so Ash went to one knee and scratched the fox-dog thing behind the ears, "Hey girl how you been."
In the stadium, there was also a bleacher with tons of people(Mainly girls) who were watching Erica, and seeing her talk to a stranger casualty and Erica's infamous Leafeon being friendly with the same stranger, everyone in the room was shocked.
"By the way, you got a new kimono, I have to say, I preferred the old one better," Ash said
"Oh, aren't you meant to say, that I'd look good in anything, not very gentlemanly of you," Erica gave a jab back.
"Well I can say that too if you want, but they always told me to never say something redundant," Ash said back, making both of them laugh.
"Anyway, I suppose we should start our battle, you know Tangela specifically has been wanting to face you since we parted ways."
"Oh really, well this should be fun, this time there isn't anything holding me back, so I expect you to not pull any punches."
"Only if you promise to do the same, if we are in agreement then… let… us...Starrr..zzz(¯﹃¯),". Erica was stopped when she fell asleep, quite literally on her feet, making anyone who didn't know her habits collectively think 'Did she just fall asleep!?'
Ash chuckled and brought his fingers to her ear and snapped, making her jolt awake, "Wha, oh sorry, that happens sometimes, anyway*Yawn*, let's begin, I assume this is still your 4th."
"That would be a correct assumption, anyway let's go I have been preparing since the day we met,"
Erica smiled and pulled out five Pokeballs she had ready, "Well so have I letsss…zzz(¯﹃¯)"
'Σ(°△°|||) Did she just fall asleep again!?'