After some time and a quick explanation, Liko ran away from Ash with an embarrassed blush on her face, mainly due to the fact that she has social anxiety and she literally fell into Ash's arms.
The sun was going down after the whole fiasco, so Liko ran to her room where she met with Ann again finally.
Ann was playing with Oshawott, "Oh, hey Liko, where you been?"
"Err, sorry, I was busy doing stuff with Sprigatito," Liko explained, leaving out the embarrassing part.
Ann waved it off, "Ohh it's fine, by the way, tomorrow after classes we're going to go have our first battles against each other, you know, to test ourselves you know!"
"Oh…" Liko said as she looked down at Sprigatito, "I… don't know."
"Come on it will be fun, and hey maybe we can watch that trainer boy battle, Ash I think, I really wonder how strong he is if he qualified, his Pikachu was really cute, he was also kinda cute don't ya think!" Ann said repeatedly back to back much to Liko's embarrassment.
—
{Next day}
Liko and Ann were across from each other about to have a practice battle.
"O-Ok," Liko said nervously as Sprigatito stood across, "Sprigatito use, wha-"
Before she could usher a command Sprigatito jumped forward rushing towards Oshawott and extending its claws.
Ann released her arm, "Oshawott now use [Water Gun]."
Oshawott raised its cheeks as then it shot out a blast of water slamming into the airborne cat and sending it flying and out of bounds, disqualifying it.
Liko rushed over, "Sprigatito no, I'm sorry…" she said as she grabbed the wet cat as it started shaking trying to get the water out of its fur.
Ann walked up, "Well that's no good, you'll never become a champion like that."
Liko held her head down, "Yeah, I'm sorry, it's just Sprigatito seems to want to do its own thing, I don't even know what's in its head half the time."
Then as Ann said something Liko thought to herself, 'I guess people say the same thing about me, I guess we do have something in common.'
"Hey, you listening?" Ann said, snapping Liko out of her trance.
"Oh sorry, say again?"
Ann sighed helplessly, "Well I said, remember that trainer, yeah he's battling over a few fields over, I heard something about him letting anyone even upperclassmen challenge him back to back."
"What?" Liko said remembering that Ash was still supposed to be here, "Really, is he that confident?"
"No idea, but we should go check it out, then maybe we can see what a real battle is like!" Ann said excitedly.
Before Liko could say anything Ann grabbed her arm and started running with Liko struggling to keep up.
When they arrived they saw Ash standing to one side and with him was a Fearow, and on the other side was a pile of Pokemon and trainers carrying their Pokemon away.
Ash stood there stretching his arm, "Alright that was a nice warm-up, who's next?"
People stood there shocked that he would say that, considering he already took down half of the seniors, with the other half contemplating if they should even go near him.
Then before anyone could say anything else a loud obnoxious voice was heard, "We'll take you on."
From the side a group of people that seemed to be in a gang walked up, "We're the Roughriders, and we run this school, so that means you're on our turf."
Ash was holding back the urge to laugh, yawn, or sigh, "ohhh, woooow, that's soooo impressive," he said sarcastically.
"He, and we'll be taking you on to put you in your place, but we don't follow rules, we do our own thing so we're all going to battle you!"
Then all of them released Pokemon, people watching were scared but Ash looked unamused, Fearow looked back at him, he didn't say anything but they both had that face, so Ash put him back in the ball and took out another one.
"Alright let's make this quick…"
"Hey, I agree, now you will face our rough strength!"
{Less than 1 minute later}
All of the Pokemon from this aperient group of delinquents were out cold and webbed up, on Ash's side stood a Beedrill of a different color, a Shiny, which already brought attention, but more when that thing literally took down all of them.
Ash shook his head, "That was genuinely the most pathetic thing I've ever seen."
Ann and Liko were watching everything, "He's on a completely different level," Liko mumbled.
"Yeah didn't even look like he tried, and those guys were apparently super strong here, and he's apparently the same age as us," Ann said.
"Yeah, I wonder if, ahh," Liko slightly screamed as Sprigatito jumped out of her hands and ran at Ash's feet looking like it wanted to battle.
Ash looked down and saw Sprigatito, so he leaned down and put his finger and as soon as it went in for a scratch Ash caught the hand, "Sorry buddy, but I'm just a little too strong for you right now,"
Liko ran forward and grabbed Sprigatito and apologized to Ash, "I'm Sorry, Sprigatito doesn't want to listen to me so it does these things."
Ash chuckled, "It's fine, but you wanna know a secret,"
Liko looked up curiously as Pikachu popped his head out and Ash scratched his cheek, "When I started out Pikachu didn't really like me either, the first thing he did when we met was send about 30,000 volts of electricity through me."
"What! Are you ok?" Liko said immediately.
"Well I'm still standing here ain't I?" Ash said, "You wanna know how we made things better?"
Liko nodded
"Well, we started listening to each other so we could work together, and eventually we became friends, also Ketchup, a lot of Ketchup but that's beside the point."
Liko listened as she held Sprigatito close, "So, maybe we can do it too,"
Ash gave her a smile, "Yeah I'm sure you can do it,"
Liko nodded then suddenly realized people were looking at them since Ash just fought an entire gang and she ran up so she blushed in embarrassment and ran away.
—
The next few days went by relatively quickly.
Ash stayed around, did his duty as the apparently 'representative of the League' or something like that, and he gave pointers to the freshman.
Liko spent her days studying and learning about Sprigatito to understand it better, it took some trial and error and she effectively mapped out the entire school but finally, she had Sprigatito to a point where it wouldn't run away from her. But obedience was another matter.
And a few more days after that and the week was up, the League was going to start and so People started to leave.
Liko was seeing Ann off, her parents still lived in Paldea so unlike most kids she was staying, so after a goodbye the bus left leaving Liko and Sprigatito were left alone.
Liko sighed and started walking back to her dorm along the way she saw Ash putting a saddle on Pidgeot in front of the main building.
Liko took her courage and walked up, "So you're leaving to participate in the Indigo League."
"Yeah, I'm not too worried, but still you never know," Ash said as he snapped the saddle and Pidgeot flew up to the office.
"What's going on with your Pidgeot?"
"Oh, the Headmistress has something she wants me to give to Professor Oak, so I'm going to meet him over by the gate." Ash stretched as he stretched his arm, "By the way I see things are better with Sprigatito."
"O-Oh yeah, it's all thanks to you,"
Ash shook his head, "Nah, I just gave you some advice, that's all everything else you did yourself, anyway I hope you guys do well, I'll be seeing ya," Ash said as he began walking.
Liko turned around, "We'll be rooting for you, good luck!"
Ash waved his hand as he kept walking, "Thanks."
Ash and Liko went their separate ways, as Ash was walking to the gate he was thinking about everything, he knew nothing about the plot to Horizons so he couldn't do anything or try to steal rewards like the horde goblin he is.
As he walked past the gate he passed a strange boy in a suit with black and silver hair. He caught his eye for a moment, because in anime if someone has weird hair they are probably important, but he didn't think more about it and kept walking.
—
Liko and Sprigatito walked back over to the dorm building after taking a quick walk to a spot to watch the sunset, nothing major, just a 5-minute detour.
When she walked inside she saw 2 people, the Dormitory housemother who was always taking care of the building, and a Strange young boy in a suit.
The Dormitory housemother was reading something when she looked up hearing the door open, "Oh she's right here, Liko you have a visitor."
The boy in the suit turned around, "Nice to meet you, your Liko aren't you?"
Liko nodded but also felt a weird feeling, "Y-yes, may I ask who you are?"
The boy ignored her question and pulled out a letter, "Your grandmother instructed me to give you this letter."
Liko took the letter but couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about this boy, then he spoke again, "She also mentioned you should bring your Pendant along with you."
Sprigatito hissed and Liko internally gulped, 'There's something definitely weird about this guy.'
Liko put on a smile, "Y-yeah, just let me get ready!" Then she ran to her room as the boy watched with his eyes.
Liko got in her room and put Sprigatito down, "Oh no, oh no, something is definitely wrong, how does he know about my Pendant!"
Sprigatito went under her bed and pulled out a box as Liko took it, uncovering her Pendant, the very one her grandmother gave her and told her to keep safe.
As she took it out she heard a knock on the door, she knew it was from the boy.
On the other side of the door, the boy stood there waiting to get a response from Liko, he was known as Amethio, he carefully listened to the door and heard scuffling.
He frowned and opened the door that Liko forgot to lock, and when he went inside he looked around and saw an empty room and an empty box on the ground.
"She should have just come quietly," Amethio mumbled as he pulled out his Rotom Phone, "She's running, block her escape." he turned around but not before noting the sounds of footsteps on the roof.
—
Liko and Sprigatito were running across the roof to try and contact the Headmistress, as she did she saw 2 other people in similar suits, it didn't take a genius to know they were with that boy.
She kept running. She thought she saw one of them notice her but she didn't stick around to find out as she just kept running, when she arrived around where the campus splits so that the clock tower could be put she saw stopped by the gap leaving her with no way to move forward.
Just as she was about to turn around and find another way she heard a stomp, "Hold it," Amethio said
"We won't do anything that will hurt you if you just give us the Pendant."
Liko didn't believe it, but also her options were limited. She didn't have a place to run, Sprigatito started growling in an attempt to be intimidating, but it didn't work, in fact, the female agent seemed to become fond of the cute attempt.
Just as Amethio was about to speak again a loud and energetic voice was heard, "Haha! I've finally found you!"
From above a Charizard fell in between Liko and Amethio picking up wind and dust as it did, and on top was a white-haired man with goggles and a large smile.
Amethio looked unamused at this inconvenience, "And you might be?"
"I could ask you the same thing," The man jumping off Charizard and taking off his goggles, "I've got business with that girl here."
"We do as well, so we shall settle this the only way it can be, in a Pokemon battle," Amethio said, throwing out a Pokeball revealing a Ceruledge.
The man smiled, "I was hoping you'd say that!" then Charizard roared into the air.
Amethio's two grunts were about to approach but he held his hand out, "No, I'll take care of this."
Amethio took the first move, "Ceruledge use [Bitter Blade]!"
"Charizard [Dragon Claw] now!"
Ceruledge rushed forward purple flame blades extended as Charizard's claws extended and they clashed with each other making sparks fly.
But Charizard had the advantage here as Ceruledge was being pushed back, so Ceruledge jumped and turned his body around in multiple spins before coming back for another strike, but with a confident smile, Charizard flapped his wings and flew up.
Ceruledge stopped itself as then it looked above where Charizard was charging a [Flamethrower], so Ceruledge crossed its blades to defend itself from the attack.
Over with Liko, she was watching this unfold, she was still confused at what was happening but suddenly an attack flew by her and into the clocktower, so she chose to do the one thing she could do, run away.
Liko and Sprigatito saw a nearby ladder that would take them up the clocktower and give them a chance to move to the next building so without much more thought they started climbing it.
The two grunts noticed it and started running towards the clock tower to try and catch up with her before she got away.
When Liko got to the top she saw the next rooftop, it was close enough for her to jump but she was quite high up. But when she heard the Grunts climbing after her she swallowed her fear and chose to jump with Sprigatito.
Back at the battle, Ceruledge was being pushed back and Charizard still looked perfectly fine so Amethio frowned and swiped his arm, "Use [Psycho Cut]!"
Ceruledge swiped across the air as a slash appeared and flew towards Charizard, Charizard easily broke it as the scattered remains went everywhere, but that was the problem.
At that very moment, Liko and Sprigatito chose to jump, and a fragment of the [Psycho Cut] was rapidly approaching them, they all noticed a bit too late, and even Charizard wouldn't be able to get to her in time.
Suddenly Liko's Pendant started glowing and in front of everyone, a bright shield appeared around her blocking the attack and leaving everyone to look at her.
As Liko and Sprigatito opened their eyes inside the bubble there they saw a small turtle Pokemon looking back at her, before they could wonder what they were looking at the Pokemon disappeared into light and so did the bubble around them.
Which also meant they were now falling, straight down, between buildings, with no one close enough to save her.