{Back with the crew}
They were walking down the road, it's been a few days and they were only about halfway to Fuchsia, it was currently a new day so after having breakfast they continued their way, making small talk as they went.
As for all the Pokemon, everyone has been training and Yellow started insisting on helping her own Pokemon train by herself, overall everyone improved but nothing changed, and Brock hasn't used the metal powder, but he did give Zubat the bell.
The only thing that has happened of note was two things. One Pikachu has finally managed to learn counter shield, mainly by making a motion similar to breakdancing, so now he could teach the rest of his Pokemon to use it.
As for the second thing, well let's just say Ash finally taught Primeape something very important,
—
{a few nights before}
While everyone was sleeping Ash moved far away and released Primeape for some special training.
"Ok, Primeape use Shadow Punch,"
Primeape was groggy but still ignited his fist in darkness, then he punched the air, after that a pebble hit his head.
"Wrong, get angry, do it again," Ash said, tossing a pebble in his hand.
Primeape puffed and punched again, getting another pebble to the head.
"Wrong, get angry and pour it into your punch."
Primeape was starting to get angry so he did it again, only to get another pebble to the head.
"Again"
"Again"
"Again"
"Again"
This went on for almost an hour, and Primeape was livid so he looked at a nearby rock and punched it in an attempt to relieve his anger, this time instead of purple darkness, his fist was enveloped in white and Black energy as he punched the rock and it immediately disintegrated.
Ash clapped and smiled, "Finally, you learned it, now we can start preparing, I hope you're ready because now things are about to get interesting."
–
So yeah other than those things nothing else happened, so now Ash is specifically trying to avoid the same path that OG Ash took, for one part to avoid the construction Diglett stuff, but another reason is to avoid the P-1, it isn't his problem so he won't go and fix it.
Speaking of which Primeape was currently out of his Pokeball, he had been training twice as hard, and as such more Weights were put on him and he was running to keep up with everyone. With Clefary sitting in Ash's bag putting extra gravity.
The group was having a very important conversation, "Look I'm just saying in terms of male and female-"
"Look Brock, I love you like a brother, but I will punch your teeth out, this is your worst take since the drying pan," Ash said looking at Brock
"I don't know, the Jelly donut was pretty stupid," Misty said, wrapping her egg in her jacket.
"I did that as a joke!" Brock said trying to defend himself
Ash and Misty looked at each other with a blank stare before looking back at Brock, "Righhhhhtttt x2"
"Wa- Yellow, you believe me don't you"
Yellow just gave a small smile, "Righhhttt"
That hit Brock like a bag of bricks making him fall over meanwhile Ash and Misty were trying not to burst out laughing in the background.
"Anyway, where are we going I don't think I recognize this path from any of the maps?"
"Well there is some construction going on the main road so we're taking a detour, it's only like an extra day in a half of traveling on foot," Ash said, looking at the map on his dex.
Yellow peaked over at Ash's dex, "I think there's a town, should we stop by?"
"I mean we don't need to, we're good on supplies and I'm not expecting anyone to evolve yes so not much need to," Ash said
As they continued walking Primeape was falling behind, so Ash told Clefary to stop the gravity.
With that Primeape started catching up, but as soon as he was about to get back a Hitmonchan appeared and delivered [Mach Punch] at Primeape's side.
Primeape took the hit and recovered quickly, almost on instinct everyone pulled out a ball and Pikachu's cheeks started sparking, but Primeape held out his hand indicating for everyone to stop, he wanted the battle for himself.
Just looking at the two Pokemon Primeape was definitely stronger but he was being weighed down and fatigued from the Gravity training, but that didn't stop him.
Everyone put their Pokeballs down and looked at the Hitmonchan that appeared out of nowhere, "Is that a wild Hitmonchan?" Brock asked, looking at the Pokemon jump from one leg to another.
"Not likely, Hitmonchan don't tend to live in the wild just like this," Ash said looking at Primeape walking up to Hitmonchan.
"Just don't use that, you are only allowed to when I say you can," Ash yelled out to Primeape making him nod and face the fighting type.
"So if Hitmonchan doesn't live here then where's his trainer?" Yellow asked, making everyone shrug.
The battle itself commenced with a [Thunder Punch] from Hitmonchan, which Primeape took to the face and used as an opening to deliver a [Drain Punch] to Hitmonchan's stomach, getting some health back.
Hitmonchan reeled back a bit from the punch letting Primeape deliver a [Power-Up Punch] to his face, sending him off his feet.
Hitmonchan got back onto his feet panting and stared down at Primeape, he widened his stance and lowered his body to allow him to take the next attack without falling.
And indeed it did, with Primeape running in sending a [Karate Chop] aiming to knock Hitmonchan down again.
But this time Hitmonchan blocked the attack with his big red hands and forced his arm down leaving an opening, Hitmonchan then started sending in jabs of his own, each forcing Primeape to restart his windup with no chance of a counterattack.
For them, it felt like hours but only 3 seconds passed, and Hitmonchan never took a breath of air continuing to punch in hopes of ending this now, but Primeape never went down, he never even made the attempt to block, he took the hits and kept preparing.
And eventually, the time came, when Hitmonchan had to take a breath.
Ash finally spoke up, "Now"
Primeape wound up his fist and started going for an uppercut, the move that he was using was called [Gazelle Punch].
Primeape was shorter as such he had the advantage using this, his fist was raised to a 90-degree angle as his feet slightly left the ground, and his left fist connected onto the chin of Hitmonchan.
Hitmonchan was sent flying back and landed on his knee, a good 5 seconds passed with Hitmonchan struggling to get back up and raise his fists again, and when he got up he looked at Primeape and then fell over.
When he fell a large muscular man came running over and went to a knee picking up Hitmonchan, "Hitmonchan are you ok,"
"I guess it did have a trainer huh," Yellow mumbled.
The man (who was known as Anthony) returned Hitmonchan to his Pokeball and looked over at Ash, "I assume it was your Pokemon that managed to beat Hitmonchan."
Misty's eye twitched, "Hey don't you go blame us, Hitmonchan attacked us and we exerted our right for self-defense!"
Just then a young girl came running in and stood in between, she was Rebecca, "Daddy, please you lost so you should come home!"
"Rebecca?" Anthony took a step back, before looking away, "Well I wasn't giving orders to Hitmonchan so it doesn't really count, so I'm not stopping until I win the P-1."
Rebecca wanted to say something but Anthony ran away before she could, making her sigh and look at the ground.
She then looked over at the group, Yellow and Misty were already holding onto Brock's collar and holding him back from dropping to the floor.
Rebecca bowed, "I'm really sorry my father bothered you, and I'm sorry to ask but could you follow me to town I want to ask something."
Before anyone could say anything Brock broke free sending Yellow and Misty falling to the ground, though Yellow was caught by Dody, but Misty just fell down, and after that, Psyduck came out holding out his arms to catch her.
Brock stepped in front of everyone and grabbed Rebecca's hand, "Of course, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth, lead the way, and ask anything you want!"
Ash was in the back holding his head in frustration, since he was specifically trying to avoid this town specifically for that, unlike back in Pokemon teck he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Rebecca led the group to town and explained how Rebecca's father left her and her mother to train in the mountains in hopes of winning the P-1 Grand Prix, short for the number one Pokémon Grand Prix.
"So that is why I want to ask you, you beat my father before can you do it again in the P-1?"
"Wait so why do we need to do that, if he enters he would either win or lose, and wouldn't that just give the same result? " Yellow asked
Rebecca shook her head, "Unfortunately if only that were true, if my father wins then he'll want to do it again and again and again, if he loses he might come to his senses and come home."
"So will you do it?" Rebecca said, looking at Ash.
They reached the road right in the middle of town outside of the giant stadium where the tournament would be held. Ash stepped out of line and looked Rebecca straight in the eyes and calmly said one thing.
"I refuse."
Everyone fell over and Brock immediately jumped up and started shaking Ash by the shoulders, "Ash this nice girl is asking for help and you just said no, reconsider!"
"St op sha king me so mu ch" Ash struggled to say when eventually Brock let go.
Ash was rubbing his head with the slight pain, "I swear you people are going to make me an invalid, anyway, I said I wasn't going to battle I never said I wouldn't help."
"How are you planning to help then?"
"I made a phone call," Ash said, giving a smile back at the group.
About a minute later a large man that towered over everyone approached them, it was Giant.
"Little friend, I'm glad to see your OK, I haven't seen you since the S.S. Anne, are you here for the P-1 as well?" Giant said much more enthusiastically than anyone expected.
Ash waved his hand, "No and I'll cut to the case, you wanna win?"
"Well of course I have been training for this for quite some time," Giant said before Ash grabbed him by the coat.
"Alright cool, congratulations I'm training you now," Ash said as he started dragging Giant back into a nearby gym to train.
Everyone was left standing there looking at Ash walk away in silence, it was only broken when Yellow spoke up and asked, "Soooo, should we get lunch?"
—
{Over with Ashtwo}
It had been a few days, thankfully he didn't need sleep so after some nonstop biking he finally arrived at the place, it was right outside of Saffron City, thankful he could conceal his Aura so there was no chance of Sabrina finding out.
Looking at the rows of ten-story old residential buildings that had been abandoned for an unknown time, it could be seen that no one had lived there for a long time. One of the many abandoned streets in Saffron.
He would probably call it the Ghetto if anyone lived there but it was completely abandoned, he didn't see anyone anywhere.
Walking around his footsteps were muffled by the sounds of gravel and broken stone, which only added to the dreary atmosphere, it seemed like something taken directly out of a horror movie.
Before coming here he wanted to ask people about the situation, but even after entering some of the buildings, no direct sign of People was seen, only the occasional Pokemon.
He continued searching with Meowth sitting on his shoulder at the ready.
The mission he got from Sayoko was to find out what happened to the Commander, extra points if he was alive, and even more if the Grunts were as well. Other than that he had nothing.
It took about an hour of searching before he found anything of note, signs of a struggle, but not human on human, it looked more like Pokemon on Human. He followed the trail which led him to the west side of the small town.
This side was much more infested with Plants, and yet he didn't see as many as you would think, and still no human signs.
Continuing into the forest he saw a large manor hidden, and there seemed to be a large amount of cocoons around but there wasn't any movement anywhere.
Out of curiosity, Ash went to the one that looked the freshest and ordered Meowth to open it, and after he did a man gasped for air, he looked weak and dehydrated so Ash handed him a flask of water which he drank.
After he finished he looked at Ash letting both get a good look at each other, the man looked to be in his late 30s and had a black suit that looked very similar to Neo-Team Plasma getup only with a large red R.
When he took a look at Ash he straightened up as well as he could, "I see you are also from headquarters, I am Commander Aman, may I know your ID and name."
"Don't bother, I'm a new recruit, I just go by D. but what happened here?"
"Very well this area was occupied by rogue scientists that studied ways to power up Pokemon easily without training, so Team Rocket was sent to either recruit them or eliminate them, but when we arrived they were already Pokemon food."
Ash frowned behind the scarf, "Then what captured everyone."
"The Pokemon, specifically Beedrills and Rattata," he said
Ash's brow raised, "What do you mean, from a trainer or wild?"
"We couldn't tell, they definitely didn't have a Ball, but they also seemed coordinated, but too coordinated if you understand."
Ash nodded and tossed a knife over to Aman, "Find anyone who is still alive and get out of here, I'll take care of the manor."
"But you're just one recruit, let's wait for reinforcements."
"It's fine, I can take care of myself and I now know the dangers unlike you did, you should try to prioritize saving as many people as you can."
Aman lowered his arms, "You're right I suppose, but first I need to ask you something important."
Ash looked back at Aman and looked seriously, "What is it?"
"Do you have any rations on you, we haven't eaten in a while, anything will do even Pokemon food," Aman said, making Ash and Meowth fall over.
"Fine here you go," Ash said passing a bag with a few snacks and Berries over to Aman along with his flask, it may have just been junk food and fruit but to people who haven't eaten it seemed like a 5★ meal.
Aman took it and went running over to the cocoons which presumably held people inside.
Meanwhile, Ash stared down this manor and wondered what was inside.