Kanto : Going My Way

The Clash Of St. Anne Part 4

Ash Ketchum stood in the massive hall of the ship St. Anne along with many other trainers who had gathered there to participate in the tournament.

3 more days had passed and today was the day of the inauguration of the tournament. In these 3 days the silver haired trainer had come to the reality of his aura...Dark Aura. It wasn't the pure energy he was used to using anymore...It hadn't been since the Cerulean Gym...

...It had gained the taint it now possessed the moment Luxio's claws pierced the blonde lady, Cassidy's throat...

Ash was able to discreetly learn a very saddening and at the same time exciting property of his dark aura...It fed off negative emotions and bloodshed...

...Something Ash had been doing quite a lot.

The silver haired trainer went ahead to experiment with dark aura by making his solidified weapons and throwing them...As he expected there was a new property to them that he hadn't noticed earlier.

His spears were dark murky blackish purple and there was a new corrupting property to them. Basically...Anything made out of dark aura was poison. Any creature under the sun hit by something made out of dark aura would be like getting hit by an assassin's poisoned dagger. Slowly it spreads into the victim's body and rots them inside out.

But that was only a minor accomplishment compared to what Ash was able to achieve with his pokemon. Charmeleon had completed learning Flamethrower, Ivysaur had learnt Protect and his Sludge attack was now stable enough to be used in matches.

Ash had gotten lucky. Ivysaur had managed to get Sludge just last night. Oh and yeah, Ash had managed to patch up Ivysaur's 2 weaknesses making him his ultimate tank.

Grass was weak to fire. Solution? Use wet vines instead of dry ones and absorb moisture from the atmosphere to resist fire as much as you can...The process to that discovery by Ivysaur involved enduring some painful prototype-Flamethrowers by a certain red draconian lizard. And Grass was also weak to Flying. Solution? Simple. Learn Ingrain. That attack provided both support to the plant and protected from the harsh gales while also restoring Health at the same time.

For Ivysaur, learning Ingrain had been a piece of cake.

And so, here Ash stood, inside the hall of the ship, surrounded by spectators from all around the world, ready to begin the preliminary rounds of the fights that were going to take place.

"...Greetings to all the trainers who have assembled here for the preliminary rounds of the tournament that is about to begin..." The familiar woman in a red dress from that day, Angelica announced with a smile as she took her position on the 'stage' of sorts.

She continued with a smile, "As you all know, numerous TMs, healing items and a mystery gift await the one to win this tournament. But worry not. All participants to reach the top 16 will also receive consolation prizes with the trainer to come in 2nd and 3rd receiving some TMs and healing items too. Now the rules are simple. Every preliminary match will be a 1 vs 1. Every trainer is allowed to use only 1 pokemon in one match. When preliminaries are over we will move onto the actual tournament which will be 3 vs 3. Details about the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals will be announced later on. For now I would like to tell all trainers to assemble in the restrooms near the tournament bay. There you will serially receive the details about the one you will have to fight. Thank you and good luck everyone!"

Angelica finished her speech with a dazzling smile on her pretty face as everyone cheered loudly.

Ash nodded mostly to himself as he turned back and started to walk out of the hall...Drawing some inquisitive glances to the silver haired good looking trainer in that red trimmed cape cloak...Aka himself. Soon enough Paul, Cynthia and others followed and the hall was empty.