Ash Ketchum, Pokemon Master By ZaneT69

Chapter 19

Upon arriving at Vertress City, Ash wasted no time in registering early and getting himself a hotel room... after that it was just him exercising his Pokemon, some mild shopping, and generally being a tourist. Ash had even managed to help some idiot named Cameron who didn't know that he had to register before the conference.

Iris, a wannabe Dragon Master, and Cilan, one of the Striaton City Gym Leaders, both arrived at Vertress City days later. Ash was amused when Iris was knocked into a fountain by a running Bianca and he just couldn't remain silent.

"And Bianca uses Take Down on poor Iris... it was super effective..." Ash said, revealing his presence to the annoying and irritating girl. Iris insulted others and belittled them, even for small lapses and mistakes, due to her own failure to become a Dragon Master and the need to cut people down to her level. Ash didn't hesitate to share his opinion of her with her before leaving her behind.

"Shut up, Ash!" Iris said in annoyance, already climbing out of the fountain.

"And deprive the world of my lovely voice?" Ash asked with a mocking smirk.

"Your annoying voice!" Iris replied angrily.

"That's just the opinion of one failure," Ash said dismissively.

"Why do you dislike Iris?" Bianca asked.

"She insults others out of a deep seated self-loathing for her failure to make any real progress towards her own goal becoming a Dragon Master. I ditched her pretty quickly for being mental poison." Ash replied. "She's also jealous of me for being an actual Dragon Master."

Iris just walked away angrily, but Ash didn't care. Iris was nothing to him... she was nothing period, she still only had one Dragon-type.

The next day...

It was time for the opening ceremonies and Ash was eager to start battling...

"You look excited," Cameron said in observation.

"Yeah. If I win this conference then I'm going to challenge the Elite Four and Alder... if I beat all five then I'll earn myself three million Poke dollars."

"Well, I'm gonna win this one!" Cameron replied, but Ash rolled his eyes. Cameron was no threat to Ash's goals.

Finally, the action seemed to have started... with a man jumping out of a helicopter. Thankfully he had a parachute and safely landed.

"Greetings! Freddy the Scoop is here and ready to roll, and so it's my great honor to welcome you all to the Unova League! Now, if everyone will please turn your attention to the flame cauldron, Vertress City's very own Officer Jenny will light the Unova League flame!"

"Alright, before the main battles we will hold our qualifying rounds. Only those trainers who win will advance to the main event! Each trainer is allowed one Pokemon in our preliminaries... now, up on the screen our qualifying match-ups."

And so began the preliminary rounds...

Ash easily advanced to the qualifying rounds by having his Chandelure two-hit Trip's Serperior... Trip was given a mocking smile and snarky comment immediately afterward.

"Better luck next time, amateur. Maybe you should go back to the basics." Ash said before walking away.

Ash steamrolled his next opponents and he was soon in the Top 8, with Virgil, Dino, Cameron, Russet, Antonio, Ramone, and Katharine having also made it.