Mending Broken Hearts - Pokeshipping

There's No Peace of Mind!

       

There's No Peace of Mind!

Ash had to seriously question how he had gotten himself roped into battling her, he thought as he stood before the gym's new battle arena as he looked over at Misty on the other side of the field.

Their referee was Violet, who stood in the middle off to the side.  Because Misty was occupied yelling at her sister, Ash took the moment to survey his surroundings more closely, when Lily had shown him around, the lights were out in the battling field, and at the time he hadn't taken the time to properly take in the layout.

The field consisted of a rock oval surrounding a massive water arena – a stark contrast to the old rectangular one from before which had used large floating mats to allow non-water-type Pokémon to battle.  As Misty was preoccupied with her sisters, Ash look absently around the new battling room, and noted that the new layout wasn't quite as friendly with all Pokémon types as Juan of Sootopolis' Gym field had been, or the one Pike Queen Lucy had, but Misty's was still feasible enough to allow there to be a fair advantage for both water and non-water types.

He was also left to wonder whether or not Tracey had had any input on the new design...

Ash was so lost in thought he never noticed when the water had stopped and that it was ready for their battle.  "All right," called Violet, the sudden reality of his impending battle spurred Ash up from his reverie, "this'll be a three-on-three full battle between the Gym Leader, Misty, and Unova League's champion, Ash.  The battle will be over when all three of either side's Pokémon are unable to battle – furthermore, only the challenger will be allowed to substitute their Pokémon, the Gym Leader may not."

Misty narrowed her eyes, to her Ash may be a champion now, but she still had her pride as a Gym Leader on the line and she refused to be beaten so easily.  Ash meanwhile at the sound of Violet's standard referee speech immediately hardened up, his eyes became focused and his mind drifted to just battling, nothing but battling and analyzing.  In recent years Ash had found Pokémon battling to be a wonderful escape from everything, once he got going, everything else was a blur.

"Right then," said Misty to herself before looking towards her opponent.  She quickly fumbled into her pocket for her first choice.  "I choose you, Corsola!" she flung her ball into the air and Corsola popped out onto the rock face in front of Misty, the Coral Pokémon gave an enthusiastic cry.

Normally to battle water-types Ash's first choice would be Pikachu, but Ash had chosen not to give himself the advantage.  At one point not long ago after he defeated Crasher Wake, Ash had realized that in all of his prior battles against Misty, he won because he had used Pokémon with a type advantage against her solely because he had the match up, but in the onetime where he had battled her using his own water-types during the Whirl Cup, and he had lost – badly too, it was a huge embarrassment to him to lose to her Psyduck the way he had.  For the present match, he wouldn't use type advantage, grass or electric-types weren't an option for this one.  He was going to take her on with pure strength just to show her how much better he had become, Ash wasn't sure where the desire stemmed from, but something about it seemed wrong to him, he had to prove he could train water-types.

"Corsola huh?" Ash muttered when he saw her choice.  "A water/rock-type..."  He quickly reached behind him for a ball.  "Oshawott, I choose you!" he hollered.  He flung his ball with a lot more show than Misty did, and his Sea Otter Pokémon materialized onto the rocks. 

"Osha, Oshawott!" the Sea Otter chirped.  Ash gritted his teeth, I can't lose this, he thought. 

Pikachu, who was watching from the stands, looked on worriedly at his trainer, ever since Misty's less than kind words from those years ago, Pikachu had noticed that Ash had never been the same – any thought or reminder he had gotten of her had deeply affected him and Pikachu could remember every night when the nightmares Ash had of her were at their worst, his trainer spent many quiet hours psychologically tortured – and things like the lure, the mermaid show, and being home had made them worse or even affected his health.  Pikachu dearly hoped that Ash wouldn't have a break down during the match, it had been bad enough when Ash had turned that sadness into cold training, but now the catalyst was the very one he had to fight, literally.