Vanish

Chapter 13

Ash stretched an arm out to point to a small gathering of people around a hot air balloon the next afternoon. "They're over there."

"How do you know?" Misty asked.

Ash gave her a look that said, 'why-do-you-even-bother-asking-that?'. "Because I know," he replied. "Let's go."

They were about thirty or so feet away from the crowd when they heard some familiar voices...

"Just let them go easily, or we'll blast you to the high heavens!" shouted James.

"You're not just going to get away with all these people's pokémon!" Ash heard May's voice cry out.

"Oh really? I'd like to see you try to stop us!" Jessie said haughtily.

Ash grabbed Misty's forearm and dragged her toward the scene, intending to put a stop to it himself.

"If you even try to get your pokémon out of the net, we'll have Pikachu Thunderbolt them!" James warned.

Ash flinched but still made his way through the crowd, grabbing a pokéball from his backpack.

"We're going to get those pokémon back, no matter what!" That was Max... "You don't have all the pokémon! We can still stop you!"

"Yeah! Beautifly, I choose you!" There was a sound of an opening pokéball, and the call of an all-too-familiar butterfly pokémon.

"No," Ash muttered, pushing through the last of the people and stepping in front of Brock, May, and Max. He shepherded Misty behind him as well and threw his own pokéball, letting out Grovyle. He glanced back at his friends. "No offense, guys, but stay the hell out of this."

"Ash?" Brock inquired curiously.

Ash ignored him and called out, "Grovyle, use Leaf Blade to break through the rope holding the net!"

Grovyle jumped up and did as he was told, making the net fall apart, dozens of pokémon spilling onto the crowd, where their owners caught them happily.

"Hey! Those are our stolen pokémon!" James yelled. To Ash, he said, "You just never learn, do you?"

There was a chorus of 'thanks, kid,' before the crowd of people began to return their pokémon to their pokéballs, and quickly left the scene, leaving only Ash and his friends...and Drew?

"I'd say it's time to make them blast off again," May hissed, and she called out to her Beautifly again. "Use Silver Wind, Beautifly!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Ash wished he could shove them back in there. Pikachu was on that balloon...

"Pikachu, use Thunder!" Jessie ordered, pointing at Beautifly.

"Piiikaaaa...CHUUUU!" A stream of electricity leapt off Pikachu and struck Beautifly, who fell to the ground. May ran to her pokémon, who looked pretty bad.

Ash's eyes flashed with anger. "Grovyle, use-"

"I wouldn't do that," Jessie advised. "You know you don't want to hurt Pikachu. Now just let us leave. You should consider yourself lucky, because we're letting you get off easy. We wouldn't want a replay of last time, would we, twerp? Except this time it'd be worse... Oh, so much worse..."

"What's she talking about, Ash?" Brock whispered.

Ash ignored Brock again and saw Drew look over to May, who looked devastated. She was kneeling over her Beautifly, trying to carefully help him up and get him to the pokémon center.

Ash felt a wave of guilt. It was Pikachu who did that... His fault...

"Roselia, come on out!" Drew suddenly cried, throwing his pokéball. "Use Solar Beam on that balloon!"