The masked Phantom ran away immediately after he said his goodbye, and a large middle aged lady got out of the car and chased him in the direction of where he was escaped towards, or where the last wind blew towards.
Unfortunately, she couldn't catch up in time because of her weight, but did manage to pick up a pen, a pen that belonged to her son.
The lady was wearing all the famous brands and jewels one could think of and possibly more. Ash's eyes suddenly lit up when he saw the lady looking so sad while looking at the pen and where the Phantom ran away. This must be one of the mission a NPC gives the main character; meaning him. The reward for completing such a mission might be hefty, too good for him not to do.
It may be that the masked guy who calls himself the Phantom must have his own reasonings for covering up his face and running away so suddenly.
Sure enough, the lady turned around and asked the group, "Are you with that Masked Coordinator, a companion of the Phantom Coordinator?"
As she said this, the aunt was also seeming to talk to herself, and without asking any questions, she began to say responsibly and ridiculously, "What did you do to my lovely son? Come on, tell me everything you did clearly! It's all your fault!"
Just saying that wasn't enough fo their, she also reached out to grab towards where Ash was. Ash couldn't just let this random woman touch him, she wasn't even beautiful, and caught her arm before she could catch his collar. "Alright lady, please be patient, I was just having a battle with the Phantom," he said while his taller frame catching her off guard. "It was just a battle between two Pokémon Trainers, and we also don't even know each other, so you're being hostile for no reason."
"Oh, and I am Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town, also a certified Pokémon Investigator, how can I help you?" This eas a standard way to ask the special NPC for that mission.
Apparently this lady was called Mrs. Grimm. After listening to Ash's words and hearing that he was a real Pokémon Investigator, she finally calmed down, took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears and said.
"Recently, my lovely little son Timmy has started to skip classes and not even going to tutoring leasing, so I commissioned a detective to investigate in detail on why he was doing that. They then discovered that wherever Timmy went, that guy known as the Phantom also appeared.
"My child must have been deceived by that the Phantom guy and led to do bad things with him!"
Ash's mouth twitched when he heard this, it sounded just like a certikg friendly neighborhood hero.
If that really was the case as Ash imagined, the reason why the Phantom wears a mask is also a very very clear answer.
That Timmy kid was the Phantom, Ash could alsomt immediately confirm this after listening to the full mission description fork Mrs. Grimm. The only question now is why did Timmy put on a mask and become the masked Phantom?
And also why his mother never tried to talk to him about this?
They just heard this when Mrs. Grimm finally announce the mission to them, "You guys are all Pokémon Trainers, please. Please help me expose the true identity of the Phantom. Of course, I will definitely reward you guys for that!"
This is exactly what Ash had been waiting for so so long. Just look at this lady's bulging purse, she must be very rich, and she will definitely be able to give them a lot of things.
Even money, which they didn't lack, was a good thing here.
Ash of course readily accepted this new task.
Then he got ready and said, "Can you then come to watch the Pokémon Contest happening tomorrow at the DOME?"
"A Pokémon Contest?" The aunt was a little stunned, and then thought that the Masked Phantom would definitely participate in their town's Pokémon that will be happening tomorrow, so she nodded and agreed to it thinking this will help help her send the Phantom send away.
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This was how the Pokémon Contest in Verdanturf Town begins!
Ash took some time to beat up as many Pokémon Trainers and Pokémon Coordinators as possible, and finally collected the 3,000 Exchange Points he needed.
The Z-Crystal he wants to redeem this time was none other than the Rockium-Z. This was for his stronger Pokémon's in the Lab who had finally grown up to their current point and now can finally have this new extremely powerful move.
This final attack was non other than Continental Crush!
So far, Ash had successfully redeemed four Z-Crystals: Electrium Z, Dragonium Z, Waterium Z, and now Rockium Z.
His progress in collecting them can be said to be very fast.
"Ok, Timmy!" Ash, who was waiting in the waiting area along with his girlfriend, May, suddenly called out to the masked Phantom.
Sure enough, he showed a clear tremble across his whole body but he ultimately refused to admit that he was TIMMEH, "Timmy? I've never heard of that person!"
"Okay okay, as they say, tomato potato. Let's talk about why you escaped last time. You were still clearly there, watching us talk while hiding carefully. How about you go back?" Ash looked at the Phantom and smiled.
Hearing this, the Phantom, or Timmy, suddenly became angry after this, "So you're trying to stop me too!"
"My mother left me a lot of homework, enough that 8 people need to do simultaneously to finish, and I couldn't even leave the room until I finished it all! If my dad hadn't let me out, I would have missed this Pokémon Contest!" He admitted it. He admitted he was Timmy, he even took off his mask, revealing his childish and timid face.
When he puts on the mask, he was the famous and arrogant Phantom, but when he takes off the mask, he cannot resist his strong mother and escapes.
"I understand your pain, I'm just like you. So this will be your last time participating in a Pokémon Contest for a while. Cherish this!" Ash patted him on the shoulder. That's all he could do as an acquaintance. The rest depends on Timmy's own will.
Of he really was a Pokémon Trainer or a Pokémon Coordinator, he needs to have the courage to back up his goal.
Seeing Ash turn and leave, Timmy gritted his teeth, seemed to have made a conscious decision, and put on his mask again.
"Babe, when was tomato and potato the same thing?" May asked cutely, "and when did you knew that the Phantom was actually Timmy himself?"
"You don't need to think all of that, just concentrate hard on your upcoming performances." He finished his sentence with a kiss to her red lips.
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The first round of this Pokémon Contest went as smoothly as one would expect.
Jessie had already been blacklisted from Pokémon Contest due to her cheating in the last Pokémon Contet, so she simply changed her name to another one. Simple but somehow still effective. This time, she was genuinely trying her and did not try cheat at all, and finally got a very good score of 28.5.
She was really talented at such a thing, maybe just as good at she was at doing business.
However, Mays try wasn't the best. There was a few mistakes in May and Skitty's performances together, and her Blizzard failed to perform like they had practiced for, but in the end they still managed to use their Double Slap to finish the ball, which brought out Skitty's cuteness very well, and finally managed to get a score of 24.9.
25 points was the sure hit line, a safety line basically. If one does cross it, they will most likely be able enter the second round of the Contest; however, that may not be the case if there are many well trained Pokémon Coordinators in there. But compared to other Pokémon Coordinators who only hover around the 20 point line, this score was not that bad, and there was still some hope left for May.
Ash's Meganium level was simply too high, and her control of all of her moves were almost perfect and very exquisite, almost at their peak usability.
Ash just thought of a few combinations of moves on the spot and got the very high score of 29.8 points, almost a perfect score, and the whole audience was excited, especially Ash's biggest Pokémon Contest fan, that being Vivian.
Even Ash didn't realize how big of a fan she had became for him after his one Contest performance back when he was at Slateport City.
Finally, it was Timmy's or the Phantom and Dusclops turn to go. It can be seen that he really tried his best and performed very well, with a final score of 28 points.
So it was the four people Ash knew, including himself, who managed to enter the second round of this Contest.
After some random arrangement and combination, Ash had to face Jessie, and May will have to face the Phantom/Timmy who defeated Drew.
Drew did ultimately decide not to participate as he was at the Pokémon Center with his injured Roselia, watching and secretly supporting Ash and May from there.
"Boss? Why? What did I ever do wrong?" Jessie was more than stunned when she relaxed that her "Boss" was standing opposite to her.
Ash smiled and said, "Jessie, have a battle with me without having regret. Let out bond bloom, Meganium!"
"As soon as Ash's Meganium came on stage, the whole place has now filled with a delightful floral fragrance that can attract anyone. Wow, this is the perfect blend of intoxicating and refreshing!" Vivian closed her eyes and felt the floral fragrance wafting in the air, and felt refreshing.
She genuinely loved the first time Ash had performed with his little Ralts against Milotic and its Trainer, Robert.
Coupled with Meganium's beautiful posture and the entrance of delightful smell, and Jessie ahving just made her debut with her Dustox, Jessies points had already been deducted a small amount from them.
"What?" Jessie suddenly flailed to realize something very important, "We can't be afraid, come on, Dustox!"
"Dustox, use Poison Jab!" Jessie restrained her fear and admiration of Ash and took the lead in launching her attack.
However, without even needing Ash's orders, a colorful light curtain was set up in front of Meganium, making it difficult to take one's eyes away from it.
"Meagnium had just used her Safeguard without needing Ash's command, it's such a beautiful thing!" Vivian was already fascinated with this giant and beautiful Meganium, but now this had just boosted her fascination for it.
Dustoxs Poison Jab was blocked, and because this move was also very beautiful and countering, Jessie's score was greatly deducted, leaving a little more than half of it left.
"Damn it, Dustox, use Psybeam!" Jessie could no longer care about her stage performance and wanted to have a force win.
"Petal Dance!"
It seemed to Ash that Jessie had forgotten how many times she had to lost this Meganium with even stronger Pokémon's than her current ones. So Ash had to give her a reminder of this fact.
Meganium launched one of her strongest moves after hearing Ash's command, large amounts of flowers spread all over the stage, and Dustox completely lost his fighting ability without being able to do anything to stop it.
"Dustox lost his ability to fight and all his points were deducted. Coordinator Ash has defeated opponent Jessie with a crushing attitude. His Meganium really is a powerful and beautiful creature. I really can't find a way to discrive how awesome she really was!"
When the second battle between May and the Phantom/Timmy began, Timmy's mother, Mrs. Grimm, also finally arrived at the venue, albeit a little later than Ash had hoped. In fact, she had already guessed deep inside of her heart that the masked Phantom was her son, Timmy. However, she just didn't want to except that her lovely son could be the Phantom.
She nodded towards Ash without saying anything else, and just watched the rest of her son's battle from the audience section, along with Ash's own group.
In fact, Mrs. Grimm also really loved Pokémon when she was a child, but something happened that completely changed that.
When she was younger, her family had forcefully separated her from her lively little Poochyena.
It's not that she doesn't like Pokémon, she just doesn't want her son experience the same pain of separation like she previously had felt. Since she thought Pokémon's and human are destined to be separated again, it was a better idea not to be together in the first place, to completely avoid this hidden issue.
This was her very paranoid idea, and this had also affected her husband and son very much.
Ash had already known about this the last time she talked to him and his group, so yesterday he made a bet with Mrs. Grimm, asking her to keep an eye on Timmy. He was betting on whether Timmy would run out to participate in this Pokémon Contest at all cost or no.
Now it seems that Ash won their little bet, and the bet was that Mrs. Grimm would quietly watch Timmy's battle if Ash won, which he clearly did.
For Pokémon Trainer, sometimes the Trainers can do more things in a battle than anywhere else. To them, a battle was a way to talk and experience new things.
"May, let's have fight a battle without leaving any regrets!" Tommy was going to give it his all and treat this Pokémon Contest as if this was last even Pokémon Contest that he was part of.
"Go, Dusclops!" He spent all his efforts to get this Dusclops from a Pokémon Breeded with the help of his father when it was just a newly hatched Duskull. The bond between them was this high for this exact same reason.
"Skitty, get on stage and she them what we can do!" May also sent out her Skitty, the one she was training to be her second Contest Pokémon after her Beautifly.
These two Pokémon, one was of the Ghost-type and the other was of the Normal-type, are very interesting in type restraint.
Ghost-type skills are ineffective against Normal-type Pokémon's, and Normal-type skills are also invalid against Ghost-type Pokémon's.
Simple thing, honestly.
How this battle will be fought all depends on how the Trainers on both sides respond to each others move. This battle can go towards many different directions for both of them .
However, May was at a disadvantage here. Ash has never truly trainer any Ghost-type Pokémon so far, Annihilape doesn't count as Ash had only battled with him a couple times when Ash sometimes brings his older Pokémon's with him to bond. And not to mention his Wobbufett that hardly does anything.
And May also has very little to no experience on how to deal with such Ghost-type Pokémon's.
"Dusclops, use Focus Puch!"
That is to say, concentrated everything on one single punching. Timmy was indeed quite talented in such things. He could even have his Dusclops learn how to use a Fighting-type attack just to restrain the Normal-types that it normally can't deal with. And it just happens that Skitty was a pure Normal-type Pokémon.
May failed to react in time, and her Skitty was hit hard by this punch as she didn't attack him to stop the attack from being charged, and her points was immediately deducted significantly. Not only because of the damage her Skitty took, but also because of how she wasn't able to react in time.
There was new kind of flash in Timmy's eyes. Mrs. Grimm had never seen Timmy look so confident. The son she always knew and remembered was the kind of submissive child who didn't even dare to speak loudly because people would look at him.
Maybe this is what he really looked like when he could something he truly liked to do. Putting on that mask releases his true self, something she could never bring out.
"Skitty, use Double Slap!" May gave her order, but the Double Slap had no effect on the Ghost-type Dusclops.
Her only means to deal damage was now to use Blizzard, which usually doesn't even work in the first place, and Assist, which she has no control of what kind of moves will be used.
Skitty was beaten back again, and May finally gritted her teeth, "Skitty, use Assist!"
This time they were a little lucky. Skitty used Torchic's Ember attack, which immediately caused damage to Dusclops for the first time in this battle.
"Skitty used her Assist skill to use a teammates Ember, which really was a strock of luck!" Vivian couldn't help but praise May's good luck.
"Dusclops, use Will-O-Wisp!" Timmy immediately changed his tactics and used his own fire to extinguish it.
A forest-blue fireball appears out of thin air, which would definitely be a good trick to frighten people in the night, it would be even better if it was in a forest.
May's score was deducted again as her Skitty was hit again and couldn't do anything's
"Skitty, are you okay?" May exclaimed, her Skitty has fallen into the burn condition, and Will-O-Wisp was even worse as it did more and more damage as time passes.
"Dusclops, give that cat the final blow, use Focus Punch again!" At this moment, Timmy was high-spirited and full of fighting spirit. He pulled his cloak down and announced his final attack.
This was the final blow, or she he thought. If the two use Assist and it turns out to be an attack that doesn't do anything to Dusclops, May will lose the fight right here.
The only way now is to give everything she had in this move.
"Skitty, use Blizzard!" At the last moment, May ultimately chose to use Blizzard, which had continued to fail again and again. She believed that her Skitty would definitely respond to her heart and mange to land this attack.
It really did succeeded, Blizzard was an incredibly powerful move, and Dusclops flew away and stood there, completely frozen.
At the end of the time, Timmy still had more points, so he won this match.
"Yes! We did it, Dusclops!" Timmy happily cheered up, but in the next second in the corner of his eye, he saw someone who was watching him from below very closely.
It was his mother.
But he didn't say anything and turned around and came back to the waiting area.
Ash was gently comforting his girlfriend, who had lost the battle.
"Ash, the next tound will be a battle between you and me. I know I can't beat you, but I will fight and try my best until the very end!" Timmy said his final words and left the area.
"Okay, whatever. Babe, go to Pikachu's and the others side and watch the rest of my battle." Ash just nodded at him, gave May a little pat on the head, and handed over two cookies to her. May was immediately happy and cheered up from her lose, after all, food was more important to her than anything else.
"Dear viewers, the Verdanturf Town Pokemon Contest has finally entered the final round!" Vivian was now looking forward to the appearance of Ash and his beautiful Meganium.
"Go, Dusclops!" Timmy's fighting spirit has reached its highest point. Although he can't see his Dusclops expression, his momentum was equally strong.
Ash smiled and threw out his Poké Ball,
"Let your petals bloom, Meganium!"
Before this battle, Meganium had already defeated Dusclops instantly with one single move, Petal Dance, but it shouldn't be that easy now as knocking out the opponents Pokémon in a single move was not allowed.
"Petal Dance!"
Ash decisively used Petal Dance again, but a weaker version compared to the last time. If he was defeated by the same move for the second time, even Ash himself would not be able to justify it.
"Dusclops, use Psybeam!"
Offense was the best defense, Timmy actually used his Psybeam to resist Meganium's weaker Petal Dance.
Seeing this, Ash smiled softly, "Synthesis!"
The beautiful petals were flying high, the new colorful lights were bursting, and Meganium absorbed the rays from all the lights to make herself sparkle. This was simply a beautiful performance.
"It's so beautiful. Ash and his Meganium's performances are really breathtaking!" Vivian can't find the words to praise Ash and Meganium. She even sported a new blush.
"Damn it!" Timmy gritted his teeth when he saw Judy how many of his points had been deducted.
Seeing his expression, Mrs. Grimm was finally moved. She had never seen her child want to do something this much, and he was doing well in it too.
"Dusclops, use your strongest Hyper Beam!"
Timmy still lost his sense of proportion and used the strongest move his Dusclops knew.
How will Ash chose to deal with such a situation?
"Petal Dance!" It was still that same Petal Dance. The petals were so strong that they could even tear the Hyper Beam into so many pieces. This immediately caused all the audience and judges to be stunned.
Ash's Petal Dance was both a perfect Pokémon Contest move and an extremely powerful move.
"Damn it! What should I do?" Even though he was full of fighting spirit, all his attacks were torn to pieces by Ash. That feeling of powerlessness made Timmy feel desperate.
"Timmy!" At this moment, Mrs. Grimm support, aka her voice, arrived to help him.
"How could you be so easily swayed? Dusclops is still fighting because he put his trust in you. You have to believe in your Pokémon and fight hard until the end!"
She finally understood her sons stubbornness came from her, not his father. If she had this same courage and persistence as her son, her Poochyena would still be by her side. There was the kind of bond a Trainer and a Pokémon can share.
"Yes!"
After receiving his mother's approval, Timmy suddenly regained his old fighting spirit. He no longer needed to feel entangled or confused. He wanted to have a good fight with Ash, one he could feel proud to know.
"Dusclops, use Will-O-Wisp!"
The same forest blue fireball appeared again, but this time it enveloped him. Timmy's eyes flashed, "Ash, I understand, thank you for everything you have done for me! I will fight you with all my strength!"
All the audience members saw Dusclops rushing towards Meganium in a new found speed.
"Focus Punch!"
That punch that had accumulated all of Timmy's fighting spirit, and even the previous Will-O-Wisp, making it have a overwhelming feeling to it.
But Ash's order was still the same calm and gentle ever present voice, "Vine Whip!"
With only the last few seconds left, Meganium's Vine Whip poked out like a snake, rolled up Dusclops' thick hind legs, and threw it to the ground!
"Time is over! Ash and Meganium defeated the Phantom by a huge score and won the Verdenturf Town Ribbon of this Pokémon Contest!"
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