Ash and the group left Navel Island a week after winning the badge, the challenges had been fun and enjoyable, something that he happily told Danny. Danny smiled and ruffled his hair fondly and helped all three of them with their training while explaining about the responsibilities of the Gym Leaders of the Orange Archipelago. The Gym Leaders were the literal heads or Leaders of their Islands as they were the strongest fighters on the respective island. It was up to them to make the important decision regarding the safety of the islands and the people and Pokemon around them. Another thing that happened was Ash's last egg hatched and he got himself a fourth baby, a Lapras. Omanyte did not count as a baby, as he was pretty much capable of taking care of himself already.
Danny, "Congratulations Ash, he is very healthy."
Ash grinned, "Thank you Danny. Hello there handsome little guy. Welcome to the family."
Lapras cooed as he rubbed his cheek against Ash's cheeks and Gou was live filming it for the rest of the group. It was always amazing to watch new Pokemon being born no matter how many times they had seen it now. Tracey drew the two of them together while Ash introduced Lapras to the rest of the family getting happy trills. Milotic, Wartotle, Kingler and Omanyte were very happy to have another water Pokemon with them and happily welcomed the young male.
Misty, :Ah! I'm so jealous right now.:
Lana, :I feel you Misty.:
Mallow, :Yeah! The two of you really like water types, don't you?:
Serena, :I'm seriously tempted to go to Kanto just to start my journey. D: But mom won't let me!:
Gary, :That sucks Re!:
Lillie, :Don't worry Re, you'll get a Pokemon soon. Congratulations Ash! I'm very happy to say I am getting along quite well with my Weedle. *insert pic*:
Ash, :Congratulations on having your own baby Pokemon, Lillie.:
Gou, :I'm very happy to see you able to touch Pokemon and getting along well with them.:
Kiawe, :It took a while but Lillie did it.:
Ritchie, :Great job and congratulations to both.:
Gary, :Speaking of poke eggs, I saved one from the poachers Blue and I ran into last week. Before you ask I have no idea what Pokemon it is.:
Green, :This would be your third egg each right, Gary, Ash?:
Ash, :Yeah?:
Leaf, :Trainers who have successfully helped in a total of six Pokemon being born while on a journey gets a Beginner Breeder certificate.:
Sophocles, :That's the same case here. You guys just need three more eggs and you can become official Breeder beginners.:
Gary, :Not my cup of tea. But I guess it'll be useful.:
Zoey, :Ash?:
Duplica, :Will you be getting one?:
Gou, :It'll be pretty cool.:
Ash, :We'll see, once we get the sixth egg.:
Tracey, :We were lucky enough to see one poke egg hatch.:
Sophocles, :True that!:
The next few days were spent with helping Lapras adjust to the new RMB and family, the little guy according to Lucario had been siphoning Ash's aura as an egg. Ash looked surprised before looking at Lapras and wondering if he would be like Milotic and be able to aura talk. Danny saw them off at the end of the week and advised them to visit the famous seven grapefruit islands where his cousin Ruby worked.
Ash, "Thanks Danny, we will, it sounds like a fun way to relax."
Danny, "No problem kiddo! I enjoyed my time with you as well."
Gou, "Take care Danny."
Tracey, "Let's meet up again!"
Danny, "Bye kids, young man!"
The group flew towards the island but stayed close to the water as Lapras insisted on swimming by himself. Ash chuckled to himself, the little guy was barely one week old and yet he already insisted on doing things by himself. He was truly the nephew of a leader considering he took lead of the water Pokemon swimming in the water. Gou giggled seeing his water Pokemon indulge the young Lapras's wishes and follow his lead. They took break after an hour in small islands that surrounded Navel island to let the youngest Pokemon catch his breath before moving forward.
Tracey, "There it is! One of the famous Seven Grapefruit Island!"
Ash, "Cool! All the seven islands are close to each other and hold up...."
Gou, "What's wrong?"
Ash pointed at one of the island, "I thought all seven islands were used to grow grapefruit, why is that one barren?"
Tracey looked at the empty island gaping, "I... That's not normal."
Lucario, -I see a few people down there. They might be able to answer us.-
Fearrow gave a cry and flew down and Ash called, "Excuse me!"
One of the workers looked up, "Hello, visitors, I'm afraid we cannot have you here. We are facing a crisis at the moment."
Gou, "We can see that, what happened here? I'm Gou, these are my friends Ash and Tracey."
Another worker spoke up, "Danny told me about you three, I'm Ruby, welcome to Seven Grapefruit Island."
Tracey nodded, "Nice to meet you... Can you tell us what happened?"
Ruby sighed, "It's a family of two Snorlax and three Munchlax. They came here a few days ago and started eating everything."
Ash gaped, "But the amount just one Munchlax eats is massive. If all three of them plus two Snorlax eat here then...."
Ruby nodded, "We know, we asked a few rangers to help but I'm not sure they will be here before they finish eating and head to the next island."
Ash saw the family of Snorlax eating, "Uhhhh.. We could try to keep them occupied here by battling them?"
Charizard rumbled, "Zarrrrrr!"
Ash blinked, "You want to battle?"
Charizard nodded and looked at the male Snorlax challengingly making him grunt and get up, "Zarrrrrrrrrr!
Ruby looked a little worried, "Please be careful not to destroy the island."
Gou, "Don't worry, my Pokemon and I will make sure the battle stays in a specific area."
Tracey, "Looks like the family will not stop eating, I'll keep an eye on them to make sure they don't go to the other island."
Ash, "Charizard, metal armour!"
Charizard roared as he flew into the air and covered his body in metal claw, steel wing and iron tail. The fire type then launched the three attack one after another at the large Pokemon who flinched only after being hit by the third attack.
Ash, "He's a tough one, alright aerial wing!"
Snorlax yawned and Ash called out another attack, "Use agility to dodge those bubbles, don't let them touch you."
Charizard's eyes sharpened and used agility to dodge as well as boost his attack speed before tackling Snorlax. The powerful attack pushed Snorlax back by a few distance and the two Pokemon regarded each other before Snorlax fell. Ash quickly took a pokeball before remembering he had a heavy ball and threw it at the Snorlax catching it. The heavy ball dinged after wiggling three times and Ash gave a relieved sigh before picking it up.
Ash, "Looks like we have a new family member."
Lapras barked excitedly from the beach, he had seen the battle and wanted to learn how to fight as well. Charizard rumbled amused at the young water type and barked back a promise to teach him a few moves later. He had overheard Ash and Gou discussing and saying a Lapras could learn hyperbeam. He would teach him that move after he crossed the one year mark for his kind which was five months in human years. Gou had also in the meantime gotten to know one of the Munchlax who had sniffed the packed lunch in his bag. The two had shared the food and Munchlax had decided to go with him and caught herself in one of his pokeballs.
Ash laughed, "We both got a new Pokemon."
Gou grinned, "Yeah!", before turning to the female Snorlax, "I will take care of her I promise."
The female nodded before seeing the Rangers who had come to pick them up and take them to one of the larger islands. The three of them spent the rest of the day in Grapefruit island before leaving for Moro island. Ruby gave each of them a bag of dried and sweet grapefruit as a thanks for helping them out.
Tracey, "It is said that the Moro island is haunted by a ghost ship."
Gou, "Really?"
Tracey nodded, "Many claim to have seen it at night."
Ash, "Huh... Curious, I want to see it too now."
Tracey, "Let's get a room first."
They went to the Pokemon centre where they booked a room for three days, mostly because they wanted to restock on the first and second day and check out the island on the third day. The first two days went by in a blink with them shopping and cooking and storing the food in capsules. They made a very curious and interesting sight for many of the locals and other trainers who watched them but didn't approach. The Charizard and Cinderace's glare was honestly terrifying, not to forget how territorial they looked over their trainers. Whenever the young trainers turned to them however they acted innocent, it gave the curious watchers a whiplash watching them. Was that normal? Is that how fire types really behaved after they evolved? Tracey just snickered behind them at the hilarious scene but didn't bother to tell Ash or Gou when they looked at him curiously. On the third day they decided to check the rest of the island out and saw the museum before the beach. It housed a hundred year old trophy belonging to one of the first Champions of Orange Archipelago. They spent a few hours there till late evening, before heading to the beach in the evening to have a barbeque night. As they were enjoying their meal Pikachu pointed at the distance where they saw a dense fog and the outline of a ship.
Ash, "Is that?"
Gou, "Couldn't be!"
Tracey, "It is... Hey what's that noise?"
Ash looked behind at the museum, "That's an alarm! Let's worry about the ghost ship later."
The two nodded and rushed towards the museum after looking back at the ghostly ship one last time.
Ash, "What happened?"
Officer Jenny, "A few thieves broke in and stole the cup."
Gou, "The one belonging to the Late Champion?"
Officer Jenny nodded grim, "We need to find it and bring it back."
Tracey, "We will help."
The three of them along side an Officer called Ryan decided to check out the beach where Lucario noticed something in the ocean, -I see a boat over there heading to the.... Ghost ship.-
Ash blinked, "Let's go check it out, Mr Ryan, are you okay with flying?"
Ryan, "Just call me Ryan kid, and I'm cool with flying. Come Pidgeot!"
Gou climbed Fearrow, "Great! Let's go after them!"
Tracey, "You really think it's them?"
Ash, "Well, we need to check it out none the less, they really should not be out in this dense fog anyway."
Ryan nodded, "It's very dangerous, I alerted Officer Jenny about what we are doing."
The four of them followed the boat and it's inhabitants who had reached the ship and entered it. Ash and the others nodded and landed only to be surprised to see two Team Rocket grunts holding the cup.
Ryan, "What is the meaning of this?"
Grunt 1, "I recognize you boy, you ruined our plan in Viridian City."
Ash looked taken aback, "You were one of the few who escaped capture.... Well we just need to capture you."
Ryan, "No, let me deal with this two."
Gou, "I'll help, Ash, Tracey there were four of them, two of them are probably inside... "
Ash nodded, "We'll find them."
Ash and Tracey went inside as Gou and Ryan engaged the two grunts in battle, they searched the ship carefully before they heard screams coming from above. They rushed to what looked like the Captain's cabin where they found the two grunts whimpering clutching their head.
Tracey, "I don't know what happened but this makes things easier for us."
Ash nodded, "Let's capture them and hand them over to the authorities."
As Tracey helped Ivysaur secure them and leave, Ash turned to the corner where he noticed five ghost Pokemon and a certain trophy and nodded to them. The five of them were surprised he noticed them in the corner, but nodded back grinning and showing their teeth to him. Ash smirked back before going below deck and joining Gou and Ryan, who had defeated their opponents, telling them they didn't find the trophy. But they found the two grunts, who were probably attacked by the ghost Pokemon who called the ship their home. They left with the tied up Team Rocket members who they handed over to Officer Jenny before they saw a very mystifying and amazing sight. The Ghost ship had risen into the air and under the light of the full moon looked like a picture from a fairytale as it left the island behind.
[A. N.: Hello lovely readers! I'm back with another chapter! I. might be able to upload twice a week now hopefully by Thursday.
Am I the only one unable to use Fast pass to open chapters after the latest update?
I noticed I couldn't open any more Chapters and I still have three Fast pass with me.]