Snorunt took Ash's hat again and put it on himself just like it did before.
In fact, the reason he even took Ash's hat off as because he liked Ash. He was sitting there and hiding under the snow when Ash was training his Vigoroth before in hand-to-hand combat, and then he followed Ash and the others all the way to the Pokémon Center.
For this reason, Ash chose to teleport his Vigoroth back again for now. Now he had become much more well-behaved and realized that ge is still far from most of his companions in terms of strength and everything in general, so he was willing to take on the Macho Brace for special training.
Now it was time to hand over him to Slowking and the others for his upcoming hellish training.
The only person in Professor Oak's backyard who had the privilege of not participating in training was Ash's Snorlax. He was simply a bug-like existence, but it always worked.
But when Snorlax does begin training for because Ash said he will give him some special food, not even Charizard and the others combined can come close to the training Snorlax does for that food.
After Vigoroth hopefully eventually evolves into a Slaking, Ash hopes that it can be on par with his Snorlax in terms of pure power and potential. And Ash was quite confident about this one.
After crossing the snowfield area, Ash and his party plunged into one of this island's many forest again. They had not camped in this kink of forests for some time now, so they were obviously particularly relaxed for this stop.
And through this forest, once they cross it, they should be able to reach their next destination of Cerosi Town.
As long as they take one of the boats from the harbor of Cerosi Town, they can quickly get to the home of Ash's last Gym Badge, Sootopolis City.
"The map from here looks so close, but it's actually still so far away when you look it the distance. Why is this place so big?" May looked at the navigator in Max's hand and sighed in disbelief. This was one of the travel experiences she will never forget about.
"Yes, this forest is really big, and not to mention this oversized island." Brock smiled at the sibling's antics and put down the spoon in his hand, shouting, "Ash, come on eat! The food is ready!"
"I'm coming!"
Ash yelled out from afar, "Let's go, Snorunt, it's time to eat some of Brock's delicious cooking."
Snorunt was Ash's only Ice-type Pokémon for now. His Lapras was sent to the sea by him with his other older Lapras to get more experience in the wild, and the Articuno he so much wanted to have right now was also something he could not be catch for now.
Now Ash can only train his Snorunt by himself without much experiences from the past, the only thing he could work with was his experience with his Lapras.
However, this little guy can learn a lot of Ice-type moves for being so young. He had already learned how to use a strong attack like Ice Bear before he was caught, but he did not seem to be that proficient in it and sometimes it didn't work well at all. So Ash was now focusing on the special training with his Snorunt to better be able to control the input and output of his energy.
From a certain point of view, Ash can be regarded as a Move Master by now considering he knew many many moves and how to teach and perform them properly. If it was him when he begin his Johto Journey, he would have had a much harder time to even properly process what he was seeing and then having to think about how to go in order to perform them.
"Ra... Lu..."
As soon as he sat down to eat, Ash heard a cry for help with his automatic Psychic Sense. His Ralts on his shoulder also became somewhat nervous and quickly pulled on his hair.
Max also stood up immediately after hearing that voice in his head, "This voice is...Bug Bro, did you hear that too?"
Ash nodded to affirm Max's words. Seeing the confused looks on both Brock's and May's faces, Ash knew that they couldn't hear that cry at all. He immediately told Brock and May, "Brock, you and May wait here while me and Max see where that cry is coming girl."
Brock nodded and before May could even say anything, Ash took off with Max and ran towards where he believed that the sound was coming from .
This was not even the first time that Max was able to hear the voice of a Pokémon. Only Ash and Max were able to hear Jirachi's voice before it came out of its sleeping comet fo.
And this also meant that Max, this sometimes annoying brat that was also quite young, does have the potential to be a powerful Pokémon Trainer with his innate Telepathy ability. In the future, when he will truly become ready to be a Pokémon Trainer, and with Ash's and his own fathers guidance from such an young age, he will definitely achieve some great achievements in the future.
Max's current future development direction was obvious to all of the group and Max's family. Max's current goal was to become a successful Gym Leader of the Petalburg City Gym after his father leaves to become a member of the Hoenn Region Elite 4, and in which Ash does believe he will definitely do a good job.
The current Elite 4 member that is said to be retiring soon was non-other than Drake, who Ash defeated not so long ago. He simply said that he just wanted to sail the seas without thinking of all the responsibilities he had to.
Ash ran very fast with Max needing to be carried by his Psychic while the rest of his Pokémon's, Pikachu, Snorunt, and Ralts, on his shoulders. They quickly passed through much of the forest, and came to a stream in the edge of the forest, where there was a small Ralts, who looked so weak that it seemed to be collapse at any given moment.
"La ral!"
Ash's Ralts immediately teleported to it and gently helped it up.
"Big Bro, that Ralts' condition looks too bad, what should we do?" Max immediately began to panic around. He didn't want to see Ralts in a bad condition, after all Ralts was his favorite Pokémon of all time.
Ash gently hit him on the hand, "You can't panic when things like this happens, otherwise what would you do if you had to think of a way to save a Pokémon? Understand, Max?"
After some careful inspection, Ash found that this little guy was not that older than his own Ralts, so there was no need to mention how weak it was. Now it was covered in many small injuries, but they are not from a Pokémons attacks, but more like from human made weapons. Coupled with the look it had of being all wet, it was now even more sick with the injuries.
"Max, pick up Ralts and leave here quickly and get back to Brock and May. Don't look back." Ash now had his Aura powered blue eyes, his face became more gloomy, and he quickly ordered Max to pick up Ralts and leave here quickly.
And he himself looked at the other side of the stream, where there was already the sound of rustling bushes.
Somebody was coming for them.
Max didn't dare to ignore Ash's words, especially as he seemed cart serious about it, so he quickly picked up the sick Ralts and ran away.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, looks like I'm pretty lucky these days. I took away one small Ralts and you sent me another one. There's also such a rare Pokémon as Togetic and that elusive Snorunt. Every one of them is valuable on the market, hehehe!"
What appeared in front of Ash and his Pokémon's was a strong and sturdy looking middle-aged man with a rough beard. He was walking step by step, accompanied by a Houndoom wearing heavy metallic armor. There was also a rare real shotgun on his hand.
The armor on that Houndoom looked very familiar, and something flashed in Ash's mind, "Were you a part of Team Magma before?"
The middle-aged man was shocked and taken aback when he heard that Ash actually saying his secret identity outline, "How could you know that secret? That's right, Team Magma has been completely disintegrated since the battle on Monsu Island because of some overpowered kid. Those idiots, Maxie and Tabitha, are also in some high-security prison because of him. I originally thought that Team Magma was some very powerful organization with many rules and regulations, but I never really expect it to be disbanded so quickly because of that kid. So I chose to become a Pokémon Hunter and be free from any rules and all regulations! But if I see that so called powerful kid that took all the credits and my fun, I'll beat him up, I swear!"
In other words, this dude was once a powerful Pokémon Hunter, but was then later absorbed into Team Magma after losing to one of their Admins.
Now that Team Magma had been disintegrated because of some kid, Ash, many of those once people who were originally under Team Magmas control have taken the opportunity to return to their old profession and commit even more uncontrolled crimes. Officer Jenny and the others must have been very busy recently because of this.
Ash was kind of responsible here since he was the whole reason these kind of people are appearing more often. Since he did encountered one of the mistakes, he really couldn't let him slide and run away.
"Interesting!" Ash threw out a Poké Ball casually, "Stand by for battle, Absol!"
Seeing Ash's Absol, the man burst out laughing in pure delight, "It really took no effort at all, my luck has been too damn good recently. I just happened to have an order for an Absol, so you brought it to me! And this one is much bigger than the one I was supposed to capture, looks like I'll make some good extra money, hahah! Thanks kid, I'll remember your kindness towards me! Hahah!"
"You really so seem very confident in your prowess, let me see why!" Ash was even more confident in his current strength than this random thug could ever know, "Absol, use Razor Wind!"
This was pretty much Absol's signature attack, the sickle-like horn on its hand shined with a powerful bright white light!
Now Absol had become a very qualified swordsman under Scizor, and that slash was the result of all of his hard work.
"Hmph, I'll show you why I was a Team Magma Captain back in my days!" The middle-aged man threw out another three Poké Balls as he realized that his Houndoom couldn't defeat that monster, "Come on, Shiftry, use Protect! Houndoom, use Protect! Mightyene, use Protect! Skarmory, use your best Protect!"
The whirlwind swept up Shiftry and the other three Pokémon's the moment it was released, and the enemy was barley able to deflected Razor Wind's attack, falling into the forest nearby and cutting down several trees.
Skarmory, who was at the center of the attack, instantly lost all of his power and went completely unconscious. Mightyena, who was next to it, was also hurt very badly, barley being able to open its eyes.
Their Trainer, the Hunter, realized that he messed with someone that he shouldn't have and took back his two injured Pokémon's.
The remaining two were his Shiftry that had seen better days who was also his Ace and his all time strongest Pokémon, and that Houndoom was the leader of a pack of other trainded Houndooms by Team Magma.
These two were his strongest, but they were still nothing in front of Ash and his own Pokémon's.
"A double battle against me?" Ash chuckled darkly and then spreads his hands like he was the King of Curses, "You have some guts, but… sit down, you are weak! Come out, Flygon!"
Both Absol and Flygon were caught by Ash in the Forest of Forina. They have known each other for a very long time. And they are also both the strongest Pokémon's of the forest, guarding it until the next generation took over their duty and then they were able to leave with Ash on his journey. They had worked together many times to develop a kind of tacit understanding that they didn't even need words to convey their message to the other.
Ash was a also little excited, this random Pokémon Hunter was going to be his next punching bag. He has been feeling a little off recently, so he would take his rage out on them.
"Both of you, use a combination Hyper Beam!"
Double destructive Hyper Beam sent both Shiftry and Houndoom flying out and hitting their backs on a cliff. Pikachu didn't even need to do anything, even his Ralts and Togetic could have defeated these two.
Snorunt watched in delight as his seniors beat down two bad opponents in an instant.
However, in the smoke of Hyper Beams, the hunter and his Pokémon's disappeared in an unexpected Teleport by a Drowzew.
Ash's blue Aura powered eyes shone, but he frowned in detest, "The villain is always a villain, I should have known their disgusting kind before. He had no power at all in this fight, so he chases after Max with his goons... no matter, they are still far too weak to do anything. I'll be glad to use them as my punching bag."
'Maya, I really need you about now. I can't handle it any longer.' Ash looked up with a bitter smile.
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{A quick question!! Should I make an R-18 chapter for Maya. She's one of my personal favorites.}