The other enemy Pokemon stopped what they were doing and stared at Ephraim, who had just bitten the Articuno. They looked at each other, then started backing up.

As the ice on the floor started melting, Rhys walked over to David and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. "Leave my Absol alone, or Ephraim will break your precious Articuno's wing."

Jamie watched in horror as the Articuno fired an Ice Beam at the Absol, suddenly Neptune jumped in front of the Absol, suddenly a silver glow washed over Neptune and the Ice Beam was deflected back at the Articuno.

"Mirror Coat! good idea Neptune!" Jamie called.

Neptune wasn't listening, he instead followed his siblings example and leapt at the Articuno, latching onto its other wing and pulling it to the ground.

<You're a Legendary Pokemon for god's sake! we are obliged to help suffering pokemon not destroy them, you should know full well that we only attack pokemon to subdue them not to injure them!> Neptune growled.

((Back in time, kryten2x4b? Just wondering ))

((Sorry about that, didn't know that you had posted, but hey, I saved your Absol ))

((Lol, he said he'd be going for a while, and the first thing you do is attack him and his Pokemon...))

John took a sigh of relief once the ice melted and the room slowly got warmer, but quickly took a shocked look seeing Raikou and Suicune attacking Articuno.

"Guys, stop this needless fighting. If you are going to kill each other, save it for the tournement."

Ephraim growled. "Raikoua.." (And you say this after it almost turned you and your trainer into icicles!)

Rhys, having let David go, turned to Ephraim. "Drop it for now..."

Ephraim let go (rather unwillingly), and walked over to Rhys and the Absol.

"Sol absol." (Thanks for saving me, but now that Articuno's going to be after me...my name's Ike.)
"Don't worry, Ike, we won't let it hurt you. Name's Rhys, and this is--"
"Kouarai." (Ephraim.)

"I'm John, and my Latios is named Orion. Rhys....what an....interesting name, no offense at all if it sounded like that...but Orion is right, save the fighting for the tournement. Let conflicts be solved on the battlefield, and not backstage.

Jamie watched the Raikou walk over to Rhys and the Absol.

"Neptune leave it" Jamie said.

Neptune let go of Articuno and trotted over to Jamie's side.

"Well Neptune lets go socialize" Jamie said as he and Neptune walked over to Rhys and John.

He heard a snippet of what Rhys had just said.

"Yeah same with Neptune" Jamie said coolly.

"Ephraim was just doing what he thought was right, protecting his trainer." Rhys said. "Not that much wrong with that. I'm sure your Pokemon would have done the same if you were in danger."

"Yeah, but I think you both might have overreacted, and David too; I think he was a bit too reckless with his battling. He didn't even seem too concerned of his own safety, only with winning and defeating all the Pokemon there, which leads me to my next thing; why did that guy make us fight all those Pokemon? Was it some sort of test or something?"

"Most likely. Didn't he say something about this being a research center?" Rhys said, looking at the bunches of random Pokemon still wandering about. "But, why would pit Pokemon against us if he knew they were going to get badly hurt? Take Ike here as an example. He got his leg broken, and apart from me, Ephraim, and the Suicune, nobody cared...David wanted him dead."

"He could be collecting data on the Legendaries, you know, the strength of their attacks, their agility and so on" Jamie said. "But I think he was also so testing our worthiness and skill as trainers."

Moltres, seeing the other legendaries, flew down and landed in the stadium, depositing her trainer unceremoniously on the ground.

Alex, not hurt in the least, stood up and said, "it's awfully cold here, isn't it?" and, with a wink to his pokemon, there was a burst of light and the whole arena was empty of ice. There was still a little slush, but at least it was warmer. "Wow, you guys are pretty bashed up," Alex said, holding out his hand, "my name's Alex, by the way, and this is..." he gestured to the Moltres, "uh... Moltres. Ya. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, hello, fashionably late I suppose. I'm John, and this is my Latios, Orion. And yeah, David and his Articuno almost froze the enitre place trying to defeat all these random Pokemon. It's a long and complicated story I'd rather not get into."

"Yes, I'm sure it was a very difficult battle. I mean a bunch of normal-to-weak pokemon is so going to take down a bunch of legendaries." Alex laughed and looked around at the rest of the group. "Pretty ragged, aren't we? So where is this mysterious inviter, and more importantly does he have food? I'm famished."

Rhys dug around in her backpack, and pulled out a sandwich. "Here, it may be sorta squished but it's not old or anything...and the Senator, I don't remember where he went."

Ephraim walked over to the Moltres. "Riakoura?" (Are you going to attack us too?)

Ike, pretty tired from all the attacking and such, fell asleep by Rhys's feet.

David brushed off his collar, sprayed Frost with a Full Restore, and gave a cold stare to Rhys.

"First off," He snapped. "don't blame Frost for an order I give. If you have a problem with something I do, take it up with me. Second, your pokemon and you may be out to save the world and have a special lovy-dovy touchy-feely bond, but Frost and I are actually a team. We joined up so that we could help one another become strong; that's all."

David calmed him self down and recalled Frost. "And I don't intend to welch out of my side of the agreement by holding back the true potential of Frost's attack."

"You haven't seen Ephraim's real power yet, David." She turned around at him. "Just wait until the tournament starts. Then you'll have the real power of a Raikou to deal with. And if you start something with me, I'll show you what Ephraim taught me to do..."

Ephraim growled. He really didn't like David, and he could take him out anytime, but he managed self-restraint.

David laughed. "You think your suped-up chihuahua has power? Trust me, Frost can easily handle electric types no matter how strong they are."

He then turned to John and Brittanica. "It's you two I'm looking forward to battling. All the dragons I've fought have always suffered from the dragon's curse of being 4x weak to ice attacks. The exception being kingdras but they have all been too weak to put up real resistance to Frost's attacks."

He gave the two a look, not a cold one like he gave Rhys, but one of determination and challenge. "I know Frost can't wait either to fight a real dragon type."

"Just because I'm younger than you are doesn't mean I'm weaker. And by the look of things...Ephraim's ready to chew your arm off. I wouldn't say anything else about him." Rhys warned.

"And I'm sure Orion is itching to fight such a tough opponent like Frost. May the better Pokemon win," he said as he returned Orion into his Pokeball.

"Now what? We beat all those random Pokemon..."

Rhys looked around. "Yeah, where's the senator person? I haven't seen him for a while..."

"I'm not worried for two reasons. One, you're type doesn't have the fortitude. Second," David recalled out Frost. "Ephraim's heart'll stop frozen before his teeth can push a hair out of place."

((Once again, this is my last post since I have to tests tomarrow to study for. So don't go clobbering David while I'm gone. :roll: ))

"This is getting interesting," The Senator gloated. Release more of the Alpha, Beta, Charlie and Delta pokemon, this time, split them up so half of them will follow and obey David and Frost. Let Rhys and the others take command of the other half. As for the latecomer, show him how we handle tardiness by sending out Foxtrot Team," The Senator said.

More Zubat, Golbat, Haunter, Gengar, Alakazam, Hypno, Weezing and Muk gushed into the arena. Half of them flanked around David and Frost while the other half took up the other side of the arena around Rhys and the others.

A cannon dropped down from the ceiling and aimed for Alex and Moltres. It fired a huge ball at the firebird that exploded to reveal a bright light. As the light faded, a very grey Lugia with dull, black eyes screeched loudly. It had a beautifully encrusted jewelled necklace that shone in all the colours of the rainbow. It started to stare hard at Moltres before flying into the air overhead, waiting for the next part of the tournament to begin.

"There's no such thing as a fair fight in the world of pokemon," The Senator laughed. On a more serious note he added, "David seems a little outnumbered being pitted against the other trainers... While Lugia's fighting Moltres, give him Ho-oh."

A Ho-oh, that looked just as worn out as the Lugia, came out of a pokeball launched by the same cannon. The same beautiful necklace adorned its long neck.

"Let the battle, or rather, the war begin," The Senator cackled.

John quickly sprayed Orion with an Elixer fo good measure, and Orion proceeded to kick more Posion butt with Psychic. After a short while, John realized a whole bunch of Pokemon, practially half, were atatcking David. Even a Ho-oh was fighting them.

"David, let me know if you need any help, I think they don't like you very much."