This might turn out to be a _long_ story…

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfic belongs to me.
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Red is from ‘ancient china’, Ash is from the anime, but in flashbacks, Red = Ash

Chapter 7

Sleep did not come easy for Red, but he tried. Finally, he decided to think about something else. There was that time when they had met the Seven Swords of Kanto… he must have been fourteen or so…

And Dillon. Oh, that was _not_ a nice memory…

*********************Being Flashback************************************

They had been traversing through the Kanto region. Delia was at a friend’s house, helping take care of a newborn baby, and would most likely stay there for at least a month until the mother got back on her feet again.

Besides, Ash couldn’t stay in Pallet forever. It had been a day’s riding away from Pallet. Ash had just finished feeding his little red horse, Strawberry, at an inn, when his teachers caught up with him.

Strawberry was a fast horse; that was for sure. He had arrived forty-five minutes earlier than they.

“Hey waiter!” Bruno called. “We want two tables of your best dishes!”

The waiter nodded and hurriedly went to inform the chef. Within minutes, they were seated and enjoying the food. Dark green spinach glistened in spicy brown sauce, red-basted ancient fishes in another dish, and various other dishes fought for brilliance.

Koga took a sip of wine. “This is quite good, who picked the wine?”

“I did.” Surge smiled. “It’s ten year old ‘Red daughter’ wine.”

“Ah…”

Nearby at another table sat four young boys in dark green. They were talking quietly amongst themselves, but Agatha caught their conversation and tone of voice, knowing they were really girls in disguise.

After all, loss of one sense made another sharper.

“When he leaves by himself, we’ll kill him and bring his horse to Master Dillon.”

“What if the people he’s eating with right now stop us?”

“Then we’ll kill them too. They won’t stand a chance against master’s poison techniques.”

“That’s true. Still, it’d be better to split them up. Less work.”

“I agree…”

Agatha repressed a shudder. Dillon’s skill level was far above theirs. However, he had a constant feud with the Seven Swords of Kanto, who were also the heads of a religious sect. All its members wore red robes, and carried swords of different types, and Blaine had been no exception.

Still, they were no contest, one-on-one except when they fought suicidal, using sword techniques that killed both fighters. The Seven Swords did have a ‘wall of swords’ technique that could be used to defeat either of the three, but all seven of them had to be there for it to work.

Dillon, Karen, and Steven were three powerful warriors. No one in their right mind would go up against them. Steven mostly kept to himself, training in distant mountains.

Dillon was known for his skill in rare poisons, and it was doubted that anyone bitten by his magical crickets could survive for more than an hour.

Karen was actually Agatha’s friend, so they had nothing to fear from her. But her spirit summoning skills were formidable.

Now, though…

Agatha made a slight wave with one hand, as Lance caught her eyes. He was seated to one side of her, while she sat at the head of the table. Aya sat on the other.

Lowering her voice, Agatha whispered what she had heard.

Ash was still busy eating.

“Lance, you go with him. You can get yourself out of any impossible situation, and we know it.”

“Hai, Agatha.”

Dessert was a light, fluffy rice pudding. After finishing, Lance and Ash went outside, as did the others, having paid their bill in full.

Koga glanced backwards swiftly, noticing the girls were following. That was good…

“Lance? I thought…”

“You think I’d leave you all by yourself, little brother? That’s no way to travel.” Lance lied effortlessly, climbing on his own horse. “Shall we go?”

Ash was confused, but he nodded.

The two of them rode off, the other five were just standing in the yard before the inn and chattering, and sure enough, the girls went after him. Soon, the road ahead only had one path.

They blocked it.

“Listen, leave your horse or your life’s not worth anything!” One girl shouted.

Ash stopped his horse quickly. “What?!”

“Get off, or else!”

All of a sudden, the ground underneath writhed with venomous serpents and poisonous green crickets jumping up and down. Strawberry neighed nervously.

Ash shot a helpless look at Lance and moved to dismount, when suddenly, Lance’s fan whacked his horse hard on the rump, and it shot forwards, trampling one of the girls who had foolishly decided to dismount herself.

Behind Lance, with a cry of “now hit the hailstones”, six of Agatha’s poisoned darts shot out, hitting two of the girls.

The rest of the Seven had arrived.

Koga and Aya split their techniques, their own stars sending several snakes a-flying, before Bruno charged up, nunchucks a-whirring.

True, they couldn’t take on Dillon himself, but these were only his followers. As the battle quickly proved, their skills were below those of the seven stars.

Good.

About a mile later, Ash had managed to stop Strawberry. His teachers soon caught up, not really the worse for wear.

“You didn’t get hit did you?”

Ash shook his head.

“Good. We’re not sure we have cures for those snakebites.”

“I see…”

“Well, well. Fancy meeting you again, Seven Stars!” Blaine said jovially, before he noticed Bob was missing.

Still, probably shouldn’t pry…

“Blaine!” What was he doing here?

Behind Blaine were six others, all dressed in red robes also.

“These are the rest of the Seven Swords of Kanto. Pryce, our leader…” Then came Lorelei, Blaine himself, Morty, Wattson, Chuck, and Drake.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“So tell me, why were you fighting with Dillon’s underlings?”

“They tried to kill our student.” Bruno proclaimed. Ash and Surge were currently working together to try and calm Strawberry down from the earlier shock. At least it had been… effective, and saved his life.

“Ah! Well, I see. But it’s not safe to cross Dillon.”

“Oh, we know we’re no match for him.” Agatha shuddered. Dillon carried a pear lute, strumming it summoned crickets, but also, he had a round weapon, perhaps the size of a soccer ball, heavy and full of toxic poisons that splurted out of holes perforated in the sides…

Once one of those poisons got into your body, you were dead. So you couldn’t have _any_ wounds.

“Then would you like to help us defeat him?” Pryce asked. “It will make the Kanto region safer…”

Why not…

End Chapter

Completed 9/5/04