Pain.
Betrayal.
That was all Ash felt after the crowd had left him beaten and broken in the gym. The silence pressed against his ears — thick, suffocating, cruel — broken only by Pikachu's ragged breaths and the steady drip of water from burst pipes somewhere above. Each drop landed with a hollow plink that seemed to echo far longer than it should, as if the building itself was listening.
The pain in his body didn't fade — it settled. Burning. Thrumming. Tearing.
And the words — the chant, the accusations — still circled in his head. Harsh. Unrelenting. Accusing. Scathing.
The sting of betrayal smothered what should have been triumph. His first gym battle, hard‑fought and won, lay buried under blood and shame.
His cheek still burned where a nail had raked across it, the copper tang of blood clinging stubbornly to his tongue. Even the smallest shift sent jolts of agony shooting through his ribs, each breath scraping against bruises left by fists and boots.
Pikachu whimpered at the sound, struggling to lift his head. A spark crackled from his cheeks — faint, desperate — before fizzling uselessly into the dust. The effort ended in a shudder, his body collapsing again against the broken stone. Ash's chest tightened, the ache in his ribs momentarily forgotten in the sharper ache of helplessness.
Why?
Why him?
What had he done to deserve this?
Tears cut narrow tracks through the dust on his skin, stinging as they slid over the shallow cuts. They felt hot against the cool grit, and he hated that he couldn't stop them.
Three shadows moved across the fractured floor.
Bootsteps — slow, deliberate — crunched over grit and broken tile. Ash flinched before he could stop himself, his body bracing for another blow. His breath caught, heart hammering in his throat. But when the figure came into focus through the haze, it wasn't Jenny.
Brock knelt beside Pikachu first, his large hands gentle as they checked for injuries. His jaw was tight, but his touch was careful, steady — the kind of steady that came from years of tending to Pokémon after battles, no matter how bad the damage. The big grey Pokémon loomed behind him, its red eyes still fixed on the doorway like a guard daring anyone to return. Ash caught the faint twitch in Brock's jaw when he saw Pikachu's condition, the way his shoulders squared as if holding back words meant for someone else.
Flint approached Ash and lowered himself to one knee. His hand brushed the dust from Ash's shoulder — a small, almost fatherly gesture — before pressing lightly against his ribs. Ash hissed, choking on the grit in the air.
"They did a number on you, kid," Flint said, his voice low, almost reluctant to break the heavy quiet.
"I‑it hurts…" The words came out thin, frayed at the edges.
"It's bound to," Flint replied, glancing briefly toward the ruined doorway as if expecting the mob to come surging back through it. "You just fought your heart out in a gym battle, and before you could even breathe, a mob decided to tear into you." He shook his head, the lines around his eyes deepening. "I'm sorry. I've lived here for years; I thought I knew these people. I didn't expect them to turn like that."
There was no defence in his tone — only a quiet, heavy remorse that made Ash's chest ache differently. Flint's hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment longer, a silent promise that at least someone here saw him as more than the villain the crowd had made him.
Behind them, Brock's voice was low but urgent as he murmured to Pikachu, coaxing him to stay still. The gym smelled of scorched stone and wet ash, the air still thick enough to taste.
Outside, faint voices carried on the wind — the last scraps of the mob's anger, waiting for a chance to flare again. A shadow passed across the light spilling under the door, and Ash's stomach knotted. For one terrifying heartbeat, he thought it was Jenny, standing there, waiting.
The doors held for now, the gym's wreckage a fragile barrier between him and the city that had already judged him.
----------------------------
Brock brought the limp, unconscious form of Pikachu to Ash, holding him as if the little Pokémon might shatter with the wrong touch.
"P‑Pikachu…"
Ash's fingers twitched toward him, desperate to make contact, but the effort died halfway. His arm felt like lead, his shoulder screaming at the strain. Brock adjusted his grip, leaning closer so Pikachu's singed fur brushed Ash's fingertips. The faint warmth of it made Ash's throat tighten, a lump rising that had nothing to do with pain.
"Easy there…" Flint's voice was low, steady — the kind of tone meant to calm a spooked Pokémon. He slid an arm under Ash's back, lifting him just enough to ease the pressure on his ribs. Even that small movement wrung a whimper from Ash, each breath hitching as if his lungs were lined with glass.
"Let me carry your Pikachu," Brock said gently, crouching so Ash could see his face. "You and your team need treatment." His eyes flicked to Ash's, then away, as though holding back the anger that still simmered beneath his calm.
"Rhydon," Flint called. The great grey Pokémon turned its head, red eyes glinting in the dim light. "Guard the door. No one comes in."
Rhydon gave a low grunt and lumbered toward the entrance, each step a heavy thud that made the cracked floor tremble. It stopped in the doorway, filling it completely, tail swaying like a slow pendulum — a living wall between them and whatever might be outside. The faint scrape of its claws on stone was oddly reassuring, like the sound of a lock sliding into place.
Brock exhaled, tension easing just slightly. "Thanks for calling him out."
"That's the least I could do," Flint replied, his voice dropping. "I'm still hiding my existence. Can't have them know I'm here."
Brock's gaze sharpened. "Do you think they had Jenny lead the mob to get Ash and Yellow?"
Flint's eyes narrowed, scanning the shadows as if the walls themselves might be listening. "I don't know. They've never done something like this before — not that I've seen. Could be them. Could be her acting on her own. We can't be sure about her at all." He paused, jaw tightening. "I'll keep eyes on her. We need to know."
Brock sighed, the weight of the day pressing down on his shoulders. "I had a good battle today… and then this happened." He looked at Ash, his voice softening. "Was the explosion part of your plan to take out Onix?"
Ash's lips parted, but no sound came. For a moment, the weight of the question crushed him as surely as the mob had. Finally, he forced out a single word. "No."
Wincing at his own wording, Brock clarified as they started moving inward, Flint supporting Ash's weight. "I meant — did your strategy involve slowing Onix with the webs along with the explosion?"
"No. The plan was only to slow down your Geodude and Onix, maybe paralyze them. I never knew Onix could learn Dragon Breath."
Brock snorted, a short, humourless sound. "If you'd asked me the same thing a few days ago, I'd have said they couldn't. But my dad here helped me train after the hospital incident."
Ash turned his head toward Flint, the motion sending a spike of pain through his neck. Flint didn't meet his eyes. He just said one word — dry, almost careless. "Yo." Ash blinked at him through the haze of pain, unsure if he'd imagined it.
Ahem. "Now that we are on the topic of the gym battle, " Brock held Pikachu in one hand, while he used the other to fish for something in one of his jacket's pockets. "Hmm. Where is it? Where is it? Ah! Here, take this." Brock took out a gray octagon with gemstone-like appearance and tried to hand it to him and Ash did not take, well because he couldn't.
Brock was walking with them, staring awkwardly at Ash, his face impassive. Brock turned the badge around and Ash saw that there was a silver 'S' on its backside. Looking at his confused face, Flint explained to Ash, "That is the Boulder - S Badge, the one you just won."
"Shouldn't cough...cough that be the Boulder Badge? cough...cough"
"Easy there, " Flint told Ash as he steadied him. "We need to give you water to drink after this. To answer your question, let me answer with a question: Do you think that we give all the challengers the same badge even after they partake in the different battle modes?"
Seeing Ash blink in confusion at him, Flint sighed.
"The answer to that is no. As there are three different modes of battle, so are their different badges for each. You can distinguish them from the other types of the same badge by looking at their backside and the effects.
The Standard mode of battle, which is generally used, gives out the normal or N-type badges. These ones do not have anything special on their backsides, just plain old metal. They are, quite literally, pieces of metal or plastic that just prove that you won and defeated the gym leader.
The Survival mode of battle, which you just went through, gives out the survival or S-type badges. These have a silver 'S' on their backsides. They are made of a combination of metal as their bases and a gem with special properties. As you might know, there are different 'stats' of a Pokémon: Health, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, Speed, Accuracy, and Evasion. These badges increase one of them. The Boulder - S badge that you just got increases your Pokémon's attack power.
The Dual mode of battle, the rarest of them all, has a slightly different approach. As you battle in two different sets with two different teams of Pokémon, there are three possible types of badges you can get depending upon the victory conditions.
You lost the Survival but won the Standard - You will be given a badge that looks and acts the same as the Survival, but with the lower half of a silver 'D'. Either of the stats can be increased.
You got the opposite result, won the Survival, but lost the Standard - You will be given the same badge as the previous one, but with the upper half of the silver 'D'. Depending on the type of the gym, the gym badge will increase the effect of the moves of a similar type by an eighth of the original effect.
And the last, but not the least, the condition where you win both - You will be given a badge made entirely out of the gems used to make the other two, but purer. These have a golden 'D' on their backsides. They give the combined effects as the previous two where you won either one.
Unlike the previous four-types where you have to participate in the tournament, you have the option to do two things when you win the last one: Participate in the tournament, or directly challenge the Elite Four and the champion in a gauntlet, where you can only use the same six Pokémon to fight them and you can only rest for thirty minutes in between."
Flint's words blurred together in Ash's haze of pain — N-badges, S-badges, Dual mode, effects on stats — he caught only fragments. Enough to understand that this wasn't just a shiny trinket. His Boulder-S badge meant something.
Looking at Ash for his reaction, Flint said, "Yeah, we need to get you to be looked at and heal you. I can then explain it to you again when are not going to keel over with pain. Wasn't there a Chansey with you? Where is she? We could really use her help."
Ash replied with a wince as they walked, "W-with Yellow."
"So, they must be in the room I kept them in then. They should be safe there. We need to hurry to get you...Uh oh."
Ash and Brock turned towards Flint, to see that he was looking at something. They looked in the direction to see a destroyed camera. "That must have been damaged during the explosion. We have to change it. What is so special about that? "
"...That was connected to the room that I kept the children in."
They stayed in silence for a bit before Brock spoke the words that all of them were thinking. "...They think that we are dead after that explosion, don't they?"
Resignedly, Flint spoke, "There is a good chance that it is."
"...Shit." Brock broke his code to not swear in front of children.
The three of them moved deeper into the gym's interior, the air cooling slightly as they left the wreckage behind, as if it was a premonition of the things to come. Every step jarred Ash's battered body, but between Brock's steady presence ahead and Flint's solid grip at his side, he kept moving. Behind them, Rhydon's silhouette filled the doorway, a silent sentinel holding back the city that had already judged him. But inside, the weight of betrayal still pressed heavier than any wall of stone.