The sequel to 'The Flaming Heart' is here by popular demand! This story might slow down after next week because I'll be moving into my new college dorm next Friday! Yay! Nonetheless, I'll keep this story alive as much as possible!

Enjoy!

Voice of the Spirits

Chapter 1

Team Phantom

As our heroes continued on their journey, they decided to have a lunch break before continuing. Now that Ash Ketchum had all eight Sinnoh Gym Badges, he was now eligible to compete in the Sinnoh League. As for his young Coordinator friend, Dawn, she just received her fifth Ribbon making her eligible to enter the Grand Festival, which was where they're heading.

Currently, Ash and Dawn were training their Pokémon for their respective tournaments while their friend, Brock, was preparing their lunch.

"Okay, I'm swamped!" Dawn exclaimed frustratedly. "I have no idea what kind of combinations I should use for the Grand Festival!"

"Calm down, Dawn," Ash assured. "I'm sure you'll figure something out by the time we get there."

"Pika," Ash's best friend and Pokémon, Pikachu, nodded.

Little did our heroes know that they were about to meet some friends they met only a few weeks ago.

~0~0~0~

Meanwhile, not too far from our heroes, another set of heroes was on a journey of their own. Unfortunately, it HAD to be a family journey. Humans and Pokémon alike were jumping out of the way as an armored RV barreled down the road.

"Face it, Dad. We're lost!" nineteen-year-old Jasmine "Jazz" Fenton exclaimed. The girl was a Pokémon Trainer specializing in Psychic Pokémon. She had long red hair and turquoise eyes.

Her father, Jack Fenton, disagreed with his daughter. "Nonsense, Jasmine!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "I know Vladdie's mansion is here somewhere!"

"Maybe we should stop and reprogram the GPS," Jack's wife, Maddie, suggested.

"That hunk of junk can't get me out of a broom closet!" Jack argued. He was a rather large man in an orange jumpsuit with graying black hair and midnight blue eyes.

In the back with Jazz were her younger brother, Daniel (or Danny), his girlfriend Samantha Manson, and his best friend Tucker Foley.

Danny was a seventeen-year-old boy with raven-black hair and icy blue eyes. He was also a Pokémon Trainer who specialized in Ghost Pokémon. In his hometown of Amity Park, he's known as the Ghost Master since he's able to link his mind to Ghost Pokémon, a trait that no one but his friends and family knew about.

Danny's girlfriend, Samantha Manson (answers to Sam), was a Gothic Pokémon Trainer who dreamed of traveling the world to participate in Pokémon Contests to make a statement on individuality. Most of her Pokémon were Dark-types. She had ebony hair and violet eyes. Sam and Danny recently started dating after the Founder's Day Tournament ended in a tie.

Danny's best friend, Tucker Foley, was a Pokémon Trainer who preferred to raise Steel-type and Electric-type Pokémon. A self-proclaimed techno-geek, Tucker had used his many gadgets to get Danny and his friends out of several binds. The only thing he was terrible at doing was finding a girlfriend. The African American boy wore thick-framed glasses and a red beret.

"Hey, I think these trees look familiar!" Jack exclaimed as he jerked the wheel to the left and off the road.

"JACK!"

"DAD!"

"MR. FENTON!"

The kids gripped their seats in fright. "Dad, you can't drive through the woods! What if there's a Trainer camping out somewhere?" Danny asked.

"Then that Trainer should have spent the night at a Pokémon Center like the others!" Jack answered as he drove through the woods, blissfully unaware of the destruction in his wake.

"Open a window!" Sam told Danny. He did so and Sam pulled out a Pokéball. "Shadow! Go ahead of us and warn anyone in the way!" Her Pokéball opened and a flash of light shot out of the window. A panther-like Pokémon, an Absol, shot though the trees and ran as fast as it could ahead of the RV.

"I hope Shadow knows how to call a paramedic!" Tucker exclaimed.

~0~0~0~

"Lunch is ready!" Brock announced.

"Yay!" Ash and Dawn cheered. Their Pokémon cheered too. Brock laid out several bowls for the Pokémon to eat out of.

"Piplup!" Dawn's Piplup cheered.

"Pi-ka!" Pikachu cheered.

The group soon sat down and chowed down. Everyone loved Brock's cooking skills. Ash had no idea how far he'd get on his journey without him.

As Dawn's Buneary tried to snuggle next to Pikachu (she had a major crush on him), something caught her attention. "Bun?"

Piplup and Pikachu looked up from their eating.

"Pika?"

"Lup?"

Buneary looked around her. "Bun? Bun?" Her ears twitched in all directions. "Bun? Bun? Bun?"

Dawn noticed her Rabbit Pokémon's strange behavior. "Buneary? What's wrong?"

An Absol leapt out of the bushes. It stared at the group with its fierce red eyes. "Ab-sol…" it growled. The group became alarmed. They knew that if someone encountered an Absol, disaster was near.

"It's an Absol!" Ash exclaimed.

"What's going on?" Dawn asked in alarm.

"Don't know," said Brock, "but we better pack up quickly before things get ugly."

Everyone stumbled to gather everything packed up. The Absol, however, eyed the Pokémon carefully.

Absol then pounced on Piplup. "Piiiiiip-luuuuup!" the Penguin Pokémon cried in alarm.

"Aaaab-ssssoooollll…" growled Absol.

"Pika!" Pikachu used Quick Attack on the Disaster Pokémon to knock it away from Piplup.

Ash and Dawn saw what happened.

"Ah! Pikachu!" Ash cried.

"Piplup!" Dawn called.

"Chuuuu…" Pikachu growled at Absol. Sparks were flying off the electric rodent's red cheeks in a threatening manner, warning the Disaster Pokemon to stay away.

"SOL!" Absol cried. "Absol-ab-ab-sol!"

This surprised Pikachu. "Pikachu?"

"Sol," Absol nodded. "Sol-absol-ab-absol-absol!"

Pikachu's face lit up. "Pikachu!"

The traveling trio stared at the conversation in awe.

"Does Pikachu know this Absol?" asked Dawn.

"You know that Absol seems kind of familiar," Brock noted.

"How can you recognize it?" asked Dawn.

Piplup seemed to recognize it. "Piplup!" he cried happily. He ran over to it and hugged its leg.

"Well, Piplup recognizes it," said Ash.

"Do you guys hear something?" asked Brock.

The sound of a large vehicle was heard coming closer to the picnic. Absol jumped and grabbed Pikachu and Piplup the second an armored vehicle burst out of the trees. Ash and his friends jumped out of the way before they were run over.

"What is that?" asked Ash.

"Everyone okay?" Brock asked the other Pokémon. Everyone did a sound off.

"Jack! You nearly hit those kids!" a woman's voice scolded.

One of the vehicle's windows opened to reveal a raven-haired teenage boy in the back.

"Sorry about that," the boy apologized. "We're kind of lost and…" He then recognized the Trainers standing outside. "Ash? Is that you?"

Ash recognized the boy immediately. "Hey Danny! It's been awhile!"

Sam poked her head out to see the Trainers. "It's Ash!"

Dawn's face lit up. "Hi Sam! Good to see you again!"

Sam smiled a little. "Hey Dawn. Saw the Contest on TV. Congratulations on getting your fifth Ribbon."

"Thanks!"

"Hang on. We'll be out in a moment," said Danny. Moments later Danny, Sam, Tucker and Jazz came out of the RV and greeted their friends.

Brock immediately ran over to Jazz. "My fair Jasmine, while our time apart was short, it felt like years – GAH!" Brock fell to the ground thanks to Croagunk.

"Hey, your hair is black again," Ash noted. Danny's Gengar thought it would be funny to put hair dye in Danny's shampoo during Ash's stay in Amity Park.

"About time too," said Danny. "I washed my hair, like, twice a day. Did you get your eighth Badge yet?"

"See for yourself," Ash said proudly as he pulled out his Badge Case and showed Danny the eight Badges inside.

"Cool! Looks like you're going to the Sinnoh League," said Danny.

"I'm gonna fight and win it!" Ash said confidently.

"Pika, Pika!"

Danny eyed the electric rodent and picked him up. "Remember me, Pikachu?"

"Chu-pi!" Pikachu exclaimed excitedly.

"I'm guessing that's your way of saying my name," Danny guessed.

"Pi!" Pikachu nodded.

"Brock, what's up!" Tucker greeted his fellow womanizer.

"Good to see you again, Tucker," Brock greeted back. "Found a girlfriend yet?"

"No. You?"

"Alas, no," Brock said dramatically. "One of these days, I'll meet the perfect woman!"

"As will I," Tucker said just as dramatically.

"GAH!"

"ACK!" Both Brock and Tucker fell to the ground at Croagunk's Poison Jab. Everyone laughed at the fallen Trainers.

Sam hugged the Poison Toad Pokémon. "I've missed you, Croagunk!" she exclaimed. "That never gets old!"

Brock managed to recover. "Well, we were in the middle of lunch. Care to join us?" he offered.

Hearing the invitation, Danny and Jazz hugged Brock.

"THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" Danny and Jazz cried gratefully.

Maddie was confused about her children's behavior. "This happens every time someone invites them to eat. I wonder why?"

"I'll get the fudge!" Jack exclaimed excitedly.

~0~0~0~

After a happy reunion picnic, Danny and company offered to help clean up.

"Glad Shadow came to warn us you were coming," said Ash. "When we saw him, we knew trouble was near."

"That's what Absol is known for," Sam said matter-of-factly.

"And if you know my dad, you'll know that he drives like a maniac," Danny added.

"Yeah, we saw that," Ash said hesitantly.

"So what are you guys doing out here?" asked Brock. "I know you guys have tickets but the Sinnoh League and the Grand Festival are weeks away."

"Well, Dad finally managed to find a good time for us to use our mystery prize from the tournament," Danny explained.

"You mean dinner with the founder and CEO of that company? What was it called? DALV?" asked Dawn.

"Oh yeah! Before we left, your dad was still trying to figure out when to do that," Ash remembered.

"Who is the CEO of DALV anyway?" asked Dawn.

"My old college pal, Vlad Masters!" Jack piped up excitedly.

Brock recognized the name. "THE Vlad Masters? The same Vlad Masters who recently bought a fifth of the Silph Corporation?"

"That's the guy," confirmed Jack. "In college he was my best friend."

"You're kidding!" Dawn exclaimed.

"I kid you not!" Jack replied. "In fact, Mrs. Fenton was also a good friend of his back in the day."

"He wanted to be more than good friends," Maddie inaudibly mumbled with a look of disgust on her face.

"One day fate decided to pull a little prank on Vlad…" Jack trailed off.

"Jack, you spilled Rotom's ectoplasm in his leftover pasta he was going to have for lunch," Maddie recalled.

"I said I was sorry twenty times!" Jack defended.

"He got ecto-acne!"

"It cleared up!"

"Yeah, a week after our honeymoon!" exclaimed Maddie.

"Wait a minute," Dawn interrupted. "Danny drank Rotom's ectoplasm and he was only in the hospital for a month, right? Why was Vlad in the hospital longer?"

Maddie sighed. "When Vlad consumed Rotom's ectoplasm, it wasn't purified. Jack and I were trying to separate the DNA of Ghost and Electric at the time. When Vlad ate it, we were trying to redo some calculations."

"That explains Vlad but what about Danny?" asked Brock.

"By the time Danny drank the ectoplasm when he was eight years old, Jack and I finally figured out how to separate Rotom's type DNA safely," Maddie explained. "What Danny drank was the ectoplasm of pure Ghost-type Pokémon. The Electric-type DNA turned into regular plasma you can find in any other Electric Pokémon."

"Hey, does Vlad train any Pokémon?" asked Ash. Brock and Dawn sweat-dropped. Figures he'd ask a question like that.

Maddie thought about it. "I don't know. He might have a Pokémon or two. We haven't heard from him since he got out of the hospital."

"I guess he's finally let bygones be bygones if he's invited you guys to his mansion," assumed Dawn.

"Piplup," Piplup agreed.

Danny leaned towards his mother. "If that's the case, then how come you always want me to send every wild Ghost Pokémon to him? Jazz hates it when I do that."

Maddie scowled. "Because he's a creep." Before Danny can ask why they heard a shout.

"SAM STOP!" Tucker exclaimed. The gang turned to see Tucker and Jazz pulling on Sam's clothes to keep her from beating up another Trainer who just entered the scene. Upon closer inspection, Ash saw that the mystery Trainer was none other than his rival, Paul.

"Hey, it's Paul," said Ash.

"Jazz! Tucker! Let me go!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sam, think about what you're doing," Jazz said calmly.

"I know what I'm thinking! I'm thinking about breaking his nose!" Sam exclaimed as she continued to struggle.

Danny ran over to them. "Sam, calm down!" She did so and Jazz and Tucker let go of her. Sam then stood next to Danny who looked nervously at Paul. Danny took her hand to keep himself calm. "Paul…heh, heh…long time no see. Uh, did you get your last badge yet?"

Paul's cold eyes turned in Danny's direction sending shivers down his spine. He pulled out the Beacon Badge to show to Danny. "I have it right here," he said. "And since your little tournament is over, I'm ready for my battle."

Since Danny never had a chance to battle Paul, I decided to start this story with one!

There will be DxS fluff in this story! You'll have to wait and see when and where it will be! ;)

Sorry, Megamastermaind, I know you didn't want me to but I've been dying to add Vlad in so I will! To make up for it, Lilith will be doing some major battling in this story since I know you've been wanting her to!

Review!