Chapter 1 – Respite
"Finally! We've made it to the Kanto region!"
Ash watched the reactions of his three friends Iris, Cilan and Alexa as the boat docked at the Seafoam Islands in his home region of Kanto. Understandably, he didn't feel the same rush of excitement; since he was born here, he'd seen the region and knew what it was like, so there were really no more surprises to behold from it.
Not that he didn't look forward to coming home again. He did this after he explored a region and competed in its Pokémon League, so it was more likely he'd gotten used to the process.
Leaning over the railing so that a soft breeze went through his hair, he turned to his partner Pikachu, the tiny electric mouse Pokémon he always traveled with.
"Good to be home, isn't it?" he asked.
"Pikachu-Pika-Pi-Pikachu-Pika," replied the tiny electric mouse. Although all Pokémon spoke in their own name, since Ash had been traveling with his friend for so long, all he heard was Yeah, you're right, but it dims after a while doesn't it?
"More or less," said Ash as he reached down and put on his backpack, waiting for Cilan, Iris and Alexa to do the same. It didn't take long; the two of them were so excited to be in Kanto that they were down the stairs and off the ramp faster than he usually was.
"C'mon Ash!" called Iris from the dock, her Dragon Pokémon Axew waiting with her in her hair, "Hurry up! Don't keep us waiting! Uggggh, you're such a little kid!"
"Pikachu-Pika-Pikachu-Pi-Pika-Chu-Pika-Pikachu?" Ash looked over at his friend, who'd said Why does she keep calling you that after all we've been through with her? Shouldn't she know by now how long you've been doing this?
"Don't worry about it," Ash shrugged as he held out his arm for Pikachu to climb up. "She's just impatient. She's just arrived to a new region and she's eager to see the sights, just like how we were the first time we went to Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova."
"Pikachu Pika?" (What about Johto?)
Ash's head dipped back and forth as he considered. "Ehhhh, Johto's connected to Kanto, so it wasn't too big. All we had to do was go West, remember? But you're right, it was a new experience and I did catch some sweet Pokémon while we were there."
"Ash, hurry up! Sheesh!"
Ash grinned. As much as he'd love to keep staying on board an annoy Iris, the boat would leave for the Hoenn region in ten minutes, so unless he was interested in seeing that again he'd better depart. Ash walked down the stairs and joined his three traveling companions on the dock.
"What took you so long?" snapped Iris, the Dragon Trainer. "We've been waiting here for hours! You shouldn't keep us waiting like this!"
"Ew, Axew!" Axew chimed in.
"Now now," soothed Cilan, "I'm sure Ash has his reasons. Don't you Ash?"
Ash nodded. "It's just that I'm coming home is all. I'm in the mood to unwind."
Iris snorted. "It's still not nice for you to keep friends waiting. Don't ever do that again, Ash Ketchum."
Ash didn't respond. He just kept looking around the familiar port.
"So… do you know where to go, Ash?" asked Cilan. Being new here, neither he nor Iris understood the layout properly.
Ash nodded. "We're just gonna walk until we get to the North Pier. From there it's a quick ferry ride to Pallet Town."
"Is that where you're from?" asked Alexa.
Ash nodded. "Born and raised," he replied.
With nothing much else to talk about, the four of them (six if you're counting walking Pokémon) made their way to the North Pier, catching the ride to Pallet Town. Ash breathed in the air of his old stomping ground and sighed it back out.
Yup, he thought, It's definitely good to be home.
A short walk later brought them to 233 Faraway Drive, Ash's home address. As expected, the garden was being tended to by Mr. Mime, who returned Ash's wave.
"Who's that Pokémon?" asked Iris.
Ash looked back. "That's Mr. Mime," he explained, "It helps my Mom out with the chores and everything."
He went up to the door and opened it, stepping inside. "Mom, I'm home!" he called.
"Welcome home, honey!" Ash's mother Delia, a warm, delightful woman, leaned in from the kitchen to get a glimpse of her son. "I'll be right there, I just need to finish this pot roast!"
Ash, Iris, Cilan and Alexa took off their shoes. "Make yourselves at home guys," Ash told them, before heading to the kitchen, where Delia warmly embraced him.
"How've you been, honey?" she asked.
"I've been fine, Mom," Ash replied.
Suddenly, without warning, Delia leaned close and asked:
"Did you remember to change your underwear every day?"
Ash turned red in the face, but answered in the affirmative. "Oh! And about that," he added. He brought his mother into the living room where he phoned Professor Oak on the video phone.
"Ash my boy!" the world-renowned Pokémon expert greeted Ash warmly. "How've you been? I see you've made it back home."
"I did Professor," said Ash, "And I want to show my Mom something. Can you send my Leavanny over?"
"I can," replied the Professor, "Provided you send me one of yours first."
"Oh yeah, right." Ash considered for a moment and took his Charizard's Poké Ball off his belt and enlarged it to its proper size. "I'm sending you Charizard, Professor."
"Ah, good," Oak replied, "It's about time for it to return to the Charicific Valley. Liza's told me her Charla's been missing it."
"Oh yeah," Ash remembered that Liza, the caretaker of the Charicific Valley in Johto had a Charizard, a female of the species nicknamed Charla, who'd gotten quite close to his Charizard. Ash didn't really understand the closeness they had, but he chose not to question it since Charizard seemed to really enjoy the attention he got from her the last time he saw the two of them together.
"I'm sending you back," Ash whispered to the Poké Ball holding his friend. "Charla misses you, so I'm sending you to Professor Oak so he can send you back to the Charicific Valley, okay? Keep up your training, old friend. I'm proud of you." The Poké Ball warmed in response, indicating Charizard got the message and was eager to return to his mate.
Iris saw Ash place the Poké Ball to his forehead for a moment and smiling before placing it in the transporter and pressing the button. In that moment, she saw all she'd thought he lacked; she saw the experience and wisdom that came from traveling the world for so long. So why was he such a kid back in Unova? She asked herself in her thoughts; if Ash had really been an experienced Trainer this whole time, he certainly hadn't shown it back there.
A flash of white light enveloped Charizard's Poké Ball and faded, leaving behind empty space. A split second later another flash of white light appeared, leaving a different Poké Ball in its place.
"So anyway Mom," Ash said, brightening up as he took the Poké Ball from the transporter pad, "I caught this Pokémon in Unova-"
"You caught a Pokémon in Unova," corrected his mother.
"Eh-heh," Ash grinned at the familiarity of being corrected by his mother on how to speak. "Right. I caught a Pokémon in Unova that's known for spinning clothes for other small Pokémon from with silk and leaves, and there was a Trainer in Unova named Luke who we met and whose movie we were in-"
"You were in a movie?" Delia asked, brightened by the notion that her son had gotten to spend time being an actor. From adolescence to the present day, people told her all the time she was beautiful enough to partake in the field herself, to which she would smile, laugh and graciously say, 'Oh, in another lifetime perhaps. But thank you though; you've just made my day!' and the thought of her ten-year-old son living out that dream made her ecstatic, although she was even happier knowing Ash was living out his own dreams.
"Yeah," Ash grinned, starting to get embarrassed. "It was for a film festival Luke was trying to win, and Iris, Cilan and me-"
"Iris, Cilan and I."
"Right, and Iris, Cilan and I got to be in it," Ash finished. He turned to his friends. "It won first prize, didn't it?"
Cilan nodded, "It was pretty popular because Pokémon from this region are rare in Unova, so naturally Ash's Pikachu was a huge production value, Mrs. Ketchum. And the star of course."
"Pika pika," Pikachu grinned, pleased to have been given top billing. He'd made it big.
"So as I was saying," Ash continued, resuming his train of thought before being interrupted, "Luke's Leavanny would make all the costumes for everyone, and I was thinking that maybe you'd want my Leavanny around to help with the… uh…" Ash searched for the right word. "Clothes-making," he decided at last. He tossed the Poké Ball up in the air, "Leavanny, come meet my Mom!"
The Poké Ball reached its zenith in the air and split open at its hinge, releasing a flash of white-blue energy that reached the floor and took the form of Ash's Leavanny and faded, leaving the Bug and Grass-Type Pokémon standing with them in the middle of the room. Ash caught the Poké Ball and placed it on the table.
"Leavanny, this is my Mom," Ash said to it, "I was thinking you could help her with the clothes-making."
"Leavaaaaannnnnnny," chimed Leavanny in a singsong voice.
"Oh my, what a lovely voice!" Delia gushed, "Make yourself right at home! Just hang on a second!"
She walked over to the window, leaned out and called to Mr. Mime. "Mimey, we've got a new house member! Please come in and show them the house please!"
Ash's friends looked at him with the fateful, inevitable question in their eyes. "Yeah," he admitted lamely. "She calls it Mimey."
Delia leaned back in and closed the window, then walked over to the door to let Mr. Mime in. Immediately the Barrier Pokémon began showing Ash's Leavanny around the house, showing it where everything was kept, what needed doing and so on and so forth.
"Thank you Ash," said Delia, wrapping her arms gratefully and maternally around her son. "Leavanny will really be a big help to me. Thank you so much."
"You're welcome," Ash said, embarrassed that his mother was hugging him in front of his friends. "Now could you let me go please? You're embarrassing me!"
Delia sighed and released the boy. "Oh, a few things before you head up to your room: I changed the sheets on your bed and I need your help to see if some of your old clothes still fit before I decide whether or not to throw them out, okay?"
"Okay," Ash nodded, then turned to head upstairs. "I'm just gonna change for a bit, I'll be back soon!" he called to his friends while bounding up the stairs to the second floor. The hallway on the second floor of the Ketchum household was exactly the way he remembered it. Except for the walls which were covered in some new floral pattern that Ash didn't care for much.
His room was where it always was: all the way down to the window overlooking the front of the house, last door on the left. Ash entered and smiled that his mom hadn't changed anything. Everything was exactly the way it was and should be, with the addition of a laundry basket in the corner with a Post-It note reading "Old Clothes Pending to Goodwill." Ash looked into the basket and frowned sadly.
"No," he said, pulling out a short-sleeved button-up shirt, colored white at the sleeves but blue on the body. This was the shirt he wore when he'd first started his journey; he'd worn it all throughout Kanto, the Orange Islands and finally Johto before he'd come home and changed his outfit before going to Hoenn. Ash held the garment up close, seeing all the tiny holes from the badges he'd kept in this shirt. It brought a smile to his face. While most other Trainers had kept their badges in a badge case or a bag even, Ash had tacked them up on the inside of his shirt so that when someone wanted to know who he was or something, he could open his shirt and flash the badges like a cop or something. It made him feel unique among Trainers, even if it was because of something so trivial. Besides, Ash always thought it made him look super-cool.
"No way she's throwing this out," Ash took off his backpack and hoodie and placed his arms through the armholes. The shirt still fit, although it was a bit snugger now. Ash headed out the door and down the stairs, rejoining his friends in the living room.
"What's this Ash?" asked Iris. She and Axew were looking at a small trophy shaped like a Poké Ball with wings on either side.
"What, that? Oh, that's just my Orange League Trophy."
"What's the Orange League?" asked Iris.
"It's a Pokémon League they have in the Orange Islands just south of Kanto," Ash explained. "First you have to earn a badge from four gyms on four different islands before you can compete against the Champion, Drake. It was pretty cool, actually."
"Wait, you battled the Champion?" Alexa asked, "So this trophy means you won, right?"
"Mm-hmm." Ash nodded and pointed to the mantelpiece. "The picture from of me and the Pokémon I used in that battle's up there."
"Wow," Iris marveled at the photo of Ash and his old team. "There's Charizard," she indicated, pointing to the large orange dragon-like Pokémon.
"Yup."
"And there's Pikachu."
"Yup."
"Pika pika."
"And… no way!" Iris turned to Ash. "You have a Lapras?! That's amazing!"
Cilan and Alexa came over to look. "I had no idea you had such a rare Pokémon on your team Ash," Cilan said. "Congrats for being able to catch one."
"Well… here's the thing," Ash explained. "I don't have Lapras anymore."
"Huh?" Iris looked at him, confused. "That's such a rare and powerful Pokémon Ash. I don't get why you'd give it up."
Ash shrugged. "Lapras was actually a baby when I caught it. It'd gotten separated from its family who'd just left it behind."
"Awwww!" went Iris. "How terrible!"
Cilan nodded his head. "It's terrible how something so unfortunate befell that poor thing."
Ash nodded. "It was. After I ended up catching it, Lapras actually helped me earn two of my Orange League Badges and helped me out a lot against Drake."
"If it's such a good Pokémon, why'd you release it?" asked Alexa.
Ash smiled at her, remembering how it happened. "One day its family showed up again and it wanted to go back," he told her. "As a Trainer, I had to do what was best for it. I'm glad I did it too, because Lapras being happy with its family is much more important than what it could do for me, y'know?"
A nostalgic yet sad smile crossed his face. "That's how it works when you have to release a Pokémon. You don't want to do it, but you have to think about what it wants. As much as I wanted to keep Lapras with me, I couldn't because I'd be putting my wants and needs first, and I wouldn't let myself call me a Pokémon Trainer if I did that. I mean, if I'd kept Lapras with me it probably would've been unhappy and missing its family. I couldn't do that to it." Ash looked up at the picture on the mantelpiece. "I'm sure Lapras is much happier now swimming around with its family than it would've been in a dinky pond somewhere at Professor Oak's lab."
Cilan closed his eyes, folded his arms and nodded in agreement. "Good call," he said, those two words summing up his feelings on the matter.
Alexa nodded too, smiling. "That was very mature of you, Ash."
Iris didn't say anything. She didn't do anything except stare at Ash and wonder how someone who'd acted like a kid in Unova could've been so thoughtful and mature this whole time.
"Dinner everyone!" called Delia from the kitchen, "I hope you all like pot roast!"
# # #
"I swear Mom, you have to be tied with Brock for the best cook in all of Kanto!" Ash extolled his mother. He was sitting back in his chair now that the meal was over, patting his bulging belly.
Cilan looked over. He'd once heard about Brock from the time Ash's old traveling companion Dawn had visited them in Unova. "So is there a chance Iris and I will get to meet this Brock?" he asked, "I'd like to get the chance to compare how good my cooking is to his and maybe even exchange some recipes."
Ash pondered for a moment. "He lives in Pewter City. I'm sure we could all visit him there if we wanted to. It'd be nice to check up on my old friends again."
"Oh! That reminds me!" said Delia all of a sudden, "Ash, your friend Misty called earlier this morning for you. She said something about the Whirl Island Cup Tournament being held again."
"What? Misty called?" Ash leaned forward, excited. He hadn't heard from Misty in a while so it'd be nice to see her again. Her and Brock. "But that's odd," he added, "I thought the Whirl Cup was held every three years. It's too early for it to be held again so soon."
Iris leaned forward. "Who's Misty?"
Ash looked at her. "Another one of my friends. She and Brock were the first two people to travel with me."
Iris looked at Ash. "How many people have you traveled with?"
Ash thought for a moment. "Well, there's been Misty, Brock, Tracey, May, Max, Dawn and you two guys."
"So that's eight in total," murmured Cilan. "You've sure had a lot of adventures, Ash."
"Yeah," Ash remarked. Turning to his mother quickly, he added, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Delia put her hand to her mouth. "Must've slipped my mind!"
Ash groaned. He knew his mother had a good heart, but he wished she'd tell him about these kinds of things. He excused himself from the table and went into the living room to call his friend Misty in Cerulean City.
She picked up on the third ring. "Hello?" Taking a second to recognize the face on the screen, she beamed when she recognized him. "Ash! How are you?"
"I'm good," Ash replied. "My mom told me you called about something in the Whirl Islands?"
"Yeah," Misty answered, "The Whirl Cup Tournament's being held again. I was thinking maybe you and I could compete in it."
"But isn't it a little early?"
Misty shrugged. "I don't know why they're holding it so early, but they are. You up for it or not?"
"Count me in!" Ash agreed. "That sounds like a whole lot of fun!" He smiled, remembering the last time he competed in the event. This time however, he'd have more Water Pokémon to assemble a team from. "Is anybody else coming?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," Misty answered. "I sent a line to May in case she was interested, although she wasn't sure about which Pokémon she'd use. But I think she's coming though."
"I'll definitely be there," Ash promised. "Did you tell Brock about it?"
Misty nodded. "He's in. Pretty much all of us are coming, which reminds me: Who's Dawn?"
"Someone I met in Sinnoh," Ash briefly explained. "She actually gave me one of my Pokémon. See you soon!"
"See you-" Misty began, but Ash in his excitement had hung up the phone before she finished.
Running back into the dining room, he explained the situation to Iris, Cilan and Alexa. The first two accepted as they were headed to Johto anyway, but Alexa declined. "I have to get back to Kalos," she explained. "I need to send these pictures to my editor."
"That's unfortunate," mused Cilan. "It was so nice travelling with you Alexa."
Alexa nodded appreciatively in Cilan's direction. "That's so kind of you," she thanked. "But my editor's not the forgiving type, so that's why I need to get back to Kalos as soon as possible." Her Helioptile, which had wrapped itself around her neck, expressed its sadness at not being able to stay further. However, Delia invited them all to stay overnight as by her reasoning it was too late out for anyone to start traveling again. They all retired to bed that evening, though as usual it took Ash some time before he could actually fall asleep. The thought of all his friends meeting one another was something he couldn't just put down so easily.
Meanwhile on the rooftop above, a redheaded woman with hair shaped like a whip retracted a headphone from her ear. "Did you hear that?" she asked to a man with medium length lavender hair.
The man, named James, nodded. "Clear as a bell Jess. The twerps have all gone to bed. Now's the perfect time to grab Pikachu!"
"Hold it!" uttered their team's talking Meowth in a hoarse whisper. "If we go in dere, de twoip'll just send us blastin' off again. I say we wait until he's distracted after competin' in dat Whirl Cup Toinament!"
Jessie and James considered the proposition. It was likely that the twerp would merely send them blasting off again. Even trying to sneak Pikachu out and away from him was likely to fail as it could always wake up and alert everyone in the house to their presence by making noise. Finally the two of them acquiesced. "Fine Meowth," said Jessie. "But you're making the plan for how to catch Pikachu once the time comes."
"Don't worry about dat," replied the feline. "'Cause I've got it all figured out. C'mon! Now we gotta go to Johto an' get to da Whoil Islands before the twoip does!"
With that he bounded off the roof, landing ever so quietly on the fence before jumping down. Jessie and James, lacking Meowth's feline physical capabilities, simply jumped down and scaled the fence as they followed their devious partner in crime towards their hot air balloon parked nearby. James lit the burner and they sailed off towards the Kanto region port in Vermillion City.