Disclaimer: I own nothing; you know the drill

Feedback: Always welcome

AN: This chapter's mostly going to look at Ash's own actions since he left Trovita, but after last chapter was all about Misty, I felt a balanced view was appropriate before we get them back on the same island

AN 2: For a future vote, based on what we saw of Rudy's line-up in the show, what Pokemon do you think he'd use in a Normal-Type battle? I'm current alternating between Lickitung and Raticate, as Kangkashan and Snorlax are too bulky to dance well, Porygon seems a bit too rare, Chansey isn't exactly a fighter, and Persian and Tauros just don't feel right, but I'm open to other suggestions (Keeping in mind that we'd be focusing on Generation 1 Pokemon here, based on the rest of Rudy's line-up)

A Perfect Match?

Ash was in hospital.

The moment she heard that news, Misty felt like her blood had frozen.

It wasn't that Ash had never been in danger, but he'd always come through it safely enough; even when Charizard was being disobedient, he'd never done anything more serious than char Ash's clothing even if the flames were hot, and Ash had always been careful about not getting close enough to wild Pokemon to give them a chance to hurt him before he'd determined if they were safe…

"Hospital?" she repeated, hoping that she didn't sound as anxious as she felt; even if Ash had hurt her when he left, she didn't want him hurt like that.

"He's not actually ill- he suffered a close call with frostbite, but Charizard was able to keep him warm long enough to get him to a hospital-"

"Hold on a minute; Ash almost got frostbite and Charizard saved him?" Misty interjected, looking at the screen in shock, fear for Ash temporarily overridden by confusion. "What happened?"

"That's… a bit of a long story," Tracey said awkwardly. "You heard about all that weird weather out at Shamouti Island a couple of weeks ago, right?"

"Yeah…" Misty nodded uncertainly, remembering all the chaotic storms a fortnight ago; she hadn't heard much of the details as she'd been on another island in search of new Pokemon, and by the time she'd returned with Poliwag, everything had calmed down and nobody seemed to know what had happened. "Did Ash get caught in the storm?"

"Actually, he stopped it."

"He stopped a storm?" Misty repeated in confusion. "How could he do that?"

"Well… it's a bit confusing, but it started when we landed on Shamouti at the same time as they were starting this annual festival," Tracey explained. "Part of the Festival called for a Pokemon trainer to collect the three treasures of Fire, Lightning and Ice Island around Shamouti, as part of some old legend, but when Ash went to collect them, he ended up getting caught up in the plans of this Pokemon Collector who was trying to acquire three legendary Pokemon from each island."

"Legendary Pokemon?" Misty repeated curiously. "Who are we talking about here?"

"Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres."

"The Legendary Birds?" Misty yelled in shock. "Someone just wanted to… to collect them?"

"And that's not even the worst bit," Tracey continued grimly. "Apparently, he was after them because of a prophecy that stated that, if someone disrupted the harmony of the three Birds by trying to capture any of them, it would wake up the 'beast of the sea' in the form of the fourth Bird, Lugia, because he wanted to capture Lugia as well."

"That's… bad… but what does that have to do with the weather?"

"I'm not clear on how, but capturing the birds provoked some kind of territorial instinct that prompted them to try and take each other's territories, which also disrupted their own influence over the weather patterns," Tracey explained. "The only thing that could calm them were the three treasures Ash had been collecting for the ceremony and Lugia's song… and Ash was apparently the literal 'Chosen One' of the prophecy."

"Really?" Misty said, allowing herself a slight smile at the thought; even if Ash wasn't in great shape now, he'd at least had some interesting news beforehand. "He must have enjoyed that-"

"He didn't."

"Excuse me?" Misty said, not sure she'd heard Tracey correctly. "We're talking about Ash here; he got ridiculously excited when he won his first battle in the Indigo League, and you're telling me he didn't like learning that he's some 'Chosen One'?"

"When we first heard the full prophecy, he kept protesting that saving the world was too much for him even after he'd already recovered two of the orbs; even when I tried to assure him that I had faith in him, he didn't seem to want to accept it," Tracey explained. "Pikachu gave him a shock to get him moving, and some of his other Pokemon came out to express their own faith, he still seemed like he was just doing it because we wouldn't let him run away from it rather than because he felt he could actually pull it off. I wasn't there for most of it, but… actually, Team Rocket-"

"Team Rocket?" Misty cut in. "What were they doing there?"

"Helping him, actually; they apparently argued that they'd be out of a job if the world ended," Tracey replied with a slight smile. "He'd been trying to get to the third island on his own while Lugia kept the birds distracted, but it would have been slow going if Team Rocket hadn't salvaged a dingy and fitted it with a propeller to give him a boost… anyway, I spoke with them for a little bit after the birds had calmed down, and Jessie noted that Ash had been in a particularly grim mood during the whole experience."

"Why would they even care?" Misty asked, wondering what the world had come to if Jessie was expressing concern for Ash.

"She said something about how it's no fun trying to steal anything from someone who isn't trying to keep it, but I don't think that's it…" Tracey said, his smile faltering as he looked at her with a new intensity. "Actually, what did you say to him?"

"What did I- I haven't even spoken to Ash since you left-!"

"That's what I meant," Tracey said, his voice surprisingly cool as he looked at her. "He's changed ever since we left Trovita, and I only noticed it happen after he went down to the port after going off to see you, so what did you say to him?"

"He… didn't tell you?" Misty asked, trying not to think too much about what Tracey was implying; Ash had just stormed off in his usual childish huff and made a big thing out of a loss, it wasn't because of her

"He barely spoke to me after we left apart from mentioning that you'd decided to stay and something about him only caring about his Pokemon…" Tracey shrugged awkwardly. "To be honest, after his initial outburst, I was almost afraid to ask him for more details. He spent most of the next day in silence, and then he just headed to the nearest island to start some very intense training, fighting some of the local Pokemon and then moving on. I tried to get him to stop, but he just kept on moving; when we found an island known for producing larger-than normal Pokemon, he went straight to it so that he could send Snorlax and Bulbasaur out against some very large Rhydon, as well as pitting Pikachu and Squirtle against some of the local giant Pidgeot."

"He's just… sending them out?" Misty asked, suddenly anxious about how far Ash might be pushing his team…

"He recalls them and runs the moment he thinks it might be too much, but the fact that he was looking for opportunities to train like that… it just seemed like he was pushing himself too hard even if he wouldn't put his Pokemon at risk," Tracey explained. "I mean, he even tried using Lapras for a few matches, and you know that Lapras has always seemed fine just carrying us."

"Yeah…" Misty said, grateful to hear that Ash didn't seem to have changed that much even if he was pushing himself. "And… Charizard?"

"He tried that a couple of times," Tracey admitted, his expression shifting to a more familiar awkwardness. "It… went as well as you'd expect."

"Right…" Misty said, going over the timeline in her head; she had definitely started living in Trovita only a fortnight before that storm, which meant Ash must have crammed a lot of training in between his departure and whatever happened on Shamouti for Tracey to be this concerned about it. "This was all before Shamouti? Why did he-?"

Her mind froze as she suddenly remembered her last 'conversation' with Ash, during which she'd mentioned that she'd initially believed that he and Squirtle would win his battle with Starmie, only to follow it up by saying that she guessed she had been wrong.

And then Ash asked if I meant he still wasn't a good trainer…

She could argue that she'd been looking for a way to make a cleaner break by using that argument to say that it was time for her to move on, but the thought that Ash had taken that comment and twisted it around to imagine that she still didn't think he was a good trainer…

She'd been harsh sometimes, but she'd never thought that he'd take it seriously enough to think that she meant that he was a bad trainer. He might not train the same way that she did, and his attitude could be a bit lax given how little time he'd spent genuinely training before the Indigo League, but she wouldn't want him to become the kind of trainer who only used his Pokemon to fight and train while leaving them stuck in their balls otherwise.

Oh Arceus, she thought, her mind going over everything she'd said to him in their last meeting with a new sense of anxiety.

Talking about how she had been wrong about the winner of that battle… revealing her decision to stay with Rudy… talking about how Togepi and Rudy were the only good things to come of travelling with him… basically treating him as though he was still the stupid kid who'd sent out a Caterpie against a Pidgeotto…

He'd never seemed to take her harsher comments that seriously ever since Team Rocket attacked them for the first time during that argument in Viridian Forest when he'd captured Pidgeotto… but could she really have made him think that now?

"How did he get frostbite?" she asked, trying to get back to the more immediate concern. "I mean, if Team Rocket had that boat-?"

"The three birds attacked Ice Island before Ash could get off, and he had to hitch a ride on Lugia to get away," Tracey explained. "I only saw it from a distance, but it looked like the collector tried to capture Lugia, and Lugia managed to destroy the collector's fortress at the same time as it was trapped by… something. Ash and Lugia both fell into the water, and with Marill the only water-type anyone there had to spare, it took us a while to find him; by the time he reached the shore, he was constantly shivering no matter how close Charizard stayed to him, and Charizard wasn't in great shape-"

"I'm sorry; he used Charizard in a frozen ocean in the middle of an all-out showdown between three legendary Pokemon?" Misty yelled, falling back into old habits as she tried not to think about how close to death Ash must have been. "Why didn't he use Squirtle or Lapras? They'd-"

"Both took a beating during an earlier attack from Zapdos when we were trying to get back to Shamouti after releasing Zapdos and Moltres; Charizard was the only Pokemon large enough to keep him afloat after Lugia was nearly captured," Tracey explained, before he smiled grimly. "The good news is that it looks like Charizard's calmed down; he actually seemed to be very protective of Ash when he got back to Shamouti, and he's actually been getting along with the rest of the team while they've been resting in the hospital garden."

"So… Charizard's listening to him?" Misty asked, grateful to hear at least one bit of good news; the circumstances of it were terrible, but after all the times Ash had tried to earn the respect of his potential powerhouse, at least it sounded like he'd achieved that goal.

"Well… I'm assuming it will, anyway; like I said, Ash has been in hospital since the storm ended."

"Hold on; he's still in hospital after frostbite?" Misty asked, suddenly struck with horrific visions of Ash having to have something amputated. "How bad was he?"

"Actually, he's over the worst of it; the doctors think Charizard and Pikachu were able to keep him warm enough to avoid the worst of any potential damage, and we got him to a hospital as soon as we could once the birds had stopped fighting," Tracey explained. "It was touch-and-go for the first few days- his mother and Professor Oak were by his side until he woke up-"

"His mother's there?"

The fact that Tracey hadn't mentioned Professor Oak earlier despite his initial enthusiasm about the chance to meet his hero said a great deal about how concerned he was about Ash, but the idea of Delia Ketchum coming all this way to see her son raised a few worrying ideas about just how Ash was doing.

"She came over in a helicopter with Professor Oak after they saw a news broadcast about the storm, and like I said, they've been here even since; Professor Oak hasn't even bothered to try and analyse the GS Ball until we can be sure Ash is over his… whatever this is."

"Whatever this is?" Misty repeated sceptically. "You said he was over the worst of it-"

"The physical injuries are pretty much healed; it's his mental state that has the doctors concerned," Tracey explained. "He responds when his Pokemon come to him, but most of the time he just sits in his bed ever since he woke up, responding to a few direct questions about his health and nothing else. Professor Ivy's tried to get that 'Brock' person you mentioned to come and talk to him, but… well…"

"You want me to try and talk to him?" Misty asked, unable to believe that she was hearing this. "Tracey, he left me behind-"

"And then went through a radical change of behaviour that all seemed to be focused on trying to get over you," Tracey countered, his entire manner strangely grim as he looked at her. "Misty, just because I specialise in Pokemon doesn't mean that I don't pay attention when it comes to people; Ash has been pushing himself since he left Trovita because he's trying to stop himself thinking about a painful topic, and the only thing that's ever inspired this kind of emotional intensity from him is you."

Misty didn't even bother trying to awkwardly deny that; if Ash was in that kind of mood, she was going to do her best to get him out of it, no matter what she thought about Tracey's theory.

He might have left her behind, but that didn't mean she'd stopped caring about him; she just needed to make him realise that moping around about some stupid argument wasn't helping anyone…

"All right," she said, nodding at Tracey in grim acceptance. "Give me a day or two to sort things out here, and I'll be there as soon as I can."

She doubted she could do anything that Oak and his mother hadn't told Ash already, but she'd spent too long with him not to at least try and help him.


AN 3: Coming up next, Misty faces some uncomfortable emotional revelations about the reason for Ash's current state…