Ash grasped tightly onto his backpack strap, fuming at the attitude Brock had given him just moments ago. What the hell was that guy on? Ash turned a corner. He understood that what he had said might not have been the most diplomatic thing ever, however Brock's rage had seemed a little unjustified. Maybe it just had to do with the fact that tempers were short due to the constant camping and travelling, but the guy had always been a bit of an asshole. Ash sighed. The best thing for everyone right now would be to forget about this petty argument. The young trainer decided to focus on the reason he had left the camp in the first place: the mysterious scale he had discovered yesterday. Taking a rest under a nearby Pecha berry tree, Ash pulled out his trusty Pokedex and began to search for whatever dragon-type Pokemon could have possibly shed this strange and shiny object. Nothing matched it perfectly, despite Ash having a large catalogue of exotic Pokemon saved. Without much luck, ash pocketed his dex and continued on his way. Before he knew it, there it was: The Pokémon Lab. Ash scratched his head.
"Here goes nothing," he laughed to himself. He entered through the sliding doors of the lab and was greeted by a receptionist. She had long brown hair and was well-endowed. Ash tried to maintain eye contact with her as to not appear weird. She glanced up at him from her computer.
"Ah yes, can I help you?" Ash blushed, taken aback by her softspoken voice. He shook his head.
"O-oh uh right, I've found this here uh… scale? I was hoping to have a Pokémon Scientist look at it, I wondered if someone could identify the species of Pokemon this scale actually belongs to," Ash stuttered as he took the lovely scale out of his pack to show the receptionist. Her eyes widened.
"No worries, I'll phone Professor Butternut right now. He should be up in the Testing Room with Professor Fig Tree if I'm not mistaken…" the well-endowed receptionist shuffled some papers and punched in an internal telephone number. Ash smiled at her meekly as his gaze drifted to her chest. She was very beautiful.
"Right," Ash jumped at the lull of her voice. His eyes fluttered, face turning a light shade of red. "Dr. Butternut will see you in the Testing Room… that's Room 210. Follow the blue line and you should be able to get there no problem." Ash nodded to the woman at the desk and turned looking for a blue line, quickly spotting it.
"Right." Following the line, Ash made a quick note of the facility around him. He wanted to find a subtle hiding spot in case he came back to admire her later.
Before too long Ash was standing outside of Room 210. He hesitated briefly before knocking on the door. It quickly swung open in response to his knock to reveal two older men dressed in matching white lab coats.
"Ah, come in, come in!" bellowed the one closest to Ash who had opened the door. He appeared to be the older of the two. "My name is Professor Butternut."
"You mean like the tree?" asked Ash with interest.
The professor laughed jovially. "Precisely my dear boy! And who might you be? What brings you to our humble Pokemon Lab today?"
"Oh, uh, my name's Ash," blinked Ash. Then, remembering that Pikachu was currently sitting on his shoulder, he continued. "And this is my partner, Pikachu. We came to ask you about something we fished out of the ocean yesterday..." With that, Ash reached into his backpack and removed the scale, handing it over to the professors. Dr. Butternut adjusted his glasses.
"Now what do we have here?" his baritone voice chimed. The other man, who Ash assumed was Dr. Fig Tree, grunted, amused.
"Clearly this is a Pokémon scale, Doctor." Ash shifted his weight as Professor Butternut continued to inspect the object in question.
"Very peculiar," Butternut mused. "Professor Fig Tree, do you want to bring over our National Pokédex to see if we can get a match? I can't quite place the scale to any particular specimen..." Professor Fig Tree grunted something about grad school and wandered off into the corner of the testing room. Butternut turned to ash bemused.
"You said you found this in the ocean? Off of here on Cinnabar island I presume?" Ash nodded.
"Yeah, I tried looking through my own Dex when I found it there, to no avail. It caught my eye last night as the sun was setting so I got my trusty Dragonite to help me retrieve it."
"Interesting…" muttered Professor Butternut. Fig Tree broke the brief pause.
"Here, the completed National Dex. Y'know… I really don't understand why the Kanto government disallows transparency to the public among government-funded scientists. It really stiffles the scientific community, and causes a lot of Pokémon researchers to throw fresh trainers onto wild goose chases for information that would otherwise be readily available..." Ash coughed eyeing the dex, trying to ignore what he had just heard.
"Right… and….. nothing." Ash looked up as the two professors eyed one another intensely.
"Impossible," declared Professor Fig Tree, nudging in closer. "In no way shape or form can this possibly belong to a Pokémon if it doesn't show up in our dex." Butternut held the scale up to the light in curiosity.
"Hmm… perhaps this belongs to an ancient or uncatalogued legendary Pokemon. I can't see why that wouldn't be plausible in theory."
"Nonsense," interjected Fig Tree stiffly. "There are 151 Pokémon in count. 151! If you think there are any more than that I think you're hallucinating quite frankly Butternut." Butternut looked at Fig Tree with a faint lusty gaze in his eye.
"Now now Figgy, let's not get emotional here. We're in a workspace, compose yourself." Butternut handed the scale back to Ash.
"Apologies, Ash was it? We're working on a large government-backed project right now kid. As much as we would love to help you we simply don't have enough funding on our plate to invest more than a few minutes into exterior projects. If you come back in a few weeks we might be able to look into this further but until then…" Butternut shrugged as his voice trailed off. Ash nodded in understanding. Luckily for the professors, Ash supported Kanto's current government. Their strong fiscal policies partnered with protectionist values on the international scale really paralleled with Ash's personal belief system.
"I understand. Good luck with you research, professors." Ash turned quietly and exited the Pokemon Lab, making sure to catch a glimpse of the gorgeous receptionist on his way back.
Despite Ash's understanding of the professor's current situation, he couldn't help being a bit disappointed in the fact that he had learned absolutely nothing from his trip to the lab. His declining mood also made him remember his argument with that asshole Brock, and he suddenly became frustrated all over again. His victory at the gym yesterday long forgotten, Ash sulked all the way back to the beach where he had first spotted the scale. He wasn't entirely sure why he was going back here. Maybe he expected to find another clue to this mystery that was beginning to form. Maybe he just thought the ocean air would help him relax. Plopping himself down in the warm sand, Ash closed his eyes and began to fantasize about all the naughty things he wanted to do to that receptionist from earlier. He dug his hands into the sand and let the grains slip between his fingers. The anxiety was lowkey getting to him... he needed some escapism. Licking his lips, he thought long and hard about how much he wanted to fondle that receptionist's ample breasts, even for a brief moment. Snapping out of his perverted thoughts, Ash shook his head, catching himself. This wasn't the place to have these thoughts. It wasn't like he got much time to himself outside of his tent and even then he had to be careful. Ash sighed and looked to the horizon for what he assumed to be one last time. Why him?
Slowly coming back to reality, Ash suddenly noticed something once again out of the corner of his eye. Something was bobbing up and down in the shallow waves that were slopping lazily against the shore. Ash became excited as he considered the possibility that it was another scale, but as he ran towards the object it became clear that this was something entirely different. His excitement didn't wane, however, for he quickly recognized the small cylindrical object for what it was.
"A bottle!" Ash exclaimed. "Pikachu, check this out! I bet there's a message in it". Sure enough, Ash could spy a little brown piece of paper rolled up inside the glass tube.
"Pika?" asked Pikachu quizzically.
"Well how the fuck should I know what it says, I haven't opened it yet!" Ash shook his head at his friend's stupidity. Picking at the mouth of the bottle greedily, Ash managed to clumsily pop the cork open. He fumbled, sticking his fingers into the neck yielding no results.
"Fuck!" muttered Ash under his breath. He tossed the bottle onto the ground angrily. He needed someone more agile or stronger to take care of this delicate situation, and god forbid that person be Brock. He looked to the ground.
"Pika?" asked Pikachu tilting its head.
"No not you!" Ash snapped as he rolled his eyes. He reached to his belt.
"Come on out Dragonite!" he cheered. Dragonite soon appeared before the two of them in all of it's majestic greatness. Ash smiled. He figured Dragonite would be curious about the bottle in case it had something to do with the mysterious scale, but more importantly the dragon-type would be able to pull the cork from the bottle with ease. Gripping the bottle tightly with both hands, Ash held the bottle in front of him and had Dragonite grab hold of the cork. After a quick countdown, Ash pulled in one direction while his pal flew in the other. Unfortunately, Ash's hands were rather slippery, and Dragonite only succeeded in pulling the bottle from his grasp.
"Damn it!" shouted Ash. In frustration, he snatched the bottle back from Dragonite and placed it in the sand a few feet away. "Dragonite, USE SKULL BASH!"
The dragon-type almost appeared to grin as it flew up into the air before turning around and smashing into the bottle with so much force that Ash wouldn't have been surprised if Professors Butternut and Fig Tree had felt it all the way back in their lab. The bottle, needless to say, was no more. Ash quickly picked away at the broken glass until his hand finally brushed the little piece of paper. He carefully picked it up, unrolling it gently. Upon it were words written in a beautiful calligraphy. Ash squinted trying to make out the handwriting on the crinkled paper. He spoke aloud for his Pokemon to hear him,
"I wish, I wish,
With all my heart,
To fly with Dragons,
In a land apart."
"Well that's kinda gay," Ash thought to himself. Before he could react in disgust however, a blinding light emitted from his backpack.
"What the-" Ash pulled the scale out of his backpack to witness it shining a bright green light. Before he knew it, the violent rays consumed him and his Pokemon, whirling around them.
Ash blacked out.