It was Ash. A lot older than the last time they had seen him but it was still Ash … and … was that Pikachu? Gengar and Kadabra finally reached them and stopped dead smiling.
"What the? Who are you?" Ash questioned the two Pokémon stood stock still in front of him. I mean why would a Gengar and a Kadabra just be sitting here in front of him? The little mouse Pokémon on his shoulder eyed the Pokémon curiously. Gengar looked to Pikachu and pulled his tongue out; put his hands over his eyes and pulled them off his face. Pikachu giggled at the silly ghost Pokémon but then it clicked. "Heh. Well if you're not anyone's Pokémon I may as well capture you. You look pretty strong; even though it is 5:30 in the morning." Ash grabbed a poke ball from his pocket. Gengar and Kadabra looked pretty shocked. Ash was about to through the Pokéball when Pikachu jumped down in front of them to stop Ash.
"Ash NO!" Ash stopped dead and scratched his head.
"Do you know them Pikachu?" Ash took a long hard look at the two Pokémon but still nothing clicked. Pikachu turned round to Gengar.
"Wow, you got a bit bigger than the last time I saw you and you too Kadabra." Pikachu smiled and the three friends laughed. "Where's Adam?" Pikachu questioned. He knew he couldn't be far away. Ash just stood in amazement as he watched the three Pokémon talk.
"He's at a Pokémon centre up the road about 10 minutes away - well if you fly that is. Me and Gengar could sense your presence coming, so we flew down to see what it was." Kadabra smiled. "I never imagined it would be you."
"Really – wow - that's sorta spooky in a way" Pikachu just grinned. "but you guys did always creep me out a little. Well me and Ash, here, were heading up there our selves. We fought some pretty tough customers on the way up here; so some of the gang need healing at the centre up there." Kadabra and Gengar nodded.
"Then lets go." Gengar said pointing down the path.
"Come on Ash!" Pikachu motioned Ash to follow and jumped up on Ash's shoulder. Ash just shrugged.
"OK then. I hope you know what you're doing." Ash walked diligently down the path with Pikachu on his shoulder and Gengar and Kadabra floating either side of him. It took them twenty minutes to get to the centre, walking was not as fast as flying. By this time it was 5:50am - the lot of them crept into the Pokémon centre.
"Hello how may I help yo..." Nurse Joy stumbled when she saw Gengar floating beside Ash. "Hey. Haven't I seen you before?" Gengar shook his head "Yeah, you're that Adam kids Pokémon! Yah know he'll be waking up so..." This time Nurse Joy was interrupted by Ash.
"Excuse me, did you say Adam?" Nurse Joy nodded. Ash wailed back around to look at the two Pokémon. "OF COURSE!" Ash shouted out feeling about as intelligent as a guppy.
"SHHH! You'll wake the other trainers!" Nurse Joy said in a harsh whisper. "Now do you want any help or are you just here to rest?" She asked going back to her more collected self.
"Oh yeah. Here." Ash laid down Squirtle's and Bulbasaur's Pokéballs. "Can you heal these two for me?" She nodded and scuttled off to the back room with the balls. Ash quickly turned back to Gengar and Kadabra. "Where's Adam?" He had a certain level of excitement in his voice. The two Pokémon just smiled and floated off around the corner where Adam was still sitting in the chair, sleeping with Growlithe in his lap. Ash sneaked up to him and started to nudge him. Adam slowly started to open his eyes hazily. He started to see a black blob and a brownish blob just below it; it all started to come into focus a bit. "Hey Adam." Ash spoke in a bouncy voice. Adam rubbed his eyes slowly.
"Who are you? and why are you waking me…" His vision finally came back into focus. He couldn't believe it. He rubbed his eyes again just too make sure. "Ash!" Another 'Shhh!' was heard from Nurse Joy "Sorry Nurse Joy. I can't believe you're here!" Ash nodded with a gigantic grin reaching from ear to ear spread on his face. Adam started to wake his Pokémon up. Growlithe was the first one up and he yawned drowsily.
"Adam … why did yah wake me up?" Growlithe said. Yawning again so Adam got the message that he wanted to sleep.
"All will be revealed in a sec. Just let me wake the others." Growlithe nodded, while lying down on the floor putting its head on its paws. While Adam woke his other Pokémon up, Ash inspected Growlithe. He crouched down and lent his arms on his two knees. He put his hand out gently and rubbed behind Growlith's ears. Growlithe stood up quickly and looked Ash in the eyes. Grumbles and moans were heard from Hitmonchan and Scyther as Adam woke them up. Growlithe saw something in Ash's eyes that he thought only Adam had; he then realised that Ash loved Pokémon just like Adam. Growlithe jumped up and pounced on Ash lightly and started to lick his face. Ash just laughed and stroked Growlithe; the dog Pokémon bounded back off Ash after a while of stroking and face licking. Finally, now, the other Pokémon were up.
"Right. I got you up so you could meet a really good friend of mine, his name is Ash and this is his Pokémon Pikachu…" Adam paused for a second. "Hey Ash do you have your other Pokémon with you?"
"Never leave home without 'em." Ash grabbed the three remaining Pokémon from his belt and opened them up. A Pidgeot, Charizard and Chikorita appeared before their eyes. Growlithe walked up to Charizard and seized him up.
"Heh. Well … hey. You're … big." Growlithe smiled nervously. Charizard gave out a throaty chuckle.
"Heh and your small kid, what's it too yah?" Growlithe shot daggers from his eyes and growled angrily at the huge, fire-breathing, dragon in front of him.
"I'm no kid; I'm 25!" Charizard just laughed even more at Growlithe.
"You're … 25!" Charizard nearly started to cry with laughter. Growlithe just seethed with rage at the insults being thrown towards him. Adam quickly spotted Growlith's fury and grabbed him before he tried to attack Charizard; Adam could see where that would end up.
"Heh, fire Pokémon … way too much pride." Adam smiled at his old friend. Hitmonchan and Scyther walked up to Pidgeot and Chikorita.
"Sooooooo … hey." Hitmonchan said clumsily to Pidgeot. None of them really knew what to say to each other. Seeing how most of them spent their time; either with their trainer or in their Pokéball. Social skills were lacking.
Pikachu, the old observant soul, had noticed the others inability to make small talk; he turned to Gengar and Kadabra. "Look. This isn't working; we need to get them outside, so Adam and Ash can catch up."
"Yeah, you're right. We better pick straws on who gets to keep Growlithe and Charizard from trying to kill each other." Kadabra smiled as he spoke, the others chuckled. The three of them went over to their trainers. "Hey Adam we're going to go outside for a while. We all need to stretch off a bit and Scyther is looking a little restless." Adam nodded then turned to Ash.
"Hey. The Pokémon are going outside to stretch off, OK?" Ash looked concerned for a minute - as it was against his nature to leave his Pokémon by themselves - but as there were 9 of them; he thought they could handle themselves.
"Sure." The two tired and weary trainers sat down; as they did it seemed like they were inspecting each other. "Hey, yah want something to drink?" Adam nodded like a maniac. Ash and his famous backpack, he swore his mum packed every possible item into that thing. Ash handed him a small cup with some steaming hot chocolate in it.
"What, no little marshmallows too?" Ash laughed.
"Nope, not this time my friend." Adam sipped his hot chocolate and sighed.
"I really needed this. I don't think I've eaten or drink anything for the last two or three days. I only have just enough money to pay for their food, let alone mine. Soon I'm gonna be eating Growlith's kibble."
"I didn't realise you were low on cash. I never seemed to have a problem when Brock was around. I mean it was cool; he could cook from the surrounding plants but me ... I have your problem. I can't cook." The two laughed.
"Ash … what happened to Brock and Misty? I mean, the last time I spoke to Brock was when I was with you and Misty … well …" Ash interrupted.
"We just sort of … went our own ways. I mean, we had been travelling together for a long time and Brock wanted to go back and see his family. Misty just … wanted to go home, I guess. They got sick of travelling I think." Ash sipped his hot chocolate. "I really miss them but … there's not a lot I can do about it." Ash looked into his hot chocolate deeply, searching for answers.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it. I mean … maybe we can go and see them after the league is over?" Adam really wanted to see Misty and Brock again. Ash nodded.
"Maybe. So I see you've got some new Pokémon over the years?"
"Yeah, they're good Pokémon too. I wouldn't trade 'em for anything. So what about your Pokémon? Caught anything new?"
"Yeah actually … I've been training a Garydos." Ash sat back in his chair cockily.
"A Garydos? You've been training a GARYDOS!"
"Yeah, they're hard to train but it's like Charizard. Get it to trust you and they're an amazing Pokémon. So do you have anything rare?"
"Well … there is one thing. I have a Dratini stored away at Professor Oak's lab."
"You caught one of the most legendary Pokémon of ALL TIME! Where?" Ash was on the edge of his seat.
"It was abandoned up on one of the snowy mountain ranges near Blackthorn City. So I took it with me to Blackthorn and let it heal in the Pokémon Centre. After that it didn't want to leave me; so it came with me on my journey. Professor Oak was glad to take it in and do some studying on it. He said it wasn't very well covered in the Pokédex." Ash nodded in agreement.
*********
"So what do you think they're talking about?" Pikachu looked through the glass window of the Pokémon Centre at the smiling friends.
"Probably a lot. I can guarantee Adam has all talked about how he caught a Dratini." Gengar replied with a chuckle.
"And I am sure Ash has talked about how he's been training a Gyarados." The two laughed. "They always tried to out do each other on everything."
"Yep; I know that for sure. Remember our little bout?" Pikachu nodded.
"We both spent a week healing at Ash's house because neither one of us would give in. That was seriously dangerous. We nearly killed each other but … it taught them a good lesson in friendship."
"Yeah, that's true. I guess we were a bit too proud as well. We should of known when to stop."
"But the past is the past. Just got to learn from it, I guess." Pikachu smiled but turned around rapidly; he could hear some commotion going on behind him.
"Reflect!" Kadabra released an enormous barrier. He was protecting what looked like Growlithe. Charizard fired a powerful blast of fire at Kadabra but luckily his barrier held in place and neither Kadabra nor Growlithe were fried to a crisp. Charizard roared with pure fury.
"Come here yah little pest!" Charizard started to chase after Growlithe but with little look as he was big and clumsy.
"Excuse me for a second Pikachu." Gengar flew like lightning towards Charizard and stopped right in front of him. Charizard nearly trampled the dark coloured Pokémon.
"Get out my way Gengar!" Charizard roared.
"Oh, that's it I think someone needs a nap time. HYPNOSIS!" Charizard stood startled as hypnotic waves appeared from Gengar's eyes. Charizard starred deeply at Gengar and was quickly in a stagger. Soon enough the giant Pokémon hit the ground and was snoring like a baby. Pikachu scampered over.
"Wow. Your hypnosis attack got really powerful. Can't believe you took out Charizard." Gengar smiled.
"He'll be out for about 10 minutes. Enough time for him to forget about good old Growlithe. Speaking of which. GROWLTHE!" The dog Pokémon popped its head out from behind a bunch of bushes.
"Thanks Gengar. He was about to kill me!"
"What did you say to him?" Pikachu asked.
"Lets just say I hit a nerve and leave it at that OK. I need to rest anyway. I'm gonna go inside with Ash and Adam."
"OK." The two said together. They laughed.
"We still got it." Pikachu smiled. Growlithe walked off into the Pokémon centre. He lazily pattered up to the two trainers and jumped up onto Adams lap.
"Oh so you're back?" Adam asked.
"Yep, thought I'd just get away from Charizard for a bit." Growlithe smiled and got comfy.
"OK." Adam shook his head and smiled at the craziness of it all.
"So … can you understand what your Pokémon are saying?" Adam nodded.
"Yep. Gengar taught me how to understand the language. I think it brought me closer to them." Ash nodded admiring Adam's close friendship with his Pokémon.
"Well my friend; we should get to sleep as it's" Ash looked at the clock on the wall. "6:30am. We might actually get half an hours sleep." Adam laughed. The two of them went outside and collected their Pokémon.
"Charizard, Pidgeot, Chikorita return!" Ash held the three Pokéballs out as he asked the three to return. They did, now it was Adams turn.
"Kadabra, Hitmonchan, Scyther, Gengar return!" The Pokémon did and the two friends walked back into the centre with the rest of the Pokémon following them. Ash and Adam slumped down onto a couch. Growlithe jumped up and lay on Ash's lap and Pikachu lay on Adams. "Well this is a turn for the books." Adam yawned.
"I guess … they're just comfortable with us both." Ash smiled.
"I'm glad you came here yah know Ash … I really missed having a human friend around."
"I know what you mean. It gets sort of lonely on your own. Well now that we've found each other again we won't have a problem." Ash smiled. "Night Adam."
"Night Ash." The two trainers drifted off to sleep.