Ash didn't take Professor Oak and his mothers' advice and decided to go to the Unova Region via his Pokémon. The trip would have taken roughly 15 hours to get there by plane, with a few stopovers in the Orre Region, Holon and Fiore. But Ash, even with a new identity, still didn't think that it would fool any security personnel if his face hadn't changed. So, after he flew off on Skarmory he headed straight towards the Unova Region as Professor Oak had a world map on his coffee table and pointed out where it was. The trip ended up taking almost three days. When he'd been flying over the ocean for three hours, on top of the five that it took to get to the Northern Coast of the Kanto Region, he decided to return Skarmory to its pokéball to rest for a while and took to the ocean with Floatzel. He took the time to go to sleep on Floatzel's back, causing it to slow down some. He woke up after sleeping for three hours and spent the remaining time looking in wonder at the horizon, hoping that he was still headed in the right direction. He then got onto Garchomps back and then made some pretty good time, but another eight hours later he got on Skarmory again. He repeated this process until he got within sight of the Unova Coast. Luckily for him he was on Floatzel at the time, not wanting to garner too much attention, which flying in to a Country that was, quite frankly, in the middle of the ocean, nowhere near any other country like Kanto was. It was still another hour before Ash reached the shoreline on Floatzel's back. When he did get there he returned Floatzel to its pokéball and then walked up the beach to look for a Pokémon Centre. He found it pretty close to the stairs leading up from the beach. When he went inside he walked up to the Nurse Joy and found that she was looked different to all of the Nurse Joys that he had previously had dealings with. He said "Hello, I was wondering if..."

"Yes, we most certainly do have rooms available, please, come right this way" the Nurse Joy in charge of the Pokémon Centre said to Ash.

"What? How did you know that I..."

"I hope you don't mind my being blunt, but you sir, stink. All of the patrons here were holding their noses and I think that some of them were about to leave."

"No no, I happen to agree."

"When was the last time you had a shower?"

"About four days ago."

"Four days?" Nurse Joy exclaimed, not comprehending how someone could do such a thing. "I hope you don't mind my asking what stopped you?"

"I was on my way over here."

"But if I'm not mistaken it shouldn't be more than 18 hours from the Hoenn Region."

"What?"

"You are from the Hoenn Region, right?"

"Well, not originally, no. I have spent a lot of time there recently though."

"Ah, I see. That explains it then."

"Explains what?"

"Your accent."

"My accent?"

"The way you sound when you tal..."

"I know what an accent is, I meant, what about it?"

"Well, when someone spends a large amount of time in a certain place the way they sound changes. Don't ask me why, I'm not too sure myself, I just tend to pick up on them more than most."

"I see. Well, no, I came from the Kanto Region."

"Kanto? Then it should be fifteen hours then."

"I didn't get here by plane Nurse Joy, I flew here on my Skarmory and Garchomp, I also spent some time on my Floatzel."

Nurse Joy's eyes widened upon hearing Ash's route to the Unova Region "well then, that sounds like quite a tiring journey, for you and even more so for them."

"I agree. That's why I switched between them every eight hours or so. I was going to give their pokéballs to you earlier, before asking for my room, but you cut me off."

"I see" the Nurse Joy said.

"Well, here they are, and thanks" Ash said as they arrived at the rooms that he was to stay in at the Pokémon Centre.

"What is your name?" Nurse Joy asked before moving off.

"My name?"

"Yes, so I can record whose Pokémon I'm treating, there's a lot more work filling in forms to do after healing the Pokémon than there is actually healing them."

"I see. You know what?"

"No?"

"I think that that's actually the first time that I've ever heard someone in your family complaining about their work."

The Nurse Joy blushed and said "well, I think that all of the rest of the Nurse Joy's happen to be a bit odd like that."

"Maybe" Ash said.

"Oh right, your name?"

"Alex(1), Alex Smith" Alex said.

"Alex huh, interesting."

"Why's that?"

"My name's Alexis."

"Huh, you're right, that is interesting. Well then, thank you Alexis...oh right, just out of curiosity?"

"Yes?"

"Where exactly am I?"

"Where?"

"Yeah, like I said, I'm not exactly from around here."

"Oh, I guess you're right. Well you're in Undella Town on the east side of the Unova Region."

"The East?"

"Yes. Why are you so surprised?"

"I would have thought that I'd hit Castelia City or Nuvema Town before Undella Town."

"Well you were out at sea for quite some time, it's not exactly surprising that you missed your target."

"Well, I must say, I'm glad I did Alexis."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Because, if I did the first person I met in the Unova Region would have been an oddball."

"What?"

"Some other Nurse Joy."

"Oh?"

"I'm infinitely gladder that I met you."

"Really?" Alexis asked, blushing.

"Yeah."

"I'm glad too."

"So, want to hop in the shower with..." Alex started to say before receiving a clipboard to his face. A fuming Alexis stomped out of the room and down the hallway.

"Well" Alex said "I must say, I probably deserved that." Pikachu fell on its back laughing. "Laugh it up furball" Alex remarked prior to receiving a powerful Thunderbolt to his chest. He fell to the floor, thoroughly charcoaled. He then got up, and had his shower, now having a second reason to have it, along with a reason to make it a quick one. When he was done with his shower he got dressed in a similar set of clothes as the ones that Pikachu had fried and went out to the Pokémon Centres front desk. He saw Alexis who, upon sighting him quickly walked away to check on some of her patients. He turned to Pikachu and made a sound of regret, he said "I really kicked it this time, didn't I Pikachu?"

"Pika pika" Pikachu said, nodding sagely.

Alex sighed and said "Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and hope for the best." Now as everyone knows, Ash has never been the best at sitting around and doing nothing so, of course, Alex is no different. He went outside, sat down and crossed his legs in a meditative position. He then focused on his Aura. Once he had found it he pushed it to his eyes. When he opened them he was no longer seeing the world in colour, it was now mostly black and all living things had changed to a blue outline with a kind of blue fire in the centre of the outline. He let his hold over his Aura go and then said, "no, still too long. I'm going to have to make it so I can change into Aura-seeing mode automatically, not to mention while I'm actually moving, but that can come later. Heh, it's funny really, I can use aura to make myself invisible to the naked eye but I can't change my sight over to aura-sight without sitting down and focusing." Pikachu made some sounds translating to 'sorry, I've no idea what to do about it'. "I know buddy, it's just really frustrating. Ah well,..." Alex said, reaching for a pokéball. "Riolu, come on out" he threw the pokéball in the air and Riolu came out in a red light.

"You called Master?"

"How many times do I have to say it Riolu, I'm not your Master, I am your friend."

"If you say so."

Alex sighed and rhetorically asked "I wonder if all Riolu and Lucario are like this to the people that train them."

"What do you mean?" Riolu asked telepathically.

"Oh right, I haven't told you have I? I met a Lucario that got trapped in an Aura Guardians' staff. He for some reason, called his trainer 'Master' as well." Riolu got a mischievous look in his eyes and Alex said "oh no. no, no, no, that's not justification for calling me 'Master'."

"Oh, I think it is."

Alex sighed and said "Hey Pikachu, reckon this Riolu is related to Sir Aarons' Lucario somehow?" Pikachu indicated that it wouldn't have a clue. Alex said "eh, ah well, that's for another time I think." Alex paused for a while and then asked "so Riolu, how are you doing in your aura training?"

"I've managed to master the aura-sight."

"Really?" Alex asked, excitedly.

"Yes, why?"

"How?"

"How? I don't understand."

"I can do the aura-sight technique, but I'm having problems managing to do it in any practical situation."

Riolu tilted its head and said "I can't really describe it, I just gather it and then push it to my eyes."

"Hmm, it could be that I'm just don't have a lot of talent when it comes to manipulating my aura inside the body."

"What do you mean Master?"

Alex sighed and said "there's that name again. Well, anyway. What I mean is, that I can make Aura Spheres, Aura Barriers, Aura Shields, hell, I can even manipulate my aura so that it refracts the light around me, but when it comes to the more subtle things, like manipulating Aura within the human body, well, that's just more difficult for me."

"I see. Well, I'm really just the opposite, I can use it to boost my physical abilities and change my sight capabilities, but all of the things that you were talking about just then, well, as you said, they're more difficult for me."

"I see. Well in that case we'd better concentrate on the areas where we excel more for the time being."

"What do you mean?"

"You find ways to manipulate Aura that can boost our physical abilities and I'll focus more on the external abilities and then I'll teach you how to do them and you can teach me how to do the internal stuff."

"I see. So is that the concept of this 'friend' that you keep on ranting on about?"

"Yes."

"I see. Then I would very much like to be your 'friend'."

"Finally, we're beginning to see eye to eye on this."

"Indeed."

"Well right now I need to think on how I can make it up to Alexis."

"Pika?" Pikachu asked, translating as "Why do you need to make anything up to her?"

"Well that's because I...I just do, that's all."

A/N:
(1) I will be referring to Ash as Alex from this point onwards