Disclaimer: I do not own, nor will I ever own Pokémon.

Chapter 8

3rd person P.O.V. (in the Hall of Origins)

"Meloetta! Stop making fun of Ash!" Arceus roared at the normal psychic legendary from Unova.

"But he can't even do a plié!" Meloetta protested. For Arceus, this was probably going to be one of those instances where he was going to lose control of his temper and scare some of the younger legendries.

"I don't care! You know that Ash cannot dance, so stop making fun of him! If you don't stop right now, then I will close the observation portals for the rest of the week!" Arceus roared.

Meloetta and the younger legendries did indeed burst into tears at this. Mew was having a fit, and Mewtwo trying to fix the things his mother broke as quickly as possible. Zekrom and Reshiram simply turned away from the chaos and returned to their chess game (they just kept playing chess together over the centuries for no reason). Raikou went over to her babies and comforted them as much as she could, her brother Entei and sister Suicune not far behind her. Lugia woke up briefly amidst all the racket before going back to sleep, curled around her baby. Ho-Oh, Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos decided to just fly off to have another race around the Hall of Origin. The Regi trio and Regigigas just beeped away in a corner as usual, not making too much fuss about any of it. Kyogre decided to splash Groudon who sent an earthquake in Kyogre's direction, which caused both Rayquaza and Deoxys to get mad and scold the two of them. Kyurem decided to go and referee Zekrom and Reshiram's chess game, because Zekrom often tried to cheat. Xerneas and the elder Diance went around comforting the more upset of the younger legendries such as Manaphy, Phione, Celebi, and baby Reshiram. The Lake Guardian trio just brooded in a corner over the latest season of Pokémon Ranger. The Swords of Justice began to herd Keldeo from the room, sensing the rising danger coming from Arceus. Magearna made a bouquet of flowers which caused Volcanion to sneeze, which made the younger legendries start crying again. The Eon duo began a game of tag. Solgaleo and Lunala were both too old and frail to leave their rooms, so Necrozma was caring for them (thankfully that meant they weren't in the midst of the chaos). Darkrai and Cresselia joined the Eon duo's game of tag. Hoopa started summoning random stuff with his rings. Giratina rolled his eyes, Dialga sighed as she knew that things were only going to get worse, and Palkia shook his head in denial that legendries would ever act in such a juvenile way.

The noise in the room became so unbearable that eventually Arceus just snapped.

"QUIET ALL OF YOU!" he roared as loud as he could. Every single Pokémon in the entire Hall of Origins stopped and looked at Arceus. "Ash deserves some privacy. If you are going to be nosy and use the observation pools to spy on him, then at least have the decency to not make fun of him. I am very tempted to close the pools for the rest of the week. The pools are here to observe the Mother-Plane to make sure that we can stop disasters before they happen. You are to be quiet or to take your noise somewhere else in this Plane of existence or I will kick you all out of this room so that I can keep watch for disasters. IS THIS UNDERSTOOD?!" Arceus explained to them as calmly as he could.

There were a lot of cries of 'Yes Lord Arceus' around the room as the legendries with children herded their young out of the room. Zekrom and Kyurem packed up the chess board and followed the two Reshirams (the mother and her baby) back to their room so that Kyurem could take of baby Reshiram while the other Reshiram and Zekrom played chess. Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina stayed exactly where they were at their observation pools as they continued to do their job. Mew flew off somewhere with Meloetta, while Mewtwo followed behind to make sure the two dance-crazed legendries didn't get themselves into too much trouble. Hoopa ringed everything back to where it belonged. Diance and Xerneas herded all the other young legendries out of the room. The two Lugia continued sleeping. The Lake guardian trio continued brooding as they floated out the door to take their discussion elsewhere. The Regi trio and Regigigas came over to the pools to begin watching for signs of trouble. The Swords of Justice continued to herd Keldeo away from Arceus (still feeling that sense of danger). Volcanion picked up Magearna and took her back to their rooms (feeling a need to keep her safe as well as a need to sleep). Kyogre and Groudon each wet back to their respective rooms (as Rayquaza and Deoxys had scolded them more than enough by this point), while Rayquaza and Deoxys went off to play twister. The Eon duo, Darkrai, and Cresselia took their game of tag elsewhere. Necrozma told Lunala and Solgaleo what had just caused Arceus to blow up.

It didn't take long for the room to become empty, but it took for the rest of the day for Arceus to calm down enough that he didn't yell at anyone who made a sound in the same room as him.

~Meanwhile, back in the Mother-Plane, Kalos (Professor Sycamore's Summer Camp), Ash's P.O.V.~

As I collapsed onto the ground, I let out a groan in protest to the dance terms that were being shouted around me. Clemont had passed out earlier, followed by Trevor and Gary. I had lasted the longest, but only due to my stamina. It was only midday, and there was still another six hours of this torture. I could already hear Meloetta laughing in my ear.

"Get up, Ash," Bonnie insisted as she pulled on my arm.

"No, I can't do anymore dancing. I've reached my limit," I protested. Bonnie continued to pull on my arm until she fell over, and I had to use my powers to stop her from landing on her broken arm.

"You promised you would be careful," I scolded her with Clemont coming up behind me to scold her as well.

"Sorry. I just wanted to get you up," Bonnie explained.

"Even then you should have been more careful," Clemont scolded her.

"Sorry," Bonnie said before skipping off to do some more dance. It was mainly ballet, hip hop, and jazz, which also happened to be the types of dance best suited to martial arts training.

I watched carefully and every now and then, I would speak up and tell Bonnie how the move she was working on could correspond to a martial arts move. Every time I did this, she would jump around and beg me to show her. Serena would do the move while I did the martial arts version of it.

"I still can't understand how you can do all that martial arts stuff, but be unable to do the dancing," Shauna commented.

"My teachers hypothesise that my body is almost hardwired for martial arts and more combat styled activity, and dance would destabilise and throw out the 'calibration' of my body. Continuing on with that, when I do try to dance, my martial arts gets out of whack for a few days. The examples that I gave you had wobbles and errors in it that I shouldn't have," I explained.

"I didn't see any errors!" Trevor exclaimed.

"That's because you most likely have little to no experience with martial arts, whereas I have ten years of full on training and practice of martial arts. What you perceive to be without errors is something that has errors in my eyes," I outlined to Trevor.

"I guess that makes sense. Like how with my photos, most people can't see the rarity of what I take pictures of in most cases, whereas I can!" Trevor realised.

"That's right," I say while nodding.

"Let's get back to dancing!" Tierno exclaimed.

"I think that Ash better not. He needs to keep up his martial arts skills, so maybe he should sit this one out," Bonnie exclaimed.

"Bonnie's right, we can't have Ash having his martial arts skills inhibited due to dance. However, this doesn't mean that Clemont, Gary, and Trevor are excused," Shauna agrees while nodding. The three of them look at me with a pleading look on their faces, I sighed knowing that I couldn't leave them to the form of torture known as dancing.

"Actually, Gary needs to learn some martial arts, so I'll teach him that, Clemont and Trevor can join us if they want to," I say.

"I'll join in!" Clemont and Trevor stated together without hesitating.

"Alright, let's head over to the exercise equipment then," I instruct them. I looked back at the others for a moment and saw Bonnie frowning at me, most likely because she couldn't do martial arts for a few more months due to her arm.

"So, what do we do first?" Gary asks.

"Let me get a few punching bags up," I say before levitating them with my psychic powers until they attach to their hooks. "Right, so first up, you need to learn how to punch. A very important thing when punching is that you never curl your fists with your thumb inside your fist. If you do and you throw a punch, you will break you thumb," I explain shooting a very careful look at Trevor and Clemont.

"Right, no thumb inside the fist, understood," Gary repeated and the other two nodded.

"Another thing, you need to have good balance and distribution of weight through your feet. Your centre of mass has to stay strictly above your feet, and in order to deliver a powerful blow with a punch you need to put you weight behind it, you have to learn how to move your feet in order to correct your balance," I tell them.

"I never knew that punches could be so complicated," Trevor exclaims.

"Agreed. You never put this much detail into how punches worked with Bonnie," Clemont adds.

"That is because all three of you are scientists or researchers in your own rights. By explaining the reasoning behind how punches work, you would be able to understand clearer. Bonnie is not interested in the science behind how these things work, nor would she be able to understand right now. I explained how it worked to the best of my abilities that she would understand," I explained.

"Makes sense," Gary says as he walks over to one of the punching bags and attempts to punch it, only to fall over once his fist hit the punching bag. "Okay, what did I just do wrong?" he asked.

"Your centre of gravity went outside your base of support, otherwise known as your feet. Watch how I throw the punch," I say before going over to another punching bag. I take a step back before moving my feet quickly as I moved my right hand, already in a fist, towards the punching bag at high speeds. When my fist collided with the punching bag it flew off its hook and I moved my feet again to keep my centre of gravity above my feet.

"I didn't move my feet, so I toppled over from the movement," Gary stated in realisation.

"Correct. So, I have to teach you how to move lightly on your feet, but also how to keep your feet firmly connected and balanced on the ground while moving lightly on your feet," I say.

"That doesn't make any sense though!" Clemont exclaims.

"I know it doesn't. when I was first learning, I couldn't understand it either. Now though, it comes easily and naturally," I say with a laugh. "Alright, the first exercise that I can give you to help you move your feet lightly is skipping." I pick up a skipping rope and start skipping. I smiled at the memories that came with me having a very similar lesson years ago.

~Start Flashback~

"I don't understand Sir Aaron, how am I supposed to stay light on my feet but manage to stay connected to the earth?" I asked my aura guardian mentor.

"Back when I was alive, my mentor made me run across rice paper sheets and if I broke a single sheet or my feet made a single sound, I would have to start again. That is how I learnt how to stay light on my feet. When I learnt how to stay connected to the earth, my mentor made me do long distance running over rough ground. However, Lady Mew has introduced me to a fabulous tool that will help achieve the same results for both. Go find yourself a skipping rope," my mentor instructed.

I did as instructed, though my ten-year-old mind was protesting, skipping was a girly thing to do! I showed Sir Aaron the skipping rope and he nodded. "Start skipping. I'll tell you when you can stop for today," he told me. I grumbled under my breathe but didn't protest otherwise.

~time skip – 9 years later – still in flashback~

"Skipping exercises!" Sir Aaron exclaimed as he floated into the training room.

"Yes Sir Aaron," I say without protest before grabbing my skipping rope and began the exercise. Twenty revolutions straight on medium speed, twenty revolutions of speed steps on high speed, twenty revolutions of criss-crosses at medium speed, twenty revolutions of quintuple unders at medium speed, twenty revolutions of Front-back crosses at high speed, twenty revolutions of double unders at high speed, and twenty revolutions of donkey kicks at medium speed before repeating the process all over again. I continued in this manner for what seemed like hours.

"Alright, that is enough," Sir Aaron finally told me. I stopped abruptly and ducked when the rope went over the top of me and jumped over it as it slowed to a stop in behind of me. I dropped the rope and knelt on the ground waiting for further instructions.

"You have done well. Move onto your punches," Sir Aaron told me. I jumped up and began more practice. When I had started this, I would have collapsed from exhaustion from this much exercise, now though I had more than enough stamina to keep going for a very long time.

~End Flashback~

"Simple skipping will probably be the best warm up for now. However, the type of skipping that is the best suited to learning how to keep your feet light and still connect to the earth is the speed step skipping. However, with enough practice, you can get up to this level," I say while demonstrating before going into my old skipping exercise.

I had to admit, I missed doing this. Skipping was a different way of exercising, and it also had an almost therapeutic feeling to it once I got into the rhythm. It also used a lot of different muscles, and had been very useful throughout my ten years of training in the Hall of Origin.

"How the hell does he do that?" I heard someone say. I slowed down before stopping completely.

"Who said that?" I asked.

"That would be me," Tierno says.

"Well, in answer to your question, for ten years, skipping was part of my training. I had to do it every day unless my teachers decided that there were other more important things I needed to be doing. Ten years is a long time to do something every single day, and it ends up becoming very easy to just lose yourself in the actions," I say with a slight chuckle.

"Maybe we should all do some skipping? It would be fun!" Serena suggested.

"Yes, it would be, but I can't hold the rope to do any skipping!" Bonnie reminded people.

"Well, we can tie one end to a pole, and I can hold the other end and turn the rope for you," Clemont offered.

"Ah, no Clemont. You need more exercise, I will use my psychic powers to turn the rope for Bonnie," I stated. Clemont groaned at this.

"Yeah, big brother, you aren't getting out of exercising!" Bonnie said happily. Shauna laughed at the two of them and their antics while Serena and Tierno went around finding skipping ropes. When we all had a skipping rope, we started doing skipping together. Bonnie was very good at skipping, as was Serena and Shauna. Tierno got the hang of it easily, and Gary was almost as fast to pick it up. Trevor kept tripping over and Clemont kept hitting himself in the glasses with the rope accidentally despite how many times I had helped them correct their balance or helped them land properly.

Eventually, Shauna grabbed Clemont and forced him to do skipping with her, and thankfully that helped his problems a lot, even though he froze up sometimes when Shauna would get slightly closer than normal in mid jump. The two of them doing that gave me an idea to help Trevor.

"Hey, Tierno! Why don't you help Trevor with his skipping? If you do it at the same time and you help him, Trevor could probably gain his balance better," I suggest. Trevor went red at that and started stuttering at that much the same way that Clemont would around Shauna, and I cocked an eyebrow with interest at that. Tierno's reaction was different in a good way and he beamed at me before saying that he would be happy to and grabbed Trevor's wrist.

I smirked at the two of them and Serena walked over to my side.

"Those two would make a cute couple," Serena says as she picks up her water bottle.

"Cute would be the wrong word to use. They complement each other very well. Trevor also seems to like Tierno if his blush from earlier and his current thoughts are anything to go on," I say.

"Ash! Didn't your mother ever tell you not to pry into a person's personal space?" Serena asked me in a mock-horrified tone.

"Actually, it wasn't prying. Trevor's thoughts about Tierno were at the very fore-front of his mind as he was trying not to think about it, and failing spectacularly, and at this point in my training, fore-front thoughts are easy to hear at this distance. Don't worry, most of the time it is just whispers, and due to how you are learning how to control your own psychic powers, your thoughts are much more protected. Trevor though, he has no training in hiding his thoughts, and he was practically screaming them in my ear. If you focus on hearing them, you would be able to hear them as well," I explain to Serena.

"So, it's more along the lines of you can't help what you are hearing?" Serena asks.

"Yes. If I wanted to, I could close myself off to everyone's thoughts, but that is impossible while using my psychic powers for other things, and as I am turning the skipping rope for Bonnie, I am prone to hearing the fore-front thoughts of those around us," I explain further.

"Makes sense. Will that happen to me too?" Serena asks.

"Maybe, time will tell. It depends on which branch your psychic powers lean towards. Mine have always been very heavily connected with mind reading or telepathic branch, hence the reason why I find it ridiculously easy to hear the thoughts of other people and communicate using thoughts. There are two other main branches. There is the telekinesis branch which is the most common, and is generally the easiest branch to master so most psychics can use it with a leaning towards telepathy or the other branch. The other branch is prophetic sight, or being able to see the future. Psychics who travel down the prophetic sight branch usually have a family history with it. Olympia has the prophetic sight ability, and it is known that she had ancestors with the same capabilities," I explain to Serena.

"I had no idea it was that complicated," she says.

"Most don't. Generally, these are secrets that psychics keep to themselves, so non-psychics believe that all psychics have the same set of powers, when they really don't," I tell my girlfriend.

"Do aura guardians and ninjas have such complicated branches of powers and stuff like that as well?" Serena asks.

"Yes. Different ninja clans have different specialty techniques, and aura guardians have four main power branches, defensive aura, offensive aura, aura sight, and aura healing. To be honest, aura healing is the hardest aura guardian branch for me to grasp. I can generally heal cuts and scrapes, but I struggle with larger injuries unless I am driven by adrenaline which doesn't happen with all the exercises that I use to stay calm," I say with a sigh.

"Let me guess, as a psychic, I'm not supposed to know about such things?" Serena guessed.

"Very much so. You probably get a pass since you are traveling with aura guardians and ninjas who are learning, so the topic is going to come up again, but please don't mention it to anyone else," I ask.

"Not a problem," Serena says before giving me a full-on kiss which messes up my concentration and my psychic powers stop turning Bonnie's skipping rope in response.

"Come on you two! Stop with the making out at get back to skipping!" Gary protested.

"Yeah! I can't do any skipping unless you turn the rope for me Ash!" Bonnie added on. Serena and I parted reluctantly and I glared at Gary before beginning to turn Bonnie's rope with my psychic powers again.

The rest of the day passed in a similar way. We would pass from activity to activity depending on what we felt like. Most of the time when we changed activity someone would just blurt out the new activity and explain what it was and we would all try it. Thankfully, we didn't go back to dancing, and I was very grateful for that.

When we went to dinner, Professor Sycamore stopped us and gave us a stern look. "Did you remember to clean up your cabin?" he asked.

I remembered that we hadn't, but before the others could say anything, I spoke up.

"Of course we did, professor. We told you that we would, didn't we?" I replied. Serena nudged my mental defences, but I focused on sending out waves of psychic powers to clean up our cabin.

"Well, I have heard that you were in the gymnasium all day, so there is no possible way that you could have cleaned up you cabin," the professor accused.

"Professor, would you like us to prove that we have cleaned up our cabin? Because we would be happy to show you that we have," I asked.

"As a matter of fact, I would. Lead the way, Ash," Professor Sycamore exclaimed.

"What are you doing Ash? Do you want to get us in trouble?" Serena whispered in my ear as we walked.

"We have psychic powers, why not use them?" I whisper back.

The moment we walked into the cabin, the last sheet had just fallen flat.

"See professor? We cleaned our cabin just like you asked," I say.

"Agreed. I will figure out how you did what you just did, Ash, I swear that I will," Professor Sycamore told me.

"I don't know what you are talking about Professor. All five of us contributed to cleaning the cabin. The problem was that we kind of forgot that we had done it because we are all so tired from all the exercise we did today, and Ash is the only one who is used to such brutal exercise for such long periods of time. I know that I was knackered after so much physical activity," Gary commented.

"Alright, I believe you," the professor said before almost exiting the cabin.

"Oh, and would you mind performing your song tonight as a bit of fun for the campers? You don't have to, but it would be greatly appreciated," he asked.

"Sure! We'd love to!" Bonnie exclaimed. The professor nodded and finally left.

"Thanks for the save, Gary," I say with a sigh. Professor Sycamore may be aware of my powers, but I would rather not get in trouble as the punishment he had in mind was to clean up the whole dining room without powers.

"No problem, friends have to stick together," Gary tells me.

"Good, because if we had been found out, we would have been cleaning the dining hall by hand later on tonight if what Professor Sycamore was thinking in his head is any indication instead of putting on a performance, and I would be holding you all to helping me," I told them with a slight glare.

"We would have joined you willingly, Ash. And you know us, we would have started throwing sponges and water at each other and make even more of a mess," Serena told me as she slung her hands around my neck and I resting my hands on her hips.

"I have no doubt that you would Serena, you're practically broadcasting your thoughts on the matter for me to hear," I say lowly in her ear.

"OI! Keep it appropriate for the little ninja in the room!" Gary teased us, breaking us out of our embrace due to shock.

"Gary!" we both whined.

"Anyway, we should go get dinner!" Bonnie interrupted.

"Of course, my little Caterpie," I say before scooping Bonnie up into my arms and running across the entire campgrounds to the dining hall. Bonnie squealed quite a lot as I used a combination of skills and was in fact running fast enough to run on water.

"Do you have to call me a Caterpie?" Bonnie asked me.

"Yes, because right now you are young and vulnerable, something worth protecting, just like a Caterpie. As you get older, you will become stronger and more resistant, you evolve into a Metapod when that happens. Finally, you will evolve into a Butterfree, and you will be a formidable opponent, beautiful, stunning, and a wonderful person. However, you will only ever make it to being a Butterfree if someone nurtures you now while you are still a Caterpie," I tell the eight-year-old.

"You really believe that?" Bonnie asks while looking up at me with curious eyes that tell me that if I lie to her she will kick me between the legs, no matter if I try to stop her or not.

"Yes, I do believe that. My mother believed that about me, and I believe that she wished she could have supported me long enough for her to see me evolve. When I was little though, my mother told me that her father called her Caterpie for the same reasons that I call you Caterpie now. For the Ketchum family, to call a young child 'Caterpie' is a term of endearment. You are my student Bonnie, and I can see myself in you, so, I call you Caterpie because I care very, very, very much about you," I explain.

"I hope that one day I will evolve so that you can be proud of the Butterfree that I will become," Bonnie tells me with a wide smile.

"I'm sure you will," I reply just as the others catch up.

"Can you please not run off like that?" Gary asks.

"Depends. Are you going to learn to keep up?" I retort.

"Very funny, Ash, very funny," Gary grumbles back before heading inside, the rest of us follow soon after. Dinner is a lively affair, and there was some excitement about my skipping as Gary had filmed me doing it.

"How do you do that?" was the most common question asked by those who had watched it.

"A lot of practice almost every day for ten years," was my generic answer.

"Alright everyone. Team Froakie will be giving a performance tonight, they will just be playing their song, Hall of Fame, for you. After that, other music will be played and board games will be handed out for you to play around with," Professor Sycamore announced.

The five of us walked off at that moment to go find the instruments we could use and Serena and I carried them using our psychic powers back to dining hall. It didn't take us long to set up, and before long, Serena began playing the first few notes of the song. Clemont and Bonnie joined in next, though Bonnie was being careful and only using her unbroken arm so it was an abridged version of the song for her part. Finally, it was time for me to start the singing with Gary not too far behind me.

The feeling of performing in front of so many people, even if it wasn't a massive amount, was exhilarating. Everyone was dancing along, even Trevor who couldn't dance all that well. Gary and I interacted with the campers as much as we could, and I even did some flips and handstands when I wasn't singing to get everyone excited.

When the song ended, I was almost sad as I had enjoyed performing and sharing the fun with them. Serena stood up from her stool before she walked over to Bonnie and helped her down from the drum kit, Clemont untucked his violin from under his chin, and Gary and I moved to the front of the stage. In unison, we made a sweeping bow to our audience which caused them to applaud loudly.

After that, we had to go and put away the instruments before we could join in with everyone else. We played board games with Tierno, Trevor, and Shauna, and Serena and I made sly comments towards Trevor and Tierno about how they should get together (though they were hidden and could only be implied from our words), while Bonnie and Gary teamed up on Clemont and Shauna and teased the two of them not so subtly.

"You know, you guys should become a proper band. You work really well together, and I can just tell you guys will be awesome," Shauna suggested randomly as we were playing Cluedo.

"That sounds like fun! Please, can we Clemont?" Bonnie pleaded with her brother.

"I agree, it would be fun," I say with a smirk.

"I'll admit, performing like that was more fun than I had expected," Serena spoke up next.

"Plus, I have a lot of ideas to write down and turn into songs. How am I supposed to do that without a band to perform them with," Gary pointed out.

"Please Clemont, you have to agree, please!" Bonnie begged.

"Alright! I don't see any reason not to," Clemont gave in.

"Well, then we are going to need a band name. all bands have names!" Bonnie exclaimed.

"We can worry about band names later," Gary told Bonnie while he patted her head.

"Don't do that! I'm not a baby!" Bonnie protested as she swatted away Gary's hand.

"Of course you aren't, Caterpie, because if you were a baby, we would all be that much more protective of you," I informed her. Bonnie huffed but didn't make another comment.

After about half an hour after that, I noticed that Professor Sycamore was standing out on the balcony by himself. I focused on hearing the tone of his thoughts, and I heard sadness and depressiveness coming from his thoughts.

"I'll be back in a moment, guys. I just need to get some fresh air and quiet. The noise is starting to hurt my ears," I say before putting the message of 'something is wrong with the professor, I'm going to find out what' into the minds of my friends. They all nodded and I walked out onto the balcony.

"Something wrong Professor?" I ask carefully, focusing on blocking out the words of everyone's thoughts.

"What? Oh, it's you, Ash. No, nothing is wrong as such. I'm just thinking over some sad memories," the professor replied after his initial shock.

"Is that so? May I ask what sort of sad memories?" I ask.

"Just thinking of my brother. Abraham was quite an experimentalist, had been since we were children. Our parents were researchers like us, they were the original owners of the Sycamore Pokémon Lab after all. When they died, my brother inherited it. He let me work there with him, though he was more interested in his experiments. His wife was one of my colleagues actually, Sophie, you've met her before, and my nephew practically grew up in the labs under the supervision of me or his mother. When my nephew was two, one of Abraham's experiments went wrong. It was lucky that Sophie, Alain, that's my nephew, Cosette and I were out at the time of the blast as it destroyed the building. Alain grew up without his father after that, and I tried so hard to raise him to the best of my ability, so did Sophie, but it was hard. Alain left a year or so back to go on a journey of his own, but I can't help but wonder where he is now," Professor Sycamore explained.

"I'm sure he's fine, Professor. If he's anything like you or Sophie, he'll be fine," I tell the man.

"You're probably right, Ash. I haven't had any contact with him in a while, and this is the first time the he hasn't come to summer camp with Sophie and I, so I'm worried. Sometimes, I wonder if Abraham would approve of how I raised his son. Would he have approved of Alain going on this journey? Would he have tried to push him into a research based career?" the professor started ranting to himself.

"Professor, calm down. You can't beat yourself up over something that you will never find the answers to. Doing so only causes you to be stuck in the past. You have to move forward. I'm sure that your brother would be proud of his son, only a monster wouldn't be proud of what their child has become, that or the child is a monster. I doubt that your nephew is a monster though, and from what you have said about your brother, he wasn't a monster either," I comfort him. Professor Sycamore may be older than I am, but everyone has their moments of weakness.

"How is it that you have so much wisdom despite how young you are?" Professor Sycamore asked with a chuckle.

"My father, my birth father to be exact, he is a monster, I know this to be a fact. I was thirteen when I swore that I would make my birth father pay for what my mother has had to suffer because of him. I have carried that for seven years now. I grew up too soon, I took on the responsibilities of a full-grown man when I was still a child. It seems that the Ketchum family forces themselves to mature before their time. We gain our wisdom in the most painful way, through experience," I say while gazing out at the moving waves of water.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Professor Sycamore says quietly.

"Don't be, if I didn't want to tell you I wouldn't have," I reply.

"Wisdom, it is a strange concept. We gain wisdom through experience and through time, but once we have it, we can't stay innocent. Parents want their children to stay innocent, but also wish they would gain some wisdom, but you can't have both," Professor Sycamore mused. I nodded in agreement.

"Sometimes, I wonder where my own innocence went, but then I remember that I gave it up in order to become stronger. We all have to make choices, and sometimes they aren't easy choices to make, but we make them so that we can move forward. I've made many choices in my life already, and I intend to follow through with my choices. As my mother told me as a child 'you've made your bed, now lie in it'. What about you? Do you intend to follow through with your decisions?" I ask him.

"Yes. I will. No point mourning what I never had. No point torturing myself with what ifs," the professor replied and we both headed back inside.

"Everything alright?" Serena asked me as I sat down.

"Everything is fine, Serena, you don't have to worry about anything," I reply.

It wasn't too much longer until we headed back to our cabin and as I was about to fall asleep, I heard Father-Arceus talking to me.

It is rather nice to see that someone can keep his head on straight during stressful times. I'm still doing damage control here. Also, the advice you gave the Kalos Professor may have just altered this timeline. Oh well, the fabric of reality is everchanging, every choice weaves another stitch into this universe's history. Take care, my son, for while the fabric of reality is quick to adapt, reality is a concept as fragile as thin ice. Father-Arceus told me.

Reality. The concept of reality.

"I know what we should be called!" I called out as I bolted upright. Serena, Bonnie, Clemont, and Gary looked at me strangely as I hit my head on the roof and fell onto the floor.

"And what was your idea for what we should be called?" Serena asked with a snigger.

"The Realists," I say. The four of them exchange glances and after a moment during which I focused on not listening to their thoughts, Clemont opened his mouth to say something…

A/N: Cliffhanger! Sorry everyone, but I really had to do that. This is important, I need to know if the band name 'The Realists' is something you like, because if it is, then Clemont will say that he likes the name, if you guys don't, then he will turn down the name. Please say in a review or a PM if you like the name or not (and if not what name you would like instead) because I cannot start writing the next chapter until I know what Clemont is going to say. For this reason, you will have until the seventh of May to give your opinion.

Onto other things, I hope you all liked my explanation of why Ash calls Bonnie 'Caterpie' (it is actually a nickname I gave to one of my friends because she is so small), the other reason why Ash calls Bonnie 'Caterpie' is because I used to play Club Penguin and in the dojo, the martial arts instructor (I can't remember his name) used to call the player a grasshopper, and the Pokémon equivalent of a grasshopper in my mind is a Caterpie. No Silver related stuff this chapter, but I think that the scene at the beginning with all the chaos in the Hall of Origins makes up for that. Yes, I am going to assume that Necrozma is a legendry Pokémon, we do have confirmation that it is not and Ultra Beast so… this is my take on how that works (if someone could get me some confirmation on whether or not Necrozma is an actual legendry or something like that, it would be very much appreciated).

Here is the current list of OCs (as usual, the ones with the asterisk are mine. Unfortunately there haven't been any new ones added to the list): Kirby Hoshi, Lucy Meyer, Melody Reae, Rico Bastian, Coral Rodda*, Auriella 'Aurora' Funke*, Nickolas 'Nick' Funke*, Elizabeth 'Lizzy' d'Lacey*, Chrysanthemum 'Crystal' Paolini*, Emma Wilkinson*, Belladonna 'Bella' Black, Summer O'Hearn*, Louana 'Lou' Lowry*, Orion Riordan*, Astrid Rowling*, Thorn Lochel*, Nettle Lochel*, Char Smith, James Morpurgo*, Nathan Small, Riley Houston, Pietro Nimmo*, Leoniz Arlean, Caspar Hawke*, Itachi Orihara, Ribbon Shard, Alex Mallinger, Zeke Arachnera.

The poll for Clemont's remaining two undecided (as of yet) Pokémon is as follows:

- Zebstrika: 0

- Galvantula: 1

- Eelektross: 0

- Electivire: 6

- Togedemaru: 1

Remember, if there is a tie for second when this poll closes in three or four chapters then I will have to ask you to decide between them so please put in a review who you are voting for. Keep submitting OCs and what you think of the band name 'The Realists'.