A/N: I'd like to start off by describing how long it's been since I last updated this fanfic: far too long. Part of it was real life getting in the way, part of it was other fanfics, namely there's another Pokemon fanfic I'm working on that's about nearing its conclusion and of course I want to wrap that up and then maybe focus more on this one later.
But anyway, I will try to update a bit more regularly from now on so you don't have to wait over two months for an update. I used to update this around once every two weeks, I don't know how long I can keep that pace up but I'll try. And thank you all for reviewing.
Ash was about to get off the PC but then he remembered that he hadn't called his mother in a long time and dialed her number.
It was just usual mom-son talk with her asking how he'd been and asking a few more details about what had happened on the ferry and all and her telling him tips on things he had already heard a million times before but made sure to nod at the right points.
With that done he then went to talk to Nurse Joy who advised him to send a few more samples, which she drew- during the process earning several angry scowls from his Pokemon who did not appreciate having long needles stuck in their bodies.
But with that done Ash went outside to see that breakfast was apparently done and his friends were ready to move out towards Celadon City so that they could finally move on to collecting all the gym badges like they'd (or for that matter, just Ash) had set out to do.
As they set foot outside Celadon City, Serena asked, "Hey… this is something that's been bothering me for a while… just who is Lieutenant Surge?"
"Uh, a gym leader?" Misty said as if that should have been obvious.
"No, no, I don't get one thing- is he like a real veteran? I mean, an actual lieutenant?" Serena asked.
"How do you know that he was a veteran?" Ash asked.
"It said on the signboard outside his gym," Serena said. "Does Kanto like have, an active military or something? Because back in Kalos I haven't heard of anything resembling that…."
Brock scratched his chin. "Well, from what I've heard of Lieutenant Surge, I think he fought in a war about fifteen years back… but that was the sixth Kanto-Johto war and that was over pretty quickly or at least I think so. I don't really know, I think my dad used to talk about it but he didn't mention it that much."
"There was a Kanto-Johto war?" Ash asked. "Wait, there have been six Kanto-Johto wars?"
"Ash, what do you watch on television all day long?" Misty asked. "Yes, there were those, but the last one was waaaay back in the day, even none of my sisters remember much about it."
"Well, I usually only watch important stuff Misty, you know, like Pokemon Battles and commentaries on Pokemon battles," Ash said.
"Come on Ash, you must've seen the movie, Ten Thousand Knives, you know, it was about the third Kanto-Johto war," Brock said.
"Huh, yeah I think my mom saw that once but I didn't really like it," Ash said.
"So yeah, my guess is that was the war that Lieutenant Surge was in," Brock said.
"Oh," Serena said. "Thing is I didn't know- but what was the fighting about?"
"Uh, yeah, Johto and Kanto have a long history of fighting with each other," Brock said. "It all began around fifteen hundred years ago when one of the kings of Kanto decided to invade Johto. There was some problem in the line of succession of the Johtonese dynasty and so the king of Kanto took it up as an opportunity to try and invade Johto. He succeeded a bit in the beginning but it dragged on for a full forty years before finally Kanto signed a peace treaty with Johto. And the story pretty much mimics the same thing over and over again for the other wars too, 'cept that Kanto succeeded the second time around."
"Oh," Serena said. "So what about now? Is Johto still under Kanto control?"
"I think technically it still is, but as of late with them fusing the two governments I think there's just gonna be one government from here on out," Misty said."Actually, that's basically completely taking over the government of Johto now that you think about it..."
Ash yawned. This talk about history was boring him. And the truth was that he was still pretty annoyed with Emile not agreeing to fight him fully, and though he kept on telling himself he would've won, well, it just wasn't the same as having actually won.
As such, he and Pikachu mainly stayed a few feet ahead of the others as they walked slowly towards their destination which was a few miles east of Vermillion City and they'd take the bridge north towards Celadon City after that. Ash kept on the lookout in case he could find another Pokemon- one that he felt would be a good addition to his team. He had three Pokemon already that he was pretty fine with but the thing was that he knew that all full teams had six and he had kept only three for quite some time now.
More than that though, was the guilt that was occupying his mind. Whenever he thought about his father, he couldn't help but juxtapose those memories with how Gary had reacted to the loss of his Raticate. And Ash had helped the team that had taken it from Gary. It was difficult to reconcile those two facts, up till now Ash had tried to get out of the moral entanglement of wondering whether or not what he was doing was right by reasoning that hey, his father couldn't be that bad, and given what he had heard from Jessie, James, and Meowth, chalked up that most anti-Rocket news was just propaganda. But this was far too real and too immediate, in the form of one of his best friends, for him too ignore.
He didn't even feel like talking to the others much really… and try as he might to keep those feelings away they kept haunting him. He had promised to get Gary his Raticate back. He had also made commitments to his dad… was he really going to betray Team Rocket? Was there even a way to do those two things at once? And even if there was, just how long could he continue to keep this charade up?
"Pika pi," Pikachu said and then Ash stopped ruminating to see exactly what it was that Pikachu was pointing at. He strained his eyes and saw that at the edge of the forest that they were approaching- there appeared to be a large gathering of people judging from the multiple RVs placed there.
"You guys wanna check that out?" Ash asked.
"Well, it is kind of a detour, isn't it?" Brock asked. "Don't you want to get to Celadon as soon as you can?"
"Yeah, but I mean, come on guys, I've been wanting to become a Pokemon Master since I was born," Ash said. "And yeah, that means getting all the badges, but I also thought about how cool it would be to explore every nook and cranny of Kanto. And I mean, the Pokemon League's been delaying the date for the final Pokemon League Championship anyway, so as long as we've got some time…"
"Okay, okay," Serena said. "And I think you're right Ash, it would be much better to explore a little. After all, everywhere here is new to me. I'm guessing that all of you guys must have seen a whole lot of Kanto already."
It took about an hour to reach the site, and from what Ash could make out as they got closer, it seemed to be some sort of archaeology site.
There were some workers in dark khaki uniforms and wearing helmets who were digging a hole and were supervised by someone in a green outfit.
"Hey there, what's going on here?" Ash asked.
"Oh, are you Trainers?" the person in the green outfit who seemed to be in charge asked. And Ash had been unable to tell for sure based on her short violet hair, but her voice gave her away as definitely female. And she didn't seem much older than Ash, but she still stood like someone in a position of authority would.
"Uh, yes, we were heading towards Celadon City when we noticed your team and wanted to take a look," Misty said.
"Oh wait," the girl in the green outfit said. "You want to get to Celadon City? I apologize, but you're out of luck. The bridge just towards the east has been blocked by a horde of Snorlax and it appears that it'll remain so for many months."
"What?" Ash said.
"Yes, it just recently happened," the girl said. "And it's a massive inconvenience, but the Pokemon League doesn't want to do anything to disturb the Snorlax's natural cycle what with all the Pokemon Rights activists going around and picketing things and telling them to leave the Snorlax alone. Yeah, so you're going to be out of luck sadly."
"Oh okay," Ash said. "Then we'll just head towards Saffron City then. I mean, it's a detour, but hey, they have a Pokemon Gym there too."
"Uh, I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news but Saffron City has also been in lockdown for several weeks up till now," the girl said. "There's something going on in there and they weren't allowing Trainers in as far as a I remember. I guess your best bet would be to go towards Cerulean City and then head towards Lavender Town, and from there to Celadon City."
Ash sighed. His knowledge of Kanto's geography wasn't too great, but the thing was that he had seen lots of maps of Kanto and was sure that the route that this girl had told him would be a very long one.
"Uh, I'm Dr. Eve by the way," the girl said. "Who are you folks?"
"'Doctor' Eve?" Brock asked. "You don't look that old."
One of the workers topped what he was doing and said, "Yeah, well, Dr. Eve here is a real genius- she finished her doctorate when she was only nine years old!"
"Oh, it's nothing like that," Eve said, blushing. "I mean, I'm not that smart, I got a 'D' once in a class test."
Brock muttered something about this behind Ash, but he didn't hear what it was. He did hear the punch that Misty landed on his head while she said, "Pervert!"
"Uh, I'm Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town," Ash said, deciding to speak up before things got any stranger. "And these are my friends, Serena, Brock, and Misty. So, uh, what is it that's going on here?"
"Oh, I was put in charge of this expeditions and we finally found what we wanted- the tomb of Drapion Emperor Quan!" Eve said.
"Uh, who?" Ash and Serena asked simultaneously.
"I've heard that name," Brock and Misty said simultaneously.
"Uh, see the thing is guys, while I'd love to give you all a history lesson we're all kind of busy here," Eve said. "And this is technically classified work not open to the public. So I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to have to ask all of you to leave."
Then, another worker paused digging and said, "Hey- these guys are Trainers, right? If you don't mind me saying, ma'am, well, if the League ain't giving us a security team, we could use some volunteers."
"No need to call me 'ma'am' or anything, John," Eve said. "Uh, but now that I think about it, you might have a point." She turned towards Ash and his friends. "Uh, see, normally when the Pokemon League sets out a research group such as ourselves we are provided with some Trainers in case well, something bad happens or we're attacked by robbers or something, but with the current situation in Johto the Pokemon League hasn't been able to assign them anymore as they've concentrated their forces near Johto. So, y'know, well, it looks like all of you have already made quite a detour anyway, so if you don't mind staying with us for a few days you could help us out a bit and get a close-up of this site before it becomes open for public viewing. Whaddaya say?"
Ash scratched his chin and glanced at his friends. "Uh, just how long would we have to be here?"
"Oh, just two or three days," Eve said. "After that, we'll be sure that it's reasonably safe in here- you know thing is we're almost done and the thing that I'm really worried about are rock slides or other Pokemon, so once we hold the place down with your help you guys can leave."
"Pika pii," Pikachu said.
"Sounds good to me," Ash said. "And you guys?"
Once they all nodded in assent, Eve said, "I'm going to need you guys to sign an NDA before we get started."
"What's an NDA?" Ash asked.
"Non-Disclosure Agreement," Serena said.
"Yeah, that, I'm sorry but you can't talk about what you see here with anyone else for another two months at the very least," Eve said. "The League had everyone sign this just as a precautionary measure- but I don't know why given that we don't know what we'll find in there." She led them towards her cabin/RV where she brought out a stack of papers for them to sign.
Once that was done, they began work… which wasn't exactly work in that they hardly did anything but stand around. It wasn't exactly very exciting but it did give Pikachu an opportunity to lounge around in the sun.
All the while they basically followed Eve around (with Brock getting an earful, quite literally, from Misty for being a bit too close) and listened to what she had to say about the site.
"So, this is supposed to be the burial site, or near it, of Drapion Emperor Quan of the K'wa dynasty of Kanto," Eve explained. "And he was most famous for having started the second Kanto-Johto war, which he eventually won. You see, he managed to get the Johtonese to flee their cities once they realized that their forces were no match for his, and they resorted to using scorched earth tactics and gathered up on Mt. Silver where they hoped that the cold environment, steep climb, and wild Pokemon would keep the invaders out. Emperor Quan pretty much figured out that attacking them head-on would guarantee his defeat, so instead what he did was that he surrounded their base and settled in for a long siege. The siege lasted for two months and was extremely brutal on both sides."
"Wait," Ash said. "Is Mt. Silver an actual place?"
"Yes, of course, it's one of the most iconic places in all of Johto," Eve said.
Ash had wondered if that was why Silver was named Silver, after the mountain, but he guessed that no one besides his dad, Silver, or Silver's mother, whoever she was, could answer that question.
"So, what were you saying?" Serena asked.
"Oh yeah," Eve said. "So, the siege was terrible for both sides. Those on top of the mountain had to deal with the extreme cold and those at the bottom were starving as most of the rations they had had been taken out by the Johtonese Army and their food reserves were running thin. It ended up being a battle of wills until finally, the Johtonese could take it no longer and tried a desperate maneuver to get out of the encircling troops and almost succeeded, but were pushed back. They tried again, this time at night, but Emperor Quan had anticipated this and planted wooden stakes and caltrops all around the perimeter, and thousands of Johtonese soldiers ran into them in the darkness. As the sun rose and the clashing between the two armies came to an end, it was obvious that the Johtonese couldn't break through the troops surrounding them. It came down to starvation, or surrender, and they finally chose to surrender."
"Wait, I was right, I have heard of this before," Misty said.
"So have I," Brock said. "This is the Battle of Mt. Silver, right?"
Eve nodded. "Yup. And it is one of the most important battles in the history of Kanto and Johto- from the day that the royal family of Johto surrendered; from that very day hence up till now, Johto had remained essentially under Kantonese control."
Brock's face darkened. "Wait… I've heard of Emperor Quan too." He then added. "He was a terrible person, wasn't he? He bragged about how he had finished off a third of the people of Johto and enslaved another third."
Eve nodded. "The exact words say that he 'slew one –third of the Johtonese, made slaves of the other third, and left another third to starve from the aftermath of the war and made sure that they feared him.' Once the Johtonese royal family surrendered, they were killed and every single other person who had been on Mt. Silver was enslaved. So yeah, he wasn't exactly the nicest guy you'd ever find, but when you look at the moral standards of that era, well, it wasn't as if what he was doing was wrong in his eyes."
"How can you say that?" Serena asked. "I mean…. over two-thirds of them were dead or taken away? I remember on my voyage here that they said that the population of Johto was much smaller than that of Kanto. Was that why?"
"It might be," Eve said. "But I should point out that those figures might not be accurate and most likely Emperor Quan was exaggerating so that the people of Johto would come to fear him. And yes, I agree, he was a terrible person but in those days it was either conquer or be conquered, and he went with the first option. And the thing doesn't explain all of why there's a big gap between the populations of the two countries given that there have been times in Kanto history where large parts of the population were decimated by either plague or civil war. So anyway, his tomb was lost for quite some time but based on some new excavations we did near Fuchsia City we pinpointed the location to somewhere near here and we're hoping to make a discovery soon. And the thing is that the story of Mt. Silver's Siege does kind of, well, enthrall a person, even though at times I do feel sorry when I wonder about all the people trapped at the summit of that mountain, freezing and trying to scavenge whatever food they could find… some of them being forced to eat their own Pokemon in desperation…." Eve shuddered. "But regardless, this tomb should have lots of details and records on how the people during his time lived, and maybe even a more detailed account of how the war went. So you can see why we're all excited to be here, this could be the archaeological find of the century!"
The work proceeded with a large main team trying to excavate the entrance to the main tomb, while other smaller groups like the one that Ash had seen when he had first gotten there were exploring other areas to try and see if there was something around the place that they could find.
That night, as there were no spare RVs available and Ash and his friends didn't want to go and try and squeeze into what must have already been very cramped spaces, they decided to set up tents just a few feet away from the main site.
Ash was snoozing away peacefully when he felt something hard poke him. He then opened his eyes when he felt it again and saw that there seemed to be a small can near his sleeping bag. Ash, feeling drowsy and confused, moved over towards the can to notice that it was actually some sort of pipe, and there was a single large eye looking at him.
"Shh," a voice said.
Ash backed away out of the tent, his hear racing. Then, a hand grabbed him from behind and then he felt something muffle his mouth so he couldn't scream out for his friends.
"It's me," a familiar voice said and Ash let out a deep breath as he relaxed and the hand that was around his mouth was lifted.
"James?" Ash asked as he turned around to see Jessie and James, and of course, Meowth, whose eye he had seen.
"Well yes," James said. "Sorry to wake you up like that, but we just wanted to let our presence be known and didn't want to risk you waking up your friends or those other people camping over there."
"Oh," Ash said. "Huh, I haven't seen you guys in some time. Uh, how'd my dad take the news on what you did?"
Ash could tell that this was the wrong thing to say given that all three of them flinched at these words and seemed absolutely terrified as Meowth began biting his nails in nervousness and Jessie gulped.
"Oh, I don't want to get into that," James said darkly. "But he seems to have gotten over it partially at least and has given us a last chance to prove ourselves… so we'll be back to guarding you, in case you thought that we were gone permanently after what had happened."
"Okay," Ash said. "But you guys could've said this at another time. Anything specific going on right now?"
"Well, you're going to sneak into this tomb, right?" Jessie asked. "Well, we just wanted some eyes and ears on the operation. It's supposed to be closed to the public, and anything that's supposed to be a secret is something that Team Rocket is interested in knowing. It looks big, and the thing is that our electronic bugs won't work if the tomb is carved deep into the mountain where we won't be able to get a signal. We were spying on this place for several days while trying to maintain an eye on you at the same time."
"Okay, I'll see if there's anything important," Ash said. "But I don't think there will be…." He then remembered what had been bothering him for quite a while. "Hey, wait, there was something I wanted to ask. My friend Gary-"
He then paused as he heard a noise coming from the girl's tent. "Ash? Is that you?" a voice called out.
Team Rocket vanished almost right into thin air before Misty and Serena could come out with a flashlight and saw Ash sitting outside the tent.
"What happened?" Misty asked.
"I uh, heard something outside, that's all, but it was nothing I guess," Ash said.
Mist then started waving her flashlight around and saw a muddy footprint. "That looks like a Pokemon's." Ash was sure that it belonged to Meowth.
"Yeah, maybe a nocturnal one was wandering around near here but I scared it off or something," Ash said.
"Yeah," Serena said. "It always bugs me, sleeping out in the wilderness like this. But most Pokemon wouldn't wander this near a human camp on purpose."
"A few might, if they were scavenging for food on purpose," Misty said. "Oh well, let's try and get some sleep."
Ash returned to his tent. He hadn't been able to tell Jessie and James about Gary's Raticate- he wanted to know if there was a way to get it back. As he climbed into his sleeping bag, he noticed that the hole that Meowth had made was gone now. Brock was snoozing away as if nothing had happened- and not for the first time was Ash glad that Brock was a deep sleeper.
Ash tried to get back to sleep.
He would try and get Gary's Raticate back at another time.
A/N: And that ends this chapter. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked.
And another thing that I'd just like to say is that not once is it ever mentioned that Ash and co. ever wander to a place they've been before that they didn't visit explicitly during the anime. What? Are we supposed to believe that Ash and Misty never once, not even on a vacation or something, wandered away from their homes? I can understand Brock had to take care of his siblings, but again, we never see Misty or Brock ever meet a person who they fought with before. And there must have been hundreds of them.