Ash's Just Reward Chapter 25
"Entire sentence." = Normal talking.
"Entire sentence." = Psychic talking.
"Entire sentence." = Powerful being talking.
'Entire sentence.' = Person's thoughts.
"You can't keep us in here forever! We're gonna get outta here, I promise you that!" Pignite yelled while gripping the bars on his cage tightly, shaking his body back and forth while yelling his protests.
After Hoopa had teleported them, he and the others who had landed with him had woken up to find themselves on Poni Island, on the edge of the Poni Wilds. They had spent some time trying to recuperate from the recent battle and to try and make a plan as to what to do, but it wasn't long before things went really bad.
About two hours after landing there, and trying to recover from their injuries, a pair of individuals had arrived at their site, and proceeded to blindside them. While Pignite and the other Pokémon he was with were all competent battlers, they weren't ready for the ambush, and found themselves quickly overwhelmed and knocked out. When they next awoke, they had been placed in cages in one of the cleanest facilities Pignite had ever seen.
Looking around the room he was in, Pignite could see his companions in their own cages, with each one being tailored to restrain them, with Pignite's own cage being fireproof. Opposite his cage on the other side of the room was Hawlucha, who was wrapped up in what looked like a modified straight jacket and was glaring off at nothing. Probably frustrated with how restricted his movement was.
On his right, was Seismitoad, contained in a massive cage which was heavily reinforced, with multiple parts of the cage being inlayed directed into the room around them, and with every bar being thicker than Pignite's, admittedly thick, arms, meaning that any attempts to break through it with force would be futile. Seismitoad was simply sitting there silently, also looking around the room like Pignite.
On the right of Hawlucha, opposite Seismitoad, was the one human in their group, the one called Kiawe. The native had been caught by surprise as well after falling through the portal and had taken responsibility for helping the Pokémon to recover, tending to their injuries as best he could. Pignite himself was currently wearing some bandages on his arm that Kiawe had wrapped for them. He had tried putting up a fight with his Pokémon but had been knocked out with an anaesthesia dart before he could call anyone out. Now, he was shouting threats at the Aether Foundation employees, all focused on what he'd do to them if they didn't return his Pokémon.
And finally, opposite the door entering the room, and to the left of Pignite, stood, what he imagined, was the reason why they were all caught: one of the Nihilego.
It was current suspended in a massive tube, with multiple wires and cables suspending it in place. The tube was filled with some kind of see-through gel, which bubbled relentless in response to every twitch that it made. And within the Nihilego, plain to see for both the employees and the ones trapped in this room, was its human captive.
Pignite recognised her, it was Dawn, Ash's friend from Sinnoh. He remembered her from when they met up in Unova. He quite liked Dawn and could easily see why she was a good friend of Ash's. And it absolutely infuriated him how she was being used like, like some kind of puppet by these strange Pokémon. While he had heard their excuse for why they did it, and understood it, kind of, it didn't excuse what they had done to someone he cared deeply about and called a friend.
And now, because of the actions of this creature, she was now stuck in a tube and was most likely going to be experimented on. This made Pignite furious, and he could feel the fires within his soul burn hotter the more he thought on it. The last time he had felt like that, it was when he was fighting his previous trainer's Emboar and Heatmor alongside Snivy. He had been furious when they had knocked her out, and that had partially triggered his evolution.
Now here he was, with a similar fire burning in his soul, yet he was unable to do anything to help his friends. Which only made it worse. He had tried melting the cage bars with his fire attacks, and when that didn't work, he simply tried smashing it with Brick Break. Neither had worked. Which meant that all he could do now, just like the others, was sit, wait, and hope.
Suddenly, the door whooshed open, as an Aether Foundation employee walked in. For the brief moment that the door was open, Pignite spotted what looked like a guard, with a large Arcanine sitting dutifully by his side. The door then suddenly shut again, leaving them completely alone with the employee who had walked in.
In their hand was a notepad, and as they walked over to a computer which was attached to Nihilego's tube, they jotted down some numbers that Pignite couldn't make sense of. Kiawe, still as fired up as earlier, took this chance to start up his threats again.
"Oi! Where are my Pokémon? I swear, if you've hurt them, you better hope I don't get my hands on you cos otherwise I'll throw you into Wela Volcano myself!"
The scientist simply ignored him, continuing to jot down numbers dutifully. He then pulled out what seemed to be some form of tape recorder and started talking to himself.
"Life signs for the Ultra Beast dubbed 'Symbiont' have remained constant since being placed under. The life signs of the human that the Ultra Beast has bonded with have also remained constant, showing that this could be a beneficial, or at the very least neutral, symbiotic relationship. Once President Lusamine gives the go ahead, it would be beneficial to test this relationship, and to see why such a bonding had occurred. Orders for now are to continue monitoring until all search teams have returned."
Once he had finished speaking, the scientist hooked the recorder to his belt, and proceeded to input a bunch of numbers into the computer which was connected to the tube that Nihilego was in. Once that was done, the scientist began to walk towards the exit, stopping only to face Kiawe menacingly.
"If you're lucky, your Pokémon may have some use to us and be permitted to live here in Aether Paradise. Something that I can say with certainty won't happen to you. I hope you remember the sun well, because chances are, you're never going to see it again with your own eyes."
Kiawe just stood there, his anger temporarily quelled as he looked at the scientist in horror, his mouth and eyes both equally wide.
Content with this, the scientist pressed a button on his wrist which made the door open and proceeded to stroll towards it. But as he closed the distance between Kiawe's cage and the door, Pignite couldn't help but notice something odd.
The guard wasn't there anymore.
Before he could dwell on that any longer, the scientist stepped outside the lab room. And was subsequently hit in the head with a metal box which had been thrown at him. Which knocked him unconscious before he even hit the floor. As his body slumped onto the floor, it was suddenly pulled out of sight, leaving everyone to stare at the door in surprise.
A few seconds passed but felt like hours to the confused and worried prisoners, before a very familiar blue head popped around the corner.
"Squirtle?"
There, wearing his ridiculous glasses that he insisted on wearing whenever he got serious, was Squirtle, one of the original six Pokémon in Ash's team, and the resident trouble maker. Leaning around the corner, he quickly observed the room, before his eyes lit up as he locked eyes with Pignite and the others.
He proceeded to action roll into the room, before pressing himself against the wall tightly, looking back and forth seriously. Pignite couldn't help but facepalm as he watched, especially as Squirtle had begun to hum as he inched deeper into the room.
"Dundedun dun dun dun dundedun dun dun dun dundedun dun dun dun dundedun dun dun dun deDON Do do do."
Once he got deep enough into the room, he then turned to face the door and fired a single, large bubble out of the door, which popped on the wall opposite the door. Which then triggered an even stranger sight.
Garchomp leaning around the corner.
Lumbering into the room as best he could, Garchomp tried to push his way into the small door frame, which only came up to his chest. Despite getting stuck for a moment, he managed to slip through the door. And then proceeded to fall onto the floor with a sounding crash, which caused Squirtle to shake his head in frustration. As quickly as he could, Garchomp managed to get back on his feet, holding both his hands out to try and pretend that nothing had ever happened.
"Dammit Garchomp, we're meant to be stealthy right now, remember? That means quiet."
Garchomp hung his head limply, before Squirtle patted his knee sympathetically.
"But don't worry about it. I think we've knocked everyone out who might have heard it. Let's just focus on getting these guys out."
Boyed by this, Garchomp nodded enthusiastically, before proceeding to slash at the lock for Seismitoad's cage. Cut clean in half, the lock dropped off unceremoniously, and the heavy door slowly swung open, allowing Seismitoad to be free.
Squirtle had made his way to Pignite's cage and Pignite took this chance to try and catch up.
"Fancy seeing you here, I didn't know you worked here."
"Oh yeah, I'm working part time. Security, if you would believe it. Arceus knows they could do with better guards." Squirtle responded without missing a beat, before headbutting Pignite's lock and granting him freedom.
"But on a serious note, how did you know we were here? And for that matter, how did you even get in here?"
"Well funnily enough, these same guys came after us. Somehow managed to track the portal we fell through and were looking for us. We managed to hide but then figured that they might have managed to catch some of us unaware, so decided to follow them. Good thing we did, otherwise you'd be getting real aquatinted with this room. That's for sure."
By this point, Garchomp had managed to open the other cages, and was in the middle of helping Hawlucha out of his straight jacket, while everyone else was starring at the tube with the Nihilego in it.
"So what are we doing about them?" Seismitoad asked, tapping on the glass gently. Everyone else gathered around the tube, all thinking the same thing that Seismitoad had asked. They couldn't exactly leave them here, especially not with one of Ash's close friends still stuck in it. So they were stuck in a strange predicament.
But Pignite was not listening to the discussion being had. He was focused entirely on the tube that contained Dawn. He was still furious with these Ultra Beasts, and he had enough. First, one shows up and tries to kill Ash, with Garchomp being the only thing that successfully stopped them. Then, they show up out of nowhere with three of Ash's close friends trapped inside them. And after that, more show up as part of AN ARMY, and then proceed to go after each and every one of them.
And Pignite had had enough.
Not bothering to wait for everyone else to come to a conclusion, Pignite simply raised his fist, and plunged it straight through the glass tube. He will not stand by and do nothing while Ash's friends suffered. He will not ALLOW IT!
With the fire within him burning brighter than it ever had before, Pignite reached deeper into the tube, and ripped the Nihilego clean out of the tube, letting the body drop onto the floor.
The Nihilego convulsed for a moment, causing all the cables to come loose and spring back towards the tube. The Nihilego started to shriek for a moment, and, in a rather surprising development, spat out Dawn. As soon as it did this, a vortex of energy appeared out of nowhere, which the Nihilego slipped into quickly. With the Nihilego gone, the vortex closed in on itself, disappearing as quickly as it appeared.
"Well, that was… interesting," Hawlucha muttered, as he looked at the gel and goo covered Dawn. "Also, congratulations on the evolution. Didn't see that coming either."
'Evolution?' Pignite thought, before looking at his arms. His… much… larger arms.
Looking down at his body, Pignite realised that Hawlucha was right; he HAD evolved. His body was much larger and stronger, and he was now closer to the size of Seismitoad and Garchomp than he was the others. Pignite, no… Emboar, couldn't help but smile at this.
This was going to come in useful.
As Kiawe was tending to Dawn, Emboar noticed there were now more Pokémon outside the door, all of whom he, thankfully, recognised.
"Alright Squirtle, we hid the bodies. But we're starting to run out of boxes to hide them in. We've nearly twenty already." Swellow reported as he walked into the room, followed shortly by Torracat, Lugia, and Glalie. They stopped briefly to look at Emboar, before getting a mutter of congratulations or responses of "nice".
Torracat wandered over to Kiawe, tapping his leg with a paw, bringing his attention to him, and the belt with Pokéballs on it.
"My Pokémon! Thanks Torracat." Kiawe thanked, quickly putting it on before carrying on with his tending to Dawn. Squirtle took this opportunity to speak up.
"Right, now that we're all here, let's make a plan. After finding you guys, it proves what we were worried about: these guys are up to no good. From what we could tell from exploring this place, you're the only ones they've caught," Squirtle informed, with everyone sighing in relief at this. "However, we're not leaving yet. They clearly knew about Ultra Beasts and were able to track us. There's no way they came up with this recently, so they're doing something related to Ultra Beasts. And maybe, if we're lucky, they might know something about Ultra Beasts."
"So what, we continue sneaking through this place until we find something? What do we do after?" Seismitoad asked.
"We take what we know, steal a boat, and get out of here. We can head to Melemele Island and try to find the others. It's the best plan we've got." Squirtle responded, causing Seismitoad to shrug.
Emboar looked at the door which led to the rest of the Aether Foundation facility they were trapped in. They were gonna have to explore this place entirely to try and see what they knew, and then try to escape. All without getting caught, or by fighting their way through the facility.
"Sure, why not?" Emboar said out loud. They had work to do.
As the poachers were rounded up by the local rangers, Ash and Anabel took this chance to get his Pokédex fixed, the rangers more than happy to help out an old friend and a Frontier Brain. With their Pokédexes fixed, they asked to borrow a phone, and Ash called the first person he could think of.
His mother.
After a few rings, the phone picked up and Ash's mother came into view.
"Ash? Is that you? Oh, I'm so glad to hear from you baby, are you alright?"
"I'm fine Mum, but I wanted to check in on you. Things have been weird for me this weekend, so I wanted to make sure that you were ok." Ash admitted, causing Anabel to smile at him warmly.
"Oh, I'm aware sweetie. Afterall, it's the only way to explain why some of your Pokémon randomly showed up at my home and why I'm currently baking a cake for a very cute Mew."
Ash stared at the screen for a moment and, now that he was looking at it, he could see some of his Pokémon in the background, namely his Leavanny, who was currently holding his Scraggy in her arms, as well as Professor Oak and Professor Kukui talking to one another over a cup of tea.
But Ash couldn't help but notice something a bit odd about how his childhood home looked in the background.
"Mum… are you holding a party?" Ash asked sceptically, which caused Delia to light up.
"Oh yes, I'm holding a baby shower. Your Meganium's egg, congratulations on her evolving by the way, hatched shortly after she arrived here. So now we're holding a party. Where are you, if you're close enough, you can pop in for some cake!"
Ash thought about this, before flipping open his Pokédex. On it, a map came up and, rather surprisingly, he wasn't that far from Pallet Town. If he had some form of transport, he could get there in an hour or two.
And fortunately, some familiar and very willing friends just showed up who could make that journey. In fact, they looked raring to go, with one of them now wearing a pointed red hat and saying things in a Spanish accent to the amusement of the other Tauros.
Also, where did he find that red hat?
Ignoring it, he began to walk over to his Tauros herd, and the other Pokémon who were chatting amiably with Sophocles resting up against a tree. But before he got there, a giant tail snaked its way in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.
Looking up at the tail's source, Ash saw Tyranitar, who was looking at him strangely.
"Hey Tyranitar, what's up?" Ash asked gingerly, curious as to why Tyranitar stopped him. In response, Tyranitar simply bent down and poked Ash's belt a few times. She then looked over at Larvitar, who had been surprisingly social and was enjoying some interactions with Ash's other Pokémon, and then back at Ash. Which caused his eyes to widen as he realised what she was saying.
"You want me to catch Larvitar?" He asked quietly, which Tyranitar nodded to in respond. She then pointed at some of Ash's Pokémon, focusing first on Goodra and Latios before gesturing over at the rest of Ash's Pokémon. She then thumped her chest a few times and pointed back at Ash. It took Ash a bit longer to figure out what she meant by this, but then he figured it out.
"You want me to make him strong like you and my other Pokémon?"
Tyranitar nodded again, bending down to place a hand gently on his shoulder and smiling, or smiling as best as a Tyranitar could. Ash looked her in the eye for a moment, before nodding.
"I promise, I'll make him strong, and do you proud."
This pleased Tyranitar, who leant back up to stand. Ash then remembered something he had, somehow, managed to forget.
"Oh yeah, you know I can understand Pokémon, right?"
Tyranitar blinked a few times, before sighing to herself.
"Are you being serious? I wasted my time with charades when I could have just said it. Unbelievable."
And with that, she walked off, heading back up towards Mount Silver.
Anabel took this moment to speak up.
"You forgot you could speak to Pokémon, didn't you?" She asked with a grin on her face. Ash could only blush in response.
With that done, he walked over to his Pokémon, and knelt down to Larvitar, who was looking up at him with excited eyes.
"I guess you've already had a chat with your Mum about what I'm about to ask, right?" Ash questioned, with Larvitar nodding enthusiastically. Ash just chuckled and pulled out a Pokéball from his belt.
"Well, if you're interested, the choice is yours."
Without hesitation, Larvitar headbutted the ball, allowing it to pull himself in without a fight. A few seconds later, the ball dinged to signify that it had caught Larvitar.
Tired from the day, Ash just brought the ball close to his mouth and whispered, "Welcome to the team."
With that done, he turned to the gathered Pokémon and Anabel and began to shout, "So! Who wants to go home?"
Guess who? Bet you weren't expecting this!
But yeah, I couldn't help myself. I got really excited with the idea I had for the Aether Foundation, and couldn't help but start writing the prison scene, purely for the Squirtle moment where he knocks the guy out and starts sneaking about. And then, I couldn't help myself. Now, I know this chapter isn't as long as usual, but to be fair, I did write it in a day, only a few days after my last one. So, small victories I guess.
We're now another group down, and there's only two groups left to introduce. And now more groups are teaming up. This means that things are progressing quite nicely. I hope you enjoy this quick chapter, cos it was quite fun to write.
But as a heads up, this may be the last chapter for a fair while. I'm gonna be quite busy for a bit, so I hope this is enough to keep you guys happy. Thanks for the continuous support and reviews, and I hope you keep leaving me messages and reviews because I love reading them. Keep being great and thank you for everything.
Until next time, enjoy this chapter and much love as always – TWoS.