If this was the old world, Misty would have stared at the way Ash and his slightly younger cousin fought with elemental attacks, rather than have their Pokémon do it.
Instead she watched Silver's water blasts with a critical eye.
He was good, but his control was a bit sloppy and he got angry too easily.
Silver admitted defeat. Any doubts he had about training with his cousin instead of going out on his own died out after the first time Ash thoroughly trounced him with just his spirit force. His bond with Pikachu was stronger than anything he had felt before, Pikachu clearly had no issue sharing his power with his trainer.
Totodile was still a happy-go-lucky Pokémon, but he also had a somewhat close bond with Silver.
Ash handed his cousin a bottle of cold water, which he gratefully accepted.
"How did you get so strong?" asked Silver.
Ash rubbed the back of his neck.
"Dad left behind some cultivation manuals with a focus on pure aura techniques. Those are harder to cultivate and it requires one to expand their spiritual aura. So I had to increase my physical ability to compensate."
"What about the martial arts moves?" asked Misty, honestly curious.
Ash snorted.
"I called my cousin Riley and asked him for training. Once he realized I was being serious, I spent pretty much every summer since I was five with him," said Ash.
His cousin Riley was at the Half Immortal realm, and about to reach a new one soon. He also taught everything he knew to Ash about aura and how to fight. That is...in between the insane training regimens that forced Ash's body to develop a faster cultivation state.
Ash dispersed the 'cultivation space' he had created with a snap of his fingers so as not to disturb the real world. It was a trick any serious cultivator learned early on, as fights between the major ones could rewrite the landscape worse than any Pokémon battle.
The sounds of Viridian Forest returned to normal.
He already had Caterpie and Pidgeotto with him again...Silver had been baffled by the ridiculous luck his cousin had, but he wasn't complaining.
Ash had zero problems putting Silver through the same ridiculous training regimen Riley had put him through.
Which would have to be put on hold so that he could challenge Brock. Imagine his surprise when Silver pulled out his own ID so that he could challenge the Gym Leader as well.
"I thought you had to be ten to challenge the leaders?" asked Ash.
"Ten, or a certain cultivation level with the approval of a gym leader. See this?" said Silver, pointing to a mark. "Dad stamped it and said if I wanted to do the gym challenge early, it was up to me."
It also meant if he wanted to challenge the Indigo League, he needed the Earth Mastery Mark to compete.
Ash walked into the Pewter Gym and saw Brock. He would wait until after he had beaten the gym leader before reminding Brock about his memories.
"So which of you is going first?"
Ash wanted to shake off the rust and see what he could do as a cultivator. Besides, Pikachu would have to be extra tricky to beat Brock, even without his memories.
"Hey Silver, do you want to go first?" said Ash.
"You sure?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah, I want to get a good feel for your battle technique for later, since I'll likely be too tired to observe it otherwise," said Ash.
Silver understood the logic. He pulled out his pokeball with his partner Totodile.
"Is that your only Pokémon?" asked Brock.
"I have another, but it's too new," said Silver.
He had Totodile for a few years now, but his father had allowed him to take one of the recently hatched gym Pokémon as a parting gift. His baby male Nidoran was still too young to properly fight with.
Brock sent out his Geodude, and Silver his Totodile.
The battle was somewhat predictable, as Totodile had a clear type advantage over Brock's, plus he had been sparring regularly with his cousin to better support Totodile with his aura. Their rapport was rather strong, and Silver felt pleased when he beat Brock's second-tier team.
He took the Boulder Mark and placed it in the special case he had gotten from his father.
Brock had his team healed, and brought out Onix.
So you could imagine his surprise when instead of sending any Pokémon out, Ash took his jacket off and handed it to Silver.
Brock raised an eyebrow.
"Are you opting to challenge my Pokémon directly and borrow the power of your own?" he asked.
"Yup," said Ash cheerfully, stretching.
Brock didn't try to dissuade him. It was rare, but occasionally they had a trainer who thought themselves strong enough to challenge a Pokémon directly, instead of sending out their partners. More times than not, it was a quick way to lower their overbearing ego. That or they were a green trainer who overestimated their strength or their bond with their Pokémon.
If Ash wanted a nasty wake-up call on his first gym, Brock wasn't going to comment.
Silver thought he was a pretty good trainer for his age. And then he saw his cousin do actual damage to an Onix barehanded, and even lift the creature up. All while his body was coated in a thick aura of electricity.
Silver wasn't the only one staring, jaw dropped in disbelief as Ash took on an Onix barehanded...and won.
"The winner, is Ash!" said the referee once the shock wore off.
Brock shook off the surprise, and brought out a Boulder mark. If Ash could do that to his best Pokémon without any of his own, then he could handle his Geodude with no issue. Besides, anyone who challenged a Gym leader's Pokémon directly only had to beat the one to earn their Mark. Usually because the leader would send out their most powerful Pokémon as a challenge.
Ash held out his hand to shake Brock's own, mostly as a sign of respect.
Brock, surprised at how polite Ash was being despite his cultivation level, shook it firmly. And got another shock as memories hit him from his previous life.
Brock looked at Ash exasperated.
"Only you Ash, could cause this much shock and confusion."
"In my defense, this wasn't my fault this time," said Ash flatly.
Brock was more than happy to join Ash on their journey, since he really needed a vacation from being the only caretaker of his siblings and being a gym leader. It really wasn't fair that his father forced that on him without much warning.
A few hours later...
"So Ash, mind explaining why you challenged Onix directly?" asked Brock.
"I couldn't think of a better way to test my new abilities?" said Ash. "Besides, Pikachu would have had to be creative to defeat Geodude and Onix."
Brock acknowledged that. Silver, however, was more curious as to why two gym leaders were following his cousin in the first place.
Ash didn't really feel like keeping this a secret. Besides, it would come out anyway.
"Brock, Misty and I all have memories of another life where cultivators didn't exist," said Ash. "And since I'm the Chosen of Arceus, I have the ability to share the memories of that other life with them and our Pokémon."
Silver blinked. Twice.
"I believe you," said Silver after a moment. Because it made more sense than it didn't, and neatly explained why his bond with Pikachu was absurdly close, despite having only gotten him less than a month ago.
"What about me?" asked Silver.
"Last time, mom didn't have a sister. If she did, she never spoke of it to me," said Ash. "What little I remember of you is that Giovanni left you behind in the wilderness at a young age, causing you to steal a Pokémon from Professor Elm's lab and creating a deep-seated hatred of Team Rocket as a result."
Silver's expression was deeply hurt at the idea. He could all too easily see that scenario happening.
Giovanni was a very distant father, and had left most of the raising to nannies and tutors. If not for the ever present threat and the fact that Silver had to be trained in the family arts, he had little doubt Giovanni would have left him behind.
Seeing the hurt in Silver's eyes, Ash made sure his cousin saw his own.
"Silver, regardless of what happened in the other world, you're family now," said Ash. "I won't leave you behind."
Silver saw the resolve in Ash's eyes...and he believed him completely.
Ash was nothing like Giovanni. Rather than see family as a burden, he was the sort of person who held them close and did not let them go easily.
Either way, he was somewhat eager to see what sort of adventures his cousin would lead him into. He had the distinct feeling Ash was going to lead an exciting life, and take him along for the ride.
"Guess who, twerps!" said a familiar voice.
Silver was somewhat baffled as to why three of his father's minions showed up to harass his cousin.
Or why they treated him as a nonentity, especially since most of the higher ups knew who he was. Though considering their uniforms, they were likely very low ranked.
Silver had to fight to keep a straight face when his Nidoran (male) barely managed to fight off Jesse's Ekans...and he listened to her talk down to him like he was just a normal kid.
It was nice to be considered one of the "twerps" as the two called them.
Ash looked like he had forgotten how to breath when he realized what was going on. He was having trouble standing up at all, as he was too busy laughing his ass off for reasons the two Rockets couldn't figure out at all. Pikachu wasn't much better.
Then again, Misty had no idea Giovanni was the leader of Team Rocket. He had only found out by accident in the old world, and that only because of a coincidence. She only knew Silver was the son of the Viridian Gym Leader.
The three Rockets were thoroughly baffled by why Ash was too busy laughing his ass off at the way they were talking down to his cousin to properly go after him. They eventually left once Pikachu sent a larger than normal bolt of electricity their way, but Ash still cackled for a few hours whenever they tried to ask questions. Silver was the only one who guessed why Ash was so amused.
Silver sidled up to his cousin, who had finally gotten over his giggle fits long enough to actually talk again.
"You know. About him," said Silver.
"I do, and it's none of my business. Silver is Silver as far as I'm concerned," said Ash.
"So who were they?" asked Silver.
"Jesse, James and Meowth are frenemies of ours. They like to challenge me because they realize Pikachu is stronger than most of it's kind, but they also help us out discreetly from time to time. Seems they came to an agreement about our last discussion," said Ash.
They apparently realized Ash was giving them an out they could live with. Now the real trick would be to get their levels up so that Jesse could challenge Jessebelle long enough to usurp her position.
Ash had looked into it while he was waiting for Silver's team to be healed, and found that Jessebelle was the heiress of a powerful clan of Poison-specialists.
Poison could be used to heal if used correctly, and Jesse already had an affinity for them. From what he had read, Jessebelle was already at the Ascension level, but Jesse was barely at the Ensoulment level. James was at the Nascent level, but was fast approaching the Ensoulment level himself.
Which meant she had a lot of catching up to do, since according to what little he could find out available to the public, the next family tournament was in two years.
The problem was that Ash was complete pants at alchemy, as he specialized in synchronizing with Pokémon and martial arts, on top of the ease he had with cultivating his soul level.
Though he was currently taking a minor break, because his body was starting to feel strain from getting to the Nascent stage before he even turned eleven. It was a benefit of his close bond with Pikachu that he had been able to shoot past most of the soul wandering stage almost straight into the Nascent level.
The problem was that while his old body was capable of handling large amounts of energy (a side effect of being saturated with the energy of so many legendaries on top of spending so much time with Pikachu) his current body was still too weak to handle even a fraction of the power he knew he would have access to later.
So he was going to wait until he had fought against the Vermilion City gym leader or maybe even Erika before he tried to cultivate past where he was now.
That night, Silver managed to reach the next stage of cultivation...but he found something of a block.
Ash looked rather pleased with his cousin.
"Great job Silver! Just think, in a month or two you should be able to get past the next hurdle."
"A month?" said Silver, unhappy.
Ash let Pikachu race up to his shoulder.
"Well yeah. Your bond with your partners is good, don't get me wrong...but it's not strong enough to help you cultivate further. You need to spend time with them, bond with them as more than just pets or tools to be used," said Ash.
Silver stroked the spine of his Nidoran. It curled into his hands, happy for the affection. He was careful to avoid the barbs on it's back.
He had always been told by his tutors and his father that cultivation was the only thing that mattered. That it was his own weakness that prevented him from cultivating to a higher level and reaching their ridiculous demands.
Ash was more interested in helping his cousin cultivate a proper bond with his Pokémon over reaching a new level of power. Silver found it rather relaxing.