"Statements"

'Thoughts'

Side Notes

The plane had landed on the grounds of Jubilife City, and as Ash stepped right onto the doorframe of the plane's exit, a huge wave of nostalgia came barreling through like a charging Tauros.

"Man, it's great to be back. It's hard to believe it's been so long," Ash said excitedly.

"Pika pi!" Pikachu agreed.

He quickly went deep in thought, reminiscing of all the memories he held travelling to this region with Dawn and Brock. Unfortunately, he couldn't do that for too long due to the huge crowd of passengers attempting to get through and leave the plane.

"Hey kid! You're holding us up. Stop blocking the exit!" yelled one of the random passengers, which was soon followed by an entire crowd yelling at him to get off.

Ash quickly apologized and stepped off to find Goh, who'd already walked off whilst Ash was reminiscing. The young boy found his friend wandering about some trees, eagerly staring upon a branch that contained a helpless little Skorupi stuck above it. It was too scared to get off, which is why Goh had come over to help it.

"It's alright, I promise, I won't let you get hurt," Goh said with full honesty. He may not pay absolute attention to every single one of his Pokemon, but he still cared about them nonetheless. Noticing his warm personality, the Skorupi quickly jumped down to fall upon Goh's hands.

Once it landed safely, Goh expressed a few more kind words to help calm it down, to which the little Skorupi had responded to by crying off onto its shoulder.

"Well Goh, looks like you made a new friend, are you gonna catch this one?" Ash asked.

"Do you even need to ask?" Goh raised his Pokeball and gently tapped it onto the Skorupi's head, making sure to avoid startling it by accident. A bright light appeared and Skorupi had flashed into the ball. The ball shook a few times, before eventually showing the glimmering pop that indicated a catch.

"Nice! My first catch in Sinnoh!" The excited Goh said proudly. They found their way to the nearest Pokemon Center and booked a room to stay in.

"Man, that was an exhausting trip." Ash stated.

"For you, maybe," Goh retorted, still trying to set his belongings neatly on his side of the room, "But there's a whole group of Pokemon out there just waiting for me to catch them, so see ya!"

Ash chuckled as Goh raced out of the room, scratching the back of his head awkwardly with a sweat drop as he heard Goh accidentally bump into Nurse Joy and apologize.

Ash figured he'd rest up for a few minutes before heading out himself, probably to train. He turned on the TV in the room and checked on to see his favorite channel, Championship battle reruns, in which Leon was shown battling a former member of the Masters 8. Pikachu hopped up to the spot of the bed where Ash was currently laying in, comfortably resting himself on his trainer's shoulder.

Despite all the action going on in the television, Ash couldn't help but feel somewhat bored, perhaps it was the lack of battling he'd done in the past few days. Little by little, his mind started to grow more and more impatient until he'd finally broke.

"Gahhhhh!" Ash exclaimed, startling his partner, " I just can't take it anymore," he quickly plopped Pikachu onto his shoulder and ran out the room. Once he was outside, he took his Rotom phone out and looked around for any other trainers participating in the World Coronation Series. As he looked around more and more, the chances kept getting slimmer and slimmer. There was no one around who he could challenge. He did bump into a trainer who participated in the World Coronation Series, but due to the other trainer being part of the Normal Class, a battle challenge couldn't be issued.

Ash remarked that encounter as fate's cruelty. After about 5 hours of searching and no results, Ash was getting ready to head on back when his Rotom phone had chimed. Ash's spirits blew straight through the roof and past the clouds upon hearing this.

"A battle challenge has been issued," Ash quickly scanned around looking to see who this trainer that fate graced him with might be.

"Well well well, fancy meeting you here Ash," spoke the quirky little stranger.

Ash turned towards the voice and found a familiar face. A mix of shock and excitement coursed through his veins. "c-Conway!" said Ash.

The other boy grinned, pushing his glasses back while carrying the usual confidence he had when he'd done so in the past.

"In the very flesh. So what brings you back to Sinnoh? I heard you'd departed after the Lily of the Valley Conference," Conway asked, "Perhaps you'd remembered our last battle, realized that I was your greatest rival yet, and had returned to challenge me once again?" Upon that last part, Conway had approached even closer in a comedic, but uncomfortable manner.

'Geez, this guy's as weird as ever, huh?' Ash awkwardly thought to himself as he sweat dropped. He thought of telling Conway about the whole deal with being a research fellow for Professor Cerise, but realized that whole ordeal would be too much to explain.

"Well, not exactly," Ash started, before a realization kicked in, "But hold on, if you're battling me, then that means you're part of the World Coronation Series too, and you made it all the way to the Ultra Class!"

"As to be expected. A trainer of my caliber should be more than capable of reaching the Ultra Class without much trouble," Conway smugly responded while raising his Rotom Phone, showing the numbers "91" to represent his ranking, "But let's not stray from my original question, I believe I can comfortably presume that you've returned to Sinnoh to participate in the Ultra Class tournament, am I correct?"

Ash could only feel dumbfounded at the question. A blank expression was all he could muster before any words could escape his lips, "W-what?.".

Conway looked to his friend in shock. He was made aware of Ash's obliviousness before, but this was just ridiculous. "HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW WHAT THE ULTRA CLASS TOURNAMENT IS?!" which was followed by a look of desperation from Conway's face that signified his hope that some memory of the subject would arise from Ash's thick headed skull.

Unfortunately, all Ash could do was chuckle and scratch the back of his head before responding with a simple, "Nope." It took Conway a few seconds before he could properly register Ash's ignorance. He took a deep breath and began to start explaining the Ultra Class Tournament before he was interrupted by the sound of the drone Rotom yelling at the two to get their Pokemon and start the battle.

'Wow, forgot he was here,' Ash thought as the drone Rotom went by the battle rules. Theirs would be a 1 on 1. Once the Rotom gave them order to summon their Pokemon, the two boys simultaneously took one of their Pokeballs and threw them.

"Alright Gengar, I choose you!" a bright flash appeared, revealing the Ghost/Poison type, who currently had a wide grin across his face. Ash had chosen Gengar, whilst Conway had revealed his own Ghost type in the form of his Dusknoir.

"Alright, battle begin!"

5 hours earlier

Goh had run off the room in search of new Pokemon to add to his collection. He felt a little bad just leaving Ash behind like that, but decided that since his friend stayed of his own accord, there wasn't too much to feel guilty about. Whilst he was lost in thought, he'd accidentally ended up bumping into Nurse Joy on his way, causing her to drop the platter full of Pokeballs that contained recently healed Pokemon.

Clumsily, Goh dropped one of his own Pokeballs as he'd done this. After quickly apologizing, he picked up the Pokeballs that he'd knocked from Nurse Joy whilst taking the one he dropped on the way. He gave a quick wave as he left the Pokemon center.

"Oh my, kids these days are certainly energetic," Nurse Joy spoke as she noticed a girl with a pink hat walk into the building.

"Oh, you must be here for your Delphox, she's all healed up now," Joy said as she handed the ball over.

"Thank you very much," Serena said in a cheerful tone and took the Pokeball. She opened it to let out what she expected to be Delphox ready to happily greet her trainer, but while she did get a fully evolved fire starter, it wasn't hers.

"Cinder!...ace?" The Pokemon said in confusion upon realizing that the trainer it faced wasn't Goh. The pair looked at each other in sudden surprise. It's strange that while Pokemon and people can't speak the same language, they certainly do utter the same expressions when they're shocked.

"EHHHHH?" Cinderace and Serena were in total confusion as to why they were with the other. After recovering from the complete surprise, Serena quickly got out her Pokedex to scan this Pokemon that she'd never even met before.

"Cinderace, the Striker Pokemon and a Fire Type. It juggles a pebble with its feet, turning into a burning soccer ball. Its shots strike opponents hard and leave them scorched."

That explained what this Pokemon was, but she still didn't know why it was with her. Serena looked over to Nurse Joy, who was just as confused as the other two were. "That's strange, I'm certain I gave you Delphox's Pokeball," Nurse Joy said, "And I don't remember picking up a Cinderace." She checked over all the other Pokeballs on the platter, but none of them revealed a Delphox.

It finally dawned upon Nurse Joy. That Cinderace had to have belonged to the boy she ran into earlier. The two Pokeballs must've gotten picked up by the wrong person when they dropped them. "Please, come with me," Joy said as she quickly looked over the room records of the Pokemon Center to find the description of the boy she ran into. She eventually found it and told Serena the details of how they got mixed up.

Joy gave a minor description of Goh's appearance and printed out a picture to allow Serena to locate him among the crowds. "He only left a few seconds before you arrived, so he should still be in Jubilife by this point," She bowed her head slightly in guilt, "I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience," Nurse Joy apologized.

Serena had a slight hint of disappointment in her face, but quickly replaced it with a smile, "It's okay, I'll just find Goh and make sure we get each of our Pokemon back." She left the Pokemon Center in quick haste with Cinderace following up next to her. Serena searched high and low with Goh's picture in hand. Despite her attempts, however, each street and road just contained more and more crowds of people, which quickly led her to the realization that this would've been an insurmountable task on her own. She took 3 Pokeballs out and threw them up in the air. 3 flashes of light soon followed as her Pokemon had come to her aid.

Cinderace quickly gazed at the lineup. It noticed a miniature panda with sunglasses, a cute little pink mammalian that had ribbons all over it, and a flying cloud with a blue head. "Alright. Pancham, Slyveon, and Altaria, I want all of you to help me find the boy in this picture." None of them were paying too much attention to their trainer as they stared at the tall bunny that stood right next to her. Serena facepalmed as she realized she'd forgotten to tell them about the Cinderace-Delphox ordeal. Once she had, her team had been taken aback by the news that their friend had gone missing and spread around to find her and the boy.

Goh had been trailing this Mothim he found just flying through the streets. He thought it'd be another simple catch and threw a Pokeball at it, only for the Bug/Flying type to blow out a massive Silver Wind and send it away. The wild Mothim then gave Goh a mocking expression, attempting to irritate the young boy. As it hoped, the trick worked and Goh soon started to chase after it.

Goh ran after it with absolute focus, not even noticing the fact that he'd already left the city and made his way over to Route 203. This ordeal quickly became more of a personal challenge rather than a hobby for Goh. He felt like he had something to prove. His goal of catching one of every Pokemon combined with his friendship with Ash meant that he developed a principle of not giving up, even in the most minor events like this one.

Goh must've ran about a mile in the 15 minutes he spent chasing the Mothim, who'd quickly found a spot on a nearby branch in order to recover from the fun, but exhausting chase. This gave time for Goh to rethink his catching strategy. "If I recall correctly, Mothim is a Bug type, which means a Fire type would give me a huge advantage." He quickly grabbed what he thought was Cinderace's Pokeball and threw it to the air.

Instead of finding the usually hyperactive Cinderace, however, he was met by a calm and stoic Delphox. Goh looked to the Delphox in amazement and curiosity. He was impressed, for sure, but he wondered what it was doing in Cinderace's ball. He pulled out his Rotom phone to do a quick scan.

"Delphox, the Fox Pokemon and a Fire/Psychic Type. It gazes at the flame at the tip of its branch to achieve a focused state, which allows it to see into the future."

The Mothim prepared to set off once more, but noticed that Goh was completely unfocused on it right now, much to its chagrin. "Why do I have a Delphox?! And where's my Cinderace?!" Goh stated. Delphox was just as confused as to why this unknown trainer had summoned her instead of Serena.

Goh assumed a thinking position by putting a hand to his chin and tried to figure out what could've happened when the Mothim had set off another Silver Wind in an attempt to catch Goh's attention, clearly disliking that it was being ignored. Delphox, however, was not in the mood for being disturbed at the moment and quickly sent off a Flamethrower into the direction of the attacker, which greatly overpowered the Silver Wind and hit the Mothim straight on for a super effective hit.

'Woah, that was Flamethrower,' Goh thought before quickly realizing his opportunity and threw a Pokeball onto the direction of the Mothim, securing the catch. He jumped in a short inkling of excitement before he turned around and saw Delphox, who simply stood awkwardly. The sight of the Fox Pokemon reminded Goh that he had another situation on his hands. "Oh right, I guess we still gotta figure out how I ended up with you."

Goh asked Delphox if it already had a trainer, to which it nodded. They started to brainstorm what could've happened. "Let's see, I know I picked up Cinderace's Pokeball before I left the room, so I definitely didn't leave it there," Goh's eyes widened when he realized he must've mistook Cinderace's Pokeball for Delphox's during the Nurse Joy incident.

"That's it! It had to have been then!" Goh informed Delphox of this news and it agreed that that's where they've gotta get to next. Goh and Delphox rushed to the direction of Jubilife City. Or at least, where they thought it was. In the midst of Goh's excitement to catch the Mothim, he hadn't had the chance to realize that he was completely lost.

He considered using the recently caught Mothim to help them navigate through the route from above the trees, but quickly learned that the damage it sustained from Delphox's Flamethrower rendered it incapable of even standing, much less flying for at least 15 whole minutes. Goh started to curse at himself for not bringing one of his other Pokemon that could help them scout through the area, but stopped when Delphox put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Goh and Delphox looked at each other, and made a mental agreement to power through this if they wanted to make it back safely. After spending about another 10 minutes searching, the pair found their way to a nice, albeit small clearing. It was only around half the size of a football field, but realized that this should be enough for the two to recover from the constant movement.

They found a fairly comfortable looking tree and began to recharge their batteries. Goh felt a growing sense of guilt as each second passed. It was his unwavering mentality to catch that Mothim that led them to getting lost in the route. The attitude of determination he believed he possessed turned out to simply be one of stubbornness. He turned to Delphox and began to apologize when the Fox Pokemon quickly grabbed him and hid them behind a nearby bush. Goh started to ask questions when Delphox pointed him in the direction of a spot on the other side of the clearing.

Goh saw what seemed to be a dark entity hovering through the trees. The setting sun prevented them from perceiving any intricate details, but one particular characteristic stood out to both of them. In contrast to the mostly dark entity, a white plume appeared connected to the top of its body, flowing freely through the air. They initially believed it to be fog, then its head, then its hair. The lack of a verifiable or reasonable answer led them to stop guessing.

The duo shared a gut wrenching feeling that told them danger would come if their presence remained, but the captivating aura of the mysterious entity kept them in place. Goh bided his time and hoped the figure would simply leave, giving them an opportunity to escape. They shouldn't have been too far off from Jubilife City, and the few minutes they spent resting were likely enough for Mothim to at least fly high enough to point them in the right direction.

That isn't what Delphox thought, though. It knew that whatever this...thing was, it wasn't good news. Goh and Delphox could agree on one thing, and it's that they weren't all too far off from Jubilife, which means if that creature made its way to the city, it would most certainly terrorize the innocent civilians. They couldn't just run off and warn the citizens of Jubilifie, either. No one would believe them if they told everyone what they saw, nor would they be able to apprehend it if they just left the creature to wander off. With this in mind, Delphox had come to the conclusion that defeating this beast right now was the only thing to do. Goh could practically see his companion's thought process from the way it glared at the entity, which took a jab at his hopes to simply leave.

"Look, I get you don't like whatever that thing is, but we have to get out of here at this very minute. Otherwise, we're goners." Goh tried his best to get his point across, but Delphox wasn't budging. It could understand why Goh would want to leave, but Delphox wasn't willing to step down only to let hundreds of innocent civilians perish. If they were going down, they would do so trying to protect them.

In the middle of their philosophical clash, they failed to see the entity turn their way and launch a dark orb straight in their direction. Luckily, Delphox managed to react fast enough to push Goh back while moving backwards in time to avoid the attack. The dark orb passed through their former positions and faded after coming into contact with a tree behind them. Goh and Delphox both turned their attention to the entity, who was now facing them, radiating the most blood curdling aura.

"I wasn't aware we had company," A deep, gripping voice spoke from behind the entity and revealed himself to be a man with flowing royal blue hair that reached below his shoulders. He wore a maroon colored cape that covered the majority of his torso. Not much more could be discerned from the man's appearance before Goh questioned him.

"Who are you? And why did you attack us?" Goh attempted to stand his ground, but the fear could clearly be sensed in his voice.

"You dare speak against me after you so rudely entrenched upon our private grounds?" The man questioned with a grandeur tone, easily winning the verbal war between him and Goh. "Very well, if you're so curious to know as to how you were spotted, it's because my Pokemon has the special ability to sense any slumbering life form, whether human or Pokemon, such as the very one in your Pokeball."

Goh realized the man was referring to Mothim, who must've fallen asleep to recover from its injuries. That explained how they were caught, but that still left a lot of questions. Who was this man? What is that Pokemon? How is that possible?

While the questions ran through Goh's head, Delphox had taken this opportunity to launch the most powerful Flamethrower its branch could muster, still dead set on slaying the mysterious Pokemon. It was no use, however, because once the flames had died down, the shape of an unharmed figure floating about had come into view. Behind it stood its trainer, unfazed by the attack as his Pokemon had immediately shielded him.

The man maliciously laughed. "Did you truly believe that insignificant show of flames could ever harm my Darkrai?" Goh froze upon hearing the last word. The very memory of his conversation with Ash in the plane arose. He remembered the description of a trainer who came into possession of legendary/mythical Pokemon, most notably, that Darkrai.

"Y-you're Tobias!" Goh said, still struggling to process this revelation.

The man's face turned to a serious expression, "How were you made aware of my name?" Goh began to regret saying that last statement, for it made the nonchalant individual even more terrifying.

"I won't repeat myself, how do you know my name?" Tobias said in a tone that could stagger armies.

"I-I was told by a friend. He was part of the Sinnoh League," Goh responded, barely managing to avoid incessant stuttering.

Tobias smirked at the response. But quickly changed his expression after a swift realization. "Tell me, what was your friend's name?" Tobias asked, while his tone remained ever so threatening.

"W-what?"

This annoyed Tobias. He didn't prefer having to repeat himself twice, but proceeded, "I said, what was his name?".

Goh gulped, before answering one of the most terrifying questions he'd ever had to in his entire life, "It's Ash, Ash Ketchum."

Tobias closed his eyes, and calmed down, "Very well."

For a second, Goh felt relief, believing him and Delphox to be in the clear. That was until he'd heard what Tobias said next.

"Darkrai, Dark Pulse," Tobias ordered, leaving no time to escape.

Delphox had no time to dodge or attack, the best it could do was look towards Goh in utter fear. For Goh, however, time had stopped. He couldn't feel his body, but his mind raced, thinking of the countless possibilities that either of them had to at least survive the approaching blast, and he came across one. With all of his speed, he grabbed a Pokeball, returned Delphox, and closed his eyes.

End of Chapter

Well, things don't look too bright for Goh. The next chapter will include Conway vs Ash, Serena, and Goh's future.

But for now, Thanks for reading.