After the exciting field trip, including his numerous dips in the ocean, Kukui had expected Ash to be sleeping by the time he got back from the lab that night. But instead, he found the boy downstairs, standing in front of the boxing bag and staring at his fists like he'd never realised he had them before. Kukui smiled as he finished walking down the stairs. "Thinking about getting into martial arts, Ash?"

"Huh?" He blinked up at him, then laughed awkwardly and lowered his fists. "No. It's not really my style anymore."

"Anymore?" he prompted as he sat down on the bottom step, and Ash rubbed the back of his neck.

"I used to get into fights a lot when I was a kid. I was a bit of a cry-baby, and everyone knew it. Throwing punches seemed like a good way to prove I wasn't," he said, and Kukui had to grin. It was such a typical little boy response – he was a little surprised to hear Ash didn't still think that was a good way to solve his problems, and even more so by how embarrassed he seemed to admit it. "I'm trying not to do it so much anymore. But sometimes I let my temper get away from me, you know?"

"It's very good that you can at least recognise it as a failing," he pointed out, and Ash chuckled again, a soft blush creeping over his cheeks. Kukui settled his chin in his palm, ever-more intrigued by the young man he'd invited into his home. "It wasn't until I was almost twenty before I realised I needed to work on my temper. I channelled it into my research – understanding the ways pokemon are limited in their battles taught me a lot about self-control."

"That's really cool," Ash said warmly, but his smile faded as he looked back at the bag. "Sometimes I dunno, though. Anger's a hard one to work out."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. It's like Team Rocket," he said. "I hate them. I hate them so much. They follow me everywhere. They try and steal Pikachu all the time. I can't stand them!" He clenched his fists again, looking for all the world like a boy on the urge of a very violent explosion, before he let it all out with a breath. His shoulders slumped, and he just seemed tired. "But at the same time, all I really want is for them to be happy. To just… quit Team Rocket and go on a real pokemon journey. Find out who they're supposed to be and go for it. I'd even help them if I could. And that's just so crazy, I mean… who thinks like that? After everything Team Rocket's done – everything they've done to me, and Pikachu, and the whole world! They make me so mad! I should hate them! I do hate them! But…"

But you're a good person, Kukui thought quietly. He'd seen hints of it already – pokemon could sense these things, and even if both Rockruff and the damn Guardian Deity hadn't provided visible and tangible proof of their affection for him, it only took a few minutes of speaking with Ash to see it. He cared so much about everyone and everything around him. He only wanted the best for everyone.

"Ah!" Ash suddenly spun back to face him, one fist rising like he could block himself. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said all of that."

He furrowed his brow. "Why not?"

"Well, I mean, it's kinda stupid," he said awkwardly. "You don't need to hear about that kind of stuff."

"I'm interested," he said, and then grinned at Ash's embarrassed glance. "But I guess you wouldn't want to Confide in a boring grown up."

"What are you talking about?" he cried. "You're not boring at all! The stuff you research is so totally awesome, and everything you teach at the school is so interesting. I just… you're already doing so much for me, teaching and letting me stay here… You shouldn't have to hear about my problems."

His grin faded just a touch. "I invited you to share my home, Ash. You should never have to hide what you think or feel when you're at home," he said, and then smiled. "And as for what you said before, I don't think it's stupid at all. I think you're very kind, to be able to think like that about people like Team Rocket. And I can only imagine how frustrating it must be."

Ash just looked away again, still rubbing the back of his neck. Kukui considered him for a few moments, then asked, "Why do they follow you around? Today they were after the Ride Pokemon, but from what you said the other day…"

"It's mostly for Pikachu," he said. "It's really strong – it has way more power than your normal pikachu. They want that power for their boss. But other times, it's just a coincidence. I don't think they came to Alola for us, but since they're here, they'll definitely try for it."

"How long have you been dealing with them?"

He shrugged. "I met them on the first day of my pokemon journey."

Kukui lifted his head from his palm, shocked. That had apparently been a very long time ago. If they'd really been following him for that long, chasing him down, stealing his pokemon… and Ash still had the compassion to want good things for them… He smiled and shook his head.

"So it's been a while since you threw a good punch, I take it?" he asked as he stood up again. Ash blinked at him, and he gestured to the bag. "Let's see your form. There are worse ways to deal with anger than a Power-up Punch aimed at a good Substitute!"

He hesitated, then quirked a smile and nodded. Then he drew his fist back and punched.

It wasn't the worst Kukui had ever seen. He didn't make beginner's mistakes – his thumb was on the outside of his fist, and he kept his wrist at the right angle. But he hadn't put all his strength into it, and it was slow enough that you would have had to have been looking in the complete other direction not to be able to dodge.

It was also interesting that he had aimed at his own head-height. It was fairly typical for a backyard brawler – mostly looking to wound and defend pride. But he'd expected Ash to aim for safer places, like the gut.

"You can hurt people's lungs that way," Ash said, and Kukui did a double-take until he realised he must have spoken aloud. "The cheek just hurts a lot, and it can knock people off balance."

"True. But the eye or temple are more dangerous places to accidentally hit if you miss," he said, and then took up a stance himself. "Especially if you put more of yourself into your strikes. All of your weight, all of your speed. Like this." He lashed out at his own head-height, and the bag jerked, dancing on the chain. "Now you."

Ash hesitated, then gave it another shot. It was better and faster, making the bag swing, but Kukui could see him still holding back. He barely moved his torso with the punch.

"Come on, Ash. You're never going to work out that anger if you keep it all bottled up! Hit hard! The bag won't complain!"

He chuckled a little, then licked his lips, looking from Kukui to the bag and back again. He copied Kukui's stance, then lifted his left hand in a vague approximation of a Kantonese guard, and—for the first time yet—really swung.

The chain snapped with a loud crack, and the bag crashed into the wall behind. Ash jerked back, looking horrified, and Kukui raised his eyebrows.

"Huh," he said, blinking at the swinging chain. It must have been pretty badly worn down to snap like that from a kid's punch. "Guess I should've checked it was fit to be used before we did that."

Kukui stared around the house with mild amusement.

The walls and floor of the laundry room were strangely damp and there was an overpowering smell of detergent everywhere, though he'd noticed the laundry itself was clean and hung up outside. Including all of his lab coats.

The kitchen was also suspiciously clean – cleaner than it had been that morning, which was particularly strange given that the rubbish bin was overflowing with some strange and burned concoction that Kukui suspected wasn't edible in the slightest. There were two bowls soaking in the sink, obviously having held the mysterious creation.

A peek upstairs showed the loft in the same overly neat order he'd come to associate with Ash. Maybe it was all his time on the road, but when Ash wasn't home, he always packed everything away as if he wasn't coming back. The only anomaly was the sheet Kukui had originally draped over the bookcase (to keep off dust, he'd insisted to Burnet, who snorted and pointedly didn't call him out on his messy housekeeping) was now folded up in a corner of the loft, and the books he'd had on it were perched a little more precariously. Ash wasn't quite tall enough to reach the top of the bookshelf, even with the chair.

After going up to place the books more securely on the shelf, he went back to the kitchen and picked up the scrawled memo. Unfortunately Ash's writing wasn't nearly as neat as he'd left the house, but Kukui could make it out. The kid had gone grocery shopping.

The question of why was answered when he peeked into the fridge.

Granted, it hadn't exactly been overflowing to begin with – he'd been planning for that to be one of the stops they made at the mall today. But now it was completely empty. Not even the sausages that had been buried in ice at the bottom of the freezer for the last six months.

"Well, Ash," he murmured as he shut the doors. "You don't do things by halves, do you?"

Over dinner, Sophocles gushed about their adventure, for good reason. The two of them had apparently saved the shopping mall from lockdown. But for all Sophocles' excitement, Ash just smiled vaguely and stayed out of the conversation, more interested in his food until Sophocles reached the battle portion of the story.

"Pikachu and Togedemaru made such an awesome team!" he enthused. "It was so cool – there was no way Pikachu could have battled from where it was, but with Togedemaru's lightning rod, it was like we could just redirect its thunderbolt! So amazing!"

"Pi-ka!" Pikachu agreed, while Togedemaru squealed. Kukui could already see it had taken a bit of a fancy to the electric mouse.

"It wasn't redirecting," RotomDex corrected imperiously. "Togedamaru absorbed Pikachu's electricity and used it to power its –"

"Yeah, we know, Rotom," Ash laughed. "But that doesn't change how cool it was!"

Sophocles shook his head, like Ash was missing the point. "It wasn't that cool; it was all part of my plan. Lightning rod is the most efficient way to battle with Togedemaru, which I of course worked out from the data a long time ago. I had everything under control from the start."

Kukui had spent too much time around Sophocles to believe that when he heard it, but Ash just grinned and went back to his food. Sophocles continued to brag about defeating Team Rocket—Ash only interjected at the end to wonder 'what was up with that Bewear'—and then how they apparently found the generator room and fixed everything.

Sophocles was justifiably very impressed with himself. A young kid having quickly resolved a problem the actual mall employees had barely understood was worth bragging about. Kukui was impressed with the less exciting parts of the story too – the Sophocles he knew never would have been able to pull himself together enough to operate under those conditions, let alone take the initiative to do something about it.

And yet, he still found himself focussing on Ash. Who hadn't raised the topic and didn't seem all that invested in it. Who was honestly more interested in his food and making sure Pikachu didn't drink an entire bottle of ketchup. Who, when asked about his day, had admitted to making a mess of the house and asked the professor to show him how the washing machine actually worked, but hadn't said a word about the lockdown beyond explaining he'd run out of time to get groceries.

Implying that none of this had been anything worth mentioning, as far as he was concerned.

Like it was nothing out of the ordinary.

With those kind of thoughts whirling around Kukui's head, he found it a little hard to focus on the achievement.

Neither a basic internet search or the Pokemon Professors' Pokepedia brought up much information on Team Rocket.

There were a few vague references in news articles, but even they had little more than speculation as to the existence of a Team Rocket that operated in the furthest Eastern regions. The articles suggested they were a large criminal organisation that seemed to specialise in pokemon trafficking, but there was nothing concrete, and in every article, Officer Jenny declined to comment.

There was definitely a Rocket Industries, but it was a legitimate organisation that traded on the stock market and invested in various technologies. It was a little hard for Kukui to figure out how they originally made the money they invested, but it all seemed above board. Not that he would have known either way – he had never been one for business.

But even if he had been, he doubted he would have found any reason to think it had anything to do with a couple of thieves chasing around a kid whose pokemon was—while very well trained and capable of incredible Z-moves—not that special or unusual.

Kukui rubbed his jaw, wondering whether it was worth looking into. Honestly, Team Rocket behaved like obnoxious teenagers playing a prank, and in the end the whole thing on the beach had been more of an annoyance than anything. And while it was possible Sophocles and Ash hasn't known the whole story, even the incident at the mall didn't seem that bad.

Perhaps he was just worrying over nothing. Maybe Team Rocket were an older and more adventurous version of Team Skull – a pseudo-gang that made life a little more irritating but not that dangerous on the whole.

It would certainly explain the way Ash responded to them – like they were infuriating but ultimately harmless. Half of Alola felt the same complex mix of annoyance and concern for the members of Team Skull. Maybe Team Rocket had just broken a few too many last straws in their time chasing Ash around.

It was probably nothing. Kukui didn't need to worry about it.

He lowered his hand to the desk, ready to push away and get back to work, but then stopped.

The beach had been nothing particularly special, in the end. Everything had turned out fine.

But…

But if Pikachu hadn't broken that net, Team Rocket could have taken off with their ride pokemon.

The whole class could have been left stranded on that sand bank.

Six very valuable pokemon stolen. A class full of young teenagers, not to mention himself, left abandoned in the middle of the ocean with no way back or ability to communicate with the shore. With a rising tide.

It had turned out fine.

But it could have been a lot worse. It could have…

It could have become something not even the worst of Team Skull would have been part of.

Ash hadn't been in the least bit surprised or shocked. Not until the bewear showed up to cut things off. He'd watched Team Rocket fall toward the water, ready to order another attack if they somehow recovered from the twenty-foot drop.

He'd expected to have to battle them to the end.

Kukui's hand went back to his jaw, and he spent a few seconds just staring sightlessly at the last news article he'd read.

It had turned out fine.

Team Rocket didn't seem that intelligent. Maybe they just… maybe they just hadn't realised the consequences of what they were doing. They probably weren't dangerous. He was almost definitely worrying over nothing.

Because… because if he wasn't, and Team Rocket really was dangerous, and they really had been chasing Ash around for that long, then surely his mother, or Professor Oak, or… or someone…

He was worrying over nothing, he told himself firmly, and turned off the computer.

"Professor Kukui, it's nice to meet—" Oak's assistant winced at a loud crash in the background, then slowly turned his head to peek off-camera. He hesitated a few moments, in which several more crashes and muffled swearing could be heard, before coming back to the screen. "—you. I'm Tracey – we've emailed a few times."

"Ah, yes, thank you for your assistance. I –" He stopped at a crash heavy enough to make the assistant stumble. "Is everything alright over there?"

"Oh, yes. One of our newer trainers recently sent us a snorlax," he explained. "It's… well, it's not really as well trained as we would like. And it doesn't sleep as much as most snorlax do. It uh… it's having some trouble adjusting to –" He closed his eyes at another crash. "Adjusting to life at the ranch."

"Tracey!" Oak shouted from off-screen. "Where is Snorlax?"

"One moment, Professor," Tracey said, before stepping away to look off-screen. "You mean –"

"Snorlax AshK!"

"Uh… in the field, I would assume."

"What about Muk?"

"Definitely in the compost heap."

"Arghhh!"

He visibly hesitated, then said, "Professor Kukui is on the line, Professor. I suspect –"

"What? What?" Oak appeared, looking very ruffled and irritable. He threw a glance at the screen before glaring at Tracey. "What's he done?"

Kukui wasn't quite sure how to take the implication he'd done anything. Yes, he was calling just to settle his own nerves, but there was nothing that unusual about calling a Pokemon Professor to enquire about a Trainer. But Tracey only shrugged like it was an acceptable question. "I haven't asked. It seems a little soon for anything too far out of the ordinary."

Oak grunted and turned his glare on Kukui. "If he's still breathing and it hasn't been more than twelve hours since he switched dimensions, I do not have time for it. And unless the Legendary has actively kidnapped or eaten him, it takes a lower priority than him sorting out his Talonflame and Swellow. I've had to replace the windows in my barn twice already since he left!"

Kukui stared. "Wait, by 'he', do you mean Ash?"

Another crash made Oak whip around, and then yell loudly, flailing his arms. "Not the transponder!" and then he dashed away. "Tracey! Get me Muk!"

The assistant stared after him for a moment, then walked back to the camera. "Is this about Ash? Did something happen?"

"N- well, yes, but… I just wanted to ask about someone he's run into a few times over the last couple of days," he said slowly. "Team Rocket?"

"Jessie and James? And a talking Meowth?" he asked. "They've apparently started rhyming a lot recently?"

"Yes. You're familiar?"

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised they're in Alola now," he said. "Don't worry about them too much – they'll show up once every couple of days to try and steal Pikachu. And no, before you ask, Ash would never actually try and kill them – they know how to land safely and they're almost as durable as he is. It'll be fine."

"Uh…" Kukui began, but another crash and holler from Oak made the assistant wince.

"I really have to go. Good luck, Professor!" he said, and then switched off the screen.

Kukui watched from beside the fish tank as Ash stared down two very mulish-looking flying types through the television. He was doing a very good impression of a disappointed father.

Apparently, while he appreciated their rivalry to become the fastest bird alive, he was not impressed with their attempt to settle it with actual fights at sub-sonic speeds near existing buildings. He was threatening to get a pidgeot to settle the matter if they couldn't find a more constructive way to battle. Or worse, a charizard. You didn't have to be a streamlined bird to be an excellent flying type, after all.

While Kukui had always found it mildly annoying when people claimed pokemon didn't have expressions, he had to admit he'd never seen two birds look quite so ashamed before. The larger one seemed particularly guilty when Ash asked what 'Noivern' was thinking to see all this. And when he sighed that maybe staying in Alola had been a bad idea, both birds squawked like children insisting their parents really didn't need to come home from a holiday. That everything was fine and they would play well together and the house would be absolutely spotless when Mum and Dad got back – happy, relaxed, and not a minute sooner than planned.

Ash gave them the kind of look a boy his age shouldn't have been able to master. "So you two will get along? No more fighting?"

They bobbed their heads enthusiastically, chirping something incomprehensible to Kukui.

"Well, that's a relief," Ash said with a breath, and then gave them his best impossibly broad smile. "Everyone should get along. And you guys are so strong and amazing, I really want you to become great friends, okay? I bet, if you worked together, the two of you could become the fastest flying types the world has ever seen! Just, you know, maybe do your training away from Professor Oak's barn?"

They agreed, and Ash sent them on their way before Oak returned the screen. He still looked annoyed, but in better shape than he'd been yesterday afternoon. "Thank you. I hope your next flying type doesn't add to my problems."

"Nah," he said, reaching over to pull Rowlet into his arms where Oak could see. "Rowlet seems a lot happier sleeping in my backpack. It's not really a very good flier."

He scowled at the little owl. "It doesn't look much like a flying type. Is that secondary? What's its primary? Grass? Ground?"

"Grass. It knows this awesome move called Leafage! It's like a tornado, but with leaves!"

"I see. And which fire-type did you have it humiliate before it decided to adopt you?"

Kukui frowned. He understood the professor had apparently been having a bad few days, but that didn't make it acceptable to tease a young boy. Worse, Ash just chuckled like he was slightly embarrassed, and started telling him about Team Rocket's mimikyu.

Oak didn't seem to need an explanation about who Team Rocket were, or why they were in Alola, but he didn't seem that concerned, either. Still more annoyed than anything.

Kukui's nerves didn't settle at all.