Chapter 4
"This must be Pallet Town," said Misty. "Just keep following Ash. We're going to his house."
The group followed Ash, who still wasn't speaking to anyone, down the street to a neat little house. When Ash knocked on the door, a strange-looking creature answered it.
"Mime, mime!" exclaimed the figure.
"What are you?!" said Ash.
"Mr. Mime!"
"Mimie?" someone said from inside the house. "Who's there?"
"Mime!" Mr. Mime moved aside. Ash's mother, Delia, came to the door.
"Oh!" she said joyfully. "You're finally back!"
With a huge smile, Ash prepared for an embrace. It didn't go as he had expected. Stunned, he fell over when his mother seized Pikachu and said, "I missed you so much!"
Ash picked himself up. "Mom!"
"Oh, Ash," said Delia, "I missed you too."
"It's great to be home."
Delia looked at all the people standing outside. "You're certainly popular now!"
"Yeah. This is Misty, and that's Brock. They went with me on my Pokémon journey. Look, I have all the Indigo League badges." He showed them to his mother.
"That's wonderful! Were you all right out there? Did you run into any trouble?"
"I was fine." It was such a happy moment that he decided not to tell her about Team Rocket or Shinosama just yet.
"Good. Well, you're all just in time for dinner. Come in!"
Ash finally had one thing to say to Tai. "What do I tell my mom about you guys?"
"The truth," answered Tai. "We'll tell our own story."
Tai had been wondering why Ash was so jealous. If the seven Digimon could never return to a previous form, it would be a good thing in terms of fighting strength, but they would miss the Rookie forms, which were cuter and more fun. Maybe that was part of the reason Ash was jealous – if his Pokémon evolved, they would no longer be small and cute.
There was only room at the dinner table for Ash, Delia, Brock, Misty, Tai, and Sora. Everyone else sat on chairs placed around the room. The monsters gathered around dishes of food on the floor in a corner. Over dinner, Ash told his mother about some of the highlights of his Pokémon journey. He finished the story with: "Yesterday, right after I won my Earthbadge, something really weird happened. My badges changed places with my new friends' crests –"
"Crests?" Delia asked.
"I'll get to that – and then a window opened in front of me, and I saw Tai and his friends on the other side."
"Is that right," said Delia.
"Yes, it is," said Tai. "We could talk to each other through the window, and we found out that the badges and crests had switched places. Here's my crest." He let Delia see it.
"Interesting."
"My friends and I came through the window, gave the badges back, and got our crests. Then we got a message from a kind of psychic Pokémon called Unown. They said they had brought us all together so we could defeat an evil being. We're on our way to Junction Peak, where the evil is based."
Delia looked frightened. "But you're just kids . . . how can you win?"
"We do it all the time," said Tai. "We came from the Digital World, where it's our job to protect against evil Digimon."
"I've done it before, too," Ash admitted. "There are some Pokémon thieves who call themselves Team Rocket, and they've been after Pikachu since my first time in Viridian City, but they've never won. I've always managed to beat them off."
"Oh, dear," said Delia. "And now you're going off to fight together? I don't know about this. It'll be dangerous."
"Don't worry," said Sora. "We're a team, and we can take care of ourselves and each other. We'll be just fine."
"Yes…" said Ash. What a nice thing to say! "We can do this. We've done so much already, we know how strong we are."
"That's right," said Tai. "We can win!"
"All right," said Delia. "Please be careful."
"I will," said Ash.
"Now what's this about the Digital World? And what do your crests do?" Delia asked Tai and Sora.
"It's a place made up of computer data," said Tai, "but everything there is real and alive. Digimon, or digital monsters, live there. We all have one as a partner. We went there for the first time one day at summer camp . . ."
*******
After dinner, everyone except Delia went into the living room.
"Guys?" said Ash.
Everyone listened.
"I'm sorry I was such a jerk today. When I saw how your Digimon Digivolve, I was jealous of you because Pokémon evolve permanently – they don't ever go back."
"We know, Misty told us," said Matt.
"Oh. Well, I thought about it, and I remembered that Pokémon evolution is really special. Trainers have to work hard with their Pokémon to get them to evolve, and it's an important moment when it happens. Digimon Digivolve every day, right?"
"No, not every day," said Izzy. "They only Digivolve when we need their more powerful forms, and when they have enough energy."
"Oh," said Ash. "Anyway, I decided that evolving and Digivolving are alike – they work differently, but they do the same thing in the end."
"That's totally right," said Tai. "There's no reason to think that Pokémon or Digimon are better."
"Digimon can talk," Tentomon pointed out.
"Yes," Patamon countered, "but even though Pikachu can't talk, I think he has almost the same bond with Ash as we do with our partners. That's why I told Team Rocket to give Pikachu back."
"Thanks," said Ash, "I think you're right." Then he addressed Tai. "We can be friends now, right?"
"Absolutely!" They shook hands.
After half an hour of setting up extra blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags, everyone managed to get some sleep. Tomorrow, they would begin the next leg of their journey to Junction Peak. The union the two groups had forged would be tested there.
To be continued . . .
Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Saban, Fox, Toei Animation, et al.
Pokémon belong to Nintendo, Creatures, Gamefreak et al. No
money is being made off this; I write because it's fun. :-)