Author's Note: I am sooooooo sorry about the amount of time between updates. I forgot ALL about this fic until I got a review that told me to update. I was like "Isn't that story done?" and looked and saw that it wasn't. I'm SO sorry. College and stuff was crazy. Plus, I've had a job this summer. I will try to update this more regularly than I have been.
Brock sat beside Ivy in Ash's parents' house. The household was quite full. Professor Oak and Gary were sitting glumly on the couch next to Jessie and James, Giovanni sat pensively in a chair by himself, and Delia was in the kitchen, making food for everyone.
The atmosphere was somber. Everyone wanted to help Ash and his family, but no one knew what to do.
"I think--" Brock began, cutting off at the sound of an explosion.
They all leapt to their feet. The explosion sounded like it had come from the direction of Ash and Misty's home.
Rushing out the door with everyone else, Brock ran towards the house.
The house was partially intact, but the living room had been completely destroyed. Everyone skidded to a stop, staring at all of the unconscious bodies laying in the ruined living room. Only one body stirred, that of a slender Pikachu which was not Ash's.
"Piii," the Pikachu whimpered, trying to get out from under some debris.
Brock stared at the Pokémon for a moment before whispering, "Pichu?"
"Chu," nodded the Pikachu haggardly.
Brock rushed over to help her, and everyone else began removing the debris off the others. "What happened, Pichu?"
"Piiich," she coughed, having stirred up some dust.
Brock studied her as he moved a beam off her leg. "I'll call you Peach now, since you aren't a Pichu anymore, okay?"
"Pi," the Pokémon nodded, shaking off some of the dust.
Brock had never been as skilled at understanding Ash's Pikachu as Ash was, but he could usually figure it out when he tried hard enough. "What happened, Peach?"
Peach began miming what happened as she spoke.
"The Egg Pokémon attacked?" Brock said, shocked at what she was telling him. "And you let loose electricity and accidentally blew up part of the house?"
"Ka," the Pokémon nodded sheepishly.
Brock looked away and asked Giovanni, "Is everyone okay?"
"Everyone's alive," Giovanni answered, standing up from having checked Misty's pulse. "Other than that, I don't know." He hesitated. "There is one problem, though."
"What?" Brock asked, dreading the answer.
After a moment, Giovanni sighed. "We don't know where Jace is."
Peach tugged at the leg of Giovanni's pants, and he and Brock turned to look at her.
"Pika, pichu pich," she said, miming a Pokéball and Jace's being sucked into it. She sniffed the air before going to a pile of debris and digging out a Pokéball, which she nudged towards Brock.
Brock picked it up and pressed the release light. An unconscious black Mew came out, metamorphosing into an unconscious Jace.
Giovanni's eyes widened and then narrowed. He knelt to check Jace's pulse and heaved a sigh of relief.
Brock heard sirens approaching and he turned. Officer Jenny, riding on her motorcycle, was being followed by a pair of ambulances.
"The Pokémon all seem to still be alive," Professor Oak said, walking up to Brock.
"Peach says that the Egg Pokémon attacked," Brock told him, and the others who were coming over to listen. "She saved everyone by blowing up the living room." Brock frowned as he realized how ridiculous that sounded.
Officer Jenny came over to talk to them as the paramedics checked on the humans (Ash and A.J. had transformed back into human form with unconsciousness). "What happened here?"
"Ah, we don't know exactly," Brock said carefully, "but apparently the Egg Pokémon that A.J. found began attacking everyone, and electricity got a little out of hand."
"If that is the case," Professor Oak stepped in, "then we need to neutralize the Egg Pokémon while they are unconscious...But how five Egg Pokémon posed a problem to the Pokémon Master is beyond my understanding..."
Officer Jenny looked at him. "Will you come over here with me to discuss how exactly we should do that, Professor Oak?"
"Yes, Officer Jenny," the Pokémon Professor said, and they walked away to discuss what should be done with Smoochum, Elekid, Magby, Igglybuff, and Cleffa.
Ash, Misty, and A.J. were taken to the hospital, and the Pokémon were all taken to Pallet Town's new Pokémon Center.
Brock looked at the others sitting in the waiting room with him, which was everyone who had ran to the accident except for Professor Oak. "Professor Oak brought up a good point...Why would Egg Pokémon have been a threat to Ash and Pikachu? They've handled a lot tougher than that."
Jessie muttered, "No kidding."
Ash was the first to regain consciousness, as he was accustomed to receiving high amounts of electricity from Pikachu. He opened his eyes and jolted up in bed.
A few minutes later, his parents were allowed to come in and see him. When they left the room, they gave everyone their report.
"Ash said that the Egg Pokémon were much stronger than ordinary Egg Pokémon and that they randomly began attacking," Giovanni told them. "He said it looked like they had been taken over by something evil...One of them caught Jace in a Pokéball, there was more fighting, and then Ash saw a bright light before he lost consciousness."
"Which was Peach's blowing up the house to save everyone," Brock filled in.
Giovanni paused for a moment before venturing, "You know, it sounds like Neo Team Rocket has picked the clone project back up...When...when I had scientists working on it, I tried to get them to figure out how to encode commands and personalities into Pokémon...They succeeded in the personalities aspect, upping aggression levels, but I tried to get them to discover how to alter personalities at will and not be stuck with specific personalities, so that Pokémon could deceive people into thinking that they were good...Pokémon that I have trained have never been very good at deception; they always seem to be either obviously good or obviously evil...If they've figured out how to change personalities at will, or even hardwire word- or action-specific commands into strong Pokémon clones...We could be facing a serious problem if they let them loose into the wild..." He looked down at the floor. "Ash agrees with me. He thinks that maybe their actions were triggered by his wanting to go back to the Neo Team Rockets to get Riviera back..."
He sighed. "Ash says they've already made a lot of hybrids. Even when we made Mewtwo, we were just trying to make a sort of ultra-Mew...If they can make many types of hybrids, it's likely that they can hardwire commands into Pokémon DNA as well..."
Ash walked out into the hallway.
"Ash, you don't need to be--" Gary started, but Ash interrupted him.
"The scent is going to be old soon. I really need to go."
They all looked at him, at his bruises and scratches. He looked pretty banged up, but they knew they couldn't talk him out of it.
"Besides, I'm a Mew, and I know Recover." He transformed into Mew form, used the Pokémon move, then transformed back.
"You should at least say goodbye to Misty and the others," James told him.
"All right," Ash said. But he heard a noise and turned around to see two Pikachus and a Nurse Joy running towards him.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ketchum," Nurse Joy said, "I couldn't get them to leave."
"Pikachu!" Ash cried out, glad to see his old friend.
The only slightly banged up electric rodent cried, "Pika-pi!" and leapt into his arms, licking him on the face.
Ash laughed, "Good to see you, too, Pikachu." He moved to look at the other Pikachu, "And who is this?"
The other Pikachu nodded at him. "Pi."
"That would be A.J.'s Pichu," answered Brock. "She evolved, so I, ah, renamed her Peach. I hope you and A.J. don't mind..."
"Nah, that name sounds just peachy," Ash smiled down at Peach, who sweatdropped along with Brock.
"Aww, she's just as cute as before," Delia said, and she took a ribbon out of her pocket and made it into a bow around Peach's left ear.
Ash gave his father an expression that said, 'She carries around ribbon in her pocket?'
Giovanni gave him an expression back that said, 'Don't ask.'
Peach shrugged at the bow; whatever. She sniffed the air, then scampered down the hall towards A.J.'s room and pawed at the door.
Ash came after her and opened up the door, expecting A.J. to be unconscious still. But the boy was awake and exclaimed, "Dad!"
"Hey, buddy, how are you doing?" Ash said, grinning at him.
"Fine," the boy answered.
Peach jumped up on the bed.
A.J. frowned, "That isn't Pikachu. That's someone else."
"Pi," Peach grinned, nudging him with her nose to be patted.
"Well, son, your Pichu saved us all and evolved in the process," Ash told him.
"Wow!" A.J. said, marveling at the fact that his old Pichu was now being friendly.
"Brock renamed her Peach so we can avoid confusion with her and Pikachu, if that's all right, son."
"Yeah, that's fine, dad." He looked at his newly evolved Pokémon. "Thank you for saving us."
"Pi," she nodded, having done her Pokémonly duty, then she jumped off the bed and wandered out into the hall.
"Well, I guess it would be too much to ask for her to change completely so quickly," Ash laughed. "But I think you'll find that she will pay more attention to your commands now...Sometimes it takes something big like we just went through for a Pokémon to understand that you want it to fight for a good cause."
"Yeah," A.J. nodded, grinning. His Pichu had evolved! He had heard that they usually just evolved if they really liked their trainer...Maybe she secretly liked him a lot!
Ash turned serious. "A.J., I need to go and save Riviera while the scent is still fresh..."
"I'm going with you!" A.J. stated, beginning to get out of bed.
"Son, I don't want you to get h--"
"Dad, you have to understand that I'm ready for this. Pretty soon, I'm going to be ten, and I'm going to start my Pokémon journey...You did loads of dangerous stuff on your Pokémon journey—Uncle Brock has told me lots about it! Please, let me go, dad."
Ash stared at his son, who was looking at him with the most serious expression Ash had ever seen him wear. The boy had had to do a lot of growing up lately. And Ash knew he couldn't refuse him.
"All right, but it is going to be dangerous, and if I tell you to do anything, anything at all, even to go home, then you have to do it, okay?"
"Okay!" A.J. got out of bed.
"Use Recover," Ash told him, and after the boy did so, they went out into the hall. "We need to go tell your brother and mother we're leaving."
Ivy overheard him and told him what rooms they were in.
"Thanks," he told her, and he and Ash went into Jace's room first. Ash was not relishing the fact that he would have to tell his wife she needed to stay behind.
"Jace?" Ash said softly by his son's bed.
The boy opened his eyes slowly, looking up at him. "Dad?"
"Jace, we're going to go save your sister, and we just wanted to tell you that we love you very much," Ash said gently. "Pretty soon you'll be as chipper as Pidgey, you wait and see." He smiled at Jace, who smiled back.
But A.J. was worried. He knew that his father loved him very much; they all did. They could tell. He just didn't say it often. The fact that he was saying it now made A.J. wonder if he thought they were going to fail.
But they had to succeed, right? They would bring back Riviera, and everything would be as it had always been, right?
He hoped so. Oh, man, he hoped so...
Author's Notes: It would be too confusing to have two Pikachus named Pikachu, and too weird to call a Pikachu by the name 'Pichu,' so I thought about how 'Peach' sounded like 'Pichu' and just went with that. Sorry if it's not the coolest of names, but at least it is an easy-to-remember name change.
