AN: Here's another of what will hopefully be 1 of the 3 stories I'm trying to push out before April 1st and the anime's 25th anniversary, hopeful my hand doesn't get sore again doing so much typing like it's been doing lately. (Darn, wimpy hand.)
This fanfic takes place after the Gou catches a Sobble episode in the anime. Like the previous Galar story involving Ash and Gou, they don't immediately head back to Vermillion City thanks to circumstances (mostly) beyond their control.
And while I'm here the episode with Chloe's Yamper becomes jealous of the attention an injured wild Pidove gets is okay in my book, the following episode where they just repeat the previous one's plot except with Pikachu is an abomination that we should all collectively pretend doesn't exist.
Like Ash's fanbase in Galar did for his Vertress Conference loss to he-who-should-have-gone-to-Johto-for-the-Unova-League-Conference.
If Pikachu should be jealous of any of Ash's Pokémon getting more attention than him it would be Greninja, (and since that didn't happen in the XY anime, we don't need to worry about it) not the Riolu that Ash just added to the team who needs his Trainer's attention since Riolu is a baby age wise.
Anyway, time for a reunion the anime will likely never give us, 1! 2! 3! Let's Go!
Disclaimer: Don't own Pokémon or anything affiliated with the franchise like the anime. If I did, you would bet this reunion would have happened a lot sooner in the anime, like in the Advanced series when Ash was traveling Kanto again with his friends.
"Ugh, why'd I have to agree to showing you around the island!?" a pink haired girl whose cute looks aren't matched with a very cute personality complained as she accompanied the newest member of the Master Dojo around the Isle of Armor.
Ash rolls his eyes in response to Klara's complaining, wishing Mustard hadn't asked her to keep him from getting lost exploring his island. His sense of direction isn't nearly as bad as he heard Leon's is.
Honestly Ash wished Gou could have come to the isle with him, but only Ash had received the Armor Pass allowing him to go to the island. Gou had been pretty salty about it, but understood the why Ash could go and a rookie Trainer like himself with no badges to his name couldn't go.
Didn't mean Gou had to be happy about it, at least they bumped into Hop again who was willing to cheer Gou up by traveling around the Wild Area so Gou could try catching some Pokémon there while Ash spends the next couple of days on Isle of Armor training the team he has on hand.
It was a surprise, but a welcome one when Ash learned about the Trainer Class system from Mustard that the various Pokémon Leagues of the world had started up following the end of the Lily of the Valley Conference that Ash had competed in.
As it had been explained to Ash, all Trainers who had just received their Starter up to their second year as a Trainer are considered Rookie Class and their Pokémon Trainer ID will be red in color to denote that.
Adept Class Trainers have a blue Pokémon Trainer ID and in order to move up to the Adept Class if they've competed in a minimum of 2 major competitions approved and supported by the Leagues such as League Conferences or Grand Festivals.
One of the big perks of becoming an Adept Class Trainer is that the Trainer can speak with the Pokémon Professor of their region to get their Pokédex (if they have one) the National Dex upgrade giving them access to information about all Pokémon that have been recorded in the National Dex than just the ones in the Pokédex they start out with that is limited only to Pokémon local to the region that Trainer starts their journey at.
Moving up to the Ace Class which sees your blue Trainer ID switched out for a green one requires being a Trainer for up to 5 years or competing in 4 League Conferences or Grand Festivals and placing as far as the top 4 in at least 1 League Conference or the top 8 and beyond in 4 Grand Festivals.
The biggest perk that comes with being an Ace Class Trainer is that they now can carry 2 more Pokémon, bringing their maximum carry limit up to 8, with them at a time provided they don't abuse that privilege to bully Rookie or Adept Class Trainers in situations like using more than 6 Pokémon in full battles.
After Ace Class is the Elite Class where Trainers of that class have a silver Trainer ID and qualify for that class once they've remained a Trainer and continued to participate in League Conferences/Grand Festivals after their 10th year as a Trainer.
Elite Class Trainers as the name implies are Trainers who members of a region's Elite Four or are Frontier Brains, Contest Masters, and the like. And like when a Trainer climbs to the rank of Ace Class, when they reach the Elite Class, they can now carry a maximum of 10 Pokémon at a time.
The final Trainer Class a Trainer can ascend to is the Champion Class which can only be attained by Trainers who have become a League Champion. A gold Trainer ID separates them from the silver ones Elite Class Trainers have and Champion Class Trainers receive the final Pokémon carry limit upgrade which allows them to have 12 Pokémon at most with them at a time.
Ash as it turns out reached the Champion Class when he won against Gladion in the Manalo Conference, though as it'd been explained to him by Mustard that even if Gladion had won instead and been made Alola's Champion he'd have only climbed to the Ace Class given his current class at the time was Rookie Class and that he'd only been a Trainer for a little under 2 years at the time.
Sounds a bit screwy, but Ash can understand it given Gladion's not as experienced a Trainer as Paul, Gary, or Alain.
Prior to the Manalo Conference Ash was apparently an Honorary Elite Class Trainer due to special services he's done for the various regions in times of crisis such as the Kalos Crisis Incident and Ash's hand in bringing down the villainous teams of Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova.
Mustard found it pretty amusing Professor Oak remembered to give Ash the National Dex upgrade, but forgot to tell Ash he did or explain the Trainer Class System to him.
Honestly Ash wish he knew he was an Ace Class Trainer back when he was traveling Unova. Would have made handling 10 different Pokémon at once a lot easier for him.
What this all meant for Ash presently was that he didn't need to leave any of his recent catches waiting for him in Kanto while he's all over the world thanks to the World Coronation Series and Professor Cerise's research.
"Oi! Get over here! I found a cutie to catch!" Klara calls pulling Ash from his thoughts and drawing his attention to the cute Pokémon she has her eye on catching. Thankfully this time the cutie actually is cute, because in Ash's opinion cute is probably the last word he'd use to describe a Koffing or a Venipede.
'Time to show Mister Champion how it's done.' Klara thinks darkly, her friendly-looking countenance slipping away to reveal the scary mug she hides underneath as she stares down the Foongus minding it's own business whilst a Butterfree hovers over the bed flowers it's residing in.
Ash sweatdrops seeing Klara chuckling menacingly to herself over finding something she could use to show Ash up as a Trainer. If he knew she'd take losing to Ash so badly she'd develop a grudge against him after she challenged him to a battle the moment he set foot on the Isle of Armor, Ash would have turned her down and avoided the battle all together.
The Trainer from Kanto is starting to suspect the former underground pop singer might have a few screws loose. Shaking his head Ash watches Klara send out Koffing and Galarian Slowpoke and readies a Heal Ball to catch the Mushroom Pokémon with when his gaze goes to the Butterfree fluttering overhead and he notices something odd with it.
"Pikachu, that Butterfree's pink." Ash notes to his Starter who studies it curiously wondering what an Orangean Butterfree is doing here in Galar.
Before Pikachu can comment about that Butterfree looking familiar, Klara's ordered her Koffing to use Clear Smog to start the battle with the Foongus and scare the pink butterfly away.
The Clear Smog hits them both, but instead of it being startled and running away, the Butterfree turns to Klara and her Pokémon and let's out an annoyed sounding trill before her eyes started glowing an eerie red.
Ash didn't get the time to warn Klara that looked like the Butterfree was using Psychic because in the next second, Klara's floating Poison-Type suddenly started glowing a red glow before letting out a distressed cry as he was forcibly grabbed and used to smack the girl's Slowpoke into a nearby tree to her shock.
"What the-" Klara let out shocked before recovering herself and getting angry, "No! You stupid bug, you're supposed to run away when something attacks you! Don't you have any survival instincts!?"
The pink Pokémon doesn't take to that comment well as she uses the Koffing she still has trapped in her Psychic and sends it flying for Klara's face who only has a moment to process that before-
Smack!
Ash winces as Klara gets a face full of her own Pokémon and goes down with it as the Butterfree releases her Psychic hold on the floating gas bag who goes down with his Trainer not long after that.
Feeling the unusually colored Bug-Types gaze move to him, Ash gets Rookie's ball ready for a battle. This'll be a good chance to see how Rookidee will fight with him now that the Shiny Bird stopped trying to pick fights with Pikachu the moment he's out.
Little does Ash know that Rookie's instead been picking fights with the other Pokémon he has on hand, believing he needs to work his way up to Pikachu to be strong enough to beat Ash's Starter.
But the battle that Ash expects doesn't happen when the pink Bug and Flying-Type looks at him and lets out a curious trill as her eyes lose their red glow before they move to the Pikachu on Ash's shoulder.
Confused seeing Butterfree calm instead of staying ready for a tense battle, Ash stands still and watches as the Butterfly Pokémon hovers closer to Ash and Pikachu before stopping when she's right in front of them.
Klara recovers from getting hit in the face with her own Pokémon and sits back up to see the nuisance who'd taken care of 2 of her cuties so quickly now fluttering in a circle around the annoying boy she made her rival today.
'What's it doing with him? I'm over here, you dumb bug!' Klara thinks pouting, annoyed she's being ignored for a comparatively less cute boy with a creepy yellow rat. She doesn't voice that thought given two of her cuties can't fight now and her third one is the weakest member of her team.
Turning back to the flower bed the Foongus was at, Klara sighs seeing the Foongus has skedaddled whilst she had been out of it, "No fair."
"Wait, you're Butterfree's mate!?" Klara hears Ash shout along with that rat on his shoulder letting out a cry she imagines is close to what it's Trainer is saying.
Turning back to her companion, Klara sees the weird-looking Butterfree trill happily and flutter up and down.
"If you're here then does that mean..." Ash lets the rest of his question hang as the Butterfree before him flutters up and down again, nodding before she starts flying away only to stop and turn to the duo and gesture for them to follow.
Grinning Ash follows giving a call to Klara to come along and keep up before bolting after the Bug-Type he's apparently familiar with.
"No new cutie for my team and now I have to follow this guy around." Klara grouses to herself as she gets back up and pats herself down to get rid of the dirt that got on her thanks to that stupid bug attacking her with her own Pokémon.
Still Klara reluctantly follows before she starts running to keep up with Ash, so she doesn't get scolded by Honey later for losing track of him.
Ash's Dragonite reaches the honeycomb shaped island that the pink Butterfree led her Trainer, Pikachu, and the sweet pink-haired girl accompanying them to. Dragonite relished the opportunity ferrying the two humans across the waters surrounding Mustard's isle presented as this gave her a chance to hug the both of them with no way for them to refuse lest they feel like taking a dip in the ocean.
"Thanks for the ride, Dragonite." Her Trainer said reluctantly accepting another hug from the Dragon Pokémon before recalling her whilst Klara put as much distance between herself and Ash's Dragon-Type as possible.
"Your Dragonite's the only cute Pokémon you have on you, but I am not a fan of the hugs." Klara lets Ash know who rolls his eyes having heard that from a lot of Pokémon and people Dragonite's hugged since joining Ash's team, "Well, anyway what's such a big deal about this isla- Holy, this island's full of those pink bugs and there are some shiny ones too!"
True to Klara's words Honeycalm Island has Pink Butterfree and Shiny ones as far as the two Trainers can see. Along with them are Shiny and Pink Caterpie and Metapods too.
Normal looking Caterpie, Metapods, and Butterfree seem to be the rarity here with maybe one of each for every 3 pink variants and every 2 shiny variants of the Butterfree line.
"Ugh, no fair! Why can't one of you be a Poison-Type!" Klara groused finding the sight of Pokémon a similar color to her hair who shouldn't normally look like they do and are such cuties on top of that a blessing from above if it weren't for the fact none of them are her preferred Type of Pokémon to have, "Maybe I can make an exception just this one time before I have to let Mustard and Honey know so the League can be informed this island's Pokémon needs to be protected from poachers."
As unpleasant, conniving, and toxic as Klara can be, she's not (completely) heartless when it comes to Pokémon who'd have a harder time surviving in the world than other Pokémon.
Not sparing Klara much more thought Ash and Pikachu follow the pink Butterfree that led them here to the largest tree at the island's center.
Ash stops in his tracks when he sees a normal looking Butterfree at the giant tree's base hovering attentively over some Caterpie eggs that judging from how much they are shaking, will be hatching very soon.
The only thing of importance about the Butterfree is the yellow scarf it has on which looks like it's seen better days. It's an oddity why the leader of the swarm would stick to keeping it on instead of replacing it, but Pikachu can understand why as he looks to his Trainer whose just standing watching Butterfree go about his business.
"Pikachu, it's been years and..." Ash says before stopping closing and opening his fist feeling his eyes start to grow wet as he sees that ribbon around the Butterfree's neck, "He remembers me, right?"
The Pink Butterfree watches her mate's past Trainer tremble as he stops before he can get any closer to his first capture, his first Pokémon after Pikachu to be his friend.
Klara sees this as well and chooses to decide on which Caterpie to catch later while her fellow pupil at the Mustard's Dojo has his moment.
Pikachu seeing tears threatening to fall from his Trainer's cheek makes a sound to assure him that the answer to his question is yes.
That's enough to get Ash to stop his tears from flowing, he thanks Pikachu before finally taking a step closer to his first Pokémon he had to say goodbye to.
"Free?" The yellow scarf wearing Butterfree says when he turns hearing his mate's trill that she's back, the next sound Butterfree makes doesn't come out as he sees the pair of humans his mate brought along.
One of which has a Pikachu that Butterfree hasn't seen in years, but the Kantoan Bug-Type wouldn't ever forget the Electric Mouse's face. Even if he's lost some weight and looks a lot more fit for a member of his species.
Same for the human boy whose shoulder the Pikachu's claimed as his perch. His clothes may have changed and he may look a bit older, but Butterfree would never forget the human who found him as a Caterpie, believed in him every moment they were together as a team, and tearfully allowed Butterfree to go be with his love.
Butterfree hopes those tears in his eyes now aren't because his Trainer's become a crybaby.
"He- Hello again, Butterfree." His Trainer, Ash manages to say a small smile appearing on his face as he and Pikachu draw closer to the first Pokémon to join them on their adventures through Kanto.
A few hours later Ash, Pikachu, and Butterfree are still catching up with each other on everything that's gone on since the two went their separate ways with the third. Butterfree's Trainer's stories having to stop for a moment when the trio of eggs Butterfree was watching over started hatching.
Though the 3 Caterpie that came out were neither Shiny nor Pink, the two parents and the rest of the swarm they had started celebrated the newest additions to the family along with Butterfree's Trainer and his Trainer's Starter.
Ash continued his stories of Johto a little while after Butterfree and his mate got to introduce their newest children to the rest of their family, his current one being what had happened the weekend of Ash's 12th birthday in the City of Water and the Eon Duo who are the guardian legends of the city.
That story ended on something of a somber note for Ash had felt since then it wasn't appropriate celebrating the anniversary of his birth when on the same day a Latias lost her sibling because of Ash's failure to save Alto Mare himself.
Hearing that helped Butterfree understand as grandiose as his Trainer and Starter's adventures after Butterfree had left weren't all amazing and wonderful times and that story helped to ground all the others Ash shared in Butterfree's mind, so he'd understand they truly did happen.
Klara who had been listening as well while trying to not seem interested by looking at her Rotomphone couldn't help, but think Ash has the wrong idea when it comes to blaming himself for what happened to that Latios.
But she knows now may not be a good time to bring it up and the traveling Trainer may not want to hear it coming from a girl he just met today, 'Maybe someday he'll be willing to hear me out, but-'
Klara stops that thought before shaking her head and burying herself in her phone wondering why she's caring all of a sudden about this boy two years younger than her.
Butterfree meanwhile wishes he had some stories comparable to Ash and Pikachu's but all he has is tales of the many places and regions Butterfree and his mate saw with her original swarm before they split off with a couple others to start their own swarm.
Still Ash seemed pretty impressed to hear that Butterfree had been in Johto when Ash was at the Orange Islands and that the reverse happened when Ash went to Johto.
Butterfree's swarms' migration seemed to take him to a lot of places Ash would eventually visit or had just been to: The Decalore Islands, the Hoenn region, the Alola Region, and now here in Galar at the Isle of Armor did the two finally managed to be at the same place at the same time.
"Butterfree, there's so much more I want to tell you, but it'd probably take weeks to tell you everything we've been through and..." Ash lets trail off knowing he really only has a few days before Professor Cerise expects Ash and Gou to come back to Kanto.
The thought of parting with Butterfree now scares Ash because he doesn't know how long it'll be before they see each other again if ever a chance for that to happen will pass again.
Butterfree lets out a sad trill of his own knowing he can't just leave the family he's started to be with Ash again, no matter how much he wants to be back with them and get to make some new stories of adventures the two can share with their friends and families.
A silence starts to form between the Trainer and Pokémon as they fear what will have to be said next.
It ends up being Butterfree's mate who cuts through the silence not willing to see her love and the boy who'd brought him to her feel the sorrow of parting again as she reminds her mate that it'll take a couple months before the young Caterpie and Metapod of their swarm will evolve, so if he'd like to spend some time with his Trainer again that she and other Butterfree can help look after the newborns.
Seeing what his mate is doing, Butterfree asks in a tone full of newfound hope if his mate and the other members of the swarm feeling like migrating to Kanto when they leave Galar.
"Free free, butter free." / "Of course, Butterscotch." The pink Butterfree says to her mate fluttering forward so their antennas can touch in a gesture of affection, using the nickname she'd given her love when he'd first discovered his love for the confection shortly after a kindly Bug-Type Gym Leader from Unova had shared some with them when they'd gone to the Decalore Islands after starting up their own swarm.
The scarf wearing Butterfree made a chuckling trill being reminded of that before he responded with thanking his mate and calling her Ma Cheri after the chocolate covered Cheri Berry sweats she'd been hooked on when they'd had their first couple of Caterpies.
Watching the two be so lovey-dovey with each other made Pikachu wish he was human just so he didn't have to understand what the embarrassingly in love pair were saying, Ash and Klara would probably not think this display of affection is as cute as it looks if they heard the two keep throwing nicknames around that involved sweets they had taken a liking to.
Eventually once Butterfree stopped being so mushy with his mate, he turned to Ash and trilled thankful Pikachu can translate for him to his Trainer.
"Butterfree, you're going to come back?" Ash repeated shocked, but soon growing elated hearing that until he asked if that was okay for Butterfree to do.
"Free! Butterfree butterfree butter free free." Butterfree answered clarifying it'd be okay so long as Butterfree can have time to be with his mate and his family when he needs to and be able to keep track of wherever they are going to settle down at for a few months.
Once Pikachu's relayed that to Ash, he lowers his head so his cap can hide the growing tearful smile on his face. The shaking of his shoulders gives it away though as Ash speaks, "That's- That's awesome to hear Butterfree, welcome back to the team."
Ash raises his head up to let Butterfree see the huge smile he has on as he says that, tears still in his eyes, but these ones look like happy ones than the sad ones he was shedding before when he thought he'd have to say goodbye to Butterfree again.
"H-here," Ash tells Butterfree as he pulls from his backpack an old empty Pokéball laying around in a special compartment full of similar emptied Pokéballs and one Beast Ball. This one has a yellow ribbon sticker on it to tell it apart from the ones that have a brown feather sticker, a boxing glove sticker, an icy blue water droplet sticker, or a pale purple dragon's head sticker, "It's your old Pokéball. I never left it at home when I was on my adventures in case I ran into you again, Butterfree."
Hearing that made Butterfree feel his own eyes start to grow wet. Why does his Trainer have to be like this, now his newest kids are going to think he's a crybaby too.
Not interested in being seen crying by his kids, Butterfree hovers closer to his old Pokéball and presses the button on it to return him to the ball's confines after so many years away from it so he can have a moment to collect himself.
Not even shaking once upon going in the Pokéball, Ash smiles with Pikachu as he speaks to the friend inside whilst Klara watches and looks away so her rival can't see this moment's gotten to her too, "Welcome back, Butterfree."
It's taken a long time for it to happen, but Ash finally has taken his first steps to bringing his original team together again. And it's only a matter of time before the rest of his released Pokémon reunite with him.
AN: Say hello again everyone to Ash's first catch, and I hope I did their reunion the justice it deserves.
Also, since I couldn't find a way to work it into the story, Ash changed out his Journeys outfit whilst he's on the Isle of Armor for the Dojo Uniform Mustard gives to Adept or higher Class Trainers that come to his dojo looking to improve their growth provided they can impress the former Champion in a battle.
The only articles of clothing that Ash kept from his Journeys outfit is his cap and backpack since he'll never part with any of his caps (unless Pikachu, his other Pokémon, or his friends want to wear one of his caps.) and he couldn't add a pocket to the new backpack Mustard gave him to keep Butterfree, Pidgeot, Lapras, Goodra, and Naganadel's Pokéballs in.
In other news I'm starting to think I might need to make a separate fanfic for this series that's less a story and more a record of the little things I'm slipping into my stories such as the Trainer Class System, Ash's birthday being the 15th of July, his age, the day he started his journey being the 25th of may following his 10th birthday, up to date profiles on his Pokémon, a timeline of events before and during this AU series, and etcetera in case people are getting bored of me slipping them into my stories and want a place where it'll all be compiled so they can refer back to it in case they've missed anything or get confused when I reference something that happened in earlier parts of this series.
May as also share some anime head canons I have in there too like my head canon that Ash never parts with the Pokéballs of his released Pokémon so he makes sure to have his mom add a special compartment/pouch/pocket in whatever new backpack he gets for his adventures just in case he runs into one of them and they want to rejoin the team.
And this is less a head canon and more me expanding on Klara's characterization for this series, but she finds only Poison-Type Pokémon cute and has a minor case of musophobia which is why she's not a big fan of Pikachu on account of being a rodent Pokémon.
She'll tolerate his presence, but she's still going to keep her distance from him if she has no choice to. She'll steer clear of other rodent Pokémon like they're some kind of plague.
If she ever encountered a Poison-Type rodent Pokémon though, Klara's brain might explode trying to reconcile it's cuteness as a Poison-Type with it's ugliness as a rodent Pokémon.
Finally, Butterfree (or Butterscotch as Pikachu and the rest of Butterfree's original teammates will call him to tease him) and his mate have a lot of kids who don't have the normal coloration of their species.
That can be attributed to Butterfree's mate growing up on Pinkan Island in the Orange Islands and having a steady diet of Pinkan Berries as a Caterpie. Those berries might have affected the Pink Butterfree's (let's call her Cheria) genetics so her kids will have greater odds of hatching into a shiny Caterpie or a Pink Caterpie than normal female members of the Butterfree species.
Also the term Orangean was dropped, Professor Ivy's gotten the Pokémon native to the Orange Islands who have unusual markings, coloration, appearances, typing, and abilities recognized by the Pokémon League Governments as regional variants.
Presently she and some other researchers there are trying to find the Crystal Onix so they can figure out what it's typing and abilities are along with figuring out if it evolves into a Crystal Steelix or has an alternate or second evolution following Steelix like some of the regional variants of Galar have.
They've not had much luck in that regard unfortunately and why am I bringing this up? (Glances at Tobias who waves cheerily before I hide him behind a curtain. One that his shoes can still be seen from the bottom of it.) No reason. No reason whatsoever. Has nothing to do with a future fanfic I'm planning/hoping to do eventually.
Anyway, may as well drop the title of the next chapter before I wrap up here: Birds of a Feather Flock Together!
Until next time everyone, bye-onara!
