Heyo! Just a quick warning before reading, this is my first ever story I've ever fully written so I think it's safe to say it might be a bit all over the place but I'm still very happy with how it turned out. Also, the story is set right after episode 66 of journeys, meaning a lot of stuff might be inchorent with where the anime is currently (You'll see in later chapters), but I was only able to finish this recently because of time constraints and other reasons. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!
It was a pretty boring day compared to usual for the research fellows Ash and Goh. Usually around this time midday, Professor Cerise would always come up with something for them to research, explore or investigate, but not this time. Goh had just finished feeding all his pokemon, which started to get pretty tedious considering the sheer quantity of pokemon he now owned. He wasn't even close to accomplishing his goal of catching every single pokemon on his way to Mew, but he was still proud of what he had already accomplished. After running around for seemingly ages feeding all his pokemon, he decided to take a break next to a tree and watch as Ash continued to train his pokemon excitedly next to the lake.
"Gengar, Shadow Ball!" The ghost type responded in a blink of an eye to his trainer's command and immediately fired off the ball of purple dark energy.
"Now Sirfetch'd! Slice it with a Fury Cutter!" With a confident cry, the galarian fighting type pokemon's leak glowed and shattered the dark energy ball in half like it was nothing.
"Now use Brutal Swing! Gengar, counter it with Ice Punch!"
The two attacks met, creating a huge gust of wind, forcing Ash to hold on to his cap as Goh watched from a distance his remaining four Floettes, after sadly leaving his white Floette in Kalos, drift away along with some of his flying types. After a while, the two battling pokemon backed away from each other both panting heavily. Seeing his pokemon visibly tired, Ash decided to call it a day and leave his pokemon to rest up whilst he went up to catch up with Goh. He quickly congratulated them on a good day of training, and left to go see his research partner.
"You know, you could have used that excitement to help me feed the pokemon." Said cheekily Goh as he saw Ash approaching him.
"Sorry! I was too focused on training Gengar today." Said a chukling Ash. "I haven't been using him a lot lately and I thought I owed him a good training session to make sure he's in top shape for our next battle!"
"Well that is true, plus the Professor hasn't been giving us much to do lately so I guess this is a great time to train. Speaking of which, we should probably go check if he has anything new for us to do since I just finished feeding everyone."
"Sounds good! Let's go Pikachu!"
"Pika!" Replied the electric mouse, who was just playing with Goh's Raichu, as he quickly took his favorite spot on the Pallet Town's trainer shoulder.
A few minutes later, Ash and Goh found Professor Cerise seemingly bored looking at his computer in the main room of the Research Facility.
"Hi Professor!" Said eagearly the two trainer's.
"Ash, Goh!" Replied the Professor a bit flustered by their sudden appearance. "What brings you here today?"
"Well, you haven't given us anything to do as of late and we were wondering if you had any research missions for us to do since we are getting pretty tired of just hanging around the lab the whole time." Admitted Goh.
"Always excited and ready for the next adventure I see." Said a laughing Professor Cerise. He had to admit, he had his doubts about picking up the pair as researchers at such a young age, but they quickly showed their professionalism when it came to their job. "Well unfortunately, there hasn't been much to investigate in recent times, everything seems to be relatively calm nowadays, especially compared to what happened in Galar not too long ago."
"Yeah that was awesome!" Said Ash.
"Well I wouldn't call a giant pokemon almost bringing absolute chaos to a region very awesome, but yeah it was an interesting experience." Replied Goh.
"Anyways, like I was saying.." continued Professor Cerise. "I have no more things for you to do at the moment, so feel free to do whatever you want for the time being, maybe it might be a good time to take a break from all the research and work towards your own dreams and explore a region you haven't been to much."
"Explore a region we haven't been to much…" thought Goh. Suddenly, the idea hit him. "I got it! Hey Ash, why don't we go to Alola again, I didn't get the chance to catch a lot of Alolan pokemon last time we went."
"Yeah that would be great, maybe I could find someone to battle there too! Alright! Alola here we come!"
Just as Ash finished his sentence, Yamper started barking at the door excitedly. The door soon opened to find none other than Chloe, the Professor's daughter. She looked rather confused by Ash and Goh's faces and said:
"Hey everyone, I just got back from school. Why are Ash and Goh so excited? I could hear them screaming from outside the lab."
"It seems like they are both going to visit Alola for a while, there hasn't been much for them to do recently, so I gave them the idea of exploring a region they haven't been to much."
"Oh Alola! My friend showed me a magazine showcasing the region a while back and it looked like a lot of fun."
"Hey, why don't you join them on their trip?" Asked the Professor
"Me!?" Replied a startled Chloe, not expecting the suggestion from her dad. "Why would you want me to go?"
"Yeah why don't you come with us? It will be great!" Ash suddenly chimed in.
"I don't think I can… I still got school stuff to do."
Now it was Goh's turn to chime in on convincing Chloe as he said: "It will only be for a weekend, and it's friday isn't it? So just come with us, we'll have a blast!"
"I… well… um…"
"Just go with them, you could use a little vacation of your own. Let loose and explore the world a bit more!" Said Professor Cerise, trying really hard to convince his daughter to go on the trip.
Chloe, a bit exasperated, sighed and said: "Fine, I'll go with you guys."
"Alright!" Cheered both Goh and Ash.
A couple hours passed by and the trio consisting of Ash, Goh, and Chloe departed from the Vermillion city airport on their way to the wonderful Alola region, or more specifically, Melemele Island. Chloe had to admit that on the inside, she was pretty excited to visit the tropical region with the boys, she had never been to it and was always curious about the place. She had already visited multiple places with Ash and Goh and had quickly realized that they are a lot more dependable than they seem, especially Ash. At first, he really just seemed like a goofball that never took himself seriously, but after seeing with her own eyes just how dependable and experienced he is with travelling, she was pleasantly surprised. She didn't know much about the Pallet Town trainer, nor why travelling seemed like such a breeze to him, but she wanted to learn a little bit more about him, how he manages to make people different, like for example Goh. Chloe would've never thought Goh of all people would play a part in saving an entire region from total disaster, and she doubts he could have done it without meeting Ash in the first place. Who knows? Maybe he could help her with finding her future goal. Either way, this was gonna be a great trip, and she was looking forward to it. As the plane took off from the Vermillion City airport, she took one more look at the plane window and while stroking her loyal Eevee's fur and admired the sunset of the city in which she grew up in since she was little. It felt weird for her. It wasn't like the time they all flew to Galar to explore fossils together, something was different, but she didn't quite know why. She looked to her right to find Goh completely immersed in his Rotom Phone looking through the Alola dex, only looking up from time to time to ask Ash questions about certain Alolan pokemon he hadn't seen much of, while the latter playfully petted Pikachu, who seemed to enjoy every moment of company it had with it's trainer. She always wanted to know how the two got so close, they seemed inseparable from each other and that nothing could come between their friendship. Even when Pikachu was mad at Ash a while back for not caring about him enough, they still seemed like the best of friends. She smiled and then looked at her Eevee.
"Maybe someday, we could have a relationship like that too Eevee." She whispered to her partner quietly.
"Eevee!" Replied cheerfully her loyal companion.
"Huh? What was that Chloe?" Suddenly asked Ash.
"Oh... umm… nothing..." Replied a flustered Chloe.
Little did they know, this was going to be a trip to remember.
