AN: I return!

K: Again.

P: Only a month this time.

T: Which isn't bad, at least.

SV: Yeah, it probably would've been earlier, but this one fought me like you wouldn't believe. It was a right pain, especially the end for some reason. Didn't want to let me finish it. Still, hope you enjoy things, everyone!

The next morning saw the entire group up bright and early, the fire pit from the night before now a burnt-out pile of ashes and a stone ring- as well as the semi-large hole in the ground from Ashley's Aura Sphere. Said Adept, being the first one awake and up by a small margin, had already begun to remove the stones and place them back near the river, planning on letting the three sleeping Water types handle putting them back in a way that wouldn't make a mess of the current later. She was soon joined by her team, who helped to dust the ashes away and fill in the ground a little bit, once they'd poked Onix and Geodude awake and the two had stopped grumbling.

By the time they finished that, Brock had made an appearance, sparing the group a wave before setting up the small kitchen in his bag and starting to cook breakfast. Ashley promptly went over to help while Volta headed into the third tent to wake Misty, and the Pokemon had spread out for a little bit more Aura practise before eating- all except for Nova, who just hovered awkwardly by Ashley's side as the two trainers cooked.

"You ok, Nova?" Ashley asked, glancing sideways at him as she poured more pancake batter into the pan. "Don't fancy practising with the others?"

'No thank you.' He shook his head. 'What're you making?'

"Pancakes." She explained, turning her attention back to the pan. "They're pretty nice. Want one?"

'I can have one?' Nova perked up a little, looking shocked.

"Sure, no problem. I'm pretty sure Brock's planning on doing enough for the entire army anyway, so there's no issue there?" She glanced at the taller teen as she said that, the other pretending to ignore the conversation.

"I'll check who wants them first, but Onix and Geodude like them. I used to make them a lot at home for them." Raising his voice a little, he called, "Alright, how many of you want pancakes this morning?"

'Pancakes!' The large rock snake looked up immediately, eyes shining. 'Heck yes!'

"I wasn't actually asking you two." Brock chuckled. "I knew you'd be up for it. How about the others?" A quick discussion went on between Ashley's Pokemon and Zubat- some of which included explaining to Abilene and Zubat what pancakes were, since they'd never had them before while the others had tried Ashley's earlier on- and it was agreed that they'd all be willing to have pancakes. "One army of pancakes, then. How about Volta?" He looked to Ashley, who frowned.

"Can you handle that for a moment, I'll poke him about it." Nodding, Brock took over the pancake she was currently doing and she took as step back, eyes closed. 'Hey Volta, want pancakes this morning?'

'I'll take pancakes!' He agreed, running out of the tent. 'Misty's up, by the way.'

"Thanks, Volta." Ashley smiled. "Feel free to go practise for a while, this might be a bit."

'Will do!' He glanced at their newest teammate. 'You coming, Nova?'

'No thanks.' He shuffled awkwardly. 'I'd rather Ashley was there when I do it. I'm… no good.'

'Hey, we're all awful at things when we first start them. Sometimes they click pretty quick, other times it takes a while.' Volta encouraged. 'But sure, take whatever time you need. As Ashley always says, Aura's hard.'

'It's really hard.' Nova agreed softly. 'I just can't do it.'

"You'll get there." Ashley promised him. "Trust me. It might take ages, but you'll get there."

"Get where?" Misty yawned, rubbing her eyes.

"Nova's just a bit worried about Aura, that's all. And morning."

"Morning. What're we doing today?"

"First, eating pancakes. Then I'll start you two on Aura, since we got a bit sidetracked yesterday, then we can get back on the move to Vermillion." Ashley explained. "Hopefully we won't have any trouble with those five Squirtle."

"I wonder what was up with them?" The redhead mused, walking over. She avoided joining in with the cooking- somehow she had the ability to destroy most of the things she turned her hand to, though Brock and Ashley were working on fixing that as best they could- and just watched as Volta ran off to join the group of Pokemon practising Aura. "I've seen troublesome Pokemon before, obviously, but they seemed a bit… weird."

"Just a touch." The Adept nodded. "If we do see them again, I'll watch them in Aura Sight as best I can. Maybe we could follow them, see what's going on." She paused. "Actually, thinking of Aura Sight, I think Zy's still in my bag. I should go and get him."

"I was wondering where he'd gone." Brock admitted. "Since he's normally in your hair."

"He basically spent the entire day in there. No clue why." She shrugged. "I'll grab him in a moment."

'I could go and get him?' Nova offered, making his new trainer look down. 'If he's just in your bag, I mean.'

"That'd be great, thank you. My bag's still in my tent, and be careful with your tail." Nova nodded, hurrying off, and Misty smiled.

"I'm glad he's doing ok."

"Better." Ashley corrected, lifting the pancake onto a plate and pouring in another. "He's doing better, definitely, but he's a long way away from ok. He's still hurting, and the abandonment bit pretty deeply. I know you guys don't understand him, but you can probably still guess it from his tone of voice and body language that he's really eager to please, because he's worried he'll be thrown away if he's not able to do what I'm teaching him to do."

"But, you'd never do that to him."

"Nova doesn't know that yet." She paused. "No, he knows it, but he just hasn't really gotten it yet. He's been told by us that we won't leave him, but he won't believe it for a long while, I reckon."

"That's awful." Brock frowned, huffing.

"It's definitely that." That conversation faded as Nova came back, carefully holding the little green Zygarde Cell in his claws.

'Here you go, Ashley.' He said, holding the Cell out to her.

"Thanks Nova." Momentarily taking her attention from the pan, she reached down and lifted the little thing from his hands, bringing him nearer her face. "Hi. You doing ok?" It blinked once, the little hexagon on its back flickering, and it nodded. "Good to know. Sorry I was sorta ignoring you, we… got a bit distracted." Zy wriggled in a sort of shrug, and Ashley smiled before putting it back in its position in her hair. "Thanks."

"Hey, Ashley?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think that Zy can talk with that code thing, like Starmie and Staryu do?" Ashley paused, biting her lip.

"I… don't know. I wouldn't think so." Sensing Misty was about to ask another question, she held up a hand. "I'll tell you some other time, if you don't mind. The explanation's a little weird and confusing." After a moment, Misty nodded, then they all started as something exploded. "Be careful, you lot!" Ashley shouted. Although, she thought to herself, I think that was the longest period we've had without an explosion. Progress.

A little while later, pancakes had been finished and distributed, and Ashley was sitting with her two friends.

"Ok, so the main thing about Aura is that it needs to be unlocked. Pokemon naturally leak it into their attacks, but they still can't use Aura properly, pure or Typed, unless it's unlocked by an Adept. Humans don't get that first part, and they also need it unlocking. Until then, their Aura shows up as a dull grey. It's more vibrant than the rest of the world, which lets us see people in Aura Sight, and after unlocking it turns to the colour of your… affinity, I suppose. Your Aura will still be blue, but in Aura Sight you'll show up with some of that colour mixed in. Anyway, your affinity is the type you resonate with the most; so Misty's is probably Water blue and Brock's likely either Rock or Ground brown. You'll still have neutral typed Aura, but you'll probably find it easier to learn to change your Aura to that type."

"What's your affinity, Ashley?" Brock asked, curious.

"I'm not completely sure what mine is." She shrugged. "The thing about Adepts is that we always have pure blue Aura, no matter what, because we use the neutral form. Lucario and Riolu can, and any Pokemon using Aura Sphere or Force Palm, among other things, are using it, but for the most part they'll use Typed; Fighting is red and Steel is silver. Anyway, because of that, the only way for me to figure out my affinity would be to just start learning and see what sticks. I have a theory that it's either Water or Electric, since I've taken to both pretty well- there was a Vaporeon that was on a team with a Lucario and pretty well in-touch with its Aura that helped me learn that, while I've only been doing Electric Aura since I got Volta started, and I've really leapt ahead at that."

"Could it be both?" Ashley paused.

"I… wouldn't think so?" She guessed, putting down her fork for a moment and thinking. "I mean, Lucario never mentioned it being possible and even if it was I can't really see it being two opposing Types." Picking up her fork again, she continued, "Then again, there's stuff I'm learning all the time, and maybe it's in the Adept library in Rota. Or maybe it's something completely new." She shrugged again, going back to her pancakes.

The conversation faded for a while after that, the group of three just eating quietly and watching as their Pokemon drifted back to practising their own Aura work. Nova even joined in this time, having enjoyed his first taste of pancakes, and now looked determined as he sat down a little away from the rest and focused on bringing even a tiny spark of Aura to life. Ashley spotted this and smiled a little, before standing to help Brock clear up and then leading them both over near the stream, away from the other Pokemon.

"So, which of you wants to go first?" She asked, cocking her head. "I'll warn you now, it's really hard, and might be more difficult for you guys because you're not Adept in any way, so you're working completely from scratch." The two trainers exchanged glances, then Misty held her hand out.

"I'll go first. Might as well see how hard this is going to be." Ashley smiled slightly, nodded, and took the girl's hand.

"I guess you probably don't need the walkthrough for this, do you?"

"I think I'll manage." Nodding, Ashley began pushing her own Aura upwards as Misty closed her eyes.

For a few minutes, both girls were completely still, Misty focusing on finding a memory while Ashley monitored it, neither of them paying any attention to the explosions that were occasionally going off in the background. Very slowly, so as not to disturb the redhead, Ashley moved her hand downwards slightly, so that her Aura was still touching her palm, and Brock stared as a thin coating of grey formed on around it, which slowly faded to the same blue they'd seen on Staryu the day before.

Ashley was grinning from ear to ear, and slowly cut off her own Aura flow, leaving the rippling column in the air between the two of them. "Ok, Misty, that's enough."

"I've nearly got it, Ashley." She replied, a little distantly. "Just need to figure out how to get it there… could you move your Aura?"

"I already did." The blasé comment took a moment to register through her focus, then Misty's eyes shot open and she stared at their hands, where the column of Aura was floating between the two.

"Oh." Shocked, she allowed the Aura column to disappear, turning her palm over to gape at it, then at Ashley. "Oh."

"Yeah, you did it." The black-haired Adept smirked. "Want to try again?" Misty nodded, a little absently, and looked back down at her palm with a frown. The swirl of Aura built up again, far slower than it had before, but almost a minute later Misty was holding a wispy ball of Aura on her palm.

"Wow." She smiled widely, lifting her other hand to prod it. The nebulous ball moulded around her finger for a moment, before pushing her away, and Ashley chuckled.

"Alright, Misty, you can stop now. Aura's pretty tiring early on, don't wear yourself out." Reluctantly nodding in agreement, the redhead let the ball of blue Aura fade into the air, sagging slightly in exhaustion as she did. Ashley closed one eye for a moment, looking at her, and hummed. "I was right, though. You're a Water affinity, no doubt. Your Aura matches the colour exactly." Her gaze was drifting for a moment between Misty and the Pokemon practising in the river, comparing the colours. "That'll be fun to do properly at some point, but I think just normal Aura tricks might be best to do first." Misty lay back a little, leaning against a rock, while she extended her hand to Brock. "Next?"

"Sure." The older teen took her hand as well, and they started the same ritual that had gone on a moment before. Again, the two sat there for a number of minutes in silence, waiting for the dull grey to begin forming in a coating over Ashley's own Aura, eventually doing so and turning brown. Curious, Ashley glanced in Aura Sight as she removed her own Aura from the equation, evaluated it, and nodded firmly.

"Yeah, right again. Rock type. Not really surprising, though." Her words startled Brock out of his concentration, which in turn made the Aura destabilise and vanish, but the former Gym leader quickly did the same as Misty and made another ball on his palm. This one was the same blue, something that made them both raise an eyebrow at Ashley. "It only changes how you look to Aura Sight. Unless you're able to push the type into the Aura, it'll always be neutral when it's formed- and thus, always blue."

"I see." Poking at it for a moment, Brock let it dispel without prompting, then sat back. "So what now?"

"No idea." Ashley admitted freely. "I have no idea how to deal with teaching someone, especially people who aren't actually Adept, since I can't just replicate what I did- my first task was to hold my Aura in a ball for five minutes, but I don't even know if you'd be capable of that."

"So we're winging it." Misty surmised.

"Basically, yeah." She blushed. "Sorry."

"No problem, Ashley." Brock retorted quickly. "The fact that you're teaching us it at all is enough. We're alright with having to just guess." Ashley's eyes lit up.

"Thanks." Hugging them both quickly, she continued, "If I had to guess I'd think it'd be best if we just tried to get you both used to using Aura, so maybe just forming and dispelling balls over and over would help? It's basically what I've been doing with the others, but in their case it's to help them get used to stabilising the Aura in its Typed form, instead of using it internally to power attacks."

Something- a glance behind her with Aura Sight told her it had been Vespine- exploded, and Ashley shook her head. "Because it tends to explode."

"We've noticed." Misty said drily. "Would we even have that problem, though, since we've never used Aura before?"

"Maybe, maybe not. No idea, like I said." Stretching slightly, Ashley formed a pair of Aura Spheres herself, straining with effort. "But it's still probably a good starting point, because it'll probably build up your Aura reserves so you can actually use it for stuff."

Swapping glances between each other, then throwing a look across the collection of Pokemon practising Aura in the clearing as well, Misty and Brock nodded in agreement, then settled back themselves to start practising, whirling balls of Aura spiralling into being and fading moments later.

A little after midday, and after they'd eaten, the group collected their Pokemon back into their Pokeballs to continue on, Volta taking his seat on her shoulder as normal. The other two trainers were somewhat exhausted from the repeated Aura use, while Volta had a few scuff marks from an explosion.

"Have fun, Volta?" Ashley asked.

'Actually, yeah.' He grinned in return, hooking his tail under her arm. 'It's not going too badly, which is nice. I think I'll have it down soon.'

"That's great!" She patted his head. "Once you've gotten that down, I'll work with you on getting rid of the electricity in your Aura to make pure Aura, then we can work on Aura Sphere and stuff."

"Good coverage against Rock and Ground types." Brock noted.

"I'm gonna do my best to work on figuring out if Pokemon can learn different Aura types too." Ashley added. "I know Water too, and if Volta's willing he'll be our test subject?" Her voice turned hopeful at the end, looking at her partner Pokemon.

'Sure, could be fun. I'd like to learn some other types, that'd be cool.'

"Then that's what we'll do." Ashley beamed. "Having loads of different moves should be useful in battle, plus the surprise factor of being able to use moves you shouldn't be able to."

"That'd be useful for some of our Pokemon too." Misty mused. "Having Starmie be able to use a Ground or Flying move would be funny as anything."

"Or Onix with Fire moves, or something." Brock agreed. "Yeah, I think we should try that for sure, just in case it works."

"That was my reasoning behind it as well." Ashley nodded. "If it works with Volta, I'll roll it out to any of the Pokemon that can get to the stage of purifying their Aura."

'How long do you think that'll take?'

"Hopefully not too long, since I'll be helping as much as I can, but who knows?" She raised one shoulder in a half shrug. "It'll all move at a different rate, so we'll just do our best."

'Fair enough.' Shrugging slightly himself, Volta added, 'By the way, your friend's still meeting us in Vermillion, right?'

"Yeah, I sent Mya a message when we figured out what Zy is. She's gonna teleport by in stages and meet us there."

"Mya?" Misty asked.

"A family friend." She explained. "She knew my mom when she was a kid, they both lived in Rota. Mya kinda still does, she's not a trainer but she roams about a lot, she tends to spend a lot of time in Kalos. I messaged her after we found out from Shaymin the other day that it probably comes from Kalos, and she volunteered to come by and pick him up."

"That's a long trip to make, even by teleport." Brock observed.

"She's actually in Rota at the moment, so it's not too bad that way. I'd guess that she's taking a plane to Kalos, since that's easier."

"That makes sense." Misty nodded. "What's she like?"

"She's nice. Fun and bouncy, though she can get a bit annoying at times." Ashley grinned. "She can be serious, at least-" Pausing for a moment, she flickered into Aura Sight again before throwing out her arm across both their chests. "Stop."

"What's up?"

"There's a massive hole here, covered up." She explained, edging forward with one eye closed. Kicking out at the ground, she caused the entire thing to collapse inwards, then stared. "That's not safe. Not even close. Even with Aura, I'd probably get hurt if I was caught off guard."

"Yeah, that's really not safe." Misty agreed, peering over the edge. "Brock, do you think Onix and Geodude could fill this in?"

"We can ask." He shrugged, sending them both out. "Hi, you two. Could you fill in this in for us?" Onix stretched out, looking over their heads and down.

'Wow, that doesn't look safe. Sure.' The group backed off a little, not needing that translated, and the two Rock types began filling the hole. 'What the heck happened?'

"No idea." Ashley responded. "I guess someone dug it as a trap or something, or maybe it was supposed to be some kind of prank?"

"A pretty bad one." Misty grouched. "Seriously, that could easily kill someone if they didn't realise it was there."

"Hence why we're filling it in." Ashley sighed. Closing one eye again, she added, "And there appears to be an officer making her way over here." A moment later, the sound of a motorcycle came into range, the Officer Jenny arriving a few minutes later as Onix and Geodude finished their work.

"What's going on here?" She asked, cutting the engine.

"There was a hole here in the road, covered up by a bunch of sticks and leaves and stuff." Ashley explained, as Onix curled up next to his trainer and Geodude floated away from the now filled hole. "I barely spotted it in time to stop my friends here from falling in, then set the thing off. It was probably deep enough to be deadly if someone wasn't expecting it. Brock got his Onix and Geodude to fill it so it's not a danger- thanks you two, by the way."

'No problem, Ashley.' Onix nodded to her.

"I see," Jenny said, face dark. "Thank you for covering that up, that's extremely dangerous. Those darn Squirtle really went too far this time."

"Squirtle?" Misty asked.

"Yeah, there's a squad of Squirtle running rampant in the nearby town. They normally only pull petty pranks, but it seems they've taken a step up."

"It could've been an accident." Ashley suggested. "Pokemon are normally pretty durable, compared to humans, and Squirtle have those shells as well that'd protect it from a lot of damage, so maybe they tested it and were fine, so they thought anyone who fell in would be too?" Jenny paused, frowning in thought.

"I suppose that's possible." She agreed, after a moment. "Still, keep an eye out for any Squirtle, they tend to pick on trainers."

"We'll be careful." Ashley promised. "Brock, put Onix and Geodude back in their Pokeballs." She added as Jenny drove away.

"Sure thing, Ashley. Thanks again, you two." Both Pokemon smiled at him as they vanished.

"What now?"

"We need to go and find these Squirtle." She decided, serious. "If this one went too far, who knows what else might?"

The two swapped glances of firm agreement.

A little ways away, out of sight of anyone normal but still close enough for a Pokemon with decent hearing to listen in, a group of five Squirtle looked nervously at each other.

'They couldn't be right, could they?' One of them asked, looking upset. 'We were careful...'

'No, I think they're right.' Their leader nodded, looking down and scuffing at the ground. 'We were careful, sure, but we are a lot more durable than humans are. Besides, I'd trust a human to be right about other humans, even if I might not like them for other reasons.'

'What do we do? Do we just stop? I like pulling pranks...'

'It's not really worth it if we put people at risk, though.' The sole female in the group argued. 'We started doing this for fun, not to make things dangerous.'

'We shouldn't have listened to those two humans and their Meowth.' The final Squirtle put in quietly. 'But now what?'

'We could go to those trainers and apologise.' The first suggested. 'They were the ones we were targeting with that prank, and they were the ones that would've been seriously hurt by it.'

'Would they listen?' The third asked, worried.

'The only way to find out would be to go and do it.' The leader decided. 'Come on, we'll go down to them.'

'Um... I think they've left.' The female pointed out, looking out past the rock that covered the entrance to their little cave base.

'Oh, great.' They all sighed, trailing out one by one into the sun. 'Come on, everyone, let's split up and see if we can find them. Whoever finds them, explain the situation.'

'Sure thing, boss-guy!' The female snarked, waving as she ran off and vanished over the rocks. The rest of the group laughed and followed her, making their way in different directions in an attempt to find the trio of human's they'd tried to prank.

It went without saying that anyone who spotted the two humans and their Meowth would be soaking them before making an escape. Anyone who was willing to advise them into setting up a trap that might've been lethal wasn't someone they'd be willing to work with.

"Something's coming." Ashley muttered lowly, Aura flickering along her fingers as she glanced around.

'Where from?' Volta returned, just as quiet.

"Left side, about ten feet out. They're hovering along by the treeline, just out of sight, behind a bush." Stopping for a moment, she fished her phone out of her pocket and glanced at it, taking note of the somewhat late hour. "Hey, guys," she continued, louder. Misty and Brock both paused, turning back, "Would you like to find somewhere to camp out the night and see if we can get some more practise in? We've been walking for a while."

"How far are we from Vermillion?" Misty asked, walking over.

"Not close enough that walking for another hour today would get us very far." Ashley replied, reaching for her belt. "So?"

"Might as well." Brock smiled, nodding. "Would it be ok to keep practising, or...?"

Flashing to Aura Sight for a second, also using it to glance at the Squirtle that was waiting out of view, she frowned, "I don't think you'd collapse from overdraw or anything, no. Probably best to avoid doing something straining, but just working on making Aura and working on reserves would be a good plan. The Pokemon can do pretty much whatever, since they've got a lot of Aura."

'I'm going to try to get the stabilisation down completely then.' Volta decided.

"If you do, I'll start you working on sapping the electricity from it tomorrow morning." Ashley promised, before releasing Torna. "Hey, Torna, would you mind flying up a bit and seeing if there's any decent clearings around for us to camp out in? We plan on letting everyone do a bit more practise, so water would be appreciated too."

'Can do, Ashley.' The Pidgeotto agreed, quickly taking off and rising high above them. She circled a few times, paused, then dropped back down to hover next to them. 'There's an ok area just over there, with a pretty large pond as well. We might need to be careful with Aura, but if we manage to avoid too many explosions then I think it'll be fine.'

"That'll do. I'll just call everything to a stop if it starts to get dangerous at all." She told her. "Mind leading us there?"

'Not a problem.'

'Hey, wait!' The group paused, surprised by the sudden call, and all of them glanced over to the treeline, spotting a Squirtle wearing round sunglasses running over to them.

All of them recognised it as one of the Squirtle that had attacked them before, and tensed slightly, Ashley's Aura flaring a little brighter and sparks flying from Volta's cheeks.

'Um, excuse me, um.' The male stuttered, suddenly nervous. Ashley twitched her head slightly, an invitation for it to continue that also caused some of her hair to fall over her left eye, letting her close it without it being obvious and watch the Pokemon in Aura Sight as well.

Though the double vision was a pain.

'Um, right. I'm one of the Squirtle Squad, and, um, the boss sent us all out to apologise to you guys.' He hurried out. 'For soaking you all the other day, and for the thing with the massive hole in the ground. We didn't realise it might hurt someone, a couple of humans suggested it and their Meowth said that it'd be fine, so we just went ahead with it because we thought you'd be ok.'

Ashley's instincts told her that the Squirtle wasn't lying, and a quick sideways glance towards Volta told her that he felt the same, so she relaxed her guarded stance and pulled away her visible Aura, though she left the Aura Sight running.

"Where's your leader, and how come they didn't come to tell us this?"

'We were planning on it, but you all vanished while we were talking about what to do.' He admitted, seeming more comfortable now that they'd started talking- the fact that they hadn't started immediately attacking him. 'So we all decided to split up and look for you, and whoever found you first would explain things and apologise.'

"I see..." She nodded. "I suppose you can go and tell your team that you've found us..."

'What was that about two humans and a Meowth?' Volta interrupted. Ashley paused, listening.

'There were two humans and Meowth who suggested the trap to us. They told us it'd be funny, because you'd just drop into it, and we could spray water on you or something before leaving you climb out.' The Squirtle's head dropped. 'We didn't realise until we overheard you telling the officer about it that it could've actually been dangerous to you. The Meowth said you'd be fine, and the two humans didn't disagree or anything, so we went ahead and did it.'

"I see." Ashley hissed out a long sigh, irate. "Well, doesn't that just complicate things."

"Ummm, Ashley?" Misty tried, making the Adept glance over. "What's up?" She blinked, then chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Ah, sorry. Summary; the Squirtle didn't actually realise the trap was a dangerous to humans, but they overheard our conversation with the Jenny back there so the leader decided they needed to apologise." She said. "The complicated bit is the fact that it was suggested by two humans, who didn't suggest that it might be unsafe, and a Meowth who said it'd be fine."

"Ah." Brock frowned. "Yes, that does sound like it'd complicate things. Team Rocket?"

"Looks like it." She sighed. "How do we handle this?"

'I vote food, Aura, and blasting them off into space as soon as we can.' Volta opined. Ashley snorted, while the other two looked politely confused. He pouted. 'Note; need to figure out how your Lucario friend does the translation thing and do it as soon as possible. I can't have people missing out on my snark.'

"I wouldn't call it snark, exactly." Ashley responded. "They're just comments, nothing particularly snarky about them."

'Now that's rude, Adept.' He feigned hurt, holding a paw to his chest. 'Honestly, I'm pained by your awful suggestion.'

"Feel free to keep doing so, Volta, because you're fooling no-one here."

"He's fooling us, because we have no idea what's going on."

"You're not missing much," she assured Misty.

'Hey!'

"Anyway, Torna, that clearing?"

'Ah, sure.' She shook her head, seeming a little dazed, then hovered a little higher. 'Follow me.'

The main group began moving away, and Ashley glanced down at the Squirtle. "What about you?"

'I'm going back to the base.' He told her. 'The others are going to be there as well, so I'll meet them there.'

"Fair enough. Some advice, though?" He looked attentive, so she continued, "Try and tone down the pranks a bit. Irritating the police around here wouldn't be the best idea. They'd probably call in the Pokemon Rangers to capture you, and you'd likely all end up being split up." The Squirtle shuddered.

'That wouldn't be very good.'

Something exploded.

"That also doesn't seem to be very good." Ashley observed, sighing. "Torna!"

'That's a Rocket balloon.' She called back, looping over Misty and Brock's heads and reappearing next to her. 'I could see if from there. What do you want to do?'

Humming to herself for a moment, she replied, "Take Volta over there, aim to figure out what's going on with them this time." Reaching for her belt, she pulled two balls from it and released the Pokemon in there. "Ves, Swift, go with Volta and Torna, Team Rocket's just popped up again and need looking at."

'Sure, Ashley.' Ves nodded. 'Any idea what they're doing?'

"Nope, but once you're over there please just use your initiative. Try not to let anyone get hurt if you blow them up." Swift saluted.

'No problem.' Volta hopped from her shoulder to Torna's back as they started floating higher, Ves and Swift following Torna and Volta off towards the balloon.

"So now what?" Brock asked, as they watched them fly away.

"I mean, I guess we just wait." Ashley shrugged. "Since I'm pretty sure they'll be back in a few minutes anyway. It won't take Volta that long to decide whether or not to blow them up."

It didn't.

Nearly three minutes later there was a loud crack of lightning, along with a yellow flash, that made Ashley look up from her Pokedex.

"I think Volta's done." She said, pushing away from the tree. Misty and Brock looked up as well, the former putting away her book while the latter looked up from his search of his bag. "They'll probably be back in a minute..."

"I wonder what they were doing?" Misty asked, frowning. "I feel like Volta would've just blown them away straight away."

"Maybe they had to get something off the balloon first?"

"I'll check." Ashley closed her eyes, activating Aura Sight and pushing it in the direction of her Pokemon. A moment later, the four Pokemon she'd sent came into view, along with another four Aura signatures. She did a slight double take, then glanced down at the Squirtle that had come to apologise, who'd been hanging around still. "It looks like they might've been going after your friends, Squirtle. Four extra signatures, all Water and pretty small."

'What?' He yelped, gaping. 'Why would they do that?'

"No idea. Team Rocket just like to steal Pokemon, and the three we've been dealing with have a tendency to cause trouble." Ashley explained. "Still, they'll be dropping your four friends off in a second..." Opening her eyes at the gust of wind that came from Torna backwinging to a halt, she smiled at her Pokemon.

Swift and Ves were putting the two Squirtle they'd been escorting onto the ground, while Volta had jumped down and was helping the last two off of Torna's back. One of them, the one with the differently shaped sunglasses, immediately went over to the Squirtle at her side and began asking him questions.

Out of politeness, she didn't listen in, instead turning to Ves. "It all went ok, I assume?"

'Yeah, it was fine.' She nodded, impressing a grin. 'Volta was all ready to light them up when we noticed these four, and we figured they were the friends of the one here, so Swift hit them with a Sleep Powder and we collected the lot of them. Volta just took down the balloon, they'll land fairly safely in a field somewhere.' She explained.

"Alright, good job." Ashley smiled at them all, lifting up Volta as he came over and placing him on her shoulder again. "I take it we're done here, though?"

'I dunno why not.' Ves agreed, with a shrug. 'Unless you want to go over there.'

"Not particularly."

'Ah, excuse me?' Ashley glanced down at the ground, where the five Squirtle had grouped together, four behind their leader, and raised an eyebrow.

"Something wrong?" She asked in return, while Ves silently began translating to Misty and Brock.

'I'd like to ask if our team could come with you?' He requested, scuffing at the ground slightly with apparent nerves. 'We never really wanted to cause this much trouble for people, it was just a few pranks, but if you think the Pokemon Rangers might get involved and split us up we'd rather stop now so that doesn't happen.'

"I… see." The Adept mused, looking over them. "I don't exactly know what I'd do with five Squirtle, though, so it's likely that most of the time you'd all be staying on the ranch, in Pallet Town. It's pretty nice, and there's always a lot of Pokemon there because most of the Pokemon trainers that Professor Oak sponsors send their Pokemon there to stay there when they're not on the team."

"Actually, if none of you minded being split up for semi long periods, I wouldn't mind taking one of you onto my team." Misty offered suddenly. "I sort of wanted to get a Squirtle at some point on my journey anyway, so if one of you wanted to, you could work with me. I'm a Water specialty trainer, and I'm getting some help from Professor Oak that'll let me send my own Pokemon to his ranch as well, which means you won't all be separated all the time and can catch up." The five Squirtle looked at each other, startled.

'I… suppose that wouldn't be a problem?' The leader hesitated, looking back at Ashley and Misty. 'It'd be weird not being a team and seeing each other all of the time, sure, but as long as we could sort of stick together I don't mind personally.'

'Um… if we joined you, would we need to fight?' One of the others asked, sounding nervous. 'I don't know if I'd like to do that.'

Giving Misty a moment to get a translation from Ves, Ashley replied, "With Misty, you might have to. She's a gym leader, so she needs to be ok to take on trainers challenging the gym."

"I'm not really a leader yet, though I'm qualified for challenges." She corrected. "It'll be a while before I go back, I think."

"But either way, you would be eventually, so it's the same deal." She countered. "I wouldn't mind if you didn't want to fight, though I'd prefer if you joined in on the training at least so that you could would with the others in an emergency."

'…I wouldn't mind that, I guess?' He guessed. 'I'd really prefer not to fight. Pranks were fun and all, but I don't want to get anyone hurt.'

"Then I can catch you, and send you back to the Professor, and you won't have to fight unless there's a really big problem." Ashley offered.

'Being part of a Water-only team would be pretty cool.' The sole female of the group stated, stepping forwards. 'I wouldn't mind joining that. Especially if I still got to see all my old team.'

Misty listened to the incoming translation from the telepathic bug, then nodded. "I wouldn't have a problem taking you, or letting you go off to the Professor's on occasion to let you see the others in your team." Looking over the rest of them, she winced. "Though we might need to figure out a way to differentiate you all, if you spend lots of time together. For the Professor's sake, if nothing else."

"Nicknames, maybe?"

"Or we get a bunch of scarfs and give one to each of them." She shrugged. "But I'm happy to have you on my team."

"And unless any more of you want to go with Misty, I'll take the rest of you, no problem." Ashley added. The four males glanced between each other, then nodded.

'We'll all go with you.' The lead agreed.

"Nice!" The Adept smiled, then turned to Torna. "Torna, could you lead us all to that clearing now, please? We'll handle everything else there."

'Sure thing, Ashley.' The Pidgeotto took off again, everyone following along and the five Squirtle quietly discussing their situation.

AN: Alright! End GoP chapter 13!

K: And also the Squirtle segment, and a lot of the Aura info dump.

T: Thank the heavens for that.

P: At least it's out of the way now, though.

SV: Yeah, there's going to be a lot of appearances from Aura over the coming however long, since... well, Ashley's an Adept, and all the Pokemon and her friends are being taught, so it'll be around. Hopefully we won't have too many more chapters that are lots of information, though, especially since they get tiring to write after a while. I need to remember everything I've already brought up, after all. Anyway, best wishes, all, and see you around!