Hello readers, I would like to answer a few questions that have been asked and some that haven't been asked yet. First is who exactly will be included in the harem. As I stated in my other story I believe the future is undecided so I haven't got a definitive list but most of the girls mentioned should be included. The pokémon will not be. That was just to elaborate on some of the more annoying aspects of Mewtwo's job.
I've also been asked why Marina/Kris and Moon were not included. Marina/Kris has already been shown in the anime with her male counterpart so she's already taken. Moon is supposed to be eleven at game start, which makes the age gap between her and Ash too large. Add on the fact that Lana, Kiawe and Mallow are students in the anime, not Trial Captains and we can safely conclude that Sun and/or Moon haven't even moved to Alola yet.
Timeline wise, consider these events to diverge after the trip to Kanto and finding Nebby but before it's abduction by Faba.
Lastly, a few people have expressed confusion at the comedy tag. I don't want this to be a dark story and have a bit of an odd sense of humour along the lines of Person of Interest's 'because when I do it in the park, people look at me funny'. (Look it up if you're not familiar with it because it's a good show.) These stories are meant for me to help understand potential audiences and learn my strengths etc. If I get to chapter 10 or so and people still don't really think it fits in the comedy genre then I'll be happy to change the tag but I want to have a try first.
I do not own pokémon as it belongs to The Pokémon Company, Game Freak and Nintendo. Long may they reign!
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Chapter 3: The Butterfly Effect has Nothing on The Butterfree Effect
As Delia rushed to the phone in a mad panic to contact Ash's former traveling companions, her reasoning was twofold. One, it was just common decency to inform them that they may have been affected by being close to her son. And two, the more people who knew about it, the harder it would be for the mystery perpetrator to cover things up again. She was quite certain that her personal message surviving was nothing short of a fluke.
Brock and Misty were first and both were quiet happy to get themselves checked out. They briefly mentioned that league regulations stated that they had to follow through on such warnings and while they did recall meeting a psychic type on their journey that was capable of such feats, they were both convinced that 'He' wouldn't do something like that. She had gotten cross with them when they refused to mention the name of the pokémon but she couldn't do anything about that now.
She didn't have the contact information for most of Ash's other traveling companions but those she did not have personally had parents who she chatted to on a semi regular basis. So she called the Maples next (I know that's not official but it's the general fan consensus so that's what I'm going with.). They were very sceptical at first but became very worried once Max joined in and mentioned that May had done a complete 180 at the end of Kanto by following Drew to Johto rather than following Ash to Sinnoh like she had previously discussed with him. The phone call ended with Caroline trying to get in touch with May while Norman made arrangements to travel to Lilycove City where May was currently making her second attempt at the Hoenn grand festival.
Johanna didn't have any problems believing her, preferring to err on the side of caution but called back later in tears because Dawn hadn't believed her and wanted to know what to do. Before that second call, Delia had managed to reach Cilan and Iris on their Xtransceivers. Cilan mentioned the same gym protocol and Iris agreed to get herself checked just to prove that no psychic type would have gotten the better of her dragons.
As she finished with those calls, she congratulated herself on her progress and looked up the numbers for Grace and Meyer since she hadn't spoken to either of them in a while.
"Hello Grace, it's me Delia, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment," she greeted in a serious but friendly tone.
"You have a lot of nerve calling after your son trampled on my daughters heart," came Grace's stony reply.
"Oh dear, it seems that it's happened to Serena too," sighed Delia sympathetically.
Carefully, she explained what she had discovered and why she was calling but Grace seemed to be about as believing and receptive as a dugtrio was too the idea that being uprooted was good for it. Fortunately Serena, who had apparently come home suffering from depression, caught the end half of her explanation and interrupted her mothers attempt to hang up. Latching on to the information like a lifeline, Serena extracted every bit of information she could out of Delia, including the part were Ash still thought they were friends. Serena had then insisted that her mother take her to the hospital for a deep psychic restorative scan.
Meyer was thankfully easier to convince, the only peculiar thing about that phone call was him mentioning 'This sounds like a job for Blaziken Mask' but she just put that down to the eccentricities of being a single father. After that she packed a few things and went straight to Prof. Oaks to inform him of the situation and to demand that he give or make her something to shield her from psychic influence.
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Slightly later that morning in a Saffron city high-rise building, six of the seven Frontier Brains were having an emergency meeting with Scott, the owner of the battle Frontier. The door to the meeting room opened and Anabel strolled in wearing a black suit and a long ponytail (her in game Alola appearance).
"Sorry I'm late everyone. For some reason I didn't get the message about the meeting and found out when I checked Tucker's blog," Anabel chirped as she sat down in a vacant chair at the long table. Several people winced.
"Tucker, what have I told you about putting confidential information online," grumbled Brandon.
"Is something wrong?" queried Anabel with concern as everyone (bar Brandon and Lucy) continued to look uncomfortable.
"Um Anabel, the reason you didn't get the memo was because you weren't supposed to come," brokered Scott, "Now don't panic, were not planning on firing you or anything. This meeting is just about some topics that might make you uncomfortable."
"Oh, you're not excluding me because I now work part time with the International Police now right? I do hope this meeting isn't about tax evasion or something legally dubious," Anabel questioned suspiciously.
More uncomfortable looks passed around the table before Lucy burst out, "For goodness sake! Just tell the girl already!"
When no one volunteered, Lucy huffed and slid the file in front of her across the table to Anabel. Scott and Tucker objected but she had already grabbed it and started reading.
Frontier Brain candidate observation special report
Regarding: Ash Ketchum
Yesterday evening at XX:30pm Alolan time, Ash's acting legal guardian Prof. Kukui submitted Ash Ketchum for a medical check up at an after hours clinic citing concerns of psychic tampering. Preliminary tests returned positive with a scale of 4 and a deep psychic restorative scan were scheduled for the next day. Within eight hours of this event all medical records were deleted and no follow up has been made by any party since.
End Report.
Anabel stared wide-eyed at the report in her hands.
"You were going to keep this from me," she whispered then yelled, "AFTER Everything I've been through, you were going to keep this from me!"
"Anabel please calm down," said Scott, "After what happened to you the first time you encountered Mewtwo, none of us wanted to risk you doing something reckless and ending up in an even worse predicament."
"I know damn well what happened to me! Six months in ultra space without any memories, then Looker found me on a beach and took me in to the International Police where you tracked me down and offered to pay for the expensive rehab! I spent months wondering what I had done to deserve being made to forget everything, each painful monthly session giving me back another year of my life! When I finally learnt the reason, when I finally remembered the cause of my suffering and the reason why that bastard did it. NO ONE would do anything about it," yelled Anabel as she rose to her feet and slammed the report on the table, "All any of you care about is keeping me away from Ash. It's not the right time, the doctors tell me! We're still investigating, the International Police tell me! We don't want to put you at risk, you tell me!"
"All of you seem to care so much about me," Anabel murmured, her fists trembling as she began to cry, "but none of you seem to care about Ash. Someone finally caught HIM in the act and informed someone who would actually do something about it. This was our opportunity to finally act but because none of you wanted to do something and stay hidden, Mewtwo has probably gone and killed the whistle blower. I've been patient. I've gone with Looker to investigate ancient texts about the chosen one. I've caught new pokémon and trained SO hard to be ready for this moment and none of you were even going to tell me!
What part don't you get? They're using him and they're going to keep using him until he brakes. Ash never asked for any of this; what about Ash's happiness. All these powerful pokémon are holding him by a leash he can't even see. He's nothing more than a cog to them. Why won't you let me help him?"
"I know you don't want to hear it Anabel but if we fought at this point in time, we'd still lose and badly at that," lectured Brandon, "Everyone who has been briefed about the situation knows that there will only be one shot at this."
Before Anabel could retort, Noland's phone rang. Glad for an excuse to avert the conversation he answered, "Hello, Noland speaking."
"Good morning, I'm Prof. Oak, we've spoken before," greeted the Professor.
"Just a moment I'm at a meeting so I'll put you on speaker. What can I do for you Professor," asked Norman.
"I was wondering if I could use some of your manufacturing resources," started Prof. Oak, "You see, Delia stopped by this morning, she's the mother of one of your prior challengers, Ash Ketchum, anyway the thing is we've run into a bit of a situation and I was hoping to use those facilities of yours and my extensive research to create a psychic canceler that's small enough to wear. I know that no ones ever been able to make one before but I'm quite confident that with your engineering know how and building materials and my expertise on pokémon we should be able to come up with a working prototype by sundown."
Noland paled as Prof. Oak explained this but before he had the chance to decline, Anabel's Espeon bounced across the table, swiped the phone and returned it to her.
"Prof. Oak, I'm Salon Maiden Anabel," She stated as she ducked out of arms reach of the other Frontier Brains, "I'll be right over there to assist you and of course Noland would love to help you."
"Brandon, stop her," Scott cried as Anabel tossed the phone back and darted for the door.
In a flash of light, Registeel appeared and wrapped its long fingers around Anabel's torso. Espeon, like all of Anabel's older pokémon, reacted badly to a foreign pokémon touching its master and used psychic to rip back Registeel's fingers and send the iron golem cartwheeling across the room. By the time the dust cleared Anabel and her pokémon were long gone.
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Several hours later, Lilycove City, Hoenn
Norman sat in the private hospital room after the deep psychic restorative scan, hugging his sobbing daughter as she cried her eyes out.
"How could anyone do that to another person," wailed May, "T-to just smother their most important feelings and make them f-forget their friends like it's nothing. It just doesn't make any sense."
"It's alright, I'm here now and your mother and brother are supporting us too. We'll resolve this together," soothed Norman.
"Daddy, I'm scared. What happens if that pokémon comes back? What if it makes me forget Ash this time?" May mumbled.
"This area of the hospital is completely insulated from outside psychic types so it won't be able to find us here. On top of that, I'll be right here to stop it if it does come back. I won't let anyone hurt my precious daughter," Norman reassured her.
"Thanks dad," May sniffled as she looked up at him, "When the hospital is ready to discharge me, can we go see Ash?"
"Of course honey, in fact I'll call right now to ask for some time off work," answered Norman as he pulled out his phone.
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Ever Grande City, Hoenn
As Wallace sat in his office at league headquarters doing paperwork, he was surprised when his receptionist called saying that Norman wanted to talk to him. Surmising that he could do with a brake from the monotony, he told his receptionist to put the call through and rotated his swivel chair so he could recline and put his feet up on a padded stool hidden behind his desk. Norman was always a pleasure to talk to and hardly complained about regulations like Roxanne wanting to ban gum-chewing trainers from her gym or Brawly trying to create nation wide Mantine surfing competitions.
"Norman, how are you? I heard your daughter May won her third ribbon last week and will be competing in tomorrows Lilycove City contest. You must be very proud," chatted Wallace casually.
"Funny you should mention May," replied Norman, his voice carrying an unnatural seriousness, "She's just had a pretty serious accident and I will be needing to take some time of work until my family can sought things out."
"Oh my, tell me what happened," gasped Wallace.
"A friend of the family called with concerns that some of May's former traveling companions had their memories tampered with and wanted us to check May. I'm with her now that the doctors have finished the test and she's understandably upset about the whole ordeal," Norman answered.
Wallace swallowed nervously before continuing in his normal smooth flawless voice, "That's terrible, do tell her I send my condolences. Does she know who was responsible for the memory alteration?"
He heard the phone move and Norman's muffled voice ask his daughter to which he got an inaudible mumble in reply.
"Sorry, she says it happened right before she went to bed but she saw no one," said Norman, "You wouldn't happen to know of any psychic pokémon strong enough and smart enough to do complex memory alteration in a matter of moments?"
Wallace let out a defeated sigh, "Can't say that I do unfortunately. Alakazam and gardevoir are the most obvious culprits but even they can't do such things without line of sight and not at the speeds you describe. I'm sorry Norman but I'm as stumped as you are. What I can do is give you two months off. People won't be happy about it since your one of the top eight gyms that gets printed in all the handbooks but it's the least I can do. I might as well give the admin staff that pay raise that they've been asking for while I'm at it. You're one of the few ace gym leaders that understands the word restraint so you're very popular amongst trainers."
"Thanks Wallace, I'll be sure to send you a gift basket," said Norman before he ended the call.
Letting out an exhausted sigh, Wallace turned back to his desk and saw his niece frozen in the open doorway wide eyed with her hand raised, about to knock on the door. "Fiddlesticks," he moaned.
She bolted.
"Lisia, get back here," he shouted as he got up to pursue her, "You know you can't talk to May or Ash. The only reason we found out about your memory alteration in the first place was because it was discovered by the security detail at my Tenth Grand Festival victory celebration party!"
Lisia zipped through the corridors heading for the entrance as he pursued. She called over her shoulder, "If they actually remember me then I can finally talk to them. I'm tired of watching Ash from afar and even though May is still my junior in coordinating, she was still one of my closest friends."
"Your parents and I are aware of this but despite your avid protests, they still feel that it is too dangerous for you to interact with Ash and his associates until the culprit is caught," Wallace called back, "I understand that Ash was your first crush but this is ridiculous. You only knew him for a few short months and it's been years since you regained your memories of him. Why can't you go on a date with any of the other perfectly acceptable young men your age? While I personally don't mind the boys character, your parents believe that his frequent encounters with aggressive legendary pokémon and his tendency to try and bring down every crime syndicate he comes across makes him an unsuitable person for you to have a relationship with."
"I don't care!" shouted Lisia as she exited the front doors of the League and released her Altaria, "Guys who are okay with and respect contests enough to voluntarily participate in them don't grow on trees. All the ones I've met since Ash either failed that criteria or spent more time on their hair than I do. Considering I'm an Idol, that says a lot about their character."
"The mystery pokémon that altered your memories did it in the middle of one of your concerts, WHILE you were surrounded by a full security detail, a dozen cameras and several thousand witnesses who didn't notice a thing. Why can't you grasp just how serious this threat is," Wallace pleaded, but it was no use as she was already air born. He cursed the fact that he didn't have his Gyarados on him and went back inside whimpering, "My sister is going to kill me when she finds out about this."
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Mulberry City, Kanto
In the pokémon centre, Dawn packed the last of her things as Piplup munched on some food on the bed.
"Can you believe her Piplup," complained Dawn, "I can't believe that after being a trainer and coordinator for this long, Mum doesn't think I can take care of myself. Doesn't she think I'd realise if there was a big gaping hole in my memory?"
Piplup recalled her spontaneously accepting Cynthia's invitation to go all the way to Unova for a battle tournament, not a contest, but a battle tournament. It was fairly obvious even to him that she had gone to see Ash and based on her behaviour, Piplup would have bet a years worth of poké food that she was going to confess. But for some reason she never went through with it and the frequency with which she mentioned Ash in conversation since then had dropped to almost nothing. Buuut unfortunately he couldn't convey such complex conversation topics to her so he just sat there innocently eating his second helping of lunch.
"After all, I have you and Mamoswine and everybody else to protect me from a psychic type and none of you have ever ended up with injuries you don't recall getting so that means you've never had to fight off a mind wiping pokémon," Dawn ranted as she stuffed the last item of clothing into her bag with more force than necessary, "And then I find out she's telling me to go to hospital because someone else told her I might be affected just because their child is. Talk about not having faith in your own daughter yet believing someone else's far-fetched story. Ok, so maybe I shouldn't have cut her off before she told me who it was that told her and maybe it was childish to block her calls to my pokégear but she needs to learn what's believable and what isn't. You agree with me, don't you Piplup?"
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Iris punched her left fist into the hospital wall. How could she have been played so easily? That Mewtwo must have been laughing his face off at how easy it had been. She was a dragon tamer dammit.
"You know, if your fist goes any deeper into that wall, your going to break your Xtransceiver," said Cilan from her wrist, "Then we wouldn't be able to have this lovely conversation."
"Not helping, Cilan," she growled.
"I understand that your mad, I am too," he responded in his way too chipper voice, "but taking it out on that poor wall is just bad sportsmanship. Besides, at least it's daylight in Japan. I had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night and you don't see me punching any holes in the wall."
Iris just growled at him again. The lack of Axew wasn't helping soothe her nerves. After the procedure a nurse had asked her to hand over her pokémon so they could be checked and treated as well.
"I get the feeling your wounded pride isn't the main thing you're upset about," said Cilan, "Could it be that your upset because we met and were made to forget about three different girls while Mewtwo didn't see fit to erase your feelings until after we arrived in Kanto?"
Iris's right fist slammed into the wall. He had hit the nail on the head. Why had Mewtwo erased their feelings and memories immediately while he left her feelings intact for so long. Did he not think her love was good enough to warrant acting? That she wasn't attractive enough for Ash notice her? It made her blood boil just thinking about it.
"I see," Cilan commented, "Well, regardless of how mad you might be, we still have an obligation to contact the girls that showed an interest in Ash during his trip through Unova and inform them of what has been happening."
"Do we have too," Iris whined. Even if it was the right thing to do, she didn't like the idea getting in touch with girls that also liked Ash and persuading them to remember him. She wasn't the jealous type by a long shot but the idea still twanged uncomfortably at her heart.
"Since I'm a gym leader I'll be in a better position to do the informing," replied Cilan, "but that still leaves the issue of how to contact Ash without alerting Mewtwo. I don't think most of the other people are aware of who exactly is responsible for these events so it's our duty, as the only people to have run into two of them, to inform everyone else of exactly what a mewtwo is capable of. I want you to handle that job while we try to coordinate how to go about this. Can you do that?"
"Fine," she grumbled. To think her day had started out so perfectly too.
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Ring, ring, ring . . . ring, ring, ring.
"Hello, this is the Solaceon Town Day Care. We are not currently available to answer your call. If you would like to book a time frame for us to look after your pokémon or would like to inquire about what facilities we have available for your pokémon, please visit our website. If you would like to talk to us directly, please leave a message after the beep and we will get back to you as soon as possible."
BEEP
"Good evening, this is Prof. Rowan calling. I've just been speaking to one of my colleague in Kanto about a recent string of psychic memory tampering and it occurred to me that your daughter Angie might be one of the people affected," said Prof. Rowan, "If you could call me, or better yet if you could take her in to see the doctor and then tell me the results, it would help us get to the bottom of this debacle. Thank you for your cooperation."
BEEP
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Vaniville Town, Kalos
Serena lay on a hospital bed while her mother was outside her room abusing airport staff on the phone. Despite everything that had happened the last few months, things were finally starting to look up. Slightly giddy with herself, she recalled the last time she had spoken to Ash. The REAL last time she had spoken to Ash. When she had kissed him he had blushed and stuttered and made a real fool of himself. It was adorable so she giggled and told him that she would see him soon. They parted ways and she couldn't contain her smile. Then it happened less than a minute after the most magical moment of her life, almost as soon as she was out of Ash's line of sight she supposed. Her whole world had been ripped out from underneath her and replaced with that terrible awful lie that had immediately sucked all the warmth and colour out of her world.
Vaguely she wondered what Ash was doing right now. Kalos was almost directly opposite Alola so while the sun would be rising in a few hours here, it would soon be setting over there. She quickly dismissed the idea of Ash and her watching the sunset together on one of Alola's pristine white beaches. Now wasn't the time to think about that. Something big was happening around Ash again and she had to be ready. She was under no delusions that the powerful psychic type that was the culprit wouldn't think twice about destroying her team in a battle. That meant she needed allies. But who could she call upon to take on a probable legendary pokémon? Maybe Alain? Scratch that, the mega specialist was uncooperative and she had no way of persuading him. Definitely Ash's Greninja and his Goodra if she could find them. Who else could she think of?
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In Alola J lay back against his Solgaleo who glared at the pint size purple puffball devour his bowl of specially made pokémon food.
"You know Nebby your lucky you're a guy," said J conversationally as he watched Ash play with his three female classmates at the beach shore, "If you were a girl you'd be in a quick ball, I'd be halfway around the world and no one here would be any the wiser about the fact that they left a wild baby legendary unattended and uncaught. But you're a boy so I'll just have to hope Ash is cluey enough to catch you before you evolve and become nigh invincible."
Nebby squealed in clueless delight, oblivious to the trials that would soon be upon Alola and the world.