Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.
The Mysterious Woods
Ash awoke the following morning to the sound of a large pokemon slamming the ground in the gym. He jolted out of bed and rushed out the door of the spare bedroom. He threw the door open and saw a large ape looking pokemon slamming targets as they were thrown its direction.
"Morning Ash! I didn't wake you did I?" Ash looked to the older man who was throwing clay targets at the large pokemon. He yawned and stretched out, "No sir, I probably needed to get my day started anyway.
Norman gave him a thumbs up, "That's the spirit!" He set down the clay target in his hand, "Since you are up, would you mind helping me get some pokemon food from the Mart down the road?"
Ash shooked his head, "I don't mind, it's the least I could do for letting me crash here last night!" Norman returned his pokemon and left with Ash.
They returned not long after to the smell of breakfast being prepared, "Caroline darling, that smells delicious," Norman set his bag down by the door with Ash following suit. "Ash will you be joining us for breakfast too, or are you on a time crunch to get to Rustboro?"
Ash checked the time on the clock in the dining room, "I shouldn't be on too much of a crunch, I plan on camping the next few days anyway!"
"Glad to hear; because, I made enough pancakes for an army," Caroline swiftly moved the two stacks of pancakes to the table and grabbed plates and silverware for everyone. "May, Max! Breakfast is ready!"
On command the two siblings rushed downstairs, "Thanks mom!"
Upon everyone finishing eating, Ash gathered up his belongings and tidied the room back up to the way it was. "Ash, you didn't have to do that!" May walked in as he finished.
"I don't mind, I would feel bad if I left a wreck after all your parents treated me to," Ash finished with a smile. "Besides, when I come back to challenge your dad, the last thing I want to hear your brother call me is a freeloader or something."
May chuckled, "Yeah, you got me there. Max would hold onto something like that!"
"Well, I guess I will see you another time May," Ash grabbed his backpack and stood up to face her.
"You probably will because I am leaving to travel in a week to start my contest training!" May smiled with torchic dancing behind her.
"That sounds awesome! What made you decide that?" Ash asked as the walked through the gym.
"Well, after meeting you, I really wanted to start traveling and see more of the region, and Mom is the one who helped me decide on contests," May explained with excitement in her voice.
"Well, maybe I will see you sooner," Ash smiled and stuck out his hand. May grabbed his hand with hers and placed a piece of paper in it. "What's this?"
May looked away from him as they continued into the house, "the number for my pokenav if you ever want to call or come see a contest I'm in."
She continued to look away which puzzled Ash a bit, but he placed the slip of paper into his pocket. "Thanks May! I'll be sure to come see you compete!"
May nodded and quickly waved him goodbye unable to control the embarrassment streaking across her face.
Ash began the walk through the city only stopping to stock up on food items and medicine before continuing west out of the city proper.
"It won't be far now," Ash paused for a moment to take in the view. The past couple of days through light forest and grassy plains hadn't been horrible, but the beach scenery was a welcome change of pace. The sun shining on the waves as they crashed on to the white sand, the noise of the groups of people and pokemon lounging along the beach, and the calm breeze coming off the water. "How does a break on the beach sound?" Raichu and mudkip cried out in approval, "Alright then! Everyone, come on out!"
Ash sat on the beach, jacket off and pant legs rolled up, with quilava, bayleef, and noctowl resting around him. Further ahead of him, heracross was helping raichu train while totodile, mudkip, and nincada played in the sand. Ash smiled and laid down using his sleeping bag as a pillow.
After about an hour of resting, something appeared over Ash blocking out the sun. He opened his eyes and saw a boy about nine or ten looking down at him, "Uh, hi? Can I help you?"
The boy nodded his head and backed up a couple of steps, "I-I'm sorry to bother you, but you're a pokemon trainer, right?" Ash sat up and nodded. The boy clenched his fists, "Um, w-would you like to have a pokemon battle?"
Ash smiled at the boy's wavering confidence, "Sure thing!" Ash got up and stuck his hand out, "What's your name?"
"M-my name's Jr, nice to meet you!" The boy awkwardly shook Ash's hand.
"Well Jr, let me select a pokemon and I'll be ready. Where would you like to have this battle?"
The boy pointed over to a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy, "my family is over there. M-my dad said he would ref the battle if you agreed!"
Ash nodded, "Sounds like you thought of everything! I'll be over there in a moment!" Ash watched the boy excitedly run back over to his family. 'I wonder why he was so nervous.' He walked over to mudkip, nincada, and totodile, "Hey mudkip, you ready to get some battle experience?"
"Mudkip!" The water type jumped into Ash's arms and crawled up to his shoulder.
"Good! If anyone else wants to come feel free, otherwise we'll be back," Ash began heading over to the boy and his family with raichu, heracross, totodile, and nincada following behind.
As Ash approached, the man looked up at the approaching teen, "You must be the challenger!"
Ash smiled and scratched the back of his head, "I guess that depends on your point of view. I'm Ash, nice to meet you."
The man shook his hand, "Pleasure to meet you Ash, but there was no need to introduce yourself, our youngest son told us all about you."
"Uh, really?" Ash looked at the young boy.
The woman spoke, "Oh yes, you are quite the celebrity to Jr here. He watched all of your matches at the Silver conference."
Ash grew an embarrassed look, "Oh, I'm not really a celebrity. I didn't even win."
"But you were so cool during your matches! Your match against Gary was the best of the whole conference!" Jr shouted almost every word before quickly covering his mouth.
Ash chuckled at the boy's embarrassment, "Well I appreciate it!"
"Oh, I'm Christopher Sr. by the way. This is my wife Marie, my oldest son Chase, and you have already met my youngest."
Ash nodded his head politely, "It's nice to meet you!" He then turns to his opponent, "You ready for this battle?"
Jr nodded vigorously, "Y-yes sir!"
Ash walked a good distance from his opponent. 'It's kinda cool. I don't think I have ever met a fan before.' Ash turned and smiled at the boy who challenged him.
"This is a one-on-one battle between Jr and Ash. Trainers please send out your pokemon," Jr's dad gave each trainer a signal.
"Let's do this mudkip!" The water type jumped off Ash's shoulder and landed five feet in front of him.
"Come on, sandshrew!" The boy threw out a pokeball and the ground type appeared in a flash of light.
Jr's dad raised his arms, "Battle begin!"
"Sandshrew use the sand-attack combo!"
"I don't know what that means, but mudkip use water gun to counter!" Sandshrew began throwing sand in the direction of mudkip, who in turn just used its water gun to keep the sand away. A cloud of sand formed around sandshrew and by the time the attack was over the mouse pokemon had disappeared.
Ash saw the boy smile and caught on quickly to his plan, "Mudkip, jump up and use ancient power on the sand beneath you!" The water type did as was told, formed, and launched the silver glowing orb into the ground underneath him.
Jr panicked, "Sandshrew jump out quickly!" The attack hit the ground and launched sandshrew out of his burrow underneath with force. "Sandshrew, are you okay?" The mouse nodded back with a few scratches on its back, "Okay, use rollout!"
"Keep it out of reach, use water gun!" Mudkip began launching a water torrent at the approaching ground type, but the water didn't seem to affect the momentum of the attack resulting in mudkip getting knocked backward and rolling to a stop before getting back on its feet.
"Again sandshrew!"
Ash watched the ground type wheel around for a second pass, "Mudkip jump when I say so." The water type nodded but looked nervously at the oncoming sandshrew. As the pokemon got within a five feet Ash yelled out, "Now!" The mud fish pokemon used all its might and jumped dodging the attack. "Now, use mud-slap!" Mudkip breathed in and launched a stream of mud from its mouth connecting with the ground type and sending it crashing into the sand.
"Sandshrew!" The mouse was quick back to its feet but was shaking its head vigorously trying to get mud out of its eyes.
"This is our chance mudkip, use tackle and follow it up with water gun!" The water type sped off toward the flailing pokemon.
"Sandshrew use poison sting!" The panic in Jr's voice didn't help the already uneasy ground type, but it did as commanded and launched the poison attack in a general direction.
Mudkip easily dodged the attack and connected with sandshrew's stomach launching the mouse backward. He quickly followed it up with a water gun and sent the ground type back to his trainer's feet unable to get up from the super-effective attack.
"Sandshrew is unable to battle. The winners of this match are mudkip and Ash!"
Mudkip turned and jumped into Ash's arms, "Good job buddy!" The water type climbed back up to Ash's shoulder and nuzzled against his cheek.
"I'm sorry sandshrew, I should've helped you out more than just having you use a move," Jr pet sandshrew on the head before returning him. "That was a good strategy at the beginning!" The boy looked up to see that Ash had already walked across the makeshift field, "It wasn't good enough to throw you off though."
"I wouldn't say that, it still confused me for a moment," Ash held out his hand and pulled the boy to his feet. "Clearly you and sandshrew have been working on that combination for a while. Sandshrew's ability is sand veil right?" Jr nodded, "Then work hard and you and sandshrew will get to a point where y'all can make use of the move sandstorm. That move combo'd with dig will be virtually unbeatable."
The boy looked at Ash with stars in his eyes, "You think so?"
"I do, maybe one day we can have a rematch at a league conference and you can show me how strong y'all have gotten!" Ash stuck out his hand and Jr shook his hand more firmly this time around.
"You got it Mr. Ash! I can't wait!" Ash was going to correct him but decided against it.
"Well, I should probably get going if I hope to reach Petalburg Woods before nightfall. It was nice to meet you all!" He walked back to his pokemon, gathered his things, and continued the trek to the dense woods.
Night had fallen quicker than Ash expected as he and raichu neared the more publicly used entrance to Petalburg Woods. The sun falling had caused the temperature to drop a few degrees, but it still felt nice with the slight breeze coming off the ocean a good distance away. As the duo reached the wide part in the trees, a chill ran down Ash's spine causing him to quickly turn to his left. "Rai-rai?"
Ash looked down at his faithful starter, "It was nothing buddy, just a brief uneasy feeling." Ash shook his head and continued a little way into the woods before turning off the beaten path. After walking for another couple of miles, Ash laid down his gear and released his pokemon before laying out his sleeping bag and staring up at the stars in between the trees. While he laid there, he motioned noctowl down to him, "Hey noctowl, do you mind doing a pretty good-sized sweep of the area? I don't know what it is about this area, but It's giving me creeps." The bird nodded and flew into the night sky.
Ash awoke the next morning feeling well rested, much to his surprise. He looked around and saw all his pokemon were asleep; so, without making too much noise, he began his morning routine of making breakfast. After carefully choosing which berries to pick in the woods, he made a mash of berries and rice from packets he kept on hand. Raichu was the first to stir and quickly joined Ash in enjoying breakfast with the rest of the pokemon joining in throughout the morning.
After training for a couple of hours and giving noctowl some time to rest, he called the owl pokemon over to him, "You spot anything last night?" The owl pokemon hooted and shook her head. Ash sighed in relief, "That makes me feel a bit better. Guess I was just tired and my mind was playing tricks on me."
Ash gathered his things and returned everyone minus raichu and noctowl, "We probably have another couple of days or so in this forest before we make it to the road north of here leading to Rustboro. In that time, we should probably help Prof. Birch like we promised." Raichu and noctowl both agreed, "Alright, according to the professor we should be on the look out for a disappearing figure of a boy around my age, a rhyhorn that has made the forest its home, and random spikes in electricity. I figure the first one might be a ghost type living here and the last one I'm going to need you to focus for buddy."
"Rai-rai," Raichu climbed up on Ash's backpack and sat against the trainer's head with his eyes closed.
"Noctowl, I would like you to fly above us and keep watch for either of the first two things." The flying type nodded and ascended to the sky.
As Ash began to look for a lunch spot to take a break, noctowl flew down quickly and gesturing that she found something, "Alright! Come on raichu!" As the two moved through the dense bushes and trees, he saw noctowl had perched herself in a tree facing a not as dense area of the forest. Ash moved aside some branches and caught sight of what noctowl had found, some gray spikes moving behind some more bushes just barely in view. He pulled out his pokedex and lined the camera up with the spikes: "Rhyhorn, the spikes pokemon. Rhyhorn's brain is very small. It is so dense, while on a run it forgets why it started running in the first place. It apparently remembers sometimes if it demolishes something."
"Huh, that's a mean entry," Ash reread the entry again and looked up at the moving spikes, "I kinda feel bad for it. That's probably how it got here and can't remember how to get home." He got up and moved around the pokemon to where he and raichu were approaching from the front with noctowl watching from the trees nearby. "Hey there rhyhorn."
The pokemon stopped grazing and looked up at the approaching trainer. It stepped back one step and locked eyes with Ash and raichu.
Ash stopped, slowly pulled out an oran berry, and rolled it to the rock type. Rhyhorn sniffed it and carefully took a bite, not breaking eye contact with the trainer. "See? I'm not going to hurt you," Ash gave the pokemon a friendly smile before he took one more step toward the pokemon.
"Ah, I see you are makin' friends!" Ash and raichu jumped and quickly turned around to face the voice, but there wasn't anyone behind him. "I hope that's the case at least. It would suck for you if you were plannin' on trying to capture my rhyhorn."
Ash turned back toward the rhyhorn and just behind him stood a boy roughly his age. He had piercing gray eyes and dark brown hair buzzed up the sides and the top cut short though it still moved with the wind through the trees. He looked about Ash's height and wore tan jeans, a black and white three-quarter sleeve shirt, and gray sneakers. Probably the most unusual thing about the guy was the abra just sitting on his shoulders with its arms wrapped around his head.
"N-no! I wasn't planning on capturing him. I just thought he might've gotten lost or something. I heard about a wild rhyhorn in the woods and figured he was the one!" Ash quickly blurted out the answer hoping the guy would believe him with raichu doing the same.
He chuckled, "Wow, I have never heard a pokemon and trainer say the exact same thing before at the exact same time. That's some impressive chemistry!" The teen began to pet his rhyhorn before returning him to his pokeball.
"T-thanks," Ash looked taken aback by the sudden change of tone before realizing what he said, "Wait, did you say you heard me and raichu?"
He got back up to face Ash, "Yeah, abra here translates what pokemon say into my head using telepathy. Pretty handy in certain situations!"
"Yeah, I'll say," Ash then realized he hadn't introduced himself, "oh, I'm Ash by the way, Ash Ketchum!"
The dark-haired guy smiled at him, "Nice to meet ya! I'm Jackson Young, but my friends call me Jack!"
"Nice to meet ya as well," Ash shook Jack's hand and called noctowl down and returned her. "So, if you don't mind me asking, why was your rhyhorn just out in the woods?"
"Well, I don't like to keep him locked up in his ball if I can help it; so, I let him just roam the woods while we are stayin' here," he opened his arms and gestured to the trees around him.
"Oh, y'all are camping out here?" Jack nodded, "How long have y'all been here?"
Jack leaned against a tree and put his hand to his chin, "Hmm, a good while now. Probably a couple of months."
Ash and raichu's jaws dropped, "Seriously?! Are these woods that easy to get lost in?!"
Jack looked at him confused before realizing what he said, "Oh, no," he shook his head and hands vigorously. "It's actually pretty easy to get through here to the northern part of route 104. It is quite long though."
Ash and raichu both sighed in relief, "That's not too bad. So, why have you been here so long?"
Jack was about to answer, but his stomach beat him to the punch, "Heh, mind if I tell you over lunch?"
Ash and raichu had followed Jack further off the beaten path to an area next to a creek where the trees opened a little. After Jack made sandwiches for him and ash, he sent his rhyhorn back out and poured some premade food for the two pokemon present, "So, you are from Kanto? We aren't too far apart if that's the case!"
Ash took a bite of his sandwich, "Oh? Are you from Kanto too?"
Jack shook his head, "Nah, I'm from Johto, Cianwood City to be specific!"
"Oh yeah? I guess we aren't too far apart, though it would still be a bit of a journey," Ash took another bite and pulled out his water bottle.
"Yeah, but ain't nothing wrong with a good journey," Jack smiled and finshed his sandwich off. He pulled a thermos from his bag and poured a sweet-smelling drink into a small cup. "So, I assume you are here to challenge the Pokemon League?"
"You got it," Ash moved back to rest against a tree, "How about you?"
"Maybe," he answered as he took a swig of his drink, "That hasn't been decided yet."
"Why is that?" Ash answered confused by the statement.
"Oh, just giving it some thought, that's all," Jack rubbed the back of his head as he answered before getting a great idea. "Say Ash, you travelin' the region with just your pokemon?"
Ash nodded, "I use to travel with a couple of friends, but they had responsibilities thrust on them."
"I see, I see," the brown-haired boy put his hand to his chin and closed his eyes before suddenly slamming his hand on the ground, "I got an offer for ya!"
Ash jumped slightly at the outburst, "What's the offer?"
Jack put on a confident smile, "Mind accompanying me to Rustboro City? I have an errand I gotta run and could use the extra hands."
Ash looked over to raichu who shrugged in return, "I'm heading there to challenge the gym anyway, so it doesn't bother me!"
"Sweet!" Jack did a small victory dance before pulling out a yellow device pressing a few buttons on it before putting it back in his pocket, "Alright, once the pokemon are ready we will go pick up the package I gotta deliver from my team!"
"Your team?" Ash remembered that news report from a few days back about the two Teams, Aqua and Magma.
"Yeah?" Jack looked at him confused before reading the look on his face. "Oh no, I'm a part of a small team of trainers. We aren't in cahoots with Aqua or Magma or anything like that!" He exaggerated some hand motions hoping to fix what might have been a horrible misunderstanding. Ash seemed to accept the answer letting Jack relax, "Alrighty then, follow me and we will knock this out."
Ash began to question agreeing to helping after about a couple hours of what felt like aimless wandering through the dense woods. On the positive side, Ash did get to see some new pokemon along the way and got to learn a little more about his new acquaintance. From the stories he was told, Ash deduced that Jack might be the disappearing boy so many people reported. In addition, he learned Jack took on the Silver Conference two years ago but decided to take a year off from gym battles and train on his own after not making it past the qualifier.
"I guess it helps to have a full team, but I only had caught three up to that point," Jack chuckled a little.
"That's still impressive you beat that many gyms with just three pokemon!"
"I guess," Jack didn't look back after that statement. "I just wasn't a hundred percent in it, but after battling several trainers in this region, I feel more energized about trying again!"
"Well that's good to hear! Have you caught any more pokemon since you've been living here?"
"Yeah, I've caught a couple more! Actually, abra here is one of my more recent team additions!"
"Really? He must be quite the find. I have only seen one other psychic type in the wild to this point!"
"Oh, I didn't find him around here. There is an area of the region where abra appear more commonly, it's just not attached to the mainland!" As Jack finished his quick explanation, he stopped suddenly, "Here we are!"
Ash and raichu looked between the brown-haired boy and the run-down shack he was gesturing to, "Uh, this is it? It looks like it has been rotting away for quite some time."
"Looks can be deceiving!" Jack walked up to a boulder left of the doorway of the shack. Ash watched as he placed his hand on the rock and pushed causing the rock to sink slightly and the ground to begin rumbling slightly.
"What's happening?!" Ash and raichu both watched with concern and curiosity as part of the floor in the shack began to rise slowly. A few moments later, a cylindrical lift sat in the middle of the ratty shack.
Jack walked forward and turned around to face Ash from the lift, "Well? You comin'?"
Ash slapped his face a couple times, "Uh, yeah sure!" He walked in, with raichu climbing up to sit on his backpack.
"Going down!" Jack yelled out as they began to descend. As soon as the lift stopped, a pair of doors slid open revealing a loft. Several pokemon of varying species appeared in view from a bug pokemon Ash didn't recognize playing with a wobbuffet to a magneton and voltorb shocking a metal rod repeatedly. "I'm back guys and I brought company!"
"Oh? Did you meet a disappearing girl in the forest?" Ash looked over and saw the source of the sarcastic voice was another boy around his age hunched over a metal table.
"Griff, do you even know what a girl looks like?" Jack shot back with a bit of venom in his voice.
"You know what? Just for that comment I'm not upgrading your PokeNav!" The boy turned around and pointed a small screwdriver in Jack's direction. Ash got a better look at the boy. He had shorter light brown hair, green eyes, a black t-shirt on with a worker's jumpsuit on with the top half tied around his waist, tan boots, and black and yellow work gloves. The sleeve of the jumpsuit had writing on it, but Ash couldn't make out the words.
"What?! You started this! You can't get mad at me for my comment!" Jack stormed over to the Griff.
"Oh yes I can! Who is the one with the knowledge and experience to upgrade it?" Griff slammed the screwdriver down on the table and stepped up to Jack.
"Who's the one that got you out of trouble with Magma two weeks ago?!" Ash looked around and saw that all the pokemon had stopped what they were doing.
"I had that under control! You just wanted the credit for stopping those grunts!"
"HA, don't make me laugh! If it wasn't for me you would've gotten magneton hurt!" Jack pointed directly to the magnet pokemon not far away.
Ash saw Griff's fist clench at that last comment and started to panic. 'Oh crap! What do I do?! If I try to break it up I might get mixed in, but if I don't they might beat each other senseless!' As he was debating in his head, another voice came from a doorway.
"Cut it out!" The two teens turned to the doorway, "We have things we actually need to do; you two don't have time to waste on pointless arguing." The two muttered under their breath before Griff went back to his work table and Jack walked over to a room off the loft. The teenage boy belonging to the voice in the doorway walked over to Ash. He stood slightly taller than Ash with close-cut sandy blonde hair. He had deep blue eyes and a quite fit physique. He wore khaki cargo pants, a lighter material gray shirt, tan hiking boots, and a pair of aviator style sunglasses on his head. "Sorry about those two, they don't have the friendliest relationship."
"Oh, its fine! I'm just glad you could stop them!" The guy just shrugged as he pinched the bridge of his nose out of frustration, "By the way, I'm Ash, Ash Ketchum!"
"I'm Holden Reese, nice to meet you!" Ash tried to match the grip of Holden to little avail. "Since Jack didn't get to," Holden outstretched his arms to the loft, "Welcome to our little hideout!"
"Oh right! Thanks for having me!" Ash looked around at some of the different equipment and items in the loft.
"It's no big deal! I'm just happy to have a little extra help!" He gave Ash a friendly smile before motioning him to sit.
"Oh yeah, Jack mentioned something about running an errand in Rustboro?" Ash and Raichu sat on a couch across from Holden while the teen handed him a bottle of water from a mini fridge.
"Right you are! Just need an extra set of hands to deliver that box in the corner," he motioned to a box near Griff's work table. "With the Aqua/Magma war going on and the current frequency of battles, our 'sponsor' would be more comfortable with an extra experienced battler assisting the delivery."
Ash looked at him with surprise, "Is it really that bad? I know I saw a news bulletin about a battle outside Meteor Falls, but I figured at was just a freak encounter."
Holden took a swig of water, "I'm afraid so, there have also been sightings of team members from both sides in the forest here lately. I figure they were trying to figure out where the electricity spikes were coming from assuming it to be some powerful pokemon; so, I had Griff cut back on work for the package for our sponsor."
Ash and raichu looked at each other and then to the teen opposite them, "Just one quick question," Holden nodded for him to continue, "What exactly am I helping deliver? I hope I'm not overstepping my boundaries by asking, but I would like to have a bit of peace of mind before I commit fully to this."
Holden eyed Ash and raichu over a minute before giving him a smirk, "Can't say I blame you for wanting to know. Griff toss me the other prototype!" The teen reached down and then threw a small, red device to Holden. He held it out in front of Ash, "This is the item to be delivered. Well, this one would be if it was anywhere close to finished. Have you heard of the PokeNav?" Ash gave him a so-so motion, "Well, a PokeNav is a neat little device that can show you maps for areas, landmarks, let you send messages, make calls, and several other things. This right here is one of Griff's prototypes for a potential PokeNav Plus, the name is a work in progress."
"So, pretty much it will be able to do everything a PokeNav can in addition to other features?"
The teen nodded, "Pretty much. The features that the current PokeNav can do would be improved upon with newer hardware and software. So, maps would be a bit more detailed and cleaner, calls would be clearer and would have a function for video calls just like the phones and transfer systems in Pokemon Centers, and several other new features that Griff has not told me I'm sure." He took another swig of his water, "the sponsor of this device Griff made doesn't want it to fall into the hands of criminals who might use the device specs to mass produce it to fuel whatever their end game is."
"Okay! That makes sense," raichu nodded in agreement. "So, when do we need to leave with Jack to deliver the PokeNav Plus?"
Holden scratched his chin, "How much longer on the one you said would be ready by the deadline Griff?"
The light brown-haired teen looked over the device on the table and the sheet of paper next to him, "Give me 'til this evening and I'll have it ready."
Holden turned back to Ash, "Does that work out fine for you?"
Ash looked to raichu then back to Holden, "Sure that's fine!"
"Excellent! Well, feel free to use the lift to explore the forest above or chill down here!" Holden shook Ash's hand again before heading back into what he assumed to be his room.
The next few hours Ash spent hanging out with Jack learning more about the various paths and areas of the forest. Everything from strange moss-covered rocks to random shrines to various pokemon, one of which Ash recognized from his chance meeting with the mythical time traveler.
Around five PM, the lift ascended and came back down containing a new boy. He stood ever so slightly taller than Ash but looked a small bit younger and had lightly tanned skin with green eyes and a light brown fauxhawk. He wore faded blue jeans with a black t-shirt, black and gray boots, a dark green jacket with the sleeves rolled up, and black fingerless gloves. "I'm back!"
"Just in time! I figured you were going to run late," Jack got up and met the other boy for a mildly complex handshake.
"Nah, I was just keeping watch in the forest today," he noticed behind Jack an unfamiliar mouse and boy sitting on the couch. "Is he the new guy you texted me about?"
"Yep! This is Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town and his raichu!" Ash got up upon introduction and shook the boy's hand.
"The same Ash Ketchum from this last Sliver Conference?" Ash just gave a humble nod, "Well, it's awesome to meet ya! I'm Austin Glas from Alto Mare!" Ash looked as if he was about to ask Austin a question before he got cut off by the boy, "Jonthan! Good to see ya!"
Ash looked over and saw another guy his age had snuck into the room. He stood a few inches taller with tanned skin as well. He was quite the unusual sight, but apparently Ash was the only one who looked at all thrown off. The teen had dark brown eyes with a similarly colored small afro. He wore a gray shirt and yellow baggy gym shorts with two thin black stripes down the sides, black flip-flops, a yellow and black bandana around his head, and an over-sized white lab coat.
"Come over here and meet Ash!" Austin urged the other teen, but he didn't move. He just stood and looked at Ash like he was studying him. "Don't mind him, he isn't a big people person." Ash nodded in understanding and gave the teen a friendly wave to little avail. He noticed a weedle poke its head out of the lab coat, but this weedle was a lot more brightly colored than any other weedle he had seen before.
Before he could ask about the differently colored pokemon, Holden came out of his room, "Ah good, everyone is here! Gather 'round!" He motioned everyone to the couches and brought out a laptop that he laid on the coffee table. "This will be our last formal meeting before we all head out on our journeys! Just remember, while you are getting stronger and traveling around, our sponsor has requested you keep an eye and ear out for anything unusual in the region and any movement or sightings of either Team throughout the region," Ash watched all the guys nod their heads. "Now, I would like to extend a thank you to Ash for helping Jack with our delivery, which should be ready here shortly?" Holden looked to Griff for confirmation.
"Yeah, I'll be done once we are done with this," Griff sat with the bug type Ash PokeDex identified as a volbeat in his lap.
"Perfect! Now, to make sure we cover our bases in the region we will need someone to take on Pokemon Contests for the group. Since no one wanted to volunteer, I had Griff make a program to randomly select the person participating," Holden looked up noticing a concerned expression, "Don't worry Jonthan, I know pokemon battles and contests aren't your thing; so, you aren't included in this. You will still have to travel though." Ash looked over and saw the teen in the lab coat nod in thanks.
"Now, any questions?" Holden looked the room over a couple of times. "Alright, let's boot this program up and knock this out!" He pulled up a window that had everyone's head shot present minus Ash and Jonthan's.
Ash watched the teen hit a key and the various headshots light up rapidly in no particular order before it finally slowed down and landed on Holden's headshot. "YES!" Jack and Austin both exclaimed at the same time.
Holden sighed and hung his head slightly before turning to face the others, "Well, looks like I have the dubious honor of taking on contests. This just means you three that are taking on the league better make it to the Ever Grande Conference!" Griff, Jack, and Austin nodded to their leader. "With that out of the way, I wish you all good luck!"
Not long following the end of the meeting, everyone left the old shack hideout and went in separate directions with Ash, Jack, and raichu left with the box to deliver. "I don't know why they were so adamant about getting their journeys started tonight with it being so dark," Jack sighed.
"Same reason I rushed off on the last couple of mine probably! Just wanting to experience the journey and the paths it can take you," Ash offered while Jack checked the PokeNav in his palm.
"Well, we can set up camp a bit north of here and start on the trek to Rustboro bright and early! If that works for you."
"Sounds good to me!" Ash followed his new companion further into the dark, calm woods nearing closer to Rustboro City and his first gym badge.
Ash's current party: Quilava, Heracross, Raichu, Mudkip, Bayleef, Totodile, Noctowl, and Nincada.