Chapter 5: Interview with the Talking Ape


Ash and Pikachu were in for a shock. The Professor and Ken checked to see if the teleporter was ready to send Ash and Pikachu back to their world. Boy, if all the stories were like that, it would be immediately boring. The system was, and it said on the monitor, "OUT OF SERVICE." If Blossom wished for Ash to stay in New Townsville, wish granted. "Out of service?" Ken gasped. "But how?" The Professor was just as puzzled.

"That's a good question, Ken," he shrugged while Pikachu looked on his shoulder. Ash was also up, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. He couldn't believe that his trip back to the Pokémon World would be delayed. That's when he saw a monitor showing a shaking phone. He hit the receiver and Mayor was being shown.

"Mr. Mayor, good morning," Ash greeted him while disguising his angst for his inability to return.

"It's you, again," Mayor remembered. "All my digital clocks have all reset so I don't know what time it is! In fact, none of the city had working power for sometime." A blackout. "The reason I'm calling is to make sure everyone's okay." Ash made a quick assumption to what happened.

"Was Fuzzy behind the blackouts?" Mayor understood why Ash would think Fuzzy was behind it. After all, sanitation workers were cleaning up the messes from him, Princess and Mojo yesterday afternoon.

"Technically, not quite. Some debris blew into the generators and caused the malfunction." Debris from the fight? The malfunction screwed the townspeople out of electricity. Ken wasn't sure that it was the case on a personal level.

"That's impossible here," he denied. "We have our own running generator as backup for when something like that were to occur." In a sense, if there was an outage, Professor and son would be unaffected by it. Something the professor was quick to disagree on.

"Uh, Ken?" he called to his son. "Yes, we do have a backup generator but the teleporter runs on the city's systems." Ken's jaw dropped like a bag of potatoes. For a guy who's a professor, Professor didn't think this through. "If the generators are back online, I'll reset the system to send Ash back home." Mayor nodded, telling Professor it's safe to restart.

"I'm sorry about your return, Ash," Mayor apologized. "You can enjoy the day as you like. Heck, you can even visit the Powerpuff Girls at school. I'll let my brother in on you stopping by if you like." Visiting Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup at school? Ash smiled but chose to take it easy on them.

"Thanks, Mayor," he praised. "But I'm gonna tour around New Townsville if that's okay." Mayor, slightly upset, acknowledged Ash's wish.

"Very well. I should warn you that those affected by the Z-rays won't be as kind as the Powerpuff Girls or Poochi." Ash and Pikachu glared at the toy dog. The dog wanted to know why they were staring.

"What?!" the dog asked. "Never heard of a talking robotic puppy before?" It wasn't that it was a puppy that could talk human. It was something nearly related.

"Considering we deal with a talking cat on a daily basis, we shouldn't be too surprised," he shrugged. The dog wasn't too upbeat after hearing that. On that note, Ash and Pikachu allowed the father and son to work on restarting the teleporter. The city folk of New Townsville were busy resuming normal like nothing from yesterday had happened. As they toured the city, they stopped by a small restaurant...with a walking bowl of soup.

"Welcome, welcome!" the bowl of soup greeted. "You came here for some Ramen, huh?" Ash sat down at the booth and Pikachu hopped onto the counter. The talking bowl seemed intrigued with Ash. "Hold the phone! You're the same kid who took down Fuzzy yesterday! You're all over the New Townsville's news!" Ash was just as surprised about getting on the news as he was about this sporadic bowl.

"Really?" he gasped. The bowl pointed to the TV which was starting its broadcast.

"It's 8:30 in the morning in New Townsville and most of the talk was on one young man when the Powerpuff Girls weren't in sight," a blond woman in a business suit addressed the camera. "Authorities have no clue who this young man is but how he was able to remove Fuzzy from the city using an unusual mouse and tortoise is amazing, proof that we don't really need the Powerpuff Girls for everything." They played the footage of Ash's quick bout with Fuzzy. Ash was able to view himself as he and his Pokémon beat and burned Fuzzy in front of Princess.

"Not many people can stand up to Fuzzy like you did," the bowl raved as he presented two bowls of stew with egg, ham, onion, noodles and golden brown broth. "Two breakfast Ramen on the house!" Free food!

"Thanks!" Ash accepted as he and Pikachu downed the bowls of Ramen. The tasty broth and breakfast mix down the hatch was pleasant to the stomach. It's kind of weird to see someone eating a bowl of Ramen...when you are a bowl of Ramen and yet this dish wasn't phased. After the meal, Ash and Pikachu bid farewell to their new cup of tea...no, blue plate special...ah, forget it!

"Come back anytime for more Ramen!" The two continued to tour New Townsville when girls and young women spotted yesterday's hero. Quickly, they were surrounded by a horde of the other gender.

"Can I get your autograph?!" one girl cried up.

"Oh, me too!" a teenager requested. These girls presented notebooks, pictures, pens, markers, paper, ink pads, almost anything to write with and write on. Some of the women even sneaked a kiss on his face. Some hugged Pikachu. What, afraid to get fur on your lips? After what seemed like an hour, the girls dashed away, beaming smiles painted on each face. They're not the only ones. The only thing was the girls were figuratively painted. Ash was literally painted...with lipstick and makeup all over his face, none actually on his lips. Odd.

"Where's Max when you needed him?" he murmured in exhaustion. Face covered in kisses...lipstick kisses, Ash dragged his feet a bit when Bubbles came around the corner. She spotted Ash and all those kisses.

"Whoa, Ash, what happened to you?" she asked. It's all on his face, it's pretty telling.

"Fan girl bonanza," he murmured. Bubbles pulled out a handkerchief and got to work cleaning Ash's face. Ash spotted the clock reading 12:10 P.M. Something was amiss. "What about school? Lunch break?"

"Nope. Today's a half-day. We forgot about it after we were sent to your world." An honest mistake that Ash wasn't blaming her for. "Besides, what do you mean a bonanza? Where were you kissed?" The lips weren't one but even Ash had to point it out.

"Under the eye, the eyelid, the nose, the forehead, the cheek, the ear, the chin... who kisses someone on the chin?" Not sure and we're not willing to find out. Bubbles got all the makeup from Ash.

"That should do it!" Ash rubbed his face to make sure. "You know, we're pretty much alike."

"Oh, really? How?"

"I'm very popular in school. I get a heck of a lot of letters from pretty much every boy...plus a few girls." Astonished, Ash had to wonder how she does it.

"How do you keep control of your popularity?" Bubbles laughed, thinking he was joking.

"It's not easy. I just ignore all of them, hoping that they'd stop writing one day." The way her popularity has gone, it's going to take a while. That's when Blossom and Buttercup entered the fray.

"Bubbles?" Blossom asked as Buttercup turned her head to the redhead. "You'd better not be making any moves on my boy!" Someone's jumping the gun.

"The only move I made on Ash is cleaning his face for you, Miss Blossom Ketchum!" Blossom hopped back in hesitation and embarrassment, much to Buttercup's bemusement.

"You gotta stop opening up to these comebacks," she warned. "Otherwise, you'll trust nobody in the long run." That's harsh on Blossom.

"Forget you!" she screeched as she snagged Ash by the head and dashed off. Ah, cartoon physics. This left Bubbles and Buttercup wondering what that outburst was about. Buttercup had a more befuddling puzzle on her mind.

"You know, something doesn't feel right," she studied. "Blossom's always chasing after boys and boys come after you. But Ash is a big contradiction: he's mostly attached to Blossom and doesn't give you a second glance." Bubbles wasn't as concerned with this detail.

"Is that really a problem?" she questioned. Buttercup could only look back to where Ash was taken by Blossom. At a nearby park, Blossom was breathing heavily from running away from her friends. Boy, what was her problem.

"Is there something you don't wanna say in front of your teammates?" he asked. Blossom turned to Ash, hands folded in front of her skirt.

"Ash, do you like me?" she questioned. Ash wasn't worried about this question.

"What's with that question?"

"Well, when the teleporter is charged up, you'll be back on your journey again, starting back at Rubello Town. You'll also be back with your friends and...away from us." She was upset about Ash leaving. Ash wanted to correct her about the situation.

"In case you forget, the Professor and Ken's teleporter can link us together. If you wanna visit me and my friends, all you need to do is just ask." To Ash, breaking up wasn't a problem since there were possibilities of coming back together.

"Yeah, I-I suppose so. I mean...I've actually met someone who never complained about how I behaved around him and...well, you've protected me when I was in trouble." Ash didn't think of this as a big deal. He was the only one of the two. "Kind of a funny way to express love to another." The reddening of her cheeks clinched the issue. Hearing her confession, Ash sensed another dilemma Blossom was having trouble.

"So that's it. You have problems talking to people, huh?" Blossom jumped again in surprise. She dipped her head in shame. "Hey, maybe you can spend time in Pallet Town and see the neighbors there. They can help you in how to approach the person." Sound advice.

"Thanks. That's sweet." Before anymore thought aroused, footsteps attracted attention. There was Mojo, seating at a bench and looking down in the dumps. Interested, Ash and Blossom came over to see the simian, trying not to antagonize him.

"Mojo!" Mojo turned to see the "smelly" humans, not angst to attack.

"You're that smelly boy who beat Fuzzy, mojo!" he recognized as he pointed a gloved finger at Ash. Ash wasn't one to deny the accusation.

"Yeah..." he agreed.

"How?! How did you do it?! How is it that you could take down Fuzzy easily where those smelly Powerpuff Girls have hard times?!" There's a question Ash would have difficulty answering.

"I guess when you train with Pokémon, you tend to understand how some attacks work outside of normal battles." That left Mojo scratching his dome helmet. Ash had a few questions of his own. "By the way, you stole a hand-held device that sent the girls to my world, right?" The assumption made Mojo cup and run his hairy chin.

"Mojo remembers that Mojo used something from the smelly professor's home. Mojo turned the Powerpuffs to normal girls and opened some sort of portal to disappear." So he did remember all that happened before the girls met Ash and Pikachu. They sensed they were on the right track.

"So you do remember what happened yesterday!" Blossom repeated. Mojo struggled to keep composure. Then, Blossom had an intriguing theory. "You had Ken's technology in your hands to send anyone to wherever you wanted them to go." Mojo pondered on Blossom's proclamation.

"Mojo liked how the hand-held worked that Mojo took it to Mojo's hideout and took it apart." Ash and Blossom couldn't believe what Mojo was admitting. Instead of causing chaos to New Townsville, Mojo simply disassembled the invention to understand its functions. For a monkey that was hit with black Z-rays and have a brain that burst out of his cranium, that was surely short-minded. "I was wanting to repair it before using it on Mayor to control New Townsville but that smelly pink Fuzzy ruined those plans." Okay, maybe not that short-minded.

"You still have the pieces to the device?" Ash asked.

"Of course, Mojo does. But Mojo expects something in return." Talk about bargaining a deal.

"In your dreams, banana breath!" Blossom snapped back. Mojo huffed a snarl at the retort.

"Then no hand-held. That's final!" Blossom steamed in frustration. Mojo was making things difficult for the two. Ash had an idea.

"Well, you're missing out on what's in my world," he suggested. "Believe me, it's a great place where animals like what you were before Chemical Z tagged you." Mojo listened with intent. This world Ash spoke of... What could he want from there? And could Mojo return Ash to his world instead of Professor? What about Blossom and her emotions to Ash?


TO BE CONCLUDED...