Chapter 2: An Unwelcome Guest
"Ya Mom, I'll be in around the end of the month. I wish I could come home now too. Ya, that's when sign-ups begin and I want to finish up their training before I take off towards Kanto. I still need to decide who my partner will be. Mom he's probably busy. Alright I'll try him. Bye see you soon! Love you too." "Say, Pikachu, how would you feel about showing up a bit early for Christmas?" "Pikaa!" Ash could tell that made his friend happy. "Alright buddy, we'll leave in a couple days." Pikachu just smiled greatly in response.
A few hours later..
"Pikachu, I'll be right back." Pikachu wasn't paying any attention to Ash as he was trying to fall asleep on the couch. Ash headed off to his room and picked up the phone. He had a hard time remembering the number and he tried looking it up, but to no avail. "Hmm. Guess I'll just give the gym a call." Punching a quick 10 digits into his phone he waited for an answer. "Hey Forrest, it's me Ash. I know I'm sorry I haven't called lately. How are things with you and… Ya of course that's right. That's good Forrest. I hate to cut you short, but could you put Brock on? No it's ok, just tell him I called. Thanks." Ash hung up the phone disappointedly. 'What is Brock possibly doing in Cerulean?' Ash thought to himself.
The next day.. (December 12th)
Ash woke up once again next to his buddy Pikachu. This time without waking him, Ash walked into the hall closing the bedroom door behind him. After walking through the couple of hallways in his quite nice condo Ash found himself slipping on his shoes and taking the elevator down to the lobby. Ash let out a short yawn as he arrived downstairs. "Good morning Mr. Ketchum." Ash was greeted by everyone in the lobby as he made his way to the gym a couple of rooms away. All he did was his usual workout routine that happened to be working quite well as he was becoming more and more defined week after week. As Ash finished he thought to himself. 'Now it's time for the real training.' He reached to his waist and grabbed a pokeball containing none other than the fighting pokemon Lucario. "Good morning Master." "Oh, good morning Lucario." Ash was still getting used to training a pokemon that is capable of speaking human language; as Ash had only been reunited with and captured his friend a couple of weeks ago.
Lucario got straight into his usual routine and started strengthening his core. Ash even got a little jealous since it takes almost 10x as much work for Lucario to get tired compared to himself. As Lucario was moving into his second station there was a knock on the door. A confused Ash showed a look on his face. "Who is it?" The door opened revealing a man that Ash didn't have the best relationship named Devin. "Good morning Ash. I was in the neighborhood and I thought I would stop by and well.. Well I'll get right to it. I'd love to greet this day beautiful day with a pokemon battle." Ash was reluctant to even talk to him, but he figured he might as well let him down easy. "Devin, I've got stuff I need to get done as you can see." "Oh no, I get it Ash. Don't worry about it. Maybe another time?" Ash was confused as to why Devin wasn't being his usual, cocky, rude self. "Uh ya sure another time would be fine." "Good to know Ash, I'll see you soon. I feel it." Ash shrugged it off and continued his training with Lucario. "Left, right, right, left!" Ash yelled as Lucario punched and kicked in unison.