Disclaimer: I don't own anything of importance other than my own mind.

Back Again

Act One in a Tale by readerADV

Chapter Four: A Short Rest

Later, back at Anabel's house, Ash raised a question he'd been wondering for several hours.

"Hey Anabel, where'd you get that pink Butterfree?"

"To be honest, she came to me. She told me that her mate had gotten himself a human and that she felt she should do the same."

"So it was around two years ago?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

The Pallet native pulled a Poké Ball from his belt and expanded it. "Well…" He opened it, revealing a normally colored Butterfree wearing an extremely threadbare yellow scarf.

Anabel looked at it curiously. "What about it?"

"Call out your Butterfree."

"Okay…" She did so, and the two Butterfree locked eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, communicating silently before flying out of the room together. "What was that about?"

"Those two have been mates for a long time." He sighed, deep in thought. "He was my first capture, back when I was just ten years old. Shortly before I got my fourth badge, the Butterfree mating season came around and he fell in love with a very unusual Butterfree."

"That pink Butterfree?"

"Yeah. It took a while, but he managed to win her heart by saving her from Team Rocket after I gave him that yellow scarf you saw him wearing. I released him so he could be with her." Anabel smiled. "Fast forward thirteen years, and I'm roaming the forests of Mt Silver, looking for a good place to set up a semi-permanent training camp when I come across a Trapinch attacking a pair of Butterfree who happen to be protecting an Eevee cub and a young Ralts. The one Butterfree was wearing that yellow scarf I'd given him ages ago, and the other was rather pink. Having just spent a year learning how to use aura in combat, I was rather confident in my ability to rescue the Butterfree. Several aura spheres later and I found a rather angry Trapinch trying to bite my arm off." He winced at the memory. "Pikachu was getting the others away safely, and my only other Pokémon was a week-old Riolu. I really didn't have another choice, so I let Riolu out of his ball and asked him to use Blaze Kick. So now I've got the Trapinch off my arm but at the price of half the hair on that arm and I got a couple of second-degree burns. I happen to have a few empty Poké Balls on me, so I tossed one at the silly Trapinch. Several wobbles later, I've got a shiny new Trapinch who thinks my arm is on the menu. After that, I caught up with Pikachu and greeted my old Butterfree. He decided to stay with me, but Pinkie didn't want to, so they said a tearful goodbye and the last I saw of her until today was her flying off to the east. I turned to the young ones and asked them if they wanted to come with me, and they agreed."

"Wow."

"Hey Ash," May started, but paused, as if unsure how to say what was on her mind.

"You're wondering why I was on Mt Silver in the first place?"

"Yeah."

"It's mostly untamed, there's no one living there except at Silver Village, and the Pokémon there are said to be wicked strong. In the whole time I was there, I only met one other person." He sighed. "It's amazing how horrible humans can be if they have no qualms about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind," he said quickly as his stomach loudly proclaimed that it was time to eat, making the others laugh.

"It's nice to see some things never change," May commented just before her own stomach growled just as loudly, making her blush.

After they finished eating, Scott observed, "I don't think I've ever seen anyone attack food as viciously as you two just did." The two grinned.

"Eating food is our specialty, just like using Heat Wave is Dee Dee's."

"Ash…" May said in a rather dangerous tone of voice.

"Hey, all I'm saying is she's got a lot of hot air and she likes to vent it."

"Hey Scott, I just realized you haven't told us where the Battle Pyramid is yet," Max interjected.

"It's up in the mountains north of Pewter for now."

"Near Rota and the Tree of Beginning?"Ash asked.

"Yup."

Ash sighed. "Dammit. I need to go to Rota."

"Can it wait?"

"It's waited two years already… It's related to my aura training."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, there's a unique kind of crystal there related to the Tree of Beginning that can store aura, kinda like a battery. Rota's legendary hero wore a pair of gloves those crystals in them, and his staff had a large crystal in which his Lucario slept for a thousand years."

"What happened to the Lucario?"

Ash smirked. "I held up the staff and he was released." He summarized what happened for the Frontier Owner and his daughter.

"I see."

"What happened next, Daddy?"

Ash smiled at her. "It's a really long story, and I think it's about time for you to go to bed."

"Aww…" She looked pleadingly at her mother.

"He's right, Ashley."

The blonde girl pouted. "But I'm not tired!"

Ash whispered in his daughter's ear, "I'd go now if I were you. I've noticed your mother gets rather nasty when she's angry. Just be glad she hasn't accused you of stealing her food."

"Okay…" She walked out of the room, sulking.

May yawned. "Come on Dawn, we should get to bed too. Max is going to want to start out bright and early tomorrow." She got up and followed her little daughter out of the room, dragging the blunette behind her.

Max stood up. "Uh, yeah, May's right, so I'm going to head to bed too." He left the room, leaving Ash, Anabel, and Scott alone.

"So Ash, where do you want your Battle Facility?"

"You got a map?"

"Yup." Scott pulled from his pocket a large map of the Kanto and eastern Johto regions and Ash considered it briefly.

"Here," he said, pointing at a spot several miles north of Tohjo Falls. "There's a large meadow here with a wide stream going through it." He considered it. "One thing: the stream comes out of a cave on the north side of the field. Stay out of the cave if I'm not there."

"Why?"

"I can't go into detail, but if you see a Tropius around there, leave it alone. Anyway, I'd like this to have a minimal effect on the environment, so try not build any roads to do this."

"Hmm, interesting. Any style in particular?"

"Make it a fortress. My other job is all about defending things, so it would probably be a good idea if I had a good place I could defend if necessary."

"The Battle Fortress, eh? And Fortress Guardian Ash."

Ash grinned. "I like it." He started towards the front door.

"Where are you going?" Anabel asked.

"I've been keeping a really odd schedule for the last few months. I thought it would be a good idea to train at night, so I've been sleeping in the morning and training all evening and all night. I'm not going to be able to go to sleep tonight and I don't particularly want to travel with Dee Dee's bitching, so I'm going to fly ahead."

"Fly?"

"I told you I caught a Trapinch, didn't I?" He started to turn to the door again, but Anabel grabbed his arm. "What is it?"

"About what we were talking about before Scott crashed into the tree…" she trailed off.

"Do you still feel that way about me?"

She smiled softly, stood on the tips of her toes, and kissed him. "Does that answer your question?"

He wrapped his arms around her. "I think it answers that question." He paused, thinking. "You wanna come with me? Flygon's been trained to carry a lot of weight and I could show you some really interesting things if we go to the Tree."

"Well I don't know…" She looked at Scott.

"Well, I need to get a message to the other Brains to meet so we can formally accept Ash as part of the Frontier, but we can do that at the Pyramid or the Temple just as easily as we could here, and there's more room at those facilities than here."

"Temple?" Ash asked curiously.

"You think you're the first in a decade to accept the offer?"