Chapter 2: A New Big WOOHP

(WOOHP HQ, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 07:32)

A towering skyscraper loomed in a new city which from overhead looked like a "W." A helipad was by the lower right of said "W" and the logo bared the same letter, only to lave an oval globe behind it. Inside one office, there was the mouse and a balding old man with a thin mustache holding the vial with the drug inside. Entering the room were two of the girls. "Good morning, girls," he greeted. The mouse squeaked to welcome Clover and Alex in.

"Morning, Jerry," Clover greeted. The girls wore casual, light clothes like Clover's red skirt and open buttoned shirt over a white blouse. Alex, donning a white sleeveless t-shirt and slacks, welcomed the mouse.

"Did you have a nice sleep, little guy?" she cooed. The mouse squeaked to return the greeting. Jerry noticed the other girl not present.

"Sam?"

"As soon as we arrived, she headed right to the room where that boy's resting."

"I see. From what I've been advised, he's still recovering from physical and emotional exhaustion. Monitors shown that he hadn't awaken since that explosion in capturing Calvin Doggs." The mouse lowly squeaked in concern. Clover knew the mouse's growing fear.

"Hey, we're just as worried about him as well," she consoled.

"Well, it's not much of a surprise Pikachu has concern for his trainer," Jerry clarified. The two girls blinked to the name of the mouse.

"Wait, you know this mouse?" questioned Alex.

"You're wondering how, correct?" Clover and Alex nodded. "When you brought the boy, his materials were confiscated, one of them being this." Jerry pulled out a red hand-held device and slid it to Clover who opened it. Two screens emerged on each flap and had buttons around the bottom screen.

"Looks like a weird Nintendo DS," she figured. Jerry turned on a monitor on the wall, revealing Pikachu's body in a still. A description collected on the opposite side of Pikachu's picture, including his name. "Would you look at that." Alex observed the stats displayed.

"Pikachu, Electric Mouse Po-," she fumbled on how to pronounce the last word. "Poke- What?" Pikachu groaned at the stumble.

("Play it, Jerry,") he insisted. Jerry reached to press a few keys and access another screen with the boy's face.

"There's an explanation to the boy in this device," he added. "He's Pikachu's trainer, Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town in Kanto." Quickly, Alex had a guess to Ash's origin.

"So he's Japanese?" she assumed.

"That was my first thought, but Pallet Town doesn't exist anywhere on Earth, let alone in Japan. And this Pokémon, as much as Alex wants to pronounce, is proof that Ash and Pikachu are from a different plain." More questions risen from the discovery.

"So, like, how did they find Paris from their world?" asked Clover. Pikachu could explain but since no human knew how it spoke, he chose to keep his mouth shut.

"I suppose when Ash awakens, we'll learn more of their land. In the meantime, I did release some more creatures he possesses and they're in the field room for some exercise." He switched screens which showed four more creatures. An orange monkey with blue fur under its eyes and a burning tail, a grayish-brown giant bird of prey with orange feathers in front of its eyes, an orange weasel with a yellow floatation ring around the neck and a large green turtle with bushes growing from a yellow shell and lower lip. "Let me present Monferno, the monkey; Grotle, the turtle; Buizel, the weasel and Staraptor, the avian." While the girls studied Pokémon, Sam waited bedside by Ash despite not joining her friends to learn. Sam wore a green polo t-shirt and jeans while wearing high-heeled sandals. She reached over his head and petted his wild hair. Sam's hands caused Ash to react with some moans. He soon opened his eyes.

"How long..." he weakly groaned. "...Have I been asleep?" Sam turned to see the boy now coming around. She looked at the watch to verify.

"At least 18 hours," she replied. Ash shook his head softly as well grasping it, unsure on whether to believe the redhead or not.

"That long?" Man..." He couldn't believe the length of time he slept. "How's Pikachu doing? Is he okay?" Sam blinked, befuddled to the name of the mouse found by Sam and her friends.

"Do you mean that mouse with the electric disposition?" Before Ash could answer, a phone rang. Sam pulled out a cellphone and pressed the green phone button before placing it around her cheek. "This is Sam."

"Hey, is Ash awake?" asked Clover. Sam blinked again.

"Who?"

"The boy we found with the mouse." Sam looked back at Ash, now informed.

"He is. He asked about a Pikachu."

"Tell him we're watching Pikachu and he's doing fine."

"No problem. We'll see you in a little bit." Sam hit the red button to end the call. "Come on. Pikachu's waiting with my friends." Gingerly, Ash crawled out of bed with Sam acting support. Ash stepped on the floor, but his sore and overslept body crumbled in Sam's arms. "Easy, there!" Once settled, Sam walked Ash to a chair where he put his black/red shoes on. Once his feet were dressed, he stood with some help from the redhead.

"At least I can understand you better than everyone outside," he huffed. Sam had to correct Ash on a few fronts.

"Actually, we're not in France, anymore." Ash turned to Sam in wonder. "We're actually in LA. You'll see."

"I guess… Sam." The redhead giggled at her name brought up.

"Right… Ash." They left the room and traveled down the hallway a little bit. Sam knocked on the door reading "Main Office."

"Enter," Jerry called. Sam opened the door, seeing the aging man, Clover, Alex and Pikachu.

("Ash!") he cheered as he raced to Ash who caught him.

"Hey, Pikachu!" Ash embraced Pikachu in a hug before letting him climb on his shoulder. He now faced the rest of the cast. "Thanks for watching Pikachu while I've been sleeping for so long."

"It was our pleasure," Jerry acknowledged.

"Except for that bit he shocked me," Clover complained. Alex snickered to the moment in Versailles.

"Now, now, girls," Jerry urged, waiving for calm. "Excuse us for that. Ash Ketchum, I'm Jerry Lewis. I run WOOHP, the World Organization of Human Protection. We aid the world in protecting the people from those who wish to do harm." To Ash, their concept sounded familiar.

"I guess… me, Pikachu, my Pokémon and my friends share the same task." To Clover, it sounded like Ash was a WOOHP agent before he heard the organization.

"Really?!" she gasped. "Seems someone has been a WOOHP agent since birth and hired others to aid in his protection program."

"Tell me about it," Alex agreed. "I'd like to see his track record." Jerry smiled to the boy, only to wonder of his appearance.

"Speaking of tracks," he spoke up. "Ash, how did you find yourself in France?" Ash blinked some more before trying to recall moments of prior.

"It wasn't long after my epic loss to Paul, and one of my traveling friends tried to cheer me up from it, that we entered the next town. I saw some Unown flying while my friends entered a clothing store. I didn't care much for clothing, anyway. Pikachu and I wondered so we pursued without looking where we were exactly and got lost like usual for us." Pikachu nodded with a squeak. "By the time the swarm left, we found ourselves in a fork in an alleyway. By chance, I chose to go down one path which we found ourselves in a different land, mainly due to the people speaking this France tongue. All these 'Bonjours' and 'mercies,' I didn't know how to react." Jerry and Sam believed Ash and Pikachu in their bit of "Lost Translation."

"I suppose if you're not from Europe, you'll find yourself in panic mode trying to understand their languages like French, German, Polish or Russian, to name a few." Alex shunned at the languages Jerry listed.

"Jerry, I've heard that with age comes wisdom," she groaned a quote. "But there's no way you know how to speak that many languages."

"Yes, well… This is why translators are available. Anyway, it sounds as if these Pokémon you chased somehow brought you to Versailles mere hours before the Crown was absconded from the city's palace."

"Pretty much. I mean… there were a couple of teenage girls who gave me and Pikachu kisses to the cheeks and we're blushing like it wasn't something we're known for… You know what I mean?" The girls giggled at the misunderstanding of what took place. They didn't think it was anything to be concerned for.

"So was it a peck to one cheek, then the other?" questioned Clover.

"Yeah..." Clover snickered to the truth.

"That's how people in France greet each other. Nothing to get bashful about."

("Really?") Pikachu hummed. Ash settled on the word.

"I'll keep that in mind when I get back home," he shrugged. "Now the crown bit, I found on accident. When I heard someone speaking English nearby. That's when there was talk on some crown and an experimental drug." Now Jerry and the girls tuned in. "I remember one of them being that burglar who we stopped. The other sounded like an older me." The girls believed the other wasn't from a place in Europe.

"An American?" guessed Sam. Ash had more.

"That guy presented a belt with vials of that drug. I didn't get a good look at either but I did see that belt." Jerry dug in a pile of papers and pulled out one with vital information.

"We did recover two of the vials for research," he explained. "Tests come back as the drug containing different components like THC, GHB, pseudoephedrine and spores from psychedelic mushrooms." The girls seemed a little startled from the report.

"Sounds like ingredients for street drugs around here like marijuana, heroine, cocaine and others," Sam enlightened.

"Okay, but what would they be doing in France?" asked Clover. Sam groaned at the slow realization.

"Drugs are all over the world, Clover! It's not just an American problem." Ash felt the issue wasn't on a worldwide scale. Not yet anyway.

"I don't quite understand why someone would need to combine all these street drugs into one," Ash shrugged. "Let alone be in liquid form." Jerry scanned the information.

"According to the study," he opened. "The liquid will disperse a gas containing a hallucinogenic that would bleed into the pores of any nearly personnel and contaminate said personnel's senses sans touch." Alex surveyed the study.

"So this gas takes control of a person's sight, smell, taste and hearing," she narrowed the information with a shiver. "That's a frightening thought." Ash had some more to add.

"Anyway, that cat burglar confronted us in that back alley," he brought up. "When I told Pikachu to use Thunderbolt to stop him, he opened that vial. With this detail, I bet he wanted us to feel its effects. He didn't get a chance to fling it as some of Pikachu's electricity touched the drug in the vial. It exploded and… that's the last thing I remember." Pikachu nodded to the explanation, saying it reeled from the blast. Jerry and the girls awed this new detail.

"So that's what brought us to you?" gawked Clover. Pikachu squeaked in grateful gesture. Jerry took note of this addition.

"Fascinating..." he awed. "This concoction of drugs might have an incompatible ingredient which makes it susceptible to electricity." Jerry figured that having Ash helping could prove fruitful. "The lab will continue its study to the drug and find flaws like electricity to demise it." He now turned to the girls who found him. "Clover, Sam, Alex… will it be too much trouble to supervise him at either of your homes?" Looking to each other, Alex clicked a plan.

"The villa?" she suggested. Clover and Sam smiled to the idea.

"The villa!" they repeated. Ash and Pikachu looked to each other with the curiosity.

"The villa?" he copied. Jerry believed the time came.

"OF course," he snapped. "The villa in Beverly Hills. That way, none of their parents will know of him or his Pokémon. Would it be too great of a suggestion to stay with the girls until WOOHP finds your way home?" Pikachu shook his head, not objecting to the offer.

"If Pikachu wants to go, I'll go with them too." Satisfied, Jerry nodded to allow the group departure.

"Very well. I may need your efforts at any time. Everyone, dismissed!" The group left the room, Clover in the lead. Ash should feel excited about staying with a few young women… Pikachu certainly was… yet somehow, Ash didn't feel too happy. What bothered him and could the girls of WOOHP perk him back up?

TO BE CONTINUED...