Ash held a copy of the rules to contests in Galea in one hand, and a fruit smoothie in the other hand. The rulebook was heftier than anything he had ever read; come to think of it, he couldn't exactly remember the last time he had read a book. Well, that was what happened when you left your home at only ten years old.

He was currently in a spot in the gardens in the palace that used to belong to Linnea, and the place was, he had to admit, amazing. Erika would've probably given her front teeth to have a garden like this.

It was almost a world of its own, sealed off from the rest of the palace by numerous screens and wooden walls. Lotad and Lombre swam lazily in the nearby pond while being surrounded by water lilies and pink lotuses. Instead of grass, the floor was covered in a type of moss that felt spongy and slightly elastic like a natural trampoline. Grass Pokemon wandered about tending to the plants and repairing the moss in areas where it had been torn. Thankfully, it was not as hot as a greenhouse and a pleasantly cool breeze wafted about as Ash's Pokemon relaxed near him. To complete this wonderful picture, there had been a mini-buffet laid out for Ash, from where he had gotten the fruit smoothie.

It would be a bit of exaggeration to say that Ash and his Pokemon were the only inhabitants as there were servants present at every six feet in case Ash needed something.

Ash tired not to notice them, but then he wondered whether not noticing them made him a snob.

Between the fruit smoothie and the book, he'd go with the smoothie any day even though he knew deep down that he really needed to master how to deal with contests in Galea. Otherwise, there was no way that he would get past Vanessa.

"Um, Sir Ash," one of the maids said, "there appears to be a visitor for you and she's very insist-"

She was pushed aside and a old woman whom Ash recognized as Celera walked in.

"It's okay, I know her, you can put your weapons away," Ash said quickly to the servants in the garden.

"Well boy, tell me, I come all the way out here to see you and this is the kind of reception I get?" Celera asked.

"Well, no one's here who's seen you besides me, so…" Ash trailed off. "We need to get you a pass or badge or something. You look like you've just gotten back from a long trip- you can have some of what's on the table if you want."

"Well, you're right about that," Celera said as she took a huge gulp of water. "Wow, that feels good. So, after you went and bopped off Freyja I went and got a health check-up done. Apparently I had a protozoal infection but they took care of that and after a few hours with a Chansey and a hot spring I felt better than ever."

"That's good to know," Ash said.

"PIka pi!" Pikachu said as he smiled and jumped into Celera's lap. Ash's other Pokemon seemed to prefer to watch from a distance, but Arcanine came and sniffed her shoes.

"I think you've gained some weight," Celera said to the Pikachu.

"Yeah, they've been gorging on nothing but the best stuff chefs can make," Ash said.

"Right," Celera said as she took a bite out of a cookie. "Okay- too sweet though. Anyway, I do have you to thank for the recovery. Thanks for paying for all of it."

"Wait- we paid for all of it?" Ash asked.

"Yes," Celera said. "Yes, you were the one who signed the form saying that- wait a moment-" her eyes narrowed "-have you started signing things without reading them, Ash Ketchum?"

Ash suddenly felt smaller. It was as if his mom had caught him doing something bad… which wasn't very often as Ash was almost never around. "Uh, I do read them. I just might occasionally, uh, skim a few lines or so." Pikachu looked at him disbelievingly. Celera didn't seem to buy it either. Truth was that Ash almost never read anything other than the headings. The forms could occasionally be several hundred pages long and flooded with archaic words that he didn't understand.

"Skim them? Ash, don't you know about the story of Gym Leader Toto?" Celera asked.

"Never heard of him," Ash said.

"He had begun signing away things without looking at them since he trusted his ministers, but one of them had an altercation with another family and managed to get Toto's signed approval for their execution!" Celera said. "Now, none of your ministers seem to be like that- but it would be wise of you to start paying attention to what you sign." She took another glass of water. Pikachu was shaking his head.

"So, where were you?' Ash asked.

"Oh that, I got bored being at the spa after about say- um, I guess it was two days? I then realized that I had to do something to try and take the Gym Leaders down, but you were heading off to tackle Linnea, so I thought that it would be the perfect time to go and check up on some contacts I had in Constantinapole – figuring that most of Selena's eyes would be focused on Linnea and not on her own territory. Turns out I was wrong though, but in Vanessa's territory I joined up with a group of traveling circus performers before I managed to get to the border. Trying to get across was a bit tough but after a week I found some smugglers willing to take someone across for a fee."

"That's sounds risky," Ash said. "And why didn't Selena seal off her border with her Badge?"

"Well, this entire operation has been 'risky,' plus the way I figure it, if I don't do something soon, I may not live long enough to reunite with Emily," Celera said.

"You don't have anyone else?" Ash asked. "No other family, I mean?"

"No," Celera said. "They're all dead."

"So you never married?" Ash asked.

"No, couldn't find the right man," Celera said. "Why? Do you know anyone?" she joked.

"No, no," Ash said. The only people he could think of in Celera's age group was Mr. Jennings, and maybe Professor Oak.

Celera sighed, and then turned to one of the servants, "Hey! I could use a coffee right about now. Add extra cream, but no sugar!"

The servant looked confused, as if unsure whether or not he should obey but trotted off anyway.

"Anyway what were you saying?" Celera asked. "Oh yeah, that barrier thing is really hard to put off with only one Badge, and that would mean that normal business and trade between Selena's and Vanessa's domain would stop. I don't think she could allow that given that Vanessa is probably the one carting food to them now and it isn't like she's in imminent danger of you invading. So, the smugglers took me past the border guards and tariffs, and I made my way to Constantinople. Wasn't easy- I tell you, since I didn't have any papers with me, and boy are the people in Selena's domain found of papers. She's begun digitizing a good fraction of the population's data, but I managed to find my contact. He well near fainted when he saw me- I'm guessing he didn't think I was still alive."

"So what'd you find out?" Ash asked.

"Oh, see, the thing is, he now works on monitoring the barrier between Galea and the rest of the known world for Selena. And, he managed to help me get into some very classified files," Celera said. "Anyway, long story short, I'm not here to talk about how I got them. And most of the information was useless anyway. Did you know that Selena is, based on my estimates, apparently at least three hundred years old?"

"What?" Ash asked. The whole thing was even creepier given that he had thought she really looked good.

"I know right," Celera said. "She could be older, but I sure couldn't tell it. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point is that I picked up a little something regarding the barrier separating Galea from the rest of the world. You know, I was always wondering, since the eight Gym Badges made the barrier in the first place, now that you have three- or I guess four now, if you just wanted to go back, you could make a small hole in it and go back home."

"Yeah, I've talked about it though," Ash said. "Even Linnea had a small group of scientists who studied the barrier, and they said the whole thing was too risky. The barrier separating Galea is different from the one that Linnea made which I just cut a hole through. It involves time as well as space, and they said it was like we're living surrounded by a wall, like a really big one. Now, I can't go ahead and tear it down with only four Badges, but I could maybe dig a tunnel under a section. But then, I'm risking the wall collapsing on the tunnel. And that could be bad- they said that we could end up a thousand years in the future, or a thousand years in the past or maybe on the other side of the galaxy if it wasn't properly removed. Or, the whole thing might collapse around Galea and turn it into a huge black hole."

"Well, I have some good- no wait, I have bad news," Celera said. "Turns out you can't actually do that anyway because as it turns out, that while the Gym Leaders did make the majority of the barrier, the basic scaffolding- so you'd say to extend your wall metaphor- was made by the Elite Four Champion. If you want to get out, you'll need his help."

"Wait! But- isn't he dead? Along with the rest of the Elite Four?" Ash asked. "I mean, Fredrick said that they were alive, but I don't kind of believe him."

"Actually, he would have to be alive," Celera mused. "The barrier was made pretty strong, but it needs to be reinforced just like any structure- it can't last forever. It would need regular maintenance every five hundred years or so. In order for that to happen, they'd have to keep the Elite Four Champion alive."

"Or maybe they didn't think that far," Ash said. "Five hundred years is a pretty long time."

"I highly doubt that," Celera said. "I mean, they seem to have it all planned to last for seemingly forever, though nothing ever lasts that long. By the way, who's Frederick?"

Ash filled her in on the messenger he had got from His Majesty. Celera's coffee came in the meantime.

"Hmm," Celera said once Ash was done.

"So what I'm thinking is," Ash said. "Maybe that was true after all, and His Majesty did keep the Elite Four alive. Because, why hasn't the Elite Four Champion done anything yet? If he was alive, he would've gone and taken back Galea, right? But Fredrick said that the Champion is under His Majesty's thumb, so maybe His Majesty is keeping the Elite Four hostage to get the Champion to cooperate or something. I can't think of any other reason for His Majesty to keep them alive, I mean, all of the Gym Leaders we've seen have no problems killing as long as they think it's for a right cause, and I can't see why he'd let them live otherwise."

"That's assuming that the Champion would be stopped knowing that the Elite Four would be killed," Celera said. "Would he really care that much about them compared to stopping the Gym Leaders? And how would His Majesty figure out how to subdue the Elite Four, the best Trainers in Galea anyway?"

Ash shrugged. "I guess if I need all eight Badges it's going to be hard anyway. I mean, I can handle having four of them."

"Why? Celera asked.

"I've been getting headaches all the time and yesterday when I tried using them to fix it, I got a rash all around my-" Ash stopped right there as the rest of that sentence went into inappropriate territory. "They call it Badge Sickness."

"Oh," Celera said.

"Did Emily get it too?" Ash asked.

"No- she always said that only the weak-willed got it- sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's an idiopathic condition really," Celera said.

"What does that mean? That only stupid people get it?" Ash asked.

"No, it's idiopathic not idiotpathic- the last one's not even a word," Celera said. "It just means that we don't know what causes it and it varies from person to person usually. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's probably you're too young and all- you know, how children have to take smaller doses of medicine and get side effects from them quicker, that's probably why you've been feeling down."

"Right," Ash said, not feeling much better.

"Come to think of it," Celera said. "I don't think anyone as young as you has ever held so many Badges- or at least not for longer than a few months. I wonder if there might be any side effects to you using them, like growth retardation, you know, since the Badges seem to keep the wearer eternally young. Imagine if you'd be stuck being a ten-year-old boy forever."

"I wouldn't want that to happen," Ash said. "That'd be terrible."


Lord Wade's favorite mode of transport across the seas was his Gyarados. It was large and capable of razing an entire village within a few minutes, in short, it was the perfect vehicle for someone of the rank of Gym Leader.

However, in certain situations, speed was more of the essence, which is why he had taken his Golduck instead.

He had been relaxing, trying to take his mind off of Ash Ketchum now that he reckoned there was nothing he could do about him when an urgent report came in saying that two people who appeared to be associates of Ash had come in… and that there appeared to have been a breach in the barrier although it had repaired itself rather quickly.

That meant that these were outsiders, and they seemed to be powerful Trainers.

Now, Wade was a person all for chivalry and fair play, but he was a pragmatists above all else, and the reality of the cutthroat environment of Galea was not one that dealt in kindness.

As such, he had decided that he wouldn't challenge them to a battle, as it was a foolish decision to barge headfirst. No- he would simply knock them out using the Torrential Badge's energy from afar. He could have killed them, but he wanted to take them for questioning first and then decide what he'd do with them.

As such, once he was in sight of where they had been last spotted, he nudged his Golduck and it began slowing down and making less of a noise. Stealthily, he made his way where he heard two voices talking about something called… Team Rocket? And he heard something about Ash, yes.

"Put them to sleep," he whispered to the Torrential Badge. There was a dull noise as two heavy things hit the floor.

He examined them and called his officers. The two were hardly beyond childhood, but then again, so was Ash Ketchum.

"Take their Pokeballs away from them," Wade said. "I want them examined and the strength of their Pokemon estimated. Then, I will go and interrogate them."

A/N: Sorry for taking so long, RL gets in the way. But it has been far too long, and I'm sorry Guest for the short update. This chapter isn't that long either, but I will be updating more rapidly now to compensate (hopefully).

Julie Togepi, thanks for the review. As for the other Guest, yes, that does happen, but this isn't a complete carbon copy of the Keys to the Kingdom, I've mixed up quite a little extra of my own.

Thanks for reading everyone, and do please review if you liked.