A/N: Crazysnivy kid, you mean Hoopa right? I haven't seen the latest movies.
Also, I promised that this chapter would be longer. It is, but not nearly enough to justify the huge delay.
Also, you may have noticed that a chapter has suddenly vanished, i.e., V. Thomdolt VI. Someone pointed out that it was just a previous chapter pasted again. I have no idea how that happened and I'm 99.9% sure that I didn't write it like that or somebody would've told me when I had first posted it online. But I can't find an original sixth chapter for that arc, and I don't see any story gap between V. Thomdolt V and V. Thomdolt VII. I have no clue what happened, but if someone does, I'd like to hear from them.
"Oh, good, you've woken up Professor," Clemont said and patted Professor Sycamore on the head.
Professor Sycamore looked groggy, but he nearly lost it completely when he saw Ash- at least when he realized that this was really Ash that he was looking at and he wasn't just dreaming.
"I don't believe it," Sycamore said. "Is this some sort of hallucination?"
"No, Professor, it's really me," Ash said and then yawned. Now he was the one feeling sleepy. "I've come back from Galea."
"Where are Brock and Misty then?" Professor Sycamore asked.
Ash got up. Suddenly, even though he had been waiting for so long to meet Professor Sycamore once he had woken up, he didn't feel like it anymore. If anything, he was tired of being cooped up inside the small room and wanted out of there.
"Look, Professor, you must have a lot of questions," Ash said. He got up. "But I've already told the story too many times today, and I really would like to go and explore Lumiose City once rather than stay here for much longer. I have a recording too."
And without a word more, Ash scooped up his Pikachu and left the place. He realized that he had no money, so his first stop was the bank. His mother had kept an emergency fund just in case Ash had ever needed it, and this seemed as good a time as any.
It was around eight in the evening and the sun had set, but the city was as bustling as ever. He felt sleepy, and maybe that was the reason that there seemed to be a strange air around the city- as if he was walking through a dream. Everything somehow felt distant as if he was watching a movie and not experiencing something directly.
He lost track of time easily. He wanted to go into the various shops but in the end for some reason or the other he wouldn't go into one and would just wander about the streets. With it getting late it was kind of a dangerous thing to do, but he was sure that the Badges, even if they had become weaker, would be more than enough to get him out of anything that he might have to face while in the city.
It was extremely fulfilling to get lost- after a while he had no clue where he was and he didn't care either. It just meant that he was nothing now- nothing but another face in the crowd. And with that, all of his duties and responsibilities seemed to vanish as if they were far way. Galea and all its problems seemed to be as good as nonexistent in this corner of the world.
He went to see a movie. He didn't understand it- it seemed to be the third part in a seven-piece installment but it didn't matter as he wasn't paying attention to what was happening in the theater anyway. No, his thoughts were drifting in and out about his friends and what he was going to do now. And then his thoughts drifted to earlier times, back when his only stress was on how to get the next gym badge, as in normal gym badges and not crazy mystical ones.
After that, he decided to get something to eat and settled on eating cake from a pastry shop that was, luckily for him, open at this dark hour of the night. Sure, it was unhealthy, and he knew it, but he didn't really care. He didn't care about much of anything at the moment.
But Ash knew that he couldn't walk around forever, and finally he did get sleepy. He hailed a cab and ordered the guy to take him back to Professor Scyamore's Lab. Yeah, he normally wouldn't have behaved that condescendingly to the guy, but he was tired and was used to people letting him get away with it in Galea.
He got to the lab, paid the driver and stumbled inside where Professor Sycamore and Clemont were talking to him but he wasn't listening to even one-tenth of what they were saying and told them that he needed to hit the hay. His head had begun throbbing and he really needed some rest. Surely everything would be better and feel better in the morning…
"Ash! Ash! Look, I know you came back late, but it's like eleven in the morning and that's kind of pretty late given that Professor Oak and half the Pokemon League of Kalos wants to talk to you," someone said.
Ash realized that the voice belonged to Clemont and he groggily managed to open his eyes. His head hurt and his first reaction was to tell Clemont to shut up and let him go back to sleep.
"Can't that all wait for a while?" Ash asked.
"Well, maybe, but it'll really kill your circadian rhythm if you sleep like this. Also, Professor Sycamore saw your clip and suggested that we could put it on the Internet, or we could get some TV station to broadcast it, but then he was afraid that it might cause widespread panic," Clemont said. "What should we do?"
Ash was in no mood to get up and think about the problem. At the same time, he also knew that lying there in the bed wasn't going to solve anything so he got up wearily.
Now that he was refreshed a little, he had had some time to think about the problem.
"This is how I think we should play this," Ash said to Professor Sycamore and Clemont as he munched on his breakfast cereal. "See, this is a worldwide problem we have on our hands. Given that, I'd like to just go on television and tell everyone about it, but again, that would cause a whole lot of panic. At the same time though, I think everyone has the right to know about this- after all, it is something that affects all of us. So what I think we should go with is that we should tell the Elite Four of every region and let them decided on when the right time is for casting the news on television. Until then, I'd like to go to the Pokemon Studios here in Lumiose City and we can record a large news segment about the whole thing in the meantime."
"Sounds like a plan," Clemont said.
"Is Diantha there right now?" Ash asked. "Because we could ask her to come along with the rest of the Kalso Elite Four, but I might need to go and talk to the members of the Elite Four in other regions by myself in person."
"Well, it isn't very easy to ring up the Pokemon League Champion," Professor Sycamore said. "And she might be busy somewhere- but this is a matter of life and death, after all. I'll see what I can do. As for recording an interview, yes, I can arrange for that."
Professor Sycamore left to make some phone calls, leaving Clemont and Ash alone.
"So, Clemont," Ash said. "Is it possible to take more people into Galea?"
"Yes, or at least I think so," Clemont said. "The problem isn't getting in, from what my instruments tell me, but rather getting in in such a way that you don't end up completely shattering the Barrier and bringing it down in on itself. As such, we'll have to send people one at a time, and give a five minute interval in-between so that the Barrier can recover a bit and even then I don't think we can do more than three hundred people."
"Three hundred…" Ash said. "That isn't a lot. I don't know how big Selena's fleet is supposed to be, but if they're strong Trainers like some of the Elite Four then we might stand a chance." Ash then paused. "Hey wait a minute- didn't Greninja go along with Squishy? But then Greninja came back, right? So didn't Squishy come back too?"
"No," Clemont said. "Greninja just showed up near the gym one day and it seemed to be looking for you. Bonnie was looking for Squishy as well but didn't find any trace of him."
"Oh," Ash said.
Professor Sycamore then rushed in. "Ash, I have good news- Malva of the Elite Four is going to come here, you know her, she makes most of the news announcements in Kalos, after all, and so are Diantha and Drasna. Wikstrom and Siebold will be coming once they're free. And after that, I've managed to book a ticket to Kanto- or you could always fly away on your Charizard if that's faster so you can meet up with Lance. Thing is the video seems to be too long and they all want to ask you stuff in person."
"Yeah, I was kind of worried about that," Ash said. "But I guess there's no way around it."
Malva was waiting for him at the studios.
"Diantha and Drasna will be coming along in a few minutes," Malva said.
"Did you watch the video I sent you?" Ash asked.
"Not all of it," Malva said. "I mean, it was three hours long."
Ash sighed. "Well, do you guys expect me to repeat that every single time I have to explain it to someone?"
"No, no, this is how I planned this segment," Malva said. "We'll make the recording go like this: We'll play the video of you and then Diantha, Drasna, and I will be asking you questions as the video goes along if we want to know anything. And then at the end you can go and make any announcements that you might want to."
"So you're telling me that this is going to be a crossover between a reality TV show and the news?" Ash asked. "I don't like either of those things."
"You don't like watching the news?" Malva asked.
"Uh… maybe," Ash said, only now remembering that Malva was the one who reported most of the news in Kalos.
He was saved from further awkward embarrassment as Diantha and Drasna arrived. Drasna gave Ash a warm smile, but Diantha seemed far more serious.
"Ash… huh, you look different," Diantha said. "A whole lot different since we last met."
"Umm, I guess?" Ash said. "Anyway, did you see the video?"
"No, it was a bit too long and anyway we'll see it right now," Diantha said. "I have so many questions that I want to ask you."
The interview room was large and spacious with a huge plasma screen television on the wall around which Diantha, Malva, and Drasna were seated on one side and Ash on the other.
"Three, two, one… roll camera," Malva said.
With that, the clip began playing.
The only thing was that the three Elite Four members asked a whole lot of questions. Now, while Gary had been content to mostly just listen to what Ash was saying, they on the other hand seemed to want to probe Ash about nearly everything. And deep within their questions, Ash thought he heard the doubt that they had regarding what he was saying.
Some of the questions he couldn't answer, like what the time period was between Galea and the rest of the world. Other questions were things that he hadn't even thought about before.
"How do the seasons in Galea work?" Diantha said.
"We could control most of the weather, so I don't know if there are many real 'seasons' that you could talk of strictly, but people always had a sense of, yeah, there are seasons if only in name," Ash said. "Not to mention you couldn't mess around with them too much… it's very hard to get the weather right. I mostly just gave up trying to control it."
"What do the people there eat?" Drasna asked.
"I guess whatever they find?" Ash said. "I never really paid attention to it."
"There's electricity, right, to run some of the telephones… how do you generate that?" Malva asked.
"There are power plants… uh, somewhere I guess," Ash said and scratched his head. "I kind of don't know, I never really thought about it."
"What are your economies based on?" Diantha asked. "Oh, are there any movies in Galea?"
"Uh, I guess most people just farm," Ash said. "The only ones with any real power or money are the nobility or the Gym Leaders… and about movies I never asked but I don't think they'd be bothered. Most people in Galea live in makeshift houses after all, and most of them have never seen a radio, let alone a television. So I guess no movies then."
"How far can you the Badge's powers up to?" Malva asked. "A mile? Ten miles?"
"Uh, I don't know, I never really tested the limits," Ash said. "Usually I could only use it as far as I could see, but there was this one time that I was kinda pulled out of my body and could use them further…"
"So why didn't you do anything to help the people of Galea with their technological problems?" Malva asked.
"I kind of don't know how to make anything more complex than toast," Ash said. "And I can't make a toaster either."
And so it went on and on. Every single time a question was asked, they had to pause the footage. And needless to say Ash was slowly becoming very, very, irritated by the time they were almost done. It took them five hours to get to the end of the clip.
"Now, Ash do you have any things you'd like to say to our viewers at the end of this?" Malva asked.
Ash turned to fully face the camera and said, "Whoever is watching this, I just want you all to know how serious everything is. We need to diffuse the situation in Galea. But for that we need people. We need volunteers to help stem off the soldiers who are invading and hurting my people. But I should warn you all, Galea is a much more brutal place than any of you can possibly imagine. You should take that into consideration, because there's the chance that you might not come back alive. We can take a hundred people at most. Three hundred people to help the citizens of Galea. A hundred people to get safety for millions. But again, these people that we're up against are nothing like you'd have ever faced before. They'll kill you just for getting in your way."
Malva did some sort of weird hand gesture that Ash didn't understand but the camera stopped rolling.
"Ash…" Malva said. "I, uh, am not sure how to say this, but that was way too depressing. We need a charismatic leader, someone who can boost morale."
At this point Ash had had enough and had lost most, if not all of his patience. "What do you expect me to do then? Do I go and tell people that it's all sunshine and candy back in Galea? Whoever goes with me needs to know how serious the situation is there- I've been there for over a year and nothing that I've ever seen even comes close to what I see in Galea everyday. The very worst of Team Rocket is still better than the best of Galea."
"Yes…" Diantha said, "But Ash, all you've been talking about it doom and gloom for the last few hours, people need hope during this time. Ash, I've seen you be charismatic before, and if there was a time we needed that, it's now."
"But that is how Galea is," Ash said.
"Few people will join you with talks like that," Drasna said.
"I don't want people who aren't fully committed to helping them or are prepared to lose their lives for this cause," Ash said. "After all… the Badges do protect me to a large extent… I can't say that I'm risking my life too but I won't have any more innocent lives on my hands anymore…."
"But Ash, don't you think that well, you haven't touched upon other things?" Diantha said.
Before Ash could reply, Clemont came in, panting.
"Ash, there's something important I need to tell you," Clemont said. He then looked at the cameras and froze.
"Don't worry, they aren't recording," Drasna said.
"Good, uh, well, see, I managed to rearrange my old machine, and I think I'll have it u and running by next week," Clemont said.
"Next week?" Ash asked. "Can't- can't you get it done faster?"
"Sorry, no," Clemont said. "I know that you need to get there back as soon as you can, but I can't get it working before then. But that's not all there is to the bad news… thing is that as far as I can tell the Barrier isn't going to last, Ash. It's gonna collapse no matter what you do for it. We need to disassemble it slowly instead of it coming crashing down all by itself."
"…How are we gonna disassemble it?" Ash asked.
"I guess if it was put up using the Badges, you'll have to dissemble it using them too," Clemont said. He then pulled out a few sheets of paper with writing and numbers on them. "It is going to take, uh, about three months for it to unravel completely on its own."
"Can't we prop it up somehow or something?" Ash asked. "I mean, I still don't know why they bothered putting it up there in the first place. If it was there for an important reason, then why would we bring it down?"
"Ash, I think I know the answer to that," Malva said. "I think the only reason they put that Barrier up in the first place was because they knew that their rule was at an end. You've told us all about how the Gym Leaders have mostly kept the majority of the population in poverty. In short- they're tyrants. And tyrants never want their people to be free, Ash. Think about it, they must have noticed that the world around them was changing, and fast. Monarchies no longer existed and things like universal human rights were cropping up. They couldn't let such things possibly enter into the lives of ordinary Galeans or they'd start demanding the same things too. Sure, they might have magical Badges but even they can't deny the will of the people for long. And so, in order to maintain their power, they just cut themselves off from the rest of the world so they could be absolute rulers forever. There isn't any real threat to Galea, Ash. They just made that up so that you wouldn't try and break it down."
"And I have another thing to add," Drasna said. "Once they had overthrown the Elite Four, they must have been afraid of someone coming to topple them from a foreign region. You mentioned that the people of Galea are scared of retaliation from Kalos, right?"
"Not to mention, if we had any idea of what was going on in there," Diantha added, "we would've gone there and stopped them ourselves once we knew how horrible they were towards the people there. Ash, I believe the Barrier's necessity is just something they made up to try and slow you down."
Ash shook his head, "I can't shake the feeling though that they were telling the truth about that part at least, and I don't think Wade was lying to me…"
"Regardless, we need to act," Clemont said.
"Yeah," Ash said with firm conviction. "After all, the problem is that we don't know enough and for that I need to go and face Selena and His Majesty."
"What's your plan?" Malva asked. "You know more than we do."
"I think we should gather all the volunteers we could, and… hey Clemont, where will your machine send us?" Ash asked.
"Somewhere close to the border," Clemont said. "I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that."
"That's alright," Ash said. "But it will send all of us at the exact same place, right?"
"Yeah, so long as we don't take too much time in-between," Clemont said.
"Then what we'll do is that first we'll all go and stabilize the situation in my domains," Ash said. "After that we'll deal with Selena and His Majesty."
"But as I understand it," Diantha said, "aren't you the one who ended up in Galea in the first place? I know you think you need help taking on Selena Ash, but you've grown, and I think it's… well, almost destiny somehow. The one who is going to ultimately solve all these things is you, Ash Ketchum. You should go straight for His Majesty's island after we land, and let us take care of your people."
"I… that's a great offer, but the thing is that they are kind of scared of taking help from foreigners," Ash said. "I think I'll need to be there to let them know that you guys don't mean any harm."
"Ash, your boat leaves tonight," Clemont warned as he glanced at his watch. "You should be getting your things together, well, whatever things you have soon."
"Then he'd better go and give us another speech at the end," Malva said. "Come on Ash, I'm going to turn those cameras one, and I expect a better speech this time."
Ash sat down, but before that he scooped up his Pikachu in his arms. If there was one thing that could make him see the brighter side of life, it was his Pokemon.
The cameras began rolling.
Ash started. "You see, it's dangerous, what we're about to do. And I should warn all of you that there will be no turning back. But at the same time let's remember the people of Galea. People who have always had very little and have lost everything. And it isn't just them who are at risk there. All of us are. The people we are up against are crueler than anything you can imagine. But just because the monsters we face are stronger than what we've battled before doesn't mean that we should fear facing them. They are, after all, monsters just the same. And we can't act like children and pretend there are no monsters under the bed, because trust me, there are. And we will come out victorious, and we will save Galea, both for her people, and for the rest of us. We will bring its citizens out of poverty and help them usher in the prosperity that we've made for ourselves, a world where people and Pokemon leave freely. So who's with me?"
A/N: Yeah, reason for all this delay is because I kind of hit a wall with writing. I mean, I hyped up this segment so much and then I didn't even bother to update on time, which is something I'm sorry for. Thing is that I know what is going to happen after Ash reaches Galea pretty well, but I was always a bit hazy on this bit and so I contemplated making it longer, but I realized that it would just end up being filler. Yeah, Ash will reunite with a lot of his friends, but Galea is where the story is, after all.
Thanks for reading.
