Pokémon speech in Pokémon language = "Pokémon speech in Pokémon language"
Human Speech = "Human Speech"
Thoughts/highlighted text = 'thoughts/highlighted text'
Other end of a phone call = 'Other end of a phone call'
Chapter 010 – A Happy Mama
The next morning, Ash awoke to a warm weight on his chest, more specifically Misty staring into his eyes with a warm smile on his face.
"Morning Misty."
"Good morning, Ash" replied the orange-haired teen before gently pressing her lips to his, a chaste and innocent kiss (even if everyone else wished it were less so).
Pulling back, she spoke, "Now, as much as I want to snog you all day long, we have a lot to do!"
"Yeah Mist."
…
"Mist…I like that, but only you're allowed to call me that. Got it! boyfriend of mine."
"Boyfriend? Are we like, boyfriend and girlfriend? I'd love to be if you'll have me that is…"
"Yes, you lovable man, I will be your girlfriend. And besides, as far as I'm aware, we've been dating all this time – we just haven't said so. Understood."
"Yep!"
And thus, the two teens would spend the next fifteen minutes cuddling and enjoying the warmth of each other's presence, only stopped by Squirtle's yell of breakfast being ready.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
Fifteen minutes later, the teens and a crap ton of Pokémon dug into a massive meal courtesy of Brock who had swung by and were now left pondering over what to do next.
"Ash. We've got a few issues we need to resolve and discuss, and not all of them are easy…"
"Sure Bulbasaur, no prob. So, what is it?"
"For starters, Poké balls."
"Yeah – I can't believe I forgot about that as soon as I saw you guys…though I think I'll need more than the standard issue of five Poké balls."
"I'd recommend at least eighty Poké balls, accounting for those that are currently not with us."
"Yeah, that sounds good. But if I catch you guys, won't you go to the ranch? And wouldn't Prof. Oak notice something's off when suddenly I catch a lot of Pokémon, especially when a lot of you guys aren't native to Kanto?"
"Hmm…Dr. Night, would you be able to convince the good Professor's partner Alakazam to aid us in keeping our current circumstances quiet?" pondered the grass type.
"Most certainly, though, I would advise that we first land near the ranch, hence after I may be caught to explain the situation at hand. A Hoothoot in Kanto, while unusual, is not improbable seeing as the closest point from Pallet Town to the Johto border is under 62 km, a distance that is well within the realm of flight within a day for even a youngling of my species. Even as a shiny, Prof. Oak shouldn't consider Ash finding a Pokémon such as myself to be too odd."
"That definitely sounds good. So, I'll go get some Poké balls then," replied Ash.
"Good, but that's the easiest of our concerns. Do you remember the last thing that happened before you awoke in this timeline?"
"Umm…yeah, I was at the pier at Slateport…but wait…wasn't I in Alola…
…
Ok, right now, I'm feeling really confused. Like, what the heck was I doing after Alola!"
…
"Ash? What are you talking about?" asked Misty.
"Long story short, I'm guessing that Ash remembers what happened after Alola – I did after you two finished exchanging tongues yesterday. And I'm willing to bet that Ash did remember around the same time as I did but didn't realize it until just now," answered Pichu.
"Pichu…I think you're right. But like, we did so much over the past, what was it, like a year-and-a-half after Alola, and right now I want to smack myself for being such a moron!"
"Ash. I don't know much of what you did – we barely spent two days together a few months back before this timeline, and most of it was dealing with Team Galactic, but don't beat yourself up over whatever you did after Alola," answered Brock, attempting to placate the clearly distressed teen.
"He's right Ash – sure we spent seventeen months away from Pallet town, all but abandoning the rest of our team, letting a project aimed at finding Mew exist, encouraging a middle-school dropout to chuck Poké balls at every Pokémon in sight, and letting him catch Suicune, and disgracing our capabilities both as a trainer and Pokémon – like, why did it take ten-million-volt thunderbolt to take out Volkner's Electivire – that move is reserved for near-legendary level Pokémon and stronger.
Ok, maybe not the part about being pathetic battlers – we did well against some pretty powerful opponents like Kalos Elite Four Dragon Mistress Drasna and that Bea lass with a team that had just a smidge more experience than the Alola team, but realistically only eked out those wins thanks to having fully evolved Pokémon from the get-go along with Gigantimaxing and Mega-Evolution." answered Pichu.
"If that's supposed to be a pep talk, it isn't helping buddy." sighed Ash.
…
"The point is, even if we fucked up a bit, we were alright for the most part. But now, we can do everything better.
Besides, I can't wait to watch Charizard pummel Leon's ace! And think of what Galar crew could do after a few months of training at the ranch-"
That thought did cheer him up a bit, though immediately drew his attention to his missing Pokémon.
"Though we'd need to find them first…"
"Well then, I have good news," answered Hoothoot, pointing a wing to a Riolu that appeared out of nowhere and promptly leaped into his trainer's embrace.
"Lucario!"
"Father! I wish to become a Lucario again!"
"You're not the only one who wants to evolve" commented Cyndaquil in a tone that definitely implied reasoning besides getting stronger, something most certainly less innocent.
"Yeah, yeah – all of us want to get into shape. Now, let's get down to business. Turtwig, you're up mate." spoke Pichu, directing everyone's attention to Turtwig.
"Ash. To us, for the past seventeen months, you have pretty much been MIA from our perspective – Pichu helped fill in the blanks, but in short, we were dealing with what we're calling the 'Blackout', referencing the fact that there was a blackout in any information relating to you during this time.
Usually, we're very proactive on keeping track of your movements, mainly to keep up with the legendary catastrophes and evil criminal plots you unfortunately have a habit of getting involved in that we have to clean up in the aftermath. Unfortunately, after the Alola league, we had nothing more than small tidbits of intel on your whereabouts, which I can tell you right now left us all very stressed over what kind of shit you might be stuck in – Pichu already mentioned several events, major ones including one involving a crazy legendary called Eternatus in Galar and another involving the remnants of Team Galactic.
Besides that, our only other source of intel was the World Coronation Series, though even that was pretty rough thanks to what the media politely dubbed the 'Global Technology Fuckfest'."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" asked a clearly confused Ash.
"I'm kind of not surprised that you don't know about it – throughout most of our adventures, we didn't exactly spend much of our time in settlements, reducing our exposure to modern tech, and most of the tech we did use was very specific, like space-expanding backpacks or food preservers, with the only complex stuff we used being limited to stuff like my GPS system and the Pokédex. Though I can't speak for your recent adventures, I wouldn't be surprised if that were still true." started Brock.
"Actually, most of our time was in big cities, though to be honest, the most complex thing Ash could and did use was his Rotom phone, followed by a microwave oven for heating the previous night's leftovers," remarked Pichu.
"Hey! But seriously, what are you guys talking about?" interjected Ash.
"Long story short, technology all over the world was going haywire, roughly just a few weeks after the Manalo Conference, without any logical explanation.
Satellites started crashing down to the Earth in droves, several of which struck major population centers in Unova, telecommunications across regions randomly failed for days on end, and the worst case was LaRousse City.
That place spent nearly three weeks with nearly everything going haywire, several magnitudes worse than the tech failure that happened there when Deoxys popped up, resulting in nearly ¥1.9 trillion in lost economic productivity due to a near full-scale shut down at such a major business and technological hub."
And that wasn't even the worst of the shit going on!" explained Turtwig.
"What could be worse than that Turtwig?"
"Oh, I don't know, unnatural geological behavior along with space and time going wonky-"
"WHAT!" shouted Ash in shock.
"What indeed. The matter at hand was that space and time were slowly distorting, resulting in events that defy all logic." began Hoothoot.
Staraptor here planned on flying over to Alola and keeping an eye on you for the duration of the Manalo Conference, planning to return home after the exhibition match. Yet somehow, what should have been a straightforward return thirty-hour flight spread over four days took six months, and we were concerned when Staraptor hadn't called in on day three, fearing the worst when his GPS tracker went offline two weeks later after spamming random locations across the planet.
"Yeah. I left Alola on June 27th, 2019, and while I was definitely flying for about four-ish days in total, just under eight hours a day, I only arrived back home on December 20th, 2019, almost six months later! And boy was I confused when everyone went crazy when I landed at the ranch." interjected Starly.
"Yes, and following on Turtwig's previous point were the illogical geological patterns happening across the globe, a few notable ones being Dahara City and Mt. Silver, the former being hit by nearly seven feet of snow and subzero temperatures for over five weeks, with the latter being struck by a heatwave climbing to over 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
In short, the world was slowly falling apart until D-Day-"
"What do you mean by D-Day?" asked Misty.
"I coined that, because seeing as the last date that all of us remember is the early hours of December 9th, 2021, and going with what we've seen of the previous timeline going to shit, along with Arceus mentioning that reality would inevitably collapse upon itself if the wish wasn't undone in the previous timeline, resulting in the end of the universe and the beginning of a new cycle of the universe being created, I'd say it's an apt term for it," answered Pichu.
…
"And if you're wondering how I know about what Arceus told you in the Hall of Origin, Mewtwo filled me in on the details our second night at Viridian after a bit of nagging."
…
"Well, that's depressing." muttered Misty.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
"Ok. Moving on-" started Treecko, hoping to divert everyone's attention from the morbid thought of the universe ending. However, Fletchling had the perfect distraction planned.
"Holdup Treecko! Can I rant to Ash about you-know-what?"
…
"You know what, why not – knock yourself out."
"What are you two talking about?" asked Ash.
Taking a deep breath, Fletchling responded, his voice filled with the innate emotions of an angry romantic upset over a shipping still being a WIP; "Why Ash? WHY DIDN'T YOU KISS HER!"
"Who?" asked a confused Ash.
"SERENA! That's who. She was right there! You two were just feet away, and you didn't kiss her – you should have grabbed her face and passionately snogged the life out of her! And it would've been soooo romantic – like a kiss before sailing away at sea is a classic."
"Ash. Who is this 'Serena'?" asked Misty, an odd expression on her face.
And it was at that moment that Ash paled slightly, understanding what Fletchling was talking about – the pier, seeing Serena again as he was returning to Kanto with Goh and Chloe.
'Oh dear'thought Chikorita, sensing the brewing drama about to unfold.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
"Well…it all started at the Pokémon summer camp hosted by Prof. Oak in 2006 – Ash was roughly six years old at that time, actually in both timelines – like she and Ash looked adorable in matching straw hats in this timeline – like I'm pretty sure that Mama Ketchum was already planning a wedding when she took that photo-" began Pichu, reminiscing on some very fond memories of this timeline.
"Where was I – yeah, so when the children there were sent out to explore a small section of the forest by the campsite, a six-year-old honey-blond-haired girl got lost in the woods. At some point, she got startled by a Poliwag and scraped her knee. And soon after, a young Ash Ketchum ran into her – he was chasing said Poliwag at that time and found her crying.
He used a hankie he had on hand to band-aid her bruise and helped her up. and then he said the magic words that became what drove that girl ever since I first met her and has continued to do so – 'Never give up until the end', which inevitably led to her having a crush on him for a good chunk of her life.
That lass became a Pokémon trainer just so she could find Ash and thank him for what he had done for him all those years ago and return that hankie. That soon led to her joining us on our adventures across the Kalos region. Soon after, Ash's faith in her drove her to try out Pokémon Performing, which became her passion.
Along the way, that crush she had on Ash evolved into a strong friendship that eventually led to her falling madly in love with Ash. She even drove Ash out of a slump he had during our challenge for the 8th gym badge and gave him the confidence that led to him getting all the way to the finals of the Lumiose conference – we would have won if not for the reality breaking wish-stuff that fucked us up and Alain's Charizard cheating via a nuclear reactor's worth of Mega-Evolution energy powering him up.
And as our group of four parted ways at the Lumiose airport, she did something that no other female companion of ours has ever done before. As she was about to leave to board her flight to Hoenn, she turned back and climbed up the escalator, closing the distance between her and Ash, and kissed him on the lips – not a chaste kiss but a full fledge Kalosian Kiss. And do you know what this idiot did? He just smiled and waved her goodbye. Just that!
Mind you, it was back when we were worried that Ash might never find true love so everyone promptly freaked out when the news got home and thought that she might be the one to claim the title of Mrs. Ash Ketchum. And at that time, Ash didn't even so much as acknowledge your existence until we met back here in Kanto when Kukui's Alola class came to visit the Oak ranch and the Cerulean gym.
So yeah…that's the jist of Serena" finished Pichu, nervous at how Misty would respond.
…
"Mist?" hesitantly asked Ash.
"I'm ok with what happened – the past is the past. Though I do want to meet Serena someday – I've known all of your travel companions save for your friends from your Unova and Kalos adventures."
"Sure Mist, I'd love to introduce you and Brock to them…though I'd need to find them first…hopefully" replied Ash, grateful that Misty wasn't upset over another girl kissing him – he remembered how she reacted when Melody kissed him all those years ago and didn't want a repeat of that, especially with Serena being one of his closest friends.
"Don't worry Ash, we'll find them," replied Pichu, hopeful that they would find the rest of their friends, both human and Pokémon.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
After the rather intriguing discourse that was the start of their day, the group split up into various teams, each getting something done. Ash, meanwhile, had stocked up on Poké balls that would soon be needed once the plan for how to get everyone to the ranch with minimum fuss from Prof. Oak was hashed out. And by noon, the group had reconvened in the conference room, though now there were a few computers and a lot of documents strewn about, displaying all sorts of information.
"Ok, Ash. We've got plenty of stuff to cover about this timeline, some good, some not, and some just WTF," stated Bulbasaur.
"Ok then. what'd ya got?"
"In this timeline, while some things might be the same, there's a lot that is very different from what we know. In no particular order:
In the previous timeline, everyone and their Lillipup could become a Pokémon trainer at the age of ten. But now, only adults for the most part can become trainers, and even then, there are some tests that need to be taken, though they aren't really difficult for anyone of average intellect.
What's interesting about this is the case of the Pokédex, a device that any trainer could get in the previous timeline is now reserved for only the best of trainers, specifically those certified by a regional level Professor after dozens of trials and tests.
Pichu filled us in on how you got the Pokédex in this timeline, and well, it's impressive – being under the direct tutelage of Prof. Oak for three years and finishing your school education before fifteen is no small feat. So yeah, you're apparently a genius, even if you did get an F in history class."
To which Ash responded with a "Hey!" which Misty giggled at.
"Continuing on…
Trainers that you may have known and faced off against in the past, especially league-sanctioned ones like gym leaders are much stronger than before, many being near elite level.
Misty's sisters, for example, are not just pretty faces but are gifted Pokémon trainers, with Daisy being near the level of Lorelei of the Elite Four that we remember from what videos we have seen so far. Their gym challenge usually consists of 3 one-vs-one battles against each sister."
"But wasn't Misty the gym leader before?" asked Ash.
"In the previous timeline I was, but here, I'm a gym leader in training – Daisy says that once I turn eighteen and can beat her in battle, I'll become the fourth gym leader of the Cerulean Gym," replied Misty.
"So yeah, we going to need to step up training ASAP – at our former full-strength, gym battles would be a sure win, but at the moment, we're fucked." answered Squirtle.
"We all got that memo. Next:
This one is a big difference, though it doesn't look like it'll matter much in the long run. Simply put, every major and minor event we know of has been pushed forward by two years – like, you Ash were born in 1998 instead of 2000, same with Misty, who was born in 1996, and Brock who was born in 1992. Other major events in history have been affected as well, though the end outcome has remained the same.
We've attempted to get background information on everyone close to us as we were parsing for what differences may exist in this timeline from what we may previously know of. So far, this is all we've got based on a mix of publicly available sources like newspapers and .gov databases we were able to hack.
Misty and Brock have near identical pasts save for some minor differences, like how Misty's sisters Lily and Violet are now twins instead of having a one-year age gap. Brock now has an eight-year difference between his age and his first sibling, Forrest, instead of a five-year difference. Other than a few small discrepancies, you two have near identical pasts save for age differences and in Brock's case, parents who never left their kids." continued Bulbasaur.
"It's definitely nice having Mom and Dad being around for the most part," commented Brock.
Bulbasaur paused to get himself a drink before he continued. "Now, where was I, oh yes, with the rest of our close friends, this is what we've got:
The Maple family fortunately exists, and Norman Maple is the Petalburg gym leader as before. But in this timeline, May and Max are fraternal twins, both of whom are now just three months younger than Ash.
"But I was unable to find them when I was in Petalburg City!" remarked Treecko.
"True, but that's because somehow, a pack of drunk Makuhita stole a dozen school buses and decided to turn Petalburg city into the real-world equivalent of Los Santos City from GTA 5 and go on a wrecking spree, crashing and destroying a lot of property in the city, one of which was the Petalburg City Gym. The damage was apparently severe enough that it was cheaper to outright build a new gym rather than repair the existing structure, now on the opposite side of the city by the beach. And regarding the Maples, their names are listed on a flight to Alola two weeks ago." answered Bulbasaur.
"That explains it." sighed Treecko.
"Yep. Switching over to Unova, Clian has a decent public presence both due to his family restaurant and his status as one of the Striation City Gym leaders, with the data available implying a mostly similar life to that of what he had in the previous timeline. Iris on the other hand has no digital presence, but that most likely is due to the remote nature of the Dragon Village."
"But intel on the Kalos crew is where things get murky – the Kalosian government has surprisingly good cybersecurity for a government organization, and we'd need to break into a Kalos government data center to get any accurate information on the Kalos crew," interjected Turtwig.
"So we have nothing on Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie?" asked Fletching in concern, mainly about his second favorite human and the female half of Amourshipping.
"Not quite." stated Hoothoot. "We can mostly confirm that friend Clemont is alive and doing rather well based on an article in the "Le Temps Kalosian" news regarding him getting a PhD at the age of nineteen, roughly six months ago in this timeline in Robotics."
"That sound awesome – I knew Clemont was a genius, but this just proves it!" smiled Ash, thinking about the quirky inventor and good friend, exploding inventions included.
"Yeah…and that's about all we have on the Kalos crew – we need access to a Kalos .gov data center to know anything solid on Bonnie and Serena, with both being blank in the digital space-"
"What about the gossip I found in that magazine called Teen Witch Weekly involving an affair by the youngest son of the current King of Kalos and a woman that vaguely looks like a punk version of Serena's mom?" interrupted Cyndaquil.
…
"You believe in gossip from a publication that somehow has a negative five-star rating – I thought you were better than that?" asked Hoothoot with a stare of disappointment at the fire-type Johto starter.
…
"My bad."
"Moving on" stated Bulbasaur, wanting to keep the debriefing on topic. "Information on the Alola crew is rather sparse, seeing as far as we know, they're all minors who have no direct connection to anybody of major importance unlike May and Max, whose father is the Petalburg City Gym Leader, a position that inherently has great importance in Hoenn, which was how we were able to get some level of public information on the Maples. This in short makes getting intel on the Alola crew all the more difficult, though we can confirm all their parents are alive by the most recently filed tax records…"
"So until we send out somebody to check out the place, we won't know," asked Treecko.
"Yes."
"Ok. So you've covered nearly everyone. But what about Dawn then?" asked Brock.
With a sigh, Turtwig replied. "Dawn…her records are where things get complicated. While we couldn't on her, much like Serena, we did find her mother's. But concerningly, it lists her as deceased roughly fourteen years ago. The cause of death was listed as childbirth, implying that Dawn might've been born, but unlike Serena, we have no confirmation of her existence, like Ash did meeting Serena at Oak's summer camp in this timeline, unless any of you fellas met Dawn sometime in this timeline. Anyone?"
…
Seeing as nobody responded with a yes, and had frowns on their faces, Turtwig could clearly tell they hadn't lucked out with Dawn.
"Does that mean that Dawn…might actually not exist in this timeline?" stuttered Ash with worry.
"Let's not come to conclusions – the same could be said for Iris, Bonnie, and the Alola crew, but we're confident that they're all out there somewhere.
Don't worry Ash – we'll find them." reassured Turtwig.
"…Ok I guess. I'm just worried – like they're my friends and all…"
"Ash. Have faith."
"You're right Pichu."
"I hope that wherever she is, she's alright. Though right now, I wouldn't say no to Gible and his draco meteor attack." chuckled Brock.
"What do you mean Brock?" asked Misty.
"The thing is, Ash's Gible has the odd ability that 99% of the time, outside a major battle, his draco meteor attack will home in on Dawn's Piplup – I had a sudden thought of using Gible to track her down, assuming Piplup is with her."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a Gible promptly sneezed.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
After that discussion, the group decided to fly to Pallet town, where they would park the AFK-290 on the rocky hills at the ranch, thus ensuring that they would have access to their tech and remain hidden. This would also allow Ash to catch everyone and be able to immediately start training as a group.
But before they took off, there were a few things that needed to be done.
Firstly, Brock had decided to join Ash and Misty just like the good old days, even if they were going to spend the next few weeks in Pallet Town. And since Pallet Town was just a few hours away from Pewter by bus (or ten minutes via the AFK-290), he could pop over to Pewter whenever he wanted.
Next, Ash proceeded to catch Hoothoot, who would somehow hopefully set things up with the Professor's Alakazam so that they wouldn't have to deal with Prof. Oak prying into the fact that somehow, Ash now had dozens of Pokémon from regions well beyond Kanto without any trades and while being a trainer for less than two months. How that was going to work he didn't know, but he wasn't going to question it if it worked out.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
Twenty minutes later, the group was flying just over Pallet town while Ash caught nearly sixty Pokémon over a span of five minutes save for Totodile, who was flying the plane to the ranch and dropping off the trio at the edge of Route 1 – the last thing they needed was for someone to wonder as to how Ash ended up at his house without even walking through town.
And one short walk later, Ash knocked on the front door of his house, ever so slightly nervous about introducing, or reintroducing his friends to his Mom.
"Ash?"
"Hi Mom."
"It's good to have you home. And are these your friends? Oh, where are my manners, come on in dears" welcomed the Ketchum matriarch as she went to get the trio some snacks.
A few minutes later, Delia started running down the expected list of questions she had for her son.
"So, introduce me to your friends Ash."
"Yeah. This is Brock and Mist-Misty."
"Hello Mrs. Ketchum." introduced Brock.
"Umm…hi" replied Misty nervously. While she had known Delia Ketchum for a long time in the previous timeline, this visit was different, ignoring the whole 'meeting somebody for the first time in the current timeline after knowing them for years in the previous one' conundrum. Now, she was meeting not just Delia Ketchum, Ash's mom, but the mother of her boyfriend.
And as the introductions were made, Ash decided to raise a point that he was ever so slightly hesitant to tell his mom about.
"Umm…mom. The thing is…Misty and I are dating- "
Said statement was promptly interrupted by Mr. Mime blowing a trumpet.
"Dating?
…
Oh, sweetie, I'm so happy for you two. My baby boy is all grown up!" squealed Delia as she grabbed Ash and Misty into a hug.
"Mom! Air!" wheezed Ash – Delia Ketchum had one strong grip, for hugs at least.
"Misty dear, welcome to the family. All I ask is that you take care of my son – a strong woman in his life is all that Ash needs to be successful."
'I wonder how Mama Ketchum would react if operation '1800-000-HAREM' were successful' thought Pichu as he observed the exuberant expression on Delia's face. And why did he have the feeling that Delia was already planning the wedding…and the baby shower…and the baby shower after that…and the one after that…
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
And thus, the next six weeks were spent in Pallet town, with Ash training with his Pokémon at the ranch alongside Misty and Brock who helped along the way. Delia was more than happy to have Ash and his friends at home, though Ash and Misty did have an embarrassing moment when they found a box of condoms on Ash's pillow on their first night back.
But there was an interesting moment just three days into their training montage at Pallet Town.
X - - - X - - - X - - - X - - - X
"Hey Pichu? I was wondering about you guys?"
"Wondering what Ash?"
"Umm…you guys said that you did all sorts of stuff to figure out what exactly was going on with my whole 'Ash Ketchum is not ok' and with covering up all the legendary plots and situations we end up in-"
"Yes"
"Well, what exactly was it that you guys do?"
…
"This is a question that ole Bulby can answer better. Oye Bulby!"
"Coming ya AAA battery! What is it?"
"Fill in Ash on what we've been up to all these years."
"Well…this is gonna take a while.
Following up on the various disasters that happened throughout the first two years of our journeys, we more or less figured out that we were horribly outmatched and outclassed against any major threat against us, with one of the worst ones being the Greenfield Crisis, with Mama Ketchum getting kidnapped and Charizard, our heaviest hitter at the time, nearly getting ripped to shreds by that Unown wished up Entei, and the rest of us barely made it out of there alive.
Add in the kidnapping attempts on Mama Ketchum a short while later by Team Rocket, and well, it's safe to say that that was a rather stressful time.
And it wasn't exactly getting better by the time our adventures in Hoenn came about – there were at least four different bounties on your head in the criminal underworld, totaling to nearly ¥30,000,000, shit really hit the fan.
Fortunately, by the events of the Tree of Beginning, we had a surge in our capabilities in dealing with threats against you, us, and everyone else close to us thanks to an event that occurred a few weeks prior.
Just days after you fought Agatha at the Viridian City Gym, we ran into the masked Marauder who had somehow captured another Celebi-"
"WHAT!"
"-Relax, we rescued her and dealt with that bastard. But the thing is, she wanted to reward us and after a bit of brainstorming, we sent the majority of Team Ketchum's Pokémon ten years into the past.
"Why the heck would you guys want to do something like that?"
"Hold your Ponyta's, I'm getting to that.
Now once we were in the past, we did a few questionable activities that resulted in all forty-six of us getting human identities and a bit of cash. And with a promise of paying for some of Dr. D's hardware within five years, we acquired ten life model decoys (LMDs) that with a bit of Hollywood magic looked exactly like regular humans.
Parallelly, within the first six months, Noctowl, Glalie, and nearly half of the Tauros force mastered Psychic through a combination of TM's and a lot of practice. And with that, we could now manipulate the LMDs to look and behave like humans, along with the built-in Universal Translator-inators that Dr. D added in for free with the LMD purchase, thus allowing us to engage in modern society like humans, though we did have to use everstones to prevent us from evolving.
With that, we did all kinds of things like setting us all up with human educations and getting onto the investing scene. And with our future knowledge of the stock market, ¥10,000 obtained from questionable sources became nearly ¥2,000,000 within just three years."
"Wow." remarked Ash in awe. "it all sounds impossible…"
"Hey. If Meowth from the Trio could build a new mech every other day with no proper education in engineering, then we can set up a very profitable multi-regional business. Now, where was I…yeah! And thanks to all that money, we set up a proper investment firm that racked in profits like crazy and allowed us to do shit like going to college. And roughly three to four years later, most of us had full fledge degrees, with Noctowl having several Doctorates, Bayleef having a medical license, both Totodile and Squirtle becoming Air Force pilots, Glalie becoming an Army Sergeant, several of the Tauros getting skillsets in various fields like Michelangelo becoming a financial agent, Derrick becoming an accountant, and Humper running our Miltank operations-"
"What'd ya mean by Miltank operations?"
"It's one of our most profitable endeavors. Well…you know how all Miltank are female and how all Tauros are male?"
"Yeah."
"The thing is, in order to get more Miltank, they have to breed with certain Pokémon. And a unique thing about Miltank is that they don't produce their delicious milk unless they're regularly bred by a strong Pokémon. Also, the quality and quantity of milk obtained is dependent on the male breeding said Miltank – its stamina, health, move sets, capabilities in a variety of tasks, etc.
One of those compatible species is Tauros. And well, the Tauros herd are in the top 5% in terms of all the Pokémon that Miltank farms want for breeding their Pokémon. The real kicker is that they're willing to pay good money for a herd of studs – a week of renting out our Tauros herd gets us nearly $30,000 and we send the herd for their stud sessions once a month to various Miltank farms across the world. It also keeps the herd healthy – Tauros are an aggressive species and regular sex prevents them from growing crazy and somehow powers up their psychic capabilities to that of a mature Drowzee.
And with the average Miltank able to produce milk for up to sixty years, a farm of two hundred Miltank will call upon the studs every six weeks, netting us nearly $180,000 per farm per year, give or take a bit depending on the local tax laws. Seeing as we service nearly 57 different farms from all over the world each year, we make just under $10,260,000 a year.
In simple terms, the Tauros herd alone makes us absurdly rich, enough to fund getting ARK enterprises off the ground during our first year and got us to the point where the net value of all our assets was just under $7,300,000,000 in just five years. And right before the end of the previous timeline, our net worth was at $213,000,000,000. Two-hundred-and-three billion Unovan dollars. Billion with a B."
"That…that's a lot of money."
"I know we're rich, but like, that's just plain filthy rich!" stuttered a shocked Pichu, genuinely surprised at how far they had financially come.
"Well, we were. Now, we have to start from scratch, though we do have the advantage of having the skills and knowledge to rival that of a human with twenty years' worth of experience in various fields. Give us a few months and we'll have a half-decent portfolio up and running in no time.
Well, after building up a sizeable fortune, we set up an underground bunker comparable to some Unovan military bases in size and capabilities under the ranch about two years before you started your journey, though, we did have to be careful the next four years to avoid breaking the space-time continuum by running into our past selves. Because even with the help of Celebi, you gotta be careful of time-traveling.
And as we trained up the new Pokémon that joined our family from every new region you explored, we taught them what we learned and had an even more capable force, with one of our major objectives being playing clean up after every legendary encounter you had, even if there were a few we couldn't cover up like Alamos Town or Dahara City. Nevertheless, we were able to cover up your involvement for the most part and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.
And alongside all that, we were capable of actively defending you and our close friends and family and started focusing on what the heck was wrong with you from the beginning of Unova and how it affected us.
And then, the Manalo Conference happened, or more specifically what happened after. As far as we know, you spent two weeks at home, after which you left for somewhere, though we couldn't track you anymore.
You no longer had a Pokédex on hand-"
"I had my Rotom Phone which was a Pokédex-"
"Those blasted fucking things – stupid, useless, possessed circuit boards!"
"Hey! My Rotom Phone was pretty cool with all sorts of features!"
"While that may be true, only the Pokédex made by Prof. Oak or the ones made by regional professors like Prof. Rowan that are approved by Oak have the luxury of being connected to the private Pokédex satellite network, making them near impossible to hack or track unless you have access to Prof. Oak's systems like we do, seeing as the main terminal is just a short walk away and I know what Oak's credentials are.
It's why the Mirage Master was so interested in the Professor's access codes – it would not only give him access to decades of research on nearly all known Pokémon but also access to the secure data of not just the best trainers around the world but even the private data of the head honchos at the Pokémon League, including that of the Champions!
And once you were no longer using one of those, we could no longer securely track you, not without giving away your location to other parties, something we didn't dare do lest you end up in a bad situation and we can't bail you out. Add in the fact that any attempts to track a lot of our assets during that time were a mess with the whole 'Global Technology Fuckfest', and I wouldn't be surprised if we hadn't had any success tracking you digitally, which combined with the space-time disruptions that affected Staraptor made most of our attempts at sending fliers to track you down worthless.
"And then, you were in Slateport City and reality went poof!"
"Wow. I think…I think I'll think over this -it's a lot to process. And I'm proud of you guys for being the most awesome Pokémon on the planet!"
"Right back at ya Ash" smiled Bulbasaur.
Several minutes later, Pichu approached him, a concerned expression on his face.
"You didn't tell him everything?" asked the electric type accusingly.
"I've already dumped a crap ton of information on him to deal with. And while Ash is a great guy, I don't think he's ready to handle the fact that we have a body count in the hundreds…"
"But they were all evil criminals…"
"Ash is many things, but a guy who can comprehend and accept taking a life is not one of them. Let him believe that we just sent all the criminals and assassins we encounter to prison – ignorance is bliss, and realistically, as long as he doesn't ever encounter them, it's best to leave the matter be."
…
"Fine. I can't say no to your logic. And your right, Ash doesn't need to deal with the baggage of knowing that a good number of his Pokémon are professional killers" sighed Pichu.
X - - - X - - - Chapter End - - - X - - - X
My current reference to the previous timeline goes under the assumption that Ash was born in 2000, honestly just to be as close as in line as I can think of regarding the release schedule of the later seasons of the anime – it's far from perfect, but it's the best that works out for the story – it's why I shifted to 1998 in this timeline, aligning with the release date of episode 1 outside of Japan.
I equivalate LaRousse City to Hong Kong in the real world as a business hub.
Le Temps Kalosian = Apologies to any French readers, but with Google Translate, this roughly translates to "The Kalosian Times"
