Ash did have fun swimming, despite the sun doing little to warm the cold ocean current. By the time lunch rolled around he was shivering and eager to get back shore to warm up.

Jack and Jill were still lying on the beach, still working on their tan. Ash didn't get how they did it. At least with normal tanning you could take a warm nap.

"Oh, come on, it's not that cold," Misty said as she trudged out of the water behind Ash and Brock.

"I'm hungry too," Ash said, shivering and rubbing his arms. "Let's hurry up and eat."

"Oh, you lasted longer than I thought you would," Jill said as they passed back by her and Jack.

"These two are just wimps," Misty rolled her eyes.

"Hungry wimps," Brock said.

"I want lunch!" Ash repeated, hoping that Misty would get the message.

"Oh, where are you going to eat?" Jill inquired, leaning on an elbow.

"Don't know," Ash moaned. His stomach growled in accompaniment.

"Have you tried the sushi place on Main Street yet?" Jill asked. "It's delicious."

"Where on Main?" Ash asked, eyes wide and leaning forward.

Jill looked down at herself and then over at Jack. She then glanced up at the sky where clouds were starting to roll in.

"I think we're done for today," she told her companion. "Let's go get some sushi."

The sushi place was as good as promised. Ash, Brock and Misty were joined by Jack and Jill for lunch and the two groups started talking. It turned out that Jack and Jill were decompressing after a stressful project that had been a prerequisite for someone else's project in their company. Only the follow up hadn't gone well.

"Our competitors surprised us," Jill said. "They moved in before we could solidify our hold on the market."

"It's not fair," Jack slumped forward and moaned. "I worked days and nights. I got gray hairs working on my part. I even dug up a grave-"

"What?" Misty and Brock exclaimed.

"Oh, just a bit of company slang for unsealing old archives," Jill said quickly. "Seriously, they're like a graveyard."

"And it was all for nothing," Jack moaned.

"Still, maybe…." Jill began, her shoulders slumping as she looked down at the table.

"Yeah…" Jack trailed off, also looking down.

"What?" Ash asked, between stuffing rolls of sushi into his mouth.

Hey, gimme another one! Pikachu piped up from beneath the table where he was eating a roll that Ash had slipped him.

"Nothing," Jill shook her head.

"What do you have planned for the rest of the day?" Jack asked.

"We didn't plan that far ahead," Misty admitted. "I want to do some more snorkeling, but these two weaklings-"

"Misty, most people haven't conditioned themselves to swim in cold water for hours on end," Brock shot back, giving her a mild glare.

"Well, most people are wimps then!"

"Have you tried the surfing around here yet?" Jill asked.

"Surfing?" Ash asked. He knew what surf was, but not surf-ing.

"I don't know how to surf," Brock replied.

"I don't have a board," Misty said.

"They're renting them out," Jill said.

"There's a place about a mile down the beach we were at," Jack added.

"We can teach you-" Jill began.

"-if you want," Jack finished.

Brock and Ash looked at each other and shrugged.

"Sure," they said.

The rest of the day was spent with Jack and Jill, who taught Brock and Ash the basics of surfing. Ash noticed he actually got colder even faster surfing than swimming, so he made sure to take plenty of breaks to warm up and hang out on the beach with Pikachu. Brock joined him during those breaks and Misty took the opportunity to repay Jack and Jill for their lessons by teaching them a new stroke.

When the sun started to set, Ash, Brock, and Misty decided to go back to their hotel room, but agreed to meet up with Jack and Jill again the next day. When they got back to their room, they ordered out again and watched TV until they fell asleep.

They started the next morning with a wailord watching tour in which they got to see a pod migrating north from Hoenn to feed on migrating fish and water-types. To Ash's disappointment they didn't get close enough to talk to any of them.

Afterwards Jill and Jack convinced them to go on another tour, this time of the coast via a speedboat. They didn't see as many interesting sights, but riding the boat itself was fun.

Returning to shore, they decided to split up. Jill, Brock, and Misty went to eat at a fancy restaurant while Ash and Jack sampled food trucks and stands along the beach, Pikachu riding on Ash's shoulder.

It was after trying their fourth place that Ash noticed something off with Jack. The young man's shoulders were slumped, his steeps dragged, and he was looking down at the sand.

Ash didn't quite know what it meant, so he decided to just ask.

"What's up with you?"

"Huh?" Jack looked up, tilting his head as he looked at Ash. "Oh. I've just gone through some bad things recently."

"Were you in Saffron?" Ash asked, guessing at what the 'things' might have been.

Jack paled at the mention of the city, but shook his head.

"I could have been, but, uh, well… we weren't due to be sent there until after the battle," Jack said. "No, it was something our prior assignment put us into contact with."

"Oh," Ash said. "What?"

"Nothing I could tell you without being killed- uh, sorry," Jack said waving his hands in front of him when he caught Ash's alarmed expression. "More office slang, it means being fired. Uh… we don't talk to the people who've left the company, so it's like they're dead to us."

"That's stupid," Ash said.

"Well… maybe," Jack said, a wan smile on his face. "But I can't talk about the specifics of what happened to us. It was just dangerous. And I don't think… well, I don't like… well… I… it was just bad."

"Bad for you?"

"No," Jack shook his head. "Just… something I never thought I'd take part in. I believe in our company, but-"

"Whatever they had you do wasn't worth it?" Ash asked.

"I don't think I want to accomplish our goals if we have to do that," Jack answered. "I haven't slept well since, well, then."

"Oh, nightmares?" Ash asked. "I know a bit about those."

Jack gave him a quick look.

"Night terrors?"

Ash tried to remember what those were for a moment and how they were different from nightmares. He thought Pocket Watch had hypnotized a doctor about them once and seemed to recall the doctor explaining the difference between them and nightmares.

The boy didn't remember the explanation, only that there was a difference.

"No," Ash shook his head. "Just nightmares. Bad memories."

Jack winced.

They continued walking down the beach for a minute, moist and cold sand squishing between their bare toes.

"Were… were you at Saffron?" Jack asked eventually.

"Yeah, but the nightmares started before then," Ash answered. "I mean, they've been getting worse since Saffron, but they were pretty bad before."

I'll say, Pikachu muttered as he followed by Ash's feet.

Ash was looking out at the sea, so he missed how Jack's face paled and shoulders slumped.

"I mean they got pretty bad after the second time Team Rocket tried to kill me, but I got over that quickly," Ash continued on, still looking out at the sea. "Well, sort of…"

"Second time-!" Jack gasped. Ash glanced over and saw that the man had a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah, they tried to kill me two times before Saffron," Ash said, turning to look back at the sea. There was something hypnotic about it, the vast ever moving expanse that stretched beyond the horizon. He could stare at it and not think for hours.

"But why would w- they do that?" Jack asked, his voice hollow and hoarse.

"Well, the first time they were trying to hunt Misty and kill her and they found me by accident, and then decided to kill me," Ash explained. "The second time they were trying to kill some scientist and I helped protect him."

"But- but- but," Jack stammered.

"They really hurt my back that second time," Ash went on, still not noticing Jack's behavior, still looking at the sea and not thinking. "I've still got a big scar. But the closest they got to killing me was Saffron where they hurt me inside a lot and broke a bunch of bones."

Jack was pale as death or snow.

"But that's all over," Ash said, turning around to face Jack. "Unless Team Rocket's stupid enough to do something big again, I don't think I'll have to deal with them!"

"And- and what if they do something big soon?" Jack asked in a whisper. "What will you do then?"

"Oh, if I can, I'll try and stop them!" Ash declared without needing to think. Beside the boy, Pikachu slapped a paw on his face and groaned.

Not if Brock, Misty, and I have anything to say about it, Pikachu muttered.

"I'm three for three against them!" Ash went on. "I'm not scared of them! And if I can stop them from doing evil things to people then I will!"

"But… your nightmares?" Jack asked. "Aren't they because of what Team Rocket did to you?"

"Oh, no," Ash said, looking down at the beach, suddenly feeling all empty and heavy. "That was- that was someone else."

"Are you-"

"Let's talk about other stuff," Ash said, looking around the beach. "We need to find somewhere to eat."

"Wow, she's really more interested in diving in the cold than eating?" Jill asked. She and Brock were sitting at a bar in a themed seafood restaurant.

"I'm not saying that she made a deal in a previous life to be born to a water-type gym," Brock said, "but if that does turn out to be the case, I won't be surprised."

"To each their own," Jill said, shrugging and then sipping her beer.

"You're just saying that because you won't have to deal with her when she gets a cold," Brock said, sipping his fruity drink, complete with umbrella.

"I thought idiots couldn't catch colds?" Jill smirked.

"I don't think I've seen Aaron catch a cold," Brock remarked. "So, you might be right, but Misty is only an idiot some of the time, which means I should stock up on the chicken soup."

"Heh!" Jill continued smirking. "Well, I've seen Jaaaack catch a cold before, so I don't think it's true that idiots don't catch colds."

"Wow, trouble speaking already?" Brock returned her smirk. "You must be a lightweight."

"Oh, I heard your order, you aren't one to talk," Jill shot back.

"Well, either you're a lightweight, or you've been drinking when I wasn't watching," Brock replied.

"I sometimes wish…" Jill sighed and then looked down at her beer and the countertop.

Brock frowned.

"Something the matter?"

"Oh, just down in the dumps," Jill said with a shrug, still staring into her beer.

"And you're down in the dumps… because, I'm just guessing here, something's the matter?" Brock pushed on.

"You know, you give the impression of being less sarcastic than you actually are, did you know that?"

"My sense of sarcasm has had quite a workout after dealing with Aaron and Misty for half a year."

"Nothing for a sense of sarcasm like having to put up with co-workers for friends for prolonged periods of time, that's the truth," Jill said with a sigh and a smile.

"True. But sarcasm, friends, and coworkers don't explain why you're studying your beer like a student with a textbook on the morning of a big exam," Brock pointed out. "What's the matter, or do you not want to talk about it?"

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to talk about it in general terms," Jill replied with another sigh. She took another drink from her beer.

"So, the company we work for," Jill went on, "I'm… well, I've seen a new side of them lately. And I'm starting to think that they… they don't value us."

"I mean, that was a common flaw with pre-Great War corporations, at least according to the records," Brock said. "I'm not surprised that modern day corporations are starting to have the same problem now that the world's reconnecting."

"Yeah, but we always thought that ours was different," Jill replied. "But I'm coming to realize that they see us as… expendable. We've tackled some…. really difficult projects for them, but they don't seem to… value us as long-term investments, to put it one way."

"They threatened to fire you?"

"No, they gave us a dangerous project, which is fine," Jill explained. "But I've been looking back and I'm pretty sure they didn't care if we lived or died, so long as it got finished."

"That… I'm not a lawyer or a cop, but that doesn't seem legal," Brock replied.

"Oh, it was perfectly legal," Jill said and Brock was convinced she was lying even if she gave no sign of it. "It's just… I thought they cared about us. Maybe not personally, but there's always been a sense of loyalty from the higher ups for everyone in Te- the company. And I've seen examples of it, but… they used us as ba- they were willing to lose us without a second thought if it meant they got what they needed."

"General loyalty is different than acute loyalty," Brock said. "Just because your boss or your boss's boss has loyalty towards their employees as a whole doesn't mean they have it for you personally. When I ran the Pewter gym, I cared about all the gym pokemon- okay, bad example because the Pewter City gym was small enough that I could care about all the gym pokemon individually.

"Alright," Brock started over, "for the bigger gyms like Celadon, the gym leader cares about the gym pokemon as a whole, but there's too many of them to care about individually."

"But would Erika treat any of the gym pokemon as expendable?" Jill asked.

"No," Brock shook his head. "At least she's not supposed to and I know her well enough to say that she would never do that. But there have been examples of gym leaders using the gym pokemon as bait or as a sacrifice. And those gym leaders justified their decisions by talking about their general loyalty to the gym and the gym pokemon. They claimed that the pokemon were sacrificed for the good of the rest."

"Were they wrong?" Jill asked, looking up from her beer.

"Yes," Brock answered in a voice that brooked no disagreement. "If the need really was that great, then they should have sacrificed themselves and their own team, or let gym trainers volunteer to make that sacrifice. The only time you'd let gym pokemon do that is if they explicitly volunteered and there was no time to think of another option."

"I see," Jill said and then looked back down at her beer. "I guess we would have been willing to do the project, even if we had known that we were going to be considered expendable… but they never asked us. Did they not want us to know? Or did they not care?"

"Yeah," Brock sighed. "That's the question, isn't it?"

"Do they not take us seriously? We play the clown a lot… okay, it's not so much playing as being clowns," Jill admitted. "But we've always taken our commitment to Te- the company seriously. Jack was disturbed by what they did with the, uh, final product of our project, but I figured there was something I was missing, something that would make it alright …"

"Until you realized what they were willing to do with you?" Brock finished for her.

"Yeah…" Jill sighed and took another swig of beer.

They sat in silence for a while.

"I just don't know what to do," Jill confessed.

"You gotta weigh your options," Brock said. "You can either confront them about how they treated you and what they did with your results-"

"We don't have anywhere near enough clout to do that," Jill said.

"You can keep your head down while they send on more projects where you might be bait," Brock went on. "Or you can leave."

Jill flinched at that last one. Brock gave her a sidelong glance and took another sip of his drink.

"I'm guessing that they've got a pretty serious non-compete," he said.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Jill replied.

"You know, if they're 'harassing' former employees or whatever you want to say your 'corporation' does to people who leave," Brock said with air quotes, "there are resources."

"I'll pretend you mean lawyers," Jill said, glancing over at Brock with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, don't worry, I don't care about whatever it is you actually do," Brock rolled his eyes. "I'm not a gym leader anymore. Unless you're planning a terrorist attack or you're going to try and harm Aaron, I won't be getting involved… unless you make me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jill said blandly, taking another swig of her drink. "And, hypothetically, if I did, it wouldn't change anything, because we're here on vacation."

"Nice to know," Brock said with a lopsided grin. "And I can promise I won't be rummaging through your suitcases looking for whatever you smuggle."

Jill's face went flat and then she smirked.

"Please," she drawled. "I am a tax paying citizen who pays all her dues on any high value goods I transport on behalf of myself or my company."

"Sure…" Brock rolled his eyes. "That's why you're on the coast talking in veiled terms about an organization that couldn't be legal no matter how you slice things."

"It doesn't matter if we worked for Silph, the League, or are a vendor to one of the Hoenn cults, we damn well earned this vacation."

"If you did business with one of the Hoenn cults you could be relaxing on a tropical beach instead of here."

"You'd think so, but people never want to do business where the good beaches are. Too many tourists getting in the way. And all the best places to eat and hang are off the beaten path, less crowded, better for business meetings."

"I'm a provincial boy," Brock replied. "I wouldn't know."

"Maybe we should retire to Alola," Jill sighed. "Find a deserted island far off the main seaways and then spend our days playing with tropical pokemon."

"Just going to hope that the guardian pokemon and the local cops are more lenient than the League and the cops here?" Brock asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know what you're implying," Jill said innocently. "I'm an honest tax paying citizen."

"And Aaron regularly swaps places with his secret twin," Brock rolled his eyes. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on it."

The two groups met back up after lunch and then spent the afternoon and early evening seeing the sights, going on more ocean pokemon watching tours, playing games on the boardwalk, and then they settled down for dinner.

"How long are you going to be here?" Ash asked as he tore into his fancy barbequed food stacked on three different plates.

"We're leaving tonight," Jack answered.

"Gotta get back before we're due at work," Jill added.

"That's too bad," Misty said. "One more day together would have been nice."

"Any chance you'll run into us later?" Brock addressed the question to Jack, but gave Jill a knowing look out of the corner of his eye.

"Hopefully not," Jack said. "It would be-"

"Very boring if you ran into us at our day job," Jill finished for him. "You pokemon trainers might have to deal with special attacks blowing up in your faces, but you've never had to risk death by powerpoint before."

Brock shuddered.

"One of the unfortunate parts of being a gym leader was the budget meetings," he confessed. "I know what death by powerpoint is like."

"Ha!" Jill gave him a cruel smirk. "Know our pain!"

"I'd rather know another drink," Jack said, putting his empty glass on the table.

"I'd like to know a drink, period," Misty grumbled, crossing her arms. "No coffee, no alcohol. You all are the worst."

"You can wait until you're older like the rest of us did," Jill said.

"Your sisters would kill me if they knew you had any alcohol," Brock said with a shudder.

"Who cares about drinks when there's food," Ash said between bites.

"Oh, I cannot wait for puberty to hit you," Misty grumbled. "When mornings start to hurt, then you'll want coffee too."

"Ya know, you still have to get up to make or buy the coffee," Brock pointed out. "It doesn't help with the rolling out of bed part of waking up."

"Shut up and let me have my dreams."

"It was fun to see you," Ash said, ignoring Misty.

"Yeah, it was nice to have some company," Jack replied.

"And to split the bill," Brock smirked.

"You suckered us in on that!" Jill complained, gesturing at Ash who was making his way through all of his entrees. "He's a kid! Where does he put it all?"

"Buyer beware," Brock replied, still smirking.

"Oh, screw you," Jill complained.

Everyone had a laugh at that.

AN: I'd like to thank Amationary for beta reading.

I'm trying to do things on a couple of different levels with this chapter. Eventually, when everything's finished, I hope people rereading the story will notice what was set up here.

Anyway, buffer is being built, but slowly. As for getting back on a weekly release schedule, that's not going to happen for a little while longer, depending on how the follow months go.

The next chapter of Symbiotic will be released 4/20/2022.

Don't forget to review! Concrit is welcome!