Who's that Pokemon?
It had been a day since their… experience in the trap house. They had made their way back to the road and continued on their way in the correct direction.
In related news, Ash was no longer allowed to walk in the front of the group. He found this to be an unjust sentence for a crime he did not commit.
They skipped training that night, and after the excitement of the day, the majority decided that they weren't up to it. The dissenters were soundly ignored.
The next day was bright and clear, a lovely contrast to help banish the lingering fears and thoughts from the previous day's adventure. By the time they stopped for lunch everyone was ready for training.
Ash, having experienced a new training style via Karen, decided to try something new with his own team.
"Alright listen up!" He marched down the line of his teammates and did his best to use the strict tone that Karen tended to use while training. Perhaps accidentally, he added a few inflections from Lt. Surge for the extra oomph.
"My name is Ash Ketchum! And it is my job to turn you all into fighting machines of pure power and muscle!" He declared finishing his march and turning around to repeat the action. Someone snorted; he ignored them.
"A Pokemon is determination! A being of pure willpower and typing! But there are no Pokemon here today! Not yet! But I see in you all potential! Raw and untapped! Ready to burst forth like a blazing Hyper Beam!" He faced his team as he finished.
Sunny and Selene seemed to be taking this seriously, standing at attention. Pikachu, the slacker, was hunched and giving him an exasperated stare. Eevee just looked bewildered by the entire scenario and Pidgeotto seemed like she hadn't decided what to think of this yet.
Focusing on Sunny, Ash stepped up to the Charmander. "What's your name Private?"
The Charmander blinked at him and his posture slackened, he had not expected to be singled out. "Private?" He briefly muttered before getting a hold of himself and standing tall once more. "Sir, Sunny, Sir!"
"Sunny huh?" Ash did his best to slip into character. "And what is it you hope to achieve here Sunny?"
"Sir! I want to become an unstoppable force of fire and power while overcoming my previous trauma, sir!" He dutifully responded.
Pikachu snorted, louder this time, and this seemed to be the last straw as Eevee and Pidgeotto also cracked. The three began giggling and Ash drooped.
"Alright, yeah, this isn't working for us." Ash decided and sat down.
"I'm still not quite sure what we were doing." Selene pointed out. "You just told us to line up because you had an idea."
"It was an interesting attempt?" Eevee suggested diplomatically.
"No, it was dumb." He rejected her proposal. "I thought that Karen has her team's training down so well I wanted to try something like it. But I don't like doing that and not enough of you take it seriously."
Sunny raised his arm. "Not you Sunny, you did great." He put his arm down.
"I mean it's not like our normal way of training doesn't work." Pidgeotto reminded him.
"If it's not broken, don't fix it," Pikachu added. "And if it is broken, fix it just enough so the next person thinks that they broke it."
Almost on instinct Ash went over everything he had ever broken and debated how likely it was Pikachu had gotten to it before he had. He shook off the thoughts before they could spiral too far though.
"Fair enough, just wanted to try something new but it doesn't feel right." Ash agreed with Pidgeotto's reasoning. "Let's get started, oh one second."
With a bit of concentration his illusionary duplicate appeared, it was getting easier and easier to maintain it just standing there. Getting the movements took a bit more effort but the practice was paying off.
With his illusion now made manifest, Ash started the real spiel of today's training session. "Most of the training you guys have been doing the past few days has been pretty general. But we need to focus on how to deal with the next gym."
"Preparing beforehand this time?" Eevee questioned. "That does seem like a smart idea."
"We've done it before." Pidgeotto mentioned offhandedly, "on the way to Brock Pikachu and I learned steel-type moves. We haven't done much since though."
"That was because I wanted you guys to become stronger overall, we had focused on one thing while getting ready for Brock and that left us with that whole provisional badge situation," Ash admitted.
"I thought you just didn't think of it, to be honest," Pikachu admitted.
"I think of lots of things," Ash told him. "I just don't say all of them."
"Really?" his yellow friend deadpanned.
"Okay I say a lot of them." he allowed. "But not all of them."
"We should have plenty of time to train still." Sunny thought out loud. "I mean, how much farther could Saffron City be?"
Eevee winced a small bit. "Maybe a day or two? It's not that big a distance between Saffron and Vermillion and we've been on the road for almost five days now. To tell the truth, I'm surprised we haven't arrived yet…"
"Distance is confusing, especially when you follow roads. There's a reason 'as the Murkrow flies' is a saying, a straight line is the fastest route but not always the best route." Pidgeotto inserted her explanation.
Selene hummed, "I'm not sure it's just the roads… we do tend to wander around a lot, not that I'm complaining, we meet interesting people that way!"
Ash nearly fell into form with the conversation. Contributing his thoughts on how they ended up off the beaten trail and taking their time to get places. But he forced himself to refocus, they needed to do some training today.
"I don't know too much about the gym." He started and regained his team's focus. "To be honest it was a bit hard to find information when I looked before starting this journey. All I know is that her name is Sabrina and she's a psychic-type and so are her Pokemon."
Pikachu raised his paw. "How can a human be psychic-type?"
Ash shrugged at him. "I don't know, I just read that she's supposed to be psychic. I don't know how that's going to affect a battle. I guess it means she might be able to read the minds of her Pokemon?"
"And the minds of her opponents…" Eevee suggested with a worried tone.
"That wouldn't be a problem for Ash though would it?" Everyone looked at Pidgeotto. "He's a dark-type, psychic moves and abilities won't work on him."
The Zorua in question felt his face twist as he considered that. On the one hand, it meant that she wouldn't be able to figure out what he was planning in a battle. On the other… "Let's assume she's not going to do that, it seems kind of like cheating."
"How do we fight her then?" Sunny was the one to draw everyone back to the task at hand. "Is there some trick to it or do we just go all out?"
"The funny thing is I'd be the best match-up for this gym." Ash realized. "But since I can't battle we need to think of something else. Dark-type moves, ghost-type moves, and bug-type moves are going to be the most effective."
His team glanced at each other, looking for someone who knew one of those moves to step forward. No one did.
Pikachu tilted his head and flicked his ear. "I uh… I think I might be able to make myself cry on command. Does that count as Fake Tears?"
"Not the most helpful for this." Eevee pointed out. Then reconsidered. "Although if you managed Fake Tears and then hit them with a Thunder Bolt it would probably make up for a lack of type advantage. They shouldn't have an advantage over you either."
"That's a good idea!" Ash eagerly jumped on the opportunity. He hadn't thought of moves like Fake Tears while planning. "We'll try and get that working Pikachu! But I have some ideas for everyone else."
He started with Eevee. "You should be able to learn Bite, it's not too complicated as far as dark-type moves go but you'll probably need some help with getting it started. Once you have it down you'll just need to practice using it to chomp faster and harder."
Next, he turned to Sunny. "You can learn Crunch and Shadow Claw. I don't know how to even start trying to teach a ghost-type move though. Crunch is a bit similar to Bite though so it might be a good starting point to stick with Eevee and I as we figure that out."
"Pidgeotto, you should be able to learn U-Turn, although I'm a bit confused about how to make it work right. It's a bug-type move and you basically just attack and then immediately return yourself." He explained.
She tilted her head at him. "How the heck does that work?"
"I don't know. So while I work with Eevee and Sunny work on some of your other moves and try and get them hitting as hard as you can. If you think of anything that might help let me know." He finished and turned to Selene with a bit of guilt.
"Selene… I have no idea. This gym isn't exactly a bad matchup for you, but you don't have much of an advantage here either." Ash revealed to the fairy-type.
His friend didn't seem too upset, but her expression was still somewhat downcast. "It makes sense I guess, but I don't want to sit around doing nothing either."
"Which is why I have some other ideas for what you can work on!" Ash immediately worked to perk her up. "Like with Fake Tears there are a bunch of other moves that don't deal damage but can still help in battle and you can learn a bunch of them! Light Screen, Reflect, Protect, and Calm Mind, just to name a few! I want to start working on those."
With his words, Selene perked up. "Awesome! Where do I start?"
"Protect, it's a bit similar to Defense Curl but a lot more solid, at the cost of being a lot less mobile. You have to brace yourself and form a defensive shield of sorts. I haven't seen it done before but I've thought about how it works. So start using Defense Curl but instead of focusing it inward, instead, try and push it out. Let me know how that works." Ash elaborated.
With plans in motion, the team set to work training for the upcoming gym battle.
Not too far away Misty was taking a day off. From training at least.
They had stopped near a small pond, partly because she had been looking for any body of water. She had let Goldeen out to get some swimming which the water-locked Pokemon seemed to appreciate.
Starmie was taking the opportunity to regale Goldeen with tales of the parts of the journey the other water-type had missed. Misty may not have quite been able to understand Starmie yet but she seemed to be a decent storyteller. Goldeen was enraptured by her words.
Even Squirtle who seemed to dance the line between apathetic and fully immersed in most things had started listening in, and he had been on a good chunk of their travels now.
Misty however was doing something she had never even thought was possible a short couple of months prior. She was having a conversation with Staryu.
This conversation helped to reinforce the thing she had quickly discovered upon learning to understand him. That being the fact her starter was a giant nerd.
Every time he had been sent out and stood tall with a declaration of 'Staryu' he had been giving an adlibbed fantasy-style speech. Most of his interactions with other Pokemon seemed to be him giving some exaggerated account of either their journey or their plans or whatever happened to come to the front of his mind at the time.
At first, she thought she must have been mishearing him or she still wasn't understanding him correctly or something like that. Nope, that's just the way he was.
"...while I see that it can be used as a foul and underhanded tactic, the Psychic Bubble could be used for repositioning large accommodations of water!" The star shape Pokemon explained with careful pontification. "It could be used with less brutality and more strategic thinking instead!"
Misty wondered if he knew what all those words meant. Regardless he made a good point. "It might not work at the gym, at least not the way it is now. But if you or Starmie used Water Pulse to create a bunch of water then you could use Psychic to move it to spots where it can create pools. That would be helpful for Goldeen at the very least and give us a home turf advantage to boot."
"Precisely my most radiant trainer!" That was a new one, last time it was 'most talented trainer', and before that, it was 'water-wielding trainer.'
After days of listening to her starter's exaggerated language, she finally decided to ask. "Where do you come up with all of this?"
"All of what?" she wasn't sure whether or not to be annoyed by his apparent lack of understanding.
"You know!" She waved her arms vaguely, "that flowery fantasy-style language you keep using! I'm pretty sure Starmie doesn't talk like that." At least she didn't think so.
"You don't remember?" Staryu sounded a bit crestfallen. "I got it from you."
"How did you get it from- wait you mean when I used to read to you?" Misty drudged up the memories.
"Right! Before you were…" Staryu trailed off as he realized he had fallen out of character, "I mean before you truly wielded the title of trainer, when the fiendish mercenaries you share an abode with would drive you to seek solitude!"
She remembered all right, but she hadn't thought about it in years.
When you had three older sisters who were interested in all things girly and found express joy and entertainment in teasing you about not being girly enough, sometimes you wanted to get away and do the girliest thing imaginable.
That being reading books about tabletop fantasy games with a Pokemon while locked in her room.
"See Staryu! This is a wizard!" Eight-year-old Misty flipped the page and pointed out a cloaked figure on the page. The book was a copy of Battles and Behemoths, (Behemoths being some fictional Pokemon based on some old legends.)
"Star." the water-type shook himself in what Misty recognized as a no.
"We're running out of classes." She pointed out. "You liked Paladins and Fighters, why don't you be one of them?"
The Pokemon seemed to consider this but said nothing. This led Misty to reinforce her idea. "You can play it however you want! You don't have to be a super weirdo like a Paladin but you don't have to be a meathead Fighter either!"
Staryu looked at her in curiosity. "Staryu star?"
"Uhhh…" Misty tilted her head and tried to think of an answer to a question she didn't understand. "Well, you could be both! Noble and righteous like a Paladin but with the fighting ability of a Fighter! Like… like a knight!"
This seemed to strike some cord within the Pokemon. "Staryu?"
"Yeah, you can be a noble knight! Ready to smite down the foes of the ocean! I'll be the queen of the kingdom of course and you will be my trust knight, as deft with your sword as with your tongue!"
"Yu Staryu!" The water-type eagerly agreed with her declaration.
"Alright, let's figure out what abilities you have, now depending on if you want to start as a Fighter or a Paladin you'll have to wait before taking levels in the other class, and your hit dice will change depending…"
Misty started laughing. "Oh wow! Is that what gave you the idea? That's amazing! I feel a little bad I haven't thought about that Battles and Behemoths stuff in so long now."
"You have been a tad busy." Staryu reminded her, between the gym and the journey he had a point.
"True." Misty mused. "I haven't completely had it out of my mind. But…" She sighed. "It's kind of hard to play a tabletop roleplaying game when you don't have anyone to play with you.
"There's the two of us and we may convince the remainder of the team to join… perhaps not Squirtle he seems like too much of a rapscallion to willingly join." Staryu contemplated.
"Hmm, you know I bet Ash would join if we asked him. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what Ash would say no to." Misty realized.
"Very little I assume. What about the dark lady, Karen?" Staryu inquired.
"What about Karen?" Misty responded. She didn't like the dark-type trainer very much. She knew that she had tried catching Ash too so she had no real leg to stand on there but there was something about the older girl that rubbed her the wrong way. She couldn't quite put her finger on it though.
"That's a no then." Staryu decided. "Still even if it was just us barring the former bandit and the illusionist that should be enough for an adventure."
"Several adventures," she hoped. "I may not have been putting much serious thought into the game but I have been putting together a bit of a fantasy setting in the back of my mind. I bet with some changes I could make it work as a homebrew setting for a campaign."
Her words immediately got the water-type even more invested than he already was. "Elaborate on the details of your fantastical realm!"
"Alright, so some context, most of the world was swallowed up by water, and island nations started to form. This led to kingdoms becoming isolated from each other…" She continued explaining her story until the group eventually set off on their way again.
All in all, it was a day well spent, just her and her best friend talking about the secret nerd hobby she'd unintentionally spread to him.
Karen claimed they should be arriving at Saffron City by noon the next day, barring any more unforeseen detours. She glared at Ash as she said this and he glowered. It wasn't his fault they got lost sometimes!
Besides, how did she know when they were going to get there for sure? He bet that she would get them lost!
Regardless they were back on their way with a healthy dose of training to help them along.
It had gone well, Eevee had figured Bite out and it looked like Sunny had Crunch figured out but it was a bit hard to tell since Ash had never actually seen it in action before. He figured they could take another spin at it once they made it to the Pokemon Center. No need to immediately rush to the gym again.
Even if he kind of wanted to…
Eevee and Sunny were the best success stories of the day's training but the others had made their progress too. Pikachu had worked out Fake Tears, or at least they thought he did. It was a bit hard to tell but it did put make them feel off guard when he did it.
No one wanted to get shocked twice, once before and once after to check if it worked though.
Pidgeotto was able to attack and then immediately return to her Pokeball but it was hard to tell if it was a bug-type attack and not just a quick swap out. They would need to experiment more.
Selene's Protect was making headway too. While it didn't seem quite perfect yet it could handle a couple of weaker attacks before breaking. She insisted she want to make it into a bubble shield that could protect her from all sides. Ash wasn't sure it would work like that but he'd help her try all the same!
All in all, it had been a good training session and Ash was legitimately proud of his team. It made him want to train even harder too. But he still couldn't just ditch them to do his own training.
It was so frustrating. The three days with his team focusing on their training and three days with Karen focusing on his training seemed like the ideal situation for now but he wished there was a better way to do it.
But for now, he focused on the gym ahead. His training had to be secondary, for now at least.
Although they were just walking right now so there wasn't much training to do. It was always either walking or training or battling wasn't it?
Maybe he should get a hobby like Pikachu did. He seemed to enjoy cooking at least.
He sighed and gave himself a little shake, which disrupted his passengers a bit but they were used to bumps by now. He was getting lost in his thoughts, better to get lost in a conversation instead.
"I wonder what Saffron City is like?" He wondered out loud, hoping to spark a conversation.
"Based on the other cities I've seen I'm going to assume it's big and has lots of people in it." Selene surmised based on her experiences.
"I agree with the puffball." Pidgeotto chimed in. "I'm sure there will be things that set it apart, like how Cerulean City had more parks, Vermillion City had more Pokemon from other regions, and Pewter City had… rocks, but it's just another human city."
"So that means it's going to have lots of humans, and probably lots of Pokemon too?" Sunny checked.
"Most likely," Pidgeotto confirmed.
Sunny made an odd grumbling noise, "I hope we make some new friends there!"
Ash hummed, picking up a train of thought of his own. "I hope we don't run into any more trainers mistreating their Pokemon there. Things were pretty good in Vermillion City, well except for Surge, but I don't know if it might be paranoia."
"It has been a bit since we've run into any Pokemon in really bad situations," Pikachu realized. "It felt like we couldn't go two feet without running into another Pokemon who was being mistreated in some way."
"We probably shouldn't tempt fate…" Selene mused.
Eevee jumped in, "Were there more than just AJ and Damian? You told me about them but you make it sound like there were more."
"Kind of," Pidgeotto told her. "It's a little complicated."
"There was that school we went to, and the river with Oddish, Bulbasaur, and Ribbon Girl, oh and Squirtle of course!" Selene thought back.
"I might have been exaggerating a bit." Pikachu conceded, "But it still happened way more than it should have!"
"Running into it once is too much."Ash agreed with his old friend.
Pidgeotto made a trilling noise. "This conversation is getting too forlorn, let's talk about something more positive."
"Alright." Ash agreed easily, fair enough, it was something he always had in the back of his head but it didn't need to bring down the mood right now.
There was a moment of silence. Selene finally broke it, "So what do we talk about instead?"
The flying-type said nothing, even when the rest of the team gazed at her, waiting expectantly. "Okay, I didn't think of that part, happy?"
Pikachu snorted and Ash giggled. "Sorry, it just seems like you always have things planned out an extra step ahead of us sometimes Pidgeotto."
"That's because I'm the most mature out of all of you." She puffed out her chest feathers.
"Are you really?" Eevee asked, although not in a mocking way. No, Ash was now familiar with this tone, it was the 'time to investigate further' tone.
Pikachu seemed to recognize it too. "Here we go." he sighed.
"Let's see Ash is ten, Pikachu is about six or seven, I'm eight, and I'm not sure about Selene and Sunny, do you two know how old you are?" Eevee asked the final two members of the team.
"I had a birthday with my family before… Damian." Sunny admitted slowly. "I'm not sure how long I was with him for though…"
"I am forty-four moons!" Selene declared her age.
"Wait you're forty-four?" Pikachu sounded bewildered.
Eevee shushed him, "She said moons, not years, I'm going to assume that Clefairy base their ages on how many times they've seen the full moon?" She glanced down at Selene.
"That's right!"
The normal-type nodded, "Meaning she's three years old, almost four."
With that she looked at Pidgeotto, "So far Ash is the oldest of our group, how old are you then Pidgeotto?"
The bird Pokemon shifted uncomfortably on Ash's shoulder. "In the end, what is age but a number, a measuring stick used by the uninformed to make rash judgments-"
"Answer the question!" Pikachu demanded, pointing at her dramatically.
She muttered something, a bit too quiet for anyone else to hear.
"Say again?" Ash asked.
Pidgeotto drooped. "I turned three a couple of weeks before we met, happy?"
Pikachu started cackling but Ash was more surprised than anything else. "Huh, I expected you to be closer to me or older."
"The thing is," Eevee started to regain everyone else's attention, "she may be the second youngest, but she also evolved from Pidgey to Pidgeotto. Sometimes it's an age thing, other times it's about strength, normally some mixture of the two."
"Right." Ash nodded.
"Unless you need an evolution stone." Selene reminded everyone.
"Correct." the evolution Pokemon confirmed the fairy-type's statement. "But that's beside the point. Part of the reason Pidgeotto seems more mature to us-"
"Sometimes at least." Pikachu cut in.
Eevee continued, ignoring Pikachu's interruption, "-is because her brain is more developed than most unevolved Pokemon. A Pokemon that can't evolve at all will develop almost as a human does. Still, a Pokemon that does evolve will usually reach a point where they simply cannot mature anymore unless they evolve."
Huh, that sounded pretty weird. "So that means Pidgeotto might be younger than most of us but since she's, well, Pidgeotto and not Pidgey the age really doesn't matter?"
"Not exactly. Pokemon develop at different rates, look at me, I'm eight years old by human standards but I'm more developed than any human child of the same age would be. And then look at Pikachu, any human six-year-old he interacted with would think he was immature."
Pikachu spluttered in offense while Ash laughed at his expense.
"Pidgeotto still has some time before she reaches an age where she can evolve into Pidgeot, she still needs to grow and develop the way she is now before her body is ready for the next stage. Pokemon who use evolution stones can skip that part of development but it can affect how they behave when in their final form." Eevee continued and glanced around.
"Is everyone understanding me? I learned a lot of this from listening to Bill and reading his notes. It's a bit more advanced than most people are used to I guess." She checked.
"I think I get it. There's a rule that a Clefairy needs to be one hundred and twenty moons before they can undergo the Ritual of Ascension to evolve into a Clefable." Selene mentioned.
"What does evolution feel like?" Sunny asked, having been content to listen to most of the discussion up to now.
"Violent." Pidgeotto commented, breaking her silence. "It's loud and exciting and… you almost don't feel like yourself anymore, except you are but your emotions feel all out of whack and you feel like you can do anything."
"Sounds about right, that's basically how I felt." Pikachu agreed, "of course then I immediately regretted it but yeah the emotions being all over the place sounds about right."
Ash respectfully decided not to elaborate on the exact circumstances of Pikachu's evolution from Pichu. If Pikachu wanted to share then he could.
"That's… scary." Sunny decided. "I like being myself."
"What they're talking about is mostly their hormones going haywire from the sudden metamorphosis." Eevee helpfully explained. "I've only read about it myself but that sounds like what the Pokemon would be feeling when they did it."
"Still though." Sunny muttered. "I mean, I'd like to be stronger, that sounds nice but I don't know, I'm still trying to work out who I am and what I want to do, I don't want to have to try and figure it all out again whenever I evolve."
"We could get you an Everstone." Eevee suggested after a moment of silence.
"Oh yeah!" Ash realized. "That way you wouldn't have to evolve unless you wanted to. We'd have to figure out some way for you to hold onto it but even if you were physically ready to evolve it would be up to you."
"I like that idea." Sunny decided and Ash resolved to look for an Everstone when they made it to Saffron City.
Their conversation turned to other topics as they walked and the team simply took the time to enjoy each other's company, mostly at least. Ash was beginning to pick up on a slight tension between Eevee and Pikachu, he wasn't sure what to make of it yet.
He didn't want to bring it up in front of the whole team and he wasn't sure if it was some argument they had or something but it did worry him. The dark-type would have to ask Pikachu about it when they had a moment.
Misty had been wholly absent from their conversation, she and Staryu had been deeply discussing something. Ash hadn't been paying attention to what they had been talking about but he picked up a few lines here and there.
Something about a castle and knights? Weird.
Karen, who had been leading the pack of trainers and Pokemon had been completely silent though. Even now as the sun was beginning to dip she stayed quiet.
They soon set up camp and went to bed for the night, Karen mentioned she might stay up a bit later to do some training but would go a bit of a distance so she wouldn't bother the others.
With that everyone else turned in for the night and Ash's head was filled with thoughts of the gym battle to come.
She had no idea how she'd ended up in this situation.
That was a lie. Karen knew how she'd gotten here but she didn't know what she had been getting herself into.
It had been so simple at first. She had wanted a Zorua after some investigation she had figured out the boy at the Pokemon Center was a Zorua. Therefore she tried to catch him.
Perhaps not her most thought-out plan but she'd accepted it might not work when she started it. Catching a Zorua was a chance she was unwilling to miss, especially if it meant she didn't have to make a trip to another region.
Nothing that followed had been expected. She figured that her two failure conditions would be either the Zorua got away or the ginger girl he was with was his trainer and not some poor girl he had tricked with his illusions.
Shows what she knew.
She had fibbed when she told the others she was going to train, what she was actually doing was sitting under a tree with Umbreon in her lap while stargazing.
It was hard to call it a hobby since she had never put much thought into it but she liked to just sit and stare at the stars sometimes. It was peaceful and it helped her think.
Instead of training a Zorua, she was now playing shepherd to a literal group of children. Babies. Even if only one of them was human they were still children. It was like herding Meowths.
To be fair she was training a Zorua too, just not her Zorua. That kind of irked her. She hoped she'd be able to convince Ash to come around to her but that seemed less and less likely with each passing day.
"How'd it turn out like this Umbreon?" She asked her starter rhetorically.
"Bree?" The dark-type seemed to ask her. She couldn't truly understand him (and boy that was another wild thing to witness) but she got his point.
"I mean, is this where you thought we'd be five years ago when we started? I thought for sure we'd at least have a champion title under our belt by now." She complained.
"Umbreon." He put his head back down.
"I hope you weren't just mocking me there." Karen rolled her eyes. She felt more relaxed when it was just the two of them. Umbreon had been her partner for years, even before she was a trainer. "But I was a pretty dumb kid, but can you blame me? Kids are dumb! Look at these two!"
Her starter made a familiar purring noise. "Umbre." He was agreeing with her.
"I can't believe I got roped into this. We're wandering through the wilderness with a bratty girl who thinks she's a gym leader and a Zorua who thinks he's a human. Not to mention they have no sense of direction and I feel like if I turned around for five minutes one of them might get themselves killed." She shook her head in despair.
"The worst part is I think I like it. This has been exciting. Watching them just be trainers and have fun. We've been pushing ourselves and I'm proud of how far we've come. But they don't seem to take it as seriously and yet…" she sighed.
"Look at me getting sentimental for some people I've known for less than a week." She groaned and leaned back against the tree. "What is another month of this going to do to me?"
Umbreon nuzzled into her stomach and she smiled and stroked him a bit. "Thanks, Umbreon, I needed that."
She looked back up at the stars, she had been a city kid and it took her a while to get used to how bright and clear they were away from the light pollution of cities. "I'm starting to regret not signing up for the gym challenge this time around. I mean we weren't planning on being in Kanto for long enough to do it but I don't know. Wherever we go next we're going to be doing it though, you hear me!"
"Breon!" Her partner agreed with her.
That was for later though for now she had an agreement to fulfill. Truth be told Ash had been a willing student.
Considering he'd never learned a fighting-type move before she was pleased he'd managed to get Counter down. And while they were still in the early days of testing the limits of his illusions so far they had lived up to expectations.
Despite this, something seemed… off about him. Not in a bad way, but more in a strange way.
"Ash is unusual for a dark-type right? It's not just me?" Karen checked with Umbreon who growled and did a little nod.
"Right, like I know Houndour is a bit excitable but she's still a bit of a puppy and she has her moments but he just seems so… overwhelmingly positive. It's weird to me. I expected a Zorua or Zoruark to be kind of aloof and withdrawn and then he goes and tries to get involved with everyone's business." She shook her head again.
"Have you ever heard the saying reality is stranger than fiction? It means that sometimes the truth is weirder than any lie you could have come up with." Karen explained.
"Well if you take the lie out if it's accurate to our situation."
"I had an idea of how things were going to play out. And what's happened is a whole lot stranger than that." She sighed.
"Alright, it's getting late and I'm just starting to ramble, want to get to bed?" She asked the lump in her lap. There was no sound or movement for a moment. "Oh, I see how it is."
She returned her dozing starter with a fond smirk. "Get some rest sleepy head."
The trainer stood up and started walking back to the campsite, trying to be quiet so she didn't disturb any of the sleepers.
It had been a while since Karen had been to Saffron City, and she wondered what had changed.
There was that new psychic-type gym leader who replaced the old fighting-type one. It would be interesting to see how that battle would go, a dark-type Pokemon versus a psychic-type gym leader.
At the very least it should be interesting.
This chapter was a bit shorter than I intended. In fact about a thousand words shorter. I had another scene at the end but as I was editing I realized it worked better as the start of the next chapter rather than the end of this one.
This chapter is strange in other ways, not much properly happened event wise but instead a lot happened character wise. I set up a lot of things that are important down the line, I explored the characters a bit and how they interact with each other.
It's weird. More happened than what seems to have happened but less than you might think. Wild.
Next chapter will be… interesting at the very least.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to those of you celebrate it and to everyone else happy December 25th! Have a chapter!
Let's do all of them review now!
LEGOBRICK13: Vulpix is the running gag of this story and we have yet to actually see one. Eevee is finally starting to realize what she's gotten herself into. I'm glad you like how ZoruAsh is portrayed in this story too! How do you like Scarlet and Violet now that they've come out? Some people seemed to have found the games actually unplayable based on the bugs I've seen but I barely saw any. I had a lot of fun playing it too, easily one of my favorite Pokemon games now. Also Ash-Greninja got retconned?!
Fn21879: I sent you a PM to help you figure it out, for everyone else who had trouble it is At0mic on archive of our own.
UU Two: There's something going on with the cult, don't worry too much about if for now. Ghost-types are spooky, how will Ash respond to them? Good question!
Grynx: Thank you
Rosescientist: I'm glad you like how I've portrayed the characters and their dynamics! Also Misty's growth, she's an interesting one and I decided to properly introduce something I've been tossing around in my mind this chapter. Sabrina is going to get something she wasn't expecting with Ash, whether that's good or bad is hard to say. As for which starter? I honestly liked all three of them but when it came down it I realized which one I wanted and I'm glad I chose him. Fuecoco everybody!
Lupercus1944: He's back! Ash is ridiculous this is literally canon. Misty and Karen aren't exactly the best of friends, and that started to show this chapter. More to come there. As for their teams… there's a lot of Pokemon there to keep track of, unfortunately I have yet to figure out a way to make them all work properly. Team Rocket wasn't strictly necessary there, but also I felt like their antics fit in that situation. Pidgeotto is becoming self aware.
Phaleon: Glad you liked Staryu's reaction! And the chapter!
The one who reads and writes: Karen has yet to realize its an exercise in futility. Houndour is a puppy, she can be bubbly but Umbreon has seen her unleash her inner darkness, or something edgy like that. I honestly never thought of Pikachu's prejudice as racism but you're kind of right? That's fun to think about. He's got his reasons and he's a bit hypocritical about it. In canon he had human Ash to help him change his mind about humans, since Ash isn't human things go differently.
Fidget the Zoroark Fossil Figh: I'm happy to hear you caught that!
Skullingvon: If you don't read the notes how can I answer you? I talked about Brock way back in the chapter with him. I don't know how I'd use him in the story, but I left the ending the way I did so he could pop in at some point in the future.
Shaonics6: Ash's evolution is a bit touchy. On the one hand it will probably happen eventually, on the other hand you're right about his personality. But the title of the fic is Zorua Trainer. Hmm… (also a purely personal note I like Zorua's design better than Zorark's)
Arg0 The R4t: It's not that's writings harder per say, its more I have higher standards for myself. So even though I can write way more than I could when I was younger I hold myself to a high standard than, whatever happens to pop into my head. Look at some of the chapters for Gone Ghost that are maybe one thousand words long and paced terribly. Compare that to this story where the worse off chapters are still well paced and written carefully to be a good read.
Greatazuradragon: I like how I managed to transfer to nice story to great story! Thank you! I'm glad you liked the story so much and hope you stick around for more of it!
CuriousQuinlan: So, I'm not sure if you're trolling or not so I will answer legitimately. Team Rocket are not real people. No one is actually being hurt. They are bad people in the context of the story but that doesn't mean they cannot be funny. Heck, part of the humor is from the hypocrisy they completely fail to notice. Not to mention the incompetence adds to the humor of the situation. You can read stories about bad people and be allowed to find them funny. That's not to say you aren't allowed to dislike them but its good to keep in mind that just because they're not good role models doesn't mean there's nothing to be enjoyed.
The reviews are done and there's one last thing to talk about.
If you have somehow managed to avoid hearing, it has been announced that Ash Ketchum will no longer be the protagonist of Pokemon.
After 25 years, Ash Ketchum has become the very best that no one ever was, and after an 11 episode epilogue the next series will be with a new protagonist.
Also people are already speculating that she is Ash's daughter. I find this hilarious and fully support it. Even if it's unlikely they'll reveal both her parents anytime soon.
This story will of course continue but it feels… strange. Ash Ketchum has been an eternal ten-year-old for literally my entire life. He was ten when I was five and he was ten when I turned twenty. Now he'll be gone…
It's the end of an era. It's bittersweet but also I think this is the best ending point for Ash. You can only soft-reset the poor boy so many times…
That's all folks, have a Happy Holidays, catch some Pokemon have some fun.
Discord: discord gg kESdTfhAwG
~FriTik
R&R