A rubix cube. It is a colorful puzzle in toy form, and it is mostly known for helping challenge and promoting growth of one's critical thinking.

For Ash Ketchum, the rubix cube had another purpose. One he was having a lot of struggle with.

"You lack focus." Sabrina stated with all the delicacy of a doctor insensitively blurting out that his patient had only a year to live.

The rubix cube levitated between Sabrina and Ash while the two sat on a blanket. Sabrina both watched and studied Ash attempting to solve the toy without using his hands.

Ash groaned before the rubix cube fell. Yet, it didn't touch the ground due to Sabrina using her own powers to keep it afloat.

"I thought psychics start off with bending spoons." The raven-haired teen felt sweat coming out of his forehead.

"That is grossly exaggerated and not at all helpful for a psychic's control." Sabrina shot down his complaint as the purple-haired psychic made the cube float near her head without any effort. "The purpose of giving you a rubix cube practices many things at once. First off all, control over your power. This is a regular plastic toy and if you exert too much of your telekinesis on it when trying to turn any side, you will break it." As soon as she began, the rubix cube started to turn and twist by the older psychic's will.

While it was moving, Sabrina continued. "The second is accuracy, moving small things helps sharpen the focus of your powers." As she said this, the twisting became faster and faster until it stopped and the colorful puzzle toy was complete with all solid colors on all six sides.

Sabrina opened her eyes, and made the rubix cube start to float towards Ash's hands. "And third, and one of the more important reasons why I had you practice this is because it will teach you patience and discipline. You are far too reckless and emotional and that is a very bad trait among psychics especially since our powers have more potential to go out of control than that of aura users."

Before it reached his hands, the cube suddenly shifted itself quickly to the boy's surprise, revealing it had been mixed up once more.

"Now, do it again." Sabrina said with finality, causing Ash to groan and try again.

Riolu sighed as he watched his trainer doing his own training. He was bored, really bored and wanted to at least play or train with Ash again.

*Fsh...*

The fighting type blinked and turned around, seeing nothing but a river stream not to far from where they all were.

The little fighter tilted his head slightly as he was confused at what he was looking at. Was there someone watching them just now?

Ash's brain felt fried even though he, Sabrina, and Riolu were already making their way towards the base of Mount Moon where there was a stationed Pokémon Center.

"That was one of the more pathetic displays of psychic power, I had ever seen." Sabrina and mercy obviously did not go together as the new teacher declared that while making their way through the path.

"Uuuuuhhhh," He pretty much lost count, but Ash groaned again.

Seeing her student make a fool of himself again, Sabrina simply decided a different topic was in order. "So why again are we heading towards Mount Moon?" The psychic user looked up to the mountain in the distance since it was easy to see from their point of view.

At the change of subject, some of the teen's energy came back as he stopped slouching and said, "It's on the way towards Cerulean City where I can get my next badge. I need to hurry and get ten before I get back to Viridian City."

Sabrina seemed to absorb that. At least her new student had some big ambitions compared to some of her other followers…

Her thoughts went away when the sight of a red building caught both of their attention along with the sounds of cheering in the distance.

In front of the Pokémon Center, there was a crowd of people circling around an area where attacks were flying outward, signaling that there was a trainer battle going on.

And when it came to battles, Ash was almost never tired of those. Curious, the teenager went ahead, wanting to see the battle itself up close.

Yet this time there was this nagging feeling at the back that he felt like he knew what was going on. When the raven haired boy finally saw the battle, his eyes widened.

On one side was some older teen he didn't recognize, but the one he was really paying attention to was his opponent: it was Gary Oak.

Gary smiled confidently as he usually did with such pride. He could make the mythological Narcissus pause and say the boy is full of himself. With that same ego, he ordered his Wartortle to use Water Pulse on the enemy Camerupt.

"He did like water types after learning about Blastoise." If Ash recalled, there was a conversation saying that on raw stats, it was theorized that Squirtle had the strongest potential out of all three starters. It makes sense that Gary was able to gun for the Pokémon he saw as the best, and he was already evolved too.

It wasn't long before Gary won the battle, defeating the trainer, and smirking as if the battle wasn't even a warm-up. To be fair, after three years of practice battles, Ash would have to agree using a slow and powerful fire and ground type against a mobile water type was a horrible thing to do if the Camerupt was not used to it's strengths and weaknesses properly.

The other boy from Pallet Town looked to his defeated opponent. "Was that all? I only had to use my Wartortle!" Ash rolled his eyes. That was the thing about Gary, he tended to always lord victories over people more often than not.

The raven-haired boy felt something climb on his shoulder and looked to see Riolu looking at him with obvious confusion.

"That's Gary… one of my friends." The raven haired boy began as Gary recalled the water type.

'That's a different tone than with Mary.' The fighting type noted.

"Well, you're about to see why." Ash sighed before walking forward past the crowd and crying out, "Gary!"

The brunette actually stopped his victorious smirk at the sound of his name. When he turned to the voice, his face actually showed an emotion beyond prideful ego, genuine surprise.

"Ashy?"

The raven haired boy fought the urge to frown at that annoying nickname. However, a small smirk came back to Ash as he greeted in return. "Hey, Gareth."

Gary noticeably twitched at the name. His face turned into a more curious look. "How are you here? I was under the impression you were back in Pallet Town for missing the starter Pokémon."

Ash smiled proudly. "Ha! When you guys left, the egg Professor Oak received from Professor Rowan hatched! So I could go on my journey!"

Gary watched when Ash motioned to the Riolu sitting leisurely on the other boy's shoulder. The brunette then shrugged. "Well it doesn't really matter whether you enter or not, because I'll be the first ever Pokémon Master."

"Oh yeah?" Ash bristled at the declaration. "How many badges do you have so far?"

"Three, duh." Well that blew up in Ash's face very quickly. "Got one from Viridian, one from Pewter, and my most recent one from Diagon City."

From what Ash recalled, Diagon was north of Cerulean City. "Wait, how did you get to Diagon City before the gym from Cerulean City?"

"That was a bit of luck really. After winning my badge in Pewter, I found out there was a monthly luxury bus in Pewter City that was going to bring people over to the casino area of Diagon City. The bus fare was pretty reasonable but they only sold round trips, so I had to take the luxury bus back to Pewter after a few days. But in the long run, it means I only need to go to Cerulean City once instead of returning back there to get out of Diagon." Gary explained before smiling. "So, Ashy, how many badges do you have?"

"O-One."

"One!?" The brunette laughed, making Ash flush. If the raven haired boy wasn't so tired and mentally exhausted, he might have been more tempted to use his new psychic powers to drop his rival's pants in public or something… even if there was a chance of him over doing it.

Gary stopped laughing for a second as a look of surprise retuned in his face. "Hold on. You should have passed by Pewter and Viridian. Why only one?"

Ash was about to answer that he skipped the Viridian Challenge because he was aiming for the ten-badge challenge. However, there was a sound of something coming towards the two boys from Pallet Town.

From the opposite side of the battle field where Gary's opponent was previously, there was now a small crowd of people heading towards the duo. It seemed like that group was led by a really pretty girl with wavy brown hair, bright gold colored eyes, fair skin, and an attention-catching figure who wore long white stockings, a green-blue skirt, and a white long shirt worn under a green-blue vest.

"I heard someone here was a pretty good battler," With very little effort, the girl had stolen all the attention in the area and made even those who left after Gary's battle come back just to look and listen to her. "Are you him?"

Gary spun his Poké Ball in his finger just to show off as well. "Maybe, who's asking?"

Ash had look of deadpan towards his childhood friend. Great, there was another Gary? Was the world coming to an end or something?

"The name's Giselle Pondell," She really only needed to say her names once for everyone to remember it. She then looked over towards Gary. "And you are?"

In response to the question, the brunette smirked. "The name's Gary Oak."

However, to the surprise of both boys, Giselle seemed to scoff and raise her brow. "What? Are you related to the famous Professor Oak?"

"Yeah what about it?" The new tone of the girl made Gary raise his brow in confusion.

The girl then pointed towards the brunette. "Then that means this guy is a complete nobody! He's just ridding on his grandfather's fame to be a trainer!"

At that moment, Riolu felt two emotions he didn't expect. From his trainer, Ash, he felt fear? But from the friend of his trainer…

"What did you just say?" From cocky, Gary's eyes narrowed towards the girl whose posy seemed to be eating up all her words..

"What? Are you deaf too? I bet you get even rare Pokémon because your grand dad is a famous researcher."

Ash turned to his friend with worry. "Gary, don—"

"Listen here, punk!" Gary stepped forward and seemingly missed what Ash was about to say. "I got this far on my own, not on the name of my grandfather!"

Giselle's group stepped forward, with the obvious intent to protect the girl insulting Gary. "Puh-lease! I've seen your type before, you believe just because you've got a famous person as your relative, you think everything is handled to you on a silver platter."

Riolu had never seen someone's anger spike up like never before, especially in someone like Gary.

"I am my own person! And I'll prove it in a battle!" Gary gripped his Poké Ball tightly as he glared at this trainer with rage.

"Ha! Prepare to lose, brat!" The pretty girl with a ugly personality was quick to reach for her own Pokémon.

However, before they could even begin, someone screamed out loud among the crowd and pointed.

"IS THAT ENTEI!?"

Everyone, even Sabrina, followed the voice as the crowd saw in the distance, on top of one of the rocks towards Mt. Moon, it was one of the legendary fire types of Johto: Entei.

Riolu gasped as he realized something. 'Hey, he's the presence I felt a while ago!'

Ash looked to his fighting type in shock before looking back towards Entei as the fire type started to walk away from where he was.

The appearance of a legendary in front of so many people prompted all the trainers there and made everyone make a mad dash towards the legendary Pokémon.

Ash noticed Giselle and her crew forget everything that happened and focused solely on catching the legendary in front of them.

The raven haired boy looked over to his childhood friend who seemed to have his hand trembling in anger as he looked down with a dark glare. "I'll show them!"

"Gary, wait!" Ash cried out as Gary ran ahead with reckless abandon. However, Ash was too shocked to really chase after his friend and found himself watching the brunette chase after Entei as well.

At this point, Sabrina was walking up to the young teen. "Your friend seems as reckless as you."

"He usually isn't." Ash then started gripping his fist before looking determinedly at the place Entei was. "Riolu, you sensed Entei, didn't you?" After a small nod, The raven haired trainer continued, "Can you hunt him down from here?"

'I don't really know? Entei had this weird energy that I couldn't detect properly. I might only know where he is generally, not specifically.'

"That'll have to do, let's go!" Ash cried out before running off on his own.

Sabrina was about to stop him but sighed and stopped herself. "That boy needs to stop being so reckless. … Still, a friend huh?"

The fast pace of footsteps could be heard as Ash Ketchum raced through the forest. Just like everyone near the Pokémon Center, the young boy was in search of something, but it was not necessarily the Legendary that everyone spotted.

"Riolu, do you sense him?!" Ash looked to the fighting type riding on his shoulder as the small blue creature had his eyes closed.

'No, I can't pick him up anymore. There's something weird in the air that makes it hard for me to sense aura anymore.' The Riolu shook his head after opening his eyes.

The teenage boy didn't like the sound of that. However, to his surprise he felt his pocket vibrating at that moment. He fished his pockets to find the Poké Nav he had received from Team Instinct was vibrating. Ash opened up the device, and saw Spark at the screen of the device.

"Yo, Ash!" The cheery leader of Team Instinct waved hello.

"Hey, Spark, why are you calling?" While he was glad to see the young man, Ash was curious as to why he was calling now.

"I received some reports that there's been sighting of a legendary around your area!" Wait, how'd he know that? Then again, with how many people were joining the three teams, it wasn't too far fetched to assume that out of all the trainers in the Pokémon Center, there were some from Teams Mystic and Valor who told this to their leaders, and Spark just learned it from them. "Apparently, you're one of the only Instinct members close enough to it! Listen, Blanche and Candela are already sending their guys to either catch the guy or record him."

To be fair, the teenager would like to try and capture a legendary since he missed his chance the first time. However, there was a much higher priority on Ash's list currently.

"I basically want you at least to capture a video of the legendary on your Poké Nav. The data will really help in the future for research and somethings Professor Willow says is important for the future." Huh, Ash sometimes said that about Professor Oak's teachings, they sounded really important but he couldn't always grasp what it meant. "Think you can do that? My friends and I are getting all our members in that area to work together and do so."

"I'm currently looking for the legendary right now." Ash said which was partly true. "I'll call you again after my search." Before his call ended, Ash was distracted by Riolu suddenly moving and digging through his bag pack.

After he ended the call, the teenager looked towards his partner with confusion. "Riolu? What's up?

'So I've been trying to sense things while you were talking, yeah?" His voice sounded somewhat muffled as he still searched inside the backpack. 'I realized that this energy was familiar because I felt it the night we first left Pallet Town. We had an item that did have a strange energy signature!'

Riolu popped his head out of the bag and jumped back into Ash's shoulder. In his palm was the Rainbow Feather. 'I think it was this feather again.'

"Wait, now that I think about it, the legendary trio of Johto all had a connection with Ho-oh. So does that mean Entei was here… because of this?" As soon as he asked this, Riolu handed the feather over to Ash.

When Ash held the feather, the two heard the sound of something coming their way. To the surprise of the two, Entei himself had appeared right in front of them.

From afar, the Pokémon looked really cool, up front? Ash couldn't help but feel in awe of the presence of a creature that was said to have control over volcanoes. The teen instantly threw out Spearow's Poké Ball, making the flying type's first view of the day a Legendary Pokémon that her kind viewed as gods. And he took out his Poké Nav and started recording after putting back the feather.

'So, does anyone want to fill me in as to why we are directly in front of a god?' Spearow asked casually while flying up near Ash's head.

"In my defense, I was actually looking for my friend first." Ash said while he noticed the camera function of his device was recording the great fire type.

'Ash, I have been with you for only several moons and I already know that trouble finds you more than what you attempt to find.'

To their surprise, Entei started to crouch, as if he was getting ready for a battle.

Spearow was first to huff in pride. 'We are being challenged. We must accept!'

Ash started to sweat and put away the Rainbow Feather back into his backpack. A battle with a Legendary Pokémon now of all times? He had to admit he felt that would be more than a daunting task, but at the same time…

He was going to have to face these guys in order to be a Pokémon Master.

"Riolu, Spearow, flank Entei from opposite sides!" Ash took charge, already commanding his two to run off as his fighting type ran left while Spearow flew right.

Entei seemingly watched his opponents get into a better position. Riolu attacked first, firing rapid attacks of Vacuum Wave at the fire legend. Entei took on each attack as if it was just a gust of wind. Spearow used Aerial Ace and vanished after hitting a point of speed. All though she landed a direct blow right into the forehead of Entei, like Riolu's attacks they did nothing to even make the legendary blink.

In fact, with how Spearow backed off and complained as if her beak had hit a mountain, it was safe to say that they were wwwwaaaayyyy out of their league.

But Ash was never one to give up that easily as he called Spearow near him and then shouted over to his first partner, "Riolu, try that Aura blast you did in the gym!"

The fight type quickly gathered aura around his fists and brought them together, he shot both fists out as two giant Vacuum Wave fists rocketed towards the legendary beast.

To their surprise, Entei actually moved out of the way of that attack as the fists crushed several trees behind the fire type.

Ash wasn't done yet and pointed. "Now, Spearow!"

Entei, for the first time, actually had his eyes snap open as he looked up to see Spearow rushing right for him. The flying type summoned a phantom of Riolu performing the same move and fired another aura enhanced blast right for the fire type while in close range.

The result was that the attack of Riolu actually landed and was able to push Entei a few paces back. But even with that impressive double offensive, Entei still seemed to be observing them, but now it seemed… interested at something.

"Okay," Ash noticed as Entei looked back at them observantly. "This is going a lot worse than I expected it to." Despite that coordinated attack, Entei really didn't seem hurt at all. But it was very strange. What was Entei doing just avoiding and taking all these attacks?

"There you are, Entei!"

Ash turned his head at the sound of the new but familiar voice. "And it just keeps getting worse."

Gary had arrived, looking straight at Entei with his own determined look in his eyes. One that didn't look too healthy.

The other trainer from Pallet town threw out four Pokémon, his Wartortle, an Eevee, a Nirdorina, and an Electabuzz. He then pointed and said, "Battle!"

Ash and his Pokémon felt the need to step back when Gary's party launched an attack on Entei wildly. The fire type made more effort to move as he avoided the attacks of all four Pokémon.

The fire type raced around the attacks and eventually circled back and tackled—an actual tackle not a real move—Gary's Electabuzz through several trees.

Instead of worrying for his knocked out partner, Gary growled in anger and ordered Wartortle to use Water Pulse.

'Ash, what do we do? Do we help them?' Riolu asked as both he and Spearow watched their trainer.

Ash watched the battle, or rather, Ash watched how Entei was playing with Gary's party. However, Ash obviously noted that Gary wasn't battling at his best at all. Both of them have battled each other for years, and Ash knew Gary was being very sloppy.

"I… I don't know." Ash stated as he and his Pokémon continued to watch Gary slowly get more of his Pokémon knocked out by Entei until he was left with Wartortle. The water type tried to fire a powerful Water Pulse on the legendary once more. However, it seemed like Entei had enough playing around and unleashed a burst of fire that easily evaporated the water attack.

Ash instantly noticed the attack wasn't going to stop and ordered his Riolu to use Quick Attack. The fighting type ended up running fast enough to tackle the water type out of the way of the fire blast that blew off a cliff nearby where they were.

"Ash, butt out! Entei is mine!" Gary yelled to his old friend.

However, before he could react, Entei started moving again. This time, it was towards the cliff and it seemed to be running with the intent to go jump off it.

"No you don't!" Gary cried out as he opened up a Poké Ball and ran after the legendary.

"Gary, wait!' Ash cried out as he stopped his video and ran after his friend.

The two trainers ran for different reasons. Entei was moving faster before he jumped off the cliff with the intent to leave. Yet the legendary underestimated something. He underestimated Gary's blind devotion to catching him.

The brunette still ran towards the fire type with his hand reclined back. He then pulled his weight forward and threw the red and white capture sphere towards Entei jumping in the air. The fire type could have easily avoided it, but at one instant, the cliff edge the boy stomped hard on cracked beneath his feet and even reached Ash's area behind him, causing the two to start to fall. Entei was horrified and that horror distracted him from avoiding the Poké Ball from hitting him and absorbing him.

Entei, Ash, and Gary ended up all falling into the forrest below. Riolu and Spearow cried out for their trainer and quickly ran towards the cliff.

'Riolu, where are they!?' Spearow quickly turned to their resident scanner.

The emanation fighter scanned the area then promptly face palmed. 'Ash left the Rainbow Feather back in hiss bag. That object has been sending out a weird energy today that been messing with my scanning ability.'

Spearow viewed the area and made herself fly a little higher. 'Alright fine, I'll try to see where they are, you handle the ones who were injured here.' Then she dove down to find where her trainer and that future pecking target went.

'Hey wait! I'm a fighter, not a—' Riolu's cries went ignored as the flying type already dove into the tree and away from his sight. '...healer.'

Riolu looked over to Wartortle waking up to him.

The two blue creatures just stared at each other in awkward silence. Riolu, looking back at Wartortle's allies finally said, 'Sooo… by any chance are you related to a Chansey or something?'

While Ash and Gary were falling down, the young teen tried to focus as best as he could.

"Think of a Rubix Cube! Think of a Rubix Cube!" With that thought process, Ash threw his hand towards a screaming Gary. Unfortunately for the boy gravity was still far too powerful for either him or his friend. However, there was something else he could do. Moving fast, Ash made a large amount of trees move their branches to lessen the fall of both him Gary.

It worked! … Sorta. Crashing through a large amount of branches wasn't exactly the cleanest landing. As well as actually eating some of those leaves on his way down, but Ash could be grateful when he needed to be.

"W-What was that!?" Gary cried out as he found himself relatively safe and looked towards his childhood friend in disbelief. "Did you move those trees!?"

Ash blinked. "Oh yeah! Gary, I've got super powers now!"

The fact that Ash stated that so cheerfully and without a hint of lying in his tone, Gary Oak could only gape before his brain gave him a more manageable answer. "Oh right. It's Ash we're talking about. Of course you'd find a way to get involved with something as impossible as that like it's just going to a restaurant you've never been to before."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The brunette got back up and said. "It means your bad luck is already a super power in itself. So you actually getting real powers isn't all that crazy."

"Well that's not… completely true." The raven haired boy tried to argue. However, he noticed Gary moving in a direction that wasn't towards their party. "Hey, where are you going? We gotta get to your Pokémon."

"I'm looking for the Poké Ball I threw at Entei before we fell. It was not too far from us when we fell."

Ash doubted that Entei was still in there. But with how Gary was doing this…

"Are you still mad about that day back in kindergarten?"

Those words were al it took to make Gary freeze in his tracks.

"Just because that bully said—"

"Ash? Kindly shut up right now." Gary stated as he walked ahead.

The raven haired boy narrowed his eyes and got back up as well. "Gary, you're not even caring for your own Pokémon who got beaten up by Entei! You can't let what that jerk said about you being related to someone famous get to you!"

The brunette sharply turned back towards Ash with an angry glare. "That is so easy for you to say! You have no idea what it was like! Just one stupid sentence! Just! One! 'Oh, you only say all those things because your grandpa gives you everything!' That one sentence was all it took for everyone to stay away from me!" The other person snapped as he shouted that out loud.

When they were much younger, Gary was still as proud as he usually was. However, one kid was either jealous or had enough of his boasts, maybe both. In annoyance, he accused Gary of only being the great things he says simply because his granddad was famous and that if he didn't have that, he would be just like the rest of them. Because kids were kids, they quickly isolated Gary after realizing that he had a point. Gary was actually ignored for some time in their preschool before everyone became more distracted at what Ash accidentally caused.

Still that small period of everyone avoiding him just because he was related to professor Oak traumatized the brunette.

"I'll show them all! I am my own person!" Gary pointed a thumb at himself. "And I'll prove it by capturing Entei! Something my gramps never did!"

With that, Gary stormed off, moving in the direction he saw the sphere a while ago. Ash grunted.

"Ugh! He's being as reckless as me! … Huh, so this is how that feels like." Ash said before shaking his head and trying to run after his friend.

The two ended up running until they came across an empty field near a river, across said river was a mountainous area with dirt, large boulders, and etc.

However, back on the grass, the two boys say how the Poké Ball Gary threw was still on the ground, as if untouched.

"No, way..." Ash gasped as the two looked over towards the ball. The area around it seemed completely untouched and there was this feeling that maybe, just maybe. "Did you actually catch it?"

Gary's face looked like he was just shocked as his old rival but as he made a step forward to see if there was something inside.

However…

"Oho?~"

The two boys were surprised by the sound and then they were distracted when a Digglet popped his head underneath the white and red orb before it took it under it's hole it dug up.

"Hey!" Gary cried out before the Digglet popped back up near the legs of none other than Giselle and her posy.

"Oh lookie here, I caught the legendary fire type!" Giselle mocked as she held the spherical device in her hand.

"No you didn't!" Ash called out and pointed. "Gary was the one who threw that in the first place!"

"Ha! That guy already can get anything he wants because of his family, why should he get a Legendary to boot when he clearly didn't earn that right?" The brunette girl declared with ignorance.

Words like anger and hate were weak to describe what Gary Oak was feeling at that moment. However, instead of it being unleashed, it was cooled down when Ash spoke up.

"Says the thieves who stole it from him! I've known Gary since we were kids, and I know for a fact he would never steal someone else's hard work for his own! Gary works hard for everything he does, you jerks are the real losers!"

"How dare you!" Giselle fumed at the words from Ash. However a smile came up as she looked back to her group.

She and her posy brought out a dozen Pokémon out to face the two. "You think your both all that huh?"

Gary seemed to step forward, much to the confusion of Ash and said with a straight face. "Listen here, and listen now," Gary pounded his chest. "I'm going to be a Pokémon Master, not because of my family, but because I want to prove to people that I am my own person. But now I have to thank you actually."

"Thank us?" The dark brown haired girl looked in confusion at the brunette from Pallet Town.

Ash's friend and smiled. "I now realize that the people I really needed to prove already know I'm my own person. People like you can just go jump off a cliff," Gary realized both he and Ash just jumped off a cliff and added, "And actually get hurt from it."

Giselle had this look of hate in her face at how Gary seemed to look down on her. "Oh that's it! Everyone, take those two..."

She was interrupted with a roar that made everyone turn back towards the river.

On top of one of the rocks, Entei was snarling angrily towards Giselle and her group.

The girl bully looked over towards the sphere she was holding. "W-What!? I thought you were in—"

Entei performed a loud and prideful roar to interrupt Giselle. The roar itself made all of Giselle's followers and their Pokémon run in fear except the girl. The stylish girl looked back in fear before running away herself after her posy.

The two boys looked back towards Entei. With that gang of people gone, the fire type seemed much calmer as he looked over the two.

Gary swallowed before stepping forward. "Thank you for that… and sorry for a while ago. You were only caught because you were worried for us when we fell."

Entei seemingly looked at Gary with an unreadable look on his face before he slowly turned away and then started leaving.

As the two boys watched the legendary Pokémon leave, Gary felt the need to speak up. "I owe my party an apology don't I?"

Ash patted Gary's shoulder. "Don't worry, we all know you cause so much trouble for your friends."

The brunette gave the raven haired boy a deadpan glare. "May I remind a certain someone of a certain event pertaining to a certain vehicle!?" From deadpan, Gary was full out yelling, not of anger but out of frustrated annoyance.

The raven haired boy tried to defend himself. "Look, if you could drive before even reaching ten, then so can I!"

"My totaled car begs to differ!"

"Hey, last time I checked, I was trying to save your life when you got poisoned and paralyzed at the same time!"

"The four of us almost died when we let you in the wheel!?" Gary shouted back before grabbing Ash's collar. "You still owe me 200,000 dollars!"

"You're the rich guy among us! That's chump change for someone like you!" The raven haired boy argued before pushing Gary away from him. Gary was somewhat upset before pushing Ash back and then Ash pushed back… then Gary punched him… then Ash tackled him down and—yeah I think you guys get it.

Spearow soon followed the sounds of two boys grunting and spotted the two fighting and slugging it out and performing some grappling moves on each other.

She did the only thing reasonable thing.

'Yes, Ash! Prove your dominance over your fellow man! Watch out for that left hook! Duck and use Upper Cut! Oh that was a nice dodge, don't let him control the pace of the battle!'

Okay, maybe cheering the two on in their fist fight was the opposite thing of being reasonable.

Soon after, both of their Pokémon eventually caught up. Surely they would stop the two from their petty squabble.

'Oh wait! This means we can have our own Trainer Battle!' Riolu what even is that. 'Ash, duck and use Elbow Slam on his stomach!'

Ash did duck a swing and slammed his elbow onto Gary's stomach, causing the brunette to buckle.

Gary's Wartortle pumped up. 'Don't give up, Gary, use sweep kick!'

The brunette did so, sweeping Ash off his feet.

'Oh wow that worked!'

'Come on, Ash, roll and throw dirt into Gary's face!'

'That's dirty! Gary, avoid and throw Ash into the river!'

By this point the two party of Pokémon were getting very into the trainer battle.

Sabrina felt the urge to look up and then said nothing as she saw a bunch of Pokémon walk into the center while carrying two beaten up trainers. Among the two was a boy she was very familiar with, much to her dismay.

"Oh my god! What happened to them!?" Nurse Joy cried out as she looked at the two boys.

Sabrina wisely decided to continually drink her tea. She was not wasting her precious time with that again.

"So within that entire brotherly bonding though your fists," Ash wouldn't call it that but Sabrina did have a way with words better than him. "You didn't once try and see if you could use your powers?"

"…" Ash blinked before he felt his eye get sore again. "Yeah?"

The purple haired woman didn't even know how to react to that. She placed down her tea on the table booth the two were sharing for their dinner and kept asking, "Yet, despite being beaten to a pulp, why do you seem so content?"

That question seemed to catch the teen by surprise. "Well… Gary's alright. I was worried since back at home, he gets testy when people say that he's only certain things because of his Grandfather."

Sabrina said nothing even though the gears in her head was turning. She had no idea that Ash had direct connections to the famous researcher of the world. That connection has potential to be exploited in the future for sure.

"It's also why he wants to be a Pokémon Master, he wants people to see him as his own person, not by the shadow of someone else." Ash explained.

Now it was Sabrina's turn to be surprised, or for her, open her eyes up a little in curiosity. "You don't say? Then tell me Ash, why would you like to be a Pokémon Master?"

"… What?" The raven haired boy tilted his head, but then felt a jolt of pain as he did so.

"You said Gary is becoming a master in order to get out of the shadow of his grandfather. It's a valid reason, but what about you? Why do you want to be a master?"

"I..." For the first time since she met him, Sabrina noticed this look of doubt come across the boy's features. "I just really want to be."

"So it's just because you want to then?" Sabrina was quick to ask.

Ash didn't want it to sound like that, but at the same time it really was hard to disprove her. "I… I..."

"There's nothing wrong with having selfish ambitions since all of them are selfish in some ways, Ash," She had many of them galore. "I'm just pointing all of this out to you because a strong conviction is also a good motivator and can help drive you to become a better trainer like you wish. This simply means that you need time to reflect, why do you really want to be a master trainer when you can easily be something else?"

It was then that a maid came in and gave the orders of the two.

Ash silently stared at his food. As if that would tell him what he needed in his journey.

+Author Notes+

Hey guys, thanks again for supporting this story.

I wanted to say something weird and say that I kinda liked Gary when I first watched the series. He was kinda cool to me as a kid, and I ended up liking him a lot more as he developed into a more chill and mature trainer. I'm kinda sad that nearly everyone else either treats him like crap or in the opposite side of the spectrum makes him Ash's love interest. (To each their own I suppose. Even though it just confuses me how much people ship anything.)

So yeah, I wanted to say that I respect Gary, and by extension all the other Rivals.

[Extra Scene.]

"So no one was able to get a picture of Entei?" Professor Willow asked both Blanche and Candela while they were inside his lab.

"We've had many eye witnesses say that there was a sighting, but no one was fast enough to capture a picture." Candela explained casually.

"It's quite a shame," Blanche moved her hand towards her chin thoughtfully. "It is said that even Entei can casually run on water, getting some picture, even while in motion could help understand what type of power of movement it has."

It was at this point that Spark came into the room. "Sorry I'm late guys! Some things came up!"

"Was it another toaster?" Everyone asked the blonde team leader who was smoking slightly.

"How do you guys always know that?" The Leader of Team Instinct asked honestly before realizing something. "Oh hey, Professor, here's a video of Entei you wanted." He then put a usb drive on the table in front of the professor.

All three of them looked at the yellow leader as if he had spontaneously exploded. "One of your members was able to capture a picture of Entei?"

Spark blinked. "Well, he actually caught a video. He even battled it; Entei was super tough though."

The idea that it was Team Instinct, almost always the dead last among the three teams, was the one that not only took a picture, but had footage of seeing the legendary up close and some of it's battle skills were recorded was amazing!

It only promoted one kind of reaction from all three colleagues.

"WHAT!?"

Unfortunately for them, that was going to be the first of many to come.