Chapter 17
A Real Stew
A few days after Sammy's fateful encounter with that baby Articuno found the group gathering together in the cabin late into the evening, preparing for dinner.
This occasion was notable if only because it was the first time that all of them were gathering together for a meal at the same time. Normally, Ash would be off on his own doing who knows what, or else the trio would decide to have an impromptu picnic in the warmth of the Sanctuary. With the cabin being as small as it was, and with tensions running as high as they were between AJ and Ash, and AJ and Cole, and now AJ and Jade apparently - basically, AJ and everyone except him - well, suffice it to say that get-togethers weren't exactly a comfortable time.
But today was apparently special, because Cole had happened upon some rare peppers while foraging in the mountains and he had boasted that he could use them and some of the food they'd found in Sammy's backpack to make them the best stew they'd had in years.
Truth to tell, Sammy wasn't really all that thrilled. He was getting sick of stew and all of its soupy variants as it was basically all they ever ate anymore - but to be fair, considering their current living conditions, the only real way they had to cook was either boiling or roasting over an open flame, so he supposed beggars couldn't be choosers. It's not like they had access to a grill, or an oven, or a microwave. Cole didn't even own a frying pan. Sammy had had one, once - as did AJ and Jade - but they'd been lost in the avalanche.
It was the simple, everyday things you took for granted that you end up missing the most, he supposed.
Regardless, while he may be sick to death of stew, he wasn't about to miss this meal. Cole was planning to use the last of Sammy's remaining fresh meat - imitation, of course - which meant that after today, there'd only be the canned stuff left, and only for a little while. This could be his last chance to eat anything that wasn't a berry or a tuber or an herb, possibly for years. And he clearly wasn't the only one keen to be present.
The result was a surprisingly pleasant if somewhat chaotic gathering in the cabin in which everyone tried to help with the cooking but the kitchen was far too small for so many bodies, meaning there was a lot of bumping into one another and laughter as they shuffled around, chopping vegetables or applying seasonings or generally causing mayhem.
Well. Almost everyone.
AJ was the notable exception, having tagged along because she apparently hadn't realized Ash would be joining them, and when she found out, she'd elected to instead remain seated on the couch, sending frosty glares in their direction and generally being a grouch.
To be fair, that was already a pretty significant development. The fact that she'd remained in the cabin at all was a miracle in and of itself. She was making progress. Baby steps and all that.
And if part of him was annoyed that she wasn't helping with dinner, well - there really wasn't any room here for any more people anyway. Honestly, he hadn't done more than wash off the root vegetables that Cole had collected that afternoon and dice a handful of wild onions. He didn't have space to judge.
Once the prep work was done, however, even Sammy was out of things to do. The actual 'cooking' part was taken over by Cole and Jade, who were standing over by the old Slugma-powered pot-bellied stove, talking about nothing and laughing like they were a favorite grandpa and granddaughter bonding at a holiday gathering. Any tension that may have existed between them and AJ apparently did not exist without her, and the general good vibes they were giving off warmed the cabin even more than the roaring fireplace did.
Layered over the sound of convivial voices was also the omnipresent babble of pokemon. Pichu and Pikachu had scampered up into the loft, and while Sammy couldn't see what they were up to, whatever it was was loud and involved them scampering back and forth, the staccato of their claws across the aged wooden timbers filling the cabin with the sounds of disjointed percussion. Gallade was in a rocking chair next to Jade's Mawile, the two of them talking while Leafeon snoozed on the carpet near the fireplace.
Mew had been there earlier as well, albeit briefly - it had noticed a flock of Noctowl out the window and had teleported outside to give chase and hadn't returned. Normal behavior, Sammy had come to find. Maybe it would return, maybe not. It had the attention span of a toddler.
Sammy for his part found himself seated at the kitchen table with Ash. He'd considered joining AJ over on the couch, not wanting her to feel left out, but he'd somehow found himself in a conversation with Ash about legendary pokemon that he admittedly wasn't keen on ending anytime soon.
"I mean, I think it's logical to assume that most of them breed," the older man was saying, scratching at his five o'clock shadow and letting his eyes absently rake the ceiling. "If you're asking if I've actually seen it happen, or if I've seen an egg or an infant form of every legendary pokemon that I've ever met - then no, I haven't. But I have seen quite a few. Kanto's legendary birds, the dogs of Johto, the noble pokemon of Unova, both Spectrier and Glastrier… I'd say I can confirm that more than half of what we call 'Legendary' pokemon do breed like other pokemon do. They're not all that different, honestly. Most of the 'legends' about these pokemon are pretty heavily embellished. I mean, they may have done some of the things the legends say they did - or maybe their ancestors did - but most of them really are just rare, unusually powerful pokemon."
"Right," Sammy said, nodding along. "I mean, that's the common consensus about most of them. It hasn't been proven yet, but logically, that makes the most sense. But then you have pokemon like… I don't know, Arceus, who's a god apparently, or the Tapu guardians of Alola who've allegedly been alive for as long as human record, or even Mew, who's a complete mystery. And don't even get me started on those Ultra Beasts…"
Honestly, talking to Ash was fascinating. While he clearly lacked a scientific mind and couldn't answer a lot of questions about even basic biology, his first-hand accounts with these pokemon that most had only ever heard of in story books was invaluable. He had so many random facts about them - eating habits, temperament, observations on potential migrational patterns - he was a veritable gold mine in human form. Sammy almost didn't mind being trapped up here if it meant he could pick his brain for the next several years and even venture into the Sanctuary to see and study these amazing creatures himself.
'Almost' being the operative word, of course. Not having a reliable way to record his findings took most of the wind out of his sails. And even if he did have a notebook, without any way to capture photos or video footage, without any way to take samples of hair or feathers or scales, without a pokedex to scan the pokemon and take back evidence of shape and height and weight, the sounds they made, the moves they know… It would all just be considered hearsay. Even from an Oak. Especially from an unproven Oak. People would doubt him. Say he was making it up for clout, because he was pressured by the need to live up to his famous family name.
And he couldn't have that. His dream wasn't just to see things no one else had seen, but to publish those things and broaden the scope of humanity's understanding. And he couldn't do that if people thought he was a fraud.
Technically, he did have one incredibly solid piece of evidence. The baby Articuno. He'd captured it, and it had been sent back to his family's lab. Knowing what he did of how they operate, no one would likely notice it for a few days yet.
Hundreds of trainers were registered to his family's lab in Pallet, which meant that dozens of new pokemon came in on the daily and were usually kept in their pokeballs. Pokemon stored in their pokeballs were set in a sort of state of suspended stasis, which slowed their biological functions, so they didn't need to eat as often. Which was a good thing, because otherwise, the cost of feeding and housing them, and the manpower needed to stop them from fighting one another, would be astronomically higher than it already was.
Workers at the lab would go through them periodically, letting them out to roam the large estate, flex their limbs, get some exercise and eat and relieve themselves before recalling them back to their balls and rotating on to the next group. Articuno wouldn't be let out for a bit just yet.
But when it was… Well, then his secret would be out. He was sure that his parents would do what they could to stop the news from leaking, to give him a chance to come home and explain - but they couldn't hold off forever. The news would leak eventually. And if some enterprising intern thought to steal his discovery to make a name for themselves while he was gone…!
He hadn't mentioned catching the Articuno to anyone but AJ and Jade, however. He felt uncomfortable bringing it up to Cole and Ash. They'd dedicated their lives to protecting this preserve and the pokemon who lived there, and while the Articuno had let itself be caught willingly, he still didn't think it gave off the best impression. He didn't want them to think he was here for the wrong reasons. Though, technically, he wasn't here of his own volition in the first place anyway.
As much as he was enjoying this conversation and the warm bubble of conversation that filled the cabin, however, it was hard not to notice the petulant glowers AJ kept throwing their way. She'd have to forgive him later, however; he had research to do. She knew how much this meant to him.
Thankfully, it wasn't long before Jade called out that the food was ready. The humans gathered around the kitchen table, which wasn't quite large enough for five people, so it was a bit of a squeeze, and the pokemon who were already out sat around the living room, lounging in chairs or down on the rugs. They didn't have enough food on hand to feed everyone at once, so they were on rotations now, too.
Sammy almost wished he was over there with them, however, as the moment that AJ took the seat beside him, a frostiness overtook the table and all of their previous positive energy was seemingly sucked out of the room.
Jade, ever the people pleaser, did her best to keep her smile as bright and toothy as possible.
"Thanks for the hard work, everyone!" she said, not quite avoiding looking at AJ, but it was noticeable all the same. "Cole, it smells great!"
"As it should, lass," he chuckled amiably, doing a much better job of hiding his awkwardness than Jade was. "You did half the work! And of course, we have Sammy's excellent supplies to thank for this bountiful harvest!"
"I do what I can," he said, offering the older man a crooked half-smile. He hadn't really done much but let him paw his way through his food stores, but that was fine. May as well use it before it went bad. Being stored in pokeballs meant it had a longer shelf life than it would have, but some of it - like the meat they used in the stew, or the bread Jade had sliced up and toasted - wouldn't have lasted longer than another week or so. May as well eat it while it was still good.
But that was basically all this meal consisted of. Cole's spicy-smelling stew - which was at least an improvement over the bland version he usually served - and Sammy's leftover Slugma-toasted bread, which Jade had at least attempted to season with some wild garlic, though they'd had no butter. The only other part of the meal was more of Cole's never-ending tart cider that he seemed to guzzle like water. His fascination with this beverage was bizarre - though it occurred to Sammy that maybe it was because it was the only flavorful thing he got to eat on the regular.
"Well then, enough chatter," Cole said, thankfully ending the pleasantries. "Dig in before it gets cold!"
Then there was silence as multiple hands reached out across the tiny dining table, ladling stew into bowls, grabbing slices of bread or pouring themselves drinks.
Every hand but AJ's, as she sat still, staring stony-faced at the scene in front of her, looking not at all pleased to be here. She never even reached for any food.
After a few tense minutes of silent eating, filled only with the sounds of chewing, the scrap of utensil on dish, or the chatter of the pokemon from the other room, finally, someone dared to break the silence.
"Um," said Ash, looking for once not at all confident or charismatic, instead forcing an unbearably awkward smile onto his face as he lifted the half-empty plate of toasted bread. "Here, AJ - would you like some bread? It's… It's quite good."
That, Sammy thought, was perhaps a bit too much exaggeration. It was fine for what it was, but he wouldn't exactly call it 'quite good'. Then again, Sammy was used to… well, fancier dining, and as a mountain hermit, Ash's pallet had clearly declined in the last two decades, so Sammy wouldn't hold it against him.
AJ stared at the proffered plate for a moment like it was an Ekans hiding in the grass, ready to bite her, then let her gaze flicker back up to Ash's.
"I'm not hungry," she said.
Then, after another tense, awkward pause, she scooted her chair back, the wooden chair legs scraping across the stone floor unpleasantly, got to her feet, and walked away. If the sound of the back door closing behind her was a tad louder than it normally would have been, well… He was still impressed that she managed not to outright slam it.
Ash let out a heavy sigh, setting the dish back down on the tabletop and looking for all the world like a Boltund who'd been left out in the rain.
"...She really hates me, doesn't she?"
There was a hollowness to his words that seemed to make them cave in on themselves, crumbling in the air and filling the room with dust. Jade gazed off in the direction AJ had retreated, looking conflicted, torn between wanting to go to her side and giving her the space she needed. Cole, for his part, lifted a hand and rested it bracingly on Ash's shoulder, lending him support.
But Sammy wasn't here for this teen drama nonsense, and he was tired of walking around on eggshells all the time. You don't make things better by dancing around the issues - if there's a problem, you focus on it till it's resolved. And how was anyone supposed to do that if people kept clamming up and staring wistfully into the middle distance?
"Take it from someone who knows," Sammy said, bluntly breaking the silence as he reached for another slice of bread. "It's not exactly easy growing up with a famous parent."
The pressure, the expectations, the way everyone thought they knew you before they even met you… It was enough to drive anyone mad. And that was before you factored in AJ's abandonment issues. Combine the two, and they were lucky she hadn't spent the last few days foaming at the mouth.
Jade sighed. She could relate. She'd seen it all first-hand - and had even experienced it a bit herself, though her father wasn't nearly as famous as his and AJ's. Cole let out a noncommittal grunt that could have meant anything, honestly, but it was Ash's reaction that surprised Sammy the most.
He blinked, then frowned, glancing around the table at each of their faces as though confused.
"You mean because of Misty?" he asked. "I know someone said she was in the Elite 4 now, but that can't have happened until AJ was a little older, right? Probably around the time she left on her journey. How much of an impact could that have had?"
Sammy stared at Ash for a moment, completely lost.
Then he said, "...You're joking, right?"
Ash looked around uncertainly. Even Jade was staring at him like he'd grown an extra head.
"Uh… no? I don't-"
"They're not talking about Misty, boy," Cole said, scraping at the inside of his bowl as though determined to scoop up every last bit of stew. "They're talking about you."
"Me?" Ash exclaimed, looking genuinely shocked. "But I'm not-! I mean, ok, I was the Champion for a bit, but I barely held the position for more than a year. Why would anyone remember me? I disappeared before I had a chance to prove that I could go the distance. No one should remember me."
The silence around the table was deafening. Both Sammy and Jade were staring at Ash with twin looks of dumbfounded confusion. Was he being serious right now? He couldn't actually not know, right? He was Ash Ketchum - the Ash Ketchum. Hero of a Hundred Stories, Tamer of Legendaries, the Very Best Like No One Ever Was. How on earth could he not know how famous he was?
Funnily enough, there was something familiar and… almost endearing about how dumb he sounded right now. It took Sammy a second to realize that it was because AJ could often come across as the same level of clueless. He shook that thought right off.
"Ash," Jade said, slowly, "do you really not know how famous you are?"
"Me?" he asked, stunned. "Why?"
Jade's mouth worked silently, like she was frantically trying to come up with a reason only there were too many reasons to choose from and she didn't know where to start.
Finally, she spluttered, "For… everything?!"
"Everything?" he repeated, bemused, then let out a bark of laughter. "What does that even mean?"
"Ash," Sammy cut in. "You're basically a living legend - well, a dead legend to most of the world. People don't just call you the best trainer Kanto - or the Indigo League - ever had. Some people even think you were the best the world had ever seen. People still talk about how you battled against Team Rocket and other criminal organizations, how you met and gained the trust of nearly every legendary pokemon the world has record of. You're… well. You're the Ash Ketchum. What did you expect?"
Ash was pulling a face that looked like he was waiting for someone to say 'Just kidding!', like they were on some sort of unfunny prank show. When no one did, he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair in a distracted sort of way, looking confused.
"That doesn't make any sense," he said finally, replacing his hat and setting his elbows on the table so he could rest his chin on his fist.
"You really thought you could meet all those legendary pokemon and no one would comment on it?" Sammy asked, wryly. Seriously, this man had the sort of luck he could only have dreamed of - well, before he got stuck on this mountain. Now, he'd met nearly as many as Ash had. Or had seen as many, at least.
And weirdly, his new dream was now to get away. With specimens, of course.
"Well, they never did before," he said blandly. "Actually, most people never knew that I'd met so many legendary pokemon. Like, sure, there were a few other people with me, usually - like Brock, or Misty, or Dawn, or my other friends. But it's not like I went around announcing it to the world or anything.
"And it's not like I was all that famous. I mean, maybe people knew who I was around the time that I made Champion, but you make it sound like I'm some sort of hero or something. Other than some minor paparazzi when I became the Champion, it's not like people treated me all that special. I made friends in a lot of places, sure, but… I wasn't a celebrity. Not really."
Sammy sat back, feeling stunned. He really didn't know? He really had no idea how famous he was? But how? Why? If all of the stories about him were true - and he wasn't denying them, so they probably were - how on earth could he have been oblivious to his fame?
And he was famous. People still talked about him, all the time. His battles would air on TV specials, recounting the most famous trainers of the past decades. People would mention him all the time on online forums discussing the strongest trainers who ever lived or legendary pokemon encounters. Not to mention the deluge of comments he knew AJ had received on their journey whenever people recognized her name.
And it happened a lot - especially around Gym Leaders or Research Labs. But more so in the past few months than ever before, as AJ had won the Indigo League Tournament and announced her intention to battle the Elite 4. It was all the internet could talk about. All tabloids or journalists wanted to opine on.
The gears in his head clicked into motion, and slowly, gradually, Sammy started to put the pieces together.
"I have a theory," he said suddenly, breaking the silence once again, and all heads turned to him.
"A theory?" Jade parroted in tones of equal curiosity and the familiar sort of resignation you'd expect from someone who'd been forced to listen to thousands of Sammy's theories over the years. Sammy nodded.
"Yeah. A theory as to how Ash could be so famous now, but maybe not back then. I mean it's just a guess, but…"
He trailed off. Why did it matter if he knew he was famous or not? It didn't change the reality of what AJ had had to put up with. It wouldn't fix anything between them. Still, though, he liked a good puzzle, and with Ash and Cole and Jade all watching him expectantly, he decided to push forward with his hypothesis anyway. Better than everyone clamming up again.
"Let's say that Ash is right," he began, "and at the time of his disappearance, he wasn't really all that famous, all things considered. Famous enough as the new Champion of Kanto, but not really that big of a deal just yet on the global stage. What could have happened that would have changed that?"
Everyone else exchanged confused glances but said nothing. After a moment, Ash said, "...I disappeared?"
Sammy snapped his fingers and pointed at Ash. "Exactly. You disappeared. Mysteriously, without a trace. And what happened next? Jade, what happens when a Champion goes missing? Think about Hilda from Unova."
"Uh," Jade said quickly, looking around, suddenly put on the spot. "They, um… I don't know. They get famous?"
"Yeah, sort of," Sammy said. "Rather, the news goes wild, right? It's all anyone can talk about. Every headline in the Alliance for weeks after Hilda dropped off the face of the earth was all about her - who she was, where she went, why she left, etc.
"But they can't just keep talking about that forever. Newspapers, gossip magazines, online blogs - they all love controversy, so a Champion just disappearing under mysterious circumstances is like a literal vein of gold to them. They've got to mine that story for all it's worth, but people get bored if they just rehash the same thing over and over again. So eventually, they'd try to reach out, interview people, get new perspectives."
Which is exactly what happened with Hilda, Sammy knew. AJ had once told him how she'd been harassed by a few different Unovan tabloids after her friend's disappearance, all of them looking to score an interview and dig up any juicy gossip AJ might have on her old friend.
"Ash, you traveled all around the world. You met a lot of people - people who might have been willing to claim their five minutes of fame by talking about you to journalists and reporters. And if any of them had known about your adventures with legendary pokemon, well…"
Then the news would have leaked - 'Ash Ketchum Tussles with Tornadus' or some other stupid headline would have appeared, the story likely embellished, larger than the already larger-than-life truth, which would have encouraged other people who knew similar stories - or even others who just made stuff up for clout - to also chime in. And it would snowball, gradually, getting bigger and bigger, until Ash Ketchum the legend eclipsed anything that Ash Ketchum the man had ever been.
And it was that legend, that impossible figure from a story, that AJ had always been compared to. Not the actual man himself.
"So you're saying," Ash said, frowning at the ceiling as he struggled to put the pieces together, "after I disappeared, the tabloids went digging for gossip and ended up finding out about some of my adventures and broadcasted them for clicks and clout, which somehow combined with my mysterious disappearance until it snowballed into me being some sort of over-the-top impossible legendary hero?"
"Basically," Sammy said. "I mean, I'm just spitballing here, but I think it makes sense as a theory-"
"Yeah, I'd buy that," Jade said, leaning back in her chair and pushing her bowl away, looking satisfied. "Makes more sense than most things, I guess. That's one question answered."
One question. One of dozens still unanswered. They'd been here for days already, and yet still, Sammy felt like they'd made remarkably little progress toward the central problem - getting home. Sure, he'd been sidetracked by all of the legendary pokemon he could finally see and interact with, but none of that mattered if he could never get back and report his findings.
The one hope he had was Ash Ketchum. The thought that maybe he knew something they didn't, had some clue that would see them home again. But if he did, why hadn't he tried to leave himself? Sammy had wanted to pick his brain for days, but with AJ around, the only chance he'd had had been the day he'd woken up. Her explosive temperament, particularly whenever her father was near or was brought up in conversation, was proving to be one of their biggest obstacles.
But she wasn't here now. Which meant he didn't need to be considerate.
"So why did you disappear?" Sammy asked, bluntly segwaying into the heart of the matter. They'd danced around this long enough for AJ's sake, but she wasn't here now and he was tired of waiting. "I mean, not 'why are you stuck here' - I know you're trapped on this mountain the same way we are thanks to that Mewtwo pokemon or whatever. I don't care about that. What I want to know is, how are you here? Why did you leave?"
Jade had stiffened at his side, shooting him wide-eyed looks like she couldn't believe he'd just straight up asked. Jade was always the one trying to remind him and AJ to be polite and have manners - usually AJ more than him. She cared a great deal about appearances. Then again, she wasn't trying to stop him like she usually would. She sat silent and still in her chair, gaze bouncing anxiously between Sammy and Ash. She wanted to know as badly as he did.
Ash, for his part, didn't look annoyed or upset at the question, which was good. He did sigh, however, adjusting his hat again which appeared to be a nervous tick before pushing his dishes away, clearing the spot on the table in front of him for seemingly no reason at all.
After a moment, his palms running absently over the smooth, aged wood, his eyes gazing into nothing as though he could see answers written in the grains of the timber, he said, softly, "It's… not all that interesting of a story, honestly. Nothing mysterious about it. I just… needed to clear my head, and… I left."
There was a pause then, a lull in the conversation in which Ash simply stared into oblivion, seeing things that weren't there. For a moment, Sammy thought that was it, that that was the only answer he was going to get, and for the first time, he felt a surge of rage spike inside of him.
That's it? You abandoned her because you just needed to 'clear your head'?! This was the man his father and Brock had always claimed was the best friend they'd ever had?!
But before Sammy could speak - could take a page from AJ's book and break something - Ash continued.
"Becoming the Champion was all I'd ever wanted. It had been my dream since… longer than I can remember, honestly. I worked so hard to get where I was, and when I finally made it… I was on top of the world.
"I mean, it's not really all it's cracked up to be. The hours are long, there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape you have to deal with, the constant media circus is just… honestly, the worst. And then there's the whole lack of freedom thing to contend with. When you're just a regular trainer, it's like you can go anywhere - do anything. Nothing holding you back or keeping you down but your own fears and doubts. But you can overcome those. Break barriers, seek new horizons… But as the Champion, you've got all these responsibilities, all these eyes on you, constantly, with their doubts, their expectations… It's a lot. But even still… despite all of the drawbacks and annoyances, I'd finally made it there. I was higher than a kite. And nothing was going to take that away from me."
Here, he shifted slightly, as though uncomfortable. He finally lifted his eyes from the table top just long enough to glance at Sammy and Jade, as though gauging their reactions, before letting his gaze focus somewhere outside the window into the darkened night.
"...Until, I guess, the day came when Misty told me she was pregnant."
His words seemed to echo silently around the quiet kitchen like a bomb blast, and for a moment, Sammy was incredibly glad that AJ had stormed off and hadn't been there to hear that.
"You left," Jade said, breath suddenly hitching, "because you found out-?!"
"No!", Ash said hurriedly, waving his hand in the air. "That's not…! I didn't leave because of AJ. I didn't leave on purpose at all. It was just… Like I said before, I needed to clear my head.
"Misty being pregnant was…" he gaped for a moment, seemingly grasping blindly into the void of his mind for the words that could possibly sum up the enormity of what he was feeling before finally settling on "...unexpected. We didn't… It wasn't planned. It just happened. Out of the blue, it seemed. But despite that, Misty was so happy. Scared, but happy. A beautiful mistake, she'd said. And I…"
Here, he hesitated again, only it wasn't Jade's thunderous scowl he was glancing at uneasily - it was Cole's look of quiet sorrow.
"I guess I can see why that would have been a lot," Sammy said, adopting a placating tone. He wasn't exactly happy about this revelation either - the fact that AJ's paranoid fears about Ash's disappearance being because of her was actually true was like taking a surprise Gunk Shot to the face from a Garbodor - but Jade looked about two second away from going protective mama Kangaskan on this old man and Sammy knew he had to keep her in check if he wanted to keep getting answers. They could beat him up later.
"It… It was," Ash said, letting his gaze flick toward Sammy and Jade again before settling back down on the table. "And for a lot of reasons. Me still being only about a year into my tenure as the Champion was already a huge source of stress, but I'd felt like I was slowly growing into it, you know? Adjusting to the change, rising to the challenge. But then the pregnancy just… It came out of nowhere, and it felt like this house of cards I'd been carefully constructing over the past year had been hit by a bowling ball and everything just… fell apart again.
"I can admit now that I was scared. Well… more like terrified. We weren't ready - I wasn't ready. We were so young, we'd both been so focused on our careers, with achieving our individual dreams… A baby wasn't in our plans. Not then. Maybe not ever. Honestly… I can tell you now I hadn't even thought about it. Not even in a 'maybe one day' sort of way. Being the Champion had been my only goal for the future for so long. Starting a family was just… It was so foreign to me.
"And honestly? I… I had no idea how to be a dad. Or what being a dad even meant. I didn't… I never got to have one of my own. What was a dad even supposed to do? I didn't know how to raise a kid. Raising pokemon was all I knew. Was I supposed to take her out into the wilderness and have her battle against Caterpie until she was grown up enough to take care of herself?"
Sammy said nothing, but silently, he thought that AJ probably wouldn't have minded that so much.
"I started to spiral. It all just got to be too much, and I found myself wishing things were still as simple as they were when we were kids, just… traveling together, seeking adventure and not having to deal with the press or the pressures of adulthood or having to grow up too fast. And I think that must have been when I decided that what I needed was to just… take a step back, you know? Get away from the crazy for a bit and just… recenter. And there was nowhere where I felt more at peace than when I was out on a journey with just me and my pokemon, so… On a whim, without saying a word to anyone, I just packed up and left.
"I hadn't picked Mt. Silver for any special reason. The trip had been so spur-of-the-moment, I just wanted somewhere close where I could get away for a while, and the mountain happened to be the closest and largest bit of untracked land to League Headquarters, so I came here. I wasn't supposed to be gone forever. I only ever meant to be gone for a few days - maybe a few weeks at most, though I knew Misty and the League would be pissed at me. But then I found my way wandering up the mountain and ran into dad and… And Mewtwo…"
"What-" Jade said suddenly, then blinked as though she'd startled herself with her own interruption before continuing in a softer voice, "What is Mewtwo? Cole had said something about… I don't know, a lab experiment or whatever? Something about Giovanni and Mew, but he said we should ask you about it, so… Why does he hate us so much? What did we… do?"
Ash nodded solemnly, taking another deep breath and letting it out in a tired rush.
"We - as in, you and I - didn't do anything. We as people, however… well…
"Mewtwo is the end-result of years of work that Giovanni and Team Rocket put into trying to claim the power of Mew for themselves. I'm assuming dad told you his part of the story? Right, well - during their last fight, Giovanni had managed to get his hands on some of Mew's blood, and with it, he tried to create a new pokemon from its DNA. I don't know why he didn't just clone Mew directly - maybe he couldn't, or maybe he was arrogant enough to think that he could build a new pokemon who was better and stronger. Creating artificial pokemon was still in its infancy in those days. They'd only just succeeded in creating the first Porygon - and Team Rocket was involved in that as well. But I'm getting off track - the point is, after years and years of hard work, they succeeded in their experiments with Mew's DNA, and Mewtwo was born."
"I've never heard anything about that," Sammy said. He wasn't arguing, exactly - he'd just done loads of research into artificial pokemon before and thought he'd known the history fairly well.
"Well, I'm not surprised," Ash said with a shrug. "Giovanni wasn't exactly on the up-and-up. He wouldn't have wanted this to be public knowledge - not if he was going to use it to take over the League. Better that it be a surprise, right? In their initial testing, they found that Mewtwo possessed incredibly destructive psychic powers. Without a Mew to compare him to, it was hard to say how he stacked up as a clone, but regardless, he had incredible potential, and Giovanni was pleased.
"They mainly kept him in their lab on Cinnabar Island, but they'd move him about sometimes for 'field tests'. I don't know if you knew this, but Giovanni used to be the gym leader in Viridian, for a time at least, and it was during that time that Mewtwo was created. Sometimes, they'd have Mewtwo transported to the gym, and there, after hours, Giovanni would put Mewtwo through strict tests and training regimens. Well, I say 'training', but let's be honest - it was full-on abuse, not just for Mewtwo, but for the pokemon he had him training against.
"They'd force Mewtwo into hours and hours of protracted battles or tests to push the limits of his psychic abilities, pushing him to the point of extreme physical and mental fatigue. In battles, he'd face increasing odds, sometimes seemingly endless waves of fights, sometimes with as many as five opponents at a time, and they'd drag on and on until Mewtwo collapsed. And they'd outfitted him with special 'armor' meant to amplify his abilities, but also to restrict him, so that if ever he tried to disobey or fight back, he'd receive excruciating and debilitating electrical shocks that would leave him disoriented and near senseless."
A silence had gripped the cabin at this point, and it took Sammy a moment to notice that even the pokemon in the other room had grown quiet, all of them apparently listening into Ash's story with rapt and horrified expressions.
"Can you imagine what that must have been like?" Ash asked softly, staring into nothing. "If everything you'd ever known from the moment of your birth was captivity and torment and pain? It's no wonder Mewtwo hates humans. No wonder he thinks Trainers are a disease. I can't blame him. If anything, it's a miracle he hasn't set off on a conquest to kill us all. He hates us enough to try it."
"How did he escape?" Jade asked, and as was expected from his most empathetic friend, Sammy could hear the tell-tale wobble in her voice that indicated she was struggling to hold back her emotions.
"He grew too strong," Ash said simply. "Giovanni's plan wound up backfiring. In his rush to make him as strong as possible so he could use him to take over the League, Mewtwo ended up growing too strong, and he was able to break free of his restraints. He destroyed the lab in Cinnabar on his way out, though not without stealing some of their equipment."
"Why steal the equipment?" Sammy asked, and Ash gave a one-armed shrug.
"I don't know what his plan was, exactly - use it to build a clone army so that he could liberate pokemon from the tyranny of humans? He tried, actually - back when I was still a rookie trainer, I actually met him. Brock and Misty, too, though they probably don't remember. Long story short, though, he tried to steal pokemon away from trainers, then clone them to build an army, but the pokemon didn't want to leave their trainers so it led to a whole battle. Anyway, the point is, Mew showed up and they fought, and when I tried to stop them, I– Well. I… didn't exactly succeed, but I guess Mew managed to get through to him because they ended up leaving together - them and the pokemon he'd cloned - and that's it."
"Which would have been when they arrived here, on Mt. Silver," Cole interjected. "About thirty years ago or so. My guess is, Mew brought Mewtwo here because it knew he'd be safe from humans. But maybe it was also thinking humans would be safe from him. He didn't take kindly to me at first, neither, but well, we get along… after a fashion. And now, he's become the official guardian of the Sanctuary."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up," Jade said, lifting her hands to rub at her temples. "Rewind a sec. You said my dad and Misty met Mewtwo?! And Mew, too? I mean - Mew, also, not Mewtwo - whatever. Why have I never heard of this?!"
"Because of a little thing called 'hypnosis'," Ash said, wiggling his fingers in the air and smirking at his little joke.
When Jade just stared, dumbfounded, Ash expounded.
"Mewtwo used his psychic powers to make us forget. Us, and the other trainers who'd been involved, and all of our pokemon… Like I said, he's incredibly strong. The hypnosis he cast overwrote our memories of the event and we all forgot about it completely. I only remembered when I got here and saw him. It took a reminder that strong to break the hypnosis. And seeing as no one knows about Mewtwo, and Mew isn't exactly the kind of pokemon you'd just bump into on the road one day - well, unless you're dad, I mean…"
He shrugged simply as though to say that was that.
Sammy stared.
Leaving aside the implications that Mewtwo was powerful enough to successfully hypnotize dozens of people and pokemon at the same time and have it last for decades - not even Hypno were that good, and they'd evolved specifically in the direction of mastering the ability to hypnotize others - the rest of Ash's tale was hard enough to swallow on its own.
The rational side of his mind was struggling to accept the sheer absurdity of the idea that Ash had just happened to run into his missing father on a remote mountain range on a trip he'd taken by chance, as well as the very same legendary pokemon who he'd met as a child a decade prior. And that was before you factored in the idea that the mountain held a secret sanctuary for legendary pokemon. The odds of that happening were so small that it wasn't even worth trying to estimate. In fact, his cynical side kept telling him that it had to be a lie - it just had to be. Things like this just didn't happen.
But then again, considering how Ash had already met just about every legendary pokemon ever, which was already beyond the realms of improbability, maybe it made more sense to accept that there was just something about Ash that drew him to these places. Maybe the legendary pokemon called to him without him knowing. That sounded crazy too, of course, but given the evidence, it was much easier to swallow than just pure, dumb luck. It might even be worth studying one day.
But not today. Today, they had more problems on their hands. Like finding a way home.
Cole snorted loudly, cutting through the heavy atmosphere and drawing everyone's attention to him.
"You make arriving here sound so simple. But the truth is, you and your daughter are more alike than you think."
Ash made a face as though to protest that, but Jade quickly asked, "What do you mean?"
"Remember how AJ blew up when she found her dad? Well, he wasn't much different," Cole said, jerking a thumb in Ash's direction.
"Oh, come on," Ash said quickly, sounding embarrassed. "You can't blame me - and I wasn't that bad-"
"You broke my nose!"
"Right, but - I mean, it was just your nose, right?"
"You punched me in the face!"
"Yeah, cause you told me to leave! You barely said anything to me at all and just told me to get out! What else was I supposed to do?!"
"I was trying to save you from getting stuck here like me! And at least AJ had the decency to keep her fighting to pokemon. She didn't resort to physical assault-"
"Well, let's not put that past her just yet," Sammy said, only half-joking. Jade whacked him in the arm with a silent look of reprimand.
"I was trying to protect you," Cole said adamantly before rising to his feet and gathering up the dishes. "And if I was a bit awkward about it, well - I hadn't exactly expected to run into my son up here. Though I s'pose you understand that feeling a bit better now, eh?"
"And now, you're stuck here. Just like us," Ash finished lamely. Even hardly knowing the guy, defeat looked strange on his face.
"Well, not just like you," Jade said, not having heard, standing to help Cole clear the table. "I mean, we didn't up and vanish without a trace. People know we're here."
Cole, who had been scraping the remains of their dinners off of their plates and onto a large metal platter to feed to Slugma, suddenly turned to face them, alarmed.
"What? People know you came here? How many?! What did you tell them?!"
Jade gaped wide-eyed under the sudden onslaught of questions, looking very much like a child who'd just been caught stealing cookies.
Sammy, who'd also risen to help clean up, snorted disdainfully.
"Of course we told people where we were going. We're not crazy people. I left a note for my parents, Jade messaged her dad - even AJ left a letter at her grandma's place when we passed through Pallet. I mean, we didn't broadcast our intentions or anything, but we didn't just ghost our friends and family."
And if that had come out a little pointed, well… He owed this man no favors. Even leaving the personal drama aside, going on a trip alone to an icy mountain filled with dangerous pokemon without telling anyone was an objectively stupid thing to do, and he had no qualms telling him that to his face.
"Oh, and Ethan knows - he's the new Johtoan Champion," Jade added, opening the door to the pot-bellied stove and smiling at the Slugma within as she fed her her dinner of table scraps.
"Yeah, I forgot about him. You actually met him once," Sammy said, turning to Ash as he gathered up the dishes to take them outside to clean in the snow, only Ash hardly seemed to be listening, instead staring intently at the tabletop as though there was a puzzle hidden in the wood grains that he was trying to work out. "Apparently, he climbed up this mountain a couple years back and ran into you, but you beat him in a battle and he was forced to retreat."
"That does sound familiar…" Cole said, looking worried.
"And there's his friends Kris and Lyra… There's a chance Professor Elm knows by now, too. Oh, and we had to pass by the Ranger's Station on the way here and sign in, so they've got a record that we're here, as well."
Jade stopped when she noticed the way Cole was anxiously wringing his rag in his hands.
"They know we came up here," she said, soothingly, "but they don't know anything about you or the Sanctuary. And even if they do come up here looking for us, they'll never find it. No one would ever find it unless they knew it was there."
"Well, I didn't know it was there-" Sammy began, playing devil's advocate.
"You got carried in by an Articuno. That doesn't count."
"You didn't know it was there either-"
"Yes, but we were following Ash who did know it was there-"
"And anyway, they may not know about Cole, but Ethan knows about Ash. Or well, he knows that we thought - or well, I thought - that the trainer he fought on Mt. Silver may have been Ash, so there is some connection at least."
Jade closed the door to the stove and set her bowl down on the counter before turning and smacking Sammy lightly upside the head. Cole, for his part, was looking more anxious than ever, and Ash was staring so fixated at the tabletop that he was liable to burn a hole straight through it.
"But uh… Yeah. I'm sure the Sanctuary is safe. No need to worry about that."
As Jade immediately set to work soothing Cole's concerns and reassuring him that everything would be fine, Sammy took it as his chance to escape. Gathering up as many plates and bowls and utensils as he could, he set off out the back door and into the frigid night.
It wasn't that he'd meant to set them on edge, it was just… Well, what was the point of lying? Burying your head in the sand wasn't going to change reality. People did know they were here, which meant that, eventually, people were going to come looking for them. The son of Kanto's Pokemon Professor and the newest Kantonian Grand Champion, lost in the mountains? There was no way people were going to let that slide - especially not his or his friends' parents. Give it another few weeks and Mt. Silver would suddenly see foot traffic like it's never seen before.
But he also knew this wasn't really a realistic hope for a potential rescue. The mountain was too large, the Sanctuary too well hidden, and with the wild pokemon playing sentries, they'd have more than ample warning before the search parties arrived. They'd likely be forced to hide in the Sanctuary itself for a few days till the search parties gave up.
They couldn't risk the Sanctuary being discovered - for more reasons than one, but the biggest being that Mewtwo wouldn't take that lying down. Best case scenario? They'd suddenly have a bunch more prisoners. Worst case - and, if he were being honest, the much more likely scenario? Mewtwo would follow through with his threats. People would die. Possibly including them.
The full moon shone through an unusually clear sky as Sammy knelt near one of the fresher piles of snow, his knees crunching wetly in the icy powder as he dropped his burden with a clatter on the ground beside him and began the arduous task of scraping off the residue of their dinner with fistfulls of snow. Once they were clean enough, he'd take them back inside and, using Slugma to heat up some water, he'd use the soap found in his recovered backpack to kill off any lingering germs.
Something shifted in the darkness nearby, the sound instantly filling his mind with images of rogue Sneasels ganging up on him in the night, and he seized a butter knife, rising to one knee and preparing himself to flee back into the cabin for help before he noticed the figure sitting next to the back door and the tension left his body.
"...AJ?" he called, squinting through the dark. There were no lights on the outside of the cabin, seeing as there wasn't any electricity at all, and it was dark beneath the awning that sheltered the back porch from precipitation, but with all of the moonlight reflecting off of the snow on the ground, he could just barely make out the figure of a girl with long, dark hair huddled against cabin's outer wall, knees tucked into her chest to ward off the cold.
Had he walked right past her without noticing? How long had she been sitting there?
When she didn't reply, he dropped the butter knife and got to his feet, brushing the snow off of his knees before walking over to her. Cleaning could wait. The dishes weren't going anywhere.
She glanced up at him as he approached, but didn't say anything. Her expression was closed off and hardly inviting, but she didn't tell him to leave either, so he took that as a good sign.
Stepping onto the back porch, he walked casually toward her, carefully avoiding an old rusted hoe and a bucket of what looked like salt before sitting down at her side.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked, only to pause as the sound of Jade's laughter echoed out with startling clarity from inside the cabin. "...You were listening to us, weren't you?"
For a moment, she said nothing, content to stare blankly out at the dark, inhospitable landscape that stretched out before them.
Finally, she murmured, almost too quiet to hear, "I was right."
Sammy shrugged with one shoulder.
"Yeah. Well, I mean, kind of."
When she didn't say anything, he took that as his permission to continue.
"Yes - he left because he found out your mom was pregnant with you. But he wasn't intending to stay away forever. He did what you did - when things got stressful, he needed to get away for a bit to clear his head - and he wound up trapped on this mountain, unable to go back home. Just like us. You didn't drive him away."
She snorted, burying her face in her knees and rubbing her nose against her pants as though trying to work warmth back into her frozen cheeks.
"Don't do that. Don't give him an out."
"I'm not-"
"Sammy," she said, warning thick in her voice, and he rolled his eyes.
"Do you honestly think I care at all about his feelings?" he asked, keeping his voice low but unable to keep his clear disdain from leaking through. If she could hear them outside, then they'd be able to hear them inside, and he had the feeling AJ wanted to keep this conversation private. "I'm not saying this to defend him - he's not the person I care about here. But I know you, AJ, and I know you're going to internalize his statements in the worst way possible, and I don't want to see you do that to yourself."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're blaming yourself for this," Sammy said bluntly. "It means you've always blamed yourself for this. You see how hurt your mom and your grandma have been, how much Brock or my dad or your uncle Tracy and all of his friends miss him, and you hate him because you think you're the one to blame. You hate him because he's made you feel guilty for being born, as if that was a bad thing, as if any of this was at all your fault - but it's not, AJ. It never was."
"You heard what he said, Sammy." Her voice was muffled, her face pressed against her thighs, hiding from him. "I was a mistake. He left mom because of me."
"You were an accident, not a mistake," Sammy corrected. "The mistake was him running off to an icy mountain to clear his head and not telling anyone where he was going. Which makes sense, actually - people always talked him up like he was the best battler who ever lived, but no one ever said he was all that bright."
For a wonder, she actually laughed. Softly, barely more than a weak chuckle, but it was something.
After a moment, she lifted her face back up and, to his alarm, there were actually tear tracks on her cheeks.
"This is so stupid," she said thickly, wiping at her eyes. "We should have never come here. I'm sorry."
"Eh," he said with a shrug, looking back up at the sky. "I mean, it's not ideal, but… Well. I never would have found that baby Articuno if we hadn't, so…"
"Right. Well. I'm glad it wasn't a total waste, then," she joked.
"Glad to see you're willing to make sacrifices for my dream," he said, playing along, and she laughed again.
"Honestly? If we ever get back home, then I'd say it was worth it. But if we're trapped up here with him forever, then-"
"You let me worry about that," Sammy said quickly. "I know you don't want to talk to him, so you don't have to. But I'm going to keep trying. I feel like there's got to be more he knows about all of this, and the more information we have, the better."
Honestly, it was the obvious solution anyway. He was always the brains of their group - he should be the one focusing on collecting info. AJ was the brawn. If it came down to a fight, they'd need to count on her, but he didn't mind taking point on the whole 'figuring a way out of here' thing, especially if it meant he could spare her from having to deal with her father.
But to his surprise, she shook her head.
"No. I can't… I can't keep running forever. I have to confront him. I need to control my temper and face him. Even if we do get out of here, if we leave without me ever beating him, then… I just… I know that I'll never be able to move past this. Part of me will be stuck here forever."
"You know you don't have to prove yourself to him, right?"
But AJ shook her head again, then turned and flashed Sammy a sad sort of smile.
"No. It's not him I'm proving myself to. It's me."
Sammy lifted a hand and patted her gently on the back. Honestly, no - he didn't really get it. This was clearly some irrational coming-of-age thing, or maybe it was just a thing between muscle-head battlers. But if it mattered to AJ, then fine. She had his support
"Well," he said, by way of segwaying into a different topic of conversation, "it's cold and I need to finish cleaning those dishes. Wanna give me a hand, or are you gonna sit here till you turn into a popsicle?"
AJ grumbled and buried her face back into her legs.
"I don't wanna do the dishes," she mumbled petulantly. "I didn't even get to eat yet."
"Well, whose fault is that?"
She turned her face just enough to glower at him and he rolled his eyes.
"There's probably still some left over. You can go in now and eat if you want. Everyone else is done already."
She mumbled something, but with her mouth pressed against her thighs, it was impossible to make out.
"What was that?"
"I said," she said, exasperated, pulling her face back up so she could talk like a normal person, "I'm too… embarrassed… to go back in right now."
Whoa. She was becoming self-aware now. Maybe this was a coming-of-age story.
"If this is part of your plan to face your father, you've still got a long ways to go."
The glare she shot him could have boiled him on the spot - though with how cold it was out here, he may not have minded.
"...Want me to bring you something out?"
Her glare dropped off her face and she perked up a little.
"You'd do that for me?"
The surprise, relief, and delight on her face shone almost as brightly as the moon.
"I'd do anything," he said, slightly winded, forgetting to add the sarcastic twist to his words that would have given him plausible deniability.
But AJ merely grinned lazily and said, "I knew you were my favorite."
Sammy rolled his eyes again, more because it was in character for Sammy to do that than for any other reason and awkwardly climbed back to his feet. He needed to clear his head. Get back inside and get her some food and use those few seconds to remind himself of who and what they were.
This trip had certainly been one of unexpected developments. AJ finding her father and the complex tangle that had become their relationship and what it meant for AJ as a trainer. Sammy discovering that egg, finding so many legendary pokemon and what that meant for him as a researcher. There was really no telling what twists would come next, or what versions of them would descend back down the mountain - assuming they ever did.
But if there was one thing not developing, it was them. He and AJ would always be just him and AJ. And he couldn't let himself forget that.