"That's enough, Meowth," Jessie called.

Meowth didn't actually have a Pokéball, but it was sort of standard to let Pokémon withdraw by stepping back anyway, and Erika's Gloom was far too frustrated to try and press the issue as Meowth pulled back.

It wasn't like he'd been doing a lot of damage, because he hadn't. It wasn't like it was hard to hit him, either, because it wasn't.

It was just that the feline Pokémon had an incredible talent for having avoided just enough of an attack that it didn't actually do anything significant, or for turning out to actually be somewhere else and bouncing a coin off her head.

Really by this point Gloom was fairly sure Meowth should have been out of the battle about six times over, but he just had not quit.

Then Jessie sent out her other Pokémon for the battle, and Gloom turned grey.

"Growlie, Flare Blitz!" Jessie called, and her borrowed Pokémon went through Erika's team like a plasma lance.

The description has been removed on the grounds of taste.

"You have won," Erika announced. "Here is the Rainbowbadge."

She took a slip of paper from her assistants. "And here is the bill for repairs."

Jessie took the slip, and sighed.

"Really?" she asked. "Why do you even keep this many plants in your gym room? You've got to know they'll all be set on fire anyway."

"Most trainers display a bit more restraint than having a happy Arcanine running around Flare Blitzing everything vaguely green," Erika replied. "And, quite honestly, I don't think you can talk about how my gym looks."

"Excuse me?" Jessie said, hotly. "Team JATO's fashion sense is impeccable!"

"Yeah!" Meowth agreed, coming down from the ceiling on a length of fishing wire. "An' that's because we ain't around Flyin' types no more!"

Erika closed her eyes, counted to three, and opened them.

"The bill," she requested.

"Right, right," Jessie said. "Meowth, you sort it out!"

"I got it!" Meowth agreed, cutting his ninja wire, and landed in Jessie's shadow. There was a sort of clinking noise, and he leaned out. "You take cash, right?"

"Provisionally."

"Growlie!" James said, hugging the Pokémon who might technically have been his starter. "Oh, I missed you too, boy!"

"We were in there ten minutes, tops," Jessie replied. "Actually, why did you stay outside?"

"I heard the gym was full of women!" James answered. "And I remembered the Twerp had to dress up as a girl to get in!"

Jessie gave James an unimpressed look. "James, you've crossdressed more than I have. In fact that applies in either direction."

"But it's not a girl day," James shrugged. "That's why."

So, Abra said, now bored with that. Where next?

"Well, we've already done a lot of the gyms." Jessie began ticking them off on her fingers. "Pewter Gym, we did that one… wasn't that the one where that gym leader insisted we pay for the repairs after Abra's Future Sight missed and broke the sprinkler system?"

It's the best strategy in that gym, Abra defended himself.

"Then, Cerulean Gym… do you think it counts if they just give you the badge?" Jessie asked. "I think it counts. We should do Vermillion some time, too… didn't Meowth say Cubone was working on something involving that marble Abra mentioned?"

"Vermillion!" James snapped his fingers. "Of course! The St. Anne!"

Jessie stared at him.

"That ship nearly killed us, James."

"Oh, yeah, it did kind of sink… but I meant we could go buy a Magikarp again, only this time we actually take care of it!"

Jessie's mind filled with a medley of glorious images, mostly involving Gyarados.

"I'm sold!" she said immediately. "Then we leave before the Twerps sink the ship."

"Meowth, now, dat's a plan!" Meowth declared. "Wasn't it the S. though? Or is dat 'cause it's a sailing ship?"

"How is it a sailing ship?" Jessie asked.

James put his hand to his lip. "Actually, where are the Twerps?"

Probably a training montage or something, Abra suggested.

"I think I'd remember the name of the ship what nearly killed us!" Meowth insisted. "No, wait, I'm gettin' a different one now. Something about an airship?"

Abra fell asleep and teleported them to Vermillion, possibly in that order.

Meanwhile, Ash was staring at his hands, then at the notebook next to him. "Okay, I think that's pattern seventeen, and… modulate with pattern six…"

"How are you doing?"

Ash looked up at the speaker. "Slowly."

Riolu was watching Ash from overhead, mostly by standing upside down on a tree branch.

He'd already been taught a lot of the basic Aura techniques in the first timeline, while trying something like Aura Purge was just scary… so he'd instead started switching to working on utility techniques that could help other members of the team as well.

The ability to walk on water had come first, and he'd already put it to good use in the Cerulean Gym battle. That was to do with surface tension, while the second trick was something which he'd decided to call Airslip.

Like water walking, and like his new trick, it had mostly come from trying to do something with physics. Airslip was to do with making it easier for air and things in the air to flow over his body rather than affect him, and Riolu was working on making it so that it could give him a personal air supply, as well… but that was harder to test than his third trick, which used the forces that made things stick together.

Which brought him right back to why he was standing upside down.

"The annoying thing is telling if it's working," Ash admitted.

"I know that feeling," Riolu shrugged. "Like my personal air supply thing with Airslip, the best way to test if that's working is to hold it until I pass out."

Ash winced.

"Yeah, I get that," he said. "And, I'm kind of there, I think, but it takes a long time to get it started and it's too complicated for me to just compare it with the notes."

Riolu pushed off from the branch, flipped over, and landed next to Ash. "Is there someone you could test it on? I don't really know how it works exactly, I'm just guessing."

"The notes say it was designed to reach a Shadow Pokémon," Ash replied, picking up the notebook and flicking through. "And Sir Aaron told me a bit about how Shadow Pokémon work… the basic idea is, uh, complicated…"

Pages flicked back and forth as Ash looked for the bit he was thinking of. "And, uh… right… here! Sir Aaron said that Aura Purge was created to allow Aura wielders, especially members of the Chosen, to… solve the problem of Shadow Pokémon and other serious traumas the way they were best suited for."

"Which means?" Riolu checked.

"Mostly through punching," Ash clarified. "Well, it says traumas, so… I wonder if a phobia counts? Misty's afraid of Bug Types."

Riolu stared. "You're thinking of trying it on Misty? ...well, I'm not helping you ask."

Ash gave a winning smile. "Don't worry, I'll use tact!"

"You're doomed."

"Hey, Misty!" Ash said. "You know that problem you have with Bug types?"

Goldeen briefly had experience with flying.

"What was that, Ash?" Misty asked, picking up her Goldfish Pokémon and hefting her. "I didn't hear you."

"I was trying to help," Ash complained, from the ground.

Misty snorted. "I don't need your help, Ash! I'm not paranoid about all Bug types! I get on well with Butterfree! I don't mind Ledyba! Tracey's Venonat is nice! I don't even mind Pineco!"

"Forretress," Brock corrected. "And she doesn't look much like a Bug type anyway."

"Still!" Misty said firmly. "It's not a problem."

"So, you'd be okay if someone you were battling sent out Beedrill?" Ash asked.

"Beedrill? Where?!" Misty demanded, flailing, and tripped over.

Ash stood up, and helped Misty up. "I don't know if you need help, but you can't argue that help would help, Misty. Not liking Bug type Pokémon is okay, I guess, I don't get it myself, but like this it's… not good."

He shrugged. "I guess there's another option, if I can't try out my Aura technique on you."

Misty went hmph. "I'll take the other option."

"The other option is that Squirtle gets you over it!" Ash explained. "He said he could do it with 'sheer distilled awesome', and that it would involve 'ripping open dimensions', 'rock music' and 'punches'."

The Water-type specialist carefully reviewed her options.

"...Aura technique please."

Squirtle put his sunglasses away sadly.

"...sure you're okay with it?" Ash asked. "I know it was a sudden change, and that could matter here."

"I didn't want to be made to evolve, you're right," Ivysaur confirmed. "But it's happened now, and I'm… still getting used to it, but more because it's different than because I don't like how I am now. I am, however, not evolving again."

"If you're sure," Ash nodded. "Then it'd be good to have you along too. Riolu, you're about the only one who can keep watch on the outside and see what's going on… Pikachu, Charizard, you two are going to be really helpful. Butterfree, maybe not. Sorry."

"I'm a Bug type, I get it," Butterfree agreed.

"So… what's this exactly?" Pikachu checked.

Ash adjusted his gloves. "We're going into Misty's subconscious, and we're going to go and fight the problem… it's kind of like what happened with Larvitar and that Unown, remember that?"

Charizard held his arm up. "I don't remember that. What was that like? Was it like that thing with the Entei?"

"No, it was more like… going into Larvitar's mind and seeing how he saw us?" Ash tried to explain. "It's probably going to be easier to just do it, now I think of it."

He concentrated, and his hands lit up with blue energy. "It works by body contact, so let's go!"

Misty looked nervous. "Actually, maybe-"

Blue fire enveloped both of them, then Pikachu, Charizard and Ivysaur.

A moment later, as Riolu was sitting down against a tree to focus his Aura senses, there was the sound of running feet as Squirtle skidded into the clearing.

"That's no good! They forgot about me!"

Riolu's response was eloquent and considered. "Huh?"

"If they're going into Misty's mind, they should naturally bring along a Water type Pokémon!" Squirtle declared. "I'm the ideal point of familiarity! And I know just how to do therapy!"

Riolu shrugged. "Well, sure, you should be able to just touch one of them and go in…"

"We're professionals at this," Butterfree observed.

"At best we're amateurs," Riolu replied.

As the old hands at this, Ash and Pikachu took stock more-or-less the moment they arrived in Misty's mind.

Since they were Misty's images of them instead of how they were on the outside, there were a few changes. Pikachu's cheeks were their old shade of red, rather than the newer and angrier colour or the light-ball influenced Raichu orange, and Ash was a bit older than he was now – sort of like an average of how he'd been over the time he and Misty had been travelling together, or maybe a bit older.

He wasn't an expert at telling his own age.

Charizard, meanwhile, had longer and sharper claws and teeth than he should have had, and Ivysaur's own claws were about the same. And they were both bigger than they should have been?

"Okay, what's up with this?" Charizard demanded, then blinked. "Okay, it's weird hearing sounds like that come out of my mouth."

"I'm not an expert," Ash began.

"Top ten obvious statements," Pikachu sniggered.

"Hey!" Ash protested. "As I was saying, uh, I'm not an expert, but, I think it's because… Misty's got a bit of fear for Charizard because he was a bit aggressive after evolving, and for a long time we were together… and Ivysaur, she's sort of worried the same thing might happen? And the speaking is because she's now used to the idea we can communicate. It's not like we're actually speaking with actual mouths here."

"Did this happen last time?" Ivysaur asked.

"...no," Ash admitted. "But it's my best guess."

"Maybe it's part of this technique?" Pikachu suggested. "It's saturated in Aura."

Ash nodded. "I guess… so, where are we, anyway?"

Ivysaur looked around. "I… think that's Mount Moon, over there, and that's to the west, and… okay, we're near Cerulean, I think."

"I guess that makes sense," Ash replied, reaching for the notebook at the top of Sir Aaron's pouch. "The technique's supposed to give you a head start on finding the trauma by making it a relevant situation."

"Is that in your pocket?"

Ash looked at the book. "...I don't want to think about this too hard or it'll go away."

Pikachu pointed. "Look."

They turned, and saw a young orange-haired girl running away from an older girl, laughing.

"I think that's her," Ash said. "And that looks like one of her sisters, but I can't keep them straight."

As they followed Misty, Charizard did his best tree impression to try and avoid being spotted.

Since this mostly consisted of holding Ivysaur to his chest, it was probably for the best that what was happening was more of a memory than anything else.

Then Misty fell down a slope, scraping her knee, and landed in a gloomy hollow with a trio of Paras and a Parasect.

"Ah!" she shouted, trying to back away, then something changed subtly in the air.

"What was that?" Pikachu asked.

Misty looked back. "Who said that?"

"I guess this isn't a memory any more!" Ash realized. "Charge!"

Pikachu and Ivysaur hit all three Paras with Vine Whips and Thunderbolt, and Charizard hit the Parasect with his tail. Ash slid down into the hollow too, grabbing a potion from his bag, and sprayed it on child-Misty's leg.

She began to whimper.

"Calm down, Misty," he said. "You're safe now."

Misty shook her head vigorously. "I always think that when my sisters come, but I never get away from them… run, before they get you too!"

"What do you mean, they?" Ash asked, perplexed.

Misty pointed to the edge of the hollow, where a series of seemingly random movements of the grass revealed themselves to be the signs of a truly immense horde of Bug types. Everything Misty had ever seen on her travels that reminded her of this one terrible event had reinforced her fear, and now they were coming for her.

Ash glanced to both sides. "Ivysaur? Charizard? Pikachu?"

They all nodded.

Ash adjusted his hat. "Right then. Misty. None of them will get you. We won't let them." He raised his staff, and focused Aura into it, forming a glowing field of power around it.

Charizard roared, Ivysaur used Growth, and Pikachu summoned a Counter Shield.

The Bug army chittered in response.

And charged.

Misty crouched under the roots of a tree, unwilling to pay attention to the fighting not far away.

She couldn't get far with her leg hurting, but she couldn't think what else to do.

If I ignore it, they might go away… they might go away…

"Hey."

Misty looked up, almost without meaning to, and saw a Squirtle leaning against the nearest root.

Something about the Pokémon seemed familiar. Maybe it was the nonchalant attitude, or the pair of outrageously pointed shades, but she was sure she'd seen this Squirtle before.

Like the boy had been familiar, but she couldn't think where from.

"What are you doing down there, Misty?" Squirtle asked, and it made sense that he was asking the question.

She sniffed. "Hiding."

Squirtle jumped down into the same space as her. "You can't hide from your troubles forever, though."

"What else can I do?" Misty demanded. "I can't run far enough, I'm not strong enough to fight…"

Squirtle tutted. "Don't think that way. There's always a choice."

He pointed to her side, and Misty blinked a few times in confusion.

There was a plush toy Seel next to her… and, with it, a Pokéball.

"A choice?" she repeated, looking back and forth between the two objects and Squirtle.

The Water-type smiled. "People often come to crossroads in their lives. And the only thing to do at a crossroads is pick one of the roads you can take and give it your all! So, tell me, Misty. Do you want to hide away from the world, safely, or do you want to be a Pokémon trainer whose reputation echoes far and wide?"

Misty hesitated, and Squirtle waved her attention back to the objects. "Go ahead. Just don't be distracted by what-ifs, should-haves and if-onlys along the way."

She reached out a hand, hesitated, then made her decision.

Ash formed an Aura Sphere, crashed it into another, and focused. The energy in the combined spheres exploded outwards, but rather than dissipating it formed into a dozen smaller spheres that were all still independently controlled.

They shot off towards a Ninjask in a dozen slightly different directions, homed in around it, and smashed it out of the sky.

"You know, I really wish Misty hadn't heard of so many Bugs now!" he called. "Charizard!"

Ash ducked, and Charizard blasted at a trio of Nincada. He got a Shedinja, as well, dissolving the husk, then Pikachu used Shockwave in a kind of expanding burst and knocked another Ninjask from the sky.

"Right, that's an option too," Ash admitted.

"Why are there so many Bug types?" Ivysaur demanded, his vines lashing out and grabbing a Scyther's arms just below the blades. "Pikachu, little help?"

Pikachu promptly hit the Scyther with a Thunderbolt.

"I think it's because Misty's afraid of so many bugs!" Ash called back. "It's, symbolic or something, it's about how technically it's got worse every time?"

Pikachu jumped onto Ash's shoulder. "Any progress?"

"Well, kind of?" Ash replied. "Remember those Genesect we met?"

"Oh, those guys!" Pikachu realized. "Yeah, I remember them. Why?"

"I mentioned them once, and, seems like Misty didn't like the sound of them!" Ash called back. "I saw one over there, and I guess it's, uh, symbolic again? It might be the core of her fear-"

There was a crash, as a Vibrava body-slammed into Charizard and knocked him over. He used Dragon Breath to blast it away, then flared his wings to complete the process, but then an Armaldo started attacking him.

Ash summoned another Aura Sphere. "Vibrava isn't even a bug!"

"Tell Misty that!" Pikachu advised. "What do we do?"

"We need to get Charizard over to fight that Genesect, but he's busy with all those Armaldo!" Ash replied. "Any ideas?"

Pikachu pointed. "We could just let them do it."

"Who's them?" Ash demanded. "I think my Aura's starting to ache, this is hard work and I still need training at it, who's them?"

"Just have a look," Pikachu advised.

Ash kicked a Galvantula into the air, followed that up by managing to knock an Accelgor out of the way, and looked.

"Okay, wow."

Misty was on the way. Their Misty, the one who Ash was in here to help, about as old as the last time Ash had seen her before they'd time travelled. And she was riding on her Gyarados, who in turn was riding on an enormous wave.

"Water Pulse!" Misty called, and Gyarados smashed the Armaldo aside. Charizard took off, and behind him almost the entire ground-bound horde of Bugs got smashed aside by what was something like a mix of Surf, Waterfall and probably Hydro Pump or something.

"Charizard, over here!" Ash called, waving.

"I see you, need a lift?" Charizard asked.

He landed next to them, and Ash grabbed on before swinging up onto his back.

Gripping hard with his knees so the takeoff wouldn't throw him, Ash kept talking as Charizard clawed for height. "We need to get that Genesect, Charizard! Problem is, it's got a Protect shield up – but I can handle that. Your job is to attack it, okay? Don't worry about me."

"But-"

"Don't," Ash insisted. "It'd take too long to explain."

"Fine," Charizard ground out.

"Okay, here goes-"

Load drive: Water.

Techno Blast.

A flash of blue energy came flashing up at Charizard from the Genesect, hitting him on the wingtip as he dodged. The impact was enough to spin him entirely around, Ash and Pikachu holding on tight as Charizard fought for control.

"I don't think that attack was that strong in New Tork, was it?" Pikachu asked. "Charizard, are you okay?"

"Fine, but I won't be if I take many more of those!" Charizard admitted.

Load drive: Electric.

Techno Blast.

This time Charizard did dodge it, then tilted his head to see what was going on as Ash adjusted his position. "Ash?"

"Pikachu, give Charizard some cover!" Ash called. "I'll give you an opening!"

He jumped off Charizard's back, one hand glowing, then Genesect's cannon lit up again. Techno Blast.

Electricity smashed into Ash, throwing him off course, and he hit the ground with a whud.

"Ash!" Pikachu and Charizard both called.

Battle co-ordination mode, Genesect stated implacably, summoning more bugs. Why bother trying to save the girl?

It wasn't like speech, not really. It was close, but there was something wrong about it.

"Because that's why we're here," Pikachu replied, as Charizard hit the ground not far from Genesect. "She's our friend."

"She's stronger than you," Charizard agreed, his gaze flicking to where Misty and Gyarados were busy rampaging through the horde of bugs – and where their friend Ivysaur had just swung up onto Gyarados's back to help. "I know what it means to face your own inadequacies."

"I think I can give a go at breaking that shield," Pikachu said.

"Charizard!" Ash called. "Blast Burn!"

He was swaying on his feet, but he was upright – and he slammed a palm into Genesect's shield, pulsing a needle-thin beam of Aura through it, then slashed to the side to pop the shield like a soap bubble.

How? Genesect demanded, as fire built in Charizard's throat.

"Better than you have tried," Ash replied.

Drive load: ALL

ERROR

Techno Blast

Charizard and Genesect fired at the same time.

A multicoloured beam of woven light reached out, and was smashed aside by Charizard's plasma bolt. It struck home, and Misty's manifest fear evaporated in an instant.

"Ash!" Misty called, jumping off Gyarados and running up as Ash collapsed to his knees. "Are you okay?"

Ash closed his eyes.

Riolu saw the blue fire around the group fade.

"Ash!" Misty shouted. "You didn't answer, are you-"

Ash sprang to his feet. "It works!"

Misty fell over.

"You gave me such a scare, you idiot!" she said, without any reduction in volume.

"Why?" Ash replied. "That was all mental, we never left the clearing. I was fine, we all were."

Pikachu, Ivysaur, Squirtle, Charizard and Misty glared at him, all at once, and he wilted a bit. Then a bit more, when Misty sent out Gyarados so he could do it too.

"Uh… I guess I forgot to mention it, then? It made sense to me…"

Misty crossed her arms. "How could that make sense?"

"It's an Aura technique meant to help people, not to get Aura adepts hurt trying to save their friends," Ash retorted. "The worst that happens is you get knocked out of their mind, I think… that's how it's meant to work."

He chuckled. "Ah, heh… I really should have told everyone else, right?"

"It'd have helped," Pikachu said, then hit him with a Thunderbolt just to make his point.

"And… ready, Dexter?" Ash asked.

Ready.

"Then let's go for it," Ash said. "Transfer!"

Butterfree's empty Pokéball vanished, then reappeared twenty feet away where Butterfree was perched on a tree trunk.

He returned himself, then the full Pokéball vanished again and reappeared in Ash's hand.

"Great!" Ash cheered. "It works!"

Composing grateful email to Professor Oak, the intelligent Pokédex said helpfully.

Ash sent out Butterfree again, and he fluttered over to where he'd been perched before and picked up the little recall beacon.

"Only one step left now," he said, and Ash clipped it carefully onto Butterfree's left foreleg.

"How's that?" Ash asked.

"It's fine, it doesn't get in the way," Butterfree replied. "I think it's tomorrow that we met the swarm, right?"

"Yeah, but… I think you can go now, if you want," Ash told him. "I'll miss having you around, Butterfree, but… it's your life."

"Stay in touch, okay?" Pikachu said.

Riolu put his palms together and bowed.

"Viridian Forest forever," Pidgeot chuckled.

"Good luck, guys," Butterfree said. "I'm just a call away… and Ash? Make sure to get me involved with the League. It sounds fun."

A few days later, and with Nastina answering some very pointed questions about her hotel development plan directly on top of a coral reef, Misty crouched down next to the dockside and the Horsea who'd given the warning. "So, this is going to sound weird, even by our standards, but… there was a time you were my Pokémon, and you don't remember it, but my friend Ash can help you remember. How does that sound?"

Horsea tilted his head, then nodded in assent.

"Okay, Ash!" Misty said, giving the go-ahead, and Ash crouched down too.

A flash of blue, and Horsea did a flip.

Then ducked under the water and began blowing out ink.

"Huh?" Misty asked, took a deep breath, and stuck her head underwater.

There was an ink image of a Kingdra, and a complicated pictogram which probably meant something like 'dragons are cool', and Horsea finished doing an arrow pointing to the Kingdra before swimming to the other end of the arrow.

Misty pulled her head back out from underwater.

"You want to evolve?" she asked, and got a nod. "Sure! I don't know where to get a Dragon Scale from, but we can definitely get you to Seadra and then work it out from there, okay?"

Horsea was right. Dragons were cool.

Meanwhile, some way to the south, James was enjoying himself.

"This is awesome!" he called, as Team Rocket shot through the waves at a speed somewhere between 'speedboat' and 'hydrofoil' on the back of a Gyarados.

Barely on the back of a Gyarados.

They'd done just as they'd planned, bought Magikarp on the S. S. Anne or St. Anne or whatever it was called, and then carefully trained the little fish until he became an incarnation of pure vibrant strength.

It had helped that he'd been extremely close to evolving anyway, but nevertheless. And now Team Rocket could get around while Abra was asleep!

Jessie and Meowth declined to comment, mostly because the wind was making them keep their mouths closed and partly because they wanted to avoid falling off.

"Where next?" James called.

Meowth tried to say something twice, gave up, and pulled out a coin. He scratched an image on it, and passed it to James.

"A volcano?" James said. "...oh! Cinnabar Gym! Hey, Gyarados?"

A muted roar came back.

"Can we head south and west? It'd be really helpful!"

I see. A Monk of Deja-Fu.

The Creator nodded. Good choice, Dialga. And you, Aaron? You said a Paladin, but a Paladin of what?

"Well, we are in the Orange Islands for this game," Aaron replied. "I thought maybe Kyogre?"

SMITE

Aaron looked down at where his character sheet had been. "Er… did Palkia do something?"

He looked closer. "...I think I can see it… did you just compress it into a ball the size of a grain of dust?"

I think Palkia has something against Kyogre, Arceus explained, prompting Palkia to huff and cross his arms. Type jealousy I think.

"Eesh…" Sir Aaron sighed. "Well, I guess he is still young… any objections to a priest of Manaphy?"

That seemed to be acceptable.

AN:

Misty has some pretty severe issues. But we all know how to solve severe issues in a Pokemon series.

Dive into the mind and sort it out that way, of course!

Apart from that and blatant skipping of half a dozen episodes of plot, this is pretty much an interlude chapter. Got to let Team Rocket build themselves up.

Meowth's skill level was reduced a little to fit his position in improvement, and otherwise most of the changes were minor.