"You've waited a long time for this, old man!" Ash teased, feeling fantastically light as the spring sun bathed them in its rays. His team coiled behind him, tense and humming with anticipation, all hoping to be called upon to deal devastation to their old friends. "I'll let you set the pace. I don't want you to get winded too fast."

Samuel's eyes sparkled with a vitality which Ash had rarely glimpsed. "You sound rather confident, Ash! I was legendary in my time, remember."

Ash grinned, mirrored by Infernus and Nidoking. Even Torrent lunged forward, scarlet eyes blazing with unrestrained passion. "That time's long past. You've gotten slow, Sammy."

"I won't deny that," Samuel admitted ruefully. He stood tall and proud. "Your team has been sharpened to a razor's edge this past year, Ash. We might be dulled, but we have not forgotten how to cut. And these past few months have reignited embers long at rest."

"Show me!" Ash demanded. A little madness touched his words, but it was nothing unexpected to any of them at this point.

Pikachu leapt to Samuel's shoulder, red cheek pouches sparking, and the little electric-type chittered eagerly as it made its challenge. An age-weathered hand reached up to pacify the little creature.

"Not yet, my friend," Samuel murmured. He motioned to Alakazam, whose eyes flashed azure as she shuffled forward. She raised her spoons in challenge to Dazed, a fond expression washing over her old features. Alakazam's mustache twitched as her mouth twisted into a smile.

Alakazam's telepathic voice, old and mature and softer than ever before, filled their thoughts.

It was a long time before we knew it was you, Ash. We imagined running into you around every corner…and then we became Masters, and you weren't there to greet us.

Ash swallowed, the weight of unlived years settling upon his shoulders. "We're sorry for that."

We sought you for a decade. We awaited the boy-Master surging upwards to take the world by storm. We searched for your home and found this quaint little spot. We became Champions, if only for a moment, and plumbed the depths of the League to find you. Silence was our answer.

We followed your example. We followed the path you set. We became all we dreamed…but we never quite forgot about you. And just as hope failed us, we recognized the little boy who would grow tall indeed.

"We're here now," Ash said. "Are you ready to take out forty years of frustrations?"

A shimmering psychic blade manifested above Alakazam's head, pointed directly at Dazed.

We are eager to see just how far we have surpassed our old teachers.

"Funny," Ash said, grinning. "We were just thinking the same thing. Isn't time travel stupid?"

"Terribly so," Samuel said. A shadow was cast over his face. "Oh, you should have heard Agatha cackling when she realized she was right. She thought she was insane when she saw you outside Viridian as they prepared for the assault, but Agatha always did have a taste for a little madness."

Silence passed over the two as they honored their old friend, though she would have sneered at their remembrance.

'Better to leave me in the dirt,' Ash imagined Agatha spitting. 'I live on through my actions, not through a dusty duff out of his prime and an old man in a young body. Pathetic, the both of you!'

Oak must have imagined something similar, for they both smiled as one.

And just like that, Dazed shuffled forward. Her pendulum leaped. Her eyes flashed, eager to test her skills against her teacher-student—

Inferno came crashing down to the earth, snarling and spitting white flame, eyes ablaze with passion even as Infernus snarled, death bursting from his cannons as blue fire. The earth trembled with Infernus' every step even as the Charizard's roar sundered the serene skies of Pallet Town and left it silent.

The hulking old Charizard spat flame, meeting Infernus' eyes for the first time, and nodded.

Old, battle-scarred, mighty, and always aloof…until now.

Infernus and Ash had begged Inferno for a battle a hundred times over. He had always refused.

No longer.

"Oh dear," Samuel said, a smile playing across his lips. "Take a step back, Alakazam. I don't know if we have a choice in the matter."

She rolled her eyes.

"What a shame," Ash drawled, eyes burning just as manically as Infernus'. "A real shame!"

You're a terrible liar, Friend-Trainer.

Charizard thumped his great feet against the smoldering grass fiercely at the challenge. His tail swished and sent a great conflagration spewing behind him, mighty enough to be considered the full-blown Flamethrower of the young Charmeleon that Ash and Infernus had met decades ago.

"Most of us grew old and soft in the last few years. We only rediscovered our fire recently," Samuel said, snapping his fingers. "But Inferno? His flame only ever grew brighter."

"Inferno," Ash said, tasting the name as realization struck him. "Awfully derivative, isn't it?"

Samuel's eyes glinted. "You have no idea."

Inferno's roar shook the Corral, deafening all of Pallet.

"So you picked up a new name," Ash drawled, grinning over at Inferno as the tip of his tail burned cerulean. Heat poured from the great Charizard, the pinnacle of Samuel's team, and the fire-type watched him and Infernus alike ravenously. "A good name. A strong name! But can you match the original?"

Infernus' Plasma Blade hummed as it came roaring to life, a deadly edge of swirling superheated flame and gas.

Inferno's tail flame blazed, condensed, and seemed to mirror it.

Ash cackled again. "Good! You've had forty years, Inferno. I hope you made good use of them!"

The world seemed to freeze as the four of them watched each other raptly, the crawl of time slowing to molasses as fire filled Ash and Infernus' veins and the song of battle reared within their hearts.

Blazing heat scorched the Corral, searing grass away in a rush of flames and scarring the earth until it was twisted and black. Ash trembled with glee, feeling rather as if they were the ones who'd waited decades for this—

"Go!"

Their voices cracked like a whip, not that their partners needed any encouragement. Infernus and Inferno lunged at each other with a roar, their respective Plasma Blades—for that was surely what Inferno lashed out with, though it was some modified form with subtly different mechanics from what Ash could see—smashed into each other with a brilliant flash of light as the psychic shells hummed with fury.

Charizard's snapping jaws lunged forth to tear at Infernus' throat as his tail-blade sizzled, pressing firmly against Infernus' longer Plasma Blade as they contested with raw strength, but the great dragon's neck flicked back with a vicious snarl as Infernus unveiled a trick they'd never shown Inferno and Sammy in their youth.

They'd only gotten it working a week ago.

As their blades screamed against one another, Infernus grinned, slashing forward with his second cannon…and the split-second Plasma Blade which exploded forth in an unstable shell which nevertheless lashed out to carve open the Charizard's muscular stomach.

The plasma jetted forward—

Inferno let out a breath, blazing into some sort of psychic shell. Its dagger-like length stopped Infernus in his tracks, even as they slashed at each other in a lethal dance, the shells blazing as they rebounded against each other. Infernus's secondary blade shattered, too unstable itself while the Charizard lunged in a rush of fire.

Samuel's laughter rang above the din of battle.

"We planned for it all, Ash! You couldn't do that an hour ago, could you? I can't believe you perfected it so swiftly, but we put nothing past you. A wise decision, I think! We've waited years to test Plasma Cutter against the original."

Ash called out order after order, masking his intent with code, and Infernus leapt away from Inferno as the Charizard's slashing mess of claws, breath-dagger, and plasma-edged tail forced him away and offered the older fire-type a momentary advantage.

It was lost as Infernus belched a noxious mix of smoke and poisonous gas right into the Charizard's face. Charizard were capable of withstanding far worse, but it bought a moment for Infernus to lunge forward with electrified claws and rake them down the creamy scales of his foe's powerful chest.

Inferno lunged forward with his own plasma technique—it was more tightly controlled than Infernus', Ash realized, more efficient, and he decided that 'Plasma Cutter' was quite suitable—but Infernus veered beneath the assault and slammed a brutal uppercut into the Charizard's jaw which severed the Plasma Dagger blazing from his throat.

The Charizard took it on the chin, as it were, and snarled, slashing into Infernus' own belly to graze his flesh with one of the few things that could burn him. Infernus stumbled backwards, spitting even more toxic smoke to sting Inferno's eyes, but the Charizard spat back a great swarm of silver globes into the burnt earth of the Corral to animate it, creating a surging tomb of twisting ground that rose up to smash Infernus to pieces.

It was a tomb, Ash realized, designed to smother him entirely.

The use of Ancient Power was quite literally enough to make Tangrowth proud.

Tangrowth gurgled at the sight, actually, bouncing happily up and down on his red boot-like feet. Flecks of earth slammed into Infernus…or would have, had Infernus not vanished with a crack to appear behind Charizard, a Plasma Blade bearing down on his wings a second later to slash them, only for Infernos' tail to flick down and spit a purple globe into the soil.

Rock and a spray of debris burst upwards furiously, smashing into Infernus' elbow and veering his attack upwards to spear harmlessly into the sky even as Inferno took off in a rush of flame and wind.

"You seemed like a living volcano to us once upon a time! I hope you can forgive us for taking inspiration. It's not as if regular flames will burn Infernus. We had to get creative!"

"It's the sincerest form of flattery!" Ash snarled even as Infernus spat white-hot flame into Inferno's back. It splashed mostly harmless against the Charizard's scarred orange hide, but it still hurt the legendary Charizard more than any flame would sear Infernus. That was their great advantage here: most of the Charizard's deadliest weapons were useless against a Magmortar.

Infernus inhaled, intensifying the flames and heat pouring off his molten flesh, and fired a sickeningly not-grey orb of Confuse Ray after Inferno, though it just barely missed the Charizard. The Charizard's tail lashed and a blade of wind came scything down at Infernus, though he was well-used to such attacks thanks to Plume.

All it took was leaning out of the way to allow the Air Slash to come ripping down harmlessly into the earth of the Corral, scything through soil and dirt as if it were paper to leave a great gouging scar.

Inferno flung silver orb after silver orb down at the spots around Infernus, conjuring up spears of sharpened stone and hammering earth to rise up and strike his body, though Infernus was a blur of motion as he dodged and wove around, spraying blue flame up to lick at Charizard's pale belly even as he did so.

Bruiser's punches were far faster than the blindingly quick jabs of rock. Not to mention about one hundred times more dangerous.

Still, Inferno's evasion maddened Infernus. But he wasn't so blindly aggressive now—fun as this might be, they wanted to win!

Victory above all else!

Ash and Samuel alike called out a steady stream of orders as Infernus and the mighty Charizard dueled with careful tests of flame and smoke and stone. They didn't dare distract their partners entirely, nor push the bounds too far yet, but every word carefully nudged the battle in different directions.

Their commands were simple and crisp, calculated, and both the Magmortar and Charizard reacted instantaneously.

Both sides fought together as a well-oiled machine, knowing each other's actions almost before they occurred, and Ash felt a thrill in his heart as Samuel and Inferno matched them blow for blow even with Infernus' slight psychic potential allowing him to read a fraction of his foe's intent.

It was hard to tell whether or not Inferno specialized heavily into rock and earth techniques or if he was simply wielding it like a hammer against Infernus, but his command over Ancient Power and Rock Tomb was stunning—Inferno was no artist, being far too pragmatic for that, but there was a simple elegance in the brutal way he attempted to dismantle Infernus' defenses with an onslaught of rocky pillars punctuated with Air Slashes, marked by precise use of earthen walls to box Infernus in.

Every jab of Infernus' was met with a wall of rock or spear of earth which slammed into Infernus' cannons and left his strikes angling just off of their target. The Corral around Infernus was ablaze, naturally, spawning great clouds of pungent black smoke, but Infernus shone like a star within.

He was content to weather Inferno's assault for now, fending off the initial flurry of strikes while sending light jabs back in turn so that the Charizard didn't grow too bold, but Ash and Infernus both felt the battle-lust in their guts burning for more.

They would not leap in recklessly, but they were attuned to the rhythm of combat, the underlying tempo to the dance of battle.

The tides were eager to change.

Ash's orders led Infernus to approach slowly and steadily, abandoning raw aggression in favor of a measured series of carefully planned Fire Blasts which plowed through the Charizard's layers of earthen defenses. Infernus took blow after blow without landing any in turn, but just as Inferno invested a portion of his strength into an Earthquake with a stomp of his heavy foot and then shot into the air with a flap of his mighty wings, Infernus blinked out of existence.

Inferno shot into the air, fanning the flames beneath with every gust, and roared his mad challenge as Infernus popped back into existence to meet him midair, smashing a Low Kick right into the Charizard's great gut and leaving his foe grunting. A Plasma Blade took a second to materialize, but the true threat came from Infernus wrapping the Charizard in a great big hug.

The Magmortar reared back with his Plasma Blade, eager to embed it into his mightiest foe yet, but Ash shouted a warning at the glint of satisfaction in Inferno's slanted eyes.

Distortion's characteristic foulness filled the air.

Dark-flecked fire burst from Charizard's throat, blocked just in time by a Protect as Infernus hung on for dear life, smashing his electrified claws into Inferno madly, but the Will-O-Wisp was incredibly potent and steadily devoured the shimmering green shield.

Ash snapped out command after command as Inferno took them both higher, though his speed was halved by Infernus' muscle bound body dragging him down. Honestly, it was amazing that the Charizard was still flying at all with Infernus lashing out frantically against him—even most fire-types would collapse beneath Infernus' mere touch.

But then Ash felt the surge.

The wild spray of Distortion-infused flame (comparable to a Houndoom's dark fire) condensed, sharpened, and shaped into a rippling blade which punched through Infernus' Protect like a hot knife through butter.

"Down!" Was all Ash could shout, and without his superhuman senses it would have been too late. Infernus vanished with a crack and flash of light, barely avoiding the Distorted equivalent of a Plasma Blade.

"You're quick!" Samuel cried out gleefully as the duel resumed, though Inferno remained on the offensive with his dark flame, bathing Infernus' location in the deadly fire when he reappeared on the burning surface. It was no surprise to Ash that he'd ensured at least one way to properly burn Infernus over the last forty years. "Good. We would have been disappointed if it ended so soon!"

Ash grit his teeth as Inferno sailed over the battlefield and scoured it in a sea of dark-flecked fire. It left a sickly haze all around, but what truly worried him were the little sparks that fanned out throughout the mundane flames and propagated, tinging it all with the foul touch of Distortion.

"That's a nice trick," Ash called back, though his attention remained almost entirely on the battle. "Did Agatha help you with that?"

"She did," Samuel said as Inferno unleashed a vast roaring pillar of dark fire, washing the Corral with the corrupted flame.

Infernus leapt away, masking his presence with a Smokescreen and diving into one of four small pools of lava he'd brought up with Lava Plume moments before.

"We never quite developed the same level of psychic aptitude as you did, but there are advantages to befriending a world-class Ghost Master," Samuel said lightly. "We had the beginnings back in our glory days, but it was perfected in the sands of Orre. We knew you wouldn't give us much more time to prepare."

Ash snorted, then focused his attention to the battle in full. He'd have to copy that technique later—Plasma Blade was potent enough to carve through a Protect with some effort, but this alternate form made almost every defense irrelevant.

It was a deadly mix, searing past Infernus' molten flesh to strike at his very spirit, but Infernus burned brighter. He was flame incarnate, death made manifest, and though the Will-O-Wisps could strike at him they could not break him.

Inferno swept above, still wheezing a little from that brutal Low Kick that Infernus had slammed into his midsection, but maintained the assault. Soon enough it felt as though the entire Corral was ablaze in corrupted flame, the relic of Agatha's influence upon her old friend.

Yet Infernus vanished into the fires. His teleportation wasn't what it was thanks to all the Distortion available, but the great clouds of black smoke and the haze of fire masked his presence thanks to his natural camouflage.

As deadly as Inferno was, his dark fire left a smog which even his eyes couldn't pick through.

Inferno didn't dare land. Not when Infernus lay in wait. But he spread the Distortion-laced flames throughout all the mundane, twisting them into a hell of his own design which would burn even his old teacher, and swept low on occasion, partially to bait Infernus out.

But Infernus didn't take the opportunities. Not yet.

"And here I thought youth was supposed to offer courage!" Samuel cried out, teasing Ash and Infernus both. "You have no idea how excited Inferno and I were to watch the Indigo Conference Final last year, Ash. It was living proof that you would become the trainer we knew you could be! But look at you now! Where's the boy and his mad Magmortar who rode a Salamence—"

That was when Infernus played his cards.

The Corral trembled.

Sweltering heat redoubled.

"Right here!" Ash roared above the gut-wrenching roar of a volcano. The world shook beneath their feet, groaning as it churned, and several things happened in quick succession.

The earth's crust sundered.

A deafening shockwave split the air, rolling outwards from the battlefield and carrying great swathes of black smoke and Distorted flame with it.

Most importantly, the magma chamber which Infernus had spent the last few minutes constructing erupted and vomited forth its molten contents—the liquid stone blasted forth in an enormous geyser, propelled by vast pressure, and spat tons upon tons of lava two hundred feet up in the air in the span of a single instant, consuming everything in its path.

Inferno had wisely soared up as high as he could the moment he detected something wrong, but the geyser caught him. Ash spotted the characteristic shimmer of Protect as he was devoured by the volcanic eruption, but the forces involved hurled the Charizard up high, high, high!

Molten globs of lava fell back to earth with a thunderous crash, shielded by both Dazed and Alakazam to prevent any damage to the onlookers, but Infernus was left hanging in the air, falling with a murderous grin upon his face, and his eyes lit up with childlike glee as he spied Inferno's Protect shatter beneath the sheer heat of the molten stone.

Crack.

Inferno grunted as the heavy Magmortar teleported atop him, slamming an electrified claw into the mighty Charizard even as Infernus' maw opened to reveal the molten gold flecks of a Hyper Beam—

The Charizard's tail flicked. Lava spilling down to earth was captured in a silvery Ancient Power shell and flung upwards. It couldn't hurt Infernus, but he was jolted off his foe by the impact of the heavy molten stone and fell to earth.

Imitation really was the greatest form of flattery.

Tangrowth certainly seemed to think so, cheering madly and waving his vines everywhere as Inferno manipulated lava to bury Infernus for just a moment to buy time to steady his flight.

Infernus tore his way out of the lava with a roar, packing his wounds with the deadly material while he had the chance, only for Inferno to come sweeping down upon him, a Distorted Plasma Dagger billowing out in a controlled blaze from the Charizard's throat—

Ash and Infernus alike gaped as the Plasma Dagger flung out of Inferno's throat, somehow stabilized to the point that it could exist at a distance, and then blinked out of existence in a rush of darkness only to spear Infernus through the gut. Dark flames exploded within him, searing his flesh, and Infernus roared out his fury.

"Not quite a teleporting Confuse Ray, but it does the trick," Samuel said mildly, a stupid grin on his face as Infernus fell to his knee for an instant, hacking up steaming blood. "Agatha smacked us a thousand times with her cane until we finally got this right. It was worth the indignity, don't you agree?"

Ash hissed out some coded messages again, though he couldn't be certain that Samuel wouldn't figure it out within the next few minutes, and faked calmness as he nodded. "I'd say so. That's a nasty trick."

"Isn't it lovely?" Samuel laughed. "Black Javelin is its name. Agatha insisted we keep it somewhat short and simple. Oh, if only we had this back in our glory days! Plasma Cutter carved right through Uther's monstrous old Snorlax, but this would have saved Inferno a few bruises."

Ash grit his teeth as Infernus dove within the lava, using it as cover from any future Black Javelins. The old battle-hardened Charizard couldn't pierce what he couldn't see…they hoped, anyways.

Inferno had mastered Infernus' old tricks to an extent that they hadn't had the time to reach. He and Samuel had seemingly optimized their battle style to negate or work around Infernus' heat resistance—Plasma Cutter was deadly enough to properly burn and cut Infernus, and that Black Javelin and the Distorted flames were a menace!

While Inferno was the only one of Samuel's team that had never really stopped training, it was also true that he had remained stagnant for many years without the proper support of the team. He hadn't lost his edge, but up until recent months Ash doubted he'd really grown too much either.

Largely the same techniques at his disposal…Inferno was a true monster—Ash suspected he could tangle with Magnus, with Inferno's raw strength, guile, and bulk sufficient to give the speedy Magnus a good challenge—but in many ways he had specialized specifically for Infernus.

And in a way, Infernus was just as specialized for him, forcing the Charizard to work around Infernus' own advantages.

They could use that.

"You know, one thing hasn't changed in the last forty years," Ash said casually.

"Oh?" Samuel arched an eyebrow, smiling. "And what would that be?"

"You talk too much."

Infernus unleashed hell in that moment. Scorching heat blasted, redoubling from the already oppressive waves rolling off the lava, and it was as if the sky turned red as blood.

The Magmortar's cannon just barely peeked out of the heaping lava, the blinding glow of the molten stone too brilliant for even Inferno's well-adjusted eyes to pick out detail from, and the blazing gold of a furious Hyper Beam was initially masked. Inferno roared out his surprise as the aurelian lance blasted across the crimson sky, thunder rolling from its sheer force, and slammed into the shimmering green aegis which just barely manifested in time.

Inferno caught the mighty Hyper Beam on his Protect, true, but the sheer power still sent him spinning wildly through the air, his great wings flapping madly in a desperate attempt to stabilize himself. Even a healthy rush of wind manipulation barely steadied his flight—despite himself and the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Ash cracked a smile as the nauseating spinning left Inferno puking up steaming vomit that was lost in the lava.

Just as Inferno caught himself, however, Infernus played his second card: a fat glob of lava blasted forth from Infernus' cannon at incredible velocity, crashing into Inferno with pinpoint precision. That sent Inferno spinning again, howling and blasting dark-tinged flame everywhere as he frantically scraped the searing lava from his body—Ash and Infernus both tracked a lone droplet of liquid stone as it rolled down their legendary foe's scales, scorching even that tough orange hide.

Inferno recovered before he fell too far, spitting mad at the attack, and dove wreathed in a sea of dark fire as Infernus roared his own challenge. The great lake of lava rose in response to Infernus' great Lava Plume, crashing into Inferno's foul flames and carrying their master, Infernus, alongside them in the swell of an enormous tide.

Lava crashed into fires, swallowing it whole even as the Distorted tongues devoured the enormous Lava Plume whole. It was all the onlookers could do to contain the miniature cataclysm before it rolled over and obliterated much of the Corral.

Yet even as Infernus rose like a berserker into the black flames, Inferno did not hold back—rather than veer away from Infernus' rising tide of death and destruction like any sane fighter would do, the injured Inferno dove into the wave of lava, spitting a dozen silvery Ancient Power spheres which stripped away the lava around Infernus and left him vulnerable for one crucial instant.

And in that instant, Inferno struck!

One of his claws blazed with turquoise flame, and Infernus grunted even as the Charizard snatched the great Magmortar up with the Dragon Claw, pouring the destructive power right past Infernus' hide, and crunched down on Infernus' shoulder with a maw of draconic flames.

With that, Inferno saw his chance. His great wings flapped, slowed by Infernus' weight, but steadily carrying them higher and higher as the two mad fire-types went at each other like a pair of killers.

Infernus spat smoke, flame, and screamed his fury, then tore out a few agonized howls from Inferno as he reared his right cannon back and speared Inferno through the side with a blinding Plasma Blade, though it didn't strike anything vital. Any other fighter would have let Infernus go that instant, but Infernus seemed to have finally met someone as piss-mad-insane as he was.

And from the delighted look in Infernus' eyes, he couldn't be happier.

The little Charmeleon had truly grown into a proper rival!

They scrambled madly at one another, but it was clear as day that Inferno had Infernus' number now, answering every trick that Infernus pulled with a dastardly strike of his own, underhanded and vicious and fighting to win above all else.

After several seconds of frantic battle, Inferno had enough. He hugged Infernus tight, ignoring the agony of the superheated flesh, and let gravity take hold as he hauled Infernus down in a brutal Seismic Slam that would no doubt pulverize them both.

And just as Infernus felt the shift in direction, Inferno seemed to grin at the Magmortar and plunged his razor teeth deeper into Infernus' ravaged, bleeding shoulder, penetrating deep with a mouth full of shadowy daggers which speared into Infernus with Distorted might.

Ghostly energy ruined Infernus' attempt at a wavering Plasma Blade and robbed him of his teleportation. Inferno quivered with silent laughter even as Infernus leveled both cannons at the Charizard's face and began to manifest twin Hyper Beams to free himself—the Charizard flicked his tail forward, solidifying the cerulean flame there into a Plasma Cutter, and they all stared as the Plasma Cutter diverged into twin blades which pierced into both Infernus' cannons at once.

Ash (and probably Infernus too) wanted to scream in jealousy as the divergent blades tore into the cannons, damaging them beyond repair until Infernus could patch them in a lava bath, before letting the Plasma Cutter diffuse back into the regular tail flame.

It was a trick even Inferno couldn't keep up for long!

Ash hungered for it. That was so freaking cool! Infernus could have four Plasma Blades at once…no, forget that. Six! Eight! The possibilities were endless!

With both his cannons ruined and bleeding great rivulets of molten blood, Infernus did what he did best: improvise.

Golden sparks collected in Infernus' howling maw, the tell-tale sign of a Hyper Beam—and then he took his left cannon's claws and stabbed them into his right, peeling back layers upon layers of fiery flesh to usher forth a veritable river of glowing blood, and shoved his cannon atop Inferno's face like some grotesque hat, tearing the wounds open further.

Charizard were resistant to flame, but even they could be burned by lava. And Infernus' blood made a fine substitute.

Inferno frantically brought Infernus down faster and faster into a vicious Seismic Toss, barreling through the air at incredible speeds, but it was plain as day that he was panicked and in agony, blinded by Infernus' tattered cannon and the blood gushing from within.

Smoke and steam poured out from the cannon and Infernus howled as a Plasma Dagger spat from Charizard's gullet, screaming as it seared the air, and carved his cannon apart in a single deadly swipe.

Infernus made to teleport away now that Inferno had been distracted from his Distorted fangs, but Inferno was no fool: he had planned their descent.

Fighting panic, flying in agony, and holding onto a frenzied Infernus was no walk in the park, but Inferno managed well enough.

Shadow Claws carved into Infernus' side, penetrating his flesh with the dark power, and the blue light faded from Infernus' eyes.

"That's a wrap, I'm afraid," Samuel said with a shake of his head, smiling. "You two are everything we hoped you would become…yet we were here to watch your every step. It's quite the advantage."

Ash gnashed his teeth as he watched them fall, mind racing.

Three hundred feet.

Two hundred fifty.

Two hundred.

"You were the living heart of the volcano!" Ash roared furiously to Infernus. One hundred fifty feet left… "You conquered the Birds—you taught them fear! You made them bleed! Have you forgotten?!"

Infernus screamed.

And ignited the spark of Fire which he had kindled in his breast for so long.

Ash felt it.

It had always been there, the understanding always lingering after Shamouti. Infernus had swallowed the inferno whole, conquered it with all he was, and it left him shining subtly brighter—perhaps it didn't offer Infernus greater power, but the insights of Fire guided him as providential instincts.

Borrowed power once upon a time…but now Infernus mastered it for his very own.

The ground yawned closer and closer.

Infernus' radiance tinted more gold than blue.

And just as the Magmortar had seen Ash do a thousand times, Fire flowed through him and burnt away all the Distortion suffusing his system with a murderous vengeance that could only come from Infernus himself.

Perhaps it wasn't only Fire after all…

Inferno brought Infernus barreling down into the hard earth, wrapping himself in wind to prevent too much damage, but gaped as Infernus blinked out of existence a moment before the earth-rattling impact.

The Charizard was holding empty air.

He rose, spitting mad—

And slammed back to earth. This time it wasn't of Inferno's volition.

Infernus came down like a comet and drop kicked him with a roar, still burning gold despite his vicious injuries—shattered cannons, a pulverized shoulder, and a dozen deep incisions thanks to Plasma Cutter's deadly edge—and stood atop Inferno for one glorious moment.

Then he raised his cannons high with the last of his strength.

The earth bubbled.

An Earth Burn erupted like the explosion of a volcano in full, rattling all of Pallet and spitting up lava and smoke and noxious gases in an ostentatious display that could probably be seen all the way from Viridian.

"How!" Sam exclaimed, eyes narrowed as he ran through a hundred mental calculations. "Teleportation should have been—"

"I'm a spooky little boy!" Ash roared, laughing maniacally and dancing up and down like Tangrowth as the volcanic eruption quaked the earth, belching great clouds of black smoke upwards as if the world was ending. "And Infernus is no better!"

Sam gaped.

The Corral turned into a hellscape. Infernus and Inferno were both hurled away by the sudden eruption, still fighting with the last of their strength—Inferno's dark wings spread wide and flapped desperately in hopes of a gale or breeze to catch it, but Infernus latched on with his own molten teeth and pulled Inferno down with him into the broken volcanic crater which bled great rushes of lava.

Infernus roared as a desperate Plasma Cutter impaled his gut but fought on manically.

The mad fire-types clashed in hell even as the Corral's water-types rushed forward to hose down the surrounding areas, desperately attempting to contain the cataclysmic battle, and both offered everything they had against their truest rival.

Inferno latched onto Infernus' left cannon with a mouthful of draconic flame and wrenched, tearing great chunks of the lower cannon off entirely before swinging his head right back to smack Infernus in the face with parts of his own severed appendage, which sent the Magmortar stumbling.

That little victory didn't last long, though even Infernus seemed impressed with the brutality through the battle-haze, offering Inferno the ugliest grin Ash had ever seen before spitting a sickly Confuse Ray right into the half-blind Charizard.

Inferno stumbled backwards, then Infernus tackled him into a pool of nearby lava with a snarl—Infernus could barely use his other cannon, but managed to wrench the severed chunks of his cannon from Inferno's jaws with his claws and a hefty yank of psychic force, then pound Inferno's snout, sending several fangs flying.

Charizard lashed out with a Plasma Cutter that cut Infernus open from throat to groin, though it thankfully wasn't that deep. Molten blood gushed out, though Infernus flung it right back to burn Inferno a little more.

Samuel and Ash didn't dare interfere now, though they both had Dazed and Alakazam ready to intervene if things went too far.

Normally that would include severed limbs, but one look at Infernus told Ash that his brother would never forgive him if they stopped this now.

Inferno readied his Plasma Cutter to slice back at Infernus in an attempt to deal enough damage that even his old role model couldn't fight through it, but Infernus ducked it, stumbling with fatigue and blood loss, and dipped his left stump into the glowing pool of lava. He smashed it into his chest, momentarily sealing the gaping wound that Inferno had dealt him and packing on the severed chunks to an approximation of a cannon, and tackled Inferno, biting at the Charizard's throat with his blunt teeth as they wrestled…

Even as Infernus forced the Charizard to fight him close to the lava pool, slowly whittling down Inferno's brute strength and resistance to heat with the sheer proximity of the molten stone, Inferno fought back like a madman, gouging chunks from Infernus' flesh.

Blood poured from them both, igniting what unlucky grass it sprayed upon, and the Corral seemed more fire than field.

But eventually the lava took its toll. Inferno was beaten down again and again, drenched in molten droplets which seared past his fleshy hide, and it was Infernus' superior heat resistance which finally sealed the deal—whereas Inferno was sapped of his strength by the lava which Infernus refused to allow him to escape, Infernus was strengthened by it.

Infernus' cannons were ravaged beyond belief. His fiery tissues were scattered around the battlefield, swallowed up and destroyed by the legendary Charizard, and obsidian-like bone peeked through in a dozen ruined pieces. Chunks of his face had been torn off as well, burned away by draconic flame, but he lashed out one last time, tearing into Inferno's neck with his molten teeth, and finally brought the great warrior low.

Inferno collapsed, beaten just as badly as Infernus, and Samuel recalled him at last with wide eyes. There were no quips now.

Infernus wavered on his feet, gurgling victory and raising his remaining whole cannon high, then fainted a second later.

A squad of water-types trimmed down the worst of the flames from spreading, but much of the Corral was still left a blasted hellscape: great fissures were rent into the earth, obliterating the gently rolling hills, and great spurts of lava had drenched the battlefield in molten stone. Deluges of Water Guns soon cooled the most dangerous portions of lava into black stone, the mists billowing up in explosions of steam as they made contact, but the substrate would still burn any ordinary fighter.

Quite a bit was still largely exposed, ready to be used by enterprising members of Ash's team.

Samuel stared with disbelieving eyes. "Forty years of effort…Inferno will be furious when he wakes."

"Or ecstatic that he still has a few mountains to climb," Ash said mildly, then shook his head, whistling a few notes of the Song to soothe the ruined battlefield and working in several intonations of the North Wind to bring a sweeping cold to ease the burden upon the water-types currently attempting to carefully douse the small lake of lava. Boiling steam erupted in great pillars, but they applied a delicate touch in order to avoid too much devastation.

Ash, Torrent, and Plume all filled their veins with Ice, breathing frost and tinging the northern breeze with a frigid edge which sapped the heat faster than ordinarily possible. Samuel's eyes narrowed, observant as ever.

"Inferno is better than Infernus," Ash said, though it pained him to admit it. They'd played on Samuel's terms and had nearly been beaten for it. Should have been beaten for it. "We just have some…unique advantages."

"I'll say," Samuel said with a frown, eying the lava as it cooled at impossible speed. It would take some time to become even remotely habitable, and Samuel seemed to take that into consideration as he released his next fighter. "Very well. We've trained to have our own advantages, you know! Inferno isn't the only one who prepared for your team."

Ash grinned at the sight of a great golden dragon which manifested from Samuel's antique Pokéball with an earth-shuddering roar. The skies quaked at his arrival. His massive wings spread wide as he bared his fangs at Ash in challenge.

"We didn't get to meet before!" Ash said with an easy salute to Dragonite, who returned it. "I hope you know how much we've been looking forward to this!"

Dragonite's dark eyes glimmered with excitement as spouts of dragonfire dripped from his maw.

"The battlefield doesn't seem amenable to terrestrial combat," Samuel said, waving his hand out at the absolute hellscape carved into the world by Infernus and his own Charizard. "Why don't we take this to the skies?"

Ash nodded to Plume, who shrieked and spread her wings in her own challenge. Part of Ash longed to embrace her, to join his soul with hers and cry their victory everlasting, but that wouldn't be too fair, would it?

Though he would love to see Samuel's face if they whipped out Aeroblast and destroyed half of Pallet Town…

Samuel smiled pleasantly. No doubt he'd baited them into this intentionally, angling to force a specific confrontation, but they would take his challenge head on!

Both darted into the air in the blink of an eye, rising high upon the thermals billowing forth from the cooling lava—Plume wasted no time in exploiting her superior speed and agility, undoubtedly the better flier with the aid of her techniques despite Dragonite's greater experience, but Ash blinked as Dragonite pulled one of their own cards and used it against them.

Dragonite offered Ash a mocking wave as his wings propelled him beneath the pyrocumulus clouds inspired and given life by the deathly battle between Inferno and Infernus. A bright blue orb flung from his throat, smashed into the clouds, and brought down a great torrent of rain which darkened the skies and filled the air with moisture. Steam exploded from the lava pools with every drop, though all the Corral's water and ice-types did their utmost to cool it.

Plume shrieked in indignation as her glorious feathers were sullied by the water, though the wax upon them would prevent her from turning into a sopping mess. She sped through the rain, leaving a visible gap thanks to her sheer speed, and harassed Dragonite with attack after attack.

Torrent would have made a fine opponent for Dragonite, Ash thought, but their new technique wasn't quite ready yet. Any day now! They just had to take a few steps before Torrent was truly unshackled.

With such quick fliers as Dragonite and Plume, this would never be a slow fight. They clashed again and again with beam and brawn, testing their mastery of the air amidst the howling winds and roaring rains.

Dragonite was one of those few fliers who could hope to match Plume, though even he seemed a little clumsy in the air next to her, riding the winds with a hair less agility and grace, even if almost any other flier would be humbled next to his skill.

But Dragonite didn't have to match Plume.

No, he just had to bring Plume down to his level.

It was a distinctly Clair move, Ash thought with some distaste. He and Sam shouted orders into the sky as it was broken with the thunder of Plume and Dragonite's clash.

Lance's legendary trio of Dragonite were renowned for their mastery of speed and explosive firepower, scouring whatever battlefield had the misfortune to host them in a sea of fire, ice, and lightning as they flitted through the air at (almost) unimaginable speeds.

Yet Dragonite seemed to have specialized into an entirely different (and almost as frustrating) direction: weather manipulation.

"I didn't quite have forty years with Dragonite, but I assure you we still planned for Master Ash!" Samuel shouted over the din of the storm. "You showed us too many of your tricks, you know. It was quite inspiring."

As much as he planned to take advantage of the storm with Oz or Torrent should Ash get the chance, Samuel's words immediately put him on edge.

That proved to be justified.

Plume struck with gale and talons and wings as she wrangled Dragonite, yet the golden beast was ever elusive, knowing he shouldn't allow her to get the first strike in. The storm brewed darker and fouler, crackling with tension, and that's when Ash realized the true depth of how much Samuel had learned from him.

Dragonite's eyes flickered gold as he cast down his claws.

Lightning flashed.

Thunder roared.

"Bolt Storm," Samuel said pleasantly as a dozen different lightning strikes flashed down from the clouds, darting past Plume as she sped through the air faster than Dragonite could guide the latent charge. Oz whirred in indignation, practically glowing with fury and envy as Dragonite guided electricity with the same ease she had thought. "It would take far more effort to match Plume in the sky, I imagine. So why not make it inhospitable instead?"

Plume darted to and fro at blistering speed, unable to focus on offense while Dragonite brought down lightning bolt after lightning bolt, mastering the skill that Oz had so desired. It wasn't done with the same fluidity and mastery as what Ash hoped for Oz to achieve, but true lightning was harnessed nonetheless.

It couldn't amplify Dragonite in the same way it would elevate Oz, but the world shuddered as Dragonite made lightning rain from the skies. Bolt after bolt came down in blinding flashes, tearing through the atmosphere like a golden blade that came quivering into the ground for a split-second before detonating in an eruption of light and fury.

Plume wasn't faster than lightning, but she didn't have to be. She couldn't achieve her top speed as she darted constantly to avoid bolt after bolt, but Dragonite couldn't aim them faster than she could move. He could apply constant pressure, however, and even Plume would be drained before too long…

Ash guided her through the fight with words and will—and even if they couldn't be unified, he didn't feel guilty about sharing his mind and spirit with Plume given how utterly ridiculous Samuel Oak was—and they avoided the worst of Dragonite's assault, though even the shockwaves were enough to wear Plume down.

Dragonite was a monster. Whereas Lance's dragons, and especially his cornerstone, Dragonite, had chosen to master the elements to spew forth from their throats, Sam's partner had learned to manipulate the ambient elements, wielding latent charge and humidity as a spear.

When Plume came near, Dragonite came darting down to swipe at her with an Aqua Tail gathered from the ambient moisture, collecting the raindrops in a vicious swipe which gathered around it to tear at Plume in a blow that would've knocked her unconscious outright had it landed. As it was, the moisture helped to deflect the Air Slash she hurled at Dragonite, offering the dragon just enough time to escape its biting touch.

But for all Plume attempted to make headway, Dragonite seemed ready to meet her. Amplified electric attacks were guided to prevent her from building up to insane speeds, the dragon flit in and out of Dragon Dance and Agility as needed to amplify its own strikes, and every attempt to tear down Plume only infuriated her more at its gall!

She rejected Dragonite's attempts to make her unable to fight properly—damn their past selves for exhibiting their gifts so obviously to a perceptive boy like Sammy!—and both Ash and Plume desperately wished that Aeroblast was functional outside of Mega Evolution. One day!

Plume was an expert at fighting Dragonite. But no Dragonite she'd ever encountered had ever fought quite like this.

The rain and lightning wore them down, and when Plume saw her chance she took it. She darted in faster than Ash could track, collected specks of molten gold in her throat—

Dragonite grinned, shot closer in a rush of wind and water, and his eyes flashed blue.

Plume fired a Hyper Beam that went wide, unable to quite catch Dragonite's sheer speed.

Then she fired another.

Ash's stomach filled with dread as he roared out interruptions, commanding Plume with words and more to stop, but she fired off another two draining Hyper Beams before Ash's words finally reached her and her own will and pride shattered the Encore that Dragonite had locked her into.

Dragonite's gambit was successful, though. It had baited her into firing four Hyper Beams, each of which might have taken the beast out had they connected, but which had only added to the pockmarked terrain of the Corral instead. Or gone wide and punched a hole through the sky.

She fought viciously, layering blow after blow on Dragonite, but the golden monster knew exactly how she fought. It flickered forth with Extreme Speed when she got too close—and Samuel had never mentioned Dragonite as obtained from the Wataru, so Ash could only imagine how he'd trained Dragonite into that—and commanded the battlefield as a true Master.

Rain came down heavier and heavier, draining the clouds dry before Ash's team could make too much use of them. Dragonite dove down to whip up a terrible Sandstorm, dredging the sand high up into the sky to pollute the air with grit, and Ash was genuinely offended at the gleaming creature for polluting their domain.

…Perhaps he'd been spending too much time in Plume's glorious head as of late.

Plume wasn't without her own tricks. Her Double Team proved useful, already so fast and difficult to track that any advantage helped. Dragonite worked to the bone to keep up with her (and out of her attack range) and visibly struggled to keep pace with her sheer speed, but his own efforts paid off in spades as he stayed just ahead of Plume.

He had his own nasty feints, though, and one of the worst was Dragonite's sheer mastery of Weather Ball: Dragonite's Weather Ball was particularly selective, gathering up moisture or sand depending on what he favored, and detonating with tremendous force to blow pressurized grit or water out in a deafening bang.

It didn't help that Dragonite seemed fond of electrifying his moist Weather Balls either, coordinating them devastatingly well with great arcs of lightning courtesy of his Bolt Storm.

And despite her skill and strength and ferocity, Plume was worn down, exhausted by a dozen of Dragonite's gambits which came one after another, planned for decades, and which devoured her stamina whole.

But she left wounds of her own: gaping incisions across Dragonite's broad chest courtesy of her talons and Air Slashes, bruised and battered limbs left at odd angles, and (most importantly) a tattered wing which she inflicted moments before she was defeated.

Plume had recognized her poor state (and match up) and Ash felt her eyes narrow as she determined the best course of action. Fury raged within him at Plume being unable to demonstrate her full prowess—alongside pride at the grievous wounds she dealt Dragonite regardless—but her last minute of combat revolved around tearing Dragonite's wings to pieces, grounding the dragon and exposing him for attack from the rest of the team.

It proved to be a glancing blow which did the trick, but that was all Plume needed.

With a deafening cry of rage, Plume flickered down. Her Double Team copies shot with her, disorienting Dragonite for just a moment as he spat dragonfire in the wrong direction, and her wicked beak carved right through the delicate membrane of his wing, sending the great dragon careening out of her domain.

Dragonite did not let the brutal wound go unpaid as he toppled from the heavens, his air manipulation all that was slowing his descent to a delicate landing, and smashed his Aqua Tail into Plume, spraying pressurized water with the blow which sent her spinning, and the moment he saw her own distraction he raked his claws down once more.

Electricity flashed from the heavens—Oz seethed with jealousy, Ash noticed—and Plume shrieked a cry which rumbled with thunder…her own feathers suffused with Lightning an instant before the bolt struck her, dissipating it somewhat, and Dragonite snarled as her electrified form came flashing towards him.

She was burnt to a crisp, smoking despite the protection which Lightning offered, but slammed into Dragonite as he fell, taking extra care to dig her electrified beak through diamond-hard scales into the flesh of his leg beneath. He paid her back for the assault with a gout of dragonfire which scorched Plume further (and which demanded Ash return her as soon as she was within range) but gasped as he collapsed heavily into the earth with only the barest cushion of wind.

Oak actually leapt into the air with excitement, crying out with joy to Dragonite "Haha, we've still got it, don't we?"

Ash grit his teeth as Dragonite rose with a pained grimace, though that didn't stop the dragon from motioning to Ash with a challenging 'come on' wave. "Nidoking! Break him."

Dragonite even grimaced as Nidoking charged forth, as he well should have. Oh, he put up a good fight: sandstorms warred between the command of two masters, elemental flashes raged as they danced amidst the cooling lava, and he landed several blows past Nidoking's Protect, claws glimmering with the familiar turquoise hue of draconic energy.

But Nidoking had a sister to avenge, and it wasn't long before Dragonite's grounded, wounded body slipped up. One step on his damaged leg sent a miniscule wince of pain through Dragonite's body, but it was all the opportunity Nidoking needed. A Dragon Pulse snuck past Dragonite's guard, sending the golden dragon reeling back, and seconds later his body was speared by the poison type's wicked horn..

"A shame," Samuel sighed as he recalled Dragonite. "But Dragonite did his duty! Plume would have been a terror without a solid counter. We never quite managed her absurd speed, but we found workarounds."

"I see that," Ash said. "Always clever, aren't you?"

"It's something of my shtick," Samuel chuckled. "I don't have such a wide arsenal as a man like Steven Stone, but we do our utmost to wield our arsenal to its utmost. One kick ten thousand times and whatnot. We had inspiration to follow, you understand."

Well, Samuel had certainly succeeded in that.

Part of Ash was bothered that Sam seemed to have properly mastered Storm Surge—or at least some modified version of it—but an even greater part glowed in admiration, filled with Pride that little Sammy had come so far.

"So who's next?" Ash asked impatiently, tapping his foot. "Let's go!"

Samuel smiled. "You've met him before, though he's a fair bit younger than my oldest friends. Pikachu, I choose you!"

Pikachu leapt off Samuel's shoulder with a vibrant cry, electricity sparking all about him as he fed off the latent charge in the air much as Oz would have. She spat by Ash's side, longing to go and chuck the little rodent into the horizon.

Ash's smile remained, though he was more alert than ever. Ordinarily, only a fool would send a Pikachu of all things against Nidoking. An ordinary Nidoking was a formidable foe practically immune to electricity's bite, and Ash's partner was beyond almost all of them.

But Professor Samuel Oak was no fool.

Pikachu seemed eager as well, scratching at a patch of hardened lava with sparking red cheeks as his tail swished back and forth, spraying sparks as bright as Oz's. It had absorbed quite a few lightning bolts during Mewtwo's hurricanes, Ash remembered, and had gone with Samuel and his formidable team to the scarred deserts of Orre.

"Not a traditional matchup," Ash said, both he and Nidoking acknowledging the electric rodent with a respectful nod. "Do I even want to know what you've taught him?"

"I must confess that I haven't taught him much of anything, I'm afraid. Not until recent weeks," Samuel said brightly. Ash and Nidoking groaned. "He's been something of a team project, though lacking much battle experience until the last few months. Pikachu has proven to be a remarkably fast learner, however. You'll see that soon enough."

Ash grit his teeth as Pikachu coiled tight, wreathed in a cloak of electricity already, even as Nidoking plodded upon cooled lava with grim resolve. Pikachu may prove to be far more of a problem than they would have expected, but Nidoking was battle-hardened and possessed many physiological advantages.

They just couldn't offer Pikachu a moment's rest.

The two trainers shared a quick nod, marking the beginning of the battle—

Pikachu hurled himself high into the air, glowed a fiery gold as he called down lightning from the heavens, and the world rumbled as a great bolt of electricity lanced down like a divine spear to fling the rodent's front legs down into the dirt with concussive force.

Blinding light exploded out from Pikachu as he harnessed the bolt's power, great sparks and whips of electricity discharging with every step to strike against the cooled lava and glassy surface.

Oz frothed with rage. She looked ready to pummel Pikachu herself for daring to use her own technique.

Nidoking was already attacking—a flurry of Poison Stings shot from his throat, intending to poison and slow Pikachu before the electric-type could really get moving, but the corona of electricity around Pikachu surged and obliterated them with a thunderclap.

It was all the warning that Nidoking had before Pikachu exploded forward like a comet, trailing lightning behind him as he slammed into Nidoking with an enormous concussive force. Nidoking might have weathered the Volt Tackle's electrical component unscathed, but he wasn't immune to the blinding light, shrieking thunder, and concussive force which sent him skidding backwards.

Nidoking's thick tail crashed down against the glassy rock upon which he stood, shattering it around and sending jagged shards spraying, but Pikachu moved like the element he captured. That was fine, though—Nidoking had loosened up some of the surrounding stone with his miniature Earthquake,

Such speed!

Pikachu barely resembled a living creature as it bolted around the battlefield, shockwaves and peals of thunder bursting out with every step alongside whiplike lashes of electricity. Nidoking grunted as Pikachu flickered forward, swinging down an electrified Iron Tail which nearly carved through Nidoking's thick hide with a mere handful of blows, sparks flying madly in great fountains of blue and gold to blind his friend.

The Pikachu created Electric Terrain as a simple byproduct of his movement, leaving every square inch of the battlefield blanketed in twisting arcs of gold.

"Steady!" Ash commanded. Pikachu was certainly Master-level (and what a monster he must have been to go so far with such haphazard training!) and was going to give Oz an aneurysm from pure rage thanks to hijacking her Storm Surge technique, but they'd faced far worse. "Earthquake!"

Nidoking leapt up and came down with a roar, sending out an enormous shockwave which forced Pikachu to surge upwards into the air to avoid the blast, which rippled out with a great groan as it cleaved the earth all around, opening chasms and winding fissures and pits into the still-molten hollows.

While Pikachu's initial assault had inflicted several moderate injuries on Nidoking, preventing him from moving easily without wincing, it wasn't long before Nidoking adjusted to the rodent's insane speed and firepower. It was a rude awakening for Pikachu's electrical attacks to actually hurt—seriously, how much juice had this thing harnessed?!—but it was still only a Master-level fighter.

And an inexperienced one at that.

Pikachu kept barely dodging Nidoking's expertly timed blows, falling into feints that one of Ash's own team would have spotted a mile away, and Nidoking's unconventional fighting style soon led to a noticeable falter in Pikachu's rhythm.

Nidoking was a titan of talents: his thrashing tail commanded earth to spray dust and glass, his eyes flashed blue to nudge Pikachu's empowered Iron Tail just a few degrees off to prevent it from smashing into Nidoking's spine, his breath was fire and ice in equal measure.

While the electric-type might rule the lightning like ruinous spears, Nidoking commanded the battlefield. Their stint in the past had offered Nidoking that most precious of resources: time.

Time to train.

Time to master individual components of his arsenal.

And most importantly, time to synthesize it all into a seamless whole.

Pikachu was far from Nidoking's ideal opponent, no doubt as Professor Oak intended. Nidoking's innate resistance to electricity faltered in the face of the sheer power Pikachu wielded, especially as Pikachu realized his initial efforts weren't enough and called down another bolt of lightning to empower himself further, but he was a powerhouse at heart.

Nimble, speedy opponents were a little more difficult for him to chase after. He was mostly relegated to area of effect and ranged attacks, both of which Pikachu seemed prepared for. Nidoking was still perfectly competent against just about any fighter, but this certainly wasn't an ideal scenario.

Especially not when Pikachu spun an Electroweb which constricted around his limbs, impeding his movements even more. Every web required just a bit more time from Nidoking, slowing his efforts and requiring a flex of strength to tear apart the crackling restraints, electricity dancing harmlessly against his shock resistant hide.

Nidoking was still mostly fresh, thankfully, so he had free reign to unleash devastation upon the battlefield. Most of the lava had cooled, though vast portions of the battlefield were still uninhabitable, but Pikachu was so fast and explosive that it didn't matter.

He really was a monster—Pikachu's body bore the tell-tale flicker of psychic energy that marked Agility, which he flitted in and out of at key moments to hammer into Nidoking with bone-cracking Iron Tails which slowly grew more and more effective as they opened up Nidoking's hide with crimson cracks which left him slightly more vulnerable.

Pikachu were hardly known for their psychic potential, but this one bore clear signs of Alakazam's tutelage. Psychic barriers caught Nidoking's elemental blasts and slowed them just enough for Pikachu to flit away, though they weren't strong enough to hold back Nidoking's assault entirely.

But Pikachu didn't have to stop Nidoking's attacks.

He just had to dodge them.

Ash kept up a steady stream of orders to guide Nidoking, nudging him this way and that as they attempted to tire out Pikachu or land a lucky hit even as it slowly chipped away at Nidoking's own defenses. Neither could strike a decisive blow just yet, needing to exhaust their opponent first.

Nidoking would triumph, Ash was certain. Ash could see in Professor Oak's expression that he hadn't expected Nidoking to be quite this resistant, quite this capable of sensing Pikachu and reacting just before the creature struck.

Psychic senses really were ridiculous, and Nidoking had honed his well. He couldn't see as deeply or as widely as Dazed, but nothing could enter his vicinity without his knowledge.

Especially not a little golden mouse shining as brightly as the sun.

They scored blow after blow. Pikachu slowed down a tad (though was still acting as if he'd injected a liter of caffeine right into his tiny little heart) and Nidoking struggled as his hide was slowly carved apart. Every glancing blast of electricity struck a little harder now, though Pikachu was bruised as well from the shrapnel that Nidoking weaponized.

Nidoking was cunning, however. Even as he weathered a literal storm, he slowly manipulated the rising tides of mud to seep in and throughout the arena, nullifying some of Pikachu's lightning and preparing a snare.

Nidoking exhaled heavily, still buffeted by rain and scored by two dozen bladed, electrified Iron Tails. Pikachu hissed, visibly frustrated as his opponent took blow after blow without flinching, and sparked brighter than ever.

"Don't use Volt Spears yet!" Samuel shouted, an edge of frustration to his voice as Pikachu lost himself to the battle frenzy. "Not yet!"

Pikachu whined, a veritable fountain of electricity that was likely somewhat beyond his capacity to fully control, and Samuel finally relented.

"Fine. Act quickly!"

Ash grit his teeth. That didn't sound particularly inviting…

It wasn't.

Pikachu chittered with delight at the command, blasting one colossal shockwave at Nidoking which rattled Ash's bones before flinging himself into the heavens. He felt the air shudder.

"Nidoking, ready!"

Pikachu glowed, charging up his power to the utmost, and brandished his little paws out wide in the moment before gravity reasserted itself.

Boom!

Boom!

The black clouds enhanced by Dragonite flickered white as the charge surged.

Twin lightning bolts flashed.

Thunder blasted outwards. Pokémon scattered while Ash and Samuel's teams prepared themselves.

As the lightning bolts converged upon Pikachu, the electric-type seemed to catch them. An impossible feat, Ash knew, and almost every drop of the energy released outward in a great sphere of crackling power, but Pikachu roared (which was surprisingly adorable even as Ash coached Nidoking's defenses) and manifested two blazing javelins of blue-white electricity within his tiny paws as he fell.

They screamed as Pikachu fell towards Nidoking, a barely-constrained coalescence of power, and Ash knew no Protect would save Nidoking from the dual assault. Pikachu embodied the wrath of Zapdos in that moment, some tiny avatar of the storm's fury, and the might of the attack was such that Lightning surged within Ash's nerves. It made Jolteon's Thunder-5 that had struck Torrent low in the Conference look like a Thundershock by comparison.

"Now!"

A Protect wouldn't save Nidoking, but at his command the rising tide of mud formed by the rains rose up with a sickening squelch. The thick brown wave was punctuated with streaks of sickly black-purple poison courtesy of the Sludge Bombs which Nidoking had carefully fired into select spots during his and Pikachu's initial engagement.

Pikachu squeaked with a rather cute war cry as he brought the twin Volt Spears down upon the mud which leapt to Nidoking's defense—

Boom!

The spears shot through in an immense crash of sound and light and force. Mud splattered everywhere, propelled forth by the shockwave, and they were all blinded as the spears carved their way through the mud, unleashed by Pikachu's paws at the last moment. They trailed lightning, parting the air with the telltale scent of ozone, and tore through Nidoking's earth manipulation, but were blunted to the point that they stuck like quivering golden javelins into Nidoking's Protect.

Then they blew up.

Even blunted, Protect was shredded in an instant. Nidoking grunted as he was flung backward, but he'd faced worse a hundred times before. Mud flooded behind him to cushion his immense bulk, and Nidoking already fired off an Ice Beam which just barely clipped Pikachu as the lighter electric-type was flung away by the sheer force of the explosion as well.

Pikachu had erected a surprisingly strong psychic barrier to block the detonation, yet it was absolutely obliterated. A tiny squeak filled the air amidst the boiling mud and Nidoking's own roars as he finally unleashed everything he had. Elemental storms raged, cooking the mud even as Nidoking expertly directed it to chase after Pikachu and smother the electric cloak which surrounded the rodent.

"What have you been feeding this thing?!"

"Ketchup!" Samuel said brightly. "He can't get enough of it!"

Pikachu's little feet only sped faster, still trailing great surges of arcing lightning, and that was when Nidoking sprung his trap—mud surged beneath Pikachu's feet, sending the rodent scrambling in that same direction for a moment, and then Pikachu squeaked in surprise as he lost all purchase.

Nidoking's fangs were bared in a grin as Pikachu went skidding upon a frozen stretch of mud that Nidoking had set up with an Ice Beam earlier. Then Nidoking spat a second Ice Beam to create an icy path leading towards him, flashed a brief burst of psychic power to wrench Pikachu onto that new ice, and forced Pikachu closer.

Without traction, Pikachu couldn't leap up to wield another Volt Spear or anything of the sort. He regained his footing at the last second, but Nidoking surged forward.

Muscles bulged beneath ravaged purple hide. Veins pulsed with blood and latent power so thickly that they seemed to glow red.

Pikachu's eyes widened in horror as Nidoking spun and lashed out with his tail like the crack of a whip. The Superpower-enhanced blow slammed into Pikachu with all the force of this discount Rampage, and hurled Pikachu fifty feet away, skipping over the mud like a rodent-shaped stone, and crashed into a tree so hard that Ash was surprised Pikachu wasn't just a yellow splat.

They all winced in sympathy as the unconscious creature fell limply to the ground to be returned to Samuel by Alakazam.

"He has the spirit, but he still has a few lessons left to learn," Samuel said, looking fondly down at the unconscious rodent as he quickly applied some potions to start the healing process. He assessed the devastated battlefield with a groan. "Well, we've made quite the mess of things, haven't we?"

Ash smiled, whispering a few words to Nidoking as his friend manipulated the terrain into something a little more even. "We've already come this far, haven't we? I don't think I'd be content with half a battle."

Samuel beamed. "Well said! In that case…" He inclined his head at Alakazam, who stepped forward with luminous eyes. "Now that Inferno isn't here to demand otherwise, why don't we let Alakazam make up for lost time?"

"Gladly."

Alakazam stepped forward into the muck of battle, drying out mud and cooling the earth wherever she touched. The rains slowly receded without an active will to maintain them, and it wasn't long before the grand psychic stood amidst mists and spitting steam.

Her spoons quivered in her tight grip, trembling so violently with anticipation that Ash feared they might shatter in her fingers.

A finer field for our clash could not be imagined, Ash Ketchum. I watched you and your family grow from stumbling children into the Masters who challenge us now. And more importantly, I watched you grow into the friends we held dear to our heart.

Nidoking snorted fondly at her, raising his horn in salute even as blood dripped from his bruised and broken purple hide.

Alakazam's mustache twitched as she smiled.

Great blades of shimmering blue psychic energy, azure like Mewtwo's own energy, sprouted from her twin spoons like longswords. They hummed with every motion, and Ash blinked.

"So you're where Gary got the idea from."

The Psyblades shifted into cruel spears as Alakazam raised them in anticipation.

"I'm seeing a trend here," Ash said drily. Nidoking grunted in agreement, eying the sudden Psyspears with a good deal of wariness. "Got any other tricks to show us?"

Not before the battle.

"Wonderful."

"Plasma Blade was quite the inspiration to us!" Samuel chirped. Ash smiled—apparently Storm Surge had been as well. "Alakazam never quite managed to master Elemental Manipulation to the point she could manage it and Psyblade at once, but in the end she didn't need it."

The battle began on that grim note.

Nidoking didn't waste a single second—a Shadow Ball formed on the tip of his pointed horn and flung towards Alakazam, whose body was soon encased in a psychic shell which extended down from her spoons.

Teleportation would have disrupted her Psyspears.

Instead, she telekinetically dragged her body to the side at blistering speed, moving faster than even Seeker's new form could have followed, and Nidoking barely had a second to react before she shot towards him in a javelin of azure light. It reminded Ash somewhat of the psychic sphere that Sabrina's Alakazam had encased itself in long ago during their Gym Battle, but immensely more practical and less draining.

Alakazam's muscles might be atrophied to near uselessness, but her mind was terribly sharp. And in this circumstance, mind certainly triumphed over matter.

Nidoking was exhausted by his fight with Pikachu, but he fended Alakazam off admirably. Mud leapt to his defense. Mud wasn't so easy to toy with as solid earth for Nidoking, but he was experienced enough to command it.

The streams of mud merely washed off Alakazam, bending away from her even when it should have struck dead on, and Ash could almost feel the sheer weight of her power as it twisted the world to her desires.

Nidoking spat a Flamethrower as she approached to test his defenses with a psychic spear poke, and Ash marveled at Alakazam's psychic talent as the entire Flamethrower bent away, curving whenever it came too near, and passed harmlessly by her psychic armor.

Oh, how Ash wished Nidoking had a variant of Corrin's Bullet Seeds that shredded psychic barriers like paper! Maybe that needed to be added onto their list.

Spatial manipulation was hard. Will would be frothing at the mouth to see this.

They were definitely stealing this.

Agreed.

Nidoking tested her again and again, landing a blow with a wicked Shadow Claw which scoured her armor clean for a moment and which sent her flying backwards, though she dispersed the Distortion with a swift burst of something Ash couldn't quite place, and then rapidly leapt back into the fight.

They clashed viciously—Nidoking was tired but not ready to go down, spitting elemental blasts and turning the battlefield against Alakazam, but Alakazam was a calculating opponent. She was impossibly fast thanks to her psychic enhancements, wielding her shell like a perfected Agility, and rode the wave of battle with true mastery.

But Ash saw something in her that they could take advantage of. Something that made his heart sing.

Bloodlust.

Perhaps Alakazam had taken more from Infernus than just his psychic blade.

Ash could feel Dazed's dripping disdain permeate every word as she spoke to him telepathically.

Disgusting! My own mentor, corrupted by the Brute! What a dreadful truth. We must have words after this.

He bit back a laugh as he worked with Nidoking to slow Alakazam's every attack and make her pay for every blow. Nidoking's defense was ironclad even without being able to draw on his own psychic powers—Alakazam was quick to dispel his every psychic working, multitasking in a way that only a true Master could manage—and every second he survived was a second that Alakazam was burning precious stamina.

Nidoking relied heavily on Shadow Balls, peppering them out in smaller barrages much like Dazed did with Multiball, but Alakazam effortlessly dispersed most. How long had she worked with Agatha to make that a reality?

But eventually Nidoking was a hair too slow. His Shadow Claw was broken as one of Alakazam's spears shifted into a mighty hammer which slammed into his elbow, badly bruising it, and as he stumbled with the blow, Alakazam's second blade surged forward with a snap of psychic power, laying against Nidoking's throat in a silent demand for submission.

She fought more like a Gallade than an Alakazam, Ash thought, all deadly grace and blinding speed.

Alakazam smiled as Nidoking fell, satisfied, and shifted one of her spears into a proper blade, which she raised to Dazed in silent challenge.

"Shall we have honorable combat, then?" Samuel shouted, sounding gleeful at Nidoking's defeat. "A duel to mark the beginning of your defeat?"

Ash recalled Nidoking, thanking him for his efforts, and turned to Dazed. Yet they shared a certain hesitance. A painful one.

His fists balled even as Dazed's eyes glinted with determination.

It must have killed Dazed to make this choice…it nearly left Ash sick, wishing they could follow their guts, but their heads were louder.

A single sentence flooded Ash's thoughts.

We fight to win.

Ash opened his mouth to argue, but Dazed's yellow fingers reached out to brush his face. Her gaze burrowed into his own, demanding he accept her proclamation, and Ash felt the grief it caused her to make that decision when he could not.

"We fight to win," Ash agreed at last, squeezing Dazed's hand tight, then turned to the friend with the best odds against a psychic freak of nature like Alakazam.

"Ashen-Gloam-of-Greatest-Pack…it's your time to shine."

Gloam hissed in satisfaction, though he grimaced as he plodded into the mud. He'd have to be careful not to be bogged down too much in the hostile terrain.

Despite the visible disappointment in Alakazam's eyes (mirrored by Dazed), she nodded in respect to the Hypno for her pragmatic choice before watching Gloam warily.

A woman's voice which was eerily similar to Alakazam's manifested as the psychic tugged upon reality to create vibrations in the air with incredible skill. She could not speak directly to Gloam's mind, but it seemed that Alakazam had devised an alternative.

"Ashen-Gloam-of-Greatest-Pack. I did not expect to face you today…but no matter. It is a wise choice. I am honored to be your foe. Prepare yourself!"

Gloam hissed out his acknowledgement, dipping his head to the mightiest of Alakazam which they had encountered, and raised his claws. At some sign of unspoken agreement the battle began—

A wave of darkness lashed out from Weavile, scouring the mud and devouring all life it encountered. Alakazam blinked out of existence in the span of a single second, reappearing at the opposite end of the battlefield. She wisely chose to stay far, far away from the deadly Weavile.

It wouldn't last long, however. Gloam was true to his name. Darkness bled from his body with every step, a grim reversal of the lightning that had illuminated Pikachu's tiny form, and the Weavile shot forward with long, loping strides.

The steps of a hunter.

Alakazam was no easy prey, however. Her eyes flashed blue and her spoons bent as she channeled enormous amounts of psychic power. Great gouts of flame erupted from her spoons as she weaponized her own Elemental Synthesis, spraying vast rivers of flame out at Gloam and recruiting whatever lingering heat she could from Infernus' lava to supplement it.

The battlefield grew hot, echoing the fury of the earlier battle between Infernus and Inferno, and Gloam's shadow found a scouring light to meet it. Fires coalesced into little spheres trapped within psychic shells which hurled at the Weavile, detonating whenever he came close, but Gloam had fully adapted to his body in the months they spent in the past.

Perhaps it was blasphemous to say, but Gloam's grace reminded Ash of Suicune: fluid, deadly, concealing raw strength beneath smooth movements. He cast his veil of darkness wide, fracturing Alakazam's control whenever he came near a fireball, and deftly avoided every blast of white-hot fire that Alakazam commanded.

He moved so quickly that he hardly left an impression in the mud beneath his feet.

Mud was telekinetically hurled at him, but Gloam flitted to and fro to avoid it, freezing it with flickers of Ice Beam when necessary to secure his passage, and he steadfastly chased after Alakazam with deadly speed.

He took blows. Not even Gloam was perfect. But he came as close as anyone could (minus Plume, of course). Gloam took those he could and avoided those he couldn't, steadily wearing Alakazam down as she threw the entire battlefield and a little more at him.

But as Gloam moved, he ruined every bit of the battlefield behind him: darkness sank into the mud, suffused the air, and even fell into the cooling lava like little wisps. Weavile carried the night within him.

Alakazam brought light to meet it.

Gloam was a blur of black fur and white blades as he slowly boxed Alakazam in. For all her might, he carried the void to match it. Fire was dodged or devoured whole by darkness. Lava was sprinted beneath. Mud was frozen whole.

And with every second, Gloam waxed and Alakazam waned.

It didn't take long for either Samuel or Alakazam to realize it. No doubt they'd realized it from the beginning and had only sought a lucky blow to wear down Gloam. But eventually Alakazam's flames dimmed before they could reach Weavile, the psychic catalyst behind Elemental Synthesis smothered in its crib by the gloom of Distortion.

"I will not be defeated as a cripple!" Alakazam's physical voice bellowed out, reverberating throughout the battlefield as she encased herself in azure armor and great matching blades. "Meet me blade to claw, Ashen-Gloam-of-Greatest-Pack, and prove your might!"

There was bloodlust in her words to make Infernus proud, manifested even through the filter of the sonic technique, and Gloam bled Distortion as he leapt to meet her. She shot forward in a blur of blue light, carving through the Distortion as she nullified it with whatever technique Agatha had taught her, and Ash called out a single word of warning to Gloam as they met.

It was well-placed.

To most, a militant Alakazam charging someone like Gloam would be a death wish. For all her psychic might, Alakazam was nigh helpless in the face of a lethal predator like him.

Her psychic armor would dissipate.

Her Psyblades would fade away upon swinging down at his neck.

She would be torn apart by dark-wreathed claws.

But Alakazam let it all vanish as she approached, abandoning psychic power in exchange for the corruption of Distortion. Her spoons seemed to shrivel upon themselves as she channeled grey not-light through them, blasting out a wave which swept away much of Gloam's own Distorted cloak with it.

It left him open for a single second, but a second in a battle between Masters may well have been an eternity.

Alakazam's eyes burned like twin suns.

Her spoons trembled as deadly psychic blades manifested to meet the Weavile's cruel claws.

She brought them down upon him, ready to pierce his thin hide—

Gloam erupted in a Mind Breaker. His power had been forced away for an instant, but it came naturally to him now, coiled tight like an Ekans ready to strike at a moment's notice.

The foul power left them all wretching as it washed over them in a noxious wave, stinging their skin with its potency, and Alakazam bore the brunt of it. She seized up, spasming, and collapsed limply to the earth as the Distortion wracked her every cell, digging deep to claw away at her very essence.

Samuel wasted no time in returning Alakazam before she could become too badly damaged. The old man bit his lip. "Well done, Gloam. You have no idea how hard it was not to call you that…but enough. There's been someone waiting to play with you for a long while now."

As they digested that, Samuel spoke again.

"A shame! I would have loved to see her test Dazed after all these years," Samuel sighed. "Another time! We'd hoped to bait you into a losing match, naturally…no offense, Dazed—"

Some taken.

"—but I suppose the past taught you a little more than obscure history facts!" Samuel said, chuckling. "I never thought I'd see the day when Ash Ketchum and company turned down a challenge!"

Ash grit his teeth. "I'd love to take you up on that soon…but now? No way! We didn't trudge through time just to lose here!"

Samuel roared in laughter, gleeful as he'd been since this devastating battle had started, and clapped. "Very well then! In that case, I suppose I'll return the favor. Enjoy!"

Arcanine leapt forward with a happy yip, his great big tongue lolling out of his mouth as he wagged his tail. Flames burst from his fur with every twitch and heat rolled off his body, more than comfortable in the remnants of Infernus' devastation.

…Ash didn't even want to begin to try to explain what happened to the Corral to the rest of the townsfolk later. Better to just tell them that a dozen pyrobombs had gone off instead, though they knew Infernus well enough by now to not be too surprised by random acts of catastrophe.

"Arcanine, it's our honor! Are you ready?"

Arcanine's tail wagged ever faster.

"Solar Avatar!"

Samuel normally kept his commands crisp and clean, measured expertly to exact the most gain for the least effort, but there was a wildness to him now, a joy matched only by Arcanine as the great fire-type flung his head high and spat a sphere of fiery orange high into the fading storm clouds.

A great burst of light and dry, scorching heat erupted from it, banishing the clouds in an instant so that the bright sun could bathe the obliterated Corral in rays of gold. Whatever mist still hung over the battlefield vanished in an instant. And as the light suffused the land, casting it in stark relief, Arcanine shed years and his jolly old composure alike.

Limbs seemed firmer. His eyes turned from those of an overgrown puppy to a warrior made wise by the passing of decades and the loss of dear friends. Fires burned hotter, reigned in tightly to blaze about Arcanine like a cloak, and he was little more than a living star as he burned, burned, burned!

Steam billowed up all around him, rising high until it seemed as if new clouds might form above the blasted Corral, and Arcanine howled.

Gloam didn't even bother with an Ice Beam. It would be devoured by the heat cloak. Instead, he hurled a scythe of Distortion at range, taking some inspiration from the Harbinger, but Arcanine flickered. A sonic boom erupted as he moved, every muscle in his body firing at once, and Ash hissed out commands as the mighty warrior came bearing down upon the Weavile almost faster than he could react.

Even so, Gloam leapt away in a fluid motion, diving from the eruption of heat with Quick Attack, but Arcanine was relentless—he shot after Gloam at impossible speeds, unleashing great waves of flame with every step and swipe of his paws, and white pillars of flame bathed the arena, cracking mud as water boiled away. Explosions resulted and flung mud everywhere, covering the air in dust which obscured Ash's vision somewhat.

The battlefield was soon reshaped from a muddy mess to hard-packed dried field. Cooling lava and glass was ripped up by Arcanine and flung in terrifying storms to chase after Gloam, though Gloam slid and dove and ducked away every time. Ice Beams froze the solid projectiles, even if Arcanine was such a powerhouse that Ice Beam would be useless against the great dog.

"Beautiful, isn't he?" Samuel shouted across the din of the battlefield. "Extreme Speed harnesses the full potential of an Arcanine's unique physiology! Most species can only utilize it for a few seconds at most before the technique induces severe muscle damage."

"I'm aware!" Ash retorted between orders. Samuel was living up to his nature as the Pokémon Professor, wasn't he? This was a little more enthusiastic than the old man had ever been during his guest lectures at the school, though…

"Most trainers and their Arcanine partners are content with that," Samuel continued as if Ash hadn't said a word. He scowled at the old man. "Elemental potency comes easily enough to him, of course! But we utilized Extreme Speed for a different purpose. It's amazing the progress that can be made when you can intentionally cut down the normal inhibitors on muscle activity."

Arcanine continued to terrorize Gloam in the meantime, though Gloam's Distorted strikes managed to pierce Arcanine's defenses several times and score deep gouges, he simply couldn't stand to be in Arcanine's vicinity for more than a second or two.

Just as Alakazam couldn't truly approach Gloam—eliminating her greatest strengths—Gloam couldn't get in close on Arcanine to carve away at his furry hide with bone-white claws.

Arcanine's sheer nature kept Gloam out of striking distance…it didn't help that Arcanine had an uncanny knack for picking out Gloam's Double Teams, ignoring the illusory copies and pouncing upon the real one with deathly heat and barrages of obsidian needles, no doubt aided by his canine sense of smell.

"Those inhibitions are an evolutionary safeguard, naturally," Samuel lectured as Ash focused entirely on the battle. "They ensure the damage to those tissues doesn't become too severe. But those worries are something we've grown past in the age of modern medicine, don't you agree? Besides! A little Morning Sun can work wonders!"

Distortion was Gloam's greatest weapon against Arcanine, his Dark Pulses and Night Slashes capable of carving past his heat cloak and damaging the canine's ability to maintain his techniques, but Arcanine was so stupidly fast with his perfect Extreme Speed that he would dodge all but physical strikes. Even then it took careful maneuvering and masterful planning for Gloam to manage a single attack without being immediately punished in retribution.

The one time that Gloam almost managed to get a Mind Breaker off, Arcanine simply vanished in a streak of white, burning so brightly that Ash could barely stand to look upon him. Glancing blows stitched themselves courtesy of Morning Sun, truly making the most of the clear skies.

Gloam had worked hard to reduce the time he took to charge Mind Breaker to a fraction of a second. It was almost instantaneous for even high-level fighters to react to, but Arcanine was more than that. The speed he was capable of made the fleet footed Weavile look like a stumbling Sneasel, more comparable to the terrifying velocity that was the domain of Plume and Lance's Dragonite trio.

High temperatures and Arcanine's titanic attacks slowly wore Weavile down, spreading across the entire arena to exhaust the ice-type. Gloam was deadly and fast, but Arcanine relied heavily upon Scorching Sands to slowly box Gloam in and cut off avenues of attack.

Gloam staggered away from one surge of Scorching Sands and into another, blazing with foul Distortion before diving through the hellishly hot grains, phasing through in a rush of darkness which left him unscathed on the other side, and then he vanished into the void once more.

Shadow Step was a success—it was limited to a very short range at the moment, incredibly imperfect, and could only be maintained for fractions of a second, but it was their own shallow mimicry of the Harbinger's uncanny knack to twist space.

The technique was still inconsistent and unpredictable, little more than a functional copy of Shadow Sneak. Most Weavile couldn't utilize Shadow Sneak without truly absurd amounts of training, so it was already a great advantage.

But the fundamentals of Shadow Step offered the potential for something far greater.

And most importantly, Arcanine couldn't predict it.

Besides, what sane Arcanine would expect a fragile little Weavile to Shadow Step beneath him?

The solar warrior's heat roasted Gloam in the span of a second, searing past his thick fur to burn the flesh beneath, but it took Arcanine just too long to realize where Gloam had vanished to.

In that precious instant, Gloam released a Mind Breaker. Arcanine howled, staggering, and threw up (it seemed a habit amongst Samuel's fire-types, Ash noted) but reared up like a Pyroar, furious, and slammed down upon the disoriented Weavile with Extreme Speed.

Arcanine landed a blow with physical power that Ash didn't know his species could possess.

Power that rivaled one of Bruiser's punches.

"Good boy!" Samuel laughed. Arcanine's tail wagged like mad, leaving heat ripples in the air as it waved.

Gloam flew away with a noise like the crack of a whip as the sound barrier was broken. His little body spun wildly, utterly disorienting him, and with the help of Lightning, Ash managed to tap the recall button on his Pokéball just before Gloam would've flown out of the Corral.

Would he have flown a few hundred feet down to the shore and its lapping waves? Ash couldn't have been sure, but he wasn't eager to find out.

That wasn't quite how Plume would've liked Gloam to finally achieve flight, Ash thought.

"Well fought!" Samuel sounded giddy. Arcanine roared his agreement, flaring all the flames in the burnt Corral with his cry. "Who's next? Show me! Show us!"

That sounded like the Sammy that Ash remembered. His heart and mind raced as one, but that brought a dumb smile to his face nonetheless.

Nidoking would have been a fine match for Arcanine, Ash considered, but it was a little late for that. He could have controlled the battlefield to turn it against the solar warrior, able to disorient Arcanine and nullify the great beast's advantages just as Dragonite had done to Plume herself.

Now if he had Plume…

But they didn't.

Bruiser could probably take Arcanine. Rampage offered enormous speed, even if he wasn't quite as agile as Arcanine, but Ash was worried that it wouldn't be the most favorable matchup. Arcanine was probably one of the few fighters in the world who could hope to match Bruiser physically, and his elemental cloak would ensure Bruiser didn't come out unscathed even if he was able to lay his hands on the more agile canine.

It would be like fighting an Infernus who could punch back almost as hard.

No, this wasn't Bruiser's fight.

"Dazed, this is your fight," Ash said. He felt the warmth of her approval radiating through their bond. "You're up."

"Hmm…Dazed facing an Arcanine in the tail end of a battle. What does this remind me of again?"

"We're getting déjà vu too," Ash grunted. "It's like the Indigo Finals all over again. And we're going to go two for two on Arcanine defeated!"

Samuel stuffed his hands in his pockets, smiling brightly. "What a show that was! That was when we first saw you, Ash. That was when we all felt a little less mad."

Ash snorted. "Happy to be of service! Now let's do this!"

Dazed shuffled forward like an old woman, a distinct counterpart to the deadly ease with which Arcanine moved as he paced back and forth, watching her with an intensity that had always been reserved for defiant bits of wrapping paper in the past.

"Go!"

Arcanine instantly attempted to overwhelm Dazed in a rush of flame and light, but she had surpassed her previous limits. Six months ago she would've been blitzed and brought down in an instant.

Now?

Dazed turned to face Arcanine, who flickered forward like a comet to come racing down upon her, and Remote Teleported him just a few feet past her into the pool of cooling lava.

He yipped—he can handle fire, but lava (even cooled) was agonizing. Remote Teleportation of unwilling targets was very difficult, one of the great limitations of the technique, but it was possible.

You had to overcome whatever innate will and psychic potential the target possessed, however, and it could be extremely expensive to do at range.

But used wisely, a little could go a long way.

Dazed's pendulum quivered as her eyes flashed blue.

Arcanine was trapped in a Disable for a moment, locked in place atop the cooling lava, and he howled, every muscle bulging as he frantically broke through the psychic prison and leapt to safety, though the passive Morning Sun he seemed to channel in order to heal various injuries that Gloam had inflicted would probably get him back to previous speeds in a minute or so.

A minute was a long, long time in a Master-level fight.

For now Arcanine was stuck limping, though even his hobbled gait was faster than most fighters could dream of achieving. His ironclad control slipped, causing him to dim slightly, and Ash grinned dangerously.

All with a single technique.

Dazed didn't give Arcanine the chance to heal. Great globs of lava encapsulated in psychic spheres rose up, blinked out of existence, and slammed into her foe from four different directions—Arcanine's reflexes were impossibly quick, adapted to handle Extreme Speed, and he ducked most or swatted them away, but one was teleported upon his back and clung, searing his skin, and Arcanine screamed in fury.

The lava flung away as Arcanine shot forward at Dazed with Extreme Speed, breaking the sound barrier once again, but this time she vanished just as his deadly jaws came snapping down with enough force to crush her to a pulp.

"Be careful, Dazed!" Samuel warned. "We've trained together to make Arcanine a force of physical perfection. He's dangerous in this state! Why, I remember those same teeth tearing through the armor of Elite Four Matthias' Tyranitar like paper mâché when we made our challenge."

They ignored Samuel. Ash had learned that he'd yap on about his techniques for hours if they let him…which would ordinarily be awesome, but right now they needed to focus.

Even a hobbled Arcanine was a terrifying foe. Dazed flung Psybeams at him, but he casually stepped away from the scattering of psychic power, lunging at her again and again. Teleportation was something that Dazed had become quite adept with, but she couldn't pull it off forever.

Waves of Scorching Sands assaulted Dazed from every direction, glowing with Arcanine's heat, but Dazed deftly used her psychic power to scoop them all into a great big ball and Remote Teleported directly in Arcanine's path, leaving him sputtering and covered in burning sand.

He didn't try that again, and Arcanine soon learned that anything but a steady projectile like Flamethrower would be rapidly thrown back at him.

Arcanine tested Dazed, but he honestly couldn't catch a break, especially not while still rattled from Gloam's Mind Breaker. She whittled him down slowly but surely, though tongues of flame licked through her shields as he twisted the environment against her, weaponizing the blistering heat to its utmost.

Remote Teleportation wasn't the only skill that Dazed had mastered, however—as frustrating as that singular twist of reality was for Arcanine, Dazed proved adept at using the principles of Elemental Synthesis to harass him further.

Lightning sparked to life and leapt at the fire-type in the blink of an eye, occasionally Remote Teleported to strike from an unexpected angle, while heat was vented from Dazed's vicinity to preserve her own comfort. Fire wasn't much use here, but Dazed was still happy to blast it every now and then to obscure Arcanine's vision.

Arcanine never noticed the little blue sphere that Dazed flung high into the sky.

Her psychic awareness meant such techniques didn't hamper her whatsoever.

Steven would have been proud, Ash thought. He certainly was.

…Claydol probably would've said something terrible. Scratch that, Claydol definitely would've said something terrible.

Ash missed the weird construct's even weirder sense of humor more than he would've expected after his time in the past.

That is to say, he missed it at all.

This was the problem of two expert generalists facing one another, Ash thought. They might have only limited options against a specialist and have to eke our their victories without optimal conditions, but each had counter after counter for another generalist, trading fighters like blows.

Arcanine adapted with Samuel's input, however. He was guided to shed some of his Solar Avatar technique and instead focus his efforts on channeling Curse, the Distortion sufficient to ensure that Dazed couldn't teleport him into danger again. It slowed him down, however, and Dazed scored more glancing hits now.

Dazed regularly sparred with Gloam, though, so this only prolonged the fight and sapped further strength from both of them.

Arcanine grew visibly more frustrated with every failed attack, unable to properly leverage his many talents, and Ash hid a grin as Samuel worked harder and harder to reign the growing aggression in. Sloppy!

Ash and Dazed were slow, deliberate, careful. Patient.

And at last their opportunity presented itself.

Arcanine lunged forth with a roar, crossing the battlefield in a matter of seconds even with the effort of maintaining Curse slowing him, and Dazed's eyes burned and her pendulum swung as she exerted vast psychic force.

A small boulder, flat and wide, vanished from the outskirts of the battlefield a few dozen feet away and appeared in Arcanine's path. He yipped as he stumbled over it, righting himself quickly, but for just a single instant he lost control of Curse.

An instant was a long, long time for someone who had stepped into temporal manipulation.

Arcanine landed just before Dazed, roaring wide as a Fire Blast erupted from within his throat—

He slowed to a crawl, though the temporal lock didn't last long. Ash felt the Adamant Stream twist as Dazed forced it into submission.

Dazed's entire body was covered in a thin film of psychic power.

She shuffled forward as if moving in accelerated frame, so fast for a tiny fraction of time that Arcanine couldn't keep track, but he yipped as she SLAMMED her Zen Headbutt into the canine's throat, snapping his jaw shut and leaving him wheezing for a moment.

"Temporal manipulation!" Samuel gasped. "I never thought…bravo!"

Lava appeared atop Arcanine again, scorching past his fur, and he howled in agony, opening his eyes wide—

They snapped onto Dazed's pendulum as it swayed, a mental link encouraging Arcanine to stop and watch and admire its crystalline facets, to let his mind and body rest after the long fight he had, to give in…

"Aggie!"

The command must have been a code of some sort, as Arcanine's eyes lost their haze. He snapped forth with a deadly Crunch that tore through Dazed's hastily erected shields, came bearing down upon her with dangerous intent as his body glowed in anticipation of unleashing Raging Fury and ending this fight for good—

Dazed's eyes burned brighter than Arcanine's fires for a moment.

I foresaw this moment.

And just as Arcanine readied himself to embrace the fire within, Dazed's Future Sight which she had placed earlier in the battle SLAMMED into the back of Arcanine's head, forcing him down into the dirt, and Dazed Remote Teleported a chunk of blackened, cooled lava to blanket him.

Samuel returned Arcanine at last.

"Facing another generalist is so frustrating," Samuel sighed. His eyes blazed with passion. "But quite exciting! How wonderful. Join me, Tauros!"

Tauros' bulky mass seemed to fill the hellscape as he stepped forward, pawing at the burnt ground as he snorted. Every muscle rippled, seemingly made only stronger by age. Perhaps Tauros had lost an iota of raw power as the years passed him by, but the deadly grace he moved with reminded Ash more of a mighty Persian than something which relied only upon brute force.

The normal-type was a rare sight to Ash, normally preferring to guard the Corral denizens on the outer breaches to ensure that no poachers made a go at them—although they'd be a fool to step foot near Pallet Town—but Ash had always admired Tauros on his infrequent appearances.

Ash wondered briefly if this was what Shinobu had looked like, ready to face down the Drake and his mighty partner with nothing but horn and hoof.

Much like the rest of Samuel's team, it was unlikely that Tauros had done too much in the way of training. Their skills had atrophied over the years for the most part (although Inferno and Dragonite had stayed sharp) but Tauros was hardly out of shape. Just a little rusty.

He reared up, kicking, and roared at Dazed in challenge. Tauros was the picture of vitality and sheer strength compared to Dazed, who was largely uninjured but still tired from the constant high-level psychic techniques that Arcanine's incredible skills demanded.

She stood tall and unbroken, however, idly polishing her pendulum with her soot-stained mane as she met Tauros' eyes with her steady gaze. It seemed to infuriate Tauros, who pawed more frantically at the burnt soil up until the point the battle began.

Tauros wasted not a single second. His three tails whipped forward and flung a matching number of purple orbs into the rock near Dazed, tearing up three jagged spikes of rock from the ground, and even as she manifested a psychic barrier to shield against the attacks, Tauros took advantage of Arcanine's Sunny Day.

A blindingly bright Solar Beam plunged forth like a glowing javelin, fully powered by the sun, and Dazed just barely managed to Remote Teleport it to slam back into Tauros, though he was far too fast and leapt away with a charge. That Dazed could still manage the Master-level technique at all seemed to surprise both Tauros and Samuel, who guided the normal-type forward with careful precision to avoid Dazed's spray of light Psybeams.

Tauros was fast!

Darkness shrouded him, no doubt a manifestation of Curse—Ash really should have known that Samuel would have it as a way to somewhat counter Agatha's armory of Distortion techniques—but even with that sapping his concentration, Tauros was nimble and swift as the wind.

Dazed blinked away just before Tauros would have crushed her beneath his bulk, barely avoiding the Shadow Ball that Tauros unleashed seconds before he landed, and telekinetically hurled lava globs at Tauros, who easily dodged.

"Steady!

Tauros was fast, but he grunted in pain as Dazed weaponized Elemental Synthesis to fire off a lancing bolt of lightning which slammed into his bulky chest. He was so massive that it barely made him stumble, but he slowed down further.

They traded blows again and again in a dangerous game of chase…Dazed must have felt much like she was a victim of 'Hunt the Hypno' at the moment. Tauros was an unstoppable juggernaut, though she littered him with minor wounds, and he unleashed a stupidly massive arsenal of techniques: earth-type techniques to destabilize the ground around her, Surf from what little rain remained on the field after Arcanine's battle, Thunderbolt in an attempt to catch her off guard, Stone Edge to whittle down her shields…Tauros just seemed to have an answer for every possible situation.

It wasn't just technique, either. The rock quivered at Tauros' touch, as did the water which leapt to his command. Ash could feel Tauros' command over the elements. He hadn't just mastered techniques, he had mastered the underlying skills behind them.

"Nidoking proved just how invaluable a flexible member of the team is!" Samuel said smugly, no doubt picking up on Ash and Dazed's growing irritation as Tauros whipped up a gritty Sandstorm before diving into the burnt ground with Dig, evading Dazed entirely as he let the Sandstorm slowly overwhelm her. "Nothing's more frustrating than finding you lack an answer to the enemy, eh? Tauros was kind enough to make sure we never found ourselves in that unenviable position!"

Ash grit his teeth. Dazed didn't really have techniques with penetrating power that could reach down into the earth to strike at Tauros. But one look at Tangrowth and his wriggling vines brought another idea to mind.

She couldn't strike at Tauros directly, but she could sense him with her psychic awareness—Tauros had embraced a Curse just before he dove into the earth to mask his position, but Dazed was adept enough to read his shadow. Her eyes followed an erratic path a short distance away.

As Tauros came closer and closer with his Dig, Ash practically screamed his plan to her through their telepathic bond.

Dazed's eyes twisted up into a wicked smile.

She quite deliberately tapped her foot, ensuring that Tauros could sense her exact position through his

And just as Tauros prepared to erupt up beneath her to send her fragile body flying, Dazed summoned the power for one last Remote Teleportation. She literally dove away from the spot she'd just been vacated, showing more agility than Ash had ever seen from her.

Samuel screamed desperate warnings, but Tauros couldn't hear him beneath the earth.

So he had no way to prepare for the great heap of half-cooled lava which awaited him.

Tauros screamed as he exploded up into several hundred pounds of heavy lava. It took him precious moments to fight his way through, and he suffered moderate burns over a great portion of his body in the process—to add insult to injury, Dazed abandoned all finesse and thrust her pendulum forward.

Golden motes of lights swirled together, coalescing into a fiery core, and Tauros brayed in surprise and agony as Dazed's Hyper Beam blasted into Tauros and sent him flying away a dozen feet. He rolled heavily on his side, but spied Dazed's weakness even through his agony and battle-haze.

She stumbled backwards after her own Hyper Beam, utterly exhausted by the sustained effort she'd given, and barely managed to manifest a fragile barrier which barely even slowed down the rage-fueled Solar Beam which plowed right through her defenses and sent her flying, knocking her unconscious.

Ash recalled her quickly, unwilling to let her suffer after how much she had given in their fight, and whispered words of affection as her Pokéball trembled in his hand.

Tauros staggered to his feet, braying his victory, but Ash didn't miss the Rain Dance he spat into the sky in the instant before Ash recalled Dazed. It slowly whittled down the lava, cooling it a little faster. No doubt Tauros wanted to eliminate that as a tactical option, though it would take time.

"That's a little cheap, isn't it?" Ash arched an eyebrow. Tauros snorted at him, flicking his tails in irritation. His hide was red and burnt away in some places, exposed skin shining wetly from his burns. That was going to be nasty tomorrow…

"I'd say it's warranted," Samuel said breezily. "You've gotten quite the mileage out of that lava, haven't you?"

Ash grinned even as he mentally sorted through his options. "Infernus played his role to perfection. He's turned into a team player…despite his best efforts."

All of Hoenn had revolved around building the team into a cohesive unit, to shape their band of warriors into a band of battle-hardened brothers and sisters in arms. To make them more than the sum of their parts.

It warmed his heart to see their designs fully come to fruition here, even if they hadn't had the opportunity to utilize every single aspect of their shared techniques.

"One last battle!" Samuel's voice was taut with excitement. His eyes settled greedily upon Bruiser, who stepped forward. "One chance to test your fullest strength against mine—

"Tangrowth, you're up."

Samuel reeled. "Tangrowth? Uh, I'm very happy to see you, of course, old friend! But—"

Tangrowth danced forward, bouncing atop the blackened soil cheerily, and flung out one vine at Tauros. The normal-type reeled back, seemingly expecting an attack of some sort, only to blink dumbly and snort a puff of hot air as the vine softly patted his nose.

"He did it to Suicune when we were in the past," Ash confided in Samuel. "I think Suicune liked it."

Samuel's face scrunched up, truly flabbergasted. "He what?"

"You heard me, old man. Or are your ears going too?"

Tauros grumbled in indignation on behalf of his trainer, but Samuel's bewildered expression changed to one of mock irritation. "You're a lot cockier than when you left me…oh, an hour ago? Perhaps all your success is finally going to your head."

"Are you going to humble me?"

"Something like that. Go!"

And with that, the battle began.

Rain fell upon the battlefield, slowly sapping the heat from the lava amidst a series of constant small explosions, and Tangrowth barely had a moment's notice before Tauros was on him with truly superb speed, wrapping himself in a coat of shimmering water which protected him from the first few slashes of Tangrowth's vines.

Tangrowth erupted high into the air, carried by a mobile platform of rock animated by several silvery spheres of Ancient Power, and Tauros' eyes widened as his mighty horns struck nothing but air.

Ash grinned as the platform rose three dozen feet in the air. It wouldn't stay up long—it was exhausting even for Tangrowth—but it was a useful technique when dealing with a groundbound opponent like Tauros.

Tauros didn't stop for long, though. Solar Beam would be inefficient with Rain Dance slowly gathering the clouds back above the battlefield, so Hyper Beam was a more effective option. Tangrowth gurgled in panic as the giant chunk of rock he flew upon was shattered in an instant, spraying vast amounts of shrapnel and debris.

Tangrowth fell, catching himself upon several vines, while others flung Ancient Power at Tauros. He was hurled away, a little slowed thanks to his burns, but Tauros caught himself with a soft cushion of mud thanks to his various elemental manipulations. He had cast a wide net and gained a great deal from it.

Great chunks of rock rained down upon Tauros then. Most shattered upon his hide or horns, but even a powerhouse like Tauros could be bruised—his eyes widened again and the mighty Tauros yelped as Tangrowth did a happy dance at the sight of the lava (Ash really hoped that Tangrowth hadn't just realized it was there…) and flung enormous heaps of the deadly stuff at Tauros, who was forced to dash away beneath the sudden rain.

Lava and earth and rock swept to Tangrowth's command even as the rain came down to fill the pits left behind, making pools full of dirty water. Ash hid his smirk at that.

Rain or sun, Tangrowth profited.

Tauros snarled, catching a weeping chunk of lava with his own earth manipulation—Ash whistled, impressed—and flung it back at Tangrowth…who snaked out a vine tipped with a silvery cap of Ancient Power, caught the glob, and gurgled at Tauros as if they were just playing a game of catch.

"No, don't—get rid of it!"

They didn't have more than a second of that little victory before Tauros charged, his eyes narrowing in victory, and he used his water manipulation to hurl an entire pool at Tangrowth. Most splashed harmlessly against his shell of wriggling vines, but a good chunk hit their real target.

Tangrowth didn't even have time to whine before the lava held on the tip of his vines exploded in a concussive blast of steam and lava, sending him flying backwards nearly fifty feet. He landed heavily in the mud, spinning madly, and swayed on his feet for a moment, though Tauros didn't let up for a moment: storms of rock and water and electricity amplified by Rain Dance lashed out at Tangrowth like a whip, smashing him down into the mud, and Ash shouted a steady stream of commands as Tangrowth grew disoriented.

Tauros was relentless! He rode a wave of water and mud to slam into Tangrowth, pounding him deeper into the mud with lightning-tipped horns, and leveraged every bit of his strength to crush Tangrowth again and again, though most of the damage was blunted by Tangrowth's shock-resistant vines.

The bull tore through a great many of them, severing them intentionally with a blade of water to strip away Tangrowth's protections, and Ash had no doubt that Samuel had at least coached his team on how to counter Ash's fighters.

A great Flamethrower blasted down upon Tangrowth, swallowing him whole—

Tauros yelped again as an Ancient Power tore up the earth he was standing upon, flinging him high in the air. His powerful legs scrambled helplessly as he swam against the air, only to suddenly be arrested before he fell heavily into the earth by several dozen vines which hoisted him up.

Tangrowth's severed vines regenerated before their eyes.

A little more slowly than they should have thanks to the lack of sunlight—although that would soon be remedied as Tangrowth flung a Sunny Day up into the atmosphere to banish the clouds yet again—but Samuel had left them with plenty of water to fuel Tangrowth's Perfect Regeneration.

"You mastered it," Samuel said dumbly, for perhaps the first time in his life. He laughed madly. "You mastered it! That imperfect variant at the Wallace Cup…oh, I'm out of date, aren't I? Of course you did!"

Tauros strained against his bonds, but Tangrowth possessed the strength to (temporarily) hold back a raging slacking when most of his vines were engaged. They coiled tight, sapping strength with Giga Drain, rubbing Toxic into Tauros' exposed wounds, and between that and the vines he'd embedded into the ground as roots, there was nothing Tauros could do to outpace his healing.

Oh, Tauros tried!

Blades of water severed vines only for them to grow back nearly as fast.

Fire washed off the wet appendages.

Stone penetrated, then was pushed out by the sheer rate of regeneration.

Tauros grew weaker all the while, already tired.

But he wasn't done.

"Deathly Horns!"

Tauros brayed one last challenge and Ash stared in awe as flame snorted from the bull's nostrils, moved by fire manipulation to curl around his great horns. But the horns burned with another force too, something dark and noxious and foul, intermixing with mundane flame to create a pseudo-Distorted fire.

A patchwork Will-o-Wisp bound to Tauros' horns. They slashed and tore at the vines, and where they cut Tangrowth's vines could not regenerate…or, at the very least, regenerated slower.

But Tangrowth was aware of this weakness. Well, Ash was, and commanded Tangrowth to use one of his whole vines to slash away the Distorted ends, enabling the severed vines to be regrown without the interference of the corrupting power.

It wouldn't matter for long, though.

Tauros came down upon Tangrowth with a cry of fury, tearing his way through a forest of struggling vines with his cursed fire horns. Tangrowth whined several times, hauling himself away constantly, and took several blows, but he always stayed one step ahead of Tauros.

Although his foe had many talents—talents which would prove a glorious challenge for Bruiser to overcome—Tangrowth was a terrible opponent for Tauros: mobile enough to evade most of his attacks thanks to his vines and Ancient Power, capable of upsetting the terrain which Torrent was reliant on, and hurling cooled lava whenever he could.

Even when it had fully cooled, it was still a chunk of rock. Tangrowth loved chunks of rock.

But eventually a sneaky vine coiled tight around Tauros' haunch as he made to leap and slammed him into the mud with a wet squelch. Tangrowth buried Tauros deep, whittling him down with a Leaf Storm, and wasted no time in spitting a Sludge Bomb right into Tauros' face as the bull was trapped in the mud.

Tauros cried out weakly, perhaps in fury, or perhaps for mercy, but Tangrowth was having too much fun now.

A dozen Ancient Power spheres slammed into the nearby lava field, dredged up molten stone from its deeper layers, and hauled them over to drop on top of Tauros as Tangrowth's vines regenerated faster and faster with the sun there to fuel his Perfect Regeneration—

Tauros vanished in a flash of light.

"I didn't do enough research…" Samuel sounded utterly lost as he recalled his partner. His face was a mask of disbelief, though it soon splintered into the widest smile that Ash had ever seen. A proper Sammy smile. "Bravo, Master Ash! Bravo."

Ash fell to his knees, as did his team.

"Master Ash…" he uttered as his family rushed in close, burying him in a mass of flesh and hide and scale. "Master Ash…"

For the very first time, he believed it.

XX

"I should go ask Michael about Celebi, huh?" Ash grumbled, recalling Professor Oak's words before he'd departed to Hoenn almost a year ago. "Very funny, professor."

Samuel chuckled, brightening as they stepped into his home. "I couldn't make things too easy, could I?" He pulled a bracelet from his coat pocket, the potential and possibilities of its gemstone made Ash take a shuddering breath. "Oh, how tempted I was. Both Alakazam and Inferno were as well. Yet I knew we all wanted this to be a pure test of skill without anything to sway it one way or another. It had to play it out naturally."

He chuckled.

"You have no idea what it's been like, Ash. I find you quite rude, you know!" For a moment Ash saw something of the old Sammy in the purse of Samuel's lips and the playful spark in his eyes. "You made me wait over forty years!"

"When did you know?"

"I wasn't sure until just a few years ago," Samuel said, smiling as he poured Ash a glass of lemonade and tossed him a wet rag to wipe off some of the black soot staining his face. Infernus and Inferno hadn't held back. "When Delia named you, I simply assumed it was coincidence. But the older you grew, the more similar you looked to my old friend. By the time you left on your journey…"

"You were certain."

"For a long time I wasn't in a place to even consider such notions," Samuel said softly, reaching into his pocket. He withdrew an old sketchbook with yellowed pages. Ash recognized it immediately and sucked in a breath as his friend opened it to show a crisp drawing of Ash and his team cradling Seeker fresh after her evolution into a Crobat. "As distant as the wonder of my youth seemed, I could never quite forget. Not even when times seemed the darkest."

Guilt tugged at Ash as he imagined just what thoughts must have raced through the professor's mind when the Rockets came to take almost everything from him, when he realized just what his friend had warned him of.

And what Ash—however unintentionally—was somewhat responsible for.

"But one day I was certain," Samuel said wearily, wiping the soot off his own face. It left black streaks on the cloth, marring it. "You'd told me several times that Nidoking was your starter. For years I waited for you to meet a little Nidoran out on the Corral or in the fields, but you never did."

Realization struck Ash. He shared a quick glance with Nidoking, who stared right back. "So you decided to make it happen yourself."

"Indeed! I asked one of my aides to swing by and collect a willing male Nidoran from another facility. Hardly an unusual request."

"I knew you wouldn't just forget!" Ash cried, stamping his foot like Gary whenever the boy lost to Clair. Like a petulant child, in other words. His mind was spinning, wondering just how different his journey might have turned out otherwise. "I knew it! Do you know how worried I was when you said there were only three starters available?"

"I apologize for that. It was a bit of a lame excuse, wasn't it? You wouldn't imagine the questions I got in the lab after they heard that little blunder, particularly when we had a perfectly good Pikachu sitting in the back room." Samuel chuckled before taking a sip of his lemonade. He took a moment to fill up Arcanine's giant water bowl—which the weary canine immediately dunked his head in—and then reclined with a loud grunt. "Getting old's a pain, Ash. I don't recommend it."

"I'll keep that in mind. But Nidoran…" Ash trailed off, wondering just how much his own travels had been engineered from the beginning. He clutched Nidoking's claws between his own fingers. Nidoking squeezed back despite his own weariness and wounds.

Samuel shook his head. "I just asked that the Nidoran be eager to join a trainer on their journey. It didn't particularly matter what Nidoran I picked, did it? Whichever one my aide chose that day would close the loop."

"Because what happened is what happened," Ash murmured, sharing a glance with the beaten down Nidoking, both allowing mutual adoration to shine through. "We owe everything to your assistant, then."

"I'll pass on your regards."

Ash hesitated for a moment as a thousand thoughts he'd wished to spill during his two months in the time loop rose up. "Professor Oak—"

"Sam is more appropriate, I think. Isn't it amazing what an hour or two can change?"

Or a few months. Or over forty years, Ash could have said.

"Professor…Sam," Ash corrected after a moment when the man looked pointedly at him, even if it still felt weird. "I'm…I'm sorry. I wish I had changed things. There's so much more I should have—"

Sam raised a hand and Ash shut up.

"Stop."

Sam sounded properly ancient at that moment.

"Anything you say is a thought I've entertained myself in my darkest times," Sam said tightly. "I wondered if it was possible to change everything. I went to that old shrine in Ilex a dozen times and waited and waited…I wept, I raged, I cursed. I even tried to tear it down, though I never quite managed it. I wanted another chance, yes, but that's not how these things work, I expect."

"The adamant stream flows ever onward," Ash murmured, Sam flickering away to be replaced by an earnest young man and then a red-eyed shell of his youthful glory.

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," Ash said wearily. His head ached as the little glimpse of the adamant rivers surged anew, carving itself deeper into his neurons and spirit alike. "But you're right."

"If it could have changed, it would have. That's what I've had to content myself with," Sam said. His voice was flat as could be, but Ash felt the storm roiling beneath. It was just as violent as the one which Ash and Plume had obliterated with Aeroblast.

Ash felt terribly small. "I…I could have changed it," he confessed. Sam froze. "I should have warned you, but I was afraid that I would ruin the future, shatter everything I know. So I kept my mouth shut. But when Celebi took me away, I saw. If I'd had the courage—"

Realization struck Sam, but he didn't shout or rage. No, he knelt in front of Ash and met his eyes. "I forget how young you are when your eyes are so old. Forgive me. No, it seems that you couldn't have."

Sam rose.

"I wish there was another way," Sam said. "Any other way. But if there was, we would be in a very different world. One in which perhaps you never would have gone back, in which case we would be right back where we started."

The old man sighed as he ruffled Arcanine's fur as the battered fire-type gulped down water. Steam billowed outward.

"You know what happened that terrible day," Sam said. "But you never learned what happened after, did you?"

Ash shook his head, dread filling him.

"Take a seat," Sam said, gesturing to one of the nearby couches, and Ash did. Nidoking grunted as he collapsed onto the floor with a thud, eager to rest. Dazed shuffled to Ash's side while Seeker fluttered over to lay in his lap, though she was heavy enough that Ash practically sank into the couch.

And so Sam began his story.

"That day…I won't revisit it," Sam said as he took his own seat in a well-worn recliner. It was where the old man did most of his reading. Several research papers and binders were thrown messily across the nearby coffee table, annotated with mad streaks of scrawling red ink. "You know what happened. That is enough. But we…we did terrible things. The League's mess spilled over into my world. We couldn't tolerate it."

There was old bitterness laced into Sam's every word. Time had not softened it.

"I ensured you, Delia, and my people were safe," Sam said. Arcanine limped over and rested his head on Sam's lap, whining until Sam relented and began to scratch behind his ears. "Then I went to Indigo Plateau and nearly tore back the throne I'd once declined. But when they realized what I was offering—a reckless solution to all their Rocket problems—they relented."

Sam's eyes squeezed shut.

"The Rockets had been a growing thorn in the League's side for several years at that point, exploiting the League's weaknesses so perfectly and effectively. We should have realized just what that meant."

Shame filled Ash. For all its strengths, the Indigo League hadn't considered the idea of a traitor. Or perhaps they had and Giovanni had simply maneuvered his way around that obstacle like the bastard he was.

"My team and I…all we saw was red that night. It was Agatha who convinced Marcus, you know. She realized that I was willing to be a wrecking ball, damn the consequences to myself, my team, and family," Sam said scornfully, glancing away for a moment. "But it worked. Marcus gave me everything they had, all the information they'd secured for future operations. Everything they lacked the manpower to crush at that moment."

Ash swallowed. "Did she…"

"Yes, she joined me. It was almost like old times," Sam said softly. "Agatha was the only one I would trust to watch our backs on those bloody nights."

Knowing Agatha, those nights spent with the Samuel Oak she had hoped for must have been some of the best nights of her life. Spilling the blood of wretched villains and monsters alongside her old friend was all she had ever wanted.

Sam continued, telling Ash and his friends how they'd conquered Rocket base after Rocket base over the course of a week, ripping information from the minds of the Rocket grunts and whatever unlucky administrators they came across.

Alakazam flickered into the room. Her eyes flashed blue.

I was gentle to those who did not deserve such harsh treatment. But those were few and far between. Their admins fed us the locations of other bases and operatives, though even then they operated in cells.

"We obliterated over a dozen of their primary installations and allowed the League to pick over the wreckage to mop up after us," Sam said icily. "But even then we knew we hadn't plucked them out entirely by the roots. We never forgave ourselves for that, knowing what would no doubt come of it. And we were right."

Arcanine strained to lick Sam's face with his hot tongue, earning a rueful smile.

"So that's why they went underground for so long," Ash said quietly. "You and Agatha smashed them to pieces."

"Agatha had been raring to go after them for a while. The League was unwilling to risk the lives of the dozens of trainers needed to secure those installations…but it turned out that a reckless former Champion was just what they needed." Bitterness dripped off Sam's tongue, though whether at himself or the League Ash couldn't tell. "We paid dearly for it."

Realization struck Ash. "Blastoise…"

"And Gyarados…and Exeggutor, though you never got to meet them," Sam said, his eyes glistening as his fists clenched shut. Ash didn't dare ask what had brought them down. "We hoped to ensure that Team Rocket would never hurt anyone else. We swore to make them feel the same horror they'd inspired in countless others! And in that, I suppose, we succeeded."

While the League had no doubt been quite responsible as well for capitalizing on the aftermath of Sam and Agatha's rampage through the Rockets, it was Samuel Oak himself who had been the fist who initially smashed their operations apart.

He had bought nearly ten years of peace.

Ten years until their superweapon was ready…

The cold fire had been listening all this time, permeating Ash's skull ever since he'd returned from the past, and it flickered now.

Sam might not have been the Champion then, but he had managed to make Kanto a little safer. A little better.

"I'm so sorry," Ash said, still clutching Nidoking's claws. He remembered the report on the Pallet Town attack, recalling Venusaur giving his life to shield Ash, his mother, Daisy, and Gary. "Blastoise…Venusaur!"

Sam's eyes squeezed shut. "He was a fine assistant and a dearer friend. We all miss him. Venusaur…he never loved fighting like Inferno. He was too innocent for that. Too kind-hearted. Tangrowth reminds me quite a bit of Venusaur, you know. But Venusaur would have traded his life for four any day."

The lump in Ash's throat felt like lead.

"Agatha hoped it would reawaken the trainer in me," Sam said. "She begged me to take the Champion's mantle and join her in the Plateau. But I couldn't. I wanted to mope and let the misery swallow me whole."

Sam aged decades in an instant. "I'm not proud of how I spent those next years, Ash," he said quietly. "I failed as a grandfather, as a father, as a husband…oh, Sarah is going to smack me when we meet on the other side. I deserve it—and no, stop right there, Ash. I won't hear anything to the contrary."

Ash's jaw snapped shut. Had Sam told Gary all of this? He dearly hoped so, though he doubted it.

"Gary and Daisy deserved better than me," Sam said with a note of finality. "Deserve better."

Ash met Sam's eyes. "It's not too late."

Sam glanced away, but Ash caught a glimpse of hope there.

"There were days where I contemplated very dark things," Oak whispered, his voice brittle for a single instant before returning to its usual cadence. "We all did. But I remembered your words, Ash, and I found the helpers. That carried me through."

They talked for a long, long time, eventually moving out into the woods of the Corral and sharing jokes around a crackling campfire just like old times. Fresh for Ash and ancient for Sam, though the man's memory would be razor sharp no matter how ancient he was.

Sam had forgotten more than most would ever learn.

Though some of their conversations—shared with their battered teams who mingled happily around the little campsite—grew heavy, Ash still felt far more content than he had in a long time. Sam truly had granted Ash the greatest gift he ever could have asked for: time, precious time, and the peace that came with it.

Ash was ready now.

It was still strange to look at the esteemed Pokémon Professor of Kanto and see flickers of his dear friend Sammy in his every word, his every expression, his every laugh, but it grew easier and easier as the night went on.

Their new relationship was a strange one. Ash wouldn't deny that.

Professor Oak had been a towering figure in Ash's life from the day he was born: the steward and beating heart at the center of Pallet Town, a kindhearted mentor, and the grandfather that Ash had never had.

And now Ash knew him as Sammy Oak, the bright-eyed boy with a kind heart that couldn't be truly extinguished by even the darkest of times. Precocious, intent on helping others learn, 'an absolute dork' as little Aggie would say, and one of Ash's best friends.

But now Ash saw those innocent threads still woven throughout Sam's experience-tempered character. He saw where bits had been shed as they were outgrown and where a great man had replaced the boy.

It was strange, surreal, yet Ash grew more and more comfortable with the fusion of the two as they talked long into the night.

But there was still something missing.

"Thank you for sending me back," Ash said quietly, clutching Seeker tightly to his chest. Tangrowth's vines curled around them all, linking them as one, and Ash smiled. "Fulfilling the time loop or not, I think you saved me. I was suffocating."

"I'm sorry for the burden you bear," Sam replied, looking away for an instant. Regret colored his words. "Some days I'm ashamed of allowing you to step foot out of Pallet Town at all. I could see the darkness hanging over you even as a boy. I knew you would have hard days ahead of you. But if I'd known just what I was condemning you to…"

"The adamant river flows ever onward," Ash murmured. Dazed nodded sagely. Alakazam's eyes burned curiously.

"What?" Sam blinked. "You're going to have to explain that at some point, you know."

"Don't worry about it," Ash said, knowing that would get under Sam's skin like nothing else. "My team, my family, my friends, all the people I've met…I wouldn't trade them for anything. Those two months with you and Agatha were some of the best in my life."

Sam relaxed at that, releasing a breath that Ash didn't think he even knew he was holding, and a few of the years washed away. "That relieves me more than you could know."

"Besides, someone has to deal with it all." Ash's chuckle had an edge to it, then waved his arm at his team. "Why not us?"

That didn't please Sam. The man was silent for a while, then reached into his lab coat's pocket and pulled out a sealed lavender envelope. Distortion stained it, screaming at Ash's senses, but he took it without hesitation.

If his fingers were shaking a little, who could blame him? Ash knew exactly who this letter was from.

"You haven't been keeping this in your pocket this whole time, right?" Ash asked as he stared at the neat script which simply read: ASH.

"Oh heavens no. I have some sense of self-preservation, unlike you." Sam looked horrified at his flippant reply until Ash burst out laughing. It was a strange sound at first, dry and hacking, but Ash's team lit up as it kept on for another few seconds and eventually sounded human.

"That sounds like something Aggie would've said," Ash said as his laugh petered out. "I guess she got to you in the end after all. She corrupted this letter on purpose, didn't she?"

"She wanted to make sure you stayed on your toes." Sam's lips twitched before he sobered. "Do you want to hear what happened?"

Ash was silent for a time, mulling over Sam's offer. He reached out to his team, who nodded, and that sealed his decision.

"Tell me."

"We knew her time was coming to a close," Sam said somberly. His team all rose to attention, as if saluting their old friend. Inferno's blue tail flame sharpened to a blade. "She was more Distortion than woman at that point, almost as if her spirit had outgrown her frail body. Fitting, I suppose, that Agatha could only be brought down by her own nature."

It was a dark sentiment, sure, but Ash knew Agatha would have gotten a kick out of it. Death had to creep up from within, for Agatha surely would have smacked it on the head with her gnarled old cane if it had dared look in her general direction from anywhere else.

"She wouldn't tell us where she was going," Sam sighed. "But we all knew when it was her time nonetheless—Agatha didn't say it outright, but she had her parting words."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ash cracked a grin. "How many were kind?"

Sam guffawed alongside Arcanine, who spat out a storm of cinders that nearly set Oz's fur alight. She sent a dirty look their way as she brushed the sparks from her fur. "More than you'd expect, though she'd kill me if she knew I'd told you."

Ash chuckled.

"She had words for all of us. Our friend Michael was told that he was delusional for trying to squeeze a diamond out of this lump of filthy coal—Agatha's words, not mine—but that she was happy to have fed that delusion a little longer," Sam said, chuckling. "Rui…well, I wasn't there for hers. Before she left, we sat and chatted one last time. She was nostalgic, reminiscing, almost gentle. That's when I knew for certain."

"Aggie always wore bitterness like armor, but we knew what was beneath," Ash said. "Sometimes I think even she didn't realize it."

Sam smiled softly at that before continuing his tale.

"She left at dawn with her team, tight-lipped as ever. I watched her walk into the dunes…part of me wishes I had gone with her," Sam muttered, sounding very much like the boy Ash once knew. "Perhaps I might have bought her another day or two. She would have killed me herself, of course. Agatha was never one for lost causes."

"Did she…do you know what happened to her?"

"There was this blasted old pyramid once used by the organization that Michael defeated several years ago," Sam explained. "A gang formed from that syndicate's ruins established themselves in the fortified location and made a nuisance of themselves, always striking at inopportune times and seeking to settle old scores with Michael and his forces."

Nidoking leaned forward, dark eyes blazing, as Ash spoke up. "I'm guessing Agatha went and settled the score permanently?"

Sam leaned back and poked silently at the fire for a moment. The only sound in the clearing was the crackling of the flames and their slow breaths.

"You would be correct," Sam said at last. "Though I have no idea where she truly ended up. The pyramid was scoured clean, not a sign of a living soul to be found. It was almost as if no one had ever lived there at all…Gengar returned a few days later with her cane. She never wanted anything so sappy as a funeral, although we all honored her in our own ways."

Tangrowth whined at that, grasping Ash for comfort. Ash clutched him back, desperate for that lifeline. Nidoking snuffled for a moment even as Gloam glanced away with a pensive look upon his fuzzy face.

And so the story of Agatha Hashimoto came to an end.

Ash could only picture a hunched old Agatha wandering into the unforgiving dunes of Orre, all alone save the fearsome ghosts at her side. A limping wraith of paper skin, atrophied muscle, and corruption-softened bone. But blazing brighter than the desert sun was the fierce will which had taken her to the top.

To the top and to the very end.

"I know you met her in Lavender. By the end she was…poorly. I don't think she wanted either of us to see her like that."

Ash didn't want to imagine it either. Agatha had been reduced to a skeletal crone by their last meeting, hacking up blood and propped up mostly by the corruptive power flowing through her tissues. She was more Distortion than flesh by the end, and the fact that she'd held out for months after that point was testament enough to her sheer will to press on.

Agatha wasn't one to go gently into the night, but Ash didn't want to think of what her true end must have been like.

Had Agatha survived her assault on the gang's pyramid and drifted away into the desert with her last breaths?

Had she fallen early, succumbing to the fate seared into her very flesh, and relied on her loyal teammates to finish her last fight?

Some questions were better left unanswered.

Death must have taken her kicking and screaming, leaving bruised and battered by the time she was done with it. No doubt she'd rapped it a few times with her cane for good measure.

"Agatha asked me to give you that envelope before she left. She said 'turnabout is fair play', or something like that," Sam said, sounding baffled. "To say she was acting strange would have been an understatement. I wondered if perhaps her wits had fled at long last, but Agatha seemed confident that you would understand."

Ash clutched it painfully tight. Dazed laid a yellow hand on his shoulder, radiating warmth as he stared down at the lavender envelope. Agatha's last words…

"Yeah. I understand," Ash rasped, remembering the envelope he'd stuffed into her tent when she refused to say goodbye.

Sam nodded, satisfied.

Ash clutched the envelope tightly, desiring nothing more than to rip the paper open and devour what sarcastic punch to the ego Agatha had left him, but thought better of it. Sam's voice—Professor Oak's voice, rather—tickled at his consciousness, the lingering remnants of his old scoldings whenever Ash and Gary had gotten into a little too much mischief.

'There's a time and place for everything, but not now!'

There was a memorial the Elite Four had constructed for her which overlooked the Plateau. Ash had known of its existence for a while now, but he hadn't had the strength to visit before Sam sent him back in time. Not with the wounds of Fino and Durand so raw and red.

But now…

Ash might have never gotten to say goodbye in the past aside from the letter that he'd left her—no doubt Agatha was terribly amused by returning the favor at long last—but he at least got a proper farewell in Lavender Town.

Even if only Agatha had known it at the time.

But he still clutched the letter as if it were made of gold.

"Thank you," Ash said, and that was that. "So tell me, how long did it take you to figure out the Apricot balls? When I left, your attempts were still a little explosive."

Sam's eyes lit up just like they had forty years ago.

"Well, about that—

Ash listened to his old friend rant about forty years of projects with a broad smile on his face.

It had only been a day (forty years), but he'd dearly missed this.

XX

Puffy white clouds rolled over the hill before breaking upon the towering spires of Mt. Silver's vast peak. Blue skies expanded overhead, darkened only by the permanent blizzard adorning Mt. Silver like a frosted crown. Its presence was softened by the warmth of the golden sun which beat upon their backs.

Ash approached the little shrine which overlooked the old citadel of the Indigo Plateau on shaky legs. Dazed walked next to him as his shadow and Lotus hung upon his hip, barely revealing itself as a single burning green eye amidst a shroud of mist. Torrent hovered beside him.

Lance strode beside Ash, tall and massive and mantled in the dark drape of the Champion. His usual easy smile was absent, replaced with a solemn mask. King—the name the newly evolved Garchomp had claimed upon their return to Indigo—marched beside him.

"Here she is," Lance said quietly. He had shown Ash to Agatha's brick (and those of her fallen teammates) upon the road of gold and silver leading up to the Plateau only a short time ago, but this was where Agatha's memory truly rested.

Her body was lost to the sands of Orre and time, but that had only ever held Agatha back. The Revenant Crone probably said 'good riddance' to the old thing.

The shrine was plain and functional, just as Ash's old friend would have liked it: a plain stone hewn into a traditional Lavender shrine with aged photos of Agatha, her team, and those she'd made her mark upon preserved in a small glass case set up by Karen and Will.

It was a lonely thing, separated from the rest of the world and greeted only by wind and rain, yet Ash imagined that Agatha would've been content here. Indigo Plateau had become her home, the Elite Four her family. She would have wanted to keep an eye on them.

They stepped forward (or hovered, in Torrent's case). Lance and King waited respectfully behind.

They knelt before the shrine, peering down at the assortment of pictures. Ash's eyes traced over visions of a youthful Agatha with her golden ringlets and mismatched eyes, a mischievous grin upon her face as she posed with her team and the world-weary Champion Uther as she was named to the Indigo Elite Four properly after the Last War.

She'd been considered the fifth of their number during that time, Ash knew. Agatha had remained a high-profile trainer until that point, but it was her service to her nation which made her a proper legend.

There were pictures of Agatha and her entire team—including Arbok and Crobat—standing with Champion Drake amongst the wreckage of a battlefield, full of dark fire and a hint of inhumanity, and further chronicles of her adventures: smashing her walking stick into the neck of a captured Unovan minister who had attempted to gas his entire city with him, roaring her orders to ghosts and loyal troops amidst the Battle of Three Champions, and various scenes of her proudest moments.

Later photos did not include Crobat or Arbok. A little more life that was stolen from her.

When she was a little older, there was a picture of her, Blaine, and Drake standing beside a tiny egg. The shit-eating grin upon Agatha's older face reminded him of how Aggie cackled upon their little con back in Violet.

As much as these pictures were a testament to Agatha's greatest victories and brightest glories, they also painted a picture of her rapid decline.

By her late twenties Agatha bore lines around her mouth and eyes.

By her late thirties she appeared twenty years older, stern and harder than before as her cursed flesh made itself known.

By her late forties she was an old woman robbed of youth.

Just a few years later she was a husk…and then she was free.

Ash swallowed, a painful longing filling him, and he desperately wished that they had met just one last time before the end. One time when he'd known the truth. One time when they were on equal footing.

But even as he mourned, a shadow grew and swelled black. Bloody eyes burned crimson. White fangs materialized in a gaseous form which bled up from the monument and danced between Ash's outstretched fingers.

"Old friend," Ash said, every word that of an ancient man. Torrent inclined his head. "If only I'd known."

Gengar chuckled, softer than Ash had ever seen Agatha's favored companion, and manifested fully. It reached beneath the glass case set in front of Agatha's shrine and unslotted an old photo from the secret compartment, brandishing it to Ash so that he would take it in shaking hands.

"Oh."

It was aged, yellowed, but still clear. Ash felt a wrenching nostalgia—odder still since this had been a mere few days for him—as he viewed a picture of him, Sammy, and Agatha all laughing by a campfire with their teams. He'd gone to great lengths in the past to avoid leaving a tangible record of his presence, but apparently Aggie hadn't given a damn and had managed to snag a picture nonetheless.

He couldn't be more grateful.

Ash devoured it ravenously, etching every detail of young Sammy and Aggie into memory, making it real, and the azure flame flickered in the back of his mind. He ignored it and handed the picture back.

Gengar reverently unslotted the glass case which protected Agatha's history and slotted the picture of Ash, Oak, and Agatha into the beginning portion which had been curiously blank. It turned back to Ash with a feral grin.

"You know where my room is in the Plateau, right?"

The ghost chuckled, then nodded.

"You're always welcome there," Ash said, meeting Gengar's eyes. Acerbic as the living shadow could be, he knew it was touched. He brandished the lavender envelope a moment later. "Sam gave this to me. It didn't feel right to open then, but now…"

Gengar nodded.

And so Ash read Agatha's final words.

Ash,

If you're reading this, I'm dead. And don't you dare get all misty-eyed and pathetic! You knew this was coming. I took great care in Lavender to prepare your bratty little mind for the concept.

I'm dead. Rotting in the sands of Orre, most likely. I'll either die in the pyramid or wander until this useless old body of mine has faded away. It's close now, Ash. I can feel it. My heartbeat is frail as a Cutiefly's—disgusting little beasties they are—and my limbs are like lead.

I've been dying a long time now. There's no use protesting, though in my weaker moments I have to remind myself of that. We're dealt the hands fate deems us fit for, eh? I suppose mine must have just been a particularly unlucky draw.

But I have no regrets. Not one.

I have lived a life of one hundred in a mere fraction of that number.

I have scarred history with my image.

I have left my legacy.

And most of all…I met friends which I will remember until my end.

Friends have been a scarce resource throughout my life, Ash. Most are fools, useless, lazy, or some combination of the three. Humanity is a disappointing thing. Pokémon are far more reliable, but perhaps that's just the ghost in me talking. No doubt you've realized the same.

Two months. Two months I knew you, yet I remembered you for a lifetime. Or whatever shadow of one I was granted, at least. What a frustrating child you were…mysterious, challenging, and an all around irritant!

How I despised you at first. I imagined smothering you in your sleep a few times. I couldn't tell what you were, but I knew you were inhuman. A calamity waiting to drown us both in your presence. Those brief shining spots stilled my hand, however, not to mention your team of monsters which would have slaughtered us for such a betrayal.

Worst of all…you earned my trust. And then you left! Ha, this bitter old cosmos does like playing pranks on us, doesn't it?

It's hilarious, honestly. One of two friends I'd ever made—and don't think I didn't learn what you did to my dear old grandfather, you gloriously impudent brat—and they quite literally vanished into thin air. But at least I had an envelope to remember you by (cryptic as it was), and I suppose this is my payback.

I cursed you for a while. I missed my friend. As much as I love that old duff (and don't you ever tell that doddering oaf I said that) he was always soft, always naive, always trusting. It was nice to have someone with a bit of darkness to them. Someone else who knew what it was like to stand apart from humanity.

It's my last night on this earth. I should be blunt, I suppose. It's what I always appreciated about you. As much as you danced around—and I understand that now, and I hate that I've had to play the same game since I realized who you were—you spoke your mind when it mattered.

Thank you for befriending that scared little girl and offering her a bit of security, a bit of courage. I was brave enough to open myself to others again after a while. They became my family, as I'm sure they've become your family by now as well.

I'm afraid, Ash. I'm afraid of tomorrow. I'm afraid of what the dawn will bring. I hope we will do one last bit of good before the end…but the end! The end!

I knew my fate as a girl, but it always seemed so far off, distant as only time can seem. Now it's finally come to say hello. I'm staring it in the face and it terrifies me.

But whatever it is, I will greet it with a straight back and a blow of my cane. It is my way, after all.

Bid the thing wearing sweet Akemi's face farewell.

Beat the old duff for me.

Never drink the black broth again. I swear that took more off my life than the damned ghost did!

Tell Karen what a dear girl she is. She watches out for you, you know. She's softer than she seems. Foolish girl, hiding her love…

Humble Lance. That arrogant little boy needs it! Though the universe seems to have conspired to remind him what a little Joltik he really is.

Most of all, do not greet the world with scorn as I did. Contemptible as it may be at times and as thick as those foolish humans' heads may be, there is much to love. Smear away the filth and smite evil when you see it, but do not armor yourself in bitterness.

Believe me, it only leaves you all the more hollow.

Make me proud, old friend, though I hope you know that you already have.

Even a naive little girl could see that you came to us bearing great pain. I was never fortuitous enough to know what it was, though I'm content to not solve every mystery I come across…unlike SOMEONE we know.

I hope that burden was eased by your time with us.

Enough rambling…I've truly grown old, haven't I? Ah, the little Aggie you knew would have been disgusted! What an old woman I've become. But no longer.

It's time to remember what it was like before I was born.

Love,

Aggie

P.S. Just to scar you one last time, I want you to know that I developed a bit of a crush on you towards the end of it all. Watching Seeker's love for you sealed it, I fear. Enjoy THAT little image, you stupid boy!

Ash threw his head back and cackled just as Agatha would have at the end, shaking his head as Dazed rolled her eyes behind him. The tears which filled his and Dazed's eyes were not forgotten, but they were masked for a moment as Agatha left with one last jab.

"She's a little old for me," Ash murmured to Lotus as the Spiritomb's green eye focused upon the writing, though it hadn't quite learned to read the modern text yet. Gengar leaned over and sniggered. Torrent rumbled his bittersweet amusement. "But I'll take the compliment."

Gengar's presence grew stronger with its humor, gaining their attention, and it pointed to draw their eyes to the lonely old withered cane which was embedded proudly into the barren mountain soil like a stillborn sapling.

Ash knelt, reaching out towards it, and Gengar allowed it.

Distortion intermixed with Agatha's life and memories and essence flowed through him, all those little traces acquired by her cane's proximity through the years, and Ash grit his teeth as the waves rushed through him.

Friends, loneliness, love, bitterness.

Agatha's paradoxical existence (or at least the little shadow that remained) rushed through him, and both Ash and Dazed weathered the storm. Lotus quivered, sensitive to all Aura, and Ash rested a comforting hand upon the Spiritomb.

"I still wish I'd gotten to meet you on the same playing field," Ash muttered, and Dazed nodded in agreement. But Gengar pointed impatiently to the dark-shrouded cane, and Ash peered once again at it.

This time he saw.

"A seed," Ash breathed. Whatever remained of Agatha's existence might not linger on as a spirit as so many cultures wistfully imagined, but Gengar invested more and more of itself by the day to let the remains of Agatha bloom forth. "It won't be her, but…"

Gengar grinned, pleased.

Whatever manifested within the cane—a Phantump, Ash imagined—would carry her memory on just a little longer.

"Call us if you need us," Ash said with steel in his tongue. "We'll be here to protect her."

Gengar snickered at that, waggled its fingers, and vanished back into the shrine's shadow to resume its long vigil. Ash remained there for a while with Dazed, both deep in reflection, and told stories of Agatha to Lotus who drank them up greedily.

At last he rose, returned to Lance with new weight upon his shoulders, and smiled.

"She would've hated this," Lance said fondly, gesturing out at the monument. "Every atom of it."

"She would've pretended to."

Lance smiled.

They all knew this wouldn't be the last time any of them visited their grumpy old friend.

Ash and Lance walked along the perimeter of the Plateau for a time, chatting idly, and after a time Lance beamed down at him.

"You seem lighter than before," Lance said, relief radiating off of him. "Pallet did you good."

"It did," Ash said, smiling, unwilling to share what he'd gone through just yet. Not when he could still pull some advantage out of it. "Lance…"

"Yes?"

"We've been considering something for a while now," Ash said quietly. "And we finally feel ready to do it."

Lance's pink eyebrows rose. King grinned dangerously.

"I want to challenge the Indigo Elite Four."

Lance beamed, but glanced away after a moment as a dozen different emotions danced across his angular face. "I love the enthusiasm! Uh, you might want to take a rain check on that, though."

Ash's eyes narrowed as he shared a strange look with his teammates, all of whom sent strange looks Lance's way. "...Why?"

Lance rubbed his hands together a little evilly. King did the exact same with his scythes. "Well…"

That earned a snarl from all of them, including Dazed. At least hers was only telepathic, although Lance winced. His Feather offered him no protection from Dazed.

"You know how everyone in Hoenn loves you?"

Ash's mind flashed to Magma, to the Slates. "Not everyone."

"The people who matter love you," Lance corrected. "Like Steven! Speaking of Steven…well, he and I had an idea a while back. An idea that the Ever Grande League was all too happy to accept. Given the circumstances, they're even more eager for the morale boost. They need something positive in their lives."

"Lance…"

"We've decided on something of another exhibition," Lance said easily, seemingly exulting in the boiling rage that slowly creeped into Ash's expression as he began to realize just where Lance was heading. "Your Fortree Challenge was so popular, you know? You've made yourself one of the faces of the Ever Grande League, and given that all their enemies are currently scurrying away…"

"You didn't," Ash said flatly, though a bubble of excitement was bursting within his chest. Two months (or two days ago) his reaction would have been quite the opposite, but time had a way of soothing wounds. "You didn't!"

"I did!" Lance cackled, grabbing Ash in a headlock despite Torrent's protests and giving him a noogie before Ash zapped Lance with Lightning and jerked away. "The Pallet Prodigy faces the Hoenn Elite Four in the Ever Grande Exhibition! You're going to make the headlines all over again. You'll be the star of the Ever Grande Conference! In between the official bouts, of course. Merchandising is important."

"You didn't tell me!" Ash roared. "Why? This is like the Wallace Cup all over again!"

"It just happened a week ago!" Lance defended with a swish of his cape. "...also, I thought it would be funny. And I was right! You should see the look on your face."

Ash snarled even as his own anticipation mounted. To test his strength against the Ever Grande Elite Four, to make Sidney squirm! Oh, he couldn't imagine anything sweeter.

"I can't believe Karen and Will didn't tell me," Ash grumbled. "I thought they had my back."

"Oh, they do. I just hadn't told them yet. Very secretive talks, see. Only high-level diplomats were aware. Ever Grande will start spreading seeds during the Silver Conference, of course. They want to build anticipation."

"Not after I tear Sidney a new—"

Lance stared pointedly at Ash, who wisely chose to cut that sentence short. Steven might have story after story about how terrible of a role model Lance was (even if most were tongue-in-cheek and based around a much younger Lance's exploits) but Lance seemed intent on keeping Ash from adopting the filthy tongue of some of the Gym Leaders.

Blaine, mostly. Koga didn't appreciate Janine being around to hear it, either.

"I'm looking forward to it," Ash said honestly. His mind was already whirring with possibilities, honing upon the dozen plans he'd constructed with his team for all the Ever Grande Elite Four members. Oh, the battles they would have! "I'm just overwhelmingly furious with you for leaving me only six weeks to prepare."

Lance grinned.

"I have one request."

"Oh?" Lance arched an eyebrow. "And what would that be, my favorite apprentice?"

"Who do I need to talk to in order to switch some League housing around for the Silver Conference? I think I have a wonderful way to bring a few competitors together."

Lance's grin grew more dangerous.

XX

"What. The. Hell."

"Do you like it?"

"What did you do to the Corral?" Gary screeched, flailing his arms madly at the utter devastation unleashed by Ash's team (mostly Infernus) during their battle with Sam. Tangrowth had led a few of the local grass-types in reseeding the scarred battlefield with life after tossing the lava pockets into the sea, but the Corral was still an ugly sight.

"It'll be fine," Ash dismissed with a flippant wave. "Give it a week and everything will pop right back up."

"Look at it!" Gary jabbed his finger at one particularly stubborn strip of land which had been reduced to slag by Infernus and Inferno's duel. No amount of reseeding was going to fix that, sure, but Ash thought the slick black stretch was rather pretty. "You broke the Corral."

"Not just me," Ash muttered. Tangrowth gurgled happily at his side. That was all the warning Gary got before a dozen vines lashed out to wrap the scowling boy in a great big hug—Clefable protested, then giggled as Tangrowth squeezed her as well. "Your grandpa helped too."

Gary's eyes bulged. "He what? Old man!" He spun on his heel and marched towards the Oak house. No doubt Sam would sell one of his kidneys if it meant Alakazam would warp him out of his grandson's warpath, though Ash didn't think she'd be so merciful. "What do you think you're doing? You could probably see this mess from space. All my stuff is like a hundred feet away and you pull this? Old man!"

The boy darted away, frothing at the mouth, and Clefable cheerfully waved her trainer goodbye.

"I was going to offer to help him train for the Silver Conference," Ash muttered. Clefable shrugged. "Has he even taken time to prepare for anyone but Clair?"

Clefable giggled and shrugged.

"That's what I thought," Ash sighed, glancing over at Dazed. "The unstoppable force has met the immovable object."

They deserve each other.

"That they do, Dazed, that they do."

Shouting, protests, and the occasional slip of profanity (although that was cut off after a bright blue psychic flash erupted from within the Oak family home) rose up like a cacophony as Gary went after his grandfather, but Ash just rolled his eyes.

He brightened as Dazed's eyes flashed and she fed a little trickle of her psychic awareness into his own mind.

"Yo, Ash!" An eager voice called over the hill, though it was cut short as two familiar figures (accompanied by an equally familiar Charizard and Venusaur) came to a stop as they crested the top. "Uh…what the hell!"

"Funny," Ash said, turning to face Jon and Amelia as his friends gaped alongside their partners. "That's exactly what Gary said."

Both their faces soured at the mention of their rival. Ash had received enough rants from Jon and Amelia both to know that their opinions of the other Pallet trainer hadn't warmed in recent months.

"You invited him?" Jon complained as he came down the hill, whistling as he realized the full reach of the devastation. Tangrowth and his buddies had done a fine job of priming the scarred ruin of a battlefield but it would take a long time before it was recognizable as the green expanse of the Corral. "Seriously, what happened here? It looks like Champion Lance just bombed the place."

Ash cracked a smile. "Something like that. Good to see you, Jon. You too, Amelia."

Amelia's eyes were sharp and critical as she assessed the state of the Corral in the blink of an eye, picking apart every wound and no doubt tracing it back to its source. "Infernus finally got to fight Professor Oak's old monster, huh?"

Dazed nodded even as Tangrowth did a happy little dance. It was all the warning that Jon, Amelia, Charizard, and Venusaur got before about a hundred mighty vines came crashing down in a wave of hugging green. Clefable was happily swept along for the ride, wrapping her stubby arms around Charizard's bony crest and rubbing her face against his orange hide as the uncomfortable fire-type squirmed.

"You're all my friends," Ash said, pretending as if Jon and Amelia weren't both trying to tap out from Tangrowth's bone-crushing hug. They'd be fine. He grinned as Tangrowth swept him into the mass of squirming vines as well. "Gary's…well, Gary, but I want to offer my help to all of you."

Amelia wrinkled her nose and wheezed. "As long…as you…don't mind…me…throttling him!"

"He'll be fine," Ash dismissed. "What do you think, Clefable?"

The dangerously optimistic little creature gave them all a bright smile and a resounding thumbs up.

"See? I think Gary should be happy he'll be facing someone besides Clair for a change—from what I've heard, she's busted out everything in her arsenal to knock him down a peg."

Amelia and Jon collapsed to the ground as Tangrowth finally withdrew his vines at Dazed's insistence. Ash didn't miss the quick look they shared at his words. His eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Nothing!" Both of his friends chorused in a way that was entirely too suspicious. "Nothing at all. Clair's just super strong, is all."

"You beat her, didn't you?" Ash tested them, honing in like Lairon on one of Steven's delicious copper ingots. "Gary mentioned something about that in one of his letters."

Something sadistic burned behind Amelia's eyes as her lips twisted up into a savage smirk. Venusaur wheezed. "Do you think he was crying when he wrote it?"

"Tears of rage, maybe."

"Oh, you should have seen his face, Ash! I didn't know a human could turn that purple."

Charizard's tail helpfully burned a brilliant purple for a moment to emphasize her point.

Amelia rubbed her hands together in a rather devious fashion as she glanced over to the Oak family home. "Yeah, we beat Clair a few weeks ago. It was a brutal battle—everyone's been complaining about how she's upped her game even more this season."

"Clair was always tough," Jonathan groaned, no doubt recalling many ignominious defeats at the Blackthorn Gym Leader's hands and claws. While Jon and Amelia hadn't been so persistent in their challenges as Gary had, it had still taken quite a few attempts to claim the win. "But everyone's saying she's a proper Master now. What do you think, Mr. Elite Four?"

Ash perked up. "Maybe it'll be worth swinging by Blackthorn to see."

It would hardly be the first time a Master swung by Blackthorn to put the notoriously bad-tempered Clair in her place, though Ash couldn't afford to alienate her now. Not with what he had planned.

With all the improvements Gary had mentioned about Clair's team (and the Oak had tracked them meticulously, channeling all his family's brilliance into bringing her down) Ash could easily imagine Clair having pushed the boundary of Mastery.

How would she compare to Zinnia? Ash couldn't say. Masters were all unique, after all. Each and every one was a crown jewel of trainers shaped by their own journeys, trials, and victories. Clair no doubt had a bit of catching up to do.

That said, Clair had finally broken past the self-imposed chains which had shackled her for so long: her obsession with Lance.

And all it had taken was a particularly annoying preteen. Maybe Gary should sell his services—he had a track record now of two rivals achieving Mastery (or close to it) in no small part thanks to how utterly obnoxious he could be.

Perhaps Ash and Dazed could start making flyers to put up during the Silver Conference…

I suggest we recruit the Kindly Harlequin in our efforts. I suspect he has an eye for aesthetics that we both lack.

"Not a bad idea," Ash muttered to Dazed, staring off into space for a moment as their minds entangled. "Just as long as Will doesn't find an excuse to teleport us."

Jonathan wrinkled his nose. "Whatcha talking about? It's rude to talk behind peoples' backs, you know!"

Dazed's eyes flashed and Jonathan gasped. "Hey! That's not true…is it?"

He drooped when Dazed's eyes burned blue and repeated whatever she'd just said.

"Well that sucks," Jon muttered, kicking at the glass beneath his feet. "Someone could've told me."

Dazed shrugged at him.

"Enough of that!" Amelia interjected. She put both hands on her hips, anticipation blazing from within. "When do we start? We'll work until our brains melt if it means getting to put Gary into the dirt! No offense, Clefable."

Clefable beamed, snapped her fingers, and vanished in a shower of bright pink sparkles. Most landed on Jon, who sputtered as Charizard valiantly flapped his wings to send them flying away, although the only thing the gust really accomplished was to fling Jon face down into the dirt.

"That would be a nice trick for a contest," Ash murmured, mind turning as he considered the possibilities. Wasteful and inefficient in a real battle, but he could appreciate the work that went into the trick. It clearly made Clefable happy! He absentmindedly reached out and took Jon's forearm to haul him up. "You'll give me everything you have, then?"

"Yeah!" Jon pumped his fist even as Charizard's mighty roar echoed throughout the remains of the Corral. If they weren't careful then Inferno would come looking for a rival…if he'd finished licking his wounds, that was. He and Infernus had dueled every day since their return from the past. "You won't be the first Master we've trained under now, Ash! You won't be disappointed."

"You'll have to tell me more about that," Ash said easily, not missing how Amelia mimed slitting Jon's throat before he could continue. "We still have eleven days before the Silver Conference begins. That's plenty of time to get you all to your best, don't you think?"

Footsteps pattered behind him. Jon and Amelia's faces soured, as did their partners', as Gary jogged up cradling Clefable in his arms. The pink pokémon looked utterly content snuggled close to Gary's chest.

"Of all the—you'd better not start without me!" Gary snapped, huffing as he came to a stop, sparing only a disdainful sneer for the other Pallet trainers. "You didn't tell me they'd be coming along for this. That's a pretty essential piece of information to leave out, don't you think?"

Ash shrugged. "We can start whenever you're ready. You'll get to sort out your bad blood during the Silver Conference. Until then, you act like you only hate each other a little."

Gary scoffed. "Like I'm going to—"

"Tangrowth, I think Gary needs a hug."

Gary's eyes widened. Clefable clapped excitedly moments before they were both engulfed in a writhing swarm of affectionate vines. Tangrowth gurgled happily as he brought them in close and coiled them close, nuzzling at Gary even as the boy flailed futilely.

"We start immediately. There's no time to waste!" Ash cheered, recalling all the times he'd trained with Flannery in the last few months.

It would be nice to have training partners again, although that sent a stab of longing through him. He missed his friend, though he hoped more than anything that she would find a little peace on her travels.

"Two weeks is a long time," Ash said with a dangerous grin. "You're going to hate me by the time this is over! The Silver Conference is going to feel like a nice trip to Alola if we do this right. And believe me, we're going to do this right."

Jon and Amelia winced, but didn't recoil.

One of Gary's arms shot out of Tangrowth's squeezing coils, raised up as if they were in school.

Ash sighed. Dazed let loose a long-suffering telepathic groan as well. "Yes?"

"What if we already hate you?"

"Then I'm just going to have to ask Clair for tips on how to make you hate me even more."

All three looked a little sick.

Perfect.

XX

"No wonder Clair's been beating you black and blue!" Ash roared at Gary, channeling every bit of Lance that he could to reach across the battlefield. Now if only he had a cape… "You're sloppy! What have you been wasting your time with for the last six months?"

"Screw you!" Gary snarled back, flipping Ash off even as he shouted order after order to his elite team as they came crashing down futilely against the bulwark of Nidoking and Torrent. "Say another word and—"

A great shriek tore from the skies as Gary's Pidgeot fled from Plume, who herded the giant bird effortlessly with blasts of razor-sharp air and raking talons. He was mighty, yes, almost as large as one of the incarnate Birds, but Plume was queen of the skies.

"Stand up for yourself, man!" Gary whined up at his Pidgeot even as the two fliers vanished into the distance. Great lances of Hyper Beams and storms of frostbitten wind chased after Gary's Pidgeot, forcing the poor thing far out to sea. Not that Plume would let it end there. "Don't just run away, make me look good!"

Gary was good, not that Ash would ever say it. He didn't need to inflate Gary's head even further. Ash suspected that Gary would have beaten the Ash Ketchum that went to face Michael in last year's Indigo Conference…although Jon and Amelia had reached a similar level.

His old rival had released his greatest fighters to challenge Ash's chosen pair: Blastoise with the stubborn set to his jaw, Alakazam with his weary sighs, bright-eyed Arcanine, Scizor of the red steel and iron clamor, venom-toothed Umbreon, mighty Diamond, and the clever Clefable.

"Who do you think will go down first?" Ash passed another potato chip to Clefable, who eagerly crunched it down with a bright smile upon her face. She scratched her chin for a second before pointing at Blastoise.

Gloam hissed out his agreement, yowling something to Torrent even as a great gout of dragonfire erupted from his snout in a terrible storm, shaped entirely from the atmosphere. It wasn't quite what they were building up to, but the fact that Torrent could manifest proper Dragonbreath and Dragon Pulses entirely from an external source of power was incredible.

He truly was a monster.

Umbreon and Alakazam certainly seemed to think so. The dark-type leapt away with incredible grace to avoid the attack, but watched the blue-green flames warily as they devoured the earth. Alakazam manifested a curved barrier to angle the Dragonbreath away, but they burned, eager to devour everything in their path.

Both Umbreon and Alakazam had splintered off to occupy Torrent and prevent his firepower from overwhelming the team while Diamond, Scizor, Arcanine, and Blastoise all fell upon Nidoking like a hammer…meanwhile, Clefable took another chip.

"Traitor!" Gary howled between frantic streams of coded orders. "I trusted you!"

Clefable waved back.

Ash handed her the whole bag.

Blastoise launched himself at Nidoking with a jet of water that sent his massive shell bursting forward even as Scizor shot at the ground-type with blinding speed. Arcanine sped around behind and unleashed a pillar of fire while Diamond charged in from the front, a juggernaut of sand and shadow and might.

Nidoking matched them all in the blink of an eye.

Sand blasting from the chinks in Diamond's armor was redirected by Nidoking's will, blasting into her face and flung into Arcanine's path with terrible force, forcing the swift canine to leap away and interrupt his Flamethrower.

The battlefield moved at Nidoking's command. Earth shifted beneath Diamond's feet, ruining her charge and flinging her face forward into the ground, which immediately leapt up to bury her whole, though her thrashing made that difficult.

A green-iron Protect interrupted Blastoise's shell shot. The sheer power behind it cracked the Protect, perhaps equivalent to one of Bruiser's lesser punches, but stopped the water-type in its tracks. Blastoise rolled with it as it rebounded, but it cost him precious seconds.

Scizor's claws glanced off a curved shield of psychic power as Nidoking's eyes flashed. The steelclad warrior moved with blinding speed only to be met with a brutal Flamethrower which would have made Infernus nod in grudging respect.

It washed off of Scizor's own Protect, but Nidoking lunged forward with deceptive speed. His whole body tensed, muscles bulging with power as they swelled with blood and enhanced strength, and Nidoking brought his left arm down upon the defending Scizor with a sound like a ringing bell.

The Protect sundered, already softened by the Flamethrower, and Nidoking's limb plowed through it as he roared like a beast. Scizor crumpled beneath the blow—Blastoise leapt to his defense, rushing forward with jets of water at the ready, but even as Blastoise's Hydro Pumps jettisoned out of his cannons, Torrent turned to watch with a regal rumble.

High-pressure water bent away from Nidoking. One jet plowed into Arcanine, angled with inhuman precision to catch him in the ribs, and sent him stumbling with a pitiful yelp. The other blasted into Scizor with enough force to bend the fierce insect's armor, crumpling it with such power that it surely would have pierced Nidoking's hide.

Scizor hissed, not done yet, only to catch another Superpowered blow to the carapace. Nidoking was blindingly fast despite his bulk, moving with the same deceptive speed as a behemoth like Mamoru.

And just like that, the tide shifted. It wasn't long before Nidoking and Torrent dismantled the rest of Gary's opposition, effortlessly covering for one another's weaknesses and complementing the other's strength through battle-honed teamwork. They were a well-oiled machine at long last, moving as one.

Torrent wielded dragonfire and water in equal measure, switching between his two specializations with the fluidity of a rushing river and coming down with the ferocity of a roaring beast. Water carried attacks away or blunted them while he punished every attack again and again.

Nidoking had taken great strides forward during their two months in the past: psychic powers responded instantly to his command, the earth shivered at his touch, and the abilities which he had honed for the last year finally came together as an overwhelming onslaught.

That wasn't to say it was easy. Gary's team were skilled, though Ash could already pick out the weaknesses of their training, and rallied after that initial beatdown, though they dropped like Beautifly

Diamond was just as stubborn as the Silver Lady, though appeared far younger. She was mighty, though, and refused to go down without a fight. Lesser fighters would've been utterly overwhelmed with her physical menace and the elemental storms with which she fought, but both Torrent and Nidoking fought worse every time they challenged one of their teammates.

Her rocky carapace was nearly indestructible, only cracking subtly beneath Nidoking's discount Rampage and Torrent's Hydro Pumps, but after a quick suggestion from Ash they changed course.

Why shatter the armor when you could bypass it entirely?

So Nidoking used his powerful earth manipulation to briefly bury Diamond in a pit. She used her own abilities to fight against him, but they only needed a few seconds to pull off Ash's suggestion: Torrent gathered up all the water that he and Blastoise had hurled around the battlefield, drawing it from the soil and grass and air, and dumped it all into the dirt with Diamond.

She thrashed, spraying debris everywhere, but Torrent's red eyes glimmered as he kept the deluge pouring down, drowning the massive Tyranitar even as Nidoking commanded the mud to fill her vents and stem the steady blast of gritty sand.

Blasts of elemental fury—bitter Blizzard, blazing Flamethrowers, and draconic might—exploded from the pit with enough force to level a house as Diamond raged. Nidoking smothered her flames and winter gales in mud. Torrent wrenched her Outrage away, amplifying them into an explosive wave which managed to singe Diamond's carapace.

But eventually Diamond's struggles slowed and waned.

"Stop! Stop," Gary repeated, exhausted as Diamond was smothered entirely. A tap of her Pokéball stole her away from the muddy prison—Diamond might have been half-dead from Nidoking and Torrent's brutal assault, but she wouldn't have surrendered until she was a good three-quarters dead at best. "Fine, you win. How did you get so freaking strong?! We've been working our asses off, man! I was sure we'd hold up better than that…"

"We work hard too. You know, the first day I came back to Pallet Town, I spent all day training. It paid off in spades," Ash said mildly. "You did well, though. You have the strength and the skill. You just need to bolster your techniques—you need a force amplifier."

That had been Ash's mission since he'd first gone to Hoenn's tropical shores. Near perfect power and control was the barest of requirements to press into the threshold of Mastery. It was technique which truly made the difference. Everything else was just a stepping stone.

"All day training just sounds like your life," Gary snorted, jogging up and avoiding all the smoldering turquoise fires. He wrinkled his nose at Clefable, who offered him the bag of chips that Ash had handed her. "What, trying to bribe me to get back in my good graces? Fine."

Gary snatched the bag of chips from Clefable and sent her a dirty look as he reached in.

"Hey! This is empty, you little jerk!"

Clefable beamed.

"I think she's spent too much time with you," Ash said, affectionately ruffling the pink fur atop Clefable's head. Gloam looked on with jealousy until Ash scratched him as well. He cut Gary off before the boy could start ranting. "You've grown a lot, Gary."

"Not enough!" Gary snarled, though he at least calmed down enough to start pulling out potions to treat his team with. Torrent and Nidoking had been careful not to do too much damage, but they'd definitely done a number on their foes. "That dragon bitch pulled ahead. You've pulled ahead even further, and I don't know how the hell you've managed that, Master Ash."

Ash blinked. The title still felt foreign to him, undeserved, yet conquering Sam—even if only by a hair—allowed him to accept it. "You heard?"

"I'm not stupid. You were close enough at the Lake of Rage all those months ago," Gary said, shaking his head. "You could trade punches then. But facing down Champion Wallace? In his favored battlefield?"

Ash scoffed. "You should have seen the amount of preparations we did."

"You got creamed in the end," Gary dismissed his words. Clefable giggled behind her hands, then bounced over to Gary's side and took his hand in hers. He didn't even put up a fight. "I'm not arguing that. But I think you're a freaking idiot if you think just anyone could do that. I look away for five seconds and you're doing something stupid or groundbreaking. Way to make a guy feel inadequate, prick."

There was no heat in Gary's words, but something about the way his old rival looked at him…

"If I walked out into the Finals last year and saw you now…I think you would win."

Gary jerked. "And it only took us a year," he said, sarcasm bleeding into every word. Ash saw his eyes soften a bit. "A year and the Gym Leader with the worst fashion sense in the world. Man, hearing Erika's opinions about that stupid blue jumpsuit made me actually like her."

"She's a good administrator," Ash defended the Celadon Gym Leader. For all the frustrations certain members of the League had expressed regarding Erika's actions during the Rocket conflicts, she was one of the few who could be trusted to effectively manage the sprawling metropolis of Celadon. Erika was a savant in times of peace.

"A good administrator who's probably huffing her stupid perfumes all day," Gary shot back. "Then again, I guess it's paying off. I bought two pallets of that trash just so Pidgeot and I could bomb the Blackthorn Gym with them. Stupid place smelled for a week!"

Ash's eyes narrowed. "That was you? I should have known."

Gary coughed. "Uh, no, of course not. That would be—"

The boy's jaw snapped shut. His face went an odd mix of deathly pale, an odd shade of green, and splotchy red as a vein in his forehead bulged. In fact, Ash rather thought that Gary looked ready to puke.

Ash spun around and nearly gaped as well.

Daisy Oak clutched the hem of her sundress nervously as she watched them from above a hill. Gardevoir was nowhere to be seen—Eevee rubbed lovingly against Daisy's leg, perked up at the sight of Gary and Ash, and sprinted down the slope as a ball of white-and-brown fluff.

Gary barely even reacted when the little normal-type leapt a good twenty feet, barreled into his chest, and knocked him flat on his back to cover his face with tiny licks.

Gloam rushed over to Daisy to give her similar treatment, immediately demanding belly rubs as she marveled over his evolution for a brief moment, but Ash knew Daisy too well at this point to miss the obvious: Daisy looked just as ready to puke as Gary did.

There was a tremble to Daisy as her eyes darted around the green hills and plains of the Corral, something like a hunted beast living within her haunted gaze. Her legs twitched every now and then as if begging to run away, but some hidden steel kept her planted flat as she stared at Gary ravenously, drinking in the sight of her stunned brother with fervor that forced back the fear and memories.

Torrent nudged Ash's shoulder with his great snout.

"You're right," Ash exhaled, barely believing that Daisy had finally made her way home. She hadn't come back to Pallet since the day she left at the beginning of her journey the better part of a decade ago. "We should give them some space. Head on over to help Amelia, okay? I think she wanted some tips for Politoed."

His friend nodded, though Nidoking remained at Ash's side as he stepped over to Gary (whose face was utterly drenched in Eevee spit).

"You good?" Ash muttered. "We're going to give you guys a few minutes, okay?"

One of Gary's hands snatched Ash's ankle before he could step away.

"What the hell am I supposed to say to her?" Gary's face twisted in a maelstrom of emotion. One of his hands went to pet Eevee, at least, as the furry creature rested on his chest. Clefable did the same, though vanished in a geyser of purple-pink sparkles before reappearing by Daisy. "She's—gah, I can't believe she's here!"

Gary sounded as if he didn't know if he wanted to smack Daisy as hard as he could or wrap her in a hug. Probably both, Ash thought.

"She didn't even warn me! I'd rather see that dragon fu—lover," Gary hastily corrected as Eevee's big innocent brown eyes peered down at him, "than her!"

Ash reached down and peeled Gary's fingers from his ankle after sharing a glance with Nidoking. His grip fell away limply.

"You never know when your last chance to talk to someone will be," Ash said quietly. He thought of Fino, of Agatha… even Durand. "Tell her your truth. All of it. The anger and everything else. Just be ready to hear hers as well."

"Can't…can't you stay for a bit longer?" Gary looked utterly terrified as Clefable snatched Daisy's hand in her own and slowly led Daisy over to meet her brother for the first time in far, far too long. "I'm freaking the fuck out, man! Be a pal and don't leave me alone with her."

Ash knelt at Gary's side. "This is between the two of you," he said gently. In his words was carried the ghost of the North Wind. A gentle breeze swept through Pallet Town, carrying away the rawest edge of Gary's wild eyes. The other boy took a deep breath. "Just be honest. I'll be around if you want to talk after, got it?"

"You suck," Gary said without any heat as Ash hauled him to his feet and slapped Gary on the back. Eevee whined as his perch was disturbed. Daisy was getting closer and closer, though Ash thought that she and Gary were going to puke all over each other rather than actually talk anything out.

Actually, Ash wouldn't mind seeing that.

"Think Pidgeot could fly me away?"

"Not if Plume has anything to say about it."

"Shit."

Ash laughed, slapped Gary on the back again and offered a few more comforting words, and offered Daisy a quick nod before he and Nidoking stepped away.

"What are the odds we hear explosions in the next five minutes?" Ash muttered to Nidoking as they left Gary and Daisy to their reunion.

Nidoking could only laugh.

XX

Clair's influence had left her stain on Gary: his team had evolved into swift, agile bruisers capable of dancing around powerhouses while dealing devastating blows in turn. The Blackthorn Gym had proven to be a crucible worthy of stripping away Gary's greatest weaknesses and molding his team into fearsome fighters.

Yet just as Clair's team had been shaped by her fixation on Lance—and ultimately weakened for it—Ash saw the same cracks in Gary's current lineup.

Gary's team had always been fairly well-balanced, primarily limited last year by the sheer breadth of teammates he'd gathered and spread his attention across, and they'd maintained that strength. But they'd come to specialize in a very particular direction now. That came with both advantages and weaknesses.

But Jon and Amelia…

"So Amelia's not having to buy your meals anymore?"

"Nope!" Jon seemed rather pleased with that fact. He'd been nearly destitute before the last Indigo Conference thanks to his reckless decision to throw his entire bank account at that Fire Master, but from his boasts Ash surmised that both he and Amelia had done quite well for themselves this year. "We've been sweeping a bunch of the Johto tournaments—"

"Just little local ones," Amelia interrupted, "but the competition hasn't stood much of a chance. There have been a few Conference-level trainers we've encountered, but not many. And we enjoyed crushing those the most."

Ash grinned, scratching at Seeker's back as she hugged tightly to his chest. She was heavy, but had grown quite good at moving with him to minimize the strain. "I bet you did. Nothing like a light workout to get the blood pumping, right?"

Amelia's eyes glinted. "Exactly."

Jon's nose wrinkled. "You two are being creepy again."

Ash didn't miss the fact that Jon's Ariados nodded its head fervently, its pointed mandibles clicking together as it scuttled away from Ash.

"But we've been all over the place!" Jon continued before Ash or Amelia could say anything else. "Man, I don't know if there's a town in Johto we haven't passed through at this point. Even Altomare!"

He perked up at that. Altomare had never played a major role in history—minus the freak tsunamis and storms around it which destroyed one of the Unovan forces sent to subjugate the island city—but it popped up frequently in his readings.

"How was it? Is it as beautiful as everyone says?"

"Even better! We showed up for this race thing…we lost, but it doesn't count because it isn't a tournament! They wouldn't let me ride Gyarados through the canals," Jon grumbled, shaking his fist at the horizon. "Cowards!"

"We made a few friends while we were there," Amelia chimed in. "This girl named Bianca and her twin."

"She was even creepier than you," Jon said, poking at Ash. Ash might have not-so-subtly channeled a brief surge of Lightning when Jon's finger brushed his skin. "Ow! That's one hell of a shock!"

Amelia leaned forward, brushing her brown hair away from her eyes. "She was a little odd," she admitted. "She never said a word. Never gave us her name, either. I guess she was just shy. But she was nice enough."

Ash nodded, not thinking much of it, and glanced between both of his friends. "I'm glad you've been safe—"

"Unlike someone we know," Amelia groused, looking pointedly at Ash. "You're going to have to spill sooner or later, you know. We were worried about you!"

"She was. I was more worried about whoever got in your way."

Ash snorted alongside Seeker at that. His fingers curled within her thick purple fur, brushing her closely. "I'll tell you later," he said, honestly in no mood to revisit the sheer weight of the last few months. Not when he'd finally started to breathe again. "But spill: who's been training you?"

They stiffened.

Jon and Amelia had mentioned an old Nomad who they'd purchased the services of after a tournament they'd attended in Rota (which Ash was going to interrogate them about at some point). The League kept a close eye on the independent Masters, rare as they were, and Ash knew a few who'd clustered near the Shield of Mew at the edges of the Dark World.

Nomads were incredibly rare, numbering perhaps twenty per developed region (if that), but they tended to be…quirky. Harsh areas tended to act like magnets to them.

There were no harsher areas than in the shadow of the Dark World—horrors were known to spill out on occasion, and the League was perfectly happy to let the Nomads go hunting. No incursion had been dangerous enough to require the Leagues intervention in decades, though Ash was certain Agatha would have had the time of her life slaying a true nightmare.

But Ash could tell that his friends' rough edges had been polished by a skillful hand.

Jon was still clumsy and overeager, preferring to batter down obstacles before thinking to work around them, but he was a far cry from the trainer that Ash knew in the Indigo Conference and on the shores of the Lake of Rage.

He was a little more patient now, a little more calculating, and Ash didn't miss the fact that the stout boy's obstinance and the occasional dumb comment were more laid out as bait for Gary at this point than anything genuine.

Jon was still Jon, of course, but he'd grown up a little.

Amelia, on the other hand, seemed more clever than ever. She played Jon and Gary like well-tuned instruments, learning through experience on how to make them tick, though Ash didn't see her using any of those tricks on him.

Well, he didn't notice them anyways.

"I'd rather keep my head where it is, thank you very much," Amelia said drily, glancing over at Infernus as the Magmortar dueled Charizard, Arcanine, and Blastoise at the same time. Blastoise's thick shell already bore a hissing gouge from where the blade had carved into the tough material, earning a dirty look from Gary as he sat working with Alakazam on a few alterations to their Psyblade technique. "We've been sworn to secrecy, you know."

She was more confident now, however. More certain in her own strength. Amelia had never been weak. Far from it. But she'd favored grinding down her opponents and leading them into traps, baiting them in with feigned weakness to crush them into the dirt.

And Amelia was excellent at it.

But against the George Greys of the world such tactics would only result in being overwhelmed. If this past year had taught Gary compassion—although that might be a strong word given that he'd only truly connected with Ash and his own team—and Jon patience, then it had taught Amelia that sometimes a hammer to the face could be just as effective as a poisoned knife in the back.

Ash was proud of all of them.

Yet as Ash had trained with Jon and Amelia these last few days—what with Gary having decided to work on his own with a few of Ash's teammates drilling his companions—something gnawed at him.

Their partners all fought with a new brute strength that was a far cry from what even Jon had commanded back at the Lake of Rage.

Brute strength tempered with great experience, clearly guided by a teacher. There was a viciousness and pragmatism to their battling now which caught Gary quite off guard, although none of the three Pallet trainers were willing to expose their full abilities in front of their rivals.

Not when the Silver conference was just a week away. Even Amelia was wary around Jon, playing several of her cards close to her chest, although Jon didn't seem to notice.

"Charizard seems quite adept with draconic techniques," Ash commented as the great dragon launched a Dragon Pulse which blasted apart Infernus' blazing flames and forced him to blink away with a Teleport. It tore into the ground, spraying up great gouges of earth and dust, and was manifested with remarkable swiftness. "In fact, all of your teammates seem pretty skilled with them. Those that can use them, anyways."

Jon gulped and Amelia lightly slapped his shoulder, shooting him a stern look.

"It won't help much against Gary," Jon brushed Ash's comment aside as they watched the battle. "He's a prick, but you should see all the countermeasures he's developed against draconic techniques—he's been holding back with all of us, but we know what he can do. He's specialized."

"And I wonder how you know that," Ash drawled. He and his team had already put the most likely theory together, but he'd enjoy toying with Jon and Amelia and watching them squirm until then. "You can't have battled Gary that many times. You must have a pretty reliable source."

Jon made a choking noise. Amelia patted his back, her stern expression unchanging.

Ash just laughed.

He loved watching them squirm. But you know what? Good for them.

Gary needed a proper challenge…one that didn't come in the form of the most immature twenty-six year old woman in all of Indigo.

XX

Bruiser folded his massive lower arms. Ash mirrored his friend's action.

"You're a hard woman to track down, Daisy. Especially considering the size of Pallet."

Daisy Oak might have turned nineteen several months ago—Ash had sent her a giant Eevee plush and a fond letter at the time, though that had been in the middle of the chaos sweeping Hoenn—but she looked very much a guilty child as she sank into the well-worn couch in Ash's living room.

"You didn't have to sic Infernus on me," Daisy whined, brushing a bit of ash off her pale green sundress. "That's a little excessive, don't you think?"

Eevee was a ball of fluff and white soot that glared at Ash and Bruiser both, hissing…and then it sneezed as a little of the dust tickled his little black nose. Ash didn't have the common courtesy to look terrified at the adorable display, though Bruiser was kind enough to take a 'nervous' step back.

Ash smiled pleasantly at Daisy, channeling as much of Lance's energy as he could. If only he had a cape…

You would look absolutely ridiculous, Friend-Trainer. I may not wear artificial skins as your kind does, but I at least have that much sense.

Well, he definitely wouldn't pull it off like Lance did, that was for certain. But maybe one day.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"So Infernus was just coincidentally training everywhere I went today? He almost burned down your mom's old diner!"

Ash shrugged. "He must like you."

Daisy scoffed. "The only thing your crazy Magmortar likes is blood and murder. And you, I guess."

"He likes Bruiser too," Ash said flippantly. "Especially since Bruiser broke most of his ribs a while back."

Despite himself, Bruiser smiled at the memory. A good chunk of the team had quite appreciated that bout beneath Sidney's eyes.

Daisy gaped. "Battlers," she muttered to herself in disgust, then glanced away. "So why did you go to all the trouble? I'm here, aren't I? Just like you wanted. I even came back to Pallet, not just the Silver Conference!"

"I know," Ash said. "I wanted to thank you."

"By nearly burning down half of Pallet?!"

"I didn't burn down anything," Ash corrected. "Take that up with Infernus."

"I'm about to take up my fist with your face if you don't start making sense."

Ash laughed. "I didn't know Daisy Oak made threats."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Ash. But I guess that's my fault, isn't it?" Daisy hesitated, her brow furrowing in concern as she gently brushed some of the soot from Eevee's fur. "You've been acting really weird. Are…are you okay? I heard what happened to Mr. Moore. Just awful, it is. A tragedy. I'm so sorry. He was a kind man."

Those words would have destroyed him a week ago. Or two months and one week ago, rather. To everyone else that horrible event had happened just days ago. Sometimes Ash felt fully a man out of time—Dazed had expressed the same thoughts more than once, her mind cast adrift down, down, down the adamant stream, and some days Ash imagined himself still waking up in an older time.

He'd been tight-lipped around his friends. Ash wasn't even sure that they truly knew about everything that had happened, but Daisy had her own connections. She'd known Fino, after all, even if only distantly.

Ash and his family had time to breathe, time to think. But it still hurt. Time mends all wounds, it was said, and that might be true enough. That didn't mean it didn't leave ugly scars in the process.

"We'll be okay," Ash reached back to grab Bruiser's forearm. The muscle was like iron, but it was warm and comforting and Bruiser. His friend smiled softly down at him, a glimpse of his own loss flickering across the Machamp's reptilian features. "We've had time to think. Pallet's good for that."

Daisy grimaced at that. No doubt Pallet invited all kinds of thoughts for her as well, few of them pleasant.

"I know I haven't shown it very well…but I'm here if you need me," Daisy said lamely, her voice wavering. "Think whatever you like of me, Ash, but I do know loss. And if nothing else I can tell you what not to do," she finished bitterly.

"You've been brave. You came back."

"And damn if I wish I'd never set foot here again," Daisy said quietly. "But…I'm glad I'm here all the same. I've spent years running. Years building up Pallet as my personal hell. I was so mad at you for a while, but it's cathartic to come back here and realize it's just a place."

Ash was silent for a moment. "I bet the League could help you forget, if you wanted."

Daisy smiled sadly. "I don't think I can. And I don't think I should, either. We all have to face the truth sometime or another, don't we?"

"Yeah." Visions of Fino laying crumpled on the slopes of Mt. Chimney filled his vision, then Durand's blackened shape. "We do."

Silence.

"Gary's a little shit," Daisy said fondly. Eevee nodded fervently in agreement. "I've been thinking of strangling him in his sleep. Or at least asking Alakazam to shut off the part of his brain that lets him speak for a day or two. What I'd do for a little peace and quiet!"

Ash grinned. Even Bruiser chuckled at that, practically shaking Ash's little house with the sheer power behind it. "He'd take that as a challenge. But watch out—Clair might beat you to it."

"Oh yeah, what's up with that?" Daisy complained, thrusting her hands in the air. "Clair, Clair, Clair! I swear every other word that comes out of Gary's filthy little mouth is her name! If I didn't know any better—and couldn't see the pure hate in his eyes—I'd say my baby brother has a crush. Except whatever this is isn't cute or adorable at all!"

Ash sniggered.

"I've never met Clair, although I've been in Blackthorn once or twice. She'll be at the Silver Conference, surely—"

"She will," Ash interjected. "I have it on good authority."

"Perfect! I'll try and sit her down and see if we can get to the bottom of this. Gary's told me the most outlandish stories! Lying about a Gym Leader's behavior is just going to get him in trouble," Daisy huffed. "I'm sure she's a reasonable person. I'll smooth things over."

Ash sniggered louder.

"What?" Daisy's eyes narrowed at him. She stopped brushing Eevee's much-cleaner fur. "Ugh, you have no idea the kind of things he's been saying. It's not the same as when he says it in a letter! I wish your mom was here. She'd scrub his mouth out with soap."

He hesitated. "About that…"

Daisy's eyes grew bigger than Ash had thought possible. "She's here?! I thought she was still in Goldenrod!"

She had been, though not for lack of effort on her part. If his mom had her way, she would have been here in Pallet from the second Ash had returned. It had been all he could do to convince her to return to Goldenrod after the funeral.

Ash knew she was busy, though, and didn't want her to put her own life on hold for him. She'd spent the last twelve years doing that. It had taken several visits to Goldenrod over the last few days and hours of debates (and near hourly messages) but she'd held off on returning at his behest.

Until now.

If Sam hadn't tossed him into the past then no doubt he would have relished his mom's attention. But he was…okay.

"Dazed?"

The Hypno's eyes flashed as her pendulum danced within her palm.

She is close. Seeker-of-Affection has kept her distracted.

Dazed blinked as some rush of information no doubt filled her mind.

I did not know a human could generate that much force. Seeker-of-Affection might require minor medical attention to her ribs, though she is not complaining.

Ash grinned. Seeker and his mom had always gotten along great, so no surprises there! "Have her come here, please."

Dazed nodded.

Daisy fiddled with the hem of her dress, excited and nervous in equal measure, as Ash tried to keep her engaged in conversation. Her answers were short, though, her mind clearly elsewhere. As faded as Ash's memories of the years with Daisy were, he knew just how important his mom—their mom, really, with all that she had done for the Oak family—was to Daisy and Gary both.

Even Gary at his worst never dared to speak a bad word about her.

"How's my hair?" Daisy fretted, tugging at her brown locks. She practically trembled as a clear laugh came in from outside after a rush of wind—no doubt Seeker was amusing his mom with some of her new aerial acrobatics. The Crobat adored her new speed and maneuverability...as did Plume.

"A little burnt. And Eevee still looks like a mutated Sneasel."

Eevee yowled in indignation, rising up in a ball of floof and rage, but that all ended with the door gently opened.

"Oh, it's been so long!" His mom sang as she danced into the house, swinging Seeker around as if she still weighed only a few times. All four of Seeker's wings flapped madly to help maintain the illusion, the resulting gusts sending Eevee toppling onto the floor with a piteous yelp. "Ash! It's so good—Daisy?!"

"Surprise!" Ash gestured over at Daisy, who had just barely begun to rise up from her seat on the couch before his mom practically tackled her, squeezing Daisy in a massive hug that left— the girl wheezing before setting her down.

His mom had initially made a beeline for Ash—she was still worried for him, he knew, even if they'd all done their best to reassure her—but he'd looked pointedly at Daisy, who was just as eager to be a target.

"Look at how grown up you've become! So beautiful," his mother marveled, brushing her fingers through Daisy's chocolate brown hair. Then her nose wrinkled. "Why do you smell like smoke? And what happened to poor Eevee?"

Eevee moaned piteously from the floor, rolling over to expose his underbelly, and whined up at Ash's mom.

"No idea," Daisy said through gritted teeth, glaring at Ash for just a moment before her irritated look softened. She squeezed his mother back. "It's so good to see you, Ms. Delia. So good. I know it's been a while since we've been able to meet…"

"Just Delia, dear," she said, smiling up at Daisy—his mother's presence practically dwarfed Daisy, who seemed in awe of Delia Ketchum (as she should, Ash thought fiercely), but Daisy had several inches on the older woman. "You're an adult now!"

Daisy blanched. "I think I'm physically incapable of calling you that."

"Something to work on!" Ash's mom waved Daisy's concern away and then looked at Ash. He had only moments before she wrapped him up in a backbreaking hug as well…not that he tried to fight it. Bruiser affectionately patted her head, though he was careful to use only the barest hints of his strength. Seeker was happy to be caught up in the middle of it all, a warm presence between Ash and Delia both. "Ash…"

Ash smiled at her as she trailed off. "Yeah?"

"You got taller! When did that happen?" She exclaimed. "I leave you alone for a week and you shoot up at least an inch! But I suppose you are about to be a teenager…I've heard that they like to do that. Not to mention eating their poor parents out of house and home."

He grinned. "Don't worry, I think my paycheck is enough to cover it."

And feed a small army on top of that, honestly.

But his mother's words struck something in him.

Teenager.

The calendar of the modern day might not have caught up yet, but Ash was biologically thirteen. There'd been about six weeks before his birthday when Sam whisked him back in time (or directed him to Celebi, rather) and he'd overshot that by several weeks.

It was strange to imagine, just as it was strange to imagine that a significant portion of his journey—two months out of the twenty four or so they'd hit before stepping backwards in time—had effectively passed by in the blink of an eye for everyone else.

He hadn't even considered his birthday, too caught up in training and laughing along with Sammy and Aggie…

Our time spent in the elder days was put to good use. We will find an opportune moment to celebrate, Friend-Trainer. Though I fear the Brute will seek revenge for your attempt during his celebration.

Most of Ash's friends didn't care much to celebrate their birthdays—well, the anniversary of joining the team—but Tangrowth had at least gone along with it, and Lairon was eager for his turn. Loving words and a little extra attention satisfied most, though Ash always tried to find something special to do for them.

Infernus had been eager enough to face off against several of their teammates in a brutal battle, but he hadn't appreciated the bright red party hat that Ash had tossed onto his head for all of three seconds before it went up in flames.

The mighty Magmortar hadn't even bought Ash's weak excuse of it being ancient war regalia worn by humanity's greatest fighters in the past.

Shocking. Truly.

"Earth to Ash?" Daisy's hand waved in front of his face. Her fingers snapped a few times in rapid succession. "I think we lost him, Ms. Delia."

"Just Delia," she corrected, though Ash didn't think she'd have any luck with that. No more than she would have on Gary. His mother's face was a mask of concern and Ash immediately refocused. "Ash, honey, are you feeling okay? You are a little warm…"

"That's just the Moltres in me."

"Your son is weird, Ms. Delia. But at least he doesn't have some weird murder-crush on a woman twice his age…"

His mom gaped for a moment. "I…what? I think we have a lot to catch up on."

"Yes we do, Ms. Delia. Yes we do."

"I'll get out of your hair," Ash said quickly, taking this as his chance to leave. He'd left his friends alone for too long as it was. No doubt Gary and Jon were already at each other's throats while Amelia sharpened her knife in the background. He gave his mother a quick hug before she could protest. "I'll be back for dinner, okay?"

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "I love you, Ash. Don't stay out for too long!"

"I promise," he said, then hugged Daisy as well. She stiffened for just a moment before relaxing. "Thanks for being brave."

She gulped before nodding tightly. Eevee still growled at Ash as though he'd punted the little furball.

"Let's go. I've heard a worrying lack of explosions in the last few minutes," Ash said to Bruiser and Dazed, who were quick to shuffle along behind him, though Bruiser's enormous height left him struggling to squeeze out through the cramped doorway. "Are you happy here, Seeker?"

The Crobat chattered back easily, wrapping all four wings around Delia, and Ash smiled.

He had his answer.

Ash was quick to close the door behind them, eager to let Daisy and his mom get caught up, but didn't miss the sniffling just as he left. The door wasn't quite thick enough to hide Daisy's words, either.

"I can't believe you're here," Daisy's voice was muffled but still distinct. "I finally came back. I've been so afraid for so long, wondering if it would be like then. I'm just glad you're here…"

His mom shushed her.

"It'll never be like that again," she promised Daisy. "Never again."

And with that, Ash stepped away.

XX

"Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Ketchum!" Jon beamed up at her, feeding the last few bites of the stew Ash's mom had made to Charizard, who happily belched up a little trickle of flame which had Infernus perking up from his magma bath outside the Oak family patio.

Ash looked pointedly at Infernus—Inferno hadn't taken his 'loss' in their battle well (if falling unconscious two seconds before Infernus had could even be called a loss) and had made a point to beat the absolute tar out of Infernus every day for the last ten days.

Infernus gave as good as he got, of course, swiftly incorporating every one of Inferno's tricks into his arsenal, but there had been a few days where even his restorative lava baths hadn't been enough to fully patch him up.

Given that they'd ramped their own training efforts up significantly in order to meet this so-called Ever Grande Challenge at their absolute best, they couldn't afford to have Infernus half-dead all the time. The experience of battling Inferno was precious, but it still sidetracked Infernus from several of his other projects.

Gary sneered at Jon (but thankfully held his tongue around Ash's mom) even as she smiled over at the boy. "Just Ms. Ketchum, Jonathan."

Jon wrinkled his nose. "Really? Aren't you married to that Spencer guy?"

That earned a long-suffering sigh from Amelia. Venusaur didn't look much better off, openly rolling his eyes at Jon's innocent dumbassery. Ash was honestly surprised there wasn't a permanent red mark on Amelia's head from all the face-palming she did.

Something flickered across his mother's face at that. Something sad.

It immediately put Ash on edge. He was quick to exchange a look with Nidoking, who bristled protectively over Delia, and Lairon immediately licked lovingly at her hand, though she had to hide a wince as his rasping tongue scraped a few layers of skin off.

Gary and Daisy both occupied the seats to his mother's right and left, respectively, huddling close to her as if afraid she would vanish if they looked away for too long, and looked ready to give Jon a tongue-lashing in a rare show of solidarity, but a soft touch was all it took to get them to relax.

Ash wished Sam were here to see it, but his old friend had claimed 'research' and left Gary and Daisy alone, unwilling to apply any pressure to their fragile peace when they were just beginning to grow at ease with one another.

His heart went out to Sam, knowing just how much it must have killed the old man to step away, but it seemed to be paying off.

"Spencer is a dear friend, but we've never been married," his mother said with a certain confidence that wouldn't have been there a few months back: a sure sign that her progress was coming along nicely. Her memories had begun to properly solidify with the reinforcement of the better part of a year. "We're just very close."

"Gotcha. Unlike Gary and the Rising Badge!" Jon said brightly, needling the Oak. Ash's mom just grimaced—she'd told Ash that she was a little disturbed with the toxicity of that particular rivalry, especially after Ash had filled her in on more of the details.

"Or Jonathan and a working brain cell," Gary shot back. "Freaking loser."

Gary wilted as Delia frowned gently at him. Jon stuck his tongue out at him while Ash's mom wasn't looking.

"Or like your tea and cyanide," Amelia whispered innocently. Ash hid a snort. Gloam high-fived Amelia, then Raichu, although the electric charge on Raichu left his fluffy black fur standing all on end.

"Sorry," Gary mumbled at Gary of his own volition. Ash blinked, rather expecting Groudon and Kyogre to wake at that very moment. Or at the very least for the universe to implode.

But the fire kept on crackling, the stars shone overhead, and the aroma of his mother's delicious cooking swirled delightfully through the night air.

"Oh…uh, okay," Jon grunted, having never been apologized to by Gary of all people before. Ash rather thought that Jon had just joined a very exclusive group of people. Exclusive enough to be counted on one hand, probably. "Uh, thanks."

Gary looked a little green in the firelight.

"I miss Lisia," Daisy mused fondly. "And Johanna. The last five minutes have been some of the most awkward in my life."

His mom giggled at that, though she was quick to lead the conversation to happier topics. Ash just basked in the presence of those he cared for—his team were all around him, wrestling with his friends' pokémon and trying to steal food whenever they could, and several of the people he treasured most were here.

But not for long.

The Silver Conference was just a few days away.

Ash would miss Pallet Town, he realized, though it felt more distant than it ever had. It would always be home, but with his mother gone…

Better not to think of that.

If nothing else, Ash was looking forward to returning to the great stone halls of the Indigo Plateau. To the room lovingly crafted for him by Lance, Karen, and Will, to the challenges of the trainers he aspired to match, to the company of those who had taken him and his team under their wing.

Quite literally so in Lance's case.

Those League houses that Jon, Amelia, and Gary would be staying in—Ash stifled a smirk, though it was blatant enough to earn a skeptical look from Amelia's sharp eyes—were nice, but Ash much preferred the windswept spires of Mt. Silver.

Perhaps he'd check in on the Silver Lady. She'd best have used these last forty years to their utmost given how their last battle went.

Still, it wasn't long before the rest were yawning, though Ash and his team were still brimming with energy. Particularly Seeker, who flitted blindingly fast through the night sky after Plume, exploiting her new agility and night vision to run circles around the prideful bird.

Ash had put them through the wringer today, though that was as much for getting his three friends to shut up and stop picking at each other for more than five minutes as it was to help them prepare for the Silver Conference. It was no surprise they'd need to turn in early, especially their poor pokémon.

Infernus had been in fine spirits all day and Torrent wasn't far behind. The Kingdra retained all of his royal dignity that had been claimed upon his final evolution, but in some ways he reminded Ash of that fiery Horsea more and more by the day.

Their training had borne fruit these past few weeks, fruit that Ash couldn't wait to smash into everyone's face hard enough to bruise.

Perhaps you are more tired than you thought, Friend-Trainer. Your metaphors are breaking down again.

Ash snorted but enjoyed the last few minutes of sitting around the campfire before his mother clapped her hands.

"You all look exhausted!" She chirped. "Why don't you all go in for a nightcap? Ash told me that he has big plans for you tomorrow!"

Loud groans from trainers and teams alike were their response.

"I'll just pop in and go have a few nightmares. They'll be better than whatever that sick freak you call a son is preparing for us," Gary said, discreetly flipping Ash the finger. Ash smiled pleasantly at him, mentally tallying up all the slights from the last day so that he could make Gary's exercises particularly hellish tomorrow. Gary hesitated. "Daisy, you coming?"

Daisy stared at the Oak family home as if it were haunted…and to be fair, Ash wouldn't be surprised to find some lingering wisp of Agatha sticking around the place to jump out and scare the daylights out of Sam at inopportune moments.

"I'm good. I'll just teleport back to Viridian for the night."

"And do what, hug your Champion Lance body pillow until you fall asleep?" Gary scoffed, ignoring Daisy as she squawked and flapped her hands much like a drunk Pidgey would. She sent a mortified look Ash's way.

"GARY! Shut up!"

"Whatever. Smell ya later, Daisy!"

Several members of his team returned, though quite a few shuffled into the Oak family home alongside him. Gary must've been a little put out by Daisy's refusal given that he said nothing to the rest of them except a polite, "Good night, Ms. Delia."

"Good night, Gary!

They all went their separate ways after that, splitting off into the night as Jon and Amelia returned to their parents' houses and Daisy vanished in a flicker of light courtesy of Gardevoir after bidding Delia and Ash goodbye.

Gardevoir pointedly looked everywhere but Ash. He stuck his tongue out at her.

If Daisy noticed Gloam's claws scraping together the moment Gardevoir came out then she didn't say anything.

Daisy had stayed in Ash's house the last two nights, spending hours talking to Delia after Ash had gone to bed, but she'd been hesitant to intrude on Ash and his mother's time together (despite Delia's best efforts to get her to stay).

"I'll be at the training ground soon," Ash promised his team as he and his mother made to leave. Tangrowth whined pitifully, snaking a rubbery vine around Ash as if imploring him to stay. "Don't worry! I'm just walking mom back to the house. I won't be more than twenty minutes, okay?"

"Oh, you don't have to do that!" His mother said, though Ash thought she looked rather pleased.

"We'll be quick," Ash repeated, offering her his arm as they set down the path back home. Nidoking plodded along beside them, steadfast as ever. His eyes never ceased skimming the darkness, and Ash heard the faintest beats of leathery wings upon the wind.

He was never truly alone.

"Such gallant gentlemen you are!" His mother beamed, motioning for Nidoking to take her other hand as the two walked her down the path. "How lucky am I?"

"Not everyone gets to be escorted by one of the Elite Four…well, a trainee," Ash said with a quick smile. Just his mother's touch eased some of the worries floating around in his head, the little edge of darkness that gnawed at his thoughts. It had retreated these last two weeks but never fully vanished.

Ash wasn't sure it ever would.

She laughed again. "I'm just blessed!" His mother squeezed both Ash's hand and Nidoking's claws tighter. "Truly. I'm so proud of you, honey. But tell me…are you okay? Please be honest."

His hand clasped hers a touch tighter.

"...I still think of what happened," Ash admitted, though he refused to stray into details. His mother had enough to worry about. "I still see Fino. I still see her. Lairon's taken it really hard too. Tangrowth…I think it's going to hit him hardest when we make it back to Hoenn."

"Poor babies," his mother whispered.

Nidoking grunted softly, casting a swift look back to the rest of their team before they vanished around the bend of a hill.

"We're getting better though," Ash said. "One day at a time. I promise. We've had a lot of time to think, mom. That first day we came back to Pallet felt like months passed by in the blink of an eye. It's not easy, but at least we feel like ourselves again."

His mother hummed, clutching him close. Ash didn't pull away. She hesitated. "What about Flannery? She's such a sweet girl. It breaks my heart to see this happen to her."

"She's traveling," Ash said. "Stopping by all the places that Fino wanted to revisit. She wants to see the mark he left and retrace his steps…I hope she finds a few places to call her own, though. I don't want her to trap herself in Fino's shadow."

"Flannery has a fire to her," Delia said. "She's too bright to stay in anyone's shadow, I think."

Ash grinned as Nidoking rumbled his agreement. "That she is."

They drifted through the rolling hills of Pallet, filling the warm night air with idle chatter as they shared stories and caught up for the first time since Zinnia's attack. Video calls and messages just weren't quite the same as having his mother's hand in his and her kind voice in his ears.

"You've been studying for almost a year now," Ash said. "What's next?"

"I've been involved with several labs, but I think I've finally begun to narrow down a specialization that I'd like to pursue!" She gushed, chattering on about highbrow concepts which Ash just had the barest understanding of for a time before frowning. "But that reminds me…there's something I'd like to talk to you about, Ash."

"What is it?"

The night air was comfortably warm, wrapping around Ash like a caress, but he felt a little cold at the hesitant look his mother offered him. Nidoking grunted softly, the mental brush of his stern mind a balm upon Ash's sudden anxiety.

"I've held onto the diner. I've held onto Pallet," Delia said quietly. Her hand squeezed Ash's. "Part of me was afraid I would fail. I was worried I wouldn't know what to do, that I'd slowed down, that I wasn't as sharp as I was when I was just a little girl going to school."

"That's dumb!" Ash cried. "You're brilliant."

"Thank you, sweetie," she said, beaming, then sighed. "The last year has been so hard, but it's taught me that I'm stronger than I thought I was. It's shown me so much, not all of it good, but the future is bright again. I know I can do this. And with that…"

Realization struck Ash. He felt his mother's indecision, hopes, and the little kernel of fear that never quite left her. The tide of ascendant ambitions and the specter of a little girl clinging so closely to the home she'd painstakingly carved.

"You're leaving Pallet behind."

Nidoking whined.

She looked startled for a moment, peering down at him with naked surprise, and for a moment Ash knew she wanted to deny it, that she didn't want to worry him. But she would never lie to him.

"I've considered it," Delia said carefully. "Pallet will always be home, Ash. Don't ever think otherwise. I've spent a long time thinking, though, and I know my future isn't in Pallet. I've been thinking about selling the restaurant. Sally's really shaped up this year—I was worried when I left, but she's a clever girl and she wants to purchase the diner."

"And the house?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'll sell it one day," Delia admitted, though there was a catch in her voice—Ash knew just as well as she did how many memories were etched into those walls. He reeled for a moment. "But I know Pallet is still precious, Ash. I don't want you to feel like you don't have somewhere to return to…you spend so much time on the road. I don't want to take away your home. One of the places you know will always be waiting."

Pallet Town was an island of stability in Ash's life. It was just like his mom said—no matter what happened on the slopes of Mt. Chimney or in the element-battered islands of Shamouti or the depths of the wilds, Ash always knew that sleepy little Pallet Town would be the same as when he left it.

It was almost impossible to imagine never returning to his old bed or stepping through the entryway again, like shutting a door on those early years that he treasured so much.

Nidoking's ironclad mind brushed Ash's again. He couldn't speak telepathically (and likely would never be able to) but the impressions and emotions and love which transmitted across their bond reassured Ash in a way little else could.

"Home's not a place," Ash said after a moment. If the last year had taught his mother faith in herself, then this was Ash's lesson. "You're home. So if S—Professor Oak," Ash corrected himself. "He's not going to kick me out if I want to visit, right?"

His mother giggled. It sounded a little nervous to Ash's ears, as if all the jitters she'd been holding back had finally broken out. "Of course not!"

"I have a hundred homes," Ash said, mind flickering to all those he'd come to know on his journey—the League members who guided him, battle-maddened Flannery, the Wataru who he had dined with, and the countless friends he had made. He tapped the row of Pokéballs on his belt. "And I carry home with me everywhere I go."

Nidoking growled in agreement.

His mother wrapped him in a quick hug, practically squeezing the life out of him. No words needed to be said.

But Ash did anyway.

"I love you," Ash whispered as soon as he was able to breathe again. His mother didn't even try to hide her tears. "And I'm always just a teleport away. A little move doesn't matter."

Ash had all of a second to prepare himself for a second bone-breaking embrace, but he wouldn't have changed a thing.

XX

The sea was painted red and gold by the setting sun. Oceanic winds came swelling in from the south, salty and warm, but in them Ash heard the Roar of Kyogre, the great beast's yawns growing louder and angrier by the day.

But Ash paid no heed to it for now. Kyogre and Groudon had become his constant companions these last few months as their omnipresence waxed in intensity. Their waking was still a ways off, yet what could he accomplish by worrying?

For now he sat with Gloam lounging in his lap and Torrent splashing through the waves, propelling himself with water manipulation to speeds that allowed him to keep up with Seeker as she playfully flitted above the waves, dashing down to brush the surface just before Torrent would come up in a great geyser of seafoam.

Ash smiled as he watched them play. Every now and then the sea would burn turquoise as Torrent channeled enormous swathes of power to his will, blasting upwards in a draconic explosion and great rises of sweltering steam.

He tucked his PokéNav away, tired of delving through the League archives for all their reports on the strange happenings of forty years ago. It had turned into a regular pastime of his—nothing amused him quite like the wild panic of the ACE trainers who had realized Chinatsu had deigned to emerge from her grotto in a sea of golden flame.

Those unlucky agents had masked their terror as well as they could behind a veneer of professionalism and crisp reports, but Ash knew enough to pick out just what a nightmare that had been. Not to mention the mountains of paperwork involved.

Ash whispered a silent apology to the poor fellows.

"This seems familiar, doesn't it?" Ash muttered to Gloam, who snuggled closer. "One year ago we sat on this same pier and looked out to the sea. We looked out to Hoenn. I never could've imagined everything that was waiting for us after that Closing Ceremony."

It was happening now, Ash knew. He'd barely kept up with the Indigo Conference—from what he'd heard it hadn't been quite as exciting as the momentous happenings last year—but Karen had at least mentioned being interested in a handful of competitors for recruitment into SPECTRE, which she now headed.

No doubt Koga would peruse the battles as well. A major responsibility of various League officials during the Conferences was to examine any competitors who seemed like they might be a good fit for recruitment. It didn't seem like there would be any new Elite Four trainees recruited this year, however. That tended to be reserved for winners of particular talent.

Apparently Kalos was keeping Koga quite busy. If Koga had to attend one more fancy banquet or play nice with the spoiled heirs of the Great Houses for another hour, Ash fully expected him to go on a rampage. Koga was a consummate professional, but Ash had read the reports.

The ninja was nearing the limits of his patience.

Give it another month and Kalos might be down a good thirty percent of its nobility. Diantha would be enthused, probably, given all the problems that they tended to cause.

Ash suspected the ghost of Durand would cheer Koga on the entire time, although Ash truly hoped she'd found some semblance of peace with her team in the end.

Torrent and Seeker playfully dueled a safe distance away from the pier and Ash cheered them on, scolding Gloam when the Weavile decided to contribute with a lazy Ice Beam or three, but pensive thoughts reigned within.

It was almost time to leave Pallet behind.

Not forever, of course. Not while Sam was here.

But tomorrow was the Opening Ceremony of the Silver Conference. His mother was leaving for Goldenrod, Daisy had already left for Silver Town, and Ash would go alongside his friends to introduce them to the League Village there.

Meanwhile sleepy Pallet would remain as it always had,

It was Ash's past, the cradle in which he'd been raised, the blank canvas with which he'd been imprinted. Two years (ignoring Celebi shenanigans) had seen Ash and a little Nidoran take their first stumbling steps beyond these green hills and peaceful fields.

Would that boy even recognize what he had become? Ash wasn't sure.

But as he sat with Gloam in his lap and his friends playing on the horizon, both daring each other to greater and greater heights, Ash knew he'd do it all again a hundred times.

They had traversed Kanto in its entirety, witnessing ancient history and modern glories all in one.

They had walked the beaches of the Sevii Islands and tamed the elemental wrath rising in the Orange archipelago.

Ash had rediscovered his humanity in Johto and watched that fragile seed blossom into something precious in Hoenn.

"I wonder where we'll go next," Ash murmured, and Gloam yowled into the darkening horizon, lazily pointing up at the stars as the pinpricks of light peeked out. He laughed at that, ruffling Gloam's soft black fur. "I'm not sure even Plume can fly that high, buddy, but we'll just have to give that a shot…"

"Ash!" Amelia's voice carried across the hills to the pier. "What are you doing down there? They're about to post the hopefuls for this year's Silver Conference—"

"I'm on TV!" Jon's cackles filled all of Pallet. "Dang, I look incredible! I think I see a beard hair!"

"Jon's hallucinating," Amelia shouted. "Grab Dazed—I think we need some expert help. Or Wea—uh, Gloam. Maybe it's time we try out that lobotomy idea for Jon that we were discussing a while back. Desperate times and all that."

Gloam visibly perked up.

"Uh, I'm not seeing things anymore," Jon cried. "Ash, help!"

That was the last thing he should've said. Jon's whimpers turned to yelps as Gloam saw the chance to cause a wee bit of psychological distress, taking off in a black blur to torment the boy.

Ash cracked a grin as he rose and leisurely stretched.

"Stay out as long as you like, you two!" Ash waved to Seeker and Torrent as their playful duel momentarily paused, a wall of water frozen in mid-air before it would have come crashing down upon the Crobat. Venom dripped from her fangs. "I'm going to go save Jon real quick. I'll save some dinner for you!"

A rumble and bright chatter was all he received before the duel resumed, filling the night with blades of air and the crash of the commanded waves.

And with that, Ash stepped away from the pier and back towards Pallet, wondering when he would next return.

If he would return.

Magma bubbling away in the shadows (though Steven had systematically begun to dismantle several of their outposts and shell corporations), sleeping divinities stirring, and the Ever Grande Elite Four lying in wait.

But for now…

The Silver Conference awaited them.

A/N:

I have to apologize for the long wait. My life grew far busier than I could have anticipated since the release of the last chapter, although I am happy to say that things have calmed down a good bit. It didn't help that quite a few aspects of this chapter just fought me the whole way. I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but I would rather maintain forward momentum.

Thank you all for your patience! I hope the chapter was worth the wait :)

Originally I was going to have a good chunk of the Silver Conference in this chapter, but I quickly realized it was untenable. Instead, I have decided to split the Silver Conference into two relatively small chapters, which will hopefully help me get caught up on the chapters. These are small chapters by Traveler standards, mind you, so they should still be a nice chunk.

As always, I would love to hear what you think! There's so much that I'm incredibly excited for coming up.