"And one more thing!" A voice coming from a computer said, it was Ash's mom Delia, Ash left and went to call her after forgetting to do it and she was giving him an earful.

"I already told you I'm sorry, but I text you every day isn't that enough for you to know I'm OK" Ash tried to defend himself

"Of course not, what do I know if Maybe you're trying to hide your face because you're injured, besides what mother doesn't want to see their son's face."

"Yeah, I guess you have a point," Ash said, rubbing the back of his head.

Delia sighed, "I guess it can't be helped, you really act like your father sometimes, but I suppose you did at least text, I'll forgive you this time, but you better be sure to call me more often,"

Ash's eye slightly twitched, "OK, I'll call you whenever I get to one of the major towns."

"No exceptions."

"...."

"Ashhh"

" Fine, No exceptions."

Delia nodded. "I suppose it is acceptable, goodbye, and love you."

"Love you too," Ash said as he hung up the call.

Ash leaned back in his chair and gave an exhausted breath while Pikachu and Clefairy were patting him on the leg to attempt to comfort him, and from outside of the room Brock, Misty, and Yellow were listening in.

Ash noticed them and spoke up just loud enough to make sure they could hear him but not loud enough to make it obvious, "I wonder if I should take my frustration out on them, I haven't given a good prank in a while, I just hope they don't find the box too soon."

Then Ash could hear the sounds of people scurrying away, Ash smiled, 'Good that will keep them distracted for long enough, now to deal with Oak.'

Ash hid Clefairy under his chair and dialed Oak's number and when he picked up he saw Oak eating some watermelon with Krabby doing the crab dance with another.

"Hello my boy, what can I do for you, you caught me with your Krabby enjoying some fruit."

"I wanted to tell you that I got my 4th badge," Ash said as he was mostly focused on Krabby's dance.

"Ah yes, I was wondering when you'd call, Green and Gary have notified me that they got theirs, Gary was specifically asking about you, I'm sure you can imagine why," Oak said helplessly.

"Yeah…" Ash said as Krabby was still dancing but he snapped himself out of it, "Well, if you remember you said that you were going to expand my limit on Pokemon one I got my fourth badge, sooooooo I did my end of the bargain,"

Oak laughed helplessly, "Oh yeah, I was also told that you told Gary about our deal, he did call me but only to ask for his to also be extended."

"Yeah well he asked so I answered. Besides, you never told me to keep it a secret, it's not illegal anyway."

"*Sigh*I suppose you're right, anyway how much did we agree on?" Oak said, pulling up his computer.

"Ummm, it was a few months ago but I think you said 15," Ash said using a big brain move called lying.

"Hohoh, that is a good one, my memory may be fading but I think I would remember about that."

Ash looked at Oak with a deadpan expression, "You forgot about my 7th birthday, and you forgot about my name so much that people thought my first name was Ketchum, and let's not even talk about Gary."

"W-we don't need to talk about those times," Oak said defensively, "How about 12, that double the normal limit,"

"Oh by the way did I mention I met that kid you sold my Charmander to, and he told me everything including-" Ash tried to say but he was cut off.

"Ok 15 it is, I think my food is here so I need to head off, call me later I need to do some stuff goodbye." Oak quickly said as he hung up

Ash chuckled and leaned back in the chair he was in, he didn't need the expanded space since he already hacked the Dex's teleportation function, but it would make it easier to use his Pokemon more publicly without the chance of Oak finding out.

And then there was the Charmander incident, he couldn't use that guilt forever, and if he kept bringing it up eventually Oak would do something about it potentially getting him a new Charmander he didn't need, so he needed to start his plan as soon as he could.

Ash gave one final stretch as Clefairy hopped out from under the chair and pouted at Ash, he gave her a pat on the head which made her accept his apology for now.

He could hear the sounds of his friends panicking to find something that didn't exist. He smiled and decided to go out there and torment them some more.

Pikachu was sitting down and could feel the intent coming off of Ash, so he just sighed and grabbed some Popcorn to watch the suffering, with extra ketchup of course. Clefairy followed after grabbing some cotton candy as compensation.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

–

{The next day}

Last night Brock asked the group to go all the way to Scissor Street, he didn't say why he just said that he needed to do it.

So everyone agreed since no one could think of a reason not to, and Ash knew why he wanted to go, and was fine with it. Brock getting a Vulpix thats fine with him, even if he won't keep it.

Though that made him think of something, Jessie and James haven't been appearing a lot, and in a weird way he kinda missed them, but other than that if they don't show up then will Vulpix even join Brock, he thought about it but then shrugged it off, if it didn't happen then what is he going to do about it.

Scissor Street itself was really close to HopHopHop Town, didn't even take a day to get there, and when they did Brock made a B-line straight to a certain salon.

Misty sighed and mumbled, "This is going to be the rest of our day isn't it,"

"Probably," Ash said without sugarcoating as Clefairy took her place in Ash's hood, making Pikachu glare at the pink ball.

The three of them continued walking, seeing the city along the way and all the People with different Pokemon, Though the thing that caught Ash's eye the most was the lack of Team Rocket's salon, which meant no Jessie and James again.

Ash pushed those thoughts to the back of his head as he led Misty and Yellow to the salon, and immediately upon entering, they saw Brock bowing to Suzie.

Another thing was that the salon was much more full of employees and customers instead of Just Suzie.

"Please accept me as your student!" Brock said, still bowing his head towards Suzie making her shake her hands trying to make him stop.

As Suzie was trying to talk to Brock, Yellow looked at Suzie and said, "Hey wasn't that one of the judges back in the competition Brock won?"

Ash was too late to stop Yellow before Brock heard her and jumped to expand everything about Suzie from her record to her blog ect, ect.

It only stopped when Suzie asked Brock to stop, when he did Suzie gave a sigh of relief and looked at Yellow, "Yes I was one of the judges, but that was a one-time thing, well I guess I've technically done it 4 times now but that's not important."

"You see, the champion of last year's competition was given the opportunity to be a judge for the first large-scale competition, but after I did that I'm just going to compete in this year's competition again," Suzie said as he pulled out a Medal.

"I just won my first one of the year recently, and I was planning on staying here for a bit before going out to find the next one. Especially to give Vulpix a rest." Suzie gestured to the little fox resting on a bed.

"Aww x2" Yellow and Misty said in unison as they both approached the fox.

Yellow put her hand out to pet Vulpix, then it looked up, Suzie tried to tell them not to, but then Vulpix let herself be pet, even letting Misty pet her as well, even though she preferred Yellow.

Suzie was left stunned, "But Vulpix doesn't like interacting with strangers."

Ash stretched his arms behind his back, "Welp you better get used to it, this group of misfits is full of freaks."

Suzie was left speechless, so she invited everyone for tea, when she got the table ready Brock put some Snacks out for the Pokemon and one for Vulpix, she was about to say Vulpix didn't like anyone else's food but she closed her mouth when she saw Vulpix eating happily.

Suzie had to sit down in shock seeing all of this back to back, she only snapped out of it when Pikachu walked up and handed her a Cup of tea and a finger sandwich.

Suzie took it and admired Pikachu's color, "Pikachu's coat is quite impressive, do you prepare all of his food?"

"Oh well actually-" Brock tried to say something but Ash covered his mouth.

"Well Brock actually prepared all of Pikachu's food and helped brush him, along with all of our Pokemon, right guys," Ash said as he also put Clefairy on the table and showed her off.

Misty caught on and nodded along, Yellow was confused for a bit but Misty lightly elbowed her making her also nod.

"That's wonderful to hear," Suzie said as she looked over to Brock, "I can't take you in as my student, but if you'd like I can teach you a few things."

Brock immediately jumped out of his seat and bowed as fast as he could, almost hitting his head in the process, "I would be honored to."

As that was said Ash got up and put Pikachu under his shoulder and Clefairy in his Backpack, "Welp that's my cue."

"Wait where are you going?" Yellow asked since Pikachu was also confused about what was happening.

"I'm heading out, this is going to take a while, I'm probably going to go train then go for a walk, I suggest you guys find something to do too, anywho if you need me, don't," Ash said as he walked out of the door.

—

{Meanwhile With Ash's other side}

Ash finally arrived in Gringey City, took a while but he finally arrived, he changed out of the rocket uniform and was wearing casual clothes as he gathered information, mainly about the Power plant.

It's weird, even though in the original series this was the only Power plant shown, it wasn't the same as the one from the games, that one only appeared years later in Journeys, which was a different landmine in and of itself.

But with just talking with the locals Ash learned that the Power plant randomly turns off once every hour, though it usually happens at night when people are sleeping, and when it is in the day they have backup generators so no one has done anything about it.

'So it's different, I wonder why, well I came here for that anyway, so I guess I'll do this small town a favor and save myself the trouble of having to come here again.' Ash thought as he made his way to the Power plant.

He almost met a Jenny but he managed to evade her and get to the power plant where put on his trench coat again and released Meowth who jumped back into his scarf for comfort.

He walked into the Power plant and immediately he was bombarded with the foul stench of sludge and sewage, but just looking into the building he couldn't see much, only a few stray Magnemite floating around but nothing else.

So despite Meowth's objections, they went deeper into the Power plant, and almost immediately when he turned the corner he saw a few dozen Grimer, they all looked at him and Meowth, then started charging.

"Alright Meowth, let's do this," Ash said holding out his arm,

"Meowth-(￣へ￣) " Meowth said before begrudgingly jumping out of Ash's scarf and off of his arm to get into the air.

"Meowth use Thunderbolt,"

Meowth's body was enveloped in yellow electricity as it lit up the dark room and shot at all the Grimer, instantly electrocuting them and making them unconscious.

Meowth backflipped back into Ash's scarf and made herself comfortable again.

Ash looked at his new cat and thought one thing, 'She is going to be so mad after this,' then Ash pulled out a few Pokeballs and threw them all at the Grimer, catching them instantly.

Then Ash's shadow extended as all the Pokeballs fell into the darkness and two eyes appeared from inside.

"Jie Jie(๑¯ω¯๑)" from his shadow Gastly popped her head out and popped the pile in Ash's hands, which he shoved into his storage.

Ash patted the ghost's head as he remembered how she got here, originally She was going to try and see if she could move between the two points freely, but she wasn't able to, so she was just transferred over to this side.

Ash looked at the Power plant and shook his shoulder nearly making his little Meowth fall off, "Don't fall asleep yet, we still have work to do here."