Chapter 24:Master
Cynthia's serene smile widened as she stepped out from the Champion's Tower's entrance and into the warm afternoon sunshine.
Summer on Shouri Island was something of an anomaly to the rest of Sinnoh. Despite sharing the same latitude as Snowpoint City, it was extraordinarily warm compared to the rest of Sinnoh in the summer. Warm enough to allow her to forgo her iconic coat, which said a lot.
Instead, she was dressed in a pair of rarely worn capri jeans (which made her calves look amazing, in her own opinion) and a black tank top. So yeah, she was planning on enjoying the weather before the old Shirona Curse forced her inside.
Yes, curse. It was real, damn it, and she was getting sick of explaining that to people who had no respect for her clan's rich and storied history.
Yes, clan. Two families counted, she checked.
Though she could only curse her second cousin Elesa's superior complexion, since she never heard of her getting a sunburn...
Clearing her head of annoying thoughts and idle envy, Cynthia raised her arms and let out a content sigh as the sunlight embraced her in it's glow.
Now what should she do today?
She had the day to herself, since she had given Ash the day off training, and he was no doubt playing with his veritable legion of pokemon.
Maybe she could find him and they could hang out, she thought to herself as she set off into the forest, knowing he wouldn't be far. All she had to do to find him was follow the sound of roaring and laughter.
After examining some photographs of a four thousand year old mass burial site for humans and pokemon, which had been lovingly deemed the Skull Cavern, she decided she could use some of the young boy's pep and good cheer.
It was something she liked about Ash - he was always so cheerful and optimistic, she smiled.
Had it really been nearly a year already since she had taken him under her wing? Cynthia wondered as she ducked under a low hanging branch.
The sixteen year old and his pokemon had come along in leaps and bounds in such a short time as she had expected. Ash was a diamond that simply needed a chance to shine and reveal his full potential. He was someone she was looking forward to calling her true equal a few years down the line.
But she had to wonder to herself... What drove Ash to pursue the life of a Champion?
It wasn't mere glory or riches. Ash wasn't that shallow, she knew that for a fact. It wasn't the power that came with the title. Ash wasn't interested in something so pointless.
And if it wasn't the money or the power... Could it be... The women?
As if! Cynthia snorted in laughter at the thought. Ash struck her as the type that seemed more comfortable in the heat of battle rather than the heat of passion, which was understandable seeing as he was still fairly young.
She was the same herself, to the amusement of some. So what if her seventeen year old sister had managed to find a boyfriend before her?
She wasn't looking for one!
If she was though... She supposed it would take a certain kind of person to interest her, and as far as she could tell, she hadn't met him (ooooooor her, she quietly admitted to herself in the confines of her own mind) yet.
But back to her main point. What drove her young apprentice to be one of the greats?
Lance had wanted to bring pride to his clan's name and teachings through his own actions, which was a noble goal.
Steven had wished to separate himself from his genius father's shadow and become his own man, and no-one could deny that he succeeded.
Ethan had a promise to keep and two dear friends to keep it for, which was all he would ever say on the matter.
Alder was asked to come out of retirement and take up the mantle, and only wished to keep the peace of Unova until someone suitable could replace him. But he made it clear that he enjoyed guiding the younger generation. Despite how he acted, the man was a great teacher at heart.
Diantha was the best of her region and she had sought to show everyone that she was a woman of many talents. Perhaps that was a bit simplistic, but Diantha was a simple and sincere woman.
And why did Cynthia herself wish to become a Champion? Well, at first it was for all the wrong reasons, she sadly admitted to herself.
But then she found her true reason, for her pokemon and for herself.
For the partners who had helped her every step of the way and had fought any and all who stepped in their path, which she was eternally grateful for.
Cynthia's pondering fell to the back of her mind as she followed the noises of Ash's pokemon and stepped into a field. Her lips pulled back into a grin as she quietly observed Ash as he and his pokemon engaged in a game that looked like it was probably called "Tackle the Ash".
Meganium seemed to be winning by a landslide, she observed.
Ash shouted out, "Can't someone else be it?!" From under a couple hundred pounds of grass-type. Meganium simply nuzzled his face and repeated her name in refusal.
Cynthia bit back a chuckle at the sight. It was honestly endearing. There were many trainers who could never connect with their pokemon like Ash could. It was a rare gift, one she hoped he would never lose.
As Ash was hauled to his feet by Blastoise, she called out to him from the tree she was standing by. "Ash!" She waved her arm to grab his attention.
Ash looked over and blinked at Cynthia's... Unexpected attire. Not that it looked bad on her, just different. "Cynthia? I thought you were busy today?" He asked, removing his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"Well, it's a nice day. No point looking at those photos in weather like this, right? I think it's safe to say they'll stay dead a little longer." She shrugged uncaringly, walking over to him. "And if those bones suddenly get up and start walking, well, they won't need an archaeologist anymore, will they?"
Ash laughed, placing his hat back on his head. "Anyone tell you that you have a weird sense of humour?" He smiled, gesturing towards a tree in the centre of the clearing.
"Well, I'll have you know I'm actually hilarious, soooo..." She replied as she sat down and reclined against the trunk of the tree.
"Who told you that?" Ash asked as he joined her, letting the sunlight wash over him while his pokemon split into groups. "And how much did you pay them?"
Predictively, the younger pokemon, Glalie, Pupitar and Donphan played together, while Pidgeot held court with Noctowl, Swellow, and Staraptor.
Feraligatr and Typhlosion were trying to push Meganium towards a very tsundere-ish Sceptile. Primeape and Heracross were wrestling together while Floatzel, Kingler, and Crawdaunt amused themselves by creating rainbows in the air.
And of course, the old boys, Pikachu, Charizard, Venusaur, Blastoise, and Butterfree were shooting the breeze in the shade, looking over the rascally young'uns.
"Half a million pokedollars, but my Grandma thinks I'm funny!" Cynthia told him with a mock-pout, her slightly childish nature that she only ever let out around Ash coming out.
"Your Grandma's too supportive!" Ash shot back, closing his eyes and resting his arms behind his head, enjoying to-and-fro between them.
"Pft! Shows what you know!" She retorted, folding her arms across her chest.
"Hey, Cynthia?" Ash asked after a moment of silently enjoying the sight of his pokemon frolic, turning to look at her.
"Hmm?" She hummed, feeling a bit too relaxed and comfortable to make the effort to use words.
"Why did you want to become an archaeologist anyway?" He asked her with a genuine air of interest in his voice.
"Why?" Cynthia repeated, reminiscing about a faraway cave buried deep in a foggy mountain range where her love of ancient history had been born. "Well, I guess it started when I was about eight, maybe a little older? I was a pretty lonely kid, you know? There weren't a lot of other kids in Celestic Town and there wasn't much to do except read." She told him, casting her mind back to her childhood.
"One day, I was exploring the woods around Celestic Town with Garchomp, back when she was a gible, and we found this old cave with all this writing on the walls that I couldn't make heads or tails of. So I wanted to study the language and find out what it meant. It was like..." She paused for a second to find the words. "...Unlocking a mystery. Like, what was so important that some person would need to carve it into rock?
I forgot all about it when I became a trainer, but when I became the Champion, I went back and started studying it. What started as curiosity, became a hobby and then became a passion for me. I suppose I just like sticking my nose into ancient people's business!" She smiled, slipping her sandals off and feeling the grass against her bare feet.
Ash nodded. "I guess I can understand it, but I don't see myself doing it. Whenever I get involved with ancient history, crazy things happen." He shuddered, thinking back to a couple of times when history had really come alive for him and his friends, quite literally.
'Oh, sup, bro? Mind if I possess your body so I can take over the world by harnessing the power of Ho-Oh real quick? You do? Tough!'
The king of Pokelantis was jerk, to say the least.
"No, you want to be a Pokemon Champion, don't you?"
"Yep, it's my goal!" Ash confirmed with a thumbs-up.
"Have you always wanted to be one?" Cynthia asked, her aforementioned curiosity guiding the conversation.
"Well... That's kind of personal, but I guess I can tell you." Ash paused momentarily, gathering his thoughts and deciding the best way to explain his near-lifelong mission to his mistress.
"It all started with my dad. I remember that everyday we'd play together, just me and him. I'd always imagine we were pokemon and we'd have these big battles together, 'course, he'd always let me win..." Ash explained, gaining a wistful look that Cynthia had never seen on him before.
"My mom used to work as Professor Oak's assistant for a while and when she was working, Dad and me would go out into the ranch and look at all the trainer's pokemon. He'd show me what pokemon was what, what they could do and all sorts of things. He was a retired trainer and he was the one who made me want to become a trainer." Ash recalled with a grin, thinking fondly of his own childhood.
Cynthia smiled, placing an arm around Ash's shoulder in a friendly gesture. "He sounds like a great dad."
"Yeah, he was." Ash said, his smile now looking strained.
"Oh."
There wasn't much she could say besides that. Having had her experience with losing a parent, she knew a simple sorry for your loss was pointless sentiment, so she thought it best to keep her mouth shut.
"Yeah." Ash nodded, silently thanking her for her lack of needless sympathy. "Don't worry about it. It was a while back, anyway." Ash frowned deeply, a more forlorn look on his face than the one he wore when Cynthia found him alone on that bench one year prior.
"H-he was sick, see? He had been since he was born - his doctors told my grandparents that he'd be lucky to make it past five and that he'd always have a weak body. But he survived and when he was ten, he left on a journey and entered some Leagues." Ash's frowned began to twitch upwards into a small smile at the thought of his father's willpower.
"Then when he was twenty he met my mom, they settled down in her hometown and had me. B-but when I was seven he got a lot worse, his sickness began to catch up with him and... And he died." Ash blinked back a tear that was beginning to well up in his eye.
"He before he died, he told me that because he was living on borrowed time that gave him a reason to give everything he had to everything he did and to never give up!" At this, Ash clenched his fist and held it up, making a rather heroic pose. "And because of him, I'll never give up either! That's why I'll be the best!"
Cynthia blinked and smiled at the sheer amount of determination in his voice and knew beyond a doubt that Ash would one day be her greatest rival. Their battles would be legendary. "So that's why you do it, to honour your dad?" Cynthia raised her hand to her chin in understanding.
"No." Ash replied, surprising her momentarily until he began to explain. "My dad is the reason is became a trainer, but the reason I'll become a Champion is because my pokemon give their best for me everyday, so I'm going to give my best for them by helping them train as hard as we can it's the least they deserve from me."
"We're a lot alike, did you know that?" Cynthia wrapped her arm around Ash tighter and pulled him closer to her. "We're the types who become the best because we know we're going to be the best! Because we trust our skill and our partner's skill to bring us to the top, we can grow as strong as we want with them at our side. We're Champion-material, you and me."
Ash shrugged off her hold feeling an inexplicable rush of heat to his face, making him feel awkward as all hell.
Yeah, Cynthia was a friend. But keep in mind that he was a teenager and she was a stunning woman with a fair bit of flesh on display. It should have been illegal to have such smooth skin...
But it was just a passing infatuation, he was sure of it.
Ash stood up and walked a few steps away from the tree. "Yeah, I think you're right. But to me, being a Champion isn't the end-goal, it's a stepping stone."
"Stepping stone?!" Cynthia echoed, stunned by his words. What was beyond a Champion, the strongest of the strong?
"Cynthia, I want to be the very best, like no-one else! I want to be a Pokemon Master!"
"Pokemon Master?" Cynthia parroted again, feeling like a chatot. "Ash, what's a Pokemon Master exactly?" She asked, wanting to delve into this interesting aspect of her apprentice.
Ash faltered for a moment and then shrugged. "That's a question I've asked myself a lot. And I realised that a Pokemon Master is someone who's life is an endless struggle, someone who spends their life improving and growing stronger with their pokemon every single day."
As Ash spoke, his back grew straighter, his voice stronger and his pokemon ceased their various activities to listen to his speech and drew closer to him. "A Pokemon Master is a friend to all pokemon and people, who will never turn away from someone who needs help. A Pokemon Master is someone who doesn't know the meaning of "good enough", because there is no good enough!"
'Ash...' Cynthia thought to herself. This was a new side to him, a side she very much liked. His passion for his partners, his desire to be the very pinnacle of strength, his drive to be the best...
Standing firmly by himself, surrounded by his pokemon, she realised that it was now impossible to see Ash as a boy. Standing before her was a man...
A man who could one day equal her, a man whose love of pokemon and desire to be strong matched even hers...
Cynthia felt a sudden change in her pulse.
W-Was her heart actually racing!?
No! No! No! It was just her reaction to how passionate his speech was! She wasn't- she couldn't-!
Her mind a flurry over this sudden new emotional development, Cynthia (with no small difficulty) managed to calm her thoughts and her slightly flustered cheeks down enough to catch the end of Ash's speech.
"And that's why... I know I'll never be a Pokemon Master..."
"Wh-why not?"
"Because to call myself a Pokemon Master is to admit that I can't get any better, that I've reached my limit. I won't believe that anyone has a limit as long as they try to keep pushing past it! And that's why I'll never be able to call myself a Pokemon Master, because I'll never stop pushing my limits! Isn't that right?"
The pokemon circling Ash give a resounding roar of approval, echoing loudly around the clearing.
"But that doesn't mean that I'll never stop chasing my dream of being a Pokemon Master! Because that's the type of person I am!"
Cynthia smiled brightly and put her sandals back on. Was this the true Ash? The eternal fighter who sought an ever distant ideal with endless vigour?
Her As- apprentice was amazing her as usual.
Bad thoughts!
She stood and walked over to Ash and wrapped her arm around his shoulder again in a completely platonic mentor-y way.
Funny how she didn't need to make the distinction five minutes ago...
"Ash, you really need to keep stuff like that to yourself, you know?"
Ash raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Why's that?"
"Because if you keep that kind of talk up, I'll have no choice but to fall in love completely and utterly with you!" Cynthia replied with a sly laugh, placing a hand on her cheek - certain that she was only roughly 98.12% joking.
Ash ducked from under her arm again, using the brim of his to hide his face. "Yeah, yeah. You really need get that sense of humour fixed. I think it's busted!"
"Looks like I'll just have to start paying you too, I guess!"
Ash gestured to the pokemon who had gone back to playing. "So, uh, want to join in?"
"Sure, what are we playing?"
Ash smiled deviously. "Just a little game we like to call, "CYNTHIA'S IT!""
Cynthia froze and turned slowly to the mass of pokemon before her, some pawing the ground, some cracking their necks, but each of them had a smile that matched Ash's.
"I suggest running." Ash remarked casually, as if he hadn't sentenced her to death.
"Oh, you motherfu-"
"Run, fat-ass, run!"
"My ass isn't fat, you jer- AAAGGHHH!"
Ash walked back to the tree trunk and relaxed, relishing the shrill, muffled screaming of his mistress.
It had taken him nearly a year, but the sweet taste of revenge was worth it.
Not even Cynthia Shirona could mess with Ash Ketchum and get away with it!