The last two days had been quieter than the first. The incident on the ridge had produced a version of Goh that nobody had quite seen before — not subdued exactly, but recalibrated. He came back Thursday at six twenty-nine and stood at the gate with his hands in his pockets, and they went further north as agreed, and he stayed on the trail for most of it, which was better than Ash had expected.
He saw things. Took notes in a small notebook he produced from somewhere that nobody had apparently known about. Asked questions that were genuinely good questions, the kind that assumed a working knowledge of type ecology and built on it rather than starting from scratch.
At one point, moving through the upper ridge where the older tree growth began, he stopped and looked at a section of bark on a birch that had been marked by something large.
"Ursaring?" he said.
"Ursaring hasn't been in this forest in six years," Ash said. "Something else."
Goh looked at the mark. The height of it. The depth. "Something bigger."
"Yes."
Goh wrote something down. Didn't ask what it was. Filed it as a thing to come back to later, which was the right instinct.
Chloe walked beside Ash and said, quietly, while Goh was occupied with his notebook: "He's going to want to come back."
"I know," Ash said.
"Is that alright?"
Ash looked at the trail ahead. At Goh moving through it with the specific economy of someone learning to pay attention to where they put their feet.
"Yes," he said.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
On Friday morning the camp wound down in the way camps always did — groups drifting back to the main grounds, Professor Oak doing final rounds, the particular energy of an ending everyone could feel but nobody had announced yet.
Professor Cerise found Ash near the eastern fence and shook his hand with both of his, which was the kind of handshake that meant something.
"You were good with them," he said. "Both of them."
"Goh did most of it himself," Ash said.
"That's usually how it works with the good ones," Professor Cerise said, which seemed to satisfy him, and he went back to find Goh.
Delia appeared at Ash's elbow approximately thirty seconds later, which suggested she had been waiting for Professor Cerise to finish.
"Well," she said, pleasantly.
"I know," Ash said.
"I haven't said anything."
"You were going to say it went well."
"It did go well." She looked at him with the expression of someone who had engineered a situation and was quietly satisfied with the outcome. "Chloe is lovely."
"She is," Ash said, carefully.
"Very sensible. Very observant." A pause. "The Cerises are a good family."
"Mom."
"I'm simply noting."
"You're noting loudly."
She patted his arm. "Just remember to write."
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
Chloe found him at the gate. She had her bag over her shoulder and her hair done properly again for the first time since Tuesday, which meant she was ready to travel.
Pichu was on Ash's shoulder and regarded her arrival with the alert attention he brought to most things.
Chloe looked at Pichu. "Still no name?"
"Still working on it," Ash said.
"Pi," Pichu said. The same formal objection, filed again for the record.
Chloe pressed her lips together. "He's going to win eventually."
"Probably," Ash said.
She looked at him. The quiet, calibrating look she'd been using since Wednesday morning.
"Thank you," she said. "For this week. The forest." She paused. "And the ridge."
"The ridge was mostly X," Ash said.
"You went over the edge first."
"That was mostly gravity."
She looked at him for a moment with an expression that suggested she didn't entirely accept this accounting of events.
"All the same," she said.
Goh appeared behind her, bag over one shoulder, notebook already in his other hand.
He stopped beside Chloe. Looked at Ash.
"The mark on the birch," he said. "Upper north ridge. Third growth section past the old oaks."
"Yes," Ash said.
"I want to know what made it."
"Come back in autumn," Ash said. "Whatever it is moves south then. You'd have a better chance."
Goh considered this. "Autumn."
"Late September."
Goh nodded once. Looked at Pichu, who looked back at him with the steady assessment Pichu applied to everyone on first and second and third meetings.
"Pi," Pichu said eventually. 'Fine.'
Goh stared at him. "Did it just pass judgment on me?"
"Yes," Ash said.
"And?"
"You passed."
Something moved in Goh's expression that wasn't quite a smile and wasn't not one either.
"Good," he said, and turned and walked toward the car.
Chloe watched him go, then looked back at Ash.
"Late September," she said.
"If you can manage it."
"I'll manage it," she said, simply, in the tone of someone who has made a decision and considers it closed. She glanced at Pichu one more time. "I hope he has a name by then."
"Pi," said Pichu, with great feeling.
Chloe smiled — fully, briefly — and turned and walked after Goh.
Ash watched them go.
"I know," Ash said.
"Pi," Pichu said. 'About time.'
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
One Year Later
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
The clearing in late afternoon.
Ash was on push-up nine hundred and forty-seven.
He knew it was nine hundred and forty-seven because he had been counting out loud, and somewhere around six hundred Pikachu had started counting along in a tone that made very clear this was not encouragement but documentation.
Garchomp was on his back.
This had been the arrangement since push-up one. Garchomp had settled onto Ash's back at the start of the session, adjusted its position twice for comfort, and had been sitting there with the expression of something on a very stable and satisfactory piece of furniture ever since. It was currently examining its own claws with the detached interest of an individual with no particular investment in the proceedings.
"Nine hundred and forty-eight," Ash said.
"Pi," Pikachu said. Nine hundred and forty-eight.
"Nine hundred and forty-nine."
"Pi." Nine hundred and forty-nine.
"Nine hundred and fifty."
"Pi." Nine hundred and — actually, hold on.
Pikachu stopped.
He looked at the number he'd been tracking. Looked at Ash. Looked at Garchomp, who weighed roughly as much as a small boulder and had been sitting on Ash's back for the better part of an hour.
"Pika," Pikachu said, in the specific tone of someone who has just done arithmetic they find personally objectionable. 'That's nine hundred and fifty.'
"Yes," Ash said, and went down for nine hundred and fifty-one.
"Pika pi," Pikachu said. 'With Garchomp on your back.'
"Also yes."
"Pi ka pika pikachu," Pikachu said. 'You're doing this on purpose to make the rest of us feel bad.'
"Nine hundred and fifty-two," Ash said.
Pikachu sat down in the grass with the air of someone removing themselves emotionally from the situation.
Garchomp, on Ash's back, looked over at Pikachu.
"Grr," Garchomp said, companionably. 'He's been like this since spring.'
"Grr," Pikachu said back. 'I know. It's extremely annoying.'
"Grr," Garchomp agreed. 'Very.'
"Nine hundred and fifty-three," Ash said, from below them.
Neither of them acknowledged this.
He finished at one thousand.
He knew because on the thousand-and-first attempt his arms simply declined to participate, and he went flat onto the moss with a sound that was mostly resignation. Garchomp, who had been dozing lightly for the last hundred or so, slid sideways off his back with a startled grunt and landed in the grass with the heavy thud of something that had not been expecting to land anywhere.
A short silence.
"Grr," Garchomp said, sitting up with the dignified confusion of something that has been woken abruptly and is not going to admit it was asleep. 'I was resting.'
"Your eyes were closed," Ash said, into the moss.
"Grr," Garchomp said. 'I rest with my eyes closed. That's how resting works.'
Pikachu was already beside Ash, holding a towel. He had been holding the towel since push-up one. Ash had asked him to bring a towel. Pikachu had brought the towel. The towel's purpose was self-evident. He had been waiting with it for approximately fifty-five minutes while Ash did push-ups with a Garchomp on his back and declined to require the towel, and Pikachu felt this was an inefficient use of both their time and intended to say so.
He held it out now with the pointed patience of someone delivering an item that should have been requested considerably earlier.
"Pi," he said. 'Finally.'
"Thank you," Ash said, taking it and sitting up.
"Pika pi," Pikachu said. 'Next time I'm setting a timer. Twenty minutes and I'm leaving the towel on the ground and doing something productive.'
"That's fair," Ash said.
"Pika," Pikachu said. 'I know it's fair. I'm telling you so you can't act surprised.'
Above the treeline X and Y had been sparring for the last hour. He could track it without looking — crack of wings, percussion of two large animals exchanging serious fire, the specific silences between exchanges that meant they were going hard. The silences had been getting shorter, which meant they were getting tired, which meant they were getting competitive about the tiredness, which meant this could go on another hour.
Ash put two fingers to his mouth and whistled.
Above the treeline: a pause. Then wings.
X landed first, heavily, shedding bark and leaf debris from the nearest branches. Tail flame burning well past usual. A fresh scorch mark along his left wing that hadn't been there this morning. He folded his wings and turned to look at Y with the expression of someone who has just won an argument and is waiting for formal acknowledgment.
Y landed beside him. Lighter. Cleaner. Notably unscorched.
He looked at X's wing.
"Grrrr," Y said. 'That's new.'
"Grrrr," X said. 'It's fine.'
"Grrrr," Y said. 'It's from my last Fire Blast.'
"Grrrr," X said. 'No it isn't.'
"Grrrr," Y said. 'It's exactly the shape of my last Fire Blast.'
"Grrrr," X said, with tremendous dignity. 'I had a prior injury in that location.'
Y looked at the scorch mark. Looked at X. Looked at the scorch mark again.
"Grrrr," Y said. 'The prior injury was also from my Fire Blast. Last Tuesday.'
"Grrrr," X said, in the tone of someone closing a subject. 'We should do this again tomorrow.'
"Grrrr," Y said. 'Yes. And I'll use the same angle.'
"Grrrr," X said. 'I'll be ready for it.'
"Grrrr," Y said. 'You said that last Tuesday.'
X turned and looked at Ash instead, on the basis that this conversation was no longer serving his interests.
Pikachu, who had watched all of this with the expression of someone at a very predictable theatrical performance, looked at Ash.
"Pika pi," Pikachu said. 'Same as yesterday.'
"Same as yesterday," Ash agreed.
"Pi ka pika," Pikachu said. 'One day X is going to admit Y is faster and Y is going to admit X hits harder and they can just train around each other's weaknesses like sensible adults and this will all be considerably more productive.'
"Grrrr," X said, having caught enough of the tone to know he was being discussed.
"Grrrr," Y said, also having caught enough.
Pikachu looked at both of them with the patient expression of someone who has said the correct thing and does not expect it to land.
"Pi," Pikachu said. 'I said what I said.'
A silence in which X and Y separately arrived at the conclusion that the correct response was to pretend this hadn't happened.
"Alright," Ash said, standing and brushing moss off his front. "Good session. Race back. First one home gets preferred dinner — Mom's making curry."
He said it completely casually. Mid-sentence. Still brushing moss off his knee. Like a minor administrative detail.
Then he took off at a dead sprint.
Behind him: one full second of absolute silence.
Then the clearing erupted.
Garchomp dropped into Dragon Rush so fast it left a shallow crater where it had been standing. X and Y launched simultaneously with a crack of displaced air that bent the surrounding trees sideways. And Pikachu, who had been caught completely flat-footed in the middle of standing up and was now crouched in the suddenly empty clearing with grass clippings settling on him and the towel still in his hand —
Pikachu looked at the towel.
Looked at the direction everyone had gone.
Looked at the towel again.
He set it down on the grass very deliberately, in the specific manner of someone making a decision and wanting the universe to register it, crouched low with electricity already crawling up his body, and launched himself after them.
Garchomp had the early lead — Dragon Rush through undergrowth was essentially a closed matter in the short term. X and Y had the air, useful once the trail opened up. And Pikachu, running on Extreme Speed and the specific fuel source of having been left in a clearing holding a towel, was closing the gap at a rate that defied reasonable expectation.
Ash ran his own race. Fast, consistent, the same pace since the clearing.
He was not going to win this. He had never won this. He had tied once with Pikachu — on a day when Pikachu had pulled something in his left leg — and he strongly suspected the tie had been a gift. He had accepted it graciously and not examined it too closely.
The issue was always the straight.
Three hundred metres from the back gate, the trail broke out of the trees entirely and ran clear and open across the back field. No canopy. No roots. Nothing to navigate. On that section the only variable was raw speed, and on that section Ash was not the fastest thing in the group, and there was no clever routing around it.
Garchomp hit it first and was most of the way across before Ash arrived. X and Y were overhead, trading position on every metre. And Pikachu came out of the treeline behind Ash at a speed that made the air around him crackle, saw open ground, and made a sound that was part battle cry and part formal complaint about the towel.
He went past Ash like a yellow wire under high tension.
Past Garchomp.
Past X and Y's ground shadow.
Hit the back gate a full second before anyone else, skidded hard on the garden path with sparks scattering across the stones, spun around, sat down, and looked at the field behind him with his chest heaving and his cheeks blazing and the absolute composed satisfaction of someone who has arrived exactly where they intended to.
Ash came through the gate thirty seconds later.
Pikachu looked at him.
"Pika," Pikachu said. 'I won.'
"You won," Ash said, hands on his knees.
"Pi ka," Pikachu said, with immense satisfaction. 'Ketchup. On the curry. Extra. On the side. Two portions on the side.'
"That's very specific."
"Pika pi," Pikachu said. 'I've been thinking about it since the towel.'
Garchomp arrived, landing heavily enough to rattle the gate latch. X and Y came down behind it in a rush of hot air, both wearing the expression of Pokémon who have been beaten by something a fraction of their size and are in the process of identifying the exact narrative that makes this acceptable.
"Grrrr," X said, looking at Pikachu. 'The straight section.'
"Pika," Pikachu said, without turning around. 'Yes.'
"Grrrr," X said. 'We had the field.'
"Pika," Pikachu said. 'And yet.'
"Grrrr," X said, in a tone that meant tabled, not concluded.
"Grr," Garchomp said, in the manner of someone who finished third, has processed this, and moved on. 'Good race.'
"Grrrr," Y said, already planning. 'Tomorrow I'm taking the eastern approach to the straight.'
"Grrrr," X said. 'I'll take the low line through the fence gap.'
"Pika pi," Pikachu announced, in the tone of a public statement. 'I'll take the same route I always take and I'll win again.'
X looked at him.
Pikachu looked back with the complete serenity of something that has won recently and is drawing on those reserves.
Ash took a breath of warm evening air that smelled of Delia's curry, and decided this was, all things considered, a very good Friday.
He reached for the back door. Opened it. Stepped inside.
Warm light. Something simmering. Exactly right.
He was already composing what to say — something about the race, about Pikachu's two portions of ketchup, maybe something about X's wing —
He looked into the sitting room.
Serena was there, on the armchair, pouring tea. Normal. She did this on Friday evenings.
She was pouring it for someone on the sofa.
Ash looked at the person on the sofa.
The person on the sofa had his face.
Not approximately his face. Not a family resemblance. His actual, specific, detailed face — sitting on his sofa, in his sitting room, in clothes he didn't own, with a cup of Serena's tea, while Serena poured it for him with the calm ease of someone who had done this before and found it perfectly ordinary.
The person on the sofa looked at Ash.
Ash looked at the person on the sofa.
He blinked once.
Still there.
Blinked again.
Still there.
Pikachu, who had followed him through the door and was now on his shoulder, looked at the person on the sofa. Then at Ash. Then at the person on the sofa. Slowly, like someone panning across a very confusing landscape and hoping it will resolve into something sensible if they just keep looking.
It did not resolve.
"Pi," Pikachu said, in the tone of someone who thought they were done with unreasonable situations for the day.
Serena looked up from the teapot.
"Oh good, you're back," she said pleasantly. "There's someone here to see you."
A pause.
"I can see that," Ash said.
"Grrrr," said X, from the kitchen doorway, having followed them inside and now occupying approximately a third of it.
"Grrrr," said Y, from X's left, occupying another third.
"Grr," said Garchomp, from the garden path outside, peering in through the back door nobody had closed, occupying the gap between the doorframe and the concept of personal space.
The person on the sofa looked at the three large dragon-type Pokémon now arranged across Ash's kitchen like a very large and very sincere welcoming committee.
Then back at Ash.
"…." the person on the sofa stared blankly, in but his body language made ash understand
You have…a lot of Pokémon.
"Yes," Ash said.
"Pika," Pikachu said, in the tone of someone who would like to know when curry is going to be ready and feels this situation has already gone on long enough.