So hi, again. I'm in Malaysia, and in Malaysia, this website is blockedddaidaodaibdudbalkdl

Ok so I finally figured a way around the situation without using VPN (because my laptop is just a few clicks away from a breakdown). So here's a chapter.

To my new beta-reader: sorry 'bout this. I can't access our PMs right now because Malaysia has a thing against FanFiction websites, apparently.

Yeah so speaking of Malaysia, I've been here for the last month or so. I can't access the website so I've been on the mobile app, where I can't reply to PMs (I do respond to them, by the way! I just shut off notifications for comments for obvious reasons.) or really do anything else but read some pretty good stories when I have WiFi.

So to that one person who was relying on me to respond to their PM, I'm very sorry.

I'm going to be starting school at the (very very objectively) best university in the world (:D) in August, so I won't have time to update or anything. Even so, I do have some short stories queued up and I'll update with at least two more chapters before then, hopefully.

Will I make a similar fanfic for the Galar Region? I hope so. (I do run off of uplifting reviews and PMs, haha, so maybe I'll do it if I get enough encouragement ;D.)

Also, I just discovered the headcannon that Ash went to Unova after Johto and before Hoenn, and it actually makes sense... if it weren't for that giant group photo they took after Ash got back. I actually think it covers a lot of the plot holes considering Ash's maturity level.

One more thing: I know that my capitalization is inconsistent, but that's because I've been shifting my view on capitalization in Pokemon, recently. It's a struggle. Also, some of these short stories were written like a year ago, so there's a disparity that I'm not gonna fix 'cause I'm on the mobile app and everything is a hassle.

SFFL: Strange

Based on Episode 9

"I'm Ash from Pallet Town! Please battle me!" a voice echoed through the grassy cavern, shaking awake its residents.

Yungoos blinked sleep from his eyes and turned around to face his companion at the sound of the shout. "Ash?" he asked. "The name sounds a little familiar."

Gumshoos's eyes widened. "Ash? Like, Ash from Pallet Town?"

The other Normal-Type nodded.

"Pallet Town?! Like, in Kanto?"

"Yeah, that's what he said. What's so special about Pallet Town?"

"I'll tell you later. For now, we have a Trial to do."

The Trial was over, and the Human had won. Gumshoos wasn't surprised, frankly. Behind the carefree look was a fierce trainer. And it seemed that Tapu Koko knew it, too.

"That Ash kid," the Totem Pokemon said, addressing the spying legendary. "What do you want with him?"

"He's interesting," Tapu Koko admitted. "I like him."

"He's very different," Gumshoos agreed.

"Ash is famous in the more developed regions," Gumshoos explained to his underling. The forest Pokemon were cleaning up the area, which was littered with scorch marks and muddy footprints. "Apparently, the Pokemon there know him by name. I heard… that he's the Chosen One."

Yungoos narrowed his eyes. "So? What does that have to do with anything?"

"The Totem Pokemon of Alola… we're more sensitive to the divine than our comrades in many other regions. The kid has a look in his eyes."

"You saw it?"

"The moment he told his Pikachu to use Electro Ball…we knew it was him."

"The Chosen One? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Listen closely: when the Chosen One comes to a region, things… happen," the Totem Pokemon explained. "I've heard stories from the faraway region of Kalos… and how the world had almost come to an end. If it wasn't for him, we would've been long gone. He's destined to save the lives of both Pokemon and Humans wherever he goes."

"So… because he is here now—"

"No," Gumshoos interrupted, "correlation does not mean causation. But you're right: Alola will be in danger."

"You gifted him with a Z-Ring?" the Totem Pokemon asked.

"A fitting way to gift the Chosen One," Tapu Koko replied, floating in the air.

"Ah, so you noticed, too. Who told you that Ash was in our region?"

"No, it was nothing like that. He's just really easy to like."

Gumshoos hid a laugh. "I think he has a new fan."

"You're right," the guardian deity agreed. "He had that kind of aura about him."

SFFL: Lured In

He was a special guy, and Lana knew it.

There were certain aspects to his personality that intrigued her: his charisma, optimistic personality, hilarious clumsiness…the Water-Type trainer thought he was pretty cute at times, too.

Wa—nope, nope, nope—he's not cute—what was she talking about—nothing, of course! Haha…

The first time she saw him, he'd fallen off a Sharpedo. But he'd ridden it well, for an amateur, and it was her fault anyway: she'd surprised him.

Lana didn't believe him at first when he'd said that he didn't have a fishing rod. Kiawe had taken the liberty to search up Pallet Town on the Goomy search engine earlier that week (it wasn't very nice of him but Lana didn't complain: it was also Ash's fault for announcing it wherever he went), and found out that it was a small town filled with farmland and even had a small beach.

What kind of trainer didn't bring their fishing rod? It was practically a key item! And his hometown was coastal too, which gave him absolutely no excuse.

Popplio had been insistent to practice, that day. Lana was excited, too: they'd been practicing for a long time. And when Ash stopped by, Popplio made the biggest balloon he'd ever made. It was like her Water-Type was trying to impress the new trainer in town.

Ash also gave the nicest encouragements: "You wouldn't know unless you try!"

He kept that confident grin on his face, even as the Rotom Dex started to chastise him, as if he firmly believed his words to be true.

It wasn't that far fetched, either, that he would believe in the impossible.

His interactions with Tapu Koko: they were way too nonchalant for Lana's taste. If she hadn't been frozen at the sight of the island guardian (it was her first time), she would've started to hyperventilate. How did a foreigner get to meet the Tapu before she did? And how was he able to treat the legendary Pokemon with such little respect?

Once, in class, Lillie was giving a report on Zygarde.

"It's a Ground and Dragon-Type legendary that neutralizes imbalance to the ecosystem," she explained.

"Oh!" Ash exclaimed, because apparently, he hadn't been in school long enough to understand that interrupting others during their presentations was not something that normal people did. "And it gets food from the sun, right?"

"It's called photosynthesis," Pikachu remarked (but Lana didn't know that).

"No one asked you."

"Pika pika."

"No you," Ash said, childishly making faces at his partner.

Later, both parties would claim that they were best friends and would never insult the other.

Another time, her friend group was lazing around the beach. Lana was telling Mallow another tall tale, when Ash, who was making a sand castle with his Pokemon, suddenly said:

"You know, I've met Kyogre before."

Lana didn't know whether to believe him: there was this reminiscing look in his eyes that made her conflicted. Should she ask? Or save face?

Ash didn't elaborate. He continued to play with his Pokemon friends, and before long, it was too late to ask him about it.

SFFL: The Cover-Up

There had been a problem with Kanto's Internet while Ash was gone, but he'd left Lance in charge, so everything should be fixed in time. Apparently, they tried to update the outdated trainer records (and take people like Ash and Gary, who now worked for the government, off), but Goomy Chrome froze over for the entire region and the new Elite Four were terribly distressed.

(So was Bill: he'd emailed the Champion with an apology letter.)

There was one thing on his mind, but he pushed it away in favor of hanging out with his partner on that uninhabited island for the day.

Clemont called him, later. He seemed somewhat distressed.

"Hey, Ash. I need your advice on something."

"What's up?"

"Diantha called me. She wants a favor."

Ash's attention wasn't really on the video call. His new Litten was curled at the foot of his makeshift bed, shivering.

The trainer could relate: he'd never seen a Pokemon die, before. (Okay, that was false. He had, years ago, but he hadn't thought much about Lucario's sacrifice in a while.) It was why he was still awake, at three in the morning. Again.

"Ash?" Clemont asked.

"Yeah?"

"Diantha wants me to erase all evidence of the crisis this past year."

"And?"

"I did it."

"What's the problem?"

"I helped censor our region's history. And it…" He trailed off.

Ash reached for Litten, picked him up, and sat the Fire-type onto his lap, covering his sleeping form with a small blanket. "Other regions do it too, you know. Once, the world was literally going to flood over because of Kyogre, and guess who came to fix it? Lance, of all people."

"Lance?! Isn't he—"

"Yeah, he had no reason to be there, as the Champion of Kanto and Johto at the time. I helped with that mission too, but to be honest, Pikachu and I didn't do much."

Clemont seemed to brighten up.

"This type of information usually gets hidden, anyway," Ash continued. "They stay in official records, books, and other physical copies, so if you visit a new region and read up about it, the real information can usually be found. And if you search it up on a library or Pokemon Center computer, everything'll still be there."

"So it's not really censoring, it's—"

"It's still censoring, but since the false information is only spread to other regions, everyone's okay with it."

"Yeah, so that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I had to get rid of the Kalos League Finals footage. Want a copy of it?"

"Nah. Kanto'll have a laugh if they find out that I've been losing any battles recently."

"Alright. See you, then."

Clemont was smiling as he ended the call.

Ash didn't really know why he defended Diantha like that. Maybe it was because he was behind a lot of the censoring, too. If word got out that Kanto had been integral to keeping other regions functioning, there'd be an outrage, and Ash would have to deal with more drama than he already did.

(There were some people out there who didn't believe that a minor should be leading the region, and Ash agreed, for the most part. At least he was doing a better job than… Alder, probably.)

SFFL: Sleep Talk

Kukui had a lot of late-night work to do. One of his articles had received a particularly negative review from another regional Professor (Rowan could be really mean, sometimes), and Kukui's counterargument… wasn't going so well.

It was at least four in the morning, and Kukui knew that he should be getting some sleep soon. Tomorrow, after teaching, he had to attend a lecture about some new kind of evolution over video chat. Professor Sycamore had become particularly crazy about the bonds between Trainers and their Pokemon, and had apparently discovered some strange new 'counterpart' to Mega Evolution that would "surely make you guys rethink the bonds between people and Pokemon! Professor Oak was right!"

Hey, didn't Ash come from Pallet Town, where Professor Oak lived? Eh, it wasn't the time to think about that. He just had to finish his little rebuttal, then post another article about Z-Moves. And then he'd have time to finish a paper, write two reports, and get started with that dream of his…

It was a particularly clear night, and Kukui could see billions of stars from the living room coffee table he'd stationed himself at. His window was open, and a sweet, salty breeze blew through the air.

Must…stay…awake…

His weary eyes were about to close when he heard muttering coming from the upstairs loft where Ash and Pikachu slept. The Pokemon Professor had gotten used to the soft snoring of another person in the house (heck, even he snored).

"D-dodge…yeah, I see it too."

The Pokemon Professor blinked his eyes and slapped himself in the face to shake himself awake. He had an article to finish and a lecture to attend tomorrow. If he hurried, he knew he'd be able to prepare for Sycamore's talk with questions and background research, but as of now, he wasn't going to make it through the night.

"Don't worry," Ash mumbled, upstairs. "We can do it."

Kukui looked back to his screen.

The intricate personality of individual Pokemon can have a drastic effect on the battle style a Trainer may have to use, which in turn affects the strength of certain moves as well as certain innate battling characteristics a Pokemon has. Because of this, I have proposed twenty-five different 'natures' of a sort, to categorize a

"Use Night Slash…dodge with Double Tea—no, get up, please. W-we're together in this, remember?" Ash muttered in his sleep.

categorize and

"Use Water Shuriken!" It was a shout, this time, before another groan of pain echoed from the upstairs loft.

Kukui may have become accustomed to Ash's snoring, but he wasn't prepared for sleep talking.

"Greninja, bear with me."

Kukui couldn't ignore it anymore. He set down his work, got to his feet, and climbed the ladder to the attic loft, wincing as the wood creaked under his weight.

"Aerial Ace into Night Slash! Left! There's one behind you! Double Team!"

The young trainer was a sweaty mess on the couch. His face was stuck in a grimace and his arms flailed wildly. Pikachu stood at his feet, scowling at nothing. Litten pawed at his hair, concerned. Rowlet flew in circles, terrified. Rockruff trembled under the blanket that had fallen at the foot of the couch.

"Pikachu, what happened?" Kukui demanded.

"Pika-pika."

"Let me just wake him u—"

"Pika-chu! Pika-pika!"

"Why… why not?"

The electric mouse gave him a threatening glare but did not reply.

"Greninja, where's Squishy? Was he—Xerosic!"

Pikachu flinched. From his side, Rockruff whimpered and started to howl.

"Double Team! Night Slash! Watch ou—"

In his sleep, Ash instinctively clutched his stomach, as if an invisible force had punched the air out of him. Beads of sweat ran down his face, and he suddenly felt years older, like he'd matured over the course of a mere five seconds.

"Pikapika…"

Kukui grabbed a towel from a railing and wiped the teen's forehead with it. "You're worried about Ash, aren't you?" he asked.

"Pika-chu…"

"Greninja, get up!" the trainer yelled. "Don't give in!"

The Professor racked his brain for background information. Greninja was a Kalosian Pokemon. A Water and Dark-type. Bipedal. Used its tongue as a weapon. Did Ash have a Greninja?

"I know we can do it!"

"Pika-pika-chu…"

The trainer yelled in his sleep, screaming as a wave of pain flooded over him. With a final shout, he fell limp on the couch.

"Ash, you look tired," Lillie commented. The Pokemon trainer was slumped in his seat, rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes. His hair was even more of a mess than usual, and his shirt was on backwards.

"It's nothing," the boy responded. "I just had a restless sleep last night. Bad dream. That's all."

What exactly happened last night?

(Kukui ended up missing that lecture he wanted to attend. Oak pestered him about a giant Water Shuriken for weeks.)

I apologize for the terrible formatting but maybe one day the mobile app will work better, y'know?