Okay, so this is a really radical idea that I haven't seen more than hinted at anywhere else, but for some reason it really caught my fancy. It will eventually become Ash/Pikachu, and as such they will be the main characters. There will be no direct human-pokemon stuff though, so don't worry about that - bestiality's nasty. The way I'm planning this, it could turn out to be a really long ride, and since it's such a radical idea, I won't continue without positive feedback. As always, helpful suggestions are always appreciated, but please don't flame.

And I think that's about it. Onward!

----------

A Different Kind of Soulmate

Chapter 1: A Cure for Boredom

----------

"Chu. Chu. Chu. Chu. Chu."

Ash's eyes slowly glazed over as he watched his partner systematically pluck every leaf from the towering maple with tiny, precise bolts of electricity. Every one hit at the exact right spot with the exact right amount of power needed to drop the leaf. After so much training and practice, the exercise was second nature and in no way challenging, but it provided a welcome diversion from the constant boredom.

Upon realizing that his eyes were glazed and unfocused, Ash gave his head a shake and fell down with a thump to lie on his back. The healthy green grass tickled his face and the crushed blades produced a sharp, natural smell. His gaze fixed on the blue sky and floofy white clouds, and after watching them scuttle through the sky for a while, he squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

"So bored…"

"Pi," Pikachu interrupted her mantra to agree, and turned to blink at the Master. When she realized he did not have a solution and was not about to do anything else, she went back to her repetitive exercise.

"Chu. Chu. Chu."

Ash opened his eyes again and stared once more at the sky. He tracked a lone Pidgeotto across the blueness, hearing its distinctive call and allowing it to draw him back to past recollections. He remembered his dedication to his dream, the passion and conviction behind his ambitions and ideals. While he still possessed those ideals, the ambition had come to its conclusion…and left emptiness behind.

He had always thought that being a Pokemon Master, the Pokemon Master, would be another adventure. It would be exciting, it would be challenging, it would be the fulfillment of all his dreams. And it was, for a while. But now it was just boring.

After years of hard training, including an intensive month-long session in Johto's Mt. Silver, he was now justified in saying that he, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, was the best Pokemon trainer in the world. While gratifying, therein lay the problem. There are not many challenges left for one who is the proven best, who, it seems, has been everywhere and done everything. There are even less for one who has been named in prophecy.

He sighed as he recalled that little discovery. Things had been alright up until that point. There had been some challenges, and though he had beaten them all, it was interesting. He hadn't been Master long, and was still getting used to the position, and he thought of it as a new adventure. His friends were still around, some having not yet decided what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. They had been living off Ash's dream for so long, some had forgotten their own, and it would take a bit of time for them to recall it completely. In this setting it was that Professor Oak unearthed a battered and long-forgotten book from his ancient library. Called Legandia, the book claimed to detail ancient and forgotten prophecies. What was unsettling about it, and what gave it deserved distinction from other useless books of the same ilk, was that, in the foreword, it acknowledged that not all its prophecies would come to pass. Instead, it said that its goal was only to preserve the bulk of them in the hopes that the important ones could be salvaged along with the worthless. There was one, however, that the book highlighted as being extremely likely to prove true: The Prophecy of the Champions.

This particular prophecy proclaimed that every 500 years there would come two who would rise above all others. They would join in partnership, and together they would grow until they surpassed the abilities of the best of the best, and that they would be the greatest in the world. The partnership, the book said, would be of a human and a pokemon. The human was to come from an insignificant town and would not be thought a winner. The pokemon would come from equally modest beginnings, and would never appear at first sight to have any real power. It would be raised above the capabilities of the rest of its species by its special power thereby proving evolution unnecessary, and it would hold a deep fear of pokeballs. Both human and pokemon would possess loyalty and decency, and would put the safety of others before their own. And when they had grown to the limits of the world, they would embark on a final journey which would bring them closer to each other than any but the Champions could be, and set them to travel through time itself. In this way the world would stave off destruction and remain secure within the protection of its Champions.

Ash supposed it was the pokeball comment which closed the suspicions. At that point Pikachu piped up with the suggestion that it might be her and Ash—Ash knew she had been joking when she said it—and Oak had immediately latched onto the idea. He dug up all the old records he could find on old prophecies, and when everything matched up with the pair—right down to Pikachu's obsession with ketchup, he made it official; Ash and Pikachu were the prophesized Champions.

After that there had been a huge drop in the number of challengers. After all, who would want to attempt to defeat a person who prophecy said was unbeatable? One who, on top of that, was foretold as the savior of the world? The answer soon became quite clear: no one.

And that was why, many months later, Ash was bored out of his mind. No challengers for months, no new discoveries by Oak or Gary, and nothing to be gained by doing training exercises that had been mastered ages ago.

Ash turned his mind away from his internal ramblings and focused on the clouds. After a time he fancied he saw one that looked like a Squirtle, and another that looked like an Arbok…and finally, one that looked like a Pikachu…

Ash felt his eyes slide closed, and allowed the sleep to come, because really, there was nothing better to do.

(o. o)-/

Ash opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. He found himself standing within a great mist. Only vaguely could he make out the shape of trees through the mist, but they were huge trees, with great reaching canopies; totally unlike the ones that had bordered his and Pikachu's little clearing. Sunlight slanted through the mist in places but illuminated nothing, merely adding another quality to the heavy mist. He looked down to his feet and was able to make out the grass, but it was a strange blue colour that only served to add to his uneasiness.

He thought to move, but decided it would be best to wait and see if anything came to him; for there must be a reason for his coming here, and therefore something must come to him eventually. This conclusion reassured him, and he realized he was having a dream, but without being truly aware of that realization. In this way he was complacent, but did not wake, which would have happened if he had been truly aware of the dream. And so he waited, staring into the mist until something came out.

It was a woman, he slowly realized as the figure emerged step by step from the gray shadows. A woman with strange green hair and possessing of great beauty—but a strange sort of beauty it was. Her beauty repelled and attracted at once, and it carried a warning of danger along with an assurance of safety. This strange combination made him remain where he was and discouraged movement of any sort, for that would indicate a decision of either friend or foe.

So he merely watched as she approached, smoothly, as though gliding over the odd blue grass. She was dressed in flowing robes, silver but shadowy, seeming to be made of mist themselves. They twisted and curled around her as though possessing a life of their own, dancing with a slow beauty. At last she stopped advancing and seemed to settle her robes, and Ash was finally able to remove his eyes from her lively gown and back to her face, where green eyes pierced into his own black.

"Ash," she began in a voice that sounded like wind whispering through leaves on a tree. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"How…" Ash's voice stuttered to a stop and he cleared his throat and glanced to the ground for composure before trying again. "How do you know who I am?"

"You ask me that, you who are known to the world!" There was a laugh like wind chimes, and in that moment Ash decided that this woman was not an enemy, and that the danger he had seen was merely a difference from himself, but not necessarily bad. The woman continued in a more serious tone. "You are known to the world, but I know the world. I know every person within it, but I have watched you especially."

"Pika?" Ash started; he had not known Pikachu was there.

"Yes, and you as well, Pikachu," the woman smiled.

"Well, if you know who we are, then shouldn't we know who you are?" Ash questioned, having grown more confident as a result of the belief that the mysterious woman was benevolent.

The woman sighed as if it was a difficult question. "I am everything and nothing, one thing and many. I exist in the past, present, and future, and belong in none. I am the mistress of Time itself; and that is all the answer I may give you."

"Okay," Ash said, with all the understanding acceptance of the weird that being in a dream will give you. "What do you want, then?"

Time's mistress smiled once again. "I wish merely to help you with your current dilemma."

"Chu?" Pikachu looked confused, and Ash was of the same mind.

"You are uncertain how to take your next step. You are beginning to doubt you have a next step." She waited for their slow, hesitant nods of affirmation, and then continued. "As it is highly unlikely you could proceed on your own, I will provide you with direction. Whether or not you heed it will confirm or disprove you of what you are foretold to be."

"And that would be…?" Ash had never truly believed the decaying little book, and was hesitant to think this mysterious woman believed it and would confirm it.

"Why, you have read the prophecy, have you not? You are the Champions, of course." Ash stared blankly at her a moment, and she looked surprised. "Don't tell me you disbelieved it!"

Ash shook his head slowly. "Not anymore…" For it was true; if this magical mistress of Time said it was so, then it was so.

"Pika pika, pikachu!" Ash grinned slightly—Pikachu was getting impatient with his denseness and asking for the directions.

"Very well, little one," Time's mistress said pleasantly. "Here is the direction you wish. You two alone must climb to the highest peak in the world and be there when the moon is full. If you do this, the next stage of your journey shall begin."

"What, no riddles, no mysterious hints?" Ash teased, suspicious of the simple directions.

"Oh no, I am much too busy, and lazy I might add, for that. Besides, I did not think you would appreciate it."

"Cha!"

"Yeah, thanks," Ash agreed.

"I am glad to have been of service. We will meet again, Champions."

(o. o)

Ash woke slowly, the struggle to wakefulness akin to the feeling of wading through a dense mist. He finally became fully conscious but retained a sense of being swallowed by something grey. Blinking to clear the sleep from his eyes, he became aware of a weight on his chest, something yellow. As he watched it stirred, uncurling slightly to reveal a tail shaped like a thunderbolt and two long yellow, black-tipped ears. Small paws shifted on his stomach and the body righted itself. A mouth opened to reveal sharp white teeth and a little red tongue, and a soft, cooing "cha" of contentment was emitted. Beady black eyes blinked; bright red cheeks twitched. A hind foot reached up to scratch a back marked by two brown stripes, and a tiny black nose sniffed at the air. Pikachu was awake.

"Buddy," Ash began as he sat up and picked up Pikachu so she wouldn't fall, "you didn't happen to have a weird dream just now about a woman with green hair, did you?"

Pikachu looked up at him, and there was no mistaking the disturbed expression in those black eyes. He hugged his partner to him and the pokemon snuggled into the embrace.

"Well," Ash said at last into Pikachu's fur, "at least we won't be bored any more. Hey!" Ash jumped up as the full meaning of his words hit him, holding Pikachu out in front of him—the better to talk to—and ignoring the claws that tried to cling to his shirt. "We won't be bored anymore! It's a new adventure, Pikachu! We're not done yet!"

"Pipika, pikachu pika!" Pikachu cheered, her face filled with a delight identical to her master's. Then she frowned. "Pi chu, Pikapi."

Ash sighed. "You're right, we were never done, but it sure felt like it for a while there. It was just a lull; one of us would have done something crazy sooner or later to get us out of it."

Pikachu grinned. "Pika!"

Ash returned with a grin of his own, and without warning, dropped his oldest pokemon and best friend. Pikachu twisted in order to land on her feet, and by the time she was stable, Ash was already running.

"Race you back home!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Winner gets first dibs on Mom's pie!"

"Pikapi!" Pikachu called her trainer's name in protest at his head start, but wasted no time in giving chase, and soon boy and pokemon were dashing through the forest, each one focused on getting home first.

------------------

This is my cue for a final plea for reviews. Even if all you have to say is yes or no, I will still be eternally grateful. And I will thank you in advance, because I know you're all really great people. :)