So I am sorely disappointed by the lack of N in the Black and White/Best Wishes anime. It's reached over 60 episodes and there hasn't been any sign of him at all, unless he was supposed to make a cameo in the cancelled Team Plasma episodes in the 20s. I'm curious to see how he would react to Ash and Pikachu and the notion that pokemon can coexists with humans and some are more than happy to do so.

It's going to be a mix mash of the anime, movies, games, and maybe some of the mangas so SPOILERS ALL AROUND! When previous characters came back in newer series, the new girl (and Max) already knows who they are as soon as they appear. There's clearly a lot of off screen story telling done by Ash and/or Brock. I'm pretty sure they do other things besides waiting for the food to be cooked, eating it, and going to sleep. Those long hours on the road or times when it's too early to go to bed are most likely being filled with stories of past adventures. Quite a bit of this story is going to be about those possible offscreen moments.

I'm most likely just going along with the anime unless I come up with a better plot idea on how to end things.

Black and White may or may not appear. Odds are if they show up then Cheren will. Bel/Bianca will pop up every now and then.

There really aren't any definite pairings but I guess you could take this as NxAsh if you squint. But considering N is a man-child who's pretty much really seeing the outside world/human society for the first time and Ash who is so magnificently naïve that he believes romantic couples are best friends, any context they have is probably going to fly right over their heads no matter what anyone else says or thinks.

The Shadow Triad will NOT be the Straiton Gym leaders here.

Human names will be the Japanese ones as they fit better with Pikachu speech.

Ages:

N-20

Ash/Satoshi-14

Cilan/Dento-16

Iris-11

"Regular Speech"

'Poke Speech'

Warnings: Hinted MalexMale, Mon and Man abuse, OOCness, AU, Language

Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the plot bunnies. (And even then, I might not own those either.)

Chapter 1: A Boy and his Pikachu

"Ready to go buddy?"

"Pii…" 'Yeah..'

"Cheer up Pikachu. It'll be just like our first time starting out…again." (1)

Pikachu tried to perk up, he really did, but losing all your hard earned strength and starting over at a level that you had surpassed ages ago, repeatedly, tended to bring down even the most cheerful of creatures.

He still had his moves, his knowledge, his experience, but everything felt so much weaker now, so much slower. So much weaker. Thanks to that Arceus-damned Zekrom, it felt as if everything he had previously regained in Sinnoh was shoved down into a hole so deep, he'd need to learn Flash to see it again. His mind could still see and process things faster than ever, but his body just couldn't keep up with what he wanted much less needed to do.

To top it all off, he had lost to a starter, while clearly raised up better and longer than most of the starters from other regions it was no less humiliating, with a new trainer almost as infuriating as that rather nasty purple-haired human his partner had called 'Rival'.

The times in Sinnoh and Hoenn had been worse with an incredibly heavy toll taken on his body by injury and the overload of electricity, but it had really been a long time since he had been cut off from his own power so effectively barring the rare moments of illness.

He could still feel the electricity coursing throughout his body, else how would he even be alive? But during that last battle, it was there bubbling just under his skin. His skin which may as well have been heavy duty rubber for all the good it did. All that could be forced out were a few pitiful crackles. It had taken so much effort and concentration too.

The lack of access to his electricity in general had slowed his movements greatly as if those few pitiful crackles were the last of his reserves. The speed of the impulses that flowed within his body allowing him to move with that much more speed, that much more power were like a clogged stream now instead of the rushing rapids they had been. (2) It was time to start clearing away the debris…for the third time. (3)

*sigh*

Great. Now his wallowing had brought down his best friend into the same mud pit of self-pity.

"Sorry. Looks like it back to the basics for us. Man, this really sucks."

"Pika Pikapi. Pipikachu pika." 'It's alright, Satoshi. It's a new start.' He tried to reassure, gently patting his partner's cheek. (4)

"Pi chuka pipipika kachupipika pikachu pi?" 'No one knows who we are here and it doesn't matter does it?'

"You're right! We here to take on a new league, have new adventures, and make new friends. We haven't let this get us down before and we're not going to start now."

The sad contemplative look was gone and replaced by an oh so familiar, and far more suitable in the opinions of any of his numerous friends, grin and determined eyes.

"Yeah!"

"Chu!" 'Yeah!'

With matching cheers, two fists simultaneously punched the air as Satoshi continued to walk on with Pikachu balanced his shoulder.

"Heh. Thanks buddy."

"Chaaaaaa…" Pikachu replied rubbing his cheek against Satoshi's. 'Anytime.'

"Soooo…same as last time? Four moves?" (5)

"Pi." 'Sure.' A nonchalant shrug that the boy couldn't see but could definitely feel.

"How about Volt Tackle as your main move, Quick Attack for getting around, Iron Tail for rock-types, and…Thundershock for your long range attack?"

"Pi. Pika." 'No. Too weak.' A shake of the head.

"Then what about Thunderbolt?"

"Kachu." 'Better.' A nod.

It was an unspoken rule that Thunder, had been, and still was off limits unless there were extenuating circumstances. No matter how weak he got, Thunder just seemed to release all the blocks on his power at once. How would Zekrom have been able to handle that?

Seeing as how he could fry ground types with it years ago, it was much too dangerous to be used against inexperienced pokemon. Actually, it was probably now too dangerous to be used against anything not an obscenely high-level pokemon or a legendary. Best to not be remembered for obliterating everything with a single Zapdos-level attack or they'd probably pick up the attention of strangers that were far worse the Team Rocket trio who continued to stalk them over the years.

"What about Agility? That's not an attacking move. Would that be okay too?"

"Pika…" 'Maybe…'

Further ahead of the pair, a bush began to rustle.

"Hey. Is that a pokemon?"

There's my take on Pikachu's apparent de-leveling at the beginning of every series. It fits with the current plot better than the theories some friends and I came up with once. Like how Pikachu swallowed a Light Ball making him obscenely powerful in the first season and eventually crapping it out many years later causing him to lost half his attack power.

(1)He can also understand Pikachu despite the obvious language barrier. The anime has had him being able to understand his pokemon but whenever he meets people, like Anabel, who apparently hear their thoughts as some form of human language, they conveniently forget that he and Pikachu can communicate without words and don't really need them.

(2) Anyone notice how Pikachu seemed to stumble around after they realize he can't use his electric attacks? If electricity-based nerve impulses are what carry messages to and from the brain, what happens to a creature, whose very being revolves around being able to store, channel and utilize it at will, suddenly has most of that usable electricity cut off?

(3)I'm count the BW series as the 3rd time Pikachu lost his strength. The first being the Hoenn arc and the second, the Sinnoh arc.

(4)'Pikapi' is Satoshi. If you listen carefully, he actually calls the names of several characters in the anime from Brock/Takeshi and Misty/Kasumi to Togepi and other pokemon. There's a list of known Pika-speech words online.

(5)Ash is smarter here and will be drawing from previous experiences. He will also be winning some battles that he lost in the show, because it's too painful to really watch. And yes, he has given himself the 4-move handicap, although this may just be temporary, only for Pikachu, and only concern actual damaging moves. It's the only way I can see him not using his old moves from the previous seasons. It's as if learning Volt Tackle erased Thunder and learning Electroball erased Volt Tackle. But the reason he does this here will be elaborated on later.

Another unused theory that came up is that pokemon are perfectly capable of learning and remembering more than four moves. It's the retarded human trainers who can't retain more than that for their pokemon.

It's been a while since I've actually written anything other than school papers, so any advice would be appreciated.