Fun fact: This chapter has been done for over 5 months.

Funner fact: Fanfiction couldn't be uploaded on over my school's wifi for w/e the reason. Won't be an issue moving forward...gonna get a router for my room next year, for multiple reasons.

This is a shorter chapter than usual...sumimasen. I started fizzling on brainworks about 2/3 the way through it, so I wrapped it up. The next chapter IS being made right now.

Also, I do not like singling out reviews anymore, but QwertyWolfieguy brings up a good point I'd like to address: To start, I write here on FFic for no other reason than writing practice. It's a good way to try interesting and fun new ways to write and be critiqued (extensively...there is value in having the public review your writing but it doesn't include the personal 1-on-1 that a professional can provide) without people actually...ya know...knowing it's me. So a lot of this story is self-made ideology, and Elesa being far younger than one would expect fits within that. And it's not farfetched really at all...I've seen supermodels who are 14. Holy smokes. I'm fairly young myself so no pedophiliac comments, plis. I'm just callsin' 'em like I sees 'em.

And remember that in my self-created Pokemon world, a year takes a LOT longer than it does on Earth. So 10 and 14 is not like kid age the way it is for us.

Alright, here it is.

If you do any significant research into the etymology of 'sleep' and 'dream', you come up with some very interesting results.

'Dream', before anything else, was used to express the action of joy and happiness. If you "dreamt", you were feeling incredibly joyful and ecstatic regarding whatever you were "dreaming" of. Eventually the colloquial phrase of 'I dreamt of you' started approaching the meaning of 'I saw you in my sleep and it was wonderful', since frequently artists and nobility (the only ones who were literate) started reminiscing of their brief or unrequited loves in this regard, being that they could only see their special ones in their minds, and we, as people, are rendered most vulnerable to our own minds during our sleep. Idioms are a funny thing in that regard. They transform to mean something effectively tangential but fundamentally completely different from their original denotative definition. For example, when you tell someone to 'carry their own weight', you are not literally asking him or her to go pick up a few barbells and walk around with them all day. But the idea of having someone take responsibility for their…well responsibilities and the idea of carrying a load of weight are related but not equivalent.

'Sleep' on the other hand, has always meant what it means today: to fall into slumber. So while sleeping has little to no significant meaning beyond practicality, dreaming means far more than we think it does today. So while we have very little conscious control over what we dream of, actively admitting and thereby speaking of dreaming of someone or something carries a lot of weight.

D'you see that? That was a pun. I's humor. Laugh.

There may not be many more opportunities these next couple chapters.

Sleeping is something we have a say in and can control on about 3 or 4 levels, depending on your philosophy on the concept of the mind. However dreaming is completely different. It is almost impossible to control your dreams, and even in lucid dreaming we cannot consciously try to tell our brain what to think when it drifts off on its own accord. Whether we like it or not, what we truly feel and our inner thoughts are best expressed in our dreams, on whatever level you believe that (some say dreaming is shallow and just a problem-solving tool to figure out whatever extraneous thoughts are going on for God-knows-what reason). So even though we only remember about 10% of all our dreams on any given night, what we remember is still our true inner thoughts. If we ignore our dreams and try to push them away, we are effectively ignoring and pushing away ourselves.

Not that it particularly matters to Ash, for all intents and purposes. He probably already knows all this after what happened with Darkrai a while back, and with Jirachi even further back.

That night was dark and drizzling, so the moon and stars did not dare interrupt any dreaming going on. The night seemed to coax the world to sleep at this point, and Nimbasa was lulled into a great big state of rest; uncanny for it, but relaxing all the same. The standard for 'silence' seemed to drop a few decibels and the air felt still and peaceful. It would make people feel as if they were literally the only person in a frozen world. Which is quite the fun and chilling feeling when it's in a giant city.

Ash's bed was soft and comfy. It felt like a giant Altaria, and was as welcoming as a return-home sleep in that bed he had slept in for oh-so many years in Pallet. He felt the perfect temperature underneath the covers: enough heat to drift you into slumber, but enough cool air wafting through to keep it comfortable. All the factors were together, and sleep should have been easy.

For some reason, it wasn't. He should have fallen asleep a long time ago, but he just lay unmoving in one of the most relaxing situations he had been in for a solid time.

Left alone to his thoughts, he sat back and started rummaging through the thoughts filed away prematurely in his brain; the things that you encounter and register and remember. But you give them no further thought, and decide to entertain them at a later date. The first thing that came to his mind was, of course, Elesa. But not really much more to think about there…when you spend almost every hour after lunchtime and before dinner with someone, he or she spends plenty of time in your thoughts.

The second thing that came to mind was the Driftveil Drawbridge. It seemed to be close to being completed…he got word from Nurse Joy that it would be ready the day after tomorrow. That should make him uber happy…but for some reason it seemed like his joy for being able to continue on his journey was forced. Don't get him wrong—he certainly still did want to continue on his conquest of the Unova League, and he was more than stoked to meet up with the alleged rough n' tough miner that led the gym over there. He also heard about some cool vigilante wanna-be superhero-type that seemed like the kinda guy you'd wanna go get a drink with.

And after that, he thought of the man in the suit a few days back, when he had just scolded Pikachu about making fun of Elesa and everyone in the train car stopped and stared at him. At the time he thought everyone was annoyed with him because he had talked about Elesa, but upon thinking about it further, it would make more sense to attribute the unwanted attention to simply him being loud. But that man in the suit said something peculiar to him:

"So…you like Elesa, don't you?"

Well yeah. She's super chill and hella attractive along with being a kickass gym leader. There's nothing to not like about her. And he didn't want to assume anything yet, but Ash was starting to get the feeling that Nimbasa's beloved had a lot more say in the workings of the city than she was letting on.

At that time, I got flustered because I didn't want to be sharpie'd as just another kid with a hopeless crush on a supermodel who probably already has way too many suitors to even…start counting…

Wait a minute. What about her boyfriend?

The thoughts seemed to weigh so much that they fell right out of Ash's lips in a cold whisper:

"If she's been spending so much time with me, what about her boyfriend?"

Shortly after, he realized he accidentally mused out loud and flung his head around with all it's messy raven hair to see if Iris was awake. Nope, she seemed snuggled and happy in her sheets. Now Cilan? Phew, he was sprawled out like a mat. Thankfully, neither were awa-

"Who?"

He jerked his head back the other direction before his body could follow. His head produced too much momentum and ended up flinging his body in a very awkward way off the bed but still attached by the sheets, as if like a bag. But Ash was a human, and humans are heavy. Gravity tends to like heavy things. Shortly after he fell -thunk- right to the floor, and his pillow poofed right on his head. It didn't manage to cover all the hair, though.

When he looked up, he was staring right into the darkened face of a worried Iris. She seemed far more mature with her hair down, and the expression of concern and intrigue that was spread across her face made Ash feel a bit anxious but calm and collected at the same time—sort of like he knew the person in front of him was gonna pry for information that he himself did not know, but that the person in front of him would know what to do with it better than even he could.

"Who?" She repeated.

"Who 'who'"?

"Who?"

"Yeah but WHO who?"

"Ya know, who-…this is getting nowhere I'm talking about whose boyfriend are you worried about?"

"Well…" Ash considered playing it off as nothing. Then he thought further about it and realized that hiding anything from Ms. Dragrons over here would be pointless and annoying. That, and she was someone he could trust.

"Elesa."

At first Iris seemed a bit shocked. And then she recovered and looked immensely excited and a bit proud.

"THAT'S who you've been spending all your time with?! I thought it was just with Pikachu, or some silly training!"

Ash frowned a little. "Would I really spend all my time in a city as grand and amazing as Nimbasa trai—"

"Yes."

"…"

"You know it's true."

"…"

"…well continuing on: why are you worried about her boyfriend?"

Ash sighed, "She's been spending a lot of time with me lately so I am just worried if she's been spending adequate time with him as well."

Iris rolled her eyes. "Well the answer is easy then. Go ask him."

Blink. "…that makes sense. Asking her would probably seem…"

"Accusatory?"

"Yes, accusatory."

"Then just go ask him!"

"Alright, I'll just ask…ummm…"

Iris raised an eyebrow. "Ash?"

"…"

Iris raised her other eyebrow. "Aaasssshhh?!"

"Errr…Iris I kinda don't actual—"

Iris groaned as loudly as she could without waking Cilan. Not that much less than a roar would wake him up right now.

"Ash Ketchum, you are assuming she's hooked up without even asking her?! Geez it never crossed conversation ONCE this entire week?!"

Ash shifted sheepishly in the tangled mess he was in.

Iris jumped out of her bed and quite literally flung Ash out of his little bed cradle-thing and pushed him to the door.

"Just go find out yourself you kid."

Ash turned to see her smugly grinning at her victory. Pikachu's ears twitched as he perked up and scampered over onto his favorite shoulder. Scratching his head, Ash shook it and pushed open the door.

Roam the streets of Nimbasa for upwards of 7 days, and you still find places you had never been to before.

The civil engineering was so beyond brilliant that you never found yourself lost or crushed in a large crowd of people. Ash doesn't have a bad sense of direction, but it's not particularly great either, so he was thankful for being able to somehow always tell where he was. He was not exactly sure why his feet were shifting in the direction they were. People talk about their feet 'carrying them places', but you never know what it's like until you are under the circumstances that make it happen. See, I'll tell you the secret to that phrase right now. Just send a payment of 500 yen to your nearest gym leader and he/she'll know what to do with it.

What? An author's gotta make a living somehow.

Sometimes you get put in situations where your body is one step ahead of the more conniving and calculatingly engaged part of your brain, and responds in ways you don't expect it to. Kind of an accidental way to really find out what you're feeling or thinking. Usually happens when you are speaking, and it can be quite annoying and troublesome.

However another common way this human psyche phenomenon manifests is for your feet to move you toward where you want to go when you don't even know where it is you yourself want to go, or even worse when you tell yourself you are going to move toward one location and are confident in your going to that location only to find yourself halfway in the opposite direction heading somewhere totally different. Now some people are just ditzes and airheadedly stumble somewhere without thinking. The difference here is as follows:

"Oh hey, i want to go eat some salad."

Actually you want a quality burger-fry (with extra SON OF A BITCH flavor). Sometimes your feet decide to override your conscious decision of salad and move toward the burger joint in the exact opposite direction of the salad bar eatery. So you're happily walking on the sidewalk toward the burger shop thinking "Oh hey man I'm looking forward to them lettuce leaves and shit." And then you end up in front of the doorstep to the noodle shop and THEN you realize you are at the burger shop.

"What the hell I wanted salad."

No. No you didn't. Your feet knew better and carried you where you actually wanted to go.

That's pretty much exactly what happened to Ash. Except the whole burger vs. salad thing.

His endurance is expectedly high, so he strides fairly quickly wherever he goes. By the time he realized he wasn't actually heading where he thought he was actively heading, he was quite a distance away. He thought he wanted to go talk to Elesa personally about her boyfriend situation, yet here he is standing in front of the subway. And it wasn't even the closest subway entrance to the Pokemon Center. It was actually two stations further.

The same one you have to take to go to the park Pikachu and he visited a few days back. The day he met that perverted (and most likely abnormally horny) trio of slu—…ahem girls.

Well since I'm here anyway, might as well just take the subway and see where it takes me.

Ash pushed open the door and walked.

A few minutes and one subway ticket later he was sitting in the car ready to take it a solid 20 miles away. It was still pretty early so most people inside were commuting to work, or school. But it was so early the only students were very well-mannered individuals attending prestigious high-society etiquette-type schools, so they were just sitting peacefully and silently and were easy to miss.

Most of the people going to work were dressed in sharp sports blazers and powerful ties above some fresh slacks with slicked hair and a spritz of cologne or perfume depending on gender beneath the chin. So middle to upper-class businessmen.

Very similar situation to when Ash last took this car. The difference was that today was during the middle of the work week, so there were little to no people on the subway who were not using it as a functional tool. Ash himself was basically using it as a functional tool; he just did not know what kind of tool…and for that matter he did not know what its function was anymore. He clasped his head in his strong and weathered right hand, thinking solemnly about what the next step was.

Now what is my next step?

I literally just told the audience that, Ash. Don't repeat what the author says; it makes me look incompetent.

I could follow this train as long as it goes, maybe take it back to the station unless I get inspired to stop off at a random other station.

He entertained that idea for a moment, then put it in the back of his mind while he moved on to other possible lines moving forward.

For that somewhat strange opening, I ask that you stick with it. It makes more sense as the plot unfolds.

R&R.