"Finally, we're in Cerulean City!" Ash cheered as they marched through the city entrance and made a beeline for the Pokemon Center. "We can actually heal our Pokemon after the Mt. Moon debacle!"

"You can say that again!" Harry grinned. "I can't wait to get back into fighting condition! Here's hoping for a good gym battle!"

"OI! MINIONS!" Misty's voice rang out, and the crowd in the streets of Cerulean parted before her unyielding rage.

"I am… conflicted." Harry ground out as a ranting Misty stomped over towards them. "On the one hand, we're about to deal with a gym leader. On the other hand, we now need to deal with a raging bitch for the next couple of hours."

"Motion to present a united front?" Ash tentatively suggested as Misty drew ever closer and her ranting drew up to a fever pitch.

"Agreed." Harry nodded, and the two brothers faced their fate together as Misty stopped directly in front of them.

"With my authority as gym leader and QUEEN OF ALL POKEYMANS, I DECLARE THAT YOU MUST SUBMIT TO ME IN A GYM BATTLE IMMEDIATELY!" she bellowed, striking a pose in front of them designed to show off her (nonexistent) curves.

"...Congratulations, Harry." Ash said while facepalming. "You're going to get your wish for a gym battle. Was it worth it?"

"Let me think about it…" Harry trailed off as Misty drew her hyperspace mallet back in absolute fury at their nonchalance. "No."

BONK!

Chapter 6: I Need More Chapter Names

As the brothers' world came back into focus, they found themselves inside a large blue building.

"Welcome to the Cerulean Gym!" Misty's voice rang out, and they turned to find her standing on a platform on the other side of a pool. "Now… prepare to lose."

"Screw this, my pokemon aren't healed!" Ash protested, turning around and beginning to head for the door.

"TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW OR ELSE I'LL USE MY AUTHORITY TO STRIP YOU OF YOUR LICENSE!" Misty shrieked, and Ash winced.

"Geez, fine, whatever. Hey, Harry, do you mind if I go first?" Ash asked as he turned around. Upon receiving a shrug, he stomped over to the platform and pulled out a Pokeball. "Let's get this over with."

Grinning wickedly, Misty pulled out two Pokeballs. "This will be a two-on-two battle, and only the gym leader can switch Pokemon. Let the battle begin, and come on out Gyarados!"

As the massive blue serpent splashed down into the pool, Ash thought for a moment before tossing out Raichu. "Look, I know you're still tired and kind of sore, but I kinda need you to fight right now. You're the only one with enough charge and strength at the moment. If you can't muster anything, stall for time, ok?"

As he looked back up to the battlefield, Gyarados fired a Hydro Pump at Raichu, who barely dodged out of the way.

"Hey! You were supposed to start the match audibly!" He snapped at Misty, who turned her nose up and chuckled as the Gyarados continued to try and hit Raichu.

"Screw the rules, I make them!" she grinned gleefully, only to have her amusement completely destroyed when the Gyarados suddenly lit up with electricity and collapsed. "WHAT? YOU'RE CHEATING!"

"Or did you forget that Gyarados has a 4x weakness to electricity? Seriously, that was bound to happen." Ash glared at her. "Now, hurry up and send out your next Pokemon so that I can get going already."

"Misty? What in the hell are you doing?" a sleepy voice rang out through the gym, and an older teenager stepped through a well-hidden door. "You know you're on probation and not supposed to be battling. Seriously, any more rule-breaking and you'll be stripped of your position as a gym leader, and this time we won't save you."

"SHUT UP! STARMIE, USE HYDRO PUMP ON LILY!" Misty screamed, and her Pokemon shot a pressurized column of water at her suddenly wide-awake sister, who grabbed for a Pokeball around her waist.

"Cordelia, use protect!" Harry ordered, and Cordelia slid in front of Lily, erecting a green dome of light around the two of them.

Ash recalled Raichu and transformed into his hybrid form, tensing up in preparation for a fight as Misty dug around in her bag. As she looked up at him, she sneered.

"Filthy half-breeds and irritating sisters! I'll get rid of-" she collapsed to the ground as a Greninja appeared behind her and struck the back of her neck, knocking her out. As it began to truss her with lots of rope, Lily turned to the brothers and grinned.

"Thanks for the save there! My name's Lily, youngest of the sensational sisters and one of the three Cerulean Gym Leaders! Sorry about our sister, she's a little… off. We're kind of obligated to take care of her, though."

"If by off you mean a neurotic egomaniac, then yes, your sister is a little off." Harry deadpanned. "Besides, with the comments she just made I think we're all well within our bounds to be offended. Remind me, why do you take care of her?"

And with that, most of their goodwill dried up in an instant as Lily leveled a death glare at Harry. "We take care of her," she snarled. "Because she's family. No matter how much we dislike her mannerisms, we still love her because she's our sister."

"Ah, so nepotism is a factor! I should've known the League was a corrupt bunch of-"

"OKAY THEN!" Ash cut him off, physically throwing himself between Harry and Lily. "How about Harry and I leave now and go to the Pokemon center!"

"Wait, you didn't get to the Pokemon Center?! Just how long ago did you arrive in town?" Lily asked, slightly horrified.

"Oh, and NOW you-" Harry began, only to be cut off by Ash clamping his hand over his mouth.

"Harry, I love you, and you're my brother in all but blood. But for the love of Arceus, shut the hell up!" Ash growled before turning back to face Lily. "We'd just arrived when your sister found us and quite literally dragged us here. What's more, we'd just made it through Mt. Moon and had battled Team Rocket while we're there, so we were kind of in desperate need of healing."

"Wait, did you say you battled Team Rocket?" Lily interjected, shoving her anger to the side for the moment. "Go to the center and get your Pokemon healed up, then come back here and we'll talk about this. Be ready to meet my sisters as well, as they're also going to want to hear about this."

"Got it. Thanks for the warning." Ash nodded before turning around and walking out the door, physically dragging Harry out with him.

"What the hell was that about, Harry?" Ash asked in utter exasperation as they headed to the Pokemon Center. "There was no need for any of those comments! Why did you go and ruin all of our goodwill like that?!"

"A better question is," Harry interjected. "Why did you tell her about Team Rocket? We could've dealt with it on our own!"

Ash froze in place for a moment before turning around to face Harry. "...Could've dealt with it on our own? Could've dealt with it on our own?! Harry, are you certain you didn't hit your head in that battle because that's the stupidest thing I've heard all day. We can't handle Team Rocket on our own! The League is dealing with them, not us! They're professionals and we've just started our journey, so it makes no sense for us to try and get in their way by dealing with it ourselves!"

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Ash grabbed it and clamped it shut once again. "No, you don't get a chance to speak so that you can actually fucking learn something and not keep being absorbed in your flimsy defenses. WE. ARE. WEAK. At least, we're weak compared to the full strength of the gym leaders. Keep in mind, the gym leaders used to be the equivalent of monarchs in their respective areas before the League came along and assimilated them, and they've not gotten any weaker since then! They've been fighting the full force of the Rockets for the past five years and have been incredibly successful, whereas we went up against some yesterday, beat the mooks handily, and then proceeded to get our collective asses handed to us by the admin. We're outclassed, plain and simple, and it's damn well time that you realize that."

Pulling away from Ash, Harry gave him an affronted look. "But I had a plan-"

"Your plan is likely 'go out and hunt them all down without telling the league', no?" Ash interrupted, continuing when Harry flushed from embarrassment. "That's asinine. Aside from the large amount of legal trouble that could get us into, I must reiterate that we're not strong enough! Serperior's Ultimitl Bishbaalkin is your most powerful asset, but she's so out of practice with it that she can only use it for two minutes before burning out, and I don't think that she's strong enough to defeat a full team of six that are all fighting to kill. What's more, I don't even have anything remotely close to that level of power, so that's out as well. In other words, fighting would be idiotic because we're far too weak!"

Ash sighed. "Look, if we run into some random grunts we will fight them, that's just doing our duty as a trainer. However, I will immediately call the League afterward, seeing as how you apparently have a problem with authority and you'll likely try to drive them off. We're not going in half-cocked like last time - or did the fact that we both almost died conveniently slip your mind when remembering that incident. It's only thanks to the gratitude of the Clefable that we're here now, but I don't want that to happen again. End of discussion, we're not seeking out Team Rocket. Now, let's get to the Pokemon Center and heal our teams."

After dropping off their teams at the Pokemon Center and heading back to the Gym

"Harry, let me do the talking on this one," Ash said as they entered the building. "It's probably for the best to not try and verbally tear them apart like you did last time."

"Given that you seem to be particularly preachy about this today, fine," Harry grumbled, still irritated from being shut down earlier.

"There you are!" an unfamiliar voice rang out through the gym, and a purple-haired woman walked over to the brothers. "My name's Violet, one of Lily's sisters and one of the gym leaders of Cerulean City. We've been expecting you, so let's head over and get started."

They walked through the hidden door that they'd seen during the gym battle and started heading down a long corridor. The entire time, Violet kept talking about what to expect in the meeting, explaining that they weren't in trouble and that the League just needed the information. After a minute of walking, they arrived at a well-lit room with a table and some chairs, with Lily and her other sister already sitting down at the table.

"Oh, like, hello! It's like, really nice to meet you!" The third sister grinned, ignoring Lily's chidings of 'Daisy, be serious'. "So, like, do you like fashion or swimming, or-"

"And we're stopping that there," Violet cut her off as they all got seated. "You two said that you had a run-in with Team Rocket?"

"Yep," Ash nodded casually as he leaned forward. "We found a large group in Mt. Moon that were apparently attempting to remove the Moon Stone and were led by somebody that called themselves 'Archer'.We ended up fighting with them because my brother and I ended up running into a mentally unstable scientist by the name of Seymour that had been living in the Mountain and had hinted repeatedly that he was sodomizing the Clefairy. What happened was that he'd essentially recruited us unwillingly, but when I asked my brother if he'd called the League, well…"

"Let me guess," Lily spoke up. "He told you he had called when in actuality he hadn't, either out of some misguided belief that you two could handle it or that he just doesn't like the League as a whole. I'm leaning more towards the latter at the moment, given our conversation this morning."

"Try 'loathes authority in general'," Harry responded with a frown on his face. "Look, I get that not every person in power is corrupt, but until I find evidence to the contrary I automatically go on the defensive. There's too much at risk to assume otherwise.

"Back to the subject at hand," Ash interjected. "We ended up fighting off the grunts fairly handily. The Admin stepped in after that and quickly defeated us before collapsing the cavern we were in."

"Before you continue, what did the Admin look like, and what team did he use?" Violet asked, flipping open a pad of paper. "We'll be more likely to find him if you give us more information on his team and capabilities."

"He had a Krookodile, a Crobat, a Houndoom, a Nidoking, a Weezing, and an Alolan Muk." Harry rattled off, appearing slightly annoyed at the disbelieving looks thrown his way. "What? I might not like it, but I'm not stupid enough to try and withhold information from a League investigation. All that would accomplish is landing me in hot water. Anyway, he had green-blue hair, fair skin, and he looked fairly young - like someone in their late teens or early 20s."

"Thanks for the information," Violet stated as she closed the pad of paper. "Now, please finish your recollection of the event."

"Well…"

"Urgh…" Ash moaned as he woke up, sore all over. "Where am I? Where's Harry?"

As his vision cleared, he looked around from inside his Protect dome, growing increasingly worried as he recognized what had happened. "A cave-in?" he muttered in disbelief. "After the first blow, we were careful to not cause one! What the hell happened?!"

As he strode out of the green dome, Ash was relieved to find that no, it wasn't a complete cave-in. Apparently, there'd been another cavern above the one they were currently in, and by the looks of it, the floor had given way. "Now that that's answered," he mused as he looked around. "Where is everybody?"

A surge of suppressed emotions bubbled to the surface, the feelings of guilthorrorterror threatening to overwhelm Ash as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. "Later," he breathed out shakily. "I can have my inevitable breakdown later. It won't do me any good to exhaust myself before the search is even started. I can argue with myself over my taking a life later."

Still slightly shaken, Ash straightened up as a twitch of movement caught his eye. "Harry? Is that you?"

Receiving a groan of pain in response, he dashed over and found Harry and Serperior buried beneath a large pile of rock. Raising her head, Serperior grinned as Ash approached before grimacing in pain.

"Ah… Ash. Please help my master. I can be returned to the Pokeball for stasis - he can't." she hacked out as Ash removed the rock. "His arm… it's pulped. I couldn't save all of him."

"That's crap and you know it," Ash growled as he finished excavating them. "If you'd not shielded him, he likely would've died. Now, where's my bag? I need to grab the first-aid kit…"

"And immediately after taking care of the more pressing issues, I promptly had a bit of a breakdown." Ash grimaced.

"It couldn't have been that bad-" Harry began, only to be cut off by Ash.

"I obliterated a 5-meter section of stone and blackened another 10 meters as I tried to deal with taking someone's life." Ash snapped back, shocking everyone else into silence. "Look, I get that they're criminals. Still, a life is something to treasure, something to try and preserve! Because of my lack of control over my powers, I'm directly responsible for their deaths."

"Did they attack first?" Daisy asked nonchalantly. "If they did so, then it's not murder - it's self-defense."

"They did attack first," Violet groaned as she cast a glare at their more ditzy sister. "As you'd know if you'd been listening. Either way, that's not the problem the kid is talking about."

"As for you, kid," Violet stated as she turned around. "I'm sorry, but you're going to need to accept that it happened and move on. By all means, train your control so that it's less likely to happen again, but I must reiterate that you can't change what's already happened."

Lily nodded. "Good advice, but back to the topic at hand. You said Harry's arm was pulped, no? Then why is it still attached to his arm, much less looking like a functional appendage?"

"I was getting to that," Ash grumbled before straightening up. "There's an ancient Clefable-"

"Ohhh," the three sisters grinned in unison. "We know who you're talking about!"

"Yeah, you mentioned the sexually-inclined scientist Seymour earlier? Well, you helping them catch him would've likely earned their favor." Lily explained cheerfully. "They're relatively well-meaning and caring, so they would've used your favor to heal your injured and set you on the right path."

"However," Lily frowned. "Your Pokemon were clearly not at full strength, and they're certainly not anywhere near as strong as it. Even assuming a full party of six for each of you, that Clefable is essentially a legendary when close to the moon stone. At the very least, it's as close to being a legendary as any Pokemon can feasibly get. So, is there something you're not telling us?"

"...It had said Team Rocket had been beginning to win against it." Ash admitted.

"That's… worrying." Violet said as the three gym leaders stood up. "Thank you for the information, but we must ask you to leave the premises. The gym will be reopened tomorrow, but as of this moment… we have more pressing issues."

"Harry, we should probably call our moms," Ash commented as they entered their room. "It's been about two weeks, they're probably worried sick."

"Yeah, good point," Harry admitted. "I'd been fairly distracted by the whole Team Rocket debacle, so I'd forgotten to bring it up. Let's do it now."

Heading over to the computer in the room, the two logged on to the terminal and launched an invitation for a video call. "I wonder how our moms are going to react…" Ash trailed off as Theia and Reshiram's faces popped up on the screen, both with a rather stormy expression.

"Well?" Theia asked coolly. "How will we react to what?"

At that moment, one thought flashed through both brother's heads. "Oh, this will not be fun…"

"Okay, let me get this straight." Theia breathed in deeply. "You attacked Team Rocket, got your collective asses handed to you by one of their leaders, did not call the League, and managed to encounter one of the few non-legendary Pokemon able to fight on our level. Afterward, you attempted to antagonize a gym leader in an attempt to withhold details of the event from them."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Harry admitted. "However, I need to keep our family a secret to the League! If they know about us-"

"Honey, they already know about us." Reshiram cut Harry off. "It's an agreement between the Hall of Legends and the Leagues that we'll report our location and intentions when acting without a proxy - at least when we're acting on League grounds. We've been common knowledge to the upper echelons of the League ever since we moved here eight years ago. Your intentions are admirable, but you've been assuming that we hadn't already taken action to prevent such situations."

"What?" Harry asked, utterly stupefied. "You're telling me that not only are our species common knowledge to the League, but I've spent my entire life worried over you guys being captured for nothing?!"

"No, our secret is only known to people like the gym leaders and the Elite 4 - possibly some of the higher-ranking Ace Trainers as well. Don't spread it around too much, as anyone lower than an Ace Trainer probably would have no idea, and the Ace Trainers probably don't know either. As for the whole capturing situation…"

Reshiram sighed, looking much older. "I won't lie to you, some of the more old-fashioned members of the League have in the past advocated for us to be captured, either to be used as a weapon or as a status symbol. However, they are nothing but a very vocal minority and their opinions hold little to no weight in actually influencing the League's decisions."

"So you're saying that I've been burning bridges unnecessarily for the past couple years." Harry groaned, dropping his face into his hands. "Great. I should've asked about this sooner. Now, if you'd excuse me, I need to think about this for a while."

He marched into his section of the divided room and closed the door, leaving Ash, Reshiram, and Theia in an awkward silence. After a few moments, Theia cleared her throat and began to speak again. "So, what were you saying about you vaporizing rock with your electricity exactly?"

"Oh, well…"

Later that day

Harry solemnly walked back into the room, tossing Ash his belt of pokeballs and flopping back onto the bed. "So," he began hesitantly, turning to face his brother. "I think we should stay here. Take a break from traveling, you know?"

"You have the ulterior motive of wanting to see Mom's proof, don't you?" Ash asked in response, internally wincing at how exactly that came out. "Wait, what I meant was-"

"Don't bother," Harry groaned, rolling his eyes. "I know what you mean. But yeah, I want to see if I can find anyone in authority that I can give even a modicum of trust."

"As long as you keep that in mind…" Ash trailed off before perking back up. "So, before the gym battle, do you want to head to the nearby beach? I mean, it's still fairly nice out, and I'm pretty sure our teams would enjoy it."

"Sure, but let's go tomorrow. I don't know about you, but I kind of want to just stay here for now."

"Great! Thanks, Harry!" Ash grinned as he ran out of the room, Harry looking on in slight disbelief.

"He can dissect and understand what amounts to an interrogation perfectly, but he fails to recognize the subtext of that?" He asked, slightly shocked. "Well, I guess nobody's perfect."

Sorry for the relatively small chapter. College apps and various other situations have not exactly been the most helpful in terms of being able to work on this. Sorry, but for the time being the story is going to be extremely sporadic in updates. I might be able to get something out over winter break, but please don't hold your breath on that. Thank you for your continued tolerance of this.