Author's Note: I'm back! Really sorry for the delay, this one was refusing to end and the ending I originally came up with was kind of bad. So here we are! Small training chapter, then onto the real fun! Thanks for waiting!

Chapter Nine: Rock, Paper, Scissors

"It would help to be less intelligent, but I'm not sure there can be any lower for you on some days."

Ash, when it came to his mom, was usually barely on the ball. Today proved no exception. Ash had gotten up the next morning, Pokemon now healed from the attack of the Arbok seductress, when his mother strode in, light shoes barely making a sound. She was not dressed in her typical casual clothes, though if it weren't for the Beedrill death trap left in the forest she might have been. Instead she was dressed in a long-sleeved pink shirt and blue jeans. It was an outfit he knew from hard weeding days and long childhood hours teaching him how to duck.

Anyone who said his mother would be an easy defeat did not know her nearly as well as they should have.

He hopped to his feet, Chase dizzily saluting from his hat. Anabel didn't rise from the chair, mostly because Amber was sleeping in her lap. Ash had woken to the little girl staring at the sun like it shouldn't be rising. Somehow, Anabel had calmed her to try and sleep a little. Thank Arceus, someone had to know how to deal with kids.

"Hey mom," Ash began, one foot slightly back in preparation for the probably inevitable face punch. What he got instead was a heavy hug that would have broken his ribs at one point in his life. He reached and hugged her back. "I'm all right, Mom. We're just a bit shaken up, that's all." Which was a better place to be than the last time had ended up in Rocket claws.

"Do hold still, Humpty Dumpty. We're trying to put you back together again."

Ash grinned at Anabel over his mother's shoulder to cut off the train of thought. She merely blinked at him. It was almost like she had heard that stray memory… nah.

"I wasn't gonna bring you if you were gonna be nice to him, Ms. Delia," Gary's voice came from the entrance, awkward without a pokemon winding around his legs. He waved and Ash made a playful face.

He made himself let go. "Oh, don't worry," he said with a grin. "She'll be kicking me around in about five minutes."

"Maybe ten," his mother challenged. "I need to be introduced to your new friends after all." She glanced at Anabel and the sleeping Amber, who Ash noticed was suddenly wide-awake again. Bright electric-blue met warm brown and Ash watched his mother's face shift and soften like taffy left in the sun. Well, damn it. There was no getting rid of Amber now. Not that he really wanted to, but when his mother took a shine to someone they might as well be adopted.

"'Ello," Amber greeted quietly. Her blue gaze went to Ash, who shook his head and grinned ruefully. "My name's Amber. Nice to meet you."

Ash dearly missed her sarcasm and they'd only known each other for a couple of days. Damn Rocket.

Delia smiled and knelt down to look at her. "Nice to meet you, I'm Ash's mother, Delia. Hope he hasn't gotten you into too much trouble." She winked, and Ash saw Amber's eyes spark up again. Ah, his mother was so great sometimes.

"He's gotten me into everything," she said in a low whisper. Anabel snorted with laughter.

"I haven't even been around a day and I can believe that," she said before patting Amber's pink hair and bowing politely in her chair. "My name is Anabel Solidad. You would probably recognize me from the interregional news recently."

His mom tilted her head in puzzlement. Then she nodded slowly. "You're the Salon Maiden. Well, former."

"Yeah, former," Anabel agreed, poking around Amber's eye until the girl lunged playfully for her fingers. "I, well, Scott's closing it for a while. Nothing to do with me, supposedly, but there have been a lot of complaints about Legendaries working with Frontier Brains. So he's investing in the Sinnoh one for a while." She smiled and Ash noted it to himself as the celebrity smile. "And the weather over there isn't always that great, so I said I'd step down."

"Lucky for you that you have savings," his mother said softly, one of her fingers slipping to her belt. Oh no, Mom had her Pokemon with her, this was going to hurt.

Anabel chuckled dryly. "Only some. Most of it is in an account. I'm still too young to have full access to my money from my work, unlike the others bar Greta. She's a little younger than I am." She paused and her eyes flickered to Gary, as if recognizing him for the first time. "Gary? Is that you?"

Gary shared a look with Ash, both clearly confused. Then Umbreon popped out of her ball and leaped towards Anabel. Amber had just enough time to move away before Anabel had a lap full of black fur. Anabel giggled at the rapid sandpaper licks to her cheeks.

"Yes, yes, hello Umbreon, how are you?" Umbreon let out happy whining noises and rubbed her neck with her head. "I missed you too; it wasn't the same without your delightful conversation."

Ash looked at Gary again, eyebrow raised. Gary shrugged. "You were late and she got your starter."

Ash blinked. "Oh… right..." God, it seemed so long ago that he had overslept so badly. (Well, man, two years…?) Maybe if he had gotten up on time, it wouldn't have happened. Then again... He reached up and scratched the top of Chase's head with a finger. Chase made an amused squeaking sound.

Someone else would have been Spearow chow. And more. He was lucky enough to have had a support system. And he wouldn't have Chase. Or this.

No Chaos? Not allowed.

Ash grinned sheepishly at Anabel. "Yeah, I got up late on my first day. Oops."

"I'm not going to ask," Anabel decided, turning back to Gary. "So what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Working with Gramps," Gary replied and that was the point that Ash tuned out and went to his mom. No need to hear that old history until he needed to hear it.

"So am I grounded for life?" He asked, trying to keep his smile and only partially succeeding. His mother snatched his hat, making him huff. He was twelve, not twenty and he had paid for that cereal box hat out of his allowance! Of course he could afford a better hat after this first gym but still!

"I'm thinking about it," she said with a small snort. "If you let me put you through your paces today and possibly tomorrow, I won't put an Iron Ball in your bag."

Ash shuddered at the thought. He had no idea how Munchlax did that, let alone Snorlax. "D-Deal," he said. "When do we start?"

Her thumb and forefinger grabbed him by the ear. "Right now," his mother said with a firm yank.

It was very likely that they could hear his screams all the way on Mt. Moon.

Delia looked up from the bits and pieces of Ash's metal arm to check that her son's eyes were still closed in attempts at meditation. She brushed her fingers over each piece, some warped sharper than usual on the inside, and looked down again. Not even a week. Not even a week and he had broken the technology this bad. To be fair, Aura had a tendency to overwhelm most metals. That was what made a Lucario so deadly, especially when pushed to the limits of their control.

She had been long aware of the power in their family. Long aware of the blue, twisted lines running up the bastardized word 'Ketchum'. When people would learn the truth, she had no idea.

She still had no idea how he had known. Then again, he had never been stupid.

She examined the parts again, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as behind her, Ash stopped dozing. He was drifting, not dozing now. Good. Progress.

Delia regarded the rest of the clearing, where Anabel was gently showing Amber how to sew as Chase showed the Shinx how to spark. The oddest part over that whole situation was that Chase had done it willingly. She hadn't even asked him. Was he getting a soft spot for the little thing?

Delia smiled to herself. That would be for the best. She set to work on the pieces once more, regarding this arm, the very first time she had seen this piece of machinery.

"Delia, he's alive! Calm yourself!"

Alive? Blood soaking the snow, despair in his eyes, yes she supposed that was living in one way. Broken but fixable, broken but able to be healed.

Hah.

The blue light coiled around her fingers and she set down the device. She was gentle with it, as unlike her son, she had practice and self-control on her side.. Taking a screwdriver, she set to work.

She supposed the most she could do was prepare him for the first gym and pray for the rest. Plans and Ash never worked out very well, for anyone.

Viper sat back on her heels Recon was boring. This was usually left to Grunts, the people she had used to be, before becoming an admin, before leaving the real awful field work behind. Why the boss had chosen her for this awful gig, she still didn't know. It didn't help that her training had been seriously disrupted.

Beside her, Arbok coiled around something small and almost loud until they swallowed it with one large gulp.

"You're not allowed to do that to the target yet," she said. Arbok hissed in dismay but understood. Killing the target when she didn't even understand what to do with it would put her in the same rank as her missing mother. It was simply not to be.

Still, at the rate he was going (Pewter in three days?), he could grow into a threat before she could amass a team capable of killing him. He was too soft to not go against Team Rocket ideals, despite having their mark all over his body. So, it was probably best to prepare. Where to start?

Another Poison type was out. She had learned from her early days: don't focus on type alone. That was suicide at best. Perhaps a fighter, a psychic? Water? Magikarp were only a bludgeon until trained correctly but there were rumors of Feebas at the bottom of Mt. Moon's waterways. She could catch her own Pikachu, but that asked for trouble.

Oak would never give her a starter. He would tell who she was in an instant. And using more regulated Pokemon was out. There was a limit of three per individual agent without permission. And Domino would never let her hear the end of it if she abused that privilege over a twelve year old.

She settled back and rummaged through her fanny pack. Finding the portable camera, she reached over and stuck it to Arbok's head. "Stay here and observe," she ordered.

Arbok bobbed its scaly head and Viper hurried away. Not a moment too soon. That woman had been looking right in her direction. The mother.

She thought mothers having eyes in the back of their head was a myth.