AN: We return!

Pixie: After far too long a break.

Trixie: Yeah, I've missed this.

Kirito: And I'm sure out readers have too, so let's let them get on with it and speak to them later.

"Hey Mia?" Ash asked quietly, leaning against the wall in the corridor. The two of them were upstairs in the Pokemon Centre alone, since Misty and Brock were still downstairs, while Bolt, Snowdrop and Crimson were standing around the duo, looking worried. Crimson had release herself a moment before, feeling her trainer's anger and wanting to know what was happening, while Ash hadn't bothered to return Snowdrop yet before following Mia.

"What, Ash?"

"Are you mad at me for not telling you what we heard?" The pink haired girl hissed out a sigh, then shook her head.

"Honestly, no. I'm… I know I probably wouldn't've reacted well to hearing what you'd heard, and since that Damian kid was still in the Centre I probably would've gone a bit mental and yelled at him… at best." She winced. "So, no, I'm not mad that you didn't say anything. I guess you told Misty and Brock to distract me?"

"I told them not to mention it, and to get you out of there as soon as they could." Ash replied.

"I kept them down there waiting for you," she told him, "Then as those boys left I overheard what they were saying in the doorway. I just got… so mad."

"I don't blame you. I was furious when I heard it, and I think the other two were as well." Ash sighed. "But yeah, I really didn't want you blowing up about him and possibly wrecking your cover."

"Which I should thank you for, since I probably would've done without a second thought while I was that mad." Mia smiled.

'What cover?' Both trainers looked down at Snowdrop, who was hovering uncertainly around their feet. Sensing that the serious bit of the conversation was over, Bolt clambered up to Ash's shoulder, while Crimson wrapped a paw around Mia's leg, making her chuckle and lift the Charmander to her chest.

"Tell you what, we'll tell you now." Mia glanced at the key she'd been given earlier, then pushed open her room's door, stepping in and holding it for the others to follow her. Shutting the door as Ash went over to the bed, lifting up Snowdrop as he sat, she frowned in focus for a moment before putting a shield over the door to stop it being opened and made sure people couldn't eavesdrop on their conversation. Thinking for a moment, she also pulled the curtains on the other side of the room closed, thinking that they might need a demonstration, before sitting on the bed with Crimson on her lap. "Basically, my name's Mia Mauller, and I'm actually a Mew in disguise." Snowdrop froze, staring at her, and she smiled slightly. "Ash is my adopted child, I got him when he was two after an… incident, left his birth parents dead. Recently I properly adopted him as my Child, making him a hybrid Mew, and I took up this form to stick with him on his journey and make sure he didn't do anything too silly."

"Hey!" Ash complained, glaring slightly at her.

"You know it's true, Ashy."

'You… what?' Snowdrop tried, looking between them in bewilderment. Bolt sighed, jumping off Ash's shoulder to sit next to her, while Crimson wriggled out of her trainer's arms to join them.

'Yeah, it's a bit bizarre.' Bolt admitted, patting her back. 'You get used to it pretty quickly, somehow.'

'Just don't mention it in public.' Crimson told her. 'We don't know who else is listening, and it's not always just Children who can understand Pokemon. It could just be a Psychic type that translates for their trainer who overhears and lets it out.'

'I… right.' Snowdrop shook her head, like she was trying to clear cobwebs out of it. 'I'm sorry, I just…'

"I understand." Mia smiled gently. "Would you like us to show you?"

'You can do that?' She asked, surprised, before shaking her head. 'Of course you can, you're a Mew. I mean…'

"Don't worry, we get it." Ash grinned, standing up with Mia. "Just a sec…" Ash's transformation was heralded by a storm of bubbles, and Mia, not wanting to be left out, shone white and projected her own bubble cloud before the pair of Mew floated out and onto the bed. 'But yeah, this is us. Other form for me, natural form for Mom.'

'Thinking about it, maybe we should come up with some sort of name for you as a Mew.' Mew suggested, lying on her back.

'Why?' Ash questioned, confused. 'We don't transform very much in this world anyway, and it's not like many people understand us like this. Pokemon do, sure, but they probably wouldn't link Ash the Mew to Ash the human, though they might think it's odd, and other hybrids would know anyway.'

'Yeah, I suppose.' Mew shrugged. 'Was just a thought.'

'A weird thought.'

'Wow.' Snowdrop whispered, staring at them. 'That's so cool.'

'Thanks.' Ash smiled at her, sitting up and curling his tail. 'I've only been like this a little while, barely even a month yet, but it's pretty natural. Plus it's fun to fly around.'

'I bet.' The Vulpix looked a little jealous, but smiled back. 'Thank you for trusting me with this.'

'It would've come out soon enough anyway.' Mew told her. 'We use my powers to make training a bit easier, though we can't do much just in there because sudden massive burst of growth would be a bit suspicious, but even a bit helps and doesn't wreck the landscape when things go over the top.'

'And it lets Mom teach people a lesson in humility.' Crimson and Bolt snickered at the memory of Arch's less than graceful battle against the fake Regirock, while Snowdrop just seemed confused and curious.

'We'll tell you that story later, Snowdrop.' Bolt promised, gesturing to Crimson and himself. 'Or maybe tomorrow, when Mia and Ash talk to the Professor about you.'

'You're talking to someone about me?' There was a little bit of fear in her eyes as she whipped her head around to stare at the two Mew, now hovering just above the bed covers.

'More about Damian than anything else, Snowdrop.' Mew said softly. 'We want to see if we can do anything about him, though we feel like it's probably unlikely we will, we still want to try. Then we want to ask the Professor if he knows anything more about your species, since even I don't know everything and I'm fairly sure that I never did actually create Alolan forms at all.'

'Really?' Crimson asked, head cocked. 'Are you sure?'

'Pretty sure, yeah.' She shrugged. 'So I'd like to know more about that. It's been a long time, I admit, but I'm pretty sure Alola just had normal Pokemon like everywhere else when I left it.'

'Weird.'

'Only a little.' Mew replied, before hovering backwards and transforming back to her disguise, stretching as she did. "Still, I think maybe I should go apologise to Misty and Brock for scaring them, then maybe we should all go to bed. It's been… tiring, today." Ash nodded, transforming as well and letting Bolt up to his shoulder before gently picking Snowdrop up and walking out of the door.

One handed, he took out his own key for the room across the hall and unlocked it, placing both Pokemon on the bed before patting their heads.

"I think I should go with Mia when she goes to speak to the others, so I'll be back in a minute or two. Just stay here, ok?"

'Sure thing, Ash.' Bolt nodded. 'I'll tell Snowdrop here what she can expect. Shouldn't take too long.'

"You do that. No exaggerating things, please." The black-blue haired trainer left the two in the room, shutting the door but not locking it in case they needed to get out, then went back down to the lobby to find Mia already talking lowly to Brock and Misty.

"…and I'm really sorry for how I reacted earlier." She was saying as Ash approached, wincing. "I just… poachers and people who treat their Pokemon poorly really get on my nerves, and I just kinda… snapped."

"I guess that's fair. I think I would've as well, if I'd just been faced with that all of a sudden." Misty replied, looking a bit uncomfortable.

"How come you hate them that much?" Brock asked. "I mean, I like to think that any trainer worth anything would be annoyed at least by it, but that was… something else."

"I… had a bad experience with poachers, once." Mia admitted, ducking her head. "More than one, they were after a rare Pokemon that lives on Faraway… it likes being alone and living in peace, but sometimes it visits villages and stuff, and that's considered good luck, but since the Pokemon's so elusive it caught the attention of some people trying to catch it for its rarity… I got caught up in it all, and a lot of people got hurt before we managed to get them off the islands and into the hands of the police." Brock and Misty winced sympathetically, the red head reaching over to pat her hands, which were folded on the table in front of her.

"I understand that. I don't like Bugs because I got attacked by a Beedrill swarm once. Something managed to drive them off, I don't know what, just something green that vanished as soon as things were safe, but I've never really liked bugs since."

"I feel kinda bad about Dart and Sarie now." Ash admitted, sliding into the seat next to his 'cousin.' "I mean, I knew you didn't like bugs, but I thought it was just the normal thing- y'know, that bugs are creepy and icky, not some big trauma."

"It's fine. I know that as trainers you need to catch lots of Pokemon. I'll just try and take them in small doses."

"Maybe you'll be able to manage ours at some point, since you know they're nice and calm." Mia suggested, cheering slightly.

"Maybe, yeah." Misty looked unsure, but shrugged. "Anyway, what do we do now? It's around seven, so a bit late to keep travelling, and with that storm outside I wouldn't want to be out there anyway."

"I have no idea either." Mia said. "I mean, normally I'd just suggest sleep, but it's really early for that in my opinion. I could try calling Professor Oak now, but I kind of want to leave that for the morning in case the conversation ends up going on really long. Training's out the window, since that requires going outside and…" A crack of lightning flashed outside the building, making them jump. "Well… yeah, that. So I don't really know what else there is to do."

"Some sort of game? Read? I don't know either." Ash shook his head. "Man, this is annoying."

"Thinking about it, we should probably have the Vulpix checked over by Nurse Joy, just to make sure she's ok." Brock put in.

"That might be a good idea, since her old trainer wasn't the nicest." Ash agreed, standing. "She's in my room right now, I'll go and get her. She's been talking to Bolt." Leaving the other three to themselves, he headed back up the stairs again and quickly went to his room, pushing the door open.

'And Mia likes to use her Games for training, but she's always careful not to push us too far, she's really good at figuring out limits for Pokemon and doesn't go past them much.' Bolt was explaining.

'Of course, she pushes a bit, since otherwise we'd get nowhere, but she knows when to stop.' Crimson added, having apparently invited herself in.

"And don't get arrogant, since she'll burst that bubble very quickly." Ash put in, making them jump.

'Oh, hello.' Snowdrop said softly, looking a little nervous.

"Hey, Snowdrop." He greeted her, kneeling down. "I hope these two haven't been scaring you?"

'I- no. I mean, I'm a bit worried I won't be able to match up to the others you have, but I'm ok.' Ash nodded.

"That's ok. You're not expected to match up to the others; they're a bit more experienced, have a bit more training, and everyone's better at different things. Just being able to hold your own is fine, since I won't put you up for any important battles until I think you're ready for that sort of pressure." Snowdrop looked more confident at that, making Ash put a hand on her head and continue, "Now, I'm gonna take you downstairs and hand you over to Nurse Joy, who'll make sure you're all healthy and ready to start training with us as soon as we can manage it. Normally Mia would just heal you herself, but it's better to have some sort of record in case there's any problems in the future, and Nurse Joy's qualified for that."

'Umm. Ok, I guess.' Snowdrop looked worried again, chewing softly at her lip, and Bolt put a paw on her back again to comfort her.

'If you'd like, I'll come with you.' He offered quickly, making her turn to look at him. 'It's nothing bad, honestly, the Nurse is pretty nice and the Chansey they have tend to be cheerful, if a bit rambley sometimes about what's going on. They're right gossips sometimes, though I think it's just to keep your mind of scans and stuff, since most Pokemon don't like them even though they're nothing much.'

'The Chansey are fun, though.' Crimson opined, reaching up to add her paw to the pile. 'And I'll come too. Might as well, saves us from getting checked over in the morning with the rest of the teams.'

'Oh. Ok.' Snowdrop looked up at Ash. 'Is that ok?'

"Course it is. I don't have a problem with Bolt being looked at tonight instead of tomorrow, it'll just mean he has to sit with us as we chat with Professor Oak, and Crimson's welcome to go as well, I don't think Mia'll complain." Ash shrugged, mentally reaching out to the Mew as he spoke. 'Hey Mia?'

'Yeah?'

'I'm taking Snowdrop in for a checkup, but she's nervous about it. Bolt and Crimson have volunteered to go in with her as support, Crimson wants to make sure that's ok with you?'

'Of course it is!' Mia sounded slightly offended that her Charmander had even felt the need to ask. 'The poor little girl's been upset, so of course she can go with her to make sure she's alright.'

'Thanks, Mia. I told Crimson you wouldn't care, but Snowdrop wanted to check to make sure Crimson didn't get in trouble.'

'Oh, that's nice of her. Tell them it's fine, then bring them down. Make sure you explain our suspicions to Joy, please, Ash.'

'I will.' Smiling and pushing himself up, he offered Bolt his normal perch before lifting Snowdrop in his arms again, Crimson following a step behind as they all left the room, Ash locking the door behind them this time. "Alright, let's drop you all off with Joy. We'll be waiting over at the side somewhere for you, ok, and Joy'll call if there's any trouble." Psychically speaking to Bolt and Crimson, he added, 'Get Chansey to come to me and Mia if anything goes really wrong, or get Joy to do it. Like if Snowdrop starts panicking badly or something, ok?' Bolt nodded slightly, while Crimson brushed a claw against his leg. 'Thanks, you two.'

Nodding over to the group of three at the table as he came down, spotting Misty and Mia in deep conversation while looking at something on Brock's computer, while Brock sat back and listened, probably adding his own points on occasion, Ash walked past them and over to the desk, where the pink haired nurse and her Chansey were sitting.

"Hello, Nurse Joy."

"Hello there, what seems to be the problem?"

"I'd like you to give these three a check up, please." Ash requested, putting Snowdrop on the desk and crouching to lift Crimson up, letting Bolt jump down on his own. "Mostly Snowdrop here, but the other two need one as well."

"Of course." Joy gave him a strange look as Chansey came over with a trolley. Bolt and Crimson jumped onto it, making it shake slightly, then the Charmander looked back at Snowdrop.

'C'mon, it's safe. Here, let me help you.' Holding out her hand, she carefully assisted the very nervous Pokemon onto the trolley, with Chansey keeping the cart from moving too much as she stepped on. Joy watched this with interest, then nodded to Chansey. Chansey nodded back, smiling.

'Alright then, dearies, off we go. Hold on, please, it can be a bit worrying the first few times and I wouldn't want you falling off at all. That wouldn't be nice, after all.'

'Don't worry, Snowdrop, it's pretty fun once you're used to it.' Bolt assured her, as Chansey began pushing the cart into the back room.

As soon as they had gone through the door, Joy leaned forward. "Why mostly that Pokemon?"

"She's apparently an Alolan Vulpix, which is something I've never heard of. We found her outside on a rock, alone, earlier. She said she was waiting for her trainer to come back, who'd left her there while he went to do some personal things." From the way Joy's face darkened, Ash figured she'd gotten the message. "I don't know much else, but I get the feeling that her trainer wasn't exactly nice."

"I see…" She muttered. "Any idea who it was?"

"I just know his name's Damian. Nothing else, sorry."

"That's ok." Joy sighed, looking back into the room.

"She's a bit shy, and she's the only one who needs checking, but she was nervous, so Bolt and Crimson volunteered to go in with her to show that it's nothing special or worrying." Ash added. "My cousin and I plan on calling Professor Oak tomorrow, to see if he has anything about her trainer in his system."

"That's a good idea." Joy smiled. "I'll make sure to check her over carefully, then."

"Thank you. Call for me or Mia if there's any problems, please? And I've told both Bolt and Crimson to keep an eye out, and to signal for Chansey if they notice something's wrong that she isn't showing properly or is actually hiding." Joy bit her lip, nodding.

"Certainly." The nurse vanished into the back room, leaving Ash to head back over to his group.

"Hi, Ash." Mia muttered to him as he sat down. "Is everything ok?"

"Yeah. Snowdrop was nervous, so Bolt and Crimson volunteered to go in with her as comfort, and I told Joy about everything. If something happens and something's wrong, she'll call one of us over." He explained quickly, most for the benefit of the two humans there. "Hopefully everything'll be ok, but…"

"You have a bad feeling?" Brock guessed.

"A bit of one, yeah. I've had it for a while… since we left Cerulean earlier, at the very least. Maybe longer and I just hadn't noticed." Mia put an arm around his shoulder.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, cousin." She said lightly. "Now, come here and join us in looking at different rumours about Pokemon."

"Why?"

"Misty was wondering what on earth could've been involved in that Beedrill thing, now she's brought it up again, so we thought it might be fun to look up rare Pokemon and speculate about what it might be."

"Turns out that 'small, green, can vanish easily' is a very wide category of possible Pokemon." Misty grinned. "And that's excluding the possibility of it being one of those alternate coloured Pokemon that show up sometimes in rare cases."

"Still, it's been interesting. I didn't even realise there were so many green Pokemon in the world." Mia commented.

"Well, let's see, then. What's the suggestion now?" Soon the three of them were in a soft debate about the possibility of the Pokemon having been a Treecko, which they ended up dismissing on the merits of it likely not being strong enough alone to fight off a Beedrill swarm without being hurt badly, and the fact that it was extremely rare in Kanto.

Looking up from the computer, which was displaying a blurry image of a Rayquaza, at the sound of his name being called, Ash excused himself from their little game to go and collect his Pokemon from Nurse Joy. Mia and Misty let him go with barely a word, still laughing to themselves about the fact that they'd even put Rayquaza on the list they were considering, but Brock stood up and trailed along after him, apparently amused by the girls but more interested in what was going on with Snowdrop.

"Here are your Pokemon back." Joy smiled, as Bolt and Crimson jumped off the cart and turned to help Snowdrop step off. She seemed a bit shaky and nervous, Ash noticed, and there was a glint in her eyes that made him suspect that there were tears. "Your Pikachu and Charmander are completely healthy-"

"That's good. Would you three like to go over to Mia and Misty? They're playing a guessing game right now."

'Really?' Bolt raised an eyebrow. 'Sure, sounds interesting. C'mon, you two, let's go!' Bolt immediately leapt off the desk, making Crimson roll her eyes and Snowdrop look startled. Ash took pity on the two, lifting them off one by one and letting them run over to the girls, Bolt planting himself on Misty's lap while Crimson climbed into Mia's, folding her tail into her chest as she did. Snowdrop looked unsure, so Misty lifted her gently onto the seat between them and adjusted things so that the three Pokemon could see as well, before going back to her conversation with Mia.

"Mostly that Vulpix of yours is miserable. There's not much else wrong with her, though there's some signs of not really being fed properly for the type of Pokemon she is; I think that's more likely to just be unawareness of the Pokemon's needs more than actual withholding of food as a punishment or something, given the signs, but you can't ever really tell unless she talks about it." Joy told them, lowering her voice slightly. "Some signs of damage that wasn't completely healed, but it looks more like battle damage than abuse."

"Unless Pokemon were used to do the abusing." Brock said darkly.

"That could always be the case." She agreed sadly. "I think, though, that for the most part she's simply upset at being abandoned, and probably will have some issues because of that for a while. She might be clingy, and very quiet, so just make her feel included and try not to get annoyed with her if she stays close to you."

"We won't." Ash nodded. "Thank you."

"It's no problem. I'll try and keep an eye out for her former trainer, though that might be difficult."

"If Professor Oak has him on record, I could ask if he could tell you to try and help." Ash offered.

"That would be good, if you could." The nurse smiled, raising her voice back to normal. "Do you need anything else?"

"No thank you." Ash smiled in return, and he and Brock went back over to their seats, where the girls were still debating. All three of the Pokemon were listening, Crimson and Bolt occasionally adding in something that Mia translated to Misty, though Snowdrop was silent and just watching. "Having fun?"

"Yeah." Misty smiled. Both girls looked as if they wanted to ask what Joy had said to them, but seemed to know that it wasn't something they'd really want to bring up in front of Snowdrop herself. "We're pretty sure it wasn't a Rayquaza, though." Ash and Brock snorted.

"I doubt it'd be hard to mistake it." Ash mused, sitting down next to Mia on the end of the seat. At once, Snowdrop jumped off her chair and came around to Ash's side, then stood a little awkwardly at his side. Taking pity on her, he reached down and lifted her into his lap, patting her on the head as he did. She squeaked a little in surprise, then carefully curled up in a ball and looked at him, as if she was expecting to be told off for doing something wrong. He just smiled at her, resting a hand on her back and leaning back into conversation about green Pokemon.

Nearly two hours later, when the excitement of the day finally caught up with them and they all began yawning, they shut off the laptop and handed it back to Brock with a word of thanks, before slowly moving the Pokemon out of their laps and standing. Crimson and Bolt were half asleep, the Charmander dozing with her tail in her hands, held up to her chest to make sure she didn't burn anything, while Bolt blinked awake blearily and looked around. Figuring out that they were going somewhere, he gestured over to Ash, making the boy walk over so he could climb tiredly to his shoulder.

Snowdrop, however, bolted straight awake, looking around nervously before realising where she was and relaxing again. Mia exchanged a significant look with Ash, and he nodded slightly.

"C'mon, Snowdrop, time for bed. Would you rather stay out overnight, or go into your Pokeball?"

'I can stay out?' She blurted, surprised. 'I'd like that, if you don't mind.'

"I wouldn't've offered if I had a problem with it, Snowdrop." Ash smiled, shifting her in his arms. "C'mon, we all need some sleep after the day we've just had."

"It has been busy, hasn't it?" Misty commented, yawning. "So, tomorrow we do team introductions, or something?"

"Probably, yeah." Mia nodded. "Introduce Snowdrop here to everyone, bring Fushin out to meet them, and your Oddish as well. I don't think we should do too much tomorrow, since we've been so busy today."

"Won't that mess up your schedule?" Mia shrugged slightly.

"Maybe, but we're already a bit behind. Maybe we can just take a car or use a shortcut or something." She yawned widely. "I don't really mind right now, let's just get to sleep so my brain can come back for tomorrow when we talk to Professor Oak."

"Sounds like a plan to me. Goodnight, guys." Various wishes of goodnight came from the other three, and Ash carefully opened the door to his room and wandered to the bed, putting both Pokemon down. Bolt almost immediately curled up and went back to sleep, making sure Ash wouldn't have trouble slipping in next to him, but Snowdrop lay there alertly watching as he shut and locked the door, before reaching into his bag and heading for the bathroom. "I'll be back in a minute, Snowdrop. Feel free to go to sleep before me, I'll be fine."

'Ok.' Despite her reply, she was still awake and watching the door to the bathroom when it opened ten minutes later, making Ash sigh.

"I'm not going to slip out of the window and vanish, you know." He told her gently, slipping into the bed. He had to carefully shift the little Vulpix, since she was in the way, and placed her next to Bolt. "C'mon, try and get some sleep, ok? I'll be right here when you wake up, Bolt'll still he here sleeping, and the other's will be just down the hall."

'…alright.' Ash kept his eyes open, resting his hand on Snowdrop's back, until her own eyes started to droop and close, finally giving in to her exhaustion. Ash sighed a little in relief, relaxing as well.

The next morning, Ash woke up slowly, feeling a pressure curled against his chest. Confused, he blinked awake, then raised an eyebrow when he saw Snowdrop cuddled up to him in a tiny ball, her chest rising and falling softly. Containing a snort, Ash let out the grin instead before reaching for the clock on the side with his Psychic.

Nine o'clock. Alright, I'll let these two sleep a bit more, I guess. Thinking for a moment, Ash shifted backwards out of the bed, trying not to wake his Pokemon, before heading for the bathroom with his bag.

When he came back, Bolt was still sleeping soundly, while Snowdrop was lying there with her head raised, looking around with bleary eyes at the room.

"Hey, Snowdrop." Ash whispered, adjusting his shirt. "What's up?"

'I woke up and you were gone.' She replied quietly, still looking around oddly. 'I was worried.'

"Sorry, Snowdrop. I woke up and you two were still asleep, so I thought I'd let you stay asleep for a bit longer."

'Oh. Ok, then.' She looked down, embarrassed.

"Want to help me wake up Bolt?" Ash asked, only for her to shake her head.

'No… no thanks.' Snowdrop carefully stood and walked to the edge of the bed, jumping off before running around to hide behind Ash. The hybrid blinked, confused, then shrugged it off and poked the Electric type with his powers. A few pokes later, and Bolt gave an irritated murmur, batting at nothing and rolling over-

Only to fall straight off the edge, since Ash's pokes had placed him there.

Snowdrop gasped, Ash chuckled, and Bolt groaned before rolling onto his back again, rubbing his nose.

'Ow.'

"I still can't believe you fell for that again."

'Shut up, Ash.' Bolt snapped. 'That hurts, you know.'

"Oh, Mom could fix it in a second, Bolt, stop complaining." He grinned, leaning down even so to pick him up. "If you didn't sleep so heavily, and didn't try to zap whoever woke you up, I wouldn't do it so often."

'Yeah, yeah.' Bolt rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. 'Anyway, what time is it? I don't wake up after you that often, after all.'

"Nine fifteen." Ash told him, holding him on his shoulder for the moment while he got his balance. "I woke up at nine, basically, so I figured I'd let you both sleep in. It would've been longer, but Snowdrop had woken up when I came back in, so I decided we should all get up instead."

'Oh. Alright, then. Is anyone else awake?'

"Well, at the very least, Nurse Joy has to be in case someone comes in with a Pokemon that needs help, Mia's probably awake because she likes to get up early, and I don't know about Brock or Misty."

'Fair enough.' Bolt yawned, shaking his head. 'Are you gonna drop the rest of the team off with Nurse Joy, then?'

"Yeah, and so will Mia." Ash crouched down, lifting Snowdrop into his arms again. "Professor Oak should be awake as well, since he has to get up early to look after the Pokemon at the lab, so we could probably call him as soon as we've left the rest of the team with Nurse Joy."

'Alright, then.' With both Pokemon secured and his bag on his back, Ash left and locked the room, heading straight down to the lobby and smiled at the Nurse.

"Hi, Nurse Joy. Would you mind looking over the rest of my team for me? I think my cousin and the others are going to be down in a bit, and they'll probably want to do the same."

"That's no problem." Joy smiled, before looking down at Snowdrop. "And how's this girl doing?"

"She's ok. Slept a lot, and was a bit confused when she woke up, but she's fine." Snowdrop and Bolt looked a little confused, but Joy just patted the Vulpix on the head as Ash put her on the desk, freeing up his hands to unclip the two Pokeballs from his belt.

"That's good to hear."

"Yeah, it is." Mia put in, suddenly popping up behind her 'cousin' and making him jump. The pink haired girl already had three Pokeballs in her hands, and Crimson was walking calmly beside her. "Hi Ash, Bolt, Snowdrop, Nurse Joy."

"Hi, Mia." Ash replied, a moment later. "Good morning to you too."

"Thanks." Placing all three of her Pokeballs on the desk, she walked around pat Snowdrop on the head. "I'm glad to know that you're doing ok, Snowdrop. Nurse Joy, would you mind giving my other three a look over, and can we use the phone to talk with Professor Oak?"

"Of course you can. The phone's are over there in that corner, I'm sure you know how to use them, and I'll have your Pokemon back to you in just a few minutes." Chansey popped up at Joy's side again with a trolley, waiting for her partner to put the Pokeballs onto it.

'Hello again dearies. I hope you three are all ok?' She asked, looking up at them- Crimson had carefully scaled the side of the desk to be nearer Snowdrop.

'We're ok, thanks.' The Charmander replied. 'And thank you for the help yesterday.'

'I'm just doing my job, is all.' She smiled brightly. 'Enjoy yourselves, and don't get into too much trouble now.'

'We won't.' Bolt promised.

'Well, unless our trainers get dragged into something.' Crimson added. 'Then I suppose it's all fair.'

'Keep your trainers out of trouble, too, then.'

'That's an impossible task, but we can always try.' Mia gave her Pokemon a mock glare, hefting her into her arms with a sigh.

"Alright, you, keep being nasty why don't you." She pushed down a laugh. "C'mon, Ash, let's go call Professor Oak."

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Picking up Snowdrop again, he smiled at Joy and followed his 'cousin' over to the phone booths. Mia was already starting things, leaving Ash to just slide into the seat next to her and wait.

"Hello, Professor Oak!" Mia said, waving. Crimson did the same, standing up in Mia's lap so she could see properly, while Ash and Bolt just smiled; Bolt with some embarrassment, remembering how he'd behaved for this particular human.

"Hello there Mia." He waved back, then catching sight of Ash. "Oh! And Ash as well. I didn't know the two of you were travelling together."

"Yeah, it was sort of a happy accident." Ash told him, leaning over. "We ran into Mia a little while after we'd left Pallet Town. Turns out I knew her, though I didn't realise it when you mentioned her before, Professor."

"I'm Ash's cousin." Mia explained. "We've met before, kinda a lot, one some of the holidays Ash and Aunt Delia were on. When we realised, we started travelling together."

"Well, that is a co-incidence!" Oak chuckled. "And how are your journey's doing?"

"We've both got two badges now, and we're on our way to Vermilion for the third." Ash told him. "We've ended up in a group with a couple of others- they're gym leaders, actually, or former ones."

"Misty's technically on a year-long training trip with someone from the League looking after the gym until she gets back, and Brock's dad's taken over the gym for him, since he never really wanted to be a trainer anyway." Mia added. "They're nice, Misty's fun to talk to and Brock's better with a map than either of us, so it's working out well." Oak laughed.

"Ah, I can see how that'd help. And having more experienced trainers, even if they aren't that much more experienced than you, will certainly help you become better trainers yourselves."

"We hope so too, Professor."

"Anyway, though, we need some help." Mia sighed, jumping in. "Yesterday, Misty found a Pokemon that none of us recognised. The Pokedex said it was a Vulpix, in something called an Alolan form. Ash has her now, her name's Snowdrop, but she'd been abandoned by her trainer on a rock, which is where we found her." Mia's face had shifted with rage at the statement, and Oak also looked a mix of furious and intrigued.

"I see. An Alolan form… and how did you find out about her being abandoned?"

"Ash overheard the boy bragging about it and went to go and get her. We'd left her there before just in case we were wrong, but…" Mia shrugged miserably, reaching over to pat Snowdrop's head.

"I see. What's this trainer's name?"

"All we know is that he's called Damian. Apparently he's in the League, but we don't know anything more than that and Snowdrop can't tell us either."

"I'll have to look into that soon, then." The Professor said, looking annoyed.

"Thank you, Professor."

"We were also wondering if you could tell us anything about Alolan forms?" Ash asked. "Since we don't know anything about them, we thought that you might be able to help us."

"Of course, my boy! Just give me a moment…" The five of them waited while the Professor did something on another computer monitor. "So, an Alolan Vulpix… they're Ice and Fairy types, and evolve using something called an Ice Stone. They're quite similar to Vulpix, but obviously they learn very different moves to them. Most of them have the ability Snow Cloak, though some have Snow Warning instead… and of course, they're very rare to see outside of Alola itself. I'll have to make contact with one of my fellow Professors and see if I can get an upgrade for both of your Pokedex's to include Alolan forms in the database it can access. I didn't bother before since I didn't expect for you to find one at all unless you went to Alola, but I'll make that correction since you've found Snowdrop there." Oak paused. "Is she with you now?"

"Yeah, I've got her here." Ash nodded, carefully lifting her up and out of the nervous ball she'd been in to look at the camera. "Snowdrop, say hi to Professor Oak, will you?"

'Um… hello.' She whispered, half lifting her paw in a wave.

"Snowdrop, Professor Oak looks after Pokemon in his lab for trainers when they have too many with them. This lets them move their team around to be able to work with all the Pokemon they've caught." Mia explained to her gently. "At some point, you might end up going back there. I promise we won't leave you there and forget about you, but it'd be a good way to make a few more friends too, ok?"

'I… yeah. I understand.' Snowdrop looked a bit upset, but nodded. Mia looked back to see Oak watching curiously, but before she could say anything Misty appeared over their shoulders, making them jump slightly.

"Oh, hi Misty." Ash said, looking at her.

"Hi Ash, hi Mia. How's Snowdrop doing?" The Water type trainer looked down at the Vulpix, smiling a little.

'I'm ok.' While she didn't understand the exact words, Misty got the gist, reaching over to pat her on the head.

"That's good." Glancing between Ash and Mia for a moment, she asked awkwardly, "Hey, when you two're done, could I speak with Professor Oak for a few minutes?"

"Sure. You can now, actually, we're done-"

"And I think Nurse Joy's finished with our team." Mia finished, sliding to one side and standing, holding Crimson in her arms. Ash followed her with Snowdrop, still half balled up, and the redhead smiled.

"Thanks." She sat down as the two left, greeting the Professor quietly.

"Hi, Nurse Joy." Ash said.

"Hello again." She replied. "Finished your conversation?"

"Yeah, pretty much. We just need to wait for Misty to finish whatever she wants, then Brock to come down, and we'll be leaving." The two traded their keys for their Pokemon back, clipping them onto their belts.

"Good luck, then. Your Pokemon are in wonderful condition, so make sure you look after them." Joy gave Snowdrop a slight look, which Ash nodded to.

"We will, don't worry." Picking up their Pokemon again, the two smiled at Joy, then headed away from the desk.

"Hey, you two." Brock said, joining them in the lobby.

"Morning, Brock." Mia smiled. "Any idea why Misty wanted to talk to the Professor?"

"She does?" The taller teen shrugged. "I didn't even know. Are you going to ask her?"

"Might as well, we need to say goodbye to the Professor anyway." The three went and joined the girl again, listening to the end over the short conversation.

"Well, I can arrange for it to be delivered to Vermilion in a couple of days, if I do things now. Would you be able to pick it up from there?"

"That's… probably fine." Misty looked up at Mia. "Think we can afford to spend a little more time in Vermilion to wait?"

"Eh, we're already a bit off schedule, so I think we can afford a couple of days if we want to." Mia nodded. "I set up the original plan with plenty of room to take long breaks, or if things went wrong and we needed to stop, or to let us do other things than just get gym badges. This is a journey for fun just as much as it is for the League, after all."

"Alright, then." Oak said approvingly. "I'll send the package to Vermilion Pokemon Centre, and it'll hopefully be waiting for you there. Or you'll wait for it, I suppose."

"Thank you so much, Professor." Misty beamed. "Would I be able to send Pokemon to your lab if I end up with too many? I don't want to send them back to the gym and annoy the substitute there."

"That's not a problem either, Misty. I'll arrange for that once you've gotten your Pokedex from the Joy in Vermilion. Just call me again to say that you have it, and I'll set it all up."

"Thanks."

"Is that all?"

"Yeah. Seeya, Professor!"

"Goodbye, Mia. Keep up the good work, I'm sure you'll see many interesting Pokemon while you're travelling."

"I hope so." Ash grinned. "Bye, Professor." Mia reached over Misty's shoulder and ended the call, waving as she did, then looked at Misty.

"So, you're getting a Pokedex?"

"Yeah." Misty blushed slightly, standing. "I thought it might be useful. I mean, I came across a lot of Pokemon while travelling on my own, and I recognised them all, but this thing with Oddish showed me that I don't really know very much about them. I figured it might help me be able to raise them better- plus it might help me with learning more about Staryu and Starmie, as well."

"Always a good idea to learn more about things you aren't sure about, and to be able to admit you have a weak point even though you've been working with someone for a long time." Mia nodded wisely. "Actually, thinking about it, you mentioned teaching Starmie telepathy?"

"Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about that. Can we do it, do you think?"

"I don't see why not, it's a Psychic type after all. I admit I have no idea how to do it, but we probably can, if we try."

"Maybe just thinking really hard about talking?" Ash joked, as they walked out the building.

"For all I know, that'll work." Mia shrugged. "Might as well try it, when we've got some time."

"Let's try making a bit of headway towards Vermilion first." Brock suggested. "Since you've said repeatedly that we're far behind."

"Fair enough. Forward!" Mia took off at a run, pointing, making the group chuckle slightly before following after her.

AN: Alright! So, thanks for hanging with us during that stupidly long break.

P: We'd like to apologise for that, but also give a warning;

T: Update's are going to be infrequent and messy, due to Shadow's actual life getting in the way of things.

K: Hopefully someday we'll be able to get back onto an actual schedule again, but unfortunately for now thing's are gonna be a mess.

SV: I'm also gonna be focusing on A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm, the Worm/Pokemon crossover I started in September last, since hopefully that'll be shorter, so I can get it finished sooner.

K: That's not to say this, New Beginnings Second Start, and Guardians of Power won't be updating as well, but probably less frequently.

SV: Sorry about that, but that's how it falls. Thanks for stopping around, and we hope you stay here. Seeya all next time!