PLEASE READ THIS: This story is undergoing MAJOR EDITING

Disclaimer:I don't own Pokemon, the video games, anime, merchandise or any of the characters involved.

Genre: Adventure/Romance

Sub genre: Humor/Drama

Rated: M (for coarse language, suggestive themes, and alcohol)

Main pairings: pokeshipping, rocketshipping, contestshipping

Minor pairings: wishfulshipping, handymanshipping, cavaliershipping and Ikarishipping

All characters have been aged appropriately.

A Sequel to Spitfire...

Equanimity, Chapter 1

Since the beginning, when Ash set out on his journey eight years ago, his life had been fairly simple: travel, train, battle. He worked hard, he trained hard, and the rewards were always worth it. With his victory in Kalos marking his first real step to becoming a pokemon master, he felt like his goal was truly, finally, within reach for the first time since he started his journey at ten.

For once, he stood in the center of the victory circle, signed his name and pokemon team among the long list of champions before him, and took his rightful place as a league champion of the Kalos League.

Ash Ketchum-a nobody from pallet town, five-times runner up, winner of one unofficial league-turned league champion. Needless to say, he was an inspiration to all who watched him grow. An effigy of hope for starting trainers who struggled, for anyone with a brutal rival, and for all who failed time and time again.

He was the underdog, like many of the pokemon he helped along his journey, who finally made it.

Victory was sweet and well deserved, and he had yet to meet anyone who said he didn't deserve the title of champion, including Alain, who he had a rematch with to obtain the title. Ash earned it. Through blood and sweat, and probably a thousand tears, he earned his place among the table of champions.

When Ash was young, he thought that was it, that was his final task; reaching the point of champion would make him a pokemon master! Yet, it wasn't quite that simple. At the age of eighteen, Ash still had a lot to learn, many trainers to defeat, and none of that was offered by the league any longer.

Ash finally stood as a champion, but it was both a blessing, and a curse that didn't come without sacrifices, only he was late to late realize it, and probably in some level of denial. After all, how could his entire pokemon journey and motivation come to a head, only to completely restart? That couldn't happen. Only after winning the title of league champion, the path he followed was no longer one, straight and narrow path, but a system of sharp turns with a hundred runoffs into every direction. Did he stay, did he go?

Life wasn't as simple as travel, train, battle.

As glorious as the moment was when he took his spot upon the throne, his small world finally cracked, and the rest of the world flooded in around him piece by piece.

Initially, it started with his victory, a little under three weeks ago. Getting a rematch with Alain was easy enough after defeated Team Flame, but the event was hindered by a kiss from his traveling companion, Serena. The long, simple life led by optimistic Ash Ketchum, crashed into a never-ending roller coaster of emotions, thoughts, and frustration.

He slipped from that straight and narrow path.

His list grew longer that day: Travel, train, battle, think.

And he thought a lot about the incident since it occurred. He thought even more about it when the events led to a celebration party a few days later at his house in Pallet Town, which threw him further into the abyss of the never-ending roller coaster. Especially since thinking long and hard about situations wasn't his strongest feature.

Ash never realized before how complicated and fragile his friend's emotions could be; how fragile his own could be. He went through many trials with the support of his former traveling companions; his friends. Each stood by his side for years, encouraging him to always do better, and when he had finally won, they were all there to support him.

Unfortunately, when life threw together a horde of hormonal teenagers, emotions were dynamite, and Ash was the match. He didn't mean to set off the explosive reaction that eventually led to a very short-lived relationship with Serena—if he could even have called it that—and the complications his friends now suffered from it.

When Serena kissed him at the end of his victorious battle, Ash's world opened to many new experiences, but none of which he was ready for. Even now, he would argue he still wasn't ready, but then something small, something unexpected, changed all of that.

The return of Misty.

At first, it was like they were kids again, making jokes, bickering like they used to, and celebrating. In the beginning, though, he never knew about any of her feelings before they came to a head at the witness of his good friends Dawn and May; but hearing it jarred something long settled in the boy, and his list grew once more.

Travel, train, battle, think love.

He fell in love with this hurricane of a woman who came back into his life like a storm in the middle of a heatwave to settle the flames. The feeling hadn't been new, hadn't even come as a surprise—not really anyways. Ash had loved her a long time, they were best friends, but he had forgotten how much that friendship meant.

Events clashed, and in the end, she had still been standing there as strong and unwavering as always; his best friend became his girlfriend.

...still, the roller coaster never stopped., if anything. It started going faster.

The fracture in his dome had only spider-webbed when the bubble he buried himself into burst, thus sending the simple-life trainer into a spiral of unknown territory. Ash was there now, staring directly into the full spectrum of life's beady, red eyes.

Ash Ketchum, the underdog, the champion, had a great deal of responsibility now. His victory wasn't just media reports and excitement. He had duties, and no lack of them insight. As the league-proclaimed him as a hero and the 'greatest trainer' in the region, he was never short on tournaments to observe, meetings to attend, and new regulations to adhere to. The top trainer of the league, the official second in command, league champion, had obligations he could only barely understand, and now his personal life had taken him in a direction completely outside of battling.

So he had a relationship and a job he had no idea about. Things were looking up, if he was at the bottom of the ocean, already drowning.

Misty was wonderful—at least he hoped. They had only been together a day before their respectful positions separated them. Before that, they hadn't really spoken in four years, while he loved her, he was awestruck to understand why. Misty, a gym leader of the Kanto region, and he was the champion of a league that was nearly 2,000 miles away from the redhead. They hadn't had any time together, and Ash would be lying if he said that hadn't terrified him. What if three days hadn't been enough to reconcile whatever issues they had? What if more than friends was a dangerous rope to walk so close to responsibilities?

Job positions, battling, training aside, they agreed to meet whenever possible—but such a thing was made complicated by several aspects of their lives that did not revolve around pokemon.

The main issue? Ash had no idea what he was doing, or what was excepted of him for either new obligation. For many years he had been a traveler, a battler, and now he was... something else completely.

From his seat in the second-floor pokemon center, staring out into the marina of Coumarine City, he scratched the side of his face as Pikachu hummed silently in his sleep. Waiting for Misty to arrive on their previously scheduled date, Ash envied the small rodent; sleep didn't come easy anymore, he had too many thoughts in his once unoccupied brain.

"...Ah, what am I gonna do now?" Ash muttered, laying his head back as the sound of his new fangirls screamed up at him.

Now that the dust was settling, that Ash was finally staring at the thing called 'growing up' directly in the face, he was only plagued by more questions, more problems, and more emotions.

Ash was a young adult, supporting himself in the ever-growing, ever-expanding world. When he was little, hell, even a few days ago, he thought he would chase his dreams for the rest of his life—pushing into a never-ending cycle of adventures. Yet, life wasn't so simple anymore, and it never would be again. There weren't paths to follow, or guidelines to live by. He was plunged into eternal darkness, and while he was happy about winning, about his newfound courtship, about his friends, and training, something deep-rooted inside of his chest felt amiss. Partly because he wasn't ready? Maybe because he was afraid of failure? Those things never scared him before, Ash ran headfirst into every challenged, prepared to win, or prepared to lose. Fear was not in his vocabulary. But something was different.

Everything changed, and it all started with a kiss.

Author's Note:

I edited my already edited chapter 1, look at me. Being so practical.

Turns out after I read this one, I actually enjoyed it enough that I didn't change too much about it.

Something to mention though, this story was originally started before XYZ ended, so there are some continuity issues I'm going to rectify. If you're just starting this story as of 2018, lol. PLEASE BARE WITH ME.

This goes back and forth for a while in the story, (To the extent of being confusing) So I want to clear this up here. The way I see things working in this universe is simply winning the league doesn't make you the final champion. I have dictated poorly throughout this story that winning the league makes you the League Champion, not the Regional champion. To become the regional champion, a trainer would have to defeat the Elite Four, like in the games, which is where some of the problems arise later in the story, that wasn't properly highlighted before. Ash hasn't challenged the Elite Four of the Kalos region and therefore is only a league champion. Typically, it would be easy enough to fix this, but then I would have to edit all of Spitfire, that did not include Ash battling the Elite Four. So, Ash is a League Champion. Not a Regional Champion.

I've already said this on my profile, but I need to edit this before I can continue to move forward. There is so much about the first 25ish chapters that I need to fix before I can be comfortable moving on with the story. I'm trying my best. Lol.

As my typical disclaimer—I write my stories for myself and if other people like them—AWESOME. So, while you may or may not agree with everything that I do, please respect me, and I'll respect you. That being said, if for some reason down the line you lose interest in this story (if you haven't already, lol) Leave me a review so that I can clarify/justify specific plot points that may have deterred you. I cannot change this, but it helps me improve as a writer. Thank you in advance.

NINT