A Courageous Heart

Chapter 7

-Ash-

"Alright, Vulpix, use flamethrower!" Ash called out to his team as they trained in a field outside of Pewter, having stuck around for the past three days even after he'd won his gym badge as Mr. Razzo still had his business in the city to take care of. "Good work buddy! Keep it up and try to increase the size of the flamethrower!"

"Pix!" Vulpix cried out, shaking slightly as the small fire type worked to increase its flamethrower.

"Good work pall. I want you to keep that up. Work to get the flamethrower bigger and once you get it to go up work to maintain it at that size." Ash praised his fire starter, stroking the soft golden fur as the multiple tails wiggled happily. "I'm going to go get the others started but holler if you need anything." With that, Ash walked a bit away to let out Nidorino.

"Rino!" the bulky poison type roared out, ready and eager to train.

"Good to see you too pal." Ash grinned, scratching the poison type's ear as a muscled leg repeatedly smacked against the ground in response. "Alright, for you I want to work on your speed and stamina. You're pretty bulky now and when you evolve you'll be even bigger, get armor, and the ground type so we should get started early. I want you to run laps around the clearing. Run two laps then walk two to cool down, Mallow will time you on your running. I want you to not slow down during the run if you can help it and the goal is to improve how long you go without slowing during the laps and to improve the final time. Make sense buddy?"

"Rino!" Nidorino nodded, nuzzling him before bounding over to Mallow who waited with a stopwatch. Pulling out his last two pokeballs, Ash called out Jolteon and Meowth as the two tilted their heads up at him while Ash clutched his wrist tightly.

"Alright you two." Ash nodded to them, keeping his gaze on Jolteon till he was forced to look away, thankfully noting he managed to last a second or two longer than last time. "Meowth, you showed me what moves you knew yesterday so I want you to work on Payday some more." Ash paused to consider "Maybe once you get it you can work on shaping the metal the move makes into something besides a coin shape."

"Meow!" Meowth nodded happily before going to practice the move on some rocks.

Gulping, Ash steeled his nerves and turned back to Jolteon who was shuffling about somewhat awkwardly "A-alright Jolteon." Ash forced himself to swallow as he looked the electric type in the eye "Today I'm going to work on being able to…" Ash grimaced as he broke eye contact, stopping talking as he took a few deep breaths before turning back to the patient Pokémon "being able to work together."

"Eon!" Jolteon nodded determined, the electric type having been patient, and understanding, and loyal through their whole partnership, despite how hard Ash knew he must be for Jolteon to put up with.

"Thank you Jolteon." Ash whispered softly as he looked down at the pale wrist, seeing his limbs shake "Thank you for being so patient with me. I…I'm sorry I haven't…" As grit his teeth, feeling ashamed that he had yet to bond with Jolteon like he had Vulpix and Nidorino, all because whenever he saw the electric yellow fur he thought back to that damn rat again, his scars throbbed with phantom agony, all while an innocent Pokémon looked at him with wide hopeful eyes, just wanting to be his friend.

The rest of the morning passed easily enough as the group trained, Mallow even joining in by doing some mock battles Meowth when Nidorino needed a rest from all the stamina training. Vulpix had managed to make his flamethrower a bit bigger while Nidorino had put in a lot of work on his stamina. Meowth was making solid progress on Pay day, although he'd ask Bast later if she could help. But the part that Ash was the proudest of was that he had been able to improve his situation with Jolteon, actually reaching out and initiating contact himself while managing to not look away. Granted it was only for a few seconds, but he was still proud of the achievement.

He was helping Mallow make lunch when his traveling partner cried out, "Ash! Your egg!" his head snapping towards their bags, he saw the egg container starting to glow with a brilliant light. Running over, Ash pulled out the tube and removed the egg, his team and Mallow standing back to make sure the baby Pokémon inside saw Ash first to imprint on him. The eggs glow grew brighter as cracks spread before, finally, the shards fell away to reveal a little blue and black bird, its round body completely unlike that of the spearow that had mauled him.

"Rookidee!" the little bird cheered happily, flapping up onto his shoulder to nuzzle him.

"They're so cute!" Mallow squeed as everyone came over to inspect the new baby bird, offering a treat full of vitamins to help the baby grow while Ash pulled out his pokedex and scanned the little one.

"Rookidee, the tiny bird Pokémon." Ash's upgraded pokedex read out "It will bravely challenge any opponent, no matter how powerful. This Pokémon benefits from every battle, even a defeat increases its strength a bit. This Pokémon is female with the ability Keen eye. Known moves: Peck, leer, and Sky Attack (egg move)."

"That's some egg move little lady!" Ash rubbed the little pokemon's egg with a finger as Rookidee trilled happily. Ash let Mallow introduce herself to the new team member while he flipped through more information his pokedex pulled up, "Your species if rom Galar huh? And you evolve into a steel flying called corviknight…sweet Arceus!" Ash gaped when the dex pulled up what Rookidee looked like when she evolved.

"Something wrong Ash- Whoa!" Mallow gaped like he was when they saw the image of the massive black armored bird.

"Well isn't your evolution an impressive one little lady." Ash grinned at Rookidee who saw the image and chirped excitedly.

"We should go find Mr. Razzo, show him this little one." Mallow beamed before everyone's stomachs rumbled "…Lunch first though."

"You heard the lady!" Ash laughed as everyone went back to the cooking pot to finish making lunch, Ash quickly catching Rookidee after his team explained to her what a pokeball was. Lunch was even livelier than normal with the new bouncing addition to their merry band. Once that was done though they returned everyone but Bounsweet and the new energetic baby who was too curious to stay in her ball and started back through town.

"They went to the Museum?" Mallow blinked in surprise when they went to the Pewter gym only to be told by the gym trainers that both Brock and Mr. Razzo had left earlier in the morning, "Why? We were just there a couple days ago."

"No clue." The gym trainer gave an uncaring shrug "You want to know then go ask em yourself."

"Fine." Mallow grumbled before grabbing Ash's hand and tugged him along "Come on Ash, let's go find them." Mallow stomped off, annoyed at the Gym trainer's attitude which, thankfully, meant she didn't notice Ash blushing fire type red at having a pretty girl hold his hand. Getting to the museum, Ash and Mallow saw Brock and Giovanni with some of their stronger Pokémon out surrounding a group of bruised people who were tied up, unconscious Pokémon scattered around the area.

"Brock, Mr. Razzo." Ash looked about confused, "What's going on?"

"Ah, hello Ash." The two Gym leaders turned as Ash's temporary escort smiled "This is the business I told you I had to take care of in Pewter. Brock here got wind of this group planning to rob the Pewter museum of fossils and artifacts. He knew his city's police force was rather sparse, so he requested backup from the league, meaning me. I would have told you, but I couldn't risk anyone overhearing. Luckily we got them all and a representative from the league should be here shortly to escort them to jail."

"We didn't mean to interrupt your date." Brock teased upon noticing Ash and Mallow's still joined hands which quickly became un-joined as they both blushed brightly.

"And who's this here with you?" Giovanni asked, looking down at Rookidee.

"This is Rookidee." Ash eagerly took the chance to change topic, "She hatched from the egg professor oak sent."

"ASH!" a familiar voice shouted from behind him before anything else could be said as Ash eagerly spun around.

"Dad!" Ash grinned as he saw his father run over before pulling him into a hug. After being set down, Ash looked at the gaping gym leaders and Mallow, "Everyone, meet my Dad. Bruno of the elite four."

AN: I can't believe how many of you jumped on to Brock being part of team rocket, its honestly kinda amusing. But no, Brock isn't a rocket although the one person's question on if 'all of the gym leaders in Kanto were going to be evil' left me rather bemused.

AN2: Current team Lineup:

1. Vulpix (Shiny) (Male)

2. Nidorino (Male)

3. Jolteon (Male)

4. Meowth (Female)

5. Rookidee (Female)

6. SECRET

7. SECRET

8. SECRET

9. SECRET

10. SECRET

11. SECRET

12. SECRET