If you had asked Ash Ketchum on the first day he set out on his Pokémon journey where he saw himself in ten years, that plucky boy probably would've puffed his chest, widened his smile, and proudly proclaimed, "I'll be a Pokémon master, of course!"

Because he was a kid, and kids have dreams that can't be met.

It was ten years later from that day, and he was decidedly not that. He was nowhere near being that, he'd stopped going after it a long time ago. If you had asked a ten-year-old Ash Ketchum what he'd think about dropping those dreams, moving back to Kanto, going to school and working at his hometown's pokemart, he would've laughed in your face. If he found out that's what would actually happen, he would've wished nothing more than to travel in time and slap his future self.

And from time to time, more often than not, standing at the register, or lying awake in bed, or drifting along in any other given moment, yes, present Ash too wanted to slap himself. He was disappointed with how things turned out, but who wouldn't be, after they set the bar so high for themselves when they were kids? Kids are dreamers, but they're not realists. It was okay that he couldn't reach just the one dream he had; sure, it sucked, but life was full of possibilities, and Ash was still young, so he couldn't be down on himself just yet.

At least, that's what everyone else told him. That's what he tried to tell himself, but, it wasn't always helping.

It seemed everyone got what they wanted but him. May had made it to Top Coordinator. Dawn was running a highly successful fashion enterprise, with boutiques worldwide and fashion lines that were in high demand with the famous and powerful. Brock was an award winning Pokemon Doctor, and engaged to a girl he'd met in medical school. Gary had opened his own research labs. Misty had taken legal ownership of the gym from her sisters, and was in charge of it full-time. Iris was the Unova champion. I could go on.

It felt ridiculous. Any one of those people would've told you, when they first met Ash they were inspired by his determination, his ambition, his goals. In the end, it made no sense why he was the only one who hadn't made it, when before, he was the most likely one who would, who yearned for it the most.

He didn't fizzle out of it, either, he gave up all at once. His last big tournament, he remembered, in his first match the commentators were speculating as to why he hadn't made it yet, why his career was so hit-or-miss, when he'd been in the game for that long. Maybe it was because he changed his roster too much, and didn't focus on strengthening one core team? Maybe his impulsive temperament kept leading him to make fatal mistakes? Maybe he just wasn't cut out for it?

Ash won that match but lost two rounds later. It was the final straw.

He remembered being curled up in his hotel room that night, absolutely sobbing, absolutely inconsolable, absolutely certain that he couldn't take it anymore. He didn't even remember who was with him in that moment, he just remembered crying, and telling them, whoever it was, that he was done.

And he meant it.

He gave away most of his Pokemon, sending them off to places where he thought they could grow and improve, even without him. He had told Brock at one point, "I always knew my Pokemon were better than me. I guess, that's the last good thing I can do as a trainer, is let them go, and let them be better."

Ash probably would've let them all go except Pikachu, but a few refused to leave. His Noivern stayed, Meganium stayed, Lucario too, and Lycanroc. The rest of his Pokemon, he had hoped maybe they could just walk away, and he'd hide his face and his tears in his hat like he always did, but it never worked out like that. Each and every one of them refused to leave without a long hug, or at least, whatever their species equivalent to a hug was. Serperior's was more of a constriction. Gigalith just kinda sat on him. All his birds wanted nothing more than to roost in his lap for a bit, cooing softly, as Ash still rather unsuccessfully tried to cover up the absolute meltdowns he was having at seeing them off. Infernape took the longest to let go, clutching to him and quivering like he was just a baby Chimchar again getting over its trauma with him for the first time. That one goodbye really messed Ash up; he was in Sinnoh for it, so Dawn and Barry were with him, and stayed with him while he cried through the whole night.

He was so close to them. He loved each and every one of the Pokemon he ever got, no matter how many, and his bond with them, while tested from time to time, was undeniable. But now, they were gone. Spread out across the corners of the earth, never to be his companions again. For all he knew, someone else would catch them, and they'd go on a fantastic journey of their own. In someone else's hands, they could get closer to success than they ever did with Ash, and Ash assured himself over and over that he'd be glad for it. But, it just seemed they had to be destined for greatness. They had to be destined for something. Ash could connect with Pokemon in a way that seemed miraculous. He could get at their feelings, work with their personalities, communicate with them in ways most trainers couldn't dream of. Hell, he could do that with legendary Pokemon - he'd bonded with more of those than any person would actually see in their lifetimes. Many of those legendaries were the ones who had told him he was destined for greatness, that he had a bright and glorious future down the road, that they'd even chosen him for it.

And now, he was working retail for 60 hours a week, after dropping out of a trainer career that was, putting it generously, inconsistent.

It was all just one big sick joke.

He didn't want to use the word depressed, but that's more or less what he was. Heaven knows Delia wouldn't have let her son let himself go, and he was grateful for that. There were many times he offered to save up money so he could move out of the house and not burden her anymore, but she'd always ruffle his hair and insist, "No, you've done enough, and you deserve to be looked after."

His friends also still greatly cared about him. They'd all visit from around the world whenever they could, just to see how he was doing; of course all of his female friends were far more famous than he was, so the next day after any of their visits he'd see a tabloid magazine somewhere, with a big front page cover about how "Renowned investigative journalist Lillie Mohn was seen today in a small town in the Kanto region, having lunch with a former trainer. Is she in pursuit of a story, or is romance in the air?" or something like that, depending on which girl it was. It was just another reminder that he'd ended up a nobody, just some nameless "former trainer" whose only use in life was for paparazzi to speculate which famous lady he was secretly dating.

But still, he didn't dissuade his friends from dropping by. Yeah, they all came as more exhibitions that he'd failed miserably and gone nowhere with his life unlike everyone else, but they still went out of their way to comfort him, to try and reassure him that, even if he didn't end up living a life of greatness, he was still great to them.

Sure, like they could just redefine greatness or something.

At least, there was one old friend of his who was making him feel better about that sort of thing. He and Serena hadn't talked in years - not that anything bad happened between them, they just lost touch. Ash thought it had something to do with her profession that when they met again she'd be a "more charming woman," and that she was just staying out of his way until then, but he checked her social media accounts from time to time, and recently, she'd gotten engaged. It was nice to know he wasn't the only one who had given up and moved on, though, she still was far more successful than he, since all her posts showed her living a flashy and glamorous lifestyle.

I mean, there were some good things that came of this. He didn't have to deal with Team Rocket anymore. He worried what horrible things any villain group could be planning, that he wouldn't be able to stop because he wasn't traveling around anymore, but his therapist had told him that wasn't his job anyways, and that no matter where he went or what he did with his life, there would always be bad things happening, and that was beyond his control.

Oh, yes, and he had gotten a therapist. It was actually Misty who made him get one, after, as she put it, "putting up with months of you just moping all the time." The therapist had helped a little, a lot actually, and got him through his darkest days. He still wasn't happy with where he was in life, but at least he'd learned that it was okay, that he wasn't a bad person for giving up, and he wasn't selfish for wanting better things for himself.

Another plus was that, after a lot of self-reflection, he discovered he was bi. It didn't lead to him dating anyone in particular, it was just nice to have figured that out. When he came out to his friends they all laughed because they'd actually speculated he was ace or demi or something, since romance stuff always seemed to go over his head; Ash pointed out though that most of that happened when he was 10, which was a valid point.

Figuring it out and accepting it came pretty naturally; his friends where the next generation and all, so very comfortable with themselves and their identity and their orientations, the kind of group that made most old people mad or uncomfortable. Bonnie was gay, Barry was gay, Dawn and Zoey were dating, Cilan was pan, Goh was non-binary. Misty was one of the leading leading figures in the LGBT community in Kanto, being bi herself, and publicly out; her position as a gym leader put a big spotlight on that aspect of her life, and she was more than thrilled to be an example for others like her. Safe to say Ash wasn't exactly upsetting the applecart when he came out. Everyone was supportive and kind, and the only one who was a little peeved was his mother, but only because she wasn't the first person he came out to, which made her worry he didn't think she'd accept him. But, they sorted that out, and she assured him she'd always love him, no matter what.

Also, while he was working retail, he did try to find other careers. He picked up the guitar for a bit, but dropped that after his friends told him his music style was "improvisational," which was just a nice way of saying he still had no rhythm whatsoever. All his friends actually offered him jobs to work for them, but he turned them down, not wanting to be a charity case. He was quicker to help out Brock or Misty or Gary from time to time, mostly with little odd jobs, but that was because they were closer and easier to get to than, say, working in customer service at Sophocles' big tech firm in Alola. Things still didn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon, but Ash was stubborn as ever, wanting to earn whatever he ended up with. Everyone wanted the best for him, but they still accepted his more risky approach to life - except, actually, Sophocles, whose customer service department really needed some help. Ash still declined every time his Alolan friend offered.

But for all those little things that gave him light or hope, there was always more he seemed to let happen to him that held him down. His friends worried he was doing this on purpose, if he subconsciously thought he deserved to be miserable, and just rolled over for the tides of misfortune to take him. Most of it happened with the job he currently had; his store manager wasn't unkind, but mostly unsympathetic, and wasn't very understanding when it came to missing days or reworking his schedule in case something came up that he had to attend to, no matter how far down the line it was. Ash always ended up on night shift. This he had a choice in, but he chose to take the bullet for his coworkers, since one couldn't do it for commuting purposes, one couldn't do it because they had children they needed to watch, and another just really really really didn't want to.

The worst came partway through his working there. Corporate issued a new store policy that forbade Pokemon from being outside their Pokeballs within the store, which meant he couldn't bring Pikachu with him. When he got the call from his manager informing him of this he was absolutely devastated. His mother was furious. The policy was ridiculous - mostly trainers came to that Pokemart anyways, especially during the night shift while Ash was working, so it made no sense why one Pokemon out and about would be a big deal. She encouraged him to counteract this, to register Pikachu as an emotional support Pokemon, so the store legally couldn't ban Ash from bringing him to work. Ash thought that was a little unnecessary, though, to his mother's credit, that loyal little Pikachu had been giving significant emotional support ever since Ash slipped into the dumps, staying by his side, even in the toughest nights, even though they weren't pursuing the dream together anymore. But as miserable as it made him to lose that critical company during the most dreadful hours of his day, he was just too tired to want to fight anybody. The prospect of registering your Pokemon for emotional support was difficult and time consuming and often times futile, and Ash just wasn't up for it, like he wasn't up for much of anything. Things just got worse and worse in this regard after that prohibition of Pokemon. On his off days he'd wander the house like a cursed spirit. Every time a friend visited, if he didn't cancel the meetup altogether over "not feeling up to it," they'd all have grounds to comment on just how sad and tired he looked.

He was starting to think, maybe he could start using the word depressed after all.

The worst of it all were the long, lonely walks he took to and from work every day. It would take less time if he took a bike, but his sleep schedule was so horribly out of whack he didn't trust himself to safely maneuver a speeding bicycle while drowsy. So, he took the twenty minute walk, alone, while the sun started to set, and when the morning was still dark and grey, before the sun had a chance to rise. The walks at dusk were bad, like a funeral march, but the ones at the end of his shift were far worse, but in a different way. They made him anxious and unsettled. If Delia was ever awake when he returned home, she'd see him walk in with a wild, half-dazed look in his eyes, trembling all over, barely saying a word. What he said was happening was, in the dark of the retreating night, his imagination would go wild and start creating these strange, ethereal hallucinations that ducked and danced in light he knew did not really exist. They weren't always necessarily scary; he'd see Pokemon, many times rare or legendary, soaring around him, tugging at his spirit to follow them. Or, it was a more shapeless presence, like waves of hidden electricity that traced out within his mind an overwhelming awareness of the city around him and all that lived in it, feeling their life forces buzzing in his head. Sometimes the feelings were so palpable he'd be compelled to run, either to escape from them or to them; he'd loose all control of his direction, until he forced himself to stop at the edge the same highway every time. Was something really pulling him south? Or was he losing his mind? Whatever the case the practice always took him way out of his way on his trip home, adding an extra fifteen minutes to the return, which were spent either in horrified silence, speculating on what had just occurred, or vulnerable to those haunting visions to creep in on him once more.

His therapist theorized perhaps it was some manifestation of a psychological syndrome that caused him to have visual hallucinations in low light, mixed with his own deeply-seeded personal disappointments about how his life turned out, and how he still deep down felt like he was being called to something greater, that the loss of his old lifestyle weighed on his soul. But Ash never completely believed that; it always seemed like it was from more than just his sense of sight. It almost felt like it was coming from within him, like a beast trying to break out of its cage or a Pokemon trying to hatch from its egg. The closest he ever got to describing how it felt was that it was like the sensation when you're about to sneeze, and you're about to sneeze, and you're about to sneeze, but you never do, only, instead of it being in your nose, it's in your brain. His friends still didn't quite get it when he tried to explain it to them. Some of them took this more seriously than others, worrying he was developing some kind of actual psychosis. Ash contested this; he said it only ever happened at a specific time and place, so there was no way it could actually be that serious.

But the fits were getting worse.

He didn't have them every single night, but he was worried he might soon. They were only getting more vivid, more compelling, leaving him more shaken afterwards. The worst of it happened one night after he hadn't gotten any sleep before his shift, and had to show up three hours early to help with inventory. As he walked home he was stricken again with the urge to run, but when he reached that highway, he blacked out from exhaustion. His poor mother panicked when she woke up two hours later and he wasn't home; she ran out into the streets to look for him, a worried Pikachu on her shoulder, until she found him still by the highway, having just been aroused from sleep by a concerned biker who saw him, and stopped to make sure he was okay. Delia thanked that biker profusely as she helped her son get home. Teary-eyed, Delia insisted to Ash that she drive to pick him up from work, that she couldn't let him put himself at risk like that. But somehow, Ash talked her out of the idea. After all, he hadn't slept in over 36 hours, and the fits, as unusual as they were, were not scary to him. It was almost as if, in a strange way, he wanted to keep getting them, so he could parse out what it all meant.

Delia still hated it. She hated the fact that her son was putting himself in that position, especially since the year was starting to enter the winter months, making the dawns dangerously cold. She told him, one more incident like that and it wouldn't be up for debate anymore. She would be driving him home.

.

.

.

It was in December. Ash was at the end of his shift, counting the money in the register. Not that it ever changed, everyone used credit cards nowadays. Still he had to do it.

The store itself was a plainly uninviting place, with iridescent lights that beat and buzzed horribly and reflected unpleasantly off the never clean enough tile floors. Any customer could tolerate it for the few minutes they were there to buy what they needed, but to endure it eight hours left Ash with a terrible headache after every shift. Going through his final task of the day, the pain had already seeped its way into his skull.

His manager came into the store. He only worked during the days, so he always caught Ash at the end of his shift. He was only about two years older than Ash; he was tall and large and smattered with acne and had a mop of greasy curls on his head. He had a lumbering walk that could be read either as lazy or arrogant, maybe both, and he had that macho frat-guy sense of humor that Ash couldn't really laugh along with.

"AK, how you doing man? Good work night?" That's what the manager always called him. Ash winced. He normally didn't greet him this cheerily unless he had some bad news or an inconvenient request.

"It was uneventful. Well, a guy tried to come in with his Chatot, I told him he couldn't and he cursed me out."

"Yeah, geez, I get it, you don't like the store policy." The manager rolled his eyes.

"That's... not what I was saying."

"Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool, whatever man. Hey, uh, can you work double shift next Monday?"

Ash groaned. "Are you serious? No, I would not like that."

His manager turned his head and gave him a judgmental side-eye. "There's gonna be a problem with that."

"What." Ash tried not to growl.

"It's just, Molly's going to be out of town, and I need someone to fill her place."

"Why didn't you ask Ian?"

"Monday is Ian's off day."

"Okay? I feel like asking him to come in on an off day is less of a stretch than asking me to work sixteen hours." Ash had done this before, and it was not pleasant.

"It would probably be more like twenty this time?" His manager shrugged.

"That can't be legal."

"Sorry, bud, it technically is."

"Just bring Ian in!" Ash complained.

"I already asked him!" He snapped. "He said he didn't want to."

"Oh, so I'm being forced to, just because I'm the second person you asked?"

"Third, actually. Trust me, I would've made Matt do it, but, you know, he's got his whole cerebral palsy thing so that kinda makes it hard to force him."

"I just don't get why Ian can't do it. Or Tammy. Or Saffron. Or literally, anyone else."

"Why can't you?" His manager asked.

Ash groaned. He clutched the counters and sank his neck into his locked arms, both out of frustration and to try and relieve his sore neck.

"Fine. I'll do it."

His manager clapped. "Thanks, AK! Here, you go ahead and go home, I'll finish up at the register."

Wow, great compensation there, Ash thought.

He gathered his things and stormed out of the store.

It was the coldest night yet. For the first time all year, Ash could see his breath plume into the streetlamp light. The world was always dark grey and still, not even the paper deliverers were on their routes yet, nor the early morning joggers nor the people who were just early birds. It was 4:00 AM. Nobody would be up but him.

He was practically hoping for another weird vision. Any of them, anything at all would be better, a distraction from the dread at having to work twenty hours two days from now. Honestly, the quiet nights like these were the worst, having only his feet on the pavement to keep him company, eventually getting a ringing in his head, as his miserable thoughts bounced around there, reminding him you used to think you were great, but you're made for no better than this, you brought it all on yourself.

Those little doubtful voices were especially loud tonight. He hated his job, he hated his manager, he hated himself and he hated his life.

A Growlithe barked in the distance. He wanted to yell at it to shut up. He wanted to punch one of the picket fences, or kick over a trash can, or lie out on the street and let the first car of the morning run him over. Maybe it would be the garbage truck? It certainly felt like that's what he deserved.

For a long time he'd just been wallowing in quiet misery, but this was the first time in a long time he really emotionally snapped. After thinking about that garbage truck the tears came in force, leaving tides of hot and cold on his face, as the fresh teardrops bore some body heat, but their trails chilled almost instantly. He had to stop on the sidewalk and hold his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more that to just teleport himself home and be with his mom right then and there, but he was still ten minutes away, and the meltdown was too much for him to move.

He fell to his knees.

What am I thinking? What have I become? Since when does Ash Ketchum give up?

He began to blame himself for not sticking with his original trajectory. Those old painful memories of all the battles lost and hours wasted training were faded, and didn't seem so painful, compared to this distress he was in now.

I can't keep doing this. I can't. There has to be something else. This can't be me.

And then, it began.

It always started like a whisper, or a song, or a gentle breeze, reverberating in his bones. He lifted his head, feeling it, knowing it was coming on.

Oh, so now you start? He thought.

The visions came pouring in. They were somehow both colorless and flashing with all possible colors of light, beating, bright, warping. For once, he remained on his knees, perfectly still, just watching as the imaginary legendary Pokemon flew around him. They ducked and dove and spun, as if the small town air was their proper domain of space or the sea or a deep cavern, wherever they roamed. Ash had taken up the practice of just trying to consciously identify the Pokemon he was seeing. It seemed trivial, but it hadn't been something he did at the beginning, and he'd always forget what he'd seen once he made it home. Plus, this sometimes worked to keep him grounded, preventing him from getting swept up in it and running off. Sometimes.

He watched them all go by. Dialga. Palkia. Lugia. Kyogre. Rayquaza. Mew. Cresselia. Darkrai. Deoxys. Azelf. Suicune. Entei. Unown.

Unown. That was a new one. The letter-shaped Pokemon had never shown up in one of these visions before, but they began to dominate the spectacle, as if they were making up for lost time.

They poured in all around him, swarming and spinning in a dizzying display, crowding out all other creatures that might have been in this vision.

It was strange to watch them. Their movements seemed knowing, a pattern; he began to pick up on the repetition of it, maybe noticing some letters showed up more than others, and others didn't show up at all.

Are they trying to spell something?

And then, the motion began to travel. It's how this always turned out, the feeling like his soul was getting sucked out of him, dragged off into the southern horizon. Normally he would've gotten up to run, but somehow he pushed through the urge, remaining on his knees, thinking, no, not tonight. I need to get home. I need to go home on time.

The vision, as if it had a mind of its own, almost seemed to understand. It sank and settled back towards him, gravitating around him, though still it slowly died away. The Unown began to dissipate into the night, their numbers depleting, until just eight bobbed and danced around him.

We wasn't sure how, but a word came into his head. Did he read the Unown? Was it whispered in his ear? Did it already exist in his heart, and was just now surfacing? These illusions never communicated to him in language before, so when it hit he didn't think to notice how exactly it came through. It caught him off guard, as the last of the Unown, and the whole vision, faded out.

Sphaeram.

He didn't know what it meant. It wasn't a word he'd heard before, but he was certain he heard it now. Even the visions that faded away felt as though they could have been illusions, but this was the realest, most believable thing that came through. It was that word. Sphaeram. And still he didn't know the meaning of it.

He got to his feet.

What is that word? Where did it - what? He tried to wrap his brain around it.

I have to look this up.

He would've just done it on his phone, but he had no service in that small town trek to get to his house. He resumed his walk home, his confused curiosity totally eclipsing the brutal meltdown he just underwent. He picked up his pace, getting close to jogging at times, a sudden new fire lit beneath his feet. He had no idea what sparked it, or what it would lead to.

He just knew he had to look into it.

He hardly noticed the time that past before he made it to his home's front porch and through the door. He didn't even turn into the kitchen to greet his mother, who had taken it upon herself to wake extra early just to make sure Ash made it back home. He bolted straight into his room and booted up his laptop, only pausing to give some affectionate scratches to Pikachu, who saw he had come in and jumped into his lap.

It took a few minutes for the old computer to boot up, and the search engine to load. Ash was surprised to find, even though all else from that vision was gone or blurry, as it usually was, this word was still perfectly in his head. He knew how to pronounce it phonetically and how to spell it, the latter of which was most helpful for looking it up.

sphaeram, He typed.

"Sphaeram is a word from the dead language Unown Scripture 2, which was the second Unown Scripture permutation dating from about 2000 years ago, which is most notable for being the dialect present in the Solaceon Ruins. Translators debate whether it can be directly translated as "aura," or if it is more of a blanket term referring to a metaphysical shape of a sphere or life itself."

Ash sat back in his chair.

Holy shit.

There was a knock on the wall, and he turned to see his mother standing in the door frame.

"Ash?" She asked. She looked so tired, Ash felt terrible that she was making herself get up at such an hour just to keep tabs on him.

"Hey, mom."

"You're actually back on time!" She chuckled. "No hallucinations tonight?"

He shrugged. "Just a little one. Sorry I didn't say hi when I came in, I had to look something up."

"What?" She asked.

"Oh, um," he realized it might be a little disconcerting to her if he admitted, oh you know, a mysterious word that relates directly to something about myself that I didn't normally give much thought to but could be a significant factor in the person I turn out to be came hurtling at me through time and space during one of my hallucinations, so he decided to warp it into a segway to get perhaps a more palatable part of his day across to her. "Labor laws," he lied.

She folded her arms. "Uh oh, what's happened this time?"

"Manager wants me to work twenty hours on Monday."

She gasped. "Arceus, are you serious? No one else could fill in?"

"Well, other people could, I was just the pushover." He sighed.

His mother came up to him, putting her hands on his cheeks.

"Sweetie, don't say that. You just... push yourself too hard. You always have."

"I know."

"Ash, I really truly think that's not a good job for you. I know you don't want to take the easy way, but I'd start seriously considering some of the offers your friends are giving you. You would at least never have working conditions this dismal. You don't even have to take the far away ones, I could see you being very happy as Misty's Gym Guide."

"Honestly, I'm getting tempted."

She kissed him on the forehead. She could tell he'd had a rough night. Maybe it was mother's intuition, maybe it was the redness in his face and the bleariness in his eyes.

"Honey, I just don't want you to push yourself into another breaking point."

"I know." He said again sadly. It might be too late for that, he thought, remembering for the first time that night him falling to his knees and sobbing in the street.

"Speaking of Misty, remember that she and Gary and Brock are coming today at 2:00 for lunch."

"Oh, right!" In the moment he had forgotten this, overshadowed it was by the unsavory task set out for him by work, and even more greatly by the mysterious word.

"You go to bed and get some sleep, okay? And maybe you could talk more to Misty about what helping her would be like." She affectionately ran her fingers through his hair.

"Okay," he said.

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

He did not go to bed.

His tired brain scrambled to get him back to what he was thinking about.

Sphaeram. Aura. Of course!

He had heard maybe once or twice in his life that that was something he could do, that he could sense it on some level. But no one was ever there to tell him what it actually felt like, how it would manifest itself.

So, those visions... was that my aura? Is there then... more I can do?

He shook his head.

But why like this? Why now? What do I do?

He remembered that Pokemon ranger in Sinnoh asking him once if he'd want to be an Aura Guardian. Ash had said no, he was going to be a Pokemon Master.

But that was out of the picture now. So, maybe...

Yeah, he thought, yeah, I could do that! I could be an Aura Guardian! That could be my new life!

A spark of hope engulfed his otherwise weary body. It was a like the old fire that was close to dying out got new logs tossed into it, and the flame begun again. This was his chance, this was his opportunity, to leave the burdens and the mundane behind, and set out into the wide world again on a new quest, a rare quest, one that might come even more naturally than the last one.

Perhaps, that's why he was so close to Pokemon, because that's what he was born for all along. That's why he could connect with them. That's why he found all those legendaries. This is what I was meant to be.

He almost wanted to laugh out loud. It was staring him in the face the whole time, but he just hadn't even considered it. He wanted so badly to get something on his own, of his own power. As crappy as his job was, as little alternative job postings as there were nearby, he never accepted a favor from a friend because he still wanted to seize life for himself, to crawl his way back into greatness.

And here it was, a new definition of it.

Sphaerum.

There was only one problem.

How do you become an Aura Guardian?

He had no earthly idea what the process was, where he could even begin.

Well, his search browser was still up. He plugged in Aura Guardian.

"The Aura Guardians are an old order of mystics originating from the Hoenn region, who were able to tap into a spiritual force known as aura and use it to communicate with Pokemon and help people. Records indicate at times there were up to 100 members of the order, traveling the world and doing good deeds, but now, their numbers have significantly dwindled, and those who are a part of this order live mostly in secrecy. A detailed record has been kept of many of their deeds, but little is known about their actual organization."

That's what Ash was worried about.

It wasn't so much being worried about not finding out what to do, though that was a big part of it. If this was some big secret organization, the question was how much he'd be able to tell his family and friends what he was doing. He especially didn't want to worry his mother by keeping things from her, heaven knows she was worried enough about him as is. He would want to tell her where he was going, what he was doing, but if being an Aura Guardian prevented him from doing that, if he was not allowed to, that would be a problem for him.

But Ash had a new conviction. This was something he knew he had to do, or at least look into. His heart was so set that he didn't want anything to get in the way.

She'd understand, right? If I at least told her I was doing something that made me happy?

He tried looking up more, any notable living Aura Guardians that he could look for, and places where they were known to be. The only one he'd ever met was Riley, on Iron Island in Sinnoh, but he in all likelihood wasn't still there after ten years. Still, nothing usable surfaced from his increasingly drowsy inquest.

He wasn't keeping track of how long he was scheming and researching and typing on that laptop and swiveling around in his chair. There was a lulling power in it all; the sound of the keyboard, the warm Pokemon in his lap, the darkness of the room, with the sun hidden behind his blackout curtains.

He never made it to the bed, continuing to browse information until he couldn't take the heaviness of his eyes anymore.

He fell asleep.