Ketchum Conquest

The first time I understood what a Pokémon Center was really for, I was fifteen years old and pretending to be asleep.

Let me back up.

My name is Ash Ketchum, and if you know anything about me, you probably know the version that gets told at league banquets and in newspaper columns. The kid from Pallet Town who never gives up. The one who sees the legendary Pokémon nobody else can see. The one who's always smiling, always charging forward, always ten years old in the stories people tell.

I'm not ten anymore. I haven't been for a while.

The truth is simpler and stranger than the legend. I left home at ten with a Pikachu who hated me and a hat that didn't fit right. I came back at fifteen with a Pikachu who would die for me and a body that had finally caught up to the life I'd been living. Six regions. Countless battles. More near-death experiences than I could count on both hands. And somewhere along the way, without anyone sitting me down to explain it, I'd grown up.

I noticed it first in Sinnoh, on a cold morning outside Snowpoint City. I'd woken up in my sleeping bag next to Dawn, who was still snoring with her mouth open, and I'd felt something I couldn't name. Not toward her specifically. Just a warmth in my chest and a heaviness lower down that hadn't been there before. I'd lain there for an hour, terrified to move, until Pikachu had poked my ribs and asked me what was wrong.

I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell anyone. What was I supposed to say? Hey, Brock, I think I'm turning into a person with wants? He would've laughed and given me advice from one of his romance novels. Dawn would've gotten flustered and changed the subject. And Mom, well. Mom would've looked at me with those eyes that saw everything and said something gentle that made me feel worse.

So I kept it to myself. I kept a lot of things to myself in those years.

Here's what nobody tells you about being a Pokémon trainer. The bond between trainer and Pokémon isn't just about battling. It's physical. It's chemical. It's the way your heart rate syncs up when you're in a real fight, the way you can feel your partner's exhaustion in your own muscles, the way a good trainer and a good Pokémon become something more than two separate things. I'd known that since I was a kid. What I didn't know was that the same thing happens with people.

Or maybe I did know, and I just didn't want to admit it.

Let me tell you about the night it started. Really started, I mean. Not the night I noticed my body changing, but the night I stopped pretending I hadn't.

I was in Kalos by then. Sixteen years old, taller than I'd ever been, with shoulders that had finally filled out and a jaw that had lost its baby roundness somewhere between Unova and the coast. Serena was traveling with me. Clemont and Bonnie had gone back to Lumiose City for a while, something about Clemont's gym and a new invention that had exploded, and so it was just the two of us and our Pokémon, walking the coastal road toward Shalour.

Serena had changed too. I'd known her since we were kids at Professor Oak's summer camp, back when she was the girl with the straw hat who couldn't decide what she wanted. Now she was sixteen, same as me, with honey-colored hair that fell past her shoulders and a way of moving that made me forget what I was saying mid-sentence. She'd stopped wearing the hat. I missed the hat sometimes. Other times I was glad it was gone, because it meant I could see her face.

We'd been dancing around something for weeks. Months, maybe. The kind of thing where you both know it's there but neither of you says it because saying it would change everything. She'd touch my arm when she laughed. I'd stand a little closer than I needed to when we watched the sunset. At night, in our separate sleeping bags, I'd listen to her breathing and wonder what she was dreaming about.

That night we made camp on a cliff overlooking the sea. The water was dark and restless, and the moon was a thin crescent that barely lit anything. Pikachu had curled up by the fire and gone to sleep early, exhausted from a battle with a wild Pyroar that had gotten too close to our food. Braixen, Serena's partner, was meditating somewhere in the grass. We were alone.

"Ash," Serena said. She was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag, brushing her hair with slow, even strokes. The firelight caught the gold in it. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever..." She stopped. Started again. "Have you ever been in love?"

I should've seen it coming. I didn't. I choked on the water I was drinking and spent the next thirty seconds coughing while she watched me with an expression somewhere between amusement and terror.

"That's a hell of a question," I managed.

"You don't have to answer."

"No, I mean. I just. Nobody's ever asked me that."

She set the brush down. "Nobody?"

"I don't exactly have a lot of people in my life who ask me personal questions. Brock asks about battles. Mom asks if I'm eating enough. Professor Oak asks about my Pokédex." I shrugged. "Love doesn't come up."

"That's sad, Ash."

"Is it?"

She looked at me for a long moment. The fire popped. Somewhere below us, the sea hit the rocks with a sound like breathing.

"I think it is," she said. "You've saved the world how many times now? You've met gods. You've done things most people only dream about. And nobody's ever asked if you've been in love."

I didn't know what to say to that. So I said the truth, or part of it.

"I don't know if I've been in love," I said. "I know I've felt things. Strong things. But love is a big word."

"It is."

"Have you?"

She smiled. It was a small smile, a private one, and it did something to my chest that I couldn't name.

"Once or twice," she said. "Nothing that worked out."

"Why not?"

"Because the person I was in love with didn't notice me."

The fire popped again. I watched a spark rise into the dark and vanish.

"I'm not good at noticing things," I said slowly. "Not the way people want me to. I notice Pokémon. I notice battles. I notice when something's about to attack. But people, I don't know. I miss stuff."

"I know."

"That's not an excuse."

"I know that too."

She stood up. Walked over to my sleeping bag. Sat down next to me, close enough that I could smell her shampoo, something floral and clean. Her shoulder touched mine. Neither of us moved away.

"I'm not asking you to be good at noticing," she said. "I'm asking you to try."

And then she kissed me.

It wasn't like the movies. There was no music, no slow-motion, no perfect angle where the moonlight caught her face just right. It was awkward and warm and her nose bumped mine and I didn't know what to do with my hands. But her lips were soft and she tasted like the mint tea we'd had after dinner, and when she pulled back her eyes were wide and bright and terrified.

"Okay," I said. My voice came out strange. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I noticed that."

She laughed. It was a real laugh, the kind that came from somewhere deep, and I found myself laughing too, and then we were kissing again and this time I knew what to do with my hands. One went to her hair. The other found her waist. She made a sound against my mouth that I felt in my spine.

We didn't sleep in separate sleeping bags that night.

I'm not going to give you the details. Not yet. Some things belong to the people who lived them, and that first night with Serena belongs to us. What I'll tell you is that she was patient with me. She was kind. And when it was over, when we were lying tangled together under the stars with her head on my chest, she traced a circle on my skin with her fingertip and asked me a question I wasn't ready for.

"Was that your first time?"

"Yeah."

"Was it okay?"

"Yeah." I kissed the top of her head. "It was more than okay."

She was quiet for a while. I thought she'd fallen asleep. Then she said, "I've been waiting for you to notice me since we were kids."

"I'm sorry it took so long."

"Don't be sorry. Just don't stop noticing."

I promised her I wouldn't. I meant it, too, in the way you mean things when you're sixteen and the world feels infinite. But here's the thing about promises you make at sixteen. They're real when you make them. They just don't always survive contact with the rest of your life.

We traveled together for another three months after that. Three months of shared sleeping bags and stolen kisses and the kind of closeness that makes you think you've figured out how the world works. I fought battles. She performed in showcases. At night we'd find a quiet place and learn each other's bodies in the dark. I learned that she liked being kissed behind her ear. She learned that I couldn't keep my hands still when I was nervous. We learned a lot of things.

And then she got the offer.

It was a big one. A coordinator's apprenticeship in Hoenn, the kind of opportunity that came once in a lifetime. She cried when she told me. I held her and told her she had to go, because she did, because I wasn't going to be the reason she gave up her dream.

"I'll come back," she said.

"I know."

"I'll write."

"I know."

"Ash." She grabbed my face in both hands and made me look at her. "This isn't the end of us."

"I know," I said, and I believed it, and I was wrong.

Not because she stopped loving me. Not because I stopped loving her. But because distance is a real thing, and letters take time, and when you're sixteen and the world is full of people you haven't met yet, love is a garden that needs tending. We didn't tend it. We let it grow wild and then we let it die.

The last letter I got from her was six months after she left. She'd met someone. Another coordinator, a girl from Slateport with blue hair and a laugh that Serena described as "the kind that makes you forget what you were saying." I read that line three times. Then I folded the letter and put it in my bag and didn't write back.

It wasn't anger. It wasn't even sadness, not really. It was something stranger. A kind of understanding that came with a sharp edge. I'd loved her. She'd loved me. And now we were both moving on, and that was okay, and it also hurt in a way I couldn't describe.

I was seventeen by then. Taller. Leaner. The kind of seventeen that looks like eighteen and feels like twenty. I'd stopped wearing the hat entirely. My hair had grown out a little, enough that Mom said it made me look like Dad in old photos, and I didn't know how to feel about that.

And I'd started to notice something about myself.

It happened in Alola, a few months after Serena's last letter. I was staying with Professor Kukui and his wife, helping with research, and there was a girl on the island named Lana. She was quiet and kind and had eyes like the ocean, and one night we ended up on the beach together, watching the moon rise over the water.

We didn't kiss. We didn't touch. We just talked, for hours, about everything and nothing. And when I walked her home and she said goodnight and closed her door, I stood in the dark for a long time with a feeling in my chest that I recognized.

It was the same feeling I'd had with Serena. The same warmth, the same pull, the same sense that something important was happening.

I went back to Kukui's house and lay awake all night, staring at the ceiling, trying to understand.

Because here's the thing. I'd loved Serena. I'd meant it. And now I was feeling something for Lana that felt just as real, just as true, and I didn't know what that meant. Was I fickle? Was I shallow? Was I the kind of person who fell in love with whoever was closest?

Or was it something else?

The answer came to me a few weeks later, in a way I wasn't expecting.

I was in the middle of a battle with a wild Kommo-o, a big one, the kind that could level a small building. Pikachu was holding his own but I could feel him tiring, and I was tiring too, the way I always did when we fought at our limit. That connection between trainer and Pokémon, the physical one, the one that let me feel his exhaustion in my own muscles. It was screaming at me. And then, in the middle of it, I felt something else.

I felt Lana.

She was watching from the sidelines, cheering, her voice cutting through the chaos. And I could feel her. Not in a psychic way, not like Sabrina or some of the other psychics I'd met. It was physical. It was chemical. It was the same way I felt Pikachu, the same way I felt any Pokémon I was closely bonded with. Like she was part of me. Like her heartbeat was echoing in my chest.

The Kommo-o went down. Pikachu collapsed, exhausted but triumphant. And I stood there in the middle of the battlefield with sweat dripping down my face, understanding something I'd never understood before.

The bond between trainer and Pokémon isn't the only kind of bond that works that way. Humans can have it too. Humans can sync up, can feel each other, can become something more than two separate things. And I, apparently, was the kind of person who could do it with anyone I was close to.

I didn't know what to do with that information. So I did what I always did when I didn't know what to do. I kept moving.

Alola turned into a year. A year of island challenges and new Pokémon and a girl named Mallow who made me laugh, and a girl named Lillie who made me think, and a girl named Acerola who made me feel things I couldn't name. I didn't pursue any of them. I didn't know how. But I felt them, all of them, and I began to suspect that my heart was bigger than I'd been told it should be.

Then came the day that changed everything.

I was eighteen, back in Kanto for a visit, and I'd stopped at Professor Oak's lab to see my old Pokémon. It was a warm afternoon in late spring, the kind that smells like cut grass and new leaves, and I was walking through the back fields when I heard someone calling my name.

It was Misty.

I hadn't seen her in years. Not since Johto, really, when we'd traveled together and I'd been too young to understand what was happening between us. She was twenty now, and she'd grown into herself in a way that made my chest tight. Her hair was shorter, cut sharp at her jaw. Her body had filled out, curves that the old tank top and jeans couldn't hide. And her eyes, those green eyes that had rolled at me a thousand times, were fixed on me with an intensity that made my mouth go dry.

"Ash Ketchum," she said. "Look at you."

"Look at you," I said back, and then felt stupid.

She laughed. It was the same laugh, the one that had annoyed me and delighted me in equal measure when we were kids. She walked up to me and punched my arm, hard enough to sting.

"Cerulean Gym's been asking about you," she said. "The trainers there want to know when the great Ash Ketchum is coming to challenge us."

"I'm not really into challenges right now."

"Bullshit. You're always into challenges."

She was right. I was. But not the kind she meant.

We walked together through the fields, past the Tauros and the Bulbasaur, and she told me about her sisters and the gym and the water shows she'd been putting on. I told her about Alola and Kalos and the places I'd been. It was easy. It was always easy with Misty. That was the thing I'd forgotten.

And then, because I was eighteen and stupid and brave in all the wrong ways, I said something I shouldn't have.

"I missed you."

She stopped walking. Turned to face me. The sun was behind her, making her hair glow, and I couldn't read her expression at all.

"You missed me," she repeated.

"Yeah."

"You didn't write. You didn't call. You didn't visit. For years."

"I know."

"And now you're standing here telling me you missed me."

"I know."

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she did something I wasn't expecting. She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down and kissed me.

It was nothing like Serena's kiss. Serena had been gentle and patient and sweet. Misty was none of those things. She kissed me like she was angry, like she was trying to prove something, like she'd been waiting years for this and wasn't going to waste any more time. Her teeth caught my lip. Her hands fisted in my shirt. And I kissed her back with everything I had, because I'd been waiting too, even if I hadn't known it.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright.

"That's what you get," she said, "for disappearing."

"I won't disappear again."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She didn't believe me. I could see it in her face. But she took my hand anyway, and we walked the rest of the way through the fields together, and something in my chest settled into a shape I hadn't known it was looking for.

That night, we didn't sleep.

I'm not going to give you the details of that either. What I'll tell you is that Misty was not patient. She was not gentle. She was fierce and demanding and she knew what she wanted, and she took it, and I let her. And when it was over, when we were lying in her old room at the Cerulean Gym with the window open and the sound of the sea coming in, she traced the muscles of my back with her fingers and said something that changed the way I thought about everything.

"You're different," she said.

"Different how?"

"I don't know. You feel different. Like you're... bigger. Not physically. I mean, you are, obviously." She poked my shoulder. "But inside. Like there's more of you than there used to be."

I thought about that. About Lana and Serena and all the people I'd felt connected to over the years. About the way my heart seemed to have room for more than it should.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't know yet."

She kissed my shoulder. Settled against me. And I lay there in the dark, listening to her breathe, and I understood something I hadn't understood before.

I wasn't broken. I wasn't shallow. I was just built differently. My heart didn't work like other people's hearts. It was bigger, or wider, or maybe just hungrier. And I'd spent years trying to pretend otherwise.

Not anymore.

The next morning, Misty made me breakfast. It was terrible, burned eggs and undercooked toast, and I ate every bite because she'd made it for me. She sat across the table with her chin in her hand, watching me eat, and I could feel her attention like a physical thing.

"So," she said. "What now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what are you going to do? Are you staying in Kanto? Going back to Alola? What?"

I didn't have an answer. I never had an answer to that kind of question. I'd spent my whole life moving, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots. But sitting there in Misty's kitchen, with the morning light coming through the window and the smell of burnt toast in the air, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.

I felt like staying.

"I don't know," I said. "But I'm not leaving today."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

She rolled her eyes. But she was smiling.

That was three months ago. I've been in Kanto ever since, helping at the gym, training with my Pokémon, figuring out what my life looks like when I'm not running from one region to the next. Misty and I aren't together, not officially. She's too proud for labels and I'm too confused for commitment. But we're something. We're something that neither of us has a name for.

And then there's the rest of it.

The thing I haven't told you yet. The thing that's been building since I was fifteen, since that first night with Serena, since I understood that my heart was bigger than it should be. The thing that's about to change everything.

I've started to notice that I'm not the only one who feels it.

It's subtle. It's the way women look at me when they think I'm not paying attention. The way their breathing changes when I stand close. The way they find excuses to touch my arm, my shoulder, my hand. I thought I was imagining it at first. I thought it was ego, or wishful thinking, or some kind of delusion.

But it's not.

I can feel it. The same way I feel Pikachu in battle, the same way I felt Lana on the beach, the same way I felt Misty before she kissed me. I can feel the connection forming, the bond, the pull. And it's not just one person. It's everyone. Every woman I'm close to, every woman who's ever been close to me. They're all connected to me, all part of the same web, and the web is getting stronger.

I don't know what it means. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. But I know it's real, and I know it's growing, and I know that sooner or later something is going to happen.

Something already has, actually. But that's a story for another time.

Right now, I'm sitting on the edge of the Cerulean Gym's pool, watching Misty swim laps in the dark water. Her body cuts through the surface like a knife, smooth and powerful, and I can feel every stroke she takes like it's happening in my own muscles. The bond. The connection. Whatever you want to call it.

She surfaces at the far end and looks at me. Even from here, I can see her smile.

"Are you just going to sit there?" she calls.

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

I don't answer. I stand up instead, pull off my shirt, and dive in.

The water is cold and perfect. I swim toward her, and she watches me come, and when I reach her she wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and kisses me like she's been waiting all day for this. Which, knowing Misty, she probably has.

"You're distracting me," she says against my mouth.

"You're distracting yourself."

"Shut up."

I shut up. I kiss her. And in the dark water of the Cerulean Gym, with the moon coming through the skylights and the sound of our breathing echoing off the walls, I feel something settle into place.

I don't know what the future looks like. I don't know how many people I'll love, or how many will love me, or what any of it means. But I know this: I'm done pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm done apologizing for the size of my heart. And I'm done running.

My name is Ash Ketchum. I'm eighteen years old. And I'm about to find out just how big a heart can get.

The water is cold. Misty is warm. And somewhere in the dark, I can feel the web growing.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

---

The gym was quiet when we got out of the pool. Misty's sisters had gone to a show in Vermilion, something about a water ballet that required more coordination than any of them actually possessed, and they wouldn't be back until morning. That left the two of us alone in a building designed for a hundred people, and the emptiness felt charged in a way I couldn't explain.

Misty wrapped herself in a towel and padded barefoot across the tile, leaving wet footprints that gleamed under the lights. I watched her go. I couldn't help it. The way her hips moved, the way the towel clung to her shoulders, the way she glanced back at me with a look that said she knew exactly what I was doing.

"You coming?" she asked.

"Where?"

"My room. Unless you'd rather stand there dripping."

I followed her.

Her room was small and cluttered, the way I remembered it from when we were kids. Posters of water Pokémon covered the walls. A stack of books sat on her nightstand, half of them about gym management and half of them romance novels with titles I couldn't read from across the room. Her bed was unmade, sheets tangled, and I could smell her on the pillows. That clean, sharp scent that was just her.

She dropped her towel. I dropped mine.

And then she was on me, her hands in my hair, her mouth on my neck, her body pressing against mine like she was trying to climb inside me. I caught her around the waist and lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around me and laughed against my throat.

"You're stronger than you used to be," she said.

"I've been training."

"Not just your Pokémon."

She bit my earlobe. I felt it in my knees.

We fell onto the bed together, a tangle of limbs and breath and heat. And for a while, there was nothing but her. Her hands, her mouth, the sounds she made when I touched her just right. The way she said my name like it was a challenge. The way her body responded to mine like we'd been doing this for years instead of months.

I won't give you the details. Those belong to us. But I'll tell you this: when it was over, when we were both spent and sweaty and tangled together in her narrow bed, she did something she'd never done before.

She told me she loved me.

"I know," I said.

"That's not what you're supposed to say."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"You're supposed to say it back."

I was quiet for a moment. Not because I didn't feel it. Because I did, and I was scared of what it meant.

"I love you too," I said. "I just don't know what to do with it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I love you. And I loved Serena. And I think I might love Lana, and Mallow, and maybe a few others I haven't figured out yet. And I don't know what that makes me."

She was quiet for a long time. I felt her breathing against my chest, slow and even, and I wondered if I'd ruined everything.

"You're not a bad person, Ash," she said finally.

"I know."

"Do you? Because you sound like you're waiting for me to tell you that."

"I am."

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. Her hair was a mess. Her face was flushed. And her eyes were serious in a way I'd never seen before.

"I'm not going to tell you it's normal," she said. "Because it's not. Most people love one person at a time. Maybe two, if they're messy. But you're not most people. You never have been."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

I laughed. It was her line, from that first morning in her kitchen, and she knew it. She smiled and kissed me and settled back against my chest.

"Here's what I think," she said. "I think you've got something inside you that most people don't have. Something that lets you connect with people. With Pokémon. With everyone. And I think that's a good thing, even if it's complicated."

"You really think so?"

"I think you saved the world more times than anyone can count. I think you've got a good heart. And I think if you've got room in it for more than one person, that's not a flaw. That's just you."

I didn't know what to say. So I held her tighter and stared at the ceiling and let her words settle into me.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it wasn't a flaw. Maybe it was just me.

The next morning, I woke up to sunlight streaming through the window and Misty already gone. She'd left a note on the pillow, her handwriting as sharp and impatient as she was.

Gone to open the gym. Don't leave without saying goodbye. We need to talk about what happens next.

I read it three times. Then I got up, got dressed, and went to find her.

The gym was already busy when I got downstairs. A group of kids from the local school were there for a field trip, and Misty was in her element, showing them the tanks and the Pokémon and the way the water systems worked. She was good at this. Better than she'd ever admit. She had a way of talking to people that made them feel important, like they were the only person in the room.

I stood in the doorway and watched her. And I felt it again. The bond. The connection. The way her presence pulled at something inside me.

She caught my eye across the room and smiled. Just a small one, just for me. And I smiled back.

That was when I saw her.

A woman, standing at the back of the group, watching me instead of Misty. She was older than me, maybe twenty-five, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and glasses that made her look like a librarian. She was wearing a lab coat over a simple dress, and there was something about her that made me stop and look twice.

She wasn't looking at the Pokémon. She was looking at me.

I felt it then. The connection. The pull. The same thing I'd felt with Misty, with Serena, with Lana. But stronger. Sharper. Like something was reaching out and grabbing me by the chest.

She smiled. Just a small one. And then she turned and walked out of the gym.

I stood there for a long moment, frozen. Then I followed her.

She was waiting outside, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. Up close, she was even more striking. Sharp cheekbones, intelligent eyes behind the glasses, a mouth that looked like it smiled often. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with being young.

"You're Ash Ketchum," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"My name is Professor Ivy. I run a research facility in the Orange Islands. I've been looking for you."

"For me? Why?"

She smiled again. It was a knowing smile, the kind that made me feel like she could see right through me.

"Because I've been studying something," she said. "Something I think you're at the center of. Something that's been growing for years, and is about to get much bigger."

"What are you talking about?"

She reached into her coat and pulled out a small device, a scanner of some kind, and pointed it at me. It beeped. She looked at the reading and her eyebrows went up.

"Fascinating," she said.

"What?"

"You're a nexus, Ash Ketchum. A focal point. I've been tracking the phenomenon for a decade, and you're the first person I've found who's actually at the center of it."

"I don't know what that means."

"I know. That's why I'm here." She put the device away and looked at me with those sharp, intelligent eyes. "I want to explain it to you. I want to help you understand what you are. And I want to study you, if you'll let me."

I should have said no. I should have walked away. But I didn't. Because somewhere deep in my chest, I felt the connection to her snap into place, and I knew, the way you know things in dreams, that she was already part of the web.

"Okay," I said. "Explain."

She smiled. It was the kind of smile that promised secrets. The kind that made me want to follow her anywhere.

"Not here," she said. "Come to my facility. Let me show you what I've found. Let me show you what you are."

And because I was eighteen and stupid and brave in all the wrong ways, I said yes.

That was the beginning of the end of the life I'd known.

Or maybe the beginning of something else entirely.