Chapter 12: Generations Collide 

If it's possible to feel like you've aged ten years in just a day, I sure did. I just find it ironic that technically I was supposed to be negative twenty-five years old... young... something... since I was now in the past. 

My brain felt like a Shellos- all squishy and slippery. My thoughts kept sliding away as Daniel explained to Anthony and Amanda what had happened. Zuko was my only comfort. He sat staring at me with such intensity that his eyes began to water. 

"Sorry, Zuko, but Daniel ran off without me and you were asleep. I didn't think we'd run into trouble," I told him as Daniel continued explaining. Zuko kept staring at me sternly. "Look, don't be mad at me. I can handle myself no matter what anyone thinks." 

Zuko looked offended by my statement. Smoke escaped his nostrils and his ears turned back. Again, I thought of my dad yelling at me what felt like lifetimes ago, telling me I couldn't handle myself. Even Zuko now didn't think I could go off on my own without stirring up trouble. 

And yet again, it appeared that both Zuko and my dad were right. I was in a hectic state, attempting to calm down as Zuko continued to gaze at me with disapproval. 

"Listen, I didn't mean I don't want you with me. I just thought nothing bad would happen, ok? Next time you can come with me and babysit me every step of the way," I grumbled. 

I pretended I didn't notice his eyes locked onto my face as I tuned into the others' conversation as Daniel ended our woeful, crazy tale. 

"You have got to be kidding me," Anthony groaned. 

"Believe me, I wish I was for once," Daniel confirmed, rubbing his chin as he thought. 

"Your parents are wandering through the same forest as we are? That doesn't even make any sense." Amanda frowned. 

"Nope," I agreed. 

"What are the odds of this happening? I'd like to know the probability." Anthony sighed. 

"What does it matter?" I had to keep from snapping at him. It wasn't Anthony's fault. "They're here and we have to figure out what to do about it." 

"Well, I say let's go have lunch. Those two are all caught up and everyone knows the rules- no telling Em's parents that they're going to fall in love and have a kid or how to play the stock market in the future." Daniel stood up, looking far too optimistic. 

"I don't know about this," Anthony sounded concerned. 

"Yeah, aren't we messing up time?" Amanda asked worriedly. 

"No idea. I'm hungry and I want whatever Brock is making. Remember when we visited him in Pewter? His cooking was soooo good. Remember his donuts?" Daniel practically started drooling while the rest of us exchanged freaked out looks. 

"Great. We're risking the Beautifly Effect because Daniel wants to eat something nostalgic," Anthony muttered. 

"What's the Beautifly Effect?" Daniel asked. 

"It's from a book named A Sound of Thunder," Anthony answered. "A Trainer travels back in time to catch a Tyrantrum because it's extinct in the present and fossils are hard to come by, but he ends up hurting the first Beautifly and it ends up dying. When he returns back to the future, his present time, with his Tyrantrum, he finds out everything is really different because of what he'd done to the Beautifly. He altered the time stream just because a Beautifly flew in his path." 

Daniel frowned. "Oh, come on! You're telling me we're risking screwing up time just by breathing here? If we go to the Pokemon Center for food, the same thing is going to happen, so why not have some good company?" 

"He has a point." I shrugged. "And we do know that they know someone who has traveled back in time before. We might as well ask for the story again. It could be helpful." 

"Should we tell them we're from the future?" Amanda looked doubtful. 

I sighed. "I know they'd believe us after a while, but right now I don't think we should tell them." 

Anthony looked like he wanted to give some time travel advice or rules from some fictional book, but he refrained. 

We all stood in a large lumpy circle, looking apprehensive. 

"When, if, the time does come, Emma should tell them," Daniel said seriously. "They're her parents." 

"I agree," Anthony said. Amanda nodded, looking worried.

We ended up walking the couple minute journey to where they my parents and Brock had decided to rest. It wasn't long before they came into sight. 

"Hi guys," I said as we walked into their camp. 

"Oh, hey Emma!" Ash, whom had been jogging in place over Brock's pot of stew as if to speed up its cooking, stopped and waved at us. Pikachu, who had been perched on Ash's shoulder, looked relieved that the bouncing had stopped. 

"Food!" Daniel said gleefully, joining Ash's line. Brock had a pink apron on, which Amanda giggled at as she waved to him. 

"You know, Brock looks a lot different in the future. Much taller. I'm really not used to seeing him in anything other than a lab coat at the hospital," Amanda whispered in my ear. 

Misty was over by the river with her Staryu, Goldeen, and Poliwhirl who were all swimming lazily. Togepi was in her arms, squirming merrily as Staryu showered little droplets of water onto its head. I stared in awe at Togepi. I'd heard so many stories of Togepi and had actually gotten to meet Togekiss once when I was young when my parents had taken me to revisit the Mirage Kingdom. It hadn't been planned and my mom had spent all day with Togekiss. Now, as I stared at my mom's kindness towards her smallest Pokemon, it was easy to see why the two were such close friends. 

Misty walked over to us. "Hey! You made it. So, who are your friends?" 

"I'm Amanda. It's really nice to meet you, Misty." Amanda smiled, seemingly less shy than normal to, er, strangers. She'd always got along swimmingly with my mom. 

"And I'm Anthony. It's a pleasure." He offered a hand for my mom to shake. Misty shook it, laughing as if she hadn't ever had to be so formal in the middle of a camping trip before. 

"This is Brock." Misty steered Brock away from his makeshift table to chop up ingredients so he could meet us. 

"It's so nice to meet you guys." Brock waved a ladle in the air. "I see Daniel is just as eager to eat as Ash." 

"Um, about that..." I said hesitantly. "We were wondering if you had any extra Pokemon food? We all have Pokemon who haven't eaten. We usually make sure we carry enough, but yesterday was kind of hectic." 

Hectic was an understatement. 

Brock nodded. "I always carry around extra. You guys can have some." 

"Thanks a lot," Amanda said gratefully. 

"No problem. Lunch is almost ready. You have just enough time to get you and your Pokemon situated." 

"Alright. Come on out, guys!" I threw all six of my Poke Balls into the air. All of my friends did the same- Pokemon from every region except for Sinnoh were displayed for my teenage parents and Brock to see. 

"Whoa," Ash exclaimed. "Look at all of these Pokemon!" 

He fiddled with his pocket, taking out a Pokedex that I forced myself not to snicker at. It looked so old and outdated. Ash flipped open the screen and Pikachu looked down from Ash's shoulder, trying to listen in on the information as it passed over our Pokemon from Kanto and Johto. 

"I've never seen most of these Pokemon before. Did you breed them?" Brock asked, eyeing Anthony's Galvantula. 

"That's a Galvantula. His name is Aragog and he's one tough bug." Anthony smiled, proud of his Pokemon. Aragog, who was a two foot tall, five foot wide spider, did indeed look pretty tough. 

"You didn't say that you had Bug Pokemon with you!" Misty ran and positioned herself behind Ash, the nearest human shield.  

"Awe come on, Misty. Look how cool this one is!" Ash ran up to Aragog and tried to pet his pincers. Aragog immediately spat an electric web out of defensive instinct, which consumed Ash who yelled, his hair sticking on end as electricity coursed through his body. 

"Chaaaaa!" Pikachu winced as the Electric attack hit him as well. 

Misty hid behind Daniel next. "You see why I hate Bug Pokemon now!?" 

"They're not that bad, Misty." Daniel patted her arm softly, attempting to comfort her. I scowled and his gentle tone and turned away. 

Anthony went to help Ash and Pikachu out of the web. "Sorry about that. Aragog is pretty jittery and when you came at him so fast... well... just go nice and slow next time." 

"Oh. Well, I can't say that information isn't shocking." Ash chuckled. Pikachu rolled his eyes as he flicked some of the web off his tail. 

"Where are you guys from, anyway? We haven't seen most of these Pokemon before, except the ones from Kanto and Johto," Brock asked suspiciously. 

"Yeah, where are we from exactly?" I whispered. We hadn't covered that in our meeting.  

"We're from pretty far away, but that doesn't matter to us. We've been traveling so much that we don't really have just one home, you know?" Amanda covered for us. 

"Oh, we know what you mean. We've been traveling for the past couple years through Kanto and Johto. Ash is on his way to Mahogany Town for his seventh badge," Brock said. 

"Oh, cool! Battling Pryce. That's fun." I nodded eagerly. I almost started spewing out my dad's story of how he won the battle considering I'd heard it a hundred times, but kept my mouth shut. 

"I was actually on my way to battle him as well," Anthony said, sounding unsure considering we technically were on the way to battle his granddaughter. We'd just gotten a bit... sidetracked. By twenty-five years.  

No biggie.  

"So we're near Mahogany Town?" I looked at Misty, who seemed to be recovering from seeing Aragog for the first time. I had no idea why she seemed ok with my Heracross who was also a Bug type Pokemon. Maple, to me, seemed much scarier considering she was flying swiftly through the surrounding trees, searching for honey and didn't really care if she rammed into things in the process. At least Aragog knew how to keep still. 

"Yep. I bet it will only take a couple hours to get there from here," she replied. 

"My Pokedex isn't working with any of these Pokemon!" Ash started hitting his Pokedex against a rock. "Ugh!" 

"That's because these Pokemon are super rare and most of them haven't been heard of in this region yet," Anthony answered. "Don't worry, you'll meet a whole lot of Pokemon you never knew existed one day." 

Ash's mouth dropped open. "Really?" 

"Of course, Ash," Daniel reassured him. "It's crazy. One day, there are 150 Pokemon and then a couple years later there are 721. They breed like Buneary." 

Everyone stared at him as if he was crazy. Anthony, Amanda, and I turned pale and tried to give him death threats with our eyes while my dad asked, "What's a Buneary?" 

Daniel rubbed his neck and grinned at me sheepishly while I gave him an annoyed look. Fortunately, my dad moved on as he spoke his thoughts out loud, unable to contain his determination, "I really want to battle these Pokemon now! It would be good training with my battle with Pryce."  

"Great idea!" I smiled genuinely for the first time all day, relieved that Daniel's hiccup was so easily washed away. 

"You guys, lunch is practically ready," Brock warned. 

"I thought you were too hungry to even move, Ash." Misty sighed tiredly. 

"If I want to be a Pokemon Master, hunger has got to wait!" Ash laughed with manic-like enthusiasm. "What do you say, Pikachu? Want to battle?" 

"Pika!" Pikachu jumped off his shoulder, poised for action.  

"I want to battle too!" Daniel grinned. 

"Same here." Anthony crossed his arms. 

"Me too!" Amanda walked over to Bella, patting her green side. 

"Ok, how about we do a one on one at a time against Ash?" Anthony questioned. 

"What about me? I want to battle too," Misty said. 

"I guess I'll just sit here and cook," Brock whined. 

"Sorry, Brock. We can battle you after lunch?" I smiled apologetically. 

"Ok." Brock agreed, then suggested, "How about a double battle- Ash and Misty versus Emma and Daniel, then Amanda and Anthony?"  

"That'll work." I nodded. "Are you up for that, guys?" 

Everyone agreed. 

"Ok, let's battle then." I grinned, finally glad that we were doing something I enjoyed.

Whooo! Almost battle time! Next chapter is all about battling. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

How'd you like this chapter? Make sure to vote and comment so I know!

Pokemon Question of the Day: What's your favorite type of battle? Single, double, triple, rotation, inverse, I'm sure there's a lot more that I can't remember at the top of my head...? 

Have an awesome day!

-Flips