Lumiose University - A Degree In Pokemon

Chapter 3: A Lot to Learn

"Pika?" Pikachu asked, and Ash turned around to see the electric mouse looking at him with concern. He was obviously not happy with what had happened either, but Pikachu could definitely see that Ash was taking things pretty hard. Especially at the moment.

"Sorry, Pikachu," Ash muttered, giving a fake smile to his partner Pokemon. I'm just thinking about..you know."

Ash took a deep breath, and then knelt down in front of his backpack and began opening it up and pulling out all of his travel gear that he had in it. He had, of course, packed light, but it still took a few minutes to clear everything out and get his clothes ready to go in the laundry. He was just picking up his backpack to move it out of the way, when he realized there was something else in it, near the bottom. Ash squinted in confusion, and then reached his hand into the backpack, and then felt his hand take hold of something at the bottom. Some kind of little box.

"What's this?" he asked, pulling it out slowly. When he had it in his hand within the bag, it had felt pretty light, so Ash realized now why it had been so easily forgotten. However, when he looked at the small, yellow box in his hand, he quickly remembered what it was. He opened it up, seeing the blue ribbon that was rolled up. "I got this in Coumarine City," Ash explained, holding the box up so Pikachu could see. "I was a special customer on the monorail or something, and they gave this to me. It was when I went to go find gifts for you and the other Pokemon."

"Pi...kachu," Pikachu said quietly, leaning forward from the end of the bed and sniffing the box. He then looked at the ribbon a few moments, before smiling at Ash. "Chaaa," he squeaked happily, eyes shining.

"Yeah, it's a neat little ribbon," Ash admitted, looking at it a little more closely. He didn't really know what to do with it. Other than the fact that it was blue, it wasn't exactly something that suited Ash. He decided to just put it up on the drawer, next to his badges. "I guess there's not much I can do with that right now," he told Pikachu, standing up and stretching a little. "Alright, I guess we should-"

Suddenly, the doorbell rang at that very moment, and Ash heard his mother, who must've been running to the door from the kitchen, yelling, "I'll be there in a second!" A moment later, Ash heard the door being opened, and a happy squeak from his mother. "Good evening, Samuel. It's so good to see you! Ash is upstairs getting ready. He just got back a little while ago."

"Oh, excellent!" came the exclamation from Oak's voice. "It'll be very good to see him again." There was a moment of silence, and then Oak spoke again. "I hope you don't mind, Delia, but I've brought along a guest. I thought that she and Ash might have a lot to talk about."

Ash narrowed his eyes in confusion and looked at Pikachu. "Who could he have brought along?" he whispered to the electric mouse, while he heard his mother exclaiming about how, "of course it was alright," and, "the more the merrier."

Ash ignored what was going on downstairs and quickly got changed into some fresh clothes, clipped his belt with his pokeballs on, and then signalled to Pikachu that they were going downstairs. Pikachu quickly hopped up onto his shoulder, and then the two of them made their way to the door. While heading down the hallway to the stairs, Ash heard Oak's voice coming from the living room.

"I'm quite looking forward to seeing some of Ash's Kalos Pokemon," he said excitedly. "It's been quite awhile since Alexa came here with her Noivern and Gogoat. I'm sure Ash's Pokemon will be particularly impressive."

Ash smiled to himself hearing that. Sometimes Professor Oak got just as excited about meeting different kinds of Pokemon as he did. He quickly made his way around the corner and started walking downstairs. He could tell his footsteps had been heard, because the voices from the living room had stopped, as clearly everyone was waiting for him to arrive. He picked up his pace, and a few moments later, he was standing at the entrance to the living room, and his jaw dropped in shock.