Archive of Our Own

Goh waited until they were on the airplane to say anything. 

Ash had taken the window seat, which was to say Ash had won the customary game of fire-water-grass and claimed the window seat as his prize, and currently had his nose pressed against the window, Pikachu tucked beneath his chin imitating him.

Which left Goh, trapped without a view of any amazing pokemon that happened to fly by, to figure out how to pay for airplane wifi with their field expenses stipend (he’d apologize to Professor Cerise later) and look up “ash alola champion” on his phone just to make sure he hadn’t imagined the revelation of the day. And he really hadn’t, it turned out, even though it was totally wild to think about. That sure was a lot of search results.

He tapped over to image search and started scrolling: Ash and his Alolan pokemon with a gleaming golden trophy, some pictures of a masked trainer Goh didn’t recognize, blurry freeze-frame thumbnails drawn from battle footage and news reports, a wide shot of a stadium surrounded by ocean, and a variety of photos of Ash’s face on top of articles titled things like “Incineroar: the Firey Pokemon Favored by the Champion and the Masked Royal” and “Ultra Beast Incursion At Alola League Finals” and “Tapu Koko Sightings This Month” and “Alola League Chairman Responds to Social Media Questions Regarding Champion’s Legitimacy.” 

Goh frowned at the last one, then clicked on it.

Apparently Ash was the Champion, legit and everything, but some people were raising a fuss about it because the Alola League was new enough they didn’t have an Elite Four in place for him to battle, which Professor Kukui, who was the Alola League’s Chairman—how many jobs did he have—dismissed with promises of public matches between Ash and the Elite Four members he was busy getting selected and approved, and also said that if they had further complaints they could take it up with the Guardian Deity of Melemele Island. 

Although the article was from awhile back, so maybe that was all dealt with now? Oh, hang on, that last bit was a hyperlink, who was the Guar-

Ash’d battled a Legendary for his Championship title?

“Ash,” said Goh, and then tapped him on the non-Pikachu shoulder when he didn’t react. “Ash, I don’t know anything about the League.” He tapped him again, more insistently. “Is it normal for a Champion to face a Legendary before they’re able to be Champion?”

“Huh?” said Ash. He stretched, turned around, squinted at Goh’s phone. “Oh, are you asking about Tapu Koko?” He grinned, a little sideways. “I think it just wanted a battle! We’re kinda rivals? I think?”

“Pika!” added Pikachu. Its cheeks sparked briefly. “Pikapika!”

“You’re rivals with a Legendary pokemon?”

“You caught Suicune,” Ash pointed out, which was true. But also totally different. 

Which Goh told him. “That’s totally different.”

“Well, a bit,” allowed Ash, “’s not like Tapu Koko’s my pokemon or anything, we just help each other out. But it’s still just all about trust! Suicune trusts you to hold onto its pokeball while it goes and does, uh, Legendary-y things. And Tapu Koko trusts me to give it a good battle!”

Goh gave him a dubious look but didn’t argue the point. He’d come back to this one later. Ash hadn’t answered his question. “Yeah, but is it normal?”

Ash shrugged. “I dunno! I’d never won a League before. And anyway, Alola’s different.”

“Because it’s new, right?” said Goh. “So there’s no Elite Four or reigning Champion to defeat.”

“Well, yeah,” said Ash, fiddling with his left wrist. Where his z-ring would go if he hadn’t left it at home, Goh’s mind supplied. “But also ‘cause it’s Alola!”

Incomprehensible. Goh didn’t know what he was expecting. “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me. A Champion! Like Leon, or Lance!” He shook his head. “No wonder you’re so set on battling Leon.”

“Pi-ka,” argued Pikachu, dropping from Ash’s shoulder to his lap.

Ash waved a hand dismissively at the same time. “Nah, I’d want to battle Leon if I was or wasn’t a Champion! A battle against a strong opponent is amazing no matter what!”

“You’re impossible,” said Goh. He tapped back to his image search results, then clicked through a picture of Ash and what looked like Incineroar’s pre-evolution on the battlefield to an article titled Top Ten Battle Strategies You Might Have Missed At The Manalo Conference. 

Goh scrolled through it aimlessly. It was half Ash, of course. As the Champion, he’d be top of mind in articles like this, and his strategies, baffling as they were to experience in real time, were amazing. Goh’s first real impression of what battling could be had been Ash and Mimey’s creative use of Reflect at the Battle Frontier Flute Cup, and he’d later realized that that had thoroughly spoiled him for more conventional battling styles. Trying to watch the Hoenn League in a fit of boredom one day had proven that pretty resoundingly. He blinked.

“You can use Counter against Counter?” he said.

Ash grinned. “Sure can!” he said. He peered over Goh’s shoulder at the shot of two lycanroc colliding that illustrated list item number four, Counter-Counter. “Isn’t Lycanroc awesome? Gladion’s lycanroc too!”

Pikachu reached over from Ash’s lap and scrolled around until it found itself. “Pika-chu.” 

Goh made a face at him. “Well, if you’d ever mentioned being Champion or shown me the battle, I’d know for sure.”

“Well, I dunno where the videos are,” said Ash back. “Find ‘em yourself! Or, better idea! Have a battle with me and Lycanroc!”

“You’re a Champion!” said Goh. “I can’t just battle you!”

“You battled me yesterday,” Ash said, like he was stupid.

Which, okay, yeah, he had, and Gengar had basically obliterated Cinderace, but that was beside the point. “Well, I didn’t know you were a Champion yesterday.”

“Piiiika,” said Pikachu, tapping its chin.

“Pikachu wants to know if you’re scared,” said Ash, grinning.

“Am not,” said Goh. He threw up his hands and nearly launched his phone five rows backwards. “Fine! Whatever! Next time we’re in Alola I’ll battle you and Lycanroc, see if I don’t!” He thought for a second. “Do any of my pokemon know Counter?”

“Sounds like we should have some battles and find out!” said Ash, cheerfully.

“Or I could just look through my pokedex app,” said Goh back, but he went back to the image search results again instead. A picture of Pikachu facing Tapu Koko on the battlefield provided a blog post analyzing that match in the context of Alolan myths and legends, which Goh skimmed without really processing and saved the academic articles linked at the bottom to read later. Being a research fellow came with all sorts of journal subscriptions as a perk, it turned out.

But wow. His co-research fellow was a Champion, for real. It was still weird, even after a whole afternoon of knowing. Or maybe it was more weird the more he thought about it, because earlier it’d seemed totally normal once he got past the first few sections of shock. Wasn’t a Champion supposed to be doing important Champion-y things? He was pretty sure Lance was on the news sometimes. He’d never seen Ash on the news.

Then again, they’d dealt with the Darkest Day together. Ash and Leon had gone off and faced down all those rampaging Dynamaxed pokemon together, just the two of them, working together as equals. It was true Goh didn’t really watch the news.

And…

“You know, now that I think about it, you were really acting like a Champion back there, earlier,” said Goh, running the whole day back over in his mind. He glanced down at his phone and laughed a little. “Or at least like I imagine a Champion would act, I guess.” 

He’d only met Leon, after all. And Ash, apparently. A Champion probably did lots of things Goh had no idea about. Goh barely even knew anything about battles, no matter how much Ash and Cinderace tried to teach him. Let alone the League, or whatever.

Ash frowned, hands going to Pikachu’s fur. “What’d’you mean?” he said. “I wasn’t acting or anything, I was just being normal.”

“Pika…” said Pikachu. Maybe to Ash or maybe to Goh.

Goh answered him anyway. “Like, giving the All-Out Brothers that advice, about Clangorous Soulblaze!” 

Yeah, that was it. That’s why him being a Champion hadn’t seemed weird at all until Goh started thinking about it too hard. It was hard to notice, because Ash was so loud and excited and impulsive and the same as Goh was, and because Leon was so impressive and unbeatable, and because he’d only ever seen Lance on TV or from a distance, but all three of them had the same sort of confidence, like they knew for sure they could handle any situation they ended up in, no matter what. And Ash and Leon, at least, had the same way of talking to trainers like Goh or the All-Out Brothers, who were trying really hard but didn’t know what they were doing at all in those same sorts of situations. It wasn’t embarrassing at all, being taught something new by a Champion, Goh thought. Whether that Champion was Leon or Ash.

“That was just normal advice, though!” argued Ash. He looked almost offended. “Everyone in Alola coulda told them that, if they’ve used a z-move at least.”

“Yeah, but-” Goh shut his eyes and shook his head. “Oh, whatever. Like I said, you’re impossible.”

“But what,” insisted Ash. He shared a glance with Pikachu, touched his left wrist again. “I still don’t get what you’re talking about!”

That didn’t seem to bother him for long, though, because two seconds later his nose was pressed back against the window to watch for cool flying-types or maybe even Rayquaza. Lucky Ash and his lucky window seat.

Goh huffed and went back to his phone. The image search results ran out, so he went to the first of the academic articles he’d bookmarked, called “The Lycanroc Effect: Re-Evaluating the Origin of the Wolf Pokemon’s Split Forms in Light of New Archaeological Evidence at the Altar of the Sunne,” then immediately had to stop and look up like fifteen words before he could get through the abstract. Turns out Goh didn’t know nearly enough about archeology to understand this sort of thing, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him!

When he next looked up, Pikachu had climbed back up to Ash’s shoulder and also started looking out the window, and it and Ash were both completely captivated by whatever was out there. Goh stared at them.

That was the Champion of Alola and his ace pokemon, apparently. Ash’d battled Tapu Koko for the title, become the strongest trainer in a whole region and secured a rivalry with a Legendary and done all that before he ever rode Lugia right into Goh’s life and turned him completely upside-down. And completely forgotten to tell Goh about any of it. 

Then again, he seemed to think it was simultaneously obvious and not worth mentioning, like him being a regional Champion was as normal as him liking battles or not waking up until he got shocked to a crisp or somehow knowing exactly what Pikachu was saying, like it was natural and right and of course he was. Like Goh should have known all along and yet not cared at all.

And maybe, thought Goh, looking at him and Pikachu, remembering earlier, well maybe he was right.