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~~~
Gladion feels like they’ve heard the name before.
Ash Ketchum.
Something about it rings a soothe bell in their mind, and they feel like that soothe bell is incredibly important.
As much as they were curious about the trainer, they were also very annoyed by him, which tips the scales in whether they want to do an internet search on him or not.
It wasn’t until Ash helped them and Lillie in freeing their mother from the Ultra Beast that kidnapped her that they buckled down and decided to do some research.
The raven haired trainer’s file was laid bare on the Internet for everyone to see. And while Gladion had a feeling that they weren’t seeing everything , it was still more than they ever knew about Ash.
If it weren’t for this search, they probably wouldn’t have ever known about Ash technically being a Frontier Brain, or how Ash had amassed up to 48 Gym Badges, or how he was the Champion of the Orange Island League.
Or how he kept risking his life.
They remember vividly how Ash practically threw himself at that Mother Beast to stop her from both destroying Ultra Space and tearing their Mother apart from the inside out in the process.
He recalls Lillie talking about dangerous stunts Ash pulled, like that one time he jumped off of a cliff to save Pikachu, even though he most likely would’ve been fatally injured in the process.
This was a constant stream of rescuing Pikachu by jumping off ledges at high altitudes, because apparently, not even 9 months earlier, Ash did the exact same thing by jumping off of Lumiose Tower , single handedly one of the tallest buildings in the world.
That same tower was the location of another event that apparently happened only 2 months ago, where Ash was held captive at the top of that very tower, the same location he saved that Garchomp.
Gladion felt like pulling their hair out as they watched a news clip of that exact scene, a tall madman facing Ash, who was held up in the sky against his will.
“ You’re one of the Chosen Ones, Ash Ketchum ! ”
Gladion leaned closer, curious of what Ash’s response could be.
“ Yeah, I get that a lot . ”
He says, in the most monotone and tired — bored — voice they have ever heard him use.
Gladion closed the tab the video was on, the screen changed back to an article he was about to read about events that took place 2 years ago, involving the Lake Trio and Team Galactic, where Ash was apparently a pivotal role in taking them down.
Gladion’s head fell into the table with a ‘thud’ and they hissed at the pain, but kept their head down as a million questions flooded their mind.
‘How is he so unbothered by this?’
‘Why does he do what he does?’
‘What does he get out of this, he places his life on the line, he almost dies, what does he get!?’
‘How is he still alive?’
‘Is he okay? Wait, of course he isn’t, that’s a stupid question…’
‘Is that why he was so nervous around some adults?’
They remember Ash meeting them for the first time, an excited trainer who wanted to battle the ‘mysterious Lycanroc’ trainer.
And they compared it to most recently.
Ash cowering away in fear as Gladion yelled at him for teleporting Lillie to them and scaring her to the point she couldn’t touch Snowy, even though it wasn’t totally his fault and he hadn’t meant for it to happen.
Ash, who immediately threw himself in front of Lillie to protect her from the acidic spray that the Mother Beast threw at them all to keep them away from her, despite the fact that he had nothing but pure panic and desperation on his face.
Ash, who sneaked away from prying eyes, and Gladion followed him, only to soon hear retching sounds from a slight distance as Ash’s adrenaline supposedly crashed and burned and hit his body like a freight train with a Wailord on it.
They didn’t want to think about it anymore.
This was a bad idea.
Terrible.
Terrible idea.
Gladion closed all the tabs on their phone and turned it off completely, flopping onto his bed and hoping to get some sleep in to ignore the rising feeling of guilt and nausea in their stomach.
They’re never looking Ash Ketchum up on the Internet,
ever, again.
~~~