The Aura is With Us

Chapter 7: Interlude: Oak

Professor Samuel Oak was what you could call a man of intelligence, but he often became distracted, forgetting details and going off on tangents that even he didn't always fully understand. However, sometimes those tangents often led to his greatest discoveries oddly enough. No, he did not have answer as to why this happened.

Though as eccentric as he was, Samuel was pretty sure that he didn't have a video meeting scheduled today.

Still, that didn't mean he wasn't pleased to see his old pupil reach out.

"Professor Oak."

"Ah, Cerise! Good to hear from you!" Samuel greeted cheerfully, "I hope everything is going alright in Vermillion."

"Vermillion is going fine...however we have had certain development recently."

"What has Ash done now?" Samuel said, finding Cerise's surprised face rather amusing.

"How did you know it was related to Ash?"

"I've known the boy since before he was a trainer. He has a knack of having 'certain developments'," Samuel explained, the incident with an Entei coming to mind.

"This happens regularly?!" Cerise looked to the side nervously.

"More or less," Samuel shrugged, "You're not regretting hiring him, are you?"

"No, I just think I need to get better insurance."

Samuel bellowed laughter, "That would be a good idea! So, what has the boy done now that warrants you calling me?"

"It's a long story..."

And true to his word, Cerise explained the more recent discoveries made at Vermillion. Samuel listened with great curiosity, knowing this was something worth his undivided attention. Samuel had watched the boy grow up since he was a baby, and Ash had always been special. Even before he was born Ash was far from usual.

Samuel felt sad whenever he thought how Delia came to live in Pallet town, he wished he could forget about that day. But it isn't easy to forget when a young woman wanders into town in the middle of a thunderstorm, a bump on her head and all memories missing. Samuel had been the first to house her, after finding Delia crying on the side of the road the old man couldn't just leave her where she was. Especially when he saw that she was nearly six months pregnant. Besides he had the room in his home, it was just him, an infant Gary and little two-year-old Daisy-May in the house at the time. The war effort at the time required every abled adult and trainer to participate, meaning all that was left in Pallet were the elderly and young children. Until Delia came along.

Deila had been very quiet those first few days. Sleeping mostly. The Ketchums, a nice older couple who owned (at the moment shut down) a restaurant in Pallet and close friends of Samuel, were over at his home almost every day to help with the children already, so they started to care for the young expectant mother as well. Arceus bless their souls. Delia had nightmares, poor thing couldn't sleep for weeks, and seemed frightened about everything, flinching when lights were turned on or when someone started to use running water. Mrs. Ketchum and Mr. Ketchum had all but claimed Delia as their own after a month, even taking the younger woman to live in their home and turning one of their guest rooms into a nursery.

Still many questions remained after Delia was finally settled, and sadly she couldn't answer them. Poor woman couldn't remember anything beyond her name and that her home wasn't safe anymore. The latter wasn't all that hard to believe, the Tri-Team War was waging around the globe at the time and many small towns were caught in the crossfire.