Pokemon Indigo League stories

Advice to Goh

Ash put a hand on Gary's shoulder as he stepped back. " This is Gary. We grew up together, and we've been rivals since forever."

" They're also best friends." A voice said from the top of the cliff.

The three turned and gasped. " Wisty?!" Ash exclaimed. " What are you doing here?!"

Wisty didn't look up from her book. " What do you think?"

Ash blinked. " Uh...."

Without looking up, Wisty took a small paper from her pocket and let the end loose. It unraveled, and unraveled, and unraveled.

It went from Wisty's hand to the bottom of the cliff to the trees behind them.

Goh blinked. " What is all this?!"

" Pictures." Wisty muttered.

" Of... Who?"

" The two best Pokemon masters from Pallet. Professor Oak said that."

Goh blinked. " Uh....."

Ash and Gary picked an end of the paper and looked at the pictures.

" Wisty!" Ash yelped. " Why do you have a picture of me and Gary playing?!"

" And what's with you taking a picture of us stuck in a tree?!"

Goh furrowed his brow and looked through the pictures. " They're all cute."

" No they're not!" Gary and Ash yelped. " They're embarrassing."

As Goh continued flipping through the long chain of pictures, he couldn't help but snicker. "Oh, look at this one!" he said, holding up a picture of Ash and Gary, much younger, covered in mud and standing in front of a collapsed fort made of sticks and rocks. "You two look like you were trying to build something... uh, epic."

Ash turned red. "Wisty, why do you even have that?!"

Gary groaned, running a hand down his face. "This is exactly why I don’t visit Pallet Town that often." He reached over to try and cover the pictures, but the scroll just kept unraveling.

Wisty, still not looking up from her book, responded flatly, “You should. Without you, Ash and Professor Oak are useless. They bawl every time I bring you up.”

“WISTY!” Ash shouted, his face now burning with embarrassment.

Gary shook his head in disbelief, muttering, “Unbelievable.”

Goh held up another picture, this one showing Ash and Gary as kids, climbing a tree and clearly getting stuck halfway up. “This one’s a classic!” Goh said, laughing. “How’d you even manage to get stuck like that?”

“That’s enough!” Gary barked, snatching the picture from Goh’s hand. He scrambled to cover the rest of the photos, but there were just too many. Ash, now in full panic mode, was trying to roll the paper back up from the other end, but the scroll seemed endless.

"Why do you even have all of these?!" Ash demanded, trying to keep his voice calm while desperately trying to hide more pictures of him and Gary in equally embarrassing situations.

Wisty, still reading, shrugged. “For posterity. Someday, you two will be legends, and people will want to know where it all started.” She turned a page in her book without even glancing up at the chaos she had caused.

Gary threw his hands up in frustration. “This is ridiculous.”

Ash, his voice cracking, yelled, “Wisty, you can’t just keep embarrassing pictures of us forever!”