Chapter 3 - A Very Overdue Family Reunion Part 1

2 Years Later - POV Finn Cambridge Age 7

"Ladies & Gentlemen, Pokéfans young and old! Welcome to the 64th Annual Pokémon World Championship Tournament!" A very excited announcer yells as she hypes up the crowd.

"My name is Jasmine and I will be your announcer for this tournament. Thank you all for joining us in the beautiful Orange Islands!" 

The people within the massive stadium, resembling the Ancient Roman Coliseum, cheer and holler at her as she flies through the air of the stadium on the back of her Pokemon.

Jasmine was a tall black woman at 5'11". She had light blue hair styled into a bun on one side and let loose on the other and chocolate brown eyes that shone with mirth and playfulness. She wore a grey nylon jumpsuit with all kinds of Pokemon patches, zippers, and colorful frills attached at seemingly random places. Beneath her was her signature Pokemon, a Corviknight named Felix.

Felix lands deftly on a raised platform to the right of a massive stage in the center of the arena. Jasmine hops off and joins 2 other women standing in front of a long table. She jumps into a hug with the smaller, black-haired woman, who catches her and hugs her back with a small smile on her face. 

The other taller woman with long brown hair stands off to the side, arms crossed, and smiles gently at the shorter woman being hugged. 

Breaking from the hug after a long couple of seconds, Jasmine turns her mic back on and steps to the front of the platform "Today we have with us two legendary World Trainers! They are here to share their expertise during the tournament. How lucky are we? I am sure they need no introductions, but I would be failing my job if I didn't give them one anyway, now wouldn't I!?!"

The audience chuckles, there were very few in attendance that didn't know the two people. 

"In the red sweater, standing 5'5" with a bust size of- Ouch!" Jasmine is cut off as the bun in her hair jerks upwards seemingly out of nowhere. "Kidding! Just kidding Sabby, calm down now..." She placates the other woman with her hands raised as she smiles sheepishly. 

The black-haired woman, whose eyes were glowing neon purple for a second, crosses her arms just like the brown-haired woman next to her. The taller woman's smile evolves into a shit-eating grin as she starts whispering to the shorter woman, who blushes and promptly elbows her in the stomach causing the taller woman to chuckle as she rubs her side. 

"*Ahem* I am proud to introduce my friend, the prettiest of the three Saffron City Gym Leaders, and the 46th World Champion: Sabrina Bellerose!" Jasmine introduced her friend to a roar of applause from the audience. 

Sabrina was a short woman with long black hair and pale red eyes. As Jasmine said, she wore a burgundy jacket with a yellow belt around her waist. She also wore tight dark blue leggings and matching red leather boots with grey fur sticking from their tops. Despite her diminutive frame, she had lovely curves that complimented her heart-shaped face.  

Sabrina turns on her microphone and simply says, "Hello." In a soft, deep voice. Despite the simplicity, the audience cheers loudly for her. 

"Last and least, we have this annoying girl!" Jasmine says as she hooks a thumb to the brown-haired woman. "The lucky son of a gun that managed to win Sabby's heart-" 

"I believe I have a few more qualifications than that, Jazz." The woman says with a smirk as she turns on her own microphone. 

"You do?" Jasmine asks as she tilts her head to the side and holds her hand up to her open mouth in mock shock. 

This elicits quite a few laughs from the crowd. The brunette was, after all, one of the most decorated Pokemon World Trainers in the world. 

"Whatever. As long as you introduce Wifey right, I am fine with it." The woman says with a shrug and a smile. 

"I am not," Sabrina comments as well, glaring at Jasmine. 

"Fine, Fine~" Jasmine relents. "Please give a warm round of applause for Green Bellerose, member of the Kanto Elite 4 as well as the 45th, 47th, and 48th World Champion!"

Green had long brunette hair and greyish-blue eyes. She wore a long green sleeveless dress and brown leather boots. Her figure was very curvy and her sideways grin had stolen more than a few hearts. She stood at 5'10" and waved to the crowd as they exploded in their loudest cheers yet. 

The Elite 4 were well respected within their region, and Green had been a Kanto member for 5 years now. 

In fact, the current Elite 4 included both Blue and Green. Red was still traveling the world, coming home every now and then, and no one had seen Yellow in years. 

"Now, enough with the introductions! It's time to get to the action!" Jasmine yells as the three women make their way around the table and sit down in their announcer seats. "We are all very lucky to have such experienced trainers with us to talk strategies and tactics. Speaking of tactics, our first competitors today are..."

"Awww! Green and Sabrina look so cute together!" Jessica, my Mom, gushes as she sits on the couch adjacent to my own. 

We are in the living room of my house watching the World Championship. Ash would be competing again this year since the Orange Islands were so close. Lara went with him along with her family, so I invited Jess, Kimmy, and Courtney to come and watch it at my place. 

Kimmy and Courtney were busy, however, so it was just Jess and me along with my family.

"They do, Jessie. After us, they make the second cutest Ex-Rocket couple!" James, my Dad agrees as he drapes his arm around Mom's neck and pulls her in close to give her a kiss on the cheek. 

Mom nods. "It's true. No one could beat us!" 

"Of course not! We set the bar way too high!" Dad says enthusiastically.

They devolve into lovey-dovey talk as the rest of us watch them with varying degrees of disgust or embarrassment. 

I sat on another couch in the living room with Rose, my soon-to-be 5-year-old little sister, on my right, and Jess, my friend from school, on my left. 

Rose is an adorable 4-year-old. She has cerulean blue hair tied up in pigtails and matching blue eyes. She wears a cute purple dress with baby pokemon playing as a decal on its chest.

Rose is a quiet child most of the time. She rarely makes a fuss, but she can get pretty emotional and cry for a while when upset. She has some friends in the pre-school she goes to, but she has always preferred to be near me or my parents. I do my best to take care of her as any good brother should and make sure to give her lots of attention and love. 

Jess has changed a lot in the 2 years I have known her. She used to be a very quiet person and kept to herself, but now she is much more outgoing. She also used to be very prim and proper with the way she dressed and spoke. Her new attire, an ultra baggy black hoodie with khaki cargo shorts, matches her much more relaxed tongue perfectly. 

"Are your folks always like this?" She leans in to whisper to me.

"Yes." Rose and I answer at the same time with matching dead eyes. 

"Huh. Must be nice." She mumbles.

Rose and I move our dead eyes to her now instead, causing her to chuckle. 

We continue to watch the TV in the living room, trying to ignore my parents, as Pyra and Grayson, Jess' Machop, play-wrestle quietly on the ground in front of us.

"Would you two cool it in front of the kids?" Persian asks from where he lies on the floor in front of my parents. Apparently, he is the first to lose it.

"Aw, are you feeling left out, Persian? Come up here, we can give you some love too~!" Mom says, patting her lap.

"If you try to grab me, I'm going to scratch you again." Persian huffs as he rolls over away from them.

"Grumpy goose~" Mom pouts

"Oh! It's Ash!" I call out, seeing the iconic man in red with a hat and Pikachu. 

"Do you think he will win?" Jess asks beside me.

"Knowing his luck and record...Maybe?"

'I know for a fact he is a competent trainer. He's a Gym Leader now, after all. Surely he can win or at least make it to the Finals, right?'

Jess rolls her eyes at my answer. 

"Oh, there's Lara and her mom." Jess continues as Jasmine talks about the competitors. 

"Next up we have Ash Ketchum! He was the Champion of the 50th and 51st tournaments!"

'See! He can win if he tries!'

"I've battled him many times. He is a great trainer...if a bit too idealistic." Sabrina comments from her spot next to Jasmine as the camera pans out to Ash and then to his family.

"Oh, and is that his family? I haven't seen Serena in anything in a while. She was busy raising 2 beautiful kids, it looks like!" Green comments as Serena, holding a sleeping 4-year-old Conor in her arms, waves to the cameras and the stands. Lara stands next to her waving just as enthusiastically. 

"I actually have an announcement regarding that!" Jasmine says, taking the queue from Green and reading from a paper on the table. "It looks like Ash and Serena's 6-year-old daughter Lara will be appearing in a kids-themed television program called PokeDetectives starting up this coming March!"

"Getting them started young, eh Serena?" Green quips, causing Serena to stick her tongue out at her and making the audience laugh again. 

"Do you think Grant would want to do something like that?" Sabrina asks Green.

"Heh. I think our son inherited too much of your brooding for acting." Green says with a teasing smile. 

"Well if he has a tenth of your talent with scamming others, I think he would be great." Sabrina shoots back.

"Alright, no lover's quarrels on national television you two. Back to the Match! Ash's opponent this year is a new World Trainer..."

"Lara is going to be on TV?" Jess asks me, "Did you know about that?"

"Yup! She mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, she has been watching a lot of movies and shows her mom was in a couple of years ago, so she told her mom she wants to try it. Serena was all for it!"

"Oh...I wish I had a TV..." Jess scowls down at the floor.

"Wanna come over and watch it together here? We could have a viewing party with Lara if you want?" I ask.

Jess whips her head towards me with a brilliant smile. "Really?"

'Jeez. This kid is too cute when she smiles. It changes her entire demeanor!'

"For sure!" I say and give her a thumbs-up,

She giggles and gives me a side hug. "Thanks, Finn, you're the best."

I pat her head and turn back to the TV. We continue to watch the tournament in that position and see as...

*Sigh*

Ash tries to beat a Tyranitar with his Pikachu.

'Seriously?'

Props where props are due, Pikachu manages to beat it and it turns out to be a dramatic battle where Ash wins by the skin of his teeth.  

"Always with that Pikachu..." My Mom sighs as well. 

"You gotta give it to Ash though, it is probably the best trained Pikachu in the world. How many others could go up against a highly trained Rock-Dark Type with an Electric Type and win?" My Dad gives his two cents as well.

"Doesn't make it any less silly," I say and we all laugh.  

"Really, Ash has a stubborn streak a mile long. Delia must have had her hands full," Mom says.

"Like Finn is any better. We have to physically pull him inside each day after training." My dad responds with a grin at me. 

"Hey! Leave me out of this! ...And who's Delia?" I ask.

"Ash's mom and Lara's Grandmother, Delia Ketchum. You have met her before, but you were pretty young." My Mom says offhandedly as she continues to watch the tournament. She is practically glued to my Dad's side, but at least they stopped the baby talk. 

'Oh! Right! I almost forgot about her...Or I guess I did forget about her...Maybe I should write down my past memories so that I don't forget them all?'

"Do I have a Grandma?" Rose asks innocently in her soft voice.

"Yeah, I bet you two were just as much of a handful!" I comment as I pat Rose's head. 

Unexpectedly, my parents both freeze. 

Mom removes herself from her embrace with Dad and stares deeply at him for a long moment. "That's right...You've never met your Grandparents...James...Maybe we could-"

"Jessie...I haven't spoken to them in years..." My Dad says in a firm tone.

"After Mom went missing, I was an orphan, so I don't have parents...but you do, James. Don't you think it's time to mend the fence? We have changed a lot...I am sure they would accept us." Mom asks with a sweet smile.

"No. I don't think so." Dad says stubbornly. "We don't need their acceptance."

"James..." Mom pleads, her tone showing she was a bit hurt. "Can't you do it for our children?"

"Finn and Rose don't need their acceptance either," Dad says with finality. He then stands and leaves the room.

Mom frowns deeply. "James Cambridge, we are not done talking about this!" She stands and leaves to follow after him.

"Um...Maybe I should go home?" Jess asks beside me uncertainly. 

I am about to say that she should be fine when the shouting starts from deeper within the house. 

I look at Rose who is tearing up.

"Yeah...Sorry, Jess. Let's watch the rest of this later."

* | * | * 

The next week was rough. 

Dad slept on the couch and was always grumpy, Mom wouldn't speak to him and was super clingy, and Rose and Persian spent every night in my room to get away from them both.

They had never fought like this, at least not as far as I remember. 

Sure, they had small arguments here and there, but never something like this...

It was bad enough that I started asking Lara if Rose and I could come over there for the evenings. Her family was happy to accept us and, when I told them what was going on, they even tried to go over to mediate a bit.

I figured it would be solved in a day or so, but as we were approaching day 8, I'd had enough.

After school, I planned to sit them both down and try to figure it out because they were scaring Rose. She was getting even more quiet and withdrawn, and that was unacceptable. 

But when I got home with Rose, after picking her up from Pre-school like I had been doing this last week, I was surprised to see both my parents waiting for us in the Kitchen.

They each had puffy eyes and were hunched over on the dining room table.

I was immediately assuming the worst, having gone through a divorce in my past life, but, to my surprise, they apologized instead.

They both broke down into tears and said how sorry they were, taking turns hugging Rose and me closely. 

Apparently, Serena and Ash had told them they were being lousy parents and they needed to get their act together...Ash even had Pikachu shock them while Persian happily watched and did nothing.

I had to remind myself that they were still both in their late 20s. They were human and made mistakes just like the rest of humanity. They were also terrible human beings for most of their life and were trying to be better only recently. I couldn't fault them for having a relapse of their selfish tendencies, especially after seeing how hard they tried to fix themselves to get here and how much they truly meant their apologies. I decided to forgive them and let it go.

Rose forgave them immediately and was just glad to have their attention again. She cried even more than they did.

After a giant family hug, in which even Persian joined reluctantly, they promised to do better and to not fight like this again. They reassured Rose and me that they still loved each other, and they made another announcement, or, rather, my Dad did.

"We are going to visit your Grandparents this weekend," Dad says, still clinging to me and hugging me tightly.

"Dad...we don't have to go if you don't want to," I say, patting his back and avoiding his face covered in snot. 

"No!" He cries out with passion, "I will do better! I was just scared of facing them after running away from home. I was scared they would take their anger out on you and Rose...But Jessica and I have changed. We are people worth liking! And they deserve to know you wonderful kids as well." He finishes sincerely. 

My Mom smiles and hugs him close...which leads to another big group hug.

I just let it happen. This was a huge dramatic debacle, but I was excited to meet more of my family and proud of my Dad for overcoming his fears. 

"Alright. James, you take Finn for some clothes shopping, I will take Rose. We need to look our best as we introduce ourselves and our family! Let's make this perfect!" Mom declares with a fist pump, her eyes shining. 

One shopping montage later, and the day had finally arrived. We packed up everyone, with the exception of Persian who wanted to stay home, and got into my Dad's 4-door sedan.

The drive would take us a couple of hours as my Grandparents lived just south of Celadon City in a large manor. 

One thing to note was that the map of the world from the games was not accurate here. That was what was called the "Offical Junior League Route," and was one of the routes Jr. League trainers could take to get their 8 badges. 

More on trainer types later. The basic gist was that there were 3 levels: Jr. Leauge Trainers, Official Trainers, and World Trainers.

The world, on the other hand, was much larger and, as one might expect, had many different roads, highways, and other means of traversing. 

Kanto itself wasn't even an island as it was portrayed in the games! It was actually part of a larger landmass that connected most continents and was much, much bigger than one would have expected from looking at the game maps. 

This is all to say that we could easily hop in the car and drive to almost every city in Kanto without having to go through caves or anything crazy like that. The only exception was Cinnabar Island, which was a large island off the coast of Kanto. You had to take a ferry to get there and back from either Pallet or Fuchsia City.

So, 3 hours later, my whole family was approaching the entrance to a large, hedged manor gate. 

Dad was white-knuckling the steering wheel the entire ride and Mom was patting his leg reassuringly. I played games with Rose and Pyra, who rode in the middle seat in between us, the whole time, but otherwise, it was quiet in the car.  

When we finally approached the huge double-gatted wrought-iron fence with the name "Cambridge" shaped out of the metal in the middle, the tension in the car was extremely high.

Dad pulled up to an electronic box outside the gate and pressed the call button on the electronic gate keypad. 

He had sent a letter telling my Grandparents we were coming, so they shouldn't be surprised by our visit.

"Yes?" A sophisticated voice called over the speaker on the box.

"A-Ah, yes. Hello. I-I'm James Cambridge...I wrote last week about coming to visit and introduce my family to my parents..." Dad said nervously. 

"We have been expecting you, Young Master James. Come on in." The voice called back as the gate started to open on its own. 

"This is it..." Dad says through his teeth.

"It will be fine, dear," Mom says, prying one of his hands from the steering wheel and holding it in her own reassuringly. 

"Yes...It will be fine." Dad repeats as if to convince himself.

"It will all be fine..."