The three assistants were sisters named Faith, Hope, and Grace. The naming convention was so on-the-nose that Ash, Misty, and Brock exchanged glances but said nothing.
They followed the girls through the laboratory to the backyard, where the building opened onto a rocky bay. And there was Professor Ivy.
She was in a one-piece swimsuit, waist-deep in the shallows, playing with a Gyarados. The massive serpent's head swayed above her, jaws parted in what might have been contentment or might have been a threat display. Hard to tell with Gyarados.
Misty took one look at it and stepped behind Ash. Her hand found his sleeve and gripped tight.
Ash glanced back in surprise. Misty, the girl who loved Water-types more than anyone he knew, was afraid of Gyarados? Her expression said this wasn't casual unease. There was history there. He didn't ask. His body shifted in front of her on instinct, placing himself between Misty and the bay.
"Professor Ivy, I'm Ash, from Pallet Town. This is Brock from Pewter Gym and Misty from Cerulean Gym. Professor Oak sent us to deliver the GS Ball."
Ivy vaulted off Gyarados and landed on the shoreline. Faith was already waiting with a white lab coat, which Ivy pulled on over the swimsuit without bothering to dry off.
Brock's brain shut down for approximately three seconds, rebooted, and immediately began operating at maximum romantic capacity. He would need to be monitored.
"So you're Ash." Ivy studied him with the sharp, cataloguing gaze of a researcher encountering a new specimen. "Fifteen years old. Six months of travel. Defeated a Elite trainer. Indigo Plateau Conference Champion. Half a year to accomplish what most trainers can't manage in a lifetime. Kanto's rising star."
Hearing your own resume read back to you by a stranger was a specific kind of uncomfortable. "I'm not that impressive."
"Come inside. I need to change."
Ten minutes later, Ivy reappeared in a light orange dress under her lab coat. She extended her hand.
"The GS Ball?"
Ash pulled it from his pack and handed it over. Ivy carried it straight to a computer terminal, placed it on a scanning platform connected to the machine, typed a rapid sequence of commands, and hit enter.
A progress bar appeared on screen.
"This is a Poké Ball structural analyser," Ivy said, eyes on the monitor. "It breaks down the ball's composition, materials, internal mechanisms, and functional properties. Professor Oak is the better Poké Ball researcher, but this machine only exists in one place. It's normally housed at League headquarters. I borrowed it for a separate project."
That explained why Oak had sent them here instead of running the analysis himself. The tool, not the scientist, was the bottleneck.
"The scan will take time. Let's have lunch while we wait. Have you eaten?"
Ash checked the time. Almost one o'clock. The morning porridge should have worn off hours ago, but none of them felt hungry. Glowing Cuisine apparently had staying power that defied normal digestion rates.
They followed Ivy to the laboratory's dining area.
And stopped in the doorway.
The sink was buried under a mountain of unwashed dishes. Nearly ten garbage bags sat tied but uncollected on the floor. Clothes were draped over chairs, counters, and one light fixture. The dining table held several empty instant noodle cups arranged in a pattern that suggested they'd been accumulating for days.
The room looked less like a dining hall and more like a landfill with overhead lighting.
Ivy's expression carried the specific embarrassment of someone who had forgotten other humans would be seeing this space.
"It's a little messy. Don't mind it." She turned to the youngest sister. "Grace, grab six cups of instant noodles. Spicy or mild?"
Ash, Misty, and Brock stared.
Instant noodles. For guests. In a room that would make a Muk feel at home.
Ash and Brock exchanged a look. Brock turned to Professor Ivy.
"Do you have any ingredients?"
"Some. A little pork, a few vegetables. There are fish in the basin, but none of us know how to prepare them." Ivy touched her cheek, visibly embarrassed. "We hire someone to cook. Once a week, roughly."
She braced herself for the judgement. A grown woman who couldn't keep her own dining hall habitable. Whatever impression she'd built with her research credentials was crumbling in real time.
Ash, Misty, and Brock took off their jackets and rolled up their sleeves.
Within ten minutes, the dining hall was unrecognisable. Garbage bagged and removed. Dishes washed and stacked. Clothes folded and relocated. Surfaces wiped clean. The transformation was so complete that the previous state felt like a hallucination.
Ivy and the three sisters stood with their mouths open. The housekeeper they hired couldn't work this fast. Three teenagers had just deep-cleaned a disaster zone in the time it took to boil water.
Ash and Brock didn't stop at cleaning. One raided the refrigerator. The other fired up the stove.
Ash pulled a crucian carp from the basin, picked up a kitchen knife, and made a single clean stroke. The fish went still. Then he gripped the tail, applied precise pressure along the spine, and peeled the entire skeleton away from the flesh in one motion.
The bone came out whole, picked clean, as if it had been surgically removed rather than extracted from a fish that had been alive thirty seconds ago.
Ivy and the girls broke into applause. They couldn't help it. Misty, resting against the counter with Togepi, wore the quiet pride of someone whose boyfriend had just done something worth bragging about.
Ash cut the fish into portions and passed them to Brock, who had the wok screaming with heat. Then Ash pulled pork and vegetables from the refrigerator, prepped the proportions, mixed the seasonings, and fed Brock a sequence of ingredients timed to the second.
Two dishes in ten minutes. Spicy Crucian Carp. Stir-Fried Pork with Garlic Shoots. Misty's rice finished at the same moment.
Ash hadn't cooked both dishes himself, so the food didn't glow. But a faint sheen hovered over the plates, and the aroma filling the kitchen was richer and deeper than anything Brock had produced on his own. Every measurement, every seasoning ratio, every timing cue had come from Ash. Brock had been the hands. Ash had been the brain.
And Brock could feel the difference. Cooking under Ash's direction, following his instinct for ingredient chemistry, had pushed Brock past a ceiling he hadn't known he was pressing against. His own skills had levelled up in real time.
"You can eat now, Professor Ivy. Wash your hands first."
"Faith, Hope, Grace, go wash up!"
The meal destroyed them.
Ivy and the three sisters had spent ninety percent of their recent meals eating instant noodles. On the rare occasion real food appeared, it was the housekeeper's competent but unremarkable home cooking. Two dishes and a pot of rice from Ash and Brock hit their palates like a revelation.
The warmth was physical. The same effect Ash's breakfast porridge had produced: fatigue lifting, tension draining, the body resetting itself as if the food carried restorative properties that went beyond nutrition. Because it did.
Ivy set down her chopsticks, exhaled, and leaned back. "I'm full. You three are remarkable. Misty, I envy you having these two as travel companions."
Brock stood up.
The suddenness of the motion drew every eye. His face was flushed. His posture was rigid. When he spoke, his voice carried a sincerity that neither Ash nor Misty had heard from him before.
"Professor Ivy, if you'd allow it, I'd like to stay and take care of things here."
Ash and Misty froze.
Brock had fallen for every older woman they'd encountered on their journey. It was a running joke, a reliable constant, as predictable as the sunrise. But this was different. He wasn't swooning or performing. He was standing straight, looking Ivy in the eye, and making a serious offer.
"I can see your living situation, and I can't leave in good conscience. Cooking, cleaning, lab upkeep. I can handle all of it."
"But you're travelling with Ash," Ivy said, surprised. "And the GS Ball will need to go back to Professor Oak after analysis. Can you afford to stay?"
"Misty and Ash can handle the delivery. As for the journey..." Brock paused, then committed. "Those two are a couple now. I've been a third wheel for a while. Staying here isn't a sacrifice. It's the right move for everyone."
Ash and Misty exchanged a flat look. Third wheel? They'd been getting along fine as a trio five minutes ago. But pointing that out would undercut whatever Brock was building here, so they held their tongues and turned their attention to Ivy, letting her decide.
Ivy considered it. Brock's first impression included a wandering eye, but the man behind the eye was capable, kind, and could apparently cook at a level that made instant noodles feel like a crime against humanity. The practical benefits alone were overwhelming.
She smiled. "Then I'll be in your care, Brock."
"Thank you! I won't let you down!"