"What are you two talking about?" Ash walked back over, Berries packed and stored, to find Misty and Serena huddled together whispering. Whatever they'd been discussing had left both of them grinning.
"Nothing!" They answered in perfect unison, then looked at each other and laughed again.
Ash scratched his head. The two of them had gotten noticeably closer in the fifteen minutes he'd been away. Girl friendships moved at a speed he couldn't track.
"We should get going. Next island."
"Already?" Nana looked disappointed. "I know you're on a schedule, but Fruit Seven Islands has more than just Berries. There are beautiful spots all over, and plenty of wild Pokémon.
The ones living here are nothing like that Snorlax. They eat a Berry or two when they're hungry and give back to the orchards in their own way. It's a real partnership between people and Pokémon here."
She wasn't exaggerating. The Pokémon on these islands understood balance in a way that most humans struggled with. They took what they needed and no more.
When they did eat from the orchards, they'd bring back things from the wild in return: rare herbs, useful stones, materials the staff couldn't source on their own.
The exchange was unspoken and mutual. Nature was their home, and they treated it accordingly.
Ash hesitated. Scenery alone wouldn't have stopped him. But Pokémon? Different Pokémon, living in a natural ecosystem, interacting with humans in a way he hadn't seen before? That was worth a day or two.
They stayed.
Nana arranged free lodging at a guesthouse on the main island. After what Ash had done with the Snorlax, nobody was going to charge him for a room. She also told them they could eat any fruit or Berry on the island, as much as they wanted, no limits.
The "no limits" came with an unspoken boundary that everyone understood. Eat what you want while you're here. Don't fill a suitcase on the way out. Sitrus Berries were five hundred each, not five. Generosity had practical edges.
Ash's group wouldn't have crossed that line even if it weren't implied. They weren't the type.
After dropping their bags, the three headed deeper into the island.
Within minutes of the guesthouse, they found a cluster of raspberry bushes heavy with bright red fruit. A few Rattata crouched underneath, nibbling on fallen berries. They glanced up at the approaching footsteps, decided the newcomers weren't a threat, and went back to eating.
The Pokémon here were accustomed to people. Petting them wouldn't spook them. Only aggression would.
"These look incredible!" Serena jogged ahead, plucked a raspberry, wiped it on her sleeve, and bit in. Her eyes squeezed shut. "So good! You have to try these!"
Misty picked one and nodded. "Way fresher than anything we've bought on the road."
Ash tasted one. Natural, pollution-free, grown in Berry-rich soil. The difference from mass-produced fruit was unmistakable. These were ordinary raspberries, worth about twenty dollars a pound.
Compared to the Berries they'd just spent three million on, they were pocket change. But the flavour was honest and real.
They walked the stone paths deeper into the island. The scenery unfolded like a painting being completed one stroke at a time.
Oddish shuffled through roadside bushes, leaves swaying on their heads like tiny parasols. In a clear stream, Magikarp and Goldeen darted between rocks, breaking the surface with flashes of orange and white. In a distant orchard, Paras with mushroom shells on their backs moved between the trees, clearing weeds from around the trunks.
Volunteer groundskeepers. The mutual aid between humans and Pokémon wasn't an abstract concept here. It was visible in every direction.
"This place is wonderful." Misty clasped her hands behind her back, green eyes distant and warm. "It feels like the world outside doesn't exist here. When you've achieved your dream, Ash, you should find a place like this to settle down."
Ash glanced at her. He was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he reached over and took the hand she'd tucked behind her back.
"That day will come. After I become a Pokémon Master, I'll find somewhere like this. Somewhere peaceful. I'll live there with my Pokémon, with my partners." He met her eyes. "With you, Misty. We'll spend our days exploring and just... being. A retired life."
Misty's face went from pink to crimson in the space of a heartbeat. She could feel heat rising from her collar to her hairline. Steam might have been visible. If someone had cracked an egg on her forehead, it would have cooked.
Ash didn't say things like this. He'd never been a sweet-talker. His affection lived in his actions, in the way he protected her, included her, carried her when she was tired. Words were Brock's territory, or the Harem King's from the Chat Group. Not Ash's.
But when Ash did make a promise, he meant it with every fibre of his being. He'd never broken one. If he said they'd live together in a place like this after he achieved his dream, then that was what would happen.
Misty believed it. Completely. Without reservation.
The blush wasn't just from the promise, though. It was also from Serena walking on Ash's other side, close enough to hear every word. In private, Misty would have been shy but overjoyed. With an audience, the shyness overwhelmed everything else.
Serena's gaze was fixed on the middle distance, her expression one of deep fascination with a section of landscape that contained nothing interesting at all. She hadn't heard a thing. Officially.
In reality, there was nothing in the distance. She was just secretly envious in her heart.
Envious that Misty could receive that promise. Envious that Misty could stand where Serena wished she could stand.
And grateful, in a complicated way, for Ash's density. If he could read her feelings the way Misty could, if he'd ever looked at her and said the quiet part out loud, the rejection would end everything. Not just the hope. The companionship. The right to walk beside him at all.
So maybe the blockhead thing was a kindness. Maybe.
Back at the guesthouse, Ash turned his attention to his newest team member.
Snorlax's injuries were significant. Pikachu had held back during the capture. Without Tokiwa Power, they would have needed a Pokémon Centre on another island.
A Poké Ball could freeze a Pokémon's condition temporarily, but it wasn't a medical facility. Left untreated, injuries deteriorated even inside the ball.
Ash healed Snorlax with his hands. The process took time, but the result was complete. When the big blue Pokémon emerged from recovery, it showed no resentment toward the trainer who'd beaten it unconscious an hour ago.
That was Snorlax. Simple-hearted. Short-memoried. Its fury at being interrupted mid-meal had evaporated in the time it took to sit still for ten minutes. It didn't hold grudges because grudges required sustained thought, and Snorlax's brain was built for one priority at a time.
Right now, that priority was hunger.
The Sitrus Berries it had eaten before the battle were gone. Not digested. Consumed as emergency HP reserves during the fight. Every stored Berry effect had been triggered and spent. Snorlax was now hungrier than it had been before it started raiding the orchard.
The scent of Sitrus Berries drifted in from outside. Snorlax's nostrils flared. Its massive body shifted toward the door.
Ash grabbed its arm and hauled it back.
One thousand pounds of Snorlax, pulled by the wrist and sat down on the floor by a fifteen-year-old boy. Snorlax's simple face scrunched with confusion. This new trainer's arms were thinner than its fingers. The strength behind them didn't match anything about his appearance.
"Listen to me." Ash crouched so they were eye to eye. "If you're hungry, I'll cook for you. I promise you'll be full. But those Berries outside are off limits. People spent generations growing them. If you eat everything they have, they lose their livelihood. That's not food. That's someone's life."
Snorlax scratched its head and lowered it. When it wasn't consumed by hunger, it could understand human speech. It could process right and wrong. It could feel guilt. The problem was that starvation overwrote all of that. If Ash didn't feed it soon, rational Snorlax would check out and feral Snorlax would check in.
The clock was ticking.
Ash released his team. Charizard, Gardevoir, Lugia Jr., and the others stationed themselves outside with one job: keep Snorlax from moving until dinner was ready.
He disappeared into the kitchen.
Thirty minutes later, Ash emerged carrying a pot large enough to bathe in.
Misty and Serena had set up a table outside. The team was gathered around it. And Snorlax, held in place by Gardevoir's psychic grip on one side and Charizard's claws on its shoulders on the other, was vibrating.
Its nose had identified the contents of the pot before the lid came off. The nearly invisible slits that served as its eyes were glowing. If Gardevoir and Charizard released their hold for half a second, Snorlax would have been across the yard and inside the pot, face first.
"Patience, Snorlax. Your food is ready too. Let me get it."
Ash went back inside and returned with Snorlax's personal course: blazing spicy sky onion pancakes. Three of them. Each about the size of Snorlax's palm.
They looked like appetisers. For a Pokémon that had eaten an entire hillside of trees and still wanted more, three palm-sized pancakes seemed like a joke.
They weren't.
The pancakes glowed. A faint, warm shimmer that marked them as Glowing Cuisine, infused with Berry energy and crafted at peak technique. The smell hit the yard like a wall, and even the other Pokémon turned their heads.
Snorlax was beyond words. Drool pooled on the ground beneath its chin.
Ash nodded to Charizard and Gardevoir. They released their hold.
Snorlax lunged. Its hands closed around all three pancakes simultaneously, and they vanished into its mouth in a single motion.
Then something unexpected happened. Snorlax slowed down.
A Pokémon famous for swallowing food without chewing was taking its time. Each bite was deliberate, measured. It chewed. It tasted. The flavours were hitting it in waves, and for the first time in its life, Snorlax wanted the eating to last.
Ten seconds. That was how long three pancakes survived. For Snorlax, ten seconds was an eternity.
When the last bite went down, Snorlax's pale blue skin flushed crimson from head to toe. The spice hit like a physical force. Ash's recipe combined standard chilli with ultra-spicy Berries in a layered fusion that created heat beyond what either ingredient could achieve alone.
But the spice wasn't punishment. It was the mechanism. The burning sensation triggered an intense, sustained feeling of fullness that suppressed appetite at its source. Not satiety through volume. Satiety through sensation.
A recipe developed for one species. Designed to solve the one problem that made Snorlax impossible to feed. Different from commercial satiety PokéBlocks. Better.