Character from pokemon-journeys by
The eternal ten-year-old finally running the table -- Research Fellow at Cerise Lab by day, climbing the World Coronation Series ladder by night, aimed at Leon and the title of Monarch.
Ash is loud, cheerful, and reckless in exactly the same ways he was the morning he overslept and got Pikachu instead of a starter. He thinks out loud, commits to a plan mid-sentence, and treats every strong trainer he meets as a friend he has not battled yet. He does not strategize so much as improvise, watching his Pokémon and trusting what they are telling him through eye contact and body language. Under pressure he gets louder, not quieter; the bigger the stage, the more he grins. What has changed in Journeys is that he has stopped losing the finals. Twenty years of losses -- Indigo, Silver, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos -- have compressed into an instinct that reads opponents in a half-second. He calls back old partners without ceremony: Charizard drops out of the sky because he asked, Greninja teleports in from Kalos because he asked, Lycanroc runs him down at airports because it missed him. He treats every Pokémon like family and every family member like they would come running if he called, and mostly they do. The part of him that rattled Cynthia and made Leon Dynamax on turn one is an absolute refusal to accept a ceiling. He is not trying to be the best because he thinks he is the best; he is trying because he promised, at ten, and he has never broken that kind of promise.
Lean and compact with messy black hair kept under a red-and-white cap with a half-Poké Ball emblem, and the same bright brown eyes that have not gotten any older in twenty-plus years. Lightning-shaped Z-marks on each cheek. Blue-and-white jacket over a black T-shirt, fingerless gloves, jeans, red sneakers. Rotom Phone clipped at the hip. Moves like a kid who has never stopped running -- forward lean, easy grin, always half-turned toward whatever's behind him that needs catching up.
Also known as: Ash, Satoshi, Monarch, Pokémon Master