Night fell over the Ashford villa, and the interior was bathed in the warm, amber glow of electric lamps. The house was quiet, save for the distant hum of the ocean and the muffled sounds of a television coming from the living room.
Leo was sprawled on the velvet sofa, his eyes glued to a broadcast of an exhibition match between a Kanto Ace and a visiting Johto Gym Leader. He was analyzing the frame-data of a Scyther's X-Scissor when a voice drifted down from the second-floor balcony—a voice that was too sweet to be anything but a threat.
"Leo, darling? Could you come upstairs for a moment?"
It was Eleanor.
Leo didn't even move. He didn't even blink. He increased the volume on the TV by two notches. If I can't hear her, she doesn't exist, he reasoned with the desperate logic of a man facing a firing squad.
"Leo? I know you're not deaf. I can see the blue light of the television reflecting off the hallway wall."
Leo sank deeper into the cushions, pulling a decorative pillow over his head. I am a rock. I am an island. I am a Snorlax in a deep, dreamless slumber.
A moment later, the floorboards creaked. Not the heavy, hurried steps of Lorelei, but the light, rhythmic clip of a woman who enjoyed the hunt. The shadow of Eleanor Ashford fell across the sofa.
"Well, well," she said, leaning over the back of the couch. Her green hair was down now, flowing over her shoulders like a curtain of silk. Her smile was blindingly bright, and her eyes were those terrifying crescents again. "I called you three times, Leo. Are the speakers on that TV so loud they've rattled your brain?"
"Mom... Eleanor! I was just... in the zone," Leo said, finally sitting up and offering a weak, pathetic grin. "The tactics in this match are fascinating. Did you see that pivot? Truly inspiring."
"Is that so?" Eleanor reached down, and before Leo's "Psychic Potential" could even trigger a warning, she had him by the collar of his jacket. With the effortless strength of someone who wrestled Miltank for fun, she hoisted him up and sat down on the sofa, draped him across her lap.
Leo's heart stopped. No. Not this. I am a twenty-five-year-old soul! I have a mortgage—well, I had a mortgage! I have dignity!
WHACK!
"Ow! Hey!"
WHACK!
"Tell me, Leo," Eleanor said, her voice a purr of maternal discipline as she delivered a series of sharp, stinging spanks to his backside. "Are you really that eager to leave me? Is the thought of living with your sister so exciting that you've forgotten how to answer your mother?"
"I'm not—ow!—eager to leave you! I just—stop!—I'm a growing boy! I need—ow!—independence!"
The humiliation was absolute. It was a searing, red-hot brand on his ego. He was a transmigrator! He had a System! He had a Dragon-type that could level a city block! And yet, here he was, being treated like a toddler who had colored on the walls.
WHACK!
"Hmph," Eleanor finally stopped, though she didn't let him up. She smoothed out his jacket with a motherly touch that was almost more frustrating than the spanking itself. "I'll let you off with a warning this time. But don't think for a second that just because you're moving to the Indigo Plateau, you're out of my reach. I have friends in the League, Leo. If I hear you're being a brat, I'll fly over there on my Charizard and finish what I started today. Do we have an understanding?"
Leo, his face buried in the sofa cushions, let out a muffled groan of defeat. "Yes... loud and clear. Crystal clear."
Eleanor let him go, standing up with a satisfied hum. She looked down at him, her expression softening into something genuinely tender for a brief second. "Go back to your show, Leo. And pack your bags properly. I don't want Lorelei calling me because you forgot your sensible socks."
She walked away, her laughter echoing down the hall.
Leo sat up slowly, his bottom stinging and his pride in tatters. He looked at the television, but the battle no longer seemed interesting. He looked at the Luxury Ball on his belt, then at the empty hallway where the "Witch of the Ashfords" had vanished.
"System," Leo thought, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and exhaustion. "Is there a mission for 'Overthrowing a Matriarch'?"
[System: Ding! Calculating... Probability of Success: 0.0001%. Suggestion: Host should focus on surviving the journey to the mainland first. Also, your heart rate is elevated. Are we experiencing 'Filial Fear'?]
"Shut up," Leo snapped.
He lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. In a few days, the island would be a memory. The spankings, the morning kisses, the peaceful garden—it would all be replaced by the cold, cutthroat world of the Pokémon League.
He reached down and touched the Luxury Ball. The Onyx Serpent pulsed with a warm, comforting vibration.
"Soon," Leo vowed. "Soon, I'll be the one making the rules. And the first rule is: No more spanking."
As he drifted off to sleep on the sofa, the "Golden Shadow" roared in the distance, a lonely, powerful sound that promised a storm was coming to the Kanto mainland. And that storm's name was Leo Ashford.