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Misty's Sweetest Sixteen
-by Stinkoman20X6
-published March 1, 2007

Summary: Misty's sixteenth birthday is tomorrow, but she's not sure that the guys realize it and is much to stubborn to remind them. And Ash has been so intent on his Johto League training that the two of them are beginning to drift apart. Will Ash ever understand how Misty feels? Will Misty's birthday be a flop, or will it be one of the best days of her life

Genre: General / Romance
Shipping: Pokéshipping / AshxMisty / AAML, whichever you prefer
Rating: T, for some mild language

Author's notes: Sorry about the corny title and predictable summary, but AAML lends itself to that. This is my first Pokémon fan fiction, as well as my first piece of fiction in more than four years, so I apologize in advance if it sucks. I appreciate reviews both positive and negative, but please review critically if you choose to review at all. If your review doesn't help me improve as an author, it is a waste of your time to write and of mine to read. For the record, neither "lol ur so great, ur story is so cute!!11" nor "u r the worst riter evar" qualify as helpful or critical.

Disclaimer: This work of fiction and the author thereof are in no way affiliated with the entities that own the various aspects of the Pokémon franchise. These entities include, but are not limited to, the following: Nintendo of America Inc., Hasbro, Time Warner, Creatures, Game Freak, Pokémon USA, etc. Any mentions of the various aspects of the franchise as used in this story are in no way intended to deprecate the value thereof.
This story, with the exception of the aspects of the Pokémon franchise mentioned previously, is the copyright of Stinkoman (sometimes Stinkoman20X6) as of the year 2007. This story is the intellectual property of the author and is not to be modified or distributed without the author's consent. To contact the author, please send an e-mail to stinkoman AT yahoo DOT com.

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Only three more hours...only two hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-five seconds...only two hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty seconds...

Misty stopped staring at her watch and tried to compose herself, but the excitement was too poignant. After all, there were a mere two hours, fifty-nine minutes, and thirty-seven seconds until the most momentous day of her life thus far: her sixteenth birthday. How could she not be excited? After all, turning sixteen was a huge milestone. She would be legally able to drive, she would...oh, wait. She didn't have a car, had never really needed one since she always traveled on foot, and had never gotten her learner's permit anyway.

Well, there were other important aspects to turning sixteen, right? There was...um...being...not fifteen anymore?

Misty shook her head to clear such heretical thoughts from her mind. This was no time for rational thought. Rational thought was for after her sixteenth birthday, which was still just two hours, fifty-seven minutes, and forty-three seconds away. Turning sixteen was monumental, and everybody knew it. That was why people usually made such a big deal out of it, with lavish celebrations, large-scale parties, and really tall cakes (the thought of which made Misty salivate with glee). After all, turning sixteen was something to be celebrated.

This presented Misty with somewhat of a problem. Neither Ash nor Brock had mentioned anything to her about her birthday in months, and she was suspicious. She was certainly too stubborn to bring up the matter (she would be damned if she had to remind her best friends about her own birthday), but she was certain they hadn't forgotten. After all, even Ash, the densest person she knew, was not so careless as to forget his best friend's sixteenth birthday. Or so she hoped.

No, not even Ash could forget that.

Well, maybe he could, but Brock would remember and remind him.

Misty tore her eyes from her watch (just two hours, fifty-four minutes, and twelve seconds left) to look to the southern sky. It was getting late, and Ash was usually back right at 9:00. Even being five minutes and forty-eight seconds late seemed long for him. He may have been training harder than he ever had before, but even he understood the importance of a good night's sleep. Well, perhaps he didn't understand it as much as he simply really, really liked sleeping, but at least he always made sure to get plenty of rest. That was the important thing, right?

Misty pondered the events of the last couple of months. This wasn't the first irregularity in the group's travels; in fact, it seemed almost like getting back to the good old days of being lost and late wherever they went. After traveling for so long through Kanto and Johto, everything had changed so strangely in the last weeks.

It had started a little more than two months ago. Ash had just won his eighth Johto League badge from the Blackthorn City gym, but the Silver Conference was still more than three months in the future. Much to the surprise of Misty and Brock, Ash had been eager to get started on an intense regimen of training. He didn't, he said, want to repeat the debacle that had taken place at Indigo Plateau, when his poor training methodology had yielded him a disobedient Charizard that made him lose the most important match of his life. While this certainly made sense to Misty, making sense was not traditionally one of Ash's standard approaches to training (or to life, for that matter). She filed his actions away in the back of her mind, but thought nothing of it.

So, they had decided to return to Pallet Town. Upon arriving, they stayed the night at Ash's mother's house (who was delighted that her precious son and his friends were home to visit) and went to visit Professor Oak's lab the next day. While there, Ash decided to leave his Bayleef and Noctowl with the Professor, as he said he wanted to concentrate on Cyndaquil, Totodile, and Phanpy, none of whom, he argued, had evolved. This was even more surprising to Misty. Not only did Ash rarely choose willingly to leave his Pokémon behind, but he was never one to judge a Pokémon's strength based on its evolutionary status. Simply looking at the winning records of Pikachu or Bulbasaur proved as much. But, they were his Pokémon, so who was she to argue?

After telling Professor Oak about their training plans, the Professor offered to loan them his cabin near Vermillion City. The trio had stayed in the cabin several Christmases ago, and he thought it would make an excellent training ground for Ash's Pokémon. Its location, in the middle of a dense forest and within walking distance of the ocean, made it an ideal focal point for training on a wide variety of terrain. Misty was surprised that he would offer, as Ash usually preferred traveling to staying in one place, but she was even more surprised when Ash agreed excitedly. Maybe Ash was finally maturing. He was fifteen now, after all, not the ten-year-old boy whom she had met five years previously. Maybe, just maybe, he was beginning to get a little common sense.

No, that couldn't be it. This was Ash she was talking about.

Misty and Brock had been ready to set off for Vermillion City right away, but Ash was unwilling to go. He wanted, he said, to spend some time training with Bulbasaur and Snorlax, whom he had left at the lab previously and had not had the chance to work with for a few months. Despite his reasoning, though, Ash spent the next few days training in the forest south of Pallet with just himself and Pikachu; he refused to allow Misty and Brock to accompany him. So Misty and Brock had stayed with Mrs. Ketchum, helping her in her garden and doing some training of their own. Each day Ash would set out early in the morning and would not return until late at night. He continued this day after day for almost two weeks, each day arriving home dejected and depressed. Despite Misty's best efforts to cheer him up, he remained sullen. Finally, though, he returned home one day at lunchtime, beaming with happiness. He had, he announced, managed to find his old Pidgeot in the forest, whom he had promised to come back and collect before leaving for the Orange Islands. Furthermore, he said, he was finally satisfied with his Pallet town training and ready to leave. In a dramatic shift from his previous mood, he could not have been more anxious to leave for Vermillion; Misty and Brock practically had to hold him down to get him to stay one last night in Pallet. Early the next morning, though, they finally set off for the cabin.

In a fit of nostalgia, the trio chose to bypass the more direct route of Diglett's Cave and decided instead to follow the path they had originally traveled through Kanto (albeit forsaking the week's worth of wandering lost in Viridian Forest). They passed through the Viridian region with little event. Upon arriving at Pewter, the trio spent the evening at Brock's house, giving Brock a chance to visit his family. The trip through western Kanto went smoothly (the group even managed to avoid Team Rocket), and the threesome finally arrived at Cerulean City. Misty, as usual, wanted to avoid the place like she avoided peppers and carrots, but Brock and Ash's objections won out. Brock, of course, wanted to see the Sensational Sisters, and Ash, oddly enough, had sided with him; so, they had spent the night at the gym. While there, Ash recommended that Misty follow his lead and leave Staryu and Goldeen, who had been with her since Ash and Misty had first met, so she could concentrate on training her three remaining Pokémon: Corsola and Politoed, whom she had not had nearly as long, and Psyduck, who was always in need of some more training. Misty had had no intention of leaving any of her Pokémon behind and told Ash as much, but he was adamant about it. Even her sisters, who normally could have cared less about her training, thought that she should listen to him. She was a bit confused by this, as leaving the Pokémon behind would just leave more work for her sisters, but she figured there was a good reason. In all likelihood, she thought, they just wanted to get their hands on some half-decent Pokémon to use in gym battles. So she consented, left Staryu and Goldeen behind, and the group headed south towards Vermillion City.

Finally, after more than two weeks of hard traveling, Ash, Misty, and Brock arrived at the cabin. Misty and Brock were ready to take a break for a few days, but Ash would hear nothing of it. After all, he said, there were just a couple of months left for him to train. And so, the group fell into a new daily routine. After waking up, Brock would prepare them one of his delicious breakfasts, they would feed themselves and the Pokémon, and they would start their training. For the morning, Ash and Misty would go down to the beach to train together, while Brock would stay at camp and do chores (he always wanted to do them, no matter how much the other two offered) along with doing some training on his own. They would meet back at camp for lunch, and then Ash would head off on his Pidgeot to train alone, leaving Misty and Brock at camp. Misty and Brock had, for the first few days, wanted to go with him, but he had refused. He said that he wanted to be able to work one-on-one with his Pokémon, without the distraction of his friends. The two eventually agreed to let him go alone. Of course, it wasn't as though they had much choice in the matter, since Ash had the only Pokémon that could carry a person long distances. And so, every afternoon he would leave, Misty and Brock would train, fish, or do whatever, and Ash would always arrive back by 9:00 in the evening.

Except this one. It was already 9:17 (just two hours, forty-two minutes, and three seconds left!), and he hadn't come back yet. Another few minutes and Misty would seriously consider worrying.

She gazed south yet again, looking out over the ocean. She felt as a pang as she realized how much she was missing Ash, even if he was only a few minutes late. Thanks to their daily training sessions, the two had become even closer friends than before. She truly valued the time they were able to spend together, just the two of them (well, and their Pokémon, of course), and she hoped that he felt the same way. Of course, knowing Ash, he probably just thought of it as a few more hours of working towards his ultimate goal of Pokémon mastery. Misty sighed at the thought, wishing he would see that there were other things in life that were just as important, if not more so...well, it was Ash, after all, and trying to become a Pokémon master was what made him Ash Ketchum. She couldn't expect anything more from him.

She was starting to get worried about him. Beyond just his being late this evening, he had been acting strangely over the last few days. He was moody, depressed, and always seemed harried and overworked when he came back from his daily training sessions. Each day it had gotten worse; yesterday, she wasn't even able to get him to talk to her before he went to bed. She hoped that he was feeling alright.

Misty was distracted by a motion to her left. She glanced over; Brock had walked over to where she was sitting by the fire. (Although they were at a cabin, the past few weeks had had such nice weather that they had opted to sleep outside like they had when they were traveling.)

"Any sign of him yet?" he asked.

Misty sighed. "Not yet, but I'm sure he'll be back soon." Idly, Misty wondered what Brock was going to get her for her birthday (which, upon glancing at her watch, she determined was just two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and fifty-one seconds away)

Brock folded his arms in concern. "Hmm. He's never been out this long before...well, keep watching. You're probably right; I'm sure he's fine." He turned and headed towards his sleeping bag. "Good night, Misty."

"Good night, Brock."

Misty sat, gazing into the sky (when not glancing regularly at her watch) for nearly a half hour before she thought she saw something in the distance. She stood up and walked away from the fire so her eyes could focus in the moon-lit night.

There it was, soaring towards her from the southwest. Although it was still nothing but a patch of black on a star-studded sky, the silhouette was unmistakably that of a Pidgeot with a very familiar rider, which in turn had a very familiar mouse-shaped silhouette riding on its shoulder. Misty smiled, glad to know that Ash was alright. She waved, though she knew they couldn't see her, and decided that she could now legitimately head for her sleeping bag. After all, there were just two hours, four minutes and fourteen seconds until her sixteenth birthday, and she would need every second of it to be well-rested for the occasion. Grinning happily to herself, she curled up next to the fire and drifted quickly to sleep, dreaming of birthday celebrations to come.

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Ash brought his Pidgeot down a few hundred feet from the cabin in order to keep from waking up anyone in the camp. He was almost an hour late and he knew it, but he had had to finish some minor...training details. He hoped Misty wasn't worried about him. He wished that she knew better than to treat him like he couldn't take care of himself, but to Misty he would always be the dense, Pokémon-focused trainer.

Ash smiled to himself for the first time in what seemed like ages as he recalled his Pidgeot into its Poké Ball and headed towards the camp. He had been so busy these last few weeks getting everything ready, and over the last few days he wasn't even sure he would be able to finish on time. Fortunately, though it had forced it him to stay out this extra hour, he had just barely finished all the preparations. He grinned to himself again. Tonight, after all his hard work, he could finally relax. He reached the camp, stepping carefully so as not to wake his sleeping friends.

Ash turned to his electric friend, who had been walking next to him. "Alright, buddy, time for us to head off to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow."

"Pika pi pikacha pi chu, pikapi." [Well, at least you have a big day tomorrow, Ash.]

Ash grinned again at this. "You're right, as usual. Well, you still need your rest." Pikachu nodded in agreement and scampered over to Ash's sleeping bag.

Ash began to walk over to his sleeping bag to join Pikachu, but paused for a moment to gaze at Misty. In the dancing glow of the fire, her bright red hair seemed to almost shine. She was, he thought to himself, even more beautiful when she was asleep. He was just happy that everything was finally ready for tomorrow. Ash smiled once more and then headed for his sleeping bag in order to get a good night's rest. As he had told Pikachu, tomorrow was a big day, and it was a mere one hour, fifty-three minutes, and seventeen seconds away.