Welcome to my first story! This is an… interesting… idea that came up while conversing with Epicocity about his story "Love in the Time of Turbulence". You don't have to read that to understand this story, it is standalone (and completely different in mood from that story). I'd strongly encourage you to go read his stories anyways, especially if you enjoy a good plot-driven conflict with mystery and surprises.

For placement of this story in the anime timeline, it would be set somewhere during the group's journey from Snowbelle City to Lumiose City for the Kalos League.

Role Reversal

"Hey Ash, do you think we could spend the afternoon here?"

Ash looked up from his sandwich and over at his friend sitting next to him. "Well, I was kind of hoping to get closer to Lumiose City and the Kalos League. Why did you want to stay here, Serena?"

Serena glanced down, away from Ash's eyes, before nervously responding. "You see, I wanted to do some training for future Showcases, and I was hoping you'd be able to help me with that."

"Me?" Ash asked, confused. "I'm not sure how much help I could be, Showcases are so different from battles."

"You remember when we met Arianna and she challenged me to a performance battle?" Ash nodded his head while Serena continued, "I want to work with Braixen on her agility and flexibility, and was hoping that a battle would allow me to judge her limits and where to focus our training on."

Ash smiled before responding. "That's not a problem at all! Although, if Braixen is fine with it, why don't you let me battle with Braixen and you can use one of my Pokémon? That way, you can pay more attention to Braixen's movements during the battle."

"That's a good idea. I think I'd like to partner with Greninja."

After cleaning up from lunch, Ash and Serena were ready to start their battle, with Braixen and Greninja agreeing to partner up against their trainer. Bonnie was nearby with Pikachu, Dedenne, and Squishy to watch the battle. Clemont was a little further away with Bunnelby tinkering on some new inventions (or possibly reworking some old inventions, it wasn't easy to tell with Clemont).

"Go ahead and take the first move Serena. That way we can respond and you can observe Braixen's movements," Ash shouted over to Serena.

"All right! Start out with Cut Greninja!"

Greninja pulled out the glowing white blade and sprinted towards Braixen in a straight path.

"Wait for him to get in close Braixen, then read his attacks and try to dodge with as little movement from your spot as possible," Ash calmly responded to the attack.

Braixen, although unsure of herself, knew she should trust Ash's judgement in a battle situation. Ash Greninja neared, Braixen sensed that the first Cut attack was coming from her left as a thrust, and she responded by leaning to her right while twisting her torso, doging the attack while keeping an eye on the blade. Greninja kept up with the attacks though, and Braixen found herself ducking, twisting, and leaning in more ways than she thought she was able to, although a couple of times she had to parry the Cut attack with her wand. At the end, Greninja tried to do a lower sweep slice with his blade, but Braixen just jumped up and executed a flawless backflip to dodge the attack and put a little distance between herself and Greninja. Impressed by the grace of the flip, Greninja hesitated a moment, but that was all Ash needed.

"Now, fire off Hidden Power at Greninja!"

Braixen responded with a swift twirl of her wand before aiming the attack at Greninja and sendng a cluster of glowing white orbs in his direction.

Serena was quick to respond. "Counter by using Double Team to dodge and surround Braixen!"

Greninja seeming vanished from view for a second before several copies reappeared in the air in a ring around Braixen. "Now use Water Shuriken!"

Braixen was bracing for the attack when Ash called out to her, "Relax Braixen! Spin while using Flamethrower upwards!"

The confidence Ash had easily spread to Braixen. She relaxed, and started to spin like commanded while firing off the Flamethrower. The attack spiraled up around her, intercepting the Water Shuriken and evaporating them. A cloud of steam, almost like fog, surrounded Braixen, but as her attack continued the Flamethrow flared out at the top and destroyed the copies of Greninja. Greninja was hit and thrown back, but recovered and landed on his feet back in front of Serena. As the steam cleared, some remaining water droplets fell down around Braixen, glittering in the sunlight and remains of the Flamethrower as she came out of her spin.

"Whoa, that was a beautiful move! I didn't know something like that was even possible. But don't think you've got us yet, we're just getting warmed up!" Serena responded while throwing her arm out to her side in a manner similar to Ash when he is pumped up in a battle. To everyone's surprise, though, Greninja was also in perfect sync with Serena's movements, when suddenly the torrent of water appeared around Greninja. As is coalesced into the oversize shuriken shape on Greninja's back, everyone noted that although the transformation had the same shape as normal, the coloring was a bit different.

"Wow, I didn't know you could do that with Greninja as well, Serena! That's amazing!" Bonnie exclaimed as she jumped up. "You can make a strong bond with a Pokémon that isn't even yours. You're a keeper! Would you take care of-oof."

Clemont had moved surprisingly quickly from his inventions to grab Bonnie with his Aipom Arm. "Bonnie, how many times do I have to tell you to stop that?" Clemont asked, exasperated, as he walked back to his inventions with Bonnie in tow. "I don't need anyone to take care of me right now."

"And who said I was asking her to take care of you big brother?"

That remarked surprised Clemont, causing him to flinch and break a resistor with the screwdriver he was using, shorting out the invention. With a quick hiss of smoke, the invention exploded, leaving a dumbfounded Clemont and annoyed Bonnie covered in soot.

"Gren ninja?!"

That exclamation drew everyone's attention towards the nearby stream, where Greninja had walked over to. He was glaring at Serena. Not confident with her understanding, Serena just raised an eyebrow quizzically at Greninja. In response, Greninja just gestured at the top of his head, which instead of the normal red color was pink, matching Serena's hat.

"It's pink, so what? Just think of it as a faded red," Serena attempted to reason with Greninja.

"NINJA!"

"Just deal with it and stop complaining. We've got a battle to win, go use Aerial Ace!"

With that, Greninja rushed over to Braixen with glowing arms and legs. The first two arm swings Braixen dodged, but Greninja's speed was too much for her or Ash to prepare, and a kick to her chest sent Braixen sprawling back in front of Ash with the wind knocked out of her.

"Now, finish this with Water Shuriken!" Serena commanded while mimicking Greninja throwing the shuriken from his back.

The shuriken sped towards Braixen, who was just standing back up. Fortunately, the distance was far enough that Ash was able to command a dodge, "Cartwheel to the left out of its path!"

Braixen quickly complied and performed two chained cartwheels to dodge the attack, but then Ash realized that the shuriken was now coming straight at him. With how close Braixen had landed to him, Ash had no time to prepare as the shuriken was about to hit him!

Suddenly, Ash sat up with a gasp and glanced around, confused why he was having a hard time seeing anything. Unfortunately for him, Pikachu had been sleeping hear his chest, and the sudden movement startled him.

"Pika-chuuu!" Pikachu responded with a quick Thunderbolt, which illuminated the surroundings enough for Ash to realize that he was in a Pokémon Center room, where he was spending the night.

Coming to his senses, Ash apologized to Pikachu. "Sorry bud, I had a really… strange dream. Nothing to worry about though."

Ash glanced around before lying back down, surprised that no one woke up from the Thunderbolt attack. His glance lingered a moment on Serena, sleeping on the bed opposite his, trying to figure out why he had that weird dream and the strange feeling it had left him with. Shaking his head, Ash decided he was still disoriented from the sudden wake up and Thunderbolt, and he closed his eyes to get back to sleep while a disgruntled Pikachu decided it was safer to curl up at his feet this time.

Obviously not to be taken as a serious hope for the anime, that's why it was set in a dream. I just got some good laughs at the original though of a Serena-Greninja and the couple of dialogue lines I jokingly shared with the idea, and the idea for the story just kind of grew quickly after that. I hope you were able to enjoy it and had some good laughs (or at least chuckles).

I don't know when (or if) I'll be posting anything else. This is only meant as a one-shot, and I have no plans for a sequel to it or a one-shot series. It takes a lot to get me in the mood to write something, and currently my writing focus is being taken up finishing my engineering PhD dissertation. I do have ideas and an outline for a multi-chapter story to serve as an AU ending to the XY series, but that's still a little ways off from having enough written to start publishing anything related to it without risking a big hiatus in the middle (something I would absolutely avoid if I could help it).

Anyways, feel free to leave a review should you feel like it, and if you are a member here there's a good chance I'll respond in a PM.