Happ Valentines Day everyone! This ol' thing's actually been sitting on my laptop for a long time but it never seemed the right valentines to post it, especially incomplete, but guess who was able to kick her own ass into finishing it?
Anyway, leave a review about what you think about it, and enjoy your holiday!
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"Alright, like, spill the beans, Mr. Hot Champion!"
Lance blinked, though Daisy would never be able to tell what sort of expression his face was making through the pokegear. "I beg your pardon?"
"On your plans, silly! For our little Misty on Valentine's!" explained Daisy.
Lance frowned, a bit confused as to why she was asking. "You know that this is still December, right?"
"Well duh! And because, like, we all know you get such a ridiculous schedule to stay on, that it gets, like, super hard to make time for our dear baby sister, so planning has got to, like, take a totally long time to have beforehand!" came Lily's voice. It figures they'd either be all calling on split call, or all on speaker. Where one Sensational Sister was, the others surely were.
But, the sisters had a point. Valentine's Day may have been two months away, but the League would no doubt have the Elite Four and him running about like busy beedrills with little downtime to spare. And while Misty had been a little lenient and understanding of the occasional stand-up to dates, there would be hell to pay if something came up on Valentine's Day that stopped them from being together.
And darnit, this would be their first Valentine's Day spent together! It needed to be perfect, or memorable, or-or something! Anything!
Well, besides getting roped into another Lake of Rage fiasco. Truth be told, he didn't have a plan, not right at that second. He told the sisters so, but that he'd put some thought into it.
"Fine but, like, you better hurry up and give us the scoop, Mister!" snapped an impatient Violet.
"Yeah, and it better be totally gushy and romantic!" Lily agreed.
-o00o-
Talking to Karen and Will were enough of an enlightenment to tell him that yes, flowers are okay, yes chocolate is yummy, but it could all also be bland, a bit generic, automatic, and kind of thoughtless.
He was still getting her some flowers, though, all else bedamned. The good news would be that he actually knew the flowers Misty did and didn't like.
"Does she like roses?" asked Karen.
"They're okay but she's not fanatic about them."
"Good, roses are overrated. Give her something exotic, or a mix." Karen said.
"Certain colors of orchids can mean stuff about love." said Will absentmindedly from where he sat on the couch, reading a magazine.
"What about lilies?"
"No, and no daisies or violets either." Lance snapped almost too quickly. At Karen's lifted eyebrow, he explained, "They remind her of her sisters too much, same name and all." Karen nodded in understanding.
"Wait… will she even be available?" asked Will all of a sudden.
"What do you mean?" Lance asked.
"I mean, don't the sisters do some gushy mushy love-theme, romantic water ballet every year on Valentine's?" Will said, "I remember now Janine was talking about going with Falkner."
"Koga's going to have a fit." Karen noted offhand. Conveniently, the Ninja Master was busy handing a few challengers' butts back to them at that moment to have any say in the conversation.
"What time does it usually happen?" Lance asked.
"They do at least two or three shows that day, the last one around... I think 6." Will told him.
"Well don't I have all the time in the world with her." Lance bitterly grumbled.
"...so, Janine and Falkner, huh?" Karen smirked at Will, who scowled.
"She would not stop gushing about it to me. Oh it's got mermaids, it's got princes, it's got bad guys and love and drama!" Will said with a mocking mimicry of Janine's voice. "Why does everyone think I'm the one to come to and gush about these things?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Lance cut in, "Repeat that last part."
"Why does everyone think it's okay to come to me about their romance gushing?" Will repeated.
"No, that other part!" Lance snapped impatiently, "About the water show."
Karen eyed the carmine haired champion with interest, "Why if I didn't know any better, I'd say you've got an idea, Lance."
"I do." Lance nodded. "I think…" he mulled over his idea in his thoughts. Could he really pull it off? He only had a month and a half now, since it'd been a week since the sister's phone call. "I need to make a phone call." he said, hurrying out of the room.
"You go, lover boy! Viva la romance-y plans!" Will whooped for his retreating figure. "...so what's he planning?"
Karen shrugged, smirking.
-o00o-
Misty didn't want to do the crummy show, but no, god forbid she ever have her own way. Everything had to be in accordance to everyone else's plans, never Misty's. Not when she wanted to keep going to Hoenn with Ash, not when she wanted to hug Togetic and never let her grown up baby go, and certainly not now with her own boyfriend.
Her boyfriend who had been even busier and forcibly absent from her life than usual, as a matter of fact, which only worked to piss her off more! Come on, world, she can't even enjoy her own boyfriend?! Not even for their first Valentines!?
Her mood was not helped by the newest center of her sister Violet's affections, some guy from Pewter, the two of them flitting back and forth between curtains to smooch and swap sweet nothings to each other. Very loud sweet nothings. At any other time she'd just scoff and ignore it, but…
"Hey, lil sis," Daisy came up behind her as she stood in the dressing room, making last additions and check ups to her costume and waterproof makeup.
"Hey," Misty grumbled back. Since patching up their relationship, Daisy had made it a habit to check up on her before every battle or every show whenever Daisy could be there. Usually, it was nice to have her oldest sister watching out for her and making nice in the place of being a snobby bully like she had before Misty came back. Today, however, Misty just wasn't able to feel happy. She didn't want to do the show, she didn't want to be stuck with her sisters and Violet's mushy new beau, and she certainly didn't want to be by herself, not with a perfectly good (apparently also perfectly unavailable) boyfriend in her hands.
"I… I uhm, know you wanted to spend the day with your boyfriend, and all, and I'm like, really sorry we had to ask you to, like, skip out your first ever Valentines with him… I just want you to, like, know that I totally appreciate what you're giving up today and… and I promise, Misty, that you won't regret this! I promise, this last show is going to be, like, the best ever!" Daisy told her, smiling so happily at her, so proudly, and so… mischievously? That was a weird look, Misty decided.
"Uh, yeah, sure…" she answered unsurely as Daisy hugged her, careful with her arms around the costume and Misty's extensions.
"I promise this will be the best show, like, ever! Just go out and really enjoy this one!" Daisy smiled mysteriously again, then disappeared from the costume room.
"Yeah right…" she grumbled, decided to mentally put aside the weird mysterious and sneaky looks Daisy had given her. Daisy was weird, nothing new.
-o00o-
The aquarium was already moved up and high for all the audience to see before the doors opened up for them to enter and get seated. As usual for the last evening show on Valentine's Day, the seats were full of couples holding hands and leaning onto each other, ready for yet another fantastic and romantic show as was the specialty of the Sensational Sisters.
The lights dimmed, then flashed to full life! Hushes sweeped across the seats for silence, and Daisy's voice filtered through large stadium room, loud and proud, a brief give of thanks to their sponsors and helping hands, before announcing the show to begin.
"Once upon a time...deep under the waves of the sea… there lived a beautiful mermaid." Daisy softly began, like a mother to a child in a bedtime story.
At the floor of the aquarium, nestled between artificial rocks but very real reefs, were several large bivalve shells. One of which, was large enough to house an entire jewelry store's worth of pearls, or alternatively a human in a mermaid costume. The shell of the largest slowly opened to reveal a resting mermaid, with a long head of bright orange hair that gently flowed about in the water and a long, elegant fish tail covered in sparkling teal scales to match her own pair of aquatic colored eyes. A pair of soft pink shells cupped and covered her breasts with a small string of pearls at their center, and nothing else.
Misty made to stretch herself out from a full and peaceful sleep, and with a content smile drew out of the shell to greet the light and her viewers.
"Life under the sea for her was a life of no worries… her days under the sun's rays in the water were spent with no care in the world but to play with her other sea friends!" As Daisy spoke, the rest of the reef came to life as water pokemon alike suddenly burst from the corals and rocks.
The mermaid first swam amongst some goldeen in an elegant display of their brightly colored fins. Then, she chased after a Dewgong and caught him in a sweet hug, to dance in the water with her hands and his fins holding each other in their spins while the goldeen, seaking, and horsea swam circles around them in their own dance. Up from the deeper reefs rose Gyarados, his fierce maw and teeth wide open but no anger or fear between them. Instead, Misty grabbed onto Gyarados' horns when it came near, and the mighty dragon pulled her form along with him into a riveting ride full of spins and corkscrew maneuvers, until their climactic race brought them both to breach the surface.
Gyarados roared as it breached, water blasting out of the aquarium walls and raining some of the audience in the closer stands. Misty let go of his horns and was sent flying above, flipping in the air with the natural grace of a true mermaid, secretly snatching a breath of air. The crowd cheered, fired up and in awe of the display. Gyarados crashed back into the water, and Misty followed suit. Only, where Gyarados quickly descended into the depths below, the mermaid did not.
"But, when day became night, and only the moon greeted her above the water…"
The lights dimmed, until only a single spotlight illuminated the mermaid as she sunk slowly down. Her eyes were dark with longing and curiosity and loneliness and her mouth just barely open as if to speak, but forever silenced. Her hand was lifted to reach out to the surface, to the world above, even as her body slowly sunk deeper into the darkness of the sea.
"...she was not so carefree. For deep in her heart, she longed for the world above. And deeper yet in her soul, she longed for her other half. For you see… she was the only mermaid in the sea. There was no other like her. Every night she could feel the distant heartbeat of her soulmate, his every pain and joy, even though she had no name and no face to know him by."
Misty's sinking form finally and softly laid down in the open heart of the shells she claimed as her bed. Her outstretched hand slowly retreated to rest at her heart, while she stared wistfully and painfully at the moon's rays filtering at the surface of the sea waves. The shell slowly closed back up, as the mermaid descended into a slow and sad sleep.
"Every night a lonely descent into sleep under the waves of her home, the very same waves imprisoning her from her wayward love."
Once she was obscured from view of their audience, Misty dove to the hidden alcove in the giant shell where a breathing apparatus was hid, and she brought it to her lips to breathe in filtered oxygen. This show was definitely a test to her limits under the water. Above her at the top of the tank, a boardwalk had silently been slid over. The lights flared back to life as a pair of prop ships were set on to hang on the edge of opposite sides of the boardwalk in the darkness previous. The lights were trained especially on one ship, a purple and red angry looking ship.
"Little did the mermaid know as she slept, that the sea was not quiet or at ease! Behold, the villains of our tale!"
From the first comically small prop ship popped up two actresses dressed in garish stripes and lace skirts and coats, with a bright red bandana tied over one's blue hair and a large captain's hat complete with a ridiculously large feather pinned to it over the other bright red haired one's head.
"Ahoy, me captain! I spot a ship in the distance!" crowed the bandana'd actress, peeping through an eyeglass.
"Excellent!" the captain roared, "Prepare the cannons! Get the plank ready for boarding, and fetch me muskets and sword! Ah, it's a good day for a pirate's life." she crooned with thorough excitement and joy.
The lights dimmed on their ship, the two pirates scrambling for their gear while the lights switched over to focus their bright rays on the other ship, and shooting up from the prop ship were two royally dressed actors.
The first, a smaller purple haired man in navy and silver accented royal garbs of a royal guardsmen sighed as he peeped through his own eyeglass, "My Prince, I'm afraid pirates are fast approaching."
The Prince, a taller man in a navy and gold accented royal uniform with pauldrons and a small cape at his back and a thin crown at his carmine hairline, sternly stared out at the distance where the pirates were coming from, "And thanks to the insistence of the King that we take a diplomat's ship, we have no cannons to fire back with. Welp! We have no choice but to do what we must."
"Runaway?" the guardsman offered hopefully.
"Absolutely not!" the Prince bark, appalled, "No, Captain. We fight."
"Oh. good. I always wanted to die by pirates." the Captain sighed, not at all sounding like he actually wanted his death to be at the hands of pirates. The crowd laughed.
The lights split up to show both ships and their sailors, the pirates with toy pistols and swords at their belts as they threw small black cannon balls at the Royals while the Prince and his guard grabbed for their own muskets or pistols and tried to fire back with what they had.
"While the pirates and the royals raged war above, their cannon-fire and yelling filtered down to the bottom of the sea, breaking our mermaid from her sleep. How rude!"
The lights over them dimmed a little while the tank lights lit up. The shell opened as the Mermaid stretched and looked not at pleased to have her sleep interrupted by surface noise. Her pokemon friends swam to her, as if speaking about the goings on above them. They circled her, filling her in with answers and questions about the surface as she drifted up out of her shell, patiently listening. She looked up to see the ships, and her troubled face became angry and determined. Misty waved off in the distance of the corals and Gyarados peeked out from the reefs, not at all looking pleased at the noise above either.
The lights shifted back, where the pirates had gotten off their ship and apparently boarded the royal's. The Prince and his guard drew their swords against the pirates, and engaged in a duel of fast, dramatic swordplay. The Prince and the Captain of the Pirates were in a particular back and forth, though they gave no ground to each other.
"A Prince! You would make an excellent bribe for royal treasures!" the Captain sneered. She dove forward in a swing that he blocked.
"You will have to take me dead!" the Prince snapped back. He counter-swiped at her, for her to jump back and block.
"That can be arranged!" she sneered back.
A noise sounded below them, bringing them to halt their battle. They looked around, confused, then looked down. The boardwalk receded, separating the pirates from the royals to make an opening for Gyarados to burst out of the water, roaring in rage. The Prince stared awestruck at the might beast while the pirates cowered.
"It's the Gyarados! The strongest water pokemon in this part of the seas!" cried out the bandana pirate.
"And where the Gyarados is… a wicked siren can't be far behind!" the pirate captain added.
Indeed, for hanging on to its horns was the Mermaid herself. She was holding a glowing shell full of sparkling LED lights and bubble effects around it. Gyarados roared underneath her as she pointed the shell towards the pirates.
"She's using her mermaid magic!" the pirates cried out, and scurried to their ship.
"Indeed she was! With her magic, the mermaid gathered the full power of the sea into Gyarados so that he could vanquish the evil doers!"
Gyarados roared once more, rearing back to unleash a powerful stream of blue and white frothing light and bubbles. A stream, to be exact, of a harmless variation of Bubblebeam. The pirates were chased out of the spotlight, taking their ship prop with them on their side of the boardwalk as it fully receded, leaving only the boardwalk with the Prince and his guard. Gyarados, satisfied with its work, slowly descended back into the water. The lights in the tank dimmed so that the audience wouldn't see or pay attention to the floating Gyarados keeping Misty propped above the water, like she herself were floating.
"She was ready to slip back under the waves, when her heart beat then, twice as fast, twice as hard."
Misty turned to her cue but then gasped, loudly, impossibly genuinely with her hands coming up to her face in undisguised, unrehearsed surprise. As the Mermaid, she was supposed to be surprised to see her other half, the Prince holding her missing piece of her heart and soul. Misty, though, was genuinely surprised to see her very own real Prince Charming, looking absolutely handsome in the prince costume Lily had her own duplicate of.
"The mermaid gazed upon the Prince, who met her eyes and at once their hearts beat as one, and she knew... with every warming piece of her heart..."
"You...!"
Lance smiled warmly, a little apologetically, and so lovingly at her that she blushed and it all clicked. That was what Daisy had been talking about. That was why he had been unusually busy and unavailable the past month. He had been rehearsing so as to become her very own Prince.
"Without a doubt, you're the one I've been looking for." he said assuredly, gently, as he grinned at her.
"You're the one I've been waiting for." she answered back, smiling wide enough to hurt, enough to start crying from the overwhelming amount of love and joy bursting in her chest.
"She knew, without a single doubt, that her missing love was him, as surely as he himself knew."
Thank the holy guardians of Johto's skies and seas that in the years of performing and directing all their water ballet shows that Daisy and Violet, the main forces behind costuming, had figured out to make all the costumes water proof, or else all of Violet's hard work in his Prince outfit would have gone entirely to ruin as suddenly he had his arms full of soaking wet mermaid Misty. She was laughing loudly into his ear, but he was too to be quite fair. He lifted her up, coaxing his arms to hold her up by wrapping around her midriff and her thighs underneath her mermaid tail, and he twirled her around a bit.
"Oh my gosh that's too cute-I mean-uh- but before the united lovers could celebrate, our villians had returned!"
Suddenly the boardwalk from the opposing side of the tank came slipping back, with the pirates and their ship come for their revenge.
"We've had a while to think after our strategic retreat!" loudly proclaimed Violet the pirate.
"A Prince is a lovely bribe, but a real live mermaid would be a true prize worth kingdoms!" said Lily the captain, swiping her sword in the air dramatically.
"Looks like they came back for more." chuckled Lance's royal guard, Will.
"Then we should give them a proper sending off. What do you think, my love?" Lance asked thoughtfully to his captive mermaid. She snorted at him, amused at how easily he had taken to the theatrics. She turned a little in his arms so that she could partially face her pirate sisters.
"A marvelous idea!" she said, grabbing her mystical mermaid shell to turn it back on to glow blue, "and I know just the thing!"
"Oh no, she's going to use her mermaid magic to sic Gyarados on us again!" cowered Lily.
"Oh ho, no, far worse. You see, you pirates made a terrible mistake when you attacked me and made it clear you would too pursue the love of my life." Lance announced, "See, I too have a valuable, powerful friend. Dragonite!"
Down from the ceiling in a magnificent roar and swooping wings landed Dragonite aboard the boardwalk. The dragon stood proud and ready to exact his master and his lover's revenge upon the pirates. The pirates in fact looked even more terrified. Then the water suddenly blasted apart as Gyarados once more joined the fray, this time by the side of the boardwalk next to the prince and his mermaid.
The pirates suddenly embraced each other in fear, "Captain, it's been an honor and a true pleasure to serve your scoundrel-y ness!" Violet cried.
"Aye, and you were me favorite-est First Mate, matey!" Lily answered in despair.
Gyarados once more unleashed its furious but harmless Bubblebeam variation while Dragonite let loose an awesome but also harmless Twister attack. The Pirates screamed in terror as the combined attacks shoved them back and off the stagelights, the Twister actually picking them up and carefully setting them down close to the backstage.
"With the pirates defeated for sure, they were finally safe. Finally free to embrace the other."
Not that they had ever let each other go since she leaped up into his arms to begin with. With the main plot out of the way, Lance felt inclined to twirl his lady some more while holding her, eliciting more laughter out of her lips.
"Best idea ever." Will clipped behind them.
"But she was still a mermaid, and he a human. Could they live and love together, with the separation of the land and sea between them?"
"Absolutely!" Misty decided to answer herself.
"And why would that be so, our precious mermaid?" Daisy asked certainly.
"Because this mermaid so happens to be able to transform between human and mermaid!" she yelled, as Lance let her feet finally touch the boardwalk. She purposefully placed a hand at her waist where a small tag was while her other held Lance, and mouthed at him to twirl her again. He obliged smiling, and when he did so her costume suddenly shifted as she spun. The mermaid tail disappeared into divers wetsuit bottoms with lacy skirts around her knees and thighs that traveled up the pink shell bra-turned-bodice. Man, was she proud of Daisy and Violet's costuming skills, especially when they allowed her to do that.
"And this Prince is more than happily able to swim and dive for lengths at a time, should his beloved desire the sea water to air and land." Lance added, but preferring to keep his eyes on the beauty in his hands. Feeling a little playful, Lance spun Misty once more, bringing her body closer to him until at last she was full up against him and then he slid her into a dip and kissed her.
"And that, folks, is the power of True Love, between a fair prince and beautiful mermaid. Thank you for coming to show everyone, goodnight and Happy Valentine's Day!"
-o00o-
"I can't believe you did that! That was amazing! And so sweet! And Amazing! And wonderful! And-I've already said amazing, haven't I?" Misty giggled, as they met outside the dressing room. She was out of the mermaid costume and in a comfortable pair of jean capris and a midriff cut sleeveless shirt. The hair extensions were gone too, leaving her with a shorter, nape long mop of hair.
"You have, but I don't mind. I'm just so glad you enjoyed it." he answered, grinning down at her as they walked out the gym and into open air. "I'm sorry I had to put aside our spare time together for it. And, I'm sorry I keep putting you off too."
"Aw, Lance. I'm guilty of it too. And thank you so much for what you did tonight. It was very sweet, very romantic." she grinned back. Their hands laced together as they walked, intending to go into downtown Cerulean to grab a late dinner to take back with them to the cape for a late night picnic. With candles. And a full moon in the sky to light up the night sky. Man, she had it good. "It was very much worth the wait."
"Well, perhaps with ours and Hoenn's Elite pushing for more steady scheduling and challenge acception hours, you won't have to wait so much anymore."
"That would be doubly awesome." Misty admitted. "You know, it's a shame though. The show today."
"How so?" he asked, curious.
"That you only had the last show to join me in, firstly. But most of all, for a specifically love theme, neither of our scripts ever had the Prince or the Mermaid say outloud, outright that they loved each other." she said purposefully, a little teasingly.
"Well, I'm sure at the time she believed the Prince and the Mermaid would understand. But I can see how it was a shame." he agreed, smiling at her.
"We should rectify that." Misty suggested.
"Absolutely." he agreed with a grin, pulling her hand up to his lips to kiss her knuckles, "My Mermaid, sweet siren of my heart, I love you, Misty."
She giggled, blushing again, and man he was never going to tire of being able to do that, "My Prince, my handsome and brave Prince, I love you too, Lance."
"Happy Valentine's Day," he said, before diving down to kiss her.
Leave a comment in a review, or PM if you'd like. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
-KO13