This chapter wasn't too hard to write. I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed so far; we're at almost 100 views now, as well as 5 favorites. Not bad stats for the first chapter, I should think.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend. Tonight, I'm going to get to see my cousin, who's been studying abroad. It'll be nice.
Current music: Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson
It didn't take too much longer for the battle to end. In a way, Ash wished that it would have been longer, because then he'd have a longer time to prepare to pop the question to Serena.
He wasn't going to pop that question to her; he wasn't interested in marriage to Serena Courtland, at least not yet. But what he was going to ask for would be quite possibly as life-changing as that.
Finally, Coyopa was able to use a well-timed Tail Whip to knock down Kalokalo. After a few seconds of the Piplup being down for the count, it was also very apparent that he was out for the count. Both Pokemon were recalled to their Pokeballs, and Ash's heart started beating very quickly.
"What's wrong, Ash?" Serena asked him as they were walking back towards the road. Serena lived in the same general direction as Ash, so she wasn't going out of her way to walk with him.
"Nothing" the boy replied. "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to ask you something".
Ash himself was surprised by how calmly he was able to say that. He'd been so sure that he would stutter, just because he was so nervous. It was really quite overwhelming of a thought, that he was about to ask Serena for something big.
It's really nothing huge, he told himself. It's like, where do you want to go? How much do you want to risk?
"What is that?" Serena asked him. Those sharp gray eyes were piercing him just like a skewer. Ash knew that he wouldn't be able to turn back now. He was going to need to ask her the question, and then deal with the consequences.
If she said no, that could be the end of their friendship. If she said yes, it would change both of their lives forever. Ash's palms were sweating.
"While we were training, I realized just how much I enjoyed your company. I want to spend more time with you, and I also would love to be a Pokemon Master. The idea of that just sounds so exciting, you know?"
Serena nodded. She wasn't smiling, nor was she frowning, but her eyes definitely looked excited as she pieced together what Ash was saying.
"You want me to go on a journey with you?" she asked. Her voice sounded as pure as a mountain stream.
"Yeah, that'd be great" Ash replied.
There. He'd said it. He felt as though he'd just jumped off a bridge, instantly regretting it. She was, he'd convinced himself, going to say no. And that would be that, and every time they saw each other in school after that would be highly awkward.
But that wasn't what Serena's face was indicating. She was smiling more and more widely with each passing moment, and Ash was beginning to see the other possibility more and more clearly.
"I'd love that, Ash" she replied. "I mean, it's a big commitment, and we'd probably both be leaving school. But that's the way it is in life".
"Yeah" Ash said. "Going on this journey is a risk, but so would be not going on the journey. Life is a game of calculated risk, is it not?"
Ash was aware that he'd sounded incredibly like a philosopher there, and, had some of his peers heard that, they'd immediately have yelled, "NERD!" in as loud a voice as they possibly could have.
Thankfully, only Serena was there to witness that.
"Yes" she said. "But I'll have to get permission from my parents first, you know".
Ash knew all too well. His mother had always been very reluctant to send Ash away for anything. When he'd left to go to summer camp when he was younger, his mother had been extremely worried about him. She'd been worried for his safety, being away from home, just because he hadn't yet proven himself in that situation.
"Yeah" Ash replied. "I get that. I hope that you get their okay, because I really want to do this". Even as he said the words, Ash really hoped that he wasn't sounding too controlling. He didn't want Serena to feel as though he were forcing her to go on this journey with him.
"Me too" Serena replied. "Do you want to have dinner at your house, where we'll talk more about plans for the trip?"
"Sure".
They ended up stopping at Serena's house, where her mother was waiting at the door. Grace Courtland was a very pretty woman, several inches shorter than her daughter, who stood at 5 feet, 9 inches tall.
"Welcome back, Serena" said Grace. "And I see Ash is with you as well…".
Please, Ash thought to himself, don't ask if we're a couple. I don't know if I could take that. We're just friends, that's all.
"Yes" Serena said. "And Ash was wondering if I could go over to his house for dinner tonight. There's something we'd like to discuss together".
Grace narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "Is there really something that you feel secure enough to tell Ash, but not to tell me? I am your mother, after all".
"Don't worry, Mom" Serena replied. "I'll tell you later, but right now, I want to talk to Ash. Is it okay if I go to his house for dinner?"
"It's fine with me" Grace said. "As long as Delia's fine with it, I'm fine with it".
Ash knew that his mother would have no problem hosting Serena for dinner, since she'd done so many times before. The question of if Ash himself would be allowed to travel with Serena was still out in the open, however.
"Yeah" Ash said. "She'll be fine with it".
After Serena assured her mother that she'd be back by ten, the two if them left the Courtland house and began making their way towards Ash's home. The sun was sinking more, and now it was almost directly in their eyes, so they were squinting in order to see. Ash rarely felt jealous of Coyopa, safe inside his Pokeball, but now was definitely one of those times.
When they arrived at the Ketchum household, Ash's mother was at the door ready to greet her son. She hadn't expected to see Serena there, but, as soon as Ash had explained that Serena's mother had signed off on it, Delia was satisfied.
"I made enough steak for roughly fifty percent more than we'll eat tonight" Ash's mother told Serena. "Therefore, if you eat roughly what the average is of what the two of us eat, we'll be fine, just without any leftovers for tomorrow".
"Trust me", Serena replied, "I'm fine with that. I think I can guess who eats more between the two of you".
Both Ash and his mother laughed. It was no secret that Ash was always hungry, but he exercised a great deal as well, running around the park with Coyopa. Serena had a treadmill at her home, but poor Kalokalo, being a Piplup, wasn't able to run on it on account of the fact that he was always sliding around, making it very hard for him to take proper steps.
"I was wondering something" Ash told his mother. Perhaps his success at persuading Serena to go on a journey with him was making him more brazen, but it was then that he decided that he could probably convince his mother to let him leave.
"What is that?" Delia asked him. She clearly had no idea what to expect; her son went to her with all sorts of problems, because Delia Ketchum wasn't like most mothers. You could tell her anything, because she was just so kind. Ash felt very lucky to have her as a mother.
As he had with Serena, Ash decided to cut right to the chase. "Serena agreed to go on a journey with me, can I go on said journey?" he asked as kindly as possible. At the same time, he'd been unable to say it slowly, the way he'd always been taught.
Whenever Ash was talking about something that excited him, he had the tendency to speak very quickly, faster than some people would have an easy time hearing. It was as though he were running down a hill at a high speed, unable to slow down at all.
"Could you speak more slowly, Ash?" his mother asked him, right on cue to what he was thinking. "I couldn't really understand that".
"What I meant was", Ash replied, "could I go on a journey with Serena?"
"We'll have to think about that" his mother said. "There are certainly a few conversations that we will need to have before that happens".
It was better than her saying no, but, at the same time, Delia's answer was far from reassuring to Ash. He'd really been hoping that she'd say yes outright, but that had probably been too much to ask for.
It's no surprise, really, a voice inside his head told Ash. She probably thinks that, by choosing to go on a journey with Serena, you'd be rejecting her. She is still your mother, after all.
Ash tried not to think about that as his mother set the table for three. Mother, son, and Serena then sat down to eat.
As Ash cut into his steak, Delia asked Serena how her summer was going.
"It's going pretty well" the girl replied. "I've hung out with my friends a lot, and we often take the train downtown. We've had a lot of good times together".
Ash smiled at that, but it wasn't a happy smile. Even though he did have some friends at school, he didn't spend a lot of time with them, Serena being an exception to that. Very often, he was simply content to just play video games or something like that. It might have been a sad way to spend his summer break, but it was all he had.
Unless I go on a journey, he thought.
Perhaps that was a line of reasoning he could use to persuade his mother that going on a journey would be good for him. At the same time, he didn't want to make it sound like a threat. That was going to be a challenge.
"Nice" Delia replied to Serena. "But Ash told me that he wanted to go on a journey with you. I hope you consented to that?"
"Oh yeah, I like the idea" Serena replied. "I haven't really gotten to see the world that much, and that's something I'd really like to do, you know?"
If Ash had needed any more confirmation that Serena was on his side, that she wanted to do this and not just for him, this was it. It gave him more hope, hope that his mother would be okay with it.
She doesn't want to think that I'm forcing Serena into this, and now she won't think that. Sure seems like good news to me.
"Well, I hope that your mother is okay with the idea" Delia told Serena. "I mean, a journey is a serious thing. It's not something to be taken lightly".
"I'll make sure my mother's fine with it" Serena replied.
Ash realized that he'd been silent for the last few minutes. He'd been watching the conversation between his mother and his friend go back and forth like a tennis match, and he had barely contributed at all, other than nodding occasionally.
Man, I really hope that Serena can get her mother's permission, Ash thought to himself. But it's not like I'm proposing marriage to her. I'm just asking to go on a journey with her.
He realized that, if he'd been saying that out loud, he wouldn't have been helping his case. After all, they'd just been talking about how big an undertaking a journey really would be. It would be the adventure of a lifetime, to put it one way.
"Well", Delia said eventually, "if it's okay with your mother, it's okay with me if you guys go on an adventure together. You guys are sixteen, after all-".
"I'm fifteen" Serena replied, which surprised Ash. Normally, Serena would have gladly taken credit for being older than she really was.
"Whatever. My point still stands, that being that you're both older than some trainers. A lot of them just start at ten, which, in my opinion, is far too young for it. But, Ash, I will tell you one thing".
"What is that?" Ash asked. Even though he was slightly apprehensive about what his mother was about to say, he felt optimistic somehow. After all, his mother had just said that she'd be okay with the journey if Mrs. Courtland was as well.
"We're going to have a serious talk about this before you leave. I've always been a bit nervous about the idea of you leaving home, and this, like I said earlier, isn't something to be taken lightly, not in the least".
The way she said it reminded Ash of when he was younger, when he'd commit an infraction and be chastised for it. Then, his mother would lecture him about what he had done wrong. Now, it sounded much the same.
Only now she's lecturing me for threatening to go on a journey.
But it's my life, Mom. I'm not a child any longer. You no longer have dominion over me. I'm sixteen years old, and I can make my own decisions.
As they all continued eating, these were the thoughts that Ash occupied himself with. He stole an occasional glance at his mother, but her expression remained obstinate the whole time. It was a chilling sign of things to come.
Ash went to bed at 10:47 PM that evening. Those were the last digits he saw before curling up in his usual position on said bed. He usually slept on his side; he didn't know why this was, he just liked it that way.
Almost immediately after closing his eyes, he sank into a dream.
It's worth noting here that Ash rarely remembered his dreams when he woke up the next morning. There were the occasionally vivid ones, in which he was severely embarrassed by something, or the ones in which he could fly. The dreams in which he was flying were the best he'd ever had.
This dream, on the other hand, felt very real, and he somehow knew that he'd remember it when he woke the next morning. In a way, it was quite chilling.
From Ash's perspective, he was standing in a room that looked extremely modern. The walls, the floor, and everything else was made out of silver metal. Still, there was an earthy smell in the room, somehow.
Am I inside a mountain or something?, he wondered. That might seem to make sense.
He'd heard, of course, of military bases that had been built inside of mountains, because it was a lot harder to destroy a mountain than just a simple base. But this didn't particularly look like a military base.
A man walked into the room. This man slightly resembled Mr. Monopoly, because he had short, thin white hair and a thick white mustache. Wearing a black-and-white tuxedo, he looked around the room, as though he were looking for somebody.
Ash's heart skipped several beats as Mr. Monopoly's doppelganger glanced over at his section of the room. However, the man paid him no heed, making Ash suspect that, at least in this dream, he was invisible.
That is, if this is a dream at all. Maybe it's real life.
Well, if it's a dream, don't wake me. I really want to see what happens here.
Ash should have been scared out of his mind. The metallic atmosphere was creepy, in a way. It was as sterile as a hospital, and yet it was also deep underground, or at least it seemed to be. There was little question in his mind that, had he been fully awake, he'd have been absolutely terrified and screaming at the top of his lungs.
And yet he wasn't scared, probably because he knew he wasn't really in this futuristic room hidden deep inside a mountain. Even so, it was awfully easy to imagine that he was. The dream just felt so real.
Mr. Monopoly's look-alike turned on a screen that Ash hadn't yet noticed. It somewhat resembled a SMART board, the kind they use in classrooms.
On the screen appeared the most malicious-looking man that Ash had ever seen.
He slightly resembled a character Ash had once seen in a video game. He was humanoid, at least vaguely, but his skin was dark blue rather than a normal human's skin color, as though he had a very bad case of pneumonia.
"Orkun Vinaka", the man who appeared on the screen said, "you are late to the video call that was scheduled for 11:37 PM on Tuesday, June 12, 2018".
"That is not your fault" the man now identified as Orkun Vinaka replied. "It is mine. I was just speaking to one of my subordinates about Lucas Whitefur".
"Oh, you were?" asked the blue man.
"Yes, Blumiere, I was" Orkun replied in a slightly short manner. "He wanted to know why I haven't sent out some of my Hunters to go look for him".
Lucas Whitefur?, Ash wondered. What the hell kind of name is that?
"Yes, Lucas Whitefur" replied Blumiere. "Well, if you can catch him, I'll reward you very handsomely. You'll definitely get the lion's share of this region".
What region?, Ash wondered. It wasn't as though he'd be happy for it to be Kanto or Johto, but he had a feeling that it was neither of those. Moreover, he had a feeling that he knew which region it would be.
"Yes, we will take over Sinnoh together" said Orkun. "It will be amazing. But it will start with hunting down Lucas Whitefur".
Jeez, what sort of beef do they have with this Lucas Whitefur person? It makes no sense.
Ash couldn't help but worry for Lucas Whitefur, whoever he was. He felt like warning him, but there was just no way for him to find out who Whitefur was.
"He will be caught, and then he will die. Slowly" said Blumiere. "That is the way it's going to be".
Gulp.
As Orkun Vinaka and Blumiere kept debating the best methods of killing Lucas Whitefur, Ash knew that somehow he had to get this news to the person they were targeting. He tried to act in morally correct ways, and this was what he'd have to do.
I have to warn him, somehow. If that's even possible.
