Chapter 2: The Answer

Woah, slow down kids.

So I got two reviews so far at the time of writing this. I'd like to answer them, because I don't feel they were, well, the nicest things on the planet.

From: Guest

Stop it please. After they abrupting ending of HIM, how can you expect people to believe you can finish this story?

Well, I can completely accept Him was bad. It was just too inaccurate and had too many plot holes to actually finish. I actually know what I'm doing this time(or so I think), but I think you are being pretty pessimistic about this.

From: St Elmo's Fire

I'm not putting this review down, it was too long but my reply should give you the gist of what was said.

I'm not a perfect writer. I do try on my chapters, and I think you overlook how difficult writing a story is without any support from any reviewers whatsoever. If I make grammar mistakes, but it's still readable, I don't think it's a big deal. I've read a lot worse chapters in other stories, grammatically. Thanks for considering.

With that chaos out of the way, let's get going, finally.

Chapter 2: The Answer

She stopped at the window, looking outside. I wonder what Ash is doing, she thought.

What was he doing?

"Come on, Gary, step on it!"

"Relax, Ash," Gary replied, "We still have at least an hour."

The two overslept, well, specifically, Ash overslept. They were almost back at Anistar High for their final year. Sitting in one cup holder was a pokeball, with Gary's Blastoise in it. Pikachu was on top of the seat Ash was in. "Hey, Gary. I have a question," Ash said, relatively blatantly.

Gary looked over at him, keeping one eye on the road of course. Safety is always a priority. "What, Ashy-boy? I'm trying to drive, and it's early. It would have been earlier had you not overslept." Gary then smiled sarcastically at Ash. "Your question, sir?"

Ash looked at him. Gary noticed his look, and kind of figured where this was going. "Do you think they have battle classes for seniors?"

Gary was taken aback, as that was not the question he thought he'd hear, nonetheless this early. "Ash, are you kidding? It's way too early for anything like that. I'm sure they do, we're the best school in the region, probably the world. I thought you were going down a different path on the 'question' thing."

Ash was confused. "What do you mean, Gary?"

"Well," Gary started, "I thought you were going to ask about Serena."

"Why would I ask about Serena?"

"Because you obviously have a crush on her."

"What makes you say that?" asked Ash, now very confused.

"You are either studying, which you never do, battling, sleeping, or spending time with her. I bet you talked every night while we were on break."

Ash thought. He never really broke down his schedule. He realized most of his junior year classes were the same as hers, and at the same times. Additionally, they had a chemistry study group, because Chemistry 3 was the worst class anyone has taken at Anistar High. Even Miette said it was a pain. "I think the only think we did together was study for Kill-me-stry 3. Sorry you were so great at that class." Kill-me-stry was the name of everyone's least favorite class. Maybe the teacher was just bad. Huh.

Gary laughed. "Chemistry is a world that leads you to greatness, Ashy-boy. But didn't you guys hang out after those study groups?"

Ash nodded slowly and sarcastically. "With everyone else, Gary. I don't know what you're going at. I think you're obsessed with something that probably won't happen. And for the record, we didn't all at all over break. I don't think I even have her number."

"Probably? What's that mean, Ash?"

"It means I never doubt anything, you closed-minded buffoon."

"I think I'm gonna give this a rest," Gary said. "It's too early to try and get this information. But anyway, if you are looking for advice, the number is step one to success."

Ash was now completely bewildered. "Step one to what?"

Gary laughed. "I'm surprised you didn't handle chemistry well. You seem to be great at density."

The two finally pulled up. Trevor and Clemont were waiting there for them. "Hey guys!" Trevor shouted, waving.

"You didn't get our room?" Gary asked impatiently.

"We need all four of us, smarty," Trevor quickly retorted.

"Wow, what a fun year this will be," Clemont sighed.

They quickly registered for their room, registered their Pokemon, and left. It took much less time, as there would only be four of them. Getting there and unpacked also took less time, as it was done quickly and carelessly. "Wow, all that hard work made me hungry. Let's get lunch," Ash said.

"Ash, it's only been 20 minutes. None of us had anything to truly unpack," Clemont said.

"Yeah," Ash replied, "but we should go see people, maybe others are down there."

"You know what? Why don't we go?" Trevor offered. "It's been a while since I've seen Shauna. Maybe she'll be down there."

All of them walked down to the dining hall together. They grabbed their food, and sat down, looking around.

"Clemont, what do you say?" Ash asked.

"Eh, Why not?" Clemont responded.

The four all made it to the dining hall, got their food, and sat down. Trevor looked around for Shauna, but didn't see her. They actually saw no one they really knew too well, or at least anyone they wanted to speak to that they knew. Sometime during the meal, a group of girls, Gary counted 5, walked down to the dining hall. "Are you kidding me?" Gary said quietly. "They're always in groups. How am I supposed to corner down just one?"

"Maybe," Clemont said jokingly, "When you actually corner one, you have to ask them out, or the opportunity completely passes forever."

Everyone laughed at that one. Clemont rarely made jokes, but when he did, they were great. (PSA: Just because you don't think the jokes are funny doesn't mean the characters don't. Shove off now.) Trevor looked over at the group of five, got out of his seat, and ran over. "Shauna!" He shouted.

This caught Shauna by surprise, but a pleasant surprise. "Trevor!" she called back.

The two ran and hugged each other. It actually was pretty cute, which sparked all of the aww's from everyone. Even Gary, but that one was pretty sarcastic. The two walked off and started talking about what they did over break. That was the last they were seen for pretty much the whole day.

Gary then noticed someone that wasn't always in Shauna's group. "Who-"

"Oh wow!" May shouted. "This is really great that you guys are down here. Verity, this Ash, Gary, and Clemont. We've known them all for quite a while. The last person you saw was Trevor, who is Shauna's boyfriend."

"Yeah, I think I heard about him," Verity responded quietly.

"Why don't you guys actually introduce yourselves?" Serena suggested.

Gary jumped up. "I'm Gary, the best battler in the school. Also my gramp's the professor in Kanto. I haven't met anyone else who has such greatly occupied parents!" He sat down, pleased with his small bragging session.

Verity looked at him shyly, but with a little bit of edge. "Um, actually, my mother is the Sinnoh Champion."

"What?" Ash yelled. "The Sinnoh Champion? Cynthia?"

It was the first time Verity got to see someone who actually was genuinely impressed at this fact. Most people just shoved it off, or didn't believe her. What a breath of fresh air.

Serena now looked up, shyly at the three remaining boys, specifically focusing on Ash. "Uh, hi Ash. I guess we haven't seen each other for a while."

Ash nodded. "Yeah, too long. You didn't try to contact me at all? I told you I'd be at Oak's lab over the summer, and helping out with his summer camp."

Serena took a step back. "Uh, Ash, I, uh, don't have your, number."

Ash thought for a minute, then laughed. "Oh. Guess that creates a problem, doesn't it?" He gave her his classic, 'everything's ok' smile.

Serena laughed. "Yeah, I guess." She couldn't stay mad at him for that long, that was nonsense, something he didn't think through. But why was he upset that she never contacted him? Was he trying to keep conversation, or was he truly upset they never talked over break? Was now the time to actually answer that question? Serena knew none of those answers, except the last one. She concluded in her head that now was not the time to get those answers. Now was the time to escape what was now a very awkward situation. "Hey, Verity, let's go see what else the campus has. I'll show you where your classes will be."

Verity turned her attention to Serena. "That'd be great. Thank you so much!" She seemed much happier now for some reason.

"And this is the battleground. I don't know if your into battling, but there's always junior or seniors looking for opponents to learn from. It's pretty cool to watch some of these battles. Ash does them a lot," Serena said, excited to show off the school.

Verity nodded. "I battle occasionally, but not as much as those boys we met probably do." She hesitated on her next question. "That Ash kid, is he your, you know, your-"

"Oh, no! We're just friends! Nothing there!" Serena said, now very red and flustered.

"Nothing. Nothing yet," Miette chimed in.

"Stop guys!" Serena said, even more flustered now. "We don't need to suck Verity into my large pit of despair."

May laughed. "Serena, you only have so much time left. Consider us well, motivation!"

Verity laughed, a first for the group. "I tried teasing one of my friends about their crush once. I'm not good at teasing people, so it didn't go great. But I'm always willing to try new things!"

Serena groaned. "I thought you would be different, Verity."

Verity laughed again. "I am different. The difference is I don't have all the information on this yet."

Miette and May said, freakishly, at the same time, "We can handle that!" The two proceeded to laugh at their synchronization. Miette continued, "Although, Verity, it looks like Gary took quite the interest in you. Did you see how eager he was to introduce himself?"

May looked over at Miette. "Miette! You know Gary like to brag about himself to anyone. And besides, Verity had Piplup with her. Gary will go for anyone with a water type starter like him. Remember when he tried to get Dawn?"

Miette fired back, "Remember how quickly he gave up?"

Serena pulled the two apart. "How about we give that some time. Verity doesn't need to worry about that now."

Verity spoke up. "I really don't. Thank you, Serena."

"Ash, are you kidding me?"

"What, Gary?" Ash responded, confused again.

"The opportunity presented itself, and you ignored it. What if what Clemont said was accurate?"

"I can hear you, Gary, and it was a joke," said Clemont, trying to sleep.

"What are you even talking about, Gary?"

"About Serena, of course, Ashy-boy! You were literally talking about phone numbers, and you couldn't have done a quick, 'here's mine, call me'?"

"Gary!" Clemont said, annoyed. Gary quickly replied with a salute and a, "Yes, your highness."

"Look," Ash said, "Gary, I don't want to deal with this. Serena and I are friends, and that's probably how it's going to go forever. Deal with it, your fantasies of us getting together won't happen."

"His fantasies? What about hers?" Trevor said, walking in the door.

Gary and Clemont stared down Trevor. "Trevor," Gary said calmly, "What did we say about Mission 274?"

Trevor realized his absent-mindedness. "Crap," he said.

"Huh? What?" Ash said.

"Gary gave a friendly laugh. "What could you possibly mean, Ash?"

Ash looked confused at his friend's actions. "I mean, what did you say? I didn't hear it. Just a bunch of numbers."

The other three made a big sigh of relief. "Just, talking about math Ash."

So, between the start and finish of the writing, I got many positive reviews, telling me they were excited to hear more. Like Verity, I very much enjoy that breath of fresh air. Thank you.

Quick reference: If you don't understand Mission 274, look at a number pad.

Let me know what you thought (not what grammar I messed up), or what you want to see. I'll try to incorporate all I can, as the plot's pretty up in the air at this point, but most big requests would be unfeasible.

Once again, thank you for the kind words and optimism(from some). I haven't seen that kindness since Too Much was released (haha go read that, please). Also I'm gonna hold The Secret Mega until a few chapters are in the works. I have 3 and a half, I think. When I get to five I'll release.

Hope you enjoyed, and see you next time. I'll try to condense these notes in the future, as they are quite boring.