Hey everyone, UCCMaster here!

There's a lot of spoilers for the future of this fic, so pay close attention. Also I enjoy feedback, whether it's grammar or content or just simply a AWESOME! So enjoy this chapter and please Review.

I do not own Pokémon


*Our heroes enjoy some much needed rest…but will it remain for much longer? *

She was walking down the catwalk, a gorgeous white glittering dress sparkling in light. Delphox, Pancham, and Eevee at her sides. A white mist covered the catwalk, causing her Pokemon's fur coats to glitter. A song rang through her mind as she began dream of the stars. She had heard the stories behind them; powerful Pokemon dwelled out there such as the form shifting Deoxys or the blinking Elgyem. A younger Serena would gaze into the night sky wonder what amazing adventures lay in the stars. That younger dream had finally come to life.

To her delight, Ash was standing right there, grinning with pride. For once, she didn't feel shy or embarrassed around him. The entire crowd seemed to fade, leaving her alone with her Pokemon and Ash. His eyes sparkled, as if challenging her to make him proud. To her surprise, the world didn't seem to drop away as previous close moments had, rather it only made the world become more vivid and brilliant. It was time to show how far she's come from the timid and shy girl who fantasized about a far off boy. No longer was the weak and worried girl, this was confident Serena, a woman who felt joy in bringing smiles to the crowds and show off how beautiful her bonds were.

"Begin with Fire Blast and catch it with Psychic!" The psychic enhanced flames seemed to dance over the stage, beginning the tale of the stars.

"Follow up with Dark Pulse!" She called while twirling.

The panda obeyed, hurling several small spheres of dark energy into the air, exploding into sparkles as they touched the flames.

"Now Delphox use Mystical Fire! Eevee use Protect!" She called, watching as the flames engulfed her Eevee, surrounded by a Protect barrier.

"Now use Stone Edge!" Pancham's stone pillars hurled the small fox into the sparkling sky.

"Now Eevee, use…"


"Serena wake up!"

The girl's eyes jerked open to find a pair of soft brown eyes staring at her. But instead of them sparkling and smiling at her, they were filled with worry and suspicion.

She yawned slightly as she realized it was only an hour or two after she had gone to bed. "What's going on Ash?"

"Adrian is gone."

The girl's eyes widened. This wasn't good. Well, she sort-of knew what Adrian did for a living, but she couldn't help but worry. Ash on the other hand was what was worrying her. He really had taken a liking to her cousin, almost looking up to him as a role model. The fact that her cousin tended to get a bit cocky, though he could easily take care of himself, from what she's heard from her mother, was not good for Ash to get into. "Ok, what do you mean?"

"I was up on the balcony thinking when I overheard Adrian talking to Alley, Ruby, and Sapphire. They were talking about some sort of entrance back at Lysandre Labs that they found. Then they ran off."

Serena took in the information, trying to figure out what that meant. "Ok, what should we do?"

Ash grinned. "I was going to go after them and see what they were up to and if they needed help, but I wanted to know if you wanted to come too."

"What about Clemont and Bonnie?"

"Well, it sounds sort of dangerous so I don't want Bonnie to get involved. And Clemont would worry too much about Bonnie; So it's best if he stays here to keep an eye on her." He scratched his head nervously. "Plus, I sorta wanted it to be just you and me, you know?"

The girl blushed. This was sounding just like some sort of midnight escapade. Sure she had fantasized about doing this with Ash, but never thought he would be the one to suggest it.

The girl got out of bed and headed towards the restroom to change. If they were going into danger, she'd better be properly dressed for the occasion. "Alright, but make sure you grab your entire team. Knowing Adrian, if he gets into danger, it's a real serious type of danger."

"How do you know that?"

She opened the door and was about to close it. "Adrian's from the Evo Islands. They don't have the same protection laws under the Pokemon League as Kalos does. From what I've heard from my mom, it's pretty rough out there and they actually need a defense force to keep out organizations such as Team Rocket. Adrian was part of the force last I heard."

When she opened the door, she was dressed to kill. She had kept her grey top on but had removed the pink dress in exchange for a dark navy turtleneck and black leather pants.

To her surprise, the raven haired teen seemed to gasp at her appearance.

"Woah Serena, you look…umm…awesome…" Was all he could manage, a drop of blood trailing from his nose.

She blushed, twirling around slightly to give him a full view. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah, umm…I'm going to get Pikachu."


A few minutes later, the two were running back towards the ruined laboratory. Ash had never before so alive. He had never been one to shy away from the face of danger, and now here he was, in the pitch darkness of the night, rushing into fray. But something was different. This time, he was rushing into the fray with Serena, just the two of them, well Pikachu and Eevee too.

Just seeing Serena dressed in something so different seemed to give him a nosebleed. He didn't understand why, but for some reason, Serena looked really…well…what could fit it? He preferred simple and short words to try to describe things for two reasons. One most people could understand simplicity and briefness, and two…well he didn't know a lot of big words.

But simple and short words didn't seem to be able to describe the honey blonde at that moment. The way she seemed to pulse danger but still be her kind and well…cute self seemed to almost…well it made his heart thump and his face turn red, so it did something different and new.

Sure May and Dawn loved dressing up in cute outfits. He always made sure to compliment their looks but that was it. He knew they were somewhat attractive for their age and there were plenty of boys who seemed to believe them to be the most beautiful people in the world (for May, it was that Drew guy who gave roses. Dawn had Kenny constantly admiring her.) but they just didn't seem to spark to him like Serena did. Maybe it helped that she was only a few months younger than him. May was three years younger than him, Dawn being four years. Iris was…well let's not go there, he still didn't know. Misty was two years older than him…okay, maybe at one point he had thought her pretty, but still there was no spark. So Serena, being the same age as him made him see her as his partner, rather than older or younger sibling. Again, he was starting to feel as though the gap between the two of them was slowly starting to close, and for some reason, he wasn't scared or nervous about the change.

Not to mention, his Pokemon had never been closer to hers. Maybe there was some connection with each person's Pokemon, but for the most part, Serena's Pokemon were very close to his. Greninja and Delphox seemed to have a very close partnership. Eevee had found a battle partner out of Pikachu. Pikachu hadn't gotten along with someone so well since well…Dawn's Piplup.

"Ash, is everything alright?" Serena asked, noticing his fazed appearance.

The boy nodded. "Yeah, everything is fine. I'm just realizing how much I enjoy traveling with you."

His compliment resulted in the girl blushing madly. "Thank you Ash, I really enjoy traveling with you too."

The gang had reached the site of the ruined lab in due time, but Adrian and his friends were nowhere to be seen.

Ash turned to Pikachu. "You think you can find them?"

The mouse turned to the fox, who nodded, turning their noses to the ground, they began to track the Eevee trainer and his friends. Eventually, the fox and mouse led the duo to a deeper section of the ruined lab. A large slab of metal had been peeled away to reveal an empty elevator shaft.

Ash pondered how to get down there before taking out two familiar Pokeballs. He released Talonflame and Noibat. "Hey guys, can you help us get down there?"

The two nodded allowing Ash and Serena to take hold of their talons. Slowly and with some unsteadiness, the two flying types managed to take Serena and Ash down the elevator shaft.

Ash returned the two and found the doors to be already open. "You think they went this way?"

Serena glanced at Eevee, who nodded. "Yep, Eevee definitely can detect Adrian here."

Beyond the doors was a long corridor that surprisingly didn't seem affected by the fire. What was very surprising was the two men slumped on the ground in front of them. They wore the ugliest looking red uniforms with a stylized F on their belt buckles.

Serena cringed at the sight of two knocked out men. "Do you think they're alright?"

Ash slowly approached them and put felt for the men's pulse. He nodded. "Yeah they're still alive. Just knocked out. We should get moving though. I hope whoever did this hasn't gotten to Adrian yet."

Serena nodded uneasily, letting Pikachu and Eevee lead the way.

Ash couldn't really explain it, but those two men gave him an uneasy vibe. Typically, when he encountered people wearing uniforms with a single letter on their uniforms, they turned out to be part of some evil team. Team Rocket had an R, Aqua and Magma had an A and M, Galactic had a G, and Plasma had a P. So what did F mean? Come to think of it, come think of it, the G men had a G on their uniforms as well. Did that make them also an evil team? Oh how he hoped they'd find Adrian soon, so he could explain what in the world was going on.


Up ahead Eevee sensed his former trainer's scent getting stronger. He yipped happily and rushed forward, Pikachu close behind. Ash and Serena nodded, running after their Pokémon. They rounded a corner only for a pair of hands to clamp around their mouths and pull them into a smaller hallway. Ash immediately panicked and tried to resist only for a familiar voice to shush him.

"Shh…Ash stop resisting, it's me." Adrian calmed him down, causing the raven haired teen to stop resisting. Ash noticed Alley had grabbed Serena and managed to calm her down as well.

"Oh good, we found you." Ash smiled.

The older teen frowned. "What are you doing here Ash?"

"Well I noticed you guys running off towards the labs and Serena and I wanted to see what you were doing."

The teen face palmed. "You had to get involved. Okay, fine, you can help us."

"Nice outfit Serena."

"Did Ash think so as well?"

Ash and Serena then noticed the twins standing behind them. The two teens blushed slightly as Ash thought about his odd feelings he got seeing Serena dressed like that, Serena focusing on how Ash complimented her.

"Okay, enough romance for now guys. Time to get to business." Alley snapped.

Almost instantly the twins froze and their faces darkened. "Right."

"Where do I start?" Adrian began, "Ok let's start here. When we were investigating the labs, Espie found this shaft leading to what appears to be a secret laboratory. It appears to be run by a crime team known as Team Flare."

"So that's what the F meant." Ash muttered.

"So it was you guys who knocked out those two men?" Serena asked.

"Epsie!" A familiar psychic type responded, its eyes glowing slightly. Yes, a faint psychic touch could knock out the weak minded quite easily.

"Anyways, I wanted to find out what they were up to, so we pretended not to find anything, but decided to come back later, being tonight. We snuck in, knocked out the guards with Espie, and made our way here when you guys came."

Ash nodded, taking it all into consideration. "Ok then, how can we help?"

Adrian gestured to a large door on the far side of the corridor. "That appears to be their main research lab, but Espie's picking up a lot of guards. Too many for us to normally handle. So I need a diversion.

"Alley was going to try to attack some of their assets on the other side of the lair, but I think she's appreciate it if you two help her out while the twins and I investigate the main lab."

Ash clenched his fist slightly. He knew that Adrian's plan basically was to get him and Serena away from the main event. "I want to be there with you Adrian. Pikachu and I can be a major help in the battle. Serena and Alley can take the twins instead."

Adrian raised a brow in surprise. "Ash, I know what I'm doing. I really need your help drawing as many grunts away from the main labs as possible."

"But I want to help you battle."

"Ash!" Serena gasped, appalled at his behavior. "Trust Adrian's plan. It's going to be alright."

Adrian sighed. "Alley, you and Serena get going, I'll talk to Ash privately. Take Espie with you incase you run into trouble. Ruby and Sapphire take point and let me know when it's clear."

Alley nodded, gesturing for Serena to follow her. The blonde and fox followed the lilac haired woman. The twins also left to prepare. When they both left Adrian turned to Ash.

"Ok Ash, what's really going on? I have a good idea what you're thinking, but I want to hear it from you yourself."

Ash groaned. "It's just that I'm tired of being treated like a kid you know? You're just pushing me away when I want to be in the middle of the action just like you. I know what's going to happen. I'm going to be left in the dark about what's really at stake and just will act as bait for you to take all the glory. That's what keeps happening. I help save the world, but somebody else gets all the credit."

Adrian sighed. "Ash, that's not true. Let me put try to put this in other words.

"Ash, you think you're just a kid on a quest, to be the best of the best. But let me tell you that someday you're destined for power and glory. You know you're up to the test, but there's only one way to tell this story.

"Ash, be a hero! Be a hero Ash. All the power is at your command, ok? Face your fears and show you're a hero. The future of the world is in your hands." Adrian chuckled slightly as if he thought of some inside joke. "Pokémon."

Ash stared at the older teen in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean? It sounded more like some sort of theme song than an inspirational speech."

Adrian sweat dropped. "Yeah you're sorta right. What my point is that just because you're not recognized doesn't mean that you don't have to be a hero. You have to ability to save the world here Ash and I'm trusting you to help me do it. Are you in?"

Ash processed what the teen told him before nodding. "Alright, but you'd better tell me what I missed."

The teen chuckled. "All in good time, Ash, all in good time."

He gestured towards the doors. "Now let's do this!"


Serena followed Alley down several hallways and corridors until they reached a fork in the road. The lilac woman turned to Serena. "This is where we go our separate ways. You won't know what's beyond those doors, but it's bad and you need to start doing damage right away. This isn't the time to be nice. Remember, for every grunt that we don't pull away from the main means one more grunt that could overwhelm Ash and Adrian."

Serena gasped in horror. She hadn't thought of it that way. Now she felt determined to protect her Ash. She glanced at Eevee with a serious look on her face. "You ready to cause a ruckus?"

The fox gave her a hungry look. Oh he was ready to kick some Flare ass! "Vee Eevee!"

She returned the look. "Good, let's get going!"

Alley chuckled. "Alright then, once you hear the sounds of sirens, that's your cue to go. We don't want Officer Jenny mistakening us for Team Flare, so it's important that we aren't caught."

Serena didn't understand why, but nodded before running down the left fork, Eevee at the side.

The corridor led to what appeared to be a huge generator with several grunts guarding it. She had gotten lucky. An attack on a generator would almost definitely get their attention. Now she needed to make this good.

"Hey you! What are you doing here?"

Serena gasped as she saw several grunts running towards her. She glanced at her fox, telling it to stay hidden. "Oh me," She feined ditzyness. "I sorta got lost. Could you help me?"

The grunts reached her and surrounded her. "You aren't supposed to be here. How did get here?"

"Oh me?" Serena pretended to be an airhead, completely unfazed by their numbers. Inside, she was terrified, but knew that this would be necessary to help Ash. "I just was walking around and fell down this big hole and now I was just wandering. You could help me get back out of here right?"

The grunts frowned. "Um…sure…we'll show you the exit." One started.

"Shush, she might be a spy!"

"I don't think she's a spy, boss. She's too pretty to be a spy. Hey, you're pretty fashionable. Would you like to join us here at Team Flare? Our uniforms show off our distinctive flare in fashion."

Inwardly, Serena cringed. Ouch. If they thought their uniforms were fashionable, they really were insane. "Umm…maybe, or maybe not. What do you do here?"

"Oh that's easy, we develop technology to help our leader take over the Kalos Region. Although that dimensional shifting stuff didn't really seem to make sense. Why are we doing that again?" The dumb grunt asked.

"Never mind that, You're not supposed to be giving away secrets like that!"

"Oops, I guess you really do need to join us or else we'll have to take you prisoner. It'd be bad if you're pokemon ended up like that other girl's Chespin."

Serena gasped. Team Flare was the people behind Mairin's Chespin? Oh they were going to pay. She slowly put her back towards the generators. "Oh well then, I guess I'll have to go…NOW!"

She threw Eevee into the air, allowing him to let off a series of swift stars towards the generators. Several impacted the machinery, blowing up quickly afterwards. Almost immediately, the lights went out, causing confusion amongst the grunts.

"What the…"

"Who did that?"

"It was that girl!"

"I told you she was a spy!"

"Alert Director Lysandre! We have an intruder here."

"We need backup!"

"She wasn't nice. I offered her a job and she went and took out our main power source. That wasn't nice at all."

"Would you shut up?!"

When the emergency lights (coincidentally being red) flickered on, the blonde intruder had vanished.

"Where did she go?" Demanded the admin.

Serena smirked. She had taken advantage of the confusion and made a run for it. Now she was hiding behind a corner facing towards the open room. Now to get them to keep chasing her. She released Pancham from his Pokeball.

"Pancham use Stone Edge!" She ordered at the top of her voice. The panda obeyed, causing jagged stone pillars to erupt from the ground, destroying even more machinery and giving away her position.

The grunts immediately pointed her out in the dimmed lighting. "There she is!" The head one screamed. "GET HER!"

Serena giggled slightly as she started running down the corridor. Those grunt's horrible uniforms were not very flexible and so she had no trouble outrunning them. Already her mind was planning out other methods to get even more attention. Wow! She was good at being devious and destructive. If she was forced into a battle, it shouldn't be that bad. Her Pokemon were at full strength and Eevee still hadn't revealed his special move yet.

She couldn't help but let out a mischievous chuckle as she ran down the halls, over a dozen grunts now on her tail.


Ash peeked around a corner. All clear so far. He had made his way away from the main corridor and headed down a smaller hallway. He hoped he would be able to find everyone. As well known, he was pretty clueless when it came to directions.

"Hey you stop there!"

Ash turned around in surprise to see several Team Flare grunts running towards him. Ash grinned before starting to run further down the halls. "Catch me if you can!" He taunted.

"Pika! Pika!" Pikachu reiterated.

The grunts kept running. "We found another intruder, call for reinforcements.

Ash turned a bend and rushed through a pair of double doors to find himself in a smaller laboratory. Several chemicals lined the shelves and a bearded scientist seemed to be taking notes on two beakers at the center table. The scientist noticed him and gasped.

"Do not come any closer! I surrender!"

Ash stared at him with a blank look.

"Look, whatever you do," the man spoke with a heavy German (or whatever the Pokemon equivalent of that is) accent, "Do not mix ze red chemicals with ze blue chemicals!"

"Pika?" The mouse scratched his head confused. "Why?" Ash asked.

The man stared at him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because! Red and Blue make PURPLE! And Purple goes BOOM!"

Cue confused looks. "Eh?" "Pi?"

Suddenly the doors burst open to allow several grunts. Ash grinned. "Pikachu use Thunderbolt!"

Before they could respond, the mouse had sent several thousand volts of electricity through them, causing them to crumple into a heap of paralyzed bodies. Ash gave the mouse an affectionate rubbing. "Great job Pikachu!"

The scientist gasped. "Don't do that again! If you're careful, you might mix the chemicals together! And that means you'll mix ze Red with ze Blue, which makes Purple! And Purple goes…"

He was suddenly interrupted by the door slamming open to reveal a teen a little older than him wearing a black jacket and grey sweatpants. He had a wool scarf wrapped around him and he was followed by a huge orange dragon aka Charizard.

"So you're the one who is disrupting Lysandre's operations." The teen observed.

Ash frowned. He had recognized him from somewhere, but where? "Who are you?"

"I'm Alain and this is my Charizard. And I must ask, who are you and why are you trying to stop Lysandre's work?"

Ash gasped. His name was Alain. He was the guy who had hurt and betrayed Mairin. He hadn't heard the full details, but seeing the girl clinging to Ruby, broken hearted and feeling pathetic and worthless, he had quietly vowed to ensure that whoever this Alain guy was, he would pay for hurting his friend so badly.

"I'm Ash Ketchum and this is Pikachu. I don't know much about Lysandre, but I know a lot about you. You're Alain, Professor Sycamore's former assistant. You left him to explore Mega Evolution and become strong. You're Alain, Marin's friend. You ditched her and betrayed her trust in you to become strong. Let me tell you that that's not how you become strong. You're a horrible person if you think that in order to be strong you can just push people around, break their hearts, and make them cry.

"I'm Ash Ketchum, and you're going to get hurt real bad!"

Yes, here he was and Alain was going to get hurt real bad.

*And now the showdown between our heroes and Team Flare begins. Who will win? Will Ash defeat Alain? Will Serena escape the Flare grunts? And what about Adrian? *


Lysandre scowled at the screens. Ever since the power went out, he had been rushing grunts out to find the source of this attack. So far he had intruders coming from three angles. He had sent scientists after two of them and Alain to deal with the last one.

"How is it going Head Scientist Xerosic?"

The portly man glanced up to the director. "Almost done. I've sent the bulk of the research to our Kanto friends, but beside that I just need to make a few more calculations before it's done."

"Interesting work you're up to."

The duo and the remaining grunts turned around to find a raven haired teen entering the laboratory, two younger children at his side. "So this is the head of Team Flare: Lysandre of Lysandre Labs. How interesting."

"Who are you?" The tall man demanded.

"No one special. Just someone who cares about the bonds between humans and Pokémon. And if what I'm hearing is right, you're trying to break the bonds. And I can't let that happen."

"Who do you think you are?" One grunt yelled.

"Yeah, go home or get ready for a beating!"

Lysandre nodded, releasing his Pyroar and Gyarados, joined by several Mightyena, Drapion, and Weavile. "Whoever you are, I cannot allow you leave. Prepare to be destroyed."

Adrian glanced at the twins. "Ready?" He asked, reaching for something under his shirt.

The doors of the lab slammed shut, cutting view of the inside of the lab, but several voices could be heard.

"With me now!"

"Woah! What are those?"

"Aren't those Le…"

*Explosion*

"Yikes! Return fire!"

"My friends, respond to my heart and…"

*Flashes of light and energy burst*

"No way! They can do that?"

*Loud screeching and battle cries combined with explosions*

"Look out!"

"No!"


Oh wow! This is a lot to take in. Honestly this is how I wanted Ash and Alain's confrontation to go. Ash needs to be fired up like this. If you looked carefully, you'll see a lot of spoilers of what is to come in the future of this fic.

I hope you liked my usage of the Kalos Quest theme. I've been planning that for a very long time and yes, using theme songs as inspirational speeches will become a running gag here. Let me know any other themes you want me to try to incorporate.

The Red and Blue makes Purple thing comes from a Vacation Bible School video I watched when I was in Middle school. Yes, I did VBS and am proud to be part of it.

Please let me know what you think of this fic so far. I finished Y and need friend codes for the friend safari. If you're interested PM me and we can work something out.

Please Follow and Review.

May the Force of the Lord God Almighty be with you Always!

UCCMaster