So, once upon a time, there was this dragon. His name was Fred. And I met Fred, and we sat down, and we discussed our favorite franchise pokemon, and he said it would be really cool if all the pokemon characters went to high school.

And that's how this story came to be.(1)

Questions

"Pair up, kids!" Bruno called, clapping his massive hands together. The sound was like thunder in the gym, bouncing off the walls and instantly stopping the chatter from the class. "We'll spend the last twenty minutes alternating between bounce passes and chest passes. Practice your weaknesses. I want to see everyone get a basket this week, alright? Don't make a repeat of last week. I'm sick of seeing the scoreboard at zero-zero, people!"

There was a mad scramble for partners, and May winced as she looked over to see her usual partners, Danielle and Karen, paired up with one another, and looking at her apologetically. She moaned softly to herself and began her walk of shame up to Bruno. She knew most of the kids in the class, but she wasn't close enough to any of the others to think that she would manage to get a partner. This meant she would have to take whoever was left over. Not that she minded the left over kid, but she did mind Bruno shouting to the whole gym that she didn't have a partner so some other partnerless person would come forward.

She was just about to speak when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Ash, in the hideous gym uniform of gold and white trimming, holding a basketball under one arm and smiling at her. He held up the ball and asked, "Hey, need a partner?"

May had no clue who Ash usually partnered with, but she eagerly snatched the ball up from his hands, starting towards the line she would have to stand on to pass. She smirked at him, her nerves calming and the tension in her chest loosening. "You know, those gold shorts? They make your legs look fantastic."

"Shut up." He laughed.

"No, really," she said, nodding seriously. "Those shirts, they don't make your thighs look weirdly hairy at all."

"Pass it, Maple," he said, sounding very stern but his smile growing wider with every second.

She passed it, giving one last retort of, "Trash talk is a key part of basketball" before the passing game began.

Ash wasn't as great at basketball as he had been at running, but he was decent enough at both passes that he didn't have to try too hard, and was able to switch up between the two types. Meanwhile, May spent her time trying to get her chest pass right, which always seemed to fall somewhere in the middle of the two of them, turning into a terrible bounce pass. Ash tried to help, but considering his only advice was, "Throw it harder", he wasn't much help.

At the end of class, he volunteered to put the ball away, and since she was changed first, she waited patiently for him outside of the locker room. They started walking back together in silence, then May glanced at him and blurted, "I wanted to thank you."

"It's no big deal. You looked lost, like you really needed a partner." He shrugged and patted her shoulder warmly. "You're really nice, May. Sorry that you had me for a partner today. I'm usually not that great at basketball and-"

"No! You did great!" she said hurriedly. She grabbed his arm, then let go in a flash blushing and looking down at the floor. "I mean, ever since you came here, you've been really great. You…I don't know, Ash. You make this place brighter. I love hanging out with you. It's really nice."

He paused, gulping. "Uh, this isn't…"

"Isn't what?"

"Uh, this isn't a love confess-?"

Her eyes widened and she shook her head wildly, not realizing that her vehemence in rejecting a crush on Ash might have been the slightest bit hurtful. "Oh, no! Oh, Mew, no! It…no. I's not, at all. I mean, I like…" She blushed and smiled to herself a little. "I like someone, yeah. It's not you, though. I mean, I've known him for a really long time, and whenever he talks to me I just-"

"It's Drew."

"What?" she said, snapping out of her daydream.

"Drew? Is he the guy?"

"I…how'd you…" Her blush grew terribly dark and she could only squeak, "What?"

"I'm pretty sure he likes you."

"Really?" she gasped giddily. In that instance, her worries were gone, and any idea of how Ash found out about her crush on Drew was gone in a flash. Instead, she was practically dancing next to him, giggles rising up in her throat and almost wanting to fling her arms around him at the verbal confirmation. She calmed herself down enough to try and think rationally, remembering that she was eighty percent sure Drew had kissed her and it wasn't just a dream, but hadn't made a move since. "Why? Did he say he likes me?"

Ash explained, "He talks about you."

"Really?"

"A lot," his tone turned flat, and he glared into the distance.

May didn't notice, instead simply swooning in girlish glee. "That's so sweet!"

"Annoying, actually," Ash corrected dryly. "The word I'd use is annoying. If Misty talked about Gary that much, I'd go crazy."

"I can't believe he talks about me."

"A lot. A near creepy amount," he continued.

She shook her head. "Okay, but he talks nice things about me."

"Yeah. Like how you smell."

There were many things that May had been expecting to hear, mostly silly poetic things about how he thought her eyes were gorgeous, deep oceans and that her skin felt softer than silk and her voice was like a choir of angels, and she supposed a few things about her personality would have been nice too. However, in all her thoughts about what a boy would like about a girl, she most certainly did not expect her smell to be one of them. She gawked at him, gasping, "What?"

"Your hair, I mean."

"Oh." That wasn't too weird, she supposed. In fact, it was kind of sweet and romantic, and maybe that would mean he would like cuddling with her just so he could put his face in her hair. She sighed at that and asked dreamily, seeming to forget that Ash was a boy, and a boy who was exceptionally not interested in love stuff and gossip, "Does he like it?"

"Yeah," Ash said, immediately addressing his primary question, "How does he smell your hair?"

"I don't know."

There was silence for a beat, then Ash rather cautiously asked, "Can I smell your hair?"

"Please don't." She changed the topic as abruptly as possible, because the air between them became filled with many small awkward particles, and Ash was clearly struggling to think of something to say to make the smelling her hair question a little less creepy. "So, what are you up to tonight? I'll probably be writing my English essay until three in the morning. I've been putting it off and it's due tomorrow."

"I can't put anything off," Ash said, which was clearly meant to be sullen but was far too happy about the topic change to be anything but relieved.

"Misty's on your back?" she giggled.

"All the time!" he complained. "I've never done so much homework in my life."

"Oh, no. She makes you do your homework?" she cried in mock horror. "The fiend!"

"Come on!" he whined. "There's a lot."

"Oh, hush. Whatever you have, I have way more. Honors English, you know."

"Fancy."

"It is." She sighed, the two continued down the hall, heading down the path to the dorms before they would have to break off. It would be a little while yet, but she was already thinking about how she'd miss his company. She pushed the thought out of her mind, then said, "Hey, you never answered my question."

"Which one? One of the Drew ones?" he asked wearily, worried that he might end up saying something quite like the hair line once again, and, even if he wasn't going to do it, horrified at the thought that he would have to talk to May about more girly things and pretend to be interested when he honestly couldn't care less about who was making out with who unless it was two girls and he was allowed to watch, maybe, because he thought that watching two girls make out was supposed to be hot.

"No." His daydreams flew out the window, and he focused on her once again. "I asked you what you were doing tonight."

He groaned. "Aside from tutoring?"

"Aside from tutoring," she confirmed.

"Well, Gary has loads of soda in his room, and sometimes there's too much of it, so he has a party kind of thing so we can all go over and drink it. There's not a lot of us, like, five guys tops, but Brock cooks and we play video games and stuff. It's actually pretty fun."

She agreed, "That sounds fun."

"I'd invite you but, you know, it's in the boys' dorm."

"Oh, that's fine." She smiled and waved it all off. "I told you, I have an essay to write anyway. I'll just be in a room with Dawn all night, and she's going to tell me all the gossip around school and I'm going to be able to type a remarkable one hundred words an hour."

"You should be careful with gossip," Ash warned sincerely.

"I know, I know," she groaned. "It's all lies."

"It isn't all lies. That's the problem." His voice was strangely solemn, and she looked over at him in surprise. She hadn't seen Ash looking contemplative before, but, at that moment, she thought that was how she would describe him. He was thinking seriously, and then he stopped as suddenly as he had started, and smiled brightly at her. He waved as he set down the path to the boys' dorm, and she walked down the path to the girls'. "See you tomorrow, May."

"Tomorrow, Ash!"

She put any thoughts about how strange it was to see Ash focused and thinking out of her mind, and instead thought about how nice it was to have some kind of confirmation that Drew liked her, aside from that one kiss which, once again, she was pretty sure happened but had gotten absolutely no indication of from then on. Though, all she really knew was that he talked about her a lot and that he liked the way her hair smelled, and she supposed that those things weren't very good to base a relationship on.

May walked into her dorm, closing and locking the door happily behind her, and then turning and feeling a sudden dread rise in her stomach. Dawn was grinning wickedly at her, with a kind of look that said she had a secret, and she was going to tell May whether she wanted to hear it or not. She groaned and let her head fall against her chest, hearing Dawn leap off the bed and race up to her, and asked, "What?"

"I've got something good," Dawn said eagerly. "Really, really good."

Just as blandly as before, May asked again, "What?"

"I mean, this is birthday present good."

"What is it?"

Dawn grabbed her by both shoulders, looked her dead in the eyes, and gasped, "This is call Melody and place a wager good."

"I have an essay to write," she said, pushing past the blue haired girl and immediately whipping open her laptop to continue an essay on Of Mice and Men, which she had been sure, just a few minutes before, was eight pages long, not five, and was wondering if she could make it to the minimum of seven pages by fiddling with the margins a little or making the punctuation bigger, before feeling guilty and knowing she was going to have to write another two pages before the morning came.

"No, you want to know this," Dawn insisted, kneeling by May's desk and looking up at her hopefully.

"I really don't."

"It's really good."

"I doubt it."

"It's about Ash."

"He's popular in the rumor mill."

"And Misty."

"So is she."

Dawn frowned and poked May's left arm, which was laying limply as she used her right to scroll around the page to slowly read her essay, and trying to figure out little places to put in heavily padded sentences and needless adverbs. "And you're not interested?"

"There's a lot of lies," she sighed.

"This isn't a lie."

"And how do you know?"

"Misty told me."

May slammed her laptop shut and she stared at Dawn, who was happy for all the wrong reasons. May most certainly didn't care about whatever the rumor was, because she was certain if Dawn classified it as a rumor is couldn't possibly be anything too important, but she did care about the fact that Dawn had seemed to usurp her as Misty's best friend, and was desperate to get to the bottom of it. "She told you? Why didn't she tell me?"

"She came over looking for you, but you weren't here, and I was." May relaxed visibly at that, and Dawn plunged on before she could turned her attention back to her essay. "So, she didn't want to tell me, but she was freaking out and she needed someone to talk to, but you weren't coming back for a while. So she said I couldn't tell anyone and I said okay and closed the door when she-"

"Why are you telling me?" May said seriously. "When you promise not to tell anyone, you really shouldn't tell anyone. That makes you a liar."

"She was going to tell you. This doesn't count."

"I don't think that's true."

Dawn groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, would you just shut up already! Misty is actually having fun with Ash."

"She finally admitted she doesn't really hate him, huh?" she asked idly, opening her laptop once again, and cursing herself for slamming it shut. Although it had been dramatic, and it had felt good to do, her laptop had hibernated, and she now had to wait for it to start up. She drummed her fingers on the table as she watched the loading screen, "That's big of her. I didn't think she'd say that anytime soon."

"No," Dawn's voice dropped dramatically low as she whispered, "they're doing stuff."

"Dawn, that's really vague. Could you-?"

"Fun stuff."

"Interrupt me," May said flatly. "That's exactly what I was going to ask. How'd you know?"

"Movies and riding ponyta and stuff. They're going out of their way to do fun stuff. Misty is really not happy about it. I mean, she's really mad and I asked her why she was doing it and she blushed and said that Ash was blackmailing her."

"What?"

"Yes!" Dawn cheered, finally seeing a genuine interest from May. She frowned to herself. "Oh, maybe I should have started with that."

"How is Ash blackmailing her?"

"She wouldn't say."

"Didn't you ask?"

"I begged! I asked and pleaded and begged and tried to bribe her and nothing, absolutely nothing. She wouldn't say, and she said that she wouldn't tell anyone." She grabbed May's hands excitedly in her own. "Come on, May, you can pry it out of her! I swear, if it's really bad I can keep it a secret."

"I can't." She shook her head.

"Oh, please?" she pleaded, making her eyes as wide as she could. "I really won't tell."

"I mean, she won't tell me." May pulled her hands away and glared at her laptop, which had reached the login screen, and she quickly typed in her password. "She doesn't talk about anything important. She won't tell me anything. I walked in on her crying one day a few years ago and I still don't know why she was all teary."

Dawn gawked. "But you're her best friend."

"That's not enough."

"How is that not enough?"

"Because it's still not close enough." May shrugged. "She's not that close to anyone. She never tells me what's wrong, she never tells her sisters what's wrong, she never tells her teachers what's wrong. If she doesn't want to tell, she doesn't tell. That's the way she's always been."

"Maybe she'll tell Gary," Dawn murmured.

"She's not going to tell Gary."

"Why not?" The blue haired girl pouted furiously, starting to realize there was possibly no way to get the secret. "He's her boyfriend!"

She stared at her computer, opened her essay, and was happy to see she had remembered to save earlier. She thought for a moment about explaining to Dawn that, while Gary was Misty's boyfriend, Misty most certainly wasn't going to tell him anything important, and that she doubted the relationship would last until graduation. Instead, she opted to change the topic once more by feeding the rumor mill, and sighing, "Did you know that Drew talks about me when I'm not there?"

Ash went to Brock's room before he went to Gary's, because Brock would let him taste. Granted, Brock also said things like "Tell me what kind of girl you like, Ash, you have to have at least one trait you can name off the top of your heard," which made the good smell of the cream based sauce a little less amazing as he had to sort through the unpleasant thought of romance and girls. H breathed in the sauce deep, only to have Brock push him away so he could add some kind of spice, and Ash pouted.

"Not really. I don't really talk to talk about this stuff either. It's bad enough girls keep sending me love notes. I mean, why are they so obsessed with me? I'm not even good looking. Why not Gary with his stupid magical soda bottles?" He frowned at the thought of his rival and his playboy ways and the horrifying amount of soda bottles that lined his room. "That bastard. You know, he's not even going into battling even though he battles me all the time! He's going into research, the jerk."

Brock shrugged, continuing with his sauce. "Ninety eight percent of the females in the school would argue that."

"That he's a jerk?"

"They think you're cute, like their own boy Lolita."

"Goody," he muttered, putting his chin in his hands and leaning against the cabinets. Brock had a far nicer room than any of the other kids, being a teacher's assistant, and having the privilege of living on campus for cheap, and Ash tried to calm himself down with the extra space and the smell of good food in the air. "You don't know how annoying it is! I want attention, but can't they watch me battle instead of just thinking I'm some sort of life sized sex doll?"

"I can only imagine what would happen if you dress up like a little boy for a day." He smirked. "The girls would probably start crying."

Ash leapt to his feet, furious. "I don't want girls to cry! I want them to battle me so I can be a Pokémon Master!"

"And I want a girlfriend," Brock retorted. He grabbed a spoon from a drawer and dipped it in the sauce, sipping it and swirling it around in his mouth, then waved Ash over. "But we can't all get what we want. Come taste this."

Ash grabbed a spoon from the same drawer, though he picked up a far bigger spoon than Brock had, and made sure to scoop as much of the sauce as possible into his mouth. It tasted good, then went to try and scoop it again, only to have Brock slap his hand away and glare. Ash sighed and thought for a minute, then settled on the description, "Tomato-y."

Brock scowled, clearly not satisfied with that description. "That's because there are tomatoes in it."

"Anyway, you can get whatever you want. All you have to do is smile," -he then smiled to show how great his smile could be, which even Brock had to admit was fairly dazzling and made him almost want to grab another spoonful of the sauce to keep him smiling- "and anyone will give you anything, for a discount or for free depending on how nice they are! That's how it works for me."

"Not for the rest of us!" Brock gasped, eyes wide.

"People and pokémon are my strong points. It's easy for me to get pretty much anything." Ash leaned forward dangerously, glaring into Brock's eyes. "That never leaves the room, though, I don't want people catch on. I won't be able to get girls into my room every night without it."

The older boy stared, then smiled a little. "Are you messing with me?"

He giggled. "A little."

Brock grabbed the lid for the pot then made for the door, Ash rushing ahead of him to open it then rushing back to grab his backpack that he had tossed into the corner before the two made their way down the hallway to Gary's room. The other boy's were already there – Kenny, Drew, Paul, Gary himself and Tracey, and all of them looked thrilled to see Brock coming in with the pot, setting it on the table while Gary played the good host and went to get plates and silverware.

"Hey, Tracey, what are you doing here?" Brock asked eagerly, shaking hands with the other boy. "I thought you were at Oak's helping him with his research."

"I had some business here in Goldenrod, and Professor Oak gave me a couple of packages for Gary. It's cheaper than shipping, and I didn't mind dropping it off." He shrugged, then held out his hand to Ash, who shook it. "Hey, Ash! How's it going here? A lot different from Pallet, isn't it?"

He grinned. "I kind of miss my old classes, and my old friends. But, you know, I'm having a good time here, and my grades are pretty good. And I'm really excited for the tournament. How long are you in town for?"

"Just a couple days, and the rest of the time I'm working. Sorry, Ash."

Ash said something letting him know he didn't mind, though that was a lie and he really would like to have another reminder from Pallet Town other than Gary and Pikachu, the latter of which hated the noise and bustle of the boys in the small room and had opted instead to stay curled up in Ash's room, next to the purring computer Ash had left on for just that purpose. He tried to focus on getting a plate and scooping as much of the hot pasta and sausage and sauce onto his plate as it could hold.

The rest of the night continued fairly normally, with the boys chatting and drinking soda and playing with a football which made Gary twitch every time one of them hit a shelf and set some of his valuables shaking, before he came over to sit next to Ash, handing him a yellow power drink that Ash hated, and opening a cherry soda for himself. Ash set it aside and tried to focus on getting every last drop of sauce out of the bowl.

"Do you think Misty would come to Pallet for winter break?"

"Why would she? Pallet's pretty boring compared to the city." Ash shrugged and twirled his fork around in the pasta. "I mean, unless you invited her to come to your house or something, because then she could meet Oak and everything."

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?" he asked, pausing.

"I was planning on inviting Misty with me over break. I wanted her to meet my family and, well, you spend a lot of time with her, and I was wondering if you think she'd come. I mean, I don't want to freak her out by moving too fast. I could always wait until spring, but my parents are really interested and they'd like to meet her as soon as possible, not to mention May probably won't be there, so I don't have to worry about that."

"May?" Ash asked, his mind flashing to the brunette he had talked to earlier, then he shook his head. "Oh, right. Your sister. She's not going to be there?"

"She shouldn't be," Gary said, looking relieved. "But, do you know what she does, religiously? I haven't really brought it up, though I know she's Moltres, right? I think they don't do anything in the winter, but I wasn't really sure, and since, you know, you spend all that time with her and you say stupid stuff that might be offensive I thought you might know a little more about it."

"I don't say stupid stuff that much!" Ash defended hotly. "And, yeah, she's in the House of Moltres. She took the eighteenth off a couple months ago and everything."

"What's the eighteenth?" Gary asked. "She took the eighteenth off?"

"The eighteenth was the…uh, I can't say it. It's this thing where they say goodbye to the sun for the winter. It's a fire house thing, and Moltres do it earlier than anyone else." Ash frowned in thought for a moment. "She said her sisters were doing stuff, but she said it was adult stuff, or stuff you needed a husband or a wife or something for, so she doesn't do it, I think. Well, unless she plans on doing it with you. Didn't she say anything?"

Gary shook his head. "No. I mean, it's probably sex stuff, so we wouldn't be doing it."

"Oh." Ash shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and wondered why he was feeling slightly giddy at the news that Gary and Misty weren't doing anything sexual. "Well, I guess that would probably make sense. Though, I guess, with all of that, she shouldn't have any religious problems seeing you over the winter, and I think she's go just because she'd really want to meet Professor Oak, with him being famous and all."

"You think?"

"Well, yeah. What kind of idiot who wants to go into pokémon would ever pass up meeting your grandfather? The only problem I could see her having is that coming to Pallet means she might have to run into me over break." He chuckled a little. "But I think she really likes you, I don't see why she wouldn't go. I mean, you've got a big house and I'm sure you're going to find a far off spare room for her, right?"

"Yeah, I'm not making her sleep in my room or anything," Gary blurted. "And, my parents and my grandpa are really well known, so I think her sister's would be okay with her staying over. I think I might want to have them call, you know, to get permission first, before I ask her."

"You should probably ask her first," Ash argued. "I'm pretty sure Misty would kill you if you went through her sisters before you talked to her."

"Well, with something like this, I'm sure she wouldn't mind, right? I mean, she has to ask her sisters if she can go anyway."

"I wouldn't if I were you," Ash warned seriously. He set his bowl aside and walked over to get another soda, one he liked, and nearly groaned out loud when Gary followed him to the pile. He popped open the lid and sighed, drinking it slowly until he couldn't stand Gary's curious gaze on him any long. "If you go through her sisters all you're doing is making her feel like they're better than her, that you think they're better than her, or something. She's really self conscious about it."

"Did she tell you?" he asked, eyes widening. "How'd that come up in tuto-?"

"It's obvious," Ash growled. "Come on! Everyone knows I'm an idiot and I can tell! She freaks out anytime anyone talks about her sisters, especially when they talk about anything that they did that Misty isn't good at, like them having more boyfriends or them being homecoming queens or whatever."

"Maybe it's just because you're good at people."

"Maybe it's because I pay attention to more than just whether or not my parents would think she would be a good edition to the family. Maybe it's because I don't just think about whether she's good enough to be a part of the Elite Four. Maybe it's that, Gary. Maybe it's because we're actually friends instead of you just thinking she looked hot one day and hearing that she was Lorelei's favorite and wanting to hook up with her because it seemed like a great career path!"

By the end, Ash was shouting, and the room had fallen silent, and Gary was staring at him in shock. It took him a few seconds after he finished talking to realize what he had said, and how he had said it, and that Gary had a pretty hot temper and could probably beat the shit out of him if he really wanted. He took a step back and held up his hands, soda still clutched in one, and stuttered, "L-listen, that was way out of line."

"That's not what this is, Ash," Gary growled. "I'm actually into her. You think I'd spend all this time on her just to make my parents happy?"

"I didn't say that you didn't care about her. I know you do. It's pretty obvious you do. I was just saying that, sometimes, you think a little too much about what your parents think and how-"

"So it is that?" he shouted. "You're jealous, and you're looking for all these little ways to break it apart. Can't find anything wrong with the relationship, and can't find anything wrong with her, so you're just going to come after me, right, Ketchum?"

"Not what I said," Ash said hurriedly. "Not what I meant. Just forget I said anything, alright, Gary? I know you like her, I know you really care about her. I think you two are great together. You seem happy, Misty seems happy. I don't like her that way. I don't want to break you up. I mean, if anything, I'm more concerned about May's love life than Misty's. She talks about it all the time. That reminds me, how do you smell her hair, Drew?"

"What?" the boy blinked, looking between the two. "When did this become about me?"

"I love her, Ash," Gary barked.

Ash swallowed. "I'm sure you do. I just…I'm sorry."

"Did you tell her any of it?" he asked, stepping forward so they were inches away. "Did you tell her about you and May? Did you tell her about that?"

"I haven't said anything, and I'm not going to."

He glared for a moment longer, then turned on his heel and stormed out of his own room. The room fell entirely silent, no one moving or talking, but simply staring at the door Gary had slammed behind him, and all of them wondering exactly what that scene meant, and if Gary was going to come back anytime soon and beat the hell out of Ash, considering he seemed one good insult away from doing exactly that.

Then, Kenny cleared his throat and squeaked to Drew, "So, how do you smell her hair?"

(1) That's not true. At all. Fred would never suggest something so ridiculous.