Exotos: And we're back, everyone!
Cross: And got some reviews from both Fanfiction and Archive! Figured I'd address the AdrianVnz one here….if the crack seemed lacking it was how the original big doc was divided up. The early part was a bit more 'what is the setting' than the later chapters, which have a lot more comedy. Hope these next ones fill your needs.
Exotos: For example, this chapter opts to satisfy the kinky needs.
Cross: Well a specific set of them at least. If you want your kink about sexy Pyramid Head to be handled please get in the Fog Car and take some Shuckle Juice.
Exotos:... I don't get the joke, and part of me's grateful for it.
CHAPTER START!
Day two had her witness the rise of a massive force, mustered for a ferocious battle that few if any would return from. They were baptized in fire and torn apart mercilessly. Color and origin made no difference, for she saw all of them die just the same.
The thousands of muffins she helped bake all fell just the same, into the stomachs of Ash's family. She had baked and she had taken them out in an endless wave, but she was thus spared from clean up. The staff each had two of three jobs this morning, and with food prep and serving she didn't have to do the last part in cleanup.
That meant she could go from the working vacation to the working vacation. So she could socialize and talk as breakfast winded down.
"...I almost don't want to eat them…..I've seen more muffins than anyone has ever needed to see." Chloe told Lita as she put a jelly-filled muffin into her stomach. Almost, of course, as she was hungry too.
"How did you guys make all of them?" Lita asked. Chloe was sure she was giving a thousand mile stare as she answered the taller girl.
"I never saw a muffin tray with that many muffin slots. Also Ash's mom has a lot of stoves."
Lita laughed at her mild muffin induced trauma as Chloe's eyes went anywhere but the next muffin she was eating. The large dining area, which she thought looked to have been expanded from its original size at some point in the last few years, had hundreds of people present, and she was starting to get a handle on who was and who was not related to Ash.
So maybe he was right and they were not quite indicative to what Bloodliners looked like in general.
"...This place doesn't have nearly enough rooms for all these people….are they really all just camping in the woods?"
"You knockin' camping?" A guy who was sitting next to them questioned. The guy might have blond hair and red eyes, but the Z-marks and height made it clear that this was yet another of Ash's seemingly endless count of blood relations. He was smaller than Ash in size so he was younger….though in her experience she would struggle to guess how old.
"...I'm a city girl. I also made many of those muffins you slaughtered." She noted the pile of muffin liners he had impaled on his straw for some reason like a gruesome display of carnage. The fact two of the muffins had once been filled with jelly didn't help with the comparison as their empty liner husks had streaks of red jelly on them.
"Well thanking you kindly for the muffins, but I guess you don't know much about camping." His accent was something rural, but she couldn't guess where. Probably not Kanto, but geography did not restrict 'jackass sperm donor' seed. It was like Magikarp, it got everywhere and evolved into giants.
"Enlighten me." She drly asked. It was either going to be informative or she was going to get all her dirty fixes on wild forest nookie. Maybe both.
"And maybe me too. I kind of need some advice because the tent I used was torn apart by a Mankey swarm the day before I got here…." Lita asked in genuine interest with no sign of ulterior...er….personal interest.
"Well that's your first rookie mistake, little sister." Okay so he was older than Lita….how could he tell? She didn't look 15 to Chloe's perspective "...Tents are a rookie call. They break, they are small, and you've got to set them up. Secret Bases are the way to go."
"...I've heard that name before but I don't know what they are." Lita admitted. Well, they were apparently secret so that made sense.
"A Pokemon can use Secret Power to expand and alter plants, rock faces, and other things into a spacious room. It's waterproof, clean, and people can't stumble into it in the dark easily. All it costs you is a Pokemon knowing the move Secret Power."
Lita quickly asked if he (the guy hadn't given a name yet) could teach her because she didn't see any tents at the Pallet store and as he explained that Ash was apparently doing a workshop on it later today (for family and the current crop of near 10 year olds in Pallet Town itself) Chloe felt like she had heard something like this before, or at least Ash try to get Goh to do something other than tents. Goh could be stubborn about things, though she hadn't had any context. She had assumed that Ash just slept out without a tent or something at the time, but this did make more sense.
"So that's wherever everyone else is." She noted after Lita got the place and time fully memorized.
"Yep. We come down to hang out and talk and eat and stuff, but at night we save the rooms for those who don't know how to do so."
"...And shower I presume." She wasn't sure if there was a public shower somewhere, as her and Lita's room had a bathroom, but hundreds of teenagers surely needed a shower.
He shrugged.
"Eh….some of them can. But Ash pointed out where the waterfalls are. Hill's full of big ones, and I think he and that Cerulean girl helped make a few new ones a while back."
She stared at the guy in disbelief, matched by Lita.
"They shower….." Lita blushed as John nodded.
"Yup. Water's a bit cold, but it don't drain into the swimming lake or the drinking water. Lot of natural filters in there hills."
"...Isn't that water cold? And you guys…." Chloe was also blushing hard. So she could just wander up into the woods and see naked hot people if she just found a waterfall! That...that was terrible! That was insane! That was….kind of tempting, she wasn't going to lie to herself.
"...Cold showers are fine. That's why you shower in the morning. Gotta wake up. Plus who's going to be up there causing trouble?"
Someone must have let out some Kricketune, as Chloe was sure she could hear a few in the silence that developed.
"Huh, not sure what's with the odd silence….it's almost like I said something ironic. Anyway I don't think I ever got either of your names."
"Lita Allegro."
"Chloe Cerise."
"The name's John Lenot, up here with a rather special fellow of mine for some fun and family."
"A special fellow?" Lita questioned.
"Yes."
"So you and a guy…" Chloe inquired of John..
"Yup."
So she found one of Ash's brothers who was with another guy all alone in the woods together at night. Chloe's yaoi interests were rising, and maybe the Kricketune would not give her away again.
...
She had mentioned to Lita at some point that she had been to Pallet Town before. She had clarified at the time that she had mostly been at Professor Oak's lab as part of a business trip with her father, and that she had not seen a lot of Pallet Town in general.
She had seen more of a certain extremely rare Pokemon that Goh then became obsessed with than the town itself, though she had not brought that up. Goh was one thing, but the last thing she needed was for someone who could physically drag her off on a Mew Hunt like Lita to get a case of the Mew craze.
However that had not stopped Lita from dubbing her, Chloe Cerise, her tour guide to the town. It was either because Lita was really desperate to not miss that lecture about turning cliffs into beds, or because Lita wanted to spend time with her. She wasn't sure how to handle the latter, as it was an alien idea that people would want to hang out with her. (Her parents, Parker, and Goh did not count, nor did Ash or Yamper or….)
"Wow, when I was told that Ash's mom ran the only restaurant, I thought she was exaggerating. I don't think this place even has a pizza place." Lita questioned as they walked through the tow center, which was a sparse place. There were just...not a lot of things here. A postal office was the biggest building in the area, though it was dwarfed by a building with a windmill atop a hill she knew quite well.
"I guess they just have to make their own pizza...or pizza pot pies." Chloe shrugged, still amazed that a pizza pot pie could exist. And now she could make enough of it to feed a town the size of Pallet now.
A beep on her phone told her something updated. She quickly checked, finding it wasn't important. What was however…
"Damn it I forgot to charge this thing…." She would have to leave it in her room to charge while she did lunch.
"I can take care of it." Lita assured her. Chloe thought she meant taking it back with her when she had to go back to work but instead Lita's hand glowed yellow, just like Yamper or Pikachu would before zapping something, and she saw her phone register itself as charging.
"So you're a walking charger?" Chloe asked, though a bit quieter than she might normally. She noticed that Lita very clearly held her phone against her hip in a way that townspeople couldn't see said living charger.
Lita nodded.
After finding the place that Ash would be hosting that little lecture of his and, tomorrow, talk of an official 'Battle Festival Challenge' that was being held as part of the family reunion (which Chloe would avoid like a plague, as it would be filled with hundreds of people with Ash-level enthusiasm for battles and hundreds of town people with nothing better to do but cheer it on loudly like they hadn't had anything exciting happen since they got cable) Chloe, out of morbid curiosity, poked her head over to the local tourism office.
Mostly out of curiosity what counted as tourism around here. Lita seemed just happy to be doing things with her, and the 'Pallet Town Tourism Board' building looked to be decently built up and looked nicer than the school.
(...Then again did anyone go to school here after the age of 10 so did they need anything better?)
And whatever Chloe had expected to find…..
"Oh there's a winery up a few miles down the road. I've always wanted to visit one!"
"More of a beer person myself, but it is all expenses paid."
"Ancient ruin tours! Those sound interesting…"
"Mountain bike rentals, interesting…"
….was not a gaggle of moms all looking over various bits of what to dos.
There were certainly far fewer moms here than there were siblings, and they came in a variety of appearances. She didn't see a pattern in height or weight or eye color or skin tone or accent or anything, they were just all clearly non locals, and there was only reason they'd be here…
Two of the moms noticed the two of them.
"Hey, are any of these anyone's kids?" One of the moms shouted as attention came at them at once. Chloe felt a need to shrink at the combined gaze, even when it wasn't aggressive. Lita blushed.
"Oh no….I'm not looking for anyone. My mom's back home with her work and Chloe's parents are the same." Lita explained as the moms turned back to looking around.
Chloe should probably not be surprised. She had seen a few moms here and there, not just Delia and Elizebeth, and she hadn't seen what they were doing. Delia was running things for sure, but not all of them were just here to do more cooking. And it was probably better that they were having fun this way that….making the family tree any more complicated.
Her brief glimpses of her mom's reality television (brrrr…..the one thing worse than the Pokemon League channels) suggested the quickest way to family disharmony was sleeping with a person's mother, and she was pretty sure that was true in reality. Hence why she really hoped Ash had never seen her look at his mom in that green swimsuit or….well maybe he could in fact be scary.
"You two must be part of the big Ketchum event going on. Well take your pick of activities! This big whatever their hosting is a giant boon to the area, and it's all paid for by the two of 'em. I haven't seen this much business in ages!" The tourist clerk cheerfully declared. Did he...did he not know it was a family reunion of madness? Perhaps that was being kept on the down low. "Wasn't expecting anything this big until they finished that big statue of Professor Oak to go next to the statue of his grandfather Pallet Oak or they got that new golf course up and running, but no one's complaining. 'Cept Carl, but he's a jerk so we don't care."
No one liked Carl it would seem.
"His grandfather was named after the town?" Lita questioned about the Oak family ancestor as the man laughed.
"Nah, he got the town renamed after him."
She looked at Lita, wondering if she had anything to say about that. Lita looked just as baffled. Renaming a town...what was town named before that? Town? Town Town?
"So….golf course?" Chloe asked about the other thing as the clerk gleefully pointed at a poster on the wall that many of the moms were looking at.
"Yeah ain't it neat? The other Oak brothers, after their terms as postal master and mayor were done with, wanted to do something else for the town and decided to try to get into the golf business. Bunch of city folk from up in Viridian want to host the Olympics at some point, but Viridian has sucky golf courses so they are helpin' finance things. They haven't officially opened it up for the pros, but they agreed to let the big Ketchum party give it a test go before they get the snobs to look it over."
So there was a near-ready golf course being tested by a bunch of single moms and Ash siblings being built by the family that seemed to be everything in this place while being covered by Ash's seemingly infinite wallet. She was bizarrely interested, she had to admit. She was probably one of only two people in her school who found the background and set up of an Olympic event more interesting than the actual event along with Franklin, though that was because both of them were 'weird'. Just in different ways
If only her father played golf, or she'd know if she had time to even do a 'back nine' before she had to get back from her working vacation to her working vacation. Okay, maybe if he did she still wouldn't know…
"No chance you'd know how long it would take to do golf, do you?" Chloe really had no way of phrasing it better. How did one do golf?
"Want to try it out while it's free?" The clerk guessed.
"Why not?"
"Well sadly I don't know." The clerk admitted. He flinched at a display of her honed 'annoyed glare' attack.
"...Hmmm….if the golf course is intended for olympic standards it would have to match the Hano Grand Golf Course's standards and if you'd also have a time hiccup from being new to the game. So I'd guess it would take….too long before you have to go back to work. Hope it's no problem but I did the math for myself and you did ask." A new voice offered.
The woman who had filled them in was a purple haired woman with large pink glasses. She was wearing a white outfit over a pink sweater. It made the woman's features stand out, the woman was curvy in a way Chloe noticed quickly, though in a different way than the horde of siblings. A golf bag was swung over her shoulder. She sounded friendly and sweet, and just the touch familiar.
"Thanks um…..I feel like I've seen you somewhere….."
"Oh, from your father I'm sure. I'm Wicke of the Aether Foundation. He's done a few projects with us."
Aether Foundation….
"Wicke… Wicke…" Chloe snapped her fingers. "Aha! Now I remember!"
"You do?"
"Yeah, you're the one boss who all the other employees stared at when not looking at your bosses legs!"
Not that ….she ever stared at Lusamine's long, slender, perfect legs or...
Chloe was promptly, yet gently, bopped with a golf club
"I'm on vacation from that….in theory."
"And in practice?"
"Well…"
….
"So the ultimate deadbeat father also fucked someone in my dad's work circle….I should be surprised but I'm not."
The woman blushed as the three had left the tourist office and were talking out of earshot of the locals. It wasn't hard to get off the beaten path in this town, or a path at all.
"I'm actually here for both my daughter Pannonicia and my nephew Zilant. His mom is my sister and she's…..well she doesn't need alien space venom to be terrible let's put it that way. The two are the same age, so I don't have to keep that much of a close eye on them. Zilant's learned to be less black and white about things in the last few years, fortunately, and I get to use some vacation time.."
In any other situation, she'd ask about the 'alien space venom'. What sort of messed up story was that about….but she couldn't. She really couldn't.
She had given up on questioning things when Ash told her how big his family was and everything she asked about anything she got some new nugget of madness thrown her way. She could also ask about why a person would take a vacation from Alola, but a third question came out instead.
"You and your sister…."
The older woman blushed and laughed at the same time.
"Well um…..yes…..you see I was young and there was a little argument at a club….I took my sister's bait about not being able to 'have as much fun as she was'. Then we might have both…." the older woman heavily blushed.
Was Wicke...was Wicke suggesting that the single dirtbag of a man who linked this entire madness together knocked up two sisters in the same night in some sort of sibling rivalry fueled by a mess of debauchery and stupidity? That actually happened….that was reality?!
It shouldn't be biologically possible, it shouldn't be reality, it made her a bit more interested in snooping around in places she probably shouldn't.
Hopefully golf would clear her mind. Oh wait she didn't have time for that. Maybe feeding an army would. She could work her butt off, Lita could go to her Secret Base Symposium, and Wicke could play eighteen rounds. It was eighteen right?
"Oh golly I only just realized, you're Mari Allegro's daughter! Oh you don't know how much of a riot Lusamine had when that came up…." Wicke and Lita soon began speaking about the same leggy blonde who was part of both of their lives, and Chloe found it odd how things connected. Lusamine was a research partner of her father who occasionally collaborated on projects who helped finance Lita's mother's work and employed Wicke. All you had to do was have Ash get involved outside of the family nightmare and it would all come together in a scary package.
"...And yes she doesn't age. She's over 50 and she looks half that age. It's weird and it was before the alien chemicals. She jokes that she has Saiyan genes…." Wicke finished an anecdote on Lusamine as a question of doom slipped out.
"Outside of this, a certain Ash Ketchum doesn't get involved somewhere does he?"
15 minutes later
That question was a mistake!
...
"Okay so I am going to regret asking this…..but this...thing…."
Chloe had some time before she was back in the trenches after the lunch rush: not enough time to go out or find Lita, but she had a bit before Delia would bring her back into battle with food, and she was using part of the time to ask a question that had started to bug her after seeing the moms.
It was also a useful distraction for her own fear, as Delia had ordered pizza while also telling those on hand that they 'were going to be busy'. Not only was that kind of scary, but she had seen Ash and some of his siblings tie some of Ash's large flying-types to a shipping container that he was to fly over to Viridian City to get the pizza. The looming work or imagining an international cargo container worth of pizza vanishing without a trace in a few hours was too scary to imagine, so she was going to not think about it.
"...Yes, the family tree. Yikes, I remember when it was almost cute when I started putting it together." Belladonna, girlfriend of Vedia, was surprisingly the one who had found her nearly passed out over the cursed diagram. "How many years did that freak spend daycaring with women?"
Daycaring? That was…..a new euphemism she was going to file away somewhere, but nevermind that. Also were they still finding new 'waves' of siblings? Were there ones younger than 10 (which was the youngest she had seen here)!?
"...Did he find any part of the planet he didn't fuck?" Surely there had to be...somewhere….that the guy didn't stick his dick in repeatedly?!
"Do you want the answer down to a very specific area or in general." Vedia inquired.
"...Let's not get into semantics, I'll take wider groups. If there aren't any of you living in Vermillion City that's a bit too specific."
While she hadn't seen any at her school…..she was pretty sure that wasn't proof there weren't any somewhere. There were other schools in the city, and Vermillion City was a big place.
"Alright so let's see….Kanto's obvious, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola, Galar, Orre, Fiore, Almia, Oblivia…." Evanna, buff and fit blonde girl butchof the quartet, listed out from the top of her head. As she had context that was clearly in list to where the genes took root, she had an immediate reaction.
"Wait, those last three countries were closed off to trainers and stuff for decades. How'd he get in there?" Were those just the younger ones?
"...No, he actually just slipped through the borders. Repeatedly." Aurora, a pigtailed dark haired girl who seemed the most normal of the four (of whom one was fit, one didn't emote, and one was apparently very dangerous if angered) corrected.
"...He broke into countries he legally shouldn't go in….you know let's just reverse this. Instead of listing where he went and spent, where did he never step foot in?"
"The Draconids." Evanna had quickly added, and Chloe wasn't entirely sure if it was a continuation of the earlier list of stops on the serial fucker or not.
"Please don't tell me he fucked a Draconid." Did Ash had relatives in secretive dragon worshiping tribes that were held up in the Hoennese mountains until recently in forever tense conflict with the rest of Hoenn, which had now lowered to a point you were probably not going to get ganked by a Salamance if you went somewhere in the mountains you shouldn't.
"He didn't." Vedia clarified. It would seem where border patrol and mileage failed, the threat of having your fun time interrupted by an angry dragon succeeded.
"Okay so that's one….Orange Islands?"
"You met Travis." Vedia reminded her.
"Decolore Islands?"
"We have a few siblings from there." Belladonna noted.
"Kaskade?"
"A whole bunch of 'em, all trying to avoid having to sign up for 46 different Amaze-All services." Evanna corrected.
"...Is there any limit for that guy? Did he speak every language? Was he a master of disguise? Did he just talk about a good game? What limits him beyond fear, just the limit of species….oh….oh….oh! Please tell me he drew the line at Pokémon! I see enough weirdos like that on the internet, I don't need to know there's one in reality!"
"What someone and a consenting Gardevoir or Oddish do together isn't any skin off my bones." Belladonna shrugged.
Err…..did that mean Belladonna didn't judge or something more. She. Must. Not. ASK.
"On a more serious note he wouldn't have. The guy had some giant list of women with bloodliner genes and that would not include Pokemon. The Draconids being secretive means he didn't have records like that with the. Hence no Draconid siblings." Belladonna was a bit more serious.
That ...was worse than walking in on someone and their Gardevoir. What….what sort of person would go to the trouble of researching people's genes with the interest of then having kids with them. Were the legions of super tall hot people the results of someone with eugenical ambitions?!
...Of all the things to cross her mind while surrounded by hundreds of Ashs, the scary E word was not one of them.
"There were also those other guys…..what were they called again? Zeezee and Phineas…." Evanna turned the conversation away from the topic.
"Zossie and Phyco." Vedia corrected. "Those other names were aliases."
"Who?" Chloe asked. Those were kind of strange names, were they from Orre or something.
It's complicated. They're called the Ultra Megalopoli…Ultra Megalopi…..the blue skinned aliens from the city of Ultra Megalopolis in another dimension." Aurora eventually gave up trying to say the plural name for a resident of...a resident of….a resident of...
"...Blue skinned….aliens…." Chloe questioned when her mental record stopped skipping. It would have taken even longer without the earlier Wicke story but still….aliens!? Non-Pokemon, speaking, looking like people but with different skin colors aliens!?
"Or just humans from a universe without light." Vedia's extra detail did not help.
"Ash met a group of them in Alola." Aurora expanded. So Ash had met literal human aliens and not just alien Pokemon. How had Wicke not brought that one up!? Before the question of 'Kirking' could come up, the conv was continued.
"So that's basically it: the basic family doesn't have any people from a secretive and reclusive tribe or extra dimensional aliens, but….." Belladonna trailed off.
But…..!
"Well…..technically one of the guys we didn't invite because he's a criminal mastermind in Johto is in a relationship with someone from Ultra Megalopolis. Guy's named Fender….and meanwhile another brother who couldn't come is in a relationship with a Draconid girl alongside his girlfriend so…"
Chloe had to grip her hand tightly to not have her facepalm. Just...just…..just what was this family!? Insanity incarnate?!
"You can facepalm, I won't get mad." Belladonna assured her, and so she facepalmed. Hard. The pain was relief from the madness.
…
Chloe slumped down on her bed, tired as all heck. Yet she felt her legs kicking reflexively, the result of a few energy boosting drinks she had consumed. She was tired but energized at the same time. She was a paradox, or at least more than she normally was.
"You were gone for a while." Lita commented as she raised her head up from her bed.
"Yeah, it is a working vacation after all. Sometimes it is really a vacation, and sometimes it is really work. But after that….."
Spoilers for Lita, but tomorrow's big dinner thing was one of those meals that had to chill for a long time before all had worked their butts off to have enough servings for not just hundreds, but hundred who would, in fact, take thirds, but now that it was done they just had to keep it cold and could basically have it easy until it was time to get it all out.
"So the morning is free tomorrow." Lita inquired as she raised her head.
"...I mean I guess but right now I want to either sleep or run around some field. The morning doesn't exist."
Lita grinned.
"Well if you want to do something before the morning and maybe sleep in a little….I heard this interesting little rumor. There's apparently a second lake up in the woods, a secret lake."
"A secret lake?" Chloe wasn't sure what the purpose of a secret lake was.
"Oh yes, a secret. It's a bit farther into the woods but…..well it is secret so that no one bothers anyone who wants to swim there a little….differently…"
"Different how?"
"You won't need to bring a swimsuit." Lita explained, and her mind quickly made the connection. Nudist lake.
Chloe could make a joke about guy reactions with how quickly the idea made her spring up from her bed, suddenly energized.
"Alright, to the woods filled with horny teenagers, then to the secret lake! Um….do you mean to swim in it naked or look at naked people?"
"That depends, do you have any preferences?" Lita inquired.
"I've….never done this before."
"Same. Let's figure it out on the way there."
…
The lake that Ash had shown her as the place that a crazy party would go down in a few days was as she had seen it yesterday, but in the dark. Picnic tables, an artificial sandy beach, some nets and stuff, and fire pits.
It was a bit farther, and through some more woods, to find the second lake. Just easy enough to get to for the interested while being hard for a kid to stumble onto or for the local creeps in town to go up and lurk around.
The full moon made the lakeside rather clear, the water as visible as it could be.
"So, you want to look first or strip?" Lita asked with a teasing hint to her voice as she blushed.
"I mean….it isn't like there is much to show…."
"Hey pound for pound you've got plenty. A cherry is as beautiful as a flowering buckeye, it just comes in a smaller package." Lita blinked as she finished.
"Did that sound like Professor Oak being profound? Or poetic maybe?"
Before she could answer the sound of voices came from the lake.
A bit of stealthy sneaking got them into fuller view of the lake, a smaller but no less clear and visible lake than the not secret lake. And they were indeed not alone as the lake had occupants in its water or on the edge.
And they were, indeed, unclothed.
"I'm glad I was able to get some free time for you girls. With everything recently I've been a little busy." Ash Ketchum, entirely naked, was floating off in the lake with someone sitting on him. Part of her thought she had really seen something dirty, but the naked girl who was sitting on Ash was in fact sitting on his chest like he was a floatie or something. Was Ash just that strong he could float like that, was she using some bloodliner power to make herself visible? Was it some third thing?
"Don't worry Ash, you having a busy day or two isn't a big deal. You make up for it plenty on the other days." Acerola, one of the girls who had kissed Ash the first day she was here, assured him, dangling her feet in the water from her seat upon the floating Ash. "You aren't helping the Professors twenty four seven or anything like that."
"Plus if you really were too busy we'd tell you. And we wouldn't just do that, we'd send Iris to tell you." A second girl, who looked to be about Ash's age, assured him. She was an orange-haired girl who was also floating in the water, seemingly just enjoying companionship and some peace and quiet.
"Yep." On the shore was a third girl with darker skin and really long purple hair. While she was rather tall, she had a very different, more slender build, than any relative of Ash like Betty or Lita, and looking at her naked did not make her feel small. The girl sniffed the air, as if she could smell something.
"I think we have two people in the bushes over there."
Oh crap! Run for your lives! Chloes and Cerises first!
…
They didn't make it far. Either one of them or a Pokemon had psychic powers and held them in place. Oh no, she was so going to get fired and….
"Oh you two must have heard about this lake. Guess the rumor mill always spreads stuff around somehow."
….What was worse, a naked Ash being furious at them for lurking in the bushes or a naked Ash reacting to it all calmly and rationally like it was normal?
At least the girls made up for his casual attitude. Well, the dark-skinned purplette, the one called Iris, looked even more casual than him. The others looked a bit put out, but not as badly as she expected them to. No burning fury or violence like if someone had been found peeping on her. Though now she would be just a bit of a hypocrite in such a scenario.
"Oh, I should probably introduce you. These are the girls who love me, surprisingly enough. You've already met Acerola and Serena, so this is Misty…
"You two could have just taken the path right in and not hide in the bushes, you know?" The orange-haired girl pointed out teasingly.
"Sorry… wait there was a path?" Lita seemed to realize they had needlessly trudged through the woods blindly all the way up there.
"Yeah, there is. The lake's not that secret, it's only sort of secret. We just don't openly advertise it."
"Iris."
"You use too much Aspear shampoo." Iris said as she sniffed Chloe like a Yamper, as if that explained everything. Or maybe just how she was found out.
"Anabel."
"Lana warned us about that spot…." The long-haired purplette shook her head.
"And May."
"Well at least they had their hands visible." The brunette, and the only one with short hair, said as she and Lita blushed. Like Iris she had a body type that was familiar but different: she was probably one of the few people here who looked to have a similar cup size to one of Ash's fully grown sisters, but she had a different body type. If there was a scale of a woman's thickness from 1 to 10, she was a scale just above the others, though she wasn't fat or anything. It was noticeable when one was skinny dipping, and probably even if she wasn't nude.
Quickly change the topic!
"You have a thing for purple hair?" Chloe couldn't help but ask as her distracting question. Between Iris, Anabel, and Acerola, it was a visible pattern and she couldn't think of anything better to ask right now. The only other questions she could think of were moderately inappropriate.
"Actually….." Ash seemed to only realize the pattern himself after years.
"He actually likes long hair." Serena answered, swaying her hair as she did. "I once tried to cut mine short, but Ash convinced me not to."
"It would still have looked good on you." Ash assured Serena.
"So do you want to do some skinny dipping too?" Misty offered both girls, to their surprise and seemingly to keep a 'you always say that/it is always true' type conversation to start up and go on and on and on
"It is better than using a swimsuit." Iris added.
"She's a bit biased but hey, you are at the place to do it. Plus I don't think I see any swimsuits under your clothes." Serena caught notice of what they were wearing, or specifically not wearing under their clothes. Was there any way she could talk their way out of this?
…
How did she get talked into this? How could she have talked herself out of this?
Chloe Cerise had a lot of ideas on how things would go when she went to Ash's house for a crazy job, and even more ideas after she really saw the madness she had walked into, but she certainly didn't expect to find herself naked, alongside Ash, his half a dozen girlfriends-seriously, why did he have so many?-and her roommate for a late night swim in a secret lake.
Even worse, tonight was chilly as hell. Or it at least felt cold, and her entire body was covered in goosebumps. Or did they come from embarrassment more than cold. It was just….well it was either they were being nervous about actually using the lake and were building up their nerves in the bushes, or they were never intending to go in the lake and were lurking in the bushes to spy on people. There...there really wasn't anything else she had to do. Either she was here to swim, or admit she was being a creep.
And Chloe Cerise was no creep!
"Enjoying the view?"
Lita's teasing words caused Chloe to snap back to reality and divert her attention elsewhere. Namely to Lita, who looked a bit nervous but far less than her. She almost seemed to pose a bit when Chloe's gaze was her way. And if she had seen a lot before...well now she saw all of it.
"'Cause I am. Because like I said before, you've got more than you think." Lita winked and her face, oh her face was now burning.
"Maybe," Chloe replied with a mocking smile, right before slapping Lita's breasts with a scowl. "But not as much as you!"
Then she held her hand up and stared at it, dumbfounded that she just did….that.
"What on earth is wrong with me…"
"Probably just the stick up your butt coming loose. Anyway it's called skinny dipping not skinny standing so back in the water with these two newbies." Misty declared.
...
After everything she had done in what felt like hours but was probably less than fifteen minutes, she had expected negativity aimed at her beyond the initial snarks. She had spied on them, slapped someone on the boobs, and she could only fathom what sort of thoughts her wandering eye had caused. She expected to be introduced to the bad end of Bloodliner powers or some dangerous Pokemon like a Gyarados or something. But, nothing, not even nasty looks since she had stripped down. She was sure that a couple of them were suspicious if she had come up here to really swim naked. But they weren't trying to expose her so….truce maybe?
"Don't worry, the water's fine. You're just getting used to it like any swim." Misty assured her as she shivered. Shivered from cold, shivered from embarrassment, shivered from nerves, she had all the shivers
"So do you guys...normally swim in the nude?" She asked while trying not to look too much at her fellow swimmers. The water was deep enough that, right now, she couldn't see anything below the chest, but the chest….the chest was fully visible. All the chests.
"Nah, Iris prefers it but the rest of us are 50-50. Sometimes you want to wear something, sometimes you don't."
"And you….aren't worried about having your guy around another naked girl….who isn't already with him too." She hastily added the last bit because family of madness.
"Well one of them is his little sister…" Misty pointed out, looking over a bit where Ash was giving some advice to a much more relaxed, though not completely at ease at, Lita like Misty was with her.
"...and the other is me?" Chloe quipped to herself. Misty had a different hair color than her, orange to red, but the colors were close enough that...well Misty beat her in everything. She could list it off if she wanted to: breasts, legs, hips, having adventures with Ash to the jungles to fight the hordes of death….
"More like that a naked girl by herself isn't going to get Ash all hot and bothered. We've done this for years." Misty explained. She wondered what the order of events was: was it because of Iris? Was it by necessity because Ash would have burned through clothing quickly? Some third thing…
"I can't tell if you are saying that to assure me or to warn me not to try anything." Chloe admitted, wondering if the girl was also giving her a warning of 'stop staring at our breasts, that is weird Chloe. You are being weird Chloe. That's why no one likes you Chloe…'
"More the first. Like if you try to seduce Ash that would….well don't do that, but don't act like you have to avert looking at anything. Look….I know you probably don't believe me when I say it, but I get it. Sometimes it is easier to have a shell that no one can get through than being a hundred percent yourself. You can't keep yourself in a shell though, and you shouldn't be afraid to get out of it, especially if you really want to."
"Huh?"
"Basically don't act like you should be ashamed if you stare at our breasts or stuff like that. Maybe don't slap any more of them without permission first, but lighten up." Misty told her, and she flushed red at the confirmation that yes, Misty knew she had been staring at her rather nice pair of...
"If you want to stare at my breasts, you should know I am only into guys, Chloe. So it has no chance of going anywhere"
The redhead nearly jumped out of the water as Iris chuckled. "Where did that come from?!"
Where did Iris come from, come to think of it? She should have heard the splashes.
"Your eyes have been on everyone's breasts all night even when you aren't slapping them as well as body parts, Iris answered before posing to show them a bit more, even as Chloe blushed even more from sheer….reminder of that fact, "While I do understand that such attention is both complementary and a natural reaction, it would not go anywhere. Plus while I do like how I look, I do believe those who find breasts attractive would rather stare at larger pairs of them than mine."
Chloe blinked twice, more than a bit surprised at what she just heard. "You weren't raised by normal people, were you?" She...she had nothing else she could say right now.
Iris shook her head. "I was raised by Pokémon!"
That explained… so freaking much.
"Where does Ash meet people like you?"
"We met after he fell from an airship he escaped from after his first kidnapping."
….why did she ask questions without expecting batshit insane answers like that? Why couldn't she stop asking things out loud!?
Misty laughed at whatever look was now on her face.
"Iris, any reason you are posing like that? You said you aren't interested in girls, yet you are posing in a way to make the poor girl blush."
"You teased Ash a lot in the same way."
"Yeah but I also wanted to get the two of us out of our mutual confusion and uncertainty phase. Unless you secretly want Chloe to take you against the nearest tree…."
"I do not and she could not if she wanted to. She is not a guy."
"So maybe you shouldn't tease her that way….."
"Oh I see…." Iris said like she only just got her slight faux pas. "Sorry Chloe, I was not implying such things."
"No, it's fine. Sorry for implying things too."
...
As had been brought up, the lake was not in fact a secret. It was just openly discussed, so it was not all that long until others showed up.
With that came more naked bodies and the odd swimming toy like a ball or a pool noodle. As well as romantic partners. She'd say couples, but that didn't work for multiple partners.
And orgies didn't work either because nobody was banging, thank Arceus.
Clusterfuck? Yeah, that sounds about right.
And with them….well she had plenty more reminders of how seemingly everyone here but her was so much….more.
She could see how, when a pair of other girls had been knocked out in a game of Combusken by Belladonna and Aurora, there was something more to their cheer than just victory. She could see how John and his boyfriend were so in sync in a game of volleyball against a pair of what she thought were Alolan twins in the water. She could see how Jaime was perfectly at ease to catch Betty jumping from a tree into the water, and she was perfectly at ease in knowing he'd grab her.
And that was just what she could see...how many had trophy walls of their own and their own list of accomplishments.
She didn't even have someone to hug her right now….
And then, a pair of hands coped a feel, cutting her train of thought off.
Chloe flinched and flailed her arms until she turned around to see the culprit: Acerola.
"Sorry, I wasn't seeing where I was grabbing." The girl apologized before quickly letting go.
"Yeah, I noticed!" Chloe snapped, flushing hard while covering her chest. "Why would you grope me all of a sudden?!"
"I was actually trying to hug you."
Chloe blinked twice. "Yeah, right, you clearly went for the mammaries!"
"I'm serious: I like hugging people, but I'm shorter compared to everyone else so it makes it hard to hug someone who's taller, so I've conditioned myself to aim a little higher than usual."
Now that she mentioned that, Chloe could tell that Acerola was easily the smallest of Ash's girls. Both in terms of height and... Body proportions. Still clearly a grown woman, but a petite one.
Not that she minded, she was actually glad to see someone whose body didn't make her feel inadequate without looking like Vedia.
"So, you were trying to hug me?" Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"You kinda looked like you needed one," Acerola frowned. "You've been quite... Sad-looking since you and Lita arrived."
"I'm mostly just... Really nervous," Chloe sighed, "It's the first time I do something of this nature, and I can't help but feel... Inadequate, compared to everybody else here."
"Hey, look at the bright side. Have you ever seen May or one of Ash's sisters try to run?" Acerola pointed to a bit of play at a bit farther end, where May was trying to avoid getting whacked on the head with a pool noodle by Anabel. The girl's run was….hampered a bit and got bonked up the head.
"...Okay, so that's a good point. Any other ideas for solving a case of the inadequacies?" Chloe asked as she saw Lita look far less nervous than she was in all this. How did she get over her nerves so quickly? "I mean….you are the short one…"
"Five foot two. Anabel's five ft five and it goes up from there." Acerola said casually, like being the short one didn't bother her. "Also the only people who really care about that stuff are jerks and yourself."
Chloe had experience with both.
"...How do you stop the jerks?" Chloe asked cautiously. "Not for here of course…the worst I've been called is looking like a twelve year old and that wasn't really intended as an insult."
"You ignore them and if they keep it up...well, practicing battle with someone with a few league trophies under his belt means you can handle most anyone who isn't super strong, and someone like that isn't really going to go around calling you names. Except for evil guys, but that's not really a jerk but an evil person." Acerola mused.
"But aren't all evil people considered jerks?"
"No, and neither are all jerks considered evil people."
A short silence manifested.
"I could borrow my dad's Yamper, but I don't always have him and I can't exactly shock people without Pokemon." So she couldn't just hit Sara with a Z-move or something.
"Well then you go with plan B: show the jerks that what they think doesn't matter. You have people who think they are wrong, and they will gladly show it."
"And how do you do that?" Was she supposed to summon her father or something? That was….not entirely helpful. He'd give it his all if it came up but hiding behind your daddy was not a good look.
"A big, somewhat overdramatic kiss can show a jerk up real good." Acerola said the idea like at some point her, or perhaps one of the other girls, had in fact kissed someone in a way to make someone go 'shut up, I'm loved.' "Maybe add a bit more to it if you really want to make a point."
"...Well then I'm fresh out of luck. I'm probably one of the few people here who can't do that."
"Don't think you need it to happen right away. We've known each other for years and you've been here for less than two days. Don't worry Chloe, someday your prince, or princess, or princes, or princesses, or some mixture of the two, would come. Oh gee I kind of messed up that metaphor, and you'd think I'd get it better than most."
"Because Ash whisked you off your feet?"
"No, because I am the last of the Alolan Royal Family." Acerola said like she had admitted to being a leftie.
Chloe Cerise dot EXE stopped working for a second.
"So, you're the princess of Alola?"
"Before you say anything, it's nowhere near as glamorous as you think it is."
Chloe scoffed. "You're a princess! How could it not be glamorous?!"
"Well the monarchy doesn't exist anymore for one thing. Being a princess of a nation without a monarchy isn't really worth anything, not even an extra malasada at lunch."
"I'm possibly gonna regret asking this," Chloe took a deep breath. "But what's a Malasada?"
"It's a type of fried doughnut with filling and covered in sugar and cinnamon," Acerola explained calmly. "I could teach you how to make them if you want."
Chloe smiled. "I'm seriously craving something sweet right now, so-"
"...Oh cool, there really is a second lake!"
"I'm not sure I've ever tried this before…."
"Hey, it's nearly all family here, who cares!"
Chloe promptly ducked herself back into the depths and Acerola walked away seeing as it was hard to talk while hiding,, as a few more people emerged from the woods, on the actual path, and she tried to make herself unnoticed. Especially as clothes began falling to the side from the newcomers. If she stormed off now she'd show them everything out in the open. If she stayed, water could at least cover part of her….
More if she tried to sink away unnoticed.
The sound of an approaching swimmer made her tense, but she felt herself loose when she saw the brown eyes of the swimmer. It was just Ash, not some naked person she didn't know.
...That sounded odd out of context.
"...That was a weird thing to say...guess it kind of sounds odd. I mean I trust my gut or heart personally…" He floated next to her, and she tried not to look at the fact that without his shirt on he was quite muscular. And...er….hairy.
Some girls liked that...and she had no idea if she did. And this was not the time to figure out if that was what she wanted to see on guys she found attractive or not or…..
"..." She tried to say something.
"...Are you worried people will say something? Don't worry, everyone's just going to have fun." Ash pointed to the newcomers, who were mostly just splashing around and goofing like it was any clothed swimhole just like everyone else. "No one is going to say anything…"
"Because there is nothing to talk about." She reflexively looked down.
"...Well because if you start talking about that, it could get weird." Ash assured her. "Plus it's dark enough that...well, no one can really see well enough to start being dumb about it."
"Are you speaking from a guy's perspective on the topic?" She tried to project some confidence. Some lewd humor would work, right?
Ash shrugged. "I don't know about that. Girls have bras to know that by any actual measure, right?"
She would respond to that….but he wasn't wrong. No real way for guys to prove anything outside of carrying a ruler, and not even Yeardley was probably that…..reckless to do it.
"...Marco!" Acerola suddenly shouted as she loudly gulped.
"...Oh no…"
Everyone else said Polo aside for her and Ash, and Acerola tried to get a laughing Lita, the girl leaping upwards into the water to get her roommate. Lita avoided this jump, and Acerola belly flopped down, though she quickly got back up.
So she had been truthful about the groping bit, good to know.
Chloe felt a gentle slap on the back in a reassuring sort of way courtesy of Ash.
"Hey don't worry about it. You're much smaller than I am so you'll be a lot better at dodging! You're the Pikachu and I'm like, a bigger Pokemon. Take your pick. Polo!"
"Um… Ninetales?"
"You're supposed to say polo."
"Oh, uh, polo!"
Acerola lunged their way, leaping out of the water like a breaching fish. Both of them avoided her, and she again bellyflopped and sunk into the water. But the girl surfaced and laughed a bit.
"Marco!" Acerola repeated.
"Polo!" Everyone else in the lake shouted.
"Polo." She said quieter than the rest. Still it seemed like Acerola heard her more, or perhaps just because she was just the one who said it later. So she had to avoid her lunge again.
…
She had to admit, this was actually a bit more fun than she expected it to be.
"Marco!" May shouted, the current one who was it, before she lunged at Misty (Polo!), but she hopped to the side and out of the way as May missed her completely and crashed into the water in a big splash
"Polo!" Chloe laughed despite herself. May turned around and flopped at her, and she avoided the buxom girl easily. Though she crashed into something….cushy that broke her fall before the water did, something big and soft and….
"I'm sorry!" She quickly gasped as a familiar chuckle came out.
"Oh no need to apologize. By all means, they do make good Chloe catchers." Lita laughed it off.
"Marco!"
"Polo!" Both she and Lita let out as May focused in on Ash, giving the two of them some space.
"Er….sorry about the er….." Chloe apologized for earlier. She...she had no idea what had come over her. It was all happening too fast and it was like a fantasy or something.
"...What for? When someone poses in front of someone and says 'enjoying the view', that isn't the most unexpected response."
Before she could answer Lita however….
"Cannonball!"
Chloe only had a minute to see a flash of a barrier in the sky, some sort of Pokemon/Bloodliner power, and vanish before three figures fell right down into the water in front of them. Before she was blinded by the high-altitude drops, she did see something pretty clearly.
All three were male, and 'in proper attire' for the lake. That was to say, no attire at all.
The splash-induced blindness lasted only a few seconds, and the three were still underwater from the drop when she got her sight back, though rising rapidly.
"So, that's what cocks look like up close." Lita had seen it too.
"Brahhhh!" The trio soon broke for air, letting her see them clearly.
One guy was buffer in build, looking like he probably deliberately built himself up. While a lot of the Ash brothers had builds that looked naturally big, this guy probably did do things to deliberately build it up. He had dark hair, red eyes, and Zs under his eyes.
The second was a more slender guy, looking more handsome or pretty than full on manly. His slender features were….something refined in contrast to his bulky brother or Ash. He had long green hair, blue eyes, and Zs under his eyes.
The third guy, surprisingly enough, had a small, petite frame kinda similar to Chloe's own. Coupled with his long, hot pink hair, he could probably pass off for a girl if he tried. The Z-marks under his eyes, like those of Yellow or Betty, were a clear family trait he had inherited.
Their gazes went to Lita at first, but she could almost see their brains go '2+2=Incest' lightning quick and their gaze quickly left Lita and focused on her….
"Wow you're cute!" They all said at once.
"Who, me!?" She said aloud as they nodded. Part of her was very happy with the surprise, part of her was still confused as to why they were calling her that, part of her was a bit annoyed to see Acerola giving a signal that was clearly 'those five are busy, let's Marco Polo out of the way as to not disturb them' so this would not get interrupted, and part of her was happy it wouldn't. Also a slight part was wondering if Lita should be reacting negatively to three of her brothers calling her cute.
"Why of course you are. The only one who doesn't think that is you, and that's rather silly." Lita, whose arm was close enough to her to be felt but not holding her with it, said. "I don't think I've seen you guys yet, so what are your names? Mine's Lita Allegro and this is Chloe Cerise."
"I'm Aether," the feminine guy with Chloe's body type answered. "And these are my friends, Dolomite and Duke."
"Hi!" the duo said in unison.
"Friends or…"
"Brothers. I know, it's kind of hard, but we can prove the relationship easily." Aether assured her. Did….did he mean a Bloodliner thing or something else. Because the only part of these three that might overlap…..she had only seen briefly and maybe she...er...well it would be hard to show without doing a handstand and you couldn't talk while doing so and….er…..
"Don't worry, we'll take your word. Just to make sure you know, this gorgeous petite beauty is hundred percent not related to any of us." Lita chirped.
"Not helping, Lita!" Chloe yelled as the trio of brothers looked her over again.
"And you're not wrong sister. She is gorgeous!" Dolomite, buff boy, said as her face went red.
"Gor...you must be mistaking me for Lita!" She'd have started flailing in denial if she wasn't still restrained by Lita's bosom.
"Of course we aren't. Our family all tends to be attractive even when we are terrible people, but that isn't the only sort of beauty you can find. Beauty is like flowers, it grows and blooms in so many different ways. If we are like sunflowers, you are like a zinnia or a daisy. A different size, a different color, a different way, but all still beautiful."
Fla...fla...flattery!? What ...what was this!?
"Flowery language? Literally flowery language? Really…." Dolomite shook his head before flexing a bit to show off his chiseled chest. "Try hard work. I know full well how long it takes a lady to make herself presentable. It's very hard work, and I think I can relate. These muscles of mine, I put as much work into them every day as I'm sure you do to make your eyes so vibrant, your skin so fair. Maybe even more."
She felt like she would spit out the steam that should be coming out of her ears.
"Go ahead, touch them. They are as hard and smooth as steel."
Lita of all people moved her hand to her brother's chest, and gently touched it. Every goosebump on her body shot up in shock. So hard….
"We should really talk a bit about ourselves though. My name's Aether Clematis, I'm from Kalos. I'm a Pokemon watcher. I draw Pokemon for research articles and seek out new things in the world."
"You draw...do you…"
"Do you want me to draw you?" Aether asked.
"...Like one of your Kalosian girls?"
"Well...you'd be my first."
First!? First what?! First girl drawn in the nude!? First...first….
"You can draw that well?" Lita asked for her while her brain was processing.
"Oh of course. I've had a lot of practice, and I study a lot of famous artists."
"Aether's gotten me into a lot of artists I'd have never noticed before. There is this one Kantonian artist I've really started to like. Talia Cerise….which come to think of it you have the same last name as she does…" Dolomite noticed.
"...Is her current series called 'Cutie Bud and Pup-Pup?" Chloe asked in dread as Duke nodded.
"Indeed it is and it is rather adorable…..wait you're her daughter!?"
All three guys were looking at her in a way that she'd usually relate to 'you are the daughter of a Professor', but with a bit more star power. Maybe if her dad was more Oak and less….well the humble Professor Cerise. Also the people who tended to know didn't also seem to be interested in her….especially in the way where she was sure they wanted to give her 'a wondrous night of passion'. Most of the people who knew who her father was and didn't tease her were old enough that if they flirted with her it would be NOPE! But guys her age...Uhh...uhhh….uhhhhhh
"So, if you three all want to get in my currently off pants before you learned who my mom was, does knowing that make you want to more now?" She asked in an almost dizzy daze as the three looked at each other for a moment.
"Saying it like it makes it sound like we just want to daycare with you or something." Dolomite said. Oh dear that euphemism.
"We'd love to have a nice time with a pretty girl out in the woods and under the moon, but only if it could be more than that. And that was before we realized your mom was a brilliant star." Duke didn't sound offended about the assumption.
"I mean we'd keep who your mom is in mind so we don't reenact a scene with Cherry Deep Dive or Cherry Poppers with you. That would be kind of weird, and as an artist I'd hate to trace someone else's work as my own. Especially in such a field as passion." Aether finished.
Pa...passion!?
"Wait, Cherry Deep Dive and Cherry Poppers? I never heard of those ones." Chloe wasn't sure what those had to do with anything. Her mom drew cute and fluffy stuff, she didn't think her mom did romance manga.
The three boys exchanged surprised looks and quickly huddled together to whisper. Words like 'if we do this she might freak out' and 'it is the right thing to do, truth n stuff' were visible. Eventually the three broke off and Aether let out something like a whistle. A few seconds later a large red and white bird flew over and was told to bring something called 'secret stash 4' with it. It came back a few minutes later with a box. Dolomite held it well above the water as Duke opened it.
"Well….you want to know?" Aether asked cautiously. Despite her own reservations she and Lita peeked in…..
"The hell!?" Chloe exclaimed in shock. She could recognize her mother's drawing style, even with it being a bit less deformed and chibi. Her mom tended towards drawing things with maximum cuteness over realism, and even in a style that did show off a more realistic depiction of the human form it was still evidently cute. Though what it was drawing….was not Cutie Bud and Pup Pup. It was...it was….
"Whose porn collection?" Lita asked the trio as Aether raised his hand.
When did her mother have a side job as a porn artist!? Let alone make quite a lot of it.
Chloe….Chloe didn't have words.
"I hate to kill the mood but honesty is the best policy. It was what my mom always said." Dolomite said in a tone that was 'I had to do the right thing and I don't regret it even as I regret the fact I am probably not going to have sex and a torrid family reunion romance now'.
"...I acknowledge your sacrifice of your possibility of being laid to answer my question." Chloe wanted to snark but her mind was still processing…it!
"...So…..um…..is there anything we can talk about now or do we just leave awkwardly now?" Aether asked.
"...The latter."
"Oh, okay. Sorry again."
"No, it's fine," Chloe looked elsewhere with narrowed eyes. "You just gave me the perfect topic to discuss with my Mom when I get back…"
...
"Wow, three naked guys fell out of the sky right in front of me and called me 'cute', 'hot', 'gorgeous', and stuff….and nothing happened. Maybe I overestimated my attraction to guys."
Chloe wasn't sure why she was floating on her back with Lita holding her outstretched hands to talk about this, but she was and it was what it was.
"You mean if guys find you attractive or if you like guys at all?" Lita asked for clarification.
"Yes."
"If you mean how guys found you attractive, that was clearly on point, and you did clearly find them attractive. Honestly the whole 'mom's art' thing probably got in the way of it more than anything, and without it you'd get your pick of guy and tree."
Oh Lita you….girl who thinks Chloe Cerise would actually be able to follow through with her interests like that.
"You know, for someone who spends quite a bit showing herself to me you didn't seem to be that bothered to see your brothers do the same...even if nothing happened. Is that why it didn't get you angry? I mean, I have a brother and it is hard sharing stuff with him sometimes, I couldn't imagine something like a 'cute girl' being shared at all." She quickly added the last part about having a brother of her own as she expected her to be let go and left by Lita, or even to learn some new unsettling fact about the family of madness or Lita herself.
At this point, anything was possible. And by asking that question she was going to learn something unspeakable.
"They seemed to make you happier, and honestly that makes you look even more pretty." Lita explained. That was….not what she was dreading. She was dreading talk of a Chloe sandwich between two bloodliner loafs of bread.
Which was…..er…..
"...So when I'm miserable I'm not pretty?"
"Oh no you're still pretty. It's just that when you are smiling and having fun, you seem to be even more pretty. Like a blooming flower or something. Everything about you just pops out more when you're happier."
"And the happiest I've been is when I'm naked." Chloe….well she wanted to joke about the coincidence, she wanted to snark about the fact that Lita now could see everything about her form, but….she honestly had to ask. Was she having the best time here, now, in this lake of nudist frolocking?
"Yeah, you are. No work, you're used to it all. It's pretty nice isn't it?"
"...You know what….it is." She had to admit. No one had gone out of their way to be terrible to her the entire time, even when she worked her ass off on muffins, but all this? It seemed to be the most sort of fun and chill she had so far. The lake the first day had the entire 'you can wear a thirteen year old's swimsuit because we're all hot giants' incident, but somehow the even more embarrassing lack of one….well had she even covered herself since the Acerola accident?
"...Well let's keep the fun rolling for a while longer then. Looks like that brunette wants to challenge you." Lita pointed over the lake to where Vedia, who seemed to be standing in a way to remind Chloe that she was just short, not 10, held a ball in hand.
….Oh yikes that girl held a grudge. Not that Chloe could really act like she didn't but….
"...Think you can find two more?" She asked. Vedia's foursome was at the ready and some extra hands could be useful.
"Hey! We need two hands for a grudge match!" Lita called out.
"I'm in!" Acerola quickly shouted.
"I'll give you a hand too! No need to worry!" A blue-haired petite girl with the family Z marks added. Maybe she'd get her name before Vedia got more vengeance on her.
...
"You'd both agree that all this was a lot funner than hiding in the bushes all night, don't you agree?"
It was later. The fun was had, people were leaving the lake to get to bed, and Serena had pulled her and Lita aside. Three naked girls in a quiet corner...was somehow more terrifying for the words than the potential R rating.
"You…." Lita nervously asked as Serena laughed.
"Seeing as you two had more fun in the open than you'd ever have in the bushes biting your tongues it's no harm no foul. Plus you weren't even there a minute before Iris smelled you. Getting caught was the punishment for the crime."
That felt like…
"Does Ash…."
"Ash assumes the best of people. He thinks you were nervous about trying something and didn't know what to do so you nervously hid yourselves. And he wasn't wrong, was he?"
Chloe took a deep breath… and shook her head. "No, I… I guess not."
"Well, I'm sure you didn't expect things to go this way, but you seem just a bit less curled up into yourself as you were at the lab the couple of times I had been there. Keep it up, it's good for you to get out of that shell of yours. Though maybe don't try to get out of your shell more by coming up here again tomorrow night."
"Or we'd get in real big trouble?" Lita nervously asked.
"Only if you perv. It's the moms night out. My mom, who never slept with Ash's bio father but did have my father run off on her, found a dozen life sized deadbeat husband piñatas. She's going to hang them from that tree."
Serena pointed to a branch that hung out over the water front as both she and Lita gaped in disbelief and primal discomfort.
"So tomorrow night a bunch of single moms will be here, naked and swinging sticks at piñatas for collective decades of stress relief?"
Primal discomfort because she was sure Lita was also imagining her mom in the gaggle doing so. Without that though….it was not going to leave her mind like seemingly dozens of other things these last two days.
"Yep. Watching that from the bushes would be kind of odd so don't do it, okay? Of course any time after that, don't be strangers.."
Chloe only flashed a little thumbs up before Serena turned around and walked away, as relaxed about showing the both of them her bare ass as ever.
"...so is she going to walk like that all the way back to wherever they're staying?" Lita whispered.
"...I guess." Chloe wasn't sure between the two of them who was watching Serena leave more. Probably her.
"...We're not going to do that are we? I mean maybe not all the way, but until we're both a bit drier..."
"Hell no!"
END CHAPTER!
Cross: Hey! So…..minor bit. In Reset I have never explored the idea of Human x Pokemon romantic relationships. Not because I think there is nothing to do there, but because I am already in a careful balancing act with multi-pairing ones that a similarly tricky dynamic is ill-advised at the same time. But….
Exotos: Let's just put this out of the way; anything related to Chloe's relationship with Pokémon is a can of worms not worth opening.
Cross: ….The thing is, with how Pokemon have been handled in regards to Chloe….I am kind of on the fence if it would be worth handling or not. At several points I've gotten the feeling Blossomverse Chloe needs a 'Pokemon are sentient' reminder…..though a cover like that would probably be worth its own chapter.
Exotos: I even wrote a one-shot exploring a world where Chloe actually doesn't see them as living beings, but living trophies, and coined a term for it: Pokéism.
Cross: I can't speak for Exotos, but if there is interest in exploring Chloe and how she sees Pokemon via a Pokemon and trainer pairing….It is something I would consider. It would, again, likely add another chapter, but if there is interest I am not against the attempt.