"Wake up, mon cheri!"
Ash's eyes flew open, and met a familiar cerulean pair.
"Serena, please don't use that phrase." The Kalosian girl's eyes took on a betrayed look.
Ash may not have been the best at reading these things but even he realized he was going to have to clarify before this spiraled out of hand.
"It's not that I don't like the sentiment ma belle—" In his head he silently thanked Fantina for the crash course in Kalosian pet names their short battle had given him. "—it's just… that term in particular is kinda loaded for me."
Her eyes brightened right away and she gave him a quick peck.
"Whatever you say mon étoile." She rolled off him, and headed towards the bathroom. Ash couldn't help but admire how beautiful she looked.
She gave him a knowing glance as she closed the door.
Ash pulled out his DexNav to check the time. 7 AM, barely after sunrise. He sure was glad Lance's training regiment had him used to getting up early. A couple months ago he would've been barely able to keep his eyes open at this hour, no matter how cute the alarm clock. He noticed a voice message, and played it.
"Heya Ash. Don't worry about training today, I've got some league business to take care of. And anyway, I'm sure you got your fair share of it last–" He quickly hit stop, and thanked Arceus he could hear the shower was already on.
He got up and stretched with a yawn. Knowing Serena it was gonna be a while before he got a turn in the shower. Sure enough, it took about 20 minutes before she came out in a plush bathrobe.
"So, uh, Lance gave me the day off. I know since it's the performance round we can't really train with each other, but I was wondering if you might wanna train together for old times sake?"
"I'd love that, Ash." The way she breathed out his name made it almost sound like a pet name in and of itself, and Ash felt his heart beat a bit faster as he wondered how he'd gotten himself into a situation so far out of his element that he may as well have been in space.
When in doubt, kiss her, he thought to himself. She seemed to like that, and Ash definitely couldn't deny he enjoyed it.
He turned on the water and got in the shower.
This trip was different from his journeys before. Even with the events of the last three days, in the last week he'd gotten more training done than he ever would've had the chance to do while travelling, since he wasn't spending time trekking across the region, or with all the little chores that came with it, like setting up and tearing down camp.
On a good day while travelling he could maybe get five or six hours of training done, but usually it was more like three or four. With Lance he was consistently getting in nine or ten hours a day. It was tiring, but he could already see the results with his pokémon.
Of course, everything came with complications. There was this new fascination the media had with him. There was that crazy woman. And of course, there was this thing with Serena. She was the best friend he'd ever had, and now apparently something more, and as happy as that made him feel, it scared him, because he didn't know what it was.
For the first time in his life, Ash Ketchum was far from untouchable. He cared about all his friends, sure, but Lance was right when he said it hadn't bothered him at all when he'd gone his separate ways with most of them. Serena was different. She'd been different even back in Kalos. Then the kiss at the airport happened. Now this.
For the first time in his life, he was living in constant terror of losing someone and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why?
For the first time in his life, Ash's life was complicated.
He sighed and got out of the shower, drying himself off.
~ ⁂ ~
"Delphox, mystical fire!" Serena yelled. Delphox drew a ring of fire in the air in front of her with a smirk, before letting loose a stream of flame from her mouth.
"Now, shape it with psychic!" The stream of fire took on a slight pinkish purple glow on the fringes as it bifurcated into a double-corkscrew. Serena pumped her fist. "Amazing Delphox!" After weeks of training, she'd finally pulled it off.
"Phox!" Her pokémon made a happy sound somewhere between a yip and a roar.
There was still a long way to go though. Ideally she wanted Delphox to shape the stream of fire from the moment it came out of her mouth, but pulling off two moves so different from each other in quick succession wasn't easy.
"Alright, let's try that a couple more times and we can take a break," she told her.
"Delphox," the pokémon gave a note of agreement, before performing the technique again. The time between the jet of flame and the shaping was shorter each time, but seemed to be asymptotically approaching a barrier which Delphox couldn't get it under. Serena knew they wouldn't be done with this today, but she was hoping they could get it ready in time for the finals, if she made it that far.
"Alright Delphox, take a break."
"Del." The fire type walked over to her side and sat down, playing with her wand.
Serena stopped to watch Ash's training session.
"Infernape, flare blitz into mach punch." Infernape flew into the air towards Charizard, who stopped the move cold with a steel wing without any command.
"Charizard, follow through with dragon tail." She watched as Infernape flew out of the way in the nick of time with another flare blitz.
She was awestruck by the power of the pokémon on display. Of all of Ash's pokémon she knew, the only one who could compete with these two was Greninja, and he might even need to be in the bond phenomenon form to do it. She knew Ash was an amazing trainer, but this was a whole new level. She'd never seen his pokémon move with such independence. It was a lot like what she'd had to learn with her pokémon as a coordinator, though she had to admit she wasn't quite on this level yet.
On the other hand, something was different. She'd never seen Ash look so cold before. His commands seemed dry and dispassionate, his stance entirely neutral. He almost looked more like a general than a pokémon trainer. It gave him an altogether terrifying bearing, like he could wipe you off the face of the earth with a flick of his hand. She wasn't sure she liked it.
"As…" Latias cooed as if reading her mind. She gave Latias a friendly rub on the back of the neck.
"You see it too, huh?" Serena thought about it. She didn't know the whole background between Ash and Latias, but it was clear that the two were close. In truth it was a bit strange that Latias hadn't joined Ash after whatever happened from the way the two interacted. There was an empathic flash from Latias.
Love, gratitude, loss.
When it had first happened and she'd called Prof. Sycamore, he'd referred her to a colleague from Sinnoh who apparently specialized in Pokémon development. Prof. Rowan had said Latias's psychic abilities would likely mature with time. She was still more or less the pokémon equivalent of a toddler, being from a species which could live for thousands of years, but what little information existed on her suggested that once the empathic flashes started, she'd be capable of full-on telepathy within only a year or two. The flashes were getting more and more frequent, which Serena took as a good sign.
She snapped out of her daze and got back to her own training.
"Sylveon, you're up." The pokémon broke away from its discussion on the sidelines with Pikachu, and jumped onto the practice field.
"Let's start it off with a misty terrain," she gave the command. The eerie mist began to settle on the field. Serena couldn't help but see why old stories saw fairy types as so menacing despite their cuteness. "Now, double team and whip it up with fairy wind!" The blue mist swirled with the pink sparkling dust from the fairy wind, until it almost looked like cotton candy in the middle of a circle of Sylveon copies.
Serena shuddered, this was looking altogether more scary than cute. Though on the other hand, judges do like when a performance is unconventional. She had a thought.
"Finish it off with misty explosion!"
"Syl!" The pokémon gave a chirp which sounded uncertain, but followed the order. There was an earth-shattering blast and the shockwave threw Serena off her feet.
"Serena! Are you okay?" Ash ran over to her and helped her up.
She dusted herself off. "I'm fine." Stupid! She'd completely forgotten the rather violent reaction misty explosion had with misty terrain. On the other hand, it had looked spectacular. Maybe she could work with it if Sylveon could figure out how to tone down the blast.
She looked at Sylveon, who was gathering a crowd. Ash's pokémon were apparently impressed with its power, since they'd come over to congratulate it. She laughed. Maybe it wasn't quite what she was going for, but it was certainly something.
She waited for the bustle to die down, before continuing.
"Alright, Sylveon, I want you to combine misty terrain, double team, and fairy wind again, but see if you can whip it up with a hollow in the middle."
"Sylveon!" The pokémon chirped an affirmative. It was a lot like poaching an egg, Serena thought to herself. It took a few tries, but Sylveon seemed to get it down.
"Alright! Now use misty explosion, but try and keep it from directly touching the misty terrain."
Sylveon jumped into the center of the swirl, and the result was spectacular. The cotton-candy cloud was blasted outward evenly in a beautiful but fierce show of power. As it flew out, the sparkling dust from fairy wind showered across the field.
"Good work, Sylveon!" She yelled. This was shaping up great. While the contestants who'd passed the preliminaries hadn't been announced yet, she was pretty sure after yesterday's performance she was a shoe-in, and if this training was anything to go by, there seemed to be good odds she might win this.
After a bit more training, she and Ash both recalled their pokémon and went to grab lunch. An army of food trucks and street stands were pulled up by the practice fields, banking on raking it in from the captive customer-base. They both got yakisoba, and sat down to eat.
She giggled watching Ash wolf down the entire portion in what seemed like a couple of seconds. He'd accompanied her straight to training, but he'd never quite gotten used to the Kalosian habit of coffee and a croissant qualifying as "breakfast", so he seemed delighted to finally get something more substantial to eat.
Speaking of cultural differences, she was glad the festival was an international enough event that the vendors had plastic forks. Even after almost a year in Hoenn, she couldn't quite get a hang of using chopsticks.
She laughed at Ash's greasy face.
"Hold still, silly!" She wiped it off, before giving him a peck on the lips.
Yes, she thought to herself, today's a good day.
The rest of the day went by in a flash, and before long, she found herself in the dressing room, putting herself together for hopefully the first real round of the festival. No matter how many times she did this, she could never help but obsess over the tiniest of details with her outfit. She took a deep breath and got up to head to the waiting area where the prospective contestants were gathering.
"We'll begin by announcing our invitational competitors!" The announcer began. "You all love her, give it up for our very own Princess of Hoenn, May Haruka!" The crowd went wild.
So that's what a Top Coordinator looks like… She watched May come onto the stage. The magazine pictures didn't do justice to the poise she carried herself with. She was wearing a light blue rhinestone covered gown and a princess necklace that Serena was pretty sure cost more than her house, and a jeweled hairpin in the design of a Beautifly.
"Now, please welcome, Sinnoh's heir apparent, Dawn Hikari!" Serena couldn't help but giggle at the audacity of it all when the girl walked onto the stage wearing a literal tiara. Of course, it couldn't be said she didn't pull it off.
They continued to announce 10 more invitational competitors. Looking at them all on stage, Serena felt nervous. To think she'd been scared of Aria. This was a whole different level of competition. The women carried themselves with a level of poise and elegance far exceeding even the Kalos Queen who Serena had yearned to beat, and if a Kalos King existed, any one of the male Top Coordinators would've been a shoe-in for the position. Up until this moment she'd been verging on certainty that she was going to win. Now she was beginning to doubt that.
Don't get ahead of yourself Serena, she thought to herself, you haven't seen them perform. Of course they look amazing, they're all rich and famous and probably each have a whole team of stylists.
Even if every single one of them passed the performance stage, there weren't enough of them to fill the entire rubric for the battle stage. She had seen her competition in the regular competitors, and she was just as sure as half an hour ago that she could beat them.
And if she made it there, well, she had spent a year travelling with one of the best trainers in the world. Sure contest battles were a bit different, but a battle off was still a battle off. She smiled and clenched her fist. She was gonna win this.
"Now for our qualifying contestants! As you saw, we've had an unprecedentedly strong field this year, with some absolutely stunning performances in the preliminaries.
"In fiftieth place, with a majestic performance from his Tropius, Hoenn's own, Brendan Yuki!"
They continued down the list in reverse order, which made Serena more and more nervous. As they reached the top ten, her heart was pounding. Either she was one of the absolute best, or she had completely misjudged the situation.
"In third place, hailing from Unova with a Vanillite so cute you could eat it, Hilda Hall!"
"In second place, hailing from Petalburg with a stunning display of Mega-Evolution by his Gallade, Wally Mitsuru!"
Serena almost felt faint. She didn't know whether to cheer or to cry.
"And last but certainly not least, in first place, joining us all the way from Kalos with her Milotic, or should I say Gyrados, give a warm round of applause for Serena Delpech!"
It took all the effort she could muster to maintain her composure as she strode onto the stage. She waved to the crowd and struck a pose before taking her place by the other qualifying contestants.
"Go Serena!" Normally, it would've been hard to hear someone yell over the crowd, but Ash was so close she could easily see him waving at her from the box seats opposite the judges stand.
She saw May smile at her. Most of the other contestants didn't react beyond applauding her, but she could've sworn she saw a strange look on that Dawn girl's face.
It was probably a trick of the light, she thought. How many coordinators could Ash possibly know? Then again, he did seem to have a strange habit of being friends with every celebrity this side of the planet.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the announcer continuing.
"We'll conclude the opening festivities with some exhibition performances by our Top Coordinators, and then we'll see you all tomorrow morning for the beginning of the Appeals Round."
The crowd went wild as the Top Coordinators let out their pokémon. May went with a gorgeous looking Glaceon, which wowed the crowd with a finely controlled blizzard which rather than its typical combat use created a delicate dusting of snow over the field.
There were also a beautiful Togekiss, a Pigeot which looked far more majestic than it had any right to, and a Mismagius which made Serena's hair stand on end, among others.
~ ⁂ ~
It took almost an hour for the exhibitions to finish, and by the time they did, Serena's feet were aching like never before from standing still so long.
She met up with Ash in the courtyard, where he was accompanied by the Champion and by a tall woman with lavender hair Serena was sure she recognized from a magazine somewhere but couldn't quite put a finger on.
She met him with a kiss which gave him the cutest expression of surprise.
"Ma petite chérie! C'est un plaisir de faire ta connaissance," the woman exchanged kisses with her, before continuing in perfect Kalosian. "Ash has told us so much about you."
She felt the heat rising to her cheeks. Despite the events of last night, she still couldn't imagine Ash fawning over her to other people, and the thought caught her off guard in a happy way.
"Really?" She responded in the same language. "That doesn't sound like him at all."
The woman laughed.
"Well, I won't deny it took a bit of prodding, but I dragged it out of him. I must congratulate you, my dear, I've dealt with his kind before. It must not have been easy to get him to realize his feelings. By the time I encountered him here he was positively head over heels for you."
Serena thought about their travels in Kalos.
"It wasn't," she agreed.
Lance and Ash were staring at them completely lost. She giggled, Ash may have picked up a bit of Kalosian in their time in Kalos, but he had a long way to go before he could follow a conversation like that. It was cute that he tried though. Most people had been more than happy to speak to him in Galarian, and it had been clear he'd tried to learn it for her even before she'd started to pick up any other signs he might like her back.
"But I suppose we should not exclude the others from conversation," the woman said, before switching to her heavily accented Galarian. "We have not been properly introduced, Fantina."
"Oh!" Upon hearing the name, Serena recognized her instantly. "You're the famous coordinator from Sinnoh! You won the Syndicate Invitational three years in a row!"
Fantina laughed. "Oui, c'est moi."
"Lance," the man offered her his hand. Serena shook it.
"Serena."
Before the conversation could continue, Serena felt a vein almost pop on her forehead as Ash was tackled in a hug by two other girls.
"Ash!" shouted May and the blue-haired girl, whom she recognized as Dawn from the competition.
"Pip!" A piplup joined the pileup, to Pikachu's apparent delight.
"Why didn't you tell us you were coming?" May yelled at him.
Ash scratched the back of his head the way he always did when he got nervous.
"Well, I didn't really know I was coming until about a week ago."
Serena glared at them. How many girls did Ash know?
"We'll let you kids catch up," Lance chimed in. "Ash, I'll send you Ed's number if you need a ride back to the house. That said, we're probably not gonna be training the next few days, since the festival is kinda an all day affair from this point forward, so feel free to do whatever."
"Alright," Ash replied.
He and Fantina made their way away from the group.
"Oh, um, Serena, these are May and Dawn," Ash introduced them.
"We've met," May stated.
"Hi! It's nice to meet you," Dawn waved.
"May, Dawn, this is Serena…" he started to stammer, "my – um – my girlfriend." Hearing him actually say the word made Serena positively giddy inside. Sure, it was something of an insignificant detail after yesterday's events, but hearing it from Ash's own mouth that they were official made her heart flutter.
May's squeal was ear piercing. "Wow, Ash, I didn't know you had it in you! Congrats, the two of you."
"Oh! You're a couple…" Dawn trailed off for a moment, or at least Serena thought she did. It might have just been a pause. "How'd you two meet?"
"Ash and I travelled together in Kalos, but actually, we go way back. We met as kids in one of Professor Oak's pokémon summer camps. He helped me out after I got hurt in the forest."
"That's so cute!" May squealed.
"Ash didn't mention anyone like that," Dawn commented.
"Well, we only met again after I saw him on the news jumping off Prism Tower to save Pikachu."
"He did what?!" Both girls yelled in sync.
Ash scratched the back of his head again. "It wasn't that bad…"
"You only survived because Blaziken Mask's Mega Blaziken swooped in out of nowhere to save you," Serena ranted at him. "I thought you were gonna die!" She could feel her eyes tearing up slightly just from the memory. She blinked them back.
"Sorry… I just did what I had to do to save Pikachu…" Ash said sheepishly.
"How is killing yourself saving Pikachu?" Serena asked, still annoyed with him for the incident.
"It's worked every time before!" Ash responded. It took all of Serena's self control not to facepalm.
"Mega Blaziken, huh?" May fiddled with her sleeve, seemingly trying to defuse the situation.
"Yeah, it was so awesome!" Ash gushed. "He helped us out when we took on Team Flare too!"
"Huh, I read about that on the news," Dawn chimed in. "I hear they're still rebuilding from the damages. That Zygarde looked almost as scary as Arceus."
"What?" Serena and May were both dumbfounded.
"Ash and I had to go back in time to save the world from Arceus back in Sinnoh at one point," Dawn elaborated. "He didn't tell you about that?"
"No, he didn't," Serena looked at Ash, narrowing her eyes.
"Um, I've had a lot of adventures like that, I don't really like to brag about them," Ash explained, which didn't make Serena feel any better.
How many times has he saved the world with a girl by his side? It was almost like he was an anime protagonist.
"Trouble sure seems to have a way of finding Ash," May gave a nervous chuckle.
"Don't tell me you've saved the world with him too…" Serena remarked.
"Well, there was that time with Kyogre and Groudon… but most of our adventures were more on the city scale."
Serena decided she was going to need to have a talk with Ash. Apparently there was a lot of stuff she had been left in the dark on.
Ash's stomach picked an opportune time to grumble. Serena tried not to laugh, but her anger evaporated for the time being.
"Didn't you eat while watching the performance?"
"Well, I figured we'd get dinner together." Serena felt her ears tingle even though she knew Ash probably still only saw it as a friendly gesture. That was what she loved about him after all, he always managed to be so accidentally romantic.
"You guys wanna get dinner together?" His question made her thoughts come to a screeching halt. Of course the other shoe had to drop.
"Sure!" May was first to respond. "Top coordinators get free dinner and a plus one at most of the restaurants here on the festival grounds, and I count two top coordinators and two others here."
Well that sealed the deal. Ash certainly wasn't going to turn down free food. It was hard not to look dejected, but she managed to keep it off of her face.
"I'm down," Dawn tacked on.
As if that was even a question. Serena wasn't stupid. She could see the way the blue-haired girl looked at her boyfriend. He's mine! You had your chance! she screamed at Dawn in her head.
Ash's voice jolted her out of it.
"Serena, are you okay? Your hands are bleeding." Serena looked down; she'd clenched her fists so hard her nails had cut into her flesh.
"Oh – I – didn't notice. I'm just so nervous about tomorrow," she stammered out.
"I was the same at my first Grand Festival," May offered her sympathy. "I actually cried when I lost, if you'd believe it. Trust me, if yesterday was anything to go by you don't have anything to worry about until the battle rounds. You're a lot better than I was the first time around, that's for sure."
"Well, I had a lot of practice doing showcases in Kalos. It's not quite the same, but it's not entirely different either," she played into her story.
"Let me wipe that off," Ash took her hands and cleaned off the blood with a familiar handkerchief, and Serena was lost in the clouds again. She hugged Ash and kissed him.
"Merci, mon étoile."
May squealed again. That was going to get annoying fast, but Serena had a lot less issue with it than the other girl.
"May, do you have to?" Dawn asked, covering her ears. "You're worse than a Whismur with disarming voice."
"They're just so cute!" May responded. "Don't you see it?"
Dawn's reply was curt. "I guess."
"Alright, let's get dinner, I'm starving," May said.
"Are you ever not? You're worse than Ash." Dawn got a playful jab from May for the comment, and the group was off.