Beginning notes:
I'm glad to see you again!
I didn't want a longer break, but my beta-reader became inactive due to scheduling difficulties and I waited for some weeks to see if they would become active again, but it didn't happen. So this chapter has no beta, and I'm all ears if anyone else wants to step in. At least I don't have to guess how Ash vs Cynthia plays out now, which I was somewhat angsting with before, since it would be so pivotal for Iris.
Ash and Iris do not interact in this chapter, but there is a lot of necessary set-up here, and some other fan-favorite characters interact with the two of them!
Chapter begins here.
Ash went down one of the streets leading up to the statues. There were a lot of restaurants in the area, usually marketing a special tea, which Galarians seemed to like. There was also a department store right across from the store he was going to, someone could find all they needed on this stretch, interestingly. There were a few street vendors on the sidewalks that yelled at him, but he paid no mind, he was on a mission now.
Entering, he saw a wide assortment of clothes. Yes, Ash was going to get Iris an outfit. Now, in the back of his mind, he remembered what a friend had told him fairly early in his time as a Trainer…
"Misty, how would anyone buy clothes for a girl with how many options there are?" Ash asked, continuously turning his head and looking at what was around him.
"Well, I don't think you should ever bother," Misty said, looking at a pair of jean shorts that weren't very different from the ones she usually wore at the time.
"Tell meeee…" Ash just had to know that day.
"Maybe just showing sheer passion and determination just sells it, no matter what it is!" Brock chimed in, as he was plenty experienced pursuing love even then, though of course it always failed.
Perhaps not wanting Ash to be led on by Brock, Misty turned to Ash, as if Brock had forced her hand.
"The truth is, I'm not the best person to ask. Look at my outfit and then think of some of the others you've seen women wear. I'm very basic." She said, not giving it too much thought.
"There has to be something you know!" Ash wasn't leaving the Goldenrod City Clothing Store without getting an answer.
"…I guess, think about a girl's skin tone and what colors would go with that. And that some girls like to go fancy, while others don't." Misty said, her face thinking hard to get an answer out.
"That's all I was asking, Misty!"
"Really, Ash, you shouldn't get an outfit for someone that you don't know whether they'll like or not. Ideally, you'd instantly know if they'd wear it or not. That's my advice for not just getting clothes for a girl, but for anyone."
"I wonder how you and my future girlfriend will get along…" He said, starting to wonder about what that person could look like.
"Hard to say!" She said, not one for future predictions.
"Hopefully she beats you in a battle!" He said with a smirk
"That will never happen, mark my words!" She said, getting a bit more animated.
"Maybe some electric type trainer who'll just take advantage of you summoning rain with Thunder!" Brock added.
"Whoever it is, I won't let a single Pokémon feint against her! On my honor as a gym leader!" She said, practically in battle mode for someone who didn't exist.
For some reason, Ash just started laughing at that. Soon, the other two laughed as well, perhaps even Misty herself realizing how absurd this conversation was getting.
Those were the days.
Funnily enough, Ash's crush at the time was Misty herself and he thought it would be funny to lead her to think of someone else. Of course, he got over her fairly quickly after they parted, it was likely more that she was basically the only girl in his life for a while.
He wondered if Misty would hold Iris up to what she promised then. Too bad that she wouldn't stand a chance against Iris, but that was a topic for another time.
Forcing himself back to the matter at hand, Ash thought about Iris' fashion. He wasn't really sure since there wasn't anything here like her go-to cream outfit and silently apologized to Misty that he wasn't going to follow her advice.
He was already struggling after a few minutes. He didn't want her to get anything that was just a company's brand, and there were a lot of outfits that he swore were only to be worn at themed parties. But then he saw a mannequin and got an idea. The mannequin had a black jacket, black pants, and a white shirt underneath it, with a phrase that he couldn't quite see, but he thought something similar would look great on Iris. So, he found that black jacket and pants, then found a white shirt that had the outline of an Axew on it, then he found a yellow shirt that he thought would look cool with or without the black, that featured the Gurdurr 11 Unovan "football" team (even though they didn't use their feet unlike the football that was played in Kanto and the other regions) that she was a fan of. Well, he hadn't seen Iris wear yellow before, but she wore a lot of pink in her Champion outfit, so he figured she was fine with those brighter colors. Hopefully, Misty would have approved.
But then Ash saw something else and decided to take a risk. There was a section of sundresses he passed by, but one caught his eye. Dark red, but with black horizontal stripes going down the whole one, creating a bit of a pattern effect and making the red more interesting as a result. There were six stripes that were bigger, that had a pattern of red circles against a wider black stripe. The shoulder straps also had that pattern. It was so simple but looked so sophisticated because of the dark color scheme. It was just one piece, that would go down to her knees. So, he picked it up.
Going to the register, the person at the booth said
"Do you think this would look good on a black woman?"
"I think the red would look good on that skin color, give it some power."
And Iris loved power.
"Thanks! I think this is a winner!"
Ash had it boxed to keep people from seeing him leave the store with it, and left the store.
As he left and turned to go back to the Rose, a voice came out from behind him.
"I didn't expect to see you shopping at this store. Leon can't be dragged anywhere near here." A young adult with a tan colored trench coat, a blue shirt underneath, light-blue jeans, and ginger hair in a ponytail said.
Sonia. Professor Magnolia's granddaughter, and now a professor herself (Ash was pretty sure, though she wasn't wearing a white lab coat at the moment), and Leon's…childhood friend? It was hard to tell what their relationship was. Leon did mention yesterday that she basically stood him up.
"Well, one thing that Alola taught me was that it's good to try new things!" Ash responded, which itself was true but still concealing the info he wanted to conceal.
"What did you get?" She responded
"Axew shirt and a yellow Gurdurr 11 shirt."
"It's a surprise for everyone else."
She smiled.
"So an Axew shirt, and …"
Without him realizing it, she was near him, grabbed the box inside the bag, and looked at it
"I can't believe you'd do this for someone, from what Goh and Leon have told me about you. Who's the lucky girl?"
"I'm keeping it a secret for now."
"Well, given that you said it was an Axew shirt, I bet this is for the Unova Champion, isn't it?"
"No, it-it's a different person."
"Uh-huh. All right then, here, I'll give you a ride back to the Rose."
"Thanks, but I'll just walk."
But Sonia just nudged him in.
"Why are you and Goh so disagreeable?"
"Well I've heard being your passenger feels like somersaulting!"
"Well lucky for you, I have to obey the speed limit here!"
"So Sonia, you and Leon were rivals in your early days?"
"Yeah! I never beat him, but I did get eight Galar gyms. I had an Inteleon, Corviknight, Obstagoon, Rapidash, Yamper, and an Appletun. Good times. I got into the top 16 of the league tournament, but you-know-who beat me there. I liked it but was always more into research, so I stopped there. That said, I think Iris is cool for going all the way at a young age. You too, of course!"
"Well, after I give my stuff to my other friend, I can introduce you to her later on, if you want!" Ash said, secretly hoping he didn't sound like too much of an idiot saying that.
Sonia giggled after he said "friend"
"Yeah, I expect to meet her soon, maybe we can exchange Rotom numbers. I expect to have gotten two numbers through you by the end of this tournament."
"Uh, sure," Ash responded
"So you think you can beat Cynthia?"
"I know I can."
"Why?"
"Does Leon always give you a reason why he can win?"
"Remember that I and Leon didn't talk much for a few years, Rose saw me as a threat and distanced him from me, remember? That was another reason I got out of the battling-dedicated business. That said, one of the few times I saw him was right before his final match, and he told me that he didn't want to disappoint the town of Postwick and that he didn't want to feel he was unworthy of owning his Pokemon. He also wanted to inspire Hop."
"And he just loves to win," Ash noted
"Yeah. That too. Though I hope you know that you don't say that as an answer."
"Of course not!" Ash was able to say, as Brock at the start, and later Professor Kukui instilled that in him. "I like to win too, but now, I as well don't want to disappoint all the people who have traveled with me! I've done this for a few years now, and I feel like losing now would waste a part of it. Of course, not all of it, but it would be such a missed opportunity."
"What regions have you been to?"
Ash talked a bit about his journey before the PWC, his Pokémon, companions, and league tournaments, not the full run-down but got the most important bits. They had actually arrived by the time Ash was talking about Kalos. It was late enough that he had asked her to take him to Wyndon Stadium after he dropped off his stuff, messaging Iris that he'd meet her there. He did that, and finished talking about his time in Kalos and Alola."
"I knew you won the first Alola conference, but you've been through a lot!"
"I guess…"
"I was scared enough by Macro Cosmos, but they were just the next organization of the week for you!"
"They were different, though"
"Still, Eternatus is hard to describe even after seeing him. You know, I wasn't super convinced about your status as a trainer, like maybe Leon was just wanting to hype a person who was excited about this, but you really are the big deal. Second, in Kalos is nothing to snuff at either. I definitely think you can beat Cynthia now."
"I'm glad I could convince you!"
"And you want to avenge Iris."
"Definitely."
"This other girl must be jealous of how you speak of Iris."
"They're good friends. Say," Ash continued, "Do you think Alola would benefit from having four gyms in addition to the four trials?"
"Well," Sonia's eyeballs went up for a second like she was putting her whole body into thinking, "Like I keep telling you, I haven't been in that space for a few years now, but I never thought of going to Alola and part of it was that the Trials seemed gimmicky to me, so maybe."
"That was sort of what I was thinking, Alola doesn't have a reputation for having a lot of good trainers, so I was thinking that gyms would help change that mindset," Ash explained, resting his arm on the armrest of the car door.
"It would take a ton of cash to set them up. Galar gyms all have a bunch of sponsorships, but Alola doesn't have the businesses to do that. And in today's day and age, I doubt the Alola government will raise taxes to pay for them." Sonia pointed out.
"Hm. There has to be a way. I also think I want an Elite Four. There has to be something willing to throw money at it." Ash surmised, having seen rich people spend money on more ridiculous things.
"Good luck with that. Money is never easy. I'll have to fight for funding my entire life as well." Sonia said, trying not to show any emotion in that last part.
Ash realized now that he had a chance to ask Sonia what he'd been wondering ever since he got in the car.
"So, what's the status of Leon and you?"
"I'm not sure…he acts like he wants to do all these things together, to the point I have to leave him hanging sometimes."
"He did mention that to me yesterday."
"Since he doesn't take no for an answer, you have to do it in another way." She said with a giggle.
" I guess you're the only one who gives him losses!" Ash said cheekily "But if he's serious, I don't see why you shouldn't give him a shot."
"Well, wouldn't he want a battler?"
"So you don't deny it."
"He's just trying to be nice and doesn't really want to be with a researcher like me"
"He was kind of mad when you stood him up…"
Just then, they arrived at Wyndon stadium
"Well, looks like we're here, see you later! I'm watching both battles!"
"All right, see you around, and just think about it!" Ash said as he shut the door and made his way to the special room.
"Not too cool for us anymore?" Leon asked, Ash thought it was a bit funny he was the first person he was talking to now.
"I wanted to talk to get some time with you before your match, and talk to the others here while you battled." Which was technically true as Iris was one of them.
"It's always a good time to talk to you, Ash," Leon responded. It was kind of funny, Leon had such an imposing presence but was actually a very nice guy
"Sonia gave me a ride here."
"She did, in that pink car? You're lucky it's in a city with speed limits."
"I've heard. It's interesting that she and you were childhood friends."
"Yeah. I probably have you and Goh to thank for reconnecting us. She's a great person, I just…got caught up in…this." He waved at the stadium. "It's a work in progress, you might have remembered that she ditched me yesterday."
"Well, maybe you could ask her to do something after this is over."
"Maybe," Leon said, going all mysterious all of a sudden.
Just then, Ash heard a voice call his name and a good one at that.
…
Iris was dreaming. About the past. It wasn't that she wished she was in it, but maybe her mind was trying to think of better times, so she'd continue to feel better. For some reason, she was taken back to when she had first arrived back in Unova. She arrived in Nuvema Town. Professor Juniper was going to give her a Rotom Phone. But before she left, she had decided to have a match with Georgia, whom she told ahead of time she would be going to Nuvema. They were going to battle in the same spot Ash had battled Trip when he first arrived in Unova.
"You sound pretty confident."
"Well, I just got done training a bunch with the best Dragon Gym Leader," Iris said confidently.
"So It'll be like beating her after I beat you!" Georgia looked very aggressive that day.
"You'll only feel bad after this is done!"
"Ready for this three-on-three?" Professor Juniper said, keeping a straight face.
"Yeah!" both said at the same time.
"Weavile, go!" Georgia sent out the Sharp Claw Pokémon.
"Fraxure, Let's do this!" Iris called out.
"Weavile, Triple Axel," Georgia called out to her Ice-Type
Weavile began dashing towards Fraxure. Without any special terrain, it would take just a couple of seconds.
"Fraxure, Dragon Pulse!"
Just before Weavile could connect the multi-kicking move, it was blasted by that Dragon Pulse back to near Georgia. While Ice attacks hit Dragon-Types super effectively, Ice Type Pokémon themselves do not resist Dragon attacks.
Just that one Dragon Pulse was enough to take it out, swirly eyes and all.
"Weavile is unable to battle! Fraxure has defeated it!" Juniper announced.
"Wow, that was lucky. Weavile, return." Georgia uttered, recalling it while now having a scowl.
"My Fraxure has become quite the long-distance kind of guy!" Iris snarkily shouted.
"I can deal with that. Go, Glaceon!" Georgia responded by sending out the Eeveelution.
"Cute, but cuteness doesn't win battles! Dragon Pulse!" Iris called out.
"Glaceon, Protect!" Georgia shouted back.
Glaceon surrounded itself with a protective aura that absorbed the Dragon Pulse.
"Glaceon, Wish!" Georgia then called.
A white light surrounded Glaceon's body, and a shooting star appeared above it.
Iris knew that if she could take down the Glaceon soon, the Wish would just be a wasted move.
"Psycho Cut!" Iris responded with
Fraxure created a flurry of purple slashes and threw them at Glaceon, dealing several hits.
"Freeze Dry, Glaceon!" Georgia then called.
A gust of cold air appeared in Glaceon's mouth, then it suddenly shot out and hit Fraxure, causing him to go down on one knee.
"We can't let up, Fraxure, Dragon Pulse again!" Iris begged.
Fraxure fired another Dragon Pulse, but Georgia seemed to have planned for it.
"Glaceon, Protect again!" She ordered…
And Glaceon once again shielded itself from the Dragon Pulse.
The Shooting Star appeared again, covering Glaceon, healing it from the damage it had gotten from Psycho Cut.
"Glaceon, do Freeze-Dry again!" Georgia once again shouted.
Glaceon once again created the cold gust, and once again hit Fraxure. Things weren't looking good for him, Glaceon had healed all of its damage, but Fraxure was hurting badly.
"Fraxure, can we do big risk, big reward?" Iris asked
"Frax!" Fraxure said, nodding his head.
Iris smiled.
"All right, Fraxure, Outrage!"
Fraxure's eyes turned red. And he charged at Glaceon with all his might.
"Glaceon, Freeze Dry! He can't hit you!" Georgia barked out.
Glaceon fired another off…but Fraxure, in his frenzy, managed to dodge it, probably without recognizing it. The enraged Fraxure struck Glaceon numerous times with its tusks, and Glaceon could only slump to the ground afterward.
"Glaceon is unable to battle. Fraxure wins once again!" Juniper announced.
"How is this happening? I've been training too…I'm supposed to be your rival! I can't go out like this!" Georgia's demeanor was full of anger, her eyes had that shape and she briefly showed her teeth in frustration.
"Well, there's always the next time. Though I doubt things will go better then!" Iris cheekily responded.
"Well, I have one more. And it's enough of a curveball that I think I can come back!"
"Go, Clefable!"
"What?"
She figured Georgia specialized in Ice Types. But it seemed like it was just Dragon Busing in a general sense.
And this was bad, because Fraxure was locked into doing Outrage now, and she couldn't recall him in the middle of it.
Fraxure indeed tried to hit Clefable with Outrage, but his tusks just bounced off the Fairy Type.
"Heh. I knew you wouldn't be able to deal with it. Here comes my comeback! Clefable, Moonblast!"
Clefable raised its arms, creating an energy in the shape of the moon, and hit Fraxure point-blank with it.
Fraxure was blown across the field, with the swirly eyes.
"You might as well forfeit now, Iris! Most of your attacks won't affect Clefable!"
"You're forgetting something…Fraxure isn't my strongest Pokemon, and Dragons have great coverage. Go, Dragonite!"
Dragonite came out, with his usual flare.
"Clefable, Moonblast!" Georgia preemptively called out.
Clefable began creating the energy, but before it could throw it,
"Dragonite, Flamethrower!"
Dragonite covered Clefable in flames. When the flames were gone…Clefable was out.
"Clefable is unable to battle! Dragonite wins; with Georgia having three Pokémon defeated, the winner is Iris!"
The crowd cheered for Iris.
Georgia returned Clefable, then looked down so no one could see her eyes.
"After all of this training…Two of my Pokemon were defeated in one hit, and my only KO was because Fraxure was locked into Outrage…"
Iris walked up to her. They looked at each other for a bit, Georgia lost her anger and how was just sad.
"Your Glaceon almost beat Fraxure," Iris said with a soft smile, it felt good beating Georgia but she didn't want to see Georgia's spirit destroyed.
"Because you didn't go for Outrage right away…"
"You saw why I tried to win without it. I've had opponents play around Outrage as you did before."
"I just…hate that all my effort just freaking means nothing!"
"There's something you lack, Georgia. It's hard for me to tell what it is, I haven't battled you enough times and most of them were just 1 against 1, but you need to figure that out."
"It's hard without the luck you have…"
Iris rolled her eyes. "It's not luck! I've trained with Clair for a year, she put me through the wringer, and this is the result."
"So you've had plenty of help! I'm going to beat you without it! Georgia said her usual flare.
"And how are you going to do that?" Iris responded.
"I'll figure it out…just you wait…then I'll sweep you six to nothing!"
"Sure. I'd like to see you try that." Iris said, still with a soft tone.
Walking away, Georgia shouted, "Enjoy that last-ever defeat of me!"
Iris sighed, hoping Georgia's bravado wouldn't hurt her in a significant way, then turned her thoughts onto the Gym Challenge. Funnily enough, the first gym would be in Striation City. Although Cilan wasn't going to be back for a while. It would still be nice to see Cress and Chili again, and fun to beat them. She'd call Cilan after she did it.
The dream changed.
One year ago…
Iris had just won her eighth gym badge. As she had in her prior gym victories, she contacted Cilan to let him know.
"Cilan, I did it. I beat Drayden." She said, thinking about doing her twirl, but she didn't want to get up.
"I knew you could do it! Does that mean Fraxure evolved?" He said, looking pretty serious.
"Yes! He evolved right in front of Drayden's Haxorus, and defeated it!"
"Wow, I'm impressed it's finally unleashing that potential! As a Dragon Connoisseur, I say he's my favorite." He said, putting his finger up like he always did when saying things like that.
Iris laughed, but then said "Don't disrespect Dragon types like that!" but still laughing.
"I'm an everything Connoisseur!"
Iris rolled her eyes but smiled.
"You should enter the tournament!" Cilan suddenly said.
"Why? It wouldn't be factored into my contention for Opelucid Gym Leader.", Iris responded, putting her hand under her chin, not knowing why he was bringing this up.
"You might as well give it a shot while you can! Remember how much fun Ash had, even when he lost?" Cilan asked, leaning back into his chair a bit, perhaps reminiscing by saying that.
"Well, the Dragon Master title isn't gained by winning League Tournaments, though I'm sure I'll do them then," Iris responded a bit bored already by the preposition.
"You'll regret it if you don't" Cilan shot back, leaning forward now.
"I just don't know if it's the best use of my time…" Iris mused, now being the one to lean back.
"Maybe you'll beat Georgia and Trip!" Cilan said after a few seconds of thinking.
"I already beat the former fairly quickly when I got back to Unova, actually, and I don't care about battling the latter," Iris said, still leaning back.
"If you got to the finals or semifinals, I'm sure Drayden would consider it when picking his successor." Cilan suddenly said with a slap of his hands to the table the computer was on.
Iris thought about it for a few minutes.
Yeah, it was worth a try to win just this once. A win would be great. And of course, she has what it takes! And while she wouldn't tell Cilan, she'd be going to win.
"Okay, I'll do it." She said, leaning forward. "It'll be pretty surreal that I'll be the one in the tournament this time…"
"Don't let it scare you. What I've seen is, you often fall apart when scared, that's why you sometimes try so hard to look brave, but, is there a reason to be scared after clearing the gym challenge, and Clair's training before that?
"Yeah, I'll definitely get further than Ash!" Iris responded, looking up.
"Well, top-eight is still pretty good. Ash didn't have a lot of evolved Pokémon, and that's because they didn't want to so it isn't his fault, but they were just weaker than Cameron's team. Do you remember how that Hydriegon really made a dent into his team?" Cilan noted, leaning in.
"You're right, that bad start probably was what did him in," She responded, looking back up
"You have a Haxorus now, and a Dragonite. Power isn't your problem now."
"That's a good point."
"Right before you left Johto, Claire let me in on a little secret: She told me she was sure that your team would have defeated the team Ash had when he challenged her to a gym battle."
"Really?" Iris was about to jump after hearing that.
"Yeah, so Haxorus and Dragonite have probably both surpassed his Charizard now. Or at least match it now."
"Now that makes me pumped up!"
"Just let the fiery spirit burn everything there! Show Unova what Dragons can do! And Excadrill and Emolga as pseudo-dragons!."
"You'll feel sorry you said that! And of course, you work in a joke about my non-dragons while you can."
"It's just not possible to not joke about it since you're so vocal about the Dragon Master thing."
"Okay, Mr. Grass-Gym-leader-who-has-non-grass-Pokemon!"
"Touche! Goodbye!"
"Goodbye!" They often ended calls with jokes like that.
…
…Iris woke up. It was because of him that she ended up being the champion in the first place. She realized she never had that match with Cilan. She wished she could. Maybe she could ask Ash? Well, that was for later. She decided she might find some lunch. Ash had texted her he was doing something special, and she wasn't the type that insisted on being involved in everything he did.
She also had never faced Georgia since that Nuvema Town match, though she hadn't considered Georgia a rival for a while now.
She fixed her hair, got her usual outfit on (she left her champion outfit in the Champion room and she was considering not bothering with it for the rest of the tournament), and headed down.
Going down to the lobby, she saw Goh and Chloe. She and Chloe looked at each other for a bit, but Goh spoke up before either of them could say anything.
"Let's go to Wyndon Stadium!" Goh said, perhaps fearing something starting up.
They walked to the subway and rode it in silence.
Ending notes:
The two dreams that Iris had at the end were originally meant for the next chapter, but I threw them in here as a bonus since you've waited so long, and to get some action in so it wasn't all walk-and-talk. I wanted to get Georgia in somehow, and this was the easiest way, as well as showing off Haxorus when he was a Fraxure, which I think would have been cool to see in the anime. That said, Georgia won't appear in the present of the story for a while, but I do have big plans for her. It would be bad of me to forget Iris' rival, right?
Ash getting Iris a sundress sets up something later in the story (I'm sure you can guess what it is), and Sonia will have a major role in the next part, which is why I established her here and gave her a conversation with Ash.
Again, there will be a lot of story after the Masters' tournament, this is far from over.
I'm going to try to do a bi-weekly schedule for installments. Oh, and you bet I'm going to have a lot of fun with how Cynthia's battle with Ash turned out!
Next chapter will be very fun!
