Four years ago today marked my return to fanfiction with a new pen name and a (hopefully) more mature approach to writing. Pokéshipping Week isn't just important to me for celebrating the Ash and Misty pairing, it's also an anniversary of my time as Acanthus Addams. And while the updates are laughably slow these days, I've never stopped coming back to the site to revisit my old works and appreciate their feedback all over again.
This story is based on the Red Dwarf episode 'Blue', which is why some characters might act a little differently to how they normally would. British humour and all that – if you know, you know.
Ashaholics Anonymous
Misty awoke on a cold tiled floor. All around her, a clear white vapour was spiralling ethereally, and when she lifted herself up, she could see that it spilled out from underneath every door crack along the pitch-black hallway she suddenly found herself in. She could have sworn she'd just lain down for a second after finishing her day's work; surely it couldn't have been dark outside already. But wait, this wasn't even her room! Where was she? And the smoke, what was that about? Bafflingly, her head was too foggy to even entertain these thoughts.
"Huuh?" she just about managed to say, having noticed she was barefoot and clad in her pyjamas. Her favourite silky yellow pair with the little staryu all over them. A slight tickling of the tips of her shoulders told her that her magmar-orange hair was also free of its usual ponytail. Yet these details were quickly out of mind when she began to glide with silent footfalls along this strange and unfamiliar corridor.
Her viridian eyes caught a half-lidded glance of something just up ahead on the left. A door like all the others she'd passed, that wispy steam gently spewing out of the tiny slit at the bottom, except a light seemed to be coming from within, creating bright, spindly pillars on the floor in front of it. As she moved closer, she could even hear voices. Owing to her peculiar haze, instinct compelled her to throw caution to the wind and immediately pull the door wide open.
"Ah, Misty, I'm so glad you could make it. Please, take a seat."
The light was an assault to the young girl's eyes at first. As they adjusted, however, Misty quickly surveyed her washy surroundings as best she could. A smallish square room lay beyond the doorway, devoid of any furniture except for a long table against the right-hand wall and a strange circular arrangement of chairs in the centre. As for the person who had beckoned her in, she could tell even in her trancelike state that it was Nurse Joy, the woman's looped pink hairdo and dainty livery a dead giveaway.
"Okay, I think we're about ready to start," she sang with her usual surplus of bonhomie. "Welcome, everyone. Now, we have a new member here with us today. Allow me to introduce Misty Waterflower, gym leader of Cerulean City."
Upon sitting down, Misty instantly noticed that every other chair was occupied by…swirls of clouds in the shape of people? This was getting weirder by the second. "Hi, Misty!" they all greeted, sounding mostly like young women like herself. Not only that, but in the second of silence that followed, she could just about pick up a hint of music playing in the background of this bizarre scene. To her ears, it sounded like Jigglypuff's signature lullaby, except performed by a human singer. Naturally, this didn't help her lethargy one iota.
Joy beamed. "Let's begin like we always do, by reciting our group oath."
A dirge of scraping and scrabbling followed as the entire circle moved to stand. Misty, still without a clue where she was or what she was doing, could only watch them from her slumped sitting position.
"Life tells us to catch 'em all
But love is not so kind
For he who has my precious heart
Only pokémon fill his mind…"
Their collective voices were deafening to the young girl – especially since her current state of hearing felt like being underwater anyway.
"…My time with him, however long
Lives in my memory,
And though I'm not his Chosen One
I'm happy just to be me."
Everyone then clattered back down into their seats, after which Nurse Joy neatly intertwined her hands.
"First off, does anyone have anything to get off their chest? Misty, maybe you'd like to…?"
The redhead sat up clumsily. "Uhhhhhh," she mumbled.
"I have something to say, if it's okay, Nurse Joy," said a timid voice to Misty's eleven o'clock. As soon as the figure stood, the pillows of smoke vanished completely, revealing a pretty teenage girl with a lithe build and short lilac hair swept upwards to a pointed tip.
"Of course. Let me call the talking eevee."
Joy whistled softly through her fingers, and from seemingly thin air came a brown feline pokémon with a white ruff of fur around its neck. It leapt up to the girl and nestled snugly in her outstretched arms, inspiring a wave of awwing and cooing among the spectators.
"I'm Anabel, Salon Maiden of the Hoenn Battle Frontier, and" – she scratched bashfully behind the eevee's ears – "I'm an Ashaholic."
"Hi, Anabel," the congregation chanted.
She teetered on the spot. "I thought about him a lot the other day. It doesn't feel like two and a half years since I challenged him at the Battle Tower. Since he just started another adventure, I guess part of me hoped he might come to visit again, and, well, I'm not sure I'll ever let go of the hope that one day he will."
Misty could hear a few sniffs and sobs from the faceless audience before the whole room was suddenly awash with light applause. Her mind, however, was far away from all that. Ashaholic? Did she hear that right? No, that was beyond ridiculous. The smoke getting to her head, it had to be.
"Thank you so much for sharing, Anabel," Joy said almost inaudibly. "Do we have any more speakers?"
The cloud to Misty's immediate right then shuffled into an upright position. "I'll go next!"
Misty watched the so-called 'talking eevee' bound from Anabel's embrace to that of this new figure. Upon contact, the smoky veil was dropped, and the redhead's eyes widened in shock.
"My name's May, a pokémon coordinator from Littleroot Town!" she chirped.
"Hi, May," the circle greeted.
"Yeah, I was an Ashaholic at the very start, alright. He helped me overcome my fear of pokémon, introduced me to pokémon contests, gave me the opportunity to see the world…could any girl have resisted?"
A few giggles could be heard around the room, but Misty was still too stunned to pay attention.
"But you know, it's been twenty-two months since I saw him in Sinnoh, and since then, well, things have really changed for me."
She shifted her grip on the eevee to one arm and, with the other, pulled up the shape beside her by its 'hand'.
"What can I say?" smarmed the green-haired young man that appeared thereafter. "She's only human."
"Drew, cut it out!" she chided, blushing.
"Oh, May, I'm so happy for you!" Nurse Joy trilled. "In light of this wonderful news, I think you deserve this."
The bandana-wearing brunette squealed at the sight of the little bronze coin held out to her. "My two-year chip!" she gasped. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"Yay, you're part of the graduates' club now!" Just as whoever said that, cloud coverings dropped from at least six or seven people in the circle. Many of them she could instantly identify too: Duplica, the copycat she and Ash had met when they were ten; Melody, the ocarina-playing island girl; Macy, the fire-type trainer who still made Misty's skin crawl to this day…
"Good riddance, I say," grinned a dark-skinned, fluffy-haired girl that Misty recognised from Ash's postcards from Unova. "I mean, how long was I really going to think that way about a little kid like him? All of five minutes, I tell ya, all of five minutes."
"You said it, Iris," Duplica giggled.
Laughter rang out for the next few seconds, during which Misty had rapidly gained back some of her mental capacity. She'd just heard that word again: Ashaholic. And on top of that, several people she knew were now here too. Her dazed curiosity was quickly turning to good old-fashioned impatience.
"Wha…whazzat…" she groaned towards the group, eyeing the gleaming tokens in their hands.
"Isn't it great, Misty?" May smiled down at her. "Here, take a look."
Misty took the coin, expecting to remain just as puzzled after inspecting it. Instead, just one half-second glance was all it took – for what she saw was the finely engraved face of none other than her best friend, Ash Ketchum.
"…whhhhAAAAT?" came a startling vocal crescendo as she sprung to her feet. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
Several of the cloud people seemed shaken, but Nurse Joy had evidently been expecting such a reaction. "Forgive me, Misty, you must be very confused right now. This is Ashaholics Anonymous, a support group formed to help everyone here come to terms with their feelings for your mutual friend, the pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum."
She blinked hard. Then again. And again. But though she refused to believe it, this didn't seem to be a dream.
"Ash has touched the hearts of many during his travels," Joy continued, "in most cases, without him even knowing it. We here understand how that can weigh on one's soul, and seek to guide one another towards happiness, whatever that may entail."
"Ash is mine for the taking!" a girl cried out suddenly. Even without her ghostly disguise, Misty didn't recognise her.
"In your dreams, floozy! I love him way more than you!" another unfamiliar girl rebutted.
"Now, now, girls, let's keep a civil tongue when sharing our thoughts," Joy intermediated. "You see, Misty, every member here harbours a deep love for Mr. Ketchum, and as with anything, the first step on the road to recovery is admitting such feelings to begin with."
"No fair!" yet another girl Misty had never seen before addressed her directly. "You got to travel with Ash when I'm the one who loves him the most!"
More girls then crowded around. "She's Ash's first travelling companion, dumbass; obviously she loves him the most! Ooh, tell us what he was like back then, pleeeeeeease!"
"Why did you two fight so much?"
"Did you ever share a sleeping bag?"
"Is it true he gave you his original Pokémon League hat?"
There were a thousand thoughts squirming around in Misty's head right now. Not since her travelling days had she faced a situation this surreal and unsettling. And her natural reaction to these emotions was, of course, boiling anger.
"THIS IS TOTALLY CRAZY!"
Silence echoed like the banging of a gong until she spoke again. "You all love Ash so much you've formed a…support group for it?! Her head snapped to the right. "And May, y-you're in on this?!"
May just laughed. "Oh Misty, you're overreacting. This place is great! Have a chat with the people here and you'll see that being in love is nothing to be ashamed of!"
The redness in Misty's face was beginning to make her feel faint. Was it from the anger, the embarrassment, or that outrageous implication May had just flung her way? A bit of all three, she surmised – with a particular emphasis on the latter.
"I-I don't believe this!" she shouted, almost hyperventilating. "This is n-not real! And for the last time, May, I am definitely NOT—"
"I agree, May," Nurse Joy stated. "Perhaps a quick coffee break will help ease your worries and acquaint you with all of us here. Let's reconvene in about ten minutes, okay?"
Her little outburst had taken more out of Misty than she cared to admit. Delirious with frustration, she let May lead her over to the refreshments table, all the while drowning in the theories and suspicions she'd built up during her short time here. Whether this really was real life or just a particularly heavy daydream, one thing was certain: she was never going to eat expired pancake mix ever again.
"Misty!"
Even in deep thought, the young girl could identify that last voice from a mile away. "Mrs. Ketchum?"
"Oh, Misty, you know you can call me Delia," chirped the doting mother as the smoke around her cleared. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you here at last!"
"Well, that makes one of us," she grunted. "I don't even know what 'here' is. Wait a minute…you're an" – she just barely kept herself from throwing up in her mouth – "Ashaholic?"
"Why the surprise, dear?" she laughed. "Who could possibly love little Ashy more than his own mother?"
Clearly, it was pointless of Misty to remind the woman that her "little Ashy" had just turned seventeen.
"But why am I here?" she said a moment later, her cheeks heating up. "I'm not, uhh…I mean, I don't…A-Ash…umm…" Her flustered state forced her to stop for air. "You know?"
"I don't think I can answer that for you, Misty," Delia laughed again, "but I do know that Ash is very dear to you, just as you're very dear to him. Maybe being part of this group will help you to hear what your heart says, rather than your head. Whatever happens, I'll be rooting for you the whole time."
"Whoops!" a cloud person said, scrambling to steady a knocked platter of croissants. Like with Delia, Misty didn't have to wait until the clouds disappeared to know who this was.
"Oh my god…Brock?!"
Her old friend turned to her. "Hey, Misty, long time no see!"
"What the hell are you of all people doing at…ugh…Ashaholics Anonymous?!"
"Oh, uh, well…" he grinned, scratching the back of his spiked black hair. "Hehe, darn it, you caught me." Leaning in, he whispered, "Between you and me, I'm just here for Nurse Joy. Have you ever seen such radiant beauty? Man!"
An age-old instinct took hold of the young Waterflower that very second as she pinched down hard on Brock's ear and pulled him down to eye level.
"Well don't count on her to patch you up after I kick the crap out of you!" she growled in his face.
"OWOWOW! Lemme go, Misty, I'm sorryyyy!" the girl-crazy pokémon doctor wailed. In turning back around, Misty then caught a glimpse of something both comforting and unsettling in the corner of the room.
"Psyduck?" she cried, running to her paunchy little water pokémon. "How the heck did you get here? I swear, I'm going to put a padlock on your pokéball one of these days."
He neither answered nor even looked round, however. "Huh? What's wrong with you?" she tried again. "It's me, Misty!"
Delia walked over. "I'm sorry you had to see this, dear. He's been ever so sad for so long now."
"But…why?"
"No-one knows. Nurse Joy says that pokémon reflect the feelings of their trainers, but…"
Misty knelt beside him, sighing. "Dumb duck. You're always causing me trouble, you know that?" But just as she reached out her hand…
"Yeah, it's, like, this time of year, every year. It's such a drag!"
"Huh?" she exhaled in fright. That muffed voice just now…was it coming from the wall? She instantly pressed her ear to the cold plaster in the hopes of hearing more.
"I'm a little curious: how did you find out about me?"
"Oh, my fiancé recommended you. He's, like, a total nerd so I knew he'd know someone who could help."
At that exact moment, an unpleasant staticky sound rang all the way through Misty's ears, and suddenly she found herself back in the circle of chairs along with friend, cloud person, and unknown girl alike.
"How…how did…?" she murmured.
"Welcome back, everyone," Joy smiled warmly. "Now that we're all settled in, I thought we might try a little roleplay exercise. Misty, how would you like to be my first volunteer?"
Anxiety was steadily beginning to brew in the pit of Misty's stomach. As her personal code mandated, however, she wasn't about to let it show.
"You'll be playing the role of Ash for this exercise," said Joy as Misty approached.
"I what?!" Misty queried urgently. Her eyes then followed a tiny pink blob squidge its way into the centre of the room.
"Ditto!" it squeaked with great mirth.
"Okay, Ditto, use your Transform, please."
"Ahhhh!" Misty cried. Transform it did, but into something that had rapidly, and without warning, wrapped itself snugly around the mortified girl's face. "What is this?! Get it off, get it off!"
"No need to panic, Misty," Joy declared. "Take a look for yourself!"
She held up a mirror, whereupon the poor gym leader jolted in horror. Her face was gone, and in its place was an uncanny replica of a seventeen-year-old Ash Ketchum's, right down to the scruffy black mop and trademark cap.
"My faaaaaaace," she whined, cartoonish lines of tears running down her (or rather, Ash's) cheeks. So much for staying calm.
Nurse Joy gently silenced the giggling around the room by raising her hand. "In this exercise, a member of the group volunteers to step up and tell Ash – that is to say, you, Misty – whatever they feel they can't yet say to him in person. You're free to be as brief or as long-winded as you like, okay, girls? I know your situations are all quite unique and personal." She clapped her hands together once more. "Who wants to go first?"
No answer came immediately, but a decidedly short and lumpy cloud person leapt animatedly into the centre of the circle.
"Baaaaay!" it moaned as it shed its coat of smoke.
Misty blinked through the ditto's eyes. "Bayleef?!" she exclaimed.
The leafy quadruped's long neck arced upwards toward the visage of Ash before her. With tears in her eyes, she prepared to say her piece.
"Baaay, bay bay," she began. Misty, not surprisingly, couldn't understand a word of it. "Bay bayyyyy bay-baaay, bay…BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
To Misty's astonishment, the whole circle was now bawling and blubbing like toddlers.
"Such a beautiful speech!" Brock howled from the sidelines.
"Bayleef really has a way with words," an equally teary Delia concurred.
"Thank you for those touching sentiments, Bayleef," said Nurse Joy as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Meanwhile, something alarming had just occurred to Misty; during her travels with Ash, Bayleef would usually show her affection by…
"WAAAH— OOF!"
"Are you alright, Misty?" Joy gasped. "I should have warned you; when Bayleef sees Ash, she—"
"I know!" she bit back, dusting herself off after that Tackle attack. "Just get this stupid ditto mask off of me!"
Ditto bounded away before Misty could tear it off her face, and as it fell, it smoothly morphed into a full-body replica of Ash. Though Misty knew it to be a fake, the likeness was eerily identical.
"Um…can I go next please, Nurse Joy?"
This interrupting voice was softer and more feminine than any Misty had heard around this support circle. When the figure stood up, the redhead saw her to be a breathtakingly attractive girl around her age. The red skirt and sleeveless blouse she wore betrayed the shyness in her voice, as well as her brimmed pink hat which complemented the long blonde hair abseiling down her mid-back. Without naming herself, she lightly stepped over to the Ash-ditto hybrid outside of the ring of chairs.
"Hoo," she exhaled, clearly nervous to the extreme. "So I…I know you didn't remember me at first when we met again two weeks ago. But I never forgot about you. Ever since that summer camp in Kanto, when you told me never to give up…well, even though we were just kids back then, those words have been on my mind ever since. And I always knew I wanted to repay you for all you did for me." She stopped to fan her watering eyes. "I, erm, still don't think I'm ready to tell you everything, not yet. But in time, Ash, I hope my love for you will shine as bright as the Kalosian sun, because I'm going to hold onto your advice for as long as I live – I'm never going to give up."
Predictably, there was not a dry eye in the house after the exasperated girl had said her piece – save for Misty's. She'd be lying to herself, however, if it hadn't hit a certain poignant note deep within even her.
"That was truly beautiful, Serena," Nurse Joy sighed sleepily. "I do hope you get that chance sometime very soon."
Serena? Misty repeated to herself. Delia had mentioned her before; she must have been Ash's new travelling companion. What she'd spoken of clearly wasn't a stupid little crush like with May or Iris, though – for Misty had heard those words from her own heart so many times over the last seven years. And contrary to the overwhelming jealousy she'd normally feel in these situations, the young girl strangely found herself feeling rather sad for her.
"Are you ready, Misty?" Joy asked. "It's your turn now."
"Hey, Nurse Joy," Melody piped up, "shouldn't she take the Initiation instead?"
Amongst the oohing and ahhing of the girls in the circle, Joy eventually nodded her head. "That's a great idea!" Standing up, she placed her hands on Misty's shoulders. "Okay, Misty, if you'll just gently turn around…"
When she did just that, the young girl was stunned to see that the back corner of the room was now mysteriously adjoined to a scene that made her knees liquefy underneath her. It was that sun-kissed crossroads, those same twilight forks imprinted on her heart ever since that fateful day – the day she had to leave Ash.
"What…" She could barely even breathe at the sight. "What is this?"
"Your memories," Joy answered behind her. "The moment that your love reached its all-time peak. You couldn't say all you wanted to at the time, but now…" – she lightly guided the girl over to the impossible portal – "now is your chance to fix that."
Even a few paces away, Misty could feel the cool evening breeze from the memory tickle her skin. So this was the 'Initiation'…this support group was starting to seem more like a cult by the minute. Despite this, she felt drawn in to this image like no force she'd ever felt before. Was this the group's doing, or her own?
"Guess I'll be going this way," she mouthed to herself by rote as soon as she entered. That was exactly what she'd said in this spot four years ago; she had to dig her feet hard into her trainers to halt the tears. "Take care, Ash."
Right on cue, Ash then appeared before her, though not as a wide-eyed boy on the cusp of thirteen, but a toned and lightly stubbled seventeen-year-old. It was the only part of this scenario that didn't match the original to a T.
"You too, Misty," his deeper-than-expected voice replied. Misty knew this wasn't real, but couldn't stop herself melting into those deep brown eyes she'd gone so long without seeing.
"Will I…see you again?" She was completely on autopilot at this point.
"You will. I swear."
She braced herself for Brock's ear-shattering interruption, ready for it to pulverise their precious last moment just as she remembered. But it never came. Looking back into the support group room, she saw Nurse Joy nodding as if to tell her to carry on, as well as Brock looking fairly ashamed in the background. Heeding both, she turned back around and took a deep breath.
"Ash, there's something I have to tell you," she firmly stated. Ash's wry little smile disappeared. "I…I never followed you at the start because you broke my bike. I guess I just, well, wanted a friend."
"BOOOOOO!" a screechy voice jeered from outside. "Turn up the heat, already!"
Another girl jabbed her in the arm. "Quiet, you! She's getting to it!"
Misty had barely taken notice, however. "But you've…you've always been more to me than that, Ash. Way more. Even though you never stopped pissing me off. Or, hehe, maybe…because of that?"
She shyly edged closer until her forehead touched the peak of his hat. "I know you're not good with matters of the heart, Ash Ketchum, but, um, if this is my last chance, then—"
…
Wait a minute.
"Huh?" said one of the girls. "C'mon, just kiss him already!"
…
Her own words had stopped Misty right in her tracks. Girly fantasies aside, this was NEVER how things would have gone down. Ash was famously oblivious to love; illusory or otherwise, he wouldn't absorb a soupy monologue like this in a million years – least not from her of all people! Backing away by a step, she smirked a little for ever thinking loving Ash Ketchum would be so simple.
"Ah, to hell with it."
"OOOOHHHFFF…!" wheezed Ash as he fell to the ground clutching his family jewels. A second later, he had disappeared in a poof of smoke, and Misty leapt back into the main room before her treasured memory could do the same.
"Waaaah!" went the several overlapping shrieks she was greeted with on her return. Some girls were even holding each other in tears.
"Come on, Psyduck, we're getting out of this Twilight Zone," she ordered, which the morose pokémon acknowledged by plodding lazily over to her.
"I knew you couldn't go through with it," a sobbing younger girl hissed over Misty's shoulder. "You're not a true Ashaholic; you're a fake! My Ash would never hang around with a witch like you!"
"You don't deserve him!" spat another. "If I was his travelling companion, I'd make sure to make him mine forever and ever, and never be mean to him even once!"
"PLEASE!"
Misty abandoned the door and jumped onto the nearest chair. "You really think you're in love, talking like that? Any of you? This isn't love, it's obsession! The only person I've heard talking sense this whole time is sitting right there!"
Serena flinched a little as the redhead's pointing finger landed abruptly on her. "Th-thanks," she smiled, blushing.
"Look at you all, worshipping Ash like some kind of god. Well I've known him longer than all but one of you here, and I've got news for you; he's not a god, he's a goddamn imbecile!"
The gasps of horror that followed only supercharged her resolve. "Sure, he has his nice qualities…kindness, loyalty, that damn crooked smile of his…" – she grunted at the involuntary pinkness that appeared on her face – "but he's also brainless, stubborn, has NO sense of direction, and wouldn't know romance if it Hyper Beamed him in the ass! He's just a normal person like the rest of us – and if you can't accept the bad along with the good, then you'll never understand love at all, much less for a moron like Ash freaking Ketchum!"
Silence throbbed unignorably around the tiny room. For a little while, anyway.
"GET HER!"
It was then that several of the unnamed girls in the group began to change shape, and when the horrifying sight was over, Misty counted at least ten exact likenesses of Ash Ketchum, all closing in on her slowly.
"Come on, Mist, don't leave me hanging like this," they all said in unison. As she backed away, the door behind her instantly melted to nothing, sending her thudding down onto her back. Thinking little of it at this point, she snatched Psyduck up by the waist and began to pelt frantically down the labyrinthian corridors that had appeared before her.
"Hey, you've got your hair down," an 'Ash' blocking her path smoothly said. "You know, I've always kinda liked it like that."
She blushed fervently. "You…you have?" But her common sense didn't leave her for long. "Argh, no, no, this isn't real!"
Taking another few sharp bends, Misty with quickly met with another – this time, suspended from the ceiling in a flimsy yet strangely nostalgic net trap.
"Come on in, Misty," sounded his uncharacteristically sugary voice. "I'll show you what really happened after the storm…"
"Whaaa…?! G-Get away from me, you gross freak!" she yelped, her blush only intensifying.
"Psy-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y!" wailed Psyduck more with each slaloming route they took. Misty knew they weren't out of the woods yet, but surely this was as weird as things could get. Until…
"P-Please, Miss, can you help me? I'm l-lonely, and I'd do aaaanything to get into the Celadon gym…"
She froze in place. Colour drained from her face faster than grimer from a sewage pipe. That blonde wig, that orange dress, that stupid high-pitched voice…
"NOT ASHLEY TOO?!"
The Ash-in-drag twirled a finger around in his golden curls. "Don't pretend you've never thought about this before, you naughty girl."
"Eww, eww, eww, ewwwww!" Her eyes were now watering from embarrassment. "Get me out of this place right NOOOOW!"
A flash of yellow then zipped past her line of sight. "Pikachu?" she cried. "Is that you?"
Ignoring 'Ashley', she whooshed around the corner, where, sure enough, Ash's signature ball of fur was crouching peculiarly against a dead-end wall.
"Oh, thank god for you, Pikachu," Misty almost wept. "I don't know how or why you're here, but—"
"Whoa, what's all the fuss, Mist?" she heard Ash's voice say from…somewhere. "I know you secretly always wanted this spell to last longer, but gimme room to breathe, will ya?"
Pikachu then turned around, and from the sight of the wide eyes, cheeky smile, and miniaturised cap between the ears, well…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The Ashes were now crowding around, still toying with her like a pack of growlithe sizing up their prey. Occasionally, their eyes glowed a strange blue colour, and despite her mind having just been buffeted from all sides, this gave her an idea.
"Sorry about this, Psyduck," she sighed, "but it's worth a shot."
The dozy duck barely even noticed as his trainer whipped out her oft-neglected mallet and delivered a swift knockout blow to his head. As Misty predicted, Psyduck's eyes soon shone that telltale hue, and his newly unleashed psychic power had already begun to work its magic.
"Oh, this isn't good," the Ashes said as, one by one, they were swept away by a swelling orb of white light from the enigmatic pokémon.
"It's working!" Misty yelled, gripping Psyduck tightly. "So long, psychos!" Blinding white was soon all she could see, Psyduck's ominous drones all she could hear, and in her last conscious moment, it was as if a pair of wings were carrying her up to the surface…
…
…
"Mu-sharna?"
Her eyes snapped open only to be met with thin pink fumes all around her. They gently receded into the trunk of the peculiar pink and purple entity hovering at the foot of her bed.
"Shaaarna?" it queried with round and shiny eyes.
Perhaps the experience had left Misty a little too punch-drunk, as she didn't even think to question this stranger in her bedroom. She wasn't even bothered that Ashaholics Anonymous really had been just a dream, after all. For her mind was ablaze, her teeth were bared, her veins were throbbing…and it was all because of one person.
"I NEVER WANT TO HEAR THE NAME OF THAT DENSE, HAT-WEARING, CROSS-DRESSING JERK EVER AGAAAAAAAIN!"
In the lobby of the pokémon gym, a glamorous bespectacled woman flinched at a loud crash from the upstairs living quarters.
"Oh my," she stuttered, "this was definitely not part of the plan."
The three women next to her, however, were cheering and high-fiving with ecstasy.
"Hahahaha, it worked!" Violet guffawed. "I totally owe you that spa trip now, Daisy!"
"That'll shut her up for, like, the rest of the year at least!" Lily joined in. "Hooraaaaay!"
As the three cackling sisters linked arms, the trembling woman cleared her throat. "I don't understand," she said. "Why are you celebrating? My dream therapy was supposed to help Misty with her lovesickness, not send her into a rage over it!"
A rhapsody of chaos was now playing out above their heads. "You don't know our baby sis like we do, Doc, er…like, what was your name again?" Daisy grinned.
"Fennel," she anxiously answered.
"Misty's been head over heels for Ash ever since she was, like, ten. And the start of the training season is when she misses him the most. Really does a number on her."
"She stops, like, cleaning and everything!" Violet bawled. "Look at this dump; she's embarrassing us, man!"
Daisy flicked her ditsy sister on the nose. "It's happened four years in a row now, and we just, like, really wanted to help her."
Fennel was still confused – and slightly terrified. "But, um, the anger…?"
"Oh, that! Yeah, our sis is a reeeeeeal hothead. She'll never stop loving that guy, no matter what she says…"
"I'm gonna swim to Kalos and kick his ass myself!" came a well-timed scream from upstairs.
"…but trust me, once she gets this out of her system, she, like, won't think about him again for months. We know, we're professional Misty handlers!"
"But those images her subconscious was throwing at her…anyone else would be scarred for life!"
"Pffffft, I don't think so, Doc. Don't underestimate the famous Waterflower fighting spirit! Like, between you and me, I'll bet she secretly had the time of her life."
The noir-haired scientist pondered this as best she could amid the sounds of destruction. "Ohh…" she exhaled. "…Ohh! In that case, I'm very happy to have helped! I actually met Ash briefly in the Unova region; I can see how they'd make a cute couple!"
"Like, getting her to 'fess up is gonna be a whooole 'nother challenge," Lily chuckled evilly.
"Oh, that reminds me," Fennel said, "I'd better call back Musharna before things, well, escalate further up there."
Yet, as they all turned towards the staircase, the sight of one red-faced, feral-looking Misty at the top was not one they would forget anytime soon.
"YOU…" She leered at her older sisters, barely even able to speak. "IT WAS YOU!"
Fennel pressed her clipboard to her chest. "Well, I think my w-work here is done," she concluded on a hurried inhale. "Come on, Musharna, we'd b-best get going, quickly now!"
The front doors whirred open and shut, and Misty leapt to the floor, mallet in hand.
"Now, h-hold on a minute, sis," Daisy chuckled, her hands raised. "We swear this was, like, all for your own go— AAAAAAYYYYYEEEEE!"
Through the doors of the gym's battle arena, a lone figure watched the grand pummelling with great intrigue. Some would say this endeavour had only delayed the inevitable, that the real work was still yet to come. But a weight had been lifted for he and his master, that much he knew – and within the second, this triumph was showing brilliantly in the wide smile of his bill.
"Psyyyyyyy…!"