A/N: Hey y'all, I think I'm gonna go on hiatus for a few weeks. I'm trying to juggle consistent, weekly updates to two fics, online school at a new school, my extracurriculars, and my private lessons, and being an older sister, and some toxic friends and my mental health has suffered. I also try to give you guys high-quality chapters and I don't think I've been doing that the past few weeks. I want to get back into writing as a stress reliever and not something that causes my stress, so I want it to go back to being more of a hobby than a commitment. I'm not sure how long this hiatus will be, I'll shoot for being back by AmourShipping Day, and I'll probably come back with well-written chapters and a lot of them, so I don't have to stress about when my prewritten chapters will run out. Thank you for sticking with this story for three months, you guys are awesome, and I hope you'll still be here when I come back.
Go had woken up that morning early, and to his surprise, Ash was up and training.
"Electro Ball, Pikachu! Noivern, use Dragon Claw."
One of Noivern's claws started glowing green and extended as he destroyed Pikachu's Electro Ball.
"Morning Ash," Go called from near the building.
Ash turned around and waved to his friend.
"So when is that Contest thing today?"
"In a few hours, but we'll meet with them at ten."
Go smirked, "You excited to see your girlfriend again?"
"Can you stop?" Ash said, Go's teasing was starting to get old and on his nerves.
"Fine, sorry, you wanna come in for breakfast?"
Ash nodded.
Ash returned Noivern to his Pokeball and walked back to the building. He and Go were greeted by Chloe.
"Morning you two," Chloe said, she was wearing a pink dress over a white shirt, Yamper was right at her heels.
"What are you doing," Go asked.
Chloe had her hands on her hips, "I'm going to the Wallace Cup, I'm like the biggest Contest fan in Vermilion City so of course, I'm going to one of the biggest contests in the world while it's here," She said and then she turned to Ash, "Why didn't you tell me that you knew some of the most famous coordinators in the world personally?"
Ash held his hands up in surrender while Go turned to his friend.
"How did you know he knew coordinators?"
Chloe rolled his eyes and unnoticed by the pair Ash slid away to grab breakfast, "I have eyes, I saw you two yesterday," she glanced around, "Ok, what is Serena's relationship with Ash?"
"Ohohoho, they are definitely a couple, but if you ask either of them they'll deny it," Go said.
"Who'll deny what," Ash said through a mouthful of toast.
Go and Chloe looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
Serena was stressed and the only reason she wasn't screaming was because she was working on a few alterations to her outfit for the contest and she didn't want to screw up the stitching.
"You're still working on that?" May asked.
Serena nodded, "Yeah, just hemming."
"You look stressed."
Serena finished her last few stitches and packed up her sewing kit that was laying next to her, "Well, I just finished the one thing keeping me from screaming so it's gonna be a struggle to not lose it."
"Well, we gotta go, I bet your boyfriend is waiting on us," May said with a teasing tone.
"May for the love of Arceus," Serena sighed.
May grabbed her friend's arm and dragged her along.
"Hey guys," Ash said, catching the attention of the group, except for Serena and May.
"Hey Ash," Brock said, and then Chloe caught his eye, "Who's that?"
Chloe bowed a little, "My name is Chloe Cerise, these two work for my dad, and Go is my friend, and I'm one of the biggest Contest fans in Vermillion City," Chloe said, looking embarrassed.
"Nice to meet you, Chloe, I'm Dawn, but I'm sure you knew that," Chloe nodded and Dawn continued, "That's Brock, this is Max, May's little brother, I'm sure you know Drew."
"And I'm May," May said as she ran to the group with Serena.
Ash and Serena locked eyes for a split second before looking away and blushing.
"Told ya," Go whispered to Chloe.
"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it first," she whispered back.
Drew checked his watch, "We gotta go, the competition starts an hour, and the girls normally take that much time to get ready for a normal contest, much less a special one," He said, before looking at May and Dawn who seemed ready to kill him and make it look like an accident.
The group walked towards the venue, Chloe walked with May and Dawn and talked about Contests, Go and Max were talking about Pokémon, but what no one noticed was that Ash and Serena's fingers were intertwined, not even they noticed they were holding hands.
"Alright, we'll see you guys during the intermission," May said.
May dragged Serena into the waiting area and the two split up to get dressed.
"Alright, Riolu and Fletchinder, come on out," Serena said.
Fletchinder started preening her feathers and Riolu jumped into Serena's lap to be groomed.
Once her Pokémon were taken care of, Serena focused on herself. She didn't normally wear makeup but for contests, she used a bit of mascara and lip gloss. Her hair was also simple, a low ponytail that her ribbon adorned, hiding the black hair tie. She grabbed a small box that held the crown and gently placed it on her head. Her dress was similar to what she wore in Kalos but completely different at the same time. The top looked the same, except for the white, off-shoulder, sleeves which rested more on her upper arm than just below her shoulders. The skirt, however, was where the larger changes were, there was a light pink skirt and layered over it was a red skirt that had a black trimming, the outer skirt had a split down the middle in the front, and she was wearing plain black leggings. She kept her bracelet on and gently removed her keystone from her necklace and secured it to a black choker. She had done her nails last night and they were pale pink. And finally, she was wearing red flats.
Fletchinder perched on her shoulder and Riolu kept his hand on her leg.
"Ah, so you're using Fletchinder and Riolu, you couldn't have told us that a week ago," Drew said.
"Nope, I didn't want you guys having any special advantages because you knew me," Serena said, resting her hands on her hips.
"Wow, your dress is beautiful, Serena," May said.
"Did you lose Dawn?"
"Nah, she's talking to Kenny," May said.
"Those two are so perfect for each other," Serena said.
"Kinda like you and Ash."
"Are you going to keep doing that?" Drew asked.
"Uh, yeah. I'm not giving up until those two are an official couple."
"Dawn, you're up first," a stage manager said when she popped her head in.
"Got it, thank you," the bluenette said.
"Good luck, Dawn."
"You're gonna do great."
"Break a leg."
Dawn walked to the stage entrance with Pachirisu and Piplup in her arms.
The Sinnoh Sensation was about to steal the show.
A/N: Okay, so, not that much of a cliffhanger so I think I'm good.
ryanrice56-Thank you so much.
Amourshipper35-She will, don't worry.
UnKnownGuy2006-Thank you, and no, Serena's Froakie is not related to Ash-Greninja(though that would be cool) thanks for the review.
Reader-No, it was not, May won't let Max compete.
Ashpool-Thank you, and no, I feel like any love rivals for Serena would feel shoehorned in and distract from the actual plot, and uh, I don't know who Macey is, I've only watched the first half of Indigo League, XY, SM, and the dubs of Journeys, so I don't think it's wise to introduce a character I don't know (even though I did that with like half the characters).
AJ-Lysander has a more sadistic plan.
