A/N: For the next three chapters, including this one, it's just going to be pure Pearlshipping. Enjoy.
December 24th. Christmas Eve was just around the corner by a single day. Ash was in Veilstone City shopping in the Department Store for the perfect gift, having told Dawn that he needed a day alone so that he could do some planning. Now that he was a small time millionaire, things came so much easier. Over the past month, they got better electronics for entertainment, Delia got a used car so that she could go to Jubilife City so that she could work in a restaurant, and hired both a therapist for both herself and Ash so that they could finally get over... him. Shaking that thought out of his head, Ash went into what was the city's only jewelry store. Admittedly, a store for sparkly stones weren't his first choice, but when the biggest, most diverse store in the entire region is 5/6ths filled with Pokémon trainer based items, you can't be picky. Besides, it was said the biggest store had the biggest jewelry store in the region as well, so he might as well go for the easiest option. Entering the store, the brown haired young woman instantly recognized him.
"Ash Ketchum! Welcome to our shop." Ash barely reacted to that. Cynthia told him to prepare for people to suddenly treat like a celebrity, if not a god like they treat her, and she was certainly right. The only good thing that comes from being a world's savior was the fact whatever he, his mother and his friends wanted, if was practically thrown into their hands unless they insisted on paying. Otherwise, all the attention was quite bothersome. No wonder she rarely makes public appearances and kept to her archeological work if possible. Putting up a fake smile, he asked the attendant,
"Excuse me, I'd like to buy a..." He looked around before motioning her to lean closer. She leaned over and he whispered into her ear. Her expression opened up in pleased surprise.
"I understand. How romantic."
"Can I have an engravement on it?"
"Sure. Free of charge."
"No, let me pay for this. Food and transportation is one thing but something like this needs to be paid for."
"You are most generous. Thank you so much." The woman praised and bowed.
December 25th. In just a few hours, the eve of Christmas would come. But right now, it was 8 AM when his alarm went off. Ash woke up and stretched his back, popping a few joints. Just as he was getting out of bed, Barry burst into his room again.
"THERE YOU ARE!" He shouted like that first day.
"Barry! That's the second time you barged in my room like that! Knock!" Ash complained.
"There's no time for politeness! We have only eight hours of daylight, and we need to capitalize on it! We need to go! If you take too long, I'm fining you $10 million dollars!" And as quickly as he came in, Barry left. Ash groaned before chuckling. Unlike he and Dawn, Barry treated the new fame like he was freaking Donny Sterk from Wonder Comics. He wasn't an arrogant jerk like the character, but he acted like he was on the same standing as Cynthia or any of the other champions around the world. Sure, he helped save the world and pray Barry never change, but the trainer did wish Barry didn't act so obnoxious with his new status. Well, if Ash couldn't help Barry reign in his regular eccentric personality, he had no ability to tone down the stardom personality either, so he'll just let this run its course. Putting on his winter clothes, he went downstairs and saw his mother making breakfast.
"Good morning mom."
"Morning dear." She replied as they smiled at each other. Before, Delia making breakfast was considered a blue moon. But now, she was making sure to be a proper mother now that she was getting the counseling she needed. She still had a lot of work to do, as she still often cried when alone or going to sleep, but the effort is in Ash's opinion a vast improvement regardless. "Dawn should be here any moment now." Speak of the devil, a knock alerted the two. Ash opened the door to see the love of his life; Dawn Berlitz. When it became December, she wore heavier clothing to keep herself warm, but basically wore the same clothing fit for the season. Ever since after that night on the roof, they visited each other everyday, alternating in between hanging out at Twinleaf or Sandgem town each week. Even though they admitted love for each other, they didn't exactly get into a relationship with each other. They just wanted to enjoy the feeling of loving each other without all the commitment required for a while.
"Morning Ash." The researcher greeted with a smile.
"Morning Dawn. Mom's making breakfast. Want some?" Ash asked as he allowed his best friend into the house before closing the door.
"Nah, I already made myself a big breakfast so that it'll be lunch when I need to eat."
"Alright. Hey Mom, what are you making?"
"Christmas themed pancakes. I'm almost done."
"It smells delicious, Delia."
"Thank you dear. Cooking sure has helped picked up my mood, but this breakfast, I made sure it was special."
"Every breakfast you make is special, Mom." Ash complimented her.
"Thank you so much, Sweetie." The woman smiled greatly from that. "Ah, and breakfast is ready." Quickly getting to the eating table, Ash was presented with a steaming stack of fluffy red and green dotted pancakes, which was tipped off with syrup, whipped cream and a cherry on top. "Enjoy, Dear."
"Thanks Mom." Grabbing two forks, he scarfed down the breakfast like it would save his life. The two females had gotten used to his recent inhale eating since Delia turned out to be a great cook despite over fifteen years of rust, like it was just an innate skill she had regardless of rust. Once there was only one bite left with just a little bit of whipped cream left, Ash stabbed it with his fork and offered it to Dawn. "You should at least have a bite. You know how good they are."
"Thank you." She said gratefully as she took the bite from the fork, humming in glee.
"So delicious."
"Thank you, Dawn. Now you two go have fun. I'll clean up here." Ash took that opportunity to put on his winter clothes and got to the front door where Dawn was.
"You ready?"
"Yeah, let's go!" Dawn proclaimed as they exited the house and ran to the lake. Thanks to the help of Gardenia and her fellow followers, they've been busy returning plant life to the craters where the lakes were, and following that, gym leaders Crasher Wake, Misty, Juan and even Kanto Elite Four member Lorelei and former Hoenn Pokémon Champion Wallace participated in restoring the lakes to as much glory as they had before being destroyed. Sure, the vegetation was still fresh, and actually, maybe a little ill timed since most of them were dying from the cold, the effort was still seen as beneficial in the long run and the lake was back to being filled with water, just a bit larger than it previously was. And once they got to the lake, they saw fun had already commenced. Infernape was having a snowball fight with Tails, Barry, and his newest addition, Muncher, his newest member of Munchlax. Even with three against one, Infernape was still able to dominate the field as he was barely covered in snow, using fancy maneuvers to dodge while the rest were sprinkled with white. Though if snow has landed against him and simply melted instantly, they'd have to ask.
"Guys, help me with Infernape! I'll lift the last fee I threatened!" Laughing from his antics, they helped out.
"Come on, let's help Barry!" Dawn laughed as she threw her Pokeballs into the air, letting out Lopunny, Gallade, Crystal and Cobalt. Ash as well let out his own Floatzel, Dusknoir and Mamoswine. The Flame Pokemon suddenly became intimidated from how the opposition exploded, but then turned to anger as it went on a tantrum about it being too unfair, stomping its feet and beating his chest.
"Maybe we have too big of an advantage. Dusknoir, go over to Infernape." Ash instructed.
"Good idea. Lopunny, help him out too." Nodding, the ghost and normal type Pokémon went over to the fire starter, and he grinned that such useful Pokémon were on his team.
"Alright, let's resume!" Barry yelled out as it became a snowball royal. Infernape was still having an easy time dodging snowballs lobbed his way, but thanks to the likes of Gallade, Crystal, Comablt and Mamoswine using a toned down, non-harmful Blizzard, he was now getting hit only just slightly less than everyone else. Lopunny was just as tricky because her jumping patterns were random, but if they knew where to aim, she would shield herself with her ears. It was only when a snowball landed on her body was it considered a score. Dusknoir though, he was getting hit way more than than he could hit something, so deviously, he used Trick Room to become the fastest and started a barrage of snowballs against any who faced it. However, this didn't help Infernape and Lopunny as their speed were swapped with the slower Crystal and Mamoswine, and once they were pelted by those two, it was all over as every Pokémon and the three humans essentially covered them in a mountain of thrown snow. The two buried Pokémon shook the snow off their heads, looked at each other, and laughed.
When everybody was getting tired, all the Pokémon except Infernape were returned, as Barry was taking a nap right next to his fire started under a tree, making sure his head didn't set it ablaze. Ash and Dawn were at the lakes' edge, preparing for this next bit.
"I didn't know you could skate." Dawn marveled when he took a pair of blue ice skates from his backpack.
"It's one of my favorite things to do during the winter. Barry was always too impatient to learn, but when you're a bored kid in a boring town, it's important to take the time to learn any sort of outdoor skill you can think of." He put on the right skate. "In fact, I'm even self taught, in a sense. I learned how to balance on the ice by myself, but all the tricks I know come from watching the Olympics and Pokelympics." He put on his left skate and started tying the laces.
"That's incredible! I wish I could skate with you." Dawn sighed, daydreaming of such a fantasy.
"I can teach you." Ash took out a pair of pink skates.
"Haha, what? No, I can't possibly skate, I'll fall on my face." The girl nervously laughed as she looked away, her red cheeks becoming redder from an intense blush.
"Nah, it's easy. The hard part is trying to stand on the ice without falling on your face. If you can manage that, it's easy from then on.
"Easy for you to say. Nobody's ever seen you fail."
"Mom has." Dawn turned her head to him, curious. "If she wasn't having an episode, she'd watch me ice skate and cheer me on whenever I got a trick right. It only happened like every other week, but she just loves it when I skate. Barry watches, on occasion, but he makes fun that I should wear one of those ballerina costumes, so I make sure he's unavailable since his playful heckling is a distraction. So, want to learn?" The trainer dangled the skates by the laces in front of her.
"Promise you won't let me fall?"
"If I can't save you, I'm falling with you." Too positively flustered, she nodded with a sheepish smile. Ash grinned as he helped her into the skates.
"Hey, they fit me perfectly. You don't know my foot size." Dawn gasped.
"Educated guess. Because you always wear boots, I just simply chose the shoe size that looked as close as your boots as possible. 7 1/2." Dawn was taken aback by how much attention he paid to her legs and feet if he guessed her foot size simply by looking at ice skates. That... was so sweet. Once they stood up, Dawn quite awkwardly, he aided her to the border of land and ice.
"Now, the first thing to learn is how to stand on ice." After assisting her onto the ice, he said, "Collapse your knees slightly inward, that helps, and keep them shoulder length apart for optimal balance." The nervous girl did as she was told as she positioned her legs in a somewhat awkward manner, but did find the stance to be more stable than before. "Put your knees over the edge of the skates and straighten your back." She complied. "Keep your back straight, or else you will be landing face or butt first on the ice, and I wouldn't want your pretty little face hurt." Dawn giggled from his compliment. "You're doing pretty good. Now we're going to try to move." Ash went behind her and placed a firm grip on both of her upper arms. "Now, to start moving, put your right foot to the side. Good, now get your foot into a pushing position. Oh, little fix here..." He helped adjust her leg to the right angle. "There, now give a slight push, make sure your foot leaves the ice from the toe point." As she did, they both went forward just slightly before she firmly planted her skate into the ice so that she didn't lose balance. "Good, but I think you can do better. Do the same with your left but let it hang for at least a second." Taking a deep breath, Dawn put her weight on her right leg, positioned her left foot, and pushed, letting them glide a foot before putting her foot down again. "That was great! One more time, and let yourself balance on your foot for a small bit. I know you can do it." Gaining confidence from both not falling and his encouraging words, she put her weight on her left leg and pushed with her right, wobblily yet steadily maintaining her balance for a few feet before putting both feet down. "Wow, you're a natural Dawn! No slips ups."
"Thanks. You're a good teacher." The female researcher replied as her smile only grew.
"Thank you as well. Now, we're go to take multiple steps. Do what you just did, but when taking a new step, sway your body onto your other foot, and swerve your leaving foot into the pushing position so that you can go further." Nodding, she did as she was told, carefully pushing a step, balancing, then leaning on the other foot and pushing with the opposite leg, and repeated the process up to six times before they stopped. "Wonderful. Just... wonderful." He further praised his student. "Now, I'm going to teach you how to stop as well because it'll take a while to just let smooth gliding slow you down. For this, I'm going to show you a demonstration and see if you can imprint it good enough." Letting go of her arms, letting her stand there for a few seconds before skating backwards to the point he had his own space, he went going, mad a wide circle, and suddenly shifted his feet to the right to make a sudden stop, shaving a bit of ice off the lake. "You catch that?"
"Maybe just a few more times so that I can practice it better?" Dawn requested.
"Sure." Doing it a few times, he showed his learning friend again and again from multiple angles so that she got the best idea on what to do. "Think you can do it now?"
"Yeah. I just need a support." She answered. Grinning, he went behind her again and placed his hands under her armpits.
"Get a good stride going, and when you feel comfortable, stop." Nodding, Dawn started skating forward again, and after a few pushes, she swerved her feet and tried to stop, but her body was a little too far back and she started to fall.
"Ash!" Ash tried helping her up, but never having trained with another person, his feet slipped out from under them and the two were sprawled on the ice in pain, Dawn on Ash's left leg.
"Well, there had to be a slip up eventually." The trainer groaned. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I think your leg might've hurt my ribs though."
"Let's go back. We don't have to learn every basic in one day."
"Wait Ash, I want to keep going." The female objected, her voice filled with both slight anger, and mostly determination.
"You sure?"
"We were doing so well. We can't stop just because of a hiccup. Show me what I can improve on." Dawn requested with a fire in her eyes. Ash smiled with a similar flame igniting in his soul as he helped them get up and tried again. It took a few tries but Dawn was eventually able to stop correctly.
"I did it! I did it!" The researcher cheered for herself.
"Way to go Dawn! That's the spirit! Last thing for today, we're going to go over how to turn. For wide turns you just keep your body leaned over to a side along with putting your weight one side on both your feet. But for sharp turns, it's like stopping, but the angle isn't so drastic that it completely robs you of your speed. To start, put the foot you want to turn out and bend your knees. For example." Picking up his own speed, Ash mad a sharp u-turn his legs bent and at an angle allowing him to turn in such a sharp half circle. " The more speed you have, the lower your butt should be to the ice for more balance. Let's see you try it." Uncertain, but unwilling to let something like a fall stop her, she gradually built up her speed until she reached practically skating sprinting speed before making a shar turn to the right. It wasn't perfect, with a slight slip with her outer leg and wobbling a bit to maintain balance, but was able to recover. After a few more test tries, she was able to get the hang of it. "Whoooo! You got it, Dawn!" Ash cheered for her, his face filled with excitement and proudness. To test herself, Dawn skated a full lap around the lake, going as fast as she could, making the occasional shar turn only to U-turn to the right direction, until she reached Ash while he was at the lake edge where they got on. The trainer clapped his hands. "Congratulations, Dawn. You are now an ice skater."
"That was so fun and thrilling! Thank you so much for teaching me!" Dawn expressed, extremely grateful for his lessons. They then exchanged a double high five.
"Wow Dawn! That was spectacular!" Barry complimented as he ran to the two skaters. "I woke up around the last third of all that, and you were great!"
"Aw shucks." The girl scratched her cheek, her face sporting the biggest smile it could.
"How about we head home? Mom will probably have hot chocolate ready for us." After putting the skates away and putting their shoes back on, the three went their merry way back to Ash's house.
Throughout the day, the teens and Delia watched a marathon of animated Christmas movies together on the new TV, such as The Articuno Express, Spinda's Christmas, Santa Claus is coming to town, Nightmare before Christmas, Frosty the Delibird, An Old Meowth's Christmas Carol, Rudolph the red nosed Stantler, A Charlotte Black Christmas, and The Weavile that stole Christmas for last. When that movie ended, they all got in the BalToyota car, picked up Barry's mom, and reached the Berlitz house in 10 minutes. Now there it was a party. Ash and Barry just loved playing with Lucy as she had a lot of toys and an active imagination, while the adults talked about how the past month seems to have zoomed by. Dawn helped Delia and Johanne create the biggest Christmas dinner that took a quite a long time since they were feeding a group 9. However, the dinner was a big success, and everybody watched live action movies after Lucy was put to sleep. Plus, with all the outdoor fun from earlier, Dawn, Ash and Barry got tired at the end of the first movie so they went to bed at 9:30 PM. When morning came around, Lucy's joyful screaming woke everyone up.
"It's Christmas morning! Wake up! Wake up! Time for presents!" Ash yawned as he woke up, having slept the night on the four person couch. It wasn't as good as his bed but at least he won the coin flip and Barry got the floor.
"Morning Barry." For once, he didn't respond and that meant something was up. He turned his head and saw the empty sleeping bag, confusing Ash. "Huh. What would he be gone fore?" But his curiosity was interrupted when Lucy ran down the stairs shortly before Dawn followed.
"Merry Christmas, Ash."
"Merry Christmas, Dawn. Barry disappeared for some reason."
"Maybe he's in the restroom? I don't know. But anyway, it's time to open presents!" Once the adults came down, this year's theme was youngest to oldest. Lucy got from everyone a pink Teddy-care, a plush kabuto and happiny, a Barbie doll, a Jumpy the Spoink Poke babies doll, a Game-Person Advance and a tricycle. Will gave Ash a game of Pokeopoly, Dawn a Rubik's cubes, a mug for John, and a store bought sweater for Johanna. However, despite there being a lot of presents, even one Ash put with in there, there were no more presents.
"Wait, where's the rest? I thought there was way more than that." Ash questioned, seriously perplexed by this when Barry burst through the door, wearing a Santa Claus outfit carrying a bag filled with presents.
"Hohoho, merry Christmas, everybody!"
"Santa!" Lucy cheered as she ran to Barry and hugged his leg.
"How are you, Lucy? I have a wonderful gift for you for being such a good girl this year." From his bag, Barry dug out a pink present. "For you, little Lucy." She grabbed it and tore the paper apart to see a toy microphone.
"Yay, now I'm going to be a singing super star!" She then got it out of the package. "I want to be, the cuuutist, like no girl ever was!" Everybody laughed in delight. As for the adults, Barry gave Delia a "How to cook everything." book, Johanna a make up kit, John an advanced calculator, and Will a chess set. But when it was Dawn and Ash's turn, Barry had a particular grin as he handed Ash a sphere. "From Dawn, with love." Wondering what it was, Ash greedily tore away the paper to see a Pokeball with a dark purple seal on it. Fascinated, Ash pressed the button and unlike a simple white flash of energy, it sparkled with rainbow colored electricity until the energy formed into the occupant. With a flash, a shiny pichu came out, sparkles surrounding it for half a second before disappearing.
"Pichu!" He yelled adorably.
"Whoa, a shiny pichu!" Ash gasped in joy as he picked it up. "Where did you find it? Shinnies are exceedingly rare and the line is already somewhat rare.
"I talked to the owner of the Trophy Garden on Route 212. It wasn't easy though. I had to beat all of his maids and they all used clefables so I could gain access. But I was able to win and while I was just going for a regular pichu, I found a shiny variant. Talk about luck."
"No kidding! Hey Pichu, what do you think?" He asked his new Pokémon.
"Pichu Pi!" He replied. Ash wasn't sure if that was an agreement but the positive response helped.
"Yeah. I think I'll call you... Zappy. Maybe Zap for short." Pichu puffed his cheeks, trying to make himself as tough as the name, but accidently let loose a Thundershock, zapping himself and Ash by accident for half a second. Everyone laughed from that little accident. "We're going to have to work on that."
"What an adorable little Pokémon." Delia commented with a smile.
"As for you Dawn, from Ash with love." Barry passed a smaller gift to the girl, a small box. She tore open the paper and opened the box only to gasp as she pulled out a floral themed silver locket with a silver chain. Popping it open, it held two photos. The left was the selfie they took in front of the Pokémon Center in Oreburgh City awhile back, and the other was when she and Ash took a selfie together in front of a sunset in Canalave City. Dawn began to tear up as she closed it and found an engravement that said, 'To the Dawn that illuminates my life.'. Unable to hold back her joyful cheers, she hugged Ash as tight as she could, crying happily as she said,
"I love it so much. It's so beautiful."
"Yeah, and there was something I wanted to say as well." Pulling a note from his pocket, he coughed before reading.
"Dawn, you are my best friend. I grew up with Barry, but you just manage to make my day shine a million times brighter with your brilliant smile and sparkling grey eyes. I wasn't sure how we would work together at the beginning of our adventure together, but it was better than anything I could've ever imagined otherwise. But it's not just that. In a way, you've helped me even when you weren't actively doing so. You helped me not only become a better Pokémon trainer, but become a better person, in the sense that I've come to appreciate life so much more, it's almost unbelievable. I don't know how I could ever repay such a thing, but I promise to be the bestest friend of yours I will ever be through the remainder of our lives. I'm running out of things to say so here's the cap off; you're beautiful, your personality is awesome, and I love your ambition of achieving your goal, and I'll help every step of the way.
Love, Ash." Practically every person in the room was on the verge of tears, although Barry was bawling from listening to such a well drawn letter.
"That was the most lovingly heart pulling thing I've ever heard!" Putting his bag down he ran upstairs to cry out the rest of his happiness. If Dawn wasn't impressed before, though she already was, the way she put her hands over her heart and her lips quivering, she was on the verge of breaking down from just the sheer amount of love that was crafted into the note.
"Ash, thank you so, so much for those words. Barry was right to say those were lovely."
"Yeah, took me practically all month to write it down, went through multiple textbooks and stuff, but there's one more thing I want to say."
"M-more?" The female asked, the emotions already threatening to tear any sense of restraint down.
"Yes." Giving Zappy to his mom, Ash looked into her watery eyes and asked,
"Dawn, will you be my girlfriend?" Like a dam, her emotions burst and she lunged at him, sobbing with every positive feeling you can imagine.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" She cried over and over as she snuggled into her best friend's arms and body.
"Yay, they're together!" Lucy cheered as she hugged her mom's leg.
"Yes, they're just perfect for each other." Johanna sighed, tears trailing down her face.
"My baby boy, in love." Delia whimpered, nearly on the verge of breaking herself. His father always treated her romantically during their short stint, but never to this extent. He never wrote her letters or gave her any accessories. Which she didn't mind, but even just a teddy bear or shoes would've been nice. Shaking her head of those memories, there was now just one good thing from those times, and that was her wonderful son. Once Dawn was able to be coherent again, she said,
"I-I love you s-so much, A-Ash."
"I love you too, Dawn."
A/N: Wow, it's good to hear from you again, fellow Pearlshipper. Those are all some interesting ideas, which can be read in the reviews if any of you are interested. However, I might be unable to create your ideas, at least to the extent like this story. I plan on re-watching key moments in the Pokémon anime for Kalos and Alola, but most of what you suggested feels a little out of my skill pool. I can handle rivalries and perhaps love triangles, but not when there's too many. I can't imagine what I would be able to do if there was a rival and/or love dodecahedron or something like that. I do believe I can make them, but likely more as straightforward romance stories where Ash is guiding Dawn through them after winning the respective region's league, and maybe have just one or two rivals in each chapter to make things more manageable. I hope you and everybody who likes these ideas understand where I'm going with this and I apologize if I seem too hesitant. Also, there's something I'd like to ask you guys. Negaishipping, I can understand why most people hate or at least dislike Iris. I wanted to ask you how I could... make her more likable. I already know one thing; make her less condescending and no kid remarks. I find her wild child personality really interesting as a character dynamic. Let me know down in the reviews below on what to improve with Iris please.