Pairing: None

Rating: K

Wait, How Did We Meet Again?

It was only natural that the Cerulean Gym became the hangout place for all the PokéGirls. First of all, Misty's sisters provided the house with everything one could possibly need for a girly sleepover. Nail polish, gorgeous clothes, lots of makeup, face masks, etc. Secondly, one could presume it was a large space. Certainly it looked that way from the outside, especially after the renovation it must have gotten before Sun and Moon. Similarly, one could only assume that Misty and her sisters lived there, since they're never shown to reside anywhere else. Then there was the central location. Of course, no one has a map of all the anime regions, but since Ash gets to all of them via Kanto—most on foot to boot—we can at least pretend that Kanto is in the middle of all the action.

And, thanks to Misty's dead, missing, or otherwise absent parents—and her aloof sisters—there was no supervision to concern themselves with!

For all of those arbitrary and possibly made up—not to mention rarely canonical—reasons, Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, Serena, Bonnie, Lillie, Lana, and Mallow found themselves sprawled all over Misty's room. Let's say it's a large room, since according to Showdown in Dark City owning Gyms is a good way to make money despite no evidence proving this.

Lana was eyeing all of the Water Pokémon paraphernalia Misty had while Lillie was perusing Misty's closet—Misty, after all, didn't have a mother to force her into clothing that makes her look like a non-Pokémon from another dimension. It was pretty exciting. Dawn and May were gossiping about coordinating while Mallow was trying—and failing—to explain bread baking to Misty. Serena, meanwhile, was dabbing a light amount of makeup on Bonnie's face. The girl was way too young for it, but it was all in good fun, so Serena couldn't see the problem with doing it in the context of a sleepover.

Only Iris was alone. Not only because she didn't have much of an interest in nail polish or makeup, but because…well, she was confused. She kept on glancing at Dawn—and everyone else—trying to gauge if she was the only one who felt out of place in the situation. But if anyone else felt the way she did, they weren't showing it. Finally, in the din of the room, she cleared her throat to speak up.

She said something, but it was lost in the noise of the girls' chattering. She tried again, a little louder, but again, it was swallowed up like a lone voice in a cafeteria. This time, however, Dawn looked over at her and asked, "Did you say something, Iris?"

She said it just loud enough for the room to quiet by half. Taking that as her cue, Iris said, for a third time, "I'm sorry, but just who are all of you?"

Dawn blinked, not sure what her friend was talking about. "Well, I'm Dawn. We met in Unova, remember?"

"No, I know you!" Iris said sharply, not able to hide her frustration any longer. "But who are the rest of you? Whose house is this?"

By then, everyone had hushed and was staring at Iris. They seemed alarmed by her questions and that caused Iris to recoil a bit.

"Well…this is my house," Misty said. "But I'm not sure about the other part. We're all best friends. We all met through Ash."

"Okay," Iris said, almost eagerly, having found something to cling onto. "But how did you guys meet?"

Misty, having accidentally become spokeswoman for the room, took it upon herself to continue. "Uh, well, I met Mallow, Lana, and Lillie in the airport when they came to visit Kanto. And May and I met in Hoenn for the Togepi Festival. And then…"

Misty looked between Dawn, then Iris, then Serena and Bonnie. Her brows furrowed as the words left her. She was left with nothing more to say than, "I…I don't remember."

"Did Ash introduce us?" Iris insisted.

Misty shook her head slowly. "I don't think so. He's not very good at that. I mean, Ash is only indirectly responsible for me meeting any of the rest of you."

"Do we have anything in common?" Iris asked, now on something of a roll.

"Of course we do!" Dawn answered. "We're all great friends with Ash. We all love Pokémon. We've all gone on journeys—"

"Technically we haven't," Lillie interjected in a meek voice. "We do travel occasionally, but I live in my mother's house."

"And she has a butler who drives her everywhere," Lana added.

Iris blinked. "Yeah, that's not so relatable to me."

"Well, we all have careers and aspirations in Pokémon, right?" May asked. "Misty's a Gym Leader and Dawn and I are coordinators…"

"I wanna be a Dragon Master," Iris agreed.

"I've been making a name for myself in Pokémon Showcases," Serena offered humbly. "And Bonnie—"

"I can speak for myself!" Bonnie said. "I wanna be a Pokémon Master, just like Ash!"

"I hope you mean what Ash wants and not what Ash is," Misty mumbled.

"I want to be a Water Type Trainer like Misty," Lana added.

"And I suppose I've been toying with the idea of being a Pokémon researcher," said Lillie.

Mallow was the holdout. She looked awkwardly at the other girls and said, "I think I just want to work at the restaurant with my dad. I mean, my Pokémon work there too and I want to serve to Pokémon customers but…it's just a restaurant."

Her comment was met with silence. Silence which Iris was quick to interrupt. "So. What I'm hearing is that we don't necessarily have a lot in common. I mean, I'm sorry…" she gestured towards Serena, whose eyes grew wide with having been singled out, "but I've never even heard of Pokémon Showcases. That, combined with the fact that I have no idea how I ended up in the same room as any of you, makes me a little hesitant to call you my best friends. My best friends are Ash and Cilan, and Dawn is an acquaintance. The rest of you are strangers."

Once again, the room was thick with silence. This one, profoundly awkward. Silence was not a thing meant to happen at slumber parties. If there was a lull in the conversation, put on a rom-com. If people started ignoring the rom-com, throw on some throwback music. If that failed, take it upon yourself to prank call any one of Misty's sisters. Apparently a lot of unknown numbers were in this room, ready to be utilized for prank calls. However, none of that happened.

"Well, that sure took the fun out of everything," Bonnie pouted.

"It's okay, Bonnie," Serena comforted. "She's probably right. Maybe we should both go home."

"To Kalos?"

Serena shrugged. Just as she was about to stand up to leave, Misty said, "No, that's ridiculous. The least we can do is stay here and get to know each other. We're all friends with Ash and that's enough in common for me. I trust his taste in friends."

"Me too," Dawn said decidedly.

"That's fine with me," Iris said, surprising everyone. "You're just not my best friends."

Moral: Um, sudden endings are off-putting? Sorry, it seemed as good a place to end it as any.

Real Moral: Most of these characters don't know each other. I've read a lot of stories where Misty, May, and Dawn are all best friends, but Misty and Dawn have never met in canon. And there's never any explanation for this. As Misty said in this story, I don't trust Ash to have done a thoughtful introduction between any of these characters. I would buy that May would introduce Dawn and Misty but when? Why? Where? These are good questions to consider when putting these characters in a story together.

Exception: Really, there are lots. I've certainly done this (the chapter "Effeminize" in my Alphabet Challenge comes to mind) and I'd say being a oneshot is the most common exception. The truth is that not every oneshot is going to have the space for this kind of exposition or back story. But, generally, if you can avoid being arbitrary with this kind of thing (or anything) the better your story will be. Specificity is almost always the way to go. But in a multi-chap there's really no excuse for not fleshing this out.

Secondary (Tertiary?) Moral: Yes! A second one! Apologies for this level of preachiness. The second moral is that even if these characters have been introduced, they are unlikely to be best friends. Take into account how much time they've spent together and what they have in common. There might be less there than you'd think. Example: Misty has a real friendship with Lana because they have so much in common, but they're still not best friends like her and Ash or Brock because they haven't spent much time together. She and Tracey spent a lot of time together, but they don't seem to have too much in common, so they're close, but probably not best friends.

Exception: A character who doesn't understand emotional boundaries? I don't know.