Ah! I'm late!

Happy Holidays! I'm sorry for not being on time, I was just busy with Christmas stuff. It feels wrong to put the Sun vs Nate fight here, so instead, I'm going to do a "flashback" chapter like the Halloween one.

Enjoy!

Chapter 48: House of Jolly Legends

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Nate's screams woke us up at 6 am. This wouldn't be too bad, but we went to sleep at midnight yesterday because we were celebrating. Leaf, Ruby and Rosa joined forces to make a gigantic celebratory dinner with all the kinds of delicacies we could imagine. Slowpoke tails, Lumiose Galettes, Old (and new) Gateaux, Sweet Hearts, Lava Cookies, we even had Shalour Sable and Casteliacones. I can't imagine the shopping troubles they had to go through to put it all on one table. We spent the night talking and playing party games while the adult Legends drank and stayed in the kitchen. Because nobody wanted to work on the holiday, Leaf's Mr. Mime stayed behind the counter and served all the food and drinks. Like during Halloween, May's (now) Pop Star Pikachu held a Light Ball in the middle of the living room, but the other lights were on as well.

"If we don't get up now we'll be the last ones up."

I mutter against my warm pillow.

"Hmm."

Is Serena's response.

I smile and shake her shoulder, making her turn around. Her eyes are still closed but she places a palm over my lips to shut me up.

Still, my muffled words are heard.

"You don't wanna see what we got as presents? I have a strange feeling Nate is gonna open every present regardless of the labels."

She smiles, nods and finally opens her eyes. She stares at me with her pretty blue eyes and moves her hand from my mouth to my arm. Before I can move, she leans forward and lays a soft kiss that I accept and return, running my hands through her golden hair.

"Merry Christmas."

She smiles and gets up. I'm guessing we're not changing because everyone else is going to be in pyjamas as well. I do the same and follow her through the door of our bedroom.

"IT'S A SHINY GENESECT!"

Nate had been going crazy for the crimson version of the Paleozoic Pokémon, which came from an equally red cherish ball. He just wears a pair of blue and white pyjamas.

"Lower your freakin' volume."

Gold groggily walks over to Nate, scratching the back of his head and adjusting his hat backwards. His sleeping attire is just some comfy yellow shorts with a gray tank top. He's using some sandals that hit his feet every time he takes a step.

"BUT IT'S-"

Gold covers his mouth to shut him up.

"We get it. Congrats. People are sleeping."

I'm pretty sure the Founders are the ones that choose and give the presents, but it may just be Red and Leaf. They go to sleep at the same time as everyone else but secretly release a couple of Delibird that get the presents from wherever they're hiding them in the middle of the night and place them under the huge adorned tree. I've seen them at work.

"What did you get, goldilocks?"

Gold rolls his eyes and looks under the branches to find a yellow box with his name on it. He opens it without hesitation and reveals a pair of sleek black sunglasses, which have two small golden pokéballs at the sides.

"Fuck yeah."

He grins and puts them on, doing his best to pose cooly while wearing his comfy pyjama. It's a well known fact that Gold loves sunglasses because he gives them to all his Pokémon, regardless of if the Pokémon is Dark-type or not. He thinks it makes his team look really cool. Johto has a couple of Dark-types, so it's not that bad.

Serena moves to the tree first. Under it, she finds a red-laced present that she opens calmly.

"Oh, it's a lens case from Alola! I've always wanted one of these!"

She smiles and shows it to me. It's a small blue box with a couple of translucent circles in it. They all hold different colors in the middle. They give you tons of style points in Kalos, but that's because they're only found in Alola.

I guess it's my turn.

I scavenge the tree with my eyes until I find a small blue bag with the outline of a pokéball pressing at the sides. I open it to find a luxury ball. What Pokémon could they possibly give me?

The pokéball opens to release a cool Greninja that stands on its two feet and faces me.

"Unlike your Greninja, this one has Battle Bond."

Red appeared from the hall. His pyjama is just some black sweatpants with a dark red tank top. Unlike Gold, he wears shiny Snorlax-themed slippers.

"What does it do?" I ask.

He gives a small corner-of-the-mouth smile but says nothing. Great.

"Open your gift, Red."

Leaf showed up behind him, wearing an aqua-colored robe.

In response, he sighs and heads to the tree. I'm pretty sure that the Founders give the presents to each other so they're still surprised when the presents are opened.

Perched on one of the branches is his gift, a small, thin and red rectangular box. As soon as he opens it, he widens his eyes.

"Oh my-wow. How did you-holy shit how did you find this?"

He raises a purple rectangular piece of paper and points it at Leaf, who smiles but says nothing.

"What is it?" Nate frowns.

Red seems hesitant to answer.

"It's the ticket we used to board the S.S Anne. We had a wonderful time on that ship. Thanks, honey."

He hugs his wife with the ticket in his hand.

"You can go check yours."

She nods and goes to the tree, where she finds a green oval-shaped box.

When she opens it, a pink gleam can be seen coming from inside.

"Is this..."

"Mewnium Z. You're the only one that caught a Mew without using other Legendaries and their powers, so I thought it should go to you."

Leaf smiles and holds up the rosy gemstone, which has the emblem of Mew's tail on it.

"Thanks! Mew will love it."

She hugs her husband like he did earlier, with the Z-Crystal in her palm.

"Did I miss something?" Diamond walks in with Dawn at his side. Dawn's also next to May, who came in with Ruby. Diamond has a fluffy blue pyjama set and Dawn wears a Prinplup onesie. Instead, May has a silky blue robe and Ruby uses a Groudon-themed pair of shorts and tank top.

"Nothing." Red shakes his head. I guess he would have wanted the Z-Crystal as well.

"PRESENT TIME!" Dawn dives into the pile and takes out a pretty big circular pink box. When she opens it, she sees a blue pleated skirt and holds it up with a smile.

"Oh, it's the pleated skirt I wanted! Remember when you first showed up wearing it and I asked you where you got it?"

She asks Serena, who nods and keeps eyeing her onesie.

"My turn." Diamond, in contrast, calmly walks next to Dawn and picks up a light blue rhombus-shaped box. He opens it to find a clean, glistening Master Ball.

Diamond frowns.

"What would I do with a Master Ball? I already caught everyone I wanted to ca-"

He's swiftly interrupted by Dawn, who slaps him in the back of the head.

"Don't be rude!" She mutters.

Red shakes his head and explains:

"I spoke with Arceus. You have the right to encounter one shiny Pokémon of your choosing. That includes Legendaries."

Diamond's eyes turn from pain to shining gratitude, his jaw slowly opening with the realization that he could have a shiny Arceus, or a shiny Dialga, or a shiny Darkrai, etc.

"Alright, alright, calm your poofy pants down." Ruby gestures his hand down with a chuckle when he stands next to Diamond.

"What did I get?"

He easily finds his present because it has the symbol of Groudon's Red Orb and it's a large red rectangle laying against the wall next to the tree. There, he rips apart the wrapping to reveal a shiny fancy-looking red bike, with several gadgets around its wheels and its handles.

"It's a new Acro model." Gold pats Ruby's back with a smile and his cool sunglasses.

Ruby wastes no time in probing the bicycle, feeling the handlebars and making it bounce to test the wheels.

"Wow! Thanks, man!" He puts a hand on Gold's shoulder and shakes him.

Instead of an equally large box, May comes across a much smaller circular blue container. With a curious frown, she opens it and sees a yellow crystal with a curly design on it.

"Oh, I read about this!" She picks it up to see it shimmer in the light's rays.

"Pikanium Z, for my little rock star!"

Leaf nods and adds:

"I wonder what it does in contests."

May's eyes light up like the Z-Crystal she holds.

Diamond's still freaking out about his options when Kris and the first Unovan Legends show up, still half-asleep. Kris has a shiny Ditto pyjama set with happy-looking Gligar slippers. Then there's the Unovans, who seemingly have no shame at all. Black shows up with no shirt, bare feet, his hat at the side and unbuttoned jeans, which let everyone see his black underwear. Is that the same jean he uses regularly? I'm assuming it's because he sleeps with only underwear. Next to him is Hilda, who wears a weird combination of black sweatpants and a white bra. Like Black, she's also barefoot.

"'About time." Gold says with a smile as he puts an arm around the other Johto Legend, who wakes up by laughing at his Gold's sunglasses.

"Do you still give your team sunglasses?" She asks, rubbing her eyes.

He nods and readjusts them to show off the golden emblems at the sides.

"Put that thing away or use it outside, it's annoying." Black mutters at Nate, who had been using his shiny Genesect as a hoverboard.

"Nu-uh," He answers with a grin, pulling off gravity-defying tricks under the roof of the House and speeding by Black's head so closely his hat almost falls off.

"You're just jealous 'cause you don't have a shiny Legendary that you can also use to fly in style."

"No seriously, Nate, bring it down at least until everyone has opened their gifts." Rosa appears to calm her partner down. Like Nate, she's just wearing a simple set of pink and white pyjamas.

With a roll of the eyes, and a hefty sigh, he puts back the Pokémon in its pokéball.

Once it had gone, Kris started to unwrap her present: a pretty large box with the color of the sea.

"An egg?" She looks up confusedly at the rest of the Founders.

"I know you can't go out of the House a lot anymore, so I got you something from back home. You'll just have to wait and see what it is." Gold answers with his sunglasses off.

Kris smiles back at him with the egg at her side.

"You know I'm just gonna ride my bike around the House to hatch it, right?"

On the other side, Rosa opens her rosy-colored rectangle box. It's a DVD case with a cover featuring two silhouettes holding hands under a blue sky filled with white clouds. The title reads: Love and Battles: Amor a Primera Vista.

"Oh my god! Remember this!" Rosa shows it off to Nate with a wide smile.

"Oh, yeah...the movie we made in PokéStar Studios..."

You can see his cheeks get lighter as he sees the cover and then looks off to the side, scratching the back of his head.

"Alright, let's get this over with..." Black walks over to the rest of the Legends with Hilda and mutters under his breath.

Unlike the other Legends, Black and Hilda share their gifts, as both of their monochrome presents have the labels "For Black and Hilda" on them. One is small and squarely shaped, while the other is a thin rectangle around the size of Ruby's bike.

They open the smaller present and get out a golden cube with a hole in the middle of each of its faces and a ton of squares on its surface and a chain on one of its corners. The sight of it finally wakes the Unovan Legends up.

"This is-" Black gasps.

"N's void cube." Hilda finishes, picking up a tiny letter from the box the cube came from. They read it silently and away from us, so I can't hear or see what it says. Still, I can guess it comes from the fabled N himself. I don't know him, but if he's anything like my friends from Kalos, he probably just wants to wish them happy holidays.

The wrapping around the larger box is torn to reveal a something I've seen before, actually. A painting of Black and Hilda duking it out in the Battle Subway against a Gigalith with an Axew and a Darmanitan. Last time I saw it was in the Lumiose Museum. If I remember correctly, it was on the west side of the third floor. How did they get it here?

"Awesome." Black picks it up and puts it aside to avoid any careless damage by Nate or any of the other over-excited Legends.

"Let's frame it on the wall of the bedroom." Hilda suggests. Black nods and takes it there instead, with his girlfriend following closely behind.

I guess that was everyone. They're all satisfied with their gifts and excited to try them out. Well, for the most part. Kris has her egg and I have this Greninja with an ability I've never even heard of. I guess I'll have to try it out on someone else.

Ah...finally...

Come to think of it, I've never stopped updating because of writer's block before. I always thought it was just a lame excuse for laziness. Now, having my update schedule coincide with the Christmas weekend was shitty enough to begin with. I didn't even realize Christmas was so close until the day before it happened, so I had no time to preemptively write a chapter before the holidays. Afterwards, I really didn't want to write. It was like going back to school after the months of vacation. Still, I tried to do what I could for you guys. The problem with that is I had no energy in what I wanted to do. I just wanted to get it over with so I could get back to laying on the couch with my 3DS and my warm blanket or go out with my family and snowboard with my dad. I just haven't been feeling like I want to write HOPL. I'm getting the constant urge to write for my own original work, but I know I can't do that unless I've already finished the chapter that was due a long time ago.

Here's the announcement: I'm going to go on vacation online, too. I'm going to stop writing for HOPL until the vacations are over. The most I might do here is write for TLF, but don't count on it. Instead, whenever I feel like writing, I'll write for stuff I actually want to write for, like my original stuff. If you're ever interested in reading that, you can use the link in my profile page or just type in the same name on fictionpress, because it's the same account. I recommend The World of Me first because it's super short (only around 300 words) but comes from the heart.

If not, you can just wait until the first weeks of January and get the next chapter then!

Thank you so much for understanding and goodbye!