Earlier that day...
"There has been a gate change for Star Tours flight 1-14, StarSpeeder service to Endor. Flight 1-14 will now be departing from gate number 2. This is a gate change only. Thank you."
"Well, that's one flight I have no intention of getting on board," said C-3PO, glancing towards R2-D2, moments before returning his attention to the control console on the wall beside him. "If I get any more dirt in my servos I won't have a single working part in my whole body—and that'll mean a short trip to the scrap heap for the both of us, I can assure you of that."
C-3PO's arms wandered over several of the flashing lights on the board in front of him, searching them and looking between it and the displays just in front of him. Before he could go to adjust anything, a shrill series of squeals and beeps came from R2-D2 in protest, getting his attention. C-3PO leaned back, his head tilting indignantly.
"What do you mean, 'that's where we're going'? Does the captain have any idea what they are getting into with that planet? Didn't you tell him about our little misadventures there on that planet?"
R2-D2 squawked, turning his head and whistling sharply.
"What do you mean 'it slipped your mind'? We are not going anywhere near that planet—or at least I'm not, but you on the other hand are certainly welcome to try. You can't get me into one of those ships, you know how much I hate space travel. You may have a fine trip, R2-D2, but don't come crawling back to me if there's any trouble—if you even come back at all."
The large, open hall of the ride queue for Star Tours boomed with sound, with the low hum of the Starspeeder 3000 as it sat in the repair bay playing loudly only rivaling the lull of conversation coming from all of the ride-goers. Announcements for the various 'flights' played from the front of the queue, where a large digital screen was hung on the wall showing 'flight times' and 'gate changes'. Though the lights were dim inside, outside were the bright daylight that cast in from the outside world as hundreds of people crossed down the main path into Tomororwland.
A large white facade of a Starspeeder 3000 stood in a 'bay' in front of the wall that divided the front half of the queue from the rest of it, black charred marks of battle blasted across its side and various panels removed for repair. A dozen hoses traveled up to the front and all around it, providing fuel and other resources to it. In the top of the Starspeeder, R2-D2 was sitting in his co-pilot slot, his head turning as smoothly as it did in the movies, lights blinking beneath the many interfaces on his dome. Just across from him, standing beside where R2-D2 was in the Starspeeder, C-3PO stood on a raised platform against a column in the wall, standing at his post beside an array of blinking buttons and moving readouts on the Starspeeder. He gleamed in all his beaten, brass-colored glory, his stiff movements as authentic as ever.
'Snap!'
A bright light flashed from the front of Serena's camera, her eyes squinting as she looked through the tiny viewfinder on it. As she lowered it and looked to the small LCD display, a brief instance of the scene she had seen in real life only moments earlier came to her, C-3PO's darkened posture appearing as he stood on the platform.
"Serena, aren't you not allowed to take flash pictures or something?" asked Ash, looking over. When Serena turned he saw that she was visibly annoyed from a moment, only to see her expression falter and disappear just as soon as it had appeared.
"I—Sorry, Ash, I guess I just thought this was the sort of thing Clemont would love to see..." said Serena. "I guess… I guess I'm just—"
"Worried?"
Serena had been staring off into space, looking down past the guardrails of the walkway path and down at the ground—despite all the flash, exciting imagery around her. The sound of Ash's voice interrupting her thought made her snap out of it, her eyes darting up to meet his in the darkened queue. She searched his face, unfazed by the flashing lights of the attraction facade as it cast blue and red lights over Ash's expression.
"Yeah… Is it… Is it obvious?" asked Serena.
"Not really, just a lucky guess," Ash grinned, chuckling lightly.
Serena's brow furrowed even more than it had, her own sense of worry growing. As she had been for the last several moments, she replayed in her mind the morning that had led up to that very point...
"Please stand clear of the doors," announced a large intercom. "Por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas."
A large steel, leaf-shaped awning shielded the bright morning sun from the cool, open-air inside of the terminal. Wild Pidgey chirped in the eaves of the curved beams that supported the awning, their perched places, their shrill cries casting over the shaded space. Down below, Monorail Orange was laid out on its singular track in the center of the concrete terminal platform, with bright, glossy steel cars and dark blue windows. The sliding doors on the sides of the car had opened wide for the interior, seats already largely filled up.
"Serena, come on already!" Ash said, hands cupping his mouth to project, his voice traveling across the wide pavilion. He waved, standing at the edge of one of the doors—Pikachu had already hopped onto one of the gray benches inside of the Monorail car—looking on and waiting for Serena.
At the end of the queue, standing between two sets of steel posts, a ride operator in uniform holding the end of the steel chain was waiting, with one last passenger standing at the entrance of the terminal—Serena. She was waiting for someone, leaning against one of the posts with a hand and keeping the other behind her back, looking down the length of the the queue line to see if anyone was coming. More and more families were coming up to the elevated, standing queue to get to the Monorail, but none of them were who she was looking for.
"But Bonnie and Clemont aren't here yet—and mom! Where are they?" Serena said, her gaze still locked on the far end of the queue, waiting to see if their heads would pop up above the escalator.
Before she could hear an answer from Ash, she felt someone coming up close behind her. Her head turned just enough to see that it was Ash, and before she could say anything she felt him taking her by the arm and pulling her away. Her awkward legs stumbled beneath her as she caught up, watching as Ash pulled the her at full speed to the open door of the Monorail car—her eyes going wide as she watched the hydraulic doors slowly closing.
"They're going to catch up with us later, don't worry. C'mon!"
A low-bodied droid with a long, craning neck looked down at his work, the name 'G2-9T' painted on the side of his binocular-shaped eyes. As one of his extended arms wielded a small, pistol-shaped welding tool, ready to weld the front panel on a powered-off R4 unit in front of him, his head craned up, looking at the audience of guests that stood on a balcony path over the maintenance platform he stood on. Two points of dim light—presumably his 'eyes'—focused and narrowed as they looked out at the crowd.
"Hey, what are you looking at?" G2-9T protested. "Yeah, you—lady! Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer!" he said, waving his welding tool, moments before shaking his head out of annoyance and returning back to the dead R4.
Serena hadn't been paying attention, even if G2-9T's protests were aimed at her. She was, however on G2-9T's unusual, rusted iron plates that made up his feet—they were shaped like webbed, cartoonish geese feet. As they took another few steps up the ramp towards the corner of the back area of the ride queue where the first switchback lay, Serena was still distracted by the sights and sounds of the Star Wars world that had been made. Her finger rested uncomfortably on the capture button of her camera, thinking about all the things that she needed to take pictures of in that moment.
So distracted, Serena had totally missed Ash's question.
"Why are you so worried, Serena?"
Several long blinks, a worried stare and a slightly hanging mouth later, Serena was reengaged in what Ash was saying and the moment between them. So focused, in fact, that when Ash nudged Serena forward she had no idea why—until she looked behind her and saw that the line had moved several steps up the ramp, closer to the opposite ramp at the end of the switchback.
"I'm… I'm not sure!" Serena stammered, exclaiming to Ash as she looked down in front of herself, watching her footsteps on the dimly lit metal plates, passing beneath the unusual red lights that were cast on the walls.
"...the main entrance to Disneyland—The Happiest Place on Earth! Since its opening in 1955, Disneyland has hosted hundreds of millions of guests from around the world, including presidents, kings and celebrities, as well as Walt Disney himself. We will soon be taking a scenic tour of the land of tomorrow, Tomorrowland! A place of wonder and imagination, capturing what many and Walt Disney himself envision for our world in the distant future. Please stay seated until..."
The Monorail car took a sharp, barreling roll to the side, tipping half of the passenger side down as the top of the car dodged beneath large and perfectly manicured tree branches—the last show buildings and open passages of back-lot disappearing from sight in the greenery of the trees and bringing into view something new. A large rock formation rose above a cool, rippling lagoon, spotted with moss and wild grasses shooting up all around it. The deep blue waters rippled and alluded to their bright, pastel coral reefs beneath, water foaming up at key passages between rocks just as the bright yellow top of a Finding Nemo submarine gently glided up towards it and bathed itself in the foaming waters. Ahead of it, another submarine drifted towards the dark entrance of a cavern, turning itself to fit perfectly into the dark passage.
As the Monorail banked again and went up a steep curve, it crossed the Submarine lagoon and moved towards the tall tracks of Autopia, crossing the large and line-ridden queue of the ride that stood on a platform to look like a raceway stadium. Parents and children—some holding Pokemon in their laps, sped down the concrete paths and followed the metal rails in the roadways in bright, colorful cars. All of the Monorail cars were given a glimpse of the tracks that weaved through the jungled areas and the various faux roadway signs, as well as the several figures of Asimo robots that stood on the sides of the roads like they had wandered out of some other attraction.
Serena felt herself sliding off the smooth bench, her boot pressing to the sloped lower walls of the Monorail to keep herself from falling off. Her sudden, jolting movement caught Ash's attention by her side, and he grabbed her arm. When she looked up, somewhat flustered, Ash only smiled earnestly in response, and Serena relaxed—if only for a moment.
"When did you know that my mom wasn't coming? Did you plan it?" asked Serena. "And what about Clemont and Bonnie?"
"I planned it," Ash grinned, his smile usually the thing to defuse any of Serena's worries being the very thing that intensified it—even if he hadn't noticed the worry and confusion Serena held in her eyes.
"Why?" Serena asked, the worry erupting in her tone, coming out much louder than she had expected. "Do you know how easy it is to get lost in a park like this? Don't you think she would worry?"
"Well, I figured we could just go the two of us, right? At least just for the morning?"
This made Serena tense up when she heard it, nearly forgetting her worries for a second. She stared blankly for several long moments, thinking to herself and listening to the gentle, futuristic hum of the Monorail as it made another turn down its tracks and flew over another area of the park.
"While we're en-route to our final destination, take a look over on your left and you'll see the Matterhorn—Disneyland's first mountain! Inside is a riveting steel bobsled rollercoaster that travels through its own caverns at high speeds, taking you on a hair-raising trip that may even take you past one of the mountain's terrifying residents!"
"I guess it's not that much of a surprise," thought Ash. "Your mom did want to sleep in."
They stood beneath a tall, vertical portrait of what was supposed to be a window into another room, only giving away dark silhouettes of what was happening on the other side. A bright light flashed and flickered, steadily giving away the details of the image on the other side—another G2 droid, low in posture and with a tall, craning goose neck that looked down over its handiwork as it stood on a stool, placed beside another droid. This one, with it's half-dome head and its bottle-shaped body with many arms sticking out in an array, remained static as the G2 droid welded something unseen to its body. To Serena, it looked like the droid on the poster in the entrance to the ride.
"Ever since I mentioned that Clemont and Bonnie weren't going to be with us for this portion of the day, you seem to be really… agitated," said Ash. "I honestly didn't think it would be that big of a deal. In fact, I kinda sort thought you might… like it?"
As they took another few steps up the ramp, they stood outside a caged area. Another goose-shaped G2 robot stood in the center, surrounded by dimly lit control panels—'G2-4T' was painted on the side of his binocular eyes. A large glass panel with an array of circuits on an orange screen flashed brightly and cast lights over him as he worked, seemingly more annoyed than his counterpart down in the droid area at the bottom of the room. A monitor in the corner showed the circuit schematics of an R2 unit (named 'Droidnostics'), as well as a readout of several different stats on the droid in various charts and maps. As he egged on guests who walked up the ramp and got closer to the brightly lit loading area of the ride, his short claw hand interfaced with different switches on the hidden panel.
Serena had become less distracted by the loud sounds and the music inside the ride. She was instead listening intently to Ash—more for what he was saying than the loudness of the queue.
"I mean… You keep mentioning it a lot around me. Sometimes when we talk about going places you ask if maybe you could go with me, like it would just be the two of us. And… well… you seem disappointed whenever we can't just go do something together. And, well, I though it meant something awfully important to you, so I saved this part of the day—I planned the whole thing out and everything, too—but it sounds like it was the wrong time…? I guess I just can't seem to figure it out sometimes."
When Serena looked over at Ash, looking back down the line where Ash was standing just behind her, Ash looked somewhat sad. Even if he was trying to still stay optimistic about everything, Serena could tell that his energy was visibly sapped from him, his eyes looking tired the more he thought about it. Serena kept her thoughts to herself as she stared out into space, trying to focus her thoughts to think of the right thing to say. Instinctively, her hands wandered towards the thin blue ribbon that had looped through and tied the collar of her blouse, resting in a neat bow, her fingertips lightly playing with the loose ends that hung down from the knot.
"I guess the best you can do sometimes is just enjoy the moments you have in the now, right?" asked Ash, smiling.
When he smiled, Serena knew it was genuine. It made her smile too, softly, despite her conflicted inner state.
"Excuse me, hey lady!" G2-4T said, waving a claw at Serena, pointing it at her. "You're gonna have to check that excess baggage, alright?"
Serena lost her train of thought at the sound of the droid's booming voice. As she looked up, seeing the warbling blue lights that stared back at her from the end of G2-4T's binocular eyes, she looked confused for a moment, looking to Ash for a moment before.
"Oh jeez, I'm sorry!" G2-4T continued. He then gestured to Ash. "I didn't realize he was with you! Eheh, heh heh!"
The lights were on inside the Starspeeder 3000 as it prepared for another flight, the steel blast shield at the front of the vehicle closed and showing the Star Tours emblem on the front of it. The doors on either side of the vehicle were open, guests who had just finished the ride walking out over the steel catwalks that crossed the launch bay happily chatting about the experience as they entered the exit paths, and guests on the opposite end were being led in for their first ride and finding their places in the rows of orange seats. A cast member stood at the very front, watching and making sure everyone was finding their seatbelts as she stood beside a large open panel that had green lights to correspond with every seat in the vehicle.
Ash had found his seat in the middle of the fourth row, sitting himself down promptly and grabbing for his seatbelt. As he did, he gave a passing glance to the cast member at the front of the vehicle as he chatted with a guest who had got on the ride and was being asked to put away his Drowzee—the cast member citing that Pokemon were not allowed to ride Star Tours. Ash, who had set his bag down to slide into the cloth storage bin beneath his seat, looked down at where his hand was in the bag. Peeking out of the bag, Pikachu's beady black eyes gleamed out at him, cheeks crackling with excitement. As soon as the cast member stepped out, Ash set the bag on his lap and pointed Pikachu's face out at the blast door of the vehicle.
"Ash..."
Ash, somewhat jumpy already, whipped his head around to look up—but Serena was already sitting down beside him, placed in close proximity with the crammed-together seats. She had reached up and removed the pink fedora from her head and set it under her seat, in the small cloth compartment.
"What is it Serena—?" asked Ash, but he was then almost immediately cut off.
Leaning in, Serena planted a small kiss on Ash's cheek, narrowly missing the tufts of black hair that stuck out beneath his hat. It stunned him, surprised at the feeling of her soft lips on his cheek and the strange sensation that filled his chest in the immediate moment after. It made him short of breath, if only for a moment, and not just from surprise.
"Serena… What was that for?"
"It was an apology," Serena smiled gently, "and a thank you, because you were right."
"I was right…?"
"Yes, of course you were! It just took me a little longer—as usual—to see it..." Serena chuckled, somewhat to her own embarrassment. She brushed her hair, somewhat nervously, inadvertently revealing her ears as they reddened with embarrassment. "I… I think you're right," said Serena. "I need to get past what I thought today would be like and just, well, enjoy things for as great as they are, right now…"
Ash smiled, his familiar look of determination returning to him. "We'll see them today, I guarantee you that."
Serena smiled back at him. As she did, the lights dimmed all around them in the cabin of the Starspeeder. The doors shut with a gentle, muffled thud. Near the front of the ride, in the top right corner, a small display turned on and a small droid appeared—much like the one Serena had seen on the poster and in the vertical window in the queue—speaking to the guests inside the ride vehicle. Serena couldn't hear what he was saying, and neither could Ash—in the darkness of the ride, with only the glow of the small screen and the faux seatbelt/smoking sign above them, they continued to look at each other, seemingly unable to look away.
"Pii-ka!"
Pikachu, who had sensed that the cast member was gone, suddenly emerged from the backpack and sat himself up in Ash's lap. His tail sprung out, eyes bright at the sight of the ride beginning as the blast shield lowered and revealed the outside of the vehicle, unable to resist making little cries of excitement—like many of the Pokemon who had been stored away when the cast member was in the room and had just now reappaered.
A reinforced steel door in the hangar faced the vehicle, and as the door finished lowering it unveiled the pilot of the ship—RX-24, or 'Captain Rex', the half-dome headed and bottle-bodied droid from the poster and the window, the spider-like array of arms interfacing with a small control panel in front of him.
'Star Tours Forty-Five, elevator platform has been activated. Commence final pre-launch sequence.'
"Roger control, all status go," said Rex, a few of his arms toggling switches on the controls in the wall beside him.
Serena felt the whole vehicle lurch as it lifted up from the ground, her attention turned to the screen in front of her as a series of running lights on the wall passed down front of them as they were raised to the main departure track. Another Starspeeder 3000 crossed a mere thirty feet down the track, turning to head down another tunnel marked 'Launch'. Instinctively, she reached over and found Ash's hand, resting on the arm-rest between their chairs. She then felt Ash's hand turn, reaching to grip her own hand and hold it tightly—just as, on-screen, the vehicle turned and moved away from the tunnel marked 'Launch', now heading down a tunnel marked 'Maintenance Bay – No Admittance'.
"Let's go on an adventure, together," said Serena, quickly, under her breath. "No expectation of where it takes us, together."
'ST-45, you are going the wrong way. Stop immediately. ST-45, please—"
The sound of the maintenance doors being smashed open made Rex's head whirl around to the screen and then back to his controls, hearing the alarms outside the vehicle and coming from controls right by his side. "Uh oh, wrong way!" he said, his many arms wrestling with the controls in front of him. "Brakes, brakes!" he shouted as an emergency sign flashed above the screen. "Where are the brakes? Aaaahhh!"
The whole vehicle tipped over the edge and dropped into the vast hangar bay below. Serena gripped Ash's hand tighter, and Ash gripped back.