Author's Note: Screw the new motto.

Cheerleader

"Ready? Okay!" came not one, but two voices at approximately seven o' clock in the morning. This was when Ash began debating whether or not suicide was the answer, because both a spunky redhead and a vivacious blue haired girl were chanting and bouncing and downright shrieking in his room while wearing skimpy cheerleader uniforms. "Good morning Ash! It's time to wake and eat breakfast your mother makes!"

"Go," Ash snarled slowly as the blankets crawled up to cover his face, "away."

"One! Two! Three! Four! Get those feet down on the floor! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! C'mon, Ashy, don't be late!"

He fell asleep to this sound, and slept through it for about three hours. Ash was quite the incredible little boy when it came to sleep, in fact, once he was assured that whatever was going on was nothing he needed to be concerned about he could sleep through three billion decibels, if it was possible to even make a noise that loud. He could do the same thing with eating. What was really impressive about the feat was the two girls managing to cheer for those hours on end without losing spirit or volume.

But, when he finally did wake up (and was cheered for waking up), he shuffled past them without a word or a glance their way. He didn't want to talk to this Misty, or the Dawn that was just a bit more cheerful than normal. Pikachu was sweet to him, knowing he was depressed about it all, and jumped up to his shoulder as he continued his shuffling, giving his cheek a little encouraging lick.

"I can't put up with twenty four hours of her, Pikachu," Ash groaned. "Out of all the ones I could have chose…"

(Yes. You're a dumbass. But at least it's only a day and not a week of each one. Legendaries do weird stuff to loads of Chosen Ones. Like there was this one story about a Chosen One from ages ago and he ended up with the power to turn things into cheese because he cared about cheese more than his family. He turned all his family into cheese, and then he ate them, so the plan kind of backfired. The problem with Legendaries is that they're not all knowing. Maybe Arceus. Not so sure about that.)

"I know I didn't hear the word for cheese when we're in this serious of a situation."

(I'm starting to worry here. I mean, I don't think you're as bad as the Cheese Chosen One, but you're pretty bad. What if you don't solve this one and Misty turns into your freaky personality slave? Having a girl under your complete and total control is probably a lot of fun, especially if you consider what you could do if you weren't so…innocent, I guess? Sure. That's the word. That or stupid. Now I'm leaning towards stupid.)

Ash scowled, because all he had really made out was "cheese", "Misty" and "stupid". Misty and stupid were clear enough, but Pikachu had definitely thrown cheese in there again. Giving up on her as she had given up on him (after all, it wasn't a critical life or death situation and wasn't really worth all that much effort), he let his mind wander and focus of all the different sorts of cheese he would like to try, and wondered if he could go to a wine tasting just because of the delicious cheeses he was sure would be there.

Though, he was attacked rather suddenly with Misty wrapping her arms around his waist and cuddling into his shoulder with some strange, happy squeak. "It took you forever to wake up this morning, Ash! I cheered all the way, because you know I couldn't just leave the boy I loved asleep for the whole day! I would want you to waste it! There's some much training and playing to be done. Besides, as much as I love to watch you sleep, it much more fun when you're awake."

"What?" Ash yelped, wiggling out of her arms and scrambling away. "You love to watch me sleep?"

"Sure I do. I've told you that before. It's why you kicked me out of your room and started locking the doors to your room and the bathroom and any room that you're in and I'm not, because you're afraid that you'll wake up with my face right above yours again, but that only happened once and I promise it won't ever happen again." She beamed, putting a finger up in the air. "But you forgot to lock it today! Or did you do it on purpose? So I-"

"No. I forgot. I don't want you staring at me while I sleep or while I'm awake or when I'm in the bathroom! I mean, those are private times so…so stop being so creepy and peppy about everything." Ash crossed his arms over his chest. "Listen, I don't like you and I don't want to be around you, so why don't you leave me alone so I can live out the rest of my life in peace."

An ordinary person would have snapped or screamed or even burst out crying, but not Peppy Misty. Peppy Misty smiled wider and giggled, hugging him again. "I love it when you be all silly! You know I can't leave you alone. Who would cheer you on if I wasn't there? Who would care for you when you were sick or healthy and just love you forever and ever. C'mon, let's go look at the wedding planner I've drawn up!"

"Wedding planner? You can't be planning a wedding at our age! We won't be married for years!" His face turned a dark shade of red and he began waving his arms when her smile grew bigger. "I mean, we'll never be married. But you won't be married for years! You know it won't be me so you have no idea who it is! You can't plan a wedding if you don't have a husband! I mean, don't you need one of those to have a wedding?"

"Depends on the region. In some places I just need a wife. I've planned for that to, in case I'm gay. I have loads of wedding depending on my future husband's or wife's hair color and eye color. I put the most dedication into the one with black hair and brown eyes. Are you sure you don't want to see it? It really is a beautiful wedding."

"No!"

"Well, why not?"

"Because that's so creepy! You're not supposed to plan your wedding when you're-"

It was then that an extremely audible crash occurred. The teens all rushed outside, towards the danger as years of traveling and battling had taught them to do, and Mrs. Ketchum carefully licked her finger and turned the page, musing on what she needed to get from the store. Eggs, she thought, and probably some bacon. Brock had been carrying on for the past couple days about chili, so she supposed that would be nice to get too. She didn't think about her son, however, because Delia knew without a doubt that her son faced this quite a lot, he had quite a few friends, and he would be terribly embarrassed to have her interfere anyway.

But the teens were outside, the light breeze blowing Dawn's and Misty's miniskirts up and down, making James glare (almost enviously) at them. He didn't really notice Jessie was attempting to start the motto, and he tugged and yanked at her, pointing to the twerps and begging and pleading, until the redhead sighed and they vanished behind the trees. The group blinked, knowing the danger couldn't possibly be over, when the duo suddenly sprang back out once again, Meowth mysteriously missing.

"Prepare for trouble," said Jessie, striking a Sailor Moon-like pose in her tiny, cheerleader uniform.

"And make it double," James insisted, striking a Sailor Moon-like pose in his tiny, cheerleader uniform.

And on went the motto, the old motto, thank you very much. Artistic liberties were also being taken by Jessie and James, who, although doing their original motto, had rephrased it so it was all about Meowth and how he had vanished. Ash muttered a smart remark about how he would reappear in a cheerleader uniform any moment now and Brock didn't even bother to try and hide his laughter, doubling over at the thought.

"What are you two laughing at?" Jessie shrieked. "We've been searching high and low for that no-good pokémon pilfering pokémon and he's nowhere to be found! We don't know what could have happened to him, and he's got all the food we had anyway! So you twerps better cough up Meowth or cough up some food or you'll be sorry!"

James, smoothing his miniskirt as carefully as he could, agreed, "If you could give us both, we promise not to try and take Pikachu this time! Preferably the food first, though, otherwise Meowth will probably eat everything and pretend like he deserves it all."

"We don't have Meowth and we don't have enough food to feed all of you." Both of which were true, as they had no idea where the cat was and Delia was only musing about shopping, and hadn't actually done so yet, though the reason he listed weren't the primary reasons. On the off chance he had had Meowth or the food necessary to feed them, he wouldn't have done it. Bonding with the enemy was for emergencies only, and unless those cheerleading outfits would show bone (instead of James's surprisingly feminine hips) he wouldn't have given them a crumb from his kitchen.

Jessie paused, just for a second, glaring into Ash's eyes with a kind of worry. "You don't…you don't actually have him, do you? We're only asking you because we didn't see him go, there wasn't a fight or anything. He's just…he's vanished, twerp. We thought that maybe you had taken him or…has anything weird been going on here? Other organizations, creepy pokémon, you know, the kind of stuff you usually get into."

"Not really," Ash said, though he seemed to get a rather large crick in his neck and began jerking his head at Misty in between every few words. "It's all…been pretty bor…ing if you ask…me. Nothing special at…all has been ha…ppening."

"What's wrong with your neck?" Misty asked, putting a slender finger to her pursed, confused lips.

With another jerk of his head, he said, "Just stre…teching."

"That reminds me!" James squealed, rushing over to the girls and taking up their hands. "Blue-haired twerpette, I've been waiting for ages to be able to compliment you on your style. All your outfits and everything, I know them all because, you know, we follow you everywhere, are so fantastic. If I had the money I swear I'd be buying the same designer labels as you. It's such a perfect style for someone so young! It never looks forced or like you're trying to be in fashion, but like the fashion follows you.

"And, Misty, I'm so glad you're finally getting a sense of style. Staying at the gym with your sisters has done you good. Look at you! A little makeup and the right clothes and, well, now that you're filling out and actually looking like a girl you could definitely pass for one of them! You even grew out your hair! Mew, it looks so much better that way! I just have to say that I'm now much, much prouder to be your arch nemesis!"

"James."

He laughed nervously at Jessie's snarl and raced back to her side, both of them tossing out pokeballs even though their probably wasn't any real reason to have a pokémon battle. It was Ash's hometown, and if one could say that he never had an advantage before, he certainly had one now. If nothing else, he could steer his friends far away from the wicked team, knowing the trees as well as Pikachu, and the mouse had grown up with this grass under her feet.

She was all too eager to have it under her feet again, as she leapt from Ash's shoulder and landed gracefully onto the soil. She was facing a carnivine (which she knew she had a slight weakness against, and her electric attacks wouldn't work nearly so well) and a seviper, but all in all felt nicely confident. She knew these pokémon well. She was faster than them, stronger than them, and probably smarter than them too, definitely smarter than their owners.

After all the years, Ash's commands had slid nicely into her mind, practically melding with her thoughts as their battle styles began to match. His words echoed in the back of her mind, and she easily jumped over Seviper's head, who now had its fangs dug into the ground. She landed, then turned to the next, only to find she had to crawl under the vine it was flinging at her. Another twist, another spin, all the while charging up for a Thunderbolt. Her favorite part, being an electric type, was always the charging up, and she loved the looks on Team Rocket's faces as her cheeks began to spark.

A few puns and a blast off later, Pikachu happily trotted back to her friend and leapt onto his shoulder, giving him an affectionate nuzzle as a thanks for the great battle.

But Ash wasn't paying attention. No, Ash was being quite hot tempered. He had woken up early (to peppy people no less), lost a very interesting version of Misty, and had no clue about what was going on. He had every right to be hot tempered, at least, to anyone who was informed to the every changing situations. However, to the rest of the world, it seemed like the boy was having a freak out for a very minor reason.

"You cheered for them?" Ash shouted, pointing at the little spot of light in the distance, which pinged rather brightly at him considering the misfortune it held.

Misty, her eyes bigger, bluer, and much more innocent than usual, cocked her head to the side and put a finger to her lips. She murmured thoughtfully, "I cheered for both of you. It wouldn't be fair if I only cheered for one side, and we're on the good side. Until I'm getting paid by someone, or unless I join a squad, I can't just cheer for one side. That'd be biased! I have to cheer for everyone because that's what good people do. What kind of evil person would only cheer for their own side?"

"A normal person! A normal person only cheers for their own team and doesn't cheer for their enemies that are trying to steal Pikachu! They've been trying to steal Pikachu for years! How could you cheer for them when they've been doing that to us!"

"I've been cheering for both teams—" she paused to giggle at the innuendo "—ever since I can remember! You know that, Ash! I hate the sinner, not the sin. People make mistakes, lifelong mistakes, but I still have to cheer for that little part in them that I know is good, because that's what good people do. You have to look on the bright side, believe that all people are basically good. That's what I do, Ash. That's the cheerleader way!"

Ignoring the fact that this wasn't the stereotypical cheerleader way (unless you went back sometime near the twenties), it was still so simple and chick flick-ish and cheery that Ash wanted to vomit. He couldn't argue with it either. After all, how were you supposed to artfully put that you should screw your enemies because you really should hate the sinner and not the sin when the sin becomes so repetitive it practically becomes the sinner? No matter how he phrased it, he still sounded like a jerk and she sounded like a peppy angel sent from cheerleader heaven (probably after cheering an American football team to glory in the Superbowl).

"You're too creepy! You plan weddings for people you don't even know, when you're not even sure if you like guys or girls! You watch me constantly, like I'm some animal in a zoo exhibit, and you constantly are jumping up and down and cheering! You need to lose some pep. It's so…it's just plain weird and I can't put up with it! Why don't you go someplace where there's a bunch of girls just like you and you can all dream about marrying each other and finding the perfect guy but you never will because you're so creepy!"

She blinked. "Are you saying you don't like me?"

He whipped his hat to the ground with a vicious shout of: "No duh!"

"But you haven't even spent any time with me," she argued. "Don't you think you should at least go on a date with me before you find out?"

"Haven't spent…I haven't spent any time with you? I've spent years with you! From this day I can already tell that I wouldn't want to spend any more than five minutes in the same room with you. If we went on a date, we'd have to bring poison so I can poor it into my drink, because I don't think I could stand spending an entire night and a movie and a dinner with you without going completely insane."

She blinked again. "So are you saying-"

"Fine. We'll go on a date tonight. I'll bring the poison, and I'll prove to you I can't stand you. That simple." He turned and walked away, and about four minutes later slapped his forehead at his own stupidity, because he probably could have told her that they could go on a date tomorrow and then avoided her all day today, wished for Sarcastic Misty back and have everything back the way he wanted it.

(You know, even if you do things at a Cheese Chosen One level of stupid, at least you realize you're stupid and typically end up fixing it. That's what matters in the end, fixing it. I have faith that you'll fix this. I know that you won't damage things beyond repair and you won't eat your friends and family. You'll realize that family is better than cheese, and then you'll wish everything back to normal and the pokémon will sing songs of your intelligence instead of your stupidity.)

"All I heard was cheese again," Ash sighed. "I need to ask Professor Oak if we can get something to translate for you perfectly. A few words are great for dire situations, but for every day conversations it's pretty useless. You're probably explaining to me how using the right brand of cheese could end all this crazy stuff, but I don't get it."

(You probably wouldn't get it if I spoke English either.)

"Probably not," Ash agreed.

It was then that Brock followed him into the living room, putting a sturdy hand on his shoulder and starting, "Listen, man," before Ash calmly took that same hand and dragged him up the stairs. Though Brock asked a lot of questions, Ash didn't answer them, he figured it would be best just to bring him up and show him the normal spot where the stain should have been, then do the explaining.

Once Ash had brought Brock to the appropriate place, he explained, "You remember that there was a spot of grape juice there, right? It stained the carpet? It's not there anymore. This is because some weird thing has decided that it's gonna screw with my life. Misty is usually really angry and sarcastic and violent and she hardly ever cheers anyone on ever. Every day she gets a different personality because the thingy is screwing with me, and the day she got a nice personality she turned into a super housewife and scrubbed the carpet clean so the stain's all gone."

"Alright." Brock nodded, because there really isn't much else to do in a situation like this. "What are you going to do about it? You've been trying to fix this, right?"

"It's only been a couple of days and I have to start from scrap every morning I wake up. We've had this discussion before and you're probably not going to come up with anything new. Maybe if you had a day to think of it you could help some more but, well, you know. Go ahead and give me some ideas. I'll probably have heard them all though."

"How many times have we done this?"

"Only once."

"Have you tried just wishing that Misty was just plain Misty? You know, just wishing she was the way she originally was and wishing everything back to normal? That's usually how these fairy tales end." He started laughing. "But even you wouldn't be stupid enough to avoid that for more than a day. The second you figured out what was wrong, I'm sure you tried that, didn't you?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why?"

"It's complicated. Just assume it doesn't work."

After all, asking for the old Misty back would mean he liked her, and he didn't like her. He didn't like her romantically, and he hardly liked her as a friend. If anything, all this was annoying because he had finally gotten used to her. His goal was to find the perfect personality and then just stick it there, which would work as long as he just made sure to wish it every single night. His problem was he just wasn't sure what he wanted, and he didn't know how long this would last. He had to be quick about it.

"It's because you'd have to admit you like her, don't you?" Brock grinned and elbowed the younger boy in the ribs.

"How could anyone like her?" he snapped as red stained his cheeks. "You heard that there's no way I could put up with this version of her for more than a day."

Brock nodded slowly. "So, you like the original Misty and you're too embarrassed to admit it. Until you get over your pride and just admit it you're probably not going to get anywhere. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was just a plot to hook you two up. I'd like to give whoever's doing this my gratitude. I always thought it'd be impossible to ever get you out on a date."

"Hey! This is gonna be my third date! I'm good at them too! It's her that sucks at them. Every time I take her out, except for the sarcastic one. She was kinda fun."

"Isn't the normal Misty pretty sarcastic?"

Ash made a noise that didn't seem to mean much of anything and collapsed onto the bed. "Brock, what am I supposed to do? Nobody's going to let me out of this date and I really don't want to go. She's going to be terrible. She's going to be worse than Nice Misty! I could hardly stand her and…and I don't know what to do anymore. Ever since all this started I've been so angry and I don't even know why!"

"Maybe it's because the Misty you knew and loved is constantly being replaced with personalities that just can't match up?" Brock suggested wisely, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you're upset because you really miss her and you're afraid to admit it."

Ash scrunched his face up, thinking hard, then shook his head. "No…no that's not it. Come on, Brock, this is a serious situation. You have to help me think about what personality I should choose for her so she can be perfect and not annoying and I can have the perfect life! We already decided that that's what this is all for, not for some character building life experiencing feel good kind of moral of the story! It's about me getting what I want!"

"Are you sure that's not just what you decided?"

"I guess I wasn't really paying attention to you," he amended.

"You're going to have to come to terms with this sooner or later. I'll tell you the same thing tomorrow and the day after that. It isn't right for you to control her anyway. You should just wish for her to be her, let her chose whatever she wants. I mean, you wouldn't do anything like that to Pikachu so I don't see why you would do it to her."

Ash crawled under the covers, pulling them over his head like he had done early that morning. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. You can wake me up for the date. Or, you know, if she decides that she doesn't actually like me or gets eaten or something else good happens. Though it's probably going to be for the stupid date. What are we going to see, Brock? I don't want to spend the rest of my life watching the same movies over and over again!"

"They come out with new mo-"

"That's not the point!"

The conversation ended there. Well, a few insults and a good whack or two, but nothing that was worthy of typing out. Brock left and Ash fell asleep again (making sure to lock the door just in case). He dreamed, but nothing that made sense to him. There were just strings of memories from way back when, memories that made him feel warm and good and safe inside, generally involving him, Misty and Brock, mostly him and Misty. Though, of course, nothing that made much sense to him.

He was jolted up by the furious jiggling of the lock and loud whines of "Ash! Open up!" that sounded an awful lot like the cheerful nuisance. It wasn't quite date time yet. Five minutes early, actually. He decided that he could be at least five minutes late, as to be fashionably late (and without getting his butt kicked by several upset friends and family members), and put on a set of headphones (unplugged, because the sound of silence was better than her screeching voices) until the clock informed his it was time to get up and go.

He twisted around and slowly got to his feet, marching like a condemned man to the still rattling door and wrenching it open, staring with pity at the kneeling girl on the floor. She had a credit card out and had quite obviously been attempting to break open the door. It was from this moment that, if he had had any kind of hope before he certainly didn't have any now. It was going to be a terrible, terrible night.

He half-led, half-dragged her out of the house, abusive as it was, but he was sick of her. It was hard not to be. He was sick of everything, sick of the changes, sick of the lies, and sick of the sick feeling in his stomach every time he imagined the real Misty and what she would have done. How would she have acted?

When the waiter came at the cute little restaurant, would Misty have flirted? Not while they were on a date, he guessed, unless he had ticked her off. No, she certainly wouldn't be like this Misty, tossing her hair and pushing up her B-cup chest as best she could to make the waiter get her a couple free drinks. She would have ordered like a normal person. She would have treated the waiter like a human, he bet, but kept most of her attention on who she came with. She wouldn't have been so embarrassing. He ordered a beer to try and get his mind off of it.

Would Misty have asked the waiter how many calories were in the food? No.

Would she have spent most of the time talking about herself? Surprisingly enough, he didn't think so. He knew she wouldn't be filing her nails as she did it, and he knew she wouldn't be talking about what conditioner she used in her hair, but he thought she wouldn't have talked about her time at the gym or her favorite show either. He didn't think she'd want to talk about him either. She probably would have looked up at the battles on the television screens and talked to him about those, or maybe about a new species of pokémon or something they both liked. A conversation, not some information download.

If the salad came with dressing, would she have tossed it to the side and refused to eat it? No, because she really didn't care how fatty the dressing was, but he supposed a fairer comparison would be how she would have acted if the salad had shown up with carrots. She probably would have thrown the same hissy fit, with all the muttering and pouting, but she would have asked for a new one instead of just starving and waiting for the main course.

Would Misty have ever gotten chicken? Hell no, not when she was out with him. She probably would have gotten the lobster, freeloader that she was.

Would Misty have-?

Well, I don't need to finish that question, he thought, smiling to himself. She never skips dessert, and she wouldn't want to share mine. She might try and steal some of mine, but she'd definitely get her own. She's got a crazy sweet tooth. There's no way she'll ever be able to go on a diet. Not unless she goes to a chocolaholics meeting.

The thought of Misty sitting in front of a large circle of frail, nervous looking people and announcing, "My name is Misty, and I'm a chocolaholic" was so comical that he burst out laughing and squirted the beer out of his nose (burning it pretty badly) and had to bury his face in his elbow until he managed to calm himself down.

"Are you making fun of me?" the redhead asked, cocking her head to the side.

Still laughing, Ash stood up from the booth. "Yeah. You know what? I sorta am. That's why we're not going to the movies and I'm going to leave you here with the tab. You can take the money that you would have used on blonde hair dye or breast implants and French manicures and tickets to the movie tonight to go take some kind of class, because even I can't handle you."

Sauntering out of the restaurant, hands in his pockets, and knowing exactly what he was saying, Ash declared: "I wish you were smarter."

It would turn out to be one of his better wishes.

If a single person tells me that not all cheerleaders are like this, I swear I will smack you through your computer. I'm doing stereotypes here, remember, that's what makes it funny.

I'm sorry if this came out a little sentimental, but I've been spending a lot of time with my family and, as weird as this may sound, they're so emotionally abusive that I need to write happiness in order not to go out and stab someone. It's pretty bad. O.o

Fifth, there's a kiss next chapter, but you have to wait two weeks for it. :P