So another filler chapter, so it's slightly shorter than the past few. I've decided to do something different from now on. Whenever I change from one group to the other, I'll have a short summary to refresh your mind of what had happened, since it's easy to forget where I left off. That aside, Chapter 14!
Summary: Ash and Brock made it to the second round of the qualifiers. Ash lost to Styles Kaizu, but managed to win the three matches needed to move on. After Ash's last battle, the trio headed off to eat dinner.
The trio of Ash, Dawn, and Brock were sitting at the table of a restaurant. Since participants could eat for free, Ash didn't waste any time ordering a huge meal. Brock and Dawn went for more modest portions, and Pikachu was contempt with licking clean the ketchup bottle. The three were deep in conversation on what they were gonna do tomorrow.
"I'm telling you Ash, tomorrow's a perfect day to go to the beach!" Dawn said, trying to convince her stubborn friend.
"But I wanna train. I have four double battles tomorrow, and I need to prepare for them," Ash countered.
"Why don't you two compromise?" Brock suggested.
"Compromise how?" The two teens asked.
"Ash, bring your Pokemon to the beach. They can get plenty of exercise, and you can have fun as well." Brock said.
"That's not a bad idea, Ash," Dawn said.
"But—"
"It's two against one, you can't win this argument."
"Alright, I'll go with you guys," Ash conceded.
"Good." Dawn said, trying her best to hide her excitement.
The group received their food, and conversed about the day's events while eating. After they had finished, they decided to head back to the hotel.
By the time they left the restaurant, the sun had already set, and the temperature dropped. Even though Kanto was near the center of the Pokemon world, north of Hoenn, but south of Sinnoh, it could get cold during the night time. This was one of those nights. Brock was ahead of Ash and Dawn, leaving them trailing behind him by several paces. A breeze started to blow, causing Dawn to shiver.
"Jeez, I'm freezing!" Dawn complained.
"Oh come on, it's not that cold, it was much worse in Sinnoh," Ash responded.
"Easy for you to say, you're wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. I'm stuck in a tank top and a skirt."
"It was your idea to change your outfit." Ash replied.
Dawn blushed slightly at the comment. "Only because you seem to like it."
"Just because I like something doesn't mean you have to change," Ash said.
There he goes again, completely missing the hint. "Oh Ash, when will you ever learn?" She asked aloud, purposely allowing him to hear her.
"Learn what?" He wondered, not knowing what was going on.
"My point exactly," she muttered.
The two continued to walk, choosing to remain in silence.
They finally arrived at the hotel, and the three went straight into their room. Since it was 9:30, everyone decided to get ready for bed, Dawn going into the bathroom to get ready first.
Once she was inside, Ash spoke up. "Hey Brock, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure what's up?"
"I kinda want to go outside. I don't want Dawn to hear this conversation."
"Okay," Brock said, a little confused at Ash's request.
The two walked outside into the hallway, shutting the door, making sure to take a key with them just in case.
After a few moments of silence, Brock spoke up. "I'm assuming this has something to do with Dawn? What's on your mind?"
"Does Dawn seem a little...different to you? She seems to be acting different than she normally does."
Brock, keeping his promise, didn't say anything.
"And another thing. Both this morning and yesterday, I felt a weird feeling in my stomach when I saw her in her new outfit, am I getting sick or something?" He asked.
Ah, so it is true. He just doesn't know it yet Brock said mentally. "No Ash, you're not getting sick. I think you might be seeing Dawn in a new light." He replied.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you might be seeing Dawn as more than a friend." Now let's hear his response...
"Like best friends?"
"I mean more than best friends"
"Mega best friends?"
Brock wanted to slap Ash at that last comment. He compromised with a face palm. Are you kidding me? How dense can you get? This is gonna be harder than I thought. Maybe if he saw some of this romance in action, he'd catch a clue. You'd think that after seeing me go after every pretty girl I see, he'd catch a clue
"Uh, Brock, you okay?" Ash asked, snapping Brock back to reality.
"Huh, oh yeah."
"You sure? Cuz you just slapped yourself in the face."
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it, I saw a fly."
"Okay then," Ash responded, not totally convinced.
"Back to the subject at hand, is there anything else that you wanted to talk to me about?" Brock asked.
"No, that's it. I wanna get some sleep, I had a long day. Four battles in one day left me wiped. Thank Arceus that there's a day off tomorrow."
"I hear ya." Brock replied.
Ash unlocked the door and walked inside, holding the door open for Brock. He thanked Ash, then headed inside to get ready for bed. Ash followed suit, and found Dawn sitting in bed, twirling her hair. She was wearing her night clothes, having changed already. She noticed him, and looked up. Unbeknownst to the two males, she had overheard the entire conversation, and was shocked at what Ash had said. Ash noticed she wasn't her usual cheery self, so he spoke up.
"Are you okay?" He asked, a concerned tone in his voice.
"I'm fine, I'm just thinking about some things, that's all. No need to worry!" Dawn replied, trying to put on a more cheerful demeanor.
"Dawn, we've been traveling for two years together, I know when something's up."
Not wanting to reveal her eavesdropping, Dawn was frantically trying to come up with an excuse. "I guess I'm just worried that you might not make it past the second round, that's all," she lied.
"Don't worry, I have no plans on losing." Ash replied, buying her excuse. He noticed that Brock had just finished up in the bathroom, and took it as his queue to get ready as well. He walked inside, and began changing into a t-shirt and shorts, various thoughts running through his head. He finished changing, brushed his teeth, then walked out of the bathroom to go to bed. He climbed under the covers, still deep in thought. He said goodnight to Dawn, and drifted off to sleep, with one question lingering in his mind: what did Brock mean by him seeing Dawn as more than a friend?
Ash awoke to the morning rays of the sun. He then noticed a warm feeling coming from his arm. He looked over, and it was a repeat of yesterday, Dawn was cuddling up to him, seemingly in her sleep. Once again, he felt that same feeling in his stomach.
Why do I have this feeling again? Does it have something to do with Dawn? he asked himself mentally. It always seems to happen around her. I wish I had someone to talk to about this. I mean Brock is great and all, but he was no help last night. Alls he said was that maybe I see Dawn as more than a friend, whatever that means
Knowing that he wouldn't be able to get up without waking Dawn, Ash laid in bed, thinking about various things, most notably battle strategies for tomorrow. He did this for almost an hour, until he felt movement to the side of him. Dawn was starting to wake up, and immediately went red when she realized that she was clinging to Ash again.
What am I doing in my sleep that I end up clinging to him? she wondered.
"Morning Dawn, have a nice sleep?" Ash asked.
"Y-yeah," she stuttered, her face still red. "Sorry, I don't know why I keep doing this whenever I sleep with you."
"It's fine, I don't mind. Come on, let's go get some breakfast. I wanna get a head start so we can get to the beach before it gets too crowded."
"Okay!"
The two headed out the door, careful not to wake Brock or Pikachu, so they could eat and get a head start on the day.
They walked down to the cafeteria to eat. Ash, as usual, piled his plate high with food. Dawn rolled her eyes, settling with just a bowl of cereal. They were talking about plans for the day, when Brock came down to join them.
"I thought I'd find you two here," he said.
"Yeah, we were just talking about what we're gonna do today." Dawn said.
"More like arguing. Dawn wants me to forget the training altogether, and just relax!" Ash moaned.
"Don't worry, you can relax and train. There's plenty of time in the day for both." Brock replied.
"But I need to make sure that I'm ready for tomorrow!"
"Ash, you're stressing out about this way more than you usually do, is there something on your mind?" Asked Dawn.
"No." Ash lied.
"Remember what you said last night? That you can tell when I'm lying? Well I can tell when you're lying, so spill it." Dawn said.
"Sorry, but it's personal. Maybe I do need a day off..." He said, trailing off into thought.
"What's up with Ash?" Dawn whispered to Brock.
"I don't know. I've never seen him stress out before. He wasn't like this yesterday, maybe he had a bad dream?" He whispered back.
"I don't know, but we're gonna need to distract him today, let him take his mind off of things."
Finally, Ash snapped back to reality, seemingly himself again, although his eyes showed otherwise. Dawn and Brock decided not to press the manner, and they sat mostly in silence for the rest of the meal, only asking the occasional question to break the silence. They finished up and headed back up to the room to get ready for the day. Dawn went in first, and came out wearing blue shorts and a white shirt over her bikini. Brock was next, and he ended up wearing black swim trunks and a green shirt. Ash was last, and he wore a white t-shirt and red swim trunks. Once they packed their bags, the trio headed off to the beach.
"Over here guys!" Dawn exclaimed. She had run ahead of the group, excited to be able to witness the Vermilion City beach first hand.
"Slow down Dawn, wait for us!" Ash called.
"You speed up! We need to claim a spot before someone else takes it!"
Panting and out of breath, Ash and Brock finally caught up to her, plopping their bags down on the beach and laying out towels.
Ash rummaged through his bag, taking out five Pokeballs. "Come on out everyone!" He said, releasing his Pokemon. Garchomp, Crawdaunt, Typhlosion, Staraptor, and
Scrafty appeared, with Pikachu standing alongside them.
"I know I said that we were gonna train today, but I decided that we could take a day off. Have fun guys!" He said.
Dawn took out her Pokeballs, releasing Piplup, Whimsicott, Togekiss, Lopunny, and Cinccino. She decided to leave Mamoswine in his ball, since he was part ice type, and also massive in size. Brock was next, releasing Crobat, Ludicolo, Swampert, and Toxicroak. He left Golem and Steelix in their balls, also because of their large size. The sudden appearance of Pokemon drew attention, as well as a few dirty looks from tourists, but they didn't care. They came to the beach to have fun. If that meant letting their Pokemon out, then so be it.
"Alright everyone, have fun and don't wander too far!" Brock said.
The Pokemon nodded, wandering off to go swim or take a nap or dig in the sand, keeping close to the group.
Once they were finally settled, Dawn took off her shirt and shorts, revealing her to be wearing a pink bikini.
Ash felt that same feeling in his stomach again upon seeing her, and blushed slightly. There's that feeling again. I really wish I knew what it means he said mentally.
Dawn noticed Ash blushing and smiled. If only he realized what this all really meant she thought.
"Hey Ash, I'm gonna put on some sunscreen, can you get my back for me please?" She asked.
"Yeah, sure." He replied.
As Ash was busy rubbing the sunscreen on Dawn's back, Brock wandered off, overwhelmed by the amount of cute girls he saw. Toxicroak was close behind him, keeping him out of trouble.
"There goes Brock, flirting with every girl he sees," Dawn said.
"I don't get it, why does he keep doing that if he's only gonna get rejected?" Ash asked, rubbing in the sunscreen.
"Because, he's looking for love. Tell me Ash, do you know what love is?"
"I don't know. I mean I love my mom, I love my Pokemon, and I love my friends, all in their different ways."
"You're still missing the most important one."
"Which is?"
Dawn face palmed at his naiveness. Resisting the urge to slap some sense into him, she did her best to explain it to the dense boy. "Love for that special someone. Like a husband loves his wife, or when a girlfriend loves her boyfriend. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"I guess," Ash lied.
"No you don't," she sighed. "It'll take more than explaining to get it through your dense head," she muttered.
"Why are you asking me this anyways? If you know I don't know what you're talking about, then why are you trying to explain this to me?" Ash asked. He was getting restless, having finished getting Dawn's back, he was now face to face with her, cluelessly talking about the subject at hand.
BECAUSE I LIKE YOU DAMNIT! Dawn screamed mentally. However, she said something else aloud. "Because one day, you're gonna go through the same thing, sooner or later."
"Okay..." Ash said, not knowing how to respond. Why is she acting so weird lately?
"Anyways, let's go swimming!" Dawn exclaimed, changing the subject.
"Alright, let me put some sunscreen on, then we can go." Ash replied.
Ash finished up putting sunscreen on, and asked Dawn to get his back, to which she eagerly agreed. Once they were finished, they took to the waves, wading in to about chest level.
Carrying a playful grin on her face, Dawn started splashing Ash.
"Hey!" Ash laughed splashing her back. "Cut it out!"
"Never!"
Ash looked past her, and noticed a giant wave coming. Since he was facing the open sea, and she was facing shore, Dawn never noticed it. Grinning mischievously, Ash formulated a plan in his head to get back at the girl. He started to back off towards shore, still splashing Dawn back, who was busy splashing him. Once the wave was close enough, Ash swam as fast as he could towards shore.
"Where are you going?" Dawn called to him.
"Away from that!" Ash replied, swimming even faster.
Dawn turned around, and saw the wave was nearly upon her. "Ash Ketchum, you will PAY for that!" She yelled, being swept underwater by the wave.
Ash was on shore, laughing his ass off. A not so happy Dawn was wading in. If looks could kill, Ash would be dead in a heartbeat. Upon seeing her, Ash felt a sweat drop form on his neck.
"Uhh, sorry?" Ash stuttered, trying to stop laughing.
Dawn quickly formed a plan in her head. Once she reached shore, she stormed off past Ash and went to pout over on her towel.
"What did you do?"
Ash, finally halting his laughter, turned around, surprised to see Brock standing there.
"When did you get here?" Ash asked.
"Just in time to see Dawn storm off after giving you a dirty look. Now tell me, what happened?"
"Dawn started splashing me playfully, so to get her back, I let her get hit by a giant wave."
"Ahh." Brock thought for a second. "You know she's faking it, right?"
"Why would she do that?"
"Why don't you go and find out?"
"You better not be wrong."
"I'm not, now go." Brock said.
"Alright, alright, I'm going." Ash took a deep breath, and started walking over to Dawn, albeit cautiously.
Dawn looked up, noticing Ash coming her way. Perfect
Ash finally reached her, and walked in front of her so he could talk to her face to face.
"Are you okay?" He asked nervously.
Dawn ignored him.
"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did."
Once again, Dawn ignored him.
Ash waked closer to her, and put his hands on her shoulders, and looked deep into her eyes. "I'm sorry." He then got up, and walked away.
He walked past Brock, saying. "Faking it, huh? Sure seemed like it," before walking past him. Pikachu noticed this, and scurried over to catch up with his trainer.
Well that completely backfired. I don't even remember where I was going with that Dawn thought to herself.
"What was that all about?" A voice asked from behind.
Dawn turned around to find Brock standing there.
"Honestly, I don't know. I was thinking something would happen, but I don't know."
Dawn said.
"Well, you pissed him off, so you might want to go find Ash. And it's lunch time, so maybe you can use that to your advantage."
"Alright, I'll go find him," Dawn said, getting up. She walked around the beach, trying to spot her friend. The beach was crowded, so that didn't help things. After searching for nearly fifteen minutes, she heard a trainer giving a Pokemon a command.
"Pikachu, use Thunderbolt! Garchomp, keep dodging it! Pikachu, keep aiming at Garchomp! Don't let him get away!" The voice commanded.
Behind a sand dune, a certain trainer, Pikachu, and Garchomp were having a practice battle. The Pikachu was aiming a Thunderbolt at the Garchomp, who was dodging the attack, seemingly to work on the Pikachu's aim. Whenever the Thunderbolt hit, Garchomp kept going, thanks to his immunity to electric type attacks.
Well, here goes nothing
Dawn walked up to Ash, who had his back turned to her. He was completely unaware of the girl behind him, too occupied by his training.
"Hey Ash!" Dawn said.
"What the fuck!?" Ash yelled, jumping back at the sudden voice. He tripped and fell, toppling over into the sand, landing on his back.
Dawn peered over him, holding out her hand. "Need some help?"
"Thanks, just don't scare me like that," Ash said meekly, allowing Dawn to help him up. Once he was up, he began brushing the sand off his back and legs. Pikachu and Garchomp, having noticed the fiasco, stooped what they were doing and walked over to the two teens.
"What are you doing here Dawn?" Ash asked. His tone of voice wasn't angry, but it wasn't pleasant either.
Dawn was a little taken aback at the tone of voice. Quickly regaining her composure, she replied, "I came over to apologize to you. I shouldn't have ignored you like that."
"Brock told me you were faking it. Is that true?"
"Yeah, it is."
"Why?"
Dawn, although expecting the question, didn't have an answer, so she tried a roundabout approach. "I also came over to tell you that lunch is almost ready. Brock is making his famous stew, so I'm sure that you won't want to miss it."
"Sweet!" Ash exclaimed, seemingly forgetting about his previous question. "Let's go eat!" Ash said, running off to where Brock and the other Pokemon were.
Phew, I narrowly dodged a bullet there Dawn said mentally, running after Ash.
Garchomp and Pikachu looked at each other, clueless as to what just happened, and ran after their trainer.
They arrived at their spot, seeing Brock was busy feeding the Pokemon. He looked up and noticed them.
"I knew that the mention of food would bring you over here. It'll be about five minutes before it's ready, so in the meantime you can help me finish feeding the Pokemon."
"Okay." The two teens said. They began to give the specially made Pokemon food to the right Pokemon, and when they were done, their own food was ready. Brock served them, and they quickly began eating, Ash shoveling it into his mouth as fast as humanly possible.
The rest of the day went by, nothing out of the ordinary happening. The group found a volley ball net, and started playing a game, some random people joining in. They did this for the rest of the afternoon, and after finishing their game, they left at around four. They decided to head back to the hotel, so they could shower and get changed so they could go out to dinner.
"Hurry up Dawn, you've been in there for almost an hour now!" Ash yelled through the closed bathroom door. He was getting impatient, as he knew that Dawn had finished showering and he'd gotten dressed long ago. What is keeping her in there for so long?
"Don't rush me Ash, I need to get my hair just right!" She yelled back. She had spent the last twenty minutes trying to fix her hair, but for some reason she could never get it just right. Finally, after another ten minutes, she gave up. "Hopefully they won't notice." She muttered, unlocking the door and walking out.
Ash was the first to see her, and when he realized she was in her new outfit, he felt that same feeling in his chest. There it is again. And again, it happens after I see Dawn in that outfit
"Bout damn time," Ash said in an irritated tone.
"Ash, you should know by now that I have to get my hair perfect." Dawn replied.
"No matter what you do to it, it always looks the same. Why even bother?"
"You would never understand." A girl always has to make sure her hair is perfect in front of her crush, something someone as dense as you would never get
"Whatever. Come on, let's go eat!"
The trio headed out to eat at the same restaurant, and when they got there, the waiter looked annoyed, having remembered them from yesterday as the group that almost ate them out of food. Nonetheless, he served them, as was his job.
The group ate, reminiscing about the day at the beach, Ash of course having more food than the other two combined. They finished eating, and headed back to the hotel. Brock and Ash had a big day ahead of them, so they decided to go to bed early so they were well rested for tomorrow's events.
Ash was lying in bed, thinking about the past few days. He looked over, and saw that Dawn had already fallen asleep. I wonder if she'll roll over in her sleep again and cuddle up to me he wondered. That thought brought up a question that he had forgotten about during the day's events, but was thinking about last night. What did Brock mean by me seeing Dawn as more than a friend? Ash spent the rest of his consciousness wondering about that question, before finally succumbing to sleep.
So yeah, I kinda rushed through the end there. Writer's block is a bitch, and even though I had the day off due to snow, that was all I could muster. Sorry. Since it's a filler chapter anyways, I don't think it really matters that much. Next chapter will be the start of Ash's double battles, so I don't have to worry about not knowing what to write. OC submissions end this week, so if you have one that youd like to see in the story, hurry up and send them in. That aside, hope you enjoyed the chapter. As always, R&R!