A/N: Man, I'm getting the hang of this whole 'updating on time' thingy :P As always, please accept my gratefulness for your awesome support for this little story of mine. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

A quick little warning though, some people might find some content in this chapter offensive/disturbing. In that case, I sincerely apologize, I don't mean to offend. However, this is a humor story, so it won't contain anything too serious. Pinky promise.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the next chapter! Thank you, and please enjoy!

To Guest: Thank you! I'm glad you like it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon or the picture used as cover.

Leave It To Brocko

Chapter 18

"How do you mean, there aren't any planes going to Hoenn?" Ash asked, disappointment causing his voice to go up a few notches.

I gently pushed him aside. I knew Ash only wanted to help, but I doubted the man behind the desk would appreciate Ash's childish whining. He was already looking irritated enough.

"There aren't any planes going to Hoenn?" I repeated Ash's question, though in a more mature tone. The middle-aged man sighed and muttered something that sounded like "I've been getting this all day," under his breath.

"No sir, I'm sorry, there aren't any flights going to Hoenn," he addressed us again. "The Hoennish pilots are striking. Something about lack of safety and too little health insurance and Arceus knows what else."

"But surely the Unovian pilots are still able to fly us to Hoenn... right?" I asked, fearing the answer. The loophole seemed too big and obvious to be missed by the airport, but I had to try.

"They are," the man said, and our faces lit up with hope, "but they won't be able to land. The personnel on the airport is striking too. Ridiculous people."

We all deflated again, and silence fell for a few moments, causing the people in line behind us to grow restless.

"We are very sorry." He didn't sound sorry at all, more as if he wanted us to leave. "But it is out of our power to-"

"How long is it going to take?" Misty interjected.

"At the very least, three days." The man shrugged, his greenish ponytail bobbing. "Probably longer."

"Great," I muttered. Sarcastically, of course.

"But there must be another way to get to Hoenn," Cilan said, slightly unsure. He looked like he didn't even know if he was supposed to ask questions, since he wasn't actually going with us, but his comment prompted Gary to offer his two cents.

"A boat."

Very precious two cents.

Again, the man behind the desk shrugged. "Take a plane to Goldenrod City, in Johto, then take the boat to Slateport City."

For all his unhelpfulness before, he was quite useful now.

"Now that's an idea," I said, brightening.

"That'd actually be really nice," Leaf added. "I love boats."

Misty's eyes had lit up as well. It was to be expected that she would be thrilled by the possibility to travel across the sea.

"So… what's it going to be?" Though his choice of words were still friendly and polite, his tone was most certainly not. We had been standing here for quite a while, holding up the rest of the line, with no result to show for it.

"Are we going to do that, guys?" Gary asked. "Flying to Johto and then the boat?"

"How long is it going to take?" Ash asked an actually sensible question. If it took longer than that stupid strike...

We all looked at each other, but when none of us presented the answer, we turned to the man behind the desk with expectant eyes.

He sighed again. "I work at an airport, not a harbor. But if I had to guess… Two days? Three? Shorter than the strike, by the looks of it."

"Well, I say we do it then," Gary quickly concluded. "Is everyone okay with that?"

"Yup, that's okay," Leaf agreed.

"I'm alright with it," I said.

"Me too."

"Pika!"

"Me three!" Ash and Pikachu spoke in unison, grinned at each other and high-fived.

Misty rubbed her forehead in slight annoyance, and Gary smirked. "You never grow up, do you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think it's cute," Leaf defended Ash, causing Misty to glower and Ash to grin at her.

Gary shot Leaf a quick, almost unnoticeable glare, before smirking. "I think Misty is cute."

Leaf's smile fell, and Ash's shoulders drooped as Misty waved away the compliment, smiling coyly at the brown-haired boy.

Arceus, I was not looking forward to this journey. Iris and Cilan exchanged looks, and I thought I could see relief on their faces that they could leave us now. Or perhaps I imagined that, because I would certainly feel relief.

Before it could escalate any further, I quickly asked the man about the upcoming flights to Johto.

"You're lucky," he said after a few moments of silence, rather unenthusiastically. "The boarding for the next plane to Johto starts in about one hour. You'll have to hurry. Or else there's a plane scheduled to leave this evening, or-"

"We'll take the first one," Ash said confidently. His eyes flashed over to Misty as he said his next line. "I wanna get to May as fast as possible!"

Admittedly, a rather good move on Ash's part, turning the tables on Misty again. Her eyes narrowed in response.

"Alright then…" The man turned to his screen again. "How many tickets?"

"Right, uh, Cilan, Iris-"

"Oh no, we're staying here," Iris said quickly. Yeah, I'd do that too. She was still eyeing the rest of the group warily after all those ambiguous comments and hormonal fights.

"We just came here to make sure you'd be able to leave safely," Cilan added with a smile.

"Right. Well, that's five tickets then, plus one Pokémon without a Pokéball," I told the man.

"Alright. Now, if you'd give me your card..."

After paying, listening to the usual warning about keeping the Pokémon in their Pokéballs, and registering our Pokémon – the boring stuff – we arrived at the customs for the scans. The boarding was starting in fifteen minutes, so we still had some time to say goodbye to Cilan and Iris – who had been following us as we ran through the building – and to get through the scans.

I glanced at the two of them. Cilan was red in the face from the running after us, while Iris was only slightly out of breath. She was obviously more used to physical exercise than Cilan. Not that I had any right to talk, as I was huffing and puffing as well.

"Well, we made it," Gary said cheerfully and not even sounding out of breath.

"Yeah, that's actually pretty impressive, with our luck," Misty worded my thoughts.

"Don't jinx it," I warned, and Iris nodded in agreement.

"Well, it was really nice travelling with you, Iris, Cilan," Leaf said, politely. They had gotten along well, polite and making small talk on both sides, but it wasn't like they had become best buddies immediately. Mostly because they had been too busy with their own affairs – Cilan and Iris with each other, and Leaf with Ash, Gary and Misty.

"Yes, I enjoyed it," Gary added. Gary had gotten on well with Cilan – but then again, he got on well with everybody.

Except for Leaf.

And now I think about it, his communication with Iris had been a bit strained too. But that wasn't really Gary's fault though. At first, she had been a bit wary of the smooth boy, and despite loosening up after a while, she was still more withdrawn than Cilan. But I guessed that was just her character. Ash and Cilan were the only ones she relaxed more around.

As for me… well, she still seemed embarrassed to be around me. That was to be expected though, I guess, with the whole 'Could you fall in love with me?' debacle in Lacunosa Town. Although, she seemed to be slowly warming up to me, something that was probably caused by her budding relationship with Cilan, because now she could finally see I had been right.

Of course I had been right, I was always right, after all.

I was sad to see Cilan go, but I understood he wanted to stay here. Still, it had been nice to talk to someone closer to my age, and with the same interests too. We had decided to stay in contact, also because I wanted to stay updated on their relationship.

Well, my actual words were "We should stay in touch, we could swap recipes some time!"

But that pretty much means the same, doesn't it?

At the end of our goodbyes, while Iris was distracted by another argument of the love square, Cilan thanked me for my help in a hushed whisper.

A grin broke out on my face. Finally my efforts were appreciated.

They hadn't made it official yet, I knew, but the signs were there. They walked closer to each other, their hands accidentally touched, and their voices grew softer when they talked to each other.

It might take some time before they were an official item, but that was okay. Everyone moved at their own pace.

I gave him a wink and quick thumbs-up, wishing him luck with Iris. His skin turned a shade pinker, but he smiled nonetheless.

With a lot of 'bye's' and even more waving, the Connoisseur and the future Dragon Master left, and we finally turned to the customs for the scans. The rest of my companions started squabbling again, but my mind was still on Iris and Cilan.

I wondered if anyone else had noticed their growing relationship. Ash hadn't, that was for sure. Leaf had noticed, and Gary perhaps too. Misty hadn't, I thought. She had been too preoccupied with both Gary and Ash, and whatever was going on between the three of them. Or four, if you added Leaf to the already rather explosive mix.

Just after our run-in with Team Rocket, Ash and Misty had seemed to be making progress. Misty had still been angry at Gary for scolding her, so she had turned to Ash for comfort and much-needed venting of her anger. Mostly the latter, though.

They had been talking- well, the kind of talking that sounded more like arguing and usually ended up with either of them being a sore loser. But it had a sense of normalcy their conversations hadn't had for quite a while.

And Ash had taken the opportunity with both hands, glad that things seemed to go back to normal between them. But about a day or so after that, Misty seemed to have forgiven Gary for a reason unknown to Ash – but I knew.

Leaf.

I honestly didn't get that girl. Her mouth said one thing, but her actions spoke otherwise. For some reason, Leaf hadn't noticed the lack of Misty around Gary, but instead had pulled through with her old plan, namely to make Gary jealous by flirting with Ash.

Which, of course, had rubbed Misty in the wrong way. And so Misty had forgiven Gary fairly easily after that. And Gary, also noticing Leaf's actions, had been all too happy to accept her apologies.

It did make me wonder though. Had Leaf really not noticed the window of opportunity when Misty had left Gary alone? Was her intention really to make Gary jealous by flirting with Ash?

Or… had her flirting with Ash been genuine?

It was a scary thought, something that would definitely ruin my plans and which I prayed was untrue. But I knew I had to consider all possibilities, no matter how dire the consequences of those possibilities might be.

For now though, I was going to focus on the bright side of things. Iris and Cilan were a couple, or almost, and we had made it to the plane in time. Plus, the plane actually looked like a normal plane, instead of a pile of scrap with wings.

Maybe now, we would get to our destination without any trouble.

It would be nice, for a change.

"That went surprisingly well," Misty muttered, more to herself than to anyone else. No one had dared say anything about our apparent good luck so far, not even when we had safely landed.

But now we were walking towards the exit of the airport, Misty obviously deemed it safe enough to tempt fate again.

"Yeah, well," Gary responded, "we're allowed to be lucky at times."

"I guess..." she said, but she looked around suspiciously. It was almost as if she wasn't happy we had arrived safely. I couldn't really blame her though, because with every step we took we would get closer to May, Ash's supposed crush.

But it was still a long way to Hoenn, plus we had to travel from Slateport City to Petalburg City too.

Enough time for things to go wrong.

But for now, I was going to enjoy our luck while it lasted.

"I say we first go to the port, to see when the next boat to Hoenn leaves," I proposed. "And eventually reserve tickets, if that's needed."

"Let's go!" Ash had already decided for the rest of us, running ahead with Pikachu hot on his heels.

"It won't take long," I half-apologized. I understood the others wanted to rest – I was tired too. We had been travelling for days, and it was getting rather exhausting to be stuck with the four squabbling teenagers. Iris and Cilan hadn't been too much of a bother after the whole Team Rocket incident, but the others took up all my energy.

Fortunately though, we would be able to rest on the boat for a few days, and for now, we would be able to crash at the Pokémon Center for however long we had to wait on the boat to leave. I guessed two days at most, but usually inter-region boats went more often.

I actually hoped the boat wasn't leaving until tomorrow. I was looking forward to simply sitting and relaxing, and hopefully call my family too, since I hadn't spoken to them since I had left.

"Hey, who's Ash talking to?" Misty asked, and I focused back to the present. The port was rather close to the airport, and we were almost there, while Ash and Pikachu had already arrived. And were now talking to a purple-haired boy.

I narrowed my eyes slightly – yes, I can do that, thank you very much – as we got closer and the appearance of Ash's companion got clearer and clearer.

"I believe..." I said slowly, still slightly hesitant though there was really no doubt about it. "That that's Paul, Ash's rival from Sinnoh."

"Paul? I believe he did mention him, yeah…" Gary murmured. As we walked up to them, Paul just appeared to say goodbye. Or actually, Ash was saying goodbye, Paul was just leaving.

He nodded politely at us – or rather, me – in passing, but didn't say anything.

Ash grinned brightly at us. "Guess what? Paul is going to Hoenn too! With the same boat as us! And he already promised me a battle!"

Before I could point out we actually didn't have a boat yet, Ash had already enthusiastically continued. "We are going to take the same boat, right, Brock? It leaves tomorrow morning. We can do that, right? I mean, I really wanna battle him!"

"I don't mind," I quickly said when Ash paused to breathe. The others nodded swiftly as well – anything to stop Ash from ranting – and Ash leapt in the air, exclaiming happily, with Pikachu just as enthusiastically joining him.

I suppose it had been a long time since the two of them had a good battle. Or any battle at all.

I turned to the small man who had been watching us expectantly during our conversation.

"To Hoenn?" More wrinkles appeared in his face as he grinned, revealing that he missed one tooth.

I nodded, and the man started explaining the details to me, to which I listened with half a mind. I was so tired.

"Hey Ash! Brock!"

A familiar feminine voice called out, and I whipped my head around. Running towards us was someone whose appearance seemed too perfect to be coincidence, especially after already having seen Paul.

What were the odds of seeing two Sinnoh-natives just mere minutes after each other in the same place, and a place that was not Sinnoh too?

"Dawn!" Ash called out happily, hugging the blue-haired girl enthusiastically. Pikachu cried out a greeting, jumping in her arms. I quickly finished the purchase of the tickets, and as soon as Pikachu jumped back to Ash, she enveloped me in a hug as well.

When we let go of each other, I joked, "Is Kenny here too? Barry? Or Zoey maybe?"

She blinked in confusion. "What?"

"He just means it's a big coincidence that we see you here, since we saw Ash's rival from Sinnoh here just a minute ago," Gary explained, giving Dawn a little wave as he recognized her.

Her blue eyes widened. "You saw him? Where did he go?" Her voice was resounding with barely disguised urgency.

My confusion prevented me from answering, but Ash had already recovered and happily pointed her in the right direction, where we could just see his purple mob of hair disappear around a corner.

Dawn's eyes narrowed in anger, and she roughly pushed her bigger bag in my hands, keeping the smaller one with her.

"I'll be right back," she almost growled. "I have to take care of something."

Just as she ran off, I could catch something she muttered under her breath.

"…get him, that jerk, abandoned me with the baby…"

I dropped her bag in pure shock.

Brocko, what?!

A/N: Now that's what I call a cliffhanger, eh? :P Don't start throwing those rotten tomatoes just yet – the next update will be in two weeks, as usual, and everything will be cleared up then. Or well, everything… nope, definitely not everything, but some things XD

All of you, thank you very much! I hope the chapter was likeable, and please leave me a review to tell me what you thought about it. Suggestions and corrections are always welcome! So please review, and thank you!

Recommendations:

Pokémon: The Ash Connection by I am Lu. Absolutely one of the best Pokémon fics out there. An Ash and friends focused story, action-packed, filled with twists and turns, and lots of suspense. The characters are in character, the dynamics between the characters are awesome, and the story in general is just amazingly well thought-out and well written. It's complete too, with the sequel now up. Contains Poke, Contest, LeafGreen and Ikari. (And maybe some slight Wishful, but that might also be my imagination :P) Please, go check it out, you won't regret it!

Pokémon: Rainbow Sherbet by Otaku Neko Ninja Miko Tenshi. A hilariously cracky one-shot with horrible OOC'ness, wild Suethors, crossdressing, angst and people appearing from sinks. Very funny, not all that long, so if you want a quick laugh, go read it!

Naruto: Fences by yuugiri. A very enjoyable, short KibaxHinata multi-chapter. Very well written, keeps the characters in character, and makes a relationship between those two sound not only plausible but also very cute. I thoroughly enjoyed it, so definitely check it out!

If you have any stories you want to recommend, whether they're your own or someone else's, please do! :D