This chapter is going to be kinda fillery, but I'm adding it in because I just realised that there's a ship that hasn't been present in this story since the 1st half of the fic. Plus, I wanted to do something funny between the two to do with the greatest fear of one of them. But it would only work in Snowbelle. Plus, this will give me the opportunity to fix a small mistake I made earlier on in the story, due to the fact that I never watched Journeys (haven't said that in a while). But still, I think this will be a fun one nonetheless.

Chapter 69

Busting a Phobia

Bonnie has to be once again reminded the next day that they don't have the time to join Gary to go and see Squishy, or else they could miss the registration for the League. So, begrudgingly, she says goodbye to Gary, Ash, Serena and Pikachu, then she and Max continue on their way to Snowbelle. While they walk, Bonnie shows Max pictures of her with Squishy. Squishy turns out to be a small green blob with a red gem on their back. When she shows him a picture of Squishy's completed form, Max nearly trips over in shock. "You carried that around with you!?" he exclaims. "Hey, I didn't know they could turn into that!" she counters. "And anyway, I was 6! Give me a break!" As they continue, Max shares his own befriending of a mythical pokémon, Jirachi. The two friends proceed to bond over how much they cared for both pokémon, but Max feels a great sadness that he will most likely never see Jirachi again. "I would give almost anything to see them one more time," he confesses to Bonnie one evening. "Not even for them to grant my wish. Just to talk to them again."

As they get closer to Snowbelle, the weather grows colder. Soon enough, they're both in need of warmer clothes, which, luckily for them, Bonnie had bought for the both of them while in Laverre. For the first and possibly only time in his life, Max is glad to be travelling with someone who loves shopping almost as much as his sister. "I will never complain about your shopping trips again!" Max promises Bonnie as they continue onwards, now with much warmer clothes. "I'll hold you to that," Bonnie replies. "Perhaps you could even come with me next time?" Max dodges the question by picking up some snow and hurling it at her. She retaliates, and a fierce snowball fight breaks out between them. Luckily for Max, by the time they get bored and keep walking, Bonnie seems to have forgotten what they had been talking about.

After another week or two of travelling, they are finally half a day's walk from Snowbelle City. "That journey is so much shorter when you don't have to protect a mythical pokémon from a psycho team that's hunting it" Bonnie jokes. Max laughs, remembering his own encounters with Teams Magma and Aqua when he travelled with Ash and his sister. "But still," he says, "that took a stupidly long time to walk." Bonnie nods in agreement. "How long will it take to get back to Lumiose from here?" she asks him. Max checks his navigation devices. Well, at the speed we've been going, we should arrive back in Lumiose within a month," he replies. "Less, if we had flying types. But my Pidgeotto isn't big enough to carry us both." "Neither is my Talonflame," Bonnie replies. "So, I guess we'd better get a move on." Max nods, puts his nav away, and they resume walking.

But, as is a common occurrence when both members of a travelling party have severe ADHD, the two barely walk for a hour when they get distracted, as usual. As they walk along the edge of a snow filled forest, they suddenly hear a scream of fear coming from the forest. Curious as to what's going on, Bonnie uses her Aura to scan the trees for anyone. As she does this, Max takes the time to marvel at how her eyes glow blue every time she uses this skill. "I can see two people, and one pokémon," she explains. "But I can't make out what caused the scream." Max pulls out one of his own pokémon. "Then why don't we go and see what's happening then?" he asks. Bonnie switches off her Aura, nods, then pulls out her own pokémon and follows behind him.

The two come to a clearing in the forest, where two teenage girls are standing, staring at a pokémon. Max quickly notices how much like an ice cream it looks. The first girl is cowering behind the second, who's speaking in reassuring tones. It takes Max a few seconds to realise what's going on. The first girl, the one with purple hair, is afraid of the ice cream pokémon. Wait a minute, he thinks to himself. Purple hair? Upon closer inspection, the scared girl has scattered bits of purple hair coming out of her hat, while her companion has lots of red hair coming out from under her yellow hat. Max realises he knows the two, mentally slaps himself for not recognising them sooner, then steps out into the clearing, waving at them merrily. "Hey Iris, hey Georgia!" he calls.

Both girls wheel around to see him and Bonnie approaching them. Iris groans at this, while Georgia laughs her head off. "Hey guys," she says. "How did you know we were here?" "We heard someone scream" Bonnie explains, which causes Iris's face to go red. "From the path!?" she asks, to which Max and Bonnie nod. She groans in embarrassment. "Oh my Arceus there's no way I was that loud!" Georgia laughs even harder at this. "What's going on here?" Max asks. Iris shoots Georgia a look that clearly says, "don't you DARE tell them!", but clearly Georgia either missed it, or ignored it. "Iris is afraid of ice types," she explains. "So, I'm trying to help her get over that." Max tries to keep a straight face, he really does. But hearing that causes a small chuckle to escape his lips. Bonnie has to press her hands to her mouth to, unsuccessfully, stop herself from laughing. Georgia however has no qualms with giggling at this. "You are all such kids!" Iris says, rolling her eyes. "Says the girl with the fear of frozen water" Georgia retorts.

Iris glares at her. "Hey, it's a common fear where I grew up!" she snaps. "It was pretty common for ice types to be demonised in the stories we were told as children!" "Gay people are also demonised in stinking The Village of Dragons!" Georgia retorts. "And yet here you are dating a girl! If you can move past that, you can get over your fear of ice types!" Iris gets a bit teary-eyed at these words, and Max can see Georgia immediately regret saying that. "I'm sorry about that," she says, leading Iris over to a fallen log. She wipes the snow off of it, before sitting Iris down on it and sitting next to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder. "I shouldn't have brought that up. But I just think it's about time you shake off some of those roots." Iris dries her eyes and nods. "No, you're right," she says. "It's not your fault. I was the one who brought... Them... up. Besides, I don't think it would look too good if the Champion of Unova was scared of ice types. People would start only bringing those in to challenge me."

At this, Max and Bonnie's jaws drop. "You're the Champion of Unova!?" they both exclaim. Both girls look up at them. "Yes?" Iris says, with some confusion. "You didn't know that?" Both Max and Bonnie shake their heads. "In fairness, Ash did introduce you as a Dragon Master instead of the Unovan Champion," Georgia points out. "That's probably why." Iris shrugs. "He probably didn't want to draw too much attention to us in that café," she replies. "Ash hates getting recognised in public." Max nods at this. "Both he and my sister call journalists and paparazzi 'Vultures'," he says. "Because they always swoop in to pick someone clean." Iris laughs bitterly at this. "I should start using that," she says. "Those 'Vultures' are partly the reason why the two of us are in Kalos anyway. Ever since I was..." she chokes a bit here, before rephrasing her sentence, "Ever since my sexuality became public, it's almost always the only types of questions I get!"

As her ranting picks up, she begins angrily lobbing snowballs at a tree in front of them. "I am the first ever female champion of Unova!" Her first snowball hits the tree and bursts on contact. "I'm the youngest Champion Unova ever had!" Her second snowball hits the tree. "I'm the first Unova Champion to make it into the Master's Eight!" The snowballs start being throw more rapidly. "And, I'm one of the only trainers in the world who ever beat Cynthia! Not even Ash can claim that one!" Her snowballs start missing the tree, and she begins to tear up. "But all ANY of those BASTARDS ever focus on is the fact that I'm gay! All there questions are about my sexuality!" She begins imitating some of the reporters she's dealt with, talking in different voices as she does. "'How long have you known you weren't into men?' 'How do you feel about the way you were outed?' 'Oh, but you're so young, I'm sure you'll find a good man someday!' I'M FUCKING SICK OF IT!" She throws a few more snowballs at the tree, before dissolving into tears in Georgia's arms.

No one says anything for a while, whilst Iris let's all her anger out. Eventually, she calms down enough to laugh at herself. "Sorry about that," she says. "I've just been having a very frustrating time since... what happened. Do excuse my Kalosian." Georgia hugs Iris again. "You don't need to apologise," she says. "You deserved to let all of that out. I'm sorry that you have to go through all of that. We don't need to keep doing this if you don't want to." Iris shakes her head, drying her eyes a bit more. "No, no," she says. "I want to. You're right, I can't be a Champion and afraid of ice types. I don't want to keep associating with that place anymore." Then she stands up, and looks at the ice cream pokémon once more, who'd been staring at them curiously the entire time. Max scans it with his pokédex to see what it's called. Vanilluxe, it reads.

As Iris stares at the ice type, she shivers, from a mixture of cold and fear. But still, she begins to step forward slowly. Georgia follows her, and takes her hand in hers for support. The Vanilluxe continues to stare at her, and even floats over to her a bit. Iris squeaks with fear, but Georgia grips her hand tighter reassuringly. Iris takes a breath, then resumes her slow walk towards the pokémon. Eventually, she's right next to it. She's shaking all over, but doesn't run. "Good job Iris," Georgia congratulates her. "Now, do you think you can touch it?" Iris's eyes are full of fear, but she nods slightly. She raises a shaky hand towards the Vanilluxe, then touches it. She recoils it quickly and backs away a couple of steps. "O-ok, th-th-that's enough!" she squeaks. Georgia nods encouragingly, then the two girls back away. "Good job Iris," Georgia tells her. "We'll keep trying with baby steps for now, but that's some great progress." Iris blushes at this, but smiles happily. Max and Bonnie start clapping politely for her, to show their support.

After that, the four of them return to the path. But before he does, Max decides to hurl a pokéball at the Vanilluxe, successfully catching it. He waits while the ball is sent back over to the pokémon research lab, though he couldn't tell if it was the Hoenn one or Kalos one, then he follows after the girls. By the time he's caught up with them, Bonnie has already learned that Iris and Georgia will be staying in Snowbelle for a few days before returning to Lumiose. So, Bonnie has convinced them to travel with her and Max, as they'll be heading that way too. Max is pleased to hear this, because he quite enjoys travelling with more people. So, now with Iris and Georgia accompanying them, they set off for Snowbelle City, reaching it just as the sun is beginning to set.

I'll be honest here, I cannot remember how Iris got her fear of ice types, since it's been a while since I watched Black and White, so I made that bit about them being demonised in children's stories up. I also totally made up all that stuff about Iris's achievements. I just wanted to make a point about Iris's frustrations. Also, I got the idea for Iris's rant off of a few things I saw on the internet about how celebrities who are out about their sexualities, particularly young ones, often get those kinds of questions. I have no idea how true that is, but I do see it on Twitter a few times. One final note, yes, I had no idea that Iris was the champion of Unova when I introduced her and Georgia, because, as I keep saying, I never watched Journeys. But anyway, see you all next chapter.