Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Root of the Problem

("Hey, where's Misdreavus?")

Serena tried not to wince at Pancham's question. She'd expected the question, had spent much of the night wondering how to answer it, but she hadn't really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.

"She's…she wanted to be alone for a while," she said flatly.

("Why?") Sylveon asked.

("It was that battle, wasn't it?") Pancham asked, and Serena could hear the accusatory tone.

"Yeah…" she said quietly.

("Right.")

"Pancham–"

("Not- not right now,") Pancham interrupted. He looked at Serena with a conflicted expression. ("Just give me a moment to cool off and then I'll be fine. We'll practice after.")

He got up and walked away, leaving Serena, her Pokémon, and Ash and his Pokémon at the breakfast table in the Pokémon Center.

Ash tried to give Serena an encouraging smile, but Serena couldn't manage to answer it. What if Pancham would leave too because of this?

("He'll come back,") Delphox said, likely having guessed Serena's fear. ("And I think Misdreavus will, too.")

"She…she said that humans are the only ones who don't get that Pokémon hunting each other isn't personal, and that she didn't like being judged as a human," Serena said. "But when we met her, you didn't seem to be too fond of her liking to scare people."

("I don't like anyone hurting me or those I care about,") Delphox said. ("And I never lived on my own, either. I was born in the Professor's lab and I didn't leave it until I became your partner.")

She paused for a moment. ("But I do understand what she meant, yes. I can feel the instincts of my species, even though I've never hunted myself. I look at certain Pokémon and think they look tasty. Then I remind myself that's not who I am, and that I want to set a good example for everyone in the team because you're counting on me, and I know humans are different from Pokémon because I've been around them literally all my life.

("It's not a chore for me to eat Pokémon food and Berries, because it's all I know, and you're a very good cook. My hunting instincts were never trained, so they're not particularly strong. But Misdreavus has lived on her own for longer than I've been alive. Her instincts are well-trained, and she's been actively suppressing them for you. I know this isn't what you want to hear right now, but I understand why she's hurt.")

Serena slowly shook her head. "No, I'm glad you're telling me this. I guess I'm…just so used to talking to you, performing with you, that I never really thought about the fact that you're different from me, see things differently from how I do. And…that's just really stupid, because it's not like all humans see things the same way, either."

She looked at Ash and smiled faintly, and then looked back at Delphox. "I put my own feelings ahead of Misdreavus's, and now she's off on her own and Pancham's mad at me. I just…if she's not here I can't make it up to her. And…I can't really control what I feel, and even if I don't say anything, Misdreavus can feel my emotions."

("She can, yes,") Delphox said. She smiled. ("And she's very good at it, too, so if you genuinely make an attempt to understand her, I doubt she'll hold your own instincts against you.")

Serena nodded slowly. "I hope you're right," she said.

"I think she is," Ash said, and Serena looked up at him. "Your Pokémon love you, but just like with every friendship, sometimes you're going to run into something, and then once you've worked through it you'll come out stronger. For now, all you can do is focus on the Exposition and give Misdreavus the time she needs. She'll come back, I know it."

Serena nodded. "Right," she said, realizing that, no matter her feelings about it, Ash was certainly right in saying that the only thing she could do now was focus on the Exposition, so that's what she was going to do. There was still time left before the Exposition, but she didn't have any ideas yet, so that would be step one. Surely, in a city as big as this one, inspiration would be easy to find.

[hr]

Serena walked around the city, looking for anything that really stood out as being unique to Celadon City, but the trouble of it being such a large city meant that, far from being easy to find anything, it was actually incredibly hard.

Yes, the stores here were smaller than in Saffron City, and the general atmosphere felt much homelier, but because it reminded Serena so much of Kalos in that respect, it was hard to call it unique. She wasn't even certain if this kind of thing was unique in Kanto. Even if it was, though, and as much as she liked small boutiques and bakeries, creating a performance around them felt far too shallow.

Normally, her Pokémon would be full of suggestions, but Pancham was still distracted, and Delphox and Sylveon seemed to be influenced by Misdreavus's absence as well. It wasn't like Serena herself wasn't, though. She was annoyed at everything and everyone, and her entire mindset was more on that than on anything productive.

She became increasingly agitated as she fruitlessly walked through the city, and though she'd considered it beautiful when she first arrived, she now found she couldn't wait to leave.

Of course she was aware that she was being completely unreasonable, but for the first time, she just didn't want to do anything productive. Strictly speaking, she didn't have to. Even if she couldn't find anything today, tomorrow was still early enough to get all the practice they would need in, no matter the routine they came up with.

But she couldn't, wouldn't, admit defeat. If she gave up now there would be nothing preventing her from not doing anything the day after, either, and so she kept searching for that one spark of inspiration she was lacking at that moment.

When she sat down for some lunch at a small café, she was still in a terrible mood, though she at least made the effort to be friendly to the staff. Still, she apparently exuded such a dark aura that people took notice.

"Excuse me, Miss?" someone asked.

Serena wearily looked up, trying to look as neutral as she could.

"Would you happen to be Serena?" the young woman who'd approached her asked.

She looked vaguely familiar, but Serena couldn't really place her. She looked quite fashionable in her kimono and headband, though.

"I am," Serena said.

"I thought I recognized you. Would you mind if I sat down?" the woman asked.

Serena hesitated. She didn't want to be impolite, but she really didn't want company right now. Politeness won out, however, and she said, "That's okay."

The woman smiled and sat down opposite Serena. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Erika. I am the Gym Leader here in Celadon City, and I will of course also be one of the judges in the Exposition," she said.

Well, that certainly explained why she had seemed so familiar.

"Pleased to meet you," Serena said, a bit embarrassed that she'd considered turning one of the people who would be judging her a few days from now away.

Erika inclined her head. "I promise you I'm not approaching you for nefarious reasons," she said with a small smile. "Rather, it is out of concern."

"Concern?" Serena repeated.

Erika nodded. "Yes. You seem to lack the radiance you normally display in Expositions. While I understand that how you are in a performance will not always match your demeanor in the outside world…something appears to be weighing on your mind."

"There…is," Serena said hesitantly. "But it's something that will have to sort itself out. I don't really have any influence on it right now."

"Perhaps not on the situation itself," Erika acknowledged. "But you can certainly influence your response to it."

Again, Serena hesitated. She wanted to say that it wasn't that easy, that deciding not to let something bother you didn't magically make your emotions go away, but she couldn't find a way to say it that wouldn't sound petulant.

Erika seemed unperturbed by Serena's silence, however. "How are you feeling right now?" she asked.

"Angry and sad," Serena replied, in a tone that was probably a bit too exasperated.

"And perhaps impatient?" Erika asked gently.

Serena nodded. "Yeah…" she muttered, faintly embarrassed.

"You are so driven by your desire to ignore your anger and sadness, so driven to distract yourself, that you are inadvertently also distracting yourself from your goal," Erika said. "I noticed you earlier, when you walked by my perfume store. You and your Pokémon looked very tense. Frantic, almost."

She paused for a moment, looking at the flowers in a nearby planter before focusing on Serena again. "I presume you are looking for inspiration for your Location Round?" she asked.

"I am," Serena said.

"But if you rush all over the city, how do you expect to find it? What could show its beauty if a person is not willing to look?"

"I do look, though," Serena said, unable to keep quiet. "This city…I really love how it looks. It reminds me of Kalos, where I'm from. It's just that I can't find anything that I can really only associate with this city."

She sighed. "In Vermilion City, I used a punk rock concert as inspiration for my performance. That worked because it fit thematically, but I don't want to get that close to the line, if I can help it. I don't want the risk of a veto, so I have to find something that truly represents this city within Kanto, but everything I see just reminds me of Kalos, and then my performance will allude to that far more than to here."

"What do you associate this city with right now?" Erika asked.

"I…don't know what you mean," Serena said uncomfortably.

"I think you do," Erika said with a smile.

"I…"

"It's alright, you can say what's on your mind."

"I associate it with uncertainty and shame," Serena said, bowing her head. "I hurt one of my Pokémon, and she left because of it. I don't even know if she'll come back, but I…I really want to make things up to her. I just…I just don't know how…"

"Have you considered…giving her some flowers?" Erika asked.

Serena looked at Erika, who glanced around the street, and Serena followed her gaze, which went past all the flower patches, with all their colors…and she remembered that the garden behind the Pokémon Center, where she and Misdreavus had held their conversation, had also been full of flowers. Serena had noticed all of them, had admired their beauty when she first arrived, but today she'd just been ignoring them entirely, because they didn't matter now, not when there was a performance to be thought up…

"I can promise you no other city in Kanto is so rich in flora," Erika said. "It really wouldn't befit the city hosting the Grass-type Gym to lose out there, wouldn't you agree?"

Serena nodded silently, now fully appreciating just how many flowers there were everywhere around her, like she'd done before. It had only been a day; how could she have been blinded to that beauty so quickly?

And in her head, an idea began to grow, an idea for a performance that the audience would love, and that, hopefully, Misdreavus would see from wherever she was…

"Thank you…" she said quietly.

Erika smiled and got up. "Yes, thank you for the talk. It was quite lovely," she said.

"Um, Miss Erika?" Serena asked.

Erika gave her a questioning look.

"Isn't it against the rules for you to be helping me?"

"I merely sowed the seeds. It remains up to you to make them bloom," Erika said. "And it is the audience who will judge your performance, not me. But I think you only truly care about one particular member of that audience, so make sure that your performance reaches her."

With a last polite bow, she turned around and walked away.

This chapter was kicking my ass six ways to Sunday. The frustration in the beginning of the second scene, that wasn't just Serena's, but mine too. I just couldn't get going for some reason, but there was no way I was going to give up. I want to keep this fic going and I've got plenty of ideas yet.

Next chapter should be up on Sunday, so see you then!