The mimosa likes to nestle against his ear
Surskits skated across the water, enjoying the last moments before sunset. A magikarp tried to climb the current of a waterfall, a few brave steps and the unfortunate pokemon fell back into the water. A loud splash was heard, but Serena didn't stop stirring the vegetables that were crackling in the frying pan, the reptile lying next to her attentively watching her movements, intent on stealing her secrets.
"Brendan is slow to return," she observed.
Ash stretched his wings before bringing them back to his body, reluctant to move.
"Wouldn't you like to see where he is?"
The reptile's flame faded as the magikarp failed again, the sound of its fall muffled by the roar of the waterfall. Ash tried to believe that she was giving him a choice, knowing full well that her question demanded only one answer.
"Brendan's just taking his time," he tried to convince his trainer.
Another failure of the magikarp and this time the monster had disappeared into the depths, abandoning his idea for the time being. Ash hoped that Serena would do the same.
"You could make an effort."
A snore cleared the reptile's throat. He felt he'd done a lot since the boy had met them at the Fallarbor Pokemon Center. He had arrived in town just as they had decided to leave, and since they were going in the same direction... Serena had found a good excuse to avoid the Charizard Glide.
"I can't believe you're still jealous, you're not a charmander anymore."
That was why he hadn't tested the cap strength of a good flamethrower.
"What's bothering you?" the young girl sighed. "Are you afraid that I'll disappear with him or that I won't take care of you anymore? You know that won't happen."
The shapeshifter kneaded the earth with his claws, wagging his tail. Would she believe him if he told her? That Brendan wasn't sincere in his sweet words, that his smiles and laughter and compliments always gave the impression of a game, as if he were hiding behind a mask. The reptile's face twisted, and he struggled to regain his composure before the trainer noticed.
"Would you like to take over?"
He grasped the spatula mechanically, without understanding, until she gave up her place and headed for the woods.
"Char?" the increasingly confused fake pokemon stammered.
"Since you don't feel like moving, I'm going to check on Brendan. I'll leave you to stir things up until I get back."
A few carrots had already gone overboard as he watched her walk away. Maybe he was the problem. Besides, how could he form an impression of the boy after only a few days in his company if he was so bad at spotting lies and innuendo? The magicarp poked its nose out of the water and Ash couldn't help but think back to what Brendan had told them. The time spent waiting for the Mauville gym to reopen, then vegging out in Vermilava before finally giving up on the idea of facing the leader and continuing on to Fallarbor Town. The damp air that weighed on his tail flame bothered him almost as much as the way Brendan had joined them so perfectly in a well-oiled arrangement of circumstances.
That they'd flown over him on Route 113 without seeing him, as the boy had assumed, why not. That Brendan's delay had rivaled Serena's, almost as if he had been following her... after all, Ash couldn't deny that the leaders had been busy. But there was still one element that bothered him, something Serena was unaware of and that he himself could only perceive because he was a pokemon, a charizard much more sensitive to such details: the discreet but very present scent of sulfur when Brendan had introduced himself to them, a scent that had dissipated in a day and should have disappeared long before, as it had for him and his partner. This intoxicating scent, unlike the ash of Route 113 or the grassy outskirts of the volcano, belonged to Mount Chimney, the heart of Mount Chimney. The campfire burned lazily at his feet while his own flame blazed with impatience. He couldn't abandon his task, but there was no reason why he couldn't leave if it ended sooner than expected.
The surskits had left their playground and taken refuge among the reeds and plants that lined the pond. But even with the little pokemons out of the way, the pond still hadn't regained its calm, its surface still disturbed by the mighty waterfall that pierced it.
"Would you like to come with me, Sylveon?" the young girl suggested.
The fairy type had stayed out of the way of the other pokemons. Or, to be more precise, out of the play of the three rascals at the expense of Braixen. Sylveon pricked up her ears, her body tense as she followed her trainer, before curling into an anxious "Sylv". The trainer knelt down to pet her, but the pokemon recoiled, all her ribbons flying backward. Sylveon hadn't wanted to participate in the contest, and since then, she had managed to avoid the coordinator as much as possible, as if she had taken on the role of Charizard. However, something about the pokemon's behavior made the young girl uneasy. A kind of shame, a constant devaluation, something familiar.
Plusle had approached and apologized with a slight nod for letting his friend slip away. Serena would have preferred him to give them more time, but the fairy type was already approaching him, happy with the escape he was offering her. Serena breathed in the damp air, which was unpleasant, as if it weighed on her lungs. Perhaps Sylveon sensed this discomfort, her pale blue eyes briefly finding those of her trainer. For a second, Serena thought she recognized her own gaze. The paresthesia swelled under her skin, and the young girl felt an urgent need to move away, to avoid facing the pokemon any longer. She stepped over the bushes and into the vegetation, praying that the cooking sensation would subside.
"Oh, Serena! Have you come to help us?" she heard a cheerful voice.
The young girl grabbed a plant to feel its freshness, its shape, the reality that pierced the ghost of her sensations. Satisfied, she joined the boy and his pokémon, whose berry-laden arms didn't stop them from picking one last berry, all their dexterity at work to keep the rest from falling off. So the idea that they needed help wasn't so superfluous.
"Still with the tendonitis?" the boy remarked.
Serena blew to get rid of the shocks and used her other hand to discreetly flex her numb fingers.
"I've been throwing too many pokeballs," she joked.
The boy smiled at her, and for a moment, the young girl feared he might ask if it had anything to do with her secret training with Charizard. The same training that had allowed little Charmander to evolve into a powerful dragon, while Treecko had only recently reached the first stage of his evolution, having been bred to fight in gyms. It was enough to arouse Brendan's curiosity, for in those moments he was a lot like Ash: the same burning desire to improve himself, the same stubbornness, too, even if he could believe her when she said that this famous secret wasn't worth it.
"Was it cooked?"
She inwardly thanked him for accepting her lie. But she also knew, as he'd said often enough, that he was dying to taste her cooking. He wouldn't like the answer.
"Charizard is watching."
"Ah," Brendan swallowed.
"I didn't ask him to do anything too complicated."
"That's what you said at both meals yesterday and the day before. We agreed that tonight he would just watch."
The girl felt disgust rise from her wounded taste buds. As much as she didn't want to hurt her pokemon's feelings, she was forced to spit it all out and rinse her mouth with a full bottle of water to avoid vomiting on the spot.
"Are you sure you don't want to go pick some more berries? I have a feeling we might need them."
Serena swallowed; even if her load wasn't half the boy's, it was already at its maximum. And if they delayed any longer, she felt her left arm wouldn't wait for her permission to unload.
"We'd better hurry if you're worried."
But the boy had set down his load, stretching his numb back.
"Our dinner's ruined anyway. Since we're both alone, why don't we sit down, eat some berries and... Don't you find this place romantic?" Brendan chuckled.
The girl rolled her eyes, but imitated the boy, too happy to relieve her aching limb. And anyway, they weren't really alone since... she turned around, since when had Grovyle disappeared? Brendan had bowed and held out his hand, inviting the girl to join him. But Serena crossed her arms without the slightest remorse; she had no intention of making Charizard wait for that trainer.
"Did it ever work?"
She didn't hide her doubts about the boy's methods, but far from taking offense, Brendan abandoned his charming side for a good-natured laugh.
"It hasn't. And I don't think I'll be any more successful in the future." He whistled to call his pokemon back, then went to pick up the berries he'd left a few minutes earlier, while the young girl looked on doubtfully. "Did you think I was serious?"
"No... well, yes, a little at first," she admitted.
With Grovyle back, Brendan made his way back to camp, followed closely by Serena. He'd never expected a girl to fall into his arms the moment he told her she was pretty - quite the opposite.
"Just at first?" he asked dejectedly.
He heard the footsteps behind him pause, then resume with more force.
"You have... a funny way of introducing yourself to people."
Brendan knew it. Compliments from friends were received with joy, those from strangers with fear, annoyance, even anger, and that was exactly what he wanted to evoke. More pure emotions with thin filters, a slight defensive reaction, much more interesting than well-formed warmth.
"I admit I've had some problems with that, but not enough to deserve a Flamethrower."
"Ember," Serena corrected in a small voice.
"The heart was in it," he joked with a wink in her direction. "When it came to you, your little Charmander had power to spare."
Serena felt the heat rise in her cheeks again, and neither the surrounding coolness nor her own willpower could calm heart was there, and hers seemed to be beating in her chest at the moment.
"That's a very strange pokemon you found," the boy murmured thoughtfully.
Watch out for the landslide! The berries crashed onto the leaves with a limp stood with her arms empty, a stunned expression on her face as she seemed to ask the boy: What do you mean? How is he strange? In what way?
"Looks like I'm not the only one who noticed."
He's lying to you.
"It's not like that!" Serena shouldn't have screamed, not for that. She had bent down, her right hand searching the leaves for the precious fruit, when she muttered:"It's not really that."
Brendan's instincts told him otherwise, just as they had told him not to ignore this trainer and her little reptile when he'd first met them. However fuzzy, imprecise, and vague that feeling had been, the boy had clung to it, a mad explorer who should have failed. But he had found it. The afterglow of a sensation Brendan had known and had not forgotten, could not forget. It had been a mere tremor in Charmander's face, but now it vibrated, a constant hum that only a few unfamiliar senses could detect.
"What is it, then? I guess it's not just that he's a little overprotective of his adoptive mother."
Serena wasn't particularly keen on confiding in Brendan, but he was the only person here she could talk to about it. Somehow, that was why she'd agreed to let him accompany her, to have someone she could talk to without the answers being grunts, without having to concentrate on catching bits of meaning, just to listen and let the words flow as naturally as she breathed.
"Let's just say... Lately I feel like I can't be completely normal with him."
Breathing in was becoming more difficult, as if her lungs had shrunk and, still stunned, were letting air in and out without inflating. Talking to the boy was proving more difficult and stressful than confiding in the dragon, and the girl was ready to stop when she heard:
"Is it because of his evolution that you feel less comfortable?"
"Perhaps, yes."
"Not so obvious?"
"It fades at times and comes back stronger at others. I don't know why, the only thing I can think of is that after everything that's happened..." Serena touched the bracelet on her wrist. "He reminds me of someone. A friend I traveled with on Kalos. I thought about him sometimes when he was just Charmander, but now I seem to recognize his facial expressions, the way he smiles, the way he acts. He looks like him, much more than a charizard or even a pokemon, and... I can't figure out why."
She finished gathering the berries and, as she expected, Brendan burst out laughing.
"Tell me... do you miss this friend?" he asked when he had calmed down.
Serena felt her stomach turn, her cheeks flush, and the boy's mischievous smile didn't help her feel any better.
"I don't see what that has to do with anything," she grumbled, ready to head back to camp and leave the trainer in the lurch.
"You don't? I can imagine something like this: you want to see him again so badly that you start imagining similarities with Charizard. It happened to me once."
As he said that last sentence, the boy's face had darkened, his eyes empty, as if he were looking at something he could no longer see. But Serena paid no attention, too happy with these explanations that suited her perfectly. It was so obvious now: she was meeting a pokemon who just happened to resemble Ash, barely a day after she had left him. Not Bonnie, not Clemont, not his mother, but the boy from Pallet Town. As for Amelia, it seemed that she had indeed tried to destabilize her by playing on this confusion.
"You should try to contact him, it would do you good," Brendan suddenly advised in his usual cheerful tone.
It wasn't that easy! Not after what had happened at the airport. What if he didn't share her feelings? What if the reason he still hadn't contacted her was because he was avoiding her!? Serena shook her head, forcing herself to calm down. Her feelings and her more than unclear relationship with the trainer from Pallet Town were one thing, but if it hurt Charizard, then there was no reason for her to hesitate. No matter how awkward or embarrassing it would be, she'd call Ash today if it would make things right! Well, she didn't have a videophone on her, but believe her, as soon as they reached a Pokemon Center, she would...The young girl felt her resolve waver again. Really, why was it so difficult when she knew deep down that... Ash wouldn't change. Serena felt her heart twist painfully as she considered the possibility for the first time: that he would remain true to himself and act as usual, as if nothing had happened.
"I guess you're right," she breathed.
Charizard... No, Charmander, the little young Charmander who had forced himself to evolve to help her and who was now, probably unconsciously, trying to fill the trainer's absence. In the end, all the better if it was just that and not... She brought her hand up to her chest and felt her breastbone vibrate under the blows. Yes, really, all the better.
"Serena? Is everything okay?"
Charizard had nothing to do with Ash, never was and never would be Ash, no matter what similarities she imagined. Because that was all it was, as Brendan had so rightly pointed out.
"Yes, thank you. I think I'm seeing things more clearly now."
"Hm... That's good then."
It was also good that she had already stopped paying attention to the boy's face, the expression of someone who didn't believe his own lie.
As they approached, a burning smell rose from the camp. Serena was surprised, Brendan less so, if at other pokemons were already busy throwing water on the fire, their little routine well established, depressed to know that it would be charcoal again tonight.
"If you're looking for help, ask Braixen, Sylveon, or even Pancham, I'm sure they'd like it better than Charizard," Brendan complained, looking at the fourth-degree burnt pan.
Ash scolded, it was the boy's fault that he tried to speed up the cooking process by spitting out his flames.
"Calm down," Serena soothed, scratching the back of his horns. "And Brendan, he's the one who asked me to teach him, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't make remarks like that."
"A charizard?"
"It surprised me too. But he was determined, so..."
The boy had bitten into a pecha berry and looked thoughtful as he watched the shapeshifter like a curiosity from a museum of horrors.
"That won't do," the boy said. "There are some things you just can't do, even with practice. Cooking might be easy for you, but for a charizard... You might as well ask it to learn how to breathe underwater."
Ash slammed his tail against the ground, flames at the edge of his lips and his human mind struggling to remind him that he had to control himself. Especially now that Serena was standing in front of the boy, leaving the dragon no choice but to swallow his flames.
"It's dangerous what you're doing, Serena," the trainer breathed, gently pushing her aside. "That's what you should do if you want to stop it."
Ash squealed as he crushed the flames in his pain that exploded in his nose sent him stumbling backwards and sprawling across his body, skinning a wing on the brambles.
"You see. A well-placed swipe between the nostrils and you stop his flames in their tracks."
He smiled, proud of his little trick. Serena, on the other hand, was about to make him swallow the rest of the frying pan. And when she saw her pokemon crawling on the floor, gurgling in fear that the trainer would do it again, she promised herself she'd let him taste the charred vegetables, too.
"Would you like to try?" Brendan asked.
Ash hid his snout under his paws, afraid that his trainer would accept, unable to formulate the slightest response in this haze of pain.
"Very well," the young girl murmured.
Serena's flick left a nice red mark on the boy's cheek.
"That was in very poor taste, Brendan."
He smiled painfully, but Serena had already left to help her pokemon up.
"I was expecting you to ask me to teach you the technique."
"Certainly not," she spat.
Brendan raised his hands in surrender.
"Okay, I get it," he sighed. "Charizard, I'm sorry."
"I think you have more to apologize for."
The boy shrugged, it wouldn't change the truth.
"I didn't say he couldn't cook out of spite or mockery. You know as well as I do that he'll be able to handle some small tasks, but cooking will always be too complex an area for him to handle on his own."
The discharges pulsed in his wing, fine thorns planted between the delicate scales, the furrows of pain in his face suddenly invaded by rivers of sorrow. Maybe it was true, maybe he'd never been any good at this and never would be, maybe he'd only manage to make Serena sick if he kept at it. He gasped and stepped aside as he saw the shadow of a hand fly toward his nose. It was only Serena, and it would probably just be a light caress to the sensitive area, but Ash couldn't shake the thought that it would hurt, that the treacherous fingers would strike him at the last moment. Serena's not like that, you know she's not like that, he tried to convince himself. But now that she had seen, now that she knew, would she really never have the urge to use it?
"No," the girl murmured.
If he was afraid of the hand she held out, then... She grazed his muzzle with the tip of her lips to extinguish the pain. The shapeshifter stood still, scales frozen, dazed by what she had just done. The magic kiss, he remembered painfully, for to her he was Charizard, simply her Charizard and nothing more. But never before had he felt such warmth penetrate him, bouncing deep inside him without finding the slightest way out. It was swelling, powerful, intense to the point of overwhelming what he'd felt at the airport. Yes, it was laminating him, shredding him, it was... Time with Serena. The surplus accumulated since his transformation, which wasn't a calm lake like in Kalos, but the roar of a mutating waterfall. And Serena had just turned up the heat. But the young girl, barely aware of her gesture, had already turned to Brendan.
"He wants to learn. He's willing to put in the time instead of doing what he loves, and it's my job as his trainer to find ways for him to succeed. And maybe it won't be classic or the right way to do it, but once we find the techniques that work for him, you won't be able to say that being a Charizard is reason enough for it to be impossible."
Serena was a good trainer who probably didn't like having her pokemon made fun of, Brendan had no doubt, but with Charizard, it was different, it always had been different.
"With your encouragement, he might have a chance," he admitted. "Assuming his scales don't explode by then."
The girl's eyes widened as she noticed the scales bulging with blood and heat. It wasn't pain that was causing that, nor was it anger, so... She ran her tongue over her lips before telling herself it was impossible.
"Water!" she cried, running to the lake. "We need to cool him down now!"
Seven buckets of water on his head. That's right, to cool him down, they'd cooled him down, as evidenced by the faint flame at the end of his tail, what energy he had left after everything else had burned out in seconds.
"What's gotten into you?" squeaked Braixen.
The question surprised him so much that he stopped blotting his scales with the towels lent to him by his trainer... and by Brice. The latter he hadn't bothered to throw it into the dust.
"I..." He paused, his heart still warm with exhaustion, certain that the moment when lips had rested on his muzzle had been so brief that only he had noticed. "No, nothing."
"Are you feeling better?" Serena asked him.
The oran berry she handed him was most welcome. He swallowed it in one gulp before the setback of his heat stroke caught up with him for good. He had just enough time to slip between the sleeping bags, close his eyes and fall asleep.
The sun had set for good, the dishes were washed, and the pokemons were back in their capsules. Brendan looked at the reptile, its orange skin standing out against the night, its flame the last bastion before the shadows engulfed them.
"Do you think he'd be willing to change for you?"
Serena settled into her sleeping bag, the fine down against her mouth and her wrist bound in blue near her heart, as she answered:
"He already has."
"Has he?"
She had turned to her pokemon, to the final evolution of this lineage so difficult to train. She nodded slowly, unaware that Brendan could see her perfectly in the dim light.
"I think I admire him a little," the boy admitted dryly.
To change, to evolve, to preserve. Brendan had no doubts now. The cap clutched in his hand as he scanned the world around him, desperately searching for a shape that would stand out from the rest. Searching for the one who had once offered him a chance as he froze in the face of the howling canyon. Unable to move, unable to grasp, unable to change, just watching.
I'm sorry, but it's just that I hate what I am.
A strange smile twisted the boy's lips, a trembling expression that could break at any moment. He dropped his hat into the dust.
"Me too," he murmured.
Lying on her bed, Serena carefully read the latest issue of Gracide. It was her monthly treat, a privileged moment when her fingers revelled in the glossy paper. Gracide, its pages sublimated Valerie's creations, its curved letters embraced Elesa's beauty. This magazine was art that invited itself in, a familiar friend that slipped in close to share its reveries.
The double page. The young girl sat down and carefully placed this souvenir on her lap. Frozen in the sap of the pages, Aria danced. A moment, a single movement captured, and yet the Kalos Queen was radiant. No... it was much more than that. Aria was alive. Her outstretched arm, her smile, it was as if she was inviting Serena, urging her to join her. If I came back now, I wouldn't stand a chance against you, and you know it. Serena closed the magazine and slipped it into her purse. So wait for me, don't lose until I get back, until we can stand on the same stage again.
"I hope you're all ready for practice!"
Serena's high spirits clashed with the indifference of her pokemons. Sitting in a circle, they conducted their strategy meeting without paying any attention to the young girl. The trainer's cheeks puffed out because they were already excluding her from their conversation, but if they ignored her on top of that... But she could hardly blame them. What animated their discussion, the reason for everyone's concentration, was Brendan's insistence that they come to this town to attend the Trainer's Festival. An event that reminded Serena of the annual festival in Coumarine City, except that it wasn't trainers who gave the gifts, but pokemon. And her friends were determined to attend, even Charizard, who didn't really like following Brendan's ideas.
"Please, can we stop spreading ourselves too thin and get back to the subject at hand?"
The small assembly had naturally chosen Braixen as its leader. But the vixen didn't see it as a sign of respect; it was more like being handed the baby that no one wanted.
"An Electirizer, that's what she needs," Minun asserted.
"There you go again," Braixen grumbled.
"What's the big deal? Wattson dreamed of having one."
"I don't think they have quite the same taste," Sylveon explained more diplomatically than Braixen wanted to.
Too bad the fairy type was only talking to calm the atmosphere. Make no mistake, the vixen saw her as a valuable helper, but she would also have liked to hear Sylveon's opinion about what she wanted to offer.
"You can't know until you try," the blue didn't let go of his idea.
"Does anyone have any other ideas?" the Braixen sighed.
"Jewelry or clothes," Pancham offered.
"We don't have any money," Ash reminded. "And I don't feel like asking Serena to lend us some."
An icy chill gripped all the pokemons as the obvious hit them. They thought as if their choices were limitless, and the only difficulty was finding something the young girl would like. But what store would graciously donate its merchandise? Festival of Trainers or not, they had to support their business.
"Let's stick to something simple. Joy said she was organizing a cooking workshop for the occasion, so we might as well take advantage of that. We'll just have to make sure Ash doesn't get too close to the stoves."
"I'm not going to burn everything every time!" the shapeshifter defended himself.
All the pokemons grimaced tensely, and Ash, going back to his accounts, realized they weren't entirely wrong. If the fake pokemon hadn't caused any disasters, Plusle's idea was still the wisest. Serena loved baked goods, so her pokemon's homemade food would be a good gift, as long as it didn't leave too much hair or scales. But did they really want to choose their gift out of spite?
"You're pokemons," Ash suddenly exclaimed, his eyes shining. "Well, right now I am too, but... You can do more, much more than humans. We can't spit flame or use lightning, so we do what we can by creating all sorts of things. So finding a gift, a beautiful gift, I think pokemons can do it without our help!" The small team fell silent. Was his speech that terrible? It was true that he had never been a very talented speaker, but he didn't think it was that bad. "It's just my opinion! We can stay in the kitchen if you prefer," he tried to change the subject.
"No," Braixen interrupted. "What you said... we were just surprised that you thought of it before us."
Ash rubbed the tip of his muzzle, proud that he had managed to motivate them.
"And what exactly do you suggest?" asked Minun.
Ash had expected this and, to tell the truth, had already thought about it without daring to tell the others. After all, they wanted to make a gift together and he...
"I was thinking of learning how to change the form of my fire attacks, a bit like what you're doing, Braixen."
The vixen fell backwards, she hadn't expected such an answer.
"After what you just told us, that's disappointing."
"It's just that my attacks hardly cause my opponents to lose any points, and if I won against that girl, it's only because I knocked out her pokemon."
Ash tangled his claws. That moment at the end of the battle, the one where he had felt close to Serena without knowing how he'd managed it, he wanted to relive it.
"I'm not a pokemon, I'm not even a coordinator. But I'd like to understand what it means to her."
Braixen lowered his head to hide his amused smile. Then, in a slightly less mocking tone than usual, she admitted:
"I suppose from you, it's the best gift you could give her."
But the others were no further along. Worse, it introduced the idea that perhaps everyone should find their own gift. A new option that seemed to have inspired Pancham.
"Staying here won't do us any good, we'd better head for the forest."
Braixen frowned, her lips parted and her muzzle turned up.
"Why the forest?"
"Ash said so! The city, concrete, it suits humans well. But if we're going to find something, it has to be in an environment we know."
"But Minun and Plusle lived in a power plant," the vixen reminded.
"No. We were born in the forest and lived there for a while before we settled in our home," the blue corrected.
"Sylveon?" the fox hissed nervously.
"These are not forests of Kalos. But I'd feel much more comfortable searching there than in this city."
"So we all agree?" fumed Pancham.
The two electric rabbits nodded in agreement, while Sylveon simply smiled discreetly.
"Braixen?" the panda asked, not seeing her reaction.
"Ah... Yippee," she said, half lifting her paw.
They all went downstairs together, Ash could not train in the bedroom anyway. But just as they were about to leave the center for good, Serena stood between them and the door, fists on hips.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.
Problematic. They didn't want her to accompany them, and their trainer must have suspected as much when she saw them leave without waiting for her.
"Panch..."
"There's no way I'm leaving you unsupervised. Especially if it means you get lost again."
"I only got lost when I was a charmander!" he protested.
Besides, he'd planned to stay in the center, so there was nothing to worry about.
"The city is small, but you never know what might happen. Especially with so many people getting ready for the party."
How to make it bend? Braixen wanted to use all her powers of persuasion, but the hand on Serena's shoulder beat her to it.
"If you go with them, it won't be a surprise."
"'Nurse Joy'? Still, I don't want to..."
Only the woman was already dragging her along, saying:
"Jenny and her men are on the alert to make sure nothing happens. Besides, you can't go with them because you already have something important to do here."
The only thing Serena understood from the caretaker's statements was that she wouldn't be able to escape her clutches. She turned to her pokemons, at least to remind them of the most important thing, the thing that would keep everything from going to hell:
"Don't get separated!"
Happy holidays everyone!
Brendan is back and I hope you'll find him interesting and change your opinion of him from his first appearance. Did I plan for Brendan to act from the beginning? yes and no. In the first version, he was just going to be what you saw in the beginning: the archetypal rival who makes Ash jealous. But I soon realized that if he was just that, he would quickly become boring. However, I didn't change the first chapter in which he appears, trying to make you believe as much as possible that he's just an archetype with no importance for the rest of the story.
Then do we get to a new arc? Honestly, I don't know myself. This part will introduce new problems without solving them right away... Anyway, I hope you find this part entertaining.