Red as a Pivoine

Lisia may not have been a big fan of reading, but she was always happy to visit the Mauville publishing house. This was largely due to the fact that they always had cupcakes for her, a reserved seat and, of course, the chance to read the Daily before it was released to the general public the next day.

Sitting at his desk, the editor-in-chief ran a finger along his temple, his head turned slightly to one side so that his able-bodied eye wouldn't miss the moment when his young guest finished reading.

"Not bad, eh?" he asked, his timing always so precise.

Lisia folded the paper carefully, the cover dedicated to the Grand Festival sure to attract the attention of die-hard fans and the merely curious. The director of Editions Mauville always knew the right headlines and photos, and this talent had undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of the Top Coordinator and the realisation of her vision for the first parts of the contests.

"Excellent, as always," she confirmed.

The pride that animated the old man faded as he stood up, leaning on the cane that compensated for his limp.

"Good," he said.

He hobbled over to the young girl, picking up his newspaper with the disdain of a man who knew he was just clinging on to what little he had left. Lisia felt sorry for him, knowing full well the reputation of the old man, once known as the most experienced reporter of his time, the scoop hunter who never backed down in the face of danger.

"Bloody Horton," he muttered, throwing the papers on his desk.

This Horton had taken his eye and, more indirectly, his leg. Imagine, decades of climbing in the most dangerous places in the world, surviving a plane crash and a raging onix attack with barely a scratch, only to be fooled in the most stupid and unavoidable way. Worst of all, his attacker had no knives, no hands, no fangs, and even fewer claws; in fact, he didn't even have the simple and obvious thing of being able to exist on his own. And no, please don't rush headlong into these stories about psychiatric double or triple personalities, because Horton came down to something much simpler (any medical book will tell you): being the bogeyman of sexagenarians at an age when they shouldn't believe in them any more. And if monsters weren't confined to children's beds, it meant that dreams could also escape and reach a teenage girl's heart.

"But I'd like to change one part, if you'll let me."

The editor said nothing as she turned the pages and pointed to the photo of the winner of the Mauville contest, tucked away in the corner of the page, with the caption: 'We weren't expecting her.'

"People like to see the contestants struggling," he shrugged, although he himself seriously doubted the joke, which had been slipped in by one of his assistants.

Truth be told, he wouldn't bet a penny on the Kalosian, knowing that by this time the remaining competitors were barely passable coordinators fighting over the remnants of an already lost Great Festival.

"I am waiting for her," Lisia smiled thoughtfully.

The editor brushed his temple again and couldn't help glancing at the clip encrusted with a Mega Stone.

"Haven't you finished yet?" he asked, bored.

"We all have our beliefs, Horton," Lisia reminded him.

He winced; it was he himself who had asked to be called by that nickname, as if to ward off bad luck.

"Indeed," he admitted. "But I don't think she's what you're hoping for, even from a distance."

Lisia wore a bored expression, but she could not completely disagree with the old man, especially considering the way Serena had appeared elsewhere during the last competition. And the Top Coordinator suspected that the reptile's absence from the stage had a lot to do with it - only the stage, since he had made a name for himself by howling in the stands to wake up his trainer. That Charizard was always doing surprising things, and Serena seemed to react every time, which was only natural, given how much she cared for her pokemons, sometimes to the point...

"What did he mean by that?"

For a moment, the old man seemed to think that senility had gotten to Lisia first, so that she could talk like that on her own.

"I was just thinking about what Chaz said," she hastened to explain. "It seemed to mean a lot to him, but it wasn't that strange, I mean, there are plenty of trainers who eat with their pokemons, so..."

"With them or at the same table?" asked Horton.

"It's the same thing, isn't it?" asked Lisia, a little surprised at the answer she got.

The editor's slightly yellowed teeth appeared. He held up a stunted finger like a teacher about to reprimand a bad pupil.

"Come on, Lisia, didn't your uncle take you to the library in Canalave City one day?"

"He might have."

"You mean you have no idea," Horton sighed. "Chaz was always more attentive than you, but at least you could remember the Folk Tales," he said before reciting in his deep voice:

'There once were Pokémon that became very close to humans.
There once were humans and Pokémon that ate together at the same table.
It was a time when there existed no differences to distinguish the two.'

Ash wished there was no difference between him and a charizard, so that the coordinator would stop staring at him while he ate with the other little monsters, away from the table. It might not have been the ideal way to convince her, but he didn't have much else to offer.

"What the..."

"Charizards share their meals," Minun swallowed with his paw in the fake pokemon's bowl.

Ash glared at the blue rabbit. Because of his aversion to kibble, Serena always took longer to prepare his meals, and she never used his throwing arm as an excuse to be less careful.

"No!" growled Ash, raising the bowl in the air away from the rabbit.

"Ah, there, that, that makes Charizard," Plusle complimented.

Ash frowned. If that made charizard, then that meant everything else was... But Serena had always found him a bit strange, so he didn't understand why she suddenly seemed so sure of who he really was, even though he hadn't done anything special. Yeah, well, nothing special except maybe that tiny little kiss, and he liked to point out that it was she who was the first to be surprised that he hadn't... A kiss, you could count that as a lick, couldn't you?

Ash felt his flame dying, the sudden urge to learn Dig creeping into his mind. There had to be a way to make up for it, even if it meant putting his human side aside. And just as well, because that was exactly what he was trying to do!

A puff of smoke rose from his nostrils. Certain sacrifices, however difficult, had to be made, and all the more so when Serena was involved!

The infatuation of the fake pokemon (it was hard to call it anything else) did not go unnoticed by the other pokemons, especially Delphox, who had a bad feeling and, perhaps because of his new psychic powers, passed it on to her trainer. In fact, there was no need for psychic powers when your big fire reptile was staring at you with the face of someone who thought he'd found a good idea when everyone else smelt disaster.

Serena gulped and hunkered down. At least the shapeshifter had succeeded, in the sense that Serena couldn't tell whether it was Ash or Charizard who was approaching with such a determined step, slamming his hands on the table before staring into hers, lowering his head towards her and... The young girl stood up hastily, quickly putting some distance between them.

"What's got into you?" she asked, shaking.

He craned his long neck towards her as the other trainers watched curiously. Ash was determined to launch the greatest Lick attack in Pokemon History, something Serena was not mentally, physically or psychologically prepared for, especially when she imagined the face of the boy from Pallet Town.

"You're only making things worse, you know that?" she hiccupped.

She'd been acting like he was a real pokemon all along, because she obviously thought he was, except... Serena put her hand in her pocket and brushed against the crumpled paper.

"You wrote it, didn't you?"

Serena waved it in front of him, but the shapeshifter denied any connection to his work. It was Ash who wrote it, in Alola, and there was even the stamp to prove it!

"Zar."

"Then how do you explain this?"

Explosions often took on shades of orange or red, but this time it was a bright neon yellow that blew him away. Ash opened his mouth, eyes wide as Serena shook the evidence of his guilt.

"You assured me that you brought me alone, and I don't think my birthday is so easy to guess. Oh, and another thing, this isn't my handwriting."

Dazed, Ash glanced at the letter she still held in her other hand, suddenly understanding where Serena was getting her certainties from.

"The only thing that makes me doubt now is the fact that you've been lying to me all this time and that you're still doing it," she admitted.

Serena sat back down and pushed the papers back on the table with an exhausted gesture. Her other pokemons watched them without saying a word, and she preferred to bring them back so they wouldn't have to watch what happened next, especially Plusle and Minun, who were chewing their last bits of food (finally stolen from the shapeshifter) like it was popcorn.

"Did you think it was funny pretending to be a pokemon?" she asked, tears in her eyes. "At least I hope I amused you."

She knew it wasn't Ash's style, or at least she'd always thought it wasn't, but now she couldn't help but imagine that every one of his laughs, every one of his smiles during their journey had simply been mocking her. Was it the same in Kalos, or was the boy whose kindness she had always believed was just playing with her, amusing himself with little Serena, who had gathered all her courage as they said goodbye to go back up to him.

"Don't touch me!"

The deeply distressed look on the fake pokemon's face made her waver. He mocked her and protected her, he laughed when she succeeded and got angry when others said bad things about her or that he couldn't help her, he lied to her, and when they left the tunnel, he... What did he want in the end? Why hadn't he said anything before? Why didn't he just ask for help? Because, yes, being a pokemon could be fun for a while, especially for Ash, but to keep the joke going for so long...

Serena gasped. What was Chariz... Ash doing to her now? He hadn't had enough with his pokemon transformation, now he had to do a telekinetic act on top of it.

"Stop it!" she said.

"Zar! Rizar!" he quickly swore that he had nothing to do with it.

Serena paled before shaking her head and saying:

"Yes, of course, people turn into pokemons, so why not pens that fly by themselves!"

She lowered her head and let out a frightened scream as the mini-missile almost hit her. Serena watched as it came to rest upright over the table, the plastic seeming to sway slightly, as if tiny waves were running through it. She glanced at the fake pokemon, who was clearly as confused and astonished as she was. So what was it? A ghost? In broad daylight?!

"Haven't you had enough?" she asked angrily, turning to the one she had considered her pokemon for so long.

"Char..."

The pen was lowered, its point skimming and swirling over the yellow of the leaves, guided by an invisible hand.

"Aaaah!" she ducked behind the dragon.

The object fell as if suddenly deprived of life, rolling a little on the table, the ink drooling on the wood.

"It's... It's not funny," she groaned. "None of this is funny."

"Zar! Charrrrri!" he protested.

"Then who is? You're going to tell me it's a ghost that..."

"What are you doing, Alakazam?" a trainer shouted.

Serena froze as she noticed the pokemon, a spoon still slightly pink in each hand.

" Char!" exclaimed Ash, clearly recognising the one who had kept the sacred bowl for himself (some things you just couldn't forget).

"Do you know him?" stammered Serena.

The psychic pokemon scratched its cheek and mumbled a few words of apology to its trainer. And while the young girl was too far away to hear what the trainer was saying, she could see what was around his arm. A plaster cast, the kind they give you in A and which must have been there for a while, judging by the number of inscriptions on it, a trainer who'd gone to A with an alakazam, Charizard telling her he'd met an alakazam...

She staggered back to the table and, after a few seconds to make sure the pen wouldn't bubble up again, leaned over to the Post-It note. At that moment, she remembered the time she'd gone to the circus and met one of those clever pokemons, a reuniclus of memory, capable of writing a few sentences as long as they weren't too complicated.

Serena took the yellow paper between two fingers and brought it up to her eyes, a 'Hi!' now written just below her date of birth, with the same awkward, trembling quality that was found in Ash's letter. She lifted her head and took a long look at her reptile, who had joined the alakazam to ask him something she didn't quite know.

"Ah..." she breathed, holding her forehead.

Alakazam. It was Alakazam who had transcribed the reptile's words while his trainer had his arm in a cast. He was the one who had helped Charizard and that was why the latter was running over to him to thank him.

"Give me back the basin!"

So enthusiastically, in fact, that Alakazam looked as if he didn't know where to stand in the face of this outpouring of recognition, and replied rather sheepishly:

"I threw it away."

"You what?!"

So... Ash wrote as legibly as a pokemon. Serena shook her head and quickly picked up the notebook in which she had written down everything that reminded her of the boy in the pokemon. Brendan had said that when you missed someone, you tended to see them in everyone and everything, and that this tendency didn't improve when you were worried about that person, but Serena couldn't believe it was that bad. She meant, all the times she'd felt weird about her pokemon, it wasn't just her imagination, it was also Charizard, who was Ash, and since he was inevitably Ash,she... Would she have been projecting things to that extent?

She moved towards the dragon, her legs still shaking and the Post-It folded in her hand. The shapeshifter fell silent as she passed him and asked Alakazam:

"Did you write this?"

"Kazam," he confirmed.

Serena didn't know what to say, staring at her pokemon as it waddled in place, not understanding what was going through his trainer's mind. A feeling he must have had for several days, considering everything she had accused him of. She gritted her teeth a little, the fact that Charizard was Ash would have solved a lot of questions, especially about what he was up to right now.

"Serena?"

"Ah!" she jumped back.

"There's a call for you," nurse Joy said, a little offended by the young girl's reaction.

"T-Thank you, but if you can tell I'll call back later," she stammered.

"I don't think it can wait, she seemed very keen to talk to you."

"She? May?!" she suddenly realised.

She rushed to the videophones and her intuition proved to be more than correct. The Hoenn coordinator looked very excited and wasted no time in shouting when she saw her friend:

"I found him!"

Serena's head was spinning. She hadn't expected May to find the trainer so quickly, and judging by the broad smile on her face, he must be perfectly fine... just as Professor Oak had assured her.

"Is he... Is he all right?" she asked anyway.

"Of course he's fine," May giggled. "It's just that our Ash decided to do a big training session on Mount Lanakila, and he didn't choose to do it on the side of the tourist trail."

May couldn't help but shiver as she thought back to the snowstorms she'd been through. Luckily she had a good guide with her, who had also met the boy, accompanied him up the mountain and still visits him regularly.

"So it really was schoolwork," Serena murmured.

"Sorry about that."

"No, don't be, I mean... I'm glad he's OK, even if I would have preferred to hear it from him."

"Don't worry, I made it clear to Ash that it wasn't right to leave without saying anything, and he understood that you were impatiently waiting for him to call," she finished with a wink.

"Perhaps it wasn't necessary to specify the 'impatiently', but... Thank you."

May smiled a little before speaking more seriously:

"Alola is about to hold its very first league, and I have a feeling that this could really be the one, and I'm sure he feels it too."

"I'll have to wait a little longer, then," Serena realised.

"There aren't many Pokemons Centers around, and I can understand that his main concerns are eating, looking after his pokémons and sleeping, given the days he puts in. I know what it's like, and I know how you need to isolate yourself from everything else at times like this."

Serena bit the inside of her cheek, understanding very well what May was implying.

"I don't necessarily expect him to answer me right away, we can do what we did before and..."

"But maybe he won't be able to. He was very careful to avoid any questions on the subject and I have the impression that it was just so confusing in his mind that he preferred to put it aside so that he could concentrate fully on his dream. And I think if you had to see each other again now..."

"It would be complicated."

"No doubt."

Serena sighed. So her idea that he was avoiding her wasn't completely unfounded after all. It hurt a little to hear that and at the same time... she knew exactly what she was risking.

"Will you tell him good luck for me?"

"I will."

"And the next time we meet, it will be as Master of Alola and Top Coordinator of Hoenn."

"Hmm... I'll have to stop you there, because I'm going to be the next Top Coordinator."

Her light laughter brightened the mood, but didn't completely cheer up the shapeshifter. May had met Ash on Alola, but the last he heard, he was here - well, he and Ash were the same person, so of course he was here!

He suddenly noticed the purple-haired girl standing in the corner of the screen, a smile on her face as if she'd just played a trick on them and the pokemon hopping on her head wouldn't deny it. Ash blinked; what he'd initially thought was a skinny pikachu was actually a piece of rag sewn together and decorated to look grotesquely like the cute ball of fur.

"Well, I'll leave you to it. The jet lag is making me tired, I feel like I'm always asleep," May joked.

Ash felt a drop of sweat on his temple, wondering if this famous impression might be more real than she thought, even to the point of allowing him to see a trainer who shouldn't be there and a pikachu... Ash looked again at the strange disguise that now seemed to be laughing, a large black claw hiding part of its chest.

"Charizard?" called Serena.

"Char!" he snapped to attention.

"It's just... I'm sorry for what happened, you must not have understood anything."

"Chari, charichar," he nodded. "Rizar..." he said anyway, to calm her.

Serena winced. Maybe the dragon didn't think it was serious, but to her it was. She'd clearly made a film of herself because of her fear and the fact that she'd missed the boy, and in the end it was Charizard who'd had to bear the brunt of it. Granted, the fever hadn't helped, but she'd been a bit... confused for some time now, including the times when she felt like she was feeling for him...

Anyway, she had to pull herself together: Charizard did what he saw in the movies, Charizard just wanted to help his trainer, Charizard looked at her with the same gentleness he looked at any other person or pokémon he considered a friend. Now, if she stopped over-interpreting everything, if she stopped wanting to see him so badly, now that she knew he was all right, she would come to this one simple conclusion: Charizard was a pokemon, a bit odd, admittedly, but nothing more or less than a pokemon with which she intended to defy the predictions of the Grand Festival!

Horton slowly woke up. As usual, he had worked half the night at his desk before falling asleep. He shook his fingers to loosen them and squeezed his leg in his socket, knocking over some of his paperwork. He grimaced as he bent down and picked up the sheets one by one until he came to a photo of Serena. He looked at it for a while, wondering if this little girl could really make the headlines one day, as Lisia seemed to think she would.

"Not convinced," he shrugged.

And yet, Serena would soon be appearing in the Daily and many of its competitors. Not with her face on the front page, it's true, but as part of the new news that would soon shake up Hoenn. The kind that people would snap up as soon as it came out, because everyone would want to know what had happened, and all the more so...

If it bleeds.

Author's notes :Don't shoot me just yet!

You have to understand that I need Serena not to know Ash's identity in order to create lots of fun conflicts later on, but I also know that the revelation scene is eagerly awaited (perhaps the most eagerly awaited thing in this story, in fact).

So... I said to myself that it's not so much the reveal that's important but rather how it happens, how Serena reacts, etc. And that's when I came up with the idea of adding this part, telling myself that it was a win-win for both you and me. Yes, yes, I assure you, for you too, because my real revelation scene comes much later, so in a different context... Some of the things I've done in this part (especially Serena who wonders about : Aaaaah! What does that kiss mean ?!(whether in Ash or Charizard language)) couldn't be done later.

In short, the whole point here was to entertain you by showing you a 'what if', even if it meant I'd have to incur your wrath ^^'.

Oh, and also... So maybe I'll take another month's break to get on with my chapters, because I still haven't finished the next arc. Sorryyyyy T T .