Flower After Taste

 

There was something that clenched inside of her when she stood in front of the store.

 

The store attached to the Celadon Gym.

 

The perfume store attached to the Celadon Gym.

 

She hugged the Charmander to her chest and turned on her heel, walking away from it. There was no way she would enter that store.

 

Moments later, she was morosely and broodingly sitting in the Pokémon Center, pushing a packet of salt back and forth on the table with the tip of her finger.

 

“Hey, I thought you were going to go challenge the gym secretly,” Norman approached her, feeling definitely more at ease and comfortable around her than the others, especially after she’d been so vulnerable around him.

 

“I was hoping to do it and win, and then come back and show off a badge to everyone, but…” Ash didn’t want to say she left because she didn’t want to be near the gym and its store. “I got lost,” she lied.

 

Norman looked taken aback. “Well, I don’t live in this region and not really familiar with it either…but I can go with you and help you figure out where the gym is?”

 

Ash felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, knowing that she couldn’t just say no to his kind offer now. She gave him a feeble smile and came with him, leaving the Pokécenter and heading back towards the gym. But as she stood in front of the gym again, her legs stopped and Norman (who’d been so kind to have come with her, asked for directions, and ‘helped’ bring her there) stopped as well and looked at her.

 

“Ash, is something wrong?” he looked at her in concern.

 

“I…I…” Ash shook her head and turned and ran away in a panic, her legs pumping as she ran from there.

 

In fact, she was so fast that she was like a blur to Norman’s eyes. It was almost comical in a superhuman fashion. Or a cartoonish/anime-ish fashion. Whatever one chooses.

 

So Norman traveled back to the Pokémon Center and found that everyone had gathered there, expecting Ash to be there as she had been for the past week. When they saw him, they gave him quick questioning glances, but otherwise went back to their respective activities and talks. Being that he had something to say, he cleared his throat and regained everyone’s attention.

 

“Um, I was with Ash,” he ignored the glares he received. “She told me before that she wanted to challenge the Celadon Gym and surprise everyone with a badge, but I found her again and she’d said she’d gotten lost and had come back here. I went back out with her and helped her find the gym, only that she kind of…ran away?”

 

Everyone gained confused looks on their person, but Oak groaned and shook his head.

 

“Erika owns a perfume store in the front of her gym,” Oak explained, but that just further confused everyone.

 

“What does that have anything to do with this?” Giovanni asked, barely not scowling.

 

“Ash is allergic to perfumes,” the professor confessed. “She’s rather terrified and despises them. I should have remembered Erika’s perfume store and Ash’s allergies…”

 

Brock winced. “It’s like a huge deathtrap, huh?”

 

“Basically, it sounds like,” Lt. Surge grumbled. “She’d have to find a way to challenge Erika outside of the gym then.”

 

“I think she’s a bit disheartened and upset,” Norman told them. “She quite frankly didn’t want to go near the gym and seemed to be quite strung out about the whole affair.”

 

“Coupled with her running away in a panic, she’s going to be a livewire of emotion right now,” Oak looked thoughtful. “I’ll go look for her and try to help think of something.”

 

“I’ll go with you,” Giovanni immediately volunteered.

 

“Me too,” Lt. Surge agreed.

 

Norman also volunteered to go with them, and at least they didn’t shrug him off.

 

“I’ll go to Erika’s and see if she can do something about this,” Brock suggested, wanting to actively find a solution for her. “Hopefully, I can find out something I can do or something to help Ash out.”

 

“I’ll go with him as a backup and make sure things try to work out,” Misty brought up.

 

They split ways, hoping the situation wasn’t hopeless and could be solved easily and quickly.

 

Ash unhappily walked around the city for a bit, but didn’t stray too far so she didn’t get lost. However, somehow she ended right back in front of the gym, where she glared at the storefront irritably. But she did bite her lip before hesitantly walking closer. Just as she neared the front of the gym, she noticed a few ladies angrily talking down to a boy, who sounded like he was putting down their perfume and was now being refused entry to challenge the gym leader.

 

That…made her rather angry.

 

Stomping up to them but quite entering, Ash yelled at them through the glass doors.

 

“Hey! Quit picking on that kid!”

 

The women looked at her disapprovingly. “He insulted our perfume. He shouldn’t be allowed to challenge Erika.”

 

Ash gritted her teeth. “Really? That’s the worse logic I’ve heard. He has the right to his opinion! And if he doesn’t like perfumes, then he doesn’t like perfumes. You and this gym shouldn’t force your opinion and likes onto people. Maybe he’d been rude, but that doesn’t give you the right to be so discriminate.”

 

Frustrated with all of it, Ash declared, “I wouldn’t challenge this gym for anything! Not with the attitude that runs it.”

 

She turned on her heel sharply and started to stomp away, feeling herself completely angry with everything. First, poor Charmander and then her stupid memories cropping up to haunt her. And now this! Why was her luck so sucky lately?

 

Ash managed to locate a diner (Sort of? It was kind of small and dingy though.), where she went to find an empty seat to be alone. Finding a really isolated one in the back, she headed towards it, only to find it was occupied by someone. She almost turned to leave, when the man noticed she was there.

 

“You want this chair?” he sniffled.

 

Nodding hesitantly, Ash was startled when the man stood up abruptly.

 

“You can have it,” the man said morosely. “In fact, I’m done with this place. Ugh, I lost so much at the Game Corner. Here, you can have this too.”

 

He handed over a nice coin case before leaving her, and Ash examined it curiously. There was a few coins left, but she could see the majority of it had been spent. Probably at the Game Corner, like he’d said, and obviously lost. Sitting where he’d previously sat, Ash noticed he’d left a half-full bottle. She was kind of thirsty, but she was broke…

 

Well, she’d always thought it was bad to waste things.

 

Taking a sip of it, she scrunched up her nose. It tasted kind of funny. Shrugging to herself, she kept sipping at it until she started to feel a little weird and slightly dazed and fuzzy. Feeling her depression become more pronounced, her hand knocked against the new coin case she’d gained. Maybe if she’d play some games, she’d cheer up. Deciding on it, Ash got up and went out of the diner, to go find the Game Corner.

 

It didn’t take her long and she entered it, swaying slightly. She looked down and saw some coins. Grinning goofily, she picked them up and added them to her coin case. Wondering if she could find some more coins, she got on her hands and knees and started to crawl through the aisles to find coins and ignoring the stares and looks she got from the other patrons. Giggling to herself as she did so, she then was pleased at her success. Afterwards, she plopped herself in front of a machine and inserted a coin, starting to play.

 

It was sometime later that that was when she’d been found by Giovanni, Oak, Lt. Surge, and Norman.

 

“Ash, what are you doing here?” Oak asked in shock and anxiety.

 

Ash, concentrated on the game, stared solely at the machine while she answered and slurring her reply.

 

“S’playing, Sam.”

 

“Why are you slurring?” Lt. Surge asked in confusion, only to come closer and sniff her. “You smell like saké,” he noted incredulously.

 

“S’thirsty. Guy left drink on table and I drank it,” Ash continued blankly, stuck on the game.

 

Concerned, Norman grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly. “Ash? I think you need to leave and get away from the machine now.”

 

And all the while, Giovanni had a stony look on his face, hands clenching. This was his establishment after all, and he hadn’t wanted Ash to become like this or get so stuck on the gambling games in here. Seeing as she was right now made a pit of guilt fill his stomach.

 

Ash reluctantly stood up and walked away from the game. But she didn’t head to the exit, instead heading towards the front.

 

“Ash, where are you going?” Oak tried to make a grab at her.

 

“I want a refund,” Ash fumed irritably, her head still fuzzy.

 

“This is a gambling corner, Ash,” Lt. Surge said wryly. “You don’t get refunds if you lose. Hell, I don’t think you get refunds for regular games!”

 

But Ash merely marched up to the front counter and slammed her hands on it, gaining the only worker there’s attention.

 

“Can I help you?” the person asked in boredom.

 

“I want a refund,” Ash said blandly.

 

She was stared at, and the others could admit that this was slightly a situation to face palm at.

 

“No refunds,” the worker said slowly, a little confused. But then Ash was about to shout, when she noticed a suspicious person hovering near a poster to the side.

 

“You! Why’re you suspicious?” Ash asked accusingly, thrusting out a finger to point at them.

 

Giovanni started getting alarmed since that was one of his agents, and why was he wearing his Rocket uniform in plain sight out here and just hovering there, especially given that was where the entrance to the Rocket base here in Celadon was? And to his horror, he saw Ash moving towards the guy purposely. Worried Ash would find out about things there and that idiot might let something slip, he started to stride after her as well, only to be in shock with the others as instead of further questioning the guy, or at least challenging the man into a pokémon battle (something he’d expected more along the line of her invasion of his business in Saffron), Ash instead sucker punched the Rocket agent in the face.

 

Somehow that led to the accidental discovery of the entrance, and Ash got off of the knocked out Rocket agent and started in on the entrance. The guys rushed after Ash then, only to find a load of Rocket agents coming towards Ash, pokéballs out and ready to be thrown. Only, instead of pokémon battling, Ash rushed forward and began to systemically kick everyone’s ass. It was both amazing and shocking, and they really hadn’t thought her capable of it, or at least thought she’d care to go through with things this way.

 

Giovanni wasn’t sure what to make of it at all. Once again, Ash was fighting off his Rockets. But this time she was drunk and not battling with pokémon, and apparently decided to kick everyone’s ass the regular way.

 

“Is she okay?” Norman asked them in alarm, watching the usually sweet and kind girl beat the hell out of grown men double her size.

 

“I’m…not sure,” Oak answered hesitantly. “She’s having a bad day for sure though.”

 

“I say we just stay here and let her go through the base, get it out of her system and clear out the place of these guys,” Lt. Surge suggested. “Let her let out steam and hopefully the alcohol will lose its effect on her by then.”

 

Giovanni agreed with the others, but inwardly there was an uneasy feeling that took hold of him.

 

Oak held back her hair as she leaned over the toilet and threw up. She moaned and laid her forehead against the blessedly cold porcelain, while Sir Aaron tried to fan her with his ghostly hand. It wasn’t working, but it was the thought that counted…right?

 

“It hurts,” she muttered.

 

“Man, what a way to have one’s first hangover,” Lt. Surge shook his head as he peered into the bathroom.

 

“What are good hangover cures?” Oak asked aloud, though he tried to be quiet for Ash’s sake. Sir Aaron shrugged, but the others still weren’t used to having a ‘ghost’ around, so he was mostly ignored.

 

“I just got water and aspirin here,” Norman chipped in, holding the glass of water and the two aspirin tablets.

 

“Eggs,” Lt. Surge interjected. “Greasy stuff.”

 

“I’ll get started on cooking something,” Giovanni glanced at Ash with an unreadable face.

 

But Ash was miserable and sick, so she didn’t really hear or pay attention to the others. She had no idea what was wrong with her, and why she had gotten like this.

 

What’s a hangover anyway?

 

Groaning again, she closed her eyes and tried to not feel so sick.

 

Erika would like to think she was a good gym leader. She fought well and made sure her gym wasn’t seen as weak, and further made sure she was a kind and respectable person. She prided herself on her elegance, and was a person who didn’t allow rudeness.

 

So when a boy came and insulted her perfume rudely, she allowed her workers to refuse entry to him and refuse his challenge to her, feeling insulted herself.

 

But then a young girl came in and defended the boy, accusing her gym as being discriminatory and forcing their opinion on everyone. That made Erika force herself to calm down and really look and scrutinize her actions and the outlook of her gym, and realize that it hadn’t been right of her (especially as a gym leader) to have denied the boy entry to her gym because of his opinion.

 

After the girl had left, the boy had also looked somewhat sheepish, even if still surly. He apologized for being rude, but said he still hated perfumes. However, Erika had stopped him from leaving and allowed him to battle her.

 

But now the girl was gone and she had no idea where she was.

 

Erika wanted to find her and apologize, feeling as if the other girl had been right to correct Erika, even if she hadn’t said those things to her personally.

 

She knew she was a trainer, so she thought to go to the Pokémon Center, but didn’t see her around. She searched for Nurse Joy, and found her in the back and tending to a much healthier Charmander than the one she remembered hearing first being brought in some time ago and had briefly seen.

 

“He looks much healthier than before,” Erika noted, startling Nurse Joy.

 

Nurse Joy smiled brightly at her. “He is! And a young girl named Ash Ketchum was mostly the one who was the cause, having delayed challenging the gym to take care of this one.”

 

Erika was intrigued. “That’s nice of her. Where is she now?”

 

“Oh! I think I heard her say she was going to challenge the gym leader today! But then again, she came back this morning to drop off Charmander, so I don’t know if she lost or something…”

 

Erika had a sinking feeling it was that same girl.

 

“What does she look like?” she asked softly.

 

At Nurse Joy’s description of the girl, she winced and sighed inwardly.

 

“If you see her, please tell her to go to the gym. I would like to say something to her,” Erika told the curious nurse.

 

She started to leave then, only to catch sight of the two newcomers to her pokémon group –Misty and Brock, who she knew were gym leader trainee and gym leader respectively. She’d been surprised to see them in her gym, and Brock especially had been acting strange and not hitting on any of the females in her gym, but after her session she hadn’t been able to talk to them before she had gone out to deal with the boy.

 

“Misty, Brock, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to talk to you two earlier,” Erika approached them, smiling kindly.

 

They sat up in their seats and looked to her, giving small smiles back.

 

“Hey, Erika,” Brock greeted her for the both of them. “We wanted to talk to you about something actually.”

“Oh? What is it?”

 

Misty spoke up then. “We’re traveling with a girl named Ash,” which made Erika’s smile falter, “she’d really been looking forward to challenging your gym. The problem is she’s allergic to perfumes and when she found out your gym had a perfume store in the front, she pretty much freaked out and ran away. Is there any way you could battle her somewhere or something?”

 

“We have to go looking for her too,” Brock chuckled. “She pretty much is sulking around the city after she found that out, and stubbornly wouldn’t tell the rest of us what the problem is. We had to figure it out because I’m pretty sure she’s embarrassed about the fact.”

 

Erika was inwardly rather horrified. This Ash had a perfectly good reason to dislike perfume, aside from just having an opinion about it, and she wondered if her gym would have refused entry to her just because she refused to like perfumes and probably wouldn’t be open to saying why? It made her realize that she really did need to change the outlook of her gym and her workers, and even do something about having her perfume store being set in front of her gym. Ash was not the only one who could have an allergy to perfumes, and it was admittedly careless of her to have had her store there.

 

“Yes, that’s fine with me. In fact, I will be airing out my gym to try to help, and maybe battle her in the back, where the air should be clean,” Erika informed them, hoping that she could make sure her gym wasn’t as hazardous as it unknowingly was.

 

Misty and Brock informed her they would, and she hurried back to her gym, hoping to right things.

 

Feeling infinitely better, Ash quietly played with Persian, Cubone, Pikachu, and Charmander in a game of “Simon Says.” Of course, when it was the pokémon’s turn to say something, they were rather adept at doing charades or drawing something to make their point…

 

“Want more water?” Norman asked her kindly and she gave a small grin to him.

 

“Please?”

 

She drank a lot of it when he gave her the glass, and she was already feeling hydrated and had less of a headache. At least she wasn’t too nauseous anymore.

 

“That really sucks,” she sighed. “I don’t like it. How can you guys stand getting drunk and then getting those dumb hangovers?” she asked everyone with a weird look on her face.

 

Lt. Surge shrugged. “Well, it feels nice when you actually get a buzz going and you loosen up…but yeah. The afterwards is not pretty.”

 

“Especially if you drink too much,” Norman winced himself.

 

“Or if you’re a lightweight,” Oak teased her and she pouted.

 

“Hey! I’m not a lightweight!” she protested.

 

“It was either a really strong bottle of saké…or you’re a lightweight,” Giovanni continued the teasing.

 

She huffed as everyone laughed at her, though the pokémon at least were sympathetically patting her shoulders.

 

“In any case, that’s the last time I’m getting drunk,” Ash declared.

 

Oak snorted. “Says you. You declare so many things like that, and it never fails to amuse me how many times you have to backtrack on your declarations. ‘I’ll never eat spicy food again!’ or ‘I’ll never do a marathon of The Walking Dead!’ Then you eat spicy food the next week or marathon that show again when a new season is about to start.”

 

Ash looked sheepishly at everyone. “Well…huh. How about that, eh?”

 

Just then, Brock and Misty burst into the hotel room and looked frazzled.

 

“What’s wrong, you two?” Lt. Surge asked in alarm at their state.

 

“The Celadon Gym was set on fire!” Misty exclaimed. “I think those Rocket idiots tried to steal the secret formula to the signature perfume, and instead accidentally set fire to the place.”

 

At that though, without hearing anything and not wanting to waste time, Ash darted from her spot and ran out the door, deciding to head straight to the gym and hearing her name being called behind her.

 

She wasn’t going to let anyone get hurt, no matter how she felt towards the gym.

 

Without thinking, seeing the gym on fire, Ash ran passed the worried people gathered outside and others trying to help stop the fire, and ran straight into it. A part of her felt (and maybe this was her Aura powers at work) that there was still someone inside. She was so focused she didn’t notice the heat that was scorching in the gym, nor that she unconsciously batted aside a burning piece of the wall blocking her way.

 

And then she saw Erika hunched over a Gloom.

 

When and where the fire had started, Erika didn’t know. She only knew that she had to get everyone out, and she had managed to until she realized her precious Gloom wasn’t there. She’d gone back into her gym to look for her, but she had trouble finding Gloom until she ran to the grassy arena and found Gloom huddled into a corner and scared.

 

“I’m here,” Erika cried out and ran towards Gloom, bringing her into her arms just as she tripped and sprained her ankle.

 

But then there was fire all around them and nowhere to go, so she and Gloom huddled together in fear and cried together.

 

This time, unlike last time where Gloom saved Erika, there wasn’t someone going to save them.

 

She didn’t know how long they were there or how much time had passed, but she just knew that she and Gloom was trapped. And then, when it seemed like hope was lost on them, she heard a crash and looked up from the ground.

 

That girl from earlier, who she knew was Ash, was there suddenly. One of her arms was over her head, trying to keep it clear from the fire, but her face was smudged with soot and dirt, and so was the rest of her. But she gave a soft smile as she saw Erika, and Erika stared at her in awe and felt her breath hitched.

 

Striding over to the gym leader, Erika watched as gentle eyes smiled just as lovely as her lips, and Ash leaned down slightly and held out a hand. Looking up at her, Erika wanted to cry in relief and happiness, and took the hand held out to her.

 

Everything felt dazed and like a dream. And she was pulled up and Ash, small as she was, took her easily and carried her into her arms like a bride, and then she was rushing out of there.

 

“You could have left us there,” because Erika knew how upset the girl was with her and the gym.

 

“Don’t be silly,” she scoffed, but still smiled down at her. “I would never just leave you here, for any reason.”

 

And Erika wanted to cry again, because she remembered feeling lost and abandoned a long time ago, and had Gloom to come to her aid then. She didn’t think it would happen again this time, but she had Ash Ketchum coming for her and suddenly she remembered the resolve she made then come back again.

 

A wall on fire started to fall again, and somehow Ash used an arm and shoulder to shove it away. Without any waste of time, Ash ran out of the gym.

 

Erika buried her face against Ash’s shoulder and held onto Gloom.