Jack Frost Versus Frosty the Snowman

 

“Ohh, look! Looker sent a text!” Ash had been looking through her messages and found a new one from Looker. “Apparently Team Flare has a setup in Frost Cavern. You want to crash the party?”

 

“Aren’t we the best party crashers?” Giovanni laughed, handing her her hot chocolate as he came over.

 

“Exactly,” Ash snickered, taking it from him.

 

And since they were in Dendemille Town, they were rightly on their way to Frost Cavern. Fantastic coincidence for them!

 

“I’ve got a thing to do here first,” Ash told him. “I’ll meet you back at the RV when I’m done.”

 

Wondering what she was up to, but letting it go because he knew his wife’s antics were amusing at least, Giovanni agreed to that and retrieved their pokémon from Nurse Joy and then headed to the RV. As he waited there, he did have a feeling that the upcoming confrontation with Team Flare wouldn’t come to a sane approach. Again.

 

“Hey, I’m back!”

 

Ash came into the RV not too long after, carrying a large duffle bag. He eyed it suspiciously, but she just walked passed him with it, heading to the back of the RV. He shrugged to himself. She’d end up telling him sooner or later. She usually did, so he just had to be patient.

 

“Get going?”

 

“Yep! Let’s head out, Giovanni! They’re waiting for us,” she chirped happily

 

Giovanni chortled quietly and started the RV, beginning to drive out of there. As he drove, he hummed that stupid song Ash had been singing as she had been terrorizing those Flare grunts back at the Pokéball Factory. It was stuck in his head and he annoyingly couldn’t get rid of it.

 

“When we get there, head to a high point to overlook them, okay?” Ash said as she came to sit at her seat next to him.

 

Still not in on her plan, he gave her a questioning look. She grinned widely at him and gave a playful wink.

 

“I got a toy from Dr. Zager I asked him to make some time back, and I want to try it out.”

 

That…didn’t sound ominous. At all.

 

“Do I want to know?” he asked sarcastically.

 

She laughed giddily. “You’ll see!”

 

Well, he supposed that since he was going to be a part of it, he could go with the flow and let things happen as is.

 

“Okay,” he said simply. “Will it be fun at least?” he asked idly, and he realized he really had gone off the deep end since his de-aging, if that was what he worried and cared about first.

 

“Completely.”

 

Oh well. His bed was made and really, what was he expecting when he decided that once he had been de-aged, he had wanted to go find Ash Ketchum?

 

 

This was all his fault really. He just couldn’t make himself care though.

 

Serena stared at the phone in her hand in serious thought. Ash had sent her a text telling her about things, but she didn’t know how to take the information.

 

She really, really, really liked Lysandre.

 

So she really didn’t know what to say or do about the fact Ash just revealed that Lysandre was also apparently the boss of Team Flare. Even though it was a text, she didn’t even sound bothered about that at all!

 

In fact, knowing Ash, she didn’t just sound nonchalant about it, but was nonchalant.

 

And given Ash, she didn’t just drop that bomb –she actively encouraged Serena to stay with and stick with Lysandre. Her words were that she wouldn’t have to worry about the whole Team Flare thing for long, whatever that meant. Apparently, Ash and Giovanni were doing something about it?

 

Also, Ash then had to drop another bomb that apparently Giovanni was the boss of Team Rocket. Therefore, according to Ash, it wasn’t so bad being attached to a Team Boss. Then she had to go and add that she was also the boss of Team Rocket, courtesy of marrying Giovanni.

 

Would that make her boss of Team Flare if she married Lysandre?!

 

No, no. What was she saying? That’s way too early to be talking about marriage. She needed to slow the heck down and not ride the fast crazy train, like Ash was happily doing.

 

“Are you alright, Serena?”

 

Serena smiled hesitantly at Lysandre, who had rejoined her from the café’s counter, handing her order to her and putting his own in front of him. She subtly slipped her phone back into her purse, and couldn’t help observing the older man closely.

 

She wondered how Ash could get over Giovanni being the boss of a criminal organization, and even join it and become the boss of it. Ash had always been the righteous, knight in shining armor type.

 

“I’m…okay,” she gave him a small smile, but morosely stared down at her napkin.

 

“Serena?” Lysandre called her name anxiously.

 

His hand reached out and touched hers, and she reluctantly looked up to see his anxious face. And in a way, she kind of did understand where Ash was coming from after all.

 

She was kind of, somehow, just a little falling in love with this man.

 

Serena gave Lysandre a resigned smile.

 

“I really like you,” she declared, causing him to drop his jaw at her. “Maybe even kinda in love with you.”

 

At that, she was amused to see him stare at her wide-eyed now, looking completely frozen in place.

 

Serena leaned over, closer to him as she looked up into his face earnestly and squeezed his hand.

 

“I’m kind of bothered about it, but I’ll try not to be bothered about you being the boss of Team Flare. Ash said to stick with you even with that, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

 

 

Lysandre kind of choked on his own air.

 

“Pretty place,” Ash noted, looking around the area. “Maybe I should have saved giving you your ring here,” she teased.

 

Giovanni grunted, caressing his ring. “No way. I was happy with what you did. The Glittering Cave was perfect and I felt romanticized.”

 

Ash eyed him. “Really?”

 

“Really,” he rubbed his ring possessively.

 

She snickered at him, though she had finally found the perfect spot to set up. “You’re just saying that because you wouldn’t want to have received your Mega Ring later on than you did.”

 

“As much as I love the fact I have a Mega Stone and can Mega Evolve Maximus, I’m actually more happy to have gotten my own wedding ring that I can show off,” Giovanni told her sincerely.

 

She blinked before smiling widely and kissing him quickly.

 

“I turned you into such a sap,” she laughed lightly, but she was beaming happily at him. “C’mere you. Help me set up?”

 

He nodded and grabbed the duffle bag from her, and she led him to the spot she’d seen. It was a ledge that overlooked the cavern deep down below them, where Giovanni could glimpse a group of Team Flare agents being directed around by someone he recognized as the Flare Scientist Aliana. He opened up the duffle bag at her direction and reached in and grabbed the first thing within reach.

 

Having done so, he nearly let go in shock when he realized it was a…gun?

 

Yeah, okay, they had Browning rifles that one time with the bank heist (and he technically had a paint gun), but they hadn’t exactly been gunning for anyone. Now Ash had brought a rifle to this confrontation?

 

“Er, Ash, this isn’t what I think it is, is it?” he asked hesitantly, though he reluctantly handed it over when she impatiently gestured for him to. He kept handing her pieces until she’d assembled what he realized was a sniper rifle on the ground, and had then laid down beside it and was fixing herself up.

 

“There’s binoculars in there too,” she said while looking through the scope and focusing.

 

Giovanni twitched and grabbed it, settling himself beside her on the ground.

 

“I didn’t feel like going and using pokémon against these punks. I got bored and asked Dr. Zager for a snow gun. He promised me it’ll be a real doozy,” Ash said, starting out casually before sounding really excited.

 

He should talk to Dr. Zager about the man’s recent penchant in easily handing off things to Ash at her request. He knew his wife. Her mind was a very dangerous place, and likely to come up with nightmarish things.

 

Wait…a snow gun?

 

Within seconds, Ash began to fire off the sniper snow gun, unloading the “snow bullets” at her targets on the ground easily. The usual sound of screaming coming from Flare grunts (they were getting way too used to that) erupted, and using the binoculars, Giovanni was able to see the grunts on the ground running around in a panic and screaming their heads off, while Aliana was yelling at them to stay calm and trying to get order back into her grasp.

 

Ash was definitely disrupting her plans with that, given her enthusiastic sniping. And damn, Ash was a hell of a good sniper, he couldn’t help noting admiringly.

 

“You’re a dangerous, dangerous woman,” Giovanni said admirably. “And it’s really hot.”

 

She gave him a rakish grin. “Want a try?”

 

“I’m in love with you,” he confessed and pulled her into a very deep kiss. She completely turned red at that.

 

 

If they ended up enjoying picking off Flare grunts one by one, well…that was just the kind of couple they were.

 

This wasn’t what he signed up for when he joined Team Flare.

 

His name was Tony, he was 22, and he liked making things beautiful. The Team promoted beauty! So of course he was going to join. But then this crap happened, and he was running around Frost Cavern like a madman. His hair was probably frizzing and he was cold as hell.

 

Minnie, another grunt, had just been taken out before his eyes –a small snow bullet hitting her in the back of the head and knocking her face first into the snow. He’d quickly checked on her, but she was like the others. Knocked out cold.

 

Everyone by then had ditched Aliana, who had just continued screeching at everyone while everyone took off on her. Honestly, what did she expect? Someone hidden had suddenly started sniping at them, even if it was with snow, and of course everyone was going to freak out.

 

It was every man for themselves and he was too young to die.

 

“Hey you. You should watch where you’re going.”

 

He spotted the speaker who had interrupted his thoughts, a petite pretty girl who aimed a rifle at him. He saw his life flashing through his eyes and then she fired, hitting him straight in the forehead. He collapsed backwards, knocked out immediately.

 

“Geez, no challenge,” Ash pouted.

 

Giovanni materialized beside her, calmly observing the fallen grunt (and also wondering at how the heck these snow bullets worked).

 

“What can you expect? Grunts of any Team usually aren’t the brightest bulb in the set.”

 

Ash tutted. “Not on my watch. Our Rocket grunts better be damned spectacular when I get through with them.”

 

Honestly, Giovanni kind of felt sorry for his grunts after she’d mentioned that. But then again, they deserved it for either being lazy, lackluster, or plain incompetent. Besides, Ash owned them too, so that meant she was free to do what she wanted –torture them with training even.

 

“Next?”

 

“Next,” he agreed and they went off to find another target, given how they had stopped sniping and were now hunting down Flare grunts on the ground.

 

Lucky for them, they ran across Aliana finally, who had been attempting to round up her grunts irritably and only managing to get lost. Giovanni sidled up to Ash, coming up from behind her. He leaned down to whisper into her ear.

 

“So how shall we do this?”

 

Ash watched the older woman, who had taken to ranting to herself aloud. She started to slowly grin.

 

“I think I have an idea…”

 

A few moments later, Aliana heard a rumbling that started to grow into a loud roaring. Looking behind her, she screamed as a large snow incarnation started running after her and started roaring fire at her, catching her hair on fire.

 

Left behind was Ash and Giovanni, with Giovanni watching this whole thing in amusement and Ash laughing in hilarity.

 

“I know Persian and Pikachu enjoyed making up that abomination of a snowman, but Litleo has certainly grown used to and enjoying herself as mischief maker too,” Giovanni shook his head.

 

“They’re like our babies,” Ash said matter of fact.

 

Giovanni blinked and his mind started conjuring images, even as Ash looked on in pride as the three pokémon chased the screaming Flare woman.

 

Ash…him…babies?

 

He looked at her contemplatively, his face unknowingly flushed red.

 

 

That…was a thought.

 

Delia looked at her phone, eyes wide. This was unexpected.

 

“Delia! Did you –?!” Oak ran into the room, slamming the door open and looking harried.

 

She held up her phone. “We’re going to be grandparents?”

 

Oak turned red. “I don’t think Giovanni meant it like that. I mean, yes he was talking about kids. But I think he was…asking us for permission.”

 

“Ohh, I’m going to be a grandmother and get another cute little kid to spoil!” Delia giggled and looked ecstatic at the prospect.

 

Oak grimaced, holding up a hand. “I-isn’t Ash too young for that? I’m pretty sure she’s too young to be married in the first place!”

 

“I hope it’s a boy! It would be nice to have a boy around.”

 

Oak twitched, knowing that Delia had totally ignored him and continued on with her dreamy thoughts.

 

“This is all bloody insane,” he muttered under his breath.

 

He looked at his phone and sighed at seeing the text again.

 

I was thinking about kids?

 

Oak was tempted to say no. Hell freaking no.

 

But then he pictured Ash’s face and knew that she would be pouting at him if he said no, even if she hadn’t known about all this. And if she did, eventually she’ll be on board with the whole idea and then find out he said no, and then she’d get the sad face on her face and make him feel horrible.

 

While Delia gushed in the background, he face palmed and wondered what he was going to do about his surrogate daughter.