Water in an Ocean

Ash hoped it was okay she’d sent a message to Giovanni. She’d been bored and had wanted to just do something, and ended up thinking about sending a quick message to him and asking how he was. She’d remembered the number on the back of the letter he’d left for her, and had kept it not only in her pokédex but had actually memorized it.

No one’s ever given her their number before after all.

And in the spur of the moment, she decided to take a selfie, that Pikachu pushed himself into, and had sent it to him. She regretted the impulsive action almost immediately, until not too long after she’d been surprised with a response.

He’d actually sent back a funny picture of a Persian’s, she assumed belonged to Giovanni, head lying happy and dazed on his lap while he scratched behind the leonine pokémon’s ears.

Ash had saved it immediately, and she giggled every time she looked at it or even recalled it in her head. It was a funny picture, and that he had actually took the photo and also sent it to her was just as funny in itself.

She continued to hum as she finished up bathing Seviper, bonding with her pokémon like this. She’d also snapped a few pictures of her new pokémon and had proudly sent them off to Giovanni, wanting to show him how she was doing and progressing with her training and traveling. She really wanted him to know she was working hard, and that she wanted him to see her new achievements of getting new pokémon and how she was doing with them.

Brock had also taken to drilling her on water pokémon, their weaknesses, and how to defeat them and what to avoid. Since his own pokémon was rock type and couldn’t help much in battle practice, he only battled with her at times to up the experience of her pokémon and to encourage her bonds with them and to know their strengths and weaknesses before having to use them in actual battle.

And even if Mustang was there, Brock was still in bliss. He had happily slept closer to Ash without any repercussions from a certain red head, showed Ash how caring and sweet he was, and was able to give Ash hugs. He’d also been able to showcase and show off his pokémon experience and knowledge like he hadn’t been able to when they’d battled, while also impressing her and most importantly being able to help her out.

Man, was he happy Misty was gone.

Even as they walked into Cerulean City, Brock was quite content on keeping Ash to himself. His mind was fast filtering through all the things they could do in the city, and all the places they could go to together. He was hoping Misty stayed away as long as possible, maybe even forget to meet them. He’d be happy if they never even met up again, with Misty not being able to find them.

“Hey, Ash! If you want, I can take you out later to eat?” he asked hopefully, thinking of a nice dinner date, complete with candles and music and roses…

Ash smiled brightly, “That’s nice. But I like your cooking better. Please?”

How could he say no? He smiled at her goofily and agreed. He’d cook for her anytime.

“Oh, look! The Cerulean Gym!” Ash said excitedly, having spotted it. “Let’s go, Brock!”

She cheered, taking Brock’s hand and running for the gym. Brock grinned stupidly from the gesture, tightening the hold slightly. They were holding hands now…

“There it is!” Ash exclaimed once they’d neared it.

They ran inside, surprised to find a sort of water stadium. Ash couldn’t figure what on earth they’d need a stadium that large for, even for pokémon battling. She could at least get water –it was a water gym with water pokémon. A little girl walked towards them, cocking her head to the side curiously.

“Hey, are you here to watch the show?” she asked cutely at the duo.

“Huh? What show?” Ash smiled friendly to the little girl, though she wanted to know what she was talking about.

The girl giggled, “The Mermaid show of course! The pretty ladies are doing dancing in the water! Wanna come see?”

“Wow, really? Come on, Brock! Let’s go watch before I go challenge the gym leader,” Ash got all excited about it. She’d never been able to go to a show before, and she’d always been in Pallet Town her whole life, before she’d left on her journey. This was something new and exciting for her to try out and experience.

Brock grinned. Now they really were going on a date. How lucky was he?

“Okay, I’ll show you where it’s at. But I have to go to the bathroom first,” the little girl giggled, and skipped away to the nearest bathroom, where they waited outside of it for her.

A while later, after the little girl was done and had met back up with them, the three had walked into the underwater show and separated as the little girl went to rejoin her family. Ash and Brock quietly looked around for empty seats to sit in, to watch the show. Although, Ash wondered if it was really alright they were in there, and if they had needed any tickets…

Beautiful ladies swam around in a ballet, dressed up as mermaids. Ash watched mesmerized at the beautiful acrobatics and swimming being performed in the water.

The red head looked a little familiar to them both though…

Brock tensed and cursed, having recognized her. It was his ultimate enemy and biggest block to Ash.

Misty Waterflower.

Misty glared at her fellow gym leader. She could smell that guilt. She just knew he’d been up to no good while she’d been gone. She knew she should have just said forget it and traveled with them anyway, damn all the consequences and truths.

Brock glared back. He’d been a perfect gentleman. How dare this little girl get all up in his face, without any reason to? Besides, he and Ash were perfect together.

“How was your travel here, Ash?” Misty turned to Ash with a forced cheer.

“It was great! Brock cooked for me and was real nice!” Ash said, oblivious to the tension between her traveling companions.

“Is that so? He was real nice, I bet,” she hissed, eyes darting over to Brock dangerously.

“As gentlemanly as I could for milady,” Brock scowled, tempted to sneer back.

“Oh, who’s the gym leader?” Ash interrupted, back to thinking of pokémon and battling. She was eager to challenge the gym leader and hopefully earn her next badge.

“Ah, my sisters. So it’s more like gym leaders,” Misty changed her face to a smile for Ash, though she didn’t want to talk about her stupid sisters.

“So you guys are gym leaders and show people?” Ash asked, cocking her head to the side cutely.

“Hai! Oh, you’re so adorable! Misty, you could’ve told us your traveling friend was so kawaii!” Lily Waterflower gushed, bursting onto the scene and interrupting their talk. The other sisters followed after her and immediately zeroed in on Ash.

All of Misty’s sisters were squealing and fawning over Ash, pinching her cheeks and just basically gushing over her. Misty blushed, embarrassed. Damn it, she didn’t want her sisters embarrassing her in front of Ash. Her temple grew a tick and she was tempted to scream at her sisters to stop it, but didn’t want to startle Ash and show that side of her.

“If all of you are the gym leaders then I challenge you!” Ash said earnestly, wanting to battle them all and eager that she could actually battle a lot of gym leaders this time.

“Oh dear, we’re sorry,” Daisy apologized sincerely. “But all of our pokémon are in the Center right now. How about we just give you a badge?”

Misty looked at Ash’s face. The girl looked hesitant and disappointed. It wasn’t in Ash’s personality to just accept handouts, and she certainly wanted to work hard for her achievements. She never took the easy way out for anything, if she could. Ash wanted to be the best because she was the best.

“Hold it right there! I’m a gym leader, I can battle Ash! How’s that? And just because we’re friends, don’t think I’ll go easy on you!” the water trainer said suddenly, knowing full well Ash wanted to earn her badges and she was going to make sure and help Ash do so, no matter what.

Ash brightened up, and grinned challengingly back at her friend. “I wouldn’t expect you to!”

“We’ll have to change into bathing suits, though,” Misty said cheerily, winking teasingly at the younger female. She couldn’t wait to embarrass and tease her little sister-figure.

Ash sweatdropped and grew a pout.

Misty was a little worried. She hadn’t wanted to put Ash in a bathing suit, but the rules were rules. And the arena was full of water, so it made sense to change out of regular clothes so as to not get them wet.

But there was Brock! And that was all the reason needed to bend the rules a little…

The water trainer sighed as she waited outside of the changing rooms for Ash to emerge. The worst part was that the only bathing suit Ash could borrow was Lily’s bikini. Misty was all but ready to have a conniption and had heatedly argued with her three sisters for awhile, until she finally conceded that all options were exhausted. It wasn’t like she could go out and buy a new swimsuit for her friend (she didn’t even know her size), without it looking suspicious. She could just imagine the explanation to Ash about it. Misty would be face palming.

When Ash finally emerged, the bikini was actually a little tight on her. Misty sighed again. If Brock had learned his lesson at all, then he had better behave. Otherwise, she’d be getting some exercise out of her mallet that day.

Unfortunately, the first thing Brock did when he saw Ash was drool and have a nosebleed. Misty wished she had her mallet, but then again Brock straightened up and had composed himself rather quickly. Misty eyed the change warily.

“You look beautiful, Ash,” Brock gave another goofy smile.

At least, Brock was less perverted-acting and more courteous about his interest. Still, Misty didn’t know if she should knock Brock down for the compliment or let it go because it was a compliment. Besides, it wasn’t like it wasn’t true, and Brock hadn’t been crude about it or said anything really bad.

“Come on, Ash. Let’s get this over with,” Misty said instead, just letting it go for her own sake as well Ash’s, dragging Ash into the arena and away from Brock and her embarrassing sisters.

Misty and Ash stood on two separate platforms, both of them in the middle of the arena filled with water. One wrong step could lead to them falling into the water, and Misty wasn’t sure if Ash could swim. Ah hell, she should have asked the younger girl that in the first place! Now she was going to worry about Ash falling off or something, and hoping Ash could swim.

Both platforms were only an inch above the pool of an arena.

“This is a one-on-one match up! Begin!” Violet announced.

Misty called out Starmie and Ash called out Pikachu. The girls smirked at each other.

“You may have the type advantage, but how can you use it to your advantage without getting your little mouse wet? Can it even swim? How can Pikachu even attack from that far away, when my Starmie has a superior speed?” Misty taunted.

Ash narrowed her eyes at her. “Pikachu, shock a portion of water into the air and keep slapping it towards Starmie! Use agility to double your speed!”

Shocked, Misty forgot to order her Starmie to dodge and it was surprised as well. She’d been caught off guard by the surprising attack, and hadn’t been prepared for it at all. The pseudo-water attacks hit Starmie head on and it took four of them to knock it into the water.

“Now, Pikachu! Shock the water!”

The water in the arena was completely doused in electricity, shocking Starmie with it. Soon enough, the water pokémon floated to the surface unconscious.

“Yeah! Great job, Pikachu!” Ash yelled, jumping up in excitement.

Slipping on a puddle of water behind her that she hadn’t noticed had been there, a surprised Ash fell into the water. The bad news…one, Ash couldn’t swim and two, the water still had electricity running through it.

Misty couldn’t call out any of her pokémon and Brock was in the same situation.

It made for a dire situation, and no clear solution in sight.

Without thinking, Brock ran and jumped into the water. He quickly swam to Ash, ignoring the bite of the electricity, and once he had her he swam even quicker up to her platform. Only somehow he had gotten to Misty’s platform instead.

Brock fell over twitching from the electricity and the information that he had lost precious time on spending alone time with Ash –even though both would’ve been unconscious, he had still been hoping he could’ve kept Ash a little longer from Misty.

Misty glared at him before turning her attention back to Ash, dropping onto her knees so that she could cradle the girl to her. She could vaguely hear her sisters screaming out in the background and rushing over to them, but she hardly paid any attention.

“M-Misty?” Ash asked blearily, feeling dazed and in pain.

“You know, Brock and me are the weakest of the gym leaders. So you gotta keep training! And to do that, you have t-to keep awake. Okay, Ash?” Misty said tearily.

She was the water expert and trainer. Why had it happened like this?

“Okay. I’ll keep awake…later though…”

“Ash!”