Adventure's Past

Chapter 21 - Intrusion

"Ash."

Ash had torn off his cloak and completely removed anything that could cause Serena to mistake him for anyone else. He didn't exactly want to, given his vow to not give up his identity to everybody, but something about seeing Serena in front of him urged him otherwise. "Serena, I-"

"Are you the Ash who saved the world?" John suddenly butted in. "The one who stops that one guy? Gary, I think was his name?" Ash sighed and stated, "Giovanni. I stopped Giovanni." He stared at Serena as he said this, piercing into her eyes. John recognized that there was lots of tension, so he timidly walked to the back of the building to avoid confrontation.

It was completely silent. Words had no right to describe the feelings, thoughts, and overall emotions that lingered in the room. It was a complicated mixture of a forgotten love, guilt, longing, and sadness; one that would only result in explosive results if not dealt with properly.

"I-You're here," Serena whispered just loud for enough for Ash to hear her voice. He, too, was dealing with his own conflicting ideals. "Yeah," was all Ash could muster as his mind attempted to piece together the fragments of the situation. "I can't believe it's you. Kalos Queen?" His voice told that, although he was proud of her, he knew that Serena would be in such a position.

"Yeah, it's... interesting," Serena replied meekly, not breaking eye contact with Ash. Her heart longed to rush up to him and embrace him for what he represented; maturity, improvement, attractiveness, but she knew deep within her body that she could not do that because of what he had done to all of his friends years ago.

"All these years I've been gone," Ash muttered to himself, but loud enough so Serena could hear him. "You were my motivation." Serena's heart melted at this statement, but she stood her ground and frowned. "You left us," she stated firmly. "You left us to pick up the pieces of not only the Cell War but our friendships, too."

Ash seemed shocked that Serena was showing anger towards him. He was aware, after all of these years, of how she felt towards him, but anger was never something he'd considered. "I know I left you, but you need to understand it was for you!" He exclaimed defensively. "I never would have left you if I knew it would hurt you!"

"Oh yeah? And how did that go?" Serena asked in retaliation. "You weren't even here to see how your precious plan to stay away from us worked. Spoiler alert, it didn't!" Ash was taken aback by Serena's aggressive nature. Have I caused more issues by trying to solve them? He asked himself in a moment of doubt.

No. All my other friends are thriving and doing well, he convinced himself surely. Except for one runaway. He looked Serena in the eye, trying to figure her out. Why did she suffer when I left? Surely I didn't cause that. "Serena, everywhere I go there seems to be trouble following me. It's something that I realized quickly after waking up, which you would've to know if you had read the letter I left for you," he explained his position.

"Oh, you mean the letter that you left on my doorstep right before you left all of us?" Serena asked sarcastically. "You didn't even have the guts to talk to me face to face, so you had to drop off a letter that you had written weeks prior!" Ash grunted out of frustration as Serena failed to understand the purpose of his argument.

"You don't get it! Even when I exiled myself to that island, I still managed to attract problems!" He exclaimed in a fury. "And now, I've caused the loss of someone that cared about my wellbeing." His voice cracked and his eyes exuded pain as he spoke, causing Serena to momentarily feel compassionate for him, despite his wrongdoings.

"We could've tackled those problems together," she replied affirmatively. "You didn't have to leave all of your friends behind just because you thought we couldn't handle it alongside you!" Ash looked away from Serena and yelled, "I didn't just think you couldn't handle it, I knew you couldn't handle it!"