All for You

Chapter 21

Serena had just taken a sip of water when Ash droped an atomic bomb on her. "Hey Gary, in Pokemon Coordinating, a girl asked me to go to a resturant with her, than ran off grinning. Do you have any idea why?"

Serena spit out the sip of water she just had in her mouth all over the table. Her face froze in a horrified expression. WHAT! Ash is going on a date? With another girl! She felt empty and hollow inside. 

"WHAT!! YOU GOT A DATE WITHOUT TELLING ME ASHY-BOY?!?!?!" Gary yelled. Serena was trying really hard not to make a scene of herself. Sure, she had already spit on all her friends, but so had Gary, so she figured she shouldn't draw more attention to herself.

"What do you mean? Did I do something wrong?" Ash asked, confused.

This brought Serena a little bit of relief, since Ash clearly didn't think of the date in that way, but still... Ash was going on a date with another girl.

Gary slapped himself.  "Ashy-Boy, what am I going to do with you?" He literally got up and roughly dragged Ash away from the table.

"Wait! Gary, what?" Ash stuttered as he was being dragged away. Gary and Ash left the cafeteria.

Dawn immediately turned to Serena. "Are you all right, Serena?"

Serena just felt like crumpling into a ball. Ash is going on a date with another girl. She dropped her head into her hands. "No, not really..." She mumbled through her fingers.

Dawn made some quick mental calculations. Serena has pokemon performing in a few minutes. She won't be able to perform if she's depressed! But she won't snap out of it until she knows how Ash feels about that girl. Dawn made up her mind. 

"Don't worry, Serena, I'll go find out what the boys are talking about."

And with that, Dawn left too.

She followed where she had seen Ash and Gary go before the cafeteria doors closed behind them and found them talking in a dark corner.

"...Do you like this girl in that way?" Gary said, looking squarely at Ash.

"What do you mean? We just met less then an hour ago. I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I mean, she's nice, but the rest of my life is a long time, wouldn't I want to spend that time with someone extra-special?"

Dawn sighed in relief. She had all she needed to tell Serena. That was easy, she thought. What are the odds that I'd come just as they were talking about exactly what I needed to know? She headed back to the cafeteria.

When she got in the cafeteria, she saw that May and Chloe were now sitting beside a wimmpering Serena while Drew and Goh sat on the opposite bench, uncomfotable.

"No need to worry, Serena! Ash only agreed to the date because he thought she was asking him to do a normal thing between friends. He doesn't see her as someone he wants to be his special person." Dawn grinned at Serena.

Serena sighed in relief. "That was probably one of the worst moments of my life. And I fell down a cliff and stopped and evil team from destroying my home."

Dawn was about to ask, but remembered that Serena had traveled with Ash. 

Serena wiped away her tears and steeled herself. "This just showed me what I need to do. I might be afraid to tell Ash my feelings, but I would rather try and fail then never try and regret it for the rest of my life."

"And we'll be there to help!" Said Dawn.

"Yeah!" May chimed in.

"Count me in!" Added Chloe.

"Thanks so much guys! I don't know what I'd do without you!" Serena gave her friends a large hug.

________........________

Ash looked at his scheduele. His Advanced Battling class was at the practice fields, just like his coordinating class. He quickly headed over and sawlots of students at the preactice battle feilds, about double the amount from his other class. Ash saw some familiar faces in the crowd, including Alain, Gladion, Paul, Tierno, and...

"Hey Sawyer!"

Sawyer, who had been looking at his notebook, looked up and grinned. "Hey Ash! That was some battle a few days ago. You have a really strong Gengar!"

"Thanks! Do you knonw who the teach-"

"Hello, everyone!" Ash looked to the front of the battle field where the voice had come from and saw Diantha. 

"As many of you probably know, in addition to being the principal of this school, I am the Champion of Kalos and now your battling instructor. You may have noticed there is a large number of students in this class. I thought that since there is only one of me, it would be better to teach a larger class than to divide my time between two. There are exactly 64 of you in this class, which means we can hold incredible tournaments!"

At this, Ash's eyes lit up with glee.

"Before we start a tournament though, I wanted to address the most important part of battling. The bond between a trainer and pokemon! Being able to understand your pokemon, its feelings, its condition, or even being able to realise if it has an idea, can be the deciding factor of a battle. So today, we are going to test your bond with your pokemon."

Ash grinned. 

Diantha grabbed two large bags that were by the side of the battlefield. She opened the first one. Inside it were blindfolds. "You and your pokemon are used to you, the trainer, giving the orders then the pokemon executing them. This activity will switch that up." She grabbed the second bag: inside were multiple dodgeballs. 

"In this activity, you and your fellow students will walk around the feild blindfolded. It will be the job of your pokemon to guide you. Your goal is to hit your fellow students with the dodgeballs. The last student standing wins! You have three minutes to make a plan with your pokemon, then everyone grab a ball and a blidfold and we'll begin! You can use as many of your pokemon as you'd like. If you are hit by a dodgeball, you're out!"

Ash thought about this for a moment. "Alright, come on out everybody!" He threw all his pokeballs into the air, each pokemon presenting themselves in front of Ash.

"Alright, we're going to be playing a game where you have to guide me around while I'm blindfolded using verbal comands. The goal is to hit other people with dodgeballs. So Dragonite, if I should move foward, you say something. If I have to move right, Sirfetch'd, thats your cue! If I have to move left, that's you Dracovish. If I have to dodge, that's you Lucario! If I need to throw it, that's you Pikachu! And if I have to stop or pick something up, that's you, Gengar! Everybody got it?"

"Pika!"

"Draco-Draco!"

"Gengar!"

"Sir-sirfetche'd!"

"Draaaa!"

"Cario."

"Greart! Let's get started!"

Ash took the rest of the time to make sure he memorised the cues, then grabbed a blindfold and dodgeball. 

Diantha made sure"Ready, set, go!"