All for You

Chapter 42

As soon as the bell rang after pokemon performing, Serena bolted to her dorm room to drop off her books and grab her purse. She met Dawn in the hall. 

"I'm so excited! It's been a while since I've actually gone shopping to buy something and not just browse." Serena grinned.

"Me too! I haven't bought a new dress in a long time!" Dawn said excitedly. They both headed to the shopping center in Lumiose City.

Together they looked at dresses for the dance. Dawn found a nice one right away; it was a dark blue with pearl-lined details. It ended at her knees and was a perfect fit. Dawn bought it immediately after trying it on. Both the botique owner and Serena agreed it was perfect.

Serena had a little more trouble. She wanted something perfect; she was going to try to tell Ash how she felt at this dance, after all. She entered multiple botiques, but didn't find anything.

Until she saw it. She was browsing the shelves of a botique when she saw a corner of pink sticking out of the corner of the dresses. 

Intrigued, she pulled out the dress it was connected to. When she saw it, she gasped. 

"Dawn! Dawn! You have to look at this one!" She yelled excitedly.

Dawn, who was looking at the shoes, hurried over. "It's perfect! Try it on, try it on!"

Serena grinned and took it to the dressing room. It was a perfect fit. She did a twirl for Dawn.

"Yes! You found it!"

Serena headed to the checkout counter.

_________........________

"Alright, Gary, what do you have planned for today?" Ash asked immpatiently. He, Lucario, and Paul were looking at Gary, waiting for an answer

"Well, you've gotten pretty good at reading minds, talking to people, seeing things, and freezing time. Anything I'm missing?" Gary asked.

"What about his jump?" Paul asked, annoyed. Gary insisted on dragging him over again, even though nothing had really changed.

"What do you mean, Violet? Did Ashy-Boy do something I don't know about yet?" Gary asked. 

"When we were playing dodgeball, Tierno said Ash had jumped high up. Was that aura?" Paul said bluntly.

"I don't think so. I didn't jump that high." Ash replied truthfully.

"Well, how high did you jump?" Gary replied. He knew that when Ash said 'It's not that impressive/strange/weird/etc' usually meant it was really impressive/strange/weird/etc.

"I jumped up and dodged a ball that was aimed at my mid-thighs." Ash said simply.

"You jumped over a ball aimed at your mid-thighs? Like, your feet went directly over the ball?" Gary echoed in disbelief.

"Yeah, Tierno was exaggerating. It wasn't that high." Ash mistook Gary's disbelief at the height Ash had jumped for disbelief at how much it had been exaggerated. He was quite wrong.

"Ash?!" Gary said, almost shouting. "How high can you jump?!" 

"I don't know the height, but I can show you." Ash said, confused as to why Gary was so excited.

Ash squated down. He figured that when he wanted to jump extra-high, he could simply picture Team Rocket's hot air balloon above him, and pretend they had stolen Pikachu and that he needed to jump up there in order to get him back.

Then he leaped.

He literally leaped completely over Gary and Paul's heads, high enough to grab the rim of the imaginary hot air balloon, ten feet above Gary and Paul's heads, and landed on the ground without breaking a sweat. He turned to Gary and Paul.

Gary just stared at him, mouth agape for a moment, before bursting out laughing hysterically. He bent double, unable to stop.

Paul just stood there, shocked, looking almost angry. "How could you not know that's an insanely high jump!" He yelled at Ash. 

Ash took a step back in suprise. "Huh?" That kind of jump isn't normal?

Gary had finally recovered from his laughing fit. "Ashy-Boy," He said, wiping away tears, "You're one of a kind. That was the highest jump I have ever seen, and from a squat no less! You didn't even take a running start. I'd say you used aura there." Gary stiffled more laughter.

"But I wasn't glowing blue! Was I? I glow blue for all the other powers, right?" Ash asked.

"Not all your powers. When you stop time and use aura to see with 'aura radar' you and your eyes glow blue. But when you talk to people, search around for something specifically using aura, or read people's minds, only your eyes glow blue. Maybe your eyes were glowing and we couldn't tell since you were so high up." Gary pondered.

"Here, let me grab the power-level-reading tool thing and see how much energy it takes to jump super high." Gary grabbed out the headband and device, and connected the device to his phone before handing them all to Ash.

"You'll need to hold this since the wires aren't long enough for me to." Gary took a few steps back to get out of Ash's way, even though Ash didn't really need him too. "Super-jump away, Ashy-Boy."

Ash crouched down again and took a leap up. He went around the same height as he did his previous jump before landing back down beside Gary and Paul, who both stumbled back a bit.

Gary looked at him. "Ah, that's it. Your eyes are, in fact, glowing. It's just hard to tell while you're up in the air." He retrieved the power-measuring decive from Ash and looked at the readings.

"That makes sense. Since seeing with aura and stopping time take up the most energy, you and your eyes glow blue. But when you use aura activities with less energy, like talking to people or reading minds, only your eyes glow blue. That must mean using aura to jump high only takes a little aura energy. And the chart," Gary held up his phone to show Ash and Gary. "...Proves it. So as long as you close your eyes while doing an activity that doesn't make you glow blue, people won't know about your aura." Gary summarised helpfully.

"That seems about right." Ash commented. "I always do feel more tired doing the activities that make me glow blue."

Paul sighed. "This is insane."

Gary grinned and draped an arm around Paul's shoulders. "Welcome to the world of Ash, Grape-head. Here, nothing is normal and everything includes legendaries and/or life or death situations." 

Ash sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, thinking about all the stories he had told Gary.

Paul roughly knocked Gary back to get him off his shoulder and stood to the side. "Did you say Legendaries? As in Legendary pokemon?" This was interesting. Had Ash met a legendary?

"Well, Ashy-Boy's only met-" Gary was interupted by his phone ringing. "Hold on, I have to answer this. It's my gramps." Gary walked away, presumably to talk to Professor Oak.

Paul gritted his teeth. I'd be willing to bet he didn't actually get a call and somehow just faked it to annoy me. "What Legendaries?" Even though Ash was right there and could tell Paul himself, Paul was trying to get Gary's attention.

Ash chuckled, sweatdropping, at Gary and Paul's apparent rivarly.

After a few more minutes of aura practice (he decided to practice each skill he learned every day) he let out the rest of his pokemon and started some battle training before retiring to his room to do homework and calling it a night.

________........_________

Serena sighed happily as she collapsed on her bed. She had found a great dress for the dance. Now all she needed to do was tell Ash how she felt. But that can wait until after the dance... She thought, sweatdropping with nervousnes. One way or another, it was going to be an exciting Friday.