Love in the Time of Teamwork

Chapter 8: A Victory

Are you all ready for this awesome sauce of a chapter? I hope so, because Chapter 8! Here it comes!

Chapter 8

A Victory

Serena was humming happily the next morning. It was still pretty early when she'd woken up, but she knew she wouldn't get back to sleep. So, her clothes finally dry, she dropped Ash's jacket off at his bed and changed. Then she made her way downstairs to the hotel's kitchen. It had been a madhouse there as they tried to prepare breakfast for all of their impending guests coming down, but after volunteering the help of Braixen and Pancham in their cooking process, they allowed her use of their oven. That's when Serena set about baking cookies.

By breakfast time they were all done, each of them done in stars and Pikachu faces. Serena felt they had been her best ones yet; after all, she poured every happy feeling she'd had from watching the fireworks with Ash last night into these very cookies.

When she was done, she sealed them up in a bag and took a seat while a chef came and set a table for her and her friends as thanks for her assistance. From there, Serena sat back in her chair and sipped on some orange juice. In her haze of thoughts, Serena stopped her humming and decided to take a look at the current events in the Kalos Region. She didn't expect there to be much; not with the tournament going on and everything. Since the map she was holding brought up any news geographically, Serena figured she would have articles upon articles of the goings on at the tournament.

Instead, she spat her juice all over it at the sight of what was on the screen.

"Braix Braixen," her Braixen complained a little, some of the orange juice having flown onto her fur. Pancham crawled up Serena instead to look at the screen. Sylveon remained lounging at her feet. Taking a cloth napkin from the table, Serena wiped the screen furiously of the juice until it was dry, albeit quite sticky.

"What's going on?" Serena looked up and saw Brock taking a seat next to her at the table. None of the others were with him, so she figured that he was as light a sleeper as she was.

"This article..." Serena said, her voice still filled with shock. Brock leaned over and raised an eyebrow at the story. "It looks like Ancien Castle was broken into last night."

"That is pretty big news," Brock agreed, pulling a plate of eggs over to himself. "I heard they'd doubled the guard around it during the tournament. It would be practical suicide to try and break in."

"Hard to believe it happened while we were all asleep," she replied. A shiver ran down her back at the very thought of it. "Makes you wonder what else they could break into."

"Who knows? Are you having those hash browns?" Serena shook her head in response to Brock's question and the older trainer pulled the hash browns and ketchup back over to him. "My question is what they were thinking of."

"What do you mean?"

"What's the motive?" Brock asked, now topping off his plate with a couple pancakes. As Serena turned to look at him, she could see Gary ambling over, a yawn stretching his face. "Sure the castle probably has some expensive items worth stealing, or old artifacts maybe, but it would be better to steal them during a time when Ancien City isn't packed."

"I never thought of it that way," Serena mused, her finger tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"Didn't think of what in what way?" Gary asked, scratching at his stomach while he sat opposite Serena. All he did was grab the plate of pancakes and drown them in syrup.

"Ancien Castle was broken into last night," Brock explained, digging into his food with more restraint than Ash ever showed.

"Huh...was anything taken?" Gary asked. He tacked another yawn on at the end before sticking his first pancake whole into his mouth. Serena ignored that as best as she could. Rather, she decided to once more peruse the article that had made her drench the device in orange juice. After a few minutes of the boys silent chewing, Serena came to a single conclusion.