Love in the Time of Tribulations

Chapter 19: A Hill

Everything's really heating up now, and I hope you'll find these battles intense, and the revelations surprising! But most of all, I hope you'll enjoy Chapter 19!

Also, thanks everyone, for helping this story reach over 300 reviews in its run! I love you all!

Chapter 19

A Hill

"You'll take us down?" Paul asked, fingering the keystone on his zipper. Serena shifted a little, her boot cutting into the dirt around her feet. Gary was meanwhile expressionless as he looked at her. Serena's eyes assuredly flit between the two, wondering why they weren't making a move quite yet. For a moment, she settled her gaze onto Gary's eyes as he stared at her emotionlessly, almost flinching at the sight of her blue eyes.

"I will, because I made a promise to her, to the other me, that I would bring back smiles," Serena stated definitively. "She might not have heard it, but I intend to keep that promise."

"Sylvie!"

"Brai!" her Pokémon agreed with her emphatically. Paul scoffed at the display.

"Smiles?" he asked, more like snarled, in her direction. "There's no need for smiling on the battlefield. It's win or lose. Strong or weak. Serena was weak. Everyone who died was weak. You're no different."

"Shut. Up," Gary grit out through his teeth. Paul turned his head to the brunet with a scowl while Gary clenched a fist. "Don't talk about her like she was useless. She was one of us. One of The Seven. To that point, you were right."

"Huh?" Serena asked, slowly putting her hand to rest on her final pokeball with Pancham inside of it. Gary, the fake one, turned to look at her.

"She was our comrade, and we forsook her," he admitted, looking somewhat guilty. "But you killed her! You twisted her head with the poison from your world like monsters do! That's the reason she threw herself to protect you. Her death is on your hands!"

Serena breathed in a little. For just a brief moment, she had to wonder if he had a point. Just a couple seconds later she formulated her own answer. Her own words. Looking up at Gary with a thin line for a mouth, she spoke. "Don't you think for yourself? ! I didn't kill Serena. She made her choice because deep down, we were the same. Deep down, she made a choice to protect me. None of that is on me! If her blood is on anyone's hands, it's yours for forcing her to make a choice that she no longer believed in!

"We're not monsters! We're people! We live the same. We die the same. When I held her body, she was scared to die, just like I was scared to see her die. But you people...you're just like Zinnia and the Draconids. They had a purpose, though! They had a reason to hate our world, so twisted with grief."

"We've all had our own share of grief," Gary snapped back, but Serena remained resolute and defiant in that moment. "We've lost soldiers and comrades. Never someone so close to me, though."

"But you never stopped and thought about why she did it?" Serena asked, stepping forward. "You're brainwashed and unable to make your own choices. Nothing like the Gary Oak I know. The Ash from your world would have never considered either of you his greatest rivals! It's holding on to that thought, onto Reeree's pain and smile that gives me the strength to defeat you."

"How pathetic is that..." Paul spat angrily and he grabbed his keystone. "You can't fight with just your own will and need to rely on someone else's? We're doing this because we want to. Because it's our will! Aggron, Mega Evolve!"

"Scizor, Mega Evolve!" Gary called simultaneously. Both of their Pokémon shined brightly, but Serena didn't watch the transformation, having already seen it once before. Instead she grabbed Pancham's pokeball and tossed it onto the field. In the brief seconds all this went on her sight slid across the battlefield and noticed the real Gary battling enemies while glaring at his counterpart. He turned his head a little and caught sight of her before nodding. Serena nodded back, snapping her vision onto her opponents, and thinking she saw both Miettes on the battlefield, battling it out. None of that mattered; Gary hadn't met his counterpart, but was leaving the battle to her for now, as though he had no need to fight him just yet. Taking hold of that unwavering belief and confidence in her, Serena stepped forward while the transformation finished.