The Road to our Destiny

Chapter 50

Serena has been working extra hard with her Pokemon as she, Ash, Pikachu, Brock, and Holly journey to Indigo Plateau. Day after day, the honey blonde girl practices in the morning before the group starts walking, when they take a break for lunch, and at night before going to bed. No one has said a word to her about it because they know she's determined to make sure she's ready for the Grand Festival. Even when they're walking down the road, Serena has a cheerful yet determined look in her eyes.

Finally, the four trainers and Pikachu make their way to the top of a hill where they can see all of Indigo Plateau. Holly and Serena run ahead of Ash, Brock, and Pikachu to look in awe of the various buildings and the large lake.

"Wow, all of this is Indigo Plateau?" Holly asks.

"Sure is," Brock answers, smiling. "In fact, that stadium closest to us is the Indigo Stadium. That's where you and Ash will be if you make it past the preliminaries."

"Oh, I will make it past the preliminaries, alright," Holly claims. "I'm going to battle in that stadium, and you're going to cheer me on."

"I'm counting on it," Brock says, giving Holly a side hug.

"Hey, Serena, you see that stadium standing close to the lake?" Ash says, earning a nod from Serena. "That's the Auxiliary Stage. And the building at the far right corner with the big Pokeball symbol is the Main Stage. The preliminaries take place in both of them, but the main competition is at the Main Stage."

"Wow, is that how they handled allowing two hundred and seventy people to compete when you came here to watch May to compete?" Serena asks.

"Yup," Ash says with a nod. "And I bet there will be many more people competing with newcomers like you and Dawn and people from previous contest seasons who didn't win all five ribbons in time."

"Yeah, but only sixty-four of those people will actually compete in the main competition," Brock says.

"Fine by me," Serena says confidently. "Because I'm going to make it to the main competition, and I intend to win the whole thing with everybody loving every performance my Pokemon and I do along the way."

"That's what I like to hear, Serena," Ash says with a toothy grin.

"Pika, Pika," Pikachu says, smiling.

"Then let's not waste any more time!" Serena shouts. "Let's get over there already!"

"Right!" Ash, Brock, and Holly says simultaneously before they all run downhill to their destination.

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The four trainers and Pikachu make their way to the Main Stage building where already many coordinators are either outside practicing with their Pokemon or standing in three separate lines outside the front entrance to enter into the festival. The gang waits for almost an hour and a half until they make it to the front desk where Serena shows the woman behind the desk all five of her ribbons and inserts her Pokedex in a slot to register Braixen, Pancham, Sylveon, Poliwag, and Absol into the competition. Once Serena is all set to compete, the group gets out of the line, and Ash turns to the honey blonde girl.

"So what do you want to do?" he asks. "We could go see if May, Max, and Dawn have arrived. Maybe Bonnie, Clemont, and your mom have made it here too."

Serena smiles and says, "That sounds wonderful, but why don't you guys go ahead and look. I need to make a phone call."

"Huh? To who?" Brock asks.

"Palermo," Serena says. "I just realized that in all the excitement, I haven't called her at all to let her know how I'm doing in Kanto."