Always Forever

Hit The Road Jack

After the night before, Ash and Serena had slept in the same room, the latter clearly happy but still very shy about it. She was the one to wake up first, while Ash was still deep asleep. She decided she'd wake him up as well so made her way over. 

She slowly sat on the corner of the bed and tucked her hair to the side, before gently placing a hand on Ash's chest. "Wake up, sleepyhead." She said smiling. "It's time for us to have breakfast, we're going on the road today, remember?"

Ash groaned a little but having been woken up by such gentleness, he couldn't complain at all. "Y-yeah, thank you." He said before getting up and leaning at the bedframe.

He seemed rather distraught so Serena decided to ask. "You seem pale, did you have a nightmare or something?" Ash hesitantly shocked his head. "I don't know what to call it, a vision, a nightmare or something else entirely..." He closed his eyes and sighed. "All I know is that we were right in the middle of some serious shit..." Serena's eyebrow raised up at that. "Sorry." Ash said sheepishly, apologizing for the curse.

They quickly got ready and went downstairs, where Clemont and Bonnie were. The little girl waved them over. "Serena! How are you feeling today?" She asked. Serena smiled at the concern Bonnie seemed to be showing her for the loss yesterday's fight. "Better now, since you care about me so much~" She playfully said as she booped Bonnie's nose. "I am better now though, Bonnie. Thank you."

While the two girls were having their girl talk, Clemont decided he should strike up a conversation as well. "So, who do you exactly plan on using for the Snowbelle GYM?" Ash got a handful amount of bacon and gulped it down. "Well, Talonflame for obvious reasons, Greninja and Pikachu because they'll equalize any power difference and I guess that's it?"

Clemont nodded. "That's a pretty good lineup but Wulfric isn't dumb, he'll have obviously planned for fire types. So just make sure you take on him with a plan, Ash." Ash laughed at that. "Since when did I ever did things according to a plan?" Clemont only sighed at that.

As the squad finished up talking and eating their breakfast, they paid for everything and left the pokemon centre, getting on the road one last time for Ash's final battle before the Kalos League arrived. 

---

"Hit the road, jack!" Serena sang. "And don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more! Hit the road, jack~" The blonde sang to herself, ahead of everyone else. "Serena seems like she's in a good mood." Clemont stated. Ash smiled as well, though his voice shallow of any. "Yeah... She's going through the first stage of dealing with such an important setback like yesterday. She'll act like she's not phased by it or that she doesn't care but sooner or later it's going to hit." He said bittersweetly. Bonnie looked up at Ash with concern. 

"That's... But we can help her out, can't we?" 

Ash patted her head. "Of course we can, Bonnie but there's just the fact that... She'll have to go through some part of it alone herself or she'll never develop herself... It was something I had to do myself after each setback, whenever I arrived back home."

The small girl nodded sadly, deciding to follow Ash's lead in that regard. Serena then turned back at them, pointing to a river up ahead. "There's a really nice clearing up ahead, we can take a break there! You'll be able to train as well, Ash!"

Ash walked faster and caught up to her. "Now that's what I'm talking about! Lead the way, Sere!"