Love in the Time of Teamwork

Chapter 11: An Appeal

I'm very interested to hear your responses on this chapter, if simply because of my own opinions on it which you'll find in the Author's Note at the end. But that's the end! Let's actually BEGIN Chapter 11!

Chapter 11

An Appeal

The next morning, Serena woke up feeling fresh and excited. Ash was, as always, still snoozing in his bed with Pikachu lying on his stomach. The sight was humorous to Serena and she chose not to disturb them. When she got downstairs to the cafeteria, she saw Brock sitting casually at a table, flicking through another one of those books of his. It had a different title than the last one, so Serena figured that he had finished the first.

"Someone's in a good mood," he chuckled out upon hearing her humming as she sat down.

"I am," she chirped. "I had a lot of fun last night."

"With Ash?" Brock asked knowingly. Surprisingly, Serena wasn't even blushing at his implications.

"Yes, with Ash," she answered graciously. Out of the corner of her eye, Serena could see Miette conversing energetically with her team. It looked like they were planning some kind of strategy. "I'm more excited for today, though. It's you and me out there for the competition, right?"

"That's right," Brock confirmed. "I'm looking forward to working with you. Should be a lot of fun." Serena couldn't agree more. More than anything, she wanted to make up for her crippling loss on the first day, and she wanted to knock Team Brutal down a peg. Feeling that way wasn't hard to do, seeing as they were in the same cafeteria as them, looking just as nasty as ever. However, even from that distance, it looked like the girl, Bethany, had been crying while Christopher just patted her on the back. Seamus and Travis, meanwhile, looked angry.

The anger on their faces only increased tenfold when Ash walked into the room for some breakfast. While Serena noticed it happen, she didn't say anything, and just greeted Ash in conversation. Their team was pretty quick to join them after that and before long they were walking as a single unit to the coliseum. Naturally, Bonnie was on Serena's case the whole way there.

"Did you have fuuuun last night?" Bonnie said teasingly, just outside of Ash's earshot. He was too busy conversing with Gary and Clemont up front about something or some other.

"Yes, I did, Bonnie," Serena told her politely. It was a little obvious that Bonnie was trying to get a rise out of her. "And I would hope you knew that, since you were there, too."

"I was not!" she said indignantly, though the guilt on her face was made obvious by Dedenne tsking his trainer. "Okay, fine I was. But it was May's idea."

"Sure it was..." Serena said, not believing the little girl for one second.

"I swear! She's the one who said we should follow you and give you a little push, but we lost you in the midst of the play," Bonnie confessed, shrugging her shoulders at the same time to indicate that she really didn't care that they had lost them. That changed when she faced back towards Serena with sparkling eyes, reminiscent of Ash's when Clemont broke out a new invention. "Did you guys kiss?"

"No," came the sharp and brutal response. Bonnie pouted at this piece of information. "I don't have unrealistic expectations, Bonnie. Unlike what you have for your brother."

"I'm just trying to find him someone who can take care of him," the little girl chirruped like it was the most obvious (and innocent) thing in the world. "Well, maybe you should be more direct with Ash. He's not gonna take the hint if you don't make them obvious."