Love in the Time of Tropics

Chapter 2: An Island

Because I neglected to mention these things before, I'll do so now. For one, updates will come every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. For another, no, Ash will not be bringing reserves but Greninja along. I need to develop a whole new team, and I can't do that with a bunch of them there. Now, enough talk. Time for Chapter 2!

Chapter 2

An Island

Serena stirred, feeling something heavy in her lap as she did so. The sound of loud droning and a muted mutter invaded her ears, still slightly ringing from all the time they had spent in the air. Opening her mouth a little to try and alleviate the slight ringing, her action turned into a yawn and she realized that she must have been sleeping for quite some time. In fact, blinking a little, she quickly noticed that her head was actually resting upon Ash's shoulder as he stared giddily out the window. Giving a slight groan that went unnoticed, she decided to wake up fully and pulled her head off of Ash's shoulder, realizing that the something heavy was her own bag sitting in her lap. Blinking the sleep away from her eyes, Serena ran a hand through her hair and smiled at the sight of Ash and Pikachu's faces pressed excitedly up against the window.

"Look, Pikachu, those are some huge Pelipper!" Ash exclaimed to his best friend. Serena would have giggled at it, but opted for a small smile as she reached into her bag to pull out her tablet. Pulling up the home screen, a thought struck her: perhaps it wasn't going to work now that they were heading to a new region. Frowning a bit, Serena decided to look up the arrival time. Pressing a few buttons, she managed to pull up a screen that indicated there was less than a half hour until they landed at a place called Hau'oli City. Glad to have some kind of estimate, she closed the tablet and put it back in the bag.

"Rotom, stop that!" Clemont's voice called out suddenly. Ash continued to stare out the window excitedly, but Serena turned to her friend, noticing the inventor was out of his seat. Bonnie and Dedenne, for all their excitement earlier, were fast asleep on their chair, slumping over into where Clemont must have been just moments before.

Blinking her eyes once again, the honey blonde noticed that Clemont was hovering worriedly over a businessman that was staring at his own tablet in surprise. He almost seemed to drop it. "What's this now?"

"I'm so terribly sorry, sir!" Clemont apologized, bowing profusely. The man, dressed in a nice pair of pants, but a very casual floral-patterned shirt, chuckled at the intrusion and seemed to pay no mind. "Rotom is extremely energetic and loves electrical devices. And I'm not its trainer, so..."

"It's no bother young man," the business man chuckled out. He turned his tablet a little, and Serena could see Rotom's face peeking out of it with a laugh. "It's a rather excitable one. I'm sure it'll enjoy all of the great devices we have in Alola."

"Roto-to-to-to!" Rotom laughed out, leaving Clemont exasperated. Serena watched a moment longer as the businessman seemed to tell Clemont not to worry and instead let Rotom stay with him until the plane landed. Clemont looked reluctant, but sighed in agreement. It seemed to Serena that Rotom had been consistently doing this through the plane ride (though given that no stewardess was near them, it meant that Rotom hadn't played with the controls of the plane).

Serena turned back in her seat towards Ash. "Having fun, you two?"

"It's awesome!" Ash exclaimed, turning back in his seat to face her. Pikachu also managed to remove his face from the window to look at her. She laughed lightly at that; no matter what age Ash might have just turned, seeing new Pokémon and experiencing new things with excitement never changed about him. She really loved that. "Not that we've seen anything new yet..."