Uncrowned King (SLOW UPDATES)

Chapter 12 - All's Well

"Ash! Did you sleep last night?" Serena asked worriedly as she took a glance at the dark bags under Ash's eyes. "Aha...not really? I was pretty excited for today's battle.." Ash lied through his teeth.

To be fair, he was excited for the battle but that wasn't the reason why he couldn't sleep.

He had to make sure nothing happened during the night. He was on the edge the WHOLE night.  The last thing he wanted was for his friends to get hurt by the weird...person.

"Oh yeah! It's your rematch against Wulfric today isn't it?" Clemont said after realizing what date it was with a large smile on his face.

"Mhm! Greninja and I have been working our best this week!" Ash said, with genuine excitement. However, something in the back of his brain continuously urged him to stay on guard at all times. A gut feeling perhaps? Ash never pushed that feeling aside.

"And I can tell Ash! But sleep is very important!" Serena exclaimed worriedly as she heaved an exasperated sigh, still smiling softly when she passed the plate of food to Ash. Ash thanked her softly before gobbling his food down.

Clemont and Serena were glad that Ash seemed to be back to his normal self. He seemed energetic again but they couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. They weren't oblivious, they saw the way his eyes seem to dart around in alert, though they didn't know why.

"So uh. We're heading out and uhm..." Serena said slowly, fumbling over her words. When Clemont caught onto what she was doing, he quickly continued. "I made a new invention! See, it's the Gigatron-3000!" Clemont exclaimed with pride, pulling out a robot from his gigantic bag.

This caught Ash's attention and Serena saw the way his body relaxed as his eyes sparkled with amazement. Clemont showed demonstrations of his invention and Serena could not help but be entranced by it as well.

The metal body was clearly made carefully, unlike Clemont's other inventions which seemed to be made in a haste. It was polished and assembled perfectly together, not to mention the fact that it had not exploded!

...Yet anyways. But still! The robot WAS quite large, its height being around 1.2m. This would have scared Serena, if not for the fact that Clemont had made way larger inventions before.

How does he even find the time to make all of these? She will never know and quite frankly, she never wants to find out. The rest of the time was spent peacefully, as Ash and Clemont had some sort of brotherly talk after everything. It seemed as if Ash was confiding in Clemont and that showed how much of a bond he had with him.

Serena, on the other hand, was playing with Bonnie and her Pokemon! "Hey, Serena! Why don't you practice your performance now?" Bonnie asked suddenly, making Serena freeze in spot. "H-Here? Seriously?" Serena said in shock, gesturing to the area around her.

It wasn't the best, it was rocky all around and quite dangerous. "I mean, what could go wrong, right?" Bonnie asked innocently, but Serena had a feeling it was more than that.

"I'm not sure about this Bonnie..." Serena said quietly to her, praying she'd change her mind. "Oh, for me Serena? Please?" And that was when she pulled out her trump card. "And I'm sure Ash would love to see it too!" She yelled loudly back to the boys who were chatting animatedly.

"Huh? See what?" Both of the boys asked in sync, their heads tilted slightly to the side. "Serena here was just about to practice her performing and I'm sure you'd love to see it!" Bonnie yelled in a sing-song manner, but the boys did not catch onto it.

"Oh yeah, we'd love to!" Clemont said as he stood up and walked towards the girls, Ash walking behind him with a small smile. "Uhm...O-Okay I guess." Serena gave in anyways. With an audience, she couldn't simply walk away. Taking in a deep breath, she willed herself to push through with a smile.