pokemon the animation : scarlet and violet

Chapter 6: Penny's sadness

After the wild events of Ash's first day at Naranja, Ash hopes his 2nd day at Naranja will be mildly better than the first but, things happen and as we'll see things do happen. We see Ash, Nemona and their Pokemon running around the track in order to build up their endurance, Pikachu, Cyclizar and Pawmi were running really fast without a sweat while Quaxly was catching up and Fuecoco was far behind.

"With this running, you'll be able to build up endurance and speed so when you battle, you'll be decently fast and evasive when it comes to avoiding attacks!" Ash said huffing as Nemona followed along and nodded while running. We see Jacq and Clavell looking on with intrigue from Clavell's office, "They must be pumped?" Clavell said, "Well I did hear that Nemona needed help training if she's taking on the gym challenge soon, so she asked Ash to provide assistance before the Treasure Hunt starts." Jacq told Clavell who looked on with interest and nostalgia.

"Ah reminds me back when I was a lee lad in Galar, I was a very spunky trainer with attitude and even attempted the championship, I failed but it was fun." Clavell said with nostalgia. "I thought you grew up with Oak?" Jacq asks the headmaster, "Oh I did, my father brought our family over when I was 4 until I was 14 but we were good friends and even learned our goals of becoming professors/researchers, those were the days." Clavell said warmly and then he notices Penny hiding within the bushes looking towards Ash and Nemona with intrigue and Clavell gets a final idea on what she's doing.

"Is she hiding in the Fireberry bush, those things will burn like poison ivy!" Jacq said worryingly as Clavell wakes up to reality, "Does no one read the signs on the wall!" Clavell said grabbing some ointment as well as a hammer and nails as they rush out the door comedically. We see Penny looking on rather stoically but not in a way that seems aggressive, Penny is an individual we saw a couple of days ago when Ash helped her against some Team Star grunts and nervously ran off before realizing who Ash was and got equally nervous. She was a shy individual who didn't like to talk too much in public and for unknown reasons, she hasn't been showing up to school despite good grades. So, I have to wonder, why is she taking an interest in Ash.

So, Ash has become a mentor for student council president. Still, he could help me with my 'assignment', but I need to- but before Penny could finish her thought, she starts to feel the pain of the fireberry bush and yips getting the attention of Ash and Nemona before Penny comedically face plants on the ground. Ash goes to her out of concern and kneels down in order to reach out to her. Penny gets a hold of her surroundings and looks up to see Ash but in her eyes, she sees him as a dashing prince of sorts while Pikachu was the dashing Rapidash and Nemona was a knight.

"Hey, are you alright?" Prince Ash said in a princely voice before Penny blushed and blinked twice to get her vision back before accepting Ash's hand to get up. "Um thank you!" Penny said shyly which made Ash remember her, "Say, you're that girl from yesterday and the other day before right?" Ash said which gets a nod out of Penny. "Uh huh, once again thank you." Penny said before she picked up her Eevee backpack, the Eevee backpack had Eevee on it but also contained several pins of all Eeveelutions, a heart, gaming controller, a character named Bakunose from the in-universe anime 'Kimi no Hero Academia' and even a hidden Pan flag hiding behind a Sylveon pin.

(Ok author here, I had a headcanon prior to her reveal that aside from the fact she resembled a Todoroki from MHA, I had another headcanon that she was Bi, Pan or Enby and I decided to include a small background detail referencing that so please remember not to be an a-hole about it ok? Back to action!)

Ash looks on in awe, "That's one cool backpack you have there." Ash said rather interested which Penny lightly blushes, "Um thanks, you can find these backpacks at Pokeqlo where they might be interesting to you and there's even Pikachu ones." Penny said starting to open up a bit. Nemona cuts the conversation short, "So Penny what were you doing watching us?" which causes Penny to rise up a bit against Nemona. "Everyone can watch you know, heck, the professors were watching from their office just now before comedically running away for some reason." Penny responds to the battle-loving trainer who puts her finger up and then eventually puts it down.