Serena woke up first, finding herself to still be in Ash arms from the night before. Serena took a few seconds to realize where she was and what was happening, but upon remembering that she was in the arms of her new boyfriend, she relaxed, smiled, and snuggled up in to him more, laying her head gently on his chest. His body was warm, which made her feel drowsy again. She gazed at his face as he slept. He had a large grin on his peaceful face. It made Serena smile, and wonder if he had been grinning like that since the morning or not. Not that it matters to her, but she found him to look adorable like this. It almost felt like a shame that he had to wake up at all. She would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of her days like this, snuggled up in a warm bed with Ash.
Serena just stayed like this for a while. She didn't know how long, but it was a while. She didn't have either the heart to wake Ash up, or the want to get up. She was perfectly happy staying like this. She heard the tent that Bonnie and Clemont unzip and heard them come out.
She heard Bonnie yawn, and saw her silhouette stretch. "Morning, Clemont."
"Shush!" Clemont subdued her, in a whisper.
"Huh?"
"Ash and Serena aren't awake yet. We should be quiet so we don't wake them up!" Clemont explained. Serena smiled to herself.
"Oh, right!" Bonnies volume dropped, also reaching a whisper. She then giggled and went over to the tent Ash and Serena were in.
"What are you doing?" Clemont asked.
"I want to see if I can see them through the tent." Bonnie explained. From Serena's perspective, Bonnie's silhouette had gotten much larger, peering through the tent. Serena was tempted to move away, but just couldn't, she didn't want to leave this beyond perfect place next to Ash. Secondly, she literally couldn't. Ash was held onto her, and she couldn't move. Bonnie peered in through the thin sheets of the tent before backing off and sighing. "No, I don't see anything. That's disappointing. If I know Serena, she's probably all snuggled up next to her Ashy." She put a large emphasis on the word 'Ashy'.
Serena was shocked and amused and impressed and surprised all at the same time. Bonnie had managed to guess exactly right, but then again, it was likely that had been why she had pretended to have had a bad dream in the first place. For someone so young, she was, admittedly, quite clever.
It was reasonably quiet after that. Serena heard the clangs and taps of equipment, the clang of something metallic, something Clemont was tinkering with most likely, and the occasional sentence uttered by either Clemont or Bonnie, but their voices were muffled by the time they reached the tent, making it impossible to tell which one of them it was.
It was a short while before she noticed that Ash was starting to stir up, unusually earlier than normal. Perhaps he had heard the noise from outside the tent. Either way, he slowly and groggily opened one eye, his right eye, and after staring blankly to the side for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust, he blinked and looked around the room, before noticing Serena, who was looking up at him with a smile on her face. He had forgotten she had stayed with him during the night, and for a brief second, he had nearly jumped straight out of bed - literally - before he remembered. Instead, he gave her a smile.
"Hello there" he said with a long yawn.
"Hello, Ashy." Serena said with a grin, using the nickname Bonnie had used earlier herself. She caught Ash's face turning red lightly, which was what she had wanted.
"When the heck did I get that nickname?" Ash asked with another yawn, shorter this time, and rubbing his eye.
"About twenty minutes ago. You sleep well?" Serena asked with a chuckle.
"Yeah, actually." Ash replied. "I'm guessing you did."
"That I did. I got to sleep in a bed with you. How wouldn't I be able to sleep well?" Serena asked, a flirtatious tone to her voice.
"Gee, I don't know. Maybe the fact that the tent is haunted?"
Serena shuddered, which made Ash laugh, fully aware of her discomfort around the supernatural elements of the world, remembering their experience at the house they had believed to haunted, but in reality was just a small Espurr. "I'm only kidding." Ash said with a chuckle, reassuring her.
Serena sighed, quick to forgive and forget the whole affair. She instead tightened her grip around Ash and held onto him tighter than before.
"H-Hey, I thought we had to get up." Ash said, feeling his heart race when Serena rested her head on his chest.
"I never said we had to get up. And besides, I want to enjoy cuddling you a little longer, Ashy." Serena gave her reply slyly, with a grin and a giggle, enjoying herself.
Ash sighed and allowed her to. He instead, placed a hand upon the top of her head and said "Never even thought you could be so mischievous, Serena."
"Didn't have a reason to be" she replied, smiling to herself, loving absolutely every second of this, as Ash was, only he was out of his general comfort zone.
They remained like this for a further while, before they sighed and admitted they were going to have to get up at some point. Both of them were welcomed to a chorus of teasing by Bonnie, who as it turned out, had been eavesdropping on them. This information caused both of them to flush a dark shade of scarlet. Clemont let out an amused sigh and served them their breakfast. After they had eaten, a map was produced, and Clemont pointed out their route.
"The map said there was something dangerous up ahead, didn't it?" Ash asked, studying the map. To him, it looked perfectly normal. There were no obvious hazards highlighted.
"It's apparently a natural 'living labyrinth' according to the map." Clemont explained.
"How the heck can a labyrinth be alive?" Serena asked, disbelief in her voice evident.
"According to this, the Pokémon here rely on the trees to fertile the soil, which in turn provides them with plants that they eat. In order to speed up this process, some of the grass type Pokémon use Growth on the trees in order for them to grow quicker. When the trees grow, the roots underground toss and turn the soil, making it richer. This makes the plants grow larger and more plentiful for the Pokémon here. Now, the bad news about this is that the Pokémon now use Growth so rapidly that trees and vines and the likes grow all over the tracks, and sometimes around travelers. We're basically very likely to get separated during this." Clemont explained at length.
Serena shuddered, "And that, combined with those reports about this forest..."
"We might as well have just gone straight through the forest to start with." Ash sighed. "We've got to go through it here anyway. We'd have been quicker going straight through. And we might have avoided this maze."
"A bit late now, Ash." Bonnie chipped in.
"Why the heck are they hosting a Showcase here?! They couldn't pick Lumious City, or Shalour City? It had to be the scary forest town?" Serena voiced out aloud in disbelief. "Who runs these events? Why the town with the memory erasing forest? Doesn't that seem a bit dangerous to anyone else?"
Ash put his hand onto Serena's shoulder. Calming her down quickly, though she still maintained everything she had just said made sense, and to both Ash and Clemont, it did.
"In any case, we should go in pairs, holding the others hand, or just keeping ahold of each other. That way, if we get separated, we won't be on our own, or, we'll notice if one of us does go missing." Clemont suggested. "I'll go with Bonnie, for obvious reasons. And you two go together... Again, for obvious reasons."
Ash and Serena both nodded. All feelings aside, that made the most logical sense.
After packing up their tents, and holding the hands of the partners, the group began to make its way down the forest path.
Serena's grip onto Ash tightened as they walked through the forest. She never did particularly like forests since the event in Pallet Town. That aside, this forest wasn't exactly inviting either. Not to mention the mysterious goings on in the forest already. It was like a recipe for disaster.
"Relax, Serena." Ash said. "Worst comes to it, I'll protect you."
Serena smiled slightly, warmed by Ash's words. Silent walking then ensued.
"Clemont, how far do you think it'll be until we're through?" Ash asked.
Silence.
"Clemont?"
Silence.
Ash and Serena turned around. Clemont and Bonnie were gone.
"Oh, well that's just great." Ash sighed. Now where the heck were they supposed to go?
"How did they get separated from us?" Serena asked. "We've been walking in a straight line. How did they loose us?"
There was a minute of confused silence. Neither of them had any idea whatsoever. To be frank, both of them were slightly afraid of the forest all of the sudden.
Serena's grip on Ash tightened.
Surrounding them, the leaves began to rustle out of nowhere, breaking the previously calm surroundings. Shadows began moving around them. A gust of wind blew through the area, and in front of Ash and Serena, appeared three Ghost type Pokémon.
Dusknoir, Gengar and Mismagius.
"Those are the Pokémon messing with people?..." Ash said, thinking aloud.
The three Pokèmon's eyes glowed. A power dormant in Ghost types awakened.
Blackness ensued.