When the weekend came again, Ash and Serena decided to spend the day just about two of them. They each decided to take only one of their Pokemon (Ash Pikachu and Serena Braixen) with them and head for the sea.
The other Pokemon remained in the care of Professor Kukui and Professor Burnet, who had come to live with them to better study Nebby, and Nebby goes to Lillie. Lillie seemed excited and Nebby seemed to agree. So, Ash and Serena could leave to have fun with the two of them and take a little adventure.
Expect the "little adventure" wasn't very "little"
****
Ash and Serena had gone to sea to surf Mantine. Serena had soon found herself a natural talent in that matter, though she had never done so. After Ash told her that Lana was good at it too, Serena decided one day to challenge Lana to a surfing race.
Ash and Serena surfed side by side and Pikachu enjoyed being on Ash's shoulder. Braixen, who did not like water, had decided to stay in her Pokeball.
Serena glanced at Ash, who was surfing next to her, and grinned. Ash grinned back and pointed in front of a rising pretty big wave. Serena looked at it and then nodded resolutely to Ash. She would easily overcome this wave.
She bent her knees and focused. Ash had stopped his Mantine and watched for a little distance as Serena prepared to surf on the crest of the wave. He put his hand on his hips and smiled a little to himself. Serena was really good at this.
He scratched Pikachu from behind his ear and this one laughed happily. Ash sat down on Mantine and exclaimed for a moment, "Good, Serena!" That was a mistake.
Upon hearing Ash's exclamation, Serena turned her head so fast that she felt her neck click sore and it made her lose her balance. She swayed, tried to get back in balance, but failed, and fell into the water, in other words, into a wave. Her Mantine looked at it and then dived into the water.
Ash cursed himself. Because of him, Serena had fallen. He instructed his Mantine to swim closer to the place where Serena had fallen and looked into the water. The wave had subsided a bit and Ash reached out to see better into the water.
"Boo!" suddenly heard behind him and Ash startled and flew into the water Pikachu with him. While diving into the water, he drew a large amount of water into his lungs and rose to the surface of the coughs while drying his eyes and Pikachu jumped drenched over his Mantine.
Ash heard a close giggle and when he had gotten the most water out of his eyes and lungs, he raised his head and saw Serena sitting on top of his Mantine, laughing and pouring water.
"Why did you do that?" asked Ash and at the same time, Pikachu shook himself like a dog, to get the water out of his fur. Serena protected herself with the most splashes with her hand and said with grinning mischief, "It was revenge for flying into the water."
Ash also jumped on Mantine and grinned at Serena. "Really? Well, then this is my revenge for the recent one," he said and pressed his lips to the girl's lips. Serena wrapped her arms around his neck and Pikachu turned his gaze politely away.
None of them noticed the dark clouds gathering in the sky and the fact that the wind was getting stronger.
****
Serena was the first to notice it. She lay on Ash's chest when she suddenly felt the air cool a little and the wind blowing harder. The waves had also intensified and as she looked up at the sky, drops of water fell on her face.
Soon more of them fell. Serena sat up and Ash noticed that the sky was full of dark clouds. More and more drops fell and soon it could be called rain.
The wind had now intensified into a decent gust and Ash felt the waves waving them and Mantine harder than before. He looked up at the sky and noticed that even darker clouds were coming towards them. "Ash, I guess it's coming to a storm," Serena said, trembling a little in the wind and rain. Ash realized in dismay that she was right.
"We need to get out of this sea," he said, but they were too far away from Melemele Island to get there before the storm really intensified.
Ash bite his lips and tried to come up with a solution when Serena exclaimed, "Look, there's a small island over there, let's go there waiting for the storm to subside."
Ash turned to look in the direction she was pointing and noticed the outline of the island a short distance away. He nodded and said to Mantine, "Would you take us there?" Mantine set out to advance toward the island.
****
When they got to the island, the storm was already really hard. The wind caused the rain to come down almost horizontally and Ash, Serena and Pikachu were drenched.
Serena jumped on the wet sand of the island and wiped her wet hair out of the front of her eyes. She looked at the sea where the waves were already really high and thought they had arrived on the island just in time.
Ash looked at the island. Although he did not see it from that beach, the island was almost completely round. It was perhaps a third of the Melemele Island. Its edge consisted of a sandy beach and in the middle was a small but dense jungle. Pokemon were not visible, surprisingly, but in beautiful weather the beach was teeming with all sorts of Water type Pokemon.
Even though the air was still warm, Serena was still shaking a little as she was only wearing a bikini. She wrapped her arms around her body and felt the water run down her face.
It was then that the lightning flashed and after a moment there was a loud thunderstorm. Serena was startled sharply. She didn't like thunder, nope, she even admitted she was a little scared of it. Or "a little" was an understatement. She was afraid of it and a lot.
However, she kept her fear secret, even though she noticed that her hands were shaking a little. She blinked around, looking for some shelter, they couldn't stay on the beach, lightning could easily hit them there.
She went for a walk along the beach and in the meantime Ash said to the Mantines, "Look for some sheltered place and wait there for the storm to subside."
The Mantines nodded and dived under the surface, where they were in better protection than on the surface. Ash watched them go and then said to Pikachu, "Come on, buddy, let's go after Serena."
Pikachu nodded and jumped on Ash's shoulder. He and Ash were just as wet as Serena and Ash's hair had glued to his neck. Just then, Serena's cry was heard, "Hey, Ash and Pikachu, come here quickly, I guess I'll find a place of refuge for us!"
Serena had walked a little along the beach when she had noticed a short distance from the mouth of the cave. She had run quickly to it, checked that no Pokemon lived there, and smiled contentedly. They could spend time in the cave waiting for the storm to subside.
Ash and Pikachu on his shoulder quickly arrived at her and she said, "Look, I found a cave where we can spend the time waiting for the storm to subside."
Ash peeked inside the cave. It didn't look horribly dangerous, just dark. "Well, it seems to be decent," he said and Pikachu nodded, agreeing. Then Ash held out his hand to Serena and they stepped into the cave.
On Melemele Island, in the house of Professor Kukui:
Professor Kukui watched the storm from the window and his forehead was wrinkled with concern. Next to him stood Ash's Greninja, who was also looking out the window and both of them were equally worried.
"I hope they've found some shelter for themselves," Kukui said without looking away from the window and the thought that they wouldn't have found shook him.
"I believe that they are, Ash and Serena aren't helpless, they're doing well," said Professor Burnet, walked over to Kukui and looked out the window as well. "Besides, they have Braixen and Pikachu with them."
Professor Kukui sighed. "I hope you're right," he said, trying to smile, unsuccessfully, and watched as another wave hit the shore. "I really hope so"
****
Ash and Serena stepped into the cave with water flowing and Pikachu jumped off Ash's shoulder and shook most of the water away from himself again. Serena squeezed most of the water out of her wet hair and then looked around.
The cave looked at what the caves usually looked like; dark and rocky. Serena tried to look deeper into the cave, but saw the sheer darkness, stepped back, and stepped directly onto some sharp rock that hurt painfully on her bare foot.
As Serena bounced on one leg and cursed quietly, Ash watched with Pikachu from the mouth of the cave a raging storm at sea. The waves were very high and it seemed that this storm was stronger than the one that had raged when he and Serena had run with Mallow and Kiawe to Professor Kukui. Ash frowned. Hopefully the professor wasn't quite sick of worry.
Meanwhile, Serena, who had bounced on one leg, faltered slightly and in that rush dropped her other leg to something. She happened to lower her legs to a puddle of water, which was the beginning of something much bigger.
Serena lifted her legs out of the puddle and felt a drop of water falling down her neck. She looked up and felt another drop fall directly on her forehead. She wiped the water off with her hand and moved a little further.
Water dripped from a stalactite formation that hung from the roof of the cave and hit a puddle in the ground. However, something in the puddle bothered Serena and she looked at it more closely.
The puddle looked normal otherwise, but it somehow seemed continuous, as if it had continued into the darkness of the cave.
Serena took out her Pokeball and let Braixen out. It appeared next to her and Serena said to it, "Braixen, could you light your branch, I want to see what's over there," pointing to the darkness. Braixen nodded, said, "Braixen brai," and lit a fire in the head of her branch, which illuminated the cave and created various shadows on the walls.
Braixen directed the fire into the darkness and Serena was amazed; the cave continued no matter how much! The puddle she found seemed to continue as a creek along the side of the cave wall and it seemed that the cave continued as a tunnel.
"Ash, you have to see this," Serena said without turning her gaze out of the tunnel she found and the excitement pinched her stomach. What would they find there?
Ash turned and saw Serena and Braixen staring at the back of the cave in the light of Braixen's fire. "What now, Serena?" he asked and came to the girl Pikachu on his shoulder again.
Serena pointed in front of her. "Look, the cave apparently continues as a tunnel and that little creek seems to follow it," she said, pointing to the straight stream of water coming from the puddle next to it, which disappeared into the dark depths of the cave.
Ash looked at it with interest and said, "The cave seems to be going pretty far," Serena nodded and then Ash grinned. "What if we set out on a little adventure?" he asked and Serena smiled with a twinkle in the corner of her eye. "Sounds nice," she said, and together they set out along the tunnel as the Braixen's fire lit their way.
****
The tunnel continued and continued. It was straight all the time, and never branched. It began to tilt downward and that small creek, starting from the puddle, which they were following, began to intensify the farther they went.
It got water from the water of the stalactite formations on the roof, which was constantly dripping from them as drops, as well as from other small streams that flowed out of something they couldn't see.
Braixen kept her branch raised all the time so that it acted as a torch. The fire at its end reflected shadows on the stone walls and at times Serena's imagination began to gallop. She imagined seeing some creatures lurking behind the rocks on the ground and the complete silence of the tunnel made her ears pick up the smallest possible sound.
As they walked along the tunnel, they quickly concluded that it led to the underground. When the mouth of the cave narrowed in size and eventually shrank to non-existence, they realized they were already quite deep on the ground.
There was no longer anything heard from the raging storm outside, and the otherwise complete silence of the tunnel was broken only by the sound of droplets falling from the stalactite formations as they hit the creek.
Their sense of time quickly disappeared and soon they no longer had any smell of how long they had been in the cave. An hour, two or even more. It didn't really matter, though, and the only thing that was in their heads at the moment was a curiosity about where this tunnel might lead them.
Serena noticed it again first. She realized that a light-shining opening began to appear in front of them, growing as they approached it. She pointed it silently at Ash and they increased their pace.
The ground now spent almost perpendicular downward and they slipped rather than walked forward. The creek they had been following had grown into a stream and seemed to be heading in the same direction as they were going.
It was no longer just a stroll along the land, but reminiscent of a small river that had carved a channel for itself in the land. Its intensification confirmed their at least one thing; where it led there was at least water.
They noticed that the light was getting bigger all the time and noticed a roughly door-high opening in the wall right in front of them. The light came from there and also the creek... I mean.. the stream led there. They slid the rest of the way to the opening, first looked at each other, grabbed each other by the hand and drew into their lungs the slightly stale air of the cave.
What they next saw in front of them made them gasp for amazement and admiration.
They stood on a small cliff and the creek that had led here rushed down like a big waterfall. But it was not the thing that made them gasp in astonishment, but what they saw in front of them.
A cave opened in front of them. It was big, underground and almost completely round. Its walls were almost completely smooth and grew into strange crystal formations that shone in all the different shades of blue and illuminated the entire cave.
There was a pond in the cave that also shone a turquoise light and there was an island in the middle of the pond. That island was strange in that it was covered almost entirely by thick, tree roots that continued into the water and disappeared beneath its surface. For in the center of the island grew an immense, thick-bodied tree, the canopy of which reached to the roof of the cave.
I'm not starting to describe what a tree was like, but I'm putting a picture here that very much resembles that same tree. I can't be sure, though, because Ash or Serena didn't have a camera with them, so there's no picture of the tree:
(I don't own that picture)
Ash and Serena looked at the cave with their mouths open and Braixen and Pikachu also looked amazed. Braixen extinguished the flame of her branch as it was no longer needed and put the branch back on her tail.
Serena effortlessly tore her gaze out of the cave and noticed a small, narrow path that led down from the cliff. Something in it bothered Serena; it did not look shaped by nature, but by man. And this cave seemed somehow fake too.
She showed the path to Ash as well and together they descended along with it to a small and rocky beach in front of which the pond opened.
The rocky ground was almost completely smooth under Serena's bare feet and she stepped out without making a sound while watching the turquoise water of the pond. The water was so clear that she could see all the way to the bottom and noticed that the bottom was covered with a thick layer of roots.
She knelt down and touched the water with her hand. It was cool but not too cold. She touched her tongue with one of her fingers. Freshwater, she noted, when she tasted no salt in it at all. Braixen beside her looked at the water with suspicion; it didn't like water because it was a Fire-type Pokemon.
Serena took a small stone from the ground and threw it into the pond. There was a splash that echoed in an otherwise completely silent cave and the stone sank into the depths of the pond.
Serena waited and watched for some hostile creature to rise from the pond, but as the vibrations caused by the stone subsided and the surface of the pond was dead calm again, Serena found that there was nothing in it that would have angered by her.
In fact, now that she was thinking, they hadn't seen a single Pokemon on their way here. No Zubats or any other Pokemon who like to live in the caves.
Even this cave looked completely lifeless if that tree was not counted. Not a single Pokemon in the pond or around that tree. For some reason, the thought made Serena nervous. This cave got her skin upright anyway.
While Serena studied the water, Ash and Pikachu watched the crystals shining blue light. They came in all sizes and colors, but the most common color was electric blue.
Ash carried one finger along the shimmering surface of the crystal. It was perfectly smooth and cold and hard as the stone usually was. He sighed and then walked over to the water squatting at Serena.
"This place is weird," he said and sat down on the hard, rocky ground. The stone was dark gray and also cold and hard. He dipped his bare toes in the cool water of the pond and Serena nodded beside him.
"It's as if everything here is somehow fake," she said, staring at the island in the middle of the pond. "I'd like to know what that tree really is," she said to herself and Ash got the idea.
"Let's go see," he said excitedly and slid into the water. It was deep, but since he knew how to swim, it wasn't a problem for him. Serena also seemed excited at the thought, took out her Pokeball and said, "Braixen, you don't like water, so you better be in your Pokeball. Return."
Braixen disappeared and the ball was recovered by Serena. Then she slipped into the water too and felt its coolness on her skin.
They went for a swim towards the island and Pikachu made the trip on Ash's head. The journey was not long and soon Ash rose from the water to an island covered with tree roots. He held out his hand to Serena and helped the girl over to the island as well.
The island was not big. Actually, it was just the size that a tree could hold to grow with it. Its roots covered the entire land area of the island, so Ash and Serena had no idea what kind of land it was.
Ash circled the tree and carried his hand along its thick trunk. The bark felt smooth under his arm and he wondered if everything in this cave was smooth. There must be some rough point here, he thought, and had to crash into one thicker root.
Serena looked at the canopies of the tree and looked at its branches, from which the greenish leaves hung without moving. They were not completely green, but bluish-green, and Serena wondered how the tree could grow here without sunlight. How it has even come here, she thought and touched the trunk of the tree with her hand.
Suddenly she noticed something in the stern wall of the cave. "Ash, look, doesn't that even look like some kind of exit?" Serena told her boyfriend, who had come next to her and pointed to a small object in the distance.
Ash squinted and said slowly, "Oh yeah, I can't see so closely, but you're probably right" Then he grinned. "We'll probably have to go take a closer look," he said and descended into the water again and Serena did the same.
This time the trip was longer and they had to swim a longer distance. But as they got closer, they noticed that Serena had been right.
In front of them rose again a rocky beach, and at its end was an opening that led out of the cave and was flooded with bright light.
Ash and Serena got out of the cool water and Pikachu, who had traveled again on Ash's head, also jumped ashore. Serena looked at the tree one last time, but it stood just as quietly and in place as before. Hopefully we can get out of there, she thought, looking at the opening in the wall a little distance away. This cave somehow makes me uneasy.
They walked a short distance to the opening and noticed that a creek flowed from the pond towards it again. They looked at each other and then stepped out of the opening.
The sunshine dazzled their eyes and they put their hands in front of their eyes so as not to be completely blinded. How was it possible that the sun was shining? Shouldn't the storm have raged outside?
As their eyes became accustomed to the sudden glory, they found themselves standing on one cliff again. This time in front of them a view of the beautiful valley opened up and again the creek flowed like a waterfall down a cliff.
"Beautiful," Serena said delightfully, looking at the landscape that opened up in front of her. She stepped forward, but to her great misfortune stumbled upon a large rock on the ground.
She stumbled forward and her toes and ankle hurt insanely. She did not notice that she was approaching the edge of the cliff menacingly until it was too late.
Ash realized instead. His eyes widened in horror and he exclaimed, "Serena, beware!" but too late. Serena was too close to the edge and when she realized her situation, she waved her hands wildly, trying to balance, but failed. Instead, she felt the ground disappear under her feet and she realized what had happened.
She had gone over the edge.
Now she fell.
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(A/N: And.. ready for this batch!
Hehee, cliffhanger once again, I love making them and I know you love them too :D
How is Serena doing? It will be clear in the next chapter.
But yeah, these events are then entirely a product of my imagination, they don't happen in anime or anywhere else. But it doesn't bother us and this gives a nice twist to this story;)
Hope you liked this, see you in the next chapter!)