CHAPTER SIX: GO!(GOAT)

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Seconds before Gogoat rammed straight into the flower cart, Alice yanked Gogoat's horns to the right. The Pokémon jerked so violently that Ken almost fell off. He gasped as one of his hands lost his grip on Alice and he dangled halfway off of Gogoat, hovering two feet above the cement. Each step Gogoat took jerked him up and down, dizzying him. Ken grunted as he pulled himself up and wrapped his arms securely around her.

"Pay attention!" he hissed. His face resembled a Pecha berry as he fought to catch his breath. He clenched his eyes shut to stop the world from spinning, a headache born from nausea forming.

Alice bit her tongue to stop herself from shrieking when he suddenly spoke in her ear. "Sorry!"

Alice refocused on the task at hand. Gogoat leaped over a bench in their way, eliciting yelps from the two riders. She guided the Pokémon off of the sidewalk since her shortcut wasn't working out and found themselves near the end of the pack of Gogoat. Their near-accident put them behind.

The street lights hanging above turned red right as the leading Gogoat got to the end of the avenue. Cars whizzed past them with kids pressing their faces against the windows, pointing and giggling at the riders. This gave Alice the opportunity to have her Gogoat creep up towards the front of the herd.

A white car driving past her gave Alice an idea.

"The rules didn't say anything about using battle moves, right?" she said to Ken, keeping her voice low so others wouldn't hear her.

Ken recalled, "You're not allowed to battle the others."

She nodded. "Got it. Gogoat, can you use Aerial Ace?" The Gogoat raised his head — she took that as a yes. Adrenaline buzzed in her veins with excitement. "Okay, so I have an idea. It's a little weird, but I think we'll win if we do it."

"What are you planning?"

"Gogoat's going to use Aerial Ace once we get to the front so we come in first place."

Ken's eyes widened. They could barely handle going at Gogoat's sprinting speed. "Is that safe?"

"I'm pretty sure it is. People battle with the Pokémon they're riding in the ocean all the time."

Alice never actually did it herself, but she'd seen it a countless number of times. She'd take ferries on her journey and watch ocean trainers battling for fun. One time a guy battled a girl on his Gyarados while she had a Mantine. Their splashing drenched the people standing on the ferry's deck.

"This is a bad idea," Ken said. The same fear that had knotted in his stomach when he found Alice cowering away from Luxray formed in his stomach once more.

Alice bit her lip. She knew her plan was irrational, but it was all she could come up with. They promised that guy they would win! Her sense of obligation to the cowboy nagged her conscience.

She took a deep breath. "Hold on tight."

Ken didn't have the time to protest. The light turned green and he locked his arms around Alice's waist. Gogoat bounded forwards and soon came neck-to-neck with the leader. To Ken's annoyance, it was the girls from the Stone Emporium who were riding the lead Gogoat. Pigtails, sitting behind the driver, stuck her tongue out at Ken as their much larger Gogoat pulled ahead.

Ken's heart dropped when Alice saw them speed ahead and ordered, "Aerial Ace!"

Gogoat's hooves went from orange to a glowing white in mere seconds. Its pace ten-folded as its chest rumbled and Alice held on even tighter. The Grass-type shot forwards like a bullet firing from a gun, leaving nothing but white streaks and astonished opponents in its wake.

Ken clung onto Alice for dear life, unable to open his eyes because her brunette tresses kept on smacking him in the face. He lowered his head and ended up pressing it against her back to save himself from the pain.

Alice didn't notice Ken's uncomfortable situation — they had much bigger problems ahead of them. A group of children were taking their sweet time crossing the road. Instead of running to the sidewalk when they saw a Gogoat zooming towards them, they stopped to cheer. She gasped and pulled up on Gogoat's horns with all her might.

It felt like the world went into slow motion as Gogoat jumped ten feet into the air, soaring above the elementary students. They gaped with wide eyes and dropped jaws as they stared up at the Pokémon passing overhead. One girl's strawberry ice cream fell off of her cone, but she failed to notice since she was too busy pointing at the racers.

Once Gogoat's feet hit the ground, time resumed to its normal pace. Alice didn't dare to spare a breath of relief just yet. The last turn was up ahead and Gogoat wasn't slowing down.

"Vine Whip!" Alice yelled. She couldn't hear herself over the sound of the wind. "On that stick, I mean rod, no, I mean pole!"

Somehow Gogoat comprehended her stuttering mess of words. It barely slowed down as long, dark green plants climbed out of the bush hanging around its neck and flung out at the streetlights. The vines grasped onto the metal with a vice-like grip and Gogoat swung around the corner without much difficulty. They retracted instantaneously once the leverage grew unneeded and the plants retracted back into Gogoat.

Gravity worked against Ken and Alice during this maneuver, screaming as they nearly fell off. Alice lost her hold on Gogoat's horns and clutched onto its neck's foliage, shaking as she saw the ground below her moving at what seemed like a hundred miles per hour. Ken's death grip on her sweater kept the lower half of her body from teetering off with her.

"Stop! Help!" Alice shrieked. She could feel the leaves she was holding onto loosening as her weight pulled them out of Gogoat.

Behind them, Pigtails and her friend had realized what Ken and Alice were doing to go so fast, and their own Gogoat rocketed forwards as it used Aerial Ace. They were close behind the duo struggling to hang on. Ken didn't want to lose and he was 100% sure that Alice didn't want to, either. He gulped as he leaned forwards and got a hold of one of Gogoat's horns while his other arm wrapped around Alice. Ken grunted as he hauled her up and she latched onto Gogoat's horns.

The finish line finally came into their sights. Ken's hands went back to Alice's waist and she let out a shout as she encouraged Gogoat. The Grass-type bleated in return and ran even faster than before as it felt Alice's passion. Pigtails' Gogoat caught up to their flank...

But it was too late.

The crowd roared the moment Alice and Ken's Gogoat tore through the thin, white cloth that served to be the end's marker. Gogoat slowed to a stop and pranced in a circle, flaunting the fact that it won. Ken dismounted Gogoat first and wobbled once his feet hit the solid ground. Alice followed, freezing once she saw the people surrounding them.

The emotions Alice felt when racing—excitement, anxiousness, fear, shock—came crashing down on her all at once. Overwhelmed tears filled her eyes spilled over and she covered her face as hot embarrassment accompanied her feelings. She laughed and cried at the same time; she felt too much.

Ken saw her and his gaze softened the slightest bit. The sharp comments he'd saved up during the ballistic ride died on his tongue. He turned around to face her while blocking her from the public's eye at the same time. "Alice."

She hesitantly lowered her hands to see him and gave him a questioning look that asked him 'What?' since the bile in her throat prevented her from speaking.

For the first time, he smiled genuinely at her. "Good job."

"Thanks?" The word came out gurgled, confused, and barely audible. She cleared her throat as she wiped her face with her sweater's sleeves.

"Y'all sure didn't disappoint!" Jed exclaimed, popping up from behind Ken and making Alice jump in surprise. "I've never seen Gogoat move so fast! Alice, right?" She nodded. "You're a mighty fine racer. You should visit the ranch on Route 12 sometime."

She grinned politely, but she had zero intentions of riding a Pokémon anytime soon.

Jed continued, "Here's the card for the clothes store. Show the workers and they'll let y'all right in."

He pulled out what looked like a credit card and handed it to Ken. The silver card sparkled in the sunlight with the text on it reading, 'Congratulations! You win one* free outfit from the luxurious Boutique Couture.' Ken narrowed his eyes then turned the card over. In smaller print on the back it said, 'One free outfit per person.'

That was better.

* * *

Boutique Couture smelled like perfume and shoes. Hats that cost more than what both Alice and Ken had in their wallets combined lined the walls on shelves. Pop music played and the lady at the cash register danced along to it with two Kirlia.

The manager who'd helped Alice and Ken said, "The women's section is on this floor and the men's section is on the second floor. When you've finished browsing head to the checkout area over there—" the manager nodded towards the lady dancing with the Kirlia "—and Melanie will take care of the price tags."

The trainers nodded in unison and watched the manager disappear into the employee break room. Alice caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror and panicked as she saw her hair mussed up and knotted with more flyaways than anything. Ken noticed her hectic movements and looked in the mirror as well, frowning upon seeing his bird's nest of a hairdo.

"Do you want to split up?" he suggested as he tried to fix his hair.

Alice opened her mouth to object until she imagined shopping with Ken. She pictured him critiquing everything she picked out and vigorously nodded her head. "Yeah, let's do that!"

Ken paused. Earlier that day she pleaded for him not to leave her and here she was telling him it was a-ok. He chose not to question her and left her side to go upstairs. The second didn't differ too much from the first except for the fact that it lacked skirts and dresses. He walked to the nearest rack and started browsing. A vertically striped pair of pants caught his eyes and he scooped it up into his arms.

Almost an hour later and Alice had finished picking out her outfit. She found comfy shorts that went with a button-up and flats she figured she could wear during the tournament. Alice put her items in a basket then walked upstairs to find Ken. She spotted his blond hair outside of the fitting room and headed towards him.

"Hey, Ken, are you done?" she called out, walking past a rack of sunglasses to get to him.

"Yes," he answered, his outfit still obscured from her vision.

"Oh, cool—" Alice froze mid-sentence once she saw what he was wearing.

Ken had a lavender jacket over a black-and-white checkered shirt paired with vertically striped black-and-white pants. He covered his hair with a black trilby hat that had a sparkly band around it. To tie it together (at least that's what Alice thought he was trying to do) he wore white shoes with violet laces.

"Is something wrong?" He broke her train of thought as he quirked an eyebrow at her.

Alice shut her dropped jaw and held her hand to her mouth to cover her grin. It took all her willpower not to burst into giggles. "Your outfit's, um, interesting."

"Interesting?" he repeated. Ken turned to look in the full-length mirror then nodded. "I suppose so. Interesting's better than boring."

"Uh huh." Alice couldn't stop her lips from twitching into a smile. "Did you pick that out?"

"Yes. I found the pants and everything after it came naturally."

"Even the purple jacket?"

"It brings the outfit together. The only other purple item here to match the shoelaces is a turtleneck." Alice failed to hold back a laugh and he looked at her. "What is it?"

She let loose a few barks of laughter before simmering down. It wasn't nice of her to outright laugh at her battling partner's poor fashion choices. "Your outfit has too much going on."

Ken scanned over his clothes once more then pursed his lips. "How?"

She pointed at his shirts then his pants. "Checkers don't go that well with stripes. The patterns clash." She eyed his hat. "Sparkly hats are too, um, flamboyant. So is the lavender jacket." She motioned to all of him top to bottom. "I think you need to tone it down a bit. Pick something you like then have everything else complement it."

"I thought as long as the colors matched everything was fine." He tilted his head to the side as he looked at his attire. "I... I choose the shoes."

"Nice." She smiled; the shoes would be easy to work with.

Ken took off his hat and held it out to her. "Will you help me?"

Alice took the hat and put it on for fun. She felt rather dapper. "Sure."

Ken followed her around as she pulled out various articles of clothing and showed it to him. He thought they were a bit dull, but he figured if he could trust her with the safety of his well-being then he could trust her enough not to dress him up like a clown.

The admiration he formed for her when they first battled returned to him. They were able to keep a simple conversation about the race going on without getting into any disagreements. It was a nice change.

By the end, Ken had his white shoes paired with black pants and a white polo with a black stripe on the pocket (he insisted that he preferred it much more than the gray t-shirt Alice kept on trying to get him to put on.) They finally got downstairs to the cashier who took her sweet time scanning their items.

"Did you find everything okay?" she queried.

Ken nodded, expecting Alice to say something. Instead, she had her head bowed as she played with her sleeves, averting her gaze away from the cashier. Anxiety stemmed from talking to people of authority swelled up in her chest as she faced the worker.

"I love this shirt, I have one like it in red at home," the cashier said, holding up the button-up Alice picked out.

Alice shyly glanced up at her. "Oh, really? Thanks."

"What was it like racing on a Gogoat? I've never tried it before." The cashier failed to stop talking.

"It's fast." Alice paused to try to think of something more intelligible to say. "You should put your hair up first. Mine's really tangled. Zero out of ten recommend for people with long hair." She forced a laugh as it quickly dawned upon her that she was doing nothing more than ridiculing herself.

"I'll keep that in mind." The cashier faked a smile that made Alice want to crawl into a hole and never visit Lumiose City ever again. Thankfully, the items were done being scanned. "You're all set. Have a great day!"

Alice nodded and skittered out of there with Ken by her side. Once outside, the blond paused right outside the doorway.

"Alice."

She came to a halt. "Yeah?"

"Do you want me to talk next time?"

She opened her mouth to say something then decided against it and nodded. Ken said no more and resumed walking. As Alice fell into step with him, she spared a glance at the blond who stared blankly ahead.

I don't want to jinx it, but I think he's finally starting to come around.

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Author's Note

This chapter was really fun to write. Any thoughts on the descriptions? It's nice having characters get along 😂

Question of the Chapter: Checkers, stripes, or polka-dots?