Clouds. Clouds and clouds and clouds; that was all Serena could see, a tumbling, twirling and swirling mass of clouds that completely engulfed her field of view. She didn't mind the cotton like company though for little bits of light danced through the water based mass, and created a serene display of lights that winked in and out of existence like a rainbow colored starry painting on a white canvas. As she watched the spectacle of light Serena thought to herself, "What a pretty dream; it's a shame I'm the only one who'll get to see it."

Serena just watched her private light show for the next ten minutes, reveling in the majesty and beauty of nature, until she heard a loud slurping sound a ways past where she thought her feet were. At first Serena thought she was just hearing things and returned to her clouds, but a moment later she heard the noise again this time followed up by a content, "Ahhh."

No longer able to dismiss this noise Serena sat up and emerged from her cloud cover, like a submarine rising from the depths of the ocean. She didn't have to look hard to find the source of her dreams disturbance, for a few feet away Dena was sitting under a scarlet red tent, slurping from a silver thermos, as she started out to the wispy landscape.

When Serena had emerged from the whiteness Dena practically chocked on her drink; thinking her to look like a vampire rising from their coffin to suck the blood of mortals, and finding it freaking hilarious.

After a moment of watching Dena laugh through a coughing fit, Serena asked. "Why are you drinking so loudly in my dream?" Which only caused Dena to laugh/cough even more.

"Well that's one way to greet your cousin in the morning." Dena said through a beaming smile, after she had finished laughing.

Serena really wanted to go back to her clouds and just went along with Dena's antics. "Good morning, Dena. Now why are you in my dream?"

Dena stopped smiling and looked at her cousin in confusion. "I'm not in your dream." She said with absolute certainty.

"You most certainly are. I was dreaming about a breathtaking light show in the clouds and now I'm having a dream conversation with you." Serena said defensively.

"No; I woke up, made myself a cup of tea and decided to watch the fog roll along the ground in the twilight, when you pop out of the fog like the living dead and accuse me of being a figment of your imagination."

Serena took a second look of her surroundings and saw that she was sitting in a thick bed of fog that was rolling in prismatic waves, caused by the early morning light, a foot above the woodland ground they had camped at the night before. She was still a little unconvinced with this not being a dream, until she felt the cold morning air move along her cotton covered back; only with the chill seeping through her pajamas did she accept that this was reality.

"Eh, sorry Dena. The fog confused me and I thought I was still sleeping." She said slightly embarrassed by her misconception.

"I figured as much," Dena said with an accepting bob of her head. "But I have to ask. What are you doing out here in the first place?"

Serena looked down at the warm blanket covering her and followed it, with her eyes, to the hazy silhouette of her sleeping sweetheart. A tinge of hot pink embarrassment sat on her face as she realized she'd spent another night sleeping next to Ash and now Dena might find out.

Her flush faded though as she realized she could just tell Dena she'd come out to make sure Ash didn't catch a chill and had simply fallen asleep after having a short talk with him. (She wasn't going to tell Dena what they'd been talking about, considering that it was a ghastly secret that was better known by as few people as possible.

"Ooh, sounds romantic." Dena teased after hearing Serena's explanation. "I hope you didn't keep him to warm last night." She said with a devilish smirk on her lips.

"A-a-ahh..." Was all Serena could initially say to her cousin invasive remarks. She then broke into a flustered crimson blush and tried to defend her dignity. "No! It wasn't like that, he  was just cold and needed some company." She said quickly without thought.

"Oh so he needed company, did he?" Dena said, her smirk growing with her continued enjoyment of flustering her cousin. She didn't actually think anything happened, she just enjoyed getting a rise out of Serena.

"Gah! That's not what I meant!" Serena howled, causing Ash to start to wake up.

"Careful, Serena. You don't want to wake up sleeping beauty over there."

Serena lowered her voice and spoke quickly to Dena, in fear that Ash could wake up at any moment. "Can we please just drop it." She pleaded, feeling uncomfortable with their current conversation.

Dena just waved off her plea with a dismissive hand gesture. "Relax cuz. I was only messing with you. I'd never do anything to hurt you." She then gave Serena a supportive smile. "Besides you know I wouldn't jeopardize your chances with Ash."

At that moment Ash sat up, more or less awake, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he yawned. "Jeopardize what?"

Serena was caught by surprise and couldn't think of a way to escape his question. Dena however was able to think quicker and saved them, saying she and Serena were playing Jeopardy.

"Sounds like fun," Ash said with a half awake smile. "What's the question?"

"Last question on the board, this ones for all the marbles; What has blue hair, green eyes, and is currently sleeping off half a bag of s'mores?"

Ash and Serena both thought for a good few seconds before they reached the answer at the same time. Almost as if they'd rehearsed it they gave Dena their answer in perfect harmony. "Cal."

"Correcta-mungo, my friends. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go try and wake him up." Dena said as she strolled out and into Cal's tent, her yellow and orange bird Pokémon following behind her looking like an orange periscope bobbing in the thick fog. Once both had disappeared inside Cal's tent, Ash turned to Serena with a bit of concern in his voice.

"Serena, you didn't tell her about what we learned last night; did you?"

"No, I thought that was something we would keep to ourselves until the time came." She responded, easing Ash's worries of to many people knowing and one of them telling Aura to soon.

"Thanks, Serena. I know it must be hard to keep this a secret, especially from your family, but I really appreciate you being there for me and helping me keep it."

"It's not a problem Ash, I'll always be there for you when you need me." Serena said with a light smile.

Ash smiled back, but looked troubled as he did it. For he wanted to do more than just smile at Serena, he wanted to tell her that he would always need her and that she was extremely important to him, but some primitive fear he didn't understand held his tongue and all he could do was smile. Their smiles both carried a sadness to them making the once mesmerizing fog into a plain of swirling sorrow and regret.

They sort of just sat there, amid the blanket of fog, awkwardly waiting to say something, anything, to each other, but failing to come up with anything that they could get past their stubborn lips. After a few seconds of this silent torture they were saved by a flurry of noise from Cal's tent as Dena encouraged him to wake up.

The clamor not only succeed in waking Cal up, it also compelled Diana and Aura to jump out their tents armed with whatever was closest to them when they heard the noise. Diana had a Squirtle print pair of footie pajamas on and had come barring a spatula and pillow; Aura was wearing a plain white-T and black thigh high shorts, while wielding two pans that were ready to whack whoever had caused the loud disturbance. The whole sight was pretty funny and smoothed over Ash and Serena's awkward moment with a bustle of laughter at their friends.

Aura and Diana didn't find it as funny and were rather peeved at both Cal and Dena for creating such a commotion. This caused a lot of finger pointing that got so out of hand that they started accidentally accusing themselves which made everyone laugh. After playing the bizarre blame game everyone set to work, getting dressed and packing up the campsite, and in an hour they were traveling alone the road once again.

They spent the next few hours walking, talking and playing name the Pokémon. Currently the score was six to eight, with Ash's team of him, Cal, and Aura loosing to Serena's all girl group of her, Dena, and Diana.

"Alright next Pokémon." Aura said with enthusiasm, eager to catch up with the competition.

"Okay, let me think for a moment." Ash said before putting his hand on his chin in thought. "Mmmm... I've got it! I can be red or white, fire or ice, and you've already met my kind before."

The group was silent as they milled over Ash's description of the unknown Pokémon; a Pokémon that could be two types wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but the fact that it's typings were polar opposites was difficult to comprehend. After a bunch of wrong guesses and a nearly an hour on the question the girls gave up.

"Alright Ash what Pokémon is it?" Diana asked in concession.

Grinning victoriously Ash said, "It's Vulpix."

"What!?" Dena exclaimed in frustration. "Vulpix isn't an ice type and it definitely doesn't have white fur!"

"It's alolan form does." Ash said and pulled up the snow white fox on his PokéDex.

The group clamoured around the image of the adorable arctic fox and looked at it with astonishment. They'd never seen a Vulpix like it and were completely astonished by it's very existence in the pokedex. After all the oohing and aahing was done they returned to their argument over the question.

"Alright so a white, ice type, Vulpix does exist but that's still two different Pokémon so your question doesn't count." Dena said in an attempt to win the point.

"Actually Alolan Vulpix is just a regional variant of Vulpix that the PokéDex recognises as no different than Mega evolution or a form change; so technically speaking it's still one Pokémon." Ash said with a confident smirk.

With a bit of a pout Dena conceded the point to Ash, but only after she got him to swear not to use anymore Pokémon from the Alola region.

"Alright!" Aura cheered. "One more point to go and we're all tied up. You've got this Cal!"

Cal however was looking intensely at something odd further down their path, and hadn't paid attention to Auras encouragement.

"Hey, earth to Cal. It's your turn." Aura said impatiently.

"Huh? Oh sorry, uh let's see. I'm rarely what I am, I like to copy others and... there's one of me on the road up ahead." Cal said with a devious smile.

All heads turned to further down the road and at a small black and red Pokémon slowly moving across the road. Diana barely had to look at the Pokémon before she made her guess.

"It's a Zorua!" She proclaimed with upmost certainty.

Cal's devious smile only grew at the incorrect guess. "Sorry but that's not it."

"Well whatever it is, it looks like it's hurt." Serena said as she squinted at the wild Pokémon.

The rest of the group quickly came to the same conclusion Serena'd made, as they saw the Pokémon was moving slowly due to a limp in its back right leg. They quickly abandoned their game and went to help the poor creature, only to have their large numbers frighten it. Realizing they were scaring the Pokémon they all backed off, all of them except Dena who just sat down across from it and tried to talk it down.

"Hey there little guy, it's alright we're not going to hurt you." Dena said softly and calmly. "We just saw that you were ruffed up and looked like you needed some help."

Dena's words seemed to be calming the Pokémon down, for it didn't look at her with the same fear it had moments ago.

"We'd love to help you feel better and if you come with us we'll make sure you get well real quick." She then slowly extended her open palm out to the Pokémon. "So what do you say, do you want to come with us?"

In response the Pokémon limped over to Dena and began affectionately nuzzling her palm. This was all the answer Dena needed and while smiling kindly she plucked the small Pokémon from the ground and cradled it in her arms. Once safety in the girls embrace the black and red Pokémon closed its eyes and began to sleep.

"Serena how far are we from the nearest Pokémon center?" Dena asked as she watched the sleeping Pokémon with an obvious concern for its wellbeing, similar to how a mother might watch a child with a high fever.

Serena pulled out her navigation device and pleased Dena with the knowledge that they were only a forty minute walk away from Rustboro city. Realizing that this was still a good distance away, the group decided to make tracks and started walking towards their destination. For a short three minutes they also ran, because the black and red fox like Pokémon was melting into a blob of pink which was really freaking them out.

Cal was the only one not that phased by the Pokémon melting, solely because he knew what was going on. "Guys calm down!" He called after them. "It's not melting, its move is just wearing off!"

Ten feet stopped in their tracks and five pairs of eyes fell on him, demanding further explanation. "What Dena's holding is the answer to my earlier question, also known as the Transformation Pokémon Ditto."

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Hope you all liked this chapter, I know it's not as serious as the last but you know there's got to be a balance of fun chapters and serious chapters. The next few chapters are probably going to be fun chapters with bits seriosity thrown in. Please vote and comment on things you liked and I'll see you all in the next chapter.

*special thanks to AmourAuraGaurdian19 , NoelLaryea ,Amourshipper444 ,Ash-GreninjaGirl ,and limenightsky for being so involved and interested in my stories, I hope you guys stick around until I inevitably finish my stories.