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Chapter Text

Because hey, if Professor Sycamore can have his own What If Blossomverse story, why not someone much less important like Miette?

Also, yes, the pun was probably a big factor for the creation of this story.

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Miette… had a lot of things on her mind.

Ever since she got the news that Ash became the Alola League Champion, memories came flowing back to her, reminding her of when Ash first set foot in Kalos, and she decided to tease Serena over her obvious crush on him.

And yet, the more she thought about it, the more she realized: all the teasing she was doing with Ash? She wasn't just trying to tease Serena.

She was trying to get her attention.

In hindsight, she wasn't even that interested in Ash. Sure, he was a nice guy, and a very competent trainer. But whenever she saw him, her first thought was always how to use him to get Serena's attention.

Which is horrible, she'll admit, but in her defense, she always relegated it to just teasing.

But the tipping point about realizing this stuff? It came from a recent event…

…

"Hi there, Miette, you called for me?"

The bluette stood in front of Serena in the middle of the park, the former folding her arms behind her back.

"There's… something I wanted to ask you…"

Miette paused, then revealed a pair of tickets to go to Alola.

“I… got these tickets as a prize from a cooking contest and-”

Before she could finish, Miette flinched as Serena squealed in delight and took a closer look at the tickets with a wide smile.

“Awesome, Miette! This is just what I was looking for!”

“R-Really?” Miette smiled awkwardly. “You mean it?”

“Absolutely!” Serena perked up. “I always wanted to pay Alola a visit! I’ve heard that it’s an amazing collection of islands with beautiful sights and a relaxing atmosphere!”

“I…” Miette scratched the back of her head. “I heard that too. In fact, I was wondering if-”

“This is just what Ash needs!”

Miette paused for a moment to regain her composure. “Wait, what?”

“Oh right, I haven’t told you; I’ve been keeping in contact with Ash, and he hit me up to ask for help in helping him and some friends of his relax,” Serena explained, scratching her chin as she did. “Things in Vermillion City have been a bit tense, and they could really use a breather.”

“Vermillion City? Isn’t that in Kanto?” Miette raised an eyebrow. “What’s he doing back where his journey started?”

“He told me he’d explain everything once we met,” Serena clasped her hands together. “Anyway, I’ve been looking for something to do with him that could help him relax, and this trip might be just the thing!”

Serena clapped her hands cheerfully for a moment… then noticed Miette’s surprised expression and frowned:

“O-Or were you planning to use them for something else?”

The bluette eyed the tickets, then Serena’s concerned expression, then the tickets again before she gripped them… and showed them to Serena with a forced smile. 

“No, it’s… it’s okay. You and Ash need them more than I do.”

…

Why did she do that?

Why did she just… hand them over like that? 

Why didn’t she tell her she wanted to go with her? That she wanted to spend a good time in Alola with her?!

Why… did her bed feel more metallic than before?

"Awaken, Passenger.”

Miette immediately obliged the mysterious voice, and once she woke up, she quickly noticed she was resting on top of some mechanical pod, with a brunette woman in her 60s staring down at her, saying:

“There’s a lot to discuss before you’re brought up to speed about your situation, so please stand up and follow me.”

The woman walked away shortly after, and Miette got off the pod, at which point she noticed the mechanical, lab-like room she seemed to be staying at.

Where the hell did she land at?

“One will explain everything to you shortly.”

The bluette followed the woman deeper into the room, and entered what seemed to be an engine room, with a spherical robot-thing standing on top of a giant motherboard.

“Greetings, dear Passenger! I’m One-One, the conductor of this Train!” the sphere greeted cheerfully. “Unfortunately, we must ask you a favor before sending you on your train trip.”

Miette winced at the sudden change in One-One’s voice, but chose to stay focused. “What’s this favor?”

The robot pushed a button on the board, and it showed an image of a redheaded girl with a scythe standing alongside a crowned dog-like entity and a mess of paper talismans made to look like a person.

“This is the Red Lotus Trio,” the woman stated. “And the girl who acts as their leader, Chloe Cerise.”

One-One pushed another button, and it zoomed in on the redhead, while also bringing up

“Now, allegedly, this Chloe Cerise entered the Train when she was younger, but nothing stops a Passenger from entering the Train more than once,” the woman lowered her eyelids. “However, if we take a closer look at the girl in question…”

Miette squinted her eyes, and between the images, she noticed something:

"Her eyes are different!”

“And the scan reveals a different wavelength from when she first entered the Train,” the woman added. “With these in mind, we can conclude this girl isn’t Chloe Cerise, but an impostor.”

“An impostor that’s using her face and looks to become popular on the Infinity Train,” One-One added somberly. “If nothing is done about her, she may end up giving people the wrong impression of who Chloe Cerise really is.”

“And that’s where you come in,” the woman remarked. “I’m too busy dealing with car matters and One’s too busy managing the train to look for this girl. So, we need a Passenger, like you, to go up to her and expose her for the fraud that she is.”

Miette stared at the woman with a raised eyebrow, but took a deep breath. She was going to get a better idea on just what was going on and why this was something she had to do soon, so for now, let’s ask the important questions.

“If this Chloe Cerise is an impostor… where’s the real one?”

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In the middle of some underground laboratory, Chloe Cerise rested suspended inside a mechanical tube, hooked up to several cables while wearing a white full bodysuit. 

A shadowy figure pushed a few buttons and caused the tube to release the water before separating Chloe from the cables, opening itself just in time for her to hit the ground and snap awake.

“Good morning.”

The redhead gasped and raised her head to look at the one who released her: a girl with green hair and big eyebrows.

“Don’t panic. The name’s Duplica, and I’m here to help.”

Chapter Text

Adding at least one more chapter to this story because let's be real, the last one was a bit rushed and incomplete.

No Chloe scene here because let's be real, she's gonna overshadow every character and have the most development by anybody anyway, I'm sure having a chapter where she doesn't show up won't hurt her at all.

With that said, let's go!

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In retrospective, Serena was a bit insensitive, wasn’t she?

It only occurred to her once she got on the boat to head to Kanto, and was taking a walk straight to Vermillion City, but now that she did… why would Miette get a pair of tickets to go to Alola if she wasn’t going to use it for herself?

Sure, Serena wasn’t in her right mind when she got the idea; Ash did hit her up with the Vermillion City stuff rather suddenly, and she, as a good friend, just wanted to be able to help however she could.

So when she saw Miette had tickets to Alola, she immediately thought she could use it and… yeah, with further consideration, it was a bit of a prick move.

But even then, as she walked, she pondered: why would Miette win a trip to Alola, and ask her to tell her about it…

“Wait… that’s it!” Serena groaned and took out her phone. “Ugh, why didn’t I think of that sooner?!”

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*RIIIIING!*

Miette winced as she looked down at her pockets, one of which vibrated as her phone rang.

Miette took it out, and read the incoming message to herself:

Miette, it's Serena.

A thought occurred to me while I was walking to Vermillion City and… I feel so stupid now.

Those tickets you showed me were meant for you and me, weren't they?

It makes so much more sense than what I thought. Not that I don't think you'd do it for us, but if you entered a contest for them, Ash probably wasn't on your mind.

Heck, I don't think you even knew what was happening at Vermillion City back then.

Point is, I'm so sorry. I'll hold on to the tickets until we get a chance to go back and use them properly, if that could make up for it somehow?

Miette smiled at the message, and hastily wrote a reply:

Hi Serena, it's Miette.

Just got your message, and it's fine. Truth be told, something came up that makes it so I can't use them anyway. I mean, they'll last for a while, but this thing of mine might last even longer so… yeah.

Don't worry, I'm not mad about what happened. If anything, I'm happy you realized what I meant and apologized. I was stumped on how to bring it up, so I owe you one.

I need to get going, and I won't be able to use my phone so I'll end with this: use those tickets to take Ash to Alola, and have some fun together, alright? I pulled an all-nighter to get them! Don't let my effort be in vain!

Gotta go now. Goodbye, Hope you have a good time, Serena, love you!

Miette sent the message… and only realized what she wrote by the time the Conductor's partner snatched it.

"I'll be taking this-"

"Wait, give me just one more second!"

"Tsk, typical teenager, so glued to her phone she panics as soon as it's out of her hands," the woman groaned. "You already sent your message, what more do you want?"

"I need to send another one!" Miette exclaimed. "One that'll make sure Serena doesn't get the wrong idea!"

"Wrong idea?" Amelia looked at the message. "What part of your message could do that?"

Miette squeaked as the woman read the message to herself and raised an eyebrow.

"Kid, if she's your friend, she'll understand. I don't think she's immediately going to assume you have a crush on her just because you told her that you loved her. Not that you have a crush on her to begin with, right?"

Miette flinched, and flushed as she looked away and twiddled her fingers.

"Oh great, they're multiplying," the brunette groaned while closing the phone. "Look, let's just focus on the important and get you up to speed. Trust me, your won't friend won't think anything of this."

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Serena read the message and smiled. Sure, it was a little weird for Miette to say "love you" at the end of it, but she was probably in a rush.

And if all else failed, the autocorrect was at fault.

The autocorrect is always at fault.

"Hey!"

The girl stopped and turned around to see two boys staring at her: one with fair skin and a green hoodie, and another with darker skin and black clothes, looking rather tired.

"Uh, welcome to Vermillion City," the darker-skinned boy greeted. "Are you new here?"

"Oh right! I came here for a reason!" Serena exclaimed as she pocketed her phone. "Sorry, got a little sidetracked."

Serena grabbed the edges of her dress and curtsied.

"The name's Serena Y. Endressia. A pleasure to meet you!"

"The name's Trip," the guy with fair skin. "And this sorry excuse for a childhood friend is named Goh."

The other boy glared at the other, and Serena glanced at the both of them before chiming awkwardly:

"Did I come at a bad time?"

"I was looking for my childhood friend, Chloe, who went missing not too long ago," Goh explained before pointing at Trip. "And this jerk just stopped me on my tracks, telling me it's pointless!"

"All I'm doing is telling you the truth," Trip folded his arms. "It's not my problem if you'd rather stay in your little fantasy land, paying attention to nobody else!"

"Okay, so it seems you two are a little busy at the moment, so I'll leave you be in a minute," Serena said nervously. "But first, do either of you know how to get to the Cerise Institute? Ash asked me to go there."

"Ash?" Trip repeated. "You know Ash Ketchum?"

"Yeah, we're good friends," Serena paused. "He asked me for help easing the tension bubbling up in the institute. So, again, do you know how to get there?"

Goh and Trip exchanged looks, and in the blink of an eye, the trio arrived at the institute.

"Hello everybody! Name's Serena Y. Endressia, a friend of Ash!"

Everybody inside turned to face the newcomer, Ash getting a smile as she continued:

"I was told things were a little… hectic in here, so I got… help from a friend to get something that might help. So…"

Serena reached for her pockets and took out the tickets, waving them as she chirped:

"Who's up for a trip to Alola!"

Chapter Text

And so, we complete this little trilogy with chapter 3, the third part of the prologue, and at least for right now, the last chapter of this story. We’ll have Miette’s plot actually be described and told to us, and Serena will make some progress on learning what happened at Vermillion City.

This is a Blossomverse story, though, so don’t expect much progress.

Now, Serena and Chloe's intro is finished, but we still need to see fake Chloe, so we'll see that alongside Miette's part.

Anyhow, not much else to say, so let's go!

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This was just the best.

The last few days were utter crap; a bunch of studies bullying her, telling her to "stop wearing Chloe's skin" and "bring Chloe back" and stuff. How they managed to see past her disguise was beyond her, but eh, she didn't have to worry about them.

Who was going to believe a bunch of kids that their classmate had been replaced with an impostor?

Nobody, that’s who.

“Chloe?”

The girl paused her loafing around and turned to see her teammates, Atticus and Lexi, enter her room.

“We’ve been called to deal with something related to the demon car,” Atticus said. “Something about crowning you as a Demon Lord or something.”

“Huh, took them long enough,” Chloe haughtily said. “Alright then, let’s not keep them waiting.”

Chloe extended her arm, and her scythe flew right to it, the redhead gripping it as she stated:

“Time for the birth of a new demon lord.”

…

“You want me to act like a detective?”

Miette asked that to Amelia as the two sat down at the engine room, One-One checking his monitors while they spoke.

"This impostor has been through several Cars already, and garnered quite a reputation," Amelia stated. “However, this reputation isn’t something that the real Chloe Cerise would like, at least going by the way she used to act. Even if it were, though, should the real one ever return to the Infinity Train, it’s imperative that she doesn’t have this reputation to deal with. That could only get her number to skyrocket.”

Amelia handed Miette a trenchcoat and hat, which the bluette put on as the woman continued:

"We need you to go to the cars she's already gone through and gather clues about how she acted. If we gather enough evidence that her similarities to Chloe are just skin deep, we can expose her for the fraud she is and force her to remove the disguise. So, do you understand?”

“Yeah, but I’m still curious: why are you asking me to do it?” Miette inquired. “Is there something special about me that makes me the only one capable of unveiling this impostor?”

“Nah, you just happened to stumble upon here while One and I were talking about it, and we thought we’d hit two birds with one stone.”

Miette rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t really mad. Instead, she adjusted her hat and stated:

“Got it, Amelia. Trust me; detective Miette is on the case!”

…

In the middle of a car filled with fog, three people, named Walter, Sean, and Alex, confronted a seer that was panicking.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?!” Walter snapped. “Aren’t your predicitons supposed to be completely true? You told us how Lady Destiny looked like a week or so ago-!”

“Foolish fool! What I say is but a potential scenario, for the future is always changing, never satisfied to be set in stone!” the seer exclaimed. “And this PREE-MONI-TIOON… it is one that changes everything!”

“How so?” Alex inquired. “Isn’t the Lady Destiny you described the Chloe Cerise that’s on the train?”

“Even if she were to be Lady Destiny, this Chloe isn’t even the real one!” the seer revealed. “She wears her face, but it’s all a lie! A skinwalker wearing a cosmetic disguise so perfect, nobody can tell the difference!”

“So wait, you mean to tell us that this Chloe Cerise… is a fake?”

“Fake, incorrect, wrong, impostor, betrayer… call her whatever you want, but she is not Chloe Cerise!” the seer snapped. “Where she is, I don’t know, but the one here is not the real one, nor the real Lady Destiny!”

“Then who is?”

The seer looked at his crystal ball.

“A girl by the name of…”

The inside of the crystal ball turned static… before showing Miette’s form inside.

"Miette Neogaya!"

Chapter Text

Okay, so people showed some interest in this story, and I do wanna continue this story to an extent, so I'll keep it going. But first, a couple things to make clear:

Like in Wake Me Up , there won’t be any Yu-Gi-Oh characters for now. Unlike that story, they’re not outright banned from appearing, I’m just putting them on the backburner until I can figure out how to add them to the plot, if I ever figure that out. And no, Specter won’t appear; I’m pretty sure everybody’s sick of him by now.

Also, while this story takes place in an alternate version of the Blossomverse, there will be no attempts to try and link it to the canon Blossomverse universe. This is its own separate thing, and that’s its own separate thing, and they’ll never crossover with one another.

Now, time for me to pull the most risky move in my entire fanfiction career; I’m going to give you guys a pretty big hint on who the the fake Chloe Cerise actually is. You ready? Here we go:

She’s an anime character.

I took a big risk there, but I assure you its worth it.

Is there anything else I wanna add? Not really. So, let’s get going.

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Chloe Cerise had no idea about what to think of her current situation.

One second, she's sleeping on her bed, trying to forget the horrible curry she made for Home ED, which she was pretty sure gave her teacher food poisoning.

She really needed to learn how to cook anything other than seafood.

The next, she's being released from a pod, wearing some sort of sci-fi suit, and following a turquoise-headed girl across some laboratory or something.

"What is going on?"

Chloe covered her mouth too late, as Duplica stopped walking and faced her with a raised eyebrow.

"You want the long answer or the short answer?"

The redhead sighed. "The one that tells me what is going on."

Duplica chuckled. "Long answer it is."

It was at that moment, Chloe knew, she had fucked up.

"My name is Duplica, I'm a Kanto native who lives, and owns, a traveling circus with my Dittos. We used to be quite liked when we did our shows across Kanto.”

“Just Kanto?” Chloe blurted. “You didn’t try to go somewhere else? Like, I dunno, Hoenn? Sinnoh? Unova? Anywhere at all?”

"There were plans to do just that, but things happened and I couldn't get out of the region in time…" Duplica lowered her head. "Even if I had gone elsewhere, though… it wouldn't have lasted."

Chloe frowned. "Why?"

"People's opinions change. What was once seen as an incredible form of entertainment, began being seen as just subpar," Duplica folded her arms. "Less and less people began coming to our shows, until eventually, I had to close the theater down."

Chloe put a hand on Duplica's shoulder. "I'm sorry to hear that. What have you been doing since then?"

"I've been keeping myself busy; working at PokeMarts, being an assistant at a Pokemon Breeding Center, assisting a Nurse Joy at a Pokemon Center…"

Duplica turned serious.

"But what I did after closing down the circus isn't as important as what some other people did…”

…

Meanwhile, at Vermillion City, Serena sat down at the Cerise house, having been invited over for dinner while everybody discussed what to do for the vacation at Alola. They weren’t talking about that right now, of course, they were focused on eating, but as Serena quickly noticed, the atmosphere around the place felt… calm and satisfied.

Like her suggestion of a vacation actually managed to cheer them up a little bit, if only long enough to smile before the topic of Chloe being missing inevitably returned.

She was currently sitting at the frontyard, looking at the sky with a little smile as she tried to calm herself down. After all, despite just arriving, she could already tell the atmosphere was suffocating on the Cerise Institute, so it could never hurt to take a break to catch her breath.

“Mind if I join you?”

Serena turned to her side, and saw Ash looking at her with a little smile.

“Not at all, please sit down.”

Ash nodded, and sat right next to Serena, who blushed a little while looking away.

“You were a lifesaver back there, Serena, I mean it,” Ash sighed. “Things were getting so tense between everybody there, I was starting to have trouble figuring out how to cheer everybody up.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” Serena scratched her cheek. “Honestly, it felt like it was difficult to breath at times.”

“Definitely; from everybody moping about how Chloe went missing, to everybody blaming each other or looking for people to blame about it, it seems like everybody is more interested in finding someone to blame than to try and keep their composure,” Ash shrugged. “At the very least, though, the trip to Alola is definitely going to give them something to focus on… well, most of them.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Most of them?”

“I know a pair of people there that might not be so easily swayed,” Ash took a deep breath. “There’s Parker, Chloe’s younger brother, who is very adamant on telling people how wrong they were and how he knew Chloe better than anyone. And there’s also Trip, whom you’ve already met.”

“Yeah, he was one of the first people I met once I arrived,” Serena scratched her cheek. “He seems… interesting.”

“He completely lacks a brain-to-mouth filter.”

Last time I checked, so do you. Serena thought, but remained quiet.

“He’s incredibly honest to a fault; not even pausing to consider whether his words are being too hurtful,” Ash frowned. “I get what he’s saying, and most of us agree that he makes some good points. But the way he says his words… they don’t really help him. At all.”

“Well, let’s not think about him for now,” Serena patted Ash’s back. “Let’s focus on the fact we’ll head to Alola soon!”

"Speaking of which, how did you get tickets to Alola?" Ash tilted his head. "Did you enter a contest or something?"

"No, the truth is… a friend got them for me," Serena looked back at the ceiling. "Remember Miette?"

"The girl with blue hair who bakes Poke Puffs, right?"

"Yup, she entered a contest, won the tickets, and she… wanted us to go to Alola together," Serena explained. "However, I immediately thought of what you requested, took them and came here as soon as I could."

“Oh… I see,” Ash frowned. “Is Miette okay?”

"We clarified the misunderstanding, but something came up on Miette's end, so she can't use the tickets,” Serena sighed. “She told me to use them however I saw fit, and I did promise to use them to help with what was happening at Vermillion City…”

Serena took a deep breath. “But still, I wish Miette could come with us. I’m sure she’d love to see Alola with us… see it with me, I mean…”

Ash then put a hand on Serena’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Serena, I’m sure Miette understands. I’ll be sure to offer her to come next time we see her, but for now, keeping everybody’s minds off the Chloe stuff is the more important matter.”

Ash put his arms behind his head and sighed wearily. “Seriously, the atmopshere can’t become that tense again.”

Serena giggled and nodded, and the duo sat there for a while staring at the blue skies, as a certain Unovan photographer stared at them with a look of disapproval…

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Meanwhile, at the Infinity Train, “Chloe Cerise” walked alongside Lexi and Atticus towards a podium, with several demonic-looking entities sitting on thrones looking down at her. These demonic entities, the Demon Lords of the Seven Deadly Sins, resembled women with white hair, red eyes, horns, and awesome suits.

“We, the Red Lotus Trio,” Chloe grabbed the edges of her dress and curtsied while Lexi and Atticus bowed down. “Present ourselves towards the Demon Lords of the Infinity Train.”

“Rise up, Red Lotus Trio,” the leader of the Demon Lords, a woman with white horns, stated. “Now, before we begin this reunion, we have a strict policy of only speaking to those who have been called upon here to become Demon Lords, so the floating book and the talking dog will have to wait outside.”

Lexi and Atticus exchanged worried looks, their worries being dispelled once Chloe spoke:

“I’ll be fine, you two wait for me, okay?”

The duo calmed down… only to freak out at the sudden arrival of a woman with a halo, white clothing, and an angelic aura around her.

“Hi! My name is Azazel!” the angelic woman chirped. “I’ll be your guide to the waiting room!”

“What’s an angel doing under the servitude of demons?” Lexi asked bluntly.

Azazel giggled. “What’s a sentient book doing following a girl who can’t even write?”

Lexi summoned one of his papers and aimed them at Azazel. “Take back what you said, angel! Chloe Cerise is one of the greatest writers ever seen on the Infinity Train, and you will not insult her name!”

Azazel, however, was unfazed. “She writes fanfiction. Anybody can do that. Besides, her fanfiction isn’t even that great, just a jumble of plot points strung together in a biased narrative that favors the hero above everyone else.”

“I thought she wrote isekai stories?” Atticus questioned out loud.

“They’re the same thing,” Lexi stated.

And in the brief second Lexi looked away from Azazel, the angel kicked the sentient book on the ground, stomping the ground with a smile on her face as she stated:

“It is you who should be wary, book. After all, I have the power of god and anime on my side.”

Azazel snapped her fingers, and summoned a giant, golden, glowing hammer of light, her smile widening as she added:

“And I’m all out of anime.”

“Azazel, please don’t kill the Denizens,” the leader of the demons stated. “We simply wish to speak with the girl alone.”

Azazel calmly unsummoned her hammer, then politely guided the duo out of the room, leaving Chloe alone to talk with the demon lords.

“Chloe Cerise”, are we correct?” the leader asked.

Chloe found the air quotes odd, but decided to play along. “Yes, I’m R-Chloe Cerise.”

Phew, nearly revealed her true name there!

“Very well, we’ve taken a look at your achievements ever since you arrived on the Infinity Train,” the Demon Lord of Pride stated. “You’ve also been shown to have an interest in demons?”

Chloe hesitated, and nodded.

“You really wanna become a Demon Lord that much?” the Demon Lord of Wrath asked. “Why would you waste your time with a sidequest like this?”

Chloe clenched her fists. “Once upon a time, I came inches away from snatching victory with my own two hands, only to be stopped by a pair of… people. Those same people got to win, and I never managed to recover from that loss.”

She smiled slightly. “So, I want to try again. This time by achieving a title that even they will never take away from me.”

“The title of Demon Lord is completely useless outside of the Train, however; to leave the Train, you must work on your issues, which is time you’re wasting by partaking on this quest,” the Demon Lord of Envy pointed out. “Once you leave the Train, you can’t even tell anyone about your achievement, not without being sent to a mental ward or being seen as a lunatic.”

“Trust us, we’ve seen this happen before,” the Demon Lord of Greed chuckled.

“Even if it ends up being nothing but bragging rights, I’d still like to try and earn the title myself,” Chloe answered. “Just to prove to myself that I can achieve something by myself without-”

Chloe hesitated, looking at the ground with an expression of regret.

“Well, we’ll give you this…”

Chloe raised her head… only to see the leader demon lord sneering down at her.

“You’re a pretty good liar.”

Chloe felt a shiver go down her spine as the other Demon Lords laughed.

“Alright, we’ll give you an honorary title for now,” the Demon Lord of Greed smirked. “From this point onwards, you shall be known as Chloe of the Vermillion. Demon Lord of Deceit. Any further titles will have to be earned by doing a specific task for us.”

The redhead shook her head and returned to reality. “A-And that is?”

“Across the Infinity Train, there are living pieces of our powers known as Envoys,” the Demon Lord of Lust explained. “If you manage to defeat them, you’ll prove yourself strong enough to earn the title of Demon Lord.”

“Of course, that is easier said than done,” the Demon Lord of Wrath stated. “Because we had to make it “fair” by the Conductor’s standards, a straight up fight won’t allow you to beat them at all.”

"If you wish to beat them, you will have to exercise the virtue that's an antithesis to their sin," the Demon Lord of Lust added. "Generosity for Greed, Humility for Pride-"

"And so on and so forth," the Demon Lord of Pride interjected. "We will monitor your progress, so don't disappoint us, understand?"

Chloe nodded, and with nothing else to say, the redhead left the room, the Demon Lord of Pride being the first to speak once the doors closed:

"How much longer is that child gonna play pretend?"

"Here's a better question: how much longer is everyone gonna be fooled?" the Demon Lord of Wrath asked sternly. "It's been several months since she entered the Train, and nobody has been able to see past her shabby disguise!"

"Give it time," the Demon Lord of Pride sipped her drink. "Now that said disguise has become imperfect, it's only a matter of time before the truth is revealed."

And as the Demon Lords smirked, the redhead walked down the hallways, lost in thought.

Demon Lord of Deceit, praise to my lying ability… could they be unto me?

The redhead paused and shook her head.

… No, that's impossible.

She turned around and looked at herself in a mirror.

Among the changelings, my disguise was always praised as the most detailed, most authentic replica of Chloe Cerise they had ever seen! Long red hair tied in a braid, youthful blue eyes, even my height and weight are… wait a minute…

Chloe squinted her eyes.

Wait a minute!

The redhead gasped, covering her mouth as she internally panicked:

How long have my eyes been blue?!

…

Finally, in another part of the Infinity Train, Miette walked alongside Amelia as they headed towards a building. It was currently cloudy with a heavy rain around the scenery, because there was no better way to get the mood going than with heavy rain, apparently.

Luckily, Amelia had an umbrella.

Unluckily, it was only for herself, not Miette.

“Amelia, I understand that my arrival was a little sudden,” Miette said while adjusting her soaking wet hat. “But couldn’t we have stopped at a car that sold umbrellas or checked the weather of this place before coming here? I mean, you’re not going to tell me you couldn’t have done that before we left, right?”

“I could’ve done that, but given the time it was, it would’ve been detrimental to our mission,” Amelia answered. “This place closes after the middle of the day, and it’s about to be 12 o’clock.”

“Well, can’t you just manipulate the timer of this car to give us more time?”

“The way time works on the infinity Train is that it flows the same as it does in your homeworld,” Amelia explained calmly. “If an hour passes here, an hour will pass there, so if you leave this train after, say, a year, then a year will have passed in your homeworld when you return. And to ensure this doesn’t get messed with, the Train controls lack an option to change the time of the cars.”

Miette hummed. She's going to have to keep this in mind going forward.

"We've arrived."

The bluette stopped, and she and Amelia looked up at where they had arrived: a shabby building titled "The Rotting Apple".

"Okay kid, stay close to me, and remember, we're here for information. And just in case, we need to keep a low profile."

"Got it! My disguise is ready!"

Amelia turned back to Miette… and saw her disguise just consisted of a moustache.

"Kid, what's with the moustache?"

"From my experience, most bars have people with moustaches adorning the scenery," Miette explained before twirling her moustache. "Putting on a stache like this will help us blend in!"

"I'd call that the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but I've been on the Train for over thirty years now, so my standards for such a statement are much higher," Amelia sighed wearily. "Just don't get us in trouble."

The woman opened the door… and right inside they saw several moustached patrons alongside a banner reading "Happy Moustache Day" with a funny font.

Then the patrons looked at Amelia, and narrowed their eyes.

"We don't take kindly to shaved lips like yours, missy-!"

Amelia slammed the door shut.

"Kid, give me a moustache," Amelia grabbed and pulled Miette's shirt. "My life depends on it!"

…

One quick moustache placement and secret wording later, Miette and Amelia sat down with an angelic humanoid named Gadreel, in an enclosed location.

"So," the creature blurted. "You came here for information?"

"We did," Amelia answered. "We're investigating the Red Lotus Trio. Where they've been and what are they looking for now."

"Hmmm… I may know a thing or two about what you're looking for," Gadreel smirked. "But it will come at a prize-"

Amelia immediately took out a gun and cocked it right in front of the angel, who sighed:

"I don't know where they are, but I do know that they're currently working to stop The Apex."

"Who are The Apex?" Miette whispered to Amelia.

"They're a group of Passengers who operate under the delusion that the Infinity Train belongs to them," Amelia explained. "They kill Denizens to raise their numbers, believing it to be some sort of game and that they need to get a highscore."

"Huh, that's… pretty bad," Miette raised an eyebrow. "But what else do they do? Do they capture rare Denizens and skin them alive to create fashion accessories or sell them off in the black market?"

"No, they-"

Amelia couldn't help but pause once she processed what the bluette said, only to keep talking when Miette gestured her to keep going.

"They raid cars in order to gather supplies for their main base of operations, the Mall Car," Amelia rolled her eyes. "Because the Infinity Train somehow can't have infinite resources. Doesn't make it okay, but regardless."

Amelia turned back to Gadreel. "When will they begin their quest?"

"They've already set off to stop them a while ago," the fallen angel sipped his drink. "Sadly, their quest is for naught."

Miette and Amelia exchanged looks, and the bluette asked:

"Why is that?"

And what Gadreel said next sent a shiver down their spines:

"Because The Apex ceased to exist a year ago."

Chapter Text

And now, we continue this story.

Before we begin, I’d like to bring up an idea for this story. More specifically, I wanna let you know what the inspiration was.

A long time ago, I wrote a story titled “Truth or Dare” that depicted what would’ve happened had Trip gotten a second train trip, as we now know in canon that the train isn’t a “one trip and done” deal with Jesse. One of the comments I got, from crossoverpairinglover, explained how Serena and/or Mallow could’ve provided a better role in the story than Trip did, as his focus on photography and holding Train knowledge hostage didn’t work like Serena’s performances or Mallow’s straightforwardness would.

So I’m gonna go with that interpretation, and have Trip come face to face with the fact that not only do his methods not work as he intended, but that he needs to shape up if he is to stay relevant.

I'm gonna try to go for a more mystery-focused angle for this story. The Infinity Train might be a thriller, but the Blossomverse in general seems more interested in the adventure, fantasy, and (melo)drama elements, so this'll hopefully help the story stand out more.

Also, we will finally reveal Miette's number, and like in Wake Me Up, it'll be based on a Technical Machine Move. Can you guess which it is?

Anyway, let's go!

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"So, let me get this straight: there's a regional team of identity thieves called Team Changeling, who kidnap people and put them in stasis so their members can take over their lives, and I'm just the latest victim of their modus operandi?"

That was the question posed to Duplica by Chloe, the circus girl nodding before adding:

"You were replaced a few months ago, but your impostor has suddenly gone missing. That means that now is the perfect chance to go back home and set everything right."

"Won't I just get kidnapped again?" Chloe pointed out.

"As long as their scout confirms your life isn't as cool as she thought it was, then no," Duplica answered bluntly. "Team Changeling doesn't just want to replace people, but replace people with lives better than theirs. Someone who has it as bad as them or worse means nothing to them."

Well that was reassuring.

"Say, where are we going?" Chloe inquired. "Are you taking me to the exit?"

"I'll do that soon. But first, I gotta show you something."

"Is that really necessary tho-"

"Listen, girl, you either get out of here with no idea as to how bad the situation really is, or you see what I wanna show you, and realize how thorough Team Changeling is in their swaps."

Well, Chloe did have little to lose in learning more about how Team Changeling worked. And hey, if this gave her a better chance at helping Ash stop them-because stopping regional teams is obviously his problem-then that was also good.

She was absolutely unprepared, however, for what she would see next: for Duplica took her to a tube-pod-thing that had a familiar boy suspended inside…

"Parker?!"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The young impostor sat on the couch, eating chips alongside Yamper when Trip approached him.

"Parker, have you seen Ash and Serena? I gotta talk with them. Mostly Serena."

The boy pointed at the window, and saw Ash and Serena having a friendly Pokemon battle. He clenched his fists, and immediately bolted out.

As for Ash and Serena, they stood at opposite ends of the frontyard, Serena with her Delphox and Ash with Pikachu.

"Delphox! Mystical Fire!"

"Pikachu! Dodge and Quick Attack!"

Delphox took a deep breath and blew a stream of sparkling fire directly at the thunder rodear, who swiftly evaded the fire before dashing to the bipedal fox-like Pokemon, glowing brightly before headbutting her in the gut.

"Delphox! Fire Blast!"

Delphox's eyes glowed, and she promptly unleashed a five-way blast of fire at Pikachu, who was sent flying back to Ash's side before swiping away the attack with his tail, leaving him completely unharmed…

Except for the fire covering the tip of his tail, naturally.

"PIKAPIII!"

Pikachu began running in circles in a panic, prompting Serena to take out her next Pokemon: a Swanna.

"Swanna! Bubblebeam!"

The avian Pokemon wasted no time shooting a stream of bubbles at Pikachu, who was hit head-on by all of them until the final one hit his tail, extinguishing the fire instantly.

The rodent looked at his tail… then laughed, followed by everybody else.

"How about we stop the match here?" Ash suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Serena said as she wiped off her tears. "I'm a bit tired anyway."

Serena put Swanna back into their Poke Ball, and sat down next to Ash, taking a deep breath as the guy said:

"That was a nice workout session! You did pretty well despite not having battled since I left Kalos!"

"Pikachu!" the thunder rodent chirped as he hopped onto Se Ash's shoulder.

"Thanks, Ash," Serena scratched her head. "Truth be told, I've been so focused on my performer training that I was worried I was getting rusty battle-wise."

Ash raised an eyebrow. "Don't performers battle too?"

"Only if they manage to get past the performance," Serena tented her fingers. "That's the thing about being a Pokemon Performer: you have to strike the right balance of a good performance with good battling skills to reach the top. And staying there's tough."

Ash put a hand on Serena's shoulder. "Well, whatever happens, you have my full support! I know you can do it!"

Pikachu nodded in agreement, and Serena flushed while forming an awkward smile.

"Say, I'm curious," Ash raised an eyebrow. "When did you catch a Swanna?"

"Well-"

"Ash!"

The duo turned around to see Trip approaching them, moments before he grabbed Serena's hand and dragged her away.

"I need to talk with Serena for a second!"

"Uh… sure?"

Ash and Pikachu exchanged confused looks as the duo left, Trip releasing Serena only after they were far away enough that the trainer wouldn't hear them.

"Whatever your relationship is with Ash, I suggest you drop it," Trip hissed. "The situation is currently too problematic for him to waste his time on what's not important. He needs to get better if Chloe's to return and not run off again!"

"Okay, first of all, what you did just now was really rude," Serena chided while rubbing her wrist. "Second of all, what's wrong with Ash and I spending time together?"

"The fact that he could be using that time to work on himself so he can properly befriend Chloe!" Trip snapped. "I mean, this is Ash Freaking Ketchum we're talking about! He makes friends with anybody with ease, and yet he utterly fails to befriend this normal girl? Don't you find that suspicious?"

"I think the fact you're getting this worked up over him not befriending one person is even more suspicious," Serena folded her arms. "Why is Ash getting to befriend this Chloe Cerise so important to you?"

Trip bit his lips, and took a deep breath. "Can you keep a secret?"

Serena wordlessly did the "my lips are sealed" gesture, and once that was done, Trip confessed:

"I promised Chloe I'd help her befriend Ash."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

“Chloe” rubbed her forehead while she and her teammates sat on large fluffy chairs, situated in the middle of a large Car filled with stuffed… well, everything: the sky, the ground, the fluff, everything looked like a fluffy stuffed toy.

"So, let me get this straight," Chloe groaned. "I've spent several cars with an incorrect eye color, and you never told me?!"

"I thought you already knew?" Lexi asked. "Atticus told me that your eye color changed because you achieved a power up at the Canals of Fondue Car?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Atticus, who added:

“Of course, don’t you remember? We had to split off from Lexi to face the trial of liquid cheese, while he went to take the trial of swiss cheese. You know, to prove our worth to the Cheese Shogun.”

Right, now I remember; we did have to split off in order to face the trials. Chloe hummed while scratching her chin . But is that really where I lost my colored contacts? I don’t remember having done anything there that would cause those things to fall off.

“Is having eyes of a different color that much of an issue?”

Chloe turned back to Lexi, who stared at her with a confused expression. Naturally, the redhead took a deep breath and explained:

“The last time I was seen, I had green eyes. And while there are several odd events in my world that could cause someone to change their eye color, the Infinity Train isn’t something that I can explain without coming across as, at the very least, a weirdo. If I want to return home with as few questions as possible, I need to keep my green eyes.”

“The only way to do so is to go back to the Canals of Fondue Car and request the Cheese Shogun to lift the blessing he gave you,” Atticus explained. “Of course, the Cheese Shogun is a very stubborn man. It’s very possible that we won’t manage to convince him to lift the blessing, and you’ll be left stuck with those blue eyes.”

Atticus narrowed his eyes. “Forever.”

Chloe gulped, feeling a chill go down her spine as Atticus kept staring at her. However, she knew that staying scared wouldn’t help her get her colored contacts back, so she stood up and reached for her back.

“Very well, I’ve never been one to back off from a challenge.”

The girl took out a… rusty pipe with a button attached to it. She then pushed the button, and the pipe was surrounded by red energy before morphing into a tilted form, with one tip turning into a blade resembling a scythe.

“Let’s go to the Canals of Fondue Car.”

…

“Do you have nothing better to do?”

That was the first thing told to Amelia and Miette by a small, talking yellow… Delcatty? At least, that’s the closest thing Miette could recognize the creature as, as she lacked the purple stuff a normal Delcatty had.

Instead, she wore a purple robe around her body, with her golden eyes staring daggers at the duo, but primarily Amelia.

“The Cat, I assure you we do, but before we move on we need to gather as much information as possible,” Amelia stated. “And with what we just learned, we need that more than ever; so tell us, is it true that The Apex has been inactive for over a year?”

“Yes, The Apex has indeed been inactive for over a year; the current members slowly but surely got their numbers down to zero and earned their trip home after months of running in circles due to the lies of one woman,” The Cat stated as she moved around the couch. “Now all that remains is that same woman, who has gone into hiding to ensure that nobody falls for her lies again.”

Miette blinked twice before turning to Amelia, who was equally stunned. “I… didn’t expect you to answer so casually.”

“Well, I have nothing to gain nor lose by telling you the truth,” The Cat smirked. “Especially since you’re not going to believe me anyway.”

Miette raised an eyebrow and turned to Amelia, who clenched her fists as The Cat continued:

“After all, I’m just a nasty, good for nothing scammer and conwoman,” The Cat tilted her head. “Why would anybody believe my words after all the lies I spat out in my lifetime?”

“Listen, I said all of those things in a moment of great stress,” Amelia narrowed her eyes. “I figured that you’d take it better and be more mature given that you’re literally centuries older than me!”

"Doesn't change the fact you said that stuff in public, while all eyes were on us," The Cat revealed bitterly. "Do you have any idea how many of my businesses went down the drain thanks to your shouting? You might no longer be the Conductor, but your words still hold power; and you used that power to hurt me and those who work for me!"

"I bet they weren't even working with you willingly anyway," Amelia folded her arms. "You probably scammed them into serving you to pay off their debts or something."

The Cat glared at Amelia as a large brown Ursaring entered the room, bringing a tray of food with him.

“Child, this discussion might get heated, and some harsh words might be said,” Amelia stated As she narrowed her eyes. “So please, leave us alone and go with the bear to the kitchen.”

Miette didn't even hesitate to dash off, entering the kitchen with the Ursaring as fast as she could, only catching her breath once the doors were closed.

“So… I’m Miette,” the bluette greeted awkwardly . “Miette Neogaya.”

“I’m Frank,” the talking Ursaring said, pausing before shrugging. “Just Frank.”

“Only one name, huh? Most of the people I know also have only one name,” Miette shrugged. “Though that’s probably because I didn’t get close enough to most of them to learn if they had more than one name.”

Miette paused. “All except for one.”

Frank raised an eyebrow, and Miette quickly shook her head and regained her composure. “Okay, while I’m in the kitchen, I should at least try to practice my skills. Do you have any berries on standby?”

“Berries?” Frank scratched his chin. “What exactly are you planning to make?”

“Oh, there’s this thing on my world called Pokepuffs, they’re treats that we bake to give to our Pokemon for various reasons,” Miette answered with a smile. “I just so happen to be a particularly great cook when it comes to Pokepuffs, so I wanna see if I can recreate them here on the Infinity Train.”

“Interesting,” Frank hummed. “So, you’re good at cooking these Poke Pufs?”

“Yup, though some people might say otherwise, I’m legitimately a good cook,” Miette looked elsewhere. “Not that this means I’m perfect, there are many, many people who stole my thunder and showed themselves better than me, outstaging me despite trying my hardest!”

Miette clenched her fist and raised it. “But those Berrybaker kids will see one day! I’ll have my revenge and become the Poke Puff Queen once more!”

The bluette raised her arms and began cackling like a supervillain before stopping.

“I’m just kidding, of course, I don’t really care about winning or losing, I just like baking Poke Puffs in general.”

Frank stared at Miette for a second. "There's something on your mind, isn't it?"

Miette blushed and scratched her chin. "Is it that obvious?"

"A little," Frank smiled a little. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"I dunno, it's a little… embarrassing for me," Miette frowned. "And I don't wanna trouble you either-"

"You wouldn't; as a Passenger, I was explicitly created to help Passengers with their issues, whether by guiding them or just listening to them vent," Frank sighed. "Besides, knowing Samantha and the former Conductor, they're gonna snap at each other for a while, so this will help drown out their fight."

Miette hummed, though she didn’t take long to decide on what to do. Amelia and The Cat were having a very violent fight outside if she heard right, so anything to drown it out was good.

“Well, it’s… about my number,” Miette clasped her hands. “See, I got here on the Train because of… love, issues-”

“You mean romance issues, right?” Frank asked. “What kind of issues?”

Miette took a deep breath and leaned against a wall. “There’s… this girl that I know, called Serena. She has this crush on a guy named Ash, and I decided to tease her about it, even tried to get her to reveal her crush on him by making it seem like I was crushing and I would get together with him if she didn’t.”

Frank folded his arms. “That’s… not very good.”

“Yeah, in hindsight, it was rather mean of my part… especially when I realized something,” Miette looked at the ground. “Every time I was with Ash, I was… more interested in getting Serena’s attention than his. Not only that, I was always thinking about her, even when the two showed up together.”

Miette lowered her eyelids. “And long after Ash had left Kalos and Serena set off on her journey to become a Pokemon Performer, I realized… I never really liked Ash that much. I did see him as a friend, but not as a romantic interest. Instead… that’s what I saw Serena as.”

Miette twiddled her thumbs. “And I think… that means… I got a crush on her.”

“Hmm, sounds like something that would send someone on the Train, especially if the other party doesn’t know,” Frank tilted his head. “Or did you tell her about it?”

Miette shook her head. “I won a pair of tickets to Alola and I wanted to invite her… but I got cold feet and told her to use it for herself and Ash. And by the time we cleared the misunderstanding, I was already on the Train, so I couldn't really use them anyway.”

Frank simply hummed.

“It’s silly, isn’t it?”

“Not at all, romance is something everybody deals with differently,” Frank stated. “Some get the courage to tell the other person what they feel right away, and other take their time, if they ever get to tell them.”

Miette looked elsewhere. “I really hope I’m not the latter kind of person.”

Frank paused. "How big is your number now?"

Miette finally looked at her palm, and saw a green, glowing "45" in it.

This number was the one thing keeping her in the Train, away from her world.

Now the question was, is this number big by Train standards?

“Huh, that’s actually somewhat small by Train standards,” Frank said, suddenly appearing next to the bluette. “At least, from all the Passengers I’ve seen. You should be here for a few weeks, maybe a month at best.”

Miette faced the talking Ursaring. “Really?”

“Yes,” Frank smiled. “This should give you more than enough time to get your thoughts together, and maybe even gather the courage to ask that girl out."

"Really?!" Miette perked up. "You really think I can do that?!"

Frank nodded, and Miette flashed a wide, hopeful smile…

"But…"

Miette frowned.

"What if she doesn't see me in that way?"

Frank patted Miette's back. "Who knows? Maybe she'll understand and become your girlfriend. Maybe she'll turn you down gently. Or she might not get it, but be nice about it. There's only one way to know."

Miette clenched her fist. "Tell her outright."

"Indeed, and think of it like this: would you rather tell her how you feel and risk changing your relationship forever?" Frank narrowed his eyes. "Or would you rather keep her in the dark, and live with the knowledge you could've told her, but kept quiet about it?"

Miette narrowed her eyes with determination. "Tell her and risk changing everything."

"That's the spirit!" Frank walked to the counter. "Now…"

The Ursaring grabbed an apron and put it on, spinning once before taking out a pair of utensils and saying:

"Shall we get cooking?"

Miette cracked her fingers, and stretched before flashing a confident smile, stating:

"Thought you'd never ask."

Chapter Text

And this story continues.

Now, before we go on, I'm sure you're all wondering why I went so far as to have Trip have met Chloe before, rather than outright remove him.

Well, once upon a time, I wrote a story titled Truth or Dare. This story got a comment from crossoverpairinglover, saying that Trip was a waste of space and either Serena or Mallow could've done a better job than he did in their respective areas.

He probably said it in a nicer way, but the point still stands: Trip was wasted, and Serena and Mallow could've done his job better.

This story’s gonna run alongside that idea; where Trip will have to face the fact that his methods haven’t worked as he wanted, and he needs to change for the better.

Plus, let's be real here; the only reason Trip was bothered by Chloe's situation and was harsh on the Cerise Institute, was because the plot demanded it.

How else do you justify a guy being this defensive over someone he's never met before?

So now, let's go!

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Chloe Cerise was on edge.

First she learned she had been encased in some sort of pod while an impostor took over her life. And it wasn’t for a day or a week, but months . How many wasn’t specified, but this did nothing to help ease her worries.

Then she realized that, in order to sell the illusion better, her brother had also been captured and replaced by an impostor, potentially for as long as her own impostor was around.

As if that wasn’t enough, Duplica implied that this Team Changeling, had been doing this for a long time, and there were many other impostors laying low, replacing the people of the world with nobody the wiser…

She was gonna have such an easy time sleeping tonight.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but you don’t need to worry too much,” Duplica stated as she led the redhead towards a door. “The good news is that for as much as Team Changeling does to physically replace a person, their attempts to emulate them personality wise aren’t the best.”

Chloe raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They have a belief that people don’t naturally change. They adapt to things suddenly changing around them, but at their core, they’re the same person they’ve always been,” Duplica explained. “So their database rarely gets updated, especially more so if the figure they try to replace doesn’t become famous or well known.”

“Never did I think I’d be grateful for being a nobody,” Chloe chuckled. “At least, I think that’s what you're saying?”

Duplica nodded. "Don't take it the wrong way, of course, but Team Changeling focuses on impersonating people that can give them the life they want. Whether they're nobody or the hottest trend since hot bread. But again, their database rarely updates, especially when the people they impersonate don’t show much change.”

“But by that logic, wouldn’t the impostor have been found out by now?” Chloe pointed out. “You said my impostor has been impersonating me for months! If they’ve been out for months, why has nobody found out they’re not the real deal?”

Duplca smiled. “Who says they haven’t?”

Chloe raised an eyebrow. 

“I’ll explain more when we have the time,” Duplica waved her hand dismissively. “For now, what do you think about visiting a new Region?”

“Well, if it’s Unova, it won’t really count as a new Region to me,” Chloe rolled her eyes. “My class went there last year, and it was… fine. Didn’t really see anything noteworthy besides this one performer, though-”

“Then I got good news for you!”

Duplica and Chloe stood in front of a metallic door with a panel next to it.

“We’re not in Unova right now.”

Duplica put her hand on the panel, and the door opened, allowing the duo to walk out… and once they did, Chloe was briefly blinded by the sudden light before she managed to scan where she was.

“Chloe Cerise…”

It was a large cavern with several holes emitting a small, but visible patch of light, and around them were small Pokemon that resembled ferrets with consistently angry expressions.

“Welcome to Alola.”

...

Serena and Trip sat at the Cerise Park, watching the Pokemon it housed-mostly from Goh-have fun while they spoke with each other.

“So, you said you met Chloe before and made a promise with her,” Serena faced Trip. “Care to further explain how this came to be?”

Trip took a deep breath, and once he paused to maintain his composure, he explained:

“Last year, while I was working on my photography skills, I came across a group of students that were paying Unova a visit in order to learn more about the local Pokemon. I barely paid attention to most of them, but one of them, I actually got to talk with…”

…

Trip sat on a hill, overlooking a city where a Pokemon Performer was doing a performance for one Class 5-E of Vermillion City. He was too far away to tell who the performer was, but he could tell she had an Ice Type Pokemon with her, given the shower of snowflakes peppering the stage.

“Mind if I sit down?”

The photographer turned around, and saw a redheaded girl with a blank expression staring at him.

“Go right ahead.”

The redhead sat down and stared at the performance with Trip, her eyes glued to the performance as she stared silently at the performance from far away.

“Hey, you’re one of the students from that class, right?” Trip blurted, hoping to make small talk. “Why are you watching it from here instead of with your friends?”

“Eh, not really my style,” the redhead shrugged. “I mean, if I was watching it with my friend Goh and a few others, then it’d be fine. But I just don’t do well with large crowds like this. Especially seeing how many more people came to see this performer’s show.”

“Hmm, I see,” Trip turned back to the performance. “Guess that’s something we share in common. I also don’t do well with crowds.”

The redhead glanced at Trip, then turned back to the performance. “My name’s Chloe Cerise.”

“Trip.”

Chloe paused, expecting Trip to add something soon after… but nothing came.

“Trip…?”

“Just Trip.”

“Only one name? Seriously?” Chloe raised an eyebrow. “Not to insinuate, but literally everybody in my classroom has a surname-”

“Well, I’m not in your class, am I?” Trip shrugged. “i never really had a surname. I’ve always been just “Trip” to most people.”

“What about your parents?”

Trip paused, and lowered his head. “They’re not really around anymore.”

Chloe winced, and turned back to the performance. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

And so the duo kept staring at the performance for a while.

“Say, this is a wild guess,” Chloe eventually blurted. “But would you just so happen to know of a certain Ash Ketchum?”

“I do, actually,” Trip scratched his chin. “We’ve fought a couple times before.”

“Really? That’s-That’s nice,” Chloe paused. “How is he like?”

Trip raised an eyebrow. “Any particular reason you wanna know?”

“Not really, it’s just… curiosity, I guess,” Chloe blushed a little. “It’s just that my classmates talk about him a lot, and I’d really like to meet him in person… maybe even be his friend… but the more I hear about him the more I feel like that’s just a pipe dream.”

“Don’t think that,” Trip smiled. “Ash is the kind of person who manages to befriend everybody, even if they tried to kill him before. If you ever meet him, I’m sure you two will become great friends.”

Chloe gained a little smile. “You really think so?”

Trip extended his pinky finger towards the redhead. “I promise.”

The redhead chuckled a little… then intertwined her pinky with his.

…

By the time he finished, Serena’s expression slightly changed; she wasn’t entirely convinced of Trip’s story, but she had a better understanding on why

"And that's why I was so angry; I promised Chloe that Ash would befriend her, and yet he didn’t,” Trip narrowed his eyes. “Ash is the friendliest person on the planet, and I gave this girl hope, thinking that she would be able to become his friend like everybody else. But no, he instead ignores her and-”

"Did you tell anybody else about your promise to Chloe?"

Trip’s ensuing silence spoke for himself.

“Trip, this is a very important thing to tell everybody,” Serena stated. “Even if it doesn’t absolve you from hiding all this information, it would at least make the fact you’re so hung up on this make more sense.”

“It wouldn’t absolve them for how badly they messed up either!” Trip growled. “Ash at least has an excuse; he just met Chloe, and while I’m angry he was so blind about it, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Are you seriously going to tell me that even Chloe’s own parents and friends didn’t know anything about her!?”

Serena scratched her chin and hummed for a while, causing Trip to raise an eyebrow. Eventually, she got an idea and spoke:

“Trip, there’s something I need to do elsewhere, so we’ll have to cut this conversation short. But in the meantime, can you promise me something?”

Trip rolled his eyes. “What is it?”

“Whatever happens next, tell everybody about your promise and previous meeting with Chloe,” Serena lowered her eyelids. “No excuses like “Chloe probably told them” either, I want you to tell them with your own words. Can you do that for me?”

Trip stared at the girl for a while, but sighed and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great! Well, I gotta go now. See ya.”

“Whatever.”

Trip turned back to the Pokemon and watched them play while Serena stood up and left the park, folding her arms behind her back as she walked to Professor Cerise, who was at the entrance of the institute, and asked:

“Hey, Professor Cerise, can I ask you a question?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Sure? What is it?”

Serena flashed a smile. “Where does Goh live?”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The Canals of Fondue Car was… pretty self-explanatory. A giant car filled with canals that had liquid cheese instead of water, and other cheese-based products with cheese-based Denizens who walked around.

So, as you can imagine, the group of Miette, Frank, Amelia, and The Cat stood out like a sore thumb as they walked around, holding trays of multicolored pastries.

"You know, being someone who's quite lacking in culinary sense, I shouldn't be asking this," Amelia looked at the pastries. "But why are we heading here to deliver these… what were they called?"

"Poke Puffs," Miette clarified. "We're giving people free samples so they can get a taste of what the cuisine of Kalos is like."

"Besides, it's the perfect chance to earn some money after being cooped up in my cabin for over a year," The Cat added. "I'm so sick of hearing people praise the donut holer business that Chloe of the Vermillion made famous."

"Since when do you care which of your business ventures people talk about?"

"When they started ignoring the ventures I've spent actual time and effort making in favor of the ones that took me five minutes to create."

And as the pair started arguing once again, Miette moved towards a group of walking, talking cheese balls with holes on them.

"Hello there, dear Denizen! I'm Miette Neogaya, a Passenger!" the bluette chirped before leaning the tray towards them. "Would you like a free sample of Poke Puffs?"

The Denizens exchanged looks, and one of them extended a cheesy limb to grab a red one.

"Oh, before you eat it, I should point something out," Miette added as the Denizen casually ate the object. "Each Poke Puff is based on a Pokemon Type, and the one you picked was-"

The Denizen screamed as a stream of fire erupted from their mouth, showering Miette's face and leaving her with her face covered in soot, the top sporting a tiny fireball.

"Fire…"

Suddenly, an ursine hand extinguished the fire on Miette's head, soon revealing themselves to be owned by Frank.

"What did I miss?"

"I'M MELTING!"

The duo turned around and saw the Denizen that ate the Poke Puff scream as they melted into a puddle of cheesy goo. After this, the group stared in shock…

"No, seriously, what did I miss?" Frank asked once more.

Suddenly, the goo gained eyes and a mouth, and morphed into a humanoid form.

"Hey! It doesn't hurt anymore! And the holes in my body are gone!" the Denizen perked up. "Thanks for helping me, Poke Puff Girl!"

And so the Denizen hopped off cheerfully, causing the nearby Denizens to exchange looks before they swarmed the pair.

"I want one too!"

"Give me one!"

"I want holes in my story, not in my body!"

And as more and more demand for the Poke Puffs came, Miette and Frank exchanged looks before they got an idea…

And as they reunited with The Cat and Amelia, the gooey Denizen bumped into a cloaked figure, who took one look at them before they turned back to see the Denizens surrounding the Poke Puff Quartet.

As soon as they saw Miette among them, the figure took off their hood, revealing himself to be Alex Shepherd, who soon remembered the seer's words…

…

"Lady Destiny is a dangerous woman. She will not help the Cage of Flauros achieve its goal, but dismantle it instead!"

Walter wasn't worried. "Big deal, we'll just throw Pyramid Head at her if she refuses to cooperate-"

"That won't work."

The trio turned back to the seer, who continued:

"No matter what you do or decide, Lady Destiny will find a way to destroy this cage you've worked so hard to build! And none of your strongest defenses and defenders will stop her! In fact…"

The seer pointed at Alex.

"Pyramid Head will fall by the hands of Lady Destiny!"

…

Alex narrowed his eyes. "So, that's the one who will not only destroy the Cage of Flauros, but destroy me too…"

The soldier clenched his fists and stomped forward.

"Let's see how true this seer's words are…"

…

"What do you mean the Cheese Shogun isn't here!?"

Chloe yelled that as she slammed her donut holer against the entrance to a palace made of cheese, only stopping when a cheese samurai grabbed her weapon and stated:

"He left to deal with an Envoy of Gluttony that was setting sights on the Canals of Fondue Car. He won't be back for a while, please return later."

And with those words spoken, the samurai pushed the redhead back and closed the door.

"Wait, an Envoy of Gluttony… didn't the Demon Lords say they'd have envoys across the Train to prove your worth of becoming a Demon Lord?" Lexi snapped his fingers. "That's perfect! If we find the Cheese Shogun, we can help him beat the Envoy, which will prove your worth to the Demon Lords! It's like getting two rewards for one sidequest!"

"I advise against it," Atticus stated. "Envoys are vastly stronger than the average Denizen. To try to fight one unprepared is tantamount to-"

"We're not going anywhere!" Chloe snapped. "For now…"

Suddenly, her stomach growled.

"I need something to eat."

Atticus scanned his surroundings, and smiled before pointing with his paw. "Hey, why don't we try what they're selling over there?"

Chloe raised her head and looked at the distance, where a food stand had been built and had a long line of customers in front of it.

But what caught her attention the most was the girl at the counter, who sported blue hair and orange eyes that brought only one person to mind…

"Miette?!"

Chapter Text

“PARKER!”

Duplica nearly dropped her newspaper at Chloe’s sudden shout, with the looks the girls were getting from everybody sending a shiver down her spine.

“Chloe, not to bother your sudden screaming, but we’re kinda in public right now,” Duplica told the redhead. “Also kinda trying to keep a low profile?”

“Right, sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t-I didn’t mean to scream so loudly… or at all,” Chloe sighed as she caught her breath. “It’s just… I just realized that I left my little brother behind and that’s-”

“I know, it’s shocking and very… bothersome… but I’m afraid there was nothing else we could do,” Duplica whispered as the looks began to disperse. “Taking one of you out was already a pretty risky move on my part, taking the both of you would’ve made Team Changeling realize something, or someone, was missing.”

“That doesn’t mean I should’ve just left him behind like that!” Chloe argued. “I could’ve at least tried to argue that we should’ve brought him with us or something-”

“All your attempts would’ve failed.”

“Maybe, but-”

"Chloe, I'm sorry to tell you this, but we can't go back there anytime soon to get your brother,” Duplica sighed. “If we went back to try and save him, there’s a very high chance you’d get captured, I’d be forced to escape, and everything we just went through would’ve been for naught.”

“But…” Chloe lowered her head. “I need to save him-”

“Sometimes, you gotta play the long game to save everyone, kid,” Duplica sighed. “For now, we need to find a place for you to blend in and hide so that the Team Changeling grunts don’t find you and take you away.”

“I…” Chloe rubbed her forehead. “I guess, but where do I go?”

Duplica went back to her newspaper… and smiled upon seeing an ad saying a family restaurant was currently hiring.

“I have an idea.”

…

Serena knocked on the door to the Fujihachi Household three times. She was a little hesitant to be there, but if she wanted to truly help things get better at Vermillion City, she had to talk with Goh.

Ash did say he and Chloe were friends, so maybe he could give her a better idea on what was going on?

“Hello? Is anybody there?” Serena asked. “I, uh, came here to talk with Goh Fujihachi? Is he here?”

It was then that the door slowly opened, but instead of Goh answering it, an old woman did, scanning the girl before flashing a smile.

"Oh my, what a lovely young lady just came to my house! What brings you here, sweetie?”

“Oh, uh, I was told this was the place where Goh Fujihachi was living at,” Serena answered awkwardly. “I was hoping I could talk to him for a minute?”

That line caused the woman’s expression to change from friendly and welcoming to hostile and annoyed.

“Is he… not here?”

The woman took a deep breath and shook her head. “Come in, let’s talk while having a cup of tea.”

Serena obliged shortly after, and soon found herself sitting on the couch, being served a cup of tea by the older woman as she sighed:

“I’m sorry for my earlier hostility, I haven’t even introduced myself. You can call me Tomie.”

“Fujihachi?”

Tomie finished serving the tea, served her own cup, and sat down.

"The truth is… everybody in this house, including me and Goh’s parents, aren’t exactly enthused about the idea of anybody claiming they’ve come to meet Goh.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“Well… I don’t know if the Ash Ketchum boy explained the situation to you, but whatever he told you, it doesn’t do justice to what our Goh has been through since Chloe Cerise went missing,” Tomie sighed. “No matter where he goes, and no matter what he says, people just shoot down his arguments and claim that they’re invalid. And that’s only at best, at worst…”

Serena felt a shiver go down her spine. “What happens at worst?”

“They insult him. Demean him, minimize him,” Tomie gulped. “They seem to look for any way and method they can use to make him feel like he’s lesser, like he’s worthless, just because Chloe claimed that he wasn’t as good a friend to her as he claimed to be.”

Serena had to pause to process the revelation. “Wait, what? That can’t possibly be it, right? People don’t just… assault someone under the words of one ten year old girl, right?”

“Ah, such youthful innocence,” Tomie shook her head. “My grandson had the same innocence before the whole Chloe fiasco happened.”

“...I’m very sorry to hear that. I… don’t really like to think that the world we live in can have people like that, but alas, sometimes that just can’t be ignored,” Serena took a deep breath. “However, I’m sincere when I say that I only want to help Goh. I want to help Vermillion City, and the people that live in it, come out of this tense atmosphere and just… try to feel more hopeful.”

Tomie paused. “Many people also claimed the same thing. That they only wanted to help, either Vermillion City, or Goh. And yet, this claim was only ever said after they had either made the situation worse, or had betrayed Goh’s trust.”

Serena’s optimism faltered slightly.

“Listen, I understand you’re being sincere, and you don’t seem like the kind of person who has a mean bone on her body, but so did most of the people in Vermillion City, and I just told you how they treated him,” Tomie sipped her tea. “So I’m sorry, but I can’t let you see him. Not while he’s so vulnerable.”

Serena took a deep breath. “I… I understand. Even so, can I make a suggestion?”

Tomie raised an eyebrow. 

“I’m a Pokemon Performer, and I was thinking of using that to try and cheer everybody up here in Vermillion City,” Serena smiled a little. “If possible, could you see that Goh watches the performance? Not in public, of course, but maybe capturing the performance in a video so he can see it later?”

Tomie hummed. “Are you sure it’ll help cheer everybody up? There’s a lot of people in Vermillion City, and a lot of them can be as stubborn as a Mudsdale.”

“It’s at least worth a shot,” Serena scratched the back of her head. “Especially since it seems most people here don’t wanna try to help with the… tense atmosphere.”

Tomie finished her tea and put her teacup down. “I’ll see what I can do. But I make no promises.”

Serena smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Tomie looked surprised for a second, but quickly shrugged it off and laughed. “Say, how did you learn about the situation here?”

“Oh, well, that’s an interesting story,” Serena started. “You see, I got a message from Ash…”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Meanwhile, at the Canals of Fondue Car, the stand of Poke Puffs set up by Miette’s team had split into four different stands, each selling a type of Poke Puff. Each stand had a long line in front of them, composed of Denizens eager to buy one of the pastries.

“I’m still surprised how much these confectionaries are selling,” The Cat chuckled. “Well, most of them, anyway.”

The team turned around to see Amelia’s stand, which had odd-looking Poke Puffs and a queue consisting of a whopping… 0 people. Denizen or Passenger alike.

“Let us know when it’s getting intense there, Amelia!” The Cat scoffed. “Looks like you’ve got a lot more customers than you can handle!”

Amelia hissed at The Cat, prompting Frank to step in. “Alright you two, please stop fighting, we got business to deal with.”

“ You guys have business to deal with,” Amelia folded her arms. “Nobody even wants to get near my pastries! I mean, I know I'm not a good cook, but this is kinda mean!"

It was then that a Denizen, feeling sympathy for the woman, walked up to and paid for a Poke Puff before eating it.

They promptly bloated up before exploding into a non-sentient pile of cheesy goo.

Everybody promptly took a step away from Amelia's stand.

"It's okay, Amelia, don't feel bad!" Miette hastily said. "Once we're done here, I can teach you how to bake a Poke Puff correctly!"

"A child not even a third of my age is going to teach me how to cook. Riveting," Amelia rested her cheek on her palm. "Call me when we go back to investigating you-know-who."

…

Meanwhile, with the Red Lotus Trio, Chloe sat on the ground, breathing in and out on a paper bag that eventually exploded when she exhaled a little too much.

“Chloe, seriously, you need to calm down,” Atticus stated. “That’s the third paper bag you blow up.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t calm down knowing that Miette’s here!” Chloe ruffled her hair. “Ever since I got on the Train, never did I expect to find her here!”

“Is she really such a big deal?” Lexi folded his arms. “Why are you acting like her being on the Train is the end of the world?!”

"Because she'll expose me as soon as she sees me!"

… At least, that's what she wanted to say, but Chloe knew that would only bring her trouble.

"It's just…" Chloe twiddled her fingers and blushed. "She's a very important person to me…"

…

Back when she wasn’t just a copy of Chloe Cerise, the impostor stood behind a scenery, a floating two-headed ice cream Pokemon staring at her with a worried expression.

“Alright, Vanilluxe, we’re… about to start…”

The heads exchanged worried looks, and looked back at their Trainer.

“I’m… I’m fine, honest! Just… a little nervous-”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

The duo turned around, and saw a certain blue-haired performer with orange eyes walk up to the girl, hands pocketed and with a smile on her face.

“W-W-W-What are you doing here, Miette?!”

“A little Pidgey told me you’d be performing here today, so I decided to take a break from all the pastries to pay you a visit,” Miette answered with a shrug. “And also, I just wanted to make sure you were okay before the show began. Wanna talk about it?”

The girl paused… and soon confessed:

“To be honest… I don’t know if I can do it. I… haven’t had the best track record recently, and my performances are… just not up to par with what other people do-”

“And there’s that problem of yours again, comparing yourself to others,” Miette shook her head. “How many times will you be told that you need to find your own style? Your own brand of performance? You’re not going to get anywhere if you keep comparing yourself to others or try to mimic what they do to fit in!”

The performer fell silent and lowered her head, prompting Miette to grab her shoulders and say:

“Listen, today, why don’t you focus on doing what you like? Keep the performance the same, but try to spice it up with something you’d like to do.”

Then, she made her look at her.

“While you perform, don’t think: What would X do?”

And then, with a little smile, she suggested:

“Think: What would I do?”

…

"A-And it's been so long since I last saw her," Chloe lowered her head. "I… I don't know how to approach her."

Atticus stared at Chloe sympathetically, until he got an idea:

"Why don't Lexi and I-"

"What did you say about Chloe of the Vermillion, you jerk!?" the shapeshifting book launched papers at a cheese Denizen, causing him to run away. "Come back here and tell it to my face!"

"... Why don't I go and ask for the pastries instead?" Atticus smiled. "I'll omit any mention of your name and say they're to go."

“But won’t they recognize you right away?” Chloe pointed out. “If not as a member of my group, then as the king of Corginia?”

“Most likely,” Atticus lowered his eyelids. “But I also have a plan to deal with that.”

Atticus promptly executed his plan… and whatever he did was so shocking that Chloe gasped and covered her eyes.

…

Meanwhile, back at the stands, the soldier boy known as Alex Shepherd moved past several Denizens until he reached Miette’s stand, the bluette looking shocked as he stated:

“I would like a few of these pastries to go.”

“Aren’t you forgetting a very important step in this business, pal?” Frank growled.

“Oh right, of course, how could I be so rude?” Alex chuckled, then turned back to Miette. “I would like a few of these pastries to go, please .”

"Um, I'm sorry sir, but these Poke Puffs are for the Denizens," Miette stated before she narrowed her eyes. "Also, you're cutting ahead of the line, which is very rude."

Alex took a deep breath. "Listen, ma'am-"

"Please don't call me that," Miette dryly requested.

"-I'm a Denizen," Alex continued. "Ergo, I'm the type of customer your business is looking for-"

"And I don't care: you're cutting the line, and that's hurting our customers," Miette folded her arms. "Please go back to the end of the line and wait your turn like everybody else."

“But who knows if there will be Poke Puffs left by then?!” Alex slammed his fist down. “I need to bring these pastries back home! I can’t go back empty handed!”

“So what?”

Alex took a step back as everybody else gasped, Amelia and The Cat looking in equal shock as the bluette continued:

“Why should I indulge in the desires of a rude man who holds himself so high up, he thinks he can get away with cutting line and demanding Poke Puffs like the freaking King of Pokelantis?”

“Listen, girl,” Alex narrowed his eyes. “All I want are some damn Poke Puffs!”

"And I want you to stop being so darn stubborn and head! Back! To! The start of the line!"

It was then that Alex pulled out a knife and aimed it right at Miette’s neck, the blue-haired cook remaining unfazed as the soldier hissed:

“I’ve been patient with you all this time because you have a larger role to play, but my patience is wearing thin!”

He edged the knife closer to Miette’s neck, causing a slight cut that bled slightly.

“Either give me what I want right this instant, or I will do something we’ll both regret!”

Miette sweat slightly, but remained defiant, gritting her teeth as she glared back at Alex’s furious expression….

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

“And that’s what I had planned for a performance! So, what do you think?”

Serena clasped her hands as she finished explaining her plan to Ash and Pikachu, who sat at the Cerise Institute alongside Professor Cerise, Talia, Renji, and Chryssa, who also heard the explanation.

“Hmm, it’s a pretty good idea, to be honest,” Professor Cerise remarked as he scratched his chin. “I remember Chloe telling me about a performance she and her class watched while visiting Unova, and she said it was the best part of the trip.”

“I think it’s a good idea, too,” Ash folded his arms. “Honestly, it’s been a while since I last saw one of your performances; it’d be great to see one up close again.”

“Pikachu!”

Serena clasped her hands joyfully… just in time for the door to the Cerise Institute to open, allowing a certain Unova photographer to step in and get everyone’s attention.

“Trip…” Ash paused. “What brings you here?”

“My talk with Serena gave me… a lot to think about,” Trip took a deep breath. “And one of those things I had to think about was something I’ve been keeping to myself for far too long.”

“Are you going to tell us how this Infinity Train thing works already?” Renji asked.

“That too,” Trip lowered his eyelids. “But what I have to tell you is about something else.”

Everybody raised eyebrows, except for Serena, who formed a relieved smile as the guy added:

“It’s… about Chloe…”

Chapter Text

And now we continue the story.

Honestly, at this point in the game… I kinda wanna trim down the story in order to get this over with faster.

Don’t get me wrong, I can think of ideas to keep this going for a long time, even without considering my terrible scheduling ability, but both the original trilogy and Seeker of Crocus have shown us that, in general, the Blossomverse has a HORRIBLE pacing problem.

I mean, I’m certain the former was almost 50%, if not 80%, repetitive call out and spite and wrath, while the latter just doesn’t know when to end a scene and leave it be.

I wanna try to fix both of those things; no spite or call outs at all unless I feel like they're necessary, AND ONLY IF they can either be short and sweet or help the story.

And if I feel like a scene has a decent ending, it will end. No ifs or buts.

Also, I had a different scene in idea for the Trip bit, but the actual scene was starting to get so mean spirited and, let’s be blunt here, very early Blossomverse-y, I decided to rewrite it entirely and change it to show the later aftermath of Trip’s revelation, rather than the immediate aftermath.

My intention with Trip is to try to redeem his bad writing from the original trilogy, without banishing him to elsewhere while calling in a replacement to take his place. He deserves to be an actual character for once.

So, if the bit bothers you, I apologize. But keep in mind it could've been worse.

So, without further ado, let's go.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

At a family restaurant in Alola, a group of Alolan trainers sat down and ate some Malasadas while a news report played on a TV.

"In other news, there are still no signs of the whereabouts of Chloe Cerise, daughter of former Kalos Queen, Talia Cerise. It has been four months since she went missing, and the police-"

"Man, they still haven’t found anything?” one of the patrons uttered. “I know the police can be incompetent, but come on!”

“Eh, it might not even be the fault of the police,” another patron suggested. “There’s been an odd surge of people going missing while leaving no trace behind.”

“Yeah, but who cares about them? That red headed girl’s the hot news nowadays! Especially since her father’s a Pokemon Professor!”

“Hmm, yeah, I guess I see your point,” the patron shrugged. “I know many kids who’d do anything to have one such parent. Not sure what the big deal is thought.”

“Well, I’ve heard that the professor is a total sucker for his daughter; if she tells him not to give someone a Pokemon, he won’t,” the patron stated. “And besides, you know how children of Pokemon Professors work; once they realize the kind of power they can hold over everybody else, they’ll abuse it to get some clout. Don’t you remember the Gary Oak kid?”

And as the conversation continued, Mallow’s ears failed to tune it out, her rage beginning to grow and grow as the patrons kept talking nonsense about Pokemon Professors, their children, the girl on the news, and so on and so forth.

She'd like to kick out those patrons so much, but she couldn't. She didn't want to risk ruining the restaurant's reputation for "welcoming everybody" just to silence some gossip. Even if that gossip was the kind that made her blood boil.

“In other news…”

Mallow let out a sigh of relief.

“Top Team Rocket operative Domino Masquerade, otherwise known as the Black Tulip, is still on the loose. According to eyewitnesses, the criminal was last seen leaving on a helicopter alongside Team Rocket leader Giovanni-”

*CLICK!*

“I think that’s enough TV for today.”

Mallow paused and turned around to see her older brother, Ulu, holding a control remote before putting it down.

“Hey, you asshole, turn it back on!” one of the patrons yelled. “If you can’t stomach the news, then just change the channel!”

“Dear patron, I’ll remind you that swearing is forbidden in our restaurant,” Ulu stated. “And besides, we’re not new to your attitude; if we had changed the channel, you would’ve demanded us to put it back on immediately.”

“Yeah, so what?” the other patron growled. “Those are the juicy news nowadays! The top Team Rocket operative who is yet to be found, and the redheaded girl who exposes the true, horrible nature of the Kanto Region! Especially the latter; who’d want to skip on getting to learn how horrible Kanto and its people really are? It’s about time people realize how Alola is so much better than-”

The patron didn’t get to finish before Tsareena kicked both of them out with a Double Kick, using just enough strength to send them directly to the Kahuna’s line of sight. With that done, Ulu approached his little sister.

“Are you okay?”

“... Not really, no,” Mallow sighed. “Sorry, let me get back to work.”

Right after saying that, Mallow walked to the other empty tables and began grabbing and taking the dirty dishes back to the kitchen. She kept this up while the Alolan trainers looked with worry, until she reached their table and found it impossible to ignore their worried looks.

“What are you looking at?”

“Are you sure you should be working right now, Mallow?” Lana, the Water type trainer. “After hearing what those jerks said-”

“I can’t casually take a break just because some jerks ran their mouths dry,” Mallow answered sternly. “Besides, you didn’t show yourselves as particularly caring back when Gladion went missing; you really think being worried now is going to make up for it?”

“Well, sorry if our worry annoyed you,” Sophocles, the Electric trainer, said. “It’s just that you seem to be very upset, especially because of what the news said-”

"Can you blame me, though? A random girl from Kanto goes missing and the news goes nuts bringing attention to it, and yet the son of a billionaire woman who could buy all of Kanto with pocket change disappears off the face of the Earth, and nobody bats an eye!"

“To be fair, Lusamine didn’t really bring too much attention to it,” Kiawe, the Fire type trainer, pointed out. “If nobody makes noise about it, then nobody’s going to care.”

“How does that make it okay!?” Mallow snapped as she put the tray on the table.

“It doesn’t, but things aren’t as one-sided as you think they are, Mallow,” Kiawe sighed. “It’s as Lana said; if nobody brings attention to it first, nobody’s going to care. This girl just had the benefit of her childhood friend making a scene when he found her scrunchie.”

“Also the fact said friend had half of his face burning from having a boiling hot bowl of curry thrown at his face,” Lana added. “I know it’s just speculation, but I still think it’s weird he had those injuries before he made the scene.”

"And yet nobody's talking about him," Lillie blurted, getting a look from Mallow. "They only seem to focus on the redhead girl, like she was the only thing worth talking about. It's rather frustrating to be honest."

This only got Lillie on the receiving end from a very disapproving glare from Mallow, who rolled her eyes and grabbed the dirty dishes before walking away.

"You think she hasn't forgiven me for the bouquet thing?"

"I don't think she ever will," Sophocles glumly answered. “You did spend a very long time acting like a big jerk because of it. And Mallow was among the most affected by it.”

“But I apologized for it! Even did my best to help Gladion recover from his Train experience!” Lillie replied. “And I got rid of the bouquet of orange lillies that caused this whole mess! Isn’t that enough?”

Mallow felt really tempted to just shut up the blonde girl, but she knew it would lead nowhere. Especially because a sudden knock on her door caught her attention instead.

“Honestly, people should get their priorities straight: one girl going missing isn’t worth going gaga over it! That’s just gonna give her an excuse to develop an ego!” Mallow stated as she walked to the door. “Seriously, if I ever meet that girl, I’m gonna knock her hubris down a peg and let her know she’s not a big deal!”

Mallow opened the door… and found an interesting pair outside: A hula girl with turquoise hair, and a girl who looked exactly like the redhead from the news report.

“We need your help,” the hula girl stated.

Mallow completely ignored Duplica and stared at the redhead, stating: 

“You’re no big deal.”

She slammed the door shut shortly afterwards… only to abruptly open it again moments later.

“Wait a minute, you-?!”

The rest of Mallow's friends ran to her side, each looking positively shocked at the duo standing outside.

"That's-!"

"It can't be!"

"How?!"

"She's much prettier in real life!"

"Yeah, hi, everyone," Chloe greeted awkwardly. "I assume you know who I am?"

Mallow wordlessly turned to the hula girl, who unveiled some of her make up to reveal herself as a disguised Duplica.

“It’s a long story, one we can't talk about here. You got time to talk in private?"

Mallow looked at her friends, who shrugged in confusion, and the greenette sighed and answered:

"Lead the way."

…

“Is this where he went?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Pikachu."

Ash and Serena walked together alongside Ash's trustworthy partner, searching for Trip across the Cerise Park.

What happened at the institute after Trip revealed his promise to Chloe was… harsh, to put it nicely. Potentially deserved, given what Trip had done since he arrived, but still pretty harsh when you thought about it.

Eventually, the group found Trip sitting under a tree, using its shadow to calm down while nursing his black eye with a bag of ice.

"Trip."

The Unovan guy turned to look at the trio, and while he cheered up at seeing Ash, his joy was soon replaced with anger when he spotted Serena nearby.

"Ash, may I speak with Serena in private?"

"No, you may not," Ash bluntly stated. "At this point, I can't risk leaving you alone with a friend of mine and expect you not to go overboard with your honesty."

"That was only one time!" Trip argued.

"And that was one times too many," Ash folded his arms. "If you got something to say, tell both of us."

The Unovan newcomer paused, took a deep breath, and faced Serena as he stood up:

“I did exactly what you told me to: I thought about it, gathered the courage to come out and reveal what I knew, and what did I get for it?” Trip pointed at his eye. “A black eye and a call out from a man who doesn’t know any better.”

"Yeah, we know, Trip," Ash sighed. "We were there when the fiasco happened."

"Then why are you still here?!" Trip groaned. "You saw what that jerk did to me and you haven't deserted or left the stupid institute! If he doesn't change with what I said, then he's never going to change, period!"

“Change is something that happens overtime, Trip,” Serena lowered her eyelids. “You can’t force a person to change who they are in an instant. It’s up to them to choose how much they want to change, if they want to change at all, but the change itself is going to take time.”

“Sounds just like the advice the woman gave to Chloe,” Trip bitterly noted. “She told her to take it slow. That she didn’t have to decide what she wanted to be now. And guess what? It failed-”

“Because Chloe misunderstood.”

Trip winced as Ash suddenly spoke, staring at the guy as he explained:

“Chloe’s mother told me what she was trying to do that day. She was trying to tell Chloe that everybody discovers who they are at their own pace. That trying to speed things up would not help her find who she really was. But instead of seeing that, or thinking about it in a positive way, Chloe only focused on the negative; made herself think that her mother was being condescending towards her.”

"And how do you know she wasn't being condescending?" Trip pointed out. "As far as we know, she worded her advice in such a way that-"

Ash rolled his eyes and turned around before walking away.

"Where are you going?!"

"Trip, after everything that's happened, I don't have the patient to deal with your attitude anymore," Ash answered, not even bothering to look at the photographer. "Come talk to me when you feel like actually talking things out, rather than look for people to point fingers at."

"Pika," Pikachu growled, electricity emerging from his cheeks.

"You said just a moment ago that you weren't going to leave Serena alone, and yet that's exactly what you're doing!" Trip yelled. "How can you have a free conscience if you abandon her like you abandoned Chloe!?"

Hearing that, Ash paused, stopped in his tracks, and took a deep breath before stating:

"Because I believe Serena will know when to back off when it becomes clear talking to you will lead nowhere. I trust her."

Then, Ash faced the photographer, an expression of tired disapproval.

"Certainly more than I trust you ."

And so, Ash left the scene, leaving a shocked Trip to pause and process what just happened.

"He was mad."

Serena nodded in agreement.

"I didn't even know he could get mad," Trip looked around. "He's always been such a happy go-lucky kinda guy that I figured getting mad was something he just couldn't do ."

"Let that be a lesson not to judge a book by its cover," Serena sighed. "Ash is a nice guy. He really is. But he can get angry. And if he does… well, now you know."

Trip looked at the ground. "I messed up badly, didn't I?"

"Ash Ketchum is mad at you," Serena pointed out sadly. "That's a pretty clear answer if you ask me."

Trip rubbed his forehead and groaned. "I don't get it; I arrived, did my best to help by telling everybody the truth, and yet everyone got angry at me! Just what did I do wrong!?"

“The world isn’t black and white, Trip. Yours might be, but not the real one,” Serena sighed. “People aren’t cardboard cutouts with only one personality trait, but they’re beings with layers to them. Likewise, not every situation can be perfectly summarized with just one side; sometimes, you have to look at both sides in order to get the full story, and only then can you work on improving things.”

“And how was I supposed to do that?” Trip asked sternly. “How is someone supposed to learn both sides of a story if one side refuses to spill the beans!?”

“Did you try to talk with people?”

Trip's ensuing silence spoke for itself. Not that it stayed long, for the photographer soon changed the subject:

“What am I supposed to do now? Go back to Unova and act like nothing happened!?”

“It’s up to you, really,” Serena shrugged. “I can’t tell you what you’re supposed to do with your life. If you wanna go back to Unova, if you believe that’s what would make you happy, then go ahead.”

“You can’t tell me what to do?” Trip scoffed. “That’s literally what you did earlier!”

“No, I talked with you and gave you the option of telling people the truth about your promise to Chloe,” Serena faced the guy and smiled. “In the end, it was up to you whether you went through with it or not.”

“And I made the wrong choice,” Trip lowered his head and growled. “I spilled the beans. Told them everything. And it did nothing to change how terrible they were. They’re still the same stubborn, tunnel visioned-idiots that they were when I first got here!”

Serena paused, and looked elsewhere. “Well, don’t take this the wrong way, Trip… but you’re the same.”

“What!?”

“You’re not focusing on how you can help Vermillion City at large. You’re only focusing on the short term solutions; how you can get people to change in a way that better fits Chloe’s needs,” Serena explained calmly. “Not only that, but you’re so sure that you know what’s best for everyone that you refuse to even consider that your methods might not be working out as well as you intended.”

"Well then, miss "I Know Better Than You", what do you suggest?" Trip narrowed his eyes. "What can I do to fix my mistake?!"

"Calm down. Take a deep breath. Take a break if necessary. Look around, take some pictures, catch some Pokemon," Serena shrugged. "Just… take yourself to rid your body and soul of this seething negativity spread all over you. And stop demanding people to change right then and there, and believing that change has to be instant in order for it to matter."

Serena faced Trip and flashed a smile. "If you can do that, I'm sure you can make amends and fix your mistake."

Trip folded his arms. "And what if I can't do that?"

Serena's smile slowly faltered, but before it fully devolved into a frown, she shook her head and dusted herself.

“I need to go get ready for my show.”

Trip raised an eyebrow. “Your show?”

Serena paused, folded her arms behind her back, and flashed a little smile as she giggled:

“You’ll see soon.”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Back where we left off, Miette had a knife-dagger-whatever close to her neck, just close enough to draw blood in fact, all the while the soldier man in front of her glared daggers at her.

“Don’t make me repeat myself; give me some Poke Puffs, or pay the consequences.”

"Now now, soldier boy," The Cat said with a nervous smile. "I'm sure we can reach an agreement without resorting to violence-"

"You stay out of this, you penny pinching pussy!" Alex shouted.

The Cat looked shocked for a moment before adopting a disapproving expression.

"You think I don't know your role in the creation of the horrible co-leader of The Apex? How many lives have been lost or destroyed because of your cowardice?!" Alex hissed. "The only reason you're not dead is because the Cage of Flauros has plans for you."

Amelia raised an eyebrow. "The Cage of Flauros?"

The Cat paused… and began to snicker.

"What's so funny!?"

"I just think it's a little rich to be called a coward by a man who's threatening a young girl at knifepoint to get what he wants," The Cat chuckled. "And the thing you want is pastries to boot! I'd understand a little more if we were famous, but this is the first time we sell this stuff-!"

"We'll give you some puffs!"

Everybody turned back to look at Miette, who had a calm smile on her face.

"What flavor do you want? We got Fire Type, Dark Type, Steel Type…"

Frank raised an eyebrow. "Miette?"

"Say a Type and it's yours!" the bluette continued. "I'll even give you a discount if you want!"

Alex sharpened his glare and edged his knife closer.

"T-They're on the house."

Alex nodded and backed his knife, allowing Miette to catch her breath.

"I'll take whatever you have in stock," Alex stated as he sheathed his knife. "And make it quick."

Miette grumbled some sounds of annoyance as she looked through the Poke Puffs available. Then, she looked down at the pastries under the table… and grabbed some from Amelia's stand.

She put them in a bag, walked back to her stand, and showed it to the soldier.

"Here you go, sir! A bag of Poke Puffs, ready to go!"

Alex snatched the bag, nodded, and walked away without saying a word, conveniently leaving before Miette clenched her fist in anger and slammed it down her stand, causing it to crack as everybody jumped.

"Why did you give him Amelia's Poke Puffs?!" Frank chided. "Those things can kill people!"

"Exactly."

The rest of the sellers raised an eyebrow.

"Best case scenario, he dies and we never see him again. Worst case scenario, he survives and is left so horrified he will leave our stands alone for the rest of the day."

A silence ensued, which was eventually broken by Frank:

"You may look cute, but you got a devious mind."

Miette blushed and scratched the back of her head as a newcomer appeared among the Denizens:

“Greetings, fellow Denizens and Passengers! It is I, an ordinary talking corgi from the kingdom of Corginia!” the newcomer spoke with a stilted tone of voice. “What did I miss?”

“Everything, basically,” a talking sphere of fondue explained. “One of the vendors just drove off a very scary soldier guy!”

"Well, less drove off, and more gave him what he wanted," another Denizen said. "She looked pretty pathetic if you ask me."

The corgi turned to guy pointed at by the other Denizens… and he gasped before hopping onto The Cat's table.

"Did you just serve whatever it is you're selling to that soldier man?!"

"First of all, we're serving Poke Puffs, pastries from that girl's world," The Cat explained as she pointed at Miette, who had her neck bandaged by Frank. "Secondly, we had to; he put the girl at knifepoint to get the food free of charge. Kinda dramatic, if you ask me."

"You should be more worried," the corgi sighed. "That guy is no ordinary person."

"You know who he is?" Amelia asked bluntly.

“That was none other than Alex Shepherd!” the corgi revealed. “He’s a Denizen known as the Dark Shepherd, who’s also working on a big project that could mean big news to the Infinity Train!”

“Oh no!” Miette gasped… “And why should we care?”

“This plan, as I’ve heard from rumors, is planning to put an end to The Apex once and for all,” the corgi explained. “However, it has the potential of going out of control should there be no Apex to destroy.”

The Poke Puff vendors slowly grew concerned.

"But there's no need to worry; so long as you've driven him off, he shouldn't bother you again," the corgi stated. "Unless you've screwed him over, in which case-"

*BOOM!*

Everybody suddenly flinched as an explosion was seen in the distance, with Alex flying back as he landed on his feet, hand tightly gripping the bag of Poke Puffs.

"What happened?!" Amelia exclaimed. "Did the Poke Puffs do that?!"

"No, it's something far worse!" Alex stated. "I was careless. I should've know this monster would come with this delicious food in here!"

"How do you even know it's delicious?" Frank asked.

Suddenly, thundering steps were heard, shaking the ground with each stomp as Alex added:

"Because only good food can attract the attention of this beast…"

And it was then that the beast made itself clear: a green giant covered in dozens of mouths, each licking their lips, ready to devour everything in their path.

“The Envoy of Gluttony!”

Chapter Text

We're close to finishing Act 1, I promise. XD

Haha… “Act 1”.

Not much else to say here, so here we go!

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Night had come to Alola, and at the restaurant known as Annie’s Kitchen, two girls were getting ready to go to sleep on the second floor.

The first was Mallow, daughter of the owner of the establishment, former Passengers of the Infinity Train, and currently feeling super awkward about the current situation.

The other was the one making Mallow uncomfortable: Chloe Cerise, the girl from all the news broadcasts being shown recently. More specifically, this was supposed to be the real Chloe Cerise, rather than the impostor that’s been seen on the news.

“Thanks for letting me stay here for the night,” Chloe told the greenette, hoping to ease some of the tension.

Mallow paused, then kept adjusting her bed as she answered, “Your welcome.”

Well, that was nice while it lasted.

“So, your family owns a restaurant, right?” Chloe blurted. “I’d say that means you can cook well, but that might sound offensive, so-”

“Could you please… not, try to force some small talk between us?” Mallow requested. “I don’t have anything against it per say, but it’s just making things more awkward, you know?”

“I know, but… I feel like staying silent isn’t gonna help either,” the redhead shrugged. “I don’t know, I just feel like the more silent you are, the more it seems like you hate me being here or something.”

“I don’t hate you ,” Mallow bluntly stated. “What I hate is how the entire world seems to act like you’re the most important person and need to bring up your supposed disappearance constantly through news broadcasts and newspapers.”

“If it helps, I’m also a little.. disturbed, by how much attention I’ve been getting,” Chloe shrugged. “News broadcasts, newspaper headlines, even my face on a milk bottle! Can you imagine how awkward it must be to drink milk from a bottle with your face in it?”

“No, I wouldn’t know,” Mallow looked elsewhere. “I never got the luxury when I went missing.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “Wait, you… also went missing?”

“... That’s a story for another day-”

Chloe frowned. “Why can’t it be a story for right now?”

“Because it’s a very long, very painful story for me to tell, especially with the idea that it might result in me being rejected or labeled a crazy girl,” Mallow sighed. “Look, just… let’s go to sleep for now, okay? There’s a lot of things to do tomorrow and I don’t have the energy to tell you everything.”

Chloe paused, and nodded with a little smile. “Understood. I won’t bother you about it.”

“Thanks,” Mallow got on her bed and tucked herself in. “Goodnight.”

“Same.”

And so, Chloe went to her own bed and tucked herself in, taking one last look at the greenette before she turned off the lights and went to sleep.

…

“Thanks again for letting her stay here,” Duplica told Ulu and Mallow’s father as she sipped a cup. “I really needed someplace to leave her while I got my act together.”

“We’re always happy to help,” Ulu stated. “Although, I do need to ask; this Team Changeling thing seems to be a big issue. Do you have a plan to take them down, or at least bring attention to their troublemaking?”

Duplica paused her sipping… and finished her drink before answering:

“I do, but first I need to find the one known as Domino Masquerade. A former Team Rocket agent who’s the one responsible for creating Team Changeling in the first place.”

“Really now?” Mallow’s father scratched his chin. “So Team Changeling is just a subgroup of Team Rocket?”

“I wish it was that simple to explain, but it really isn’t,” Duplica sighed as she put the cup down. “All I really know is that if I can get Domino, I can get the key to toppling down Team Changeling once and for all. She’s the leader after all.”

“Is there anything else we can help you with?” Ulu asked with a smile.

“No, for now, just make sure that Chloe’s comfortable here, if anybody sees her it’s gonna be complete chaos,” Duplica stood up and dusted herself. “Meanwhile, I gotta go back home to think about the next step of my plan to find Domino and use her to take down Team Changeling.”

“Use her?”

“It’s nothing nefarious, I promise. Anyway, I’m off-”

“Hey, before you leave, I’d just like to ask,” Ulu blurted. “You sure seem to know a lot about Team Changeling. Is there a chance you have been following them for a while?”

Duplica stopped right at the door, and grabbed the doorknob before answering:

“Let’s just say I have… history with them.”

And with those words spoken, Duplica opened the door and left the restaurant, walking away as she bathed in the moonlight.

Just you wait, Domino. I’m going to find you no matter what.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

At the Canals of Fondue Car, everybody at the stands stared in shock as the Envoy of Gluttony licked their lips, with their many mouths cackling as Alex took out his knife and prepared to strike.

“I don’t get it, what’s an envoy of the demon lords doing here?!” the corgi exclaimed. “I thought the Cheese Shogun was fighting them!”

Hearing that, the Envoy gulped out something that sent shivers down everyone’s spines: a shogun hat made of cheese that promptly melted into nothing.

“Welp, there’s the Cheese Shogun for you,” The Cat remarked. “Sadly, it seems his demise failed to appease this thing’s appetite.”

“Of course it won’t; the Envoy of Gluttony is the very embodiment of endless appetite. No matter how much this thing eats, it will never be satisfied!”

“Then how do we defeat something like that?!” Frank exclaimed.

“Someone call for Chloe of the Vermillion!” one of the cheesy Denizens called. “The Cheese Shogun is down, so she’s the only one who can save us!”

“If she doesn’t show up, we’ll be doomed!”

Hearing that, the corgi nodded and bolted off in the distance, leaving everybody to stare at the Envoy of Gluttony, who eyed the bag of Poke Puffs Alex held while licking their lips. Alex soon realized what they wanted, and stood in place, gripping the bag with all of his strength.

“Dude, just give him the Poke Puffs!” Miette yelled. “Just throw them at his face and run away!”

“No! Never! I won’t let these Poke Puffs be eaten by anybody but my little brother!” Alex snapped back. “He would never forgive me if he learned that I couldn’t keep my promise to buy him Poke Puffs!”

Miette paused. “You have a brother?”

“It’s complicated, but I do; a young boy known as Hoppy, who is the single light I have in my otherwise dark life,” Alex gripped the bag tighter. “He’s the sun that illuminates my hollow world, and when she asks me of something, I do it just to bring a smile to his face. He asked me to get him some Poke Puffs, and I just couldn’t say no to his request.”

Alex looked up at the sky, where a cloud suddenly morphed to have a face that shouted:

“Me hungies!”

The cloud turned back to normal, and Alex wiped a tear off his cheek before looking back at the Envoy of Gluttony.

“Therefore, I will deliver the Poke Puffs to him, and nothing will stop me, not even an Envoy of the Demon Lords!”

Miette paused once more. “Those Poke Puffs were for your brother.”

Alex nodded and glared down at the envoy while Miette walked to Frank’s side, and whispered:

“We’re probably dead.”

“Don’t lose hope just yet,” Frank whispered back. “If this guy’s as dangerous as that corgi said he was, then he might be able to hold back the Envoy of Gluttony for a moment.”

As if on cue, Alex brandished his knife and lunged at the Envoy of Gluttony, who chuckled before opening their mouths and sending tentacle-like tongues at him. The soldier bolted onwards, swinging his knife and cutting the tentacle tongues with ease, until eventually he leapt high up to the envoy’s face and swung his knife right on their eyes.

The envoy screamed in pain and took a couple steps back as it closed their eyes, making Alex think he had done some damage…

Only for the envoy to chuckle before cackling as they opened their eyes, revealing they had transformed into additional mouths, which then unleashed converged tongues that formed a punch and sent Alex flying back to the stands, though not far enough to actually crash into them.

Once that was done, the mouths devoured themselves, and the envoy’s eyes turned back to normal.

“Ugh, that thing’s sturdier than I thought!” Alex gritted his teeth. “I don’t like it, but I may need to pull off my ace in the hole!”

The stand owners raised an eyebrow, and Alex soon showed what he meant: his form began to contort and grow bigger, his muscles began to expand until they ripped his shirt apart, causing the fabric to explode everywhere as his pants stretched… and morphed into a white robe, for some reason.

Then, his head began to change into horrific shapes before taking on a triangular form, with said form soon being covered by a metallic… skin? It looked like metal, at the very least.

Finally, his knife went from its tiny form into a gigantic one, resembling a rusty buster sword that he grabbed and wielded over his shoulder with only one hand.

“Oh dear lord…” one of the Denizens said. “It’s Pyramid Head!”

The Denizens panicked and ran away from the pyramid monster, who paid them no heed as he gripped his blade and prepared to use it against the many-mouthed monstrosity. He grunted and roared before charging forward to the monster. He jumped high and swung his sword…

And the envoy catched it with his bare teeth, chuckling before sending both Pyramid Head and the sword up in the air, the humanoid figure gripping his sword

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” The Cat quipped. “And come to think of it, why didn’t we take this chance to escape, again?”

“To be honest,” Miette scratched the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. “I was so surprised at everything that was happening that I forgot we were in danger.”

“Delicious.”

The stand owners turned around and saw the Envoy of Gluttony approaching them, wielding a wicked smile as he chuckled:

“But it’s not enough to satiate my hunger. Now, Poke Puffs you say was the name of those sweets? I will take your entire stock. Only then will I be satisfied.”

And as all of this happened, Chloe and Lexi stared in shock from afar, their trance only broken when Atticus shouted at them:

“Chloe! Lexi! It’s the Envoy of Gluttony! It has eaten the Cheese Shogun and is about to eat those stands as well!”

“Yeah, we see that, but what’s it doing here!?” Lexi pondered out loud. “According to what Chloe said, the Demon Lords said we’d have to go look for the Envoys ourselves!”

“Whatever the reason may be, we can’t stand here!” Chloe stated. “Lexi! Go distract the Envoy of Gluttony! I’ll use the downtime to prepare myself to enter the fray!”

“Right!”

The paper shapeshifter turned into a group of origami cranes, which was followed by Atticus after grabbing his crown and cape. Once they were gone, Chloe reached for her back and took out her bat, which she slumped over her shoulder as she looked at the envoy from afar.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

The redhead turned around, and floating down was a certain fallen angel working for the Demon Lords, who smirked and said:

“You’ve only recently become a Demon Lord! Maybe it would be best for you to leave this to your friends and grow stronger before facing off against an envoy? It would be quite sad if a newborn Demon Lord were to die to an Envoy like that.”

Chloe paused, and narrowed her eyes. “Are you the one who sent the Envoy of Gluttony here?!”

Azazel giggled a little, placing a finger in front of her mouth before she answered with a devious expression:

“Perhaps.”

“Why would you do that?!” Chloe snapped. “This place isn’t equipped to handle a beast of that caliber! The Cheese Shogun died! What if the other Denizens end up perishing to this monster’s appetite?”

“Let’s be honest here, you don’t really care about what happens to these Denizens, do you?” Azazel poked her cheek. “You’re worried because if you don’t do this, then the credibility of “Chloe of the Vermillion” will be jeopardized. And if that happens, it’ll only be a matter of time before your little disguise fails to fool anyone anymore.” 

“...You already know, don’t you?” Chloe faced the fallen angel, trying to hide the chills going down her spine. “You and the Demon Lords… you know I’m not the real Chloe Cerise, right?”

“Of course we do!” Azazel shrugged and shook her head. “I mean, with how cheap your disguise is, and the fact we’ve met the real Chloe Cerise before, there wasn’t a ghost of a chance that you were going to trick us into thinking you were the real deal!”

“So you knew…” Chloe winced. “W-Wait a minute, you met the real Chloe before?!”

Azazel smiled and tilted her head. “This conversation has proven quite superfluous, don’t you think? Here we are, talking about nonsense that nobody can learn, all the while there’s a beast with over a dozen mouths wrecking havoc near this very location.”

Hearing that, Chloe gritted her teeth and turned around to see the Envoy staring down at the stands.

“The harsh truth is, kid, that you only really have two options,” Azazel answered. “You either keep talking to me until the Envoy ends up eating your friends… or you join the battle and risk exposing your true self to someone who may be onto you already.”

Chloe’s eyes widened as she looked back to the battlefield, all while Azazel kept talking:

“The Denizens aren’t very forgiving of impersonators, you know? Ever since that Amelia Hughes woman impersonated The Conductor, taking the identity of another person has become a very big no-no on the Train. And given your track record as a hero, if people were to find out you weren’t the real Chloe Cerise… well, then things would get dicey, don’t you think?”

Chloe lowered her eyelids as she thought about it… but seeing Miette trying to stand her ground, the redhead transformed her bat into its bat-scythe hybrid and used it to bolt towards the battlefield, all the while Azazel stayed behind with a wicked grin.

"This is gonna be so interesting!”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The Fujihachi household was one that hadn’t been doing so well lately.

First, the parents were almost never around, leaving their only son, Goh, to be raised by his grandmother. Now, she was a nice lady, but there was only so much she could teach him by her lonesome.

Then, there’s the whole fiasco that happened after Chloe Cerise went missing. Believe it or not, the fact that Goh was one of the last people she saw before she disappeared, alongside a certain incident involving a bowl of curry, people immediately began to connect the dots and realize he had to have been involved in the event that led her to run away, and then vanish.

And since the only other logical option was Ash Ketchum, who was both too nice and too powerful for people to approach normally, the people of Vermillion City were quick to take out their displeasure about the situation with the boy.

The worst part of this was… Trip was one of those people. He couldn’t deny it; he was involved in essentially attacking a young boy over what was believed to be the absolute truth… except he only had rumors and some people’s opinions to go off.

Now, he had realized he had messed up, and needed to fix things. Hopefully this wouldn’t end in disaster.

Eventually, the door was opened. Not by Goh, or his parents, but by an old woman whom Trip assumed was his grandmother. Tomie was her name, right?

"Good evening, ma'am. My name is-"

"Trip Espinosa, I know," Tomie sighed. "My grandson told me about you a few days ago."

Trip felt a chill down his spine. "So, he did? What did he tell you about me?"

The woman stared at Trip for a moment.

"My grandson isn't available at the moment. If you wish to tell him anything, I'll relay the message to him."

Trip had a bad feeling of how quickly the woman dodged the question, but he needed to stay calm.

"I simply wish to tell him that I'm sorry. I was wrong to treat him the way I did, and if he's willing to give me a chance, I'll do my absolute best to make it up to him."

Tomie looked at Trip for a while, until eventually, she stated:

"I will deliver this message, under one condition."

Trip smiled. "And that would be?"

"That you understand Goh has no obligation to forgive you."

Trip's heart sank, but before he could say anything in response, Tomie quickly added:

"Now don't get me wrong; I'm not saying he will never forgive you. Contrary to what most of Vermillion City seems to think, Goh isn't heartless. He has difficulty with social situations, and he tends to blow things out of proportion once in a while, but he is a good kid.”

Tomie lowered his eyelids. “That being said, considering how most talk about him has lately been about how he should’ve gone to school and he should’ve stuck to Chloe’s side, as that somehow would’ve stopped the bullying she was going through-”

“Wait…” Trip’s eyes widened. “People really said that?”

“Not specifically, but the intent and implication is there,” Tomie sighed. “As I was saying, Goh has been lately told nothing but what he needs to do and what he should do. I feel like he needs to be told he has a choice in the matter.”

Trip lowered his eyelids, and nodded. “Alright, I understand. Sorry for taking up your time, ma’am.”

Tomie smiled slightly. “Don’t worry about it.”

And so, the woman closed the door, and Trip began walking away. As he did, he scratched his chin in thought; people had been telling Goh that going to school to protect Chloe from bullying?

He definitely needed to take a closer look at this…

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Back at the Canals of Fondue Car, Miette was the first to confront the Envoy of Gluttony, tapping her stand before shouting:

“Uh, excuse me, big guy? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a line for the pastries here! You want a chance at one of them? You gotta go to the end of it!”

Hearing that, the Envoy of Gluttony faced the long line in front of them… and licked their lips before opening their mouths, unleashing long tongues that wrapped around the cheesy citizens and gulped them down the stomach.

Once swallowed, nobody remained, leaving only the envoy to face the bluette and say:

“There, I’m at the front of the line now. May I have my Poke Puffs?”

Miette, blatantly sweating bullets and shivering, clasped her hands together and answered. “S-Sure, but c-could you give us a m-moment to prepare your order?”

“... Okay.”

The Envoy of Gluttony walked to the side, and eventually sat at the side of a river of cheese, a random cheese bird flying past them before one of their tongues swallowed it. This allowed the stand owners to walk away, and talk in private.

“Huh, what a nice and polite abomination,” Miette said with a stilted voice. “It almost makes you forget that they just ate a bunch of innocent people and could very well do the same to us!”

Miette began to laugh in a monotone manner before she dropped to her knees and looked at the ground.

“We’re dead. We’re utterly dead…”

“Well, what a reassuring selection of words,” The Cat remarked. “Again, we should’ve left while that pyramid monster thing was keeping the envoy distracted.”

“Discussing what we should’ve done isn’t going to help us; we need to discuss what we can do now,” Frank stated before facing Amelia. “Do you have any information pertaining to the Envoy of Gluttony?”

“Only the basic info regarding the envoys; they’re living embodiments of a fraction of their respective demon lord’s power, and their entire powerset is based around their respective sin,” Amelia explained calmly. “For example, as you just saw, the Envoy of Gluttony has dozens of multi purpose tongues and can eat anything. The Envoy of Sloth can make people lazy, and the Envoy of Lust-”

“How do we defeat them?” Frank hastily added.

“Like all sinful things, practicing their corresponding virtue should drive them away; Abstinence for Gluttony, Generosity for Greed, and so on and so forth,” Amelia shrugged. “But if that’s not an option, some good old irony should suffice.”

“Irony?” The Cat asked. “You mean we should feed them some more?”

“Not just feed them, but do so using something that will cause them to be so repulsed they’ll die from disgust!” Amelia answered with a smile. “Now, all we need to figure out is what to give them…”

It wasn’t long before Amelia saw The Cat and Frank staring at her, followed by Miette raising her head with a hopeful look.

“I walked myself right into that one,” the woman sighed and rubbed her forehead. “That being said, we still need to survive long enough to give them my Poke Puffs. And I’d rather not risk using any of my machinery against that thing.”

“I can work with that!” Miette chirped, suddenly standing up. “Did you bring my Poke Balls with you, Amelia?”

“Of course not,” the old engineer blatantly stated. “Why would I carry someone’s balls with me to work?”

Miette flashed a confident smile with a raised fist. “Those “balls” contain powerful creatures who could be used to stall for time against the Envoy of Gluttony while you get the Poke Puffs!”

Amelia lowered her eyelids. “The Envoy of Gluttony could eat them just the same as it did the Denizens of the Canals of Fondue Car.”

Miette’s excited expression slowly faded as she processed the sudden revelation, lowering her fist, looking more and more worried as she finished realizing what this meant. 

Luckily, a sudden arrival got her attention instead: it was a very sharp piece of paper slicing the envoy’s tongue in half, the envoy looking rather unamused before another tongue swallowed it and reformed.

With that done, the envoy turned around to see the arrival of a new set of challengers; a giant origami bird that promptly transformed into a tall, silver-haired humanoid, a small corgi with a cape and a crown, and a familiar redheaded girl with a scythe-bat hybrid.

“Prepare to surrender, evildoer!” the humanoid proclaimed. “For we are the Red Lotus Trio, and your reign of terror is at an end!”

.

.

.

“You must be… Chloe of the Vermillion, correct?”

“And I’m her legendary princely aide, Lexi isolde Aristophenes! Trademarked,” the paper man exclaimed as he bowed down. “And the guy next to us is-”

“King Atticus, king of Corginia, uniter of the Pembrokes and Cardigans!” Atticus answered, Lexi whispering an “also trademarked” as the corgi continued. “We’ve never met before!”

“Hmm, I dunno,” Amelia scratched her chin. “You look kinda familiar to me…”

“Oh no, you and I did meet before,” Atticus lowered his eyelids. “And you’re still banned from Corginia.”

“Eh, suit yourself,” the engineer shrugged. “I’m more of a cat person myself.”

The Cat was naturally disgusted. “Ugh, don’t even!”

“The Red Lotus Trio, huh?” the Envoy of Gluttony smirked. “Finally, I get to find out what you really taste like!”

Chloe winced at the comment, but immediately gripped her weapon and bolted straight at the beast alongside Lexi and Atticus. They did this while leaving the stand owners to back away, hastily taking their stands down before running away from the scene.

“Are we really going to trust the impostor?” Amelia asked out loud.

“We don’t have any other options; none of us can fight, only stall for time,” The Cat responded. “As long as that group of ragtags buy us enough time for one of us to get an idea-”

“I got something!”

The trio stopped on their tracks and turned to Miette, who scratched her chin while showing a wide smile as she looked at the fight against the envoy.

“You have an idea, Miette?” Frank asked, sounding slightly hopeful.

“I sure do,” Miette’s smile widened. “But it’s a crazy one!”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Serena stood at the stage where her performance would take place, taking a couple of deep breaths while Delphox stared at her.

“Okay, Delphox, repeat after me!” Serena raised her fists. “You can do this!”

“Delphox!” the Pokemon shouted, imitating her trainer’s movements.

Serena paused and chuckled to herself. “This never gets old…”

“Serena?”

The girl turned around and

"Oh, Ash, Pikachu!" Serena chirped as she waved goodbye and the Kantonian trainer approached her. "What brings you here?"

"Nothing, really, I just wanted to see if you were okay," Ash answered before smiling. "Ready to deliver a great performance?"

"Absolutely!" Serena formed a smile and twiddled her fingers. "A great performance…"

Serena looked at the ground for a moment, her smile slowly turning into a frown as Ash and Pikachu quickly noticed the change in demeanor.

"Pikapi?"

"Huh?!" Serena gasped. "What? What happened?"

"Serena, is something on your mind?" Ash tilted his head. "I'm here if you need someone to talk to."

"Thanks, Ash, but I can't accept that offer," Serena looked elsewhere and scratched the back of her head. "You did so much for me back in Kalos, and I can only imagine what you've been going through here in Vermillion City. I came to help, so-"

“Serena, you’re my friend, if you need to talk then I’m here for you,” Ash shrugged. “Unless you wanna tell me you’re suffering from performance anxiety?"

"You'd be surprised at how many Performers actually experience performance anxiety, before a performance or not," Serena giggled. "I can name a few I've heard had that issue; Sara Lee, Shauna, Regina Frost…"

Serena paused when she saw Ash and Pikachu staring at her, with her then turning to Delphox before she spilled the beans:

"I'm… not quite confident in whether this performance is going to help. The more I learn about what happened in Vermillion City with the Chloe girl, the more I'm left wondering… can I really make a change? Can I be of help?"

"Of course you can!" Ash chirped, Pikachu nodding in agreement. "Just the fact you're actually trying to make things better here already speaks volumes. And besides, I'm sure that after everything that's happened, everybody here could use something like one of your performances to ease the tension."

“Yeah, but… I basically came here on a whim,” Serena looked elsewhere. “I heard you needed help, and I just… decided to go to Kanto as soon as I could. I didn’t really come up with a plan, and this performance is just an idea.”

Serena lowered her head. “If it doesn’t work…”

It was then that Ash placed a hand on Serena's shoulder, flashing a reassuring smile alongside Pikachu as he stated:

“Serena, I believe in you. I’ve seen your performances in your shows before, and if this one is anything like those, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Serena's eyes glimmered slightly, and she blushed as she answered:

"Thanks, Ash. You don't know how much I appreciate those words from you."

"Well, I'm just happy to be of help," Ash shrugged. "Haven't had the best luck with that lately."

Serena giggled. "Noted. Now, could you leave? I gotta change into my outfit."

"Oh, right, sorry," Ash flinched before walking to the curtains. "Show's about to start and all."

Then, he reached for the curtains…

"Oh, and Serena?"

The trainer tipped his hat and smiled.

"Blow them away."

The Alola League Champion left shortly afterwards, leaving Serena to process her new found determination as she stretched with a confident smile.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Back at the Canals of Fondue Car, the Red Lotus Trio continued their battle against the Envoy of Gluttony, who opened several of their mouths and unleashed several tentacle-like tongues against them.

Lexi was the first to counterattack, sending several razor sharp paper planes against the tongues, slicing them to bits before sending a row of similarly sharp papers against the beast. Each paper successfully hit the beast, giving them several cuts across their body.

“Ha! Take that!”

However, his joy was short-lived, as mouths appeared next to the cuts and ate the cuts in a single bite, licking their lips before vanishing from existence.

“What the-?!”

One of the tongues nearly struck Lexi before Atticus tackled him out of the way, allowing the paper shapeshifter to throw a row of papers and cut the tongue to bits.

“Lexi, you need to stay focused if we’re to survive this battle!”

“I know, I know!” Lexi groaned as he stood up. “Chloe, we could use some firepower here!”

“I’m on it!”

The redhead raised her scythe-bat hybrid and she closed her eyes as she focused her power. The scythe portion of the weapon was wrapped in flames, and once enough focus was gathered, she opened her eyes and shouted:

“Flamethrower!”

Chloe slammed the scythe down, with it unleashing a row of flames towards the Envoy of Gluttony, eventually consuming the entire monster as soon as it reached them, their form completely covered in scorching flames… until they opened as many mouths as possible and used them to eat the flames, and the scorched skin they had, regenerating it soon after.

“Crispy.”

“Impossible!” Chloe exclaimed. “They ate the flames?!”

“So it appears that the legends are true!” Atticus remarked. “it is said that the Envoy of Gluttony is the embodiment of not only the gluttonous nature of the Demon Lord of Gluttony, but the gluttony of all Passengers and Denizens, giving them the ability to eat absolutely anything!”

Lexi, naturally, wasn’t amused. “And you didn’t bring this up until now, why!?”

“The Infinity Train is no stranger to exaggerations and tall tales, I mean, remember that group who believed The Apex were the ultimate evil of the Infinity Train?” Atticus shook his head in disapproval. “I still can’t believe people would go that far. I mean, their numbers aren't even that big!"

"Guys, stay focused!" Chloe exclaimed. "Think! How do we hurt this thing if it'll just devour the damage?!"

"Hey, you gluttonous tool!"

Everybody turned around to see Miette and the stand owners… the former striking a teacup pose while covered in sweets and frosting.

"Dessert is served!"

What followed was silence of absolute disbelief, the other stand owners looking away as the Red Lotus Trio stared at Miette like she had gone insane.

Even Chloe didn't know how to take this scene.

As for the Envoy of Gluttony, they licked their lips before one of their tongues wrapped Miette and slurped her in.

"Miette!" Chloe cried.

But before the redhead could dive to the rescue, the Envoy of Gluttony promptly spat out Miette, who bounced to Chloe's side, no longer covered in sweets but saliva instead.

"Oh thank goodness!" the redhead sighed, oblivious to Miette's surging rage. "What were you thinking?! You could've-"

"Seriously!?! You ate the frosting but not me!?" Miette yelled, jumping up before stomping the ground. "I'm the most delicious part of the entire package!"

The Envoy of Gluttony took a quick scan of Miette… then stuck out their tongue before walking away.

Naturally, Miette's rage exploded, and she snatched Chloe's weapon and ran off towards one of the beast's many mouths. However, no matter how hard she tried smacking it with the scythe-bat, the mouth's jagged teeth wouldn't move to give her a path.

So she did the next best thing: put all her strength on her legs and kick it open. It took a couple of kicks, but eventually the teeth cracked and shattered, giving the bluette a free entry into the monster’s stomach.

With that done, Miette threw the weapon away, hopped right into the mouth, sliding down its tongue and onto the belly of the beast as everybody stared in sheer shock and disbelief.

…

Even Azazel stood perplexed.

"Did… did that seriously just happen?"

"Did something interesting happen?"

The fallen angel turned around to see a portal door open, and from there came out a woman with red eyes, white hair styled like a sheep's wool, and a black business suit.

“Master Pandemonica?!” Azazel exclaimed. “What are you doing here?!”

“My envoy is the one who was sent here, it’s only natural that I’d come check and see how it’s doing so far,” Pandemonica answered in a droozy tone. “How’s the fight so far? Has the Demon Lord of Deceit done a dent on it yet?”

Pandemonica sipped her cup, all the while Azazel stared at her with concern.

"Relax, this is milk coffee; it won't make me go into psycho bitch mode," Pandemonica sighed. "Now answer me already, how is the fight coming along?"

Azazel paused, and whispered what happened to Pandemonica. And to her credit, the Demon Lord of Gluttony seemed just as perplexed.

“So you mean to tell me someone actually ran to my envoy, broke their mouth, and jumped into their mouth?”

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it either, but it did happen!” Azazel perked up. “Such craziness is not common in Passengers! In fact, I don't think I've seen someone pull such an insane tactic since the Tulip Twosome!"

“Hmm, it has been a while since a Passenger with decent levels of audacity appeared," Pandemonica turned back to the scene. "And she's different from the Demon Lord of Deceit?"

Azazel nodded. "She seems to be from the same world, but that's about it."

Pandemonica hummed to herself… and sipped her milk coffee before turning back to the fight, smiling slightly.

"This should be interesting."

Chapter Text

This chapter was going to be longer, I promise, but the ending was so cool that I couldn’t bring myself to add anymore to it.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Miette couldn’t help but giggle to herself as she slid down the meaty caves of the Envoy of Gluttony’s stomach, eventually sliding and landing safely on top of some sort of platform, doing a three point landing for good measure.

“Alright! I got in!” the bluette chirped as she stood up and dusted herself. “Now, let’s see if anybody else survived entering this monster’s stomach.”

The bluette put her arms behind her head and walked around, making sure to hop from platform to platform to avoid the literal sea of stomach acid surrounding her and whoever else was trapped on the stomach.

One of those hops caused her to bump into a random object that fell down, but it managed to send her straight to the platform, while the object hit the stomach acid, dissolving immediately.

“Geez, that was close,” Miette remarked. “It’s a good thing that there are random platforms spread across this place, or else that would’ve been bad. Come to think of it, it’s rather odd this place has an atmosphere, too-”

“It’s all part of this monster’s design.”

Miette turned around, and saw a small cheese humanoid sitting at the edge of a platform, looking at the vast oceans of stomach acid with a melancholic look as Miette walked to them.

"Alas, it appears the Envoy of Gluttony has eaten another Passenger-"

"Nah, I came here on my own!"

The humanoid paused, then stood up and faced the bluette. “Wait, what?!”

“I know, it sounds crazy, but let me explain; someone came to help fight the envoy, but none of their attacks were working, something about their body being too tough to hurt or something,” Miette hastily clarified. “So, I thought if I got eaten myself, I could strike from the inside and weaken one of the monster’s walls enough to kill them!”

The cheese humanoid stayed silent.

"So, whatcha think?" Miette flashed a thumbs up. "Awesome plan, right?"

"... Kid, body fat is as thick on the inside as it is on the outside."

Miette paused. "What?"

"If you couldn't hurt the monster from the outside, you won't have any luck doing it from the inside either."

Miette's eyes diluted. "What?"

"Plus, this is a magical monster created by a train that goes on forever and has infinite worlds inside its cars," the cheese humanoid folded his arms. "Even if your idea was correct, who's to say the Envoy of Gluttony would operate on it?"

Miette began shivering as she properly processed what this all meant.

“Besides, only certain types of attacks can even penetrate the envoy’s skin before it eats it and regenerates,” the humanoid added. “What attacks were used against the envoy? Who even did it?”

“Oh, uh, if I remember correctly, it was several swings from some weird weapon and razor sharp paper planes,” Miette answered, calming down a bit. “The ones who attacked were a small talking corgi, some paper shapeshifter who looked like a Yu-Gi-Oh character, and a redheaded girl-”

“The Red Lotus Trio?!”

Miette jumped and turned around to see all the Denizens who were eaten by the envoy popping up out of nowhere, each looking more hopeful than before.

“The Red Lotus Trio have come to save us!”

“We’re saved!”

“Our prayers have been answered!”

And as the cheer party continued, Miette turned back to the humanoid. “I thought they would’ve been dissolved by now?”

“They shared your dumb luck in landing on platforms rather than the stomach acid, but even if they did, they are slowly being devoured,” the humanoid answered before raising and looking at his melting fingers. “The longer we stay here, the more the envoy eats us, until eventually we are devoured and our souls are reset.”

“So they’re aware of that little fact,” Miette turned back to the blissfully ignorant cheerful cheese creatures. “And yet they haven’t tried to find a way out of it?”

“It’s impossible to leave the envoy’s stomach once devoured,” the humanoid revealed. “Either its master chooses to release us, or we’re fully devoured. There’s no in between.”

Miette hummed… then got an idea. “So, what would you say if there might be a way to get out of here?”

“... I’m listening.”

Miette looked back at the cheering cheese people and leaned closer to the humanoid’s ears before whispering:

“Just before being eaten, one of the customers was given a bag filled with pastries so bad that the last unlucky schmuck to eat them exploded. If we make the envoy eat those things, it might be enough to cause them such indigestion they’ll spit everyone back out! Or die. Either one works.”

“A lot of my people have been eaten by this monster before, and they’ve been mourned endlessly,” the cheese person scratched their chin. “This could be the perfect chance to avenge them.”

After thinking about it for a moment, the cheese person shook hands with Miette.

“Very well! Let’s look for this bag of pastries together and make the envoy pay for eating my people!”

“That’s the spirit!” Miette chirped. “It’s good to know there’s someone here who’s actually willing to put in the effort!”

"Allow me to introduce myself,” the cheese person bowed. “My name is Zurich von Fondue XIII. I go by He/Him and They/Them."

“Kinda random for you to reveal your pronouns, but okay!” Miette bowed back. “I’m Miette Neogaya. I go by She/Her, and… actually, just She/Her.”

Zurich chuckled, and said:

“Come, let’s go look for those pastries.”

Miette nodded, and she and Zurich hopped deeper into the envoy’s stomach, all while the cheese people continued to cheer for the Red Lotus Trio.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The citizens of Vermillion City had gathered around a large stage set in the middle of the city, with Ash looking at the crowd with a wide smile.

“Looks like the stage is packed.”

The boy turned around and saw Tomie walk towards him, phone in hand.

“Yup; apparently telling people to come see the show was all I needed to do,” Ash scratched his chin. “Though for some reason, they kept saying how they couldn’t reject “the Champion of Alola” even if they wanted to.”

“Bah, don’t pay attention to them,” the older woman waved her hand. “They’re just a bunch of children looking for an excuse to complain.”

The woman looked at her phone, and Ash and Pikachu quickly noticed. “You want to record the performance?”

“Yeah, Goh asked me to do it,” Tomie answered with a smile. “He told me he wasn’t going to be able to come to Vermillion City for a while, so he asked me to film the performance and show it to him when I have the time.”

“So he’s not coming?”

The familiar voice caught the trio’s attention, and once they turned around to see Trip walking towards them, Tomie’s expression got a little more stern while Ash and Pikachu glared.

“As it turns out, Goh won’t be able to come back home for a little bit,” Tomie explained calmly. “He did want to see what Serena’s performance was about, so he asked me to film the performance and send it to him when I had the chance.”

Then, she put a hand on her hip and boasted, “And before you ask, yes, I happen to be a rare breed of senior who actually knows how to use a phone!”

“Huh, that’s… good to know,” Trip remarked awkwardly. “And I see Goh and Chloe’s classmates came as well. Honestly, it’s a nice change of pace to see them being normal kids instead of-”

However, when Trip turned around, Ash and Pikachu were nowhere to be seen, the guy having to look around for a bit before he saw them sitting alongside the students.

“I don’t think Ash is going to be willing to engage in small talk for now,” Tomie remarked. “For now, let’s watch the show and just… try to enjoy it.”

“... Okay.”

The duo promptly sat down with the rest, and Tomie began recording as the curtains parted and a light shone in the middle of the stage, revealing Serena sitting down while covered in a dark blue mantle.

She then stood up and spread her mantle, revealing she was wearing an old timey kimono as she narrated:

"In ancient times, before Sinnoh had been colonized, the Pokemon living around them had vastly different forms. They took these forms either as a result of the environment of what was once called Hisui, or thanks to the intervention of humanity.”

Serena stepped on the stage, causing it to light up to reveal it now resembled the ocean, with every step Serena took afterwards causing ripples across it.

“Among the many Pokemon who had different forms as a result of their environment, there was one that everyone knows, that everyone makes fun of, and that once upon a time was seen as an inconsequential creature.”

It was then that a certain Pokemon jumped out of the water, their form resembling a familiar Pokemon down to its coloring:

“The Magikarp.”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Back at the belly of the beast, Miette and Zurich kept hopping from platform to platform, avoiding the bubbles emerging from the stomach acid as they did.

“So, Zurich, right?” Miette blurted. “You said your people were eaten by this monster. What did you mean by that?”

“We food-based denizens are always at risk of being devoured by the Envoy of Gluttony,” Zurich explained. “The Demon Lord of Gluttony, as their sin represents, is someone who likes to eat. And to satisfy her appetite, her envoy takes us from our homes and delivers us to her in order to feed her.”

“Her?” Miette repeated. “The Demon Lord is a woman?”

“Demon Lord is but a mere title,” Zurich answered. “Those who hold it are called that regardless of their sex or gender.”

“Hmm, I see, that’s good to know,” Miette said before she scanned the area once more. “He should be here somewhere… there!”

Miette pointed at the distance, and Zurich gasped, seeing the familiar figure of Pyramid Head holding a bag in one hand, while throwing his gigantic sword against the fleshy walls with the other hand.

“Just as I feared, he hasn’t dropped the dumbo bag into the stomach acid,” Miette sighed. “You’d think he’d focus more on getting out of this place than holding onto some dumb pastries, even if they’re for his brother-”

“Pyramid Head!?” Zurich shouted, though not loudly enough to get the monster’s attention. “You tried to give bogus pastries to Pyramid Head!?”

“He was an ordinary soldier before the Envoy of Gluttony appeared and started causing havoc,” Miette explained. “He transformed into this pyramid guy in order to fight the envoy, but he was eaten regardless. Anyway, let’s go see him.”

“We have to be careful not to get on his bad side,” Zurich stated, briefly blocking Miette’s way. “Pyramid Head is one of the most dangerous Denizens on the Infinity Train. One wrong move, and he’ll cut us apart with no problem!”

“And then he’ll die alone, digested by a giant monster with a hundred mouths,” Miette pointed out. “Listen, I agree he looks like a loon, but even he has to understand he doesn’t have much of a choice here.”

And so, Miette walked forward, a nervous Zurich following her to see how they would deal with the pyramid-headed creature…

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Serena walked across the ocean floor, causing ripples as Magikarp swam around her.

“The Magikarp were once a singular Pokemon. They were born and stayed Magikarp, they lacked the ability to evolve like other Pokemon.”

Serena crouched down and patted one of the Magikarp, who kept swimming leisurely.

“Because of this, humans and Pokemon alike tended to ignore them. And even when they were the center of attention, it was when they were being grabbed and cooked to eat.”

Serena frowned. “They were a very sad existence, indeed.”

Serena stood up and took a deep breath.

“But there was one Magikarp who wasn’t like the rest.”

Another light turned on, this one shining upon a Shiny Magikarp, whose expression resembled a furious brow similar to a certain evolution of theirs.

“A Magikarp who wanted their species to become something greater. Something more than the food of humans and other Pokemon. So they gathered courage in order to break through their limits, and achieve evolution.”

Serena placed her fan in front of her face, covering her mouth as she faced the audience.

“But how, I hear you ask. How did a simple, stupid Magikarp get to evolve? Well, my dear audience, they did it the old fashioned way.”

Serena stomped the ground, and behind her, a giant waterfall emerged, the ground shaking as she proclaimed:

“Through perseverance!”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Miette and Zurich were thrown far back by a swing of Pyramid Head’s blade, the creature roaring before continuing to pummel the fleshy walls with it, all while still gripping the bag of Poke Puffs

“You’re not getting anywhere, dude!” Miette yelled as she stood up and dusted herself. “Drop the damn puffs already!” 

Miette promptly ran towards the monster, eventually getting far enough to grab the bag, but this only caused Pyramid Head to flinch and smack Miette with the sword again, this time sending her flying all the way across the stomach.

“Miette!” Zurich called.

The cheesy humanoid began running towards the bluette as she hit a fleshy wall and rolled down, eventually stopping once she hit a platform.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

“The Magikarp had a special coloration, but this wasn’t the only reason they stood out among their crowd.”

Serena looked around as the Shiny Magikarp swam around, bumping into other Magikarp to try get their attention, only for the Magikarps to continue swimming without a care in the world.

“They were more energetic. Brash. Reckless. All in all, they showed much more energy than the average Magikarp.”

The Shiny Magikarp eventually stopped bumping into Magikarps, and jumped up and down as they repeatedly tested out some moves: Water Gun, Bubblebeam, and so on.

“So, when their brethren didn’t listen to them, they decided to train on their own, and attempt to learn new moves on their own. But even with all their strength, and all their effort, there was one thing they could never change.”

The Magikarp began swimming up the waterfall, managing to go up a few feet as Serena added:

“They were still just one Magikarp. One that had never tried to go the lengths any other Magikarp had gone before.”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

“Miette, are you alright?!”

The bluette caught her breath as she got up and saw Zurich run up to her, looking visibly worried. She then touched her nose, and looked at her fingertips to see blood at the tip. All while in the distance, Pyramid Head kept struggling against the fleshy walls to no avail.

“Those puffs might be our only ticket to freedom…” Miette groaned. “But how are we gonna get them off that monster’s hands?”

Zurich looked back at Pyramid Head… and got an idea.

“Miette, I think I know how to pry those things off his hand. Want to give it a try?”

The bluette paused and chuckled.

“Either we die doing nothing and allowing the envoy to eat us, or we die trying to escape. I think you know what I’d rather pick.”

Zurich nodded, and the cheese person glowed before attaching to Miette and transforming into a set of armor made of cheese, the bluette taking a moment to look at her new armor before she reached for her back and took out what looked like a flashbang.

“Regardless, the Magikarp refused to be deterred.”

Miette gripped the flashbang, and ran towards Pyramid Head.

“She swam and swam with all her strength, coming closer and closer to the top of the waterfall.”

The pyramid-headed monster noticed Miette’s approach, and growled as he raised his blade once more, all while Miette smirked and gripped her flashbang.

“Despite the danger of the fall ahead, the Magikarp kept swimming as hard and hard as she could.”

Miette threw the flashbang as Pyramid Head swung the sword, causing it to go off and blind the monster, even making him stagger and take a step back as his grip on the bag loosened.

“Until eventually…”

Miette leapt forward towards the bag of Poke Puffs… and snatched it right out of his arms.

“She reached her goal.”

Pyramid Head roared as he reached for the bag, only for Miette to jump up as high as she could and stick out her tongue against the monster.

“Sorry, Pyramid Head, but I need these puffs for something else!” Miette began spinning the bag around. “Hey, Envoy of Gluttony!”

Miette began spinning her arm faster and faster until she was ready.

“This one’s on the house!”

The artificial samurai launched the bag into the stomach acid, with it dissolving and being devoured by the acid immediately, leaving Pyramid Head to drop to his knees and roar in despair.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The Magikarp reached the top of the waterfall, making a tiny splash before the top of the waterfall began to glow.

“Once she reached the top, the Magikarp felt relieved. Satisfied. But that wasn’t the end of it.”

The glow intensified, as a large figure began to emerge from the top.

“The Magikarp had managed to get past. No longer were they a meek and defenseless Magikarp. They had crossed the threshold into becoming something stronger. Something greater. Something… entirely new.”

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Back at the Canals of Fondue Car, the Envoy of Gluttony kept fighting the Red Lotus Trio until they suddenly stopped, and put a hand over what their stomach would possibly be, and the spot began to create cracks.

“What’s going on?” Lexi asked.

The cracks spread as they began to glow as well, the envoy expanding as they did. And of everybody, Chloe was the first to react.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!”

The trio ran away and jumped down alongside Amelia, The Cat, and Frank, moments before the envoy glowed and exploded, sending the citizens of the Canals of Fondue Car flying all over the place…

With the last person emerging being a humanoid figure.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

From the top of the waterfall emerged a long, serpentine figure, one who unleashed a colossal roar as its form covered the moon, bathing it in moonlight as it began to fly back down to the ground, unveiling their true form as a red, Shiny Water/Flying type that everyone was well aware of.

The Pokemon flew down and surrounded Serena, raising their head as she closed her fan and finished with a little smile:

“A Gyarados.”

The Shiny Gyarados roared…

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

And the humanoid figure laughed as she plummeted to the ground, eventually landing on her feet as the dust settled and her form became more visible. The Red Lotus Trio and stand owners came out of their spot to see the denizens cheering for the figure, with Chloe taking a few steps forward as she recognized the figure.

“Miette?”

The bluette raised her helmet, flashing a cocky smile as she placed the sword over her shoulder.

“Guess they should’ve tried to dine and dash, huh?”

Chapter Text

So, yeah, this was gonna come eventually.

In case you haven’t learned before, I’ve grown a bit… uneasy, with the Blossomverse. The fact that there’s still so much spite, blame throwing, and just straight up suffering with only a very thinly veiled excuse to try and explain over two years since the original story went underway…

Honestly, it got really tiring and emotionally exhausting after a while, and I simply couldn’t take it anymore after that. So, I’m quitting the verse, and trying to distance myself from it.

For this story, for example, I decided to reboot it into a story titled Blueberry Baby’s Breath, which is exclusively about Miette and Serena. No Impostor Chloe, no Team Changeling, just some good old lesbian drama. 

However, I don’t wanna leave the people who stuck with this story without a conclusion, especially since this story got a lot more attention than I thought it would. So, I’m doing what I did for another IT crossover of mine, One and the Same: I’m writing an epilogue showing where everybody is right now, and how their stories come to an end.

Not sure if this will apply to Crown of Thorns, though; that story is very detached from the Blossomverse as is, so I don’t think it needs to be canceled or cut short. I just need to find the time to work on it amidst my billion other stories.

Anyhow, I’ve blabbered long enough. Let’s go.

…

Few were the times when the Infinity Train had been shaken to the core. In a locomotive that housed infinite worlds, everything was possible, even the most shocking things.

And yet, that didn't stop the denizens and passengers from within to take two big shocks.

First was the arrival of one Chloe of the Vermillion, who was given the mission to stop The Apex by One-One. She gathered allies, went through great adventures, and seemed on her way to bring a new age of peace in the Train.

And then, a certain girl named Miette appeared, and from there everything got upside down.

Chloe wasn’t the real one, but an impostor by the name of Regina. The Demon Lords who had initially gathered interest in her turned their attention to Miette, and helped uncover the truth about Regina. The Apex, who up until that point were seen as the worst evil on the Train, were confirmed to not only not be that bad, but that several denizens and passengers were worse than them. And the Demon Lords were destroyed, freeing the Train from their influence.

The Red Lotus Trio, as Regina’s group was known, disbanded soon after, and Miette and Regina completed their journey soon afterwards, allowing them to leave the train.

“Even now, it’s impressive how many things happened in such a short amount of time, and I was hardly there to see any of it,” One-One said as he pressed some buttons at the motherboard. “But oh well, the past is in the past, and we need to move forward.”

The doors to the engine room slid open, and from there entered a certain duo composed of an older brunette engineer, and the former leader of The Apex, who both wore worker uniforms.

“You know what to do.” 

The women raised their hands, and while Amelia nodded, Grace stated:

“Yes sir!”

…

Duplica had been through many identities. Sometimes she was a waitress, sometimes she was a reporter, other times she was a swimmer, and there was even one time she was Ash Ketchum. Long story short, she had been a lot of people.

But being herself for once… it felt strange.

“Hey, everything okay?"

Duplica stopped on her tracks and turned around to see none other than Mallow, one of the Alolan trial captains, approaching her with a worried look.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” Duplica sighed. “I just got… daydreaming, I guess?”

Mallow hummed. “Does it have something to do with Domino?”

Duplica fell silent, and that was all the answer that Mallow needed.

“Listen, I know it’s tough to move on from her. You two were together for a long time and she tricked you into thinking you were doing the right thing, but you can’t keep thinking about it,” Mallow said as she placed a hand on Duplica’s shoulder. “Domino’s been placed under arrest. Team Changeling has been disbanded-”

“But for how long will it stay like that?” Duplica sighed. “Domino’s not the kind of prisoner who stays around for long. Eventually, she’ll get out, and when she does, Team Changeling will have all the items they need to surface once again.”

Duplica lowered her head and looked rather preoccupied. Noticing this, Mallow wasted no time making a reassuring declaration:

“If that happens, I’ll be there to help you.”

Duplica turned back to Mallow, who showed a reassuring smile that, slowly but surely, brought a smile to Duplica as well, who wrapped her arm around Mallow as she said with a honest tone:

“Thanks, Mallow.”

…

A girl was resting in a cafe in Santalune City, looking down at her reflection on her cup of tea with an expression of sadness and regret.

The girl in question was Regina, the one who impersonated “Chloe of the Vermillion” on the Infinity Train, and who had been allowed the leave the train and go back home once she managed to work out her issues.

“Mind if I sit here?”

The girl raised her head and saw a guy with an orange jacket and a camera wrapped around his neck looking at her with a neutral expression. She then eyed the empty seat in front of her, and looked back at the guy.

“I don’t mind.”

He sat down shortly afterwards, and stared at the girl for a moment before he explained himself:

“My name is Trip. Trip Espinosa.”

“I’m…” Regina paused. “Regina. Nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Trip replied. “So, I’m sorry if I bothered you, but I thought you looked… familiar.”

Regina paused, then lowered her head. “You heard, haven’t you?”

Trip folded his arms. “Once news about Team Changeling became public, a list of their agents and the people they impersonated. And you were among them.”

Regina frowned and looked elsewhere.

“Now don’t worry, I’m not angry at you. In fact, most people aren’t: they understand that you were simply swept along with the prospect of a better life, and you didn’t mean to cause problems.”

“I feel really terrible about it,” Regina sighed. “And I really would like to move on from that decision, so please, could you… not bring it up?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t, I just wanted to ask…” Trip tilted his head. “Why did you choose to impersonate Chloe Cerise of all people?”

Regina scratched her chin and hummed as she thought about it for a moment. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really remember. I think it had something to do about her life being better than mine, but…”

Trip tilted his head again, then sighed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter the reason why you did it. Especially since I can’t exactly get angry, because I also did something dumb related to that Chloe girl.”

Regina raised her head with curiosity. “Wait, what? You too?”

Trip chuckled and flashed a little smile. “Well, it all started here in Unova…”

...

Things had gone back to normal at the Cerise Institute. Professor Cerise had gone back to work with his wife as one of his assistants, alongside Renji and Chryssa, and the children of the house, Chloe and Parker, were checking the Pokemon around them.

They had taken over the position of research assistants after Ash and Goh had left said positions, the former having moved to continue his journey after winning, while the latter decided to pay a visit to Celadon City in order to begin his own Pokemon Journey. And they were getting accustomed to their new job.

“Hey, Chloe?”

The redheaded Eevee trainer looked down at her brother, who had a raised eyebrow.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you’ve never liked Pokemon, so I figured working as a research assistant with Dad would be your worst nightmare.”

Chloe just flashed a little smile at the question and sighed. “That’s true, Parker. Or at least, it used to be true. I used to not like Pokemon and wanted nothing to do with them.”

Then, she turned to face her Eevee and Yamper, who looked at her with wide smiles, which she returned as she added:

“But the longer I hung out with Eevee and Yamper, the more I came to realize that I did like them, but I didn’t know how to properly express it, nor how to get along with them. But helping take down Team Changeling made me realize what I wanted to do.”

Chloe petted both Eevee and Yamper, finishing with:

“So, I don’t mind anymore. If anything, I’m kind of excited to see how this works out. Especially since Dad said he could use our help for a little project.”

“A project?” Parker blinked twice. “What project?”

Chloe eyed her little brother, then winked before walking over to her father, folding her arms with a smile as Parker chased her.

“Hey, come back! What project?!”

…

At a certain house in Vaniville Town, a blue-haired girl sat on a couch, looking at the ceiling as she lost herself in thought.

Miette still had trouble believing everything that just happened. From being snatched by an eternal train with infinite worlds, to helping topple down an organization of identity thieves, up to fighting literal demon lords, if she hadn’t partnered up with Ash Ketchum, all of this would be completely beyond her comprehension.

But you know what they say: if you hang out with Ash Ketchum, you should expect weird things to happen to you sooner or later.

At least, she’s pretty sure someone said that once.

“Everything okay, Miette?”

The bluette smiled and looked back to see her girlfriend, Serena, walk up to her, looking slightly worried.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” Miette stretched and placed her arms behind her head. “Just thinking about everything that happened on the Train… and to the fact that… well-”

“We’re together now?” Serena finished.

Miette flashed a smile. “Yeah, in fact… I’m kinda curious about what you think… about us.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Us?”

“Serena, you had a crush on Ash. Everybody who saw you two immediately realized what was going on, including me,” Miette explained. “And yet, while you managed to kiss him, you didn’t manage to get together with him like you wanted.”

The bluette scratched the back of her head and looked elsewhere. “Instead, you got together with… me. And I haven’t exactly been good girlfriend material since.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Serena replied. “Listen, we may have had our differences when we first met, and we clashed many times, but that’s all in the past.”

Serena grabbed Miette’s hand with both of her own and leaned closer to her.

“I’ve had enough time to consider my feelings, and while I still love Ash, I understand that he’s unlikely to settle down with me. He still has his Journey to continue, and while I could accompany the whole way through, that’s not what I want.”

Then, with a little blush, Serena added:

“And besides, the more I got to know you, the more I started to find you… charming. And maybe, we could make this work.”

“You think I’m charming?” Miette smirked. “Even with all the pranks and teasing I did to you before?”

Serena just kissed Miette’s nose and replied with a cheeky expression:

“That’s just part of your charm and you know it.”

Miette’s blush greatly identified and she looked away to hide her stupefied smile.

“Besides, that’s all in the past,” Serena continued, pulling Miette closer to her. “I think we should focus on the here and now. And right now, I want to make this work… with you.”

Miette looked back at Serena… then planted a quick peck on her cheek.

“I want that too.”

Serena looked shocked for a moment before she lowered her eyelids with a dreamy look, and then the duo sat down on the couch again, embracing each other in a hug. And with a single tear falling down the bluette’s cheek, she said:

“Serena…”

“Yeah, Miette?”

“... I love you.”

Serena smiled and embraced her girlfriend harder with joy.

“... I love you, too.”