The Indigo Plateau Conference was the biggest event in Kanto, and the vendors who set up stalls during the festival knew it. Business was booming. If the Conference Champion himself showed up at your booth, that was free advertising money couldn't buy.
The vendor's voice carried. Heads turned. People drifted closer.
"Wait, is that Ash?"
"It looks like him, but... isn't he supposed to be at Dragon Island already?"
"I've been staring at him for five minutes trying to figure out if it's a lookalike. Even the Pikachu is perfect."
"All Pikachu look the same."
"Ash's Pikachu is not the same."
Ash rubbed his forehead. So that was why people had been giving him strange looks all evening without approaching. Everyone assumed he'd already left for Dragon Island, which meant anyone who looked like him at the festival had to be an impersonator. Nobody had bothered to confirm because the conclusion seemed obvious.
He hadn't even asked Mewtwo for a disguise. He hadn't needed one. Public assumption had done the work for him.
As for why the vendor had recognised him on sight, the man's logic was simpler: real or fake, if someone who looked like the Champion was standing at his booth, that was good for business.
The crowd was growing. Ash sighed. After this booth, he'd need Mewtwo to cloak them, or the date was over.
"Twenty shots, please!" Misty spoke up before the crowd could close in. Priorities. The Starmie plush came first.
"Here you go." The vendor handed over the long toy rifle loaded with rubber pellets. Ash looked at the prize shelf, then at the longing in Misty's eyes, and held out his hands for Togepi.
"You go first."
"Me?"
"Take ten. Leave the rest for me." One shot would be enough for him, but ten gave him room to win her a few extras besides the Starmie.
Misty passed Togepi over and took the gun. She propped it against her shoulder, sighted down the barrel at the Starmie plush, and realised her hands were shaking. She'd faced Gym battles with less anxiety than this.
The first shot missed clean. So did the second. And the third through sixth.
On the seventh, the rubber pellet struck the Starmie dead centre.
The plush rocked backward a centimetre and settled back into place.
"What?! It didn't fall?!" Misty's voice hit a pitch that made Pikachu's ears flatten.
"Easy there." The vendor held up both hands, not remotely apologetic. "If one hit knocked them down, I'd be out of business by lunch. The targets are huge. Hitting them isn't the hard part. Moving them is."
He hadn't rigged the game with hidden supports or glued bases. He'd just tuned down the gun's power. One hit nudged the plush. You needed four or five solid connections to actually topple one. Standard carnival economics. The plushies cost more than two hundred apiece at retail. If every amateur knocked one down in a single round, he'd be bankrupt.
Misty grudgingly accepted the logic. She fired her last three shots. All three missed. She handed the gun back to Ash with a defeated sigh, clutched Togepi to her chest, and put on her best encouraging face.
"Good luck, Ash!"
"I'll get you everything you want." The grin he gave her was warm and confident and directed at the prize shelf. He didn't notice Misty's ears turning pink.
The vendor leaned back and lit a cigarette. Champion or not, Pokémon battles and marksmanship were different skill sets. Without training, the kid would be just like everyone else.
Three or four rounds to win a single plush was above average. Some customers couldn't manage one in ten. Long-term market experience had taught the vendor not to worry.
Ash raised the gun with one hand, and fired.
The vendor flinched. Does this kid know what he's...
The first shot missed. Wide of the Starmie by a good margin. The vendor exhaled.
Then Ash fired three times in rapid succession.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three pellets struck the three uppermost points of the Starmie plush in a tight triangle. The plush rocked, tipped, lost its centre of gravity, and toppled off the shelf.
"One down!" Ash pumped his fist, then swung the barrel toward the next target. A Goldeen plush, sitting two shelves over. Another one of Misty's Pokémon. She'd love it.
Three more shots. Three hits, each striking the Goldeen's weakest balance point. The plush tipped and fell.
Ash adjusted his grip, spent half a second reading the shelf layout, and put his last three pellets into a Tentacool. It toppled on the third hit.
Nine bullets after the opening miss. Three plushies down. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds.
The vendor stared at his empty shelf spaces with the expression of a man watching his profit margin walk out the door.
"Ash, that was incredible!" Misty's reaction was delayed by pure shock, and when it hit, it hit all at once. She threw her arms around his neck, Togepi squished between them and not minding in the least. Three plushies. All Pokémon she loved. Won for her in under a minute.
Ash felt her arms around his neck, the faint sweetness of her hair, the warmth of her pressed against him, and his brain short-circuited. No girl had ever done this to him before. He had no protocol for this situation.
On his shoulder, Pikachu covered its mouth with both paws and shook with silent laughter.
Misty came back to herself a second later. She released him like she'd grabbed a hot pan, clutched Togepi to her chest, and turned a shade of red that clashed with her hair. No words came out.
Ash recovered enough to turn to the vendor. "Could you, uh, bag those for me?"
"Right away!" The relief in the man's voice was palpable. He packed the three plushies into separate bags at record speed and handed them over, grateful beyond words that Ash wasn't asking for another round.
Ash took the bags, saw that Misty's arms were full with Togepi and embarrassment, and carried everything himself. They moved on to the next stall.
Behind them, the crowd that had gathered split in two directions. Half followed Ash. The other half lined up at the shooting gallery, armed with the knowledge of where to aim.
Knowing the technique and executing it, however, were different things. The best among them needed three full rounds to topple a single plush. The worst needed eight.
The vendor's losses from Ash were buried under an avalanche of new customers. By the end of the night, his revenue would exceed several days' combined total.
He made a mental note: next time a Champion showed up, give them two plushies for free. The return on investment was absurd.
Ash led Misty through a series of turns to shake the followers, with Mewtwo's psychic cloak blurring their presence until the last curious spectator wandered off in the wrong direction. After that, they had the festival to themselves.
The rest of the evening passed in a warm, unhurried blur. More stalls. More games. Misty won a bucket of goldfish at the scooping booth. They ate yakisoba and shared shaved ice. When Misty's feet started to ache from walking, Ash crouched down and offered his back without being asked. She climbed on, face burning, Togepi perched on her head, and Pikachu trotting alongside them.
For Misty, the day was perfect.
For Ash, it was something new. He'd travelled with Misty for months, but today she felt different. Something he didn't have a word for yet, but could feel in the way his chest tightened when she smiled, in the way the silence between them felt full instead of empty.
From the moment she'd said "date," something had shifted. Neither of them had named it. But it was there.
They walked back to the temporary house as the sun dropped toward the horizon. In five days, Ash would leave for Dragon Island. After that, the journey to Johto. The road ahead was long, and the time they had left together was short.
They stood at the front door, neither reaching for the handle. The silence stretched. Then they both spoke at once.
"Um..."
"Ash..."
A pause. Ash scratched the back of his head. "You first."
Misty took a breath. The sunset painted her face in warm gold and soft pink, and it was impossible to tell where the light ended and the blush began.
"I had a wonderful time today, Ash."
"Me too."
"I like you."
"Me t..." Ash's mouth kept moving on autopilot for a fraction of a second before his brain caught up to what she'd said. He stopped. Stared.
Misty's face was crimson, but her green eyes held his without flinching.
She could read him well enough by now. Today had confirmed what she'd suspected: Ash wasn't indifferent to her. But waiting for this particular boy to figure out his own feelings and articulate them could take years. Maybe decades. Possibly longer than the heat death of the universe.
So she'd done it herself.
Maybe it was forward. Maybe a confession on a festival doorstep after a first date was too much too fast. She didn't care. The things that mattered in life didn't wait for you to be ready.
She was the Gym Leader of Cerulean City. She could travel with Ash for now, a month, maybe two, but eventually the Gym would call her back.
His journey was just beginning. Hers had responsibilities anchored to a single city. The window they had was finite, and Misty refused to let it close with words left unsaid.
Forward or not. Shy or not. Scared or not.
No regrets.