And

A forlorn Ash, who had just entered his teens, sulks down into the loveseat and let out a long sigh after helping his mother decorate their home for the big "Costume New Year’s Bash" that was about to begin in a few minutes. In fact, people already started banging on the door all decked out in all kinds of masquerades. Ash didn’t even know what he was going to be, actually.

"Ash, get the door, sweetheart! I’m just going to slip on my costume and I’ll be down in a flash!" Delia shouted from her bedroom.

"Do you THRIVE ON seeing your child suffer?!" Ash snaps back quickly. He lifts up his body that feels like a ton of bricks and lazily shuffles to the front door.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR, ASH!!" Two friendly partygoers screamed to his face.

"What are you exactly supposed to be?" Misty, going as a carefree mermaid, innocently asked.

"Uh…" Ash looks down at his sweat pants and his ‘Official Pokémon League’ extra large authentic sweatshirt. He fervently looks for a pokéball in the desk drawer next to the door and grabs one that looks all scratched and discombobulated. "A bum Pokémon trainer!" He answers quickly with a goofy grin and a large sweat drop to the side of his head.

"Ah, yes. A derelict that’s on…junkies, I presume?" Brock responds in an extremely fake British accent. "So, chum, you going to let us in, or are you going to be a cricket on the hearth?"

"…C’mon Bond…get in here! You too, fish-freak!" Ash gritted through his teeth, trying not to make his temper overflow one too many times again.

"Well, Scrooge, you sure get into your bum-of-a-character, don’t you?" The pretty, young Misty added with a chuckle. Ash did nothing but glare at her with the ‘evil eye.’ His two best friends continued into his festive home.

"Oh, hush you…it’s bad enough I have nothing to dress up as."

"I thought you were serious about being a—"

"NO! And I’m hopeless. This is the worst night of my entire life as I know it!"

"I wouldn’t say that, Ash. The night is young! Listen, I’ll think of something, okay?" Misty tried to soothe him with her simple but cute smile.

"Oh joy—"

"JOY??!? NURSE JOY??!? I HAVE MISTLETOE! I HAVE MISTLETOE! Haahhaaaaa…mistletoe! LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED…jolly, old chap…" Brock piped up in the background.

Girls were coming through the back door since ‘James Bond’ was desperate for some mistletoe lovin’, and unlocked the doors. Soon after Ash and Misty finished their quarrel, there were a few more knocks at the door…actually they sounded like slashes of swords and chucking of throwing stars.

"Happy…WHOA!" Ash jolted back a couple of steps. There was a samurai and a cowboy who looked like he had called it a day, because he had Indian arrows protruding out of his back, generally for decoration.

The samurai starts yelling swears and commands in Japanese, swinging his weapons everywhere.

"Uh…pardon me, Ash, ya recognize me don’t ya! It’s me, Dusty! Remember—AAAHHHUGHHH!" Dusty flew forward onto the floor before him. The ninja had gotten the best of him, unfortunately.

"Hey Ash, it is Leo!" He said in a muffled voice, since he had only his eyes showing while black cloth covered his whole body. "I got the booze…gotta deal with the queer Christmas music. If I hear ‘Frosty the Snowman’ one more time, I’ll see to it the fat glob of pissed-on snow will melt a painful DEATH." Leo heaves the wagon of beer crates up the front steps and cracked his back shoving it through the front door. "Never mind breaking my ass to wheel this stuff out the back door onto the porch!"

Dusty finally regains consciousness by rubbing a sore spot on the top of his head, "So, who’s got the mistletoe?"

"I’VE GOT IT!!!!" Misty pounds her palm with her other fist, perking up her upper torso.

"Wahoo! Well slap my ass and call me Sally! Who’d a’ thunk our water princess would be lookin’ forward to some mistletoe! Way to go, sugar!" The cowboy stumbled to his feet and patted her shoulders and rushed into the party funk with everybody ‘sleigh-riding’ around the room with confetti flying every which way but loose.

"Uh…right…whatever. Anyway, Ash, I have the perfect idea! Just to give Brock a good scare and a thrill of good pleasure, dress up like some blonde bimbo and exactly when the clock strikes midnight into the new year…BAM!!!!!!!!!! Plant a wet one on him! Since everyone will be caught up on either being transfixed on the clock or the TV, you won’t have to worry about anyone seeing you! Now that’s some good holiday entertainment!" Misty had a broad, toothy grin.

Ash was purely shocked. "Are you on some kind of medication that I should know about? What kind of fucked up trip through the looking glass ARE YOU ON?!? Kissing Brock would be even worse than kissing some fat, hairy, old chick with herpes of the mouth. What’s in it for me, anyway?"

"Oh party pooper! I’ll give you a reward of course! Now get your ass up there and I’ll get what you need out of my bag!"

"This is gonna be one frigging interesting night in plain English." Ash smacked his head; but, if you look close enough, you can easily tell he’s got a smile wiped all over his face.

~*/==-==\*~

A Christmas tree. Tinsel. Presents. Holiday songs. Leo cussing at the Holiday songs. How can a Holiday Bash like this get any better? Wait and see, my Yuletide readers, wait and see.

Leah was getting pretty dizzy swinging around the Christmas tree branches holding on for her dear life. It basically felt like she was on a merry-go-round, but the pine needles were pricking her fingertips.

"Dun duh duh…dun duh duh…!" Dusty was doing his own verbal instrumental of the Indiana Jones theme; of which Leah was.

See, she wanted to go for that Indy-feminine look so she wore a khaki green pleated skirt that came down to the knee with the boots; the whole kit and caboodle. Everyone stared in awe and stupidity, like she was some sort of specimen in an isolated zoo. Out of all twisted faces and looks, Angie were among of the most disgusted.

"THIS is what I get for being an angel. That’s the problem with people! Everyone dresses up like Satan nowadays. No one appreciates the fact that being dressed in a black gown and black halo actually MEANS something. BLACK IS THE ELEGANCE COLOR OF THE WORLD, DAMN IT! I’M GOING TO SAY IT LOUD ENOUGH FOR THE WORLD TO HEAR. BLACK IS THE COLOR THAT MAKES THIS WORLD GO ‘ROUND, PEOPLE!!"

By the end of Angie’s speech, she was standing on top of the kitchen table digging her black, glimmering, platform go-go boots almost until there was a big gash forming.

"ARRRRRGHH! Leo, give me some of that beer! I need to calm down FAST." Angie was really aggravated with the whole night. She hadn’t even found one decent guy to stalk around the party. "This party bites."

The gothic-like angel sunk down into the sofa and slowly sipped on her beer with a depressing toned face. Not exactly in my book, what you’d describe an angel as.

"HEY. I NEED THAT HIGH-QUALITY BEER. It’s like my own version of water!" The samurai also known as Leo shoved a heaping handful of chip crumbs into his mouth.

"Pig! You can spare at least one! Look at all these crates you have here! Get in the holiday spirit, man! Or shall I call you Frosty the Snowbastard?"

"The hell with you! I’ll have my own private party outside! Without you! And you know what? You really fit the holiday desserts perfect! A walking, talking fruitcake!" Leo hurls the bag of chips at Angie’s face, but yet she dodges them.

**~=-‘’-=~**

"WOMEN! This is exactly why the female species is more deadly than male! They can bitch and bitch about every little thing till the cows come home." Ninja boy threw up his arms and collapsed into a patio chair, cracking open another cold beer. "You know…this snow saves you from buying a cooler." Leo smiled at his insight. Dusty did nothing but stare at him.

Leo gathers up his throwing stars and barbaric swords and the minute he places his beer down, he flings every single one of those weapons at neighbors’ windows. Trying to target every glowing Christmas tree he saw that was near a window.

"What a way to celebrate into the New Year of 2002! I’m proud damn ashamed of you, Leo." Dusty chimed in, while his friend nearly shattered a window, but failed to do so.

"You see this sharp star? This could be the shape of your face if you don’t stop the goody-goody pudding stuff." Leo threateningly announced in a monotone voice.

Dusty shook his head. Just as about he was going to kick his feet up on the railing of the snow covered veranda, a cutesy girl in her late teens was dressed as a Las Vegas showgirl steps up in front of Dusty.

"Happy New Year! Can you tell me if this is the Ketchum’s New Year’s Party?" She inquired leaning over the rail adding a warm smile.

"YOU BETCHA! Right this way, darlin’!" Dusty sweeps her up off of her feet and carries her inside to the warm-hearted party.

‘Frosty the Snowman’ starts blasting out of the walls. Leo has already about had it and clenches his fists meanwhile gritting his teeth, losing his grip, his beer flies backwards and explodes onto the sliding door. A piercing scream could be heard all around town.

**~=<-‘’->=~**

A half an hour later, a young, attractive blonde in a skirt uniform with navy blue pumps runs out onto the patio. Leo didn’t even bother to turn and look at anything that came across him; his face had completely faulted. All he seemed to do was look at the stars.

"Damn Christmas music! Why did I let Leah convince me to come…Oh yeah free food and booze." At this point, he turns to see the ‘In Drag’ Ash come up.

"LEO! Did you see Misty?" Ash was shaking from the cold air drifting up his skimpy skirt.

"Ash…I don’t even want to know why you’re in drag…"

"I’m not Ash." He cleared his throat so he could try and hit a higher pitched girly voice.

"Uh huh, whatever, Ash. You’re either in drag or came into contact spring of drowned girl water…and Brock’s coming this way with one of those looks on his face…"

"Oh shit. Gotta go!" Ash flips over the railing and runs around the outside of his house as if on a wild goose chase.

"Come back so we may start our life together!!!" Brock dropped his British accent for the time being while he begged for the ‘girl’ to come back. "Well…there she goes…" He shook his head, it apparently got to him. Brock banged his head against a cabinet, "WHY ME?!? GRAHHHHHH!"

"HI!" A dark angel headed towards Brock quickly. "I’m Angie, and you?" She gave him her best sexy measures.

"Uh…I’m Brock." He replied, unfortunately in his fake British accent, which caused him to scold himself inwardly.

Angie stared at him for a second a little taken aback at first and replied, "Umm, what kind of an accent was that meant to be?"

Brock blushed as he explained it was supposed to be a British accent, which brought a smile on the young woman’s lips, "Hmm…good try, but you try too hard. British accents sound better if you use northern or southern England slang. I should know, after all I am a Brit."

**~=-‘’-=~**

Ash arrives back at his front door after falling smack on his ass several times from wearing extremely high-heeled shoes. He couldn’t help but blast the door open and fall to his knees huffing and puffing out of breath. When he finally caught his breath, Ash looked up to see green fins in front of his eyes. Of course it would be none other than Misty.

"Come on, Ash! Now is the perfect time to do it! He’s standing right under the damned mistletoe! That’s so much better than midnight! Plus, you kept complaining how you didn’t want to wait that long!" She heeded.

"But he’s talking to Angie! And I thought midnight—"

"Wow. Hey guess what, genius? You’re talking to me, too! GET OUT THERE NOW!"

"Are you absolutely going to give me a reward or are you pulling a fast one?"

"Don’t worry, you’ll get it…it’s going to be my private, belated Christmas present to you…" She suggestively rubbed his shoulders and got dangerously close to his generic breasts.

"Misty, there’s one thing you have to remember for the rest of your life. Never, EVER TALK TO ME SUGGESTIVELY WHEN I’M IN DRAG."

Misty coyly backed away blushing, checking her Little Mermaid watch. Ariel’s arm was pointing to midnight, while her fin as the minute hand, was just two minutes less of exact midnight.

"Well, Ash, looks like you don’t have to sneak under the mistletoe for being such a whiner! You have exactly one minute until 2002 awakens!" Misty glanced up from her Disney watch to see Ash had vanished out of her sight. "Uh, oh. This is going to very good…or extremely fricking bad…" She sighed a mushroom cloud and sulked with her head down.

**~=-‘’-=~**

Brock had really gotten into the conversation with Angie and hadn’t thought about drooling over her at all. This was because he had another attractive girl on his mind.

"Well, look at that! It’s almost midnight! Aren’t you excited?" All Angie had to do was say ‘midnight’ and that got Brock motivated to find that suspicious looking blonde. "Heh, heh, maybe it’s my lucky night…if we keep this boring dialogue up for some odd number of seconds…it’ll be a brand spankin’ new kiss to start off me New Year!"

"Midnight?! I…uh…gotta go look for uh…ASH! That’s it…Ash! It’s been a smashing good time!" Brock zipped off in a hurry, rushing around like a Hop-Sing China man. "Damn, I only have some odd number of seconds left until midnight for me to find that gorgeous blonde; who knows, maybe I’ll never see her again! … Where IS Ash, anyhow?"

**~-=<^-^>=-~**

Twenty seconds left until the glistening, sequin ball spins down with sparks flying about. Time to get ready for the countdown…

"Okay everyone! Attention! Tonight’s the big night! One more year into the new millenium!" A woman truly known to everyone at the party, Delia, had gotten up atop of the coffee table for her announcement. "Now there’s only twenty seconds left until 2002! Let’s all count down!"

"MOM?!? WHAT IN BLUE BLAZES ARE YOU DOING IN THAT COSTUME?" The young blonde had shrieked in astonishment; unfortunately, everyone whipped their heads simultaneously, as if on cue, at the person who had started the commotion. Dead silence. "Oh…my mistake," In a feminine tone was heard, "you remind me of my own mother…*ahem*, carry on! We only have twelve seconds left till midnight-- WAHOOOOOO!" The fair-haired girl responded.

Mrs. Ketchum could only smile pleasantly.

"So THAT’S where my beauty awaits for me! Heh, heh, heh…a nice surprise until these lingering ten seconds are up might send some sparks flying for not only that big sequin disco ball…" Brock mused, while rubbing his chin adding a sly grin.

Meanwhile, Angie wasn’t about to let her babe go just yet. She made her way over brushing up against Brock just in the nick of time. "TEN!" The dark angel began for everyone.

**~--={}=--~**

"THERE YOU ARE!" Misty shouted over the ear-piercing counting. She maneuvered herself through the uneven crowd. "Are you ready?" Her blue eyes sparkled into the moonlight while placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

"FIVE!"

"Misty, I feel really nauseous. I think I’m going to blow chunks…"

"Don’t be silly! It’s not that bad! You do want you’re reward, don’t you…?" She gave him her best innocent puppy-face look she could ever pull off. "And if you are going to spew, I’m warning you as much as I possibly can, DO NOT do it in his mouth…"

"PSH! I wouldn’t do that…hopefully…" Waving it off, "I’m ready now." Releasing a deep breath.

"ONE!"

Misty had perked up to the number they had finally reached to. Out of reflex, she pushed the blonde with all her scrawny strength, thrusting ‘her’ into Brock, which caused a domino effect. She had fallen into Brock, and since Angie unfortunately happened to be standing next to him, she got crushed down, carrying all of the weight of the two bodies crashing onto her.

"Sorry about that crazy fall there, uh—" Brock said sheepishly, helping the person on top of him get well balanced, which happened to be the girl of his dreams.

"Please…have MERCY on me!" The uniform beauty had prayed, clinging hands together into prayer form peering up at the ceiling. "Here goes nothing…"

Before Brock knew it, he felt a tingling sensation further into his lips, even farther into his mouth. He opened his eyes slowly, but carefully to astonish him greatly. Brock was actually being kissed for once, and for an extremely long time, at that.

Both of them coming up for air were stunned; though their sensual passion wasn’t the only thing they were about to be stunned by.

"What’s this cold stuff?" Brock, of course bringing back his horrible, hair-raising British accent, had shivered at the droplets of liquid shooting at him and his new beau.

"IT’S CHAMPAGNE, LOVERBOY!" Leo cackled while spraying the carbonated beverage all over the walls and carelessly waving it free to go wherever it would land. "Anyone have a camcorder? I’ve got one hell of a feeling that 2002’s gonna be one interesting year! You’re one brave mutha!" He focused on the blonde alone, in a straddle.

Everyone finished their midnight kisses and turned to glare at the entertainment that had already started.

It was Leah’s turn to make a comment, "You might need this for your own party later, ASH!" She suggested, whispering as she placed her Indiana Jones whip onto now-known Ash’s lap, who was beet-red in embarrassment and total shock.

Dusty then pranced over and yanked the yellow wig off to reveal to the party the true soot-colored hair of Ash. Pretty soon, the group of people who did know it was Ash, cracked up into an even laughter which became contagious and spread to everyone who had a sense of humor. Um…not many people. Delia almost fainted to find it was actually her son to begin with.

Ash felt squeamish again. "But…how did you…HOW COULD YOU KNOW--?" Directing his outburst to Leah.

"Well, when I have my eye on someone, I REALLY have my eye on someone…" She replied with a wink.

"WHY…DON’T…YOU…CON..CENTRATE………OFF…OF…ME!!!!" Angie could barely puff out her last few words, but she apparently tried to get her point across of her position in the body jumble.

"Oh yeah, much apologies…yadda yadda." Brock swung his feet over comfortably to lift himself up with a blunt touch to his attitude towards Angie.

In the meantime, Angie was pretty disappointed. She raspy mouthed the words: "YOU DIE," trudging off with a scowl dictating it at poor Ash. He returned the greeting with a closely choking gulp.

Brock was cracking his knuckles and wringing his wrists getting ready for what he had in store. "You WANT a gay romance?!? I’ll GIVE you a gay ROMANCE!"

"Now Brock, I-it was j-j-just a j-joke…eh heh heh…I’m sure you have a kind, sweet spot in your heart to forgive m—" Ash began walking gingerly backwards, slowly creeping up against the wall.

"BITCH!" Then came Brock’s hand clouting his "lover’s" right cheek. He sprinted up the stairs to the bathroom.

Everyone oooh-ed and ah-ed. There was a mixture of laughing, but that was only from the idiot side, consisting of Leo, Leah, and Dusty. Angie was too miffed to even say "piss off."

**~<<^-^>>~**

"What the hell, might I dare ask, did you do to Brock?!? He’s singing ‘O Holy Shit’ instead of ‘O Holy Night’ in the bathroom…assuming the fetal position. Come to think o’ it, you could hear sudden hacks into the toilet in between verses."  Dusty uttered to Ash.

"Oh well this is wonderful…" Slipping off his pumps and removing the cotton-stuffed socks out of his uniform dress. "Having your best friend think you’re gay, what a treat."

"ASH! Ready for your reward?" Ash’s female friend waltzed over suspiciously beaming.

Gazing up to Misty, Ash replies, "I’m ready as I’ll ever be after that queer-conniption of an experience."

Without warning, Ash looks delirious with his eyes sluggishly rolling back into his head and plops onto the carpet in a heartbeat.

Leo the half-drunken samurai, knowing how insane he can possibly be, abruptly stood up to heed, "Damn it to the highway of hell, Misty! You know Ash faints at the sight of women’s pokéballs!"

**~<<^_______^>>~**