Hey, man, what's good? Welcome to the rewritten story

where Max gets some recognition and his antics are never boring.

I don't need a disclaimer, or an annoying character-voiced intro

so stop doing your MTH 40 homework and enjoy the fucking show.

I thought it'd be cool to edit and update this as the dates in it actually came to pass. Let us say Unova already happened, because I started writing this when Sinnoh had been in existence for maybe three weeks, and I'm sure as hell not changing the dates. However, I have made sure everything should still be consistent with the latest anime developments. Let me know if I need to fix anything.

5:41 P.M. - 12.15.2011

"Come on, guys! We're almost there!"

Ash's open coat whipped in the mountain breeze, snowflakes falling in and out of his spiked black hair. He ran ahead on the path once every three minutes, just to get annoyed with our sluggishness, and sit on a random rock to wait for us, impatiently drumming his fingers.

"See you later, then, Ash!" May pulled her camera from her pack and aimed it at herself, pressing RECORD and smiling enthusiastically. Her red felt coat with giant white buttons deeply contrasted with the barren, rocky wasteland we were in. Nothing but cold gray anywhere. "Next up on the life of May, we are approaching the cold…. windy…. deserted…" She slowly paused, frowned, and began to whine to Brock and I. "Oh, why does he want to go there anyway? There's nothing there!"

I smirked, and yanked May's ear, much easier now that my height rivaled hers. "It may be full of nothing, dear sister, but that's a section of nothing that Ash hasn't explored before, and we can't have that, can we?"

"It says here that Negative City is almost a ghost town, at least in terms of the number of residents," said Brock, reading his guide. "But, every Christmas season, it transforms into a holiday paradise."

May yanked herself from my grip and slapped my shoulder playfully. Now that we were the same size, bullying got her nowhere, as she had sadly come to realize, so she settled for taking my antics in stride, which made them less worthwhile for me, so I bothered her less and less, and she ended up happy anyway. "Why would people go there for Christmas?" asked May, rubbing her ear.

"Because of the competitions, mainly," Brock answered. "They're unrivaled in terms of grandeur and spontaneity. But also, it's one of the only regions where it snows at all. The cold winds and the snow blow down from the tops of the mountains. The climate and the wind patterns are a lot like Snowpoint City."

I looked up at the seven-thousand-foot snow-capped mountains between the city and us. "Damn."

"Don't tell me we have to climb!" May cried.

"We might," Brock said nonchalantly. "But, with any luck, we can avoid going over the mountains by going through that pass." He pointed to a somewhat narrow canyon-like path, with a Pokémon Center right next to the entrance. I noticed Ash standing a few yards from the entrance, grinning and beckoning.

"YAY!" May cried. "A warm bed! Hot chocolate! Dozens of bowls of noodles and cheese sauce! MINE!" She spiked her camera into her bag and sprinted into the small building, pushing Ash aside violently with her forearm as she ran. I didn't think she meant that maliciously, and I still don't, but that didn't stop Ash from being knocked straight into a spine-bush, sending Pikachu into the air, crying for help.

"I've got you, Pikachu!" I dropped my backpack and sprinted for all I was worth to make it to him before he made it to the ground. I leapt several feet and snatched him out of the cold air, but his weight in my hands offset my trajectory and I dropped onto my chest, skidding into the Center's outside wall with a resounding THUD. A load of snow was startled from its resting place on the Center roof and slid off the edge, landing on both of us and covering us completely.

As you may or may not know, Pikachu is rather claustrophobic; he can't deal with tight spaces very well. He tends to react violently, even if he doesn't mean to, and this situation would make a perfect case in point, with a wall on one side, I on the other, stone ground beneath him and snow all around him.

"PiiiiikaaaaaCHUUUUUUUUU!"

All at once, I felt sympathy for Jesse and James that I would never have had the capacity for beforehand. Getting blasted with this every other day? Those poor bastards.

The snow disintegrated, the wall cracked, and I was sent over my own heels backwards straight through the air. I shouted when I smashed into Brock's knees, which flew out backward from underneath him, and he cried out briefly before the stone ground muffled his face. I rolled over my own head and off the path, crashing down the rocky hill that was turning steep much more quickly than I would have liked it to. Just before it turned into a sheer cliff face, I hit the forefront trunk of a group of trees, sending shock through my spine and bringing excruciating pain.

The result? Ash was in a scraggly bush, Pikachu was lying next to the Center wall, Brock was on his face, and I was stuck on the side of the mountain face. And May was enjoying herself in the Pokémon Center.

6:01 P.M. – 12.15.2011

"Thanks for talking me into this. I needed this really- Oh, God, yes. Do it like that. Move up a little bit- ohhhhhh God. I had no idea you were so… talented. You are doing this every damn day from – right there, that's AMAZING."

I was moaning into the couch cushion as my Grovyle massaged my shoulder blades with his forearm leaf blades, snickering slightly.

Ash burst into the Center, pulling the last few prickles from his shirt and hefting a mortified Pikachu off his shoulders. I turned to look at him, and snorted. He was sweating buckets. His hair was everywhere, and it was full of frozen dirt and twigs. His cap was tilted slightly, and his clothes were extremely dirty. May, who was about to start on her fifth bowl of fettuccini Alfredo, began to blush. Her blush continuously became darker and darker as the awkward seconds ticked by and by, until I couldn't take it any longer.

"May, tell him how cute you think he is and get it off your chest," I said. "It would save us a lot of awkward- Easy, Grovyle, you touch me there again, you're buying me dinner first."

She turned away, silently searching for her store of words of the English language. "Uh… shut up… Max."

Ash sighed. "May, come on, we need to rent our group a room."

She blinked. "Oh, yeah. Let's go!" She pulled him by the arm toward Nurse Joy's desk, and, who followed them there? None other than Brock, who'd you expect?

"Nurse Joy?" May began. "Can we have a room for four-"

Brock pushed May aside, and Ash caught her before she hit the ground. "Do you have room to accept my heart?" he crooned to the pink-haired doctor. "For I am willing to pay the everlasting rent of true love if you do!"

I yanked Brock's right ear. "Sorry, dude," I said, dragging him back to the couches. "No housing payments for you. It's time to refinance."

Suddenly, a PokéBall burst in Brock's pocket, and Toxicroak emerged from within in a burst of bright light.

"Toxicroak Croak? Toxi!" he said indignantly. What are you doing? That's my job!

I was about to retort, but I eyed the poison claws protruding from Toxicroak's palms, and decided otherwise. "Alright, Tox, you can take care of this one," I said, raising my hands and letting Brock hit the floor.

"Tox." Good choice. He reared his right hand and jabbed Brock in the side.

He squealed in protest. "I'm already incapacitated, Toxicroak!"

Toxicroak gave no notice; he simply sat on the couch, turned over and went to sleep without a sound.

May scratched her head and turned back to Nurse Joy, chuckling nervously. "So, how about that room for four? Oh, and where can we get some hot chocolate?"

Mostly an intro, as is the second chapter. Things should start to get involving after that. Hey, just so you know, the button below this sentence changes the number next to "Reviews" at the top of the story. Think about it. By pressing it, you change the Internet. The power is in your hands. Do not misuse it.

ha