MAY'S JOURNEY TO JOHTO
Right in the Hoenn region, specifically in Petalburg City, there was a wee bit of an uproar going on in its quiet suburbs, which was nestled right into Gym Leader Norman's home.
"Now you get back here, Max!"
"No way and not a chance!" Max laughed.
May had just been about to get the last ham sandwich for breakfast when Max all but claimed it for himself. And it had all been so sudden.
It was a wild chase all over the house; in fact, it could've extended all the way to the Gym had their mother, Caroline, not interceded.
"May, Max," she chastised the squabbling siblings gently. "It's Sunday. Can't you two just get a break and enjoy the peaceful morning?"
"Max just finished my sandwich," May complained.
"What? I was hungry," Max protested.
Caroline shook her head and smiled. "It doesn't matter—I'll make plenty more if your bellies just can't seem to get enough."
"Yay," May said cheered, and sighed in relief. "I'll take the first one."
"Nope—it'll be me," Max said pointing to himself.
May stuck out her tongue at him.
"Oh yeah, that reminds me, May...," Caroline began.
"Yeah, Mom?"
"It's been about two weeks since you last traveled with Ash...How's he doing these days?"
For that, May had no answer.
May went to the greenhouse to take a good look at her Pokémon, who all looked like they'd just finished a good breakfast themselves.
"Hey, Blaziken, Skitty, Beautifly, Squirtle, Eevee, Munchlax, and Bulbasaur," she called to all her Pokémon.
In an automatic response to her call, all seven of her Pokémon came to her with pure joy—well, except for Munchlax, who didn't go right away; he was still busy eating the fruit he'd picked up.
"Okay, guys," she said to them, "it won't be very long till we get going on a journey again."
Her Pokémon all looked at her with excitement and anticipation.
She looked away and mumbled, "Well, to be honest, the reason I've been letting us stay here longer than I'd planned was because...I didn't want Mom to miss us too much." She then glanced at her Pokémon, who gave her confused looks in return. "Sure, sure, we got home from our Hoenn journey, but just right away, we went to the Kanto region to compete for another Pokémon Contest, and that meant we only stayed for just a little while..." She trailed off, then continued in a lighter tone, "I could just remember the look on Mom's face when Max and I got home from our Kanto journey." She smiled just a little bit.
Some of her Pokémon made sympathetic sounds.
"Yeah, I know you'll miss this place, too," she whispered. "But the upside is that we'll be seeing new places, right?"
Everyone made noises of agreement.
Just then Max popped out, quite literally out of nowhere, with one of her dad, Norman's, Pokémon—Vigoroth.
"What are you doing there with all your Pokémon, May?" Max asked, deliberately scaring her.
May jumped a little in response. "Max!" she called at him, who was up on the tree and perched onto Vigoroth's back. "That wasn't funny!"
Max just shrugged and, riding on Vigoroth, hopped down from the tree to join his older sister who was just interrupted from having some kind of pep talk with her Pokémon.
"You sure didn't talk when Mom mentioned Ash," Max commented.
May looked away, no intent on speaking.
Max climbed of Vigoroth's back and scrutinized her expression. "Hey, what's with all the silence?"
May just kept staring off to space, deep in thought. Then she finally spoke. "Actually," she admitted, "I don't know what Ash got into since we'd gone, or where he's off to now..."
"Well," Max said, "I tried calling Ash through the PC two days after we arrived...but he wasn't around, his mom told me. I even tried the day after that, and the day after that day, but...nope, nothing. His mom told me he's traveling to another region."
May frowned. "She didn't know?"
"Nope, she wouldn't say. 'Just a little more time; I'll say it soon,' " he quoted Delia Ketchum.
"Oh..."
"Let's call Professor Oak—I'd been planning on calling him when my efforts to get Ash's mom to spill the beans failed today," Max said suddenly.
"Huh?" May was caught momentarily off guard by Max's sudden change of the subject.
"Come on, let's go!" Max said impatiently, grabbing his sister by the arm and steering her toward the greenhouse exit and back into their house.
"Professor Oak," Max called to the Pokémon professor into the PC, "do you know what Ash is up to or where he is?"
"His mom wouldn't tell us," May chimed in.
Professor Oak seemed deep in thought, and after a while, he grinned to himself. "Well, how much do you want to know?"
"More than you'll ever know," Max said.
"So much that Max kept calling Ash's mom every time she wouldn't fess up," May added.
"Okay, well, I'd planned to keep this a secret, too—"
"NO!" the siblings shouted together.
Professor Oak laughed. "Okay, okay, I'll fess up." Then after a pause—just to play with their impatience—he said in simple, nonchalant words, "Ash's off to the Sinnoh region now."
"What?!"