Ash looked at the brochure once more: did he misunderstood it? No, it was clearly written down there.

Coordinators representing Hoenn region:

- Robert – Winner of Hoenn Grand Festival

- Drew – Runner-up of Hoenn Grand Festival, Runner-up of Johto Grand Festival

- May – Winner of Johto Grand Festival

There were also coordinators from other regions, but it wasn`t important for Ash. He was incredibly happy: May beat Drew in the final of Grand Festival! He was so proud and couldn`t wait to see her performance. Through shows of coordinators from Kanto and Johto he was just sitting on his chair and he wasn`t paying much attention. Only Solidad`s performance was quite interesting to him, the show that her Butterfree and Lapras done was unbelievable. Butterfree formed a shape out of Sleep Powder, Lapras froze it with its Ice Beam and at the end Butterfly Pokemon sprinkled Poison Powder around it. Ash looked at his left side to see that Bonnie was already on cloud nine. There were a few more coordinators before Mr. Contesta announced:

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to a double Runner-up in Grand Festivals, please welcome... DREW!"

At those words the green-haired coordinator arrived on the scene with a slight grin on his face. Female part of the crowd started to squeal when he winked to them all. After warm welcome he released his Roserade and made some kind of combination of Petal Dance, Stun Spore and Magical Leaf. It all made quite a thick, pink fog, which was soon diffused by Solar Beam. It didn`t impress Ash very much, besides he was waiting for a person who was going to perform after Drew. The green-haired boy bowed to the audience and left, accompanied with a huge applause.

"And he made it twice to the finals? Pleeease, he made probably the easiest trick in the world. Every rookie knows how to make a fog from various Powders" Bonnie huffed and crossed her arms on her chest. Ash couldn`t force himself to not laugh at her comment.

"And last, but not least, the winner of Johto Grand Festival, The Princess of Hoenn! Please welcome… MAY!" Mr. Contesta announced.

Now it was a turn for male part of the crowd to scream in happiness. Applause was much bigger than that given to Drew. Ash locked his eyes on a stage, and when May entered it, his eyes widened again.

She was wearing a long blue dress that matched her eyes color. Her brown, long hair was falling on her arms, as always. But not only this caught trainer`s attention. She matured a lot between those few years. Her figure could make all of the women jealous. Also, he noticed something that he never expected to say about her: she was beautiful. Ash couldn`t say a word, unlike Bonnie, who jumped of her chair and started to scream very, very loud.

The brunette smiled at the crowd and released two Pokemon: Cyndaquill and Glaceon. As Cyndaquill looked at the audience, there could be heard "aww" sounds.

"Ok, Cyndaquill, let`s heat the atmosphere up! Use Eruption!" May

Cyndaquill concentrated his energy and released a huge explosion of magma from his back, but it wasn`t normal Eruption; this one looked more like fireworks.

"Glaceon, use Blizzard to cool Cyndaquill`s Eruption!" the coordinator shouted at her Eevelution.

Glaceon released a Blizzard from her mouth, both moves soon connected with each other and they made small rocks, which fell onto the ground. At this moment you couldn`t see anything special about it.

"Cyndaquill, use multiple Lava Plume on the floor!" May shouted.

The small Pokemon nodded and released some lava from his mouth. It was soon visible that rocks weren`t laying on the ground for no reason. They made some kind of borders for lava. The more Cyndaquill`s Lava Plumes landed on earth, the more it looked like some kind of shape.

"And our last move! Glaceon, use Icy Wind on lava!" May shouted for the last time.

Fresh Snow Pokemon released cold wind from her mouth, it soon started to react with magma, and May`s creation was now visible: rocks and lava made a huge heart, When lava reacted with Icy Wind, it started to thicken, raising red heart above the rock boulders and falling down. This was lasting for one second and was repeated twenty times (which symbolized heartbeat) before lava cooled down. A huge, stone heart remained on the floor.

The crowd yelled louder than ever in this contest, applause could have been heard on the other side of the city. May bowed a few times before she left the scene. Now it was a time for the judges to choose a winner.

But Ash still was looking at the scene. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that it was over. He was truly impressed and agreed with himself that it was the best performance that he ever saw in his life. He turned to his right to see that Bonnie was crying. But these were tears of joy. It looked pretty much like she loved it too.

"The judges have decided!" Mr. Contesta arrived on the scene again, now with an envelope in his hand. "So, let`s see who impressed our judges the most!" he opened the letter. "The winner of the first Lumiose City Contest is …May from Petalburg City!"

If last screams of the crowd could be heard on the other side of town, then THIS applause could be heard in Unova. May bowed to the crowd and raised her hand, in which she was holding some kind of ribbon: this one was heart-shaped and had a green tape falling down the main, gold part of the ribbon. As all of the coordinators went to the changing rooms, everyone from the crowd started heading to the exit. Only Ash and Bonnie were sitting there for a few more minutes and talked about how great was the last performance. Then, they left to the main corridor which headed to the exit.


May changed her clothes quickly and left the changing room. She was wearing her old red jacket, red bandanna and dark blue pants, which was her favorite clothing. Happy and satisfied girl was heading to the exit, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"That was a great performance, May" she heard a voice of the green-haired coordinator "You really had improved a lot."

"Thanks, Drew, you weren`t that bad today too" she turned to him with a fake smile. She really didn`t want to talk to him right now, her mind was somewhere else.

"I was wondering, if you would want to go with me on a…" the boy from LaRousse City was going to finish when a loud scream of happiness interrupted him. May turned back and saw a little blonde-haired girl running to her. Bonnie was as happy as never, she could see her idol right in front of her!

"Aaaaah! I can`t believe that it`s really you, mistress May!" The happy child looked like she was going to explode "I`m your biggest fan, I have watched all of your battles in Johto. Two years ago you showed this green-haired dumb who`s the boss… ow." It was too late when she realized that Drew was standing behind May.

Drew tried to act like nothing really happened and smiled to the girl, but inside him a desire to mangle this kid to death was raising.

"Am I really that bad, little one?" he asked, sure that he will scare a girl a little with his posture.

But he was wrong. Very, very wrong.

"Umm, of course? You act very snobbish and pitifully, your twaddle wouldn`t impress any girl in the world, and your habit of flinging your hair... Ugh! It`s really annoying!"

While Drew tried to control himself to not punch Bonnie, May was laughing histerically. She stopped when she heard a voice coming from the other part of the corridor.

"BONNIE! WAIT FOR ME! WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY TO CLEMONT IF YOU GET LOST?!" A familiar voice was close to them now. Drew recognized it immediately – even after a little change of the voice he could tell that it was Ash Ketchum running to them. Now, when his plan to ask May for a date was ruined by this little brat he had nothing to do in here. Despite his behavior, it wasn`t that he disliked Ash, he just saw that May was very close to him and he saw him as some kind of "love rival" when they travelled together through Hoenn. So, when May`s attention was focused on the voice from the corridor, Drew quickly went to the exit.


While Ash was running after Bonnie he couldn`t believe that the little blonde was THAT fast. He promised himself to buy a dog-lead for her so she won`t get away from him next time.

He ran through the corner of the wall and automatically stopped when he saw a familiar kid with an older girl. When he looked up in brunette`s eyes he saw that after a few seconds tears started to stream down her beautiful face.

"Umm… hi May, long time no see, huh?" he said shyly, rubbing his head in the meantime.