It took Courtney four days to finally reach Mauville. She made sure to take her sweet time, in hopes that by the time she reached the city Shelly would be long gone. Courtney felt satisfied with herself for coming up with such a simple solution to her problem. It meant she was behind on her adventure, but she had spent enough of her time training her Pokémon that she would be more than able to breeze through her first few Gym battles, which should make up for the lost time.

The Gym happened to be right by the west border of Mauville, and was the building that greeted Courtney to the city. If she wanted, she could take on the leader and be out of the city before nightfall.

Courtney's stomach growled.

She was dying for a good meal. It's not like she needed to hurry through Mauville anyway; Shelly would be long gone, so the rest of her journey would be smooth sailing. She walked right past the Gym and went searching for a nice place to eat.

It was her first time in a Pokémon Center, and although she expected it to be as sterile as you would expect from a hospital, the lobby for the public felt more like a kind of lounge. People— most of them looking to be around Courtney's age— and Pokémon alike were spread around, reading, or using their computers, or talking about various nothings while light instrumental music played from speakers spread around the room, quietly enough that it wouldn't disturb anyone. Even Courtney, who tended to shy away from social environments, felt comfortable in the building.

She walked over to the counter and handed the nurse her three Pokéballs, containing her Combusken and a Poochyena and Nuzleaf she had caught on the road to Mauville.

"It'll just be a moment," the nurse said, a cheery smile on her face as she took Courtney's Pokémon.

Courtney nodded in acknowledgement, then went to find a place to sit and wait. It was forty-five minutes later when the nurse called Courtney to retrieve her Pokémon. Courtney thanked her and made her way to the exit. She opened the door, took a single step through, and immediately bumped right into someone trying to enter the Center.

"S-sor—" Courtney began.

"Ah, Courtney!" The other person exclaimed.

Of course, it was none other than Shelly. She grabbed Courtney in a big hug.

"I've been in town for two days so far and I hadn't seen you! I was worried I had missed you!" She said.

Courtney struggled and shoved Shelly off of her. She took a deep breath— she'd swear Shelly was genuinely trying to kill her with her breasts.

"Were you waiting for me?" Courtney was actually a little weirded out. Shelly's teasing bothered Courtney for sure, but stalking was an entirely different level.

Shelly laughed. "No, I wasn't! I promise. I've just been having some problems battling the Gym Leader, so I've been stuck here. I thought you had gone and beat them and moved on without even seeing me is all! So if you're still in Mauville does that mean you've been having trouble too? We should train together!"

Courtney scoffed. "No, that's not why I'm here! I only just got to Mauville." She wanted to say that she took so long to get to the city because she was specifically trying to avoid Shelly, but it felt a little too mean. "I was training, so that's why it took so long."

"Ooh, then I bet you're totally strong enough to beat the Gym Leader! Can I come watch your battle, so I can pick up some tips?"

Courtney wanted to say no, but realized Shelly would probably follow her along anyway.

"Yeah, sure. I guess. Just don't distract me."

"Aw, thanks!" Shelly hugged Courtney again, but quickly this time, and the deep breath Courtney took in preparation for the hug ended up being unnecessary. "I need to heal my Pokémon, but you don't need to wait for me; I'll catch up!"

Courtney only grunted in response before heading out to the Gym.

Shelly caught up to Courtney right as she reached the Gym. Although Courtney was sure that her training was more than enough for her to be able to breeze through her first Gym battle, she felt apprehensive as she stood outside the Gym. Shelly wished her luck, and she pushed herself forward and entered the Gym.

The inside of the Gym was big and spacious, and painted on the floor was the familiar battlefield used in all official Pokémon League battles. There was a man talking to a pair of teenagers who stopped to look over at the entrance when the girls walked in.

"Miss Shelly, back again already I see!" He laughed in a very jovial, Santa Claus way.

"Not this time Mr. Wattson! I'm just here to watch my friend kick your butt!" Shelly responded.

Courtney winced. Wattson laughed some more, then walked over to the girls. He actually looked a lot like Santa Claus too— he had a big round belly, a fluffy white beard, and was starting to go bald.

"And what's your name missy?" He asked Courtney.

"C-Courtney," she replied. She always hated being the center of attention.

"So I'm guessing that since you're friends with Miss Shelly that this is your first Gym battle? Do you know how this works?"

"Y-yeah, I do."

"Good! Give me all you've got then!" Wattson laughed as he walked away to take his place on one side of the arena.

Courtney scurried to the opposite side, with Shelly keeping in tow behind her.

Wattson tossed out a Pokéball, revealing his first Pokémon, a Plusle.

"Whenever you're ready!" He shouted to Courtney.

Courtney shut her eyes and took a deep breath. In addition to the two teenagers Wattson was talking to before there were a couple other people in the Gym training. She didn't like having to battle in front of so many people, but she knew that she didn't really have any choice. She tried her best to block out everyone else, then Courtney sent out her Combusken to start the battle.

"Use Double Kick Combusken!" Courtney ordered.

"Shock Wave," Wattson said to his Plusle.

The two Pokémon ran at each other. Combusken was the faster of the two and after stopping on its left foot punted the Plusle up into the air with its right; then, as the Pokémon fell back down Combusken kicked it a second time, sending it flying backwards.

Plusle struggled to get back to its feet. It stumbled, but managed to shoot off a surge of electricity at Courtney's Pokémon, but Combusken brushed off the attack like it was nothing.

"Use Double Kick again!"

Combusken obeyed, and after closing the distance between itself and the other Pokémon punted it again, but before it could follow up with a second kick Wattson recalled it.

"Very good!" He said, laughing. "I can see you take your training very seriously, unlike your friend!"

He tossed out his next Pokémon Minun.

"Start with Nasty Plot, Minun," he said to his Pokémon.

"Keep using Double Kick Combusken!"

Courtney didn't exactly know what Wattson's Minun was doing, but it didn't even try to dodge her Combusken's attack. To its credit, it handled the attack better than the Plusle before it, but it was still obviously hurting from the attack.

"Minun, Shock Wave," Wattson ordered.

The Pokémon swiftly lunged at Courtney's Combusken, clinging to its chest as it unleashed a powerful burst of electricity. It was a lot more powerful than Plusle's but wasn't enough to take Combusken out.

Combusken quickly hopped to its feet, and without even waiting for Courtney's order unleashed another pair of quick kicks on its opponent.

The Minun hit the ground with a soft thud, then tried to get back up, but was unable to. Wattson recalled it. When he didn't send out another Pokémon Courtney recalled her Combusken as well.

"Yeah!" Shelly shouted, hugging Courtney from behind.

Wattson crossed the field so that he was standing in front of Courtney.

"Congratulations on winning your first Gym battle!" He said with a huge grin on his face. He held out his hand, in which was a small bin. "This is the Dynamo Badge! You've earned it! Also here's a little bonus."

He handed Courtney a yellow disc, which she recognized immediately as a TM.

"That's the TM for Shock Wave! I'm sure you'll get good use out of it!"

"Th-thanks…" Courtney said.

He patted her shoulder. "Good luck with the rest of your journey!" He said before turning away to go back and pick up the conversation he had been having with the teenagers when the girls entered the Gym.

Shelly released Courtney, only to turn her around. She giggled.

"Here's an extra special gift from me!" She leaned down and gave Courtney a quick peck on the cheek.

Courtney shoved her away.

"Ew, I don't want your germs!"

Shelly just laughed. Courtney grunted and turned to leave the Gym.

"That was really cool Courtney!" Shelly gushed as the two stepped back out into the city. "You completely crushed him!"

As annoying as Courtney found Shelly, she didn't mind having her ego stroked too much. Really, the battle didn't actually take much skill on her part— the two frivolous days of training she took while trying to avoid Shelly made her team overpowered.

"How did you get so strong?"

"I trained. A lot," Courtney answered matter-of-factly.

"That's all, huh?" Shelly grimaced, but then her expression brightened. "Maybe you could train me!"

The absolute last thing Courtney wanted was to spend so much time with Shelly.

"Train on your own," Courtney said, "I didn't need anyone's help." She turned to walk back to the Pokémon Center to restore her Pokémon before heading off to continue her journey.

Shelly stopped Courtney from leaving by grabbing her from behind.

"Aw, come on!" She said.

"No! I want to keep going so I can get my next badge. I don't want to have to waste time training you." Courtney tugged out of Shelly grip and began walking away, but Shelly followed after her. Courtney sighed. "I'm not going to change my mind; you don't have to follow me."

Shelly giggled. "I'm not following you. You're going to the Pokémon Center aren't you? Well I left my Pokémon behind so I could get to the Gym in time to see your battle. I need to go back to pick them up!"

"Ugh, whatever."

Courtney tried to block the other girl out and continued walking, but Shelly stepped around so she was next to her. She wrapped her arm around Courtney's, then delicately squeezed the other girl's hand.

"People'll think we're girlfriends!" Shelly laughed.

That was the last straw. Courtney ripped her arm away from Shelly.

"Would you just stop it already!?" Courtney shouted at the other girl.

Shelly stared down at the shorter girl, stunned. "Wh-what's wrong?"

"I get it; I'm a lesbian. I don't need you teasing me by holding my hand and shoving your breasts in my face to remind me. You're almost worse than all the other girls at school who used to pick on me! At least with them it was obvious how they felt about me! But you… You send me all these mixed messages and leave me confused. 'Oh, maybe she actually does like me.' But no, of course you don't. You just act like you do because you think it's funny seeing me react. I've had to put up with so much torment just because I decided not to keep it a secret that I liked girls, and now that I should finally be free from it I don't need you hanging around to keep reminding me of it."

Shelly started to cry, but Courtney was too angry to care.

"Just leave me alone from now on," she said.

Courtney started to walk away, but Shelly stopped her. She didn't hug Courtney for once, but only grabbed her by the arm.

"W-wait…" Shelly's voice was weak and trembling.

Courtney didn't even turn around. "I said to leave me alone."

"No, wait. Listen. I-I do like you. I'm just… I'm not brave like you were, so I never came out and said I liked girls. I've liked you for a long time though. I… I always thought you were so strong. Nothing anyone said seemed to phase you. I wish I was more like that… I could've come out— I could've told you my feelings sooner."

"You had a bunch of boyfriends while we were in school. You're lying," Courtney said. She wasn't sure if she believed Shelly was lying, but she was so angry that she didn't want to feel sympathetic to the girl who was now sobbing.

"N-no— I mean, yeah, I did. I had boyfriends, but I'm bisexual. I like boys too but… but I would've rather gone out with you than any of my boyfriends. Honest! I-I couldn't though, because… because then everyone would make fun of me…"

"So even though you could've been someone I could've sympathized with— someone I could talk to— you stayed quiet because you didn't want to be treated like me?" Courtney's voice was cold as ice.

Shelly fell to her knees, sobbing. "I-I'm sorry…" She said, almost too quietly to hear.

Courtney didn't respond, and began walking away.

She couldn't let Shelly see that she had started crying too.

Truth be told, she honestly couldn't blame the other girl. She was treated terribly by her classmates, and wouldn't wish her torment on anyone. She herself found herself wishing she had never let anyone know she was a lesbian, so how could she blame Shelly for keeping it to herself? Courtney never felt "brave" for coming out— she felt stupid. She felt like she should be envious of Shelly for being smart enough to not tell anyone.

At the same time, she felt completely justified. Shelly consciously let her suffer on her own, when she could've been there beside her. Instead of crying alone in her room every day, Courtney would have had someone to cry with. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten picked on at all if Shelly came out even— sure, it was easy to pick on a small quiet girl like Courtney, but Shelly was as tall as some of the boys on the basketball team. Maybe people would've been too afraid to bully her.

Yeah, Courtney thought, I did the right thing. Shelly was the one who was wrong.

She wasn't sure she believed that.

She was at the Pokémon Center for about a half hour, but Shelly didn't show up while she was there. She didn't know if she ever would see the other girl again after that. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to. Shelly actively let Courtney suffer all alone, and Courtney felt that it wouldn't be wrong of her to never forgive Shelly for that. Then again, even though Shelly had never been there for her in the past, her confession gave Courtney the impression that she could trust that Shelly would stay by her side.

An image of Shelly consoling her flashed in Courtney's mind. It made her frown like there was a bitter taste in her mouth, but at the same time it seemed incredibly welcome.

Courtney had never been in a relationship. Her only experience with them came from the obviously unrealistic portrayals of romance in books, TV shows, and manga. The one thing she could say definitively though— ironically enough thanks to Shelly— was that the feeling of someone's arms around her was the most comforting feeling she had experienced.

The phantom sensation of Shelly's arms around Courtney felt especially agonizing, since Courtney couldn't have felt colder as she walked north out of Mauville.

She would be perfectly content to never see the city again.