Day 2: Dance


Politics is like a dance. Don't trip.


Two weeks later. Meeting at Ever Grande. May and I were working on the Eco-terrorism Prevention Act, which felt a little like buying flowers for your ex-fiancé, but the government had deemed it necessary. Unfortunately, the powers that be had apparently decided that since the Elite Four and Champion were the best Trainers in the region, they were also the most qualified people to check over 56 pages of fine print for "loopholes and oversights related to the training and battling of Pokémon".

Not so.

ETPA TO GO THROUGH ELITE FOUR ON WEDNESDAY

PROTECTION FOR RED AND BLUE ORBS TO BE DISCUSSED

FORMER LEADER OF TEAM MAGMA REFUSES TO MAKE STATEMENT

Right now, Sidney was absentmindedly strumming on his guitar and Drake was absentmindedly humming some old sea shanty, and neither of them were particularly on-tune, which was making Glacia shoot positively knife-like looks at them. She had refused to bring out one of her Ice-types to cool off the room, which felt like the inside of Mt. Chimney- I don't know what happened to "state-of-the-art air conditioning", but, at any rate, I didn't blame Glacia for wanting to make sure her Pokémon didn't leave the meeting as puddles.

Except I did blame her, because surely it's a crime to be suffering from borderline heatstroke with the top Ice-type trainer in the region sitting next to you and filing down her nails. If Wallace had offered me one of his stupid revealing outfits, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. That's how bad it was.

Could we have refused to do this? Well, sure. Could we have fudged the job and left in a matter of minutes? Absolutely. Could we all be basking on the beaches of Sootopolis City right now, sipping chilled, mildly alcoholic drinks and enjoying summer in Hoenn? Yes, if not for one thing- namely, the pesky little promise May had made the insane leader of Team Magma to help reform his extremely illegal gang into a humanitarian nongovernmental organization.

And May could be very, very persuasive when she wanted to be.

So we were all trying our hardest for her sake, and by extension, for Team Magma's sake. Although, to be fair, 'trying our hardest' was a stretch.

"What's this bit about the Red and Blue orbs?" Phoebe said with a frown, holding up a piece of paper that looked exactly like all the other pieces of paper. "Are they going to take them away from my grandparents?"

"Well, to be fair, two old people aren't exactly the best protection ever for two historic relics that could destroy the world," pointed out Sidney, not entirely unreasonably.

ELITE FOUR PHOEBE'S GRANDPARENTS INTERROGATED

CHAMPION MAY ENDORSES "NEW TEAM MAGMA"

LEADER WALLACE: "I DON'T SEE WHY THEY HAVE TO KEEP THE NAME."

I rested my chin in my hands as they began to bicker and stared at May. She was diligently reading Section 2.3, a tiny smile on her face. I had never pegged her as the activism type, but ever since the debacle in the Cave of Origin, she'd affiliated herself with a lot of different groups and people; I'd heard she was even in contact with Red, the famous trainer who'd defeated Team Rocket in Johto and Kanto. She kept coming to me with complex political questions that I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to answer for her or not.

Even now, as I watched her, she looked up and searched for me a second with her eyes. "Steven, can we push for further protection of potentially disaster-causing Pokémon, in the case of an emergency?"

"You can," I said, uncertainly. "Whether it will have any effect, I can't say. The nature of Pokémon like Groudon and Kyogre is not to be able to be permanently damaged, anyway."

"Well, sure, but when have humans ever respected the nature of anything?" asked May, not bitterly but matter-of-factly, with a thoughtful look back at the paper.

I laughed, shortly, because it seemed like the only response to a question like that. The corners of May's eyes crinkled slightly.

"The government's first priority has to be the people- the humans of Hoenn," I said, returning to skimming my own stack of papers- May was making me feel guilty for not working. "You're a Trainer- you should know that Pokémon are designed to be subjugated by force." Wasn't that our whole career- battling Pokémon until one of them couldn't harm the other any more?

"Are they, though?" May said, vaguely, turning the page.

MAY DONATES 10k POKé TO POKéMON SHELTER

ARE THE INCUMBENT ELITE FOUR PREVENTING A CHANGE IN THE FACE OF BATTLING?

COMPETITION A PHYSICAL NEED IN POKéMON DNA?

"Pokémon are peaceful creatures," May continued, still staring down at the paper, although by now it seemed that she wasn't even reading it, just looking in that general direction. Her eyes were glassy. "I guess humans would say they're not. That they exist to fight. But if they really exist to fight, so what? If they don't mean harm by battling each other, can you really call that 'meaningless violence'?" Her gaze snapped back into focus all of a sudden, and she glanced at me curiously, apparently not especially bothered by the weight of the words in her mouth. "But how can you tell the intentions of a Pokémon? We'll never know for sure," she sighed.

There was a short pause.

"I think," I finally said, cautiously, "that you're trying to unravel two ideas from each other that shouldn't really be separated."

"That's fair," said May, looking at her hands. "Maybe you're right."

I listened to Drake and Sidney talk, at the other end of the table. The heat pressed down on my shoulders, making the back of my neck feel sticky. I watched May fidget with the papers; her fingers were leaving little damp indents on the edge of the document, even though she looked perfectly cool and composed in the stifling-hot room.

"Then again, the world is large," I said, quietly. "Certainly, it's unwise to set a limit on the possibility of pain… or happiness. Not when we are still so ignorant of other lives."

May suddenly looked up and gave me a dazzling smile, which startled me. I glanced at the Elite Four, half-expecting them to be staring this way; not to be awfully cliché, but the fact was that her smile was magnetic, hopelessly attention-grabbing, like a radio signal. But they were still arguing obliviously amongst themselves, and we were only in a room in a building, and she was still only herself. There were no huge hunks of iron or flocks of migratory Pokémon crashing through the ceiling towards us. We were alone.

"Steven," May said, her eyes wide all of a sudden, "would you help me with something?"

I surveyed her open expression. "Does it have to do with running away?" I asked, keeping my face totally straight.

She laughed.


SHOCKING NUMBER OF VOLUNTEERS FLOCK TO 'REFORMED' TEAM MAGMA

"Why am I here, May?"

I stared at the former leader of the criminal organization Team Magma. He stared back at me.

"I need your help with this," pressed May, vaguely, tugging on my arm. She looked between the two of us with a bright smile. "Maxie, this is the former Champion, Steven Stone. Steven, this is the great Maxie."

"I… know," I said, anticlimactically, after a short pause.

"A pleasure, I'm sure, Mr Stone," Maxie said dryly, sounding almost amused, and I almost looked behind me; nobody ever called me Mr Stone. Disconcerted, I actually backed up a step and almost tripped over a woman carrying a tray of rusty-looking metal pieces. Arceus, it was hot in here. I'd never seen so many people working in one room without Pokémon. Where was the heat coming from? We were underground. In a Team Magma hideout. Although I wasn't sure if this even counted as a hideout- it seemed too high-tech.

"I wish you had warned me you were going to do this before we did it," I hissed to May, not caring whether I was being rude or not. She gave me a challenging look.

"Where'd the fun be in that?" she said, pushing my arm playfully. She seemed to be in a very good mood. "You already agreed to help me, Steven, remember, so don't back out now!"

I looked at her, then looked at Maxie. What was I supposed to say to that? Hi, Maxie, I'm Steven Stone. You're welcome for not dismantling your criminal organization earlier, so that you could have the opportunity to almost destroy the world. I decided that silence was the best option. I gave Maxie a polite, horribly stiff nod.

When it became apparent that neither of us were going to extend courtesies beyond that, Maxie turned to May, grabbing a large whiteboard on wheels and pulling it over to us.

"We have not yet managed to determine whether the absence of Groudon from the ecosystem is having any effect," Maxie said, sketching out a graph on the board seemingly from memory. "However, we have been able to pinpoint several general markers- it is at Level 45, has 158 HP, does not seem to exert influence over-"

I squinted at the board. There were a lot of numbers and lines. It took a minute for the words to filter through to my brain. They were talking about Groudon- right, that Groudon. Of course.

"-however, the time span is simply too limited to assess-"

The absence of Groudon from the ecosystem?

Groudon was gone? May had killed it? Arceus- no, that couldn't be right. May wouldn't do that. May wouldn't kill a legendary Pokémon, and come out of the experience smiling. She was smiling and nodding even now, as Maxie rambled on.

"-seems to be a shocking lack of documentation of-"

No, if she hadn't killed it, she'd -removed it, somehow, apparently. I racked my brains. Had May ever specified what had happened to Groudon after she'd defeated it? Had it been in some kind of pool of lava? Had it sunken back into the bowels of the earth?

Removed it. From the ecosystem. How…?

Maybe she'd- oh, shit.

"-know you were probably expecting-"

"Wait."

May and Maxie must have heard something in my voice, because both of them turned around at once. Maxie's eyebrows raised just slightly; I'm sure I was white as a sheet.

"May," I breathed. I think I may even have been shaking. "You- you didn't just defeat Groudon, did you?"

May held my gaze steadily.

EIGHT-BADGE TRAINER'S TEAM SUBDUES GROUDON

LEGENDARY CONTINENT POKéMON "NO LONGER A THREAT" SAYS PKMN TRAINER MAY

POKéMON PROFESSOR BIRCH ASSURES PUBLIC: GROUDON WILL NOT AWAKEN AGAIN

"Oh, dear," said Maxie, blinking and lowering his hand from the whiteboard. "May, have you not informed your friend…?"

"Please don't freak out," said May, her eyes like saucers, still staring at me intently.

"Fuck!" I cursed, too loudly; several people stopped their busy activity to stare. "Sorry- sorry, but if this means what I think it means- I mean, shit-" Quickly, I cut that train of thought short. Okay. I have to stay practical. I blinked several times. This is actually fine. I should inform them that this is fine. Calm, Steven, calm. "Right, May, this is fine, we can deal with this-"

May and Maxie blinked at me. Maxie's eyes slid to the whiteboard covered in numbers and graphs. May looked torn between anxiety and laughter.

"Right, actually, it looks like you're … already dealing with this." I took a breath. "That's good." Another breath. "I'm not freaking out, May."

Another long breath.

"Would you now care to, however belatedly, explain how I can assist you in the matter of your having caught a legendary Pokémon and kept it hidden for six months?"

All right, so I'm sure I'd be the last person to accuse of underestimating May, but this- this was new, unpleasantly so. Call me old-fashioned, but for me, the idea of capturing and training a legendary Pokémon- it just seems wrong. Oh, we'd all known it was possible for a long time- it had been done in other regions, after all- but that didn't make it a good idea by any means. So many humans can't even handle having the power to command regular Pokémon.

On top of that, keeping and training a legendary was often strenuously difficult- battling with it could release havoc upon the environment, keeping it in its ball for too long could disrupt the natural balance of things, the science associated with its proper care and keeping was flabbergasting; the list went on. And the social impact was unimaginable- scientists, politicians, reporters, fans, Pokémon-rights groups, environmentalists, Pokémon professors, foolhardy challengers- you'd draw them all, and more, if word of your ownership of a legendary ever, ever leaked.

May had collected all eight Hoenn gym badges by the time she was eighteen; she'd become Champion at nineteen. She was no stranger to breaking limits, nor to fame and the spotlight. But this…!

I just couldn't see May as the reckless kind of person to capture a legendary on a whim, or because she could. Especially a legendary who had almost obliterated Hoenn without even meaning to. She was too smart for that- smarter than me, probably, in some ways.

"Well," May said thoughtfully, interrupting my train of thought. "the last time someone tried to wake it up, it almost destroyed the world. I figured it might be a good idea to study it a bit, since last time we had absolutely no prior knowledge on how to control it or stop it."

"There's probably a reason for that," I pointed out.

May blushed slightly and folded her arms, giving me a slightly petulant look. "Also, I was an eighteen-year-old kid facing an ancient and enraged beast of legend and I kind of just panicked and did what I do best."

Then again, there was a reason I'd never felt qualified to call myself May's mentor. I decided to shut my mouth and listen to Maxie's statistics.


HOENN WEATHER INSTITUTE TAKES POSSESSION OF WEATHER ORBS

TRAINER RED CAPTURES LEGENDARY BIRD POKéMON

BREAKTHROUGH IN MEWTWO RESEARCH: SCIENTISTS REFUSE TO SHARE DETAILS

"You want to hand Groudon over to the Weather Institute?" I resisted the urge to rub my forehead. Three hours of this, and I was just about beat. It was all I could do to clarify this simplest of simple points.

May nodded, carefully steady. "So they can observe it further, do more research, and hopefully… one day, manage it for doing good."

I tipped my head, considering it. Of course, Groudon's powers extended far beyond weather, but there were some very capable environmentalists who worked at the Weather Institute. And it was the most sensible option, anyway; they knew enough about Pokémon to have engineered a new one, and had already been studying the Red and Blue Orbs for more than three months.

It turned out that May had captured Groudon, then stored it in a private PC box for the following few months while trying to decide what to do. Simply releasing it might have caused it to devastate the environment again, and there was no telling what effect being captured might have had on it, according to Maxie. After May had gauged Team Magma's good intent, she'd handed Groudon over to them for study, but the level of trust was not great and she'd ended up independently contacting the Weather Institute to arrange a transfer. It had taken three more months for the Institute to set up a suitable holding facility for Groudon.

May had paid them a ridiculous amount of money to keep quiet about everything. They'd undoubtedly be able to handle the legendary continent Pokémon as well as anyone.

So, the move would happen in three weeks. Everything seemed set.

"May," I said, and she turned, framed in the doorway of Team Magma's lab. "You still haven't explained why you brought me here."

She hesitated, locking her fingers together and looking up at me. She looked at me for so long that I wondered if I was supposed to read the answer written across her eyeballs, but then she finally spoke. "This… is hard for me."

I don't know why those particular words had such an impact on me, at that moment, but they did; I stared at her, remarkably taken off-guard. Maybe it was because that was the first time May had said them to me in that order, that combination, that tone of voice. But May said lots of things to me that nobody else ever said; "Steven, do Nosepass fall in love?" or "Steven, do you think someone could build a house connected to a Pokémon gym?" or "Steven, sorry for calling this late at night, but if the whole world was clean, where would Grimer live?"

"Steven, do you think love and hate are like a circle, or a straight line?"

"Do you think Rayquaza gets lonely sometimes?"

"This is hard for me."

"...Yeah?" I said hesitantly, after another long pause.

"I know this is all very sudden," said May, dancing subtly around the point for a second longer. "I've just… been dealing with this for months, and it's really hard, and I wondered if maybe having someone here with me would help."

"I-" I started, but May interrupted.

"I know it's stupid, and I wasted your time. Sorry," she spat out quickly, looking away from me, her shoulders curving inwards. Completely stripped of charisma and mischief, she looked the way she had when she'd emerged from the Cave of Origin; exhausted, horrified, guilty. I felt a jolt as I realized that maybe, now, I understood the reason for that expression. "I didn't really want your help. I just wanted you to be around."

"Don't apologize," I said, eventually, placing a hand on her shoulder; she looked up at me again cautiously. "I'm happy to…" I didn't want to use the word help now. "...accompany you, anywhere you care to go." Which sounds very drastic, but really isn't, not when it's from one wandering Trainer to another. I paused, unsure of how much I wanted to say to her then; I choked slightly on the weight of everything I wasn't saying. "May, let's go."

"Wait," she said quickly. "Steven… do you think I'm making the right decision?" The words came out all in a rush, and I just stared at her for a second, figuring out what she'd said. I couldn't understand what she'd asked about. The decision about Groudon? Capturing Groudon in the first place? Becoming the hero of Hoenn and condemning her to heavy decisions like this? I was equally unable to answer any of them.

"I… don't know," I finally said, helplessly, watching her expression turn to guarded disappointment at my failure to produce an answer. "I am not privy to the wisdom of legendary Pokémon. Over the past few years, I've come to realize how little of the world I know… thanks to you, in part, May." I tried a smile, but she didn't return it. "If Groudon chose you, surely it saw some kind of good future in you," I tried. "Go with your intuition."

"It's just like you to say something long and empty like that," she muttered, which was, well, a fair accusation, even if it hurt to hear her say it so plainly. It wasn't that I was naturally verbose, more that May often asked questions that left me stammering and qualifying and going round and round. I wondered if she had that effect on anybody else.

"The thing is, Steven, Groudon didn't choose me." She looked absolutely miserable; it was rare that I saw her like this, all burned out and empty. "I forced it down. It was primal. I don't even think it could make rational decisions at that point."

"You did the right thing," I soothed, unsure what else to say, unsure if I even believed what I was saying.

"It didn't want to be beaten," she said, as if pleading to be understood. "I had to use all six of my Pokémon to beat it. It didn't want to fight me. It just wanted to get out." Her voice was strained, oddly passionate; May got passionate about so many things, but the strength of her emotion shocked me every time. They say that a truly great Pokémon Trainer's defining trait has to be a good heart. I'd thought I was decent in that category, but of course May beat me. It was easy to see why.

"Maybe I was weak for not letting it go," she said in an empty voice.

"I understand," I said.


sorry, i did a terrible job on the prompt fill this time around. i promise i'm usually more relevant.

this was written for the second day of dai/haru week on tumblr. thanks for your favs, follows and reviews!

thanks for reading!