—Chapter 4—
Luna Island
Luna Island was a usually uninhabited, relatively large blob of land and almost completely covered with a forest consisting of deciduous trees and long beaches of white, fine-ground sand. On both the left and the right coast you could see the other, slightly smaller two of the Soloux Islands: Solari and Lavi Island. All three of them were located in the strait between Hoenn and Johto.
In the biggest bay of Luna Island a harbour had been built especially for the MS Aquarion. Naturally, it wasn't nearly as impressive as the one in Slateport City, but it fulfilled its purpose.
Slowly, masses of young coordinators streamed down the stairs of the MS Aquarion. Although the amount of people had reduced itself noticeably compared to the one at the moment the ferry had set sail, (a lot of them had refused to take any further part in the camp due to the many unpleasant events happening to them during the journey) it easily filled out the grand place in front of the dock.
Within the crowd it was stuffy and uncomfortable. Everywhere May looked bodies pressed against each other; the only other thing she could see was the cobalt blue sky and the occasional puffy cloud floating across it. Harley had made sure to stand close to her, which mostly saved her from accidentally getting squashed or suffocated. Still, the air was stale and minute by minute her stomach began to flip into quite an unpleasant position.
Everyone except them was talking and wondering what would happen next, until, suddenly, a gruff voice booming through various speakers interrupted them all.
"Could I please have your attention?" the owner of the voice asked politely. Everything became still. "Thank you. My name is Darius Leonard Burton. I am the president of Aquarion Pokémon Training Camps for Battlers, Breeders and Coordinators. It delights me that so many of you have come and accepted my invitation." There was a short pause in which May imagined a little, overweight man in his fifties beaming at them through round, blinking glasses.
"I'd like to welcome you all," Mr. Burton continued cheerfully. "And hope that in the next two weeks you as well as me and the other teachers, will learn a lot from the experiences and workshops we will share with each other. Thus, let us have fun and work hard to deepen the bonds between us and our pokémon!"
The people around May and Harley broke into a roaring applause, whereas the two friends themselves only very shallowly clapped their hands together.
"Thank you," Mr. Burton said again. "Now please divide yourselves by gender; boys on the right and girls on the left." Everyone did as they had been told, of course including May and Harley, who only had time for a very rushed goodbye before they must go over to the group of their respective gender. "Yes—wonderful. You will be assigned a hut together with five other persons of your sex." A few sniggered at the word. May did not. She was unhappy about having to be separated from Harley in this blob of girls she didn't know. "Each hut will have a chaperon you can talk to in certain emergency cases. These lovely young men and women will now call out your names and lead you to your huts, so be apprehensive. I wish you all a productive time and good luck!"
Almost instantly after Mr. Burton had stopped talking, a strong, female voice started calling out names.
"Abbott!"
"Ackland!"
"Altman!"
Gradually, the girls around May vanished, in dribs and drabs, giggling excitedly.
"Banister!"
"Benson!"
"Chesterfield!"
"Crown!"
After about ten minutes had passed, she couldn't help but curse her last name's first letter a little; she didn't want to wait here any longer. Her feet hurt and she was desperately craving some pork flavoured ramen.
"Eckman!"
"Folsom!"
May looked around, bored. It wasn't as narrow and stuffy as before, still, there were at least one hundred girls surrounding her, although she wasn't too confident about it(—she had never been very good at guessing things).
"Herman!"
"Johnson!"
"Karson!"
"Lexington!"
At that May literally jumped up, startling a group of younger girls beside her, yet May ignored their complaints about rudeness and apologies. Dawn was here! Dawn—one of the best girl friends she possessed! She beamed all over the face and eagerly hoped her name would be called out soon, as well.
As if on cue, a sharp "Maple!" sounded and May began to box her way through the crowd. As soon as she was outside, she took a deep, content breath and proceeded to march over to a tall, skinny woman with jet black hair that was tied into a strict bun, and a short legged white overall. In her hands she held a rather long list. Behind her stood another woman with the same overall, but she looked the exact opposite of her co-worker: she had golden, curly hair, ocean blue eyes and clearly picked the wrong job. She was of such a high-class beauty it was ridiculous.
"Line up!" the black-haired woman instructed, her voice sounding both annoyed and hoarse, and pointed firstly at May, then at the blonde.
Not wanting to get scolded, May complied. Two other girls were with the pretty woman, she noted when she got there, looking ominously blinded. Dawn was not one of them. Her euphoria evaporated.
"Hello," the pretty woman greeted and smiled in a very dashing sort of fashion. "My name's Grace and I will be your chaperon for the next two weeks. If you have any questions or problems, come to me. These two will be your roommates."
"Nice to meet you," May said, not only to Grace but also to the two girls beside her, and tried to sound cheerful. "I'm May Maple."
"Nice to meet you, too," said the older of the pair and grinned, giving her bright green eyes a mischievous glint. "I'm Katharina, Katharina Lucas, but please call me Kat. And this is my younger sister Yolanda," she added as though she had nearly forgotten she was even there. "Don't mind her, she's just a little shy and … peculiar."
Compared to her tall, freckly redhead of a sister Yolanda really did look quite peculiar. The tone of her skin was dangerously close to grey and her straw-y hair was at least just as colourless. She seemed tiny and fragile, which only intensified the impression of a porcelain figure. She almost unnoticeably nodded at May, before squatting down and examining the ground.
Luckily, May's other roommates turned out to be somewhat normal, at least. When they were complete, they followed Grace down the beach into the dark, wild-looking forest until they reached a big, most likely artificial clearing in which there were at least twenty wooden cabins and a small, grey building that had "Toilets" imprinted on its front door. Grace halted for a moment to check something on a small piece of paper she had pulled out from her overall's pocket and then led the girls to a hut at the other end of the clearing.
"This is ours!" she declared happily, while unlocking the door. Creaking slightly, it opened and together they all stepped in. The inside of the hut was plainly furnished with three bunk beds and a large cupboard they had to share, as Grace explained to them.
"What's that ladder for?" asked Beth Norris, a small, honey-haired girl, evidently referring to the ladder that leaned against the wall behind the bed she and her friend Rose Milton had picked.
"I'll show you," Grace chirped melodically, took the ladder and placed it directly in the middle of the room. At this the other girls, including May, curiously turned their heads. Grace climbed up and, having arrived at the top, began to frantically push and pull at the ceiling. Finally, after a few minutes, a big skylight was compassionate enough to open itself. "Up there'll be where I sleep," Grace said, panting, and still looked depressingly gorgeous as she did so.
Satisfied with that information (and mildly distraught by her apparently never-fading beauty), everybody continued to unpack. May had chosen the top bunk of the bed right next to the door, beneath her Carina Melrose was currently changing her bed's white covers into black ones. She was a quiet girl (who seemed to have a thing for black in general, considering her clothes and hairstyle) and probably a few years older than May, but as long she didn't moan or talk or do something equally disturbing while sleeping she decided she could care less about her.
At five to seven Grace announced it was time for supper and the girls more than gladly interrupted their discussion about what was the best pokémon type for coordinating. Especially May was grateful. She hadn't eaten since lunch and her stomach had been demanding some input for a while now.
"You're going to eat along with the boys," Grace informed them, winking, on their way through the forest to the cafeteria. May was looking forward to that. She wanted to know how Harley had been in the meantime.
Pointedly at seven o'clock they arrived at another clearing. Even though it was smaller than the one they had just come from, it still offered enough space for a simple, snow white building which, May suspected, was the cafeteria, and even a real pokémon centre. When they entered the former, the boys were already there, occupying about one third of the seats and busily devouring plate after plate. No other group of girls was to be seen; they were the first.
For May this was excellent news. (It meant more food was still available for her.) Faster than any other girl of her cabin, she raced over to the buffet and heaped up as much as food she could carry. While everyone in the hall ogled her as though she was some kind of very rare yet unpleasant pokémon species, she scanned the tables for any sign of purple hair and/or flamboyant clothing. She found it at a table in a corner on the right side of the hall.
"Harley!" she cried out, waving excitedly with a bowl full of spaghetti Bolognese, and hurried over to her friend.
"Dear, watch out what you're doing," Harley warned and backed away slightly. "I can't afford you to soak my hair with sauce. It'll take forever to get out."
May, however, had not heard him, as she was already shovelling her way through her fist portion. The other boys at the table observed them suspiciously, purposefully keeping a safe distance five metres each.
After supper, May and Harley both asked their respective chaperon to allow them to stay behind a little bit before having to return to their cabins. They agreed under the condition that they would go to the pokémon centre where Nurse Joy could keep an eye on them in case something happened. May found this more than a tad rude—after all, she was already fourteen and had already travelled through Hoenn Kanto, and Johto and was therefore more than able to watch out for any kind of danger herself, but Harley, his chaperon Dave and Grace easily ignored her furious ranting.
Cackling and more chipper than he had any right to be, Harley dragged her into the centre, and sat both her and himself at the nearest table, while politely greeting Nurse Joy with informing her that she had a stray grey hair peeking out. Immediately, Nurse Joy squeakily disappeared upstairs.
"Harley!" May scolded him and looked indignant. "Why did you do that?"
Characteristically, Harley had already dissolved into a violent fit of laughter. "C—calm down, hon, I'm just spicing her l—life up a bit!"
May huffed disdainfully. "You are—"
But Harley never came to know what he was. A shrill, blood-curling scream, evidently coming from the forest, cut her off, accompanied by something that was even more terrifying than the scream: a sound that vaguely resembled the cry of a wild pokémon, yet it inhered an aggressiveness; a kind of malice which one normally did not tend to hear from a pokémon, ever.
Before either of the two could do anything, Nurse Joy frantically flew downstairs. "What was that?" she asked and hectically glanced back and forth between May and Harley. She appeared rather pale and faint.
"We—we don't know either," May only so much as whispered, thus she wouldn't overhear anything that happened outside. But there was nothing. No sound, no voices, no anything, just silence, which was haunting enough itself. "May—maybe we should go and check," she weakly suggested to Harley, causing him to gulp, hard.
Nurse Joy chose exactly this moment to lose consciousness. Harley immediately seized the opportunity and rushed over to her, explaining, "Somebody has to stay with her."
May didn't quite know whether she should rather start screaming or simply kick him in the face, but quickly decided the gravity of the situation was higher than the one of her friend's cowardice. "Fine," she snarled, grabbed one of her pokéballs, and released Blaziken. A little more determined and a lot less scared, she nodded at it and opened the door.