Chapter Four: Versus Roxanne and Screwing Courage

"We're lost." May stated it so simply. She didn't even need to look up from the large paper in her hands. "The map doesn't even seem to match up with anything here."

Brendan shrugged, looking around at the scenery. "Maybe because that's the map for Viridian Forest, in Kanto." He casually pointed at the title of the map, which proved what he said.

That certainly helped the cause. Bella over-dramatically collasped to the ground. "We're going to die of starvation, die of thirst, die of the cold nights, die of the exhaustion..." She reached her hand out, as if she was trying to touch something invisible. "I see the light already!"

Sighing, May gave Bella a light tap to the side with her foot. "Stop screwing around," she ordered, folding up the useless map and shoving it into her pocket. "Stand up and help us find our way in here. Trevor isn't much help. He's just staring off into space."

In truth, that was exactly what I was doing. So I shook my head a few times, snapping out of my daydream, a daydream of memories long lost. "How close are we to Rustburo? I need to beat Roxanne."

Brendan face-palmed. "Is that all you think about? Getting you first badge? And to answer your question, we're still lost in Petalburg woods."

"Great," I muttered, looking around. Tall trees grew on all sides of us, their canopies blocking out a large amount of sunlight. Because of this, plant life on the ground was nearly non-exsistant, limited to patches of shrubbery where sunbeams broke through the leaves.

Cascoons and Silcoons sat around here and there, not moving as they awaited their evolutions into Beautiflys and Dustoxs. Tailows flew overhead, chirping to each other during their search for prey. Slakoths lazily slept on low-hanging tree branches, arms dangling off the sides.

It was just the four of us humans, our Pokemon stashed away in their Pokeballs. It was nice to have the semi-quiet, peaceful time, with only the sounds of nature and not Flamo's ranting for beef.

Brendan was walking alongside May and Bella, whilst I was a few feet behind them, my mind replaying all the regained memories. I was glad to have them back, but I was still missing a ton.

"So," Bella asked as we walked under some low branches, knocking some Slakoth arms away like vines, "who's all fighting Roxanne?"

"Not me," May replied instantly, leading the group to another dead end. "I'm more into contests."

Brendan seemed to think for a minute, before slowing his pace to walk next to me. "What should I say?" he asked in a low whisper.

"What?"

"If I say that I'm doing contests, May might see me as a rival, or she might see that we have something in common. If I say that I'm in the League Challenge, she might not like me because she's not into battling, or she might see me as a potential contestant for the Champion."

I blinked. And the blinked again. "I can't make that decision for you," I replied, whispering. "You'll have to make it yourself." I thought for a minute. "You could actually do both, if you wanted, to be on the safe side."

He appeared to muse it over, speeding his pace back up to match the girls'. It was obvious that he liked May. Somewhat too obvious...

I cracked my knuckled, then popped my neck, and listened to the sound of nature. Bug Pokemon calling out to each other, bird Pokemon chirping, the babbling of a brook in the distance. The hum of an engine as some strange dude in a platinum suit with a monocule passing by on a platinum moped. He gave a wave as he passed. Other than that, the forest was peaceful.

It reminded me of my experience in Unova's Pinwheel forest. I smiled, glad that I could actually remember something, and then that faded when I remembered Team Plasma's theft of the dragon skull.

I had been able to match some of my flashbacks to the Unova adventure, but not all of them. There were still some missing pieces. The one thing that bugged me. I only had the memories up to the point of me facing off Darkrai with the aide of Giratina. Nothing about the event, just that it happened. As I thought of the showdown, a man in a green business suit ran up to us, panting heavily.

"Have...you...seen...a Shroomish...come by...here?" he questioned, putting his hands on his knees as he was trying to catch his breath.

"Um...no," May answered. "But we can help you find it if you want."

He shook his head. "Nah, I just really like Shroomish. They're my favorite Pokemon." He waved and left, heading back in the direction that he came from.

"That's something you don't see everyday," Bella commented, "A dude in a suit out in the forest, chasing Pokemon."

"Couldn't we have asked him for some directions to get out of here?" I looked at them, and their faces instantly turned to that of irritated.

"Thanks for telling us now," Brendan said, folding his arms. "Now how are we going to get out of here? There's not a single map around, and it's only a few more hours until dark."

That made Bella hysterical. "I don't want to sleep on the ground with insects! I need a room, a bed, a tent, something other than the ground!" She flopped back on to the ground, and we all rolled our eyes.

"At night, the lights of the city can be seen more easily," Brendan reminded her, as Bella continued pitching her fit. "Which means we'll know where to go, and can get a room at the Center."

Suddenly, May snapped her fingers. "We got a room back in Petalburg City, and never got to use it. If we head back, we might get there before dark," she suggested, looking around. "Then again, we don't know how to get out of here."

Bella had stopped flailing on the ground, and looked up at the figure of a man passing by in the distance. "Why can't we just ask that pirate guy for directions? He's coming this way." She stood up and brushed the leaves and dirt off the front of her jacket.

"Yo, pirate man!" she called out, waving him over. The man hesistated, and walked over, toting a suitcase in his hand.

"What?" he snapped crankily, checking his watch. He had a bandana with some sort of skull and crossbones on it, white and blue striped shirt, and dark pants. "I really need to leave."

Bella slightly wavered at his tone, but asked anyway. "We're lost, and we need to know how to get out of here. Can you tell us how to get out of this hell-hole of a forest?"

Sighing, the man pointed in the direction he was going. "Kids nowadays," he muttered. "Always rushing into things without planning. It's that way."

"Thanks!" May shouted as she ran off, and soon after followed by Brendan.

"What's up with them?" Bella asked, watching them as they become little more than a speck in the distance.

I shrugged. "Beats me. They're probably just really hating the great outdoors after getting lost. It tends to happen."

"Theif!" It was the same man in the green suit we had seen minutes before, once again panting and pointing at the pirate. "He stole my breifcase!"

The pirate groaned, and twirled around, punching the suit man in the face and knocking him flat on his back . "Shut up!" He took off running, and without thinking, I took off after him.

"What are you doing?" Bella questioned as she ran along beside me, "This guy is some criminal, and you're going after him without any form of weapon."

"Well, you're after him too," I replied. "Just do what I did; screw your courage to the sticking place, and you will not fail."

"What?"

"It's Shakespeare."

"Oh..."

The pirate had a pretty good lead over us, easily twenty yards. He glanced back to see if he was getting away, and missing the tree root jutting out from the ground. Landing with an "Ompf!" he sent up a small cloud of dust when he hit.

I bit my lip to contain my laughter, and grabbed the suitcase as the fallen felon tried to get up, only to recieve a karate chop from Bella right in the back of the neck, knocking him out. There was an awkward silence as I looked from the pirate to Bella. "Damn, girl," I exclaimed. "Where'd you learn that?"

"I took some karate," she replied, smiling cheekily. "After all, a girl's got to be able to defend herself one way or another."

I chuckled. "I would go with another," I said, walking back to where the green suit man had been knocked down. "Perferably a .44."

"Gee," Bella said in mock awe, "Someone's been playing too many video games."

"Have not!" I retorted. "It's been at least a year since I've even touched a controller." In truth, I wasn't sure how accurate that was. By my calculations, I'd lost a whole year in between Unova and Orre.

The suit man stood up, holding one hand to the impact zone of the pirate's fist. "Oh, you got it back!" he exclaimed as we approached. He smiled weakly and reached into his pocket. "Now, I'm a fair man, and since you did something for me, I'll give you this," he said, retrieving a blue Pokeball with two red lines on it. "I only have one Great Ball, so you two will have to decide who gets it."

"Thanks," I said, taking it from his hand. "You want it, Bella?"

"Nah," she answered. "It's fair for you to have it; you gave me that money yesterday."

I nodded, and stashed it into my pocket. Now, what could I catch with it? Bagon? Trapinch? Swablu? The possibilites were endless. Kinda...

The man grunted as he rubbed his jaw, a slight bruise forming where he took the hit. "So, what'd you do with the theif?"

I jerked my thumb back to where the pirate was out cold. "He's back there, so you can call the cops and such."

He nodded, and pulled out his phone. "Thanks for you help, kids. Sucks that I couldn't find a Shroomish though..." he walked away, holding the phone up to his ear as he made the call.

"So, how about we get back to the city?" I guestured to the path that Brendan and May had taken off in, leaving a trail of bent grass to mark their footsteps.

She nodded. "Last one there has to pay for dinner!" Bella shouted, taking off as fast as she could. I groaned and ran after her, eventually reaching Rustburo City without incident.

Rustburo City was much larger than Petalburg, Odale, and Littleroot all put together. Towers towered over the smaller buildings, while streets were jammed with people. Car horns and the loud uproar of hundred of voices were the sounds of Rustburo.

"Now, where's the Gym?" I looked around for one of those almost always inconviently placed 'you are here' maps, but saw none. As expected, they were most likely placed in the most unnessesary places.

"You know," Bella said, brushing her brunette hair over her ear. "We should be finding May and Brendan first. They could be anywhere."

"Or over there," I said, pointing at the two of them waving at us from across the street.

When the traffic stopped, we bolted over to them. "Where have you two been?"

"Around," Brendan replied, smiling present on his face as he reached into his pocket and produced a small shiny medal object. "Beat Roxanne while you two were still in the woods."

That was shocking. "How? We weren't gone for more than ten minutes!"

"Treeko beats Rock-Types like he was born to," he explained. "Easily took out both of her Geodudes."

Bella blinked, and pulled out a guide to the Hoenn League, flipping to the section on Roxanne. "It says here that she only has two Pokemon, and one of them is a Nosepass. Not two Geodudes."

Brendan shrugged as he pinned the badge to his bag strap. "Well, she got a new one somewhere."

"Phil can beat them both, Lotads are both Water and Grass-Types," I said, thinking out a plan for my Gym battle. "Where's the Gym? I'm going right now."

"A few blocks north, and then a few east. You can't miss it," May replied, looking bored as she inspected her nails. "I wish I did. Nothing much to do there."

"Nothing much to do at a Gym?" I asked, walking away. "You really must not like battling."

May shook her head, even though I was out of her sight, lost in the crowd on the streets.

All these people, going somewhere. Why have I never cared?

Pushing my way through, it took several minutes to see the pale green electric sign of the Gym standing tall above some of the smaller buildings. And the McDonalds sign. It wasn't far now.

Then, my vision went blurry. The roaring chatter of the pedestrians faded, and were replaced by a ringing in my ears. I dropped to my knees. Clutching my ears to try to stop the ringing, the beeping sound returned, accompanied by voices.

...This is fascinating! I've never seen anything like this before! To believe that closing a Pokemon's heart can give them such great power! If only he could tell me what he's experiencing right now!

It was a different voice than the one telling me to find something in Sinnoh, and then get back to Slateport. It was more deeper, and had a slight accent to it.

Fight against it. I cannot allow all I have worked so hard to accomplish to be ruined so easily.

Once again, that other voice. I didn't know who or what it was, butlistened to it, forcing my mind to correct itself.

My vision returned, and soon my hearing was back to normal. I hadn't even noticed that I was trembling. Passerbys were crowded around me, with a doctor, what a coincidence, looking me over.

"What happened?" he asked, taking my pulse. I mentally rolled my eyes, remembering how Bella did the same.

I shook my head. "Nothing. I'm alright."

He scoffed. "Yeah, sure. Healthy teenagers don't just fall to the ground, trembling as if they were scared to death of air."

I sighed, standing back up. "Really, I'm fine."

"It wasn't a seizure, was it?"

"No, I'm fine."

He released a breath. "You seem fine know. If that ever happens again, I want you to go to the nearest clinic, and get some treatment. You understand?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'll do that."

The crowd began to dissipate, still mumuring about my incident. I really needed to figure out what that whole thing was about, and find a way to put an end to it.

But, that wasn't my major concern.

The Gym doors slid open, and I casually stepped in, seeing hordes of other trainers in there, some bragging about their new badges to those that had lost. I walked up to the desk. "Um...I want to challenge Roxanne."

Sighing, the secretary handed me a form. "Here, fill this out, and you're lucky, that she's still open now." She went back to her Facebook page, changing her status update to bored as hell.

Taking a pen off the desk, I scribbled in all the info the form asked for, not bothering to use neat hand writing. I read over the fine print three times. Convinced that there was no catch, I handed it back and the secertary pointed me at a door.

The arena was quite simple. A gravel ground with large boulders scattered around here and there. In the middle of the room, there was a risen up section, with a recliner and TV hooked up there, and the one called Roxanne sat in the LayZ boy chair, watching something on the tube.

"Um...hi?" I awkwardly greeted as I approached. She looked up, and jumped out of the chair.

"So, I guess that you're the next challenger?" Roxanne asked, folding her arms. "It's about time."

"Yeah," I replied. "And I thought you were a teacher, not a couch potato."

She nodded. "I am. But today's my day off, so I thought I'd spend it watching other people battle and finding ways to beat certain strategies that they're put up against."

Yeah, the lazy way, thought the second voice in my head. Damn, I had two voices in my head? I'm one screwed up individual. Wait...

Voi? Is that you? I thought back. Voi had been the voice in my head during my Unova adventure, and in reality he was Giratina. Where he decided to haunt my mind, I don't know.

Perhaps.

Um...okay. Yes or no.

"Are we going to start" Roxanne asked, taking out her first Pokeball. "I need to get back to researching."

I took out Phil's Pokeball. "I'm ready."

"The Gym match between Leader Roxanne and Trevor White is about to begin!" the referee shouted, and some muted applause came from the people in the stands. I'm sure that no one cared about who won, they were just here to see what Roxanne was using so they could beat her.

"This will be a two-on-two match, with no switching out," the ref continued. "Challenger Trevor will get the first move!" He raised a flag. "Let the battle begin!"

I tossed out Phil's Pokeball, releasing my Lotad onto the field. Roxanne sent out, big surprise, Regirock. Hahaha, just kidding. It was a Geodude.

"So, all I have to do is beat that Geodude, and we win?" asked Phil, as he calmly sat there while the Geodude began to stretch and flex his rock-hard muscles. See what I did there?

"That and one other Pokemon," I explained. "Use Absorb!"

Tiny green orbs flew out of the floating rock, and into Phil. The Geodude somehow managed to endure the super-super effective move. It gronaed in pain as it composed itself, and shrugged it off.

"Is that all you've got?" Roxanne chided. "Geodude, use Rollout!"

The pet rock of hers curled up into a ball and began spinning at a high rate of speed, reminding me of Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm sure that analogy has been over used.

It launched forward, and slammed into Phil. My Lotad was flipped on to his back from the force of impact.

"That really hurt," he said, rolling upright again. "Perhaps this will be harder than we thought."

"Don't give in yet," I said. "Screw you courage to the sticking place, and you will not fail."

"What?"

"It's...never mind. Use Absorb again!"

The tiny green particles of light drained the Geodude's energy, and gave it to Phil, restoring some health. Yet again, that Geodude managed to stay in the fight. "Wow," I commented, losing some of the confidence I had. "That's one strong Geodude."

"I know," Roxanne added, gloating a little. "Use Rollout again!"

Once more, the rock slammed into Phil, doing the same rolling move as Sonic. "Use Absorb since it's close!" I called out. Hopefully that would be the finisher.

It wasn't.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed, seeing the Geodude weakly push itself back up. It was a lot stronger than I had anticipated. "That's impressive."

Roxanne shrugged, trying to hide her snide smile. "I've been doing this for a while now, I'm surprised that it hasn't evolved yet."

The second that she finished speaking, her Geodude began to glow...

"Oh son of a bitch!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in defeat. "I swear Arceus just wants my life to suck."

The small rock grew larger, more circular, and gained two new arms. When the light faded, the Graveler stood tall, ready to strike.

Roxanne was clapping, smirk plastered to her face like a frescoe. "Allright, you evolved!" She winked at me. "I hope you can take this one down," she remarked, knowing that she wasn't going to lose. "Use Rollout!"

"Phil, dodge it!" I ordered. But, the Lotad was petrified. He could only watch as the giant spinning ball slammed into him, and sent him flying across the room. Long story short, he was knocked out. And there was a Lotad-shaped dent in the wall.

"Lotad is unable to battle!" the ref called out. "Graveler wins!" Mixed applause and cheering rang out from the crowd. One die-hard fan had an airhorn.

Phil getting knocked out so early ruined my perfect plan. Flamo was weak to Rock, and wouldn't be able to finish it off. Unless...that might work.

"Go Flamo!" I shouted, throwing her ball. My Torchic materialized on the field, blinking as she took in her surroundings.

"Wazzup bitches-that's a Graveler," she said, making an immortal entrance sentence. "I don't think that I can-"

"It's made of beef!" I told her.

Her eyes bulged, and she jumped. Graveler's eye widened as the little fire chicken flew at him. Flamo attacked virosously. Pecking and jabbing the Graveler as she attempted to get the beef. "Wait a minute...you lied to me!" She walked over to me, and pecked my foot. "Jerk."

"Rollout one more time!" Roxanne ordered. I sighed as Flamo hit the wall on the far side of the Gym, and slid down it like they do in cartoons. Well, this sucked.

May, Brendan, and Bella were waiting outside, and the sun was setting over Mt. Chimney, casting a warm, orange glow on the clouds surrounding it. "That almost went well."

"Lost?" Bella asked, giving me a sympathetic smile.

I nodded. "Her damn Geodude evolved mid-battle," I explained. "There was nothing I could do."

May shrugged. "That's life. Sometimes it can be rough." Brendan nodded, his mind elsewhere.

Bella seemed to be the happiest in the group. "Well, let's eat! There's a nice seafood place just up the street! I can smell the food from here!" She ran off, May tailing behind her. Brendan looked up at me.

"I'm going to do it tonight," he simply said.

"What?"

"I'm going to ask May out tonight," he said. "I'm freaking out. But I made a deal with myself that I would ask her out when I got my first badge."

I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Well, good for you. Just remember to screw you courage to the sticking place, and you will not fail."

"What?"

"It's Shakespeare."

"Oh..."

The coversation at dinner was rather conventional. We laid out plans for the next couple of days, in which I would beat Roxanne, we'd do some sightseeing, and maybe even visit the trainer school, and then we'd head to Dewford Town to face Brawley.

Brendan stole quick glances at May every so often, trying to screw his courage to the sticking place. By the time we finished eating, he still hadn't asked.

"Hey, May?" he finally said. This was the big moment. I pretended not to noticed, choosing to chug the last bit of root beer.

"Yeah?" She looked over, wiping her mouth with her crumpled napkin.

"I was wondering, maybe you'd like to...well, hang out or something sometime."

Bella's hand flew to her mouth, and she gasped. "OMG! Are you asking her out?"

Brendan shyly shrugged and looked back down at his plate, pushing some carrots around on his plate. "Well..."

"I'd love to," May replied, giving him a warm smile. "We'll do something tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Brendan nodded, cheeks becoming red. "Sure."

Well, at least something good happened that day.

I got a beta, so thanks to Franada-Girl97 for betaing.