The soft, sweet sunshine shone across the sky and reflected off of the body of water the large ship was currently traveling over.

The ship to Vermillion City, Kanto, had crossed the Kanto-Hoenn border about an hour ago, and was now comfortably traveling east through a sizable channel of water.

Sometime after she finally gave up arguing with the utterly incompetent grassbrain, the blue-eyed, brunette teenager had found a corner on the sun deck that was away from most of the chatty noise of the rest of the ship. The only sound that could be heard were the gentle splashes of the water below as the craft drove through it.

The wooden flooring was slightly wet from spray, yet she had decided to plop down on the ground anyways. With her headphones stuck in her ears, the girl alternated back and forth between light slumber and drowsy consciousness. Her phone was held loosely in her left hand as the device played through a playlist titled "Soft Songs".

She was halfway through a particularly mellow song about romance (and also very nearly asleep again) when she felt someone ruffle the top of her bandanna and take a seat next to her. The girl turned to look at the newcomer. Her surprise was quickly abolished upon his identification. She smiled softly.

"Hi, Brendan."

"Hey," he replied simply. "Wondered where you went off to."

"Right here," she said, burying her head into her arms. "Always been right here."

"Was there a double meaning to that? Or am I just imagining things?"

"I don't know," muttered May tiredly. "Are we imagining the Pokemon too?"

Brendan laughed softly.

"Good point."

A period of silence ensued, the only sound being the crashing water beneath. Then Brendan spoke again.

"Do you think Ash is going to be in Vermillion, like that magazine said?"

May raised her head from the comfort of her arms, and turned to look at Brendan. She smiled encouragingly.

"We can hope. As for now…"

And with that, the brunette closed her eyes and leaned blindly to her right, where Brendan was. Eventually, May found the familiar shoulder that she'd fallen asleep on all too many times during lunch. The girl sighed contentedly one more time before, in a single heartbeat, falling asleep.

The boy, on the other hand, had a short while before his heart stopped abnormally racing. Eventually, though, he fell drowsy as well, despite it being the high of the afternoon. His head gently lolled left – tilted slightly so that it comfortably rested on the side of the girl's head - and he was out as well.

Vermillion City is a town in southeastern Kanto. It serves as one of the eight cities of Kanto that harbor gyms, and at the time, its particular leader is Lieutenant Surge. The difference between Vermillion's aquatic ports and the rest of the city were primarily separated by height. At the time of the city's construction, for safety, the town had been built atop an artificially elevated area. That way, should the water level ever rise unnaturally high, the rest of the city would still be relatively safe. With Vermillion Harbor as arguably the largest aquatic port in Kanto, Vermillion City is generally a center of trade, tourists, and trainers.

It's also where May and Brendan hoped to find their raven-haired friend.

At some point, the said pair had been startled awake by the blaring noise of the ship's horn, which had been followed up with an announcement that declared the ship's arrival in Vermillion City. It had also bid its passengers a "Thank you and please ride with us again".

Once back on firm ground, May and Brendan sought out Drew, Harley, and Solidad, who were patiently waiting by a lamppost on the dock for the two.

"What took so long?" said Drew, a tinge disdainfully. The group began heading in the direction of the exit, which was signified by a sign labeled "Exit" with an arrow.

"Oh, ah… We fell asleep," said May sheepishly. "Then we were late in getting off…"

"You fell asleep," echoed Drew sarcastically. "How smart of you, May."

May felt her anger begin to flare, as it always did (to some degree) whenever she was near this rude, incompetent, spinach brain.

"Y'know, Drew! You wouldn't believe what I would give, just to… to…"

"Stare at me all day long? Don't worry, you're legally allowed to…"

May fumed in frustration. Brendan laughed. Solidad and Harley rolled their eyes.

"No," retorted May hotly. "You wouldn't believe what I would give just to… to… punch you in the face… or something!"

Drew smirked.

"Really? If you ruin my face, how will my thousands of fans survive on a day-to-day basis?"

May snorted and crossed her arms angrily.

"What fans?"

"Those who have pledged allegiance to the Coordinating Prince of Hoenn, obviously."

To Brendan, who was walking next to her, May muttered, "I think I'm going to be sick..."

"Drew," said Solidad. "Be nice," she scolded gently.

May grinned smugly, knowing that the boy wouldn't not listen to the older girl. Drew scowled from Solidad's repressive statement. His frown deepened at the satisfied expression on May's face when he looked back at her. They were almost off the wooden pier, and back onto solid land. As they were all still walking, May stepped closer to Drew, got up on the balls of her feet, inched her mouth close to Drew's ear, and cupped her hands around the lower part of her face and his ear as if she were telling him a secret.

"Hah," she whispered triumphantly.

As the brunette then proceeded to lower herself down from him, Drew found himself reeling in slight shock. He found his eyes watching her as she bounded back next to Brendan's side. Not long after, she was laughing with him about something.

Silently, Drew's left hand reached up to where May's breath had slightly tickled his neck. Quickly realizing that lingering with the particular action might come off as a bit suspicious and/or implying to Solidad and Harley (who were next to/behind him), the teenager quickly flicked the lime locks of hair nearby and then calmly set his hand back down to his side. Behind him, he heard Solidad and Harley fall into a conversation of their own.

His emerald eyes scrutinized the skinny backside of the girl who had just mocked him. It wasn't so much as the actual action as the meaning behind it. The meaning, which came back to the fact that the girl knew one of his most sincere, embarrassing secrets he ever kept.

There was also the fact that she had gotten up on her toes to get closer to his face and not aimed to kiss him – which was something that was actually new in itself. Most girls who got up on their toes to get closer to his face were aiming for contact with their lips to his skin.

But, evidently, she wasn't most girls. Heck, she wasn't even from this dimension.

In that moment, a tiny seed was sowed.

He didn't know it, though.

"So. Where do we start?" said Solidad.

The group was now officially in Vermillion City, a moderately-sized metropolis that seemed to harbor, at the very least, all the essential buildings and attractions.

"Well… Knowing Ash…" began May.

"Food," said Brendan quickly.

May frowned.

"Brendan, I think even Ash would put food aside for a moment if he knows he's in as… dire of a situation as this."

"We don't know if your friend's even in Vermillion," pointed out Drew. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he shrugged. "You might as well wander the city and hope to get lucky."

May was about to argue back with him, until she realized that he was right.

... In that very moment, May Maple officially decided that she hated it when Drew was right. The brunette sighed.

"Also," continued Drew. "The three of us" – he gestured to himself, Solidad, and Harley – "have to leave Vermillion by late afternoon today, if we want to make it to the contest in Saffron on time."

Solidad lifted an eyebrow.

"Really? What time is it right now?"

"I did the calculations, Sol. We've got three hours," replied Drew coolly.

"That's okay," said May hurriedly, holding out her palms as she did so. "We couldn't really ask you guys to do anything more for us."

The three seasoned coordinators exchanged rueful looks.

"Aw, hon," complained Harley. "Now you're just making us feel guilty!"

"Then we should take full advantage of your presences while you're still here, shouldn't we?" said Brendan. "Let's search what we can of the city, first. When you guys need to leave, you'll leave. May and I can take care of ourselves."

Drew snorted, and muttered snidely, "I wouldn't trust Miss Klutz here with taking care of herself, she might end up setting herself on fire…"

May decided to ignore that.

"Let's go," she said authoritatively, although the effect was ruined when she spun around and nearly tripped over her own feet.

They started with Vermillion City's rather large PokeMart, the closest thing the city had to a shopping mall. It was actually nothing like most of the Marts that were portrayed in the games, noted May and Brendan aloud. Their other three companions were all - to some degree - fascinated by this piece of information – after all, it's not everyday you find out that your world is actually part of a fictional franchise in another dimension.

But, they didn't find any raven-haired teenager reminiscent of Ash Ketchum in there, nor any other familiar faces. However, they weren't exactly given sufficient time to thoroughly search the place, as a group of fans had found Drew and Solidad, to put it discretely. ("Why do they never chase me?" Harley had complained. "I mean, really, no offense, but my hair is so much better than Drewy's! I even wash it with a special conditioner!")

Next, they checked the Pokemon center. There was still no sign of Ash, nor June or Dawn. With the lack of large events going on in or near Vermillion City, May and Brendan had assumed it wasn't necessary to rent a room yet at that particular point in time. It was established that Drew, Harley, and Solidad weren't staying around for the night, anyways. They briefly searched the better part of the Pokemon center and left rather soon (as they assumed that Ash wouldn't have bothered much for recuperation), but not before stealing a few quick bites of food from the cafeteria.

Although they sincerely doubted Ash was going to be there, the group stopped by the Pokemon Fan Club building anyways. After all, it was relatively close to the Pokemon center, and it was only meant to be a quick pop-in-pop-out kind of thing – just double-checking, and all. However, they soon found themselves graciously ushered in (even despite their polite reluctance) by the Fan Club Chairman, who soon began rambling about his two favorite Pokemon. In short, it had been 20 minutes of awkward coughing and impatience by the young adolescents, and 20 minutes of enthusiastic gushing by the older Chairman.

At this point, the sun was beginning to make its way down the sky, and the sky was already being painted faint shades of orange and red. Banking on one last shot, the group made their way to the Vermillion City Gym. After a quick conversation with Lieutenant Surge, they learned that there had indeed been no sign of a teenager with jet-black hair as a challenger that day. The man had been sympathetic and wished them a "Good luck in finding your friend". May and Brendan had trudged away from the gym, their heads held in disappointment. Drew, Solidad, and Harley followed them, but not before thanking the war veteran anyways.

As Lieutenant Surge watched the group leave, he recalled his military times. This was so, because the younger girl and the white-capped boy had struck some sort of chord with him. Although he hadn't questioned further, Lieutenant Surge had concluded that those two had somehow been separated from their friend for a while. Even though it was probably on lower stakes than his own personal experience, the lieutenant knew that a situation like that was never not heartbreaking.

On one particular ground mission, he had lost one of his buddies. To guns, to enemies, to nature – whichever one had claimed the guy's life, they never found out. His buddy's body had never been recovered. A funeral service was later provided, and at least his buddy had died in honor. Still, to this day, to that very moment – the lieutenant had never forgotten him, nor the hours that he had spent going back and searching furiously, desperately for his friend. He still remembered that intense helplessness, the nearly overwhelming adrenaline, the constant worries, the situations he had been hypothesizing, those potential scenarios that always resulted in something having gone terribly, fatally wrong…

The buff, blonde man shook his head. That had been a decade ago. It was time to move on. As he turned to head back into the comfort of his own gym, he gave the retreating group of kids one last glance. For them, he hoped to Mew that they would find their acquaintance again, and that their situation wouldn't end up like how his had.

The group of five headed down the stone path away from the Vermillion Gym. May and Brendan were equal shades of solemn – Drew, Harley, and Solidad were equivalent shades of sympathetic.

"It's almost six," murmured Solidad.

May's eyes flickered. She stopped walking and turned to face the group of three coordinators behind her. "We'll walk you to the port," she said, with a sigh. She then began heading for the pier area, with Brendan next to her side. Drew, Harley, and Solidad followed behind quietly, none of them knowing quite what to say.

By now, the sun was already fairly low, and almost to the point where it would start disappearing beneath the horizon. The sky was streaked fabulously with an entire palette of warm colors. Shades of vibrant crimson and mellow yellow stretched as far as the eye could see. Also partly because Vermillion City was by the water, its sunsets had been officially recognized as one of the most romantic, uplifting views in all of Kanto. The town's slogan was even "the port of exquisite sunsets".

May and Brendan, however, were not particularly in the mood for pretty scenery.

The group walked to the southern end of the city in silence. May and Brendan, dejected from having their hopes raised from the expectations of perhaps finding Ash. Drew, Solidad, and Harley, disappointed that they hadn't been able to help May and Brendan successfully find Ash.

They made their way down to the seaside boardwalk whose northern end eventually merged into Route 6. May recognized the steep set of stone stairs they had gruelingly climbed earlier that day after they disembarked the ship. On the boardwalk, running alongside the side closest to the ocean, was a relatively short, concrete safety wall with cautionary metal railing.

"Well, I guess it ends here," said Brendan as they stepped onto the wooden structure.

He and May stood next to each other. The other three stood opposite to and facing them.

"I'm sorry we didn't find Ash," said Solidad.

Her facial expression was that of genuine pity, and her eyes were contorted with sympathy.

"It was our fault for getting overly excited," replied May. Right now, for some reason, she was fighting off tears. She wasn't sure why, but the disappointment of their failure just hit her like a truck. "Thanks for having come with us, though. It meant a lot."

Brendan watched May sadly. It killed him inside to not see her as the happy, joyful ball of sunshine she usually was. He was upset about not finding Ash, yeah, but May's reaction to it upset him even more.

"Everything'll be okay in the end, cookie," soothed Harley.

May smiled a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Thanks, Harley."

"Good luck with your contest, you guys," said Brendan.

"Thank you," said Solidad softly.

"Good luck with your answers," said Drew in the passive voice he always used, although in that particular sentence, there was definitely more solemnity than usual.

Wordlessly, May recognized this slight change from his customary tone. Her azure eyes flashed from the absentminded watching of the ground to the meeting of his malachite eyes. What she found was not mocking, or cocky, or anything she usually found Drew to have been in the past few days that she had known him. As her gaze met his, she found that, similarly (but not exactly) to Solidad's, his eyes held genuine, smoldering sympathy.

Somehow, she realized, the fact that Drew cared lifted her spirits a tad. Yes, Solidad and Harley were evidently wholeheartedly supportive and pitying. But for some reason, it was different when it was Drew expressing the said emotions, however subtle and potentially unnoticeable his way of conveying it may have been. Perhaps it was because he was usually so cold and rude?

"…Thank you, Drew," she said softly. Then she smiled gently - a genuine, real smile that, this time, actually halfway met her eyes. Winking, she murmured, "And good luck with… you know."

As her implication sunk in, a light shade of pink bloomed across Drew's face. He scowled, and averted his gaze from May.

"Maybe we'll meet again," said Brendan.

"Hopefully, by then, you guys will have more ribbons and we'll be a couple of steps closer to figuring all this out," giggled May lightly.

"Definitely," said Solidad. "And if we don't meet again, we'll assume you're back in your original world. And you can assume all three of us qualified for the Grandiose Festival."

Brendan chuckled.

"We will."

"Ohhh, one last round of hugs before we leave!" exclaimed Harley merrily.

And with that, he quickly reached for Brendan and engulfed him in a jolly embrace. May and Solidad laughed at the sight, and particularly at Brendan (who, according to him, apparently couldn't breathe). Drew smirked. Once Harley let Brendan go, he then immediately pounced on both Solidad and May, hugging them simultaneously just as eagerly. May and Solidad reciprocated the action, still chuckling. As they did so, Brendan made his way over to Drew.

"Hey, thanks for everything," he said, sticking out a hand that the harlequin-haired boy accepted.

Soon after, May, Solidad, and Harley broke apart. A moment later, so did Brendan and Drew.

The other three watched as, with a modest grin, May shuffled over to Drew. She reached out, wrapped her arms around his torso, and was happy when she felt him reciprocate the action a second later.

Honestly, Drew couldn't remember the last time he had willingly hugged someone of the opposite sex. Maybe his mom, when he had returned home for a bit a while ago? Alright then, he couldn't remember the last time he had willingly hugged a girl of about his own age. Not even Solidad - just because he simply wasn't the type to ever do so.

Therefore, his reciprocation to May's farewell embrace was a bit late. Late, because the situation was a bit unfamiliar. Late, because it took him by surprise a bit. Late, (sort of) because ever since they met, he and the girl he was being hugged by had hardly ever had a conversation that didn't eventually result in/include arguing. When he did eventually respond, though, he became a bit surprised by something else.

Did all girls fit so well with his body like… this particular hotheaded, stubborn, clumsy brunette? The hugs he had given to the small few of his overenthusiastic female fans in the past were, yeah, pretty much forced by the politer Prince Charming in him, and so that may have contributed to the reason as to why those particular embraces were always so awkward for him, but…

May, for him, was just the right height for the stereotypical boy-girl height ratio. She was probably about three or four inches shorter than him, and therefore, if he tilted his head, he could rest his chin atop her hair (like some of the sappy scenes in those romance movies, although really, Drew was not about to do that). The gentle curves of her thin body conformed well to his, and nothing was awkward or uncomfortable, probably even if they had hugged each other closer. Plus-

... No, he told himself abruptly. What are you even-? You know Solidad? The one you've liked for years now? Arceus, you're a piece of work, Drew…

And that's all it took. All those realizations and thoughts occurred to the chartreuse-haired boy in a matter of a few short moments. As soon as the last one hit him, Drew immediately (but still in a controlled and non-suspicious way) dropped his arms and ended the hug.

"Well, that's all then," said May. "You guys should get going."

Harley, Solidad, and Drew began walking away from May and Brendan.

"Let's meet again, munchkins!" said Harley.

"See you later!" called Brendan.

"Bye, Solidad!" said May.

"Take care, you two!"

"Bye, Drew!"

He didn't turn around, but Drew responded with a two-fingered salute.

May and Brendan watched the trio walk away from them. With each passing moment, their figures became smaller and smaller in the distance.

"You know, I liked them," reflected May. "I wouldn't mind if we met them again, somewhere."

Brendan was silent.

"Solidad's so nice, and Harley's… interesting… and Drew's actually not that bad, once you get to know him. Right, Brendan?"

He had no response, but his expression was shocked. His eyes were watching something in the direction of the docks. May's eyes flickered from the shrinking backsides of the three coordinators to her friend's face.

"Brendan? What're you looking-" began May, but abruptly cut herself off as she followed his gaze.

There, walking towards the docks, was a girl with fiery orange hair, some kind of bright yellow vest that stopped halfway down her torso, matching shorts, red undershirt, and from their position, what seemed to be orange Converse of sorts. She was walking next to, and talking with, a boy.

Not just any boy.

A boy with slightly tousled, jet black hair, baseball cap, and familiar viridian backpack, jeans, jacket… May's breath caught in her throat. Her heart rate picked up.

For a moment, May couldn't say anything, as what she was seeing registered in her mind. She probably might not have for a while, until the realization hit her that the boy and the girl were going to get farther away with each passing moment and may even board a ship if they weren't stopped soon. May swallowed the saliva that had collected in her mouth, lubricating her throat so that she could proceed to shout what she was about to shout as loudly as she could.

"ASH!"

-*-x-*-

I feel like there was too much Contestshipping in this chapter for this point in the story...
...loljk what am I talking about, you can never have too much contestshipping :')

... nonetheless, thanks for reading :) and, as always, reviews are forever so appreciated.

P.S. did anyone else find the anime portrayal of Lieutenant Surge.. creepy? I mean, really, the HG/SS redraw of him is so much better... and *that's* the image of him I had as I wrote the scene with him. Anime version Lieutenant Surge is just... ack