'# - relevant or semi-relevant (aka please read the notes)
'''# - pondering/ranting (not really relevant to the story)

Chapter 10

"Flygon, come on out!" Drew called, throwing the pokéball high in the air. A white beam of light shot out from the open ball, quickly forming into Flygon, its wings flapping lightly as it hovered a few feet off the ground. Drew waited for Vulpix to make the first move. He watched it intently and almost fell over when it stopped growling and simply sat down and began grooming its face with a paw.

"Ok…" Drew muttered under his breath. "Flygon! Use Sandstorm!" Drew ordered. Flygon immediately flew a few more feet off the ground and flapped its wings in short quick bursts, releasing a powerful sandstorm attack directed at Vulpix. Vulpix remained where it was, licking its paw, until the sandstorm was almost on top of it, and then it suddenly jumped straight up, out of the way. The attack continue past Vulpix and disappeared into the trees.

As Vulpix reached the height of its jump, it opened its mouth, releasing a simply ember attack. Flygon tried to dodge, but the attack hit the tip of its wing. Careful not to spiral out of control, Flygon quickly landed and pulled it's injured wing in close to its body. Drew glanced at the injury and released the attack had been more powerful than it had looked, especially since Flygon had a natural resistance to fire-type attacks. His desire was catch the Vulpix increased as he wondered what else the small pokémon was capable of.

"Dragonbreath!" Flygon opened its mouth and released a wide beam of yellow-green light. Vulpix tried to dodge the attack, but was knocked backwards by it. It landed a few inches before the trees. Drew began to smirk, sure that he had won the battle. As he reached for an empty pokéball, the vulpix pulled itself up and began running forward, picking up speed for quick attack as it neared Flygon. Caught off guard, Flygon took the full-strength of the attack and fell back. Vulpix simply sat down on top of the knocked out flygon and stared at Drew while it slowly twitched its tails. It seemed to be asking "Is that all you've got?" The vulpix yawned and stretched, then lithely jumped down and trotted back into the forest.

Drew stared after the little fox, then sighed as he recalled Flygon. "I should take him to a pokécenter. How much farther is Mahogany Town?"

Gary checked the map on his pokégear. "About an hour and a half on foot. Let's get going."

A couple days later, Drew was flying around the perimeter of Mahogany Town on Flygon's back. Misty had left the day before to go back to the gym, and Gary had returned to Sinnoh until Misty needed him again. Drew needed to prepare for the Mahogany contest, which was only a couple weeks away, but he was missing a key component for success, and so far, he hadn't found it yet.

After they'd been flying around for a few hours, he spotted his key to success and smirked as he had Flygon circle down. He thanked and recalled Flygon, then got into position, leaning carelessly against a tree, every inch of his body just barely hidden by the shadows. He smiled to himself when he heard the voice draw closer, talking to itself.

"Mahogany Town grows nearer as our adventurer continues on her way. What awaits her in this new place?" The voice stopped and Drew heard a giggle. He could just imagine her smiling to herself at her little game. "Eevee! Where are you going?!" The voice suddenly cried out.

A moment later, Drew felt something touch his leg, and looked down to see an eevee looking up at him happily. May wasn't far behind. "Drew? Do you normally hide in shadows off the side of the road like this?" May asked, both confused that Drew was there, and proud that she had said something clever. However, Drew chose to ignore her comment.

"Today is your lucky day, May." Drew began, pushing himself away from the tree as he spoke.

"Why's that?" May asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.

Drew walked up to her, stopping only inches away. "Today is your lucky day because I choose you." Drew paused to see her reaction.

Although she tried to hide it, May couldn't stop the blush from crossing her face. "Wha-what? Choose me? What are you talking about?" May stuttered. She refused to believe he meant what he was implying.

Drew decided to mess with her head some more, so he softened his gaze a bit and gently brushed some of May's hair off her face. He had to force back a smirk when May's blush deepened, although he was having to hide a small blush of his own. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "I choose you to be my partner..." He paused for dramatic effect, although it seemed to May like that was the end of the sentence.

May couldn't stop the blush anymore. She felt like her face was on fire, and her heartbeat wasn't helping the matter. She wanted to say something witty and push Drew away, but she just couldn't process what he meant.

Drew smirked. May couldn't see it because his mouth was still close to her ear. "…in the Mahogany Town contest." He finished. Still smirking, Drew pulled away and simply watched the emotions cross May's face.

At first, May still seemed to be in shock, her eyes wide and a very colorful blush on her cheeks. Almost immediately, May pursed her lips and pulled her eyebrows together in confusion. After a few seconds of processing, May's eyes narrowed and she made a growling sound. "You could've just asked, you know."

Drew shrugged. "Not nearly as much fun." He replied simply.

May huffed, crossed her arms, and looked away from the jerk. "I'll think about it." She said sharply, then turned and began walking quickly down the road. Eevee quickly followed, although she wasn't sure what exactly had just happened. Drew chuckled to himself as he slowly followed May down the road.

May arrived in Mahogany minutes ahead of Drew. She was still fuming, and the few townspeople she passed gave her plenty of space. She was almost to the pokécenter when a hand grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around. May yelped in surprise.

"May! I'm sooo glad to see you here, darling! Let's be partners in the contest!" Harley said happily, all the while holding May's hands in his own. He had to bend down a little because May was still shorter than him.

May tried to pull away, but to no avail. "Um. I can't, Harley. I…" She said, trying to figure out what to do. Then she noticed Drew strolling down the path towards her. When he noticed her watching him, he smirked and gave her a two-fingered salute. May jerked away from Harley and ran to Drew, surprising him enough to stop smirking. May grabbed one of Drew's arms and quickly stated, "I already promised Drew I'd be his partner!"

Harley pouted for a moment, then happily declared, "Well, we'll see you at the contest, May. Bye!" With that, Harley dropped May's hands and ran off down the road.

Drew paused to watch Harley rush by, then a smirk light up his face once again. "So you accept my proposal?" He asked as nonchalantly as he could, although his amusement was evident.

May let go of Drew's arm, sighed, and hung her head in defeat. "Yes, but first, I have a question." She replied, then popped her head back up to look at Drew.

"What's that?" Drew asked, clearly pleased that he had won her over, even if she had just agreed in order to avoid Harley.

"Um…what are doubles contests?" She asked sheepishly.

Drew opened his mouth to tease her for not knowing, until he remembered that he'd needed Misty to explain them to him just three days prior, so instead he sighed and began a short explanation. "Doubles contests are basically the same as singles contests, except you work alongside a partner. So for our appeal, we'll each use one of our pokémon, but they'll have to be in-sync with one another. Same for the battles. It adds another level of synchronization to the contest. Of course, the number of pokémon involved can vary by contest."

May took a moment to process Drew's explanation. "That sounds like fun." She proclaimed. "So, what pokémon should we use?"

Drew shook his head. "Let's get all of our pokémon out and see how they work together, then we'll decide."

May nodded. "Maybe they should just play together first, and then we can get to work training." May said thoughtfully. She waited for Drew to respond, then sighed after a moment and tossed all of her pokéballs into the air. "Everyone, come on out." Drew silently did the same.

Notes:

Vulpix will be a recurring pokémon, and that is all I will say on the matter, for now.

A/N:

Sadly this is about 400-500 words shorter than I aim for in each chapter, but it seemed appropriate to end it here rather than write out their practice. This way you guys are less likely to figure out which pokémon I've paired up in the contest. =3

As I've said before, although I am trying to mimic the anime in many ways, there is supposed to be more fluff between them than the anime would ever allow. Also, events like what happened early on in this chapter are reserved for when May and Drew are alone, at least for now. So it's not fluff so much as Drew wanted to mess with May's head and examine her reaction. Also keep in mind that, for the most part, we don't get into the characters' heads in the anime, so we don't always know how they're feeling or what they're hiding and such, as we often do in written stories.

(Update 01: I've updated a few parts of the chapter that mentioned the contest being "tomorrow" when it will actually take place a couple weeks later.)

Review Replies:

Arysd – I have to admit that I was actually quite shocked to realize how long it had been since I had last updated.

xSapphirexRosesxFanx – Yes, Drew is going to meet up with May soon. =P I have renewed inspiration for the pairing, so once I get a grip of the characters again, I'll be writing like crazy, and hopefully updates will actually start to be on time shortly after that.

PokeGirlMisty – I hate to say it, but I hadn't even thought of reusing old characters for the readers. ^^; I just liked the challenge of using old elements from the anime. I also listen to songs on youtube if they're featured in a story. I'm actually only including the song lyrics for songs owned by the pokémon company, as there's something in FanFiction's policy about not using song lyrics in a story. However, if the pokémon company is alright with people writing fanfiction about pokémon, then it should therefore be fine to use pokémon-owned song lyrics. I can't promise that Ritchie and Sparky will make it in, but there's definitely a possibility. I had not planned on using the Jigglypuff, especially since I already have a couple of running gags in mind for the story. Again though, there's always a possibility that Jigglypuff will appear in some way, just not necessarily the way you expect it to. =3 Go to and search for eeveelutions. There are a bunch of pictures of what people think the other eeveelutions might look like, and some of them are absolutely amazing! I had only named and designed perhaps three or four of the remaining eeveelutions when I discovered the others artwork, but my designs aren't nearly as good (for now, at least.)