Election Week

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.

(Chapter 11- About Ultimatums Times Two)

"Hi," Kenny says, greeting the attendant at one of the many snowball stands on the boardwalk. "Could I get one large lemon-lime for myself, and…"

Turning to Dawn for her portion of the order, she says that she'd like, "a medium blue raspberry."

The associate, who is wearing a nametag with the name 'Brooke' on it, punches a few numbers onto the register keyboard and she asks Kenny and Dawn, "Anything else?"

While Kenny prepared to tell Brooke that his order is complete and that he doesn't want anymore, a nosy coordinator on the boardwalk has another idea. "Yeah, there is something else that we want, Brooke."

Turning around, Kenny sees Zoey standing with Reggie off to their sides. "Zoey?"

"Yep, in the flesh," she answers. "Brooke, I'd like one large grape for me and…a large cherry vanilla for my fly guy here! Thanks!" Turning back to the pair she says, "All of these are on me."

Not sure why she is here during her vacation time and growing somewhat perturbed at her forwardness, Dawn asks her former coordinating rival, "Can't you wait your turn, Zoey?"

"I don't see why you're so cranky, Berlitz," she wonders while paying for the four snowballs with a ten dollar bill. "You just got a free snowball on me, and all you have to do is join my buddy here in some small conversation. I just wanna talk to you about something that's been on my mind for a while."

"About what?"

"About May."

Not even needing to think it over, Dawn shakes her head and says to Zoey while she and Kenny get their orders, "No way. Thanks for paying for this, but we have to go."

When Dawn makes the move with Kenny to go in another direction away from the other couple, Reggie and Zoey follow the two like shadows as a means of getting answers to the many questions that have arisen over the last week. "We just want to ask you some questions, Dawn!"

Now incensed at the thought of her private information turning into public business, Dawn turns around and points a finger in the face of Zoey, explaining to her, "I'm not answering a damn thing! I've moved on from May, that's all you need to know. Stay the hell out of business that doesn't concern you. You understand?"

Reggie decides to make a move in the conversation by doing the last thing that Dawn expected or wanted. "So you don't have any comments concerning what May said about your breakup?"

"Did you not hear—wait a minute. What?" she exclaims. "She talked about the breakup to other people?"

"It has been the number one conversation piece of the week," he answers, stretching the truth in the process.

At this moment, Dawn shows her true frustration to Zoey and Reggie "I don't believe this!" she screams. "I thought that she and I had an understanding. I thought we chose not to talk about the details of the breakup with our friends. What—what did she say to you two about how things ended?"

Happy to know that they are able to make some progress in their private investigation, Reggie enters into the conversation Dawn and May's reason for no longer being together. "Well, this is the reason why we wanted to talk to you when we saw you, Dawn. May's answer made absolutely no sense. She said the reason for the breakup was that you suddenly lost your attraction to other girls. We just wanted to know if this was the truth or not. The story sounded…very odd."

"It sounds very odd because it's not true!" Dawn claims, trying to keep her composure.

The idea of her getting any madder than she is was thought to be absurd, but here she is hearing the lies of her ex-girlfriend come to the forefront. Kenny, though silent throughout much of this conversation, looks on with a very interested glaze. The more he hears, the more plans on learning. Indeed, he knew about the relationship between May and his current girlfriend Dawn.

Though he would have preferred that his childhood friend be with someone else, namely himself, he respected her wishes over the years. No one was more surprised than he was to learn that the couple broke up a few weeks ago, but the surprises just continued from there when Dawn asked to travel with Kenny and very quickly, the two began to date. Even though he did not complain about this sudden affection shown from his friend, he wondered like many how his friend came to such a quick decision. All he knew was that Johanna never approved of Dawn being with another girl; every other detail was kept under wraps by the second generation coordinator, so Kenny opts to listen to the conversation very carefully to get what he hopes will be the whole story.

"So what you're saying, Dawn, is that May is lying?" Reggie clarifies.

"Yes! May is lying through her damn teeth," she confirms. "There was never anything…sudden or immediate that caused our breakup. Throughout our relationship, May had problems with my mother and vice versa. I worked through four long years of arguing back and forth and I just had enough after a while. I would've liked nothing more than for May and my mom to get along, but it just wasn't in the cards. I tried really hard to make it happen, but I ended up in a huge bind. Overtime, I got two ultimatums from the people I loved the most and was torn."

Continuing to the climax of her story, Dawn says, "Mom wanted me to choose between her and May. I begged her not to make me choose because it just wasn't fair to anyone involved. But then, after about a week or so, I get an ultimatum from May asking me to choose between her or my mom. I would have thought that she wouldn't stoop that low, but she was serious."

"Did you ever ask May why she gave you an ultimatum?"

"Reggie, I…really think that I'm saying too much right now," Dawn admits, wanting nothing more than to change the subject or, even better, end the conversation here and now.

"Wait. I'm curious," Kenny speaks. "What happened, Dawn? If May is telling these lies to just about everyone she knows, then wouldn't you want to clear your name?" In reality, Kenny had no clue whatsoever on the number of people that May spoke to about the breakup. He just wanted to know more information and the more Dawn talked about it, the better educated he would be on whether or not to continue to be with his childhood friend.

"All right," she concedes, "I'll keep going." Even though she does not like the idea of her business becoming public in this way, she knows that the truth must be heard. "Like I said, you guys, I would have liked nothing more than to stay with May, but she forced my hand. She used her personal situation to rationalize me choosing her over my mom. She said things like I don't get along with my parents all that well because of the fact that I've dated other girls for so long, yet I'm doing just fine. May talked about how she almost hated them at one time due to their treatment of Max, because if I remember, the Maples allowed him to date Pokemon Ranger Solana when he was sixteen and she was twenty-five at the time, and now they're married at ages twenty and twenty-nine!"

"I kept saying to her, 'You still have your family after it's all said and done.' Even if you don't like their apathy or indifference to you being in same-sex relationships, you don't get into shouting matches with your parents every time you talk on the phone! So her reasoning doesn't fit! My mom is gonna completely cut me off. You can understand why I didn't really like the fact that May was doing this. She never liked my mother, but at the tail end of our relationship, she almost seemed like she was an extension of my mother. She talked about how she was my only real family during this time. Well, I was still talking to my mom, but if I followed May, that wouldn't be the case anymore."

"So you thought that May was being insensitive to you during this time?" Zoey asks.

"So insensitive, Zoey. I couldn't believe it. It was like something changed inside of May. So anyway, that's it. That's why we broke up. You know, it's one thing when mom made the ultimatum, but it's another when it comes from your girlfriend after so many years of just leaving me be."

As Dawn wraps up her side of the story to Zoey and Reggie, she hears the sound of someone's cellular phone ringing. Pulling it out, Zoey opens the phone to find a text message coming from May. Reggie, who has his phone off, looks at the message which states that all of the houseguests should head back to the house as soon as possible for 'something very important'.

Nodding to each other, the older couple knows that their conversation with Kenny and Dawn will have to come to an abrupt end, if it hasn't already done so. "Well Dawn, I'm glad you could get that out in the open," Zoey mentions. "Unfortunately, Reggie and I have to meet up with his brother Paul. We're vacationing here for the week."

"You guys are vacationing in Porta Vista for the week, as well?"

"Indeed we are, Kenny," Reggie responds. Then an idea pops inside of his head. "Hey, if you want, we can meet up later this week." After the male from Twinleaf says that a get-together sounds nice, Reggie quickly tells the younger guy the numbers of his phone and to, "call me whenever so we can set up a date to meet again before the week is out, all right?"

"Great!" he says before the four say their good-byes and go their respective ways.

After a few seconds of walking, Dawn reveals something that is on her mind. She asks Kenny, "What do you think about what I said? I know I haven't been that open to you…"

"It's fine," Kenny interjects. "I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about it. That's way I listened carefully to what you said, and…it's okay. For now, just think about this as a new step. You feel better after speaking with those two, right?"

Dawn didn't want to admit it, but "Yeah. It did feel better to get that out in the open. Maybe we should take up their offer. Come on. Let's do some shopping, Kenny."

A/N: And coming up next chapter, May's big plan is revealed to all. It's a doozy, I promise you!