◊ (Drew and May Take the Stage) ◊
∆ (Lazio Region) ∆ - ¤ (A Few Days Later) ¤ - Φ (Drew) Φ
We were back in the Lazio Region, amazingly enough, my mother had offered us her car to use in all our journeying. She did this since she believed May shouldn't have to walk that much while she was continuing to recover. I thanked her for this since it would help us out a lot.
We had just arrived and we were settling in a room in the nearest pokémon center. This was a weird named town, Excalibur. It had a main theme, everything was gold, the buildings set up to all look like castle. The rooms looked like those used in castles, quite fancy and well done.
May and I had decided to share a room since it wasn't uncomfortable like it would have been before we started dating, or got together; whatever you want to call it. I didn't leave her side many times; if I do, it wasn't for long. It was for normal needs, like changing clothes, feeding our pokémon and other common things like that.
Many of our competitors are surprised to see us back. We've already got a few minor challenges on or hand. May met with two girls Sepia and London who were sisters competing together in the contest that arrived the weak after us, they bet us a ribbon that they'd win, we agreed. We'd have two if we lost, but we wont' but we'll have 5 if we win, which we will. Thus making the bet, the best thing for us right now.
Harvey hadn't competed since we left except for the previous two contests, which he won I heard in the paper. We were surprised to find that his partner was Soledad. I was in shock, but not as much as she was finding out that, we were competing together. We meaning of course, May and I. She was surprised. I would have thought she would be up-to-date on these things, but apparently not.
"A hem, I know you know Soledad, Drew but I changed partners after my partner loss and I haven't lost since I partnered up with her, she's the real deal." Harvey bragged.
May had worry plastered on her face. I was also surprised the worry was directed to me, as in she was worried how I'd take this, and not worried whether we'd win or not. She and I were doubtful but in the end, we'd win.
"Drew, it's nice to see you again. This is your first time in this too I believe?" He asked.
"If you mean as in first season, you'd be correct. If you meant in contests like this. You'd be wrong." I said. May held up a box displaying 3 ribbons from our previous contests. "May and I already, as you can see, have 3 ribbons."
"How, we've won the last few, and I haven't seen or heard of you two winning before that." She said surprised.
"Surprisingly enough, Harvey hasn't told you about his crushing defeat by us, before he went and got you. May and I had won the ribbons in the end of the three contests we had entered."
"What do you mean 'in the end'?"
"You can back challenge someone if you lose in a contest to them, and win the ribbon."
"So you lost, re-challenged, and won."
"Not exactly," May cut in. "I was severely injured after the preliminaries of our second contest and the people who won said if we beat them in the next contest they'd hand over that ribbon as well since it was only fair since I was hospitalized."
"So they figured, if not for the accident, you would have won." May nodded with a smile happily pasted on her face.
"Well we'll just see who's better when we compete tomorrow, won't we?" She asked.
"Right." I put in.
"May, any news on your condition?" Harvey asked pretending to be concerned.
"Well when I was in the hospital I had um… let me remember."
"Shattered ribs, her spinal cord was mangled, She would have been completely blind and it messed up the bones in hers legs and probably had brain damage in addition which is why she was unconscious." Soledad gasped after I was finished explaining her condition.
"That's horrible." She said.
"Yet, we're back." I said smiling.
"You're competing?" She asked. "Even after all that?"
"I had to force May to not compete about 3 weeks ago. She wanted to, but no one would let her. Now she's back and we're better prepared then ever." I warned her.
"We'll see, bye Drew, May. Come on Harvey." She said. May gave a calming smile and sat down on a bench.
"How are you feeling?" I asked her.
"I'm perfect." She answered.
We returned home and sat on her bed, she was curled up in my arms. She was getting more nervous by the second so I held her. "May, we have no worries."
" Harvey bothers me."
"He's sure obnoxious but I won't let him bother you."
"After what he pulled before…" I placed a finger on her lips.
"Nothing will happen May, I promise." She nodded and rested her head in my chest. I rested my head against the bed and soon we had both fallen asleep like that, in each other's arms. It's had been and calm, exactly as if it was supposed to be.
¤ (Morning) ¤
I awoke and felt something resting on my chest it was calming, not dangerous, as one would expect in the morning. I looked down where I met the head of someone who I had grown to love more and more lately though these contests.
I wrapped my arms around her cradling her further in my arms. Soon after, she awoke and looked up at me. "Morning Drew," She said. Her face was blushing realizing that she had fallen asleep in my arms last night. I kissed her lips, she kissed back and she gave me a smile.
"Are you ready to get going?" I asked her.
She thought for a second. She hugged me and then climbed off my bed and walked over to the mirror where her bag was sitting. "Now I am," I graced her interesting action of enjoyment in the morning with a smile.
"Good, because I think we should get prepared for the rounds." She nodded. May tell me that she wanted to dress up for the occasion of our return. I had dressed the same but it looked nice all the same.
She went into the bathroom with a large bag which I could only expect to be her dress and soon after, she came out. She looked beautiful. She was wearing what seemed to be a light blue tank top and a light pink skirt that went to her knees.
"How do I look?" She asked. She always did. It wasn't smart for her to do so because I always thought of her as beautiful, I wasn't very good at matching regardless, and I apposed judging people based on what they wore.
However, I answered all I could. "Beautiful, as always." I walked behind her and leaned against her shoulder. "Close your eyes." She had actually not been wearing her headband lately, opting to keeping two pins to hold her bangs out of the way giving her a different look but I took a box out of my pocket, took the object out of the box, and wrapped it around her neck, clasping it and walking in front of her. "Open them."
She looked down unable to see it since it hung directly below her chin. I smiled. I took her hand and guided her to the mirror in the room which she had conveniently forgotten was there. I had planned on giving it to her when we were going out to see my parents but I had decided against it. I decided that now would be as good a time as any since I'd rather not wait for her birthday to give her something this special.
"Drew, it's beautiful." I nodded and sat on the bed as she just stared at the reflection on the mirror. It looked better then I expected on her, she seemed to adore it. I was glad I gave it to her. It matched her eyes which happened to match her dress as well as the necklace. It was perfect for her. She walked over to me and sat next to me, hugging me. "Thank you so much Drew."
"You're welcome May." I took her hand and we walked out into the gardens to meet our pokémon. We got them in our pokéballs. We then proceeded to walk to the center. May and I were sitting behind the back stage, these contest were arranged by number of ribbons, making us go close to last since the matches were tug-a-war with many people having few ribbons instead of a few people having many ribbons like I would have wanted, and expected.
Soon we ended up deciding to use the pokémon that had barely, or in Espeon's case, never seen a contest. May seemed to be enthusiastic of letting Espeon be her first in her return to coordinating. I supported her enthusiasm as best I could, even if I tried to stop her, nothing would. We were using one of May's favorite combinations: Razor Wind, Psychic, Shadow Ball, and Swift. We had practiced it many times since it was her favorite, it was also the first one we used, and thus it would be a perfect performance move.
"Back for their 4th ever contest and first since she was hospitalized for serious critical damage during a contest and her partner, they are… Drew Kito and May Adena." Dani announced happily. "The pokémon they will be showing are Espeon which is newly evolved and Drew's rarest pokémon, Absol. This should prove to be interesting."
"Combination." I said calmly.
"Number 4." She finished. The pokémon took their positions and did the counts and performed the wonderful display for the judges the background being a wonderful stared rainbow with a light swirl to it and a protruding dark interface in the middle it was the best anyone had seen yet
"It's the most interesting combination in the contests yet." Mrs. Contesta said.
"Four different offensive attacks, I've never thought to do that."
"For newer lesser used pokémon they seem in excellent shape and strength. As for you two, even the time off has been great on you too." Nurse Joy said.
May was smiling, she was more then happy that they had enjoyed our contest. We recalled our pokémon; May was happily skipping along until she crashed into me. It was only the 9th or 10th time but it got annoying. "Sorry." She said blushing at looking at the ceiling.
I stepped behind her and grabbed her by her waist pulling her on my lap. "Calm down, alright." I said. She nodded scooting onto the bench and staring at her necklace with a compact mirror she had in her bag.
"It you again… I thought we had seen the last of you already. With the way you were winning ribbons we thought you had your 5 already and went on a break." Lorenz said.
"Yeah, I mean underestimating you in the first contest, our mistake but we got a perfect score." I simply smirked.
"Wow, us too." May said not taking her eyes of the necklace's reflection.
"What is she looking at?" Makita asked.
"My necklace," May answered still not paying them an ounce of physical eye contact, still focusing on watching the necklace.
Makita stared at it and her eyes went wide at the beauty of it. "It's beautiful." May finally took notice of her and lifted her eyes from the mirror.
"Thanks, Drew gave it to me this morning. It's amazingly beautiful." May said placing her hand on her neck where the necklace was. "Well are taking the stage next too, see you then." May said getting up, grabbing my hand and pulling me outside.
"What are you doing May?" I asked.
"I dragged you outside." She answered. I sighed as she pulled me out more so we can see the screen, the screen displayed many pictures, among all of those was a picture that we had taken this morning May had wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. "See, we made it."
"No offense, but I knew that too."
"Ha. I'm sure you did." I rolled my eyes and held her face as I kissed her. She blushed and rested her head on my chest. I held her there for a while and soon they called those participating in the first secondary round." She stepped to my side but still held on to me and rested her head on my shoulder. We walked in and many were surprised to see us that close together since we hadn't that close to each other during the contests.
"May and Drew versus Solidad and Harvey," Dani called. I gave a smile to May as she took a pokéball out her pocket and walked to the stage. I stood next to her, only a few feet separating us.
May took a deep breath and placed a hand on her necklace after closing her eyes. She was clearly worried; worry was pasted on her face. I didn't like it when she was worried but she also seemed to be relaxing by touching the necklace. I smiled watching her. She noticed I was watching and turned to me with a smile. I nodded.
"Absol…" I called.
"…Espeon…" May added.
"…Go!" We yelled together. The two pokémon came out with a beautiful entrance and Harvey and Soledad tossed the pokéball out uncaringly. "Show is half the battle." May yelled.
"The other half is the battle." I added with a smirk. They just glared but it didn't have any effect. Their pokémon were launched out when Harvey yelled hold them down. Pidgeot was Solidad's pokémon, as came to a high point and dived down. I turned to May, and she nodded.
"Guard!" We yelled. It was expected that we'd go defensive when they attacked but our pokémon we trapped Pidgeot inside the barrier and the string shot carefully wound around the barrier, soon it too late and it was covered. "Release." We said and the string shot weighted heavy pinning Pidgeot to the ground.
May stepped forward. "Swift!"
"Razor Wind!" He said. The swift was carried faster and stronger by the tearing winds of Absol's attack thus knocking out a large number of their points and knocking Pidgeot. Solidad's eyes were wide with shock that we had taken 60 of their points so easily. I smirked. It was too easy.
Ariados was out numbered and was weakened from the attack but yet again, so had we. Our pokémon were a bit tired though not as much as Harvey's. I guess we need a plan. I looked at May to see what she was planning.
She held up the number 2, that was the different technique then we usually used. Number two was her special technique I had trusted her to specialize and I had one too. I hadn't seen it but I nodded telling her to go on and try it. I trusted her of course. She had a smile on her face still holding the necklace in her palm with her left hand while she held up the number two which Espeon walked over to Ariados. Everyone was confused. No one had seen this sort of thing, most pokémon were quick, and Espeon's nature was to be. I was more interested then anyone.
"May, don't mock my skill." She smirked now. He attacked her with shadow ball explosion. "Now!" May yelled. A guard field held both of the pokémon. What was she thinking? The explosion would hurt Espeon. I looked to her, there was, of course more. The explosion made the field go black. Everyone was stunned, they were thinking we sacrificed half of our points to win; it would actually gain a lot of points too but the point being that more then necessary we would win either way.
The guard fell and the smoke spread through the stage serving its purpose to dissipate the gas. An extremely normal looking Espeon surfaced. Everyone, me included was amazed. May smirked. I looked at her. "Match goes to May and Drew!" Dani announced. May smiled. She took another deep sigh of relaxing as if she had been holding her breath the entire time. She let go of the necklace and her arms fell to her sides. She walked over to Espeon and scooped her up into her arms. The pokémon curled up in her arms and May had a tired yet calm expression on her face.
I walked over to Absol, petting him on the back. He seemed calm and followed me over to May. Espeon jumped out of May's arms into my arms and I walked over to her. I kissed May on the cheek. Everyone in the stage saw it too. May was blushing heavily. I wrapped my arm around her waist with the other hand holding her pokémon. We walked off the stage and sat down. Absol was curled up in the corner of the room resting. Espeon was taking a nap in my lap and May was resting, almost sleeping on shoulder as I held her.
"What did she do?" Solidad asked walking over to me.
"I couldn't see either." I answered.
"Drew… you…"
I smirked at her. She was surprised. "I didn't help her with that. I have no clue what she did. It's similar to the technique we used to get your pokémon but she improved it. I don't see why she just didn't use the same version of it but whatever the reason it worked."
"It was amazing." She said sighing and sitting across from me. "The most impressive move I could have seen."
"We didn't see it." I reminded him.
"The approach, the attack, the defense, it was nothing anyone had ever thought of, it was a simple trap, it wasn't at all like your other one where you turned our pokémon against us, whatever she did might have taken Ariados out from the next contest." I shrugged. She looked over to May. She kept staring at her.
"She's asleep." I said. She had been resting for a while, it was a surprisingly long wait since the stage was torn to extremes from our match, May was quite tired even though I knew for a fact she had slept fine.
"She's happy, and you are too." I nodded. "I'm glad you two got together, I figured it would happen, just not this soon. So how?" She asked.
"A friend of ours, more like hers named Misty got annoyed with our waiting and she announced the other's feeling to us out loud. May ran away almost into a lake but I saved her. It was right before our last match in our last contest."
"That isn't as romantic as I thought it would be." She said sighing.
"Yeah, but it's a lot harder then I thought it would be too." I answered.
"Keep her safe Drew," I smiled.
"Of course, anything for her." She had a pleasant smile on her face.
"Like that necklace?" She asked. I flipped my hair and looked at the necklace.
"Yeah, I guess. I was going to give it to her when she met my parents but I figured that our first return contest was as good as anytime." She nodded.
"Well bye." She said leaving.
"I'm sure we'll meet in a later contest since his pokémon is out of commission and none of our other pokémon is willing to work together. I hope that we will see each other in the finals. I can't wait to see more out of her."
"Yeah, me too." I said answering her.
"May, Drew, your up!" A man called. Espeon woke up and jumped onto the ground. I turned to May.
"May, you need to get up. We need to go." She groggily stood up and yawned, stretching.
"How long have we been waiting?"
"30 minutes, they had to repair the stage." May laughed and we stepped onto the stage, our pokémon were already out. May was holding Espeon in her arms and Absol was resting next to my leg.
This was an easy win, nothing spectacular. It didn't even require a technique, they constantly attacked, we dodged and when we were about to attack, they had ran out of points from wasting too many attacks. How do losers like them get in these contests?
The next contest was the last round. Our competitors were the sisters that May had told me to watch out for; their names were Sepia and London. "We want to prove ourselves." The girl said.
"Sepia, we don't really care." May answered. "Enough talk, let's go." He said.
"Bombardment Combo!" The two sisters yelled.
"Dodge." We said calmly. A large wind of fire irrupted. May and I stepping out of the way to escape it also.
"Now my turn, combo number 3." I told May, she nodded.
Absol took the position I had taught it. I looked to May as she studied the movement carefully. Absol's special move that we wouldn't use much it involved Future Sight.
I hadn't said a word but Absol's glow had proved to them that nothing happened; our points went down but only a tiny bit. May look worried. The came at us which Espeon used control to stop them. Then a wave of many different elemental attacks and powerful attacks hit them knocking them out and we gained points. May eyes went wide and she tackled me.
"What did you do?" I placed my finger on her lips.
"We'll talk later. We have 2 ribbons to collect." She nodded and we received one of their ribbons and the contest ribbon. We were officially entered in the contest finals. May was so happy; she was hugging me tight if she hugged me any tighter, she'd suffocate me.
We eventually returned to our room, after dinner of course. Our pokémon refusing to return to their balls and we agreed since they had done such a wonderful job today. "So how?" She asked sitting next to me, on my bed.
"Future Sight,"
"Espeon can do that if I train her to." I nodded.
"I taught Absol over the weeks we trained slowly it worked until I could combine over 20 attacks. How it works it you can pick a pokémon, and sometimes two and then you activate future sight, then pick 20 attacks you want to use and once a certain amount of time is… it explodes all at once, a great finish."
"It was amazing."
"So was yours even though I couldn't see what was going on. It was impressive enough to wipe Harvey out of the next few contests." I said. I smiled.
May smiled and lay down in the bed resting her head on my lap. "(Yawn) it wasn't that hard. I used protect to hold Ariados in there then I used psychic to hold a few attacks, 10 I think as well as his own then when the timing was right, I released and boom! I remember the dangers of not waiting for an attack to finish before starting the next." I smiled. She closed her eyes.
"May, you may want to prepare yourself for bed first before you go to sleep." She nodded but she was now asleep, barely conscious of what I had just said to her. I moved her off my lap onto the bed, taking off her shoes and tucked her into bed. I went to sleep in her bed. She was so tired to day. Espeon curled up in her arms and Absol at the end of my bed, at her feet. I smiled and followed sweet to enter a restful sleep.
¤ (Morning) ¤
I woke up to hear a knock at the door. I quietly got out of bed to answer it. "Excuse me, are you Drew Kito?" I nodded. "Is May Adena in there also?" He asked.
"Yes, she is, but she's asleep." I answered.
"Oh, well can I talk to you until she awakens." He asked.
"I guess." I answered shrugging.
He brought me into a small room. There was a woman in there two with a small girl on her lap. "This is my wife, Dina and my daughter Melissa. I am Jonathan Rosily."
"Mr. Rosily, hello." I greeted.
"Hello Drew, so I've noticed that you are great at creating contest moves."
"I guess. I do win all of the ones I enter, minus a few I've lost to May but we haven't lost and not scored perfect since we started so I guess we must be good." I said shrugging.
"Yes, you are great. The best we've seen. We want you, and May of course to train coordinators at the school. As you are most likely aware, if you win the Contest Ribbon Cup you can no longer enter these contests, correct?" I nodded.
"Vaguely, I hadn't heard for sure but I figured."
"It's clear to me, as well as many others that you're young and bound to win this year along with your…"
"Girlfriend May." I finished.
"Yes, well we figured that after that you'd need a form of income, something to do to keep yourself busy along with your pokémon. Have you talked about anything yet?"
"May and I were planning on going to a Coordinating College with all the scholarship money we got from ribbons."
He laughed. "You're much too good to go to a college. I want you to teach." I was surprised. "It may come to a surprise but you and May are the two best coordinators we could find in the last 30 years. It's not surprisingly that you work well together since you are both very good so there are no feuds between you."
"That and are our relationship." I added.
"The relationship was built off of your dealings with contests, was it not?" I smirked. He was smart. "Would you even consider it, even a little?"
"You don't think college would teach us anything?" I asked.
"No, if anything it would mess up the interesting combos you have thought to create. School teaches you the dangers of not knowing the chances in a combo but you experiment with best results, don't you?" I smirked. He was quite smart.
"I think May and I might consider it. However I will have to talk with her." I said. There was a knock at the door. "Come on in May." I called. Hearing my voice she stepped into the room with a smile, upon seeing others she was surprised. The little girl ran over to her and hugged her legs.
"Hi!" The little girl said. May lifted her up and set her on her lap.
"Sorry about that." Mrs. Rosily said to May.
"It's fine." May said with a smile. "So what's going on here?" She asked interested.
"He's impressed with our talents. He's offering us a job."
"To coordinate?"
"Not exactly May, based on the skills you and Drew display we want you to teach at our school after you win this next month." A smile came to May's face; it was obvious she liked the idea.
She looked at me. "I'd really like it if we could once we win." May said. "Drew?" She asked me.
"I see no reason why we shouldn't." I said. "We'll get paid well, we'll teach other's how to coordinate, we'll be with each other and our pokémon many hours a day."
"Yes that, as well as you'll be provided with housing and everything else you would need." He added. May nodded liking the idea.
"Alright, so that's it? We agree." May nodded in agreement.
"Alright, so we'll start in September after the Grand Festival." He nodded. "Thank you."
"Professors May Adena and Drew Kito will be there to teach the class." He said talking to a person on a cell phone.
Mrs. Rosily handed Drew and I a pack of papers. "These are the kinds of classes that you'll be teaching. There is students' information in there as well as their pokémon." She said.
May knelt down beside Melissa. "What's your name?" She asked.
"Melissa, what's yours?" She asked.
"I'm May, nice to meet you." May said with a smile on her face.
"Yeah, I see your necklace its pretty. It looks like your eyes." May blushed. "Where'd you get it?"
"Drew got it for me." May answered to the girl.
"He matches his hair to his clothes." May giggled at this statement. I rolled my eyes looking at the classes that we would teach: Coordinating 1, Coordinating 6, Advanced Coordinating, Contests 101, and Attacks and Combos Class. The students ages ranged from 8 to 20 year olds and not much older then that.
I laughed. May looked to me. "Solidad and Harvey are taking our classes too." I said.
"Really?" May asked.
"I'm sure they'll be overjoyed to see us teach them." I said smirking.
She rolled her eyes and got up. "Well we better get going; we have breakfast around this time."
"If you don't mind my asking what kind of housing would you prefer?" He asked.
May shrugged. "A Housing Unit." I answered him. May looked toward me. "A housing unit has 3 bedrooms for guests as well as the people living in it, a kitchen, and bathroom. It's a mini house for those who live on campus, for teachers, like us."
May nodded. "That sounds good; we'll take one of those." They looked surprised. "Of course we'll be living together, unless that causes a problem? Does it?" May asked.
"No, of course not. We just figured that you'd both need a house for family and such to live with you." Mrs. Rosily said calmly and politely.
"Nah, Drew and I don't get relative visitors much and if we do it's not for long. It's best if we stay together like we're best at." May answered him happily.
"Okay, well by then." Melissa said.
"We'll have everything arranged for you soon enough." Mr. Rosily said. "You can see the college and the house whenever you want to." I nodded and took May by the hand.
"I can't believe it, we're going to be teaching coordinating to students at a college, isn't that amazing Drew?" I smiled and nodded making her feel much happier then she already was. "I get to spend even more time with you after school." She said hugging me.
"I'll be glad to spend the time with you too May." She blushed and I started walking again. We arrived at the cafeteria and a girl was standing there.
"Lily?" I asked. She nodded weakly before collapsing to the ground. May's eyes showed fear while mine were worried beyond belief. I scooped my little sister into my arms and we jumped in my car and drove to the hospital.
A/N: It's sort of a cliffhanger; actually, it's quite evil of me because I have exams next week. I'm sure that those who are younger then I am in school are always like what's the big deal about these exams, who needs to study. The answer to that would usually be not me but yet again, this test is worth 10 of my overall grade in the class so it's quite important I do pronominal so most likely, the chapter will be 1. (Early by a day or two) 2. (Won't happen) 3. (Be postponed to Saturday). These exams are huge so respect me in saying that it's important I do well and I will try to give you an update before next Wednesday. In addition, sorry I missed last week and sorry this one is late. Aniecä
