Disclaimer: I obviously don't own pokemon.

Part Two.

Chapter Two: A New Beginning.

January 4th.

May woke up as the taxi she was in had to urgently stop at a traffic light, she'd slept through most of the night. Her driver had to stop at a service station half way through their journey for some food, May had gone with him and sat at a table and the next thing she knew it was a couple of hours later and the taxi driver was impatiently tapping her shoulder in a desperate bid to wake her up. The journey that should have taken just two hours by car, ended up taking all night, partly because of the amount of traffic in the City due to the Grand Festival.

"How much do I owe you?" May yawned, still feeling like she hadn't slept enough.

"Mr Coran said he'd send a cheque to me" The driver said, "So don't worry about it."

"Oh, thank you" May said politely, although she should've been thanking Jordan.

"Are we at your stop?" The driver asked, "LaRousse Grand Hotel?"

May did a double-take, "What?! I can't afford this!"

"Mr Coran said this was your stop" The driver insisted.

May sighed and gathered up her two large bags of clothes and stepped out of the taxi, she waved at the driver as he sped away and looked around at the mass amounts of people there. She looked up at the tall hotel in front of her and prayed that Jordan had paid for this because on the salary she was on; she'd only be able to afford to step inside the hotel itself for ten minutes.

May felt uncomfortable as she noticed all the stares she was getting, she'd not bothered to change from her uniform because of the lack of time before the taxi arrived, she'd only remembered as she walked into the hotel and to the front desk. The man behind the front desk struck May as one of those typical stiff-lipped upperclassmen whose only common grounds with other people would be the salary he gets for doing a extremely boring job. He raised an eyebrow as May approached.

"May I help you, madam?" The man asked.

May noticed the hotel was far too posh to even give their employees name tags, "Y-Yes. I'm May Maple, my friend Jordan Coran sent me here, is there a room booked for me?"

The man looked at May for a moment as if she was joking then turned to the computer next to him, he typed far too much to just be searching for a room. May waited impatiently as several other posh-looking people stared at her, making her feel unwelcome.

The man behind the front desk looked shocked for a moment before regaining his composure.

"You do have a suite here, Miss Maple." He said, turning around to speak to a bellhop, "Would you take Miss Maples bags to Suite 165?"

The bellhop nodded, rushing over and taking her bags off her. May smiled at the man in front of her, slightly amused that he'd treated her so badly until he'd realized she was a guest.

"Can I have my key, please?" She asked smugly.

The man entered a locked room just behind the front desk and exited it just a moment later with her suite key in hand, he'd obviously been working here for a long time as he knew where everything was. A woman came rushing up to him before he could get back to May.

"It's terrible, Victor, just terrible!" She cried.

"What is it, Marie?" He asked, appearing to be very unsympathetic.

"There were supposed to be three breakfasts sent up to suite 385, and one of them is missing!" She seemed like she was being just a little overdramatic.

"Excuse me?" May asked, quite hungry herself, "What time is breakfast?"

Victor turned around to her and passed her suite key to her before he could forget, "9AM, sharp"

May nodded happily and begun to walk away until she realized; she was supposed to be at the stadium right now ready to take over Jordans position. She looked down at her ugly work uniform and made a dash for the stairs; if she got changed in about a minute flat she could still make it there on time. Thankfully her suite was near the ground floor, she rushed in and pulled a pair of trousers, a tshirt, and a jacket out of her bag, usually she'd wear something a little nicer but it was winter and there wasn't exactly many clothes that looked good in winter. May changed into them and threw some more clothes from her bag onto the floor so she'd only have some necessities in there. She dashed out the room, pleased with herself that she'd got ready so quickly.

The stadium was only a little further down the street, the crowds were immense and May decided to run through them to get to the stadium on time. She didn't realize what a mistake it was until people started to shout at her for running through the crowd.

She turned around to shout back to whoever was shouting at her, "Sorry! I need to get to the stadium quickly!"

May started to walk backwards, a little out of breath and feeling a little foolish for shouting back at the crowd. She turned around so she was facing the same way as the crowd and looked into her bag for her phone, the time on her phone read; 9:15AM.

"Crap!" May whispered under her breath, putting her phone back in her bag and beginning to run again.

Unfortunately for May, this time she ended up running for a couple of minutes until she ran into someone who was stood completely still on the pavement. May and the person fell down to the pavement with an almighty thud, May cried out a little in pain; although the other person had broken her fall.

"Could you please get off me?" The person asked.

"S-Sorry! I'm so sorry!" May exclaimed, putting her weight onto her hands and pushing herself up.

She turned around to see a young kid scrambling to stand up.

"How about you watch where you're going, lady!" The kid shouted, he couldn't have been much older than eleven but his immature attitude made him seem so much younger.

May looked at him in shock, "Excuse me?!"

The kid rolled his eyes, "Weren't you listening?"

May stood for a moment, gawping at the kid and trying to think of what to say, "I-I-"

"Stuck for words? I haven't got all day, lady. My time is precious"

"Ah, Owain. Still as bratty and annoying as ever" Said a voice to the side of May.

She looked at the person who'd just turned up "coincidentally" just in time. Drew; he had a knack of picking out the best moments to show up and intervene in any situations May would get herself into, if she didn't know any better, she'd think it was all planned.

"Ah, Drew" The kid, Owain, said, "Still as stupid as ever"

Drew rolled his eyes, "Kid, you're not going to win the Grand Festival against me but you did win a prize for being such an ignorant immature little-"

"-You two!" May exclaimed, "Will you stop fighting?"

"And who are you, his mom?" Owain smirked, "This isn't fighting, anyway"

May looked a little bemused, "I- Well, I just.."

Owain started laughing, "Save it for now, I'll hear your apology later"

Owain strolled off into the stadium before anyone could say another word to him. Meanwhile May turned to look at Drew, a little shocked at the kids attitude.

"I can't believe him" May said, "All I did was-"

Drew had a smirk on his face as he looked at May, causing her to stop speaking for a moment, "I saw it all, May. Honestly, you get to LaRousse and then just start throwing yourself onto eleven year olds…"

May's eyes widened and her cheeks flushed a bright red colour, she placed her hands on her hips, "That's a nice way to greet an old friend!"

"Friend?" Drew asked, humouring her.

"Drew!" May exclaimed, "Will you cut it out?!"

Drew ran a hand through his hair, "Sorry. How are you?"

May smiled, "I'm okay, I'm on my way to start judging the Grand Festival"

Drew nodded, then did a double-take, "What?!"

"Jordan had to pull out and I'm now the guest judge" May smiled.

Drew wasn't acting like his usual self, he almost looked like he was getting more on-edge as May was there.

"Are you okay, Drew?" May asked, worried about him.

Drew faked a smile and nodded, "I'm fine, I've just got a battle soon"

"You're taking part?" May asked, "You know I called you last night to say that I was coming here but you never answered"

"Oh, yeah, I'm sorry May. I was out" Drew lied, "My life's been pretty busy lately"

May nodded, "I understand, I think you're going to win this Grand Festival"

Drew smirked, still acting a little odd, "Well, we know that's a given. Do you have to see the other judges?"

May realized she was supposed to see them about twenty minutes ago, she nodded, "Come in with me as you're battling anyway?"

Drew nodded and they walked toward the building together, what struck May as odd was the little amount of people getting their pokemon healed and ready for battle as opposed to the huge amount going into the stadium itself.

"Why are there such a small amount of people?" May asked.

"We're quite far into the Grand Festival" Drew said, "Did Jordan not tell you that?"

May thought for a moment, "I don't think he did"

"Semi-Finals already" Drew said bluntly, "I've got to battle that kid later"

"That little brat?" May asked, then paused, realizing she sounded a little mean, "I mean, that little kid?"

"Yeah, he's pretty amazing at what he does, which is why he's so arrogant" Drew said, "I'll still beat him"

May raised an eyebrow at him, "You say that kids arrogant but you're still arrogant as ever"

Drew laughed, "That's how I've always been"

May noticed a few spare sofas around the small pokemon centre that was located just before entrants and officials would go to the stage, she sat down as her fall had hurt her legs. Drew sat next to her.

"May, you have to judge the Grand Festival, not laze about. Get up" Drew said impatiently.

May shook her head, "I've hurt my legs and I'm tired, so can you wait a second?"

Drew sighed, "Fine"

They sat in silence for a few moments, May looked over at Drew a couple of times before sighing deeply as if she was trying to attract attention. Drew didn't even look at her, this made May angry and she tapped his shoulder so his eyes would be diverted to her.

"Drew, what's wrong with you?!" May exclaimed.

"What?" Drew looked amused, "What do you mean 'what's wrong with you'?"

"You're acting-"May paused, trying to think of some words, "-Different"

"How?" Drew asked.

"You're just not how you were seven months ago. I haven't spoken to you in months because you're never in! You never even bothered to tell me you were at the Grand Festival" May said moodily, "It's like you don't want to speak to me anymore"

Drew looked at the floor, "It's not that. I don't like speaking on the phone so that's why we haven't-"

"-You're capable of a five minute conversation, Drew" May said, unimpressed with his excuses.

"Yeah, I guess" Drew begun to look nervous.

May rolled her eyes, "I've got to go judge the battles now, they're going to be so mad if I don't show up"

May stood up and begun to walk across the room, Drew watched her walking away for a moment before catching up with her.

"Look, I'm sorry" Drew said, "I've been really busy and I didn't know whether you wanted to really talk or not-"

"-Drew, I've been calling like three times a week at the least. Of course I wanted to talk. I don't get why you've changed?" May asked.

"I haven't changed!" Drew exclaimed, sounding offended.

May shook her head, "You have. You seem colder since everything happened last year"

"I'm not!" Drew exclaimed, outraged, "I haven't changed a bit!"

May put her hands on her hips and glared at Drew for a moment, "So, Drew. How many people have you spoken to since last year that you became friends with? Spoke to Ash, Brock? Maybe Jordan?"

"-I've spoken to Jordan!"

"He was a judge!" May exclaimed, "You wouldn't have spoken to him if you didn't have to"

Drew paused for a second, "May, everything you're saying is a complete lie"

"Is it, Drew?" May asked, "You're a completely different person since last year, I want to know why"

"There's nothing different about me!" Drew exclaimed.

"Yes, there is" May sighed impatiently, "Listen, If you like it or not I'm going to be judging the Grand Festival, The last time we saw each other I thought we were friends?"

"We were" He paused, "I mean, we are. I'm just, I'm really nervous and it's so weird to see you"

May sighed, "It wouldn't have been weird if we'd kept in contact with each other"

"Would May Maple please report to Nurse Joy. I repeat, Will May Maple please report to Nurse Joy" Said an announcer on the PA system.

May couldn't be happier to stand up, she begun to walk over to where Nurse Joy was seated.

"May!" Drew shouted.

May turned around and looked at him, "Yes?"

"My battle is at 11, watch it if your not too busy knocking into underage kids" Drew smirked, walking away before May could make any kind of comeback.

May's face was still flushed red as she walked up to Nurse Joy. Nurse Joy smiled at May as she approached.

"Hello, May" She said, "If you go through the corridor behind me and into the second door on the right, you'll be in the judges room before you make your way into the stadium"

"Thank you" May said, smiling at Nurse Joy, "Do you have any passes for me by any chance?"

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Nurse Joy exclaimed, getting out a small card and passing it to May, it simply had May's name and picture on it.

May held the card in her hand and walked down the corridor beside where Nurse Joy was seated, it wasn't hard to find the door because of the simplicity of the instructions. May opened the door to be met by Mr Contesta and Vivian. May looked behind them to an open door that lead out into the main stadium, she could see people sitting to watch in their thousands.

Vivian ran up to May as soon as she entered the room, "Thank god you're here, we thought we'd have to send out a search party!"

"I'm so sorry" May said, "I got caught up talking to an old friend"

"Get out there, then!" Vivian exclaimed, "I need to introduce the first contestants to battle"

"Right" May said.

Mr Contesta walked alongside May as they walked into the main part of the stadium, Nurse Joy walked out of the room Vivian was in shortly after. May looked around at the judges.

"Shouldn't there be four of us?" May whispered to Mr Contesta.

"We changed the amount of judges for quickness" Mr Contesta said quietly, "The Grand Festivals seem to have had a lot of high-profile scams, murders and other things recently, we don't want to attract more attention to ourselves at the moment so we decided on three judges per Grand Festival"

"I guess that makes sense" May said, thinking back to all the events that happened nearly seven years ago, everything that happened last year, it was a surprise people were still interested in contests and winning the Grand Festival after all the bad happenings.

Vivian was watching nervously from the sides before running out onto the battle-field, she was met by a tremendous applause where most of the crowd stood up out of their seats.

"Welcome to the semi-finals of the Hoenn Grand Festival!" Vivian shouted as more cheers came from the crowd, "First of all we have the battle of Isabelle Clark versus Zack Tate!"

The crowd went wild once more, chants of 'Go Zack!' and 'We love you Isabelle!' were heard from around the stadium, people held up signs and threw confetti down onto the stadium area. Vivian waited for the crowd to calm down before speaking again.

"Let's bring them out, give a big cheer for Isabelle and Zack!" Vivian shouted, running off to the middle of the stage as Isabelle and Zack walked out from opposite ends of the battle field.

Isabelle looked around the same age as May, she had a short black bob for a haircut and wore a very sleek black dress; she looked far too dressed up to be entering a pokemon contest, let alone the Grand Festival. Zack was a little different, he was far younger than Isabelle and had scruffy red hair. Zack walked onto the battle field and looked as if he were lost whilst Isabelle looked as if she was barely phased by the huge crowd.

Vivian turned to look at both of them, "You have five minutes, starting from… Now!"

As the timer begun to tick down, Zack nervously took out a pokeball and let out his pokemon; unsurprisingly, it was a Slaking. Due to his nervous and messy exterior May thought it seemed a bit ironic.

Isabelle laughed elegantly at Zack, which unnerved him a bit and let out her pokemon; A Flaaffy.

May watched, a strange expression on her face, although Zack was nervous and all over the place, Slaking could beat the weak Flaaffy in a few cleverly chosen moves.

"Flaaffy, use Light Screen!" Commanded Isabelle.

A large barrier of light went up around Flaaffy, May wanted to shout at Zack to get moving; this didn't seem like a semi-final match. The light remained there for a while before Zack got his act together.

"Er, Slaking, use Flail to destroy the light screen!" Zack shouted.

Slaking moved towards the light screen, waving it's arms vigorously. May smiled a little, at least the kid knew what he was doing now but in all honesty, May was barely paying attention. It was the later stages of the Grand Festival so she didn't need to give too much feedback. May looked up at the board just before the match ended, although Zack had put up a good fight, his points were a lot different to Isabelle's, no matter what happened he was going to lose. Mr Contesta turned to look at May as the battle finished and Zack walked off stage disappointed.

"May, are you okay? You seem a little distracted" He said, genuinely concerned.

"I'm fine" May smiled, "Just tired"

"That was a wonderful battle" Nurse Joy said, turning to both May and Mr Contesta, "I don't believe how a Flaaffy beat a Slaking, fascinating!"

May smiled at Nurse Joys enthusiasm, they discussed the battle a little further before Vivian walked up to them all.

"The next battle is going to be tough" Vivian said, "Owain Lacey and Drew Kurain; those are two coordinators that know what it means to win"

Mr Contesta nodded, "I couldn't agree more, in fact this battle has had me excited ever since I found out about it"

"This is going to be close" Nurse Joy said.

May nodded, acting as if she was listening to every word they were saying, she was distracted by looking off the side of the stage, at one end she could see Owain leaning against the frame of the door, as she looked at the other side where Drew should've been, she couldn't see anyone.

Vivian ran to the middle of the battle field once more, "Ladies and Gentlemen, now a battle you've all been waiting for- Drew Kurain versus Owain Lacey!"

The crowd went completely mad this time, people got up in their seats, some girls were even cheerleading on one side of the stage. It was complete madness, May now realized this is probably why most male coordinators were so arrogant, their fan bases were immense.

Owain walked out first, waving politely to his fans in the crowd, a little different to the boy May had encountered earlier. Drew walked out from his side a moment later, not bothering to look at the crowd and not showing any affection towards his fans, this didn't stop everyone from screaming for him until Owain interrupted by speaking.

"Rampardos, show this idiot just how strong you are!" Owain shouted, letting his Rampardos out of its pokeball. May had to admit it looked pretty terrifying.

Drew tilted his head to the side, smirking, "You really think that's going to scare me? Go, Absol!"

Vivian walked back to where the judges were sat and shouted over to Drew and Owain, "Your battle starts… Now!"

"Head smash while he's not able to defend, quickly!" Owain shouted.

Rampardos begun to charge toward Absol with amazing speed.

Drew flicked his hair to the side, "Double-Team, Absol"

"Destroy every fake there is!" Owain shouted immediately.

"Razor Wind to prevent the attack, go!" Drew shouted.

May was almost out of her seat, this match was interesting already with neither party willing to risk getting hit, their points both went down at similar times as both of them dodged the others attacks. As soon as Owain called out an attack, Drew countered it, and vice versa.

"Screech!" Owain shouted.

Rampardos obliged and sent out a painfully high screech throughout the stadium causing most people to cover their ears or wince. Absol stopped in it's tracks while Drew tried to recover his composure. Owain took the opportunity to ask Rampardos to tackle, it begun to run towards Absol, its extreme speed made it hard for Drew to even realize what was going on.

"Ah!" Drew exclaimed as he noticed Rampardos running toward Absol, "Dodge it quickly!"

Absol attempted to dodge the attack but it wasn't quick enough, especially matched against Rampardos's speed. Absol fell back so it was near Drew again, it got up slowly, obviously feeling the strain from the powerful tackle.

"Another tackle, Rampardos" Owain said, Rampardos begun to run toward Absol again. Drew realized that if this hit again then there was a possibility that Absol could end up being knocked out cold.

"Absol, use Detect" Drew smirked as Absol was able to completely dodge the attack using it's agility.

Rampardos had ran into the middle where it was supposed to attack and looked around, confused at what had happened.

"Absol, Slash!" Drew commanded sternly.

Absol begun to run toward Rampardos, who still appeared to be confused at the situation.

Drew stepped forward, expecting this to be a clean hit, as he did that he felt his foot move down a little on the floor, as if he'd stepped onto something. As he was puzzling about this, a metal contraption seemed to appear out of nowhere, it had a strange attachment to the end of it and before Absol could do its attack, the attachment was clinging onto Rampardos. Rampardos begun to kick out and move itself around, attempting to free itself from the strange contraption that had appeared out of nowhere, Drew was reminded of Team Rockets old days, where they'd set up contraptions to annoy May and other people during the contests.

He looked up into the crowd to see a sea of shocked faces, Drew wasn't sure whether to help or if this was some part of the festival that he hadn't been told about that would end as soon as he did begun to worry.

As the metal contraption held strongly onto its grip on Rampardos, the pokemon begun to stop kicking out as much, it gradually stopped kicking until it completely stopped. Owain ran toward his Rampardos and tried to free it from the metal contraption. Drew put Absol back into its pokeball and stood still, watching Owain as he tried to free his pokemon. Mr Contesta, Vivian, Nurse Joy and May came rushing over.

"Is it okay?" May asked Owain.

"Of course it's not!" Owain shouted, "I can't get it out of this weird contraption"

Nurse Joy got closer to try to see if the pokemon was still breathing, if it was just unconscious there was nothing for him to worry about. Mr Contesta looked worried.

"Why does this have to happen to me…" Mr Contesta sighed, looking at Drew, "Are you going to help?"

Drew nodded and begun to walk over to them all, as soon as he'd taken a few steps the contraption released Rampardos and went back up to where it came from which appeared to be from somewhere on the very top floor of the building.

Owain gave Drew an evil look and walked over to him, pushing him out of the way and inspecting the floor.

"Just as I thought!" Owain shouted, "He's been standing on a switch"

There was a sound of murmuring erupting from the audience as they all heard what Owain was saying. Mr Contesta, May and Drew turned around to look at where Owain was pointing. Surely enough there was a small switch just rising above the floor level, it was the same colour as the battle field meaning it took a lot of eye straining to see it.

"He's cheating" Owain said angrily, "He set up a trap to knock out my pokemon"

Drew shook his head, "No, I didn't!"

"Yeah, you did" Owain said, "Cheater!"

Much to Drew's horror, the entire crowd begun to catch onto what Owain was saying and joined in with calling Drew a cheater. Before they could begin to ask people to calm down there were many boos and shouting coming from the crowds, all this was aimed at Drew.

May walked over to Drew, "That's a lie, right?"

"Of course it is!" Drew exclaimed, "I didn't know there was a switch there"

"He's cheating!" Shouted Owain, aggravating the crowd.

"Will you keep this quiet?" Mr Contesta asked Owain quietly as hundreds of camera flashes were seen from around the stadium.

Owain laughed at Mr Contesta, "No way, I'm not letting him get away with this!"

Mr Contesta's face had flushed pink with anger, he turned to Drew and May who were standing side by side trying to make sense of the situation, "This battle is over, Drew, we will investigate the matter of your cheating further and ask you to attend a hearing about it, but for now; Get the hell out of my sight!"