Chapter 24 – 3rd POV

1 week later

The streets were filled with performers and StreetSide attractions and stalls filled with foreign food and trinkets, some were even selling small pets like rabbits and birds.

"Wow Lar-Fisto's festivals have got nothing on this" Ash said as he walked down the street, his face painted like a tiger and hands full of food "Make sure you come to the town square later, Lady Nichole will be singing, it's rather beautiful" Aaron said as he and Delia walked next to him "By the way where's Misty?" Delia asked as she looked around for her son's girlfriend "She and Levy were out looking for Chase, he has a habit of going crazy at these things" Ash said calmly "How crazy?" Aaron asked as he was still security of the festival "Nothing major, it's just that he tends to run off and enter food eating competitions… it usually ends in him throwing up and spending several hours in bed" Ash said as he remembered the stories May and Levy had told him and the others the previous night.

Speaking of Chase "And the winner is Mike Stratus!" the announcer yelled as Chase stood proudly, having devoured a 50 pound steak in only a few minutes "So is Mike Stratus another alias of yours?" Misty asked as Levy sighed "He has over twenty of them and a reason for all of them" she sighed as Chase smirked, the steaks marinate covered his mouth "Hey where's May and Drew? Are they on a date?" Chase asked cheekily only to get laughs from the two girls "Well Drew's job today is to keep an eye on May so she won't pull any stunts with the game stalls" Levy said as she remembered her dad had taught May how to win the rigged games. Chase rose an eyebrow "But why? She makes money from it in a technically fair way" he said as he didn't really get what was so bad about it "If she does, people will get word of it and her description will get out, and for all we know someone bad could find out one of the rarest Desolate is here in Rota" Levy said like it was abvious "But wait, arent snakes also pretty rare?" Chase asked to which Levy simply answered with "Snake Desolate are only rare here, the country of deserts Grisha has tones of them" before noticing Misty was looking around "Go find Ash, it's fine I can manage here" Levy said before Misty smiled and wondered off.

"Why can't you let me have fun?" May whined as she and Drew walked down one of the streets "Because it's not fair" Drew reasoned "Not fair? Those games are designed so you can't win, how am I the one being unfair here?" May asked as she threw her arms around, dramatically emphasising her point. Drew sighed "I get that but it's like what Brendan told you yesterday, people in other countries know what the infamous bat Desolate looks like now, if word of a young girl matching that description is said to be somewhere, some people will go there, bad people" he said as May just pouted "Being under protection is boring" she mumbled as they kept walking.

Suddenly "Ooh what's that smell?!" she yelled as her head snapped in a certain direction and her eyes looked like those of an actual bat before she ran towards the smell.

Drew stood there for a moment, in the few months he's now known her he had never seen her do that.

He regained his composure and ran after her to see that one stall was selling all different kinds of fruits and foods with fruit as the main ingredient.

May was staring at it intently "Hey Drew" May asked as she turned to him "You want me to but you some?" he asked, expecting that was her next question "Well yes… but why am I so interested in fruit lately?" she asked a little worried. Drew stopped for a second before looking at her, now that she mentioned it, when he first met her she flew to a lemon tree and picked a few, not even bothering to try and eat any of them, recently she eats most fruits she comes across "Maybe it's a sign you can do a full-body morph" he guessed "Is that possible?" May asked as she didn't actually know all that much about Desolate other than the fact they had animal appendages and abilities "Well… not long before I could do it for the first time I always craved meet so much so that I would actually hunt it myself… I think Misty started attacking seals" he said unsurely but began to think of other Desolate who could fully transform "We can ask Levy when we get back to the castle later… until the do you want anything in particular?" he asked, pointing at the stall May had originally gone there for "Anything" she said quickly.

Drew sighed and walked up to the stall owner "Do you have jams?" he asked as he knew that if he got proper food she would just devour it "We only have strawberry jam, but we have jellies" he said as he held up a card with everything he had at his stall. Drew looked it over and thought back to what fruits she was eating the most of, seeing as they would have been her favourites "Alright I'll take a jar of strawberry jam, apple juice and orange and mango jellies" he said as the man got what he wanted.

After Drew paid for it he turned around expecting to see May with a happy expression… she had the happy expression… but it wasn't for him… Brendan was there… with apples.

"Hey Brendan what are you doing here?" he asked the older guy as a threatening aura oozed from him. Brendan ignored this and smiled at him "Well, as my job at sea is now done I was given the morning off, so I figured that since May's had quite the appetite for fruits I'd bring her some apples" he said as he watched May take large bites and turning the apples into thin cores rather fast "Make sure you don't choke" Drew said displeased.

Brendan smirked at Drew and grabbed May's hand "Come on let's dance" he said lowly before guiding her off to one of the small areas people had been dancing in.

Drew grumbled and put the things he bought into May's bag, that she left behind, and brought it with him as he trudged over to the large crowd of dancers, he was getting a sense of Déjà vu.

Just like what happened in Lar-fisto, May stole the show again, but his time Drew couldn't join in as Brendan was already there.

Drew stood in the crowd watching them, his foot tapping angrily as he impatiently waited for the song to end.

Ever since last week's kiss, the two of them were spending more time together, but every time he goes to hug or even touch her is usually met with her not so discrete way of avoiding it. A good example would be two days ago, when he tested his theory and tried to hug her, she reacted by ducking just in time to look at something on the ground, despite there being nothing there.

Once the song ended Brendan knelt on one knee and kissed her hand "With this I must say farewell as my morning of will now be replaced by an afternoon and night of paperwork" he said dramatically while gesturing a feinting pose, getting a giggle from May.

Brendan wondered off and waved to may as she waved back "Since when were you two so close?" Drew asked as he had seemingly appeared next to her "What do you mean? We've always been lie that" May said, confused by his question.

Drew shook the obviously jealous he was having out of his head and grabbed her hand, quick enough that she couldn't make up a reason not to or to move it "Come on, Rin told me that in the middle of the day she and Joy were going to be in a comedy play" he said as May's interest was sparked "The queen performs at the town festival?" she questioned as her thoughts on kings and queens were that they separate themselves from the commoners, as most do "Rin likes to be involved with her citizens, although there have been a few assassination attempts on her during events like this she still does it because she knows her citizens respect her" Drew said as they started walking "You sure know a lot about this" May said sceptically "Well, my mother is from this country so I'm going to learn whatever I can about it, that includes the royal family" he said somewhat proudly as they arrived at another area reserved for an event, this one being acrobats.

May snickered "What's so funny?" Drew asked. May smirked up at him "Their like me, they're acro-bats" she said as she began laughing, not from the pun but the look on Drew's face "Really?" Drew asked with a chuckle "It was right there" she excused before they kept walking.

They eventually reached the area for the play and were surprised to find the others were there too "Hey Levy, did you keep piggy here on a short leash?" May asked her friend who smirked "After I found him when he ran off for a second time he didn't leave me side" she said proudly "You threatened to bite me" Chase complained as his voice broke "It was an empty threat" Levy shot back "Sure" Chase said, still angry with her. Levy sighed "What about you?" she asked Drew, referring to his daily job "She didn't do anything to get attention drawn to her… other than dancing" he said as he wasn't sure if dancing really counted as there were a lot of people dancing.

May ignored their conversation and looked around "Where did Misty and Ash go?" she asked Aaron, someone of whom she was still wary about but made an effort to become somewhat friends.

Aaron looked around, his brother and his brother's girlfriend having slipped away "They must have gone off for some alone time" he teased as May snickered a bit "Oh leave them alone, they're a young couple" Delia said as she nudged her eldest son slightly.

As the play was setting up a group of girls were nearby talking about something that grabbed their attention "Did you hear?" one said "Hear what?" a second one asked "Apparently, the queen got engaged to a guy who works at the castle" the first one said as the group gasped like it was terrible "But she's royalty, and a queen, surely there would be some handsome princes and kings she could have gone after" one of them said.

"Do girls just want looks ant titles? I'll never understand them" May said as she got a slight laugh from Chase and Levy as Drew just smiled.

May looked up thoughtfully "Now that I think about it, Brendan mentioned that Rin's fiancé was going to be at that dinner last week, but I never saw any men sitting next to her" she said as the others realised it too "And she still gets letters for marriage proposals from other countries, but throws them out" Delia said as she had seen a few of them, some being from some truly genuinely kind men, and a few women.

"Aaron, you're one of her guards, have you seen this fiancé of hers and what he looks like? Or does he not exist?" Chase asked as Aaron became the main attention of the conversation "Umm, for the queen's personal privacy I cannot reveal anything other than the fact that he is a he and that he is real" he said simply, slightly annoying the others with the lack of information.

The decided to drop the topic as he was right, it was her privacy and she can love whomever she wishes… she is a queen after all.

Right before the play started, Drew gave May her bag back and she almost immediately took out the strawberry jam and began eating it with the biscuits she had bought earlier that day.

As they watched the play, Drew found himself looking at May a lot, watching her laughing face made him smile, he had gotten so used to seeing her near emotionless or sad face so this was a great change.

By the time the play had finished, most of them were holding their stomachs from laughing so much, the whole thing was a romance comedy where several men and one woman go after one girl, and the twist right at the end was that she was a man all along.

May's POV

We began to walk down the street when Rin ran over to us "Do any of you have medical experience?" she asked "Why? What happened?" Aaron asked quickly "Someone poisoned my food and Joy ate it" she said worried. Levy stepped forwards "I don't have medical experience per se… but I know my poisons and how to dull the effects" she said proudly "Great" Rin said before we followed her to a nearby inn where the actors from the play had taken Joy.

After a few minutes of checking Joy's condition and checking for any physical effects other than dizziness and fatigue, Levy walked out to the rest of us "Can you help her?" Rin asked worried "Don't worry, whoever it was isn't very good with potions, of Joy were a Desolate this would have been mildly worse but all she needs is water, some dragon fruit and a herb called mortlocker" she said calmly "I can find the dragon fruit" I said quickly, wanting to help in any way I could "Great, Drew you go find the mortlocker and Aaron go get me a large bowel filled halfway with water" Levy said, taking charge of the dire situation.

As I walked towards the exit I heard Chase ask "How well do you know potions exactly?" and was given an answer of "Let's just stay that if I really wanted to I could paralyse your body but heighten your nerves so they feel twice as much pain as usual" from Levy whom was giving off a creepy vibe.

Drew and I went our separate ways and we began aimlessly running around to find what we needed, even passing each other more than once in the prosses.

I was so busy trying to find what I needed that I completely forgot why I wasn't supposed to bring attention to myself.

Suddenly I fell to the ground, my whole body had gone limp "What's happening?" I asked as my body wouldn't move at all.

Without realising it I had run into a less populated area of town so nobody was around to help.

When I finally heard footsteps I looked up, happily welcoming whomever it was.

But my happiness turned to fear and terror.

Right in front of me was the creature of my nightmares… Giovanni "Hello my sweet little bat" he said as he stroked my hair from my face.

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Merry Christmas everyone, enjoy this cliffhanger and let me know what you think of the newest chapters :)