Samiya
Over the course of the day that they had spent within its structure, the temple had sunk from the surface of the ocean, and so to step outside would be to step into the sea itself. Paul knew he'd have to rely on his Pokemon to get him to the surface and was glad that it was neither a journey to take from too deep nor one he would do without the help of his recently acquired Wailord. May stood next to him, looking out at the water he would soon travel directly into, her mouth closed and her eyes wide as she took in the view he'd soon disappear from.
Silent, he scanned the waters with his Pokedex and waited for the telltale beep that gave him what he needed. Sending out Wailord through an opening in the floor beneath them, he watched as Wailord sank down into the depths, attempting to draw up his target.
"You're releasing him?" May blanked, lost. "That doesn't make any sense."
"No," Paul gave her a slightly incredulous look. "That would be particularly counterproductive." Feeling called out, May huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting on an explanation Paul wasn't going to give. Instead, he would let his actions demonstrate for him.
After a moment or so, a small brown fish came into view that swelled in size as it came closer to the temple entrance. With a smug, pleased grin on his face, Paul waited for Wailord to lure it into the opening and become exposed in the air of the temple, flopping at the surface of the water helplessly.
"A Relicanth!" May recognised it immediately. "I've not seen one of those in ages!" Paul took out a Pokeball, focusing on his apparent task, and tossed it in front of him to capture the ancient Pokemon. May watched in awe, her eyes wide as the Pokeball swayed from side to side before growing still, a sure sign of a successful capture. "I remember seeing a Relicanth in a hidden grotto pool with Ash, it was one of the first adventures we had together."
Paul didn't respond, hating when any of her stories featured Ash.
"Why did you need to catch it?" She asked, finally giving him a conversation starter he could work with. As he picked up the silent Pokeball, he began to explain.
"Wailord is going to be focused on the surf, and without Manaphy to act as a navigator he'll have a harder time getting back to land efficiently. Look," he took out his Pokedex one more time and pulled up Relicanth's entry. "It mentions how Relicanth is perfectly evolved to thrive even in the deepest, most secluded parts of the ocean with its rock hard fins and its oil protected bladder. It'll know the landscape of the ocean much more than a surface dwelling Pokemon like Wailord, and it'll be better for guiding us back to an appropriate shoreline to get back to a major city. Between Relicanth underwater and Honchkrow in the sky, we should be fine." He pocketed his Pokedex, and let Wailord linger outside the temple, ready to lift him to the surface. "From wherever I end up, I'll work my way back around to Hoenn."
"You've thought it all through," May acknowledged quietly, a little sadly. Paul nodded, firm and prepared. "Good. I'm glad you know how you're going to get back to civilisation. I'd worry, otherwise, about you ending up stranded out there."
"I'll be fine." His voice was oddly disjointed. Tension swept back over them both, and they waited for the other to interrupt it in order to start making their goodbyes. "How long will you wait here?" Paul finally asked.
May smiled weakly, her eyes sad. "As long as I'm here," she said gently, "the orb is here, and Manaphy is here…" she turned to look back out a false window towards the ocean where they could spot the prince's lithe form darting through the sea. "Aqua really has no way to track down Kyogre, do they? So if I take the responsibility of this orb and this place, I take on the traditions of centuries gone by, protecting this temple and the memories of those who lived here." Her voice grew harder. "I won't shirk that duty. Maybe this can be my new reason to be strong, to protect my ancestry and my heritage, and all those who came before me." There was something unsaid in the waver of her voice, and Paul nodded slowly, recognising this reasoning in someone he'd known long before. "I'll stay here until there's no reason for me to be here, until either the threat is gone, or until," her voice choked, "something happens. I guess."
"That sounds about right." Paul's voice was heavy. "I respect that." At his words, she brightened and smiled like he had found the sun in her eyes.
"Thank you," she replied earnestly, her heart warm in her chest. "How about you? How are you going to track down Magma?"
"I think," Paul paused, considering, "that Aqua has reported on Magma sightings pretty regularly through the last few years. If I go through those reports, as bias as they are, and look for the places that they're most regularly reported as being seen nearby, I can start to narrow down where their base might be."
"That's smart," May complimented, a little proudly. "I would never have thought of that." Paul gave her a half-smile and a nod that almost looked pained, like a wince. She sobered at the sight, her loss of him so imminent and so unnerving.
"I'll find that orb," he assured her quietly. Keenly aware of what little time they had left, Paul thought for a moment to find the words she'd need to keep going in her solitude, knowing how she thrived on the company of others and differed to him in so many ways; he became keenly aware of how much she might hold to his parting conversation as significant and a signpost for all that was to follow. For her, he could sacrifice this. "What's the point in my strength if I don't use it to help people?" Blissfully, she beamed at him, and it was hard not to return her smile. In moments though, it cracked, and her eyes became desperately sad and wide as she took him in as though trying to memorise him.
"It's not fair," she finally whispered. "To lose him , to basically lose Mom, to leave Max behind… and then to disappear here without telling anyone where I am. I've let my brother down, haven't I?" Overwhelmingly upset, she ran her fingers over the jacket where it concealed some of her scars, nervous and guilty. "Ash and Dawn and Gary too. They came to help, and I just left them. And Drew…" her mouth dry, she looked away. "When I don't come back for so long, he's going to be so hurt, he'll think I died out here. It's what he expected to happen."
Paul absorbed this and initially said nothing, his eyes focused on where her fingers rubbed over the concealed scarring on her arms. He frowned, trying to find the words.
"Take off your jacket," he instructed stiffly. "I want to see your scars."
May paled, surprised. She looked at him, inquisitive and insecure, but did as she was told, slowly shrugging away her father's leather and tying it around her waist instead. His eyes scanned over the pink lines and rivets that marked her arms, and gently he took his wrists into his hands and turned them over slowly.
"Can I get rid of your gloves?" His eyes hovered at the black and white material covering her palms. Bashful, May nodded, and one by one he peeled them away from her skin to see the lines that wove their way across her palms and around her fingers. At the sight, May winced, but Paul stared at them as though fascinated in the same way he stared at the historical engravings on the walls of temples. "How did you get the burns?"
"You know how," May replied, becoming stiff with discomfort as he forced her to recall. He shrugged, looking up and holding her eye contact.
"Not quite," he reminded her. She had been inside, and he had been outside. "Give me the specifics."
"In the fire," she said vaguely, and Paul shook his head, indicating he needed more. "I was… trying to pull a burning support beam that had fallen on my dad." The words felt like glue in her throat. "I was trying to get it off him." Paul nodded as though this was not surprising to him and that this was the exact answer he had expected her to give.
"My scars," he began quietly, "came from some training I was doing. I was so determined to be strong, so forceful in making it happen, but I pushed a Pokemon too far. I hurt them, not by design but also I intended for it to happen. It wasn't just a physical thing; that same, insatiable need to be enough and to prove myself, I inflicted it on this Pokemon and then when I realised I'd done it, looking at it made me angry and I released it." His voice became even quieter, close to a voiceless whisper, and May had to strain her ears to hear it. "It became what is now Ash's Infernape. My scars are a reminder to me of a time that I went too far, and the repercussions of doing that. The repercussions of being like him ." His words turned to gravel in his mouth, and he waited for her to recoil and push him away.
May stared at him, hollow, and frightened of the implications of his words.
"But you?" Paul's tone changed, voice and strength returning to it. "Your scars are a reminder of fearlessness when protecting something important." His grey stare bore into blue, an odd sense of pride glowing in his eyes that left her breathless. It was everything she'd ever wanted to see in him at a cost she'd wish for the rest of her life she hadn't had to pay. "I was wrong about you, kid." The callback nickname was sweet to her ears, a bookending to her decade long campaign to earn his respect and his admiration, and at long last she had the recognition that she had craved from him.
With tears in her eyes and no words left to say, she nodded dumbly, letting them trickle down her cheek and run along her jaw. They dropped messily from her chin, pooling between them on the floor.
"You got your emotional monologue," Paul stated, his voice dropping back into a gruff monotone. It forced her to laugh, her smile splitting across her face as she nodded along. "I'll leave you be now."
"No," May finally burbled, her eyes wet. "Please give me a few minutes, I have to say something to all of that otherwise I will sit here, wishing I'd been able to for however long this takes and it will drive me insane. Please just," she swallowed, her eyes shut tight as she processed. "Give me a few more minutes."
Paul stayed quiet, feeling too exposed to say more, but had the patience and curiosity enough to stay. He watched her eyes, waiting for her opinion of him to change now that she knew more of him.
After a moment of settling her own tears, May finally let out a long, heavy breath and smiled at him blisteringly.
"Thank you," she whispered, "for telling me that. I understand why it was so hard to say, and why you didn't want me to know about it." She licked her lips, trying to keep her mouth going long enough to get the words out. "I understand why that would haunt you and why you would feel shame over repeating the cycle you were in. And while I would never be able to condone it," she met his eyes with a furiously kind stare, "I can also look at you with pride, knowing it's a moment you look back on and want to be better than. I know you want to be more than it. And when this is all over, we'll figure out how to make it right, piece by piece."
She placed a hand over his upper arm, where his own scars lay concealed by his jacket.
"These won't be something for you to look at and feel hatred for yourself anymore," she promised, "they'll be symbolic of the day you decided to be a better person for your experiences, and they'll be a reminder of how you've grown."
For the first time, unguarded, Paul bowed his head towards her and smiled. His shoulders sank in relief.
"The way I look at you won't change," she whispered, her voice low. Paul leaned into her, his forehead meeting hers, for the first time initiating contact. Inadvertently, she giggled, and her eyes began to close. "Did that count as my request, or do I still have one?"
"Whatever you want," Paul said quietly. This was all the permission May needed to roll up onto her tiptoes and press her lips gingerly against his; a soft, sweet kiss goodbye.
Rustboro Hospital
The quiet throb of heart monitors had become melodically soothing to Max over time. They were his last thread to the life of his mother with the absence of the light in her eyes, the warmth of her touch and the love in her smile. It was the only consistent sound he had here, the silence was only otherwise broken by the sound of the footfall of nurses outside of the room, bustling from room to room with chatter that was muffled through the door Max purposefully kept closed.
He turned a page of his book, humming to himself.
"Last chapter was interesting," he told his unresponsive mother in a soft, kind voice. "Apparently, there are breeders who specialise in creating genetically perfect Pokemon, with ideal strength and resilience and speed…" His voice wavered with the implications of this, and he rolled his eyes towards his mother longingly. "It doesn't feel like the kind of breeder you are, does it? You would hate that."
She didn't reply, but Max reached across to squeeze her hand anyway.
The door opened, and Max looked up with a jerky move of his head and an immediate distrust, his adrenaline spiking. Their doctor, who knew better than to burst in uninvited, gave him a cautious smile as she poked her head through the opening.
"Mind if I check the charts from this morning?" She checked, her voice kind. Max retreated into his chair, letting out a long, slow breath, and he nodded.
She busied herself with checking Caroline's heart monitor and taking a look through her most recent scans from before visiting hours came about. Max watched her with a laser eyed focus, waiting for her to either leave or provide new information he could take away and google to continue to prepare for her recovery. The doctor looked unnerved under his focus but if she felt it, she didn't say anything. Eventually, she looked up from a clipboard of charts and took herself to perch on the edge of Caroline's bed and give Max a long, gentle smile.
"You know," she said softly, "these scans are looking a little more promising."
Max sat up straighter, any malicious thoughts towards her immediately fading.
"There are some spikes in brain activity that I like the look of," she told him leadingly, her eyes warm. "And all of her vitals seem solid. It's taken much longer than we hoped, but I think your Mom is making some real progress here." Coughing to hide the way his eyes were beginning to swim with tears, Max choked on his own question.
"Do you have any idea of how long?" He burbled, and the doctor sighed sympathetically, a rogue smile playing at her lips.
"Nothing concrete," she replied apologetically. "Caroline has had a very slow recovery. The swelling in her brain has gone down a lot, but she's really having us wait around, huh?"
"It's not like her," Max looked towards his mother with a wobbling lip. "She hates sitting around." The doctor made a soft, sympathetic noise in the back of her throat.
"She might have to adjust a little when she wakes up then," she replied warningly. "It's going to be a gradual healing process and it'll take a long time for her to get back up to full speed."
"That's fine," Max told her bluntly. He reached back across and laced his fingers through his mother's once more. "I'll be with her." It was unwavering, unquestioning, and determined. There was no hesitation as he spoke it, never having considered the alternate. "I won't leave her."
"Okay," the doctor nodded slowly, almost mournful with her smile. "She's lucky to have a kid like you around, Max. I'm sure she'll be so happy to see you, so soon." The doctor started to stand to take her leave, but Max continued talking as though the conversation was still fluid and constant.
"I've been talking to her a little," Max said, interrupting her exit. The doctor froze still, stood, but listened intently. "I read online that sometimes people wake up from comas and say they could hear people. So I'm reading books on Pokemon Genetics because she's…" his eyes turned towards his mother, "the most amazing, caring Pokemon Breeder. And I never realised how complicated or how deep it goes as a field, I never thought how much she must know. So I wanted to show her that I know now, and I admire it," he coughed on something that was sticking in his throat, "so much. Do you think she can hear me?"
The doctor wiped a tear from her eye, hiding her face behind her clipboard.
"I bet she knows," she told him warmly, "that you love her very much. Whether she can hear you or not."
Max deflated slightly, nodded, and took hold of his mother's hand for the third time. As the door closed behind the doctor, he opened his book again.
"Ditto genetics," he mumbled, looking to the next chapter. The heart monitor returned as the only sound he could hear.
Route 115
The breeze was cooling as it lifted their tent into shape. Ash stood on one side of it as Gary stood on another, catching the wind and using it to lift and support the synthetic material of their temporary home. Dawn darted from corner to corner, pressing metal pins into the ground to hold thin white ropes in place, with Pikachu and Piplup toddling after her, holding small hammers and spare pins in their arms.
Soon, the tent was erect, and they settled about in front of it to admire their work.
They'd returned along the path they'd originally come and were now only a few hours north of Rustboro. Max had so far ignored any phone calls or texts they'd tried to make, and so they intended to force their company upon him in the morning. For now, after a tiring trek back through the mountains and back to the ground, they were ready for a rest.
Their campsite sat at the very lip of the entrance to Meteor Falls, and the trees to the west made for a good resource of both shelter and firewood. Ash took upon the job enthusiastically, gathering dried branches and fallen logs. Dawn called on Piplup and Pikachu to help dig out a small pit a short distance from their tent, and once Ash returned with the resources, her Quilava was happy to ignite it. Gary set about organising food, memories of his childhood on the road alone raising him as a resourceful and self sufficient carer. He passed out bowls filled with prepackaged dried foods he rehydrated with water he gathered and cleansed from a nearby fresh water stream. As the evening dragged on and the light began to dim, they shared stories and anecdotes of their memories together or adventures apart, surrounded by their Pokemon stretching their limbs and sharing from copious bowls of pellet shaped Pokemon food.
Dawn was in the middle of her flow, her hand gestures so vibrant she practically reenacted her last face off with Zoey in the latest Wallace Cup. Ash was laughing at the description of Glameow getting confused and chasing her own tail, and Gary waited patiently for a pause so that he might interject and ask more about the system of points scoring deployed in a Pokemon Contest.
The company was comfortable, the evening was warm but not hot, and the sound of their Pokemon happily cohabitating together made the backdrop welcoming and familiar. The gush of the ocean next to them left the air tasting fresh even when mingled with the smoke of their camp. Umbreon came to sit in the grass next to his trainer, and Gary ran fingers through his fur comfortingly. Pikachu and Piplup fell asleep propped up against one another, nestled in next to the fire while Buneary watched enviously from behind Dawn's back.
It was peaceful.
"Do you guys have any fun stories from growing up in Pallet Town?" Dawn asked curiously, trying to disguise her yawn. "I bet having the grounds from Oak's lab to explore and play in growing up must have been a dream come true!" Gary and Ash shared a companionable shrug, glancing towards one another in a shy embarrassment.
"It was a great childhood," Gary agreed, tilting his head back as he tried to remember. "It kinda all blurs together though, and then once we got our Pokemon we stopped being so close for a while."
"What Gary means by that," Ash wriggled his eyebrows goofily, "is that he had his bully era, and…"
"My bully era?" Gary interrupted, scoffing. "Ashy here just couldn't take a little friendly competition."
"He would graffiti signs he knew I'd see," Ash told Dawn in an accusatory tone, "writing stuff like, 'Gary was here, Ash is a loser', so I think we can definitely call it bullyi-"
"If you'd been fast enough," Gary retorted smugly, "you'd have been ahead of me, and you wouldn't read the sign. By virtue of you ever seeing the sign," he flashed his old rival an infuriatingly victorious grin, "you verified yourself as the loser."
Ash's face glitched into a tightly wrung fury, and he grabbed at his own hat in order to twist out his frustrations on his cap.
"See what I mean?" He grumbled to Dawn sulkily. She laughed, openly and unguarded, and gave Gary a pointed grin of her own that implied something she knew he wouldn't want Ash to hear.
"Such a tease, Oak," she labeled him loftily, and Gary quickly quietened, his cheeks pink.
Ash looked to her in awe. "How did you do that?" He demanded, his eyes wide. Dawn shook her head, giving him a playful wink.
"A woman's intuition," she waved him off dismissively. "You've managed to completely avoid my original question. What was growing up in Pallet together like?"
While Gary looked away, trying to compose the light blush that lingered, Ash became quiet and thoughtful as he decided which story to tell to best showcase their youths spent in the rural landscape that was Pallet.
"We did all kinds of stuff," Ash shrugged, not narrowing down a specific memory. "I think my favourite times were when Professor Oak would run summer camps for kids who would come from all over the world. We'd always end up going, but getting super bored. Do you remember?" Ash turned to Gary to fill in the gaps in his memories.
"We were there all year 'round," Gary agreed, nodding along. "Gramp's stories got dull after the fifth time, and we already knew all the Pokemon that lived in the grounds that all the other kids would lose their minds over. It shouldn't have surprised anyone that we kept sneaking off." Dawn's eyes brightened at the idea of the pair rebelling and running off from the grounds together.
"We'd go fishing," Ash recalled brightly. "Or steal the Professor's art pencils and plan out imaginary pokemon battles we'd have against one another one day." Gary grinned, remembering as Ash spoke it.
"I would use an Arcanine," he remembered with a laugh, "and you would use a Tauros. I forgot about that." Ash's eyes turned milky.
"One time," he beamed, "Gary's sister, Daisy, she took us up to Viridian City for the day and let us goof off without her while she hung out with her friends."
"Oh yeah!" Gary sat up straighter, not bothering to censor his delight at the memory. "We snuck into that cinema and watched some ridiculous Pokestudio action film." Ash laughed goofily, bursting with life at the memory.
"We got kicked out for stealing people's popcorn and throwing it at each other," Ash knocked into Gary's shoulder companionably. "And then you yelled at the steward for like five minutes even though we didn't even buy a ticket, but you were demanding we get our money back."
"And we got it!" Gary reminded him, smug. "You weren't so awkward about it when you got free ice cream out of my tantrum, now were you?" Ash's laugh was uncontrollable and his face was starting to glow with the life of it.
"That was good ice cream," Ash conceded, his face aching from the joyful memory.
"My sis didn't think so," Gary recalled primly. "Didn't you throw up in her car on the way home?" Ash's expression fell, no longer laughing. Dawn was giggling, watching them with thinly veiled intrigue.
"Wow," she commented, almost to herself. "You guys really do go all the way back." They looked at her at the same time, flushing as though they'd forgotten she was even there. "I'm glad I get to hang out with you both like this," Dawn told them brightly, her eyes alight with mischief. "It feels like… being younger again."
"For sure," Ash agreed, his grin returning. "I almost feel like Misty is about to come 'round the corner and start yelling at Brock about how he talks to Nurse Joy."
"How are Misty and Brocko?" Gary raised an eyebrow at the mention of him, grinning. "It's been a hot minute since I've laid eyes on your babysitters." Ash scowled for a moment, before softening.
"Misty's running Cerulean Gym like a warship," Ash told him with a fond smile. "Unstoppable. And Brock is working in some huge Pokemon Hospital over in Saffron City, but I think he goes back to Pewter pretty often to check in on Forrest."
"It's so weird hearing how people have real adult jobs these days," Dawn noted quietly, thinking. She shook her head, turning away from her thoughts, and then looked back to the fire. "It's nice. This. Feeling young still."
"I'll drink to that." Gary held up his water bottle like a champagne glass. "Here's to replacing practical goals as an adult with camping out."
"And friends," Ash echoed, lifting his own water bottle. Gary smiled at him.
Dawn lifted her own, watching two best friends, and for a moment, thought of her own, far away and out of reach. "And adventures."
Lilycove City
"Do you have a bruise?" Courtney's eyes narrowed as they honed in on Madison's neck. Shiftily, Madison lifted her turtleneck a little higher.
"Unprofessional, Court," Madison hissed, as she gestured with a jerk of her head towards the scientists who were bustling around them. Courtney withdrew, her suspicion lingering but the shambles of what was in front of her taking precedence. "We're here for updates, not gossip."
Courtney straightened her back, not used to Madison scolding her, and not used to her being right. "Very well. You." She stuck out an arm directly in front of her, blocking the path of a white-coated man who was scurrying from computer to computer. He stopped, pale, and stared at Courtney with tremulous brown eyes.
They were back in the very laboratory that Madison had first met Courtney in, the one with warp pads that led to Courtney's office and the one that was adjacent to Madison's own. It had changed over time, the materials on display as being tested long discarded and replaced with a shiny silver submarine and matching bodysuit. The room carried an overwhelming stench of congealed, old sweat, a mixture of salt and hot bodies wrapped in materials that grabbed body heat and let it fester. At Madison and Courtney's request, the scientists hadn't left this room in three days.
"Update," Courtney demanded. "Now." The man quaked slightly.
"The submarine," he began, his voice wobbling. "Isn't ready. It can take the water pressure we expect to encounter, but we're still struggling to produce a material resistant enough to withstand the heat of the magma we expect to encounter in the cave system." Madison scoffed, immediately furious.
"Courtney gave you those coordinates weeks ago," Madison snapped. "Entirely alone, using science that I can't even begin to comprehend, she managed to draw up coordinates simply based on reaction readings on an orb that nobody understands." Glaringly, she looked up and down at the scientist who quivered in front of them. "And this room full of sweaty stem students can't make a lava resistant material in the years that you know we've been working towards this." She rolled her eyes and began to turn away with a jut in her hip. "Giving men access to education is proving to be a bit of a mistake.
Courtney gave her an amused, but clear-cut look.
"Get out of my way," she told the scientist in front of her in a cool, unflappable tone. The liquid of his sweat collecting on his upper lip, he nodded quickly and backed away, giving her a clear path to a computer system ahead of them. She clicked low heels against the linoleum floor as she made her way across to a desk and mainframe set up, but hesitated before touching it. Instead, she looked over to one of the other many, flailing bodies in the room that were running from station to station, running their tests and looking dehydrated. "I need an antibacterial wipe."
"Yes Admin Courtney!" was the immediate response, and in moments a pack of lemon-scented cleaning wipes was in her hand. She plucked one out deftly, swept it over the keyboard, mouse, and any buttons on the monitor she envisioned using. Then, she took a second and cleaned over the seat she would be taking, making sure it was clear of any of the lingering essence of the Magma scientists.
She began to type, her eyes glazing over as she went into a place in her mind not many could reach her. Her fingers moved faster than should have been possible, a blur of digits pressing keys as they constructed a code that was simultaneously complex and beautifully direct. Madison peered over her shoulder, not versed in code but versed in Courtney, and watched to see what she would do with it.
It was selected, copied, and dragged to a clipboard. Then, Courtney found a Deven Corp. Employee Login Page for their mainframe, moved to the website source code, and began her assault upon their database.
"Do you think they'll have what we need?" Madison asked, her voice low and awed. Still focused on her work, Courtney did not reply with a word but instead with a nod. "Then I'll get a team together. You find the intel, I'll get people inside."
Courtney's response was a slick, contented smile, numbers blurring in front of her as she wriggled her way past another firewall. Madison could have purred, taking a moment to squeeze Courtney's shoulders before sauntering away to make her preparations.
Samiya
His lips were as rough as she'd imagined them being during the nights that she'd watched him sleep, chapped and cut from where he'd let anxiety run riot and split them with his teeth. Motionless, stunned, and silent, he remained frozen still in her grasp as she embraced him with arms that locked around his neck, clinging to him, hanging from him like an ornament she'd adorned to a wall to brighten his home.
She understood, in ways few else would, how jarring it might be to be kissed if you aren't quite ready for it, and so it did not cross her mind to take it personally that at no point did he move to kiss her back. He had already given her so much of himself to carry in her soul during the separation they were about to plunge themselves into, and she felt it would be selfish to expect more.
Despite his inaction, a rush had swallowed her, blood moving through her body at a pace she'd never thought possible. Here, stood in a temple she had proven to him existed, with words of his respect for her still ringing in the halls, she did what her childhood self had presumed impossible and kissed the person who had inspired her start and she aspired to meet in her end. An admiration she had carried around through her childhood and adolescence had led her here to this moment where she had been strong enough to at last open up something vulnerable and raw to him, something so terrifying in it's opaque nature; there was no other way she could think of to make her thoughts and her heart that ached for him clear. A memory of the numbness that came with Drew's lips flickered as a comparison in her mind, and she knew, with total certainty and the confidence that came with a rush of heat to her cheeks, that Paul was the only person she would ever want to kiss again.
Paul's eyes were oddly locked in place and slightly wider with his panic as she landed back on the heels of her feet, her hands lingering at his neck as though hoping their residence there might coax him back to life. May shook her head at him, smiling serenely as she pushed away his apprehension with a flicker of warmth as her eyes reopened to gaze at him.
"Don't panic," she breathed. "I wasn't expecting you to… do anything." At her words, she could feel the tension easing from where her hands rested at his collarbone, muscles in his shoulders slowly relaxing from their contracted, rigid emergency stance. "I just… Before you left, before you go, I wanted to show you somehow how much I carry you around with me, and for how long," her eyes watered again, "for so long, I've held you with me. I think I've known that I was supposed to feel this for you since we met as kids, all the way back in Petalburg, because why else would I have been so determined that I'd impress you, why else would I be so inspired by you to set out and find a journey and an adventure of my own?" Her smile coated every inch of her face with blissful joy, creating a picture of her before him that Paul knew he'd never be able to fully forget. "When I first saw you, and I was this stupid dumb nine year old who imposed personalities on people I didn't know, I decided you were this brave, world-wise adventurer who went wherever he pleased. And even when you pushed me back, even when you dismissed me, I knew all that I ever wanted was to be like that, to be like you, even though I'd already realised how," she swallowed, "how sunk in insecurities you were, just like me. You were already so set on overcoming them, on showing the world your strength and your worth. I knew I had to be like you. It drove me from the start."
Paul watched her mouth move with a blank, numb expression that betrayed his shock and his awe. Each moment he allowed her hands to rest on his chest, her words to fumble and wrap around him, her smile to ebb and flow, he conceded himself to her a little more.
"Maybe it's stupid," she continued, laughing at herself, "and pointless, but, I just, I always looked at you and saw a kindred soul in there. Someone who understands this need and this drive to be validated and to prove ourselves worthy of some higher value. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I've just… completely imposed this on you again," she trailed off, suddenly reluctant and shy, her bravery beginning to fade with his lack of reaction.
"You're right," he told her quietly. Her face morphed into joy, the kind of pure expression of happiness that completely obliterated Paul because he had no concept of how she was able to drum up the feeling to create it after the world had been so cruel to her.
"I thought so," she whispered, her lip trembling. She came closer to him again. "I always wondered if maybe that's why you were so upset with me when I didn't understand, when I dismissed what you said about growing strong... back in that clearing all those years ago. If maybe," May inhaled deeply, apprehensive, "you wanted me to be that person that understood."
Slowly, and yet somehow sharply, Paul nodded. Tearful, May's smile remained so that her cheeks ached with the weight of it, and she leaned her head into his chest like he was all that she had to keep her upright and that her body alone wouldn't be capable of it any longer.
Around herself, where her face was buried into his shirt, she felt his arms lift and drop on either side of her, like he was going to try and say something, or do something, but the walls and barriers he didn't fully know yet how to disregard restrained and pulled him away from her. Smiling, laughing, she pulled away from him and shook her head.
"Really," she assured him, her smile watery and her heart full. "I don't expect anything. I'm just so glad you've heard me, and that you see me. It means the world to me, that I got to have at least one adventure with you."
Quietly, he nodded. Wordlessly, he lifted his arm and placed his palm face down on the top of her head, his fingers brushing against the bright red bow that remained unchangingly present. It felt like a beacon of warm colours and vibrant fun, no matter whether it held what had once been long locks that trailed to her shoulders or now, as it sat pointlessly on hair short enough to contain itself. A lingering token of the frivolousness of the girl in pink, hardened and coloured by her experience and her growth. Her eyes watered as she beamed at him, her heart throbbing disjointedly as he gave her one last gift, one unthinkable until he'd given it. A gentle smile, the soft rub of a thumb against her head, and a nod that held the promise of all the future might hold.
It didn't last long, but May hadn't expected it to. Silently, he withdrew, taking his hand from her hair and taking it to the pack on his back, lifting it over his head and unzipping it in front of him to pass her what lay inside. It was a subtle shift to the end of their conversation, a nonverbal signal that if she said anything more to him he would struggle to leave her behind. Understanding, she shifted her body and angled away from him, giving him the space to pull the glittering red orb from his bag and hold it out in front of him, gifting her what rightfully belonged to her ancestors before he left her to the ocean.
It sat in his palms, shimmering between them temptingly. May felt it pull her, a feeling of honour at the position, the authority, the responsibility she was given in her newfound role as its guardian and protector. Paul looked at her, his expression changing in the way that she honed in on it.
"You sure?" He checked, looking unnerved by her intensity. May nodded, giving him a last, loving smile.
"I can do this." Her words were a whisper, and he trusted her implicitly. "I won't let you down."
Cautiously, he let the orb come to rest on the bare, scarred skin of her palms, her gloves still discarded on the floor between them. The moment a single atom of the orb came to sit upon a single cell of her skin, ruby light burst in between them and filled the room with the same red glow that had filled the sky during the lunar eclipse. The temple shuddered, rising to the surface, and Paul staggered backwards as he stared out of the window of the temple to see his exit had been made so much simpler. The orb was white hot, searing into May's skin, melting into her palms and she stared with wide eyes and an open mouth as it sank out of existence and into her body. Lines forged across her skin, the colour of blood as they wove around her neck, her face, and across the ravaged flesh along her arms, hands, and each finger.
Once the orb had disappeared, so too had the blue of May's playful stare. The red light faded, captured only in the new colour in her iris.
Paul staggered backward, lost in the transformation.
"What happened?" He demanded, his voice hoarse. There was something desperate in the way he scanned over the new markings on her skin, in the way that he avoided the unfamiliarity of looking in her eyes. Reaching out, he took hold of her wrists again, lifting her arms to inspect her. Neutral and quiet, May gently removed herself from his touch and blinked at him blankly, adjusting to something he could not understand or comprehend. "Are you still there?" Her absent gaze reminded him of when Manaphy had placed his antenna to her chest, and she lost herself in favour of his memories. "Are you okay? May?"
Her face settled into a smile, one unlike any he had ever seen from her before. It was confident, calm, and at peace, like the feeling of a tide washing over the shore. A contented roar bubbled from the ocean deep beneath them. May touched his cheek and nodded, without words, but utterly serene.
Then, disregarding the gloves or his imminent departure, she turned to make her way back into the temple. Softly, she began to sing the very lullaby Paul had heard her sing before, the one her mother taught her and sang to her, the one she had sung to Max and then to Manaphy, and now one that reverberated through the temple which seemed to groan in harmony with her. Doors they'd never noticed before suddenly swung open, a whole new part of the temple filled with the gush of waterfalls and secrets that would never be for him to uncover offering itself as a place to consume her into its core. Manaphy flew behind her, his joy enough to assuage Paul's fears.
Together, May and Manaphy took their place as the heart of the Jewel of the Sea.
"I'll be quick," Paul repeated, almost to himself. Outside, where the entrance led to the surface of the water, Wailord waited for him. That frustratingly present voice was pulling him outward, reminding him to let her play her part, and to go to complete his.
It wasn't their time yet.
Leaving her gloves lying on the floor behind him, he turned and took his last steps on Samiya's floors and made his way back into the world he knew.