Chapter 5
After a long nights rest carmine in May we're off to Rustboro. After having traveled a ways through the rest of the petalburg woods they finally reached lake rustbo. things seemed to have gone fine until they ran into hey stranger in a red costume. At first they tried ignoring this weird woman thinking that they were just some crazy homeless person standing in the middle of the road. But when they tried to pass them they stuck their arm out in front of them blocking their path.
" hey kids I need to talk to you" The woman said.
"Look um, ma'am we don't want any trouble " may said timidly.
"There's no trouble unless you're looking for it. See here, I just saw some aqua nerds run out the forest. You have anything to do with that?" The woman put her hand on her hip and relaxed a little giving them both a very sassy look.
" well if it did?" Carmine replied.
"Well then we've got something to talk about. I'm looking for people to recruit and organization. My name is Maggie I'm from team magma."
Carmine had never heard of either one of your strange groups them suddenly inserted themselves into his life. He didn't know what to make of either of them. But considering that this one hadn't tried to attack them at first sight he assumed that these guys were the good guys.
"No thanks Maggie, we're not interested " May protest as she grabbed Carmines rest and started pulling him away.
"Hey wait!" Carmine said to May digging his feet in. " don't you at least want to hear what she has to say?" Carmine pleaded.
" look I've had my fill of weirdos in costumes for the next few years let's just get going." May continued to tug Carmine's wrist. Carmine yanked his hand away from her. May looked a surprised at him. Carmine turned back to continue speaking to the woman.
" so what's your organization about" Carmine said adjusting his glove.
" Will you see these crazy people, Team aqua, they're trying to flood the entire how one region they think The ocean is more important than all of our land masses! We're trying to stop these monsters but we're just starting out and could really use all the help we can get" Maggie replied pushing her hair out of her face. Her short blue hair was just long enough to peak out of her hood, which the wind was just strong enough to make it a constant annoyance.
" well I'm a new trainer but Count me in! I'll help you save the world and all that" Carmine said as he put his hand out.
"Wait your a new trainer?" Maggie questioned.
" yeah I kind of just got my first Pokémon a few days... haha" Carmine was getting nervous.
" and you fought those aqua guys off all by yourself?" She seemed shocked.
"Well yea me and May her-" carmine said as he turned around only to realize that may was no longer there. He looked up the path just a bit and realize that she had already had it across the bridge out on the lake. He could tell from here that she was pouting. carmine I started to walk off towards her when Maggie's hand came down on to his shoulder.
"Hey maybe give her a sec. she seems a bit pissed" she looked into Carmine's eyes with sincerity. " so what's her deal anyways?"
" i'm not sure, I mean we did just get attacked earlier but she seemed fine. She's very all over the place. Hey can I tell you a secret?" Carmine asked Maggie.

"Sure?" Maggie said giving him a strange look.
"Well yes see we Kinda ran away from home. Neither of our parents allowed us to go off and become Pokémon trainer so we decided to take action and her own hands. I can't tell if she is just having second thoughts about leaving or maybe she scared she did almost get caught by the police the other day. I hate seeing her this upset"
" how long you two known each other?"
"Ahhhh a few days hehe"
"And she left with you just like that?"
"Yea pretty much"
"That's kinda odd, she must have a lot going on. Try talking to her about her feelings." Carmine nodded at Maggie.
"I'll do that"
"Now back to the matter at hand. Anyone who can fight off an aqua grunt is good in most people's book. But, your a new trainer so I am going to have to test you are you game for a battle?"
"Ah yea sure!"
Carmine got a few feet away so they'll have enough room to fight each other without risking injury.
Carmine reach for his Pokéball with his ralts roku, he then tossed it as hard as he could into the air. Roku bust forth in a stream of light, landing gentle on her feet. Maggie too threw a pokemon out releasing a Numel.

"Alright roku what can you do?" Carmine said looking at the small green pokemon.

" i know the attacks growl, teleport and flash,that's it."

"Wait what?"

By then it was too late numel was on roku taking her to the side. Roku was instantly knocked out.

"Off to a poor start …. Wait what's your name again?"

"Its carmine. And that was a lucky shot that ralts is a new pokemon i just caught!"

"Excuses won't stop team aqua kid" to that carmine said nothing he simple threw out his Grovyle. Grovyle stood arms crossed side eyeing his opponent . " A grass type? You really are a new trainer…" Maggie snickered a little at his terrible mistake. "Don't you know Numels a fire type?"

"Bro is all i've got, but he's all i need."

"Bro? Pfft what are you 5?"

"16 actually old lady!"

" excuse you? I'm like 19 doofus. Wait what am i doing. This is a battle numel use ember!" Numel charged forward at Bro fire spewing from its back toward its target. Bro moved nimbly out of the way. " what?" maggie said under her breath. The lean grovyle ducked under the fire whizzing past its head. It then slashed up with a leaf blade knocking Numel up a few feet into the air.

"Bro smack it down with a quick attack!" Bro instant transmissioned above the numel bringing its foot down onto numels back. Numel was sent crashing down to the earth unconscious.

" i can't believe you did that. I … lost?" Maggie seemed visibly upset. She fell to her knees recalling the pokemon to its blue and red ball. She just sat there. Carmine walked over to her and extended his hand to help her up.

" hey it's alright it was probably just a critical hit or something" She looked up at him with a glint of something in her eyes, as for what carmine couldn't tell.

"Your wow, you'll be an amazing asset to us carmine! Welcome aboard!" Maggie took his hand and pulled herself up.

"Sooooo what do we do now?" carmine asked awkwardly.

"Well for now i'll have to make a quick call to HQ after that i'll probably be traveling with you for abit." maggie reached into the pants pocket and pulled out a map. "Well have to head through rusturf tunnel and mauville. From there we can go north to HQ Leader Maxie will definitely want to meet you. Plus maybe we can get to know eachother better. I guess i forgot to mention im recruiting for my squad. See, it'll be you me and this big guy named seth. He's a bit pushy but, you'll get used to him"

"Well uh…"

" whats up?" Maggie asked.

" well two things really. I was planning on taking on the gym leaders is there anyway of doing that still?"

"Hmmm… well we could stop by the mauville gym and the rustbo one. But i'll have to find an outfit to wear in rustboro."

"Huh? An outfit? Why?" carmine was puzzled.

"Well ah.." Maggie paused for a moment. " some ahhh aqua spys, yea there's aqua spies in rustboro and id hate for a fight to break out when were unprepared."

"That's reasonable.. OH do i get an outfit?" asked carmine with sudden enthuseasum.

"When were back to HQ, what about your other question?"

"Oh right! What about may?"

"Well that's tough she doesn't seem to want to join us. So i don't know. I can't bring her back with us."

"But we were traveling together…"

" listen carmine. Sometimes you have to make a choice… what's more important to you? That girl may? Or the hoenn region remain livable?"

" well hoenn bu-"

" then it's settled." Maggie said as she put her arm around carmine. The scent of her vanilla perfume wafted off of her and into his direction. "Maybe we'll run into her on our way through rustboro and you can say your goodbyes?" After some traveling and a long Nav call to Maggie's leader they arrived in rustboro. There first stop was too the Local mall to pick up an outfit for maggie. Maggie stood waiting outside of the city limits hiding in some bushes. Maggie had given carmine 2 instructions and some cash. One was to get something her size and the other was to get something cute. Carmine had never really thought much about the kind of clothing that would look good on a woman. More often than not he was thinking of the opposite. He shook his head trying to get the thought of maggie undressing out of his head. After about half an hour or so he came out with an outfit he thought might work. He then returned to maggie with the clothing. After an awkward few minutes of keeping an eye out for passers by. Maggie stepped out with her cloths folded and tucked into her bag. She wore a bright red crop top jacket with a black shirt underneath. It was accompanied by a dark blue skirt and matching red and blue shoes.

" Got to say carmine not bad, don't know how i feel about my mid drift though" she gestured to her midsection.

"Ah well… i don't wear women's clothes so i don't know okay" carmine blushed.

"Well now i know what you like to look at hehe" She giggled playfully nugging carmine with her elbow. Carmine blushed furiously.

"Shut up…"

"Oh lighten up. Come on let's head into the city eh?" The two then began to strow there way toward the city ready to begin a new adventure.