Petra Maple's immediate reaction to her daughter's Championship was to turn expectantly to her husband with an upturned palm and gleeful grinning.
"Five big ones, honey. Cough up!" Waggling her eyebrows and her outstretched fingers, she demanded.
"…Our daughter's just become Champion of the Hoenn Pokemon League and that's all you're thinking about?"
"Well, you were the one betting on her 'finishing up within the hour', and she did!" Smugly, Petra persisted, "Now, pay up!"
With similar helplessness, Sidney watched a sour-faced yet clearly pleased Norman relent, fishing out the money to place it in his wife's patiently waiting hand.
"Seafood hotpot tonight, my darling May!" Amused, Glacia chuckled into her gloved hand to listen to the doting mother gush.
…While unforeseen inconvenience had unfortunately kept Norman and Petra both from attending their only daughter's Pokemon League challenge during the first time when she had come rattling the gates of Ever Grande City, evidently nothing interfered now.
Today, family was wholly present, supportively so.
And what a difference the presence of family made to an occasion as imposing as this…
In the welcome privacy of the Elite Four's viewing lounge, the proud parents witnessed, with trepidation and anticipation alike, their daughter's finesse in Pokemon-battling.
They were eventually joined in there by the Elite Four members, following each of their defeat at May's capable hands. Decidedly ebullient despite defeat, everyone, as an anxiously spectating group, watched with bated breath as May and Wallace went on to tear up the battlefield below in one of the fiercest, most grueling Pokemon battles yet in recorded history.
…It came to an end a good hour later, with Wallace toppled from his throne to newly, graciously welcome Hoenn's seventh Pokemon League Champion, May Maple, on it.
Champion… of the Hoenn Pokemon League.
Reeling from her victory, May's knees had abruptly folded to send her crashing heavily to the floor.
Not long after, the Elite Four came to reunite the family in tearful, rejoicing spirit.
Evidently the emotional one of them all, Petra grabbed her daughter in the firmest, warmest of hugs while dissolving into big, fat tears of relief over the top of her head.
Clearly the awkward one of the family, Norman was eager to avoid participating in the uncomfortably emotional display, retreating to Wallace's side, only to end up clasped in strained embrace.
…In hindsight, he should have just joined his wife and child in loudly, shamelessly sobbing all over one another.
Meanwhile, left out of their respective Pokeballs to their own devices, a pair of visibly fatigued Milotic languished in the nearby pool, with May's swatting irritably at Wallace's with a slap of its tail when the latter scooted close, drawing attention and laughter.
"…Wallace…!" Releasing her mother, May went for her immediate predecessor next, flinging both arms around his leanly muscled frame and squeezing him to her in a similarly emotional hug.
Deeply embarrassed, and painfully aware of the incredibly judgmental looks now flooding in from surrounding onlookers, Wallace inwardly dished out the sincerest, most heartfelt of apologies to an imaginably irate Steven over their close physical contact.
Meanwhile, fervent thanking followed the hugging despite little reason for it.
After all, he had neither overseen nor enriched May Maple's development as an aspiring Pokemon Trainer throughout her journeying as one.
Steven's departure years ago, however, had forced him out of the background to stay close, close enough to give her a hard push back onto her feet when she needed it.
Now, she was independent and capable of doing so herself.
Rising anew, as Hoenn's seventh Champion of the Pokemon League, May met and deeply held Wallace's approving gaze as equals while squaring her shoulders in humbling acceptance of the Champion's Mantle.
It embraced her frame in elegant folds of silvery, shimmery velvet to pool around her feet.
…The material was extravagant, the color too old, and the cut too big on her.
Putting it on and taking her very first step in it, May found it utterly cumbersome. Tripping on its hem caused her to recall cheekily commenting on it to Wallace that afternoon about how absurdly over-the-top the robe looked, that she could not picture Steven Stone wearing it, and that she could not picture herself wearing it.
…Well, here she was now, having it helped off her shoulders to be taken in for alteration so as to better fit her frame.
"…Can't we do something about the color? Or the glitter?" Wrinkling her face in vivid distaste at the garment, May whined pleadingly.
"Afraid not," Phoebe grinned. "Standardized accessorizing, darling."
The newly minted Champion had not a moment to gripe, however, with Drake firmly escorting her away from the racketing throng to direct her to a separate wing, nimbly balancing armfuls of paperwork as well as a lungful of well-meaning lecturing in light of her coming into leadership.
…She distinctly heard Wallace gleefully wishing her luck before Drake swept her out of range.
After all, fledgling Champion that she was, she had quite the shoes to fill.
Taking precedence was the undisputed upholding of the values to the title, naturally so. Honing one's Pokemon-battling acumen was a clear given, whereas constant presence at Ever Grande was not, as previously evidenced by predecessors Wallace and Steven.
And then, there was something else altogether, something widespread and widely recognized.
…The paparazzi.
Specifically, the tending to it as well as the masses.
Both Drake and Wallace had termed it 'high society flirting', and appropriately so, having been Pokemon League Champions themselves years ago and done exactly throughout their respective reigns.
Contrasting the socially inept Dragon Master, Wallace had taken to it, like fish to water. Being an extrovert, on top of a natural performer, he had very quickly realized that socializing invigorated rather than drained him. Having been in the latter's company often, and closely, enough to witness him turn on the charm in public, it was simply that much more straightforward for May to emulate her immediate predecessor's behavior as opposed to newly learning it as something completely foreign.
Mind made up on the matter, May went back to rifling through the stack of hardcover files, which Drake had dropped into her lap for her perusal, swiftly singling one out to eagerly flip it open.
Titled 'Champions' Records', it had immediately interested her in its contents.
Randomly flipping through the yellow-spotted, visibly battered pages and distracting herself from Drake droning on, she came face-to-face with Steven Stone.
…Specifically, Steven Stone as his teenaged self from nearly a decade ago, immortalized in printed portraiture as the Hoenn Pokemon League's sixth Champion.
In her preoccupation with it, May bowed her head obviously over it, rousing only after Drake cut short his lecturing to peer curiously over.
"Ah," He observed, "Yes. That is Steven Stone. That had been of him approximately… six, seven years ago."
"'Stone, Steven'," Trailing a careful finger beneath a row of tightly packed, fine-lettered text, she read aloud. "…Inaugurated at age eighteen." Incidentally glimpsing the enquiring look on Drake's heavily mustached face, she emphasized with a tap, "He had been very young during then, hadn't he?"
"Hoenn's youngest, yes. As a matter of fact, he'd remained so for years." He stated, adding on in a gentler tone, "Until you, May Maple."
May blinked confusedly. "I'm nineteen, Drake."
"Not for another month, I believe." The wheels of tedious mathematical calculation creaked to work inside Drake's head. "…And that makes you Hoenn's- no, our youngest Champion yet." He regarded a humbly smiling May, pride scarcely visible through the bushiness crowding his lower face.
"…Let's see how far that goes."
"Let's," He deliberated, briefly deep in thought before emerging from it to prompt, "Get back to our discussion, shall we, May? What else might you be looking for in that file?"
"Your profile, of course!" Over the frenzied flipping of pages came her cheeky reply, "I want to see what you looked like in your youth!"
"Hey! Wait! No-"
As suddenly as a mortified Drake snatched at the file, the door flew open from outside to Wallace enthusing, "May, Drake! Let's go, people! Onwards to the partying!"
Grabbing the visibly startled pair by their shoulders, he began herding them along amidst disgruntled protesting of, "Hold up! We are not done yet! May is entirely new to this and needs to learn the ropes-"
"-She needs to learn to party! Learning can come later… Better yet, never ever!"
"…First Steven, now May." Drake blustered helplessly, to May choking back a giggle. "You are a horrible influence on your juniors, Wallace!" Along with roaring laughter, his angrily chiding voice carried all the way down the corridor, only to yield to the clamor of too many people speaking and cheering at once, at May's reentrance.
"Seafood! Alcohol! Partying!" Sidney whooped. "Lilycove City awaits!"
"Are we Flying there?" Glacia asked, to Phoebe insisting, "I'm not surfing there!"
"…May can Fly alone. Meanwhile," Norman sought out his wife. "Petra and I both shall take my Pidgeot-"
"No, Dad!" May disagreed, clinging onto her mother by her elbow in playful contest. "We'll go on my Arya. You can Fly alone."
"Alright! That settles it then, people!" Wallace clapped, exclaiming, "Let's get going…!"
And get going people did, shortly after and astride Flying-type Pokemon mostly loaned by May and Drake.
"…Slow down! Slower, man!" Seated directly behind and holding on for dear life, a red-faced Sidney shrieked, to Drake crossly bellowing, "We are…!"
Shooting past them and way ahead were May and Petra Maple, with the latter exuberantly going, "…Woohoo! Faster, May, faster!" Not too far in the back, Norman took to simply shaking his head in exasperation, not that mother and daughter had been looking.
"Alright…! Atta girls!" The gaggle of girls, Phoebe easily the rowdiest, cheered on as they separately flanked May's Altaria astride Winona's Altaria twins.
Lilycove City was in no way far, swimming into view through a haze of sea salt and spray from below. Their Pokemon zeroed in on it in no time, navigating a steep descent to each deposit their many passengers on the shore southwards of bustling city life.
Celebratory dinner started quickly and eventfully, and remained eventful.
Raucously ongoing seafood hotpot had distracted May from realizing that she had accidentally brought along with her the Hoenn Champions' Records. In the chaos of getting disrupted, getting ready and getting on the road, returning the file had taken so far a backseat to completely slip her mind.
In her lap it now nestled, a swollen compilation of worn leather and faded paper. Preoccupied, May picked morosely at her half-eaten food above it, swinging between simply staring and actually eating whenever she was allowed respite from continual socializing.
"…Oh! Do excuse me, my dear!" Someone knocked Glacia off-balance and into her, causing her to drop the file out of her lap onto the floor, where it fell widely open along the spine.
With poorly attempted furtiveness, she hurried to retrieve it, hastily flipping past the pages in trying to get them smoothened over. It was mostly to no avail, unfortunately, and she soon gave up tidying up the file's contents to peruse them again.
By that, she meant studying Steven Stone's Champion profile.
Her fingertip stroked along the margin separating his photograph from the text paragraph that flanked it. Rather than follow her hand motion, curiously staring eyes fixated on Steven's visage, frozen in print and only with the barest of smiling present in it. Against the stark-white background, the flinty, unyielding steel-grey of his eyes stood out vividly, as opposed to their softer, oceanic blue tones.
The same could be said of his hair, which reminded her uncannily of slate. Such description was hardly inappropriate, given how it often stuck out at the oddest angles around his head, exactly like slate. Evidently, this was a look that had grown with him into adulthood, although he did manage to have toned down on the unruliness.
Engrossed, she poked his cheek. The feel of paper against skin, instead of warm flesh, did not deter her.
May stared.
She tended to do a lot of that when it came to Steven, his face in particular, inadvertently committing to memory every detail over half a decade of interaction.
…He had always been fair-skinned, with her typically associating his skin tone with his propensity to stay out underground in a manner similar to ubiquitous Bat Pokemon.
However, Zubat and Golbat always traveled in cauldrons. They were always seen grouped together out in the vast wilderness.
Steven, on the other hand, was a loner.
…The man came and went as he pleased, to wherever and whoever pleased him.
Communication was infrequent, if not inconsistent. Rendezvous were rare, if not downright miraculous. Such was Steven's traveling behavior that May had long let go of her expectations of constancy in favor of anticipation of the unexpected.
"-May? Darling?" Petra's concernedly speaking voice piped up beside her ear, the suddenness of it causing her head to snap up in guilt-riddled surprise.
"M-Mummy…!" Smoothening back straying hair with a hand, a deeply mortified May hastily slapped the other over Steven's photograph. Her action and fluster did not go unnoticed, however, with Petra nonchalantly reaching over to ease her stubbornly unmoving hand aside. "Why, isn't that Champion Steven Stone? Your mentor," She smiled, expression as gentle as her tone as she carefully emphasized, "…Your friend."
May opened her mouth, then closed it. With her mother, she did not feel the need to mince words.
"…I miss him." Unnecessarily rapid blinking accompanied the choking back of emotion. "I miss Steven. I miss talking to him, with him. I miss listening to him talk about rocks, even though I must have already heard and learnt everything that I possibly could about them."
Petra glanced back and forth between May's profile and Steven's photograph in bemusement, blindly repeating, "…Rocks? He talks to you about… rocks?"
"And Pokemon." May was quick to clarify. "However, rocks are his favorite to talk about. He can go on and on about them."
"Don't you two talk about… well," Petra searched hard for what she believed for the proper words. "…You two? As friends, as mentor and mentee, if not past Pokemon-battling opponents?"
"We do, but not for a while since our last proper conversation." Admittance came softly, regrettably. "We used to phone each other frequently, especially in the first year of his stay in Kalos, however, things eventually went dead. Most likely due to work, Pokemon, and whatnot…" Driven by her mother's encouraging gaze, she gave fully, feverishly into her venting, sulking and jabbing a reproachful finger at his photograph. "…He didn't even call about my Championship."
Her jabbing intensified.
Petra curbed her chuckling to no avail, swatting at her daughter's hand. "Oh, do leave his photograph alone, darling! It's done you wrong no more than Steven Stone himself has." May immediately relented, temper simmering in the wake of reprimand. After all, Pokemon Champion or not, fifteen or nineteen, she was still a girl slighted when it came to being unreasonably, inexplicably ignored by her longtime crush. "Now, how about we give him a call?"
"…We?" In her alarm, violet eyes bulged in their sockets.
With full-bellied, good-natured laughter, Petra calmed her terrified-looking daughter, explaining, "I meant that I could do the calling while you do the talking. In fact, you ought to call and tell him all about your Championship yourself!"
"I-" May stammered, a picture of nerves. "I… don't know, Mummy…"
"Better you than anyone else, don't you agree?" Rising to her feet, Petra palmed May's cheek, the instantly familiar warmth of maternal instinct seeping from callused palm onto the flushed smoothness of youthful skin in encouragement. "I see Wallace heading over. I presume him to be wanting to talk about Steven, with you. Shall I go buy you some time while you make that call?"
…As if on cue, came the distinctly familiar buzzing of PokeNav, May's, with May herself completely neglecting Petra's earlier suggestion to blankly stare in the direction of her half-opened satchel.
Partially concealed inside, only the caller's last name, spelt 'Stone', was visible to her on the device's brightly lit screen.
May's heart raced.
Pressing a tender kiss to the top of her daughter's shyly bowed head, Petra smiled and winked knowingly, "Make sure to tell me all about that phone call later?"
Receiving neither a reply nor look from the girl, she opted to leave her to her own devices, literally.
In her mother's absence, May immediately let her face go from feverish with excitement to flat with disappointment while blurting out, "H-Hello, Mr. Stone-"
"-May…!" Joseph Stone shrieked in earnest greeting, cutting right across her to gaily exclaim, "You have kept a dear old man waiting! What took you so long, my dear?"
May struggled.
"I-I was…" hoping that the longer I waited, the longer I could hold out hope that Steven Stone was really the one now calling. "…With my mother."
"My, how sweet!" His zeal briefly spiked before at once souring. "That foolish boy of mine has all but forgotten about his old man since uprooting himself from Hoenn those years ago to disappear halfway across the world! How truly comforting it is to learn that there are children out there still, who recall and maintain contact with their families, however sparingly!"
"…You are too generous with your words, Sir…"
"Hardly!" Joseph insisted passionately. "Now, tell me, my dear, have you heard from my boy recently?"
Discomfited in every manner, May fidgeted, awkwardly shifting from side to side. "No, Sir."
Helpless smiling thinned at the older Steven's disparaging tone of voice when he snarked, "That sorry little rock-obsessed, workaholic brat-" With a cough, he quickly recomposed himself. "Well then, it is only appropriate that I am now calling, on both Devon Corp's and Steven's behalf, to extend a most personal, most sincere, invitation to you, May Maple, to our annual Devon Ball."
…A Ball? "A-A Ball…?"
"Why, yes!" Came his passionate reply, the pitch and volume of it causing May to cringe. "…The magnificent, esteemed, one and only Devon Ball, to the anticipation of many and attended by the great! You must grace us with your lovely presence, May Maple, as Hoenn's newly crowned Pokemon League Champion, so that we may congratulate and celebrate you!"
"…!"
Throughout the largely one-sided phone conversation, May said little but learnt just how capable Joseph Stone was, in comparison to his only son, when it came to keeping the people he truly wanted in his life, in it.