Chapter 8M

May stepped into Petalburg City. The fresh air was invigorating for her, and she took a deep breath, smiling happily at the relatively refreshing city. She hadn't gone here recently, and it almost made her forget about how she was linked with Brendan. Almost.

"The city where people mingle with nature, apparently." typed out Brendan. The city used to be a few buildings and lakes, with forests surrounding it and some paved dirt paths. These days, the city had slightly more infrastructure. Most of the paths now had some rocks buried in them, the housing wasn't as sparse, and the gym was pretty big now. However, the civilians kept some roots with nature, refusing to contaminate the waters much. They were some of the most eco-friendly places in the world.

May remembered how Norman, the old gym leader, had been the father of the literal league CHAMPION. It had been a huge boost of fame to him, but Norman had declined most of it, insisting on his kid taking the pride. "After all", he would say, "he's the champion." These days, Norman had retired from being the leader, but he was still the one who introduced the gym to any newcomers. She noticed Brendan typing out a message for her, and read "In case you don't know, Norman's no longer the leader here. A guy named James is."

May whispered to herself "Ok" to let Brendan know his message was received. May then glanced at the gym, and at once grew worried. She knew that the gyms could be taken on in any order, and that they'd scale themselves depending on how many badges you had, but even those had two pokemon. With only one, neither she nor Brendan would survive for long. Ready to catch a pokemon to aid her, May whispered to herself to let Brendan know, then started to walk over to the pokemart.

There weren't many things to purchase in the shop, as it turned out. While some other cities had specialty goods, the city WAS the normal type gym's home, so the normal goods were laid out. This also meant, however, that majority of the goods were locked off to newcomers, only accessible by showing enough badges. While Brendan was grabbing potions, May took 5 pokeballs. They went to the front to pay, and the total was 1600. May only had 500! May thought quickly, then whispered to herself "I only have 500, let's get one ball and one potion." Brendan immediately grabbed up the goods not purchasable, put them away, and soon, they both owned a couple items.

Only enough to try once to catch a pokemon? How would they do that? Neither of them could use spare to keep any pokemon alive, so the catch would either be through a battle or through friendship. But, she didn't know how she could confirm a battle victory, and there was no way to conveniently find a pokemon to befrie-

SEEDOT

"AAAAAAAAA" shouted May in surprise, since a Seedot had wandered alarmingly close to her. For a second, she regretted screaming, since Brendan would look very suspicious. When she fell to the ground however, she realized a Ralts had spooked Brendan, so the scream was actually justified for him. Brendan tried to get up, but May was still laid down, so the two of them fell again. He tried again, but she was ready, and was able to get up. She looked at the Seedot curiously, since it had come so close despite obviously being wild. She realized that the Seedot was actually the one she had tripped over, and was somewhat amazed. The Seedot seemed to have bonded with her a bit, even though the two had met for the briefest of moments. She knew, at that moment, that the friendship thing wasn't all that hard anymore... and smiled.

Knowing Brendan was also catching a Ralts like this, May took out the pokeball and rolled it near the two pokemon. The two touched the capture button, went in, and a resounding click was heard, indicating the pokemon was caught. Brendan took the balls in his hand, released the two, and May said "Welcome to the team, Radot!"

Authors note: Seedot captured! Also, yeah I stretched this out and basically put two ministories (Poke mart and new capture) together, at least I used a nice transition right?