I must admit that the remaining part of summer has been pretty harsh on me for reasons you probably will not need to know about. I sometimes worry of that will have an impact on the standard of my writing! Oh gosh... It's been hectic. As I'm now returning to work and school, my writing time will probably decrease as well, eh.

But anyway, I hope your patience will be rewarded with another chapter! For LEGAL-EAGLE53, and the two honoured guests, here's a cup of tea!

Chapter twenty-eight: 'Accidentally' Leaked Secrets

Wallace already took the initiative by the time he had gotten into Cynthia's café. With apparent knowledge of Steven having a copy of the 'Apples and Oranges' magazine, things just couldn't get more obvious, couldn't it?

With Winona across from him, the two of them were sitting together enjoying a couple of unique smoothies. On Winona's side, she had a blueberry smoothie with a load of crushed ice. On Wallace's side… a peculiar smoothie made with a blend of chocolate and vegetables. Just by the sound of it made Winona lose a bit of her appetite.

"I can't see how you can enjoy that, Wallace," she remarked, but couldn't bring herself to look at the 'unappetizing' smoothie.

"Don't worry, dear," Wallace cooed, forcing Winona to raise an eyebrow. "It may not sound appetizing, but on the plus side, I get a meal out of it and the taste is excellent! Look, even Milotic agrees!"

Speaking of which, Wallace did have Milotic curled beside him, but instantly perked at the prospect of having a sip of that chocolate blend. As the smoothie had a straw, drinking from it was made easy. Milotic nodded in approval after she had her fill of chocolate-vegetable blend.

"See?" Wallace said proudly, but Winona bowed her head to quiet sip from her own smoothie.

Now that reminds me of old times… she thought. This led her to wonder just what kind of a boyfriend she had landed with.

However, before Winona could continue to wander off into her thoughts, she was distracted by an approaching Martine and Lisia. The two of them were chatting away, but in such a manner that suggested they were plotting something terrible – something drastic.

"If he won't talk, then we'll have to make her talk," Lisia said.

"Agreed," Martine approved.

Wallace looked like he had found real friends (as if Winona didn't count as 'real'!) at last, in his niece and apparently his niece's new friend. The redhead, her hair as red as sirop de grenadine, looked at him first.

"What are you doing here, my dears?" he greeted.

The answer from Lisia was almost immediate. "We are going to push Cynthia on the details that she went on a date with Steven. Come on, uncle! This is an opportunity to help your best friend. He really did go on a date with her, uncle. He really did!"

Winona rolled her eyes, but she showed the similar interest of wanting to know the details too. She had to keep her profile low, so as to not distract her boyfriend, but had her ears open. Wallace alone looked unconvinced, but he didn't object to Lisia and Martine to try to get it done. The two girls didn't sit and instead went to the counter to talk to the barista.

Within moments, after a phone call, Cynthia appeared in the café via the staff doors leading from the main restaurant. She showed mild surprise upon seeing the group gathered in her café, and was wearing a black chef jacket as she approached them.

"Hello," she greeted coolly. Noticing Martine, she smiled. "I'm surprised your restaurant wasn't closed down by the health inspector yet. Didn't you get the memo? Especially what had happened with Diantha, you know."

Martine bowed her head with a scoff. "Nonsense! We haven't even gotten word of what went wrong with Diantha! The doctors only said it was an allergic reaction, but we don't know from what!"

Lisia nudged Martine, as if to knock some sense into her. Martine subsequently complied.

"That's not why we're here, Cynthia," Lisia boldly said, as she attempted to look at her in the eye. "What we are here for is what you did yesterday morning. Tell us! What did you do this morning?"

Cynthia didn't look like she was in the mood to talk about this and – though her face turned a shade of pink like she was trying to vent out her anger at the annoyance – started to walk away without replying. What they were demanding from her was more intimidating than ever.

Unfortunately, she was instantly stopped by Martine's firm grip as the 19-year old redhead pulled up a chair for her to sit on. Cynthia had no choice. She was pushed to sit down! And face Wallace, no less. "My dear," he said, "these are things we have to talk about. How long have you been doing this?"

Cynthia refused to look at him and turned her head away. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

But even more surprising was that she felt a hand on her chin pulling her head to look back. Her hair indeed was still covering her left eye as usual, but even her right eye alone displayed her annoyance. Her right eye, to be exact, stared into Martine's eyes. Martine's serious eyes.

"Parlez," Martine's voice was as if it was to intimidate. "Or we make you!"

Those serious eyes… looked serious?

But to Martine's exasperation, Cynthia rolled her eyes. "And just what are you getting out of this, dear? There's nothing to benefit –"

"Do you hate Steven?" Martine piped, whilst clapping her hands together.

Cynthia's face grew red, so she used her hair to hide half of it. Looking away, she shot back, "I don't hate him. He may have cut off my supplies, as Wallace told me. He might have poisoned Diantha. But, he does have good cheeses, so I can credit him –"

"Your face is red like you're angry mais tu ne déteste pas lui?" Martine interrupted. "Oh the irony, Cynthia!"

As if Cynthia had wanted to make a comeback, she couldn't because Lisia was staring at her. "Oh, so he shared some cheese with you? That's super romantic. Where were you two? Somewhere close by? Was there a sunset? Were you comfortable with him? Especially the cheeses?"

"Yes – No!" Cynthia was flustered. "I'm talking about that time when he hosted a wedding…"

But Cynthia's words trailed off, as she found Martine and Lisia had quite literally trapped her with her own words.

"Oh, so you did go somewhere with him today!" Martine declared, openly clapping her hands in excitement at the same time. "Well then, answer Lisia! You two must have had a moment, oui? Well? Did you have one?"

Cynthia looked like on the verge of boiling. Her breathing was short, as if her coolness had suddenly been vaporised into non-existence, like steam!

"No, no!" Cynthia shouted, such that she caught the attention of the barista (that is, Henri) before the latter turned his attention to preparing more coffee with a smirk. "It's nothing like that!" Cynthia added. "We had nothing going on! Did you know that –?"

But she was stopped short when Martine and Lisia were staring back at her, with identical smiles. Cynthia decided that it was pointless at this point to try to lose the topic. However, she had to find a way to hold them off, but how?!

"Let's see…" Lisia said, as if she was deep in thought. "Oh, you two probably had a picnic, right? I can imagine it…"

But Martine held up a hand for Lisia's silence, in which she added, "Oh I can see it. The two of you, sitting together on a picnic blanket just eating happily together. Oh! It must have been special especially for you!"

"I like your thinking, my friend," Lisia said cheerfully. She held up her hands as if making a picture frame. "You both sat down together like a couple!"

Cynthia didn't know what to make of the scenario. As much as she tried to cover it, the picnic part of it, Lisia seemed to have guessed the truth.

Wallace turned to look at Winona, with his grin looking like he had scored a triumphant win of some sort. "It looks like my niece and I may not be the only ones who are excited about this. Admit it, dear, you know you're excited too." Indeed, Winona was keen, but she sort of disagreed with this kind of behaviour from Lisia, as if Lisia was the living reincarnation of her uncle.

"Bien," Martine remarked. "We are done here."

"Je m'excuse," Cynthia muttered. "I have to go."

For Cynthia's part, she bowed her head and took away Wallace's chocolate-vegetable smoothie and walked away, taking huge gulps of the smoothie as she did. Wallace nodded his head like this was bound to happen, because he was pretty satisfied with how things were turning out. It looked like Cynthia was going to leave the building, as if to meet a certain someone.

To mark the occasion, he helped himself to Winona's blueberry smoothie with crushed ice, but –

"That's mine!" Winona cried, slapping Wallace's hand away.

"My dear –"

"Don't you 'my dear' me!" Winona retorted. "You can't just take my smoothie away like it's yours! You bought it for me!"

With that said, Winona took her glass and sipped it quickly like she was in a rush. However, she started to feel her head pound with pain as she started to feel really cold. Was it because she was drinking the smoothie too quickly?

Eventually, tears started to form in her eyes.

On the other hand, Lisia and Martine were not done with Cynthia. Only after Cynthia had a few moments respite, they came back to pursue. As Cynthia was about to head out the door, the two girls blocked the door.

"So tell us, Cynthia. What did you eat at that time?" Martine asked, but she held up a hand. "Oh, and did you feed him? What did you eat?"

"He must have fed you too!" Lisia said.

But Cynthia had enough. Exasperated, she pushed the two girls out of her way and stormed outside, but not before slamming the door on them. Afterwards, Martine and Lisia shared a laugh that shook the premises of Vue sur la Lune to its very core. Wallace joined in the laugh too.

"You see, my dear? That's how the world works," he said to Winona.

As for the barista – that is, Henri – he shared a chuckle as he continued preparing fresh coffee. Quietly, he poured two mugs and went over to where Wallace and Winona were sitting.

"I haven't had a good laugh for a while around here," he said, placing the cups on the table. "These two are on me."

"Merci beaucoup," Wallace thanked. Right when he picked up his mug, Winona's tears caught his attention. Indeed, she was still crying after downing her own smoothie in one go. Her hands were on her face and she was shaking from crying. Wallace, grinning, pulled his chair closer to her and put his free arm around her shoulder. "There, there. You didn't have to go finish it yourself. I could have finished it for you."

Sure enough, Lisia took the coffee mug intended for Winona and drank it herself, which sort of annoyed her uncle. However, Wallace instantly smiled when she spit out the mouthful of coffee back into the mug.

"Ew! Uncle! This doesn't taste like coffee!" Lisia complained. "It's so strong!"

"I don't drink my coffee without cream or sugar, Lisia," Wallace replied, with his smile unfaltering. "You see, this is what happens when you overreact."

Lisia looked closely at the coffee she attempted to drink, and her uncle was right. The coffee was black, with no hint of cream, milk, or sugar for that matter.

Martine began to walk to the door. Turning her head and smiling, she said, "My boss will probably suspend my pay if he finds out I walked away from work. I'll catch you three later!" After that, she bolted outside across the street, and fixing her vest at the same time.

"Mesdames et Messieurs, we regret to inform you that our Grand Duchess Diantha will not be attending today's session of the Battle Château, as she is victim to some undisclosed circumstances," the host said at the foyer. "I'm afraid she will have to appear at another time, but without further ado, please come in."

Hawlucha and Clauncher, belonging to Laurent and Sophie respectively, followed their companions into the hallways. However, as the fan club had no agenda to participate, no one in the club could battle. However, that didn't stop them from walking into the château itself to watch.

At the end of the mapmaking competition, Sophie had drawn the slightly better map than Laurent did. But that was mostly skewed by Laurent's constant focusing on the tiny details like adding houseplants and tables – such that he sort of missed the point. All in all, they both made good maps and received points to the trophy.

Furthermore, there were a few more gruelling challenges presented by the organisers to the fans – including a multiple choice test that had every second question count as double points towards the trophy also. In the end, it boiled down to watching the competition inside and battling with whoever was willing to battle. The club had generously supplied writs of invitation to all members, so everyone could be granted entry. As the club put it, the members who could record the most number of wins and explored rooms would be awarded most points towards the standings. The trophy would be presented after, and refreshments would be served.

As it happened, neither Laurent nor Sophie had their share of wins, separately. Given this was a free-for-all, they figured it would be easier to split up to collect points and wins on their own. If they stuck together, only one of them would get points between battles. Plus, Laurent knew that Sophie was ahead of him in points!

Well, if only they knew – Actually, they do know. That night when Diantha just suddenly collapsed in front of everyone, Laurent thought. Everyone knows what happened! No thanks to the media!

"I'll see you later, my duke," Sophie said, walking away to a different room whilst giving Laurent a wink.

Laurent noticed, and he smiled upon seeing those eyes of hers. Just how could he tell when they were serious or not? He walked forward to enter one of the many hallways which led to different rooms.

Of one of the rooms – a dining hall, to be exact – Laurent encountered a trainer who supposedly had the title of 'Marquis'. Knowing the rules and without need for introduction, Laurent had Hawlucha ready for combat, whereas his opponent sent out an Aerodactyl.

"Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?" Laurent greeted.

"Bien," his opponent replied. "Nous nous battons maintenant, oui?"

Feeling excited already, Laurent made the first move. Hawlucha was already up and running towards the Aerodactyl and hitting it with a Karate Chop. While Hawlucha acted fast, Aerodactyl made a quick reaction with a Wing Attack. The clash of both Pokémon making contact at the same time shook the walls around them.

The Damp Rock that Steven Stone had extracted from Route 10 was currently in the Stone Bistro's museum, but hadn't been put on display yet. Yet Steven had no time to attend to such matters as the terrace he and James were building was entering the penultimate phase. This included safety inspections.

He could smell the familiar aroma of the Stone Open in the air. Dishes were being served out to customers whom Steven supposed had read the review by Madame LeBlanc. As such, Steven was absolutely fine with it. The spice of Tamato berry, the aroma of LaBrie…

As business carried on as usual for the lunch hour at the Stone Restaurant and Bistro, the groundwork and basic framing was done. The flooring was in place and set, with beautiful barriers separating the terrace from the grand ocean view just adjacent to the tables. To Steven, it was majestic to be standing so close to the ocean combined with the comfort of a restaurant terrace. For him and James, this idea was certainly worth investing, and now it seemed to have the full potential to pay off.

Aggron finished adding the final piece of bolts and nails, and also witnessed the finalisation of the stone frames built with steel. With this kind of material and design, along with a cover and sturdy umbrellas, not even a thunderstorm could destroy this terrace.

"Just one more day and we're in business," Steven remarked. "Well done, guys. You too, Aggron."

Truth be told, anyone could remark that the terrace looked magnificent. The construction crew had finally left after the utilities, which included water, lighting, and heating, were in place. With a server's podium nearby, and doors leading to the first floor of the restaurant, everything was in order.

Satisfied, Steven walked back into his workplace. The project was done, so he had to make preparations to have it open to the public. Perhaps heading into his office to make arrangements for promotions was in order. He walked by the customers who almost all had a serving of the Stone Open. Although it was a relatively not-busy day, seeing these customers here was enough for Steven.

He did have to check up on Martine to see how she was doing too. With Laurent and Sophie on leave, he had to ensure his youngest and most energetic worker was holding well. The foyer was already in sight, and Steven only needed to walk in to see the elongated desk that supposed to welcome the customers.

But what Steven was met with was a group of none other than reporters.

"Oh hey, it's Steven Stone!" someone said. "Monsieur Stone! Is it true you shot down a helicopter?!"

"What about Diantha now? Is your food still safe to eat?"

"But what about that new dish you created, whom Madame LeBlanc tried? Where did that come from?"

Metagross happened to pass by on the way to the kitchens to retrieve more dishes from the staff, but Steven motioned Metagross to stop by. He wrote down a note (to inform James of the safety inspection) before giving it to his Pokémon, whereas his companion echoed a low sound of laughter, but took the note anyway and went ahead to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Steven turned his attention back to the media.

"Okay," he said, whilst straightening himself, "let's just say that the helicopter incident was purely accidental. No harm was intended. As for my food, I can assure everyone that there is a reason why the Stone Restaurant and Bistro has one Richissime Star to its name. It is a first-class restaurant, and it would be so because of our priority to ensure the safety of our customers, which includes being sanitary. As for that new dish, I must insist that everyone in Cyllage City try it. It is a wonder how I managed to create it too, but in the end, I think it is worth another Richissime Star as stated in the review. Madame LeBlanc was very well pleased with the dish herself."

"But Diantha is still in hospital! How would you respond to that?!"

"I will…" Steven trailed off, thinking and choosing his words carefully. In truth, he would have to apologise to her, but he wondered how the media would treat that. It would be embarrassing for him. "I will have to check up on her when I have the time, when I'm not busy, and certainly not when I have crowds of people trying to check on my every movement."

That seemed like a good enough response.

"Rumour has it that this was a mere plot by you to reinforce your love to Cynthia, across the street. What do you make of that? Especially when it just so happened to be in front of her that night?"

Whatever coolness Steven had had instantly evaporated, and the burning heat of both anger and embarrassment took its place.

"It's nothing like that!" he denied. "However, if you are interested in the new dish, I must insist you try it out yourselves."

"That doesn't answer the question, Monsieur Stone! You can do better than that! Tell us! What is it with you and Cynthia these days?"

"You must have been seeing her in secret, I bet! Right?"

"Have you heard from Diantha yet?"

Steven tried his best to keep a professional face, but it was starting to tire after the barrage of questions. "No, I have not been seeing Cynthia at all. I'll visit Diantha whenever I have the time, but as I've said I certainly won't have it when people like you are interrupting my workplace."

After saying that, a few optimistic reporters left for the door as if they had ideas of where to go next. To see Diantha, no doubt, but that wasn't Steven's business yet. As well, Steven took the opportunity to push the crowd out.

"The restaurant is currently undergoing an improvement project right now, so if you're not staying to eat, then I suggest you leave, s'il vous plait," Steven directed.

"A tasty dish, eh? We'll have to see what Madame LeBlanc wrote in her review –"

Steven managed to push the crowd out the door on his own. Sure, it didn't help that he had no Pokémon to support him, with Metagross seeing to the tables and Aggron still helping out with construction, but he managed. Happy with the quieting atmosphere, Steven turned around to meet up with James, as the safety inspectors were due to arrive soon.

Somehow. Somehow. Martine Grenadine was directly in front of him, and walking to the desk.

"Martine!" Steven yelled.

The 19-year old waitress stopped suddenly, and then stiffly turned around to face him. "Y – yes, boss?" she replied, although her face was caught in the middle of cheer and terror. The curls of her red hair in front were messy, but she seemed… happy somehow.

"Where have you been?" Steven asked. "Why aren't you at the desk? You're supposed to be managing reception!"

But something in Martine's lips, with that dangerously suspicious smile, told him that she had done something terrible for him. Sure, Steven had no way of proving that, but he had a really bad feeling about this. After all, Martine had been giving him similar treatment ever since Cynthia took up shop across the street.

Cynthia. That must be it!

"Okay, just what did you do say to her just now?" he demanded.

"Boss," Martine replied, and flicking some of her red hair as if to annoy him, "I've been at the desk for as long as I can remember. If anything happened, you would hear from Sophie, right? Well, she is on a date. You should consider it. Come on, I have to walk around a bit too, you know!"

I have a bad feeling about this, Steven thought.

As if Steven wanted to say something more, but sadly it wasn't possible due to incoming visitors who had walked into the lobby. Martine went over to greet them, as per receptionist duty, and then she notified Steven that they were here on construction business. They were the expected safety inspectors.

Within minutes, Steven led the inspectors to meet James at the completed terrace, whereas Martine remained seated at the receptionist desk. By the time her boss had left the foyer, Martine broke down into an uncontrollable series of laughs.

"You went on a picnic together with her…" she whispered to herself excitedly. "Oh gosh, I would burst if I heard you admit that! You have to let us know what happened…" For a moment, Martine entered a fantasy where she saw her boss and his pretty rival sitting together on a picnic blanket. They shared a meal together, up close, and exchanged food. They would even feed each other like they were genuinely in a relationship!

I'll be honest, this chapter is partly a filler chapter as I'm considering how I'm going to organise the next one or two. But it helps that Martine and Lisia know something...

Have a cold serving of chocolate-vegatable smoothie if you should review! But hey, if it's produced from Cynthia's restaurant, then there's no harm, right?