AN: Thanks for the reviews last chapter! I'm so sorry if you guys though I updated again. Stupid me found a typo and decided to upload a new chapter instead of replacing this one, but the real update will come Friday!
(11-8-22 chapter clean up complete)
Chapter 1: Hating Hoenn
The pokemon swooped in the kitchen window in the middle of a lovely spaghetti dinner.
It was a rare evening that found every member of the Maple family dining together. Typically, it was just May and Caroline eating alone, with Norman working late hours at his advanced pokemon facility training. Always training.
The flying type ruined their change of pace. Its arrival was the first brush of wind in a tornado that would spiral May's life out of control. Not that she was aware of that, at the moment.
As the pokemon landed in the dead center of their table, metallic talons clinking against the mahogany, Caroline began shrieking for Norman to do something. May just stared at it, open-mouthed. Her forkful of noodles was frozen in midair.
Composed of all metal and armed with razor sharp wings and an even sharper beak, the pokemon was quite the sight to behold. May knew that he was a skarmory, a species she had never seen in person, but had glimpsed a few pictures of. It was said that if one wanted to catch a skarmory in Johto, it was necessary to travel to the most remote wilderness in the region.
Skarmory held himself upright, in a way that only an immensely powerful pokemon could. He stared straight at Norman, his golden eyes alight with intelligence. Norman stared back. May followed his gaze to the bird's leg, where a folded up piece of paper had been tied carefully with a thread of string.
"It's alright," Norman said, in an odd voice. "I think I know this skarmory."
Skarmory held out his leg, clicking his beak in what might have been impatience. Norman reached for the paper, and with a screech and flutter of his wings, the pokemon was gone. May followed its movement with wide eyes, but Caroline was still watching her husband. She rung her hands around her napkin, a habit she only resorted to when something was really getting to her.
Norman's eyes scanned the note, face going a little pale. When he looked up, there was something distant about him. The sight had May chewing her lip.
"I've gotten a job offer," he stated.
Caroline's napkin was in tatters around her plate. She laid a hand on Norman's shoulder. "Honey…?"
"It's in Hoenn. The Petalburg gym leader has retired." Norman cleared his throat. He exchanged a look with Caroline that May couldn't read. She frowned at them, uncomprehending. All she knew was that her mother did not seem happy. Come to think of it, neither did her dad.
She'd always hated that. That type of unspoken communication parents sometimes had, as if she was a toddler in the corner playing with blocks.
"I'm going to accept."
"Welcome to Rustboro City, the city probing the integration of nature and science! Here lies the very foundation of the Devon Corporation, formed in 1897 by-"
May tried to drone out the mechanized voice over the intercom. Needed to channel all of her focus into following her mother and Vigoroth amongst the sea of other people exiting the ferry. She was exhausted after traveling for nearly five days straight, and to be honest, she couldn't care less about Rustboro City.
The heat was overpowering, especially in her jeans, and it was a startling contrast to the milder temperatures of Johto. It was twilight, so her surroundings were indiscernible enough apart from the silhouettes of a few skyscrapers through the pale air in the distance.
Either way, everything was foreign, and she didn't like it at all.
Hoenn was May's birthplace, but she definitely didn't consider it her home. After all, a few fleeting, childhood memories could never outweigh the fact that she had been raised in Azalea town.
She longed for the place she had lived for the past ten years. All of her friends were there, practically her everything! She had always dreamed of taking that first step as a trainer into the Ilex Forest (If her parents ever permitted it, that is) and conquering the Johto League in such a way that would allow her to finally match up to her father.
All of those hopes, all of those dreams, were now out of the question. As if her parents would be more likely to let her travel here. The place where she had been attacked when she was only five years old.
"May?" Caroline said, breaking her out of her simmering thoughts. May turned to glare at her mother, to remind her that one of them, at least, was still angry at the way Norman had uprooted them.
She forced back the look when she realized they were standing in front of a large moving truck. The driver sat behind the steering wheel, watching them through the windshield like okay.
As her mother approached the man to exchange a few words with him, May examined the front seat. It seemed awfully small for all of them to fit…
Caroline returned, brow crinkled. "So, it turns out that the number of us was miscommunicated, so you'll have to ride in the back."
"Great!" May huffed, but her mom was already scooting in next to the driver. She didn't even bother with a look that promised to discuss this later.
Grumbling to herself, May crawled into the back of the truck, nestling amongst the boxes that contained all of the possessions that hadn't already been sent ahead of them with her father or left behind. The air was thick with dust and mold, no doubt because it wasn't equipped for living creatures to travel in.
Vigoroth followed her into the mass of boxes, pulling the door shut and casting them into darkness. The already small space seemed to shrink even more.
Talk about riding first class.
"Vig," he growled, sounding just about as irritable as May felt.
"You're telling me," she said, wrapping her hands around her knees to sulk. She leaned down to rest her chin on them, but the truck hit a pothole and nearly sent her brain into orbit.
Vigoroth made another unpleasant sound, digging his capable black claws into the floor to anchor himself. He didn't seem angry about being back in Hoenn, his native land. He was all frustration at being left behind by his master, stuck with the job of looking after his wife and daughter on their journey.
Personally, May was angry about both.
May woke to a jolt and the sound of a loud clang.
Disoriented, she sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Her neck ached, and her back seemed very stiff. It took her several moments to recall the reality of the moving truck.
The sound of Vigoroth grunting beside her reminded her that she wasn't alone. He shifted about, his white fur occasionally brushing across her arm in his impatience to move. May wasn't surprised that he didn't seem to have fallen asleep all night. In all the time she had known him, she couldn't recall ever having seen him sleep.
May then realized that the truck wasn't moving. It couldn't be, because she wasn't being jostled about like a ragdoll anymore.
Just as she was pondering if Caroline had forgotten she did, in fact, have a daughter in the back of the truck, the door swung open to reveal the grumpy face of their mover. Light washed in on May, and she shielded her eyes as they adjusted to the sunshine once again. Vigoroth leapt out of the truck at once, purposefully jostling against the moving man on his way.
"Nasty pokemon you have there," the man grunted, wiggling his sore arm.
"I know," May said, sliding out of the truck and into the fresh grass of her new lawn.
The mover rolled his eyes and released two machoke. They expertly began lifting the boxes out of the truck and placing them on the ground, where they could get a better look at what was in each one.
May was soon distracted from them by the sight of her childhood home.
Littleroot Town instilled a near painful sense of deja vu. Memories of shrieking laughter and chased beautifly. Of a small black haired boy sneaking peeks from his window as she climbed into a different car, never to return.
The place seemed totally unaffected by the loss of her family.
Across the clearing, several quaint brown houses dotted the grass, most of them accompanied by colorful flowerbeds and cute little ornaments here and there. It was small, smaller even than Azalea Town, but there was something about it that made May's heart swell with a faint fondness of simpler times.
"I didn't realize how much I'd missed it," Caroline said, popping up beside May. All of the woman's worry from the previous days seemed momentarily evaporated at the sight of her old hometown. For the time being, May even forgot to be annoyed.
"Yeah," she couldn't help but agree. Even Vigoroth, who was sniffing the air, managed a toothy grin.
"I guess we should go inside," Caroline said, gesturing to the house closest to them. It had a paneled side like the others, but lacked the loving touches of being lived in.
May and Vigoroth followed Caroline into their new house, leaving the mover and his pair of machoke to finish dealing with their boxes. The interior was simple, but nice, just like the outside. The living room was suited with brand new leather couches and an armchair, complete with a matching rug and a coffee table. A large, flat screen TV rested as the living room's centerpiece, while the other side of the room opened to a kitchen with large windows. A closed door led to another room, probably a bathroom.
If nothing else, Norman's new job must pay well.
"Let's go check out your room," Caroline urged, apparently noticing that May seemed to have warmed slightly to the idea of Littleroot. "Upstairs, second door on the left. Your father even paid for new furniture in all of the bedrooms!"
Caroline headed to a set of stars at the back of the kitchen, and May trailed after her. She ran her hand along the fine, wooden rail of the stairs as she went, wishing she could be more excited at the fact that their new house was kind of cute. As they reached the top and began down the hallway, her mother chatted about all of cute family pictures and other decorations she could place and at exactly which angle.
"Do you like it?" Caroline asked May hopefully when they reached her bedroom.
May could tell right away that her mother had been the one to pick everything out, because quite frankly, her father wouldn't have chosen something so- well, pretty. Her new bedspread was very nice, covered with red and white flower designs, and her favorite pichu pokedoll rested at the head of it. The frame of the bed was white, as were her desk, bedside table, and two dressers. Even a nice new TV sat directly across from her bed, set at a perfect angle. All that was left was for May to personalize it with any photos or trinkets she had brought with her.
"Yeah, it looks good," May had to admit.
Caroline smiled, obviously relieved. She and May then wandered around the rest of the rooms upstairs. The bathroom was straight across the hall from her, decorated to the theme of a dancing water pokemon May only vaguely recalled from a textbook back at her pokemon academy. Ludicolo, she thought it was called.
There was a hall closet, and a spare bedroom at the end of the hall. It was almost the same as hers, except smaller and a bit more squared off. Caroline told her that the master bed and bath was downstairs, where she and Norman would obviously be staying.
"Oh, it's nearly noon already," Caroline said, when they had finished checking out the house.
May could practically feel her stomach grumbling. "Do we have any groceries here? You didn't feed me breakfast this morning!"
Caroline waved off the breakfast comment, but her expression left May apprehensive. It was the face Caroline always wore when she was about to tell her something she knew she wouldn't like. May fingered her shoulder length, dusty brown hair.
"You know our friends, the Birches, live right next door," Caroline said.
"Who?" May faked interest in the marble pattern of the kitchen counter. In all honesty, the name 'Birch' did sound familiar. It stirred more flashes of chasing that boy with messy black hair, and faked pokemon battles that would decide the fate of the world in her five-year-old imagination.
"You know, one of your dad's closest friends, Professor Birch," Caroline said. "You used to play with Brendan all the time when we lived here. He's your age."
"How nice," May babbled. She didn't like where this was going, so she tried to change the subject. "Hey, look how fancy the faucet on our sink is!"
Caroline leveled her with a look. "So Lisa invited us over for lunch today when I last talked to her, and I told her we would love to come!"
"Mom!" May complained, wrinkling her nose. Vigoroth was in the background, stretched out on the longest couch like a king. And here she was, having to go meet semi-strangers who had known her in some of the most awkward years of her life!
Besides, didn't people in Hoenn realize that dinner was the time to invite people over, not lunch?
Caroline would have none it. Groaning, May went upstairs to change. Her legs were hot and stiff from her jeans, and her blouse had gotten all wrinkly. Most of her clothes were still shoved in her suitcases, so she went straight to the section she normally reserved for summer and chose a pair of jean shorts and a striped tank top.
May glanced in her mirror briefly, and saw that her hair looked like a pidgey nest. She tried finger combing it, but it still looked vermin infested, so she settled for a messy ponytail. She inspected her reflection for anything else glaringly awful and decided that she looked presentable. After all, if she was going to be meeting Brendan, a teenage boy, she didn't want to look like she had just rolled around in the back of a moving truck for hours (Which she had).
Then, May began feeling foolish for wanting to look decent, just for someone she didn't even know. He probably didn't even remember her at all.
May trampled down the stairs. "Alright, Mom, I'm ready to go die."
"Good, let's go." Caroline hardly even cast a glance at May. She fluffed up her short hair one last time and led her grumbling daughter out the door.
The Birches' house was the closest to theirs, being only a couple hundred feet away. Two beautiful rose gardens lay on each side of the front door, which had a sign that read in fancy letters, "Welcome to the Birches'". Caroline raised her hand to knock, tittering with the excitement of seeing an old friend for the first time in a decade.
It was a young blond boy that answered the door. He looked at them through narrowed, chocolate eyes.
"Who are you?" he demanded. He couldn't have been more than eight years old.
Caroline blinked, taken aback. May just stood behind her mother, deciding that of course, the people of Hoenn would all turn out to be rude. Just her luck!
"Noah, that's not nice!" a woman's voice scolded from inside.
The door opened further to reveal a pretty woman with reddish brown eyes. Her black hair was streaked with a few strands of gray, but her smile was warm. She was holding a dishrag, as if she had just been scrubbing her countertops. The memory was very fuzzy, but May thought she looked kind of familiar.
The woman, who May assumed to be Lisa Birch, pulled Noah aside and gestured for them to come in. Their house, she noticed, had a floor plan very similar to theirs, although upon closer inspection, she realized that it was startlingly clean. Cleaner even than May's family's house, despite the fact that they had just moved in.
As Lisa chatted with Caroline, May noticed that Lisa and Noah both had a distinctive accent. She had occasionally been told that she sounded funny when she first moved to Johto, but she had thought nothing of it after people became more accustomed to her and her parents. Either way, the Hoenn accent was much more prevalent to her ears in the Birches than in her own family.
Her time for lingering in the background soon ran thin. Lisa turned to May, eyeing her up and down, and she felt it coming.
"Oh, May, you've gotten so big!" She yanked May into a brief hug, catching her off guard. She patted the older woman's back awkwardly, swimming in a scent that was something like roses, and waited for her to let go. "You're so pretty, too!"
"Thanks," May said, smiling even though she knew it was only customary for all adults to compliment the children of their friends.
"You're a gym leader's daughter! Your dad's awesome!" Noah blurted, obviously seeing her in a brand new perspective now that he knew who she was. He tugged on her wrist. "Woah, I bet he's given you so many strong and cool pokemon too! Can I see them? Please?"
And there it was.
May swallowed, looking at the floor. "I uh… I don't have any pokemon," she said, sounding bitter even to herself. This was the part she always hated.
"Oh." Noah's face fell, but his mouth quirked, like maybe he was having trouble believing her.
"Sorry, I don't understand it either, kid," May wanted to say, because she didn't understand. Just because one thing happened, one time, Norman refused to let her do anything. It wasn't fair.
Lisa was quick to interrupt the uncomfortable silence. "Oh, May. Brendan's upstairs in his room. Why don't you go grab him and tell him the sandwiches are ready?"
"What?" May asked, blankly.
Lisa repeated her request, only it didn't sound any better the second time. Caroline exchanged a look with Lisa that May didn't like, and Noah had moved over to the table, where he smirked knowingly. May's eyes darted back and forth between the two women, the slow realization that there was no way out of the request dawning on her.
"His room is upstairs at the end of the hallway."
May accepted her fate. "Okay."
She treaded up the stairs, biting her lip so hard that it was probably at risk of falling off. May forced herself to stop by the time she reached the top, and then she made the walk of doom to the door at the end of the hallway. It was slightly ajar, and the light was on.
May knocked lightly, and of course, no one answered. Cursing the world, mostly Hoenn, for all of her bad luck, she pushed the door open.
The bed was made, if not a bit hurriedly. A belt lay across the comforter, attached to five pokeballs, and the sight left May immediately impressed. He had to be at least a somewhat accomplished trainer, then.
Surprisingly, no clothes were strewn across the floor, and other than the strange neatness and a particular fondness for the colors red and black, the room seemed pretty average for a teenage boy, if a bit cleaner than expected.
Except for the fact that there was no teenage boy present.
Something creaked down the hall, and May started, catching her foot on something right beneath her. She wobbled, trying to grab hold of the dresser beside her. Instead, she fell to the ground with a loud thump, catching herself on her hands and ramming her side into the corner of the dresser.
She didn't even have time to acknowledge the sting, because the dresser rocked back and forth from the impact, sending a pokeball tumbling down off of it. Desperately, May lunged for it, catching it on the tips of her fingers before it crashed into the ground. She sighed in relief.
May's legs were tangled up over a backpack, which had been thrown right beside the door. So he bothered to hang his clothes, but not his bag, then.
Her eyebrows furrowed down at the pokeball in her hands. It was a standard red and white version, although it was scuffed, like it had seen years of use. The metal was cool and light to the touch, revealing that it was empty. Oddly, it had a thick layer of dust on it, as if it hadn't been moved in a very long time.
"What do you think you're doing?" a sharp voice questioned from behind her.
The boy had to be Brendan.
He was tall and tan from the Hoenn sun, and he had the same unique colored eyes as his mother, along with a handsome face. A few strands of black hair stuck out from underneath a rather ugly white hat, curling down around his ears. His sneakers were grass stained, but appeared to be holding up rather well.
He looked like a trainer. And one who knew what he was doing.
May leapt to her feet and smoothed her clothes with her free hand. Regretted yanking them out of her suitcase without checking them a little better for wrinkles. She held the pokeball out to Brendan.
"Sorry, I fell," she explained, laughing awkwardly. "Actually, I tripped over your backpack and almost broke my face, but-"
"I meant what are you doing in my room, touching my stuff?" Brendan yanked the pokeball out of her hand. He clutched it to his chest, like it was some priceless jewel she had been trying to snatch.
"Your mom sent me up here to get you." May shuffled around on the carpet, totally caught off guard by his tone. She knew it was a little weird that she was in his room without him there, but it had been an accident. "Lunch is ready."
"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Brendan asked, still glaring at her. He set the pokeball back on his dresser, pushing it back into the farthest corner so that it wouldn't fall again.
"You weren't in here to hear me knock in the first place!" May snapped, her own temper finally stirring now that she was getting over her surprise. Her lips twitched into an ugly line as she scowled at him.
"I was in the bathroom! Don't you know it's rude to barge into strangers' rooms?"
"Don't you know it's rude to yell at your guest?"
"I guess they don't teach manners in Johto. My mistake."
"Hey guys, lunch is- oh." Noah was standing in the doorframe, watching them like they were two people who'd gone a little insane. They probably looked it too, with May standing, hands on her hips, and Brendan with his arms crossed as they both glared each other down. Brendan had taken a step closer to her during the argument, and he totally towered over her, but she would die before backing down.
Brendan cleared his throat, glowering at the wall.
May forced a smile at Noah. "Okay, we're coming!"
She tried to look for all the world like nothing was wrong as she went back downstairs. After a few moments, the boys trailed behind her.
May half expected Lisa's sandwiches to be riddled with strange Hoenn spices or mystery meats, but thankfully, they tasted just like any sandwich she had had back in Johto (They were especially good, if that counted). She spent the entire meal pointedly ignoring Brendan, and he did the same to her.
Caroline and Lisa carried the entire conversation. May felt bad, because they kept trying to include them with questions like "So, do you have a boyfriend?" (No), "Brendan, do you know what time your dad will by home?" (No), or "May, what's your favorite pokemon?" (Anything except bugs). She could tell they wanted them to be friends, but he'd made it clear that wasn't going to happen. May frowned down at her half eaten ham sandwich.
"So, Brendan, Norman told me you've become quite the trainer while we were gone," Caroline said eventually, blue eyes shining with something like pride as she looked at Brendan.
Brendan's expression grew hard, and he picked at his crusts, refusing to make eye contact. If May thought the room had been silent before, she was wrong. Even Noah had stopped fidgeting to look at Brendan with something like trepidation on his face.
He flicked at his pile of crumbs. "I'm just helping out my dad with some fieldwork."
Lisa was quick to jump in, trying to fill the suffocating silence as Caroline realized she had asked the wrong question. "Oh, son, don't be modest!"
She sounded just a bit too cheery to be genuine. Brendan said something inaudible under his breath.
"Speaking of training, have you fed your pokemon yet? I'm sure they'd love to-"
"They don't like new people. But you're right, they're probably hungry," Brendan said abruptly, standing from the table. "I should go take care of that."
He turned to May and Caroline. "It was nice seeing you."
And then he was gone, probably to shut himself up in his room again.
May kicked at the ground bitterly, her shoe leaving a light indent in the grass.
After leaving the Birches', May hadn't wanted to go back home. Yeah, her new house was nice, but she really had no desire to go sit inside or visit with other neighbors all day, dealing with her mother's weird looks and false positive comments. She would much rather be alone, so she could mope about her lack of a happy future in Littleroot in peace.
At least the breeze was nice.
She had already made three laps around the entire town, and judging by the position of the sun, it wouldn't be dark for a few more hours yet. Unfortunately, the houses stayed as boring as ever. The lack of excitement was so prevalent that the only other person she passed was a little girl bouncing a ball against a house, all alone. May continued by the younger girl and stared out into the tree line longingly, but still nothing stirred.
Stupid boy. Stupid skarmory. Stupid Hoenn.
May missed Azalea Town. As a place, it wasn't any nicer than Littleroot, but at least she had friends there. She had friends, a nice school, and the hope that her parents might one day loosen up and allow her to travel. For a moment, she had let herself hope that maybe she could at least find a friendly face in Brendan, but that was clearly a lost cause.
May was nearing the main entrance of Littleroot Town when a shrill shriek pierced the air. She jumped, raising her arms in preparation to defend her face. Instead of a dangerous projectile, the ball girl came running up to her in a panic.
"I think the professor's in trouble!" the girl screamed, catching sight of May. A pink bow, way too big for her head, was slightly askew in her hair, and she latched onto May's arms. "We've got to do something! I heard him screaming!"
Something carried in the wind then, sounding suspiciously like a man's yell. May stared down the travel worn path that led to the wilderness, torn. For as long as she could remember, her father and every adult in her life had ingrained one rule into her brain: Never, under any circumstances, should she go into the wild without a pokemon.
"Should we go find him?" May asked, the warning still echoing in her mind.
The little girl eyed her like she was crazy. "No, I think we'd better go get Brendan! I know he can save him!"
The echoes stopped. Instead, May there was a flash of irritation. She was so tired of people thinking she couldn't do anything, like she was helpless. Just because she wasn't a trainer, it didn't mean she was worthless! She knew about pokemon, and she could be strong, too! More than anything, May wanted to prove that she could do anything that Brendan Birch could do. Better, in fact.
"I can help him," May said. The little girl didn't look so sure, but she ignored this.
She drew in a deep breath and took a meaningful step out onto the travelers' path.
AN: If you're in the U.S., I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and a fun Black Friday ;)
I had the week off from school, but I've been very busy writing chapters for you guys. They take a really long time to write because they're pretty long, and I want them to be as good as possible. Plus I want to keep ahead with finals week coming up.
Any bets on which pokemon May gets?