Finals are over, and I am free! Thanks for the reviews and good luck wishes. To celebrate the end of the school year, I went to see the new Avengers movie yesterday. Has anyone else seen it? I'm a little obsessed! Haha.

Chapter 17: Ghosts of the Past

As May's mind kicked into overdrive with effort not to freak out, Stern, of all people, was the one to shake her out of her reverie. "Don't do it! You have no idea what he's planning to do—the world as we know it could be-"

Archie's massive hand covered Stern's mouth immediately, and a scowl warped his lips. "Shut up!" he thundered, digging his fingers roughly into Stern's arm. The oceanographer's face contorted in pain, yet his eyes continued to plead with May.

Don't do it, they said. Don't give it to him no matter what.

May swallowed thickly. She had vastly underestimated what kind of mess she was getting herself into when she'd stormed into the museum, and now she had two choices: risk a man's life, or give Team Aqua something that could make them even more dangerous.

"Let him go and battle me for them," she said wildly. Would she win? Probably not, but it might buy them time for the police to get there at least.

Soren, though still tired from his last battle, nodded in agreement and stared Archie down challengingly. Her would-be-opponent, however, snorted in amusement.

"That's not the way this works, little scamp," he said. "You're not in a position to be making demands."

As if to demonstrate his point, his hold on Stern tightened yet again.

May was able to do nothing but glare at him, completely void of ideas. However, the shuffling sound beside her drew her out of her stumped pause. All eyes in the room shot to Brendan, who zipped his backpack and held up a crinkled yellow parcel.

"Here's your package," he said. His face was expressionless and still devoid of color, but May detected the faintest traces of an odd undertone in his voice. "Let him go and you can have it."

May wanted to scream out for him to stop, to find some other way, but she could think of no other solution. They couldn't just let Archie harm Stern right there in front of them.

"Smart boy, but I'm the one who's in charge here."

The vague sound of police sirens wailed in the distance, and the two Aqua grunts gasped and shifted anxiously. Archie didn't jitter around like they did, but he gave away his worry with the brief glance he shot out the window.

"You sure about that?" Brendan raised one eyebrow, seeming remarkably cool for someone who had been frozen in shock only minutes ago.

Archie gritted his teeth, gazing at the official Devon Corp logo on the envelope longingly. In one motion, he'd thrown Stern to the ground and snatched the parcel from Brendan's hand.

"You won't be left alone if you get in my way again," Archie warned May and Brendan. He motioned to his grunts distastefully. "We're moving out, lads. I'll deal with you later."

The two grunts exchanged anxious glances before hurrying down the stairs after their leader. From the first floor, a crash followed by an enraged scream could be heard, and then it abruptly faded into silence. May winced, hoping that the lady downstairs, as infuriating as she was, hadn't been harmed.

"What have you done, boy?" Captain stern moaned, straightening his boater hat and stumbling back to his feet. "Those parts are extremely rare and valuable, and a gang like that can't have anything pleasant planned for them."

"I wouldn't be complaining, if I were you," Brendan snapped, whipping Iris back into her ball. Something about him wasn't right, even more so than the initial anger he'd had about trudging after May on such a dangerous endeavor. "You'd be dead if I hadn't let him have it."

"What sort of thing do you think they want to do?" May cut in, trying to force Brendan's terrible mood to the backburner for the time being. On one hand, she saw Brendan's point; Stern might be dead if it weren't for them. However, she couldn't help but think there could've been a better way to get rid of Archie without letting him win.

Like Brendan actually using his amazing pokemon for once, a tiny voice inside of her said.

Stern sighed shakily. "I don't know, but that technology-"

"Planning to go steal them back?" Brendan asked her bitingly.

Soren grumbled at him, immediately ruffled that the boy dared to take such a tone with his trainer, but Brendan focused the entire force of his glare on May.

She almost flinched, but she held her ground. Couldn't he tell by her shaken state that she knew she'd been stupid, and that she was sorry for putting them in danger? And if she hadn't followed Team Aqua, an innocent man might have been killed!

The more she thought about it, May felt much less ashamed and much more angry.

"Stop treating me like I'm an idiot!" she yelled abruptly, clutching her hands into furious fists against her sides. "Maybe if you'd done something sooner instead of just standing there, this wouldn't have happened!"

Brendan froze, and an expression icier than any she'd ever seen came over him. He turned to shuffle through his backpack, revealing his anger with the jerky movements of his hands.

May regretted her words at once, although she couldn't bring herself to take it back. Wrong though she may have been, she was not about to let Brendan think it was okay to boss her around or talk to her like that.

She paused when he tossed a plastic container out onto the floor in front of them all. Through the film, she could just make out the form of several complex blueprints and a few very advanced looking pieces of metal.

"At least one of us thinks ahead. Archie got some free potions, that's all," he said coldly. May stared open mouthed at the package, and Stern did much the same.

Apparently satisfied with their shock, Brendan turned as if to leave. However, several uniformed officers suddenly stormed up the stairs, pokeballs held out threateningly, which left him with little choice but to freeze in his tracks.

The lead policeman's jaw went slack as his eyes roamed over the room. From the nervous wreck that was Captain Stern, to two stiff, angry teenagers, and then to the disaster that was left in the wake of the battle against Team Aqua, he took it all in. Now that the immediate threat was gone, May realized that not only was one of the displays completely shattered, but that there were tiny specks of dried blood and heavy scuff marks across the tiled floor.

"What happened here?" one of the officers demanded.

For once, Stern took charge of the situation by agreeing to be interviewed. May would occasionally chime in when he missed a particular detail, but Brendan didn't utter a word. He stared stonily at the wall with his arms crossed, refusing to speak unless one of the officers asked him a direct question.

May couldn't decide if she wanted to slap him or apologize.

He shot her a tiny, passing glare out of the corner of his eye before returning to his wall staring. May crossed her own arms against her chest and turned pointedly away.

Angrily ignore him it is, she decided.

Soren shuffled at her feet, shooting the nearest officer an arrogant look. However, May detected exhaustion in his usually alert golden eyes, and his shoulders were ever so slightly slumped. She pulled out his pokeball.

"Thanks, Soren," she said, before he was sucked into the device.

Impatiently, she eyed the policemen, but they didn't seem to be close to finishing just yet.

"No, no I was only here to gather inspiration for the S.S. Tidal, and then-"

She let out an unhappy breath of air. Ezra and Soren needed a pokemon center. Next to her, Brendan looked equally ready to leave, but she wasn't about to try and get him to help her hurry the situation. Instead, she tackled it alone.

"Is it alright if I leave? My pokemon are hurt," she said. The officer interviewing Stern raised his brows as if she were insane.

"I can't let you leave a crime scene, young lady!"

May's hopeful look melted into a distasteful one, but luckily, Stern was on her side. "I can assure you, sir, she had nothing to do with Team Aqua. Without her, the situation would've ended much worse than it did. She deserves a break."

The officer sighed. He obviously didn't like the idea, but he said, "Fine. You kids can go, but I don't want to see you involved in another situation like this. It's safer for you to call the police."

The growing smile on May's face dropped off in an instant, and Brendan's head shot around to look at the officer in disbelief. His expression had already been sulky, leaving the magnitude of his annoyance less apparent, but May's features morphed into an ugly scowl that clearly let everyone know exactly how she felt about the comment.

Well how about getting here sooner next time, she wanted to yell, yet she forcibly bit her tongue.

She figured getting arrested would be high on the list of reasons for Norman and Caroline to haul her straight home from her journey. Realizing she had gotten into repeated brawls with dangerous criminals would provide even greater incentive.

Reluctantly, she kept her mouth shut as she and Brendan started downstairs. Uncomfortable silence cloaked them, leaving May to dwell on the officer's comment. Hadn't she proven herself to be a capable trainer yet? She wasn't perfect, but she'd just saved a man! Surely that had to count for something?

No one will doubt me when I'm the champion, she thought darkly, before realizing exactly what had just crossed her mind.

Six badges and a tournament of Hoenn's strongest trainers to go. Even her father was nowhere near Steven's level, and he was beyond exceptional. She sighed, forcibly pulling her head out of the clouds and back down to the crisis at hand.

She could contemplate the future of her training career when she was confident Archie (Or, for that matter, Tabitha) wasn't going to track her down and kill her first.

They crossed through the lobby, still determinedly ignoring one another, and May saw that the receptionist was also being interviewed by police officers. Her pink glasses were slightly askew, yet she appeared to have come out of the situation relatively unharmed.

"-a miracle I'm alive-" May caught her saying. She rolled her eyes and pushed her way through the revolving door to exit, but she came to a dead stop when she caught sight of what was outside. A gasp slipped through her lips.

"What are you doing?" Brendan asked irritably. He came to a stop, barely able to avoid bumping into her due to the highly confined space in the door. May caught a familiar whiff of cinnamon, and she was sharply reminded of the time her dad had shoved them into a closet together back in Petalburg.

"Reporters," was all she managed to say. As Brendan peered over her to look outside, she swallowed and focused on banishing the swarming mass of crazed thoughts from her head.

There was a single officer outside fending off a small battalion of camera and notepad armed reporters with nothing but a strip of yellow caution tape. One particularly bold woman with short black hair jammed a microphone in his face, pursing her lips.

"No cameras!" the officer exclaimed, trying to shove the microphone away. "Please don't make me get out my handcuffs again, Ms. Douglass!"

"Just go," Brendan said, nudging her through the door. At their appearance, the reporters buzzed excitedly, with the black-haired woman in the lead. Many of them lifted their cameras, but the officer was quick to threaten them again.

Brendan scowled, directing his face away from the line of the cameras. "I swear if they take my picture I'm setting Iris on them," he grumbled.

May followed his lead as they half-ran away from the scene. The last thing she needed was her ruffled picture on the news for her dad to see. Thankfully, the blessed red roof of a pokemon center was visible not too far away, so they quickly entered through the automatic doors.

Since it was the middle of a beautiful day in Slateport and most people were having fun at the beach, the center was empty apart from one nurse and her chansey assistant. The woman looked up from her Pokegirl magazine in surprise when they entered.

"Hello," she said, blinking. She then smiled too widely, as if she was relieved to have something to do. "How can I help you?"

May held out Soren and Ezra's pokeballs. "Can you heal these two?"

"Sure! Have a seat in the lobby, and they'll be ready in just a moment!"

May trudged tiredly over to a couch in the corner of the lobby so that she was out of sight from the main door. The room was the most spacious out of all the center waiting rooms she'd seen so far, but the best part was that no reporters would be able to see her from outside.

She slumped in the cushy seat, comforted by the stark white walls and medically scented air. After the ordeal they had just experienced, the normalcy seemed almost unreal.

Brendan sat nearby, and she observed him out of the corner of her eye. Although the harsh lines on his face had faded somewhat, he didn't speak to her. Instead, he stared at the wall, obviously waging an angry war in his mind.

Fine, May thought. She wasn't entirely happy with him, either. She forcibly ignored the feeling of guilt gnawing at her stomach and instead thought back to Team Aqua.

Archie had probably opened the package by now, only to realize he had been deceived. A shudder ran down May's spine at the thought of how livid he would be. Without a doubt, Brendan had made them a dangerous enemy that day. The question was what would happen next? Would he come after them for revenge?

"Miss, your pokemon are healed!" the nurse chimed from the desk.

Banishing the scenarios of what someone as nasty as Archie might do for revenge, May returned to the counter. The light scuffing of sneakers against tile told her that Brendan had followed.

"Good as new." The nurse smiled, plopping the pair of pokeballs back in May's hands. As she clipped them to her belt, the woman added, "Oh! There's a gentleman that said he would like to speak with you."

Oh Latias, Archie's back, May thought, realizing at once that there was a shadow across the floor that belonged neither to she nor Brendan. There was someone standing behind them.

But it wasn't Archie. Far from it, but as May's eyes traveled up the tailored suit to the shock of white-blonde hair, she wasn't quite certain that he was better.

"Hello," the man said. He smiled, but it was really more of a smirk. Through her rapidly increasing anxiety, May acknowledged that he looked younger up close. "I'm Blaise Steele."

Brendan trod meaningfully on her foot. "Hey," he ground out.

"Hey," May repeated, trying to resist the urge to kick Brendan's foot away. He was obviously reminding her to keep her mouth shut about whom she was, but she wasn't about to tell! She'd already spent half of her journey keeping it secret as it was. The head of an organization her father disliked was the last person she was going to spill the beans to!

Blaise kicked off the wall and approached them, looking down on them with a clear 'holier-than-thou' glint in his eyes. His PPA badge shined impressively from where it was pinned to his chest.

"So," he said. "I suppose you're the children who were present for the Team Aqua attack?"

May shot a discrete glance at Brendan. He swallowed, but thankfully, he gathered the sense to say something.

"Yeah. We were just visiting the museum when they attacked a man," he lied, surprisingly smooth. May internally let go of some of her leftover annoyance towards him.

"Ah," Blaise said, in an airy voice. He cleared his throat. "Well, I don't know if you children are aware, but I'm the head of the Pokemon Protection Agency. Team Aqua members are high on our blacklist."

"Why aren't you chasing them then? We don't have anything to do with them," May said sharply. Brendan's foot dug into hers, and she retaliated by kneeing him as hard as she could without being completely obvious.

She couldn't help it. She kept remembering how her father had disliked Blaise, how he'd thanked Team Magma on television (Actually thanked them!) and now how he kept talking down to she and Brendan like they were babies. He'd seemed so scary while she was hidden in her dad's closet, but it didn't faze her so much fresh out of a confrontation with the infinitely scarier Archie.

May was sick and tired of being scared.

All façades of pleasantries drowned from Blaise's face. "Let's cut to the chase, then. I know you two know what Team Aqua was after, and you need to tell me what it was."

May glared at Blaise, and he glared right back. However, it was Brendan who spoke. "We don't know anything about it," he argued.

The corner of Blaise's eyebrow pinched upwards in a clear sign of strain, and May suddenly understood something. Blaise had no proof they knew anything, but the police obviously hadn't been willing to let him in on whatever information it was that he wanted. Why else would the leader of an important agency follow them? She didn't know why he was so obsessed with Team Aqua, but she did know he was bluffing.

"Why don't you go find out from the police?" she couldn't help but ask.

Blaise scowled. "The PPA does have the authority to take away trainer's license, not to mention make arrests if necessary," he threatened.

"No actions can be taken without valid evidence," a new voice said hotly from across the room.

A familiar, portly man with a messy beard and lab coat stood at the door, appearing uncharacteristically irritated. His arms were crossed, and his bushy brows were pulled down into a clear frown. May scarcely noted the small blond boy standing behind him, wide-eyed.

"Professor Birch?!" Blaise's eyebrows disappeared into his white-blond hair. He knew he was trapped. Two teenagers he probably thought he could intimidate, but the regions top professor? Not a chance.

"These two trainers have my seal of approval," Professor Birch said, stepping over to them. "They're both official research assistants, so they're under League protection. Just to clear up any misunderstandings."

"The League has no authority over the PPA!"

"Nor PPA over the League," Professor Birch shot back.

Blaise's dark eyes shot to everyone like a cornered pokemon, from the gawking nurse to the defiant May. Finally, he let out a rugged breath.

"Fine." He glowered at May and Brendan, but a special seed of hatred seemed to sprout for May as he glanced over her. "But if I find out either of you have put a toe out of line, it'll be too late. You can say goodbye to your trainer's license."

He stormed out of the pokemon center, his impossibly perfect hair bouncing as he stomped.

The room was quiet for several moments after he disappeared. Finally, Noah grinned and tugged on Professor Birch's lab coat.

"Ah, Dad! You were a boss!"

Professor Birch laughed, his angry demeanor vanishing like the wind. He rubbed at the back of his neck in an embarrassed motion that vaguely reminded May of Brendan when he wasn't acting like a jerk.

"Oh, a boss, huh?"

May couldn't restrain a sigh of relief and a slight smile at Noah's childish enthusiasm. "Thank goodness you were here. I was about to be arrested for assault." She added the last part with a tinge of leftover irritation.

"Dad, why are you here?" Brendan asked, crossing his arms and looking very emotionless despite the fact he was seeing his dad for the first time in over a month. His eyes froze on Noah, as if he couldn't comprehend why his eight-year-old brother had been dragged all the way to Slateport.

"I was researching the symbiotic relationship of plusle and minun, and the effect power lines have on them. I just happened to notice that seviper snooping around while coming back into the city."

Professor Birch's face was alight with enthusiasm, but he seemed to deflate when Brendan didn't immediately jump in with drilling questions about where his research had led. Instead, he shuffled stiffly and shot May a quick, barely noticeable glare out of the corner of his eye.

"Good thing you showed up," he said, in a tone that suggested to May that he was now blaming her for having yet another person on their tails.

She was seriously debating finishing their argument right there in front of his family, but an excited gasp from Noah made her pause. He grinned so widely that his cheeks looked as if they were about to burst, and then he began digging around in his shorts pocket.

"Brendan, guess what Dad gave me?"

Brendan cocked his head to the side, shooting a quick, questioning glance at his father. "What?" he asked.

"A pokemon, since I'm his new assistant with you gone!" Noah said, clearly thrilled. He pulled a shiny red and white pokeball out of his pocket and held it out for his older brother to see, clutching it as if it were a million-dollar diamond.

For a brief moment, May felt a pang of jealousy. She wished she'd been able to get a pokemon at such a young age. However, Noah's excitement was infectious, and she found herself bending forward eagerly as he pressed the release button.

A small, sky blue amphibian pokemon appeared at Noah's feet. A fin stuck up from the top of its head, and spiky orange gills protruded from each cheek. Its skin seemed slightly damp, almost as if it had been lurking somewhere slimy. "Muu?" it said, in a breathtakingly adorable voice.

"Awww!" May couldn't help but coo. She didn't know much about mudkip, but they seemed to be relatively rare and coveted on the same level as treecko. With a quick check of her Pokedex, she learned that it was a pure water type that could sense its surroundings with its fin. Neat.

"She's a water type, so I bet she could beat Orion!" Noah said. He sounded as proud as someone saying he owned Mew.

Brendan raised an eyebrow. "No way," he said, but his tone wasn't condescending, simply teasing. He ruffled Noah's hair in a way that only an older brother could, but there was still tenseness in his shoulders that told he wasn't in a good mood. "Don't get so ahead of yourself, there, bud."

"Mudkip was lonely without Treecko-uh, Soren, was it? Anyway, she was lonely, and I needed my new research assistant to have a partner," Professor Birch explained.

"Dad! Skipper doesn't like to be called Mudkip."

"Oh, my bad. Sorry," Professor Birch said sheepishly.

"Maybe she'd like to see Soren," May offered, reaching for her grovyle's pokeball. He'd still be a bit worn out from earlier, but she thought he'd probably appreciate seeing his old friend from his days at the lab anyway.

When he appeared, Soren glanced around carefully to be sure that the threat from before had completely vanished. His eyes paused momentarily over Professor Birch before finally falling on Skipper. He tilted his head to the side. "Gro?"

"Mudkip, mud!" she replied, waving a paw in greeting.

Soren sniffed her once before his mouth formed something like a grin. He made a huge show of bending his knees, as if it were a struggle for him to talk to someone so much shorter than he was. "Grovyle."

Skipper slapped at him halfheartedly with her tail, which left a satisfied look on his face. Noah beamed at them. "Wow, he looks so cool now!"

"It is quite impressive that he's evolved so soon," Professor Birch added. His eyes flickered thoughtfully from May to Brendan, as if he were mentally making some sort of comparison between the two.

"Thanks," May said, unable to contain the pride in her voice.

"While you guys do this, I'm gonna go for a walk," Brendan said abruptly. "I'll be back later."

May blinked at him, and Professor Birch said, "Oh… Okay."

The man sighed as the automatic doors closed behind his oldest son. However, he looked unsurprised. "Well, it would've been nice to talk a bit more, but we'll be here for a few days anyway I guess."

"It's my fault," May blurted. "He's mad at me. Sorry."

Noah was completely oblivious to their conversation, taking turns poking at both Soren and Skipper. Professor Birch gave her a tired half smile. "I know the feeling. I'm sure he'll get over it, though. It doesn't seem very bad."

May raised her eyebrows. Not very bad? To her, it seemed pretty awful. She and Brendan argued often, yes, but something was different this time. As aggravated as she was with him, he meant something to her now, and it wasn't a petty issue that would disappear the next day.

Professor Birch managed to sense her doubt. "Honestly, May, he seems more like himself than I've seen him in I don't know when."

May didn't know what to say. She ended up going with a lame, "Oh. That's good."

Soren played with Skipper for the next hour, while Professor Birch questioned May about how her journey was going so far. She was happy to tell him, for the most part, although she did leave out a few choice details regarding Team Aqua and Team Magma. She wouldn't want to risk her gutsier endeavors floating back to her father's ears.

Despite the rather pleasant company that May found the Birches to be, her mind kept drifting back to one Birch in particular. Occasionally, she thought that maybe she should go check on him, but she would quickly shoot down the idea every time. Her pride wouldn't allow it.

However, as time continued to tick by, these thoughts grew increasingly frequent. Eventually, she stood from the couch they had long since migrated to.

"I think I'm gonna go see if I can find Brendan," she announced, before she could change her mind.

"Alright," Professor Birch said simply, but the slight twinkle in his eye told her that he was pleased by her statement. Noah sniggered as if something was very funny. May returned Soren and headed out the door quickly enough that he didn't have a chance to comment.

The moment May was outside to feel the salty tang of the ocean breeze, she realized the flaw in her plan. Slateport was absolutely enormous. Where in the world was she supposed to find one boy?

Well, she thought. Brendan's not really the typical teenage guy.

He probably wouldn't be anywhere with a large crowd, especially not in the mood he was in, so she immediately crossed off the marketplace, the beach, and the contest hall. She also ruled out any battle centric areas in general.

Even with the knowledge of where he probably wouldn't be, finding out where Brendan had actually gotten to was a different matter entirely. He could be outside the city limits for all she knew, and to make matters worse, he was much more familiar with Slateport than she was.

May found herself aimlessly wondering the street closest to the sea. The sun had almost set completely, and the light glimmer of stars was visible in the dusty sky. Without really realizing it, she had ended up in sight of the shipyard from earlier.

Habitually, her eyes drifted once across the nearby ocean, but this time, she found herself doing a double take. On the very tip of a small peer just beside the shipyard sat an unmistakable figure in athletic clothing.

Swallowing, May started towards him.

The muscles in Brendan's shoulders were noticeably bunched up, and he stared out at the ocean with a faraway look in his eyes. He clearly wasn't taking in the beauty of the stars or water, but instead looked as if he was imagining some ghost from long ago. His fists clenched as May neared, his ears apparently having detected either the padding of her tennis shoes against wood or her nervous heartbeat; she wasn't sure which.

He didn't acknowledge her. Hesitantly, she plopped down beside him. Her limber legs, which had grown significantly tanner after their stay on Dewford, swung below the dock next to Brendan's. The soles of her tennis shoes reached only a few feet above the churning waters below.

May rubbed at her arm uncomfortably. She had absolutely no idea how to start this conversation, and Brendan wasn't about to help her out.

"Soo… Watcha doing?" she asked awkwardly.

Brendan's frown deepened, and she inwardly cursed. "Nothing," he said predictably.

"So, have you been here long?" She continued the lame strategy of evading the problem at hand, because she simply didn't know what else to say.

"Not too long," he said. May shot him a questioning look, and he sighed. "I saw Stern. Gave him Mr. Briney's number. He needs a captain or something."

"Oh."

May hated the tension between them. It was now or never. She had to get rid of the problem that had been probing at them for their entire journey, the problem that had finally erupted in their faces after having been brushed under the rug for so long.

She opened her mouth, preparing to ask him what had happened to his late pokemon, or just to ask if he wanted to talk about it. However, she chickened out at the last second, instead going for a topic that was more her issue than his.

"Do you know why I moved to Johto?"

May forced out. At once, she regretted brining it up. She couldn't look at Brendan, resorting to focusing heavily on her hands in her lap, but she could feel his gaze snap to her.

"…. Yes."

May made herself laugh shortly even though the situation couldn't have been less funny. Professor Birch must have told him all about his childhood friend's attempted kidnapping and her father's desire to get them as far away from the memories as possible. She could just imagine little six-year old Brendan listening to the story with wide, horrified eyes.

"I still have nightmares sometimes," she admitted.

It took Brendan a while to respond. "I'm sorry." And she could tell he meant it. She dared a peek into his solemn brown eyes.

"I'm sorry I keep getting us into trouble," she said very quickly. "I don't mean to, I just can't help it sometimes, and I-"

"It's alright," he cut her off, and his eyes wandered back to the ocean. The sun had now dipped almost completely below the horizon, leaving nothing more than vague streaks of orange and yellow across an otherwise black sky. May noticed the beacon of the lighthouse come on in the distance.

She took a deep breath. Over the past month, she'd done things (both brave and stupid) that she'd never have imagined herself doing. If she could stand up to a vicious houndoom in a fight for her life, she could talk to Brendan about this.

"Brendan, we're friends, right? So you can talk to me about, you know, stuff. If you want, I mean."

For an excruciatingly long moment, he didn't say anything. May was sure he wasn't even going to respond to what had just taken her so much courage to say, but then-

"He was a mightyena," Brendan said, in a clipped voice. May turned to him with wide eyes, and certain things clicked into place. He'd been reluctant to battle in the first place, but the Aqua grunt had had… a poochyena. "His name was Sirius."

She slowly reached out a hand. It hovered nervously near Brendan for a while before finally falling on his upper back. His muscles tightened under her touch, like coiled spring. She started to pull back, but then she felt him gradually relax under her touch.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"It was my fault," Brendan continued, to her immense surprise. His hands grabbed at his knees so tightly his knuckles turned white, but his voice didn't break. "That's why I- well, I don't want it to happen again."

"It won't," May said. She wanted to reassure him that it wasn't his fault (Because she was sure that it wasn't, knowing Brendan), but she sensed that he didn't want to discuss the matter any further. "We've got each other's back now, so we don't have to worry. Right?"

Brendan turned to stare at her. A slow half smile grew on his face, and her stomach fluttered in what had to be relief.

"I guess so. Yeah."

AN: So we've just uncovered another piece of the Brendan puzzle! Finally. I thought the ending scene was pretty cute, especially compared to the other interactions Brendan and May have had :) They've been bonding, but it's been much more subtle bonding up until this point.

I had a huge debate about how to use mudkip. I knew I wanted to bring it in somehow instead of ignoring its existence completely, but I had a few ideas in mind before settling on this one. Originally, I was going to have Professor Birch give it to Wally, but I thought this was more realistic, not to mention more original. On another note, I literally had a dream about May and Brendan a couple of nights ago. Am I going insane or is this story just consuming my life a little too much? xD

The next chapter will be out... Hopefully soonish, but I have a lot of writing to go through for it. We'll see. I do update my profile relatively often with chapter status if you're ever wondering about the next update, btw.

Who is your favorite favorite regional bird: pidgey, hoothoot, taillow, starly, pidove, or fletchling? I'm gonna go with… hoothoot, I think.