We've wrapped up Blake and Ayame's vacation chapters, now let's shift our focus across the country to the Hoenn Region, where we join back up with Cynthia, Sango, and Maddi! What are those three going to be up to, I wonder? Is their vacation going well?
KedharS: For now. But Silver might have custody issues in the future.
JoshGamerV: Yup.
Rosealine gold: Rune Factory 3 is one of my favorites, I suggest checking it out. Pay close attention to one of the girls, she might look a little familiar…
Thunder Fire: Sango's in for a surprise, that's for sure.
Aquahaze675: It's a pretty cool name.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 424
Maddi had not enjoyed the plane to Hoenn all that much. While she appreciated Cynthia giving her the aisle seat to stretch out (and she had even been considerate enough to let Sango sit as a buffer between the two of them so she wouldn't find herself too irritated) Maddi wasn't exactly enjoying the trip. Luckily, she had her music to listen to. It turned a long-ass flight into something almost manageable, and she was even able to get some sleep.
When they finally arrived in Slateport City, Maddi was exhausted. The sun was already setting on the horizon and she was ready to just go get some sleep.
Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly that easy. She let out a yawn as she grabbed her bag out from under her seat and slung it over her shoulder. She stretched up to pull out her suitcase, stepping out into the aisle so the other girls could get by. She could see that Cynthia was practically jumping out of her seat. Maddi had to admit, she hadn't expected the girl to be able to keep her composure all the way through the flight, but Cynthia was actually making an impressive showing.
Maddi's impression of Cynthia dropped right back down to their previous level a few minutes later, when Cynthia made a beeline past the turnoff for the baggage check to exit the terminal and running out onto the sidewalk.
Cynthia threw back her head and cupped her hands in front of her mouth, letting out a loud yell, "HEY, HOENN! I'M BAAAAAAAAACK!"
Well, THAT certainly woke Maddi up more than she would like. She still felt sluggish, and she still let out a yawn, but now her ears were also ringing.
Lovely.
"Maddi, you're still tired?" Sango asked. "You slept on the plane a lot, too…"
Maddi responded to Sango with a fierce glower. It wasn't the other girl's fault, but she wasn't in the best of moods.
"And whose fault is it that I had to stay up all night packing my stuff?" Maddi asked.
Sango nodded. "Point taken."
"How are you so fine?" Maddi yawned. "You were up just as late as I was…"
"Oh, you know, just used to it," Sango shrugged. Apparently, her already-abysmal sleeping habits were making an all-nighter not a problem, much to Maddi's chagrin.
"Well let's just go…" Maddi yawned. "It's already getting dark… and I just want to sleep… let's get the rest of our luggage and head to wherever it is this hot spring is already…"
"Good thinking," Sango said. "We don't want to miss the buss to Lavaridge."
Maddi froze. Her face soured even more. She turned back to give Sango a seething glare.
"Lava… ridge…?" She asked, not wanting to see Sango give a nod of confirmation. No such luck. "I thought we were already there?"
"There aren't any hot springs in Slateport," Sango said, not wanting to get Maddi upset. Thankfully, even with her lack of sleep, Maddi was capable of being decent and rational. She sighed, shaking her head, and trudged over to the baggage carousel to go find Grim.
"Hey! Cynthia! We're getting our stuff, you coming?" Sango shouted to her friend.
"Oh! Yeah, right, totally forgot! Wait up!" Cynthia's voice echoed from somewhere outside. Sango sighed, and caught up with Maddi.
The two girls watched the bags go around, waiting for their pokemon to come out.
"You didn't bring your bass?" Sango asked. She'd been meaning to bring it up all day, but Maddi had been a little distant.
"Not much point," Maddi yawned. "Besides… Cynthia would just make me play something for her, and naaah… Also, you know, didn't want to lug too much stuff around… It's fine."
"I feel that," Sango agreed. Her eyes brightened and she rushed over to where her backpack was coming down off the carousel. "I was struggling to fit everything I could into two bags!"
Maddi glanced at Sango, raising her eyebrow. "Two bags" huh, she mumbled.
"Hm?" Sango asked, not catching what Maddi had just said. What Maddi had meant was rather obvious, though, you could tell with just a glance. Sango had only brought the one suitcase onto the plane, because her other bag wouldn't fit. She'd had to check it. The suitcase was about the same size as the other girls', but on her back, rather than wearing a normal backpack, Sango's pack looked like it had enough provisions for an expedition to the peak of Mt. Silver.
"Hey, sorry about that," Cynthia laughed, finally joining up with the girls. "I got a little bit excited, it's been a while since I was home, you know?"
"Cynthia, we were here like just a few months ago for the freshman field trip, remember?" Sango reminded her.
"O-o-o-oh, yeah, totally slipped my mind," Cynthia laughed. Her face brightened. "Hey! Maddi! There's Grim!"
Maddi glanced over and saw her Duskull's traveling case (specially lined so that ghost pokemon couldn't escape from it) coming down the conveyer belt.
Cynthia moved to go grab him, but paused, glancing back at Maddi.
"Hey, um, I was just going to go pick him up for you, you know, since you look sort of tired," Cynthia said. "I'm not, like, trying to be pushy or anything! Like I said, once we get to the hostel you don't have to see me again! But, like, if you want to go sit down and rest I can bring him over to you? If you want, I mean!"
Maddi blinked.
"Yeah, sure," she yawned, strolling over to a bench and sitting down while Cynthia pushed ahead of the others to go grab Grim's carrying case.
Sango strolled over to Maddi, resisting the urge to smirk.
"You're enjoying this whole 'Cynthia feels guilty and is trying to be as helpful as possible to make up for it' thing quite a bit, aren't you?"
Maddi cracked a smile.
"It has its advantages," she admitted. Sango chuckled.
"Can't say I blame you," she admitted, glancing over at Cynthia as she approached. Sango saw Silver's carrying case herself, and passed Cynthia by to go pick him up.
"Here he is, Maddi," Cynthia said, presenting Grim. "Or… Madison? Do you not want me to call you Maddi?"
It was starting to become a different kind of annoying.
"Maddi is fine," Maddi accepted, taking the carrying case from Cynthia. She pressed the latch and the case opened up, the baby pokemon floating up and stretching out his small tendril-like arms.
"Duskull…" Grim murmured in a voice that sounded like a yawn. His eye moved back and forth within his skull as he looked around the airport.
"Hey, Grim," Maddi smiled, setting down the carrying case and reaching out to her pokemon, patting the little guy on the head. "Welcome to the Hoenn Region. You feel that? Warm, right? Even in the winter it's nothing like back on the Pokemon Academy island."
"Duskull!" Grim agreed.
Cynthia watched the two, a small smile on her face.
"…What?" Maddi glanced her way, feeling a little creeped out.
"Huh? Oh! Nothing, nothing," Cynthia said, waving her hands frantically to dismiss the notion that anything was wrong. "I just… you looked like you were enjoying yourself, talking to your Duskull, so I was happy. Since, you know, you've looked like you've been having a rough day. I've been kinda worried, but I didn't want to pry, so… I'm just happy to see that things are looking up, yeah," Cynthia finished, giving her a thumbs up to try and stave off the awkwardness.
"…Yeah, I'm doing better, I guess," Maddi said, nodding. "Just… you know. Late night. Since somebody convinced me to go to her grandparents' hot spring over the break, and I had to stay up packing everything."
Cynthia averted her eyes, a guilty look spreading across her face.
"It's fine," Maddi replied, Cynthia letting out a sigh of relief and relaxing. Maddi stowed the carrying case under her arm and stretched, yawning, getting up off the bench and going to meet Sango. Grim floated behind her head and moved to go speak with Silver, the two floating pokemon communicating with one another.
Cynthia watched on, feeling an all-too-common smile start to tug at her lips. She was glad that Maddi could at least enjoy herself. That had been one of the goals that Cynthia had set out. Since she clearly didn't want to be here, the least Cynthia could do was make sure that her stay in Hoenn was pleasant enough.
She just had to make sure to not be too pushy about it. A difficult ask to be sure, but as long as Cynthia remained self-aware about her own weaknesses, it shouldn't be a problem.
Cynthia joined the two girls, and then excused herself as she saw the last of their checked luggage come out; Aud, in her temperature-regulated carrying case. Cynthia rushed over to the little thing, maneuvering around all the girls cooing over the cute little ball of snow-white fur, and lifted the container up and into her arms. She could see Aud staring up at her through the glass, her big blue eyes looking hopefully up at Cynthia.
Cynthia sighed. "Sorry girl," she said, patting the glass apologetically, "but I can't let you out of there just yet."
Serefina had been very clear with her instructions. Aud was an ice-type pokemon, and due to the climate of her native area, her species of Vulpix were used to growing up in cold weather. What that meant for Cynthia was that the small pokemon was unnaturally sensitive to the heat of Hoenn.
Cynthia sighed, scratching her forehead.
For her own health, Aud would have to spend the majority of the vacation in the carrying case, where it was nice and cool. If she was let out for too long, she might get seriously ill. While Cynthia felt bad for the poor pokemon, having to be trapped in the small container, she knew that it was preferable to getting sick or even dying.
"I'll let you out for a little bit later, but we gotta keep your health in check," Cynthia insisted, walking over to Maddi and Sango. Serefina said she'd need to keep Aud in a temperature-regulated environment for at least another few weeks before she was old enough to be out in the heat for prolonged periods of time.
"We got everything?" Sango asked. "Cynthia, when's the bus coming?"
"Um, in about… five minutes ago." Cynthia said, checking her phone. She glanced up at the two girls with a sheepish look on her face. "…Sorry."
Maddi sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. She glanced out at the sun slowly dipping down in the horizon, the last traces of reds and oranges fading from the sky as the darkness of night began to seep in.
Well, at least the nights in Hoenn were warm.
"So when's the next one coming?" Sango asked as the girls walked out to the bus stop, the lamp light flickering over their heads. Maddi stretched, letting out another yawn. She was already crashing from the jet lag, and the fact it was dark now didn't help matters any.
"Um… another half-hour," Cynthia sighed. Great…
Thankfully, the bus stop had a bench, and Maddi immediately curled up on it, resting her eyes. She used the carrying case as a makeshift (very uncomfortable) pillow. Grim floated down next to her, and a few seconds later she was snoring away.
"…Well, at least she's not mad," Cynthia sighed in relief, glancing up the street as if that would help the bus show up faster.
"You good?" Sango asked, placing a hand on Cynthia's shoulder. Cynthia sighed and slumped over, leaning against the wall of the bus stop and slowly sinking down to the ground, rubbing her temples in frustration. She set Aud down next to her, the white pokemon already yawning.
"I'm doing better?" Cynthia asked, not quite sure how she was doing if she was being completely honest. "You know how it is, it's been a long, stressful day and I'm exhausted from all the travel. I'm with Maddi, I just want to lean back and relax, *yawn* get some much-needed sleep…"
"So what's up?" Sango asked. "Because you've been sort of… on edge… since before we even left, so I was kind of concerned."
Sango glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Maddi was asleep, before sitting down next to Cynthia. Silver floated over and sat himself down in front of the two girls.
"Is it because of Maddi?" Sango asked. "You've been acting a little weird around her, that's for sure. I understand that you're trying to be considerate, but I think you might be overdoing it a little. You're practically acting like her slave to atone for before, don't you think that's going just a little bit overboard?"
"W-well… maybe a little… is it that obvious?" Cynthia asked. "I just… I just want her to enjoy the trip, that's all. After everything I did, she deserves at least that much."
"…She's taking advantage of you, I hope you know that."
"Yeah, I kinda figured," Cynthia laughed. "It's fine, I want to get along with her to make up for the way I acted before, so if that involves a little bit of gopher duty, not a problem!"
Sango didn't say anything, she just looked at Cynthia's smiling face for a while. She kept staring until Cynthia began to feel uncomfortable, her smile fading. She glanced away from her friend, not able to maintain her positive atmosphere under Sango's scrutinizing gaze.
Only then did Sango ask a follow-up question.
"So what is the problem?"
"…Doesn't matter," Cynthia muttered, shaking her head. She tried to force another smile to her face, but unlike her previous one, this one was a lot more obviously fake, even in the dim light beneath the street lamp. Clearly she was hiding something. Sango scowled at her, not happy to see Cynthia pretending to be so cheery when she clearly was feeling really down about something. So she asked again, a little more forcefully.
"Look, Cynthia, I can see that something's really bothering you," Sango said. "You said you wanted Maddi to have fun on this trip, but if you're not having fun yourself do you really think that she'll be able to have any fun?"
"Huh?"
Sango sighed.
"Look, Maddi's a great girl, but as you can see she's a little reserved and has fun at her own pace," Sango said, turning to look at her friend. "It's not wrong to want to bring her out of her shell a little as long as she's comfortable with it, but I don't think you're in a state to do it the way you are right now."
Cynthia had to admit that Sango was probably right.
"So if I want to make Maddi enjoy herself, then I gotta be enjoying myself, huh?" Cynthia sighed, the smile draining away from her face and being replaced with nothing but fatigue and exhaustion. "Thing is, though, I'm not really in the best shape to do that right now."
Sango stared at her friend, surprised. Cynthia was always so bright and perky, even moreso than Sango, to the point where she was downright obnoxious. To see her this pensive, it really made Sango start to worry.
"You're not feeling down because of Maddi, right?" Sango wanted to make sure. If the whole confrontation last night had hurt Cynthia more than she had expected, making her feel like a jerk and bringing on some repressed wave of self-loathing, Sango would actually kind of feel a little bad for doing that. But fortunately, a shake of the head told Sango that that wasn't it.
Then, Cynthia told her what WAS it.
"It's about Blake and Ayame. That's why I'm feeling so down right now," Cynthia revealed.
Sango sighed, her face tightening as well. That was a touchy subject for both of them, not that Cynthia knew.
"What do you mean? Are you still feeling sad about being rejected?"
"I mean, how could I not?" Cynthia asked. "But no, it's not… that's not what the real issue. I mean, that does sting a lot, but… I was fine with it, I mean, I am fine with it."
"Then what?" Sango asked. From the flow of the conversation, she was now about 95% sure that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be something she should take seriously.
"Do you think Blake and Ayame are going to have sex over break?" Cynthia asked.
Normally, a question like that from a girl like Cynthia would elicit groans, the rolling of eyes, and maybe even a bop on the head.
But she didn't ask it the way that she normally would, where those things would be an appropriate response. Her tone of voice was meek and nervous, like a child worried that her first day of school would be scary.
So Sango was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
Cynthia glanced at her friend, and Sango could see that her eyes were wet. She wasn't crying yet, but she was clearly well on her way there.
"I know I tease about it all the time, but I never… you know," Cynthia said. "I just, well… never had anyone interested, you know?"
I don't suppose your approach has anything to do with it. Sango bit her tongue to keep from throwing that rude line out.
"And, you know… I really like Blake. I know… how I am, you might not believe it, but-"
"I believe it," Sango interrupted her. Cynthia's eyes widened and her face brightened, and she smiled again.
"R-really?"
"The way you talk about him, well… I don't think anyone can really doubt how you feel, you know?" Sango muttered, not wanting to give away that she felt the same. "I know you aren't that serious normally but I'm pretty sure at least in this case, it's not like you chasing Serefina or someone else hot, you really like him, right?"
"But he has a girlfriend," Cynthia said.
"But he has a girlfriend…" Sango echoed.
"When I think about Blake and Ayame doing… those things together, it feels like my heart is being ripped out of me," Cynthia said, clutching her chest as tears trickled down the sides of her face. "It's not like I don't support them. I'm happy that Blake's happy. I just wish that seeing the two of them together, thinking about them like that… I just wish it didn't hurt this much."
Sango knew that pain all too well. Even when she had decided for herself to seal those feelings away deep in her heart, there were times when she could still feel them there, scraping at the walls, trying to break free. And Cynthia didn't have half the self-control Sango did, on her BEST day.
"You know, you're lucky, Sango, you don't worry about stuff like this," Cynthia sighed, staring up at the dark sky. It was still early enough in the evening that the stars hadn't come out yet. "You're so focused on your career, you don't pay any attention to stuff like love or romance. So you don't have to feel this kind of pain."
"Yeah," Sango murmured, her voice a hollow echo in the night as she joined Cynthia in gazing up at the sky. "Lucky…"
If you only knew, Cynthia, Sango silently confessed, imagining Blake and Ayame's faces in the sky above her. If you only knew…
Heartbreak is rough. But the best cure for heartbreak is a vacation with the girls. Hopefully, they'll both be able to salve their pain, this is certainly a rough time they're going through, and they can really use a friend in each other, and in Maddi.