In this chapter, Maddi bonds with Cynthia and the two grow closer, sharing their pasts and talking about sisters. A chapter about forming new friendships over mutually understood hardships.

KedharS: No, Violet is only interested in girls.

Rosealine gold: Well, something like that, anyway.

Thunder Fire: It probably shouldn't be, and yet…

Badoobadoop: Same.

Aquahaze675: Flora should be interesting for sure.

JoshGamerV: We'll understand more about Flora's character eventually, don't worry!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 438

Maddi was enjoying reading one of her books in private, music rocking in her ears when movement from Grim caught her attention. She glanced up to see Grim floating towards the door, moving in circles to signal that there was someone knocking on the door. Taking her earbuds out, she rose to her feet and walked over, sliding the door open a crack to see who it was.

Cynthia was standing in the hallway, her face pale and streaked with tears and snot, her eyes red and swollen. She looked even smaller than usual, and so fragile she might crumble into dust with the slightest touch.

"M-Maddi," Cynthia croaked out, her voice breaking with sorrow. "I-I… I'm sorry… I know I said I wouldn't but-"

Maddi slid the door open the rest of the way and held her hand up to stop her, shaking her head. This wasn't the time for something like that. It was clear that Cynthia was badly shaken by something, and Maddi wasn't heartless enough to turn her away.

"Come in," Maddi said, stepping aside to let a stunned Cynthia enter her room. Cynthia shuffled inside and Maddi closed the door behind her, walking over to her shelf. She picked up a box of tissues and tossed it over to Cynthia to clean her face off. Grim floated over to Cynthia, hovering around her as his eye moved back and forth, studying her intently.

Maddi sat down on her futon and crossed her legs, flipping her book back open. She didn't put her earbuds back in, though. She was willing to listen if Cynthia wanted to talk to her, but she wasn't invested or nosy enough to actually pry into the problem, or bring up what state she seemed to be in.

"Maddi…" Cynthia murmured. Maddi glanced up to see that Cynthia was sitting against the wall, curled up in a ball with her head buried in her knees, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs as she was trembling, resisting the urge to cry.

"Yeah?" Maddi asked quietly. Cynthia raised her head and stared at the goth through teary eyes, her lip quivering.

"Sango and I… we had a fight," Cynthia explained. She told Maddi everything that had gone down between her and Sango and Violet earlier that afternoon, and how betrayed that she felt and how much her heart stung, wishing that everything had just gone different.

Maddi listened to Cynthia's story in silence. When Cynthia finished talking, the two continued to sit quietly for a while, the only sound being the steady turn of the pages.

"I didn't hear Sango's side of the story," Maddi said, her voice devoid of both emotion and judgment. "So I won't be giving you one-sided comfort."

Cynthia winced, lowering her head and burying it in her arms, smiling painfully out of sight. Maddi wasn't so kind and sweet as to tell her soft words about how it wasn't her fault, about how she was right and Sango was wrong.

"But I was there," Maddi said. "I didn't hear the conversation that much, though."

Cynthia glanced up, blinking in surprise. Maddi had looked up from her book, and was staring Cynthia in the eyes.

"Your relationship with your sister is strained," Maddi said matter-of-factly. "You two… fight a lot, don't you?"

Cynthia nodded glumly.

"And?" Maddi asked.

"…And what?" Cynthia wasn't sure what Maddi was getting at.

"And what do you want?" Maddi elaborated. "You're sitting here crying yourself silly, but what is it that you want? To just be sad like this?"

"No, of course not, it's just…" Cynthia's voice trailed off into a mumble as she lowered her face back down onto her knees.

"I didn't catch that," Maddi said, not interested in Cynthia's games. If Cynthia wanted someone to comfort her, well, Maddi wasn't the right person for that task. If she wanted someone to help her figure out what to do and how she was feeling, though, well, Maddi could at least help her out with that much.

"…Is it alright… if I tell you a little about my sister?" Cynthia asked quietly.

"Of course it's alright," Maddi told her, the gentle tone of her voice surprising even herself. She wasn't used to being the person to lend a shoulder to someone else, she was usually too busy dealing with her own problems. I guess Sango's friendship is having a bigger influence on my attitude than I thought, she dryly noted.

"My sister, well, growing up I wanted to be just like her," Cynthia explained. "My parents were both researchers for Devon Corp, and they were almost never home. So growing up, it was like my sister was more of my parent than either of my parents."

Maddi nodded sympathetically. She knew what it was like to have a sister you idolized. To have parents that were obsessed with their research. She and Cynthia were more alike than she had realized. Cynthia's parents may still have been alive, but they were clearly not as much of a factor in her life as she would have liked. And her sister, well…

"I think I was around ten when I started to notice how everyone treated my sister differently," Cynthia continued. "She wasn't just the cool older sister that looked out for me. She was in high school then. She was starting to train up her pokemon, while her body had developed into, well… you saw what she looks like."

Cynthia sighed, readjusting her position. She lied down and spread out, staring up at the ceiling as she reminisced about her past.

"Our relationship started changing after that. All of a sudden, it was no longer 'cool' to spend time with me. Her friends didn't want her bringing her dorky little sister around while they were hanging out. And the girlfriends, well…"

The pain in Cynthia's voice told Maddi just what it was that was hurting her. Maddi suspected that it wasn't that she envied her sister.

She felt abandoned.

"And to make matters worse, my parents had finally started paying attention to us," Cynthia bitterly continued. "Paying attention to her. Her grades were amazing, and her pokemon were getting strong. She had managed to defeat the gym leader from Rustboro City, Roxanne, and mom and dad threw her a party! …And they never did stuff like that for me."

"You felt like you didn't belong, didn't you?" Maddi asked. Cynthia sat up and turned to Maddi, her eyes widening.

"Yeah, how did you know?!" Cynthia gasped, amazed that Maddi had understood that. She didn't realize how much she was wearing her feelings on her sleeve.

"When my parents died and I moved to a new region with my aunt… I felt like I didn't belong, too," Maddi explained quietly. "Especially after my sister moved out and left me alone, I felt like… there wasn't really anywhere I belonged. My sister, she was the only trace to my past life. And even the trips I took with her and the times she would visit weren't enough. Then, when she died, I just…" Maddi's voice trailed off.

"…Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "We were talking about your sister, and I just…"

"No, it's fine," Cynthia said. While Maddi had been talking, she had straightened up and crossed her legs, leaning in to listen more intently. "But… you're right. Even though I thought of her like a parent, for her to stop paying attention to me, and my real parents not paying much attention to me either, I just felt sort of… empty. And that's when I started, well…" A small smirk crossed her face. "Being a little naughty."

Maddi rolled her eyes.

"If the next words out of your mouth are 'daddy issues' I swear-"

"I began hanging around Violet, even when she didn't want me to. I would bug her and her friends, and just generally make myself a nuisance. And not only that, well… my grandma…" A nostalgic smile crossed Cynthia's face as her eyes glazed over. "I wasn't able to compete with my sister in terms of looks, or grades, or pokemon, but she'll never be able to match me in cooking. Violet doesn't care much about stuff like that, so it was something that could finally be me, you know?"

Maddi could understand that, too. She nodded in agreement, reassuring Cynthia a little bit more. "So that's why you were so odd about dinner a few nights ago."

"Yeah," Cynthia nodded. "So at first, I was happy with just being the bratty little sister, and then, well… as I went through puberty, stuff started to happen to me."

Maddi held up her hand before Cynthia could continue, shaking her head. "Let's… skip that part. I don't need to hear that."

Cynthia nodded, understanding that much, at least. "I'll skip the… prurient details. But needless to say, I was starting to get attracted to girls, like my sister. But as I went through puberty, expecting my body to fill out like hers, well…"

Cynthia glanced down at her slender body with remorse, and sighed. "I tried being more adult, focusing on perverted stuff so I would seem cool, adult like Violet's friends who I really wanted to get close to, especially this one girl who was so hot, I just couldn't… but no, they just saw me as an annoyance, and Violet saw me as an irritation, and, well… before I knew it, Violet was even drawing the attention of the girls I liked. And the boys, well, THEY only cared about how hot my big sister was, even though she never gave them the time of day. So I just, well… I stopped 'falling' for people. I focused on perversion and physical attraction, because I thought that no one would ever get in a serious relationship with me. I mean, well… my sister didn't want me around. My parents didn't care. And everyone else, well… I pushed them away with smiles and talks about big boobs. Not letting anyone get close, afraid that they would abandon me just like my sister."

Cynthia paused, sobering up. "I-I didn't mean to say all that stuff, it's just… my sister was so… I wished that she would notice me, that she would be my sister again, but she just…"

"Your relationship was only strained more," Maddi murmured. Cynthia nodded glumly.

"It was like everything she did was rubbing in my face how inferior I was. And it got so bad that I, well…" Cynthia buried her face in her hands. "I-I thought… I thought that it would be better to just run away, to never see her again. And that's when I heard about the Pokemon Academy. A high school where I could live a thousand miles away from Rustboro City, where no one knew Violet, and I could just be myself, without having to worry about anyone comparing me to her."

A bitter laugh escaped Cynthia's throat.

"And yet, even without my sister, the boy I fell for still ended up choosing an older, hotter girl than me. Have you seen Ayame? Compared to me, she's a giant. And that ass of hers… I couldn't even begin to compare. I'm just scrawny, perverted Cynthia Fafnir. I'm not girlfriend material. Tell me, how pathetic do you have to be to not be able to entice a teenage boy flushed with hormones into your bed?"

"That doesn't make you pathetic," Maddi replied. "We can't always be with who we want."

"Ooh, does Madison Whitmore have an unrequited love for somebody?" Cynthia giggled, shifting from sincerity mode to a coy smirk. "Spill the details!"

Maddi rolled her eyes. She didn't have anyone like that in her life, but it wasn't exactly a difficult position to imagine oneself in.

"Do you always deflect serious emotional moments with innuendo and jokes?" Maddi asked.

"Do you always deflect innuendo and jokes with serious emotional moments?" Cynthia replied.

The two sat in silence for a while.

"Cynthia, your relationship with your sister… I can't really speak on it," Maddi said. "That's your business. I can't make a decision for you, I can't help you. But I do know that when we were talking, she seemed to be legitimately happy for you, that you were doing okay. She cares about you, obviously. The whole conversation… I was seething with envy towards you. That you had this wonderful older sister in your life, who cared so much for you… I wished that I still had a sister like that."

"Your sister…" Cynthia murmured.

"It was wrong of me to be jealous over you for something like that," Maddi said. "Wishing that I was in your position… when I didn't even know your position, hearing about your family… it's why I tried to get closer to you these last few days. So that maybe I could start… I don't know. But maybe… we really can be friends."

Cynthia smiled. "I would like that. But Maddi, um…"

She swallowed.

"I know this must be hard, but… thank you. I know it wasn't easy to talk about your sister. I appreciate that you did, just to help me feel better. Compared to you, my problems are just…"

"I don't mind," Maddi interrupted. But the cracks in her voice told Cynthia otherwise. Clearly, her sister wasn't a very happy topic for Maddi to talk about. Maddi took a deep breath and shifted her sitting so that her right leg was extended. She took another deep breath. She reached down to her sock, her fingers trembling, much to Cynthia's fascination. She slowly rolled the sock down, revealing creamy white skin marred by a long burn scar running down it.

"That's…" Cynthia gasped. It wasn't as extensive as the burns across Caelia's body, but it still looked painful.

"You're not the only one with body issues," Maddi muttered. "This scar, it's just… I don't like showing it to people."

So that was why she didn't want to join them in the baths. Cynthia shook her head, covering her eyes, "then why did you show me?"

"…You shared some of your scars," Maddi said, rolling her sock back up. "It's only fair if I showed you some of mine."

"Maddi, you didn't have to-"

"We're friends, Cynthia," Maddi cut her off. She glanced to the side, correcting herself, "well, sort of friends I guess."

In truth, Maddi felt somewhat touched by everything that had just happened. She knew that her relationship with Cynthia wasn't exactly the best. They weren't besties or confidants, the closest they'd gotten was a drunken confessional in the inn's bathroom where Cynthia comforted Maddi as she vomited. But in spite of that, Cynthia had shared so much about herself with Maddi, someone she barely knew. Even after one of her closest friends had just betrayed her confidence. Certainly, maybe Maddi had been the best of a bad situation as there was no one else to confide in around here, but at the same time…

Cynthia had trusted Maddi with a lot, when she hadn't needed to. And to Maddi, that counted for quite a bit. So as she let all of that sit in, she slowly considered Cynthia, and wondered if she could bring herself to do the same, open up to this girl who had trusted her enough to open up to her, even knowing how strained their relationship was.

The weight of the silence filling the room was getting to be too much to bear for Cynthia. She could see the apprehension on Maddi's face, and it made her wonder if she was still wanted. Cynthia almost excused herself, when Maddi spoke up.

"Do you want to hear about my sister?" Maddi asked. "It… it's not a story I like to talk about. But… I think hearing about her might help with your situation. If only a little. Is that… okay?"

Cynthia suspected that Maddi wasn't interested in talking about her sister entirely for Cynthia's sake. It seemed like there was something inside of Maddi that was trying to get out, and she was using Cynthia's situation as an excuse to talk about it.

"My sister started a band in high school," Maddi said. "She toured all over the place with her and her fellow bandmates while I was living with my aunt. And sometimes, she would come home, and take me touring with her. Those were the best days of my life. With our parents gone, and living with my overbearing aunt, my sister was the source of so much happiness in my life.

"When I was thirteen, I ended up leaving my aunt's house to move in with my sister," Maddi continued. "It was just a small little place in Ecruteak City, but it was… it was nice. At least for a while."

"That… that's so recent," Cynthia said, feeling ashamed that she didn't have anything else to say. Maddi had lost her sister so recently. No wonder she was so withdrawn. She wanted to give the poor girl a hug, but she didn't know if Maddi would be receptive to that, so she said nothing, just staring sympathetically at her.

"And then… that night…" Maddi said, her voice cracking. "I didn't know that… that at one of her shows, my sister had gotten into a fight with some thugs. I-I had only heard about it… after. Much, much after. She… she hadn't thought it was something to worry about, I guess… I don't know… but that night, everything was normal… everything was fine… I went to sleep, just like usual. But… but then…"

Maddi's voice trailed off as she stared out into the distance.

"It was the heat, that's what I first noticed," she murmured. "My dream, it was so hot. And then, I found that I couldn't breathe. Not… odd for a dream, I guess, but… when I woke up to the feeling of my lungs burning, that's when everything was wrong. Our house, her house, it was… it was on fire, so much fire, smoke, everywhere… And while I gathered my pokeballs, Melicent, she… she burst into my room and grabbed me, and we were… we ran towards the exit… and then the ceiling came down, and my leg, it just… and Melicent was screaming, and…"

Maddi's voice caught in her throat as her eyes began to water. Cynthia stopped caring about her comfort at that point. Grim had floated down to soothe her, and Cynthia was going to do the same. She scuffled over to Maddi and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, you don't need to keep talking anymore," Cynthia assured her. But Maddi had gone too far at this point. It was all coming out. Words, tears, snot, all of it.

"I don't… I don't remember much after that," she admitted. "I woke up in the hospital, and heard… that the fire had… one of my sister's neighbors had pulled me from the fire, but Melicent, she wasn't, she didn't…"

Maddi's hand reached for her throat, clutching at the studded collar wrapped tightly around it. "I didn't even know she was dead until three weeks later…" she sobbed, wiping her eyes. "All they recovered, her collar… and Mist, her Seadra, and I… and I was alone again. I lost my parents… I lost my sister… I just… it's too much, I can't…"

Cynthia wished that someone closer to Maddi was here in her place. Sango. Sango should have been the one she was telling this painful story to, not her. Sango was the one who would know how to make her feel better. Cynthia was never good at doing stuff like that.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Maddi, I don't know what to say, I just…"

"It's fine," Maddi said, wiping her face. "You don't need to comfort me over something like this. I've been… dealing with this stuff for a long time now."

"Still… I'm sorry. I'm talking about my problems, and you, you just-"

"Cynthia." The sharpness in Maddi's voice made Cynthia flinch.

"Y-yeah?"

"My sister and I… we didn't always get along. But after my parents died, she was the most precious person in my life. So even though we fought sometimes, like any sisters, I idolized her. I wanted to be like her. As a younger sister… I think you might understand how that feels, right? The way you spoke, it's pretty clear that you do."

"Yeah, I do," Cynthia said, nodding.

"Then you understand that I would do anything to go back to that time," Maddi replied. "Anything to still have my sister around. Even if we fought, because I love her. And she loves me. And because… without her, this hole in my chest is just…"

Maddi's voice cracked again, and she was clearly resisting the urge to break down crying again. But she didn't need to keep talking, Cynthia had gotten the message, what Maddi had been about to tell her. Sisters were amazing and wonderful, and also a pain in the ass. And as bad as things might be between Cynthia and Violet… Maddi would trade places with her in an instant, because even having a sister who needled you and you constantly fought with, was better than that sister you love being gone forever.

Cynthia wasn't going to… apologize to Violet. There wasn't anything to apologize for. But Maddi had helped her realize just how much she wanted to keep Violet in her life, even if that meant she'd get annoyed or jealous every now and then. So she rocked Maddi while she cried, hoping that she was at least providing some amount of comfort to the girl who had helped her realize how she felt about her sister with more clarity.

Maddi and Cynthia have gotten closer over all this, and Maddi even trusted her enough to confide in her, after seeing Cynthia put so much trust in her. Hopefully, they can finally bury the hatchet.