Hello everyone, I promised at least one update a year and here I am. With good news as welll. The first draft of this fanfiction is nearing completion, so I'm gonna put out a call right here for a beta-reader. I'm not really looking for grammar or spellcheckers, I'm fairly confident I've got that myself. More someone who can find and point out structural flaws, see where things are unclear and give ideas as to how to clean things up, stuff like that. Until I've found one and we've gone over at least half of all that is written so far, I will most probably not be updating any more of this.

On another note, this fic has become so absurdly long that it will definitely more than 50 chapters. Both this chapter and the previous are less than a third of what was originally planned to be chapter 1, and that is one of the shorter ones. Overall, the doc for this beast is nearly 3k pages long, so future beta-reader, you have a lot of work ahead of you. I haven't decided how I'll break the chapters up yet, but it will probably be somewhere between 100 and 200 all in all. Once it all starts coming out, I hope it will be worth the long, long wait for all of you. I also hope it will be one the better Contestshipping fics to be found. Thank you all for your patience so far and I hope you can be wait for me for just a little bit longer.

IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING!

The previous chapter has been updated and now has several pages more content than it did before. Please reread it before moving on to this one, or you will be a bit confused (and miss out on some prime May/Drew fluff). Once again, this is all first draft stuff you're seeing here. Nothing has been touched since it was first written, so apologies if it's still a bit rough.

And without further ado, I hope you enjoy.

"I'm never paying for your lunch again", Drew sulked.

"I never asked you to", May chirped back. "I just accepted since you offered so nicely."

"And how was I supposed to know your stomach is a black hole, huh? The least you could've done was warn me."

"Would you have believed me?"

"I'd have probably thought you were being over dramatic and it couldn't be so bad."

"And there you have it."

The sun was absolutely lovely and her belly was full of delicious ramen. May stretched. Yep, she felt good. Wonderful even. This season was going to be great, she could feel it in her bones. Sure, Max, Ash and Brock may not be here, but that was fine. She could do this on her own.

"Hey Drew", she called to the sulking boy trotting after her.

"What?"

"We have a full week until the contest starts. You wanna come explore the city with me?"

He harrumphed and flicked his hair. Oh yeah, Drew did that. She hadn't seen that in a while. Odd, it didn't bother her anymore at all. It still looked awfully arrogant though.

"I don't think so", he answered. "Unlike some, I actually plan on winning this contest, so I'll be spending my time training."

May pursed her lips.

"I plan on winning too, you know", she puffed. "But there's more to life and coordinating than training. You also gotta have some fun once in a while. Oh wait, I forgot; you don't know how to do that."

"And some of us know only how to have fun", Drew shot back.

"Fine, how about this," May turned around to face him. "We go our own ways the first half of the day and use it to train for the contest. Then in the evening, around 4 or 5pm, we meet up and do something fun. That way, we can do both."

Drew sighed in defeat. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not if you ask me like that, you don't."

"Fine", Drew sighed again.

"Awesome!" May cheered and latched onto his arm, not noticing how the boy next to her stiffened at the contact. No, she had her mind elsewhere. After all, she had been on a mission before lunch had distracted her and it was high time to get back on track.

"Now take me to the contest hall! I have a season and an opener to sign up for!"

"You mean you haven't done that yet? Why am I not surprised?"

"I JUST arrived here like two or so hours ago, you know."

"Then what were you doing downtown? The contest hall is at the beach."

Now it was May's turn to stiffen. Because of course it had to be at the beach. Of course it had to be where she had come from. And of course Drew knew all of that. As if he needed any more reason to talk down to her. Ugh, the embarrassment.

"I knew that", she pouted.

"Of course you did," Drew smirked.

"Oh shut up, you!"

He chuckled, knowing that he won this round and took May back down the street she had originally come from. Just like before, she enjoyed the greenery and the clean air and all the cute little Quagsire that seemed to have absolutely no fear of humans. It was really a shame that she couldn't catch any. They were so cute it made her want to squeal. She could just imagine all the things she could do with them in an appeal.

Of course, she had to point out all the wonderful things she spotted to Drew; from the chocolate shop she had found earlier to an adorable cafe that she had missed. And all the while, Drew just smiled, incapable of doing anything but to humor her. Lucky for him the beach wasn't all too far away.

May was convinced that Drew really couldn't blame her for not seeing the Contest Hall from where the ships docked. The two locations were on completely opposite sides of the city, with the harbor being in the far north and the hall being in the far south. Not that she would tell him that. The way she knew him, he'd just come up with another stupid quip to humiliate her and Arceus knew he didn't need any more fodder for that. She shivered at the idea of him knowing that she heard voices when she was near the ocean.

"Hi, I'm here to sign up for the contest!" May chirped at the receptionist, a pretty bluenette with equally blue eyes and a large smile.

"My, you're early."

"Yep, I sure am!"

"For the first time ever", Drew smirked.

May just stuck her tongue out at him. First off, it wasn't even true, but even if it was, she had other things to worry about. She was here, signing up for her very first contest in Johto. Oh it was so exciting!

"Do you already have a contest pass for Johto or is this your first time competing in this region?" The receptionist interrupted them.

"Nope. Only competed in Hoenn and Kanto so far."

The receptionist smile got even wider. Man, she was pretty. If May was even half as pretty as her when she grew up, she'd have nothing to complain about.

"How exciting! You must be a seasoned coordinator then. I can't wait to watch you perform. Alright now, stand over there please, I need to take your picture."

Said and done. Once May's picture was taken, all that was left to do was to print out the pass and May was all registered. Joyful joyful and all that jazz.

"Anything else you need?" Drew asked.

"Just the Pokemon Center, but I can find that on my own."

"I mean …"

"Don't even try. I know you Drew, you're itching to get back to training. So off you go. Shoo, shoo."

Drew chuckled again, tilting his head at the bubbly girl in front of him. She just smiled back, knowing perfectly well what was going through his head. He wasn't nearly as stoic and unreadable as he thought he was and once they had finally gotten to that point where they could talk halfway normally without constantly trying to outdo each other, she had figured that out pretty fast.

"Thanks May. Have a nice day." Drew said, before turning around.

He released his Roselia, who turned around real quick to wave goodbye at May before returning all her attention back to her trainer.

"Hey Drew! Tomorrow at 5 in front of the Pokemon Center," May cried just before he left the hall.

Drew just waved a hand lazily, not even bothering to turn around, and gone he was. May turned to the receptionist, still not quite capable of getting over just how gosh darn pretty she was.

"I'll be off, too. Thanks for everything. I'll see you next week."

Mew the beach was gorgeous. Oh what the hell, the Pokemon Center could wait. She was already here and she had a promise to her Pokemon to fulfill. So she grabbed all her Pokeballs at once and threw them into the air.

"Come on out everyone! It's time to play!"

And play they did. In one swift move, May had rid herself of all her clothes, leaving her only in the swimsuit she was wearing underneath and just like that, she and Squirtle and Eevee were already jumping into the ocean. Beautifly was not far behind, hovering above them, while Blaziken picked up all of May's stuff and found a nice place to sunbathe. By the time May finally reached the Pokemon Center, the sun was already setting and she was ready to to plop into the feathers and pass out.

That's it for today. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think so far, if you're still following, if you're excited for what's to come. And leave me a DM if you're interested in Beta-ing for me. Feel free to leave any questions, I promise to answer them next time. Until then, here's another preview and I'll see you around.

"So what do you think? Can you beat him?"

"No idea. But at the very least, I'm gonna give him a run for his money."

"Knock yourself out."

There was something odd about how supportive she was being. "You're not rooting for Drew to win?"

"Nah. He's still way too arrogant for his own good. It'll take more than one or two defeats at your hand to knock him down a few pegs."

May had to laugh at that. Solidad certainly had a point there. Not too long ago, she'd have rooted for Solidad too, just to see him humbled.

… Not too long ago? What an odd thing to think. But when she imagined Drew and SOlidad going against each other, she couldn't see herself rooting for anyone but Drew. When had that happened?