The writers have spoken. Shelly has arrived.
The elderly couple that owned Hoenn's Berry Farm were used to opening their doors, and their crops, to kids on a Pokedex journey. They knew Professor Birch pretty well, and though they had never met his daughter, they were more than willing to let her and her friend sleep on their floor before heading out to stock up on berries in the morning.
"So are you helping your father with research, May?" the old man asked, unaware of her feelings on the matter.
"In a way," she replied, picking a few Cheri Berries from a tree. "I'm mostly doing my own thing, but this is a Pokedex journey. I'm supposed to look for new and undiscovered Pokémon."
Brendan, who seemed to have made it his goal to pick every Leppa Berry on the farm, stopped mid-pluck. "We are?"
"That's why the professors do it, and why the Pokedex carriers have to be recommended."
"Not us," Brendan protested.
May dismissed it. "He knew that I could handle the world, and you saved him from a wild Pokémon. We're not full exceptions."
The berry man chuckled. "Well, you kids seem to be getting into trouble on a regular basis, I hear. The professor told us that you had an encounter with Team Aqua and Team Magma."
"You've heard about them?"
"Only from Professor Birch," the man clarified. "I wouldn't know who they are, only that they hate each other and have bad ideas."
"That's all you really need to know," Brendan said, returning to his berry picking. "We can handle them, we have Mega Evolution now."
May moved on to the Sitrus Berries, all with a smug smile. "You don't have an Aggron yet. I can do better." Ignoring the fact that she didn't have the supposedly necessary bond with Latias, having only just saved and obtained her the previous evening. She still had a legendary, which was more than Brendan could say.
Brendan pretended not to hear her. He'd get his revenge someday.
"Let's make one thing clear," Brendan said as he and May carefully made their way through a patch of grass that was taller than they were. "Once we rule Hoenn, it will be illegal for grass to be any taller than the average ten-year-old child to see over. I will have patrol Pelipper flying around to make sure of it, and send Adam to burn down any grass that breaks that rule."
"I'm not sure setting stuff on fire is the way to solve that particular problem," May said calmly, pushing aside some grass so she could see properly. "But I agree with the general idea."
"And how would you suggest solving the problem?"
May's answer was immediate and obvious: "Herbivores. Pokémon that live by eating grass. We'll tie a bunch of them to Pokémon who know Fly, and have them graze off the top."
"But can a Swellow lift a Miltank?"
She didn't answer that one. "Swords," she decided after a moment of consideration. "Better yet, chainsaws. Chainsaws are good. Not as pretty as a sword, but much faster."
Brendan had a good laugh at imagining his second-in-command with a chainsaw, but regretted it when he ended up with a blade of grass going down his throat.
"I'll burn this thing down first," he declared once he'd gotten it out of his mouth and the coughing fit had stopped. "We'll use the chainsaws when it grows back."
For that, May had to agree, especially when one blade of grass managed to bend itself back up and into her nose.
She'd been wrong about the rain around one route. Brendan wished she hadn't been. It would be easier to deal with rain than whatever this was.
There were two pirates guarding the bridge that they had to cross to reach Fortree City, presumably guarding the Weather Institute behind them from the Fortree Gym Leader.
Brendan wasted no time in going for the building. "They should have guarded the door," he pointed out, pushing that very door wide open. "Or at the very least locked it."
"It's Team Aqua," May reminded him. "Only Archie and Matt seem to have any brain at all."
"And even then it's half a brain between them," Brendan agreed. "Well, let's go. They aren't going to take themselves out."
May didn't comment, but Brendan knew what she was thinking.
There were more pirates inside, waiting for intruders. May briefly considered using Latias to sneak back out to Mauville City and buying a pair of blue pirate costumes, but she silenced those thoughts and followed Brendan, carefully avoiding being seen.
There was a more distracted group, consisting of about four or five grunts, who seemed to have a betting chart up and running. They were including calendars for the next five years, but the kids couldn't see what it was before they had to duck behind a computer desk. By the time they felt safe coming back up, the gambling chart had been taken down and the grunts spread.
"We have to find out what they were all making bets on," May said as she followed Brendan up the stairs. "You know that, right?"
"No," Brendan replied, not in answer but as a command. "We really don't."
"We really do," May insisted. "It's for research purposes."
"No, we don't. It's for sanity purposes."
May might have insisted further, or perhaps made a face or pretended to pout, but the pair had reached the top floor, and had immediately come face-to-face with a pair of Team Aqua grunts.
"Shelly had a feeling we'd bump into you two," one of them chuckled. "We've all heard about you. Tell us - whose side are you on now?"
"We're on our own side," Brendan said, and the pair of pirates didn't even seem surprised. "We want to see your leader - this Shelly person, was it? Let her explain your plan, and we'll consider joining."
"Actually," the other grunt said, a wicked smile slowly breaking across his face, "she gave us pretty clear orders. If we see kids snooping around the Weather Institute, we get rid of them."
"You really don't want to try," May warned, and anyone more aware of the trail of destruction she and Brendan usually left behind them would have left them alone. Instead, these idiots seemed to take the warning as a challenge.
As they sent out their Pokémon for battle, Brendan looked over at his friend. "They deserve what's coming to them."
"You know what they say." May picked her first Pokeball. "Ask, and you shall receive. Pikachu, take the stage!"
"Breloom, do the thing!"
With the grunts beaten, Brendan and May were free to move on, and it didn't take them long to find who they assumed was Shelly. It wasn't a far leap - her uniform, if one could call it that, was almost entirely different from what the female grunts were usually seen wearing. She was standing guard over hostages, obviously smart enough to not trust the grunts with such an important task.
Why she thought that they could get rid of Brendan and May was a question best left unasked.
Shelly immediately guessed who they were, as well.
"So you're the kids Archie was talking about," she commented, almost casual for the situation. "I thought the grunts could stall you for a while. I never expected you to win in just ten minutes."
"Archie's encountered us enough that you should have." Brendan carefully held Breloom's ball. "And you use Water-types and May has a Pikachu."
Shelly wasn't sidetracked by the statement. "Why do you try to stop us? You're not on Team Magma's side any more than you're on ours. You should just be innocent spectators."
"True," Brendan admitted, "but we left innocent behind the minute Tabitha kidnapped Professor Cozmo. We're Team Breakneck now. Land and sea are both under the sky, so both you and Team Magma will be crushed under us." He shrugged. "It's logic, Shelly."
But Shelly was shaking her head in disbelief, and even her hostages weren't so much scared as they were confused. "That's not how organizing a team works," she said quietly, almost as if disappointed, but then she returned to the subject. "I don't like to hurt children. I have standards. But if those children need to learn a lesson, I have no trouble using force to get it through their heads."
Brendan and May, not for the first time, tried to telepathically communicate. "I'll teach you a lesson myself," Brendan decided. "Namely, why you should listen to your boss when he tells you that two kids thwart your plans at every turn."
Since Shelly only used a Carvanha and a Migtyena, Breloom had no problem sweeping her whole team by himself. Her defeat only seemed to make Shelly angrier, but upon hearing that Team Magma was on their way to a place called Mt. Pyre, she proved that she had her priorities straight when she decided to go after the much more organized threat.
"This isn't over," Shelly hissed as she passed them, even though she was on her way out of the building. "We'll put an end to Team Magma, and then we'll move on to you. Your luck will run out someday."
And, giving a gesture of command, she and the other Team Aqua members were gone.
One of the weather scientists sighed in relief. "I'm not entirely sure what they wanted, but thank you for saving our research. In return, I would like you to take this Pokémon."
He offered Brendan a ball, out of which burst a small gray Pokémon that kind of looked like a gray cloud wearing a superhero mask. Brendan looked at it, then over at May.
"It seems more like one of your types," he decided. "You should take it."
"Really?" May didn't look much like she wanted another new Pokémon so soon, but Brendan was insistent.
"It's small and cute and looks Contest-ready. I'm sure you can get a few ribbons in another category."
The Pokémon was cute. There was nothing wrong with it. But May didn't want it for herself. Instead, she accepted the gift with a much better plan in mind.
Once the Pokémon, Castform as they called it, was secure with her other Pokémon, they said goodbye and left the Weather Institute behind, not looking back.
"So," May said, looking down at her Pokémon. "I have a full team. You don't. Do you have any plans for filling up those empty spots?"
"No," Brendan answered immediately. "But trust me, I'll know them when I see them. And since you have a legendary, I'm thinking of chasing down Heatran. Having a volcano god...goddess..." He stopped to see if the ancient Sinnoh volcano spirits came to give him advice, but didn't receive any. Didn't anyone who encountered it get close enough to check if it was male or female? "Having a volcano deity on our side should be fun."
"Brendan," May started, her tone setting him up for disappointment, "I like you, but you are the last person in the world I would trust to handle a legendary Pokémon responsibly. If I had to choose between my first publication-bound work and stopping you from catching a legendary...well, chances are that the book was only in its first draft anyway. You," she poked him in the chest for emphasis, "are not tracking down Heatran."
Brendan just faked innocence again. She was really starting to hate that.