in this chapter, Soledad talks to Drew; but his attention is... elsewhere. the green-haired young male coordinator doesn't really know how he's supposed to tell his coordinator friend/older-sister figure that she might have just been right about the girl in the red bandana, so I suppose he's trying to avoid the subject as much as possible. the chapter is called 'Talking to Soledad in Kanto' and it's worth seven-hundred-twelve words.
disclamation: I do not own the Pokémon anime, nor do I own any of the characters. Pokémon and its franchise are the sole ownership property of Satoshi Tajiri, as in the forever lead character, Ash's, Japanese name Satoshi. I do not even own the storyline format of this very fanfiction. this fanfiction was originally written by another blogger by the penname of IWriteFandomStuff. I am merely rewriting the fanfiction they wrote into a more family-oriented one in keeping with the rating of the TV show.
Our conversation started out in the usual format; Soledad got things going until I would have finally eased into the conversation and began talking of my own accord. This time, however, we had a lot more to catch up on with our conversation. Soledad and I had hardly even gotten the chance to speak to one another in just over two weeks. It was a hard two weeks as I spent the time training my pokémon and Soledad still had a bit of her time in Sinnoh left before she headed back to Kanto to take on the contest circuit there. Long story short, we were both completely clueless as to what had gone on in the other's life for the past fourteen days, give or take a few hours.
Soledad kept going on and on about a kid back in Pewter City who had hopes of becoming a coordinator just like her and had asked her to help him train. She had gotten back from Sinnoh just a few days ago from her travels not long after winning her fifth ribbon, just as she promised she would. She had left for Kanto within just five months of when their Grand Festival was supposed to be held. Naturally, it started a media frenzy with the press for 'Sinnoh Now', along with 'Coordinator's Weekly' magazine. The article inside was headlined…
'Coordinator's Weekly' magazine headline: Well-known Kantonian coordinator, Soledad of Pewter City, backs out of Sinnoh Contest Circuit just a whole five months before the Sinnoh Grand Festival. Where in the region the Sinnoh Grand Festival will be held, undecided. We will miss you, well-known Kantonian coordinator Soledad of Pewter City.
It was just another one of many similar headlines and featured news stories from the various contest circuit magazines which I had seen. I had stopped counting just how many similar articles there were in the magazines, the newspaper, on television after the fifth or so cover on such a story. I never really even liked reading those magazines, anyway.
I could never even tolerate the stuff the press would put in there about me, much less like it in any possible way. The things in those magazines the editors wrote about me always sounded to me as though a stalker had told the media about them. I always found it quite disturbing. It also always managed to make me feel pretty uneasy.
Soledad was no top-coordinator, but she was well-known throughout Hoenn, Kanto, Sinnoh and Jhoto, basically every region where the contest circuit existed. She had always breezed through all of her contests and contest seasons with hers and her pokémon's natural power and elegance. My elder-sister-figure even made it to the top four in her first ever Grand Festival. She was a nobody when she first started out. By the end of her first ever season, however, her name could be heard within any and every contest hall's locker room by the nervous and envious whispers of other contestants.
Soledad: He wants to catch and use a Snorlax in the contest appeals, said he thinks the display of power could easily win him high points. It was at least cute, and he was so eager, and he wanted so much to try so hard. I just told him that a Munchlax would most likely be a better choice for contest appeals than its evolved form of a Snorlax. I had to explain to him that the pairing of strength and the ability to move around and use the whole stage would make a better use of the appeals round.
To this, I just nodded absentmindedly.
I was kind of only giving her end of our conversation half of my attention. The other half of my attention was on the ideas I was trying to scribble down for my pokémon to use in our next contest. This was by no means a matter of nerves or anything as stupid as such. Drew Hayden never gets nervous. I had plenty of time to win and earn my two remaining contest ribbons and I was by no means worried about that.
I was, however, worried about… other things that were on my mind.