I'm sorry for uploading this on Monday, but I was too busy to write this over the weekend. Also, just a quick warning, I will be doing Sky Battles in this chapter, but I've completely forgotten how those are initiated. I did watch Ash battle in one, then read a description of the episode, but that's it. So, please forgive this being inaccurate. I was going to make this a shorter chapter, but went on a few tangents here and there, so now it's my usual 2,000 words. Despite that, it still manages to get a bit messy in the middle since I was a bit strapped for ideas, but I still hope you enjoy it.
CHAPTER 32:
Sky Battling
It takes Bonnie a few days to fully get over seeing a former Team Flare Admin again. During that time, they travel at a slow pace, and Max forgoes his notebook in favour of making sure Bonnie's ok. After 3 days of travel, she assures Max that's she's fine again, so they resume their journey at their former pace, and Max resumes his work on his notebook. In truth, Bonnie is still affected by seeing Mable. The sight of her has brought back loads of horrible memories flooding back, to the point that she has even been suffering from a few nightmares. But, seeing Max enter his Observant State has always made her feel better, so she lies about feeling better so she can see it again.
However, Max soon figures out that she's still struggling from seeing Mable. She wakes up one night from a terrible nightmare about the Lumiose Incident, however this one happened now, and she was forced to watch as Max was lost to the vines trying to save her. Max wakes her up to snap her out of it, and she clings to him tightly, shaking like a leaf. His cheeks go a bit pink at this, but he hugs her back, nonetheless.
After this night, Max goes back to trying to help her, however he agrees not to stop writing in his notebook. But he also misses seeing the sparkle in Bonnie's eyes whenever she battles. That hasn't happened since their encounter with Momiji. So, he decides to try to find something to help her get back to her old self, just like she did for him after the Battle Chateau fiasco. And as luck would have it, there was a canyon used for Sky Battling not to far away from where they are camping. So, once they both finish packing up, he leads Bonnie over to it, hoping it will cheer her up.
Bonnie is confused by the route Max leads her. He's brought them off of the path to Coumarine, and over to a small canyon. Bonnie's curiosity is answered when she sees what's on this canyon. Max is expecting her to be joyful, but with the look on her face, you'd swear he just showed her that Christmas has come early. But she also looks rather confused. "How the Distortion Realm are we in Kalos Canyon?" she asks. "That should be between Cyllage and Shalour." Max shrugs. "Must be just the way we came at it I guess" he suggests. Bonnie shrugs too. "Kinda feels like we've thrown continuity out the window a bit to go back on something that was forgotten" she comments. The two look at each other, shrug, then Bonnie takes Max's hand and drags him over to the centre for Sky Battles.
When they arrive at the centre, Max is quite surprised to find out that one of the instructors recognised Bonnie. But in hindsight, he probably shouldn't be. Bonnie and the instructor chat for a little bit, before he says something about keeping his promise to her. Max is about to ask what that means, when the instructor goes away for a few seconds, before coming back holding up a bright pink and white wing suit. Seeing the look of confusion on Max's face, Bonnie explains that she came here with Ash and the others 4 years ago, but she was too small to wear the wing suits. So that instructor promised to make her one of her own should she come back when she's taller. While she does this, the instructor goes off and finds a wing suit for Max.
Once Max is wearing his, which is green and white, the instructor leads him and Bonnie over to an air tunnel, so they can practice with the suits. To Max's total lack of surprise, Bonnie is a natural, getting the hang of controlling it in no time flat. If Bonnie is being honest with herself, she is expecting Max to have a bit of difficulties with this, since his balance isn't very good, however he too quickly gets the hang of it, albeit slower than Bonnie did.
Once the two are certain that they're ready to try out Sky Battling, the instructor leads them over to where they can launch themselves out into the canyon. However, as they're about to do that, Bonnie sees someone that makes her blood run cold and boil at the same time, somehow. Trixie. She's walking over to them, wearing a pink and white wing suit, and a cocky expression on her face. "Well, well, well," she says as she approaches, making Max stop and turn to see what's going on. "Looks like we meet again Citron." Bonnie nods curtly but says nothing. Max however looks rather confused. "Who's this?" he asks.
Though Trixie tries to hide it, Bonnie can see that she's a bit shocked and a small bit hurt at his words. Though Bonnie hates to admit it, she's a small bit entertained by the sight. "I'm Trixie Cadieux," she says haughtily. "Her rival." Max's face flashes with recognition as he remembers their battle on the beach. But Trixie looks at Bonnie again, and Bonnie gets the impression that she meant more than just in battle. "In fact," Trixie goes on, "I've just had an idea. How about we have a Sky Battle Bonnie?" Bonnie shakes her head. "I was going to have one with Max," she replies. "I might later though" she adds, having no intention of following up on that.
Unfortunately, Max's neurodiversity causes him to fail to realise that Bonnie is lying. "Oh no it's ok," he says, "you guys can battle. I don't have a flying type anyway." Trixie can't help but laugh at that. "What idiot doesn't bring a flying type to a sky battle?" she asks. Max looks a bit down at this, and Bonnie's anger flares even more. "If you must know!" she snaps. "This was a spur of the moment decision on his part in order to cheer me up! So, I'd thank you to be more civil!" Trixie scoffs and heads over to the edge where they can take off. "Whatever," she says. "So, are we doing this or not?" Then she takes off before Bonnie can reply. Bonnie sees red and follows after her, with Max coming behind.
The three fly around for a little bit, with Bonnie finally getting to enjoy the chance to fly around like this. Then, she and Trixie settle down and got ready for their battle. Max sits on the edge of the cliff, looking around at all of the flying types in the air and writing about them. Bonnie grits her teeth and pulls out Fletchinder's pokéball. She's going to make Trixie pay for insulting that boy. Trixie grins cockily, then sends out her pokémon, a Pidgeot. Bonnie sends out Fletchinder, and their battle commences.
At first, the battle goes quite poorly for Bonnie. She's so angry about Trixie's taunt towards Max that she makes rather poor decisions. It doesn't help that Fletchinder seems to be aware of what happened and seems keen to defend her master's friend's honour. Because of the fact that they're both fighting in anger, their judgement is clouded, which gives Trixie the upper hand early on.
She wastes no time in taunting Bonnie about this of course. "How can you expect to win if you're so emotional?!" she shouts. "It's no wonder your friend needed to find a way to cheer you up, since you seem to let your emotions get the better of you!" "Rude of you to say that when he's so near," Bonnie retorts, trying not to let the taunting get to her. "He wouldn't want to befriend someone who mocks his friends!" Trixie chuckles. "He's too absorbed in his own head to notice," she replies. "And anyway, he'd probably prefer a traveling partner who can keep a level head!"
That last comment stings particularly badly. Max's focus on his journey is researching pokémon, and she's put a stop to that on several occasions with her impulsive decisions. But before she can delve too much into this spiral, she hears Max shout, "Pay no attention to that prick! Traveling with someone who has total control over their emotions sounds really boring! I'd rather travel with someone who can form an emotional bond with their pokémon! That Pidgeot probably doesn't even know what the word 'bond' means!" Trixie looks affronted at this. "Damn, so he was listening" she mutters to herself.
Bonnie smiles at Max's words. "Thanks Max!" she replies. "I needed that. Now, come on Fletchinder, let's show her what emotions can do!" Fletchinder screeches in agreement, then envelops herself with flame. Bonnie thinks she's about to launch in with a flame charge, but instead this ball of flame grows bigger. Soon it vanishes, and Fletchinder is gone. In her place is a mighty Talonflame. Max looks eagerly at the new pokémon and begins scribbling away on his notebook like mad. Meanwhile, Bonnie grins at Trixie, then shouts, "Talonflame, Brave Bird!"
Talonflame cries out, then launches herself at the Pidgeot, throwing it into the side of the cliff. Before it can get a chance to recover, Bonnie orders Talonflame to use flame charge, which throws Pidgeot a bit further into the crater it made and knocks it out. Talonflame looks very tired after that battle, but proud of herself, nonetheless. Bonnie flies up to her and hugs her tightly, thanking her for her help. Then, she returns her to her ball and flies over to Trixie, who had just done the same with Pidgeot. Max flies over too, prepared to mitigate any fight that might start.
However, Trixie simply beams at Bonnie. "I knew you could do it," she says happily, but it doesn't take a genius to know it was forced. "Sorry about how cruel my taunting got, I just noticed you weren't in the right headspace for a battle, so I wanted to spur you on a bit. But I went too far. I'm truly sorry about that." Bonnie resists the urge to roll her eyes but decides to play along with it. "It's alright," she replies, holding her hand out to shake. "Let's just move on from it, shall we?" Trixie smiles broadly and shakes her hand. "Thank you," she says as she shakes Bonnie's hand. "I promise you I won't be so harsh in future. See you soon!" Then she flies off.
Max can' help but laugh at the encounter. "What a two-faced bitch!" he says. "Who does she think she's fooling?" Bonnie laughs and looks at Talonflame's pokéball. Max looks a bit apprehensive at this. "I'm sorry about that," he says. "If I had known that was going to happen, I would've steered us clear. I was hoping to cheer you up like you did for me, but I guess that failed." Bonnie looks at him and smiles. "What do you mean?" she asks. "This was great! I finally got to fly around in the wing suit, I got to wipe that grin off of Trixie's face, and Fletchinder evolved into Talonflame! I'd say your plan worked perfectly!" Max smiles back and the two hug.
They spend a bit more time flying around in the suits, even trying to race each other to see who can get back to the centre first. But eventually, they had their fill and return the suits. Bonnie thanks the instructor over and over for making the suit, then they head back on their original road to Coumarine. And true to Bonnie's word, the Sky Battle helped immensely. She seems to have more or less gotten over the shock of seeing a Team Flare Admin again, and has completely returned to normal. Max is relieved to see this, since he missed the fire of battle in Bonnie's eyes. But of course, he has absolutely no idea why.
Sorry about the weird way the chapter ended, I was a bit stuck there. Also, wow Trixie was a lot worse in this chapter than I originally planned. The reason I randomly made Trixie a total dick is because I realised that I had started to make Bonnie hate Trixie, but for a really stupid, shallow, and OOC reason, that being because she seems to fancy Max as well. So, I decided to give her a legitimate reason to hate her, but I may have gone a bit overboard. As for the whole Sky Battle thing itself, I was totally stuck for ideas on what to do with this chapter, so my brother suggested I add the Sky Battles in. I thought they happened later on in the story, but they actually happen pretty early, hence why I threw in the self-aware bad writing joke, because I need to make fun of myself a few times in this fic. Anyway, with that, I'll see you all on Saturday.