Author's Note:

This story loosely follows cannon in the anime in that there will be references to things that happened in the anime, but I am running with my creative license and it won't completely match up. Not in the least because assassins don't exist in the amine... haha.

Characters are in their early twenties, so this is roughly 10-12ish years after their anime arc. Pokemon do exist in this AU and I'll stick with their original teams.

This story will be romantic, suspenseful, dark, thrilling, and heart-wrenching. If you don't want to feel things, stop reading now!

I have the main plot mapped out but if there's anything or any characters you want me to include, let me know in a review and I'll add them in!

I really hope you like this story because I'm having a lot of fun writing it.

Edit November 2023: I have changed a slight detail thanks to an idea from Scriptress and updated a couple of mistakes I noticed in the original draft. Otherwise everything is the same.

Enjoy!

Chapter One

Dead Man Talking

May Maple walked into the bar wearing a ruby red business suit with her hair pulled back into a tight bun. A few wisps of hair fell loose either side of her face, but she couldn't win them all.

A couple of people glanced her way as her kitten heels clicked over the floor, but whether they were looking at her or the large polished red clipboard she hoisted in front of her chest, she couldn't be sure.

Most assassins preferred to stick to the shadows and sneak around invisibly. Not May Maple. People expected assassins to skirt the edge of a room. No-one expected an assassin to walk up and announce their presence.

She pinpointed Drew Hayden sitting at the bar. Dressed in a pristine grey suit as if he'd just stepped out of a business commercial—or a meeting—he sipped a red drink from a tall glass.

Her approach required subtlety: something she was not known for, but she'd come up with the perfect plan. Without another single glance in his general direction, she walked up to the bar and smiled at the bartender, using her hair to shield her face from the side Hayden was sitting on. Not that he would be looking at her anyway.

"Your sweetest Rosé, please," she said to the bartender. She wasn't supposed to order her real favourite drink when she was out on business, but what harm could it do, really? Hayden was about to be dead, he wasn't going to tell anyone.

As the bartender nodded and turned away, she seized the opening to flip her hair over her shoulder and turn a bright smile towards Hayden.

"Drew Hayden, May Maple from Cacturn Press. May I have a moment of your time to ask a few questions about your strategy regarding the merge?"

This was the part she had down to a T. She'd rehearsed it in her Pokémon Center room for hours.

She gazed at him with the glazed smile she'd noted on other female reporter's faces whenever they were caught on news channels. She'd always been a performer.

He turned his head slowly towards her, thick green hair falling into his left eye.

"June, is it?" With those three words he would have devastated any other woman. Being the hottest, youngest, richest businessman in Hoenn, every woman between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five wanted to date him.

Not May Maple. She was immune to his charms, seeing him for exactly who he was: a stuck-up, selfish, egotistical jerk who didn't deserve an ounce of the fame he relished in. It was why Harley hired her: she was the only woman in the world not enchanted by Hayden's charms. She was also the only assassin who stood a chance of getting close enough to Hayden to successfully kill him. Many male assassins before her had tried; they could never get past Hayden's security team. Harley had a hunch it would take a female assassin to lower Hayden's guard.

This was a high-risk case. If she failed, the best-case scenario was spending a lifetime in prison. The worse case scenario? She died at the hands of his security team.

"Actually, my name is May—"

The bartender placed a wine glass of sparkling Rosé in front of her as Hayden waved his hand to cut her off. His skin was pale; he clearly didn't spend enough time in the sun.

"I don't care. Look, you seem nice and all. But I don't do interviews not approved by my media manager. If you want an exclusive, her number is on the internet somewhere. You look like the go-getter type. You'll find it."

He turned away, assuming that to be the end of the conversation.

He was wrong.

"Mister Hayden, did you know Rustboro Robotics is giving interviews to every news outlet they can find? They're certain they are about to run LaRousse Robotics out of business. Do you have anything to say about that?"

Her arguments were well-rehearsed. She tucked the bothersome strands of hair that kept falling in her face back behind her ear. She would get him, one way or another.

He took a long sip of his drink, draining half of it. She caught a faint whiff of strawberry.

"Miss July," he began icily, "I have warned you. Do I need to call my head of security over to escort you from the premises? He looks like he's enjoying his break. I doubt he will be pleased to be back on duty so soon."

May followed Hayden's eyeline to a nearby table where a large, bulky man stuffed into a tight black suit had his eyes closed, enjoying a beer.

When she'd entered the bar, she'd noted the four men dressed in suits with radios clipped onto their belts and full teams of six pokéballs on easy display standing four meters away from Hayden, lining the sides of the bar. She supposed even Hayden needed a drink at a bar without security hovering over his head at times, and she counted it as lucky for letting her get close to him without being challenged.

She needed a new strategy.

"Mister Hayden, I think you need to hear this. I don't usually reveal information to interviewees…" She fluttered her eyelashes, hoping to come across coy. Her cheeks burned red in embarrassment at the fool she was making of herself, but it would work in her favour if he assumed she was blushing—which he would, because that was every woman's response to him.

Inside, her bones wriggled with loathing. She hated acting like this, but in order to keep her cool, she repeated to herself the reason for taking on this assignment: Drew Hayden was the worst type of billionaire. He was arrogant, snarky, rude, and didn't deserve an ounce of his fame. He knew every woman in the world wanted him and every man wanted to be him, and he capitalised on it. He fed their frenzy with short snippets in interviews and press conferences but he never let the world get to know the real him. He hid every part of his real life and relied on his looks to keep him famous. While his wealth may come from his business, he didn't earn it. He inherited it from his father, and he only assumed control of LaRousse Robotics after failing to become a Top Coordinator for the fifth time (which, fifth time, pfft! May had never quit her own Grand Festival attempts, even if she'd put coordinating on hold for a while. Quitters didn't deserve fame! And Hayden absolutely capitalised on the popularity he gained during his time on the coordinating circuit!)

So, there were many reasons May despised the handsome, too-smug-for-his-boots businessman in front of her. And now she needed to pour every inch of her hatred into her performance, in order to complete her assignment.

Hayden waited, eyebrow slightly arched as if vaguely interested, but his eyes trailed the ceiling above her.

The fact he didn't even deign to look at her… he was practically asking to be assassinated!

"I can't not say anything," May continued, in her best seductive voice. "I can't bear the thought of anything bad happening to you!" She winced as she heard the high pitch in her voice. Too much! She needed to reign it in. She coughed lightly and carried on. "Cacturn Press has a reliable source who informed us of a product Rustboro Robotics is about to launch next week that will blow LaRousse Robotics out of the water. Obviously I shouldn't be telling you any of this, but I…" she paused to swallow her contempt and took a breath to refocus. "I've followed your journey since you were a coordinator and I'm still rooting for you!"

To her own ears, the fake-ness of her falsetto tone was obvious. But to Hayden, it was what he heard every day from obsessed fangirls.

He still didn't look at her as he drawled, "I get a dozen threats a day like that from businesses and press alike trying to get me to reveal information. Unless you have something concrete you can prove will be useful to me, you need to leave me alone. I'm this—" he held up his thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart— "close to calling my security team off their break."

May took a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, noting that none of the four security guards were paying them any attention. If anything, they were studiously looking away from her and Hayden. Her lip curled in disgust; was this his way of flirting? Did he get off on putting women down and relish in their adoration for him regardless?

Her heart sped up as she realised this was the opening she'd been gearing towards throughout their whole encounter. The guards weren't looking at them and Hayden was scanning the bottles of liquor behind the bar with lazy eyes; not because he was interested in them but because he wanted to feign disinterest in her.

She'd never been as invisible as she was in this moment.

As she began her next sentence, she reached into her pocket for the small vial she'd prepared back in the Pokémon Center.

"I can't say here… too many people," she murmured, slowly moving her head as if looking around for anyone who might be listening in. As she did so, she kept Hayden's face in her peripheral vision, and lifted the vial in her hand to hover over the remaining liquid in his glass.

"If you agree to an interview with me in a secure location, I'll tell you everything you need to know."

She tilted the vial as she spoke and the poison slid into his drink. It was a clear substance, and the strawberry daiquiri would mask the taste.

Hayden turned his head to meet her eyes just as she slipped the vial back into her pocket. Her cheeks were on fire with the risk she'd taken. If he'd looked at her one second sooner, she would have been caught.

"In a secure location?" he asked with a sigh. "Really? I've never heard that one before."

Her heart was thumping up a storm inside her chest and her skin felt too hot, like a heart attack was coming on.

She'd been working as an assassin for a few years now, but she'd never actually killed anyone. Harley hired her as a favour, because of their contest history—he felt bad beating her out in the Grand Festival semi-finals four years running, after which she decided to pause her career. He hired her at Cacturn Press, which was a front for the assassination guild he secretly coordinated on the side. Still, she wasn't exactly a natural at the whole assassin thing. This was the first assignment Harley let her take on, and only because she begged for it—due to her long running grudge against Hayden, it was perfect. No-one was more motivated than her to kill the most popular billionaire in the world. Mostly because all the other female assassins at Cacturn Press wanted to date him.

But now she was confronted with the very real scenario of Hayden being about to drink poison which would kill him, and if she didn't leave soon, she would have to watch him die.

Her throat was dry. Her heart beat so loud she could barely hear anything else. She fought to breathe normally, but her breath caught in her throat until she choked.

"Well then… if I can't convince you how desperately you need this information, there's not point in me staying here… so I'll let you enjoy your drink in peace…"

He cocked an eyebrow and took a long sip from his glass. His throat bobbed as he swallowed the strawberry-alcohol-poison-mix.

Her chest constricted; she couldn't breathe.

She needed to get out of there.

Instigating his death was one thing; seeing it was another. She hadn't signed up for that.

"Such an amateur," he said as she started to walk away.

She paused. Despite every cell in her body screaming at her to keep walking, the disdain in his tone froze her.

"Amateur?" She whirled back towards him. Something about that word ignited anger in her like nothing else could. "I've been working at Cacturn Press for years! I wanted to help you, but you clearly don't appreciate me potentially losing my job to give you secret information, so I decided I'm not going to waste my time. If anyone's the amateur here, it's you—and you'll see that when Rustboro Robotics slam you so bad you never recover!"

Uh oh.

The moment she finished speaking, she realised her mistake. Her rebuttal was so enthusiastic, most of the nearby tables were looking at them. She wasn't invisible anymore.
Even Hayden's security team were beginning to edge towards them, debating whether they needed to intervene but probably not wanting to make the scene worse than it had to be. Suddenly she was glad Hayden tried his best to avoid the limelight. It was true that he'd never had a negative scandal—a rare feat amongst Hoenn's popular elite.

Hayden regarded her with a sparkle in his emerald eyes like she'd never seen before. He looked curious; intrigued… enticed.

"Is that so?" he murmured, keeping his voice low. No-one but May could hear his words. "You're more of an amateur than I guessed if you think revealing your hand like that is the way to get me to reveal mine. Having said that… I am curious as to the information you claim to have. How about this? I'll entertain your investigative efforts if you can find a way to get past my security team again. But I'll warn you now, it won't be as easy next time. As soon as you leave this bar, I'm giving them your detailed description."

As quickly as her anger had risen, it drained away. In front of her was a man in his early twenties who had no idea he was consuming a poison so potent that just one sip would kill him.

She swallowed over the unexpectedly large lump in her throat. She didn't have the heart to respond to his challenge with fervour. Hayden was already dead. She would never see him again. All she needed to do now was leave, causing as little stir as possible.

She couldn't have other news outlets catching her picture and publishing it at the same time as Hayden's death hit the news. It would be obvious she was involved, and then her career as an assassin would be over. And any hope she might have of one day returning to the coordinating circuit would be crushed forever. Not to mention her family finding out about the darkness she'd been sucked into…

She shivered involuntarily. No, she couldn't let that happen. She wouldn't.

"Careful," she stuttered out, her voice cracking as a result of her throat feeling like a desert. "The next time we meet, you won't see me coming…"

Immediately she turned on her heel and walked away as quickly as her red kitten heels would allow.

She felt Hayden's eyes burning holes in her back the whole way.

The cool breeze outside the bar was a delicious reprieve, washing the hotness of her skin with sweet chilled kisses. She shivered, pressing herself against the wall next to the door for a moment. She needed to collect herself—give her knees a chance to re-solidify—before moving on. It was dark; no-one could see her out here. She could be herself again.

A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another one, and then another.

She had killed a man.

Not just any man: Drew Hayden. The billionaire beloved by women far and wide.

But she knew him in another way. Drew Hayden the coordinator, who competed against her as a rival when he was a boy and she was a girl. Before the world got so dark and everything became so messed up.

If he hadn't stubbornly fought to sue Rustboro Robotics over their use of what he claimed was his original prototype, lost in court twice but continued to harass and publicly shame them, they never would have searched out Cacturn Press and enlisted assassination services against him.

If she hadn't lost everything in her stubborn pursuit of coordinating success, to the point she was five hundred million pokécoins in debt that would be transferred to her family if she couldn't start to pay it back, she would never have ever considered becoming an assassin, but Harley offered her a deal she literally couldn't refuse.

What had her life become?

Her head dropped into her hands as a river streamed from her eyes, dampening her clothes on its journey to the ground.

If it wasn't Hayden's life, it was her family's. Taking on this much debt would bury them—the life her father had built, the life her brother upheld in his gym leader training, the life her mother enabled with no holds barred for either of her children, no matter what. It would all be gone the second May allowed them to be caught in the crossfire of her devastating, life-altering mistakes.

Her family, or her teenaged rival, who was never that nice to her anyway.

It should be an easier choice than this, but her heart screamed for the innocence she shed during her part in his death.

As she stumbled away from the bar, hiding her face in her arms, holding her breath in a bid to silence her tears, she knew she would never be the same again.

May Maple was not an experienced assassin by any means. If she was, she would have stuck around a little longer, to make sure her effort bore fruit. As it was, she hadn't even looked at the glass she was pouring poison into while she was pouring it. She didn't even glance as it afterwards: a rookie mistake.

If she had looked, she would have seen exactly the same amount of liquid in Hayden's glass as before she added the poison… and a higher level of Rosé in the glass which had been hers, which she had not even touched.

Alas, she did not check her work, and she went back to Cacturn Press that night convinced she had assassinated Drew Hayden.

If only she knew the world of pain her failure to complete the assignment would land her in…

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading!

Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts! Even just one word encourages me to keep writing :)

~ Jay