Ok I know you're probably sick of reading this by now, but this chapter is genuinely going to be terrible. I actually have no plans for it at all, other than bringing in the final ship that I want to bring in. I'd say that'll take up a grand total of two paragraphs, then I'm going to be totally stuck for the remaining ones. And that's before the fucking competition that I need to write on Wednesday. So, this is going to be very short, very shit, and basically unnecessary, and I'm sorry about that. But with that said, on with the show.
Chapter 64:
The Master Chef
Bonnie wheels around to look at who called her name. Max wheels around as well, curious as to which of Ash's friends this will be, because obviously at this point it's going to be someone that Ash knows. Max sees Bonnie walk up to a young man with bright green hair and equally bright green eyes. He's also wearing a suit for some reason. Standing next to him is a much smaller woman about the same age as him, with bright magenta hair, pink eyes and a rather grumpy face. Max is certain that he doesn't know them. He follows Bonnie up to these two and waits for her to either say his name or realise that Max has no idea who this is and introduce them. Eventually, she does the latter.
"Oh right, you probably haven't met before have you?" she asks Max. Max shakes his head. "Well, this is Cilan," Bonnie explains. "Cilan, this is Max, my travel companion. He's May Maple's little brother." Both Cilan and the other girl turn to look at him. Max assumes that they know his sister from just being friends with Ash, but apparently not. They just know her from her being the Top Coordinator of Hoenn. "And, who's the woman?" Max asks. As it turns out, Bonnie doesn't know, so Cilan introduces his own companion. "This is Burgundy," he explains. "She's my own travel companion. We've decided to enter the cooking competition together." As Cilan introduces Burgundy, Max notices that his hand brushes off of hers, which causes her to look down at it and blush. Max hopes to Arceus that Bonnie didn't see that, but the girl seems to have a romance detector in her brain, because before Max can stop her, she blurts out, "Are you two dating?"
At these words, Cilan goes slightly pink and looks away, while Burgundy goes very red in the face and glares at Bonnie. "No we aren't dating!" she practically shouts, causing quite the scene. "We're barely even friends at this point, what makes you think we'd be going out with each other! I mean, how could you possibly assume that from how we're interacting!" She says this very fast, and looks like she could go on, but Cilan shushes her. "You're making a bit of a scene here," he says. "People are staring." Burgundy goes redder, if that is at all possible, and stops talking. Then, Cilan explains to Bonnie that no, they aren't dating. As he explains this, he leads the 3 of them out of the gym. "Why were you even in that gym in the first place?" Bonnie asks. Cilan shrugs. "We were looking for a way to kill a bit of time, so we decided to check out who was battling. It reminded me of watching Ash, you know?" Max nods at this. "I know what you mean," he replies. "It's a similar rush, seeing her win. In fact, I'd say the rush is better."
At this, Cilan looks curiously at them. "Oh, I didn't know you two were an item" he comments nonchalantly. At this, both of them go very, very red and begin denying it furiously, which just makes Burgundy laugh her head off. Max looks away from everyone so that none of them can see how much he's blushing. "So much for that romance detector" he thinks to himself, with a bit of relief. They head off together through Anistar, because Cilan and Burgundy want a look through the city, specifically the streets dedicated to the competition that will be happening tomorrow. They want to see if they can get any ideas for what to expect from the other competition. "Oh, are you entering the cooking competition as well?" Max asks. Cilan nods happily. "We'd heard that it was one of the most challenging in the world," he says. "Burgundy wanted to enter separately to compete against me, but we quickly learned that you need to enter in pairs, so I entered us in together." Burgundy goes red again, which Cilan misses completely. "I won't need your help to win this!" she snaps. "If it wasn't for the rules of entering as a pair, I'd have beaten you with my eyes closed! I don't even want to team up with you! I just don't have a choice!" "Me thinks the lady dost protest too much" Bonnie whispers to Max, which makes him laugh.
Once they're done having a look around the setup, with Burgundy and Cilan unable to learn anything about what to expect from the competition, they decide to head back to the hotel, with nothing else to do. When they get there, Max spots Brock and Olivia have just returned from whatever they were doing, and runs over to them. Bonnie follows after and shows off the badge. "Good job Bonnie," says Brock. "I knew you could do it." "Sorry we didn't come and watch," says Olivia. "But Brock and I needed to make a few calls for our wedding train. Speaking of, the position of ring bearer and flower girl are open if both of you want?" Both agree to this immediately. "Oh, you're getting married?" Cilan asks as he and Burgundy approach. Brock looks up and seems to recognise Cilan, because he steps over to him and shakes his hand. "Yes I am!" he stated proudly. "I proposed last night, so we've only just started getting ready." Olivia walks over to them, and Brock wraps an arm around her shoulder. "You remember my now fiancé Olivia don't you?" he asks.
Cilan confirms that he does, and even Burgundy offers her congratulations to the couple. "But that isn't going to make us go easy on you tomorrow!" she adds quickly. "Oh, you're entering it s well?" Brock asks. "And how did you know we were?" Olivia adds. "To answer the first question, yes we are," says Cilan. "And to answer the second one, we figured that you'd be here for something like this, since you love cooking, Brock." Brock laughs at that and rubs the back of his head. "I'm really that easy to read?" he asks. Max snorts at that. "Bit rich coming from you" Brock says to that. Bonnie is curious as to what Brock means by that, but Max goes a bit read and doesn't meet her eye, so she drops the matter, figuring it's a pretty embarrassing story from the time they both travelled with Ash. This conversation keeps going until the evening, where the proceed to go get dinner together in the hotel, before Cilan, Burgundy, Brock and Olivia return to their hotel rooms, and Max and Bonnie return to the Pokémon Centre they're staying in, with Max very excited for the cooking competition tomorrow, because it means he gets to try a lot of food.
Yikes, that was rough. I'll be honest I cut that short because I completely ran out of ideas on what to do in this chapter. Also, because, for me anyway, Sunday ends in 7 minutes, so I just about reached my deadline. But, if you thought this chapter was bad, it's got nothing on the next one. But don't worry, after the next one, it'll be smooth sailing from there until the end of the story, because the rest of this story actually has a plan to it. Just got to get through Wednesday to get to it, see you then.