She couldn’t believe it. Fifteen minutes after she had made her one and only friend, she was bored and alone. AGAIN. Words couldn’t quite describe how irate she was. How bogus. Where was that damn boy anyways? Really researching? Or off doing something more worthwhile? May was actually hoping for the first. She really didn’t want Brendan to be a liar.
And then she heard it. “Help!” Something inside of May, whether it was sheer desperation of wanting to see a person or just the good side of her, made her walk a little faster and gain direction and purpose to her steps. No longer was she wandering aimlessly; she was speeding towards route 101 to investigate a cry of help. Maybe it was Brendan Birch. Who knew?
May was slightly disappointed that instead of the cute snowy haired boy, it was his not so cute father, the professor. The slightly overweight man with the receding hairline (the hair, unlike his son’s, was a light brown) was being chased by a Poochyena. A freaking Poochyena. May sighed, growing more irritated. He was a damn professor, shouldn’t he have been able to get away from a stupid Poochyena and not disturb May in the process? “Hey you! Girl over there!” That was… rude. She was tempted to tell him to go to hell, but his circumstances, however meager they were, were obviously tampering with his brain, so she let it pass. “Grab a Poke Ball, will ya?” A… Oh, in the sack close to where he was running from the small pooch.
The brown-haired girl, though smart, was a novice and as she grabbed the Poke Ball, she looked a little quizzical. She pressed the button on the front of it, and out came a small orange bird. “A Torchic? How cute!” May couldn’t help but smile at the creature; the blank expression on it’s face tugged on her heartstrings.
May put the cuteness of the Torchic out of her head temporarily to think about the attacks it possessed. She was going to have to guess; she didn’t really know what she was doing and the professor was starting to look pretty pissed. “Uhhh… Scratch attack? Tackle? Fuck!”
However, before the little fire chicken could even attack, the Poochyena knocked it to the side and faced May, snarling. The inexperienced trainer, though scared, was annoyed at the Pokemon. “Why me?” She had been forced to move to Hoenn, she had been ditched by some guy (the fact that he wasn’t out there with his father hadn’t escaped her notice) and now some Poochyena was about to bite her. May couldn’t think of a worse week. She just closed her eyes and prepared for the pain that was soon to follow.
A little mist gently speckled her legs. May opened her eyes, only to find the Poochyena in a small heap to the left and a Mudkip looking pretty pleased with itself. “Good work, Mudkip,” said a prideful voice. She looked to the side of the Pokemon, only to find that it’s trainer was none other than Brendan himself. “Are you okay, May?”
She grinned, in spite of how aggravated she was at the current moment. “Yeah, I’m fine… Thanks to you.” It didn’t occur to her how awkward those words sounded until they came out of her mouth. Not that she had planned to say them. They had just kind of slipped out, resulting in her sounding even more like a moron. The strangest thing of all though was that Brendan wasn’t staring at her like she was some freak that needed to be locked away. He was staring at her all right, but not like she was a freak. Brendan actually had a small smile on his face. It was weird, it was… nice.
”Nice work back there, Brendan,” said a voice behind the two, startling both of them. The two teenagers whirled around, only to find Professor Birch, forgotten in the midst of their impromptu staring match. “You did well too, May. Let’s go back to the lab.” Wait a second. He knew her name? Why in the hell had he called her girl? Bastard.
Once they had reached their destination and the professor had put his belongings on a desk, he handed May a Poke Ball. “This is for helping me earlier. It’s the Torchic you used.” The cute chicken! Yay! Finally something to smile about in this dreadful little place! “I’ll name you Flame,” she told the Poke Ball, assuming the small chicken could hear her. Not terribly original, but who ever said May was trying to earn an A+ in originality? She’d let other people do that, and in turn, not lose sleeping trying to give an ‘imaginative’ name to the Torchic (which fifty thousand trainers had probably already named their Pokemon anyways).
It occurred to her then that she hadn’t bothered to thank the boy standing next to her, the boy who probably now thought she was a jerk. “Thanks for what you did back there. I might be in the hospital if it weren’t for you.” Better later than never, right? Although May didn’t really think she would be in the hospital (or that there was a hospital near at any rate) because of a damn low-leveled Poochyena, it couldn’t hurt to flatter the attractive boy.
Brendan smiled at her, which made May beam (as embarrassing as it was) because Brendan had a very nice smile. “It’s no problem, May. I’m just glad I got there in time.” Apparently, there was something she didn’t know about the small creature, because everyone seemed to be taking the almost attack a lot more seriously than she was. But no harm had been done and May hadn’t been injured, so she wasn’t about to start worrying now.
“You two, May’s parents, as well as Jessica and myself, think you should go off on a Pokemon journey. Together.” Professor Birch added in that word hastily, as if May hadn’t gotten the gist of what he was saying the first time around. When in the hell had they had time to plan that? How had he talked to Jessica Birch, or May’s parents, since they had returned from route 101? He hadn’t. Brendan and May had been with him the whole time. That could mean only one thing: the adults had been plotting this all along. Plotting against her, behind her back. But… A journey couldn’t be too horrible, right? It got her out of this stuffy little hellhole… And on the road with a cute guy! “…May’s mother feels better, knowing she’ll be safe and so do Norman, Jessica and myself. We think you will get along rather nicely.”
The middle-aged man handed May a small, red object. Her PokeDex. Her very own PokeDex. She was a real trainer now. No more embarrassment at not having a Pokemon to train. She was just as good as the rest of them. The five Poke Balls didn’t seem to make her a trainer as much as the PokeDex did, but they sure helped. Never mind how disgustingly upset she had been only a few hours ago at what the future had laid ahead for her. May was excited now. Life in Hoenn was just beginning for her, and the greatest part of it was that it wasn’t in Littleroot.
Brendan and May turned their back on the man only minutes later after a few brief goodbyes. May was beaming still at all of the possibilities and Brendan was smiling for some reason unknown to May. As they left, Professor Birch was chuckling and mumbling something. She could almost swear she heard the word ‘love’. Maybe she was imagining things out of pure happiness.