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All Roads Lead to the Grand Festival (Multishipping, R)
- Thread starter Rave The Rich
- Start date
Lord Aggron
Reads too much
Damn! That was one heck on an appeal! Good chapter by far. Plus, I'm guessing that Marina was Kelly's old girlfriend that cheated on her. And a dollar that it was for Jimmy, as Libby stated.
shadow_shipper
...indeed...
Norman's not old at all. My old man...now he's old xD
You made the announcers build hype for May's appeal as if it were the single last event on this planet lol titans, gods, millenia...whateva, it means nothing if she doesn't impress
Shouldn't the grading system have a maximum of 250 ? meaning 50 per person ? like in the anime if I recall...
Or then does everyone have 10, with a maximum of 50 ?...I'm assuming it's that...
Jimmy Aurum...Aurum is latin for Gold, with Jimmy being based off the character Gold from the manga, like Ash is from Red...
Libby beat me to it tho...meh, damn not having access to internet when I want
Great chapter, great appeal !
You made the announcers build hype for May's appeal as if it were the single last event on this planet lol titans, gods, millenia...whateva, it means nothing if she doesn't impress
Shouldn't the grading system have a maximum of 250 ? meaning 50 per person ? like in the anime if I recall...
Or then does everyone have 10, with a maximum of 50 ?...I'm assuming it's that...
Jimmy Aurum...Aurum is latin for Gold, with Jimmy being based off the character Gold from the manga, like Ash is from Red...
Libby beat me to it tho...meh, damn not having access to internet when I want
Great chapter, great appeal !
Liberty4Pokemon
Vogue to the Music
Yeah, the clues all seem to point to Marina as the ex-girlfriend. That kind of took me by surprise, though, since Marina's one of the few major female characters who isn't considered in shoujo-ai pairings a lot. Then again, she didn't really interact with any other girls in the Raikou special, so I guess shippers don't have a lot to work with.
@ Shadow Shipper: Sorry to discuss something that wasn't addressed to me, but is that how the scoring works in the Hoenn Grand Festival? I couldn't find anything on Bulbapedia about it, and all I did find was that in the Kanto Festival people were scoring in the 80's and 90's, so I don't what that means ^^;.
Anyhoo, can't wait for the appeals to conclude and the battle action to begin. We haven't seen much of Dawn lately, so I hope that means she'll have a larger role in the chapters to come.
I'd forgotten to answer that earlier...I was a Serebiian before I joined ff.net, but I was a member for there awhile, and wrote a couple little things. I'm not active anymore, aside from reading.Lord Aggron said:
@ Shadow Shipper: Sorry to discuss something that wasn't addressed to me, but is that how the scoring works in the Hoenn Grand Festival? I couldn't find anything on Bulbapedia about it, and all I did find was that in the Kanto Festival people were scoring in the 80's and 90's, so I don't what that means ^^;.
Anyhoo, can't wait for the appeals to conclude and the battle action to begin. We haven't seen much of Dawn lately, so I hope that means she'll have a larger role in the chapters to come.
Last edited:
Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Time to Reply!
@cbiesra: Glad you liked the chapter, and I think that you would have found out the reason for the surname 'Aurum' had you known that this was the Jimmy and Marina from the Raikou mini-arc.
@Lord Aggron: Again, thank you for the support and I'm glad you liked the chapter so much. While it might seem like the situation between Kelly and Marina is simple, there is a bit of a catch. Technically...Marina did not leave Kelly for Jimmy. She did leave Kelly but, again, it's complicated. That's all I can say for now. ^__^
@Libby: I think that this chapter will (so far) rank as everyone's favorite because of its contents. I put both of my size 15 feet (size 49/50 in Europe) into this recipe and it seems that the results are unanimous; everyone loves the appeal.
To add onto that, I am notorious for adding drama on top of drama. Dawn will have a couple more roadblocks to deal with on her way to the Grand Festival and her appeal. Her situation will be a head scratcher for sure!
I guess the reason why I chose Marina as the ex-girlfriend of Kelly ironically has to do with what you said here...
...I felt the exact same way about Marina and thought that if she ever found herself in a same-sex encounter, that she might feel some sort of embarrassment for it out of some innocence for her not knowing what she is doing. (Plot bunny alert) ^__^
And I'm always game for a new challenge. I don't care what some writers say about straight characters being paired up in shouen/shoujo-ai pairs. If the situation presents itself, it is possible and it can be done. Besides, I'm crazy enough to try and not worry about whether or not I'll fail along the way.
Dawn plays a bigger role in the next chapter when Kenny and Zoey begin their celebration for May's appeal. She'll do something that's long overdue and begin the process of atoning.
And finally, you got the trivia question correct along with shadow_shipper! Congrats!
@shadow_shipper: Hmm. My old man is 51 going on 52, ten years older than 'old' Norman Maple, though I don't really think he (my dad) is old. I don't know. You might have me beat in that department!
About the building hype, I've learned since I was about six or seven years old that if you build something much bigger than it actually is, the payoff doesn't necessarily have to be tremendous in order to have a great success.
Sports, in and of itself is notorious for building things to huge heights and selling them as fantastic accomplishments. They are famous for making things much larger than they actually are via metaphors and powerful words like gods, titans and millenia. And yes, if she didn't make it, the announcers would then sell May to the world audience as a choke artist. Nothing to lose, huh?
I couldn't find anything on the scoring system with the exception of five judges at the Grand Festival instead of three for contests. For instance, I didn't know that the scoring system went from 0-50 instead of 0-10, if that is true. If Libby is right about people having scores in the 80s and 90s, then that throws yet another monkey wrench in what I thought was the scoring system for a Grand Festival.
For now, I think I'll stick with this system. The concept of a 'Perfect 10' for each judge is nicely highlighted for this one.
And like Libby, you got the trivia question correct...even with not having net access when you want.
I'm glad you and everyone else liked this chapter and its appeal so much! More to come, folks, so stick around!
@cbiesra: Glad you liked the chapter, and I think that you would have found out the reason for the surname 'Aurum' had you known that this was the Jimmy and Marina from the Raikou mini-arc.
@Lord Aggron: Again, thank you for the support and I'm glad you liked the chapter so much. While it might seem like the situation between Kelly and Marina is simple, there is a bit of a catch. Technically...Marina did not leave Kelly for Jimmy. She did leave Kelly but, again, it's complicated. That's all I can say for now. ^__^
@Libby: I think that this chapter will (so far) rank as everyone's favorite because of its contents. I put both of my size 15 feet (size 49/50 in Europe) into this recipe and it seems that the results are unanimous; everyone loves the appeal.
To add onto that, I am notorious for adding drama on top of drama. Dawn will have a couple more roadblocks to deal with on her way to the Grand Festival and her appeal. Her situation will be a head scratcher for sure!
I guess the reason why I chose Marina as the ex-girlfriend of Kelly ironically has to do with what you said here...
...I felt the exact same way about Marina and thought that if she ever found herself in a same-sex encounter, that she might feel some sort of embarrassment for it out of some innocence for her not knowing what she is doing. (Plot bunny alert) ^__^
And I'm always game for a new challenge. I don't care what some writers say about straight characters being paired up in shouen/shoujo-ai pairs. If the situation presents itself, it is possible and it can be done. Besides, I'm crazy enough to try and not worry about whether or not I'll fail along the way.
Dawn plays a bigger role in the next chapter when Kenny and Zoey begin their celebration for May's appeal. She'll do something that's long overdue and begin the process of atoning.
And finally, you got the trivia question correct along with shadow_shipper! Congrats!
@shadow_shipper: Hmm. My old man is 51 going on 52, ten years older than 'old' Norman Maple, though I don't really think he (my dad) is old. I don't know. You might have me beat in that department!
About the building hype, I've learned since I was about six or seven years old that if you build something much bigger than it actually is, the payoff doesn't necessarily have to be tremendous in order to have a great success.
Sports, in and of itself is notorious for building things to huge heights and selling them as fantastic accomplishments. They are famous for making things much larger than they actually are via metaphors and powerful words like gods, titans and millenia. And yes, if she didn't make it, the announcers would then sell May to the world audience as a choke artist. Nothing to lose, huh?
I couldn't find anything on the scoring system with the exception of five judges at the Grand Festival instead of three for contests. For instance, I didn't know that the scoring system went from 0-50 instead of 0-10, if that is true. If Libby is right about people having scores in the 80s and 90s, then that throws yet another monkey wrench in what I thought was the scoring system for a Grand Festival.
For now, I think I'll stick with this system. The concept of a 'Perfect 10' for each judge is nicely highlighted for this one.
And like Libby, you got the trivia question correct...even with not having net access when you want.
I'm glad you and everyone else liked this chapter and its appeal so much! More to come, folks, so stick around!
Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Enjoy Chapter Number Twenty-Nine, Folks!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/29/
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 29- Everything Else is Secondary)
---------
“Kelly!” May exclaims, running in the direction her girlfriend is playing catch up. Right behind May are her parents and Kelly’s parents with their large slew of friends bringing up the rear of a close-knit pack. “Kelly, wait up! Slow down, girl!”
Hearing this, the doctor in training stops her trek for a second, looks in the direction of the people off to the side and punches a brick wall on her right. “Damn her! Damn that ***** straight to hell!” she screams in frustration before putting her head down.
Stopping in this area of the stadium bides Caroline, Norman, Julia, Erik and May the time to get close to their loved one and see a very disturbing look on her face. Her cobalt blue eyes are stained with the redness that can only come from two things and Kelly does not have any allergies whatsoever. Her face is very cross and her mouth is scrunched together leaving only a small opening in the middle for her to suck in air.
The very proud girl is trying her best to hide her face from family and friends so they do not see her at her most vulnerable point. Turning away from the small crowd in front of her, May notices the right hand of her best friend. “Kelly, your hand!”
“What?” she asks before looking down at her right hand. She soon learns to regret the action as she sees a large amount of red liquid starting to form a thin layer on her hand. “Oh, ****!” Kelly exclaims as she makes the mistake of flexing her fingers and aggravating the bones in her hands once seeing the blood. Clearly, the girl is in a great deal of pain and until she looked at the damage done to her hand, her anger clouded whatever potential injuries she might have suffered due to the punch to the wall.
“Baby, don’t move it!” May warns her partner. Like a surgeon, the Petalburg coordinator uses extra special care in handling Kelly’s hand by gently moving her fingertips back and forth to form an amateur prognosis of the situation at hand. “We should go to the E.R. and check it out to be safe. It is bleeding, after all.”
With friends and family surrounding her, they get a very good look at Kelly’s right hand. The image is a cringe-worthy one as the blood drips down onto the concrete floor of the Slateport Stadium.
“I agree with May, sweetheart,” says Erik. “It’s better to be safe than sorry with something like this. You might have broken or dislocated bones, so this is nothing to fool around with at all.”
“Just get it checked and you can head back for some more training before you know it,” Kelly’s mother adds. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour at most.”
Kelly Cruz-Marin is a stubborn one, no doubt. It is hard to argue with her mother and father’s logic though, and that is what causes her to reluctantly say, “Okay, I’ll go to the emergency room.” Looking at all of her friends and extended family, she adds, “The only people I would like to come with me are May and my folks. For everyone else, I don’t want this setback to get in the way of…whatever fun any of you guys might have planned for the night.” Kelly said this with the swinging foursome on their mind. Though she could not tell at first glance, Zoey and Holly, but more so Zoey, give their bedfellows the evil eye in the hopes that they will not make any cheesy or unnecessary jokes hinting to their activities planned for tonight.
“That’s fine,” Kenny says in the place of some other expected words. “All that we care about is that you’re okay, Kelly. All the other stuff is…secondary for now…”
“He’s right,” Conway interjects, feeling that the coordinator from Sinnoh has said more than what needs to be said. Now turning to his girlfriend, he lets her know, “I gotta go to the bathroom, Holly.”
“All right,” she answers as they share a kiss and he leaves for another area near the stage entrance where they just left. “Take your time, Connie.”
“Maybe I’ll see you all later,” Kelly comments, holding out some hope for the idea, “but if I don’t, then good night to you all. After this, we gotta get the final details of May’s strategy for tomorrow down, and, of course, we all have to get in a good night’s sleep.”
“Well, there is more that we could do at night than just…”
“Come on, Kenny! Let’s go!” both Holly and Zoey exclaim. Before taking the young pokemon coordinator away by both of his arms, they bid the Marins, the Maples, and everyone else a good night and farewell as they head in the direction of the bathrooms, which are situated near the stage entrance. They take about a minute or so dragging him near the tunnel leading towards the stadium.
“How the heck do you deal with this boy’s mouth, Zoey?” Holly questions as she holds onto a grip of Kenny’s left forearm while her soon-to-be sexual partner takes hold of the right.
“Well,” Zoey says, as if she’s trying to figure out how to answer her friend’s inquiry. “A good set of earplugs, an even better sense of humor and—aw, who the hell am I kidding? I don’t know! Don’t ask me something like that right now! I might have an epiphany and scare myself half to death thinking of my so-called life at the moment and all that I’ve done with and besides this guy. For instance, would you care to guess, Holly, how many teen girls and young women I’ve had sex with since I started swinging?”
“Would you gals mind not dragging me around like I’m someone’s dead carcass?” Kenny requests as calmly as the setting will allow. “I can walk, you know? I’ve been doing it for almost fifteen years.” Stopping in their tracks, Zoey and Holly consider letting the loud-mouthed coordinator walk on his own two feet. They wonder if he has received enough punishment for his tendency to blurt out whatever is on his mind at the moment. “And besides, Zoey, would you really reveal something that personal with your ex-crush standing about five meters away?”
“What are you talking about now, simple boy?”
“I’m talking about Dawn over there by the producer’s table and the tunnel. Would you really like her and Holly to both know that you’ve went down on at least…”
No sooner than it seems as if the number was about to exit the mouth her boyfriend does Zoey let go of Kenny, causing him to fall to the ground with the back of his head landing on the concrete first. His descent down to the stadium floor was almost a given considering that the more feminine trainer lacked the muscular strength to hold him upright on her own.
“Ah, ****!” he exclaims as Holly slowly helps him back up to his feet in case he feels lightheaded due to the bump. Feeling his forehead, he says ‘Thank you’ to the girl before making a case that, “She should have at least given me a warning before running off like that, Holly. You know what? **** it. I’m fine.” Pointing to the sign showing a picture to signify a male, he asks, “Do you think that Conway went into this bathroom here?”
“To be honest, I’m not even sure,” she makes clear to Kenny. “He did go in the direction that we’re in, though, so I’d say that that one would be your best bet.”
“Thanks,” he responds, “I wanna talk with him because I got this inspiration for the ‘getting to know you’ portion of our fun.” Taking a glance at his watch, he sees that, “It’s about…quarter ‘til six, so there’s still plenty of time to get all of our plans straightened out, even though it is technically the evening.”
“Talk with Conway in the bathroom; is that…code for you wanting to make out with my boyfriend in the stalls, right?”
“Oh, you’ve done that before, Holly?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do it with Conway. It was…on a dare with another boy when I was like twelve years old or something. I never did it again when other girls said I was easy and I didn’t do much of anything with guys until my teens.” Rolling her eyes for a second at the absurdity of what she did when she was younger including the ironic fact that it was the girls who propositioned her to do the dare, she switches subjects. “But…what about Zoey? She just went to talk with Dawn. Don’t you wanna hear what they say?”
“This will be quick,” Kenny counters. “I just wanna let him know of a change of plans because he does have my money…and I do want to get in a few more kisses before tonight.”
“Okay, don’t take too long and do not get arrested,” Holly jokingly responds as she walks over to a scene of Zoey sitting next to perhaps the only threat to May remaining number one of sixteen coordinators for Sunday’s elimination round. The young woman, who stands about as tall as the men, just stays back and listens to the scene taking everything in.
Meanwhile, the teen coordinator enters the men’s restroom nearby the main stage entrance. Having taken part in one Hoenn Grand Festival before, he knows that the restrooms are somewhat large backstage for whatever reason. Next to about eight different closed off stalls painted in jet black are ten urinals of a like color. All of them are vacant; a good sign as he sees a young gentleman dressed in green with dark hair coming down to his neck by the sinks washing his hands.
‘Jackpot!’ Kenny thinks as he walks up to the young man, turns him around by his right arm and plants a big, wet one right on Conway’s lips.
While still in the lip lock, Kenny feels Conway start to resist and pull away. To this, he grips at the sides of his friend harder. Then, while still connected with the trainer from Veilstone, a pain hits his neck and causes him to scream out and let go of the kiss. Once backed up, he can now see that a grave mistake has been made.
“What the **** do you think you’re doing?”
“Max?” he questions.
Rolling his eyes, he answers, “Uh, yeah! What’s the big idea kissing me like that?”
“I—I,” Kenny stammers, “I’m really sorry. I thought that I was kissing Conway.”
“You thought you were kissing Conway? What in the world—do I look like Conway Ericsson to you?”
“Yes. He’s wearing the same shirt that you’re wearing right now.”
Before Max has a chance to chastise Kenny for his smart-alecky comment, the two teen boys hear a noise in one of the stalls that sounded like a pound. “Max!” says this person in the stall before the sound of a toilet flushing follows and Kenny gets the hint as he makes his way out of the restroom to escape the wrath of a flaming hot boyfriend.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Suddenly, the door to one of the stalls unlocks and is pushed open with great force by Max’s much older suitor, Harley.
Grinning in front of his best buddy, Max says hello to the male towering in front of him. “Hi honey. Um, are you ready…?”
Max can not finish because the violet-haired grass trainer slaps his boyfriend hard across his left cheek. “You *******! What the hell was that, Max? Did I just see you kissing that guy through the stalls?”
“Yes, but he forced himself on me!” he says, pleading for some understanding from the flamboyant one. “It was Kenny, and he thought I looked like Conway!”
“Whatever! You could’ve stopped him, but you held on!”
“I tried to stop him! He’s larger than me, so I bit him! Please, you gotta believe me! I wouldn’t pull any crap like that!”
Shaking his head, Harley finds what he is about to say very sad. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. You were in a lip lock and you were snogging with that son of a ***** for almost ten seconds!”
“I told you…”
“You could have let go and at least said something!” he screams. With his head down, he tears up and tells Max, “I’m out of here. Good bye, Little Maximus,” and leaves the restroom to get away from the deceiver in the midst.
Bewildered how everything happened so fast, Max does not run to Harley asking for forgiveness. He doesn’t even make an effort to bash in the head of Kenny for kissing him in a restroom, of all places. All he could do is slump down to the black and white tiled floor and bawl his eyes out as things take a turn from the for the worst in one fell swoop, or more correctly, one kiss. “I’m telling the truth, Harley-kins! Why won’t you believe me? Did you hear what I told Kenny? He forced himself on me! Why don’t you get that?”
---------
“So I saw the press conference earlier with you and Drew,” Zoey remarks while sitting near an office of some sort in one chair while her old friend Dawn sits next to her in another seat. “I have—I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything as wild as that. There is no denying that he and you are done, though. You showed him that you wouldn’t take any of his crap combined with him refusing to take responsibility for bringing a baby boy into this world. He deserves to have his *** kicked just for that!”
For the first time in a long time, Dawn has a very healthy laugh. Zoey may not have been the best as far as philosophy or pep talks, but her words can be understood by just about everyone who hears them, which might be more important than how the message is presented.
When she stops laughing and settles down, Zoey makes the comment, “I had a feeling you needed that, Dawn.”
“You’re right. I didn’t think about something my mother said to me when she had a…kind of ‘birds and bees’ talk with me a few years back. She had to have had some idea that things would go this way because she told me that when I date that breakups are not the end of the world. ‘Sometimes, you’ll even look back at some of your exes and laugh,’ she said to me. Well, it took me some time, but I guess the fact that he was my first coupled with my desire to make it work caused me to overstay my welcome.”
A moment of silence passes before Zoey says, “I’m glad that you’re back.”
“Thank you,” she answers before covering her face for a second, and with a moan, she exclaims, “Oh, God! I’ve done so much crap! I know that you’ve had feelings for me and I’ve been such an *** about all of this. I thought that mocking May for her close relationship with Kelly or ridiculing you and Kenny for your behavior would put me in good favor with Drew.”
“It wasn’t even worth it in the end, but I wanna be absolutely clear when I say this; I don’t hate gays or lesbians. I just thought that that would impress him, but—and I know that that’s fuzzy logic, but I rarely thought straight during that time. Again, he’s not worth it anymore. What I guess I’m trying to say is…” yet another moment passes and Zoey can see a tear escape the eye of her once good friend. Pulling Dawn in for a hug, she feels that things can take a turn for the better step by step. “Zoey, I’m sorry,” she tearfully speaks.
“I accept your apology,” Zoey answers, with tears coming out of her eyes, as well.
“I’m glad,” says this new voice, which curiously sounds a bit winded. It’s Kenny, who at the behest of both Zoey and Dawn, joins in on the hug and says that he is willing to forgive Dawn, as well. “I just want to know that you are okay. You’re okay, right?”
“I am now.”
“Then that’s all that matters,” Kenny assures his old crush. “Everything else is secondary; this is what’s most important. But eventually,” he adds, “you’re gonna have to apologize to Kelly and May. The bottom line is they didn’t deserve to be called those awful things. Am I right?”
“No, you’re right,” Dawn replies. “I’ll speak to them.”
“Good,” Zoey compliments as the group hug between her, Dawn and Kenny continues with great emotion behind each squeeze and touch.
Looking at this moment from afar, Holly becomes a little teary eyed as well. Knowledgeable to an extent of all of the problems Kenny, Zoey and Dawn have faced with each other, she is happy to see that despite it all, they can forgive each other and move forward without any problems.
It makes her think about her good relationship with Conway, until she is spooked out of her boots by a pair of arms clasping her lower torso. Looking to her left, she is delighted to see one of the top trainers in Veilstone right beside her.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greets.
“Say, where were you?”
Pointing in the opposite direction of the restroom where Kenny sought to find Conway, he answers, “There’s a restroom next to a couple of vending machines down that hall. I would have bought something, but…I’m not terribly hungry and there will be time later to eat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey! Dawn Berlitz!” Conway suddenly notices. Before he can go up to the coordinator from Twinleaf, who is in a more than curious hug with Zoey and Kenny, the bespectacled one is held back by his girlfriend.
Shaking her head, Holly makes it clear in her actions and words to, “Let them be for now. You have plenty of time to see and talk to her again, but those three are just catching up. Think about it, and just…look.” Following directions, Conway sees the embracing and for a second, does not understand the big deal. Then he remembers that the reason why the two Sinnoh coordinators came together had to do with the blue-haired one in the middle. He is certain that tears have fallen in both their faces over the debacle with Drew with the difference in this instance being that the tears are all in the name of joy.
For Kenny and Zoey, this is the Dawn Berlitz they fell for many years ago that they were hugging and they could not be happier to see her again; this time, for good.
---------
Your Thoughts?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/29/
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 29- Everything Else is Secondary)
---------
“Kelly!” May exclaims, running in the direction her girlfriend is playing catch up. Right behind May are her parents and Kelly’s parents with their large slew of friends bringing up the rear of a close-knit pack. “Kelly, wait up! Slow down, girl!”
Hearing this, the doctor in training stops her trek for a second, looks in the direction of the people off to the side and punches a brick wall on her right. “Damn her! Damn that ***** straight to hell!” she screams in frustration before putting her head down.
Stopping in this area of the stadium bides Caroline, Norman, Julia, Erik and May the time to get close to their loved one and see a very disturbing look on her face. Her cobalt blue eyes are stained with the redness that can only come from two things and Kelly does not have any allergies whatsoever. Her face is very cross and her mouth is scrunched together leaving only a small opening in the middle for her to suck in air.
The very proud girl is trying her best to hide her face from family and friends so they do not see her at her most vulnerable point. Turning away from the small crowd in front of her, May notices the right hand of her best friend. “Kelly, your hand!”
“What?” she asks before looking down at her right hand. She soon learns to regret the action as she sees a large amount of red liquid starting to form a thin layer on her hand. “Oh, ****!” Kelly exclaims as she makes the mistake of flexing her fingers and aggravating the bones in her hands once seeing the blood. Clearly, the girl is in a great deal of pain and until she looked at the damage done to her hand, her anger clouded whatever potential injuries she might have suffered due to the punch to the wall.
“Baby, don’t move it!” May warns her partner. Like a surgeon, the Petalburg coordinator uses extra special care in handling Kelly’s hand by gently moving her fingertips back and forth to form an amateur prognosis of the situation at hand. “We should go to the E.R. and check it out to be safe. It is bleeding, after all.”
With friends and family surrounding her, they get a very good look at Kelly’s right hand. The image is a cringe-worthy one as the blood drips down onto the concrete floor of the Slateport Stadium.
“I agree with May, sweetheart,” says Erik. “It’s better to be safe than sorry with something like this. You might have broken or dislocated bones, so this is nothing to fool around with at all.”
“Just get it checked and you can head back for some more training before you know it,” Kelly’s mother adds. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour at most.”
Kelly Cruz-Marin is a stubborn one, no doubt. It is hard to argue with her mother and father’s logic though, and that is what causes her to reluctantly say, “Okay, I’ll go to the emergency room.” Looking at all of her friends and extended family, she adds, “The only people I would like to come with me are May and my folks. For everyone else, I don’t want this setback to get in the way of…whatever fun any of you guys might have planned for the night.” Kelly said this with the swinging foursome on their mind. Though she could not tell at first glance, Zoey and Holly, but more so Zoey, give their bedfellows the evil eye in the hopes that they will not make any cheesy or unnecessary jokes hinting to their activities planned for tonight.
“That’s fine,” Kenny says in the place of some other expected words. “All that we care about is that you’re okay, Kelly. All the other stuff is…secondary for now…”
“He’s right,” Conway interjects, feeling that the coordinator from Sinnoh has said more than what needs to be said. Now turning to his girlfriend, he lets her know, “I gotta go to the bathroom, Holly.”
“All right,” she answers as they share a kiss and he leaves for another area near the stage entrance where they just left. “Take your time, Connie.”
“Maybe I’ll see you all later,” Kelly comments, holding out some hope for the idea, “but if I don’t, then good night to you all. After this, we gotta get the final details of May’s strategy for tomorrow down, and, of course, we all have to get in a good night’s sleep.”
“Well, there is more that we could do at night than just…”
“Come on, Kenny! Let’s go!” both Holly and Zoey exclaim. Before taking the young pokemon coordinator away by both of his arms, they bid the Marins, the Maples, and everyone else a good night and farewell as they head in the direction of the bathrooms, which are situated near the stage entrance. They take about a minute or so dragging him near the tunnel leading towards the stadium.
“How the heck do you deal with this boy’s mouth, Zoey?” Holly questions as she holds onto a grip of Kenny’s left forearm while her soon-to-be sexual partner takes hold of the right.
“Well,” Zoey says, as if she’s trying to figure out how to answer her friend’s inquiry. “A good set of earplugs, an even better sense of humor and—aw, who the hell am I kidding? I don’t know! Don’t ask me something like that right now! I might have an epiphany and scare myself half to death thinking of my so-called life at the moment and all that I’ve done with and besides this guy. For instance, would you care to guess, Holly, how many teen girls and young women I’ve had sex with since I started swinging?”
“Would you gals mind not dragging me around like I’m someone’s dead carcass?” Kenny requests as calmly as the setting will allow. “I can walk, you know? I’ve been doing it for almost fifteen years.” Stopping in their tracks, Zoey and Holly consider letting the loud-mouthed coordinator walk on his own two feet. They wonder if he has received enough punishment for his tendency to blurt out whatever is on his mind at the moment. “And besides, Zoey, would you really reveal something that personal with your ex-crush standing about five meters away?”
“What are you talking about now, simple boy?”
“I’m talking about Dawn over there by the producer’s table and the tunnel. Would you really like her and Holly to both know that you’ve went down on at least…”
No sooner than it seems as if the number was about to exit the mouth her boyfriend does Zoey let go of Kenny, causing him to fall to the ground with the back of his head landing on the concrete first. His descent down to the stadium floor was almost a given considering that the more feminine trainer lacked the muscular strength to hold him upright on her own.
“Ah, ****!” he exclaims as Holly slowly helps him back up to his feet in case he feels lightheaded due to the bump. Feeling his forehead, he says ‘Thank you’ to the girl before making a case that, “She should have at least given me a warning before running off like that, Holly. You know what? **** it. I’m fine.” Pointing to the sign showing a picture to signify a male, he asks, “Do you think that Conway went into this bathroom here?”
“To be honest, I’m not even sure,” she makes clear to Kenny. “He did go in the direction that we’re in, though, so I’d say that that one would be your best bet.”
“Thanks,” he responds, “I wanna talk with him because I got this inspiration for the ‘getting to know you’ portion of our fun.” Taking a glance at his watch, he sees that, “It’s about…quarter ‘til six, so there’s still plenty of time to get all of our plans straightened out, even though it is technically the evening.”
“Talk with Conway in the bathroom; is that…code for you wanting to make out with my boyfriend in the stalls, right?”
“Oh, you’ve done that before, Holly?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do it with Conway. It was…on a dare with another boy when I was like twelve years old or something. I never did it again when other girls said I was easy and I didn’t do much of anything with guys until my teens.” Rolling her eyes for a second at the absurdity of what she did when she was younger including the ironic fact that it was the girls who propositioned her to do the dare, she switches subjects. “But…what about Zoey? She just went to talk with Dawn. Don’t you wanna hear what they say?”
“This will be quick,” Kenny counters. “I just wanna let him know of a change of plans because he does have my money…and I do want to get in a few more kisses before tonight.”
“Okay, don’t take too long and do not get arrested,” Holly jokingly responds as she walks over to a scene of Zoey sitting next to perhaps the only threat to May remaining number one of sixteen coordinators for Sunday’s elimination round. The young woman, who stands about as tall as the men, just stays back and listens to the scene taking everything in.
Meanwhile, the teen coordinator enters the men’s restroom nearby the main stage entrance. Having taken part in one Hoenn Grand Festival before, he knows that the restrooms are somewhat large backstage for whatever reason. Next to about eight different closed off stalls painted in jet black are ten urinals of a like color. All of them are vacant; a good sign as he sees a young gentleman dressed in green with dark hair coming down to his neck by the sinks washing his hands.
‘Jackpot!’ Kenny thinks as he walks up to the young man, turns him around by his right arm and plants a big, wet one right on Conway’s lips.
While still in the lip lock, Kenny feels Conway start to resist and pull away. To this, he grips at the sides of his friend harder. Then, while still connected with the trainer from Veilstone, a pain hits his neck and causes him to scream out and let go of the kiss. Once backed up, he can now see that a grave mistake has been made.
“What the **** do you think you’re doing?”
“Max?” he questions.
Rolling his eyes, he answers, “Uh, yeah! What’s the big idea kissing me like that?”
“I—I,” Kenny stammers, “I’m really sorry. I thought that I was kissing Conway.”
“You thought you were kissing Conway? What in the world—do I look like Conway Ericsson to you?”
“Yes. He’s wearing the same shirt that you’re wearing right now.”
Before Max has a chance to chastise Kenny for his smart-alecky comment, the two teen boys hear a noise in one of the stalls that sounded like a pound. “Max!” says this person in the stall before the sound of a toilet flushing follows and Kenny gets the hint as he makes his way out of the restroom to escape the wrath of a flaming hot boyfriend.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Suddenly, the door to one of the stalls unlocks and is pushed open with great force by Max’s much older suitor, Harley.
Grinning in front of his best buddy, Max says hello to the male towering in front of him. “Hi honey. Um, are you ready…?”
Max can not finish because the violet-haired grass trainer slaps his boyfriend hard across his left cheek. “You *******! What the hell was that, Max? Did I just see you kissing that guy through the stalls?”
“Yes, but he forced himself on me!” he says, pleading for some understanding from the flamboyant one. “It was Kenny, and he thought I looked like Conway!”
“Whatever! You could’ve stopped him, but you held on!”
“I tried to stop him! He’s larger than me, so I bit him! Please, you gotta believe me! I wouldn’t pull any crap like that!”
Shaking his head, Harley finds what he is about to say very sad. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. You were in a lip lock and you were snogging with that son of a ***** for almost ten seconds!”
“I told you…”
“You could have let go and at least said something!” he screams. With his head down, he tears up and tells Max, “I’m out of here. Good bye, Little Maximus,” and leaves the restroom to get away from the deceiver in the midst.
Bewildered how everything happened so fast, Max does not run to Harley asking for forgiveness. He doesn’t even make an effort to bash in the head of Kenny for kissing him in a restroom, of all places. All he could do is slump down to the black and white tiled floor and bawl his eyes out as things take a turn from the for the worst in one fell swoop, or more correctly, one kiss. “I’m telling the truth, Harley-kins! Why won’t you believe me? Did you hear what I told Kenny? He forced himself on me! Why don’t you get that?”
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“So I saw the press conference earlier with you and Drew,” Zoey remarks while sitting near an office of some sort in one chair while her old friend Dawn sits next to her in another seat. “I have—I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything as wild as that. There is no denying that he and you are done, though. You showed him that you wouldn’t take any of his crap combined with him refusing to take responsibility for bringing a baby boy into this world. He deserves to have his *** kicked just for that!”
For the first time in a long time, Dawn has a very healthy laugh. Zoey may not have been the best as far as philosophy or pep talks, but her words can be understood by just about everyone who hears them, which might be more important than how the message is presented.
When she stops laughing and settles down, Zoey makes the comment, “I had a feeling you needed that, Dawn.”
“You’re right. I didn’t think about something my mother said to me when she had a…kind of ‘birds and bees’ talk with me a few years back. She had to have had some idea that things would go this way because she told me that when I date that breakups are not the end of the world. ‘Sometimes, you’ll even look back at some of your exes and laugh,’ she said to me. Well, it took me some time, but I guess the fact that he was my first coupled with my desire to make it work caused me to overstay my welcome.”
A moment of silence passes before Zoey says, “I’m glad that you’re back.”
“Thank you,” she answers before covering her face for a second, and with a moan, she exclaims, “Oh, God! I’ve done so much crap! I know that you’ve had feelings for me and I’ve been such an *** about all of this. I thought that mocking May for her close relationship with Kelly or ridiculing you and Kenny for your behavior would put me in good favor with Drew.”
“It wasn’t even worth it in the end, but I wanna be absolutely clear when I say this; I don’t hate gays or lesbians. I just thought that that would impress him, but—and I know that that’s fuzzy logic, but I rarely thought straight during that time. Again, he’s not worth it anymore. What I guess I’m trying to say is…” yet another moment passes and Zoey can see a tear escape the eye of her once good friend. Pulling Dawn in for a hug, she feels that things can take a turn for the better step by step. “Zoey, I’m sorry,” she tearfully speaks.
“I accept your apology,” Zoey answers, with tears coming out of her eyes, as well.
“I’m glad,” says this new voice, which curiously sounds a bit winded. It’s Kenny, who at the behest of both Zoey and Dawn, joins in on the hug and says that he is willing to forgive Dawn, as well. “I just want to know that you are okay. You’re okay, right?”
“I am now.”
“Then that’s all that matters,” Kenny assures his old crush. “Everything else is secondary; this is what’s most important. But eventually,” he adds, “you’re gonna have to apologize to Kelly and May. The bottom line is they didn’t deserve to be called those awful things. Am I right?”
“No, you’re right,” Dawn replies. “I’ll speak to them.”
“Good,” Zoey compliments as the group hug between her, Dawn and Kenny continues with great emotion behind each squeeze and touch.
Looking at this moment from afar, Holly becomes a little teary eyed as well. Knowledgeable to an extent of all of the problems Kenny, Zoey and Dawn have faced with each other, she is happy to see that despite it all, they can forgive each other and move forward without any problems.
It makes her think about her good relationship with Conway, until she is spooked out of her boots by a pair of arms clasping her lower torso. Looking to her left, she is delighted to see one of the top trainers in Veilstone right beside her.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greets.
“Say, where were you?”
Pointing in the opposite direction of the restroom where Kenny sought to find Conway, he answers, “There’s a restroom next to a couple of vending machines down that hall. I would have bought something, but…I’m not terribly hungry and there will be time later to eat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey! Dawn Berlitz!” Conway suddenly notices. Before he can go up to the coordinator from Twinleaf, who is in a more than curious hug with Zoey and Kenny, the bespectacled one is held back by his girlfriend.
Shaking her head, Holly makes it clear in her actions and words to, “Let them be for now. You have plenty of time to see and talk to her again, but those three are just catching up. Think about it, and just…look.” Following directions, Conway sees the embracing and for a second, does not understand the big deal. Then he remembers that the reason why the two Sinnoh coordinators came together had to do with the blue-haired one in the middle. He is certain that tears have fallen in both their faces over the debacle with Drew with the difference in this instance being that the tears are all in the name of joy.
For Kenny and Zoey, this is the Dawn Berlitz they fell for many years ago that they were hugging and they could not be happier to see her again; this time, for good.
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Your Thoughts?
Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Now For Chapter Number Thirty!
To cbiesra: Glad you liked the chapter, and there is much more to come right now!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/30/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 30- The Same Mistake)
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The hug that Kenny, Zoey and Dawn are sharing is one that you do not want to let go or ever end. Unfortunately, moments like the one they are having often do not last long enough. “Excuse me, Miss Berlitz?” says a female assistant for the Grand Festival. “Director Contesta will see you now. You know? It’s part of the request that he gave to you while you got sent to Central Booking. You only have about fifteen minutes with him during this planned intermission and then he has to get back to judging appeals.”
“Okay. I’ll be just a moment,” she speaks. With the reasons for her being backstage at this time crystal clear to everyone around her, Dawn seeks to get herself together prior to this meeting similar to a grade school student awaiting to speak with the principal of the school for some unknown reason. Kenny and Zoey, at the silent request of their reunited friend, help her back up on her feet.
“You’ll be all right,” says her childhood friend. “Just hope that Contesta is in a good mood and will give you a slap on the wrist for this. He’s cool…for an old man. When Zoey and I French kissed on live TV once, Zoey swore up and down that we would get in trouble for that, but he just pulled us off to the side at our next contest and said to the two of us to just make sure that our affection doesn’t get any further than that.”
“Yeah,” Zoey interjects, “but the problem with that line of reasoning is that the only thing we did was kiss. We didn’t curse someone out by calling them a mother****er or beat them up on national—no, worldwide television. I think that that is a bit more…severe than smooching, but we’ll see.” Patting Dawn on the near shoulder, Zoey gives the teen her final word of advice. “Keep your head up, Dawn, and when you finish, just forget everything else and get prepared for your appeal tonight. Okay?”
“Thanks Zoey and I’ll see you two later. Have fun, guys!”
Kenny was about to open his mouth and say something related to the reason why they are with Holly and Conway, but his girlfriend gave him a ‘say anything and I will kill you’ look. He instead opts to say that he and Zoey would do their best with the department of recreation in not as many words. They watch Dawn go inside and wish nothing but the best for their friend in her meeting.
The instant the door closes to the office, Zoey bluntly asks her sweetheart, “Do you think something big will go down?”
“Maybe,” he chuckles. “Then again, Contesta might just tell her to not let it happen again given the magnitude of the event. This is the Grand Festival, after all. Could you imagine the backlash that would occur if a top coordinator like Dawn was suspended because of what happened earlier with Drew?”
“It would be like Armageddon for the television networks. Let’s not forget that,” Holly chimes in. Walking next to her is Conway with quite the smile on his face. “This is something that I kind of know about personally. I remember about two years ago I was set to compete against another trainer who I won’t mention by name. He ended up getting into some trouble with gambling before we were supposed to have our match. The networks and advertisers, who essentially run the coordinating and training tournaments because they are the ones who are shelling out the money, had no idea how to handle it given the touchy subject of sports and betting. He had a big match with me, of all people, right after he admitted to gambling to the execs. But…it was crazy. I didn’t find out until later that our big time match was tape-delayed so that the production team could pipe in cheers in case the audience there booed him and the sport’s image would not be put into question. We all lost money over it and…it was just a big embarrassment for all sides involved.”
“Funny, I read the trade magazines for coordinating all the time,” Zoey responds. “I never heard anything about a gambling scandal a year ago.”
“Well, it got squashed very quickly,” says the oldest of the four. “Something like that coming out would cripple the sport. What they did was suspend him for the very vague charge of ‘conduct unbecoming to a pokemon trainer,’ which, quite frankly, could mean anything.”
“You’re right,” Kenny interjects. Desperate to change the subject and get down to business, he continues, “We don’t need any Pete Rose’s on top of the characters already in this sport. Okay, now that everyone is here, I think we should go over this plan I thought of earlier. Someone tipped me off to this great all you can eat buffet near the outskirts of the city. Instead of spending so much of that money on our food, we can conserve, eat there, and then while you go shopping for the condoms, lubrications and whatever else you want, we’ll head back to our hotel in room 832 and get the party started. Does that sound all right to you guys?”
No one disagrees or says anything about the new proposal and after a few seconds, Conway tells Kenny that he likes it and wants to do it. “Do I have to give you back the one hundred dollars?”
“Well, unless the two of you have already bought condoms and the like, no. And even then, I won’t bug you about the change. Is that a deal?”
“I can’t think of anything better, so okay,” Holly quips. “Are we going right now?”
“Why, got something better planned?” Zoey slyly questions.
“No, just wondering.”
“Very well,” says the Twinleaf coordinator. “It’s time to get this show on the road!” he exclaims. Afterwards, Kenny hooks both of his arms and holds Zoey with one arm to his left and Conway with the other arm to his right. Holly anchors the right side of this line as they make their way out of the Slateport Stadium and to the buffet in question.
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With the female runner from earlier opening the door for Dawn, she enters into a large office backstage. This runner then makes her way out of the closed door meeting at the behest of her boss through the door at the other end of the room leaving the Sinnoh coordinator standing alone in this makeshift office. At the main desk, she can see Contesta sitting down, but in front of the desk facing the Pokemon Contest Director is a person she did not expect to see and the last individual she wanted to see.
Looking up to Contesta with her face scrunched and her mood skewed, she inquires, “Sir, forgive me but I thought that this was a one on one meeting. Why is Drew here?”
“Miss Berlitz, please have a seat,” he counters, not really paying any attention to what the young woman in front of him just said. Just in front of the desk are two very large, leather chairs. Currently in the chair to the left of Contesta and to the right of Dawn watching just behind is Drew. Given her current position in the eyes of executives and higher ups within the sport, she really is not in a position to argue something as rudimentary as a seating arrangement. Without any response or call for Contesta to answer her question, she makes the sprint to her seat in the hopes that it will end early and she will not have to spend a great amount of time with the person next to her.
Once firmly placed in her seat, Raoul begins his statement to the two top coordinators in front of him. He sternly says, “I really need to get back to appeals because, as you know, that is my job here at this and all other Grand Festivals. It is not to babysit you when you have your lover’s spats.” Then, once it seemed like the director was about to get things rolling in his speech, a loud beep reverberates through the office.
Acting quickly to silence whatever object is making the noise is Drew, much to the surprise of the other two people inside of the room. Perturbed, Contesta asks the offender, “Don’t you think now would be a great time for you to not have your cell phone on, sir?” While Drew pulls out the high-tech device, he hears even more chastising from his executive superior. “I could punish you just for that. I should punish you just for that, you know?”
“May I just take a few minutes and answer this? It’s a family member and it could be an emergency.”
Sighing, although to some ears it sounded a lot like growling, Contesta answers, “You have five minutes, and then come back here immediately. I’ll have you know that right now, you are treading on extremely thin ice at the moment, Master Emerson. You and Miss Berlitz are both going to be severely punished for that…incident in the press room earlier.”
“Yes, sir,” he replies while standing up, walking in the direction where Dawn came from and opening the door to the walk through area near the tunnel entrance. Hitting the green button on his phone, he brings it to his ear. “What do you want, Dad? I’m in a meeting right now and I can now say that I am officially in the doghouse.”
“Drew, listen to me,” his father says almost urgently. He talks with his son while sitting in his office, which provides a crystal clear view of the Saffron City skyline from one of the highest floors in the tallest skyscraper in that area of the Kanto region. “Please just listen to me carefully and then you can do what you want after that. I know I was not the best dad in the world. As a matter of fact, I absolutely sucked at it. Yes, I provided you with a great house, whatever you wanted materially and the like. There is only one thing I did wrong and it defeats the purpose of all the things I did in the name of trying to make the lives of you and your older sisters better. I did not give you me, Drew, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that. I worked and I was the provider for the family, and your mother was the nurturer. I thought that that would be okay, but it is not okay.”
“What are you saying, Dad?” he vexingly interjects.
“I’m saying that I’ve sat back long enough giving you compliments and telling you things like ‘congratulations’, ‘good luck to you with your son’ and ‘great job’. You fathered—and that’s the correct word to use at this point; you fathered a child behind your girlfriend’s back. You acted so…cavalierly at the podium, I wondered about you. I wanted to know if you were okay. You showed no emotion whatsoever when Dawn rightfully ran down your ineptness as far as being a dad to Damien.”
“Look, I know I am not…the best person to speak to you on this. When you were growing up, I had two loves. One was your mother and the other one was my work. Going to the office everyday was my…escape from the real world and the real problems in my life. Being a corporate executive gave me a portfolio and liquid assets that people dream about at night, but that didn’t come without a cost. I lost my wife, my family and my kids because I wanted to be a big success and everything else got put on the backburner.”
“But damn it, Drew, you’re doing the exact same thing right now that I did and you probably don’t even know it,” says a very emotional Mr. Emerson. “You planned to pay the mother of your child fifty thousand dollars a year so she would stay home and take care of your responsibility and you could keep coordinating without anyone knowing any better! Fortunately, Solidad proved to have more sense than one would gather from this crock deal you made with her some months back. I don’t get…you know I didn’t even…it’s almost like you sold your child! That’s what it sounds like to me, Drew; it sounds like you sold your responsibility to Damien’s mother. I never did anything like that.”
“He’s in good hands with Solidad, dad!” Drew attempts to explain to his father. “It’s not like I’m denying the child like you see on daytime television ad nauseum. I know that Damien is mine. I’m not handing him off to some monster! He’s with his mother!”
“Drew, I wanna ask you something and give me an honest answer.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me, what did Damien do wrong?”
Scoffing before saying “Dad,” Drew is suddenly interrupted by his father.
“No, I wanna know what your son—my grandson did to deserve being treated like this?” The line is quiet like a mouse for a second until Drew’s father tells him to, “Take your time, son. I know I have a lot of time to make up for not being the best dad in the world, but I can’t even call you a dad, son. You don’t deserve the title, because you are not acting like one. So tell me; what did Damien do wrong?”
Drew is boxed out in this conversation. He knows what the answer is and it pains him to say it. The truth hurts. “He didn’t do anything,” he whispers.
“What was that?”
“Damien didn’t do anything wrong, dad!” he reiterates, being careful to not repeat what he said too loudly. Then, uncharacteristic of the Drew that Dawn and the rest of television land saw, his voice starts to break as he finally admits under the pressure of his father’s words, “I was scared, dad. Look, ‘like father, like son’ is a ******** excuse, pardon my language, but I thought that just providing him with everything around that he needed or wanted would be enough; it’s just like you told me a few minutes ago. That’s why I gave Solidad the money. That’s why I worked and left him with her. I didn’t know if I was cut out to do it. I didn’t want to ruin Damien in any way.”
Yet another pause on the other end of the line causes father to play the rare role of ‘daddy’. “Drew, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, sir,” he speaks softly. His voice no longer sounds like it is breaking.
“Do you know what will ruin Damien more than perhaps anything else in the world?” Not bothering to wait for an answer, Mr. Emerson says, “His daddy not being there. That’s it. Just be there, provide and…I won’t lie and tell you that everything else will work out, but the chances of you ruining him go down quite a bit. You can be scared, but not for long. You have a responsibility, son. Don’t make the same mistakes raising Damien that I did raising you. Think about it; you have a son! Say it, Drew.”
“I have a son.”
“Louder!” commands his father.
“I have a son!”
“Yes, and you need to take care of business now! Not just with your son, but with everyone else involved in your life. That’s what growing up is about, Drew. In a nutshell, that’s all that you need to do. Now, you said you had business to take care of with Contesta?”
After a pause, Drew answers, “I didn’t exactly say that to you in this conversation, but…yes. I do have a meeting with him. As a matter of fact, I took this phone call while we were in the middle of my talks with the man. I thought I would just delay the inevitable for a moment, but then came your call and your message, dad. You’re right. I gotta wake up and take responsibility or my own might live to resent me later in life.”
“That’s what I want. I’ll talk to you later, son.”
“Okay, dad. Take care now,” Drew speaks as he hits the ‘END’ button on his cellular phone. With a different attitude than when he exited the office, he goes back into the stadium office to meet the waiting and somewhat impatient stares of both Contesta and Dawn.
“Are we all ready to try this again, Master Emerson?”
Taking the seat which he had sat in just a few minutes earlier, he answers, “Yes, sir. I am. There will be no more distractions from me from this point forward. I promise you.”
“Very well,” Contesta states before continuing his time with two of the top coordinators in the entire pokemon world. “I want you two to know without mincing any words that I am extremely disappointed in both of you. Whatever problems you might have between the two of you did not need to be settled in front of the world like they were. If you want to beat each other up, I’ll call some folks and we’ll see if you can get on the next mixed martial arts pay-per-view. But you won’t do it on my time or my dime. You’re almost adults, so both of you better shape up and I mean soon. Now both of you will be taking part in the Grand Festival and all its activities this weekend and whether you win or you lose, you will have a lot of time to think about it.” Pausing, Contesta prepares himself for the announcement he is about to make. Given the gravity of the situation it pains him to do this, but he knows that it needs to be done. “After tomorrow’s final…both of you are going to be suspended from all sanctioned Pokemon Contests for the next six months.”
“What?” Drew and Dawn question in unison.
The female coordinator even gets up from her seat and asks, “Suspended? For what?”
Raising his eyebrows at the teen girl, he answers, “Do I need to pull out the tape of you and show you, Miss Berlitz? Sit down, please. I am not finished.” Sighing, Dawn concedes to her superior and positions her posterior into the cushioned chair once more. She and Drew attentively listen to the additional words “We are going to put this behind us right here and right now. That means no talking about what occurred in the press room to the media, acting civilized while in the eye of the cameras and just dealing with it. If you break any of these rules, I do have the power to extend your suspension to a term of one full year. The two of you are some of the best in this sport and it hurts me to do this, but there is just no way in which I can let this slide. How would we look if I let this slide? Now do you two have anything else to say?”
Neither Drew nor Dawn opens their mouth to speak. The latter thought it would be a good idea to at least plead her case to the director as to why she lashed out in the way she did, but she doubted that Contesta would even care about any of the underlying circumstances.
Hearing nothing from the duo in front of him, the man who is often called Raoul has one final request of the two coordinators. “Now both of you shake hands.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“This is part of the deal, Master Emerson,” Contesta explains. “Remember, you have to show me that a stunt like what happened in front of the press earlier will not happen again. Now shake hands and you may leave. Drew, you will ready yourself for tomorrow’s elimination rounds and Dawn, you will get yourself set for your appeal in a couple of hours.” Hesitating, both Drew and his ex do not heed the words of Contesta. Even after being suspended for six months each, his words are not ringing in their heads clearly. Noticing that he is not getting anywhere with this, the senior official of the Grand Festival decides to take another step in the resolution process; threats. “I should let the two of you know that if you do not do what I tell you to right now, you can be charged with insubordination and have your licenses taken away for up to two years. So, it’s your choice; you can shake hands and take your medicine for six months, or you can keep your pride and find something else to do for a living.”
The idea of not being able to do what they want for the next two years did not appeal to either of them at all. In this vein, both decide to put their very real differences aside for this one moment and grip each other’s right hands while remaining in their seats. For some reason, both of them hold onto the handshake longer than either of them expected. The duo now realizes that they are on probation for their actions and must make an impression to get their reputations back with the head of Pokemon Contests. By and large, the handshake did not have any feelings behind it whatsoever…from either side. It was done for show, bottom line, and done to keep Contesta happy and make sure that their punishment does not go deeper than it needs to.
For the first time in this entire conversation, a smile appears on the face of Raoul Contesta, who gets what he wanted from Drew and Dawn and now sees no other reason to keep them confined in this space. As the aforementioned coordinators let go of the handshake, he lets both of them know, “That’s all I wanted to see, you two. No more screw-ups and you will be fine, but after this event, you will not be allowed to take part in other contests and Grand Festivals until September 14th and after tomorrow, you will have to hand over your licenses directly to me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” they both answer.
“Very good,” Contesta says. “You are both free to go, but Dawn? I will say that appeals are winding down at the moment. Are you sure you just don’t wanna stay here and watch…however many are left?”
“Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you, Contesta,” she answers as she watches Drew walk through the exit door which led to the backstage area. Though she could care less what he was going to do from that point forth, she could not help but notice the minor and intricate differences in Drew’s mood after he came back from the phone call with the alleged family member.
He seemed to be in a great deal of thought throughout the second part of their talk. It was like he had something else on his mind the entire time, yet kept his focus on the meeting. One curious mind would have to wonder what is causing this and make an effort to understand, but Dawn will not be that individual. Once more, she is beyond the point of caring about Drew for another fraction of a second.
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Though she really does not need them in her club box one or two levels up from the arena floor of the stadium, a top coordinator watches a lot of the action through binoculars. Marina Del Raymond does this as a means of keeping her mind away from the incident by the tunnel. She saw the Marins for the first time in nearly three years. As if that did not resonate within her a great deal, she also saw Kelly for the first time in just over two years.
After the confrontation with Kelly and her parents, she, along with her boyfriend Jimmy, went back to check out some more appeals before hers scheduled for 7:30pm. Jimmy did not believe for one second that Marina made some sort of mistake in her encounter with the Marins and while they walked back to their personal club box for the weekend, he asked her several times if she actually did have some sort of a relationship with the three people in question, including who he correctly assumed was the daughter of the two adults.
Marina, in an attempt to save face and not reveal her wrongdoings towards Jimmy, repeatedly asked him to not to bring up the issue again because she insists on not knowing the people from earlier. He did not get anywhere with Marina during this time and chooses to let it go for now, as he is now handling some business in the restroom.
As the self-proclaimed Pokemon Idol watches and hopes that her issue is now a closed one and she can soon proceed to add yet another Ribbon Cup to her growing collection, the hopes seemed dashed as she feels a hand on her left shoulder. Turning around, she finds Jimmy but can not help noticing that he does not greet her with a smile or any indication thereof on his face.
“Uh, Jimmy…”
“Look, I’ve been doing some…thinking,” he admits. “Maybe I was…a little hard on you earlier. It probably was a big mistake that you made and…I’m sorry if I might have snapped then.”
Consider that bulled dodged. Marina honestly did not expect her boyfriend to go that route, but she was nevertheless thankful for his actions at this time.
“It’s just…well, I know you haven’t forgotten from about three years ago,” Jimmy explains. “We separated during that time because you wanted to go to Hoenn and I wanted to travel through Kanto. We almost broke up over that, but I’m thankful we were able to talk through those differences while we were apart.” Now, gently grabbing Marina from behind by her shoulders, he continues, saying, “Those six months were painful for me, but after we settled our differences over the phone, I relished every day we got to talk and could not wait until we ended our long-distance relationship for good.”
“You thought that the fact that I didn’t want to talk to you about them was me not keeping to our promise of honesty, right?”
“That’s right. I figure…if you’re being honest, you have nothing to hide. I’d be angrier if you just kept anything from me and not so much for what you did. You know that, right?”
“Right,” Marina affirms as she checks the clock one more time. Now showing a time of 6:13pm, her appeal is a little more than an hour away.
Anything to get Kelly and her family away from her thoughts is a blessing for the young woman, including being an idol and example for most young girls in coordinating.
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“Harley?” Max yells as he opens the door to the room they both share at the Slateport Milton hotel. Looking around, he tries to find some indication of his boyfriend’s whereabouts in the room, to no avail. Frustrated he kicks the door, which leads into the bathroom. It is here that Max finds a note posted on the bathroom mirror. Pulling the tape from the glass, he reads the short note, saying…
Max,
If you’ve gotten this, then that means that I am long gone. I have gone to my parent’s house. Don’t you care come to see me, you little *******. You lost that right after you decided that kissing other guys was a good idea while I was in that bathroom. How stupid can you be? Well, you’ll have a lot of time to figure it out on you own!
Unloved,
Harley
Bringing the hand carrying the note down to his sides, Max also brings down his head. The words in the note hurt, that much is true, but nowhere near as much as the fact that in some respects, Harley was right. He could have prevented much of this heartache if he made the choice to avoid Kenny and his amorous tendencies if only for that moment. He could have found a way out of the kiss, but he did not. It is nothing to dwell on now, because the deed has been done. ‘All that’s left to do is head to Harley’s parent’s home in the city and fix this,’ he thinks. Afterwards, though, the young teen has to shudder when he considers everything he knows to be fact. Harley, who is age twenty-five and has not lived with his parents in over fifteen years, went to his parents to get away from him.
Max has only met his boyfriend’s folks three times, and those three times rank as three of the oddest moments in his life, without a doubt. Both of Harley’s parents are staunch practitioners of New Age techniques in parenting and work as doctors in their own office in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Their home is one of the largest penthouses in the entire Hoenn region and their conversations often consist of methodology in parenthood that is largely unheard of and unique in design. Hearing them talk leaves him with an uncomfortable feeling as they run down all of the reasons why parents are failing their children pulling absolutely no punches along the way. Not to mention that they are ultra nice and while in their presence, anyone could get away with murder and they would still not raise their voices above the level of ‘outdoor’.
“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be doing this alone,” Max speaks. The next thing he does after taking the note with him is leave the room of the hotel is head down the hallway and to yet another room on the eighth floor.
He walks quicker than normal as he wants to get this mess settled quicker than normal. He finally finds his destination at room 832 and then, he knocks on the wooden surface, commanding, “All right, Kenny! Come out here, now!” Waiting for a response he hears absolutely nothing. He hears no rustling from the other side and no sounds of any voices, so he decides to knock on the door again. “Damn it, Kenny! Get your *** out here! I believe we have some things to discuss!”
“Max, what are you doing?” asks a voice in the hall. Turning around, he does not expect to find one of his oldest buddies with his girlfriend nearby.
“Brock? Lucy?” he questions. “What are you two doing here?”
“We were going out and we wanted to ask Zoey and Kenny if they wanted to tag along,” answers Pike Queen Lucy, “but I don’t think he and Zoey are here based on what I just saw. You sounded pretty ****** off at the door there. You wanna talk about it?”
“Well, that ******* Kenny kissed me thinking that I was Conway or something screwed up like that. Harley saw me, blew up and went to his parent’s house, and…they don’t like me that much,” he concludes, fibbing in order to get some support from the older couple. “I wanted Kenny to come with me personally and explain himself and his actions to Harley but he’s not here, as you can tell and I don’t have his cell number either.”
Words are failing both Brock and Lucy at this time. In less than thirty seconds, Max’s story renders them speechless and incapable of translating their thoughts into speech. All the two can do is look at each other and wonder if what they just heard was correct. Max just said that Kenny kissed him thinking it was Conway, and Harley caught them in the act and confronted him right afterwards. So many questions arise from just this. One of which is why in the world Kenny is kissing Conway while everyone and their mother knows that he is with Zoey. Not one of the things Max told them made any sense and the words still refuse to come.
“Look,” Max speaks, “if you guys do this for me, I will be eternally grateful. Would you come with me so I can visit Harley’s parents and get this mess straightened out? He lives in the city, like…five or ten minutes away. His folks give me the creeps and I always get more than a bit nervous when we talk. I promise it won’t be long and you can go back to your plans. Please? I’m begging you two! I’d ask my parents, but they are with Kelly as she gets her hand checked.”
“Hold it,” Brock interjects. “Harley’s folks give you the creeps?”
“It’s…very complicated.”
“This whole story of yours is complicated,” Lucy chimes in, “but there’s no need to be dramatic about it. You’re obviously taking the steps to right this wrong and I’m inclined to help you out.”
“But Lucy, this is…”
“Brock, come on! For your friend—for our friend, let’s do this! They live right here, and the night is still young. This shouldn’t take too long.” Stroking her hand through his hair, Lucy asks her “What do you say?”
‘Oh, God. Why does she do this to me?’ he questions within. There is no way he can say ‘no’ to her, not when she is in flirtation mode. “Well, all right. We’ll do it for you, Max.”
“Thanks, you guys,” he exclaims giving Lucy a hug and Brock a quick handshake. “Like I said, Harley is not that far from here. His folks live in Hammonds Tower.”
This bit of information causes the couple to do a double take. “Hammonds Tower?” they ask.
“That’s one of the most expensive spots of all the regions!” Brock states. “Damn, Harley’s parents must be loaded in for them to live there!”
“They are,” Max responds, not really wanting to say much more. Leading the way to the elevators, he says, “Now let’s go. We can definitely walk from here to there. I’ll get Harley back, you can go back to having fun, and I can go about the severe beating of one Kenneth Michael Treanoir IV.”
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A/N: For your information, Kenny’s last name is pronounced Tren-no-are. It’s supposed to have French origins.
Your Thoughts?
To cbiesra: Glad you liked the chapter, and there is much more to come right now!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/30/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 30- The Same Mistake)
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The hug that Kenny, Zoey and Dawn are sharing is one that you do not want to let go or ever end. Unfortunately, moments like the one they are having often do not last long enough. “Excuse me, Miss Berlitz?” says a female assistant for the Grand Festival. “Director Contesta will see you now. You know? It’s part of the request that he gave to you while you got sent to Central Booking. You only have about fifteen minutes with him during this planned intermission and then he has to get back to judging appeals.”
“Okay. I’ll be just a moment,” she speaks. With the reasons for her being backstage at this time crystal clear to everyone around her, Dawn seeks to get herself together prior to this meeting similar to a grade school student awaiting to speak with the principal of the school for some unknown reason. Kenny and Zoey, at the silent request of their reunited friend, help her back up on her feet.
“You’ll be all right,” says her childhood friend. “Just hope that Contesta is in a good mood and will give you a slap on the wrist for this. He’s cool…for an old man. When Zoey and I French kissed on live TV once, Zoey swore up and down that we would get in trouble for that, but he just pulled us off to the side at our next contest and said to the two of us to just make sure that our affection doesn’t get any further than that.”
“Yeah,” Zoey interjects, “but the problem with that line of reasoning is that the only thing we did was kiss. We didn’t curse someone out by calling them a mother****er or beat them up on national—no, worldwide television. I think that that is a bit more…severe than smooching, but we’ll see.” Patting Dawn on the near shoulder, Zoey gives the teen her final word of advice. “Keep your head up, Dawn, and when you finish, just forget everything else and get prepared for your appeal tonight. Okay?”
“Thanks Zoey and I’ll see you two later. Have fun, guys!”
Kenny was about to open his mouth and say something related to the reason why they are with Holly and Conway, but his girlfriend gave him a ‘say anything and I will kill you’ look. He instead opts to say that he and Zoey would do their best with the department of recreation in not as many words. They watch Dawn go inside and wish nothing but the best for their friend in her meeting.
The instant the door closes to the office, Zoey bluntly asks her sweetheart, “Do you think something big will go down?”
“Maybe,” he chuckles. “Then again, Contesta might just tell her to not let it happen again given the magnitude of the event. This is the Grand Festival, after all. Could you imagine the backlash that would occur if a top coordinator like Dawn was suspended because of what happened earlier with Drew?”
“It would be like Armageddon for the television networks. Let’s not forget that,” Holly chimes in. Walking next to her is Conway with quite the smile on his face. “This is something that I kind of know about personally. I remember about two years ago I was set to compete against another trainer who I won’t mention by name. He ended up getting into some trouble with gambling before we were supposed to have our match. The networks and advertisers, who essentially run the coordinating and training tournaments because they are the ones who are shelling out the money, had no idea how to handle it given the touchy subject of sports and betting. He had a big match with me, of all people, right after he admitted to gambling to the execs. But…it was crazy. I didn’t find out until later that our big time match was tape-delayed so that the production team could pipe in cheers in case the audience there booed him and the sport’s image would not be put into question. We all lost money over it and…it was just a big embarrassment for all sides involved.”
“Funny, I read the trade magazines for coordinating all the time,” Zoey responds. “I never heard anything about a gambling scandal a year ago.”
“Well, it got squashed very quickly,” says the oldest of the four. “Something like that coming out would cripple the sport. What they did was suspend him for the very vague charge of ‘conduct unbecoming to a pokemon trainer,’ which, quite frankly, could mean anything.”
“You’re right,” Kenny interjects. Desperate to change the subject and get down to business, he continues, “We don’t need any Pete Rose’s on top of the characters already in this sport. Okay, now that everyone is here, I think we should go over this plan I thought of earlier. Someone tipped me off to this great all you can eat buffet near the outskirts of the city. Instead of spending so much of that money on our food, we can conserve, eat there, and then while you go shopping for the condoms, lubrications and whatever else you want, we’ll head back to our hotel in room 832 and get the party started. Does that sound all right to you guys?”
No one disagrees or says anything about the new proposal and after a few seconds, Conway tells Kenny that he likes it and wants to do it. “Do I have to give you back the one hundred dollars?”
“Well, unless the two of you have already bought condoms and the like, no. And even then, I won’t bug you about the change. Is that a deal?”
“I can’t think of anything better, so okay,” Holly quips. “Are we going right now?”
“Why, got something better planned?” Zoey slyly questions.
“No, just wondering.”
“Very well,” says the Twinleaf coordinator. “It’s time to get this show on the road!” he exclaims. Afterwards, Kenny hooks both of his arms and holds Zoey with one arm to his left and Conway with the other arm to his right. Holly anchors the right side of this line as they make their way out of the Slateport Stadium and to the buffet in question.
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With the female runner from earlier opening the door for Dawn, she enters into a large office backstage. This runner then makes her way out of the closed door meeting at the behest of her boss through the door at the other end of the room leaving the Sinnoh coordinator standing alone in this makeshift office. At the main desk, she can see Contesta sitting down, but in front of the desk facing the Pokemon Contest Director is a person she did not expect to see and the last individual she wanted to see.
Looking up to Contesta with her face scrunched and her mood skewed, she inquires, “Sir, forgive me but I thought that this was a one on one meeting. Why is Drew here?”
“Miss Berlitz, please have a seat,” he counters, not really paying any attention to what the young woman in front of him just said. Just in front of the desk are two very large, leather chairs. Currently in the chair to the left of Contesta and to the right of Dawn watching just behind is Drew. Given her current position in the eyes of executives and higher ups within the sport, she really is not in a position to argue something as rudimentary as a seating arrangement. Without any response or call for Contesta to answer her question, she makes the sprint to her seat in the hopes that it will end early and she will not have to spend a great amount of time with the person next to her.
Once firmly placed in her seat, Raoul begins his statement to the two top coordinators in front of him. He sternly says, “I really need to get back to appeals because, as you know, that is my job here at this and all other Grand Festivals. It is not to babysit you when you have your lover’s spats.” Then, once it seemed like the director was about to get things rolling in his speech, a loud beep reverberates through the office.
Acting quickly to silence whatever object is making the noise is Drew, much to the surprise of the other two people inside of the room. Perturbed, Contesta asks the offender, “Don’t you think now would be a great time for you to not have your cell phone on, sir?” While Drew pulls out the high-tech device, he hears even more chastising from his executive superior. “I could punish you just for that. I should punish you just for that, you know?”
“May I just take a few minutes and answer this? It’s a family member and it could be an emergency.”
Sighing, although to some ears it sounded a lot like growling, Contesta answers, “You have five minutes, and then come back here immediately. I’ll have you know that right now, you are treading on extremely thin ice at the moment, Master Emerson. You and Miss Berlitz are both going to be severely punished for that…incident in the press room earlier.”
“Yes, sir,” he replies while standing up, walking in the direction where Dawn came from and opening the door to the walk through area near the tunnel entrance. Hitting the green button on his phone, he brings it to his ear. “What do you want, Dad? I’m in a meeting right now and I can now say that I am officially in the doghouse.”
“Drew, listen to me,” his father says almost urgently. He talks with his son while sitting in his office, which provides a crystal clear view of the Saffron City skyline from one of the highest floors in the tallest skyscraper in that area of the Kanto region. “Please just listen to me carefully and then you can do what you want after that. I know I was not the best dad in the world. As a matter of fact, I absolutely sucked at it. Yes, I provided you with a great house, whatever you wanted materially and the like. There is only one thing I did wrong and it defeats the purpose of all the things I did in the name of trying to make the lives of you and your older sisters better. I did not give you me, Drew, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that. I worked and I was the provider for the family, and your mother was the nurturer. I thought that that would be okay, but it is not okay.”
“What are you saying, Dad?” he vexingly interjects.
“I’m saying that I’ve sat back long enough giving you compliments and telling you things like ‘congratulations’, ‘good luck to you with your son’ and ‘great job’. You fathered—and that’s the correct word to use at this point; you fathered a child behind your girlfriend’s back. You acted so…cavalierly at the podium, I wondered about you. I wanted to know if you were okay. You showed no emotion whatsoever when Dawn rightfully ran down your ineptness as far as being a dad to Damien.”
“Look, I know I am not…the best person to speak to you on this. When you were growing up, I had two loves. One was your mother and the other one was my work. Going to the office everyday was my…escape from the real world and the real problems in my life. Being a corporate executive gave me a portfolio and liquid assets that people dream about at night, but that didn’t come without a cost. I lost my wife, my family and my kids because I wanted to be a big success and everything else got put on the backburner.”
“But damn it, Drew, you’re doing the exact same thing right now that I did and you probably don’t even know it,” says a very emotional Mr. Emerson. “You planned to pay the mother of your child fifty thousand dollars a year so she would stay home and take care of your responsibility and you could keep coordinating without anyone knowing any better! Fortunately, Solidad proved to have more sense than one would gather from this crock deal you made with her some months back. I don’t get…you know I didn’t even…it’s almost like you sold your child! That’s what it sounds like to me, Drew; it sounds like you sold your responsibility to Damien’s mother. I never did anything like that.”
“He’s in good hands with Solidad, dad!” Drew attempts to explain to his father. “It’s not like I’m denying the child like you see on daytime television ad nauseum. I know that Damien is mine. I’m not handing him off to some monster! He’s with his mother!”
“Drew, I wanna ask you something and give me an honest answer.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me, what did Damien do wrong?”
Scoffing before saying “Dad,” Drew is suddenly interrupted by his father.
“No, I wanna know what your son—my grandson did to deserve being treated like this?” The line is quiet like a mouse for a second until Drew’s father tells him to, “Take your time, son. I know I have a lot of time to make up for not being the best dad in the world, but I can’t even call you a dad, son. You don’t deserve the title, because you are not acting like one. So tell me; what did Damien do wrong?”
Drew is boxed out in this conversation. He knows what the answer is and it pains him to say it. The truth hurts. “He didn’t do anything,” he whispers.
“What was that?”
“Damien didn’t do anything wrong, dad!” he reiterates, being careful to not repeat what he said too loudly. Then, uncharacteristic of the Drew that Dawn and the rest of television land saw, his voice starts to break as he finally admits under the pressure of his father’s words, “I was scared, dad. Look, ‘like father, like son’ is a ******** excuse, pardon my language, but I thought that just providing him with everything around that he needed or wanted would be enough; it’s just like you told me a few minutes ago. That’s why I gave Solidad the money. That’s why I worked and left him with her. I didn’t know if I was cut out to do it. I didn’t want to ruin Damien in any way.”
Yet another pause on the other end of the line causes father to play the rare role of ‘daddy’. “Drew, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, sir,” he speaks softly. His voice no longer sounds like it is breaking.
“Do you know what will ruin Damien more than perhaps anything else in the world?” Not bothering to wait for an answer, Mr. Emerson says, “His daddy not being there. That’s it. Just be there, provide and…I won’t lie and tell you that everything else will work out, but the chances of you ruining him go down quite a bit. You can be scared, but not for long. You have a responsibility, son. Don’t make the same mistakes raising Damien that I did raising you. Think about it; you have a son! Say it, Drew.”
“I have a son.”
“Louder!” commands his father.
“I have a son!”
“Yes, and you need to take care of business now! Not just with your son, but with everyone else involved in your life. That’s what growing up is about, Drew. In a nutshell, that’s all that you need to do. Now, you said you had business to take care of with Contesta?”
After a pause, Drew answers, “I didn’t exactly say that to you in this conversation, but…yes. I do have a meeting with him. As a matter of fact, I took this phone call while we were in the middle of my talks with the man. I thought I would just delay the inevitable for a moment, but then came your call and your message, dad. You’re right. I gotta wake up and take responsibility or my own might live to resent me later in life.”
“That’s what I want. I’ll talk to you later, son.”
“Okay, dad. Take care now,” Drew speaks as he hits the ‘END’ button on his cellular phone. With a different attitude than when he exited the office, he goes back into the stadium office to meet the waiting and somewhat impatient stares of both Contesta and Dawn.
“Are we all ready to try this again, Master Emerson?”
Taking the seat which he had sat in just a few minutes earlier, he answers, “Yes, sir. I am. There will be no more distractions from me from this point forward. I promise you.”
“Very well,” Contesta states before continuing his time with two of the top coordinators in the entire pokemon world. “I want you two to know without mincing any words that I am extremely disappointed in both of you. Whatever problems you might have between the two of you did not need to be settled in front of the world like they were. If you want to beat each other up, I’ll call some folks and we’ll see if you can get on the next mixed martial arts pay-per-view. But you won’t do it on my time or my dime. You’re almost adults, so both of you better shape up and I mean soon. Now both of you will be taking part in the Grand Festival and all its activities this weekend and whether you win or you lose, you will have a lot of time to think about it.” Pausing, Contesta prepares himself for the announcement he is about to make. Given the gravity of the situation it pains him to do this, but he knows that it needs to be done. “After tomorrow’s final…both of you are going to be suspended from all sanctioned Pokemon Contests for the next six months.”
“What?” Drew and Dawn question in unison.
The female coordinator even gets up from her seat and asks, “Suspended? For what?”
Raising his eyebrows at the teen girl, he answers, “Do I need to pull out the tape of you and show you, Miss Berlitz? Sit down, please. I am not finished.” Sighing, Dawn concedes to her superior and positions her posterior into the cushioned chair once more. She and Drew attentively listen to the additional words “We are going to put this behind us right here and right now. That means no talking about what occurred in the press room to the media, acting civilized while in the eye of the cameras and just dealing with it. If you break any of these rules, I do have the power to extend your suspension to a term of one full year. The two of you are some of the best in this sport and it hurts me to do this, but there is just no way in which I can let this slide. How would we look if I let this slide? Now do you two have anything else to say?”
Neither Drew nor Dawn opens their mouth to speak. The latter thought it would be a good idea to at least plead her case to the director as to why she lashed out in the way she did, but she doubted that Contesta would even care about any of the underlying circumstances.
Hearing nothing from the duo in front of him, the man who is often called Raoul has one final request of the two coordinators. “Now both of you shake hands.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“This is part of the deal, Master Emerson,” Contesta explains. “Remember, you have to show me that a stunt like what happened in front of the press earlier will not happen again. Now shake hands and you may leave. Drew, you will ready yourself for tomorrow’s elimination rounds and Dawn, you will get yourself set for your appeal in a couple of hours.” Hesitating, both Drew and his ex do not heed the words of Contesta. Even after being suspended for six months each, his words are not ringing in their heads clearly. Noticing that he is not getting anywhere with this, the senior official of the Grand Festival decides to take another step in the resolution process; threats. “I should let the two of you know that if you do not do what I tell you to right now, you can be charged with insubordination and have your licenses taken away for up to two years. So, it’s your choice; you can shake hands and take your medicine for six months, or you can keep your pride and find something else to do for a living.”
The idea of not being able to do what they want for the next two years did not appeal to either of them at all. In this vein, both decide to put their very real differences aside for this one moment and grip each other’s right hands while remaining in their seats. For some reason, both of them hold onto the handshake longer than either of them expected. The duo now realizes that they are on probation for their actions and must make an impression to get their reputations back with the head of Pokemon Contests. By and large, the handshake did not have any feelings behind it whatsoever…from either side. It was done for show, bottom line, and done to keep Contesta happy and make sure that their punishment does not go deeper than it needs to.
For the first time in this entire conversation, a smile appears on the face of Raoul Contesta, who gets what he wanted from Drew and Dawn and now sees no other reason to keep them confined in this space. As the aforementioned coordinators let go of the handshake, he lets both of them know, “That’s all I wanted to see, you two. No more screw-ups and you will be fine, but after this event, you will not be allowed to take part in other contests and Grand Festivals until September 14th and after tomorrow, you will have to hand over your licenses directly to me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” they both answer.
“Very good,” Contesta says. “You are both free to go, but Dawn? I will say that appeals are winding down at the moment. Are you sure you just don’t wanna stay here and watch…however many are left?”
“Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you, Contesta,” she answers as she watches Drew walk through the exit door which led to the backstage area. Though she could care less what he was going to do from that point forth, she could not help but notice the minor and intricate differences in Drew’s mood after he came back from the phone call with the alleged family member.
He seemed to be in a great deal of thought throughout the second part of their talk. It was like he had something else on his mind the entire time, yet kept his focus on the meeting. One curious mind would have to wonder what is causing this and make an effort to understand, but Dawn will not be that individual. Once more, she is beyond the point of caring about Drew for another fraction of a second.
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Though she really does not need them in her club box one or two levels up from the arena floor of the stadium, a top coordinator watches a lot of the action through binoculars. Marina Del Raymond does this as a means of keeping her mind away from the incident by the tunnel. She saw the Marins for the first time in nearly three years. As if that did not resonate within her a great deal, she also saw Kelly for the first time in just over two years.
After the confrontation with Kelly and her parents, she, along with her boyfriend Jimmy, went back to check out some more appeals before hers scheduled for 7:30pm. Jimmy did not believe for one second that Marina made some sort of mistake in her encounter with the Marins and while they walked back to their personal club box for the weekend, he asked her several times if she actually did have some sort of a relationship with the three people in question, including who he correctly assumed was the daughter of the two adults.
Marina, in an attempt to save face and not reveal her wrongdoings towards Jimmy, repeatedly asked him to not to bring up the issue again because she insists on not knowing the people from earlier. He did not get anywhere with Marina during this time and chooses to let it go for now, as he is now handling some business in the restroom.
As the self-proclaimed Pokemon Idol watches and hopes that her issue is now a closed one and she can soon proceed to add yet another Ribbon Cup to her growing collection, the hopes seemed dashed as she feels a hand on her left shoulder. Turning around, she finds Jimmy but can not help noticing that he does not greet her with a smile or any indication thereof on his face.
“Uh, Jimmy…”
“Look, I’ve been doing some…thinking,” he admits. “Maybe I was…a little hard on you earlier. It probably was a big mistake that you made and…I’m sorry if I might have snapped then.”
Consider that bulled dodged. Marina honestly did not expect her boyfriend to go that route, but she was nevertheless thankful for his actions at this time.
“It’s just…well, I know you haven’t forgotten from about three years ago,” Jimmy explains. “We separated during that time because you wanted to go to Hoenn and I wanted to travel through Kanto. We almost broke up over that, but I’m thankful we were able to talk through those differences while we were apart.” Now, gently grabbing Marina from behind by her shoulders, he continues, saying, “Those six months were painful for me, but after we settled our differences over the phone, I relished every day we got to talk and could not wait until we ended our long-distance relationship for good.”
“You thought that the fact that I didn’t want to talk to you about them was me not keeping to our promise of honesty, right?”
“That’s right. I figure…if you’re being honest, you have nothing to hide. I’d be angrier if you just kept anything from me and not so much for what you did. You know that, right?”
“Right,” Marina affirms as she checks the clock one more time. Now showing a time of 6:13pm, her appeal is a little more than an hour away.
Anything to get Kelly and her family away from her thoughts is a blessing for the young woman, including being an idol and example for most young girls in coordinating.
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“Harley?” Max yells as he opens the door to the room they both share at the Slateport Milton hotel. Looking around, he tries to find some indication of his boyfriend’s whereabouts in the room, to no avail. Frustrated he kicks the door, which leads into the bathroom. It is here that Max finds a note posted on the bathroom mirror. Pulling the tape from the glass, he reads the short note, saying…
Max,
If you’ve gotten this, then that means that I am long gone. I have gone to my parent’s house. Don’t you care come to see me, you little *******. You lost that right after you decided that kissing other guys was a good idea while I was in that bathroom. How stupid can you be? Well, you’ll have a lot of time to figure it out on you own!
Unloved,
Harley
Bringing the hand carrying the note down to his sides, Max also brings down his head. The words in the note hurt, that much is true, but nowhere near as much as the fact that in some respects, Harley was right. He could have prevented much of this heartache if he made the choice to avoid Kenny and his amorous tendencies if only for that moment. He could have found a way out of the kiss, but he did not. It is nothing to dwell on now, because the deed has been done. ‘All that’s left to do is head to Harley’s parent’s home in the city and fix this,’ he thinks. Afterwards, though, the young teen has to shudder when he considers everything he knows to be fact. Harley, who is age twenty-five and has not lived with his parents in over fifteen years, went to his parents to get away from him.
Max has only met his boyfriend’s folks three times, and those three times rank as three of the oddest moments in his life, without a doubt. Both of Harley’s parents are staunch practitioners of New Age techniques in parenting and work as doctors in their own office in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Their home is one of the largest penthouses in the entire Hoenn region and their conversations often consist of methodology in parenthood that is largely unheard of and unique in design. Hearing them talk leaves him with an uncomfortable feeling as they run down all of the reasons why parents are failing their children pulling absolutely no punches along the way. Not to mention that they are ultra nice and while in their presence, anyone could get away with murder and they would still not raise their voices above the level of ‘outdoor’.
“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be doing this alone,” Max speaks. The next thing he does after taking the note with him is leave the room of the hotel is head down the hallway and to yet another room on the eighth floor.
He walks quicker than normal as he wants to get this mess settled quicker than normal. He finally finds his destination at room 832 and then, he knocks on the wooden surface, commanding, “All right, Kenny! Come out here, now!” Waiting for a response he hears absolutely nothing. He hears no rustling from the other side and no sounds of any voices, so he decides to knock on the door again. “Damn it, Kenny! Get your *** out here! I believe we have some things to discuss!”
“Max, what are you doing?” asks a voice in the hall. Turning around, he does not expect to find one of his oldest buddies with his girlfriend nearby.
“Brock? Lucy?” he questions. “What are you two doing here?”
“We were going out and we wanted to ask Zoey and Kenny if they wanted to tag along,” answers Pike Queen Lucy, “but I don’t think he and Zoey are here based on what I just saw. You sounded pretty ****** off at the door there. You wanna talk about it?”
“Well, that ******* Kenny kissed me thinking that I was Conway or something screwed up like that. Harley saw me, blew up and went to his parent’s house, and…they don’t like me that much,” he concludes, fibbing in order to get some support from the older couple. “I wanted Kenny to come with me personally and explain himself and his actions to Harley but he’s not here, as you can tell and I don’t have his cell number either.”
Words are failing both Brock and Lucy at this time. In less than thirty seconds, Max’s story renders them speechless and incapable of translating their thoughts into speech. All the two can do is look at each other and wonder if what they just heard was correct. Max just said that Kenny kissed him thinking it was Conway, and Harley caught them in the act and confronted him right afterwards. So many questions arise from just this. One of which is why in the world Kenny is kissing Conway while everyone and their mother knows that he is with Zoey. Not one of the things Max told them made any sense and the words still refuse to come.
“Look,” Max speaks, “if you guys do this for me, I will be eternally grateful. Would you come with me so I can visit Harley’s parents and get this mess straightened out? He lives in the city, like…five or ten minutes away. His folks give me the creeps and I always get more than a bit nervous when we talk. I promise it won’t be long and you can go back to your plans. Please? I’m begging you two! I’d ask my parents, but they are with Kelly as she gets her hand checked.”
“Hold it,” Brock interjects. “Harley’s folks give you the creeps?”
“It’s…very complicated.”
“This whole story of yours is complicated,” Lucy chimes in, “but there’s no need to be dramatic about it. You’re obviously taking the steps to right this wrong and I’m inclined to help you out.”
“But Lucy, this is…”
“Brock, come on! For your friend—for our friend, let’s do this! They live right here, and the night is still young. This shouldn’t take too long.” Stroking her hand through his hair, Lucy asks her “What do you say?”
‘Oh, God. Why does she do this to me?’ he questions within. There is no way he can say ‘no’ to her, not when she is in flirtation mode. “Well, all right. We’ll do it for you, Max.”
“Thanks, you guys,” he exclaims giving Lucy a hug and Brock a quick handshake. “Like I said, Harley is not that far from here. His folks live in Hammonds Tower.”
This bit of information causes the couple to do a double take. “Hammonds Tower?” they ask.
“That’s one of the most expensive spots of all the regions!” Brock states. “Damn, Harley’s parents must be loaded in for them to live there!”
“They are,” Max responds, not really wanting to say much more. Leading the way to the elevators, he says, “Now let’s go. We can definitely walk from here to there. I’ll get Harley back, you can go back to having fun, and I can go about the severe beating of one Kenneth Michael Treanoir IV.”
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A/N: For your information, Kenny’s last name is pronounced Tren-no-are. It’s supposed to have French origins.
Your Thoughts?
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Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
And now, here's chapter thirty-one!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/31/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
NOTE: Over the next several chapters, Kenny, Zoey, Conway and Holly will discuss different topics in their lives and say a lot of things before they go back for sex. So do you want them to talk about something in particular? Well, let me know! More details can be found at the end of this chapter.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 31- Fun and Fun With Names)
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Out in the window, the sun fades off into the distance making its way to all points west. If the big orb could see, then it would be treated to quite a show. In the room of one of the finest pokemon trainers of the past decade there are two, and the two are quite close at the moment adding an unfamiliar amount of weight to the bed of the trainer from Pallet.
Neither of them particularly cares about this, though. The sun does not matter, the fact that day is about to become night does not matter and, perhaps most important, inhibitions do not matter. They really just want to be close. It has been such a long time, in their minds, since they got to kiss without either one’s parents getting in the way and this time will not go to waste. Paul would rather pack up and head back home before that happens as he looks at the truly handsome specimen below him.
After sitting down to watch May’s appeal about an hour ago, Delia, Ash and Paul cheered on the efforts of the coordinator they helped train for this moment. Few people in the town were happier than they were to see that the efforts of ‘Nata’ and May grew to create a fantastic appeal that everyone in the arena and those watching at home were amazed to see. Following the appeal both trainers knew that there was not much more competition until later that evening, so they retired to Ash’s bed for some downtime to relax and enjoy one another’s company.
Ash grins like a loon as Paul allows a similar action to arrive on his face. The two dressed only in their boxers and socks have been at it in their make out session for almost ten minutes now with Paul, as usual, taking the lead and engaging in foreplay to get a certain message across. He knew more than his partner did about the effect it had. It was evident on the other guy’s face.
From tracing the muscles on his six-pack, to whispering dirty things in both of his ears while at the same time blowing into said ears all the way up to giving some other parts of his boyfriend some mild stimulation, most people already would have gotten the hint and would have proceeded into the act of love making. Unfortunate for Paul, Ash is not ‘most people’ and often needs to be told things explicitly to get the hint…like right now.
Rolling his eyes as he kneels above Ash, he asks him what he hoped the young man on the bottom would have gotten. “Will you make love to me, Ash?” is the question that comes out of Paul’s mouth. He asks it as calmly as his hormones will muster in the heat of the moment.
Sighing, he admits “I want to…”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“My mother, genius,” he answers sarcastically. “I know we’ve been together for the past year now and we’ve been nothing but honest with mom about…most of our relationship.”
“You think she doesn’t know that you’re sexually active?”
“No, she just thinks that I’m having a lot of fun.” Before Paul can open his mouth to rebut those claims, Ash cuts him off, saying, “And I don’t mean that kind of fun, either…even though that is a hell of a lot of fun.”
Pointing his right index finger directly in the other male’s face, he teasingly warns him, “You just saved yourself a whole lot of punishment mister!”
“Define…punishment?”
Not wanting to leave Ash in the dark about what he meant, Paul comes back down to his boyfriend’s level and explains the definition of consequences through a whisper. Going back to his previous position, the star trainer from Sinnoh listens as Ash explains, “That’s not punishment. That’s the fun I was talking about a minute ago; at least the part that has a lot of sex attached to it. It doesn’t matter, though. I told you before we decided to spend these next couple of months living together that we had to be careful about these things. My mom will hear us if we have the fun or punishment that you talked about and then we have to answer all these embarrassing questions.”
“Ash, please,” Paul simply retorts. “You’re mom knows that you’re having sex with me because I told her.”
“You did what?” he exclaims, sitting up from the bed and knocking heads with Paul causing him to fall off the bed and onto the floor.
“Ah, goddamn it, Ash!” Paul screams.
“How could you have told her something so personal?”
“Aw, come the **** on! She was gonna find out eventually!” Paul’s face softens when he sees Ash looking very downtrodden while sitting on the side of the bed and lightly shaking his head at the thought of his mother knowing what he and Paul love to do when no one was around to bother them.
Sitting next to his beau, Paul clarifies some matters that he feels are of great importance to Ash. “Okay, it was around mid-February; a month ago. I got up in the middle of the night to get some water and saw your mom at the kitchen table. Neither of us could sleep, so we decided to start conversation. We talked, and the subject of sex came up after a while. She never asked me point blank if we had sex but after a while, it became clear to me that she either knew or had a feeling.” Hearing this news causes a change in Ash’s demeanor not seen since he found out that his mom knew of his sex life. It was no longer a feeling of embarrassment going through Ash. Rather, he is experiencing more curiosity than anything else. “That night, she dropped these subtle hints and said things like, ‘Hey, I’m sure you two can find a lot to do while I’m at the market or running errands’. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together. Believe me; your mom surprised me when she said that it was okay for you and me to do it as long as we use protection…”
“Which we do,” Ash interjects.
“But then again,” Paul continues, “We’re adults, Ash, so it shouldn’t surprise me.”
“So just so I understand you and mom completely, we can have protected sex…”
“Oh and I forgot to mention this but…well, she said that if I ever broke your heart that my family, friends and the police would not know the first place to look and find me...if I were in one piece. She said that they would take care of me really well.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I didn’t ask,” Paul answers, shaking his head. “I just promised your mother that I wouldn’t break your heart in any way. But…we are allowed to have sex in her house provided that we are not too loud. This includes disturbing her sleep or waking the neighbors. Sound good to you?”
Much to the surprise of the violet-haired trainer with the once gruff demeanor, Ash wraps his arms around him and puts on the squeeze. “Are you kidding me?” he asks. “This is the best! I was worried about this, but…now I have no reason. I just wonder why in the world she didn’t sit down with me and say something?”
“She knew you’d come to her eventually. You practically tell her everything, but she knew that this would be different, for obvious reasons.”
“And she was right.”
“Hey, boys!” Delia calls from downstairs.
Going outside of Ash’s room, he and Paul call back to the first floor to hear that Delia will be going out for about an hour to buy some ingredients for snacks during tomorrow’s party.
“Okay,” they respond.
“Have fun!” Delia says as she laughs her way out of the house not bothering to hear an answer from either of them because she already knows what will happen while she is out.
Once the door to the Ketchum house closes, Paul pats Ash on his bare shoulder. “Well, you heard what your mom said, so I’ll ask you again. Ash, will you…” Paul can not finish what he asked because he got shoved by the young man in question onto the bed. Very rarely did Ash ever take control of a situation like this one ever since their encounters began but in this case, as the trainer from Pallet jumps onto the bed and his boyfriend, he is willing to do a little give and take.
Besides, that is what adds the sizzle and the spice to their life, thereby making it quite…fun.
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Holding the door open for Zoey, Holly and finally Conway in that order, Kenny welcomes them to the buffet he mentioned back at the stadium a few minutes ago. The place is a large restaurant, which is simple in its design. There’s no real theme to it because a gimmick or hook of that sort is not needed. The four teens along with everyone else comes to this hangout, known as ‘The Stuff Stop’, to gorge on food of near-high quality for a respectable price and take part in as much nourishment as their bodies will allow. Fitting over 300 people, it is one of the largest buffets any of them have ever seen and weary from a very hectic day, it appears to be the spot in Slateport City to just pig out without care.
Due to the fact that he has the money, Conway walks up to the cashier’s counter first to let the attendant know that he will be paying for four adults this evening.
Putting the information into the computer register, the employee with the name of ‘Zaria’ tells the young male in front of him, “That’ll be ninety-two dollars and forty-one cents.” Conway does not cringe at the thought of paying so much for a meal because he’s not paying the money for said dinner out of his own pocket.
He pulls out the one hundred dollar bill Kenny gave him earlier and gives it to Zaria, adding, “And don’t worry about the change. You keep it.” After Zaria thanks him, they go to seat themselves at one of the tables in the buffet that is about two-thirds to capacity for the evening. The more experienced pair of Kenny and Zoey would prefer to have a table or booth away from a lot of crowds, particularly those with several children nearby. Even though they are frank, they are also quite aware that many people would not like to hear what these four say in their discussion.
As they search together for the perfect spot, Kenny hears his name being called from someone not that far away. Turning in all directions, the most promiscuous of the four teenagers sees one of his true friends for life in the buffet.
“Leona? Is that you?” he asks.
“In the flesh, Kenny!”
“My God! How’ve you been?” he asks as Leona joins him in an embrace.
“Not too bad. I took a break from training to get a look at the Grand Festival. Dawn is competing in this one and I thought I’d catch it.”
Letting go of the hug, he waits for Zoey to get in a hug and a greeting with Leona before saying, “Well, you know that Dawn recently broke up with Drew, right?”
“Yeah, I was in my hotel room earlier and saw that…brawl. If you ask me, it’s the best thing that could have happened to her. Not to mention she more than put the beat down on that little S.O.B. I loved every second of it, man.”
“As I’m sure you did,” Kenny introduces his old friend to his new friends, saying, “Holly? Conway? I’d like you to meet my good friend from grammar school, Leona Darcy. Leona, this is…”
“I know these guys; Holly Rockwell and Conway Ericsson,” she says with the sliest of smiles. As both trainers nod at Leona’s correct identification, she reveals, “We competed against each other in the Sinnoh league, and I faced both of them one time each during past tournaments and won both times.”
“Wingull and all of my other flyers had no chance against her, and that’s why I lost,” defends the older girl.
“But you put up a hell of a battle against my Manectric nonetheless, Holly. Well, nice to see you guys here. I know you’ll enjoy the food here. I need to get a third plate of this stuff! Enjoy!”
“Thank you!” they all say in unison as they spend a few more seconds and finally find their table of choice. It is a booth, and is away from a lot of the commotion nearest to the different buffet stations so that they can talk about whatever they want. Placing their receipt there on the table and claiming it as their own, they make their way to the different stations. Zoey and Conway immediately rush to the quiet salad bar while Kenny and Holly go to the meats to fill their first plate. Holly’s initial main course is a large stack of prime rib with au jus and Kenny gets a whole chicken breast with cornbread and steamed okra.
“Holly,” Kenny says while she gets a large heap of fried macaroni and cheese, “I don’t mean to be rude when I say this, but…damn, girl! Where the hell do you put all that?”
Not thinking that there was anything wrong with what she was doing, she answers, “My stomach. Duh!”
Once Holly can no longer find any space on her plate, he says, “I just had to ask,” before he takes his plate back to the booth where each one’s partners are already sitting down and eating their salads; Zoey has a large chef’s salad and Conway is eating a Caesar salad. This does not sit well with Kenny in the least bit. “Zoey! Couldn’t you wait for us?”
“You guys were at that meat station for a long time,” she responds before taking another bite of her salad.
“Both of you stop, now. Neither of you are starving. At the very least, you could wait so we could all say grace.” Turning to Conway, Kenny asks him, “If your mother were here, would she let you just dig in like that?”
“Uh…actually yes, though she wouldn’t care either way. I’m not a Christian, but I did say a silent grace beforehand. Religion doesn’t necessarily have to play a part in it.”
“Well…yeah. You’re right about that one.” Sitting down with Zoey while Holly takes a seat with Conway, he asks the older guy another question. “Do you…belong to a religion?”
“My parents raised me as a Buddhist when I was young, but they have always been open to us kids finding our own philosophy of life no matter what. My brother Seth wants to follow Confucianism and my sister Jordan has shown interest in Scientology. Me…I still don’t know. I follow Buddhism with my parents, though, so I have not converted yes.”
“That’s cool,” Kenny answers as he gets a forkful of his okra. “I…I’m sorry I made a big deal out of it. Believe it or not, I am a born and raised Catholic and if I didn’t say grace during school, the sisters of St. Frances would tear into me a new one…by the grace of God.”
“Whoa, you just blew my mind right now,” Conway comments while Holly starts to put a dent into her plate. “You’re Catholic and go to mass and what not?”
“Every Sunday.”
“And you have sex with other men and women whom you are not married to?”
“Yeah,” he answers with no problem. “I’ll put it this way; I am in no better or worse position in the eyes of God than anyone else. We are all sinners, but at least I am not the sinner who made a young boy or girl’s life a living hell by molesting them when they could not consent to the act or understand what they were being forced to do.”
Opening his mouth to protest in some fashion, Conway thinks things over and can not find anything to go against what the teen next to him just said. “Good point. Okay, no more on religion.”
“Hold that thought, Conway,” Zoey interjects, holding up her hand. “We’ve heard from you and Kenny, but Holly hasn’t said anything.” Hearing her name being called causes Holly to actually stop eating for once in the early minutes of the conversation. Looking up to Zoey, she is questioned on her choice in faith.
“I’ll say it if you say it,” she negotiates.
“All right. I don’t mind saying that I’m Jewish.”
This is the one thing that apparently could make Holly drop her fork down onto the table. “You’re kidding me! I’m Jewish, too!”
“No freaking way!” Zoey counters.
“Well, where the heck do you think I get a name like ‘Rockwell’?”
“It’s just that…the name Holly is used so often for Catholic and other Christian girls. Believe me, enough times going to mass with Kenny in all the different cities and you see quite a bit of girls with your name.”
“Well, there is a story behind that that I probably will tell you all before we head back to the hotel.”
“Hold it, Holly,” Kenny says, interrupting the two-girl powwow at the table. “Are you like Zoey in that you aren’t an Orthodox Jew, because how you eat…is definitely not kosher.”
“No, I’m not Orthodox,” Holly clarifies. “I’m a Messianic Jew who believes that Jesus is the true messiah. And as far as the eating issue, I’m kinda like May in that sense. Now there’s a girl who can eat, eat, eat and not gain a gram and I’m the same. The doctors told me that my metabolism levels are…not of this world. Even when I was...like six years old, I could eat more than my parents during some meals and I wouldn’t gain weight.”
“I’m officially jealous,” Kenny admits. “But I’m curious as to how you got the name Holly. You said there was a story behind it, right?”
“You’re right. Okay, the story goes like this. My mom was pregnant with me and much of her time was spent resting even though she was a working woman. It made her quite irritable at times. Dad told me as I got older that it was hard for him and my older siblings to care for her because carrying me to term was hard, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“It was December of 1990 when my mother started her ninth month carrying me and mom claims she didn’t have time to think about names and such. Sure, my brothers, sisters and father had their input, especially when they found out that the newest addition would be a baby sister, but mom didn’t really think about that. The holidays…were always depressing for my mom because she lost her mother during Chanukah. And she went to do some shopping in this very down mood with my dad. They came across these carolers who were singing ‘Deck the Halls’.”
Zoey raises her eyebrows when she hears that particular part of the story. Caroling one Christmas Eve with Kenny, she got to know that and other songs quite well. She had no problem with the name whatsoever, but the story seems to have some unique quirks in place that make it very cool.
“Hearing the carolers got my mother out of her funk. Christmas came a few weeks later and while she was in labor, mom whispered the song in her head to calm herself. Before she knew it, I came into the world on Christmas night of 1990 and she gave me the name Holly. Dad did get some say in the matter, because he wanted to call me Samantha. That’s my middle name.”
“And that is some story,” Kenny chimes in. “I wish I had a name story like that. Mine is told better through all the people who had it before I did. I am Kenneth Michael Treanoir IV but if you claim to be a friend of mine, you will never call me that. Kenny will suffice. Capiche?”
“When I learned his full name, I couldn’t believe it,” Zoey explains. “Kings and Queens have not had such a lengthy generational rule over a name as his family has. He has a cousin who is the sixth person in his family with the name and plans on making his son the seventh. And since we’re on the subject of names, Kenny likes to try out these different nicknames for me whenever the inspiration hits him. Most of them only last as long as one of his lovers, but I’ve always liked the name Zoey Andrea Zarkowski. My dad is the one who named me after a couple of friends he knew from childhood named Zoë and Andrea. I consider them to be like my aunts, even though we aren’t related. It’s not as one of a kind as Holly’s or as historical as Kenny’s, but that’s my story.”
As Conway finishes the final bit of his salad, he does not notice the stares of three pairs of eyes glaring back at him wanting the trainer of horned pokemon to add his share to this name game of sorts. Looking up, the bespectacled teen knows that he is beat. With stories like Holly’s to carry this conversation, he thought that the subject would be changed and everyone would move on to something else.
“Well?” Kenny directs to Conway.
“Well…what?”
“Well, everyone has a story about their name. What about you?”
“Uh,” he replies while fiddling with his glasses, “I really don’t have one. My folks just thought that Conway was very creative.”
“And…that is answer is false,” Holly steps in. “Conway, drop the embarrassment and let them know! I think the people you’re gonna do in about two hours have a right to know that Conway isn’t even your real first name.”
“Really?” Zoey intriguingly inquires.
“Nope! Why don’t you tell them, Conway, or else I’ll do it. They won’t make fun of you for it…much.”
“All right, damn it! That’s enough!” he exclaims, unnecessarily getting the attention of the other patrons for his outburst. Embarrassed, Conway turns red and apologizes for that sudden streak of a slur. “Holly’s right. If we are gonna be that intimate, the least that I could do is tell you my real name. It’s…Loren and Conway is actually my middle name.”
A pause and silence confuse the older male for a bit. “So?” Kenny asks him. “That’s a perfectly good name for a boy! Loren spelled L-O-R-E-N is a form of ‘Lorenzo’. I know other people with that name because they’re my parent’s friends.”
“I think it’s cool,” Zoey quips. “Girls notice you when you have a name like that, too. So you are Loren Conway Ericsson, right?”
“Yeah. The ‘Loren’ part and the ‘Conway’ part of my name came from my folks living in the Southwest United States for work while Jordan was still an infant and really doing like the Romans if they were in Rome. The name Conway was quite popular in that part of the country as a nickname and Loren came from the classic series ‘Gunsmoke’. So when they came back to Sinnoh, they thought it fit quite well for whatever reason, but I always got the feeling that it was in memory of the great time they had in…Texas. I should let you know that I haven’t gone by ‘Loren’ since I was about four or five, Zoey, and even though it is my legal first name, most of the people who I talk to have no clue.”
“I’m just so glad that you could get that off your chest before we take this next step,” the younger teen states in a campy mode.
“Heck, I’m glad that you and Zoey didn’t laugh about it.”
“Why? It’s just a name!” he says regaining his seriousness. “You didn’t think I got made fun of for having the name Kenny? Zoey, give them two words.”
Without missing a beat, Zoey says the words, “South Park,” and it all seems to make perfect sense to the pair of virgin swingers with no further explanation.
“And for the record…I did get called ‘Zoey 101’ a lot, especially after Jamie Lynn got knocked up. In fact, that was one of Kenny’s favorite pet names for me before we even became boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Oh, I bet that went over real well; like a cell phone going off in a murder trial.”
“And just as serious, Conway,” Kenny addendums. “Guys, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get my next plate and then, if you have not noticed, I have more to talk about. Stick tight!” he says as his departing word of advice before making his way back to the meat station and to the lemon baked trout and steamed shrimp, thereby skipping the turf at least for now.
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A/N: Chapter 32 might have THE most emotional moment of the story so far! I put two project updates aside so I could finish this before school. Stay tuned as it’s not that far off at all!
PM me if you have a subject or topic you want Kenny, Conway, Holly and Zoey to talk about or leave it in your review, let me know why they should talk about this and I will get back to you about any more information needed to be discussed.
Your Thoughts?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/31/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
NOTE: Over the next several chapters, Kenny, Zoey, Conway and Holly will discuss different topics in their lives and say a lot of things before they go back for sex. So do you want them to talk about something in particular? Well, let me know! More details can be found at the end of this chapter.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 31- Fun and Fun With Names)
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Out in the window, the sun fades off into the distance making its way to all points west. If the big orb could see, then it would be treated to quite a show. In the room of one of the finest pokemon trainers of the past decade there are two, and the two are quite close at the moment adding an unfamiliar amount of weight to the bed of the trainer from Pallet.
Neither of them particularly cares about this, though. The sun does not matter, the fact that day is about to become night does not matter and, perhaps most important, inhibitions do not matter. They really just want to be close. It has been such a long time, in their minds, since they got to kiss without either one’s parents getting in the way and this time will not go to waste. Paul would rather pack up and head back home before that happens as he looks at the truly handsome specimen below him.
After sitting down to watch May’s appeal about an hour ago, Delia, Ash and Paul cheered on the efforts of the coordinator they helped train for this moment. Few people in the town were happier than they were to see that the efforts of ‘Nata’ and May grew to create a fantastic appeal that everyone in the arena and those watching at home were amazed to see. Following the appeal both trainers knew that there was not much more competition until later that evening, so they retired to Ash’s bed for some downtime to relax and enjoy one another’s company.
Ash grins like a loon as Paul allows a similar action to arrive on his face. The two dressed only in their boxers and socks have been at it in their make out session for almost ten minutes now with Paul, as usual, taking the lead and engaging in foreplay to get a certain message across. He knew more than his partner did about the effect it had. It was evident on the other guy’s face.
From tracing the muscles on his six-pack, to whispering dirty things in both of his ears while at the same time blowing into said ears all the way up to giving some other parts of his boyfriend some mild stimulation, most people already would have gotten the hint and would have proceeded into the act of love making. Unfortunate for Paul, Ash is not ‘most people’ and often needs to be told things explicitly to get the hint…like right now.
Rolling his eyes as he kneels above Ash, he asks him what he hoped the young man on the bottom would have gotten. “Will you make love to me, Ash?” is the question that comes out of Paul’s mouth. He asks it as calmly as his hormones will muster in the heat of the moment.
Sighing, he admits “I want to…”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“My mother, genius,” he answers sarcastically. “I know we’ve been together for the past year now and we’ve been nothing but honest with mom about…most of our relationship.”
“You think she doesn’t know that you’re sexually active?”
“No, she just thinks that I’m having a lot of fun.” Before Paul can open his mouth to rebut those claims, Ash cuts him off, saying, “And I don’t mean that kind of fun, either…even though that is a hell of a lot of fun.”
Pointing his right index finger directly in the other male’s face, he teasingly warns him, “You just saved yourself a whole lot of punishment mister!”
“Define…punishment?”
Not wanting to leave Ash in the dark about what he meant, Paul comes back down to his boyfriend’s level and explains the definition of consequences through a whisper. Going back to his previous position, the star trainer from Sinnoh listens as Ash explains, “That’s not punishment. That’s the fun I was talking about a minute ago; at least the part that has a lot of sex attached to it. It doesn’t matter, though. I told you before we decided to spend these next couple of months living together that we had to be careful about these things. My mom will hear us if we have the fun or punishment that you talked about and then we have to answer all these embarrassing questions.”
“Ash, please,” Paul simply retorts. “You’re mom knows that you’re having sex with me because I told her.”
“You did what?” he exclaims, sitting up from the bed and knocking heads with Paul causing him to fall off the bed and onto the floor.
“Ah, goddamn it, Ash!” Paul screams.
“How could you have told her something so personal?”
“Aw, come the **** on! She was gonna find out eventually!” Paul’s face softens when he sees Ash looking very downtrodden while sitting on the side of the bed and lightly shaking his head at the thought of his mother knowing what he and Paul love to do when no one was around to bother them.
Sitting next to his beau, Paul clarifies some matters that he feels are of great importance to Ash. “Okay, it was around mid-February; a month ago. I got up in the middle of the night to get some water and saw your mom at the kitchen table. Neither of us could sleep, so we decided to start conversation. We talked, and the subject of sex came up after a while. She never asked me point blank if we had sex but after a while, it became clear to me that she either knew or had a feeling.” Hearing this news causes a change in Ash’s demeanor not seen since he found out that his mom knew of his sex life. It was no longer a feeling of embarrassment going through Ash. Rather, he is experiencing more curiosity than anything else. “That night, she dropped these subtle hints and said things like, ‘Hey, I’m sure you two can find a lot to do while I’m at the market or running errands’. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together. Believe me; your mom surprised me when she said that it was okay for you and me to do it as long as we use protection…”
“Which we do,” Ash interjects.
“But then again,” Paul continues, “We’re adults, Ash, so it shouldn’t surprise me.”
“So just so I understand you and mom completely, we can have protected sex…”
“Oh and I forgot to mention this but…well, she said that if I ever broke your heart that my family, friends and the police would not know the first place to look and find me...if I were in one piece. She said that they would take care of me really well.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I didn’t ask,” Paul answers, shaking his head. “I just promised your mother that I wouldn’t break your heart in any way. But…we are allowed to have sex in her house provided that we are not too loud. This includes disturbing her sleep or waking the neighbors. Sound good to you?”
Much to the surprise of the violet-haired trainer with the once gruff demeanor, Ash wraps his arms around him and puts on the squeeze. “Are you kidding me?” he asks. “This is the best! I was worried about this, but…now I have no reason. I just wonder why in the world she didn’t sit down with me and say something?”
“She knew you’d come to her eventually. You practically tell her everything, but she knew that this would be different, for obvious reasons.”
“And she was right.”
“Hey, boys!” Delia calls from downstairs.
Going outside of Ash’s room, he and Paul call back to the first floor to hear that Delia will be going out for about an hour to buy some ingredients for snacks during tomorrow’s party.
“Okay,” they respond.
“Have fun!” Delia says as she laughs her way out of the house not bothering to hear an answer from either of them because she already knows what will happen while she is out.
Once the door to the Ketchum house closes, Paul pats Ash on his bare shoulder. “Well, you heard what your mom said, so I’ll ask you again. Ash, will you…” Paul can not finish what he asked because he got shoved by the young man in question onto the bed. Very rarely did Ash ever take control of a situation like this one ever since their encounters began but in this case, as the trainer from Pallet jumps onto the bed and his boyfriend, he is willing to do a little give and take.
Besides, that is what adds the sizzle and the spice to their life, thereby making it quite…fun.
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Holding the door open for Zoey, Holly and finally Conway in that order, Kenny welcomes them to the buffet he mentioned back at the stadium a few minutes ago. The place is a large restaurant, which is simple in its design. There’s no real theme to it because a gimmick or hook of that sort is not needed. The four teens along with everyone else comes to this hangout, known as ‘The Stuff Stop’, to gorge on food of near-high quality for a respectable price and take part in as much nourishment as their bodies will allow. Fitting over 300 people, it is one of the largest buffets any of them have ever seen and weary from a very hectic day, it appears to be the spot in Slateport City to just pig out without care.
Due to the fact that he has the money, Conway walks up to the cashier’s counter first to let the attendant know that he will be paying for four adults this evening.
Putting the information into the computer register, the employee with the name of ‘Zaria’ tells the young male in front of him, “That’ll be ninety-two dollars and forty-one cents.” Conway does not cringe at the thought of paying so much for a meal because he’s not paying the money for said dinner out of his own pocket.
He pulls out the one hundred dollar bill Kenny gave him earlier and gives it to Zaria, adding, “And don’t worry about the change. You keep it.” After Zaria thanks him, they go to seat themselves at one of the tables in the buffet that is about two-thirds to capacity for the evening. The more experienced pair of Kenny and Zoey would prefer to have a table or booth away from a lot of crowds, particularly those with several children nearby. Even though they are frank, they are also quite aware that many people would not like to hear what these four say in their discussion.
As they search together for the perfect spot, Kenny hears his name being called from someone not that far away. Turning in all directions, the most promiscuous of the four teenagers sees one of his true friends for life in the buffet.
“Leona? Is that you?” he asks.
“In the flesh, Kenny!”
“My God! How’ve you been?” he asks as Leona joins him in an embrace.
“Not too bad. I took a break from training to get a look at the Grand Festival. Dawn is competing in this one and I thought I’d catch it.”
Letting go of the hug, he waits for Zoey to get in a hug and a greeting with Leona before saying, “Well, you know that Dawn recently broke up with Drew, right?”
“Yeah, I was in my hotel room earlier and saw that…brawl. If you ask me, it’s the best thing that could have happened to her. Not to mention she more than put the beat down on that little S.O.B. I loved every second of it, man.”
“As I’m sure you did,” Kenny introduces his old friend to his new friends, saying, “Holly? Conway? I’d like you to meet my good friend from grammar school, Leona Darcy. Leona, this is…”
“I know these guys; Holly Rockwell and Conway Ericsson,” she says with the sliest of smiles. As both trainers nod at Leona’s correct identification, she reveals, “We competed against each other in the Sinnoh league, and I faced both of them one time each during past tournaments and won both times.”
“Wingull and all of my other flyers had no chance against her, and that’s why I lost,” defends the older girl.
“But you put up a hell of a battle against my Manectric nonetheless, Holly. Well, nice to see you guys here. I know you’ll enjoy the food here. I need to get a third plate of this stuff! Enjoy!”
“Thank you!” they all say in unison as they spend a few more seconds and finally find their table of choice. It is a booth, and is away from a lot of the commotion nearest to the different buffet stations so that they can talk about whatever they want. Placing their receipt there on the table and claiming it as their own, they make their way to the different stations. Zoey and Conway immediately rush to the quiet salad bar while Kenny and Holly go to the meats to fill their first plate. Holly’s initial main course is a large stack of prime rib with au jus and Kenny gets a whole chicken breast with cornbread and steamed okra.
“Holly,” Kenny says while she gets a large heap of fried macaroni and cheese, “I don’t mean to be rude when I say this, but…damn, girl! Where the hell do you put all that?”
Not thinking that there was anything wrong with what she was doing, she answers, “My stomach. Duh!”
Once Holly can no longer find any space on her plate, he says, “I just had to ask,” before he takes his plate back to the booth where each one’s partners are already sitting down and eating their salads; Zoey has a large chef’s salad and Conway is eating a Caesar salad. This does not sit well with Kenny in the least bit. “Zoey! Couldn’t you wait for us?”
“You guys were at that meat station for a long time,” she responds before taking another bite of her salad.
“Both of you stop, now. Neither of you are starving. At the very least, you could wait so we could all say grace.” Turning to Conway, Kenny asks him, “If your mother were here, would she let you just dig in like that?”
“Uh…actually yes, though she wouldn’t care either way. I’m not a Christian, but I did say a silent grace beforehand. Religion doesn’t necessarily have to play a part in it.”
“Well…yeah. You’re right about that one.” Sitting down with Zoey while Holly takes a seat with Conway, he asks the older guy another question. “Do you…belong to a religion?”
“My parents raised me as a Buddhist when I was young, but they have always been open to us kids finding our own philosophy of life no matter what. My brother Seth wants to follow Confucianism and my sister Jordan has shown interest in Scientology. Me…I still don’t know. I follow Buddhism with my parents, though, so I have not converted yes.”
“That’s cool,” Kenny answers as he gets a forkful of his okra. “I…I’m sorry I made a big deal out of it. Believe it or not, I am a born and raised Catholic and if I didn’t say grace during school, the sisters of St. Frances would tear into me a new one…by the grace of God.”
“Whoa, you just blew my mind right now,” Conway comments while Holly starts to put a dent into her plate. “You’re Catholic and go to mass and what not?”
“Every Sunday.”
“And you have sex with other men and women whom you are not married to?”
“Yeah,” he answers with no problem. “I’ll put it this way; I am in no better or worse position in the eyes of God than anyone else. We are all sinners, but at least I am not the sinner who made a young boy or girl’s life a living hell by molesting them when they could not consent to the act or understand what they were being forced to do.”
Opening his mouth to protest in some fashion, Conway thinks things over and can not find anything to go against what the teen next to him just said. “Good point. Okay, no more on religion.”
“Hold that thought, Conway,” Zoey interjects, holding up her hand. “We’ve heard from you and Kenny, but Holly hasn’t said anything.” Hearing her name being called causes Holly to actually stop eating for once in the early minutes of the conversation. Looking up to Zoey, she is questioned on her choice in faith.
“I’ll say it if you say it,” she negotiates.
“All right. I don’t mind saying that I’m Jewish.”
This is the one thing that apparently could make Holly drop her fork down onto the table. “You’re kidding me! I’m Jewish, too!”
“No freaking way!” Zoey counters.
“Well, where the heck do you think I get a name like ‘Rockwell’?”
“It’s just that…the name Holly is used so often for Catholic and other Christian girls. Believe me, enough times going to mass with Kenny in all the different cities and you see quite a bit of girls with your name.”
“Well, there is a story behind that that I probably will tell you all before we head back to the hotel.”
“Hold it, Holly,” Kenny says, interrupting the two-girl powwow at the table. “Are you like Zoey in that you aren’t an Orthodox Jew, because how you eat…is definitely not kosher.”
“No, I’m not Orthodox,” Holly clarifies. “I’m a Messianic Jew who believes that Jesus is the true messiah. And as far as the eating issue, I’m kinda like May in that sense. Now there’s a girl who can eat, eat, eat and not gain a gram and I’m the same. The doctors told me that my metabolism levels are…not of this world. Even when I was...like six years old, I could eat more than my parents during some meals and I wouldn’t gain weight.”
“I’m officially jealous,” Kenny admits. “But I’m curious as to how you got the name Holly. You said there was a story behind it, right?”
“You’re right. Okay, the story goes like this. My mom was pregnant with me and much of her time was spent resting even though she was a working woman. It made her quite irritable at times. Dad told me as I got older that it was hard for him and my older siblings to care for her because carrying me to term was hard, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“It was December of 1990 when my mother started her ninth month carrying me and mom claims she didn’t have time to think about names and such. Sure, my brothers, sisters and father had their input, especially when they found out that the newest addition would be a baby sister, but mom didn’t really think about that. The holidays…were always depressing for my mom because she lost her mother during Chanukah. And she went to do some shopping in this very down mood with my dad. They came across these carolers who were singing ‘Deck the Halls’.”
Zoey raises her eyebrows when she hears that particular part of the story. Caroling one Christmas Eve with Kenny, she got to know that and other songs quite well. She had no problem with the name whatsoever, but the story seems to have some unique quirks in place that make it very cool.
“Hearing the carolers got my mother out of her funk. Christmas came a few weeks later and while she was in labor, mom whispered the song in her head to calm herself. Before she knew it, I came into the world on Christmas night of 1990 and she gave me the name Holly. Dad did get some say in the matter, because he wanted to call me Samantha. That’s my middle name.”
“And that is some story,” Kenny chimes in. “I wish I had a name story like that. Mine is told better through all the people who had it before I did. I am Kenneth Michael Treanoir IV but if you claim to be a friend of mine, you will never call me that. Kenny will suffice. Capiche?”
“When I learned his full name, I couldn’t believe it,” Zoey explains. “Kings and Queens have not had such a lengthy generational rule over a name as his family has. He has a cousin who is the sixth person in his family with the name and plans on making his son the seventh. And since we’re on the subject of names, Kenny likes to try out these different nicknames for me whenever the inspiration hits him. Most of them only last as long as one of his lovers, but I’ve always liked the name Zoey Andrea Zarkowski. My dad is the one who named me after a couple of friends he knew from childhood named Zoë and Andrea. I consider them to be like my aunts, even though we aren’t related. It’s not as one of a kind as Holly’s or as historical as Kenny’s, but that’s my story.”
As Conway finishes the final bit of his salad, he does not notice the stares of three pairs of eyes glaring back at him wanting the trainer of horned pokemon to add his share to this name game of sorts. Looking up, the bespectacled teen knows that he is beat. With stories like Holly’s to carry this conversation, he thought that the subject would be changed and everyone would move on to something else.
“Well?” Kenny directs to Conway.
“Well…what?”
“Well, everyone has a story about their name. What about you?”
“Uh,” he replies while fiddling with his glasses, “I really don’t have one. My folks just thought that Conway was very creative.”
“And…that is answer is false,” Holly steps in. “Conway, drop the embarrassment and let them know! I think the people you’re gonna do in about two hours have a right to know that Conway isn’t even your real first name.”
“Really?” Zoey intriguingly inquires.
“Nope! Why don’t you tell them, Conway, or else I’ll do it. They won’t make fun of you for it…much.”
“All right, damn it! That’s enough!” he exclaims, unnecessarily getting the attention of the other patrons for his outburst. Embarrassed, Conway turns red and apologizes for that sudden streak of a slur. “Holly’s right. If we are gonna be that intimate, the least that I could do is tell you my real name. It’s…Loren and Conway is actually my middle name.”
A pause and silence confuse the older male for a bit. “So?” Kenny asks him. “That’s a perfectly good name for a boy! Loren spelled L-O-R-E-N is a form of ‘Lorenzo’. I know other people with that name because they’re my parent’s friends.”
“I think it’s cool,” Zoey quips. “Girls notice you when you have a name like that, too. So you are Loren Conway Ericsson, right?”
“Yeah. The ‘Loren’ part and the ‘Conway’ part of my name came from my folks living in the Southwest United States for work while Jordan was still an infant and really doing like the Romans if they were in Rome. The name Conway was quite popular in that part of the country as a nickname and Loren came from the classic series ‘Gunsmoke’. So when they came back to Sinnoh, they thought it fit quite well for whatever reason, but I always got the feeling that it was in memory of the great time they had in…Texas. I should let you know that I haven’t gone by ‘Loren’ since I was about four or five, Zoey, and even though it is my legal first name, most of the people who I talk to have no clue.”
“I’m just so glad that you could get that off your chest before we take this next step,” the younger teen states in a campy mode.
“Heck, I’m glad that you and Zoey didn’t laugh about it.”
“Why? It’s just a name!” he says regaining his seriousness. “You didn’t think I got made fun of for having the name Kenny? Zoey, give them two words.”
Without missing a beat, Zoey says the words, “South Park,” and it all seems to make perfect sense to the pair of virgin swingers with no further explanation.
“And for the record…I did get called ‘Zoey 101’ a lot, especially after Jamie Lynn got knocked up. In fact, that was one of Kenny’s favorite pet names for me before we even became boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Oh, I bet that went over real well; like a cell phone going off in a murder trial.”
“And just as serious, Conway,” Kenny addendums. “Guys, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get my next plate and then, if you have not noticed, I have more to talk about. Stick tight!” he says as his departing word of advice before making his way back to the meat station and to the lemon baked trout and steamed shrimp, thereby skipping the turf at least for now.
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A/N: Chapter 32 might have THE most emotional moment of the story so far! I put two project updates aside so I could finish this before school. Stay tuned as it’s not that far off at all!
PM me if you have a subject or topic you want Kenny, Conway, Holly and Zoey to talk about or leave it in your review, let me know why they should talk about this and I will get back to you about any more information needed to be discussed.
Your Thoughts?
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Isn't that what you ment?Instead of If were mother were here.
The next chapters gonna be the MOST emotional chapter-I hope I can handle it! If thee next chapter's going to be the most emotional than the fantastic foursome should talk about something emotinal(lost family members, dead pokemon-like animal cops on animal planet, but with pokemon)
or they should talk about something entirly upbeat... like Adam Sandler.
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Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Now For That Emotional Chapter I Was Talking About!
@CB: Thanks for checking the grammar error, I fixed it immediately. This chapter doesn't have the 'Swinging Four', but it should still be quite a rollercoaster. Maybe they'll get emotional come next chapter. Until then, enjoy this everyone!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/32/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 32- The Wait is Over)
The waiting is the hardest part, especially when this waiting is done in a place that can serve as a heartbreaker for most people who enter it. But with May by her side, Kelly has decided to not be petty about the process. One could say that she has made the choice to just grin and bear it for her sake as she is inside one of the doctor’s offices awaiting the x-rays for her potentially broken right hand.
Walking into the non-urgent wing of the ER about half an hour ago along with each one’s parents, they see a lot of the different spectators for the Grand Festival including fellow coordinators getting themselves and their physical problems checked out. Once Kelly signs up to get checked out at the front desk, she waits for her name to be called. When that happens, due to the fact that she is a minor but just barely one, she still has to get permission from her parents to allow May to be inside of the waiting room with her for the duration of the visit.
Permission is granted to the young couple and the elder Marins and Maples decide to head back to their hotels and get some rest knowing that their daughters will update them on the condition of Kelly’s hand once they head back to the hotel. After the younger of the two lovers gets a visit from the doctor, she goes inside of another room for a few minutes and takes about five different pictures of her right hand to look over and determine what course of action to take for the injury. During this time, May, who brought a change of clothes, takes this time to go back into her more comfortable black sweat suit. No sooner than when Kelly goes for her x-rays does she come back and sit down near May after being told that she will have to wait some additional time for the plates to develop.
Both girlfriends have not said much to each other while they await the pictures as they come back from the darkroom. To May, who is sitting across the room from Kelly, it seems like her best friend is down in the dumps a bit from more than just a potentially broken hand. In fact, she is willing to bet her entire paycheck from this weekend’s festivities that the situation with Marina’s dishonesty might only be scratching the surface of her sweetheart’s discontent.
She wishes that there was something she could do to make Kelly feel better, and decides to just talk. Smiling in her direction, she asks the lilac-haired girl, “It sucks, huh?”
In response to her bluntness, Kelly laughs for the first time in a very long time. It felt great in the face of everything else that has happened to laugh for its own sake. “Yeah. I hate this place so much, May, you would not believe. I had a lot of illnesses when I was younger and spent more time in here and other hospitals, doctor’s offices and the like than I even care to remember. To be honest, I came here because you, my parents and your parents probably would not have had it any other way. They probably would have had to drag my *** here if I didn’t say yes.”
Feeling that Kelly is skirting an important issue, May says, “Yeah, we just want to make sure that you’re all right. That’s all. Most people hate hospitals. Hell, I hate them myself! I don’t wanna be here as much as you do, but I come here whenever I need the help. There are people here that are willing to go the extra mile to give it to you…like me.”
The girl with the hurt hand did not expect a comment like that and with a command of “Come again?” she asks exactly what her one and only meant.
“Well, I could tell when we thought we saw something with Zoey and the others earlier that it really got to you. When I found out that Marina was who you were talking about when you mentioned your ex-girlfriend, it didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together. Marina and Jimmy have been together a very long time…with only a brief separation about three or four years ago where it was always stated in the media that neither of them ever broke up with one another. The reason why you hate cheating so much is not necessarily because Marina cheated on you, but that she dragged you into her problems and made you into ‘the other woman’.”
It is very apparent that May is hitting home with her hypothesis on the matter because during the time in which she relives the story of Kelly and Marina that she knows about, Kelly begins to tear up and become quite emotional. Given the circumstances involved few can blame her, but even fewer know exactly what happened to cause these strong feelings from within.
“You’re right,” she says through her tears. “Marina came through Lilycove three or four years ago to get some information on berries and how to make pokeblock. We hit it off quite well and I learned she came off a bad breakup with her boyfriend. That was the first lie. She said that she was tired of guys being pigs and…I confided in her the details of my sexuality and she showed some interest. I told her some things that I haven’t even told my own mom and dad and still haven’t. We became buddies and she worked around the shop as my apprentice while also traveling to different contest houses to get her five ribbons during the weekends. This friendship evolved into a romantic relationship and all the while I had no idea about her boyfriend, because I was not as familiar with any coordinators from the Johto region. Things, I thought, were going well for us. Then after a month together, I caught her on our couch talking with someone named Jimmy and the two of them were having a really intimate conversation that night.”
“The next morning I confronted her at the breakfast table and asked her who she was talking to on the phone last night. Already knowing that it was Jimmy, I waited to catch her in a lie. She said it was her mother, and I was ready and waiting to…bring her down with my parents there to see it happen. She was so slick with her words, though. She said that I did not trust her, which was true but she never gave me a reason to trust her after finding her on the couch talking to Jimmy. Then she tried to put my intelligence to task by asking me, ‘If I was seeing someone behind your back, would I be stupid enough to actually call that person while you and your parents are in the house?’ It was horrible, and she got my parents to actually tell me that I was being delusional and just needed to relax and enjoy myself and being with Marina.”
“Damn, she really fooled everyone if that’s the case!” May exclaims. “How did you get everything out in the open and expose her?”
The thought of how her story with Marina came to an end is enough to make Kelly smile. “Ironically enough, she caught herself in a mistake. She defended herself by saying that she would never call someone she was cheating with inside my house with all of us in there. Well in this case, she didn’t. While I was out getting some supplies for a project at Academy my parents were at home and caught her talking to Jimmy, the same person I confronted her earlier about, and she ended up screwing herself. They caught her while she was outside of the house one afternoon talking about how she can’t wait to get her fifth ribbon and go back to him after the Grand Festival. The cat got her tongue really quickly and she left the house not even a half an hour later and did not come back. I saw her while I was walking back home to get back to work. She was…literally running on the city sidewalks with these two suitcases in her hand saying that something has come up and she has to leave immediately. I felt for her and wanted to know what it was but she would not give any details. That should have been a clue but I wasn’t sure because after some time, I did cool off and actually was cordial to the *****. She just said that she had to go home right away and that’s exactly what she did.”
Kelly has to take a break. If nothing else, stopping and regaining her composure is her best course of action at the moment. Once more, the tears flow from the eyes of the soon to be doctor as perhaps the saddest part of her saga with Marina is about to be retold through her words. “But when I went back home…I just had this feeling deep inside me that something wasn’t right. I came into the house and saw my dad consoling mom and she just kept asking ‘How could she do this to Kelly?’ I asked them what’s going on, and…dad told me everything. I was hysteric when I heard it; a part of me really did not want to think that it was actually true. At this point, though, it was very clear what happened. Marina got found out, left the house as quickly as she could so she would not have to explain herself and left our otherwise happy family in near shambles. We went to counseling and things got better for us, yet that piece of **** walks around contest houses and arenas like she has done nothing wrong.”
“So in conclusion,” Kelly continues, “it does suck. I know I shouldn’t think these thoughts, but I wanna hurt her so badly, May. I mean it when I say I really want to hurt Marina and give her…at least some of the pain which she gave my family and me. Does that make me a bad person, May? Am I a ***** because I want revenge or, at the very least, for Marina to say something to me or show some remorse for the things she did?”
“Not at all. Hell, I wanna hurt her too. I wanna ask her what would make her want to…betray you. Never mind the fact that I fell for you like no one else, the way you carry yourself with so much dignity, the work that you put in to become a great contributor to this world and the fact that you are who you are. At the end of the day, you are still a person and you did not deserve that from someone you claimed to love.” Deeply sighing, May ponders an incident that has been on her mind since early this morning. “You know, I wanna thank you for being honest with me about the situation between you and Marina.”
“Well, it has to do with what you told me,” Kelly explains. “You said that we should not keep secrets from one another. Sure it was painful to relive everything, but you were right. I should have said something a long time ago. You always listen and understand. It’s not often you find someone like that in a lifetime.”
“Thank you for being honest, Kelly. Now I think it’s time that I do the same.”
“Marissa, what are you talking about?”
“There was a reason why I missed breakfast this morning. I met up with Conway and we talked and then Kenny came and told me that Dawn got checked into the hospital due to headaches. Friday night, I snuck out of the room…and beat her ***. She insulted us, Kelly, and Dawn fought me. I ended up knocking her out, so it’s very likely that I gave her a concussion and caused her headaches.”
“May! What did I tell you; don’t let them get to you. You didn’t have to go there! You’re too damn good for them to get under your skin and call you those awful names.”
“There’s a bit more to the story,” May replies. “Drew, for whatever reason, had a feeling that I was responsible for Dawn going to the hospital. He was right and wanted to speak with me. I found out that not only did he have affairs on Dawn, he still had feelings for me. I kept telling him that we will never get together again, but he didn’t listen. He took it to…a level it did not belong and…forced himself on me and kissed me.”
“What the ****, May?” Kelly exclaims, fighting back the pain in her hand and shooting up from her seat. “He kissed you?” she whispers. Making a fist with her uninjured left hand and fighting back the pain obvious on her face because of her right hand, she declares “God help him if my hand isn’t broken because I’ll break something of his the next time I see that cocksucker!”
“No need, Kelly,” the star coordinator assures. “He won’t try anything else with me. I made sure of that when I slapped the taste out of him for doing that, but…thank you for sticking up for me, girl. I know that most of the time, it’s best to talk things like this out and come to an understanding, but anyone who says that talking things out with someone who tries to ‘cop a feel’ or what have you on a woman must be crazy.”
“May,” Kelly explains, “I consider it an honor for me to stand up for you wherever and whenever you need it. I just…wish that I could show you how thankful I am for you being a great part of my life. It’s too soon, though.”
“Too soon? What are you talking about?”
The practicing nutritionist is thankful. That is all she can be given the circumstances because she and May are interrupted by the doctor in charge of the care of Kelly’s hand. There was no way in which she could have answered May’s question without blowing her big plan to propose to her girlfriend on Sunday evening on the Grand Festival stage. As mentioned in past discussions between the two, it would be best for both of them, especially May, to avoid distractions.
“Well hello again, fellow soon-to-be doctor,” says her medical practitioner Corrine Dawes. Doctor Dawes is a lanky, fair-haired woman in her early thirties with brown eyes, tanned skin and a lab coat, which can only be connected with practitioners of health. “Let’s all have a look at these pictures together of your hand and then we’ll go from there.” As the doctor strives to get to know her patients on a person-to-person basis, even if she would likely not see them again after the Grand Festival, she found out many things about Kelly, including her career plans and even the reason why May and not her own parents are with her in the room. It is the couple’s mutual but unspoken decision to no longer be afraid to tell the truth and in this case it works as the doctor remains very friendly and complimentary towards the pair through the evaluation process.
Putting four different plates in front of what appears to be a light; Doctor Dawes turns on the light, illuminating all of the plates. As she asks Kelly, “Okay, now to test your medical knowledge; do you know what metacarpals and phalanges are?” she expects and gets the correct answer in that they are bones which are found in the middle of the hand and the fingers.
“That’s right,” she answers, “and congratulations Miss Cruz-Marin; you have successfully broken or cracked five of these bones!” While May laughs at that comment for a bit, Kelly either does not see the sarcasm and dry humor in her doctor’s voice or refuses to take it given her present condition. “Your index, middle and ring fingers all have hairline fractures, including two of the bones in the middle of your hand, metacarpal II and metacarpal III. The…good news about all of this is that none of the fractures will require any surgery. I’d bet the farm that there are some bruises on a few of these bones that don’t any cracks.”
“So her hand will have to go in a cast, right?” May asks, already knowing the answer.
“Without question. Kelly, your hand won’t heal without one. I’ll get in contact with your M.D. in Lilycove so we can swap information, but we’ll definitely have you fitted for a cast right now. We’ll then set a timetable where he will look at it in about a month, give his prognosis and see whether or not to keep it on longer.”
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Having finally gotten Damien to sleep after a long crying spell, Solidad finds a moment to rest in her hotel room and watch more appeals of action just down the road. She knew that Drew had to leave the room for about an hour to talk with Contesta about his punishment for the fiasco in the media center earlier in the afternoon. She allowed it, under the condition that he comes back to her room so they could talk. It is the one thing that she wants to do more than anything else. Solidad grew tired of the laissez-faire attitude of her son’s father and needed to know if he could make a turn for the better and at the very least, care for the baby boy in the other room.
A few knocks on the door to her room for rent and it raises Solidad from the bed. She did not expect any visitors to come to her place for the weekend, but is sure who the person on the other side of the door is. It has been about an hour, after all.
Opening the door without viewing the peephole first, Solidad is not surprised to find Drew. His look appears to be neutral at best, though it can be deceptive when the moment calls for such. “Hi.”
“Hey, Drew,” she greets.
“May I come in…so we can talk? I—we really need to talk.”
Silence passes. Solidad desires to remain strong in the face of this young man and does so. At the same time, however, Drew is calling for exactly what she needed since deciding to come out of hiding and confront an inactive father. Stepping to the side, she grants Drew silent permission to come inside. Then she says, “Have a seat,” which sets the conversation in motion as the male coordinator sits on a spot of the bed. Solidad follows him, taking a seat to his left and turning off the television set.
“Okay,” he begins in soft but sturdy preparation for what lies ahead. “I need to apologize to both you and Damien. I’ve been acting like a real monster during this time and neither of you deserved it, bottom line. I got a call from someone earlier and it really made me think. The way in which I was raised…was not necessarily the best way for a young boy to be brought up. Looking back at it, even though I did not suffer any abuse or neglect and had parents who truly loved me, something was missing. I suppose the best way to put it is…I had my father, but I didn’t have my daddy. At age eighteen, there isn’t much I can do about that for me right now, but…I have a son, Solidad. I have a son and that means that…it’s not about me anymore.”
“Drew,” Solidad speaks, “that’s…the best thing that I could possibly hear right now. So just to make sure I’m hearing you correctly, you’re ready to step up and be there for Damien?”
“I have no choice in the matter. I brought him here and no matter what role I play, his life will be affected by me in some form. I can continue the way I have been and he’ll grow to resent and hate me, or I can go one day at a time not worrying about whether I’m doing the right thing or not and just be there. Regardless of that, I am Damien’s father and he is my son. That much is etched in stone and…” Drew pauses for recollection and affirmation. For the first time in his young life, he will place someone else before him and in highest regard. It is the greatest step he has ever taken, and the moment is an emotional one which brings more than its share of tears to the cool, calm and collected one. He cannot remember a moment that he cried so sincerely since the woman next to him defeated him in his first contest in what has become a great career in coordinating.
Solidad watched, waited and listened to all of the words that came from Drew’s mouth. Nothing seemed forced, rehearsed or false. Everything felt real, including the crying, which the Kanto Grand Festival champion seems to be a catalyst towards causing such actions. Because of this sincerity, she wants to reach out and does so by pulling Drew into a hug.
“You know,” Solidad whispers into the young man’s ear, “this is what I wanted to hear from you from the very beginning. I was a love struck idiot, because I thought that having your baby would mean having you at the same time. But I know better, now. We know better now and because of that…this will work. Just don’t worry about it and it’ll work, Drew. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. Everyone is just a work in progress. Do you understand?”
He shakes his head again and again. It would appear that something is amiss in his head. It is simple, yet complicated as one factor contributed to Drew’s behavior over the past several months as it pertained to Solidad and their son. “I just,” he begins, voice breaking and heart full of remorse. “I didn’t want him to hate me, Solidad. I wanted to give Damien whatever he wanted; more than what I got growing up when my dad spent much of his time growing his business. I did that by working and sending money back to Pewter City. He would never have had to deal with struggle like my family did. I should have known better. It’s not so much about what he wants but what he needs.”
And then, if one were to believe in the idea of divine intervention and forces around us controlling most actions, a need arises as young Damien awakens from his slumber and alerts his nurturers to some issue that has come up. It is exactly what Drew just referred to in being a provider for his progeny.
Taking her once best friend by the hand, Solidad smiles at the opportunity Drew has to live up to his word. “Come with me,” she says and they get up from the bed and into the other room, where they see Damien stirring for a bit before gurgling and even cooing for a moment; all of this taking place in less than ten seconds time. This gives the young parents just cause to laugh for a bit before mother Solidad signals to Drew to hold him.
Asking if it is all right, Solidad reiterates the fact that Damien is his son. Using the best of care, Drew picks him up from the crib and holds him close to his chest, keeping him still there while he is wrapped up in a couple of blankets with a blue bonnet over top of his head to cover what hair he has.
He has the support, and then some, as Drew holds a firm but fair grip on his son. Soon, Damien begins to stir once more, but on instinct, the father slowly rocks the son back and forth to calm him down. The technique works, as the noises which once came from the infant child are silenced and replaced by soft whispers in the boy’s ears assuring him that everything will change from this point forward.
The whole scene is the dream of Solidad’s come true and made the reality of them standing up in the room caring for their boy while on one accord. Leaning forward, Drew whispers something lightly into his son’s ear. Hoping and praying that he can understand, he says to Damien, “We’re stuck together for good, little man. Your daddy has his head on straight now and nothing’s gonna keep me from being there for you every step from here on out. I’m so sorry and I love you,” and with these words, the tears pour out of the teen’s ducts and fall down onto the ground with one splashing on the skin of Damien, waking him and causing him to cry once more. This time, Solidad does not have to struggle alone to stop the noise because as quickly as the tears began for her son, they ended.
His dad is there to cry for him and carry the burden for his son at last.
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It is purple, goes down to just past the bottom of her wrist and now carries the signature of one of the top pokemon coordinators in the entire world in the area of her hand along with several heart shapes. Kelly has had her cast fitted to her hand and afterwards gets several instructions about not getting it wet and treating any cuts, bruises, sores or any further injuries which she has or might develop in the future.
“Now if you have any questions after you leave here, either get in touch with my office here in Slateport,” Doctor Dawes includes, “or you can just give your doctor a call. Sound good, Kelly?”
“Yes, doctor. Thanks for all of your help.”
“Okay, both of you are free to go! All I ask is that you sign a couple of release forms at the front desk. Otherwise, we’re done.” After thanking Doctor Dawes for all of the help, Kelly and May make their way out of the room and fill out two forms at the desk. With the professor’s writing hand out of commission for the time being, May does all of the paperwork for her girlfriend. It takes virtually no time, about eight minutes at the most, and the couple is out in the streets walking to the direction of their hotel. They walk with Kelly on the left with her arm around May’s shoulders while she walks in a similar stride on the right of the sidewalk.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, Kelly,” she answers the girl. “Reminds me of when I was younger during the spring and summer nights I’d spend outside with Max and we’d just be out there and…watch the sun come down. You know how much I love to do that with you when we’re together and…I guess it runs in the family because Max is trying to get Harley on board with watching sunsets but like everything else with Harley, it can be difficult.”
“I know I don’t say it outright that much, but I really love doing things like that with you,” Kelly admits. “It’s simple but fun. I know that people would call it wishful thinking but I hope that when we finally live together, for good this time, that we spend our nights just like that…but we can wait. We’re young and we have all the time in the world to get everything in place. But from here on out, I don’t ever wanna give you a reason to cry May—that’s if I can help it.”
Kelly, through her words and her actions, appears to be setting up for something monumental in nature. She told May late Friday morning that they would eventually get married when they got older. It would seem that there would be no need for a proposal from either party if this were the case, but this would ruin May’s plans which she spoke to Kelly’s own father about earlier in the afternoon. Something seems off about Kelly wanting to put off any official proposal while at the same time always mentioning her and May spending their lives together as one.
“Be honest with me, okay?”
“Of course, May.”
“Let me first say that…you’re my girl,” May smiles. “I doubt that will change whether we are age seventeen or seventy-seven. But I can’t help thinking that you have something that you want to do and…you’re trying to hold yourself back from doing it for whatever reason.”
The young teen from Lilycove City can officially be colored scared. May is putting together the pieces of the puzzle and figuring everything out, it appears. While she has not out and out said that she knows what Kelly’s plan is, the words are too symbolic and meaningful to be pure coincidence.
“I…you’re right, May. There is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while since we got together. I just have a feeling that given everything this weekend, like I’ve stated a time or two before tonight, it would be too much of a distraction for me to do this.”
“To do what?”
“To get—oh. Ah-ha. Nice try, May, but you’re not gonna catch me.” Pointing to her head, she claims, “I’m too smart for it, girl! I’ll just say that I’m here with you and enjoying myself but at the same time; I have a job to do in helping you get to the top so you can win the Grand Festival. That’s the reason why you’re here, am I right?”
“Yeah, you’re right. And about being too smart to get caught; I’ve always been taught that if there is something that’s on your mind, the smart thing to do is let someone know. You get it over with and move on.”
“Yeah,” Kelly admits, “but this is a big one, May!”
“Well, I doubt it’s anything we can’t solve together. We’ve been doing that so long that it seems like second nature to me.” Stopping on the sidewalk just two or three blocks from the motel and an additional block removed from the stadium, she holds Kelly close, looks her in the eyes and says, “I’ve learned something because of Drew, Dawn and even Marina to an extent; there will always be distractions, Kelly. No matter what I do, there will always be distractions. I can’t escape them, period. They’ll follow me closer than my own shadow. Seriously, what’s one more distraction?” After a few seconds of quiet while in the equally quiet streets, it seems that May’s girlfriend did not understand that she just asked a question.
‘Where are your smarts now, girl?’ she thinks before informing the young professor that she asked her a question which she would like for her to answer.
“Well if we’re talking about the same thing, then this is a huge distraction. We’ve been training for a month so you can have this chance, you know?”
“But that’s the thing; I don’t know what we’re talking about, Kelly. You keep telling me that it’s too soon or that we can wait. What are we waiting for? I don’t know because you won’t say anything, so I think I have to take matters into my own hands.”
There is no more escaping it or explaining it away. Kelly knows that May wants to press the matter and she would like to do her absolute best to change the subject and just put it off to the side until the time is right. “May, can’t we talk about this later? We’ve already missed a lot of time planning battles because of my hand. The hours are ticking…what are you doing, May?” she asks as she watches the Petalburg coordinator comes down to the concrete ground.
“What does it look like? I’m on one knee.”
“Why?” she fearfully asks her as May now digs through her backpack in search of something.
“I told you,” May explains while successfully retrieving something small enough to hold and cover in her right hand, “I’m taking matters into my own hands. You’re stuck with whatever your plan is and that’s fine, but if this is what we both want, waiting is useless.” Opening her hand at that moment causes Kelly to gasp so loud that she probably scared a few of the city animals out of their hiding spots. In the center of May’s hand is a black velvet box fit for an item of jewelry designed to go onto a finger.
“May?”
“Please,” she interrupts. “I just want to ask you one more question.” Opening the box, May presents herself and her gift to Kelly, inquiring “Kelly Natalie Annika Cruz-Marin, will you marry me? Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Here come the tears, symbols so clear. A proud, prodigal girl of Spanish and Norwegian descent stands above her well-traveled girlfriend looking at a box containing the most beautiful ring she has ever seen in her life. This band is either silver or white gold, compared to her gold band for May and the diamond on top of the ring is not quite the size of hers but appears to complete the ring in a unique form.
There is no more dancing around the issue anymore as the tears continue to make their way onto Kelly’s face and then move downward. Her plans, which she outlined to her own parents earlier in the morning, have been thwarted in favor of this makeshift proposal from her sweetheart. In retrospect, she could not be happier for it. It is one of the reasons why she is crying at the moment aside from some pride in that she did not get the chance to ask May first.
“Kelly, please answer me,” May shakes in anticipation of hearing the word from her potential fiancé.
With this swell of feelings and emotion gripping Kelly from the inside out, she forgot the most important part of any proposal. Rings are mere symbols. Getting down on one knee is nothing but a traditional gesture and so is the stating of a full name. All of these things come and go just like the tide, but one part of a proposal will remain as the greatest memory possible from such a life-changing moment.
Picking May up from the ground, Kelly makes due on giving her girlfriend an answer by viewing the windows to her soul and stepping forward to give her a kiss on her lips while keeping a hold onto her upper and lower back fighting back even more tears combined with the pain from her hand.
Letting go of the kiss but still holding onto the girl, a simple answer of yes from Kelly would have sufficed given the precious moment, but there are a few things she want May to know. “I love you so very much, May Maple. You’ve changed me for the better. You taught me that you can love and I’m forever grateful for that and…yes. Yes,” and then raising her arms high in the air she screams, “Yes!” one more time before wrapping the proposer into her arms tightly. “I’ll marry you,” she now whispers. “I’ll do it because you’re right. I tried to hang on. I had a plan; I’d propose after the Grand Festival. That’s why I pushed you so hard, May. But I guess it doesn’t matter now, though.”
“Actually, there is still hope for your plan,” May admits while taking the ring out of its box. “I can win the Grand Festival and you can still go along with your plans to propose in front of the world. That’s what you wanted to do right?”
Kelly nods before answering, “Yeah, that’s what I wanted. And you’re right. I can still do that! Okay, I won’t show you my ring yet, but—now what?”
May now has her ring in her hand. As she explains to Kelly, “This ring was given to my grandmother by my grandfather. My parents didn’t get the ring because my dad got married to mom very quickly and my granddad didn’t have time to give the story to him. But it’s Grandma Katherine’s ring which she gave me several months ago. As you know, we confided in both of them about our relationship a while back, and she gave it to me on the promise that I’d only give it to the person I planned on staying with forever.” Sniffling for a bit, she continues, “I know only one person like that, but tradition says that the engagement ring goes on the right hand. Yours is in a somewhat mangled state, though. Oh wait! I know!”
Putting the ring into one of her pants pocket, she reaches around the back of Kelly’s neck, taking off the gold chain around it, slipping on the ring, and then placing the chain back around her fiancée’s neck. “There. You’re wearing the ring now.”
Holding up the ring, she smiles for a moment as it glistens in the moonlight and rolls down both sides of the chain. “I won’t let it go until I can wear it for real. Thank you for this, May, and thank you for…everything.” With arms wide open, the pair hugs each other once again. One step forward and they are closer to becoming one. “I wanted to do this so badly.”
“You’ll get your chance tomorrow. Now let’s go. There are some people we need to alert. They usually give their blessing in a time like this.”
It’s clear who May is referring to. “Our parents. Mom and dad already know that I’m proposing this weekend.”
“But my parents don’t know,” May counters. Shrugging her shoulders, she concedes to whatever fate comes her way, exclaiming, “Well they’re gonna find out soon! Let’s go!” And with that, they do go. They run like kids playing in the park back to their home for the weekend.
But truth be told, home is wherever they are at any given moment together. For when they are together, they are secure knowing that they don’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for love; for it is right in front of them. Now their relationship has changed, so it seems. Marriage is on the horizon for the duo, but the idea is the same.
Their faith in each other is unchanging. They trust each other and believe they can stay together forever even when others do not. It is their hope that when they announce their soon-to-be union to the world that people will accept, even if they don’t approve. But no matter what; the two always plan to love one another.
In reality, nothing has changed at all.
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Your Thoughts?
@CB: Thanks for checking the grammar error, I fixed it immediately. This chapter doesn't have the 'Swinging Four', but it should still be quite a rollercoaster. Maybe they'll get emotional come next chapter. Until then, enjoy this everyone!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/32/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 32- The Wait is Over)
The waiting is the hardest part, especially when this waiting is done in a place that can serve as a heartbreaker for most people who enter it. But with May by her side, Kelly has decided to not be petty about the process. One could say that she has made the choice to just grin and bear it for her sake as she is inside one of the doctor’s offices awaiting the x-rays for her potentially broken right hand.
Walking into the non-urgent wing of the ER about half an hour ago along with each one’s parents, they see a lot of the different spectators for the Grand Festival including fellow coordinators getting themselves and their physical problems checked out. Once Kelly signs up to get checked out at the front desk, she waits for her name to be called. When that happens, due to the fact that she is a minor but just barely one, she still has to get permission from her parents to allow May to be inside of the waiting room with her for the duration of the visit.
Permission is granted to the young couple and the elder Marins and Maples decide to head back to their hotels and get some rest knowing that their daughters will update them on the condition of Kelly’s hand once they head back to the hotel. After the younger of the two lovers gets a visit from the doctor, she goes inside of another room for a few minutes and takes about five different pictures of her right hand to look over and determine what course of action to take for the injury. During this time, May, who brought a change of clothes, takes this time to go back into her more comfortable black sweat suit. No sooner than when Kelly goes for her x-rays does she come back and sit down near May after being told that she will have to wait some additional time for the plates to develop.
Both girlfriends have not said much to each other while they await the pictures as they come back from the darkroom. To May, who is sitting across the room from Kelly, it seems like her best friend is down in the dumps a bit from more than just a potentially broken hand. In fact, she is willing to bet her entire paycheck from this weekend’s festivities that the situation with Marina’s dishonesty might only be scratching the surface of her sweetheart’s discontent.
She wishes that there was something she could do to make Kelly feel better, and decides to just talk. Smiling in her direction, she asks the lilac-haired girl, “It sucks, huh?”
In response to her bluntness, Kelly laughs for the first time in a very long time. It felt great in the face of everything else that has happened to laugh for its own sake. “Yeah. I hate this place so much, May, you would not believe. I had a lot of illnesses when I was younger and spent more time in here and other hospitals, doctor’s offices and the like than I even care to remember. To be honest, I came here because you, my parents and your parents probably would not have had it any other way. They probably would have had to drag my *** here if I didn’t say yes.”
Feeling that Kelly is skirting an important issue, May says, “Yeah, we just want to make sure that you’re all right. That’s all. Most people hate hospitals. Hell, I hate them myself! I don’t wanna be here as much as you do, but I come here whenever I need the help. There are people here that are willing to go the extra mile to give it to you…like me.”
The girl with the hurt hand did not expect a comment like that and with a command of “Come again?” she asks exactly what her one and only meant.
“Well, I could tell when we thought we saw something with Zoey and the others earlier that it really got to you. When I found out that Marina was who you were talking about when you mentioned your ex-girlfriend, it didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together. Marina and Jimmy have been together a very long time…with only a brief separation about three or four years ago where it was always stated in the media that neither of them ever broke up with one another. The reason why you hate cheating so much is not necessarily because Marina cheated on you, but that she dragged you into her problems and made you into ‘the other woman’.”
It is very apparent that May is hitting home with her hypothesis on the matter because during the time in which she relives the story of Kelly and Marina that she knows about, Kelly begins to tear up and become quite emotional. Given the circumstances involved few can blame her, but even fewer know exactly what happened to cause these strong feelings from within.
“You’re right,” she says through her tears. “Marina came through Lilycove three or four years ago to get some information on berries and how to make pokeblock. We hit it off quite well and I learned she came off a bad breakup with her boyfriend. That was the first lie. She said that she was tired of guys being pigs and…I confided in her the details of my sexuality and she showed some interest. I told her some things that I haven’t even told my own mom and dad and still haven’t. We became buddies and she worked around the shop as my apprentice while also traveling to different contest houses to get her five ribbons during the weekends. This friendship evolved into a romantic relationship and all the while I had no idea about her boyfriend, because I was not as familiar with any coordinators from the Johto region. Things, I thought, were going well for us. Then after a month together, I caught her on our couch talking with someone named Jimmy and the two of them were having a really intimate conversation that night.”
“The next morning I confronted her at the breakfast table and asked her who she was talking to on the phone last night. Already knowing that it was Jimmy, I waited to catch her in a lie. She said it was her mother, and I was ready and waiting to…bring her down with my parents there to see it happen. She was so slick with her words, though. She said that I did not trust her, which was true but she never gave me a reason to trust her after finding her on the couch talking to Jimmy. Then she tried to put my intelligence to task by asking me, ‘If I was seeing someone behind your back, would I be stupid enough to actually call that person while you and your parents are in the house?’ It was horrible, and she got my parents to actually tell me that I was being delusional and just needed to relax and enjoy myself and being with Marina.”
“Damn, she really fooled everyone if that’s the case!” May exclaims. “How did you get everything out in the open and expose her?”
The thought of how her story with Marina came to an end is enough to make Kelly smile. “Ironically enough, she caught herself in a mistake. She defended herself by saying that she would never call someone she was cheating with inside my house with all of us in there. Well in this case, she didn’t. While I was out getting some supplies for a project at Academy my parents were at home and caught her talking to Jimmy, the same person I confronted her earlier about, and she ended up screwing herself. They caught her while she was outside of the house one afternoon talking about how she can’t wait to get her fifth ribbon and go back to him after the Grand Festival. The cat got her tongue really quickly and she left the house not even a half an hour later and did not come back. I saw her while I was walking back home to get back to work. She was…literally running on the city sidewalks with these two suitcases in her hand saying that something has come up and she has to leave immediately. I felt for her and wanted to know what it was but she would not give any details. That should have been a clue but I wasn’t sure because after some time, I did cool off and actually was cordial to the *****. She just said that she had to go home right away and that’s exactly what she did.”
Kelly has to take a break. If nothing else, stopping and regaining her composure is her best course of action at the moment. Once more, the tears flow from the eyes of the soon to be doctor as perhaps the saddest part of her saga with Marina is about to be retold through her words. “But when I went back home…I just had this feeling deep inside me that something wasn’t right. I came into the house and saw my dad consoling mom and she just kept asking ‘How could she do this to Kelly?’ I asked them what’s going on, and…dad told me everything. I was hysteric when I heard it; a part of me really did not want to think that it was actually true. At this point, though, it was very clear what happened. Marina got found out, left the house as quickly as she could so she would not have to explain herself and left our otherwise happy family in near shambles. We went to counseling and things got better for us, yet that piece of **** walks around contest houses and arenas like she has done nothing wrong.”
“So in conclusion,” Kelly continues, “it does suck. I know I shouldn’t think these thoughts, but I wanna hurt her so badly, May. I mean it when I say I really want to hurt Marina and give her…at least some of the pain which she gave my family and me. Does that make me a bad person, May? Am I a ***** because I want revenge or, at the very least, for Marina to say something to me or show some remorse for the things she did?”
“Not at all. Hell, I wanna hurt her too. I wanna ask her what would make her want to…betray you. Never mind the fact that I fell for you like no one else, the way you carry yourself with so much dignity, the work that you put in to become a great contributor to this world and the fact that you are who you are. At the end of the day, you are still a person and you did not deserve that from someone you claimed to love.” Deeply sighing, May ponders an incident that has been on her mind since early this morning. “You know, I wanna thank you for being honest with me about the situation between you and Marina.”
“Well, it has to do with what you told me,” Kelly explains. “You said that we should not keep secrets from one another. Sure it was painful to relive everything, but you were right. I should have said something a long time ago. You always listen and understand. It’s not often you find someone like that in a lifetime.”
“Thank you for being honest, Kelly. Now I think it’s time that I do the same.”
“Marissa, what are you talking about?”
“There was a reason why I missed breakfast this morning. I met up with Conway and we talked and then Kenny came and told me that Dawn got checked into the hospital due to headaches. Friday night, I snuck out of the room…and beat her ***. She insulted us, Kelly, and Dawn fought me. I ended up knocking her out, so it’s very likely that I gave her a concussion and caused her headaches.”
“May! What did I tell you; don’t let them get to you. You didn’t have to go there! You’re too damn good for them to get under your skin and call you those awful names.”
“There’s a bit more to the story,” May replies. “Drew, for whatever reason, had a feeling that I was responsible for Dawn going to the hospital. He was right and wanted to speak with me. I found out that not only did he have affairs on Dawn, he still had feelings for me. I kept telling him that we will never get together again, but he didn’t listen. He took it to…a level it did not belong and…forced himself on me and kissed me.”
“What the ****, May?” Kelly exclaims, fighting back the pain in her hand and shooting up from her seat. “He kissed you?” she whispers. Making a fist with her uninjured left hand and fighting back the pain obvious on her face because of her right hand, she declares “God help him if my hand isn’t broken because I’ll break something of his the next time I see that cocksucker!”
“No need, Kelly,” the star coordinator assures. “He won’t try anything else with me. I made sure of that when I slapped the taste out of him for doing that, but…thank you for sticking up for me, girl. I know that most of the time, it’s best to talk things like this out and come to an understanding, but anyone who says that talking things out with someone who tries to ‘cop a feel’ or what have you on a woman must be crazy.”
“May,” Kelly explains, “I consider it an honor for me to stand up for you wherever and whenever you need it. I just…wish that I could show you how thankful I am for you being a great part of my life. It’s too soon, though.”
“Too soon? What are you talking about?”
The practicing nutritionist is thankful. That is all she can be given the circumstances because she and May are interrupted by the doctor in charge of the care of Kelly’s hand. There was no way in which she could have answered May’s question without blowing her big plan to propose to her girlfriend on Sunday evening on the Grand Festival stage. As mentioned in past discussions between the two, it would be best for both of them, especially May, to avoid distractions.
“Well hello again, fellow soon-to-be doctor,” says her medical practitioner Corrine Dawes. Doctor Dawes is a lanky, fair-haired woman in her early thirties with brown eyes, tanned skin and a lab coat, which can only be connected with practitioners of health. “Let’s all have a look at these pictures together of your hand and then we’ll go from there.” As the doctor strives to get to know her patients on a person-to-person basis, even if she would likely not see them again after the Grand Festival, she found out many things about Kelly, including her career plans and even the reason why May and not her own parents are with her in the room. It is the couple’s mutual but unspoken decision to no longer be afraid to tell the truth and in this case it works as the doctor remains very friendly and complimentary towards the pair through the evaluation process.
Putting four different plates in front of what appears to be a light; Doctor Dawes turns on the light, illuminating all of the plates. As she asks Kelly, “Okay, now to test your medical knowledge; do you know what metacarpals and phalanges are?” she expects and gets the correct answer in that they are bones which are found in the middle of the hand and the fingers.
“That’s right,” she answers, “and congratulations Miss Cruz-Marin; you have successfully broken or cracked five of these bones!” While May laughs at that comment for a bit, Kelly either does not see the sarcasm and dry humor in her doctor’s voice or refuses to take it given her present condition. “Your index, middle and ring fingers all have hairline fractures, including two of the bones in the middle of your hand, metacarpal II and metacarpal III. The…good news about all of this is that none of the fractures will require any surgery. I’d bet the farm that there are some bruises on a few of these bones that don’t any cracks.”
“So her hand will have to go in a cast, right?” May asks, already knowing the answer.
“Without question. Kelly, your hand won’t heal without one. I’ll get in contact with your M.D. in Lilycove so we can swap information, but we’ll definitely have you fitted for a cast right now. We’ll then set a timetable where he will look at it in about a month, give his prognosis and see whether or not to keep it on longer.”
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Having finally gotten Damien to sleep after a long crying spell, Solidad finds a moment to rest in her hotel room and watch more appeals of action just down the road. She knew that Drew had to leave the room for about an hour to talk with Contesta about his punishment for the fiasco in the media center earlier in the afternoon. She allowed it, under the condition that he comes back to her room so they could talk. It is the one thing that she wants to do more than anything else. Solidad grew tired of the laissez-faire attitude of her son’s father and needed to know if he could make a turn for the better and at the very least, care for the baby boy in the other room.
A few knocks on the door to her room for rent and it raises Solidad from the bed. She did not expect any visitors to come to her place for the weekend, but is sure who the person on the other side of the door is. It has been about an hour, after all.
Opening the door without viewing the peephole first, Solidad is not surprised to find Drew. His look appears to be neutral at best, though it can be deceptive when the moment calls for such. “Hi.”
“Hey, Drew,” she greets.
“May I come in…so we can talk? I—we really need to talk.”
Silence passes. Solidad desires to remain strong in the face of this young man and does so. At the same time, however, Drew is calling for exactly what she needed since deciding to come out of hiding and confront an inactive father. Stepping to the side, she grants Drew silent permission to come inside. Then she says, “Have a seat,” which sets the conversation in motion as the male coordinator sits on a spot of the bed. Solidad follows him, taking a seat to his left and turning off the television set.
“Okay,” he begins in soft but sturdy preparation for what lies ahead. “I need to apologize to both you and Damien. I’ve been acting like a real monster during this time and neither of you deserved it, bottom line. I got a call from someone earlier and it really made me think. The way in which I was raised…was not necessarily the best way for a young boy to be brought up. Looking back at it, even though I did not suffer any abuse or neglect and had parents who truly loved me, something was missing. I suppose the best way to put it is…I had my father, but I didn’t have my daddy. At age eighteen, there isn’t much I can do about that for me right now, but…I have a son, Solidad. I have a son and that means that…it’s not about me anymore.”
“Drew,” Solidad speaks, “that’s…the best thing that I could possibly hear right now. So just to make sure I’m hearing you correctly, you’re ready to step up and be there for Damien?”
“I have no choice in the matter. I brought him here and no matter what role I play, his life will be affected by me in some form. I can continue the way I have been and he’ll grow to resent and hate me, or I can go one day at a time not worrying about whether I’m doing the right thing or not and just be there. Regardless of that, I am Damien’s father and he is my son. That much is etched in stone and…” Drew pauses for recollection and affirmation. For the first time in his young life, he will place someone else before him and in highest regard. It is the greatest step he has ever taken, and the moment is an emotional one which brings more than its share of tears to the cool, calm and collected one. He cannot remember a moment that he cried so sincerely since the woman next to him defeated him in his first contest in what has become a great career in coordinating.
Solidad watched, waited and listened to all of the words that came from Drew’s mouth. Nothing seemed forced, rehearsed or false. Everything felt real, including the crying, which the Kanto Grand Festival champion seems to be a catalyst towards causing such actions. Because of this sincerity, she wants to reach out and does so by pulling Drew into a hug.
“You know,” Solidad whispers into the young man’s ear, “this is what I wanted to hear from you from the very beginning. I was a love struck idiot, because I thought that having your baby would mean having you at the same time. But I know better, now. We know better now and because of that…this will work. Just don’t worry about it and it’ll work, Drew. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. Everyone is just a work in progress. Do you understand?”
He shakes his head again and again. It would appear that something is amiss in his head. It is simple, yet complicated as one factor contributed to Drew’s behavior over the past several months as it pertained to Solidad and their son. “I just,” he begins, voice breaking and heart full of remorse. “I didn’t want him to hate me, Solidad. I wanted to give Damien whatever he wanted; more than what I got growing up when my dad spent much of his time growing his business. I did that by working and sending money back to Pewter City. He would never have had to deal with struggle like my family did. I should have known better. It’s not so much about what he wants but what he needs.”
And then, if one were to believe in the idea of divine intervention and forces around us controlling most actions, a need arises as young Damien awakens from his slumber and alerts his nurturers to some issue that has come up. It is exactly what Drew just referred to in being a provider for his progeny.
Taking her once best friend by the hand, Solidad smiles at the opportunity Drew has to live up to his word. “Come with me,” she says and they get up from the bed and into the other room, where they see Damien stirring for a bit before gurgling and even cooing for a moment; all of this taking place in less than ten seconds time. This gives the young parents just cause to laugh for a bit before mother Solidad signals to Drew to hold him.
Asking if it is all right, Solidad reiterates the fact that Damien is his son. Using the best of care, Drew picks him up from the crib and holds him close to his chest, keeping him still there while he is wrapped up in a couple of blankets with a blue bonnet over top of his head to cover what hair he has.
He has the support, and then some, as Drew holds a firm but fair grip on his son. Soon, Damien begins to stir once more, but on instinct, the father slowly rocks the son back and forth to calm him down. The technique works, as the noises which once came from the infant child are silenced and replaced by soft whispers in the boy’s ears assuring him that everything will change from this point forward.
The whole scene is the dream of Solidad’s come true and made the reality of them standing up in the room caring for their boy while on one accord. Leaning forward, Drew whispers something lightly into his son’s ear. Hoping and praying that he can understand, he says to Damien, “We’re stuck together for good, little man. Your daddy has his head on straight now and nothing’s gonna keep me from being there for you every step from here on out. I’m so sorry and I love you,” and with these words, the tears pour out of the teen’s ducts and fall down onto the ground with one splashing on the skin of Damien, waking him and causing him to cry once more. This time, Solidad does not have to struggle alone to stop the noise because as quickly as the tears began for her son, they ended.
His dad is there to cry for him and carry the burden for his son at last.
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It is purple, goes down to just past the bottom of her wrist and now carries the signature of one of the top pokemon coordinators in the entire world in the area of her hand along with several heart shapes. Kelly has had her cast fitted to her hand and afterwards gets several instructions about not getting it wet and treating any cuts, bruises, sores or any further injuries which she has or might develop in the future.
“Now if you have any questions after you leave here, either get in touch with my office here in Slateport,” Doctor Dawes includes, “or you can just give your doctor a call. Sound good, Kelly?”
“Yes, doctor. Thanks for all of your help.”
“Okay, both of you are free to go! All I ask is that you sign a couple of release forms at the front desk. Otherwise, we’re done.” After thanking Doctor Dawes for all of the help, Kelly and May make their way out of the room and fill out two forms at the desk. With the professor’s writing hand out of commission for the time being, May does all of the paperwork for her girlfriend. It takes virtually no time, about eight minutes at the most, and the couple is out in the streets walking to the direction of their hotel. They walk with Kelly on the left with her arm around May’s shoulders while she walks in a similar stride on the right of the sidewalk.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, Kelly,” she answers the girl. “Reminds me of when I was younger during the spring and summer nights I’d spend outside with Max and we’d just be out there and…watch the sun come down. You know how much I love to do that with you when we’re together and…I guess it runs in the family because Max is trying to get Harley on board with watching sunsets but like everything else with Harley, it can be difficult.”
“I know I don’t say it outright that much, but I really love doing things like that with you,” Kelly admits. “It’s simple but fun. I know that people would call it wishful thinking but I hope that when we finally live together, for good this time, that we spend our nights just like that…but we can wait. We’re young and we have all the time in the world to get everything in place. But from here on out, I don’t ever wanna give you a reason to cry May—that’s if I can help it.”
Kelly, through her words and her actions, appears to be setting up for something monumental in nature. She told May late Friday morning that they would eventually get married when they got older. It would seem that there would be no need for a proposal from either party if this were the case, but this would ruin May’s plans which she spoke to Kelly’s own father about earlier in the afternoon. Something seems off about Kelly wanting to put off any official proposal while at the same time always mentioning her and May spending their lives together as one.
“Be honest with me, okay?”
“Of course, May.”
“Let me first say that…you’re my girl,” May smiles. “I doubt that will change whether we are age seventeen or seventy-seven. But I can’t help thinking that you have something that you want to do and…you’re trying to hold yourself back from doing it for whatever reason.”
The young teen from Lilycove City can officially be colored scared. May is putting together the pieces of the puzzle and figuring everything out, it appears. While she has not out and out said that she knows what Kelly’s plan is, the words are too symbolic and meaningful to be pure coincidence.
“I…you’re right, May. There is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while since we got together. I just have a feeling that given everything this weekend, like I’ve stated a time or two before tonight, it would be too much of a distraction for me to do this.”
“To do what?”
“To get—oh. Ah-ha. Nice try, May, but you’re not gonna catch me.” Pointing to her head, she claims, “I’m too smart for it, girl! I’ll just say that I’m here with you and enjoying myself but at the same time; I have a job to do in helping you get to the top so you can win the Grand Festival. That’s the reason why you’re here, am I right?”
“Yeah, you’re right. And about being too smart to get caught; I’ve always been taught that if there is something that’s on your mind, the smart thing to do is let someone know. You get it over with and move on.”
“Yeah,” Kelly admits, “but this is a big one, May!”
“Well, I doubt it’s anything we can’t solve together. We’ve been doing that so long that it seems like second nature to me.” Stopping on the sidewalk just two or three blocks from the motel and an additional block removed from the stadium, she holds Kelly close, looks her in the eyes and says, “I’ve learned something because of Drew, Dawn and even Marina to an extent; there will always be distractions, Kelly. No matter what I do, there will always be distractions. I can’t escape them, period. They’ll follow me closer than my own shadow. Seriously, what’s one more distraction?” After a few seconds of quiet while in the equally quiet streets, it seems that May’s girlfriend did not understand that she just asked a question.
‘Where are your smarts now, girl?’ she thinks before informing the young professor that she asked her a question which she would like for her to answer.
“Well if we’re talking about the same thing, then this is a huge distraction. We’ve been training for a month so you can have this chance, you know?”
“But that’s the thing; I don’t know what we’re talking about, Kelly. You keep telling me that it’s too soon or that we can wait. What are we waiting for? I don’t know because you won’t say anything, so I think I have to take matters into my own hands.”
There is no more escaping it or explaining it away. Kelly knows that May wants to press the matter and she would like to do her absolute best to change the subject and just put it off to the side until the time is right. “May, can’t we talk about this later? We’ve already missed a lot of time planning battles because of my hand. The hours are ticking…what are you doing, May?” she asks as she watches the Petalburg coordinator comes down to the concrete ground.
“What does it look like? I’m on one knee.”
“Why?” she fearfully asks her as May now digs through her backpack in search of something.
“I told you,” May explains while successfully retrieving something small enough to hold and cover in her right hand, “I’m taking matters into my own hands. You’re stuck with whatever your plan is and that’s fine, but if this is what we both want, waiting is useless.” Opening her hand at that moment causes Kelly to gasp so loud that she probably scared a few of the city animals out of their hiding spots. In the center of May’s hand is a black velvet box fit for an item of jewelry designed to go onto a finger.
“May?”
“Please,” she interrupts. “I just want to ask you one more question.” Opening the box, May presents herself and her gift to Kelly, inquiring “Kelly Natalie Annika Cruz-Marin, will you marry me? Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Here come the tears, symbols so clear. A proud, prodigal girl of Spanish and Norwegian descent stands above her well-traveled girlfriend looking at a box containing the most beautiful ring she has ever seen in her life. This band is either silver or white gold, compared to her gold band for May and the diamond on top of the ring is not quite the size of hers but appears to complete the ring in a unique form.
There is no more dancing around the issue anymore as the tears continue to make their way onto Kelly’s face and then move downward. Her plans, which she outlined to her own parents earlier in the morning, have been thwarted in favor of this makeshift proposal from her sweetheart. In retrospect, she could not be happier for it. It is one of the reasons why she is crying at the moment aside from some pride in that she did not get the chance to ask May first.
“Kelly, please answer me,” May shakes in anticipation of hearing the word from her potential fiancé.
With this swell of feelings and emotion gripping Kelly from the inside out, she forgot the most important part of any proposal. Rings are mere symbols. Getting down on one knee is nothing but a traditional gesture and so is the stating of a full name. All of these things come and go just like the tide, but one part of a proposal will remain as the greatest memory possible from such a life-changing moment.
Picking May up from the ground, Kelly makes due on giving her girlfriend an answer by viewing the windows to her soul and stepping forward to give her a kiss on her lips while keeping a hold onto her upper and lower back fighting back even more tears combined with the pain from her hand.
Letting go of the kiss but still holding onto the girl, a simple answer of yes from Kelly would have sufficed given the precious moment, but there are a few things she want May to know. “I love you so very much, May Maple. You’ve changed me for the better. You taught me that you can love and I’m forever grateful for that and…yes. Yes,” and then raising her arms high in the air she screams, “Yes!” one more time before wrapping the proposer into her arms tightly. “I’ll marry you,” she now whispers. “I’ll do it because you’re right. I tried to hang on. I had a plan; I’d propose after the Grand Festival. That’s why I pushed you so hard, May. But I guess it doesn’t matter now, though.”
“Actually, there is still hope for your plan,” May admits while taking the ring out of its box. “I can win the Grand Festival and you can still go along with your plans to propose in front of the world. That’s what you wanted to do right?”
Kelly nods before answering, “Yeah, that’s what I wanted. And you’re right. I can still do that! Okay, I won’t show you my ring yet, but—now what?”
May now has her ring in her hand. As she explains to Kelly, “This ring was given to my grandmother by my grandfather. My parents didn’t get the ring because my dad got married to mom very quickly and my granddad didn’t have time to give the story to him. But it’s Grandma Katherine’s ring which she gave me several months ago. As you know, we confided in both of them about our relationship a while back, and she gave it to me on the promise that I’d only give it to the person I planned on staying with forever.” Sniffling for a bit, she continues, “I know only one person like that, but tradition says that the engagement ring goes on the right hand. Yours is in a somewhat mangled state, though. Oh wait! I know!”
Putting the ring into one of her pants pocket, she reaches around the back of Kelly’s neck, taking off the gold chain around it, slipping on the ring, and then placing the chain back around her fiancée’s neck. “There. You’re wearing the ring now.”
Holding up the ring, she smiles for a moment as it glistens in the moonlight and rolls down both sides of the chain. “I won’t let it go until I can wear it for real. Thank you for this, May, and thank you for…everything.” With arms wide open, the pair hugs each other once again. One step forward and they are closer to becoming one. “I wanted to do this so badly.”
“You’ll get your chance tomorrow. Now let’s go. There are some people we need to alert. They usually give their blessing in a time like this.”
It’s clear who May is referring to. “Our parents. Mom and dad already know that I’m proposing this weekend.”
“But my parents don’t know,” May counters. Shrugging her shoulders, she concedes to whatever fate comes her way, exclaiming, “Well they’re gonna find out soon! Let’s go!” And with that, they do go. They run like kids playing in the park back to their home for the weekend.
But truth be told, home is wherever they are at any given moment together. For when they are together, they are secure knowing that they don’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for love; for it is right in front of them. Now their relationship has changed, so it seems. Marriage is on the horizon for the duo, but the idea is the same.
Their faith in each other is unchanging. They trust each other and believe they can stay together forever even when others do not. It is their hope that when they announce their soon-to-be union to the world that people will accept, even if they don’t approve. But no matter what; the two always plan to love one another.
In reality, nothing has changed at all.
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Your Thoughts?
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Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Time for Chapter Thirty-three!
@CB: The scene with Kelly and May proposing is the mark of a true partnership. They talk things over, consider everything and never leave the other one angry. It works. Drew is definitely learning in his role as a responsible father. This whole chapter shows people turning the corners in their relationships...for the better.
And I agree with what you said about Marina. That is all. ^__^
Except...here's chapter thirty-three! Enjoy everyone and dont forget to post a review!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/33/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 33- No Force Necessary)
“Madam Purr, I choose you!” Marina calls and the stage is set for her and her Purugly to do their appeal to the large evening crowd. It is here where the idol shines the brightest and does not look nearly as idle. Behind her smile, demeanor and attitude which she always has time to show off to the crowd, there is not much, which she will even admit to herself whenever she can stand to look at her face in the mirror.
But her true colors are not something that she can afford to worry about at this point in time. She has a reputation, however rooted in falsehood it may be, to live up to in this appeal. For a former Grand Festival champion to not make it past the appeals round in future contests is inexcusable and intolerable. She knows the road is difficult but possible and she will travel it to the top of the podium and the Ribbon Cup one more time with her pokemon.
“Madam Purr, start off with a Hyper Beam attack and,” she adds, pointing in the direction of the sun, “aim for the big ball in the sky!” It seems odd for anyone considered to be an expert in the field of coordinating or training to ‘aim high’ in their efforts to impress, but as is often said in these situations; never question the experts. Despite this, many in the crowd and the important five on the judges’ panel look at Marina with confusion as she seemingly wastes a hyper beam by aiming it high into the air in any old direction.
“Now, let’s see some holes! Dig five of them into the stage!” With the command of one of the most powerful pokemon attacks possible seemingly being put on the back burner so that Purugly can do its best intimidation of a dog and its bones, even more people look on at the main stage with wonder, namely wondering just what Marina is planning or thinking with this next series of moves.
The pokemon known as Madam Purr does not show any concern for this criticism whatsoever and just digs a total of five circular holes into the Earth of the stadium floor which form a circle in their own right if one could see the sight from above. Each hole goes down to about half a meter into the ground each. Once Madam Purr finishes her work, Marina calls for her to do slash attacks inside of the circle. Her Purugly does so, connecting each circle with lines that jut into the center of this stage. Afterwards, Madam Purr plays a quick game of ‘connect the dots’ when she connects the circles by what appears to be a string in the ground.
“All right,” Marina says while looking up at the sky, “Now scratch every part of the stage and keep the circle intact. We’re making good time!”
‘With what?’ many of the spectators ask her from the stands. “All right, dig a hole in the center of the circle, Madam!”
So many holes, one would think that the self-proclaimed Idol is attempting to recreate a novel or major motion picture of the same name. One might say that this appeal is full of holes and emptiness all around. It would appear that Marina is just throwing attacks together and rearranging the stage floor, but Purugly works overtime to dig yet another large hole in the middle of the circle consisting of five holes.
The clock is really ticking down at this point and with only a fleeting hyper beam and six holes in the ground to show for it, there is nothing truly spectacular about this effort as Madam Purr now sits off to the site of her creation while looking up in the sky just like her champion coordinator. Aside from a darkening sky and the serenading of the sun and the moon in a dance unlike any other, there does not appear to be much to look at up there, until a flicker of light appears from the heavens. It presents itself to the crowd becoming larger and larger as the time ticks down to almost nothing.
Then comes…a sound. The sound of a whisper soon erupts into a boom from that same twinkle in the sky and down to the ground comes a beacon of light from above. It is the Hyper Beam from before, which has come back down to Earth and into the big hole Purugly prepared scant seconds prior to its re-arrival. As the beam makes its way into the hole, the impact reverberates throughout the stadium and just as quickly, they feel the rush of five separate beams coming from the five holes made earlier in the appeal and escaping out of the stadium once more through the outside as time expires on what is truly a unique appeal. And then comes…a smatter of applause which grows and grows in loudness.
A few seconds pass as both Marina and Madam Purr take a bow at the accomplishment. The Idol of New Bark Town returns her Purugly into her pokeball as Robert Weis makes his way onto the stage. With microphone in hand he admits, “Well Marina, I doubt that anyone here could tell where you were going with that appeal, but I have to say that the preparation paid off for it amounting to…quite the light show. But as far as photons, I don’t know so much. The judges may not know as much either, but we’ll ask them what they thought right now starting with Director Contesta.”
“Robert makes an excellent point, Miss Marina. This was not your everyday appeal, but it did tell a story. Your Purugly’s preparation for the big Hyper Beam coming down to the sky was quite a tale of hurried panic, though I’m just not sure what purpose that it served. It didn’t do a good job of explaining that, but this was a good appeal.”
“A light show summed up in one word; remarkable!” says Fan Club President Suziko.
“Quite a show there with Purugly getting down and dirty there in the ground and making those holes for the Hyper Beam,” comments Nurse Joy of Slateport City.
“Just…I had the feeling you were going for something unique, but the fact is that this time is here for you to do something that will work,” informs the Littleroot Town Nurse Joy to a good amount of applause from the fans. “Don’t get me wrong. The appeal was very good; I just think that you could do something else with Purugly and an element to get a better score and like Contesta stated, I don’t know what you were trying to show us with that.”
“I guess in the time that the other four judges have taken, I’ve been trying to figure out what you were aiming for and I’ve come to a few ideas,” begins the Ever Grande Nurse Joy. “The light from the Hyper Beam reminded me of a boomerang coming back to the person who threw it. But the light also took on a few more roles. One of them looked like a starship in orbit while in the air and when it went through the holes, it looked as if water was coming out of a sprinkler. I’m just making guesses, though. Please let me know if I’m wrong or not.”
“Well, as the judges begin to tally your scores, Marina, there are two questions that come to mind almost immediately, and the first one is the most popular one; how did you come up with this?”
“Robert, this appeal came after we found out that Purugly could make a Hyper Beam curve in the air and come back down to the ground. I thought of how we could harness that power and turn one beam into several to mimic a jet flyover that you often see in Grand Festivals. It was a stretch given the dimensions of the stadium, but I pulled it off.”
“And that answers another question of what you wanted to do for this appeal. There was very little in symbolism, but it was still great to watch. The question is did the judges like it? All of them saying that it was very good, but what does ‘very good’ mean on the scorecards. We’re about to find out. Up in the booth? What’s the score?”
With those seven words becoming Robert’s catch phrase for the evening, he and everyone else looks up at the stadium’s big screen. Two seconds later, there flashes a total score of forty-five. Then she sees the judges’ individual scores. Contesta gave Marina an eight, Suziko a ten; Slateport City’s Nurse Joy gives a ten, Littleroot’s Nurse Joy, an eight and Ever Grande’s Nurse Joy, a nine.”
“It’s a great score and you should be proud of it,” Robert analyzes, “but we’ve had appeals here that have done much better than that one. It puts you at number ten of all coordinators right now and you need to be at least sixteenth. Any final thoughts?”
Looking very nervous and almost appearing to sweat as she sees how close she came to not even being able to make it to the show. She answers Robert’s question, “Fingers crossed and knock on wood. No matter what happens, doing this was worth a shot. Thank you all!” she says leaving for backstage, signing several autographs for the girls in attendance and then heading into the arms of her man, Jimmy.
“Great job, girl!” he says while sharing an embrace with Marina. He can see a few tears coming down her eyes, which he wipes away almost immediately. “Hey, you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Appeals like the one May had earlier come around once in a generation. Trying to go against that is not something that even I would want to do.”
“It’s…complicated, Jimmy,” Marina laments. “I just want to end this. This weekend has become so slow. Let’s just end this now.”
“Marina, what are you talking about?”
“Jimmy, let’s…I’m tired. Let’s just go. Let’s go back to the hotel. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. Come on,” he says, taking his longtime girlfriend by the hand and away from the paparazzi, away from the fans and away from the watchful eyes and ears of the world.
It is in that place which they are leaving where people must stand out and be Idols, role models and superhuman in their actions. But in reality, when they walk away from the lights, the spectacle and the pageantry of playing a role, people quickly learn that they are just like everyone else.
Behind the cheerful demeanor that Marina displays are roots deeply planted in humanity’s faults, but even they need pulling in order for anything to grow.
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With his plate in hand, Kenny comes back, this time with a plate of baked fish, a baked potato loaded with all the trimmings and a healthy serving of snow peas. He notices that Conway and Holly have both gotten a serving of steak, something he plans on getting a little later and Zoey is about finished with her salad.
“I’m back, guys,” he announces as unnecessary as it might be. Sitting down, he asks, “So is there something that you want to know about Zoey and me, guys?”
“Yeah, actually, I do,” Holly speaks. “I talked to Zoey about this during the individual meeting and she said that the two of you fell for Dawn Berlitz and got rejected when she ended up with Drew. So how do you end up getting together?”
“Good question. Kenny, I’ll be back. You can tell them the story.”
“Right then,” he answers, getting up and letting his girlfriend out of the booth. “Okay, Conway knows most of this already. Drew was with May at the time but she caught him cheating on her with Dawn. We were competing in the same region at the time and Zoey noticed that May looked really down in the dumps. I asked her what happened and…she just broke down in my arms and admitted what she saw. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I cried when I heard it because back then, I thought that there was at least a chance.”
“So Zoey had feelings for Dawn just like you did,” Conway squares away. “Did you know about Zoey’s feelings for Dawn or vice versa?”
“No,” Kenny answers. “Our connection was May, who is a friend of both of us…knew that I had feelings for Dawn but didn’t know about Zoey. Talking after that is when we learned that while both of them were traveling together, the attraction really started to develop. May was the one that got everything rolling for us. Our friendship was good before this, but it’s a hundred times better after it. We talked more, we hung out together more and we just learned more about each other. Then May made the now infamous quote, ‘Hey you guys. I have this crazy idea, but tell me what you think. Since you two both fell for Dawn, maybe the two of you should get together!’ And here I am thinking, ‘Yeah, right’. I have nothing but respect for Zoey, but the thought of being with her never crossed my mind. I guess that’s why we all thought that the idea was crazy, including the person who came up with it. But we went out alone as friends, it was always said that we’d do this just as friends so there would be no pressure, and…we found out that we do have quite a bit in common that you two already know about and decided to go on an actual date two weeks later. Two months later, we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Wow, that’s a great story to hear,” Conway comments. As Zoey comes back he adds, “We just heard the story. It’s great that you could find love like that. Our story is not that dramatic and it doesn’t involve a web of deceit.”
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear it,” Zoey says sitting down with her second plate of food.
“We didn’t become friends until I took time off and went to Rustboro City and their Pokemon Academy,” Holly begins. “I initially went there to improve my battling skills, further my education and make myself better-rounded in the subject. We knew each other from maybe a year or two before because we got quite far in a tag battle tournament as a part of different teams. I was with Brock and Conway got paired up with Dawn. We ended up in the same class with Miss Roxanne teaching a course called ‘Pokemon Battles for the Advanced Student’, and Conway, you can tell them the rest.”
“All right,” he answers. “I had the fortune of being the team leader of a squadron at the Pokemon Academy. Our instructor put our large class into groups of twenty and Holly was a part of our group called…The Big Shots or something like that. It was our job to help each other with schoolwork and developing each other’s battling education by battling with one another and keeping us strong. Every week, we’d have battles all over the campus and I, as leader, would assign each trainer a role. If they succeeded, they would get a better ranking, if they failed, they would get traded. Often times, I’d pull Holly off to the side because I remembered her from the tournament in Hearthome she mentioned a bit earlier. At the time she was a very good battler with all the potential in the world to be great…she just had and still does have some confidence issues.”
Conway continues to tell the story to an interested Kenny and Zoey, explaining, “A lot of that comes from her upbringing. She is the youngest of nine children! Even now I think my family is pretty big, but whenever I’m around the Rockwell’s, I can’t hold a candle to them and I realize that our family is average in size. Anyway, she had a lot to live up to. Her oldest brother is almost forty years old, so whenever she’d so something great, her mom and dad would compare it to her brothers and sisters, which might not have been the best idea because the next youngest sibling is her twenty-five year old brother Trevor.”
“And guys, don’t get me wrong,” Holly injects. “I love my parents and my family and I’ll put nothing before them with few exceptions, but it was hard growing up always hearing about marriages, children, graduations…I can’t compare to that, especially since I’m still a teenager. My only advantage was that I was the baby and all of my family members showered me with love when I came up, but I digress. I lost a lot of battles as a part of Conway’s squadron and a lot of my squadron members wanted to trade me to another squad. Conway didn’t want to give up on me, though, and I’m quite thankful for it. I ended up telling him everything I just told you about my family and my role in it. He…was so good during that time. He told me just don’t worry about it and that when I go out for battle to just think about me and my pokemon. My matches improved and the team morale also improved…until we got to midterms and, once again, we got to be in a Tag Battle with Conway and I as partners which we lost.”
“I was about to just give it all up and stop kidding myself, but Conway stepped in before I left and told me that I did great and that I shouldn’t feel ashamed for losing. Looking back, we did do pretty well going all the way to the round of sixteen in a class of over 200 pairs. He just reached out and wanted to make me feel better and he’s been doing it ever since.”
“Now there’s a love story, if there ever was one,” Zoey compliments. “Few guys are as willing to reach out without seeming like he’s girl hunting and few girls are as willing to open up about these things without appearing weak to themselves and their peers.”
“Zoey doesn’t have that problem because I have yet to find any great weaknesses…or at least ones she’s willing to show.”
“Watch it, buddy,” Zoey warns, pointing in the direction of Kenny. “All right, Holly, what you said about your family got me thinking. You have eight siblings. Care to guess how many I have?”
Holly just does not guess at Zoey’s inquiry. With some thought, including a consideration of her soon-to-be lover’s tone, she makes the educated conclusion that Zoey has, “Zero. You’re an only child.”
“That’s right!” she proudly answers. “The fact that I’m an only child makes Kenny the apple in the eyes of my mom and dad. To say that my folks love Kenny would be like saying that Holly just indulges.”
Hearing her name causes the human garbage disposal to turn up from her plate of battered shrimp and hush puppies to say, “Hey!” while her mouth is still full of food.
“Oh, it’s true,” Zoey simply counters. “Anyway, I had told them that I was a lesbian before I got together with Kenny. They were…fine with it, I suppose, but I could tell it got to them, especially my dad. If I stuck to my guns, then they’d miss out on a lot of things. They…accepted me, but when I brought Kenny home and clarified my coming out by telling them that I just needed to find the right guy, which is the truth. But they love Kenny and I think it’s for two reasons; one is that dad always wanted a son but couldn’t have one with mom because…carrying me to term was rough and the doctor warned both of them that another child could cause a great risk to her health.”
“And the second one is my boyish charm…” Kenny informs, but the ‘reasoning’ cannot be completed as Zoey gives the loudmouthed one a nice smack on the back of his head. “OW!” he exclaims. “You promised me that you’d give that up for Lent!”
“I’m not Catholic, silly boy. I really don’t have to promise anything for these twenty or so days remaining.”
“Zoey! You promised!”
“Oh, all right! I promise I won’t hit you anymore,” she concedes. ‘Whiny *****,’ she speaks below a whisper. “Anyway, the real second reason why I think my parents accepted Kenny so quickly was because…”
“He’s a guy,” Conway answers for Zoey.
“Will you all let me tell my story, please? Yeah, you’re right, Conway. I do think it had to do with the fact that I brought a boy home.”
“Well, that was just too damn easy to figure out,” he explains while stirring his drink with a straw. “I mean…just…forgive me for interrupting, Zoey.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. Hey, I’m up for a game! How about you guys?”
“Right here?” Holly questions.
“Sure! This game doesn’t need materials or anything. You’ve heard of marry, **** or kill, right?”
“Oh, yeah! Sounds good. Umm…is this limited to anyone?”
“No, go for it! Just name someone and say if you’d rather marry them, get a quickie or just whack ‘em. Got it?”
“I got it!” answers the bespectacled trainer. “Can I start?”
“Go for it, man! Who do you have in mind?”
“Well, Kenny, this one just might hit home. Dawn Berlitz.”
Everyone at the table takes their time until Zoey starts the answer session by giving a surprising response. “Marry.”
Kenny turns his head and asks, “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“If you would have asked me…three years ago, my answer would have been marry. Now, I think it’s would be just a ****.” Then, he smiles with that slick demeanor and explains himself, saying, “She does have experience, after all.”
“Oh my—and you two wonder why I just said ‘marry’.” Zoey could not believe the absolute bluntness of her boyfriend at the moment. Given all that they’ve went through with Dawn, she thought that he’d be a bit more conscious of his choice, but the unpredictability of the male coordinator shines once more in this situation…until…
“I’d say ****,” comes out of the mouths of both Conway and Holly in unison and Zoey wonders what type of company she is keeping at the table and in the bedroom for later.
“I stand corrected. Conway, you wouldn’t marry…”
“Honestly, no,” he answers Zoey. “She’s nice and all, but…I just don’t feel it.”
“All right. I’m next,” Kenny declares. “How about…Tom Cruise?”
It is near unanimous. While Kenny does not mind having a one night stand with the Hollywood mainstay, everyone else just wishes that he would go away for a very long time. Everyone else says ‘kill’.
“That was easy. If only he’d just act and not talk. All right, my turn,” Zoey says. “I’ll throw out…Kelly.”
“Our Kelly?”
“Yeah, and I’d…marry her. She’s a tough one and I like that.”
“I’d…yeah. Probably marry,” Holly admits.
“Same,” Conway answers.
“Guys, I’d…kill.”
“What?” they all ask Kenny in unison.
“She’s a great teacher,” he defends. “Her class was as hard as hell and she was no nonsense in her class.”
“Maybe you’re saying that because you were the class clown during our in-class sessions.”
“Zoey, four hours in class will wear on anybody,” Kenny claims. “I just wanted to loosen everyone up and she said that I was being a distraction. Like none of us could get all of our ****ing material on the Blackboard website. Look, the bottom line is that I like her as a friend and will stand up for both of them when needed, but there is no friend option and…no offense to her or May, but I’m not a big fan of stone cold lesbians.”
“Dude—okay, I can’t hit you for saying something like that…”
“This is true,” he says.
“But I can ask Holly to hit you for me. Holly?”
Shrugging her shoulders, she thinks little of the scene and just does for Zoey what she can’t do for herself by flinging an unused fork in Kenny’s direction, which causes him to jump up from his seat and leave for yet another plate, but not before letting his girlfriend know, “Next year, I want your Lent promise in writing, Zoey. You really need to stop it! It’s not funny either, Conway! Jesus!” he adds, leaving the booth in a huff.
Conway apparently is disregarding the words of the younger male as he finds it quite humorous that a guy with a mouth that would make politicians humble is getting some form of comeuppance. “He is something else,” says the young adult through his laughter.
“You know, there’s something I wanna ask him when he comes back here,” Holly lets the rest of the booth know. “He’s been…brutally honest about everything else and I doubt he’ll tell me anything but the truth about what I have in mind to ask him.”
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The elevator ride seems to take an eternity in Max’s mind. The tower does go high up into the air beyond fifty stories. While Lucy and Brock get their fill of refreshments for the tower guests, he awaits the moment when the door will finally open to the penthouse and to Harley. Before he can do that though, he has to go through his parents, whom he rang just minutes prior to going up in the elevator to get permission to just knock on the penthouse door. The door opens leading to a lengthy walkway leading to the large living space.
“Are we being led into some sort of fun house?” Lucy questions as Max runs to the doorway and uses the doorbell on the frame.
“That depends. Would you call this whole experience fun?” he asks as he awaits the opening of the door from the other side.
“Honestly, I still don’t see how bad Harley’s parents can possibly be, Max,” Brock admits while playing the waiting game. “I mean, sure there are things that my mom or dad do that I think are embarrassing, but I wouldn’t consider any parents creepy.”
“Well hello there, young Maximus!” greets a jovial woman at the door that appears to be in her fifties or close to it. One could tell where Harley gets his hair from right away upon seeing her as the dark blue coif goes all the way down below her beltline but is kept together and nowhere near as unkempt because of several clips.
“Hi, Dr. Holloway.”
“I’ve told you this in the past; call me Campbell, Maximus.”
“Only if you call me Max,” he humorously counters.
“It’s a deal, buddy.” Stepping outside of the penthouse, Dr. Campbell Holloway can see “So, who are your friends?”
“Oh forgive me, Campbell. This is Brock, who is studying to become a pokemon breeder and this lovely lady is his girlfriend, Pike Queen Lucy of the Kanto Battle Frontier.” With handshakes and pleasures shared between all of them, Doctor Holloway suggests that they all come inside and have a seat. For some reason, Max feels that she should be angry with him. She and her husband both know that he and Harley are romantically involved and that the expressive coordinator is in the house. Surely he has told them both what he did with Kenny earlier and they are planning a lecture like no one’s business towards him about fidelity and loyalty.
He sits in a family room which mirrors that of a family several tax brackets down from the Holloway’s. Aside from one piece of modern art near the window, there are three couches made of black leather and two recliners of a similar material. A coffee table made of wood has a place in the middle of the room so that as many as nine people can enjoy the caffeinated drink along with dessert for their various dinner parties.
Campbell does not join the trio in sitting down on the couch right away. Instead, she goes into the kitchen for a second before coming back with a plate of cookies and a gentleman carrying several glasses and a jug of milk no more than two liters in volume.
“Good evening, Bo,” Max greets as Harley’s father and Campbell’s husband enters the living room.
“Hi there, Max!” he responds in his cheerful demeanor much like his wife before him. “Would you three like some milk and cookies?”
‘Have I died and gone to Mapleton Drive?’ Lucy ponders. ‘I haven’t been offered milk and cookies since I had the chicken pox at age nine!’ Not wanting to be rude as a guest in the Holloway’s house, Lucy agrees to the offer for even more free food.
“Um—thanks for all of this,” Max says, “but the real reason I’m here has to do with Harley. You see, there’s been a big misunderstanding and I came here hoping that we could…fix it. Harley is here, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Bo answers. “Harley came here crying his eyes out. He asked me to give him his space and I have. He’s just been in his room since he got here…half an hour ago.”
“Could I see him now? I’d really just like to speak with him and get all of this…settled.”
“Well, he’ll come when he’s ready, Max,” Campbell interjects. “You don’t want to force it. Harley wants to open up; he just needs time to do it.”
“Wait, what?” Brock asks confused. ‘Isn’t Harley…older than I am? Why does he need to open up to his parents when he’s a grown adult?’
They are logical questions which one would feel deserve a logical answer. One would think that with the number of university degrees shared by the two oldest people in the room that a logical and sensible answer to why an adult Harley needs to open up to his parents on matters dealing with his love life exists.
One would think.
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Your Thoughts?
@CB: The scene with Kelly and May proposing is the mark of a true partnership. They talk things over, consider everything and never leave the other one angry. It works. Drew is definitely learning in his role as a responsible father. This whole chapter shows people turning the corners in their relationships...for the better.
And I agree with what you said about Marina. That is all. ^__^
Except...here's chapter thirty-three! Enjoy everyone and dont forget to post a review!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/33/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 33- No Force Necessary)
“Madam Purr, I choose you!” Marina calls and the stage is set for her and her Purugly to do their appeal to the large evening crowd. It is here where the idol shines the brightest and does not look nearly as idle. Behind her smile, demeanor and attitude which she always has time to show off to the crowd, there is not much, which she will even admit to herself whenever she can stand to look at her face in the mirror.
But her true colors are not something that she can afford to worry about at this point in time. She has a reputation, however rooted in falsehood it may be, to live up to in this appeal. For a former Grand Festival champion to not make it past the appeals round in future contests is inexcusable and intolerable. She knows the road is difficult but possible and she will travel it to the top of the podium and the Ribbon Cup one more time with her pokemon.
“Madam Purr, start off with a Hyper Beam attack and,” she adds, pointing in the direction of the sun, “aim for the big ball in the sky!” It seems odd for anyone considered to be an expert in the field of coordinating or training to ‘aim high’ in their efforts to impress, but as is often said in these situations; never question the experts. Despite this, many in the crowd and the important five on the judges’ panel look at Marina with confusion as she seemingly wastes a hyper beam by aiming it high into the air in any old direction.
“Now, let’s see some holes! Dig five of them into the stage!” With the command of one of the most powerful pokemon attacks possible seemingly being put on the back burner so that Purugly can do its best intimidation of a dog and its bones, even more people look on at the main stage with wonder, namely wondering just what Marina is planning or thinking with this next series of moves.
The pokemon known as Madam Purr does not show any concern for this criticism whatsoever and just digs a total of five circular holes into the Earth of the stadium floor which form a circle in their own right if one could see the sight from above. Each hole goes down to about half a meter into the ground each. Once Madam Purr finishes her work, Marina calls for her to do slash attacks inside of the circle. Her Purugly does so, connecting each circle with lines that jut into the center of this stage. Afterwards, Madam Purr plays a quick game of ‘connect the dots’ when she connects the circles by what appears to be a string in the ground.
“All right,” Marina says while looking up at the sky, “Now scratch every part of the stage and keep the circle intact. We’re making good time!”
‘With what?’ many of the spectators ask her from the stands. “All right, dig a hole in the center of the circle, Madam!”
So many holes, one would think that the self-proclaimed Idol is attempting to recreate a novel or major motion picture of the same name. One might say that this appeal is full of holes and emptiness all around. It would appear that Marina is just throwing attacks together and rearranging the stage floor, but Purugly works overtime to dig yet another large hole in the middle of the circle consisting of five holes.
The clock is really ticking down at this point and with only a fleeting hyper beam and six holes in the ground to show for it, there is nothing truly spectacular about this effort as Madam Purr now sits off to the site of her creation while looking up in the sky just like her champion coordinator. Aside from a darkening sky and the serenading of the sun and the moon in a dance unlike any other, there does not appear to be much to look at up there, until a flicker of light appears from the heavens. It presents itself to the crowd becoming larger and larger as the time ticks down to almost nothing.
Then comes…a sound. The sound of a whisper soon erupts into a boom from that same twinkle in the sky and down to the ground comes a beacon of light from above. It is the Hyper Beam from before, which has come back down to Earth and into the big hole Purugly prepared scant seconds prior to its re-arrival. As the beam makes its way into the hole, the impact reverberates throughout the stadium and just as quickly, they feel the rush of five separate beams coming from the five holes made earlier in the appeal and escaping out of the stadium once more through the outside as time expires on what is truly a unique appeal. And then comes…a smatter of applause which grows and grows in loudness.
A few seconds pass as both Marina and Madam Purr take a bow at the accomplishment. The Idol of New Bark Town returns her Purugly into her pokeball as Robert Weis makes his way onto the stage. With microphone in hand he admits, “Well Marina, I doubt that anyone here could tell where you were going with that appeal, but I have to say that the preparation paid off for it amounting to…quite the light show. But as far as photons, I don’t know so much. The judges may not know as much either, but we’ll ask them what they thought right now starting with Director Contesta.”
“Robert makes an excellent point, Miss Marina. This was not your everyday appeal, but it did tell a story. Your Purugly’s preparation for the big Hyper Beam coming down to the sky was quite a tale of hurried panic, though I’m just not sure what purpose that it served. It didn’t do a good job of explaining that, but this was a good appeal.”
“A light show summed up in one word; remarkable!” says Fan Club President Suziko.
“Quite a show there with Purugly getting down and dirty there in the ground and making those holes for the Hyper Beam,” comments Nurse Joy of Slateport City.
“Just…I had the feeling you were going for something unique, but the fact is that this time is here for you to do something that will work,” informs the Littleroot Town Nurse Joy to a good amount of applause from the fans. “Don’t get me wrong. The appeal was very good; I just think that you could do something else with Purugly and an element to get a better score and like Contesta stated, I don’t know what you were trying to show us with that.”
“I guess in the time that the other four judges have taken, I’ve been trying to figure out what you were aiming for and I’ve come to a few ideas,” begins the Ever Grande Nurse Joy. “The light from the Hyper Beam reminded me of a boomerang coming back to the person who threw it. But the light also took on a few more roles. One of them looked like a starship in orbit while in the air and when it went through the holes, it looked as if water was coming out of a sprinkler. I’m just making guesses, though. Please let me know if I’m wrong or not.”
“Well, as the judges begin to tally your scores, Marina, there are two questions that come to mind almost immediately, and the first one is the most popular one; how did you come up with this?”
“Robert, this appeal came after we found out that Purugly could make a Hyper Beam curve in the air and come back down to the ground. I thought of how we could harness that power and turn one beam into several to mimic a jet flyover that you often see in Grand Festivals. It was a stretch given the dimensions of the stadium, but I pulled it off.”
“And that answers another question of what you wanted to do for this appeal. There was very little in symbolism, but it was still great to watch. The question is did the judges like it? All of them saying that it was very good, but what does ‘very good’ mean on the scorecards. We’re about to find out. Up in the booth? What’s the score?”
With those seven words becoming Robert’s catch phrase for the evening, he and everyone else looks up at the stadium’s big screen. Two seconds later, there flashes a total score of forty-five. Then she sees the judges’ individual scores. Contesta gave Marina an eight, Suziko a ten; Slateport City’s Nurse Joy gives a ten, Littleroot’s Nurse Joy, an eight and Ever Grande’s Nurse Joy, a nine.”
“It’s a great score and you should be proud of it,” Robert analyzes, “but we’ve had appeals here that have done much better than that one. It puts you at number ten of all coordinators right now and you need to be at least sixteenth. Any final thoughts?”
Looking very nervous and almost appearing to sweat as she sees how close she came to not even being able to make it to the show. She answers Robert’s question, “Fingers crossed and knock on wood. No matter what happens, doing this was worth a shot. Thank you all!” she says leaving for backstage, signing several autographs for the girls in attendance and then heading into the arms of her man, Jimmy.
“Great job, girl!” he says while sharing an embrace with Marina. He can see a few tears coming down her eyes, which he wipes away almost immediately. “Hey, you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. Appeals like the one May had earlier come around once in a generation. Trying to go against that is not something that even I would want to do.”
“It’s…complicated, Jimmy,” Marina laments. “I just want to end this. This weekend has become so slow. Let’s just end this now.”
“Marina, what are you talking about?”
“Jimmy, let’s…I’m tired. Let’s just go. Let’s go back to the hotel. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. Come on,” he says, taking his longtime girlfriend by the hand and away from the paparazzi, away from the fans and away from the watchful eyes and ears of the world.
It is in that place which they are leaving where people must stand out and be Idols, role models and superhuman in their actions. But in reality, when they walk away from the lights, the spectacle and the pageantry of playing a role, people quickly learn that they are just like everyone else.
Behind the cheerful demeanor that Marina displays are roots deeply planted in humanity’s faults, but even they need pulling in order for anything to grow.
---------
With his plate in hand, Kenny comes back, this time with a plate of baked fish, a baked potato loaded with all the trimmings and a healthy serving of snow peas. He notices that Conway and Holly have both gotten a serving of steak, something he plans on getting a little later and Zoey is about finished with her salad.
“I’m back, guys,” he announces as unnecessary as it might be. Sitting down, he asks, “So is there something that you want to know about Zoey and me, guys?”
“Yeah, actually, I do,” Holly speaks. “I talked to Zoey about this during the individual meeting and she said that the two of you fell for Dawn Berlitz and got rejected when she ended up with Drew. So how do you end up getting together?”
“Good question. Kenny, I’ll be back. You can tell them the story.”
“Right then,” he answers, getting up and letting his girlfriend out of the booth. “Okay, Conway knows most of this already. Drew was with May at the time but she caught him cheating on her with Dawn. We were competing in the same region at the time and Zoey noticed that May looked really down in the dumps. I asked her what happened and…she just broke down in my arms and admitted what she saw. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I cried when I heard it because back then, I thought that there was at least a chance.”
“So Zoey had feelings for Dawn just like you did,” Conway squares away. “Did you know about Zoey’s feelings for Dawn or vice versa?”
“No,” Kenny answers. “Our connection was May, who is a friend of both of us…knew that I had feelings for Dawn but didn’t know about Zoey. Talking after that is when we learned that while both of them were traveling together, the attraction really started to develop. May was the one that got everything rolling for us. Our friendship was good before this, but it’s a hundred times better after it. We talked more, we hung out together more and we just learned more about each other. Then May made the now infamous quote, ‘Hey you guys. I have this crazy idea, but tell me what you think. Since you two both fell for Dawn, maybe the two of you should get together!’ And here I am thinking, ‘Yeah, right’. I have nothing but respect for Zoey, but the thought of being with her never crossed my mind. I guess that’s why we all thought that the idea was crazy, including the person who came up with it. But we went out alone as friends, it was always said that we’d do this just as friends so there would be no pressure, and…we found out that we do have quite a bit in common that you two already know about and decided to go on an actual date two weeks later. Two months later, we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Wow, that’s a great story to hear,” Conway comments. As Zoey comes back he adds, “We just heard the story. It’s great that you could find love like that. Our story is not that dramatic and it doesn’t involve a web of deceit.”
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear it,” Zoey says sitting down with her second plate of food.
“We didn’t become friends until I took time off and went to Rustboro City and their Pokemon Academy,” Holly begins. “I initially went there to improve my battling skills, further my education and make myself better-rounded in the subject. We knew each other from maybe a year or two before because we got quite far in a tag battle tournament as a part of different teams. I was with Brock and Conway got paired up with Dawn. We ended up in the same class with Miss Roxanne teaching a course called ‘Pokemon Battles for the Advanced Student’, and Conway, you can tell them the rest.”
“All right,” he answers. “I had the fortune of being the team leader of a squadron at the Pokemon Academy. Our instructor put our large class into groups of twenty and Holly was a part of our group called…The Big Shots or something like that. It was our job to help each other with schoolwork and developing each other’s battling education by battling with one another and keeping us strong. Every week, we’d have battles all over the campus and I, as leader, would assign each trainer a role. If they succeeded, they would get a better ranking, if they failed, they would get traded. Often times, I’d pull Holly off to the side because I remembered her from the tournament in Hearthome she mentioned a bit earlier. At the time she was a very good battler with all the potential in the world to be great…she just had and still does have some confidence issues.”
Conway continues to tell the story to an interested Kenny and Zoey, explaining, “A lot of that comes from her upbringing. She is the youngest of nine children! Even now I think my family is pretty big, but whenever I’m around the Rockwell’s, I can’t hold a candle to them and I realize that our family is average in size. Anyway, she had a lot to live up to. Her oldest brother is almost forty years old, so whenever she’d so something great, her mom and dad would compare it to her brothers and sisters, which might not have been the best idea because the next youngest sibling is her twenty-five year old brother Trevor.”
“And guys, don’t get me wrong,” Holly injects. “I love my parents and my family and I’ll put nothing before them with few exceptions, but it was hard growing up always hearing about marriages, children, graduations…I can’t compare to that, especially since I’m still a teenager. My only advantage was that I was the baby and all of my family members showered me with love when I came up, but I digress. I lost a lot of battles as a part of Conway’s squadron and a lot of my squadron members wanted to trade me to another squad. Conway didn’t want to give up on me, though, and I’m quite thankful for it. I ended up telling him everything I just told you about my family and my role in it. He…was so good during that time. He told me just don’t worry about it and that when I go out for battle to just think about me and my pokemon. My matches improved and the team morale also improved…until we got to midterms and, once again, we got to be in a Tag Battle with Conway and I as partners which we lost.”
“I was about to just give it all up and stop kidding myself, but Conway stepped in before I left and told me that I did great and that I shouldn’t feel ashamed for losing. Looking back, we did do pretty well going all the way to the round of sixteen in a class of over 200 pairs. He just reached out and wanted to make me feel better and he’s been doing it ever since.”
“Now there’s a love story, if there ever was one,” Zoey compliments. “Few guys are as willing to reach out without seeming like he’s girl hunting and few girls are as willing to open up about these things without appearing weak to themselves and their peers.”
“Zoey doesn’t have that problem because I have yet to find any great weaknesses…or at least ones she’s willing to show.”
“Watch it, buddy,” Zoey warns, pointing in the direction of Kenny. “All right, Holly, what you said about your family got me thinking. You have eight siblings. Care to guess how many I have?”
Holly just does not guess at Zoey’s inquiry. With some thought, including a consideration of her soon-to-be lover’s tone, she makes the educated conclusion that Zoey has, “Zero. You’re an only child.”
“That’s right!” she proudly answers. “The fact that I’m an only child makes Kenny the apple in the eyes of my mom and dad. To say that my folks love Kenny would be like saying that Holly just indulges.”
Hearing her name causes the human garbage disposal to turn up from her plate of battered shrimp and hush puppies to say, “Hey!” while her mouth is still full of food.
“Oh, it’s true,” Zoey simply counters. “Anyway, I had told them that I was a lesbian before I got together with Kenny. They were…fine with it, I suppose, but I could tell it got to them, especially my dad. If I stuck to my guns, then they’d miss out on a lot of things. They…accepted me, but when I brought Kenny home and clarified my coming out by telling them that I just needed to find the right guy, which is the truth. But they love Kenny and I think it’s for two reasons; one is that dad always wanted a son but couldn’t have one with mom because…carrying me to term was rough and the doctor warned both of them that another child could cause a great risk to her health.”
“And the second one is my boyish charm…” Kenny informs, but the ‘reasoning’ cannot be completed as Zoey gives the loudmouthed one a nice smack on the back of his head. “OW!” he exclaims. “You promised me that you’d give that up for Lent!”
“I’m not Catholic, silly boy. I really don’t have to promise anything for these twenty or so days remaining.”
“Zoey! You promised!”
“Oh, all right! I promise I won’t hit you anymore,” she concedes. ‘Whiny *****,’ she speaks below a whisper. “Anyway, the real second reason why I think my parents accepted Kenny so quickly was because…”
“He’s a guy,” Conway answers for Zoey.
“Will you all let me tell my story, please? Yeah, you’re right, Conway. I do think it had to do with the fact that I brought a boy home.”
“Well, that was just too damn easy to figure out,” he explains while stirring his drink with a straw. “I mean…just…forgive me for interrupting, Zoey.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. Hey, I’m up for a game! How about you guys?”
“Right here?” Holly questions.
“Sure! This game doesn’t need materials or anything. You’ve heard of marry, **** or kill, right?”
“Oh, yeah! Sounds good. Umm…is this limited to anyone?”
“No, go for it! Just name someone and say if you’d rather marry them, get a quickie or just whack ‘em. Got it?”
“I got it!” answers the bespectacled trainer. “Can I start?”
“Go for it, man! Who do you have in mind?”
“Well, Kenny, this one just might hit home. Dawn Berlitz.”
Everyone at the table takes their time until Zoey starts the answer session by giving a surprising response. “Marry.”
Kenny turns his head and asks, “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“If you would have asked me…three years ago, my answer would have been marry. Now, I think it’s would be just a ****.” Then, he smiles with that slick demeanor and explains himself, saying, “She does have experience, after all.”
“Oh my—and you two wonder why I just said ‘marry’.” Zoey could not believe the absolute bluntness of her boyfriend at the moment. Given all that they’ve went through with Dawn, she thought that he’d be a bit more conscious of his choice, but the unpredictability of the male coordinator shines once more in this situation…until…
“I’d say ****,” comes out of the mouths of both Conway and Holly in unison and Zoey wonders what type of company she is keeping at the table and in the bedroom for later.
“I stand corrected. Conway, you wouldn’t marry…”
“Honestly, no,” he answers Zoey. “She’s nice and all, but…I just don’t feel it.”
“All right. I’m next,” Kenny declares. “How about…Tom Cruise?”
It is near unanimous. While Kenny does not mind having a one night stand with the Hollywood mainstay, everyone else just wishes that he would go away for a very long time. Everyone else says ‘kill’.
“That was easy. If only he’d just act and not talk. All right, my turn,” Zoey says. “I’ll throw out…Kelly.”
“Our Kelly?”
“Yeah, and I’d…marry her. She’s a tough one and I like that.”
“I’d…yeah. Probably marry,” Holly admits.
“Same,” Conway answers.
“Guys, I’d…kill.”
“What?” they all ask Kenny in unison.
“She’s a great teacher,” he defends. “Her class was as hard as hell and she was no nonsense in her class.”
“Maybe you’re saying that because you were the class clown during our in-class sessions.”
“Zoey, four hours in class will wear on anybody,” Kenny claims. “I just wanted to loosen everyone up and she said that I was being a distraction. Like none of us could get all of our ****ing material on the Blackboard website. Look, the bottom line is that I like her as a friend and will stand up for both of them when needed, but there is no friend option and…no offense to her or May, but I’m not a big fan of stone cold lesbians.”
“Dude—okay, I can’t hit you for saying something like that…”
“This is true,” he says.
“But I can ask Holly to hit you for me. Holly?”
Shrugging her shoulders, she thinks little of the scene and just does for Zoey what she can’t do for herself by flinging an unused fork in Kenny’s direction, which causes him to jump up from his seat and leave for yet another plate, but not before letting his girlfriend know, “Next year, I want your Lent promise in writing, Zoey. You really need to stop it! It’s not funny either, Conway! Jesus!” he adds, leaving the booth in a huff.
Conway apparently is disregarding the words of the younger male as he finds it quite humorous that a guy with a mouth that would make politicians humble is getting some form of comeuppance. “He is something else,” says the young adult through his laughter.
“You know, there’s something I wanna ask him when he comes back here,” Holly lets the rest of the booth know. “He’s been…brutally honest about everything else and I doubt he’ll tell me anything but the truth about what I have in mind to ask him.”
---------
The elevator ride seems to take an eternity in Max’s mind. The tower does go high up into the air beyond fifty stories. While Lucy and Brock get their fill of refreshments for the tower guests, he awaits the moment when the door will finally open to the penthouse and to Harley. Before he can do that though, he has to go through his parents, whom he rang just minutes prior to going up in the elevator to get permission to just knock on the penthouse door. The door opens leading to a lengthy walkway leading to the large living space.
“Are we being led into some sort of fun house?” Lucy questions as Max runs to the doorway and uses the doorbell on the frame.
“That depends. Would you call this whole experience fun?” he asks as he awaits the opening of the door from the other side.
“Honestly, I still don’t see how bad Harley’s parents can possibly be, Max,” Brock admits while playing the waiting game. “I mean, sure there are things that my mom or dad do that I think are embarrassing, but I wouldn’t consider any parents creepy.”
“Well hello there, young Maximus!” greets a jovial woman at the door that appears to be in her fifties or close to it. One could tell where Harley gets his hair from right away upon seeing her as the dark blue coif goes all the way down below her beltline but is kept together and nowhere near as unkempt because of several clips.
“Hi, Dr. Holloway.”
“I’ve told you this in the past; call me Campbell, Maximus.”
“Only if you call me Max,” he humorously counters.
“It’s a deal, buddy.” Stepping outside of the penthouse, Dr. Campbell Holloway can see “So, who are your friends?”
“Oh forgive me, Campbell. This is Brock, who is studying to become a pokemon breeder and this lovely lady is his girlfriend, Pike Queen Lucy of the Kanto Battle Frontier.” With handshakes and pleasures shared between all of them, Doctor Holloway suggests that they all come inside and have a seat. For some reason, Max feels that she should be angry with him. She and her husband both know that he and Harley are romantically involved and that the expressive coordinator is in the house. Surely he has told them both what he did with Kenny earlier and they are planning a lecture like no one’s business towards him about fidelity and loyalty.
He sits in a family room which mirrors that of a family several tax brackets down from the Holloway’s. Aside from one piece of modern art near the window, there are three couches made of black leather and two recliners of a similar material. A coffee table made of wood has a place in the middle of the room so that as many as nine people can enjoy the caffeinated drink along with dessert for their various dinner parties.
Campbell does not join the trio in sitting down on the couch right away. Instead, she goes into the kitchen for a second before coming back with a plate of cookies and a gentleman carrying several glasses and a jug of milk no more than two liters in volume.
“Good evening, Bo,” Max greets as Harley’s father and Campbell’s husband enters the living room.
“Hi there, Max!” he responds in his cheerful demeanor much like his wife before him. “Would you three like some milk and cookies?”
‘Have I died and gone to Mapleton Drive?’ Lucy ponders. ‘I haven’t been offered milk and cookies since I had the chicken pox at age nine!’ Not wanting to be rude as a guest in the Holloway’s house, Lucy agrees to the offer for even more free food.
“Um—thanks for all of this,” Max says, “but the real reason I’m here has to do with Harley. You see, there’s been a big misunderstanding and I came here hoping that we could…fix it. Harley is here, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Bo answers. “Harley came here crying his eyes out. He asked me to give him his space and I have. He’s just been in his room since he got here…half an hour ago.”
“Could I see him now? I’d really just like to speak with him and get all of this…settled.”
“Well, he’ll come when he’s ready, Max,” Campbell interjects. “You don’t want to force it. Harley wants to open up; he just needs time to do it.”
“Wait, what?” Brock asks confused. ‘Isn’t Harley…older than I am? Why does he need to open up to his parents when he’s a grown adult?’
They are logical questions which one would feel deserve a logical answer. One would think that with the number of university degrees shared by the two oldest people in the room that a logical and sensible answer to why an adult Harley needs to open up to his parents on matters dealing with his love life exists.
One would think.
---------
Your Thoughts?
That was an interesting appeal.. I liked it.
lol I love the game and Kennys' different opionons
I think you gave a shoutout to Avegailles' pokemon acadamy too
I'll be the first to say I hate Sundaeshipping, and I'm not a huge supporter of yaoi ships, but you write them very well
lol I love the game and Kennys' different opionons
lol.
I think you gave a shoutout to Avegailles' pokemon acadamy too
I'll be the first to say I hate Sundaeshipping, and I'm not a huge supporter of yaoi ships, but you write them very well
Liberty4Pokemon
Vogue to the Music
Holy cow, four updates since my last review. I feel so bad about falling behind...I deserved to have been taken off the pm list. -__-
Anyway, sorry about all that. The last few chapters were really enjoyable, and Marina was more interesting than I'd expected, and her appeal was really neat, so I'm looking forward to her being fleshed out more.
Harley's awesome as always, and I think his folks could be the best secondary characters so far. And I hope Max sorts the whole thing out with Harley...Kenny certainly has a knack for creating problems, eh? =p
I also liked how Conway and Holly's backstories were explored, and how Kenny and Zoey's "getting together" was explained, and the "marry/fuck/kill" game cracked me up.
The best part, of course, was May's proposal. It was just so sweet, and it's great that the couple gets to have their cake and eat it, too when it comes to getting engaged.
And the Comashipping was very...hot. xD;
So, overall, it was really great and I'm practically at the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens next. I'm particularly curious about what Holly has in mind for Kenny...speaking of which, I don't know if it's too late to make suggestions for the swingers' discussion, but I was thinking that maybe they could talk about the experiences that led them to realizing they were bisexual, and what may have caused them to be unsatisfied by a traditional, monogamous relationship.
Again, I'm really sorry for not replying sooner, and thanks so much for the updates...hopefully the upcoming chapters will be just as awesome.
Anyway, sorry about all that. The last few chapters were really enjoyable, and Marina was more interesting than I'd expected, and her appeal was really neat, so I'm looking forward to her being fleshed out more.
Harley's awesome as always, and I think his folks could be the best secondary characters so far. And I hope Max sorts the whole thing out with Harley...Kenny certainly has a knack for creating problems, eh? =p
I also liked how Conway and Holly's backstories were explored, and how Kenny and Zoey's "getting together" was explained, and the "marry/fuck/kill" game cracked me up.
The best part, of course, was May's proposal. It was just so sweet, and it's great that the couple gets to have their cake and eat it, too when it comes to getting engaged.
And the Comashipping was very...hot. xD;
So, overall, it was really great and I'm practically at the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens next. I'm particularly curious about what Holly has in mind for Kenny...speaking of which, I don't know if it's too late to make suggestions for the swingers' discussion, but I was thinking that maybe they could talk about the experiences that led them to realizing they were bisexual, and what may have caused them to be unsatisfied by a traditional, monogamous relationship.
Again, I'm really sorry for not replying sooner, and thanks so much for the updates...hopefully the upcoming chapters will be just as awesome.
Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Reply time and Chapter 34 is here!
@cbiesra: Interesting is the best word any of us can use to describe the Marina appeal. Glad you liked it, I did have some caveats about it including the lack of pure abilities she showed with Purugly.
A nice game of 'Marry, **** or Kill' can really open people up to how fellow individuals think. That quote you used is one of my personal favorites in the chapter and I love Pokemon Academy by Avegaille! I do give her shout outs at times and she's no exception. We IM each other often and bounce ideas off one another.
Finally, I don't mind the fact that you don't like SundaeShipping (or most other shouen-ai ships for that matter). That's okay, you can let your feelings be known about any ship so long as you see it in my fan fiction. I completely understand that people don't often come to my works to see...their favorite ships. They come to read great works. So that's fine if you don't like certain pairings and thanks for the remarks of how I write them!
@Libby: Are you kidding me! No! It's okay as long as you are still enjoying the story. You would have stayed on the PM list if you missed 14 updates, it doesn't matter!
Marina will get fleshed out more in chapter 35 and onward to the end (we're very close to Saturday being over at last). Bo and Campbell (Harley's parents) were designed to attract attention and then some. I think they will be great for the time they are here and you'll see more of that greatness in the next chapter. Max will have to take matters into his own hands and soon, both of them will reunite and get back at Kenny for what he's done, and yes; he does have a knack for creating trouble.
The 'Swinging Four' (my personal nickname for Zoey/Kenny/Conway/Holly) is certainly being fleshed out as well. Their back stories are interesting and will get even more interesting as they go through dinner. This chapter might be the most introspective and the funniest for them. Wasn't that game something?
And for a couple that seems to do all of the right things, wait for the right moment, prepare, plan and make successes of themselves before combining their efforts, it only seems fitting that their proposal do the exact same thing. Nothing can ruin all their hard work now, right? Right? ^__^
A lot of people don't know this about me...I LOVE ComaShipping! Yeah, it's true; a 21-year-old African American male (myself) from Mid-Atlantic suburbia in the USA likes the idea of these two trainers hooking it up! Maybe in the next couple of chapters I'll go a bit deeper with a light scene of implied sex. Look out for that one, it'll be a case of 'maybe, maybe not'.
And I'll let you know that I've taken your suggestions of discussions for the Swinging Four into serious consideration and have decided to use them! You'll learn about why Zoey and Kenny chose an open relationship in this chapter and next chapter (35), you'll learn about Conway and how Paul is linked into his story as well.
I promise to deliver the awesomeness at a fever pitch with the next several chapters, starting with this one! Enjoy, everyone!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/34/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 34- May Blessings Be Upon You, Also)
“Excuse me, Lucille?”
“Please, Bo. Call me Lucy,” she quickly responds in great abhorrence to her true given name.
“Right then. Out of curiosity, how long have you been with Brock here?”
“Four years,” Lucy answers.
“Have you thought of having children yet? You can be honest with me about it.”
Brock looks at Lucy and vice versa. The nervousness in the atmosphere is apparent as they show great apprehension by answering all of these personal questions about their childhood, their relationship with Harley and Max, love and sex. They then look at Max who is covering his face with his hand. Though she can not tell with great precision, the keeper of the Pike Symbol thought she heard the youngest of the five say ‘I’m sorry, guys’.
“Well, were still young, guys,” she explains. “We’re not in any sort of rush, you know?”
“But you are serious, right?” Campbell asks the young woman. “You wouldn’t be if you’ve been together for four years otherwise you’re just wasting your time, Lucy.”
“Oh, no! I just…it’s not really a priority for me right now.” This is a remark that Brock does not expect to hear and it causes him to do a double take. “I have a great career as a Frontier Brain and change right now is…something I don’t see right now.”
“Well, whatever happens with you two, just make sure you’re both on the same plane,” Bo explains. “I did it with Campbell and I’ve never regretted it. Harley has given me all the joy I could ever ask for in my life.”
“Yeah, about that,” Max steps in. “Harley is the reason why I’m here. Now do you think it’s not too much trouble for me to go into his bedroom…?”
“Just let me tell this story first,” Bo interrupts. “Harley has always had a flair for being his own individual. We talk all the time these days, but ever since he was…five he’s been very independent. He knows what he wants in life and he gets it just about every single time.”
“You know, that makes me think,” Lucy says, a thought sparking within her head. “How did you feel about Harley…coming out to you?”
“Well, he actually told me at age eight that he’d never be with a girl as long as he lived,” Bo recollects. “This was the same night I caught him in the bed…pleasing himself.”
‘Jesus, keep me near the cross!’ Max laments. ‘You don’t talk about your son masturbating! That’s why I didn’t want to come here. Just embarrassing story after embarrassing story. Can’t they give it a ****ing rest on the masturbation tale already? Like Harley was the only eight year old to ever do that! I ought to know.’
“After Campbell and I sat him down that night and we had the talk, he all but said that he is gay.”
“Weren’t you…hurt at all when he said that?” Lucy asks out of curiosity.
“Harley is his own person,” Campbell answers. “He’ll do things we won’t agree with. All I can do is give him love but for the longest time, he’s wanted his space. So, like we said, Harley is very smart. A few weeks after our talk he got fake documentation. He then moved to the much smaller Fallarbor Town to get a trainer’s license and start his journey early, which is something he talked about for a long time before then. He hasn’t lived with us since.”
“It’s been seventeen years since that day,” Bo remembers. “He’s always visited since then, though, but we always knew that he’d be out and about before we knew it he was gone.”
“Maybe he left to get the out of this place and away from you guys!” Max hypothesizes having enough of this scene he’s been dealt once more in a trip to the house of his boyfriend’s folks. “Have you two ever thought of that or did your psychoanalysis not show that conclusion after much diagnosis? I’m tired of waiting for Harley! I’m just so goddamn tired of the same stories over and over again! I’m not waiting anymore on him. Harley is twenty-five ****ing years old! I shouldn’t have to ask permission to see a grown man and I’m not gonna do it anymore! I’m seeing him now!”
As Max gets up from the couch and to the hallway, Campbell assures him that “He’ll come for you when he’s ready!” which garners a middle finger planted square in her direction as he disappears into the bedroom area.
Surprised by the action, or lack thereof, of the Holloways both Brock and Lucy look in the direction of the older couple wanting to know what is going on in their heads. “Aren’t you gonna…I mean I’m not condoning what happened in here. That was not the way for Max to handle things.”
“Lucy, don’t worry about young Maximus,” Campbell says, not even showing a hint of anger in her voice or her face. “He’s obviously a very angry child. Fifteen is a difficult age for all kids no matter what the situation they’re going through. We should let them be angry. It’s not good to hold these feelings in lest you go to one of us for therapy at age forty depressed and in a mid-life crisis filling your time with riding motorcycles and getting tattoos on a whim.”
The younger couple finds it difficult to look at each other given everything that has transpired in the past couple of minutes. In either of their parent’s houses, the display Max put on would have earned him a stiff kick in the backside out of their house…or worse, but the Holloways almost appeared to encourage deviant behavior in spurts. They’ve only spent a half hour in their house, but already they feel uncomfortable as if they do not belong. Then they realize that Harley did it for eight years and wonder just what that would do to a young person coming up in the world with a natural amount of confusion and wonder.
Hopefully the Holloways have connections with therapists of different trades.
---------
After the rant with Kenny just a few minutes ago, he has since sat back down in his seat with his latest plate of food. Holly told the remaining two that she had a question that she wanted to ask him but since he has come back to the booth, she has not gotten up the nerve. The question is quite a personal one, though, so it is hard to blame Holly for not getting up the nerve.
Then, all at once, the question gets taken out of the hands of the foxy trainer. “So, are you gonna ask Kenny what you wanted to ask him, Holly?” The young lady and the subject of the inquiry choked in response to the forwardness of Zoey. It seemed like she wanted to know what was on her mind more than anyone else.
“If you wanted to ask me something, then go right ahead!” Kenny assures her. “I’m an open book!”
“Are you sure? I mean this is a real personal question that I’ve wondered about since we got paired together.”
“Just ask it, Holly. I promise it won’t get to me at all.”
“All right.” Mentally preparing, the youngest of the Rockwell clan asks the young Catholic teenager, “Does your family know that you are a bisexual swinger?”
Checking for any signs of offense in the eyes of Kenny, Holly can not find any. Instead, she gets an answer and it is the one that she did not expect. “Yes, they know. They know because I told them. I asked Zoey if she wanted to do it and she said yes. So we sat both of them down and…we were just honest, you know? I left no stone unturned and explained to them the extent of the…freedom that I have with Zoey that I can’t get elsewhere. They...dad told me and Zoey that even though he doesn’t like it, he understands that there isn’t much he can do given that I haven’t lived with him in seven years. He does like the fact that we protect ourselves though.”
“Okay, you talked about how your dad feels,” Conway interjects, “but I didn’t hear anything about your mom, Kenny. What did she think?”
“She…was fine with it. I guess the fact that my family really likes Zoey for the most part prevented some big blowup from occurring. The thing that my mom said which really struck me was that she felt that we were being really mature with this. Our organization which paired us up makes a great effort to educate us on sex more than schools or the parents and above all, being honest about everything. It got me thinking; I had not been honest with my folks for whatever reason. I didn’t like that and made the choice to come out and also admit to being a swinger and being bisexual.”
“How did you know for sure that you were bisexual?”
“Well…I knew it when I was…about ten years old,” he answers Holly. “I didn’t think anything of it; it came about from me having a great affinity for seeing bodies in the nude from as far back as I could remember. You know, at age six, it didn’t bother me to have friends who were sleeping over taking a bath with me. Flash forward a few years and I had a lot of male friends and we’d—you know just…fool around and wrestle each other in the house or outside or even in the park. Now I know I said that I found out that I am bi at age ten, but a few years before that there was an incident where one of my friends play fought with me and during the fight, he accidentally grabbed my crotch.”
Zoey, having heard this story before, does not give off any sort of shocked reaction. Both Holly and Conway, on the other hand, are attentively looking at Kenny, hanging on to all of his words like they are dangling from a thread. “I’m not gonna lie or ******** either of you two. It felt great. It was awesome but it caught me so off guard. This was something I’ve never felt before in my life. So I stopped the play fighting for a second and excused myself. I went into the bathroom and began to touch myself and see what it felt like again. I was eight years old at the time and didn’t get the talk yet so I didn’t know where kids came from or that this was forbidden by my religion. All I knew was that it felt great and was great that my buddy knew and introduced me to masturbation when I asked him about…touching a few days later when he slept over.”
“So you’re saying it was a ‘show me yours, and I’ll show you mine’ deal?”
“That’s what it became, Conway, and my interest in the nude body and watching guys shirtless contributed to it and caused me to be open about it. Something like masturbation has never been a big deal to me and neither has telling people that I’m bisexual. Really, the biggest problem was telling people that I’m bisexual and that…I’m a ****!”
Speaking of being caught off guard, not even Zoey could prepare herself for this admission from her boyfriend. Conway choked on his soda with some of it coming out of his nose. His girlfriend choked on her food before laughing out loud with the redheaded tomboy.
“You just called yourself a ****?”
“It’s not something I take any pride in because you shouldn’t take pride in what or who you are,” Kenny explains not missing a beat. “You take pride in what you do. And what I said deserves some explanation. A **** is not the same as a prostitute or even a *****. I’m not a prostitute because I do not put a price on sex. To me, an experience like that is priceless and to put value on the act is…cheapening it. And I think it’s insulting to have to pay for sex when the best things in life really are free.”
“Okay, but what would you say about what we are gonna do in a few hours?” Holly counters. “Are we ****s for what we’re doing?”
“You make this whatever you want to be,” he answers. “I’m just of the school of one who no longer wants to lie to himself. I’m ****ing fed up with the hypocrisy and the lies of the media and society and religion all working in cahoots to turn me into a puppet of the system. I’m tired of them presenting…false depictions of what a good man or woman should be thereby undermining the great people folks have in front of them at that very moment. Be what you want, just don’t let something like sex come in between a good thing. If you…cannot see yourself as being monogamous, why be with someone that is? That’s asinine! Those two people will never make it work because eventually, he’ll cheat, she’ll get ****** and they’ll all air out their filthy laundry in divorce court! I’ll put it this way, how long do you think I would be with Zoey if she didn’t approve of what I do?” The question, which is rhetorical, garners nods across the booth.
“So it’s inaccurate to call a swing session ****ty behavior. You can call this an affair or a one night stand. You can even say ‘Hey, I’m just doing this for me,’ which you are, but call this whatever you want. Something called the two of you to be bisexual swingers. You have to have had a story or a background rooted somewhere to a moment or several points in time that made you want to try this, even if it’s just once. I couldn’t do monogamy. It’s grossly overrated because after time, though no one wants to admit it, you get bored. If it didn’t happen, you would find a husband or a wife at age eight keeping them for life, and that just doesn’t happen. That’s why we have so many extramarital affairs on both sides which lead to unnecessary divorce. With Zoey and I being in an open relationship there’s no way I can cheat. If Zoey or I see someone we like, we just bring them into the fold.”
“I want to have another girlfriend, but I’ll only do it if Kenny can find someone for himself.”
“Like a concubine, Zoey?”
“Exactly. And, Holly, the only reason why I haven’t done it is because I want to go at the same pace as he does. That’s why we’ve only brought in couples to swing with so far. If you’re wondering, I’m bisexual in name only. Had it not been for this guy here, I’d probably be steady with another girl. Despite that, I love Kenny and I feel like I can tell him anything and I’m very intimate with him, which is something I don’t feel I can do with just anyone, even with my own parents. I’ll be very blunt; I swing because sometimes…I just need some pussy. I mean…”
“It’s okay,” Holly assures, trying her best to hold back more laughter. “I think you just about said it all.”
“You know, I’ll—I’ll let you two know what led me to do this a little later, but you talked for a moment about how your parents received Zoey,” Conway recollects, “I’ll say this; Holly’s parents, who are now in their mid-60s, did not really give me as critical an eye as I thought they would given that I was dating their youngest daughter. But like I said earlier, Holly Rock has eight older brothers and sisters to do the job for her mom and dad. Most of them liked me, but a few thought that I was stalking them because I’d show up in the oddest of places. Can you believe that?”
“Well Dawn told me stories about how you’d do that very thing,” Kenny answers. “Maybe you don’t know your own ability…Loren.”
“Dude, ix-nay on the ame-nay. Okay? And either way, you can’t say that all of the members of your family showered Zoey with love the moment you brought her home.”
“No, you’re—you’re right.”
Looking at Kenny, expecting some sort of explanation, Zoey asks him bluntly, “Would you care to tell them about how I almost had to kick your aunt’s *** for something she said about me?”
“Zoey,” he responds almost as a defense mechanism, “my Aunt Florence, like both of our parents, just needed some time to get used to it! So some of the things she said…she doesn’t necessarily mean.”
“Kenneth,” Zoey responds, causing her boyfriend to do a double take, “two things. Stop making excuses for that senile bi…woman. You know and I know that your Aunt Florence hates my guts. She ****ing hates me and doesn’t mind telling people that she is the reason why you’re so ****ed up now. And the other thing of note is that you talk about her saying things she probably doesn’t mean or speaking out of order. Well, if anything, I think you get it from her and that’s the reason why you keep defending her the way you do. She reminds you of yourself and nobody loves you more than you do, Kenny!”
“Damn! That’s harsh!” Holly exclaims. “Well, what were some of the things she said that made you want to beat her senseless?”
“There is nothing in the world that she said…”
“Oh, shut up! There you go again; defending your aunt even after all this!”
“Well, maybe I have a love for my family like Holly does,” Kenny says in an attempt to save face. “I’ll just say that…”
“You don’t have a goddamn to say, man! Face it; your aunt hates me because she thinks that I introduced you to…the evil. She thinks I made you bisexual like I put a curse or a hex on you or some crazy **** like that! She took one look at me and rearranged her face when I came through the door. ‘Oh, you can’t possibly be serious, Kenny,’ she said. ‘The girl looks like she should be at a construction site or digging a ditch; not being a mother to children or a partner for life!’”
“All right, come on now! That’s very unfair,” Kenny replies tentatively. “Don’t you think you’re being…even a bit harsh? A lot of that has to do with the times and upbringing and…my aunt comes from a time and a place where…what we’re doing was practically unheard of! How can you possibly expect her to understand? Honestly!”
“More excuses, Ken,” Zoey says, now carrying a very devilish smile on her face. “The bottom line is that she hates the fact that I’m more of a man than you in many ways.”
“Well…”
“And let’s not forget her exact words to your folks during the cookout where you introduced me for the first time to your extended family. She thought I was outside getting something to eat, but I came back inside to hear his father’s sister chew them both out for allowing him to be with me. She asked them, ‘How can you two idiots let Kenny date that bull dyke?’ And yes, she did call Kenny’s folks idiots.”
“Well, you gotta admit one thing, Zoey; she was half right.”
“Oh my God! Please…” Zoey exclaims while Conway and Holly apparently find the big mouth’s remarks the most hysterical thing of all time as other tables and booths look in their direction to see the young couple clutching their stomachs as they become short of breath due to their laughing streak. Shaking her head slightly, she makes the statement “I hope you both choke. I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Zoey…Zoey—ha-ha-ha…Zoey, I’m sorry! Forgive me, girl!” Conway apologizes before the coordinator can get up from her seat. “What the hell are you gonna do? It’s Kenny. He’s worse than the mother on The Golden Girls and he doesn’t have an excuse like a stroke, either.” He gets up from his seat, but it is to get a final plate of food before dessert.
“Zoey, we’re sorry,” Holly says, even though she’s still laughing. “Anything we can do to make up for this? I mean, in all fairness that came out of nowhere. Some of the best humor does that.”
“And we’ve all made fun of each other tonight,” Kenny adds. “What’s one more joke on the fire?”
“You’re something else, man,” Zoey answers. “I can’t be mad at you for long.” Standing up at last, Zoey signals to Holly by waving her hand back and forth a few times and then pointing to her boyfriend before she smiles from end to end and leaves for the little girl’s room.
“So, Holly, how did you like the stuffed chicken breast?” Kenny asks while the three are together.
For his question, he gets a hard slap across the side of his head before Holly answers, “It’s pretty good. I just wish it had more spice…and that was the Zoey special. No hard feelings, right?”
Holding Zoey to a ‘no hitting’ policy during Lent, Kenny should have known that Zoey would stoop so low in the name of hurting him by having friends do the deed for her. “Zoey!” he screams, channeling a British metal star with his loud call of bewilderment.
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Using her left hand, which she has rarely ever done to knock on a door, Kelly waits for either her mother or father to come to the door and come downstairs to her hotel room. She knocks a total of five times and then waits. Hearing some rustling behind the door means that there will be little to no wait for the coordinator’s trainer and brings relief to her face. Now looking at the whole situation with a logical mind, she would like nothing more than for this to be out in the open and for everyone to be informed about the latest news in her life.
Thankfully, for Kelly, the rustling does not take much time until the door opens with her mother Julia on the other side. “Kelly!” she exclaims before wrapping her daughter up in a bear hug.
“Hi, mom,” she replies as Julia lets go and gets a good look at her Kelly, paying close attention to her right hand.
“I see that your hand is in a cast,” she says before calling to her husband to come to the door. In just a few seconds, Erik comes into the picture and gives Kelly the same treatment as his wife did just scant seconds earlier and adding a kiss into the equation.
“So how’s your hand, sweetheart?”
“Dad, just as I thought; I broke five bones!” Though she ebbs a peculiar type of excitement about the injury, inside there are two very clear and very real things that are fueling the feeling within. The overjoyed feeling does fade, though, and Kelly becomes more than just a bit downtrodden due to the circumstances surrounding how she got a cast for all her troubles. “I broke them…it was just a big waste. Marina just…”
Erik has had enough. He knows that Marina did more harm than good by even entering into his family’s life and does his best right here and now to make things better. Father does indeed know best. “You don’t need to say anymore, honey. It was her fault. She couldn’t handle her problems without bringing other people in to shoulder her burden. You gotta move past this, though! Yes your first shot at love didn’t work out, but you’ve got a great girlfriend and you plan on proposing tomorrow. Things are looking up, Kelly! Marina doesn’t deserve you and I’m not just saying that either.” Looking his daughter right in the eyes, he makes the statement, “You are beautiful, Kelly Cruz-Marin. You know this and I’m sure May can’t stop telling you that some days. Marina is dead so forget that distraction and focus on your love with your wife-to-be.”
Attempting to compose herself Kelly has to admit that her dad is right. “You’re right. Thanks dad.”
“Speaking of May,” Julia interjects, “where is she? I thought you went along with her to the hospital!”
“I did, and that’s the reason why I came to see you personally instead of calling. May’s getting her parents and I came to get you. We both have something to tell you four.”
“Is their something wrong, Kelly?”
“No, mom,” she assures. While attempting to keep a very apparent smile off of her face, Kelly adds that, “Everything’s fine. We just want you to come to come to our hotel room for a brief meeting. It’s really important and it won’t take long.”
“Okay, let’s go do this,” Erik declares as he and his wife follow their daughter down the hallway and to the elevators going down to floor eight and room 835 of the Slateport Milton. The ride down the elevator is mostly uneventful save a few stops as they come down floor by floor. Erik and Julia do not ask their only child what this meeting entails even as the trio makes it to the eighth floor and walks down yet another hallway until the youngest one comes to one of the many hotel doors. Pulling out an object the size of a credit card, she slides it inside and then outside of a strip near the door handle.
When a green light comes on, she can tell that the door is open so she turns the handle and opens the door to find her girlfriend and parents sitting on the two beds.
May gets up from her seat on the bed upon seeing the Marins. “Hey baby!” she greets before giving Kelly a quick peck on the lips and asking everyone standing to have a seat and in just a few seconds time, Kelly takes her place with May on one bed while the moms sit on the other bed and the dads occupy the two chairs in the room.
“So,” Caroline begins, “May told me that you two had something important you wanted to discuss with us, so go right ahead. You have…”
“Sorry to interrupt, honey,” Norman apologizes, “but two things, Kelly. One, I see your cast. Is your hand broken?”
“Yes, sir, but…that’s not the reason why May and I called this meeting.”
“Okay, then. I did have a feeling that there was something else involved. But the other thing is…I couldn’t help but notice that…beautiful ring around your necklace, Kelly. My mother wore a ring just like that. Do you mind if I have a look at it?”
Examining the necklace for a bit, Kelly feels more than just a fleeting chill courtesy of Norman’s remarks. In just a minute, maybe more or less, the teen will inform him that this ring and the ring he is talking about are one in the same. “Go ahead,” she answers and May’s father gets up from his seat to get a good look at the band around Kelly’s necklace. With a keen eye, he gets a view of the jewelry from every angle imaginable.
“Amazing,” Norman comments as he takes his seat back in the chair. “This looks exactly like my mother’s ring!”
May has had enough and can not stand to hear any more assumption. “That’s because it is, dad. That’s grandma’s ring around Kelly’s necklace. I gave it to Kelly.”
“Wait a minute, May. Now you know the story behind that ring.” Speaking to the Marins, he says, “Guys, my dad saved for over two years to get that ring for my mother. It was his engagement…” and then, it hits him. He becomes wide-eyed, his breathing grows shallow and he starts to get chills. “Oh my…”
One question stands out in his mind. It is something he has no choice but to ask, but Norman doesn’t get the chance. “You proposed, May?” Caroline asks her daughter while shaking and with tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” she answers, nodding her head and tearing up herself. “It was eating me up inside, mom. I had to get it out and make sure that this was what we really wanted. Please understand that grandma gave me this ring a while back and said to give it to the most important person in your life. I—no: We planned this meeting to let you know in all fairness that we are officially engaged and will get married some time in the future.”
“We just want your blessing, guys,” Kelly adds. While holding May by the shoulder, she continues, “Mom and dad, I’ve talked to you about this several times. You know that I wanted to propose to May after the Grand Festival so our heads were clear and we could plan with no distractions…but I’m glad May did it because this planned proposal would have still been on my mind until this weekend ended. But we’ve agreed to marry and May told me that I can still propose tomorrow night on center stage if she wins. I obviously can’t put the ring on my finger, so I’m wearing it right now and this is the reason why May’s not wearing my ring; I haven’t shown it to her as of yet.”
“I’m gonna do this guys, whether you want me to or not!” May asserts. “I’m sorry for being so up front—so blunt about this, but…I’m not doing this for anyone else but me and my love. If I have your blessing, fantastic! If not, then oh well. I love Kelly, and you both know this. We can make this work!”
“Yes you do, and I have a feeling that you can,” Norman silently responds. “And the only thing that I see as an issue is…you’re only seventeen years old, May!”
“You were young when you and mom got…serious,” May defends, the tears coming out of her eyes just a bit quicker than before. “I mean, you said it yourself; you could tell that Kelly and I are in love without us telling either of you.”
“I did, but I didn’t think marriage would come up for…at least another year or two! I forget sometimes that you’ve been together for two and a half years!”
“Well we have, dad! Nothing’s gonna stop me. It’s all coming together; can’t you see it, mom? It’s happening! I’ve found my love and I don’t wanna let her go for anything and it’s not as if we’re going to the chapel after this talk; I just wanna keep going! I know you know that feeling! Your mom and dad objected to you marrying dad when you did, but what happened? You’ve had a great marriage! You’ve had one that’s lasted. You didn’t listen to your parents and I gotta warn you both; whatever you tell me, I plan on marrying my girl. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but I just know deep down in my heart that this can work! Please, just trust me! Let me have this, please!”
Running short of breath due to her rant on the fact that she is ready for matrimony, May brings her head down to catch it once more and wait for a response of some sort. Kelly can now see Caroline and Norman in what appears to be conference. They whisper back and forth to each other about some subject; likely their decision. The room is quite silent and the Marins have not said much at all. As was said before, they agree with the proposal and give their blessing. They are one part of this grand equation with the other part attempting to figure out all the facts before rendering a choice in the matter.
As May turns her head up, she sees the sight; Norman nods to Caroline and then she does the same back towards Norman and then they turn to the two teenage girls sitting together on the other bed.
“May,” Norman begins, “I hope you understand…”
“No,” she whispers, fearing the worst.
“Just let me finish, please. I want you to understand…that giving you your blessing to marry Kelly is not easy for me or your mother to do. I love you and I knew that I’d eventually have to let you out on your own one of these days. I didn’t think it would be this…taxing on my soul. I know that this is different, though, but I respect that. You two can care for yourselves and have the resources to live a great and long life. Age just keeps sticking out in my mind though; it’s like a sore thumb, but you’re right. I was not that much older when I got with your mom and I did it nowhere near as mature as you two and not as able to take care of myself on my own, much less a family.”
“Dad, what does this all mean? What are you trying to say?”
“Honey, it means that we still have some reservations about all of this,” Caroline admits, “but for now…you have our blessing.”
It takes a second, or maybe less. Everyone in the room awaits some sort of reaction from the older of the two girls. Though the room is set at room temperature for now, May is now experiencing the same chills her fiancée, mother and father felt just a few minutes prior to her.
There is no containing her happiness as she bawls her eyes out of whatever water remained in them and rushes toward both of her parents to give them an enormous embrace. Still crying, she finds it within her to say, “Thank you both! This means the world to me. I promise you guys, I will not rush to get married. I just wanted to know if it was okay.”
“It’s okay, May,” Caroline whispers into her daughter’s ear. Norman lets go of the hug to get up and go towards the Marins, including Kelly.
“Kelly, stand up,” Norman requests. Now standing next to her future father-in-law and having to look up only slightly, she feels the soft and comforting hands of the man on her shoulders. “Welcome to the family,” he says causing Kelly to smile and mouth the words ‘thank you’ to the family patriarch. “Take care of my girl, okay?”
“I guarantee it, Norman,” Kelly promises and now they come together in a hug with the rest of the Marins joining them not that long afterwards.
“I’ve got just one question, mom,” May says while rocking in her mother’s arms, “what made you and dad say yes?”
“The one thing that kept us from giving you your blessing was age…until we realized that you two had everything else in order to make this work just like you said. You’ll get older and even more mature as time goes on and you’ll learn more. So…all you have is time…and our blessing. Age is only a number; those are the words I told my parents when I said ‘I’m marrying Norman Maple whether you like it or not.’”
“Thank you all so much for this,” May says. “I’m the happiest girl in the world!”
“Well, I have every intention of making you even happier and that includes tomorrow’s Grand Festival.”
“Kelly’s right,” Julia responds. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
“We should let you two have your space…and your rest,” Caroline speaks. “Norman, let’s go.”
“We should be going, too, dear,” Erik remarks. His wife agrees and they leave with a dual hug of the newly engaged couple. “Good night, you two and congratulations!”
“Sweet dreams, girls!” Julia whispers as she leaves May and Kelly’s hotel room with Erik and heads back upstairs to their room. Soon afterwards, the young couple gets more hugs from Maples who wish the same luck for the teens as the Marins did. They leave for their room and leave Kelly and May alone in their space.
“Oh!” Kelly exclaims in relief as she falls back first on the bed. “Can you believe it, honey? Can you believe how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time?”
“No,” she answers while standing by the window and looking at the night sky and clouds forming off in the horizon. “But I’m so glad it happened! Nothing’s stopping us now, Kelly.” While still looking out in the city, May gets some sort of inspiration and suddenly rushes to Kelly, who is still on the bed, pouncing on her while she rests. Coming face to face with her betrothed, she gives the younger girl a kiss, saying “Let’s celebrate! Just the two of us! What do you say?”
“It is late…”
“Come on!” May counters. “When else are we gonna celebrate something like this? Please, Kelly?”
How in the world can she say no after that? “Okay, but we have to get back here to the hotel before eleven o’clock because we need to get some sleep. Is that a deal?”
Sealed with a kiss between the two, May says “Deal,” and lets Kelly up from the bed. Grabbing keys, wallets, carry-on bags and other accessories, they turn off the lights in their room and head out into the hallway, locking the door behind them.
Arm and arm they walk saying sweet nothings and talking about initial wedding plans, though only speaking of the basics and not yet considering every little detail.
“A part of me can’t wait,” May admits, “but we’ve gotten this far waiting. What can’t you wait for?”
“I can’t wait to say ‘I do’.” Kelly then admits, “I know I’m gonna cry like a baby, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that on that day, I will become Mrs. Kelly Cruz-Marin Maple.”
“Oh, that is just disgusting!” the two hear someone say before they can make their way to the elevators.
Turning around, Kelly and May see the true colors of two people who’ve always been good friends. One is a young mother and the other is a young teen wrapped in her arms with her eyes shielded from the sight before them. “Savannah? Sandra? Look, this is something…”
“Save it, May,” Savannah interrupts. “You actually call yourself a role model to young kids and here you are with that…girl wrapped around your arms talking about taking each other’s names? You’re both insane. You need help.”
“Hey! Hang on a second!” Kelly counters, very perturbed at Savannah’s comments. “Yes, let’s just get it out in the open right here and now. We are an engaged lesbian couple and do plan on making it official soon, but I don’t see how the hell that effects May’s status as a role model to young girls out there who want to be coordinators. Explain yourself, please!”
“My girl here would never consider you two role models and neither would the Mothers for Pokemon or their kids,” Savannah says in a great deal of scorn. “You’re really sick if you think that you can just walk around like you’re just another couple in love. Well, I’ve got news for you two; you’re not. Be prepared to face consequences for living in this…fantasy world of yours.”
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Your Thoughts?
@cbiesra: Interesting is the best word any of us can use to describe the Marina appeal. Glad you liked it, I did have some caveats about it including the lack of pure abilities she showed with Purugly.
A nice game of 'Marry, **** or Kill' can really open people up to how fellow individuals think. That quote you used is one of my personal favorites in the chapter and I love Pokemon Academy by Avegaille! I do give her shout outs at times and she's no exception. We IM each other often and bounce ideas off one another.
Finally, I don't mind the fact that you don't like SundaeShipping (or most other shouen-ai ships for that matter). That's okay, you can let your feelings be known about any ship so long as you see it in my fan fiction. I completely understand that people don't often come to my works to see...their favorite ships. They come to read great works. So that's fine if you don't like certain pairings and thanks for the remarks of how I write them!
@Libby: Are you kidding me! No! It's okay as long as you are still enjoying the story. You would have stayed on the PM list if you missed 14 updates, it doesn't matter!
Marina will get fleshed out more in chapter 35 and onward to the end (we're very close to Saturday being over at last). Bo and Campbell (Harley's parents) were designed to attract attention and then some. I think they will be great for the time they are here and you'll see more of that greatness in the next chapter. Max will have to take matters into his own hands and soon, both of them will reunite and get back at Kenny for what he's done, and yes; he does have a knack for creating trouble.
The 'Swinging Four' (my personal nickname for Zoey/Kenny/Conway/Holly) is certainly being fleshed out as well. Their back stories are interesting and will get even more interesting as they go through dinner. This chapter might be the most introspective and the funniest for them. Wasn't that game something?
And for a couple that seems to do all of the right things, wait for the right moment, prepare, plan and make successes of themselves before combining their efforts, it only seems fitting that their proposal do the exact same thing. Nothing can ruin all their hard work now, right? Right? ^__^
A lot of people don't know this about me...I LOVE ComaShipping! Yeah, it's true; a 21-year-old African American male (myself) from Mid-Atlantic suburbia in the USA likes the idea of these two trainers hooking it up! Maybe in the next couple of chapters I'll go a bit deeper with a light scene of implied sex. Look out for that one, it'll be a case of 'maybe, maybe not'.
And I'll let you know that I've taken your suggestions of discussions for the Swinging Four into serious consideration and have decided to use them! You'll learn about why Zoey and Kenny chose an open relationship in this chapter and next chapter (35), you'll learn about Conway and how Paul is linked into his story as well.
I promise to deliver the awesomeness at a fever pitch with the next several chapters, starting with this one! Enjoy, everyone!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/34/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 34- May Blessings Be Upon You, Also)
“Excuse me, Lucille?”
“Please, Bo. Call me Lucy,” she quickly responds in great abhorrence to her true given name.
“Right then. Out of curiosity, how long have you been with Brock here?”
“Four years,” Lucy answers.
“Have you thought of having children yet? You can be honest with me about it.”
Brock looks at Lucy and vice versa. The nervousness in the atmosphere is apparent as they show great apprehension by answering all of these personal questions about their childhood, their relationship with Harley and Max, love and sex. They then look at Max who is covering his face with his hand. Though she can not tell with great precision, the keeper of the Pike Symbol thought she heard the youngest of the five say ‘I’m sorry, guys’.
“Well, were still young, guys,” she explains. “We’re not in any sort of rush, you know?”
“But you are serious, right?” Campbell asks the young woman. “You wouldn’t be if you’ve been together for four years otherwise you’re just wasting your time, Lucy.”
“Oh, no! I just…it’s not really a priority for me right now.” This is a remark that Brock does not expect to hear and it causes him to do a double take. “I have a great career as a Frontier Brain and change right now is…something I don’t see right now.”
“Well, whatever happens with you two, just make sure you’re both on the same plane,” Bo explains. “I did it with Campbell and I’ve never regretted it. Harley has given me all the joy I could ever ask for in my life.”
“Yeah, about that,” Max steps in. “Harley is the reason why I’m here. Now do you think it’s not too much trouble for me to go into his bedroom…?”
“Just let me tell this story first,” Bo interrupts. “Harley has always had a flair for being his own individual. We talk all the time these days, but ever since he was…five he’s been very independent. He knows what he wants in life and he gets it just about every single time.”
“You know, that makes me think,” Lucy says, a thought sparking within her head. “How did you feel about Harley…coming out to you?”
“Well, he actually told me at age eight that he’d never be with a girl as long as he lived,” Bo recollects. “This was the same night I caught him in the bed…pleasing himself.”
‘Jesus, keep me near the cross!’ Max laments. ‘You don’t talk about your son masturbating! That’s why I didn’t want to come here. Just embarrassing story after embarrassing story. Can’t they give it a ****ing rest on the masturbation tale already? Like Harley was the only eight year old to ever do that! I ought to know.’
“After Campbell and I sat him down that night and we had the talk, he all but said that he is gay.”
“Weren’t you…hurt at all when he said that?” Lucy asks out of curiosity.
“Harley is his own person,” Campbell answers. “He’ll do things we won’t agree with. All I can do is give him love but for the longest time, he’s wanted his space. So, like we said, Harley is very smart. A few weeks after our talk he got fake documentation. He then moved to the much smaller Fallarbor Town to get a trainer’s license and start his journey early, which is something he talked about for a long time before then. He hasn’t lived with us since.”
“It’s been seventeen years since that day,” Bo remembers. “He’s always visited since then, though, but we always knew that he’d be out and about before we knew it he was gone.”
“Maybe he left to get the out of this place and away from you guys!” Max hypothesizes having enough of this scene he’s been dealt once more in a trip to the house of his boyfriend’s folks. “Have you two ever thought of that or did your psychoanalysis not show that conclusion after much diagnosis? I’m tired of waiting for Harley! I’m just so goddamn tired of the same stories over and over again! I’m not waiting anymore on him. Harley is twenty-five ****ing years old! I shouldn’t have to ask permission to see a grown man and I’m not gonna do it anymore! I’m seeing him now!”
As Max gets up from the couch and to the hallway, Campbell assures him that “He’ll come for you when he’s ready!” which garners a middle finger planted square in her direction as he disappears into the bedroom area.
Surprised by the action, or lack thereof, of the Holloways both Brock and Lucy look in the direction of the older couple wanting to know what is going on in their heads. “Aren’t you gonna…I mean I’m not condoning what happened in here. That was not the way for Max to handle things.”
“Lucy, don’t worry about young Maximus,” Campbell says, not even showing a hint of anger in her voice or her face. “He’s obviously a very angry child. Fifteen is a difficult age for all kids no matter what the situation they’re going through. We should let them be angry. It’s not good to hold these feelings in lest you go to one of us for therapy at age forty depressed and in a mid-life crisis filling your time with riding motorcycles and getting tattoos on a whim.”
The younger couple finds it difficult to look at each other given everything that has transpired in the past couple of minutes. In either of their parent’s houses, the display Max put on would have earned him a stiff kick in the backside out of their house…or worse, but the Holloways almost appeared to encourage deviant behavior in spurts. They’ve only spent a half hour in their house, but already they feel uncomfortable as if they do not belong. Then they realize that Harley did it for eight years and wonder just what that would do to a young person coming up in the world with a natural amount of confusion and wonder.
Hopefully the Holloways have connections with therapists of different trades.
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After the rant with Kenny just a few minutes ago, he has since sat back down in his seat with his latest plate of food. Holly told the remaining two that she had a question that she wanted to ask him but since he has come back to the booth, she has not gotten up the nerve. The question is quite a personal one, though, so it is hard to blame Holly for not getting up the nerve.
Then, all at once, the question gets taken out of the hands of the foxy trainer. “So, are you gonna ask Kenny what you wanted to ask him, Holly?” The young lady and the subject of the inquiry choked in response to the forwardness of Zoey. It seemed like she wanted to know what was on her mind more than anyone else.
“If you wanted to ask me something, then go right ahead!” Kenny assures her. “I’m an open book!”
“Are you sure? I mean this is a real personal question that I’ve wondered about since we got paired together.”
“Just ask it, Holly. I promise it won’t get to me at all.”
“All right.” Mentally preparing, the youngest of the Rockwell clan asks the young Catholic teenager, “Does your family know that you are a bisexual swinger?”
Checking for any signs of offense in the eyes of Kenny, Holly can not find any. Instead, she gets an answer and it is the one that she did not expect. “Yes, they know. They know because I told them. I asked Zoey if she wanted to do it and she said yes. So we sat both of them down and…we were just honest, you know? I left no stone unturned and explained to them the extent of the…freedom that I have with Zoey that I can’t get elsewhere. They...dad told me and Zoey that even though he doesn’t like it, he understands that there isn’t much he can do given that I haven’t lived with him in seven years. He does like the fact that we protect ourselves though.”
“Okay, you talked about how your dad feels,” Conway interjects, “but I didn’t hear anything about your mom, Kenny. What did she think?”
“She…was fine with it. I guess the fact that my family really likes Zoey for the most part prevented some big blowup from occurring. The thing that my mom said which really struck me was that she felt that we were being really mature with this. Our organization which paired us up makes a great effort to educate us on sex more than schools or the parents and above all, being honest about everything. It got me thinking; I had not been honest with my folks for whatever reason. I didn’t like that and made the choice to come out and also admit to being a swinger and being bisexual.”
“How did you know for sure that you were bisexual?”
“Well…I knew it when I was…about ten years old,” he answers Holly. “I didn’t think anything of it; it came about from me having a great affinity for seeing bodies in the nude from as far back as I could remember. You know, at age six, it didn’t bother me to have friends who were sleeping over taking a bath with me. Flash forward a few years and I had a lot of male friends and we’d—you know just…fool around and wrestle each other in the house or outside or even in the park. Now I know I said that I found out that I am bi at age ten, but a few years before that there was an incident where one of my friends play fought with me and during the fight, he accidentally grabbed my crotch.”
Zoey, having heard this story before, does not give off any sort of shocked reaction. Both Holly and Conway, on the other hand, are attentively looking at Kenny, hanging on to all of his words like they are dangling from a thread. “I’m not gonna lie or ******** either of you two. It felt great. It was awesome but it caught me so off guard. This was something I’ve never felt before in my life. So I stopped the play fighting for a second and excused myself. I went into the bathroom and began to touch myself and see what it felt like again. I was eight years old at the time and didn’t get the talk yet so I didn’t know where kids came from or that this was forbidden by my religion. All I knew was that it felt great and was great that my buddy knew and introduced me to masturbation when I asked him about…touching a few days later when he slept over.”
“So you’re saying it was a ‘show me yours, and I’ll show you mine’ deal?”
“That’s what it became, Conway, and my interest in the nude body and watching guys shirtless contributed to it and caused me to be open about it. Something like masturbation has never been a big deal to me and neither has telling people that I’m bisexual. Really, the biggest problem was telling people that I’m bisexual and that…I’m a ****!”
Speaking of being caught off guard, not even Zoey could prepare herself for this admission from her boyfriend. Conway choked on his soda with some of it coming out of his nose. His girlfriend choked on her food before laughing out loud with the redheaded tomboy.
“You just called yourself a ****?”
“It’s not something I take any pride in because you shouldn’t take pride in what or who you are,” Kenny explains not missing a beat. “You take pride in what you do. And what I said deserves some explanation. A **** is not the same as a prostitute or even a *****. I’m not a prostitute because I do not put a price on sex. To me, an experience like that is priceless and to put value on the act is…cheapening it. And I think it’s insulting to have to pay for sex when the best things in life really are free.”
“Okay, but what would you say about what we are gonna do in a few hours?” Holly counters. “Are we ****s for what we’re doing?”
“You make this whatever you want to be,” he answers. “I’m just of the school of one who no longer wants to lie to himself. I’m ****ing fed up with the hypocrisy and the lies of the media and society and religion all working in cahoots to turn me into a puppet of the system. I’m tired of them presenting…false depictions of what a good man or woman should be thereby undermining the great people folks have in front of them at that very moment. Be what you want, just don’t let something like sex come in between a good thing. If you…cannot see yourself as being monogamous, why be with someone that is? That’s asinine! Those two people will never make it work because eventually, he’ll cheat, she’ll get ****** and they’ll all air out their filthy laundry in divorce court! I’ll put it this way, how long do you think I would be with Zoey if she didn’t approve of what I do?” The question, which is rhetorical, garners nods across the booth.
“So it’s inaccurate to call a swing session ****ty behavior. You can call this an affair or a one night stand. You can even say ‘Hey, I’m just doing this for me,’ which you are, but call this whatever you want. Something called the two of you to be bisexual swingers. You have to have had a story or a background rooted somewhere to a moment or several points in time that made you want to try this, even if it’s just once. I couldn’t do monogamy. It’s grossly overrated because after time, though no one wants to admit it, you get bored. If it didn’t happen, you would find a husband or a wife at age eight keeping them for life, and that just doesn’t happen. That’s why we have so many extramarital affairs on both sides which lead to unnecessary divorce. With Zoey and I being in an open relationship there’s no way I can cheat. If Zoey or I see someone we like, we just bring them into the fold.”
“I want to have another girlfriend, but I’ll only do it if Kenny can find someone for himself.”
“Like a concubine, Zoey?”
“Exactly. And, Holly, the only reason why I haven’t done it is because I want to go at the same pace as he does. That’s why we’ve only brought in couples to swing with so far. If you’re wondering, I’m bisexual in name only. Had it not been for this guy here, I’d probably be steady with another girl. Despite that, I love Kenny and I feel like I can tell him anything and I’m very intimate with him, which is something I don’t feel I can do with just anyone, even with my own parents. I’ll be very blunt; I swing because sometimes…I just need some pussy. I mean…”
“It’s okay,” Holly assures, trying her best to hold back more laughter. “I think you just about said it all.”
“You know, I’ll—I’ll let you two know what led me to do this a little later, but you talked for a moment about how your parents received Zoey,” Conway recollects, “I’ll say this; Holly’s parents, who are now in their mid-60s, did not really give me as critical an eye as I thought they would given that I was dating their youngest daughter. But like I said earlier, Holly Rock has eight older brothers and sisters to do the job for her mom and dad. Most of them liked me, but a few thought that I was stalking them because I’d show up in the oddest of places. Can you believe that?”
“Well Dawn told me stories about how you’d do that very thing,” Kenny answers. “Maybe you don’t know your own ability…Loren.”
“Dude, ix-nay on the ame-nay. Okay? And either way, you can’t say that all of the members of your family showered Zoey with love the moment you brought her home.”
“No, you’re—you’re right.”
Looking at Kenny, expecting some sort of explanation, Zoey asks him bluntly, “Would you care to tell them about how I almost had to kick your aunt’s *** for something she said about me?”
“Zoey,” he responds almost as a defense mechanism, “my Aunt Florence, like both of our parents, just needed some time to get used to it! So some of the things she said…she doesn’t necessarily mean.”
“Kenneth,” Zoey responds, causing her boyfriend to do a double take, “two things. Stop making excuses for that senile bi…woman. You know and I know that your Aunt Florence hates my guts. She ****ing hates me and doesn’t mind telling people that she is the reason why you’re so ****ed up now. And the other thing of note is that you talk about her saying things she probably doesn’t mean or speaking out of order. Well, if anything, I think you get it from her and that’s the reason why you keep defending her the way you do. She reminds you of yourself and nobody loves you more than you do, Kenny!”
“Damn! That’s harsh!” Holly exclaims. “Well, what were some of the things she said that made you want to beat her senseless?”
“There is nothing in the world that she said…”
“Oh, shut up! There you go again; defending your aunt even after all this!”
“Well, maybe I have a love for my family like Holly does,” Kenny says in an attempt to save face. “I’ll just say that…”
“You don’t have a goddamn to say, man! Face it; your aunt hates me because she thinks that I introduced you to…the evil. She thinks I made you bisexual like I put a curse or a hex on you or some crazy **** like that! She took one look at me and rearranged her face when I came through the door. ‘Oh, you can’t possibly be serious, Kenny,’ she said. ‘The girl looks like she should be at a construction site or digging a ditch; not being a mother to children or a partner for life!’”
“All right, come on now! That’s very unfair,” Kenny replies tentatively. “Don’t you think you’re being…even a bit harsh? A lot of that has to do with the times and upbringing and…my aunt comes from a time and a place where…what we’re doing was practically unheard of! How can you possibly expect her to understand? Honestly!”
“More excuses, Ken,” Zoey says, now carrying a very devilish smile on her face. “The bottom line is that she hates the fact that I’m more of a man than you in many ways.”
“Well…”
“And let’s not forget her exact words to your folks during the cookout where you introduced me for the first time to your extended family. She thought I was outside getting something to eat, but I came back inside to hear his father’s sister chew them both out for allowing him to be with me. She asked them, ‘How can you two idiots let Kenny date that bull dyke?’ And yes, she did call Kenny’s folks idiots.”
“Well, you gotta admit one thing, Zoey; she was half right.”
“Oh my God! Please…” Zoey exclaims while Conway and Holly apparently find the big mouth’s remarks the most hysterical thing of all time as other tables and booths look in their direction to see the young couple clutching their stomachs as they become short of breath due to their laughing streak. Shaking her head slightly, she makes the statement “I hope you both choke. I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Zoey…Zoey—ha-ha-ha…Zoey, I’m sorry! Forgive me, girl!” Conway apologizes before the coordinator can get up from her seat. “What the hell are you gonna do? It’s Kenny. He’s worse than the mother on The Golden Girls and he doesn’t have an excuse like a stroke, either.” He gets up from his seat, but it is to get a final plate of food before dessert.
“Zoey, we’re sorry,” Holly says, even though she’s still laughing. “Anything we can do to make up for this? I mean, in all fairness that came out of nowhere. Some of the best humor does that.”
“And we’ve all made fun of each other tonight,” Kenny adds. “What’s one more joke on the fire?”
“You’re something else, man,” Zoey answers. “I can’t be mad at you for long.” Standing up at last, Zoey signals to Holly by waving her hand back and forth a few times and then pointing to her boyfriend before she smiles from end to end and leaves for the little girl’s room.
“So, Holly, how did you like the stuffed chicken breast?” Kenny asks while the three are together.
For his question, he gets a hard slap across the side of his head before Holly answers, “It’s pretty good. I just wish it had more spice…and that was the Zoey special. No hard feelings, right?”
Holding Zoey to a ‘no hitting’ policy during Lent, Kenny should have known that Zoey would stoop so low in the name of hurting him by having friends do the deed for her. “Zoey!” he screams, channeling a British metal star with his loud call of bewilderment.
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Using her left hand, which she has rarely ever done to knock on a door, Kelly waits for either her mother or father to come to the door and come downstairs to her hotel room. She knocks a total of five times and then waits. Hearing some rustling behind the door means that there will be little to no wait for the coordinator’s trainer and brings relief to her face. Now looking at the whole situation with a logical mind, she would like nothing more than for this to be out in the open and for everyone to be informed about the latest news in her life.
Thankfully, for Kelly, the rustling does not take much time until the door opens with her mother Julia on the other side. “Kelly!” she exclaims before wrapping her daughter up in a bear hug.
“Hi, mom,” she replies as Julia lets go and gets a good look at her Kelly, paying close attention to her right hand.
“I see that your hand is in a cast,” she says before calling to her husband to come to the door. In just a few seconds, Erik comes into the picture and gives Kelly the same treatment as his wife did just scant seconds earlier and adding a kiss into the equation.
“So how’s your hand, sweetheart?”
“Dad, just as I thought; I broke five bones!” Though she ebbs a peculiar type of excitement about the injury, inside there are two very clear and very real things that are fueling the feeling within. The overjoyed feeling does fade, though, and Kelly becomes more than just a bit downtrodden due to the circumstances surrounding how she got a cast for all her troubles. “I broke them…it was just a big waste. Marina just…”
Erik has had enough. He knows that Marina did more harm than good by even entering into his family’s life and does his best right here and now to make things better. Father does indeed know best. “You don’t need to say anymore, honey. It was her fault. She couldn’t handle her problems without bringing other people in to shoulder her burden. You gotta move past this, though! Yes your first shot at love didn’t work out, but you’ve got a great girlfriend and you plan on proposing tomorrow. Things are looking up, Kelly! Marina doesn’t deserve you and I’m not just saying that either.” Looking his daughter right in the eyes, he makes the statement, “You are beautiful, Kelly Cruz-Marin. You know this and I’m sure May can’t stop telling you that some days. Marina is dead so forget that distraction and focus on your love with your wife-to-be.”
Attempting to compose herself Kelly has to admit that her dad is right. “You’re right. Thanks dad.”
“Speaking of May,” Julia interjects, “where is she? I thought you went along with her to the hospital!”
“I did, and that’s the reason why I came to see you personally instead of calling. May’s getting her parents and I came to get you. We both have something to tell you four.”
“Is their something wrong, Kelly?”
“No, mom,” she assures. While attempting to keep a very apparent smile off of her face, Kelly adds that, “Everything’s fine. We just want you to come to come to our hotel room for a brief meeting. It’s really important and it won’t take long.”
“Okay, let’s go do this,” Erik declares as he and his wife follow their daughter down the hallway and to the elevators going down to floor eight and room 835 of the Slateport Milton. The ride down the elevator is mostly uneventful save a few stops as they come down floor by floor. Erik and Julia do not ask their only child what this meeting entails even as the trio makes it to the eighth floor and walks down yet another hallway until the youngest one comes to one of the many hotel doors. Pulling out an object the size of a credit card, she slides it inside and then outside of a strip near the door handle.
When a green light comes on, she can tell that the door is open so she turns the handle and opens the door to find her girlfriend and parents sitting on the two beds.
May gets up from her seat on the bed upon seeing the Marins. “Hey baby!” she greets before giving Kelly a quick peck on the lips and asking everyone standing to have a seat and in just a few seconds time, Kelly takes her place with May on one bed while the moms sit on the other bed and the dads occupy the two chairs in the room.
“So,” Caroline begins, “May told me that you two had something important you wanted to discuss with us, so go right ahead. You have…”
“Sorry to interrupt, honey,” Norman apologizes, “but two things, Kelly. One, I see your cast. Is your hand broken?”
“Yes, sir, but…that’s not the reason why May and I called this meeting.”
“Okay, then. I did have a feeling that there was something else involved. But the other thing is…I couldn’t help but notice that…beautiful ring around your necklace, Kelly. My mother wore a ring just like that. Do you mind if I have a look at it?”
Examining the necklace for a bit, Kelly feels more than just a fleeting chill courtesy of Norman’s remarks. In just a minute, maybe more or less, the teen will inform him that this ring and the ring he is talking about are one in the same. “Go ahead,” she answers and May’s father gets up from his seat to get a good look at the band around Kelly’s necklace. With a keen eye, he gets a view of the jewelry from every angle imaginable.
“Amazing,” Norman comments as he takes his seat back in the chair. “This looks exactly like my mother’s ring!”
May has had enough and can not stand to hear any more assumption. “That’s because it is, dad. That’s grandma’s ring around Kelly’s necklace. I gave it to Kelly.”
“Wait a minute, May. Now you know the story behind that ring.” Speaking to the Marins, he says, “Guys, my dad saved for over two years to get that ring for my mother. It was his engagement…” and then, it hits him. He becomes wide-eyed, his breathing grows shallow and he starts to get chills. “Oh my…”
One question stands out in his mind. It is something he has no choice but to ask, but Norman doesn’t get the chance. “You proposed, May?” Caroline asks her daughter while shaking and with tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” she answers, nodding her head and tearing up herself. “It was eating me up inside, mom. I had to get it out and make sure that this was what we really wanted. Please understand that grandma gave me this ring a while back and said to give it to the most important person in your life. I—no: We planned this meeting to let you know in all fairness that we are officially engaged and will get married some time in the future.”
“We just want your blessing, guys,” Kelly adds. While holding May by the shoulder, she continues, “Mom and dad, I’ve talked to you about this several times. You know that I wanted to propose to May after the Grand Festival so our heads were clear and we could plan with no distractions…but I’m glad May did it because this planned proposal would have still been on my mind until this weekend ended. But we’ve agreed to marry and May told me that I can still propose tomorrow night on center stage if she wins. I obviously can’t put the ring on my finger, so I’m wearing it right now and this is the reason why May’s not wearing my ring; I haven’t shown it to her as of yet.”
“I’m gonna do this guys, whether you want me to or not!” May asserts. “I’m sorry for being so up front—so blunt about this, but…I’m not doing this for anyone else but me and my love. If I have your blessing, fantastic! If not, then oh well. I love Kelly, and you both know this. We can make this work!”
“Yes you do, and I have a feeling that you can,” Norman silently responds. “And the only thing that I see as an issue is…you’re only seventeen years old, May!”
“You were young when you and mom got…serious,” May defends, the tears coming out of her eyes just a bit quicker than before. “I mean, you said it yourself; you could tell that Kelly and I are in love without us telling either of you.”
“I did, but I didn’t think marriage would come up for…at least another year or two! I forget sometimes that you’ve been together for two and a half years!”
“Well we have, dad! Nothing’s gonna stop me. It’s all coming together; can’t you see it, mom? It’s happening! I’ve found my love and I don’t wanna let her go for anything and it’s not as if we’re going to the chapel after this talk; I just wanna keep going! I know you know that feeling! Your mom and dad objected to you marrying dad when you did, but what happened? You’ve had a great marriage! You’ve had one that’s lasted. You didn’t listen to your parents and I gotta warn you both; whatever you tell me, I plan on marrying my girl. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but I just know deep down in my heart that this can work! Please, just trust me! Let me have this, please!”
Running short of breath due to her rant on the fact that she is ready for matrimony, May brings her head down to catch it once more and wait for a response of some sort. Kelly can now see Caroline and Norman in what appears to be conference. They whisper back and forth to each other about some subject; likely their decision. The room is quite silent and the Marins have not said much at all. As was said before, they agree with the proposal and give their blessing. They are one part of this grand equation with the other part attempting to figure out all the facts before rendering a choice in the matter.
As May turns her head up, she sees the sight; Norman nods to Caroline and then she does the same back towards Norman and then they turn to the two teenage girls sitting together on the other bed.
“May,” Norman begins, “I hope you understand…”
“No,” she whispers, fearing the worst.
“Just let me finish, please. I want you to understand…that giving you your blessing to marry Kelly is not easy for me or your mother to do. I love you and I knew that I’d eventually have to let you out on your own one of these days. I didn’t think it would be this…taxing on my soul. I know that this is different, though, but I respect that. You two can care for yourselves and have the resources to live a great and long life. Age just keeps sticking out in my mind though; it’s like a sore thumb, but you’re right. I was not that much older when I got with your mom and I did it nowhere near as mature as you two and not as able to take care of myself on my own, much less a family.”
“Dad, what does this all mean? What are you trying to say?”
“Honey, it means that we still have some reservations about all of this,” Caroline admits, “but for now…you have our blessing.”
It takes a second, or maybe less. Everyone in the room awaits some sort of reaction from the older of the two girls. Though the room is set at room temperature for now, May is now experiencing the same chills her fiancée, mother and father felt just a few minutes prior to her.
There is no containing her happiness as she bawls her eyes out of whatever water remained in them and rushes toward both of her parents to give them an enormous embrace. Still crying, she finds it within her to say, “Thank you both! This means the world to me. I promise you guys, I will not rush to get married. I just wanted to know if it was okay.”
“It’s okay, May,” Caroline whispers into her daughter’s ear. Norman lets go of the hug to get up and go towards the Marins, including Kelly.
“Kelly, stand up,” Norman requests. Now standing next to her future father-in-law and having to look up only slightly, she feels the soft and comforting hands of the man on her shoulders. “Welcome to the family,” he says causing Kelly to smile and mouth the words ‘thank you’ to the family patriarch. “Take care of my girl, okay?”
“I guarantee it, Norman,” Kelly promises and now they come together in a hug with the rest of the Marins joining them not that long afterwards.
“I’ve got just one question, mom,” May says while rocking in her mother’s arms, “what made you and dad say yes?”
“The one thing that kept us from giving you your blessing was age…until we realized that you two had everything else in order to make this work just like you said. You’ll get older and even more mature as time goes on and you’ll learn more. So…all you have is time…and our blessing. Age is only a number; those are the words I told my parents when I said ‘I’m marrying Norman Maple whether you like it or not.’”
“Thank you all so much for this,” May says. “I’m the happiest girl in the world!”
“Well, I have every intention of making you even happier and that includes tomorrow’s Grand Festival.”
“Kelly’s right,” Julia responds. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
“We should let you two have your space…and your rest,” Caroline speaks. “Norman, let’s go.”
“We should be going, too, dear,” Erik remarks. His wife agrees and they leave with a dual hug of the newly engaged couple. “Good night, you two and congratulations!”
“Sweet dreams, girls!” Julia whispers as she leaves May and Kelly’s hotel room with Erik and heads back upstairs to their room. Soon afterwards, the young couple gets more hugs from Maples who wish the same luck for the teens as the Marins did. They leave for their room and leave Kelly and May alone in their space.
“Oh!” Kelly exclaims in relief as she falls back first on the bed. “Can you believe it, honey? Can you believe how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time?”
“No,” she answers while standing by the window and looking at the night sky and clouds forming off in the horizon. “But I’m so glad it happened! Nothing’s stopping us now, Kelly.” While still looking out in the city, May gets some sort of inspiration and suddenly rushes to Kelly, who is still on the bed, pouncing on her while she rests. Coming face to face with her betrothed, she gives the younger girl a kiss, saying “Let’s celebrate! Just the two of us! What do you say?”
“It is late…”
“Come on!” May counters. “When else are we gonna celebrate something like this? Please, Kelly?”
How in the world can she say no after that? “Okay, but we have to get back here to the hotel before eleven o’clock because we need to get some sleep. Is that a deal?”
Sealed with a kiss between the two, May says “Deal,” and lets Kelly up from the bed. Grabbing keys, wallets, carry-on bags and other accessories, they turn off the lights in their room and head out into the hallway, locking the door behind them.
Arm and arm they walk saying sweet nothings and talking about initial wedding plans, though only speaking of the basics and not yet considering every little detail.
“A part of me can’t wait,” May admits, “but we’ve gotten this far waiting. What can’t you wait for?”
“I can’t wait to say ‘I do’.” Kelly then admits, “I know I’m gonna cry like a baby, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that on that day, I will become Mrs. Kelly Cruz-Marin Maple.”
“Oh, that is just disgusting!” the two hear someone say before they can make their way to the elevators.
Turning around, Kelly and May see the true colors of two people who’ve always been good friends. One is a young mother and the other is a young teen wrapped in her arms with her eyes shielded from the sight before them. “Savannah? Sandra? Look, this is something…”
“Save it, May,” Savannah interrupts. “You actually call yourself a role model to young kids and here you are with that…girl wrapped around your arms talking about taking each other’s names? You’re both insane. You need help.”
“Hey! Hang on a second!” Kelly counters, very perturbed at Savannah’s comments. “Yes, let’s just get it out in the open right here and now. We are an engaged lesbian couple and do plan on making it official soon, but I don’t see how the hell that effects May’s status as a role model to young girls out there who want to be coordinators. Explain yourself, please!”
“My girl here would never consider you two role models and neither would the Mothers for Pokemon or their kids,” Savannah says in a great deal of scorn. “You’re really sick if you think that you can just walk around like you’re just another couple in love. Well, I’ve got news for you two; you’re not. Be prepared to face consequences for living in this…fantasy world of yours.”
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Your Thoughts?
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Great chapter!
Harleys parents are kindaa...wierd.
Lol. the dinner scene mde me laugh a couple of times.
I'm so happy everythings coming together, the parents accept the marraige although reluctantly.
And it all looked so good until Savannah came out, I hope Sandra shuts her mom up!
There's something wrong with this quote but I just can't put my finger on it.
Harleys parents are kindaa...wierd.
Lol. the dinner scene mde me laugh a couple of times.
I'm so happy everythings coming together, the parents accept the marraige although reluctantly.
And it all looked so good until Savannah came out, I hope Sandra shuts her mom up!
Rave The Rich
NOT the other 'Rave'
Chapter Thirty-Five is Here at Last!
@CB: Thanks for that lengthy review. I should have said something earlier, but thanks for pointing out the error, saying that Bo and Campbell are weird (that is the way they are written after all), seeing the humor in the Swinging Four's dinner and getting behind Kelly and May's parents giving them their blessing. All I'll say is that there was an accidental double post you made in your reply. Once you get the PM (seeing as you are on the list) I'd like you to just delete one of the two and you'll be fine.
Now it's time to get to important business, chapter number 35! Enjoy as usual!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/35/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 35- War to Settle Scores)
“Mom? Mom, let go of me! I can’t believe you would say things like that to our friends!” Sandra frustratingly speaks. While she asks for this, she also gets away from the grip of Savannah and stands closer to her of age peers, Kelly and May.
“Sandra, what are you doing?” her mother inquires. “Get the hell away from them! Mind my words, Sandra! I know what I’m talking about here. Those two…girls are bad news and if you hang around them you will regret what happens!”
After the warnings from her mother, the daughter begins what amounts to a mini-rant, saying, “First of all, I am not your little girl anymore. You don’t have to shield me from the evil or protect me from things you think are not good for me. I am not as innocent as you might think. To be quite frank with you, I see this happen all the time. This is happening all over in contests and conferences I travel to—it’s happening everywhere! You know your buzz words no longer work mom! People are sick and tired of hiding this and I have to agree with them! What have they done that is so bad?” Pointing to both Kelly and May, she makes it clear to Savannah that, “These people are my friends, mom, and they are going to stay my friends for a long time. The fact that they are in love with each other means nothing to me. Why should I care about what goes on in their bed at night? I just wish them the best, support them and just move on with matters. I worry about me first, mom, and so should you.”
“It’s our lives, Van Hollen,” Kelly adds with some scorn in her words. “You act like Mothers for Pokémon is the moral police of coordinating, but you don’t speak for the rest of those members and I know this for a fact. I’ve taught their children, Savannah, and I have an excellent repertoire with their parents. Will the fact that I am a lesbian change that at all?” Scoffing, she warns the older coordinator, “Don’t you dare tell me that we aren’t role models because that is an out and out lie!”
“You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Sandra, come back here…now!”
“I’m sorry, mom, but no,” she replies. “Usually I agree with what you say, but not this time. You are way off. I never suspected that you would be homophobic.”
“Sandra,” she begins wanting to break down and rationalize her words to her daughter, “don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate gay people, but I do hate the fact that they act like what they do is no big deal. They’re pushing this so-called lifestyle on you and I by making it look normal.”
“I don’t feel like I’m being forced to be around them and even if I did not approve of what they were doing, I can always turn away. That’s how their behavior becomes such a big deal to you mom; you make it one. And…you almost act as if you are scared that if I hugged May or gave Kelly a congratulate kiss for their engagement, that I’ll turn out to be just like them.”
“What—no!” Savannah contends. “That’s ignorant!”
“Oh, really?” May interjects, saying her first words in quite a while. “Thinking that your daughter could likely be turned gay by us is ignorant but the idea of Kelly and me being together is still disgusting? Wow, I don’t believe it. Excellent consistency there with your parenting, Savannah,” she facetiously commends. “There is certainly no double-talk or contradictions in what you are saying.”
“Shut up, May!” Savannah warns, feeling the heat from her coordinating peers. “You don’t know anything about what it takes to raise a child! There are some things that you have to say to children in order to make a point or take a stand. Allowing…kids to run amuck everywhere causes problems! That’s not something you would know about, though, seeing as you can’t have children with Kelly!”
Keeping a steady glance in the face of Savannah’s prodding, May just answers to the detractor before her. “You’re right,” she admits, “but the fact is that there is more to life and living than having children. No matter what happens, what I do here does count here in some way. So you have me on that. It doesn’t matter, though. My mother always taught me that there is more than one way to skin a Skitty. Naturally, Kelly cannot give me a child, but there are treatments we can invest in or we can take part in a little thing called adoption.
“So you see, Savannah, even when you are right, you are still wrong,” May concludes.
“And if I may say my peace on the matter,” Kelly interjects, “I think that my fiancée will make a fantastic mother and her children that we will raise together will be great as well.”
“Oh my—Sandra, did you hear that?” she questions with her voice raised up more than just an octave or two. “Did you just hear that? A girl just said that her fiancée will make a great mother! You can’t tell me that what Kelly just told me is no big deal. Hell, you can’t say that what came out of her mouth is normal!”
“Hey, what the **** does ‘normal’ mean anyway?” Kelly snaps at Sandra’s mother. Before she can get closer to Savannah, May holds her back. Had she been given just a bit more room, she would have given Savannah more than just a piece of her mind. Instead, she can only go so far as her bride to be keeps her tethered close by with a waist lock.
“Kelly, calm down!” May begs of her while keeping the restraint very tight.
“So, I’m not normal, Savannah? Is that what you’re trying to say, *****?”
Gritting her teeth at the remark, Sandra can only conclude in her mind that the truth hurts. Turning to Kelly, who made the aforementioned inquiry, she asks her to settle down so she can make a point without having to make a scene. It takes half a minute or so but the Academy professor does listen to the words of a good friend and calms down for her sake.
“Look, in any other case I would have slapped the taste out of your mouth for calling my mother that word,” Sandra explains, “but I have to agree with you.”
“Sandra!”
“Mom, you’re acting like one right now! I hate to say it, but they make a good point. If you don’t like it, keep your peace and leave them alone!”
“Honey, listen to me. You don’t understand what I’m talking about because you’re young. You don’t understand that they are challenging how we have lived our lives for many years. Who knows what this could mean? Who knows how people will be affected by this?”
“Well, mom, to be honest we won’t know unless we find out,” she contends. “That’s the reason why we take risks. We don’t take them because they are easy but because they are hard. People take risks because they feel in their heart that it is the right thing to do, no matter who says they are wrong. But if we want to live how we want, we take chances and keep our heads up in the face of criticism for something as strong as love. You took a chance at love mom.”
“Sandra that was a long…”
“Mom, let me finish,” she interrupts. “When you were young, about the same age as May and Kelly, you took a chance at love. You told me that you never regretted falling in love even if dad was killed six months before I was born. You told me, mom, to never take love for granted, but I think that you are doing exactly that because of the people involved. Why, because they’re both girls? Love is blind, mom. It causes us to do things we never thought we’d do. I’m sure when they grew up; Kelly and May did not expect to spend their lives with one another. They never thought that they would find each other but they did, mom. They grew up and Kelly and May realized that they would rather…give up than not be in love. Who can’t stand behind that, mom? Who can’t…who can’t root for that?”
“I’m sorry, but…this goes against everything I’ve ever been taught!”
“So you go by everything grandma and grandpa taught you? You never went against the rules they put in place for you? Am I right?”
“Sandra…”
“No, mom! For Pete’s sake, it’s the year 2010! You really need to grow up and understand that times are changing, or you will get lost!” With these words Sandra walks away from the scene, presumably to go back to her hotel room.
“Sandra, come back here!” Savannah pleads with her daughter. Realizing that Sandra will not come to her, she goes in the same direction as the young teen by turning the corner to another hallway without speaking to May or Kelly in the process.
“What’s got to happen for that to not happen?” Kelly asks as Savannah walks out of her and her fiancée’s eyesight.
“It’s hard to change people, honey,” she answers while wrapping her arms around Kelly’s waist. “I won’t worry about Savannah, though. I’m not even thinking about her right now. Why should I when I have you on my mind 24/7? Now I believe we were about to celebrate our soon to be union. Where do you say we go?”
“Well,” Kelly begins, “you know this doesn’t have to be something big, right? I do remember seeing a stand that had ice cream on Friday afternoon. I don’t know if they’d be out this late, though.”
“If they aren’t, we can find another one out in the city. Now let’s going before it gets too late.”
“I agree. Come on,” Kelly answers as the two of them walk hand in hand towards the elevator and to a possible ice cream cone or banana split with their names on it. With Savannah and her arguably hateful rhetoric behind them, the pair goes to enjoy something sweet after working towards their parent’s acceptance of their engagement with great success.
It is a small reward but they will gladly accept it as they know that the biggest one is coming very soon.
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Not even bothering to open up the door to his room, Max enters to find his older boyfriend laying down on his bed with his eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar. Indeed, Harley spent much of his time away from Max sleeping on the matter and thinking things over while his mother and father gave him all the time he needed to open up about what upset him. The room is contemporarily adorned with a dark blue and beige motif throughout. This includes the bedding, wallpaper and the lamps, three in all, which carry the same pattern in a striped form.
As he stirs from his sleep, Harley opens his eyes and needs to clear them a couple of times by blinking so as not to have his vision blurred any longer. He turns toward the door to see Max standing by the exit. “I thought I told you not to come here, Little Maximus,” he says tiredly.
“And you wonder I don’t listen to you when you tell me to do something.”
“Did my wacko parents even try to stop you?”
“Well, that’s the key word,” answers the trainer as Harley sits up in his bed. “They ‘tried’ meaning that they used their words to convince me that going to you and confronting you would be a bad idea. That **** did not work. I’m ****ing fed up with your parents and their stories…”
“You are? You’re not the one who had to live with them for the first eight years of your life!” he contends. “I’m sure they’ve told you the fake ID story.”
“Hey, let’s not get into that or we’ll dredge up the wonders of jerking off. What I do want to talk about, though, is the kiss.”
“How could you do that, Max?”
“Simple; I didn’t! Kenny forced himself on me. I had no idea he was…interested in guys at all.”
“But you could’ve stopped that before things got really out of hand.”
“I…you’re right,” Max admits. “Damn, you are right. I could’ve stopped, but I didn’t and that is my fault. For whatever reason…I think I wanted to walk on the wild side for a little bit and see what it felt like. I know that when I…flirt with other guys it makes you really jealous.”
“But that wasn’t the case here,” Harley interjects.
“I understand. But you have to believe that Kenny forced himself on me in the bathroom. I didn’t do that to make you jealous or angry, even if I do think that it’s funny when you’re like that and you pitch your fits. Kenny thought I looked like Conway, which made me wonder ‘Why the **** would you want to kiss Conway when you have Zoey’, you know?”
“I thought about that while I was here and…you make a great point. There are times when I could not tell you and him apart.”
“That’s just like I said! It seems like an honest mistake and you blew up over something like that! I might kiss someone but that doesn’t mean that I want to…do the things we do with that person.”
“You make another good point.”
“May I sit down?” After a second Harley agrees to have his boyfriend sit next to him on the bed, which Max does almost immediately. “Let’s talk some facts. Do you remember how we got together?”
“An ice cream sundae. Not the first one, but the one that would come much later,” he answers, smiling at the memory they shared not that long ago. “You just came out to your folks and wanted some advice on dating. To my utter surprise I learned that you called May for some advice on who could help you in sorting out these feelings who then called me.”
“And this was before I knew that she was going through something quite similar with Kelly and her going through the motions of the two of them just becoming girlfriends. You—during Johto, you really started to come out of your shell and not be this…vengeful ******* that my sister and I remember from years back.”
“I hate to sound cliché, but I suppose time heals all wounds,” Harley replies. “Spending time actually getting to know May did us both a lot of good because we learned that we had…a lot in common, you know?”
“You don’t have to apologize for that because you’ve already done that several times. So…you remember that May asked you to show me around the various LGBT hangouts and just open up to the teens there.”
“You said that the scene was nice, but that some of the boys you saw there were more interested in one-nighters and flings or just making out than anything else and a lot of them were also taken, which does nothing but deflate an ego if you strike up a nice conversation with a guy. I told you that it would not be easy and you asked me if I could offer some more help and we sat down for…the second sundae.”
“Well, if I remember correctly, you were single and wanted companionship. You wanted someone that didn’t mind taking charge when needed and had great intellect to navigate the different regions without a problem. I wanted to have an older partner by my side while I battled, as well.”
“We’ve also learned about how we both…wanted to escape from an early age. Both of us wanted to get out of the shadow of our families; with you it was your parents and sister and with me it was just my parents. And then…you bravely told me that you were in love with me. You were fourteen and I was twenty-four at the time.”
“And you were reluctant to do anything given our large difference in age,” Max recalls, “even though I didn’t give a damn about that. But I miraculously got my parent’s approval when I went to them and told them everything about how I felt inside. I don’t know why they said yes and accepted you last year, because they had all the reason to tell me no, but I’m sure glad they did. Because despite what people say, you are not self-centered or polar. In you I see someone a lot like me; someone always looking for more in their life than what they have, which is a hell of a lot. You’re willing to walk away from a life of luxury and hundreds of thousands of dollars and the lavish settings that your parents have built for themselves to live life on your own terms. That speaks to someone’s character more than most actions ever could. Plus you naturally have more experience than I do and I wanted a guide in that regard. I don’t know if we’ll last or not, but I get the feeling we both can learn from one another before this relationship is over.”
“Before it’s over…”
“I don’t want it to end, Harley, don’t get the **** twisted!” Max assures his boyfriend. “I feel like I’ve worked too hard to make it happen so why the hell would I want it to stop? Look, you now know that the kiss Kenny gave me means nothing, right?”
“Yeah, it was a big misunderstanding on my part.”
“Well, I have a feeling it could have remained a big misunderstanding had you not blown up the way you did. You’re a ****ing hothead, Harley, and you know that’s a pet peeve of mine! Had you thought this out with me and considered who kissed me, it never would have come to this! You never would have had to go to your folk’s house and we wouldn’t be here right now in this lover’s disagreement. Have I said anything wrong right now?”
“No, but you aren’t immune to losing your cool either.”
“I never said I wasn’t. Look, we have those things that make us different. Can’t we just focus on what makes us similar…like our love?”
Unconscious maneuvers such as looking off to the side, dipping his head back somewhat and finally shrugging his shoulders lead to Harley leaning into Max and giving him a kiss on the lips, which he holds for longer than a relative’s peck. Once he gets back into his regular posture on his side of the bed, the coordinator hears a question from the other end. “Do you forgive me, hon?”
“Well, like you said, you didn’t do anything and I made a peak out of a valley by running off without really thinking about your side of the story. So I’ll say that I forgive you…and myself.”
“Fantastic!” Max exclaims. “That means we can get the hell out of here at last and I can give Kenny a piece of my mind if he’s in his hotel room.”
“Not before I get a crack at him first, Little Maximus,” a comment that Harley punctuates by cracking his knuckles.
Max does not show the same type of enthusiasm as he rolls his eyes, though that likely had to do with his boyfriend referring to him by pet name. “Let’s just go, man. The sooner I get out of this…place you once called home, the better.” With this said, both partners rise up from their seats on the bed and leave for the exit from Harley’s room back out into the main room of the condo to find Lucy and Brock asleep on the couch while Bo and Campbell enjoy some coffee in their mugs.
Holding back giggles as they watch the Queen of the Battle Pike lay across the former gym leader of Pewter City in an arguably offensive pose with their heads near one another’s crotches, Max suddenly blurts out the words “Wake up, folks!” which shoots the older pair out of their seats and upright faster than a playing of Reveille at 5:30 in the morning.
While the two of them catch their breath and get their bearings back in order, an unlikely observer offers equally unexpected commentary. “Why, Max, I never knew you had it in you,” Campbell remarks, tipping her mug in the direction of the young teen.
“Thanks, Campbell.”
“So everything is all right now, Max?” Lucy questions.
“Yes it is,” Harley answers for his boyfriend. “As soon as the two of us find Kenny and…do bad things to him that I probably should not mention in front of my mom and dad, we’ll be fine.”
“That means we can go?” Brock asks. ‘Please say yes,’ he hopes in his heart of hearts.
“Yes, we can go.”
“Aw, you can’t stay longer, Harley?”
“No, mom. We really need to get ready for tomorrow and get a lot of sleep in when we support May during the Grand Festival.”
“Well, it was nice to have you here with us for as long as you were,” Bo says. “Maybe we’ll stop by the stadium tomorrow and see you or catch you on television, right?”
“Maybe, but I do know that we must get going as soon as we can,” Max answers. “Goodbye Mr. and Mrs. Holloway. It’s been a pleasure as always.”
“Thanks, Max,” they respond.
“It was nice to see you again,” Campbell adds. “Do come back again soon.”
“I’ll think about it,” he concedes as he leaves the doctors’ house with his friends and boyfriend closely in tow. If one were to poll the four young adults, they would find that a feeling of relief is common between the four of them. It is relief that they will no longer have to endure staying another minute inside of the Hammonds Tower penthouse with the good doctors. Sessions with psychiatrists typically last one hour, but less than half of that is more than enough for this makeshift quartet.
The only good thing about the stay is the lack of any particular bill which would have likely sent them to Slateport General Hospital.
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Back at the hotel, coordinators who realize and understand that a good night’s rest on Saturday is the key to success and victory on Sunday are in bed. Unfortunately, not all of these people are sleeping. Such is the case with Marina, who looks through her Pokédex and checks all of the possible Pokémon that she might have to face tomorrow afternoon. Next to her is Jimmy, who watches the Pokémon News Network while dressed in his pajamas and ready for bed. Marina is dressed in her regular garb which she wore during her appeal some hours ago.
“It is now eight o’clock on March the 13th and tonight, here on PNN,” says the anchorwoman on television, “the countdown to the 2010 Hoenn Grand Festival in Slateport City continues. With seventeen hours remaining until the start of the second round and just over two hours or so before appeals at the stadium wrap up, the top sixteen that will compete in Sunday’s single elimination rounds is beginning to come together with May Maple of Petalburg City still in the number one spot with a perfect score of fifty. Though she did not stay for a great length of time in the pressroom after her appeal, she and her personal trainer, Kelly Cruz-Marin, are very excited about their prospects for Sunday.”
“Jimmy, would you please turn that station?”
Looking oddly at his partner to the right of him, he asks, “Why? I think you would want to listen to what May has to say for tomorrow.”
As Marina turns from her Pokédex long enough to get a quick glance of her competition, she is not surprised to see Kelly standing right next to May, just like she did at the stadium. “Could you just turn it, please?” she again asks him, not meaning to raise her voice a bit to get her point across. “I really have to focus on the battling and seeing…”
“Hey, that’s that girl that you saw backstage earlier!” Jimmy comments, interrupting Marina. “Isn’t it? I mean, purple hair, black overalls, that pink ribbon in her hair and a gold chain around her neck. That—that is her! Why is she wincing like that?”
“I told you I don’t know her!” Marina defends while both Kelly and May speak on television. “Can’t we drop this damn thing already? I’m sick of seeing both of them. I’ll take care of May and her little girlfriend tomorrow. For now, I need to concentrate, okay?”
“All right!” he answers, putting his arms up in the air; a sign of his frustration. “I won’t talk about it anymore if that’s what you want and if you’re that hung up about seeing May and Kelly on the television, you’ll be glad to see that they’re no longer on the screen. I just have a question to ask you, that’s all.”
“What is it, Jimmy? Honestly, I told you this before; I don’t know Kelly.”
“But she, apparently, knows you,” Jimmy interjects. “She called you by name and said ‘it’s been a while’, and you’re saying she doesn’t know you?”
“I don’t know her!”
“Okay, but I noticed the last thing you said in that very snide comment you made towards the two of them; you…very arrogantly called Kelly May’s ‘little girlfriend’. What do you mean by that if you hardly know either of them?”
“Look, it’s…isn’t it obvious?” she asks, very flustered. “They’re always together. One is the trainer to the superstar! Come on, it’s a…rehash of almost thirty years ago with Martina Navratilova.”
“Hey that’s not cool, Marina,” he interrupts once more. “They’re just good friends and because you don’t like them, even though you haven’t met either of them, you say this? That’s—that’s not something that you should do, I don’t care what happened.”
“Even if you were in a toxic environment,” Marina suddenly blurts out, “with a bunch of crazies who ruled the roost and had no true standing in the real world that you and I live in? Would that change your opinion on the matter? What if you met a military mother for the first time and one of the first things she shows you is her extensive gun collection? What about a dad who watches documentaries with his daughter on Matthew Shepard and calls it ‘educational programming’? Does that make things easier for you to draw a conclusion on someone or not?”
“Marina, what in the world does that have to do with anything?” he asks, almost yelling to get a word in during his girlfriend’s ranting. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about! Gun collections? Matthew Shepard? I don’t see what this has to do with someone you don’t even know!”
“Look, I just…I just need to take a break. Can you understand that?”
“You took a break when we went up to our skybox, one in the restroom leading to the hotel and now you want another one?”
“Just…can I at least have some fresh air? Can I have that? I feel like everything else I do has to be monitored like a hawk when you keep on harping about someone I don’t ****ing know! So just drop it and let me be!”
“I can’t…I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here,” Jimmy admits. “You want fresh air? You got it.”
Walking directly up into the male’s face, Marina says “Thank you,” and then leaves her hotel room without another word to her boyfriend.
Slumping back down to the foot of the bed, he finds the seat he started with this evening. “I know there’s something going on, Marina,” Jimmy calmly states. “I wish I knew what it was and that you could tell me without feeling the way you do. How else would you blurt out all of that information on a whim? It just doesn’t happen.”
---------
“Are you joking? I mean, is this a joke?”
“Nope. Since you lost the drawing of straws, you have to be our representative for this appeal.”
“And besides, we did not put up five thousand big ones just so we could lose it. So if you’re going to perform you have to do it the right way, Solana.”
“You sons of—I am not wearing this crap!” Solana says as she looks at the clothing that her fellow Rangers have picked out for her. “This is a knee-length black skirt, a long-sleeved white blouse and a red buttoned-down, double-breasted blazer. This isn’t me! Forget about it!”
“Well, you’re not trying to be you,” says her partner, Lunick. “That’s the idea. We Rangers think that there is absolutely nothing to the coordinating game.”
“And we’re here as endorsers of this idea,” adds ranking member Jack Walker. “Perhaps it’s fate, and the fact that there is about three million dollars on the line for the champion, that led us here and by luck of the draw you get to lead us to that change.” Leaning into Solana’s ear, he warns her, “Don’t you let us down, Lana. Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to get a thousand dollars just to put into this pool?”
“You’re saying that, and you took part in the bet?” she replies so that the other team members can hear her.
“Three minutes, Roubanis!”
“Thank you,” Solana calls to the director.
“Don’t worry about the money, Jackie,” assures Spenser, the leader of the Pokémon Ranger group of five who have come to Slateport for the weekend. “I think that even if we don’t get to the second round, we can still get a positive return on our five grand. If not, you can always borrow baby, borrow and hope for the best…or hurt Solana for blowing your dough.”
“Great vote of confidence for me, Spenser,” she replies facetiously.
“I’m just here to help.”
“Two minutes. Solana Roubanis goes on stage in two minutes!” the director announces.
“In any event,” Ranger Kellyn interjects, “I really don’t know of anyone else among us who could go out here and do this. I mean, in a division of training where style is equivalent to substance, a guy just can’t compare. Especially the stock that it takes to become a Ranger.”
“Kellyn, shut up. This whole…sexist deal about how girls are better at coordinating because of their dainty is really getting to me,” says the lone female in the bunch. “I might be in the same boat as you as I don’t see the big deal about it all, but don’t make this into some sort of…war of the sexes. This all seems like glorified training and beauty pageants all rolled into one and remember that we are only doing this because of the money. When Robert interviews me about my appeal and what goes into the planning for it, I’ll just say to hell with all of that and say why I did this and that is because of the money. I’m not planning to start a career in this Wild West show. I have no desire to do anything else in contests or Grand Festivals. I’m just interested in seeing how far I can go in this…coming out of virtually nowhere.”
“One minute to go, Roubanis!”
“You just better make sure that you don’t stink up the house when you go out there,” Jackie begs of his comrade. “I checked the purse payoffs and if you finish in at least the top 150, you can get my damn money back and I won’t have to ring your neck for not being ‘remarkable’.”
“Don’t worry, Jack! This is a piece of cake. I just have Plusle attack for two minutes…string those attacks together in some way and I should place. After that, we just have to wait for our check to come through the mail in a week and we’ll get our even split, just like our contract says.”
“No, I have faith in Solana,” Kellyn admits. “And even if I don’t get my money back from this pool, I can get a bonus from just doing my everyday patrol.”
“I’m not too worried about the money for the same reason,” Lunick announces. “I recently did a bust in Swingtown on the Go-Rock Squad. Spenser, you said that a bonus might be coming my way in a couple of weeks.”
“Yes,” their leader answers, “but unfortunately there are taxes attached to that bonus so you may only see a small chunk of that successful seizure of their Capture Stylers.”
Rolling his eyes after hearing the director say that Solana has fifteen seconds to go before her time, Lunick makes the comment, “Damn it! It never fails. You’re only guaranteed death and taxes in this life. With my luck I might only get five hundred dollars when they’re done taking their piece of the pie.”
“Hey, guys. Let’s not even worry about money right now.”
“Ten seconds, Solana.”
Contenting, the sole female Ranger in this group attempts to pump her teammates up by saying, “I’ll just go out there and give it my best and we’ll celebrate later tonight and tomorrow. Let’s get our hands in here.” Right afterwards, the other four Rangers put their right hands into a center and form a circle. “Rangers on three, ready? One, two, three…”
“Rangers!” they all chant in unison.
“And please get my money back or else!” Jack quickly adds much to the amusement of his male teammates and commander and the aggravation of Solana.
“I need to go now,” she says before trotting past the curtain leading to center stage. As she leaves, her team sees on the backstage television that she gets a good reaction from the evening crowd as she makes the long walk to center stage.
“Let me tell you guys something in confidence,” Lunick adds, “If you three are daring, I’ll bet all of you guys five percent of your cuts in the deal that Solana makes it to the second round. Again, I really don’t think there is anything to this coordinating deal at all and she can pull it off.”
“Are you kidding me?” asks a young teen that the Rangers do not see. When all four gentlemen turn around, they see one of the brightest stars of coordinating, Dawn Berlitz, who looks very cross at the moment. “I don’t work my *** off to hear crap like that from the likes of people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
“Hey, if you don’t believe us just look at Solana,” Kellyn replies. “I know you’re a big star in this form of training, but I don’t see the big deal.”
“You don’t see the big deal? Well stick around for about five or ten minutes and watch a real professional at work when I go out there.” Pointing to the television screen, Dawn adds, “Solana is someone I have a great deal of respect for, but you just can’t learn this trade overnight. I should know.”
“We’ll see about that,” Commander Spenser comments. “I’ve seen Solana grow into her position as a Ranger and her maturity is well beyond her years. Her ability to adapt to different situations has impressed me ever since she began training for her position. Indeed she has not trained for the Grand Festival, but that does not mean she isn’t prepared, which is what most crafts come down to anyway.”
“Fine, just don’t mind me when I start to laugh at the absurdity of this whole stunt she and you are planning if she can’t make it past round one,” Dawn warns the Rangers as they see Solana come to the center of the stage.
---------
A kiss is more than just a kiss for whoever receives one. This is especially the case for baby Damien, who rests calmly in his crib for the evening. For the very first time, he gets a kiss from his father who leans in and does not leave any emotion out of this action.
So as not to wake his son so late in the evening for him, Drew stands upright one more time and smiles in the direction of his creation while Solidad looks on from the doorway. “Good night, Damien,” he says well below a whisper. “Pleasant dreams from now on. Daddy is here for good. I have no other choice but to be here with you and to make sure you have your needs taken care of.”
“You better get some sleep yourself,” Solidad remarks. “You do have a Grand Festival to compete in and it wouldn’t to you any good to oversleep for that.”
“You’re right,” he says, turning to his ex. “We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day.” Walking out of the room to give his son some space, Drew knows that he does have to head back to his hotel to at least gather his items. There also remains the potential matter of running into his ex-girlfriend, though that is not weigh on his mind too much at the moment.
Solidad assures him that he can go, but Drew is still reluctant to do so. He promises to return and after everything that has happened in recent months it is difficult to believe him.
Nevertheless, he gets assurance from the mother of his son that it is okay for him to leave, which he does as quickly as he can so he can get back and not miss another minute.
---------
Your Thoughts?
@CB: Thanks for that lengthy review. I should have said something earlier, but thanks for pointing out the error, saying that Bo and Campbell are weird (that is the way they are written after all), seeing the humor in the Swinging Four's dinner and getting behind Kelly and May's parents giving them their blessing. All I'll say is that there was an accidental double post you made in your reply. Once you get the PM (seeing as you are on the list) I'd like you to just delete one of the two and you'll be fine.
Now it's time to get to important business, chapter number 35! Enjoy as usual!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4127100/35/All_Roads_Lead_to_the_Grand_Festival
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon, a creation of one Satoshi Tajiri, and is produced domestically (in the United States) by Pokemon USA/The Pokemon Company, and internationally by Shogakukan and OLM. I personally own nothing and make nothing by writing this. Please do not flame.
(Chapter 35- War to Settle Scores)
“Mom? Mom, let go of me! I can’t believe you would say things like that to our friends!” Sandra frustratingly speaks. While she asks for this, she also gets away from the grip of Savannah and stands closer to her of age peers, Kelly and May.
“Sandra, what are you doing?” her mother inquires. “Get the hell away from them! Mind my words, Sandra! I know what I’m talking about here. Those two…girls are bad news and if you hang around them you will regret what happens!”
After the warnings from her mother, the daughter begins what amounts to a mini-rant, saying, “First of all, I am not your little girl anymore. You don’t have to shield me from the evil or protect me from things you think are not good for me. I am not as innocent as you might think. To be quite frank with you, I see this happen all the time. This is happening all over in contests and conferences I travel to—it’s happening everywhere! You know your buzz words no longer work mom! People are sick and tired of hiding this and I have to agree with them! What have they done that is so bad?” Pointing to both Kelly and May, she makes it clear to Savannah that, “These people are my friends, mom, and they are going to stay my friends for a long time. The fact that they are in love with each other means nothing to me. Why should I care about what goes on in their bed at night? I just wish them the best, support them and just move on with matters. I worry about me first, mom, and so should you.”
“It’s our lives, Van Hollen,” Kelly adds with some scorn in her words. “You act like Mothers for Pokémon is the moral police of coordinating, but you don’t speak for the rest of those members and I know this for a fact. I’ve taught their children, Savannah, and I have an excellent repertoire with their parents. Will the fact that I am a lesbian change that at all?” Scoffing, she warns the older coordinator, “Don’t you dare tell me that we aren’t role models because that is an out and out lie!”
“You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Sandra, come back here…now!”
“I’m sorry, mom, but no,” she replies. “Usually I agree with what you say, but not this time. You are way off. I never suspected that you would be homophobic.”
“Sandra,” she begins wanting to break down and rationalize her words to her daughter, “don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate gay people, but I do hate the fact that they act like what they do is no big deal. They’re pushing this so-called lifestyle on you and I by making it look normal.”
“I don’t feel like I’m being forced to be around them and even if I did not approve of what they were doing, I can always turn away. That’s how their behavior becomes such a big deal to you mom; you make it one. And…you almost act as if you are scared that if I hugged May or gave Kelly a congratulate kiss for their engagement, that I’ll turn out to be just like them.”
“What—no!” Savannah contends. “That’s ignorant!”
“Oh, really?” May interjects, saying her first words in quite a while. “Thinking that your daughter could likely be turned gay by us is ignorant but the idea of Kelly and me being together is still disgusting? Wow, I don’t believe it. Excellent consistency there with your parenting, Savannah,” she facetiously commends. “There is certainly no double-talk or contradictions in what you are saying.”
“Shut up, May!” Savannah warns, feeling the heat from her coordinating peers. “You don’t know anything about what it takes to raise a child! There are some things that you have to say to children in order to make a point or take a stand. Allowing…kids to run amuck everywhere causes problems! That’s not something you would know about, though, seeing as you can’t have children with Kelly!”
Keeping a steady glance in the face of Savannah’s prodding, May just answers to the detractor before her. “You’re right,” she admits, “but the fact is that there is more to life and living than having children. No matter what happens, what I do here does count here in some way. So you have me on that. It doesn’t matter, though. My mother always taught me that there is more than one way to skin a Skitty. Naturally, Kelly cannot give me a child, but there are treatments we can invest in or we can take part in a little thing called adoption.
“So you see, Savannah, even when you are right, you are still wrong,” May concludes.
“And if I may say my peace on the matter,” Kelly interjects, “I think that my fiancée will make a fantastic mother and her children that we will raise together will be great as well.”
“Oh my—Sandra, did you hear that?” she questions with her voice raised up more than just an octave or two. “Did you just hear that? A girl just said that her fiancée will make a great mother! You can’t tell me that what Kelly just told me is no big deal. Hell, you can’t say that what came out of her mouth is normal!”
“Hey, what the **** does ‘normal’ mean anyway?” Kelly snaps at Sandra’s mother. Before she can get closer to Savannah, May holds her back. Had she been given just a bit more room, she would have given Savannah more than just a piece of her mind. Instead, she can only go so far as her bride to be keeps her tethered close by with a waist lock.
“Kelly, calm down!” May begs of her while keeping the restraint very tight.
“So, I’m not normal, Savannah? Is that what you’re trying to say, *****?”
Gritting her teeth at the remark, Sandra can only conclude in her mind that the truth hurts. Turning to Kelly, who made the aforementioned inquiry, she asks her to settle down so she can make a point without having to make a scene. It takes half a minute or so but the Academy professor does listen to the words of a good friend and calms down for her sake.
“Look, in any other case I would have slapped the taste out of your mouth for calling my mother that word,” Sandra explains, “but I have to agree with you.”
“Sandra!”
“Mom, you’re acting like one right now! I hate to say it, but they make a good point. If you don’t like it, keep your peace and leave them alone!”
“Honey, listen to me. You don’t understand what I’m talking about because you’re young. You don’t understand that they are challenging how we have lived our lives for many years. Who knows what this could mean? Who knows how people will be affected by this?”
“Well, mom, to be honest we won’t know unless we find out,” she contends. “That’s the reason why we take risks. We don’t take them because they are easy but because they are hard. People take risks because they feel in their heart that it is the right thing to do, no matter who says they are wrong. But if we want to live how we want, we take chances and keep our heads up in the face of criticism for something as strong as love. You took a chance at love mom.”
“Sandra that was a long…”
“Mom, let me finish,” she interrupts. “When you were young, about the same age as May and Kelly, you took a chance at love. You told me that you never regretted falling in love even if dad was killed six months before I was born. You told me, mom, to never take love for granted, but I think that you are doing exactly that because of the people involved. Why, because they’re both girls? Love is blind, mom. It causes us to do things we never thought we’d do. I’m sure when they grew up; Kelly and May did not expect to spend their lives with one another. They never thought that they would find each other but they did, mom. They grew up and Kelly and May realized that they would rather…give up than not be in love. Who can’t stand behind that, mom? Who can’t…who can’t root for that?”
“I’m sorry, but…this goes against everything I’ve ever been taught!”
“So you go by everything grandma and grandpa taught you? You never went against the rules they put in place for you? Am I right?”
“Sandra…”
“No, mom! For Pete’s sake, it’s the year 2010! You really need to grow up and understand that times are changing, or you will get lost!” With these words Sandra walks away from the scene, presumably to go back to her hotel room.
“Sandra, come back here!” Savannah pleads with her daughter. Realizing that Sandra will not come to her, she goes in the same direction as the young teen by turning the corner to another hallway without speaking to May or Kelly in the process.
“What’s got to happen for that to not happen?” Kelly asks as Savannah walks out of her and her fiancée’s eyesight.
“It’s hard to change people, honey,” she answers while wrapping her arms around Kelly’s waist. “I won’t worry about Savannah, though. I’m not even thinking about her right now. Why should I when I have you on my mind 24/7? Now I believe we were about to celebrate our soon to be union. Where do you say we go?”
“Well,” Kelly begins, “you know this doesn’t have to be something big, right? I do remember seeing a stand that had ice cream on Friday afternoon. I don’t know if they’d be out this late, though.”
“If they aren’t, we can find another one out in the city. Now let’s going before it gets too late.”
“I agree. Come on,” Kelly answers as the two of them walk hand in hand towards the elevator and to a possible ice cream cone or banana split with their names on it. With Savannah and her arguably hateful rhetoric behind them, the pair goes to enjoy something sweet after working towards their parent’s acceptance of their engagement with great success.
It is a small reward but they will gladly accept it as they know that the biggest one is coming very soon.
---------
Not even bothering to open up the door to his room, Max enters to find his older boyfriend laying down on his bed with his eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar. Indeed, Harley spent much of his time away from Max sleeping on the matter and thinking things over while his mother and father gave him all the time he needed to open up about what upset him. The room is contemporarily adorned with a dark blue and beige motif throughout. This includes the bedding, wallpaper and the lamps, three in all, which carry the same pattern in a striped form.
As he stirs from his sleep, Harley opens his eyes and needs to clear them a couple of times by blinking so as not to have his vision blurred any longer. He turns toward the door to see Max standing by the exit. “I thought I told you not to come here, Little Maximus,” he says tiredly.
“And you wonder I don’t listen to you when you tell me to do something.”
“Did my wacko parents even try to stop you?”
“Well, that’s the key word,” answers the trainer as Harley sits up in his bed. “They ‘tried’ meaning that they used their words to convince me that going to you and confronting you would be a bad idea. That **** did not work. I’m ****ing fed up with your parents and their stories…”
“You are? You’re not the one who had to live with them for the first eight years of your life!” he contends. “I’m sure they’ve told you the fake ID story.”
“Hey, let’s not get into that or we’ll dredge up the wonders of jerking off. What I do want to talk about, though, is the kiss.”
“How could you do that, Max?”
“Simple; I didn’t! Kenny forced himself on me. I had no idea he was…interested in guys at all.”
“But you could’ve stopped that before things got really out of hand.”
“I…you’re right,” Max admits. “Damn, you are right. I could’ve stopped, but I didn’t and that is my fault. For whatever reason…I think I wanted to walk on the wild side for a little bit and see what it felt like. I know that when I…flirt with other guys it makes you really jealous.”
“But that wasn’t the case here,” Harley interjects.
“I understand. But you have to believe that Kenny forced himself on me in the bathroom. I didn’t do that to make you jealous or angry, even if I do think that it’s funny when you’re like that and you pitch your fits. Kenny thought I looked like Conway, which made me wonder ‘Why the **** would you want to kiss Conway when you have Zoey’, you know?”
“I thought about that while I was here and…you make a great point. There are times when I could not tell you and him apart.”
“That’s just like I said! It seems like an honest mistake and you blew up over something like that! I might kiss someone but that doesn’t mean that I want to…do the things we do with that person.”
“You make another good point.”
“May I sit down?” After a second Harley agrees to have his boyfriend sit next to him on the bed, which Max does almost immediately. “Let’s talk some facts. Do you remember how we got together?”
“An ice cream sundae. Not the first one, but the one that would come much later,” he answers, smiling at the memory they shared not that long ago. “You just came out to your folks and wanted some advice on dating. To my utter surprise I learned that you called May for some advice on who could help you in sorting out these feelings who then called me.”
“And this was before I knew that she was going through something quite similar with Kelly and her going through the motions of the two of them just becoming girlfriends. You—during Johto, you really started to come out of your shell and not be this…vengeful ******* that my sister and I remember from years back.”
“I hate to sound cliché, but I suppose time heals all wounds,” Harley replies. “Spending time actually getting to know May did us both a lot of good because we learned that we had…a lot in common, you know?”
“You don’t have to apologize for that because you’ve already done that several times. So…you remember that May asked you to show me around the various LGBT hangouts and just open up to the teens there.”
“You said that the scene was nice, but that some of the boys you saw there were more interested in one-nighters and flings or just making out than anything else and a lot of them were also taken, which does nothing but deflate an ego if you strike up a nice conversation with a guy. I told you that it would not be easy and you asked me if I could offer some more help and we sat down for…the second sundae.”
“Well, if I remember correctly, you were single and wanted companionship. You wanted someone that didn’t mind taking charge when needed and had great intellect to navigate the different regions without a problem. I wanted to have an older partner by my side while I battled, as well.”
“We’ve also learned about how we both…wanted to escape from an early age. Both of us wanted to get out of the shadow of our families; with you it was your parents and sister and with me it was just my parents. And then…you bravely told me that you were in love with me. You were fourteen and I was twenty-four at the time.”
“And you were reluctant to do anything given our large difference in age,” Max recalls, “even though I didn’t give a damn about that. But I miraculously got my parent’s approval when I went to them and told them everything about how I felt inside. I don’t know why they said yes and accepted you last year, because they had all the reason to tell me no, but I’m sure glad they did. Because despite what people say, you are not self-centered or polar. In you I see someone a lot like me; someone always looking for more in their life than what they have, which is a hell of a lot. You’re willing to walk away from a life of luxury and hundreds of thousands of dollars and the lavish settings that your parents have built for themselves to live life on your own terms. That speaks to someone’s character more than most actions ever could. Plus you naturally have more experience than I do and I wanted a guide in that regard. I don’t know if we’ll last or not, but I get the feeling we both can learn from one another before this relationship is over.”
“Before it’s over…”
“I don’t want it to end, Harley, don’t get the **** twisted!” Max assures his boyfriend. “I feel like I’ve worked too hard to make it happen so why the hell would I want it to stop? Look, you now know that the kiss Kenny gave me means nothing, right?”
“Yeah, it was a big misunderstanding on my part.”
“Well, I have a feeling it could have remained a big misunderstanding had you not blown up the way you did. You’re a ****ing hothead, Harley, and you know that’s a pet peeve of mine! Had you thought this out with me and considered who kissed me, it never would have come to this! You never would have had to go to your folk’s house and we wouldn’t be here right now in this lover’s disagreement. Have I said anything wrong right now?”
“No, but you aren’t immune to losing your cool either.”
“I never said I wasn’t. Look, we have those things that make us different. Can’t we just focus on what makes us similar…like our love?”
Unconscious maneuvers such as looking off to the side, dipping his head back somewhat and finally shrugging his shoulders lead to Harley leaning into Max and giving him a kiss on the lips, which he holds for longer than a relative’s peck. Once he gets back into his regular posture on his side of the bed, the coordinator hears a question from the other end. “Do you forgive me, hon?”
“Well, like you said, you didn’t do anything and I made a peak out of a valley by running off without really thinking about your side of the story. So I’ll say that I forgive you…and myself.”
“Fantastic!” Max exclaims. “That means we can get the hell out of here at last and I can give Kenny a piece of my mind if he’s in his hotel room.”
“Not before I get a crack at him first, Little Maximus,” a comment that Harley punctuates by cracking his knuckles.
Max does not show the same type of enthusiasm as he rolls his eyes, though that likely had to do with his boyfriend referring to him by pet name. “Let’s just go, man. The sooner I get out of this…place you once called home, the better.” With this said, both partners rise up from their seats on the bed and leave for the exit from Harley’s room back out into the main room of the condo to find Lucy and Brock asleep on the couch while Bo and Campbell enjoy some coffee in their mugs.
Holding back giggles as they watch the Queen of the Battle Pike lay across the former gym leader of Pewter City in an arguably offensive pose with their heads near one another’s crotches, Max suddenly blurts out the words “Wake up, folks!” which shoots the older pair out of their seats and upright faster than a playing of Reveille at 5:30 in the morning.
While the two of them catch their breath and get their bearings back in order, an unlikely observer offers equally unexpected commentary. “Why, Max, I never knew you had it in you,” Campbell remarks, tipping her mug in the direction of the young teen.
“Thanks, Campbell.”
“So everything is all right now, Max?” Lucy questions.
“Yes it is,” Harley answers for his boyfriend. “As soon as the two of us find Kenny and…do bad things to him that I probably should not mention in front of my mom and dad, we’ll be fine.”
“That means we can go?” Brock asks. ‘Please say yes,’ he hopes in his heart of hearts.
“Yes, we can go.”
“Aw, you can’t stay longer, Harley?”
“No, mom. We really need to get ready for tomorrow and get a lot of sleep in when we support May during the Grand Festival.”
“Well, it was nice to have you here with us for as long as you were,” Bo says. “Maybe we’ll stop by the stadium tomorrow and see you or catch you on television, right?”
“Maybe, but I do know that we must get going as soon as we can,” Max answers. “Goodbye Mr. and Mrs. Holloway. It’s been a pleasure as always.”
“Thanks, Max,” they respond.
“It was nice to see you again,” Campbell adds. “Do come back again soon.”
“I’ll think about it,” he concedes as he leaves the doctors’ house with his friends and boyfriend closely in tow. If one were to poll the four young adults, they would find that a feeling of relief is common between the four of them. It is relief that they will no longer have to endure staying another minute inside of the Hammonds Tower penthouse with the good doctors. Sessions with psychiatrists typically last one hour, but less than half of that is more than enough for this makeshift quartet.
The only good thing about the stay is the lack of any particular bill which would have likely sent them to Slateport General Hospital.
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Back at the hotel, coordinators who realize and understand that a good night’s rest on Saturday is the key to success and victory on Sunday are in bed. Unfortunately, not all of these people are sleeping. Such is the case with Marina, who looks through her Pokédex and checks all of the possible Pokémon that she might have to face tomorrow afternoon. Next to her is Jimmy, who watches the Pokémon News Network while dressed in his pajamas and ready for bed. Marina is dressed in her regular garb which she wore during her appeal some hours ago.
“It is now eight o’clock on March the 13th and tonight, here on PNN,” says the anchorwoman on television, “the countdown to the 2010 Hoenn Grand Festival in Slateport City continues. With seventeen hours remaining until the start of the second round and just over two hours or so before appeals at the stadium wrap up, the top sixteen that will compete in Sunday’s single elimination rounds is beginning to come together with May Maple of Petalburg City still in the number one spot with a perfect score of fifty. Though she did not stay for a great length of time in the pressroom after her appeal, she and her personal trainer, Kelly Cruz-Marin, are very excited about their prospects for Sunday.”
“Jimmy, would you please turn that station?”
Looking oddly at his partner to the right of him, he asks, “Why? I think you would want to listen to what May has to say for tomorrow.”
As Marina turns from her Pokédex long enough to get a quick glance of her competition, she is not surprised to see Kelly standing right next to May, just like she did at the stadium. “Could you just turn it, please?” she again asks him, not meaning to raise her voice a bit to get her point across. “I really have to focus on the battling and seeing…”
“Hey, that’s that girl that you saw backstage earlier!” Jimmy comments, interrupting Marina. “Isn’t it? I mean, purple hair, black overalls, that pink ribbon in her hair and a gold chain around her neck. That—that is her! Why is she wincing like that?”
“I told you I don’t know her!” Marina defends while both Kelly and May speak on television. “Can’t we drop this damn thing already? I’m sick of seeing both of them. I’ll take care of May and her little girlfriend tomorrow. For now, I need to concentrate, okay?”
“All right!” he answers, putting his arms up in the air; a sign of his frustration. “I won’t talk about it anymore if that’s what you want and if you’re that hung up about seeing May and Kelly on the television, you’ll be glad to see that they’re no longer on the screen. I just have a question to ask you, that’s all.”
“What is it, Jimmy? Honestly, I told you this before; I don’t know Kelly.”
“But she, apparently, knows you,” Jimmy interjects. “She called you by name and said ‘it’s been a while’, and you’re saying she doesn’t know you?”
“I don’t know her!”
“Okay, but I noticed the last thing you said in that very snide comment you made towards the two of them; you…very arrogantly called Kelly May’s ‘little girlfriend’. What do you mean by that if you hardly know either of them?”
“Look, it’s…isn’t it obvious?” she asks, very flustered. “They’re always together. One is the trainer to the superstar! Come on, it’s a…rehash of almost thirty years ago with Martina Navratilova.”
“Hey that’s not cool, Marina,” he interrupts once more. “They’re just good friends and because you don’t like them, even though you haven’t met either of them, you say this? That’s—that’s not something that you should do, I don’t care what happened.”
“Even if you were in a toxic environment,” Marina suddenly blurts out, “with a bunch of crazies who ruled the roost and had no true standing in the real world that you and I live in? Would that change your opinion on the matter? What if you met a military mother for the first time and one of the first things she shows you is her extensive gun collection? What about a dad who watches documentaries with his daughter on Matthew Shepard and calls it ‘educational programming’? Does that make things easier for you to draw a conclusion on someone or not?”
“Marina, what in the world does that have to do with anything?” he asks, almost yelling to get a word in during his girlfriend’s ranting. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about! Gun collections? Matthew Shepard? I don’t see what this has to do with someone you don’t even know!”
“Look, I just…I just need to take a break. Can you understand that?”
“You took a break when we went up to our skybox, one in the restroom leading to the hotel and now you want another one?”
“Just…can I at least have some fresh air? Can I have that? I feel like everything else I do has to be monitored like a hawk when you keep on harping about someone I don’t ****ing know! So just drop it and let me be!”
“I can’t…I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here,” Jimmy admits. “You want fresh air? You got it.”
Walking directly up into the male’s face, Marina says “Thank you,” and then leaves her hotel room without another word to her boyfriend.
Slumping back down to the foot of the bed, he finds the seat he started with this evening. “I know there’s something going on, Marina,” Jimmy calmly states. “I wish I knew what it was and that you could tell me without feeling the way you do. How else would you blurt out all of that information on a whim? It just doesn’t happen.”
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“Are you joking? I mean, is this a joke?”
“Nope. Since you lost the drawing of straws, you have to be our representative for this appeal.”
“And besides, we did not put up five thousand big ones just so we could lose it. So if you’re going to perform you have to do it the right way, Solana.”
“You sons of—I am not wearing this crap!” Solana says as she looks at the clothing that her fellow Rangers have picked out for her. “This is a knee-length black skirt, a long-sleeved white blouse and a red buttoned-down, double-breasted blazer. This isn’t me! Forget about it!”
“Well, you’re not trying to be you,” says her partner, Lunick. “That’s the idea. We Rangers think that there is absolutely nothing to the coordinating game.”
“And we’re here as endorsers of this idea,” adds ranking member Jack Walker. “Perhaps it’s fate, and the fact that there is about three million dollars on the line for the champion, that led us here and by luck of the draw you get to lead us to that change.” Leaning into Solana’s ear, he warns her, “Don’t you let us down, Lana. Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to get a thousand dollars just to put into this pool?”
“You’re saying that, and you took part in the bet?” she replies so that the other team members can hear her.
“Three minutes, Roubanis!”
“Thank you,” Solana calls to the director.
“Don’t worry about the money, Jackie,” assures Spenser, the leader of the Pokémon Ranger group of five who have come to Slateport for the weekend. “I think that even if we don’t get to the second round, we can still get a positive return on our five grand. If not, you can always borrow baby, borrow and hope for the best…or hurt Solana for blowing your dough.”
“Great vote of confidence for me, Spenser,” she replies facetiously.
“I’m just here to help.”
“Two minutes. Solana Roubanis goes on stage in two minutes!” the director announces.
“In any event,” Ranger Kellyn interjects, “I really don’t know of anyone else among us who could go out here and do this. I mean, in a division of training where style is equivalent to substance, a guy just can’t compare. Especially the stock that it takes to become a Ranger.”
“Kellyn, shut up. This whole…sexist deal about how girls are better at coordinating because of their dainty is really getting to me,” says the lone female in the bunch. “I might be in the same boat as you as I don’t see the big deal about it all, but don’t make this into some sort of…war of the sexes. This all seems like glorified training and beauty pageants all rolled into one and remember that we are only doing this because of the money. When Robert interviews me about my appeal and what goes into the planning for it, I’ll just say to hell with all of that and say why I did this and that is because of the money. I’m not planning to start a career in this Wild West show. I have no desire to do anything else in contests or Grand Festivals. I’m just interested in seeing how far I can go in this…coming out of virtually nowhere.”
“One minute to go, Roubanis!”
“You just better make sure that you don’t stink up the house when you go out there,” Jackie begs of his comrade. “I checked the purse payoffs and if you finish in at least the top 150, you can get my damn money back and I won’t have to ring your neck for not being ‘remarkable’.”
“Don’t worry, Jack! This is a piece of cake. I just have Plusle attack for two minutes…string those attacks together in some way and I should place. After that, we just have to wait for our check to come through the mail in a week and we’ll get our even split, just like our contract says.”
“No, I have faith in Solana,” Kellyn admits. “And even if I don’t get my money back from this pool, I can get a bonus from just doing my everyday patrol.”
“I’m not too worried about the money for the same reason,” Lunick announces. “I recently did a bust in Swingtown on the Go-Rock Squad. Spenser, you said that a bonus might be coming my way in a couple of weeks.”
“Yes,” their leader answers, “but unfortunately there are taxes attached to that bonus so you may only see a small chunk of that successful seizure of their Capture Stylers.”
Rolling his eyes after hearing the director say that Solana has fifteen seconds to go before her time, Lunick makes the comment, “Damn it! It never fails. You’re only guaranteed death and taxes in this life. With my luck I might only get five hundred dollars when they’re done taking their piece of the pie.”
“Hey, guys. Let’s not even worry about money right now.”
“Ten seconds, Solana.”
Contenting, the sole female Ranger in this group attempts to pump her teammates up by saying, “I’ll just go out there and give it my best and we’ll celebrate later tonight and tomorrow. Let’s get our hands in here.” Right afterwards, the other four Rangers put their right hands into a center and form a circle. “Rangers on three, ready? One, two, three…”
“Rangers!” they all chant in unison.
“And please get my money back or else!” Jack quickly adds much to the amusement of his male teammates and commander and the aggravation of Solana.
“I need to go now,” she says before trotting past the curtain leading to center stage. As she leaves, her team sees on the backstage television that she gets a good reaction from the evening crowd as she makes the long walk to center stage.
“Let me tell you guys something in confidence,” Lunick adds, “If you three are daring, I’ll bet all of you guys five percent of your cuts in the deal that Solana makes it to the second round. Again, I really don’t think there is anything to this coordinating deal at all and she can pull it off.”
“Are you kidding me?” asks a young teen that the Rangers do not see. When all four gentlemen turn around, they see one of the brightest stars of coordinating, Dawn Berlitz, who looks very cross at the moment. “I don’t work my *** off to hear crap like that from the likes of people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
“Hey, if you don’t believe us just look at Solana,” Kellyn replies. “I know you’re a big star in this form of training, but I don’t see the big deal.”
“You don’t see the big deal? Well stick around for about five or ten minutes and watch a real professional at work when I go out there.” Pointing to the television screen, Dawn adds, “Solana is someone I have a great deal of respect for, but you just can’t learn this trade overnight. I should know.”
“We’ll see about that,” Commander Spenser comments. “I’ve seen Solana grow into her position as a Ranger and her maturity is well beyond her years. Her ability to adapt to different situations has impressed me ever since she began training for her position. Indeed she has not trained for the Grand Festival, but that does not mean she isn’t prepared, which is what most crafts come down to anyway.”
“Fine, just don’t mind me when I start to laugh at the absurdity of this whole stunt she and you are planning if she can’t make it past round one,” Dawn warns the Rangers as they see Solana come to the center of the stage.
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A kiss is more than just a kiss for whoever receives one. This is especially the case for baby Damien, who rests calmly in his crib for the evening. For the very first time, he gets a kiss from his father who leans in and does not leave any emotion out of this action.
So as not to wake his son so late in the evening for him, Drew stands upright one more time and smiles in the direction of his creation while Solidad looks on from the doorway. “Good night, Damien,” he says well below a whisper. “Pleasant dreams from now on. Daddy is here for good. I have no other choice but to be here with you and to make sure you have your needs taken care of.”
“You better get some sleep yourself,” Solidad remarks. “You do have a Grand Festival to compete in and it wouldn’t to you any good to oversleep for that.”
“You’re right,” he says, turning to his ex. “We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day.” Walking out of the room to give his son some space, Drew knows that he does have to head back to his hotel to at least gather his items. There also remains the potential matter of running into his ex-girlfriend, though that is not weigh on his mind too much at the moment.
Solidad assures him that he can go, but Drew is still reluctant to do so. He promises to return and after everything that has happened in recent months it is difficult to believe him.
Nevertheless, he gets assurance from the mother of his son that it is okay for him to leave, which he does as quickly as he can so he can get back and not miss another minute.
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Your Thoughts?
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Ello' Rave! Now to the review,
Thank god for Sandra! She did exactly what I hoped she'd do!
Wow, I never had, have, or will have the guts to talk to my mother like that but, it was needed to get through to Savannah. Although it didn't entirly work...
And now, the second third talk in two weeks within your stories.(Zoey and Dawn, and the Maple family in Confession and this one with Max and Harley...)
Although this talk got resolved much faster.
I hope Harley isn't being entirely serious about Kenny... cuz he'd probably kill him for the kiss...
Oh great! Now Jimmy and Marina are fighting, why do I sense another confrontation?
Hm, interesting that you included Solona and the other rangers in this.
*Solona walks back into the room after having a great appeal*
"Why are my fellow rangers dead..?"
*Dawn shrugs and walks off*
This whole Drew part of the story is getting better and better.
Thank god for Sandra! She did exactly what I hoped she'd do!
I never quite understood that metaphor, but I loved how you changed it for a pokemon referance.
Wow, I never had, have, or will have the guts to talk to my mother like that but, it was needed to get through to Savannah. Although it didn't entirly work...
And now, the second third talk in two weeks within your stories.(Zoey and Dawn, and the Maple family in Confession and this one with Max and Harley...)
Although this talk got resolved much faster.
I hope Harley isn't being entirely serious about Kenny... cuz he'd probably kill him for the kiss...
Oh great! Now Jimmy and Marina are fighting, why do I sense another confrontation?
Hm, interesting that you included Solona and the other rangers in this.
*Solona walks back into the room after having a great appeal*
"Why are my fellow rangers dead..?"
*Dawn shrugs and walks off*
This whole Drew part of the story is getting better and better.