A Tale of Two Rivals

Win, Lose, or Drew!

Two weeks flew by in a flash, and before I even knew it, it was the day of the pokémon contest in Slateport City.

I had registered for the contest a week early, so I was content to stay at my resort hotel and do a little training for myself here and there. But not too much because Roselia was in the best shape she had probably ever been in her life. She barely needed much training for the contest at all.

Of course, I also took the time to watch my competition practice on the beach... if I could even call them my competitors. I had used the term competition lightly when referring to the other contestants in this contest.

All of them were just as hopeful as child-like as that one girl... what's her name? The girl in the red bandana? I had not even seen her all week.

Now it was the day of the contest, and I had not even seen her name on the registration list. It was just minutes before the deadline to enter the Slateport pokémon contest.

Perhaps, she had wised up and left town with her friends, opting against even entering the contest and pokémon coordinating altogether, after all. I chose not to dwell on it, however. I simply went backstage with Roselia where I did some last minute preparations on her, patiently waiting for my turn to show her off on the appeals stage.

I had laughed to myself more than a few times throughout the week while watching others trained their pokémon for this contest. Some of them brought out some fairly decent pokémon, but the majority summoned common folk's pokémon such as Zigzagoons and Seedots. Stun Spores and Growls filled the public beach every day for the last fourteen days.

I could not even believe that this contest was even real, but I learned in my previous year on the contest circuit that this was how things were supposed to be around the beginning. The competition typically started to get serious around the end of the season, when the Grand Festival was near and on approach.

A little while later, I was heading down the hall back to the common room for the coordinators backstage from a bathroom run before the contest began... I would always drink too much coffee in the mornings of my contest days. That was when I heard a few voices coming from a spare locker room with the door wide open.

Boy's voice: Hey, May. May!

Another boy's voice: Hello, May!

What the?

I peeked my head around the door for a brief second, and sure enough, there she was.

May: Huh, what? What's wrong?

Little Kid Wearing Glasses: Are you OK? You look so nervous.

May tried her hardest to convince her friends that she was not nervous.

May: No! No, no, no. I'm not nervous, at all.

But from the sound of it, they did not exactly buy her words of false confidence. It sounded like the tall guy knew better than to believe her, at least. I knew that I certainly did not buy her false confidence. She was completely radiating with anxiety.

Tall Guy: It's understandable. Although you performed with Janet before, this is really the first time you've been on stage all by yourself.

Who was this Janet the tall guy was talking about?

May: I've never been this scared, ever.

Boy in Blue: Stay calm, 'cuz your pokémon feel the way you do.

At least, her friends all seemed to know how she needed to feel in this contest. It was a step in the right direction for her and very good advice to anyone who was lacking in confidence, but I just could not let go of it seeming to me like May needed her friends just to point out that one little fact about coordinating for her.