A Tale of Two Rivals

Readjusting to My Hotel Room

It was freezing in my hotel room, which was why I was glad to have my hot beverage in my hands. I casually took a few sips of my drink and just let the warmth completely seep into my bones.

Atop all of that, I was extra happy to finally be able to talk to Soledad in the comfortable space of my own hotel room, and not just in some random hotel lobby where I could be heard by practically anyone at any given time. My pokémon were getting in some time for extra a few checkups at the pokémon center. I was especially focused on making sure my Roselia was doing alright after that one battle against Grace and her Medicham in the contest earlier that day. The point of it all was that my pokémon were not asleep in my hotel room this time and that I could openly talk to Soledad about our contests and not have to worry about disturbing my pokémon while they were all sleeping. Making my pokémon stay overnight in the pokémon center had also provided me with a rare opportunity to talk freely to Soledad from within my hotel room; though that part was just an added bonus.

After the Fallarbor Contest and every single conflicting thought I had faced, I felt like I definitely needed some wisdom which I firmly believed that only my friend/older-sister-figure, Soledad, could give me in light of the whole day's events.

Our conversation started out in the usual format; Soledad got things going until I would have finally eased into the conversation and began talking of my own accord. This time, however, we had a lot more to catch up on with our conversation. We had hardly even gotten the chance to speak to one another in just over two weeks. It was a hard two weeks as I spent the time training my pokémon and Soledad still had a bit of her time in Sinnoh left before she headed back to Kanto to take on the contest circuit there. Long story short, we were both completely clueless as to what had gone on in the other's life for the past fourteen days, give or take a few hours.

Soledad kept going on and on about a kid back in Pewter City who had hopes of becoming a coordinator just like her and had asked her to help him train. She had gotten back from Sinnoh just a few days ago from her travels not long after winning her fifth ribbon, just as she promised she would. She had left for Kanto within just five months of when their Grand Festival was supposed to be held.

Naturally, it started a media frenzy with the press for 'Sinnoh Now', along with 'Coordinator's Weekly' magazine. The article inside was headlined...

'Coordinator's Weekly' magazine headline: Well-known Kantonian coordinator, Soledad of Pewter City, backs out of Sinnoh Contest Circuit just a whole five months before the Sinnoh Grand Festival. Where in the region the Sinnoh Grand Festival will be held, undecided. We will miss you, well-known Kantonian coordinator Soledad of Pewter City.

It was just another one of many similar headlines and featured news stories from the various contest circuit magazines which I had seen. I had stopped counting just how many similar articles there were in the magazines, the newspaper, on television after the fifth or so cover on such a story. I never really even liked reading those magazines, anyway.

I could never even tolerate the stuff the press would put in there about me, much less like it in any possible way. The things in those magazines the editors wrote about me always sounded to me as though a stalker had told the media about them. I always found it quite disturbing. It also always managed to make me feel pretty uneasy.

Soledad was no top-coordinator, but she was well-known throughout Hoenn, Kanto, Sinnoh and Jhoto, basically every region where the contest circuit existed. She had always breezed through all of her contests and contest seasons with hers and her pokémon's natural power and elegance. My elder-sister-figure even made it to the top four in her first ever Grand Festival. She was a nobody when she first started out. By the end of her first ever season, however, her name could be heard within any and every contest hall's locker room by the nervous and envious whispers of other contestants.