A Tale of Two Rivals

Attack of the Masked Coordinator Part I

People knew who I, Drew Hayden, was from all over the Hoenn region's contest circuit.

People who knew who I was were in almost every town I had gone to throughout my travels around the Hoenn region. I had to encounter at least ten or more people who would stop and want to talk to me. It was an occupational hazard I had come to expect as a highly respected and well-known coordinator. My success in the contests I had entered had given me so much notoriety that when people; who by the way, I had no clue as to who they were; would rush up to meet with me without so much as a fair warning. I've never really been all that surprised by it because I knew of my reputation. It had certainly made for some awkward moments on my part.

My fame did precede me, however, as I had to deal a lot with a few or more fans every now and again whether or not I actually wanted to deal with even just one of them. They would ask me about contests, ask me for an autograph, even for advice on how to handle their first ever contest. There were even times on certain occasions when someone or other would actually get brave enough to ask me for a battle, either because they had actually managed to think that they could beat me or simply because they had even just wanted to see my pokémon firsthand. I had always politely declined such a thing just before turning away and choosing to simply ignore the person. I was never rude about it. I just had no desire to push my pokémon into a battle in which we had no need to fight. Nor did I really want any of the paparazzi recording me any more than they already did on a near daily basis. It had always been the one grievance I had against the coordinator's lifestyle which I had chosen for my life choice.

Denials and polite dismissals; those were the two ways I handled every last one of those types of situations whenever they arose. The only true exception to that policy of mine was this one time when I had been on my way to Verdanturf Town and at the small canyon just outside of the town's limits.

I had been practicing with Roselia on just nailing her Magical Leaf attack. I had arrived just a few days before the Verdanturf Pokémon Contest. If we could have mastered the steering direction of that Magical Leaf of Roselia's, I knew that she and I could pull off some new combinations that could score us some seriously huge points.

We had been working hard all morning. We were in the shadow of an abandoned hotel at the base of the small canyon just on the outskirts of Verdanturf Town that was clearly hardly ever visited. There was a seemingly endless number of old debris everywhere as far as my eyes could see. From trashed cars to useless steam beams, everything was past even its expiration dates. There was not one soul in sight the whole place over. Granted, however, that there was some graffiti in certain areas around the canyon which definitely hinted that some teenagers more than likely hung out there occasionally. They probably hung out there under the dark cloak of the night, though.

For the time being during then, however, it was bright, sunny, still and silent. All in all, I could easily say that Roselia and I had found our practice space at the time. After a long while of solid practice, I could easily say that that fourth ribbon was as good as ours with the way her Magical Leaf attack had suddenly started to look. It would have been such a tremendous relief after falling short of that goal of mine in the Fallarbor Pokémon Contest just last month.

We were just arriving at enough of a stopping point just in time for a break when I had suddenly become aware of someone watching us. When I stood up and turned around, I found some guy, standing at just about my height, all decked out in a suit, a top hat and a Dusclops mask. I did not even know what to think of him. I barely even knew whether I should have spoken to him first or merely stay on the defensive. It might not have happened to me before then, but it was not as though similar things had never happened to me.

Of course, I was not afraid of him or anything of the sort. I was just cautious in case he had something sinister planned. Roselia seemed to give off the same kind of vibe that I did.