May's Crush

Chapter 12:Corruption

"Oh, are you the Gym Leader here?" Harley came out of the shadows and asked Misty.

"Why yes I am." She smiled at him, asking, "How can I help you?"

"Well, I was just walking by, but did I hear you sending that girl off to find the boy you were talking to earlier?" Harley asked her innocently.

"Yeah," Misty said unconcerned, "he asked me to tell her when she got back. Why?"

"I thought I heard a rumor that you had a crush on a boy who was a wandering trainer with a Pikachu…" Harley smiled devilishly.

Misty blushed. She put her hands to her face, turning from Harley. "Well…" she started, smiling feverishly.

Perfect… Harley thought, I'll just make Misty jealous and turn her against May! I'll ruin her by making her friends her enemies! Harley's Perfect Revenge!

"…I used to," Misty finished.

Harley's mouth dropped like a sack of bricks. What? But… but my Perfect Revenge…

"I'll tell you the story, but you've gotta promise to keep it under your hat, okay?" Misty winked at him. Harley nodded, hoping that during the story he could come up with a new way to attack May.

"It all started a long time ago…" Misty reminisced. "I got in a fight with my sisters and told them that I would come back and become the Gym Leader. I was so young then, and I didn't know what I was getting in to." She told him about how she rode her bike as far from Cerulean as she could go. She sat down near a river between Viridian and Pallet and began to fish. "'If I was going to become a Water Pokémon Master, then I've gotta catch more Pokémon,' I thought to myself," she recounted the story to Harley, "but I never thought that I would catch what I did that day." Misty told him how she fished up a young boy, cradling an injured Pikachu in his arms. He asked her where he could go to help his Pokémon, and she pointed him in the direction of the Pokémon Center in Viridian. He then stole her bike and rode off into the distance with it. "I'd later find that it was almost entirely destroyed by Pikachu's Thunderbolt," Misty recounted humorously. She would then journey to the Pokémon Center in Viridian City to confront the boy who took her bike. When she arrived, she found a distraught boy, waiting for any word that his new friend would be okay. While she did tell him off, Misty would later ally herself with the boy against a Team Rocket attack on the center. She told herself that she would journey with the boy until he repaid her for her bike. "Of course, that's what I told myself." She said to Harley, pouring him a cup of tea. She took a sip from her own cup and continued her story. "The more I followed him, though, the more I became his friend, and the less I actually wanted to get my bike back. I learned a lot about Pokémon with him, and actually caught most of my Pokémon while I was with him. I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I guess I started to feel different about him. I liked him in a different way. The way he would command in battle. The way he loved his Pokémon. I started to notice these things more and notice the annoying things he did less. I thought I would be able to mindlessly follow my crush forever."

"But then it happened. I got a call from my sisters shortly after Ash had finished competing in the Johto League. They told me to come back to the Gym and watch it while they went on a trip. I initially refused, citing Ash's debt to me of one bike as my reason. The Nurse Joy of the Viridian Center, however, had repaired my bike while I went on a journey with Ash and his friends. I gave him my handkerchief to remember me by, hoping he would understand the significance of my gift and how I felt about him. When he left for Hoenn, I didn't hear from him as often. And while I was the Gym Leader, I know I've become a better trainer. I've gotten a lot closer to my dream here than I would have if I had kept hanging on Ash's curtails. I guess I started to take the lessons Ash had taught everyone he met during his journey to heart during this time. I knew that if I loved him, I wouldn't mind letting him go for a while. And if I didn't, then my crush would fade eventually."