You Shine Brighter

Summer Fling

A/N: FYI, this chapter is going to have some content that's more mature. Nothing super graphic or anything, but yeah. Just saying, viewer discretion is advised.

Also it's a little lengthy.

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It had been three weeks since Fall Con. May had stationed herself in Summerland for a while. She wasn't competing in contests, as she was still depressed. All she knew was that she wanted to go somewhere far away from Fall City. And that she needed to avoid Koffing's Koffee like the plague.

Not a single day went by without her thinking about Sam. She missed him so much. She knew that she needed to get her mind off him and start training again, but lacked motivation. What was the point anymore?

Eventually, at the end of her third week there, she received a message saying that her next contest location was going to be there in Summerland.

"Well, I guess that works," she figured. "Guess I might as well compete in this one while it's here."

Summerland was a really chill place. It was relatively peaceful for her and she didn't want to leave. She went to the contest hall to check in, and went to her training session. Her first one in a long time.

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"Wartortle, use surf! Then aim ice beam at the sky!"

The blue turtle shot ice into the air, which was melted by the intense sunlight and came down like sprinkling rain through the light breeze, as Wartortle rode through the sea on a wave.

"Good work, Wartortle. I'm really proud of you, especially after so much time off. You can take a good rest now." She called it back and went into the clocking room.

There was a group of guys in there too, all friends. They were all waiting for the last couple minutes to end. She didn't know any of them and didn't feel like talking to them. Just wasn't in the socializing mood.

The next day, she went to her session and started setting up by the shore. Wartortle was going to use surf to pull her by a rope from behind. She started pumping air into a raft to ride on.

A couple guys there were doing the same.

"How are you, May? That's your name, right?" one of the guys asked.

She had never met this guy before, but recognized him from the clocking room the previous day. He didn't seem like the nicest person then, but now he seemed friendly enough.

"Oh? Yeah, that's me. I'm doing okay... what was your name?"

"I'm Neil. Good to meet you."

The two talked for a while, and he was surprisingly really nice. She genuinely enjoyed talking to him. For the next couple days, they talked and hung out at the beach for some time after their sessions.

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The contest was postponed for a week because a couple of the judges had gotten sick. No extra training was required, so the coordinators had a lot of free time on their hands.

It was Saturday morning. May felt bored. She checked her PokeNav and saw a message from Neil:

"It was fun hanging with you yesterday!"

She replied, "Yeah, I really enjoyed it! I don't know anyone else who would want to spend a whole day just hanging out on the dock."

"Yeah, me neither. The only one I know is a pretty girl named May."