An Invitation

Em and May sat comfortably in the lobby of the Rustboro Pokemon center, waiting for their pokemon to be healed from their long day of battles. Em lounged in a bean bag chair, with May resting her legs across his lap as she lounged in a different bean bag chair. She had pulled out a Nintendo DS and was tapping away at some game. He booted up his pokedex and looked for a good third pokemon for his team.

I’ve got Fire/Fighting, and Grass/Fighting… I need something to counter fighting’s weaknesses, preferably also water? But then again, getting a water fighting type would start to give me a theme. Fairy, Flying, and Psychic are super effective against Fighting, which both of my pokemon will have as their dual type once they’re fully evolved. Fairy is weak to Poison and Steel; Flying is weak to Electric, Ice, and Rock; and Psychic is weak to Bug, Dark, and Ghost. None of those overlap… But I guess if I want to run with the whole Fighting Type Trainer gag, I can look for a Croagunk to counter Fairy Type Trainers, either a Scraggy or Pancham to counter Psychic Type Trainers; and I guess just any Electric Type will do to counter Flying Type Trainers. The only Ice Fighting pokemon I can find in the pokedex evolves in such a specific way that it’d take way too much effort for me to train one here in Hoenn, and the only Rock Fighting pokemon I can find in the pokedex is a Unovan Mythical. There haven’t been any Electric Fighting types discovered yet, or at least, if they have been discovered they haven’t been reported to a Pokemon Profe- hm?

There was a young girl staring very intently at Em as he researched the best team he could realistically and competitively make. She looked to be about Ruby’s age, just starting out on her journey. When she noticed him looking back, her face broke into a goofy grin as she waved. Em gave her a slight smile and wave in response. She walked closer and struck up a conversation.

“Are you on your pokemon journey?”

Em nodded.

“Awesome! I just turned eighteen last week, so I’m just about ready to go on mine too… Roxanne was such an inspiration in our battle! A-and after…” The gushing girl fell silent and blushed a bit. Em smiled and nodded at her encouragingly.

“My name’s Georgia! What’s yours?”

“His name’s Em, and mine’s May!” came a cheery response as the self-introduced girl in question swung her legs out of Em’s lap to get up and greet Georgia with a handshake.

“O-oh! Hi!” Georgia’s goofy grin made a reappearance as she shook May’s hand. May gestured to the recently vacated bean bag chair invitingly. As Georgia sat in the chair, May sat in Em’s lap.

“Are you two on your journeys together?” Georgia asked tentatively, touching the tips of her index fingers together.

“Yup!” May answered immediately, casually draping an arm around Em’s shoulders.

“That’s so cool! Just like in the slice of life anime’s, a group of friends traveling their region and befriending local pokemon, maybe challenging gyms or participating in contests. That’s exactly what I want with my journey.” Georgia looked off into the distance dreamily for a few seconds before seemingly snapping back to focus.

“B-but! That’s not why I’m here! Uh, so like, well…” Georgia seemed to shrink further into the seat the longer she talked.

“Is something wrong, Georgia?” May asked.

“No! No, no. Nothing’s wrong, I’m just nervous, it’s my first time delivering an invitation.”

“Oh! An invitation? From who? For who? Is it for Em?” Georgia bounced back into her goofy enthusiasm as May radiated her warm cheeriness, and nodded.

“Roxanne heard that Nora’s son was starting his pokemon journey, and since Rustboro is the most beginner friendly gym, she wanted to… ah… well um… she wanted to make sure he started his gym badge collection with the Stone Badge! Y-yeah, that’s sorta what she said, ahaha…”

May leaned in close to Em’s ear to whisper conspiratorially. “Roxanne is notorious for taking trainer’s first times. They call her the Rock-Loving Honors Student.” Her voice dropped into a deeper, more sultry, tone. “She loves making her opponents hard as a rock before teaching them how it’s done.”

Em wasn’t sure how to feel about… anything May had done in the past few minutes, but before he could think too hard about it she hopped out of his lap and let out a burst of bubbly laughter.

“Em accepts Roxanne’s invitation!”

“May, wai-”

“Awesome!” Georgia cut Em’s protest off with her own joyous exclamation before practically sprinting out of the Pokemon Center, presumably to deliver Em’s challenge to Roxanne as soon as possible.