Sorry for the double-toast but I wrote an omake and figured the notification might be worthwhile.
Omake: Hyphen Not(?)-21B: Not-Oblivious
If May wasn't (or isn't?) too oblivious, her own view of most of Chapter 21 might go something like this:
May wasn't stupid.
Contrary to what Roxanne clearly believed (the pretentious egghead), school and grades weren't everything. For May, they were basically nothing. Changing schools every other year, ending up in a completely different place with a completely different curriculum, had played havoc on the quality of her education. She was always the weird new kid who nobody knew. She had huge gaps in what was supposed to be basic knowledge, and her classmates always thought it was funny. Little bastards.
Slowly shaking off her bad mood, May wandered through Rustboro City. Alone and lost in thought, she finally had the time to really consider all the strangeness that Astra had brought into her life. It was obvious that Astra was hiding something. Something big, maybe, something earth-shattering. Maybe even something that would turn the world on its head if it got out.
It wasn't like May didn't notice the little things.
Little things like the way Astra's voice didn't echo like everyone else's did, no matter where she was or how loud she shouted, even when she wasn't supposedly throwing her voice. Like how ridiculously fucking interested that Steven Stone asshole had been in Astra, and how Astra recoiled under his gaze in particular even before they had the slightest clue how strong he was. Like how Astra had lived with her grandpa and his neighbors in a cave deep in the forest where she'd never even heard of, no, never even conceived of the fundamental concepts of bikes, or elevators, or plumbing, or hotel etiquette, or coffee, or muffins, but knew everything about making a fire and cooking berry soup and sleeping under the stars and all that outdoorsy stuff.
Little things like how Astra learned to play a violin in only a single day. Like how Astra clearly remembered the appearance of a living Armaldo despite no such thing existing for thousands of years. Like how Astra got a massive dizzy spell (and probably a migrane) upon trying to figure out where she'd seen it.
Little things like how Astra wasn't so much surprised by May's tale of Wally on route 102 as she was afraid of it. Like how Astra froze up when the brand-new rare pokemon Ralts was mentioned, but her eyes went distant and dull, as if she was reliving something horrible. Like how Astra tried to dissuade Brendan from looking too much for that rare Pokemon. Like how much Astra had panicked when May had tossed some empty Poke-Balls (and a Super Potion) to her in the slowest, most telegraphed lob in history, all after a verbal warning. "Surprised me a little," my ass!
Little things like how startled Astra was by May's mention of the Psychic type, followed by indignance when May said they were kinda weird. Like how she asked if May had a type (which was still absolutely hilarious). Like how horrified and upset Astra was at the talk of the giant Mightyena... the truck-sized Dark-type hellhound that could have effortlessly slaughtered almost any Psychic-type in the forest. Like how even the mention of any member of that line made Astra nervous. Like how Poochyena had been unexpectedly hostile to Astra at first, and even now just ignored her most of the time.
Little things like how Astra had let slip that her grandpa couldn't just walk into a store and buy something, then immediately tried to distract May with a race (and succeeded, damn my competitive streak). Like how Astra honestly, really and truly thought that human babies came from eggs, like Pokemon babies.
Little things like how Astra had panicked almost immediately after obtaining her first Badge, and had hidden in the bathroom for half of May's fight. Like the way May had tried to clap Astra on the shoulder as they left the Rustboro Gym and her hand came down around something solid several inches above where Astra's shoulder appeared to be (which had never happened before). Like the way Astra had panicked and shoved her hand off and hoped she hadn't noticed. Like the way Astra seemingly began growing rapidly, at least an inch just while she was in the bathroom, and would presumably keep growing rapidly until she levelled off at the correct height.
May noticed all of these little things, and many more besides. She was, as she told Astra, good at sniffing out bullshit, and Astra was full of it.
May just didn't really care that much.
Astra was her friend. One of the only two friends she had in the world now, after her dad had decided to move "one last time" that likely wouldn't be the last time after all. She wouldn't put it past him to un-retire and try to throw away her entire life again even when he said he wouldn't, but May was a trainer now. She could live on her own now. She wasn't leaving Brendan and Astra. Not now and not ever.
It had hurt, that first evening, when Astra didn't trust May enough to stop covering up completely around her. Those towels were obviously not comfortable. It shouldn't have hurt — it made sense, they'd only known each other for a few hours — but it still hurt, because they were friends. May had said she wouldn't look at Astra differently, and Astra didn't trust her; a little albinism wasn't that big of a deal between friends, right? But maybe Astra had friends before who said that and then reacted poorly. Or, she couldn't help but think now, maybe it was something more than a little albinism. Something like having green hair and big red eyes and not much of a nose and skin so pale it was white. Like a rare Pokemon.
May didn't really care enough about the reasons to try to dig up the secret in its entirety, so she hadn't actually put things together on purpose, content to ignore the problem and pretend it didn't exist if it wasn't staring her right in the face. She'd rather just think of Astra as her weird friend. It hadn't been until several hours into her walk, dredging through memories and trying to sort out what had happened in her life in what regions and when, that everything suddenly came together. One of Unova's most sought-after rare Pokemon (that her dad had ranted about losing to) was called Zorua: an illusionist Pokemon that could disguise itself as anything, even a human, and (though she wasn't sure she was remembering correctly) might even be able to talk like one. Its evolution, whatever it was called, was even more accomplished.
Everything fell into place all at once. It all made perfect sense, too much sense, and May couldn't keep herself from thinking about it now that she had nothing else going on to grab her attention. She began mumbling a steady stream of swears as she failed to repress it.
Astra was a Pokemon.
A Pokemon. A Ralts, or presumably whatever that evolved into. Something that could be caught in a ball and carried around on her belt. An animal.
...Well, humans are kind of animals too, right? She thought she remembered a science class saying something like that at some point... probably. In Kalos, maybe? So, really, they weren't that different.
Right?
...
Yeah. Astra was her friend, first and foremost.
A Pokemon.
...
Her friend.
Her Pokemon friend.
...
Whatever. She was still Astra. Still her friend. It didn't really matter. It shouldn't.
Well, sorta. It was kind of a big deal... but... only because it meant May would need to pay more attention to some possible problems, right? Well, she didn't have to, but what kind of shitty friend would she be if she didn't look out for Astra? Yeah, they pissed each other off sometimes, they were both a bit weird, but nothing was perfect. Shit, should I tell Brendan? What if he tells his dad? Would Birch try to catch her? Or should I let Brendan figure it out himself, and risk him freaking out on Astra in person? Dammit! She resolved to not touch that until it looked like it was a certainty. Maybe it wouldn't happen and she wouldn't have to deal with it.
When May really thought about what happened after Astra's battle match with Roxanne, really stopped and thought about it, she realized what had probably happened. May had been hurt, at first, by Astra's absence, that total lack of the Pokemon her friend in the audience to cheer her on in the first half of the match. But Astra had returned and eagerly made up for lost time, so May had let it go as the intestinal distress she claimed it was.
Astra must have evolved, she realized now. Evolved in a bathroom stall, in a gym where she was surrounded by people who had just seen her in an absolutely riveting battle and were expecting her to come out of that bathroom looking about the same as she did when she went in. Can Pokemon evolve just from watching battles? From just giving orders? It didn't really matter.
Astra had been a bit more nervous since getting back from the bathroom, so she obviously knew she was taking a huge risk by coming back. She'd bumped her apparent height up an inch or two sometime in there as well, and that was a risk, too. If Astra grew too fast, people (like May) might start asking pointed questions.
If May had been in that situation... if May had been a Pokemon illusionist whose disguise no longer matched her body, she might have panicked. She might have run away. She might have left behind everything she cared about (again) and tried to start over. She might have abandoned her friends.
Astra didn't run. Astra didn't abandon her.
May needed time to process all of this, to come to terms with Astra's secret (she's a Pokemon), but May wouldn't abandon Astra. She couldn't. They'd known each other for less than a week, but it already felt more like a year or two. It was an odd friendship, but deep down inside, in some long-forgotten cobweb-filled corner of her soul that she would never admit existed, May knew they needed each other.
Astra needed May to help her with those parts of city life and human life that she wouldn't have any way to know about (but May was not going to give her Pokemon friend The Talk, for that way lay only trauma. Brendan could fucking deal with it). May needed Astra to help her get by in the wild, making fires and camping out and cooking soup and... well, maybe not keeping clean, Astra sucked at that of course, but everything else. It was a practical need, she might rationalize.
But even deeper in that forsaken corner of her soul, May knew she needed someone who wouldn't abandon her. Someone who wouldn't disappear and never return when something went wrong. Someone who would still be her friend, even if it was risky and not always very fun. And May knew that Astra needed someone, anyone, to lean on and seek comfort from. May wasn't the touchy-feely type, hadn't been for a long time, but Astra kind of seemed to be. May could maybe learn to tolerate that for Astra's sake.
So abandoning her Pokemon friend wasn't an option. There. She didn't really need to think about it much. She could just keep going as she had been and everything would be fine.
Still wandering aimlessly around the city, May had only just started to wonder what to do if Astra started talking about her secret, when suddenly the sky cracked open.
May wasn't sure how long the explosion of ruinous energy lasted. It was a hell of a light show, a pillar reaching clear through the sky, but it just felt wrong on some fundamental level. The way it left a sickly patch of yellow in the blue skies visible through the missing clouds... it was like a scar in the world itself.
When it began, she'd almost immediately started running, not away from it, but towards it, shoving her way through the crowds of gawkers that emerged out of nowhere into the streets in a panic, dodging cars that were drifting to a stop. She slowed down, though, when she really got a good look at the energy and the scar it left behind. Doesn't really look Psychic-type... maybe it's Dark? Maybe Ghost? Yeah, there's no way Astra made that when she was trying out new Evolution moves... right?
Even as the crowds thickened in the streets, she pressed on, her body on autopilot as her mind ran through possibilities, all efforts at repressing her conclusions abandoned in the heat of the moment. Astra was afraid of Dark-types... well, of Poochyena and Mightyena, they were basically the only common Dark-types in the forest. Astra wouldn't be afraid of Dark-types if her neighbors or her grandpa could defend against them, right? Astra's grandpa told her lots of stories, therefore he had to be experienced and wise, therefore he had to be at least one stage evolved, since one badge was apparently enough experience to do that for Astra. He would have told Astra that they'd get less scary someday if he could stop them, therefore Astra getting a secondary Dark-type upon evolving was ludicrous and bore no further thinking about. She's too nice for that anyway.
The crowd in the streets was so thick it was getting harder and harder to force her way through it, sirens blaring as panic took hold of the unthinking masses. Vehicles stalled and stopped every which way on the roads and in some cases even ended up on the sidewalks. Idiots.
What about a secondary Ghost-type? Psychic is weak to Ghost? I think? But... well... Astra being a Ghost-type didn't seem right either. Ghosts like pranks, right? Astra's too nice. Again. Yeah, May didn't think Astra could ever be the boogeyman that went bump in the night. Oh, she had the potential, but she wasn't keen on using it much. She only pranked May with it because May was prying, probably.
Moves were the strongest when used by a Pokemon of the same type, and that looked like a really insanely powerful Dark-type or Ghost-type move, therefore, it must have been used by a Dark-type or a Ghost-type. Astra probably wasn't Dark-type or Ghost-type, therefore, Astra probably didn't cause that explosion. Bam. Logic. So calm the fuck down. And go back to ignoring the thought that Astra was a Pokemon.
...She's probably scared shitless of this. May started picking up the pace at which she shoved through the chaotic throngs of people freaking out in the streets. I told her I'd see her at the hotel, so if she's freaking out, that's where she'll go to find me. Probably. I hope. If Astra wasn't there, May wasn't sure where she'd even begin to look.
The crowd continued to hinder her progress as various first responders tried to get the unruly masses out of the way of their vehicles. Astra doesn't want to be touched, since that'll mess up her size illusion if someone notices. She might be hiding somewhere. There were too many hiding places, though, and there was no way May could search them all in any reasonable span of time. Hotel it is!
It took May almost a half-hour to finally get back to the hotel, a half-hour of pushing, jostling, shoving, and generally forcing her way through the crowds of people who were still too busy completely losing their shit to do anything but get in the way. Still mumbling curses to herself at their idiocy, May fumbled her keys for a few moments and shoved open the door.
Her heart leapt into her throat, unbidden. Panic immediately set in again as the first thing she processed about the room was that she didn't see Astra. "Fuck fuck where-"
Her words cut off as she saw the lump under the bed. That's her, right? It fucking better be her. Does she know I'm here? Dammit! Don't panic, May Astra, don't panic. It's her. It's gotta be her. Even so, she could feel the doubt creeping in as she walked over and the lump didn't move.
At the last moment, she hesitated, steeling herself for possible disappointment or shock. Just in case. Because it has to be her. It has to be. May pulled the sheets up from the pillow-side end of the lump.
Oh thank Arceus, "There you are," May breathed out, letting go of half of her panicked tension even as Astra buried her face deeper in a pillow. The fact that Astra was obviously not happy kept the other half of it around.
No response. Uh... shit. "You okay?"
The sniffle she got in response told her that the answer was no. Fuck.
"Right." Guess I'm winging it. "It was the, uh, giant explosion thing, yeah? Lot of people getting worked up over it, and all. Kind of a crazy lightshow, from where I was. Heh. Um." I'm so bad at this.
She wasn't close enough to get hurt... I think? Better check. "You weren't anywhere near that, right?"
The way Astra huffed into the pillow was either a good sign, or a really, really bad one. Could she have caused it after all? No, nonononono, even if maybe she did, not touching that. It doesn't matter. Not touching it.
Astra finally found where her words went, speaking with her face still stuffed in the pillow. "It was scary. It was really scary..."
Some traitorous part of May's mind pointed out the total lack of muffle in the voice, but she ignored it, instead sighing in resignation as her shoulders slumped. "Yeah. Yeah it was, wasn't it?"
Her fault or not, it was totally Dark or Ghost type. It scared the hell out of her either way. Doesn't matter. Not touching that. Fuck... winging it! Steeling herself against the nervous awkwardness, she climbed onto the bed and pulled herself under the covers next to her Pokemon friend.
She looks like shit. Giving what she really hoped was a reassuring smile as their eyes met, May tried to find the right thing to say. "Hey. Got room in here for one more?" Internally, she cursed her awkwardness. It's a bit late to ask permi-
"Woah—hey!" May yelped, reflexively leaning away and tensing up, frozen, as Astra suddenly began using her instead of the pillow for wrapping around and sobbing into. She's shaking so much. "Erk..."
Slowly, May forced herself to acknowledge and recognize that nothing bad was happening to her... that Astra was her friend and wouldn't abandon her... that it was okay to let Astra get close. That was what Astra needed right now. To be close to someone. And right now I'm the only one she has. Astra wouldn't abandon her, and she wouldn't abandon Astra. One arm was in a really awkward spot, but as May hesitantly kind-of relaxed, she brought her other arm up around Astra, patting her on the back like parents who weren't Dad usually did when they tried to comfort their kids. Still, the silence was awkward. What did people say in these situations?
"Um. There, there?" Nailed it. Pffff, yeah, right... dammit.
Astra snorted as she finally started to release her death-grip on May. Maybe May hadn't been meant to hear Astra's mutter, but no other sounds reached them here. There was nothing else to hear. "You're really bad at this."
"Oh, well fuck you too," May muttered back without really thinking. Dammit, Astra! Dammit, me!
Astra laughed.
...okay, that works, I'll take it. Mission accomplished!
Astra still didn't let go entirely, but the silence was more comfortable this time, now that May wasn't desperately searching for whatever she needed to say to make things better.
Astra finally spoke again. "I'm sorry."
Internally, May noped right out of that. Oh no, we are not doing that feelings crap now. Out loud, though, she said, "It's fine. Big fuckoff explosion blows up a quarter of the forest outside town, anyone'd be scared. Though, uh." Can we think about something else now? "It's kind of boring in here. If you want, we could order a movie or something." As the smell of dirty Pokemon Astra belatedly reached her nose, she amended her statement. "Maybe after a shower."
"A movie?" Astra tilted her head in that quizzical way that many animals (including humans) did when they were puzzled.
"Yeah!" May felt a little bit defensive, but internally told herself off as she forced the feeling away. She's just wondering which movie, May, she doesn't think it's a dumb idea. Calm the fuck down and explain. "A new Datney one came out recently, and I was kind of interested. It's called Treasure Galaxy, and it's about—"
"No, no, I mean, what's a movie?"
May opened her mouth to respond incredulously before she remembered that Astra grew up in the wild as a Pokemon. How the fuck do I even begin to explain this? Fuck it, she'll understand when she sees it. But she doesn't now, and that means she's never seen... May felt her eyes narrow as she declared her inner thoughts out loud. "Tomorrow I am going to rent the entire King of the Amulet trilogy and we are going to binge the fuck out of it."
Astra still sounded confused. "Okay?" She'll like 'em. Hard to beat the classics.
"Go take a shower, I'll figure the movie out."
While Astra got up and headed into the bathroom and started taking a shower, May ordered the movie and mentally prepared herself for Astra to come out wrapped up in most of the towels again. We really gotta get you another cloak, Astra. Fuck, did she not have enough money for a new one in any of the shops we walked by? Her traitorous imagination briefly entertained the idea of trying to get Astra to not wrap herself up completely tonight, to relax more around May, but thankfully the rest of her brain shot that down. Hell no. Act like it's not there, May. It's not there. There's nothing wrong with her.
She's weird, but she's your friend.
She's Astra.
Nothing else matters.
