Chapter 324: Emotional Crisis
A few days later, a plane flying from Slateport City to Petalburg City touched down at the airport. Ryan and Lillie stepped off the plane, and Ryan stretched his arms above his head with a groan. "Finally. That felt like forever."
Lillie gave him a tired look. "You ride Kyuryu everywhere. Of course a commercial flight feels slow by comparison."
Ryan scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grin. She wasn't wrong. Whether it had been White Kyurem before or Kyuryu now, once you got used to covering entire regions in under an hour at altitude, everything else felt like standing still. It was like the difference between driving a car and being launched from a cannon — except the cannon was alive, scaled like a building, and seemed to enjoy going faster than aerodynamics had any right to allow. Ryan had never particularly been afraid of heights,
but the first time Kyuryu had hit full speed at thirty thousand feet with nothing between him and the ground, something in his brain had simply recalibrated what "fast" meant. He wasn't going back.
Lillie, reading his expression with the precision of someone who had watched him make that face approximately a hundred times, sighed and let it go. "So — Hoenn branch first, or Petalburg Gym?"
"Branch first," Ryan said, already moving toward the exit. "If I'm right, Brendan and May should both be there. It's been too long since we've actually seen them — since the Ultra Ruin, everyone scattered. Good chance to catch up."
Lillie agreed without hesitation. She'd been thinking the same thing.
When the Mercenary Guild had expanded into Hoenn, Ryan had spent some time thinking carefully about where to anchor the regional branch. Every city had its advantages — no obvious best answer. In the end, he'd appointed Brendan and May as co-branch leaders for Hoenn, and left the location decision to them.
They'd chosen Petalburg City.
Brendan's reasoning had been practical and characteristically straightforward: easier commute, his father Norman was already the Gym Leader there and kept the city orderly, and the branch's presence would bring more foot traffic and economic activity to a city that Norman had always worked hard to develop. Norman, predictably, had no objections. And while Brendan was quietly understating things as usual — his battle strength now sat comfortably above his father's in any honest comparison — Norman's reputation in Petalburg meant that anyone considering making trouble for the branch would think twice before starting.
The branch building sat close to the Petalburg Gym, which made the post-visit plan simple: see Brendan and May, then stop by the Gym to visit Norman on the way out.
Ryan and Lillie's arrival didn't go unnoticed. The moment they walked through the branch's front doors, the staff visible in the lobby instinctively straightened up and moved to clear a path — a reflex that had apparently become standard procedure across all Guild branches when the President showed up unannounced.
Ryan found this mildly uncomfortable every single time.
It wasn't unwarranted, exactly. Between his actual strength and the coverage Natsume's reporting had given him, his face recognition in the Pokémon Trainer community was well past the level of most regional Champions. And Lillie, somehow, had ended up even more thoroughly known within the Guild's internal culture — which was a situation neither of them had fully anticipated and which had gotten considerably out of hand.
The original rumor had been straightforward enough: Ryan was famously attentive toward Lillie, which was true and which he had no intention of defending himself against. Somewhere in the retelling, this had evolved into a narrative in which Lillie was quietly terrifying, managed Ryan entirely, and was functionally the most dangerous person in the organization. Lillie, who was genuinely warm and composed and not remotely frightening to anyone who had actually met her, had been deeply unsettled by this development. The staff member most responsible for the escalation — a senior operative whose enthusiasm for gossip significantly exceeded his judgment — had been docked a month's salary.
The story had not stopped circulating.
"Welcome, President, and — welcome, ma'am." The front desk staff bowed with visible nerves. "Branch President Brendan will be right down. Please wait in the lounge."
Ryan waved a hand. "We're just here to see friends. Everyone can relax, seriously."
The staff smiled, nodded respectfully, and very carefully did not relax at all. Etiquette was etiquette. Ryan and Lillie exchanged a glance, accepted their defeat gracefully, and followed the gesture toward the lounge.
The moment the door closed behind them, the lobby returned to something approaching normal — though with an energy level noticeably higher than usual, and everyone moving with the particular carefulness of people who were very aware that their boss was in the next room.
"This is going to keep happening everywhere we go, isn't it," Lillie said, settling onto the lounge sofa.
"Probably forever," Ryan agreed, dropping onto the cushion beside her. "The Guild keeps growing. Get used to it."
Before either of them could say anything else, the lounge door opened — and instead of a staff member with refreshments, May walked in carrying a tray herself, a cup of black tea balanced carefully on each side.
Ryan and Lillie both brightened immediately.
May had changed in ways that were subtle but visible. She wasn't wearing her usual travelling outfit — instead a clean white blouse, her long chestnut hair loose rather than tied back. She looked slightly more settled than she had during the journey through Ultra Space, the restless edge from those weeks replaced by something quieter.
She set the tray down on the coffee table with practiced ease, then stretched her arms over her head with a groan. "Ryan, I'm going to be honest with you — if I'd known how much paperwork branch leadership involved, I would have made Brendan do it alone."
The delivery was completely flat. Her expression said she was at least forty percent serious.
Lillie laughed and stepped forward to pull May into a hug. "It's so good to see you. How are you both? Where's Brendan, by the way — why are you the one bringing tea?"
At the mention of Brendan, something shifted in May's expression. The easy irritation in her voice picked up a different edge — sharper, pointed inward, like she'd been sitting on it for a while and it had been waiting for the right moment to surface.
"That guy?" she said, with careful, controlled flatness. "Who knows. Off somewhere."
Three words. All the information a person needed.
Ryan and Lillie both went quiet, the same thought landing at the same moment.
Something happened between those two.
(End of Chapter)
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