Return to the Beach (Maria)

[Nene Jukyu]

Nene grinned, she finally had a full pokemon team now and it was time to test out their cooking skills and how they related to battle. "Alright then guys, let's go! Just like I taught you!" She started up the camping stove she brought with her while her Bulbasaur Parsely began heating the pans, moving them with his tentacles and adding herbs to season the pan. Her Inkay floated over some ingredients with its psychic abilities, turning them upside-down to pour them into containers. The Tauros ran back and forth pulling the cartons of food with its strong legs and delivering them to each station as needed. Her Staryu used its Brine which Nene then purified, boiling out the water and removing the salt for some seasoning later. Turkey the Fletchling used its Steel Wing to chop vegetables for more seasoning and sides while her new Hawlucha took care of the spices to give the food a little extra kick. "Great going guys! Now this is a real beach barbeque!" She laughed softly, running between the stations like a head chef to make sure everyone was doing their jobs and everything was running smoothly, things were going pretty well for their first run as a team.

The Bulbasaur cheered as he finished up frying the fillets while Hawlucha rolled and seasoned the dough balls and Fletchling finished up the coleslaw. "And there we have it~ battered fish fillets with hushpuppies and a side of coleslaw~" The girl giggled, setting out a picnic on the beach and setting a plate in front of all he pokemon with a grin, giving them a mix of real food and pokemon food. "Good job guys, we're really getting better at this, I'm sure it'll taste great." She was practically drooling as she hovered over her own plate. "Now that we've done our culinary practice we'll get in some battle training after lunch~" She purred and dug in, enjoying the savory taste of the food.

[Maria Harper]

Maria Harper had been through much in the past couple of days. Getting hurt by wild Pokemon and having to go to the hospital twice in one week wasn't exactly fun, after all. Then there was that odd... thing that had been on her mind since yesterday. It just nagged and nagged. Not in the usual depressive ways her mind liked to speak to her in, but it was like it just... Maria didn't know how to describe it. It was like it was just there and refused to go away. Occasionally she'd focus on other things, but often when she just had the silence of the road and the stillness of the air to contend with, her mind began to drift and crash upon the isle of that issue.

The pink haired trainer sighed after a moment, walking upon the sands of the beach. The day hadn't even truly begun yet, but the pink-haired trainer in the black hoodie already felt pretty tired of it all. The beach was a nice distraction and all things considered, the soft sea breeze felt somewhat relaxing. She could hear someone making a real racket nearby and as she lifted her head and turned it to follow the sound, she saw what looked like a girl taking a break from swimming at the beach to fix some lunch. Leaving the swimmer to it, Maria casually walked further towards the shoreline, simply watching the waves as they went from peaceful to tumultuous and right back to the opposite, again and again. Somehow it just seemed to soothe Maria's concerns.

[Nene Jukyu]

Nene gave a sigh of satisfaction as she kept eating, watching her pokemon enjoying the food brought joy to her heart as well. She loved being a head chef for them and seeing the new team work together on this dry run was rather exhilarating. Her belly was almost full and her mind was empty of worry as she finished her plate with a sigh, relaxing and leaning back, looking around and enjoying the view of the beach. Ever since she was a kid working at her parents' seafood shop, the beach had always brought her calm and reminded her of home.

As Nene scanned the horizon she spotted another person in a hoodie doing the same, some sort of existential crisis or other such navel-gazing she figured, she'd seen this sort of thing all the time since she came here a lot and if people came to the beach and weren't playing, something was definitely wrong. From this distance and with the hoodie over them, she couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl but it didn't really matter and she resolved to invite them over, after all company was always nice during a beach picnic, right?

"Hey you! Over there! Want to come eat with us? We've got plenty!" Nene waved frantically, a wide smile on her face as she patted the empty spot on the blanket beside her. She gave another whistle just to make sure the person heard her and giggled. "There's no sense coming to the beach and being all alone, this is supposed to be a fun place after all." She spread her toes in the sand and smiled. "Come have some food, do you like fish? My pokemon have been practicing making this dish with me!" She called out from afar with absolutely no hint of social etiquette, luckily it was still relatively early and they were mostly alone.