Chapter Text

“Alright, Growlithe, you can come out now!” Kiyotaka held out his pokéball and released his almost-lifelong companion.

The orange and white fire-dog with black stripes jumped out of his ball and circled to face him, eagerly sitting smartly on his hind legs with and staring up at him, as a younger Kiyotaka had spent many hours training him to do.

“Good boy!” Kiyotaka smiled at his friend’s continued good-behaviour. “Now… I picked up something for you today!” He told the pokémon, while failing to keep his excitement off his face.

“Growl! Growlithe!” The small dog barked excitedly, and Kiyotaka wondered if he thought this was just the usual store-bought poffin (likely much better than his own attempts to make them), or whether he could tell what Kiyotaka actually had hidden behind his back… He’d always been proud of what a smart dog his Growlithe had turned out to be.

“Stay.” He held up one outstretched finger and his Growlithe obediently nodded at the pink, wrinkled scar tissue that covered it. Satisfied that he’d been understood, Kiyotaka took a smart step backwards and placed the small red stone he’d finally managed to order online after several years of saving up...

The dog looked down at it… but didn’t move.

“Err…it’s a fire stone!” He explained, “It’ll turn you into an Arcanine!”

Still no movement from Growlithe… did he not want this? Kiyotaka had always assumed his friend would want to evolve to become stronger, as most Pokémon seemed to want to, but…

“I know it’s sudden! I mean… you don’t have to evolve, if you don’t want to!” He added. “I, err… I’ll give you some time to think about it! I’ll just… leave it here by your bed…” Kiyotaka moved over to the flame-retardant cushion and blankets to place the stone down there, “And you can just come pick it up whenever you’re ready!”

Growlithe padded over to it, sat in front of it and barked expectantly at him.

“Err… now?” He asked, confused. Why had Growlithe not moved before? “Oh, of course! I told you stay!” He smacked his forehead at his own idiocy.

“Gro-owl...” The dog let out a small whine at his trainer’s stupidity, before continuing to look at him expectantly.

“Err… what are you waiting for?” He asked. “You can take it whenever you want!”

The dog barked again, this time poking his nose towards Kiyotaka.

“Me? You want me to do something?” He asked, getting a bark in confirmation. “Err… can you show me what it is you want me to do?” He asked, getting confused by his friend’s behaviour.

Growlithe circled around to his side and pointed his nose towards the pocket containing his Pokédex…

“My Pokédex?” He asked, trying to figure out why it was so important... “…So I can record the data?”

“Lithe!” Growlithe barked, in a tone reminiscent of his teachers when he finally understood a difficult concept.

“Ahahaha! You clever boy!” Kiyotaka laughed and knelt down to give his companion a hug and stroking. Growlithe must have remembered all the times he’d camped outside and waited for Kakunas and Metapod to evolve, so he could record the data for the Pokémon Professors. “I would have forgot that completely! I’m so lucky to have you…” He admitted, letting go of the dog and wiping off the saliva from where Growlithe had licked his face in return for the hug.

“Well, then!” He stood back up, getting his Pokédex out and setting the data recording function on. “Ready when you are!”

“Growlithe!” Growlithe barked for the last time as he smartly put one paw onto the firestone. His body soon glowed with bright fire that expanded out from him, so hot that Kiyotaka had to take a step backwards from the heat. The flames danced around the air in a spiral for a short while, before moving back into the form of a, now much larger, dog and then dying down until all that remained was a six foot tall dog with an orange body, with thick black stripes and white fluffy tail, mane and ankle fur...

“..Arc?” The dog barked, unsteadily. “Arc-canine?” It looked at him, anxiously.

“Yes... you’re an Arcanine now.” He said gently. “You look wonderful!” He added, trying not to start crying, but failing. “May I pet you?”

“Arc! Arc!” Arcanine yipped cheerfully and awkwardly bounded over to him, rubbing their faces together and licking at the tears that had started falling down his cheeks, as he’d always done as a Growlithe...

In return, Kiyotaka put his arms around the dog’s neck and brushed his fingers through the fluffy white fur of his now splendidly long mane. “We’re going to have to change the schedule to include more time to brush your fur...” He realised, after a while.

“ARC!” Arcanine excitedly pulled himself out of his arms and clomped over to his bed, where he picked up his, now far too small, hairbrush and brought it over to Kiyotaka.

“Hahaha!” Kiyotaka laughed at his excitement for grooming time. “I see... you just wanted to evolve so you’d get more primping time!” He teased the now giant dog. “You’re not bothered about us getting stronger at all!”

“Niiiinnnee...” Arcanine growled angrily at him.

“Ah! I was just teasing! I... I know you’ve wanted to evolve so you can get stronger for a long time now...” He admitted, guiltily. “I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to afford it... But I’ll make it up to you! Now you’ve evolved I’ll be able to find other trainers to fight! Good ones, I mean, not the lazy people from around town!” He promised, as Arcanine stared at him. “Professor Oak is looking for applicants to a travel grant for young trainers who can’t afford to leave their regions and I’ll be submitting that tonight! And I’ve submitted so much good data on pokémon here in Kanto I’m sure he’ll want to help me!”

Arcanine just tipped his head at him...

“Oh! And I wrote to that mobile gym, the Crazy Diamonds, to ask if they’d come here, as well, so we could try out for a badge...! And if neither of those works out I’ve submitted an application to the council for my own spot on a route, to challenge travelling trainers! So... so please... just give me a little more time and... and I’ll start helping you grow much stronger... We...We’ll both get stronger together...I...I promise!” He finished his assurances in a pleading tone of voice. It had been a constant worry for him lately that his life-long companion would one day get tired of his uselessness as a trainer and find somebody else to raise him…

“Arc!” Arcanine barked happily and licked his face again, far more sloppily than Growlithe had even been capable of...

“Urgh!” He flinched at the mess on his face... “But first I think we’re both going to need a bath...”

“Arcarcarc!” Arcanine bounced around the room happily before rushing off to the bathroom, almost flattening his shocked father as he went.

Honestly, who’d ever heard of a pokémon that got more excited for baths than fights...!?

Well... everyone would have once he worked hard enough to become the strongest trainer ever...

Chapter Text

“You still alright up there, Togepi?” Makoto asked the small half-hatched egg pokemon currently nestled snuggling in the tightened drawstrings of his hoodie.

“To-ge-piiii!” Togepi replied happily.

“Alright then!” Makoto replied and carried on walking, trying to ignore the tiredness in his legs… Geez, how long was this route? Makoto could have sworn he should have reached the Berry emporium by now... Even if this was one of those routes where you got stopped for a battle every five min…

“Ah ha! How’d a kid like you get all the way here!?” Makoto was foisted out of this line of thinking by a voice that came from behind a rock he’d just passed.

“Meh, whatever! It’s not like his little Togepi can hurt us!” Another voice came from a rock on the other side of the path… looks like they’d set up an ambush… “Sorry kid, but you’re in our zone, so we challenge you to a double battle!”

They summoned their pokemon… it was a Pidgeot and a Raticate, and not particularly strong looking ones either…

“Blastoise… Hydro pump…” Makoto sighed for about the thirteenth time that day.

“Wait, what!?” The two trainers cried just before the torrent of water blasted their pokemon unconscious…

“To-ge-piiii!” Togepi trilled, presumably having levels up from the several pitiful encounters they’d had that day.

“Thanks buddy.” Makoto patted the armoured shell of the giant tortoise that he’d been slowly raising since junior high.

“Toise…” It mumbled and tried to pat his back in return, although it was more of a smack from the giant.

“Oof! Alright… back to your pokeball…” Makoto held it up for him. “Hopefully we’ll reach this berry shop soon and I’ll get you some more leppa berries to make up for all those Hydro pumps you’ve been using…”

“Blastoise…” It agreed and headed into the ball.

“That’s if we don’t run into any more trainers, at least…” Makoto muttered worriedly as he checked Togepi was still in place and started moving again…

However luck, as usual, was not on Makoto’s side. Another two trainers used up the last of Blastoise’s Hydro pumps, forcing Makoto to gradually whittle the next few trainers down with toxic damage… Blastoise really couldn’t keep this up much longer, even if all these trainers were pitifully low level…

Makoto passed a cave, surprised that no one jumped out to challenge him as he did so, to find another trainer sat, stiffly working away intently on a cheap looking laptop, on a collapsible travel chair in the middle of the route…Makoto’s first instinct was to mistake him for a team rocket grunt, what with his black boots and white clothes, but then he noticed the gold buttons and shoulder straps instead of a giant red ‘R’ on the chest, not to mention him looking about the same age as Makoto and all the other low-level trainers he’d been challenged by on the way here...

This guy was obviously not low level though, as sat next to the chair was an Arcanine that was occasionally resting it’s head on his shoulder, as if wanting to read what it’s master was writing. Each time it did, the boy on the seat would absent-mindedly reach up to pet it, get licked on the face in return and pull out a tissue and dab himself dry, all without his eyes leaving the screen he was working on…

Well… Blastoise wouldn’t have been able to fight an Arcanine in his current state… but this guy would probably be easy to sneak past… all Makoto had to do was quietly walk past, near the edge of the route and…

“ARC! Arc arc! ARC!” … and the guy’s dog would bark at him because of course it would! It was a dog!

The boy looked up from his screen and locked eyes with him… dammit. That meant he had no choice but to stand in place and accept a challenge now… Although now he had looked up from the screen, Makoto couldn’t help but think the guy looked vaguely familiar for some reason…

“Ah! A fellow trainer! Wonderful!” He smiled broadly and carefully put his laptop down to walk over towards Makoto. “How’s about a friendly… pokemon battle… to help gain… experie…” He trailed off as he got close and seemed to spot Togepi. “Is that your only pokémon?” He asked, worriedly.

“Uhh… it might as well be…” Makoto admitted. “I have a Blastoise as well but he’s pretty much finished… I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d take half my money without knocking out him and Togepi?”

“What? NO!” He snapped, so a stickler for the rules, eh? Or just really wanted the experience… Oh well it had been worth a shot…

“I’m not going to mug you just because you’re ill-prepared!” He carried on just as Makoto was bemoaning his fate.

“Err… you’re not?” Makoto asked, “Don’t you want the experience though?”

“Ngh!” He flinched and looked over to his Arcanine, anxiously. “…What do you think…?” He asked it, “I… I know it’s the only trainer we’ve seen in days but, but he…” he trailed off, shaking slightly. Geez, this guy wasn’t really cut out to be a roadside challenger if he felt bad about finishing off a weakened opponent…

“Ca-nine!” The dog yipped comfortingly at him and rubbed its face into his, causing him to calm down a little as he stroked it back… this gave Makoto a chance to crouch and rest his legs slightly on the floor.

“I’ll… I’ll find someone we can battle, I promise!” The other boy muttered into his dog’s ear before straightening up and facing Makoto… “Ah… s-sorry about that... Err… did you want a seat!?” He offered, gesturing to the foldable chair. “I’m almost due to start stretching anyway!”

“Really!?… thanks!” Makoto smiled and sighed in relief at the chance to sit down properly with Togepi in his lap. “I’m Makoto Naegi, by the way!” He held his hand out.

“Oh! Ah… I’m… Kiyotaka Ishimaru…” He shook Makoto’s hand, looking slightly ashamed of himself.

“Hmm… Ishimaru…” Makoto was desperately trying to figure out why this guy seemed to familiar, “I feel like I’ve read that name somewhere…” Somewhere along with his face… like he’d seen the guy’s ID on something he’d read…?

“Ah… you’ve probably heard of my grand…” He started, sadly.

“Caring you your water-type, a basic beginner’s guide!” Makoto suddenly remembered. “The online guide with the easy pictures and diagrams and stuff! That was you wasn't it!?”

“Err…!” He was looking at Makoto as if he was crazy…

“Wait… no, we're the same age…” Makoto realised. “You’d have only been nine when that was made…”

“Ah… no, you’re right! That was my work!” He laughed, “Although I was actually only eight and a half…” He corrected Makoto awkwardly. “I… I’m just amazed anyone remembered that at all! Let alone that it’s the first thing you thought of…”

“Uhh… is there something else you’ve written?” Makoto asked, “Other than the guides for the different types?”

“Err… well I have written quite a few guides… I’m currently working on translating the research into how personality traits affect a pokémon’s fighting style into practical tips for trainers! It’s all quite fascinating really…” He smiled eagerly. “And I’m one of the top contributors to the crowdsourced pokédex research initiative! But… well… I thought you’d think of my grandfather, Toranosuke?”

“Uhh… Toranosuke Ishimaru?” Makoto thought it sounded a little familiar, maybe? “What did he write?”

“Err… it's not what he wrote, it’s what he did…” Kiyotaka frowned. “He beat the Elite Four…”

“Really!?” How had Makoto not remembered that? He’d even visited the hall of fame! “That’s amaz…”

“…with a machine-enhanced team.” Kiyotaka finished.

“Oh…” Was he talking about the device Team Rocket had used to make their pokémon unnaturally strong?

“I don’t know if he knew it at the time or not... He’d traded for his pokémon, rather than put in the effort to train them himself!” Kiyotaka looked irritated at the thought, “But his name was scrubbed off the wall of fame and he never fought again, so most people believe he did know... and the resulting controversy was enough that my surname tends to be associated more with those machines than anything else.” He sighed. “But I intend to change that!” He suddenly exclaimed with a look of fierce determination.

“You mean with the guides on pokémon?” Makoto asked.

“Err... No... To be honest I only started making those as a reference for myself... It was supposed to just be a chart for Fire types but then I got a lot of people asking me to make guides for the other types and then to explain the effects of rare candies and berries and vitamins... and then I started recording data for the pokédex research initiative and was asked to write up reports on what I’d found... you know how it is...” He shrugged, as if writing life-saving guides when you were eight was something every kid had done.

“Uhh... well then, how are you going to change things...?”

“Ah! I intend to get onto the hall of fame myself! Arcanine and I will work together to get stronger, recruit a strong, well balanced team and then beat the Elite Four without cheating!” He grinned, momentarily at least, before his face fell. “At least... We would if I wasn’t so useless at finding people to train with...” He sighed.

“Well... at least you’ll be able to challenge people going to the berry emporium!” Makoto tried to cheer him up.

“Err… You mean Bandai’s place?” He asked, to which Makoto nodded. “This isn’t the right route for that.” Kiyotaka told him.

“Wait… WHAT!?” Makoto cried, “The bus driver told me you can get to it from here…”

“Well… technically you can…” He explained. “But you have to go through that cave over there…” He pointed at the cave. “He should have told you to go to route 67! It’s a lot quieter and leads directly to the emporium…”

“Urg… just my luck!” Makoto sighed. “I wondered why it was taking so long to get there... Where does this route go?”

“Nowhere... It never got completed, so now it’s just a dead-end...” He said sadly, “Much like my career as a trainer!” He added bitterly.

“Ca-nine...” His Arcanine rubbed its head against his hand anxiously until he started stroking his fingers through the fur with a slight smile.

“Uhh... well, just because this didn’t work out, doesn’t mean you should give up!” Makoto told him, “There’s other ways to train... why not go travelling! It’d probably suit you better anyway!”

“I can’t afford it... and I was denied a travel grant.” He frowned.

“Really!? I’d have thought professor Oak would want someone who actually bothers to record data!”

“So did I... but apparently I’m ‘not currently at a point where travel will be the most optimal path to becoming the very best’!” He quoted.

“Uhh...” Wow, that was a weird way to say ‘sorry but no’, “Well... what about that mobile gym?”

“They said it’s not worth coming out for a single person.”

“Well...” He was already trying roadside challenges... “What about battle net?” Although he was bound to have thought of that...

“What’s battle net?”

“Uhh... it’s a social network for meeting other pokémon trainers! You put up your details and what pokémon you have and you can search for other trainers at your level or with specific pokémon types who’d be willing to come to your area... and people can give reviews of who they battle so you can get a warning if people are likely to cheat or anything...” Makoto started trying to explain.

“Does it cost anything to use?” He asked, worriedly.

“No, they just have lots of adverts instead.” Makoto admitted.

“That... that sounds perfect, then!” He smiled, “How, err, how do you sign up for it, please?” He asked sheepishly.

“If you let me use your laptop I can show you...” Makoto offered, putting Togepi down on the floor, where it wandered over to the confused-looking Arcanine and started patting its feet.

They set up the account, interrupted a few times by Kiyotaka  stopping to tell his Arcanine that Togepi’s aren’t edible, and on one occasion by the Arcanine whining because Togepi had climbed up its back and was pulling it’s fur...

“So it’s all set up now?” Kiyotaka asked him.

“Yeah... now you can just search for people you know and try to add them to your account! Like this!” Makoto showed him how by adding himself as a friend.

“Oh... ok? I’m not sure there’s anyone I know who I’d want to add though...” He frowned. “I don’t really have any friends at school...”

“Well... it doesn’t have to be people the same age as you? If you know any adults who train pokémon, they might be on there...”

“Hmm...” He thought about it for a moment before trying to add Professor Oak. “Like that?”

“Uhh... sure.” Makoto replied, not wanting to tell him that Professor Oak probably got a thousand friend requests a day and would probably just ignore it.

“Well, thank you for this!” He smiled. “But I guess you need to get to the berry shop!”

“Urg, I think I’m probably going to have to just go home today... these no way I can make it through another route without stopping at a pokéstop first...”

“There’s one at the emporium!” Kiyotaka interrupted. “You can just cut through that cave and you’re right there!  I even have some spare maps of the quickest route through!”

“I didn’t bring any repels with me though.” Makoto admitted, he’d been expecting to just walk down a route after all...

“Err... I could sell you a few. I was expecting to have to go back and forth to the poke centre far more that I have done...”

“Really!? Thanks!” Makoto smiled, Kiyotaka must be the most prepared roadside challenger he’d ever seen. What a shame they’d stuck him in such a rubbish spot!

Two cans of repel (which Kiyotaka didn’t even try to charge over the odds for) and one uneventful jaunt through a cave later, Makoto was finally at the berry emporium, queuing up to talk to the Nurse Joy at pokécentre and not particularly paying attention as two men joined the queue behind him…

“So, how did that whole travel grant thing go?” One of them said, in a voice that gave the impression that he wasn’t the type to get worked up about anything.

“Ah… Don’t get me started!” Replied a voice any pokémon trainer would have recognised as Prof. Oak, “Youngsters these days just don’t seem interested in travelling! We had less applications than grants to give out!”

“Wait, what!?” Makoto snapped out of his initial fanboying reaction and turned to face him, “If you had more money than people to give it to, then why’s there a guy outside who got turned down!?” He asked, angrily.

“Aahh…” Prof. Oak took a step backwards and cringed, “You mean Kiyotaka? That was a… a special case!” He muttered awkwardly. “But I’m sure he’ll be fine as a roadside trainer!” He laughed.

“They’ve made him guard a dead end.” Makoto scowled, “He’s not had a fight in days…”

“Oh!? Well… I’m sure he’ll find some other way to get some battles in!” Oak checked his pokédex, as of looking for an excuse to get out of the conversation… “Ah! Like this! He’s added me on Battle Net… I’ll just go and accept that now!” He dashed off before Makoto had a chance to reply.

“…Lying jerkface.” He muttered irritably.

“…Did you just call the pokémon professor a lying jerkface?” Smirked the guy Oak had been with. He was thin, with short, ragged blonde hair sticking out from under his white fedora. He was dressed pretty sloppily in a white suit with a loose tie.

“Well he is…” Makoto muttered, “Why would he add someone right after refusing to help them out!?" He asked, handing over Blastoise's pokeball to Nurse Joy.

"Ehh... I'm sure he's got his reasons." The man shrugged. "Why's it bothering you so much, you his friend or something?"

"No... But he seems like a good guy... he helped me get here when he could have just knocked out my pokémon for easy Exp, and if it weren't for the guides he wrote I wouldn't even have my Blastoise..." Makoto admitted, "He seems like exactly the sort of guy Oak should be helping!"

"You have a Blastoise as well as that Togepi?" The man looked faintly curious.

"Yeah, I'm kinda lucky at finding pokémon, I guess..." Makoto shrugged. "I found a Squirtle injured in my school's pond in Junior High and used a guide online to nurse him back to health, and a few months ago we were training in the forest and I tripped over Togepi and it started following me everywhere..."

"Heh... you seem like an interesting kid... what's your name?" The man asked as Blastoise was handed back.

"Uhh, Makoto Naegi..." Makoto answered, a bit worried by the smirk the man gave as he wrote it down.

"Gotcha... I'll be seeing you around..." The man waved lazily at him as he walked off to examine the berries being tended to by swarms of Illumise...

After picking up several types of useful berries and mulch, Makoto looked at the small amount of money he had left over, most of it earned from beating the low level trainers on the way there, and considered his options. It would make most sense to buy a few potions and head back up the route he should have taken in the first place, seeing as he was unlikely to be coming back here anytime soon... He'd get more exp that way...

He picked up two repels instead. Not that Kiyotaka's Arcanine would have much chance against Blastoise, but at least the poor guy would have had one fight today...

At least that was the plan... except by the time he got back out of the cave, Kiyotaka was already fighting that guy in the white suit...

"Arcanine, use Fire Blitz!" He could hear Kiyotaka order.

"He knows Fire Blitz? I take it your one of those long-term planning types... forcing him to stay as a Growlithe until he learnt it, then evolving?"

"Well... I hadn't intended to! It just took me a while to save up the money for a fire stone..." Kiyotaka admitted.

"That must have annoying for him." The white suited guy said, as his Persian kicked up sand into the Arcanine's eyes.

"I'd imagine so..." Kiyotaka replied guiltily. "One more fire blitz ought to do it!" He added to his Arcanine.

"And now you're stuck at the end of a route to nowhere..." The man in white continued, shrugging as he recalled his fainted Persian, "And too stupid to get yourself some easy exp when you have the chance!"

"I told you, I refuse to forego my values just to..."

"Yeah, yeah... I heard you the first time..." The guy interrupted, "but you won't be beating the Elite Four with that attitude..."

"...But without my values, it wouldn't be worth beating the Elite Four..."

"So you're giving up?"

"I didn't say that!"

"Huh... shame, I could do with a good fire type... I'd make it worth your while..."

"What!? No! I'd never sell off Arcanine! No matter how much you offer me!"

"Well, that's selfish of you... we've already established you won't be making him any stronger... but with me he'd be on the fast track to success!" He guy in white smiled eagerly at Kiyotaka, "First thing I'd do is take him to the Move Reminder and let him learn Extreme speed, seeing as you missed it... then we'd be off to get my Sixth Badge from each region, lots of exp from that..."

"Oh... that... that does sound far better for him..." Kiyotaka slumped.

"So... what so you say?"

"...What do you think, Arcanine?"

"Niiiine..." The Arcanine growled, backing away from the other trainer, back towards his own.

"B-but he... he's probably going to fight actual trainers, and a lot of them! No more chasing wild pokémon all day... and he might be able to afford vitamins even!" Kiyotaka stroked his head.

"Oh, sure... Only the best food for my pokemon!" The guy in white agreed.

"Can-niiine..." The Arcanine whimpered, anxiously trotting a circle around Kiyotaka before facing him.

"But...This could be your big chance... you don't have to worry about me... I'll... do something..." Kiyotaka trailed off and wiped his eyes... was he crying?

"NINE!" Arcanine snarled loudly at him, causing Kiyotaka to jump.

"...Are you sure?" He asked, trying to hide the obvious joy in his voice.

"Arc!" Arcanine barked back happily.

"Thank you..." Kiyotaka smiled and stroked dog's mane. "I'll make it up to you, I promise!"

"Arcarc!" Arcanine barked excitedly and started licking his face.

"Gyaah! Arcanine! We're in the middle of a battle!" Kiyotaka scolded him.

"Ehh? Looks to me like you won it already..." The man in the white suit shrugged.

"But you've still got another pokemon, haven't you?" Kiyotaka asked.

"Nah, I only get Hypno out for special occasions, and I've seen all I need to see for now." The man turned around and wave backwards at Kiyotaka. "See ya around kid."

"A... hypno... and a persian...?" Kiyotaka mulled it over, "...Are you Koichi Kizakura?"

The man stopped walking.

"You are, aren't you!" Kiyotaka cried, excitedly. "Kizakura, the talent scout for Hope's Peak!"

Wait, that guy worked for Hope's Peak!? The school that took recommendations from Gym leaders and researchers from across the regions about who the best upcoming trainers were, so that they could bring them together to learn and train their pokémon in a school with state of the art facilities?

"Yeah... you got me." He shrugged. "Oak recommended you, that's why he refused your travel grant, no point you setting off on a journey and making it a pain to find you to give you the offer..." Well, now Makoto felt like a total dick... "Honestly I woulda taken you just because it was him, but school rules says I still have to check you out."

"He... recommended me!?" Kiyotaka said with happy surprise, "And... have I 'checked out' well enough to be accepted...?"

"You asked your pokémon what it wanted instead of just thinking about what's best for you... and you prefer strong opponents to picking off weak ones..." Kizakura grinned, "I'd say you checked out pretty well!"

"So... I'm going to Hope's Peak!?" Kiyotaka was ecstatic, "I... thank you so much! I won't let you down!" He promised. "...It's odd though. I heard that no one ever sees you before they've received the letter telling them that they've been accepted by Hope's Peak..."

"It's more that they don't remember meeting me..."

"How is that different?" Kiyotaka asked.

"...I'll let Hypno explain it." Kizakura threw open a pokéball and a tall yellow humanoid figure stepped out of it.

"Your Hypno can talk...?" Kiyotaka asked in amazement.

"No... but it can... use Hypnosis!"

"Hyyypp-nnnooooo..." Makoto had the sense to duck back into the cave rather than watch the swinging pendulum... but Kiyotaka hadn’t, from the sound of it.

"Right... First off, Arcanine, you're going to drink this full restore." Makoto could hear Kizakura order, "And then the pair of you are going to go back to the exact positions you were in when I shouted 'Hey there!'... and now I'm going to walk away. Once I head into that cave, you will both wake up with no recollection of my talking to you... understood?"

"Understood..."

"Arc..."

"Good." Makoto heard Kizakura mutter and start walking... towards the cave...

Oh crap! He'd better hide! Makoto quickly ran down the first side path he found and sat as still as possible, holding his breath as he saw Kizakura walk past...

"Phew!" Makoto breathed a sigh of relief once he'd gone past.

“Togepi?” Togepi muttered quietly.

“Yeah, I think we’re safe now… I best check Kiyotaka’s alright though…” He got up and walked back out of the cave.

Kiyotaka and Arcanine were in the same positions he’d seen them in when he’d first approached them, with the trainer focused on his laptop and the dog alternating between scanning the area and nuzzling his owner.

“Hello again!” Makoto waved, just as Arcanine started barking.

“Makoto!? What are you doing back here? Did you have trouble in the cave?”

“No… I’ve done my shopping!” Makoto grinned, “I came back for a battle… if you don’t mind pitting your Arcanine against a Blastoise that is…”

“Arcan!” Arcanine barked defiantly.

“Challenge accepted!” Kiyotaka shot up from his chair so fast he almost knocked his laptop to the floor. “…Do you want to swap pokémon before we start?” He asked, looking at Togepi anxiously.

“No thanks.” Makoto smiled innocently.

“Well… alright then… Arcanine, use Crunch!” Kiyotaka started.

Damn… Makoto had been hoping he’d just use his most powerful fire attack… which would have been useless against… “Blastoise! Sorry about this, buddy!” Makoto cringed as Blastoise came out of his ball only to have Arcanine sink its teeth deep into his ankle...

“…What was the point of that!?” Kiyotaka asked irritably as Blastoise shook off the dog.

“Umm… Exp Shares are expensive…” Makoto tried to justify himself. “And I thought you’d just try to use a fire attack to knock Togepi out in one hit…”

“Oh, I see… you’re so sure you’re going to win you allow yourself to take a hit for the extra exp… That’s a dangerous attitude to take, you know…” Kiyotaka said, looking slightly smug.

“Well, I’ve still got type advantage!” Makoto pointed out, “Blastoise, use Hydro Pump!”

“Arcanine! Use Crunch again, aim for its thigh this time!” Kiyotaka ordered, which his dog managed to do just before Blastoise forced him off with two jets of water from his twin cannons…”

“Arrr…” Arcanine whimpered as he shivered from the cold water, while Blastoise’s damaged leg collapsed from under him…

“One more Hydro Pump!” Makoto ordered, his Arcanine had barely survived the first… but Blastoise would be able to take another Crunch…”

“Arcanine! You can do this!” Kiyotaka cheered his bedraggled pokemon, “Use Reversal!”

Reversal? What was that one? Wasn’t it the one that did more damage if the attacker had taken a load themselves? “Oh, cra…”

Makoto’s swearing was cut off as Arcanine apparently turned into a raging tornado of fur and launched itself at Blastoise, who fell to the ground partway through the flurry of hits…

“Arcarcarc!” Arcanine wagged its tail happily.

“Type advantage isn’t everything…” Kiyotaka commented smugly, as Makoto sent Blastoise back into the pokeball and sent out Togepi again.

“Togepi?” It looked up at the Arcanine facing it in confusion… this was the first time Makoto had had to send it out against another pokémon… what were it’s moves again? Makoto just needed it to do a small bit of damage to finish off Arcanine… but the only move that could possibly do that was…

“Ok, Togepi? I need you to use Metronome…” Makoto told it anxiously wondering what random move would come out this time...

“Arcanine, use Reversal, quickly!” Kiyotaka ordered hurriedly.

Unfortunately for him, Togepi finished its little metronome dance before Arcanine got the chance to attack again.

“Tch…” Kiyotaka cringed as they both watched Togepi, waiting with trepidation to see what it would do now…

It fainted.

“Umm… what happened?” Makoto asked, why would it just faint?

“Cover yourself!” Kiyotaka was shielding his face with his arms, “It’s either Explosion or Self-des…”

BOOM

A large explosion rocked the air just as Makoto was taking Kiyotaka’s advice, which was just in time as a blast of hot wind knocked him sideways onto the floor moments later. When he dared to uncover himself, Makoto saw that both Kiyotaka and his Arcanine were now on the floor.

“Urg…” Kiyotaka groaned as he lifted himself off of the floor… he looked like he’d taken a bigger hit that Makoto. “…Does that happen often?” He asked as he retrieved Arcanine.

“No… usually Togepi just ends up casting healing wish, or charm on the wrong gender, or nightmares on an awake one…” Makoto admitted. “That’s the first time it’s actually won a fight!”

“…Except it fainted first, so I win, technically…” Kiyotaka pointed out.

“Oh yeah… just my luck!” Makoto griped. “Well, congratz… go buy yourself a drink, I guess!” He threw half the coins in his pocket over to him. “I spent most of my money in the shop…”

“Hahaha! I’m lucky you came back at all!” Kiyotaka laughed, although the action made him wince straight after. “I… I don’t suppose you’ll be coming back anytime soon? It would be nice to battle you again… and not just for the experience…”

It wouldn’t matter if Makoto did… Kiyotaka was going to Hope’s Peak soon, even if he couldn’t remember it just now…

But then again… hadn’t that Kizakura guy had wanted Makoto’s name… and said he’d ‘see him around’…

“Maybe we’ll see each other soon… if I’m lucky!” Makoto smiled as he pulled himself off the ground and started the long trek back to the bus stop.

Chapter Text

Hiro looked up at the tall, imposing, currently locked gates of the building he was going to call home for the next few years…

“Huh… Y’know, when you said some people were going to give you four years rent free, I thought you meant you’d got yourself arrested…” His mother commented.

“Aww… C’mon Mom! I told you, I’m not a scammer!” He moaned, even though there was 80% chance she was just joking.

“So… when did you get the letter? She asked, “I didn’t think they were getting delivered until tomorrow.”

“I haven’t got a letter… I had a prediction!” He explained, “Now, how’d you think we open these gates…?”

She just groaned, “Sweetie… You know most of your predictions are wrong…” She sighed, “Think about it, why would Hope’s Peak want you?”

“Probably ‘cause of my awesome new magic hat!” Hiro pointed to his hat.

“Sandyghaaast…” His hat agreed.

“Sweetie, I told you… That’s a pokémon…” His mother sighed.

“No way! If it was a pokémon, I’d have remembered catching it!” He argued.

“Are you sure you haven’t been taking any good drugs and forgot?” His Mom was always on the lookout for some good stuff… “Because it looks just like a Sandyghast…”

“I checked the pokédex, Sandyghasts are a totally different colour!”

“Then maybe it’s a shiny one? That makes more sense than a hat that’s made of sand and talks!” She sighed.

“I told you, it’s magic! The sand’s just leftover from Alola… there’s sand everywhere there!” She still didn’t look convinced. “Look, let’s ask this guy!” He point to someone who was about to come back out through the gates. “Hey… My crazy mom here is trying to insist that this awesome hat is a pokémon…”

“Yasuhiro…” His mom growled.

“Wait… Yasuhiro!?” The guy replied, “What’s your surname?”

“Hagakure.” His mom replied. “Why?”

“Wow… this job’s going to be easier than I thought…” He muttered, “I have a letter for you!” He replied, getting something out of a bag… “I just need you to sign here…”

Sign something…? “Hmm… this isn’t some demonic contract, is it?” He leant over to look at it… and so did his hat.

“Ghaast…” It shook it’s sideways as a ‘No’… and also shook off some of it’s sand…

“Arg!” The letter dude moaned as clumps it showered down onto his hat and hair.

“Oops…. Sorry dude… my hat’s still sandy from Alola!” He explained, “But a little fabric conditioner will get that right out!” He added, as he sighed the non-demonic contract.

“Urg… riiight... Well… here’s your letter…” The postman passed him a letter while trying to brush sand off himself. “Welcome to Hope’s Peak, I guess! There’s a keycard for the gates in there…Although I don’t think they’re expecting you for another week…”

“Awesome!” He started opening it up so he could go and check out his new digs…

“Wait… Are you serious? My boy’s going to Hope’s Peak?” His mom chocked out.

“Well, I told you I was, didn’t I?” Hiro showed her the letter… why did she never believe him, even though he was always right 30% of the time? “Apparently some chick named Olympia recommended me…”

She looked through it, checking it over several times… there was a 60% chance she thought it was fake at first, but she finally decided it wasn’t.

“…Hope’s Peak must be run by idiots…” She said, quietly, tears beginning to prick at her eyes before she rushed forward to hug him. “…Good luck in there.”

“Aww, Mom… I’ll be fine! I’ve got Exeggutor to look after me!” Hiro patted her back, “And my new hat!”

His Mom just groaned…

Ahh… this was the life! Stretched out on a deck chair in the warm evening air of sandy Alola… Leon almost didn’t want the Pokéathlon season to start back up again. After all, Luxray had beaten all those other pokémon easily! Did he really need to go back and beat them all again? He had better things to do!

Better things like checking out the cute ladies of Alola… Like that babe with the Purrlion over there! Maybe it was time to try out his new chat up line…

“Hey lady, you into cool cats? Cause there’s two of them right here!” He gestured to Luxray, who just sat there being cool, and himse…

“Litten!” Aww, crap! How’d he get outta his pokéball again!?

“Awwww…” The chick melted at the sight of the evil little furball who was now clambering up his arm to nuzzle his face… “Is that a Litten? He’s so adorable!” She came over to pet him…

“Uhh… not exactly…” Leon tried to back away from her, but then that damn fuzz ball leapt into her hands…

“Oooohhh… Who’s a little cutie?” She cooed as she scratched Litten’s ears.

“Not him, babe! Trust me!” Leon quickly shot up to try and get him back off her before…

“Llliiii…” Litten mewled… and set her hair on fire…

“AHHH!” She screamed just as Leon grabbed him back… shit… he needed something to put that out with…

“Uhh… Here!” He quickly scrambled to grab his drink and throw it over her… “There! Fire’s out now!” He pointed out…

Of course, now one side of her hair was shorter than the other and she was covered in sticky fruit juice… And now she was staring at him and Litten in disgust and storming off in tears.

“Great job, Litten…” Leon sighed sarcastically. “Now back in your pokéball!” It actually listened to his order for once and popped back in the ball… honestly, he’d have been better off never running catching this thing… even if it did fit into his team of cool cats!

Urg… and now that girl was talking to all the other chicks on the beach, probably warning them all not to come near him… so much for getting to make out with a chick before the new Pokéathlon season started! And there was no chance getting a girlfriend after it started because he’d already struck out with most of the chicks there to! Urg, his life suuuuuucked!

“Umm… excuse me?” Some dude was holding out a clipboard and talking to him… “Leon Kuwata?”

“Haah… Yeah…” He sighed, he could see where this was going… “You want an autograph from the Pokéathlon champ…”

“Ah… kind of? I have a letter for you and need you to sign for delivery…” He held the clipboard out to reveal a list of sixteen names.

“Okay…” He shrugged, putting a big swirly autograph on the paper. “Wait… You’re taking stuff to Sayaka Maizono…?” He suddenly realised, noticing the pokémon performance trainer’s name below his own… “And Junko Enoshima?” He added, as the queen of pokémon accessories was below it…”

“It’ll make more sense once you read the letter.” The guy held out an envelope to him… “But everyone on this list is being offered a place at Hope’s Peak Pokémon Academy…”

So… he was being offered the chance to go to school with Sayaka Maizono and Junko Enoshima? Huh… maybe this was his chance to get out of the Pokéathlon business and into something cooler… like talent contests! They were a magnet for cute chicks!

“Hah… that’s awesome! Thanks man!” Leon got up to give the dude a proper handshake as he reached out for the letter excitedly, “This is the best thing to happen to me all summer!”

“Lit-ten!” Litten cheerfully meowed along with him.

Wait… when did he get out of his pokéball?

“AAAHHH!” The postman was suddenly screaming… because oh shit! The letter was on fire…!

Leon quickly grabbed the letter and threw it onto the sand, stomping on it until the flames had gone out… “Heh! Crises averted!” He smiled… only to realise the postman had run off towards the ocean, one cuff of his shirt rapidly beginning to burn…

Hell… this school would be good enough if they could help him get his Litten to stop setting his shit on fire!

“~After the after par-ty, we’re gonna keep it go-in’~” Sayaka started to sing as Brionne danced and twirled along with her… even though the contest was over, she still had to put on a show, dancing and singing and smiling for the crowd…

Still, it was the life of a star talent trainer! It was all worth it if she could make other people and their pokémon happy with her shows… She’d show people that working together with your pokémon to put on a great performance was the most beautiful thing of all!

Even if after all her hard work, she and Brionne still ended up drawing against Enoshima and her poor, overdressed Milotic! Really, couldn’t anyone but her see how miserable that poor thing was?

And drawing with her had meant that she’d have to keep doing talent contests next season… she’d really been hoping to take a break, a chance to be a normal girl for a while, but… she could hardly let people think it was acceptable to treat pokémon the way she did! She’d painted that Teddiursa black and white for goodness sake!

Soon enough, her dance was finished… for now…

“Ah… Sayaka Maizono?” A man suddenly spoke to her, he was wearing a postman’s uniform… with a burnt sleeve and specks of sand in his hair.

Her intuition was telling her that she might have a change in her life sooner than she thought… “Can I help you?” She asked, with a smile.

“Ah, well, yes…” He blushed slightly, “I have a letter for you… and need your signature…”

“And you’d like it twice so you can keep one?” She guessed, which made him blush harder and nod frantically.

She signed the form, and then gave him a photo of Brionne and her with a message thanking him for the letter. He smiled and handed it over.

It was an invitation to Hope’s Peak… She’d been recognised as one of the best potential trainers in the world… It was a perfect chance for her to go and train her pokémon to be the best performers possible…

But that would mean leaving Enoshima to run riot in the talent contests…

“I don’t think I can accept this…” She sighed.

“Ah! You don’t? You don’t have to decide now! You can think about it!” He cried, obviously disappointed that she’d said no… “It’s still your choice of course!” He added.

“I’ll think about it.” She half-lied… she’d definitely be thinking about this, but not about going…

“Alright… err… I don’t suppose you know where Junko Enoshima is…? I’ve been told she’s here but…”

“…You don’t seem like the type to want her autograph…” Sayaka thought out loud.

“Ah, no! But she’s getting a letter as well…” He showed her the clipboard again, and this time she actually read the other 15 names on it… and there was Enoshima’s, right under Sayaka’s name… and right down at the bottom, in a hasty scrawl was…

“Makoto Naegi!?”  The same one from junior high, back in Kanto?

“Oh, yeah… him… The talent scout suddenly added him at the last minute…” The postman sighed.

So… she’d be able keep challenging Enoshima and see what happened to Makoto and his Squirtle…?

“Hmm… maybe I’ll go after all…”

“Well… good luck there, then!” He smiled, “I’ll be cheering for you!”

“Thank you!” Sayaka smiled, “Also, Enoshima’s over there.” She let him know.

“Ah, thanks!” He smiled and headed off… Only to be accosted by some guy who wanted to see the autograph she’d just given him… and spilt beer over his shorts in the process…

Something told her that wouldn’t be the last time his uniform got damaged over the course of this job…

A draw? All the arguments about ‘beauty’, all the posturing, all the piles of accessories she made her stupid Milotic wear and it had ended in a draw…?

How… despair-inducing! Now it meant it would be an entire year before they’d compete again and settle all the arguments over whether looks or performances were better… and neither of them dared leave the scene until the other one did, so they’d both have to keep doing the same stupid dances and dress-ups for another year!

“This is your fault, Mukuro!” Junko poked the stupid Milotic, which apologetically murmured and swirled about a few inches off of the ground. “Urg! Don’t just shuffle around, useless thing! At least do something interesting!”

It started trying to dance to that insipid song Maizono was singing… “You’re too clumsy to dance, remember! Honestly… I don’t know why I bothered training you… Monokuma, come and make Mukuro do something interesting for me!” She ordered, releasing her (improved colour) Teddiursa from its pokeball…

“Tedtedtedtedtedted!” It rounded on her Milotic and laughed, as close to Junko’s own one as it could without making an ‘pu’ sound.

“O-otic…?” The dumb pokémon started to panic, as Monokuma flashed his teeth…

“Excuse me… You’re Junko Enoshima, right?” Urg… Just as she was about to have some fun!

“Thaaat’s right!” She spun around to face him… man, what a big dweeb… his uniform only looked better with the scorch marks and fresh beer stain! “And who might you be?”

“Ahh… just a courier… I have a letter for you, if you’ll sign here…” He held out a clipboard. Maizono, herself, Togami… obviously this was the Hope’s Peak acceptance letter… but down near the bottom was another name she couldn’t believe was listed…

“Like… does that really say Mukuro Ikusaba!?” She asked, innocently, while her Teddiursa started sniffing the man’s legs.

“Ah… y-yes? The courier replied, looking at Teddiursa nervously.

“That’s totally amaz-balls!” Junko grinned, “She my big twin sister!”

“Ah… but your surnames are differ…?” He commented, as Monokuma started twitching his claws.

“Yeah… don’t ask!” Junko dismissed him, “Like… oh my god this is such great news! Me and my sis back together after so long, and in the same school no less!”

And this way she’d be able to carry on her little song and dance with Maizono, and get her methods spread out to some of the best trainers in the world…

“Yeah… that’s really… AH!” The wimp screeched as Teddiursa started attacking his calves.

"Aww... Monokuma just wants to play..." Junko pointed out as the wimp winced at the teeny tiny nibbles and scratches ripping his pants to shreds.

"Mono... what!?" He asked stupidly.

"Monokuma! That's his nickname! Don't you nickname your pokémon? I'm gonna give all of mine great nicknames, just like Mukuro here!" She gestured to her Milotic.

"Mukuro? Like your sister?" He managed to put two and two together, "You named a beautiful pokémon after your sister..." He obviously thought that was a nice thing to do...

"Well, not really... I got her when she was still a big, dumb, ugly Feebas... So I named her after my big, dumb, ugly sister!" She explained, "How was I supposed to know she'd evolve into something pretty?" Y'know... other than paying even the slightest bit of attention to her stupid ugly pokémon...

"Uhh... right..." He stared at her, worriedly, as Monokuma got bored of drawing blood and hopped off of him.

"Well... here's my autograph!" She handed back the clipboard, "Let my sister know not to worry about being too useless to be at Hope's Peak... she'll have me to look after her, after all!"

"Thanks. And, uh, good luck at your new school..." He muttered.

"Don't worry, I'll love it!" Junko threatened.

Who the fuck was this asshole!?

Mondo was used to having to outrun idiots who thought that if they chased him down, they’d be able to battle him and earn a badge, but he’d never had one keep up as a long as this idiot flying on the Pellipper was… Hell, he’d even managed to dodge a few Rock Throws from his Lycanoc, who was happily sat in the sidecar, enjoying the thrill of the chase…

And it was a thrill… Mondo hadn’t had a race like this with anyone but his brother… heck, if this guy could battle half as well as he could race… Maybe he’d finally found a rival who wouldn’t get scared of him and run off, like the last nine people he’d thought might live up to the challenge!

“Hey, Lycan… How’s about we put this Pelipper through its paces?” Mondo grinned at his pet, “Show him you’re too strong to take shit from it?”

“CAN!” His pokémon barked happily… hell, he’d been a lot happier, since that night when he’d evolved from a cute little puppy into a big bad wolf. But who wouldn’t be, if they suddenly got strong and scary enough to send the assholes who’d made their life a living hell off running?

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on those bastards… Daiya had beaten the shit outta them years ago…

“Alright then!” Mondo smirked and turned the bike into a sideways stop…

“Pellipper, use Fling!” Wow… the guy was attacking already!? What was he throwing…? And why did it seem like it was getting thrown at Mondo…?

“ARGH!” Mondo barely managed to get his arm up in time to stop the thin piece of wood from hitting him in the face... Going for the trainer, eh? Looks like this guy liked to fight dirty! Well, he wasn’t the only one who didn’t fight fair…

“RRRROOOCC!” Lycan growled and jumped out of the sidecar, chasing his newfound rival down and trying to get some rocks thrown past his Pelipper… which was shooting bursts of water at the rocks, meaning the guy just got hit by clumps of mud instead…

But why wasn’t he attacking back? All he’d done so far was throw that thing… what the hell was it even? Mondo picked it up… it looked like a clipboard, with a pen and post it note stuck to it reading ‘To Mondo Oowada. Please sign and take the letter.’

Well… shit! He wasn’t interested in being rivals… he just wanted to deliver a fucking letter! Well, fine! He didn’t want to be rivals with some dorky bird trainer anyway, right!? Hell, he was badass enough he didn’t need a rival to help improve himself!

“Alright, here’s my signature!” He growled, taking the letter and throwing the board back at the battle-tease, who caught it and ordered his pokémon to fly off without another word…

“ROC, ROC, ROC!” Lycan barked after him until he was out of sight, then turned and looked at Mondo proudly.

“Yeah… good job, buddy!” Mondo nodded to him as he slinked back into his sidecar and Mondo looked at the letter in his hands, what the hell was this?

…

“Daiya! What the hell is this!?” Mondo slammed the door to his brother’s house open.

“Dude, it’s 3am… You wake this Clefairy and Imma kill you!” Daiya snapped quietly, trying to wrap his coat around the small pink bundle trembling in his arms.

“…You took another pokémon offa someone?” Mondo sighed. If ‘Abused’ was a type, his bro would be the type master…

“He kicked it after it fainted.” Daiya said coldly, rage bubbling under his calm demeanour. “Now what did you come in here to bitch at me about?”

“This!” He shoved the letter in Daiya’s face.

“Hah! You actually got in!” His brother laughed.

“What’s so funny!?” Mondo snapped, “Did ya decide ta recommend me as a joke!?”

“Of ’course not!” Daiya looked pretty pissed at the suggestion even. “I just thought you fucked up when Kizakura came to check you out…”

“Who?”

“The guy with the Persian that took you up on your offer of leaving Lycanroc to fight by himself while you bought him a coffee…” Daiya sighed, “It was pretty badass until you kept coming back to check on him with those crappy excuses about forgetting which size he wanted!”

Dammit… That guy had been a scout!? He’d been too freaked out that someone called his bluff to realise… And while Lycan always was good at fighting without commands, he didn’t like being left to fight without Mondo… But anyway…

“Alright then, why the fuck did you recommend me!? We set up the Diamonds Gym together! Why are you trying ta get rid of me for four years!?” Mondo snapped, “Is this ‘cause the other members keep saying I’m not as good as you!?”

Daiya let out a long sigh… “Well… kinda.”

He knew it. Hell, of course the gang thought he was a crappy co-leader, he only had one pokémon, whereas Daiya looked after like ten or something! And it wasn’t like they didn’t know Mondo kept trying to catch more, but failing…

“I don’t mean ‘cause you ain’t as good as me!” Daiya snapped. “But some of the gang keep saying stupid shit like that, and I wanted to give you the chance to prove it isn’t true!”

“So why the fuck did you suggest I go to some fancy school where it’ll be obvious that I’m stupid!?” Seriously, he’d never done well at school, not even in the shittiest ones! There was no way he could keep up at somewhere like Hope’s Peak…

“You’re not stupid! And quit letting people tell you that you are!” Daiya snapped again.  “You’re gonna be fucking amazing at that place! Yeah, it’ll be tough… but diamonds are formed under pressure, remember?” He grinned and grabbed a hold of Mondo’s shoulder, “And there’s nowhere with more pressure in it than Hope’s Peak, bro!” He laughed.

“Well… I mean, if you’ve gone and fucking told people I’ll go…” Mondo muttered, embarrassed that Daiya thought he actually could…

“Attaboy!” Daiya laughed. “Hey, and who knows, maybe it’ll be where you finally meet that special someone… Y’know… a fresh-faced goody-two shoes to play the Ash to your Gary…”

“Grr… I told you Diaya, I don’t need a rival!” Mondo snapped, having trouble controlling the volume of his voice as he felt his face turning red. “Now, apparently I have to go pack up my shit and ride to this school…” He snapped, using it as an excuse to leave before Daiya carried on with his stupid crap…

“Smell ya later!” Daiya laughed.

“Oh fuck you, Daiya!” Mondo snapped… he didn’t need a rival and even if he did he wouldn’t want some stupid, stuck up goody-two-shoes with a type disadvantage following him around everywhere…

Kyoko surveyed the small clearing in the forest carefully… there was obviously a pit trap there, and likely that whichever Team Rocket member had set it up would be nearby, or have some way of watching it at least.

But how to lure them out? She’d usually walk over with Kadabera and spring the trap, then have Crobat fly her out once they’d taken the bait, but she’d used that trick far too many times for them not to start getting suspicious of her.

“Excuse me, Kyoko Kirigiri?”

“Shh!” She instinctively hissed at the man who’d spoken to her. He was holding a clipboard and letter from Hope’s Peak. Looked like Officer Jenny’s recommendation had gone through, although she’d expected as much after she’d lost her recollection of about half an hour of time… So now she’d be able to go and confront her father…

But for now this idiot was interrupting her stakeout… at least his white uniform was coated in mud and dust and not quite as visible as it would otherwise have been, but it still ran the risk of them being noticed and causing Team Rocket to give up…

Unless, perhaps she used him as bait? He looked in a bad enough state to be lost…

She nodded to him, signed her name, and took the letter, placing it in her bag.

“It’ll be best if you leave by walking down that path…” She nodded at the obvious trap.

“Uhh… alright?” He agreed surprisingly quickly and walked down the path, then screamed loudly as he fell into the pit… had he really not seen it? They’d even covered it in a big pile of leaves like in a children’s cartoon!

“Ah! Pelipper! Get me out of here!” The postman shouted from in the pit.

“Not so fast!” A man disguised surprisingly well as a bush suddenly jumped out from the side of the road, releasing a Arbok. “That Pelipper is mine!”

...Kadabera made short work of his pokémon while the postman managed to clamber his way out of the pit.

“Y-you!?” The Rocket grunt recognised her, as she and Kadabera approached him. “You might have beaten Arbok, but you won’t stop Team Rocket! And you won’t get me either!”

Looked like he was going to try and run… Obviously he hadn’t learnt the reason why none of the other Team Rocket members she’d caught escaped either…

“Kadabera, teleport us into nearest police station…” She ordered, while starting to open her mail…

Ahh… this was the life, soaking up the sun in Alola, a cool drink, sweet malasadas and bowls of poffins by her side… now if only that irritating wailing would stop… it sounded like the rescue alarm… and why did it suddenly feel cold…

“AHH!” Hina woke up with a shriek as what felt like a pair of ice-cubes pressed into her back… “Okay, I’m up… I’m up! Quit freezing me, Glaceon!”

The pokémon just looked at her coolly and then looked back out to the sea that Hina was supposed to be watching over… Was that a person out there? Floating on something? What sort of idiot went swimming off the coast of Kanto at 5am!?

Urg… Whoever it was, she still had to rescue him… “Wake up, Mariil!” She started running to the ocean and opening her pokéball at the same time…

“Maar…?” Marill sleepily wondered what was going on…

“No time to explain… We’ve gotta get the boat ready!”

“Riiilll!” Her smaller pokémon trilled and jumped into the water, where she could see its tail bobbing across the surface towards her boat. She ran over herself, making sure the little pokémon was strapped in tight to the reins, before ordering him to swim to the man floating nearby.

The boat quickly moved across the water, pulled by the mouse that Hina had spent most of her childhood practising swimming with, and she was soon able to grab a hold of the man, who desperately waving at her.

“Good job Marill!” She quickly congratulated the water mouse, while pulling up the man and his bird… He was soaked and would need warming up, but it seemed like his Pelipper had kept him afloat. Lucky for him he had a water-type! “What were you thinking? Going swimming at this time all by yourself!?” She snapped at him, “You’re lucky there’s a rescue service here at all!”

“W-was f-flying…g-got l-lost… w-wrong c-cords… P-pelipper f-fainted…” He chattered out, getting a few different medicines out of his bag.

Well… that was slightly less stupid, but still, who went flying at 5am!? “Well… whatever, we need to get you back to the rescue hut to warm up…” She told him, once he’d woken up the Pelipper.

“It’s f-fine… I d-don’t have t-time…” He shivered. “A-aoi A-asahina, r-right?” He took a clipboard out of his bag and held it out to her… it was a list of names with signatures on it… “L-letter for you…” He explained.

“Huh!? For me!?” No one ever wrote her letters… she signed it and gave him the clipboard back, getting a letter in return…

Wait… Hope’s Peak wanted her!? Holy moly, her family were gonna be stoked! But why her? She knew Marill was a good swimmer and she’d been the first to find that Ice Rock in Shoal cave, but that had just been lucky…

“Are you sure this is for…” She started to ask, only to find the man and his Pelipper had left already… Geez… With that attitude he was really was going to get killed…

Some days, Kiyotaka woke up slightly before his Arcanine, and if he was extra lucky he’d have enough time to weigh out the morning’s allowance of dry food before his faithful dog woke up and started trying (and, since his evolution, succeeding) to tackle him to the floor and smother him in excited kisses.

Other times, Kiyotaka wasn’t so lucky and Arcanine awoke at 6am on the dot, saw his food bowl wasn’t full, jumped up onto the bed in a panic and woke Kiyotaka up with what he had decided must be Arcanine’s attempt at CPR... which would be a lovely thing for him to have learnt if only he could understand the difference between rescue breaths and licking!

And then there was the rare bad day, when Kiyotaka would be woken up at 3am in the morning by his dear pokémon whimpering in his sleep, and would have to clamber into his cage to gently stroke him awake, and he’d reschedule as much work as he could to  spend the day hugging and pampering his lifelong friend…

Today, however, was one of the lucky days. Kiyotaka had found himself awake at 5:30 am, excitedly thinking about his new Battle Net profile… Oak and Makoto had both accepted him as a ‘friend’ on the social network, and the latter had even given him a glowing five-star review of their fight yesterday, that should encourage people to come and challenge him, right!? He couldn’t wait to go online and see if he had any interested challengers yet…

Of course, first he had to get Arcanine’s food ready and take care of all his berry plants! He’d need all the berries he could grow if he was about to get lots of challengers, after all! Maybe he’d even be able to start growing a few new plants…

Once his morning duties were done, he excitedly looked up his own profile on Battle Net and… why was his average review now barely above one star!? What had happened!?

A minute of shocked scrolling down the page answered his question- several of his classmates had discovered his page and submitted reviews of the various school mandated battles he’d had with them… and they were all bitter one-star reviews complaining that his Growlithe was overpowered and probably and had probably been enhanced in the same machine his grandfather has used…

He his head in his hands… no one was going to bother even looking at his profile now! Why had he bothered to expect any better!? He was never going to find people to battle, was he? He was going to be stuck uselessly guarding a dead-end for the rest of his life!

“Canine?” Arcanine had woken up and was anxiously whimpering to ask why he was crying in front of his computer.

“I'm a failure…” He admitted, while Arcanine tried to lap up the tears spilling from his hands. “Nothing I can think of has worked and I'm out of ideas! There's no chance of me becoming Pokémon Champion now… and I’ll barely be able to help you get stronger at all! I… I'm working as hard as I can and it's all worthless!”

“Niiiine…” Arcanine whimpered gently, nuzzling their faces together while he sobbed.

“Kiyotaka…?” His father had come through the door, he must not have heard the knock… “What’s wrong?”

“I…” He barely managed to gesture to the computer before tears overwhelmed him again.

“Urg…” His father groaned as he looked. “Well… there’s someone at the door who wants to speak to you…! Maybe it’s some good news!”

“Hu-huh?” He managed to choke out between sobs, “A visitor for me!?” He never had visitors… he didn’t have any friends, so who’d want to visit him?

“Well… he said he had a letter for you, but needs your signature…” His father explained, as they headed to the door along with Arcanine, to find a very wet looking postman being watched suspiciously by his father’s Meowth.

“L-letter for you…” He shivered, holding out a clip board, “P-please s-sign h-here…”

“Very well…” Kiyotaka agreed and signed his name, then opened the letter and started reading the contents…

“To Kiyotaka Ishimaru

Congratulations! You are one of a select few pokémon trainers who have fulfilled the rigorous requirements to be accepted as part of this year’s intake to Hope’s Peak Pokémon Trainer Academy…”

Hope’s Peak!? Him!? This… this was perfect! He’d be constantly surrounded by some of the best young trainers in the world! He’d have tutors who’d actually want to help him develop as a trainer, instead of being bitter than he could beat them in a fight! This was finally his chance to get out of this village and his grandfather’s shadow!

“Hah!” He couldn’t stop himself from crying again, albeit with joy this time… “Thank you so much!” He couldn’t help but run forward to hug the man who’d given him this fantastic news…

“Heh… No prob…”

“Arcarcarc!” The postman’s reply was cut off as Arcanine decided to join in the hug as well… which meant the pair of the got pushed to the floor by a happy pile of fur that wanted to smother them both in sloppy licks…

“Ahh! Arcanine, STAND!” Kiyotaka ordered, snapping his fingers to emphasis the point.

Arcanine complied, moving into his best standing posture and giving them space to get back up again. “I’m so sorry…” Kiyotaka apologised, noticing that the man was now covered in wet fur…

“Don’t worry about it kid… seems to be part of the job…” He sighed, getting a Pelipper out of a pokéball, “Enjoy your new school!” He waved tiredly before flying off…

“New school!?” His father asked.

Kiyotaka showed him the letter, and his face gradually split into a smile as wide as his own…

“Well done, Kiyotaka!” He gave him a congratulatory hug…

And then Arcanine flattened them both.

Chapter Text

“Cresselia…”

The golden shining moonlight emanating from the beautiful pokémon’s face began to fade, as she warned him that she would have to leave him yet again.

“Wait! Don’t go…” Hifumi called out… and then sighed as he realised he’d woken up, dispelling his dream of the legendary pokémon completely…

But, he couldn’t sit and mope all day! He had to start drawing! He’d made it his life’s goal to show everyone how beautiful Cresselia was, that must be why she always visited his dreams, after all!

He sat at his drawing bench, furiously pencilling and inking, trying to get down the correct contours and the shimmer of her light and all the sheer beauty of it down while the memory of his dream was still fresh in his mind…

Once he was finished, he sat up straight to get a look at his finished work…

“Tch! Still not right!” He muttered to himself, angrily throwing the picture away before the ink was even dry.

“Argh!” Hifumi almost had a heart attack as a male voice cried out just a few feet away from him…

He turned to see his older sister with a man who was gingerly peeling the discarded picture off of his left arm and groaning at the mess of ink it had left there...

“HIFUMI! What have I told you about not throwing away your pictures before they dry!” Fujiko scolded him, “That was a wonderful picture and now you’ve ruined it!”

“My pictures are all terrible!” He snapped.

“If your pictures were bad, people wouldn’t pay you to draw them and their pokémon together…” Fujiko sighed.

“Well, that’s because they’re ordinary pokémon! But my pictures of her are nothing compared to what I see in my dreams!” He told her, although he wasn’t sure why he bothered, because they had this argument every morning…

“Well… they were good enough to get you a place at Hope’s Peak!” Fujiko grinned.

“What!?” That was a new addition to the argument!

“Yes… I have the invitation letter for you…” The man with Fujiko said, “I just need you to sign for it.”

…This couldn’t be real. It was probably just an elaborate set up to get his autograph. But he had to admire the man’s gusto! He’d already got autographs from trainers like Kuwata, Maizono, Enoshima…

“Very well!” He signed the pad, and did a little sketch of him next to it for good measure…

“Thanks, here you go…” The man replied, handing over an envelope, before heading out of the room.

This was impressive… it even had Hope’s Peak’s seal on the outside! And the letter was written on the official embossed paper… and it even had a fake student ID… which turned on and displayed his name…

“THIS IS ACTUALLY REAL!?” He realised with a shriek.

“Of course it’s real!” His sister sighed, “What did you think, it was just a set up to get your autograph?”

“…Yes.” Hifumi admitted, “Why would Hope’s Peak want me!? I’m not that good of a trainer!”

“Well, now you can start getting better at it!” She enthused.

“Assuming I go…” Honestly, it just sounded like a hassle…

“Why wouldn’t you!? It’s Hope’s Peak! It’s where all the best trainers go!” Fujiko cried, “You’d have lots of strong pokémon around you to practise drawing!”

“I could practise drawing forever and it still wouldn’t make me good enough…” Hifumi sighed, looking at the smudged picture on the floor…

“So… you’re giving up on showing everyone Cresselia, then?” Fujiko asked sadly.

“What!? NO!” He snapped, “It’s just…”

...He’d never be able to draw her… But how else could he show her to everyone? Photography? Having to run around finding her and then chase after her with a camera? If he was going to go to that trouble, he might as well train up his Dratini and catch her…

A smile spread across his face as he realised exactly why Hope’s Peak had chosen him… He was the Chosen One! The unlikely hero would venture forth, with naught but vague dreams and visions to guide him, and share the beauty of Cresselia with the world!

“So... Are you going to…?” Fujiko barely started asking before he was hurriedly writing his acceptance of the invitation...

20,000 feet in the air, travelling at no less than 30 miles per hour, two pokémon to compete for each fighter… including the one they were riding on.

A typical battle between potential Togami heirs.

There were many, he was sure, who thought they were all mad. That they could have just had ‘normal’ pokémon battles to determine who was going to gain complete control over Togami Inc. And some deluded fools probably would suggest they all just split Togami Inc.’s assets between the 14 of them. But those common people didn’t understand. How were they supposed to understand and cater to the extreme needs of the very best pokémon trainers if their own skills weren’t good enough? How were they supposed to overcome the trials of the business world if they couldn’t overcome the trail of beating all 13 of their half-brothers.

And by ‘they’ and ‘their’ Togami meant ‘him’ and ‘his’, obviously. He may only be half-way through beating all his half-siblings, but he knew it would be him who became the next face of Togami Inc...

But then, this idiot opposite him, stupidly trying to intimidate him by going at 45 mile per hour and forcing his Drampa to keep up, probably thought as much himself.

"Can you not keep your pokémon under proper control?" Togami sneered at him, "Honestly, you're all so arrogant! Thinking you deserve to delay my becoming head of the family, just because you're older than me!"

The inferior Togami scowled and threw out his first pokémon, “I know I deserve to be the head of the Togami family, because I’m Serperior to you! You little brat!”

...Really? He picked his pokémon for the sake of a pun!?

“…Rufflet, just… get this idiot out of my sight!” Togami ordered as he summoned his newest pokémon.

The specially bred pokémon squawked eagerly and launched itself at whichever half-brother this one was, easily taking down the Serperior and his ride, at which point he fell out of the sky. To be safely caught, of course. Probably. It wasn't like it mattered. He was only going to have a chance at becoming the family heir if Togami lost a battle, which he hadn't yet, and wasn't going to.

Honestly, you’d think being part of one of the elite pokémon training families, with unlimited access to all the best and newest products for trainers that their company produced, would have bestowed enough competence on his half-siblings to give him some interesting battles at least. But unfortunately, he was just that much better than them.

"Umm... Excuse me?" Togami had Drampa do a quick turn as a voice from behind him caught him by surprise... Who would be stupid enough to pester him up here? "...Please tell me you're Byakuya Togami and not that other guy!" A distressed looking courier riding a Pelipper asked him with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Of course I am. I was the winner, wasn't I?"

The man muttered something about knowing his luck to himself, before holding a clipboard out... "In that case, I have a letter for you, if you'll just sign this..."

"Rufflet!" Togami gestured for his new pokémon to bring it over... "No, the clipboard Rufflet!" He added, as his pokémon started pecking at the man's hat, "Tell him, Drampa..." He finally had to resort to asking his starter pokémon to communicate to the overenthusiastic bird that he needed the clipboard, not the man's hat turned into nesting material.

He had a look at the board... other than himself, there were 15 other names, some of which he vaguely recognised as good customers and spokéspeople... but only around his age. "Hope's Peak are inviting me now?" He complained, "I'd have thought they'd at least have the good manners to wait until I'm no longer engaged in becoming the Togami heir..."

"Does that mean you're not accepting?"

"No, of course I'm accepting. I can do both at the same time." It wasn't as if it was likely for anyone there to beat him in a fight either... "But it's the principle of the matter! A school as high-class as Hope's Peak should have better manners! And, frankly, they ought to have a better dressed courier!"

Tch! He didn't even bother to respond to that before spurring his Pelipper into flight. Some people just couldn't take constructive criticism...

“News just in, another duel between Togami siblings has just taken place! The winner was Byakuya, whose Rufflet was able to…”

“Well, of course it was!” Toko muttered to herself as she wrote. "He's the best trainer in the world..."

Rich, determined, good judgement... A shining bastion of a trainer for the world to look up to... and such a jerk that the whole world wanted to be the one to drag him down to his knees! That was Byakuya Togami, the world's ultimate rival!

And she knew a thing or two about rivals... that special feeling that you got when you looked at someone and knew, deep down inside, that they'd be with you forever, constantly just ahead or behind you in your pokémon journey, constantly interrupting your day just to pick a fight with you, constantly challenging you and not letting you rest for a second because if you did they'd take advantage of it and then they'd have won!

Oh, she knew about rivals alright, she'd written hundreds of stories about pairs of rivals, overcoming their initial fondness for each other and letting their competitiveness take over, until each was a bloodthirsty trainer who wouldn't rest until they reached their utmost potential and could thoroughly destroy their rival's team!

...Even if she had never actually had a rival herself...

But that wasn’t her fault! What sort of parents got their daughter a Trubbish as a starter pokémon!? No one at school ever wanted to battle her because of the smell, not even after she’d caught a Scatterbug to fight with instead! Still, she’d show them all! Soon, she’d evolve Scatterbug into a beautiful Vivillion and then everyone would want to battle her, but she wouldn’t because she was holding out for a good rival, worthy of her time, Like Byakuya To…

‘Ding dong’ Her thoughts of revenge were interrupted by the doorbell… who the heck was visiting her?

“Garbodor, go open the door…” She ordered her older pokémon…

“O-dor…” It agreed, bumbling its way across to the door…

“He…urgh gods!” Whoever it was was quickly overcome by the stench of her pokémon.

“W-well th-that’s what you get for interrupting me while I’m working!” Toko snapped at him, “What do you want!?”

“I… Ulp… letter for you…” He retched, “…Needs signing…”

“Alright, give it to Garbodor…” She sighed. A few seconds later her pokémon came back with a clipboard and an envelope, which she looked over… “Hope’s Peak? Why do they want me? I’m a writer…” She scowled.

“I don’t know… ask Kizughkura…” He still wasn’t used to the smell, “But I need that board back…” He added.

“Y-yeah, whatever…” She didn’t see why she should go, but that was no reason to hold this guy up when he needed to visit more people like those bimbos Maizono and Enoshima and… and…

Byakuya Togami

Byakuya Togami? THE Byakuya Togami!? She was getting a chance to go to school with the real Byakuya Togami?

Hehehehe! This was it! This was her chance to finally get the rival of her dreams! He’d encourage her to become the world’s greatest pokémon trainer… and then she’d laugh in his face as she crushed his arrogant smug attitude straight into the ground with her super-powerful team! Would that mean she’d get control of the Togami corporation? Urg… that’d be a pain but…

“Umm... Excuse me? Miss Fukawa?” She was jolted from her fantasy of becoming a high-class business woman by the postman, “Are you alright? You’ve been sat there for a minute without moving…”

“Huh? Oh right!” She signed the board and passed it back to Garbodor to take back to him, which made the guy groan a bit. But what could he expect? She needed to get ready to face her new life as rival to the best pokémon trainer in the world!

Celestia smiled faintly to herself as three sevens obediently lined themselves up on the slot machine and the machine sent out a shower of coins into the pay-out tray. Who’d have guessed she’d have got a jackpot on the first coin she put in? Other than her, of course…

She counted up her winnings… this meant she’d saved enough to buy her Weavile the Hidden Power TM… He needed a move that would help him deal with irritating fighting types, and knowing her luck, hidden power was sure to be either Flying, Psychic or Fairy for him… at least, that’s was she was betting 6000 coins on! So it’d better be true! She was never going to her dream of setting up a gym in a castle full of bow-tie wearing Weavile servants if she wasted good money on useless TMs!

A few minutes later, she’d bought the TM, and had Weavile learn it… but now she needed something to test it on…

“Excuse me? Celestia Ludenberg?” Good lord, what did this scruff-bag want with her? “Ah… s-sorry… it’s just I have a letter to give you, I just need you to sign here…”

Celestia’s nose wrinkled at the disgusting smell emanating from the board… “What did you do, feed this to a Trubbish?” She scowled.

“It was a Garbodor… although it didn’t eat it at least…” He scowled. “Can you just sign it so I can get on my job, please?”

Tch! The nerve of him! Trying to make demands of a lady like her! “Only if you help me with an experiment first…”

“Well… alright…” He agreed.

“Perfect! I need you to get out your pokémon…” She explained, smiling cheerfully.

“Err… okay? Pelipper!” He summoned the bird...

“Good! Weavile, use Hidden Power!” Celestia ordered, pointing at the stupid looking bird.

“Wait… what!?” The scruff-bag cried, just before Weavile summoned eight balls of golden light, which shot towards his target and exploded in a cloud of glitter that coated both the bird and its trainer…

“Argh… what is this!?” The man cried, trying to brush it all off himself, but without much luck…

“Fairy dust. Perfect!” Celestia smiled. She liked it when her luck came through… which was always! “It looks better than the rest of you, at least!”

“I… I guess it’s not the worst thing a pokémon’s hit me with today…” He conceded. “Was that all you needed?” He asked, holding out his disgusting clipboard again.

“Yes, that will be all…” She relented, holding the pen as far away from her as she could as she signed it, and was given a (thankfully clean) letter in return, which she opened idly…

An invitation to Hope’s Peak? Interesting… as refined as she was, she wasn’t an especially interesting trainer, other than her her luck inside game corners… but why would a school for trainers be interested in that?

Well, no matter. It was an opportunity. Everyone always said Hope’s Peak had all sorts of benefits to bestow upon its students, and she wasn’t one to turn down a free lunch…

“One Pelipper detected.”

“Thank you Alter Ego.” Chihiro muttered, carrying on tinkering with their code. They weren’t concerned about birds, and there shouldn’t be any reason for next door’s Stoutland to…

“STOUT, STOUT, STOUT!!!” Chihiro flinched as next door’s Stoutland did go into a barking frenzy, and they could hear the frantic cries of a man who must be trying to run away from it.

“It’s fine, it can’t get in here, it’s fine, it can’t get in here…” Chihiro reminded themselves until they calmed down. They really wished they could get over their fear of dogs, but ever since that horrible thing next door had got out of its owner’s control and attacked them when they were five, even the sound of barking had terrified them…

Even after Chihiro’s father had got them a Golett to protect them, they were still too freaked out by dogs to give orders to it in fights with them… which meant every kid at school had discovered Chihiro’s fear and teased them about it, telling them it was safe to go into patches of grass with Houndooms in or hiding dog-like pokémon in pokéballs and then releasing them to scare them.

It was why Chihiro had started developing additions to his father pokédex software, that would allow the machines to scan for nearby pokémon in a larger radius, and also to check which pokémon were inside of people’s pokéballs. Their father had been really impressed with it, which had surprised them. They’d just done it just for themself, but apparently trainers were interested in anything that could tell them if a rare pokémon was in the area, and people who owned dangerous pokémon but lied about them were becoming a big security issue, so there’d been talk of selling the software to various companies, who’d also looked at some of their other projects and taken an interest in their attempts to make the OS of the pokédex a little more intelligent…

So now they had a job programming pokédex software! Not bad for a kid who was only just about to go to highschool…

“Chihiro?” They heard their father knock on the door, “You’ve got a letter you need to sign for!”

Hmm, it’d probably just be those documents about the entirely new sort of pokédex software they’d been told was being developed in Alola… “Okay, coming!” They finished their line of code and went to the entry room.

Well, it was obvious what the Stoutland had been barking at now… their visitor was too busy examining the hole in the backside of his trousers, and accidentally shaking pieces of glitter onto the carpet as he did so, to have noticed Chihiro coming downstairs.

“Umm… Excuse me? You have some information for me?” Chihiro coughed to get his attention…

“Huh? Oh! Sorry, I didn’t hear you!” He jumped and straightened up, trying to hide the damage, “And it’s a letter from Hope’s Peak.” He added.

“Hope’s Peak are giving me the documents?” Chihiro frowned, they’d heard that there was a spy attending the school, but they didn’t think it was involved in corporate espionage…

“Well… it’s an invitation to Hope’s Peak, so…”

“Huh? An invitation? For me!?” Chihiro gasped, “Umm… are you sure you’re at the right house?”

“Uhh… you are Chihiro Fujisaki, right?” The man held out a clipboard with their name on it, along with good trainers like Byakuya Togami and Leon Kuwata…

“Well… yes…” Chihiro agreed, signing their name, “I… I’m just not sure what they want with me… All I do is make pokédex software…”

“Well, that’s probably why then, they usually like to have one tech-savvy person in the class to help the other trainers!” The postman replied as he handed over the letter.

So they’d only be there as tech-support for the other students? That made sense… and maybe there’d be someone there who could help them get over their fear of dogs… As long as they didn’t end up telling everyone about it and getting teased again...

“Target?” Mukuro asked another soldier as they headed to the meeting point.

“It’s a Rhyhorn that’s been worrying the local village for weeks.”

“Any attacks on humans?”

“One… it charged at some kids… but we’re pretty sure it was provoked.”

“Sounds like normal Rhyhorn behaviour.” Mukuro summarised, “I’m assuming it’s the usual protocol?”

“Yes… antagonise it, lure it through webbing to slow it and into the cage…” Her fellow soldier agreed. “You’ll be the bait… if you’re up to it.”

“Affirmative.” She answered. Why wouldn’t she be up to it? They dealt with Rhyhorns at least once a month. They were one of Fenrir’s specialities…

Soon enough, they found the target, it behaved as usual for a pokémon of it’s kind, perfectly content to be left alone to graze. If it weren’t for the fact that it had ended up on the outskirts of a village that was trying to expand, it would have lived happily in solitude until a strong trainer came along to capture it.

But, unfortunately, it had ended up of the outskirts of a village that was trying to expand, and some weak kids had probably tried to capture it and got attacked instead… and there were no trainers nearby who were interested in trying to capture a Rhyhorn, so Fenrir had been called in instead.

They were an elite group of soldiers, trained in dealing with wild pokémon that were too strong for local trainers to handle; whether it was a Rhyhorn that had charged into inconvenient places, swarms of Scyther or Beedrill that picked the wrong territory to defend, or a rogue Steelix that needed concussive fire to take down, Fenrir could be relied upon to round them up and relocate them to a more sensible place, like the nearest Safari zone, or a more remote cave or patch of tall grass where they could be left in peace to wait for a trainer to catch them.

It was the perfect place for someone who was able to fight, but completely unable to train pokémon… and as Junko had told her so many times, she really was useless at training pokémon! It had been years since she’d seen her sister, and still the only thing her Comfey was good for was to be worn as an accessory, just as Junko had said it would be when she’d told Mukuro never to make it fight anything…

She patted the pokémon currently draped around her neck, just to make sure it was still alright, before looking over the area… The others had set up the patch of webbing to slow the Rhyhorn down, followed by the thick steel cage she’d be luring it into. All was set up as usual, and had apparently been done without disturbing the target. Honestly, if those stupid kids hadn’t pestered it, it would’ve been fine. It’d be much better off in the Safari zone…

With that in mind, she positioned herself between the webbing and the pokémon, and walked towards it, her fellow soldiers readying guns and tranquilisers in case anything went wrong with the plan.

It didn’t, Mukuro walked over to it, on purposefully being loud and threatening in order to get it to charge her, which it did. At which point she quickly switch direction, getting enough of a run up to jump over the webbing, which slowed the Rhyhorn down just enough to give her time to scramble up the side of the cage and stop it from being able to smash straight through it when it charged inside and two of her fellow Fenrir members moved forwards to shut it in there.

“Good work, Ikusaba.” Her senior officer commented, “Let’s move this guy out!”

“Wait… Ikusaba!?”

There was a moment of confusion among the ranks as a civilian, a rather war-torn looking civilian riding a Pelipper, but still a civilian, called out from the air above them. “Hold on a minute, please!”

She looked over to her superior, who shrugged and let him land… which he did and then proceeded to step right into the patch of webbing…

“Hello, Muku… What the…? Arg!” He cried in dismay as he realised what he’d done and struggled to free himself… “What is this?”

“Caterpie webbing.” Mukuro explained, as she pulled him out of it, “State your purpose with me.”

“Uhh… I’m delivering an invitational letter from Hope’s Peak!”

Hope’s Peak? The school for all the best pokémon trainers? “But I’m a useless trainer…” Mukuro told him, “Why would I go to a school for them?”

“Oh! Well… your sister said not to worry, because she’ll be there to look after you!” He told her.

“My sister? Junko’s going?” Mukuro asked.

“Yes! See!” The civilian pointed to her name on the list…

“Oh… well… I guess if she said I’d be okay…” After all, her sister and she knew each other better than anyone…

Sakura meditated, paying no mind to the trainer currently battling their way through her gym, or the feeling of the cherry blossoms from Florges’ trees floating gently through the air and landing on her. At least, until the trainer made his way into her area, the last before he faced her father, and pushed his way through the cherry trees surrounding her…

“Greetings trainer.” He’d made it this far, he deserved a welcome, if nothing else. “Which badge will this be for you?”

“My first.” He trembled under her gaze. She was probably coming off as too stern again… It was always hard to judge exactly how intimidating a Gym should be…

“Very well…” She nodded, summoning the Snorunt she’d caught whilst scaling Mount Lanakila. It was a pity. She rarely had challengers at their remote gym, and had been hoping Florges would be able to compete this time, but her original pokémon was far too strong to send out against a trainer with no badges. Really, even her the Snorunt was a little too strong, and she had to order it to hold back several times in order to give the child a fair chance for his badge.

He did manage to defeat it, and carried on through to beat her father, judging from the way he walked out proudly… Once he was gone, Sakura sighed deeply.

“What’s troubling you?” Her father asked, having heard her from outside the circle of trees.

“I feel as if I’m stagnating.” She answered, simply.

“…Ah.” Was his only reply. He knew what she meant, but likely didn’t want to delve into it.

Finding battles at her level of expertise had rarely been a problem before… she’d had her rival, Kenshiro, and his haphazard and yet still incredibly effective training regime to thank for that. His Machamp had always been just a few steps ahead of her Florges, since before she could remember, and they’d always grown stronger together.

But now he had another battle to fight, one that left him too pallid and sick to strengthen even his pokémon with her, let alone spar with her personally.

“Perhaps… some time away from the gym would help… somewhere with stronger trainers…” Her father suggested.

“Hmm…” If there was such a place, it would help, but the issue was finding somewhere with trainers who would also improve at the same rate as her… “I will meditate on the matter…”

“Ah… excuse me?” There was an unfamiliar voice from outside the trees, and soon a man came through them, stumbling awkwardly due to some sticky substance on his ankles, which were now getting coated with the cherry blossoms that coated the ground. “I’m looking for Sakura Oogami?”

“I am she. Greetings.” Sakura answered, “Do you have need of my assistance?” He certainly looked as though he was in distress…

“No… I just need you to sign for a letter…” He answered, holding out a clipboard, which seemed to make her father look uncomfortable…

“…Very well.” She answered, signed the correct line and handing it back, in exchange for a letter… with a symbols she’d heard tell of before…

“Hope’s Peak?” She asked, “I thought you need to be recommended by a gym… leader…”

Her father turned his gaze away from her. Well, no wonder he’d wanted her to consider travelling.

“I see… Thank you.” She finished, which made her father relax somewhat. He may not have felt comfortable meddling in her affairs, but he had given her a solution to her current problem. Somewhere like Hope’s Peak would tide her pokémon over until her rival recovered…

“Umm, Makoto...? Why are you now Battle Net friends with some crappy 1-star trainer?” Komaru asked from behind the family computer.

“What? All my friends are at least three stars!” And that three star person was Komaru so she could hardly talk! “Who are you looking at?”

“This Ishimaru guy…”

“The heck? Did I accidentally click the wrong rating in my review?” Makoto pulled up Battle net on his laptop to check…

Nope, he’d definitely given five stars… but then a ton of idiots had given him one star and complained he was overpowered…

“Tch… jealous idiots…” Makoto sighed, as he started reporting the unfair reviews… “’This Rattata I just caught didn’t beat the Growlithe he’s been training for three years, he must be cheating!’” He summarised most of the reviews. “Oh well… they’ll just look like even bigger idiots when it gets out that he’d going to Hope’s Peak…”

“Wha…? Have they announced this year’s intake already?” Komaru quickly switched tabs to check the news.

“No… I just happened to spot the recruiter testing him when I went down that wrong route yesterday… even he doesn’t know he’s going yet!”

“Really? You have the weirdest luck!” Komaru complained, “I’m going to add him before everyone else finds out and does the same… Then I can say I’m friends with a Hope’s Peak student!”

…That might not be the closest relationship she had to one… But maybe it was best not to get her hopes up…

“MAKOTO! Someone’s at the door for you!” His father shouted worriedly through the house.

Hmm… He wasn’t expecting any friends to come around today… Could this really be it?

He went to the front door, with Komaru poking her head around the door in curiosity…

It… well, the man there looked like he had been wearing a courier’s uniform, once… But it was hard to tell with it ripped up and covered in dirt, singes, sticky cherry petals and various other stains.

“Makoto Naegi?” He checked, “I’ve got a letter for you, I need you to sign here…” He held out the form as far away from him as possible… as if expecting Makoto to explode on contact or something.

“Okay?” Makoto took the clipboard and signed it, looking over the list of names, a few of which he recognised, including Ishimaru… “…Do you work for Hope’s Peak?”

(“Why would someone from Hope’s Peak have a letter for you…?”)

“Not after today, I don’t!" The mailman complained.

(“Wait… That letter’s from Hope’s Peak!?”)

“’Oh, just deliver a few letters, it’ll be easy!’, right…!?”

(“MOM! Get the camera!”)

“NOPE! I’ve had clumps of Sandyghast dumped on my hair…”

(“…You got a letter from Hope’s Peak!?”)

“My sleeve got set on fire…”

(“Why? What are you doing!?”)

“Some idiot dumped beer on me and my autograph from Sayaka Maizono!” Wait, did he say SAYAKA!?

(“Makoto’s getting a letter from Hope’s Peak!”)

“I’ve had a Teddiursa try to eat me…!”

(“But I thought they only sent those to their students?”)

“…Had to race a biker for an hour and then his stupid mutt tried to kill me…”

(“Geez! That’s the POINT, Mom!”)

“Got used as bait in a trap for Team Rocket…!”

(“Makoto’s going to HOPE’S PEAK!?”)

“Fell into the sea…!”

(“Yes!”)

“Got slobbered on by an Arcanine…!”

(“We should take a picture of him getting the letter!”)

“Had ink thrown all over my sleeve…”

(“Ya THINK!? That’s why I said to get the camera!”)

“A Rufflet shredded my hat…!”

(“Makoto’s going to Hope’s Peak…”)

“My clipboard still smells of Garbodor…”

(“Dad, you’ve said that about five times now…”)

“And I’m pretty sure this glitter will be stuck to my clothes forever…!”

(“Okay! I’ve got the camera! Should… should I just take one with him and postman?”)

“A Stoutland’s still got the seat of my pants…!”

(“I dunno… he’s kind of mess…”)

“And the only reason my legs aren’t stuck together from this stupid webbing…”

(“We should take one with all of us!”)

“Is because they’re coated in petals!” He finished, panting irritably after his rant.

(But who’s going to take it?”)

Wow… sounded like Hope’s Peak’s newest class were a pretty odd-ball bunch, to put him through all of that. “Uhh… well, sounds like you’ve had a rough day! Let me just sign this and then you can be on your way…” He handed

(“Wait… What if we get him to take it?”)

“Thanks… here you go kid.” The postman handed over an envelope with Hope’s Peak’s logo emblazoned on it… It felt weirdly heavy, like it was much more than just a simple school invitation… “Glad that’s finally over…” He added, muttering,

“WAIT! Before you go…” Makoto’s mother cried, whilst holding out a camera “Would you mind taking a picture of us all?”

“Err… a-alright.” He said, gingerly taking the camera, while Makoto’s parents stood behind him with their arms on his shoulders and Komaru stood beside him and made him hold the envelope up so she could point excitedly at it…

“Ah-hahaha…” Makoto laughed in embarrassment as the picture was taken. He’d just been in the right place at the right time…

But, when the man turned the camera around to show him the picture, all three of his family looked so proud you’d think he was holding the champion’s belt…

“It’s a good picture… thanks…” Makoto muttered.

“Yeah… it’s nice delivering good news…” The man smiled, “Maybe this job isn’t so bad…” He added, before summoning a Pelipper and flying away…

“”You’re going to Hope’s Peak…” His father muttered, still not sounding as if he believed it.

“How did you manage that?” His mother asked.

“Was it because you met the recruiter!?” Komaru asked, “Did you do something to impress him?”

“Umm… well…” Makoto scratched his head awkwardly, “We got talking for a bit because… I kinda called Professor Oak a lying jerkface?” He admitted, grinning sheepishly…

“YOU DID WHAT!?” His whole family exclaimed in dismay…

Oh boy… when he put it like that, it seemed kind of crazy for him to be going there… But there was no way he could turn down an opportunity like this!

But, either way, his pokémon training journey was certainly going to be an interesting one…

Chapter Text

Mukuro walked through the gates of her new school at 0655 hours, briefly looking around to see if Junko or any obvious threats were anywhere to be seen, and made her way through the halls to the assembly point she had been informed of by letter. The school halls were empty (odd, given there were supposed to be another 15 students entering and she was on track to enter the room at exactly the beginning of the induction period) but her Comfey was still jittering about anxiously against her neck. It must have been able to sense the large number of powerful pokémon that were probably inhabiting Hope’s Peak…

“Don’t worry… I’m not going to let you get into any battles…” She murmured to calm it down. If people wanted to battle her pokémon, they’d have to go through her first!

“Com-feeey…” It didn’t sound quite convinced, but stopped rustling around as she headed towards the school gym…

“Greetings! I am Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and this is my Arcanine! I look forward to having many interesting battles with you as we train our pokémon together!” It sounded as if a pair of students had arrived early and were introducing themselves… But an Arcanine? Against her Comfey? Perhaps she should wait out here for Junko, if she wasn’t the other student this Ishimaru guy was talking to… She waited to hear the other trainer’s response…

“...What do you think? Was that a bit too forward…?” Ishimaru spoke again…

“Nine!” A loud growl came from the room, and Comfey started to tremble again…

“You’re sure? It sounds alright?” Ishimaru sounded nervous, “I don’t want to come off as desperate… And some of the other trainers are more fashion and sport… maybe I should drop the bit about battles?”

“…Arc?” The dog sounded as if it didn’t think it was a big problem…

Mukuro stood against the wall and cautiously stuck her head around the doorframe to see what was actually going on in the room… There was only one trainer, dressed somewhat like a team rocket grunt, but with a fancier uniform and no R on the chest, who was pacing up and down the room while a large, neatly brushed Arcanine sat perfectly still on the floor and turned its head back and forward to watch him walk… It was certainly a well-trained pokémon…

“Perhaps I should just say ‘learning’! Or improving! That’s better! ‘Greetings! I am Kiyotaka Ishimaru, and this is my Arcanine! I look forward to improving my pokémon alongside you!’… Yes! That’s better, I’ll say that!” Ishimaru nodded, although he still looked grim, “So now I sound alright…”

Hmm… Should she be practising what to say to her new classmates? She usually went with ‘Ikusaba, Fenrir, touch Comfey and you die.’ But maybe that was a little too militaristic for her new environment…

“…My name is Mukuro Ikusaba, I’m a member of Fenrir, I’m not interested in pokémon battles…” She practised quietly…

“Like, Oh Mi Gawd, Muku! It’s you!” Ah! That was Junko’s voice! “But, what are doing!? You can’t practise introducing yourself! Only total losers do that!”

“Ah! Junko! I’m lucky you told me!” Mukuro told her, turning away from the door to look at her sister… and gasped slightly at the huge and beautiful pink serpent she had following her…

“Well, sisters gotta look after each other! Even if you’re the big sister and should be looking after me!” Junko sighed at her, “But, I suppose that’s what happens when you go live with dogs for years… Do all of them practise their introductions as well?”

“No… it was just that guy in there was…” Mukuro pointed to the doorway…

Junko pushed Mukuro to the other side of the doorway so she could peep inside at Ishimaru herself, who stopped moving and was now peering at his reflection in the window and trimming his already short hair…

“Tch… Now I’ve made this side look too short!” He grimaced and switched the side he was trimming…

“Pfft! He’s so worries about how he looks, he’s gonna cut all his hair off and make himself look terrible!” Junko laughed… And she was usually right about this sort of thing, especially as Ishimaru was still scowling at his own appearance…

“Why do I have such terrible hair…?”

“Arc!” Mukuro quickly shot back up straight so she’d be hidden by the door…

“Ah… what is it Arcanine?” She could hear his boots stomping across the hall again.

“Arcarc!”

“You want something from your bag?” Mukuro noticed that Junko was still looking through the doorway, so peered around the corner to see that Ishimaru and his Arcanine were both paying too much attention to the satchel he was wearing to notice them, “What is it?”

“Arc… arc… ARC!” The dog stuck its nose in the bag before coming out with…

“Your hairbrush? Again!?” Ishimaru exclaimed, “No, Arcanine, you look fine! I said it was my hair that was terrible!” He laughed, before heading back over to the window…

“Niiiine!” Ishimaru faltered a little as his dog whimpered pitifully at him, “Arc-can- niiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnneee…”

“Haahh…” Ishimaru stopped and sighed heavily, “Alright, but just one more brushing and then you let me groom myself, alright?” He tried sounding tough, but it also sounded like he’d probably said it several times already…

“Urg, well that’s boring!” Junko complained, quietly “Stupid loving pokémon, knowing how to make its owner quit worrying and being happy…”

Brushing his Arcanine did indeed seemed to be making Ishimaru less anxious, even as he missed the real reason his pokémon had asked him to do it… “Honestly, if you’re that worried about how your fur looks, maybe we should get you some pretty ribbons to tie it up with…”

“Ooohhh… now that I can have some fun with!” Junko cooed quietly before grabbing Mukuro’s wrist and dragging her into the room, “Did someone say ribbons!?”

“Err…!” Ishimaru looked up at Junko like a Deerling caught in headlights.

“Ohmigawd! Your doggy would totally look adorable in ribbons!” Junko carried on as if he wasn’t petrified of her, “I’m so glad to find someone who gets accessories! I was worried the only other talent person would be Maizono and there wouldn’t be anyone here I could be friends with!”

“Ah… well… I would like to learn everything I can about pokémon competitions…” Ishimaru looked completely relieved by Junko’s lie, probably why she’d told it in the first place. “If you think he’d look good in ribbons, I’ll buy some and…”

“No need! Got some here!” Junko rummaged around in her accessory case and pulled out some black ribbons, “Just keep him still and I’ll have him all fixed up in a jiffy!” She added, snatching Ishimaru’s brush out of his hand.

“Ngh… Alright?” Ishimaru stepped back and held his finger in front of the dogs face… “Arcanine, stay…”

“Arc.” It barked softly and almost went cross-eyed as it stared at the finger calmly… at least, until Junko started tightly tying and pulling the ribbons into plaits… “Nnnn! Niiine!”

“Err… I think you’re hurting him!” Ishimaru exclaimed, “Not so tight, please!”

“But it’d look sloppy if I did that!” Junko shrugged and pulled the ribbons tighter, making the dog howl.

“Th-then forget I mentioned them!” Ishimaru stammered, trying to block her hands, “Perhaps a different accessory! A comfortable one!”

“Well, fashion isn’t ‘comfortable’!” Junko sighed and pulled tighter, “If you’re serious about joining talent competitions, you’ve gotta…”

“STOP HURTING HIM!” Ishimaru leant forward to try and push Junko over… except Mukuro saw that coming a mile away and grabbed him before he got anywhere near her sister… “Let me go! She’s…”

“Huh!? What’s your problem? I was just trying to help!” Junko whined? Why was she doing that? “You were the one who suggested ribbons!”

“I just…”

“Dude! What the hell, man!? Were you attacking a pair of babes?” Ah… That was why Junko had been pretending to be upset… another couple of students had come through the door, a messy redhead with a Luxray who was currently yelling at and approaching Ishimaru and a very short trainer in a green skirt who was failing to hide behind a Golett and staring at the dog on the floor…

“Comfey!” Comfey started trembling… it must have been getting scared at the number of pokémon in the room, and the increased tension…

“He’s not angry at us…” Mukuro shushed it.

“She was hurting Arcanine!” Ishimaru shouted and tried to move his arm towards her sister, “And she didn’t listen when I told her to stop!”

“I was just putting in some ribbons…” Junko moped innocently, “Right, Muku?”

“Right.” Mukuro agreed.

“But you were putting them in so tight they were pulling at his fur!” Ishimaru snapped.

“Dude, c’mon! That’s Junko Enoshima!” The redhead seemed to know her sister, “She the queen of accessories! You think someone like that is gonna tie up ribbons wrong?”

“That sounds exactly like something Enoshima would do!” Junko scowled at the sound of a girl’s voice from the doorway… Ah… it was that blue-haired girl with the Brionne that Junko always argued with on television…

“Err…” The redhead seemed to be willing to listen to her, if not Ishimaru… “Really?”

“Yes, really! Just look at the poor thing!” The singer cried as she came over, “It’s sat there whimpering!”

“Well, no pain, no gain!” Junko shrugged, “It’s not my fault it’s such a wimp it can’t even wear accessories properly!”

“It can wear accessories that don’t hurt it…” Junko’s rival sniped.

“Ah… such as?” Ishimaru asked, continuing to try and break free of Mukuro’s grip.

“Hmm… well…” She started digging through an accessory case of her own, “There’s always the old tradition for an Arcanine… A police hat!” She brought one out with a flourish…

“AH! NO!” Ishimaru started to panic, for some reason…

“AARRRRCCCCCC…” A reason that became apparent as soon as the dog saw it and started snarling at the item, slowly backing away from it, as if it expected the hat to hurt it somehow…

*snap* “Arcanine! It’s just a costume! You’re still my pokémon!” Ishimaru was failing to signal his worried pet, so turned to look at the surprised singer instead. “Ah… please put that away!”

“Ah… right!” She snapped out of her shock and put the hat back in its case…

“CCCCCCC-canine?” It stopped snarling and wheeled around in a confused circle, running back towards its trainer… Who Mukuro decided to let go of. She was not antagonising a fire type while she was wearing Comfey. It’d gone completely still when the dog started growling, poor thing must be scared stiff…

“Thank you!” Ishimaru breathed a sigh of relief, before hugging the dog for a moment. “…My apologies… I suppose Arcanine and I aren’t cut out for the world of talent shows…” He said to the group, afterwards.

“Fuck that! That things not cut out for fucking society!” The redhead yelled at him, “What the fuck is a Team Rocket grunt doing here!?”

“Wha… I don’t work for Team Rocket!” Ishimaru cried, “I realise my old school's uniform bears an unfortunate resemblance, but…”

“Then why the hell would you train your dog to hate the cops!?”

“I didn’t do that!” Ishimaru snapped, as if it was obvious, “I don’t exactly know the details, but my father said he was mistreated by one of his colleagues in the force, and that’s why he’s scared of being put in a police hat…”

“…A policeman mistreated their own pokémon?” The blue haired girl sounded sceptical…

“That totally sounds like an excuse…” Junko agreed, which made the other girl look as if she now didn’t…

“Internal discipline report 13247: August 31^st: Officer Ishimaru caught punching a fellow Officer. Claimed he was defending the victim’s assigned Growlithe from abuse…” The calm voice of a girl with long purple hair, followed by a Kadabera intoned, as if reading a book. “Suggest immediate termination of Ishimaru for violence and besmirching honour of another member of the force…”

“Hah! So your old man’s a liar!” The red head cried.

“But he wasn’t fired!” Ishimaru insisted, “And that was the day I was given Growlithe, and I had to spend weeks convincing him not to be scared of every person he met, and to eat sensibly and get into his pokéball when needed…” Ishimaru looked down at his dog with concern and started trying to figure out the mess of knots Junko had made.

“But there weren’t any other Officers fired from your father’s precinct either…” The girl shrugged, “Even though pokémon abuse is a crime…”

“I don’t know why that is… Whenever I’ve asked my father about it, he just says it’s not important anymore, and I should focus on looking after Arcanine now.” Ishimaru admitted, “How do you know so much about it?”

“Ah, of course. I didn’t introduce myself… I’m Kyoko Kirigiri, I occasionally work alongside the police force and have access to its records as a result.” She shrugged, “I thought it would be worth checking if any of my new class had criminal records…”

“And do they?” Junko asked.

“Of course they wouldn’t! This is an elite school! It’s not going to accept criminals!” Ishimaru snapped.

“Not major ones, anyway.” Kirigiri shrugged, “And I suggest you start with that one.” She added, pointing to one of the ribbons in the Arcanine’s back…

Ishimaru looked sceptical but took her advice and soon started to slowly and gently make headway into the mess…

 “…So, I obviously know you three Kuwata, Maziono, Enoshima…” Kirigiri nodded to the red head, blue head and her sister in turn, “But I wasn’t able to find any information on you…” She looked at Mukuro with icy eyes.

“Ikusaba, Fenrir, touch Comfey and you die.” She said instinctively.

“…Okay then.” Kuwata gulped, his hand creeping down to check a second pokéball on his belt, which had been covered with masking tape.

“I thought Fenrir didn’t train their own pokémon…” Maizono was also looking at her worriedly.

“We don’t.”

“How did you get accepted into Hope’s Peak then?” Kirigiri asked.

“I don’t know.” Mukuro admitted.

“Probably ‘cause you’ve got an awesome big sister like meee!” Junko suggested. “I mean, I did try to warn them about this Mukuro being so big…” She pointed to her pokémon, wait… she’d named that after her? “Maybe they didn’t get what I meant and thought I wanted you to come as well?”

“Hmm…” Kirigiri frowned at them both.

“But, anyway, you girls are pretty big on the talent scene, right?” Kuwata started asking Junko and Maizono for tips on getting into talent contests himself, which confused everyone else because apparently he was supposed to be a sports trainer…

“Yeah, but I won all the sports already, so now I’m gonna find something else to win at!” Kuwata shrugged when asked about it, which both Ishimaru and Maizono scowled at...

They didn’t get the chance to say anything before a group of three trainers walked through the door. A large muscular women with a Florges, a sporty-looking girl with too much pent up energy and a Marill and Glaceon and finally the small Golett trainer from earlier, who was following behind the other two and still looking at Ishimaru’s Arcanine… And Comfey was starting to tremble again, at least it was no longer paralysed…

“While it is good to pursue new paths of growth, you may find others catch up to you faster than you expect if you allow yourself to stray too far…” The larger women warned Kuwata.

“Yeah! ‘Cause my Marill and Vaporeon can both beat your Luxray’s swimming time already!” The sporty girl told him, “And now I’m here I’m gonna be able to try out all the other Pokéathlon stuff to!”

“Huh…” Kuwata looked impressed by her, “Well, if you want, maybe I can give you some tips…” He grinned, “A little one-on-one coaching?”

“That sounds great!” The girl smiled.

“Ah… Arcanine is pretty good on the running track as well!” Ishimaru told Kuwata hopefully, “I’m hoping to…”

“Whatever dude…” Kuwata waved dismissively at him before walking towards the other group, “So, who are you girls?”

“Sakura Oogami, of the Mount Dendemille Gym.” The large woman said calmly.

“And I’m Aoi Asahina! Uhh… I work for the Kanto coastal guard?” The Sporty girl cringed a little at her less impressive job.

“And what about you in the back there?” Junko asked.

“Huh!?” The third trainer stopped staring at the dog and faced Junko, “Ah… I’m Chihiro Fujisaki… I write Pokédex software!”

“So you’re the reason mine keeps wanting to update every time I turn in on!” Kuwata rolled his eyes.

“Umm… I… I suppose?” Fujisaki’s lip started wobbling, “Is it that much of a problem? I thought the updates were useful… And they’re not supposed to be daily…”

“They’re not if you actually let the Pokédex run them!” Asahina glared at Kuwata.

“And they do tend to be useful…” Oogami agreed, “Our gyms members often take the trip to Dendemille Town specifically to download the latest update…”

“Uhh… Yeah! I was just kidding!” Kuwata hastily apologised, “I didn’t mean it!”

“Ah… you didn’t? That’s good… I don’t want to be bother…” Fujisaki breathed a sigh of relief, “Umm… so what do all of you guys do?”

“What!? You meant to say don’t recognise Junko Enoshima? Accessory Queen…” Junko waved at the glittering accessories her Milotic was wearing, “…and winner of the Lilycove City Pokémon Contest Spectacular!?”

“Joint winner, remember!” Maizono snapped at her, and they both glared at each other for a moment before Maizono continued, “I’m Sayaka Maizono. I train my pokémon to do performances, like this!” She twirled her finger around a few times, and her Brionne twirled around as well, finishing with a little pose…

“I’m Leon Kuwata, my Luxray’s the Pokéathlon champ, if you didn’t hear me say it before.” Kuwata shrugged, as his pokémon licked it’s paw smugly.

The was a brief moment of silence as Kirigiri didn’t seem inclined to speak, and Ishimaru was focusing on the last of the ribbons… “I’m Mukuro Ikusaba, I’m a member of Fenrir.” She told them, which resulted in the same confused looks as before, but they quickly turned their attention to Kirigiri instead…

She glanced briefly at Ishimaru, before resigning herself to an introduction. “Kyoko Kirirgiri, freelance detective…”

“Ooohh! That sound pretty cool!” Asahina and both of her pokémon looked at Kirigiri excitedly.

“It’s nothing special, mostly just chasing around Team Rocket and teleporting them  into jail…” Kirigiri said, patting her Kadabra.

“But that sounds incredibly important!” Ishimaru insisted, having managed to get the last ribbon out of his Arcanine. “You should…”

“What about you?” Kirigiri cut him off, “What’s your job?”

“Err… Well, I had a part time job in the local Poké Mart once, but I got let go when they had to cut hours…” Ishimaru admitted embarrassedly.

“So is that why you joined Team Rocket?” Kuwata asked.

“I’m not a member of Team Rocket!” Ishimaru snapped, “I told you, this is just my school’s uniform…”

“…Perhaps I should have said ‘What did you do that got you accepted into Hope’s Peak”’…” Kirigiri suggested wearily.

“OH!” Ishimaru seemed genuinely surprised that that was the question Kirigiri had been intending for him to answer, “Well, in the acceptance letter they said it was because of my contributions to the pokédex research initiative…”

“What’s so special about that? Anyone with a pokédex can do that!” Kuwata shrugged.

“They could… But the impression I get is that none of them do, at least not to the extent I do.” Ishimaru admitted, “But I...”

“So you own a lot of pokémon to record all the time?” Asahina asked.

“No… I only have Arcanine. Most of my recordings are of pokémon I find in the wild… But apparently that has more use than recording trained pokémon, because not many other people do it!” Ishimaru explained brightly, “For example, I’ve managed to record enough wild Kakunas and Metapods evolving that they could extrapolate that there’s a significant difference in evolution speed between wild and trained pokémon that can’t just be put down to the increased number of battles that trained pokémon encounter!”

Huh… that might explain something that had been puzzling her superiors… why there were less strong pokémon in the wild then they’d have expected based on how quickly they usually evolved according to the data… She’d have to pass that back to them…

“Still sounds like you oughta just be working in a lab, not here…” Kuwata said suspiciously, “I mean, you don’t actually know anything about training pokémon, do you?”

“No, that’s wrong!” Several of the group jumped at the sound of a boy’s voice coming dramatically from the doorway, “Err.. I mean… Kiyotaka’s written a ton of guides about looking after different types of pokémon as well…” He added, more quietly…

He was odd… Not because he was out of the ordinary, but because in this crowd of people he seemed to be the only one who Mukuro would have thought of as ordinary, with brown, slightly messy, hair and brown eyes to match, wearing simple casual clothes… Although the Togepi currently riding in his hood was interesting… and Comfey was trembling even more at the sight of it. He must be more powerful than he looked…

“Ah, Makoto! Glad to see you arrived safely!” Ishimaru seemed to know him, “But you should really have tried to get here earlier, even if we do technically have until half past to…”

“Haha! It is you!” Maizono also seemed to know the boy, “How’s your Squirtle!?”

“Ah… you remember that!?” ‘Makoto’ blushed, “I mean… He’s a Blaistoise now… I can show you…”

“For the last time, I am not wasting my time battling some also-ran with naught but a poorly-bred Scatterbug!” He was interrupted by a snobby sounding boy in a suit stalking through the door alongside a Drampa, followed by a girl wearing a drab brown dress and glasses with a Scatterbug on her shoulder… and now Comfey was getting even more agitated…

“I-I have another pokémon! A stronger one!” She told him, furiously. “And it’s going to c-crush you one day!”

“Hah! I doubt it! It’s probably as poorly bred as you!” The rich-boy smirked.

“There’s no such thing as a poorly bred pokémon!” Ishimaru snapped at him, “Just poor trainers who don’t know how to make the best of their unique pokémon’s abilities!”

“W-what? He’s Byakuya Togami! You can’t call him a poor trainer!” The girl Togami had just been insulting told him, “Haven’t you heard of the Togami Corportation!?”

“Yes! I have! And I’ve heard of their PokéMills as well!” Ishimaru scowled.

“That is not what we call our breeding facilities!” Togami glared at him.

“But your family does continually breed and discard pokémon until you get what you consider to be a ‘perfect’ specimen, correct?” Ishimaru scowled.

“Any… less optimal pokémon are sold on to less strategic trainers!” Togami told him, “Not ‘discarded’!”

“But there have been numerous reports about the state your pokémon are kept in…!”

“Jealous fabrications!” Togami insisted, “And besides, what would you have me do? Just take the first pokémon I find and enhance it… Ishimaru?”

“No.” Ishimaru’s face darkened, “I am not my grandfather! I intend to put the effort into improving my team as much as possible without such techniques, even if they don’t happen to have the best start in life! And once I’m done I’m going show you that there’s no need for your mass-breeding by crushing your team!”

“No you will not!” The girl with the Scatterbug cried, “I’m going to be his rival!”

Honestly… Trainers and their obsession with rivals…

Togami just looked insulted by the idea, “Good lord, no you are…”

 “…I’m rather surprised you don’t have one already…” He was interrupted by a posh sounding girl who walked through the door in an impractical frilly dress and high heels, who had the most ridiculous hair Mukuro had ever seen… how did she goes anywhere without those giant drills getting caught in something and pulled out of her hair? Unless that Weavile she had carrying her case made sure they didn’t…

“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean!?”

“Well… you’re Toko Fukawa, aren’t you?” The new girl checked, “You write all those stories about rivalries… I would have expected you to have one already! But I guess people aren’t always what they might seem to be?”

“D-does that mean you’re not some ridiculous goth princess?” Fukawa asked sarcastically.

The ‘ridiculous goth princess’ looked extremely angry for the barest moment, before lapsing back into her calm smile, “My name is Celestia Ludenberg, of Shabboneau Castle, if that answers your question.”

“Shabboneau…?” Oogami was the only one who seemed to recognise the name.

“But, regardless, I was led to believe that we would be greeted by the headmaster?” Ludenberg ignored her, “It’s rather disrespectful of him to keep us waiting… Although I suppose it does give the boy I asked to go make me some tea a chance to get here…”

“There’s also two other students unaccounted for…” Kirigiri observed, “He might be waiting for them…”

Well, that was annoying… Mukuro would rather get this over with so she could ask Junko why she’s suggested Mukuro come here and also get poor Comfey away from these dangerous pokémon! Hopefully the headmaster would arrive soon…

Chapter Text

Jin headed towards the gymnasium with some trepidation… This would be the first time he’d seen his daughter in years. It would have been nice if he hadn’t had to do so while acting as her headmaster in front of the rest of her class. He’d been so eager about it that when one of the staff had informed him that a student had arrived early he’d assumed that she’d deduced that they’d accepted her and instantly ordered them to arrange ‘her’ room for her…

That had been quite awkward, Jin rushing down to the dormitory, only to be met by a bemused boy with a Sandyghast sat on his head (that couldn’t be good for him, could it?) proclaiming that he’d ‘predicted’ his entry into the school! At least it was some more evidence that Olympia was onto something with him, so Koichi needn’t have worried that Hagakure could have just got lucky with his randomly thrown pokéball landing on a hidden, shiny Sandyghast…

(“Tea? Yeah, there’s a whole bunch in the cupboard there…”)

(“Ah! Thank you!”)

(“No problem! So, they letting you chill here for a few years as well?”)

(“… Chill? I’ve been accepted as a student, if that’s what you mean?”)

(“Wait… student!? You mean this place is school!?”)

…Or perhaps Olympia was just trying to drive him crazy…

“Yes, Hagakure, this is a school!” Jin walked towards the sound of the two voices to find Hagakure and Yamada in the kitchen. The supposed fortune teller was lazily eating breakfast and the artist recommended by Burgh was making a cup of tea, “As it said in the letter you received, which also gave you instructions to be in the gymnasium in… one minute!” He pointed out, pointing to the door.

“Ah… sorry!” Yamada began to panic, as did the Dratini draped around his neck like a tie, and hurried to make the tea faster. “I’ll just get this ready for Ludenberg-dono and be right there!”

“…Or you could make her wait for the tea and get to the induction on time.” Jin pointed out sternly, “And not start the year in detention for being the last person to arrive!”

Yamada’s eyes flicked back and forth between the tea and Jin for a few times… “I think I’d rather have the detention then go back to her empty handed!” He admitted, carrying on with the tea…

…Really!? Was Ludenberg that scary? What the hell had Mr Game got him into?

“Eh, besides, Oowada’s gonna be last ‘cause his bike broke down on the way here!” Hagakure shrugged and slowly finished the last parts of his breakfast.

…Well, it would be interesting to discover is that was actually true…

Eventually the pair of them finished and Jin corralled them into the gym… where his daughter was stood talking to a group of children… Ah… She’d grown into such a beautiful young woman…

A beautiful young woman who noticed his arrival, saw him starting at her and sharply turned her head away from him.

Ah… so it was going to be like that, was it? Still, he did have a job to do. Perhaps she’d be more willing to talk in private…

Jin surveyed the rest of the students, who had also noticed his presence and were looking at him with varying degrees of attention; from Togami, who only barely looked up from the file he and his Drampa were both reading, looking as if he thought Jin was a waste of his time, to Ishimaru, who jumped up from the floor into militarist rigidness and hastily signalled his Arcanine into an attentive sitting stance next to him, causing Fujisaki to jump anxiously in the process… presumably due to the fear of dogs Clemont had mentioned…

There was one face missing, however. “Oowada’s not here then…”

“I told you, man!” Hagakure called out.

“Yes…” Jin sighed. Hopefully Hagakure was right about the reason for Oowada’s late arrival as well. The fact that Daiya had named his own brother as his very first recommendation to Hope’s Peak had been met with scepticism from a lot of the other Gym Leaders. If Oowada was shirking attendance already it wouldn’t do well for the reputation of their bizarre mobile Gym…

“Wait… you mean there’s a Gym leader coming here!?” Asahina looked shocked, “I’ve not even got my second badge yet! Are you sure I’m supposed to be here…?”

That was something Misty had worried about while recommending the rescue worker, going to great lengths to mention that Asahina had spent so much time working that she’d not had the opportunity to focus on training her pokémon for battles…

She needn’t had worried so much, this year’s intake included five students who didn’t even have their first badge… The most worrisome of which was the Fenrir member that the steering committee had insisted be allowed to enter the school, despite Koichi pointing out that her Comfey was desperate to fight other pokémon, especially if it could tell they were weaker ones, and yet she still didn’t allow it to battle…

“Hah! It isn’t as if the ‘Crazy Diamonds’ are a real Gym…” Togami sneered. Probably annoyed that his family’s attempted to make one had been blocked.

“…Do they not hand out badges?” Oogami asked, the question sounding more antagonistic than she likely meant it to. Her father had mentioned that she was almost as sheltered from the outside world as he had been at her age.

“They do…” Ludenberg nodded between sips of tea, “However I believe he is referring to the fact that their badges are not part of a region set.”

That was true. Daiya had previously spoken about his hopes to eventually create seven spinoff Gyms and have a ‘mobile’ or ‘touring’ set of badges, part of the reason he’d recommended his brother to the school. His ideas were being frowned upon by the other Gym leaders though, as they felt that the journey to different parts of a region was an important part of a trainer’s experience.

Daiya’s counterargument was that expecting youngsters to drop everything and spend their life travelling ‘means that all the powerful pokémon are in the hands of the sort of irresponsible fuckwits who’re willing ta drop everything and piss about travelling for years’ and ‘screws over poor kids who’ve gotta stay at home and help look after the family’. That didn’t exactly go down well with groups of Gym leaders who’d been able to spend their formative years travelling…

“But… the pokémon still respect their badges, right?” Asked… a boy Jin didn’t recognise. Ah, this must be the one Koichi had been laughing about for the past week…

“Yeah, they do… which is amazing given what an ugly badge it is!” The pokéfashion expert snorted…

Jin wasn’t sure what to make of her… Raoul Contesta had put Koichi in a bit of an odd spot by recommending whichever one of her or Maizono won this years contest spectacular, only for the pair of them to draw. Koichi’s verdict had been that Maizono was the better trainer of the two, but then the steering committee and had stepped in and insisted they wanted Enoshima to enter the school, meaning they’d ended up letting in two talent trainers for the second year running, something Jet and several other Pokéathlon trainers had pointed out rather bitterly…

“But, regardless, it isn’t the leader of the Gym coming here, it’s his second in command.” Jin told them all…

“One Lycanroc detected!” A robotic voice emanated from Fujisaki’s pocket, which caused the young trainer to turn slightly pale and the Golett to pat them comfortingly.

“…Well, that probably means Oowada’s about to get here…” Jin guessed, at which Fujisaki gulped quietly.

“Well, about time we can start getting on with this nonsense…” Jin just about heard Togami muttering… Silph Co.’s president hadn’t been kidding about his lack of respect for adults…

Moments later they heard the sound of boots stepping quickly through the hall, and everyone turned to face the latecomer. Oowada entered with one hand firmly grasping the shoulder of his bipedal Lycanroc, probably to stop it from jumping forward and attacking the nearest pokémon like it obviously wanted to, and a forced tough-guy scowl on his face…

“You do realise you’re over ten minutes late to our induction, don’t you!?” Ishimaru scolded him instantly, showcasing the tendency to be overly-strict with everyone that Prof. Oak had warned him about. “I’d have thought someone with a leadership role would have a better sense of responsibility! What were you thinking…!?”

“I was thinking that shit happens and you can fucking deal with it, asshole!” Oowada snapped back at him, both him and his pokémon turning to snarl at the first person who dared insult them…

To his credit, Ishimaru wasn’t cowed by the twin pair of fangs on display. And his Arcanine didn’t even seem to notice the other pokémon’s threatening behaviour, as mesmerised as it was by Ishimaru’s finger. “That hardly a good reason for arriving late on the very first day of…”

“Aww, lighten up man! Ain’t his fault his bike broke down!” “…He probably couldn’t help it if his Motorbike broke down…” Hagakure and Maizono both interrupted him simultaneously.

“Wha…!? How did you two know that…!?” Oowada glared at them suspiciously.

“I’m Psychic!” They both said in unison. “I get these totally accurate predictions!” Hagakure added, while Maizono turned to face him in shock.

“Wait… really!? I was joking!” Maizono gaped at him, “I just noticed that he had grease on his hand and he looks like he’d own a bike rather than a car…”

Kyoko was nodding along with her.

“Err… well, I suppose that can’t be helped…” Ishimaru looked slightly embarrassed, “But now we’re in the school, There’s no reason for you not to be able to get everywhere before I do!”

“What? Like I’m your rival!?” Oowada sneered.

“Err… no! That’s not what I…!” Ishimaru turned slightly red.

“Whatever, weirdo, did I miss anything important?” Oowada turned to face Jin.

“No, I was just about to start.” Jin ignored Ishimaru’s spluttering in favour of attempting to get this day back on schedule. “With that said, welcome to Hope’s Peak! You have each been individually selected, from the thousands of young trainers in the world, due to your potential to become the most elite pokémon trainers! However, this is not a guarantee for success, despite what the high success rates of our alumni might have you believe…”

Most of the class was listening intently, although his daughter still wasn’t looking at him, Ikusaba looked perturbed and Togami had gone back to reading his file…

“The school expects all of you to make significant progress on your journey towards building a reputable team of pokémon throughout your time here, and we will require you to meet certain milestones within set timescales in order to continue your studies here…” And this was the point that Jin had to make sure was drilled into their heads, so they couldn’t complain later… “The first of these timescales is this term! And I wish to stress to you that by the end of this term you will all be expected to have a team consisting of at least two pokémon…”

“HAH!” Togami snorted with laughter, “I thought we were supposed to be elite trainers! Are you seriously telling me there’s some of us who don’t already have two pokémon!?”

“And what the fuck’s wrong with that, asshole!?” Oowada snapped instantly, “Better ta focus on one pokémon than have six hundred kept in cages!”

“You do realise it’s possible to train multiple pokémon at the same time, don’t you?” Togami sighed.

“Of course we do! But most of us don’t all have the luxury of being born into a multi-million pokédollar corporation!” Ishimaru complained, “I can barely afford to look after Arcanine properly! Adding another pokémon to my team would have been cruel and irresponsible!”

“Y-you could have just got a little bug! Like I did!” Fukawa said, smugly, “You barely need to feed them anything! S-so you can’t just blame being p-poor!”

Togami looked somewhat unimpressed with suggestion though, as it made it sound as if Fukawa had just picked her second pokémon based on how cheap it was, and not considered any other points, such as whether it would work well in a team down the line. Jin couldn’t help but wonder if Shauntel had been correct when she’d suggested that the writer had caught it in a rush in an attempt to keep up with her ‘fated rival’ Togami…

“But there’s no use in having a whole team of boring, useless insects, just because that’s all you can afford.” Ludenberg said pleasantly, “Not if you want to head into the leagues...”

“And regardless, we have taken the financial aspects of raising pokémon into consideration when setting these goals!” Jin told them all, “You will receive a stipend to cover all the costs of looking after any pokémon you train beyond your starter, once you add that pokémon to your team.”

“Ah! Really!?” Ishimaru’s eyes lit up, as did Ludenberg’s. Oowada, Ikusaba and Fujisaki just looked worried about it still… presumably something else had been preventing them from catching extra pokémon for their teams.

“But for those of us who have already got two pokémon, when do we need to add a third by?” Togami was obviously planning ahead. Probably intending to have one bred, knowing his family…

“Before you return to school next year.” Jin told him, “However, before that, you also need to gain your first Gym badge by the end of this term as well!”

“Ahahahaha! Who the hell hasn’t got their first badge by now!?” Kuwata suddenly burst out laughing, “Hell, I’m not a battler and even I’ve got my second one!”

…Of course, as Marlon had pointed out, he’d got said second badge from a leader with a type disadvantage. He wouldn’t get much further than that unless he started focusing on battles.

“Err…” Ishimaru was one of the five who were now looking embarrassed, “It’s less an aspect of battle ability… My village’s Gym shut down ten years ago and it was too expensive to get the bus to the next closest one…”

“Could you not make the journey on foot?” Oogami asked, “I often have to make camp whilst travelling.”

“Ah… it would have taken ten days there and back… and I don’t own a tent…”

“So!? Sleep under trees and shit for a week!” Oowada scowled, “It’s what I had to do!”

“But… I’ve been doing research, and had berry plants to look after!” Ishimaru tried to defend himself, “And my father’s too busy working for me to expect him to do it for me! I couldn’t have afforded a ten day absence from home!”

That seemed to convince Oogami, but not Oowada… “Sounds more like you care more about that crap than training your damn pokémon!” He snapped, causing Ishimaru to glance guiltily at his Arcanine, which finally responded to something and licked his finger. “You sure this is the place for you!?”

“YES!” Ishimaru shouted.

“Umm…Maybe I shouldn’t have come…” Fujisaki muttered, stepping backwards away from the two angry dog trainers and drawing everyone’s attention in the process. “I mean, I spend all my time programming and I don’t even have a strong pokémon…”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t still get one!” Yamada insisted, “I may have chosen to take this path later than others, but I shall still succeed, for I…!”

“Wait… You two don’t have a badge either!?” Kuwata cried, “Alright, show of hands, who here ain’t got a badge?”

Five total raised their hands, the three who’d spoken along with Fukawa and Ikusaba…

“Wow! I’m feeling much better now!” Asahina chirped.

“W-well it’s alright for bimbo’s with pretty pokémon!” Fukawa sulked, “I bet you never got b-banned from a Gym for trying too many times!”

“Huh!? What did you just call…!?”

“And what’s your excuse?” Togami glared at Ikusaba.

“…I’m not a trainer.” Was her answer. Oh for goodness sake! What were the steering committee thinking!? Was this some extension of their experiment with Hinata? If it was, it would be nice if they could tell him these things!

…Still, for better or worse, she was part of the intake for this year. An intake that was quickly beginning to appear to several of the class to have been padded out with sub-standard trainers… After all, in previous years, a disadvantaged trainer like Ishimaru would have been at the very bottom of the class and have to hit the ground running to catch up, not have three or four other students he could comfortably beat in a battle…

But, for the sake of class cohesion, Jin would have to quickly dispel such thoughts… “Indeed, Ikusaba. You, and a few others here, are not trainers yet! However, Hope’s Peak goal is not to recruit the best trainers, but the best potential trainers! And to put them together with people who can bring out the best in their training regimes! Such as Fujisaki, who’ll be developing useful new pokédex apps over the next few years, Fukawa who is an expert on keeping trainers motivated, Yamada with his innate knowledge of legendaries, or Ishimaru who has been informing trainers about effective pokémon care for years!”

Several of the class were starting to look less sceptical of the badgeless trainers now… just so long as no one asked him the reasoning behind…

“And the Fenrir member?” Dammit… Of course Kyoko would pick up on that!

“…Is it because she knows the weak spots of different pokémon?” Ishimaru asked. What was he talking about? Jin had never heard of pokémon having ‘weak spots’…

“What are you blathering on about?” Togami looked down his nose at Ishimaru.

“Err… Well… it’s not scientifically proven, it’s just I noticed while fighting Kakunas that occasionally Arcanine would manage to bite them in a way that did more damage, and eventually trained him to do it more consistently… plus I think I’ve figured out how to do something similar on Metapods…” Ishimaru explained hesitantly, “I’d like to test it for different pokémon, but it’s harder to accurately hit moving ones so I’d probably need even more of them…”

“…How many pokémon are we talking about here?” Togami asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Ah… well, I think I must have made about 100 Kakunas faint before I noticed it, and then it took me another 50 to figure out the location of the weak spot and 50 more to train Arcanine to consistently…”

“You made your dog fight 200 Kakunas!?” Oowada exclaimed, “The fuck is wrong with you? That must have bored the crap outta him!”

“It wasn’t as if I only fought Kakunas! There just happened to be a lot of them where I grew up…”

“Still kinda shitty of you ta make him run around after weaklings ‘cause you’re too scared to take on some real pokémon…”

“That wasn’t why I…!”

“Enough you two!” Jin interrupted, having noticed Fujisaki was looking anxious and class 77 had arrived as he’d asked them to… “You can all discuss your different training methods later. For now we have the rest of your inductions to carry on with…”

And then time would tell whether this class was actually worth recruiting, or if Hope’s Peak’s standards were starting to slip… and hopefully time would also tell what it was his daughter was here for, and if she’d be willing to help him figure out what was going through the Steering Committee’s minds…

Chapter Text

"Alright, now Hope's peak is rather a large school, and we realise that not all of it is going to be relevant to all of you." The headmaster announced, "So I've organised for students from last year’s entering class to give each of you a tour individually."

So they weren't all going to be in a group together? Chihiro let out a quiet sigh of relief. Those two guys with the dogs were keeping their pokémon under control... the Arcanine apparently being mesmerised by its owner's hand and the Lycanroc unable to break free of the strong man holding him in place... but the way their trainers kept glaring at each other was making Chihiro think they'd be having a fight within minutes if they had to actually go anywhere together... And that Lycanroc snapping and pulling against its owner was still freaking Chihiro out.

"Fujisaki, you'll be partnering with Souda." The headmaster announced, gesturing to a thin man with purple hair and yellow overalls.

"Okay!" Chihiro nodded, and headed out of the line towards him.

As soon as they did it, they realised the headmaster had probably expected all the members of the class to stay and wait until everyone had been allocated their partner. But frankly, the sooner they could get away from those dogs, the better, and if the headmaster wasn't going to stop them from running away with their guide...

"Geez... Your class sure has some scary looking pokémon in it!" Souda commented as soon as they were out of earshot of the room. “Well… I mean, mine does as well, but at least all of ours can sit still…”

“Ahh… I’m glad you said that! I thought it was just me that was terrified of that thing!” Chihiro admitted.

“Well… I wouldn’t have said terrified…” He laughed nervously, “But I was totally reaching for Metang’s pokéball every time it lunged in my direction…” He admitted.

“I don’t think my pokémon would have been strong enough to help if it had come after me…” Chihiro admitted. “I’m less a trianer, more of a programmer.”

“Ehh… I was the same, when I first came here, y’know?” Souda started, “I never trained my pokémon, just tried to build cool stuff like super-fast ride gear, or fix people’s pokédexes, or make better Pokétches…”

“Does anyone still use those?” Chihiro asked. They hadn’t seen a smart watch in years.

“Well, they might if they worked better!” Souda sulked, “And computer processors are getting small enough that it could work really well, if I could figure out how to get them to link up to a Pokédex or make any decent apps for them!”

 “Umm… I might be able to help with that? I’ve done a lot of work on the operating systems on Pokédexes…”

“Really!?” His eyes practically shone with stars… “But wait… Are you talking about normal Pokédexes or those new Rotom ones?” He scowled.

“Umm… Normal ones. To be honest, I’m a bit worried about using Rotoms in place of artificial intelligence software…” Chihiro admitted.

“Yeah, you’ve figured they’ll have to mass-breed the things as well, huh?” Souda said, as if that was the obvious big issue with it.

“I was actually thinking from a security standpoint… I know programs and software get glitches and can be hacked, but at least they can’t actively decide to misbehave!” They pointed out.

“Yeesh… I didn’t think of that…” Souda admitted, “I just know my buddy Gundam keeps getting hassled to start mass-breeding the things…”

“Has he agreed to do it?”

“Hell no! He won’t breed any pokémon unless he knows the new one will go to a good owner… Even if that owner ends up being him most of the time…” The last part was said with a weary expression… how many pokémon did his friend own then? “But there’s other breeders who aren’t so responsible…”

“Hmm… If only I could make more intelligent software… people wouldn’t want Rotoms…” Chihiro sighed.

“Ahh… you can’t blame yourself for that!” Souda shrugged.

“I guess… I just feel like I wasted a lot of time making something else that was just for my own…” Chihiro started to explain about their time spent on the scanning tech when…

“WHO ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING YOU DUMB THUG! YOUR LITTLE GANG IS A PIECE OF SHIT AND I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU KEEP SAYING IT’S THE BEST GYM!”

“YOU TRYIN’ TA SCARE ME, YA LITTLE PIPSQUEAK!? YOU SMARMY BUNCH OF PONCES WOULDN’T LAST TWO SECOND IF YOU HAD TO TRAVEL ANYWHERE!”

They’d been followed out of the gym by Oowada and another guy in a suit… who’d instantly started arguing with each other… loudly. While their pokémon snarled at each other…

“Ehh he he… How about I show you my new Pokétch prototype… it’s in the workshop...” Souda suggested, nervously. “A nice long way away from those two!”

“Yes, please!” Chihiro practically squeaked.

“Well, maybe if you weren’t just a bunch of shitty punks then people would wanna travel to you!” The little runt he’d been told to follow around sneered at him, barely holding an arm out to keep his snarling Pangoro at bay.

‘Course, neither Mondo or Lycan were gonna take any shit from these assholes! If Mondo wasn’t gripping his shoulder, Lycan woulda been ripping out that dumb oversized panda’s throat...

“That ain’t the point dumbass! We’re providing a service.” Mondo sneered back, the way Daiya always did when people used that shitty argument on him. “But I guess a honour-less Yakuza bastard like you wouldn’t get that!”

“HEY! You should watch who you’re mouthing off to!” The runt snapped, “There’s more honour in my family’s pet Mightyena than in your whole gang!”

“Well I’d bet that dog’s the only member of your gym with any honour at all!”

"You wanna piece of me!?" The Yakuza yelled, "I fuckin' DARE you to say that again!"

"Alright the... I said that dog's..."

"That's enough. Both of you." A cold chick's voice snapped from their side. "Fuyuhiko, you know grudges are supposed to be settled with pokémon fights here..." She added.

"Fine, then we have a pokémon battle!" Mondo snapped, "Where's the nearest arena?"

"Are you fucking with me?" The pipsqueak snapped, "I ain't fighting some loser who only has one pokémon!"

Goddammit... fucking prick had noticed he didn't have any other pokéballs on him... "Yeah? Well how many of your pokémon were gifts from your 'family'?"

"NNGH!" Hah! Mondo had guessed he'd be the sort to have been given his pokémon on a platter... "Alright... I'll admit I had help, but I've started...!"

"Hah! Whatever, kid. Some of have been looking after ourselves our whole lives..." Mondo smirked. "So I don't need a fuckin' tour guide to show me around the place... C'mon Lycan... Let's go sniff us out some food, alright?"

Lycan didn't exactly wanna walk away from that Pangoro, probably felt like he was running from a fight, but the mention of food and Mondo shoving him away was enough to get him to calm down and follow along... and he'd show that fuckin' prick soon enough anyway... maybe once they'd got some food he'd have a wander around, find the pokémart and pick up some pokéballs...

"Well... it seems you no longer have to waste your time showing him around." Mukuro's grey-haired guide pointed out to her boss.

"That fucking prick... mouthing off like that and then sauntering away like he's right..." The boy scowled, "I'm gonna..."

"Heedless violence won't solve anything." Pekoyama stated, "All it would do is make it appear that his words have cut you."

"Hah! As I care what some dumbass thug thinks of me!" He snapped, "I've got better things to do than worry about him! See you around..." He left.

That meant Mukuro was going to have to talk to her guide... it was a shame she'd had to split up from Junko... her sister was a lot better at this sort of thing than she was... But there was one obvious conversation topic, at least... "So, how long have you worked for him for?" She asked.

"...What makes you think I work for him?" She answered, cautiously.

"You don't?" Mukuro was surprised, "You do follow him though?" It was obvious.

"I... My relationship with the young master is supposed to be a secret!" Pekoyama hissed, "How could you tell...?"

"It... just seems obvious to me..." Mukuro admitted. "I'm surprised no one else..."

"Muku! Why are you just standing around here?" Junko complained, as she and her guide were trying to leave the gym and being blocked by the pair of them... "Are you seriously so slow you can't get out of the way of a door!? You're getting in everyone's way!"

"Ah! S-sorry Junko! Thank you for letting me know!" Mukuro scurried aside. "I won't do it again!"

"Urg! You'd better not! Or everyone's gonna think you were raised by dogs... I mean, I know you were, but that's no excuse to act like it!"

"Uhh... Fenrir aren't..." Mukuro started to correct her... but she and the small girl with her left.

"I see... you are also a tool..." Pekoyama stated. "That's how you knew..."

"I'm not a tool..." Mukuro corrected her, "I'm just useless without Junko around..."

"And a tool is useless without a master to wield it."

"Umm... I guess?" Mukuro admitted, "I'm really only useful at fighting... but is it true we're not supposed to do that ourselves here?"

"We are allowed to spar for training purposes." Pekoyama replied, "If you want, I can show you where." Mukuro nodded at that, "And perhaps we could fight? I wouldn't mind having something other than Gallade to cross swords with."

"Alright then!" Mukuro agreed. She did her best talking during fights anyway...

"Oh my god! Your sister really is a stupid, flabby lump!" Her new guide agreed with her as soon as they'd got out of earshot of the two dumb fighters...

“I know… it’s so embarrassing! Like, can you believe we’re actually related?” Junko groaned.

“Not at all! If it hadn’t been for your Milotic, I’d have never have guessed miss-Feebas face had anything to do with you!”

‘Feebas-face’? She’d have to remember that one! This girl might actually be worth putting up with!

"She's almost as bad as that stupid Grumpig-barf nurse in our class!" The dancer continued.

Wow, this chick really enjoyed insulting people... Probably just to make them feel as bad as she did about herself, but it would make her easy to manipulate... And playing her off this nurse she obviously hated would make for some fun drama to liven up this boring place...

"Oh, yeah! The one wearing bandages? I mean, what sort of accessory is that!?"

"Oh... totally!" Her guide agreed, smirking. "I bet she picked them out of a dumpster as well!”

“Ooh, or stole them off some poor, hurt pokémon!” Junko suggested, “That’s what I’d do!”

“Wha… you would!?”

“Well, only if I was a cheap, creepy weirdo like her, I mean!” Junko lied.

“Urg! I know! Can you believe they let her anywhere near the pokécentre!?” The dancer asked, “I mean, she’s supposed to look after pokémon, but she doesn’t even know how to dress hers up or anything!”

“Speaking of which, is there anywhere around here to get accessories?” Junko asked.

“Huh? Yeah, there’s a store. It’s about the only good thing here…” She pouted.

“You mind showing me then?” Junko asked, “Like… before this fatass catches up with us?” She tilted her head backwards.

“Huh…” Her guide looked back to see… “Oh my god! They made Mahiru show around that guy!?” She cried, “How could they!?”

Junko almost cackled out loud at the look on the guys face… “Well, at least she can outrun him if she needs to, right?”

“Urrgghh… I guess…” She griped, “But if he creeps out Mahiru, then Imma bop him on the head so hard he doesn’t wake up for a week!”

Hmm… so this kid was friends with that plain-jane with the camera back there? Good to know… There were soo many interesting people in this school! And sooo many ways she could mess with them all! She was going to love it here!

Hifumi looked to see what his guide’s reaction to that comment had been… which was to try and pretend she hadn’t heard it. Typical. It was obvious she didn’t want to be stuck showing him around and was only doing it because the school had forced her to…

“I can probably find my own way around, you know.” Hifumi said, stiffly, “So no need for you to feel obligated to stick around.”

“Oh! Umm… Did you hear Hiyoko just now?” She cringed, “She… she’s like that with everyone!” She rushed to assure him, out of pity probably.

“It’s not just that. I can tell you’d rather not have to be near me…” He sniffed, “Your reaction back in the gym made it clear…”

“Ok, well… I’ll admit, you’re not what I was expecting you to look like…” She muttered.

“Why were you expecting me to look like anything?” What did it matter what he looked like? It was what he did that was important!

“Well... You’re the one who draws pictures of Cresselia…?” She asked.

Oh ho! So this was a fan of his work, was it? “Indeed I am! What do you think of them!?”

“They’re alright…” She answered, vaguely.

‘Alright’? ‘Alright’!? Okay, he’d be the first to admit they weren’t a patch on the real Cresselia, but for this woman to just dismiss his art as being…. ‘alright’…! “Oh!? You’ve seen better pictures of her then!?” He asked, sarcastically.

“No… But… Here. Have a look at this photograph and tell me what you think…”

It was a picture of a forest, with a break in the trees just wide enough to send streams of light down to reflect off of the gold and crystalline horns of the magnificent stag stood amongst the trees…

“…It’s alright.” He decided. It wasn’t anything like seeing her…

“Heh… You think so to, huh?” She shrugged. “You’re the first person who’s said that… Here, look what happens if I show these guys…” She turned to show the picture to that serious boy in white…

“Is that XERNEAS!?” He cried, “It’s an actual photograph of XERNEAS!? Where did you get this? It magnificent! I mean, I’ve read descriptions of him but… To actually see it…”

…Was he starting to cry? Over that…?

“It’s just a photograph…” Hifumi muttered, “It’s not like seeing the real thing…”

“You… You’ve seen XERNEAS!?” Ishimaru stared at him reverently…

“No… I’ve seen Xerneas.” The photographer corrected him, “He’s seen Cresselia.”

“You… you have!? Where was she, what was she like!? Did you battle her!?” He excitedly asked a stream of questions.

“I only see her in my dreams…” Hifumi admitted, “I tried to draw her, but…” He got out his sketchbook…

“That’s… that’s increadible!” Ishimaru gasped.

“No kidding… if I saw her in my dreams, I’d never want to get out of bed!” The short boy with him agreed.

“It’s not that good…” Hifumi sighed. “I didn’t get it anywhere near right!”

“Nonsense! It’s… it’s the most beautiful drawing I’ve ever seen!”

“Yeah… but it’s still not right… that’s what Legendaries are like…” Koizumi sighed, “I’ve seen Xerneas so many times… but the photo never looks right, no matter how carefully I take it.”

Ah… so that was how she could just say his drawings were ‘alright’… she had the same problem he did…

“You’ve got more photographs like this?” Hifumi asked, “May I see them?”

“Sure! They’re in my room.” She shrugged, and they started walking away from the other pair…

“But I thought you’d have chased her, and got fitter!” She suddenly announced, once they were out of earshot. “That’s what I did with Xerneas!”

“Why would I bother doing that, when she comes to my dreams?” Hifumi scoffed.

“Well… wouldn’t you be able to draw her better if you saw her for real?” She asked.

“I could draw for a hundred years, and I still wouldn’t get it right…” Hifumi admitted. “That’s why I’m not going to chase her until I’m ready…”

“Ready for what? To draw her better?” She still didn’t get it.

“No… To catch her!” He explained, “I’ll catch her, and then I’ll show her to everyone!”

“…And then they’d all see what it’s like…” Koizumi understood.

“Exactly!” Hifumi nodded.

“But… Geeez, you’re pretty smug to think you’ll be able to catch a Legendary!”

“Well… you might think so… But I am the great Hifumi Yamada! He who has been touched by the Gods and chosen by Hope’s Peak to become it’s champion…!”

And if he couldn’t he’d die trying…

He… he was going to a school with people who could make those amazing pictures of Legendaries and acted as if they were nothing special… This was incredible! He’d really have to step up his game to keep up with his new fellow students! Starting with making the absolute most of this guided tour!

“So, what parts of the school do you need to see?” Hanamura asked him, while Arcanine inched closer to the other boy’s Emboar for the warmth.

“Well… basic sustenance will be my main priority! Where Arcanine and I will be sleeping, eating and bathing! And of course, knowing the school’s medical facilities and its health and safety information will be imperative!” Kiyotaka started, “Then I’ll need to know where to buy basic goods, attend classes and find appropriate study materials… I’ve also brought my berry plants from home, so if the school has any plant growth areas I’ll want to see those… and then of course I want to see the Pokémon training facilities! Like Battle arenas, pokalthlon training grounds, possibly talent training as well?” Although after that disaster in the gym, he wasn’t so sure about that last one… “Oh! And… is it true the school sometimes gives its students free pokédex upgrades!? Or organises trips to different areas with uncommon pokémon in them!? If so I’ll want to know how to sign up for those and…”

“Humhumhum! So you want to see everything, do you?” His guide laughed, “You’re certainly the passionate sort!”

“Haha! How could I not be! After years of stagnation, I’m finally getting out of my hometown and going somewhere!” Kiyotaka enthused, “There’s new places to explore, I’ll be able to get more than thirty pokémon in my dex!  And I’ll finally have other people to battle, people who actually care! Do you have any idea how wonderful that is!? How good it feels to know I won’t be stuck in my hometown forever? To know I have the chance to be famous enough that people hear my surname and think of something good!?”

His guide was just staring at him.

“Ah… I’m sorry, I went on a bit there…” Kiyotaka realised, “And I’m sure someone as sophisticated as you wouldn’t understand… You said you’re from a city, didn’t you? I expect there’s lots of dedicated trainers and opportunities for you there…”

“Ah… I see. You’re a poor country boy, right? Raised in some dumb old hick town?” Hanamura smirked. “You were the only boy in your school with anything stronger than a Rattata?”

“Well… one boy had a Scyther.” Kiyotaka remembered with a sigh… “But essentially, yes.”

“And when your pokémon beat theirs fair and square they just say you cheatin’?” He carried on, “Like you put stimulants in their food or sum such nonsense?”

“Machine enhancements...” Kiyotaka corrected him, “My grandfather had a… reputation.”

“And when they ain’t sayin’ yo a cheater, they makin’ funaya fo workin’ so hard? ‘Cause they say you ain’t nevah gonna do anythin’ anyhow? ‘Cause yo Momma’s dirt poor?”

“Exactly!”  Kiyotaka answered, “Although it’s just my father and I…”

“So then, you tryina help raise some cash and they all be like ‘whatchoo bothering ta learn ta cook for?”

“As if it’s foolish to be economical!”

“Then when yo good at cookin’ they all ‘Yo! Gissus some of o’ yo food! It no fair if yo ha' all tha good stuff!’”

“Well… I’m still not good at cooking… but the number of berries I was forced to share…!”

 “....Like yo sum big cheatah cuz yo bother ta make malasadas for yo Pokémon!”

“Malasadas…? What sort of berry is that?”

“Berry!?” Hanamura looked at him in shock… “You mean… you’ve never heard of malasadas?”

“Err… no, I haven't…” Kiyotaka admitted, ashamed. How many other things were there he didn’t know about? Were his new classmates going to think he was some ignorant hick because he’d never left the confines of his village? What if he was so out of touch that he couldn’t even talk to them?

“Well then, you’re lucky you got allocated a sophisticated fellow like me to show you around!” His guide announced. “I’ll show you the kitchens and whip you up some malasadas that’ll fire you up so much you’ll be feeling hotter than the school sauna when Emboar’s been in there!”

“You mean there’s even a sauna here!?”

“Masaladas?” Hina asked the girl who was going to be showing her around... people could just make those?

“Yeah… I’m pretty sure they’re just donuts… but he’s from some swanky part of Alola so he calls ‘em Masaladas…”

That’s what masaladas were?

“Soo… they’re going to the kitchen, to make donuts? Freshly fried donuts?” Hina grinned, “You reckon we can go and swipe some?”

“Heh! I like the way you think!” Akane laughed and started pushing her after the two boys, “But you’ve not really gotta swipe anything from Teruteru… just tell him his food’s better than anything you’ve ever tasted and talk about how he’s waaay more sophisticated than you, and he’ll feed you more than you can eat!”

“Umm… are both those things actually true?” Hina asked her.

“Oh, yeah! Totally! At least for me, anyway…” She admitted, “I had a ton of little brothers and sisters in my family, so we couldn’t really afford much food… especially not good food!”

“Really? That sounds kind of rough… My family was just me and my little brother, so we didn’t have to worry how much we got to eat…” Hina admitted

“Ahh… it’s not so bad! It’s what got me here, in the end. I took a job looking after people’s pokémon at the daycare centre to help make money, buuut I got bored easily… so I started teaching ‘em little tricks like handstands or cartwheels, or I’d set up an obstacle course and chase ‘em around it… Or just straight up making ‘em fight each other, ‘cause there was a pokécentre right next door!” She admitted, grinning sheepishly. “So then, people started noticing that their pokémon were coming back from the daycare a lot better at stuff than they oughta be, and I got really popular, and then this guy suggested I come to this school and said I’d get more food than even my Snorlax could eat!”

“Do they give you that much food?”

“Oh, totally! I mean… the good stuff you have to pay for… but basic stuff’s all free to take! And no one complains about how much you eat either! It’s great!” She smiled, “Oh, but Teruteru’s stuff blows even the good stuff outta the water! Let’s get after them and I’ll show you!”

“You’re sure he won’t mind?” As awesome as fresh donuts sounded, it seemed kinda rude to expect him to cook for her when there was free food available…

“Nah! He loves showing off! Just so long as you don’t get too pushy… and be ready to tell him how amazing it is!”

“Well… alright! Let’s get ‘Operation: eat some donuts!’ underway!” Hina agreed, as her new guide started showing her where to get food…

“Urg! What a pair of sycophants!” Toko scowled… “Who would go about demeaning themselves just to get someone else to cook for them?”

“Hmph, whilst I wouldn’t stoop to demeaning myself, I have to admit that Hanamura’s cooking is some of the best in all the regions…” Her guide started, “…And, as upcoming heir to one of the biggest corporations in the world, I have had the luxury of sampling…”

“Oh, c-cut it out! Wh-who are trying to fool, when the real Byakuya Togami’s back in there!?” Toko snapped at him. “I mean, is that even a real Drampa, or is it just a Ditto mimicking one!?”

“Tch!” All he did was tut at the question, which meant he might as well have just said yes! “I’m not trying to fool anyone! I’m just using the best example of greatness to aspire to!”

“Wh-what kind of weird way of thinking is that?” Toko laughed, “You see good trainers and just want to be exactly like them?”

“You’re saying you don’t?” He smirked, “Don’t you have any ambition?”

“Of c-course I do! B-but I’m not going to settle for being like Togami! I’m going to beat him! E-even if it takes my whole lifetime!”

“Hah! You think you’re going to become rivals with Byakuya Togami!?” He laughed, “With a Scatterbug!?”

“Well, at least she has a dream!” That ridiculous girl in the fancy goth outfit had apparently caught up to them and overheard their conversation, “Even if it is a little, petty one…”

“Excuse me!? What’s petty about wanting to beat the best trainer in the world!?”

“Hmmhmm… You just want to win some fights, it’s dull… I’m going to set up a gym, in a castle, where I’ll be surrounded by trainers and pokemon who serve my every whim and fight to the death to defend me!”

“Th-that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” Toko smirked, “At least my dream could actually happen!”

“Neither of those things is going to happen… And where is your guide?” The fake Togami interrupted, “I don’t intend to show around two delusional women…”

“Well… she…” The gambler looked around her, apparently surprised to realise her guide wasn’t with her… “Tch!” She spun on her heels and stomped back towards the main hall, looking as if she was going to shoot lightning from her eyes…

“Well, at least I only have one idiot to deal with…”

“I’m n-not an idiot! I have a b-better pokémon!”

“Then why aren’t you showing it?

“I…It’s a Garbodor…” She admitted.

“Urg…” He stepped backwards, as if he was scared of her… “The last thing I want is something curbing my appetite…” He muttered… Really? If anything he could stand to not eat for a week! “In that case, I insist on showing you the baths!” He strode off ahead of her…

Urg! She couldn’t believe they’d got her chasing around after this arrogant fake!

Chapter Text

Why hadn’t that stupid brat followed her!? If she was supposed to be giving Celestia a tour, then why had she lagged behind! It wasn’t even as if she moved fast in these shoes!

There she was, standing around at the gym entrance while those two talent stars were shaking her…

“What are you all doing?” Celestia demanded.

“Oh! There you are! Ibuki was worried you’d get lost!” The crazier looking musician replied.

“We’re trying to wake her up…” Maizono actually answered her question, pulling back her guide’s hood enough to show that the girl had fallen asleep standing up, and now had a small trickle of drool escaping her mouth…”

“Urrgh… You know what? Don’t worry about it… Just tell me where to find my room, food and if there’s a half-decent game corner nearby and I’ll adapt…”

“Did someone say game corner!?” Her slugabed guide suddenly perked up, “Hope’s Peak has the best game corner you’ll find… I think.”

Well… that sounded promising…

“Alright then… but you lead this time!” Celestia told her…

It was still pretty slow, she was even slower to walk around than Celestia was, and she had to poke her nails into the girls back in order to wake her up a couple of times… but she’d been pretty animated when talking about the games, so perhaps…

“You like game corners, then?”

“Yup! I love all the different games! Pokémon Jump, Voltorb Flip… but I’m not so good at slot machines… I think.”

“You’re not born lucky, like I was then…” Celestia noted. “Do you win much in the way of prizes?”

“I do… at least, I think. I got my Espeon from playing Voltorb Flip… When he was an Eevee…” She said, slowly.

“What about here?” Celestia asked. She didn’t care when this girl first earnt 6000 coins at Celedon, she wanted to know how much she could get out of Hope’s Peak…

“Well… the games here are prototypes... They test them against us before distributing them…” She explained, “Everyone says they’re harder than normal… But you can get lots of prizes if you’re good at them… I think.”

Celestia scowled… she wasn’t sure she was going to do as well if she had to rely on strategies and skill against a plain old machine… she was better at bluffing and luck…

“…Or if you’re lucky… maybe.” Her guide finished after a long break.

Now that she could work with! “Well… it sounds interesting enough to be worth the walk…” Celestia admitted.

“Well, that’s them sorted out!” Mioda cheered, as Celestia prodded her guide up the corridor… But then she frowned and looked back into the gym…

Sayaka had a pretty good idea why… “Are you worried about that nurse?”

“EEEHHHH!? Did you read Ibuki’s mind!?” She screeched, which caused the headmaster to glare at them and wave at them to get going from inside the room.

“Hehehe… no! Just good intuition…” She admitted, “You were stood by her and she looked nervous…”

“Well… yeah.” Mioda frowned, “She gets scared easy, and some of those guys in there look scary enough anyway!”

“I guess…” Although, even that scary biker guy hadn’t seemed as scary as Enoshima… “But there are some really nice ones to! Maybe she’ll get put with Makoto… He’s treated pokémon injuries before… well, at least one, anyway, when we were in junior high…”

“Eeehhh… that doesn’t sound as impressive as Mimi…” Mioda muttered, “She’s and her Blissey have been treating pokémon injuries since they were in kindergarten!”

“Wow…. That is impressive!” And slightly worrying that her parents didn’t do it for her… “I guess Kizakura must have liked something else about him?”

“Wait, he’s your ‘lucky student’? Awww… that means they’ll probably put him Nagito…” She sighed.

“Lucky student?” Sakaya asked.

“Yeah… Kizakura’s always supposed to scout at least one person himself, but half the time he can’t be bothered and just picks a random name from the registry of pokémon trainers... our class got Nagito…” She shuddered.

“Huh… I always thought Makoto would be more… special, I guess?” Sayaka admitted… him getting picked by a random draw when she was already coming… was that really just a coincidence? “But, anyway! How have you been? I heard you quit doing group performances?”

“Yeeeaahhh… Apparently my costume designs were getting too ‘weird’ and ‘crazy’ and ‘stupid looking’!” She spat, “And they just wanted all the dances to be set to the same upbeat preppy music all the time! It was getting boring…”

“Oh… that’s a shame…” Sayaka mutterd, she’d always liked the happy cheerful performances those girls put on, but if Mioda wasn’t enjoying doing them…

“But! Ibuki’s fine now! I’m starting a new group!” She cheered, “It might just be me, Mimi and Hajime, but once we get outta this school, we’re going to take the talent world by storm!”

“So, your nurse is good at talent training as well?” Sayaka asked, that girl seemed pretty incredible…

“Eeehhh… not yet! But we get on well, and that’s the most important part of being a group!” Mioda grinned.

…Well, it helped, but wasn’t actually being good also a big part of it? Not to mention being lucky to know the right people and get connections and constantly be working at it…

“Anyhoo, lemme show you the new outfits I’ve designed! I left ‘em near the talent stages…” Mioda grabbed her arm and dragged her down the corridor…

“So… you were picked by Kizakura as well?” His guide, Nagito, asked him as they left the gymnasium, “So you’re just here through random draw as well?”

“Well… not exactly… I mean, I was lucky that I happened to run into him, but… It was something I did when I met him that made him pick me, or at least I think that’s why he did it…” Makoto admitted as vaguely as possible. He didn’t exactly want to get the reputation as ‘that idiot who called Professor Oak a lying jerkface for no real reason’.

“Ah… So you aren’t just worthless trash like me, relying on nothing but dumb luck…” He sighed.

“Uhh… isn’t that a bit harsh?” Makoto asked him, “Just because you got here through luck, doesn’t mean that’s all you do! After all, how well you do in battles depends on how hard you train, right?”

“Well… that would be fair to say for proper trainers, like you…” He disagreed, “But me and my pokémon… we’re a whole other story!”

“What do you mean?” Makoto asked.

“Well… let me put it like this… is Metronome a powerful move?”

“Uhh… well… it could be, if you’re lucky with it…” Makoto answered.

“Well… for me, metronome if the most powerful move!” Nagito insisted, “In fact, I my Clefable could probably beat any trainer, using nothing but Metronome!”

Wow… that did sound pretty lucky…

“Nonsense!” The harsh voice of Byakuya Togami rang out behind them, apparently he’d been listening to them. “All you mean, is that you’ve picked a reasonably hardy pokémon, which gives it a chance to use Metronome several times, increasing the possibility that something useful will come out!” He sneered, “I’ve beaten that strategy a dozen times!”

“Yes… I’m sure you’ve beaten worthwhile trainers, who thought hard to come up with that strategy…” Nagito smiled pleasantly… “But that’s not what I do…”

“Hah! Well, in that case, I’d be quite interested in seeing what, exactly, it is you do do!” Togami smirked.

“Well… if Makoto here doesn’t mind being show the battle arenas…” Nagito glanced at him.

“I’ll have to know where they are at some point anyway!” He pointed out…

“Here we are! Hope’s Peak battle arena!” Nagito announced, once the four of them had arrived, at an arena big enough to hold two Wailords at the same time. “At least, this is the main one, there are also many, many smaller ones that can be used for a variety of different battle types…

“Including the one reserved for you…” The princess who was supposed to be guiding Togami around added.

“Yes… Trash like me isn’t allowed to fight in the proper arenas…” Nagito told them, as he led them to a patch of ground that looked as if it had been the sight of multiple Voltorb explosions… “My apologies for the mess...”

Togami seemed to grimace at the amount of ash on the floor, but then steeled himself and stepped onto one end, and Nagito followed suit on the other, releasing a Clefable…

“Drampa! Use Energy Ball!” Togami was already giving his pokémon orders before it left the pokéball…

“Ah… trying to reduce my defence… a sensible move against proper trainers…” Nagito commented. “But it won’t work when my Clefable uses Metronome…!” Nagito commanded with a sigh.

The Drampa’s Energy Ball flew out and struck the Clefable in the chest, although it just seemed to shrug it off as it went into the familiar dance for Metronome…

Once it finished, Nagito looked up, calmly. The rest of them followed suit…

“Draco Meteor!?” Togami exclaimed… Makoto could hardly blame him… that must have been the most powerful move possible against a dragon… and his poor Drampa didn’t stand a chance against it…

“That… that was just luck!” Togami snapped, “You won’t get such good results twice!” He added, throwing a little eagle onto the field…

“Rufflet! Use Crush Claw!” Togami ordered…

“Oh? Hmm… I supposed I ought to give you a chance, otherwise it really would be a worthless battle…” Nagito muttered, “Don’t do anything, Clefable…”

What? He was ordering his pokémon to just sit there while Togami’s Rufflet flew towards it at high speed and… missed completely…

“Tch! That almost never misses!” Togami griped, “Rufflet, try again!”

“Huuh...” Nagito just sighed, “Give him another chance, Clefable…”

Again, the Clefable just sat there while Rufflet… missed again...

“Is Crush Claw that hard to pull off?” Makoto asked.

“Well… I’m not very experienced in such things…” The princess started with an apology, “But I believe this is an effect of battling Nagito…”

“That… The chances of that happening are one in 400!” Togmai snapped, “It won’t happen a third time! Rufflet! Once more!”

Nagito just sighed, “Clefable, I think we’ve given him enough chances… Use Metronome.”

Togami almost turned blue when his Rufflet missed its attack for the third time in a row. And then he almost fainted when the Metronome dance summoned a gigantic lightning strike that made the poor bird faint in a single hit…

“How… three times in a row… and Metronome gave you the best possible outcome each time!?” Togami chocked, “Are all your fights like that!?”

“Yes, they are. It’s pathetic really. Winning my fights with such cheap shots.” Nagito sighed, “And it makes a mess of the arena as well…”

“But… couldn’t someone still guard against that? By not using moves that can miss, or something?” Makoto suggested. “Actually, that sounds like something I should probably try anyway… my luck in battles is awful! I don’t think I’ve ever got Metronome to do anything useful… Haha…”

“So… you are like Nagito, but in reverse?” The princess asked, “I think I would like to see that!”

“Uhh… well, alright…” Makoto agreed, getting Togepi ready…”

Well, that was an embarrassment to watch! Ten uses of metronome and not a single one was any use whatsoever! The only time his Togepi would have done any damage was when it tried to use Tackle on her Misdraevus…  and then the grand finale it cast Lunar Dance when his other pokémon was completely fine…

Of course, his other pokémon had no trouble whatsoever wiping out her entire team… how could a women who apparently had such a noble background have an entire team of pokémon that were all in their initial stages of evolution?

“Well… now that that is out of the way, perhaps I should show you where the nearest pokémon centre is?” The princess offered.

“Yes. It would appear that all our pokémon need healing…” Togami still couldn’t believe it… how could anyone possibly have that sort of luck… and what strategy was Togami going to use to beat it!?

“Ah… yes! I must admit, I am still quite unaccustomed to this ‘training’ business…” She admitted.

“How can you be ‘unaccustomed’ to training?” Togami asked.

“Well, in my homeland, Mitonga Island, we do not train pokémon, as such…”

Mitonga Island…? “Ah… You’re from Oblivia.” Togami realised, “So you were raised as a pokémon ranger, I assume?”

He’d heard of the place, but hadn’t paid it any attention before. What was the point of trying to market training products to a region that refused to take ownership of pokémon, and instead just made do with temporarily controlling wild ones to help with minor environmental tasks?

But, if one of their leaders was here… perhaps it was the markings of a culture shift over in Oblivia… that was the sort of thing Togami corporation could take advantage of!

“So why did you come here…?”

“I… was told it was a good place to learn about pokémon.” She told him, “I did not realise at the time quite how insistent everyone else would be on capturing and training their pokémon as they did so!” She added, irritably.

“I see…” So no culture shift happening in Oblivia then… “So I take it you only caught those in order to comply with the school’s minimum team sizes…”

“Actually, I did not even catch these pokémon!” She said, somewhat smugly, “I’m taking care of them on behalf of my class’ breeding expert…”

“You have a breeding expert?” Now that was useful! “Perhaps you could introduce me? If I need a third pokémon by the end of the year, I need to start considering my options now…”

“Well, Gundam is always on the lookout for people willing to take a good pokémon off of his hands!” The princess replied. “He was the one called out after me! But… he might seem a little… unusual, as times…”

Man… that dude with the bandages had been glaring at him the whole time… he really hoped he wasn’t his…

“Hagakure, you’ll be shown around by Tanaka here…” The headmaster read out, pointing at the one guy he’d really been hoping not to get.

“Of course… the only one with a chance of withstanding my dark power…” His new guide muttered as he made his way over…

“Uhh… dark power?” Hiro asked, as they made their way out of the room…

“Indeed, for I am Gundam Tanaka! Dark Lord of this realm and keeper of the Four Dark Dedenne’s of Destruction!” He laughed.

“I thought those were an electric-fairy type?”

“…They merely take the form of an electric-fairy type, for their true countenance would make trainers in all the regions flee in terror!” The dude insisted, “You would likely be able to feel their dark auras, were you not dulling your sensitivity to dark energies by associating yourself with that amorphous maelstrom of anger and grudges…”

“Uhh… look, dude, I dunno what you’re talking about? I’m not associated with anyone here yet!” Hiro admitted.

“I refer not to a person, but the fell being upon your head!” He growled.

“You mean my magic hat?” Hiro realised, “Nah, man! This things totally chill, right dude?”

“Gaaast…” His hat replied.

“’Magic…hat’!?” Tanaka scowled, “How can you have tamed such swirling mass of dark energy and not even understand what it is?”

“’Tamed’!? Aww, c’mon… don’t tell me your gonna insist this is a Sandygast as well…” Hiro sighed, he’d only just got away from his Mom doing that!

“WHAT!? How!? How can you be so insensitive to the powers that pokémon possess that you fail to recognise one when you see it!?” He grimaced, “Is your power level that high!? That you can happily wear a creature that drains life from those around it, with no ill-effects!?”

“Saand?” His hat sounded confused and hurt by that suggestion…

“Hey, man! Not cool!” Hiro told him, “You’ve upset my hat’s feelings!”

“Hmm… you are truly a dangerous one… disguising your true nature behind that façade of obliviousness…” His ‘guide’ murmured, “But you have failed to fool the great Gundam Tanaka! And I will not be allowing you to claim dominion over my realm! A moments preparation shall be all I need to launch my counterattack against you!” He announced, pointing dramatically and then turning around and walking quickly up the corridor

Geez… what a weirdo! it was a good thing he’d already looked around the school enough this week to know where he was going anyway!

“That reminds me, when will those of us who were hypnotised have our memories returned to us?”” Kyoko asked, listening to the boy who was insanely insisting his pokémon was a hat…

“Ah… that will happen during your first day of classes!” The headmaster answered, “Now…. Kyoko, you’ll be shown around by Hinata…”

The nerve of him, calling her by her first name!

“Yes, Headmaster.” She said, in a pointedly polite tone.

Still… it was odd, she’d been expecting him to put her with the spy she’d worked with previously, or possibly the nurse, who had now turned frantic when faced with her last two possibilities, or leave her until last and insist on trying to show her around himself…

Perhaps this boy was more interesting than he seemed…

“So… what’s your speciality?” Kyoko asked Hinata, the nondescript boy she’d been allocated to.

“Me? I… I don’t have one.” He sighed.

“Ah, you’re a ‘lucky’ student.” Kyoko surmised, remembering that Kizakura was expected to make a suggestion himself, but often just left it to chance. “I’m surprised they didn’t do something cliché like put you with ours…”

“No… they did do that.” Hinata corrected her, “Our lucky student was Nagito… I…” He looked insulted just thinking about it, “I was specifically picked out on the basis that I was the most average Pokémon trainer they could find.”

That sounded suspicious… “Do you know why?”

“Apparently the school wanted to know if the school is actually improving the pokémon trainers who come here, or just pokémon themselves. So they decided to pick an ordinary person and see if I graduate as more than that…”

That didn’t seem right, “Couldn’t they just tell that from looking at how the lucky students do?”

“But the lucky students have luck… and the school was concerned that their luck might make them think they can coast through classes.” Hinata explained, “Whereas someone like me, who’s always wanted to come here, I’m sure to do anything to improving myself, so I can be as talented as the other students here!”

Someone who always wanted to come here? Someone willing to be improved? Like the school apparently ‘wants to know’ if it’s doing?

It sounded innocuous enough, but on the other hand, if it wasn’t just the school being curious as to how if it was improving people, but the school actively testing if it could…

“So… is there anything in particular you want to see?” Hinata asked her.

“Hmm…” There was no point putting it off, she’d have to speak to the man eventually. And now he’d piqued her curiosity about this place… “Could you show me where the headmaster’s office is?”

Sakura watched the smaller girl head off with the nondescript looking lad from the year above her. This meant her guide would likely be the muscular man… he had a fighter’s air about him, and would be easier for her to talk with than the timid nurse who was now trembling at the sight of her…

“Oogami, you’ll be shown around by Nurse Tsumiki…” The headmaster announced, to her shock.

“…I see…” Sakura nodded, at which the smaller woman let out a timid whimper as they both headed out of the gymnasium. She must also have been hoping the last remaining pairs would be the other way around. But hopefully, she could convince the girl that she was not as fearsome as her appearance would suggest…

“Umm… S-so… if you don’t mind me asking… Wh-where would you m-most like to see?” The nurse asked. “I-I mean, obviously I’ll show you everything if you w-want… but I’m guessing you probably don’t want to be s-stuck with me for all of that so…”

Why would the girl assume that? Had she appeared to be scowling? “I understand, I am sure you have important duties to take care of as well, and do not need to be spending that amount of time showing me around…” Sakura told her…

“NO! No it’s alright! I don’t mind! I-I’m sorry if I upset you!” She cried…

It was difficult to talk to this girl. Perhaps Sakura should just request visits to a few places, and then they could go their separate ways…

“Well… aside from the locations of the basic necessities, and the pokémon centre, I would like to see if there is a dojo for human fighters, and a garden…”

“A… a garden?” The nurse asked in surprised.

“I have a Florges.” Sakura explained, “She will want something to attend to, and I doubt there will be enough space in my room for her liking.”

“Oh! Well… yes, there’s quite a few gardens! It’ll be good to have a Florges around to look after them!” She said, calming down enough to giggle at the thought, “L-lots of students start to grow berry plants, but then d-don’t take care of them properly! It’s always such a waste of good medicine…”

“That does sound like a shame. I’m sure Florges would gladly help.” Just as long as those neglectful trainers didn’t still expect to get any berries back from their forgotten plants…

“O-okay! Well… the d-dormitories are closest, so we can go their first! Th-then I can show you the d-dojo and gardens, they’re both on the same floor, and then we can finish at the pokémon centre!” The nurse decided, sounding a little more confident now. “At l-least… if th-that’s alright with you! W-we can do it in a different order if you like!”

“No… your order sounds agreeable…” Sakura told her. She was still timid… this would likely be an uncomfortable tour. Hopefully the students in her own class wouldn’t fear her as much as this girl did…

“So, Neko! How’ve you been? Gotta say, the pokéalthlon circuit just ain’t the same without you!” Leon took the chance to catch up with the self-named ‘pokémon trainer-trainer’ as soon as the headmaster had told them to enjoy the tour and walked out of the gym.

“You say that, but to me, it looked exactly the same as last year." He said, in that 'I'm disappointed in you' tone of voice he had. "Did any of you guys practise with your pokémon at all!?" He cried.

"Hey we practised...! A bit..." Leon trailed off under Neko's gaze... yeah he probably hadn't really practised all that much, "Ok, I'll admit I didn't... but can you blame me when Luxray tramples the competition anyway! Without your Lucario there, it was a total snooze-fest!"

Nekomaru rolled his eyes, "Lucario's nothing special, he's just an example of what good basic training techniques can produce." He said, which was bullshit. "You actual trainers should be coming out with far better pokémon than him!"

"Dude, I keep telling you, you're one of the best pokémon trainers in the league!" Leon sighed back.

"Trust me, I'm not. I'm just good enough to see where other people can improve." He insisted, "Like you needing to practise with your pokémon more often... or at all!"

"Why? What's the point of wasting time getting better when I'm the best anyway?"

"Huh." He considered it, "If that's your thinking, then I guess I know what to do get your ass in gear then."

"...What?" The way he said it sounded kinda ominous...

"Well... do you like all your classmates?"

"Eh... most of 'em seem pretty chill... except that smug rich-boy, the weird writer chick..."

"Hmm... no, they won't do..." Nekomaru started muttering before Leon had finished…

"Not to mention that obvious Team Rocket stooge…”

“…You mean the guy with the Arcanine?” He checked, grinning.

“Yeeaah…” The hell was he getting at…?

"Perfect! Gotta admit I had my eye on him anyway..." Nekomaru laughed.

"Whaddaya mean?"

"Well, let’s just say if you don't buck your ideas up, that 'Rocket stooge' and his Arcanine are gonna be the new pokéathlon champs!"

Oh, hell NO!

"AHAHHAHAHA!" Nekomaru laughed at his expression, "There we go! Now come on and lemme show you the outdoor training track..."

Chapter Text

“And these are your class’ dorm rooms!” Nekomaru was finally done dragging him and Lux around the school… In the end he’d insisted on not only showing Leon every bit of sports equipment the place had to offer, but also where the free food was, where to buy food that was actually good, the main Pokécentre and also three smaller ones that happened to be on the route they were taking, and where the classes, that he had half a mind to skip out on, were gonna be... “That should be enough to get you through the first week here!”

“Sure, thanks man…” Ha! More like the whole four years… except for when he needed to find out where the talent shows were held, but he’d probably be better off asking one of those cute babes in his class for that info!

“…And I’m running a Pokéathlon training session at the outside sports arena tomorrow morning at eight…” Nekomaru carried on… What!? Was he serious?

“Dude, that’s a Sunday! No one gets up at eight on a Sunday!”

“They do if they actually care about winning, Leon.”

Yeah, sure, and then they got all the more pissed off when Luxray beat ‘em anyway… But he wasn’t gonna get into that argument again. “Alright, alright… I’ll see if I can wake up that early.”

“Well, just remember, I expect that ‘Team Rocket Stooge’ will manage it…” Nekomaru said warningly, before turning to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See ya, man…” So, he was gonna invite Ishimaru? Hah! All the more reason not to go… But maybe if he woke up early enough he could at least go and scope out how bad the guy’s big dumb dog was… It’d probably depend how comfy his new bed turned out to be.

Thinking of which, time to check out his new digs for the next four years…

Hmm… It was pretty simple, and the blue floor and red walls were kinda weird, but it had it’s own bathroom (no more showering with a bunch of other dudes after practises) and enough space in the bedroom part to get some extra furniture and pimp the place out… he could probably get this place looking pretty snazzy if he covered the walls in enough posters and shit... Guess it was a good thing Kanon had insisted on packing him a bunch ‘to remind him of home’, which were probably somewhere in the big pile of boxes that had been left in the middle of the floor.

“Not bad, eh, Lux? I know the walls ain’t your colour, but we can fix that...”

He slowly walked in and sniffed around the place, finally deciding to leap and curl up on top of all his stuff. Did that mean he preferred the way home smelt, or was he just being a normal cat and sitting in the most irritating place possible?

“Okay, dude, you’re gonna have to move. My stuff’s in there.” Leon walked over to him and pointed at the floor… but all he got was a cold stare in response. “I won’t be able to get your stuff out either!?”

That just made his Pokémon roll his eyes and slowly flick out a paw to swipe at Leon’s belt… or, more specifically, the other Pokéball sat there… Oh… yeah… He’d said he’d let Litten out once they got to his new room…

“Alright, alright… I’ll let him out…” Leon sighed, “Just don’t blame me if he sets fire to the box with your bed in it…”

He started ripping off the tape he’d used to trap Litten… honestly, he was kinda surprised none of the kids had seen it and called the RSPCP on his ass, but then again with Mr Team Rocket and the mass breeder there, they’d probably had bigger worries than a dude keeping his Pokémon from causing mischief and getting him murdered by that psycho chick with the Comfey…

Thinking of which, he really needed to get Litten to quit setting shit on fire! But maybe the time spent stuck in the Pokéball would have made him think for once… Or if not, maybe it’d be a scary enough punishment to get him to quit it? “Alright, Litten, get out here!”

He needn’t have said it, Litten was already halfway out of the ball the second the last piece of tape came off.

“Lit! Lit-lit-ten!” The fuzzball started climbing up Leon’s clothes to his shoulder to have a look around… “Ten…?”

“Yeah, we’re in a new home now…” Leon grabbed him by the scruff of the next and held him up so he could look into his eyes, “So, it’s a fresh start for us all, alright? So no more setting fire to stuff, unless it’s in a battle, got it?”

“Liiiiiiiit!” He mewled, all innocent and cutesy-like… Like he always did.

“Alright, you better mean it this time, okay?” Leon put him on the floor, “Now I gotta unpack my stuff, so you go have a look around by yourself, fuzzball!”

“Litten!” He scampered off across the carpet.

“Same goes for you, dude.” He told Luxray, who just jumped down from the boxes and sat curled around one of them… Maybe he was a little homesick after all… “Hey, I know it’s weird, but we’ll get used to it, alright?” Leon gave him a reassuring ear-scratch.

“Raaay…” He purred and seemed a little happier, at least. But it probably made sense for Leon to get out the cat beds now… even if Lux still wasn’t all that happy with his new, fire-proof one. He’d sulked for days after Litten burnt his first one, so much so that the damn pest had managed to figure out to leave Lux’s stuff alone after that… Now it was just Leon’s stuff he wouldn’t quit destroying…

Still, he didn’t seem to be trying to set anything on fire at the moment, he was just jumping around between the different bits of furniture around the place, so maybe that whole ‘fresh start’ thing had done the trick! Or at least it had given Leon enough time to get his stuff out of the cardboard boxes Kanon had packed up for him…

A couple of hours later, and all his stuff was spread out around the room… and none of it had been set on fire, awesome! Now he just had the pile of empty boxes to break up and throwing the trash and he could go get them all something to eat!

He started by picking up the one on top of the messy pile he’d formed earlier… Only for a little fuzzy red and black face to pop up out of it.

“Ten!” He jumped out of that box and into the one that was now on top of the pile instead. Apparently he thought the pile was a giant cat stand of something…

“Sorry, buddy, but I gotta smash all of those up!” Leon warned him, putting the box on the floor and starting to stamp it flat as a demonstration…

“Litten?” The cat cocked his head in curiosity as he wached… “Litten!” He pounced off of hin box and onto a lower-down one, starting to hop up and down and scratch at it…

…Was he trying to flatten it? Guess his future wrestling side made throwing down with a cardboard box into a fun game! “Thanks, little guy!” Leon gave him a quick pat on the head as he picked up another box to work with.

He’d got about four boxes done before his nose picked up an annoyingly familiar scent… Ah shit! Litten had set his box on fire! And was doing a stupid victory dance at it!

“Goddammit! You were doing so well!” Leon snapped at him, grabbing the box and running into the bathroom to stick it under the shower until it stopped burning. Well, at least it hadn’t damaged the carpet at all…

“Litten?” His kitten looked up at him in sad confusion… goddammit. why the hell had he suddenly decided to set fire to the box then? And why was he getting upset that Leon had shouted at him? It’s wasn’t like he’d asked the stupid thing to fight the box!

Oh… except he sorta had, as he’d been ‘battling’ the boxes flat, in a way… “Urgghh… Look, I get that you were trying to help, but fire isn’t helpful here, okay?” He sighed, picking up Litten and putting him back on the floor. “Go play with your toys while I sort this all out, and then we’ll get some food, alright?”

“…Ten…” He mewled quietly and headed over to start battling at his tiny stuffed (flame-proof, obviously) Rattata. And then chasing it around the room and pouncing on it occasionally while Leon started sorted the rest of the boxes out…

“Ray… Ray!” Aww, hell, if Lux was bothering to pipe up about something that probably meant…

…Yep, Litten had tried to set his Rattata on fire and hit the carpet instead! Shitshitshiiiit! How could he put that out? Uhh… Wet towel, right!? There were towels in the bathroom…

He was off like a shot, so at least the fire hadn’t spread far before he was back in the room flinging a thick, dripping wet towel over it… and half of the other boxes… and Litten…

“Tennn!” He jumped and hissed at getting wet, as he always did.

“Well, if you don’t wanna get wet, don’t set shit on fire!” Leon snapped at him… although the stupid thing probably didn’t understand… it’s not like he could train it to think that setting stuff on fire equalled get wet, unless it happened every single time… Wait… Hah! Now there was an idea! Did he have anything like a water pistol in the stuff Kanon had given him?

Turned out the closest thing he had was a little spritzer bottle for spraying berry plants that someone had given him at some point (as if he’d bother with that when you could just buy potions and meds!). Still it would probably be good enough to get the point across if he filled it with water and made sure to keep an eye on Litten while he carried on flattening boxes…

…Well, it took the little fuzzball a while to get back into playing, but soon enough…

“Liiii…” Yep, there he went! Setting fire to the bed this time!

“I just told you, no setting stuff on fire!” Leon snapped and hit him with the spray… then used it to put the small fire out as well.

 “Teeeen!” Litten mewled and ran under the bed… Maybe that would teach him a lesson! Not that Leon thought it would work straight away on the first try…

Of course, it didn’t. It only took about five minutes before Leon saw smoke coming from under the bed and dived down next to it to spray the fire out… And this time Litten had seen it coming and run out of the other side of the bed and was now sat on the floor watching him curiously… Like he was trying to check if Leon had been aiming at him on purpose or not…

“Yes! I’m aiming at you, fuzzball!” Leon snapped and hit him again… Which made him scurry back under the bed.

This time it was less than a minute before Litten creeped out to the edge of the bed and set a small fire going there, then started running out the other side and under a chair… Sneaky little cat! He knew Leon would have to deal with the fire first so he’d used it as a distraction! Not that Leon was going to let him get away with that! He quickly put out the fire and then hurried over to the chair Litten was under, aiming up the spray bottle and squeezing the trigger…

“Litten!” Only for Litten to triumphantly miaow as he darted forward between Leon’s legs and ran back under the bed again… smug little twerp…

“Get back here, you little…!” Leon raced back to the bed and did a running slide as he sprayed water under the bed… only for Litten to dodge it all and run under the pile of cardboard boxes this time…

Alright… so, if Leon just chased him, he’d probably book it back under the bed again… unless he found some way to block the little asshole…

“Yo, Lux, you wanna help at all?” Leon asked his starter Pokémon, who eventually got up with the same ‘well I suppose I’ll help you out’ air that he entered competitions with.

Great… that meant Leon could guard the bed while… “Lux, dig him outta there and bring him here!”

Luxray gave him a quick ‘are you kidding me, do I really have to do this?’ look before slowly starting to knock over the boxes with his head and paws…

“Litten!” The kitten panicked as the older cat spotted him and tried to pick him up by the scruff of the neck, then ran towards the bed like Leon had been expecting him to. Which meant...

“Now I’ve got you!” Leon cheered as he managed to grab the furball by the scruff of the neck instead, brought the spray bottle up to Litten’s face and squeezed the trigger…

…only for nothing to come out.

“What the…?” Leon checked bottle as Litten managed to worm his way out of his hand… “Urrrgh! Goddammit! I’ve run outta water!” Stupid tiny spray bottle… “Alright, you mighta lucked out this time, but just you wait ‘till I’ve got this filled up again!”

Less than a minute later he was back in the bedroom with a full spray bottle… Now where the fuck had Litten gone!?

“Dude, you see where he went?” Lux just shrugged at him. Great! Stupid sneaky kitten was gonna make him turn his room upside down before he’d even finished unpacking it properly…!

*Bing bong.*

What the!? The rooms had doorbells!? Well, might as well go see who it was, before he started Litten hunting…

“Good Evening!” Urg… it was the Team Rocket guy and his creepily well-behaved Arcanine. Seriously, what sort of dog could sit beside a guy carry a tray full of food without even turning to look at it? Even Luxray would have had a sniff of that, if he was that close. “I hope I’m not bothering you, but Hanamura, the fellow showing me around today, cooked all of us malasadas as a welcome treat and asked me and Asahina to bring them around!”

Damn… Leon had to admit those malasadas were looking pretty good, and the guy Ishimaru had gone off with was dressed like a chef… But… “Where is Asahina, then?” He shoulda been able to hear her giving them out even if she was around the corner!

“Hanamura made them in two batches, so she took the first half around to the girls a while ago!” Really? He’d seen the vendors in Alola make ‘em, they were doing tons of the things… and he was saying this guy could only do eight at a time…? That excuse stank worse than a Garbodor… “So, would you like one? Or two, even? Togami and Fujisaki didn’t want their ones and Oowada’s not in his room.”

…Oh, now that was totally sketchy! That Fujisaki wimp didn’t look like the type to say no to anything without a reason! Maybe Pokédexes could detect poison or something… “Thanks, but I haven’t had dinner yet, so I better pass…”

“You could still take one and reheat it!” If that was true, why didn’t he keep it quiet and do it himself? “Although they’re not quite as good that… Oh! Why, hello there! That’s a Litten, isn’t it?”

Wait, what?

“Litten!” The hell!? How had he scampered all the way up to Leon’s shoulder without him noticing!?

“It’s impressive that you have a Pokémon that was only just registered in the leagues! Did you catch it yourself or trade for him?” Ishimaru leant forward to get a closer looked…

Which Litten took as an invitation to jump across to his shoulder.

“Oof! Err… Well… he’s certainly an active one! Ahahaha!” Ishimaru laughed as Litten rubbed his face over Ishimaru’s neck and then started balancing down his arm to get a better look at the tray… “Still, that’s not surprising given he’s owned by a Pokéathlon champ! What sort of training regime do you…?”

“Liiiit!” Oh goddammit, Leon knew what that cry meant!

“Ah! The masaladas! Why did he…!?” Ishimaru stared in panic as the tray in his hands suddenly carried a small fire lit by Litten… Little punk must have forgotten Leon had the spray bottle! And with him perched halfway down Ishimaru’s arm he didn’t have anywhere to run or hide!

“Ten!” …Or so Leon thought, right until he went to spray the little pest in the face and instead hit Ishimaru’s right arm because the damn cat had managed to hop over to his left and was trying to scurry back up it! Not that the water Leon was spraying was far behind him but Litten was quick enough that the water just hit Ishimaru’s elbow, armband, shoulder and eventually his face as Litten jumped down Ishimaru’s back instead of crossing in front of his chest like Leon had expected…

“Pfft…! What are you DOING!?” Ishimaru yelled at him and almost shoved the try in his face, “The FIRE is HERE!”

Oh… right. Yeah, he probably oughta do something about that before it started setting fire to the school…

“Alright, alright, calm down!” Leon started spraying the fire out, “It’s not like that tray’s not heatproof…”

“But my hands aren’t! Not to mention these are completely ruined now!” Wow, he seemed more upset at the ruined food than the chance his hands would have burnt off… maybe it really had been some evil plot? “What possessed you to waste time attacking your Litten instead of putting the fire out straight away!?”

“I wasn’t attacking him!” He wasn’t those assholes who beat up his own fucking Pokémon! “I’m trying to train him to quit setting fire to shit!”

“Hmm… I see… However, I don’t think you’ll find that training method particularly effective. At best, all it would do it teach the Litten not to do it when you have access to water… which means he’ll start setting light to things when you’re not in a position to put them out.”

…Damnit, the hardass actually had a point… “Well, how would you get him to quit doing it then?”

“Well… to start with, you need to consider the reason he’s doing it in the first place…” He started, while Litten started climbing up his Arcanine’s back… “The most common reason Pokémon misbehave is because they don’t respect their trainer…”

Why did everyone assume he just needed more badges!? “I have two badges… and I caught him myself! That ain’t the problem!”

“I thought as much… in that case, the next most common reason is because your Pokémon is stressed… is there any chance he’s scared of you? Or your other Pokémon?”

Leon looked down at the little fuzzball, just in time to notice that he was crouching down on top of the Arcanine, before he then pounced forward to try and claw his way up Leon’s jacket…

“Woah! No you don’t fuzzball!” Leon caught him and put him over his shoulder, “I ain’t a scratching post! You want to sit on my shoulder, you can let me pick you! Got it?”

“Litten!” He mewled… although he still had to knead his paws into Leon’s shoulder before he settled down…

“…Does he look stressed to you?” Leon asked the neat freak, who’d balanced the tray on one arm and was now trying to tidy his dog’s fur up with the other one.

“No… I didn’t think that was likely either…” He admitted.

“Then why’d you suggest it!?” Seriously? Was he just trying to waste Leon’s time?

“I was going through a checklist!” …What checklist? Had he memorised a behaviour checklist? Why would he have done that when he only had one Pokémon? “But I suspect your problem is most likely the next most common reason, which is that your Litten is bored.”

“What? He’s not bored! He’s got plenty of toys to play with!”

“But how often do you play with him? Or train him?” …Okay, how the hell did he know Leon didn’t usually bother mucking about with cat toys like some idiots did with their pets… “How many battles have you included him in?”

There was a question… let’s see, not including the one where he’d caught him… “I dunno… five?”

“And you’ve had him for…?”

Well, he’d caught him at the start of his holiday, so… “About six weeks…”

“Six WEEKS!?” Geez, you’d think Leon had said that was how long he’d kept Litten taped up in his Pokéball… “Err… But you’re not really a battler, are you? I suppose you have sports training you’ve been doing, instead!”

“No… it was off season!” Leon remembered fondly, “I was chilling on the beach!”

“You mean… you caught a Litten, a species known for being intelligent and inquisitive, and then barely did anything with it for six whole weeks!?” Geez, way to make Leon sound like an asshole…

“I was on holiday!”

“But think about it from his point of view! He doesn’t understand that! He probably thought that was always going to be your schedule!” Well… maybe he had a point there… “But at least it means it won’t be a problem for much longer!”

“…You mean ‘cause I ain’t on holiday anymore?” That’d be pretty sweet…

“Exactly! I’m sure our classes will provide plenty of opportunities to battle each other! Not to mention all the extra-curricular activities available here…” Urg… looked like Leon could tell exactly who the class over-achiever was going to be… “Oh! And are you aware that there’s a Pokéathlon training session tomorrow morning at 8am? Apparently coach Nidai is the person to…”

“Yeah, I know… Nekomaru was the guy showing me around.” Leon shut him up. “And anyway, I’ve gotta go get some dinner, so if you’ll excuse me… Lux! Come on, we’re gonna get some grub!”

Ishimaru moved out of the way, and Luxray sauntered out along with Leon and Litten… and Ishimaru and his Arcanine, who started following him…

“Where are you going?” He better not have thought tha was supposed to be an invitation…

“Err... my room is this way! Not to mention I need to throw this food away…” Alright, so Leon only had to put up with him until he got to the dining room…

“The fuck!? Did you just say you’re throwing food away!?”

“Ahh!” Ishimaru jumped and spilt several malasadas on the floor as a pissed-off looking Oowada suddenly appeared from around the corner with that freaky wolf thing of his… which raced right over and started trying to scarf the food on the floor… So Ishimaru started trying to stop him…

“RRROooooooccccccc…!” It paused just long enough to snarl at him…

“Just let ‘im have ‘em!” Oowada snapped, just as Ishimaru had the sense to step backwards away… Seriously, what was with the fucking scary, angry dogs in this class?

“Err… but…!”

 “You were gonna throw ‘em away anyway! What it’s matter they go in him instead of a bin!”

“But… they’re burnt! And they’ve been on the floor!” Ishimaru cried, grossed out.

“So? He’s a wolf! Eating off the floor ain’t gonna kill him!” Oowada snapped, “And as for them being burnt…” He walked over and swiped one, then shoved it in his mouth. “…Tastes fine to me!”

“Err… really!? They don’t look palatable…” Leon had to admit he was right there! They looked mostly black and Oowada would be lucky if he hadn’t got a mouthful of Litten’s fur in there…

“But it’s still food that ya can eat!” Ishimaru would be lucky if Oowada hadn’t just spat food over his face with that sentence… “But if you’re gonna a picky asshole about it, I’ll have ‘em!” He swiped the tray off the nerd, stuffed a few into his coat pockets, dumped the rest onto the floor for his wolf and then shoved the tray back into Ishimaru’s arms.

“Err…” Ishimaru still looked grossed out by the whole scene. “Well… I suppose I can go take this tray back to Hanamura now!”

“Looks like it.” Leon told him, while Oowada shoved more food in his mouth.

“Err… Right then…! Good Evening!” He nodded stiffly and then patted his right thing, “Heel, Arcanine!”

“Arc!” The dog stood up and walked off with him in perfect synchrony...

“More like good fucking riddance!” Oowada muttered between mouthfuls of food.

“Yeah, seriously…” Leon agreed, “His Arcanine creeps me out… How the fuck does anyone get a dog that well trained?” And why couldn’t he have offered to hook Litten up with some of that shit?

“…I’ve seen some Team Rocket methods that woulda done it…” Oowada said, glaring at Ishimaru’s back as he headed up the stairs.

Oh, shit… that didn’t sound like something he’d wanna use on Litten then… But… “Why’ve you seen…?”

“My bro an’ me make it a thing that our gang goes and trashes any Rocket hideouts we hear about…” He explained, “It’s where most of our Pokémon come from…”

“Including him?” Leon asked, pointing at the wolf that was just about finishing mopping the last bits of burn malasada. “’Cause he doesn’t look that well behaved…”

“That’s ‘cause they were raising him to fight, so they were doing shit to piss him off while also making him scared of them…” Oowada said, quiet and pissed off, “Mostly keeping him starved, then acting like they were gonna give him food , but then taking it away and kicking him instead…”

Holy shit… That was fucking horrible! “Fuck… Wait… was that why he got so pissed off when that guy went to…”

“Probably… Especially as I ain’t managed ta find the damn food hall yet!” Oowada griped, “His fucking boots and shit don’t help either…”

“No kidding…” Seriously, there was no way there was a school dumb enough to have that as their uniform! “But, the dining room ain’t far… I was just about to go myself, wanna hang out?”

“Really? Yeah, thanks man!” He cheered up, “Glad ta know there’s at least one cool dude here, and it’s not just a bunch of squares…”

“No kidding! We ain’t even been here a day and I’m already getting hassled to go do sports training tomorrow at eight!”

“On a Sunday!?” Oowada cried, “Who the fuck gets up at eight on a Sunday!?”

“I know, right!?” Always good to know you aren’t the only sane guy in the class… Nekomaru could get up at the crack of dawn to train that nerd and Leon would just head on over to work out at sensible times…

Chapter Text

“Alright, you three…” Nekomaru crouched down next to the line his three pokémon had formed, “On your marks… get set… GO!”

He and his pokémon shot forward at his command. The race was instantly dominated by Skiddo, the leafy-maned goat bleating happily as she raced just ahead of her older ‘brother’ Lucario, as always. Which of them won would probably be determined by whether Skiddo’s stamina held out until the end of the race, which it had been quite a lot recently…

But Nekomaru’s concern right now was on his own standing in the race, as he set off neck-and-neck alongside the pokémon he’d caught himself over the summer holidays, a stout Loudred. He wasn’t exactly built for running, with stubby little legs and large loudspeaker ears that generated a lot of wind resistance, but he still gave his all in every race, trying to beat Nekomaru, just like Lucario used to back when he was a Riolu…

But his all wasn’t quite enough to beat Nekomaru just yet… he had the same problem Skiddo did, starting well but not being able to keep it up the whole way, and they’d only just got halfway before he started to slow and Nekomaru gradually pulled ahead of him, leaving him with nothing to focus on but the triumphant goat who was jumping around in glee as Lucario bowed graciously to her… looks like she’d won again.

And it looked for sure like Nekomaru had come in third place again, as he managed to cross the finish line a clear ten seconds ahead of Loudred, who stumbled over it and fell to his hands inhaling huge gulps of air through his oversized mouth…

“Hey, you okay there?” Nekomaru knelt down to check on him.

“Lou…dred!” He gasped and pounded the group with his fist… “Dred, dred, dredd!”

Oh boy… he still wasn’t taking losing well… “Hey now, don’t be like that! Just because you couldn’t beat me yet, doesn’t mean you did run a good race! And you’re getting stronger all the time. It won’t be long before you started beating me…”

“…Loud…?” He looked up at Nekomaru pitifully.

“Yes, really! Now come here let me do it to you!”

“Loud!” He shouted excitedly and leapt into Nekomaru’s arms… and of course Skiddo and Lucario rushed towards him excitedly at the mention as well…

“Gahahaha! Alright, alright! Massages for everyone!” Nekomaru laughed, “After all, I want you all in peak condition to compete against Akane and whichever of the new students decide to turn up!”

Lucario looked thoughtful and started scribbling something in the dirt as Nekomaru started with Loudred’s massage, then pointed at it and looked up at Nekomaru questioningly…

What was that supposed to be…? It had four legs, and a jagged shape around the head and neck… oh, right… “Leon’s Luxray?” Lucario nodded, “Well, it’d be nice… but I wouldn’t get my hopes up…” Chances were pretty good Leon wouldn’t bother until he saw some actual proof that his title could be under threat… which meant he’d have to hope Teruteru passed along his offer to Ishimaru, or one of the other members of the new class had the motivation to start pokéathlon training… it wouldn’t be long before they arrived, if they were coming.

“Okay Loudred… time for you to take it easy in your ball, before your big entrance!” Nekomaru told him. He hadn’t told anyone in his own class what his new pokémon was… it’d be all the more intense when he brought out Loudred for the team cheers that way…

It seemed like he was just in time to, because it wasn’t long after that that he started hearing Teruteru’s voice floating across the breeze… “…A dedicated arena for every event in the pokéathlon league, as well as some more general equipment and a swimming pool big enough to fit a Wailord!”

“This is incredible!” Ah, good! He could hear Ishimaru with him… “There’s even an area for snow throw!? How is that possible?”

“You mean your school didn’t have snow machines?” Teruteru asked, even though Nekomaru had seen his old school over the summer and they didn't look like they had any either… they’d been holding a fundraiser to afford to buy the blocks for block break and maybe update the set of hurdles they had...

“My school had to have fundraisers every year to be able to afford to have block break competitions…” Sounded like Ishimaru’s last school was just as bad. He was probably going to have a lot of work to do to catch up with Leon…

“Well, you’re in a good school now!” Teruteru was laughing, “And with a top-class coach to boot! That’s Nekomaru over there, let me introduce you!”

“Thank you!”

Nekomaru turned around to face the source of the voices. They looked like they were getting along well already, given how cheerful they both looked. Teruteru was wearing his usual chef’s outfit, which was a shame as it probably meant he wasn’t here for training, and Ishimaru had come prepared in shorts, T-shirt and trainers that looked slightly too small for him. Their main pokémon were following along behind them, Emboar looking pretty proud of the way Ishimaru’s Arcanine was obediently walking to heel, and the Arcanine looking relaxed as it basked in the extra warmth at its side.

No sign of Teruteru’s new pokémon though… was he planning some big surprise with it as well? He'd have to ask in a moment…

“Hey there!” Nekomaru stood up to greet them, “You two here to join Hope’s Peak’s pokéathlon team!?”

“Yes!” Ishimaru was enthusiastic as least, “Err… I don’t have much experience, but I’m willing to put in the effort to make up for it!”

“Good to hear! You’re Ishimaru, right?” Nekomaru held his hand out to shake, “Your guide on healthy food for pokémon was a lifesaver while I was working out a training diet for Lucario!”

“Really!?” He looked more surprised by that than Nekomaru would have expected, “Well, I’m glad that was of use to someone! Although in retrospect, it was a very simplified summary of the subject...”

“Probably… it’s a good starting point for a new trainer, but I can think of a few people who could do with a more in-depth version in the same style now.”

“Well… in that case I’ll start researching it more thoroughly!” Ishimaru looked pretty excited at the idea, even… did that mean he was willing to make whatever guides people asked him to? Now there was a tempting thought…

“Well, seems like you two are going to get on well!” Teruteru announced, “We can head back and help Miltank prep a hearty team breakfast for you all!”

Well, that sounded nice but… “You’re still not interested in having your pokémon start sports?”

“I’ve told you, Emboar and Miltank are far too sophisticated to be running around playing games…” Teruteru insisted.

“Well, what about your new pokémon?” Nekomaru asked.

“Heh heh… Bounsweet’s going to be my talent star!” Teru said smugly.

So, that was his new pokémon, huh? “Hah! You got another pokémon you can feed yourself with!”

“Excuse me!? Ain’t nobody gonna eat my Bounsweet!” Teruteru got annoyed enough to drop his fake accent.

“But, technically, it is a fruit pokémon, isn’t it?” Ishimaru mulled it over, “I mean… it would provide nutritional value, if you were desperate…”

“That’s true of any pokémon! Ain’t no reason to be talking about eaten any o’ my pokémon! After all, yo wouldn’t wanna eat no Emboar, would ya now!?”

“Hmm… I don’t know… roast pig sounds pretty good to me! Gahahaha!” Nekomaru laughed at the irritated look on Teruteru’s face, “Put some salt and pepper on him, and…”

“Ah! Arcanine, no!” Ishimaru suddenly yelled.

“…Nine?” Ishimaru’s dog froze and looked up at him guilty, mouth open with the tongue hanging out and halfway towards Teruteru’s Emboar…

“He was joking. Other pokémon aren’t food.” Ishimaru told it, sternly.

“Huh…? He was about to…?” Teruteru stared in horror at the now cringing dog for a moment, before rounding on Nekomaru… “Now, look what you just did, with all yo’ stupid talk ‘bout ma pokémon being good eatin’! I know one person who ain’t gettin’ no Miltank milk for his breakfast!”

“Hahaha! Alright, I probably deserve that…” Although Teruteru probably wouldn’t stick to it anyway... “But do I get to see this great new Bounsweet of yours?”

“Hmm…” Bigging up Teruteru’s pokémon calmed him down, as usual. “Depends… do I get to see your new pokémon?”

“I’m saving getting him out for the team cheers.” Nekomaru explained.

“Huh…” Seemed like he was thinking about sticking around if it wouldn’t be too much longer, and as luck would have it…

“We should be starting soon… I can see Akane heading over now.”

She was walking alongside that sporty looking girl, who had come wearing a swimming costume under a pair of shorts. The pair were going a lot quicker than Teruteru and Ishimaru had done, so fast that Akane’s Bewear was having some trouble keeping up with her. It can’t have been that long since it evolved, or she might have noticed that it was moving more slowly now it was walking on two legs instead of four. The other girl’s… Asahina, wasn’t it? Her pokémon were having an easier time of it, with the Glaceon able to keep up with her and her Marill hitching a ride on her back.

“Well, alright then!” Teruteru decided, “That way I can register a few new pokémon…”

“Ah… I’ve been wondering about that, actually…” Ishimaru piped up, reaching for his pokédex. “Is there a, err… protocol regarding registering other people’s pokémon, here?”

“It’s pretty much the same as every other school...” Nekomaru told him, ask politely and most people were happy to… aside from the odd snob or stick in the mud like Hiyoko and Fuyuhiko.

“Oh… okay then.” Ishimaru put his pokédex away disappointedly.

“Wait…Did those hicks in your old school not let each other register their pokémon?” Terutreu guessed quickly, as if he’d had the same thing happen. “Like scanning a Golbat’s some special privilege that they only let their friends do?”

“Yes!” Ishimaru nodded, “Is that not what you meant?”

“No… every school I’ve been to, it was a case of ‘ask first, but most people say yes’.” Why wouldn’t you all help each other?

“Oh! Well… in that case…” Ishimaru got his pokédex out and waved it with a hopeful smile, “May I?”

“Sure! Go ahead!” Nekomaru slapped his back and pushed him over to Lucario and Skiddo.

“Ooh! Are you guys registering each other’s pokémon!?” Asahina yelled from several yards away as she ran over the last part of the distance between them. “Can I join!?”

“Go ahead!” Teruteru laughed.

“And you can both do mine as well!” Akane insisted.

There was a small amount of chaos as the two new students excitedly scanned everything and started chatting about all the new pokémon they were getting to see at the school.

“Hey, Akane, while we’re scanning everything…” Nekomaru gestured to Bewear.

“No.” Akane shut him down. “Not until I get to scan Gogoat.”

…But he didn’t have a Gogoat… yet… “GAHAHAHA! Nice one!” Nekomaru laughed, “You hear that, Skiddo? You gotta evolve so I can scan Akane’s Bewear!”

“Skiiid!” The goat bleated indignantly at him.

“I know, I’m kidding…” Nekomaru admitted, “It probably won’t be long now we’re back at school…”

“It better not be! Otherwise your team won’t be able to give me a run for their money any more…” Akane warned him. “Anyway, let’s see your new pokémon!”

“Not yet… Neko wants to turn his into some big surprise during team cheers…” Teru told her.

“Well, let’s get on with team cheers then!” Akane demanded.

Well, they had to get on with training at some point, and the new pair were pretty much done with their pokedexes…

“Alright! Everyone line up with all your pokémon!” Nekomaru ordered.

They quickly obeyed, Ishimaru started by smartly signalling his Arcanine away from Emboar. Asahina looked a bit confused, but move to stand next to him, causing her Glaceon to scurry over to the side furthest from the Arcanine. Then Teruteru gestured for Akane to go next, and she got her Snorlax out of its pokéball before Teru stood next to her along with his Emboar. Then Lucario and Skiddo lined up at the end, much to Teruteru and Akane’s surprise, as they usually stood at Nekomaru’s side, but now he had Loudred that wasn’t going to be necessary…

“Alright team! The goal of these sessions is for all of us to help each other improve… but sometimes when we’re racing against each other, it gets easy to forget that…” Nekomaru explained, for the new pair. “That’s why we start each session to remind us all that we’re all on the same team…”

“Err… now!?” Ishimaru asked, looking around the field.

“Isn’t Leon coming?” Asahina probably had the same concern.

“I invited him, but Leon’s not really one for teams… I’d be surprised if he came along anytime this term.” Nekomaru tried not to be too insulting about his lack of motivation. “But we don’t need to worry about that! We can make enough noise by ourselves! Now, everyone…” He threw out Loudred’s ball… “Give me an H!”

“LOUD!”

Whatever noise the group made was completely covered by the thunderous boom Loudred let out as he jumped out of his pokéball, which caused them all to yell and cover their ears until it was over… even the pokémon were affected, the ones who couldn’t hold their hands or paws over their ears having to resort to curling up in a ball or shoving their heads in their owner’s bags… even Akane’s Snorlax woke up for a moment.

“Ah… was that too loud?” Nekomaru asked as they cautiously started to straighten themselves back up…

“What did you say!?”, “Beweeeear!” “I BEG YOUR PARDON!?”, “Skid-dooo!” “Ahahahaha! That was awesome! Are anyone else's ears still ringing?”, “Rilll….” “You crazy eejit! You tryina deafen us!? Wha’ kind o’ surprise is tha’!?”

“I guess that’s a yes…” Nekomaru realised, as the group all loudly answered at the same time, “Maybe tone it down a little next time, Loudred…”

“L-Loudred…” He agreed, startled at the affect he’d had on them all.

After a short while, most of the group had recovered, aside from a couple of the pokémon. Asahina’s Glaceon was still angrily covering its ears with its paws, despite her trying to coax it back up, and Ishimaru was staring at his Arcanine, which still had its head stuck in his bag… “Are they going to need to go to the pokémon centre?”

“Umm… I think she was just startled, but she’s almost ready now… can you give her another minute?” Asahina asked.

“Sure… and sorry… I gotta admit, that seemed like a better idea when I thought of it…” Nekomaru apologised, “Ishimaru, how’s your Arcanine?”

“Err… actually, I think he’s just looking for something.” Ishimaru answered.

“Arc!” His dog lifted its head out of the bag for a moment to agree, then dived back in.

“Well… what are you looking for?” Ishimaru asked it, “Earmuffs?”

“Nine…” It shook its head and thought for a moment. Then it started pawing at the ground, drawing two straight lines next to each other and then joining them with another across the middle of them…

“…Is that supposed to be a H?” Akane asked.

“Oh! You’re looking for your letters!” Ishimaru realised with a laugh, “You’re a good boy! But it’s not quite what he meant!”

“Wait… you’re telling me that thing can read!?” Teruteru exclaimed. Not that Nekomaru could blame him… Arcanine’s were smart dogs, but they were still dogs…

“No! Aside from recognising the odd word and some signs, anyway…” Ishimaru explained, “But he can recognise most letters, and I usually make him practise by asking me to fetch specific ones...”

“So he thought I literally meant for him to give me an H…” Nekomaru had to admit, that was still pretty clever…

“Yes, exactly...” Ishimaru just looked embarrassed to have caused a disturbance though.

“Nine?” The dog looked confused at not being expected to spell.

“Ah… you see, he just wanted us all to shout together!” Ishimaru explained to him, “So you just have to bark!”

“Arc!” The dog wagged its tail excitedly and breathed in the same way Loudred often did... “ARCARCARCARC…!”

“Once! Bark once!” Ishimaru hastily corrected himself, which the dog luckily understood, “So when he says ‘Give me an H…!”

“ARC!” The dog responded.

“Good boy!” Ishimaru petted it.

“See, Glaceon! That’s what we need to do!” Asahina had apparently managed to get her pokémon to calm down and let go of its ears, “Doesn’t that sound fun?”

The Glaceon looked around at them all irritably, before disappearing into her pokéball without a word.

“Umm… I guess not?” Asahina cringed in embarrassment.

“Riiiiill…” Her other pokémon sighed in agreement.

“Never mind… number one rule of pokémon training is not to force your pokémon into anything they’re not comfortable with.” Nekomaru told her, “Plus, it’s my fault she’s mad, so I can’t complain if she wants to sit out! Gahahaha!”

The rest of them all spelt out the rest of ‘Hope’s Peak’ without any further problems, and then the five trainers all gathered around for a few minutes to register Loudred and watch Teruteru’s adorable new Bounsweet doing a little dance.

“So… do we get to see your new pokémon, now?” Nekomaru asked Akane.

“Hmm… actually, I’m thinking I’ll keep it a surprise myself…” Akane decided, “But you’ll see by the time training’s over!”

“Well, you’ll have to show me later, then!” Teruteru sighed, “I’ve already left Miltank by herself too long!”

“Well, you can be the next person to see it, so long as I get some milk for my breakfast!” Akane offered.

“Sure thing! You can have a certain coach’s portion!” Teruteru told her, giving Nekomaru a pointed glare before he left.

“…I was hoping he’d have forgot that…” Nekomaru sighed.

“Ah… my apologies…” Ishimaru cringed, “I hope I haven’t caused a serious falling out between you two…”

A serious falling out over that? How sensitive did Ishimaru think he and Teruteru were?

“Huh!? The hell did you do!?” Akane asked in disbelief.

“It’s nothing serious… all that happened was…”

“Umm!? Are your pokémon supposed to be doing that!?” Asahina suddenly yelled, pointing towards Skiddo…

Who was charging full pelt with the intention of ramming Bewear, who was stood in a solid looking squat ready to catch her… And that would probably hurt her now he had evolved…

“SKIDDO! Save it for training!” Nekomaru ordered her, at which she guiltily skidded to a halt.

It was odd, though, usually Lucario would have broken up a fight like that. But instead he was just stood watching as Ishimaru’s Arcanine scrabbled about in the dirt…

“What are you guys looking at?” Nekomaru and Ishimaru headed over to look at what their pokémon were up to.

“Arc!” The Arcanine finished what he was doing and sat next to the patch of dirt he’d been playing with, which was now covered with a messy, but recognisable scrawl…

“Hodes Deak?” Nekomaru read out.

“Can?” The dog looked confused.

“Ah… you almost got it right!” Ishimaru looked pleased with him despite the mistake, “You just mixed up the P’s with D’s!” The dog cocked its head at him in confusion, “Look, see this is a D!” Ishimaru pointed at the one in ‘Hodes’, “And this is a P!” He corrected it with his finger…

“Arr…” The dog whined sadly.

“But you’re still a very clever Arcanine for getting the rest of it!” Ishimaru ruffled the fur around his neck, “Now, let’s go show everyone how good you are at sports as well!”

The dog barked happily and started following him over to the track that Akane, Asahina and Skiddo had started headed to. But Lucario was still stood looking at the writing.

“You coming, buddy?”

Lucario looked at it thoughtfully for a while longer, then crouched down and corrected the P in ‘Peak’, before looking up at Nekomaru questioningly.

“Hah! Yeah, that’s right!” Nekomaru slapped his back, impressed that he’d picked it up so quickly. “Maybe I should teach you to read…”

Lucario nodded, then started heading over towards the others. Huh… Well, then… How did you teach a pokémon to read? Maybe he should ask Ishimaru how he’d done it after training.

But for now, he had other things to focus on. He and Lucario jogged over to the rest of the team, where Asahina and Ishimaru were admiring the full size running track admiringly.

“Okay, everyone! Listen up!” Nekomaru got their attention, “a lot of the time, these sessions would focus on one particular pokéathlon event. But as we’ve got some new trainers, I’m just going to have us all do each event once, just so I get a general idea of where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are, alright?”

“Even disc catch!?” Akane asked excitedly.

“No… we’ll save the bigger games for a day when we’ve got more pokémon…” Nekomaru decided, to Akane’s disappointment.

“Now, do any of you have any questions about the training in general?”

“Yes!” Ishimaru raised his hand and waited to be nodded at, “In terms of encouraging our pokémon, is there anything we’re not allowed to do?”

“No stepping into the event area itself, and nothing that directly interferes with the other trainers or any of the Pokémon.” Nekomaru told him, “And while it's not an official rule, I’m not having anyone in my team who shouts insults at the other trainers’ pokémon.”

Ishimaru smiled broadly and nodded, but Asahina looked appalled. “People do that!?”

“Unfortunately! People get quite worked up over sports and often say things they don’t really mean in the heat of the moment.” Ishimaru explained with a sigh.

“Not in my school, they didn’t!” Asahina countered.

“And it’s pretty rare in the leagues as well. Good trainers tend to focus on their own pokémon.” Nekomaru agreed with her.

“Ah… that's what I always tried to tell them!” Ishimaru smiled for a moment, “But they never really listened and my teachers just said it was trainers being trainers…”

“Sounds like your school sucked…” Akane commented.

“Hrmm…” He looked like he would like to agree with her, “Well, it certainly wasn’t up to the standards here! I’ve never even seen half of the pokéalthlon arenas for myself!”

“Umm… yeah, me neither…” Asahina admitted, nervously.

“GAHAHA! Don’t you guys worry, I’ll explain them to you before we start!” Nekomaru asked, “But we’ll start with the two track races first… I’m guessing you’ve both done them before?”

“Yes!” Ishimaru and Asahina both agreed readily.

“Alright then! Everyone get your best runner and line up on the track!” Nekomaru tapped Skiddo to encourage her up to the line, alongside Bewear, Arcanine and Asahina’s slightly put-upon Glaceon. This was hopefully going to be an interesting race... 

Chapter Text

Aww… Glaceon still looked kind of annoyed at this whole sports thing… but there was no chance of Marill winning a race on land, so…

“It’s just a straight race around the track!” Hina tried to encourage her, “It’ll be fun!”

Glaceon gave her look that probably meant ‘No it won’t.’ But at least she went and stood next to the other pokémon, instead of disappearing into her pokéball this time.

“Alright everyone… on your marks…” ‘Coach’ Nekomaru told them all, which caused Ishimaru’s dog and Akane’s bear to check their footing, “Get set…” every pokémon except Glaceon crouched, ready to sprint, “Go!”

The dog and Nekomaru’s goat both shot away from the line, followed by the lumbering bear and a sulky Glaceon…

“Aww… Come on Glaceon! You can run faster than that!” Hina told her, and was backed up by the excited Marill sat on her shoulders.

“You to, Bewear! You’ve run faster that while you were still a Stufful!” Akane tried to encourage her own pokémon.

“That might be part of his problem...” Nekomaru pointed out, “He’s gone from four legs to two.”

“Wait… really!?” Akane looked worried, “Umm… well… You’re doing great! Keep it up! You’re beating the Glaceon at least!”

Glaceon’s ears flattened backwards in irritation as she shot Akane a dirty look and sped up just enough to pull ahead of the Bewear.

“Dammit!” Akane muttered, “You’re still doing great! Just keep up a good pace!” Her Bewear still looked pretty upset at being outpaced by a pokémon that was barely bothering to try though…

“Umm… Glaceon’s not usually this bratty about sports…” Hina told the rest of the group, “I don’t get why the cheers upset her this much…”

“It might be that she’s having trouble adjusting to your new home.” Nekomaru suggested, “A lot of pokémon don’t deal well with big changes at first...”

Hmm… maybe that was it? This place was pretty different from home… She still couldn’t believe she was really supposed to be here… Everyone else seemed to have something different about them… except maybe that Makoto guy…

“Oh… I never even considered that possibility myself! Arcanine just seems to be excited to be here. Although I did do my best to keep our schedule the same this morning...” Ishimaru thought out loud, “Speaking of which… “Good work Arcanine! You’re halfway there!”

“You to, Skiddo! Keep it up!” Nekomaru bellowed at his own pokémon.

Wait… really!? Geez, those two pokémon were still neck-and-neck and had already got halfway around the track… Meanwhile Glaceon and Bewear were only just about coming up to the first quarter…

“You’re quarter of the way there Glaceon!” Hina yelled, just before Akane said the same to her Bewear. “Keep it up!”

Yeesh… if anything, that made Glaceon look even more annoyed at that, maybe she’d been hoping they weren’t going all the way around the track…

And perhaps Ishimaru had a point about schedules, Hina had got them all up at a completely different time than usual this morning… Maybe Glaceon just wasn’t a morning pokémon?

“Excuse me, but… would a trainer stepping onto the track past the finish line be considered interfering with the race?” Ishimaru suddenly asked.

“You mean to encourage them on the final stretch?” Nekomaru guessed, and Ishimaru nodded. “That’s fine, I was about to do the same myself…” He headed onto the track to prove the point.

“Wonderful!” Ishimaru started rummaging around in his bag, finding something and moving to stand next to Nekomaru just as the two leading pokémon rounded the final corner…

“Come on, Skiddo! You’re almost there!” Nekomaru cheered his goat, who was starting to look like she was getting tired. “And then I’ll give you a massage!”

“Arcanine! Here boy!” Ishiamru waved something in the air… “Look what I’ve got!”

…It was a poffin, and his dog practically doubled its speed at the sight of it, flying ahead of the goat and finishing the race so fast that Ishimaru had to jump backwards to avoid getting trampled by three hundred pounds of over-excited fur.

“Ahahaha! Good boy! You won the race!” Ishimaru proudly gave it the poffin, just as Nekomaru’s goat passed the line and into his arms.

“Hmm… not by as much as I expected.” Nakomaru told him, “Doesn’t he know Extreme Speed?”

“Err… not yet…” Ishimaru stammered.

“Hmm. I see…” Nekomaru went quiet… although it kind of sounded like he was muttering about something not being good enough…

Well, that didn’t matter to her! What did matter was that Glaceon and the Bewear were almost to the final corner themselves… and Glaceon was starting to look tired of running… even though she’d totally be able to keep going if she wanted to…

Hmm… maybe she could steal Ishimaru tactic… “Come on Glaceon! Come in third and I’ll give you a yummy poffin!”

Aha! That did the trick! Glaceon finally perked up and ran down the track towards Hina, coming in a comfortable third place. “Good girl, Glaceon!” Hina moved to pat her…

She jerked her head to the side and gave Hina a look that obviously meant ‘So where is this poffin you mentioned?’

“Umm… I don’t have any with me!” Hina told her, “But I’ll totally buy you a fresh one once we’ve finished sports, alright?”

The scowl Glaceon gave her suggested that that was very much not alright… Oops…

“Alright, good race everyone!” Nekomaru exclaimed, “Next up will be hurdles!”

Aww… that was another one she needed Glaceon for… but she was still in a mood… a mood that wasn’t being helped by the fact that she could see Ishimaru getting out another poffin from a whole tub of them in his bag and waving it in front of his dogs face before leading it over to the start line and ordering it to stay there while he headed up the track to stand behind the finish line…

Well… this was probably going to go badly, but… “Come on, Glaceon! It’s only a short race, this time!”

Glaceon rolled her eyes at Hina before slowly slinking over to the start line and reluctantly laying herself down in a huff in the only available spot left… which was next to the fire-type. That wasn’t going to help her mood at all…

Darn Ishimaru and his poffins… He was even waving it around and watching to make sure his dog was paying attention to it, was that really necessary!? And why did he need so many of them? He must have about twenty of those things in there, and they were only going to do eight events…

…So he wouldn’t miss one, would he? They were all right there, in his bag with the lid off… and she was stood right next to him, and he was too busy paying attention to his own pokémon to notice when Hina casually leant over and sneaked one out of the tub and behind her back…

Eeehehehe… She’d done it, and he hadn’t noticed a thing! Now she could show it to Glaceon, and she’d stop being in a strop with her and she’d totally pay Ishimaru back sometime later…

“Alright… On your marks… get set… go!” Nekomaru called out.

The dog and the goat started off first and second again, followed by Akane’s bear and finally Glaceon… But that wouldn’t be for long…

“Glaceon! Over here!” Hina waved the poffin, having checked that Ishimaru wasn’t looking at her… He was busy throwing his own poffin up in the air for some reason…

Glaceon barely glanced at her, but once she did she sped up and started heading up the track, fast enough to overtake the bear just before they both reached the first hurdle... Although, that was mostly because the bear had slowed down to crouch and spring up over it…

Whereas Glaceon was so excited by the poffin that she hardly seemed to notice the hurdle was there, until it was slightly too late and she ended up jumping head-first into the hurdle instead of over it.

“Riiiilll!” Maril trilled out in worry for her.

“Ah! Glaceon!” Hina also cried out and rushed down the track to help her, jumping over the hurdles in reverse as she did so.

…Luckily Glaceon didn’t seem badly hurt, just dizzy and shocked again… but not so much that she didn’t take the poffin when Hina offered it to her. But by the time she’d eaten that, the bear was lumbering over the finish line.

“Oops… looks like we came last this time…” Hina admitted, as she helped Glaceon walk off the side of the track.

“More like you’re disqualified.” Nekomaru said, sternly.

What!? Oh… “Right… because I ran on the track…” Hina realised.

“No… I mean before that.” Nekomaru corrected her, “I specifically said no interfering with other trainers.”

“Huh!? But… I didn’t interfere with anyone!”

“You don’t think stealing someone’s training aides is interfering with them?” Oh… he’d noticed that, had he?  “Ishimaru might have a plan for every single one of those poffins, for all you know.”

“Umm…” Hina cringed… that mightactually be true…

“Wait… what?” Ishimaru looked in his bag in confusion for a moment, “Err… But… I don’t need all these poffins! I just had a lot of spare berries this morning! I’d have happily given her one if she’d asked…”

“But she didn’t ask.” Nekomaru glared at her. “Which is why she’d have been disqualified if this was a real tournament.”

Urgg… He was right, and for something so stupid as well… “Umm… sorry? I wasn’t really thinking…” Hina admitted, “I won’t do it again…”

“Good to hear! Can’t have my teammates getting suspicious of each other all the time!” Nekomaru suddenly laughed, “Now, let’s go see if Arcanine can keep up his winning streak in lamp jump!”

“Arc!” The dog barked excitedly, although Ishimaru didn’t look so sure… Didn’t lamp jump involve jumping upwards? A dog wasn’t likely to be good at that, was it?

And neither would Glaceon… “Alright, Marill! It’s your turn, this time!”

“Rilll!” Marill trilled happily…

He seemed less happy when they got to the arena though… this one had the lamps they needed to turn on set waaay higher than the one they had back in their old school, so even with the slanted platforms at the side of the arena to help the pokémon climb up to the lamps, it was going to take a while for them to actually manage to reach them…

“Err… How exactly does this work?” Ishimaru was looking up at the lamps in confusion, “I mean… I’m aware Arcnine needs to turn the lamps on but… how?”

“They’ve got kinetic sensors… they turn on when they get hit.” Nekomaru explained, “So your Arcanine needs to get up to the top and then try and hit as many as possible on the way down… Don’t worry, the floor’s well padded.”

“Err… I see…” Ishimaru frowned, looking over the course.

“We’ll each have three minutes to turn on as many lamps as possible.” Nekomaru continued, “Akane and I can go first, so you get the general idea… Lucario, buddy, you’re up!”

His Lucario nodded and headed into the centre of the area, breathed deeply for a moment and then crouched into a ready position…

“Okay… Three…Two…One…Go!” Nekomaru called, hitting a stopwatch one the last word.

The Lucario shot forward towards the platforms, nimbly bouncing upwards side-to-side to make its way up them, and it was probably only about half a minute before it had reached the top and leapt down into the group of lamps, waving it’s arms and kicking it’s legs to hit as many as possible on the way down… and then it used an aura blast to give it some more lift to get a couple of extra ones before it was forced to land back on the floor.

It then instantly turned and ran to the set of platforms on the other side of the arena, and repeated the whole thing three more times before Nekomaru called time.

“Good job buddy!” Nekomaru praised his pokémon, “That’s 66 lamps hit!”

The Lucario looked up at them all and nodded. It didn’t seem upset, but wasn’t exactly proud of itself either.

“Alright… hear that, Bewear? 66’s the number to beat!” Akane told her own pokémon.

The bear lumbered up to the starting point and waited for the word to start… It wasn’t as fast as the Lucario had been, but it was still able to easily pull itself up the platforms by its arms, and once it reached the top and jumped, it’s bigger frame meant it was able to hit a lot more of the lamps coming down…

It was halfway through the bear’s third drop that it’s three minutes ran out.

“Damnit!” Akane cursed, “I hate when that happens!”

“…You’re going to hate it even more when I tell you how many lamps Bewear hit…” Nekomaru warned her. “You got 64.”

“Aaaargh!” Akane growled, “We’re getting closer though! One day I’m gonna beat you at this stupid event!”

“I should hope so…” Nekomaru grinned, “But, I take it your new pokémon isn’t a flying type?”

“Nope!” Akane grinned, “But don’t worry… you’ll see what it is soon enough!”

“Alright then…” Nekomaru looked thoughtful for a moment, before turning to Hina and Ishimaru. “Now… which of you two wants to try it out next?”

“Rill! Rill!” Marill volunteered himself, excitedly jumping down from Hina’s shoulders and scampering over to the centre of the arena before either of them could say anything.

“Gahahaha! That’s my kind of pokémon!” Nekomaru laughed, “Okay… Three…Two…One…Go!”

Marill shot off as fast as he could, using his tail to help bounce up the platforms, and then launched himself off of the top towards the nearest lamp, which he hit and bounced off of, managing to get another three off of rebounds before he fell back down to the ground, shook himself off and tried again on the other side…

“…That’s 16 lamps hit!” Nekomaru announced, once the three minutes was over, “Not bad for such a little fellow!”

“Marill!” Marill cheered himself… even though such a small number was bound to put Hina in last place again… After all, Ishimaru’s Arcanine was big enough to hit was more of those things going down…

At least, that’s what she’d thought until Ishimaru actually took his turn…

“Okay… Arcanine! Head over to this platform… Good boy! Now, turn around and jump up to that platform behind you… good! Now, turn around again and… no up! Keep going up! UP! THAT’S it! GOOD BOY! Just five more to go…”

Yeesh… Ishimaru would be lucky if his dog managed to get up and drop down more than once at this rate!

“That’s it! You’ve done it!” Ishimaru cheered as his dog finally got to the top. “Now jump down… no! The other way!”

“Arc…?” The dog looked down at the area with the lamps…

“Yes! That way!” Ishimaru told it.

“…Cannn…” His dog just whined… Was it afraid of heights?

“Ah… It’s perfectly safe!” Ishimaru told it, “All the other pokémon did it! Even that big Bewear! And they’re fine!”

“Aaaarrrccc…” The dog just shook its head and backed away from the edge of the platform…

“Ah… hrmm…” Ishimaru frowned up at his dog… “I know! How about I come up there and we jump together?”

“…Arc?” Ishimaru’s dog nodded pleadingly, before he disqualified himself by heading into the arena and climbing up the platforms himself…

Not that it mattered, because by the time Ishimaru had got up there and managed to convince his dog to jump down with him, it had been more like ten minutes than three…

“Err… we need more practise on this one…” Ishimaru understated once they’d landed and his dog had calmed down.

“Yeah… getting your dog used to the height will be a good start.” Nekomaru suggested, before making a mark on his clipboard. “(Hmm… Not good enough at that one either…)”

“What was that!?” Ishimaru asked, nervously.

“Huh… oh, don’t worry about it!” Nekomaru laughed it off, “Anyway, onto Ring Drop!”

“Ah… well, that one we are good at! Right, Arcanine!?”

“Arc!”

Urg… That was the one where the pokémon all tried to push each other out of the ring, right? So… ideally she’d send Glaceon up there…

“Okay, Glaceon! You want to have a go at ring drop?” Hina asked her…

Glaceon looked at the ring, and the Lucario, Arcanine and Bewear that were now climbing up there, and gave Hina an incredulous stare before turning her back on her.

“I guess not…” Hina sighed.

“Marill!” Her other pokémon chirped and bounced off of her shoulders towards the ring…

“Are you sure?” Hina asked him… What was he supposed to do against a Bewear!?

“Rill!” He bounced again, up onto the arena between the Lucario and the dog, opposite Akane’s bear…

“Gahahaha! That little guy’s got spunk!” Nekomaru laughed, “Try not to hurt it Lucario!”

The Lucario nodded and bowed to the rest of the pokémon, which the Bewear and Marill clumsily copied.

“Oh… err… we never did that at my school…” Ishiamru cringed behind his dog as it stood watching them all obliviously. “I’ll try to train him before next week…”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much… You’ve got other things to focus on.” Nekomaru told him, from behind his own pokémon…

Geez, Ishimaru did not take that well, even though it looked like Nekomaru had only meant that it wasn’t really a big deal if his pokémon thought to bow to the others… But then again, those two couldn’t see each other…

“Alright everyone!” Nekomaru was starting the match, “Three…Two…One… Fight!”

“Bewear! Get the dog!” Akane ordered.

“Ah! Arcanine! Stay away from that bear!” Ishimaru countered.

But Hina didn’t have time to worry about what those two were doing, because that Lucario was running full pelt straight towards Marill! “Marill! Look out!” Argh… Marill had seen him coming, but was still just stood watching… “Marill! Move!”

Marill still waited a few more seconds before bouncing out of the way of the Lucario, which skidded to a halt right at the edge of the arena. Darn! If it had been going just a bit faster…

“Hmm… nice try…” Nekomaru nodded, as Marill bounced back towards the Lucario and started jumping side to side around and even over it a few times, wiggling his tail in its face whenever he got the chance…

“Haha! Good job Marill!” He was bouncing around so fast, that Lucario couldn’t catch him! And at this rate it was going to get dizzy enough to fall off of the side!

“Stay calm Lucario… He can’t hurt you… He’s just trying to make you dizzy!” Dammit… Nekomaru had figured it out as well! “Focus on his aura…”

The Lucario nodded and shut its eyes for a moment, just before Marill tried to wave his tail in it’s face again… But this time the Lucario’s hand shot up and grabbed him by the tail.

“Rill! Riiiiiiil!” Marill tried to wiggle free, but the Lucario just turn to hold him out over the edge of the arena…

“Arcanine! NOW!”

“Aaahhh!?” Hina flinched as Ishimaru pretty much bellowed into his ear... When had he snuck up behind her!? And what the heck was he ordering his dog to do!?

“Lucario! Behind…” Nekomaru figured it out just seconds before it happened… Ishimaru was ordering his dog to knock both of their pokémon out of the ring while they were distracted, which it did by body-slamming the Lucario just as it was turning around to see what Nekomaru was warning it about…

“Good boy Arcanine!” Kiyotaka cheered triumphantly as the two pokémon fell to the mats below and started scrambling back out to their owners.

“Damn, Ishimaru! That was sneaky!” Nekomaru complained, although he was grinning as he said it.

“That… that sort of things happens in the leagues all the time!” Ishimaru defended himself, “(…And I need to be good enough at something…)”

Wait… what did he just say? Whatever it was, he didn’t look all that happy at having ordered a sneak attack…

“You’re gonna regret it though!” Akane boasted, “’Cause there’s no way your dumb mutt’s going to get Bewear out of that ring by itself!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that!” Ishimaru insisted loudly, before dropping his voice, “Arcanine, try to lure that bear to the side, and then knock him off from behind!”

“…Can?”

“Ahh… Like the Raticate, remember?”

“Arc!” His dog turned towards the bear again, prowling the edge of the ring…

“Bewear! While it’s trapped against the edge! Get it!” Akane ordered, obviously not having heard Ishimaru plan.

“…Wear!” The bear quickly lumbered over to the dog, which stood frozen at the edge of the ring until the bear was almost on top of it…

And then it quickly darted to the side, and then curled around to a spot a few meters behind the bear and double back on itself, body slamming the bear…

Which teetered forward just a smidgen, before furiously windmilling its arms backwards to regain its balance and turning to face the dog, which was still shaking its head at the shock of having run full pelt into what might as well have been a wall for all it had moved.

“Ah! Arcanine…!” Ishimaru cringed as his dog was easily grabbed and tossed over the edge of the arena.

“Told you!” Akane gloated, “It’ll take more than that to knock Bewear over!”

“Ah… I see…” Ishiamru sighed as he went to help his dog.

“Ca-nine…” The dog whined guiltily.

“No, no… you did a good job! I obviously just had the wrong strategy!” Ishimaru told it, just as guiltily, as he got it out a poffin to eat.

“At least you had a strategy… Marill pretty much worked out his by himself…” Hina admitted.

“Rill!” Marill chirped smugly.

“Ah, yes… I must admit, I was surprised you didn’t send up your Glaceon…” Ishimaru admitted.

“Well… I tried, but…” Hina looked over to her other pokémon, who saw her looking and smartly turned her back on her.

“Ah… I see…” Ishimaru nodded in understanding.

“That was fun! What next!?” Akane asked, excitedly.

“Hmm… Block break would be closest…” Nekomaru decided.

“Oh yeah! I’m gonna kick your ass at this now!” Akane cheered as she headed off towards the next arena, followed by the rest of the trainers.

So… smashing up blocks of stone? Neither of Hina’s pokémon were going to be any good at this, but of the two of them, Marill wouldn’t even be able to scratch one of those things so… “Glaceon? Marill’s done two events as well now, it’s your turn!”

“…Ceon.” She turned her back on the arena and Hina.

“Oh, come on! That’s not fair!” Hina snapped at her, “Look, I know you hate block break, and I know this is all a lot noisier and harder than the sports back in school were, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up and sulk about it! We’re supposed to be showing them what we can do, so they can help us get better at it! But that’s not going to happen if they think Marill’s the only pokémon I have who can do anything!”

She just sighed sadly and shrugged.

“Oh, come on! There’ll be other events you might be good at! Like… snow throw! I bet this school had snow machines!”

“…Glace…?” She perked up a little at the mention of snow…

“Yeah! I bet you’ll win that one easy!” Hina encouraged her, “But we’ve got to do all the events, not just the ones you like!”

“…Ccccceeee…” She hissed lightly in annoyance…

Urgghh… Maybe Hina should just drop this for today, and hope she’d be in a better mood next time? Or would that give Glaceon the idea that she could just sulk her way out of doing anything…

“Three…Two…One…Go!” Wait… what!? Had Nekomaru just started the next event!?

Hina stood up and quickly headed towards the arena, to find that he had! On the left his Lucario was concentrating for a moment and then smashing each block dropped in front of him in one hit. Next along was the Arcanine, which was chewing and scratching at one furiously, but not really getting anywhere with it. Then at the far right was Akane’s Bewear, who was smashing the blocks to smithereens with one punch as soon as they were dropped down in front of it…

Not that any of that mattered to Hina, because they hadn’t even waited for her to join in!

“Oh, come on!” She complained as she caught up to the other three, “You let Ishimaru take ten minutes to get his dog to jump but I don’t even get one to talk to Glaceon!?”

“What?” Nekomaru turned around to look at her in shock for a moment, “Akane! Why didn’t you tell me Asahina’s didn’t have a pokémon there?”

“But… there was one there!” Akane insisted, pointing to what looked like an empty space to her right…

Empty looking until they all moved closer to it and could see past the mess the Bewear was making and the little pokémon that was desperately head butting the stone in front of him… “Marill!? What are you doing!? You’ll hurt yourself if you do that!”

“Rill!” He ignored her and kept going, crying in annoyance with every hit… “Rill, rill, rill!”

“Urghh… I didn’t realise he was doing that…” Akane cringed.

“Well… it’s obvious what the standings are going to be!” Ishimaru pointed out, “Perhaps we could call time?”

“Right!” Nekomaru agreed, “ALRIGHT EVERYONE! TIME’S UP!”

“Riiiillll…” Marill sighed as he slumped against the stone… Now, where had Hina put her potions... Ah! There they were!

“Alright, Marill… drink up!” Hina insisted, once she’d run over to him.

“Mar…?” Marill drank the potion, slowly at first, then faster as he started feeling better.

“How are you feeling now?” Hina asked him.

“R…Rill?” He was swaying slightly, even though that potion was usually enough to heal any damage he took from another pokémon… but that hadn’t been damage from a pokémon, so…

“He should be alright… he’s just going to need some rest.” Nekomaru told her, from just behind her, where he and the other two trainers were stood looking at Marill in concern.

“Well… if you think so…” Hina picked him up to carry him to the next event… which she was probably sitting out…

“Err… Asahina… I know it’s not much…” Ishimaru said, after rummaging in his bag for a moment, “But I’d say your Marill deserves a poffin after that attempt...” He held one out to her stiffly, like he was presenting a medal or something. “If he wants one, that is!”

“Rill!” Marill perked up at the mention of food… were all pokémon that easy to please, or was it just hers?

“I think that’s a yes.” Hina laughed as she took it, “And you can just call me Hina!”

“Oh!” Why did he look so surprised? All she’d said was that he could call her by her nickname… “Err… well, in that case, you may call me Kiyotaka, if you want?”

“Sure, Kiyotaka!” Hina nodded, as Marill started scarfing down the poffin, “And I’ll pay you back for the poffins, sometime!”

“Ah… there’s no need for that!” Kiyotaka insisted, “I’ve been informed that they’re utterly appalling, after all!”

…What? The way Marill was eating it certainly didn’t suggest it was awful… but he looked so serious about it…

“Was that Teru who said that?” Akane asked him, and he nodded. “Lemme guess, he caught you just throwing whatever berries you had in the pot and now he’s insisting he teaches you how to cook?”

“Y-yes… How did you…?”

“Gahaha! He must have done that to about five people in our class last year!” Nekomaru laughed, “And none of their poffins were that bad before…”

“Still worth letting him teach you though!” Akane added.

Hmm… learning to make poffins herself…? “Do you think he’d be willing to teach me as well?” Hina asked.

“Probably! You can ask him at breakfast!” Nekomaru told her, “But first… Pennant Capture!”

What…? Oh, right… “This is the one where our pokémon have to run around, trying to grab the flags?” Hina remembered.

“Yes… but they’ll be moving up and down out of the holes in the floor…” Nekomaru added, “Akane and I can go first to give you both an idea again…”

They did, although Hina was more preoccupied with looking after Marill than paying attention to sports. From what she could gather Nekomaru’s Skiddo had done pretty well, and then Akane’s Bewear had barely managed to pick up any flags…

Glaceon timidly came up to her just as Kiyotaka was ordering his Arcanine to the start line, looking at Marill with a mix of worry and guilt on her face.

“He’ll be alright… He just needs to rest.” Hina told her. She nodded and looked over to the arena, just as Nekomaru gave the start signal to Kiyotaka…

“Arcanine… Fetch!” Kiyotaka pointed at the arena, only for his dog to stare at his hands instead. “No… I’m not teasing you! You need to go get those! The things popping out of the ground!”

“…Arc!” His dog finally got it and bounded towards the closest one… which shot back underground just as it got to it. “Can?” The dog started digging at the floor where it had gone.

“Is that allowed?” Akane asked.

“No.” Nekomaru answered.

“Ah! Arcanine! No!” Kiyotaka yelled, “Go for a different one! Like… that one next to y… wait… err… behind… argh… erm… Over there… no there… or maybe… ahh…!”

Geez… both him and his dog had completely frozen with confusion… was this really that hard? They were all staying up for a certain amount of time, so if you picked ones that had only just appeared, that should give you enough time, right?

But if that was the case, Kiyotaka didn’t figure it out before his time finished, and he ended up just a single flag that had come up under his dog while they’d both been panicking.

“Your turn, Hina.” Nekomaru told her, “Well… if your pokémon are up to it…” He added, looking at Marill worriedly.

“Ceon!” This time Glaceon volunteered and made her way to the starting line unasked, looking back apologetically at her and Marill.

“Thanks, Glaceon!” Hina smiled, “Let’s do this!”

…It was as she’d thought, pointing out the ones that had just popped up gave Glaceon plenty of time to get over to them and catch them! Even though it wasn’t quite enough to beat the Skiddo, Glaceon still managed to come in second!

“Wait… AARGH! I should have been pointing out ones that only just appeared!” Kiyotaka suddenly realised, once she’d finished, “Please let me have another go!”

“We don’t have time.” Nekomaru shrugged as he continued walking to the next area, “We still need to do Snow Throw and Swimming.”

“Ah… but…” Kiyotaka tried to think of an argument, then sighed in resignation. “Ah… very well…”

Geez… he looked really disappointed… Was he really that competitive?

Then again, it wasn’t like a fire type was going to do well at those last two events, was it? Unlike Hina! Hehe! This was going to be her time to shine!

…Unless this new pokémon of Akane’s was any good at either of them… that would be just Hina’s luck!

As it was, whatever pokémon Akane was hiding didn’t seem to be an ice-type, as she still sent her Bewear out into the snowy arena along with the Lucario and Glaceon, who happily bounded across the snow and started using her powers to wrap it around her in several balls…

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Akane asked.

“Maybe not… if the three of use team up against it…” Nekomaru considered it, “Ishimaru do you think your… ahh… Ishimaru?”

He’d turned around to find that Kiyotaka wasn’t next to him, but had instead headed over to the entrance to the arena, where his dog was stood looking at the snow…

“It’s just snow! Like on Christmas cards!” Kiyotaka told it as he stepped onto the snow, “See? It’s perfectly safe!”

“…Niiiiiiine...” His dog just whined at it.

“Ah… alright then…” Kiyotaka sighed, “I think we’re going to have to sit this one out... Would you mind if I stayed here and tried to coax Arcanine onto the snow while you compete…?”

“Alright… just try to stay near the edge so you don’t get caught by the crossfire.” Nekomaru warned him.

“So… we are screwed, then?” Akane asked.

“Yep.” Nekomaru sighed.

He was right… Akane’s Bewear was a super easy target for all of the snowballs that Glaceon was magically forming and throwing at it, and while Nekomaru’s Lucario was better at dodging, it just couldn’t keep up with the sheer number Glaceon could churn out…

Not that it wasn’t trying… at one point it managed to leap into the air and hit Glaceon with a snowball from above, but after that she put a shield of ice over her head and started focusing on the Lucario in revenge, trying to pelt it with snowballs that were getting bigger and bigger and being thrown faster and faster while it dodged left and right…

“ARGH!” The pokémon on the field and the trainers watching all stopped and turned at the sound of Kiyotaka shouting… He was flinching and there were several large balls of snow… or ice… on the floor just behind his back…

Oh no… Glaceon had hit him! She hadn’t meant to, but…

“Ishimaru! Are you hurt!” Nekomaru ran towards him… Ahhhh… Glaceon could be in real trouble if he was…

“N…no! Of course not! It’s just snow! Ahahaha! It doesn’t hurt!” Kiyotaka laughed, although it was kinda forced… “It just startled me because of how cold it is!”

“Niiine?” His dog didn’t sound convinced.

“Really! I’m fine!” Kiyotaka insisted, “C-carry on!”

Everyone and every pokémon looked at each other for a moment…

“I think it was pretty obvious what the standings were gonna be…” Nekomaru told him, “We can get on with swimming now.”

“Oh… A-alright!” Kiyotaka winced as he stood up…

He was moving a lot more slowly now as well, and he fell behind the rest of them pretty quickly…

“Glaceon’s really hurt him, hasn’t she…?” Hina realised.

“It’s my fault.” Nekomaru frowned, “I shouldn’t have let him stay in the arena like that.”

“Aww… it’ll be some bruising, at worst!” Akane tried to cheer them up, “If it was something bad he’d have caused a big stink over it!”

“I guess… It’s not like he’d lie to help out someone else’s pokémon, would he?” Hina guessed.

“True… and I can give him a massage to help with the bruising…” Nekomaru nodded.

Wait… a massage that helped bruising? Wouldn’t that just make it hurt more?

“But first… I guess I finally get to see this new water-type of yours, Akane!” Nekomaru ginned as they got to the swimming pool… which was huge! You must be able to fit a Wailord in there!

“Wha…!? How’d you know it’s a water type?” Akane gasped.

“Because you left it for swimming!” Nekomaru explained.

“Well… alright… be prepared to finally lose a swimming race… to my…” Akane threw a pokéball into the water… “Psyduck!”

“Pssssy…?” The Psyduck emerged and sat floating on the water.

“Alright, Psyduck! Show ‘em what you’re made of!” Akane yelled.

“Psy?”

“Show ‘em how well you can swim!” She explained.

“…duck?” The duck continued to bob on the water… oh boy... were all Psyducks like that? She knew Misty’s was a big dope, but how’d they survive if they were?

“Gahahahaha! I don’t think Lucario’s losing to that!” Nekomaru guffawed, “Are you sure that’s a real pokémon and not just a giant bath toy?”

“Of course it’s real!” Akane snapped, “I didn’t waste five pokéballs catching a rubber psyducky!”

“Hehe… well, it kinda looks like one, from how it’s just sitting there…” Hina laughed.

“Well… maybe it’ll move once the race starts…” Akane hoped.

“Alright… Lucario, in you go buddy!”

“You up for this, Marill?” Hina checked… although Marill was already bouncing out of her arms and into the pool… he was always eager to swim!

And from the looks of it, so was Kiyotaka’s dog, which was bounding up ahead of him and about to jump straight into the pool…

“NO! ARCANINE STOP! STAY!” Kiyotaka came running up behind him in a panic.

“…Nine?” His dog skidded to a halt and looked between him and the pool in confusion.

“Hah… hah… Good boy!” Kiyotaka panted in relief.

“What’s the matter?” Hina asked… why wouldn’t he want his dog to swim? It seemed happy to…

“I… I just wanted to check…” Kiyotaka gasped for breath, “How deep is that pool?”

“It’s 20 meters.” Nekomaru answered… wow! It really was deep enough to fit a Wailord!

“I thought so… Arcanine, you can’t go in there.” Kiyotaka told him, getting a pitiful whine in response. “You’d have to be able to swim!”

“Can?” It looked at him in confusion for a bit, before turning and pointed at the other pokémon and then trying to nudge Kiyotaka over to the water…

“No! Stop that! We really can’t go in there!” Kiyotaka insisted.

“Arc… arc arc arrrrrccccc?” It started pleading like Yuta sometimes did.

“Ahh…” Kiyotaka sighed, “Do you mind if I enter the pool for a few moments to show him something?”

“You can swim, right?” Nekomaru asked.

“Of course!” Kiyotaka nodded, “Now, Arcanine… stay!” He put a finger out in front of its face, “And watch what happens when I get in…”

“Arc…” His dog nodded and stayed where it was… although it kept sneaking glances at Akane’s Psyduck…

“Now, Arcanine…” Kiyotaka tried to get its attention as he was floating in the pool near the wall, “Watch what happens when I’m not keeping myself afloat…”

He took a deep breath and let himself sink a few inches under the water…

“Arr…?” His dog turned away from the duck and stared at the empty space where it’s owner had been… “Arc! Arc! Arcarcarcarcarc!”

Kiyotaka swam back up above the surface just as his dog entered a state of full blown panic. “See! The water’s deep! It’s not just a… ahh! Arcanine!”

Whatever Kiyotaka had been trying to say got cut off as his dog bit into his T-shirt and used it to hoist him out of the water, before jumping on his chest and starting to lick his mouth…

“Arcanine! Calm down, I’m fine!” He protested loudly enough that the dog stopped and let him sit up. “I was just swimming…” He patted the dog, who was sit sitting on his legs.

“What was all that about?” Akane asked.

“I think he thought it was just a giant bathtub…” Kiyotaka explained, “Complete with a giant rubber Psyducky…”

“Gahaha!” Nekomaru laughed at the scowl that crossed Akane’s face. “So you needed to show him that the water was deep enough that he might sink if he’s not careful!”

“Yes…” Kiyotaka nodded, “Although I might have gone too far the other way now… I don’t think he’d even let me in there again…”

“Well, he might figure out that it’s not so dangerous once he sees the other pokémon swimming.” Nekomaru suggested. “So everyone line up for the race!”

Marill and the Lucario lined up near the wall and then turned and looked at the Psyduck, which was still bobbing on the water slightly further ahead. Then they looked at each other and swam forward enough to be in line with it, then looked back at Nekomaru.

“Well… I guess that works…” He sighed, while Akane just face-palmed. “Already… On your marks… get set… GO!”

And the last race of the day started with Marill zooming ahead, followed by the Lucario while the Psyduck completely ignored it, despite all of Akane’s yelling and waving at it.

“Urgh… I don’t get it! He’s great in battles…” Akane sighed as the Lucario made its way back to where it was still floating. “But outside of them he just sits there!”

“Hmm… you’re going to need to find something to tempt him into moving outside of them, then…” Nekomaru suggested.

“Yeah, I guess…” Akane sighed, “Alright, back in your ball, Psyduck!”

“Psyyy…” It did that at least… Whereas Marill and the Lucario just climbed the ladder back out of the pool and went back to their owners.

“Alright! Time to wash up!” Akane cheered, “And then breakfast!” Wow, she was practically drooling over that…

“Sure, I’ll meet you guys there!” Nekomaru agreed, “I need to have a word with Ishimaru first…”

Kiyotaka stopped trying to convince his dog to let him back up and flinched at the sound of his name, “Ah… I take it that’s to tell me I’m not good enough for the team…” He sighed.

“What? No!” Nekomaru looked surprised he’d thought so, “Why do you think that!?”

“Because you’ve making comments suggesting as much after almost every event!” Kiyotaka answered irritably, “Even the two that I won!”

“Oh… uhh… you heard all that?” Nekomaru asked, sheepishly.

“Did anyone not hear it?” Akane rolled her eyes “We keep telling you, Neko, you’re loud!”

“Gahahaha! Sorry, Ishimaru! Guess I ought to stop thinking out loud!” He laughed, “All that was just because I was trying to work out what you could beat Leon at…”

“Wha…? You mean Kuwata? You were comparing me to the pokéathlon champion?” Kiyotaka looked shocked, “Why!?”

“Well… I’m hoping if you keep training, you’ll start catching up to him enough to scare him into training himself…” Nekomaru admitted.

“Ah… so that was what you wanted to talk to me about…”

“Actually… I was hoping to ask you how you’d taught your Arcanine to read.” Nekomaru corrected him.

“Oh! Well… he can’t exactly read… But I’ll be happy to explain how he ended up learning what he does know!” Kiyotaka offered, “Although it might be easier to do at breakfast… if Arcanine ever lets me get up…”

“Nine.” His dog growled in a scolding tone.

“I’m not going to go back in the pool! I just want to go eat!”

“…Nnnnn…” His dog just whined and stayed where it was, sat on Kiyotaka’s legs.

“I know it scared you when I disappeared, but I can’t sit here forever!” Kiyotaka cried, only for it huff back at him.

Looked like Glaceon wasn’t the only pokémon being a pain in the butt today…

“Well… if he ever lets you up, we’re going to be at the baths!” Nekomaru laughed.

“Arc?” The dog looked up for a moment, then quickly stood up and started trying to push Kiyotaka up and towards Nekomaru. “Arc! Arcarcarc!”

“Ah! Alright, yes, yes! We’ll go for a bath! Just give me a minute!” Kiyotaka exclaimed, wobbling slightly as he stood up and shook his legs out. “(Honestly, pokémon can be ridiculous sometimes…)”

Hah, no kidding! But… “You wouldn’t change them for anything, though. Would you?” Hina asked, picking up Marill and gesturing for Glaceon to follow her.

“Haha! No… absolutely not!” Kiyotaka agreed, patting his thigh and causing his dog to walk alongside next to him.

She was starting to feel like maybe she’d fit into this school after all…

Chapter Text

Man! That had been a whole lot more fun than the last few training sessions last year! Alright, so Bewear’s evolution had screwed him over a bit, running-wise, and the newbies might be a bit far behind, but at least everything hadn’t been exactly the same result as the last time, or the time before that…

Plus, Neko was always happier to have a bigger ‘team’ to coach, and it seemed like these two were going to be coming back every week! Maybe if they managed to drag Hajime or someone along for training, they’d finally get to play Disc Catch for once! So long as the two newbies didn’t mind teaming up...

Eh! They’d probably be down with that, they were getting on well enough already. Heck, they even reacted the same way to the baths…

“…Why are there so many!?”

Then again, Akane had asked the same question when she’d first seen the twenty-five circular pools all arranged in a grid formation… And it probably didn’t help their confusion that the only other trainers using the place were Hiyoko and Mahiru, and they were sharing a bath despite being surrounded by empty ones.

Now, the interesting question was whether that meant Hiyoko still hadn’t learnt to wash her own pokémon, or was there something going on between those two… On one hand Mahiru’s Passimian was still picking lice out of Hiyoko’s Ori…co… whatever her bird with the fans was called! But on the other hand, Mahiru was in the middle of washing Hiyoko’s hair, and surely even she could do that by herself…

“Because each is a different depth and temperature, for different pokémon.” Nekomaru explained to the freshmen, “Cold pools are on the left, hot on the right. And the one’s closest to us are the shallowest, at about 1 foot, going up to 10 foot at the back.”

“Ah! So we’ll be able to have a nice deep, hot bath!” Ishimaru announced loudly as he headed over to the right side with his dog, which caused Hiyoko to turn and scowl at the interruption to her bath/Mahiru time.

“So… does that mean Glaceon could go in this cold one, while Marill and I wash with warm water!?” Asahina asked gleefully pointing at a pool on the far left. Guess having an ice-type was a pain when it came to bath times…

“Exac…!”

“What!? No, your frog-faced Glaceon can’t use that bath!” Hiyoko suddenly snapped her pool, “I’m using it!”

“Hey! Glaceon doesn’t look like a frog!” Asahina snapped back at her, “And how can you be using it when you’re in that pool!?”

“Can’t you see past those fake boobs of yours!? My Piplup’s in there!” So Hiyoko’s new pokémon was a water type to? Bet hers didn’t just sit on the water like an idiot…

“My boobs aren’t…!”

“Oh yeah! I can see him now! He looks like a good swimmer…” Neko crouched by the pool to get a better look, “You interested in taking part in spo… Argh!”

Neko’s attempt to be friendly got cut short as the tiny penguin suddenly shot out of the water and splashed a wave of water over Neko’s face, before disappearing back under the surface.

“Pfft! Hahahaha…!” Hiyoko just laughed as her pokémon attacked someone… and alright, Neko could take a little splash of water, but still… Honestly, Akane didn’t know why some people tried to be nice to her…

“Hey! It’s not funny Hiyoko! And you can’t let it think it’s alright to randomly hit people when it’s going to evolve into something dangerous one day!” Akane pointed out. The school must have told her that a million times when she got a Stufful…

“Hey! Who says it’s random!?” Hiyoko scowled, “A-are you s-saying I’m some idiot who doesn’t have control over my own pokémon!?”

“Ah! Hiyoko! Don’t say it like that!” Mahiru gasped, “People will think you ordered Piplup to do that!”

“Well… what if that’s what I did?” Hoyoko smirked.

What!? She’d told it to attack Neko!? Oh, she needed teaching a lesson! “Then maybe you’d like a nice bath bomb!” Akane reached for Snorlax’s pokéball…

“Ahhh!?” “Ah… Akane, wait!” “Akane, that’s not worth it…” Everyone in her class knew exactly what she meant and tried to talk her out of it… Which she’d totally expected…

“VOLTORBING THE PLUMBING IS AGAINST SCHOOL RULES!”

“Ahh!” Akane almost dropped Snorlax’s pokéball… she hadn’t been expecting Ishimaru to practically scream at her! “The hell are you talking about!?” She didn’t even have a Voltorb!

“Well… if Explosion based ’pranks’ aren’t against school rules, then I’m going to argue very strongly for such a rule!” He was still blathering on about stuff that had nothing to do with this… “After the sheer amount of damage such activities caused at my old school, I can assure you…”

“Woah, hold up Ishimaru…” Neko stopped him, “Akane wasn’t talking about that. She was just gonna throw Snorlax’s pokéball up into the air above one of the pools, then call him out so he’d land in it and splash everyone.”

“Oooh! Like a giant cannonball!” Asahina grinned.

“Yeah… and then we’d all have to waste time cleaning up the mess, and probably miss breakfast.” Neko continued.

Ahh! They couldn’t do that! She’d got hungry as soon as she saw Teruteru this morning! “…But she still shouldn’t be ordering her pokémon to attack you!”

“You’re right…” Neko glared at Hiyoko… “And that one is against school rules…”

“Ahh…” Hiyoko squirmed.

“Ah! So we should be escorting her to the headmaster?” Ishimaru asked.

“Umm…” Hiyoko sniffed.

“Well… if she did that on purpose…!” Asahina agreed.

“Ahh… but… but…” Hiyoko stammered, “AAAAAAHHHH! It’s not my fauullllt! He won’t liiisten to meeeeeee! WAAAHHHHH!”

Oh, boy… she still hadn’t grown out of the crazy waterworks…

“But you were the one who said…!”, “You clearly implied otherwise…!” The two newbies rounded on her.

“See… this is why I said not to say that…” Mahiru sighed at her.

“*sniff* Aaaahhh! I knooowww! But I didn’t want everyone to think I’m a bad trainer!” Hiyoko wailed even harder.

“Oh... But everyone has times when their pokémon don’t do what they want!”

“And Piplup’s are notoriously hard to reason with! It’s even in their pokédex entry!”

Asahina and Ishimaru both fell for her whole crybaby routine instantly.

“Oh…?” Hiyoko sniffed, “So… you’re not going to drag me to the headmaster…?”

“Well… if it was just an accident…” Neko could never stay mad at her either…

“YAY! Now we can enjoy our baths!” Hiyoko’s tears disappeared without a trace, “Let’s get back to washing each other, Mahiru!”

“Ahh… a-alright…” Mahiru murmured as she and the… what was it called? A rib-bee? Nah.. that didn’t sound long enough… well, whatever it was, it settled back on her shoulder strap where it usually sat when it was out of it’s ball… “But I still need to clean Fomantis…”

“Well, it’s not like we’re in a rush!” Hiyoko insisted.

Nice for her! Akane was ready to be done and go get breakfast! She headed into her favourite pool, the 5 foot deep centre one, and got her pokémon out of their balls… without making a giant splash. Although the water level did almost rise past the top of Snorlax’s neck once he and Bewear were stood in it. Probably a good thing Psyduck was small and could just float mindlessly on top of the water…

Judging from the speed at which Neko and Asahina (whose Glaceon just ignored the Piplup’s bitching and got in the same pool as it) got themselves and their pokémon into the baths, they were probably ready to eat as well… whereas Ishimaru was just digging through his bag again…

“Let’s see… soap, brush, hairdryer, rubber psyducky…” He was muttering to himself, “Right! Go pick which bath you want, Arcanine!” He gestured to the back of the hall.

Only for his dog to peer at the closest one and then walk right into it and sit, the water barely lapping over the top of its tail… “Arc!”

“Oh, come on… That’s shallower than the one at home!” Ishimaru sighed, “You’re not still worried about me sinking, are you?”

“Caaaannn…” Geez, what a wimpy dog… weren’t Arcanine’s supposed to be heroic and stuck up and stuff?

“…Alright. But next time we’re going in one of the deeper baths!” Ishimaru insisted, as he headed over to his dog with soap in one hand and a brush in the other. “Like that Snorlax over there! It’s barely bigger than you!”

“Arc…?” The dog looked over to Akane’s bath. “ARC!” It stood up, eyes bright and tail wagging, and then trotted over to her, leaving Ishimaru poised to to groom thin air.

“Uhh… hey! He didn’t mean get in here!” Akane tried to stop it, “You’ll make it too deep if you do!”

“Ah! Yes, here! I meant this one, Arcanine!” Ishimaru tried to signal his pokémon over to the hottest pool at the same depth.

But his dog ignored him, choosing instead to flop down by the side of her pool and just… stare across it…

“Arcanine, that’s a real Psyduck, not a toy!” Ishimaru started heading over himself, “Look, I have your Psyducky here!”

The Arcanine barely looked at the small toy in his hands before turning back to stare at the real Psyduck… it almost looked like it was even starting to drool a bit.

“Err… well, I suppose this one is a little small for you, since you evolved…” Ishimaru frowned, “Would you mind if I wash him here, seeing as he’s staying still?”

“Sure, so long as he doesn’t get in the pool, I guess…” And if it meant Ishimaru hurried up so they could have team breakfast already!

The pair of them both set about the task of shampooing their pokémons’ fur… something that took Akane a lot longer now Bewear was bigger, and was taking Ishimaru longer than it needed to, as he kept having to scoop up water from the bath to wet his dog’s fur. He’d barely finished rubbing shampoo over the dog when Akane told Bewear to get out and start towelling himself off while she worked on Snorlax.

“Now the water’s lower, would you mind if I encourage Arcanine in to wash off the suds?” Ishimaru asked, as the water in the bath dropped by a foot.

“Sure!” Otherwise it’d take forever before they could eat!

“Alright! Go in Arcanine!” Ishimaru ordered, only for the dog to stare worriedly at the water. “It won’t be taller that you! You’ll be able to stand at the bottom and still breathe!” It still didn’t look convinced… “Hah… Alright, let me show you…” Ishimaru walked towards the edge of the pool.

“Nine!” His dog barked and moved to block him.

“Well… you need to get in one of the baths!” Ishimaru huffed.

“And if you get in thaaaat one you can play with Akane’s big rubber Psyduck!” Hiyoko suddenly chimed in, causing the dog to perk up, then start thinking.

“Hey! It’s not rubber!” Akane snapped. That joke was gonna get old fast…

“It isn’t?” Mahiru asked, actually surprised, “But… it’s just been sat there the whole time…”

“Well, wait ‘till we get into class and start battling!” Akane told her, “Then you’ll see it move!”

“Arc!” Ishimaru’s dog suddenly came to a conclusion, before raising a paw at him, seriously. “Arc…”

“…Are you telling me to stay?” Ishimaru asked.

“Arc!” It nodded as it started to back up towards the pool, staring at him the whole time. “Arc…”

“Alight… I’ll stay!” Ishimaru rolled his eyes and put his hands up in defeat… although, given it meant he could keep his clothes drier, it wasn’t much of a defeat.

“What? Geez! You’re letting your own pokémon boss you around!?” Mahiru scolded him, “What kind of trainer are you!?”

“One who’s willing to work with pokémon, to ensure they all have the opportunity to be the strongest they possibly can, regardless of their initial circumstances!”

“Uhh… okay?” Mahiru looked as confused at Ishimaru’s way of not actually answering her question as Akane was, “But that doesn’t mean you should let them walk all over you!”

“I’m not!” Ishimaru insisted, as his dog finished carefully walking into the water, which went up to just under its chin. “It’s easier this way! I just needed him to get in the pool! I don’t even have a swimming kit with me, so…”

“Arc!” His dog interrupted him by turning around and barking at him.

“Hmm? Oh! Yes, your Psyducky!” Ishimaru threw it the toy, only for it to ignore it and let it bob away on the water.

“Nine…” It shook it’s head and then pointed it’s nose at Ishimaru, “Arc!”

“Me!?” He asked, which the dog nodded and stared pleadingly at, “But… I don’t need a bath! I’m going to be gardening later!”

“Caaaa-aaaannn?” It whined at him, “Arc-can-niiiiiiiineeeee…”

“Well… bonding moments with pokémon are important…” Ishimaru tried to keep a straight face, although it was turning pretty red as he got in the pool, in full PE kit, to the sound of Mahiru’s groaning and Hiyoko’s laughter. Meanwhile, the dog just barked excitedly, not noticing what a wimp it had just made its trainer look like.

Well, did it really matter if he spoilt his pokémon a little? After all, Snorlax could probably wash himself if Akane hadn’t ever relented and done it for him. But, even if it was a bit of a pain soaping over his entire body, bath times were still a good time for the pair of them to enjoy something together… And it seemed like like Ishimaru and his dog were the same, given he’d brought a toy with him and was chattering away at the dog…

“Alright, now come here and let me finish washing the soap off first… Good boy! Now shut your eyes… good, good… I’m just going to pour some water over your face… There we go! That was a lot quicker than usual, wasn’t it!? Now we have a little time to play before we need to get out and dry off… Hmm? You want to play fetch…? No…? Err… Ah! Arcanine, that’s not a toy!”

Huh!? Wait… did that mean the dog was going after…?

“Psy-y-y!” Akane looked up just in time to see the dog poking its nose into her newest pokémon, just before it scowled and splashed its way across the water, putting half the pool between the pair of then.

“Hah! He actually moved!” Maybe there was some hope of her winning a swimming race after all! Or at least doing better than Neko… Although the burst of movement didn’t last long, and it went back into it’s normal ‘rubber-like’ state afterwards…

“Arc…?” Ishimaru’s dog stared at it.

“Yes, see Arcanine, that’s a…”

“ARC!” The dog ignored it’s trainer and half-walked, half-paddled to close the distance Psyduck had put between them.

“Psy…?” This time Psyduck glared suspiciously as the dog approached, letting out another annoyed shout and splashing away once the dog was about to poke him again, which just caused the dog to get even more excited and chase him again…

Hmm… maybe she could use this to ‘motivate’ him into moving…? If she found a toy Growlithe and chased him with it or something…? Although, on second thoughts, Psyduck was starting to look pretty pissed off with the whole thing…

“Arcanine… You need to stop this now!” Ishimaru had noticed it as well, and was vainly trying to get his dog to listen to him, although he was probably drowned out by the noise as Psyduck splashed away once again.

Only this time, instead of just going back to floating around vacantly, the feathers covering its forehead bunched together and it started squinting…

Oh crap… that’s what he did when he was preparing a psychic attack, and that dumb mutt was turning to charge straight into it and she’d left his pokéball on the other side of Snorlax…

“ARCANINE! NO! HERE!” Ishimaru snapped his fingers and yelled out another order, this time directed at his dog instead of her.

There was no chance of his dog missing that, and it stopped dead in its tracks and cringed, turning back to approach Ishimaru with mix of guilt and confusion on its face.

Meanwhile, Psyduck’s scowl relaxed as he watched the dog retreat and his eyes took on their usual vacant stare once Ishimaru started lecturing it about how other pokémon weren’t toys either and if one kept running away from it, it should probably respect that…

…The dog still looked pretty confused as to why it had been shouted at though, so it was probably for the best if it couldn’t see Psyduck again… “Alright Psyduck, back in your pokéball…”

“My apologies… I’ll do my best to make sure Arcanine doesn’t harass him again next week!” Ishimaru insisted, “And next time I’ll order him back faster as well…”

“Probably for the best…” Akane admitted, “But don’t worry about it! Some pokémon just can’t be left alone together for five seconds…” Speaking of which, Bewear better not have got into another competition with Skiddo while she was busy again…

Argh…! He was stood waving the towel she’d given him to his side, and Skiddo was lining up to charge it… what did he think he was, a matador!? “Hey! You two cut that out!”

They both froze and cringed guiltily.

“Huh!?” Neko looked up from massaging his new pokémon at the sound of his goat bleating, “Skiddo, stop pretending to be a Taurus and let Lucario dry you off like I told you to…”

“I suppose we’d best start getting dried off as well…” Ishimaru told his dog.

Everyone managed to finish getting their pokémon dry without any further events (although there had been a moment where Akane had hoped the dog would shake all the water off itself and onto Hiyoko, but no luck there…), partly helped by Hina, who had finished dealing with her own pokémon pretty quickly and helped her dry off Snorlax.

And then it was finally time for breakfast by Teruteru!

Oh man… she’d missed this! Getting to line up at the cafeteria and grab a couple of trays piled high with free, but still filling food for her and her giant pokémon to scarf down… and that was just to start with! The main event was watching as Teru brought out heated platters of pancakes, pastries, toasted breads, grilled fish, cold meats, fresh nuts and berries… not to mention yogurts and porridges made with creamy Miltank milk…

Akane was the first to grab something and shove it in her mouth, but the rest of the table wasn’t far behind her…

“*Nom* Is it just me… *onm* or did you get even *gulp* better at cooking?” She asked.

“Well, there’s a lot of completion for clientele in my part of Alola… It’s not like I can expect sophisticated tourists to keep coming to my restaurants in droves if I just rest on my laurels…” Teruteru explained, “I’ve had to keep coming up with more refined cooking techniques and ways of keeping my ingredients fresh… of course, having access to fresh fish right off the coast certainly helped! It’s a shame you couldn’t make the trip, my palm-smoked Wishiwashi would have blown your socks off! It melted in the mouth, with just a hint of woody flavour to set off the meatiness of the fish…” He sighed fondly, as Akane and half the group all decided to grab at the grilled fish because that sounded delicious… “Now that’s a pokémon that’s good eating!” He suddenly added, glaring at Nekomaru as he said it.

“So long as you throw the bones back into the sea so the fish regrow, of course!” Ishimaru commented offhandedly as he carefully pulled out the fish bones and put them on a clean plate to his side.

Huh, so he believed that old story? It always seemed too good to be true to Akane… after all, if it worked, then why didn’t anyone ever try it with that bird pokémon with the leek that was supposed to be so tasty?

There was a moment where pretty much everyone looked sideways at each other after he said it… Seemed like he was the only one who thought fish did grown back in the ocean. Her and Neko ate all the normal meats, Teruteru always said he’d cook anything if asked and Asahina didn’t have meat or fish on her plate.

“Well, of course! My customers would eat Alola out of food if I didn’t!” Teruteru chuckled.

That was all anyone said about it. Seemed like everyone had come to the conclusion to let Ishimaru believe whatever helped him eat with a clean conscious. And, there was no point starting an argument when there was all this good food to eat instead!

Heck, it was so good that the group of them were all getting jealous looks from the other students, even that smarmy rich guy with the long thin dragon thing! And now that new punk-looking redhead kid was making his way over as well…

“Hey, Neko! That’s quite the spread you got there!” He punched Neko in the shoulder like an old friend, “Mind if I have some before I go hit the track…?”

“I do mind, actually.” Neko grabbed the wrist of the kid’s outstretched hand before it managed to pick up the toast he’d been reaching for. “This is for people who can get up at eight on a Sunday.”

“Aww, c’mon, man!” He whined, “It ain’t like I’m not gonna be part of the school team! I’m just not a morning person!”

“More like you’re not a practise person, from what I’ve seen you do this last year.” Neko sighed, “Do you really expect to keep up with everyone else when you barely train? Or if you don’t train with other people who can point out your flaws and give you advice?”

“Hey! I just said I’m gonna train!” He snapped, “But if you wanna give me advice so bad, I guess I can let you see what I’ve got…”

“Great!” Neko grinned and slapped his shoulder, “See you next Sunday at eight!”

“Urg… really, dude!?” The punk sighed, as if he’d thought Neko would do a one-to-one training session for him when he couldn’t even be bothered to turn up for the group one. “Fine, I’ll just train on my own and prove you wrong, if you’re gonna be like that…”

“Sure thing, Leon…” Neko rolled his eyes very quickly, “Just don’t be a sore loser when that bites you in the ass.”

“Whatever, man… how’s your ‘new pokéathlon champ’ coming along, anyway?” The kid smirked over at Ishimaru, who looked slightly confused, “How many events can he beat Luxray in?”

Neko frowned for a moment before giving the answer, “…Zero.”

“HAH!”

“But he’s close in several of them, and he’s got more potential…”

“Whatever man!” The kid laughed and turned away from Neko, “Hey, what about you, Hina? You wanna do that one-on-one training I promised?”

“Umm… well… my pokémon are pretty tired now…” She answered, looking between him and Neko in concern as she did it, “But maybe after classes on Tuesday?”

“Sounds good to me!” Leon grinned before strolling off… “Catch you later!”

“Umm… you don’t mind me doing that, do you?” Hina asked, worriedly.

“No… I’d be pretty pleased to hear that he actually turned up to train with you!” Neko sighed. “But anyways, like I said about having people to point out your flaws…”

He went through his usual routine of pointing out what they all needed to work on… Akane was supposed to get Bewear to fight some nimble pokémon to help him work on his speed and find something that would motivate Psyduck into moving outside of a battle. Ishimaru was told he needed to try and get his dog used to all the new events, and teach it Extreme Speed as soon as he could. He wasn’t really able to judge Hina all that well, given her Glaceon had been in a sulk for half the events, but he mentioned having her Glaceon do target practise with snowballs and her Marill practise dodging if it was going to be her Ring Drop contender. All in all, useful advice, but…

“Where am I supposed to find nimble pokémon?” Akane asked, “I mean, as opposed to getting stuck fighting lots of different kinds.”

“Hmm… Chihiro mentioned writing some pokédex software that helps identify pokémon at a long range…” Hina muttered.

“Really!?” Ishimaru perked up, “That could have all sorts of uses! Does it work with any pokédex? Mine’s quite old…”

“I dunno! Ask Chihiro!” Hina shrugged.

Hmm… seemed like Akane would have to give that a try as well… that was the little kid Kazuichi had gone off with, right? Chances were they’d had a huge nerd-off about it and Kaz would know all about it when she saw him in class tomorrow, and she could probably badger him into giving her an introduction… Which meant that her goal today was going to be finding something to make Psyduck quit doing his bath toy impersonation…

They all said their goodbyes and headed off their separate ways, mostly to do boring chores and stuff from the sound of it, although Hina had stuck around to ask Teruteru about poffin baking lessons, which was something Akane could always get behind. It wouldn’t have helped her though… She’d already tried bribing Psyduck with every type of poffin she could find and he hadn’t responded to any of them.

But the school store had more types of food than she could count, not to mention a selection of toys that would probably have made even the richest of kids jealous! There must be something in there that would work, right?

She made her way to the store… although just calling it a store was selling it short. It was more like one of those fancy department stores in swanky towns like Goldenrod and Celadon than the pokémart on the corner of the road that she’d always gone to as a kid. It was five stories tall, each floor focusing on a different aspect of training, and big enough that you could spend almost a whole day wandering around the place, if you were the sort who could stand to look at crap you didn’t need instead of just coming in and finding what you were looking for like Akane always did.

Seemed like there were lots of people who were willing to spend whole days here, as the place was open to non-students during class times and vacations, and the few times Akane had been caught short of supplies and tried to rush in between classes had resulted in her being mobbed by hordes of people asking for her autograph, just because she was an actual student there…

But outside of those times, the place was practically empty and almost completely silent, which meant it was easy to let her pokémon out to have a look at what they wanted her to buy for them, which was what she did with Psyduck now, ordering him out of his pokéball and, when he refused to budge once she had, resorting to picking him up and carrying him in her arms through the store.

She headed to the food section first, where Ishimaru was stood, in that white and gold uniform that made him look like some kind of fancy sailor, alongside his Arcanine…

…Wait a second. “Ishimaru? I thought you said you were going to the gardens now?”

“Ah! Akane!” Huh… she wouldn’t have thought he’d be so casual after just one training session together… “I realised I needed some mulch, and I thought while I was here I’d see what food is available here! I must say, I’m very impressed at the selection available! It seems Hope’s Peak takes nutrition very seriously! Plenty of different meats and food here with a good fat content…”

“Haha, sure! It might not be Teruteru’s cooking, but it’s pretty high up there!” Akane agreed, which stopped him from blathering at her and going back to picking out some cooked drumsticks for himself.

Shame Psyduck didn’t seem to agree with her about the food. He was just completely ignoring it! Didn’t this dumb thing have any survival instincts!? Aside from not wanting to get chased by Ishimaru’s toy-obsessed dog…

…Which was also ignoring everything around it, including her Psyduck… “…You got him trained quickly!”

“Err…” Ishimaru turned to look at her, then back at the dog once he’d seen her looking at it. “Not really! I know Arcanines are notorious for being arrogant and I’ve only just evolved him, but I’ve been looking after and forming a deep bond with him, through rigorous training, for years! Of course it was no issue at all getting him to fall in line once I evolved…”

“No, I mean he’s not chasing this!” Akane waved Psyduck at him to shut him up.

“...Oh… that!” Ishimaru forced a laugh, “Well, of course getting him to stop doing that had to be my first priority! Ahahaha…”

The heck? Why had he got so worked up about it? She’d told him it was no big deal… But there was just something weird about him all of a sudden… Aside from him not figuring out what she’d been talking about, even though it should have been obvious, it was weird that he was here at all! How’d he got changed, trained his Arcanine and then made his way here so quickly? And who wore white while gardening? And why was he buying meat when he hadn’t eaten any at breakfast? Looking at his basket, it was like his diet had done a one-eighty, full of unhealthy snacks and fatty meat and the weird stuff favoured by…

“Wait a sec! It’s you!” Akane realised, “Oooohhhhh! You almost had me then!”

“Err… me? Well, of course I’m me!” The imposter lied, “Who else would I…?”

“Nope! Not falling for it! I know it’s you!” Akane cheered, she hardly ever caught the imposter out! “I just saw Ishimaru in his PE kit ten minutes ago!”

“Tch! Typical!” He tutted, “But, seeing as you didn’t expose me instantly, I assume I did something other than that, which was out of character?”

“Well… not you, so much.” Akane admitted, “But his dog just spent a whole bath time chasing this…” She waved Psyduck at him, “…Around the bath! But yours didn’t even look at him.”

His eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “It was running around the pool, and Ishimaru didn’t stop it at all?”

“Well, he did eventually, but his dog wasn’t listening at first…”

“Hrmm… It would seem the initial reports on his behaviour that I’ve been privy to weren’t entirely correct, then.” ‘Ishimaru’ frowned, “Was there anything else I did wrong?”

“Well… I don’t think he eats meat, either.” Akane nodded at his basket, “Just fish and vegetarian crap.”

“Urgh… fish!?” His lips curled in outright disgust, “Fish!? Do you know what the fat content of fish is!?”

“Well… wouldn’t it depend on the fish…?”

“It can be as low as 6%!” He snapped, “Hardly a reasonable energy source!”

“Well… don’t impersonate him, then!” Akane shrugged.

“That might not be an option I have the luxury of taking…” He sighed quietly.

“Eh? Why not?”

“Err… no reason! I mean, it’s nothing you need to worry about!” He insisted way too hard… Must be pretty hard to balance being a spy and being Ishimaru…

“…You’re not planning to screw with the guy, are you?” Akane asked. Ishimaru might be an uptight blather-mouth, but he seemed like a good kid and Neko seemed to think he was gonna be a valuable member of Hope’s Peak’s sports team...

“No! Of course not!” He waved his hands defensively, while Akane just glared at him, “I’m really not! If anything, I’d be helping him!”

“How is going around pretending to be him helping him?” It didn’t make sense to her, but the imposter hadn’t ever caused problems before…

“Well… I… have information that suggests he might be… targeted to receive a potentially dangerous item…” He started, “My intention is just to intercept that delivery, regardless of who it’s addressed who , and have Gundam assess the threat and ensure it’s safe before we pass it onto the intended recipient!”

Hmm… that didn’t sound too bad, but it seemed like a pain to do… “Why not just warn him about it and ask him to just let Gundam check it over?”

“I suspect if he’s given any warning that the item could be dangerous, the senders will find out and choose someone else to give it to.”

“What the hell is it they’re sending anyway?” Akane asked, although if Gundam was going to be checking it out… “Is it some kind of rare pokémon!?”

“That’s none of your concern!”

“Hah! That just means I’m right!” Akane grinned, at which ‘Ishimaru’s’ shoulders slumped, “Tell you what, whatever it is, lemme scan it and I promise not to tell anyone about it!”

“No! The identity of the item is confidential!” He snapped, “Besides, I’m not actually sure it’ll be scannable…”

An unscannable pokémon? That wasn’t like that weird ‘MissingNo’ thing that drunk people swore they saw off the coasts of Kanto, was it? Well, whatever it was, the imposter wasn’t gonna let her see it, and Gundam would probably be just as stubborn… “Alright… But lemme scan your new pokémon! Oh! And whatever Mimikyutie evolved into!”

“Mimikyu doesn’t evolve…” He said, snippily. “But I suppose if it’ll keep you quiet about this, I can give you an early viewing…” He reached into the copy of Ishimaru’s bag he had at his side and brought out a pokéball, “Alright, come on out!”

The pokéball opened briefly, and Akane could have sworn she saw a pair of eyes shifting about for a moment, before the pokéball snapped shut and then reopened a second later…

The pokémon that jumped out was… kinda weird. At first glance it looked like a Growlithe, but after a moment she noticed the colour, fur and shape was more like an Arcanine… just a pretty squished Arcanine…

“Arc…ca…lithe?” It barked, seemingly confused by the noise once it did it, “Grownine…? …Liiiccc!?” The last noise was made with a look that almost seemed like it was pleading with her to believe it really was what it was pretending to be… Which she might have gone with if it had actually been pretending to be a real pokémon…

Instead she just flipped out her pokédex and scanned it…

“Mime Jr., the Mime Pokémon. It can quickly imitate anyone it sees.”

“…Although it’s still getting the hang of it… It can’t even manage other pokémon yet, yet alone people…” ‘Ishimaru’ admitted, embarrassed, as his pokémon gave up and turned back into the tiny clown thing the pokédex had shown a picture of. “But are you happy now?”

“Yeah… I guess I’ll let you do your whole ‘secret agent’ thing…” Akane sighed, although she’d probably be trying to keep a look out for this rare pokémon whenever she saw ‘Ishimaru’ out and about.

“Good!” The imposter recalled his Mime Jr. and turned away, “Now, heel, Arcanine!” He patted his thigh and his Ditto barked (in the correct voice for its disguise) and started walking alongside him.

“Pssyyy…” Psyduck glared at it suspiciously.

“What the…!” ‘Ishimaru’ jumped slightly, “That thing is real!?”

“Of course it’s real!” She snapped, ‘Why would I carry around a giant toy!?”

“I assumed it was for Bewear, or whatever you new pokémon was… Not that it was your new pokémon!” He exclaimed, “How did you train it to sit so still?”

“By catching a really dumb Psyduck…” Akane admitted, irritably, “It only moves when it’s in fights!”

“Oh… but at least you can battle with it!” The Imposter said, cheerfully, “And it must be pretty easy to look after, to boot!”

“Yeah… I was kinda hoping to win swimming races with it though…” Akane sighed, “That’s why I’m here, trying to find something that’ll motivate it…”

“Oh… well, good luck with that!” He saluted smartly and signalled for his Ditto to start following him again…

Psyducks eyes followed the other pokémon, until it and it’s owner turned around the corner. They it went back to just sitting there, ignoring all the great food around it…

 At this rate, she might end up going ahead with her stuffed dog idea after all…

Chapter Text

Sakura awoke on Sunday morning in a positive mood. After the tour the day before, she had been somewhat concerned that her new classmates might be as fearful of her as Nurse Tsumiki was, as she was stronger than most of them, both in terms of her pokémon and her physical strength. However that fear had been drastically reduced when Hina had suddenly come to her door to offer her a treat cooked by one of the boys in the year above.

In a way, Hina had been concerned about Sakura’s pokémon… when Sakura had commented on how well the food had been made, Hina had admitted that she felt out of place amongst people who appeared to be either more skilled or talented than her, specifically Togami and Sakura herself. It had prompted Sakura to admit to feeling out of place in a place full of so many new people and things to do, seeing as she was used to the quietness of her remote home where there was little to do but train herself and her pokémon.

The conversation had progressed well from there, Hina had said that she was an avid swimmer and asked if Sakura would like to go swimming at some point, and they’d decided to visit the swimming pool after classes on Monday, provided there was not too much homework set on the first day to prevent them from having the time. It was a small thing, but it was good to know Sakura would have at least one person who was happy to talk to her.

Regardless, she was glad to find that there were not too many people up at this time in the morning today, perhaps due to people choosing to have a restful final day before classes began. It made her feel less conspicuous as she pushed the large trolley of the potted plants, carefully brought to the school from her home, through the halls from her room to the elevator, pushing the button to take her up to the fifth floor once it arrived.

She’d been quite surprised to discover that the student gardens were located inside the building, up on the fifth floor. Nurse Tsumiki had timidly explained that attempts to start up the garden outside had resulted in difficulties to the students, caused by the sheer number of wild pokémon that the school encouraged to take up residence in the grounds, and had decided to set up an area indoors instead.

Which made sense, and Sakura supposed that the fifth floor had been chosen due to the glass roof which allowed light into the area. But surely it would have been more convenient in the long term to build a conservatory instead? Unless floor space was really at such a premium here… The gardens did seem to take up a large area of the building, assuming all of the doorways leading off from the long stretch of corridor ahead of her were indeed leading to the gardens. Nurse Tsumiki had seemed particularly anxious when it came to showing this place, so Sakura had assured her that Florges would likely be able to sense where the gardens were when she needed to come here herself.

Florges did indeed seem to sense the flowers, eagerly floating ahead and diving into the first door she came to, barely waiting for Sakura to follow after her with the trolley. Inside, garden was far better maintained than Sakura had been expecting after Nurse Tsumiki’s comments about people not being responsible for their plants. Neat gravel paths ran between carefully contoured, green grass hills, all of which had been used to grow plants of varying usefulness, from practical vegetables, nuts and berries to flowers that did little other than look and smell pretty. Everywhere she looked was a colourful expanse of flora, a range of bright shades, sizes and shapes that made the whole garden look haphazard to Sakura’s eye, used as she was to Florges meticulously trimmed cherry trees that lined the paths of her home gym.

But Florges herself seemed overjoyed to see them all, flittering about between the unfamiliar plants as Sakura pushed the trolley through it all, only falling behind when she stopped to pluck an errant weed from the ground. These might not be her plants, but most Florges had an instinct to care for gardens regardless of matters such as ownership, and Sakura’s one was no exception. She’d likely thought this place would be her new home, and therefore her responsibility, the moment they’d entered it…

Hmm… on second thoughts, that could cause problems between herself and the other students who looked after this place… what if Florges tried to insist that the garden be remodelled to suit her tastes? She’d always been given complete control over the plants at home, but the other students were less likely to be as fore-coming as her family if she tried to re-root their plants for no understandable reason. Would she even understand that some of the plants inside the room wouldn’t belong to her?

That would probably depend on how the gardens were organised… if they each had their own separate area, it would be easy to explain to Florges that she was to care for one part, and only that part. But if it was more of a collaborative effort across the whole garden, she’d likely get confused as to why she couldn’t take full control of any of it…

One thing was certain, she would need to ask for advice before allowing Florges to plant any of the trees they’d bought from home. And as luck would have it, there was a student working in the garden, at the base of a ring of plants that looked somewhat like Carnivine mouths.

However, Sakura was not the only one who had spotted the boy. Florges was already making her way over towards him, and she could fly faster than Sakura could push the trolley. Even with Sakura’s attempts to speed up, Florges still managed to swoop up behind him and peer over his shoulder before she managed to get within talking distance…

There was a brief moment where the pair of them were just staring at whatever the boy was working on, but then he briefly glanced to his side and realised he had a spectator, causing him to fall sideways at the sudden surprise.

“AH! A… a Florges!?” Sakura could just about hear him shout. “Carnivine! I’ve got a pokémon for you to catch!”

“Hold on! My apologies, but she is mine!” Sakura called over to him, as she left the trolley and ran across the distance towards him. “My name is Sakura Oogami, and I am one of the new students here…”

“Oh! R-right…Sorry about that!” The boy slumped in disappointment, then shakily stood up and brushed himself off, before holding a hand up to shake hers, “I’m Santa Shikiba, grass-type specialist and general lover of plants! I spent all summer trying to catch a Florges to help me out around here… and then suddenly there one’s just stood looking over my shoulder! Can you blame me…?”

He grinned sheepishly up at her. A wide smile to go with his round face and large nose, and a similar shape to the U shape of his hair between the two peaked spikes of black hair at the sides of his head.

“I cannot blame you for hoping she was wild…” Sakura agreed, “But I will blame you if you attempt to take her from me again…”

“Of course!” He jumped defensively, “No reason for me to do that now! She’ll probably want to help out anyway, right!? And I bet she’s brought some plants from your home, as well? I’ve got an empty area I haven’t figured out what to do with, she can plant her things there, if she likes it, and then I’ll show her around the garden and explain why it’s laid out the way it is…”

He started walking off a path to the side, leaving his tools in a mess by the plant he’d been working on in favour of apparently setting things up for his apparent new assistant… although Sakura could not blame him, if he was the only one maintaining this place as he’d implied. His clothes certainly looked worn enough for her to believe that could be true. Although he had odd choice of attire for a task such as dirty as gardening, with his light brown trousers being the only sensible contrast to the white boots, tank top and coat he had on.

Florges made to follow him, stopping only briefly to ensure that Sakura was following her, along with their trolley of flowers, and she was soon flitting between the plants again as he explained what they were… from the sounds of it, a great many of these plants were new breeds, created by himself. It was most impressive, and it seemed like he and Florges would get one well in here… her concerns had been for nothing…

But she had barely thought as much, before a new concern caught her attention. Striding towards the group of them was a tall, muscular man with short green hair and a Hitmonchan at his side that appeared ready and willing for battle, if whatever intentions he had came to that…

“Oogami!? Hold up a minute!” He shouted at her, once he’d seen she was looking his way.

Hmm… judging from the fact that he knew her name, along with the, slightly too tight to look comfortable, dark blue suit he was wearing, she could only assume he was a member of the school’s security personnel.

“That’s Sakakura… He’s head of security!” Shikiba quietly confirmed her suspicions.

“Thank you.” Sakura quietly gave him her thanks, then turned to face the guard.“…Is there a problem…?”

“Yes. You should have had this explained to you…” He glanced briefly at Shikiba, “But you’re in the wrong gardens. This area is reserved for third years and above.”

“But… that rule’s just to stop the freshmen idiots from ruining the ruining the place!” Shibika exclaimed, “She’s got a Florges! She’s not going to mess anything up…”

“That’s irrelevant. She’s a freshman, she needs to use the freshmen gardens.” Sakakura insisted.

“You… you can’t make her use that place!” The gardener cried, “Just look at these plants! At least let her use the second year gardens, like Tsumiki and…” He gestured to Sakura’s trolley.

“That’s no proof she’s a good gardener. She could have gone out and bought those at the department store, for all you and I know.” The guard pointed out, “But if you’re so sure we should make an exception for her, you can try taking it up with Munakata… But until then, she’ll need to use the freshman gardens, as per the school rules… otherwise the other freshmen will all be clamouring to use the other gargens as well.”

“Tch… I suppose you’ve got a point there…” Shibika sighed, “Where’s Munakata at the moment?”

“Alola.” Sakakura answered, “Spending one last week having to hide in the shade...”

There was a faint smile that played across his lips at the unnecessary detail. Clearly stated out of sheer enjoyment of a memory, rather than for her benefit…

“A week!?” Shibika cried, “How come he gets to skip out on the whole first week of the new year!? That’s ridiculous…!”

The smile on Sakakura’s lips turned into a scowl, “You really think he'd just skip work!? You entitled kids have no idea how much Munakata does for this school…!”

“Aahh…” The gardener clearly regretted having triggered the guard’s temper, especially as the Hitmonchan by his side was punching it’s hands together threateningly. “I’m sorry! It’s just a bit disappointing that she can’t be helping me out right away, that’s all... Ahahaha…!”

“Well… you’ve been waiting for a Florges to help you for two years. What’s one more week?” Sakakura pointed out, “Now, Oogami, if you and your pokémon could follow me outside.”

“Of course.” Sakura agreed, “Florges, we need to go now.”

Her pokémon looked between herself and the gardener sadly, obviously confused as to why she was suddenly not being allowed to look after the expanse of well-kept plants as she’d been told she would.

“Sorry, ma’am… Looks like you’ve gotta go for now…” Shibika apologised to her, “But… just try and make do for a week, and I’ll get you set up in here like I said, alright?”

Florges sighed and stayed by Sakura’s side as she followed the guard out of the garden they’d entered and further up the corridor, past a plainer looking garden that appeared to be mostly full of restorative berries, from what little Sakura saw of it, and finally up to another doorway...

“Here you go… the freshman gardens.” Sakakura opened the door, looking somewhat guilty as he did so.

Ah. Now she could understand why nurse Tsumiki had told her the gardens were in a poor state. If there had ever been any useful or beautiful plants in the room ahead of her, they were long dead now, potentially the source of the rotting smell that assaulted her nose as soon as the door was opened. Instead the cracked, dry soil was chocked with wilting weeds, thick layers of thorny brambles and a single barren tree that blotted out a large portion of the sunlight. There was also no obvious way of moving among the plants, as any paths that might have been marked out before were now overgrown, including the one that must have originally led to what had presumably been a small tool shed in the back corner, which was now covered in thick vines.

“Well… it would appear that we have a long day of work ahead of us.” Sakura sighed, as she made to push the trolley through the door. It was a good thing she’d decided to do this early in the morning…

“FLOR!” Her pokémon was uncharacteristically loud, suddenly moving herself to block the doorway with a stern look on her face.

“I realise this is disappointing, compared to what we just saw, but this is the only garden we can use.” Florges stayed where she was, shaking her head. “…Would the plants last a week in the pots?” Florges considered it, then shook her head slowly, “Then we need to plant them in there, today.”

Florges shook her head again, more insistently than before.

“Well, whatever you decide to do, I’d better not see you in any of the other gardens…” Sakakura said in a warning tone, and his Hitmonchan backed him up by beating its fists together, before the pair left her alone with her unmoving Florges...

“You do realise this situation will not change, no matter how long you stand there…” Sakura commented, after a minute of silence, “This is the only place we we will be able to grow the plants from home. Do you understand?”

Florges nodded.

“Then will you allow me to take them inside, so we may start planting them?” Florges shook her head. “Then you want me to leave them in the pots?” Florges shook her head again. “Then what do you want me to do?”

She twirled around fretfully. Obviously there was something about the room that she did not like…

“We can cut down the brambles… pull up the weeds...” Neither suggestion calmed Florges, “Water the soil? Take an axe to the tree?” Still not the right answer…

“Why would you want to cut down a tree!?” A high pitched voice suddenly cried out from near her elbow.

Sakura turned to see one of her other new classmates Naegi, the nondescript-looking boy who’d nevertheless had some sort of connection to two of her other classmates. He appeared to be struggling to carry an armful of pots, precariously balanced in a heap that forced him to peer up between several berries at her.

“I suspect it would be easier to explain if you come and see for yourself…” Sakura admitted, moving her trolley backwards so he could approach the doorway. Florges also moved aside

“Uhh… alright?” He moved towards the door, although his movement faltered upon seeing the state it was in… “Geez! What happened in there!? I thought Nagito was just using a phrase when he said our garden was trash!?”

“From what my guide told me, I suspect it’s mostly down to neglect.” Sakura told him.

“No kidding…” He sighed, resuming his awkward pace towards the door, making sure not to unbalance his plants. “I guess getting rid of that tree would help then… and we’ll have to cut all those bushes, and pull up the weeds, and see if there’s a hose or a sprinkler system and…”

“FLOR!” Florges stopped him, jumping back to where she been blocking Sakura before.

“Uhh… you don’t want me to go in there…?” Naegi asked her, hesitantly, as she started to look over his plants. Once she’d finished with that, she shook her head at his question.

“Florges, there is no guarantee he will be allowed to use the other gardens at all…” Sakura pointed out to her. It was one thing for her pokémon to block her movement, it was quite another for her to inconvenience another trainer.

Florges nodded, looking upset to be doing so. This certainly couldn’t just be a case of her being disappointed to not be allowed in the third-year gardens…

“Does she think I’m somehow going to make it even worse in there…?” Naegi asked, embarrassed, “I mean… I know my plants aren’t the happiest, but given I had to pack them all up and bring them here…”

“No… she would not let myself in there either.” Sakura assured him, “I think there is something about the garden she is concerned about.”

“Hmm… you mean, like it’s dangerous, somehow?” Naegi asked, “Maybe there’s a dangerous pokémon in there…?”

Florges nodded hesitantly at his first suggestion, then shook her head at the second. So something that was a danger in the garden? But not a pokémon…

“I am assuming you are not worried about the thorns on the brambles hurting us…” Sakura commented, to which Florges shook her head.

“Hmm… Maybe the tree roots have damaged the floor and it could cave in at any moment…?” Naegi guessed again, only to be met by a shake of Florges head as well. “…Does she know how to play charades?”

“Charades?” Sakura asked, she wasn’t familiar with the game herself.

“Yeah! It’s where one person has to try and act out a phrase, and the others guess what it is!” Naegi explained, “I thought maybe she could try acting it out…”

Florges head tilted downwards and she stared at the plants on Sakura’s trolley in intense concentration. But gradually over time her expression grew more troubled…

“You cannot think of a way to act it out?” Sakura asked, to which Florges nodded shamefully.

“Okay… how about twenty questions then!” Naegi suggested, “Is the problem an creature? Like a pokémon or human?” Florges shook her head, “A plant, then?” Florges shook her head again, “So… a mineral? Like… a rock or something?” Florges shook her head again. “Uhh… then it’s nothing…?” Florges shook her head again, irritably this time. “Ahh… Sorry! It’s just… usually stuff is at least one of those three things… At least when my family play the game...”

There was a heavy silence once Naegi trailed off, a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment as the pair of humans completely failed to understand the pokémon and she in turn failed to find a way to communicate the problem to them…

“Ah! Good morning, Makoto and Oogami!” The silence was abruptly interrupted by the loud voice of one of her other classmates. This time it was Ishimaru, although he was dressed far more casually than he had been the day before, in an old set of shorts, t-shirt and trainers. Like Sakura, he had bought a trolley up here with a collection of pots, each one containing a carefully labelled berry plant, although his only took up half the space of her own collection. “Is there a queue for the gardens? Hanamura told me they don’t tend to be very popular with first years…”

“Uhh… no. It’s not a queue, exactly.” Naegi told him, “Sakura’s Florges thinks there’s something dangerous about the gardens, so she’s not letting us in there. But we can’t figure out what it is that’s the problem, so we’re at a bit of a stalemate…”

“Oh… I see.” Ishimaru frowned as he finished pushing the trolley close to the pair of them, “Well, perhaps I can have a look at the place and see if I can spot any obvious health and safety violations… Arcanine, stay there.”

His dog nodded, and he moved away from his trolley and looked at the door, only scowling for a moment at the poor state the plants were in before he started to knock carefully at the door-frame, testing the structure of the building, perhaps?

Meanwhile Naegi, obviously growing tired of holding the scant few pots he’d brought up with him, moved towards the free space on Ishimaru’s trolley…

“Arc! Nine!” Ishimaru’s dog barked harshly as Naegi came close to it.

“Uhh… okay… not gonna do that then…” Makato slowly backed away from the dog.

“Ah… what were you…?” Ishimaru turned back to see what had occurred.

“I was just thinking I could put my plants down on your trolley!” Naegi explained, “Seeing as you had some space on it…”

“Oh! Sorry about that… He’s probably remembering the time some idiot brought an infected plant into the school garden and all my plants died, so I couldn’t make him poffins for a month!” Kiyotaka explained with an embarrassed laugh as he took the topmost of Naegi’s plants and checked it over, before putting it down on the trolley himself with no complaints from his dog.

“An infection…?” Makoto murmured, “Like a virus? So… not creature, mineral or plant…”

Of course… “Florges… when you agreed that there is a danger in there…” Sakura gestured to the dead garden, “You meant to the plants, not us…” Florges nodded, “So, if we’d taken our plants inside, they’d have died…” She nodded again.

“Wait… you mean someone here did take infected plants in!?” Ishimaru groaned incredulously, “So now we have to treat the entire garden as infected…”

“But there’s nothing stopping us from going in by ourselves and dealing with it, before planting anything in there, right?” Naegi asked, “And we’d have probably wanted to get rid of all those weeds and brambles anyway…”

“…I suppose. The only difference is that we’ll have to make sure to burn the old plants, instead of trying to compost them.” Ishimaru considered it, “And we’ll have to be extra careful about digging up all the roots.”

Florges was nodding along with them both. It would appear that this task was going to take up far more of the day than she’d been anticipating. “What about the tree though?” Sakura asked, “Is that also infected?” It would be highly unlikely that they could remove all the roots from that thing in less than a day, especially on top of all the other work they’d have to do…

Florges flew over to and around the tree, considering it from various angles for an agonising minute, before returning and shaking her head happily.

“Thank Arceus for that!” Naegi exclaimed, “This is going to be hard enough as it is…”

“Indeed… But there’s nothing better than pushing your limits with a good day of hard work, wouldn’t you say!?” Ishimaru asked, cheerfully.

“Uhh… Sure…” Naegi’s words were less positive than the expression on his face, “But… I guess we’re going to need to get some tools first, unless someone wants to wade through the brambles to get to that shed!”

A quick trip to the store later, the three of them returned to the garden armed with axes, shovels and scythes and set to work for the day, starting by cutting down and digging up the infected plants and placing them into a large, metal wire cage that they found in the tool shed, once they’d uncovered it, so that Ishimaru’s Arcanine could set the dead plants alight safely… and Naegi could cook some sweets he’d picked up at the store, to her and Ishimaru’s pleasant surprise upon tasting the result…

“You mean neither of you have ever roasted marshmallows!?” Naegi exclaimed, when they both told him they’d never tried them before. “Geez, if I’d known that I’d have got chocolate and crackers and made you guys smores…”

“Well… perhaps some other time! I do have a constant source of fire, after all!” Ishimaru pointed out, patting his dog fondly, “But for now we still have work to do!”

“Yeah, alright then…” Naegi sighed, tiredly. He did not seem well suited to this sort of hard work, unlike herself and Ishimaru.

After a brief glance at each other, Ishimaru suggested he keep an eye on the bonfire to ensure it did not become a danger, while Sakura continued to cut down the plants and Florges pointed out the parts of roots that they’d missed the first time around so Ishimaru could dig them up fully. Then when Ishimaru was starting to look in need of a break, Sakura suggested that he look after the bonfire while Naegi run to get lunch for everyone…

He returned with thin bread buns, vegetables, raw sausages and fish and a set of metal skewers.

“You know how to cook over a fire, right?” Naegi asked Ishimaru.

“Me!? No! Why would I know!?”

“Umm… because you have a fire type?” Naegi answered him, “I mean… if I had one I’d be having barbeques every week!”

“But… I don’t eat meat…” Ishimaru sighed irritably, “And besides, just because I have a fire-type, doesn’t mean I’m going to treat him as a portable cooking source all the time! I mean, you wouldn’t expect your Blastoise to provide you with refreshments all the time, would you!?”

“Oh, uhh… Good point.” Naegi admitted, cringing. “I’ll go get…”

“Don’t worry… I’ve been camping enough times to be able to cook these.” Sakura stopped him, picking up the skewers and saying a prayer of thanks to the pokémon that died to provide their meal, before assembling and cooking the food for the two grateful boys…

“So, you go camping a lot?” Naegi asked, as he and Ishimaru got out food for their own pokémon, “That must be fun!”

“Hmm... it’s more a matter of practicality.” Sakura corrected him, “The more powerful pokémon to train against tend to be far away from civilisation. It often takes many days of travel to get to them.”

“But what happens about your responsibilities back at your home?” Ishimaru asked, “I mean… you work for a gym, don’t you? Does that mean it gets easier to earn a badge if you’re not there that day, or…?”

“We have other members who can act as substitutes for each other.” Sakura assured him, “And, I must admit, I do not have much in the way of day-to-day responsibility at my home. Even Florges’ garden can cope quite well by itself for a week without her care.”

“Hmm… I see…” Ishimaru looked concerned.

“However, the garden back home was set up a lot better than this one…” Sakura pointed out, jovially. “We will have to resume our task if we wish to get our plants buried before nightfall.”

Naegi sighed, but got back to work piling dead plant matter into the bonfire, while Sakura and Ishimaru cleaned up the remainder of the garden. Then the three of them realised they would likely need better compost for their plants, so there was yet another trip to the school store before they were able to begin laying that out and digging holes at the locations dictated by Florges.

But that part of the task was over soon enough, especially as once Ishimaru and Naegi had finished with their own plants and come to help her, and his Blastoise turned out to be rather adept at watering plants....

“Right! That’s all done!” Ishimaru brushed his hands off satisfactorily, “Now it’s just Makoto’s pots, and we’re all done, right!?”

That was odd… why had Naegi not done that first, himself?

“Uhh… actually, my plants don’t need to go in the soil.” Naegi explained, “They’re dwarf varieties, so they can be kept in the pots.”

However, that only led to a different question… “Then… could you not have left them in your room, by the window?”

“Well… I could have. But I thought it’d be nice to have them in the garden with everyone else’s!” Naegi explained.

“…Even though the garden looks like this!?” Ishimaru exclaimed, gesturing to their finished work.

Even though the dead and unwanted plants were gone, the garden still consisted of a room full of bare soil, cracked in various places, with a gloomy looking tree blotting out most of the sunlight. The two small patches of plants, berries on one side and light pink flowers on the other, did very little to make the place look ‘nice’.

“Well… alright, it’s not the best garden!” Naegi admitted, “But… we can make it better, right? Y’know… get some grass seeds, maybe plan some paths and stuff… Buy some more flowers…”

“Well… I was hoping to grow more berry plants…” Ishimaru considered the idea.

Off to the side, Florges was nodding along with them, looking excited at the possibilities…

“Hmm… with enough time and effort, this place could rival the third-year gardens…” Sakura guessed that was Florges way of thinking, “However… I think we have done enough work for this day.”

“No kidding…” Naegi agreed, wearily.

“Indeed… We’ve got our first day of lessons tomorrow!” Ishimaru reminded him, loudly. “The first step on our joint pokémon crusade!”

“Ahh… yeah… Sure thing…” Naegi laughed weakly.

…He was an interesting one. She’d dismissed him at first as being nondescript, and it was certainly the case that he appeared to be rather overwhelmed by the school and, from what she’d seen, the rest of their class…

But he’d stayed to help the pair of them, when he could easily have just given up on the idea of a class garden and taken his plants back to his room. Perhaps he had more strength in him than he let on?

Only time, and the many lessons ahead of them, would give her the answer to that question.

Chapter Text

Kyoko checked herself in the mirror, feeling slightly annoyed that her new school uniform fit her so well. Her first two days at Hope’s Peak had not gone how’d she’d expected them to. At least, not once she’d gone to the headmaster’s office.

She’d had every intention of following through with her original plan, to tell him that she didn’t see him as a father and wanted him to have no part in her life, right up until the pair of pretentious wooden doors had clicked shut behind her. She’d drawn a deep breath and gone over what she’d rehearsed one more time in her head…

And then he’d rushed forward and hugged her, and for the first time in her life, she’d been so shocked that she hadn’t know what to think. And he’d taken full advantage of it, talking on and on about how beautiful she’d grown, and how proud of her he was, and how sorry he had been to have left her, and how he hoped she’d come to understand why he’d left their family for Hope’s Peak…

That was the closest he’d come to disclosing any information about Hinata and whatever plans the school might have had for him, and she’d noticed it far too late to capitalise on. By the time she thought to try and ask for more detail about why he’d left, he’d already moved on to talking about the work she’d been doing, and how he would have picked something cuter and more interesting than a Zubat as her starting pokémon, like a puppy or kitten…

A puppy or kitten… really! Crobat was a perfectly serviceable pokémon that didn’t require too much upkeep. It had been a perfectly sensible choice by her grandfather… and he’d have just gone for something cuddly? Would it not have occurred to him that she would grow up and stop being the little girl he used to lift up in the air at some point, even if he had stayed?

It made it all the more annoying that he’d managed to buy her a copy of the uniform that was the perfect size for her. He could obviously see she’d grown up, why not act like it? Was he hoping to make up for the time he’d thrown away?

Regardless, it didn’t matter what his intentions were. She’d grown up, away from his influence, and whether or not she chose to let him stay in her life, he was going to have to accept that. He was lucky she was even considering the question.

She headed to the cafeteria, earlier than she really needed to be. It did mean that the room was relatively quiet though, giving her time to double-check that she had all of her usual supplies before looking over some case files she’d been sent. But soon enough the room began to fill up as students realised that classes were going to be beginning soon, and she took that as her cue to leave and head to her classroom herself.

It was a big room with only 16 desks, far too few to fill the room, which resulted in there being a large empty space at the back of the classroom even though they had been spaced out to what was an almost comical degree. It would appear that classroom occasionally doubled as a pokémon battle-ground, and possibly that trainers were permitted to summon their pokémon to sit with them in class, although she couldn’t imagine a pokémon being willing to do so without causing disruption.

Otherwise, the classroom looked much like every other classroom she’d ever seen. A blackboard and projector screen were at the front, with an ornate, sturdy looking desk for the teacher set just in front of them. Up on the walls were a few displays with commonly needed information, such as a chart of type weaknesses and a list of each TM and HM move by number, as well as a notice board that was currently only displaying the class timetable and a recommended reading list containing several books she’d already read.

Otherwise, the only thing of interest was Ishimaru, who was already sat at the left table of the front row, which was no surprise to her whatsoever. He’d also swapped his old school uniform for the official Hope’s Peak one, likely in the hope of preventing Kuwata from making any more comments about Team Rocket.  Sat next to his chair was his Arcanine, which appeared to be mimicking him by staring at the same piece of paper that he was…

Until it got bored and slobbered all over the side of his face, something that apparently was a signal for Ishimaru to pet it, which he quickly did once he’d brought out something to wipe his face with… And her father thought that a dog would be cute! At least zubats didn’t drool over you!

Not that it was relevant to the situation in any way… She wasn’t concerned with her father, so why was she wasting time thinking about his opinions…?

“Oh! Kirigiri! Good morning!” It seemed that Ishimaru had noticed her while she was distracted, “You haven’t been waiting there for me to stop thinking, have you?”

“No… just admiring the classroom.” Kyoko told him half of the truth.

“Yes! It seems quite well organised! I noticed there’s enough space next to each desk for some quite big pokémon, so we must be allowed to have our pokémon out during class!” He seemed proud of himself for that rather obvious deduction… “It’ll be nice for Arcanine to see what goes on during the parts of school he wasn’t allowed to sit in on!”

He was intending to have his dog out during the entirety of lessons? “That’s assuming he doesn’t get bored and cause trouble.” Or frighten Fujisaki, but she didn’t mention that part. The programmer hadn’t told anyone about it, so it wasn’t really Kyoko’s place to do so…

“Yes, I may have to recall him if that happens... But he’s usually pretty good about being quiet while I work! Or he just lies down for a nap if he gets too bored.” Hopefully that wouldn’t worry Fujisaki too much then. “But… regardless, I realised I never got an opportunity to thank you for sticking up for me when we first arrived! Or for helping me free Arcanini from those knots! So, err… thank you! You may call me Kiyotaka, if you’d like!”

What? Call him by first name, just from that? “…That’s not necessary. I was just pointing out the truth, and I happen to be good at knots.” Kyoko pointed out, “After all, it was also me who pointed out the flaw with your story.”

“Ah, yes… you mean about the other officer not being fired either.” Ishimaru sighed, reaching across to run his fingers through his Arcanine’s fur, a clear signal that this was not a topic he liked to expound on. “I asked Father about that, but all he said was that there wasn’t enough evidence to confirm that it was the assigned officer who’d actually been the one to hurt him, and there was a moment when Growlithe was left alone with my father, so the other officer used that to claim that my father was the one who’d hurt him.”

That didn’t make sense, if they’d thought his father might have been the one hurting the dog… “Then why did they let you keep the Growlithe? That’s ultimately putting him in your Father’s care.”

Ishimaru opened his mouth wide to answer, then froze and slowly scrunched his face in confusion. “…I didn’t think to ask.” He admitted, looking angry with himself for missing something so obvious. “I guess I’ll need to press him for more details this evening…”

“Hmm… It would probably be worth your while to have your story straight, in case people ask about it.” Kyoko suggested. She was mildly curious about it as well. Assuming Ishimaru was being truthful, she would guess that either his Father was lying about something, or there was a corrupt force in Kanto that hadn’t been caught out by the wide-scale investigation that had followed the Giovanni scandal.

“Yes…” Ishimaru nodded thoughtfully as she headed over to a table in the back corner that would give her a good opportunity to observe the other people in the room. On it was a few pieces of printed paper, including a copy of the student timetable, term dates, information about the opening times for most of the facilities… stuff that she’d found out from the online student handbook. The only non-patronising printout was a 16 by 16 grid with the names of each member of her class printed down the sides of it, and a small containing the words “W= Side would Win, L=Side would Lose, ?= you can’t decide.”

Hmm… obviously the aim of this exercise was going to be to try to predict who would win in a pokémon battle between each pair of students. That would serve the dual purpose of ensuring that everyone knew each other’s names and give the teachers a chance to see how familiar with general battle theory everyone was…

What wasn’t clear was how much information they would each get about each other’s pokémon. Several of the students had secondary pokémon they hadn’t show at the induction day. Not to mention that Fukawa had claimed her primary pokémon was the one she was hiding, and it was unlikely that Hagakure believed himself to own no pokémon whatsoever, so he must have something older than his ‘magic hat’. If there weren’t all being forced to show all their pokémon, it would make this exercise far more difficult…

But, if it was meant as an introductory exercise, chances were they would be expected to disclose all their pokémon, meaning there were several students she wouldn’t even be able to begin judging thoroughly until the class started.

But she could start by splitting her classmates into different tiers. It would obvious that Ikusaba would lose every match up, given she had apparently decided to fight her Comfey’s battles for it ever since she got it. Next were Yamada and Fujisaki, both owning one pokémon in its initial evolutionary stage. The only question was which of them would win when matched up against each other… The only clue she had for that was the way Fujisaki’s Golett had stood in front of its owner protectively. If it was willing to stand up to an Arcanine for its trainer, it could probably throw down against a Dratini that was apparently more used to being used as a tie than a fighter…

Then there’d probably be the group of people who’d tried, in passing, to train their pokémon for battle, but had other interests distracting them… Ludenberg, the two talent trainers, Kuwata and probably Fukawa and Hagakure, unless their pokémon proved otherwise. She’d need more information about their pokémon types and general strategies before she could make any accurate distinctions between them.

The next group would probably be those who were more serious about battle training, but had had something preventing them from doing so optimally. She could probably count herself amongst that group, along with Asahina, who’d seemed not to have the time to train her pair, and Ishimaru and Oowada, neither of whom had a second pokémon yet.

And then finally there were the two most formidable members of the class. Oogami having been raised in a longstanding gym and Togami, heir to a corporation known for it’s extensive breeding programs and research into pokémon training and nutrition… not to mention enough money to throw at any problem he pleased. She’d have put her money on Togami without hesitation, if it hadn’t been for Oogami’s type advantage over him.

Hmm… but she felt like she’d missed somebody out… There should be sixteen people and she’d thought of Ikusaba, Yamada, Fujisaki…

“Uhh… Hi there!” Kyoko’s train of thought crashed at the sound of the very same person she’d forgot to classify. Of course, the class lucky student. He’d mentioned having a Blastoise along with the Togepi he was carrying around, hadn’t he? That would probably put him in her tier, as hard as that was to believe with his shabby appearance and casual attitude. He didn’t even seem confident enough to be a higher-end trainer, shuffling his feet and hands while smiling awkwardly as he awaited her response.

“…Can I help you?” There was no need for him to be talking to her now, given they were likely to all be made to introduce each other in five minutes time regardless, which should be obvious to anyone with any common sense.

“Umm… Well, I missed hearing most people names on Saturday, so I thought I’d best say hi to everyone in the class!” Apparently he didn’t have common sense. “I’m Makoto Naegi!”

“I know, I was there when Maizono and Ishimaru used your given name and I was still there when you got called out by the headmaster.” Kyoko pointed out, “Besides, part of this induction exercise is sure to be to make us all introduce ourselves.”

“Yeah, I figured there’d be something like that, but those things are always so weird, you know?” He shrugged, “Everyone being expected to have a ‘fun fact’ about themselves, but no one ever wants to admit anything that could get them made fun of, so it’s all just ‘my favourite food is chocolate’ and you learn nothing about anyone… you get what I mean?”

“…You’re saying it’s easier to get to know someone by having a conversation with them, by your own free will...” Kyoko summarised.

“Exactly!”

“However, you could say induction speeches are given to the entire class, which means we won’t all have to repeat names and basic information about ourselves multiple times.” She pointed out, “And if people want more information about a specific person, they can have a one-to-one conversation with them afterwards.”

“Uhh… Well, I guess?” He agreed, albeit disappointedly. “Umm… so…”

“So you can talk to be after class.” Kyoko sighed, “I’m pretty sure I can hear a teacher coming.”

“Right! Okay!” Naegi scurried off to a chair to Ishimaru’s right, which put him next to Maizono, who must have come in while Kyoko had been thinking.

In fact, most of the class had arrived and chosen seats for themselves. On Maizono’s right was Fujisaki, who seemed to have decided to take the chair closest to the door and put their Golett on the side of their desk so they couldn’t see Ishimaru’s Arcanine. The next row back held Oogami and Asahina, who were chatting excitedly together, then Togami and Ikusaba, who were both reading files that appeared to be unrelated to the class.

Enoshima had chosen to sit behind her sister but was looking irritated that it meant she was now sat next to Fukawa, who was glaring at the back of Togami’s head determinedly. Next to her was presumably Yamada, although Kyoko couldn’t be quite sure because he was currently stood at the table next to him, giving Ludenberg yet another cup of tea.

As for the back row, it was half empty, with just herself in one corner and Oowada, staring at her with an odd expression on his face, in the other. It appeared Hagakure and Kuwata were going to be late for their first class.

Or they would have, if the deep male voice that Kyoko had heard coming down the corridor had actually been the teacher, as she’d assumed, and not a security escorting the pair of latecomers to the room.

“Well… here’s your classroom!” The guard gestured inside as the pair walked in, “Try and remember where it is so you don’t get lost again.”

“Yeah… sure man, thanks.” Kuwata replied tersely as he stomped inside and sat down next to Oowada.

“Well, I’ll try, but I’m pretty sure some of these corridors have switched positions since I got here last week!” Hagakure insisted, “Hope it’s not that guy putting a curse on me or something…”

Given he still had a Sandygast sat on his head, it seemed more likely that he’d just got himself confused at some point.

The guard took one last look around the classroom, looking slightly aggravated not to see a teacher. “Good to see you’re all here. Your teacher should be arriving soon, so just stay in your seats until then, got it?”

“Yes, sir!” Ishimaru was the only one who replied, but he did it loudly enough for the entire class so the guard gave a satisfied nod and left, resulting in several conversations starting back up again.

“Dude… you got lost?” Oowada smirked at Kuwata, “Now who can’t find his way around a place?”

“I didn’t get lost… I just didn’t feel like sitting through a bunch of dumb introductions this morning…” Kuwata shrugged casually, “But I got caught by that guard, thanks to him!” He pointed a thumb at Hagakure, who was too busy showing the piece of paper to his Sandygast to notice.

“Well, just as well ya did!” Oowada told him, “Didn’t you try going out into the wild pokémon areas at all? They ain’t letting us go in any of ‘em until we finish all of today’s lessons!”

“Urg, seriously…? Stupid health and safety…” Kuwata muttered, “That’s gonna be an hour of ‘don’t go out without at least ten poison cures and five burn heals, blah, blah, blah…”

“Yeah, like that dumb advice helps if ya get jumped on and lose your stuff…” Oowada agreed, “Be better if they gave us a heads-up on what pokémon might actually be out there!”

Hmm… her father seemed to have been of the opinion that the first day of classes were actually somewhat fun, aside from the core knowledge tests they’d be given in the middle of the day. And given that the class the two boys were discussing was called ‘Dangerous pokémon residing around Hope’s Peak’ it was quite likely that the school was indeed planning to ‘give them a heads up on what’s out there’.

Of course, that was assuming they actually got taught anything whatsoever. As Ishimaru was pointing out rather loudly from the front of the class, the first teacher of the day was almost ten minutes late…

The teacher, or at least a man that Kyoko suspected was Kohichi Kizakura judging from his white suit, fedora and Hypno, ended up casually strolling into class exactly ten minutes late. He put a hand up semi-apologetically as he took the

“Hey, kiddos! Welcome to Hopes Peak! I was supposed to turn up ten minutes ago and give you a bunch of info on admin stuff and repeating half of what’s on those pieces of paper in front of you, but let’s be honest, you’ve either looked it up already, or you wouldn’t bother to listen to me anyway, so I figured I’d sleep in and give Sakakura time to round up any of you that felt like doing the same!” Kuwata scowled at the insinuation and Ishimaru looked irritated at the lack of professionalism. But everyone else in the class looked mildly pleased as Kizakura shrugged and took a swig from his hip flask, “So, we’re gonna skip straight into me explaining why half of you are probably thinking I look vaguely familiar…”

“Hmm… Didn’t I give you an autograph?”, “Of course I know why you look familiar, I still have your picture on my drawing tablet!” “You insisted on challenging Luxray for hours, dude!”, “Like, weren’t you stalking me for a while…?”, “Oh! I remember! I helped you get to Shoal Cave!”, “You almost got yourself killed by that wild Heracross…”

There was a wave of chatter over the classroom as several people remembered having what had appeared to be random interactions with Kizakura. Then there was a brief pause as they all started to realise how suspicious that was…

“He’s the talent scout for Hope’s Peak…”, “He’s been scoping us out…” Naegi and Oowada both explained at the same time.

“Obviously!” Togami and Fukawa both sneered at the same time, but quietly enough to be ignored.

“Hang on… I’m guessing your brother told you…” Kizakura pointed at Oowada, “But how’d you figure out who I am?”

“Ahh… I kinda saw you judging Kiyotaka.” Naegi explained.

“What!? When was that!?” Ishimaru obviously hadn’t realised his memories were missing.

“Just before I came back from the shop to fight you.” Naegi told him.

“But… All I was doing was sitting in a chair reading about trainers’ experiences with timid pokémon! How could you possibly judge me from that!?”

“I didn’t… which brings me to the reason why the other half of you specifically don’t remember seeing me.” Kizakura used the question to segue back into his explanation, “That’s because, in order to keep the new intake a secret until the letters go out, I erase the memories of any students who recognise me while I’m scouting them.”

“So… you’re saying we spoke, and then you erased my memory of it?” Ishimaru asked.

“That does explain why some of my coinage was suddenly tarnished.” Ludenberg scowled, “Though I hope you do realise that betting against someone, and then erasing their memory when they wipe you clean is a rather unfair gambling technique?”

“And I take it that it was you who booked and appointment with me, and then made me remember having been kept waiting for half an hour.” Togami glared.

“Yep, you’re all right.” Kizakura shrugged, “So now I’ve gotta give you all your memories back- And yes Ludenberg, I’ll give you the money you won as well- Which means I need the following students to get all their pokémon out… Fujisaki, Fukawa… Don’t worry, we have really good air purifiers- Hagakure, Ishimaru, Kirigiri, Ludenberg, Oogami and Togami.”

He ordered his Hypno over to Ishiamru as she and the other students he’d named released their pokémon, revealing that, along with the pokémon they’d had with them anyway, Fukawa had a Garbodor (no wonder she’d hidden it), Hagakure had the taller-necked Exeggutor from Alola (That shouldn’t be a problem for Crobat), Oogami had a small Snowrunt and Togami had a young Rufflet... meaning that Oogami had type advantage over both of Togami’s pokémon… Now that would be interesting…

Apparently all it took was for Kizakura to order his Hypno to use Hypnosis on each student, at which point he ordered them to remember everything he’d told them to forget, a process that seemed to cause quite intense memories to resurface, given how Ishimaru almost burst into tears and hugged his dog... Although maybe that was just him, as Fujisaki just winced and then looked troubled and Oogami just nodded thoughtfully. Togami and Fukawa had intense reactions again, the former getting upset at Kizakura for insulting his family and the latter starting to ramble about some great ideas she’d had for a book that he’d made her forget…

And then it was Kyoko’s turn…

“Now, Kyoko… I want you to remember that stuff I told you to forget last time, alright?”

… … …

“You’re Kohichi Kizakura, aren’t you? Looking for me?”

“Hah! Should have known! Yeah, that’s why I’m here…”

“Very well. I have prepared a list of trainers, aside from myself, that I believe you will have been to scout out. Given the small number of them, I suspect you will end up recommending them all. I also have a record of the number of cases I have been involved in, and have my pokémon with me, ready for a battle, if you wish.”

“Heh… You’re an organised one! Just like your old man… Hey now, no need for that look! Anyway you haven’t quiiiite got this list right, but it’s close enough to make your point…”

“…And it’s irrelevant, regardless, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… I’m judging you on one question… Why do you want this so badly?”

“What makes you think I do?”

“I’ve been friends with your father for years… I know about you Kirigiris… Your family creed is based on staying hidden in the shadows… but you’ve been letting every Jenny you work with and every Rocket grunt you capture know exactly who you are! Seems like a pretty desperate attempt to get Hope’s Peak attention if you ask me.”

“I was not ‘desperate’… but I’ll admit that this was my goal.”

“Why?”

“…I need to speak with my father.”

“That’s it!? You know, we have a phone number right there on our website… He’d have spoken to you at any time, kiddo.”

“Yes… and that would have been on his terms. I need to speak with him on mine.”

“And what are you planning to say to him when you do?”

“That I don’t want him in my life. That him leaving was not a problem for me, and is no cause for anyone in my life to pity me. That he should be the one people insist on consoling.”

“… … … BAHAHAHAHA!”

“…I wouldn’t expect you to understand…”

“No… I get it… You’re as nuts as he is! Hahaha… But whatever, maybe if you put all this effort into giving him a giant ‘fuck you’ he’ll finally quit feeling guilty over making the right choice…”

“…What ‘right choice’?”

“Whoops… sorry kiddo, shouldn’t have said that. It’s not something I can talk about. You’ll have to find out from your old man!”

“…So I take it that means you’ll accepting me?”

“Sure… assuming you can beat a Persian, anyway...!”

Ah… that was… interesting. She hadn’t been aware that her father was a friend of Hope’s Peaks scouter… and what had the man been talking about, her father having made the right choice? Was he implying that there was some reason for him to have come here, that was of actual importance? Something more important to him than her?

“…I suppose you still won’t elaborate on anything you said back then?” Kyoko asked Kizakura.

“Nope! Like I said, ask your old man!” He shrugged. “Now then, Hagakure…”

Hmm… That would mean she’d have to get him to talk to her seriously, not just as a father catching up with his daughter…

She supposed Ishimaru wouldn’t be the only one grilling their father for more information this evening! 

Chapter Text

“Now then, Hagakure…” The dude with the second best hat in the room turned to face him, “As much as I’d like to leave you like that, apparently your health is of a bigger priority to the school that me having a good laugh every time I see you, so… Hypno! Use Hypnosis!”

Hypnosis? There was no way that move would actually work on a human, right? He probably just felt like doing what this Kizakura dude wanted because of his cool hat, that’s all!

“Okay… now, I want you to remember everything I told you to forget…”

Huh… That was weird… He hadn’t told Yasuhiro to forget anything! Oh… except maybe…

“Aww… come on, dude! I told you it’s only 30% accurate! Gimme another chance to prove it!”

“I’ve given you ten chances and all you’ve told me is a bunch of nonsense, kid. Face it, you’re just delusional…! Or a fraud, I’m not sure which…”

“Hey! I don’t care how many people say I took all of their money! I’m not a scammer!”

“So, delusional then… I’m going to have a nice long chat with Olympia for this…”

“Urg… fine, be that way… Just watch out for that Sandygast, man…”

“A Sandyghast? Here? This sand’s black as coal, I think I’d notice a Sandygast, kid… There’s not even any spades here.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s asleep just under the sand, man!”

“Sure kid… whatever you say…”

“Hey! I mean it! You’re about to walk right into it!”

“Bet you a pokéball there’s nothing there…”

“Urrrgghh… Alright, but it better be a good pokéball! HEEEEE-YA!”

“Wait… what was…?”

“Oh! It actually went in the ball! Come on… come on… Yeah! I caught it!”

“There actually was a pokémon there…?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it!? Here, look, a black Sandygast! Isn’t she pretty? Like she’s made outta asteroid dust…”

“Gaaaasssstttt.”

“…How the hell did you know that was there!?”

“I told you, I get these totally accurate predictions!”

“Really…? You could have set it up… but then, you’d have had to know I was coming to do that… Well… either way, I guess you got me convinced, kid! Have fun with your shiny Sandygast there!”

“Thanks man! And see you at Hope’s Peak!”

“…What did you just say?”

“I said see you at Hope’s Peak! Y’know, the school? I just had a prediction that we’ll meet up there!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me… Alright, Hypno! Use Hypnosis!”

“Aww, c’mon! You don’t really expect me to fall… for… tha…”

“Alright… First things first, you’re gonna give your Exeggutor this full restore, and then you’re going to go back to where you were when I shouted ‘Hey you, with the dumb hair’. Then you’re going to hand over that Sandygast and…”

“Gaaaaaasssssttttt!”

“Woah! Okay… geez, he only just caught you, why do you care so much all of a sudden? You could join my team! I could use a good ghost type!”

“Gaaaaassssstttttt…”

“Well... what do you want me to do? Tell the guy to put you on his head and think you’re a hat that just turned up there, magically?”

“Got it, man! This is my magic hat!”

“Wait… really? That worked? Well, alrighty then… Now… you and your… magic hat are going to go back to where you were when I first saw you and then I’m going to walk up to the pier and you’ll forget everything that’s happened since I shouted ‘Hey you, with the dumb hair’. Got it?”

“Got it, man!”

…Wait… so his hat really was a pokémon!? He probably should have listened to his Mom… Guess that must be why ‘his hat’ kept getting annoyed if Yasuhiro tried to leave behind that weird broken pokéball! This was wild! Heck, he could even start claiming the money the headmaster had mentioned for it! Awesome! And as he’d already got his first badge, he should be able to cruise through this first term!

But then, he was at least a couple of years older than all these other kids… heck, he’d already done most of high school before! If it weren’t for them offering him free rent, he wouldn’t have bothered coming… It wasn’t exactly like he wanted to have to do a bunch of classes and homework and… and other school stuff…

“Right then! Now that’s out of the way!” Kizakura called his Hypno back, “It’s time for you all to get to know each other, with a fun little activity I came up with!”

So, probably an hour of everyone saying their names and what their favourite pokémon was… still, better than actual classes!

“You see… as you’re in the same class, your pokémon are probably going to be fighting each other’s pokémon a lot! So in order to give you kids an idea who you’re going to be up against for the next four years, your all going to get all your pokémon out, and then each of you will take a guess at who could beat who in a battle! So, those of you who didn’t do it already, get out all your pokémon!”

A few of the kids around him had to get more pokémon out… the guy next to him started peeling tape off of a pokéball, and the one next to him let out his scary wolf-thing with one hand and grabbed it to stop it from lunging at the closest thing to it with the other. The fashion chick got out a huge pink snake thing with lots of dangly metal trinkets and a black and white bear wearing a red monocle… Someone at the front got a Blastoise out… and maybe he could feel a small psychic pokémon up there as well…?

“So, for those of you who can’t see each other…” Kizakura pointed at the square dude at the top-left of the class… “Ishimaru has an Arcanine, Naegi has a Blastoise and Togepi, Maizono has a Brionne and Espurr, Fujisaki has a Golett, Oogami has a Florges and a Snorunt, Asahina has a Glaceon and a Marill, Togami has a Drampa and Rufflet, Ikusaba has a Comfey, Enoshima has a Milotic and Teddiursa, Fukawa has a Garbodor and a Scatterbug, Yamada has a Dratini, Ludenburg has a Weavile, Oowada has a Midnight-form Lycanroc, Kuwata has a Luxray and a Litten, Hagakure has an Alolan Exeggutor and his *snerk* ‘magic hat’ and finally Kirigiri has a Crobat and a Kadabra.”

Huh… Kizakura hadn’t told the class the truth about his hat… Maybe he could use that to surprise them all later? But, that had been a lot of pokémon to remember… should he have written that down…? He probably should have written that down… Oh well, it’s not like this was important or anything!

“Now… everyone start filling in the table in front of you! You have ten minutes!”

Ten minutes!? To do that many predictions!? Uhh… Well… Yasuhiro knew he’d probably do pretty well against all of those water types… the ice types would wreck him, and so would that fire type… The poison types were gonna be nasty against Exeggutor as well…

But wait! He was having a vision! He could clearly see his magic hat Sandygast encasing every poison type it faced in inescapable dirt… Of course! Now he had two pokémon, he’d do better in fights! Which meant he could now kick butt against that girl with the big trash heap and that one with the Crobat and Kadabara!

Now he just had to run predictions for the rest of these guys…

“Time’s up! Everyone pass me your sheets so I can have a look through them all… and then the fun part will start!”

“The hell does that mean?” Kuwata was asking.

The fun part… hmm… “Maybe whoever got the most right gets a prize!” Preferably a cash one!

“How are they supposed ta know the right answer when none of us have ever fought before, dumbass!?” Oowada snapped.

“Indeed… the ‘fun’ part probably means we’ll be having battles to determine the correct answers…” Kirigiri guessed.

“You mean we’re gonna have sixteen battles each in one class?” Kuwata groaned… man, Yasuhiro hoped that wasn’t right… He didn’t have anywhere near enough potions for that!

“I doubt we’d have time… I suspect he’ll probably pick of some more contentious pairings and force them to battle.” Kirigiri argued.

“Alright, class!” Kizakura had apparently finished looking over the papers, “As I can hear some of you guessing, I am indeed going to be picking some of the more evenly matched students and having you duke it out, here in class!”

So, just one fight? Yasuhiro should be able to manage that…

“But I’m also going to be making fun of some of your answers as well!” Kizakura grinned, “For example… Kuwata! You seem to have a pretty high regard for Ikusaba’s Comfey! You said it’ll beat Fujisaki, Yamada, Ludenberg, Fukawa, Maizono, Naegi, Kirigiri, Oowada and yourself! Care to explain your reasoning there?”

“Sure…” Kuwata shrugged, “I figured it’s less a case of ‘who can her Comfey beat?’ and more a case of ‘Who’s not dumb enough to piss off miss ‘touch Comfey and you die’ over there!”

“Then why am I not listed as one of the losers?” That rich dude asked, “Do you consider me to have poor mental capabilities!?”

“Nah… I just figured you’d bribe her to forfeit or something!” Kuwata told him.

“So… you based your estimations on your classmate’s personalities, not their pokémon?” Kizakura checked, and Kuwata nodded, “Alright… let’s see how well that works out for you… Kuwata and Ikusaba, head over to that big empty space at the back of the classroom and get ready to battle!”

Yasuhiro could just about see the girl turn around to look at her sister, who just shrugged at her. “You gotta do what he says… I’ll be cheering for you!”

She got up and headed over like she’d been told to… although not without giving Kuwata the angriest stare he’d seen on a chick since he’d told that girl her crush was totally into her and it turned out he wasn’t…

“Dude, I just said I’m not gonna be dumb enough to piss her off!” Kuwata rolled his eyes and gestured to Ikusaba… Although he had to quickly grab his red kitten by the tail to stop it from running of after her.

“Oh really? Because I think I might have a little… motivation for you.” Kizakura grinned again as he brought out a whole bunch of envelopes.

“…Like what?” Kuwata asked, looking at the envelopes anxiously.

“Well… in each of these envelopes is one of you kids’ biggest, most embarrassing secret…” Oh man… Had they found out about that time he’d paid 100,000 pokédollars for a Master ball and then accidentally used it to catch a Yungoos? “And if you lose the fight I put you in, I’ll read it out loud to the whole class!”

“The whole…?” Kuwata went pale… man if only Yasuhiro could get a prediction on what was in his envelope… or any of them… “Urrrgghhh! Alright fine! Go on Litten!” He let his cat go, and it scamper up towards the girl… who was still wearing her pokémon. Uhh… Was that a good idea?

“Ah! Ikusaba! Take off your Comfey!” That square kid at the front… or now back of the class, given thy’d all turned around to watch the fight, shouted. “It might attack before he orders it to!”

That… didn’t exactly seem to scare her. If anything, she just looked like she was planning to kick the cat if it got anywhere near her…

“Hey… This isn’t Fenrir!” Kizakura snapped at her, “You want to fight pokémon here, you do it with other pokémon!”

She just glared at him… but her pokémon started to wriggle around, trying to unloop itself from her neck, only for her to hold onto it with one hand and hold it in place…

“Litten!” That was, until the cat got close enough to launch a ball of flame from its mouth at her, which made her swing sideways so fast she almost lost her balance, and only regained it by letting go of the Comfey for a second.

That was all it needed to get free from her neck, and it quickly flew over to the attacking Litten, multiple small vines growing out from between the flowers around its outside and getting ready to attack…

…Only for the Litten to shoot out another ball of flame (wait… was that just a flaming hairball? That was pretty gross…) which hit it and caused it to squeal for a moment before fainting while Ikusaba looked on in horror. She stayed like that for a moment before running over and bending down to shakily put it over her shoulder…

“…So… I take it I won then?” Kuwata asked, as the whole thing had finished before he’d even got all the way off of his chair and over to the battle area.

Oh man if looks could kill Kuwata would have dropped dead on the spot! And Ikusaba was walking over to him like she was intending to use her fists instead…

“Woah! Hey! It’s just a friendly pokémon battle, right!?” Kuwata started backing up through the rest of the classroom, “I mean, this is a pokémon school! We gotta battle occasionally!”

“I told you, touch Comfey and you die!”

“Hey! That’s enough Ikusaba!” Kizakura tried to stop her, while that big muscly chick and the square dude both stood up and looked like they intended to grab her.

“But… it’s not like it’s dead!” Kuwata cried, backing up further.

“Y-yeah! He’s right! All it needs is a revive!” That short guy in the hoodie at the front told her, “Look! I have one right here!”

Ikusaba stopped and turned to face him instead, as he awkwardly gave her the revive… and then anxiously took it back and fed it to her Comfey for her after she just stared at it in confusion…

“…Feeyy…?” It let out a small, high pitched noise as it woke up and shock itself off… “Fey!”

“See! All better now!” Naegi cheered nervously, “Although you might want to take it to the pokémon centre to get fully healed…”

“And you can quit with the over-reaction to losing a single battle!” Kizakura snapped at her.

She just turned and glared at both him and Kuwata one last time before going back to her desk.

“So, like… do we get to hear her deepest secret now?” Enoshima asked, as everyone else hesitantly sat down. “’Cause I wanna know if I already know it or not!”

“Ah… We’ll save that until the end of the class…” Kizakura muttered. “Anyway… back to making fun of some of you… Naegi, you think Ishimaru’s fire-type is going to be able to beat every water type in the room, including your own Blastoise?”

“Umm… well, he did a week ago…” The kid in the hoodie explained.

“But… that was only because you gave me a free hit on him!” The square dude, who was probably Ishimaru, told him. “If we’re fighting optimally, I’d say I can beat all the water type trainers except for you!”

From what Yasuhiro could see, the swimmer chick and the diva up front seemed cool with that, but model looked pretty pissed. “Uhh… Excuse me!? Big, giant-ass Milotic over here!”

“Just because a pokémon looks intimidating doesn’t mean it is!” Ishimaru countered, “It isn’t as if Feebas needs to be particularly strong in order to evolve!”

“Well… don’t Growlithes evolve with an item, or something? I could say the same to you!” The model pointed out.

“Ahh… I suppose that’s true…” Ishimaru realised, “Then I guess we’ll have to settle this with a battle then!”

“Oh, you’re on hardass! C’mon Mukuro!” Both trainers stood up and stomped over to the back of the class, with their pokémon following along as closely as possible.

“Well… I guess I can make that work…” Kizakura muttered as they went. “Oh, and no items, Ishimaru.”

“Ahh… Not even a held one?” Ishiamru asked, having been halfway to giving his dog a berry of some kind.

“In the interests of time for today, no, not even held ones.” Kizakura confirmed, which made the rich guy mutter irritably.

“Well, good! Like, what the hell’s a dumb berry gonna do, other than make this go on longer than it needs to?” The model complained, “I hate fighting people who insist on stalling when it’s obvious they’ve lost!”

“It was just going to be a precaution! But I’m not going to need an item to beat you!” Ishimaru insisted.

“We’ll see about that! Mukuro! Use… ermm… oh yeah! Aqua Tail!”

“Arcanine! Use Crunch!”

“Alright, guess you kids can start whenever, then…” The teacher shrugged as Ishimaru’s dog ran forward and jumped high enough to get its teeth deep into the serpent’s neck. It responded by letting out a loud shriek and summoning a wave of water around its tail, which it then used to beat the Arcanine off of it.

“Hah! Take that you dumb mutt!” The model laughed as the dog fell to the floor, looking like it was soaked to the bone, “Still think you can beat me?”

“Yes!” Ishimaru insisted, as his dog stood up and shook off most of the water, which ran down some small holes in the floor, and stood panting heavily at the serpent. “After all, your pokémon isn’t exactly looking healthy right now, either!”

Woah! He wasn’t kidding… Now all the water it had summoned had disappeared, Yasuhiro could just about see the two rows of tooth marks puncturing the poor Milotic’s skin, and a faint trickle of what might have been blood coming from them… Not to mention its head was drooping down pretty heavily now…

“Urg… seriously!? Aren’t you supposed to be hard to hurt!? That wasn’t even an effective move on you!” The model complained, “I guess you better use your Recovery move, assuming your useless butt survives his next attack…”

“You can’t blame her for your failure to train her sufficiently!” Ishimaru snapped, “Arcanine! Use Crunch again!”

This time the dog went in low, sinking its teeth into the fleshy pink underbelly of the Milotic until it managed to squirm enough to knock it off and draw in beams of light towards itself, making both its wounds close up a bit.

“Hah! A couple more turns of that and she’ll back to full health!” The fashion chick smirked, although it looked pretty much the same as before to Yasuhiro. “Use Recover again, Mukuro!”

“Now who’s stalling!? Arcanine, use Crunch again!”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” That rich guy suddenly shouted out as the dog ran forward and bit the Milotic again. “All these water-types and you didn’t think to teach it Wild Charge!?”

“Do you have any idea how much Technical Machines cost!?” Ishimaru exclaimed, as the Milotic shook it off and started drawing in light again.

“They’re just a few thousand pokédollars per use, it’s hardly that expensive!” The rich guy insisted, only to look confused as everyone stared in disbelief and the two guys next to Yasuhiro started muttering about ‘rich stuck-up bastards’.

“…Maybe not for you, but we don’t all have the finances to build an ‘optimal’ pokémon!” Ishimaru sighed before turning back to the battle. “You’re doing great, Arcanaine! Another Crunch now!”

“Urg… Like, how many times do you have to use Recovery, Mukuro…” The model muttered.

Same thing happened again… and they both used the same moves again… and again… Maybe he should start doing a few predictions while this dragged on…”

“Crunch!”

“Recovery…”

“Crunch!”

“Recovery…”

“Crunch!”

“Recovery…”

“Crunch… Ah ha! Good boy, Arcanine!” Ishimaru suddenly broke the pattern of orders… did that mean something had happened?

“What are you so cheerful about? I’m just gonna do Recovery again…” The model muttered.

…But this time her pokémon still seemed to be moving more slowly that it had been before, and when the dog charged forward, it took longer for the Milotic to shake it off, leaving it with much bigger gashes on its side that were still bleeding even after it healed itself again.

“Urgggghhh! You let him lower your defence, or whatever!?” The model let out a big sigh, “Gaaaawwwddd! Fine, guess you’re gonna faint next turn, you flabby, useless lump…”

“One more Crunch, Arcanine!” Ishimaru agreed, and his dog ran forward and bit the Milotic hard enough make its eyes roll backwards and it fall on the floor.

“Urgghh… I can’t believe I got beat by a fire type!” The model took her Milotic back into its ball, “Did you, like, cheat or something!?”

“Absolutely not!” Woah… Ishimaru really didn’t like being accused of cheating… “I’ve just spent more time training my pokémon than you! If you’d put more effort into helping your pokémon reach its full potential…!”

“Geez, lighten up, it was just a joke… It’s kinda sad when you take everything so seriously…” She sighed, “And I guess now you’ve gotta make your dog use poor widdle Monokuma here as a chew toy to…” She added, glumly throwing out her other pokéball and releasing the black and white bear…

“Ah…That is how battles work…” He grimaced, “Arcanine, use Fire Blitz!”

Yeesh! The flames that covered the dog as it ran forward that time were hot enough that Yasuhiro could feel them all the way from his seat! No wonder the bear fainted instantly!

“Wow… that was just cold…” The model sighed sadly as she called back her second pokémon.

“What? Fire Blitz isn’t cold! It’s the hottest move an Arcanine can learn!” Ishimaru missed her point entirely.

“No… she means you’re an ass for incinerating the teeny tiny teddy-bear!” Kuwata rolled his eyes.

“AH…! But… having Arcanine bite it would have been even more painful!” Ishimaru cried, “And besides, getting into fights, and unfortunately, getting hurt in them is part of the natural growth cycle for pokémon! You can’t expect me to be willing to lose battles just because you think your pokémon is cuter than mine!”

“Whaddaya mean I think he’s…!?”

“Ishimaru’s right! So no guilt-trip people over winning!” Kizakura spoke up, “Honestly, you’d think they didn’t have pokémon centres where you two grew up…” He muttered, looking at Ikusaba and the model. “Now, back to your seat you two… that took long enough as it is…”

They took their seats again, Ishimaru looking embarrassed and the model looking irritable.

“Right then… Oowada! Seeing as Ishimaru took the person I planned for you to go up against, you’ll have to take on Maizono…” Kizakura announced.

“What!? With that tiny seal and the cat thing!?” Oowada sneered, “Fuck that! I’m taking on Mr. Blastoise over there!”

“Me!?” Naegi squeaked, “But… rock’s weak to water…”

“And I was going to put him against…”

“So!? If that dumb dog up there could kick your ass, then so can my wolf!” Oowada cut off what the teacher was trying to say, “Now get over here!”

“Okay! Okay!” The poor kid panicked and called his giant turtle into its pokéball so he could run up to battle area a bit quicker.

“Alright, fine, just ignore me, I guess…” Kizakura muttered and had a swig of his flask.

The two guys got into position. The biker dragging his wolf up to the far end while the short kid got to the end of the chairs and took his Togepi out of his hood and put it on the floor, stopping to pat its head a bit first.

“The hell!? What, are you planning to do, switch it out first turn ‘cause you think it’ll learn something from just looking at a Lycanroc?” Oowada growled.

“No! Not this time!” Naegi rushed to tell him, “I just figured it’s safer to use Metronome first, in case he does Explosion or something…”

“Hah! So you’re planning to soften me before brining out the big guns?” Oowada grinned, “Ya probably shouldn’t have told me that…”

“Uhh… why not?”

“’Cause it means I know I’m safe to set up… Stealth Rock!” Oowada finished talking and ordered his pokémon to start before Kizakura told him to.

“Argh… Togepi, use Metronome!” Naegi quickly ordered his own pokémon…

Both pokémon had to do a bit of prep work for their moves, the wolf generating a bunch of spiky rocks from around its neck and the egg doing a little dance, which finished first and caused a small group of sharp looking leaves to appear out of nowhere and swirl through the air for a moment, before most of them flew super-fast towards the Lycanroc…

Which snarled at little at the contact, but then shook itself off and starting throwing the rocks it had prepared at the ground around the Togepi’s feet like the attack had done nothing whatsoever...

“Hah! Hahaha! That was an actual attack!” Naegi cheered, “And it was even type-effective! Yeah! Good job Togepi!”

“To-ge-piiiiii!”

“The hell are you so happy about? That thing’s so tiny it did fuck all!” Oowada snapped.

“Well, yeah… but it’s better luck than I usually have with Togepi…” The kid shrugged, “Let’s see if it lasts! Togepi! Use Metronome again!”

“Lycan, use Stone Edge and put this dumbass outta his misery…” Oowada smirked.

The wolf didn’t obey straight away, instead it waited a while to growl and sneer at the egg as it did its dance again, even though the dance seemed to take even longer this time…

But eventually the egg, and a few leaves that had been stuck to it from before, disappeared back towards Naegi’s belt, and suddenly his Blastoise appeared on the floor where the egg had been.

“Wait… what!? I didn’t tell them to switch!” Naegi looked confused as his turtle’s feet landed on several of the spiky stones the Lycanroc had thrown earlier, causing it to cry out in pain just before the wolf charged up and whacked it with a sharp lump of stone. “Aaaarrrhhh! Sorry buddy! Err… but as you’re out, use Hydropump!”

“Lycan, go for another Stone Edge!” Oowada retaliated.

Even with its huge lumbering movements, the Blastoise still managed to turn its twin guns towards the Lycanroc and fire a stream of water at it. But the wolf jus managed to run through it and hit the turtle over the head with the rock, which caused it to topple over sideways and retreat back into its pokéball…

“Hah! You call that a Hydro Pump! That was the wimpiest Hydro Pump I’ve ever seen!” Oowada guffawed, as his wolf shock the mixture of mud and water it was now coated in off of itself.

“No kidding… My Marill can do a better Hydro Pump than that!” The chick with way too much energy agreed.

“Uhh… I don’t get it… usually he’s a lot stronger than that!” Naegi exclaimed.

“Suuuure he is, kid! Not like I hear that one all the time or anything!” Oowada laughed.

“No! I can confer with Makoto! His Blastoise’s hits were a lot stronger when I fought it!” Ishimaru told him, “It was definitely suffering some sort of debilitation, I’d say as a side effect of… err… Stone Edge…?”

“Stone Edge doesn’t do that kind of shit, dumbass! Quit trying to make yourself look stronger than ya are!”

“No… That’s not what they’re doing…” Kizakura suddenly piped up, “That attack was weaker than it would have been normally. But not, as you say, because of Stone Edge! So, class! Who can tell me what was up with Naegi’s Blastoise?”

Hmm… maybe his pokémon had been stolen by Team Rocket and weakened, or aliens had moved the moon to disrupt the flow of water, or it might have had something to do with magnets… But he wasn’t getting any predictions to help him pin down what it was for sure.

But the chick next to Yasuhiro put her hand up, as did the rich guy, the really huge chick and the popstar up front.

“Hmm… Maizono, what do you think?”

“Well… the Togepi used Baton Pass, which transfers any strengths or weaknesses to the pokémon it switches to… So… the Togepi had the problem and passed it to the Blastoise?”

“You mean because it got hit with Stealth Rock?” Naegi guessed.

“Stealth Rock doesn’t do that either.” Oowada rolled his eyes.

“Erm… Then… your Lycanroc’s ability…?”

“No! It’s nothing I fucking did, alright!?” Oowada snapped at the kid.

“Well, it’s not like I screwed over my own pokémon!” Naegi cried.

“Are you sure about that?” Kirigiri asked him.

“Err…”

“I’m surprised you haven’t managed to figure it out yourself…” The rich guy smirked, “You were the one who pointed out that Metronome never does you any good…”

“What? You mean… That first move Togepi used…?”

“It is known as Leaf Storm.” The giant woman told him, “A very powerful move, but the remaining leaves give the user trouble when it tries to attack at a distance…”

“…And then it used Baton Pass and gave that trouble to Blastoise…” Naegi sighed.

“Exactly!” Kizakura snapped his fingers at him.

“Tch! You’d have been better off just bringing the turtle out and hitting me head on, instead of messing about trying ta get lucky!” Oowada grumbled.

“I guess…? But you never know! Maybe it’ll cast Healing Wish this time!” Naegi said, hopefully…

“Or maybe I’m about ta crack its head open with Stone Edge…” Oowada sighed.

In the end, the Togepi ended up casting some weak looking fire move and, as Oowada said, the wolf knocked it out in one hit…

“Ah, man… Now everyone’s gonna know I wet the bed until fifth grade!” Naegi sighed.

“Eww! D-don’t just bring up gross stuff like that out of nowhere!” The dark haired chick with the glasses complained.

“But… if he’s going to tell everyone that anyway…”

“That’s assuming you’re that sure that’s what’s written on this piece of paper…” Kizakura pointed out.

“Well, I don’t have any other embarrassing secrets…” He thought about it, “Wait… oh no… You’re not going to tell everyone what made you pick me, are you!? Because it’s not like I really think Professor Oak’s a lying jerkface, it just seemed like he was at the time!”

“Wait… you called Professor Oak… that!? To his face!?” Ishimaru cried.

“No! I just muttered it after he left!”

“That’s even worse!” The biker dude sneered, “You got a problem with someone you should fucking tell it to ‘em straight!”

“I know, but…”

“To be fair to the kid, he was trying to, but Oak pretty much scarpered. And Oak had been lying to him, just not for ‘jerkfacey’ reasons…” Kizakura told everyone, “But, for a bit of fun, let’s have a little vote! Which of those two reasons do you all think is the one written in this envelop?”

He held up the one with ‘Makoto Naegi’ written on it… alright! Prediction time, go!

“Hands up if you think it’s the wetting the bed one…?” Nah… that wasn’t it… “Or calling Oak a *snrk* lying jerkface…?” Wait… that wasn’t it either…!? “Hmm… Kirigiri, Hagakure, I notice you two didn’t put up your hands for either… what are you two thinking is on there?”

What was on there? “Uhh… maybe he’s got an even bigger secret… like… he’s secretly that kid-faced mob boss I’ve heard about! Or an alien! Or…”

“No. And also that mob boss is the guy in the year above you guys…” Kizakura waved his hand lazily at him, “What about you Kirigiri? What do you think this envelope says?”

“Nothing. I doubt you even bothered to put paper in them.” She shrugged, “They were just an elaborate prop to ensure everyone fights to the best of their ability.”

“Bingo!” Kizakura pointed a finger-gun at her, “Not that I really need them… throwing a fight here is grounds for expulsion anyway, just so you know, but it’s always worth the price of a few envelopes to watch you all panic! Hehhehheh…”

“Wait… you mean I just told everyone all that for no reason!?” Naegi cried.

“Pretty much!” Kizakura grinned.

“Okay… I’m just going to go back to my desk to die of embarrassment now…” Naegi groaned and started walking past Yasuhiro and Kirigiri back up to where he was sat before…

“Hmm…Still better than ‘My favourite food is chocolate’.” He could just about hear Kyoko murmured as he guy went past. He just looked even more embarrassed by that though, especially once the square dude at the front started trying to cheer him up by pointing out that at least he couldn’t be blackmailed now everyone already knew his most embarrassing secrets.

“Alright… now, where was I… Let’s see… Hagakure’s pretty obvious for the most part… Loses to Togami, Oogami, Kirigiri…”

“Hey! I’m not going to lose to Kirigiri!” That vision had been super clear!

“You… are you serious?” Kizakura was looking at him like he was stupid or something! “She has a Crobat! Your Exeggutor isn’t going to do anything to that!”

“Ah… you just think that because you haven’t seen my secret weapon!”

“…Alright, seeing as my battle plan’s messed up anyway…” Kizakura sighed, “Kirigiri, Hagakure, get over to the battle area…”

Kirigiri gave him a sceptical glance as she got up and took her place at the end of the classroom, leaving him with only a short walk… sweet!

“Alright, Crobat… Let’s see what this ‘secret weapon’ of his is…”

That was nice of her! “Alright then… you may have been fooled by its disguise, but the truth is, this ‘magic hat’ of mine is actually…” dun duh dah dun dun DUN… “A Sandygast! Go!”

“…Yes. Obivously.” Kirigiri wasn’t surprised at all, not even after his dramatic pause and everything! “Acrobat, use Air Slash…”

“Sandygast use… erm…” What were its moves? “Use your strongest ground type move!”

Huh… suddenly there was a load of loud thuds and confused noises from behind him… had part of the ceiling fallen down or something?

He didn’t have a chance to turn around to check before the giant bat swooped down and practically slashed his hat Sandygast into two piles

“Ahh! Nooooo!” Yasuhiro cried, as he quickly called Sandygast back into her ball, “I don’t get it! What happened!?”

“Okay, class… let’s have everyone name a different thing Hagakure did wrong there!”

“He forgot Flying types are immune to Ground moves?”, “And even if they weren’t, that pokémon’s really weak…”, “Has he trained it at all since he caught it?”, “Doubtful… He didn’t even know what moves it has!”, “And Palossands are a defensive pokémon, why would you fight with one that’s Lonely nature!?”, “He could have made a lot of money selling a shiny pokémon to a zoo or breeder.”

“But… I had a prediction that she could beat any poison type!” Yasuhiro told them.

“Well… that might eventually be true of a pure poison type. But a Ground type is still never going to be good against a Flying type, regardless of the subtype.” Kirigiri told him, “You’d have been better off challenging Fukawa…”

 “Which was what my original plan was going to include!” Kizakura sighed, “But, whatever… I guess it works out alright from now on… These next few fights will still be even… Not that it could possibly be more uneven than this!”

Aww, man… He wasn’t kidding! It only took her Crobat two uses of Cross Poison to knock out Exeggutor! So much for him being able to protect Yasuhiro if it came to it… Maybe it was a good thing he’d ended up back in school again after all!

Chapter Text

Toko watched as that stupid stoner idiot moped back to his seat. And this was the type of person they were putting in the same class as Byakuya Togami!? What sort of idiot forgot that ground couldn’t hit flying types!? It was the sort of stupid mistake a little kid made in his first ever fight, not something someone who looked even older than her should be doing! And to think that stupid teacher would have made her fight him if he’d had his way!

This whole class was stupid! How was pitching people together in random fights supposed to tell anyone anything about each other? All it had shown so far was that the four losers were either stupid, had weak pokémon or both!

Well, whatever… she could just keep her nose down and wait until it was her turn to fight. At least it was better than having to stand up and introduce herself in front of everyone so they could all just laugh at her…

“Alright, now that’s over… Hmm…” The teacher clearly had no idea what he was doing, and she figured he probably wouldn’t have even if those other idiots hadn’t messed up his supposed ‘plans’. “Seems like people couldn’t decide who’d win out of Asahina and Maizono, so let’s pair you two up!”

“Umm… really?” The dancer, or whatever it was the one at the front of the class did, asked wimpily. “I get the feeling that’s not really a close match…”

Hah! A battle of the bimbos made perfect sense to Toko! It wasn’t like either of those pretty airheads would have bothered seriously training their pokémon…

“Yeah! She’s right!” That dumb punk, or jock or whatever he was, was agreeing with her. “Maizono’s a serious contender, she’s not gonna be beaten by some random lifeguard from Kanto!”

“That wasn’t what I mea…”

“What’s wrong with being from Kanto!?” The idiot in the hoodie, the dumb lifeguard herself and that other idiot who’d insulted Togami all asked at the same time. Guess she’d learnt which members of the class were from Kanto now…

“You mean, aside from it having less types of pokémon than everywhere else?” The punk jock shrugged.

“In my experience, that does not affect the ability of Kanto’s trainers.” The big meat-headed woman actually said something. “They seem as competent as the ones from any other region I’ve faced.”

“However, you will have only fought people who’ve travelled all the way from Kanto to Kalos to your gym, correct?” That prissy princess piped up, “Which means you’ve only been exposed to the better trainers from the region. I suspect the average one would be far less capable than what you’ve seen…”

“Eh… I’ve travelled around enough regions that I’d say they’re all about the same.” The guy with the stupid hair told them, “There’s shitty trainers and good trainers in every region. Whether you’re gonna get your ass kicked depends on how well a person looks after their pokémon, not where they’re from or how rich they are.”

“That’s a good point, Mr. Oowada!” The fat slob next to Toko said in the most sycophantic tone of voice she’d ever heard. “But in this case, Miss Asahina has an ice type at the same level as Miss Maizono’s water type, and a water type to match her psychic type! So surely Miss Maizono has the advantage, with water being ineffective against ice!”

“Are you sure about that?” That creepy quiet girl in the corner asked so seriously it was almost like it was a threat or something…

“Gee, I dunno, you guys think maybe they should have a battle and then we can just see the result instead of wasting time arguing about it!?” The teacher dramatically suggested.

That shut everyone up, and the two girls got the message that they should hurry up to the back of the class and get their pokémon out already…

Both of them went with their water types, which seemed to be the pretty obvious move to make from both sides. Swimmer girl was probably thinking the little Marill might soften up the Brionne enough that her Galceon could finish it off even with less effective attacks, and the dancer was probably hoping she’d have brought out the ice type first so having her water type would have taken advantage of that…

“Alright… Marill, start off with Aqua ring!”, “Brionne! Use Baby Doll Eyes!” Both of them set up defensively, making the Marill surround itself with shimmering water and the Brionne blink up at it with cutesy eyes…

“Awwww…”, “Riiiillll…” Both the Marill and its trainer fell for its stupid charms completely. What a pair of soft idiots! You wouldn’t catch Toko falling for some stupid seal with a stupid pleading expression on its face.

“Alright! Brionne, now use Sing!” The dancer took full advantage of their idiocy…

“Ah!” The dumb blonde snapped out of her stupor. “Marill, use Hydro pump!”

Wait… what? Why would a Marill know Hydro Pump!? Didn’t they evolve waaaay before learning that?

But it sure looked like it know Hydropump, as a huge torrent of water came out of nowhere and knocked the Brionne head over head over fin several times. To its credit, the poor seal just shock itself off and then started singing… And several of the class started yawning… which was pretty contagious, actually…

NO! No, no, no! She wasn’t some stupid idiot who’d fall for a pokémon attack! Wake up Toko!

“Yes! It worked!” Toko shook herself awake just as the dancer was celebrating, “Brionne, use Bubble Beam!”

“Hmm… what worked…?” The dumb swimmer had somehow dozed off on her feet! “Ah! Marill! Wake up!”

“Mar… rill…” It just continued to snore instead, and barely twitched its nose when a stream of bubbles hit it in the face. But then again, with that ring of water around it, it didn’t actually seem like the bubbles even did anything permanent to it…

“Hmm… I thought this might happen…” The dancer sighed, “Maybe Double Slap…?”

This time the Brionne raced over to the Marill and slapped it weakly in the face three times, but still didn’t have any effect, except...

“Rill…?” The mouse muttered sleepily to itself, then jolted awake as it realised where it was, “Marill!”

“Yay! You’re back!” The swimmer cheered at it, “Use Hydro Pump again!”

“Ah… Brionne, sing again!” The dancer orderd, just before her pokémon was sent tumbling over by the jet of water again…

This time Toko covered her ears, and possibly the Marill had as well, because it was still awake even after the song had finished…

The next round of attacks was exactly the same, one use of Hydro Pump and then a useless song from the Brionne, and then finally the fourth Hydro Pump from the Marill knocked it to the floor, where it stayed.

“Good job, Marill!” The swimmer cheered.

“Alright… Brionne, come back now!” The dancer sighed, “Seems like I probably just should admit I lost, huh?”

“Probably… but for the sake of showing off everyone’s pokémon, how about we see Glaceon versus Espurr?” The teacher insisted.

“Alrighty!” The swimmer grinned as she switched her pokémon. Whereas the dancer just put on a forced smile as she brought out a fluffly purple bipedal… thing with vacant eyes and vaguely cat-like ears.

“Glaceon! Use Ha…”

“Actually, can you not use hail?” The teacher suddenly asked, “It’s a huge pain in the ass in this classroom…”

“Oh… alright?” The swimmer frowned, “Glaceon, use Ice Fang!”

“Espurr, use Fake Out!” The dancer retorted.

The Glaceon charged forward, tiny teeth bared, as did the Espurr… Except at the last moment, the Espurr dodged to the side and the slapped the Glaceon around the side of the face, startling it and making it hop backwards towards its owner…

“Urg, I hate that move…” The swimmer muttered, then whispered in her pokémon’s ear. It nodded and then walked up back towards the Espurr…

“Espurr, use Psybeam!”

Huh… She hadn’t tried Fake Out again? Then again, it was pretty obvious the swimmer had had a way to deal with it, which apparently involved her pokémon forming shards of ice out of the air and slinging them towards the Espurr, which was knocked backwards, but slowly managed to get itself back up and glare at the Glaceon, which flinched in pain for a moment.

“Glaceon, one more use of Ice Shard!” The swimmer cried. Whereas the dancer didn’t even bother to give her pokémon a command, as she’d obviously figured out that the next wave of icicles would knock her pokémon to the floor for good…

“Yeah! Good job Glaceon!” The swimmer cheered again, like her over powered pokémon trouncing a couple of weaklings was worth her getting excited about…

“And Asahina wins!” The teacher announced, “First match up Togami’s got wrong! At the moment the only person who’s got everything right is Kirigiri!”

Well, could he blame them? How the heck were they supposed to have known that hooded idiot would screw his own Blastoise over…? It was impressive enough that he’d predicted that!

“Hardly my fault! There’s absolutely no reason for a Marill to know Hydro Pump!” Byakuya defended himself, “Even if you kept it that way to let it learn the move faster, there’s no reason for it to still be a Marill!”

“He likes being a Marill!” The swimmer insisted, “That’s plenty of reason!”

“But… it would be stronger if you have it evolve…”

“Well, I’m not going to make him do that if he doesn’t want to!” She had the audacity to snap at Byakuya, “Number one rule of owning pokémon is that you don’t force them to do anything they’re not comfortable with!”

“…I’ve never even heard of that supposed rule.” Byakuya stated, “Let alone seen it written down anywhere…”

“It’s called ‘not being a fucking asshole', asshole!”, “It’s a variation of treating your pokémon with respect, which I believe is stated in most reputable trainer’s guides!”, “It’s not really written down, it’s just… something you shouldn’t do…?”, “Well, of course it’s important that your battle party agree to accompany you on your adventure willingly! That’s what adventures are all about!”, “It is unwise to act in a manner that causes your pokémon to resent you…” Half the class all chimed in to argue against him at the same time.

“…There’s a difference between disrespecting a pokémon, and letting it’s ridiculous opinion cause trouble!” Byakuya argued.

“But… Marill’s not causing trouble! He’s just a bit weaker than he could be, maybe!” The swimmer argued back, “It’s not a big deal!”

“Hmph… I suppose not, if you’re that lacking in ambition…” Byakuya muttered.

“It does make you look less capable than you are though, Miss Asahina!” The fat guy was starting to suck up to her now as well…

“Yeah… guess it made me underestimated how well you’d do in battles…” The punk jock muttered. “My bad!”

“Aww… no problem, you guys!” She grinned, “At least you all know now!”

Ooooohhh… the dumb blonde had got to prove herself as being vaguely competent, good for her...

Wait.

This stupid class might actually have a point to it after all! If Toko got put again Byakuya, it’d be her chance to prove to him that she wasn’t just some ‘poorly bred’ idiots with ‘naught but a scatterbug...’! This would be her chance to prove that she was worth him fighting!

That was, so long as she did get put with him, and not one of these losers instead…

“Alright then… Here’s a closer match up! Yamada and Fujisaki!”

“Very well! Winning this seemingly unimportant fight will be the simple start of the grand adventure of Hifumi Yamada!” The idiot next to her stood up and announced, like he was hero in a dumb computer game or something…

“Umm… if you say so…” The little kid who barely looked old enough to own a pokémon stood up.

They both took their places, the kid insisting on facing away from the class for some weird reason, and got out their pokémon…

“Dratini! Show it your mighty Twister ability!” The fat idiot grinned, like learning that low level move was something to be proud of.

“Golett, use defense curl…” The kid muttered, paying more attention to their pokédex than the fight.

The Dratini breathed in and then exhaled a small twister, which picked up the small rock man for a moment and then dumped it on the floor, at which point it curled up into a ball and sat there…

“Ahh… that would seem to be a sensible set-up move on your part!” The fat guy said patronisingly, “But what you’ve failed to account for, is the fact that there are two categories of moves, physical and special, and…”

“Umm… I did know that won’t help reduce the damage from Twister.” The kid thankfully shut him up, “I did it because it’ll help when he does, umm… Rollout!”

“AAACCKKK! Drantini, use Twister again!” He cried.

Once again the dragon breathed a twister out across the classroom and sent the golem flying up into the air, and then crashing back down on the ground. But then this time the Golett responded by rolling itself forward crashing into the dragon and rolling over it heavily, before circling around for another shot, speeding up as it did so.

“Keep using Twister on it!”, “Umm… It’d be nice if you don’t miss…” They both encouraged their pokémon…

Once again the Golett was thrown into the air, but it didn’t seem to lose any momentum as it carried on spinning rapidly towards the Dratini, striking it far more powerfully than it had the last time, which resulted in it being knocked to the floor…

“NOOOO! Dratini! We can’t lose!” Oh geez, the guy was acting like this stupid fight for third worse trainer in class actually mattered! “Look deep within yourself, and you’ll find the strength to continue!”

Oh, please, like pleading with your pokémon to have not fainted did any good whatsoever…

“Drat… Drat…ini!” Oh, that had to be kidding! It really had held on by the skin of its teeth? Assuming Dratini’s actually had teeth…

“Ah ha! Fate smiles upon our adventure!” The fatso cheered, “Use Twister again!”

“Well… roll into it one more time and you’ll win, Golett!” The kid said, still paying more attention to the pokédex than the fight…

The same orders as before were called, and once again the rock got thrown upwards…

Except this time it landed at a weird angle and bounced backwards into a sitting position, which it sat in while shaking its head for a moment before curling back up into the ball…

“Ah ha! I bet you weren’t expecting that!” The fat guy smirked, “You see, Dratini’s twister not only causes damage, but it also…”

“Umm… actually, I was just thinking that I was lucky Twister didn’t cause it to flinch during the last two turns…” The kid stopped him again, tapping at his pokédex... wait, was that some sort of battle calculator!? Urgh! She hated trainers who cheated like that! It took all the interest out of battles if everyone just used software to predict the best moves to make! “Now as I only need to hit you once more… Golett, use Shadow Punch this time, please!”

“Another twister, Dratini! This will surely be that automaton’s doom!”

Toko actually hoped it did finish of that pile of rock, that’d teach the kid to let a piece of stupid, new-fangled software dictate the battle!

Once again, the Golett was thrown into the air and landed on the ground, this time with a slightly louder crunch than before… Did that mean it really had fainted…?

Urgh, no! It was slowly getting back up again… it had also held on with just a little fraction of its health left! Honestly, this was like watching an anime battle! She was almost expecting there to be some contrived reason for Shadow Punch to miss!

But it didn’t… The Golett threw a punch at thin air, and then a giant purple hand appeared out of its fist and flew towards the Dratini, punching it square in the face and sending it careening backwards into its owners arms…

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” He sank to his knees, again, like this was end-of-season battle in a kids show, and not some random class-assigned battle. “…Our adventure is over… we couldn’t even beat the tutorial boss…”

“Umm… sorry? But… does it really matter that much… it just means you need to train more…” The kid muttered as the Golett went back to its ball. “I mean, we both do, really…”

“But I’m the chosen one! I’m not supposed to lose the first fight I have!”

Chosen one? Oh please! He really did think this was a computer game…

“Well… maybe you weren’t meant to win?” The guy in the hoodie piped up from the front of the class, “You know, you get those RPG games where the first fight is against someone impossibly tough and you lose no matter what you do?”

“Ah… So… you’re saying that this fight will just serve to highlight how strong we’ve grown once we level up more…?” The fat guy asked, hopefully.

“Well, yeah! Like when Squirtle and I once tried to fight some wild Staryu when we were on holiday and lost really badly, but when I went back with Wartortle the next year we could beat them easily!”

“Hmm… I see!” He finally recalled his Dratini and pulled himself back up to his feet, pointing dramtically at the kid. “Then know this, villain! You’re reign of terror won’t last forever! For one day I, Hifumi Yamada, will return more powerful than you could possibly know, and strike you down!”

“Umm…” Poor kid didn’t know what to make of that, and just started slowly backing up towards the rest of the class… “Okay then…?”

“Well, now the dramatics are all over, you two can sit down…” The teacher told them, at which point the kid turned and ran back to the front of the class, while the fat guy sat down walked back towards the seats with his head held high…

At least until he noticed several people, particularly the jock and the model bimbo, were sniggering at him. Then his face just tensed up and he sat down and stared ahead of him, obviously trying not to let them get to him, and failing…

She could almost have felt sorry for him, if he hadn’t been such an idiot about bigging himself up the whole fight! It must have been pretty galling to be ranked second worst in the class… Not to mention  losing a fight that should have been winnable…

Urgh… what if that happened to her!? This might end up being less of a chance to prove herself and more of an utter humiliation! Especially if she was put with someone other than Byakuya and still lost!

“Good…” The teacher took another drink from his flask… why the hell were they letting this man anywhere near a school!? “Next up, we’ll have Fukawa and…”

Urrrgghhh… This was it… Please be Togami, please be Togami, please be Togami…

“…Ludenberg!”

Damnit! Why the hell had he put her with that stick-thin doll who couldn’t even manage to make tea for herself!? What sort of battle was that supposed to be!? This teacher had no idea what he was doing…

“…Must I…?” The goth wannabe had the nerve to complain! “I fear the smell would cling to Weavile for days if I did…”

That hardly ever happened!

“There’s a cleaning service at the pokémon centre. That’ll get it off.” The teacher pointed out, “Now quit moaning and go battle!”

“…Very well.” She let out a fake dutiful sigh, looking over at Togami. “Here I was hoping to have a higher class of fight, but alas…”

What was that supposed to mean!? Did she think she was going to become Togami’s rival, just because her family were rich as well? “J-just because you’re high class doesn’t m-make you a good trainer, you know…”

“Hmm… That’s fair of you to think…” She smirked, “But not having a reasonable pokémon to fight with is considered the height of social failure! Not something the parents of a sophisticated debutante would let their daughter get away with…”

“W-whatever…” Like having to train your pokémon in order to fit in was something only rich people did!? Puh-lease! She might not have got to fight Byakuya, but there was no way she was losing to this pampered, pedigree bitch!

They both headed over to the back of the class, with Little Miss Prissy Pants stopping at the closer side and forcing Toko to walk all the way over to the back wall, where she could see the rest of the class watching them… All except for Togami, who was still paying more attention to the file he’d been reading earlier…

Well, she’d just have to do a good job of battling and get his attention! It wasn’t like she could beat a Weavile… even if she couldn’t exactly remember what those were and weren’t good at… She’d just have to try out a few different things and see which one worked best…

Of course, her best bet to start with was always… “Garbodor, use Toxic!”

“Dooooor…? Odor…” He slowly responded and started waddling across the floor towards the Weavile…

“Weavile… do be a dear and use Night Slash on that unsightly thing before it gets over here…”

Urrggh! What a smug way to give your pokémon orders! Heck, even her pokémon looked smug as it raced over and slashed at part of the pile of rubbish that formed its stomach. Still, it was just all the more amusing when Garbodor responded by hurling a particularly gross, slimy piece of rotten something-or-other straight into its smirking mouth! Hah!

“V…VILE!” It complained as it spat it out on the floor and kicked it back towards Garbodor… put it was already looking paler than had a few seconds ago. That probably meant that the poison had taken hold…

“Alright… Garbodor, use Sludge Bomb!” That thing obviously didn’t like the poison, so maybe poison attacks would work well…?

“Weavile, use Night Slash again!” Toko’s opponent wasn’t even bothering to try out different things.

Once again the weasely-looking thing raced forward and cut a big chunk out of Garbodors stomach, although the exertion of the attack made it suddenly come to a halt and clutch at its mouth and stomach in pain…

“And here I was hoping I’d have been lucky and that wouldn’t have affected him…” The goth girl sighed as it became even more obvious that her pokémon was badly poisoned.

Not that Garbodor was looking so good himself… he was also clutching in pain at his stomach, or the new hole in it. He might not actually be able to take another attack like that… But for now, he was still up and moving enough to gather up a bunch of purple sludge and catapult it at the nauseous Weavile…

It stumbled a little, but not much… if anything it still looked better of than Garbodor did. She’d have to try something different if she wanted to win this… assuming Gorbodor even got another chance to attack…

“You poor thing…” Miss fancy pants was pouting at her pokémon, “But don’t worry, just one more Night Slash and I’ll be able to give you some nice Pecha berry tea…”

“D-don’t think you’ve won yet!” Toko told her, “Garbodor! You’re using Body Slam this turn, so you better hold it together!”

“Odor!” Her trash heap agreed as the Weavile ran up and made another attack, almost carving him in two…

Almost, but not quite! Garbodor still had enough of himself with himself to muster up the speed to charge into the Weavile, which was once against curled double on itself as it found the poison getting more and more painful. This time Garbodors move seemed to affect it more, as it sent the thing to the ground hard enough that it barely managed to get back up. It was barely going to manage to make its next attack, before the poison finished it off…

“Tch! That piece of trash is stronger than I thought… I should have used Screech first…” The prissy princess complained, “I suppose I am usually better at reading people than pokémon… And it won’t matter once Weavile uses Night Slash again!”

Damnit… “Sorry Garbodor…” Toko sighed. It wasn’t even worth trying to give him an order. Better to just look away while he got ripped apart and call him back into her pokéball so she wouldn’t have to look at the damage he’d taken for her…

And, as she’d guessed, the Weavile gave one last smug grin as she called Garbodor back, before keeling over onto the floor.

“Well… Seeing as your pokémon fainted before mine, it looks like I win!”

…What? Had she not been listening when that teacher listed out all their pokémon? Oh… oh oh oh! This was going to be perfect!

“Oh, really?” Toko smirked, getting out her second pokéball… “And w-what are you planning to do about my ‘poorly bred’ Scatterbug!”

Ahahahah! She twitched so hard at the little bug flew out of its ball that it wouldn’t have surprised Toko if that plastered-on makeup had cracked!

“Fukawa wins!” The teacher announced, “Pretty close match though! Could easily have gone either way…”

That seemed to cheer the goth up, as she took a deep breath and smiled before turning to face the class again. “Indeed. It seems luck was not on my side this match… and that it makes sense for me to get a second pokémon, post-haste!”

“W-well, it’s not like I’m not planning to train Scatterbug…” Toko pointed out as she took her seat… and Byakuya still wasn’t paying attention. Was he even going to bother paying attention to his own fight, or did he think he could win without bothering to…?

“Alright, kids… I’ve left the big fight for last!” The teacher grinned. She could at least respect him for keeping the best trainer until last. “Togami and Oogami! Now… a lot of you had pretty mixed views on this fight!”

“R-really? It should be obvious that Togami will win!” Toko could help but point out. He was the best trainer there was!

“Are you kidding!?” The dumb swimmer cried, “Sakura’s pokémon have type advantages over both of his! And they’ve had lots of battles!”

“But so does Togami, and we’ve already had several fights where type advantage didn’t work out…” The dancer pointed out.

“But… Oogami’s job is literally battling pokémon! And she travels into the wilderness to find strong ones to fight!” The kid in the hoodie insisted.

“Dude, haven’t you even seen the Togami zoo?” The jock asked, “He doesn’t have to travel to find kickass pokémon to fight!”

“Alright kids… show of hands! Who’s certain Oogami’s gonna win?”

The swimmer, the kid in the hoodie, that loudmouth gang guy put their hands up.

“Oowada, your reasons?”

“Dendemille’s a fucking good gym, from what I hear…” He muttered, obviously put out from being called on, “I’m guessing it’s got good trainers…”

“That’s a good point to keep in mind!” The teacher told them all, and the idiot looked smug that he’d given a supposedly good answer. “Now, who here is certain that Togami will win?"

The model (and the Fenrir girl straight after), the jock and Miss Prissy Pants all put their hands up alongside Toko.

“Enoshima! We’ve not heard your thoughts on this yet, why’d you think Togami will win?”

“I dunno… but his company give me tons of money to promote them, so it’d be a bit shitty not to say he’d win, right?” She shrugged.

“Right… and Ikusaba, your thoughts…?” The teacher sighed at her lame answer… there were tons of good reasons to pick Togami and that’s what she came out with!?

“…I just agreed with Junko…” She muttered. That was even WORSE!

“…Ludenberg, I don’t suppose you’ve got a sensible reason…?”

“Togami’s pokémon are reknown for being specially bred, whereas I believe Oogami’s were one’s she caught herself?” She answered, looking to the meat woman for confirmation. “That’s sure to give Togami the advantage.”

“Another good point!” The teacher agreed, while Togami nodded along… Damnit! Toko would have said that as well! “So, those of you who weren't sure either way, raise you hands!”

The nerd, the dancer and the little kid at the front, the fat guy next to Toko, and the stoner and quiet girl behind her all raised their hands. Bunch of wishy-washy losers, hedging their bets…

“Alright then! Let’s start at the front… Ishimaru. Why couldn’t you decide?”

“Because you haven’t gone over all the rules for these battles in detail!” What kind of answer was that!? “I think the outcome of the fight is going to depend on whether or not you allow Togami to use TM51 now you’ve announced his match…”

“What sort of idiotic cretin do you take me for!?” Togami sounded like he was scowling at the idiot, “Do you really think I couldn’t tell she was the closest thing to a threat to me the minute I saw this sorry excuse for a class? I used that TM the second my tour finished!”

“…In that case I suspect Togami is going to win…” Ishimaru said, in a tone of voice that made it seem like that was a bad thing!

“Good job considering that Togami has enough cash to burn to use one just for a class battle, though!” The teacher told him. “Alright, Maizono, your thinking?”

“Umm… well, to be honest, I don’t really know much about fighting with pokémon, so I usually just rely on my intuition for predicting outcomes…” She started, sounding embarrassed. “And I’m not really getting a feeling either way here…”

“Alright, Fujisaki?”

“Umm… my software’s predicting that its 50-50 odds, based on what I’ve been able to put in it…” Urg! Did that kid use computers to decide everything!? “That’s if they fight optimally, at least… But I’m guessing they both would?”

“You’re not using poképridct, are you?” The teacher sighed irritably, “’Cause that things worse than Hagakure back there!”

“No… this is something I coded myself…”

“Alright…” The teacher still looked pretty suspiscious of it though, “Yamada, what do you think will decide the outcome?”

“Narrative structure.” Oh gods he really DID think his life was fictional…

“…What?”

“The narrative structure! What result creates the most interesting outcome? Mr. Togami losing would certainly be a shock, and probably cause the heir to go through a period of self-consideration, but perhaps Miss Oogami losing would cause her to venture forth on a grand training expedition! Both are rife with possibilities, depending on the genre…”

“Hmm… man I didn’t consider that…” The stoner guy started muttering, “Maybe that’s why I’m not getting a result on my prediction… It’s not been decided if this is a drama or an adventure story!”

“T-that’s because it’s not a s-story!” Toko reminded them, “Not even the worst hack would have the character’s start talking about the narrative conventions of the plot they’re in!”

“I dunno…” The model disagreed, “There’s some pretty crummy fanfi…”

“Enough!” The teacher snapped, “Kirigiri, another sensible answer, please?”

“I think it’s going to come down to who has the faster pokémon, particulary out of their strongest ones.” She answer, “And while a Floges would usually attack before a Drampa, I hear Togami bred his for speed, so there’s a possibility he’ll get to attack first…”

“There we go!” The teacher snapped his finger at her. “That’s what I needed! So, now we’ve all heard everyone’s thoughts on the matter… Togami, Oogami, head to the back of the class!”

Togami finally put away his file, put both his pokémon back into their balls and headed up to the back of the class, where his opponent had already started heading over to the space at the back, one of her two pokéballs in hand… Was she not even going to try playing mind games to figure out which pokémon Togami would choose? Or did she think that showing him she’d already made a decision would make him change his own mind about what to pick?

Whatever she was doing, it didn’t seem to bother Togami at all. In fact, he seemed as though he was expecting her to have already chosen, given the smirk that crossed his face as he spotted the ball in her hand and took one of his own out of the sophisticated leather case on his belt.

“You both chosen your pokémon?” The teacher asked them, and the both nodded. “Alright, send them out then!”

“Go… Rufflet!” Togami started with his weaker pokémon…

“Snorunt… Give it your all today!” The other woman called out her weaker pokémon as well, the one with the advantage against flying types…

“Hmpth! As I expected…” Togami smiled, “You gym trainers always leave your strongest pokémon to the end…”

“Yes... Is that not standard?” She asked. Oh please! Battles would be all boring if everyone was that predictable! “And if you expected my ice type, why send out a flyer…?”

“I don’t see the need to risk Drampa getting hurt before facing your Florges.” Togami told her, “Rufflet can deal that thing, easily enough!”

“Hmm… Very well. Let us see then.” She bowed to him, “Battle well, trainer.”

“I always do…” Togami smirked. “Rufflet… Crush Claw!”

“Snorunt… use Frost Breath.”

Togami’s Rufflet was far faster than the stupid little cone, easily grabbing it between its talons and squeezing tight until the thing let out a high-pitched squeal and breathed out a plume of air so cold that it quickly formed lumps of snow and coated the bird with a thick layer of frost.

Both trainers took a moment to survey the effect of their attacks. The Rufflet looked worse for wear, shivering so hard that it had to land roughly on the ground to shake the cold out of its wings, and it already looked as though it was having trouble focusing on its surroundings. But the cone didn’t look too happy either, grasping painfully at several of the holes that the bird had pieced through its yellow hat.

“Snorunt… again!” The woman started straight back on the offensive, probably hoping to knock out the Rufflet with her next attack and have a chance to do damage to Togami’s Drampa… or make it waste a move, at least.

“Rufflet… use Steel Wing.”

There were several gasps around the class as Togami ordered his next attack, and the bird managed to wake up enough to obey him, flying back into the air with wings that now seemed to have a metallic sheen to them, then swooping down and across the side of the Snorunt, slashing deep into it…

“Sn…no…” A small puff of frigid air escaped its mouth as it fell sideways and its trainer quickly recalled it back to its pokéball…

“…I thought you’d teach Steel Wing to your Drampa…” Ishimaru piped up from the back of the room, in a confused voice. “To help it deal with her Florges…”

“I did.” Togami turned around to answer him, “I had two copies of TM51…” He added, after the guy failed to figure out the obvious.

“Ya mean ya bought two of the same TM, just to beat a kid in your own class!?” The biker shouted at him.

“I didn’t have to buy them… I have multiple copies of every TM my pokémon can learn on hand.” Togami corrected him, “And yes… I often rearrange my pokémons’ moves if I know I’m likely to fight a specific opponent… I do have a reputation to keep up, you know!”

“What… so he means he might unlearn Steel Wing, at some point?”, “How much is TM51, anyway?”, “Umm… 10,000 pokédollars…”, “HOLY!”, “Tch! Fucking rich asshole…”, “Alright for some!”, “Hah! If I had that sort of money, of course I’d win all my battles!”

There was a wave of resentment as most of the class probably started wishing they could both be Togami and wipe the floor with his pokémons’ faces at the same time! He really was the perfect rival… just completely unashamed to be throwing about that huge advantage he had over everyone else! Heck, he didn’t even react to all the murmurs about him, he just kept staring forward as if he didn’t give a damn, which he probably didn’t! How good it would be to kick his ass and then take over his company and have so much money that you could just swap your entire battle teams moves around without a care in the world…

“Regardless, it will be of little use against Florges…” The wall of meat at the other end of the room told him, as she called out the giant flower fairy, “…When she uses her Moonblast at full strength…”

“Taking no prisoners, aren’t you…?” Togami commented, “Rufflet, try to use Crush Claw!”

The bird valiantly tried to shake off its coldness and fly across to the fairy, as it rose into the sky and pooled a beam of light into its hands, but unfortunately the fairy finished its preparations first and blasted it out of the sky with a beam of etheral pink light…

“I suppose that was a lot to ask for.” Togami commented, as he called back his bird. “But at least I don’t have to worry about you wasting my time by using Protect against Drampa…”

“Indeed… it had been my plan to force your better pokémon to waste its energy, if possible.” Urrghh… what an annoying fighting style! That’s why Toko liked poison so much, it completely messed with those types... “But it seems instead that it will indeed be a test of speed, as Kirigiri suggested.”

“Yes.” Togami agreed, “Drampa! Come out and use Steel Wing!”

“Florges… use Moonblast again!”

Both pokémon moved quickly, and several people leaned in close to see which pokémon would land their hit first… It could go either way at this point, as the Florges powered up its beam and the Drampa raced over towards it… But just as the Drampa was about to hit the Florges, it managed to shoot the beam of light out at it, making it roar in pain as it flew through the light in order to slash deeply into Florges side…

“Hah! Florges hit first!” That dumb biker whooped, “You got this Oogami! One more hit like that and it’s down!”

Damnit… he was probably right… Both pokémon looked like they couldn’t take another hit like that, so unless Togami’s Drampa had something it could use more quickly than that Florges, it wouldn’t get the chance to hit again! And could Drampa’s even know any of that sort of move…?

“Yeah! Go Sakura!”, “Ahahahah! Money can’t decide everything!”, “It appears Mr. Togami will be engaging in a contemplative drama piece very soon!”, “I knew you could win!”

Almost half the class was starting to cheer as it looked like Togami was about to lose… But he was supposed to be the best trainer ever! He wasn’t going to lose on his first fight in school, was he!? He’d pull out some unexpected move that’d throw everyone off, just like he had done in the first half of the fight, wouldn’t he…?

“Florges… Moonbeam again…” This is was, this would be when Togami threw them all for a loop…

“Drampa… Steel Wing!” Togami said, betraying no hint of worry in his voice whatsoever…

This couldn’t be it… he really didn’t have anything that could beat her…? He sounded like he was sure he could still win, even though it was obvious he’d lost. This was playing out just the same way it had before, with the dragon racing towards the fairy, who was already powering up the beam that would finish it off right as it opened its mouth to bite… Urgh… she couldn’t look! She couldn’t bear to see Togami lose to someone who wasn’t her, not like this!

...

”FLOOORG!”

“What the fuck!?”, “Wha…!? But…!? Moonblast hit first last time!”, “Maybe one of those moves slowed down Florges…? Or sped up Drampa?”, “Umm… no, neither of those moves does that…”

Wait… what were they all talking about…?

Toko looked up from the floor to the ceiling of the classroom, where Togami’s Drampa was calmly flying back towards its owner, as the Florges lay slumped of the floor. Toko barely managed to notice that there was now another deep gash ripped into its side before it disappeared back into is pokéball…

Togami had won!? How…!?

“Congratulations…” The woman was taking it well, “It is rare that I see a pokémon whose speed matches my own exactly… I certainly was not expecting your Drampa to equal my Florges…”

“Well… I guess that explains my 50-50 prediciton…” The kid at the front muttered, “It was pretty much random which one would attack first that time…”

“Well, as Kirigiri over there said, I had Drampa bred for speed…” Togami explained, proudly. “And then I had a rigorous training regime designed to help him improve that speed even further... I’d go as far as to say he is the fastest Drampa its possible to make!”

Hah! Of course he’d done all of that to make sure his Drampa couldn’t be outsped so easily! He really was the best pokémon trainer in the world!

 “Well, course he’s gonna win if he gets to do all of that shit!”, “He got to design his training regime? He didn’t just go find wild pokémon?”, “…Make a pokémon, he says… like they’re toys!”, “His starter was specially bred? I just got Marill from a shelter…”, “I rescued Squirtle from a pond at school!”, “My parents just gave me money and sent me to the store on my birthday… I didn’t get any help raising Popplio…”, “Fucking lucky rich prick…”

…And everyone wanted to be the person who brought him falling to his knees!

Chapter Text

Fucking rich asshole with his breeding bullshit… Was that the sort of shit kids at this school were supposed to be able to pull outta their asses, or was he just going to be the smug kid who did the best at everything...?

Well… at least Mondo had managed to win his fight, although it sucked that it was only ‘cause that kid had been such an idiot… He was gonna have to make sure he caught a pokémon that could deal with all the water types this class had. Assuming he could stop Lycan from knocking out wild ones before he actually got a chance to catch them…

“Well, now that’s all done, hopefully all of you have an idea of where you stand in the class, and maybe even what you should be trying to do next!” Kizakura stood up from the seat he’d been lounging in for most of the lesson. “Now it’s time for you to all have some lunch, and when you get back we’ll start with the actual school stuff and teach you about the dangerous pokémon we got near here…”

And then they’d let him out into the wild areas, right!? And then he could finally get a chance to prove to the gang that he could be just as good as Daiya…!

“…So see you kids in an hour!” The teacher told them, seconds before the bell rang… Mondo liked this guy already!

“Finally! I need some food!” Leon groaned, “Stupid guard stopped me from going into the dining room for a late breakfast…”

“Well, like I said, it’s a good thing! You wanna be able to go out in the wild areas, don’t you?” Mondo reminded him.

“I guess… Although I’m still thinking I’m gonna rock the talent world before I try beating any of the Elite Fours…”

“So, does that mean you’re gonna try and sit with one of the fashion chicks at lunchtime?” If so, Mondo was probably gonna want to find someone else to hang out with, ‘cause he wasn’t listening to them go on about dressing up pokémon or whatever for an hour…”

“Ehh…” Leon looked between Enoshima and Maizono… “I think I’d have to be crazy to go within five foot of Ikusaba…” He sighed, as the Fenrir chick got up and followed Junko like she was one of her pokémon or something… “Whereas Maizono just looks like she’d gonna end up chatting to that dweeb in the hoodie…” He looked pretty hopeful, until said ‘dweeb in the hoodie’ said something to Ishimaru, who nodded and joined them both… “Urgh! And Ishimaru! Screw that, I’ll wait unill after classes, when I’m not wanting to stuff my face anyways!”

Kinda sounded like he was just making excuses to be a lazy ass, but at least it meant Mondo had some company at lunch. It was weird not having his group of guys to hang around and distract him. He’d spent most of yesterday worrying about whether he was actually going to do alright in this place, dreading his first class, and wishing he hadn’t turned down Daiya’s suggestion of phoning up the gang on his last day before classes… even after he’d tried watching TV to take his mind off shit.

The pair of them headed over to the dining room, which was just around the corner from their classroom, and both headed over to the cheap area where they could just take whatever they wanted for free, an arrangement they both took waaaaay to much advantage of, especially after Mondo told Leon that Lycan would happily eat any leftovers on top of his own food, which caused Leon to back and grab some extra stuff ‘just in case’…

Then came the decision of where to sit, which might have been easier if their class wasn’t full of annoyances and weirdos… Oogami and that swimmer chick would have been cool to sit with, but they’d gone and sat with Ishimaru’s group and that purple-haired chick, so they were out. That guy who said he knew the future seemed alright, but he was carrying on that weird conversation he’d had with the fat guy before, and he was following alongside that rich bitch and there was no way Mondo wanted anything to do with her. He wasn’t interested in sitting with Togami or that weird chick who was obsessed with kicking his ass either… Which just left…

“What about Fujisaki?” Leon spotted the apparent pokédex expert sitting alone just as Mondo did…

“Yeah… seems like a good kid.” Mondo agreed, and they headed over to say hi…

“Hey… Fujisaki, right?” Leon started the conversation…

“Hmm… oh, hi Kuwata…” Fujisaki looked up at them, “Ermm! And… Oowada…”

The heck…? Had Oowada done something? The kid’s skin was turning pale…

“Hey! We… though you might like some company…” Mondo explained, trying not to freak the kid out even more.

“Ummm… thanks…? But… I was planning to eat with Souda…” Fujisaki admitted, “And speaking of which, he’s over there, so you guys can have this table if you want!”

“Cool… have fun…” Leon replied, although the kid had pretty much scarpered before he even started saying it…

“…Did I do something…?” Mondo asked, “Or do I just look that scary?”

“I dunno... You guys barely spoké, didn’t you?” Leon looked as confused as Mondo felt, “And you don’t look half as freaky as those guys!” He added, looking over to the table Fujisaki had gone to, where that guy with the tattoo on his face and the one with Bruxish teeth were sat. “Probably just wanted to talk tech stuff with the mechanic dude.”

“I guess… Must be nice to have got a guide that gave a shit…” Mondo commented, as the mechanic pulled out a chair and started introducing Fujisaki to the other kids at his table.

“Or one with the same interests as you…” Leon agreed. “I mean… not that I’m not gonna do sports at all, but Neko’s obsessed with ‘em!”

“Well, whatever, we can deal without that sort of shit, right!?” At least, Mondo hoped he could, “Let’s just take advantage of getting our own table!”

“Right!” Leon agreed, putting his food down, taking his smaller cat off of his shoulders and getting his bigger cat out of its pokéball, then opening up two cans of food for them…

“Can’t you just feed him what you’re having?” Mondo asked, as he put the extra plate of food he’d piled up for Lycanroc on the floor and let him out of his ball, at which point he dove straight into it…

“I wish! This is the only type of food Lux’ll eat! And I don’t mean he only likes this brand, he won’t even try the other flavours!” Leon showed him the can he’d just opened, “Litten’s not so bad, but he still won’t eat anything that’s not specifically cat food…”

“Man… that sounds like a pain…” What the hell did he do if he went somewhere new and that specific brand of food wasn’t in the stores? Or the company stopped making that one flavour? Would his cat starve itself? “Lycan here prefers sharing my food. He gets pissed if I’m eating and don’t share any with him… As you’re about to see!” Mondo added, as Lycan finished his own plate and stood up to start helping himself to some of the stuff on Mondo’s plate as well, going as far to climb up onto his lap to get a better look…

“Well, if he got starved as a puppy…” Leon grimaced, “Gotta say, I don’t think I could deal with looking after a pokémon that had problems like that… I mean, I dunno where I’d even start dealing with that!”

“Gotta admit, a lot of it was just giving him food and space until he learnt to trust me to get close enough to actually look after him even if it freaked him out, like when I have to give him B.A.T.Hes…” Mondo admitted. “But, where did you get your pokémon, then? Like a pet store or…?”

“I caught Litten on holiday in Alola a few weeks ago, and as for Lux…? I think my Dad got him from a breeder…” Leon answered, “Not, like, specially bred just for me or anything! Just one of the ones the breeder was raising routinely… Probably one of the ones someone like Togami didn’t want!”

“Hah! Probably… can you imagine that? Being able to get your pokémon tailor-made, like it’s a piece of furniture…?”

“I dunno… Seems like it’d take the fun out of raising ‘em…” He frowned, “But, seems like it’s pretty important… Or being part of Gym means squat, eh?”

Smartass… just ‘cause Mondo had been sure Oogami would trounce Togami…  And who’s to say she wouldn’t have, if she’d been allowed her usual items and stuff? “…Ya can’t…”

“HEY! What did you just say, you asshole!?” Oh, great! It was that pipsqueak yakuza again… “Just ‘cause his dumb gang is a bunch of losers, doesn’t mean all Gyms are!”

“The fuck are you talking about!?” Mondo clamped a hand on Lycan’s shoulder and pushed him off of his lap, both to stop him from lunging at the asshole and to help Mondo stand up and tower over him all the more quickly, “I already told you, my Gym could kick your ass any day of the week!”

“What, even though you apparently lost your first fight here!?” He smirked, “What was it? That tiny dweeb with the Blastoise?"

Oh… so that’s why he’d thought to come over and start talking shit… “No… I won against that kid with the Blastoise.”

“Don’t try and give me that shit! If you’d won your fight, why’s he talking shit about it!?” He pointed at Leon.

“Dude… I was talking about Oogami…” Leon explained, “’Cause Oowada had been talking like ‘She’s part of a good Gym, she’s gonna win for sure!’”

“Wait… Oogami lost!?” He looked pretty shocked by that news, “Damn… I didn’t think that Crobat looked that strong…”

“What… Kirigiri’s one? I dunno about that…” It was hard to tell when she’d ended up fighting that idiot… “Oogami was against Togami and his specially-bred, ‘fastest Drampa possible’!”

“You’re kidding… His dragon beat her fairy…? Damnit… I can’t just let that stand, or they’ll probably start up with all that ‘Corporate Gym’ bullshit again!”

“Uhh…Corporate Gym…?” Leon asked.

“Yeah… Togami Corp and a few other companies tried to start their own set of Gyms… their argument was that they could make the process more standard by breeding pokémon that were all the same and send them to different places, so it didn’t matter where you were getting your badge from, it’d all be the same.” Mondo explained, “It got shot down ‘cause people were worried they’d start abusing the opportunity to advertise, or maybe even charge people for trying out for a badge eventually…”

“Huh… I heard it’d been shot down ‘cause they were insinuating that traditional badges might not be as ‘worthy’ as their ones, and there was a chance pokémon wouldn’t respect the old badges if they introduced new ones, which would cause total chaos…” The Yakuza argued.

“I’m surprised they didn’t throw it out just ‘cause it sounds fucking miserable!” Leon sighed, “Isn’t half the fun of the badges getting to see different Gyms and see what their themes and leaders are like? Can you imagine replacing all that with soulless corporate crap? It’d suck!”

“Well, either way, it’s kind of a shitty idea all round…” Mondo summarised.

“No shit… but that’s not stopping them from trying… And if they hear the Togami brat can beat the second-in-command at Dendemille, then they’re gonna start using that as an excuse to say their companies would be better than us!” He groused, “Guess I’m gonna have to show ‘em myself then…”

“Well, hope you’ve got a good Ice-type, man!” Leon gave him a thumbs up.

“No… But Drampa’s half Normal-type and Pangoro’s a fighter…” He smirked, “Plus, I can teach my Floatzel Ice Beam, in case I need an extra boost… Ivysaur’s probably not going to manage much though…”

Another guy who apparently had the money to throw at using TMs whenever he wanted… Sounded like he had a good shot at winning… but then again, so had Oogami…

“Well… word of advice: Don’t let on that you’re gonna challenge him!” Mondo warned him, “He must have burned 20 grand teaching Steel Wing to both his pokémon, ‘cause he figured he’d be pitted again Oogami at some point…”

“20 grand? For two lots of that TM?” The Yakuza seemed to think it was funny, “What, doesn’t your little gang get given better rates? I know good Gyms do!”

Goddamnit… Mondo had just quoted the price Fujisaki had spouted earlier, it’s not like he’d know how much TMs cost! “Well… I ain’t the one who buys shit for us! Daiya’ll be getting a better rate than that…”

“So only your leader ever handles orders? Hah! You guys really are a bunch of small-timers!” He laughed, “And I don’t need your shitty advice either! I’ll kick Togami’s ass fair-and-square! Hell, I’ve even go challenge him now, so he’s got plenty of time to prepare for it!”

“Your funeral, Dude!” Leon shrugged as he left.

Meanwhile Mondo was seething… One stupid thing he hadn’t known and that asshole had used it as a reason to call his whole gang ‘small-time’, even after all the effort he and Daiya had put in to help kids like themselves learn to care for pokémon, not to mention all the pokémon they’d rescued and raised as well…

And he’d even come straight over here as soon as he’d thought he could laugh at Mondo for losing a fight… was that how this whole ‘school’ thing was gonna be? Every fucking thing Mondo did wrong was gonna make the Crazy Diamonds look like they completely sucked? Damnit! What the hell was gonna happen if it got to the ‘proper school part’ now and Mondo wasn’t able to keep up with everyone else? Was it gonna seem like everyone in the whole gang was an idiot!?

“You… uhh… you gonna sit down?” Leon asked, carefully, while the Yakuza was yelling at an incredibly uninterested looking Togami…

“Yeah, sure.” Mondo sat down. Wouldn’t do to look like that shrimp had actually pissed him off, even though he had. “Chill, Lycan, have another sausage…” He added, once he noticed that his dog was stood glaring off at the mobster.

Not that just saying that helped, in the end Mondo had to physically pick up a sausage and wave it in his face to get him to calm down enough for Mondo to loosen his grip on his shoulder, at which point he got back in Mondo’s lap, saw there was no food left on his plate and started clambering over the tabletop to see what food Leon had leftover…

“Your pokémon shouldn’t be climbing over the tables like that!” Geez, today was just full of interruptions from people who pissed him off! Now it was that fricken nerd who’d snapped at him for being late… “It’s unhygienic and disrespectful! Not to mention I’m sure the types of food you're eating isn’t suitable for canine con…”

“Where’s your pokémon?” Leon cut him off, “You made him sit through class, but he doesn’t get to eat?”

“Arcanine’s pokéball is available for him to go into whenever he wants, but he prefers to sit quietly with me instead when I’m studying, most of the time.” Ishimaru explained, smugly. “And adult canines have a large enough stomach that they’re best fed twice a day, eating at lunchtime would make it difficult for him to digest his food!”

“Lycan eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and he’s never had trouble…” Mondo argued.

“Well… It may be that’s he’s less sensitive to it than most dogs…” Ishimaru agreed while getting ready to argue about it again, “But I can assure you that the Nurse I spoké to said most dogs deal best when given two main meals a day, with the occasional treat throughout… and that food meant for humans isn’t suitable for them at all!”

Hah! If he did that to Lycan, the guy would think he was getting starved and panic… “Well, Lycan ain’t most dogs! He’s a wolf for starters!” Mondo snapped, “So how’s about you just worry about your own pokémon, and I’ll take care of mine?”

“…Very well… but your pokémon still shouldn’t be on top of the table!” He snapped, “There are rules against it in the student handbook!”

God, what a fucking pain in the ass this guy was… “Who the hell cares, it ain’t like people eat straight off of the damn table!”

“But they put their cutlery dow…”

Brrriiiinnnnggggg!”

Ishimaru tutted as he was cut off by the bell. “That’s the ten-minute warning… I was planning to be in class by now!” He glared at Mondo as if it was his fault the busybody had hung around to bitch at him.

“Well, ya got ten minutes, dude, ain’t like you’ll need to run there...” Leon shrugged, slowly finishing off the second burger he’d picked up for himself.

“…Aren’t you two… worried about getting to class on time…?” Ishimaru hovered at the table to talk to them, “And having time to prepare your stationary and books…?”

“We don’t need ten minutes to walk around a corner and get a pen outta our pockets…” Mondo rolled his eyes. Hell, he didn’t even have any books! “But if you do, maybe you should get going…”

“Yeah… Only nine minutes left now!” Leon smirked, “Tick, tock, dude…”

Ishimaru tutted and gave them a sideway glare as he quickly stomped away.

Still, the ten-minute warning was useful. It gave him and Leon time to finish of the last of their food (or throw it to an ecstatic Lycan) before they needed to get up and into the classroom, seconds before the real bell went off and about half a minute before Kizakura arrived less late than before. Much to a rather pissed off nerd’s annoyance.

“Alright kiddos…” He started, holding up a stack of papers, “Now, rather than us try and teach all of you the exact same way and fail miserably because you’re all good at different things, we’re going to start off the year with some little tests to work out what you’re good at, so we can split you off into different classes when needed…”

Guurrggghh… He shoulda known he wouldn’t be able to start a new school without having to do a set of damn tests so they could see exactly how stupid he was and dump him in the ‘special’ kids’ class with all the other dumbasses and fuck-ups!

…But if that happened here, then he’d never hear the end of it from that fucking Yakuza… and if word got out that Mondo had to be put with the dumbasses, maybe everyone outside of this school would use it as an excuse to give the Diamonds a ton of shit…

“This test will be about your knowledge of pokémon!” He started distributing the tests… Well, at least Mondo was pretty good at that! Maybe with this being a pokémon school, he wouldn’t be considered at total write off! “And it has to be completed from your own memory! So no books, pokédexes, computers or pokémon, Ishimaru.” He nodded at the nerd, who’d surrounded himself with a wall of books and had his dog sitting by his side again…

“My apologies… I wasn’t aware we were having a test!” Ishimaru hurried to put all the books he’d got out back in his bag…

“That’s because we didn’t want you spending lunchtime trying to cram information you won’t remember next week into your brains.” Kizakura shrugged.

“…Still unnecessary to bar us from the library all weekend…” Togami grumbled loudly.

Damn… it hadn’t even occurred to Mondo to try studying… But did he really need to? After all, this was just about pokémon, and he was around them all the damn time! How hard could it be?

“Alright then…” The teacher started, once everyone had packed all their shit up and Ishimaru had coaxed his dog into its ball, “You have thrity minutes! Time starts… now!”

Right, let’s see what they wanted here… fill in the type advantage chart? He could do that in his sleep, and it barely took him five minutes! So much for needing half an hour! Now he could just sit back and watch as these other guys… Started turning to the next page in the test…

Oh goddamnit! He shoulda known this wouldn’t be so easy! Still, Diamonds were formed under pressure, right...? He flipped over and looked at the next few pages, most of which were pictures of different pokémon with a sentence at the top…

‘Name these pokémon, describe their habitat and comment on their general uses.’

Geez… was he really supposed to know the names of all… what was it these days, 750 pokémon? Without a pokédex!? Let alone where the hell they lived!? He’d never even seen half of these! And it wasn’t like anyone would study them all, if they weren’t local ones, was it!? No one had a memory like that, did they…?

Urg… Seemed like a lot of the class did! Ishimaru was frantically filling in the form, Togami was also looking pretty hurried as he filled in the columns, Yamada was confidentially writing down all the names… Hell, the only person not writing something down was Fujisaki, who had frozen up in panic at the crazy hard test…

Damnit… Well, Mondo had better do his best not to look like a dumbass… Else everyone would think the Crazy Diamonds were just a whole Gym of them!

He went down the rows, trying to remember fights he’d had with each one, where he’d actually been at the time, what names the kids had been shouting when he’d fought them... plus for a few of the more obvious ones he was able to put down if they were better suited for close up attacks, long range attacks or setting up clever tactics… but there were still a lot of empty spaces and stuff he wasn’t even half-sure of…

“Alright class… time’s up!” Kizakura announced, while Mondo was staring at the paper and trying to rack his brain for something else to put down on it… Still, at least it was over. Hopefully they’d get to the point of the day where Mondo actually got to learn something useful from all of this soon…

“Next, we’ll have a history and general knowledge test. Still no pokédexes or computers out! You have thirty minutes!”

Well, fuck! So much for that… it was just another test for those smartasses to show off with!

Still, general knowledge shouldn’t be so bad! He and Daiya had been travelling around all over the place since he was nine! He was bound to have picked up stuff, even if he hadn’t exactly been able to go to school reliably since Daiya got them away from home…

Let’s see…

‘When was the earliest discovered pokémon? What was the earliest domesticated pokémon? When was the first pokéball developed? Describe the additional effects of up to five Z-moves…’

Well… he’d seen a few Z-moves used in Alola, so he could do that one, but…

‘Name the photographer who caught Mew on camera? What is said to haunt the Old Chateau near Eterna City? What was Cyrus of Team Galatic’s stated goal?  Which region contains the most different varieties of wild pokémon? Which region contains the greatest number of pokémon? Which pokémon are most commonly found in Haina Desert…?’

Alright, so there was one more he knew! (You couldn’ t walk ten meters without running into a Sandile and he still hadn’t managed to catch any!) But most of this shit was stuff Mondo didn’t have the foggiest clue about… Who was supposed to know all this random crap? Was this the sort of thing that got taught in schools? Probably, ‘cause it seemed like most of the class were managing to put some shit down for most of the questions… He really had some catching up to do…

He managed to answer maybe twenty of the hundred questions on the test, and some of them were guesses! Please let that be the last test!

“…Next test will be maths! We will provide a basic calculator for this test, so still no pokédexes or software devices.”

Fuck. He shoulda guessed there’d be a fucking maths test! It wasn’t like every goddamn school Daiya had managed to get him into for more than a week hadn’t instantly bitched at him for being shit at it…

...Well, it started off easily enough, with a page that just contained some adding and multiplication and useful shit like ‘if you have 5000 pokédollars and burn heals cost 200 pokédollars, how much change should you get if you buy 3 burn heals?’… then it got a bit harder, with questions about fractions and those numbers that were written with a little number above and to the right of them that he didn’t think anyone had ever explained to him. Then there was the sort of ‘2x = 4y, solve for x’ stuff that had been the point he’d just decided that maths was full of crap. After all, what was the point of learning how to solve fake sums?

But… he couldn’t just sit here and only do one and a half pages of sums! Everyone else had managed at least the third one, and some of them were even flipping to the fourth and fifth pages, and he could hear Ishimaru tapping wildly at his calculator all the way back here!

Maybe he’d get lucky and the later parts would make more sense…

‘Useful formulas

The currently accepted equation for determining pokémon damage is:

((((2 x Level) / 5) x Power x A/D) / 50) + 2) x Modifier’

…What. The. Hell. Did any of that mean? Was ‘level’ meaning how strong the pokémon was? How were you supposed to give a number to that? And what the hell was A/D? It didn’t even say, it just went straight into more shit like…

Where Modifier = Targets x Weather x STAB x a bunch of other shit…

Urgh… he always thought targeting more pokémon made the attack weaker per pokémon, and he knew the weather could effect some moves, but what the hell was STAB supposed to be!? And the whole page was like this, all full of letters and terms he’d never heard of! There was no way Mondo was gonna understand this shit in half an hour… Maybe he’d have better luck with the next page…?

...The fuck was this shit? ‘Ignoring IVs, EVs and critical hits, if a fire-type with attack of 90 uses a 100% accurate, power 65, physical, fire-type move against a similar level an ice-steel type with 110 defence and 125 health, roughly many hits would it take to knock out the ice-steel type?’ And that wasn’t even the whole fucking question, parts B and C were ‘would it be worth that same fire type spending one turn to lower the ice-steel types defence by one stage?’ and ‘Would the answer to part be B different if the fire type move was only 50% accurate?’ How the fuck was he supposed to work out that shit!? And how was it supposed to help in a battle!? What was he supposed to do, grab a calculator in the middle of a fight and make the other guy wait ‘cause he wanted to work out the maths!? Nobody fucking DID that! This was BULLSHIT!

“This is bullshit…” At least Leon knew what was up… “Ice-Steel type? There’s no such fucking thing!”

Wait… that was his problem!? It wasn’t even true! That Sandshrew Michi had caught in Alola was Ice-Steel type…

…And most of the time it couldn’t even take a single hit from a Flame Wheel before fainting, although sometimes it took two if Michi got lucky… Was that power 65? It was kind of a powerful move, but not overly, so… 1-2 then?

…And that answered part B, cause using leer on it first didn’t do squat when it went down in two hits anyway!

But what if Flame wheel missed half the time? Then leer would change it from four attacks down to two… then it would be worth spending a turn! Hah!

Still that was all assuming Michi’s Sandshrew had that defence and health... And it wasn’t like he could just guess his way through every question on this test based on experience…

But he had to at least try to do well on this shit! And he wasn’t going to be able to do jack with the x’s and y’s and tiny numbers!

He rushed through a few examples, hoping the numbers they’d picked had some basis in reality so his answers wouldn’t be completely wrong, before time was called again...

Now what the fuck were they gonna put him through…?

Chapter Text

“Well, now that’s all the tests done, we can get to the fun part of the lesson!” The asshole running this shit announced. Although Mondo didn’t wanna know what his idea of fun was after all that shit… “…Or we could, if Snap was actually here yet…”

‘Snap’? What the hell was ‘Snap’? It sounded like the nickname for a pokémon that bit people… like a Carnivine or something?

“Snap? You mean Theodore Snap?” Ishimaru seemed to have something else in mind, “The photographer who took a picture of Mew!?”

“Yeah… that’s the one…” Kizakura agreed. Great, now they said it! And they were even gonna have a class taught by him, just to rub it in Mondo’s face that he hadn’t know the name of the guy! Assuming he actually bothered to show up, that was! Maybe he wouldn’t! Mondo would bet his bike that with a name like ‘Theodore’ he was probably some stuck up, rich asshole! Maybe he’d paid to go on a big, ten-year long expedition to catch Mew and only managed to get a shitty picture of it instead, then pretended that was his whole goal in the first place! Yeah, that seemed like the sort of bullshit rich people with too much time on their hands would…

“Except, no one calls me Theodore!” A slightly muffled voice suddenly came from above them all… “The name’s Todd!”

Huh… so… his name was Todd, he sounded about thirty years younger than Mondo had been imaging, and he was currently… in the ceiling? Good thing Mondo hadn’t actually bet his bike…

“Err… My apologies, sir…?” Ishimaru shouted, looking around confused as to where the voice was coming from.

“…You mind telling me what you’re doing in the crawlspace, Todd?” Kizakura sighed, like this was normal for the guy.

“Sure! I’m taking pictures of these three Charjabugs you’ve got up here! I’m getting some great shots of them putting electricity into these wires! Wait’ll you see the pictures!”

“What!? Pretty sure there aren’t supposed to be any pokémon up there, let alone Charjabugs…” The teacher groaned, “You mind knocking them out bringing them down here, Todd?”

“I do, actually! You know I think pokémon look better in the wild!” The guy in the ceiling snapped.

“That’s not ‘the wild’ though… if you bring them down, we’ll put ‘em out outside so they can bury themselves like they’re supposed to… And there’d be stuff for them to actually eat…”

“Hmm… that’s a good point!” Todd replied, “But that doesn't change the fact that I don’t have any pokémon, now does it?”

“Of course you don’t…” He slapped his forehead, while a few of the class muttered in surprise. “Well, guess I’ll have to call maintenance, unless one of you two shorties wants to go up into the crawlspace and get them out for me! Hah!”

The kid in the hoodie looked slightly offended, but laughed along anyway. But the smaller kid was actually thinking about it… “Umm… actually? Can I go? I’ve been thinking I could do with a source of power for some of my computers… And if I give Golett a potion, it should be able to manage three Charjabugs…”

Wow! Props to Fujisaki for being willing to get dirty hands…

“But… going into the ceiling to fight pokémon? That doesn’t sound safe!” Of course Ishimaru was the one to be a killjoy! “Not to mention, should Mr Snap be that close to wild pokémon if he’s not got any of his own to protect him!?”

“Eh… he’s been doing this for years, he knows the risks…” Kizakura told him. “As for you going up there Fujisaki… Really, I’m not supposed to let you near wild pokémon until after you’ve had the safety talk…”

“Didn’t you just say this isn’t ‘the wild’?” Todd shouted down from the ceiling, “Wouldn’t that mean these aren’t wild pokémon?”

“You know what I mean, Todd…”

“Aww, c’mon Koichi! It’s the first day of school, let the kids have some fun!” He pleaded. “I’ll be right here to make sure nothing happens!”

The teacher looked between the ceiling and Fujisaki a few times, “Alright, go ahead…” He sighed, “Todd, how’d you get up there!?”

“Hmm… give me a minute and I’ll show you!”

The class waited with curious excitement, except for Fujisaki who was giving the Golett a potion and sorting out a large bunch of pokéballs (Geez… how much money did the kid have to spend on those…?) and Kizakura, who had started looking though the test papers already, which made Mondo want to throw up…

And then suddenly there was a noise from the ceiling, and several members of the class pointed to a panel that was being lifted up and moved aside before a rope dropped down onto the floor between Leon’s and Hagakure’s desks. Then, almost as quickly, it was followed by a pair of worn brown hiking boots, lighter brown cargo shorts, a green case and a pink and purple striped T-shirt…

“Hi, kids!” Todd Snap announced as he landed on the floor with a thud, and brushed his wavy red bangs out of his face… yeah, that wasn’t what Mondo had been imagining at all! He’d been expecting some old, fat, pale explorer with a stupid moustache or something. Instead this guy looked about the same age as Daiya, with a clean-shaven face and obviously weather beaten skin. Hell, if he’d put the red hair up into a pomp instead of just having it hang around the sides of his face, and changed out of those dorky clothes, he’d fit right with the Crazy Diamonds.

“So… you stood on one of the desks, knocked aside the ceiling panel and then used a grappling hook to climb up?” Kirigiri asked him.

“Yep! You’d be surprised what sort of pokémon you can find when you go looking in odd places! That’s why you have to be careful when you’re exploring new places! Speaking of which, which one of you is it who wants to go up?”

“Umm… that’d be me!” Fujisaki replied, standing up and self-consciously walking through the tables to get to him.

Todd looked over Fujisaki and the Golett. “Well, you should be small enough to fight up there! Do you want to climb up or hitch a lift?”

“Umm… A lift, please…” Fujisaki answered, looking at a patch of floor in the opposite direction from Mondo and Leon.

Huh… was the kid ashamed of not being able to climb a rope? But he wouldn’t have expected a computer programmer to be able to do that in the first place…

“Sure thing,” Todd crouched down with his back facing Fujisaki, “Hang on around my shoulders and I’ll have you up there in a jiffy!”

Fujisaki nodded and grabbed on like Todd had said, at which point the photographer started climbing up the robe and they both disappeared into the crawlspace…

“Alright… they’re just over there! Now, you go get ‘em!” Mondo could still hear Todd’s voice through the hole in the ceiling, “And don’t mind me! Pretend I’m not here!”

“Umm… okay…?” Mondo barely heard Fujisaki’s confused reply, “Golett! Go!”

…What followed was a series of crashing noises from the ceiling above them, separated with Fujisaki’s quiet orders and Todd enthusiastically commenting on how great it all looked, before Fujisaki decided to throw a pokéball and there was a moment of silence…

“Aww! I thought you had him!” Todd shouted, as presumably the pokémon broke free of the ball, which meant Fujisaki would have to… “Try the next ball!”

In the end, it took five pokéballs, and two more potions for the Golett, but Fujisaki managed to catch the first Charjabug and then knock out the next two like Kizakura had asked before being carried back down the rope by Todd.

Damnit! It always looked so easy whenever anyone else caught pokémon! Why the fuck did Mondo keep screwing it up!?

Then again, Fujisaki had taken up about ten pokéballs, and from the sounds of it the Golett had actually hung back and let the kid try to actually throw more than one of them, unlike Lycan who’d usually get over-aggressive and knock it out after the first try… He needed to get Lycan to quit doing that… and maybe save up enough cash to buy more than the one or two pokéballs he usually went hunting with… And then maybe he’d be the one being surrounded by people asking him to get his brand new pokémon out of its ball…

“That’s a Charjabug? I’ve never seen one before!” Asahina cooed from behind Fujisaki, waving her pokédex. “Do you mind if I scan it?”

“Umm… Sure!” Fujisaki shrugged.

“While you’re at it, could I scan your Golett?” Naegi asked, “Yours is the only one I’ve ever seen.”

“Well… alright!” Fujisaki agreed.

“May I also scan your pokémon!?” Ishimaru stood up with his own pokédex in hand…

“Oh! Well…” Fujisaki looked pretty embarrassed by all the attention…

“Like, I suppose I ought to start filling in my pokédex at some point…?”

“Yamada, go and scan Fujisaki’s pokémon for me…”

“Oh hey! I haven’t got either of those pokémon either!”

“Umm!” Fujisaki looked a little overwhelmed at the number of requests. “I know! How about I have Golett carry Charjabug over to everyone in the class, so you can all look at both of them if you want!”

Well, that was a pretty cool idea, it gave Fujisaki a chance to breath without getting crowded by everyone, and let Mondo scan the two pokémon without admitting he actually needed to… Not that he’d never seen either before, but when getting challenged for a badge was a pretty shitty time to whip out your pokédex and beg to scan something like a scrub…

And by the time the little stone man had waddled over the classroom, Todd was done setting up a projector pointed at a big screen at the front of the room…

“Alright, kids! Welcome to your first class- Dangerous pokémon around Hope’s Peak!” Todd started enthusiastically, “The plan is that I show you some pictures I’ve taken of the wild areas that you guys are allowed in and point out the main dangers in each one!”

“Err… before you start, sir, could I ask if the presentation contains any pictures of ahh…” Ishimaru paused for a moment, then quickly wrote something down and handed it out to Todd, “…this pokémon?”

“Yeah… I’ve got some great ones! Wonderful guys, they are!” Todd grinned, then his face fell as he looked at Ishimaru. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“No… I will need to make Arcanine get back into his ball though.” Ishimaru told him, “Sorry… you can see what’s school’s normally like tomorrow, alright?” He added, to the dog.

It whined disappointedly, but got in the ball without even trying to argue.

“Alright… but while we’re on the subject, do any of you have any specific pokémon that would frighten you if a picture came up?”

“I... I’m scared of Sableyes…” Fukawa admitted.

“Umm… I’ve got a list…” Fujisaki admitted, writing out several lines on a piece of paper and handing it to Todd.

“Well, there’s no Sableyes outside of the caves, and you guys don’t get to access them for another year…” Todd told Fukawa, then checked over the list. “And there’s none of these either!”

“Really!? None of them!?” Fujisaki sounded surprised. Did the kid have a fear of something common then… maybe something like Beedrills or Combees, those were pretty common fears…

“None that I was able to see, anyway!” Todd added, “I can’t guarantee there’s absolutely none of them, but they’re certainly not a common sight!”

“Thank you!” Fujisaki sounded ecstatic.

“I don’t fear any pokémon…” Togami started, “And I’m only going to need to be aware of any pokémon in the area that are able to get through a Class 7 protective suit with carbon air filtration and are capable of beating a level 50 Drampa…”

“No, Togami, you need to know about all the dangerous pokémon in the area!” Kizakura stopped him bragging about all his fancy shit, “Regardless of how powerful your pokémon is!”

“Err… is that really the case?” Ishimaru asked, with his hand up, “I mean… If we’re carrying more than enough healing items and curatives, than a stronger pokémon would be able to deal with much greater threats than a weaker one, wouldn’t it? You’d just have to make sure you healed it often and turned back when half of your curatives had been depleted!”

“Well, you’re right that you’ll be safer with a strong team and plenty of items, Ishimaru…” Kizakura admitted, “But that strategy wouldn’t keep you perfectly safe. You might run into something stronger on the way back, for starters. Or you might just stumble onto something more dangerous than your pokémon can deal with and it gets knocked out.”

“Umm… but you could avoid that by making sure you scan any areas you’re about to go into for dangerous pokémon, couldn’t you?” Fujisaki asked, “And you could start heading home once you’d used a tenth of your items, not a half…”

“Alright… I can tell what you kids are thinking!” Todd stepped up with the projector remote in hand, “You’re imagining there’s some kind of great set up you can have that’ll protect you from everything out there, right? Some list of items that you can carry that means you never have to worry again! But here’s an example… Imagine you’re in a forest, with all the supplies you think you’ll need and more, when suddenly, you come across this little beauty!”

The projector slide clicked onto a picture that Mondo almost assumed must have been faked, except that it just looked so fucking real… A shimmering rainbow coated the bottom of the photo, standing out from a backdrop of a starry night’s sky, and dancing around in the middle of it all was a light-pink mousey looking pokémon with large feet and a long tail…

Wow… that was what Mew looked like!? Dammit, no one had ever said it looked that fucking cute! It’d be awesome to be able to get close to that and pet it or cuddle it up and…

“...Only it scampers off just after you spot it!” Todd carried on, “Do you follow after it?”

“Yes!” Exclaimed the whole class.

“Of course you do! Who wouldn’t!?” Todd laughed, “So you follow it deeper into the forest, and you’re having to fight off wild pokémon as you go, but you keep seeing it pop up out of bushes, always just ahead of you… Do you carry on chasing it…?”

“Yes!” Of course he fucking would that thing was adorable!

“Okay, so you swear you’re starting to catch up to it, when it starts running through poisonous bushes… Are you still chasing it?”

“Yes!” After all, he always had some way of curing poison on him, right?

“Alright… you keep chasing it deeper into the forest, but suddenly there’s more wild pokémon and they manage to knock out all of yours! But Mew is right there… Do you keep going?”

“Yes!”

“Alright… you keep going, and there’s more poisonous bushes, and you think you’re starting to run out of poison cures, and you don’t see any berries nearby either… But Mew is so close! Keep going?”

“Yes!”

“Alright… well, you used the last of your poison cures, but you manage to get close enough to Mew that it looks at you for a few seconds, before teleporting away…” The picture changed to one of the same backdrop, except there were just a few speckles of glitter in the space Mew had been…

“Goddamnit!” Mondo growled, and several of the rest of the class sighed and grumbled as well…

“Now then… Can anyone, other than Yamada, tell me what situation they’re now in? If this had actually happened?” Todd asked them all, “How about you, Ishimaru?”

“Well… I failed to get a chance to study Mew and I’m now… somewhere in a forest… without a pokémon… and no pecha berries… and I have to go back through poisonous bushes… and probably more wild pokémon…” Ishimaru started answering slower and slower as he realised exactly how screwed over he’d… hell, they’d all be if that had actually happened to them, “I’d be completely doomed…”

“I’d have gone out wearing my Togami-brand poison resistant suit, which would have been unaffected by the buses…” Togami hadn’t got the point…

“Alright then, a member of Team Skull was following Mew as well, and he mugs you for all your stuff!” Kizakura told him, barely looking up from the test papers, irritably.

“That’s incredibly unlikely!” Togami snapped.

“But it could happen! Or you run into Hypno’s that convince you to part with your stuff!” Todd countered, “What we’re saying is that pokémon can do weird things and you can’t rely always having the right thing on hand to help! And you can’t necessarily rely on area reports and scanners either! You need to keep your wits about you as well! Otherwise you could end up walking stupidly into something that kills you, because you don’t know how to survive by- or know what to look out for- yourselves! So that’s why, for the sake of this lesson, I want you to imagine that it’s just you, by yourself, with absolutely nothing. Ok?”

The class nodded, although in Togami’s case it was more like he rolled his eyes at the guy.

“Great! So, I’m going to show you some awesome pictures I’ve taken area here recently, and asking you guys questions about them! Starting off… what do I need to worry about here?”

The slide clicked again and showed a path into a forest area lined with trees and the occasional brightly coloured flower, including one that was red with white spots…

“Vileplume! On the left!” Mondo shouted instinctively, before remembering that he wasn’t riding his bike and needing to warn the rest of the gang about dangers like that at the moment…

“Good spot! That’s the sort of reaction you want to be having!” Todd pointed enthusiastically at him, “A lot of dangerous pokémon ate good at hiding, if you’re not paying attention to them… Being on the lookout for dangerous ones can help you stay safe! In this case, you can avoid startling the Vileplume by turning of any loud vehicles or equipment you have with you and walking slowly past it, preferably keeping a good distance away from it…”

Most of the class was nodding along, although a few were writing down the advice he’d just given and a couple were rolling their eyes at the obviousness of it…

“…But that would have made for a pretty boring photograph, so I whacked it with a pesterball!” Todd grinned like a maniac and went to the next slide…

The next picture was the same scene, probably taken from a few steps further forwards, except that the Vileplume was now stood up out of the ground and shooting a thick cloud of poisonous spores into the air... and this guy had done that on purpose? And then stopped to take a picture of it!? Mondo would have just covered his mouth and ran!

“You carry pesterballs, but not pecha berries!?” Ishimaru cried from the front of the class.

“I can’t warn you guys about the dangers of pokémon if I don’t show you how dangerous they can actually be now, can I?” Todd smiled in the face of Ishimaru’s shock. “Now… Vileplumes are pretty slow, and don’t usually move at all, so they protect themselves by emitting toxic spores that makes anything that stays in their territory for too long faint… and as you can see here, they react to anything they think is an immediate danger by shooting a thick cloud of these spores into the air, which can kill you if you breathe them all in!” He explained, turning more serious again. “But… just because I startled it doesn’t mean I was a goner, obviously! So, what should I do in this situation… Anyone…?” Tood looked around, and saw that Ikusaba had raised her hand, “You!”

“You could block the spores by throwing something over the top of the Vileplume’s flower, such as your shirt. That should reduce the toxicity of the air enough for you to engage it.” Fucking hell, Ikusaba was even crazier than Todd…

“…Engage it!?” Todd stared at her, “You think you could beat up a Vileplume, with no pokémon?”

“Ikusaba’s from Fenrir, she might actually be able to…” Kizakura told him.

“Oh… right… those guys…” Todd nodded in understanding, “Well… I was looking for ideas that would be doable by someone without that sort of training… Anyone…? You, the guy who spotted it! What’s your name?”

“Mondo Oowada…” Mondo told him, having a feeling that he’d now made himself the guy to be asked for answers, which probably meant he’d end up looking stupid pretty easily…

“Alright, Oowada… What would you do in that situation?” Todd pretty much confirmed his fears.

“…I’d just hold my breath and leg it.” Mondo admitted, after trying to think of something cleverer.

“Exactly!” Todd nodded enthusiastically… so that was right!? “The spores don’t travel far and need to be breathed in to hurt you, so you should to cover your mouth and get away from them as fast as possible!”

“Well, duh!” Enoshima muttered sarcastically, “That’s just common sense!”

“Well, a lot of this is just common sense!” Todd shrugged, “Common sense and good reaction times have probably got me out of a hundred dangerous situations!”

Huh… Common sense and good reactions? Mondo might not be up to snuff with maths, but he had both of those in spades! Maybe this was his chance to make the gang look good again!

Chapter Text

“Of course, you still have to know about Vileplume’s toxic spores in order to know that it’s dangerous and you should run from it.” Kizakura interrupted Mondo’s internal triumph at actually getting some questions right at school for once.

“That’s right! Not everyone grew up near a forest and was warned about them!” Todd agreed. “Which is why I’m showing you that there’s one on the way into Hope’s Peaks’ forest section, and what to do if it gets angry, so we can be sure that you’ll all be aware of it and know what to do when you pass by it!”

“Well, I guess you gotta make sure none of the idiots can sue you if they do something dumb and die, or whatever…” Enoshima muttered.

“Well… that’s one way of thinking of it…” Todd pulled a face at her, “So, to carry on with my lesson, once I’d got that great photo of Vileplume defending itself, I decided to turn around and see what’s in the grassier side of Hope’s Peak until it calmed down… Now, it’s a bit safer in that part, herds of farm pokémon, lots of flower types, a few small mammals and birds, a combee hive… nothing that’ll be dangerous if you don’t antagonise it first, and if you do antagonise it, running away will usually save you.”

That sounded pretty boring, he’d probably skip going there if there was nothing particularly scary or anything…

“But you do need to be careful about these!” Todd moved the projector onto a picture of a swarm of Scyther…

And there was a clatter from the front of the class as Ishimaru suddenly ducked his head below the table and crossed his left arm under his right one…

“…Ishimaru? Are you sure this isn’t a problem for you…?” Todd asked him, anxiously.

“Ah…?” Ishimaru slowly raised his head back up, “Err… I’m sorry! It’s a just a habit I trained myself to do when I was younger, and that picture was more realistic than I expected! Please continue!”

“If you’re sure…” Todd looked at him cautiously before continuing. “Now, Scyther are very territorial, so it’s best not to follow them around or they’ll get angry and attack you as a group. However they’ll also attack if they see the colour red, which is especially important to you two with the red eyes! Either wear shades when you’re out there or get ready to cover your eyes when you hear them swarming!” He was looking mostly at Ludenberg when he said that, probably because it was obvious that Ishimaru was well aware of it. “Plus, you back there with the red hair, make sure you’re wearing a hood or hat to cover it! And to the rest of you, also keep in mind that it’s a bad idea to wear red in the fields, and I don’t know what Professor Oak was thinking when he designed them, but most pokédexes are red as well, so it’s a good idea to put yours in a case or paint it.”

“Also, I’m just going to add that the Scyther territory has a fence all around it, so you can’t accidentally stumble into it, and the school has protective uniforms available for to give to anyone who wants to go in there and try to catch one.” Kizakura piped up.

Hmm… Scyther were pretty badass looking, but a bug type wasn’t going to help with all the water types in this class, and picking a pokémon that obviously freaked out one of his class was pretty shitty, even if the guy was an annoying hardass… He could skip that area and try and get an electric or grass type instead.

“But I didn’t think to pick one up, and I forgot about my hair before going in there!” Todd told them all, “Uhh… close up picture of those Scyther coming up…”

“Thank you…” Ishimaru nodded and looked at the projector as Todd switched to a picture of multiple Scyther flying towards the camera, only leaning back slightly and covering his red armband this time.

“So… how’d you reckon I should get out of this? Ishimaru?”

“Ah… My plan was always to discard my armband to distract them, while I hid my eyes and ran away. But I suspect you wouldn’t have had anything red that you could remove?” Ishimaru answered.

“No… but having a red bait item on hand isn’t a bad plan if you really can’t go red-free.” Todd told them, “What about you Kuwata. You could end up in the same situation as me…”

“Couldn’t I just leg it?” Leon asked. Didn’t he realise how fast Scyther were?

“They run faster that humans can see, and they will chase after you, so no, that wouldn’t work.” Todd told him, “Anyone else have any other ideas?”

“They don’t like fire. If you can set the ground in front of you ablaze they’ll retreat.” Ikusaba suggested, which sounded like a good plan, so long as you had a lighter.

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t carry a lighter…” Todd told her, “Anyone else… Oowada, what would you do?”

Goddammit! He really was expected to be the class know it all know… But what the hell could you do against something that you couldn’t outrun and could easily slice you into pieces when you were in the middle of a wide open field with nowhere to hide…?

(“Alright… Remember Mondo, if you can’t outrun it, or outfight it, then there’s no shame in hiding or playing dead until it gets bored and fucks off somewhere else…”)

“If you covered your hair, would playing dead work?” Mondo asked, hoping there wasn’t some magical fifth option that Daiya had never mentioned…

“Well, that’s what I did, so in my case yes!” Todd grinned at him, “I was lucky though… they saw a Bellosom and went after that instead of me! So just remember to be careful if you go into that area, alright?”

Everyone nodded and Todd carried on…

Next up in the presentation was an artificial lake the school had had built for wild water types, which Todd started by saying was good to go fishing in, and not to fall in because it had Gorebyss and Basculin in it, which would suck you dry and pick the meat off of your bones respectively…

Then he showed a selfie of himself falling into the water…

“Quick! Swim to the dock! You can use that ladder to get back on land!” Asahina shouted over-excitedly.

“Well, I did, buuuut...” Todd switch to the next picture, “Unfortunately this little lady thought I’d make a good snack!”

The picture showed a thin, pink tubular fish with a long pointed needle of a mouth, which was sticking right out of Todd’s arm. Mondo couldn’t help but wincing… he’d been stabbed by a Gorebyss once at the beach and it had hurt like crap until he’d pulled it back out and thrown it back to sea.

 “So, now what do I do?” Todd was asking…

“Tie a tourniquet around your arm above it, so it can’t drain all your fluids!” Asahina shouted so quickly you’d think he still had the thing on him.

“Sorry… nothing to tie it with!” Todd shrugged.

“Urrggg… you are useless!” Asahina grumbled, “And you shouldn’t have been that close to the water when by yourself either!”

“Hey! It’s not like I’m dead, is it!?”

“I dunno… how’d we know you’re not actually a ghost!?” Hagakura asked… wait, was he actually being serious!?

“You can knock out the Gorebyss by striking it unconscious, that will stop it from draining your body fluids…” Oogami ignored him and gave her own answer to the question.

“Umm… I thought Gorebyss could withstand huge pressures… you can really just hit it unconscious!?” Fujisaki asked her.

“I’ve been able to do it with a weapon, but not by hand…” Ikusaba answered.

“I… suppose that solution must only be applicable to myself, then…” Oogami realised.

The hell were these guys making this so complicated for…? “Why don’t ya just yank it out and throw it away?”

“Because Gorebyss’ mouth has incredibly small needles that point up and outwards from the point of entry!” Ishimaru turned around to tell him, smugly. “If you try to pull it out, the needles end up bending further into the wound, and can potentially rip the flesh if pulled too hard!”

“But… I managed to pull one out of my arm once, and it didn’t hurt much… not compared to it being in there!” Mondo told him.

“Really!? That’s… not what I’ve read about them… everything says not to pull them out…” Ishimaru looked confused.

“Hmm… Oowada, can you remember exactly how you pulled it out?” Todd asked.

“Well… I think I just grabbed it around the eyes…” Mondo mimicked putting his hand around the pokémon like he remembered, instinctively twisting his hand back like when he revved his bike…

“Ah ha! There!” Todd got excited even before he mimed pulling it, “You twisted it! That’s the trick! You see, the needles on Gorebyss mouth are slightly flexible, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to get its prey off of its nose, so if you turn it like a key before pulling, it twists the needles around the mouth and you can pull it out!”

Wait… really? Mondo had just got lucky because he was so used to riding his bike?

“But, as Asahina said, it’s better not to end up in the water at all, especially not by yourselves or without protective gear!” Todd added a reminder that the ideal thing would be not to copy his stupid antics. “So, having looked around the other two areas you freshmen are going to be allowed in, I went back to the forest, avoided the Vileplume this time… and lost track of the time and was still there after nightfall!”

No one in the class was particularly surprised by that…

“Although, for those of you who didn’t read the student handbook yet, students aren’t allowed outside after dark on their own until their third year.” Kizakura piped up again, “This is just a warning about what to be aware of if you honestly do get lost in the forest by accident!”

“Right! So, I’m now lost in the forest, and this is what I can see!” Tood showed a picture that was pretty much black, aside from a small pinprick of light on the left side… “What should I do?”

“Is this really necessary?” Togami groused, “Obviously you should head towards the light of the school!”

“…The school would have more sources of light than that.” Kirigiri disagreed.

“Well, there’s going to be someone causing it! Even if they’ve just got a torch, it’d better than being alone in the dark outside!” Togami argued.

Honestly, didn’t this guy have any common sense!? “Unless it’s a Litwick, and then you’ll just end up in the ghost world!” Mondo sighed, as several other people in the class also came out with warnings about nor following odd lights in the middle of the night.

“Exactly! Those stories you hear about people following a weird light and never returning aren’t just stories! Wild ghost-types are serious business!” Todd said slowly, to get the point across to the rich idiot. “And they don’t show up in pictures either, so I headed off to the right to see if I could find something else! And what I found was this!”

He showed up a slightly less dark picture this time, of a thick row of old, gnarly trees blocking the path to what was more obviously the school this time…

“Soo… you just busted down enough of those branches to get through there and back here?” Leon asked.

“But… don’t they say not to damage trees in the woods?” The kid in the hoodie asked, “Especially not at night-time?”

“They do?” Leon really didn’t seem to know about this, “I didn’t live near any, so no one ever told me that? What the hell does it matter if you break a few normal trees?”

“There are these tree-ghost pokémon that get pissed with ya if you do, and then they never let you leave the woods.” Mondo explained one of the many things Daiya had drilled into his head on the first night they’d spent camping in the woods.

“They’re called Trevenants…” Kizakura added, “And there is one in the school forest, along with several of its Phantumps, which will try and lead you further into the woods by mimicking children’s voices. So if you are lost in the forest at night and start hearing your classmates, don’t assume its really them coming to find you and follow them, because chances are it’ll be a Phantump instead!”

Huh… so there were Phantumps nearby? They were part grass-type, right? And they evolved into those freaking scary Trvenants? That’s make a great second pokémon! Maybe he could ‘accidentally’ get lost and catch one…

“Oh, and in case you’re thinking you’d like a ghost-type and are tempted to ‘accidentally’ get lost in the woods at night and catch one, any pokémon caught by students who were in areas that they shouldn’t have been in will be confiscated!” Damn… guess Mondo hadn’t been the first to think of that. “There will be a few lessons taking place at night-time in the woods near the end of term, as well as trips to the graveyard area, though, so you’ll have plenty of chances to catch a ghost-type as your second pokémon.”

Alright… that was gonna be when he caught his second pokémon! He’d have most of the term to save up and buy a bunch of pokéballs like Fujisaki had, and try to teach Lycan to quit knocking everything out in one hit, and then when they let him out into the woods he’d catch a Phantump!

“Yep, and that’s pretty much the most dangerous stuff in the woods at night…” Todd carried on, “So I made my way around those trees and headed back here for a good nights sleep, then went back to the forest again the next morning. Now, the forest mostly has small pokémon that are either poisonous or spray you with confusing spores when startled, so watch where you’re heading and if you start to feel faint it’s best to find somewhere with fresh air and start breathing heavily to clear your mind.”

“Or eat a persim berry…” Ishimaru said, like it was a force of habit.

“But there are some serious threats in there, like this!” Todd ignored Ishimaru and brought up a picture of a forest clearing, with a Victreebell hanging around on side surrounded by a bunch of Weedle that were climbing up it...

“Well, yes, if were stupid enough to stick our hands in that, then I suppose it is dangerous!” Togami snarked, “But personally I have more intelligence than those Weedle!”

“I’m not talking about the Victreebell!” Todd told him, “There’s something else in this photo you need to watch out for if you go into the forest!”

Most of the class leant forward and squinted as they tried to find some hidden threat like the VilePlume from earlier, but Mondo couldn’t see anything like that. It just looked like a picture of a Victreebell, a few Kakuna hanging around and about, let see, 6, 7, 8 Weedle…

(“Daiya! Why don’t we camp there? Rockruff can clear out those Weedle and then we’ll have lots of space!)

(“What Weedle…? Oh… Oh SHIT! Mondo, we gotta get outta here!”)

(What? But they’re just Weedle…”)

(It’s never JUST Weedle, bro! Especially not if there’s THAT many of them…”)

“That’s a Beedrill nest.” Mondo realised.

“Yes! You can tell because of the high number of Weedil and Kakuna in the area!” Todd agreed.

“Well, obviously!” Ishimaru exclaimed haughtily, “But what’s the threat!?”

“You don’t think a pack of pissed off Beedrill is a threat!?” Mondo cried.

“No…? I’ll admit their stingers hurt, but the worst they’ll do to a human is cause you to bleed for a while, and maybe faint if you’re younger and get stung a lot, I suppose…” Geez! Did this guy not have any self-preservation!? “It’s certainly not like attacked by a Scyther!”

Oh… So that’s what this was… he was trying to act like Mondo’s sensible caution about Beedrill was somehow less manly than his trembling under the table at a damn picture of a few Scyther! Like being frightened of a ‘scarier’ pokémon than Mondo was something for the idiot to be proud of!

“Oh sure, ‘cause being unconscious and bleeding by yourself in the middle of a forest is totally fine!” Mondo snapped sarcastically, “Not like you might still be out of it when night time comes around and the ghosts come out!”

“There’s also the possibility of infections if the wounds aren’t sterilised quickly…” Ikusaba backed him up. “Fenrir always had at least ten members involved in Beedrill colony extractions, plus backups further back in case it turned bad and we got knocked out and left in the dirt.”

“Err… I suppose that’s true… I just… none of that ever…” Ishimaru backed down pretty easily.

“Oowada and Ikusaba are right! It might not be obvious when every other kid in Kanto can catch a Weedil and grow it into a reasonably-well behaved Beedrill, but if you’re not careful out in the Wild, those guys can be deadly!” Todd made sure the whole class got the picture, “If you start seeing more than one Weedil with a few feet of each other, chances are you’re getting close to a nest and the Beedrill will assume you’re a threat and attack you! Particularly during spring and summer time! So be careful!”

“Which, frankly, is something you should have learnt about going into the wild at all when you first got your starter pokémon…” Kizakura said offhand, “But, we have to run this session every year to cover our butts anyway…”

Ha! Yeah, otherwise someone like Ishimaru would go blundering into a Beedrill nest and get himself killed… And then the school would probably end up having to exterminate the Beedrill ‘cased they’d killed a kid, even though it wasn’t their fault, same reason he had to make sure Lycan never bit anyone, no matter how much they pissed him off…

“Well, it means I get an excuse to come and see how all your pokémon are doing each year, so I can’t complain!” Todd laughed, “But Koichi’s right! No amount of forewarning can make up for you guys being careful! And you can’t assume I’ve managed to run into every dangerous creature out there! So if you’re going to take home anything from this, it’s that you need to keep your wits about you, and don’t go anywhere unfamiliar if you’re not feeling confident! Got it?”

The class nodded, although again, in Togami’s case it was more of an eyeroll…

“Great! I need to talk to Koichi about something now, so you can talk amongst yourselves! I’ll be back next year to show you the great things living in the mountain, graveyard and electrical generator regions you’ve got here!”

“Which are also off limits to freshmen!” Kizakura added, as Todd packed up the projector and sat down next to Kizakura and started talking quietly, with occasional glances towards the class…

“Hey, you think they’re talking about us…?” Mondo quietly asked Leon.

“Looks like it…” Leon agreed, “Maybe we were getting marks for participation just now?”

“Ya think!?” That’d be sweet! He’d come up with a ton of good shit just now! Hell, maybe it’d even make up for that fucking maths test… And the history test… And not knowing two-thirds of the pokémon names…

Shit, he’d be lucky if it made up for one of those things, let alone all three!

“Dude, you alright? You’re looking kinda pale?” Leon noticed him worrying.

“I’m fine.” Mondo lied, “Probably just need some fresh air.”

“No kidding, I forgot how long school drags for!” Leon bought the lie. “Still, looks like they’ve finished talking now, maybe they’re gonna let us out early…?”

“Well, he doesn’t seem like the type to pad the lesson out for no reason…” Mondo commented hopefully, as Kizakura shook Todd’s hand and led him to the door…

“Alright, guys!” Kizakura got their attention again, “That’s it for your first day of classes! Tomorrow is going to include a practical session in the safer side of fields, so make sure you’ve got suitable clothes and footwear! As I said earlier, it’s all available from the school store… if you don’t mind parading around the school logo!”

Well, that sounded like it’d be better than today had been… And he’d planned out what his second pokémon was gonna be! Maybe he could do well in this place after all…

“Oowada and Ikusaba, I want you two to stay after class. Everyone else is dismissed!”

Shit… He was being kept behind with Miss ‘not a pokémon trainer’!? The one who didn’t even know how to give her pokémon a revive!? Had he fucked up the tests that badly…!?

“Dude, it’ll be fine…” Leon patted Mondo’s back as he stood up and started heading out with the other, clever, students, “Just don’t touch the Comfey and she won’t flip out on you…”

Urrghh… He wasn’t turning white ‘cause he was afraid of some tiny chick from Fenrir! He was worrying about what the rest of the Crazy Diamonds were gonna think once it got out that their second in command was a fucking idiot!

Ikusaba didn’t look any happier to be kept back either, looking over to Enoshima worriedly until she was completely gone from the room, along with everyone else…

“…Did we do something wrong?” Ikusaba asked Kizakura, once it was the three of them left in the room.

“Hah! No! Nothing like that!” Kizakura waved his hand dismissively, “I’m just letting you two know that we’re going to be putting you both into a special class…”

FUCK! It was always the fucking same, wasn’t it!? Every school he went to shoved a damn maths test with fucking letters on it in his face and then when he didn’t have a damn clue what any of it meant they shoved him in a group of kids so dumb it was a miracle they didn’t kill themselves getting out of bed every morning! And then they had the fucking nerve to sarcastically call them all ‘special’…

“Just say you’re putting us in the class for fuckwits…” Mondo growled, “I’ve been in ‘em enough times to know what you mean!”

“Ah… I’m not talking about ‘special needs’ right now… even if we do need to get you caught up with maths.” Kizakura said carefully, “I’m talking about you two getting the dangerous pokémon training license.”

“Wait… you’re saying we can get a DPTL? But I thought you had to have been a trainer for seven years because you could even start that course…” Hell, even Daiya still had a couple of years left before he finished the course…

“Normally, yes. But this is Hope’s Peak! We’re allowed to fast-track people on a year-long course, which is how we get away with Owari having a Bewaer and Kimura having her Arbok and Toxicroak.” Kizakura pulled a face at the mention of the poisonous pokémon, “Not that you’d have to take on a dangerous pokémon once you’ve done the course. It just means you’ve got more options to consider…”

…And Mondo’d be able to brag to the gang that he’d got the DPTL before Daiya… “Sound’s good! Sign me up!”

“Attaboy! What about you, Ikusaba?”

“…I’m not really a trainer…” She muttered.

“This isn’t about how good you are at training pokémon, it’s more about being able to learn about dangerous ones without getting scared of them.”

“Then why not pick someone like Ishimaru? He seems to know a lot about different pokémon, and he wasn’t scared of…”

“Hah! No, there’s a difference between not being scared and not having any self-preservation!” Kizakura didn’t even let her finish before laughing, “Even if his own Father hadn’t sent us a letter specifically asking us not to put him on this course, those comments about Beedrill would have put him out of the running… whereas both of you showed you respect how dangerous wild pokémon can be, but you still go out there and deal with them anyway. That’s the sort of attitude you’ll need for this.”

Hah! That dumbass nerd trying to big himself up had just made the teachers decide he was an idiot! Served him right that he’d screwed himself outta the chance to do this…

“I see… Can I think about it?” Ikusaba asked, looking towards the door.

“You can… but if you are going to go for this, you need to have read this initial information by this Saturday…” Kizakura told her, dumping an inch-thick booklet in front of each of them.

“Why Saturday?” Mondo asked, weren’t deadlines for that kind of shit usually the day of the class itself…?

“Because that’s when the DPTL class is held, Saturday nine ‘till twelve!” Kizakura grinned, “Every week.”

“It’s three hours on a weekend!?” Mondo shouted, “Daiya does one hour on a Tuesday night…”

“And that’s why it’s going to take Daiya three years of classes to get his, instead of one.” Kizakura said bluntly, “You didn’t think fast-track meant we only taught you a third of the stuff, did you?”

“N-no! Just… didn’t think of it that way…” Mondo chocked out. He’d been too busy internally crowing at the thought of beating Daiya to consider how much time it was going to need. But three hours every week… plus three times the amount of homework Daiya was currently doing for it… That was gonna be a lot! Could he really do that and the rest of the school stuff…?

“Yeah, I guess we already established that maths isn’t your thing… even if you can do a better job of estimating how many hits a pokémon can take than half the class!” Kizakura smirked, “You don’t have to do the course! I’ll understand if you think it’d be too much extra pressure in your first year…”

“…But you wouldn’t have offered it to me if you didn’t think I could do it, right?” Mondo guessed, “Besides, Diamonds are formed under pressure! I ain’t running just ‘cause it looks like it’ll be hard!”

“Heh… I guess Daiya wasn’t just putting you forward to get free shit outta Hope’s Peak after all!” Kizakura laughed.

“The fuck!? Who the hell’s been saying that!?” Mondo growled… Like Daiya would risk his honour just for Mondo to get free food and clothes for a few years!

“Oh… about half the other Gym leaders there are…? You know… the same half who keep saying he only turned his gang into a ‘Gym’ to get money out of the league association.” Kizakura shrugged, “Your brother took a pretty big risk nominating you! If you don’t measure up here, it’ll be his credibility as a Gym Leader that goes down the pan…”

“…Yeah, I figured.” Mondo might not have realised the scale of it… but he’d known how he did here would affect the gang… which was pretty much the same thing as Daiya.

“Just checking you understand your situation…” Kizakura looked impressed, “I’d recommend asking one of your class for help with all the school stuff you don’t get as well… I’m not saying you can’t do it, but, being straight with you, you’re gonna need all the help you can get!”

“…Thanks.” Mondo muttered. It was good to have someone take him seriously enough not to bullshit him for once… Maybe he couldn’t manage school, but he could deal with this school… 

Chapter Text

Togami left the classroom, and the two idiots who were being held back, and headed into the cafeteria to buy a quick and probably uninteresting dinner. What a complete waste of time that lesson had been! As if he, the most likely Togami heir, would be ill-prepared enough to get caught somewhere dangerous without proper protective gear or restorative items! He’d thought they’d said they weren’t going to treat everyone in the class as if they were on the same level, so why were they treating him like some common child who was about to wander into the tall grass for the first time!?

Well, regardless, at least now he was going to be allowed into the useful areas of Hope’s Peak! Not being allowed into the library or the wild areas had made his weekend ridiculously unproductive! And between the lack of other available trainers and the new, sub-standard facilities his pokémon had been far more restless and agitable than usual! Rufflet in particular had taken to getting out of his pokéball and pecking at the window to show he was bored and wanted to go fly somewhere spacious and fight random pokémon like he would have back in he wild or Togami's purpose-build training area… and not even Drampa had been able to explain to him why they weren’t able to.

And he hadn’t even been able to discuss breeding his third pokémon properly, as the resident pokémon breeder had turned out to be a complete lunatic! Togami had been quite hopeful when he’d seen the man’s Absol proudly prowling about the meagre breeding facility… but then he’d actually met Tanaka and most of that hope had gone out of the window! Once he’d got past the stream of nonsense about ‘feeling the presence of a mighty demon of greed’ which had apparently been referring to Togami, he’d then had to listen to a stream of bizarrely-worded complaints which he thought were because the breeder felt that the Togamis in general should be attempting to use their funds to bolster the numbers of rarer pokémon, which was half the reason he’d bred a Drampa in the first place! But not even that piece of information, or Togami’s offer to pay to upgrade Hope’s Peak’s breeding area in exchange for breeding Togami’s third pokémon (and reaping all of the good publicity that would bring) had prevented the idiot from shouting some nonsense about how ‘not even a half-demon would stoop to the level of allying with’ Togami.

And then he’d had the gall to insist that he ‘held dominion’ over Rufflet, on the basis that he’d allegedly provided the Ditto his father had mated with! As if anyone would believe such a ridiculous claim! If he’d wanted to breed a Rufflet so badly, why wouldn’t he have just caught a Bravairy instead of going through the ordeal of climbing up to its nest just to place a random Ditto nearby and hope they’d mate!? He’d left in disgust at that balderdash!

But enough with the negative thinking… He was used to commoners getting jealous of his fortune and deciding that he must be some kind of monster before they’d even met him... it was just rare that one of them decided he was literally a monster. If anything, it had been refreshing to have someone just outright say what they thought about him, even if it was clearly nonsense!

It was certainly better than the reaction the group of mediocre trainers that were supposed to be his new ‘classmates’ had had… They’d been faced with the optimization of a battle pokémon, and instead of thinking of it as a challenge to rise to, or maybe even just being genial and admitting that Togami had done a good job, they’d all just started muttering about how rich he was, as if that was the only difference between him and them!

Well, they’d see soon enough… raising pokémon wasn’t just about resources, it was about countless hours of study, training and experience! Unlike them, he’d been expected to help care for pokémon before he was even ten, let alone the traditional age of eleven…!

(“Umm… so you looked after a Squirtle by yourself when you were nine? How did you know what to do…?”)

(“Well, I found a guide Kiyotaka wrote, which was simple enough for me to understand…”)

(“Huh… I though he was sixth months younger than you… wouldn’t that mean he’d been looking after pokémon when he was eight?”)

(“Yeah… That’s the impression I got… That is pretty early, huh? I’m surprised his Dad wasn’t helping him…”)

(“You think that’s bad? That nurse in the year above us has been looking after pokémon since she was six!”)

Hrmm… well… they might have had to look after pokémon early, but they wouldn’t have been expected to go into the wild like he ha…

(“They think you’ve got enough experience to get a DPTL? How long have you been dealing with wild pokémon then?”)

(“I dunno… First time we camped in the woods was right after Daiya got his first pokémon, so… I was six?”)

Alright… so maybe these people had been through similar trials to himself. But they were all acting as if his funding would make his progression through the school itself easier than it would be for the rest of them! Whereas in reality it was likely to be the opposite case! After all, none of his classmates would have been forced to spend time getting their pokémon used to less-optimal surroundings than they were used to…

(“So, what did you end up doing yesterday?”)

(“I spent most of the day clearing infected plants out of the first-year’s garden area so Florges would be able to plant her collection of saplings.”)

(“What… by yourself!? You should have said! I could have taken a break from trying to get Glaceon used to the new sports equipment!”)

(“I did have help from Naegi and Ishimaru… however, I suspect further help would be very much appreciated in future. It will likely be a long time before the garden is to Florges’ standards…”)

Well… Alright, so obviously no one’s pokémon were taking the change in environment well… but that didn’t mean he was still going to be able to breeze carelessly through school! If he had a head start on them, it would have been because he’d spent the time studying up to the cutting-edge of pokémon research! And that was an endeavor that was never ending, which was why he was going to take his meal up to the library!

…Which had the added advantage of allowing him to slip away from that cretin with the Garbodor, who was already sat at the same table he’d foolishly sat for lunch. You’d think people would have the good manners not to pester him while he was eating and feeding his pokémon! But not even the Yakuza had had the good manners to wait until he was finished to challenge him.

At least the library was mostly quiet. He could just about hear a voice that was hushed and yet still capable of travelling between the stately wooden shelves packed with everything from frivolous comics, storybooks and magazines all the way to thick textbooks and a whole area of shelves dedicated to scientific research journals, including a display of the latest few issues for each one, which was Togami’s first port of call.

Hmm… this place had a surprisingly good collection! It was better than his own, personal library and almost rivaled the one in the main Togami residence! This would give him the chance to do more in-depth research without worrying that his siblings might be sending spies to look over his shoulder while he did it…

“RRRRRUUUUUUU!” *Crash* “Arc…!? Arc! Can-nine!” Tch! Or it would if it wasn’t for that damn racket! Didn’t these people realize you were supposed to be quiet in libraries!?

“What the…!?” Whatever was going on, Ishimaru was apparently involved, “TOGAMI!? Even if I could fight back in here without risking burning the place down, fighting outside an arena is against school rules! And… where are you!? How could you expect me to accept a challenge when you don’t make it to my face…!? TOGAMI!?”

Why did he think Togami was attacking him!? He was over here, and both of his pokéballs were…

Wide open.

Curses! They must have thought this place was like the library back home, where they could do whatever they pleased… which in Rufflet’s case…

Togami moved towards the sound of the fighting pokémon and was greeted with the sight of Rufflet sitting on top of- and pecking at- the Arcanine’s head, while Ishimaru appeared to be getting ready to spray a can of Repel at him...

“Rufflet, stop! Back to me!” Togami called Rufflet away from the panicking dog and onto his own arm. “I told you, we don’t have trainers for you pick fights with anymore! They’re just people we have to share this place with!”

The bird cocked his head curiously for a moment, before turning back towards the pair and getting into attack position…

“No! No battling them!” Togami snapped, only to get another confused look…

 It would have been so much easier if it wasn’t considered traditional to catch your second pokémon… He could have had a Rufflet bred for cunning, instead of having to monitor different Braviary nests and hoping the child he caught would turn out like the father he’d eventually decided showed the most promise…

…But if he hadn’t followed tradition, his family would have claimed it was a sigh of incompetence on his part. So now he was forced to deal with the hand fate had dealt him and rely on Drampa to explain things to the bird for him…

“Drampa!” Togami shouted for his older pokémon while internally chastising himself for making so much noise in the library until it arrived, “I need you to explain to Rufflet that there aren’t any of our usually hired trainers in here.”

Drampa nodded and the two pokémon began to converse for a while…

“So… your pokémon chose to attack mine spontaneously?” Ishimaru asked apparently having watched Togami’s exchange, “Have I done something to aggravate it?”.

“I doubt it, it’s just part of his natural behavior.” Togami told him. “Rufflet’s consistently attack whatever strong pokémon are nearby in the hopes of getting stronger.”

“I’m aware of that, but for one to attack a trained pokémon while its trainer is right next to it isn’t natural behavior for any pokémon!” Ishimaru countered.

“Perhaps… but part of my training regime for him was to have trainers bring their pokémon to the mansion, so he could engage in his wild instincts while reaping the benefits of fighting trained pokémon…” Togami explained, “Unfortunately, he’s now of the expectation that I’ve compensated every trainer he comes across…”

“Wait, so… you pay willing trainers to come to your home and let their pokémon be punching bags for your own?” Ishimaru looked shocked at the idea… and with good reason!

“Of course I don’t! That would be ridiculous!” Togami snapped.

“Ah… I must have misunderstood When you said ‘compensate’ I thought…”

“I don’t just pay any trainer! I carefully scout out ones whose pokémon will prove to be a test of Rufflet’s cunning and strength!”

“So… you pay specific, high-end trainers to come to your home and let their pokémon be punching bags for your own?” Ishimaru corrected his earlier statement, “Without you even having to pay any attention to them?”

“Exactly.” Togami nodded.

Hmmm… and there was that look in Ishimaru’s eyes. The look of pure, irritated jealousy that usually came just before some angry, childish complaint about how Togami shouldn’t spend so much money just to train one single pokémon, without realizing that it wasn’t about the one pokémon, it was about constantly proving that he was the best to lead his family…

And besides… “You shouldn’t glare at me as if you wouldn’t do the exact same thing if you were in my position.”

“I… Hmm… while I must admit I would be likely to compensate other trainers for engaging in fights with me…” Ishimaru was being surprisingly reasonable, most people just claimed they’d never do some so extravagant or bourgeois as baiting trainers to their home with money... “I wouldn’t expect my pokémon to battle without my guidance! If you want pokémon, you should make the effort to pay attention to them!”

“I do pay attention to them. I have a summarizing report of all of their battles given to me at the end of each day, so I can see how they are progressing.” Togami explained.

“But, if you’re not watching them fight, how do you pick up on it when they’re having a problem?” Why did so many people always ask him that stupid question?

“Because I’d notice a downward trend in their ability when reading the report, obviously.”

“But, what if they’re having a problem that doesn’t affect their battling ability? Or possibly even makes them fighter better?”

What was this idiot talking about, “If they’re fighting better, how is that a problem!?”

“Well, sometimes when pokémon are scared or emotionally stressed, they lash out harder in fights… but that’s not something they can keep up forever and often leads to behavioral issues…”

“My pokémon don’t have any emotional issues.” Togami said in a bored tone. Common people just loved the idea that he was somehow mistreating his pokémon. Probably to delude themselves into thinking they were better trainers than him…

“But… how can you be so sure!? What if it’s a problem that only presents itself when you’re not near them?” Ishimaru was being borderline paranoid, “And if you’re letting nigh-on strangers near them, how do you know they haven’t done something to affect your pokémon’s performances, like fed them drugs or…”

“Or Team Rocket temporarily stole them, put them in an enhancement machine, and then gave them back like nothing had happened? Like a certain someone’s grandfather claimed?” Togami sneered, “You don’t really believe that’s possible, do you?”

“Of course not! And what my Grandfather claimed was his pokémon where enhanced before he traded for them and he didn’t notice because he didn’t really train them himself before going to fight the Elite Four…” Ishimaru scowled as he repeated the pathetic excuse. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to outright believe anything his family said. “But, regardless, there are illegal enhancement options that only require a quick injection or tablets… what’s to stop a jealous trainer from using one of those to have your pokémon banned from tournament use forever?”

This conversation was wasting too much of his time. Time to end this… “I have staff on hand who observe all the battles. And there is a reward scheme in place to motivate them to report any trainers who mistreat my pokémon.” Togami told him, “Plus, all trainers go through an intense series of checks at the front gate to ensure they aren’t trying to bring any problematic items into the compounds, long before they get anyway near my team! And on top of that I have assembled a team of best reptilian and avian vets, groomers and psychologists I could find to continually make sure that they are healthy, happy and well looked after!”

Ishimaru was just blinking at him, while his eyebrows furrowed into a stupid expression…

“What part of that did you not understand?” Togami sighed.

“…The part where you apparently care for your pokémon enough to do all of that... But you don’t watch their fights!”

“It’s not as though I don’t watch any of their fights! I have to direct their attacks in the more important ones, for starters.” Togami sighed, “But I don’t need to be there to watch them beat up every little pokémon they come across… It’s not as if you watched your Arcanine fight 200 Kakunas in person, is it?”

“Yes! It is! Arcanine wouldn’t have fought them if I hadn’t been there!” Ishimaru insisted, “He wouldn’t know what moves to use!”

Was he serious!? He’d really stood and directed his dog in every single mind-numbing battle it had!? That sounded hellish! “How could it not know what moves to use? What does it do if he gets attacked and you’re not there!? Doesn’t it defend itself?”

“…Usually he sits and whines until I come to help him.” Ishimaru admitted, looking embarrassed at his pokémon’s pathetic behavior.

So it hadn’t just been out of concern for the books that his dog had let Rufflet attempt to peck its fur out… “Doesn’t that concern you? If something happened to you, your dog would be helpless. My pokémon can fend for themselves!”

“Ah… no, it’s not that bad!” Ishimaru corrected him, “He’ll attack without command if I’m being threatened, but otherwise he expects me to make the battle decisions!”

“That still seems like a phenomenal waste of time.” Togami observed, “If you taught him to fight for himself, you could do other things while he did it!”

“Perhaps… but if I’d just had a report of his fights like yourself, I wouldn’t have noticed the effect of the weak spots!” Ishimaru argued, “I might even have assumed he was stronger than he is, if he’d started hitting them consistently and I’d not known about it!”

Hmm… no chance of that with Togami’s pokémon, he had them complete standardized tests weekly. But if it formed part of Ishimaru’s research… “I suppose you’re free to train your pokémon however you like… but I’ll be training mine efficiently!”

Togami could tell that Ishimaru was silently seething as he realized both how far ahead of him Togami was, and was going to stay, and failed to find any faults in the treatment of Togami’s pokémon that he could have used to justify the difference in ability to himself…

“Well… I suppose you treat at least two of your pokémon properly!” He apparently decided to fall back on the old nonsense about the Togami breeding facilities to make himself feel better. “But I’d appreciate it if you let me study in peace! That Math’s test showed that I apparently have a lot to be catching up with…”

That Math’s test had mostly been plugging numbers into an equation… hardly a difficult task! But he didn’t need to waste time gloating about that… “My apologies… Rufflet isn’t used to the change in his situation yet, that’s all. I’ll ensure he doesn’t attack you again…”

Or rather, he already had ensured that, as his two pokémon had finished their conversation and Rufflet was no longer attempting to launch himself at the dog…

“Thank you!” Ishimaru nodded and went to sit down at a table that he’d festooned with pieces of paper and something that had probably once been a reasonable-priced laptop… about ten years ago.

“Alright, you two can explore, but no leaving the room.” Togami told his pokémon, although he was sure Rufflet couldn’t open the doors and Drampa wouldn’t be stupid enough to wander off by himself.

Rufflet bristled at the patronisation, but quickly flew off to look around the room regardless. Drampa on the other hand was slower to leave, taking time to read over the signs and get a feel for what was books were on offer before heading off by himself.

With them taken care of, Togami was free to go and pick up the latest issues of the more important research journals, such as Breeder’s Report…

Which wasn’t there. They just had the previous month’s issue, despite the less superior Journal of Breeding Methods being up to date… And a quick scan of the shelves showed that the same was true for Trainer’s Methods, Journal of Pokémon Evolution… and all the other journals that Togami considered to be of critical importance! Well that was frustrating. He was going to have to download the online versions in order to keep up to date with the very best of the latest resea…

“Ah… Togami…!?” His considerations were pierced by an overly-loud shout from Ishimaru, “Is…Is your Rufflet allowed poffins?”

“It’s of no concern to you how I reward my pokémon!” He asked. There was absolutely no cause for him to suddenly ask that, unless he was somehow hoping to trick Togami into revealing what type of poffins he’d fed Rufflet, or some other part of Togami’s training strategy…

“Ah… it’s not that!” Ishimaru shouted back, “It’s just I asked Arcanine ‘who beat a pokémon with type advantage and wants a poffin?’ and your Rufflet landed on my arm! Presumably because it also fits that criteria? Err… Also it looks like it’s starting to get irritated because I’m not giving it one...!”

Oh for pity’s sake! He knew it wasn’t uncommon for one of his staff members to give his pokémon food, but did Rufflet really think Togami would have hired him!?

Still, as much as it galled him to admit it, Ishimaru had a point. Rufflet had done well against that Snorunt and deserved a reward. But as Pennyworth had warned him when he’d been drafting his acceptance letter to this place, he no longer had his members of staff on hand to dispense such appreciative gestures on his behalf.

Togami headed back to the table Ishimaru had set himself up at. This time it was Ishimaru who was just sat looking anxious as Rufflet angrily sat on his arm and kept pointing its beak at the oddly shaped poffin Ishimaru was holding in his other hand. Meanwhile it was the dog who looked like it was getting ready to launch some form of attack to get rid of the bird.

That was, until Togami reached into the convenient hidden pocket of his pokéball holder and brought out one of the individually sealed mild poffins he’d loaded in there previously and shook it to get Rufflet’s attention. “Rufflet! You deserve a much better poffin than that!”

“Let!” Rufflet turned and flew back over to his arm as he opened the bag and handed him the bready treat, which was deftly pecked out of his hand by the happy bird who quickly swallowed it and tilted his beak upwards, a sign that Togami had learnt meant that it expected to be scratched under the chin. It was almost ridiculous how easily pacified powerful pokémon could be with simple gestures…

“…Y…you deserve better poffins than this as well, you know!” He could hear Ishimaru bitterly apologising to his dog, “…I just haven’t learnt how to make them yet… But I’m going to! And then you’ll have all the nice poffins you deserve!”

Hah! If he thought his pokémon deserved nice poffins before now, perhaps he should have gone to the library and learnt how to make them earlier, instead of wasting his time with magazines like… like…

“…Is that the Journal of Pokémon Evolution!?” Togami “And Breeder’s Reports!?”

“Yes! They’re the latest issues!” Ishimaru grinned, “I also picked up Pokémon Medicine, Trainer Methods and Pokédex Research Reviews…! Why… did you want them as well…?”

Yes, he had! So the reason the journals he’d wanted were gone was because Ishimaru was reading into the same things as he was? But if he read Trainer Methods, why not use those methods!? Even with his insistence on watching every fight his pokémon had, it should be stronger that it was! Was it really just because Togami had the advantage of his own fortune…?

“…I can just access the online versions.” Togami waved dismissively with his free hand. He was not about to accept generosity from someone who’d apparently had to dress exclusively in complimentary school uniforms!

“Are you sure? They have fewer articles than these versions!”

“…What are you talking about? The online versions have exactly the same articles as the paper version!” Togami stated his first thought, before he realized why it might be the case that Ishimaru thought that, “…Unless you’re only accessing the free content, that is. Hope’s Peak should have access to all of it, if they’re paying for the journals.”

“Really!?” Ishimaru smiled, “In that case, I probably won’t want these at all… I prefer to have everything in one place on my laptop!” He patted the dilapidated thing on the table in front of him, which Togami was surprised didn't break it, before piling up the journals and handing them to Togami, “This way I’ll be able to go and check out some of the other books I’d wanted!”

“Hmpth… well, if that’s what you prefer…” Togami took the entire pile off of hands, thankful that Ishimaru apparently didn’t have enough good taste to want them.

“Alright, Arcanine… I’m just going to download somethings on the school computer, and then we can go look at some really good books!”

“Arc…!?” The dog sounded confused, but followed its master over to the computers regardless…

…But what did Ishimaru mean by really good books? These were some of the most cutting-edge research journals there were! How could there be something better than this in this library?

Well… regardless of what it was, Togami wasn’t going to let Ishimaru keep that information all to himself! He’d just have to wait for him to go to get it, and then find out what it was.

“Alright, Rufflet… we can have our dinners here while I do some reading…” Togami told the bird, getting out his meal from the cafeteria and a sealed portion of raw, vitamin-enhanced Basculin meat for Rufflet…

Who promptly snatched the fish out of his hands and flew up to a high shelf to eat it. Nesting habits, presumably, so Togami let him. He understood the importance of not disrupting a pokémon’s instinctive behaviors, which was why Drampa wasn’t sharing a dinner with them, preferring to wait for one larger breakfast of freshly imported berries…

It took longer than Togami would have guessed for Ishimaru to access the research online and transfer it all onto his pathetic excuse for a computer, but eventually he stood up and had his dog follow him into a different section of the library just as Togami was starting to read the results into a study that had compared the Growlithe breeding procedures of the police with those used by his half-sister…

Once he’d surmised that of course they’d found his half-sister’s better, but not so much so that it would be cost-effective to implement wide-scale, Togami quietly closed the journal and headed off in the direction Ishimaru had gone to, which was apparently on the other side of the section containing pokémon-proof books…

Togami passed by his Drampa, who had managed to find himself something to read, towards the sound of Ishimaru’s voice…

“No…we already have that one! What about this one?”, “Arc!”, “No, Arcanine… I’m looking for books we don’t have already!”, “N-nine…?”

Hmm… whatever it was he wanted, it sounded as if he might have already read through the selection that Hope’s Peak already had, if he’d enlisted his dog to help with the search… But it wouldn’t be long now before Togami spotted him and could catch up with whatever secret Ishimaru had…

“Alright… I’ll read it to you once, and then we pick out some different books!” Togami stopped short as he heard Ishimaru’s resigned sigh… “’Where’s Growlithe?’ by Eric Hill… ahem… ‘It’s almost time for Growlithe’s dinner! Where has he gone…!? Is he…?”

Oh, this had to be a joke… “…You’re reading your pokémon a children’s book!?” Togami strode around the corner to Ishimaru’s location.

“…Well, unlike your Drampa, dog’s aren’t naturally inclined to written language…” Ishimaru and his dog both looked up from the book.

“Exactly! So why are you wasting your time reading to one?” Togami scowled… to think he’d been expecting some impressive secret from Ishimaru… no wonder his pokémon was so weak, if he wasted time like this!

“It’s not waste of time! It’s a bonding activity!”

“Anything you do with your pokémon constitutes a bonding activity!” Togami sighed, “You should pick something that will actually be of benefit to your pokémon, like teaching it a skill or increasing its fitness…”

“But relaxation is important as well! No pokémon can constantly be improving itself!” Ishimaru argued, “And besides, reading to Arcanine has taught him a skill! He can recognize most of the letters of the alphabet now! And the odd word as well…”

…That couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Even his half-sister had never had a Growlithe or Arcanine that had learnt letters, and she specialized in breeding them!

“…Well… it might not seem like much, but it’s pretty impressive for a dog!” Ishimaru mis-read the meaning of Togami’s scowl.

“It would be impressive… if it was really the case that your dog can recognize letters…”

“Why would I bother to lie about it…?” Ishimaru’s face pinched in confusion, “All you’d have to do would be to get me to order him to find a specific letter and I’d be proved false…”

“I’m not saying you’re lying about it… but have you ever heard of Clever Hans?” Togami prepared to explain…

“The Ponyta that people thought could do simple math by clopping it’s hooves a certain number of times to give the answer, but it just turned out to be reacting to it’s trainer’s body language in order to know when to stop?” Ishimaru summarized, “I thought it might be a similar example at first, but then my father tested him by putting the letters in a different room and asking him for one, plus he wrote some out yesterday while I wasn’t watching.”

That… that couldn’t possibly be true! That would make his dog smarter than all the ones his sister had ever bred over the years… but the information Togami had managed to dig up on Ishimaru had suggested his dog had been removed from police service for being too stupid to train…

“Nnnnnn… caaan…?” It certainly looked pretty stupid for an Arcanine, pitifully whining at its owner like that. It didn’t have any of the pride or superiority that Arcanine’s usually displayed once they’d evolved.

“Ah… sorry! Was that everything, Togami? Only I told Arcanine I’d read his favorite book…” Ishimaru did look slightly embarrassed to admit that, “Your Drampa was looking at the section on myths and legends over there, if that’s why you’re here…”

“Thank you.” Togami said, rather than admitting that he’d come here expecting Ishimaru to be doing something useful with his time, before turning to leave, “Good evening.”

“You to!” Ishimaru nodded in reply to his standard gesture of politeness, “Now… where were we… oh, right! ‘Is he behind the door…?”

Togami turned the corner and paused as he saw the dog lifting a small flap that was part of the book, only to shake its head with a bark that was dripping with fake disappointment…

“Is he inside the clock…?” Ishimaru had turned the page, and the dog was lifting the flap again…

Hah! Obviously the dog had just learnt the actions to the story by memorization. Any pokémon could do that! The rest of it was probably just Ishimaru deluding himself into thinking his dog was smart despite all evidence to the contrary… After all, a smart pokémon would be wanting to read new books, like the thick one Drampa had found for himself, and was only partway through…

“I’m finished in here, now. Do you want to check this out?” Togami asked him, to which he nodded and pushed forward another book as well… “Alright, then…”

Togami picked the pair up, then added the pile of research journals to them and went through the process of borrowing them all, and then held out his arm for… “Rufflet!”

…, …?

“Rufflet!” What was he doing? He should easily be able to see Togami from his spot up on top of the shelves…

…He wasn’t there anymore. Where had he gone? The library doors were shut, so he couldn’t have flown out alone… had someone stolen him!?

“Drampa Dra…” Drampa circled around him a few times, before floating off back towards the pokémon-proof books again.

Had he seen Rufflet flying off towards them? But why would Rufflet care about books? Still, it was the best lead he had on his missing pokémon, so he followed Drampa through the aisles, catching occasional snippets of Ishimaru prattling on at his dog…

“…Thursday, he fought four Milenfoos…” Actually, it seemed like Ishimaru was getting louder. Was Drampa just leading him back to the area where Ishimaru had been wasting his time?

That turned out to be the case, as they found Rufflet perched on a small chair next to Ishimaru, who was holding a book in his lap, waiting patiently as Rufflet pecked the book five times before carrying on with his reading…

“On Friday, he fought five Herdiers… but he was still angry!” Ishimaru turned the page, and again waited patiently as Rufflet responded by pecking at the book multiple times… “…And on Saturday, he fought a Thron, a Foongus, a Bouffalant, a Golduck, a Gligar, a Karrablast and a Heatmor!” Ishimaru turned the page, but this time Rufflet didn’t peck at it… “And on that night… he felt very tired! So he went back to his house made out of twigs, called a nest, high up in the mountains, and fell asleep overnight. Then, in the morning, he woke up…” He turned the page more dramtically this time, “…And was a powerful Bravairy!”

“…Ruuuff!” Rufflet considered it for a moment, then puffed himself up proudly.

“Yes! Like you will be, someday!” Ishimaru told him genially, as he put the book down, “Now, maybe we can see what else is…”

“Leeeet!” Rufflet picked up the first book with his beak and dropped it back in Ishimaru’s lap.

“…You want me to read it again!?” Ishimaru asked, anxiously beginning to look around and smiling in relief as his eyes locked onto Togami’s, “Ah! But your owner’s here, now! He can check it out and read to you as many times as you like!” Ishimaru stood up and came over to force the book into Togami’s hand…

It was titled ‘The very Angry Rufflet’ by Eric Carle, and a quick skim through revealed that it was an incredibly simplified recounting of how Rufflets evolved…

“Hmth! I have a better idea.” Togami smirked as he gave the book back to Ishimaru, “Instead of reading about a very angry Rufflet fighting lots of pokémon, how about we go outside and you can actually fight some…?”

“Rufflet!” The bird gleefully glided across the room to Togami’s outstretched arm.

“You’re going outside now?” Ishimaru questioned him in concern, “You do remember that we’re not allowed outside at night…”

“Of course… but I intend to squeeze in a quick bit of training before nightfall.” Plus, the school might have a way of preventing students from catching pokémon out of hours, but there was nothing to stop Togami taking a boat out and ‘accidentally’ dropping one of the oars, thus having to have his pokémon battle to protect him from whatever powerful pokémon prowled the lake at night…

“Hmm… Perhaps I should do that as well…” Ishimaru mused… which would completely mess up his plan!

“Nine!” Thankfully, Ishimaru’s dog seemed to disagree with the plan, sternly pointing at another children’s book with its paw…

“I already read you that one! And Togami’s right! We should try to take advantage of every chance we can get to train!”

“Nine… Can!” The dog pawed the book again, seeming to be very precise with it…

Ishimaru squinted at the book… “Hmm… Wait… are you pointing at the words…!?” Dinner time…!?” He checked the time on his pokétch… which Togami was amazed anyone was still wearing, it must be over a decade old at this point!  “Oh! Of course! We haven’t eaten yet… I can’t really expect you to fight pokémon on an empty stomach, can I? And then I told Father I’d ring him and let him know how my first day of lessons went…”

“Arc!” His dog nodded happily.

“Well… We’ll get to go outside tomorrow, at least! And I’ll reconsider our evening schedule…” Ishimaru murmured, “Remember to stay safe in your training, Togami!”

“Of course…” Unlike that idiot photographer, he was going to be wearing proper protective gear!

…And, unlike Ishimaru, he wasn’t going to be wasting his time with sentimental nonsense like reading to his pokémon, or talking to his parents! That was why Togami was better than all these jealous idiots! The money might have helped, but ultimately it was Togami’s pure dedication and commitment to raising the best pokémon possible that had made him the best trainer in his class…

And he’d continue to keep up that commitment as he used every moment to squeeze every advantage he could out of Hope’s Peak!

Chapter Text

*Charjabug power output is decreasing.*

Oh? That was odd… usually Chihiro would let him know if Charjabug was unwell… Had they got so involved with their coding that they forgot to feed him?

“Chihiro…? Did you feed Charjabug…?” Hmm… no response? Either his child was really involved in their coding or they weren’t in the house…

Oh. That was it. They were at Hope’s Peak… He was supposed to have fed Charjabug. He hadn’t realised how much he'd been relying on Chihiro until they’d written out the list of chores he was supposed to do from now on…

But he couldn’t complain about that. He’d be a pretty bad father if he expected his child to stay and look after him, instead of taking the chance to go somewhere like Hope’s Peak, and maybe help themself get over their fear of dog-like pokémon and actually start training Golett to fight and help them go out and explore more…

…That was, if those two boys with the large dogs hadn’t scared them into not attending class at all. Perhaps Taichi should give Chihiro a call and see if they’d had a good day…

*Charjabug power output is decreasing.*

After he’d fed Charjabug…

…

“Hello…? Dad?” Chihiro looked slightly anxious as they responded to his video call on the pokédex, “Umm… Is something the matter…? I got a notification that your Charjabug’s power output was decreasing…”

“Ah… Yes. I’ve only just fed him… Sorry. I’m not used to all the chores yet…” Taichi admitted shamefully. “But now I’ve done that, I wondered how your first day of classes went?”

“Oh! Pretty good! Actually… I even caught my second pokémon! Say hello to my Charjabug!” Chihiro switched the camera view to a small Charjabug that was being fed lettuce by Golett… “She’s pretty weak compared to yours, but I should be able to set up my computers and get back to programming that AI soon… Plus I have to admit, Souda’s Pokétch design might actually be pretty useful, so I want to work on some connection software for that, which needs a lot of wireless signal production…”

“They let you go out and catch pokémon already…?” Every time he worked somewhere new they insisted on giving him the ‘nearby dangerous pokémon’ before he was even allowed near any nearby wild areas…

“Well… not exactly? We had a class taught by Todd Snap… you know, the guy who photographed Mew?” Chihiro started, “And he found it in the ceiling, and the teacher joked about me or Naegi going up there because we’re short enough to fight up there and… I figured I might as well take advantage of the chance!”

They climbed up into the ceiling? “That’s very brave of you…”

“Well… I had Todd with me the whole time…” Chihiro frowned, “It was less scary than being back in the class with Ishimaru’s Arcanine being out of its ball, or at the lunch table Oowada tried to sit at with his Lycanroc, or the pokémon identification test which had a picture of a Stoutland on the first page and made me freeze until the test was over…”

“Well… I still think you’re brave for going to the class, even with those two dogs!” Taichi told them, “Especially if you didn’t run away when that scary Arcanine was out the whole time…”

“Well, it wasn’t out the whole time… and this time all it did was sit there, not doing anything…” Chihiro said thoughtfully, “I’m thinking it only growled before because it was scared and Ikusaba wasn’t letting Ishimaru calm it down…”

“Well, that will be nice for you, then!”

“Yeah… I’m wondering if I could even ask him to help me get used to dogs… If I can be absolutely sure his won’t hurt me, then maybe I could stand getting closer to it…” Chihiro mused.

“That sounds like a good idea…” Taichi agreed.

*Air conditioning failing.*

Ah… why was that happening? Klinklang didn’t usually just stop moving it’s gears for no reason…

“Umm, Dad…? When you fed Charjabug, did you remember to take him to power Klinklang as well?” Chihiro asked, anxiously. “You do remember those stories about them being perpetual energy machines aren’t actually true, right…?”

“Ah… of course. I’m sorry. I forgot I have to do that now…” Taichi sighed, “I’ll go do it right away, and then I’ll check the list you made me to make sure there’s nothing else I forgot…”

“Alright, Dad…” Chihiro smiled ruefully at him. “Thanks for calling to see how I was, though!”

“Your welcome… have a good day tomorrow!” Taichi waved as he stood up to go and recharge Klinklang…

“You to, Dad!” Chihiro waved back and then the screen flicked back into darkness.

“Now… next on the agenda… The league has had complaints that there was too much inconsistency between Gyms in this region for people aiming to get specific level badges this last year, particularly at the fourth badge level… and it’s not just people who are bitter about type disadvantages…”

Clemont put up some complicated looking charts on the screen to prove his argument, and Olympia and Valerie spent some time asking questions about the trustworthiness of the information, but Oogami paid them no heed. If Clemont considered this worthy of bringing up at a meeting with all 10 of the Kalos Gym Leaders, then it was likely to be a treuly significant difference. Which was of great concern. Gyms were supposed to be of equal difficulty at each badge levels, so it wouldn’t matter which order you did you journey in or what type of team you built. There’d surely be an uproar if it came out that certain Gyms were consistently easier or harder than other ones.

“So… are we going to get in trouble about this?” Viola asked.

“Well, not if we can fix the problem now, no.” Clemont answered, “It’s just a case of the Gyms that have started straying from the average needing to adjust things so they’re back in line with the rest of us…”

Gyms that had ‘strayed from the average’ over the last year, as Clemont put it. And given that his formidable daughter had spent more time at the Gym last year, due to the absence of her rival, it was quite possible that his Gym had become significantly harder to triumph over...

And yet, none of the other Leaders appeared to have thought of that, all of them turning instead towards the new, likely temporary, Leader of the Kuzuryu clan…

“Well the hell are you all staring at me!?” Natsumi Kuzuryu scowled at them all, “You think just because I’m new, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing!? You think my brother would leave his Gym in the hands of some idiot!?”

“No one’s saying that, now…” Wulfric sighed at her outburst, as jaded by the years of dealing with her brother and Uncle as Oogami was, “But ya did lose two of your strongest to trainers Hope’s Peak last year, didn’t you?”

“We lost one good trainer…” Kuzuryu insisted, which Oogami assumed meant her older brother and not the swordwoman who’d gone with him, “…And it’s taken us a while to find a decent replacement, but we would have been at the lower end of the standard at worst!”

“But if that were true, we would not have had complaints…” Valerie argued calmly, to which multiple other Leaders agreed…

As nice as it was to have their faith in him, it was cause for concern to Oogami that they were all so quick to blame the newest one among them… “I believe I may have also contributed to the problem.” He interrupted, “I have been allowing my daughter to fight far more often that she used to, and it’s likely that we were at the… higher end of the standard for a considerable amount of time…”

“Ah… so the problem isn’t that any of us are out of line!” Grant pointed out, “It’s that we’ve got a high mountain sat right next to a valley!”

“That would fit the data I’ve been given…” Clemont agreed, “But if Oogami’s daughter isn’t at Dendemille Gym anymore, and Natsumi, you said you’ve found replacement trainers now…?” He glanced nervously at her just long enough to receive and angry, silent confirmation. “Then the problem should stop now. I’ll let the league know we’ve identified the problem and it will be rectified… Now… is there any other business?”

“Hmph… What about Oogami’s daughter making us look like fools?” Kuzuryu asked, smirking in his direction, “Is that considered ‘business’?”

“…I am afraid I don’t know what you are referring to…” Oogami admitted, calmed somewhat by the fact that his fellow Gym Leaders looked as confused by her statement as he was. He hadn’t even had the chance to speak to Sakura since she’d left the gym to make the trip to Hope’s Peak several days ago, due to the poor pokedex reception at their Gym.

“You mean she didn’t tell you yet? How her Florges and Snorunt lost to Byakuya Togami’s Drampa and Rufflet!?” Kuzuryu answered, seeming to take a great amount of pleasure in bearing news of his daughter’s loss against an opponent who should have been at a disadvantage.

“Then Togami must be quite the formidable trainer.” Oogami admitted, “I do not see how that makes us look foolish…”

“…I can see it stirring up those old discussions about creating corporate Gyms again…” Olympia sighed.

“Urgh! Again!?” Korinna growled, “But it’s just one fight! And she’s not even a Leader! It’s not like every Togami employee is that good!”

“But they can argue that Byakuya Togami is not leading their corporation, either, which would put him at the same level as Sakura Oogami…” Olympia explained, “Although that argument will only last as long as it takes him to defeat all of his half-siblings and become the Togami heir…”

“And my brother says he’s going to trounce Togami in battle, so there’s no chance of people thinking he’s better than Gym Leaders!” Kuzuryu added, smiling unsettlingly in Oogami’s direction.

“Well, good! That’ll show those business-brained whippersnappers!” Ramos cheered, although Oogami wasn’t so sure he’d trust the estimation of Kuzuryu’s ability. “Honestly, how do they think they can fight well with pokémon when they’ve got no soul…!?”

…That sparked a round of boastful discussion about how the current Gym setup was for the best, with several of the group heavily implying that all those who were seeking to change things were foolhardy at best… No wonder that the one time he’d met Daiya Oowada, the man had seemed so guardedly caustic, when his fellow Gym Leaders refused to consider that change could be necessary or beneficial to them…

But, soon enough, the discussion was over and the meeting of the Kalos Gym Leaders was at an end, leaving Oogami with free time to wander Lumiose City. Although he really only had one intention, which was to find the pokémon centre and make use of the communication booth…

…Doing so garnered some odd looks in his direction, seeing as he was using the old familiar machines while everyone else appeared to be using their new pokédexes to make calls. But technology had never been a strong point of his, and even when Clemont had tried to give him a newer pokédex and patiently shown him how him how to use it, he’d still struggled to understand everything and had finally chosen to bequeath it to Sakura instead… something he was glad to have done, as it meant he could now call her without worrying if she was at a terminal or not…

The console spent a surprising amount of time to connect, but eventually he was facing the image of his daughter’s face… albeit soaking wet…

“Ah, father. I hope I did not keep you waiting long. I was swimming with one of my classmates…” Sakura explained, “How was the Gym leaders meeting?”

“Not too bad… mostly just the standard reports and some ideas to make the Gym puzzles more interesting… and apparently there were complaints about some Gyms being significantly more challenging that others, but we think we’ve solved that issue now.” Oogami summarised, avoiding the part where their own Gym had been part of the cause. “However… Kuzuryu mentioned that she’d heard you lost a battle…?”

“Yes… Togami’s pokémon are both well-bred and well-trained… I lost despite having type advantage…” Sakura confirmed, “…I will have to think long and hard to work out how I am going to approach my next battle with him…”

Hmm… that look on her face... It was the same one she’d have whenever young Kenshiro beat her, despite all of her work. Not a look of shame or annoyance, as most would expect, but… “…You’re excited, aren’t you?”

“…I must admit, I am. It has been a long while since I had someone my own age to aspire to winning against.” Sakura nodded, “I only wish he had Kenshiro’s sense of honour… and perhaps greater respect for the feeling of pokémon, not just their battle prowess…”

“Hmm… too focused on measurable results and nothing else?” Oogami guessed. That seemed to be the general opinion of the other Gym Leaders regarding business-types.

“Indeed… though I hope being surrounded by trainers who excel in that regard may help him understand.” Sakura replied, hopefully.

“And speaking of those other trainers… how are you getting along with your class?” Oogami asked, “Well enough to go swimming with one?”

“Yes… Hina came by on my first night to delivery some food prepared for us by a second year student, and we spoke candidly for a while… and I spent Sunday gardening with two of the boys and got to know them better… and then we and two more of the girls sat together at lunchtime today…”

That was good to hear… Sakura had never been the best at socialising. But it sounded as if there were several other trainers in her class who excelled at it. She was sure to be able to learn from them…

“…So, I woulda suggested your daughter do the DPTL course, but she didn’t say a damn thing throughout the whole slideshow!” Koichi groused…

“…Honestly, I’m glad to hear that.” He’d rather his own daughter not be spending her time around the world’s most dangerous pokémon, regardless of how good she was at handling them… Honestly, he didn’t know why it was that they hadn’t had more letters like the one from Ishimaru’s father.

“Jin, buddy. You gotta give that kid more credit. She isn’t the little girl you’re picking up in that photo anymore…” Koichi reminded him, “But anyways, we ended up picking Oowada and Ikusaba. Oowada’s going for it and I think I’ve convinced him he’s gonna need to take it seriously. Ikusaba just said she’d think about it… which probably means asking her sister what she should do.”

“Well, I hope for her sake her sister tells her she should take the chance…” Jin sighed, “It’s about the only plausible reasoning we can give for accepting her…”

“No kidding…” Koichi washed the bitter look on his face away with his even more bitter whisky. “You got any idea what the hell the Steering Committee’s thinking with those two…?”

‘Those two’ being Ikusaba and Enoshima, both of who had been allowed in despite Koichi’s advice to the contrary, which was still making his friend irritable. Of course the committee had always had the option to override Koichi’s decisions, but they’d never used it before. What was it about that pair that had caused them to do it twice in one year…?

“…I’ve no idea.” Jin admitted, taking a sip of bourbon, “They’re being even more cagey about it than they were with Hinata… And speaking of which, how’s he doing…?”

“He’s… Chisa says he hangs out with pretty much everyone in his class at different times, and he’s picking up some stuff from them, buuuut…”

“Not enough to appease the committee?” Jin finished for him.

“No… and they ain’t exactly hiding that from him either…” Koichi sighed, “Even though Chisa keeps telling them that half his problem is that he doesn’t think he’d good enough to be here… It’s getting to the point where it seems like they’re trying to sabotage their own experiment…”

Either that, or they really hadn’t been truthful with Jin and had a different experiment for the boy in mind…

Not that he could say as much to Koichi. Not because he didn’t trust his friend, but more because he did… and the Steering committee knew that full well. It would be of no surprise to him whatsoever if these little chats with his friend were under intense scrutiny, somehow…

“Perhaps they think it will motivate him to succeed out of spite.”

“I guess… but like Chisa keeps telling ‘em, he isn’t the type.” Koichi argued.

“…I’ll see if I can get them to listen to me about him, then.” Jin told him. It might lead to them slipping up and giving him some more information on their real plan if he pressed them on it… assuming they actually had one and Jin wasn’t just being paranoid and chasing shadows…

Koichi stared at him in silent consideration for a little bit… “Alright. See if you can get it through their thick skulls…” He said in resignation. “I’m heading off for dinner… I’d suggest you come as well, but I have a feeling your daughter might be stopping by your office for another visit…”

…Really? He’d got the impression she’d only come in the first place to talk business with him, and he’d had to prevent her from getting a word in edge-ways in order to stop her from outright asking for information he couldn’t risk disclosing about Hinata. And then he’d thoughtlessly annoyed her by saying he would have got a dog or cat, like she’d been talking about wanting as her starter the last time he’d seen her, instead of considering how much of a bond she must have with her Crobat for it to have evolved to that stage in the first place.

So why would she come to talk to him again this quickly? Unless… “You said something to her, didn’t you?” Jin guessed, to which Koichi gave half a shrug. “At least tell me you didn’t do it in front of the whole class…” He suspected Kyoko wouldn’t want her whole class to know about their family issues any more than he would.

“Geez, Jin. Gimme some credit!” Koichi sighed, “Anyway, see ya tomorrow!”

He didn’t even wait for Jin to respond in kind before letting himself out of the office and leaving Jin alone, attempting to fill out his paperwork without getting distracted at the hope that every creak or footstep outside his door was his daughter coming to visit…

Roughly 45 agonising slow minutes later, there was a knock on the door…

“Come in!” Jin shouted through…

The door opened slowly, more quietly than most people would have managed, Jin was in the habit of purposefully de-greasing the hinges in order to make it more noticeable if anyone attempted to catch him in here unawares. Kyoko still glared at the source of the noise regardless, and looked around at everything in the office except himself, as if she was trying to figure out a way to break in here…

“Ah! Kyoko! Good Evening!” Jin greeted her cheerfully, attempting to sound as if he hadn’t spent three-quarters of an hour anxiously expecting her. “Sit down! Have you had dinner?”

“Yes.” His daughter replied as she sat in the chair on the other side of his desk, in a tone that made him suspect she’d specifically eaten so as to avoid anything resembling a typical family dinner with him…

“Alright… so, how was your first day of…”

“What made you come to Hope’s Peak?” She cut him off, determination burning in the very back of her eyes.

…What made him come here?

(“Jin… buddy, you’re REALLY just up and leaving to go to Hope’s Peak!? Even with the whole ‘family business’ thing!?”)

(“Yes, Koichi… And I have to admit, Father didn’t exactly take the news well!”)

(“I don’t blame him! I know you and him don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, but you’re still one of the best detectives your family has!”)

(“Hardly! Do you know how many unsolved cases I have!? I’ve no leads on that therapist from Team Flare who was brainwashing people to be ‘more productive’. Those prototype psychic translators are still missing. Hell, I even managed to lose track of the location of one of Team Rockets improvement machines…! It’s… for the best if I go to Hope’s Peak.”)

(“…For the best, huh…? Even though you aren’t planning to take your own daughter?”)

(“Kyoko’s got the making of a good detective already…She’s… less likely to accidentally stumble across something that might get her in into trouble if her grandfather’s the one looking after her.”)

(“So that’s how it is… Hmm… Well, Hope’s Peak sounds like a pretty cushy place to work! Maybe you can put a good word in for your old buddy, eh? It’ll be nice to keep helping you out, whatever it is you’re deciding to do…”)

…All those unsolved cases involving villainous organisations… all with the theme of improving pokémon or, more worryingly, people… and so many of them where his final lead had been a minor, well-hidden, circumstantial connection to Hope’s Peak. It might have just been coincidence, but it was enough to have warranted further investigation in his eyes…

But of course, there would have been no way for him to get close enough to discover what was really going on at Hope’s Peak when he was actively part of a secretive family of master detectives. The steering committee was suspicious enough about some of his questions as it was even after the falling out with his father, to the point where he sometimes wondered if they only kept him on staff so they could pay more attention to his attempts to investigate them, effectively putting him at a standstill…

But, surely they wouldn’t worry so much about a child of Kyoko’s age… especially when he’d been making it copiously clear that he wanted to keep her safe and out of trouble as much as he possibly could…

“…I just wasn’t much good as a detective!” His daughter scowled at what must have seemed like a pathetic excuse for leaving her… “Didn’t your grandfather ever tell you about all those unsolved cases of mine?

“No… he never really spoke about you at all.” Kyoko admitted.

“Oh? That’s a shame… some of my cases make for quite good stories!” Jin started. “For example…”

He proceeded to take up half an hour of Kyoko’s time by nostalgically blabbering on about some older, successful cases he’d been involved in, during which her only reaction was to scrutinise his every word in an attempt to determine if any of his tale was at all relevant to why he’d come to Hope’s Peak. Which it wasn’t, of course. He’d just been enjoying the chance to spend some time with her before dropping one last hint to the situation…

“But really, that case was very simple. Any detective could have managed that…” Jin finished up his tale, “And a good detective would probably be able to solve those cases I left open… that’s why I came to Hope’s Peak.”

“Hmph… I see.” Kyoko sighed disappointedly as she stood up off of her chair, “And here I thought there might have actually been a good reason you left… I’ll take my leave know. Good evening, Headmaster.”

…Either she was a fantastic actor, or she’d failed to pick up on his hint at all.

Jin almost hoped it was the latter. She might be safer that way…

“Hello! Welcome to the pokécentre! Would you like to heal your pokémon?” Hiroko could hear Joy repeating yet again to yet another kid, as if anyone who came up to her desk didn’t want their pokémon healed up… “Oh… your Pikipek fainted again!? Perhaps you shouldn’t be going so deep into the tall grass quite yet… Oh…? Well, that… it’s still better to come back before your pokémon faints, okay…?”

Hiroko tossed her magazine aside as Joy came back to the healing station with a worried look on her face…

“Lemme guess… kid’s standing at the edge of the grass so he can run when it faints?” Hiroko asked as she started setting up the machine yet again, "And then just battles until it does?"

“Yes… I told him it’s a bad idea, but I don’t think he really listened to me…” Joy sighed as she put the pokéball into the machine.

“Hey… tell you what, let me have a word with him.” Hiroko suggested, “I’m good at getting guys to do what I say…”

“Okay then…” Joy agreed and handed the now refreshed pokéball to Hiyoko, “Thanks, Hiyoko!”

“No problem, Joy.” Hiroko headed up to the front desk, catching the attention of the Café owner and the two pokémart employees who stopped working to see what she was doing up at the front desk instead of Joy, but not the little snot-nosed brat she was intending to talk to…

“Hey, kid. This your Pikipek?”

“Huh… oh, yeah, it is…!” He reached out to take it back, “What happened to the other lady…?”

“Joy thought it would best if I gave you a little training advice before we gave your pokémon back…” Hiyoko pulled the pokéball out of his reach, “Seeing as you’ve let it faint so many times today.”

“But… I already told her, I’m staying near the edge of the grass…”

“And what do you think will happen if whatever pokémon knocks yours out decided to chase you!?” Hiroko rounded on him so hard he stepped backwards, “And besides that, letting your pokémon faint so often is unforgivable! How would you like it someone kept making you work so hard that you collapsed!? If you keep this up, your Pikipek’s going to end up hating your guts! Now, I’m going to give you one more chance, but if I see this thing unconscious again in the next month, I’m finding out who gave it to you and telling them what a crummy trainer you’re being! Now scram, you little brat!”

He barely remembered to pick up his pokéball before scurrying off…

“Kids these days… my son was much better with his starter…” Hiroko sighed and reached for a cigarette… “Although I am a little worried that he thinks that Sandyghast of his is just a hat…”

“Really…? I can’t imagine that being very good for him…” Joy looked concerned as she came back to her spot at the desk… until she spotted the cigarette at least… “And speaking of things that aren’t good for people…!”

“I know, I know… I’ll go take it outside…” Hiroko sighed and headed off to the back entrance before Joy tried to trash her cigarette…

Hmm… thinking of Hiro, maybe while she was out here, she could give him a call and see how his first day of classes were… assuming he’d gone, at least… Maybe they’d have managed to convince him that his pokémon wasn’t clothing…

“Hey! Mom! Good to see you!” Hiro’s face appeared on her Pokédex… and he still had that pile of sand on his head… “Uhh… I meant to ring you, actually… turns out you were right!?”

“About what…?”

“Hattie, here!” Hiro patted the pokémon on his head, “Turns out she really is a Sandygast! I just forgot ‘cause that Kizakura guy hypnotised me into thinking she was a hat!”

Well, that was an improvement, but… “…Why do you still have her on your head, then?”

“She likes it there!” Hiro grinned, “Plus, this way she can protect me from aliens… or that Dark Lord guy, and maybe stop the hallways from rearranging themselves while I’m trying to get to class…”

Hmmm… Well he still looked alright, and he was acting like his usual self, even though he’d had that thing on his head for over a week… if it was a problem, it probably would have started affecting him by now, wouldn’t it?

“Well… alright, sweetie. At least now you know you’re further ahead of your class than you thought!”

“Uhh… well… maybe not…” He admitted sheepishly, “Some of those other pokémon are super strong! Even though their trainers are all younger than me! It’s nuts! I’m gonna have to train a ton to catch up with them all!”

“Well, I’m sure you can do it, honey… But don’t go training yourself too hard and getting into trouble, alright?” Hiroko warned him “Now, I’ve gotta get back to work before Joy gets swamped by dumb kids…”

“Alright, Mom! You look after yourself as well! And say ‘hi’ to Officer Jenny for me!”

“Okay…” She’d have to remember to pass that onto Jenny when she came by on her rounds tomorrow, “Love you, Hiro!”

“Love you to, Mom!” Hiro’s face disappeared from the screen, and Hiroko took one final drag from her cigarette before stubbing it out on the wall of the pokécentre and throwing it in the trash for some Grimer to eat and heading back inside…

Where she saw Jenny at the front desk, looking dishevelled and handing over her pokéballs to Joy… Huh. Maybe her son really was even more special than Hiroko thought he was.

"Tonights Headlines: Recruitment posters for Team Galatic have been seen in cities around Johto, leading to fears that the old terrorist group may be making a resurgence in new territories. Newly released records show that incidents of pokémon theft have been steadily decreasing over the last ten years. And the bidding process for the location of the 2030 International Pokémon Championship have begun. But first, here’s Sally with the battle news…”

Takaaki flicked the TV off and started eating the cheap tin of pasta he’d microwaved for his dinner in silence. Nothing really newsworthy going on, aside from the Team Galatic situation, which had been the subject of various aggravating discussions at work, so the last thing he wanted was to hear more speculation about that. He’d only really turned the television on in the hope that there’d be something about Hope’s Peak on the news…

…This house was so quiet. He’d never realised how much noise Kiyotaka and Arcanine actually made, even when they were just quietly studying. Or asleep even. At least, he assumed they must have made some background noise while they were sleeping, as that would explain why he’d had so much trouble drifting off to sleep the last two nights. And even Meowth had gone from basking in the fact that he no longer had to eat his food quickly, before Arcanine compulsively ate it instead, to staring at Takaaki’s pokédex on the table next to him forlornly…

“There’s no guarantee he’ll ring again.” Takaaki warned him, “He might be busy with classes… or maybe even socialising!”

Meowth’s tail twitched irritably at the insinuation that he’d been waiting for Kiyotaka of all people, and he leapt up to the back of Takaaki’s chair. Which, if anything, meant he’d just have a better view of Kiyotaka on the screen if he did ring. Not that Takaaki expected him to. As he’d told Meowth, Kiyotaka was off at his new school and this was his chance to finally get ahead with his training as well as meet people his age who weren’t all biased against him because of his grandfather. Just because Kiyotaka had said he’d aim to call home every night at half past nine didn’t mean he’d actually keep to that once he was busy with everything else in his new…

*Beep Beep Beep…*

Takaaki’s hand shot over to his pokédex at the sound of the ringtone… half past nine exactly… he probably shouldn’t be so happy that Kiyotaka felt that he had nothing better to do, but he smiled as he answered it regardless… “Hello…?” This old thing was always a bit slow to load the video feed…

“Ah! Good Evening, Father!”, “Arc arc arc!” Both Kiyotaka and his pokémon greeted him cheerfully once they could see him. “How are you and Meowth?”

“Good Evening, Kiyotaka, and you to, Arcanine! We’re doing fine, thank you! Here, Meowth’s just behind me…” Takaaki titled his pokédex so they could see his own pokémon pretending not to care that they could see him. Which caused Arcanine to bark excitedly for a while. “So, how was your first day of school?” He added, once Kiyotaka had settled the dog down…

“It was a lot of fun, actually! We had to try and predict who would win in a match-up between every pair of students in the class, and then we each had one fight each to see who’d win the more contentious match-ups! I managed to beat Enoshima’s Milotic rather easily, given I wasn’t allowed any items! Oh! And then Makoto invited me to eat lunch with him and Maizono, and then Hina, Sakura and Kirigiri came to sit with us as well!”

Now that was good to hear… Kiyotaka seemed to be making friends easily at Hope’s Peak.

“Then after that, we had some tests, which was where I discovered that there’s a new formula for damage calculations which I’m worried might have resulted in me making a lot of mistakes because I’m not used to it…”

“I’m sure you still did well.” Takaaki tried to assure him, “Or at least, better than most of your class who probably didn’t know the formula at all!”

“I suppose… Makoto and Sayaka didn’t seem too confident about their performance either…” Kiyotaka looked a little happier, “But then, after that, we had a lesson about some dangerous pokémon…”

Wait... what was that about dangerous pokemon...!?

(“It’s not the Rattata’s fault! I was trying to clean out the basement and didn’t know it had a nest there! It thought I was attacking its children!”)

(“Don’t be angry with Meowth! I should have realised he was getting sick of being recorded from his body language, and it’s not like he really hurt me!”)

(“But, Father, if you tell the school about this, they’ll just have the Beedrill nest exterminated! And it’s not their fault Ochida keeps pushing me into it!”)

(“It’s not Scyther’s fault Katsushika’s doing such a poor job of controlling him! I’ll just have to forgo my armband and wear shades at school until he gets his next badge!”)

(“Ahh… It’s not like Hina’s Glaceon meant to throw it at me! It was my own fault for being in the Snow Throw arena while there was a match in progress!”)

(“Takaaki! I saw your son on the news! Congratulations! But… he’s not going to try and do that fast-track DPTL course they’re supposed to have, is he…?”)

“Father…? Are you still there…? I think the pokédex connection has dropped out!” The montage of all the times Kiyotaka had come home with cuts, scrapes, bruises from getting too close even to less dangerous pokémon that Takaaki’s brain had flashed up was interrupted by Kiyotaka squinting at the screen.

“Err… no! I can still hear you!” Takaaki waved to show that the picture of him hadn’t frozen, “But… what was that about dangerous pokémon?”

“Oh, it was just a standard class to warn us about some of the more dangerous pokémon in the wild areas we have access to! Just the standard, vital health and safety advice…” Oh thank Gods… “But after that I looked through the library and found out from Togami that we have access to all the good research journals online, so my computer’s full of things for me to read, and I’ve checked out a couple of new books for Arcanine. And then Arcanine reminded me it was dinnertime, so I got some food and came here to call you!”

“Well… it sounds like you’ve had a good day…”

“Yes… but now there’s something I need to ask you about!” Kiyotaka suddenly turned stern, “I told Kirigiri why it was that Katsushika’s father was never persecuted for hurting his pokémon, but then she asked why it was that I was allowed to keep Growlithe, given that they thought you might have hurt him…”

Damnation... he'd been hoping Kiyotaka wouldn't notice that, not considering why Kiyotaka had really been allowed to keep his Growlithe...

(“Why is Katsushika only being transferred!? He was beating a pokémon!”)

(“That’s according to you… Unfortunately it turns out there’s a blind spot in the camera system in that area, so we can’t be sure which of you is telling the truth. That’s why we’re dropping the charges against you, and just to be certain, we’re transferring Katsushika out of the K9 unit…”)

(“You really think I’m going to just let you sweep this under the rug with that!? I can still get Nurse Joy to confirm that his Growlithe had received injuries from a human!”)

(“Which human? Because I seem to recall you ‘accidentally’ taking that pokémon home with you…”)

(“Don’t you try and foist this on me! Jenny can tell you it was in that pokéball the whole time I walked home, and then I left it there…”

(“With your son. For… what was it? Five hours before you realised what had happened and where he’d gone off to?”)

(“…Do you really think a court would take a pokémon abuse allegation against a child seriously? Even before I call in character witnesses to say Kiyotaka would never do anything like that?”)

(“I’m sure they wouldn’t… but what do you think the RSPCP would make of it if it got out that one of our dogs had been left in the care of a kid that was under suspicion of hurting it…? It’d be a shame for your son if those busy-bodies insisted it be re-homed somewhere else, even though it’s happier with your son, wouldn’t it? I hear he’s got quite attached to it…”)

(“…”)

(“So… why don’t you just keep your trap shut and be happy that that you’ve still got a job, we’re not going to let Katsushika near the pokémon, and your annoying kid has found something stupid enough to put up with him for once…”)

“Well…There also wasn’t enough evidence to prove the Growlithe actually had injuries from a human to make the case worth investigating in detail…” Takaaki… well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? There wasn’t evidence in the case file… because Takaaki hadn’t put it in there. And hopefully no one but him and the chief inspector knew Joy had said that…

“Ah… Did you ask Nurse Joy? She told me straight away that Growlithe’s injuries were from a human when I tried to get him healed!” Kiyotaka remembered, much to Takaaki’s disappointment, “Couldn’t she have testified?”

“Ah… maybe if I’d known about that at the time…” This time Takaaki was lying, “But it’s probably too late to worry about it now… it’ll be best for you to focus on looking after Arcanine!”

“I suppose…” Kiyotaka sighed, “At least that will be easier for me to do, what with the free food, clothes and school supplies!”

“That’s true… and have you had any thoughts about a second pokémon yet?” If he got a cheaper one, he’d have more money to spend of Arcanine, if needs be.

“No… I was going to wait and see what’s around the school grounds!” Kiyotaka explained, “…What about yourself? Now that you’ve not got me or Arcanine to pay for…”

“Me!? I’m a little old to be starting my pokémon journey now!” Takaaki laughed, “Or to be figuring out how to look after a different type of pokémon…”

“Well, there’s no age limit on earning badges! And you wouldn’t be the only trainer with a team full of the same pokémon!” Kiyotaka argued, “But you certainly don’t have to, if you’re happy with just you and Meowth! But aside from that, how was your day at work…?”

He and Kiyotaka just spoke about general things for a while, until Kiyotaka admitted that it was almost the school’s curfew time and Takaaki reluctantly ended the call with him, which was when Meowth jumped down from the back of the chair into Takaaki’s lap to settle down for the rest of the all too quiet evening…

Chapter Text

“Wow, you evolved your Glameow!? I can see why you didn’t want to… I never knew Purruglies were that fat…”

EXCUSE HIM!? Who exactly is this human, and why is it just being allowed to wander into his home and gawp at the stately radiance that is Grand Bois Cheri Ludenberg!?

“They’re not, usually…” Oh, apparently the woman who caught him thinks she has the right to just bring any old shabby human into the house. “But he doesn’t listen to any of my orders anymore, so he just sits there getting fatter…”

Well, of course he doesn’t! That boring woman had caught him in the prime of his life, just as he’d been ready to start fighting off rivals and ensure that he extended his untainted family line! And then she’d had him spend most of his life asleep in his pokéball, only letting him out for the odd pathetic battle and tiny portions of cheap food! Of course he doesn’t listen to her!

He’d only grown as strong as he was now once his real trainer had arrived and grown old enough to look after him properly, taking him to fights, not just to grow stronger but to win the money to buy him more, better quality, food. Then as he’d become older and started to struggle with battles, she’d let him retire, revealing that she’d saved the funds to start a new life elsewhere… one that would allow her to earn enough to supply him with only the very best food.

“Can’t you put him on a diet?”

“I tried, but Taeko…”

[That’s NOT her name!] The hiss escapes Grand Bois Cheri’s lips instantly… how dare this stupid woman refer to Lady Celestia as if she was just some common, boring human like the rest of them when Celestia had made it so staggeringly clear she wasn’t!

“Ahh! Uhh… is he gonna attack us…!?”

“No… He just doesn’t like it when I call… my daughter by her name…”

Because that isn’t her name, woman!

“…Oh, you mean… the one who disappeared?”

“Yes… I think she probably told the cat she was changing her name to something different… Probably something ridiculous, given she took my purrugly to the Name Rater and had his nickname changed to ‘Grand Bois Cheri’…”

“Geez, that’s the dumbest…”

[Don’t you DARE insult the name she gave me!] At least that name is unique! She’d put thought into that name! She didn’t just search for a list of popular cat names and call him something stupid like Toby!

“Err… never mind! Soo… how come you can’t put… him on a diet…?”

“Because… my daughter keeps sending home these packages of fatty food.” The woman who insisted he was hers kicks the latest package from Lady Celestia dismissively, and is lucky that Grand Bois Cheri is in a good enough mood not to bite her for the slight. “…And even if we try to hide them or throw them out, he manages to find them somehow.”

Of course he did, they were always coated with his trainer’s perfume! He’d be able to follow that scent anywhere, if needs be…

“Wait… so you know where she is?”

“No… there’s no return address, and as far as I can tell, that brand of food isn’t sold anywhere here in Kanto…”

“Oh… wow, that must be rough… I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright… I guess at least I know she’s alive. Maybe one day I can hope she’ll grow out of this stupid phase of hers and come back home… I just wish I could see her, or knew if she’s actually looking after herself for once, or if she’s still gambling and getting herself into trouble…”

“I’m sure she’s fine… she was smart, if nothing else, right? How about we go out for a coffee to cheer you up! My treat!”

“…Thanks…”

And with that, the two distasteful humans are finally out of Grand Bois Cheri’s sight, and they should be gone long enough for him to properly investigate the package properly…

It is as it usually is, enough of his delicious Gyoza food for the week. A new toy to add to his collection and down at the bottom, a box that looks identical to the boxes of food, but is just slightly heavier, containing a small television device, with a single button that started playing a recording of his beloved Celestia…

…If that dullard of a woman really did wish to see his mistress again, perhaps she’d have spent more than five minutes investigating the boxes she sent to him. But he doubt she truly cared. She was even too petty and blind to recognise her own lovely daughter, even when her name and face had been plastered all over TV for the last week. And so it was that Celestia had grown to care for him enough to send him letters home, but with instructions to hide them from her parents…

“Greetings, Grand Bois Cheri!” The recording of his true trainer started with a glamourous smile, “I hope you enjoyed the food from last week, and are being properly looked after at that old house…”

[It’s tolerable] He knows she can’t hear him, but it’s nice to pretend this is a conversation…

“I have moved into Hope’s Peak. It’s not quite up to my usual standards, but there is a boy here who has been willing to dedicate his time to serving me, and there is good food available… I have included an extra box of something new for you to try, if you are curious!”

[Thank you, you’re too kind.]

“As for my class, they seem quite competent in terms of battling… surprisingly so, in one case!” Celestia’s serene face breaks into irritation for a mere moment. “But that has never been of too much concern to myself, and the lessons do not appear to be challenging, so I should do well here!”

[Of course you will.]

“…I wonder, though… perhaps you’d like to be here as well? Now that I am not travelling, I can look after you properly again…” Grand Bois Cheir’s ears perk up at the hope of seeing her again, “My only concern is that they’ll expect me to force you into fight, unless I get a second pokémon first.”

[…As much as I miss you, I am no fighter anymore…]

“I suppose that will be yet another reason for me to catch my second pokémon sooner rather than later.” Celestia decides wisely, “I will keep you updated as to my progress!”

[Thank you, mistress.]

“And with that, I must bid you adieu! Have a good week, Grand Bois Cheri!”

[And you to, Lady Celestia…] Grand Bois Cheri just about manages to purr his goodbye before the screen turns off…

But he can’t sit and wallow in sadness all day. He now has to hide this cheap machine up in the mistress’s old room, along with all the others she sends each week. Then later on that stupid woman will come back and ignore her neighbours when they tell her it sounded like the cat was talking to someone again…

He can only hope his true trainer will be in a position to take him away soon…

Urgh… another contest where Ayaka had been placed middle-of-the-pack just because she’d been given a crappy presentation spot! Hell, the commentators had even said that no one who presented second had ever won that stupid contest! And yet everyone was still going to act like it was her fault she’d not done better!

…She’d been thinking that with Sayaka gone, it’d be her time to shine! That maybe they’d rearrange the group positions so her pokémon would be stuck off in a corner during their shows, or they could at least start taking it in turns now they didn’t have that whole ‘but Sayaka’s got to be in the front because she’s the best!’ bullcrap to fall back on! But now they’d probably use her crummy placement in this stupid rigged show as a reason to dump her off in the corner forever…

Well… she supposed it beat having to go do some dumb normal job like work in the fricken PokéMart! But, still, it’d just be nice if people noticed that her and Emolga were better than this, dammit!

“Hey… better luck next time, Ayaka!” Sato told her as they headed into their dressing room. Although whether she actually realised it had been her crappy luck or she was just saying that to be a polite drip like usual was anyone’s guess…

“Thanks.” Ayaka told her, calmly. Because she wasn’t the temper-tantrum-throwing hellion the papers kept making her out to be. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“Sayaka sent me a message saying she can chat to us all now, if we call her!”

Guess that answered that question then. They’d be able to hear if Hope’s Peak really was as good as it sounded, or if it was just as trumped up as winning talent contests had turned out to be once they all actually started it…

“Oh! Hi girls!” Sayaka smiled and waved at them all like she hadn’t actually expected them to ring her.

“Sayaka!”, “Hey Sayaka!”, “You look great!”, “How was school!?” They all crowded around the pokédex and shouted back cheerfully, “Are they showing you how to make new accessories? Or giving you tips on getting judges to notice you?” Sato added, apparently not having paid attention to what Hope’s Peak was actually about.

“Ah… no, it was mostly about wild pokémon and battling today… and on the syllabus.” Sayaka shrugged, “We only have to do one half-day of talent training a week, everything else is extra-curricular.”

“So… does that mean there aren’t many trainers there who care what their pokémon look like, then?” Sato asked dimly.

“Well, duh! How many of those people did you recognise?” Ayaka rolled her eyes, “It’s just her and Enoshima in her class who’ve ever set foot in a contest hall!”

“Yeah… and I get the feeling the school didn’t really want both of us here, even.” Sayaka admitted, “I get the impression they were aiming to get one talent trainer this year, like they did with the sports trainer...”

Seriously? Who the hell cared about sports!? If you wanted to see how fit a pokémon was, you could just battle it.  Ayaka had never heard of a school were the talent training was only as good as the sports. It sounded like Sayaka had gone to the crummiest school ever!

“So… it’s just going to be you and Enoshima doing performances against each other then?” Sato asked.

“No… We’ve got Ibuki and Hiyoko here as well, remember?” Sayaka reminded her, “And even in my class there’s Kuwata who’s interested, and maybe Ishimaru could put on a decent show with his Arcanine if he decided to try… and it wouldn’t surprise me if Togami and Ludenberg both have a performance or two they can pull out if asked to.”

“But it’s probably only Enoshima who’s actually going to be anywhere near your league, then?” Ayaka guessed.

“Yeah... at least, for talent shows, anyway…” Sayaka admitted, looking slightly embarrassed… ooh, this oughta be good…

“Why just for talent shows?” Ayaka asked.

“Well… Let’s just say the pair of us didn’t make talent trainers look very good on a battlefield…” Sayaka sighed, then saw that they were all still looking at her expectantly… “Enoshima’s Milotic lost to an Arcanine…”

Hah! Ayaka was surprised that Milotic didn’t lose to the mass of spangly crap Enoshima piled on it!

“And what about you?” One of the girls asked.

“…Brionne lost to a Marill…” Sayaka sighed, “But everyone said I fought sensibly, and it was a really strong Marill that knows Hydro Pump…”

But it’s still a tiny little Marill. Way to make the band look good!

“Aww… well, that shouldn’t count! You’re not training your pokémon to fight, you’re training them to dance!” Sato complained.

“I know… but I get the feeling the school thinks a good trainer should be able to do all of it!” Sayaka said, “Which is weird, because their official stance is that they bring us together so we each can hone our individual skills and then help each other…”

Meh, companies and organisations had contradictory stances on stuff all the time!

But a good trainer should be good at everything, eh? Maybe that was where she was going wrong. Perhaps instead of spending hours making slight improvements to her dances, she should go outside and have Emolga knock a few pokémon heads together, so it’d get stronger and know better moves to show off. After all, the judges would have to notice her if she made Thunder strike on stage…

And if they still didn’t notice that, maybe she’d just use it on them instead!

“…the bidding process for the location of the 2030 International Pokémon Championship have begun. But first, here’s Sally…”

Well, that was all pretty lame. No more news on how Big Bro Leon was getting on at his new school? Kanon had been hoping to see him, even if it was just on a TV screen… And she hadn’t even been able to see him all summer, because he’d gone off to Alola and left her to train by herself! And he hadn’t even thanked her for packing up all his stuff for him and sending it all to Hope’s Peak so he wouldn’t have to cut his holiday short either, even though they were destined to be rivals!

Not that he actually agreed with her there. He kept saying that he didn’t want to be rivals with someone in his family, because if they did become rivals then they’d end up ruining every family get together by fighting with each other, as if there’d never been a pair of rivals who were friends with each other! And she’d been so hopeful when he said that if her Delcatty could outrun his Luxray he’d consider her rival material, until she’d found out that even the highest recorded speed of a Delcatty was nowhere near Leon’s Luxray… If only she’d got a Purrloin instead…

Not that that stopped her from going out on the track every night and jogging along with Delcatty until her feet got blistered and calloused! She’d get Big Bro Leon to respect her and realise that they’d been measuring up against each other since they were little kids one day! Heck, maybe instead of moping around thinking about him, she could head back outside and…

*Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt…* Huh? Her pokédex was ringing…?

Ah! It was Leon! Was he finally going to to at least acknowledge that she was a competent trainer who had better thing to do than sort all his stuff out, and actually thank her for doing it? Hmm… How did her make-up look…!? It wouldn’t do to answer the call looking like a total mess, that wouldn’t get her any respect at all! But it looked alright, she could totally face him looking like this! Accept call!

What the!? Was that actually Leon!? It looked like he’d grown his hair out over the summer, in a kind of messy punk good-for-nothing kind of way… the perfect counterpart to her professional, organised, well-presented self! He finally was starting to play the part of a proper rival for her!

“Hey! Kanon…! Is this thing on…?”

“Yes. I was just surprised you’ve changed your hair...” Kanon explained.

“Oh great, you can hear me!” Leon smiled in relief., “Where’d you get that berry-growing kit from?”

What!? That was all he wanted? He hadn’t even asked her how she or her pokemon was, let alone said thanks for the help! Uurrggghhh… Typical Leon! It was like he only thought of her as someone to run around doing menial tasks for him, just because she'd agreed to be his manager! But if she didn’t help his lazy butt out he’d do even less training than he already did and they’d end up being the crummiest rival pair ever…

“It was a gift to you from Mom…” Even though Kanon had told her Leon wouldn’t waste his time growing berries when both his and her Dads were giving him enough money to buy potions when he needed to. “I think she got it in Veilstone…?”

“Really? Aww man… that’s gonna be a pain… But I need another one of those spray bottles to train Litten…”

“You have a Litten!?” The hell!? Her rival had a new pokemon and she didn’t know about it!?

“Huh? Oh, yeah! I caught him in Alola… but he’s a little asshole who keeps setting fire to my stuff!” Leon complained, holding up a charred plastic thing. "Even the spray bottle I was using to train him to quit doing it!”

“Oh… well if you just need any spray bottle, why not use an empty bottle of cleaning spray or something?” Kanon asked.

“Cleaning spray!?” Oh, right. Because Big Bro Leon had never cleaned anything in his whole life, probably.

“Yeah… you can probably find some in any general store… Or the household section in a department store.”

“Oh, great! I’ll go get some right now!”

“What!? You’re just going to leave like that!?” He’d hardly spoken to her at all!

“Sorry, Cuz! But if I don’t leave now, I won’t be prepared when Litten sets the next thing on fire!”

“Alright… But how about we talk tomorrow evening to catch up? I didn’t even know you had a second pokémon yet! I mean, how am I supposed to be your rival if I can’t build a team to combat yours properly!?”

“Kanon… really, we’re family! You’re like a little sister to me! I like you to much to be a rival to you!” Leon gave her all the same excuses as he always did. “ And I can’t talk tomorrow, cause I’m helping a girl from my class with sports… But I’ll talk Wednesday, alright? See ya!”

…So he’d just rung to ask her for something stupid and rub it in her face that he was spending tomorrow evening with yet another girl who was probably rubbish at sports and would never pose him any sort of challenge, but he’d said he’d help out because he was hoping to kiss her or whatever, like all those other trainers she’d secretly watched him hang out with in the hopes of getting a better idea of how he battled. And after she’d wasted the last few days of her summer holiday packing up his stuff for him, which he still hadn’t thanked her…

*Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt…*

Leon again!? What he want from her now…?

“Hey…”

“Yo, I just realised I forgot to say earlier, but thanks for getting all my stuff here, even though it probably cut into your training time! Anyway, see ya!”

…And there he went again. But at least he’d remembered to thank her, and had even considered the effect it had on her pokemon. Maybe he’d soon realise she was the one who always going to be closest to his level when it came to pokemon…

It was 9:52pm when the Young Master Byakuya chose to contact him, somewhat earlier than Aloysius had expected. He was aware that Hope’s Peak had a curfew that began at 10pm and would have expected the master to still be outside training his pokémon against those in the wild until the very last second…

But he was just a butler. It wasn’t his prerogative to understand all the workings of his master’s mind, even if having watched the boy grow from a small child to the young man he was now had given him some insight into the matter.

“Greeting, Young Master Byakuya. How may I be of service?” Aloysius answered the call on his computer, so he could continue to work and look up any files that were needed.

“Just an update on the day’s business, Pennyworth, and any matters that are of direct importance.” The young master answered brusquely as his face appeared on the screen… although Aloysius could barely see him against the darkness in the background.

“There was little of importance happening today. It seems most people were busy preparing for the  tomorrow’s yearly stock assessment  of the PokéMarts. I have, of course, submitted evidence encouraging the more widespread use of our line of Repels and potions...

“Good work.” The young master either nodded more than usual, or his pokédex had moved upwards as he did it… “Any more developments in the family?”

“Nothing significant. Two of the ones you’ve already defeated have announced that they will be compteting against each other next week, but of course you’ve already ensured that won’t have any effect on anything…”

“I see… Perhaps their assuming that my being here will put me out of the running, for some idiotic reason.” Master Byakuya frowned, “Perhaps I’d best orgnaise my next challenge, just to remind them all that I still exist!”

Aloysius had assumed that would be the best plan of action for the young master as well… “In that case, may I offer a suggestion?”

“Go ahead.” The gestured towards him to signal that he could proceed, at which point his Rufflet landed on his arm and dropped a fish out of its beak onto the master’s lap…

Ah, so he was training. He must have been on a boat in the lake region and decided to multitask while Rufflet was content to hone his fishing skills…

“…For the past few years, Hope’s Peak has been taking its students on a field trip to Cinnabar Gym four weeks after the start of the first term…” Aloysius began to explain, as Master Byakuya patted his bird briefly, before it flew off again and he began to rummage around in the bottom of the boat... "You could easily arrange a private boat to take you to Cianwood City...

“Hmm… and from there, you’re thinking I can head through the cliff-edge gate, then routes 47 and 48 to get to Hinoko’s place…” The young Master caught on quickly, especially considering he was in the middle of throwing the deposited fish back out into the water. “I’ll contact the school’s administration and challenge her as soon as I can confirm the specific date.”

“Very good, sir.” That was the type of mindless work Aloysius should be doing for him. But the Togami family were insistent that all aspects of these challenges were to be completed by the potential heirs themselves, including the organisational aspects, to ensure that the resultant heir would be competent in all matters, not just battling.

“Is there anything else of note?” The master asked, “Because I’m hoping I should be able to start some rather more… intense training than I have been up until now…”

It was just as Aloysius was wondering why the master would have left the more intense training until now, that the clock on the wall chimed 10pm…

“Ah… You think there are more powerful pokémon on the lake at night?” Aloysius guessed, “Forgive me, I was under the impression that first-year students were not allowed to be out at that time…”

“Well… that is true…” The young master smiled to himself, “However, I accidentally dropped the oars overboard a while ago, and Rufflet isn’t understanding my commands to go and fetch them for me, so it seems I may be here, having to defend myself from more dangerous pokémon for rather a long time… not by choice, of course!”

“I see…” So, the master was already finding loopholes in Hope’s Peak’s rules and guidelines. Although that was rather a glaring one, and Aloysius could see a problem with his plan developing already… “However, I don’t think you need to fear being here for long… It would seem this place is patrolled at night.”

“What!?” The young master lost his composure for a moment as he turned to see the light from the small motorboat skipping over the waves towards him, “…I see. I was thinking they’d be guarding the forest instead, as it was the more dangerous area.” He said, tersely forcing himself to sound relieved, “How… fortunate that I was wrong.”

“Indeed, sir…” Aloysius agreed with his pretense as the boat got close enough for him to see the bulky figure of Juzo Sakakura steering it…

“Byakuya Togami, isn’t it?” The young master remained stoic as the guard shined a flashlight into his face, “I know even Kizakura didn’t forget to tell you not to be outside after 10pm…”

“My apologies. I dropped my oar and couldn’t get back to land.” The master explained, “I sent my Rufflet to pick it up, but he keeps bringing me fish instead.”

“Well, lucky for you, you’re not the first kid who’s gone out into the water on the first night when they don’t know how to use a boat… I’d say I end up taking one back to land every year.” Sakakura said with a deadpan expression, “But don’t worry… I’ll just let your teacher know he’s going to have to give your whole class the in-depth lesson on how to handle the boats…”

“...Thank you.” The master said, cordially but with annoyance simmering under the surface. “Just let me pack away my pokédex and call Rufflet and…”

The screen went black, as the master was no longer in a position to communicate with him. It would seem he was going to have to learn to make do training against the pokémon available during the day. Or against the other students at Hope’s Peak, as much as he might consider them ill-fitting for his training regimes…

Well, it wasn’t Aloysius prerogative to be concerning himself with the Young Master’s school life. He was the most likely Togami heir, he would find some way to make do.

“W-what do you mean you d-don’t think anyone will buy a story like that!? I’m not giving you a book pitch, I’m telling you about my day at school…! B-because I th-thought you’d at least be interested! B-but obviously not, so w-whatever, goodbye!”

Oh! Toko’s done with the red thing now! Scatterbug can get her attention by rubbing her arm! [Hey, Toko? Battle-time now? I’m gonna evolve soon!]

“Yeah, I don’t know why I bother talking to them either…” Aww… Toko’s upset. No battle-time yet… “You’d think they’d be proud I got into Hope’s Peak! But they act like it doesn’t matter because it’s not my combat skills they wanted… Well, they’re gonna look extra stupid when I kick Byakuya’s butt!”

[Yeah! Kick rival’s butt! Battle-time! Whoop whoop!]

“Heh… at least you care how I feel…”

*Stomp, stomp, stomp*

Huh!? Ahh! Ground is shaking!? What’s going on!? Earthquake!?

*Stomp, STOMP.*

“Good Evening, Fukawa! Do you mind if I sit with you while I eat?” No, wait… just the loud human with…

Aargh!  Those two other tiny Scatterbugs again! [Go away you two! Shoo! Shoo!]

“Sorry, I’m saving that place for Byakuya.”

[Toko’s MY trainer! So I’m going to beat the best rival! Not you!]

“But I just… err… have I don’t something to upset your Scatterbug, or is it always this excitable?”

Grr… those two are moving down here! [Don’t you two come any closer! I’m almost evolved, you know!]

“It’s not usually like that… Oh, I know! Maybe he’s trying to mate with your eyebrows!”

Hah! Yeah! That scared them off!

“They mate with facial hair!?”

“Urgh, no of course not! That would be stupid! I mean your eyebrows look like someone stuck tiny black caterpillars to your face!”

“EXCUSE ME!? Thick eyebrows are just a sign of…”

“Well, Wh-whatever, what was it you were going to say about Byakuya!?”

“Tch… I was going to say he probably isn’t coming here. Ijust saw him eating dinner in the library, and he told me he’s going outside to train.”

“Wh-what! Why would he go now! He’ll barely get half an hour if he’s lucky!”

“I suppose, but that’s still half an hour more than us! And if he keeps doing that, it would build up eventually…”

“Urgh… You’re right! I’m not letting that sneaky snob get ahead of me that easily! Which area did he go to!?”

“I don’t know! He just said he was going outside!”

“Urgh… gods, you’re useless! I th-thought you were supposed to know things!? Well, whatever! Come on Scatterbug! We’re gonna go find Byakuya!”

Yes! Here we go! [Woo! Rival time! Battle time!]

Running through the halls, run, run, run, run…

Brrrrrrrr! This place is cold and dark! And still no Rival… Where was he?

“N-now where would he have gone? It sounded like the most dangerous pokémon were in the forest, but that means everyone  wanting to train will go there and it’d be crowded, and the guards will probably start kicking people out before curfew time so he’d have less time to fight… he’d have thought of that…” Toko was figuring it out! “And he’s probably the type who doesn’t want to risk getting his stuff wet, as well… so that means he’ll be out in the field! Haha!”

[Good work! Clever Toko!] His trainer was the best!

“But if I’m going out there now, I’d better have Garbodor out ready… Scatterbug, back in your ball!”

Aww… [Okay… But let me out for the Rival Battle! Pleassse!?]

“…It’s not like I’ll keep you in there forever! I’ll let you out if there’s something you can fight, alright?”

[Alright!] Time to go back into his ball!

… … …

“Sc-scatterbug!? Y-your t-turn!”

YES! Battle time! [Here I come! Look out! I’m about to evolve!]

WOW! Much more dark and cold out here now! And what was this he had to fight? Some big rat thing? And Garbo had already made all sick! Hah! He could take this easy!

“Ahh… it’s still not fainted!? Dammit! Why’d I have to have my good luck in that stupid class match when it didn’t really matter…!?”

[Don’t worry, Toko! I can beat it! Just tell me what to do!]

“Uhh… Scatterbug… use… ahh… Stun spore?”

[Okay! STUUUUN SPOOO…] Ahhhhhhh! The rat’s coming! Scatterbug’s not ready yet! AHHHHHHHHHHH…!

“Persian! Use Fake out!”

Huh…? Oh! Now’s there’s a white human guy with a big big kitty that wants to eat the rat thing! And now the rat’s gone! Hooray! And Scatterbug totally helped! So now Scatterbug’s gonna evolve even sooner…!

“Well, now you know why we have rules about…”

“What the hell took you so long!?” Toko’s really mad at the white person… “I-I’ve been wandering around in the dark getting attacked by those things for ages! H-how come no one noticed I was st-still out here!”

“Save the act, Fukawa. We get people getting ‘lost’ out late at night every year… Just consider this a…”

“Y-you think I did this on purpose!? I-I’m not stupid! I just got lost because I went off the path, trying to find Byakuya!” Aww… so still no Rival Battle time…?

“…You mean you really got lost? Wow, that’s a new one… And you weren’t even looking in the right place. We caught Togami ‘stranded’ in the middle of the lake about an hour ago…”

“A… An hour ago?” Toko sounded so surprised, that wasn’t like her at all!

“Yep… you could have just…”

“So… I’ve been training out here for a whole hour more than Byakuya…!?”

“Well… that’s one way of putting it…”

“Hah! Exactly! So that’s means I’m now an hour closer to catching up with him!” Yeah! Toko’s the best trainer! They’ll total beat the best Rival! “Heheheh… A few more nights like this and…!”

“…If I catch you outside after curfew again, I’ll have you banned from coming outside at all!”

“Uhh… I didn’t mean exactly like this! I just meant nights where I spend more time t-training than him! You know… inside! Against… urgh… the other students?”

“…Good idea! It’ll be better than just picking fights with wild pokémon! I’d suggest you start with Hagakure and Ludenberg, they’re about equal to you… But first, lets get you back inside and I expect you to get your pokémon healed, and then straight to bed. Got it?”

“Fine…” Aww… Toko was disappointed! No Rival Battle today…

Well, maybe next day… or the day after! Or after Scatterbug evolved! He was definitely gonna evolve soon, this time…!

Chapter Text

What the hell!? Why had they held back Mukuro with that biker guy!? Were they gonna get some sort of special treatment, or something? Like, Junko had been expecting the teacher to hold her back with those two losers who obviously spent more time sat on their asses than training their pokémon, not the guy who helped run a Gym!

Tch! Now she was gonna have to wait around a classroom for her sister, like some sort of weirdo, just to see what was going on! And she’d been looking forward to going to dinner and seeing if there was any more drama there... this better not turn out to be her sister getting told she needed to go into the stupid trainer class or something…

Well, at least it wasn’t too long before the door open, and corn cob head almost ran into her ‘cause he was so fricken happy about whatever had gone on in there…

But Mukuro just had the same stupid worried expression she’d had all weekend! Honestly, Junko was getting bored of it now…

“Hey! Soooo? What happened in there?” Junko had to ask, seeing as Mukuro didn’t have the sense to just tell her already, “You didn’t get in trouble, did you?”

She’d asked that ‘cause she could see the teacher still sat at his desk, glaring at her just before the door closed shut behing her sister…

“No!” Mukuro replied, like a kid who was worried she’d get spanked is the answer was ‘yes’, “He just wants me to do an extra class…”

“You mean to help you out, ‘cause you’re a bad trainer?” Junko knew she shouldn’t have bothered waiting out…

“No… Something about a license for training dangerous pokémon…”

Huuuh!?

(“Yo! I wanna give this cute fox a new home!”)

(“Ah... That’s not a good idea. That’s a Zorua and it’s going to evolve into Zoroark very soon…”)

(“Soooooo!? It’s cute! I want it!”)

(“But… Zoroark creates very powerful illusions! They can make the entire landscapes look different, if they want to!”)

(“It just changes how shit looks? How’s that dangerous?”)

(“Well… imagine it made you think there was a forest in front of you, when there was actually a cliff… And it’s not just one person who’s affected, it can affect everyone in there area!”)

(“Upupupupupu… So you’d get a whole bunch of people all going for a stroll and suddenly tumbling off a cliff, one after the other!? Upupupupupu… I’m sorry… I know it’s wrong, but it’s just so funny to imagine, you know? ‘Hey! Let’s go for a picnic…. AHHHHHHH!’”)

(“…”)

(“But, man… that’d be a really sad way to go… you think you’re gonna have a nice day out, and then you fall through the ground to your death, like some NPC stuck in a videogame glitch…”)

(“Y….Yeah… So that’s why only trainers with a license for dangerous pokémon can take that one… it’s the law…”)

(“Aww… that’s a bummer… Hey, what about this little teddy bear?”)

(“The Teddiursa…? Well… You need to know that when he evolves he might get a bit ornery during the spring, but it’s young enough that you should be able to form a good bond with it before that happens… Buuuut… maybe I should let you get to know the guy, first… he’s kinda… bitey…”)

“Seriously!? So you’re gonna be allowed to have fun training all the cool pokémon?” What the hell!? How come her dumb sister got the cool things!?

“Umm… I don’t know… some of the pokémon they mentioned can be dangerous, even just fighting them in the field… it’s probably a lot of work to make them safe enough to live with…” Mukuro was totally humblebragging about this…

“Yeah, but people still manage it, and they reckon you’re gonna be one of those people!”

“But… Will I really? I mean, I’m not a trainer… Is it really worth me doing the course…?”

Oh, riiiiight… No point her having big scary pokémon if she wasn’t gonna battle with ‘em anyway… But it’d still be nice to have access to all those cool abilities they had, right…?

“Weeeellll…. I know! How’s about you take the course and make sure you can make all those scary pokémon nice and safe to handle, and then I can train them up for you!”

And there we go! Mukuro finally had an expression that wasn’t depressing to look at! “You’d do that for me!?”

“Sure I would! We’re sisters, right?” Junko hitcher her arm over Mukuro’s shoulders to remind her, “We’re supposed to look out for each other!”

“Yes! Of course!” Mukuro nodded, “I just thought after you already agreed to swap names on all our tests…”

Arrrgghhh! How was this stupid idiot related to her!? “Don’t talk about that! If someone hears we did that then we’ll get in trouble!”

“Ahh… sorry, Junko!”

“Well, we seem like we’ve got away with it… just don’t talk about it again!”

After all, if anyone found out they’d swapped tests, it’d probably mean Junko ended up in the stupid trainers’ class… and she wanted to get cool pokémon, not waste loads of time learning about them…

“Haha! Sorry kiddo! Better luck next time!” Daiya shrugged as he easily beat the final pokémon the poor kid in front of him had been trying for a badge with…

…But this was, what, the third trainer in a row Michi had let get to him to who really shouldn’t have managed it? Hell, he could almost have finished of that last guy with his new Clefairy! What the hell was going on with that kid tonight…? Maybe it was time for Daiya to have a stroll outside and make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep and let people sneak past him or something…

“Sandshrew! Use Powder Snow!” Okay… so at least Daiya could hear he was actually fighting these guys…

“Ahh… Okay, Torchic! You’re next! Use Ember!!” Daiya got to the fight just to see this kid getting her next pokémon out, onl for Michi to fail to react completely… “Umm… excuse me…?”

“Huh!? Uhh… yeah, powder snow again…” Oh for the love of… he was checking his pokédex for missed calls again…!? In the middle of a battle!?”

Of course, his Sandshrew went down pretty quick and apparently that was the end of the fight, even though Michi really should have been able to put up more of a fight that that …

“…Nice fight!” Daiya lied, “You’re up against me now, so you might wanna go get your team healed up or something…” She had the sense to agree and headed off… “Michi, go find someone else in the gang to take over for you…”

“Huh!? Daiya!?” Michi guiltily stuffed his Dex in his pocket, “Have you heard from Mondo yet?”

Daiya had to keep himself from sighing out loud. Michi had been getting more and more anxious about how Mondo was doing all weekend… and Daiya would have bet good pokédollars that Mondo had also been worrying about being at a new school or weekend, both thanks to him being too proud to call back and chat to anyone in the gang…

“Nah… I told you, he’s probably studying.”

“Seriously!?” Michi scowled, “You don’t really expect him to do well at school work, do you?”

“Well, I expect him to fucking try!” Daiya scowled right back, “Contrary to popular opinion, I didn’t recommend him to that place so he could goof off!”

“But… I thought you recommended him ‘cause he’s a good battler!” Michi countered, “They’ll know he ain’t exactly a pokémon professor…”

“Well, they’re still gonna expect him to learn shit while he’s there, even if it’s just to make himself better at battling!” Daiya pointed out, “Plus I bet there’s all sorts of extra stuff that’d be useful for him to learn, if he’s willing to bust his ass for a while…”

Which is why it’d be nice if he actually bothered to fucking call and let Daiya know what the fuck had happened on his first day, even if it was just Mondo doing a shit job in a math exam or something… Although if that was the highlight of Mondo’s day he probably wouldn’t dare ring him either… Dammit, maybe he shoulda waited another couple of years instead of pushing Mondo into this now…

*We all live… in a pokémon world…* Maybe that was him… or maybe it was that dork from the league association threatening to do an audit of all the potions and shit they used again… That'd be just Daiya's luck...

“Yo, Crazy Diamonds mobile Gym, Gym Leader Daiya speaking.” He’d never get sick of calling himself that…

“Hey, it’s me…” Mondo’s, dare Daiya hope, smug looking face appeared on the screen.

“Mondo! How’re you getting on!?” Takemichi practically leapt in front of Daiya to see Mondo, “What were your classes like!?”

“Eh… just usual first day shit… Lycan and I beat some idiot with a Blastoise, we had ta do a bunch of tests so they know what they can skip teaching us…” Mondo was surprising chill about that, given Daiya suspected that in his case it was almost nothing… he wasn’t just smug about beating that Blastoise, was he… “Then they showed us a bunch of dangerous pokémon around he school and asked us how to deal with ‘em, and I did well enough at that that they say that I can get a DPTL by next year…”

Ooh… So that’s why he’d rung all smug…

“Ehh? You mean you’ll start the course next year, right?” Michi asked, “It takes three years after that…”

“Not here at Hope’s Peak! I’m on a fast track course where they squish it all into one year! Starts this Saturday!” Mondo couldn’t help grinning, “I guess I’ll have mine before you, bro!”

“You mean I wait all this time to start it and they just let you zip past me!?” Daiya pretended to be slightly jealous, “Bet you don’t gotta read all that dumb intro shit either! That took me two weeks, and the prints so fucking tiny I had to get dorky looking reading specs…”

Although he’d been running a Gym during those two weeks and was exaggerating about needing glasses, but just in case Mondo was being expected to read the same thing, it’d be good to make him think it was hard enough to get a start on that shit now…

“R…really?” Mondo looked worried now, but put on a tough face. “Well… they told me I’ll be able to get it done by Saturday!”

“Awesome! See, I always said you were better than Daiya!” Michi cheered, “Uhh… no offense, boss…”

“None taken… If I didn’t agree I’d have recommended myself to Hope’s Peak!” Daiya smirked, then spotted the girl from earlier cycling back towards the ring of motorbikes that currently made up the Gym. “Anyway, I gotta go battle some kid, so call Michi if ya wanna carry on chatting. And keep up the good work, Mondo.”

“Yeah…” Mondo nodded, “I’ll show ‘em I was the right person for you to pick!”

Wow… that suddenly got serious. Had Mondo got wind of what some of the other Leaders were saying about him…? Maybe that Kuzyryu brat had started spouting off, even though he’d stepped down so his little sister could recommend him after he'd already recommended someone else from his own Gym...

Not that it mattered, after all… “I know you will, Mondo.”

Komaru probably sounded pretty pitiful, sighing as she went through the front door at home. But she couldn’t help it! The first day of school after summer holidays was always bad enough, but today had been even worse…

…Today had been completely normal. She’d gone to her normal school and sat through all the normal lessons, and the only breaks she’d had was when her normal friends had all been asking her about her brother’s actually interesting new pokémon school… and then she’d walked home and trained Geodude in the normal patches of wild grass, all the while wondering if it was worth bothering, because she was never going to be anything but normal… So why not just be one of those trainers who just had one pokémon in it’s initial stage while she just got a normal job, like Mom and Dad had done…

“Komaru, sweetie? Is that you…?” Well, at least Mom was home to listen to her about it, “I made your favourite dinner!”

“…Spearow nest and Chinchou eyes!?” Well, at least that wasn’t normal, right!? Was it?

“Yep! So wash up and get to the table before it goes cold!” Komaru did as her mother asked, finding her Dad already at the table with a laptop in front of him.

“Bringing home work again, Dad?”

“Ah… just a little bit. Head office is having a meeting to discuss adding new stock to the PokéMart’s, so I have to make a report on sales data for what we have at the moment…” He explained.

Urg, that sounded so boring… but that might be what was in her future once she got older as well…

“…But enough about my day!” Her dad put the laptop to the side, as Mom came through with dinner and started dishing up portions. “How was school?”

“Terrible.” Komaru summarised.

“What!? Why!?” Both her parents cried out at once, “Did someone bully you!? Did you do badly in a test? Did your new teacher say something mean to you, because I swear if your new teacher said something mean to you I’ll march right up to the school gates and…”

“No, Mom, it’s not like that!” Komaru cried, “And now you’ve said all that, it’ll probably just sounds like I’m whining…”

“Now, honey, you know you if something’s upsetting you, you can talk to us… even if it isn’t the biggest deal in the world…” Her Dad told her, “So… what was so bad about school today…?”

“Well… It was just really boring and… normal!” Komaru admitted, “And then everyone kept asking me about Makoto, which just drove home the point that I’m not special or anything…”

“Don’t say that, Komaru!” Her Dad snapped, “Just because you didn’t get picked by Hope’s Peak, doesn’t mean you aren’t special!”

“But I’m average at everything. My projected grades are average, my BattleNet rating is exactly 3 stars, my body measurements are boring…” Komaru complained, “I even found an online test which tells you what your second pokémon should be, and it gave me Kricketot!”

“…What’s wrong with Kricetot?” Her mother didn’t spot the problem, “It’s just a bug-type, isn’t it? That could work well with Geodude, although getting one from a different region is a bit of a stretch…”

“It’s not the type, Mom, it’s pokémon number 401!” Komaru groused, although her mom still looked confused…

“Oh! I get it! There’s 802 discovered pokémon, so it’s the median average!” At least Dad got it… “Err… but that’s just a number! And new pokémon get added to the national Dex all the time! It’s wouldn’t be average for long!”

“I know… But it all just feels like the universe is pointing a big sign at me saying ‘Average person here’…” Komaru whined, “And it’s not just that Pokémon! Geodude’s going to evolve into pokémon number 75 and 76! That’s slap bang in the middle of the Kanto Dex as well!”

“Oh, come on, honey… It’s just a number!” Her Mom tried to cheer her up, “And how many girls can say they ended up with a pet rock as a starter pokémon? It’d be more normal to have a Growlithe or Meowth, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess…” Komaru admitted. Maybe she was getting worked up over nothing, “But I’m just wondering if it’s even worth me bothering to build a team… I’m not that good of a trainer… Maybe I should embrace my normality and just get a normal accounting job like Dad!”

“Well… there’s nothing wrong with having a job that doesn’t involve pokémon!” Dad replied, cagily. “Buuuut… Honestly, I wouldn’t really recommend accounting… I mean, it pays well, but it’s pretty tedious… I often wish I’d stuck with what I’d really wanted to do…”

“Okay… well, maybe I’ll be like Mom and work in the PokéMart!”

“Well… you could…” Mom said in the tone of voice that Komaru knew meant ‘for the love of God, don’t’. “But there’s a lot of irritating customers, these days… I only took the job because I was planning to just save money for a year to help with my dream, but by then I’d got used to the steady income and my family needed help so I kept putting it off every year…”

“Well… what did you guys want to do then?” Komaru asked.

“…Train pokémon.” They both admitted at the same time.

“…So you’re just saying to keep at it, then…” Komaru sighed.

“No! It’s your choice!” Mom assured her, “We just don’t want you to make any rash decisions, just because Makoto suddenly got to go to a fancy school!”

“Yeah! After all, if you keep training your pokémon, you might get to go somewhere special as well!” Dad added, “Like that school with the nice uniforms you like!”

“I guess…” Komaru agreed, “I’ll think about it…”

That seemed to cheer her parents up a bit, but it was still pretty quiet over dinner until Dad’s pokédex rang…

“Oh, hey, it’s Makoto!” He announced after looking at it, “I’ll send it onto the TV so we can have a family chat!”

Makoto appeared on the screen, wearing his usual hoodie, but with a brown protective blazer over the top of it…

“Makoto! Hey, buddy!”, “Hello, Makoto!”, “Hey…” Komaru didn’t feel like she had the energy to give as nice a greeting as her parents right now…

“Hey, Mom, Dad and… Komaru…?” Oops. Seemed like Makoto had picked up on her bad mood…

“Ah… Komaru’s had a bad day…” Mom explained.

“Why?”

“School was all just normal and boring, and this stupid online test gave me a pokémon that’s the average numbered pokémon in the national pokédex and then I realised Gravlers are the middle number in the Kanto pokédex and everyone kept asking me about you and Hope’s Peak…”

“Oh… err… sorry?” Geez, he actually looked guilty about it, even though he was confused as well…

“…You apologising just makes it worse… It’s like you’re pitying how normal I am compared to you!”

“Aww, c’mon… I’m nothing special!” Makoto lied.

“You got picked by Hope’s Peak!” Komaru reminded him, “Meanwhile I’m going to a normal school, and getting average grades, and I’m average height…”

“Hmm… Well… you could say that you’re so normal, it’s unnormal!” Makoto tried to cheer her up, “And maybe you can make having average-number pokémon your thing! I bet no one’s ever built a team out of six pokémon that are right in the middle of their region’s pokédex!”

“Well… yeah… I guess that’d be kinda interesting…” Komaru had to admit it was an idea… It’d mean she’d have to travel all the regions… that was pretty interesting! “Thanks, Makoto… How was your day?”

“Me? I was pretty typical first-day stuff… we had some ‘get to know each other’ fights… which I… kinda lost to a Lycanroc…”

“A really powerful Lycanroc!?” Komaru asked.

“Not… really? Blastoise probably could have beat it, but I tried to use Togepi first, and Metronome ended up reducing Blastoise’s attack power…”

“So, typical Makoto battle?” Dad joked, “I’m starting to think you were better off without that Togepi…”

“Aww, c’mon! It’ll be useful once it’s stronger!” Makoto insisted, “But anyway, after that I ended up making myself look like an idiot because the teacher had said he’d reveal the loser’s biggest secret, so I blurted out that I used to wet the bed and called Professor Oak a lying jerkface in front of the whole class…”

“*snerk…* Hahahaha! Are you kidding!?” Komaru couldn’t help laughed, and neither could Dad… although Mom kept a straight enough face to glare at them both, “So Sayaka Maizono knows you wet the bed until fifth grade!?”

“Yeah…” Makoto sighed, “Although she was nice enough not to mention it when we sat together at lunchtime, so I think I kinda got away with it… And after that it was just some standard tests and then we had a safety lesson on the pokémon around Hope’s Peak!”

 "Well, it sounds like you've had a pretty normal first day!" Dad summarised, "I'm sure you'll do just fine there!"

"Yeah... I mean, I'm not the best in the class by a long shot, but I'm not the worst either..." Makoto shrugged, "And I've already got a bunch of people in my class offering to help me out if I need it!"

"Well, of course you do! You always were good at making friends!" Mom looked reassured to hear it all the same, though, "But you'll still need to work hard by yourself, remember!?"

"Yeah, I know... but speaking of which, I need to go to the school store and get some protective gear for class tomorrow..." Makoto apologetically came up with a reason to end the call.

"All right, son! Make sure you get the most protective stuff you can, even if it looks less fashionable!" Dad insisted on warning him.

"Yeah... with your luck, you'll need it!" Komaru couldn't help chiming in.

"No kidding..." Makoto sighed.

"And be careful out there, even with the protective gear!" Mom added, "Make sure you have at least one friend with you when you go exploring!"

"Don't worry... Sayaka's already asked to team up with me!" Geez... He got to team up with one of the top two talent trainers and he just acted like it was no big deal... "But I'll send you a message to let you know when we're finished as well, alright?"

"Thanks, Makoto..." Dad smiled wryly, "Have a good evening!"

"And sweet dreams!" Mom added.

"And good luck tomorrow!" Komaru added.

"Thanks... Same to you all!" Makoto finished the call with a wave, and then there was a moment of silence before they all were certain that Makoto really had finished the call...

“That boy… We tell him to keep why he got picked quiet, and then he tells his whole class!?” Mom buried her face in her hands, “…I feel like he’s going to kill me by embarrassment one of these days…”

“And his Blastoise losing to a Lycanroc?” Dad rolled his eyes, “That certainly isn’t normal, eh, Komaru?”

“Hehe… yeah… no kidding…” Komaru laughed nervously, “Maybe being a normal trainer’s not so bad after all…”

Alright! Another great evening of training for him and Ponyta! But now it was getting pretty late, and he wasn’t supposed to be out late at night now Hina wasn’t around to look out for him…

“Time to get to the pokécenter, girl!” Yuta announced, putting his hand through the horse’s fiery mane to stroke her neck, “Wanna race me there?”

Ponyta whinnied happily and jumped around in response, then settled down next to him as he got into his running stance…

“Okay… ready… set…GO!”

Then both set off at the same time, Yuta getting off to a quicker start, but quickly getting overtaken by the horse, as always. And, as always, people in the village were giving him weird looks as he kept trying to run alongside his pokémon, instead of on it like most Ponyta trainers would have done…

But hey, he wasn’t going to keep his position as the school’s star track runner if he did lazy stuff like that! Even if no one really cared about human sports, he still enjoyed running for himself! And Ponyta was always more comfortable this way, anyway…

Heck, she was even getting so confident that she’d walked into the pokémon centre by herself, and was stood in the queue by the time Yuta got there…

“Woah… Ponyta! You’re supposed to wait for me, remember?” Yuta reminded her as he stood next to her in the queue.

She just huffed at him and tossed her head in the direction of the guy who’d been in the queue behind her, probably meaning that she didn’t want to have to wait…

“I know, you don’t like waiting around in queues… but people might start thinking you’re wild or a runaway, if you run off too far ahead of me…”

She looked a bit more guilty about that, maybe that meant she’d actually listen this time…

It only took a few minutes for the rest of the people ahead of him to be dealt with, and Yuta had already put Ponyta back in her ball before he got up to the counter… “Just this Ponyta, please!”

“No problem!” Nurse Joy took the ball off of him, “Hmm… but, are you Yuta Asahina?”

“Uhh… yeah.” This was weird. Was he in trouble somehow…?

“How long have you had your Ponyta?”

“One year and two days!” Yuta grinned, which surprised the nurse, “My birthday was this Saturday…”

“Oh, I see! So you got her for your last birthday!” Joy figured out, “Do you ride her often?”

“No… she doesn’t like being ridden.” Yuta told her.

“You mean she doesn’t trust you enough?”

“No… She just doesn’t like being ridden. By anyone.” Yuta told her, “The people at the shelter told me they don’t think…”

“Oh! She’s a shelter pokémon!?” The nurse interrupted him, “Your teacher didn’t mention that…”

“Huh? Why was one of my teachers talking to you about me? Which teacher was it?”

“Umm!” The nurse covered her mouth, “I can’t say which teacher… but they were just a little… worried that there might be a reason you weren’t forming a better bond with your pokémon…”

“Ohh… okay? But she always lets me touch her mane without burning me, so I think she trusts me just fine!”

“I’m sure she does! It’s just your teacher’s job to to make sure everything’s alright between you and your pokémon!” Nurse Joy told him, “But here’s your Ponyta back!”

“Thanks…” Yuta took the ball and let her back out, and then stroked through her mane a little longer than usual, just to prove he hadn’t been lying or anything… “Alright… time for us to race home, Ponyta!”

They got home pretty quick, and Yuta let himself back in the house as both his parents had late shifts tonight. But they’d left him mac and cheese to warm up in the microwave, and he didn’t have to share the TV with Hina anymore, so that was pretty cool…

*Bring, bring. Bring, bring…*

Urg! It did mean he had to answer any PokéDex calls the house got, though… He really hoped this wasn’t anything important…

“Umm… Hello…?”

“Hey, Yuta!” Oh, good, it was just Hina ringing from her new school, “How’re you doing?”

“Oh, Hi, Hina! I’m fine! How’s school been?”

“Oh! It’s been awesome! Well, aside from all the tests, anyway… Pretty sure I did terribly at the maths one…” She sighed, “But, Sakura said she didn’t do well either, so it’s not too bad…”

“Well, that sounds good!” ‘Passable’ had always been considered a great maths score in their household… “Sakura’s the girl from the Gym in Kalos, right?” From what he’d heard when his parents spoke to her, Hina had been blathering on about her for ages on Saturday…

“Yep! She’s so cool!” Hina grinned excitedly, “She spent the whole of yesterday ripping up an entire garden worth of dead plants, with some help from a couple of the guys, just so her Florges could grow her own plants and feel more at home! And when we went swimming today, we had both Glaceon and her Snorunt in the pool together at the same time, and I had to get out ‘cause it was so cold, but she was able to sit in there with them both from half an hour! She says it’s ‘cause she’s used to cold temperatures ‘cause she lives in a mountain region and sometimes goes out exploring and has to bath in cold rivers… I mean, how cool is that!? I can’t believe I’m in the same class as her! She’s amazing!”

“Yeah… sounds pretty cool…” Yuta agreed, even though he wasn’t really interested in some Gym leader… to be honest there was a trainer in her class he was way more interested about… “What’s Leon Kuwata like? You did some sports training with him, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, him…” Geez… how could she be so blasé about being in a class with the pokéathlon singles champ!? “He didn’t end up showing up to yesterday’s training, but he says he’s gonna train with me tomorrow evening, so I’ll let you know how it goes…”

“So, you’re getting one-on-one training with the pokéalthlon champ!?” Aww man… She was so lucky! “I’d do anything to get to hang around with him all by myself!”

“Well… It’s not gonna just be the two of us, ‘cause Sakura’s interested in what sports we do, so she’s gonna watch us as well…” Hina shrugged, “The area she lives in has no good signals, because it’s all so high up, so she’s never seen any sports broadcasts or talent shows before! Let alone any good movies! I was thinking I should try and rent out some good ones for use to watch together, you know, introduce her to some popular culture… and we could bake some poffins and order donuts while we watch them…”

…How had they gone from talking about Leon Kuwata to talking about that girl from Kalos again? Man, Hina was really obsessed with her…

“But, enough about me!” Hina finally said after talking about that other girl for about five minutes straight, “How’s your day been!”

“Eh… pretty normal back-to-school stuff…” Yuta summarised, “Oh! But Nurse Joy told me one of my teachers told her she’s worried about my Ponyta not trusting me because she doesn’t let me ride her…”

“Urgh… I bet it was the same teacher who told Officer Jenny I was forcibly stopping Marill from evolving!” Hina groaned.

“Wait… when did that happen!?” He didn’t remember Hina being in trouble with the police!

“Oh… last year, after Marill learnt Hydro pump… I mean, nothing happened, Jenny just spoke to him for a bit and decided that he obviously just didn’t want to evolve, but it’s still annoying that people see a pokémon that behaves slightly differently and assume it’s our fault! Or that we’re stupid trainers for letting out pokémon be happy instead of efficient!”

“Err… Who said that?” Jenny always said a happy pokémon was an efficient pokémon…

“Oh… Byakuya Togami. He’s a total creep!” Hina complained, “He had a fight against Sakura today, and he spent, like, twenty thousand pokédollars on TMs just to deal with her pokémon, because she had type advantage! And I was so sure she was going to win, but it turns out he’s got these stupidly well-bred pokémon that are almost impossible to beat! Not that that’s stopping Sakura, she was talking about what she can try to do to beat him while we were swimming, but…”

Okay… this was kinda funny now…

“Hey! What are you laughing at!?” Hina snapped as Yuta failed to stifle his laugh…

“Someone’s got a riii-vaaalll…!”

“You mean Sakura and Togami… I mean, they are pretty evenly matched…” Oh man… Hina was so oblivious to this stuff!

“Not him! You!” Yuta pointed out, “You’re obsessed with her! Everything you’ve talked about has ended up being about her!”

“Huuuh!? But… that’s just because she’d really nice and I like her!” Hina insisted, “We can’t be rivals!”

“Why not? Lots of friends are rivals with each other!” Yuta argued.

“But… I’m nowhere near as good as she is!”

“So? Don’t you want to be…?” Yuta asked.

“Well… it would be pretty nice to be as good as her...” Hina thought about it… “You’re right! I’m totally gonna train up my pokémon and become her rival! And then maybe when I’ve done that, I’ll wanna try and kick her butt!”

“Yeah! There you go!” Yuta cheered her on…

“But, if I’m gonna do that, I can’t sit around talking! I’ve gotta go pick a fight with someone!” Hina’s face disappeared off screen as she stood up, “Say ‘Hi’ to Mom and Dad for me!”

“Alright! Good luck with your rivalry!” Yuta waved her goodbye, but she was too excited to reply… typical Hina. She was going to make a totally awesome rival…

Of course, this meant that they’d probably never hear about anyone in her class except for that Sakura girl…

“Okay… Vanillite, you schootch over a little to the left… now Swirlix, come forward a little bit… Great! Now… Cherubi, you climb up and between them both…”

Ooohhh… That looked soooo yummy! “That’s perfect, you guys! Now hold that post while I draw you, okay!?”

Her three pokémon all agreed in their cute little voices, and Fujiko hurried to sketch them all out as quickly as she could, without rushng too much of course! She might not be as good at drawing pokémon as Hifumi, but she still wasn’t going to be sloppy about it! Especially not as that dessert shop was paying good money for this advert… and mentioned something about a taste-test as well!

“…Okay, guys! I’m all done!” Her pokémon sighed in relief at her announcement, but still came over to have a look at how she’d drawn them all… “Hey! It’s not finished yet! I’ve still got to ink and colour this now, so go play or rest up in your pokéballs, then we’ll go show the result to that shop owner, alright?”

Vanillite was the first to start spinning around excitedly, having worked out why going to the shop owner was a good thing (because Fujiko could never resist dessert, whether or not it was free…), then she must have told the other two, because they all excitedly bounced off to rest in their pokéballs so she could work all the quicker…

Which had the unfortunate effect of making the house seem eerily quiet, now that Hifumi was off at his new school. To think, her little brother was off on an adventure at a place like Hope’s Peak! She hoped he was doing alright there by himself…

Maybe she could have a little chat with him, before she started inking…? She’d just try ringing his pokédex… hopefully now he was at a pokémon school he’d start carrying it with him now…

..., …, … Hmm… It sure was taking a while to pick…

“Greetings, what need do you have of Hifumi Yamada, novice adventurer!?”

Oh, good! He was fine! And in a good mood as well, it seemed! “Hi, Hifumi! It’s me! Fujiko!”

“Ah, my dear sister, I suppose this must be the farewell cutscene before the first morning of my new quest begins!” Hifumi announced… but that was what he’d said when she’d said goodbye to him on Saturday…

“You mean your adventure didn’t start already?”

“Err… no… not really” Hifumi looked disappointed. “It’s just been… tutoirals, mostly…”

Tutorials? Ooohh… “You mean warnings about local pokémon?”

“Indeed!” Hifumi nodded, “But, rest assured, I have been informed that my true adventure shall start tomorrow, and have already visited the shops for the best level equipment for both myself and Dratini, along with all the supplies I had money for!”

…Hopefully that didn’t really mean he’d literally spent all his money on potions and such… but… “So you have new clo… new equipment? Can I see?”

“C-certainly!” The pokédex’s view shifted a bit as Hifumi put it down and stood up, moving away from the camera so she could see his entire body…

It looked a little too tight for him, but then, all his clothes always did. She was just surprised that anywhere had made proper resistant leather training gear in his size, let alone taken the time to make it look like a brown leather uniform, complete with what looked like a good quality, shiny plastic overlayer to help protect from most pokémon attacks…

“…I chose to go for function over form, of course!” Hifumi announced, a little while after he’d moved backwards, “That’s what any practical adventurer should do… isn’t that so…?”

Aww… he looked so self-sonscious… not that she didn’t hate trying on new clothes either… “It looks spiffy! And very practical! Does it… give good defence boosts?”

“Yes! It certainly does!” Hifumi cheered up a little when she didn’t say anything mean about his new uniform, “Apparently it’s grade 5 protection! More than enough to help me deal with the random encounters in the first area of the world map!”

Wow, that was pretty impressive! “That’s great! And you said you’d got something for Dratini as well?”

“Yes! Dratini! Come and show Fujiko your new armour!”

“Draaaaa…” Fujiko could hear Dratini building up an excited roar off-camera...”…TINI!”

Hifumi’s pokémon flew into the view of the camera, proudly showing off a toy knight’s helmet accessory that wasn’t quite fitted onto his head securely enough, as it kept rattling around as he showed off some light tacklets against Hifumi’s new ‘armour’.

“Ooh… that looks like it’ll do a lot of damage!” Fujiko decided to humour the Dratini.

“Indeed! Next time we have to face our new rival, we shall surely be victorious!” Hifumi announced.

“Tini!” Dratini agreed with determination.

But… “What’s this about a rival!?”

“Err… Well… just… you know… part of the tutorial included an introduction to the battle system… against an opponent who... appeared to be at our level…” Hifumi looked embarrassed.

…Aww… did that mean he’d lost? The first battle he’d had since deciding he was going to take training his Dratini seriously and he’d lost it? No wondered he was pretending his adventure hadn’t actually started yet…

“But! All of that was merely introducing the nefarious Golett-master, Chihiro Fujisaki, as our rival in our great, upcoming adventure!” Hifumi insisted, “Tomorrow, I go out into the world, and the real beginning of my quest to capture Cresselia shall start!”

“Alright, brother!” Fujiko tried to cheer him on, “May fortune smile upon your quest!”

“Thank you, dear sister! I shall remember your parting words with great fondness on my adventure!” Hifumi told her, “But with that, I must depart and rest for tomorrows adventure!”

“Okay, goodbye!” Fujiko waved him goodbye, although she wasn’t sure if he’s actually heard it before turning off his pokédex…

Haaah… It was good to see him and Dratini excited about this, but she wished he wasn’t treating it like it was just a video game or something… If they weren’t careful, they might get into trouble, regardless of how good their new ‘armour’ was…

Chapter Text

*bzzt bzzt bzzt…*

Urgh… Stupid pokédex with its stupid alarm function… Why had Hifumi even set that thing? It isn’t even bright out yet! And it isn’t like they’re doing anything important today, is it…?

OH! Wait, they are! Today’s the day the great Hifumi Yamada, along with his close companion Dratini, of course, will start their grand adventure to find the secret hiding place of the legendary Cresselia!

“Ngh… five more minutes…” …But Hifumi is still lying in bed, even after shutting off his alarm… looks like Dratini is going to have to remind him about their quest!

[Hifumi! Hifumi, wake up!] Dratini head-butts his trainer, hoping his new armour won’t hurt the guy…

“Ngh… Dratini…? What’s the matter…?” Hifumi groans in resonce.

Did he forget? Or is this just because every good adventure starts with the hero being woken up by a close companion…?

[It’s time for our ADVENTURE, remember!? Look, I’ve got my armour on and everything!] Dratini reminds him just in case, [So, come on!]

“Ahh... You’re just excited to go outside…? What time is it even…?” Hifumi slowly starts to wake up and check the time as Dratini keeps prodding at him… “AHHH! Cresselia made me sleep through my alarm! I’ve got to get up or I’ll be late for class!”

YES! There he goes! Hifumi shoots up out of bed in the traditional start-of-adventure way and rushes to go get his new armour on and check his inventory one last time, before inviting Dratini to lounge over his shoulders as usual so they can head off to eat breakfast before their first class outside… which will clearly be the first area where they can explore and start levelling up, now that they got all those tutorials done yesterday!

And once Dratini had levelling up some more, or maybe even evolved, Hifumi would be able to invite more pokémon on their quest to find the legendary, beautiful Cresselia… Dratini couldn’t wait to see her! He’d watched Hifumi’s pictures of her grow increasingly more wonderful as the boy had grown more skilled at drawing, to the point where it was almost possible to fall in love with the pictures themselves, but he’d never had the luck of having her visit his dreams and getting to see what she really looked like. But now that Hifumi had made it his quest to actually meet Cresselia in the real world, Dratini will eventually get to see her for once…

But, of course, that will probably take a long, long time…

“Ah, Yamada! You’re awake earlier than usual… Perfect, now you can make me my tea…” 

“Ugh… Of course, Miss Ludenberg! I’ll go do that now!”

…Especially if that girl with the Weavile keeps wasting Hifumi’s time like this! It’s like he can’t go anywhere near the kitchen without her demanding tea from him… But there’s no way Dratini could fight off the Weavile yet, so Hifumi can’t help but do as she says. Still, it’s one more motivation to get stronger, right? If he does, then he can defend Hifumi from people like this annoying woman who never even thanks him for making her stupidly complicated tea…

But, for now, Hifumi rushes to the kitchen and makes her drink, along with breakfast for himself and Dratini, and takes it back for her to sip at cautiously…

“Hmm… You seem to be getting the hang of this…” She’s less rude about it than she has been the last few days… “Almost. Anyway. Perhaps if you manage to get it right, I might promote you to D rank and let you sit in my vicinity…”

Wait… promotion? Ranks!? Is this a side quest!? So if Hifumi manages to level up his tea making ability enough, maybe she’d give them some good items and this wouldn’t have been such a waste of time after all!

“Ah… alright, Miss Ludenberg! I’ll leave you to your tea!” Hifumi stammers and heads off to sit with the boy with the ghost on his head again… Which would be fine with Dratini, if the ghost wasn’t such so depressing to talk to, with all her talk of children getting lost and/or drowning at the beach…

But, today, she seems to be in a slightly happier mood, talking instead about how she won’t let that sort of thing happen to ‘this nice little boy’, which Dratini thinks is referring to her trainer, while the two boys discuss what they think will happen once they head outside…

“…I wonder if Mr Kizakura will have some sort of task for us to complete…?” Hifumi asks.

“Like, finding a particular pokémon or something? I’ve been in schools where they specifically hid pokémon in an area and made us look for them…” The other boy suggests, “But it didn’t come up in any of my predictions on it…”

“You did some predictions about today’s class!? Did you get anything about me…?”

“Hmm… No. But then, I didn’t really try to get anything about you…” The other boy explains, “Buuuut, I could read your fortune, if you’re willing to part with some pokédollars….”

Ahh… so it’s one of those mechanics, where you pay to have the next step of the main quest explained to you. Useful if they got stuck, but not something for Hifumi to use before they’d even started the adventure.

“Unfortunately, I spent most of my cash on curatives…” Hifumi’s thinking is along the same line as Dratini’s, although he’s subtler about it, “But I’ll let you know once I’ve done a few more commissions!”

“Awesome!” The fortune teller is incredibly happy about that. “You won’t regret it! Trust me! My predictions are better than this rice and miso!”

“…Is that particularly good…?” Hifumi mutters, as he opens up another packet of potato chips…

This starts a conversation about Hifumi’s diet and choice of breakfast, which is cut short by the school bell warning them to get to class, which they do with plenty of time to spare before the white-suited man who was giving them tutorials yesterday comes into the class...

“Good morning, everyone...”

“Good morning, SIR!” The loud boy with the Arcanine at the front replies enthusiastically, shocking most of the people Dratini can see…

“…Thanks…” The tutor blinks in surprise, “Anyway… Today’s lesson is the first of many that you will be having in the wild field area! So everyone get up and line up in the corridor outside, preferably in an orderly fashion so Jin thinks I’m actually a competent teacher…”