Academic
Chapter 1. Lunch
10 am. First day of Pokémon Academy. Late. I soaked my own face as I raced through puddles, of course the day I'm late it also rains, just my luck if I'm honest. It's my own fault, I mean who the fuck sleeps through an alarm designed to sound like a Voltorb farting on your eardrum? Well, that's what it seems like when I actually take notice. But no, today I had to rely on Gus my Growlithe friend and also my only team member, but for someone like me, a freshman, that's not too unusual. It's bad news when your own Pokémon knows it's time to get up.
It was 10:15 when I crashed open the door to the lecture hall, 45 minutes late, fan-fucking-tastic. The lecturer paused for a moment and acknowledged my entering, but made nothing of it. I made my way to an empty seat and could feel the eyes of the pretentious and judgemental burning into my soul. The fuck you looking at, assholes? I took out a notebook and started writing down whatever words I could make out on the board ahead of me. This first lesson was about medicines, what kinds of medicine you get, what the effects are of each kind, that sort of shit.
It was 11:10, when time started moving slower than a Slowpoke, Snorlax love child. My eyes soon decided it was time to get a good look at my fellow students, and when I say students, I mean girls. So the girl closest to me was sat to my right, it was awkward trying to get a look at her face without her noticing, but it was worth it, she was pretty smoking hot. With the first girl out of the way I started looking for more, judging whether they were hotter or uglier than the last. All in all, there were some sexy looking girls in the class and in all honesty, that's cool with me.
At 12 pm we were let loose into the wild, free to do what we pleased and conduct ourselves however we pleased! Well, for the next two hours anyway, my next lecture was at 2 pm. Fucking brilliant, 2 hours looking like a loner, still soaking from running to this shitty school. I contemplated where to head first, but my belly made the decision for me, rumbling loud enough to give the impression I had a small cat stuffed up my shirt. So I headed for the cafeteria.
The food here, I dare say, looked pretty good. There was a large selection, pizza, sandwiches, burgers, salad, fries, pasta etc. I took a little bit of everything, paid the extortionate price and took the loneliest seat in the whole school with the busiest tray. People stared as I sat down with masses of food, but fuck them I was hungry.
I was nearing the crust of my sandwich when a girl with dark hair sat beside me.
"You really need all that food? There are kids starving in undeveloped regions you know?" She stated, all high and mighty like.
"Well maybe they should come to this school, get themselves a little bit of everything!" I tried to be as genuinely optimistic as possible to annoy her.
"And you think they could afford a decent meal?" She took the bait.
"No, but if a generous girl like yourself saw a starving kid wandering around here I know you'd buy them a slice of pizza." I took her response, or rather lack of it, as an indication of victory on the matter.
"Can't argue with your logic. I still don't think you need all that food."
"You're talking about starving people. I'm starving and I gotta eat!"
"You're weird." She stood up and turned to walk away.
"What's your name?" I asked. She turned back to face me.
"Laura."
"Nice chatting with ya, Laura, I'm Nick." And with that, she turned back around and I stared intently as her backside as she headed off towards another table with an all female residency.
I made it about half way through my lunch when someone else decided to park their ass beside me. A guy this time, looked around my age, wore glasses, tucked in white shirt. Geek.
"You were talking to Laura? And you're not crying or getting laughed at?" He looked me dead in the eyes and as he spoke a little bit of saliva leapt out of his mouth and hit my cheek.
"Aw, dude! Spittin' all over me, fucking hell." I wiped the spit from my face and darted the angriest face I could at this geeky stranger. "Yeah I spoke to her, so what?"
"So what?! That girl always tries to make an ass of loners like us for her own amusement. She was studying last year and she made about ten guys cry in this cafeteria and one guy even wet his pants!" The guy flapped his arms, trying to emphasise the severity Laura's bitchiness.
"First of all, I am not a loner, I'm just alone today, this one time, until I make friends here, got it? Second, why the fuck are you telling me this? Do I look like the kind of dweeb that pisses his pants when a hot girl makes him feel stupid? No! So tell me, what the hell do you want?" I'll admit I was pissed at this point. I hate interruptions during a meal.
"I want to know how you did it. Every day I panic in case Laura decides to make an ass of me and any credibility I have will be gone!"
"Let me get this straight. You, a stranger, are asking me, a stranger, to give you advice on talking to girls that try to make you feel stupid? Is that correct?" He paused for a second.
"Yes! Teach me."
"Battle me."
"What?!"
"Let's go outside, we still got plenty of time before any lecture, let's go onto the grounds and duke it out. You win, I'll help. I win, you buy my lunch for the next week." Again he paused, annoyingly.
"Okay you got a deal, let's do it!"
Outside, the rain had stopped and the sun had broke through the clouds, setting the scene for my first battle of campus. There was a small battle area in the centre of the grounds that we decided to use. When people saw us set ourselves up at each side crowds started forming to watch.
"Let's get it straight. One versus one battle only. The loser is the one who cannot proceed any longer, got it?" I yelled to my opponent. He nodded.
We threw our Pokéball out at the same time. On my side of the field was Gus my trusty Growlithe and on his side appeared a Furret. Nothing to dangerous.
"Let's do it, Gus use flame charge!" Gus dashed towards the Furret covered in intense flames and crashed into the long Pokémon!
"Hang in there, Slink! Use iron tail!" The Furret, or Slink, ran towards Gus and its tail glowed bright as the metal formed around it. Gus tried to dodge the attack, but Slink proved to be just too quick as he landed a blow into his side, sending him across the wet ground.
"Get up, Gus you can do it! Try flamethrower!" Gus wearily stood up and sent a stream of flames from his mouth at Slink.
"Jump and strike, Slink!" The Furret jumped high before the fire attack could make contact and as he came back down he readied his tail for another powerful iron tail pounding.
After the attack connected I knew Gus was finished. He lay on the floor, knocked out, and I had no choice but to retreat him to his ball and admit defeat.
"God job, boy. You fought well." I turned to my opponent who was standing near me.
"Meet me in the cafeteria tomorrow at 12 pm. We have things to discuss." Her turned and walked started walking off. "Oh by the way, my name is Zack." He shouted.
I stood for a minute or two after that, slightly pissed off once more. I decided to head back into the school and find something to take my mind off the battle and kill the time.
For the first time in my life I was fucking delighted to be heading back into class when the clock hit 2:00. I was the first into class this time and found myself a seat in roughly the middle of the room. The neutral zone. The class began filling up and I wondered who I'd be stuck beside, maybe some fat asshole with an armpit infection, or better yet an incest hillbilly with halitosis. But no, the person who chose to sit next to me was in fact Laura. The girl who had been the source of all annoyance, troubles and unnecessarily bullshit times throughout my academic year, but of course I didn't know that quite yet.
"Well, well, well if it isn't the greedy bastard himself." She smiled at me.
"Ah, well if it isn't the resident humanitarian from earlier, great to see you." I said sarcastically back.
From then on all talking ceased as I scribbled notes about Pokémon biology into my notebook, but all the while had a constant thought in the back of my head that I stupidly ignored. Pokémon Academy was a bad idea, Nick.
