A/N: Howdy, this is a new fic I am co-writing with a friend of mine. She will be posting it on Ao3, and I will be posting here. Please follow, favorite, and review, and updates should be posted regularly.
"You must be the new ghost type trainer, miss Trick, right?" the girl behind the desk asks. Her face is mostly hidden behind her computer monitor but, I can still see the ridiculously happy smile plastered on her freckled face. It's too big, too forced. Deep down, I know this girl, the one assigned to deal with all the new students, is feeling unnerved. Probably because I'm very much unlike the students, being that I arrived two hours later than I was supposed to.
"Wow, that's my name!" I exclaim "How'd you know?"
It's a pretty dumb question, considering I walked in with two ghost type Pokemon trailing behind me and the fact that I'm almost certain I was the last student to arrive.
She continues to smile as she explains "I've seen all the freshman's applications, that's how I know your name and type specialty."
I give a face of fake disgust "What a snoop."
"I had to!" she sputters quickly "It's so I could identify all the new students and help them with registration."
She's still smiling, but her words betray her polite expression. Feeling satisfied, I silently nod which seems to calm her down a bit.
"Yes that's my job," she continues "So may I see your ID miss Trick?" She tenses after stating her request, like she's bracing herself for my answer. "I need it to sign you in," she adds.
"Of course," I say, fumbling through my many pockets. First I shove my hands into my outer jacket pockets and bring them back out empty. Next my inner jacket pockets, but they still turn up nothing. Back pant pockets, still nope. Front pant pockets, nope. The girl's smile is faltering, her happy expression being replaced with a look of worry. That's my cue to finally fish out my pokedex from the bag I have slinged around my shoulder and hand it over to the girl.
Again, she's polite despite my antics, giving me a soft 'thank you' before typing something into her computer. The clicks of the keyboard echo into the unnecessarily large entrance hall. The high ceiling making each tap exceedingly loud, emphasizing the silence that has fallen between the lady behind the counter and I.
Admittedly, I feel nervous. The type of nervous you feel when you've done something bad and you are trying to hide your evil deed. When you get paranoid thoughts swarming through your head and are struck with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. That's how I feel right now. And yet, beneath it all, there's that little bit of adrenaline coursing through me. When you know you've gotten away with something bad, there's that excitement faintly squirming in your belly. I was having all those conflicting emotions, I was like a criminal on the cusp of being caught. Though, maybe my analogy was a little too intense for something as mundane as the first day of school.
"Everything is set up," freckled girl announces. "Everything is in our system now!"
I smile big for her, a façade to hide my own inner tension. "That's great!" I exclaim "I'm officially student now huh?"
She nods, "Yes, you are a registered student now. I'm sure you'll love it here. You get to train with your pokemon everyday and learn from professionals at the top of their fields."
"Whoa, wait," I interrupt her, "everyday? Sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I should drop out now."
Her eyes widen in surprise, "Well uh yes this academy is very rigorous b-but you shouldn't give up so easily. It'll be worth it in the end and the uh the teachers help you if you feel too overwhelmed"
I can't help but to laugh at the girl's frantic attempts to keep me enrolled. I wonder if she'd get in trouble if the staff found out I dropped out because of her comment. I almost felt bad for the poor girl.
"I'm just kidding," I say. "After being given the honor of attending Master's Academy, there's no way I just drop out like that".
She lets out the weirdest chuckles I've ever heard. A sigh of relief and a nervous laugh all crudely mixed together.
"I only said that because you started to babble on about the Academy," I explain. "Trust me, I've done a lot of research on this school already. If I wanted to hear someone drone on about my future school life I would have come to the entrance ceremony."
"Ah," she says. "So you are aware you missed the ceremony. I thought maybe you were mistaken about the starting time"
"Nope, I knew I was supposed to be here at eight. But I was lying when I said I missed it because I didn't want to attend. Truth is, there was some accident this morning that delayed my bus" I lie.
She gives me a sympathetic smile, "I see, that must of been stressful. Running so late on your first day is something straight of a bad dream. But, it's okay, you didn't miss anything too important".
Yeah, I know the entrance ceremony wasn't anything too important. I knew I could afford to miss it.
"That's good to hear," I smile. "I really have the worst luck don't I? Well, what's done is done. Where's everyone else?"
"After the ceremony, they all walked to the dorms together," she explains. "They left only thirty minutes ago so there's still a lot of people there helping students unpack and move in"
I nod as if I was worried no one would be able to help me unpack.
"Your class got lucky," she continues "Your dorms are really close to campus. If you go out the way you came in and take a right, it's at the very end of the road. It's impossible to miss. Want me to escort you there?"
I wave my hand "I can manage."
I turn around to spot my Gengar giving me an annoyed look. Honestly I deserve it, this conversation between me and desk girl is very annoying to him. We are in a brand new environment and I'm not even allowing him to explore. Instead, I'm making him stand around, holding a box of my own clothing. Sometimes, I can be a pretty cruel trainer.
"Don't give me that look," I scoff, "you don't see Golett complaining do you?"
True to my word, Golett is happily holding another box of mine. He's completely content with standing in this enormous room with no choice but to stay still. Out of all my pokemon, Golett was always the least grouchy.
I pick up my own box and bid a farewell to the desk girl.
"Goodbye," she replies. "Oh! Remember that classes don't start until Monday, so make sure you use the weekend to explore the Academy and meet all your classmates".
"Will do," I say and it's not entirely a lie. I don't really know what I'm going to do the next two days. Maybe I really will do as freckled girl suggested, maybe not. Only time will tell if my words are truthful or not.
I exit through the front doors with Gengar and Golett in tow. I wonder why the school decided to pick that girl as the one who registered new students. She was polite, sure, but she became a nervous wreck whenever I became a tiny bit difficult. I wonder if she volunteered for it or was chosen.
Regardless of her personality, she was true to her words. The dorms were close to campus and really easy to find. Though, I probably won't know this building was a dorm if it wasn't for the tons of people and pokemon swarming the area. They are frantically running in and out of the entrance, boxes and luggage in tow. It almost makes me feel a little self conscious about only having brought three boxes. That's all I needed to carry all my belongings.
I had to wait for the entrance to clear out to get in and, when that opportunity comes, I find myself in an even more crowded room. The place is infested with adults, upperclassman, and surprisingly kids my age walking next to their Pokemon. It's a very unusual sight.
Many kids dream of becoming Pokemon masters, fantasizing about adventures and battles. But, the law states you can only get your starter pokemon when you are at least eighteen years old. By the time most people reach that age, they've given up their silly childish dreams, opting instead to pursue more practical careers instead. Well, not everyone, there are a few that are willing to sacrifice their comfort and stability to quench their adventurous thirst. But, I would wager that those type of adults only take up one percent of the population. Because of this, I was always kind of the odd one out when I walked around with my Pokemon.
But here I was, no longer special. All my classmates would be kids just like me, who never needed to be given a starter Pokemon to become a trainer. We have been able to form deep bonds with wild Pokemon. We never needed to battle them, they agreed to join us and be trained by us. It's a really rare talent, to be able to connect to Pokemon like that. That's why we were accepted into this prestigious school.
Looking at my new home, I guess this first room that I entered into is supposed to be a huge living room. Near the entrance there are two large tables both surrounded by plastic school chairs. Further down I see a couple of couches all next to a rather big TV. Doors aline the other three walls, each marked by with a number. Movers are entering into these side rooms and leaving empty-handed. Those must be the dorms.
A taller boy spots me and immediately rushes over to my side. He's holding a clipboard with some important looking documents stacked on top of it. There's a sticker attached to his shirt reading 'student helper'.
"You must be the late comer," he beams.
"That's me, I'm fashionably late aren't I?" I ask.
"No," he replies flatly. " I wouldn't call two hours late fashionable at all. I am already considering you a delinquent. I'm the junior class' president so you really shouldn't be getting on my bad side so early."
"If you're in charge of upper class why would I be worried what you think of me?"
"Trust me, you should" he argues back.
He then looks at the clipboard in his hands and recites some very rehearsed sounding lines "Okay I'll make this quick: this is the common room, everyone is allowed to hang out here but you guys are responsible for making sure it stays clean. The laundry room is upstairs, again you guys are responsible for making sure it stays clean and you guys are responsible for reporting if one of the washers or dryers are in need of repair. There's no kitchen in the dorms but there's a cafeteria on campus with a common kitchen that everyone is allowed to use. You must clean and return all items you use there".
I nod along with his little speech knowing full well I would never clean any of the places he said I was responsible for cleaning.
"Alright, ghost type trainer Trick," he continues, skimming over the pages on his clipboard with his finger, "Your room is twenty two, which is upstairs".
"How can there be a room twenty two if there's only eighteen kids in my class?" I ask.
"Well smarty, all the dorms downstairs start with a one and all the dorms on the second floor start with a two," he retorts. "So there is only eighteen rooms, ten to nineteen and twenty to twenty nine."
"Oh that makes sense, that way you can separate the dorms on the first floor with the dorms on the second floor," I smile. " I guess that makes me pretty dumb for questioning you huh?"
Clipboard boy looks astonished. Here I was, a very defiant and sassy kid admitting to be wrong and even calling myself dumb. Now that's a plot twist.
"Uh no you're not...it was a pretty logical question," he says. "Uh anyway do you need help moving in?"
"Nope." I say, making sure my 'p' pops "I should have to carry all these heavy boxes upstairs all by myself. As punishment for trying to defy the great junior class' president."
He narrows his eyes "Are you being sarcastic?"
"Nope," again popping the last syllable.
"Uh-huh," he sarcastically retorts. "Whatever I'm sure you'll be fine, you seem pretty smart."
And with that he walks away, leaving me to talk to some older woman. Probably a parent needing to ask a thousand annoying questions about the dorms.
At first, I was upset at the idea of my room being on the second floor. Trudging up a flight of stairs just to get to my dorm sounded like a pain, but once I was up there I was glad to have it. It was so much quieter up here. I guess there was some downside having your room directly connect to the common room. I find my room rather quickly, it was at the very end of the hall right next to a corner.
When I open the door, I'm surprised to find that the room is already fully furnished and not just that, but it also seems to be already catered to me. If I had to to describe my dorm in one word it would be purple. Everything is purple, the walls are dark shade of purple, nearly black, just like my hair. The the floor is carpeted and in a very light tint of purple. The blanket on my made bed, as you can guess, was also purple but it also had the ghost type pokemon symbol embroidered into the blanket.
Gengar and Golett seem to get the sense that we were finally at our destination. They both dropped their boxes and started to run around the room, playing happily so that I could do all the unboxing myself. Which was pretty easy, all I really had brought was my clothes, a few little trinkets that I couldn't live without, and,of course, my tablet. I take the latter out first, I guess a little part of me was a little paranoid that I somehow could have lost the tablet somewhere on the trip here. So, when I take it out of its packaging I give out a sigh of relief and place the expensive object on top of the desk that came with the dorm.
By the time I was done unpacking, I was absolutely exhausted. It felt like I had gone through a long eventful day but, when I looked at the clock, I found that it was only noon. To be fair to myself, I had woken up at 6 am to trek all the way down here by bus. I was lucky that the school resides in the same region that I lived in, Kanto, but it was still a four hour trip to get here. I tried to sleep on the bus ride here but my nervousness had kept me up. Besides, I really didn't want to oversleep and miss my stop.
Those were my drifting thoughts as I got under the covers of my new bed and quickly went into the world of unconsciousness.
I woke up in a panic, I don't remember what I was dreaming about but I had a distinct feeling that I was, in fact, dreaming. But trying to figure out the contents of said dream was really not important. I whipped my head around so I could see the clock.
It was eight pm.
My heart began to pound as I scrambled out of bed very clumsily. I immediately fall over and land on the carpet. Gengar and Golett are staring at me, probably wondering what their training was doing flopping around like a fish out of water. I didn't have time to explain.
I quickly grabbed my tablet off my desk. I nearly drop it, my hands are shaking so bad. On my way back to the bed I managed to click the on button, as I plop down on my covers the tablet lights up. My finger flips through my apps until I find the one with the Skitty icon. Instead of tapping it, I hold down on the Skitty and wait until the tablet asks me put in a code.
I do and the screen goes black.
The the wait for the app to load is excruciating. The type of anxiety that was much different from this morning. The criminal in hiding, at least that had a bit excitement to it. There was adrenaline to that, there was a purpose in being like a robber hiding behind the bank he just hit.
If there wasn't I would never agree to do missions like this.
This nervousness is cold and crueler. There was absolutely no positive aspects to these type of nerves. Waiting is the worst.
My waiting, luckily, doesn't last much longer. The screen lights up again. This time, it displays an image of a man decked out in a black uniform, a red 'R' displayed on his chest. He looks angry.
"Sorry I'm late," I give the man on the screen a forced smile, "I know you missed me. But I'm here now so you can stop worrying about little old me."
The man doesn't say anything. He also doesn't look amused. I put my smile away and give a more serious expression. I make sure my next words are as flat and unemotional as I can possibly make them.
"Team Rocket member 1127, Trick Oriana," I say "Reporting in."
