This is the first in what may or may not be a series of funny (hopefully) shorts involving Gym Leaders. It depends on how bored I get and how desperately I want to avoid working on my other stories.

Disclaimer: I don't speak Japanese. While that isn't a requirement to owning pokemon, common sense says the two are connected. I'll let you draw the obvious conclusion.

"Blegh…if I wasn't getting paid twenty bucks an hour to sit in an empty room, I'd walk out right now." Nudging the wall with my sneaker, I tipped the chair backwards until it rested precariously on two legs.

"Sorry, Misty." The voice came from a speaker hidden in one of the plain white walls. "We've had, uh, some unforeseen difficulties. It'll only be a few more minutes, I promise."

My eyebrows went up. "'Unforeseen difficulties'? Are you having trouble warming up the electric chair?"

Dr. Sciency (okay, yeah, I forgot his name) sounded a touch annoyed. "The door is unlocked. You can leave whenever you want."

I released a dramatic sigh. Although the thought tempted me, the idea of waving a stack of bills in my sisters' faces and describing the absolute lack of work involved in earning it won out. "Fine, I'll waste a bit more of my life in this utterly boring room. How long have I been here, again?"

"Twelve minutes."

I groaned. "Is it against the rules for me to take a nap?"

"No, although I have not received flattering reports about the linoleum. It tends to leave a crick in the neck, apparently."

"Can I have a pillow?"

"I don't have one on me."

"What about under you? Or over you? Or down the hall and to the right? A folded up lab coat would do nicely as well."

"Sorry, no."

"Oh, come on. Airplanes give pillows away. Why don't you?"

A new voice entered the room. "Airplanes and scientific facilities have more differences than a few consonants. Now, if you do not object, we will begin presently."

I let the chair fall forward and it struck the floor with a dull crack. "About time. What—?"

"Direct your attention to the east wall and you will find out."

Like I could tell which direction was east without a GPS. I settled for scanning all the walls, and nearly missed it when a hatch popped open and something walked in.

"Sur?"

My heart decided to take a crash course in gymnastics, consisting of a few back flips, somersaults, and a trampoline routine. The pokemon was blue, round with four long legs, and had a single yellow antenna that looked a bit like a pointy hat. I wasn't familiar with the species, but I'd recognize the type anywhere.

"GET THIS STINKIN' BUG OUTTA HERE!" I screamed and lobbed the chair at it.

"Skit!" The pokemon squeaked and dashed to the side.

"Misty, hold on a second!"

"I DON'T CARE! SEND ME AN EXTERMINATOR!" A shoe followed the chair.

"Skee!" The pokemon scurried into a corner and cowered under my glare. I stalked forward, raising my next cobbled club of clobbering.

"I thought you were the best Water-Type pokemon trainer around?"

I chucked the shoe, but the pokemon darted away at the last second. "Quit distracting me! Water-Types and Bug-Types are two totally different things!"

"Not in Surskit's case."

I paused, although my lack of sufficiently solid ammo had more to do with it than the scientist's words. "What do you mean?"

"Surskit is both a Water-Type and a Bug-Type pokemon."

Silence hopped off the invisible train, walked up to his pronouncement, shook its hand for a few brief seconds, and then promptly got booted away by my anger.

"A what?" I could feel my face growing warm. Scratch that. I was burning up. "A WHAT? THIS WAS YOUR STUPID EXPERIMENT? I WASTED TWO HOURS FILLING OUT STUPID PAPER WORK SO YOU COULD MAKE FUN OF ME?"

"Actually, it's an experiment in problem solving. We were curious which would win out: your hatred of—"

"I. Don't. Care." Socks don't make satisfying clomping noises when you stomp in them, but I did my best. They were going to regret leaving the door unlocked. "No one pulls one over on my like this. Not even for twenty bucks an hour."

…

The two scientists stared at the screen. Security footage from the hall showed the Gym Leader stalking angrily, shoulders tight and hands clenched. The one Misty had dubbed Dr. Sciency could feel sweat trickle down his neck.

"Should we evacuate the building?" he asked. The director of the experiment shook his head.

"I believe that's slightly more than an overreaction."

"She's a redhead, though. Who knows what she might do?"

"She could hardly blow up the building without her pokemon."

"But she can, I don't know, choke us with her socks."

"Then we should be glad that she doesn't know where our room is."

Dr. Sciency pointed at the screen, where Misty appeared to be chatting idly with another white-lab-coated experimenter. "Other people do."

A muscle in the director's face twitched. "Perhaps you were on to something when you suggested evacuation." He pushed his chair back.

The two had hardly pulled on their lab coats, without which they wouldn't dare to be seen by their fellow intellectual community, when the door to the room burst open. Dr. Sciency leapt a foot in the air.

Misty's eyes blazed.

"SOMEBODY HERE IS GONNA DIE AND IT SURE AIN'T GONNA BE ME!"