Six Ways to Sunday
no seriously. it's an actual saying.
Ash Academy: established after the Great Twenty Years War. Founded by the famous Ash Ketchum, critics originally considered it a knee-jerk reaction as people realized that they needed more able and ready trainers capable of protecting their country (see Great Wenty Years War). However it soon proved itself to be a battling academy of unprecedented calibre and cutting edge technology. Today, it only accepts Trainers that it invites. Invitations are never extended to anyone from the Unova region, one of the major regions that allied itself against Kanto. It does invite students from Johto, to maintain diplomatic relations, though, as well as those from Hoenn (see Great Twenty Years War).
- Overview of Ash Academy, Encyclopedia app, pokeGear.
[ 2: nuts are for squirrels ]
The Headmaster of Ash Academy was apparently a bit of a head case, her mother and the newspapers warned, but no one could deny the results of his work. Alumni during his time as Headmaster included the current Master Champion - the fact that the Kanto Champion was the winner of the most recent Champions Tournament, which pit the winners of all five League Conferences against each other, was a great source of pride for Kanto natives.
Especially because Kanto and Johto were still mad at each other, according to her mom, and Johto had been favored to win. Something about drug trade and funding Team Rocket's activities. She'd asked what drugs they were smuggling in, and her mom said it was slowpoke tail. Apparently it didn't just have medicinal benefits.
The idea of it made Kenzie think of people carrying lots of long pink body parts onto a boat. How would you even use that? She imagined a group of men in black sitting on the deck trying to smoke said body parts.
People would have a lot of questions.
But anyways, finishing off their accolades, there were plenty of other powerful graduates who didn't want to be tied down by a position, or who chose to enter different fields, like the Silph Co. vice president.
When Kenzie finally pulled herself out of her thoughts, the academy campus was in view.
There were already students lounging on the grass, with a paved, circular walkway and a statue of Arceus in the very center.
One of the returners spotted something and called out, "Hey! Cole and Nate are at it again!"
Who are Cole and Nate?
"They're the top Third Years in the academy," a voice said behind her.
Kenzie yelped; it was like everyone was reading her mind today.
"Are you a psychic?" she asked dubiously.
The dark brown-haired boy made an amused noise at the back of his throat. "You were talking out loud."
"Oh."
That was comforting. She already had one psychotic xatu who'd decided that he wanted to write down 'Kenzie Garrett's mind' as his 'place of residence' on any future job applications, and her brother and his creepy bug, so she was pretty sure another person would make the place too crowded.
She imagined what a room would look like if the xatu, Brett, and this new guy were all living together.
You'd be the worst tenant, she muttered at the xatu. You'd probably leave birdseed everywhere.
I don't eat birdseed, the xatu cackled deviously.
Really? What do you eat?
For a minute he was silent. Then, a vivid image of stiff honey-coated rattata on a plate bloomed in her mind.
You're a creep.
He hummed in agreement. Then, she felt him leave her mind, on his way to harass someone else.
"Hey? You still there?"
Kenzie's gaze snapped back into focus. "Huh? Sorry, I spaced out."
The boy grinned. "I noticed. You said something about birdseed. And rattata. Kinda makes me wonder what you were daydreaming about."
She blushed. "It was nothing. I just don't have a filter at all."
"Ha, nice. But anyways, I was saying, you should come watch their match? It's always really good for new students to see what Ash Academy is like."
"Okay."
He was cute, she noted subconsciously as he led her to an open grassy area, where people were starting to crowd around. He was fit and toned - everyone at Ash Academy looked like they were - and his hair was left shaggy, but not long enough to obscure his warm hazel eyes.
"Heads up!"
A rush of hot, flickering fire brushed past her just as she sidestepped.
"Well, I know who I'm inviting whenever I have a barbecue," she exhaled slowly, poking a red spot on her arm where a wayward ember had grazed her.
The boy - Luke, as he had introduced himself - gave her a sort of exasperated look. "I don't think we have any cannibals here to go to that barbecue."
Kenzie made a face. "You know what I mean."
"You should really spend more time outside of your head," he told her, frowning as he scrutinized the small inflamed bit of skin.
She'd already decided that it didn't hurt, or look bad enough, to need to go looking for someone who could give her burn cream right away, so she ignored his scrutinizing gaze. "But my head is so interesting. Seriously. A xatu lives in it."
Luke stared at her for a moment, and then laughed.
"You think I'm kidding," she said.
He shook his head, still grinning, and explained, "We all get warned about Enzo. The xatu's crazy and probably homicidal, right?" and when Kenzie nodded he finished, "Yeah, then you've met Enzo."
"I would be crazy too if my mom named me Enzo..." she mused. "But then, I would also have to be a boy, or she would have to be high like a kite."
Luke laughed again. "Watch the match, and stay out of your psychopath-magnet mind."
She started wonder about a giant magnet and psychopaths that were futilely trying to run in the opposite direction - that would be such a great way to catch psychopaths - but Luke seemed to realize that she was drifting and snapped the hair tie that around her wrist. After an embarrassing squeak of surprise she glared at him as she moved her hair tie to the other wrist but focused her attention on the battle.
It was a houndoom against a vaporeon. The houndoom was fast as hell, evading the blue eeveelution's Shadow Balls with unnerving ease.
"Ice Beam," called out one of the guys, chestnut-haired with brown eyes so light that they could probably be called amber.
"Isn't ice not effective against fire?" Kenzie asked. The other observing First Years were murmuring the same thing to each other.
Though, ice was nice to skate on.
The idea of a houndoom in ice skates made her grin. Silly houndoom, skates are for kids.
And then it hit her, and she tried to articulate it. "Wait, the feet, he's moving and - the ground!"
The look Luke gave her this time was astute and contemplative; impressed, even. It was kind of a nice feeling, to be taken seriously. "Quick thinking, squirrel. Keep that up and you might get recruited to a half-way decent team. Lesson one: if your opponent has an advantage you don't like, do what you can to get rid of that advantage. And lesson two: your goal should be to get your pokemon to be able to think creatively as well. See? Nate didn't have to tell his vaporeon to aim for the feet, because he trusted that she would be able to figure it out. That way, you won't give your strategy away."
Kenzie nodded eagerly, filing the advice away for later, and then frowned. "Why'd you call me a squirrel?"
He still seemed to be lost in his thoughts, for a change, so there was a pause before he turned his gaze back to her and smirked. "It's a long story. But basically, the Headmaster banned us older years from calling the First Years 'newbies' because of some incident, and someone came up with the idea of calling you all squirrels instead."
"Why?"
"Because you all like our nuts."
"Oh come on!"
"What do you want me to come on?"
"-! Arceus, you're just full of class, aren't you."
"Don't blame me, you walked right into both of those."
Kenzie's initial scarlet, indignant glare dissolved as she laughed along with Luke. Just so he knew he wasn't totally forgiven though, she kicked him halfheartedly. It only made him laugh harder.
They turned back to the battle, where the vaporeon had succeeded in not only freezing a good portion of the grass, but also one of the houndoom's hind paws. It stumbled often now, whereas the vaporeon was all mermaid grace. The houndoom was wet, too, the smell of wet dog starting to waft, so it must've been hit by at least one Surf attack.
"Sunny Day," the other guy ordered. His relatively short blonde locks were pushed back at the front, away from his blue eyes.
The houndoom seemed to give off light for a moment, and then there was an artificial, sunny brightness that lit up the entire area. The ice began to melt, and the demonic dog's fur began to dry. The houndoom didn't seem exhausted. Instead, it actually looked kind of pissed.
Maybe it was pissed that its fur had gotten wet. I would be, too. If I had fur, Kenzie amended.
"Well, you still look lovely," she said absently, a little louder than she'd intended.
Luke choked on his laugh, but the houndoom seemed to appreciate the compliment and preened for a moment.
"Cerb! You can show off later," his trainer teased.
Cerb gave his trainer a dirty look but pitched his ears backwards to show that he was listening.
"SolarBeam."
The green energy only took a brief second to gather at the houndoom's open maw before it cut through the air, towards the vaporeon. It tried to dodge but the interruption had thrown it off guard, and its reaction time was slow.
"Defensive Aqua Ring-Surf combo!"
She had a split second to see it before the SolarBeam collided with its mark, but she saw it. The vaporeon's eyes flashed blue as it hastily surrounded itself with rotating rings of water. Its Surf attack was carried by the existing rings, rotating along with them to form a more solid barrier against the SolarBeam.
"Wow," she breathed in awe.
"Welcome to Ash Academy," Luke said, smiling broadly.
Everyone watched the smoke clear anxiously. When it finally did, it revealed a tired and drenched houndoom, who'd been hit by the resulting spray of water as its SolarBeam ran into the barrier, a vaporeon who was swaying in its effort to remain standing, because the barrier hadn't been able to take the pressure of the entire attack, and a spectacular rainbow.
"We'll call it a tie," suggested Nate, walking over to his vaporeon.
The blonde nodded, "Sure," and rubbed Cerb behind the ears.
"Did you like the show?" Luke asked, and Kenzie tilted her head.
"What?"
He nodded towards the two trainers, whose pokemon were shaking themselves off, suspiciously looking a whole lot better than they had a minute ago. "It's staged, to get the squirrels motivated."
"...Well now I feel manipulated," Kenzie muttered, replaying the battle in her head.
Bells suddenly tolled out across the campus. A magnified voice projected itself out after they had stopped.
"All students are expected to be at their first group meetings by 4:00 PM.
We would advise you to get acquainted with your buildings, rooms, Residential Advisors, and roommates at this time.
You will find all the information you need in the text you are about to receive.
Thank you for your cooperation and we hope you have a wonderful year."
Luke traded numbers with Kenzie and then waved goodbye as a couple of his friends appeared, who were eager to get their first team party of the year started.
A text made her pokeGear ring, almost simultaneously with all the other pokeGears that were suddenly going off. No one except the First Years checked it, though; everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were going.
The brunette flipped open her pokeGear, and a holographic blue screen projected itself into the air right above it. She tapped the screen to view her 1 New Message.
" Full Name: Kenzie Aislinn Garrett.
Building: Hamilton-Weiss.
RA: Tara M.
Room: 213.
Roommate: Delilah Sinclair.
Group: Blue.
Team: Unclaimed. "
There was a map file attached to it, which downloaded itself into her map app. When she opened it, a 3D, rotatable model of the entire campus a flickered into existence.
She followed it towards her building, making note of all the other structures along the way. The Mess Hall, that was important. As she looked around, she realized that most of First Years had already banded together, and looked on uncomfortably. Maybe it'd been a bad idea to choose to hang with Luke instead of her future classmates.
"Hey, did you guys catch the match?" she asked, hesitant, when a group of First Years passed by near her.
There was awkward silence as they walked, neither able to leave to diffuse the tension because they were both going in the same direction, but not sure about whether or not to answer someone they considered an outsider. That critical "friend or foe" moment.
Then someone broke the tension by answering with an enthusiastic voice, "It was a great battle. Houndooms are sick."
Which then prompted a heated argument about which pokemon was better.
Houndooms obviously.
But it was a bit of a surprise when Kenzie looked up to thank whoever had broken the ice. It was the boy with the intense green eyes, whom she'd initially labeled as an asshat who liked to get around. He gave her a friendly smile before going back to flirting all the remotely attractive girls he could find.
Maybe first impressions aren't always spot on.
A sudden image of a xatu eating rattata forced its way into her head, Enzo's indignant protest of her statement.
Awww, I bet you have a soft gooey marshmallow center somewhere! she teased.
The image was replaced by a vivid scene where she was sleeping in her new dorm room and a swarm of larvaesta crawled out from under her bed and ate her face.
...You're going to hell.
Enzo hummed in agreement.
random note of the day;; isn't it weird how catch and match look like they rhyme, but when you actually say them out loud, they don't? I mean, the tch part does, but not the as.
