Chapter Four
Becky was one of the first to take a tentative step out onto the docks of Solomon Island. The island's impressive stature towered over her, like she was standing in the shadow of a lecturing parent. Crowds of people milled around her like swarms of confused insects. Among frequent mutterings of "Where are we supposed to go?" she hung back, letting most of the crowds overtake her.
The slow moving crowd came to a stop no sooner had they cleared the end of the docks. Becky smashed her nose into an alarmingly tall man in front of her and she muttered a sheepish apology. He didn't respond, transfixed by something she couldn't see. Becky hopped onto her tip-toes to look ahead.
From somewhere in the distance, a microphone sparked in life. "Ladies and gentlemen! On behalf of "Pokémon Training and You!", it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Solomon Island!"
A round of polite applause followed. Becky kept her hands by her side.
"This island is under ownership of my dear friend and colleague Professor Harrison Goldberg and he has kindly given us permission to use it for this one of a kind event. Please, ladies and gentleman, a round of applause for Professor Goldberg!"
The subsequent applause was far more scattered and impatient.
"Now, if you'd care to all follow me, we will take registration and the event will officially begin!"
The crowd began to move again, this time much more enthusiastically. Becky followed along, sandwiched in-between the stragglers of the group. As they walked, her gaze drifted beyond the limits of the crowd and settled on the peak of the mountain in the distance. The Solomon Battle Zone. She had been shocked when her research into Solomon Island had unearthed old newspaper articles about a Battle Zone that had simply become too overrun to use. Battle Zones had been fashionable in years past but had fallen in popularity after a rise in serious accidents had made headline news. The Solomon Battle Zone had been one of the worst offenders. It had become too overrun and too dangerous even for the most gifted trainers to explore. After a while, it had been condemned, its doors had shut for good in 2014 and it was left simply as a habitat for whatever wild Pokémon were left.
Why here, she thought to herself, letting the innocent thought take flight. Why would you organise an event like this with something like that lingering over you? Health and Safety was almost ridiculously important nowadays, after all. Even if these trainers are the best of the best, she thought, surely their safety is a priority? It didn't make much sense to her. But then again, perhaps she was simply overthinking it. Either way, she had no timeto come up with a conclusion, as the crowd shifted and she was quickly lost within its warm, writhing depths.
They were led inside to an airy hallway of a large building. Tables were set up around the hallway which a wandering aide told them were split into categories based on surnames. The crowd quickly separated and lines began to form at the many tables. Becky hurried to the table marked with a "T" and joined a thankfully short line. To her dismay, however, the person at the front of the line seemed to be having a problem and the queue remained stagnant for the better part of ten minutes. Becky moaned and shifted from foot-to-foot. She felt suffocated in the presence of so many bodies. The person behind her fidgeted incessantly and the person in front of her muttered, spitting out sharp words in badly concealed whispers. She closed her eyes against the onslaught to her senses, her head filled with static. "Please hurry up…" she begged.
"Don't think praying is going to help you any, I'm afraid."
Becky jumped. The man behind her had spoken up and not sure if he was addressing her or someone else entirely, she swallowed nervously and remained quiet.
"Wonder what's keeping the guy in front," the same voice piped up again. "What do you reckon is going on?"
Becky twitched her shoulders in the tiniest of shrugs. "I've no idea…"
"Little bit irritating. You'd think they'd have organised this a little better."
Becky hopped up onto her tip-toes to try and see past the person in front of her. "Maybe the guy forgot his Trainer ID or something like that. They did say in the correspondence letter to make sure we had all the important documents with us."
"Hm. Who'd really forget their Trainer ID on something as important as this, though?" there was a hint of disapproval clinging to the voice now.
Becky turned around and met a pair of deep set brown eyes. "You'd be surprised," she commented wryly.
"I suppose so, yes…" he muttered noncommittally before refocusing his attention. "Oh, the name's Andrew by the way. Figure I may as well introduce myself if we're going to be here a while."
"Becky." She took the man's proffered hand and squeezed it politely.
"Nice to meet you," he acknowledged with a swift nod. His eyes were restless, his gaze frequently flitting from line to line in the room. "One thing does strike me as a bit odd. There's a lot of females here…"
Becky frowned. "Females?"
"Indeed." Andrew nodded. "Easily could be twice the number of females here than men."
Becky bit her lip and forced herself to remain silent. Seeing the look on her face, Andrew chuckled. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not being sexist. I just thought it was unusual."
"Well, calling women 'females' is a little degrading." Becky said as snidely as she could manage. "And besides, this is like a conference. A lot of hanging around and listening to what other people have to say. Men have much more difficulty with that than women do."
Andrew's eyebrow twitched. "Now who's being sexist?"
"No, you were being chauvinistic." Becky said as she turned away from Andrew, deciding she didn't like the young man that much at all.
She was glad when whatever problem was plaguing the front of the line was suddenly resolved and the queue began to move. Keen to keep as much distance between herself and Andrew as possible, she found herself almost sprinting to the registration desk when it was finally her turn.
The bespectacled official looked up almost lazily at her. "Name and trainer ID?"
"Rebecca Taylor," she replied with a quick flash of her Trainer ID.
"Alright Miss Taylor, if you could sign and date here for me please?" the official pushed a document across the table.
Becky signed the slip and handed it back to the official.
"Lovely. Please refer to your itinerary for the schedule of today's events and have a pleasant day. Next!"
"Umm…" Becky hesitated, glancing around nervously. There was nothing to indicate where she should go next and the bespectacled official was narrowing her eyes the longer she stood there. "P-pardon me, but where do I need to go?"
"Lecture Theatre A2, to your left. Next!"
Realising she had been well and truly dismissed, Becky hurried away and joined a rather uncertain crowd of registered trainers. One of the braver trainers took it upon herself to scout out one of the adjoining corridors and called back that they had found the elusive lecture theatre. Becky took a seat at the end of the aisle which she instantly regretted when people started clambering over her to reach the seats in the centre of the row.
Near to the front, an exuberant Millie pulled Liam down to sit beside here and she surveyed her surroundings with the enthusiasm of a little girl on her first trip to the cinema. Liam consulted his watch. "They're already running late."
The buzz of conversation did not fade even as the final groups of people began to take their seats. Among them was Gloria, who slipped into a seat next to a young woman with bight violet hair and whose eyes were smudged with tiredness. Some rows down, Anastasia, Blaire, Madison and Andrew had been reunited and chatted and giggled like teenagers on their first day back at school. They were watched, somewhat nervously, by a young man with shoulder length red curls who bit all around his fingernails as the minutes ticked on.
"Why is it taking so long?" Gloria asked no-one in particular, craning her neck to look behind her. The seats had filled up fast, leaving the last few stragglers stranded with no seats within easy reach. She sighed and placed her feet on the chair in front of her, pointedly ignoring the dirty looks she received for doing so.
"Ah… excuse me… everyone, please, settle down now!" At first, the voice could barely be heard above the rabble. A slightly portly man shuffled his way down towards the podium, his tightly curled hair bouncing with every step he took.
"Oh, finally. Something interesting." Anastasia said, leaning forward in her seat.
The man tapped the microphone set in front of him. "Ahem! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Taylor Jackson and I am President of Pokemon Training and You! On behalf of the hardworking staff here, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for coming all this way and a big welcome to what promises to be a very exciting and informative event for you all."
Liam stifled a yawn, already bored. As the lecture continued, even the most attentive of the listeners found their attention wandering. Whispers soon struck up between neighbours while a collective sigh issued from those that dared to play on their Pokegear to find no signal whatsoever available. Millie's fingers itched to pull her sewing kit from her bag and return to work on the newest plushie she was stitching but she knew she was sitting too near the front to go unnoticed.
The president spoke a lot about responsibilities, opportunities and knowledge, just like any number of the lectures given in trainer school. Anastasia had heard it all before and idly filed her nails as he chattered on, oblivious to the notion the majority of the room had long stopped listening.
It inched closer to ten o'clock and, for most people, they saw a chance of salvation. The itinerary had promised a lecture from the current Kalos champion Diantha. But more disappointment followed when the president eventually seemed to run out of air as he apologised that the current Kalos champion was 'indisposed' and had cancelled her appearance at the last minute. The president did not seem deterred by the groans and grunts that came from his audience and ushered everyone back outside for an extra break.
"I want to go home." Liam said blankly, unwrapping the paper from a cereal bar and biting into it moodily.
"Cheer up," Millie said, poking him in the arm. "It's not all that bad."
But even Millie's seemingly endless optimism soon found itself wearing thin. The Pokemon and Politics lecture was dull, to say the least. Several trainers found themselves dropping off to sleep as the lecturer droned on. However, Gloria was listening intently the whole way through. While this particular lecture wasn't the most inspired thing she had ever heard, she knew that politics was an issue that all aspiring Gym Leaders needed to concern themselves with. Privately, she shook her head. She almost pitied the others who were too ignorant to know just what an asset this could potentially be.
The politics lecture drew to a close. Becky straightened her back against the chair, pretending she didn't notice a handful of people darting for the door no sooner had the guest lecturer finished speaking. It was the next lecture she had been looking most forward to, and judging by the excited chattering that broke out, she wasn't the only one of that opinion.
11:45 came and went. The podium of the lecture theatre remained stubbornly empty. Becky bounced her leg up and down as the minutes ticked on, wondering perhaps if the speaker was late. She fished in her bag for the itinerary. Ex-Gym Leader Byron was supposed to be delivering the lecture. Diantha had already failed to show up for her lecture. Fairly unprofessional, she thought, crossing her legs. Then again, this whole event seemed just that little bit unorganised.
The lecture hall was rife with chatter. Becky sighed and sunk her head into her hands, trying to block out the noise. She stared down at the gritty purple carpet until the colour blurred. A glance at her watch confirmed 12:01.
"Honestly…" she exhaled. "What is going on?"
And then, above the rabble, she heard a slight creak. The ground shifted underneath her feet, like something underneath the floor was moving. It was so distant and so subtle she wondered if she had perhaps just imagined it. But then it came again. The entire floor vibrated for a few seconds like something heavy had just come crashing down on it. Becky lifted up her head and looked around. No-one else seemed to have noticed.
An inexplicable lump rose in her throat and her palms grew sweaty. She had the sudden, intrusive thought that something was about to go very badly wrong.
And then the ground started to shake.
At the front of the lecture hall, Millie let out a frightened shriek and drew her legs up underneath herself. She grabbed Liam, who had been dozing up until that point, and clutched onto him tightly. "Liam! The ground's shaking!"
"Calm down!" he barked, jumping straight to his feet. The others in the room were either clinging onto their chairs or their companions or already sprinting for the one available exit. "Earthquake…" he murmured to himself. "That's not right… you don't get earthquakes this side of the region…"
"Liam!" Millie's panicked hands found their way around his neck and gripped him tightly.
"Don't worry," he told her, wrapping his arms firmly around her skinny body. "It'll be over soon! They don't last long! It'll be—"
And then, with the crunching, screeching noise of metal being ripped clean apart, the wall behind the lecture podium was torn through by the biggest Steelix Millie had ever seen in her life.