Rayna was all for being nice and all, but Mitsuru was starting to piss her off. Her grandfather had never had to deal with a bitch like this. Less than two hours with her and Rayna had wanted to kill her. Now, after several more, she didn't even care which of them was killed. The worst part of it all? Mitsuru wasn't even doing anything!

The girl was fifteen thousand poke in debt, living on the charity of a stranger, with a brother who had just disappeared on her yet again, but somehow, she was just so fricken happy, and without meaning to be, snotty. She never said a word out of place, and she was a model of politeness, and yet everything she did only served to piss Rayna off. It was weird, but whenever Mitsuru did anything, Rayna was filled with aggression at whatever it was she was doing.

Some of her aggression might have been misdirected from Kitane, but she would never admit that to either of them.

She'd missed him. In the short time she'd known him, he'd almost taken the place of her grandfather. Where her grandfather was calm and subdued, Kitane was hard and active. They both taught her the same basic lessons about her morals, and also tried to teach her about beauty. Kitane even urged her to look for the beauty in feebas exactly like her grandfather had before. It was a damn feebas! There was absolutely nothing beautiful about it! Nothing! She had many arguments with both Kitane and her grandfather about that.

Other than that one particular argument they'd had, she loved every interaction with him. So much so, she'd have waived his fee if he wanted to stay the night. Well, maybe.

Speaking of fees, She turned toward the back room. She'd given it over at Mitsuru's request, something about wanting to get closer to her brother. The past two hours since had been filled with random cluttering noises, probably her cleaning the bed off so she had somewhere to sleep.

Rayna opened the door and couldn't help but smile.

Mitsuru had been cleaning. It wasn't the bed that she had cleaned though. She was cleaning everything around the room. All of his mess, clothing, garbage, whatever he had laying around. And there was a lot of it laying around. Two hours of obvious effort revealed a five-foot wide hole in the mess. Elsewhere the mess was still just as thick.

But now Mitsuru had fallen asleep on the job, sprawled over the edge of the bed. One of her brother's shirts was clutched tight in her fist. Another lay across her, like a blanket. She was using her pack as a pillow, over all, she looked pretty cute.

Rayna slid the door shut again to give her some privacy. Mitsuru might have a prodigious tendency to annoy the ever-living hell out of her, but right now she just looked adorable.

Then it was back into her living room to train. She picked up her piplup and whistled. Feebas swam around in the small blow-up pool she kept off to the side for the fish's purposes. And her own. She loved the water. Luckily, both her pokemon were water types, so it worked out perfectly. She leaned into the pool, wincing at the sharp bite of the cold water. Piplup slipped through her hands when he felt the frigid liquid wrap around him.

She enjoyed the cold, it excited her. But more than that, it was a way for her to train her limited ability. She didn't have powers like her pokemon, that allowed her to instantly become powerful without the need to train.

She slid under the water and held her breath, training her endurance at holding her breath, and her ability to endure the cold. She only had a few outfits, and all of them were for the warm weather of her home. If she travelled anywhere else in Suanini, she'd freeze in no time. Of course, Mitsuru seemed to be in the same boat, a thin silken shift? Hell, the girl's tits had probably stuck right through, no wonder the boatman was gonna try to rape her.

She kept herself under the water, allowing the chill to burn through her until her lungs screamed desperately for relief. She surfaced with a wild gasp, trying to inhale as much air as possible.

And then she dove again. Only a second to gain as much life sustaining oxygen as possible, and then back. She wanted to push her limits, she wanted to get as close to dying as possible. What was the expression? What doesn't kill me makes me stronger?

She'd been raised on that belief. And the closer it came to killing you, the stronger you became.

Over and over, each time staying under until her lungs cried out for succor. Then a brief surfacing, a second to breath and she dove again. She did this almost two dozen times, until her eyes were streaming tears from the agony in her chest and her throat was raw from her gasping. Her muscles were burning with the intensity of the cold. Every movement she made was pained as she struggled against her cramping muscles.

Piplup had fallen asleep while he was doing his own workout. The little goofball was adorable. Small weights lay to either side of him, where he had fallen asleep, completely exhausted. She dragged herself out of the pool, giving feebas a hard shove when he swam too near to her.

Out of the water, the air only seemed even colder than the water had been. She knew it was just an illusion cast by her weary muscles, but the chill still bit into her.

She inhaled deeply, fortifying herself against it while ingraining the sensations into her body. She wanted to remember the pain of the cold, It would make her stronger right? And it was important to be strong, considering that tomorrow she was definitely going to actually start her journey. Speaking of which, she needed to talk to Mitsuru about that.

She did a final stretch and lay on the couch. She'd been doing the same ritual for the past few weeks to try and train herself up to be ready for her big day. Since she was going to sleep in the wild soon enough, she often fell asleep on the floor, in her pool, on the couch, anywhere but in a bed. Tonight she had originally planned to sleep in the bed in the back room, for some luck rubbing off from Kitane, and as a reward for how hard she'd worked at torturing her poor body.

But then Mitsuru had showed up.

Bet she'd never slept on the ground before. Or a couch. Or in a pool.

Bet she'd never gone hungry through the winter when nobody wanted a tour in the cold water and her family couldn't make any money. Or only had a few different outfits. Hell, Rayna had been wearing only bikinis since she hit puberty, just because they were easier. And cheaper. She even had ones for special occasions, even one for formal occasions.

Mitsuru probably had a closet filled with fine clothes, silks and satin. God, she could probably sell one of her 'prestige' 'designer' items and be set for life. But no, that would be a sacrifice, and why should she have to sacrifice anything?

Rayna stretched herself out a bit, trying to relax her muscles tensed by the cold.

"Stupid bitch!" She muttered under her breath. Mitsuru was really pissing her off for some reason. She sighed. Probably being unfair, but rich people just got on her nerves, all of that money doing nothing while her family could barely survive to the next time they got paid. That was unfair, she was justified in being a bitch toward Mitsuru, right?

She fell asleep next to piplup, laying on the ground.


Alright everybody, here it is, a pretty short chapter, but it helps to develop the characters some. Whatever, Read and review.