"WAKE UP! IT'S MORNING! LET'S GET GOING, EVERYONE!"

I squeaked, shooting into a sitting position in a split second. In the process, I managed to whip my up so quickly that it hurt, in addition to the ringing in my ears all that yelling caused. "Owww...," I whined, rubbing the side of my neck. "Now my ears and my neck hurt..."

Right on cue, Loudred poked his head into the room. "WAKE UP!" he shouted, blasting my and Rita's eardrums with very painful noise.

I cringed, ducking my head to rub my ears. "Good morning to you, too," I grumbled. "You really enjoy this, don't you?"

He grinned. "Of course," he replied, and off he went down the hallway, yelling again that it was morning and we all needed to get up.

I looked over at Rita to see if she was up, though how she wouldn't be after all the yelling was beyond me. She was already on her feet, taking deep breaths. Looks like Loudred almost gave her a heart attack, I sighed to myself. "Good morning, Rita."

"G-good...mmmorning...," she replied breathlessly.

"I take it he startled you." Rita nodded. "Are you okay?" Rita nodded again. "Okay. That's good. Well, we better get going. Chatot might strangle us if we're late."

Rita slowly took in a breath and slowly let it out. "O-okay...Llllet's go."

About ten minutes later, the meeting was finishing up. Guildmaster Wigglytuff had been awake and said hello today, along with giving us a speech about missions and perfect apples that was actually kind of motivating—at least if you were like me and food served as a good reward for completing missions. Now we were chanting the code of conduct, and we were almost finished.

"...AND THREE! SMILES GO FOR MILES!" we shouted, concluding the morning assembly.

Chatot called out, "Okay, Pokémon! Time to get to work!"

Everyone cheered, Chatot gave everyone else orders and told us to stay behind, so on and so forth. As the rest of the guild scattered, I looked over at Chatot to see him talking to Wigglytuff. I sighed and sat down heavily on the grassy floor. Rita looked at me oddly. I guess sitting on the floor is considered strange. "So, Rita, what do you suppose we're going to do today?"

Rita shrugged. "I...I'm nnnot...ssssure."

"Maybe a mission?" I suggested. "Half the guild went into the kitchen after Wigglytuff's speech, so with all of them distracted maybe we'd be able to get a good one." Chatot was finishing up his talk, so we would be finding out the answers to my questions soon. Wigglytuff laughed at something I didn't hear, said goodbye to Chatot, and headed off into his chambers. Chatot finally came over to talk to us about what he wanted us to do today. But before he could say anything, a loud shout rang out through the room.

"HEY, you two!"

Rita and I, being the only "two" someone could be calling for, looked over to the other side of the room where Loudred and Diglett were, only to see Loudred barreling over to us like his life depended on it. I took a step backwards out of reflex.

Loudred stopped about a foot away from us. "Um...hi, Loudred," I said confusedly, wondering what in the world could make him want to run over here like a madman.

Loudred completely ignored my greeting. "We need your HELP with something today!" he told us, jerking his head over towards Diglett, who was near the sentry tunnel, to indicate who the other half of "we" was. Almost before he finished talking, he started charging back over to the sentry hole. Boy, someone's impatient..., I thought to myself, rolling my eyes.

I glanced over at Chatot to make sure it was okay if we did whatever it was Loudred wanted us to do. "Go on," Chatot told us, waving one wing dismissively. "Loudred and Diglett will need your assistance. That will be your task for today."

I nodded. "Okay. Come on, Rita!" I called over my shoulder as I followed Loudred (at a much more sedate pace) over to the other side of the room.

"C-coming," she replied, hurrying after me.

Loudred and Diglett were both waiting by the sentry hole. Diglett was fidgeting a little, and Loudred was leaning against the wall with crossed arms, drumming his fingers. "You two are slow," Loudred informed us very bluntly when we approached him.

"Whatever you say," I sighed, shaking my head. "So, what's up?" I asked more cheerfully. "You guys look like you're in a hurry."

"You two are doing sentry duty today!" Loudred told us, pushing himself up off the wall.

Rita blinked, looking blank. "H-huh?"

Loudred sighed loudly. "Sentry duty. You two. Now."

"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupted. I glared at Loudred crossly. "You can't just spring this on us!"

"Sure I can. I'm OLDER than you," Loudred retorted, matching my glare for one of his own.

"Shame on you, pulling age difference to take advantage of the new team," I taunted.

Loudred shook his head, seeming to enjoy our bickering. "Not so new."

"This might shock you, but this is only our third day as part of the guild," I replied. "We're still new." Luckily for him, I liked arguing over nothing, too. Rita, meanwhile, was turning her head back and forth with every comment.

"And in that time you caught an outlaw Officer MAGNEZONE couldn't find." Loudred paused and raised one eyebrow. "Now you're saying you can't handle identifying Pokémon?"

"...Touché," I conceded with a little bow. "Don't you two normally do sentry duty?" I asked, indicating both Loudred and Diglett.

Diglett coughed awkwardly to get our attention. "We do," he agreed when Rita, Loudred, and I looked over. "I'm usually the one to go in the tunnel, but today my dad gave me his duty of updating the boards. That's why I can't man my post." He smiled shyly. "It'd be really great if someone could take over my sentry duty for today. That's why you're here. Would you both please take over my duty for today?"

I glanced over at Rita. "Are we up for it?" I asked her.

Rita nodded, albeit a little nervously. "Ch-Chatot...t-told us it w-...wa-...was our...t-t-t-task t-today...a-anyway...," she pointed out.

I blinked and thought back. "Huh. You're right. He did say that, didn't he?" I turned back to Diglett. "Okay, we can take care of it," I agreed.

"Thank you!" he exclaimed. "I have to go, then. Loudred can tell you what to do." With that, Diglett burrowed his way out of the room. I got distracted watching the hole he left behind magically filling up with dirt. I had to wonder what it was that was kicking the dirt into place. Did Diglett have feet?

"And that's THAT," Loudred smugly declared, crossing his arms and looking pleased for whatever reason.

I jerked my head up. "Wait. What's what?" I asked, completely confused by this latest remark. "I don't understand!" I whined. There was a pause, and, in a compulsive need to fill the silence, I continued, "I'm confused!"

Without any warning, Loudred let out a loud roar of frustration. The room literally shook with the noise. Rita gasped with shock and the both of us fell over from a combination of the quaking and being startled so badly. "Shut your YAP!" Loudred growled, sounding very irritated. "NO MORE BELLYACHING! GO DO YOUR DUTY!" he yelled at us.

Across the room, Croagunk started laughing. I shot him the dirtiest look I could manage and tried to look dignified as I got to my feet. "Shut up, Croagunk. That was not funny. And Loudred, you didn't even tell us what to do yet! We can't do our duty! We don't know what to do!" I emphasized.

Loudred paused. His expression looked blank. "...Oh."

If I had hands, I would have dropped my face into them out of frustration. That or strangled Loudred. "That's it? 'Oh'? After all that?"

Needless to say, some of us needed a moment to calm down, but after sufficient time to do that I was ready to ask my question. "Okay," I breathed out. "Okay, so what is it you need us to do?"

Loudred shrugged. "Climb down the hole and stand guard. You're on sentry duty!"

I struggled not to get annoyed all over again by this response. "Yes, we understand we're on sentry duty," I said through gritted teeth.

"P-please t-tell us...w-wha-...w-what we...hhhave to do ins-...-ssside the...t-t-tunnel," Rita cut in, probably in order to avoid getting me frustrated all over again. I was completely for that, because that might not end well for Loudred.

"You EVALUATE visitors' footprints," Loudred explained, completely oblivious to my not so happy thoughts. "You had YOUR footprints evaluated when you first CAME here, right?"

I thought back to the day we'd joined the guild, distracted from how annoyed I was getting. "Ummm...oh, right! That hole in the ground with the grating, you mean? Ugh, I hated that thing."

"I-I rrrremember that," Rita agreed.

Loudred nodded. "Right. We can't have suspicious characters coming into the guild. We DON'T want to give information about our MISSIONS to the wrong sorts of Pokémon. So we station a sentry below the guild entrance to evaluate POKÉMON visitors."

"So if Diglett was the one checking our footprints...oh, that means you were that other Pokémon screaming up at us!" I realized aloud. "It all makes so much sense now!" Loudred glared at me. "Um, so...you want us to climb down this hole," I said, moving on. "What then?"

"The tunnel down there leads to the SENTRY post," Loudred went on. "Once you go down it, just follow where it goes. It's a one-way ROAD in there. It'll take you to a bunch of vines. Once you climb up them, you'll get to a LEDGE that lets you see up and through the grate. THAT'S the sentry post. From there, you inspect the footprints of visitors, identify them, and INFORM me. Then I decide if the Pokémon is suspicious or not and OPEN the gate if he passes muster." He shrugged again. "We serve as the guild's GATEKEEPERS. That's the gist of it."

I nodded confidently. "Got it." Then I paused. "Um...no, wait, I'm lost. I don't get it." Both Loudred and Rita shot me a look of exasperation this time. "I can't really help it that I can't follow a long explanation that's thrown at me without any time to process all the little details," I defended myself.

Loudred shook his head in disbelief. "Look, all you two have to do is INSPECT the footprints of visitors, then tell me what POKÉMON they are," he told us with exaggerated patience. "All right? Understood?"

"Roger that," I replied cheekily, saluting with my tail. A short explanation like that I was good with.

"Y-yes," Rita agreed.

Loudred grinned. "Good! Then let's get to WORK!" he directed with a fist pump. "Buck up and do a GOOD job!"

"Go, Team Aster!" I exclaimed, high fiving Rita, who was unprepared for the out-of-the-blue cheer and almost missed her cue. "Because we're completely and totally awesome! We're definitely going to get everything right!"

We made our way down the first vine ladder, and then proceeded down the tunnel. We found the second vine ladder without too much trouble, but once we began climbing it we realized that the dim light the entrance was letting in wasn't going to last us all the way up.

"I-it's...p-p-pitch blllack in here...," Rita commented, sounding nervous.

"We'll just have to feel our way to the ledge," I sighed. "You know, Loudred, if we get killed finding our way around in here, I'm blaming you!" I shouted over my shoulder. My voice echoed a bit.

"Okay, have FUN then!" Loudred shouted back at me, sounding far off. His voice echoed, too, which was cool. I rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn't see it and suppressed the urge to yell at the top of my lungs so I could hear my voice echo.

Thankfully, Rita and I managed to get onto the ledge without much trouble. We then started feeling our way along the sides of the tunnel. As we walked, it began getting a little lighter with every step we took. Eventually, we could see where we were going again.

"O-oh! K-Kai, I ssssee...lllight!" Rita exclaimed all of a sudden. "Up a-ahead!"

"Really?" I peered more closely into the distance. "Huh...look at that." Rita was right. It was far off, but far off a beam of light was definitely falling onto the ledge. We picked up the pace. As we got closer, we could see that it was a perfect circle crossed with shadows that divided it into grids. It was definitely the grate in front of the entrance. "Nice eye, Rita," I told her as I moved to stand under the grate. I looked up. The grate wasn't all that far above us. It'd be easy to make out whoever was standing above it, as long as the sun wasn't directly over the hole. Luckily, since it was early morning, the sunlight wasn't even close to that point.

"Huh? Oh...um...th-thanks," Rita stammered.

"So, how're we gonna do this?" I asked, turning to face her. "The identifying, I mean, since there's two of us. Should we take it in turns?" I frowned. "Thing is, I don't know if I'm going to be able to recognize Pokémon by their footprints..." Now that I thought about it, even though Chatot had told us to, agreeing to do sentry duty may not have been a good idea.

"W-well..." Rita thought about it for a moment. "Wwwwe can...p-probably...sssee the Pokémon as...lllong as the ssssun's...nnnnot d-d-directly...o-over us. W-we can...t-t-take...turns 't-til then...A-after that, I-I can...d-d-do the...identifying," she offered. "Y-you can t-tell...Llllloudred w-...wh-...who it is. Is thhhat okay?"

I nodded, feeling a little relieved. "Okay. That sounds good. I'll go first and see how I do." Rita nodded.

Loudred's voice, sounding very far off now, interrupted our conversation. "HOW'S IT GOING?" he shouted to us. "Have you taken position at the sentry post?"

"Yeah, we're good!" I shouted back. There was no answer, so I repeated my message louder. Apparently you needed to be very loud in order for Loudred to hear you from here.

"GOOD!" Loudred called back. "Pokémon visitors will step onto the grill above the sentry post! Identify them by footprint, then inform me! Got that?"

"Yes!" Rita shouted back to him, blushing as if she found yelling to be embarrassing. Sometimes I really didn't understand Rita...

"All set!" I agreed.

"GOOD! Let's get started! Try not to mess up, OKAY?"

"That's a great note to start off on," I grumbled, my voice practically dripping with sarcasm. Rita giggled quietly. With that, we started our work.

At first, it wasn't too busy. The only Pokémon who walked over the grate were guild apprentices who needed to stock up on their supplies and were heading out to Treasure Town. Since it was just a little after dawn and all, the sun wasn't shining directly on them, so I could make out the color of the Pokémon who was standing on the grate looking to go back inside. I looked at the footprints too, of course, since I was going to need to recognize them and all. Rita was checking the footprints with me, just to be sure, but she didn't say anything until I named what Pokémon I thought was standing above us. Then she'd say who she thought it was and why, always making comments about what she noticed about the footprints. She didn't say so, but I got the impression she was trying to help teach me to recognize them in a discreet way, which I appreciated. I don't like to be helped outright.

Once the sun was completely over the horizon, however, we were completely bombarded with visitors. It never seemed to end! Some of them went in, came out, and then came back not even ten minutes later! Thankfully, we were able to identify each of the Pokémon seeking entrance, but most of the credit for that goes to Rita. While I was struggling to make out the shape of the Pokémon, since I had no idea what the feet of each one looked like, Rita had it figured out in about five seconds. She was awesome. Eventually I just let her handle it and took over shouting out the names to Loudred.

By midday, most Pokémon and teams were out on missions, and there was barely any traffic at all. Chatot and Wigglytuff went in and out of the guild a couple of times, but that was about it. Rita and I, in the meantime, spent our time hiding in the shadows to avoid going blind from the sunlight. Well, I did; Rita sometimes went into the sun because she photosynthesizes as well as eats. Isn't that cool? I didn't know she could do that, but I guess it makes sense since she has that huge leaf growing on her head and all. Anyhow, we killed some time by talking to Loudred and to each other. We officially exchanged names (his was Louder) while we were at it. Apparently he lived near some old ruins and that's what made him interested in being part of an exploration team and therefore in joining the guild. He said he would have graduated the guild a couple months ago but that "something happened" during the exam, and now he's killing time by doing sentry duty with Diglett until he can try again. He liked it, though, and he and Diglett seemed to be good friends.

At some point during the afternoon, Rita asked me a very significant question. After getting my attention, she asked, "Um...I was w-...wo-...wondering...um, d-d-do you w-...want to...lllearn to rrrread? And wrrrrite?" she added as an afterthought.

I blinked. "...Are you serious?" Rita nodded. "Well, yeah! Definitely! I hate not being able to read about these missions Chatot gives us."

"O-...okay," Rita agreed, smiling. "W-...we can...sssstart...lllater, if you w-...want."

"Sounds good," I agreed, grinning back. "I'll look forward to it!" Weird person/Pokémon that I might be, I enjoy learning new things.

Not long after that the rush started back up again. As it got closer to sunset, Pokémon were going in and out of the guild at a rapid pace. Rita managed to keep everything moving smoothly. It was seriously impressive. I felt useless not being able to help except to call out the names of the Pokémon passing over the grate, but Rita insisted that it was fine and that just telling Loudred the names was plenty, since she (unsurprisingly) wasn't very good with the yelling part.

As the sun started dipping below the horizon, something popped out of the ground next to me. I yelped with surprise and jumped about a foot away. It was Diglett who had surprised me. "Sorry!" he apologized, looking sheepish.

"I-it's okay," I replied, trying to calm myself down.

Diglett smiled. "I can take over for you now. Thanks for your help, Skitty, Chikorita."

"No problem!" I replied, relaxing. Rita smiled back at him as her acknowledgement.

"Chikorita and Skitty!" Loudred called to us. "That'll do it! Now get back here!"

I grinned at Rita. "Looks like we're done. Ready to go?"

"D-definitely...," Rita muttered, already walking towards the way out.

As we climbed out of the tunnel, we were greeted by Chatot. What a surprise. "You've worked an honest day, you two!" he chirped approvingly.

"As opposed to what? A dishonest day?" I asked. It was a genuine question. That was one idiom I just did not understand. How does honesty relate to working? Is it supposed to be like "hey, I didn't lie about how much I worked today?" Why would you lie about that in the first place? 'Cause if you didn't really do anything and you lied to get credit, then that's just not fair. I don't get that.

"You worked hard, as opposed to not working hard," Chatot sighed, interrupting my mental dissection of the phrase. "Well, Loudred? How did they fare?" Chatot asked the elder apprentice.

"GREAT! They took their time about it, but they didn't make a single mistake," Louder boasted.

"Not a single misidentification?" Chatot clarified, looking pretty darn impressed. Louder nodded. "Well, well!" Chatot turned to us. "Nicely done, you two! This is most impressive!"

I smiled and nudged Rita forward. Rita glanced back at me with a startled look. "That's thanks to Rita. I'm not very good at the identifying, but Rita's really, really great at it." Rita blushed deeply. "I mostly just called out names."

"Even so, I heard the both of you discussing the identifications," Chatot pointed out. "Therefore, you both put in good work for today, and we will reward your effort! Generously, I might add!" Chatot, I had just noticed, was carrying a sack, and he placed it on the ground in front of us. "You all deserve an especially large reward for a very successful first time as sentries!"

"Thank you!" I replied happily. I reached out for the bag, but then paused. I looked back up at Chatot. "...I am allowed to take this whole bag, right?"

"Did I not say you deserve a large reward?" he sighed. "Yes, the whole bag is yours and I won't be taking any of it away."

"Cool!" I quickly snatched the bag up before he could change his mind. Louder chuckled as I dove into it and Rita looked on interestedly. "Okay, so first there's these two seeds." I pulled them out.

Rita's eyes grew really wide. "Those are a life seed and a joy seed!" she whispered to me rather excitedly. "The first one makes you stronger, and the second one makes you able to withstand more hits. They're really hard to find."

"Sweet," I whispered back. "Next there's this bottle." I tossed that next to the seeds.

"That's ginseng," Rita explained just as excitedly. "It makes one of your moves stronger. This is hard to get, too." It was nice to see Rita get so excited over these rewards, but it was all apparently rare items and I was feeling kind of guilty taking all this.

"Okay. The last thing is...Poké!" I pulled the smaller money bag out of the bigger item bag. I looked over at Chatot before I opened it. "Do we need to hand it over so you can take the guild's share?"

Chatot sighed, again. "No. That's honestly all yours."

"Yaaaaay!" I cheered, and in celebration of this fact I proceeded to dump out the contents on the floor. "It's raining Poké!" Chatot rolled his eyes. I looked over at Rita, who was gathering the scattered coins and counting them.

"Five hundred," she whispered.

Our total haul was two very rare seeds, a very rare drink of some sort, and as much Poké as we'd gotten from our first two jobs combined. This fact took a second or two to sink in.

"I can't take all that!" I exclaimed once it did. Now I was feeling extremely guilty. Rita looked up with surprise. "All this rare stuff and the Poké, it's too much!"

"Not when you split it BETWEEN you two," Louder pointed out. I guess he got where I was coming from. "That's one item for each of you, with one left over, and 250 Poké EACH."

I looked at the items thoughtfully. Thinking of it that way did make it seem a little less impressive. "...Okay. I feel better thinking of it like that." Not completely, but it did help a little.

Chatot nodded. "Good. Keep up the good work, you two!" He hopped away towards the guildmaster's chambers.

"Wow. We were praised not once, but multiple times during the last five minutes," I commented. "We really must have done something good."

"You did," Louder replied. "Not many Pokémon handle SENTRY duty so well. Diglett and I were TRAINED first, but you didn't have the chance."

"Hey, you all! Kai and Rita!" A voice called to us from the ladder leading to the upper floor. We looked over to see Bidoof heading over to us with someone in tow. He was creeping close to Bidoof and trying to hide, but I could very clearly see his ears.

"Hi, Bidoof. How are you today? You seem to have grown a pair of round, blue ears," I commented casually. The owner of the blue ears giggled loudly, as did Rita.

"Huh? What do you—oh! Golly, how strange!" Bidoof agreed, catching on. The blue-eared "mystery" Pokémon laughed louder. "How could that have happened?"

"Have you eaten any weird gummis lately?" I asked him.

"Oof! I don't think so," Bidoof replied, smiling. "Maybe it's just the ears of the Pokémon behind me."

Marill popped out from behind Bidoof very dramatically. "Hi, Miss Skitty! Hi, Miss Chikorita!" he exclaimed, waving at Rita and I with his only free hand. The other he was hiding behind his back.

"Oh, my gosh! Hi, Marill! You surprised me!" I greeted him, hiding my unease at his presence. Seeing his presence so soon after the kidnapping was a little worrying, even though he seemed cheerful enough. "Is everything okay? Where's Azurill?"

Marill looked very pleased that he'd managed to "surprise" me. "Azure's okay. He was still kind of scared from yesterday so he wanted to stay home," he replied. "Mother didn't want him to go, anyway. She had me walk here with a neighbor and I didn't even get hurt." Then he fidgeted a little shyly. "Um, Azure and I wanted to give you guys something for helping us." With a clumsy flourish, he shoved a small package in our direction. Well, actually, it was less of a package than it was something round crudely wrapped in a red cloth.

I smiled widely and exchanged a glance with Rita. He's so cute! "Thank you, Marill!" I said, taking the gift. "Should we open it?"

"Yeah! Open it now!" he cheered. We did. Removing the cloth, we discovered an apple. "Azure and I used our allowance to buy it," he boasted.

"Thh-...thhhank you!" Rita said, smiling as well.

"That's very nice of you two," I told him. "You didn't have to get us anything."

"We wanted to!" he insisted.

"Well, thank you for that. Now we won't get hungry on a mission." I picked up the cloth. "Do you want this back?" I asked, offering it to him.

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. That's for you guys from Azure. It's his superhero cape!"

"It's a superhero cape?" I asked excitedly. Marill nodded. I laid the cloth on the ground to see it better. It was basically just a square of red cloth. I also noticed that two of the corners were wrinkled, as if they'd been tied together for a long time.

"He said he wants real superheroes to wear it," Marill added as an afterthought.

I squirmed under the cloth to get it on my back. "Dude, tie this for me!" I ordered Louder, who was the only one hanging around who had actual hands.

He eyed the cape oddly. "Are you serious?"

"I am dead serious."

Louder rolled his eyes, but he did tie it for me, just tight enough that it wouldn't fall off but still loosely enough that I could just slip out of it whenever I wanted. "Okay, now take my explorer badge off Rita's bag and pin it on the knot!"

"I'm NOT your servant, you know!" Louder protested, but he did what I asked anyway since he knew that, other than Marill, he was the only one with hands.

To celebrate, I hummed a triumphant tune. "This thing is awesome! I love superhero capes!" I struck a (hopefully heroic) pose. "How's it look?"

"Ridiculous," Louder muttered, walking off, but Marill shouted, "Cool! You look like a real superhero!"

"Why thank you!" I bowed dramatically. "And shut up, Louder!" I stuck my tongue out at his back.

Marill giggled. "I have to go home now," he told us. "Me and my neighbor have to get dinner for everyone while we're out."

"Okay," I replied, smiling. "Thank you for bringing us these wonderful presents! Tell Azurill we'll take good care of his superhero cape."

"Thanks," Rita added.

"Bye!" he said, heading off to the ladder.

"Bye!" we called after him.

Once he was gone, I turned to Rita. Reluctantly, I offered, "You want a turn with the superhero cape?"

Rita shook her head. "I-...it sssssuits you," she said, shaking her head. "Llllet's...g-go get d-d-dinner."

I practically ran for the dining hall at those words. "Yeah! I can show everyone my super cool superhero cape!" I really liked this cape, if you haven't caught on yet. And just so you know, I was going to wear it on every mission from then on. Super Kai to the rescue!

Rita sighed, shaking her head. She still wasn't used to my brand of normalcy yet, but she would learn. Mark my words.

AN:

Hi, everyone! I meant to get this chapter up last week, but the internet wasn't working right, and now it's the Week of All-Nighters, now that the Pottermore quill thing is going on. The clues cropped up at almost-four and five in the morning for me, so after a grand total of seven hours of sleep in two days I was completely unmotivated until about twenty minutes ago. I know you were probably expecting a Special Episode, but since Chapter 4 is so short I wanted to get it out of the way. The next Special Episode takes place not long after this, anyway. So, do you like Kai's present? I have to admit, I was iffy on that, just because of the even more ridiculous behavior Kai's going to display. XD

Review time!

HikariNoTenshi-San: Very good on catching that—it's deliberate! =]

adventurerXD: I was playing the first game not too long ago, which is what inspired the reference. Then I got stuck. All of the nostalgia has been ruined by my anger. XD

Mystery-Bright: True, that. I'd hate to unleash Kai on the world, especially with that new superhero cape...

TobyTse99: Thanks for the encouragement! The Japanese aspect wasn't actually deliberate; I was looking for names that had something to do with water or the ocean and they're the ones that sounded nicest to me. They just all happened to be Japanese. XD

Next time, we'll take a trip into the mind of Charmander. After they suffer from some prank-related trauma for most of it, there will be happy, friendshippy moments for Team Aster. Yay for friendship! Oh, and I haven't said anything lately since nothing's changed, but don't forget about the poll on my profile! It's still going! I decided that each choice needs ten votes for that pairing to definitely be featured in the story. Anything else is up to my discretion. I'm pretty sure I have at least that many people following this story, so ten votes seems reasonable, right? The poll is going to be taken down on September 3! I can't see who votes or what each person votes for (or even get notified when someone does), so if any of you lurkers are out there worried about me discovering you, I will have no idea whether you vote or not, so do it. PEER PRESSURE~

Random Fact #21 (god, this story's getting long): Kai has a reason for her love of superhero capes, even if she doesn't know what the connection is right now.