Emerald sighed, staring up into his bedroom ceiling. Memories rolled around in his head - cheering for Sudowoodo, wandering a dark corridor with Phanpy at his side, mowing down opponents at the Factory, nearly being swallowed by the black hole.
After a short while, he got out of bed and got dressed, then went out into the hallway. His eyes studied the surroundings with something close to unease while he walked down the left end. It took him a moment to reach the academy lounge.
Emerald looked over a familiar room - a wide and generally open space. The decor was sparse; a fairly large table and three couches stood near the room's center while a few white bookshelves stood over by the left wall. Two of the orphans occupied the table, busy with playing cards.
"Hi, Emmy," Finn greeted him. Emerald smiled at the name, almost liking it. Tine turned her head his way.
Tine thought that a night's rest had to be enough. "How was it?"
Emerald couldn't think of any other thing she meant. "The Frontier was pretty fun." That was an understatement. "I saw all kinds of Pokemon and battle tactics, even met some nice people."
"Don't leave us hangin'," Tine asserted. "What kinda them?"
"A lot," Emerald said simply. "Linoone, Nidoqueen, Ivysaur, Chinchou, Glalie, Illumise, Slaking, Mareep, Hitmonlee, Typhlosion, Raichu, Scizor, Jynx, Persian, Mawile, Golem, Glalie, and more," he listed. "And those were just in the Battle Factory."
"Cool," Finn replied. Tine's grin conveyed her feelings on the matter, though she didn't know what half of those were.
"More than cool," Tine said. "What else? What else happened?"
Emerald thought a moment. "The second facility I went to is the Battle Pike. It has these fourteen rooms you have to go through and there was a new surprise in each one. I fought Lucy after my tenth round, and she had this rare Water Pokemon called Milotic."
"Nice," Tine agreed. That one she knew.
"And the next was the Battle Pyramid," Emerald continued, unprompted. "Seven floors in near-total darkness, with wild Pokemon and virtual trainers everywhere, and I had to go through ten sets of that to fight Brandon. And get this, his team is all legends from Hoenn. Regirock, Regice, and Registeel."
Finn arched his eyebrows at that. Tine gaped.
"No way. How did you beat them?" she questioned.
"I had a hundred Revives," Emerald answered, coy. He decided not to mention that he got lucky. The conversation carried on for a bit more.
"Sapphire and Ruby are nice enough, but it kinda feels they don't think of me as a person," Emerald said, irritation laced in his voice. "I'm just a kid with a name that matches their names and a Sceptile that matches their Blaziken and Swampert."
"That sucks," Finn agreed.
A while later into the conversation, Crystal stood in the doorway to outside and looked over at them. None of the orphans noticed her. Smiling, she left them to it.
The moment she turned away, she saw a familiar small blonde.
"Miss Crystal, me and Teddi want to battle," May said, the eight-year old's voice determined. The bear cub at her side clenched his paws.
"Alright," Crystal answered.