Chapter 6: Students of Different Forms

The day seemed warmer, brighter, more full of life. Dew sparkled on the leaves of plants, fell in a shower of diamonds if disturbed. The cerulean sky peeked through breaks in the leaves of trees: distant, elusive. Here and there a twitter of birdsong rose; quick, dark shapes darted through the underbrush.

Nori wondered how she could have missed all this life, activity, beauty, before she got to the lab. Perhaps it was because her heart was lighter, ignoring its troubles for a brief while in the face of wonder. Even Eve and Johnny's pointless (to her, in any case) conversations seemed as background noise, forgotten and ignored.

Her new torchic had been bred in what was ultimately a laboratory: a sterile, league-sponsored facility, all iron and porcelain, silver and white. She had probably never seen her parents. Now, Agni, named for an ancient deity of flame, could experience life fully.

The young torchic hopped along the path, investigating, exploring. She had already proven her worth against a couple of wurmple, the caterpillar-like pokémon succumbing rapidly to the embers of flame she exhaled. Nori watched her carefully, but she stayed in her trainer's sight, most of the time. Her distinctive tri-feather crest bobbed through the underbrush when the rest of the chick pokémon was not visible.

Nori smiled a bit, despite herself. How many trainers doomed their pokémon, hardly more than children themselves, to a life of servitude, only seeing the sun to eat or to participate in the violent combat that was the lifestyle of so many? She shivered slightly, remembering Hans and his PTI friends…the epitome of the uncaring trainer. They practiced on simulators for years, only to treat their living pokémon as robots. That was why scarcely, if ever, would a PTI trainer go on to become champion. Real trainers, masters, tried to impress upon them the importance of forming a relationship with one's pokémon, but it did no good. To most, after six, seven, eight years, it was a completely alien concept. And so they failed, as trainers, and then some as human beings. It was the simplest and most important of all values, the first one a future master would realize:

A dog is a dog, a horse is a horse, but a pokémon…a pokémon is a person.

Those who could not see this were doomed to failure.

Or perhaps worse.

~*~*~

Oldale Town was perhaps as unremarkable as it was possible for a town to be. No gym, no contest house, not even the laboratory of an under-appreciated researcher. Simply a pokémon center, a pokémart, and a cluster of houses. The population had probably only recently broken the double digits. It even failed to hold a shadow of foreboding as the sun, now quite low on the horizon, went down.

"It won't do to stay here any longer than we have to," said Nori as they made their way up the main street, which looked to be the only real street in the town.

"Agreed," said Johnny.

"I can't stand this place, it's like freaking suburbia, eh? Jeez, I think I'd rather live in the forest than someplace like this. And that's another thing—"

"Eve, would you give it a rest?" snapped Nori, without really thinking. She had been listening to the punk trainer's chatter all day and was losing control.

"Whatever, jeez, all I'm saying—"

Johnny cleared his throat noisily, which led to a period of silence that persisted until they entered the pokécenter. Eve started up again as soon as they cleared the sliding glass doors.

"Oh, it's about time, I'm dead tired. I'm gonna get me a hot meal, something with chicken—"

Nori focused on blocking the further speech as she handed the attendant Agni and Bitey's pokéballs. The fire chick had become quite tired out after running about most of the morning and fighting a number of different pokémon. Bitey had been called upon to save Agni from a particularly tough zigzagoon who managed to land what the pokédex monitor called a 'critical hit' on Agni, but had fled before he could be caught.

Luckily, Eve and Johnny left to sit down in the small cafeteria, and Nori was left in peace as she waited for the nurse to return with her pokémon.

She cast her gaze around the room, hoping for some variety, but all pokémon centers seemed to look the same, and follow the same layout. On the outside, red roof against white walls, sliding glass doors. On the inside, cafeteria and lounge to your left, trainer accommodations up the stairs to your right, and pokémon healing straight ahead.

The nurse returned presently with a tray with her pokéballs on it. After she had collected them, the nurse hurried away without a word, her cheery efficiency for the day evidently spent. Nori made her way toward the lounge, joining her two traveling partners. She flopped into a squishy armchair alongside Johnny, very tired after walking most of the day. When he directed her attention to the large sandwich, bag of potato chips and miniature carton of chocolate milk sitting untouched on the table in front of her, she weakly tried to refuse.

"No, I couldn't…I can't keep mooching off you guys. Besides, I'm not even that"—her stomach growled loudly—"hungry."

"Eh, your body betrays you. And besides, you're showing us around. Might as well get you something to eat once in a while so you don't die on us. Come on. Eat it, or I will."

"Fine, fine…" She was hard-pressed, once again, to stop herself from inhaling the precious food. Beside her, Johnny was eating some sort of rice dish daintily, with chopsticks. Eve was slightly less neat, but then again it can be difficult to eat long pasta with only a fork. A black ferret-like pokémon was sitting beside her, trying to lick some of the sauce off the side of her plate. Nori quickly swallowed a mouthful of turkey and lettuce.

"Is that your quilava, Eve?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, ol' firebum here. He's a brat," Eve answered, pushing the fire pokémon away from her plate.

"Cute."

"Yeah, I like your torchic better, though. Wanna trade, by any chance?"

"Nope."

"Damn. Ah well. He was my starter back in Johto. A few people had high hopes for me. I still feel bad about disappointing them."

"Oh really? What happened?"

"Eh, not much, really; I got sick of the whole thing, met Johnny, went punk and decided to go traveling. Johnny, though, all he's got is an arbok."

"A mean one, though," commented Johnny, scraping his styrofoam bowl for the last of the rice.

"There's a lot of pokémon that are only native to Hoenn, aren't there?"

"Loads. Well, no, there's actually quite a number in Gaiien…and a lot of pokémon from Johto and Kanto are there, too," said Eve.

"Gaiien? Where's that?" asked Nori, now started on the potato chips.

"Oh, it's this big-ass region to the…what was it, northeast of Hoenn?" said Eve.

"Southeast," corrected Johnny. "The government opened it for settlement a few years ago, but it was in the news recently because they were forming a League there, to regulate pokémon capture and such. Invited trainers from all over to apply to become gym leaders. They were going to set up eight gyms, as per usual, and of course, an elite four."

"I saw some photos," said Eve. "It's pristine…amazing. Untouched. They had some old trees that were like five hundred feet tall, and wide enough around that you could build a city in the things."

"That's kind of odd, when you think about it. I mean, Johto and Hoenn are still pretty empty. It's only Kanto that's really populated, now…Saffron City hit half a million last year, I think it was. Why would they open up another region for development and settling?"

"They want to keep people spread out, isolated," said Johnny. "Easier to control."

"I see," said Nori, dropping out of the conversation as it turned to politics. A new region… Nori felt something stir in her blood as she thought about it. Rolling prairies, ancient forests, silent deserts…Where there roamed pokémon who had never seen human beings, free and full of life. Where the ancestral fear of the red and white prison had not been burned into their minds…

"Hoi, Nori," said Eve, breaking her out of her reverie, "what city's next on the agenda?"

"Petalburg…there's a gym there, but I've heard that it's actually the level five gym for the region."

"Might as well check it out," said Johnny, shrugging.

"Yeah," agreed Nori, "and then Rustboro after that. There's a gym there, as well."

"Rustboro?"

"Isn't that where—"

"Yeah, it said so on the—"

"Awesome, then our—oh, damn."

Nori looked back and forth between Johnny and Eve, a bit startled. "Um, what?"

"Er, nothing," said Eve, quickly.

"Nothing at all," said Johnny, looking at Nori pointedly over his sunglasses.

Nori shrugged and decided to drop it. "I see. Whatever."

~*~*~

Someone shook Lily awake. Though it was not as rough as it could have been, she told whomever it was to do something that cannot be put into print.

"Sheesh, you are not nice! Well pardon me from trying to stop your keyboard from adhering to your face."

"What?" Lily looked up, blinking amber eyes sleepily. "Ben? Oh screw you, how'd you get in here?"

"When you didn't appear for that combat training class you were supposed to teach this morning," he said, pointedly, "Rick lent me the master key card so I could go and find you."

"Class? Oh f—" she said, glancing at the computer screen, glad that she had typed a hundred and twelve pages of 'N's with her cheek, covering up what she had been writing the night before. She hurriedly switched her monitor off, then stood, grabbing her uniform top off a nearby chair. She pulled it on over her white tank top, then grabbed her trainer belt off the table and hurried out of her room with Ben, buckling it as she walked.

"Gods, how late am I?" Lily asked, trying to sort out her long hair, combing it with her fingers.

"Uh, looks like about half an hour, now," Ben replied, checking his watch.

"Oh crap, Rick is going to eat my face," she said, grimacing as she pulled her hood forward.

~*~*~

They emerged from the labyrinth of tunnels at the training yard, a mostly flat stretch of ground with a whiteboard and a few benches stuck at one end of it. Lily noticed that the benches were occupied by a number of red- and gray-clad forms, not too many, though.

"Newbies?" she asked Ben.

"Yeah, most of 'em have been here a little while, the only really green ones are on the usual bench."

"First on the right, looking from the front."

"Precisely. Now where is—?"

"EVANS!! Did you collect Thrasher!?" came a roar from behind them.

"—Rick."

They both turned to face the gargantuan Executive of Offensive Strategy. Standing at six foot seven, he was a highly intimidating sight in army fatigues with a too-small uniform top pulled over his olive green tank top. The talk was that he was ex-military, had been a drill sergeant until he had killed a new recruit. No one knew if it was true or not, but it was highly useful in keeping their own new recruits in line.

"Yessir, I have her here now, sir," said Ben rapidly.

"Good. You are dismissed."

Ben hurried away, towards the makeshift classroom.

"Miss Thrasher," began Rick, folding his highly muscled arms, bare except for dark green wristbands, a clipboard held loosely in his right hand.

"Yessir?" she squeaked, her voice suddenly not quite functional.

"HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT TIME IT IS?!"

Lily opened her eyes, noting the flock of taillow that had risen from a nearby tree, her ears ringing slightly. "Nosir, I left my watch on my dresser, sir."

"Explain yourself," Rick said dangerously.

"Well, sir, I stayed up too late, typing, and fell asleep on my keyboard, sir. The morning bell didn't wake me up, sir."

"Asleep at your computer…playing computer games, perhaps?"

"Nosir, I was typing up a report, sir. I have a hundred and twelve pages of 'N's as evidence, sir."

"Are you trying to be funny, admin?"

"Nosir, I am telling it like it is, sir…Please sir, your blood pressure, sir," she added, seeing a vein in his temple begin to twitch dangerously.

Rick exhaled strongly, massaging his temples with his fingers, his clipboard tucked under his right arm.

"Admin, listen to me," he said, eventually. "A leader requires respect from those under him—or her—in order to do his or her job. When you show up late, don't fulfill a commitment—it undermines your authority, and ultimately, my own. New recruits are bratty enough without their teachers sleeping in. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, sir."

"Very well. You are dismissed."

Lily stepped back a pace and bowed, before heading off toward the 'classroom'. She ran a hand across her brow, thankful the verbal disciplining was over. As an admin, she only had to answer to a few people, but damn were they frightening. Rick's military attitude would be comical if he didn't look capable of breaking someone in half.

She started to get nervous again as she neared the double row of benches. She was terrible at public speaking (in her opinion, anyway), and those damn hotheaded new guys were always so overeager to prove their worth…or to make the higher-ups look bad. Somehow they figured that doing that would help them get promoted. On the contrary, it was rather the opposite. This never stopped them, though.

Standing in front of the Team's most inexperienced members, Lily quickly looked over the twenty-odd men and a few women. Kids, really, most of them, thought Lily to herself. Especially those three. She glanced at the three newest recruits, who looked highly uncomfortable in their new uniforms.

"Alright," she began, "as you all know, we're not exactly a legal organization"—this elicited grins and a few chuckles from the group—"so we can't order pokédexes or anything. Even if you're trainers gone bad, you're not allowed to take your pokédex or pokégear with you on missions, as scanners in the cities would be able to record your movement. So what's wrong with having no pokédex? Well, the good news is that you're not staring at your hands instead of the battle, like some idiot ten-year-old. The bad news is that you're deprived of a valuable information tool. You have to guess at your opponent's skill level and either pokémon's current level of stamina. So basically, you're crippled in battle.

"But don't despair. Here at Team Magma, we will educate you so you can fight without your 'dex. And that is a powerful advantage. Questions? You there, in the red."

There were a few more grins, then the kid with his hand up spoke. "So you're telling us that you're going to make us have comprehensive knowledge of pokémon battling and the ability to judge strength by sight alone? Don't people go to PTI for years to learn all that crap?" There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the group.

"Yes, and with good reason. We just make you memorize a types match-up chart, teach you to tell the difference between a healthy and a fainted pokémon, and of course, how to fight dirty. But all for free. Kind of."

Lily looked around at the slightly incredulous faces of the new grunts.

"Well? Let's get started!" she said, with mock cheerfulness.

~*~*~

There ya go. What didja think? Tell me in a review; they make me want to write more, you know. ^_^

Alright, in regards to the submitted characters…very nice, everyone, all of them were very good, and should be appearing soon. There were a few that were rather more advanced in skill, though, so unfortunately we won't be seeing them for a little while. Now, as much as I'd like to have every single one of them take an important role, that can get quite confusing, and is rather difficult to write. As Nori's traveling partner situation will be changing in the next couple of chapters—oh dear, now I've said too much. But keep reading, everyone! You'll find out soon enough. ^_^