On a diffrent note, I like the end part of this chapter.
---
Chapter Four
December 21st, 2022 (Friday)
Viridian City
8:00 a.m.
Nayana had gotten out of school for the tryouts. She was quite lucky to even be at this level of the tryouts; her "blood ties" almost got her application into the shredder at the headquarters, or so the investigator told her. Luckily, all the times she had helped other people got her investigated before they accepted the application. And, of course, the investigator that had come the previous night found nothing.
All right, I'm getting in… Nayana thought, walking into the tryout area.
It was a psychic college, of sorts. It was the Psychic Institute of Viridian City, a place where psychic research was done and where psychics in the western part of Kanto went to college (considering that most places didn't accept psychic students).
The area that Nayana was in was a place that she was quite familiar with: the training rooms. Many holographic rooms had some of the five hundred people applying for the job in them, fighting in the situation the holographic room gave. Others stood around the rooms, waiting for their turn to get in. Some were done, and most of them had bruises and bumps on them. The holograms were quite painful, despite being illusions.
In front of Nayana was a table. In a blue baseball cap with "Group A tryout numbers" on it were scraps of paper. On the scraps of paper were a number and a letter. That would tell her when she would go.
She pulled out a slip of paper. It read "135-a".
Man, 135? It'll take FOREVER to go… Nayana thought to herself. Whatever. Guess I'll sit down and watch everyone else get their ass kicked by a bunch of holographic losers.
And so Nayana found a seat in the area and waited for the others to try out. Some came out looking just fine while some others weren't so lucky. Nayana laughed at the ones with the bruises, and they shook their heads in return. It was truly hard for them, but not for Nayana. Ever since she was ten, she had practiced her combat at least once a week, if not three, and sometimes even five. Even when she was little, she had liked to fight using her powers. She wouldn't be as good as she was now without the constant training.
It was 11:20 when Nayana's number was called. Quickly she got up and went to the training room she had been told to go to.
At the training room Nayana would run in was a girl. Nayana was shocked to see a girl like her trying out. She wore a tight pair of jean flares, a cute pink shirt and a pair of flip-flops. It was quite "preppy", which Nayana imagined wasn't exactly Timetraveler material. The girl from Viridian could never work in that; she needed looser jeans and tennis shoes otherwise she would do horribly in a training room. She had learned that the hard way a long time ago.
"You're gonna do a run in the room with THAT?" Nayana asked, looking at the redhead. "Flip-flops? Tight jeans? How can you MOVE in that? I'd get my butt kicked if I did a high-level run in that outfit."
The girl turned and smiled. "I practice."
"Yah, riiight," Nayana replied, rolling her eyes. The girl seemed quite preppy, and Nayana had never seen preps train at high levels before. They always stuck to the low levels, so they wouldn't get bruised. "We'll just see how well you do in the training room."
Soon they went into the training room. When they first entered, it was a small room with green tiles all over. The room then turned into an alleyway, and many holographic enemies appeared for the two girls to take down. Despite the redhead's looks, she was pretty decent. The girl could use her head, and that was what was keeping her from not getting hit. But the girl didn't seem to want to be that violent to the holographic enemies, being hesitant about her attacks. That made Nayana raise her eyebrows.
Why would anyone who really doesn't want to hurt anyone try out for an organization where all they do is hurt people? she thought to herself. But soon she had to turn her attention to the enemy behind her.
The enemies were down in record time for Nayana (she wasn't sure about the redhead working with her). Outside the room, the operator stared at them with awe.
"That's the best I've seen in a long time!" he said, still shocked. "I bet you two will get in without any problems."
"Yay!" the redhead replied, putting her flip-flops back on. She had not worn them during the run.
"Of course I would get in without any problems. I'm me, Nayana, and I am the best!"
The other two stared at the girl like she was crazy. It seemed that they didn't like Nayana's attitude. Quietly she stretched out and went to grab lunch.
Nayana went to the cafeteria. Many of the college students were in there, along with the other people trying out. The ones trying out stuck out like a sore thumb; the college students wore blue uniforms while the people trying out did not. As fast as she could, she got in line, got her lunch and took one of the few empty tables.
Before Nayana could take a bite of the spaghetti on her plate, the redhead from before walked over to the table. She held a tray with spaghetti and a salad on it.
"Can I sit with you?" she asked quietly. "I don't know anyone here, and I'm kinda nervous."
"Uh, sure."
Gracefully the redhead then took a seat. Slowly she ate her lunch, while Nayana took the opposite approach and ate as fast as she could. Soon Nayana was done and the redhead had just gotten to her salad.
"So why is someone like you trying out for the Timetravelers? You don't seem as violent as the others I've seen," the orange haired girl said, leaning back in her chair.
"Well," the redhead replied, swallowing the food in her mouth, "I want to help my family. I need money, and everyone said this job has lots of it. Besides, it shouldn't be that hard to beat people up… right?"
"Depends on who we're talking about and how much skill they have. Team Rocket grunts are much more skilled than what you get in a hologram, and they can think, " Nayana replied. "So, what's your name?"
As soon as the girl finished chewing her lettuce, she replied.
"Arielle. You're Nayana, right?" she asked, then taking another bite of her salad. Nayana nodded in reply, watching Arielle eat her lunch. It was making her hungry again.
Arielle then ate her salad, wanting to get done before the next part of tryouts. Luckily for her, when she was done some people were still coming for lunch.
"I'm just curious, but what kind of job do your parents have?" Nayana asked. "Because if you're desperate to get this job, they must have shit for jobs. No offence," she added quickly, not wanting the girl to get offended. She seemed upset by Nayana just asking the question.
"It's a really long story… my mom's a gym leader though," Arielle responded, spacing off.
Nayana was surprised. From what she had heard from her father, gym leaders had enough money and some to save if they got enough matches. The gym leader either loved money or was extremely wasteful of the money she was given.
"Which one?" Nayana asked. "My father runs the Pokémon League, so I bet I know them."
There were only a few that Nayana didn't know personally, but she had battled them all, back when she was teleporting for badges. The girl trained Pokémon for fun, and she had a family name to upkeep.
"Misty Williams," Arielle replied.
Nayana sighed. That was the only gym leader she had only battled and never seen again. But then again, the gym leader had an attitude, so Nayana never wanted to see her again. At the end of the match, the woman was yelling at her, telling her to get out of the gym or she would beat the pulp out of Nayana. Nayana had done nothing to the woman but beat her in a Pokémon battle. She didn't even talk trash like she would with other gym leaders, since the gym leader seemed annoyed from the start. It seemed that the gym leader had been angry by her just walking into her gym, let alone challenging her.
"Hahaha, the mean one," Nayana replied. "No offence," she again added quickly. Arielle had tears in her eyes, and Nayana didn't want her to start crying. "She was a real… er… mean gym leader when I went against her. I've never seen her since the match, and I really don't want to if she's always like that."
Arielle nodded, trying her best not to get upset. Her mother had been known to be mean to a few challengers. Usually it was when the triplets were getting on her nerves and the challenger was stomping her to no end. Then Misty would explode at challenger and usually the triplets for bothering her. And then afterwards the woman would stomp out and come back hours later, apologizing for even being rude in the first place. But it would be too late to say sorry to the poor challenger, who would have been long gone from the woman with the weird mood swings.
"She's weird at times," Arielle replied. "You must have gotten her on one of the bad days."
"I guess. Hey, are you going drink your milk?" Nayana asked, pointing to the carton of chocolate milk that Arielle had received with her meal. Shaking her head, the redhead gave Nayana the milk. Next, Nayana chugged it, still quite thirsty.
"What about your father? Do you have one?" Nayana asked. "Because if you do, that doesn't explain why you don't have money."
"Not living with us. All I know is he pays child support for the three of us," Arielle replied, trying to eat the rest of her salad. Soon it was finished, and her lunch was done.
As soon as Arielle threw out her tray, it was time for the other part of tryouts. Everyone was ready to try out.