SHOCK
That morning, Iruel was up earlier than everyone in the house, or so she thought. She had not thought of calling her parents to tell them that she had not received her five required badges as of yet. She got out of the bed and thought to herself for a moment. How were her friends doing? Out of the forty children that left nearly two years ago, ten, including her, planned on going to the prestigious school of PT Academy. Jraine was one of them.
She could recall a few more friends of hers that also said they wanted to go to the Academy. Nana Arashi was one of the few. Her spunky, joyful nature was awfully contagious, but even she had an angry, obstinate side to her when it came to people like Jraine.
Iruel was then interrupted of her troubled thoughts as she turned to the sound of several knocks on the window. Her Vulpix tapped on the window as the Zubat bumped against the glass with its head. Torchic woke up to the sound of her Vulpix's murmuring and chirped as if to harass them.
Quietly, the girl summoned the Torchic to follow her into the hallway. Iruel recalled the previous night that Merra ordered Rin to sleep on the couch as Iruel would take his room. She felt badly enough that Rin had to sit through this but he was already awake when she stepped into the living room. He was reading some hard-covered, thick-paged novel, which Iruel recognized but didn't remember the book's name.
"Good morning." He greeted without looking up.
"Good morning." She answered and opened the door as several taps patted against the sand, then on the porch. "Some of them came back." He didn't answer as the Torchic pecked the Vulpix in a bullying manner. "Stop." She kicked the bird as it halted the bird's progress. The Torchic shuddered and its feathers appeared to have doubled its body size. "I haven't seen your pokemon yet."
"You missed them then." His hand pointed to the lump on the opposite couch. Iruel wandered to the gigantic lump of cloth and uncovered only some of the creature beneath it. Its blue head poked above the covers and blinked at the sight of Iruel. It gave a cuckoo at her arrival and she waved uncomfortably.
"This was probably why I didn't see them yesterday. They're hiding." She smiled.
"We're going to go pay a visit to Pewter City."
"Since when?"
"The admissions of PT aren't going to let you in with four badges." Iruel sighed in defeat and called in the house for her Cubone. "Judging from the pokemon you have...Torchic, Vulpix, Zubat, Vibrava, and Cubone...I see you don't really have 'elements' in mind, don't you?"
"I guess not..."
"Cubone will be your lead and Vibrava will be the follow-up. You're three key weaknesses are the rock, ground, and water elements, which are..." he shrugged almost as if to say incredulously. "the basic elements." He seemed to almost have been surprised she had that many badges. However, he was most curious about how she gained the Cascade Badge.
"How did you manage the water?"
"My Zubat was my lead and Torchic was my follow-up."
"Zubats are slow and Torchics are too inexperienced for a Seal or Goldeen," Rin rubbed his eyes. He was initially unimpressed with her pokemon for the lack of elements made gigantic loopholes in strength. "What did you do to get through?"
"I taught my Zubat how to adjust its frequency when its pitch hits the water."
"You suck at this," Rin shook his head. "That must have been some damn luck." Iruel didn't say anything and bit her lip. She was told that several times by previous gym leaders who fought her. She lacked the variety and strength to overcome battles. "Give me your Torchic's sphere."
"Why?"
"Tell me, how are you going to go on like that? You're struggling to get four and you have only a few weeks left to have five and you haven't done a single thing to fix your problem. We trade. I keep your Torchic and you get one of mine." Iruel hesitated and glanced at Torchic, which was pecking ferociously at the broken seat.
"Okay." She gave him her sphere and he shoved his in her hands.
"A Starmie. It's probably more useful than all of your pokemon combined." Rin muttered coldly. She wanted to see the gratitude in his behavior but she felt too consumed with her current dilemma that all she could do was retreat to the backyard of ashes swarmed by Caterpies and Weedles.
She called up her pokemon and released her Starmie.
One last thought went through her mind before she commanded them to fight, four against one.
'Please don't let him be right.'