ChibiSecchan: Being loyal fans we are, it's finally the time for our favorite Gym Leader to appear!
Okashira: But it's a little...different than you may expect. Like...a gender sized gap, so to speak.
ChibiSecchan: ((Nods)) Totally, and presupposition working at its full strength too.
Okashira: As well as basically freaking Negi into a catatonic shock to boot!
ChibiSecchan: We've even thrown in a few grammar rules as a service.
Okashira: So everyone study up! You'll learn a little English as well as a few rules to battling.
ChibiSecchan: And here, we warn the kids NOT to try the last part at home. It's not good for your Link Cable, the cartridge and your heart.

Closet Pokemon Fan Club

Part 02

By OkashiraShinomori and ChibiSecchan

"Hmm..." Asuna frowned at the English questions as if she was trying to will the answers to appear. "What was that again?"

"Asuna-san, adjectives are not supposed to go in front of a verb..." Setsuna explained beside her and glanced at Konoka secretly for confirmation of the grammar rule.

Konoka looked up from her own set of questions, rather further along than the other two and blinked. "Huh? Oh, yeah, that's right, Secchan." She pointed at Asuna's paper with the eraser of her pencil. "Move it over here."

As Negi looked up from his grading to confirm Konoka's correction, the doorknob of their dorm room twisted with the metallic grating sound of it being forced, and the door burst open, admitting Inugami Kotarou into the den of intelligence and education. So much for the atmosphere.

"Negi! I just beat your 'DAD'!" Kotarou laughed, holding his GBA up for the entire group to see. "He was tough, but I got him without much trouble." The wide grin he wore was one of a braggart, just begging to be wiped off his smug little face.

Too caught up in school work, Asuna's brain couldn't set its gear into action and she jaw-dropped at the statement. "His DAD! You know where he is!"

Negi scrambled off of his raised area at the side of his room, not bothering to use the short ladder, instead jumping to the ground, grabbing his staff from the corner. "Where is he? Is there a map on the GBA or something?" A wild, desperate light in his eyes, he gripped the proffered game console.

Kotarou blinked in surprise, looking between the two who reacted loudest. "Um, no...I beat the Gym Leader, duh." He pointed at the screen, specifically the Feather Badge on his Trainer's Card.

"Then why the heck would you say you beat his...dad..." Asuna sounded annoyed at the beginning, but trailed off as realization floated up among her thoughts. Realizing what Kotarou had mistaken, the twin ponytailed girl could not help but laugh out loud.

Negi looked back at Asuna with a glare. "Hey, don't laugh at my dad!" It was obvious by his vociferous response he was still too caught up in the moment, or totally clueless about the Supervisor of Hoenn's Gym Leaders.

Kotarou glared at Asuna, confusion flickering behind his eyes. "What?"

"I-I'm not!" Asuna managed to say between her breathless laughter. "But your doggy friend there just...made the funniest mistake I've ever heard..."

The "doggy friend" merely glared harder. Not only was he apparently being laughed at, but it also appeared he'd made a mistake.

"What do you mean, Asuna-san?" Negi asked, slightly bewildered. "H-how could he mistake my father? There's only ONE Nagi Springfield..."

"If Kotarou-san just beat whom I think...the person is," Setsuna replied as she saw Asuna was laughing too hard to answer, "I think what Asuna-san means is that he had mistaken the wrong Nagi."

Konoka, trying to muffle giggles of her own with one hand, nodded. "He's talking about Nagi the Gym Leader, not Nagi the Thousand Master," she explained, not that it helped much.

"...Dad's in a video game?" Negi's expression and voice had gone from hopeful and excited to completely confused.

"That's the point," Setsuna said hesitantly, finally deciding that being frank would be the best way to go. "This Nagi...is female."

Negi stared at her, completely at a loss for words. Kotarou, however, had plenty to say. "H-he's a she? S-she's not a he?" He looked down at the screen, hoping it would help to conjure a memory of what she looked like, forgetting that function of another of the game's devices. "But...but..." he looked up, a shocked twitch in his eye, "that means I didn't go easy on a girl!"

"And that means Negi-kun's dad is named the same as a girl," Konoka whispered, almost not sure she wanted Negi to hear, but unable to resist.

At Konoka's statement, Asuna only laughed louder, causing Setsuna to shake her head sadly at her "student".

The son of the Thousand Master almost didn't catch the chocolate-haired girl's statement, and it registered slower than normal. "Dad...has a girly name..." As if it were the ultimate blow to his pride, he sank down against the wall, clutching his staff to him, his mind racing. "W-what if I'm named after a girl too..." his eyes grew wide at the realization.

Kotarou shook his head, slightly perturbed but still able to insult Negi given the opportunity. "Nah, you're just named after rabbit chow..."

"She's strong, though, if that is any consolation;" Setsuna said to the perturbed Kotarou. "'The most talented bird trainer in Hiwamaki, if I recall correctly."

Kotarou grinned down at Negi. "Not that that meant much."

Before the child teacher could respond, a pillow sailed across the room and smacked the dog boy in the face. "Hey, be nice to Nagi-chan!" Konoka admonished, her hands on her hips.

Negi, still against the wall, muttering to himself, merely shivered. "Nagi-CHAN..."

Finally having managed to calm herself down, Asuna wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of an eye. "Since when're you Nagi's fan?"

"Since the first volume of PokeSpecial when it showed that she and Mikuri have a relationship, that's when," Konoka stated defensively, leaving Kotarou with a still clueless expression as to what they were talking about.

"There is a Pokemon manga series?" Setsuna asked in surprise.

"Konoka practically worships the series," the red-head said with a mock bored look at Konoka. "She can lecture you for hours on it."

The healer in question grinned proudly, nodding at the statement. "It's the one I've been tryin' to get you to read, Secchan." She reached behind her and pulled a volume out from under her pillow and handed it to the swordswoman. "See, Nagi-chan's in this volume."

Blinking at the book with a bright "Volume 18" printed on the front, she just shrugged and began reading. Meanwhile, Asuna turned back to Kotarou. "Why are you here again?"

"Oh! That's right!" He grinned and stalked closer, once more holding his GBA before him. "To brag that I not ONLY got past Senri, but got all the way past that Nagi dude, er, woman."

Not even slightly impressed, Asuna only raised an eyebrow and reached for her own console in her drawer. "Only?"

"Dammit! Where are you now?" Kotarou asked in loud exasperation, fuming. She always seemed to be one, or five, steps ahead of him...

With the game finally loaded, Asuna showed him her Trainer Card with all the eight trainer badges printed on it. "Currently training for the Elite Four."

"...I hate you." He glowered at her, then at her annoyingly full Trainer's Card. "When do you find the time to do that?" he all-but screamed after a moment's silence. "I don't study! You do! When do you get this far?"

"Before last week, she only plays occasionally during the weekend," Konoka answered cheerfully from the sidelines. "But since she beat your team so thoroughly last time, she's started playing on the train trips everyday as well."

Kotarou winced visibly at being reminded of his rather pathetic loss to the red-head. "But that's still not much! I play for more than four hours everyday!"

Negi, finally regaining a little of his usual attitude, his pride still stinging from Kotarou's earlier insult, looked up at. "You must really suck then..."

Sensing a battle brewing very very quickly, Setsuna moved herself to the safe sanctuary of Asuna's upper bunk (with the manga) and watched from above.

Konoka scooted back, hopping up onto her own bunk as well, clutching a pillow to herself as she watched excitedly. So few interesting things happened anymore...

"S-suck? This coming from the guy who got his butt kicked by a Cascoon and a Poochyena?" Kotarou scoffed. "And just where're you at, midget-sensei?"

Negi stiffened at the name, but grinned proudly. "With Asuna-san's help, I'm just past Touki, thank you very much."

"At least he won't think Cascoon might have Tough Skin anymore, thankfully," Asuna added, ignoring the Kyoto duo who hid themselves from their 'mild debate.'

Negi cast a hurt look at his student but couldn't debate the truth of the statement. "I'm doing a lot better over all," he stated, looking back at Kotarou.

The dog boy scoffed again, shaking his head. "Nah, you're only at Touki. You couldn't have changed that much." He glared at Asuna. "But she has."

He grinned slightly, before Asuna had a chance to comment. "It's really nice of you to be helpin' such a weak trainer along, Asuna. Is there any particular reason?" His voice contained that wheedling tone that made one want to reach out and touch him. Very hard. Repeatedly.

"Because I'm the only one who's capable enough to teach him. Konoka never played beyond Gold/Silver, Setsuna-san didn't even know the game existed, and you...well..." Asuna said the last part with a smug grin.

His eyes twitched again and he clenched a fist, stopping abruptly when his GBA let out a worrisome crack as the plastic shifted. "And what's 'at supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know what that's supposed to mean," Asuna replied almost gleefully.

"It means you're too weak!" Konoka offered helpfully from her bed, coaxing another frustrated growl from the dog boy.

"I'm not weak!" He turned around, waving his slightly misshapen GBA about wildly, stalking towards the door. "You just don't understand the kind of strength I have!"

"But that 'strength' is not useful in Pokemon battles, is it?" Asuna shot back while making quotation marks in the air with her fingers.

He growled again, turning back on his heel with a glare. "It is too useful in Pokemon battles!" Much to his chagrin, he sounded more like a whiny child than anything, but a fist once raised couldn't be put away. "You wanna see?"

"Sure, sure!" Asuna answered like she was talking to a 10-year-old, and picked up the link cable from the same drawer where she had placed her GBA.

Stepping quickly over the forgotten English books, Kotarou seated himself beside Asuna and roughly plugged the cord into his GBA, navigating to the Pokemon Center and beginning the link process. "Ready when you are," he growled.

As if taking great care in doing so, Asuna plugged the cord into her own console, taking her time in getting ready, knowing it would only infuriate the demon child more. After several seconds of button pressing and Pokemon allocating, she grinned evilly at him. "Ready."

Tinny battle music filled the room, and Kotarou winced visibly as Tropius appeared before his Swampert. He glared up at her and selected an attack at random, knowing it wouldn't be fast enough to hit. "You got lucky, this round," he muttered darkly.

Grinning gleefully, Asuna selected Magical Leaf and watched with a triumphant hum as the foliage whipped Swampert's HP to absolutely nothing in an instant. "You've gotta think about type in these things, Kota-kun," she said in a mock-teaching voice.

Trying his best to ignore the infuriating red-head, he grimaced and selecting his own Tropius from his now three Pokemon line-up. His opponent raised a wry eyebrow at the choice, shaking her head. "That's still not thinking about type, little pup."

Kotarou remained admirably silent, his confidence rising, as he placed the cursor beside what he considered a rather clever addition to his flying/grass type's move-set. "Toxic!" he cried, trying to express his frustration verbally at the girl, refraining from breaking the table.

"Ooh, nice choice," she commented as, surprisingly, his Tropius managed to get the hit in first, fracturing her HP by a third and poisoning it. "So nice, I used the same thing," she continued with an absolutely venomous grin.

"No way!" he shouted as the sound of a special attack broke through the midi-quality battle theme. The HP bar seemed to linger in the red area before dropping out of sight, his Pokemon following. "Critical hit" flashing across the bottom of his screen caused a return of his new found eye-twitch.

Konoka and Setsuna glanced between themselves, sharing a grin at the ease at which their friend was triumphing over their teacher's rival, quickly turning back to the combat to see the next loss on Kotarou's part.

Cursing to himself, Kotarou selected Nuzleaf as his next combatant, blinking in both fear and relief when he saw Asuna recall her Tropius. In its place, bringing a grimace from the dog boy, burst a Blaziken. "Have I mentioned I hate you?" he muttered as he said a silent goodbye to his dark/grass Pokemon.

"I think you might've said it before, but I really haven't been paying much attention," Asuna returned with a mock yawn, keeping an eye on him for a reaction. Blaziken's trademarked Blaze Kick rid Nuzleaf of its HP before it could launch the attack Kotarou had hopefully entered.

With a frustrated roar, Kotarou stood up suddenly, seeming to have forgotten his GBA was attached to cord. Throwing his hands into the air, he winced as the unit was pulled from his grip and hit the desk, the batteries popping out of the back, the screen going dark. "Nice job, Kota-kun, take the easy way out and ruin the game," Asuna commented, unable to contain her rather raucous laughter.

Konoka and Setsuna joined in, Setsuna using the volume of manga to try and cover her laughter, albeit unsuccessfully.

Gathering the GBA and its power source with angered stabs of his hands, Kotarou cast a glare at every member of the room, causing Negi to shiver slightly, having seen such a glare only once or twice before. With a slam, the door closed behind him as he stalked out, a mix of growls and grumbles beneath his voice.

"Well, that was fun," Asuna commented with a wide grin at each of the people in the room. Setsuna was watching her warily, unsure now of her decision to teach swordsmanship to someone with such a delightfully vengeful streak.

Her voice as innocent as possible, the red-head picked her pencil back up and situated herself beneath the table again. "What were you saying about adjectives, Setsuna-san?"

Japanese to English Translations

Touki Brawly
Asuna Flannery
Senri Norman
Nagi Winona
Hiwamaki Fortree