Hey thar. I'm sorry this took so long to update: I've had camp and stuff, and I'm soooo tired right now...
Tractor tires bring people together. Seriously. Who'da thunk it?
That's about it. Thanks to all my amazing readers, as always, and hope you enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: If I owned Pokemon, you would know.
x.X.x
After a half hour straight of battling, I was starting to get annoyed. How long did it take to buy a couple of potions? Besides, Riolu was starting to get tired, and both of us were on-edge from the constant need for adrenaline. Wild Pokemon jumping out of nowhere, a startlingly fast kick from my own Pokemon, the tense stances needed in battle (though I'd been told that you should be relaxed instead), the constant sweeping of the area for more wild Pokemon, and all the while checking to make sure Leah wasn't walking up so we didn't accidentally attack her. Although I might have anyway, and then pretended it was a mistake. Even if Riolu didn't listen to me, I had learned a little about punching from watching him. But then, of course, I might have to explain to my parents, so I pushed the thought from my mind.
"Riolu, use Quick Attack," I said absently, turning around to make sure Leah hadn't yet returned, and then turned back at an angry chirp. "What?" I asked irritably, glancing at my Pokemon. The Starly that he had been fighting was unconscious on the dirt from his last move, Counter, and apparently I had failed to notice when I had given him the instruction for his next one.
"Rio-lu," he growled, hands on his hips, and jerked his head at the bird.
"Well, excuse me. I'm distracted, that's all," I defended myself. "Besides, it could still be a little bit conscious."
"Riolu." I could easily translate that as, "No it couldn't," and saw from his face that he knew I was making excuses.
"Well, I'm sorry!" I answered hotly. "It's not my job to know everything about the battle you're in, and I'm a little bit busy looking for Leah!" Somewhere in my mind I felt that my so-called excuses were sounding more and more like excuses, and I might have blathered on for awhile longer just to prove my point (invalid as it was), had Leah not chosen that moment to show up and ask, "Why're you looking for me?"
"Oh," I said in surprise, whipping around. "Oh, um…no reason." She raised her eyebrows, but shrugged.
"Okay. How's the training coming?"
"Um…good. Still haven't learned Force Palm, though." In my peripheral vision, I saw a shocked expression flit across Riolu's face, quickly morphing to one of disbelieving fury, and he turned his back to us and folded his arms across his chest. Leah looked at him in concern, tilting her head to one side, and I quickly picked up the conversation again, inwardly sighing. I didn't want anyone to be mad, but it seemed that it couldn't be helped right now. "So do you think we're strong enough to fight you yet?" I asked, and Leah tore her gaze from my Pokemon.
"Not yet. First you'll definitely need Force Palm, and you'll need to be at least level twelve to fight me."
"Level…?" I'd never heard of levels before. Sure, I could tell the general concept by the name, and I was pretty sure Mom's Flareon had to be at least level one thousand, if the battles I'd seen were anything to judge by, but I had no idea what they actually meant.
"Yeah, level. In the trainer world, it's a way of telling how powerful your Pokemon actually are. For example, Roark's strongest Pokemon would be considered level fourteen. So, since you have the type advantage with Riolu, it'd be safe to say that you could get away with being level fourteen, too, so long as you have a few potions on hand," Leah explained, shrugging. "It gets a little complicated."
"I can tell," I muttered. "What level is Riolu at now?"
"Well, it's hard to say. I'd say eight or nine, judging by how long you two have been battling. He should learn Force Palm by level eleven."
"Oh. And by level twelve we can fight you?"
"Probably. Maybe thirteen, since my strongest Pokemon is level twenty-four. I'd go easy on you, and probably not use Prinplup-"
"I don't need you to go easy on me!" I interrupted indignantly. "Just you wait! I'm going to beat Roark, and then beat the others, and then the Elite Four, and then become the best Pokemon trainer the world's ever seen!" Leah laughed.
"Well, still. At level twelve, I'll need to go easy nevertheless."
"Hmmph." I turned away, calling, "Ready, Riolu?" He gave a low mumble, then pushed himself up with a sigh, one foot in front of the other in what I now knew as his battle-stance. I picked up the stick I had started using to rustle in the grass and attract curious wild Pokemon, thrusting it into the waving fronds and waving it around until a rather angry-looking Shinx burst out of cover, charging for Riolu. "Dodge it!" I called, backing up a few paces. "Now use Quick Attack!" Without a sound my Pokemon nimbly stepped out of the way and then swung around to hit the Shinx's back, sending it sprawling in the ground. It pushed itself up on its forelegs, turning to face Riolu and running in for another tackle. I tried to tell him to dodge it again, but cut off as the two collided. Riolu shook himself, rolling over and getting to his feet, and looked to me for the next move. "Counter!" I told him, glancing at his opponent as the Shinx scrambled up. My Pokemon jumped into the air, landing squarely on his adversary's back, and I watched as the two scrabbled on the ground for a few moments before each jumped back, huffing. I nodded, more to myself than anyone else, and called, "Quick Attack again!"
At this last move, the Shinx swayed and dropped to the ground, and Leah nodded her approval.
"Nice," she said appreciatively. "Keep it up and you and me can have our first battle by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" I asked, my voice turning to a whine. She smirked.
"What, you were having so much fun that you didn't realize that the sun's going down?"
I looked up and, sure enough, there was a big orange ball hovering just above the horizon. Already the Zubat and occasional stray Noctowl were beginning to come out, blearily appearing in the branches of trees or near their roots, and I sighed and nodded.
"Okay."
Leah chuckled, though it was more laughing-at-me than genuine amusement, and I stuck my tongue out at her. This only made her snort again, though, and I crossed my arms and turned away.
"So," she began as we walked back to the Pokemon Center. "You want to bunk with me tonight?"
"Huh?" I asked, looking at her and narrowly avoiding tripping over a stray twig when my shoelace caught on it. "Bunk with you?"
"Yeah. Like, sharing a room for the night. You don't hate me that much, do you?" Her eyes were twinkling like my grandpa's did when he hung me upside down by my ankle and laughed about it as mom's Flareon snapped at my hair, so I didn't necessarily trust her.
"Like…a sleepover?" I asked, working it through in my mind. Leah smiled.
"Yup. Like a sleepover, except at the PokeCenter."
"Oh. Okay." In my mind, sleepovers were for best friends, like me and Lucy. But maybe Leah would be fun to have a sleepover with. She grinned.
"All right. Trainers get a free room, you know."
"Cool!"
She led me into the Center, waving at Nurse Joy (I was still having a little bit of a problem with the Joy family), and asked, "Are there any available rooms?"
"There always are!" Nurse Joy answered with a wink. At her side came a small cry of, "Sey! Chan-sey!" in agreement, and she chuckled and reached down to scratch one of her Pokemon assistants. Leah nodded, leading me down the escalator to a whole area of the Pokemon Center I had never even known about.
"Tada!" she said dramatically, presenting it with a wave of her hand. I gaped as I walked forward, almost forgetting to return Riolu, and looked around the room. There were plush chairs centered around an unused fireplace, multiple fluffy couches with coffee tables in front of them, and there was a whole wall devoted to picture frames. Pictures of Pokemon, trainers, battles, Gym leaders, and way more dominated the space, while on either side was a bookcase and a television. The last thing that caught my attention in the main room, though, was the beanbag chairs.
"Look!" I almost shrieked, pointing and making a few trainers grumble and rub their ears. "Beanbag chairs!"
"What's so special about-" Leah began, but I was already running forward to jump into the pile of beanbags, performing a dramatic faceplant into them and rolling around. If there was one thing I liked more than pancakes, it was these chairs. You could roll them, you could jump on them, you could suffocate yourself in them (as Dad had warned me before), you could snuggle into them-anything. I had a firm belief that there were three things everyone needed in life, and beanbags were one of them.
Leah walked up next to me with a look that said, "Well aren't you good at making first impressions with other trainers," but I ignored it and sat up. "So what is so special about these chairs?" she asked again, plopping down into one.
"I dunno, really," I told her happily. "I used to have beanbags everywhere in my room, though. They're just…awesome."
"Ah. Thanks for filling me in."
"You're welcome!" I leaned back, closing my eyes, and almost immediately opened them and stood back up. "So what about our room?" Leah rolled her eyes, but laughed.
"This way." I was towed along behind her as she walked to another hall that branched off the front room and stopped in front of a door that had the numbers "403" printed on it.
"Okay!" I slid our room key into it, frowned, flipped it over and tried again, and finally got the door open. Letting my only Pokemon out again, I looked around, wide-eyed, at the bunk bed shoved into the wall and the small ivory nightstand at the head of it. A few feet from that squatted a plush blue armchair and couch, and a small television sat on a woven, colorful rug in front of those. That was all the room really allowed though, because of its size, but it was cozy all the same.
"I call the top bunk!" Leah sang immediately, throwing her bag up onto the bed.
"No fair!" I exclaimed in response, running up to her and pulling her back off the ladder to scramble up it myself. She tackled me again, though, and it rapidly became a race to see who would reach the highest bed first. "No no no no no no no!" I squealed, leaping at her and then clinging to the rungs for dear life, grabbing her shirt as she tried to climb around me. I pulled her back down to the ground, and she finally sighed.
"All right, fine. Since you're youngest, I'll be mature and take the bottom bunk."
I almost lashed out in retaliation at the "youngest" jibe, but held my tongue. So she said she was the mature one, was she? Hm. We'll see about that.
So Leah retrieved her bag from the top bunk and climbed down to the bottom one after severely instructing me "not to fall through the bed and squash her," and I smugly scaled the ladder and crawled under the sheets. Under normal circumstances I would have snuck out of bed and watched TV in the front room or something after everyone else had gone to bed, but I realized that I was far too tired for that now. For Arceus' sake, I almost fell asleep before Leah! That would have been a first…
Drowsy thoughts became more and more incoherent, until they were meaningless babble that sung me to sleep as I drifted off.
x.X.x
So yeah. XDDD
Thanks so much, as always; tell me how you think the relationship is, as always; enjoy it, as always; blah blah blah, as always ^^