Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Pokémon, or Pokémon Special. -weeps in corner-
- - x x x x x - -
It wasn't enough that I had to cope with her attention span, or lack thereof, within the classrooms; if anything, she seemed to be everywhere I looked, even when I was fairly certain the female in question was not actually her. Over the course of the three months since my transfer, I had already been paired with her by a rather unreasonably smug-looking Koga a fair few times, though even during the times I managed to escape having to work with her, I always had the uncomfortable feeling I was being watched. It was like sitting exams presided over by Agatha, and knowing her Gengar was peering over your shoulder to make sure you were looking at your own paper, as opposed to others, and I can't say I enjoyed the sensation.
On the most part, that Blue girl wasn't half bad to be working with. She had the odd tendency to space out, and stare at nothing in particular, only surfacing from her reverie when a teacher pointed at her, or when class was dismissed. It's a wonder she even managed to get this far, really. More often than not, I would catch her looking off into the distant field, where, at some point, a group of students were training under the watchful eye of Bruno; doubtless she was admiring the 'sights', so to speak, and had better things to focus on than the likes of unimportant schoolwork. Still, though I didn't have to save her hide all that often, which in itself was amazing, owing to her inclination to daydreaming. What I would give to know what went on within the minds of women, indeed.
I glanced up from the textbook in front of me to appraise her; to the casual observer, she was doing what any normal student in a library was doing – researching subject matter. However, I had the oddest feeling she definitely wasn't doing that – if the lurid pink cover peeking out from beneath the textbook said anything.
She glanced up, catching my eye, grinning in the most infuriatingly coquettish manner possible; before I could so much as frown back, Red elbowed me in the ribs, jerking his head towards Lucian, who was advancing our way. Ah, the perils of having a Psychic Pokémon expert as a teacher.
In all fairness, though, this class was surprisingly quiet today, which in itself was a miracle; seeing as how both Ruby and Sapphire here, it went without saying, as a general rule, that each lesson did not pass without incident. Just yesterday, she had attempted to throw his make-up box out of the window, for reasons which remained unknown; she would have succeeded, had it not been for the fact that he had been hanging on to it for dear life, stubbornly refusing to let it go.
- - x x x x x - -
"For the last time, I'm gonna repeat m'self. Stop. Freaking. Trying to. Pansy-ify. My Pokémon."
"Let go of my accessories kit! Ugh, how can you have your Pokémon traipsing around like that, covered in all manners of grime and muck, my goodness. And do you really have to participate in the Pokéthlon? All that running and jumping and wrestling and block-smashing, it'll give them unsightly muscles, as if they don't already have unsightly muscles already…"
"Oh? Well, lessee how your pretty princess sparkly coats will fare against my unsightly muscles then. Bring it on! My Chaka could send your Nana flying. Since when did strutting around and posing help in real life?"
"As opposed to how pushing other Pokémon out of sumo-wrestling circles is relevant?"
"There, you said it! At least my Pokémon can fight and hold their own in battle, despite terrain and type disadvant'ges."
"At least mine can look beautiful whilst dazzling an appreciative audience!"
"Settle down, you two." It seemed as though Lucian had come to find these squabbles every bit as entertaining as his students did; he made no real attempt shut them up, only watching with mild interest as they rallied. In a sense, this was like watching a tennis match, only with invisible rackets and balls, and plenty more grunting and screeching—I mean, arguing.
It was truly amazing how those two stayed together, really. From what Gold told me, their 'relationship' was something more along the lines of an on-off train wreck. And yet, they invariably made up, and, in those few honeymoon days – or hours, really – it was amazing how pleasant they were to each other.
- - x x x x x - -
"Looks like the two lovebirds patched up recently," Gold observed idly, slouching low in his chair. The duo in question were sitting a comfortable distance apart, Sapphire for once not attempting to throttle Ruby with his own interestingly resilient shoelaces, though he looked rather exhausted, and was currently half-passed out, with his head pillowed by a fat textbook. Silver merely grunted in response, not bothering to look up from the nine-odd pages of notes he had already written.
"Dude, what're you trying to do, re-write the Iliad?" He made a grab for Silver's sizable stack of paper, only to have them wrenched from his grasp.
"Yes, well, unlike you," Silver snapped, "I'm not the one reduced to buying past test papers from Sidney and still managing to fail them. And you wonder why your Typhlosion has yet to learn Blast Burn. It's somewhat unfair to your Pokémon to say this, but like trainer, like Pokémon. Only I think it has a higher probability of learning that move by next Monday than you do of passing Clair's next assessment."
"Shut up, the both of you," I muttered, cradling my head in my hands.
"Why so grumpy? Still worried about the upcoming ball? I myself can't wait. The food! The fun! And most of all, the girls!" Even without seeing his face, it was easy to imagine the expression Gold was wearing: one of utmost daydreaming joy.
"…don't even talk to me about that thing." The mere fact that I had to attend it only made my life so much more miserable. Why in the blazes was it considered a compulsory school event? Pity that it counted for school attendance, otherwise I would have been more than happy to give it a miss. The dreaded event was, to be fair, about four months away, though everyone had begun to talk about it, as though it were every bit as important as the exams.
"Whyever not? Everyone's all psyched up about it. I bet we'll finally even get to see Sapph in a dress. Mind-blowing isn't it?" Gold chuckled under his breath. "There's a certain someone I'd like to see in a dress too," he said, almost wistfully. I shot him a look.
"Let me guess. Janine?" Red had decided to join the conversation; watching as Gold turned purple, he chuckled. "Kidding, kidding." Ugh, Red and his guessing games. It would be less agonising and embarrassing if he was actually good at it, though.
"No! She'd probably poison my lunch if I even so much as mention the word 'ball' and 'partner' to her. It's not like I know her, anyways. That, and Falkner would probably feed me to his Skarmory. AND! Koga would have another excuse to make AP Stats and Natures even worse than it already is. Which is saying something, I'd have you know."
"Which reminds me," I interjected, "why are you even taking AP Stats? From what you told me, you're not even good at it."
"Well, yes, but it's all in the name of getting closer to my prey, y'see…"
It seemed as though Silver had not caught that last bit. "Then who're you going with, pray tell? The sugar plum fairy's pet Wormadam?"
"Why yes, Silver, I actually would like to go on a date with a Pokémon that…um, dances…on sugar plums. No, dumbass. Why? Are you planning to go with the tooth fairy's Sharpedo? I'm sure you'd be such a hit with any of the girls here." He snickered at the other boy's outraged expression; Silver looked annoyed to the point of being temporarily stunned into silence. "I bet you'd match well with Candice though. Har har har. One cold-blooded cold fish, and the other a hot-blooded Ice Queen…wait, that didn't make sense."
"Oh, yeah, you're a riot," Silver hissed sourly, growing steadily more waspish in contrast to Gold, "keep it up, and you'll make as good comedians as Diamond and Pearl." Crumpling up a sheet of paper into a tiny ball, he threw it at Gold's head with untoward force; Gold had just opened his mouth to protest, and had he not hastily clamped it shut, would doubtless have ended up enjoying the taste of notepaper. "If I were you, I'd try to make myself seem more appealing to the certain someone in question before jumping her and demanding she be my partner. Just a helpful hint."
"Yeah, yeah, like you're such a regular Casanova," Gold snorted. "Casanova Silver. Good grief, those are two words that should never, ever be used in the same sentence."
Red watched them with utmost amusement, before turning back to me. "No, really, what's eating you? I swear, the closer we get to this, the grumpier you get."
"Red," I began through gritted teeth, "you remember. Our last school and—"
"Ohh yeah, that. What, you're still on about that? It was about two years ago!"
I grunted dismissively. "Once bitten, twice shy. I promised to myself, never again."
"Wait, what was this?" Diverting his attention away from taunting Silver, Gold stared at me. "Is this about a giiiiirl?"
"What? No, of course not. Don't be stupid."
"Actually, it is." Red grinned broadly. Damn him. He was as transparent as glass, though, so I guess even if he tried to backtrack it'd only make Gold even more curious. "It was a school dance, and Green got—"
At this, Gold leaned in even further. "What? What? What? Stood up? Got his foot impaled by a stiletto? Stepped on the poor girl's feet? Talked only about himself? Got drunk? Made a conga line? Said inappropriate things to a teacher? Tried to build a ladder out of the tablecloths and abseil from the balcony? Got mauled by a randomly rampaging herd of Ursaring whilst in the midst of attempting to save your partner?"
Silver stared at him, bursting out in a short fit of disbelieving laughter. "So that's what you've been doing over the mid-term break: watching ridiculous movies. Never knew you were fond of hammy, romantic drivel like that. But then and again, I should have expected it. Were you imagining yourself as the hero, with her as your leading lady? Picturing yourself as a debonair swashbuckler, no doubt—"
"Sorry, mate, but I'm already too much of a debonair swashbuckler. As for you—"
"Do you even know what those two words mean?"
Thankfully, I was saved from having to say anything more – and, for that matter, Red was saved from having the living daylights being kicked out of him – by the bell. As Lucian dismissed us, and leaving Gold and Silver to glare daggers at one another, I glowered at my erstwhile 'friend'. "You're a moron. If I could, I'd kick your sorry ass from here to the middle of Eterna Forest."
With a valiant attempt at keeping his face straight, he patted my shoulder in what he evidently thought was a reassuring manner. "Relax, man, I'll never spill. I know we weren't the best of chums when we were kids, but all that's behind us now, I tell you."
"Huh. Really. Doesn't seem like it."
"And, mind you, Eterna Forest is an awfully long way away. Ilex Forest is one thing, but Eterna? Good luck with that. Speaking of kicking, football: Surge wants to know why you haven't been attending practice. I think he misses your face, he's been looking quite glum lately, ahahaha…"
- - x x x x x - -
"Say hey!" No sooner had I reached my locker, when Flint seemingly appeared from nowhere, grinning broadly at me. I surveyed him warily.
"What in the blazes are you doing here? Didn't you graduate last year…?"
"Ahaha, blazes. Gotta love that phrase. A-anyways! How's school life? I heard the ball's coming up soon. Man, I miss that."
"You only miss it because you somehow managed to set fire to the venue," Volkner said drily, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he stopped beside Flint. "We're here to pick up some old assignments and stuff."
Flint smirked at that, breaking out into a spontaneous fit of coughing that sounded suspiciously like 'Jasmine!', causing Volkner to turn pink. Needless to say, it was a colour that did not suit him too well. "…let me reiterate. Mr. Hothead is here due to some woes regarding his coursework. Cynthia thinks he doesn't have it in him to complete her notoriously advanced History 1141 course. Not that I blame her. Don't you have to find Wallace?" he added pointedly, glaring at a spot above Flint's shoulder; needless to say, he was ignored.
Flint sighed wistfully. "I remember on our last day…say, Volkner, do you remember? How we toilet papered the tree in the middle of the quad…you know, the one with no leaves and about fifty billion bare branches. Man, it was so easy to toilet paper that…"
"That was you. Not us."
"Whatever. And then I…um…well, Flareon…he set the tree on fire."
"Not to mention, almost burned your hair off. What were you thinking, storing a Pokéball in your afro?!" Turning to face me, the blond grimaced. "See what I mean? I tell everyone he's irresponsible, and they don't believe me. You have no idea how many times he nearly blew up Blaine's chemistry lab."
"Oh, shut up. I was Blaine's prize student. You're just jealous because Surge always yelled at you."
Really now. Just how many arguments did I have to see before the end of the day? Before I could remind them of the fact that they were supposedly here for a reason, a certain brown-haired girl appeared from someplace behind Flint.
"Well hello!" she exclaimed cheerily, studying them with curiosity. "What're you two doing here? Is it for past assignments? If so, then I heard Wallace was going to be clearing out his files, to make space for the new pile of portfolios he's getting in something soon. I'd go get them sharpish, if I were you."
Volkner frowned. "Flint, you idiot, you told me they were going to be here until—oh, forget it. I should've learned by now to stop trusting what you say. Thanks, Blue. Later, Green." Grabbing hold of the back of his friend's shirt, he dragged him off, muttering under his breath.
"What a charming duo," she giggled. "Such a shame they left here already, though. They always made for good entertainment."
Good grief. Why was she here? I proceeded to ask her as much, and was utterly unprepared for the reaction I got from her.
"What? How could you possibly have forgotten?" Gasping theatrically, she gave me the most injured and yet accusatory of looks. "We're working together for that project Bertha assigned us! Um…what was it again? Oh yes. Geography of the Sinnoh Region and its Characteristics."
"I know that," I sighed, "but it's…oh, fine. Where was I meant to go to find you?"
She grinned triumphantly. "Cafeteria."
"…obnoxious girl. You could just have told me when we were at the library, and save me the trouble of…wait. Why the cafeteria? It's the noisiest place in the whole school."
"Ah, but where's the fun in that? It's much more entertaining to track you down and ambush you like this. Also, we're going there because Platina agreed to help us. She's there because she refuses to miss Diamond and Pearl's routine." Was I imagining things, or was there the most unnerving of glints in her eyes as she winked at me?
"…tch. Lead on."
- - x x x x x - -
"When you think of the ecology of the Spring Path…" Ruffling his already absurdly rumpled blond hair, Pearl groaned disparagingly. "This is hopeless! Why did Bertha have to give you guys such a boring topic? And why did we let Missy make us cancel our routine for today?! If you guys don't manage to ace this project, I'm fining y'all thirty million Pokédollars, you hear me? Ugh, where's Dia? Probably off getting a third round of lunch already. This is extreme."
"What a pleasant way of speaking about your own home region," I said drily, flipping one textbook shut and starting on another. "Aren't you meant to know all about Sinnoh?"
"The Spring Path is a small area in the Sinnoh region located south of Veilstone City," Platina began, "and is rumoured to be where the legendary renegade Pokémon, Giratina, appears. The main landmark within the Spring Path is a labyrinthine cavern, known as the Turnback Cave, which, historians believe, has ties with the Distortion World in which Giratina resides. Venturing into it is said to be a highly unnerving experience, due to the eerie silence which fills the area, as well as the types of Pokémon themselves that appear there."
Pearl goggled at her. "Y-yeah, um, what she said."
Blue frowned as she resumed taking notes at breakneck speed, flapping a hand at Platina. "Slow down!"
"A plethora of powerful, high-levelled Pokémon populates the Spring Path, particularly—"
Before she could finish, a rather lost-looking Ruby ambled up to us, looking far from his usual dapper self, and squinting at us as though he couldn't quite make us out; a rather long, awkward silence passed, until he grinned broadly, looking relieved.
"Oh, thank goodness, it's you guys. I was worried I barged in on the wrong group of people again." With a grimace and a sigh, he sat down beside me, cradling his head in his hands. To be fair, he looked rather worse for wear, and I wondered what he had done this time.
"What happened? Are you all right?" Blue scooted over to inspect him, now rendering my side of the table uncomfortably cramped. Ruby sighed noisily.
"Sapph woke me up at four this morning to train with her for next week's inter-school Pokéthlon, and refused to take no to an answer."
Pearl snorted with laughter. "Why, what'd she do? Throw stones at your window?"
Ruby groaned. "If only. Dad let her in – and nobody really needs to wonder why – and she proceeded to nearly break my bed by jumping onto it. Then, to make matters worse, she made me jog around the field with her for the next two hours before letting me get ready for school. Needless to say, I didn't have enough time, and it was only a few minutes before she screamed at me to hurry up, and, well, here I am. Sans glasses and contacts. I can't say it's been a great day, sitting right at the front of the classrooms and trying to see what's on the boards."
At this point, I was honestly glad I was not involved with anyone at the moment. "Well, at least she hasn't been threatening to roll you down Mount Mortar today. Yet. Looks like a personal record for you two, so congratulations. Try to keep this streak up, will you?"
He smiled weakly at me. "I'll try. But honestly, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the condition of her Pokémon! Do you reckon I should polish her Aggron's scales someday? It's looking a bit rugged and craggy, with some rather unsightly chips in his armour…"
"What's this I'm hearin' about Ronono?"
"Eeeyargh!" Utterly taken by surprised, Ruby nearly slid under the table by the close proximity of his most delightful lady friend. Staring at her with a most absurd Stantler-in-the-headlights look, he clutched his shirt, slowly extricating himself from his most uncomfortable position. "You nearly gave me heart failure!"
Sapphire snorted. "Which means ya haven't been training enough, ya pansy."
Looking wary, he frowned at her. "What're you here for? I haven't done anything to your Pokémon…oh goodness. This is about the Pokéthlon, right?"
Platinum carefully closed one of her textbooks, before looking up. "As a general consensus, we all came to the conclusion that we need to study for the upcoming exams."
"You don't say." They were less than two months away, and yet everyone was talking about that damned dance. I swear, the next time anyone mentioned it, I will drown myself in the Lake of Rage.
"Oh yes!" The Obnoxious Woman turned, leaning across Ruby to smile broadly at me. "I was meaning to ask you. My grades aren't doing too badly at the moment, but not too well either. I was wondering if you could perhaps maybe help me with a spot of revision?"
Good grief. What was I supposed to say? As a thousand thoughts and possible responses – some of them rather unkind, I might add: would that make me seem even more churlish? Probably – occurred to me, I realised everyone else at the table had grown unnaturally silent, with the exception of Pearl, who, it seemed, had just remembered about an overdue art assignment and was now busy scribbling something on construction paper with Sharpies, complete with loud, rather inappropriate squeaks. If anything, the two other girls – Sapphire and Platinum – had now diverted their respective attentions from nagging Ruby and perusing a travel journal article, with their scrutiny now being directed towards me. Why was I suddenly suspicious that this whole thing was a setup? I should have asked her why Platinum was helping us. Fair enough, she was from Sinnoh, and therefore knew a lot about it, but that didn't mean I was clueless about it, either.
"Since when did you care much about academics?" From what Red had told me, Blue was more interested with…alternate methods of success. Such as coaxing people to sell her their papers. It would suffice to say that it worked most of the time.
"Wee-ell, I decided it was time I stopped taking pointers from…um, certain sources, and started actually being serious about my studies." She shrugged, before gazing at me with the most entreating, imploring look I had ever seen. "Pretty please? I'm sure you'll be able to explain things a lot better than Morty can…"
"What's wrong with his teaching? He's just a bit vague, and if you paid more attention in class, you'd be able to follow just fine."
"That's beside the point!" By now, I was acutely aware of the fact that we were now the subject of interest for those in our immediate vicinity. Even the backdrop of Sharpie squeaks had stopped, and I realised I really missed that sound. I suppose this was making me look ridiculously ungentlemanly, not that I ever proclaimed myself to be one to begin with.
Sighing, I conceded defeat. "Fine. Give me a time and place."
Blue flashed me an insouciant grin. "Every Monday and Wednesday, at…oh, let's say after school-ish? Four o'clock sounds good. Deal or no deal?"
I gritted my teeth. "Deal." It was hard to feel quite so wretchedly defeated and to act as ungracious, though, when she beamed at me. I averted my eyes, determined not to look at her. "Don't be late."
- - x x x x x - -
"So, Green. What's this I hear about you having study sessions with Blue?"
I mentally slapped myself for at least not having the prudence to admit defeat in a less crowded area. "Long story, she pigeonholed me. Why do you want to ask, when you already know about it?"
Red shrugged, before resuming pushing his bike. "Feels like the old times, eh? When we were kids, walking home together…" He grinned. "Though back then we weren't talking about having study sessions with girls, but, rather, about punching each other silly." Suddenly serious, he paused yet again. "Ah, but Blue, she's not half bad, you know what I mean?"
I stopped and stared at him. "No, I don't know what you mean. Who do you think I am, Sabrina? Or Morty?"
"Jeez, keep your hair on. What I mean to say is, she's not as bad as you make her out to be."
"Yeah? And how'd you know?"
At this, he turned pink, turning to face the sunset. "Ah, it's nothing. Lessee…when was it when we lost contact? About two years ago, wasn't it, when I moved to this school? Well that year we had a bit of a casual relationship, nothing serious. I mean, face it. We were never serious about one another, really, and I guess I was just kinda curious, y'know?"
"Uh-huh, I know. She's a flirt, and has sort of been around." I shoved my hands into my pockets and started to walk again, wondering why I hadn't brought a scarf. Stupid deceptive autumn weather.
"Yeah, something like that. No! Not in the way you're thinking, moron. She just likes playing, if you catch my drift, and she moves on soon after. Bit like a Butterfree, really. A social butterfly, and she also likes being free. Sounds to me like she's been using the Cute Charm on you lately. Sadly, the great Green seems to be Oblivious." Laughing uproariously, it was a while before he quieted down. Dia and Pearl would have been so proud their puns and whatnot were catching on.
"So what was your point? Just wanted to tell me what I didn't ask to know?"
"Green, stop being a grumpy old Krabby. For all her musical-chair-boyfriends thing going on—"
"Gee, that's awfully charming. Musical-chair-boyfriends thing. Now I really feel better about hearing your snippets of supposedly useful information."
"Oh, shut up. As I was saying, she's good people, ya get me? She likes playing around, and is rather silly at times, but she's a nice girl. Give her a chance, mate."
"You make it sound as though I'm getting married to her and discovered skeletons in her closet. Red, seriously, if you know what's good for you, stop talking, or I'm going to whack you. And no, Chuck doesn't miss my face."
"Yeah well. All I'm saying is, be nice, jeez. Shouldn't be too hard. Besides, she seems kinda like your type, and I suggested—"
"What?!" I stopped short to goggle at him. "Are you serious? My type?! My type?! I don't even have a type! Especially obnoxious, interfering, pesky…oh, I see now. Red, I'm going to send you flying to the middle of next year if you continue playing matchmaker."
He chortled, leaning forwards to thump me on the back. "You're in denial. And besides, you need a partner for the ball. You'll be grateful for this. Today's Tuesday, don't forget about your date tomorrow!" By this point, we had reached the fork in the road that marked the end of our usual walk-home-together route; mounting his bicycle, he grinned at me, headed towards the right fork. "Laters, dude. Oh, and if you don't mind, could you please scan Fantina's homework and e-mail it to me when you can? Thanks a bunch, man."
Obnoxious and interfering best friends, coupled with obnoxious, interfering study partners. Well I never. Looks like a pattern was starting to emerge in my life. No wonder they got together – if only for a short while. Stupid Red, being too nice for his own good and not being able to stand seeing his friends single. Contrary to popular belief, I quite enjoying flying solo, because it meant I didn't have to cope with the likes of what Ruby went through on a daily basis. Whilst Red had it a lot better with his lady friend, I found it rather hard to believe – or appreciate the fact that he was trying to set me up. Still muttering under my breath at his damned niceness, I traipsed down the left fork. Ah well. Hate to break it to him, but his so-called plan would never work.
After all, this was revision, and nothing more.
- - x x x x x - -
BACKCHAT!: AMG this chapter is so random. Rather shorter than the last one, I know, but Green isn't as chatty as Blue is, and doesn't really…urrr. Express himself as much. Yeahthat. Expect the next one to be equally as random, but filled with more hyperventilating, looks of disapproval and angry Pachirisu throwing apricorns! Gotta love angry little cutesy Pokémon, amirite?
A-ANYWAYS. Yay for Volkner and Flint making impromptu cameos! I found that convo they had in Platinum to be utterly hilarious, about how Flint wanted his Pokémon to appear from his afro. That, and he seems like the sort who would totally blow up Blaine's chem labs for shit and giggles :'D Accidentally-on-purpose. Heh.
Oh Green. Famous last words and all. Poor guy has no idea what he's up again, hahahaha. Though in my opinion Red seems to be turning out a bit OOC ;_______; And after reading a bit of the DPPt arc again, I'm once again in love with Pearl and his awesome hilarious…ness. HE'S SO ADORKABLE I SWEAR.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, I hope I'm not letting anybody down :C Constructive criticism is always, always appreciated, and I'll strive to make this fic as silly…I mean, as good as you all…um, hope it to be?
OH AND ONE MORE THING. Since I'm bad with most ships and whatnot, feel free to recommend some! Which pairings would you like to see? And all that jazz.
Until next time!
