Emerald's POv

"What?" I raised my eyebrow for probably the thirtieth time today. I had really assumed that the old coot… what a stupid name, why would he want to be called that… would just take me as a student. No, he was being picky, I guessed. So now I had trials to go through so I could get this stupid, and stupidly effective old guy to teach me what he knew. And make no mistake, he knew quite a lot…

Not many could teach me anything, unlock any sort of potential in me. Many had tried, and failed to get me to do anything. I had to concentrate for minutes, even hours to make anything happen… And this guy just runs in, pushes me a little, and suddenly I could do something I thought would take years to do.

"You heard me, young lady. Don't pretend you didn't. Rayquaza, let this girl on your back or I won't teach you how to get away any more than that. We're going to the trial grounds." The old coot said, then jumped onto the Flygon, kicked it with his heels, and it took off without Strider? Seriously, what was this guy? Why was this the guy… why were these the guys I was stuck with. Why were they all guys? I wanted a girl with me, I wanted someone to relate to. I wanted somebody who understood. I wanted…

I didn't know… So, I guessed I was supposed to get on Ray and fly after him. I knew Ray did not want me to get on him. Ray glared at me for a long, drawn out moment, then he broke eye contact, sighed, and gestured for me to hop on. I did so, delicately. I didn't want to be a burden to him. Or, maybe, I should be more of a burden, since he was going to complain so much. I guessed I could always go in the middle of those two and not go out of my way to not be a burden. But then, no, I did not want him to have more reasons to want to leave. Although, at this point, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to change his mind, no matter what I did, or how nice I was to him. He had a life that I took away from him, and I wasn't sure anything was going to make up for that. I couldn't just give up on my life-

What life? This was the adventure I had been seeking? Well, I had been hoping it wouldn't be an adventure in which I was on the run from my own family. I was hoping… maybe, I would even get to go on an adventure or two with my sisters… or the kids. I missed the kids. If only they could see me now… If only I could show them what I was seeing, this world outside the walls. It was pretty dangerous here, though. We had only been here for like… less than a day, and I had already been held at knife's point.

Oh, and that blood…

I was knocked on the head.

"Ow!" I cried out. The old man hit me on the head with that stick, again! He had doubled back around with Flygon, so Strider could hop on, too. All I felt from it was pain, too, no tingling or warmth or anything that would indicate there was any sort of magic flowing through me. I sort of doubted that it was actually a magic staff. It seemed more just like a regular walking stick. He hit me again.

"No wonder you are so miserable at magic, whippersnapper." He really liked that word. He hit me again, now I was getting irritated. "Pay attention to me, young lady. I'm talking to you!"

"What, I- Old coot, stop hitting me with your walking stick, would you?! Can you read my mind or something?!"

"Focus, that's what you're lacking, focus." He said, then floated in a circle, waiting for us to get on with it.

"I know, I know." I said. Lilly had told me more or less the same thing many times. It took immense energy to concentrate on any one thing for a long time. It was something I worked on, but… Well, there was a reason I was seeking a mentor.

"Hold on so I don't have to catch you again." Ray said snidely, then took off. I could fall a lot farther now, without him having to come rescue me, but thankfully not far enough for him to be able to consider just letting me fall. Not that he would do that, but still. It was a weird balancing act, holding onto him tight enough that I wouldn't fall, but not so tight I would choke him accidentally and piss him off. I thought I was doing a pretty good job. The old coot and Strider took off as well, and quickly took the lead. Again, we headed up into the clouds. Without a disguise, it was very dangerous to fly out in the open. Rayquaza made a very distinct shape in the sky, and if we were spotted… well, I didn't need or want to explain what that would entail.

So where were we going? The old coot was leading the way on that Flygon… I really had to ask Strider what his name was, I felt weird just referring to him as a Flygon. Then again, I also felt weird calling my new teacher an old coot, but that was what he said he wanted to be called. What a weird guy.

Almost as soon as we went above the cloud cover, we went back below it to descend wherever we were going. If we were only going to be under cover of clouds for a few seconds, why even bother? Especially since my body didn't take to well to the sudden change in elevation, oxygen, pressure… whatever else shifted suddenly when you went from the sea level to the clouds in a matter of a few seconds and then back down again. This was brutal, and by the time we got back down, all my strength was gone. I rolled limply off of Ray and lay in the sand. I felt nearly dead.

I felt something on my head and blinked awake. I saw something brown and it poked in between my eyes. It was unfocused. It was… the old man's stick. I shoved it aside, but it just swung back at me and whacked me in the face. Ugh. I rolled over. I heard a disapproving tsking, but I didn't care right now. I just rolled over. I got bonked on the head again.

"Would you stop?!" I jumped up and spun around to face the old man. My face must have looked like a mad animal's.

"Remember how you feel right now. Catalogue it." The old man said, looking directly into my eyes with his gray eyes… eyes which reminded me of what mine used to be. Catalogue this? Was he pissing me off on purpose? "I said catalogue, not analyze." He bumped me with the stick again. How was I supposed to do something like that? Uh, I had to do it though, quick before he hit me with the stick again. I, uh, catalogued what I felt like, what my body felt like, what my mind felt like, what everything was.

"Very nice. You can let that go now." He said, giving me a smile and putting a hand on my shoulder. I breathed out and let myself relax. Wait, no, I was still angry.

"Wait, no. You keep hitting me with your stupid walking stick! I don't care if you're the best teacher in the world, I'm not going to put up with stuff like this!"

"If you don't like my method, surely you'll like my madness." Was all he had to say in response. Poor guy didn't know what in the world he was talking about. Or maybe he did, and I just couldn't interpret it correctly.

"What are you, an oracle?" I asked snidely. He didn't respond, and just walked on forward. Seemed we were on another small island with a beach that reached around in a small band, and then gave way to jungle. The old man led us into the jungle, into the unknown… dark edges all around.

What? It was just a jungle. Just plants and some mushroom looking things. I had never seen these kinds of plants, or even mushrooms. I had never seen a single mushroom, there weren't any in the gardens or anything in the kingdom, but I had seen pictures in books. I didn't read a whole lot, but when I did, it was about the outside world. They were sort of like plants but sort of not. You could eat them, some of them, some were poison to people and would absolutely kill you. How did you tell the difference between the two? I… did not know. So, it was probably best I just didn't eat any of the mushrooms, stick to something I recognized.

We walked deeper and deeper into the jungle. I heard little noises. There were Pokemon in here? But it sounded like it was just Pokemon, not people, and that was good. Pokemon by themselves weren't going to hurt me… I was pretty sure. I hoped so. I couldn't see any of them, but I could hear them. Were they hiding or something? Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I could see the hand tail of an Aipom, a purple monkey with a hand on the end of its tail, disappear into the treetops.

The old man walked for a little while longer, then turned around and leaned against a tree. I waited with a raised eyebrow for him to say something, anything. Arceus, this guy was weird.

Oh, that was right! Arceus! I was thinking about that before and got interrupted. Well, now the old man was just sitting there, maybe he would let me think for two seconds. Hopefully that wasn't too much to ask for from this guy. Arceus… I had not seen a single thing referring to Arceus since I left home. Maybe he only reigned in my kingdom? But, that wouldn't make sense. You couldn't get very far without seeing a statue or a carving or something, a painting, someone mentioning its name. Neither the old man nor Strider had mentioned it once. Maybe because it was just… we were distracted?

"Ok, we're here. Now what?" Ray asked. He interrupted my thoughts this time, not the old coot. Although, this time I was pretty much done with my thought. The old man kept interrupting me in the middle of my thoughts too, and sort of referencing my thoughts. There was no way he was a normal old man, not with what he did. Did he also… read my mind? Could he read my mind? Maybe he really was an oracle or a psychic or something, I didn't know. He was something. It was weird that he had some kind of power… or did he have power? Was it just knowledge and intuition? Just what was he?! It was a mystery I could not figure out and it was frustrating me… though, I supposed I was asking too much of myself too soon. I had only been around him a few hours. Still, I didn't even feel like I had a solid first impression. Something about that seemed wrong. You should at least be able to get a read on someone from a small level of interaction, but I got nothing from this guy… except that he was strange, indeed.

"Yeah, old coot, now what? Where are these trials?" I asked, repeating Ray. It had been a few moments since Ray asked and he had said nothing. He didn't seem to want to respond to me either, so I went up and touched him on the shoulder. He started, as if waking up from a deep sleep. There was one problem, though, he had his eyes open the whole time. The old man was… sleeping with his eyes open, was that it?

"YOU HAVE PASSED THE FIRST TRIAL!" The old coot screamed, making several Pokemon run away with scurrying noises all around, on me, through me. Passed the first trial? I didn't do a single thing? All I did was wake him up. Was that the first trial, or did he just not know what he was talking about?

"But… I didn't do anything?" I sort of half asked half said to the old coot. He either didn't seem to hear me or didn't seem to care. I didn't know which would have annoyed me more. Oh wait, no, he was responding,

"That was a warm up trial, now, Strider." The old coot said, and Strider stepped forward. He had been surprisingly silent up until this point, and surprisingly… respectful, and the old coot had not called us whippersnappers for a while. Was it because Strider had said something? The two of them seemed to know each other, and have some form of respect for each other. The old coot gestured forward and pointed towards us. "The trial of affliction, just like I showed you."

Strider nodded, then closed his eyes and started to glow a grayish glow, an orb formed between his hands. Like the old man showed him… so, Strider was a student of this guy, too, at least, he was at some point. I guessed that solved the mystery of how the two knew each other.

Strider opened his eyes, and the orb slammed into me. I blacked out.

Hope you have an awesome day!