The Lilycove airport was booming. Lauren ended up being the last one in a long line, and had just about fallen asleep when she was finally asked by the flight attendant to show her invitation. She pulled the little black card out of the pocket of her loose black plants and flashed it. The lady smiled and let her through.

To say that Lauren was impressed with the plane provided for the tournament would have been an overstatement. It could hold about seventy to one-hundred people, if memory served her correctly, and was quite roomy for the amount of seats. But deluxe or not, once you've seen one plane, you've seen them all. Sure, these had the typical tv screens on the back of each chair where you could watch videos, listen to music, or play games, and even had a restaurant on the second floor, but everything was going to be unreasonably expensive. The restless trainer navigated her way through the line, shoving her way through only when she deemed absolutely necessary.

Not too long after, she came to the back of the plane where her seat was, and sat down next to a blue-haired girl. Not thinking anything of it, she sat down-

And something screamed.

Several seconds after, Lauren was hit with a sudden jolt of electricity. It was the longest five seconds she had ever experienced in her life. Finally, somehow snapping herself out of her stupidity, she bolted up and looked down at her seat to find a disgruntled pichu laying down, looking defeated. The girl sitting beside her shot her an icy glare, quickly snatching up the pichu and cradling him in her arms.

"Sorry about that," Lauren nonchalantly said before sitting down and pretending nothing happened. Great first impression there, she thought.

The girl, unimpressed, scoffed. "You have the best observational skills I have ever seen." Was she mocking her?

Lauren had to bite her tongue to keep herself from responding. She turned her head the other way, trying not to react any further, but of course, that wasn't going to happen. "Besides, pokémon aren't even allowed out of their pokéballs here. Airplane laws," She bitched, a proud smirk plastered on her face.

Unsurprisingly, the comment was ignored. Lauren decided she didn't like this girl. The plane hadn't even taken off and she gets shocked by a pokémon that shouldn't even be out! And the girl even got the window seat, to boot! The pichu on her lap gave her a threatening (as close as it could get to being threatening, anyway; as adorable as the creature was, it was pretty impossible) glare before curling up into a little ball and falling asleep.

"Welcome to the Finis Tournament Flight. We will be arriving in Orre in precisely five hours. Weather is predicted as being calm throughout the flight with absolutely no problems along the way. Please refrain from smoking and buckle up. Be sure to keep your pokémon in their pokéballs."

The girl with the pichu looked decidedly uncomfortable throughout the entire speech. She removed her white jacket and inconspicuously put it over the sleeping pokémon. She looked over at a smirking Lauren. Checkmate.

"I'm really sorry about acting so coldly towards you. Please don't rat me out! Static will hate me for days if I put him in his ball!" she said with a pleading expression. Lauren, delighted at how this girl was at her mercy, smirked.

"I'll think about it..."

The girl bit her lip. It was going to be an interesting flight, to say the least.

An hour and a half into the flight, like many other passengers, Lauren somehow managed to develop restless leg syndrome. Seeing that the pichu girl was fast asleep and that she was safe from her awkward glances, she leapt to her feet and skipped down the aisle. She took the time to notice that almost all of the seats were unoccupied, save for a couple of lazy folk who decided to sleep for the remaining two-and-a-half hours. At last, she reached the lanky-looking stairs, and ran up.

The second floor was more hospitable-looking than the first floor. While the first floor had rows of itchy cloth seats organized into two seats per row (one window and one aisle), the second floor had a fancy tile floor with several uncomfortable mushroom-looking chairs around various mushroom-looking tables, which were all taken. Naturally. A middle-aged woman with an unnerving amount of make-up tended to various customers all stationed at a bar. Waiters were frantically carrying around dishes to various folk, trying to keep track of just how long each person waited.

There was a single table left, albeit with a redhead young man in a long coat already sitting there. Given her reserved nature, Lauren would normally dash back down to the (decidedly better) first floor where it was nice and quiet, but hey, she hadn't eaten for at least five hours. Without a second thought, she dashed over to the table and plopped herself on the vacant mushroom-chair.

The trainer didn't even look up.

Feeling awkward, Lauren took a deep breath, and started. "Hello... so you're competing in this strange tournament..." Her voice squeaked at the end. The young man nodded one, two, three times. His expression was neutral. Yeah, maybe she should have just stayed downstairs...

"Sowhereareyoufrom." Damn. That was awkwardly fast. The young man, amused, looked over at her and raised his eyebrows.

"Celadon" was all he said before pulling a piece of wood and a small bladed object. He turned back to his side and began chiseling away at the wood, not even glancing in her direction.

She felt too awkward to get up and leave and ended up sitting there until the young man decided to leave himself after a long while passed, not even getting a chance to eat.

"Attention, passengers. We will be landing in precisely ten minutes. Please return to your seats and prepare to disembark."

Lauren yawned, stretching out her arms and slamming her fist into the face of the girl next to her. The girl jumped away and quickly felt around her face, fully expecting blood. Thankfully for her, Lauren was pathetic enough that it barely left a bruise, and all the other girl could do was stare at her in disbelief.

"Sorry..." Lauren muttered, too embarassed to react any further. The victim shook her head.

"You seem to be saying that a lot lately. You're funny. What's your name?" she asked, holding out a nicely tanned hand.

"Lauren Fithars." She took her hand with her pale one.

"Nice to meet you. Eleanor Morris, trainer extraordinare. Though... maybe not. There's a bunch of people who have been training a lot longer than we have..."

Lauren couldn't help but question how experienced the girl was. After all, she had a pichu. A freaking pichu. Sure, she shouldn't judge a pokémon by its cover, but the shock from before really didn't hurt much.

"Attention passengers. We are now disembarking."

Eleanor took her coat off the pichu and threw it over her waist. The poor thing looked defeated, covered in sweat and feelings of harassment. "Sorry Static, but you have to hide in my coat until we get off..." she said sadly, looking down at the creature. It didn't protest at all and jumped (albeit reluctantly) into the back of her coat.

"Anyway. I look forward to battling you, Lauren. I'd like to see just how interesting you are on the battlefield." She flashed her a thumbs up. Lauren awkwardly did the same, with bitter thoughts in her head.

Well, it's too late to turn back now...

Hell yeah! First chapter over! That one was a lotta fun to write.

Poor Lauren. Her awkwardness is leading her into trouble left and right. We'll hope it gets better for her.

Credits:

Red-haired quiet guy - Magmoor

Eleanor Morris - DeadlyThunder195