"Ouch!" My head crashed against the bottom of the couch as Fieritis stood up, almost as if he'd forgotten my existence. I frowned, slowly getting up, realised that we had company. There was a girl, several years older than I, with long copper hair and big green eyes walking towards us. She was wearing a blue beanie, which actually really suited her, and a matching dress, similar to mine but in a different colour actually. Unsurely, I got onto my feet and joined the boys who had walked off without me.
"Well hello." said the girl. "I'm Astrid."
Astrid gestured us to follow, beckoning us over to her as she walked, and partly skipped, down the corridor. We had to jog rather than walk to keep up with her at some points. We'd passed one of the miniature pokemon centres on our right, with Nurse Joy tending to some tired looking creatures, a smile upon her face. I looked down the hall, noticing many small pictures, certificates and medals hanging up on the walls, all in perfect condition. No scratches, no marks, nothing, as if it were the Academy's prized possessions. I looked over my shoulder, still walking, seeing Lucus running to catch up with us. What on earth had he been up to? Every now and then we'd seen trainers standing with their pokemon. Some were small kids about ten and others were older, like Astrid and I felt glad to be in the middle. She came to a halt and put her hands on her hips, standing just in front of the big door at the end of the long hallway we had been walking down. I heard a small gasp as Lucus stopped abruptly, only inches away from Fieritis' back as if he were about to walk into him. I didn't look over, but I grinned, discretely as the red haired girl opened the door.
"Alright! Listen up, greenies!" Astrid beamed, spinning around to face us, walking backwards as we gazed in fascination. We had entered a GIANT room with a HUGE battle floor in the middle, hundreds of seats surrounding it and lots and lots of smaller sections on the outside of the battlefield. It was like an arena with lots of things happening at once. There were people everywhere, laughing and smiling as they did many activities which made me feel as though I were seeing things. "This is the event hall!" Astrid continued. 'Event hall?' I thought, looking at our tour guide, curiously. She quickly laughed, cleared her throat, attempted to be focus and explained. "In this hall will be hosted most of the events. These go from battling competitions based on typing t pokemon battes and other events like Tauros training or pokemon parkour. Current contests will announce themselves with a flyer presented a week before the actual event that can be found inside of your mail box." Fieritis opened his mouth to speak, confused and Astrid held up her forefinger to shush him. I giggled quietly as we walked through the next door.
There were tens of glass tables, all laid out neatly with a red table cloth and finished off with pokeball table mats. We all walked over to the middle of the room, studying it closely. The doors slammed open and a short kid walked in, holding his arms up in the air, smiling and calling out to his mates. It was the boy that we had seen outside earlier, battling the tired green-looking pokemon. A group of people around the boys age ran over to him, crowding him, asking him questions, going right up in his face. He said something, which I didn't quite hear but, it was followed by lots of clapping and cheering. Astrid's face lit up as she dashed over to him, pushing past everybody, seeming so very much taller due to age difference.
"Do you think they know each other?" I asked, glaring at Lucus, wanting to know what was going on. He shrugged and looked past me, watching what was going on. I sunk down feeling slightly disappointed that he didn't know anything, but hey-ho.
"What was that about?" Lucus asked, raising his eyebrows, Astrid running back to us, apologising through expression but however, still smiling.
"Oh, that's Wolf. He's like a bother to me. Don't really know how but he just is." she paused and then added, "He just won a battle against an ex gym leader's kid and-" Fieritis huffed and rolled his eyes.
"What's so good about that?" he interrupted.
"He's only in his first year at this academy!" she said, shocked. "Most people our age have been here for several years and we would still struggle..." she boasted, Lucus chuckling away to himself.
"Quite the achievement then." he said, Astrid beginning to walk off again to proceed with the tour and we followed.
I covered my eyes, blinded by the bright sunshine shining down on us.
"This is the centre of our school. The courtyard." my eyes slowly adjusted to the light, revealing a park like area surrounded by trees, flowers and many bug pokemon with a large, noisy fountain in the middle, flowing down into the basin at the bottom. We all ran off to look at different things of interest. Astrid came with me, running beside me as I went over to the benches surrounding the fountain. I bent down, closely looking at a small Weedle making its way towards the edge.
"It's so cute." I whisper. I would have never said that a few days ago. Everything had changed since we'd left home... I would have said "Ew it's so ugly..." or something mean.
"I know right." we both laughed. I stood up, sticking my hand into the water flowing down from the fountain
"AAAAASTRIIID?" Fieritis called from a little way away, cupping his hands over his mouth. I turned around to face him at the same time as Astrid, noticing a tall silhouette sitting on the branches of one of the trees, resting there. "WHAT'S THIS POKEMON?!" he bellowed, Lucus cringing behind him. I could see the pokemon now, and it was familiar and I knew what it was for sure. My hand shot up before Astrid could speak and I was springing up and down over enthusiastically.
"I know, I know!" I cried out, grabbing Astrid's wrist and dragging her over to see it up close. "It's Vivillon!" I exclaimed. "Right?" I looked at her, hoping that I didn't make another stupid mistake. She nodded, reassuring me, smiling cheesily and I smiled back. "They originate from the Kalos region!" then I realised that it should be impossible for it to get all the way here. "Wait... how did it get here?" I looked up at the butterfly pokemon. Astrid began to take us to the exit of the courtyard, holding the door open for us.
There were about six or seven doors, spread out by quite a distance all with pokemon types and their symbols on them. She walked through the normal type door and walked through, revealing even more doors. The room we were in was white, with three couches placed in a u-shape and a fireplace burning viciously. There was a door on either side of the room. One with a Nidoranmale, the other with a Nidoranfemale.
"The purple one is for the boys, the blue for the girls." Astrid exclaimed, leading Lucus and Fieritis through the purple door, leaving me to wait, but she wasn't too long, thankfully. Soon enough she was with me again, leading me through the blue door. There were even more doors here. One had an adorable Cleffa painting, the next one a Clefairy and the last, a big Clefable.
"You'll be staying in the Clefairy ro-" she stopped. "Wait, how old are you again?"
"I'm thirteen." I said, proudly, smiling.
"Ok, yeah, so you'll be in the Clefairy room. Cleffa is for 8-10 year olds and the Clefable room is for anyone older than 16." I nodded and walked over to the door, ready to start my new life.