After running into Elek and Arty for the first time, Naruto and I began to make our way towards the Exams area, which would apparently be starting at the pond to start with. As we made our way there, he could tell that I was a bit shocked about something. He looked at me and perked his ears up in curiosity.
"Hey, brother, are you okay?" he asked me.
"Yeah, I'm all right," I said, looking at him, "Just wondering."
"Maybe I can help!" Naruto said cheerfully, "So, what's up?"
"Well, it's just that Arty was an Articuno!" I said excitedly and amazed.
"Yeah, I know," Naruto said, completely oblivious to my reasoning.
I blinked at him with utter amazement and then added, "You seriously not amazed by that? Naruto, back in the human world, Articuno are legendary Pokémon! It's rare for anyone to even see one!"
"Oh, I know, it's the same here," Naruto said smiling, "but you see, sometimes legendary Pokémon are very civil or they come here at a very young age and get so acquainted with society that they're just like one of us."
"Oh, I get it," I said, "So Arty must've come here then."
"Yeah, but right now, let's worry about getting there, okay?" Naruto giggled at me and said.
I nodded as we headed into the square and went to the pond area. And man, it was PACKED. I mean, absolutely packed! There were tons of Pokémon there, big and small, that were competing in the Exams. Wonderful, does that mean we had to go against all of these teams to pass? I groaned as Naruto had a huge sweatdrop go down his head.
"Oh, wow, um… when Sasuke told me it was big this year, I didn't think that big," he said nervously.
I felt a slow but sudden nervousness grow inside of me as I frowned. He looked over to me and flinched, realizing he made me nervous when he wasn't supposed to. He waved his paws at me and smiled nervously.
"H-Hey, it's all right! I'm sure that we'll be able to pass this year, Thomas!" he tried to say positively, but it wasn't working whatsoever.
"Are you really sure, Naruto?" I asked raising my eyebrow at him, "I mean, I had my doubts before and I still am confident in my abilities to do my part in helping you, but… now that I know there's so many…"
"Hey, don't lose your confidence, Thomas," he said to me with a smile, "I'm sure that we'll be able to pass this year. With Sasuke and Batsu on our team, we can't lose."
"Oh? Then can you first find them in this place with this many Pokémon?" I said, giving him an unimpressed glare.
There was an uncomfortable pause and silence from my brother as a comically huge sweatdrop came down his face and slowly smiled nervously. He carefully scanned the area as quickly as he could to try to find them.
"U-Uh, yeah, sure," he said, looking around, "I can find them. Just leave it to me to find them, okay?"
"….You don't know where they are, do you?" I asked as a smirk came across my face.
"I said follow me, would ya?" Naruto tried to take my attention away from the question I asked, which I know the answer was no.
So, I nodded as Naruto began to follow me towards the middle of the crowd. There were so many teams there that I could easily have freaked at if I still had my fear of Pokémon. As we came nearer to the middle, he stopped and looked back with a face of uneasiness.
"Yeah, we're supposed to meet here with them," Naruto said.
"Do you think or do you know?" I asked.
"Will you have faith in your older brother?" he said, a bit annoyed, and with myself starting to feel like I was getting revenge for the teasing he gave me with Zoey.
"I don't have much faith in someone who doesn't know what they're doing either," I said as he looked at me with an anime-style angry face.
"Hey! I have a better nose than you, Mr. I-know-everything!" Naruto said as he suddenly got a good glare and smirk on his face, "You better stop mocking me or I'm gonna pin you down and tickle you when it's just the two of us again."
Secretly and utterly afraid of that threat but keeping my composure around him, I folded my arms and looked away, saying, "I'm not trying to mock you. In fact, I don't really know what to do here at all."
"Wow, you two are completely clueless idiots, aren't you?"
My ears perked up with Naruto's as we both saw a Gengar, Ekans, and Medicham approach us. As I looked at them I could feel already by the air around them that they would not be friends of ours at all. They felt rotten and mischievous as they smirked evilly at us. Naruto stepped closer to my side, just in case something got ugly at all between us. The Gengar who obviously was the one who talked put his hands on his side.
"You can't even find your team and the exams are about to start. Geez, you guys aren't the brightest bulbs in the package," Gengar said.
"I guess in a way we are clueless, but seriously consider how big this place is. It's no wonder we wouldn't be able to find our team with all these people here," I said blinking.
"Oh, please. You live here, don't you? You should know this area like the back of your paw, Pikachu," Ekans tried to mock me.
I suppressed a really insulting comeback to that and closed my eyes a bit unimpressed as I said, "Um, I think you missed my point."
"Heh, whatever, shorty," Gengar said, catching my attention and making me a bit upset, "If there's any team that's going to pass this year, it's Team Meanies. That means we won't be beaten by a bunch of kids like you."
"Haha! Are they even teenagers? They don't even look old enough!" Ekans mocked us.
"I think that babies shouldn't try to be mature and leave this Rescue Team Exams to the pros," Medichan smirked and stooped over us.
I frowned angrily at them as Naruto growled, "We're not babies! We'll pass this year, no doubt about it!"
"Naruto, is there a problem over here?" we heard the joyous voice of our older brother say behind us.
We turned around to see Sasuke looking at Team Meanies with a serious look as the others were behind him. I sighed a big relief as I stepped back and the others joined us. In secret, I was starting to get a bit annoyed that Sasuke or Naruto had to always save me and I was starting to get angry at myself for not standing up for myself. But hey, that's what loving older siblings do; stand up for you.
"What in the world? This is your team?" Gengar said folding his arms.
"Eh? What's wrong with us, bloat-boy?" King said.
"What's right with this? You got a two babies, the two strongest rookies, the brother of a member of Team A.C.T, and the pickpocket of the square on the same team?" Medicham said surprised yet mockingly.
"Tch, a bunch of misfits. I have no clue how the lot of you became an organized group, but you should leave the mission to pros, not to a pack of babies," Gengar said rolling his eyes smirking.
"Oh, and were supposed to leave the mission to a bunch of jerkbags like you?" King said angrily.
"Excuse me?!" Gengar said as the team got angry.
"Honestly, who is going to hire a rescue team when their team name is Meanies?" Zev said, folding his arms unimpressed.
"If a team is not properly coordinated or their demeanor is not worthy to the client, they will not be hired at all in their career and thus become an ineffective team," Batsu said, unknown to me whether he was stating a rule or not.
"Plus, there's no reason to insult other people just because of their looks," Sasuke said, trying to diffuse the anger, "I'm sure both our teams will do good, don't you?"
Suddenly, there came a evil grin from Gengar as he said, "Well, guys, I believe that we found our new rivals and they want to pick a fight with us."
We all blinked in surprise as Sasuke said, "No, we don't want to fight you, and especially not here."
"We are not allowed to engage in combat unless the exam proctors allow us to," Batsu said folding his arms, "Therefore, we will not fight you."
"Heh, speak for yourself, Batsu!" King said, grinning, "If they want their butts to get burned by me, then I am willing to do that for free."
Zev scoffed as he looked like he might've gotten ready to fight just in case. He slowly slipped into a fighting stance with King as multiple Pokémon started to take notice. I didn't know whether they would start to jump in to fight or just have fun watching us, but some of their faces were menacing enough to make my skin crawl.
"Yeah, we'll teach you who's the real babies!" Naruto said as he snarled.
"Naruto, don't!" Sasuke tried to stop him.
"Hey, bring it on, you wimps!" Gengar said as his team got ready and a fight looked almost inevitable.
"All right, that's enough! You stop right there!" an adult voice said.
We all jumped to see a normal looking Typhlosion yell at us while his arms were folded, but something shocked me about his appearance. His flame on his back was blue! It was dark and light blue as he had a bit of fur ruffled on his forehead. He glared at us with an angry look on his face.
"You, the team with the Gengar! Knock it off! Who told you that you can pick a fight with an opposing team?" he said, and then to all of us, "Do you honestly want to get disqualified before the exams even begin?"
Naruto gasped as he realized who it was, "You're Tony!"
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