Hello everyone! And a good day to you all!

I said last week that I would post a chapter on either Saturday or Sunday, so here it is! Okay, I did update on Thursday (with the chapter I had originally planned to post today), but then I got a suggestion from someone, and I really felt like writing because of it. How I managed to write my longest chapter yet in two days when I was so busy is a mystery, but I think you guys are more interested in reading than wondering how I did it.

Today's topic was suggested by eeveeluvr, so here it is!

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon in any way, shape or size!

Poster Wars

Grade Four

May (9), Gary (9), Paul (9), Drew (9), Misty (9), Ash (9), Dawn (9), Leaf (9)

"Come on, Gary!" May whined. "We're all supposed to be doing this together!"

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute..." Gary responded absentmindedly, as he was more focused on his chess game with Paul.

"You said that half an hour ago!"

May and her seven friends were all gathered at Leaf's house. Their grade four teacher had told everyone to divide into groups of three or four and make a poster on a Pokemon habitat for next week. Initially, these eight had planned to make two groups, one with the boys, and another with the girls, but it seemed they all had different ideas for the poster.

Misty, Gary and Dawn wanted to do a more water-themed poster, while Leaf, Drew and Ash preferred to do a forest-themed one. May had decided to join the water-theme group, because she wanted to do the poster with Dawn, while Leaf had dragged Paul into her group before he could decide. After Gary had bragged that his group would make the best poster, Leaf, being the competitive girl she was, had declared war, with the winner being whoever made the better poster.

And so it was the weekend, and the two groups were all working at Leaf's house, except there was one small problem. Gary brought his chess board over from next door, and challenged Paul to a match, which of course he didn't decline. The two groups were annoyed that one member from each was not working hard on their project.

"Gary, you come help us or else!" Misty threatened.

"Check." Gary warned Paul, who made a move to protect his king.

"Paul, please?" Ash pleaded. "It's not fair that you're not doing any of the work."

"Check's on you now." Paul said, completely ignoring the black-haired boy and smirking at Gary.

Leaf frowned. She didn't get it! What was so interesting about chess that it completely captured the two boys' attention? Especially Gary's! She had known him for nearly her whole life, and she knew that he was not someone who liked to sit around and focus on something so boring. One day, he just somehow got interested in checkers, which Leaf never found any competitive excitement in. And then he got into chess, which was ten times worse! He'd just sit there for so long, just staring at the board without doing anything.

Leaf had once tried to play it with him, but she couldn't stand it. Gary had been taking so long just to think out his first move, and then, when she had asked him to hurry up, he had gotten annoyed at her impatience, and beat her in three moves. Apparently, he had picked that move up from somewhere, and used it on Leaf because she kept interrupting his train of thought for a longer, more complicated strategy. The only good thing that came from all that was that Leaf learned what the role of each piece was. She could use this knowledge to her advantage right now.

"Ash," she said, looking at her poster partner. "You are never going to get anywhere by saying 'please' to those two. This is how you do it."

She got up and walked over to the chess-players and carefully scanned all their pieces. Before either of them could do anything, she snatched up what she knew was the most important piece: the king.

Paul's head snapped up. "That's my king, so give it back. Now." he demanded. Leaf grinned mischievously as she shook her head and held the piece tightly in her fist behind her back.

"Leafy, how are we supposed to play if Paul doesn't have his king?" Gary complained. "How am I supposed to put him on checkmate?"

"You're not. You guys aren't even supposed to be playing chess right now." Leaf answered.

"Come on, Leafy, I was winning! I was about to defeat him!"

"No, cuz he probably would have noticed your plan and then stopped it, and then the game would have gone on for much longer." Leaf pointed out.

Paul stood up, facing the girl, his black eyes sending a glare at her green ones. "Give. Me. The king."

Leaf stared right back at him, not intimidated one bit. For some reason, his glares never seemed to affect her. "Nope! But let's make a deal. I'll only give it back if you work on the poster with us for at least one hour. Then, after we beat Gary at making the best poster, you can go back to beating him at chess."

"Hey!" Gary scowled. "I was the one who was winning!"

Paul narrowed his eyes, considering her offer, before giving in. "Fine. But you have to give it back right after."

"Paul!" Gary pouted. "You could just take it back from her or something!" Paul just rolled his eyes and begrudgingly took his place with his group.

"Good. Now you can come help us too, Gary." Dawn called her spiky-haired friend over.

"Fine." He sat down with his group. "So, what were we doing again?"

Misty glared at him. "You wouldn't be asking that if you were helping us."

"We're doing a Pokemon-water-habitat poster, I know that." Gary said, rolling his eyes. "I mean how are we planning to do it?"

"You would have known that too." Misty muttered.

"Well, we're going to make the ocean, and a little island." Dawn explained. "There are going to be lots of water Pokemon, and some flying type like Wingull and Pelipper flying in the air. And we have to write some information beside everything we make."

"The instructions say that we also have to show things, like the kind of food the Pokemon eat in the area, how they live with the other Pokemon, and things like that." May added.

"Okay, that doesn't sound hard. What should I do?" Gary asked.

"Well, Misty's writing about the water Pokemon, and May and I are drawing the pictures and decorating." Dawn told him. Her eyes lit up in excitement as a thought entered her head. "I know! You can write some Pokemon poetry like your grandpa, Professor Oak!"

Gary groaned. "My grandpa's the one who writes poems. Not me."

"Oh, come on! Please?" Dawn urged. "I'm sure you probably know lots of poems because of him!"

"How about I just draw a Blastoise on the island?" Gary suggested, wanting to get off topic. Dawn looked a bit disappointed, but she allowed him to proceed with his idea.

Meanwhile, with Leaf's group...

"Wow, that's a very nice rose, Drew." Leaf complimented.

"Thanks!" Drew didn't take his eyes off of the rose bush he was sketching meticulously.

"Okay, Paul, so what are you going to do?" Leaf asked the purple-haired boy.

"Don't know, don't care." he replied, looking bored.

"Okay, then..." Leaf smirked. "Draw all the cute Pokemon, like the Buneary, that live in the forest."

Paul narrowed his eyes. "No, something else. What are the others doing?"

Drew straightened up to look over his sketches. "I'm drawing all the plants and stuff."

"Drew's drawing all the green plants?" May, who had overheard, commented, bursting into giggles.

"At least you can tell what I'm drawing. I'm not even sure what those scribbles you made are, February." Drew shot back, immediately resulting in a pouting May. Drew flipped his hair victoriously.

"It's not my fault I don't get special art lessons from tutors like you do." the bandana-wearing girl defended. "And my name is May!"

"Don't listen to him." Dawn comforted her. "Your work is beautiful!"

May, in a slightly better mood from her friend's encouragement, but still a little moody, went back to her drawing. Drew felt a bit relieved. He was afraid he had accidentally upset her a bit too much.

"Yeah, yeah, Drew's drawing his hair. What else?" Paul asked impatiently, ignoring the small shout of protest he received from his green-haired friend.

"I'm making all the cool bug Pokemon!" Ash announced excitedly, earning a disgusted look from Misty. "There's Caterpie, and Metapod, and Venonat, and Beedrill, and..."

"And you?" Paul interrupted, turning his attention to Leaf.

"I'm drawing all the other Pokemon, and the doing all the labeling and writing and stuff."

"Fine. I'll do all the writing then. You just draw."

With everyone's role settled, the two groups got to work. They were quiet for a while, as they were pretty busy. Eventually, Gary ended up helping Misty with the writing, as he knew many details that he had picked up from his grandpa. It was discovered that May was actually much better at colouring than drawing, as she added bright colours to Dawn's pictures. Ash had to start helping Drew finish drawing all the plants, as Drew took so much time detailing his sketches instead of working faster. Paul turned out to be very knowledgeable about Pokemon, as he sometimes read his brother's school work about Pokemon Studies. Leaf put many drawings and colours onto their poster, and very neatly too.

Eventually, it looked like everything was done. All the writing and labels were proofread, and all the pictures coloured in. But both groups thought their posters were missing something. Something that would make their work really stand out.

"Glitter!" Dawn whispered to her group members. "We can put glitter to make the water look sparkly!"

"But we don't have glitter." May pointed out, frowning. "And if we ask Leaf, she'll take our idea!"

"My house is next door. I can quickly go see if Daisy has anything." Gary offered.

"Okay, go! And hurry!" Misty urged, and he took off. The other group noticed.

"Looks like they got an idea for their poster." Leaf noted. "Gary probably went to his house to get something. We need to think of something, and fast!"

"This is your house, Leaf." Ash said. "Don't you have any art stuff?"

"Hmm, maybe..." Leaf looked thoughtful. "I know! Wait, I'll be back in a second!" She sped off to another room.

After a while, Leaf and Gary returned, both hiding whatever they had brought to prevent their rival group from seeing it. As they quietly used their 'secret weapons', a loud, delighted whisper emerged from Dawn. "Ooooo, this looks gorgeous! Ours is gonna be the best for sure!"

Leaf, Drew, Ash and Paul curiously glanced at the others. What was so great that they thought they were going to win their little 'contest'? They just had to know!

"We've got to see what they're up to." Leaf declared, taking on the 'leader' role for her group. "We need to now what they're doing so we can make our poster better."

"But how? If we try to peek at their work, they would know we're spying." Drew reasoned.

"What if..." Leaf thought aloud. "What if only one of us goes, and pretends we only need something from them, and then quickly looks at what they are doing, and comes back and tells us!"

"Ash should go." Paul volunteered his black-haired friend. "The others won't think he's smart or sneaky enough to do something like that."

"Hey!" Ash protested. "I can be very smart and sneaky!"

"Good idea though. It makes sense." Drew gave his support. "Ash should definitely go."

"So, what should I do?" Ash asked.

"Just ask them for a green pencil crayon." Leaf directed.

"But we already have enough green pencil crayons. Wouldn't that be like lying?"

"You don't have to say we need one, just ask for one!" Paul said, exasperated.

"And don't forget to get a good look at their poster." Drew reminded him.

"Okay... but wait! Wouldn't that be like cheating?" His three friends groaned.

"Another reason why the others won't suspect anything." Paul muttered. "Too much of a goody-two-shoes."

"Ash, just do it." Leaf ordered, tiredly.

Ash hesitated a bit, but then obeyed. Once the other group spotted Ash approaching them, they hurriedly arranged themselves to block their poster from view.

"Hello..." May said warily.

"What do you want, Ash-boy?" Gary snapped.

"Well, um, I need a... I mean, I want a, um..."

"Just say it!" Misty was annoyed with his stuttering.

"Can I have a green pencil crayon?" Ash finally managed to ask.

"Why?" Gary asked suspiciously.

Why? Ash panicked. Why did he need a green pencil crayon? The others never told him what to say in this situation! Ash had to think on the spot himself. What did one do with a green pencil crayon?

"To colour!" he blurted out.

"Wow, way to state the obvious." Gary remarked sarcastically.

"Well, if you knew, then why did you ask?!" Ash demanded angrily.

"You guys already have so many green colours." Dawn pointed out. "Why do you need another one?"

"For our awesome poster!" Ash bragged. "We're going to make it better than yours!"

"Do whatever you want, because we'll win no matter what!" Gary boasted confidently.

"So can I have the pencil?" Ash asked. The other four looked at one another.

"I guess you can." Misty said shrugging.

"I'll just go get it..." As Dawn got up to get the pencil, and the other three turned, Ash quickly got on his tip-toes to steal a glance at their poster. It was hard to see over Gary's spiky hair, but he finally succeeded in catching a glimpse. His eyes widened at the sight, and he straightened out as fast as he could when the others turned towards him again.

"Here you go." Dawn handed him what he was asking for.

"Thanks!" Ash began heading back to his group.

"Bye bye!" May waved after him, and got scolded by Gary for "befriending the enemy".

"So?" Leaf asked Ash impatiently.

"What did you see?" Drew wondered, noting his friend's stunned face.

"They've got... glitter-glue!" Ash reported breathlessly.

"Glitter-glue?" Drew repeated in awe.

"Where did they get that?" Leaf asked, clearly surprised. With glitter-glue, the others had a huge advantage over them.

"Gary probably got it from his house, duh." Paul pointed out the obvious.

"Their poster looks amazing!" Ash said worriedly. "There are a lot of different colours, and it looks like Dawn might have done the glitter stuff, cuz it's all very neat and not too much."

Leaf's face scrunched up as she tried to think of a plan. She didn't have any glitter in her house, because her mother insisted it would only end up making a mess. The only craft things she had managed to find were pieces of felt, which she and her group had cut up into leaf-shapes and pasted onto the trees of their poster. They needed something more. Something that would really boost the 'amazing-ness' of their work.

"Do you have any stickers? You know, like grass type Pokemon, or plants, or forest stuff? We could use those." Drew suggested.

"Yeah!" Leaf agreed enthusiastically. "I have some Bulbasaur stickers, and some flower ones too. Those will look nice!"

"And we could use beads or something to make a design on the edges of the poster, or beside the labels." Ash gave his idea.

"Yeah, that's a very creative idea, Ash!" Leaf got up. "I'll be right back!"

The other group, the one with May, Dawn, Gary and Misty, saw Leaf get up and leave, and then come back a while later with a small bag, which was most likely filled with more supplies.

"What do you think they're doing?" Dawn pondered.

"Do you think they saw our poster and went to get some glitter for themselves?" May asked.

"Ugh, we fell for their trick!" Misty suddenly realized. "They probably didn't even need a green pencil crayon. Ash was probably just trying to see what we did!"

"They're a bunch of copy-Meowths!" Gary scowled.

"But what if they aren't using glitter like us?" Dawn pointed out reasonably. "What if they got a different, better idea?"

"There's no way we can know for sure." said Misty. "Unless... we do what they did!"

"Huh? What do you mean?" May questioned curiously.

"We should go see exactly what they're up to." Misty explained. "One of us has to go and peek at their work."

"Like a top secret spy?" Gary was interested. But before he could say anything else, there was an excited squeal.

"I'll do it, I'll do it!" May volunteered, an adventurous look in her eye. She joined her index fingers with the opposite hands' thumbs to make a rectangle and looked through it as if it were a camera.

"May's Expeditions are a-go!" she announced.

"Sssh!" Dawn hushed frantically. "They'll hear you!"

May winked before heading over to the others. She crept up behind them quietly, trying to peek over their heads. They were so absorbed with whatever they were doing, that they didn't notice her presence, until she stumbled when she accidentally stepped on the chess board that was still lying there.

"What are you doing here, April?" Drew interrogated as he faced her. The others tensed and did their best to hide their work from view.

"Oh, nothing." May's innocent smile was unconvincing. "Just, you know, minding my own business..."

"It doesn't look like that to me." Paul spoke up. "Why are you 'minding your own business' all the way over here?"

"Well, you see..." May hesitated. "I thought I forgot something here, but I was trying to be careful not to bother you guys, or else you might think I'm spying."

Ash relaxed, but the others appeared unconvinced.

"What did you lose?" Leaf sharply demanded.

"My pencil." May blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. Nice going, May. she thought to herself. Now they'll know I'm lying, since Ash already used the 'I need a pencil' excuse.

"Your pencil?" Leaf sounded unbelieving.

"Yeah. It's red, so could you check if it's somewhere around here?"

"There isn't any red pencil here, other than ours." Paul said coldly without even looking.

"Oh, really? That's too bad..." May tried to appear crest-fallen.

Ash looked sincerely sorry, while Drew, who was starting to fall for her act, began feeling a bit guilty. Leaf was starting to seem a bit unsure of whether to believe her bandana-wearing friend or not, though she still seemed more doubtful, but Paul hadn't been affected by her 'heart-breaking' story at all.

"Yeah, too bad. Now leave." Paul ordered unsympathetically.

"O-okay." May lowered her head so her bangs fell over her eyes. Drew, feeling increasingly guilty about making her unhappy, although he had nothing to do with her 'tragic lost pencil', peeled off a sticker of a rose from Leaf's sticker sheet.

"Here." he said, presenting his 'sad' friend with it. "You can have this, if you want."

May blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. "Thank you, Drew. It's such a pretty flower!"

"It's not for you, September." Drew said quickly, feeling he was being too nice to his 'enemy'. "It's for... your pencil, once you've found it. It's red right? A rose sticker might look good on it."

"Oh." May frowned a bit as she took the gift. "And my name is May!

Paul rolled his eyes and turned to the girl. "Now go away."

As she left, Leaf glared at Drew. "I was gonna use that sticker for the poster!"

Meanwhile, May's group was awaiting her report.

"I didn't get to see their poster." May admitted. "But there were some beads lying around, and some bits of felt, and they have stickers too, cuz Drew gave me one."

"Wow, they have a lot of stuff..." Misty said.

"Do you know what we need? Gel pens!" Dawn said excitedly. "We can use it to make our title at the top stand out even more!"

"Good news." Gary stated, looking in the small bag he had brought the glitter-glue in. "There are gel pens in here. Daisy must have known we might need them."

"Okay everyone!" Misty punched her fist in the air. "Let's get to work!"

"Oops! I forgot!" Leaf giggled as she remembered something. The eight of them were having lunch at the table now. After a long time of working hard, they had completed their posters, but the problem was, both groups insisted that theirs was the best. Finally, they decided on having their teacher's opinion be the final word.

Leaf turned to Paul. "I didn't give you your king back. And you worked with us for way more than just one hour!"

"You mean this king?" Paul pulled out the piece from his pocket.

Leaf blinked. "How did you get that from me?" She just got a shrug as a response.

"Wait, so if you remembered about that, why did you continue working with us after the hour was over?"

"I forgot what strategy I was going to use on Gary."

"Oh."

"You would have lost anyways, so it's not like that would have made a difference." Gary bragged arrogantly.

"We'll see about that. Let's go continue our match right now." Paul challenged, standing up.

"You're on!" Gary stood up too.

"Um, actually..." May fidgeted with her fingers. "I might have maybe accidentally stepped on the board and messed up your game."

The two boys groaned and slumped back down on their chairs.

"Wow, October, you're such a klutz." Drew commented, smirking.

"No, I'm not!" May pouted. "And it's May!"

It was the day the poster was due. Colourful posters, presenting different Pokemon habitats, could be seen everywhere in the classroom, each done by a different group of students, but there were two particular posters that stood out.

The eight friends were divided into two groups, one that was made by Leaf, Ash, Paul and Drew, and the other by Gary, Dawn, May and Misty. Each proudly presented their poster to the teacher, Mr. Robertson, who was clearly impressed.

"Wow!" he marveled. "These are just amazing! So creative! How did you guys manage it?"

The poster made by Leaf's group was forest-themed. It showed a small clearing surrounded by trees, and Pokemon, plants, and many different berries could be seen in either the clearing, or the surrounding shrubbery, which had been sketched artistically and in detail by Drew. The trees had some felt leaves, and beads and stickers created a wonderful-looking border for the whole poster.

Gary's group's poster was water-themed. It showed the ocean, with a small island in the middle. Many different water type Pokemon could be seen either swimming in the water or resting on the island. Glitter-glue had been used to outline the ocean waves, and gel pens to decorate the title and outline some of the Pokemon. Artificial sea shells had been glued on to decorate the island and the corners of the poster (the sea shells had been added on Sunday night by Gary with the help of Daisy. His team members were thrilled at the addition, while the other group thought it was unfair).

"Which one do you like better?" Leaf asked, trying to sound casual.

"Well, really, I can't decide. They're both excellent!"

Both groups were unsatisfied.

"If you could only choose one, which one would you choose?" Gary made an attempt to get Mr. Robertson to reveal his favourite.

"Only one? Well, I don't think I will be able to pick between these two..."

"Can you try?" Leaf pleaded.

"I'm sorry guys, but both of these are great. I can't spend all day trying to decide; I have a class to teach!" With that, the eight were sent back to their desks.

"What do we do now?" Misty pondered aloud at recess. If the teacher wouldn't tell them which one was the best, how would they know who the winner was?

"We can call it a draw." May proposed, as, honesty, she really liked both posters.

"A draw?" Ash considered the idea.

"No way!" Leaf declined. "There has to be a winner!"

"Yeah!" Gary chimed in. "And it's me!"

"No way! Ours was way better!"

"Nuh uh!"

"We could all be winners." Dawn tried to break it up.

"That's like the same as a draw!" Gary pointed out.

"Why don't you guys try to be the best at something else?" Drew suggested wisely.

"Like what?" Leaf asked.

"Like annoying Paul!" Gary joked. "I can annoy him the best!"

"I can hurt you the best." Paul threatened, making Gary step back, his grin faltering.

"I was kidding..."

"Why do you guys even want to be the best? I mean, it was fun just making the posters." May reasoned.

"Yeah, we should do it again some time." Ash said.

"That's it!" Leaf exclaimed. "We can make more posters, and then we can see who has the best out of those!"

"It's gonna be mine for sure! But at my house, this time." Gary quickly said.

As Leaf and Gary discussed the continuation of the poster-war, the other six shook their heads. When was this going to end?

Whew! Hope you guys enjoyed that, because I certainly enjoyed writing it!

A reminder: in case you guys didn't see my author's note from last chapter, there is a poll on my profile, so be sure to check that out! I'm planning to close it in maybe about two weeks. One thing though. I realized that readers without profiles can't vote on polls, but then a guest reviewer gave me their 'vote' as a review. So you can do that if you don't have a profile (you can call yourself a guest or guest voter if you want to make it anonymous).

Also, school is going to start soon, which is going to cut my writing-time by a lot! Just thought I'd warn you. However, whenever I get a suggestion in a review/PM, I get inspired and really motivated to start writing, and sometimes manage to quickly write out a whole chapter (usually in about two to three days, though it might take longer depending on how much free time I have). So suggestions might be what I need sometimes.

Please review, and thanks for reading!

Bye bye for now! And have a smiling day! :)