After a furious two weeks, the Shadow Stripe was officially over.
There was joy and pain from respective students especially depending on they were able to complete their Shadow Stripe goal in the process.
However for Kenan, all that mattered was that he and his friends passed the ritual.
"Man! We did it! I can't believe it right buddy!" Rex said smiling as he gave Kenan a can of soda.
He and Rex were celebrating their passage of the Shadow Stripe in their dorm, well more like Rex was celebrating by himself. Kenan was simply sitting on the couch and calmly sipping some of his drink while his roommate made a fool of himself.
"Yeah I know but remember we have the striping ceremony in a few hours." Kenan reminded him.
"I swear you can be such a spoilsport sometimes. Come on, all of us just achieved really great! We deserve to celebrate a little!" His roommate said in response to him.
Kenan sighed as he took some of the chips that Rex had laid out for them and ate them. However, as soon as he did, he got a message on his phone from Tyson of all people.
"Hey what is it?" Rex asked.
"It is Tyson, he wants to meet up with us near the center of the academy." Kenan said as he got up.
Rex sighed reluctantly but soon got up as he and Kenan soon went to meet Tyson at the academy center.
When they saw Tyson, they also saw Shion and Robyn there as well. Confused, both Rex and Kenan went up to them.
"Hey! I am glad you two were able to make it." Tyson said with a cheerful smile on his face.
"Tyson hey, any reason why you called us out here?" Rex asked evidently a bit irritated at having his and Kenan's impromptu party interrupted for no reason.
"Right right, I wanted to do something for all of us passing our Shadow Stripes." Tyson said smiling as he took out a marker and asked them to hold their hands out.
The four of them held out their hands as Tyson soon drew a line on all their hands that when put together formed a perfect circle.
"And done! What do you guys think?" Tyson asked with a smile as he put away the marker.
"Um what is this Tyson, not that I am complaining but I am kind of confused." Robyn said to him.
"Oh right, it is from this TV show that I watched back when I was a kid. In the first episode, one of the characters drew a 'friendship circle' on her friend's hands that symbolized their friendship and how it will always remain intact no matter how far apart they are. So, I wanted to do that for our group." Tyson said chuckling a bit.
Kenan smiled. That sounded like a nice sentiment that he could get behind.
"That is very nice Tyson, I feel like we could use something like that for our group." Kenan said as the others also agreed with him.
Shion soon checked the time and was shocked.
"Um guys, I hate to ruin this lovely moment, but the striping ceremony starts in like ten minutes." Shion pointed out.
Everyone realizes that, and started to freak out as they all rushed to the Orientation Hall so that they wouldn't be late.
They managed to get to the Orientation Hall on time as Kenan was the last one to get in the hall. But as he did, he accidentally bumped into someone.
"Hey watch where your going on…" Lyna was about to say when she saw Kenan and immediately lost her train of thought.
Kenan for the most part also look at Lyna and lost what he was going to say as well.
Both of them didn't say a word but the blushes on their face told them all what they were thinking at the moment.
Unfortunately for them, their cute moment was interrupted when Ema came up to Lyna and dragged her away to the line for the Performance Course student who had passed their stripes.
"Hey Kenan, who was that?" Rex asked him.
Kenan said he didn't know but he had a feeling that they would meet again.
Soon the five of them got in line for the Trainer Course students who had passed the Shadow Stripe.
And as soon as it was Kenan's turn, he saw Professor Hartley alongside his assistant who was holding a small machine.
"Hello Kenan, congratulations on passing your Shadow Stripe and I hope you enjoy the rest of your experience here at the academy." Professor Hartley said to him.
His assistant soon asked Kenan to show his arm as he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt so that his arm showed. Soon the machine that the assistant was hold sent out a laser that touched his skin. It was painful but it was brief as soon Kenan had a stripe tattoo that was black in nature on his skin.
Soon Kenan reunited with his friends as they all had the same tattoo on their skins as well.
"Alright who is up for a party in the common area?" Rex asked with a smile on his face.
Everyone responded excitedly as Kenan's mind was still on the girl he met as he followed his friends to the common area.
Briar Mallory had always loved the sea.
That might be a weird statement to make coming from a Fire-type trainer like himself, but it was the truth.
The way the sea smelled and the way the Pokemon around the area played had always been main attractions to him whenever he visited the beach.
But… that wasn't why he was here now.
Briar soon petted his Camerupt as he saw the person he was supposed to meet finally arrived: Ralphie Clifford.
"About time, me and Camerupt were about to leave." Briar said to him as his Camerupt went to play with Ralphie's Cramorant who had followed him to the beach.
"Yeah yeah, hold your breath. I got the information that you needed." Ralphie said giving a dossier to Briar.
Briar took the dossier and read over it and soon his eyes widened.
"So it is true, they are in Galar." Briar said.
"Yeah, Nessa called me a few days ago and told me she spotted some grunts lurking around Hulbury. Had her spooked." Ralphie said.
"And just around the time of the field trip." Briar said as he looked to the sky.
To say it was terrible timing would be a understatement.
"Then I guess I am going to have to be on my guard during the trip." Briar said as he thanked Ralphie for the information as he and Camerupt soon left the beach with the next their move already planned out.
