In which Florian and Juliana bond over something very, very important to them, and insignificant to the story as a whole.
There was a boy at the lighthouse. A very attractive boy, Juliana noticed, with long, fluffy hair and a single blue eye visible. He didn't seem happy to see them, but rushed to the dragon as if he knew it.
"What are you doing out here?" he demanded, to the other humans' confusion.
The dragon chirped enthusiastically, not seeming to recognize the boy's anger. The boy shook his head and turned on Nemona.
"What have you done to Koraidon, you witch?"
"Koraidon? Is that the dragon?" Nemona gestured to the others. "I did nothing to the dragon. They fed it sandwiches."
"Leave me out of this," Florian mumbled, thinking back to the plastic bag he'd had to throw in the recycle bin because Koraidon had chomped it in two.
The boy did leave him out of it, turning on Juliana. "It seems the witch of the student council took an apprentice," he said coldly. "What have your magic sandwiches done to Koraidon?"
"It was my mom's magic sandwich," Juliana explained, "and I don't think she's a witch. She hasn't told me, and we're pretty close..." she shook her head and got back on topic like she hadn't left it at all. "All it did was help Koraidon get its strength back. You should have seen it crashed on the beach..."
"Just ignore him," Nemona said, rolling her eyes. "Arven's the tough guy of the humanities track - not a difficult accomplishment, but just because his mom's some big-name scientist..."
"It doesn't matter who my mom is!" Arven snapped. "And it doesn't matter who you are! This Pokémon is not meant to be in human sight, and it's definitely not supposed to look like this!"
"It did look different at one point," Juliana admitted as Koraidon scratched its head with its back foot, "but I found it like this and then I fed it, and it changed form, and then there was this Houndour army..."
Arven huffed and crossed his arms. "Save the story, witch," he said. "You saw Koraidon. Now I have to kill you."
"Hey! I saved Koraidon! And then Koraidon saved me!"
Koraidon chirped to back up her story. Arven looked from Koraidon to Juliana, then shrugged.
"I won't kill you," he decided. "A battle will do fine. I'll bet that brute's ball as a prize."
If Juliana were the slightest bit more observant, she would have detected ulterior motives. As it was, she prepared for battle, leading with Lechonk.
Arven used only a Skwovet. According to her Rotom, Skwovet did have a bit more experience than Lechonk did, but the pig still won the match.
Arven called Skwovet back, not mentioning another Pokémon. "You win," he announced, tossing her a Pokeball. "That's Koraidon's. Good luck."
And he took off down the path, no further goodbyes to any of them. Nemona's eye twitched, and she shouted after him.
"Yeah, take off for school! Act like you actually show up!" She crossed her arms angrily and turned to Florian and Juliana. "Don't be like that guy. He's a jerk."
"A hot jerk," Juliana specified.
Nemona froze, then cleared her throat. "Well...ok, I'll give him that much...but my point remains! Show up for school, keep up with training and homework, don't be a jerk." She gestured to the lighthouse. "Now, let's stop talking about Arven and start talking about school!"
As they watched their friend scamper up the ladder, Juliana barely muffled a giggle.
Florian looked at her in mock irritation, then broke into quiet laughter himself. "You ship it, too, don't you?"
Juliana nodded. They were quiet for three whole seconds, and then both of them burst into laughter once more, louder this time, high-fiving as their first act of solidarity.
And Nemona immediately called down and demanded that they get up there, and that they tell her what was so funny she could hear the echoes from the lighthouse.
"Have you ever seen the school from this angle, Florian?" Nemona asked as they made it up the ladder themselves.
"Not really. I live in Cortondo, I get a good enough view from the olive fields."
"Are your parents farmers, then?"
"No. My dad's a lawyer."
Juliana was taking in the view, barely listening to the conversation behind her. She knew she'd forget it anyway. She removed the sketchbook from her bag and began to doodle in it.
It wasn't an accurate representation of the landscape. She wasn't a landscape painter. But she translated it into her cartoony art style as best she could, starting with the giant castle - the one that Nemona had pointed out as Mesagoza, home of Naranja Academy.
I wonder what Artazon is like, Juliana wondered as she drew. Her mother had looked there when they were moving, but all artists lived in Artazon and Sofia's job required less competition.
Juliana wondered if she could live in Artazon one day.
And she wondered where they could get some decent food - after all, she had sacrificed her sandwich.
Once they left the lighthouse, the three quickly decided to have a race. The last one to Los Platos would pay for their snacks.
Nemona had pointed out the path they were going to take. It took Juliana all of two minutes to wander off said path and get hopelessly lost.
In her defense, she had remembered that she'd been chasing a Fletchling when she'd met Florian and been distracted by Koraidon, and had taken off after another. She'd captured the Fletchling, but had wandered so far off the path she couldn't even see it now.
What she could see, however, was something purple peeking from the walls of a cliff.
She didn't process it at first. Then she dismissed it as a Lechonk. When her Rotom told her that a Lechonk was black and a shiny Lechonk would be pink, she finally decided to get a closer look.
It was definitely purple, buried in rock. And whatever it was, it was glowing ominously.
"That looks important," said Juliana, and then she turned and walked away, figuring that she'd find the path again sooner or later.
She did not process something attacking the cliff from the other side, or how more of the cliff gave way to more purple.
Florian saw the Ralts first.
Well, technically, he saw the Ralts after multiple sightings of Buizel and Wooper. But he saw the Ralts before he saw the other, more numerous Fairy-types, and that was why he chose to make her his target.
"Ready for this, Lloyd?" he asked the ball, and tossed it out without waiting for an answer. Lloyd burst from the ball with an adorable meow.
Ralts took one look at the Sprigatito and teleported away.
"Come on!" Florian whined as Lloyd batted at the place that the Ralts had been moments earlier. "I try to catch a Buizel, it's a Water-type and Lloyd knocks it out. I try to catch a Wooper, it's a Ground-type and Lloyd knocks it out. I set my sights on a Psychic-type, and it teleports away?"
"Maybe you're just bad luck," said Lloyd.
Almost as if he understood, Florian glared at his starter. Lloyd, unbothered, licked his paw. "That's enough from you," Florian finally said. He turned to search for the Ralts once again. "Now, it's personal."
Florian was still the first to arrive at Los Platos. He took the opportunity to introduce his Ralts to his parents and send Vivillon back home through the Box system. Then he and his own Pokémon sat around to wait for the girls.
Nemona arrived after half an hour of waiting. She seemed confused to only find one of them there. "Hey," she said, acknowledging Florian even as she looked for Juliana. "Have you seen our new friend around?"
"Not since we decided to race."
Nemona frowned. "Huh. I thought taking Fuecoco out to try catching new Pokémon would help her find the place before I did. I was totally ready to buy us lunch."
"I don't know her very well," Florian began, "but I don't think our new friend is all that observant."
Nemona went silent, except for a barely-there grunt of agreement.
Juliana showed up not long after, but Nemona had already bought ice cream for herself and for Florian. When Juliana approached, she insisted on buying her own.
"Nacli salt?" she read out loud, confused as to why anything salty would be a flavor for ice cream and forgetting that peanuts tended to be salty.
Naturally, the vendor took that as her order. Juliana, willing to try things once, paid for it and immediately took a lick of the cone.
It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as great as that strawberry ice cream looked.
By the time the trio made it to the Mesagoza gate, Juliana was growing bored.
It's not that she didn't care about her new friends, and she was happy they were so enthusiastic about battles and archaeology. She was just not as interested when she wasn't participating, and neither seemed to notice her mental struggle or willing to allow her a chance to talk about art.
The most they did was allow her to voice her opinions, which meant that she had to continue putting up with the conversation to add things about battles and archaeology.
Finally, Florian realized. "Sorry we're hogging the conversation, Juliana," he said, and the sound of her name startled her into awareness. "I thought you'd be into battles at least."
"I am," she said quickly. "And I care about history and junk. I just..." she tilted her head and hummed, forgetting the word she'd wanted to use. "I got bored. And boredom can turn me impulsive, and impulsive Juliana is really, really dumb." She'd done things like eat grass just to see what it tasted like and glue her paintbrushes to the ceiling because she could. She didn't want to have these people see that when she'd just started to make a good impression.
"I get it," said Nemona with a knowing smile. "So why don't we battle again? You and me. As rivals."
"Are you sure? You've got Fuecoco, and I have more than Webby with me..."
"I have another one." She clapped her hands together. "Please? I've got something really cool to show you."
The promise of something really cool was inviting. "Boredom nearly alleviated," Juliana announced. She pulled out a ball, not caring which of her Pokémon was in it. "Let's hope you can do something to finish it off."
TEAMS
Juliana: Webby (Quaxly, female) Lechonk (male) Hoppip (male) Tarountula (male) Fletchling (female)
Florian: Lloyd (Sprigatito, male) Ralts (female)