3. Getting the News!

                You would think I’d be stoked to have taken a private plane to Blackthorn City, but not quite – for two reasons:

1)      I had a good time attending Pokémon Tech in Kanto, and was going to miss my best friend and roommate while I was there, Yuki, who told me she will be going back to her hometown, Celadon City.

2)      I’m stuck with this annoying little yellow rat!

That’s right.  That cute little Pichu I was so happy to be getting as my first Pokémon won’t listen to a word I say, and has disliked me since I first picked it up.

                As my Sensei moved aside, the Pokémon that was there was a cute little Pichu who cocked its head at me when I squealed and approached it.  I couldn’t stop my giggling fit and my awing until I wrapped my arms around it and held it near my chest.  In about two seconds, I had dropped to the floor, twitching rapidly and the Pichu sitting on my stomach, letting out a loud yawn.

And that is only the start of it all.  For the past three days, from when I was still at school and now that I’m at home, I’ve been trying to put some sense into this rat’s head, being nice and patient with it. It’s been failed attempts at the moment, but I’m not going to let this pipsqueak ruin my good time back at home.

Changing to a more positive note, I am back home in Blackthorn City, my hometown and birthplace…

I’m sitting on the stairs outside of the shrine in the Dragon’s Den, waiting for the Master to arrive.  He had asked me and Lavi to meet him here because he had something to discuss with us.  That fool Lavi is probably snoozing off on his bed and forgot all about this meeting.  I merely shake my head.  I guess while I wait I can introduce some of my friends.

Because of Yuki, you’ve heard of Hotaru before.  His name means “firefly,” and he sure is bright.  He left to become a Pokémon trainer before me and Lavi because he showed great promise and was convinced he didn’t need to stay and train or learn more so he got his first Pokémon, a shiny Dratini Master found for him and he was off.  He left not too long before I left for school, and last I’ve heard of him is that he is now the Pokémon Champion in the League.  Lavi is the one who had told me this, as I haven’t been in touch with him since before he left unfortunately.  It’s very strange, because we’ve always been so close ever since we were little, and now Lavi tells me he seems to have changed (He did visit Blackthorn while I was away), and not really in the most positive way.  He tells me Hotaru thinks of himself as an elite as the League Champion, and seems a bit more selfish now.  I can hardly believe that, as Hotaru has always been the one to help me when I fell, make me smile when I was blue, and was just like an older brother to me.  Before he left, he had given me the green and silver linked bracelet so I could have something from him while we were on our separate ways, and now I’m being told that he’s changed in a negative way? Well…the next time I see him, I guess I will find out how much truth is in this.

As for Lavi? First of all, that’s not really his name.  It’s Arin (Ahh-reen), which means “light-bringer,” and his original nickname, Ari, means “brave” or “lion.”  Suits him well, but he’s such a goofball and a flirt when it comes to girls and loves to sleep.  It doesn’t help that he gets a lot of attention in return.  I just roll my eyes and ignore his immaturity, even though he is the same age as me, 18.  Anyway…the reason why we call him Lavi is because my name is Airin and for some reason it would get confusing, so he decided to take on the nickname Lavi, which means “lion” as well.  Yea, he has a thing for lions, and the element of fire, including Charizard, so I guess there’s a similarity between us.  But we’ve never been as close to each other as I was with Hotaru, so even now it feels a bit out of place talking to him more now because Hotaru is gone.  I guess I don’t *really* talk to him much, except because of a cute little blonde girl you will learn about later on.  For now, Master has entered the Dragon’s Den, and is approaching me now.

I get up from where I was situated on the stairs of the shrine, taking a moment to stretch a bit while Master approaches.  As I open one of my eyes in between my stretching, I notice someone behind him.  “Lavi?” I ask, more as a confirmation to myself that it’s him.  It is indeed Lavi, walking behind Master, and seeming to be in a conversation in which Lavi looks like he’s complaining probably about why he has to be there.  I let out a chuckle.  Lavi is pretty humorous at times, especially when he can’t get Master to let him do something or if he disturbs him from his sleep, as he probably did this time. 

I shuffle around until the boat arrives and smile when I see Master approaching me, returning the smile as he enters the shrine.  I turn my head to see Lavi just standing there by the edge of the island, and I cock an eyebrow as his grin grows from non-existent to stretching from ear to ear.  He appears to be in a daze.  I roll my eyes and stomp my foot to get his attention back to the present.  “Ahem…are you coming or not Mr. Usagi?”  (Usagi is a nickname given to him by a certain little blonde girl, and means “rabbit” in Japanese).  Lavi’s face turns serious for a moment, and then he proceeds to skipping into the shrine.  He pops his head out from inside and asks me, “Are you coming or not Ai-chan?” while wiggling his eyebrows at me before the red-head disappearred into the shrine.  I begin to fume and my whole face starts burning red.  “I’ll…. Get…. you…! UGH!”  My name may be Airin, so an obvious nickname would be Ai, but he always uses it in a different context and he knows it makes me mad! (Ai means “love” in Japanese)

As I make my way into the shrine, stomping my way in, I notice Lavi in front of Master, facing him, rocking back and forth on his heels and whistling innocently.  I felt a strong urge to strangle him, and probably almost did attack him, until Master spoke to me, “Airin, what is wrong? Your face is all red and your aura comes off as angry.  Try to calm down…I do not desire any negative energy in this shrine.”  Lavi starts to giggle like a giddy little girl, nearly making my head explode.  I take a shaky deep breath and concentrate on relaxing. 

“There now…You may now enter the shrine fully.” 

I make my way to Master, fully ignoring Lavi as I bow to him.  “Evening, Master-sensei.  What is it you wanted to discuss with us?”

“Good evening Airin, good evening Lavi.  There is a reason why I have summoned you two here.  I have something very important to discuss with you…”

“Ok gramps, could you get on with it? I’m sleepy…” Lavi yawns dramatically.  I glared at him.

“Show some respect, Lavi!”  He merely waves his hand to me nonchalantly.

“As I was saying,” Master says, looking sternly to Lavi.  “I have been contacted by Professor Elm of New Bark Town…You both know where that is located, correct?”  We both nod our heads.  “Very well then, I discussed with him that I have two future Pokémon trainers who show potential.  He was very pleased to hear this, as he is ready to hand out some Pokémon to new trainers to start on their journey, and has asked if you are interested in having this opportunity.  Airin, I know you already have a Pichu you received from your school, but it seems to be at a very high level, preventing you from being able to control him.  So, he offered to let you choose one of his Pokémon to start with.”

My jaw nearly dropped.  I was so excited!  After I left for school, I had wanted to learn more about raising Pokémon, hoping that I’d be able to go on my own journey, catching Pokémon, breeding Pokémon…I can just imagine it now…My daydreaming was snapped out by a stupid remark from Usagi-boy next to me.

“What exactly is the point of this?”

“Lavi…my goodness…what is the point of this?!  This is our opportunity to become Pokémon trainers…maybe even become Dragon Masters someday!”  I began getting starry eyed.  Lavi merely scoffed.

                “I already AM a Pokémon trainer.”

                “Huh?” I said, with a dumbfounded look.

                “You heard me…I already have a Pokémon…Come out Koji!”  He takes a small red and white ball from his belt, enlarges it, and throws it into the air.  Out came a little yellow and black Pokémon, with an orange four-pointed star at the end of its tail.

                “What kind of Pokémon is that??? It looks so cute!”  My facial expression probably gave away my next intention to snatch up whatever this Pokémon was and cuddle with it because he smiled as he blocked my way to it.  I scowled at him and turned back to Master when Lavi began to speak.

                “This is a Shinx, a shiny one at that.” He says proudly putting his hands on his hips.  I knew what a shiny Pokémon was…He ignored my eye roll and continued, “I had found it while hiking down on Route 45.  It seemed to be exhausted so I took him in to be healed at the Pokémon Center.  After that, we bonded so well, I decided to keep him as my first Pokémon.  We’ve been training pretty hard and he’s gotten stronger already!”  The little Shinx beside him started to “bark” up at Lavi in agreement.  Lavi grinned to the little lion-cub, picking him up and holding him in his arms.

       
        “Airin, I had already known about Lavi having caught his first Pokémon, so my message is mostly to you.”

                “Wait…So why am I here again?” Lavi said leaning towards the dragon master.

                He merely smiled to him.  “Simple.  This will be a journey for both of you.  Lavi, you will accompany Airin to New Bark Town and head on from there.”

                “Whaaat? Why do I have to go?” the red-head complained to Master.  I was wondering the same thing…  His shiny Shinx, on the other hand, seemed pretty eager at the mentioning of a journey.

                “Although you passed the test to be eligible for the Pokémon League, you need to actually have your own team of Pokémon to compete.  By the time Airin is ready for the Pokémon League, so should you be even more prepared.  You may even learn from each other.  Good luck on your journey, both of you.  I know you will do Blackthorn City proud.”

                And with that, we bowed to our Master and made our way to the exit of the Dragon’s Den.  Lavi told me he was looking forward to traveling with me with that cheesy grin of his.  I just rolled my eyes and fast walked into my home to sleep.  That’s all I wanted at the moment, but before that, of course the green eyed red-head just HAD to make some sort of comment.  “Oyasumi, Aiiii-chaaaann!” He yelled from across the street from my house, where his house was located.  I merely sighed, shaking my head.  I knew I’d have to get used to him as I’d be around him all day, every day.  “Oyasumi, Usagi-san,” I mumbled more to myself as I walked through the doorway of my home.

*****

[ Ahh I know this one is long..4 pages in Word! I guess it’s so I could make up for the days I didn’t post anything haha!  Next up, the start of my Journey through Johto to earn all the badges! Luckily, I wasn’t able to really play this week because I was busy with school work, because I will be catching up to my point in the game, even though I will be going ahead in the game than in the story.  If I played as I wrote this, I think it’d take me forever to finish playing the game!

Oh and by the way, I had found a picture that I used to base off Arin/Lavi's look and had made his character and then I found out that the picture I used is of an actual character of an anime called D.Gray Man and he has some similarities to my character o.O I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that the Lavi in this story is my own character that just so happens to have been based off of another character without my knowledge.

Anyway, it is 10:55pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time here, so I will be getting off to go to bed myself! Oyasumi! [Goodnight =)]

2. If you do not rise early, well..you end up with the last pick..

     Same morning routine we've had for the past week.
     Alarm, I crawled down my bed to the floor on all fours, reached up to press snooze, then crawled back into bed and pressed my own snooze button.  And that's when my odd dreams started.

I looked around, turning in place.  The first thing I notice is that I appear to be in a large meadow full of green and blooming flowers, even on the trees.  In the distance a wide lake relaxes as a nice breeze flows over its surface.  I approach a tree nearby the lake full of little pink flowers starting to bloom. "A sakura tree..." I sigh in awe as I reach out my hand to touch the bulb.  Next thing I know, a green blur pops out in front of me, almost hitting my head so I end up falling back onto the soft grass.  The blur of green left as fast as it came.
"What was that?" I said, mouth and eyes wide open in surprise.
A sparkle fell onto my lap.  I went to touch it and another two fell on the back of my hand.  As I looked up I see a beautiful trail of sparkles raining down on my small form.  A small smile creeps on my face, and my eyes go into a daze.  Then everything disappeared when I heard yelling from far away...


     "Airin! Wake up!"
     "Hahhh?" I sat up and bumped my forehead onto Yuki's.
     "Ouch!" We both yelled in unison, rubbing our heads.
     I looked up at Yuki and her expression changed from pained to desperate.  The next moment was a blur to me, as I was being dragged to the bathroom and shoved in there, still half asleep in a daze.  Yuki yelled to me from outside, "You overslept so hurry and get ready...you're going to be late! You have 15 minutes!"  With that, I heard the door to our room open and close.

*****

      I was still half asleep and confused as I walked into the lecture room ten minutes late to find that no one was there.  Then it hit me.

     "Oh gosh..today's the day we get our first Pokémon!" I slap my forehead and go running across the room to the other exit to outside.  As I shove the wooden doors open and walk into the glass walled room, I notice everyone is outside, some with Pokémon beside them. I panic and end up crashing into the glass door.  I didn't stop for the pain, just grabbed my forehead with my palm and ran outside where everyone, including Yuki, turned to look at me. I stopped dead in my tracks, expression of a deer in headlights to our teacher.

     "I'm sooo sorry for being late Sensei!" I bowed to her, and my brunette teacher turned to face me.  Her expression went stern, scaring me a bit with her piercing blue eyes. I flinched and leaned away.  She approached me, expression still hard and serious.

     "Tardiness is not acceptable and something very out of your character."

     "I know Sensei, I'm very sorry. I will take full responsibility for it." I bowed to her again.  Her face appeared to soften a bit as she turned her attention to a small stack of papers in her arms, and began shuffling through them.  She picked one out and handed it to me, a small small forming on her features.  I looked at her confused, and she motioned for me to look at the paper.  My eyes widened as I looked up to her, jaw drooping open as well.

     "Airin, please compose yourself. Your expression reminds me that of a Slowpoke, and even they are smarter than your current expression. There..now may I congratulate you on receiving the highest score on the exam.  I'm not surprised, as you have improved greatly from the beginning of the year." My jaw dropped again. She just sighed and turned around to everyone else.

     I realized quickly that I was probably going to be the last one to be able to get my first Pokémon, even though everyone was being picked at random..I knew my Sensei. I crossed my arms, and sighed, waiting for what would be left for me.  I regretted being late today, and hoped I would get lucky with a good Pokémon.

*****

     "Airin, it is now your turn. As I explained days before, I was only receiving enough Pokémon for everyone in this class."  I started shuffling, anxious for her to move over so I could see what I would get.  Finally, she stopped lecturing, but I wasn't paying attention anyway.  She took a few steps to her right to expose a cute familiar baby Pokémon...Pichu.

[I'll continue this tomorrow..Hopefully I can catch up to my game this week so I can keep playing!]

1. Final Exam??

     The only sound I heard was the obnoxious alarm going off on the clock.  I proceeded to putting my pillow over my head and flipping from side to side, then settling when everything went quiet again.
     "Ahhh..." I thought, drifting off for five more minutes when I was once again disrupted from my dreamless sleep by that obnoxious alarm!
     "Gah! Stupid alarm!" "Shut up!   Ehh...errr...oof!" Thud!
     My roomate had jumped up in her bed to find me sprawled on the floor, dizzy eyes and blanket in a mess over my small frame.  She only shook her head.
     The blaring had finally been silenced by the girl pressing the off button.  She took a moment to stretch on her bed before rising and trotting to the bathroom, mumbling under her breath, "She's been a little strange lately..."  A teardrop appeared on the back of her head.  She was imagining the many different ways her roomate would end up off her bed these past few mornings.

     As for me...
     "Ugh...not again..."  I looked at the clock.  7:15 A.M.  There was a reason why we set our clock so early.  In case we oveerslept, we wouldn't have to rush to get to class, as we had a habit of doing at the beginning of the school year.   I got up and went to brush my teeth while my roomate showered, then switched places.  Same old routine every morning excluding my recent morning clumsiness.

     "You've been really jumpy lately, Airin, how come?  Are you stoked that this year is almost over?"  The brown eyed girl who is my roomate was styling her shoulder length brunette hair in the mirror.
     "You read my mind, Yuki!" I said from my bed.  I was putting on my brown and green linked bracelet on my left wrist, then sat there and stared on it, dazed off into my own world.
     "You miss him, don't you?"
     I snapped back to earth at Yuki's question.  "Him...who??" I cocked my head.  She put her hands on her hips and gave me a look that clearly said "You know who."
     "Ohh!  Well, not just him..."  I was telling the truth, but she didn't quite believe me.  I can't blame her.  I do talk about him a bit..ok..a lot.
     "If you say sooo.."  She trailed off in a higher note.  I was certain her energy level was rising already.  I'm not much of a morning person, unlike her, so I just sighed and trudged to the bathroom in my sloppy uniform.
     Yuki walked by on her way to the door and said, "I'm gonna go ahead and leave...I'll save you a seat as usual!"  Yuki did usually leave before me as she was always ready before me.
      I was busy applying my face care products so I said a simple, "Okay," and she left skipping happily as usual.  "I don't get how she has so much energy in the morning!"  I thought as a yawn escaped me, clearly showing my lack of morning energy.
     "Grr! Not again!"  Once again, for what feels like the hundredth time this week, I had spilled some foundation on my maroon uniform vest.

*****

Yuki waved to me from the third row in the multi-leveled spacious lecture room.

"What took you so long?" She asked as I pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.  Yuki seemed eager and I cocked an eyebrow to her.

"What?"

"Nothing..." I shook my head slowly. "I spilled some foundation on my vest again." I pointed to the barely visible pale spot on the right side of my vest, above my chest. "Luckily, it almost came out eheheh..." I said scratching the back of my head.

"Again?" She gasped. "You really need to quit daydreaming about Hotaru or you'll fail the final exam today." She began poking my right shoulder while I went into la la land at hearing his name...imagining him and an adorable little girl with blonde pigtails. I let out a sigh and a "kawaii..." as I sunk onto the cream table, resting my chin on my palm.  A few seconds later I was brought back to earth and my eyes widened at my mind repeating what Yuki had last said.

"Whaaaat??!?" I exclaimed so loud, everyone around me turned to face me and all went quiet. "Ehhh..."  A tinge of pink touched my cheeks.  I waved my hand to everyone to excuse me.  Luckily, they responded to that, returning their attention to their own businesses.

I slowly leaned towards Yuki and whispered, "Did you say final exam...today??"

"Yes, Airin...How could you forget?  Too busy thinking about Hotaru?" She teased.  Her smile widened and her brown eyes narrowed at me with a raised eyebrow as my face went from normal to completely red within seconds.  She mistook it for the wrong reason, for I had turned red in frustration, not embarassment.

Sensei walked in right on cue when I was about to answer her.  I shut my mouth, crossed my arms and sunk into my chair feeling defeated.  Yuki chuckled lightly at my reaction.  Her light, fluted laugh always reminded me of a fairy or elf or something of the sort, like a certain laugh I was familiar with from a little girl back home.

*****

It's about ten minutes into our final, and I sat there staring at my test blankly, number two pencil in hand.

I can't believe my mind just went blank... I sighed, resting my chin in my palm over the desk.  I started doodling a charmander on my test paper with unusual pale markings, such as a rose shape on its head.  Somehow something in my mind suddenly clicked, a flood of knowledge flowing through my mind all at once.  I glanced down at the first question and remembered what the answer was.

What is the main focus of Pokémon breeding? Hmm..A..no..oh, B..Raising healthy Pokémon and keeping them in top condition.

I paused a bit when the questions were on training and which items would boost a Pokémon's different stats.  I'm not much ofa battler so these questions always stumped me a bit, but I managed to get through the test.  I was relieved it was finally over.

*****

[Hello everyone! Ilene here!

Gah..I'm pretty behind because I've been busy and haven't been able

to post much until recently. I have a lot written down already that just needs

to be typed up, so I'll get working on that and my first post at actually starting

my journey according to my playing Heart Gold that I got today at 9a.m. So far,

it's been awesome! Brings back lots of memories of playing Gold, Silver, and Crystal..Ahh..

About this story, tell me what you think of it so far! It may be a bit long at

the beginning, but I hope to get into more stuff once I start up the journey

part, and although it will be following the game, I plan on doing something

like adding in some plots here and there as I think them up, and I do actually

have a sort of bigger plot planned further into the story..can't tell you more

than that ;) Well, hope you like it so far..I'm not much of a writer, so it's more

of an experiment that I hope I can improve on as I go =)

This is Ilene logging off in san, ni, ichi! *beep*]