[PKMN OPEN] The Pokémon Trainer Academy (T) [Best Veteran 4Q '11]

"Don't you ever worry that you'll get the principal on your back?" Alice casually asked Selene, still walking along and not even turning her head to face her. In fact, she almost looked like she was asking that question to some imaginary friend. Jem trotted along by Alice's feet and looked behind him, seeing Bri talking to another student that had previously gone unnoticed. The Vulpix watched them and then turned to look forward again. "Hey sir if we find any fossils do we get to keep it for ourselves?" the tall boy asked. Alice listened, but didn't feel like turning to look. Byron replied with an iffy response, and Alice hoped that that would soon change into a "yes" later.

"Alice, are you really just going to dig with that shovel? It's pretty small…" Jem commented, even though Alice obviously couldn't understand him. She just gave him a glance and continued walking. "Alice," Jem whined again. Suddenly, Byron stopped walking and everyone followed suit. Alice stopped right before almost bumping into another student. Byron released a Shieldon, to which Alice looked at curiously. She tilted her head as she looked at it, the same way she had done with the posters.

Danny heard somebody asking him a question relating to wild pokemon. "Well of course! If you can that is. Of course, the most common pokemon around these parts are likely going to be Magikarp or something. As long as you know how to use the fishing rod you'll all get a good grade on it." Danny replied.

Mark kept looking at the water blankly. He felt like he was frozen. He knew he could fish just fine but for some reason he didn't want to get close to the water. He tried to come up with an excuse to delay the inevitable. "E...erm.... Hey Valorie, w... why don't you try first? I'm kinda busy with Dratini over here." Mark said petting dratini's head.

Danny handed the fishing rods to both Valorie and Mark. Mark looked at the fishing rod and nervously looked at the water again. He sat down on the grass below him. His heart was pounding, and not just because Valorie had moved closer to him in an effort to comfort him. Dratini helped a little bit as well as she was rubbing up against him affectionately.

"S...sure... w...we can do that I guess." Mark tried to keep as much distance as he could from the water. He was shaking a little actually. "N...no Mark. Don't get scared. It's only water..." Mark thought to himself. Snype looked at Mark curiously noticing his nervousness. He assumed it was because of Valorie.

He looked at Valorie and smiled at her, trying to hide he was getting nervous around the water. It was probably more normal if she thought it was because of her. "Well... I guess we'll both go on the count of three then..." Mark said holding back his fishing rod getting ready to swing it.

"One... two... three!" Mark said as he threw the fishing line toward the water. The bobber. floated about in the water and he just looked at it with his eyes wide open. He felt like something was going to pull him in there...

Mark didn't want to admit he was afraid of the water. He was just nervous around Valorie... yeah that was it. No stupid water. She was sitting pretty close to him after all. Heck she was brushing up against Dratini. He smiled as Dratini put her head against his shoulder. He wished he could explain it but it was emberessing to admit.

"Magikarp? Yeah. They're a little too common. They're usually the pokemon you catch and throw back into the water. Unless you have the patience to really unleash the true monster inside of them." Mark said to Valorie. His hands were practicly shaking on the fishing rod keeping it unsteady. The bobber on the other end was wobbling a bit so maybe it would be bound to attract something. Mark sighed.

"Um... you uh... ever have any weird fears at all? I...I'm just curious..." Mark asked Valorie. Maybe this would at least help him explain that he was afraid of the water...

Mark looked over to Valorie curiously. She looked away at the mention of fears. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned it. Mark sighed. Might as well get it out there about why he was so nervous to begin with. "Well... for me I..." But before Mark could explain, His fishing rod began to tug toward the water. Something was biting on it! But Mark reacted negativly and backed away at a large distance. "A..Ah! No! I don't want to go in there!" Mark yelled as he let go of the fishing rod and back away with fear struck in his eyes.

Snype rushed on to grab the fishing rod immediately to keep it from falling in the water. It was pretty easy to pull on so it must have been a really small Pokemon. Snype pulled back on on the fishing rod and it turned out that Mark had caught a Tympole. Mark stared at what he had caught and turned completely red. He could hear some small laughs from nearby students. They were making a couple of small comments to Mark also. He'd normally shrug it off but he was afraid! But of what? Water?

Danny quickly ran over after hearing Mark yell out. "Whats wrong?" He said. Mark looked up at Danny completely frozen in fear. "W... well... uh... n...nothing just... um..." He looked at his fishing rod and noticed that the Pokemon he had just caught had gotten away. He had a water Pokemon anyways but it didn't matter but damn it he sure made a scene. His face simply turned red.

Darn it she figured it out. Had to tell her somehow he guessed. Danny looked down at Mark. "Frillish huh? You alright?" Danny asked. Mark nodded slowly, still a bit traumatized. "Look... um... Mark. If you need to talk to anybody I'll gladdly help you out. If you want to meet up with me I'm free after this. alright?" Danny said to him. Mark smiled and nodded again. "Alright class back to fishing! Keep your comments to yourself." Danny said to the rest of the students. Mark could tell that the kids were gonna talk about this to no end throughout the school and eventually it would spread and spread like a disease.

Mark looked to Valorie and flushed completely red. He edged back to where he once was, beside Valorie and was silent for quite awhile. "S...sorry you h...had to see that..." Mark said, not even wanting to look at the water. His back was turned away from the water but he still could see Valorie's face. "I..I um..." He gulped and scratched his head nervously tapping his fingers on his leg.

Mark smiled when recieving the hug from Valorie. It was comforting... especially coming from Valorie. It was no wonder he liked her so much. She was really sweet. The moment was quickly interupted when Valorie had caught a Horsea! It sure was angry though. Alot of water Pokemon must have thought the same after falling for the usual fishing rod trick. It spat out a glob of ink straight toward Valorie's face.

"A...ah! Val!" Mark said, suddenly giving her somewhat of a shorter nickname. Her face had been completely covered in ink and she reacted immediately to it, trying to rub ink off of her face. "Hey hey calm down. It's just ink, It won't harm your eyes or anything. Here lemme get that off you..." Mark hesitantly reached his hand in the water as best as he could. Being around Valorie, he was a bit more comfortable. It was only his hand... He began to wipe off the ink on her face as best as he could, washing off any ink that stuck on his hand and repeating. "I hope you uh... don't mind... I don't really have any towels or napkins on me. Heh..." He said as he wiped off any ink on his hands in the water.

It didn't change that he was still afraid of water. It was mostly the feeling of being pulled into it that scared him. "The nerve of that Horsea huh? Spitting on your face like that..."

Mark eventually got the rest of the ink and carefully rubbed out any ink that was around Valorie's eyes. He washed off his hands again and rubbed off any extra ink off of Valorie's cheek. He kept his hand on it for a few seconds. "There you go. All cleaned up." Mark said to her, grinning. Mark took his hand off of her face and sat back down beside her. He looked down at his own hands and rubbed off the rest of the ink on the grass.

"Sheesh we both seem to keep getting ourselves in trouble huh? How convenient that we're both around whenever something happens." Mark said looking right at her. He put his arm around Dratini as if hugging her.

Bri smiled at the Shieldon and began digging. Or... He tried to. Bri didn't have the upper body strength to drack the hard dirt.
"Could that boy be any more naive. There is nothing to find, and even if there was, the teachers wouldn't let him keep it. They'd take it away to study like all the rest of the fossils!" Snivy said. Bri shook his head.
"It's not getting a pokemon that he's interested in. It's the fact that he could discover something new, at least, that's what I think," Bri said. He put the blade of the shovel on top of the dirt, and jumped on it. It sank a few inches into the dirt. Bri pulled up a shovel full of dirt and set it to the side. Snivy leapt to the ground and walked over to Duster. Duster was lying on the ground trying to take a nap.
"I'm going to explore. Keep an eye on Brian," Snivy said.
"When did you become in charge?" Duster asked, opening one eye to look at Snivy.
"I don't need to be looked after! Don't go to far Snivy!" Bri said pulling up another shovel full of dirt. He was having a lot of trouble with the hard earth.

"You alright there Bri?" asked Sel as she finally managed to get somewhere she could start this damn digging, she glanced down at her flip-flopped feet and winced at the dirt and cuts on her toes...oh man. At least it was a good lesson to learn...and it felt okay now she was finally up here. Taking hold of her shovel she paused. Stupid as it sounded she didn't know how to begin...she'd never dug anything before, Ri always did it for her.

Speaking of Ri...he was currently happy as a Spoink in muck, scratting rubble away from the dirt using his fists, absorbed in his work. Sel smiled down at him before turning back to Bri, watching his technique. "Well...here goes..." she mumbled before sticking her shovel against the dirt, jarring against a rock and feeling the shockwave travel up her arms and through her shoulder joint. "Ah damn it!" she hissed angrily, massaging her elbow. it was too hard...but then...

"Horsea! use water gun!" she called, releasing her freshly caught Horsea and pointing at the dirt she was digging in. Immediately the dirt became damp and easier to move, and Sel was soon shovelling away...and finding nothing for her trouble. "So seriously...what's the point here..?"

"Uh... Yeah, I'm... I'm fine. OOF!" Bri said as he jumped on the shovel again. His foot slid in his oversized shoe, and he hit the dirt. It hurt doubly so, because of his sunburn. He got to his feet. He spotted Selene using her Horsea to soften the dirt. He felt like a fool.
"Drizzle! Use Water Sport and make the whole area easier to dig in!" Bri said. He sent out Drizzle, who shot water into the air, making it splash down everywhere. Bri began digging again, this time it was a lot easier. He still couldn't find anything.

"So seriously...what's the point here..?" Selene asked. Bri shook his head.
"I don't think there is one. This is just a way for the teacher to get away with not teaching us anything," Bri said quietly, hoping he wouldn't hear him.
"Personally, I'd rather be out looking for pokemon that still exist today rather than looking for old bones that don't matter anymore," Brian said.

Alice stood watching the Shieldon when water began to spray everywhere. She flinched but didn't really care about getting wet. It was actually pretty hot, after all, so the water felt good. Jem, however…

"VUL!" he leapt forward, opened his mouth, and blew a massive plume of fire. Alice winced and noticed that he blew this fire directly onto Byron. She watched, stupefied for a few moments.

"…Go!" she tossed a pokéball and released a Staryu. "Hya!" it said. "Okay Buck, Water Gun!" Alice told it. Buck pointed his top spike toward the engulfing fire and sprayed a thick, straight jet of water. After a few moments, the fire was put out, and all Alice could do was merely look at Byron. "Um… I'm sorry. I just thought you might want a tan," Alice said with a nervous smile. "Be quiet and just dig!" Byron exclaimed. Alice's eyes widened and she kneeled down and began digging. Okay, maybe he actually did want a tan. Alice looked up at him again and smiled. Hey, the orange skin matched his shirt. Byron pointed to the ground angrily, and Alice looked back down, continuing to dig, but finding nothing.