Skye gave his brother a hug. "Duh-hon't die," he said seriously, smiling a little. It had been good to see him. He had changed back into his casual clothes already, and was waiting for Ciel. Was being fussy on appearance a Suicune dorm trait? He couldn't be sure... Ellie swished her tail gently as Skye placed Jolt back on his brother's belt. Rama was snoozing on his human's foot. Typically Pala was in her bag, had been for the past hour.
Cameron laughed. "I'mma telling you that. Have fun in school." He grimaced. "Never thought I'd say that."
"Yuh-you won't hah-have to ah-again," Skye replied cheerily as Ciel finally left the changing room, Chika behind him. The Togetic looked sleepy and was quickly returned. Skye waved at his brother, grabbing Ciel's wrist and dragging him to the boat. He didn't notice the pink tinge to Ciel's face. But Rama did and he snickered about it the whole way, despite being half-asleep. Seeing the boat was crowded, Skye sighed. "Thih-his will tuh-take foreh-hever." He pulled out Rei's Pokeball and released her, the Lapras letting out a pleased cry.
Skye smiled gently and climbed down to rest on her back. Ciel dropped down a few moments later, looking confused. Skye gently pushed on Rei's back and the Lapras swam off, causing shouting to erupt from the boat. Skye grinned playfully and Rama let out a bark from Rei's head. Ciel looked confused. Rama barked. "This kid seriously needs a stick remover."
"Ruh-Rama," Skye mumbled. "Go tuh-to sleep." Rama huffed and obeyed. The journey home was quiet and peaceful then, the boat not starting for a short time. Skye was tired. His brother, Brogan's father, and the queen bee herself in one night... he seriously was lucky to be alive. He honestly wondered what her problem was. If he was so beneath her shoes why was it so important that he was out of the way? Did she really think he could threaten her position in the company she would run? And like he could refuse her father. The man was powerful, very powerful. That was stupid.
Skye sighed a little, looking in his bag wistfully. He knew the man had noticed his desperate clinging to the bag. In truth his research was nowhere near him. It was on his backup drive and encrypted. Well, some was with him. He personally blamed Cynthia for his code idea. Whatever. He sighed. He would figure out that problem later. Ciel was dozing on his shoulder. Skye chuckled a bit. He had the weirdest friends over.
Skye idly wondered if Brian had made it back all right, then decided not to worry about it.
~~
Ciel disappeared into the dorm, looking a mixture of relieved and worried. Skye turned and walked away calmly, ignoring the glares at his back from the windows. Did these kids have nothing to do but be petty? Yeesh. He sighed a little bit, letting Rama growl at the glaring people. Pala squeaked in her sleep, causing him to smile. Even if humanity turned against him, he knew his Pokemon would always be his friends in the end.
Skye walked past the beach and paused. Was someone swimming out there? This late? Wow... he smiled again, realizing his own hypocrisy. He hurried back to his room and went into bed, barely even noticing Rama and Pala curling up next to him.
~~
Meanwhile, a young woman was walking from the shallow water. Her honey-blonde hair stuck to her face oddly, causing her to laugh. It was late, she was cold, and she still had to get to meet her damn boss. A soft croon caused her to turn and grin a bit. "Sorry 'bout that Laura," she said happily, holding up a Pokeball. "I didn' forget ya, honest. Now come on back so we can get on goin'." Her voice slurred slightly from an accent and casual drawl she had mastered over years of dealing with the idiotic.
"Ah, excuse me..." this voice came from a passing groundskeeper. "Did... could you possibly have just swam all the way here?"
The blonde smiled casually and shook her head no, staring at him with bright teal eyes. "No..." The man sighed with relief, only to freeze up as she added. "I did that this morning. Nearly got knocked out by a boat actually." She grinned. "Now which way is it to the... ah what's it called, the headmaster's office?"
The man paused and looked confused, scared, and quite possibly in need of a pay raise. "Uh... you can follow me if you'd like."
The tomboy grinned. "Oh that'd be just a-ma-zing! My name is Ash by the way. Ashara Harris." She trotted after him proudly. "I'm a student teacher."
The man sweatdropped. And I thought the students were crazy...
~~
Ash shook her head, dripping water onto the secretary's desk. The woman glared at her, not removing her manicured nails from the keyboard. Ash smiled back, looking innocently confused. The secretary clenched her teeth a moment then smiled falsely. "I'm sorry Miss..."
"Harris," the young woman replied casually, spinning a Pokeball in one hand and brushing her hair back with the other, smiling all the while. "Ashara Harris. But please call me Ash. I have the feeling we'll be seeing a lot of each other. I can't possibly imagine why."
"Miss Harris," the elder ground out, pointedly ignoring the rest of the woman's sentence. "But the Headmaster has just gotten back from a field trip and is likely going to retire for the night at any moment. It is unlikely he will have the energy to deal with-"
"That is his problem and not mine," Ash interrupted smoothly with a smile. "He could have told me the school schedule ahead of time. Any issues that I give him tonight are his problem. Or maybe they are yours," she added with a wink. "For not emailing me the message." She stepped back with a casual little grin. "Anyway, now that we've cleared up your little temper tantrum, I'm off for the obligatory meeting with the bossman. Nice talkin to ya." She turned away from the desk, marching cheerfully toward where she guessed the door was. "Oh and by the way: I understand that you want to be as feminine as possible dude but seriously, the manicure? Give-a-way." She barged in without a hint of a knock. "Heya there Headmaster."
Meanwhile, Professor Gary Oak was in his office... actually preparing to leave. He was vaguely aware of talking outside, though it was far too muffled to make out the words. The trip had gone reasonably well. Nobody had tried anything other than the average childish quarreling. That one incident on the stage stuck out in his mind though. That girl, whose name was honestly lost on him at the moment. Valorie? Mallory? Something like that. Pryce had been talking about her earlier. Four students had been suspended because they had been caught bullying her earlier. Suicunes no less! He could understand pride, but they had been flat out sadistic from Pryce's description of what he saw. The students obviously had problems of their own, and it hadn't just been pride. He had been thinking about what he could do about the problem. Sure, punishing the students was a start, but ultimately it seemed likely there would be a repeat incident. Perhaps he should call the girl in for a talk, maybe her friend too. /Something/ had to be done, lest things escalate.
Suddenly he heard someone barge in, interrupting his thoughts. He casually turned to face Asha. He seemed mildly unimpressed by the entry, though it was masked under a layer of less subtle indifference.
"Miss Harris."
His tone on the other hand contained no trace of annoyance. Rather, it was professional.
"Is everything alright?"
For a moment, he wasn't sure if this was urgent judging by her entry.
Ash smirked a little bit, her teal eyes glinting a bit. She was still soaking wet, having purposefully not waited to dry off before coming here. Being professional was nice and all but she thought it wasted too much time. "Oh yeah man, everything is cool, except your gatekeeper there was rather rude. I just came to get my room key, hear my regulations, and file a minor complaint to your sorry butt."
She put her hands on her hips playfully, grinning a little. "You know boss o' mine, I do wish I had known I was on my way to a nearly empty island today. I would have been perfectly cool with meeting you in Saffron and then leaving ya'll to yer own devices. By the way..." she cast her eyes toward the window. "I saw some mighty ticked off kids in blue while I was a'wandering. I assumed they were troublemakers." She smiled. "I'd be quite happy to help with your troublemakers." Ash stepped back.
"That is your choice 'o course but..." She shrugged. "Whatever. So, how much fun do I get to have?"
Gary Oak seemed to muse over this for a moment before responding.
"I suppose that means you'd like free room here--Very well."
He moved to a bookshelf in his office and started filing through a set of card keys, picking a single one out from the group. As he did so he went on.
"This card key will let you into the room labeled with the number.letter sequence on the door. I feel the need to remind you though that if you feel the need for anything... roomier, you can get a very hefty percentage off homes in Oak Town. Thirty to fifty percent depending on the building."
He then handed her the key card. A part of him was mildly concerned by the way she was talking about those 'troublemakers'. Perhaps it was time to explain how things worked here.
"That's excellent. As you know, all our students are teenagers. ...Things happen. Ultimately your goal here is to make sure these students grow to be elite trainers, the best of the best. I trust you to exorcise good judgement in pursuing that goal. You may use your own methods, /provided/ they do not seriously endanger any of the students. I'm sure I don't really need to tell you that beyond regulation, though. Should you find yourself questioning the appropriateness of anything you plan to do, feel free to ask, though."
The rules protecting children were rather vague. It was more or less because this school was run by adults that were expected to have good judgement. They ran on a platform that allowed teachers to yeah how they pleased as long as results were shown and basic safety was followed. How this applied to mental or emotional danger was also unsaid, but there were presumably basic safety limits there too.
Ash held back a chuckle. He feared her naturally crazed nature? What a smart man. "I'll keep that in mind sir," she told him lightly, before examining the rest of his speech. "So... would a minor exercise regimen for self-defense be too far, as well as allowing the students to face each other in combat matches of their own? As well as for troublemakers..."
She grinned a little, lettiing herself look vaguely unsettling. "Lessee... I think the right to a survival weekend with me would be a fair punishment. I'll make sure they don't lose all heart of course... but that does mean fending for yourself in a dangerous area. Even with a Pokemon, that's right painful."
Ash pocketed the card. "So... I've given you the vague idea of my "Torture", which honestly ain't that bad. I'm sure that goes under your regulations. If anything gets to serious endangerment, it will likely be the student's ineptitude and I will certainly help them out." She smiled all the innocently, looking straight at him with her blind eyes.
Gary Oak seemed to think about was Asha had told him. Something about the way she acted made him wnat to question her, and yet what she said was not on it's own was not worth comment. It was the /way/ she said it. For a moment he seemed to hesitate. How did he handle this? She had given him assurance of the students safety, and assured him it wouldn't be that bad. What did she mean by 'survival' exactly? There was nothing on the island so dangerous that it could not be solved with ---suddenly something occured to him. She didn't plan to take any students to /those/ places did she? The abandoned lugia dorm. The dark forest. the swamplands. All were places of exceptional danger for various reasons. Dangerous enough that Gary wouldn't trust your average student to be able to handle them. A frown creased his features at the thought of the former two places. The swamplands was dangerous purely by nature. The other two.... not so much. He still remembered when the lugia dorm had become infested. At first it had seemed like a passing prank, but it the population had rapidly exploded for an unknown reason, to the point that you couldn't walk two steps without attracting the attention of something that didn't want you there. Ultimately, nobody had been able to figure out why exactly the ghosts had decided to take over the building. It had become obvious that fighting them inside would've sooner destroyed the building itself than purified it. It had been tried briefly by students. The results were that certain rooms in the building looked like something out of silent hill. Not to mention the gulpin... There were actually gulpin /living in that building/. One did not need details to imagine why having gulpin in a dark building full of closed in coridors was incredibly dangerous to students in and of itself. The only thing keeping that building standing was the heavy costs of destroying it combined with the fact that he seriously questioned whether it's new inhabitants would take kindly to it.
The dark forest on the other hand was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Being what was essentially the mayor of the entire island, Gary was well aware of what police said was going on there, of the reports of what happened there. He had never visited the forest personally, but there had been enough reports of people up and /disappearing/ to get him to pay attention. There had been actual armed police officers that had gone in there and never come back. Nobody had any idea what was going on. Perhaps it was time he did go there though. If the police couldn't handle it, perhaps they just weren't strong enough. /Something/ was obviously in that forest keeping them from leaving. He had hesitated for long enough though. This entire thought process in reality had only taken a moment or two, as he was simply remembering things he already knew and coming to a conclussion he hadn't made before. He vowed to return to thinking about this topic later, though.
"...Very well. As it happens the students I believe you're referring to were suspended for violent bullying earlier. However, seeing as we can't exactly send them home, it is an in-school suspension. If you wish I can assign them to you for the duration of such."
Gary honestly didn't have much sympathy for the suicune students. He was no psychologist, but it seemed to him they had serious problems of their own and were taking it out on others. A part of him wondered if perhaps they needed a psychologist instead of a good punishing. Yet, ultimately he settled on it not being a question of 'or' but rather a question of 'and'. it didn't matter what their reasons were. They couldn't do that to another student, and they needed to be held responsible for their actions. Whether they got a psychologist or not was an entirely different question... probably one better left for people who actually studied psychology. Once again, he vowed to come back to this later. So many things to think about, so many decissions to be made. So little time.
"Excellent," Ash purred deviously. "I'm more than happy to whip a bunch of fools into shape. The farthest on island they will get is likely the swamplands. That is until I have time to visit that creep abandoned dorm and the forest. I'd put them in the mountains but that would be just too. easy." She would have cackled if she wasn't so tired.
She gave Gary a firm salute. "Any other problem students you just tell me boss!" Sh inwardly cackled now. "And don't you worry about me in those places teach." Her eyes twinkled blue. "I'm a pro. This is what I do. If you want to go with me though, all y' need t' do is ask."
She turned on her heel and waved. "Tha's all. I'm off to bed bfore I have my bathing suit stuck to my skin. G'night!" Asha grinned as she marched past the secretary and out of the administrative office. Something told her she had started with a bang.
