A Late Start

Orientation

12 months ago

Kaz ushered us down the hall at a brisk pace, he was practically dragging us by the arms behind him.
"Alright you two, we're already behind schedule, so you're only going to have about 20 minutes to get yourselves set in," he said between breaths
"Set in for what?" Ethan blurted out, one hand on his belt.
"Our little experiment remember? Aurea did tell you guys about the experiment right?"
"Uhh, no?"
"Right, well I don't really have time to explain it right now, so you two are just going to have to figure it out as you go." He came to a stop suddenly. "Alright, these are your rooms, Ethan on the left, Alexis, right. Get yourselves situated and meet me outside in 20 minutes."
Before either of us could say a word the man had vanished back down the hallway. Ethan and I exchanged glances before heading into our respective rooms to put our stuff down. The room was painted a pale yellow, it was perfectly symmetrical down the middle with a small cupboard and bed on either side. The right half of the room had clearly already been moved into, a light pink travel pack sat on the cupboard and the bedsheets had been untucked, assuming that meant the left side was mine I set my travel back down on top of the cupboard and decided to sit on the bed for a moment.
"Didn't realise we'd have roommates," I said quietly to myself. I sat there for about a minute or so just decompressing before I decided to put my clothes away. I only had four drawers to work with so I separated tops from bottoms and underwear from my socks. I pushed the last drawer shut and took my everyday bag out from inside my travel pack when I heard a voice from behind me.
"Alola, roomie." I spun around to face my new roommate
"Oh, hey. Sorry, I didn't see you on the way in." The girl had a playful smile on her face.
"Don't worry about it." She said plainly "I was waiting in the closet for you to come in."
"You.. what?"
"I wanted to surprise you, so I hid in the closet when I heard your plane land."
"Well, I certainly was surprised."
"You're from Unova right?"
"Oh, uh yeah. I'm guessing from that greeting you must be from Alola?"
"Yup, Akala Island, Name's Alyssa by the way."
"Alexis, I'm from Aspertia City, on Unova's western peninsula."
"You excited for the big reveal?"
"Big reveal, what do you mean?"
"Of the purpose of the experiment, All I know is it's to do with Pokemon."
"Oh, yeah I guess so." I started to get a better look at the girl now that she'd calmed down, she was definitely younger than me, maybe 10-12 with pale blond hair and olive skin, freckles all over and around her nose and cheeks. She was wearing a simple pink dress and matching light-up sneakers, with a floral headdress topping it all off. She had a soft face and an overly cheery demeanour, a light blush covered her cheeks and her eyes were a pale green, almost glinting silver in the light. I pulled the rest of my things from my bag, arranging them across the top of the cupboard before slinging my bag over my shoulder. "Guess we should get going huh?"
"Yeah, you're probably right, don't wanna be late."
"Later you mean."
"Yeah, that." We both left the room and headed down the hall towards the exit.

When we made it to the courtyard just outside the building we were immediately greeted by a line of at least 20 people all in uniforms. Some were standing at attention, others were having conversations between themselves and others still seemed zoned out entirely. The uniforms were dull, mainly consisting of dark grey polo shirts and cargo shorts, some of the girls had skirts, and some were wearing jackets or long pants, all had the same general aesthetic, plain grey uniforms with a small logo I couldn't quite make out on the top right of the shirt/jacket.
"Uhh, we were told to meet out here after I had gotten set in, what exactly is going on here?" I asked the man directly in front of the door.
"Every one of you has been assigned a personal assistant for your stay at our facility, we're to escort you to the meeting ground as soon as you're ready," he replied in a very flat, matter of fact tone.
"And, how do we know who we are supposed to go with?" The man gestured to a name tag on the left side of his chest before answering.
"Find the employee wearing your name," I glanced over at Alyssa, who seemed to have gotten the memo and started walking down one side of the lineup. I took the hint and headed down the other side, checking each name tag as I went, eventually I found my name on a young woman near the end of the lineup, she was idly twirling some of her blonde hair around her finger when I approached.
"Excuse me, I think you're with me," I said quietly, causing her to look up suddenly.
"Hm? Oh, you must be Alexis then, right? the one from Unova."
"Yeah, that's me."
"Ready to go then?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," I shrugged as she gave me a 'follow me' type hand sign before starting to walk off, I followed her at a comfortable distance, I wasn't thrilled by the idea of having someone watching me all the time. We arrived at a sort of outdoor stage with a bunch of plastic chairs set out in front of it, there were already a few people seated, some in uniform some not. Jeez, how many people are there at this thing? I thought to myself. I was directed to my seat by my so-called assistant. As time went on, more of the seats became filled, I didn't recognise either of the two seated next to me and couldn't really see many others past them. Before long an older woman took the stage as another two employees wheeled a long table with a cloth over it across the front of the stage. After they had set the table in position the woman above moved to the front of the stage and began to speak.
"Welcome trainers to be from all around the world. As some of you may know, you were brought here at the discretion of your regions' respective professor as a representative of your homeland," her voice was cold, yet she spoke with a certain affection in her tone "Each of you has shown significant promise in the field of pokemon training, despite never having been with a pokemon yourself. We have brought you all here in hopes of conducting a competition between regions, each of you will be given an egg from which you will raise a pokemon of your very own for a period of six months." At this point, the two workers at the table pulled the cloth off the table to reveal many different eggs of varying sizes and colours each sitting within a glass container. "At the end of this period, there will be several competitions to determine which trainer has raised their pokemon the best in all the different ways a pokemon can be trained. There will be rewards for the top trainers in each category as well as the highest overall scores. All facilities and resources one could ever need will be supplied by our staff, as well as each of you being granted a personal assistant to locate or guide you to wherever or whatever you need. All the staff are here to assist in any way possible and provide valuable information for each of you. Classes on specific training styles or information will be held regularly and can be attended at your discretion, none of these courses however are mandatory. Each of you is free to use your time here however you see fit and train in whichever way you find the most efficient. For any further questions, you may ask your assistants or any staff you may find after you have each collected your egg. The nametags worn by your assistants have been collected and shuffled by this gentleman while I was talking," at this point another employee, wearing a different uniform to the assistants and the ones who carried the table. "This is one of our tutors, Mr Balera. He is among the few of our staff with a deeper understanding of the specifics of pokemon and their training. You can learn more about him and his colleagues later." at this point the man handed over a small cloth bag to the woman on stage before taking a stand behind her. "When your name is called, come up and take the egg of your choice. They're first come first serve, so don't be disappointed if someone else takes the one you had your eyes on." Immediately after this, she began to call out names, and one by one the other trainers. Surely enough the bigger eggs and the ones with more intricate patterns were the first to go, I noticed Alyssa went up reasonably quickly, picking one of the smaller eggs in a pale grey. I was about the fifteenth name called, my egg was no bigger than a football and covered in a light brown with a slightly paler stripe running through the top and bottom, the stripes had a slight flair to them swooping in and out, almost like bangs. Ethan was the last name called, ending up with another brown egg about the same size as mine, I couldn't make out any details though since he was seated so far away from me.

after we had all collected our eggs we were set on our way with wishes of good luck from all the staff present. as I went to leave I was stopped by a quiet voice from behind.
"Uhm, Alexis?" I turned around to see the lady who escorted me to the assembly holding out her hand.
"Oh, hey, what's up?"
"All participants are required to have one of these on hand at all times," She opened her hand and showed me a small black box with a red button on it. "It doubles as a pager and GPS tracking device, you can use it whenever you need my help, and it lets us keep track of you in case of emergencies."
"Oh, cool. Thanks... Uh, I don't think I ever got your name."
"Oh, right, I'm Sierra I'll be acting as your caretaker for the duration of your stay here on Amber Island."
"Amber... Island? I thought we were in Kanto, but I've never heard of this place before."
"Well, we are, kind of. Amber Island is a small Island found just a few clicks south of the Kantonese border, it was only recently discovered and most of the people who found it kept it quiet to make the experiment a bigger surprise."
"Well, I guess that makes sense, but how were they able to keep an entire island a secret like that?"
"With the right team and resources, anything is possible."
With that, we both went our separate ways for now. I headed back to my room, I wanted to make sure I was properly organised for the rest of my stay