Arven's Scarlet Desire

Chapter Seven - First Badge of the Year

Nemona stormed down the corridor to the dorms. The sun was still rising, and she had just caught a flying taxi back to the school, after a call from Mr Saguaro - the Home Economics teacher, and, incidentally, Scarlet's uncle. He'd heard something concerning, and asked Nemona to check in on his niece. She had arrived the night before, exhausted, dusty and shabby. The reception lady had looked up to see her limping through the entrance hall, missing a shoe on her left foot and sporting a bandage above her right knee.

Nemona, who hadn't been able to get through to Scarlet's phone since the afternoon of the Treasure Hunt opening ceremony, was already plenty worried, and then, while sitting in the flying taxi, a thread of gossip started to show up on her phone, painting a picture she scarcely believed.

She banged on Scarlet's door.

"Wake up," she shouted through the door. "I know you're in there!"

She pounded on the door for a solid minute until Scarlet opened it, bleary eyed, in her underwear, holding her blanket around her like a long towel.

"Jeez, woman!" Scarlet said, letting her in and closing the door behind her. "What's got your knickers in a knot?"

"You haven't answered your phone for like, two days!" Nemona's hands were on her hips. "And girl, why am I hearing you limped into the Cortondo Gym at sunset last night, covered in dirt like a crazy person, and refused to leave until they let you compete for a badge... wait- is that true?"

Scarlet shuffled over to her bag and uniform piled on the floor - where she had dumped them in exhaustion before collapsing onto her bed - and pulled out the Bug-type badge, turning to Nemona with a grin.

"First badge of the year," she said, triumphantly.

Nemona's jaw dropped. "Oh my god, you actually did it!"

"I sure did, doll!" Scarlet cried.

They screamed and grabbed each others hands, jumping around like kids.

"I'm so proud of you!" Nemona said. "You really just got your first badge the day after Treasure Hunt started. You know the only other person to ever do that was Geeta?"

Scarlet nodded, still beaming.

"I knew you wanted to do it really soon," Nemona said, "but wait, I thought you changed your mind and went east? What happened?"

Scarlet scratched her head and sighed. "Where to start?" They sat on her bed. "Look, I did go east - almost halfway to Artazon... to meet up with Arven."

Nemona cocked her head, her ponytail whipping around like a punctuation mark to her surprise.

"I know, I know," said Scarlet, quickly. "Trust me, I still hate him and he's just as much a prick as he ever was - but..."

Scarlet had a thought.

"Nemona?" She looked seriously at her friends face. "You have to promise me you wont tell anyone about this."

"About what?" Nemona asked, and then followed it immediately with "Ohhh. You sucked his dick," completely misreading the situation.

Scarlet smacked her arm. "Oh my god, no! You're such a whore, why do you always say stuff like that!"

Nemona snickered. "Oh alright, sure. I'm just saying, I wouldn't judge you."

"I mean, you don't wanna be a hypocrite, do you?" Scarlet snapped back, and Nemona laughed.

"But seriously," Scarlet said, "I know you're gonna want to tell people, because it's kind of crazy. You have to promise me you wont. Like, Spikemuth-style, finger or brown-bread, real shit."