A Champion in a Twisted World

Chapter 19 - Getting the Boot and Going to Class

"Agias!" Miraidon and Koraidon excitedly howl out as they paint the roses with paintbrushes in their mouthes. 

"You're doing great boys and girls and you lizards with your silly quirks!" You chipperly call out as you neatly paint another rose on the bush you're working on with Ace.

Grim and Deuce are working on painting another bush, and a bunch of the originally white bushes have been painted by your Pokémon and the rest of the group.

"Red... Red... BAM!" Deuce waves his pen at the bush, flinching back in surprise when the rose turns the wrong color. "Wh- whoa! It turned blue?" He scratches his head, wondering what in the world went wrong.

"Change, o foul color, change! AHA!" Grim shot a fireball at a rose, waving his arms frantically when the wrong thing happens. "BWAH!? The rose caught on fire?"

Cater shakes his head in disbelief. "Wow. You're even less competent than I thought." He waves his pen at the rose bush, turning the blue rose red and flicking off the fire of the other bush.

Ace rubs the back of his neck, raising an eyebrow at Cater. "Yo, maybe you should just leave the roses white! They look perfectly pretty 'n stuff to me."

You shrug a bit, and nod a bit. "Ace does have a point... anyways, white roses are honestly one of my favorite colors of roses. Why do we need to change them?"

"It's a matter of tradition," Cater replies, "You can't have an Unbirthday party without the roses being red. And you can't play croquet without seven-colored flamingos as mallets and a hedgehog for a ball."

You feel your expression blank. What's a flamingo and what's a hedgehog. You need to finish reading that animal book already... Sucks that you're still on the c-animals and monsters.

Though, you have played croquet once. You never tried using any Pokémon to play. It sounds kind of cruel to be honest...

Cater continues, snapping you out of your thoughts. "Oh, but of course, the roses need to be white when the garden flowers put on their spring concert. That's absolutely crucial."

You and Moonstone share an inquisitive look, and Grim places his paws on his little head. "All your rooms are completely insane!"

"They say the Queen of Hearts made up these rules herself, she was one of the Great Seven, you know." Cater retorts. "And Riddle is all about tradition. Probably more than previous Housewarden's, T-B-H. I'll admit that he's, well... a bit extra."

"Yeah, no kidding. I don't have time for this nonsense." Ace drops his paintbrush on the ground and marches up to Cater. "Is Riddle here? I gotta talk to him."

You pick up and wipe off Ace's paintbrush, before gently placing it and your own paintbrush back into one of the paint buckets casually. You may as well try to keep from making a mess of things if you can.

"Yeah, probably." Cater waves a hand absent-mindedly. "But are you sure that's wise? Did you even bring an apology tart to replace the one you ate?"

Ace raises an eyebrow. "Uh, no..? I came here first thing in the morning."

Cater lets out a sheepish laugh that's nearly a snort. "That could be a problem. Have you forgotten Rule 53? Stolen items must be replaced. If you're not in compliance, I can't let you in."

"..." One of Ace's eyes twitch, before gritting his teeth and yelling. "Are you serious!?"

Oh no. You know something bad's about to happen and immediately start returning your Pokémon to their Pokéballs (except Moonstone and Poni naturally as they're tiny), glancing over at Ace and Cater the entire time.