Pokemon School Days: Giratina Rising

Chapter 4

Ves's suitecase is red. There's a picture burried at the bottom of it. It sits in a wooden frame, under a pile of not-so neatly packed t-shirts. Thinking about it, Ves was twelve in that picture. He doesn't ever pay attention to the twelve year old boy. He remembers the eighteen year old boy next to him.

Sitting in art class isn't Ves's favourite activity. Drawing was not his strongest point. They had PE before it, and it only made things worse. He felt the sweat running down his side. It kept distracting him from trying to draw the Cyndaquill tea pot placed on the table in front of the room. Not that he could see it too well from the back of the room. His sweaty palms left smudges all over the paper as he absentmindedly traced the shape of the pot. Glancing over Sam's shoulder, he found some satisfaction in the fact his teammate was doing as poorly as he was. He didn't hate Sam. He didn't hate any of his teammates. True, Ves had found the other boys slightly annoying, but he didn't hate them. All he had wanted was for them to stay at the bay. Crakc some jokes, bicker for a while, talk when you have to, but getting to know them was not a part of the deal. At least they all seemed to be on the same page when it came to that. Just in case, he left that pucture sitting at the bottom of his suitcase. Answering questions counted towards fraternising. Not what he came here for.

The day was already winding down by the time they were done with the art class. It took three periods. This is the only year they have to take art, so the board decided to really give it to them. Ves's creation barely resembled a tea pot, it looked more like a vaguely rat-shaped blob. Sam didn't do muh better. Joe's drawing was a shapeless mess hidden behind a curtain of smudges. "I'm left handed", the boy excuses himself calmly upon noticing Ves eyeing his artwork.

"Huh, so that's it", Ves chuckled, "I thiught you were just trying to be abstract".

"Good to know you're bad at this", Ace joins in on the conversation. Proudly holding his paper out, Ves sees a neatly drawn tea pot.

He turns to Teo, whose paper is covered in doodles, and not a good ones. One of them was supposed to be a motor bike, Ves was pretty sure. "Stop staring", the boy with a buzz cut said flatly, "I'm not the fan of art class, if you couldn't tell".

"Not a fan of PE class either", Ace chimmes in, "where were you".

"None of your bussines", Teo responds shortly.

"You shouldn't be skipping classes", Sam says, "it's just the first day".

"What does it matter to you", Teo raises an eyebrow, "PE is not a part of the finals anyways, it's not like it affects any of you".

"Yeah, well we were one person short for dodge ball", Ves retorts, "so you see it affects us very much, they smoked us".

"Wish I was there to see it", Teo laughs, "is there a video".

"No, there is not", Ves rolls his eyes.

"Don't start", Joe says calmly, "PE doesn't matter, we have bigger problems right now, you know".

"And what would those be, if you care to inform us?", Ves says sarcastically, supposing Joe is more then eager to do the talking.

"We basically have no means of training", Joe says matter-of-factly as he leaves his drawing on top of the pile at the professor's table.

"What do you mean?", Ves follows the suite.

"I mean, we can't battle", Joe clarifies, "we can use the training center, but we can't battle".

"Cmon, you're being overdramatic", Ace groans, "did Nolan's little talk scare you that much?".

"No", Joe says shortly, "but I did go around asking other professor's if they are willing to referee".