Blood, Sweat, and Hanon - A Ranger's Apprentice fanfiction

Chapter Five - Will

A/N: I don't own Pokemon, Pokemon GO, or any of the Pokemon characters. I actually know almost nothing about Pokemon GO, and I had to look up all the information pertaining to Pokemon used in this chapter. Thus, I apologize for any mistakes.

When Will and Gilan get to the main auditorium in the Conservatory, there are already a few students scattered throughout the hall. All of them are on their smartphones.

Gilan leans over to Will and whispers conspiratorially, "It's rumored that a wild Magmar spawned here once." 

"A what did what?"

Gilan smirks. "You're not a gamer, then? You don't play Pokemon GO?"

Will shakes his head. "Nope. Last I checked, you need a smartphone for that." He holds up his ancient flip phone. "This phone is pretty dumb."

Gilan snorts. "Funny. As a matter of fact, I don't play either. Apparently, a Magmar is one of the rarest Pokemon." He gestured towards the kids on their phones. "These guys are hoping to get lucky, or whatever it is they do on that game."

Will shrugs. "Who knows? It could be fun." He glances again at the others absorbed in their phone screens. "Maybe."

"Yeah, if you didn't have to practice eight hours a day to keep up with Sir Grumps-a-lot's assignments at your lessons."

"Does Mr. O'Carrick really give you that much work?" Will asks anxiously. 

Gilan picks a seat on the right-hand side of the auditorium, halfway back. Will takes the chair next to him.

"It depends," Gilan finally says. "He takes into consideration what you're working on, what events, like competitions and evaluations, are coming up, and what the schoolwork load is, which is really nice. Some of the teachers don't do that, and you see their students pulling regular all-nighters trying to get everything done. I think the most important difference between Halt and those teachers is that the other teachers only care about their students as musicians. Halt cares about us as people. I mean, of course, he wants us to be the best musicians we can possibly be, but he doesn't want us to kill ourselves doing it.

"But he will push you really hard," Gilan continues. "He'll push you as hard as you can handle, and it will be really difficult until you get used to the pace."

Will raises both hands. "Hold up. First you say that he doesn't want to kill us with the workload, and then you say he does?"

Gilan shakes his head. "There's a fine line between the two extremes, and Halt is a master at walking it."

Will nods, thinking about it. He supposes he will find out about this line for himself soon.

Across the hall, one of the auditorium doors opens and a pair of students comes in. They pause just inside the doorway, scanning the room, and then one of them raises his hand and waves at Will and Gilan.

Gilan glances at the students and shrugs. "You know those people?" he asks.

Will looks across the room. "Yeah," he says. "The boy is one of my roommates, and I met the girl in passing earlier. She showed me how to get to the dorms." 

George and Alyss make their way across the room. They file into the same row as Will and Gilan. Alyss sits next to Will, and George sits on her other side.

"Hey, guys," Will says. "I didn't know you knew each other."

Alyss nods. "George and I met during string auditions."

"Oh, are you a violinist?" Will asks.

"Yes," Alyss says. She points to the violin case leaning against her leg and raises an eyebrow at Will.