Broken Souls

Water We Still Making These Awful Title Puns For

Misty walks back into the gym with a defiant swing of the door, ripping off her overshirt to reveal a one-piece bathingsuit underneath. The shirt falls to the floor in the water, floating with its arms flailing above the pool water, and Misty, lips pursed, turns to her posse.

"Alright girls, who ratted me out?"

One of the girls, wearing a red-and-white stripe bikini, flicks a finger towards one of the girls earlier. "It was Brittney."

Misty throws her hands up. "Oh my Arceus, Brittney, you bitch. Neil's going to kill me for this."

"Girl, you're way out of his league. He should be kissing your feet, not slitting your neck." says another girl to a chorus of 'yas, slay' in the background.

"We all know he's basic, but bailing on anyone is bad form. I'm never in bad form." Misty says with a swing of her hips and a seductive smile. I don't know if she's talking about swimming, Pokemon training, or... other things... but I don't really care at this point.

Using every bit of self restraint I can muster, I smile through gritted teeth and ask, "Not to be rude, but can we get on with the battle?"

"Ugh! You're such a dork!" She stretches her hand over her head, stretching out, and then jumps into the pool. Instead of landing in the water, she lands on one of her floating platforms, and walks from one to the next. "You coming?"

I have no desire to go swimming.

"If we put everyone away for a quick second, I could fly us over." Ten suggests.

"Right. I'd prefer not to weight the platforms down, either, so I'll just have the fighters for today's match out. That'd be Ten, Fang, and Reginae." I say. Hycanith bows out, though I can feel a twinge of disappointment through our bond, and Minerva, though upset, isn't stupid enough to ignore the most basic of type advantages.

Out of all of us, surprisingly, Fang is the most discontent with the match up. "I wasn't told I'd be fighting today," he says. "Can I... do this some other day?"

"Tsk, just be happy you're fighting." Minerva says, ruffling Fang's fur with her snout. He scowls as she touches him. "Have fun, nerds. You'd better do a good job, or I swear I'll burst out of the Poke Ball and take her whole team down myself."

"We'll be okay." Reginae says with a soft half-smile. "Right, see you all soon."

"Very soon," agrees Ten as the others disappear. He wraps his talons close around my shoulders and flaps hard, carrying us up and over the gap to the unsteady rafts that are supposed to make up our battle platform. There's no way fighting on these can be fair by any means of the word, but maybe it's just a Kanto thing. This is the same region that made us rummage through their garbage just for a shot at challenging Surge.

"You ready?" Misty asks. "You better not have done all this just to waste my time."

"Can these hold Pokemon during battle?" I ask, then, more cautiously, "Do they tilt?"

Misty, who's wearing a bathing suit anyways, waves my concerns away. "They haven't broken yet. What, are you afraid of getting your feet wet?"

Yes, I think, since these are expensive shoes sitting just inches from the point of uselessness from extensive wear, but also because falling into a pool surrounded by these guys is on the bottom of the 'things I wanted to do today' list. In fact, there are any number of reasons why this challenge and everything about it sucks, but I guess the best thing to do is just to get it over with. Seeing as Misty is tapping her foot impatiently (and I swear I can feel the platform shake), I blurt out, "Alright! Let's just do this. Reginae, take 'em out!"