Rigorous Relationships

Rustboro Ruckus

"How's Ditto doing?" Dena asked the Nurse Joy at the Rustboro city pokemon center. They'd arrived at the city nearly an hour before, and had rushed the injured pokemon to the nearest Pokemon Center where it was currently being treated.

"It's condition is stable and recovering nicely. I'd even go as far to say that it'll be up and moving within an hour or two." Nurse Joy responded quickly as she dashed off to help more injured Pokémon.

Dena breathed a sigh of relief at the good news and looked, through the large observational glass window, at the pink putty like Pokémon resting peacefully on a gurney. It looked worlds better than when she'd brought it in, back then it had practically been melting into a pink puddle of goo and she'd needed to borrow Ash's cap just to keep the poor creature from slipping out of her hold.

As her mind went to Ash's cap she realized she hadn't called the rest of the group, who were all out running errands and setting things up for the next day or two, and pulled out her cellphone to give them the good news.

"Ditto is doing better, will text you guys if anything changes.^u^."

Around the city five phones received this text message and everyone but two responded with: "glad to hear it" or "thank goodness", and one person who used only emojis to say, "hope ditto feels better soon, call us if you need anything". The only responses Dena didn't get were from Ash and Cal who were somewhat preoccupied at the time and couldn't pick up their phones.

Both boys had been so eager to get to the gym and claim a badge that Dena had let them go, and pretty much sealed their fate for the next few hours. For what Ash had neglected to remember, from his past trip to Hoenn, was the Rustboro City Gym doubled as the Pokémon trainers school; and upon entering the building they had been mistaken for two students known for cutting class and were hauled off to Evolution 101, where they'd had their phones taken away within the first five minutes after responding to a text from Serena and Aura, asking what everyone wanted for lunch.

The boys made the best use of their educational imprisonment and tried their best to make sense of what their teachers were trying to explain; but each of them seemed to not have the academic gene in them. Throughout the next hour of Evolution education, Ash and Cal only managed to learn how to make paper footballs, thanks to their fellow students, and a few well known facts about evolution like: Pokémon can evolve due to their emotional attachment to people, interaction with certain objects, and/or by gaining experience in battle.

After enduring the evolution lesson they were escorted by security guards, (whoever they were being mistaken for obviously had a reputation for ditching), to their next class which was battle tactics. A few seconds after they were seated, a woman in her mid twenties walked out to the front of the class; she had two buns of coal black hair tied above the temples of her head, and the excess hair looped down her neck as two pigtail like lengths of hair. Her outfit was mainly composed of a shin length grey skirt over scarlet leggings and she had a matching grey blouse with a salmon pink ascot around her neck.

At first Ash didn't recognize the woman, but as soon as she spoke something clicked in his mind and he began grinning like a madman as he recalled her name. Roxanne, part time teacher, part time archeologists and full time gym leader of Rustboro city. Right now though she was his and Cal's teacher who was busy addressing the class.

"Welcome back students; today we're going to watch some videos from some of my past battles as the Gym leader." An assistant came out from a side door with a selection of tapes and Roxanne chose one at random. "During this viewing I will be stopping the video at specific points and ask you, as a class, to tell me what the trainer should do next, as well as critique what each of us do. Now let's begin."