How to Train Your Pokémon

Late Night Discoveries

How to Train Your Pokémon

A/N: I hope y'all enjoy Chapter 8. Roll it!

Chapter 8

Late Night Discoveries

It was early in the night when the Ketchum siblings arrived at the laboratory for dinner with the other recruits. As they each got some food, Gary was going over the day's training session and each of the recruits' performances in the Arena.

"All right. Where did Aiden go wrong in the ring today?" He asked as the Ketchum siblings sat down at a separate table.

"I mistimed my somersault dive." Aiden replied indifferently. "It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble."

"Yeah. We noticed." Evan said sarcastically. The Newton boy can give anything and everything criticism, even if there was none necessary.

"He's right, though." Gary said, trying to prevent a possible argument. "You have to be tough on yourselves. Where did Mari go wrong?" He asked, making the Ketchum girl glare at him.

"Uh, she showed up?" Keira began to guess. "Didn't get blasted?"

Defending his sister, Luke went over to her, grabbed her arm, and threw her across her table. But then, Aiden spoke up. "She's never where she should be." He answered.

In response to that, Mari grabbed her steak knife and then threw it towards him. He barely ducked in time to dodge it, but the blade stuck itself into the post behind him. Seeing her murderous glare threatening to burn him alive if it was possible, he quickly held his hands up in surrender. "In that case, I take it back."

"See that it will do you good, Newton." Mari turned away from Aiden, still keeping a stony face. But inside, her heart felt a sharp stab. Despite that, she ignored the internal pain. Like always, he wouldn't look her way in a million years.

Gary pulled the knife from the post. "Well, now that's out of the way, that shows that there's more to someone or something than meets the eye." His words hit the Ketchum kids, making them lost in thought. "Now, all of you start heading back home."

The Newton siblings then began to leave the lab, while the Ketchum kids pretended to slowly eat their food. As they did, they saw Gary head over to his office down the hall. Mari left the table and followed him, not making a sound across the white porcelain floor.

Soon, she saw him exit his office and she hid underneath a large discarded desk. When she made sure that he wasn't there anymore, she swiftly head inside before the door closed. She scanned the messy desk and the walls which were covered in pictures. One photo hanging on the wall caught her eye.

It showed two young boys smiling friendly at each other. One was definitely a young version of Gary. The other, she guessed, was her father, Ash. Mari smiled softly at the photo. It showed just close the two were.

Reluctantly, she tore her gaze away and back to the paper-covered desk. When she opened a drawer, she saw three strange-looking handheld devices. One of them was dark gray with a Poké Ball design on the bottom half, while the top part of it had a screen. The second was red with a gray button in the middle. And the third was orange and also had a screen, but in the middle.

Mari carefully took the devices, put them in her satchel, and quietly closed the drawer. She headed over to the door and looked around. When she saw that the coast was clear, she tiptoed out into the hallway and quietly closed the office door behind her.

In a matter of minutes, she arrived back where the twins were waiting. "What did you score?" Luke asked.

Mari quickly looked behind her, then back to her brothers. "At home." She said simply.