Juniper wasted no time in giving me a pen, and led me through all of the different boxes, signatures, and checkboxes I needed to fill out. Colress had returned in the midst of this and was looking over the proceedings with a smile. Upon finishing, he took Juniper’s pce across from me and id a bck and white box in the middle of the table.

  “Regardless of what your future pns were, we decided to reward you with one of these.” He chuckled, “Of course since you’ve signed up to be sponsored, you were going to receive this anyway.”

  He pushed the small box towards me. Both Ionia and Oxide were staring at the box alongside me. I had an inkling of what was inside, so I gently took it, pulled the lid off of it, and saw the most important tool for a Pokemon trainer besides pokeballs.

  “This is the test generation of the Unovan Pokedex.” Colress expined. “It has all the regur features; scanning Pokemon in the open, habitat list, etcetera. However with a little help from Devon Corporation, we were able to include their signature DexNav scanning feature with it!”

  He gestured out the front door leading outside which had now been cloaked in twilight. “It’s not truly feasible to demonstrate it indoors, but the DexNav basically acts as a long range scanning device for Pokemon! It has a range of about two-hundred meters, and unfortunately drains the battery fairly quickly, but you will be able to get a list of all pokemon in your immediate vicinity!” He made a little flourish that ended with him pointing at me, “Finally, it also has a ‘spot-scan’ feature. This allows you to effectively send out a pulse of the surrounding eight-hundred meters for a specific Pokemon species!”

  He looked as if he was about to continue when Professor Juniper cleared her throat, “Yes it is most impressive,” she looked over at the sound of me yawning, “however, I am sure Psyche is quite tired right now, and would like to go to bed?”

  I nodded, “Yes ma’am, but what about the fossil?”

  She smiled, “We can take that from here and begin the revival process,” I do insist that you are there when said process is finished in about a week though.” She said with a smirk. “Now Ioni, can you show young Psyche here to the dormitories?”

  She snapped to a quick salute, “You got it Professor!” She grabbed my hand, “Come on Psyche! The showers never run out of hot water here, and the beds are so incredibly comfy, it's like sleeping with an Altaria!”

  She then proceeded to drag me deeper into the building, with me barely grabbing ahold of my bag, and my two Pokemon left in our wake.

  Before I even had time to process what had happened, we stopped at a door with a scanner embedded into the wall next to it, “’s easy cheezy!” Ioni expined while waving her own Pokedex around. “Just scan your ‘dex over these things and if you’re meant to be there it’ll open up for you!”

  She then demonstrated by pulling out her own Pokedex and waving it over the scanner which unlocked the door with a beep and ker-chunk. She then held the door open and ushered me and my Pokemon through the door.

  “Your’s isn’t technically registered yet, so until then you can bum off me for the night.” Ioni smiled, “And tomorrow we can get all that stuff sorted!”

  Her smile turned into a pout as she turned the Baby-Doll Eyes up to eleven. “You are joining the circuit right? I mean you have a Hatenna and an Emolga! Elesa and Laney are both living proof of how strong they can become!”

  I fidgeted with the cuff of my jacket sleeve, “I uhhh, I guess that’s the next natural part of my pn? Lab work doesn’t sound right for me, and I didn’t really pn much further other than get here as fast as possible to get the cover fossil revived so my Sperm Donor wouldn’t be able to take it back somehow.”

  Noticing the change in my tone, Ioni stepped a bit closer. “You good to be touched?”

  I nodded, and she put her arm around my shoulders, “Listen, even just the small stuff I’ve noticed about you, and what you’ve said about that guy makes me dislike him more and more. Whatever happens, I’ve got your back and nothing can stop us!”

  I looked up at her, “Is this your pitch to get me to travel with you through Unova during the circuit?”

  “You bet it is!” Her enthusiasm wavered a bit, “Mainly cause I don’t really have a lot of friends here, and you’re the only other first-year I’ve seen here which means we’re probably the only ones who will start from the same pce.”

  She fixed me with those eyes again and I found myself folding despite the fact I was going to agree anyway.

  “I’m okay with that, but you have to gather firewood.”

  I almost instantly regretted that second part, what if she thinks I’m just being a maniputive asshole? She’ll go get Professor Juniper and I’ll lose the sponsorship I just gained and-

  “Sure! I do hope you know how to cook though,” she sheepishly scratched the back of her head. “I’m kinda useless when it comes to cooking. I once set a pot of boiling water on fire.”

  “I- I mean I’m not the best cook, but I can make do?”

  Before we could continue, both Ionia, and Oxide made their disagreement with my cim known. Ionia psychically chastising me, and Oxide miming eating her breakfast and lunch and enjoying it.

  “Er-“ I blushed, “what I mean to say is I’m a pretty decent cook.”

  Ioni giggled at our antics, “Perfect! We’ll be able to figure out all the other stuff ter while your fossil is cooking!” She stopped us in front of a random door, “This is a room I know for sure is uncimed, your ‘dex might not be registered but it can still mark a room as yours!”

  I walked up to the door hesitantly, and scanned my Pokedex, half worried it would just instantly fail, and the door beeped and unlocked just as easily as Ioni made it look when entering the dorms.

  Pushing open the door, I found myself standing in the middle of a room that wasn’t too dissimir to the dorms at Blueberry Academy out in the ocean east of here. They were a decent enough size to hold a Trainers entire team (assuming they weren’t going too much higher than an expanded team of eight). There was a cozy looking bed in the corner with a nightstand next to it, next to the nightstand was a smallish desk with a chair, and on the opposite wall from all of that, there were a few bean bag chairs, and a door leading to a small bathroom.

  “The Professor said the dorms are very simir to what you would see in a Pokemon Center,” Ioni expined, “of course it’s a bit nicer here cause there’s less traffic, but it’s not a huge difference.”

  Ionia and Oxide both rushed for the bed and jumped onto it before instantly snuggling together.

  I walked forward into the room and pced my backpack by the foot of the bed. “It’s honestly perfect.” I said while turning back towards Ioni with a smile. “The only thing I’d say it's missing is decoration, but that's not really an issue I guess?”

  Ioni grinned right back at me, “Nope! Although I wouldn’t get anything for the room since the circuit starts up in a few weeks.”

  I nodded in agreement then yawned.

  “I um, I guess we should head to bed?”

  She lightly rapped her knuckles against her forehead, “Probably for the best, I’ll get out of your hair Psych.” She turned to leave, “I’ll see ya for breakfast tomorrow! And then we can do a whole bunch of pnning and stuff! Oh! We could also do our battle tomorrow!”

  With renewed vigor, she practically zipped out of my room so that she could get to morning faster.

  I shook my head with a small smile, and started digging through my backpack for my pajamas.

  Soon enough, all three of us were fast asleep in a bed that was absolutely as cozy as it looked.

  ***

  The next morning, I had dressed into a t-shirt and leggings, and had left my room with Oxide on my head, and Ionia in her pokeball on my hip when I realized something.

  I had no idea where the cafeteria was.

  Having no idea of where to go, I kept walking deeper into the dorms to see if it was that way, only to run into a dead end.

  Nerves already a bit frayed, I almost jumped clear through the ceiling when I heard a voice call out from behind me.

  “Hey new kid! You lost or somethin’?”

  Spinning around, I locked eyes with a girl who was a foot taller than me, and had unruly short blue hair with a yellow streak down one side.

  She also had uhm… muscles. I pulled my visor down in a vain attempt to hide my blush. I was barely able to nod my head slightly.

  “Where ya tryin’ ta go?”

  Please don’t say something weird. Please don’t say something weird. Ple-

  “The uhm food pce kitchen yes.”

  I could feel both the girl’s, and Oxide’s eyes looking at me.

  Could someone just use Fissure on me already?

  “Hey girl, no worries about bein’ nervous or whatnot.” She comforted with a wink, “The cafeteria is this way.”

  She instantly turned around and began walking back the way I came from, “Come on! It’s pancake day and I refuse to let Samantha get all the hot ones!”

  Soon enough we had arrived in the mess, with my guide instantly rushing off after giving a hurried expnation that it was pretty much just a self-serve situation, and that our Pokemon would be given food suited to them as well if we were okay with it.

  I walked up to the buffet table, and began stacking a few pancakes, bacon, eggs, and a slice of buttered toast onto a pte. I also was able to figure out how the Pokemon food stuff worked. All you had to do was input what Pokemon you had with you, and a tray with bowls of pellet food would be set on the window counter nearby after a few moments.

  Food obtained, I then walked over to an empty table, and released Ionia onto it. After that it was a simple task of distributing the food to everyone before we all dug into our breakfast.

  A few minutes after we had all finished, we were all looking at my phone to get an idea of what we should do considering Ioni was nowhere in sight. The sound of footsteps walking up to us had me setting the phone down and looking up to find Professor Juniper smiling at our little group.

  “I’m gd to see that you’re settling in okay Psyche,” she csped her hands together, “If you don’t mind, Professor Krane would like to have a word with you if you’re willing.”

  “He says he has an important task he would like you to do for him.”

  DeliriousSprite