A big wave in fighting!

Perfect! Now it looked rather soft! She was sure it’d last through the trip and the dinner.

The knock on the door and Brawly’s voice caused a panic inside of the redhead, jolting her into a run as she rushed around her bedroom, grabbing her heels and her purse, slipping them on and only stopping at a mirror to put on lipstick.

“Coming! I-I’m coming!” She yelled, walking to the front door and opening it, jaw dropping ever so slightly at the sight. Who would of thought she’d see the day were Brawly got all dressed up?

Wait. Play it cool.

“Wow! Look at you! All dolled up! I don’t think I’ve seen you dressed like this before!” She stated, reaching out and pulling a fallen blue hair from his shoulder.

And there was Flannery, looking far more pretty, present, and punctual than he.

“Great!” No, no, he meant to say ‘hi, Flannery, you look great!’. Again.

“Nice!” NO. No, no. NO. Again! “....Wonderful?” … Perfect. What was next, ‘don’t mind’?!

But if he slapped himself now, it’d be too obvious. He settled for leaning against the door’s frame, crossing his arms, and jutting his lip out at her, his line of sight flickering to and away from her at uneven intervals. “I-- I dressed up when I was getting qualified for the gym leader thing, you know!” Forgoing his attempts at addressing her-- he straightened up and pushed his bangs from his face.

“Ah, dinner! Dinner, at this really cool place in Lilycove! Dewford Hall has a little section where the food critics of town gather and they rate some really swell spots, and this place supposedly has different themed rooms-- I hear they even have all the gyms represented. Hehe!”

          ╰❀╮ Her heart might jump out of her chest it’s beating so rapidly– face turning red, suppressing a deep breath. It takes all her strength to be composed from the shock. Arceus, on impulse she wants to reach for some sort of self defense. She only stops when she recognizes what she’d assumed was her assailant. The dull beating pain in her heart doesn’t stop that easily. She has to take a breath before answering. 

                           It ticks, ticks, ticks– 

                          And all she can reply with is a small: “Y-you too–” 

Blissfully oblivious of the shock he’s incited, Brawly doesn’t hesitate to jump into the heart of the matter, beaming at her invitation to go ahead with his inquiry. “I knew I could count on you! Which is why I decided I couldn’t leave all the hard work to you, so I went ahead and started researching a bit on my own. 

Regardless of how stubborn of a woman she was, Clair could not keep a straight expression; seeing that horsea shoot a barrage of goo splotches smack dab onto its holder’s face was priceless. She laughed & laughed until it was painful, wiping the tears from her watery lids. 

What a joke-- why did it always take him becoming the joke?! Swiping the gunk from his eyes aggressively, Brawly glared first at the offending Horsea, and then over at the laughing women, pointedly shaking out his hand in her general direction. “I knew you guys would get along great.”

Funny-- when he’d first imagined himself uttering those words, he’d pictured it with much more enthusiasm, and the potential of feeling touched being present, maybe, too.

If her interest wasn’t already completely in the other’s hands, it was now as she watched the other draw in the dirt. She frowned as she saw that it was hangman. Of all people, Brawly should have known she hated hangman. With a passion at that. The smile on her face quickly fell into a frown. “I hate this game. I can  never win.” And being the sore loser she was, anything she knew she wasn’t good at was something she never wanted to do. If she wasn’t winning, she wasn’t happy. Call her arrogant or annoying, but she just wanted to be the best at what she could be the best at.

She puffed out her cheeks slightly at the comment. How dare he afterall, she had only been working at her training her entire life. To even insinuate that she wouldn’t be able to land a blow on the other at all was just as insulting as making her play hangman and knowing how bad she was at language. She dropped her stance and crossed her arms over her chest, eyebrows knotted and a deep set frown on her features.

Though the prospect of more food was horribly tempting and he almost wanted to withdraw his previous utterance… Until he remembered how prone Maylene was to winning when pitted against him. Grumbling under his breath, Brawly pushed the thought of a hot plate away and attempted to clear his mind in preparation. A grin followed through, assisting with the task.

“See you at six, alright?” She asked, feeling his arms wrap around her waist and hug her tightly, forcing a giggle out of her system before she took a deep breath and started counting to fifty as slow as possible, looking behind her at the end to see that Brawly had left long before she stopped counting. Well, she would see him later.

“I really should of considered that I don’t know how to dress up before I said yes…”

Wearing her only black dress and turning to look at herself from every angle, she was sure she was a lost cause. She barely knew how to walk in heels, how was she going to go through the whole dinner without embarrassing herself? She ran her fingers through her curled hair as she looked at herself in a mirror. She looked like someone else…

Perhaps if she put her hair up in a ponytail?

Knock. He looked down at his fist and willed it to do so, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. His concentration was ferocious, but even Master Bruno’s harshest training couldn’t have conditioned him to bring his knuckles forward the final distance.

With a sharp inhale, he decided to take his hesitation and make a sort of transference of energy-- he looked himself down once more, one final time. A black vest, buttoned up, an off white dress shirt beneath, his best dark wash pants, and a cool pair of shoes he’d picked off at the Hall the other week. His hair had been near impossible to tame, but it had looked tidier than usual before he’d left.

Before he left. Leaving his Pokemon in charge of the place with a cool wave-- and then ending up at Flannery’s door as a walking nerve, waiting to be set off.

He just had to see her-- once she crossed his vision, he’d be sure to relax and fall back into his normal groove! YEAH. FOR SURE.

Although, the worry of fudging up a good location for dinner was crossing his mind and-- no. NO MORE.

“HRNGH…” Brawly grunted loudly as he rolled over on hisback, throwing up an arm automatically. “—Present…! I told you all I’d make itto school on time today--…”

     So that’s what she had decided to do on her day off. Move from the docks and maybe relax a bit on the beach with her Poliwag and Tadpole. She had just been surveying for a spot near the shoreline to sit when she felt a blanket of sand on her; in her hair and covering the Poliwag tucked under her arm like a beach ball.

     Cough. Cough. Once she felt like the wasn’t about to breathe in a bucket of sand and die at the hands of Groudon, she moved to shake the sand out of her hair – and felt it stick to it, instead.

     This was a weird turn of events – but at least the Poliwag seemed happy, with a cheerful “Li - liwag!”

     The grunt coughed again, looking over to the one who was responsible for her being completely covered in water. 

The grass type fighter responded by attending to thedrenched Poliwag, tossing a small towel over it, bowing profusely for itstrainer’s negligence to natural effects to the girl and Pokemon in kind. Brawlypouted at his partner, receiving a reprimanding glower immediately on sight.

“It’s like you didn’t hear her! She said, ‘much better,’which definitely means much better!” He gestured to the girl with a swing ofhis arms—and proceeded to double take. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked the saltysea air out of them, squinting towards the unfamiliar person’s face—and so itwas. He’d seen her correctly.

“WHOA—Okay. Okay, okay, okay! Listen, don’t panic, but I—I’msorry, but it’s a total possibility that I—I—I BROKE YOUR EYES. I’M SO SORRY. IWASHED OFF ONE OF YOUR EYE’S CORRECT COLOR. I’m just—super unsure now; did Iclear off the blue or the brown? WHICH ONE’S DIFFERENT…?!”

Morty looked at the place he’d pinned the tail to and felt his cheeks redden slightly. Oh Steven, I’m so sorry, he thought to himself, before the band was yanked off his head. “What? No! It’s not transparent at all!” he laughed, though slightly worried at what Brawly might do with his precious headband. Not the headband! He sprinted after him, wondering whether it would be worth reaching into his pocket to have Mismagius teleport him ahead of Brawly. 

“YOU THINK I’D LEAVE THOSE IN AN UNSAFE AREA KNOWING HOW THEGENERAL POPULATION FEELS ABOUT THEM? HA. YOU HAVE UNDERESTIMATED ME FOR THELAST TIME, MORTIMUS MAXIMUS!” Brawly continued sprinting down the way, asomewhat maniacal laugh surfacing to cut through his panting. If only he couldget to a safe place to properly determine whether this headband met theNational League of Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey’s official headband rules.

Looking up from her blank patch of dirt, she stared at Brawly for a moment, before giving him a weak smile. “It looks go… Oh.” She frowned again as he kicked at the mediocre drawing. But never the less, she too up her own stick and began to draw her sword in the dirt. Her tongue stuck out a little bit as she scribbled what sort of resembled her sword. With a shrug she tossed the stick to the side and leaned back on her arms. She squinted and looked up at the other; if it wasn’t for Brawly she probably would have been up in her bunk worrying over tomorrow.

The sunlight felt good on her skin, even if she knew that she was going to regret it later. But it was rare for the sun to peak out so early in the year, so everyone was outside taking advantage of it. She turned and looked at all the others that would too graduate with her and Brawly. People that she had met at different points in her life, but still felt like some sort of strange dysfunctional family. She knew, that maybe it wouldn’t be fore all of them, but for some of them she would risk her life and they would do the same for her.

Getting up, Maylene stretched out, trying to get rid of some of the tension in her muscles. You couldn’t be limber when you felt like your muscles were a brick afterall. 

The other’s question caught her attention, and she shot him a raise of her eyebrow. She dodged the hilt of his sword the second time he moved to jab at her, and pulled out her own. A mischievous smile lifted her face and she tilted her head to the side. “Do you even need to ask?”

Clearing his throat, he took a step back into his stance,purposely settling himself before the drawing of the sword Maylene had etchedout, reaching out a little ways to draw a few lines under it with a picked upstick in his left hand, making it look like a really bad version of hangmancommencing beneath her doodled weapon.

“Look, look. Wanna make it interesting? For every time youcan tap my armor, I’ll let you guess a letter. You either win by taking me downcompletely or finishing the message. What do you think?!”

They were both motivated individuals, Brawly and Maylene.Or, at least, Brawly believed the two of them to be. Even so, he occasionallycame up with ideas like this—games to keep them one notch more into whatevertraining they were working to master. Then again, it was sometimes these littlewagers that would get them into trouble…

But this one wouldn’t have any such side effects. He wouldn’twant to jeopardize the big day for anything. “But, you know, that’d mean you’dhave to strike me at least once.” Though there wasn’t anything wrong in eggingher on a little!

“…Brawly?? What on earth!!” She was exasperated, if that wasn’t made so clear by her overly dramatized eyeroll. 

“The—the good kind?” Aw. She was mad at him. Again. For thesame reasons as before. –Oh! Because he’d left without saying anything—twice…in a row…

“… Oh.” The Pokemon in his hands is lowered and the Horsea’seyes dart from the direction it’s being held to and back to Brawly, confusionetched in its eyes and in the sputtering of its spout. “I did it again, huh?Man, I’m really sorry, Claire! I didn’t mean to go off training without a wordagain!” He’s holding the Horsea out once again, and the Pokemon honks in asympathizing manner—even going as far as to shoot ink into Brawly’sunsuspecting face as punishment for his transgressions.