Pokémon High School Life part 18

Voltareon2012 · August 10

Principal Mewtwo slams his fist on the podium. “SILENCE!”
Everyone falls silent. The principal points at Snow and Thur. “Both of you. I am… so disappointed.” Snow blinks. “Huh?”
“Snow, your entire ‘speech’ was letting someone else tell everything about the other candidate so you could just slander!” Snow opens her mouth, closes it, then looks down. That is… what I did. Isn’t it.
“And Thur. You used a sudden burst in popularity, then tried to just walk up here and make absurd claims that you know full well you’ll never be allowed to do!” Thur backs up.
Principal Mewtwo sighs. “Both of you are disqualified and suspended. For how long, I will discuss with your parents.”
“Sir. There’s no one else to… win the election?” Thur tries.
“There will be no winner. If THIS is the way you act trying to become class president, no one deserves the title. Now sit down.”
“But-”
“Sit. Down.”
Thur and Snow return to their seats. Snow glances where Vee was sitting with her boyfriend, Tric. They’re gone. She starts. Where are they?
Dexter floats over to her. “Vee left after she finished talking. You weren’t paying enough attention. She zzzeemed… worried. And… kind of scared.”
“She…” Snow swears under her breath. “I can’t believe it. I really screwed up.”
Dexter is quiet a moment. “…well. I’m going to check on her.” He starts to sneak through the rows. “If you’re coming, ma’am, come now.”
Snow follows.

---

“Oh, my Arceus!” Gwen gasps.
Vee wipes an eye with a ribbon. She tries to speak then covers her mouth like she wants to vomit.
Charz curses himself under his breath.
Aquaria moves closer to him.
Tric stares. “How did… something like that…”
Charz walks over. “I was Zane. It would’ve either been me or… Devil.”
Gwen turns to Charz. “Did you… warn him?”
“I didn’t get the chance, and I thought they’d want to go after me,” Charz sighs.
Vee uses Wish again. “Please, please, please,” she whispers.
Tric says, “I-I should go get Nurse Mew.”
Gwen taps him. “No, you stay with Vee. I’ll get her.” She dashes into the school.
Dexter floats over. “Scanning… concussion. Unconscious. Broken arm and rib.” Tric looks up. “When did you-”
Snow is there, checking Devil’s injuries. “This is… partially my fault, right?”
Tric glares. “You, just using Vee as a tool to be president. I can’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry, okay? Yes, I used Vee. But… she’s still my friend. I didn’t mean to just… I always want to put myself on top. Okay? And so I… screwed up.”
Tric turns away from her and back to Vee. Gwen comes back with Nurse Mew, who for once isn’t giggling like a maniac. “This is more than I’m supposed to treat,” she says after looking a moment. “One of you call an ambulance.” Snow does immediately. Mew adds, “And if anyone can, call his family.” Vee does.

---

Angel listens along to her mother’s worried tone. Then the second the call ends, she hurls the phone at the wall. Her dormmate, Lily, looks up. “Angel? Are you… okay?”
“It’s my friggin' brother,” Angel sighs. She leaps down from the top bunk. “I need your car. Like, ASAP.”
“You won’t crash it?” The Lopunny hesitates before handing her the keys.
“Probably,” the Sneasler grumbles. She snatches the keys anyway and dashes out to her friend’s car.

---

Charz paces. I know it was Zane. I know it. How do I prove it? They clearly planned it to be when no one was around…He watches Devil get brought into the ambulance as Vee wipes her eyes with her ribbons, and Tric comforts her.
“Zzzt. I wish I could hack into the school’zzz security camerazzz, but I’m not that good…” Charz jolts when he sees the Rotom Dex hovering next to him. “There’s no way you could?”
“I’ve tried before. The school hazzz some rather impressive security,” Dexter says. “Then we could find out who it wazzz…”
“Oh, I know EXACTLY who it was,” Charz growls. “The question is, how do we bust Zane?”
“Hmm…”
“Guys.” Charz and Dexter both turn. Aquaria has someone next to her. A Mimikyu, holding a notebook and pen in a shadowy claw. Aquaria nudges the Mimikyu. “Please show them.”
A long, shadowy claw comes out from under Mimikyu’s rag. It’s a phone, with a pink, cutesy case, opened to photos. There’s a video pulled up. Three minutes long. Charz hits play.
Its honestly disturbing. To see someone wailing on another so bad for so long. Zane wouldn’t even have stopped if Jay hadn’t held him back, saying something unintelligible through the phone’s speakers.
But it’s also proof.
Dexter buzzes. “Thankzzz… um… I don’t have you in my database. Have we met?”
The Mimikyu stares and slowly shakes the disguise’s head. Dexter says, “…no introductionzzz then. Do you mind sending me the video? Send it to dexter.476@pcloud, and I should receive it…” The Mimikyu starts pressing buttons, and soon Dexter’s screen pings. “Perfect.”
Aquaria says, “Shouldn’t we tell Vee and Tric about this?”
Charz looks at them. Vee is still shaking. Tric is just… being there. He shakes his head. “It can… wait a little while. Thanks a lot, by the w-” The Mimikyu is already gone. “…”

---

“Where’s Ashley?” Angel demands.
“We were told to leave him with the doctor,” her dad explains. “We might be able to see him, but he’s not…”
“What happened to him? Why can’t we see him? What did that little crap do to get himself this bad? What is going on?”
“…” her dad is totally quiet. Angel wants to claw a wall. “Is he going to be okay?”
“…I think so.”
“When will he be able to come home?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is wrong with him?”
“…” The Lucario is at a loss for words. A Chansey walks over. “You’re Ashley’s father?”
“Yes.”
“I’m his sister,” Angel adds.
“You can see him… he’s not awake, and you can’t turn the lights on. But he’s alive and will be fine.”
Angel opens the door into the room as soon as she can. She stares at her idiot brother. “…now how the heck did you get yourself like this, ya little devil?” His upper arm is in a cast. His rib is in a sort of bind. He’s breathing in a weird way. There’s blood coming from his nose. Some of his crown of feathers is bent and broken. Angel grits her teeth. “Arceus darnit…”

---

Vee doesn’t eat anything. She goes upstairs to her room and locks the door. Not even some begging from Ellen gets her to move from her bed. She feels sick. She feels… scared.
Her phone dings. One of her ribbons moves over to pick it up.
Snow.
(Hey. I’m sorry about what I did.)
Vee texts back, (You used me as a way to try to win.)
(I messed up, I know. I don’t just think of you as a tool.)
(I don’t want to talk to you.)
The messages …’s for a while before Snow is offline. Another ding comes before Vee puts it down again. It’s on their friends group chat. Charz, (If ur feeling alrite, we want to show you something tomorrow before school or at least before the dance tomorrow night).
Vee stares. She puts it down and goes to sleep.

---

Vee heads to the group’s normal place to meet up. Sure enough, Charz is there, along with Tric, Gwen, Aquaria, and Dexter. Vee stares at Charz. “What did you want to show me?”
Charz nods to Dexter, who pulls up the video. Dexter says, “Juzzzt watch…” and lets it play. Vee watches, slightly terrified. Once it ends, Dexter says, “Do I really need to explain what thizzz izzz good for?”
Vee responds, “Its proof, I guess…”
Charz nods. “The question is… what do we do with it?”
Gwen says, “We were trying to think of something to do. We could just… show it to the police?”
Vee shakes her head. “Just go, ‘hello, police, I have a video of somebody who needs to be arrested’?”
Gwen gestures. “I mean… maybe.”
Tric sighs. “…you’d think it’d be easy to know what to do in a situation like this, but whenever we think of something, it feels like there’s something wrong with it.”
Vee bites her lip. “…maybe if we tell someone at school about it? Like a teacher…?”
“But Zane got expelled, remember?” Charz sighs. “What can they do if he’s not part of school anymore?”
“You do know that’s called aggravated assault, right? He can get arrested for that.”
Vee blinks. “Um… no. That’s a good point.” Tric says, “Wait, who added that?”
The group turns to the voice. Snow is there, watching Dexter’s video on mute. She opens her mouth but closes it when the whole group glares. Her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, okay? I know I was… a jerk. I’m trying to help, now. Will you just… let me help?”
“…” all of them are totally silent. Tric looks at Vee, trying to quietly ask, ‘what do you think?’. Vee shrugs. Aquaria sighs. “…we’re not going to be so vain we can’t accept help.” She turns to the rest of them. “Right?” Charz nods. Aquaria continues, “So yes. You can help.”
Snow nods. “Thanks. …I-”
“Get back to what you were saying,” Tric interrupts. “What about assault?”
Snow sharpens her claws against each other, a nervous habit. “Well… I’ve tried to study some… law things and all, and to attack someone like that, not out of self-defense or… there’s a good chunk of specifics, but the point is, what Zane did can be called aggravated assault. If it was planned beforehand, that’s called premeditated, which makes it worse.”
Vee blinks. “…translation?”
“Attacking someone like that can get you in fairly serious legal trouble, basically,” Snow deadpans.
Charz snorts. “Okay. But… what do we do?”
“…I don’t know.”
“I thought you said you knew law stuff!”
“I’m not a lawyer, geez. Give me some time to figure things out. I’m suspended for a week, but… I can get to the dance. They let anyone willing to hand over five bucks in. So… I’ll give you something then, okay?”
Tric thinks. “…y’know, we just don’t have time to figure something else out. Sure. Now let’s get going before we’re late.”

---

“Yo. When’s he waking up?” Angel drums her claws on the desk.
The Chansey sighs. “For the tenth time, we aren’t sure yet. He’s going on being in a coma.”
Angel’s claws dig into the desk. “Hold up. A WHAT?”
“His concussion is pretty bad… he won’t wake up for another few days.”
“You mean he’s, like, half-dead, and you’re only telling me NOW?!” Her claws dig into the desk even more.
The Chansey lifts her claws out of the desk carefully. “I’m sorry. But we’re sure he’ll be okay. He’ll need about a month or two to generally recover. It’ll be… up to three days before he wakes up.”
“… … …be glad I learned my lesson from destroying property before, or I’d turn your desk to shreds.” Angel storms out the door. Her dad had gone home that morning. She’d stayed in the hospital all night. She wasn’t sure if it was an act of kindness from the doctors or because she’d started flexing her claws when they asked when she was leaving. She unlocks Lily’s car and drives home, putting her music as loud as possible to block out the white noise in her mind.
---

Scribble scribble scribble.
No, that doesn’t look right. Her claws scrunch up the paper and put it in the trash can. She starts sketching the Infernape again, taking her pencil and starting up.
His fists are swinging, and there’s a small spray of red. The fist is coming so close she can feel the pain. She stares at her finished drawing and shudders. She really feels like she’s in the place of him now, taking the blows from Zane instead of him. Which she might’ve done had she been a little braver. She was still shocked she’d been brave enough to record and show it to those people to help at all.
There’s a loud SMACK downstairs. Loud sounds of arguing. Mimi closes her eyes and puts her drawing aside. She puts on headphones to block them out. She doesn’t want to hear them fighting. She listens to her calmer music but turned up loud enough to block out them out entirely. That’s something she doesn’t draw.

---

Mr. Trix looks at the math board. Then looks at his students. “You aren’t going to learn anything new at all today, are you?” One Sliggo in the back shakes her head. The Meowscarada sighs. “Fine. We’ll just do a… review, I guess. Find a partner and quiz each other.”
Instantly the classroom dissolves into a mess of students trying to find one of their friends to partner with before its too late. The Meowscarada math teacher facepaws, then sits down and starts grading last week’s tests.
Vee and Tric head over to each other immediately. Charz and Aquaria somehow manage to find each other despite seemingly both not noticing. Dexter finds Gwen for whatever reason.
Vee starts reading from the book. “Uh, here’s some problems. X equals the square root of 81 minus 4.”
Tric responds, “Twelve? And… do you think Snow’s right? About the whole… whatever it was.”
“She did mention wanting to go to law school or something at some point… also its not twelve.”
“Um… four?”
“Are you serious? Use the calculator, Tric.”
“Oh. Uh… five? But also, how are we supposed to use that info, even if she is right about it?”
“Yeah, its five. And that’s what we’re depending on her for, remember?”
“I guess so… but… mm. 3𝑥+7=2(𝑥−4)+18.”
“Give me the book, you jerk! I didn’t give you one that hard!” Vee giggles as she takes the math book from Tric.
“I gave you a harder one because you’re smarter than me.”
Vee punches his shoulder. Tric winces. “When did you get this strong?”
“Remember? Before, I was getting trained by…” She slumps. “Do you think he’s okay?”
Tric is quiet. “…he’ll live, I’m sure, but… not sure when he’ll be… y’know, back to normal.”
Vee’s ribbons wrap around herself. “…do you think they’d let us… visit him or something?”
Tric blinks. “I… guess we could try.”
Vee smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, we should visit him.” She glances back at the math book. “By the way, the answer is three.”
“How did you do that?!”
“It’s called doing the math, moron.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“I get to be a little mean if you’re going to give me those problems to do in my head.”

---

Charz flips through the algebra chapters and squints. “I don’t remember learning this.”
Aquaria snorts. “You were too busy skipping class because you thought you were the cool kid on the football team, remember?”
Charz feels his face get warm. “Oh… yeah…”
“Don’t worry, I forgive you for that. And I think the others do too.”
“Thanks, Aquaria.”
“You’re welcome. But it does mean now I have to teach you how to work with polynomials.”
“How to work with what?”
“Exactly. So first of all, you need to know that…”

---

“What’s the square root of 256?”
“Sixteen.”
“Solve X in this one.”
“X equalzzz twenty-one!”
“Okay try this. Um… Find the values of x and y in a right-angled triangle where the hypotenuse is 20 cm and one of the acute angles is 30 degrees. Side x is opposite to the 30-degree angle, and side y is adjacent to it.”
“That izzz not something we learned.”
“I know.”
“…X equalzzz ten centimeterzzz and Y equalzzz ten timezzz the square root of three centimeterzzz.”
Gwen looks up at Dexter. “Can you do my tests for me?”
“No.”
“Please? What if I paid you?”
“No.”

---

Mimi sits alone, flipping through her drawing-filled math notebook. She glances over at the ones she gave the video to and hopes they’re going to use it right. She looks back at her notebook and realizes she has it open to a drawing of a heart. She quickly shuts it and changes to her math book before remembering Devil isn’t sitting behind her anymore to see it. She opens back up to her drawings again and starts adding more details to the heart.