Pokemon High School Life part 20 (wow that's a big number)

Voltareon2012 · September 6

Mimi reaches a shadowy claw out and snags her backpack off a hook before heading out the door. She gets to school early as usual, sitting outside to sketch. This time it’s the dance. When she finishes, it looks lively and intimidating. It’s one of her better drawings of a crowd. She wonders how she spent on it when a Cinderace tells her, “Hey, uh, you’re gonna be late to first period. Just a warning.” Mimi twitches under her rag. The past two hours, apparently. She pushes her disguise’s head back up and slips through the doors, sneaking into her English class without a noise. No one even notices.
Vee pulls the envelope out of her bag. “What are we… supposed to do with this, exactly?” Charz shrugs. “We probably should’ve asked Snow before she left, huh…” The group- currently just Vee, Tric, Aquaria, and Charz- halts when Charz stops outside one house. Tric asks as Charz knocks, “Why are we here?”
Charz looks at him, confused. “This is Dexter’s place.” Tric shrugs. “Since when is he coming with us?”
Charz snorts. “He’s a friend. Why not?” Before Tric can respond, the door swings open and Dexter zips out. “Hey, guyzzz! Whazzzup?” The house seems very full. A DJ Rotom is blasting slightly explicit rock music while a Fan Rotom tries to yell over the music to tell him to turn it down. A Wash Rotom is washing dishes while a Heat Rotom dries them. A Fridge Rotom is trying to get a rather picky Mow Rotom to put something besides grass in his lunchbox. Charz says, “Are those…”
“My siblingzzz!” Dexter buzzes proudly. “We all pitch in to take care of the house, since Dad’zzz never around!” Tric tries to count them. He gives up when he realizes he doesn’t want to know. Charz says, “Awesome. I wanted a little brother when I was younger, but I never got one.” They do some kind of weird fist bump. Aquaria giggles. “When did you two become such good friends?”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh at the dance,” Charz says awkwardly. “We talked a lot whenever we weren’t dancing with somebody.” Dexter says, “Correction- our conversationzzz were put on hold while YOU were dancing with HER. I danced with nobody, and you only danced with her!” Charz blushes and mutters, “You don’t SAY stuff like that, dude.” Dexter lowers his volume and responds, “Noted.” Aquaria giggles. Charz says, “Never mind lets just move on.”
The group makes it to school on time when Aquaria asks, “Where’s Gwen? Normally she meets up with us by now.” Tric shrugs. Vee adds, “Maybe she’s not feeling well?” A bell rings, and Vee’s ribbon grabs Tric’s paw. “No time to think about it the English teacher’s gonna kill us!” She bolts inside with Tric in tow. Everyone else heads in as well.
At lunch, Mimi goes to just sit at some table end where no one will notice where a paw taps her shoulder. “Hey, Mimimimimimimimimimimimimimimi don’t ignore me-me-me!” Mimi turns around, and mumbles through her rag, “Hi, C.C.” The Pikachu is tapping her foot so fast it makes a rapid fire tic-tic-tic-tic-tic on the floor. “Yeah-yeah-yeah! Wanna come sit with me and the others? Zero wants-ta thank ya for doing the sets for drama!” Mimi sighs. She knows C.C. will just drag her no matter how much she says no. And she’s already being dragged by her rag’s ear. C.C. says, “Hey guys I found her!” A Zeraora nods silently. He taps his claws to the beat of a song he made himself. The Blacephalon across from him says, “C’mon, gimmie an answer. Why did the blind man fall into the hole? I swear it’s funny, Zero.” Zero glares at him. The Roserade next to him says, “I’ll answer. Why did he fall, Theo?” Theo says, “Because he couldn’t see that well!” The Roserade stares blankly. Theo sighs. “Get it, Penn? He couldn’t see that well? Like, it was a well?” Penn sighs. “You are truly insufferable.” The Gardevoir next to her laughs lightly. C.C. whacks her foot against the bench for attention. “Hey! I’m talking! Mimi! She painted the sets, remember?!” Everyone greets Mimi at once. She raises one claw in a hello then tries to turn to leave. C.C. says, “You can go across from me! Right there!” Mimi groans internally, but sits and quietly eats her food, not responding to anything said to her. The second she finishes, she leaves. No one notices but C.C.

Angel says, “He’s literally awake. And you won’t let me in.” The Wigglytuff says, “He’s still not in good condition. He’s getting his arm in a sling, his leg in a cast, and a bind for his rib. You can see him soon, just not NOW.” Angel stares back. The Wigglytuff does the same. Their staring contest lasts nearly a minute before Angel growls, “Fine. Whatever. But I’m seeing him soon, right?” The Wigglytuff nods. “You can see him this afternoon. By then he’ll be in perfectly fine condition. Another day, and he can leave the hospital.”
“Fine.” She stalks off to sit down in one of the hospital chairs. She pulls a book from the randomly stuffed backpack she brought. She reads about a page before putting it down. She looks at the clock. Hm. This is going to take some time.

8th period wraps up as Vee bounces her leg, waiting to be let out. The second the bell rings, she nabs her bag. “Tric, c’mon! Aren’t we going to see Ashley today?”
Tric sighs. “We can’t run all the way there.” Vee huffs. “But it’ll take too long.” Tric shrugs. “We don’t have his older sister to get a ride from this time. It’ll take way too long to get there.”
Vee sighs. “Okay… do you want to go to my place? Ellen said she would only bite if you were bad.” Tric turns to her. “Wha?”
Vee snorts. “One of the first things she said to De- er, Ashley was…” she imitates her little sister’s tone. “‘If you hurt big sis I bite you!’”
Tric puts up his paws. “I won’t hurt you. So hopefully that means I won’t get bit.”
They walk to Vee’s house, exchanging comments like that all the way.

“…” Angel drums her claws on the small desk next to her. “…are you going to say anything?”
Ashley remains silent. He’s not asleep, but he isn’t moving in his upright seated position.
“You’ve got nothing to say to your big sister? Who came all the way from her college halfway across the region just to make sure you were okay?”
More silence. He turns his head away slightly. Angel snorts. “Wow. Ungrateful.”
Ashely turns around and finally speaks. “$%@& you.”
Angel grins. “There we go.” She moves her chair over to his bed. “Explain to big sis just how you ended up with three broken bones the second I left.”
Ashley turns away. “I don’t wanna talk.” Angel taps her claw on the wall. “What? Still sore about Mom?”
“YOU left. Right when everything was the WORST it could be.”
“My fault?! I left because I wanted to get away!” Angel starts to stand up as her voice gets louder.
“And leave me to deal with it?! Yeah, thanks a lot!”
“I didn’t think Dad would end up like that!”
“You knew we never got along! Of course it would get worse!”
“I just…” Angel stops. She slumps back into her seat. “…I needed to get away from it. And it was amazing enough that I could go. I just wanted to leave it all behind. You’d take that opportunity if it came to you, wouldn’t you?”
“…” Ashley turns.
“…I’m sorry.”
He stiffens. “… … …is that your Switch?”
Angel lifts it up and grins. “Old as heck. Left controller still drifts.”
“B button gets stuck.”
“Still a giant crack on the right.”
“Your name scratched into the back.”
“And I dropped it a dozen times.” Angel snickers. “Wanna play Smash Bros.?”
Devil grabs a controller. “You can’t beat me as Sonic.”
“Pfft, like heck! You never win!”
“You’re on, you son of a-”
For the next twenty minutes, anyone outside the room can hear yells of taunts, trash talk, ‘you cheated!’, and laughing.

Saturday. Vee whacks Tric’s door with both hands. “Tric I know you’re in there!”
Finally the door opens. Tric says, “Please stop trying to wake up my whole family.”
“We don’t have school. My mom can drive us to the hospital to check on Ashley,” Vee huffs. “He has to be doing better by now, right? It’s been a few days.”
Tric sighs. “Isn’t it an only family thing?”
“We can at least try!” She sighs. “He’s my friend. I get you didn’t know him very well, but can’t you at least come?”
Tric thinks. “Alright, fine.” Vee skips off toward her house, waving for him to follow with a ribbon.
Once they arrive, Vee’s mom starts talking with Ashley’s father, so Tric and Vee try to head to Devil’s room. Outside they find Angel. She shakes her head. “Not right now. He’s resting.” She mumbles to herself, “No one ever told ME you weren’t supposed to show a guy with a concussion screens for very long…”
Vee decides not to ask. Angel points a claw. “Who are you two to him, anyway? I know my little bro, so there’s NO way you’re his girlfriend. Besides, you two look like you’re already a thing.” Vee blushes. “U-um, we’re friends of his. Or rather, I’m a friend of his, Tric is… my own moral support.”
Angel squints. “So the Luxray is your boyfriend. I’m kind of surprised the little devil has any friends.” Then she squints. “Wait. Your name is…”
“I’m Vee, and this is-”
“I could not give less of a crap what his is right now. Vee… you went to Tyranith Middle School, right?”
Vee thinks for a second. “…yeah, I did. Why?”
Angel’s eyes widen. “Um… oookay.”
“Why did you want to know?” Vee asks again. Angel turns her head. “Never mind.”
There’s voices inside of the room. Angel says, “Perfect timing.” She opens the door. Inside, the nurse is asking Devil questions, to which he responds to with increasing annoyance until finally snapping, “How many ways are you going to ask ‘does your head hurt’?” The nurse has no response to this.
Angel says, “Is he allowed to go home yet, or is it ‘actually, he needs another night’?”
The nurse looks around. “That’s… up to his father.” Angel says, “Well then. He’s in the lobby… room… thing. Go tell him that.” The nurse leaves. Devil snorts.
Vee says, “Are you feeling okay?” She touches his sling and bind. Devil says, “What’re you trying to do, tickle m- ow. Don’t touch that.” “Sorry!” Vee backs up. He continues, “To answer, yes, I’m going perfectly fine. I just can’t use my left arm and my ribs ache and think I have to use a crutch for a while or something.” Vee’s eyes widen. “What.” Devil waves his free hand. “Nah, I’m fiiine.”
Angel says, “Don’t insist he’s not or he’ll get worse about it.”
Vee says, “Ashley… I’m sorry…”
Devil twitches. “Don’t call me that.”
“But it’s… your name.”
“My name is Devil. That’s what you knew all before. Why change?” He shrugs playfully, but his tone was cold. Vee hesitates. “…okay.”
Devil points at Tric. “Who’s he again?”
Tric introduces himself. “I’m Tric. Her boyfriend.”
Devil flexes his claws. “Ah. Didn’t know there was anything going on between you two. Guess I missed the dance and all, so…”
The nurse comes back. “He said he’d like to speak with him and the doctors first. So I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she says to Vee and Tric. Tric nods and heads out. Vee waves goodbye with a ribbon and after thinking for a second, makes a little heart with them for ‘get well soon’, then leaves when Tric says something. When they’re gone, Devil grabs his pillow and sticks his face in it.
Angel says, “So. You wanna talk about that?” Devil says nothing. Angel shrugs. “Yeah. Life happens. It’s not like she hates you or something.” Devil mumbles into his pillow. Angel taps her claws against the metal bedside. “…I guess I just leave it be, then.”
Devil mumbles, “I’ve liked her for years.”
“Which you’re only admitting now. I remember you would come home and tell me all about your school day back in sixth grade. Then one day you brought her up. Every day after that it was almost always something about her, wasn’t it. Usually you called her-”
“A cutesy, fluffy, big-eyed jerk.”
“Yup,” Angel nods. “It does kind of suck. And I’m not about to tell you something stupid like ‘well I guess she just wasn’t right for you’. You liked her. I get it. You were totally smitten, honestly. But it’s… life, y’know?” Devil pushes his pillow down to expose his head again. “…”
Angel says, “Maybe there’s someone else. Maybe there’s not. You probably won’t totally get over her. But whatever the case, it happened. It wasn’t in your control. Don’t linger over it on purpose.” Devil sighs. Then says, “I assume you’re going to tell me ‘don’t avoid her, it’s not healthy, become friends’.”
Angel squints. “Oh heck no. If it hurts, avoid her. Doing that would be like sticking your hand on the stove over and over and over because you want to ‘get over it’. Move on with or without her. The only important part is that you do move on. You might not get over her, you might not even want to even look at her because it hurts, you might be angry about it… but in the end you can’t just dig in your claws and stay put when you need to get on with life. You’ve already tried doing that once. With Mom, and me. It’s over and it’s happened. Be angry about it, be sad about it, you probably don’t even know how to feel about it. But then you’re just staying, standing in the fire because you left something there, something that’s probably already burned to charcoal. So get out of the fire.”
Devil thinks a long moment. “…you should put that in your book.”
Angel grins. “I did. Those last two lines I’m quoting myself.”
Devil laughs, which transitions to ‘ow-ow-ow’ until their father comes in.

Gwen checks her phone. Plenty of texts from Vee and Charz and Aquaria that range from ‘are you okay?’ to ‘how are you feeling?’ to ‘get well soon assuming you are sick’. She changes to a web browser page showing everything about the boarding school. She scrolls through, looking at everything they offer. Classes on just about anything. And if there isn’t a class on it, there’s a club or something that is. But that’s miles and miles and miles away.
But what say does she have in this? It’s already been done.

Mimi slowly eats the cheeseburger in front of her. It had taken her ten minutes to explain to the Cinderace working there what she wanted, so know she felt she had to enjoy it. Though to be honest she really had her eyes on the ice cream that had come with it. She’d always had a sweet tooth. She flips open her sketchbook, just to take a look at some recent drawings, and stops on one of Devil. She thinks about how long it’s been since she’d seen him get that beating. Perhaps about a week, now. Not quite. She wonders if he’s doing better. She happily moves on to her ice cream when she finishes the burger. She tries to enjoy it, only to find it gone in a minute. She sighs and goes to throw away the trash, only for the door to swing open and hit her in the face. “Whoops.”
Mimi pushes her costume back up. “Owch…” she takes the hand that offers help back up and feels claws. She looks and sees Devil. She quickly recoils her shadowy hand back under the rag. “H-hello…”
Devil seems confused. His left arm is in a sling, his chest is in some kind of bind, and his leg is in a strange cast with a way to let him walk at least somewhat freely. “Uh, hi. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Mimi’s brain takes a few seconds to catch up. “Oh… ah… thanks. For helping.” There is a long, awkward pause. Finally Devil clicks his tongue and points at the line. “O-kay, I’m just gonna… get my food now.” He walks toward the line, and Mimi follows without a word. After a little while, Devil says, “Okay, what is your problem?”
Mimi attempts to form words. “I… ah… I, um… also want food.” She considers that this sounded very stupid.
Devil stares. “…okay? Why do you need to be next to me in line?” Mimi moves behind him. Devil mutters something to himself before noticing he’s at the front of the line. “Alright. Give me the one with bacon.” The Cinderace shrugs. “Mate, there’s at least three of those.” Devil taps his claw on one. “Now just take my stinking burger order.” The Cinderace nods. “Alright, geez.” He starts tapping some stuff in, asks for the cash, and gives him a receipt.
Mimi moves up and hands him an ice cream coupon. He squints. “Why do you have so many of these?” Mimi says nothing. The Cinderace hands her a receipt with a number as well. She moves over by Devil to wait. Devil notices quickly. “Seriously, what is your deal?” He waves his claw. “Why are you stalking me?”
Mimi stares and stammers, “…I’m… um… in some of your classes…”
Devil waits. Finally he gestures again. “And?”
“…lonely?”
Devil huffs. “Can you speak up? I cannot hear half of what you say.”
“…eat together?” Mimi tries to make her voice louder. Devil says, “See, SO much easier when you actually talk out loud instead of mumbling and whispering.” Then he seems to catch up to what the request actually was. “Um… fine, I guess?”
The guy calls Mimi’s number, then a little while later Devil’s. So once Devil sits at one spot, Mimi sits on the other side. She is quickly regretting this, because the silence that follows is incredibly awkward. Mimi just eats her ice cream and tries not to make it worse. Devil only finally breaks the silence to ask, “You are…?”
“Mimi,” she answers softly. Her disguise flops over. She quickly pushes it back up.
“Mimi? People are actually named that? Weird.”
“Devil is a weird name too,” Mimi blurts, regretting the words as soon as they come out. Devil looks at her with wide eyes. She curses herself. Then Devil laughs. “Well sure, but at least it’s unique, right?”
Mimi internally sighs in relief. “Y-yeah. Nobody called Devil… makes it cooler.” Devil gestures to her and jokingly says to the rest of the people there, “Yeah, see! She gets it!” Nobody pays him any mind except a young Pichu who looks at him curiously. Mimi covers her face with three claws from embarrassment. When she peeks out, she sees Devil crumbling up his trash and shooting it into the trashcan before getting up. “I gotta go. See you later, Mimi!” He’s out of range of Mimi’s soft “’bye” before she can even get herself to say it.

C.C. tap-tap-tap-tap-taps her foot. “Hey hey Theo could you not detach your head in the middle of all your lines?”
Theo puts his head back on. “Come on, C.C.! It’s a riot! I’m the funny one, aren’t I?”
“It’s not so comical after the fifth time,” Penn sighs. “And you’re not saying something funny EVERY line.” Theo crosses his arms. “Lighten up, will you? Just because you’re playing the dramatic female lead doesn’t mean you can take away from my jester energy.”
Grace, the Gardevoir, steps between them. “We aren’t fighting right now. Theo, Penn is right that you aren’t always comical. You are also a vital source of information to the heroes, so there are moments where you’re going to have to take yourself seriously.”
Theo flips through his script. “It literally says my character is ‘mentally unstable’. Wouldn’t it make more sense if I acted crazy all the time?”
“No, it’s to make it surprising when you are sane,” Zero grumbles, stepping onstage with the other three. “I wrote the scripts. When have they ever not gotten us the reaction we wanted?”
“What about the time you wrote that romance one?” The Ultra Beast blurts immediately. Zero death-glares him. Theo slowly backs away.
C.C. leaps onstage. “Let’s just follow Zero’s script and try to help each other, kay-kay?” She turns to Grace. “Is my costume done yet?” Grace smiles. “Almost. Do you think it will be better with more or less flourish?”
“MORE!” C.C. replies instantly. Then she zips about the room. “Alright everything’s going great this is gonna be our best play yet! I can’t wait for Mimi to see it! She’s going to love it!”

Voltareon2012 · September 6

I DID I INTRODUCED THE DRAMA CREW
To keep track they are C.C. the Pikachu, Theo the Blacephalon, Zero the Zeraora, Penn the Roserade, and Grace the Gardevoir.

There's a secret new character in here too. Hint- they show up in two scenes, both of which involve Mimi.

It's the Cinderace. His name is Ethan and he's in eleventh grade, he's also a super good football player. He just exists he's not an important character lol.