Monday, April 21

I woke up to find some dick had eaten up an entire page of my journal with that ridiculous Bidoof drawing. Everyone had left for class, except one of the boys, who was still in the dorm. "Hello. You're Kellyn?" he asked.

I sat up. "Yeah."

"I'm Isaac. I waited for you to wake up so you wouldn't have to go downstairs by yourself."

I got out of bed and fetched a clean uniform from the drawer. "Thanks for that. You wanna wait outside while I change, or do you have to get to class?"

"I don't go to classes," Isaac said. "I get special permission from Mr. Kincaid to study on my own."

"Oh, okay." He left the room. I changed, took extra care to straighten my tie, and followed him out.

"Janice said you still need to take the entrance exam," Isaac said as we started down the stairs. "I'll bring you to the Training Room so Mr. Kaplan can give it to you." We walked until we got to the schoolyard. He stopped in front of a small building on the right. "Good luck, Kellyn," he said.

"Thanks, I might need it." I smiled and entered the building.

The Training Room was quite small. Its main feature was an open floor, presumably used for teaching captures and Target Clears. In the back were some machines and screens, and in front of the technology were a man and woman, dressed in similar red and blue uniforms and identical pale blue hats. The man stepped forward. "Kellyn, yes?"

I nodded, too nervous to speak.

"Catch." He tossed me a gadget, which I caught. "That's a School Styler. You use it to capture Pokemon. You see that button in the middle? You push that and you can draw loops to catch Pokemon. Here, draw some loops around this Pikachu."

A Pikachu hopped out from behind a big wooden crate. It ran at me, and when it got close enough, I pushed the button. A blue beam came from one end of the School Styler. I directed the beam at the floor and used it to draw loops around the Pikachu. I thought I was doing well, but then the Pikachu curled up into a ball and squirted out a couple of electric shocks. I let go of the button. "Ahh!"

"Keep going! Keep going!" the woman urged. I did. I pressed the button again and drew one last loop around the Pikachu. A pink bubble formed around it, then quickly popped.

The man laughed evilly. "Welcome to our secret army, the inscrutable Team School! One day we shall rule the world!!"

...Okaaaay.

The door to the Training Room slid open. "Mr. Kaplan, please refrain from pulling your crap on my new student."

Mr. Kaplan sighed and rolled his eyes. "Sor-ry."

I turned around to see a woman in a green tank top and a white pencil skirt. Her long brown hair went to the middle of her back. "Hi, Kellyn," she said. "I'm your teacher, Ms. April."

"Anyway," Mr. Kaplan continued, "as proof of your membership in this army, I confer to you the School Styler you just used. Together we will achieve world domination!" He laughed evilly again. I somehow felt I was going to need to get used to hearing someone laugh evilly, but it was ridiculous, so I pushed it away.

Ms. April crossed her arms and glared at Mr. Kaplan. "Really?"

"You know what, take your new minion and go," Mr. Kaplan said flabbergastedly.

Ms. April brought me out of the Training Room and back into the main building. She took me into the classroom on the left. "Sorry for being late," she said to the class. "I'd like you all to meet our new student, Kellyn." She walked to the front of the room. I stayed in the doorway. "Come up here, Kellyn!" she said.

I did. I stood in front of Ms. April's desk and waved. "Hi, Kellyn," everyone said, except for the kid with the red hair. He sat there with this ridiculous grin on his face. Ms. April looked at him quizzically. "What's up, Keith? Why the big grin?"

I looked at him. "Cause you're the douche who 'borrowed' my journal last night."

The grin didn't leave his face. "You mean your DIARY?"

All the boys in the room laughed. I could only wonder what else they'd done to my stuff. One girl, however, wasn't pleased. "Keith! Be nicer to our new student!"

Ms. April ignored all of this and looked at the girl who spoke. "Rhythmi, why don't you give our new student a tour?"

"Sure!" Her blonde curls bounced as she jumped up and stuck her hand out for a shake. "I'm Rhythmi," she said. "I'm studying to be an Operator. You know what that is, right?"

I nodded. "Operators recharge Stylers and tell Rangers what to do."

"Right." She closed her eyes, turned to Keith, and said snootily, "So one day I'll be telling Keith what to do and he won't be able to do anything about it."

I smirked. "I've got this image of Keith in a pink tutu and you yelling at him to do more pirouettes."

Everyone laughed, even Ms. April. Keith blushed the same color as his hair and flipped us the bird.

"Anyway!" Rhythmi grabbed my arm and drabbed me out of the classroom. "It's tour time!"

As soon as the door slid shut, I said, "He's kinda hot, though."

"Who, Keith?" She wrinkled her nose."Ew. I mean, he IS attractive, but he's an annoying little dick." I followed her as she walked briskly down the hall. Something about her walk gave off the impression of an Operator. "So you're into guys?"

"Yeah. I'm pan. Why, do you have a problem with it?"

She shook her head quickly. "Oh, Arceus, no. It's not my place to have a problem. Anyway..." She slid open the door in front of us. It was another classroom. "Hi, Mr. Kincaid!" she said. Sorry to interrupt your class. I'm giving Kellyn here a tour."

Mr. Kincaid smiled coolly. "Welcome to the Ranger School, Kellyn. There is one rule you need to follow if you want to succeed. Would you like to know it?"

"Sure," I said at the same time Rhythmi said, "Hell no."

Mr. Kincaid pretended he hadn't heard her. "No running in the hallways!" he said. "Remember that and you will succeed. Also, don't cast suspicion on others without proof."

Rhythmi smiled, but I could tell she was annoyed. "Thanks, Mr. Kincaid! We've got to continue with the tour now." She grabbed my arm and dragged me out again, this time a bit more roughly. "The douche you just met is Mr. Kincaid," she said. "He acts like an old man when it comes to running in the hallways. And he gets his hair to go like that with a ton of hairspray. Anyway, how about I bring you to the Library?" She ran down the hallway until she reached the stairs. "Up there, as you know, are the dorms. The basement is down, but we're not allowed down there. The Library is on the left."

In the back of the Library, Isaac stood browsing the books. "Hi, Isaac! I'm giving our new student a tour!" Rhythmi chirped.

Isaac turned around. "Hi, Kellyn!" he said with a smile on his face. "How was your entrance exam?"

"It went well, aside from when Mr. Kaplan went off about world domination," I said.

Rhythmi raised her eyebrows. "So you two have already met?"

"Yeah," I said. "He waited for me when I overslept."

"Well, that was nice." Isaac turned back to the books, blushing slightly. "Everyone in the school agrees that Isaac is the kind of genius that comes along once in a century," Rhythmi explained. "His IQ is somewhere in the 160s. He's so smart he doesn't go to classes. And in this corner-" she swiveled around on one heel "-we have Ponte, the conflicted marshmallow boy!"

A boy with spiky blue hair looked up from a book. "Hi," he said."

I waved. "Hey."

Ponte stood up. "They call me the conflicted marshmallow boy because I haven't figured anything out yet. You're Kellyn?"

I shook his hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Yet again, Rhythmi grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room. "There's one more room before we can go outside!"

This final room was the Staff Room. A man stood in the back. He turned around when he heard us come in. "Ah, Rhythmi. You're giving our new student a tour?"

"Kellyn, this is Principal Lamont. Obviously he's our principal," Rhythmi said.

"It's nice to meet you," I said for the tenth time that day.

Principal Lamont studied me carefully. "Now, this doesn't have anything to do with your tour, but there is a word in the books of our Library that is no longer in common usage. It means to rekindle a light that has been swallowed by darkness. The word is vatonage. I have a feeling that word will soon mean something again."

Suddenly, a bell rang. "That's the bell!" Rhythmi said. "We can go outside now. Thanks, Principal Lamont! I'll take you to the Training Room now. I can have Ms. Claire and Mr. Kaplan give you special lessons."

I rolled my eyes. "Please not Mr. Kaplan."

She giggled. "Don't worry. He only goes off about world domination at the entrance exam."

"So what Rank are you?" I asked.

"Me? I'm Rank 2. Ms. April promoted me last week because I'm always helping new students."

I sighed. "Does that mean you're going to stop protecting me from the likes of Keith once I'm no longer new?"

She laughed. "No. Keith will stop bothering you after--well, he'll stop soon enough. But you do seem different somehow from other new kids I've seen. You're not as...shy and quiet. I mean, you confronted Keith in front of the whole class! That's pretty weird for a new kid. Are you, like, good with new places?"

"I guess so. I've never left my hometown before, so I dunno."

"And you're not nervous here at all?" She looked shocked.

"No. Well, not anymore."

She stopped, turned to me, and pointed her index finger inches from my face. "You are something else. We should be friends."

I smiled. "Sure."

"Anyway, as you probably know, you're standing in front of the Training Room, which I'm sure Isaac showed you to this morning for your exam." Something flickered across her face when she mentioned Isaac. She opened the door. Ms. Claire and Mr. Kaplan still stood in the back of the room. "Hello, Rhythmi and Kellyn," Mr. Kaplan said. "What brings you here?"

"We're looking for special lessons," Rhythmi explained.

Mr. Kaplan smiled and stepped forward. "How about I go first? Kellyn, I'm going to teach you the fundamentals of capture. First you--"

"--I know," I interrupted. "You use the Styler to draw loops around the Pokemon to convey your feelings of friendship to it. If a Pokemon walks across the Capture Line, you need to make a new one. If an attack hits the Capture Line, the Styler absorbs it, but it loses some of its energy. If you run out of energy, your Styler's broken, and the Ranger Union won't be happy."

Mr. Kaplan assumed a surprised expression. "Smart kid."

Ms. Claire spoke up. "I bet you don't know how to do a Target Clear!"

I smiled and raised my index finger. "Point your Styler beam at the Pokemon and draw a line from it to the target you want to clear--"

"But what do you do first?" She smiled, clearly thinking she'd won.

"Right, right. Check it with your Styler to see what Field Move is needed to clear it."

"Well." Both were shocked. "Turns out you didn't even need to bring him here..." Ms. Claire said.

Rhythmi was also shocked. "Kellyn? How long have you wanted to be a Ranger?"

"Only since forever," I replied.

"You'll do quite well for the inscrutable Team School," Mr. Kaplan said, grinning evilly. "We will one day rule the world!"

"Yeaah, we gotta go." Rhythmi grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the Training Room.

"You promised he wouldn't go off about world domination," I whined.

"Well I was wrong and what the hell is going on here?" Her tone abruptly changed when she saw the nine Bidoof cavorting around the schoolyard. Janice stood in the middle, frozen into place. "Help! Someone!" she screamed.

Keith suddenly ran outside, holding his School Styler over his head. "I'll help you!" But as soon as he said this, he stopped short and dropped the arm he was holding it with. "Whoa, that's a lot of Bidoof."

I unclipped my Styler from my shorts. "I'll help too!"

Keith looked up. "New kid?"

Rhythmi rolled her eyes. "Keith, at least bother to learn his name."

Keith ignored her. "So new kid. Why don't we make it a little contest? Whoever catches the most Bidoof wins."

"I don't care what you do!" Janice shouted. "Just catch them!"

Keith grinned at me. "Contest it is."

I got close to one of the Bidoof and started drawing loops. In no time, I had captured it and gone on to the next one. But I already knew Bidoof was an easy capture. Dad would always buy me Ranger books when he was in Fall City.

I managed to catch four Bidoof, which meant Keith probably had five. "Well," I said when I brought the Bidoof back to Janice, "it looks like you won."

Keith smiled proudly, flipped his Styler, and pointed the antenna straight up. "Hell yeah!" He clipped it back onto his belt. "But really, Kellyn, you did a pretty good job, seeing as how it's your first day and all."

"So you did know his name, Keith," Rhythmi said. "You could have used it earlier."

"Whatever." He unclipped his Styler and flipped it as he strolled back into school.

"Thank you, Kellyn," Janice said. "I'll ask Ms. April about Rank advancements for both of you."

I smiled. "Not a problem."

"There's one more place I wanted to show you, Kellyn," Rhythmi said. She started walking to the other end of the schoolyard (she didn't drag me, thank God). I followed her down a long flight of stairs. At the bottom was a small field with a stone carving of the Ranger symbol. "This is Ascension Square."

I raised my eyebrows. "I can't say I'm not impressed. What's that rock thing for?"

"That's the Pledge Stone. They call it that because that's where graduates write their pledges before they leave." Suddenly, the bell rang. "Uh-oh!" Rhythmi said. "We'd better get back t

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A/N: no, i did not forget to put the ending in. that's how it's supposed to be. you'll see why. also, i wouldn't expect an update for at least a week because i only have one more prewritten chapter and i don't like to post and then leave nothing else to post later. bye