After the coast was clear, the duo made us sit down in the shade. I was on one end of our line of shame, Swinub curled up in my lap like he did nothing wrong. The kid with no name sat next to me, with their Chimchar on their shoulders, followed by Markus with his Shellos on his lap. Eris was on the other end, but she had already sent her Rotom back into its ball, and she seemed to be on high alert around the duo.

The boy paced in front of the four of us, looking like he was about to scold us. His hair was a dark grey, which almost seemed to match his eyes, but was covered mostly by a red and blue hat. He was fiddling with the hooks of a brown messenger bag that looked like it was almost choking him, along with an obnoxious white scarf. Thankfully, he had already complimented us for our fighting beforehand, but that didn't make him any less intimidating.

"You're not going to get us in trouble with the teacher, right? Like, we didn't want to use our Pokemon in battle, and we know we're not supposed to, it's just that we had to." Eris was the first one to speak up, thankfully. After all, the entire thing had been her idea, and I was not going to be the first to take the fall for it.

"Eris is right, sir. We were just going to let our Pokemon get to know each other, but then they attacked us." The kid, who I was too afraid to ask the name of at this point, shifted their position, seeming to be the most nervous of all of us. Their blonde hair was now singed black at the bottom, since their Chimchar got a bit too excited after the battle and nearly burned their face off.

"We're not worried about you guys using Pokemon, really. It's just, those people, they shouldn't be here." The girl of the duo was kneeling down, fishing something out of her white duffel bag. She was wearing the same type of scarf as the boy was wearing, but in my opinion, in a much more fashionable way. "I need to ask, though, what are your names?"

I stayed quiet, not sure if I could actually trust these people just yet.

"I'm Aster." The kid who I hadn't known the name of gave a small wave, and I used every ounce of energy within me to remember the name. "As I said already, that's Eris."

"I'm Markus!" Markus shifted suddenly, waking up his Shellos, who had been sleeping on his lap. She whined out at him, before sliding off his lap and onto the ground next to him. "And my Shellos apparently hates me."

"Well, maybe don't wake her up from her nap next time, and she won't hate you as much." Eris reached over and shoved his shoulder softly, somehow finding the sunshine and rainbows to not be stressed in this situation.

"Um, I'm Clara." I gave a small wave, looking at the duo for a moment before putting my attention onto Swinub. He hadn't gotten very beat up in the battle, because of its short length, but was still starving afterwards. Unfortunately for the both of us, I had left the rest of his food back in my room. It looked like it was going to be a while before he got to eat.

"Well, I'm Dawn, and this is Lucas. We're two of Professor Rowan's assistants." The girl said, taking a journal out of her bag and pegging it at the boy. The journal hit him square in the face, since he seemed to have been lost in thought. I didn't see it very well, but the sound made me look up, and I couldn't help but crack a smile. Lucas flailed wildly, quickly picking up the book and coming back into reality.

"Do you four know what could've happened if you had lost that battle?" Lucas asked, finally addressing the four of us that were sitting on the ground. With the way he was talking to us, I started to feel like I little kid that had been put in time out.

"We could've returned our Pokemon to their balls." Markus shifted around, trying to get something out of his backpack without taking it off. "And then, well, run back to the dorms if we had to."

"Chased by two Zubat? I don't think we would've all made it back before they hit us with Supersonic, or something like that." I looked over at him, wondering what in the world he was doing. He took out a can of Pokemon kibble, putting a couple of pieces in his hand and giving them to Shellos.

"That's what I meant." Lucas turned to me, opening up the journal that Dawn had given him. "I'm guessing you know who those people were?"

"Yeah, they're Team Galactic. Though, they were to supposed to have disbanded four years ago. Isn't the International Police keeping an eye on any activities?" I started to feel a bit of a pit in my stomach, since if a couple of random grunts could past that, then, well, who knows what else could.

"That's what we're writing down. To send Looker a kindly worded letter."

"Who?" Aster asked as they wrestled with their Chimchar, who was now trying to steal their glasses.

"No one that's important. Just a guy we've had to deal with." Dawn stood up, looking somewhere in the distance. "Just like we're going to have to deal with her, I guess."

"There you four are! Oh my Arceus I was so worried that you all disappeared, and I heard the fighting and-- can I help you two?" Our teacher was running towards us, seeming to have not noticed the duo at first.

"Everything's fine here ma'am, just that some people were trying to harass these kids here. They were able to handle their own, though." Lucas stood up, greeting our teacher politely as he slipped his notebook into his bag. "They're very formidable battlers, actually. I hope they'll be challenging the gyms at some point soon."

I tensed up. That probably wasn't a very good thing to say to our teacher. Especially since we hadn't had a single proper lesson yet. We weren't really supposed to know how to battle, if the others that I overheard in the dorms were enough to go by.

"Oh well, they won't be for a while. You see, these kids are brand new, and haven't even started their studies for their written portion yet." Our teacher turned very tense, which was honestly making a big deal out of nothing.

"If how they handled themselves when battling was a necessity shows us anything, they will be very good candidates for beating Cynthia at some point. Whenever we're ever in town, we'll be stopping by!" Dawn tried to deescalate the situation, but our teacher wasn't budging.

"Well, then we'll see you guys later, bye, we're going to dorms, don't bother us thank you!" Eris called before grabbing my arm, dragging me all the way back to the dorms as fast as possible and leaving the other two to catch up.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" Eris asked, slightly out of breath as she looked at me. I was death-gripping Swinub at the moment, but I still tried to give a casual shrug.

"I think they'll get her to see it was necessary. We should probably get ready for reading, though. Seems like we're about to do a lot of that, and nothing else."