Home Sweet Home

Ritchie slowly opened his door. It was clean and tidy and smelled clean. He wandered in and dropped his suitcase, closing the door behind him. There was a day before classes started, so he had the day for himself.

After unloading all of his luggage the Dorm started to look more like home, and he had to say that it was an impressive looking room for some regular old trainer. It was large and had a nice looking bed in the corner against a wall. There was a desk for studying and a big closet. It was so big that it almost looked a bit empty. He shrugged his coat off and hung it on the small brass claw on the door. He was in a brown casual t-shirt and jeans. He would have to start wearing the school uniform the next day, so Ritchie would be making the most out of this.

He released the six Pokemon from their confinements on his belt and suddenly the room became a lot less spacious. Crobat fluttered overhead and found a nice lamp to hang upside down from. Tentacruel sat unmoving, unable to maneuver without the water. Beedrill buzzed noisily around, the twin javelins on his hands glinting dangerous from the sunlight cutting through the blinds. Gengar and Vileplume stood side by side and Ritchie's Nidoqueen could barely stand in the place from her towering height.

Ritchie blinked. Nikola had said that the room was big enough for both him and his Pokemon (which it was), and he didn't want to leave them cooped up inside their Pokeballs all day, but this couldn't do. He was certain that the tenants of Floor 7 would be hitting their ceilings with broomsticks if he kept this up. He recalled his team and went down to the Lobby, Pokeballs still banging together as he walked. He needed to find somewhere for his Pokemon to get out without possibly having Nidoqueen bring the Tower down on top of everybody.

Outside of the Lobby, Lark had released her three Pokemon. Altaria, Pidgeot, and Unfezant all stretched their wings, thankful to be free. Lark smiled. "Alright, guys. Let's explore this island from a better perspective." she said, The Pokemon responded with different sounds. clearing all wanting the same thing: to fly.

Ritchie exited from the lobby to see Lark preparing to take off on her Pokemon. He always wanted to fly on Crobat as he knew it was possible, but Crobat was not fond of that idea. On top of that, Ritchie had zero idea of how he would go about flying on something as small as his Pokemon.

He looked to Lark. Might as well start making friends now. Ritchie thought to himself before walking up.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked, smiling.

Lark heard the voice from behind her. She turned to see the boy from earlier. "Oh. Hello." she said, quite surprised. "I suppose. Do you have any Pokemon to fly on?"

Ritchie went through a scenario in his mind where his Crobat took out revenge by slicing his jugular with X-Scissor while he was sleeping in his bed.

"Err, no. Not exactly."

Lark smiled. "You can ride on Unfezant or Altaria. Altaria is a lot softer, by Unfezant is faster."
She herself hopped on Pidgeot, making sure the boy couldn't see down her skirt as she did so. She had heard about all men being perverts. Either that or gay. It was just a precaution.

Ritchie looked from the Altaria to the Unfezant. The Altaria seemed like a big fluffy cotton ball of fun. The Unfezant looked frail enough to the point that he was scared of it pecking the eyes out of his splattered corpse from the fall to the ground.

Ritchie jumped onto the Altaria. She was right about Altaria being soft, but he was still careful. He hoped that this would be an easy flight for his first time.

Lark giggled. "You better hold on tight. You won't want them to be scraping you off the ground because you fell."
And with that, she winked, and whistled. The three bird Pokemon flew up, and fast too. Lark seemed to be able to keep on with ease.

Ritchie flew up on the Altaria with one excitement - or fear- filled word: "WAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!--"

He did indeed hold on tight, pressing himself against the cotton-y body of Altaria and wrapping his arms around the Altaria's slender neck for dear life. Altaria followed close behind Lark.

"Quit screaming!" she instructed. "Look down!"
Indeed, the world below was great. They saw an overview of the island, and Lark even caught a battle going on in the Upper Stadium, It must have been a practice, since there weren't much people in the audience.

Ritchie shut up at that, but perhaps telling him to look down was a bad idea. He looked wide eyed, both in awe of the beauty of the Island and both in absolute terror.

As if reading his mind, the girl smirked. "Don't worry. Altaria won't let you fall...or at least will try to."
Her Pidgeot then increased it's speed don't some twists and other tricks. Unfezant followed, and Altaria as well, not doing tricks but being equally reckless, as if she forgot Ritchie was on her back.

Ritchie resisted the instinct to scream, knowing that the only help nearby was this obviously insane woman.

Hey Ritchie. Just chill. Have some fun while you're up here. he tried to assure himself. He loosened his grip on Altaria a bit, which made his heart skip a couple of beats but he didn't tighten. He looked around at Lark and her Pokemon and then at the clear endless blue skies and green seas. He dared another glance down to see the beautiful island once again. Somewhat of a smile came to his face.

The flying continued for a few more minutes. Finally, Lark said: "You wanna head back down?"
She was glancing back, gripping the feathers at the end of Pidgeot's head.

Ritchie nearly said "no", but thought back to his original purpose. He had seen the Island, it was time to stop. "Yeah!" he called back. He could barely hear himself up here.

The wind was pretty loud. Lark grinned. "Well, hold on." she repeated, and the birds all started to swoop towards the ground.

Ritchie finally tightened his grip again and his stomach churned as they started dive bombing. Lark really was insane.

The girl let out a "Wooooooo!", as they finally steered upwards, two inches from the ground, and landed. Her mood seemed to have changed immediately, less shy to the boy on her Altaria. She jumped off her Pokemon, and giggled. "You should have seen your face when we took off."

Ritchie chuckled and stepped off the Altaria on to the oh-so-sweet-earth, glad to feel the ground beneath his feet. "I can imagine." he replied, and he smiled at the girl. The Poison trainer held his hand out. "I'm Ritchie, by the way."

The girl studied the hand, realizing they indeed hadn't told each other their names. "Nice to meet you. I'm Lark." she said, slipping her hand into his hand and shaking it. IT WAZ WARM AND MOIST

Ritchie smiled back. "Nice to meet you too, Lark." shaking hands with her. He was already making friends and he had a high quality room on a beautiful island. Perhaps this wouldn't be half bad afterall.

"Well, we should fly again sometime." said Lark. "Though, right now, I should be unpacking. I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked, voide trailing off for confirmation.

Ritchie nodded, the smile plastered on his face. "I think I'd like that. See ya tomorrow." Ritchie had some other things to attend to also, but perhaps it was getting too late for that. Then again, there was probably so many things to do now with the school year starting... He shook these thoughts away though.