Settling In

Within a couple of minutes Ritchie's room had been trashed.

As soon as he had unpacked all of his stuff his Pokemon had gone to work. Ritchie ran a hand through his hair as he watched his Pokemon, helpless and a bit too lazy to care.

Savannah had uprooted the lovely flower in the potted plant by a window and had made that her home. The Maractus was now resting, basking in the sun that shone through the glass. The plant on the other hand, was lying in a small vase filled with water.

Maurice, Lauren, and Carly had made the bed intended for their master their nest, even fashioning the pillows and blankets to make it resemble one. It had taken a lot of persuading and treats to get them to at least give Ritchie the mattress.

Morton on the other hand had taken it upon himself to claim the closet. Ritchie observed him from the bare mattress as the Crawdaunt occasionally would scuttle out, grab some random item, and then go back in again. Ritchie had absolutely zero idea what the Pokemon was doing in there and if he should check, but he continued to watch.

When Ritchie momentarily looked up from Morton's strange behavior he noticed with a smirk that Stephen seemed to be attempting to court the lamp on the ceiling fan. He didn't feel like he needed to worry about Stephen at the moment, the Chandelure wasn't exactly picky about living spaces.

But most peculiarly was Arthur, who seemed to be sleeping in a large collection of cardboard boxes, blankets, chairs, and a coffee table. It was undeniably a pillow fort. Ritchie knew the reason; Excadrills in the wild lived in large maze-like tunnels far below the surface, and now this Excadrill was living in a fancy room a couple stories in the air.

He began to recall when he had caught these Pokemon. Arthur had been causing problems with the Unovan Battle Subway by messing with the structural integrity of the tunnels. Dodrio had been attacking trainers near his house when he had tamed it when no one else could. Savannah had been scaring Pokemon and trainers away with its maraca sound deep in the desert. Morton, being a Crawdaunt, had invited himself to live in a chlorine-free pool meant for beginner swimmers and their Pokemon. He would have been euthanized hadn't it been for Ritchie. Not like anyone would have been able to get the Crawdaunt out in the first place. Stephen, most controversially, had supposedly been eating passing people's Ghost Pokemon. And Guinevere...

"Guinevere?"

Ritchie looked around for his Gardevoir, noticing that she wasn't in the room. He looked around wildly before cursing under his breath, jumping off of his "bed" and hastily getting his shoes on. People view the beautiful Gardevoir as any other Gardevoir; a Pokemon that loves positive emotion. Peaceful, only fighting for its trainers when they were in mortal danger. Well, they were wrong when it came to Guinevere. She had come to Ritchie like all of Ritchie's Pokemon; through some kind of act that would have gotten her killed for being too dangerous. To say the least, she was as ruthless as you could get while still looking graceful. The only thing she had in common with her species was that she would grow to her full power when feeling that someone she loved was threatened. In Guinevere's case, it seemed like everyone with a beating heart that wasn't Ritchie or her five teammates were a threat and needed to be Dark Pulsed until their brains were turned to scrambled eggs.

And when Ritchie pushed the door opened, he just so happened to find Guinevere rather quickly. She was in the hall, Shadow Ball forming in one hand and a Thunderbolt charging in the other.

On the same floor was Shiloh, getting set into his large room. A great view. Plasma Screen TV. Large Mattress. Room Service. All on a beautiful island? Life was good.
Seadra was enjoying the large bathtub in the bathroom, swimming around in a circle and creating a whirlpool. Flygon was on the balcony, perched and gazing upon the island, and the rest of his Pokemon were sitting around. Even Ferrothorn found a nice little perch, resting on the top of the ajar bathroom door.
His room was next to Ritchie's, and he had not yet noticed the light from the Thunderbolt under his doorway. He sat at the kitchen counter, exhausted from a long day's training.

"Guinevere, no!" Ritchie hissed, trying to keep his voice low. The Gardevoir ignored him, and the door knob seemed to move by itself before creaking open. Ritchie instinctively reached for her Pokeball like he had done many times. It was his first day and he was only here because of a stupid fundraiser. If there was an incident and they found Guinevere here...

It wasn't there. None of the Pokeballs were there. Ritchie realized that he'd left it back in his room.

There wasn't time to grab it now. Guinevere's crackling hand was ready to release the Thunderbolt as she stood just outside Shiloh's door. Ritchie tackled the Gardevoir to the ground and the Electric attack flew from her hand, hitting the ceiling as they both fell into Shiloh's room.

However, she simply levitated up again, Ritchie still gripping her by the waist. Guinevere would never harm Ritchie, but she wouldn't let Ritchie get in her way. He couldn't control her. She stuck her hand out, ready to launch the Shadow Ball from her occupied hand.

Shiloh jumped back as the two crashed into his room. "What the--" he began, but saw an attack charging. "Sigilyph. Hypnosis, friend!"
The mysterious flying Pokemon appeared out of nowhere, hovering down to Gardevoir's eye level with glowing blue eyes, a spiral pattern repeating in them, putting the Gardevoir in a trance.

The Gardevoir swayed a little bit, before falling over, Ritchie falling with her. The Shadow Ball went askew and hit Sigilyph instead of its intended target, the dark blob flying from her hands as she collapsed. Guinevere was soon asleep from the Hypnosis and Ritchie lifted the sleeping Pokemon off of him and sat up, rubbing his head.

The Gardevoir wasn't exactly a featherweight in Pokemon terms, but she was surprisingly light for a Pokemon that had lifted him off the ground with seemingly no effort. He guessed it was from the fact that Gardevoirs levitated.

Ritchie looked with concerned eyes from Guinevere to Shiloh, speechless. How could he explain that? His Pokemon nearly murdered a trainer on the first day.

Sigilyph teetered in the air from the power of the move. Shiloh ran over, grabbing the Pokemon from the air. "What the hell is up with your Pokemon!?" Shiloh demanded, fiddling in his pocket for an extra Hyper Potion. Those things were expensive!
He found one, a pink canister with a white nozzle, and sprayed it on his Pokemon's number signs.

"Sh... She's..." Ritchie couldn't find the words. He wanted to defend his Pokemon, but she just tried to murder him and just hit a Sigilyph of all Pokemon with a Shadow Ball. He picked the unconscious Gardevoir up and carried her bridal style back to his room quickly.

He laid her gently down on the mattress and searched around for her Pokeball. Ritchie's Pokemon looked at the two curiously, stopping whatever they were doing to look at them.

That kid's going to report this, I know it... Ritchie thought, gritting his teeth as he found Guinevere's Pokeball and pressed the white button in the center, engulfing the rogue Pokemon in a red light. And they're going to kick me off and... Ritchie looked at Guinevere's ball with sadness. If anything, he couldn't let them take her.

"Hey, Wait up." Shiloh called suddenly, following the boy. His Sigilyph had started to wake up after being sprayed, and by the time they reached Ritchie's doorway, she was up and floating.
He found that their rooms were pretty similar, with minor differences in decor. He looked around, still impressed by the luxury of the academy.
"You are in my class, right?" he asked, stepping in.

The ensuing noise that followed was the noise what you'd expect a bunch of surprised dangerous animals to make at the same time. Ritchie quickly returned his Pokemon before answering Shiloh, panting a bit. He didn't know what to expect from this conversation, but he played along cautiously.

"Yeah. Why?"

Shiloh smiled, extending a hand. "I'm Shiloh. Nice to meet you." he said, awaiting for him to meet the greeting. Sigilyph flew around Shiloh's head, curiously staring around. She was quite the energetic, curious Pokemon, never really taking much things too seriously.

Ritchie carefully stuck his hand out and shook Shiloh's hand. "Ritchie." he hadn't expected the reaction, but he would rather have that than him blowing up. "I'm really sorry about... That." His grip on Guinevere's ball grew harder. Ritchie wanted to assure him that never happens or that Guinevere was a really nice and sweet Pokemon once you got to know her, but he'd be lying. He left it at that.

"It's alright. The first month I had my Metagross, which was a Metang at the time, he wouldn't listen to my commands and would just Take Down everything. That would always faint him, and I would yell at the Pokemon for it, but when I did, he usually chased me down the street with a levitating boulder. Pokemon can be a handful." he reassured, not knowing that the Gardevoir had been around for 6075 years on Ritchie's team.

Ritchie flinched a bit. Guinevere had been longer than most of his team. Was she really that badly trained? Well of course she was. She barged into a stranger's room and tried to electrocute him. He didn't mention anything of it.

"I caught Guinevere after..." Ritchie didn't know how to put it into words. "...an incident. She's not exactly one to step in line."

"Ah." Shiloh said, rather awkwardly at that. After a moment of silence, he smiled once more. "Well, I'd love to have a battle sometime. That Gardevoir looks as powerful as she is....um....what's the word I'm looking for?"
He didn't want to say insane, crazy, or call her a delinquent. "..fiesty?"

"...You could say that." Ritchie responded. He didn't like the idea of a battle when Guinevere very nearly killed Shiloh twice within a minute. But he couldn't exactly turn the guy down, could he? Shiloh seemed like a nice guy, and maybe Guinevere would focus on attacking his Pokemon instead of the trainer. That probably wouldn't end pretty either, but it was worth a shot. "And yeah. A battle sounds nice."

"Alright. Knock whenever you would like one." said Shiloh, and waving, he walked out. The Sigilyph teetered around Ritchie's room for a bit, exploring, until a loud whistle erupted from the hall, causing the Pokemon to zip back out.

"Alright."

After Shiloh left Ritchie gently closed the door and released his Pokemon. He laid the sleeping Gardevoir on his mattress and situated himself on the floor, slouching against the bed as his Pokemon returned to their spots for the night.

Maurice, Lauren, and Carly sat in their pillow and blanket nest and Morton scuttled off to the closet, gently closing the door with its pincer. Savannah returned to the plant and Arthur gently crawled in the carefully constructed fort. Ritchie flipped the light off and only the dim purple fire of Stephen, floating by the fan, illuminated the room.