“Are you sure it’s okay for you to not go to school, Big Sis Nina?” Asked the Natsumi.

The twins had finally gotten early leave from school to come support Beverly in the conference. Unlike Nina who had been here since the beginning.

“Itsh fwine,” assured Nina, her voice muffled from the mouthful of delectable Aspear tart in her mouth. “They stopped caring when I got into the Vermillion Flame. Just gotta show up for graduation cause the faculty wants pictures with me. Also, when are you two gonna let go of the ‘Big Sis’? Isn’t it quite a mouthful?”

There had actually been a lot of talk over the years about Nina skipping grades, since the syllabus was so obviously beneath her capabilities. However with ten being such an important age for children, things got a bit complicated. Because it’s not like Nina could go on a journey as a minor, and she wouldn’t be able to go to trainer school without being able to legally own Pokemon.

Plus, Nina herself didn’t want to be an outlier. Luckily, Miss Roxy advocated for the school to consult Nina and prioritize the child’s feelings, so all notions of skipping grades went out the window.

“But why the Vermillion Flame though?” Asked Fuyumi, sounding somewhat wistful. “Can't you go to school in the Cerulean Gem instead?” She pleaded.

In truth, Fuyumi was right. It didn’t matter which school she went to. In fact, she didn’t need to go to school at all. Nina wanted to attend trainer school purely out of curiosity and nothing else.

Originally, before meeting Tini and joining the Cerulean Gym, Nina had always regarded trainer school as the most efficient way for her to start her career as a Pokemon Trainer. A sentiment largely shared by the general populace.

Because trainer schools provided all sorts of equipment, facilities and resources that would be helpful in the nurture of Pokemon. But now that Nina had a Pokedex, access to the Cerulean Gym and a generous three thousand Pokedollar a month stipend from Bill when she comes of age, she didn’t need to worry about blundering her way through Pokemon training anymore.

And Nina figured, since she wanted to go to trainer school anyway, might as well go to one in a whole new city instead of sticking to the comforts of her home. Besides, it was nice to get away from her parents and responsibilities as a Gym Apprentice to just live her own life. Because it was almost certain that she would be expected to work part time as a Gym Trainer if she stuck around Cerulean City.

Nina explained as much to the twins, who were hoping that she would change her mind and stay back. As far as she could tell, the Tendou family was more sensible in wanting their children to attend a local school, since they could stay near the Cerulean Gym and receive personal guidance from professional Gym Trainers.

“It’ll be fine, Bev will be hanging around the Gym for a couple more years before she heads out again. Isn’t that right Bev?” Nina asked the still pouting Beverly who snorted and turned her nose up at her.

“Aww… come on, you’re not still mad are you? Here, have some of this tasty tart. Ahh…” Nina grabbed a forkful of her desert and placed it near her friend’s mouth. And after a bit of resistance from the older girl, she finally opened up her mouth begrudgingly.

The quartet of Gym Apprentices were currently in a cafe in Indigo Village. But despite being called a village, the place was actually large enough to house an entire city’s population. It was an odd place that was empty most months throughout the year, with only a few shops in operation to cater to the local League workers and Ace Trainers.

However, when the Indigo Conference commences every November, the whole Village comes to life and becomes a bustling metropolis filled with tourists and merchants hoping to make a buck. It was practically one big social convention where even unrelated industries will hold expos and events during this time to take advantage of the gathered crowd.

“Are you nervous?” Asked Nina. “You’re finally in the top eight now. A couple more matches and you’ll be in the finals.”

Beverly groaned. “Urgh… Don’t remind me. Misty wants me in the top four and I’m never going to hear the end of it if I lose this next one. Forget going on another journey, they’ll probably lock me up in the Gym and make me do the conference again until I get it right.”

Nina laughed at her friend’s paranoia. “Not gonna happen. Even Misty didn’t bother to redo the Indigo Conference before she took over as Gym Leader. She went out on a journey with her friends instead. So no worries.”

At the mention of friends, Beverly winced and stared at Nina with Growlithe eyes. “Are you sure you wanna go to school? We can go out and explore instead… I’ll even go to those dusty old ruins with you that you like so much.”

Nina giggled and pulled her needy, socially awkward friend into her hug. “Yes, I’m sure. But it’ll probably be only a couple of years until I get bored. And we will go to those dusty old ruins when we journey together, whether you like it or not.”

“Can we come with?” Asked the twins. “We wanna go out and explore with Big Sis Nina too.”

“Hey, what about me?!” Exclaimed Beverly.

“And Big Sis Beverly too of course.” They added, with a cheeky smile.

“No worries, once the two of you complete the Indigo leg of your journey, I’m sure we can all go traveling together. I mean, Fuyumi, you still want to face me in the conference right? I’m looking forward to the challenge so work hard and don’t let me down.”

Fuyumi gave a determined nod, which only elicited laughter from the group due to how full her cheeks were with sweets.

Contrary to what was depicted in the anime, trainers and Pokemon participating in the conference did not get to eat for free. After all, there were thousands of them each year and such a misguided policy will end up bankrupting everyone involved.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Instead, it was the top sixteen that got to indulge in free food, albeit with a hard limit on how much feed a Pokemon got, since the ones competing at this level are mostly heavy hitters and big eaters. Hence why today’s tea party was courtesy of Beverly.

***

Nina cheered along with the other members of the Cerulean Gym at the entrance of their colleague. By this point, everyone was already used to their antics, and the cheer squad had even gathered quite a following with other unrelated people printing their own happis and banners to cheer alongside them.

Not to mention Beverly herself, who had become somewhat of a celebrity due to all the attention they directed her way, and with the girl’s outburst against the Grass Specialist in her first match going viral on the Pokenet.

Beverly walked confidently onto her platform, having learnt to automatically tune out the embarrassing chants at this point. Her opponent was someone who looked like he just stepped out of a renaissance fair with a full suit of chainmail, slicked back hair and a wispy handlebar mustache.

“This might be a tough one…” Whispered Daisy, who had snuck out to join them as promised.

“You know the guy?” Asked Nina.

“No, but I read his profile. He’s a Dragon Tamer from Galar. No idea what he’s doing here, but he has quite an impressive record — four Star Badges, including one from Blaine. But he ran out of time before he could reach ours, otherwise he might have had five.”

Nina gaped at the revelation. “That’s really bad for Bev, isn’t it? No way she’s gonna win this one.”

Daisy nodded but still flashed a reassuring smile and caressed the concerned Nina’s head. “Can’t be helped. That’s just the nature of the conference. It’s likely that this guy will go on to win the whole thing since we don’t have many Fairy Type Specialists in our region. It’s just bad luck. The most important thing is for us to support Bev and believe in her no matter what. You never know, miracles can happen.”

Nina grabbed hold of her necklace and began praying. “Mew, if you ever wanted to flex your miracle making prowess, now would be a good time.”

Fortunately, Mew did pull through. Though not necessarily in an ideal way.

Things started off well enough, the Dragon Tamer sent out a Shelgon to face Beverly’s Cloyster. The girl seemed to have done prior research on her opponent, because right away she set the field by doubling down on Blizzard and Snowscape to turn the grassy field into a winter wonderland.

She even commanded Pearl to spam Surf, Ice Beam and Ice Spike to essentially terraform the field to her liking, fully taking advantage of the fact that Shelgon could do nothing against her sturdy Cloyster.

The Dragon Tamer tried his best, but eventually decided to swap out Shelgon for a Duraludon, who wasn’t as vulnerable to Ice compared to your typical Dragon thanks to its Steel body.

Pearl hung in there for as long as she could, even managing to lay down Toxic Spikes in the form of purple icicles on her opponent’s side of the field. But despite severely damaging the Duraludon with an Ice Beam and freezing a couple of its joints, the Cloyster fainted in the end.

Beverly’s next play was Luna, who handily took down the alloy Pokemon with a single empowered Dragon Pulse. She was then met with an Altaria, who’s Cloud Nine ability in combination with Sunny Day cleared the weather.

The Dragon bird then tried to melt the icy field with Fire attacks but Luna was having none of it as she bombarded her opponent with a series of Ice attacks that were super effective thanks to the Altaria’s dual Flying and Dragon Typing.

In the end, Altaria fainted without doing much damage to the field, and was then replaced with a Flygon who stuck to the sky and attempted to take on the relatively landbound Kingdra with aerial bombardments.

Unfortunately for the other Dragon, Luna had trained under the best Dragon Dancer in the entirety of Kanto so she easily dodged around the projectiles and even overwrote the Sunny Day and Sandstorm with a Rainy Day and Blizzard combo. Unfortunately, this meant covering the ice field with a layer of mud that limited its efficacy.

Which as it turns out, was exactly what the Dragon Tamer was after. Because the moment that Flygon fainted, he sent in Garchomp who made full use of the muddied ground to rework the terrain into something more Dragon friendly.

Luna tried her best, but the Garchomp was not only viciously relentless in its offense, but also extremely cunning in its defense. It was especially proficient in using Sand Tomb to block all attacks and Dig to dodge and ambush its opponent. It was clear that the Pokemon was one of the Dragon Tamer’s aces.

When met with the Garchomp’s melee offense, Luna eventually fainted. It was unfortunate that the Kingdra was more geared towards range and special attack. To take her place, Beverly sent out Mantine, which Nina thought was a mistake at the time. The older girl probably thought that she could wear down the Garchomp from the skies given how dependent it was on melee. But that was not true at all.

The intense sandstorm raged on despite Sora’s best efforts to clear it with Rainy Day and Hail. Garchomps mastery over its element was simply on a whole other level compared to the inexperienced Mantine’s. Visibility was poor, which meant that neither Beverly nor Ray could see well enough to make any good decisions.

And with a combination of wide area Scorching Sands to coral the flying stingray, alongside some well aimed Stone Edge bullets to snipe at the Mantine, Sora eventually fell from the sky and fainted.

Next up was Ryu the Gyarados. Beverly wanted to clear the hazardous sandstorm with the sea serpents supremacy in weather control, which he did manage to accomplish, but not for free as he had to do so while under constant assault from the Garchomp.

Ryu did eventually faint the Garchomp by drowning it in wide area Water and Ice attacks; he used a surf to wash the Garchomp away and flood any holes it dug, an icy wind to suppress the Ground Dragon in order to restart Blizzard and freeze the ground, preventing any further digging. Finally, an Ice Beam and Dragon pulse combo to wrap things up.

But then, things took a turn. With an intimidating roar, a Haxorus landed on the field. But it was clear that this wasn’t just your run of the mill Pokemon. This Haxorus looked ancient, with scars all over its dull golden scales. One of its blood red eyes was also missing, looking as if something had gouged it out.

But the sheer overwhelming aura of the Dragon was what stood out the most, as the entire stadium went silent at its glare. Even Beverly’s Gyarados reeled back somewhat in the presence of his opponent's pure, unadulterated killing intent.

What happened afterwards was a complete beatdown. The Haxorus dashed towards Ryu while simultaneously activating Swords Dance and Dragon Dance, not even bothering to clear the weather and set up like its previous colleagues.

Beverly commanded for an Outrage which briefly held back the Haxorus, only for the Dragon to quickly recover and grab onto the Gyarados’s horns and saddle itself on top of Ryu’s head. Then with a powerful swing of its shining axe blades, and a gush of blood, a massive gash appeared on Ryu’s face as the Gyarados fainted in one hit.

Beverly was hysterical, immediately returning her injured companion in full stasis and frantically yelling for someone to take the Pokeball to a nurse right away.

At this point the referee called for a pause to the match as a panel of judges deliberated on what to do about the Haxorus’s actions. After all this was a tournament and not the battlefield, some degree of sportsmanship was expected from all participants involved.

Nina along with the rest of the audience was aghast at what had just transpired. “What… In Distortion was that?” She murmured.

“Guillotine,” answered a scowling Daisy. “It’s a lethal move that’s banned all over the world, since there’s no way to use it safely without causing severe harm. That guy is likely going to be disqualified and banned from the Indigo Conference.”

“Is Ryu going to be okay?” Asked a concerned Natsumi.

Daisy hummed in consideration. “It’s hard to say, but I think he should be fine. Worst case scenario, he gets left with a scar and some trauma. That Haxorus could have easily chopped Ryu’s head off, but intentionally held back. In that sense, I suppose there’s still some consideration to be made for clemency.”

Nina winced. “If that was holding back then I don’t want to know what the real thing would look like.”

In the end, Daisy’s predictions came true. Haxorus was eliminated and banned from the conference, but its trainer was allowed to continue with his final Pokemon, which was the Shelgon he returned earlier.

Beverly took on the innocent Pokemon with the wrathful vindictiveness of someone whose loved one was nearly killed. She sent out her Quagsire who slammed the Shelgon all around the arena before covering it in mud and finishing it off with a direct Earthquake to its innards.

It is said that inside a Shelgon’s shell was a Bagon whose body was undergoing metamorphosis into Salamence. Hence why the shell is so sturdy, in order to protect the delicate innards. As to what sort of effect a devastating Earthquake will do to Shelgon’s delicate interior, nobody knows. But it is likely that its trainer will find out eventually.

Nina hoped that the Salamence won’t come out all deformed. But for now, the most important thing was that Beverly had an opportunity to vent. Otherwise, she could easily see this twisting her friend’s personality towards a darker path.