Lyra Shine, woke up to another beautiful day, in her mind, it was anyway, the morning sun was just barely breaking through the floral covered curtains of her room. On the small bedside table next to her single bed was an electric alarm clock, which was sounding off its morning alarm. On the clock face, it showed 7:30 am in bright red letters that were flashing in time with the alarm buzzing that rang out in second long beeps. 

Lyra simply and quickly reached over with one arm before she tapped it lightly on the off button to switch the alarm off, once the alarm had switched off she heaved herself upright and twisted her body round to the side so her legs were dangling off the edge of her bed, part of her duvet was still resting on the top of her lap. She yawned lightly as she tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes before she raised her arms up above her head. She groaned slightly as she stretched out the muscles in her arms and back.

She hopped up out of the duvet and off her bed and started to walk over towards the other side of her bedroom towards her dresser. She glanced at the large modern style mirror that was inlaid into her wardrobe as she walked past it toward the large wooden dresser. She made it a couple steps closer to the dresser before she paused suddenly as if considering what she had seen before walking back to the mirror. On reaching the mirror she stared back into the reflective surface. She moaned lightly, muttering to herself with an aggravated look on her face. 

“Eeeuugghhh, damn it every time!” her hair was everywhere, it was a common morning occurrence, no matter what she did it almost always ended like this after a night's sleep. It looked like a Pikachu had given her a thundershock before making a nest using her hair as bedding. 

She stomped over to her bedside table and grabbed a hairbrush up off the tabletop, it was thickly matted with strands of neon blue hair from repeated long term usage. Returning to the mirror she started muttering curses to herself as she started running it down through the bomb site that was on her scalp, trying and surprisingly succeeding to smooth it out and flatten it again.

The end result was straight neon blue hair that went just below her shoulders, nestled in the hair she had two tall thin ears, they were covered in a thin layer of neon blue fur with bubble gum pink fur in the centre, that was perched on top of her head with a blue and white bow at the base of the left ear. A blue and white ribbon floated behind her head, connected to the back of the left ear, just behind the ribbon, focusing on the ribbon, she squinted slightly as she willed it under her hair and in a practised motion, used it to create a ponytail at the back. 

“Much better!” She sounded much more cheerful as a delighted smile grew on her face, she gave herself one last check in the mirror before she started moving back over to the dresser to grab a clean school uniform to wear for the day. 

The uniform consisted of a navy blue blazer, white long-sleeved undershirt, a blue and white striped tie and a choice of either a pair of dark black trousers or a black skirt. Today she chose a shirt with white tights that ran all the way up to the top of her leg. Emblazoned on the blazer was a white shell that curves into a helix, with the name of the academy stitched into the fabric with a golden thread to form the letters. 

If you showed a picture of Lyra’s face in her human form to a passerby, most of them would say something along the lines of she is stunning, beautiful, cute, charming. She was commonly referred to as one of the hottest and most datable girls in school. She had both the high scoring grades and the looks to match, though, to some pokemon, they knew that her attitude was lacking in certain aspects, not that anyone ever told that to her. 

However, this didn’t stop her teachers from giving her the role of student committee leader for the monotype students that had enrolled in the academy. It was a high-level position and is commonly considered to be a great honour for the individual chosen as it meant the teachers of the academy believed you were destined to lead or fulfil a major role in your adult life. It had made both her and her family incredibly proud when she had been selected. 

Lyra quickly slipped out of her pyjama top and trousers before she grabbed some clean underwear from one of the top draws of her dresser and quickly got dressed into her student uniform. It took her a couple of minutes to get everything on, once everything was on successfully, she walked back to the mirror to give herself one last check before she headed downstairs for breakfast. Her mum always got angry with her when she didn’t look perfect. 

Having gotten dressed Lyra made a quick stop to the toilet before slowly drifting downstairs and into the kitchen, where she found her mum and dad. 

Her father was sat waiting at the kitchen table, her mother, as always, had gotten up early and was in the middle of cooking a breakfast meal of chicken eggs and bacon, on the table there was already toast on the rack, her father was chomping on a piece of it with one hand whilst the other hand to hold the morning paper, which he was slowly reading.

All three were in their human form, it was a house rule, they had to stay in human form at all times, it was due to their species, by staying in human form their lives were made easier when at home anyway, according to her father anyway. Lyra was a Sylveon, her mother, Persephone Shine was a Leafeon and her father, Darnall Shine was an Umbreon. Being in human form just made moving around the house and interacting with the technology far easier for them. 

Her father lowered the top of the paper to greet his daughter good morning before returning to the paper in front of him, her mother looked over her shoulder.

“Food will be done soon, grab a seat” Lyra noded with a small smile on her face before she moved over to grab a seat opposite her father. Sitting down at the small breakfast table, Lyra grabbed a piece of toast from the rack, placing it onto a preplaced plate before grabbing the butter knife and coating one side of the toast with butter. A moment later, her mother wandered over and dropped off a couple of rashes of bacon and a sunnyside egg on to her plate, she kissed the top of her daughters head and moved back to stovetop to cook something for herself, Lyra just simply giggled before tackling into her food. 

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As usual, the food was good and didn't take her long to finish her breakfast, afterwards, she poured a glass of oran berry juice for herself before she threw it down her throat like a shot before heading into the hallway to grab her school bag and shoes. She grabbed her bag off from the coat rack that was screwed into the wall in the hallway, her shoes were black with a slight shine that showed they had been recently polished.

Once she had finished slipping her shoes on, she walked over towards the front door just in time to see her father kiss her mother on the forehead as he headed out to work. Her dad was an accountant, not the most fun job he would often lament, but it paid well. Her mum instead worked from home, drawing backgrounds and colouring textures on a custom build laptop. Graphic designer Lyra believed it was called, but she couldn't be sure, it didn’t really matter much, it was her mother’s passion, though her mother did have a strange fascination with ”shiny” pokemon, spending a lot of time looking for photos of them online. 

Lyra just assumed it was a hobby, though her mum always had a rather possessive look in her eyes when the two of them were alone like she had now…

“You are so special you know that?” her mum always spoke in a distant voice as she rested her hands on Lyra’s shoulders, her eyes glazing over slightly as she took in her daughter. Her hands squeezed her daughter’s shoulders hard just once before moving away as her eyes cleared, her voice turned back to normal.

“Now what do we say?” she said with a smile. Lyra replied, in the same way, she replied every day.

“I am special, I am unique, I am what other pokemon should aim towards! I am pure, I shine!” her voice picking up into a cheerful tone towards the end, her mother just laughed gleefully, nodding her head as she walked back towards the kitchen to start the washing up. Lyra walked out of her house, down the garden path and turned down onto the pathway, starting to walk towards the bus stop that was further down the road. 

Her house was located on the outskirts of the city, in a section of the city purely designed for pokemon to live in, they were all large 3 to 5 bedroom detached houses with a large outdoor garden, the houses themselves were near identical in design, 2 floors, an attic and a basement, connected to the water and power mains with working plumbing. Each street was further designed for specific pokemon types, the house Lyra lived in was on a normal type street meaning the house had no specialized features and was designed for typically normal type pokemon, or in her case, pokemon that evolve from normal types.

The specialization could range from fireproofing the materials used in the construction of the house, or humidifiers or dehumidifiers being incorporated into the framework of the house to larger extremes a seen in housing designed for aquatic pokemon, with waterways in and around the house for easier movement if in natural form and rooms comprised of half land and half water or room being completely submerged. 

The bus stop was only a couple minute walk from Lyra’s house, so it didn't take her long to make it there. Once there she perched down on the bench next to the bus stop sign as she waited for the bus to arrive to take her to school. 

That was the only real downside to living outside in the main city limits, she commented in her mind, you needed to get the bus into school every day. Still, her face furrowed in annoyance as the one pokemon she disapproved of more than anyone else at school waltzed into her mind, at least she was guaranteed to never bump into him! 

The thought of him practically ruined her morning. Whenever he crossed her mind he always managed to ruin her mood. Her floating ribbons twisted in on themselves as her face darkened as the pokemon grinned back mockingly at her. 

He was a dark-dragon type, after all, he was the complete opposite of everything that she was, she was a pure fairy type, someone such as herself should never have to deal with such a despicable pokemon such as him! 

But she had no choice in that matter, her face darkened further as she remembered that she needed to hold a meeting with him today. Unfortunately for her, as much as she wished to ignore his presence as much as possible, he was in fact the other student committee head, the student committee leader for the dual type pokemon that were enrolled in the school.

The city triads had worked with the then-current mayor of the city 8 years ago to incorporate a second student committee, one that looked out for the wellbeing of all the dual-type students with the original student committee looking out for the wellbeing of all single-type students, also known as monotypes. 

This had the effect of increased the overall wellbeing of the students as the student committees were in fact responsible for things such as what kinds of food were being served in the cafeteria, organising school trips, planning and authorizing student clubs and activities for the year and even can request for teachers to supervise importune battles to settle disagreements if required. Of course, if the student committee failed in any of these roles, teachers would step in to fix any problems and would lend their aid to the student committees during times of emergency.

By splitting the student committee into two separate groups, it had effectively doubled the number of pokemon that shared the weight of responsibility that being on the student committee came with. In addition, it cut the number of students each student committee had to cater to roughly in half.

The academy itself is called The Helix Institute, the academy itself was first founded by Steven Felix, an Omastar, 149 years ago, a year after the city had gained its mega-city status, next year was actually the 150 year anniversary of its founding. It is by far the biggest academy in Prosperity, teaching everything, financing, medical, agriculture, drama, musical arts, law and even battling. As a result however it taught on average 10,000 students in a given academic year. 

The role of the student committee was originally designed to foster future leaders of the city itself, with the head of the student committee typically being groomed to be a future key figure in the city. To Lyra, it was a dream come true, she had worked tirelessly for the last two years of her education at Helix to earn the recognition she and her mother believed she should have, now in her final year, she had the chance to prove herself, being given the role 2 weeks ago. 

The only thing dampening her celebration was the discovery the one person she wished to have nothing to do with was made student committee leader along with her, forcing her to have regular meetings to discuss the future of the Helix academy, this year especially important with the anniversary celebrations to plan, trips to book, festivals to organise, food rotors to make…

She started to get lost in her own thoughts, trapped by negative ideas and thoughts that were cascading down upon her one after the other… so much to do, so little time...

Ding…..

Lyra snapped out of her repree, looking around for the source of the mysterious sound. It sounded distant yet close at the same time. It was really rather strange…

“What was that?” a small but cheerful feminine voice called out, from well below Lyra’s hip. Looking down she saw a Minccino, dressed in the Helix standard uniform. 

Lyra’s smile returned almost immediately upon seeing her fellow student committee member, the pokemon in charge of finance, Lisette Nightgale, a young female pokemon that is notorious for two things; being one of the cutest pokemon in the school and being a genius when it comes economics, the first was a combination of her natural looks and her ability, passively influencing how all the students saw her and the second was her natural ability. This second feature resulted in her gaining a place on the mono-type student committee, being in charge of the treasury.

Another notable feature of Lisette, who preferred being called Lis, was that she spent almost all her time in her natural form, resulting in increasing the cuteness of her by several magnitudes. 

“Good morning Lis!” Lyra called out to her fellow student, now back in her cheerful mood, Lis always raised the spirits of everyone, she was everyone's cheerleader. The small pokemon flinched slightly, before giving a slightly forced smile back, Lyra, of course, didn’t notice either of these things, she was just bathing in her cuteness, Lis returned the greeting, mumbling in her mind, at least she’s not trying to hit on me... 

“Good morning Lyra, how are you doing today?” And with that the mysterious sound passed out of the mind of the two pokemon, forgotten, as it was not really that important anyway. At least, not to them. To someone else, however, it was a saving grace…