"Aaand over here we’ve got the most important part."

A handsome man in an all-black uniform and a young girl stood inside the dustiest, most dilapidated room either of them had ever seen. A room that would today become her new home.

As he showed her around, he stopped next to a table full of cardboard boxes, each marked with a differently colored stroke of paint. Pokeballs of all sorts and colors were littered inside them. The girl following him took a quick glimpse of the boxes and nodded. She didn’t look particularly imposing, almost a head shorter than the man accompanying her and just as skinny, wearing an oversized hoodie that gave her an air of plainness and indifference. The only thing of note about her appearance was the dingy wool hat resting atop her head, casting an ever-present shadow over her face.

"Red means relatively weak Pokemon, Green means Pokemon with a bit more experience." The man continued explaining. "Black means Pokemon on par with those of a Gym leader, and the ones in the Blue box are, of course, incredibly powerful. It's my favorite color after all," he smiled. "These Pokemon will be your companions for the entirety of your… stay here."

Even though the first two boxes were filled to the brim with Pokeballs, the black and especially the blue box only contained a few. Not too surprising; well-trained Pokemon were hard to come by these days.

"You'll be sleeping here, of course. All you need to do is… well, clean up a little, if you want to."

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The man dragged a finger through the surface of a nearby cupboard, then made a face and wiped the filth and dust on his dress pants.

"There's a bathroom; second door on the left past the hallway, and there's also a little kitchen back there, in case you want to cook something for yourself." He turned around and let out a sigh, smiling. "Any questions?"

Just as the girl was about to speak, the metallic door leading to the dingy room opened with a creak. An older man with salt and pepper hair came in.

"S-sir…" he said, breathless. "We have a challenger."

The other man, whose long, messy hair was a light brown with the exception of a single blue tuft over his right eye, made an unpleasant face.

"I thought I'd made it pretty clear that today we wouldn't have… Ah, it doesn't matter."

He shook his head and sighed somewhat exaggeratedly, but recovered almost instantly. Turning around, he placed both hands on the girl's shoulders and shone her a smile that sent a shiver down her spine.

"Exciting, isn't it!? This will be your first fight!" He spoke so excitedly that she almost expected to see sparkles coming off him. "Here, have these."

He handed her the green box and gave her a friendly pat on the back.

"Now go, Sabrina. Good luck!"

Sabrina stumbled toward the door, clearly overwhelmed, but stopped just before crossing the sill.

"…Your name?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.

The man raised his chin slightly, that long tuft of blue hair falling to the side, and what a strange sight that was. One of his eyes was brown. The other was the same blue as his dyed tuft of hair; a cold, boundless blue like winter itself.

"Who, me?" he asked innocently. "You can just call me Azure."