Pokemon Conclave: The Orange League Part 3: The Sleepover © 1999-2001 Willow McCall    Aoife lay on the cot that Michelle had set up, right across from Ermynne’s bed.  She and Ermynne had been lying in bed staring each other down for about fifteen minutes now, both wanting to sleep but not wanting to turn their back on the other.  “I don’t know what makes you think you’ll win,” Ermynne said, narrowing her eyes at Aoife.  “I don’t know what makes you think I won’t win,” Aoife said.  “If you thought that battle with that guy on Tangelo was all I’ve got, you’re dead wrong.”  “We’ll see about that,” Ermynne said, turning over onto her other side.  “We’ll just see…”  “Hmph,” Aoife muttered, turning over herself so she wouldn’t have to look at Ermynne anymore.   ***    Sora looked over her hand of cards worriedly, looking towards Ermynne’s door.  “Do you think they’re all right in there?  They’re awfully quiet…”  “Yeah,” Ferio said, throwing the two of spades onto the table.  “Ermynne’s probably thrown Aoife out the window already.”  “Nah,” Ruari said.  “It’s probably like a sleepover to them.  They’ll probably have some good old-fashioned girl talk, paint each other’s nails, and in the morning they’ll come out and be best friends!”  “Or, if they were like you and Petra,” Ferio said, “they’d come out the next morning—literally—and be girlfriends.”  Ruari glared at Ferio as she slammed down the three of hearts.  “Lay off, Ferio.”  A minute later they heard some yelling coming from inside Ermynne’s room.  “And you think you can just come in here, the Queen of Pallet Town, the Kanto girl, and take over the Orange Islands?  I don’t THINK so.”  “God, Ermynne,” Aoife yelled back, “this place—especially you—is more elitist than a state university!”  Petra looked up.  “Should we go intercept them, before they start tearing each others’ hair out?”  “Nah,” Ferio said.  “Let ‘em fight, if they want to.  Eventually they’ll work it out of their system and they’ll go to bed.  In the meanwhile…”  She stood up, gathering up the cards.  “Shall we move this game downstairs?  It might get pretty loud up here.”   ***    It was still cloudy the next morning when Aoife-tachi, Ermynne, Michelle, and Cerise gathered on the beach for the final event of Aoife’s first Orange League battle.  The wind was starting to pick up and the clouds overhead threatened to rain at any minute, but Aoife insisted they get the match over with that morning, no matter what the weather.  And, despite Ruari’s theory, Aoife and Ermynne were still not getting along.  “Okay, here are the rules,” Cerise stated.  “You may use any Pokemon you wish, as long as it can get you across to that rock over there.”  She pointed to a rock about a football field’s length away from the mainland in the ocean.  “Only one Pokemon, though.  Ermynne will plant two flags into the rock…Ermynne?”  She looked at her younger sister.  “Right!” Ermynne said, saluting.  She grabbed the flags and a Pokeball, which she threw into the ocean.  “Go, Lapras!”  Her Lapras, a miniature version of Ruari’s, appeared in the water, and Ermynne jumped on and began surfing out to the rock, flags in hand.  “Once she gets back, we’ll start,” Cerise said, her Pokeball already in hand.  “You know which Pokemon you’re using yet, Aoife?”  “I think so,” Aoife said, the beginnings of a sly grin on her face.  “You said any type, right?”  “Yeah, pretty much,” Cerise said.  “Oh, except for ones that know Teleport.  That’d be too easy…not even much of a race at all, really.”  “Oh,” Aoife said.  “Darn.”  Sora laughed.  “You were thinking of Kadabra?”  “Yeah…” Aoife said, scuffing her toe in the dirt.  “I don’t have any water Pokemon that can carry me, though!  What should I do?”  “If you want my advice,” Sora said, leaning over and whispering in Aoife’s ear the name of the Pokemon she should use.  Aoife’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, yeah!  Why didn’t I think of that?  It’d be so much faster…thanks Sora!”  Ermynne arrived back on shore.  “The flags are up!  Want me to time you, Sis?”  “If you don’t mind,” Cerise said.  “You ready, Aoife?”  “Yeah, definitely,” Aoife said, clutching the Pokeball she was to use.  “Okay,” Cerise said, getting into a ready stance, Pokeball in hand.  “Start the clock, Ermynne!”  Ermynne pressed a button on her stopwatch.  “Go!”  “Pokeball, go!” Aoife and Cerise cried in unison.  From Cerise’s Pokeball emerged a Wartortle, like the one Aoife had seen at the gym competition, and from Aoife’s Pokeball sprang…Spearow.  “All right!” Petra said, watching Aoife and Cerise mount their Pokemon.  “Is that what you told her to use, Sora?  That was a good idea.”  Sora beamed.  Cerise looked surprised when she saw Aoife’s Pokemon, but didn’t let that get to her for long.  She jumped on her Wartortle and pushed ahead while Aoife was getting Spearow into the air until it was at a satisfactory enough height to glide.  At first Cerise was in the lead, but Aoife quickly caught up until some other complications slowed her down.  Cerise looked up from Wartortle and frowned to see Aoife above her.  “Wartortle, Water Gun up at that Spearow!”  “Tortle,” Wartortle grunted, aiming a jet of water at Aoife.  Fortunately Aoife swerved to the side fast enough to avoid Spearow’s wings getting wet.  “Ha haaaa!” Ermynne crowed, from her spectator’s position on the shore.  “You show her, Sis!”  “Hey!” she yelled down at Cerise.  “You didn’t tell me we were allowed to attack each other!”  “You didn’t ask!” Cerise yelled back.  “Grr…okay, Spearow, attack back!” Aoife said.  “Use your Fury Attack!”  Spearow paused in midair for a moment, pointing its wings at Cerise and the Wartortle, then shot spikes at them from its wing tips.  Cerise ducked and shielded herself from the spikes, but Wartortle was pelted.  Aoife used this opportunity to soar ahead, within feet of the rock now.  “Aha,” Aoife said, getting ready to grab the flag as Spearow got closer to the rock.  “Almost there…”  “You won’t get away that easily,” Cerise said, pushing Wartortle faster.  “Wartortle, water gun again!”  “Whoops!” Aoife said.  Spearow swooped beneath the first water gun, just low enough for her to grab the golden flag from her side of the rock.  Then as Wartortle aimed a second jet, Spearow flew up and turned around quickly to avoid this second attack.  Spearow gained altitude and soared above, high out of the range of Wartortle’s water gun now.  She could vaguely hear Cerise shouting commands to Wartortle below, and Ermynne’s indignant screams, but she didn’t care—as far as she was concerned, it was over already.   She guided Spearow into a dive back down to the beach, landing in the sand and purposely scuffing some into Ermynne’s face.  “I won!” she cried, jumping off of Spearow triumphantly and returning it to its Pokeball. “You know, Aif,” Sora said, “you’re a really good flier.  You could probably be a flying Pokemon trainer, if you really wanted to…” Cerise arrived back at the beach a moment later and hopped off of Wartortle.  “Good job!” she congratulated Aoife.  “You really proved yourself out there.  It was tough even for me.” Ermynne was practically spitting with rage now.  “You!” she hissed, marching up to Aoife and pointing a finger in her face.  “You…you actually BEAT my sisters!  How dare you!  No one’s done that in five years, and now you…you come along and…” “Calm down, Ermynne,” Michelle said, patting Ermynne’s arm soothingly and trying to keep her back from Aoife.  “She won, fair and square.” “But no one’s…in five years…and she’s only MY age…” Ermynne sputtered, still pointing at Aoife dumbly. “Hey, Ermynne,” Aoife said, pushing past her.  “Every time you point your finger, three more point right back at you.”  She walked up to Cerise.  “Badge, please?” “Of course,” Cerise said, pulling a badge out of her shirt pocket.  It was shaped like a seashell, with one rubylike eye in the middle.  “This is the Coral Eye badge,” she said, handing it to Aoife.  “You see, all the badges in the Orange Islands are—hey, what’s that?” she asked suddenly, pointing to something in the water behind Aoife. Aoife turned around.  There, in the water, was something that looked like a periscope, zigzagging towards the beach.  When it got close enough, it disappeared and in its place a smallish submarine shaped like a Mantine shot out of the water and beached itself.  The hatch opened, and three all-too-familiar figures jumped out…or rather, two of them were pushed out by the other one.  “Honestly, you two!” an irate Sundance grumbled, climbing out of the hatch after having pushed her two partners out.  “Can’t you even _steer_ this thing right?  I could have done a much better job if you’d just let me…”  “We would have been happy to let you!” Bonnie snapped, getting up off the ground and brushing the sand off of her uniform.  “You just never offered to.  You were too busy eating those cherry-flavored Pokemon treats that man on Tangelo made for you…”  “Oh, great,” Aoife moaned.  “Not THEM.”  “Oh, fantastic,” Clyde muttered, getting up and noticing Aoife-tachi as Bonnie and Sundance had a catfight in the background.  “Not THEM again.  Bonnie, look who it is.”  Bonnie turned away from her Death Glare competition with Sundance and noticed Aoife as well.  “Oh, super,” she muttered.  “It’s THEM.  Great.  Well, we WERE going to raid the gym, but…”  “No, no buts,” Sundance said, jumping down from the submarine and pushing forward aggressively past her teammates.  “We can still raid the gym, we just have a few…extra annoyances to take care of.  You two!” she barked at Bonnie and Clyde.  “In the submarine!  Fire up the nets!”  “Great!” Clyde said, jumping into the sub and pulling Bonnie in with him.  A minute later he poked his head out the hatch.  “Uh, Sun?  Which button is the net?”  “The green one,” Sundance said, “with the picture of the spider on it.”  Clyde ducked back inside.  “I don’t think so,” Aoife said, stepping forward.  “I’m not just going to stand here and let you raid this gym.”  “Neither am I,” Ermynne said, jumping to her feet and getting ready with a Pokeball.  “I’ll never let you do anything to my family’s gym, even if we were just defeated.”  She jumped on top of the submarine.  “Green button with the spider, huh?  Thanks for that bit of information, Carrot Top.”  She ducked inside.  “Hey!” Sundance said, shaking her fist at Ermynne.  “Who said you could go in there?”  Aoife couldn’t tell what Ermynne was doing inside the submarine, but she figured it was good enough and took the diversion for all it was worth.  “Go, Weepinbell!”  She hurled her Pokeball, and Weepinbell popped out.  “Bell,” it said hollowly.  “Weepinbell, use your Vine Whip to wrap Sundance up!” Aoife said.  Weepinbell’s vines shot out and wrapped around Sundance, even lifting her a few inches off the ground.  “Hey, get this thing off me!” she protested, kicking and yelling.  From inside the submarine they could hear Ermynne yelling, “Glaciereon, go!”  “Glaciereon?” Sora repeated, craning her neck to see if she could see inside the Mantine submarine.  “What’s that?”  “Eevee evolution,” Ferio leaned towards Sora and whispered this into her ear.  “It’s Eevee evolved with the Ice Stone.”  “Ice stone, huh?” Sora said.  “Never heard of that one before.”  “You wouldn’t have,” Ferio said, turning back to look towards the submarine.  “They don’t sell them in Kanto.”  “Hmm,” Sora said, looking back to the sub again.  A moment later Bonnie and Clyde shot out the top, being propelled on a jet of ice and water apparently from Ermynne’s Glaciereon.  “Aieeeee!” they screamed, as they fell back towards the ground, landing with a thud.  “Hurry, Weepinbell!” Aoife said.  “Quickly, use your Wrap on Bonnie and Clyde!”  Weepinbell sent out another vine and wrapped up the remaining two Team Rocket members, gathering them into a neat little pile on the beach.  “Okay!” Ermynne said, aiming the submarine’s crosshairs at the Rockets.  “Thanks, Aoife!  Now let’s wrap this thing up!”  She held the aim steady with one hand, pressing the green spider button with the other.  A net shot out of the Mantine’s “mouth” and fell on the Rockets, tightening and trapping them there.  “Yeah!” Aoife cried, jumping up and down triumphantly as Weepinbell withdrew its vines from the net.  “I did it!”  “What are you talking about?” Ermynne demanded, clambering out of the submarine and marching across the beach.  “I did it!”  “You both did it,” Cerise said.  “You worked together!  How cool is that?”  “Not very, if you ask me,” Aoife said, turning up her nose.  “I didn’t mean to work with HER, really, it just sort of…”  “Transpired that way?” Petra said, as she, Ruari, Sora, and Ferio crossed the beach to join Aoife.  “Sure, Aoife, whatever you say.”  She turned to the trapped Team Rocket members, writhing helplessly in the net.  “What do you think, shall we leave them out here?”  “I think so,” Ruari agreed.  She looked up at the sky, which had cleared up during the race but was now darkening by the minute.  “And look, it’s going to rain, too.  I hope you guys don’t mind getting wet…”  “Nooo!” Sundance wailed, covering her head as if expecting something to come crashing down on her any instant.  “I hate the water!  I hate getting wet!  Augh!”  “Too bad,” Ferio said, as the group headed indoors.  “That’s what you get for messing with us.”  And when it finally did start to rain, our heroes were inside slurping Michelle’s homemade chicken soup in front of the warm fire, while Team Rocket shivered on the beach.  “Looks like Team Rocket’s beached themselves again…”     Author's Notes You can see the Harry Potter influence in this episode, can't you?  For Aoife the race was just like a Quidditch match, and she even had to get a _golden_ flag.  She'd make a good Seeker...Gryffindor, of course.  Hey, what houses d'ya think the Conclavers would be in?  Here's what I think: Sora, Ravenclaw; Ferio has to be Slytherin; Aidan...Ravenclaw also; Ermynne, Hufflepuff (she's loyal to her gym); Aoife, Gryffindor of course; Ruari...is difficult, but maybe Gryffindor; Petra, Huffepuff; and I guess Fawn is a Slytherin.  Fun, huh? *hums the Sorting Hat song to herself despite not knowing the tune*   back