“Byul, I am freaking out,” Irene sat on the edge of Moonbyul’s bed, obsessively checking out every notification on her tablet.

“Dude, chill. It’s just a date.” Moonbyul gently pried the tablet out of her best friend’s fingers and set it on the bedside table. She had no idea why Irene was so worried, Seulgi was a great girl. “You like her, she likes you, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is I have no idea where to take her!” Irene tried to reach for her tablet and Moonbyul shook her head, blocking the older girl’s attempt and placing the offending item on top of her desk, out of Irene’s reach. “Give it back, Moonbyul. I want this to be perfect.”

“You’re worrying too much, Joohyun. I’m sure she’ll love wherever you guys end up going. A date isn’t just about where you go or what you do. It’s about spending time with the person.” Moonbyul grabbed a wooden box out of her bedside table and opened it. She handed Irene a worn-out scrap of yellow paper. “I took Yongsun to that cool mini-golf place on the east side of town and then we came back here for pizza. I kept the scorecard as a memento of our first date.”

Irene let out a soft ‘aw’, holding the paper carefully in her hands. She remembered that night and remembered the stupid grin on Moonbyul’s face when she came back to their shared dorm room. “Yongsun beat you so badly. You’re horrible at mini-golf.”

Moonbyul huffed, taking back the old scorecard and putting it back where it belonged. “How was I supposed to know the girl was a prodigy? Seriously, how can a girl that pretty be good at everything she tries? It’s unnatural.”

Irene giggled. “I guess you’re right, Byul. But I’m still lost as to what to do for our date on Friday.”

“You’re a Kalos Champion, Joohyun. You have connections. Use them and knock the socks off Seulgi.”

“Huh. It never occurred to me that I could use that.” Moonbyul’s jaw dropped at the statement, but by the looks of things Irene was serious. Had she never considered using her status as a Champion to get things done?

“Oh my Arceus, you’re so innocent.” Moonbyul’s tablet buzzed. She read the incoming message and reached up to hand Irene’s tablet back to her. “Look, Friday is three days away, I’m sure you’ll come up with something by then. Now shoo, Yong just texted me.”

“Kicking me out so you can have with your girlfriend?” Irene feigned a hurt expression. “You wound me, Moon Byulyi. I thought we were friends.”

“Arceus I wish she was coming over for that. No, she wants us to start planning for the next major competition. Word has it we get to pick our teams and apparently she’s already got “dossiers” on the people she’s thinking about teaming up with.”

Irene’s brows furrowed as she walked to the door. “But the competition isn’t for another three weeks.”

Moonbyul sighed. “Try telling her that. But tell you what, I’ll sniff around, ask Seulgi what kind of things she likes doing and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Moonbyul.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Moonbyul waved her out. “I’ll text you.”

As Irene left, Moonbyul shut her door and collapsed on her bed. Solar was always a meticulous planner, and that’s part of what made her such an award-winning Coordinator. And of course Moonbyul loved her, but man was it a lot of work sometimes.

The Hoenn Champion only got to relax for about two minutes before the door opened and her girlfriend breezed on in. Moonbyul didn’t move from her position on the bed, nor did she even bother to tell Solar to lock the door behind her.  “Hey babe, nice to see you too.”

 Solar dumped several heavy file folders on her stomach, which caused her to wheeze at the impact. Moonbyul opened one of them and her eyes widened at the sheer amount of information Solar had managed to get. 

“Okay, so I’ve been looking around and I think I have a good idea of who to recruit for the competition. There’s this one girl from Dorm Two named Jung Wheein, she’d be a great addition to our team. I’ve also been looking at some students from Dorm One and a freshman named Ahn Hyejin caught my eye so let me…Byul? Byul are you even listening to me?”

Moonbyul had fallen asleep, file folders covering her whole upper body. She loved Solar, but sometimes her personality was a little much.

XXX  

“You’ve heard about the next competition right?” was Wendy’s form of a greeting as she sat down across from Seulgi at the dining hall.

Seulgi shook her head, mouth full of pancakes. She swallowed her bite of breakfast and took a drink of orange juice. “Irene mentioned the next one was in a few weeks but I haven’t heard any details about it. Why?”

“One of my sources says we’ll be able to pick our teams for this one! You just transferred here this semester, you wouldn’t get it. Usually we’re divided into teams by dorm number or floor, according to the school’s records there have only been a handful of times the students have been allowed to freely make teams.”

Seulgi nodded politely and waited for Wendy to finish rambling about how unprecedented this dorm competition would be. “So have you thought about who you want on your team?”

Wendy looked downright offended. “You, duh. And Irene, if she hasn’t already been offered a spot. How cool would it be to get to battle with the Kalos Champion?”

Seulgi flashed back to that day at the Moon manor when she and Irene had taken on the rogue reporter. Things thankfully had quieted down since then, but Seulgi remembered watching Irene easily taking on the reporter’s Pokémon with her Aegislash. They would be at a major advantage if the rumors were true.

“I’ll ask her. Moonbyul mentioned something about maybe asking her, but I think Solar has other plans for them. Arceus, can you imagine how overpowered a team would be that had both Moonbyul and Irene in it?”

“Yeah that shouldn’t be allowed. Joy and Yeri have already agreed, so are you in?” Wendy looked at her expectantly.

“Yeah I’m in.” Seulgi wheezed as Wendy tackled her with a hug. “Please don’t break my ribs, we have PE today and all Irene would tell me was a name: Sunmi.”

Wendy’s face fell. “Sunmi? Ah, me.”

“Who’s she?” Seulgi scraped the last bit of food off her plate and stood up to return it. Wendy followed her, backpack slung over her shoulder.

“She’s Satan,” Wendy shivered. “Seriously. Whenever the Academy brings Sunmi in to teach we’re in for a world of trouble. She likes things like contact sports, paintball, military-style obstacle courses…”

“So, pain. Sunmi likes seeing us suffer.” Seulgi sighed inwardly. No wonder Irene had that look on her face this morning. Seulgi could only hope that today didn’t injure anyone, their date was only two days away now. “Should I be worried?”

Wendy waved away her concerns. “No, not really. Sure, Sunmi is sort of crazy and you really don’t want to be on the losing side, but she’s actually really nice. Just…keep some ibuprofen on hand for after class.”

“I’ll do that.” Seulgi checked the time. “Well, I was looking forward to PE today but after hearing what you just told me I’m not so sure anymore…”

“It’ll be fun, Seul. Painful. But fun.”

XXX

“All right, who called paintball as today’s activity?” Moonbyul asked the students as they gathered at the edge of the forest on the western side of campus. She had her tablet out and seemed to be checking a list of names. “Congratulations Chaeyoung and Mina, you guessed it right. I’ll send you both a certificate to the BP store.”

The two girls she had just called out grinned and bumped fists.

“Paintball?” Seulgi glanced sideways at a stack of metal crates that had been piled by a tree. Class was due to start in a few minutes but she hadn’t seen a single sign of Sunmi. Or Irene for that matter. Where had her roommate gone?

Wendy looked happy though. “At least it’s not full-contact flag football like last semester. I see flags over there though, I think Sunmi’s planning something a little more complex than just a paintball match.”

“Speak of the devil…” Joy muttered to their left and jerked her head in the direction of the school. Sunmi and Irene were walking towards them, carrying a large crate in between them.

“Good morning everyone!” Sunmi and Irene set the crate down with the others and she opened it with one swift movement. “Suit up, grab a gun and armor. You have five minutes to get ready or you’ll be running laps after class.”

There was a mini stampede as all twenty-seven students rushed to the crates to find their gear. Seulgi grabbed a set of armor and a basic paintball gun. There were more complex and cooler-looking guns to pick from but she didn’t want to make things more difficult by picking something she didn’t know how to use.

To be honest though, Seulgi had no experience with paintball. She’d seen videos on the internet so she knew how to do the basics but she wasn’t confident in her skills by far. She could only hope she wouldn’t drag down her team too much.

“Moonbyul, Nayeon, Taeyong you’re my captains. Pick wisely, you can only have eight others on your team.”

“Solar.” Of course Moonbyul would start with her girlfriend.

“Jihyo.” Another obvious pick. Nayeon and Jihyo were best friends.

“Johnny.”

The selections went on and on until the teams had been selected. Seulgi stood with Moonbyul and she looked over at the rest of her team. Most of them were familiar faces, Moonbyul had picked Irene, Wendy, Joy and Yeri but she didn’t recognize the last two Trainers that had been picked. She vaguely remembered one of them as Wheein, the girl she had fought against in the triple battle earlier in the semester.

“This is Hwasa,” Moonbyul introduced. “I found her practicing out on field six last week with her team and I was impressed.”

“And we all know it takes a lot to impress Moonbyul,” Solar added. “We’re thinking of adding her to our team for the next dorm competition along with Wheein.” She clapped a hand over , and Moonbyul sighed.

“Guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” the Hoenn Champion said. “What do you two say, wanna be on our team?”

Hwasa looked surprised, like this was the first she’d heard of it. “Really? You want me on your team for that? Aren’t the competitions like a huge deal? I’m not a Champion.”

Moonbyul huffed, “Don’t sell yourself short. I wanted to ask you because I think you two would be a great fit to work with me and Solar.”

Hwasa and Wheein gave each other a knowi