“Alright ladies, gather round!” Wendy slammed the table in front of her, causing Irene to jump slightly in her chair and glare at the other girl.

Seulgi and Irene had been approached by Wendy after the battle with Jennie and were told to come to the café just down the street from the Academy for a brief strategy session regarding the upcoming competition.

“Our team composition is officially confirmed as of about ten minutes ago,” Wendy said, pulling out a thick manila folder and spreading its contents out on the table for everyone to see.

“No one else is challenging us for poaching rights?” Yeri asked, approaching the table with everyone’s usual orders. She picked up a piece of paper with her name on it and started reading it over while sipping on her coffee. 

“They’re too scared of Seulgi,” Joy snorted, rifling through the papers and grabbing hers. She thanked Yeri for the Americano and got back to reading. “After she beat the snot out of Jennie the three other teams that were in line to challenge us all withdrew.”

Seulgi couldn’t help the proud smile that made its way onto her face. She’d defeated Jennie in a fair battle and gotten the hottest girl in school to kiss her in front of everyone. What a rush.

Speaking of Irene, the Kalos Champion looked pleased to be working with Wendy and the others, judging from the way she immediately got to work looking at the dossiers Wendy had written up.

“Wow, these are really in-depth Wendy,” Seulgi commented on her own dossier, which had her entire team’s stats written up. Wendy had even included each individual Pokémon’s likelihood of surviving a super-effective move. “I feel like I should ask how you got all this information, but maybe it’s better I don’t know.”

“You would be correct, I’m not the kind of girl to kiss and tell,” was Wendy’s response. “They say knowledge is power and the more knowledge we have about our team and the synergies we can pull off the more prepared we’ll be for this weekend.”

Yeri pointed at the remaining papers on the table, “What are those for then?”

Wendy’s smile made everyone shiver unconsciously. “Thank you for asking, Yeri. These are my pride and joy. I’ve done my best to compile all the information I can on the teams we’ll be facing. These aren’t complete because there are still some people out there who haven’t pledged to a team, but I’ve got data on the ones most likely to cause a problem.”

“You’re an evil genius,” Irene praised. Everyone turned to look at her. “What? I can appreciate hard work.”

Wendy picked up her tablet and sent out a message in their group chat. “Here’s what we’re working with. We’ve got about five teams to worry about in this competition, not including Moonbyul and her girls.”

“First is Blackpink. That’s the team consisting of Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé. We’ve seen how Jennie battles, and her teammates are similar in their chosen style of battle. All of them are pretty decent coming up with strategies on the fly, but their one weakness is that they place a little too much importance on type matchups. We saw that earlier with Jennie’s Weavile.”

“So as long as we’re aware that they’re likely to try and switch out during an unfavorable matchup we should be fine,” Joy concluded and Wendy nodded in agreement.

“Exactly. Second threat is a group called Twice, which is Jihyo, Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu.” Wendy had to pause for a moment and take a breath.

“A big team,” Yeri commented. “They’re also not all competitive battlers.”

“Precisely!” Wendy was happy that someone else had come to the same conclusion. “That means this team isn’t just good with strategy but their Pokémon are also all expertly bred. Their sheer numbers give them a lot of options too. Some of the girls specialize in doubles, particularly Nayeon and Jeongyeon.”

“But that gives them a disadvantage too,” Irene murmured. “Only a certain number of teammates are allowed in each bracket so they’ll have a harder time figuring out who to send. If we can make our best guesses as to who’s likely to be in each bracket that takes away their element of surprise.”

Seulgi was impressed by Irene’s deduction, but then again the girl wasn’t a Champion for nothing.

“I’m so glad Seulgi convinced you to join us,” Wendy said sincerely. Everyone was gelling really well together so far and she couldn’t wait to actually start practicing with them. She cleared and continued. “Anyway. Threat number three are the boys of BTS: Namjoon, Jin, Yoongi, J-Hope, Taehyung, Jimin and Jungkook. They have Namjoon as their captain and let me be the first to tell you that this boy is smart. He can and will run circles around us strategy-wise. His teammates don’t have the strongest Pokémon but they do all have some incredible synergy. Honestly, I hope we don’t face them during our bracket.”

“I agree,” Irene said, picking up Namjoon’s dossier and going over his team. “Theoretically, our best-case scenario has them losing to Moonbyul. She doesn’t get shaken up over being outplayed in battle.”

“And worst-case?” Seulgi was curious about what wisdom Irene had to share. “If we do have to battle them?”

“We can’t psych ourselves out if it looks like we’re losing to a better thought out strategy. Confidence in ourselves and our Pokémon will be what brings us victory against them.”

Wendy nodded thoughtfully. She reached for the papers on BTS and began scribbling notes on them in neat handwriting. “I hadn’t thought of that Irene, thanks. Have I told you how happy I am to have you on our team?”

Irene chuckled. “Once or twice. What about the last two teams? There’s not much written on them.”

“I tried my best, but this is the one team I don’t have a lot of information on. All of them are freshmen this year, but they’ve shattered nearly every single school record set in the last decade. It’s quite impressive.”

“(G)-Idle and Itzy?” Joy tried pronouncing the team names. “Geez, everyone’s being super creative this semester with names…”

“I think they pronounce it like “idle”,” Wendy chimed in. “But that’s not the point. Soyeon is the girl we need to watch out for in that group. She’s tenacious, creative and her Pokémon have been expertly trained. She’s the favorite to win the singles bracket. Even Moonbyul praised her work ethic.”

“What about Itzy?” Irene had put on a pair of glasses to be able to take a better look at the compiled reports and Seulgi had to pinch herself so she wouldn’t get distracted by just how gorgeous the Kalos Champion looked. Whew, okay Seulgi. Strategy first, pretty girl second.

“Rookies for the most part, but they’re already showing effective synergies at a level far beyond that of normal freshmen. Dealing with them will be a matter of dismantling their teamwork. I’d recommend going with a strategy that focuses heavily on special conditions that shake things up.”

Irene nodded thoughtfully, biting the tip of her pen and writing down Wendy’s comments. “This is a lot of information to digest in a short time but I’m confident we can handle it. I can rent out one of the battle arenas at the League Headquarters on Wednesday if you want me to, Wendy. That way we’d have a good place to practice away from prying eyes.

“Could you? Dude that’d be fantastic!” Wendy clapped her hands gleefully. She’d never been to the League Headquarters, supposedly their battle arenas were state of the art and even came with adjustable terrain. Her brain immediately started playing with all the different scenarios she could create.

“Well at least from most prying eyes,” Irene amended. “There’s more than one person at this school who has access to the League Headquarters. Moonbyul probably has the same thought that I do.”

Wendy waved her hand dismissively. “If they show up maybe we can scrimmage together or something. Ooh I wonder if I’ll be able to see any famous trainers there. Arceus, I have so much planning to do…”

“And we’ve lost her,” Joy laughed as her roommate immediately began tapping out her ideas for battle scenarios on her tablet, oblivious to everyone around her. “I think it’s safe to call the meeting here. Thanks for coming on such short notice you two.”

“Anytime, Joy.” Seulgi didn’t think it was possible for her to be any more excited about the opening ceremonies on Friday, but now after their strategy session she couldn’t wait to start training with them tomorrow. “Oh! Before I forget, have we decided on a team name yet?”

Yeri’s eyes lit up. “What do you guys think about Red Velvet?”

XXX

The sun was beginning to set by the time everyone returned to campus and both Seulgi and Irene thought it would be a good idea to grab some dinner at the dining hall before returning to their rooms.

The Academy’s main dining hall was crowded, it was pizza and pasta night which was a favorite among many of the students. Seulgi spotted people from all three dorms waiting patiently in line and chuckled. Of course people would be flagrantly ignoring the rules set in place by Moonbyul and the other dorm captains. As far as the student body was concerned it didn’t matter who had won the first dorm competition, all bets were cancelled when it came to pizza night. No one would be stuck eating at the food truck tonight.

She picked up a tray and got in line, Irene following behind her. They chatted idly about what they were in the mood for as the line began moving at a quick pace. A few minutes later they settled down at one of the few free tables, Seulgi with pizza and Irene with pasta. The pleasant buzz of overlapping voices filled the hall; occasionally Seulgi would catch a snippet of someone else’s conversation. Pretty much all anyone could talk about was the upcoming competition.

“Friday’s going to be wild,” Seulgi commented. “Everyone’s already so hyped up.”

“It’s the last competition of the year before summer break. There’s usually a few League scouts that show up,