Sunday came and went in a flash. Thomas slept in until 7 which was pretty late for him. Years of waking up at 5 am to tend to his chores around the ranch had conditioned his body to be up and active early in the morning. Since he rarely got a day off he decided to skip his strength training and conditioning and just embrace doing nothing for a day, even if it felt weird and foreign to him.

The majority of his day Thomas spent in his favorite spot underneath a massive oak tree by one of the ponds in the pasture. He had his fishing pole next to him, line cast out in the water, but even when his bobber popped up and down sending ripples across the glassy water he just couldn’t be bothered to reel anything in. He kept his fishing hat pulled low over his eyes and drifted in and out of sleep all morning, enjoying both the warmth of the sun and the light breeze that occasionally rustled the leaves of his oak tree.

His father and Tori brought him a sandwich for lunch before they went out riding, his father on Mudsdale and Tori riding her Ponyta.

Tori still refused to speak a word to him, but he knew she would talk to him when she was ready. He still hoped that she hadn’t talked to mom about the gym battle though; he would be grounded for life if mom found out.

The afternoon sun began to beat relentlessly and, combined with the incessant chirping of the grasshoppers and cicadas, it became too much for Thomas to bear. He decided it was time to call it a day and head inside to escape the heat. He hadn’t caught anything, no fish or Pokémon, but he didn’t mind. He hadn’t really been trying.

He helped his mother with dinner and once that was done he was able to find a recording of the gym battle between Agatha and Penelope on the television. It seemed like it had been a pretty good battle but Agatha didn’t really look like she was challenged much at all; she won pretty handily.

Before Thomas knew it Sunday was over and it was time to go to sleep. Tomorrow would be his first day of battle class.

5 am came early but Thomas was up before his alarm had gone off anyway; he had been too excited to sleep much. He was ready to see his friends again and to start his first day.

He rolled out of bed and attended to his chores. He and his dad milked the Miltanks and Gogoats and then turned all the Pokémon loose in the pasture for the day. Then he headed back to the stables to muck them since Mudsdale, Mudbray, and Ponyta were set out to graze.

Once his chores were finished he did some cardio and then showered, cleaned up, and ate the breakfast mom had cooked for him.

After breakfast it was time to leave, so he and Tori loaded into the truck with Mom and they drove to Goldenrod. Thomas shook his head as they completed over an hour’s walk to the city in just a few minutes driving; too bad he couldn’t drive the truck yet.

The trainer school was located on the north side of Goldenrod city and despite having to drive across town, Thomas and his mom and sister made good time driving through the city. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much traffic even though it was the first day of school. Soon the family truck joined the queue for the drop off zone and Thomas watched as students were unloading from cars and having tearful goodbyes with parents and siblings on the sidewalk.

“Tommy, look after your sister on her first day of school please and help her figure out where she needs to go.” Mom told him. She thrummed her fingers on the steering wheel of the truck, anxious that her baby was starting her first year of trainer school.

“I’ll look after her Mom, don’t worry,” Thomas tried to reassure her. He grabbed his bag out of the backseat of the truck and then leaned over to give his mom a kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you both,” Mom said, shaking her head to clear whatever had been on her mind and forcing a smile as she handed Sir Taddington to Tori in the backseat. His sister hastily stuffed the plushie into her backpack and looked over at Thomas who was pretending not to notice. “Tori, have a good first day at school. I want to hear all about it when I pick you guys up. Make lots of friends, okay?”

“Love you mom,” Tori said, somewhat nervously. “Bye!”

After Thomas and his sister got out of the truck, Mom drove off leaving the siblings to walk up the steps towards the main building that they had been dropped in front of. The building was long, rectangular, and two stories tall and the exterior was mainly white and tan stone just like most other buildings in Goldenrod.

“Let’s head inside sis,” Thomas said. He smiled down at his sister who was looking around with wide eyes.

They walked through the front doors and up to the front desk. There were quite a few people in the main building waiting to check in and register but luckily there were also a lot of receptionists. They got into the shortest line and after the two families in front of them were helped Thomas and his sister approached the counter.

“Good morning, are you here to register for your first day?” the receptionist asked them.

“Yes ma’am,” Thomas replied. “My sister is just starting her first year so she’ll need someone to show her to class and I’m starting my fourth year.”

He pulled out his student identification and handed it to the receptionist so she could update his information.

“Tommy, I want you to show me to class,” Tori mumbled, while grabbing his shirt sleeve.

The first words she’s said to me since Saturday, he realized. He nervously glanced down at his watch: 8:50.

“Don’t worry,” the receptionist said, smiling at them. “Classes for fourth years don’t start until 9:30. You’ll have plenty of time to drop your sister off and make it to your own class on time. Now let’s get your picture taken Ms. Hartford and then we’ll have you on your way.”

Tori stepped to the side and stood in front of the camera, smiling awkwardly as the flash went off and her picture got taken. Thomas tried to stifle the brewing laughter that was threatening to escape; he wondered if he looked as nervous and out of place on his first day of school.

The receptionist called them back up to the counter and smiled brightly. “Ms. Victoria, you will get your identification this Friday once the office has time to print them all and distribute them to the first year students. When you get it, be sure to take good care of it, okay? If it gets lost then we’ll have to issue you a new one and it costs a little bit of money.”

Tori nodded her head up and down.

“And Mr. Hartford, as a fourth year student you now have access to all facilities on campus, including the greenhouse and the stadium, congratulations.” She smiled at him and handed back his ID. “I will remind you however, that any battle in the stadium will require approval from a professor. If you are caught battling unauthorized you will face suspension and possible expulsion.”

“I understand, thank you for your time this morning,” Thomas said to her.

“Happy to help,” she smiled. “Ms. Hartford you will be in class 1C, Mr. Hartford you will report to the amphitheater for your first class at 9:30. Now run along so you aren’t late for your first class.”

They each told the receptionist goodbye and headed through the back door to go outside.

“Tori, we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s hurry and get you to class.” He pointed to the first building on their immediate right. “That’s the first year building, you’ll have all of your classes in there.”

“What does class 1C mean?” she asked him.

“That’s your home room. Those will be the students you rotate through your classrooms with for the next couple of years. The classes are split up into 20 to 30 students so there isn’t just one teacher who has to teach 300 kids.” He told her. “Make sure you meet some friends in your home room class. You’ll have pretty much all of your classes with them while you’re here at school.”

They walked into the first year building and Thomas smiled, nostalgia nearly overwhelming him as he remembered walking in here, terrified, on his first day. That was the day he met Aubrey. He met Darius and Jonathan not too long after that.

He bent down to talk with his sister face to face. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re upset with me but when you’re ready to tell me I’ll listen okay? We should have lunch around the same time so wait for me right outside your building. I’ll come find you and we can eat lunch together.”

“Thanks Tommy,” she said, hugging him.

“It’s 9:00.” He told her. “Run to class, 1C is right there. See the label?”

She nodded her head and walked over to her classroom. With her hand on the door she turned and said to him, “I love you.”

“Love you too sis,” he smiled as she walked into her classroom.

Thomas stood up and stretched. It was nice having class start 30 minutes later this year. He would probably try to convince his mom to get him to school earlier so he could exercise here on campus. Running around the ranch and doing push-ups in his room had been fine for the summer, but the campus had a nice recreation center with a swimming pool, weight room, and sauna that he had started using last year.

He had a little bit of time before class started so he decided to go over to the stadium to see if he could go inside and check out what it looked like.

He made his way slowly through the heart of the campus admiring the architecture and craftsmanship, it really was beautiful. Almost all of the buildings were constructed in the same style as the Main Office; constructed from white and tan stone, they ringed the outer edge of the school grounds. In the center of the campus there was a large rectangular patch of grass, shaded by ancient trees. Many 4th year students sat and chatted with one another in the grass or walked casually across the quad on one of the few crisscrossing walkways. There was a marble statue in the middle of the campus with a Typhlosion and Feraligatr grappling with one another.

Thomas walked past the buildings for the 2nd and 3rd year students, past the cafeteria and the recreation center and made his way towards the back of the campus and the buildings that he had never before been allowed to enter. He made his way past the amphitheater, the fourth year building, and the greenhouse until he eventually came up to the stadium.

It’s not as big as the stadium in the Goldenrod Gym, he thought to himself, but it’s definitely still the biggest building on campus.

The colossal ovoid structure easily dwarfed every other building and Thomas wondered just how many students the stands would hold. His heart beat in nervous anticipation as he imagined himself standing on the pitch, battling for glory while the wild cheers of his classmates resounded throughout the building.

He tried his ID badge on the electronic lock and the glass doors swung open for him, so he walked into the lobby even though he didn’t see anyone else around. There were doors off to either side, a male changing room and a female changing room, and a door in front of him that was currently locked leading into the stands.

With no time left to see anything else, he decided to head over to the amphitheater. Best to not be late on his first day.

As he walked into the amphitheater, the doors he came through put him in the bottom of the bowl looking up at the rows of stairs and tables. It looked like all of last year’s grade 3 classes had been combined into one giant class and were in here already; there must have been a couple hundred students packed in.

“Hey, Thomas!” he heard someone yell from out in the crowd. He looked around until he saw his friends, about halfway towards the top on the left side of the room, waving and beckoning him over. “Come on man, we saved you a seat!”

He made his way over to them with a giant smile on his face.

“It’s awesome to see you guys again! I can’t believe we haven’t seen each other since school ended last year! Well, except me and Jon over here, right?” Thomas grinned. He clasped forearms with Jonathan. “How was your day off?”

“It should have been relaxing, but I just got more and more nervous as the day wore on. My fucking brother came over for the day and kept asking about how nervous I was and telling me all about how hard this year is going to be. At least I got to watch Agatha’s fight once they uploaded it yesterday. Can you believe that she was here in Goldenrod on Saturday fighting? We were stuck at the mall completely oblivious like a couple of dopes. You saw that they uploaded it, right? Did you get to watch it?” Jon rambled endlessly.

“Yeah, I watched the fight yesterday.” Thomas said enthusiastically. Jonathan was grinning as the pair of them geared up to discuss the fight in detail. “Did you see when—“

“Hello?? Aren’t you going to say hi to us?” Aubrey asked. She had her arms crossed and was sitting in her chair sulking.

Aubrey Ryker was a blonde girl with medium length wavy hair and big brown eyes. She was very pretty, half the guys currently in the amphitheater had probably asked her out last year. She was famous for rejecting every single one of them. She was shorter than all 3 of the boys in the group but had a temper that rivaled Thomas’ mother’s on a bad day. You did not want to get on Aubrey’s bad side.

Thomas laughed, “Sorry, sorry. Hey Aubrey, how was your summer? What’s up Darius?”

Darius Sampson was a massive kid who towered over the rest of the students including Thomas who was already pretty tall. He had dark skin and his dreadlocks were always tied back in a ponytail. He was extremely buff and Thomas would bet money that Darius was physically the strongest kid out of everyone sitting in the amphitheater. He was also so nice that people were always taking advantage of him.

“It’s great to see you Thomas!” Darius said as they clasped arms. “I missed working out with you this summer.”

“I know! You look like you were in the gym twice a day every day.” Thomas teased. “You might be able to arm wrestle a Machamp now dude.”

Darius laughed. “I’ll see you in the rec center after school today right?”

“Probably not, my sister started her first day today so mom will probably pick us up right after school.” Thomas told him. “I’m going to try to convince Mom to start bringing me to school early in the morning though. Can you make mornings work? By the way, how amazing is it that class starts at 9:30 now?”

“Pretty awesome,” Darius agreed. “Well, I’m usually in the rec center by 7:30 so I’ll see you there?”

“Maybe not quite that early, gotta do the chores in the morning you know. But I’ll find you whenever I show up.” Thomas replied.

“Sounds like a plan,” Darius grinned.

Thomas turned to see Aubrey still sitting down. She was looking at the wall with her arms crossed trying to ignore him.

“And I saved the best greeting for last, right Aubrey? How was your summer?” Thomas bent down to give her a hug.

“Damn right you saved the best for last,” she grumbled in his ear. She was smiling when he pulled away from the hug though.

"So I want to hear all about your summer Aubrey," Thomas said to her. "Did anything exciting happen to you? Did you get to do anything fun?"

“I was actually just telling Darius and Jonathan that I had the best summer I’ve ever had,” there was a ferocious grin on her face. “Now I can finally show you guys why.”

“Aubrey you’ve been dragging this out for the last 20 minutes saying you had to wait until Thomas got here,” Jon complained. “Hurry up and spit it out. I’m beginning to think your summer sucked harder than mine did.”

Darius and Thomas snickered while Aubrey frowned at Jonathan.

“You know Jon, you can leave if you don’t want to know?” She frowned.

“Hurry upppppp, Aubrey,” he smiled. “Spit it out.”

She shot Jon a look letting him know he was standing on dangerous ground but Jon just scratched his ass, totally unfazed.

“Well I’m officially too good for you three losers now,” she said, rolling her eyes. She bent over to grab her bag and set it in her lap so that she could rummage around inside of it. The three of them crowded around as she shouted ‘Aha!’ and smiled victoriously.

“Suck it boys.” She laughed as she held a Pokéball out for Darius, Jon, and Thomas to stare stupidly at.