There was a mad dash as everyone scrambled from the beach to be the first into the water. Tommy and Ashley were about to take off running after everyone when Nessa called out to them.

“Hold on a minute,” Nessa said to them. Tommy slowed a few paces from where he started and Ashley turned around with a scowl on her face.

“Is there any particular reason you’re holding us back?” Ashley spat. “We need to get first.”

“No, we don’t,” Nessa was shaking her head. “Zach said there are plenty of opportunities to earn points, we should be fine finishing second or even third in this marathon. Plus we shouldn’t tire ourselves out right at the beginning, you two don’t strike me as particularly spectacular swimmers and you don’t want to be in the middle of that right at the beginning.”

Tommy followed Nessa’s pointing finger to see the majority of the students flailing and kicking in a big cluster as they were each trying to be the first to arrive at the first buoy in the race. Some students had already dropped back and were nursing swollen noses or treading water and coughing loudly. Tommy noticed that there was a group of two guys and a girl, the people that he and Nessa had played cards with on the bus, that also had not gotten into the water yet. That group was eyeing them, and once Nessa started to walk forward, those three waded out into the water.

“Come on,” Nessa beckoned to her group mates. She tied her jet black hair up into a ponytail and headed towards the water. “We should be able to pass some of these kids in the water now, they’re probably tired from wrestling for position in that big scrum.”

Ashley and Tommy fell in line behind Nessa as she waded in the ocean out to her waist.

“Can you both swim?” Nessa asked.

Tommy nodded his head. “Yeah, my dad taught me when I was younger. I haven’t swam in a while but I should be okay once we get going.”

Nessa nodded her head and turned to Ashley, “How about you?”

Ashley muttered something under her breath that Tommy didn’t quite hear.

“I didn’t quite catch that,” Nessa stated, trying to keep a smirk off of her face.

“I’m not a very strong swimmer, okay?” Ashley’s cheeks flushed bright red in the mid-morning sun.

“The most important thing is to not panic,” Nessa said, trying to hold her laughter back. “If you start panicking and flailing around in the water it will be bad. We’ll walk as far as we can, then try to swim out to the buoy and grab onto it so we can talk again. Let’s not waste any more time, come on.”

They walked as far as they could but still had to swim a few meters more to get to the first buoy. Nessa led the way and Tommy motioned for Ashley to go in front of him; he planned to stay behind her and make sure she didn’t drown. The water around the island was nothing short of amazing, it was the perfect temperature from being heated by the sun and clear enough to see through for hundreds of meters. He could see schools of little fish swimming here and there and a beautiful coral reef off to his right. He hadn’t swam in a long time but it came right back to him; he could have easily outpaced Ashley who was already starting to struggle.

He and Ashley eventually made it to the buoy where Nessa was already waiting for them while treading water; Ashley grabbed onto the side of the buoy and began heaving, trying to suck air into her lungs and catch her breath.

“Not so good?” Nessa frowned as she watched Ashley splutter and cough.

Tommy shook his head and grabbed the other side of the buoy, using his weight to raise Ashley still further out of the water.

“Maybe we should retire,” Nessa continued. “If we take no points here and then finish first in the rest of the events we might still have a chance.”

“I’ll drown in this water before I give up,” Ashley growled. She still managed to sound fierce somehow, even though she was gasping for air and could barely talk. Before anyone could object further she let go of the buoy and began clawing her way to the next one, leaving Tommy and Nessa to hurry after her in the water so she didn’t drown.

Saying that Ashley wasn’t a strong swimmer was putting it mildly; she had no swimming technique at all and it was painful for Tommy to watch her flail about in the water. She was close to reaching the next buoy when her forward progress halted. Her scrambling had taken her as far as it could, and she was now starting to sink like a rock towards the sandy ocean floor below. Tommy took a deep breath and dove under the water after her.

Upon reaching Ashley, Tommy wrapped his arms under her chest, pinning her arms to her sides and then began to kick back up to the surface. When their heads broke the surface of the water, she started gasping for air and thrashing about. Tommy got hit in the face with the back of her head a few times but he was somehow able to get the both of them over to the next buoy by backstroking with her body on top of his. Nessa lowered the buoy so they could both grab on and pull Ashley’s upper body out of the water.

“Yeah, this isn’t going to work,” said Nessa who was watching Ashley cough copious amounts of water from her lungs. A few buoys further ahead Tommy saw Pidgeot swoop down and rescue a boy who had called for help. “We should forfeit, there’s no chance she can complete this swim.”

“I refuse to give up,” Ashley heaved. “I would die of embarrassment.”

“Well you’re going to die if you attempt to swim to the next buoy on your own,” Nessa told her sternly.

“I’ll carry her on my back,” Tommy said. “If she wraps her arms around my chest with her head on my shoulders and the rest of her body submerged, I can pull us both with my arms and some underwater kicks. The water should make her weigh next to nothing right?”

“That’s dangerous,” Nessa said. She was hanging onto the buoy now too, no longer treading water so she could conserve energy. “Plus, you’ll tire yourself out for the rest of the marathon.”

“You aren’t carrying me,” Ashley spluttered. She looked like a drowned rat, desperately clinging onto the buoy for survival.

“It’s either that, forfeit, or drown to death,” Tommy said, informing the girl in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t continue on her own any longer. “Let me carry you, at least for a few buoys. We can stop frequently if we need to. Three hours is enough time to complete everything even if this swimming takes us an hour or more. Plus who knows, maybe more kids will forfeit.”

The second Pidgeot was bringing another kid back to the island as Tommy spoke. Nessa bit her lower lip, brows furrowed in thought.

“Fine,” Nessa eventually agreed. “But we forfeit if you can’t make it. I don’t want you both to drown.”

“Agreed,” Tommy said, letting go of the buoy. “Ashley I’m coming around to you, lower yourself into the water as much as you can. Nessa, stay on the opposite side where you are so we have some weight to counterbalance us.”

Everyone did as they were told and Tommy swam around to where Ashley was in the water.

“Don’t touch me,” Ashley hissed at him. She tried to appear as fierce as she always did, but behind her mean visage Tommy could see she was scared. The edges of her eyes were red and tears leaked from them because she had violently expelled so much water from her lungs.

“Ashley, trust me,” Tommy said to her, as gently as he could. “I promise you that I won’t let you drown. I’ll carry you on my back the entire way around the island so you can compete in the rest of the event.”

“I’m scared,” she whispered, shutting her eyes and clenching even harder to the buoy.

“Do you want to give up, or do you want to finish?” Tommy asked her. “Neither Nessa or I will blame you or tease you if you want to quit now. I promise.”

“I want to finish,” she said softly, blinking tears from her eyes and slightly loosening her grip on the buoy. “Help me finish, please.”

Tommy nodded to her, took a deep breath, and then swam underneath her, coming back up to the water’s surface in between her and the buoy.

“Wrap your arms underneath my armpits and your legs loosely around my waist,” Tommy instructed her. “I need you to trust me and relax as much as possible while you’re on my back. Don’t flail around or panic or you’ll cause both of us to drown, okay?”

Ashley relaxed onto his back and Tommy immediately realized that he didn’t think this through all the way. Her chest was big, very big; Tommy had tried not to stare earlier when she had walked from the cave after changing, but it was impossible to ignore how her chest was resting on his back now. Her legs were spread and wrapped around him and her pelvis was pressed tightly up against the small of his back. There was an immediate reaction on Tommy’s part that he was positive Ashley felt with her feet and the parts of her legs that were clinging onto Tommy’s frontside.

“Sorry,” he coughed awkwardly and cleared his throat. His mind scrambled despite the group’s current circumstances and his face felt hot. “I can’t help it.”

“It’s fine,” she breathed. Her lips were centimeters from his ear and when she spoke her voice was a whisper. “Your girlfriend won’t be too pleased with you, though.”

He immediately relinquished his grip on the buoy, trying to force unhelpful thoughts from his head so that he could focus solely on completing this hellish gauntlet. He tread water for a few seconds, testing his range of motion with Ashley on his back and also to make sure she wouldn’t have a panic attack and drown them both. When he felt satisfied and ready to go, he began to paddle his arms, dragging them slowly closer to the next buoy. It was slow going at first, but Tommy soon got the hang of it. With each buoy he swam by Ashley relaxed more and more, allowing Tommy to begin to make small kicks with his legs and feet too.

The minutes ticked by and their group made steady progress, but soon after clearing the halfway point Tommy finally started to feel it. He was submerged underwater up to his neck, halfway between two buoys, when his arms began to tingle and feel heavy from the strain. Seconds later they were on fire and he tried to keep his calm as he made his way to the next buoy for a rest. Nessa was swimming behind them to help if anything happened so she pulled up to the buoy beside Tommy as he grasped the floating lifeline.

“Don’t get off,” he told Ashley as he gasped between winded and labored breaths. His arms were screaming in pain and begging for relief.

They had made good time, even passing a few students who were going slow and pacing themselves. They passed one kid who looked like he had a broken nose from getting kicked earlier and Tommy had to admire the guy for not giving up.

“This is embarrassing,” Ashley cleared her throat, some of her usual moxie returning to her voice. “Let me get down so I can swim to the next buoy on my own.”

“No, don’t get off,” Tommy repeated himself. “It’s going to be too much work getting you back on again, plus we all know you can’t swim at this point. It will just slow us down more if we have to wait for you to cough up a gallon of water again.”

Ashley pressed the heel of her foot into Tommy’s groin causing him to yelp awkwardly and almost drop the girl.

“Are you okay?” Nessa asked from the other side of the buoy, genuine concern in her voice.

“Yeah, just a muscle cramp,” Tommy told her as Ashley hid her face in Tommy’s back and stifled her laughter in between his shoulder blades. She hadn’t moved her foot away and between Ashley and his muscle cramps, Tommy was starting to regret his decision of not forfeiting.

“Relax your legs so I can try and kick harder,” Tommy told her, starting to get embarrassed again. “My arms feel like they’re on fire.”

Thankfully she did as she was told, loosening her legs around his waist and freeing his hips up to make bigger kicking motions.

“Alright I’m fine, let’s go,” Tommy released the buoy and Ashley settled onto his back again. He was able to kick more vigorously now in addition to using his arms as he began swimming the rest of the circle. They made their way past still more students and buoys until Nessa swam ahead of them to what must have been the starting buoy that completed the circle.

Tommy chose not to stop as he rounded it even though his arms were screaming in agony. He knew it was only a short distance to the part of the water where they could all stand and he was ready to be done with this horrific swimming trial and move on to the next exercise.

He was struggling to keep his head above water now as another group of students passed him while he was making his way back to the shore. He felt an explosion of pain in his eye as he was accidentally kicked in the face by one of the passing students. He immediately lost his remaining breath and inhaled a giant gulp of water. He lost his grip on Ashley who started floundering around in the water on top of him, kicking him in the back and pushing him down towards the ocean floor.

Tommy stopped struggling as water began to fill his lungs while he sank under the waves. The edges of his vision began to fill with darkness and he vaguely felt a pair of arms wrap underneath his armpits, only partially conscious and aware that he was being pulled back to the surface. After what felt like both a few seconds and a few hours, he abruptly came to and violently began to cough up all of the water in his lungs. He rolled over on his side to vomit but nothing really came up except for saltwater.

“Ugh…” he moaned, lying flat on his back and squinting his eyes against the sun’s harsh light. There was a dull throbbing in his head and his right eye hurt like hell. Thankfully he was able to open both his eyes though, and when he did he saw Nessa and Ashley kneeling in the sand on either side of him; Nessa’s eyes were both red like she had been crying.

“That bad?” He asked, shutting his eyes again. Nessa put her hand on his chest and bent down to hug him, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness you came to. I was so worried,” she sniffled. She looked over at Ashley, “We were so worried.”

“How much time has passed?” Tommy asked, just now remembering they were in the middle of a marathon. He tried to sit up but his head was throbbing so he quickly laid back down. “Can we still continue?”

“Although you still have time, I would strongly advise you from continuing, Mr. Hartford,” Zach spoke from somewhere behind his head. “You were unconscious for a little over two full minutes and these two ladies spent the entire time performing CPR on you, all of that after Ms. Anderson dragged you from the water herself. You should rest in the cave for the remainder of the day.”

“Will I be expelled upon returning to the school for not participating?” Tommy asked. “Professor Larkspur said he would expel the 10 worst performing students after every excursion and I don’t really want to test my luck.”

Zach chuckled darkly from somewhere behind Tommy. “I would put in a good word for you. I watched you swim the entire distance carrying another person, truly a remarkable feat. But ultimately, the final decision does not rest with me.”

“Then I won’t take my chances,” Tommy tried to sit up as slowly as possible. Nessa and Ashley each had a hand on his back, propping him up.

“Tommy, you should really rest,” Nessa said hesitantly. “I’m certain Professor Larkspur won’t expel you.

“Can we at least do his push-ups and sit-ups?” Ashley asked Zach.

“I believe I could look the other way while you guys do your exercises,” Zach said, nodding his head.

“Great, I’ll do them,” Ashley stated matter-of-factly. She smiled gently as she looked at Tommy, maybe the first time he hadn’t seen her frowning at him. “To make up for having to be carried through the ocean.”

“No, I can’t let you do that,” Tommy tried to get up but Ashley held him down surprisingly easily. He turned to look at Nessa for support but she was staring intently at Ashley.

“We’ll split them in half,” Nessa frowned at her, wiping the bottoms of her eyes. Ashley just shrugged not wanting to waste any more time arguing and the two girls headed over to the bus to do their exercises.

Zach helped Tommy prop himself against a rock and he closed his eyes to dull the throbbing in his head, “The first day isn’t even halfway over yet; you were right when you said my hands would be full this trip.”

Zach laughed heartily, “You have good friends, Mr. Hartford. Now rest, your friends should be finished in no time.”

It felt as if he had only just shut his eyes when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Nessa was knelt beside him and was gently trying to rouse him.

“You shouldn’t sleep after a head injury,” she smiled down at him.

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t run a kilometer and then climb a mountain right afterwards either, but I’m about to do both of those,” Tommy smiled good-naturedly.

Nessa giggled and stood; she offered him her hand which he gratefully accepted. When Tommy stood he saw both she and Ashley were dripping sweat and Tommy looked both of them over worryingly.

“Do you both need a break?” Tommy asked. Ashley was doubled over, hands on her knees, and gasping for air. “You guys looked pretty gassed.”

Ashley shook her head and looked up at him; Tommy realized that he was actually glad to see that the ferocious glint in her eye had returned. “The taskmaster over here has pointed out that we’re in luck. One team has finished and one team is climbing the island right now, but every other team had at least one person DQ. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s been skipping gym day.”

“As long as we finish in the three hour time limit we’ll come in third and we can get one point,” Nessa explained when Tommy didn’t say anything.

“Well let’s hope that’s doable,” Tommy exhaled. “I’m probably going to have to walk the beach section.”

“We have just over an hour left so let’s not dawdle,” Ashley gasped.

Tommy tried to start out with a light jog up and down the beach, but every bounce in his step rattled his brain and drove daggers into his eyes so he quickly switched to walking. The girls stopped jogging to walk beside him.

They finished the beach section with 20 minutes left to climb the island. Tommy was beginning to feel faint again but Ashley and Nessa encouraged him to finish. Half dragging Tommy to the summit, they finished with only a few minutes to spare and all collapsed exhausted to the ground.

Pidgeot and the two Corviknights flew up to the summit to grab each of them and they were promptly deposited in a heap next to their classmates back on the beach.

“Excellent work everyone!” Zach cheered. “Congratulations to the three teams who finished the circuit, you’ll each be awarded your points as promised. Now onto our next task!”

Tommy felt his stomach lurch as he joined the rest of students, looking at their chaperone as if he were insane. Half of them didn’t have the energy to even stand let alone compete in another activity. Zach threw each of them an energy bar that very few of the students successfully caught; Nessa deftly caught Tommy’s before he got smacked in the head by it.

“That will be the only food you’ll be receiving from me this weekend,” Zach told the group. “Everything else is up to you to forage. You are also free to eat any food that you happened to pack for the excursion. The rest of the evening is yours to use, to recover and to set up your camp for the evening. You will camp with your group mates but boys and girls are not allowed to share tents with one another. My tent is just inside the cave and I will be monitoring everyone, so no funny business!”

“I will set up a fire in the entranceway of the cave that will remain lit for the entire weekend,'' he told them, “You may set up your tent in the cave’s antechamber, around the fire. There are also some fishing poles in the cave as well that you can use if you would like to try your luck at fishing. The first floor of the cave has been cleared, so you are free to forage for food, however, do not eat anything unless you are certain it isn’t poisonous. Also, don’t forget about high tide; the beach will be submerged by sunset and the riptide could drag you into a whirlpool if you end up in the water after dark.”

“Lastly I have been informed to tell each of you that you may request to quit at any time,” Zach continued on. “One of the school’s four bird Pokémon here will fly you to the Pokémon Center in Cianwood where you can spend the remainder of the weekend in a hotel room. This is a purely individual decision that will not affect your group mates in any way, other than the fact that you will be leaving them short one member for our remaining challenges. If you choose to quit you will face expulsion on your return to the school Sunday evening. I will wake everyone up tomorrow morning for our first challenge which will be at 9 am. Good luck everyone!”

Zach left and headed inside the cave, leaving all of the students exhausted on the beach. Tommy wolfed down his energy bar in two bites, it tasted like cardboard but his head immediately started to feel better. His stomach still was rumbling so he stood slowly and went to collect his bag. Time to set up camp and then figure out what to do for dinner.

At least he knew how to fish.