Back to the starting line... (Open)

Pacing about just outside the large doors that lead into the academy, a boy with messy dark brown hair, a black dirt sprint car racing shirt, blue jeans, tennis shoes and backwards hat plus a pair of shades over his nervous hazel eyes. Along side him, was a small Growlithe, who sat and watched his human companion pace back and forth.

"Am I really about to do this? Can I do this?" Kai muttered to himself, stopping as he gazed at the doors. "I hope I don't make myself look like an idiot..." He said with a small sigh.

"Growlithe!! Growl!!" Blaze, Kai's pokemon companion barked, trying to calm down the boy.

"Yeah, yeah...you're right..." Kai muttered, taking a deep breath as they moved towards the doors. Kai's mind was racing slightly as he tried to calm himself to enter the academy.

"I've gotta be the only person I know that isn't afreid to go nearly 100 miles per hour on a go-kart, but be scared enough to not go right on inside..." Kai muttered to himself with a facepalm.

Tala was wandering about with he Meowth and much larger than average Absol as she seen the new arrival. She walked over to the boy "Hi there, is there a problem?" she asked from behind.

Kai was almost to the doors when he heard a female voice ring out from behind him with a question. The boy turned slowly and gave a nervous grin to the girl and her pokemon, Kai's Growlithe cautiously sniffing at the small group.

"Oh uh...hi there." Kai said. "No, there's no problem here, I'm just kinda new and I'm feeling a bit nervous, especially when the first thing you see are this imposing looking doors." He said with a chuckle.

"I mean are they trying to keep everybody in or keep newbies like me out?" Kai added with a joking chuckle. Blaze gave a low growl and rolled his eyes at the corny joke.

"Blaze!! Come on man!!" Kai said with nervous gaze. "Anyways, I'm new here, my name is Kai, Kai Townsend." He said as he lifted the sunglasses up, and extended a hand.

Tala gave a giggle shaking his hand "I'm Tala Ray, the Meowth is called Band and the Absol is Instinct! I like you, you're funny!" she said in a childish way. "I was nervous the first day I came too, come on in it's great here!" she said pulling her hand back and pushing the door open.

Kai grinned back at Tala as he shook her hand. "Its a pleasure to meet you Tala." The boy replied. He then looked over at the Meowth and Absol and gave a small smile. "You too Band and Instinct!" Kai quickly added, not leaving out the pokemon.

Kai blushed lightly, "Aww shucks, thanks Tala, but I'm no comedian, I just like brightening up people's days." He replied, with a small hint of southern twang, something he picked up from his father. "I mean, what's life without a little laughter, its boring and lifeless right?"

As they approached the door. Blaze nudged Kai and gave a small growl, letting him know that he hadn't been introduced. "Ohh right...Tala, this is Blaze, he got that name from the small black flame looking mark near his left eye." Kai explained.

"Thanks! I'll take your word for it and follow you inside, I'm not going to learn anything or meet anyone else outside now am I?" He said, moving inside with a small chuckle.

"Nice to meet you cutie!" Tala said to Blaze. "Oh good, well my cousins are inside althought I warn you they're a bit wierd!" Tala said as the door was easily pushed the door open and she walked in. "A bit wierd? That doesn't begin to describe those two!" Instinct groaned telepathically.

Blaze simply followed along with his tail wagging and Kai glanced over at Tala as she mentioned her cousins being inside the building. "You attend this place with your cousins? Thats pretty awesome..." He said with a small grin. "Aww come now, they can't be that bad right?"

As everyone moved inside, Kai's question was answered with Instinct's comment, and the boy couldn't help but snicker slightly to himself.

Nat was working on her magic and had turned Kiba her male Herdier pink and Narri had her hood down showing her Riolu ears. "Nat's a witch and Narri who's a ninja agreed to let her try a spell that would turn her into a Riolu on her, turning her into one was easy enough but as you can see turning her back didn't turn out well..." she said letting out a snigger remembering that day. "Hey Nat! What happened to Kiba?" she called afraid of the answer.
"I tried to turn Kiba into a shiny Dratini...it just turned him the same color as one! Who's your friend?" the witch asked as her very unamused Herdier gave a low grumble.

As they came upon the scene, Kai's snicker turned more to a concerned glance as he tilted his head at the peculiar sights that lay before him. First a Pink Herdier and then as he turned slightly, he caught sight of a girl with Riolu ears.

"Ahh, so that explains the ears. I was freaking out a little bit in my head, thinking of any logical explanation, but you cleared that up." Kai said lowly, grinning slightly. "I feel bad for the Herdier though..." He added before Tala called out to Nat.

"A Herdier into a shiny Dratini....interesting..." Kai thought to himself before he was shaken from his thoughts by Nat's question. "Oh, hi there, I'm just a new guy, the name's Kai Townsend." He answered with a small wave and nod.

"Nice to meet ya! Be with you in a sec!" she said pulling out a titanium wand "Herdier from pink, change him back I think!" she said turning the herdier back to normal before putting the wand away. Narri put her hood back up and walked over to Kai and Blaze and then giving the Growlithe a pat on the head. "I'm Nat Williams and that's my twin sister Narri, she doesn't talk very often, and the Herdier is Kiba. There should be a little Riolu around here, his name's Skyrim," Nat explained walking over.

Watching Nat turn Kiba back into its normal color, Kai gave a sigh of relief. "That's awesome that you know magic, you've gotta be the first person I know that can do that, simply amazing." Kai said with a slightly curious glance at Nat. Blaze simply wagged his tail and barked out his approval of the attention he was receiving. "That is Blaze, my Growlithe companion." He said, making sure to introduce his pokefriend.

"Its awesome to meet you both, Nat and Narri." Kai said politely, tipping his baseball cap to both of them. The boy set his backpack down for a moment and stretched. "This has been a unique experience already, and I just got inside the doors." He joked, smiling brightly.

"'Unique' is one way to describe it..." Tala began, "But it's day to day stuff for us," Nat mumbled. Narri gave a nod as a riolu jumped on her shoulder. "You're more than welcome to join us anytime! We're usually seen wandering about! Well anyways what year you in?" Tala asked.

Snickering lightly at their explanation of day to day occurrances, Kai simply crossed his arms and smiled as Skyrim jumped up onto Narri's shoulder. "I will definitely hang out with you ladies when I indeed get the chance." He pointed out. "What year am I in? Hmm...well, I should be something like a Junior I think, but seeing how its my first day in here, I'm not sure if I'm going to have to test into some class or something like that, so I really don't exactly know." Kai said with a sigh, rubbing the back of his head.

"I want to become a Pokemon Ranger, after I saw them in action, I knew that its what I wanted to do, besides...it beats being a mechanic on cars right?" Kai said with a grin, knowing that his knowledge of tools and being able to fix things could give him a leg up on being a ranger, or helping out wherever it was needed.

"You were a mechanic on cars? That is SO cool!" Nat exclaimed as Narri walked off into the shadows. "Hmm... now you mention it I think I've seen you somewhere before, just can't put my finger on it!" Tala said turning to Instinct. "I dunno! Don't look at me for an answer!" Instinct mumbled.

Kai smiled lightly as Nat seemed impressed with him talking about how he knew how to fix cars, "Yeah, my dad taught me a lot about cars, fixing them up, making them look nice...stuff like that." He said with a small shrug. "Also taught me how to race them too..." Kai thought to himself, thinking about the scrapbook he carried with him in his backpack, full of articles from Kai's and his father's racing careers.

Hearing Tala say something about seeing him before, Kai blinked and gazed over at her. "You've seen me before outside of this academy?" He asked, looking a bit surprised. "Where do you think from?"

"More than likely from something with my brother..." she thought outloud. "So you're a junior, eh? We're freshman and neither of us take ranger class so we're not going to be able to help you with homework...by the way, I just thought of this but are you new to the whole pokemon thing as well as the academy?"

ashley was walking past and waved to them

"Hey there, Kai this is Ashley my BFF!" Tala said as her friend walked over.

ashley gave Kai a warm smile"nice to meet you!" she held a hand out to him

"Your brother huh? That's interesting..." Kai said lowly, rubbing his chin lightly. "Yeah, well...Thats no fun, not being able to help each other with homework and all, but if anything gets broken and you need it fixed, bring it to me, I've got all sorts of tools and I'll try to fix everything at least once." Kai said with a chuckle.

Taking on Tala's next question, Kai thought about it for a few moments. "No, I'm not totally new to the whole pokemon thing, I've studied a little bit." He pointed out. "I'm more concerned about the academy thing is all."

Smiling lightly, Kai shook Ashley's hand and tipped his cap to her with the other. "Its good to meet you Ashley, any friend of Tala's is a friend of mine." He said with a snicker.

"That's okay, hm...So you ever heard of extreme pokemon racing?" Tala asked. "It's just you look like a person that likes speed,"

"Extreme Pokemon Racing?" Kai asked with a small curious glint in his eye. "Well, yeah...I do like going fast, I love that type of stuff, but what exactly is that?" He asked, taking his hat off and repositioning it as he listened.

(I know what it is, but he in character doesn't... )

"It's a trainer and pokemon are racing to gether, the pokemon wears a collar and leash pulling their trainer who would be on a skateboard, across the race course. You would got from the starting line to a location where you pick up a dummy egg and you are to hold that egg while and get to the finish line! Winner usually get a medallion and a trophy!" Tala said.

"oh yeah, i remember that! My sister's friend is a champion at that!" She said turning to Kai "so kai, what classes do you take?"

"That does sound pretty intense, but I don't know if Blaze and I would be very good at it, I mean I'm used to four wheels, of the go-kart variety, but a skateboard? I would need some practice and maybe a couple dozen boxes of band-aids..." Kai muttered, sighing lowly. The idea sounded cool to him, but to do something like that? He couldn't possibly be very good at such a thing, could he?

"My grandparents own a ranch where they breed Ponyta and Rapidash for racing, but they always get beat by that one Big P Ranch or whatever that one the Laramies' own." Kai said lowly.

Kai looked over at Ashley and nodded, "That really must be pretty cool, I bet they're amazing." He said with a small chuckle. "Classes? Hmm...Well, I'm wanting to become a Pokemon Ranger, so those classes I guess, I haven't really seen a schedule."