"I'm so bored!" Gaia groaned. It was quiet time again, but most of us wanted to be outside. Popplio was especially fond of the pool here, and had been bugging me about it all day once again. Gaia and Misdreavus were playing on Gaia's phone, but I guess they beat all the levels on their game because they'd put it down a few minutes ago and hadn't gone back to it yet. Greninja and I had been having a conversation telepathically, and at one point it had been entertaining. The others had been confused at why we were laughing at first before remembering Greninja and I often talk to each other through our thoughts. Eve and Eevee were now awake from their nap, Aubrey and Flabebe were singing softly for a while, following along with some quiet karaoke on Aubrey's phone, and Pearl and her eevee (now nicknamed Jade) had been playing. Lilac and Deerling had been drawing more outfit designs.

"I want to do something." Pearl sighed. "Quiet time is boring! None of us are five anymore!"

Eevee yelled, slightly startled by a sudden movement, and everyone turned to look up at me, Trinity, and Espeon who was out of her card and hopping across our beds. She'd been still enough to look dead before. Pearl quickly shushed her and Eve pointed at me and Greninja so that Eevee would look too.

"Sorry guys..." Eve apologized.

I didn't realize why they were apologizing right away. Nobody had been disturbed. Then I realized they didn't know Greninja as well as I did. He was sitting beside me with his arms folded, eyes closed, and his head leaning on my shoulder. To anyone else, it looked like he was asleep. He wasn't. He was almost always awake when he did this, he was just curious about the conversations on the other side of the room and didn't want to look like he could be eavesdropping when he was. Our counselors were chattering quietly.

"I'm not asleep." Greninja said, opened his eyes and sat up straight.

"Oh. What were you doing then?" Pearl asked. Greninja shrugged.

"He does that sometimes. It's kind of a thing." I said.

"Geez, can he get any weirder?" Gaia grinned teasingly. "I guess I shouldn't complain though. At least he's not-" she stopped to shudder at the next word, "-normal."

Everyone laughed. It was great to be unique, and there was currently a secret competition we were having with Cabin Rowlet. Who's more boring? It was kind of fun actually. We'd done several ridiculous things during this competition. The last thing we'd tried was spinning on our heads or while doing a headstand to counter their gymnastics. There were no rules for the contest, you just had to be as creative and weird as possible.

"We have type advantage!" They'd yelled.

"Yeah, but we're fully evolved." Was our reply.

"So what should we do?" I asked. Nobody replied at first.

"I can record everything we do. Anyone wanna make a video?" Eve asked. She'd already whipped her phone out of her pocket.

"Sure!" Gaia smiled.

"I'm up for it." Lilac shrugged.

"I think it's a great idea! It'll be lots of fun!" Pearl smiled.

"Only if we can turn it into a musical." Aubrey grinned.

Our counselors and their pokemon all agreed and so did I. All the pokemon were okay with it, so Eve turned on her camera and began recording.

"Oi wussup everyone how y'all doing TEAM ROWLET SUCKS!" Greninja yelled as soon as Eve said she was recording. Pearl was caught a bit off guard and choked back a laugh. Gaia was the opposite. She nearly rolled off her bed laughing from the shock that came from hearing that line so suddenly. I just smirked. I already knew he was going to do something like that.

"What the heck Greninja?" Pearl finally burst out laughing and he grinned.

"I'm just trying to tell the truth!" He replied.

"This needs to be perfect," Aubrey spoke up next, "these emails have to prove that we were actually friends, just... I'll do it!"

Then she burst into song. Apparently Aubrey also knew the song Sincerely Me from the musical Dear Even Hansen. That made sense since she wanted to be a singer, so she was probably pretty into musicals. Lilac and I joined her. Then Gaia and Pearl. Even Eve joined at one point. Our counselors and Greninja just listened. The other pokemon sang along.

"Wow, I didn't know everyone knew that song!" Aubrey laughed when it was all done.

"I only know it because a certain friend of mine always blasts it at full volume around me, Aubrey!" Eve teased.

"I've watched a few musicals before. Not that into it, but Froslass and Banette enjoy them." Gaia shrugged.

"I really love musicals! I want to be a pokemon performer one day!" Pearl announced.

"Hey I like musicals too!" Aubrey yelled.

"Anyone here heard Be More Chill?" I asked.

"Yes!" Aubrey yelled back.

"Oh boy... Musicals! Hey, I think we were missing a voice while we were singing." Eve smiled and tapped on her screen a bit, most likely zooming in on someone. "Looking at you Greninja!"

"I don't want to sing." He said.

"Aw man, come on! I'm sure you're really good at it!"

"Do it for Cabin Primarina!" Gaia screamed and laughed. "Cabin Rowlet has to go down! Just sing the first thing that comes to mind!"

'Just try bud. I got a good song that you can do.'

'Oh boy. Like what?'

'Haha... It's a meme that you know about and it'll be funny, do it.'

'Thank you.'

"Okay fine, I guess I'll sing." He grinned.

"I don't know if my screaming actually worked or if I should trust this..." Gaia chuckled. "Okay, give it all you got."

"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down! Never gonna run around and desert you! Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you!"

Everyone started yelling as soon as they realized they were being rickrolled. Gaia actually stuck something on the back of a pillow and threw it at Greninja. When he turned it around to see what was on the back it was a picture of a stick bug.

"Get stickbugged Ninja Froggo!" She laughed.

"My gosh, you guys are loud!" Maggie chuckled. "It certainly brightens up quiet time a little bit!"

"If we were in a book, this would be the dumbest filler chapter ever." Andrea pointed out, smiling. "Oh, and screw you for rickrolling everyone!"

"Her idea." Greninja pointed at me.

"This is what happens when you try and force my partner to sing. I suggest dumb things for him." I replied. "No regrets!"

"So you're the woman behind the rickroll then. It's been confirmed!" Gaia said.

"That mystery solved, have we found the man behind the slaughter yet or is he still out there somewhere doing his thing?" Eve asked.

"He's in the suit!" Greninja announced.

"They're in the trees!" I yelled.

"Guys, I found a random wheel online to decide what we do for the day. Wanna give it a spin?" Pearl asked us, getting out of bed and holding up her phone for everyone to see.

"Sure!"

Pearl spun the wheel. It landed on preparing food.

"Can we even do that one?" She asked. At that moment, Rookidee self-released and brought Froakie, Vulpix, and Pikachu out of their cards.

"Yep! Anticipating this situation, I proceeded to pack all the ingredients for s'mores before we left for camp!" Froakie answered.

"Froakie..." Vulpix groaned and shook her head at his antics.

"Nice reference!" Gaia grinned. "Now pass those ingredients here. I need chocolate."

I released my pokemon from their cards, Charmander first. He agreed to let us use his tail flame to melt the ingredients. The s'mores were pretty good. Everyone got one, and after that we were all out of marshmallows (they were harder to pack than gram crackers and chocolate bars). Pearl spun the wheel again.

"It landed on read a book." She said, sounding a bit disappointed.

"Let's tell stories instead." Lilac suggested and glanced at me. I rolled my eyes at her, but I was smiling.

"Fiction, or nonfiction?" I asked.

"Let's try nonfiction. How did we all meet our Pokemon partners?" Eve made another suggestion.

"Alright, I already did that on the first day of camp with Team Dark, but I'll tell again for the cabin." Natalie agreed.

Everyone else seemed fine with the idea, and Natalie and Umbreon retold their story first. We then moved on to Andrea and Jolteon.

"Well," Andrea began, "when I was really young I always was interested in sports. I'd always wanted to run in a marathon or be a professional athlete or something. Every morning I'd wake up and take a run in the park nearby my house, just to practice and get my blood pumping when I started my day. That's where I met Jolteon. She was an eevee at the time, and she started out by watching me from the bushes and little side paths by the trail I ran. One day she started joining me on my runs, and sometimes we would race! I was too young to really take being a Pokemon trainer seriously at the time, but my parents still let Eevee follow me around. Then, one day, my parents decided to take the family on a road trip. While we were exploring a city that we were passing through, I got separated from the group and lost. Eevee came with me. A group of people came up to us and asked if we were lost, and invited us into their car to drive around and see if we could find our family. Eevee and I refused and they got irritated, and their Pokemon started getting hostile, so Eevee attacked them. A fight broke out, and I went and found a place to hide. When I did, I saw one of the guys trying to kidnap us drop a card on the ground. I managed to get to it and it was a thunder stone card. I got the item from it and gave it to Eevee, and she evolved! The kidnappers had mainly water types, and a few grass types. So it didn't take that long. We just had to be careful about the grass types. My parents saw the light from Jolteon evolving and found us a few minutes later."

"Wow. That must've been scary." Eve commented. "Well, what about you Maggie? How did you meet Sylveon?"

"Sylveon and I have been friends for as long as I can remember! My parents tell me they originally got Sylveon as an eevee for a family Pokemon, but she bonded to me so well that they decided to just let me have her!" Maggie smiled. "We didn't battle together much, but we did other stuff together. Sylveon never liked drawing attention to herself, even when she was an eevee. But one day while volunteering at a camp closer to where we live we were taking our group of kids out for a scavenger hunt and lost one. We found him eventually, but he had run into a wild sceptile and his squirtle wasn't doing so well. Eevee stepped in to protect him and evolved into Sylveon."

"Aw! So Sylveon really likes helping others I guess." Aubrey said.

"Yep! If she sees someone struggling, she tries to help them in any way she possibly can." Maggie replied. "I'm so proud of her! Now, who wants to go next?"

"I will! Eve too!"

"Oh yeah! Aubrey and I met the same day we met our partners!" Eve explained. "I was outside in a flower field that we both used to live close to, and I was looking at the flowers. And I saw Aubrey running through them kind of carelessly. We were both really little, so I got mad at her for trampling so many flowers!"

"She ran after me yelling and I assumed we were playing a game, so I ran away laughing which I guess only made her angrier." Aubrey continued their story. "And we kept running until we saw two pokemon doing the same thing."

"Flabebe was running away from Eevee because she was really shy and wanted to get away, but Eevee thought it was a game." Eve said. "They got ahead of us and we followed them into a forest nearby."

"I went to protect Flabebe and Eve grabbed Eevee. After separating the two and resolving their argument, we kind of sorted out our own problem, and we all became friends!" Aubrey finished. "And Flabebe and Eevee let us have their cards!"

"Awesome," was the only response. It came from Gaia. 

"What about you Gaia? How did you and Misdreavus meet?"

"Well, that's interesting." Gaia smirked. "Before I loved ghost types, I was scared to death by them. I was raised in a pretty sheltering family, so I was always afraid of being in the dark. It wasn't because I was afraid of the dark itself, but because I was afraid of what could be in it. I didn't even want to look at ghost types. Gengar scared me the most. One night I couldn't get to sleep, so I went to a kitchen to get a drink. Outside, I saw something flying around, so I went outside to check it out. I forgot to close the door behind me."

"Oh boy, did something get in?"

"Yep. But I had no idea until a few days later. Misdreavus was very careful not to be noticed, but she seemed to have taken a liking to me. She followed me around, as I found out later. I was walking through town and a bunch of ghost types were fighting with some fairy types. I hid with the fairy types, who turned out to belong to a bunch of pokemon thieves. They tried to take the comfey my parents had allowed me to take with me on my walk. Then Misdreavus stepped in to protect the both of us." Gaia paused. "... Fairy types in PEI are so common and popular, and everyone assumes they're all friendly and their trainers have the same nature. We already have problems with stereotyping people and cultures, and it's being spread to pokemon."

"Wow... Were Comfey and Misdreavus okay?" Lilac interjected.

"Yep. Well, Misdreavus did get pretty beat up, even if the other ghost types helped her. We had to get her to a pokemon center afterwards. Comfey managed to avoid any serious injuries." Gaia shrugged. "I became her partner after that, and she taught me to be brave even when something sounds really scary, and less naive and trusting when another thing sounds really nice."

"Well at least you learned something from it!" Pearl beamed.

"How about you? Who is your pokemon partner anyways?" Gaia questioned Pearl.

"Uh... Well... I guess it would be Jade." Pearl hesitated as her eevee hopped up on her shoulder. "I don't like having a partner partner. It feels unfair to the other pokemon that I didn't choose."

"Okay, well how did you meet Jade?"

"Let's just say my uncle, who knows all my favourite pokemon, loves to spoil me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm his only niece. Next story!" Pearl dismissed the question quickly and efficiently, with a realistic answer that easily satisfied Gaia.

"Wow. Your uncle sounds nice! Well, when I met Deerling she was injured. I was on a hike in the forest. I caught her, with her consent, so that I could bring her to a pokemon center more easily. I helped take care of her for a while and we got along well, and she kind of just stuck after that." Lilac told her story next.

"Well then..." Gaia didn't seem sure how to react to that.

"And that only leaves one pair left! Alyssa and Greninja! How did you two meet?" Eve asked excitedly.

"Well, you see... We were kind of each other's birthday gifts!" We said together.

"I got Greninja as a froakie when we both turned five. Isn't it crazy that we both have the same birthday?" I chuckled.

"Yeah, what a coincidence." Greninja added. "And I was deathly afraid of Pikachu back then!"

"Wow, that long? You're still not supposed to get a starter until you're at least ten!" Aubrey gasped. "And why did your parents choose a froakie?"

"Eh, bold of you to assume it was my parents." I cut in. "My brother bought most of my cards for me from a store nearby. My parents worked together with Professor Trillium and managed to get Greninja's card for me."

"And I convinced her to get Froakie and Frogadier's cards, but her parents insisted on paying for the cost of those ones." Greninja said. "So really all of her pokemon were gifts."

"But why a froakie?" Aubrey repeated. "And why the entire evolution line?"

I was about to answer when Eve noticed the time on her phone and panicked. "Guys, guys, we should've been at activity one five minutes ago!"

Sylveon and Maggie seemed shocked that they had been distracted enough to miss that, and Eve, in her panic, stopped the recording and deleted it instead of saving.

"It's okay Eve!" Aubrey sighed. "It wouldn't have been random enough for the competition anyways. Let's just go and have some fun with our first activity!"

Everyone started leaving the room, but Lilac and I were a bit slower than the others.

"Still not telling, eh?" She whispered to me.

"Of course not. It's not like it's super easy to explain Greninja's backstory. The other girls went through the evolutions and everything. They would've wanted me to as well."

"Riiiiight. You just don't want them to ask how he got his scar."

"They wouldn't. I doubt they'd even notice it. It's not super visible." I glanced at the scar running across Greninja just under his chest, stopping in the middle of his body and leaving off there without a trace, like someone had just taken a knife and cut a half circle around him starting from the back and ending at the front. You had to be looking for the scar to see it. I was impressed with how well it had healed.

"It's visible to you and me. I'm sure they're dying to hear about it. It's not visible to most people, but then there are extra observant people. Like Gaia. She actually asked me if it was really there this morning to make sure her eyes weren't tricking her."

"Why'd she ask you and not me?"

Lilac shrugged. "Guess she felt more comfortable asking a friend of the trainer instead of the trainer directly."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her she could ask you."