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Salem jumped up as Wayne began casting roles. [Oh oh, can I be in it! I wanna be a princess!] she cooed. Wukong bolted up as well.
[Oy, you saw my raw talent! Make me a lead, I’d be the next big star!]

Chen Zhen pouted. Showoff…what’s the big deal about movies anyway? But Salem wants to be in it, so I guess it’s cool? The Pansage buried his face into his hands. [I’m so confused…]

Salieri didn’t respond right away to Henrietta’s question. Instead, she stared off blankly at the screen for a bit more, still in denial that she barely ha any scenes in the montage. But then she snapped out of it and turned to Henrietta.

How did she come up with her training? “I don’t really know. Improvisation, I guess. You have to be flexible when it comes to this,” she told Henrietta with a smile, tapping at the side of her head with a finger. “Habits dull your senses. Try something new next time.”

She took a sip of the drink she had gotten from the fridge, and then made a disgusted face. “Ugh, is this a beer?” Sal questioned. Moze looked at the side of the bottle.

“Yep, that’d be a beer.”

The Battle Girl recalled just how much her head hurt after her mishap with the Musharna Stew recipe. Salieri handed the bottle to Moze. “All yours.”

Moze waved his hand to ward away the drink. “No thanks sis! I just had my first drink in almost a year today, I was way out of tune.”

Sal rolled her eyes while putting the beer down onto the night table. “Was it just a shot of rum in a mixed drink?”
“…perhaps…”
“Moze, your alcohol tolerance in uncannily terrible.”
He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Ah, and this is why drinking is a rare occasion for me. Zeraaa~shashasha!”

Moze turned his head to Wayne. “So WL, I guess you’ve started flowing out of your troubles? You’re in a much better mood then when I first met ya.” He rose an eyebrow and leaned in a little, a slightly sly look on his face. “Was it about that ex of yours? I’d like to think that I can sense these kinds of problems.”

Salieri’s eyes widened slightly. Does Wayne have girl problems?

((Eunmi: Sigh...))

"There you are," Sam said. He was standing at the entrance to the school rooftop, his jacket slung over his shoulder. He stared across the rooftop, where Eunmi sat. Her hair was very extravagant today - she had orange and red highlights and it was tied in a precise bun, the tips of her hair spraying out like a sunburst around the bun. She was wearing a ripped up t-shirt over a midriff black tank top, what appeared to be black leather pants with zippers all over them, and heels that looked too complicated to walk in. A jacket was lying next to her, and she was staring out at nothing, a cigarette lit in her hand. She barely acknowledged him as he stepped towards her, exhaling smoke.

"You weren't in bio- hey," he said as he sat down next to her, snatching the cigarette out of her hand. "I thought we talked about this."

Eunmi twisted, ignoring him, and then laid down to place her head in his lap.

"Were you up here all day?" he asked as he crushed the burning cigarette on the concrete roof. "I haven't seen you since this morning..."

Eunmi rose her hand to brush his chin, tracing his jawline with her finger tips. She slowly raised up and kissed him upside down, pulling him towards her. He broke away from her kiss and looked at her with a frown.

"I wish you'd stop skipping class," he said. "Talk to me, please."

"...stop bothering me," Eunmi murmured in her sleep, rolling over. The water bed jiggled from her change of position. She wriggled a bit.

"Sam..."

At four in the morning, Moze was already out the door of the hotel.

He looked over his shoulder at the sleepy inn, sighing wistfully to himself. Readjusting the violin case strap on his shoulder, the musician began to whistle and walk forward, tapping his walking stick on the ground in rhythm to his song.

He made it a few feet forward then stopp entirely. With the end of his motions came the end of his whistling as he looked ahead at the empty streets. He knew that right now, his little sister was standing behind him, waiting for him to say something. Everytime that he was going to leave, she always knew when to wake up. It never failed.

“You’re up pretty early, See-Sal.”
“So you were just going to leave without saying goodbye again?” he heard her say from behind him. Moze tried not to imagine the pained look on her face.
“I told you that I was gonna do this yesterday. This isn’t a new thing for me.”
“I know. I just wish you were better with goodbyes.”

Moze grinned to himself, and whirled his walking stick up to rest on his shoulders. “It’s no goodbye. It’s a see you later.”
“I take it you aren’t any closer to finding a cure.”

The older brother’s grin instantly evaporated, replaced by a solemn look for no one in particular. Time passed. It was clear that he wasn’t going to answer that question. “Well at least you aren’t lying to me.”
“If I turn around right now, Salieri, what am I going to see?”
“You’ll see no crying until the end, Moze.”

Slowly, Moze turned around and saw his sister. He realized that she wasn’t so little anymore. She stood defiantly, her hands balled into fists at her sides. Her eyes were dry. “I’ll be honest with you, I still get nervous whenever you leave.” Salieri took a deep breath. “But I’m not going to get sad about it anymore. This is what you want to do.”

Moze walked over to his sister. “Are you having fun, See-Sal? What do you think of your new friends?”
Salieri ran a hand through her hair. She still looked tired, like she forced herself to be awake, but she laughed a little bit anyway. “Those three seem like trouble magnets,” she told him, looking up at their hotel room window. Memories of the trio began to collect in her thoughts.

She remembered getting stuck in the Dreamyard with Wayne and how close he came to accepting death in the trash disposal. Eunmi didn’t seem like she got into trouble on her own, but she had Henrietta as a priority. And Henrietta, well, the evidence spoke for itself.

“But they’re a lot of fun. I’m having a lot of fun, Moze.”

“Shashasha, that’s what life on the road is all about.” He reached out his hand and put it onto her shoulder. “Play your music as loud as you can, See-Sal.”

Salieri nodded, and then reeled herself in to wrap her arms around Moze in a hug. With the side of her face resting against his robes, she started to feel her eyes close. When she was with her brother, she felt safe enough to fall back to sleep. “Am I going to see you again soon?”

“Sooner than you might think, sis. If you ever have to find me, you know how.” Holding his walking staff in one hand, he used his other arm to return the hug. They stood for a moment in silence.

“G’bye, See-Sal.”
Salieri nodded. “No, it’s see you later.”
She felt his chest rise and fall with a short burst of laughter. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Moze took a step back and spun his walking stick, tapping it onto the ground. A pokeball came out from the center and landed into the claw like hook at the top, lodging in there and releasing his Whimsicott. Blacksheep, knowing the routine of Moze’s travels by now, formed him a cotton cloud on which to ride.

The musician jumped up and sat crosslegged atop of the floating cotton cloud, giving Salieri the peace sign as he flew away with his pokemon. Salieri waved, and then focused her eyes on him until he became a small dot the disappeared into the clouds.

Yawning, the Battle Girl went back upstairs and quietly snuck back into the hotel room. She looked over the scene. Pokemon were strewn about, sleeping wherever they wanted. Henrietta was asleep on Eunmi’s stomach. You two are just the cutest thing, she cooed in a mocking manner in her mind.

Her eyes shifted over to Wayne, still asleep on his water bed. Her gaze became more gentle as she put a hand through her hair, as if ruffling it would clear up her thinking. And you’re cute on your own.

Closing her eyes, she fell back onto her water bed. It wobbled when her frame hit the mattress, and quietly she fell back to sleep.

"Emi, stop messing around," Sam said. He knew she was doing this for a reaction, but he was trying not to give her that satisfaction. She had climbed over the wall that surrounded the roof and was standing on a small ledge, her arms raised up in the air. If she even teetered a little bit, she would probably fall.

"I'm the king of the world!" she shouted mockingly. She giggled, causing her body to shake. Sam reached forward and caught her arms.

"Stop it, you're going to fall," he said.

"Come out here," she said, looking up at him.

"Don't be crazy," he said. "That ledge is barely long enough for you to stand on, and you shouldn't be out there-"

"So?" Eunmi said. "You won't stand on the edge with me?"

He paused, studying her face. Was she serious? Was she joking? He couldn't tell. When he didn't reply, she twisted and slowly, using his arms for support, climbed back onto the roof. She dusted her pants off and walked nonchalantly to the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked. She didn't reply, disappearing behind the door, acting like he had been the one to do something wrong.

"...what's wrong with you, lately?" he murmured.

* * * * *

The next day, Eunmi showed up at his front door. In terms of her recent outfits, she was wearing something relatively normal. Tight skinny jeans and an orange tank top, wearing a light jacket over top. But her hair was now black and blue.

"Eunmi-" Sam said, surprised. "What are you-"

"Let's go on a date," she said, grabbing his hand before he could say no.

"Where do you want to go...?" he asked, staggering forward.

"To the moon and back," Eunmi murmured. It was then that Henrietta shook her, and she slowly rose up, the water bed jostling as she moved, making her instead. Barely propped up by her elbow, she blinked and looked around. Sam was gone, replaced by a large extravagant room. What happened last night?

Her head hurt to think about it. She remembered an awesome video. Not much else.

"Gerofff," Eunmi mumbled, waggling her arm slowly, too hung over to move quickly in any shape or form. She hadn't realized Henrietta had fallen asleep on her. Just that she didn't want to wake up yet.

Salieri gave Henrietta a quick nod of the head. "What's up?" she casually greeted the other trainer. She could see that both of them were under the same type of spell that she had been yesterday. Sal was glad she decided not to get drunk, especially when there was so much training to do.

She rolled off the bed and onto her feet to look out the window. Sunny yet slightly cloudy skies. A nice day to be outside. "Perfect."

The Battle Girl grabbed her stuff to go take a shower, which she did cause don't feel the need to describe it. When she came out of the bathroom, she had one towel wrapped around her body and another wrapped around her hair.

"You guys are challenging Lenora today, right?" She grinned as she gathered her clothes to put them on in another room. "Let's make it a race. Last one to get the badge is a rotten Chansey Egg!"

"How can you even race...?" Eunmi grumbled. "Only two people can possibly challenge her at once, right...?"

Eunmi rubbed her eye sleepily, still groggy despite Sal's ability to take a shower in the time it took her to sit up and drink a few sips of water.

"And what's a Chansey?" she asked. Her eyes widened a bit and she twisted around, looking for her bag. Inside was an incubator that she removed, holding it up to Sal.

"Hey, am I supposed to do something special with this?"

Salieri leaned closer to the egg, rubbing her chin and looking it over. "Hmm, looks fine to me. I think you just have to wait for it to hatch." She shrugged. "But I've got no clue. Just don't break it."

Salieri went behind the kitchen counter. At her height, if she crouched down a bit she wouldn't be able to be seen from the neck down. Perfect for changing, at least for Sal. She decided not to move into another room to keep the conversation going.

"I know you can challenge the gym with two people, but I want to do this one on my own. I have to know what it's like to command a team," she started telling the girls while taking off the towel around her body and putting on all of her clothes from behind the counter. "Besides, we still have to win, after all. I'm betting that this next gym won't be easy, even for me."

She remembered that the battle against Chili was tough, seeing as she had the disadvantage. Chen Zhen barely scraped by. Not only that, but the basement in the library sounded like a torture chamber. "So I'm going to go train Wukong and Liuye for a little, and then I'm going to go kick some a**." Now she stood up, fully clothed and putting her hair back into it's high ponytail.

"If anyone wants to go train with me, you guys are more than welcome." She picked up her pokeballs and returned all of her party, putting them into her beltbag. "A think tank is better with more fish."

"N-no, let him sleep," Henrietta said. She'd waited the entire time quietly. She didn't have clothes to change into, she'd only brought what she was wearing. And Melty.

"He'll need his energy for the gym match, r-right?" she said.