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While Allister, the supposed “silent boy of mystery,” was, rather famously, a boy of very few words, he had to admit that having access to Flying Taxis to take him to the famous Isle of Armor whenever he so pleased was something he very much enjoyed. It was just a place where there weren’t so many people. Sure, there was the occasional tourist or something walking around, but Allister knew how to avoid them.
Currently, Allister was sitting on one of the Isle’s many small beaches, having let out his various Ghost-Type Pokémon out to enjoy themselves (although most of them were just disappearing and reappearing to spook random wild Pokémon unfortunate enough to wander too close). His Mimikyu stuck by his side while he was busy writing down the homework on his lap, his mask laying atop the sand next to him. It was too hot out to be wearing and there was a nice scarcity of people around for anyone to see his face.
It wasn't like Allister was inattentive or lazy when it came to his school work. The fact that it was currently unfinished was purely because there were times where spending time with his Ghost-type Pokémon was far more engaging than his homework. But, regardless, he knew that he had to get it done. Preferably before Bea found out–
“Allister.”
…Crap.
Allister yelped in surprise as he nearly fell backwards into the sand, glancing towards the source of the sudden voice. He hadn't even heard Bea approaching, now standing next to him with her arms crossed over her chest, a stoic expression that betrayed no emotion displayed on her face, which was essentially Bea's resting face.
Silence hung in the air between the two of them as Mimikyu curiously slid onto its trainer's lap, darting its eyes between the two young Gym Leaders. Eventually, a small sigh escaped from the older one’s lips.
“You didn't do your homework.”
“...’M doing it right now!”
“I told you to start doing it when you got home from school.”
“...Doesn't matter if I do it then or now.”
Bea stared at him with expressionless eyes for several more seconds with her arms remaining tightly folded over her chest, briefly making the younger boy wonder if she expected him to add onto his response. But before he could, Bea let out a small sigh as she uncrossed her arms and slowly moved to sit down next to him.
“At least you’re doing it, I suppose.” Bea murmured under her breath, her expression and tone unchanging as she gazed out towards the shoreline of the beach, watching the waves of the ocean gently lapping against the soft sand. Allister slowly moved his gaze away from her, locking his eyes back down on the paper in his lap, returning to writing and filling out answers to various math questions.
The two continued to sit there in comfortable silence, the only noise being the sounds of Allister scribbling down his work on the paper and the rolling of waves against the beach. The younger Gym Leader was perfectly fine with that, and he could sense that Bea was too. Neither of them were particularly for social interaction, Allister due to his shyer nature and Bea due to how she was raised to train constantly. But the silence couldn’t last forever.
“Come on, Alli, we need to get back to Stow-On-Side before the sun goes down.” Bea suddenly said as she picked up his mask off of the sand and briefly brushed it off, before handing it towards him. He hesitated briefly before taking it from her, watching her stand up as he slid it onto his face. She glanced down at him with a stoic expression as she held out a hand to help him up, which he accepted and allowed her to pull him up to his feet. One by one, Allister pulled out the various Pokeballs of his party and returned them, before turning back towards Bea.
Instead of pulling out her phone to call a Flying Taxi, Bea just nodded and turned around, beginning to walk in the general direction of the Isle’s Master Dojo, which briefly caught Allister off-guard, panickedly rushing after her. He eventually caught up to her oddly quick striding pace and walked alongside her, remaining quiet for several seconds before speaking.
“H-Hey! Wh…Where are we g…going…?” Allister asked quietly, adjusting his mask before glancing towards the taller girl. She didn’t react or respond for a few seconds, continuing to walk along the path as the two entered the Forest Of Focus, but she eventually did without turning or glancing towards him.
“The Dojo. Avery challenged me to a battle earlier whilst I was training with my Pokémon.” Bea answered in her usual dry tone as her eyes remained locked in the direction she was walking, weaving through the forest with little difficulty. Allister knew for a fact that Bea had been training long since he had been introduced to her by her parents, having done special training on the Isle of Armor or something. Bea wasn’t the type to willingly talk about her life, which Allister supposed was fair, he wasn’t either.
But he did know that she had formed some sort of rivalry with two trainers that would eventually become minor Gym Leaders, that being the Psychic-type specialist Avery and the Poison-type specialist Klara. He wasn’t entirely sure if the rivalry between the three of them was competitive or friendly, but he didn’t really want to ask. If anyone could get Bea to drop her mask of stoicism for any reason other than him, it was Klara, because of how much she irritated the Fighting-type Gym Leader.
He personally never found much point in even interacting with Avery or Klara, but he guessed it was a mentality thing. He and Bea, as close as they were, didn’t always share the same mindset as one another. Although maybe that wasn’t a surprise. The two were about as different as day and night. Bea specialized in Fighting-type Pokémon, ones that specialize in fighting up close and personal, while Allister specialized in Ghost-type Pokémon, ones that tend to fight in a much more trickier (and sometimes REALLY annoying) fashion.
But it wasn’t just in their type specialties that the two differed. While they were both reserved, Bea was more stoic while Allister was more shy. Bea was much more physically fit while Allister was on the scrawny side. Bea was fine with public appearances while Allister outright avoided all of it.
But even despite their differences, the two remained their positions and had managed to develop a sort of sibling-like bond between each other.
It didn’t take very long before the two made it back to the Dojo, keeping up the silence between the two of them, even with the idle chatter inside of the Dojo itself between the various students of the Dojo. Bea moved towards Avery, nodding towards him, as he smirked and gripped the brim of his (in Allister’s opinion) ridiculous hat, before the two began to make their way towards the Battle Court behind the Dojo. It was kinda scary how rivals acted once they used to constantly battling each other.
Allister trailed behind the two as they wordlessly made their way out of the Dojo’s back door, resting his hands in his pockets as he did so, following the two all the way outside to the arena. The two rivals took their spots on the battlefield swiftly while Allister sat down on the ground off of the arena, lounging back in his seat as he idly watched the battle, holding his head up with his hand as he did so.
He lost track of the time that went by as the two became further enthralled by the battle they engaged themselves in, the sun only dipping down lower and eventually turning the sky into a beautiful shade of orange. Allister had begun to grow tired as the battle between the two rivals kept going, so much so that he didn’t notice that someone snuck up on him until they plopped onto the ground next to him, nearly causing the boy to jump out of his own skin.
“Hee hee! How’s it going, emo boy! It’s the girl that drives you Kla-razy!” An enthusiastic but annoyingly familiar voice rang out in his ear. He turned his head and, sure enough, Galar’s “viral” sensation and minor league Poison-type Gym Leader, Klara, was now sitting right next to him. Allister wasn’t exactly thrilled by this prospect.
“H-H-Hi… Kl-Klara. Do you… n-need something?” Allister mumbled quietly in response, slightly scooting away from her. She was far too close for his liking. Klara tilted her head ever so slightly and gave a brief frown, before it paved way for her usual smirk.
“What was that? It almost sounded like you don’t want to talk to me, Alli!”
“Don’t c-call me that.”
“But your big sister calls you that all the time!”
“She calls me that as a term of en… en… endear… endearment. You’re just calling me that because you think it’s funny and you like to be an-annoying…” Allister mumbled under his breath as he raised a hand to his mask and adjusted it slightly, having felt it beginning to slip off as it sometimes did.
Klara waved him off with a scoff. “Oh, c’mon! I don’t try to be annoying!” She stated confidently with a smug smile on her face, making Allister wonder briefly how sarcastic her following comment was going to be. “If I didn’t care about ya, I wouldn’t be bothering to talk to you, would I?”
“Yes, you would. Y-You’re doing it right now.” Allister replied with a deadpan stare, although he doubted that it was actually visible through his mask. Klara snickered in response as she lounged in the spot she sat down and kicked her legs up and down off of the ground casually.
“Wow. You two really are siblings! I’ve never seen someone brush me off like that since Bea!” Klara responded ecstatically before giggling to herself, prompting Allister to scoot away from her once again to create more distance between them. “But still, you’re a lot less likely to punch me in the face than Bea is, soooo …”
“...I sin-sincerely doubt that Bea has ever punched you in the face.”
Klara shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Eh, it feels like she’s going to sometimes.” Allister rolled his eyes behind his mask before glancing away from her and back to the battlefield in front of him, only to see that the battle between Bea and Avery had ended with the former ultimately having triumphed over the latter.
Oh, and also, Bea was now standing in front of the two of them with her arms crossed. “Regardless of how irritating you can be, Klara, I have never gotten anywhere close to physically striking you.” Bea stated monotonously with her arms crossed over her chest before glancing from Klara to Allister.
“Ugh… Time to do more training, I guess. Why is it always me that’s left in Psyshock…?” Avery mumbled as he walked over to them, his hand gripping the brim of his hat and pulling it down over his eyes. Bea briefly glanced over her shoulder and at him, remaining silent for a few seconds before responding.
“You’ve certainly improved, Avery. Our more recent battles have been far closer,” Bea stated with a small glint of respect in her eyes, but Allister was pretty certain he was the only person who noticed. “You really just need to work on improvising when your initial strategy doesn’t work.” She added on, prompting Avery to cease pulling his hat over his eyes and give a quiet grunt of acknowledgement, before sauntering away quietly, not even taking the time to make an “Avery, Teleport!” comment or something like that.
“Huh. Didn’t realize you were capable of giving genuine advice, Bea.” Klara murmured with a quiet chuckle, but the Fighting-type Gym Leader completely ignored her comment. She offered a hand out to Allister, who accepted it and allowed her to pull him up to his feet. The young Ghost-type Gym Leader, on the other hand, piped up at Klara’s comment.
“...She gives help… helpful advice all the time–” But before Allister could finish his comment, Bea interrupted him with a pat on his head.
“Don’t respond. It’s what she wants. Come on, we need to get home.” Bea stated before beginning to walk back towards the Master Dojo, Allister following behind her. Klara sputtered for a few seconds as she watched them walk off.
“Hey! Where’s my battle, Jelly-Bea!? How come Avery gets a battle and I don’t!?” Klara yelled after them, raising her arms in exasperation. Bea briefly glanced over her shoulder with a stoic yet deadpan stare before looking back in front of her, not bothering to form a response, leaving a mildly-irritated Klara behind.
It didn’t take long before the two gym leaders made their way onto a Flying Taxi after calling one to head back to the mainland of Galar, specifically to Stow-On-Side where their house was. Bea had her arm propped up against the rim of the window, resting her chin on her palm as she gazed out to the water below that reflected the orange glow of the sky from the sun sinking over the horizon. After a bit of time, Bea felt a weight slowly creep up and rest on her shoulder.
She had assumed that Allister was eventually going to doze off before they got home, but she’d thought it would’ve happened during her battle with Avery, but Klara’s sudden appearance must’ve kept him awake. Regardless, she didn’t mind him leaning up against her, she actually found it rather heartwarming that he trusted her so much that he’d allow himself to sleep next to her.
She shifted her body slightly to make it a bit more comfortable for him, briefly running a hand through his unkempt black hair. “ Hm, he’s probably due for a haircut soon. His hair is getting on the longer side… ” She thought to herself idly as she gently extracted her fingers from his hair, before pulling his arm away and turning her head back out towards the window to continue gazing out into the ocean.
The flight from the Isle Of Armor to the mainland of Galar wasn’t a particularly long one, so the length of their trip back home only really took twenty minutes or so. The Flying Taxi came to a landing at the entrance of Stow-On-Side to let the two passengers off. Allister had woken up enough from the landing to get off of it himself. Bea thanked the pilot and soon enough, the Flying Taxi was off and disappearing into the sky.
By now, the sun had nearly entirely disappeared below the horizon, the sky darkening by the minute. The two young gym leaders made their way through the snoozing town of Stow-On-Side, towards the home that they claimed as their own, or rather the place they were spending when they weren’t at the gym or on the Isle Of Armor. Allister disappeared off towards his room while Bea made her way to the kitchen to brew herself a cup of tea. Allister may have been tired, Bea wasn’t quite ready to fall asleep just yet. She wanted to get in some meditation before going to bed.
But just as Bea lifted the cup off of the counter and turned around with it in hand, she spotted Allister standing at the entrance of the kitchen, dressed in his pajamas and without his mask, which would’ve caused most people to freak out, but Bea had seen him without his mask on many times before (partially because she’d required him to take the mask off whenever he went to sleep; he’d broken too many masks doing that).
“...Allister?” Bea questioned quietly as she raised an eyebrow while glancing towards him, slowly setting the teacup back down on the counter. Allister didn’t respond for several seconds, just standing there and blinking tiredly for the brief period of time before eventually speaking.
“Um… Bea…? I didn’t finish… my homework…” Allister mumbled quietly as he raised a hand to brush a few strands of unkempt hair out of his face and rub his eyes simultanously. Bea felt a pang of realization hit her like a Fire Punch from her Machamp. She let out a sigh as she stepped towards the boy and glanced down at him.
“We’ll worry about that later.” She murmured quietly as she reached out and ruffled his hair gently. They were lucky since tomorrow was a weekend anyways, so they would have plenty of time the next day to work on it. She nodded towards the hall and gestured for him to head to bed. He nodded back and began to make his way back to his room. Bea followed him - just to be sure.
As she wanted, he walked into his bedroom and crawled into bed. Bea walked in after him and tucked him in, a rare smile forming on her face as she glanced down at her drowsy brother beginning to drift off. She leaned down and planted a quick kiss on his forehead, before standing back up and walking towards his bedroom door. She reached a hand out and flicked the light switch and then stepped out of the room, grabbing the door knob.
“Good night. I love you.” She whispered quietly back into the darkened room before beginning to slowly close the door behind her. But right before it closed all the way and clicked shut, Bea heard an incredibly quiet and soft “...ngh… love you… too…” as the door then shut all the way.
Bea chuckled quietly to herself in the silence of their quiet home before making her way back to the kitchen, where her cup of tea was lying in wait on the counter.