Dragons Games Chapter 9-2

2011 word update. I want to try and increase the frequency of updates for you lovely people, since ill be a tad busy next week and the week after.

3

“W-Where is the honour in that, good sir? You were to send me the funds before our arrangement, not after, as we had agreed!”

“As per our agreement,” Kendra corrected. “Learn to read, Jim, that’s the fourth time you’ve gone off script.”

Like the mindset of a food critic, Jim understood how much easier it was to eat his pie than to make it. Kendra was ruthless in his practice sessions, no doubt because she wanted to be in his shoes for once, telling him how to correct his errors. She wasn’t being like this purely for spite, of course, she took this club very seriously, but it always came to a point he could no longer tolerate the Typhlosion’s comments in silence.

“Who even wrote this dialogue?” he replied, wiggling his paper at her. “Nobody talks like this, this is like my first creative writing assignment I had back in high school.”

“Look in the mirror,” Kendra snapped. She put on a stupid accent. “’Creative schmalative’, that’s how you talk. I’m taking a break.”

“But we’re the ones working,” Jim replied, but Kendra was already moving to the coffee machine, his words drowning out over the thrum of the grinder.

Jim plonked down on a nearby chair, sighing as he looked over his, or technically Bernard’s, lines. At least the rest of the club was cutting him some slack, the Pokémon a little too agreeable to tell him how he could improve – that was Jim’s job after all.

Some builders had come in the day after Bernard’s accident, taping off the catwalks while they fixed the broken walkway. Although they were assured they had only broken thanks to excessive weight, the club was still nervous standing anywhere below the walkways, moreso when someone was asked to go up and change the lighting angles. Yet another thing to put on the ever-growing pile of shortcomings.

“Not so easy being on this end, is it?” someone said, Jim looking up to see Sasha walking over from stage left. “At least you got pity points, taking Bernard’s place like that. Pretty gutsy. And maybe a little foolish,” she added with a grin.

“That sums me up pretty much,” Jim sighed. “I don’t get it though, I mean, look at this bit here on page eighty-one, my character literally switches to the dark side because everyone’s been mean to me since the start. Reads like fanfiction or something.”

“Don’t talk smack about fanfic,” Sasha said. “There are other parts that make your character question his morals. Did you read through chapter two?”

“No, Bernard’s not in that scene.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve only been reading the parts only you are in?”

“Well…”

“Oh my f… You must at least grab some context to what’s going on. Here, let’s read along, shall we?”

It was like being back in primary during reading time, Sasha taking the liberty of reading aloud as Jim followed along. “Say, can I sit down?” she asked after a while. Rather than get herself a chair she squeezed into the one he was in, her toned thigh pressing against his own as she sat basically on his lap. Her legs were dimpled like an athlete’s, as if there were steel cables bulging from just beneath her scales, Jim looking her lower half over with a curious brow raised.

He cleared his head with a shake. Whatever game she was playing, he wasn’t going to give her a reaction, so he let her sit there right on top of him, gesturing that she continue with the script. The question of why he wasn’t trying to push her away danced on the Salazzle’s muzzle, but she didn’t ask it, instead reading off the lines until finally prodding him about something else. “So how are things with you and the dragon? You two disappeared that night on the beach.”

“We needed someplace that was… quiet,” he replied with a smirk, the Salazzle glancing from the script to his face.

“Yes I thought her scent was stronger on you as of late,” she murmured. “And she complained that my pheromones were stinking you up. You know, I heard she comes from a very poor background.”

“You heard?” he repeated. “how do you even-? It doesn’t matter to me what situation her family’s in.”

“But it matters to her,” Sasha replied. “You ever wonder if maybe she’s after you for financial reasons?”

“Like you with all your past boyfriends? How much money has your pheromone breath gotten you, couple hundred?”

“Come now, there’s no need for that, I’m trying to help you,” she said, a little irritated but quickly composing herself. “Can you say with absolute certainty that I’m wrong?”

“You’re wrong.”

“And are you being genuine? Is she? You’ve got that starry look in your eyes that tells me you’re convinced, but when she says that she loves you, is her expression the same?”

“Yeah…” he began, chocking on his next words. She’d said more than that, that night in her house, but it was still implied, right? What was the saying, you say more when you say less, or something? He didn’t mind, and yet… He’d often entertained the thought of her saying those words back to him. How wonderful it would be to hear them.

“Oh you poor thing,” Sasha said when he was silent. “She hasn’t told you that at all, has she?”

“She doesn’t need to,” he tried.

“But you’d like to hear it, wouldn’t you? You’re a sweet boy, Jim. A little naïve, but sweet. I may be a Salazzle, but it looks like even dragons know how to coerce.”

He pushed her off, and not gently either, the Salazzle just catching herself before tripping over. She didn’t appear angry, but he did, and that only fuelled his annoyance at her.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but you better shut up,” he said, his anger dulling his wit. “Go do your whatever it is you do, Sasha. Thanks for your ‘help’.”

He turned away, shaking his head as he looked around the hall, thinking some quiet would do him some good and get him to concentrate. He took a seat up in the back rows of the stands, the chair squeaking as he sat down and looked over his lines. As was the case whenever he had to do homework, he soon found himself searching for distractions, and he soon spotted Cassidy coming out from backstage, chatting with Amelia and Tira. He was about to go down and talk to her when he hesitated.

Just why had Sasha said those things? Was that how girls fought over guys? He might have been thinking too highly of himself, but he could tell, and had been outright told, that Sasha had a thing for him. If this was all just some sort of ploy she was certainly going all-out, and she was starting to get on his nerves. This was why one should ever date a Salazzle. They were sly and manipulative, especially when it came to getting their way.

He went down and got the Garchomp’s attention, the dragoness immediately turning away from her conversation with Amelia to smile at him, asking how he was going with Bernard’s lines.

“Great, really good,” he replied, hesitating as he made to go on.

“Kendra can be difficult,” Cassidy continued. “but you know how she is, and you know what you’re doing,” she added, not as a joke but as a fact, because she knewhim well enough to be sure.

“No I love being on the other end with all you guys,” he said, waving at the club around them. “but, I love you more, Cass.”

“Oh, Jim,” she said, coming in and pulling him into her embrace. Everything about her filled his heart with warmth, her scales, her thorns, her spicy aroma, but her following silence tempered his optimism like a cold stab, and his smile faded ever so slightly as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

When she pulled back, he was grinning again, putting on an air of aloofness as he said: “Well, you’re top two most definitely, I think you know what’s number one.”

“Yeah, balls,” she joked, grinning when he mock-frowned at her. “Want to go act out scene fifteen together? Tira needs to practice it.”

He said that he would be glad.

4

While Jim’s concussion had put him out of commission, the Mythics had tied with the Trojansa couple games back, where even the golden point extension had run out of time. It was an uncommon situation, but not exactly unheard of. As a result, the crowd that gathered to watch the rematch was especially large, a huge number of people turning up to the campus hours before the match was set to begin.

His mathematics professor decided he needed to push one of the exams up a few weeks, claiming to be busy on the official exam day, because of course he was. So Jim and his classmates had to sit the test on the same day as the rematch, with barely an hour’s worth of breathing room between the end and the kick-off.

Jim was nervous. About the game, not the test, which was a big change from his last year. He had studied almost every afternoon with Cassidy, as she would be sitting the test as well, and it just went to show that without her he’d be thoroughly screwed. His tiny pea-brain had much to keep track of – the game, the play and his lines, the assignments and exams – that he couldn’t give any particular one enough focus to actually get something done with them.

But Cassidy was always there to keep him in check, no questions, no thanks needed. How could Sasha even entertain the idea she was being dishonest? If only she’d been in his shoes when he actually went in and understood the typical, vague questions that all mathematical questions seem to be, Cassidy’s notes burned so well into his cranium he could recall them with clarity.

Usually he walked out of a test with a doubtful mind, wondering if his rushed questions had all the proper working shown, only stopping his frantic equations right when the time was up. But this time he’d actually finished early, joining the brainiacs as they sat around watching the scrubs struggle on. It felt great to be learning.

“What can I do to pay you back?” Jim asked her as they walked out together.

“I’ve… already gotten my reward,” she said, holding his hand tightly as she looked away. “You don’t owe me anything, Jim. Really. Besides, we’ve still got more exams in a few weeks, right now you’ve got a game.”

“Oh sh-! Shmoly!” he said, suddenly remembering he was on a timer. “We gotta be down there an hour ago!”

They took off in a sprint, racing between the lecture halls and sliding past humans and Pokémon going both ways down the sheltered walkways. They heard the crowd before even seeing it, Jim leading Cassidy by the hand as they took a shortcut straight into the changing block. She bid him farewell when he made it to the Mythics changing room.

“Damn fine of you to show up,” Mr. Bahril said. “now enough of that!” he added when the other boys started ribbing him for being late. “Jimmy’s the only reason we’ve got a shot at winning against the Trojans today, since you all let them score during the final quarter the last game. I want you pulling out the stops for Jim, set him up in case it comes down to the wire again. Don’t fail us, boy. We’re talking about the semi’s here.”

“I’m getting a semi thinking about how we’re gonna win this season,” Isaac added, the immature among the team snickering at his gaff, which was pretty much all of them.

The sun blazing into his eyes, Jim jogged out with his team, scratching up the hometurf beneath his boots.