*Title of the chapter below*

"Waah!"

A figure was sent recoiling backwards towards a pot of plant placed on the corner.

*Bang* *Smash!*

The sound of something shattering loudly sounded out on the lobby of the pokemon center, which was overheard by the trainers around who looked on in surprise and bewilderment at the commotion. The Nurse Joy, who was over the counter immediately attended towards the person who caused it.

"Ughh..."

"Are you alright?" The Nurse Joy half-sprinted towards Cinder as she asked in concern with anxious worry for him, the harmed Cinder was groaning in pain clutching a black backpack safely on his arms.

"I'm fine, Nurse Joy." Cinder replied in woe, as he agitatedly unzipped his backpack and check his pokemon egg. He got it out of his bag, and checked thoroughly if there were any damages or cracks done on his pokemon egg.

If his pokemon egg has cracks on it's surface, Cinder would be furious, cause bacteria could easily enter through that crack and cause a rotten egg. Also, moisture may evaporate from the egg in the open so the embryo may dry out too much to hatch. All in all, it would depend on how severe the damage was done on the pokemon egg's shell. More importantly, Cinder's pokemon egg was close to hatching, it was well known for pokemon breeders that assisting a pokemon, before its proper time, out of its shell may create a weaker breed of it's species. A premature pokemon may have more health problems at birth and later in life than other pokemon infants born later. Which can have long-term intellectual and develop mental disabilities and problems with their organs. As a pokemon trainer, Cinder did not want to see the egg his father especially gave him hatch into a disabled pokemon that is incapable of battling. Just training such pokemon was well-known for being such a hastle. In spite of that fact, Cinder was just worried for the unhatched pokemon.

He caught no sight of cracks and any sort of harm on the surface of the egg. After double checking and making sure there were really no damages, he finally heaved a sigh of great comfort from the distressed condition he was feeling initially. However, there was still an unsettled suspicion if his egg was really away from harm.

"Nurse Joy, can you please check on my pokemon egg if it is a fine." Cinder grimaced, as he forced his shaky legs to stand up, handing the pokemon egg to the nurse with tender care. In spite of that fact, Cinder was just worried for the unhatched pokemon.

"Oh my! Chansey!" Nurse Joy called out instantly, as a Chansey also straight away appeared before Cinder. Medical uniform and all. Before the boy could even fathom whether the Chansey species was capable of using the move, Teleport, or not the egg pokemon had took the pokemon egg off his hands, putting it inside a incubator, and carried it away into the inner chambers past the lobby, leaving Cinder staring at it in concern.

"Next time you should be more mindful young man, that pokemon egg might look fine externally, but internal damages acquired from vigorous movement outside could make the embryo discompose within." Nurse Joy apprehensively filled Cinder in some details, which the latter already knew, which was why he gave the pokemon egg for a medical examination after checking for himself.

Cinder's face twisted into indignation when he heard the words from Nurse Joy's sentence. His ill-temper, which he set aside from the worry he had for his pokemon egg was showed as he furiously sneered at a blonde, who was one of the onlookers, excluding the fact that she wore an apologetic and sheeping expression.

"That girl bumped into me! She should be the one who you should lecture, not me. She's like a blind Zubat, but at least the pokemon is much more sensible that this clumsy blonde-haired Psyduck!" Cinder declared coldly.

The onlookers snickered at his words, but kept their silence since they knew he was correct. After all, not only had he been thrown towards a pot of plant roughly, the girl also had his pokemon egg potentially damaged.

Everyone could dicern from Cinder's displeased tone he wasn't making it up.

Nurse Joy also could perceived he was speaking honestly as she saw no objection from the crowd of trainers. She casted a steely gaze at the blond girl wearing a helmet. "Is that true?"

"Ermm..." The girl wanted to find find excuses to defend herself, but eventually she dropped her head low as she whispered sincerely and with guilt. "Yes... Ma'am..."

...

Fortunately, the pokemon egg wasn't harmed in any way, either its external and internal conditions. Nurse Joy returned the egg on the counter and Storm's pokeball, she held a much brighter and kind expression now that the fiasco had ended. "I did some basic examination of your egg's condition, it is perfectly fine, fortunately."

"That's a relief Nurse Joy. Thanks a lot also for healing Storm, he had been training all afternoon." Cinder replied. He was on edge for the past dozens of minutes, hearing an assurance sure was a great solace. He then opened the incubator to get his pokemon egg out, the incubator wasn't his after all, but was owned by the center.

"No problem, Cinder. You can keep the incubator, you don't need to pay for it." Nurse Joy said. "It would protect your pokemon egg from similar sudden movements in the future, you should keep it."

Cinder gave a look of surprise, but nonetheless, thanked the kind Nurse Joy in happiness. "Thank you."

"It's no big deal." The nurse then informed. "You should know, your pokemon egg is about to hatch. Maybe for a few hours, or at most a day, the few quick examination test picked upon the pokemon's restlessness on hatching, the pokemon hatched from that should be a feisty one."

Cinder already knew that the pokemon egg was close to hatching from his mother's heads-up. However, hearing that his pokemon egg would hatch tonight or in the early morning was a shocker. He nodded excitedly in affirmation.

He yawned in exhaustion, he really was exhausted from the training and his body being thrown so roughly. Not to mention he should take a shower from the sweaty odor he was releasing, and soil and mold stains his outfit was subjected to from the plant he crashed on from earlier.

"You should take some rest, Cinder Lark. Although... I should advise you to keep an eye on your pokemon egg when it is hatching. It is one of the wonderful experience a trainer could encounter, after all." Nurse Joy said as her smile became sympathetic.

The boy nodded tiredly and headed off to do just that whilst carrying the pokemon egg of his in his arms which was now inside it's new incubator. He was too tired to focus on anything else and didn't notice the girl he'd collided with earlier watching him curiously.

Cinder pressed the elevator button. He released a breath as he waited for it to come down.

*Ding*

He got in right after the door opens.

"Wait up!"

Cinder heard that, as he hovered his hand to keep the door from closing on a approaching girl.

When he got a good view of who it was, he grumbled. "Oh great."

It was the blonde 'airhead'. Cinder assumed this himself so it wouldn't likely be the truth. But he was too irked at the girl to be mature enough to let what happened earlier slide.

"3rd floor, please." Surprisingly she had such a pleasant voice in Cinder's opinion. He thought. 'Just my luck, this daredevil is also the same floor as me.'

He stole a glance once, eventually he couldn't stop himself from looking back twice, thrice and a fourth time...

She was a tall and slender girl almost as tall as Cinder who was above-average in height, with very long creamy blonde hair tied in a big, thick, high fluffy ponytail. She has gray eyes and a fair complexion. She wears a typical skater attire, consisting of a short white and red sleeveless dress over black cycling shorts, on her hand she held a white and red helmet. She probably would have looked much prettier if not for the sad and guilty expression on her face, if only her look was a bit more positive...

Perhaps he was too harsh on her, his pokemon egg was already examined and fine. It wasn't good to hold a grudge, that's what his mother taught him since young. Besides, from what he heard of from her explaination to Nurse Joy, her pokemon had been apparently poisoned which explains her earlier rush.

Cinder sighed. 'Let bygones be bygones then.' He thought, not allowing himself to be bothered by her any longer. But, suddenly she spoke.

"S-s-sorry." She stumbled out pathetically.

Cinder perked up from the voice as he turned towards the girl who was looking at him awkwardly. He didn't even know how to respond to her, although he did not gave her an irritated or annoyed look.

"Everything is alright, so it is fine." Cinder responded plainly.

"So... Uhmmm..." She flinched a bit when he looked at her, although she didn't turned away. She regained her bearing and continued. "The name's Korrina by the way, I apologize to what happened. I was in a rush because my starter pokemon was badly hurt which caused me to worry. Although, that wouldn't change the fact of my mistake."

Cinder took his time to listen at her. He paused for a moment before letting out a quick sigh as he turned to face him wholely, offering a bit more acknowledgement than before. "At least you aren't the kind of people who would forget or won't openly confront me if you made a mistake. I accept your apology, apologies also for the harsh words I told you on the lobby."

The girl, Korinna, smiled at him, revealing two dimples that was found on her cheeks. "It's fine, I deserved it anyways."

An awkward silence permeated the room after that exchange. Since he already forgiven her and she seemed to be a good person from her deamor of accepting her the blunder of what she did, he began in attempt to revive their conversation. "So... What happened to your pokemon to get so injured anyway?"

As the elevator elevated by the second floor, she responded. "Some older trainer goaded me into battling him and poisoned my starter which wasn't much of a problem with my starter pokemon's type disposition, but the problem was, the battle was too much for him to bear, he was persisting until the end, but the older trainer was too strong for us. Now, my pokemon's recovering." She looked down. Cinder saw her hand cleched into a fist. After a second, she continued. "Jerk probably just want some easy money from me. Probably preys on rookies all the time. Too afraid to pick on people on his own level so he has to antagonize the newbies like some lowlife."

Her words quited into angry mumbling as Cinder stared on in shock. Before he could even try to comfort the girl he heard her voice again.

"But none of that all mattered now, what really matter to me is my Riolu is safe." Mercifully, her voice sounded a bit softer and less angry than before, it carried a much friendliness to it when she spoke to him.

Cinder looked over to her and nodded, a bit surprised at how caring she was for her to let the matter drop and focuses on her pokemon's health. 'She's... Much like me, I suppose?'

"Either tomorrow or on the future, don't let it affect you too much. Just don't be like that trainer when you became stronger, and when the time comes that you are stronger than that tauroscrap of a trainer, you could enact revenge the next time you both meet on the battlefield." Cinder was speaking sincerely and in earnest, if that same situation occured to him and his pokemon, it would be a great reminder and motivation that could only result in his benefit.

Korrina was given quite the shock, she chuckled while nodding. "Obviously." She paused before asking. "What's your name, anyway?"

Cinder looked at her with a casual smile. "Cinder Lark."

Right on cue, the elevator arrived on the third floor.

"See you later then." Cinder bid his goodbye as he stepped out first. After that, he walked towards his room.

He heard footsteps behind him, he turned around and looked over. Seeing that it was Korinna, he asked curiously. "Is something wrong?"

"N-nothing... It's just that, we are heading the same way actually. My room is also in this hallway." She answered him with a reasonable response.

"Oh, okay." Not heeding her any longer, he continued to walk while flexing and stretching his arms around. He still felt very sore from all the running to-and-fro recharging Storm's electricity and going back towards where they were training. Can't complain though, this running around may also be considered his training too.

After walking around for a minute, he picked the key from the pockets on his pants as he arrived on his room. As he was about to enter, he heard 'her' voice once again.

"Uhmm... Is this also your room?"

At that, Cinder's head whipped towards her direction like lightning.

"Wh-what did you say?"

****

The name Korrina and her Japanese name, Koruni, may be a pun on "careening" (going fast without any control, usually leading to crashes, which may refer to her roller skates). It may also incorporate K.O. (short for "knockout")