"Model Behavior"

Author's Note: I did not create the world of Pokémon, the creatures within it, nor the basic concept of it. I did, however, create the characters in this story and would like to be asked permission if you wish to use them. This is the first time I have written in a very long time and look forward to reading your insight on the text. I'm a lot older now, but my interest in Pokémon has not changed. Thank you.

"This is the finale; I need Delphine and Mareep right now!"

I stared at the reflection before me with and puckered my lips as a fine brush alighted upon my cheeks. All set. Mareep softly bleated as we stood in the threshold and waited for the other girl and her Skitty to pass. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I guess one never does truly get over walking a catwalk. Luckily, I'd be able to use this feeling to my advantage.

"OK, Mareep. Let's rip this runway," I said, my eyes focused at the end of the runway. All the photographers were waiting for me.

Music blared in the background. I could hardly hear anything as I was temporarily deafened by the live band that flanked each side of the ramp. Snot-nosed fashionistas with black, cat-eyed frames and tight chignons sat there in straight-backed chairs, their thin lips pressed into a line, small white notepads with hastily scrawled comments resting on their laps. Hordes of pokémon, the "cute ones" of course, were perched on their owners' shoulders, dazzled by the scene and the flashing lights. Others snored at their feet.

A smirk tugged at the corners of my lips as my fellow model finally passed, making sure to catch my eye as she did. A wink, a knowing smile.

We would give them something to talk about.

The room seemed to come to life once Mareep and I stepped through the door. Cheers and catcalls resounded as I clicked down the hallway in a ridiculously frilly getup and a lacy bonnet. I was the epitome of a young shepherdess, equipped with my rod, my Mareep, rosy cheeks, and ringlets.

It seemed like I had been walking for a very long time, when in reality only thirty seconds had elapsed. I was already nearing the end of the catwalk. It was time to heat things up. I seductively leered at the crowd, searching for a target to shower my attention upon. It didn't take long; for by the time we reached the runway, I had already met the gaze of a young guy with a faux-hawk, big blue eyes, and a large camera in his hand. Cute, I thought. Time to ham it up. With my rod balanced on my right shoulder and the hem of my lifted just high enough to reveal the outrageously expensive shoes I was sporting, I posed as bright lights flashed all around. But it wasn't over.

"Reep!" cried my partner as her sweet voice filled the room and blue sparks went off like fireworks all around us.

The crowd erupted into applause. People were out of their seats, clapping as though their life depended on it. And for some, it did. Fashion was their lives.

I stood there for a few more seconds, reveling in all the applause. Then, placing a hand over my mouth, I coquettishly grinned before turning around and fleeing into the organized maybe that was backstage. My hair trailed behind, capturing a few more moments in the spotlight. Mareep yipped in ecstasy as she scattered more electricity in our wake. The coup de grâce.

I couldn't hear anything as a team of people helped me out of my dress and into another one, for the after-party. The night wasn't over just yet.

As I climbed into the roomy, leather interior of the limousine that I was sharing with the other models from the show, I couldn't help but to wonder which one of us would make it to big screens of Viridian City.

We were damn good actresses.

It was two in the morning and I had only just returned from the after-party thrown by the designer whose clothes I had worn during the fashion show. Sitting at the foot of my small, twin-sized bed, I pried off the three-inch heels that I had been taught to wear to such glitzy events as the one I had just come from. Relief flooded through me as life returned to my aching feet. As if being six feet tall wasn't already enough. Only in the fashion world could I walk around and not feel painfully awkward as people cowered beneath my gaze. Maybe some still did, I thought with a smile. After hanging the heels up on the shoe rack I had bought in order to conserve space and slipping my poor feet into a pair of cushy Buneary slippers, I grabbed my shower caddy from my night-stand and proceeded to the shared bathroom down the hallway.

Model apartments weren't the most luxurious places in the world, but I did find a measure of peace within the confines of my studio apartment. It was a great place to retreat to when everything became too overbearing for me. It was one of the few things that I could call my own.

Life was tough back when I was still at home. In many ways, nothing had changed. Being the eldest of four daughters saw to that. The hours were long, the locations were often far away from home, the conditions very uncomfortable, but the pay was good. That is why I became a model after all. Dad could only do so much with his meager earnings as the owner of a small farmer's market back in Dewford Town. With trainers so few and far between and the low number of people that actually lived in the town, it was hard enough just to break even every month.

It's funny how I began my career as a model. It was still very hard to believe that I had already been in that world for two years. Everything about me had a changed air about it. Everything felt so fake, I thought as I peeled the false Jynx eyelashes from my eyes before storing my contact lenses into their respective case. After turning the faucet on and letting the water run for a few seconds, I splashed my face with warm water and proceeded to wash away all the horribly expensive gunk designed to give the illusion of...perfection? After watching the murky water drain out of the basin, leaving a grey ring around the white porcelain, I concluded that that could not possibly be perfection.

Under the jet of warm water, my thoughts began to wander. I had given up a lot to be where I was at that point in my life. And in that profession, I was reminded of it each and every day.

They were always there. Sometimes they worked alongside me, for what exactly, I could not be sure. But then again, some of them were just as vainglorious as their owners. All of my interactions with them were short-lived; I was lucky if I could spend a day in their company, learning their ways, their gestures, and their abilities. Theirs was a world I had always wanted to be a part of, but one that I had only been able to observe from a distance. In fact, I had been expressly forbidden to do anything other than that.

Dad didn't want me to train pokémon, especially with Mom gone. She had been a trainer when they first met, but she gave it all up once they got married. She stopped smiling soon after that.

Well, almost.

She smiled right after she had brought Jubilee into this world.

Then she died.

"Have you seen this?" asked Jacquelyn as she thrust the latest tabloid into my lap at the agency. With her frizzy blond hair hastily pulled into a bun, revealing her startlingly large, brown eyes, she looked about ready to explode.

I had made the front cover.

"No."

A deep scarlet bloomed in her cheeks as she snatched the paper back out of my lap and smacked it down onto her glass desk. I didn't flinch. She was prone to such outbursts, so why entertain them anymore? "Do you even care that you're the freshest face in all of Hoenn?"

I raised my eyebrow at her.

"You're impossible!" she sighed, throwing up her hands in the air in a sign of defeat. "I don't know how you're continuing to book show after show and shoot after shoot with that horrendous attitude of yours. It's absolutely atrocious!"

I smiled.

"Oh yeah. That." Shaking her head in disapproval, she added that millions of girls would be jumping in the air, shrieking at the top of their lungs at the thought of making the cover of Pokémon Match.

"Most girls wouldn't have even made it past the front door of this agency," I said nonchalantly, looking out of the window into the concrete jungle that surrounded us. Pidgey flew around in small, tight formations, zipping around the skyscrapers with ease. In the sky, the sun shone brightly without a cloud in sight. I longed to be outside, enjoying the fresh air with those Pidgey, but alas I could not. There was work to do. All that I could do was watch them.

So free...

"Ungrateful wench," Jacquelyn grumbled as she furiously tapped at the keys of her computer. It was completely clear except for the plasma screen. From afar, it looked as though it were just floating in the air.

I continued to gaze out of the window and enjoy the momentary silence. It was like that all of the time. Every time I came into the agency, she would tell me an interesting tidbit of news about how great my modeling career was going only to go into a tizzy after witnessing my blatant disregard for the whole affair. I made her miserable and a part of me was highly amused by the power that I had over her. Indeed, if I had not come to her rescue after giving her an antidote for her Beedrill sting when she was on a retreat with her cronies at the agency back in Dewford Town, I would have never been discovered. I was mindful of that. She knew that I wouldn't be leaving the agency anytime soon. I couldn't fathom having my family struggle like they did before.

But if there was one thing that my father was good at, it was making a dollar go a long way. Their standard of living had improved noticeably, but much of the money I sent was being stored in separate accounts for my sisters' schooling. Well, for two of them. Jasmine and Yasmine would become the doctor and lawyer of the bunch. Jubilee had run off to be a pokémon trainer. We hadn't heard from her in months. I wondered how she was doing...

After a few moments, Jacquelyn finally spoke up. With her nose slightly raised so that I could see into the depths of her cavernous nostrils, she said with a snooty air, "Well, it seems that someone has fallen under your spell. If they knew who you really are, then maybe they'd think twice."

"What is it?" I asked, not buying into her game.

The act didn't last for long. "Well! it seems as though the mega-producer Ronald Writing has developed this great new idea for a reality TV-"

"HELL NO!" I said, standing up abruptly. There was a collective gasp amongst all of the people in the agency. All eyes and ears were on me.

"WILL YOU STOP MAKING SUCH A SCENE? By Jove!" Jacquelyn said in a loud whisper before yanking me back down to my seat. I angrily began to tap my feet on the ground. I could feel the blood rushing to my face. My cheeks began to burn. Who did she take me for?

After quickly glancing from the side to side for onlookers, she took my hand in hers and asked, exasperatedly, "Delphine, will you at least hear me out?"

I yanked my hand out of her grasp. There were two types of people in the pokémon fashion industry: those who did what they wanted and those that allowed what they wanted to do them. I considered myself to be of the former mold. It was one of the few things I prided myself upon.

"Jacquelyn, I told you that commercials were as far as I would go! I REFUSE TO-"

"But you could finally train pokémon!" she blurted out all at once.

I clutched my heart. The air had suddenly become very thick under the gravity of the moment. My pulse quickened.

Damn! I thought. I had become one of them.

"What the hell am I doing?" I said to myself as I scurried along the cobblestone streets of historic district of Goldenrod City. The click-clack of heels and the collective grumble of the crowd on neighboring streets were my only solace that I wasn't the only person wandering those streets at night.

It seemed like I had been walking around for a very long time. Too long. Jacquelyn's directions had been a little more than off so I had had to ask for directions on numerous occasions. I checked my watch. Five minutes late already. This couldn't be good. Punctuality was something my Dad had instilled in all of us. It felt bad to let him down. Shaking my head in disbelief, I continued onwards.

In the distance, I could see flashing lights and cars. Civilization. It must be a main road, I reasoned. All I had to do was traverse that alley and the restaurant should be right there at the corner. But as I was walking through, I had this tingling sensation that I wasn't alone.

My suspicions were confirmed once I felt something furry rub against my leg.

"AH!"

I bolted as fast I could out of the alley, never turning once to look back at what had bumped into me.

By the time I had made it to the restaurant, I knew that I looked a hot mess. The model in me smoothed the skirt of my dress and smoothed down my hair. The girl in me wondered if my makeup had smudged. But the human in me just wanted to get the whole thing over with. After being lost and almost having a potentially dangerous encounter with a pokémon, my resolve had suffered a terrible blow.

Once I walked through the double doors of the lounge, I immediately began to look for the man with slick, gray hair. Only when I was unable to spot him amongst all the ritzy urbanites with carefully-coiffed hair and tailored suits did I realized that he was probably in an even richer section of the restaurant. Duh. Rolling my eyes, I walked over to the hostess.

"Hi, I'm here to have dinner with a Mister-"

"Hold on please," she charged in with a dismissive flourish of her quill. A quill? Who did she think she was? Puzzled and more than slightly ticked off, I waited for her to finish writing in her notepad for what seemed like two minutes, but she didn't seem to have any intent on stopping anytime soon.

I cleared my throat.

"Yes?" she barked, looking me straight into eyes.

A challenge.

"I am quite certain that you do not speak to all of your clients with such disrespect. I have been waiting here patiently for longer than any client should have to at a chic establishment such as this. Your manager will be quite upset once I tell him how well you're doing your job." I was positively fuming, more than anything I wanted to cave her face in. One had to be aggressive in that world.

Then suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. A soothing voice followed, "Indeed, I would."

The hostess's face quickly took upon a ghastly pallor. "Mr. Writing!" she squeaked.

I whirled around to see this man for myself, expecting to see a tall, lanky man dressed in a fine Italian suit, but to my surprise, I didn't see anything at all.

"Ahem, down here, Miss Delacroix!"

I almost fell to the grown when I realized this man couldn't have been any taller than my elbows. He had the makings of a small beer belly too. Quickly I tried to wipe the look of disbelief from my face, but I was afraid that he had already noticed it.

"Very well, it is I," he said, waving his hand. "I get that a lot," he added with a wink before turning to his employee. "But one thing that I do not get are unhappy customers. I will not tolerate such disregard of propriety in my restaurant. Take the night off young lady."

Without any objection whatsoever, she darted away as quickly as a Rapidash.

"I pray that you were not horribly offended," he said with a gallant bow that brought a smile to my lips.

"I think I'll be all right. Thanks." I reached for his hand. "It really is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Writing. It truly is an honor."

In one swift, adept movement, he took my hand in his and planted a light kiss upon it. "Why, Miss Delacroix, the pleasure is truly all mine. How often do I get the chance to dine with the loveliest young woman to grace the catwalks in decades? Come! Sit." I admired the way he could be so kind and lavish in his attentions, yet authoritative and firm at the same time.

I hoped that he wasn't trying to get in my pants.

"Very simply put, Miss Delacroix, I think that you would be a fine addition to the house. You're already very visible in the Pokémon world. This show could only enhance your level of celebrity."

"I don't know, Mr. Writing. This is a lot to grasp. I don't know how I could do with cameras around me 24/7."

"Well, Miss Delacroix-"

"Please. Call me Delphine, sir."

"Delphine, if you will," he said, chuckling to himself. "I believe that you're rather used to being surrounded by cameras all day. You are a model, are you not?"

"Yes," I said, not sure of what he was hinting at.

"And naturally, whether you realize it or not, you're always under the scrutiny of the public eye. For all we know, somebody could have been taking pictures of you during that little tiff with the hostess earlier this evening..."

"About that sir," I said. "I'm really so-"

"She's fired," he said, his lips never ceasing to smile. I was taken aback by how decisively he had said that. There was an unsettling feeling that played with my insides. Was it fear?

"Really, sir. I don't think-"

"She had no right to treat you in such a brusque manner. You deserve respect. Not many people can do what you do." He placed his hands on the table and proceeded to enlace his fingers, one with the other. "Delphine, if I had any doubt in my mind about choosing you to be a part of the house, then you would not be here now. Things will only go up from here." He took my hands in his. "I promise."

So basically I would be spending one month wandering around this unexplored island off the coast of Sinnoh called Pearl Island that was supposedly chockfull of various species of pokémon. There would be nineteen other participants, nine of which would be various influential people in the media, with the other ten being pokémon trainers at various stages of their careers. At the end of the month, there would be a grand tournament to see who would come out on top. The prize would be one hundred thousand dollars and instant fame. Many people had already been auditioning for months to be on the show. I had been one of the few that were handpicked by Mr. Writing himself. I was to be "The Model". A pokémon would be conferred unto me upon my arrival.

I peered deeply into his eyes. They were dark, yet there was a glint behind them. A murky light gleaming beneath the surface. I wanted to trust them; really, I did. After all, this was perhaps one of my only chances to ever do what I had dreamed of doing for nearly ten years.

After Jubilee was born and Mom had died, I had searched every part of my being to figure out what the magic was behind this world that had left my mother in such a hollow state, what it was that made her smile for the first time in over seven years on her deathbed immediately after she had just given life.

I needed to know.

Every time I looked into the mirror, I was reminded that the very things that put me in this position in life had been hers. Her smooth chocolate skin. Her stony gray eyes flecked with green. Her long, white hair. Her willowy frame. All of our lives, the last thing that Dad wanted was for us to be like her. We were forbidden to train pokémon. "It doesn't pay the bills," he would say.

But this could...if I were to win.

And if I lost? It wouldn't matter! I could just go back to modeling. I could probably book even more shoots and more fashion shows than I did at the time, and in other continents! It didn't have to end there.

This wasn't exactly how I had envisioned my entry into the world of pokémon training, but then again, maybe this was an omen of great things to come. I had to take it, I had to say..

"Yes." A film of tears glazed over my eyes. "I'll do it."

Mr. Writing grinned. "Excellent." Then he leaned back into his chair, and took a sip of his berry martini. Extra dry.

Never before had alcohol looked so tempting.

I didn't sleep the next night. I would be flying out to Pearl Island at ten the next morning. Everything was moving so quickly, I barely knew what was going on.

A big part of the reason why I couldn't sleep the night before was that I was nervous about the show and about raising pokémon. It was surreal. I couldn't believe what was happening, yet it was all that I could think about.

But there was something else that weighed heavily on my mind.

I hadn't told Dad about it.

There I sat next to the lone window in my studio, my cell phone clutched tightly in my hand. Below me I could see the city, ever abuzz with life and light. At that time of morning, the stars were just beginning to fade away and give way to the rising sun. Dad was always awake at the crack of dawn, as was the farmer's way, so I knew that he would be awake.

After contemplating my phone for five minutes as if in a trance, I pressed the "2" key until Home showed up on the screen. The phone rang once, twice, three times before someone answered.

"Hello?"

It was Yasmine. I could tell by the even quality of her voice. It never gave away too much.

"Hey Yaz, it's Delphine."

"Hey. How are you?" She seemed happy enough to hear from me, though one could never be quite sure.

"Great, great. How's school?"

"Straight As."

"Wow! That's amazing!" I cheered. Both the twins were very smart, but Jasmine was a bit more prone to the random B. She wasn't as much of a machine as her twin sister. "Listen," I said, wanting to get off the phone with her as quickly as possible. "Is Dad around?"

"Yes, one second."

Once he was on the line, we made small talk for a few moments about things. We talked about the weather, the twins' grades, and how he hadn't heard from Jubilee since she'd left.

No word. No word at all.

"I'm sure that she's taking good care of herself out there. She's a very independent girl. Kind of reminds me of myself," I said, trying to soothe the festering wound that she had left him with.

"But you would never go off and train...you-know-what!"

I coughed.

"Are you sick?"

Silence on my end of the phone. "Erm, no. Actually, the reason why I was calling you was to tell you that I'll be sending some money off today..." I let my voice linger on the "ay" diphthong as I searched for the courage to make a complete though. "...And that I'll be on TV sometime next week."

"Another fashion show? Which designer?" Truth be told, my father was my biggest fan. He lavished in the praise that he received for having such beautiful daughters. He bought every magazine that I was featured in and recorded every fashion show. The girls idolized me. I could do no wrong.

"Actually, I'm going to star in a reality TV show."

The line went silent. My heart was beating so loudly, it was as if my ears were plugged and that was all I could hear.

"It's not one of those dating shows is it?"

"No, not at all," I reassured him. "Actually, it's about pokémon."

"What about them?" he asked through gritted teeth.

My palms began to sweat.

It was now or never. I took in a deep gulp of air.

"I'll be training them-"

"Keep your own, goddamn money," he seethed.

The line went dead on the other end.