"Okay, c'mon," Mel grumbled, starting to push Larvesta at least towards her lap. "I'll be gone a couple hours and then I'll be back, be a fully registered trainer, and we'll be able to go wherever we want, okay?"

Dratini positively melted at that, looking up at her with big, quavering eyes. She was leaving? She couldn't leave.

Larvesta growled again, planting itself firmly on her lap, ignoring the fact that she could pick it up easily. She wasn't allowed to leave, not without taking it with her.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Ithica pleaded, melting a little at the look. "It's just for a few hours. If I'm lucky, I'll be back by lunch and then I can take you with me everywhere."

"Don't be like that," Mel cajoled. "You can stay here for a few hours, enjoy the place, relax. Maybe make a few friends. It'll just be for a little bit, I promise, and then I'll be back."

Dratini upped the pleading, sorrowful look. It didn't want her to leave. It even made sad little sounds.

Larvesta still grumped, but grudgingly got off of her lap.

"Don't do that," Ithica said weakly. "I promise I'll come back. I promise."

"I'll be back by lunch time, I promise," Mel said, patting Larvesta's head. "Then you can stay with me."

Dratini let out a long sigh and curled up on the floor, head down. Clearly it did not like this plan.

Larvesta huffed, but allowed the head rubs. Fine. But it didn't have to like it.

"I know, darling," Ithica said, petting Dratini. "Just relax here for a while, I'll be back."

With one last pat, Mel finally stepped away from Larvesta. She hated to leave, but she had to, and at least she knew Larvesta was safe here.

Dratini allowed it but still watched her with sad eyes. Hopefully its person would be back soon.

Ithica reluctantly stepped away as well.

"Come on," she said to Mel. "Let's make this as quick as we can."

Mel nodded. "Alright, let's go." She headed for the door.

The school wasn't hard to find, and it wasn't far away. Fortunately.

The schoolmaster was surprised to see such old applicants for the license exam. The oldest he usually saw here fifteen or sixteen, not in their twenties. But he let them take the test, even if it was more out of curiosity to see the results than anything else.

The test really wasn't hard. Mel grinned as she answered all the questions. There were only a couple that tripped her up, and even those weren't terrible.

There were a couple of questions that tripped up Ithica, too but overall she thought she did well.

"I'm impressed," the schoolmaster said as a machine tallied their answers. "Not a lot of people score so high their first time."

"That's a good sign for us, right?" Mel asked. "Did we pass?" That was her main concern at that point. She wanted to get back to Larvesta already.

"Oh, certainly," the schoolmaster said, nodding. The machine beeped and spit out the papers with their results and he handed the pages to them. "Here you are. Take these town the hall, to the second room on the left, and they'll get you into the registration system."

"Awesome, thanks," Mel said with a grin, taking her paper. Well, so far this wasn't bad at all. She didn't quite tow Ithica with her, but it was kind of a close thing.

She didn't need to tow Ithica with her, Ithica was keeping pace.

It wasn't fifteen minutes later that the girls were being ushered out the door with their brand new B-rank trainer licenses, complete with picture and registration number.

"Wow," Ithica said, looking at hers. "We're really pokemon trainers now."

"Yes we are." Mel grinned. "It's all official now. This is really, really cool." She practically skipped back to the pokemon center.

"This is so cool," Ithica agreed. She was beaming all the way back to the pokemon center as well. She was definitely looking forward to picking up Dratini and then getting out exploring.

Mel headed into the Pokémon center with a grin.

"Back already?" Joy asked. "That was fast."

"The test wasn't as hard as we thought it would be," Ithica replied. She held up her brand new license. "B-rank trainers."

"Both of you?" Joy looked surprised. "My goodness, that's incredible. Well done, both of you!"

Ithica paused at that.

"B-rank is good, then?" she asked, looking at her license again. She hadn't realized there was anything special about the rank.

"The average adult trainer is C-rank," Joy told them. "B-rank are the more serious trainers."

Ithica blinked.

"Really?" she asked. She glanced at Mel. She hadn't expected that one. Then she grinned. "Fun. Now I almost kind of want to take the gym challenge."

"You can, once you start collecting Pokemon," Joy said. "You're perfectly capable of it, at least I would bet so based on your scores. And there's no rule saying you can't."