‘Well, this was certainly odd,’ Diana thought to herself.
The young trainer looked between Marnie and the Team Yell grunts. Well, at this point, were they gym trainers or actual members of a team? According to them, they had locked down the city so that Marnie could be the only one to challenge the champion and win.
I mean, you had to give them points for effort.
Diana knew what it was like to be in a small town. She had grown up in Iki Town in Alola, so she was familiar with small town troubles. And from the looks of Spikemuth, they were facing similar issues. Not even the gym leader was at the opening ceremony. Even though Diana was the first champion in Alola, not showing up to your own region’s ceremony seemed off, if not rude.
“Diana, no need to bother with preparations. Go in and face the gym leader,” Marnie told her.
“You sure?” She asked, and only continued forward when the young girl nodded.
Diana had never seen what Piers looked like until Marnie handed her his league card. For so long, he was a mystery. Just a name with no face. Now maybe the pieces would come together.
“What do you think?” She asked Kairi, her Primarina, who was waddling by her side, and showed her the card.
Kairi looked at the image of the man, and only shook her head with an uncertain squeak.
“Yeah, I don’t know what to make of him either,” Diana replied, and tucked the card back into her album.
The sound of hard rock only grew louder as Diana got closer. Looking around the corner of the brick wall, she could see a stage and more Team Yell members surrounding it. She shivered in the thin jersey, nervous about this fight. Looking up at the stage, she could see a tall, almost lanky man with long, black and white hair singing into a microphone. He certainly looked the part of the hard rock artists on the album covers her dad owned. But his voice was, in Diana’s opinion, amazing. Almost beautiful in its own way.
Diana kept watching the man perform. She knew she had to get this battle started, yet she couldn’t find the right moment to walk over. She almost didn’t want to. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kairi bobbing her head to the beat of the music.
“Are you going to be a rocker, too?” She teased her Pokémon.
“Pri-mari! Pri-mari!” Kairi sang, bobbing her head in the rocker way, which got a laugh from Diana.
