Penny, olives, and weird business men
Penny stared at the door as it clicked shut behind Nemona, she hadn't meant to make things awkward between them. Why would things be awkward? God, she was stupid thinking that Nemona would be just fine with her hiding who she was. Maybe It was fixable, maybe they'd be fine. Penny slapped her hands against her cheeks, get out of your head, it'll be fine. Penny sighed gently, then wrung her hands and took stock of the hotel room. it remained fairly undisturbed from them only using one bed she still felt bad leaving it anything less than perfect.
Once fully packed up, Penny turned in the room key to the front desk. Having finally hyped herself up to take part in the gym test, she made her way quickly to the drab office-looking building that was supposed to be the gym. Apparently, other countries had cooler-looking buildings than Paldea, at least Penny read they had, maybe all gyms were constructed to be the most unimposing, drab, and boring buildings ever. Did Nemona care that much if she challenged the gym? Penny stood outside the doors for a good few minutes.
"Hey," Penny snapped around, nearly jumping out of her skin, "Oh, sorry. Are you going to challenge the gym? You have to go inside to do that." A man in a business suit carrying a briefcase lectured. He sounded bored and looked the part too.
Penny nodded gently, hoping that she hadn't offended him or something, "My friend asked me to do the gym challenge."
"Hmph." He sighed before wrenching the door open, he held it calmly and gestured for her to go in.
Upon entering the smell of Clorox filled Penny's nose, and their eyes watered a little. The interior was somehow more boring than the exterior, she couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. The man had walked to the front desk and was speaking with the employee there. He pointed back at Penny before saying something that she didn't quite catch. She inched closer feeling a little bad that this man was arguing with a worker over something about her.
The man took notice of her behind him and turned quickly, "Go to the olive fields, that's where the gym test happens."
Penny had no idea what or where the "olive fields" were but they nodded and smiled and left the gym building.
After wandering around for what felt like an hour Penny stumbled upon the olives. It seemed to be a cultural thing that she found very interesting. It wasn't that big of a deal to roll the massive olive around the blockades and push it into the goal. Penny felt more than relieved when they stamped her hand to show she'd finished the challenge.
They grabbed lunch before attempting to defeat the gym leader. Katie was a bug-type trainer so Penny wasn't really that worried about beating her. Flareon could probably take every one of that gym's Pokemon. And she did. It was kind of sad watching every single bug this woman sent out get trampled by the type advantage. Penny almost sent out one of their Pokemon weak to bugs but thought better of it.
Taking the gym badge from Katie didn't feel like winning, it was just sad. Now Penny understood why Nemona hadn't just done the gym challenge again. She was a million times stronger than any of the leaders. I mean she wasn't a champion-ranked trainer for nothing.
Nemona was nowhere to be seen and it was nearly 3 PM. Maybe she had lost of Giacomo, that'd be even more sad than if Penny had lost to Katie. Giacomo wasn't strong in any way shape or form. He was the weakest team Star boss in her opinion. And Penny made the whole thing so that's a fact.
Penny sighed before she purchased a poke puff from the bakery across the street from the gym and gave it to Flareon as a reward for her amazing work. Nemona would have a lot to hear about whenever she got back, like the mystery suit man that Penny had never caught the name of.