"Vern! The camera's OVER THERE!"
This was supposed to be another Spring Break pic, but since the cheap-ass pencil I have to use smeared all over the place, this was as far as I could clean it up.
These are Riki's two closest friends in the world:
On the left is Vernon Demitrius Nathaniel XIII, or simply "Vern" to his friends and customers. Like most PCA students, he comes from wealthy stock, his parents owning one of the largest pharmaceudicals...pharmesu...pharm...medicine-making companies, perhaps in the world (if you use a Potion, chances are it's from their company). We've all run into his type at one point or another: failing Biology, but able to breed strains of various flora and fungi hybrids never meant to be found in nature, flunking shop class but able to turn any known object up to and including cars, inhabited aquariums, and human skulls into "water pipes."
Still, a growing lad needs pocket money, especially if his parents are on another "self-reliance" kick again, so he turned to his own freelance "medicinal herbology" skills, upplying his classmates with the finest home-grown Pokenip available. Now, on its own, Pokenip is non-addictive, relatively harmless and even, in some circles, considered quite healthy, causing nothing more than a slight euphoric sensation and a mild caffeine buzz...Vern's "special blend," however, packs a much stronger kick, even causing hallucinations in those with a low resistance to Poison types. No one really knows why, since his own perfectly legal plants are genetically identical to normal Pokenip...even Vern is stumped (as he habitually scratches his Poison Powder and Sleep Spore infested hair in confusion over his personal supply of potting soil...).
On the right is his unwitting accomplice, Yuri Michelle-Gellar, country girl, flower child, and all-around lover of nature. While she, too, has a passion for herbology, hers tend to be of a far less recreational sort, and she actually maintains one of the school's berry gardens as an extra curricular activity. Of course, with her sunny demeanor and guileless personality, she's only too happy to help her dear childhood friend, Vern, with his own "herb garden." She also remains blissfully unaware of her best friend Riki's lesbian leanings, despite a couple of rather heated Pokenip-induced makeout sessions in the past. Yeah, for a Psychic type Abra, she remains remarkably clueless...