Penny (Trainer)

Penny is a character who first appeared in . She attends the same Academy as the player character and is in their grade, making her a classmate of theirs. 
==Appearance==
Penny is a slender girl with fair skin, black eyes, and short hair. Her hair is uniquely configured, with the front half being red and the back half being blue. Covering the majority of her torso is a black hoodie with a Poké Ball and yellow writing on it, the hoodie itself being long-sleeved and reaching to her hands. 
On her legs, Penny wears a transparent skirt with gray short shorts underneath. Underneath the shorts, she dons long gray socks with red plus and blue minus symbols on them. Meanwhile, her feet are protected by calf-length black boots with gray toes and white soles. She also wears round glasses and supports a large Eevee-styled bag on her right arm.
===Other appearances===
==Personality==
Penny has a shy personality. Despite her distinctly colored hair and clothes, she doesn't seem the most comfortable around people. She also has a habit of being truant, as she doesn't come to the academy she attends very often. She does care heavily about her friends though, but has little respect for the school and the "system". In a conversation the party can have in Area Zero, Penny, whilst talking about how upset the player character's legendary Pokémon was, she mentions feeling that whenever she looked at school, it terrified her as she was subject to isolation. This could be why she did not attend the academy.
She excels at computers and hacking more than she is a Trainer. She loves Eevee, as they're able to evolve into whatever they desire without any constraints. She has a habit of calling them "Veevees".
==Biography==
Penny's home region is Galar. At one point, she moved to Paldea and enrolled into Naranja/Uva Academy, where she befriended five other students, Atticus, Eri, Giacomo, Mela and Ortega, using the alias Cassiopeia, although they had never met her in person. During her time at the academy, she was bullied and isolated by bullies, and yet the teaching staff did nothing to help her and her friends. Due to bullying that they suffered, they formed Team Star to stand against the bullies. The team eventually fought the bullies, creating a scandal. The bullies eventually dropped out of the academy, while Team Star were threatened with expulsion for their unorthodox behavior. To protect her friends, Penny took responsibility for the incident, so the former director, Harrington, had Penny return to Galar for 18 months. Penny did not inform her friends that she was leaving, causing them to wonder where she had gone. Due to the influence she had, her friends decided to maintain the bases they had erected and skip school until she returned.
After the eighteen months passed, Penny returned to resume her studies, but her friends were not aware of who she was. When some grunts tried to stir up trouble by recruiting her, the player character stepped in and drove them off, giving her the inspiration to enact Operation Starfall to dismantle the team, as her requested to have them disband fell on deaf ears. Using her Team Star alias, she persuaded them to assist her by rewarding them. Each time the player character defeats one of Team Star's bases, she (as Cassiopeia) would reward the player character with League Points she hacked from the system, as well as TM Materials that she would give directly to the player character as Penny (given by Clive instead for the last base defeated).
Once they had defeated the last leader, Cassiopeia revealed herself as both the true boss and Penny, and arranged a fight at the academy schoolyard after dark. The protagonist eventually defeated her and she reunited with her friends, who were glad to see her again. As "punishment", Clavell had them do community service in the form of using their skills to help train students, which Penny eventually accepted after giving some thought, although not before revealing that she had hacked into the League system to give the protagonist their rewards. The League eventually put her into a debt to repay for the stolen points, but were also impressed by her skills and offered her a position with them if she chose to. She then told the player character to meet her where they had first met. She thanked them and gave them Draco Meteor.
During the The Way Home story, Arven noticed Penny's hacking skills and asked her to assist he and the player character's journey in Area Zero, which she agreed to. During the journey, she assisted the player character in defeating a Scream Tail near Research Stadion No. 2 and a Brute Bonnet in front of the Zero Lab. During the battle against the Paradise Protection Protocol, she noticed that the Poké Ball Lock system was jamming her Poké Balls via electrical signals, but even her hacking skills did not suffice to force them open. However, the player character was able to defeat the Paradise Protection Protocol with Penny and their company' cheer.
After heading back to the academy, Clavell congratulates the team's efforts in stopping the professor's time machine in order to maintain the Paldea region's ecosystem, and he gave each of the four students a Master Ball as reward. Penny was also requested by Geeta to discuss about how to patch the weakness of the HP system, to which Penny reluctantly agreed.
After the first Academy Ace Tournament, Penny could be seen at the academy spying on the Team Star leaders' actions, which she later clarified in her dorm room that she did so to ensure that the five leaders are able to blend into school life easily. She expressed relief when she realized that they are doing well in the academy, but felt depressed that she was the only one that did not change since Operation Starfall. After the player's encouragement, she thanked them and her other friends, and also allowed the player to hang out in her room. 
When the bosses were taking makeup exams to regain lost credit during their truancy, Giacomo and Eri did not have any issues, but Atticus, Ortega and Mela did. While they were still friends with Penny, they did not want to burden her and instead asked the player to help tutor the others. Once they finished the session, Penny walked in on them and nearly tried to leave under the mistaken belief that they did not care about her, but they told her that they did not want to burden her with their problems. Penny stated that they should rely on her more, and if the worst came to pass, she could simply hack into the system to change their grades, resulting in the leaders being surprised she would go to such lengths, only to be relieved when she told them it was a joke in an attempt to lighten the mood. Apart from Ortega, the others approved of the idea of her helping them out in their studies.
The player can invite Penny to the League Club Room after completing the Mochi Mayhem epilogue. After defeating her three times, she will offer to trade an Eevee for one of the player's Pokémon.
==Pokémon==
===Starfall Street===
===Mochi Mayhem Battle===
Penny will join Arven in multi battle against the player and Kieran. 
===Rematch===
*Level 69 - 70 in Academy Ace Tournament
*Level 77 - 78 after completing The Indigo Disk story
*Level 84 - 85 in League Club Room
==Trivia==
*According to herself, Penny finds her family too overprotective of her, especially her father, whom she finds clingy and weird, and she doesn't like the nicknames he dubs for her. 
*Penny is the youngest villainous team leader from the core series. Additionally, Penny is the first female villainous team leader, even though technically she isn't evil and neither are her friends. And although Lusamine was the leader of the Aether Foundation, neither her or Penny's group were ever considered an evil "team", especially Penny's Team Star, just misjudged.
*Penny's Student ID at the Academy is 803B121. 
*Excluding the Team Star leaders, Penny is the only student at the academy not to wear a uniform. 
*As mentioned in her concept art, Penny won her Eevee bag from an arcade, which she considers as cheap.
*Through dialogue in Mochi Mayhem, it is implied that Penny's father is Peony:
**Before going to Kitakami, Penny yells at her father for asking her if they were going on an "Advent-tour"; Peony is the only character who actually says and uses the term.
==Gallery==
Pokémon Masters EX event artwork Sygna Suit Nemona Arrives!.jpg|
Category:Villainous group leaders
Category:Team Star