#also why do they show the gym leaders on your profile even before you fight them??? the surprise of what they look like has always been

[bumpscosity]

I started playing pokemon diamond! i've been meaning to play it for ages so im super excited to jump in and finally play a 2D pokemon game, though i dont know if i trust either of my rivals yet.... I've only ever played pokemon games where you get exp share pretty much at the start so remembering to individually level up my whole teams gonna be a bit of a learning curve but im always up for new challenges

Naming my starters has always been important to me, it took me a while to come up with her's but i ended up picking Mori, after the japanese word for forest and a city in hokkaido, the island that's the partial inspiration for sinnoh :)

[delicrieux]

—MAKE YOU SAY “OH” EXTRAS: TINDER

extra meaning non-canonical occurrence; can be placed anywhere in the “make you say oh” timeline after couple (cha. 14) and before the final “oh”. 

pairing—corpse husband x f!reader warnings—tinder profiles, tw: men, swearing.  word count—2.6k. format— written. ─── ❥ req by nonnie​:  y/n makes a youtube vid/live stream where she's just swiping through her tinder acc and corpse literally blocks her lmao

author’s note—akldsljfs this was such a funny idea i could not not write it lmao

ultimate masterlist. myso masterlist

You have pulled the biggest brain move by setting up both a facecam and a screen recorder on your phone. All is beautifully displayed and visible during the stream. Your fanbase is particularly intrigued on what exactly are you planning on doing today, seeing as your tweet of “strea” had been a bit vague, if not downright ominous. No emojis. No elaboration. You couldn’t even be bothered to finish the word. Truly, a mystery. Everyone tuned in and are currently waiting with bated breath.

A few of your fans must sense upcoming doom because the overall mood in the chat turns from optimistically intrigued to...evil. It’s an entity all on it’s own now, clawing at you through the screen with various renditions of laughter and devil emojis. A few eggplants thrown in there for good measure, accompanied, naturally, by the scandalous water drops. At first the common consensus is that you’re biting the bullet and going through your camera roll on stream. Definitely an idea worth considering, though you frankly don’t know what lies at the start of the 11k photograph journey, and you are afraid to check in public. Could be a harmless meme, could be a salacious pic you had saved of an OF star. It’s really a gamble. Either way, you would definitely get banned. You might still get banned. Why do you insist on doing shit like this?

Because it’s funny. Because you’re kinda stupid. Because it’s just so absolutely laughably easy to do.

A smile quirks your lips, and while it is not explicitly smug, the look in your eyes sure is, “Greetings,” You utter lowly, dimming the lights--the budget for this stream! Ugh, you went all out, “my children.”

mother i crave violence

sensing evil energy rn!!

i do not claim the energy in this video for myself or anyone else watching this 💖💖

^with peace and love shut the fuck up

“I know y’all lowkey hoes-” Upon your words the chat splits into two: one side eagerly agrees (even shares a few OF accounts! How helpful, supporting small businesses!), whilst the other feverishly insists on innocence. You make a face stuck somewhere between offended and bewildered, “Now c'mon now-I know you. I know you all. We’re the same, don’t-what was that?”

You try to scroll back to the comment but it’s loss in the sea of incoming messages, “I swear to God I just saw-”

Corpse_Husband: i love late night streams it’s not like i have anything better to do.

“COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORPSE!!!!” 

rip headphone users

i cant feel my face when im with you by the weeknd but instead of face its my fucking ears

yall think full vol on pc is better?my parents woke up 😭😭😭😭

To think he’s spending his last waking moments for today with watching you (he probably still would have anyway, because you do not posses an ounce of shame or self-control and pester him relentlessly)! It makes your heart sing, and suddenly, a traitorous, fun hating idea barges it’s way through the crowd of incoherent buzzing and states: don’t do this. For some reason it also has the voice of Rae. As if that would work in guilt-tripping you- Rae never succeed, and her fictitious rendition in mind won’t fare much better either.

Still, you thought about it. That must count for something. Corpse will understand, won’t he? Why don’t you want to upset it in the first place? Men look so funny when they lose their shit, like hello, don’t you have anything better to do? But the image of Corpse just sitting there, hurt, distraught, leaving you on seen because he’s in his sad boy hours leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 

queen rly went from  🥺😊 to 😕 u ok bbgirl?

Corpse_Husband: no pouts cutie

akjdjoeijdfse cUTIE??? deadass boutta r.i.p.

Well that succeeded in eliminating everything from mind, doubts included. If this was an anime, the scenery would shift into something roseate, with flowers and bubbles and sparkles all around you along with a halo or two. Alas, not an anime, rather reality. The led-lights, however, seemingly possessing a will of their own, slowly turn from deep violet to pink. You smile brightly, like the absolute dumbass you are, and you are met with a ray of heart and blushing emojis. You are just so cute, a real cutie! Still in your disguise adorable state, you swipe your finger on your phone screen, the grin never leaving your lips.

There, among the plethora of apps, nestled sits a red square with a white fire plastered on it. The delicate calligraphy on the bottom reads: TINDER.

The mood changes once again- you’re giving the roaches emotional instability by how quickly everything flips over- and the chat spams eggplants vigorously; some, of course, bravely fight against the thirst.

nooooooo i thought y/n is gonna stream in a god honoring way!!!

^pack it up girl defined

“So, Charlie and I-” You note a few awfully curious comments and squint, “-yes, we talk a lot. Charlie is a really good friend of mine. We’re best friends. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. The whole fucking family tree-no, that sounds weird. Delete. Anyway, Charlie, being the absolute fucker he is, said, hey, you know what would be funny? And I was like, nooo, what would be funny, Charlie? And he says to me, he says, says, making fun of men on Tinder. And if y’all need any more proof that Charlie and I are platonic soulmates, then dunno, my children, my roaches, I dunno-I dunno what more to give you.”

You can’t be bothered reading the comments, there’s too damn many. You also need to save your reading comprehension for the actual bios. It has a time limit, that darn thing. 

“Okay, so I made a profile earlier, but I hadn’t swiped on anyone yet-” Despite the fact, Tinder helpfully informs you that already 99+ people have swiped right on you, “So, this is me,” You show the pictures you have of yourself, and damn, not to be a conceited narcissist, but you look really good. Like if you saw yourself on Tinder, you’d super like instantly. “Uhm, so, my bio-my bio says: let’s sauce in the tub together, ya dig? splishy splashy, giggle giggle.” 

i cant believe we are witnessing y/n trying to form a coherent sentence live 

shes trying give her time

ya dig??? y not capeesh

what scene from the godfather is this lol?

“My anthem, is,” You laugh, covering your lips with your hand, “Corpsie, this is form you-” Proudly, you show that indeed, Corpse’s E-GIRLS ARE RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE is listed as your anthem on Spotify, “Hehe.” Yes, you say that aloud.

Corpse_Husband: you’re killing me Corpse_Husband: thanks baby Corpse_Husband: now delete tinder ❤︎

You ignore his last quip, deciding it’s finally time to get this show on the road, “Right, let’s do this shit. I’m not actually going to swipe on any guys that look, uh, decent? Yuck, can’t believe I just said that, uhm, because I-because I feel like some actually deserve a chance with someone? I don’t wanna get anyone’s hopes up, as I am currently in a long distance relationship with Chrollo. So I’m just gonna swipe on, like, frat boy assholes. Because I don’t care if I hurt their feelings. Quite frankly I don’t think they possess them in the first place.”

The chat voices their agreements. With the ground rules set, you, giddy, click on the first profile.

Does Tinder know what you’re doing, your plan? The FBI agent watching you through your phone must be working overtime, bless his heart. They must, because the the first guy to meet you is named Jason, and there he is, blond hair and blue eyes, holding up a fish the size of his torso. Marginally adequate in looks, pretty good muscles. A solid 7 bordering on 8. He’s the same age as you, 15 miles away, and he studies at some college you don’t care enough to look up. Bio reads:

I like to drive fast. Fishing is my passion, but if you can’t catch me by the ocean, you’ll catch me catching waves, bro! Love a good gym date. You do squats, and I’ll keep a close eye to make sure you’re doing it correctly ;) You probably saw me at a party. Leader of the The Phi Kappa Psi. I’m a Gemini, if that matters lol.

You, of course, read it aloud, dramatically; provide some constructive criticism-he seems nice, but he’s a Gemini, so naturally, you can’t trust him at all! Also, that gym date session leaves little to be desired. With your rant done, you swipe right, and shocker! (not), it’s an instant match.

“Okie, I still wanna swipe of some profiles, so I’ll see what he’ll text later-” For a second you wonder the legalities of this stream, but you’re having too much fun to think of it further, “guys, I won't get sued, right?”

NOW she considers it

well....

if you do, we’ll kickstart your lawyer dw <3

Onto the next profile. Kevin, 25, is seen fixing his car- or, you assume he’s mid-fixing it, you don’t really know why else he’d hold a wrench and be covered in oil. He’s shirtless, and the caveman part of your brain echoes something closely resembling AWOOOGA!, but...but!...blonde hair, blue eyes. You pout again, “I don’t...I don’t really like blond boys, ya know? With the blue eyes and all, it’s just not my thing, uhm, unless it’s like-like...Armin from Attack on Titan. Else I don’t care.”

Onto the bio:

You have to treat a car like you treat a woman: go on long rides, take the lead, but most importantly, keep her oiled up 😜 

“What the fuck did I just read?”

The chat is equally confused. You swipe right anyway- another match. Too easy.

The stream continues without incident for a solid thirty minutes- all of your matches, expect a few that genuinely looked like normal dudes that really couldn’t write a decent bio to save their lives, had been blond hair blue eyed gym rats with ranging forms of misogyny. Some opened with asking for nudes out right, some asked about your day first before asking for nudes. You prefer the former. Straight to the point! You admire the gall. 

But then, down the forty-five minute mark a profile popped up that made you still by your phone, your smile dying as your eyes bulged. Dear God. Lord in heaven. Who is this demonspiit lookalike and why is he so fucking hot? The neck tats, the skateboard, the clothes- holy shit, you gotta close your mouth before some drool dribbles out.

No bio, just his name, Tyler, and that he’s 23.

“He boutta be 23 in me.” You mutter, swiping right with lightning speed.

WHAT DID SHE SAYYYYY?????????

tyler is y/ns karma for relentlessly mocking that one guy that had a whole ass list on what his “female” partner should be

^he deserved it and also tyler seems like a typical fuckboi y/n grow a braincell

look at mom 🥺 her eyes are sparkling

It wasn’t a match right away. You somehow expected as much, but it still upset you. Simp behavior, pathetic. The stream continued bravely, and when Tyler messaged you a simple “yo” you totally didn’t sequel. You didn’t manage to text him back on stream: texting all those guys that you didn’t really find all that attractive was easy, but this...You’re a sucker for a man who radiates red flag energy. His whole profile is a red flag. He might just be a red flag himself.

What can you do? Suddenly becoming color blind is not easy. Once the stream ends, you unmatch with everyone expect Tyler. He you chat with for a bit, but a sudden craving for different company makes you abandon him, too. You don’t feel too heartbroken for him- you’re certain there’s already too many girls in his dms. You wish them luck.

Happily, you delete Tinder. You go to Twitter, notice you’re trending again- look at you go! Queen shit- and as you compose a thank you tweet, something strange happens. You go to text Corpse, but when you click on his profile you grow cold.

YOU’RE BLOCKED. You can’t follow or see @/Corpse_Husband ‘s Tweets. 

...Pardon? You hop onto Instragram and-also blocked. Seriously? And you thought you’re one petty bitch. Corpse is seriously prissy about everything. Damn, if he didn’t like your stream, he could’ve just said so. Didn’t need to, like, block you from his internet existence. So not cool.

You try texting him but no text go through. Well how will you let him know you deleted Tinder just like he asked? You relieve your frustrations by punching your pillow a few times. Later, you apologize to her, you didn’t mean to hurt her, it’s not her, it’s you. Fuck, 5 minutes of exile and you’re already loosing your mind.

“Raeeeeeeeeeeee!” You whine loudly. It’s roughly 2am now, but you don’t care. You’re too heartbroken to care. There’s a thump from her room, but nothing else, “Raeeeeeeeee!!!” You wail, wallowing in self-pity on your bed. You hear a very loud, very annoyed sigh from her room, followed by angry marching. Your door is abruptly thrown open, and in the dim, colorful light you see her scowl.

“What?” She grits.

“Can you please tell Corpse to unblock me from everything?”

“What did you do now?”

“I made fun of men on Tinder.”

She pauses, “...That doesn’t sound so bad.” She surmises, voice laced with suspicion, “What else?”

“...There was one really hot guy that I kinda sorta talked to after--”

“Y/n.”

“-But I totally deleted Tinder and honestly he was pretty boring, so, like, uhm, please?”

She sighs, the servery of which implies she is holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, and instantly you know that you won. She taps away at her phone, “You owe me one.” She states, and before you can reply, she exits your room and slams the door behind her.

Grinning, you text his phone again. The message goes through, oh gosh, you’re so relieved you feel like crying. This has been, officially, the worst five minutes of your life.

You Y DID U BLOCK ME LOSER!!! MAJOR LOSER ALERT!! I DELETED EVERYTHING IT WAS A JOKE r u still mad at me? y u always mad at me i never do anything:(

my husband You’re my baby, how do you think I’ll react when I see you publicly simping for some asshole on Tinder?

Oh no, he used the words, he delivered the killing blow. You’re finished. Your heart can’t take such a workout. 

Not that you would ever admit it to him, though!

You hehe ur jellyyyy u always dis jealous hehe?

my husband Not jealous.

Yeah, you might not be the brightest tool in the shed, but even you know that’s a lie. You send him an array of kissy emojis that he doesn’t have the decency to reply to. Then, completely unprompted and dead serious, you send him a simple voice memo, saying: “You really have nothing to worry about, you know? You’re my favorite, Corpsie.”

He responds via text, reiterating that he’s not fucking jealous and that he just doesn’t like when you show such outward interest in anyone but it’s not like he cares or anything. It’s just really, like, weeeeird to see his baby simping for another man like that totally ruins the whole dynamic!!! It was only natural that he should block you on every social media platform, including his personal number (which, like, was completely necessary! Doesn’t matter that his viewers can’t see it, it’s gotta be super believable!), and inform his followers of that, because it’s all a joke, like, for the dynamic, that Youtube grind, you know? Ya dig? No personal feelings were involved at all. He totally wasn’t upset that you found someone else cute, no way!

my husband I’m not jealous. Lol.

You ik u repeated tht like 50 times  u trynna convince me or??? lmao

my husband No comment. ...You don’t actually talk to anyone else like we’re talking, right?

You no one else calls me their baby if thts wat ur wondering at least not to my knowledge lol im all urs

my husband That makes me very happy to hear:)

Yeah, it makes you very happy, too.

hope you liked it!! xx

[jaybug-jabbers]

All-Glitch Pokemon Blue Run Pt16: Approaching Destiny

The following is a series of texts exchanged between the devices of Professor Gingko and his assistant, June, dated 8/15/97. This document is for the personal information and use of the designated recipiet only (i.e., “for your eyes only”). It is not to be shared. 

P Gingko 3:34 pm

June? Are you still out working with D4 in the Mansion? You've been gone quite a long time now. I was hoping for a status report.

Junebug  3:46 pm

ya got sidetracked sorry

P Gingko 3:47 pm

Side-tracked doing what?

Junebug  3:49 pm

um

Junebug  3:49 pm

I'll tell you but promise you won't be mad, ok?

P Gingko 3:50 pm

I won't be mad as long as you don't give me a reason to be mad.

Junebug  3:52 pm

I'm sort of in Viridian City right now

Junebug  3:52 pm

and, uh, I just finished fighting the gym leader. did yoy know the Viridian Gym leader was Giovani?

P Gingko 3:53 pm

What on Earth possessed you to do this, June? Did I not *specifically* instruct you no more gym battles or trainer fights? You know we're trying to keep a low profile!

Junebug  3:53 pm

ok see you're getting mad

Junebug  3:53 pm

look, I had a reason

Junebug  3:54 pm

I heard on the news that the Viridian Gym was accepting challengers again, and somebody was speculating the leader of the gym was actually this giovani guy

Junebug  3:54 pm

and like it was acting as his sort of cover. you know, the dude who is in charge of team rocket? those losers who keep smuggling pokemon and stuff? and they were RIGHT, it totally was giovani

P Gingko 3:56 pm

I fail to see why this is relevent. What does it matter if the Gym leader is Giovani? You still shouldn't have challenged him, especially in front of so many witnesses.

Junebug  3:58 pm

because I stopped him! I stomped him flat with my glitch pokes and he was so confused and humiliated that he swore he couldnt even face team rccket anymore. he said he's disbanding the whole organization! look i knew somebody had to take the guy down a few pegs, and I was right, it worked.

P Gingko 4:00 pm

As commendable as that is, June, this sort of thing still is best left to the authorities to deal with. Let the police and investigators handle Team Rocket. It's not the job of a busy young lady who's assisting a glitch pokemon professor on very delicate research.

Junebug  4:02 pm

Isn't it, though?

P Gingko 4:02 pm

Isn't it what?

Junebug  4:05 pm

Look, Professor. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. We've been spending months now researching these glitch pokemon. And you've spent YEARS doing it. All in super secrecy. Ever since they were discovered, its been in secret. youve been slaving away in the shadows, and all your colleagues just think youre some qwuak, some lunatic.

P Gingko 4:05 pm

The reminder is, in fact, not necessary. I'm well aware of how the academic community perceives me.

Junebug  4:06 pm

Don't you think it's about time we do something about that? We've learned so much and we have PLENTY of proof by now! We can go public about glitch pokemon and show the world what they've been missing. or misunderstanding.

P Gingko 4:08 pm

June, that's not for you to decide. The nature of our research is very important but also very sensitive. We're working with incredibly powerful forces. In the wrong hands, or if mishandled, glitch pokemon and glitch phenomenon can be devastating

Junebug  4:11 pm

Yeah but isn't that all the more reason to go forward with the truth? Sooner or later, some random person will stumble across glitches, just like I did. And who knows what will happen to them. But if we go forward and educate people, then, laws can be made, and people can learn about them, and we can all know how to deal with glitches properly.

Junebug  4:11 pm

and also people will realize we're not crazy!! you wont have to work in obscurity anymore. you can be a hero! recognized for your genius.

P Gingko 4:12 pm

Appealing to my sense of vanity won't work, you know.

Junebug  4:12 pm

its not really about the glory though, thats just a nice added bonus.

P Gingko 4:15 pm

June . . . it's not as though I have not considered these facts. I've thought about them for years. About when to go public, and how, and with what information. It is of course my ultimate goal to reveal what we've learned to the world. So that everyone can live safely and co-exist with these amazing creatures.

P Gingko 4:15 pm

But it's not as simple as just holding a press conference and proclaiming things to the world. There are so many factors to consider.

Junebug  4:17 pm

Maybe you'r over-complicating it, though. like, I had this great idea yesterday about how we can do it.

P Gingko 4:17 pm

I mean this with no offense, but I very much doubt that you've settled on a solution more sophisticated then my years of consideration has generated.

Junebug  4:19 pm

wait til you hear it before dismissing it, man

Junebug  4:19 pm

you're gonna love it

Junebug  4:19 pm

you ready to hear it?

P Gingko 4:20 pm

June.

Junebug  4:20 pm

ok so . . . .

Junebug  4:20 pm

I take my team of glitch pokemon and I beat the Elite 4 and become Pokemon Champion of the entire region.

Junebug  4:24 pm

Professor?

Junebug  4:26 pm

Professor, u still there?

Junebug  4:27 pm

c'mon man its a brilliant idea

P Gingko 4:30 pm

Get back to the lab. We're not discussing this.

Junebug  4:30 pm

Aw, cmon. What better way to prove to the whole world the power and reality of glitch pokemon? Nobody can call it phony after that, and nobody can deny them. Plus with the prestige of Championship we'll be in a position to put forth our important research and ideas on handling glitch pokes safely.

Junebug  4:40 pm

Professor, are you there?

P Gingko 4:48 pm

Get back to the lab.

P Gingko 4:48 pm

We can discuss it there.

—

(E-mail from one week later)

Professor,

This is the update you wanted about my journey through Victory Road. I know you’re still feeling hestitant even after all our long discussions about the plan. I hope this report can reassure you that this is going to go off without a hitch.

My first hurdle on the journey began before I could even take a single step on Victory Road. Professor Oak’s grandson had once again managed to track me down. It’s like that kid has a sixth sense for honing in on me and being annoying, I swear. He demanded a battle, so I complied.

Things were a cakewalk, but then, uhh. He sent out his Alakazam and it was . . . a lot stronger then before. By like, a lot.

He wiped my entire team. It was almost in an instant. 

But that didn’t matter, because I’m no pushover trainer! Maybe I used to be, but these days I’ve learned an awful lot. So I dug into my supplies of TMs and found the perfect one. I taught Giago Thunder Wave.

During our rematch, Gia survived a hit and paralyzed the Alakazam. I knew the Zam had paltry Defense, so I sent out Fractal, who has amazing physical Attack. The Zam crumpled before us!

Things were a little tight with the final foe, a level 53 Blastoise, but my team chipped him down enough that Wobbles could easily finish the job. Not bad for a team sitting at around level 35.

With that annoying kid cleared out of the way, we headed to the caves known as Victory Road.

The journey wasn’t exactly a quick one, I’ll be honest. It took a lot of tromping around, getting lost, pushing rubble out of the way, and battling trainers that had alarmingly high-levelled pokemon. I eventually decided it would probably be best if we did a little extra training. It would make the trip a bit smoother.

So we trained, and we trained hard. Our goal was for everyone to reach level 40. Not too ambitious, just around 5 levels or so. For some, it was pretty easy. Wobbles had no problems, and Gia was packing Surf. Sure, Gia’s Special isn’t great, but it was still enough to take out the local Rock/Ground types in the cave. Jasper took slightly longer to work with, but with Earthquake and Hydro Pump, he still didn’t have much trouble. 

Dusty was a bit harder to train. As you know, her stats have never been incredible . . . besides her speed, that is. But she had Bubblebeam, Ice Beam and Hydro Pump, so it actually wasn’t too bad; just a little more time-consuming.

Then there was Fractal. I’ve noted before that Fractal’s defenses (both of them) are the worst of the team’s, and frankly abysmal. So training him was certainly a challenge. I opted to wander the grasses just outside of the cave, beating on Dittos and Fearows and healing a TON. It took a while, but eventually, even Fractal rose through the ranks.

After Fractal, there was just Charmed left to train. It wasn’t too bad, considering how balanced Charm’s stats are. The only extra thing I needed to do was duplicate some Elixirs for Charmed. She still doesn’t trust Pokecenter nurses, so she’ll only accept heals from me. I even bought Charmed a little treat and taught her Fire Blast.

Of course, if I’d wanted to, I could have duplicated a crapton of Rare Candies and just fed them to my pokemon. But I wasn’t going to do that. After all, you told me eating too much candy isn’t healthy for pokemon, and besides, I knew they could prove themselves in battle.

And that they did. We finally cleared Victory Road’s twisted, confusing tunnels and made it outside to face the large, dominating building that housed the Elite Four.

It was time.

—

Click For the Next Part of the Series!

[ashiversary]

Adaptability

Adaptability:

1. A pokemon ability that increases the power of moves of the same type as the user. Common species with this ability include porygon, basculin and eevee.

2. The ability to acclimatise efficiently and fast to changed circumstances

◊

The umbreon tent at the Opal City Eevee And Evolutions Event is a good place to be, Go thinks, even though it’s early. The darkness means it’s refreshingly cool compared to outside, the ‘dark night’ coffees sold by the door are both delicious and immensely caffeinated, and the newly-evolved Instinct umbreons are sleeping (for once) in relative silence. It’s so early, in fact, that there’s only one other guest in this row. They’re pretty short, with red hair, lots of piercings and wait a minute-

“Uh, Amelie?”

Her eye flicks briefly towards him.

“Hello, Go.”

Oh. Great. He turns to look at what she’s eyeing.

It’s a good specimen from a show perspective, Go can tell. The eyes are bright and cheri-red, the coat ink-black and glossy, and the thick gold bands from evolving under a full harvest moon have a soft but powerful glow. It’s a pretty attractive pokemon for a team who deal in stolen goods, so Go braces for a knee to the stomach and hopes someone will call for security before he hits the ground.

When a minute has passed with no attack he dares to crack an eye open to look at her.

“Picking good ones to steal later? They’re all tagged and chipped you know-”

“No.”

“Planning to steal the prize money?”

“Not really.”

“Then why are you here at an eevee convention?”

She fixes him with a look and- oh.

He’s suddenly very glad Spark stayed behind. Arceus only knows the carnage that would result from him, her boss and hundreds of eevee all in the same place.

Anyway, Go, focus.

There’s no members of the public admitted right now, but there’s still a handful of breeders primping their umbreons before the gates open, and although he’s got over a foot of height on her Go doesn’t think for a minute that’ll stop him from being handed his ass if things get dicey. (Amelie did focus solely on his uninjured side when they met after the last big fight though, so that was… thoughtful? Less brutal than the majority of Rocket?)

The point is, it’s early, there’s no high-level trainers anywhere nearby and a member of Team Rocket is next to him at an Eevee Exhibition. So what should he do?

Go shrugs.

“Want to get breakfast?”

“So,” Amelie asks when they’re sat near a food stand fifteen minutes later, “Why are you here?”

He shrugs, chasing the last pieces of tamato berry around the tray.

“Some of the special entrants in the main exhibition are from Instinct Hatcheries, like that flying-type eeveelution, the dual-type vaporeon and, uh… Dumpling the shiny kit? Do you know about him?”

She nods and - wait, of course she’ll know about Dumpling, given who her boss is. Go’s certain that despite the frequent recorded visits from Mystic One on file at the kit’s hatchery, Leader Blanche themself has never actually set foot in the place.

He continues, regardless. “Because of the ties Instinct have with a lot of the organizers, we- as in, high-ranking Instinct Trainers – got special passes for the event.”

Go’s not entirely sure why he got one, really. Okay, yes, his name is down on paper as Instinct Two, but he’ll be the first to admit that compared to any of Spark’s Elite Four he’s way behind. Why is he here again?

He’s always been good at rolling with the punches, though, literal or otherwise. He’s adaptable.

(In this job, with his boss, you need to be. Otherwise you just might not survive.)

◊

The theory goes:

A standard, purebred eevee with no external influences will evolve in accordance with its environment - one who lives wild by a lake and hunts for food in the water will tend towards vaporeon, habitats of warm homes as cherished pets create sylveon, those raised on spiritual sites or alongside psychics evolve into espeon (and everyone knows not to leave kits near the psychic Gym Leader of Saffron City unless, for whatever reason, you want a rambunctious feline unable to manage its considerable newfound strength back right after).

Even amongst the same species there are further physiological variations. The rare wild leafeon studied in arctic tundra environments have stubby near-black leaves with a waxy finish, slow metabolisms, and a secondary ice-typing. Amongst professional breeders and co-ordinators different leafeon with unusual foliage, such as delicate ornamental leaves or chubby cacti greenery, are a hit. The reigning Kalos Queen making an appearance even has an exquisite rose leafeon as her signature companion - far too finicky for the average trainer, too fragile for regular battling. And yet, much like a wild eevee and its evolution, it’s perfectly adapted for its current environment. 

(Go figure, Go thinks as he takes a high-speed rose to the face at the front of the crowd, Amelie looking suspiciously like she’s trying to hide a smile).

But the environment is only half the puzzle. If exposed to a standard water stone, a wild eevee will undergo rapid evolution into what most would consider a ‘classic’ vaporeon – neck frill, aqua blue colouring, finned tail - even if its habitat is a frozen plain or an electrified cave.

So, as Annie had explained to him over one of the few dinners Spark or Zapdos (is there a difference, really?) hadn’t been able to crash and burn, the leading theory is that the eevee ignores its previous adaptations and rapidly adjusts in order to cope with a sudden influx of energy the stone contains - similar to how other species can go years with no sign of pending evolution but then once exposed to the right conditions, boom, a distressed golem is now stuck in your bathroom. 

“Look,” she’d said, dragging out a tablet from her purse, “The main idea is the stone itself is a strong energy source – the eevee suddenly adapts to this exposure and the energy drives the evolution to completion in seconds, but because most of these stones are similar in chemical composition the final vaporeons are also pretty identical.”

Huh, he’d thought, so that’d been why Mystic had requested a large number of eevee kits a few months before, and why so many of their high-rank trainers had similar vaporeons on their teams now. He’d assumed it was just for the team aesthetic, really, but they must have been adopted out once the research programme had wrapped up.

Annie had continued, nearly knocking over her glass as she’d gestured at the screen.

“But then we’ve got to consider that items such as Razor Fangs and Claws are similar energy sources, or possibly catalysts. We now know certain stones and trading systems count as an energy source because of the thermodynamic profiles, but how does that link to items such as Reaper Cloths? Wild dusknoir and escavalier have to come from somewhere, Go!”

It had been interesting when he’d read over it later, after walking her home – or at least, back to Mystic HQ. Aside from cases such as nidorina and nidoqueen, Instinct typically ignore the evolution status of the pokemon used for breeding to focus mostly on IVs and moves, so browsing Annie’s notes had helped show a whole new side of the story, and they’re a lot easier for a novice to read than Leader Blanche’s, that’s for sure.

There was something similar to this topic in one of his college classes actually - a certain level of energy is required to allow a reaction to occur, catalysts open up different reaction pathways with lower energy requirements, if energy isn’t available from an external source then internal energy will be used instead, and so on. Currently known sources, according to Mystic research, include electromagnetic waves during trading, certain geological features, and – if the ongoing research on eevees is any indication - evolutionary stones as well. So now Annie’s research involves looking at possible wavelengths emitted, triggering the use certain items and further analysis of evolutionary stones. (He winces on Professor Willow’s behalf. Those items aren’t cheap, after all, and Go may no longer a completely-broke student but he won’t be casually dropping ₽10,000 on a stone that will never be anything but powder for a lab experiment.)

Annie always looks so animated when she talks about her research with Mystic One. Guess it helps to have a Team Leader who you really care for.

(Then again Spark, at least, doesn’t need constant reminders to eat or sleep.)

Speaking of which…

“Uh… Leader Blanche and Annie are supposed to be here today. Could you and your boss maybe not blow up the exhibition while we’re all here? Or start a fight? Or steal anything”

Amelie doesn’t even look up from the stall she’s examining. Out of all the locations to spend the morning at, personally Go wouldn’t have picked the shopping village – it’s not even ten in the morning now and it’s already a struggle to get through the crowds. Amelie, however, is both determined and terrifying - so here they are. 

“Mystic One is currently at their headquarters having overslept. Mystic Two is with them.”

Well that’s not at all creepy.

“How do you know that?” He demands.

“Carl told me.”

“Carl, as in-”

That stuck-up dick? is what Go wants to say, but his mouth finishes, “-Valor Two?”

“Yes. We’re acquainted.”

Typical. All said stuck-up dick apparently needs to drop the snobbish attitude, even for someone like Team Rocket, is a terrifying attitude and an above-average bra size. 

(That’s probably unfair, he reflects. There’s one key reason why the two of them will never get along and it’s five-foot-ten, host to a lightning titan and drinks Go’s milk straight from the carton.)

“It’s in everyone’s best interest for there to be no fighting today, don’t you agree? Three of each, please.” Amelie directs the last part at the hovering sales assistant, guarding the stock with the tenacity of a stoutland and the attitude of a houndoom.

Honestly, Go thinks, simultaneously watching the assistant bag all the items and trying to read the labels upside-down at the same time as they’re packed, Carl and Amelie knowing each other well isn’t a bad thing. Especially given the animosity between her boss and Leader Candela - and their combined talents at causing significant property damage.

“Limited Edition Eevee Family… are these socks?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

 “You came all the way to a massive eevee exhibition… to buy yourself socks?”

He looks back at the packaging, the front home to a model in frills sporting sylveon thigh-highs and not much else.

Don’t think about her wearing them, don’t think about her wearing them-

Too late. It’s an amazing image though.

“They’re not for me. I’m here to get them for someone who couldn’t make it.” Amelie says, like she can read minds. Or maybe it was pretty obvious what he was (completely involuntarily!) thinking of.

Hang on, given that there’s one person he knows of who can make Amelie get up at the crack of dawn and wears eevee paraphernalia obsessively…

“So… your boss isn’t here today?”

There’s an unnaturally long pause.

“No,” Amelie finally says. It’s hard to tell with someone as serious as her but for a moment, Go thinks, it looks like she wants to say something more. “No, they’re not.”

“So you did come all this way just for socks?”

She shrugs.

“Lief is also thinking about breeding an eevee-cross meowth at some point, so he’s looking at possible studs as well.”

“Lief?”

“You’ve met him. Green hair, crossbred persians, kicked you in the face last month at the pier?”

Oh yeah, he remembers now. He really needs to try and run into people who are less violent, he thinks.

Amelie takes her receipt and turns to face him. “I’ll see you around, Go.”

“Uh, is it bad if I hope that’s not any time soon?”

He gets a whole smile for that.

[thaisibir]

La Vie en Rose (Bede and young!Opal time travel fic)

La Vie en Rose (Life in Pink)     Rating: T (for character deaths and language)     Chapter 8/10 - Searching For Pink (length: ~7k words)     Summary: Bede doesn’t get why that loony old bat Opal wants him to be the next Fairy-type Gym Leader. To help him understand, Opal has Celebi take Bede back to the time of her youth.

(For other chapters, look up the tag “pokemon la vie en rose” or go to my profile)

When Opal returned to Ballonlea Town to bury Roger and Jasper, she didn’t take time off from her Gym Leader responsibilities or close the theatre. She kept both open, showed up promptly as she always did, and carried on as if she didn’t carry the weight of grief on her shoulders.

Bede knew, however, that her facade fell apart every time she stepped foot inside her house. Her smooth brow and stiff upper lip would crumple, then her Pokemon would run up to her so she could hold on to them for support.

“The hardest part of the day is coming back to an empty house,” she whispered to them.

Empty as in no more Roger and Jasper. The Pokemon were always around, but she would no longer see her husband working on scripts over the dinner table, or hear her son’s laughter fill the house.

“I suppose I better get right on to clearing out their things,” she said, and at that, her eyes filled up with tears.

Opal emptied the closet of Roger’s ties and suits, Jasper’s little shirts, sweaters, and pants. Boxes of toys and picture books became boxes destined for donation. Bede wanted nothing more than to help her—just as he had done for a much older Opal when she desperately needed to clear up the clutter in her house—but being a traveler from another time, all he could do was stand by and watch helplessly as frequent pauses to collect herself and choke back sobs kept Opal from working as efficiently as she could have.

She didn’t clear out everything from the house. She couldn’t bring herself to toss out Roger’s incomplete scripts. Instead she kept them in a plain, unlabeled binder which would sit next to her mother’s manual on Fairy type Pokemon. She stripped the nightstands, counters, and walls of framed snapshots of her family. Pulling the pictures out of their frames and compiling them into stacks, without regard for any sort of order, Opal tucked them away deep in the attic. Bede knew that she wouldn’t be seeing those photos in a long, long time, until he would stumble on them by accident.

“She’s cleaning up the evidence,” Bede said to Celebi, “like she’s trying to wipe out any sign that Roger and Jasper were ever here.”

He wasn’t speaking out of judgment. He knew where she was coming from. When his parents fell behind on their debts, and literally couldn’t afford to support him anymore, they dumped him at the orphanage. The hand-made clothes they left him, their attempt to give him something to remember them by, were insult to injury. The first thing Bede did was chuck his clothes in the dumpster, so that the caregivers at the orphanage had to give him new ones, and he did not talk to anyone for a week.

Once Opal ended the taxing, thankless task and ruefully rubbed at her aching back, she went outside to spend the rest of the night smoking from her armbench. That became her new evening habit. Smoking. No more reading bedtime stories to Jasper. No more bouncing ideas with Roger as he labored over writing a new play.

Holding Celebi’s hand, Bede was taken through a sad, bleak timelapse as Opal sank deep into her smoking habit, burning through up to three packs of cigarettes a day, all from her armbench, and contributing significant weight gain to her Weezing, which ate up the smoky air she’d make. Bede sat down beside her, and though he wouldn’t call himself a hugger, he wanted to give her one now. A frown seemed to set deep into her face, like etching on a stone, and her hooded, unfocused eyes didn’t register the forest’s charm and beauty surrounding her.

One early evening, Randall arrived at her house by car—the same car she had taken to see him at Wynwall. His arrival took her by surprise, but only for a moment, and her eyes returned to distant dullness.

“Evening, Opal.” He tipped off his tophat to her in greeting, then knelt down to her sitting level and took her hands. “How are you doing?”

“Randy, what are you doing here?” She didn’t answer his question. Trying to dodge either an obvious lie or the hard truth, Bede guessed.

Her twin brother made a small smile. “I thought you ought to be the first one to know. Rather than giving you a call or sending you mail, I ought to tell you in person.” The smile lingered on his lips, like good news sat on the tip of his tongue, and when he paused for effect, Opal beat him to it.

“You have a date for the wedding, don’t you? And I’m invited?”

Delight lit up his face. “Why, yes. Sharp as always, Opal. I figured you would know.” Guilt flickered in his bright blue gaze as he turned it from her face to her hands. “I...I almost didn’t want to tell you, because...well...” He trailed off as he stared at the healing scar on her right hand.

With her left, Opal gripped his shoulder. “Congratulations, Randy. Really. All my best wishes for you and your fiancee. I appreciate you coming to tell me yourself. Whenever that wedding is, I’ll be there. What kind of sister can’t come to her own brother’s wedding?” Her smile told Bede of a brave, sincere attempt to muster happiness for Randall despite the grief she wallowed in.

He stood up and turned to sit on the bench beside her, and Bede was quick enough to move out of the way. “There’s something else I need to tell you, too. Marion wants me to move to Kalos with her after we get married. I...I’m thinking of selling the family estate in the process. I wanted to run that through you before I do that.”

“You’ve been in charge of that place for the past five years now. My home is here in Ballonlea, not at Wynwall. Not anymore, not for a long time, anyway. You don’t need my approval.” She tilted her head at him. “I feel like there’s another reason you’re thinking about that, even without your fiancee’s conditions.”

Randall nodded. “The Rose family gets more rich and powerful with each year,” he admitted. “They’re talking big plans—renovating Wynwall from the ground up, mining the region for new sources of energy, and of course, repurposing the Gyms for Dynamax battles.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard,” Opal said. “My Gym’s next for reconstruction soon.”

“It’s just me against an entire family of businessmen, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs. I can’t keep up against them,” Randall went on. “Better to bow out now on friendly terms than go on to become bitter competitors and fight a losing battle. Besides, I fall in love with Kalos more and more every time I visit. It’s time to set my sights on a new land and a new life.”

“Your heart is leading you somewhere else. You should follow it.”

He smiled at her. “I’m beginning to understand why you left Wynwall and came here all those years ago.”

“I wouldn’t trade Ballonlea Town for any other place in the world,” Opal murmured. She stared off in the direction of the trail leading to the cemetery, where her spouse and child were buried.

Randall followed her gaze for a few moments before he went on, “I didn’t come here alone. When I released all the servants from my service, I made sure that they found work or retirement. Most chose to be transferred to the Rose family estate, but there are exceptions.” He gestured at the car, and Bede recognized the elderly gentleman who stepped out.

“Winston,” Opal exclaimed.

He bowed at her, then straightened up with an awkward tug at his collar. “My apologies, ma’am. No longer being a butler will take a considerable amount of adjustment.”

“Winston wanted to move to Ballonlea,” Randall said to Opal. “Proper retirement doesn’t suit him quite yet, so he’d like to work at the mart in the Pokemon Center, or at the inn, or the Dancing Impidimp. You know, somewhere that would benefit from his services. I approved the idea wholeheartedly. I thought you might appreciate having a familiar face around here.”

Opal didn’t quite smile at Winston. Having her family cruelly ripped away had also taken away her ability to properly smile and laugh for five years now. Despite that, fondness for the former butler still showed through her tone. “You are more than welcome to stay. I’ll look forward to seeing you wherever you’ll be working.”

Randall rose from the armbench, tucking the tophat under his arm. “Well, Opal, I’m delighted to hear that you’ll be coming to the wedding.” He froze midway in turning around, and returned to face her. “Ah, I almost forgot. I...” He cleared his throat. “I visited him in prison. He’s wondering if you’ll...” Randall trailed off, unable to finish.

Opal shook her head. “No,” she said in a low, tight voice. “I don’t know if I ever will.”

“I see. I’ll give him my regards the next time I see him, then.”

Bede was sharp enough to figure out that they were talking about Kestrel, who wondered if Opal would ever come visit him. The way they dodged about uttering his name told of how cut off he still was from the family. It had been five years since Roger and Jasper died, so Kestrel was halfway through his sentence. Bede doubted that Opal would ever want to see him around Ballonlea Town again, if he would be released in the next five years.

With a gentle hold of Bede’s hands, Celebi pulled him forward in time to the day that Opal and Randall bid each other farewell at the Wynwall airport.

Randall’s newly wedded wife from Kalos, along with his Pyroar and Boltund, stood respectfully to the side as the siblings shared a tight, long hug.

“Will you really be all right by yourself?” Randall asked.

With her chin on his shoulder, Opal mustered a smile. “I’ve already told you a hundred times, Randy. I’m not alone. I have my Pokemon. They’re—”

“Your family, I know.” He pulled back to hold her at arms’ length and return her smile. “I’ll try to call and write to you as often as I can.”

“Likewise.” Opal beckoned at Randall’s wife to come up, and she held their hands. “Go make the most of your marriage for me, okay? I know I already said this at the wedding, but I want you two to love each other with each day to the fullest. Smile at the smallest things and laugh at each other’s corny jokes. Never go to bed angry. You never know when you’ll wake up and find that it’s too late to say sorry.”

Grief and loss had given Opal weighted wisdom beyond women of her age. Looking at her brother and sister in-law, she was probably trying her hardest to recollect her own newlywed giddiness with Roger. She tried to end on a happier, more hopeful note. “If you ever plan on starting a family, I want to be the first to know.”

Randall pulled her into another hug, tears thick in his eyes. “My big sister, always leaving behind advice more valuable than pearls and golden nuggets.” He chuckled and wiped at his tears. “This is the best advice you’ve given me so far. Every other one was about warning me to stay out of trouble.”

“You better keep a close eye on him, Marion,” Opal said as she winked at his wife. “He used to be quite the troublemaker when he and I were little. He didn’t listen to me about shaving all the hair off our father’s Pyroar, and that earned him a spanking of the century.” She chuckled in what must have been the first time in a long time as Randall sputtered in embarrassment, and Marion put a hand to her mouth in mock horror.

Bede didn’t get to hear more of the conversation as he felt Celebi’s fluttering touch and warm light.

#

Brought back inside Opal’s house, he jumped at the sound of something scattering all over the floor. Something like heavy papers. He peeked into the kitchen to find that Opal had swept a stack of mail off her table. They fell like dead autumn leaves. One letter she had unfolded trembled in her hand, then it crumpled under her grip and she flung it down.

“Are you kidding me?” She burst out. “They could’ve told me in person, or at the very least with a phone call. Not through fucking mail!”

Bede flinched and pressed himself against the wall as she paced between the kitchen and living room swearing up a storm. At Celebi’s prompting, he crept over to the scattered letters and lowered himself on all fours to peer at the one Opal had been holding.

It was legible, and not too crumpled, for him to make out the fine print addressed to Opal from the Wynwall Correctional Institute. He pulled back in shock, almost hitting the back of his head against the tabletop right behind him. “Kestrel hung himself in prison.”

There came a loud, heavy crash as Opal flipped over the coffee table in the living room. Bede ducked under the dining table, hugging Celebi to his chest. He wasn’t alone in his fear of this unhinged Opal. Her and Roger’s Pokemon nearby made no effort to hide it. Alcremie ducked behind a partly open kitchen cabinet door. Mawile fixed its large jaws on the legs of a wooden chair. Togekiss hunched over the sofa, its white feathers puffed out and eyes scrunched shut. Mightyena and Obstagoon pulled back their ears and let out strained growls.

Opal knotted her hair into both fists and sank into the living room sofa with a scream. Her hands slid down to cover her face and she went silent for a while. Finally she lowered her hands to reveal wet cheeks, and horror plain in her eyes, as she took in the mess she had wrought in her house and the Pokemon cowering before her.

“Oh...oh, my darlings, my dears...I’m so sorry.”

Togekiss was the first to approach her by settling into her lap and pressing its soft weight against her. The other Pokemon were quick to join in as Opal held out her arms to welcome them into her embrace.

“I’m terribly sorry to give you all such a fright,” she murmured. “I never thought I’d trash the house and act out like this. I feel like Roger and Jasper took away the best parts of me when they died. You have the misfortune of dealing with the mess I’ve been.” Opal tightened her arms around Togekiss, pressing her cheek against its white feathers. “I was supposed to visit my brother today, you see, but just before I could, that letter from the prison came. Back in Wynwall, when Randy told me that Roger and Jasper had died, I told Kes that I would kill him. And I did.”

Something in her must have snapped that day. That news of her brother’s death was the straw that broke the Camerupt’s back. Since that day, her Gym challenge became a merciless one-sided Gym throwdown.

Bede remembered Opal being always consoling and encouraging to challengers who would lose against her. But here and now, in the darkest time of her life, she would do no such thing for any kid unlucky enough to set foot in her Gym. She spared no time nor mercy for the challengers whose Pokemon were beaten to the ground and League dreams were dashed. She kept a stern tightness about her face and posture, both hands clenched and white over the handle of her parasol. She would make no move or show of sympathy to tears of defeat and humiliation. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Matches against Opal lost their entertainment value. They became plain painful to look at. Rumors and gossip spread like wildfire among spectators.

“Poor kids. They run out of this Gym absolutely crushed.”

“Poor Opal. She’s being like this to the kids because she lost her husband and son.”

“That’s terrible, don’t get me wrong. But if you ask me, I don’t think she should be running the Gym with the way she is now.”

“I can’t watch these matches anymore. No one’s having fun.”

“I heard that the League’s going to do something about that. About her.”

Something or someone had to step in and correct her streak of ruthlessness—Bede hated to admit it, but he had to agree. She was showing no signs of stopping herself, no signs of veering off the self-destructive path she was blazing on. He saw himself, his own pain and rage, in Opal. He wanted to be the one to reach out and stop her before she destroyed herself.

“Of course, in the bid for regional championship, you give it your all and show off your true strength,” Opal once told Bede over tea and scones. “But as a Gym Leader facing challengers with stars in their eyes and dreams flying to the moon, there’s a fine balance between testing and nurturing their potential. You don’t want to be a pushover, but you don’t want to be impossible, either.”

“Sounds tricky,” Bede had said, and that made her smirk behind her teacup.

“It’s an art, my boy, one I know you have what it takes to master.”

Bede had the benefit of coming from the future to know that Opal would return to the art of being a good Gym Leader again. But how?

His question was answered when a black-haired teenage boy stepped up to challenge Opal. Though that boy wore the neutral-colored jersey, he was ablaze with boldness and determination as he sent out an entire team of Fire type Pokemon against her.

The fall of his Arcanine, Torkoal, and Ninetales left him with only Centiskorch, but this didn’t seem to deter him.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Ms. Opal, but your reputation doesn’t scare me,” the teen declared. “You’ve been giving plenty of challengers a hard time. I’ll do my best to turn the tables on you!”

She didn’t respond with a jaunty smile and a witty comeback, as she usually did during matches. While the boy’s eyes were alight with the thrill of battle, hers were dark with bitter anger. She too was down to her last Pokemon—something that Bede and the audience hadn’t seen in a while. Her tightened lips only loosened as she barked orders at Alcremie to attack.

“Alcremie, use Draining Kiss!”

“Here it comes, Centiskorch. Counter with Fire Lash!”

“Alcremie, Acid Armor! Take whatever move’s coming next and get that health back with Draining Kiss!”

The Gym challenger put up a good fight. He set the whole stadium on fire with his tenacity and spirit. Bede could feel it singe the tips of his hair and his skin.

In the end, however, Opal’s experience won out. Against her Alcremie bulked up on its defense, plus her favorite move, the health-sapping Draining Kiss, Centiskorch couldn’t last. Its long body hit the ground with a heavy, undulating thud. The boy took his defeat hard. He sank to his knees and his gaze dropped to the stadium floor. A rousing applause from the spectators jerked him out of his stupor. He staggered to his feet and blinked in a stupefied daze at the show of support for him. Of all the Trainers who challenged the Ballonlea Gym since the loss of Opal’s family, this scrawny kid came the closest to defeating her.

He probably didn’t know that, though. He continued to look glum as he emerged from the Gym after a change of clothes. He was still crying, and he stopped every few steps to wipe his face on his sleeve.

He was about to cross the bridge that connected the Gym to the rest of Ballonlea Town when a slide of the automatic doors revealed Opal.

“You there,” she called to him, “remind me of your name again?”

He whirled around, then dried his face with one more wipe of his sleeve before replying. “It’s Kabu, ma’am.”

“Oh, I thought he looked familiar,” Bede exclaimed to Celebi. “I should’ve guessed from all the Fire type Pokemon he had.”

Opal approached him and jerked her head toward the path opposite of the cottages. “Come take a walk with me, Kabu. You don’t seem like you’re from around here. You should check out how beautiful these trails are. They’re the pride of this town.”

Kabu obliged, clutching at the towel about his neck while jogging up to her. Once he caught up, he matched her stride.

“I guess you’re from Hoenn?” She asked.

The look he gave her was wide with surprise. “How did you know?”

“My husband was from Hoenn. It’s the accent. That’s how I could tell.” Opal shot him a curious glance. “What do you plan on doing now?”

“I was thinking about heading back to my home region since I lost.” Kabu kicked a pebble out of the way, his eyes downcast. “I’ve grown to really like it here. I was hoping to stay in Galar.”

“You may have lost against me, kid, but don’t give up on your Pokemon League dreams just yet. You’ve got potential. Gym Leader potential.”

Kabu almost lurched to a halt in disbelief. “I-I have what?”

“You heard me right.” Opal looked him up and down. “You’re not the one I’m looking for. You’re not pink enough. No, you’re...red. A fiery, indomitable red. The kind of red that refuses to be extinguished, like a fire that doesn’t want to be put out. That was some match we just had back there. You almost gave me a run for my money, you know.” She turned her attention back to the trail ahead of her and resumed walking. “Do you always use Fire type Pokemon?”

“I try to, even though it’d make more sense to have a balance of types. Still, I want to be a Fire type specialist.”

“I see. Then I’ll put in a good word for you to Oswald, the Gym Leader in Motostoke.” She aimed a smirk at him. “He’s hard to impress, but I know that you’ll win him over with your passion, plus a little help from me. I hate to see talent being wasted. You’ll put it to good use through training with good old Oswald, I’m sure.”

“You...you’re endorsing me even after I had lost?” Kabu bowed low at the waist before her. “Ms. Opal, thank you very much for your support.” He lifted his head and tears dotted the corners of his eyes. “How can I ever repay you?”

She smiled. “You already have, Kabu.”

Opal returned to the Gym stadium, which had been cleared of spectators since she had finished her match with Kabu. With both hands propped more loosely over the handle of her parasol, she took in the space and silence of the empty stadium.

“That was quite the match,” boomed a man’s voice from above. “You had me at the edge of my seat, Opal.”

She looked up and smirked. “Oh. It’s you.”

Standing not too far away from her, Bede gasped. “Celebi, I know that guy!”

As someone who was hell bent on becoming a Champion, he had taken it upon himself to know about every past Champion of the Galar region. Of course he knew the man perched on the spectators’ bench. He had just never seen the man in his younger years.

Mustard, the reigning Champion before Leon, jumped nimbly into the arena, followed by his two Urshifus. He straightened up to his full height, which turned out to be a head shorter than Opal. Nonetheless, the strength and confidence emanating from him was palpable to Bede.

Opal quirked a long dark eyebrow. “You didn’t come just to watch things heat up in here, did you?”

Mustard stuffed both hands into the pockets of his green jacket. “Well, no,” he admitted. “I’m here on League orders. You’ve sent enough kids running home crying to get the League’s attention, and not in a good way. I was supposed to warn you if you didn’t let up.”

“Warn me of what? Of being relieved from my Gym Leader post?”

Mustard put up his hands before returning them inside the pockets. “Hey, the committee takes care of all that stuff. I’m just the messenger.”

She smirked. “You were going to warn me with a battle, weren’t you?”

He winked at her. “You know me so well.” He cracked his knuckles. “I don’t talk things out—I fight them out, with my Pokemon!”

“Oh, so you want a match now?” Opal’s hand flitted to the Poke balls strapped to her belt. “Very well. I’m having my best winning streak yet. Maybe this time I got a shot at knocking the Champion off his pedestal.”

Mustard belted out a hearty laugh. “Don’t count on it, Opal. I don’t plan on breaking my winning streak, especially to you.” He chose his rapid style strike Urshifu to take on the first Pokemon Opal sent out: Weezing.

With its telekinesis, Celebi pulled Bede up to safety on the spectator benches. The stadium became alive again with the clash of opposing Pokemon and their attacks. Bede realized that at this point in time, forty something year-old Opal was like the Raihan of her day—a force to be reckoned with, the best among the Gym Leaders, and a worthy rival to the Champion. She was good, but not good enough to beat Mustard.

Despite the type disadvantage, and half the amount of Pokemon, Mustard ultimately won the upper hand and defended his Champion title. Even at Gigantamax proportions, Opal’s Alcremie fell in defeat to blows from his single style strike Urshifu. She withdrew her fainted Pokemon into its ball and handled her loss with a graceful nod.

“You still got it.”

“So do you,” Mustard said. “This is the closest match we’ve had yet.”

Opal hooked the ball containing her ace Pokemon back to her belt. “You know, Mustard, fighting that kid Kabu today reminded me of why I love being a Gym Leader. Finding kids with talent, and lifting them up to fulfill their potential, is a reward in of itself. I used to live for that, but I lost sight of it after Roger and Jasper...” Opal looked away. “Losing my son that young...he was only five. He never got the chance to turn ten and become a Trainer and have his own Pokemon. Meanwhile there are kids running around the region, set loose by their mums and dads to go on all sorts of adventures. Those kids probably don’t know how good they got it, how lucky and blessed they are to just be alive.” Her eyes grew wetter the more she blinked. “That felt so unfair. I would get so angry when I think about it. I took out my anger on all those poor kids coming to challenge my Gym. They didn’t deserve that. I want to tell them sorry for being a bad Gym Leader.”

Mustard closed the gap between them in a few strides and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Opal, you’re not a bad Gym Leader. You’re a damn good one who’s been through hell. I’ve never married, never had kids, so you’re going through pain I can’t even begin to imagine. What I do know is that sometimes it helps to take a step back and take a breather for a bit. Get a few days off from the Gym. Get some rest.” He cracked a wry grin. “You might think that I train myself and my Pokemon by punching rocks all day. But punch that rock too many times and too hard, and you’ll come away broken and bleeding.”

The Champion left Opal with that, and she seemed to consider his last remark as she stared after his retreating back.

#

Since her match with Kabu, and with Mustard, Opal relaxed the standards of her Gym challenge and her own battling style—not enough to be a walk in the park, but certainly not the approach that had steamrolled on the hopes and dreams of children, either.

She cut down on her smoking habit significantly, and forced herself out of the house more often to go on walks with Mightyena, to the grocery store, to the Gym, anything to get her moving.

Through that, she seemed to forgive the world for what it had done to Roger and Jasper. And she seemed to forgive herself, too, for what she had done to Kestrel.

For the first time since the funeral, Opal visited Roger and Jasper at the Ballonlea Cemetery. Though there was no third headstone, she left an extra bouquet of flowers for her unborn, unnamed child. Instead of standing over and before the burial sites like most people would, she would sit down and lean her back against the side of the headstone, and talk aloud as if her family was still alive to hear her.

“Another day gone by with no successor chosen,” she said with a sigh. “The next Gym Leader after me was supposed to be you, Jasper, darling, when you got older. But I suppose we can’t do anything about that now, can we?” Opal reached out with one arm to touch her husband’s name etched on the headstone. “I’m holding auditions, just as I did with you, Roger. I’m not just fighting the challengers, but testing them to see if any of them have what it takes to be a Gym Leader of Ballonlea Town. So far I’ve had no luck. Do you suppose I should lower my standards?” She paused, as if listening intently to a reply Bede couldn’t hear. Then she chuckled. “No, I better not. I’ve never been one to settle for less. That’s how I roped you in to act and sing at the theatre, after all. Speaking of ropes...” The smile died on her face. “I wonder if Kes is with you now, wherever you are. He left a note addressed to me in prison before he...” She couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence. She started another: “The prison sent it to me, but I haven’t opened it yet. I don’t know if I ever could.”

She let out a shuddering sigh, closed her eyes, and fell into a somber silence, which was gently broken when a young red-haired woman approached the graves on soft, tentative footsteps.

“Oh, I didn’t know you’d be here,” the newcomer remarked.

Opal opened her eyes, briefly startled by the voice, but that was quickly replaced with a smile. “Mag, long time no see.”

Magnolia had grown up to cut a smart figure in the white lab coat. No longer the girl Bede had last seen, she now looked every inch the Pokemon professor everyone remembered her to be.

Magnolia bent down to add her bouquet of flowers to Opal’s. “I come every month to leave these,” she said. “I haven’t seen you around until now.”

“Yes, well, this is the first time I could bring myself to visit them.”

“I don’t blame you at all,” Magnolia said with sympathy. Opal continued to lean against the headstone, while Magnolia knelt down and removed her glasses to dab at her eyes. “I think of little Jasper every day. Sometimes I wish I could have visited you all more, be a better godmother for Jasper...”

Opal clasped Magnolia’s hand. “Don’t feel bad, Mag. You’re a very busy woman doing important research and good work for the region. I always appreciated it when you could drop by for a visit and play with Jasper. He absolutely adored you.”

The younger woman dropped her gaze to the burial sites just past her knees. “I still feel guilty. I can’t help but look back and think of the what ifs and should haves.”

Opal closed her eyes and her voice softened to a murmur. “I’m with you there. Sometimes, on the worst nights I can’t sleep, it’s not from nightmares, but from wishing that I had gone with Roger, Jasper, and the baby, so they didn’t have to leave me behind.”

Magnolia returned Opal’s grip with a squeeze.

Opal clearly tried to steer the conversation to a lighter note as she said next, “How’s your family doing back at Wedgehurst? Your daughter’s about to turn four soon, right?”

“Good memory. Yes, I’ve got to plan her birthday party when I get back.”

Opal rose to her feet and brushed bits of grass off her skirt. “Before I forget, come with me to my house so I can give you some of Jasper’s old toys. I say old, but they’re still in excellent condition.”

“My daughter would love that. Thank you.”

Opal and Magnolia left the cemetery together, and as Bede tried to follow them, Celebi led him with both hands not just through the cemetery, but through the currents of time.

Now, instead of Opal leading Magnolia into the house, Magnolia was leading Opal out of it.

“Just tell me already, Mag. Where are you taking me?” Opal asked. “What could be so important?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” the younger woman teased.

Opal’s show of anticipation and impatience made Bede crack a smirk. “She did the same to me. Got a taste of her own medicine back then, huh?”

Bede trailed after them, in the dark as much as Opal was. That is, until he realized the route he was taking. His eyes went wide as he weaved through the dense undergrowth. “Celebi, I think we’re—“

The time-traveling Pokemon nudged him further in the direction Magnolia and Opal had taken, then drew away from him and danced several figure eights in the air.

Bede frowned. “Huh? What are you trying to tell me?”

Celebi pointed after the two women.

“Okay, follow them. And then?”

Celebi didn’t make any more gestures. Instead a brilliant light engulfed it, and was gone in another blink of an eye.

Alarm spiked in Bede’s chest. Where the hell did Celebi just go? Did it just travel in time without him? Did he just get left behind in a time he didn’t belong in? He always had the Pokemon to guide him. Now what? He tried to take in deep, long breaths to calm himself. Celebi made it pretty clear to stick with Magnolia and Opal, but didn’t indicate anything else after that.

All he could do was trust that Celebi would appear to him again, whenever that was. Hopefully soon.

Bede tailed Magnolia and Opal for several more minutes, hoping with each minute that Celebi would come back for him. The two women stopped at a clearing. A clearing Bede recognized, because it was ringed with yellow mushrooms.

Opal looked around with uncertainty instead of familiarity flickering in her pale blue eyes. “Mag, where are we? What’s so special about this place?”

Magnolia didn’t answer Opal’s questions. Instead she produced a handful of cheri berries from her bag and held it out. A few feet before Magnolia’s extended hand, an orb of light materialized out of thin air. And from that light, Celebi appeared.

Everyone in the clearing reacted differently. Magnolia greeted Celebi with a warm smile, Opal gasped, while realization hit Bede like a clout to the head. Celebi traveled through time to meet up with Magnolia and Opal! When it had been accompanying Bede, it remained invisible to Pokemon and people of the past. Now it was present in that past, really present.

Opal evidently struggled to get over her shock. “I-I’ve only heard about this Pokemon in stories. Could this really be...”

Magnolia looked over her shoulder. “Yes, this is Celebi, the Pokemon that travels through time. While conducting research over Dynamax energy in Ballonlea, I stumbled upon this charming, elusive creature. After much convincing with cheri berries and my promises to bring it no harm, Celebi was kind enough to let me study its abilities. It does more than time traveling. It can show you timelines that have yet to exist, or never would. In other words, it can show you the future that could have been.”

“It can really do that?” Opal breathed. She tread on light feet closer to Magnolia and Celebi, who was eating the berries out of her hand.

“Opal, you must have lots of questions,” Magnolia said softly. “The what ifs and should haves. Celebi is here to help you answer those questions. But only if you’re okay with that. I brought you here so you could have the chance to see, but I don’t want to cause you more pain and grief if you’d rather not.”

Opal looked away for a few moments, then back at Magnolia and Celebi with conviction. “I...I want to know. I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if that day had been different.”

Finished with Magnolia’s offering of berries, Celebi flitted up to Opal, who reached out with a trembling hand. “Celebi...please show me the future that could have been,” Opal whispered. “The future that will never be.”

“Bi...” Celebi peered down at the puckered, star-shaped scar marring the palm of Opal’s right hand. It touched the scar with its small hands, tickling Opal as her fingers twitched in response. Celebi raised its hands to touch the dark hair of her temples. It pulled back to draw out a shimmering stream, and flung its hands upward to open that stream into a pool hovering above everyone.

In the depths of that shimmering pool were glimpses of faded images, voices in faded echoes. Kestrel steered his Corviknight, without a drink beforehand, safely to Wynwall. Randall greeted everyone happily at the family estate instead of the hospital. Jasper grew up, and on his tenth birthday, received his first Pokemon: a Togepi. He was showered with hugs and kisses from his parents before embarking on his adventure as a Pokemon Trainer. More years passed. A teenage Jasper won the championship tournament, but chose not to defend his title as he returned to Ballonlea Town homesick and wanting to spend more time with his mother and father. While working at the theatre and learning the ropes of managing a Gym, Jasper met an up-and-coming actor, who he fell head over heels with. A colorful, flowery wedding followed soon after that. There were smiles all around the house when Jasper and his husband proudly presented the baby girl they had adopted. More years passed, more grey found its way into Opal’s hair, and the baby girl grew up into a woman with curly blonde hair and violet eyes.

Bede’s hair and eyes.

“Whoa, what?” He blurted out. “That’s my mum.”

He didn’t care if he sounded like an idiot talking to himself. The pool kept shimmering and unraveling the nonexistent future. That woman, his mother, got married and had a baby of her own. Opal, now white-haired and stooped but still quite spry, was delighted as she got to hold her great-grandchild for the first time. Roger, looking even more wizened and elderly than his wife, leaned in for a better look. She pulled back the blanket to kiss the top of the baby’s head. That baby was Bede himself.

The pool stopped shimmering. It thinned and trickled into a river that ran down between Celebi and Opal to vanish into the grass. No one said anything for a long time. Tears had run unchecked down Opal’s face as she had looked upon a future when the lives of her family were allowed to run their course. When a tragic accident hadn’t cruelly cut them short. Finally, as if broken free from a spell, Opal stirred and wiped a sleeve over her face. Magnolia rested a hand on her shaking shoulder.

Opal lowered her arm to meet Celebi’s large, ringed eyes. “Thank you for showing me all that,” she murmured. “And thank you, Mag, for bringing me here. Some people might’ve not wanted to see a future that can’t be theirs, but I...I feel more at peace now that I’ve seen it. Now I feel like I can move on. Move forward to try and make my own long, happy future.” A thoughtful expression made her brow furrow a bit. “Those people who came into our lives...who’s to say that they won’t exist someday? Maybe I might run into any one of them in a different way.”

“You’re right, Ms. Opal,” Bede said softly. “You’ll see me again.” He noticed how young she still looked at this time, when her hair hadn’t even turned grey yet. “It’ll take you a while, but I know you’ll wait and wait for as long as it takes until you and I find each other.”

Celebi departed from Magnolia and Opal with a flash of light, and with another, it reappeared before Bede. It reached out to touch one hand to his face, and he realized that he too had been crying. Bede sniffed, hiding a small smile behind his sleeve.

“I get it now, Celebi. What she meant by her story becoming mine. Our paths have crossed before. We’re connected way beyond accident and coincidence. Ms. Opal and I...we are so alike. We’re meant to be each other’s family. And I’m meant to succeed her as the next Fairy type Gym Leader.”

“Bi!” The Pokemon nodded in affirmation, happy that the journey through time, as long and difficult as it was, led Bede to this understanding. It made a wide sweep of its arms, as if drawing out a rainbow, then offered its hands.

Bede tried to figure out what it was saying. “We...we’re going back now? Back to the present, I mean?”

Celebi nodded again. Before taking its hands, Bede snuck one last glance at Opal, who stared up after where Celebi had disappeared from her sight. The smile on her face may be faint, but it brimmed with hope.

It was time to head back where he belonged, where he and Opal would see each other again.

Notes: Musical inspiration (especially the future scene): “Time” from Inception. This wraps up Bede’s blast to Opal’s past. On to the final stretch in the present!

[1wngdngl]

Pokemon Shield playthrough - Part 3

In this post, I explore the industrial city of Motostoke, then venture on to Route 3.

Once I enter the town, several new features open up to me. One of them is the ability to collect and create my own “league” card. There seems to be two types - there are player cards, which have your play stats and achievements; and there are NPC cards that have mini-profiles on that character.

I like how many different expressions you can choose from in your league card - they really show how more lively the player models are in this generation.

I also unlock the ability to send Pokemon on jobs. This seems like a good way to raise the endless boxed Pokemon that won’t be in my main party.

With that out of the way, I explore more of the city’s lower level. I like a lot of the design elements in Motostoke, like the different-sized water fountains so Pokemon can drink too.

I got excited when I saw this cafe. But unlike in a normal cafe, where you can buy a drink and relax a while, this one makes you battle. I did get a glimpse of that milky Pokemon that was hinted earlier. I still think it’s probably related to either Polteageist or Alcremie.

One thing I noticed, when I was battling Dynamax raids earlier, is that the moves I was rewarded with were referred to as “TR’s” instead of TM’s. I thought it might have been a typo, but actually they are two different types of items, with TR’s (technical records) being one-use-only like in the old Pokemon games. That makes more sense why they would be given out as a battle reward.

I stop at the clothes shop to buy a new sweater.

I also acquire this “earbuds” item, though I haven’t figured out how to use it yet.

As I approach the main stadium, I see some fans hanging around. Like this guy. There are hundreds of Pokemon he could have dressed up as, but he had to pick a Pokeball instead. Maybe one day he’ll wear a Master Ball costume?

Hop and I register for the Gym Challenge. You can see the two rivals from the trailers in the background.

Before heading to the hotel, I explore the city a bit more. I like the view when shot through this tunnel.

Also, this business uses an Octillery as their mascot.

In this sketchy part of town, I find a TM.

I really like the little hopscotch board drawn on the ground. It makes the city feel more lived-in.

Ah, vending machines at a train station. I have fond memories of these.

This is a pretty cool banner.

I keep fishing, but I only catch Magikarp and occasionally that bitey turtle. Maybe I need to upgrade my fishing pole to catch anything else?

I discovered a shop that sells Gym Challenge uniforms. Given that the list includes the Fighting and Rock uniforms, which are Gyms I don’t have in my version, I’m guessing these are uniforms from the “minor league” Gyms that you don’t actually battle. You can probably unlock the “major league” uniforms when you beat the related Gym.

Finally, at the hotel. There’s a cool statue here that’s obviously related to the legendary wolves. Maybe his sword and shield actually transformed into Pokemon?

My first brush with Team Yell. They don’t seem too tough, although this is another situation that begs the question: “Why don’t they have /police/ that can deal with thugs like these?”

Finally, I get to rest. It’s a nice-enough room, but no private bar?

The next day, I put on my new uniform and get ready to make my debut.

The Gym leaders also line up to welcome in the new “Gym Challenge” season. There’s only seven present - obviously there’s no Dark-type Gym leader, but I’m sure a suitable person will show up during the story, and probably be part of team Yell.

Yeah, I’d be a bit overwhelmed too.

After that brief moment in the spotlight, I’m ready to head out on my journey. Fortunately, I can now use the taxi service to quickly fly anywhere (that I’ve already been, that is ;) )

It’s kinda refreshing to be cheered on like this. In most Pokemon games, you are an anonymous nobody as far as the general public is concerned. Maybe I can develop a fan club of my own?

Finally, I step out onto Route 3. This area is more rocky as it leads toward the mines.

I catch a Gossifleur, and replace Simon the fox. Why? Because I think my bird will evolve into a Dark type, so Simon would be a duplicate type.

Speaking of my birb...

Along the route, I encounter a coal processing plant, which seems to have connections to Chairman Rose - like every other thing in Galar, apparently.

Is Pokemon even /trying/ to hide the fact that he’s a shifty guy? An insanely powerful person that everyone seems to praise? The only question is, /how/ evil will he turn out to be? Is he just a selfish businessman who wants to control all of Galar’s wealth, or are his power plants stealing the life force of Pokemon or something?

Here’s another nice surprise - the Escape Rope is a key item, so you never run out! Now if only it could be used inside buildings...

I catch myself a Roly Coly, and Janis leaves after only a brief stint in the party.

This bug thing this kid was using is really cool, but I wasn’t able to find one myself despite a thorough search along the route. :(

I’m getting really close to the end of Route 3, and to the Galar Mines. You know what that means?

Time to knock off and go do some other stuff for a bit!

First, I go to the salon to update my eyes. I thought about putting literal stars in them...

But this a bit more my style.

Then I updated my trainer card.

This NPC on Route 3 had a tent set up that I was allowed to visit, and all our Pokemon hung out. Her Vulpix can do a pretty mean somersault.

We made curry together...

And of course, she had to brag about her Pokemon.

I also went back to the Wild Area to catch a few more Pokemon there. Amazing how a simple change in weather or time of day can really affect the landscape.

I found this Stufful here which was glowing weirdly, and gave me Watts when defeated. I still think all this stuff about Watts and Dynamax energy has to do with Chairman Rose’s ambitions somehow.

Just for fun, I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to catch a Pokemon that the game said was “too high-leveled” for me. Apparently it won’t even let you try. I guess that’s to keep you from getting one lucky catch of a high-level Pokemon and then steamrolling through the game that way.

A few more pictures of what the Wild Area looks like in the sunlight.

By this point, there were new jobs available, so I took on a few more, and collected my Pokemon from the first job.

I catch a new Dynamax Pokemon...

Found a sneaky TM hiding in a log. What is this, a King’s Quest game?

Also, I went back and found a Roselia right where the other one was, and managed to catch it this time.

Also, my Roly Coly evolved into something much scarier.

Next time - I finally enter the mines, and hopefully find some more Gen 8 Pokemon.

[amaranthinecanicular]

Mob receives a love letter. It’s the duty of the Body Improvement Club to support him.

[Happy belated Valentine’s Day, folks. Originally written for the MP100 Valentine’s Week but not finished in time because of course.

Alternative title card: that one profile pic of Musashi, which reveals that he is a zero at love but a hero at nosiness.] 

Gouda Musashi’s lovelife is, to be frank, nonexistent.

This is fine. More than fine. There are other things to focus on, more important things. The club, and the members that compose it. Muscles. Not flunking out of high school. Squats. Justice. Leg day, which is every day. Even if by some chance he did wish to engage in a teenage romance, there was no one he wanted to receive his affections. Spring of youth or no, Musashi knows that his time is well spent.

That is not to say that he has no interest in love whatsoever. “Musashi!”

Onigawara jogs up beside him. This is a surprise; Musashi dismissed the club ten minutes ago, and though he elected to run for a while longer, he could have sworn Onigawara had retired with the rest of them. Maybe he did–he’s still in his work out clothes, but he’s heaving for breath like he just sprinted to the club room and back. Musashi thinks to slow down for him, but there’s no need; in Onigawara’s eyes is a spark of fierce determination that never dies, and he keeps pace.

More important things, Musashi thinks. In spite of all his demons, in spite of all the cards and boulders and mountains stacked against him, perhaps just in spite and nothing else, Onigawara has persevered. It’s been two years since he joined the club, and even though he’s all but stopped getting into fights, he never really stops fighting. The things he fights are just different now–he fights to improve and he fights to overcome, and these days Musashi can’t look at him without feeling a pang of admiration. More important things. Onigawara is one of them.

He asks what’s up, and waits patiently while Onigawara pants out an answer.

“Shadow… leader,” he says, a nickname of Mob’s he never kicked the habit of using, “got a… he got a… love letter,”

This draws Musashi up short. Jogging in place counts as drawing up short. “A love letter?”

“Yeah. Someone–someone stuck it in his gym locker. Real fancy paper, too, nice handwriting. Asked him to meet behind the school tomorrow, after club ends.”

“Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day,” Musashi says, and if he’s pointing out the obvious it’s only because he’s so shocked. Onigawara doesn’t mention it. The surprise fades; secondhand joy sets in. The hard lines of Musashi's face are not naturally given to smiling but he smiles all the same. It must be a fearsome sight because Onigawara’s gaze barely touches him before it skitters away again. He coughs into a fist like he tried to regain his breath too fast, and Musashi wipes his face clean and channels his positive energy into lifting his knees higher. He doesn’t mention it either.

Instead he says, “Kageyama deserves congratulations,” and Onigawara meets his eyes again to nod.

“Figured you’d say that. That’s why when everyone else was patting Shadow leader’s back, I came to get you.”

He’s smirking–it matches well with the way he finally stands straight and puffs out his chest. Musashi is touched by Onigawara’s thoughtfulness, but before he can thank him a thought occurs: Mob has not received a love letter since middle school The first one was a trick played by Onigawara; the second was a trick played by a girl called Emi. Musashi frets. What if it’s another trick? What if it isn’t? Will Mob know what to do? Over the years he’s seen Mob grow, exponentially and in more ways than one, but he has never had the best luck with romance. And tomorrow is Valentine’s Day—surely that makes preparation all the more complex. Which doesn’t even touch the question of who.

“We should help him,” he says, and Onigawara blinks his eyes into twice their size. He grins, tells Musashi it’s a great idea, and then, remembering he’s meant to be scowling, grumbles, “It’s alright, I mean.” He looks embarrassed to have been caught out being sincere. Musashi doesn’t mention it.

The others are waiting in the clubroom to fill Musashi in; apparently, despite Onigawara’s efforts, they missed Mob by a handful of minutes, so the club extended Musashi’s congratulations for him. In return Musashi tells them about the plan to help out Kageyama out tomorrow. They are… less enthusiastic than he thought they’d be.

He crosses his arms over his pecs and flexes. “I’m sensing some reservations. Care to tell me why?”

Kumagawa runs one hand through his mohawk and says, “Isn’t it Kageyama’s business?”

“Yes, and as his fellow club members it’s our business too.”

They exchange glances. Musashi realizes he’s missing something. “What?”

“Well,” says Shimura, who elbows Yamamura, who elbows Kumagawa, who elbows Sagawa, who says, “You can be kind of nosy, Captain,”

He says it very gently, like he’s breaking the news of some great secret, which is absurd. Musashi doesn’t say that it’s absurd because that would not be befitting of a captain, but he does correct him, exactly as stern and patient as does befit a captain.

“I’m not nosy. I’m attentive. The wellbeing of every member of this club is my responsibility.”

“Even of their love lives?” says Yamamura.

“Especially their love lives,” Musashi wants to say, except he doesn’t, because Yamamura’s dubious tone makes him suspect that would be unwise. Instead he says, “Kageyama is an invaluable member of this team. It’s our job to support him.”

No one looks particularly convinced. No one except Onigawara, who bulls his way to Musashi’s side and thrusts his brow down and his shoulders forward. Suddenly it’s two against four instead of one against the world.

“I’m with Musashi,” he says. “Shadow leader’s putting his heart on the line and you losers want to let him go into battle alone? How the hell does not having his back make any sense?”

He challenges them with his scowl. He doesn’t need to—Musashi can see as his words take effect, begin to turn the minds of the club one by one. Yes, Mob had always been there for them in his soft and steadfast way, had always given all of his effort, and he would be more than willing to lend his hand, powers, and friendship during a romantic crisis of theirs, wouldn’t he?

This time the level of enthusiasm meets what Musashi originally expected. Onigawara flashes him a private grin, there and gone, and he swells with pride, and stands a little taller.

“You want to help me?”

Mob’s surprise shows in little ways, the slight uptick of both brows and the slackening of his mouth. He stands in the club room dressed in his work out clothes and still clutching the letter, which Musashi can now confirm is, yes, tucked into a very nice envelope with very nice handwriting. He wonders if Mob has let it go since yesterday.

“To formulate a plan of attack,” clarifies Onigawara, which isn’t the phrasing Musashi would have chosen but works just as well. Mob considers it. Into the silence filters the white noise of other clubs getting started: band practice in the music room down the hall, whistles blowing from the track and fields outside. The sounds are cheerier, the rooms seem to glow–a result of adolescents in the throes of Valentine’s Day, Musashi knows, though he has never empathized. The overall feeling he’s gotten all day is pink: pink roses passed from boys to girls, pink hearts exchanged and received, pink in the sky, even, as the sun begins to sink. It’s there in Mob’s cheeks, a faint rosy hue as he comes to a decision.

“Thank you all for thinking of me,” he says, sincerity shown through his crinkled eyes if not his smile. “That’s very nice of you. But I think I can handle it.”

Musashi manages not to show his disappointment. “If you’re certain,” he says, and thinks that It’s too bad Onigawara’s work to bring the club around will go to waste. But even he can admit that if Mob doesn’t want their help then it would be wrong to push it.

Mob is still talking, thoughtfully. “I think so. It’s not first time I’ve been confessed to, so I think I know what to say. Though, I guess the first time was just a trick by Onigawara-senpai.” Onigawara slouches even closer to the floor, which is a feat. He slouches a lot. “But the second time—well, I guess that was a trick also, because Emi lost a bet. Um. B-But I made a friend that time, too, so, um. So.” Now the flush is making him look vaguely ill. He’s certainly sweating like he’s ill. “Maybe. Maybe I could use some help.”

Musashi nods once and tries not to look too glad of it. He turns to the club: they square up, crack their knuckles, bright eyed and ready to help. “All right, boys. We need ideas for what Kageyama will do if he decides to accept or decline his admirer’s affections. Do you have any idea who this person might be, Kageyama? Not that you have to tell us if you’re uncomfortable. We respect your privacy, of course,” he adds, not at all hastily and not at all because he’s nosy. He can feel the club side-eyeing him and refuses to look at any of them.

Mob does look a little uncomfortable, but also like he’s panicking, and eager for help. That side wins out. “I think… I think it might be Teru,”

The name rings familiar, but not familiar enough for Musashi to place it. The rest of the club seems to be feeling the same. Mob is too busy twiddling his thumbs to elaborate. Onigawara is busy gaping.

“Teru?” he squawks. “As in Black Vinegar High’s shadow leader, Hanazawa Teruki?”

“Ex-shadow leader,” Mob corrects, seemingly on instinct. Then he blushes. “And yes, that Teru.”

The grainy image in Musashi’s mind snaps into clarity: a lithe boy in the bruisey colors of Black Vinegar Mid, blond and blue-eyed, with incredible strength that belied his appearance. He could never forget such exceptional musculature.

“You walk home with him sometimes,” says Shimura, and yes, Musashi remembers that now too. The neutral lines of Mob’s expression seemed to soften, just a little, whenever he met Hanazawa at the school gates. They’re softened now. This would explain why.

“Oh my god,” says Onigawara. “Oh my god. You two would be the ultimate power couple—you could rule the whole prefecture. Oh my god.” Musashi coughs pointedly, and Onigawara remembers that he is no longer a delinquent. He still looks a little starstruck.

“He’s very special,” Mob agrees. He’s smiling–really smiling, with his mouth and not just his eyes. Musashi doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it. “I care about him a lot. I don’t want to screw this up.”

Not on Musashi’s watch. “You won’t. We’re here to support you and make sure of that.”

So they start spitballing ideas. Yamamura suggests Mob sing a song to express his feelings. Kumagawa suggests he make chocolates and a card, to show that Hanazawa is worth the effort. Shimura suggests he draw a puppy on the card, because puppies are the best. Sagawa suggests just speaking from the heart. This is seconded by Onigawara. But Mob has no talent for art, no time to make chocolates, and the likelihood of him freezing up in the middle of a song is too high. In the end, after much debate, Sagawa’s idea is the one that sticks. (Personally, Musashi likes the puppy option, but he is willing to concede that he is less than an expert in the field of romance.) Composing the most eloquent way for Mob to express his feelings is harder, and the gentlest way to let the confessor down if it turns out not to be Hanazawa is harder still, but they manage. For optimal productivity, they lift weights at the same time.

In no time at all club hours are over. The shadows have grown long with the setting sun and Mob, armed with two separate speeches jotted on flash cards, a storebought box of chocolates (courtesy of Shimura, who dashed down to the nearest convenience store and back and sacrificed the perfect coiffe of his hair in the process), the original letter and six pillars of support, he sets out to meet his mystery admirer. By the wobble of his knees and the sweat clinging to his brow Musashi would say he still looks like a man on his way to the gallows. But there are other tells too–the perpetual color in his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes–and Musashi thinks, mostly, he just looks excited. Happy.

Out of the school, around to the back. Kumagawa sees him first, being the tallest among them, and points him out to the rest. Hanazawa is exactly where he said he’d be: framed by the school on one side and the treeline on the other, backlit by the sky. He catches sight of them–of Mob–only seconds later, and the friendly smile he’s sporting visibly brightens into something genuine. Mob makes a very particular sound to see it, something between a pleased hum and the dying croak of a bullfrog. Musashi thinks he can hear the frantic hummingbird-patter of his poor heart making a break for it.

Mob trips his way up to Hanazawa while the Body Improvement club pretends to walk away and then piles together behind a tree. Who’s nosy now, Musashi thinks, but doesn’t say. He’s straining to hear what’s going on as it is.

“Hello, Hanazawa-kun,” Mob says, his voice crackling over each word, and Hanazawa says it back–oh, his voice broke too, that’s actually precious.

“Hello, Kageyama-kun,” Hanazawa says again, looking only mildly mortified, and this time manages to keep his tone even. “Are you surprised to see me?”

“Not really. I thought maybe you liked me for a while, but I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. I guess I wasn’t,”

Hanazawa’s pride takes a visible hit at Mob’s bluntness–Musashi feels a sympathetic wince ripple all through their party–but he rolls with it admirably. More than admirably. The expression on his face is too raw for admiration, too tender. “I shouldn’t have expected you to be. You really are amazing. Here.”

They exchange chocolates, Hanazawa smoothly and Mob fumbling. Hanazawa says he’ll cherish it, tucks it away, and then holds out his hand—a question. Mob, looking confused, drops the letter into his palm in answer, and Hanazawa chuckles, reaches out with his other hand to weave their fingers together as clarification. Mob stares down at the delicate knot made of their hands, and Musashi can no longer see his expression.

“Kageyama-kun,” Hanazawa starts, “I—”

“Yes.”

Hanazawa chokes on his tongue. The Body Improvement Club collectively chokes on each of theirs. Mob’s brain catches up with the breathless intensity of one word that fell out of his mouth.

“Ah, wait, I did it all out of order. I had. I had things prepared to say, and so did you, and I interrupted you. Oh no. I’m sorry. Um. Do you—do you want to start over? I didn’t ruin it, did I?”

“Did you say yes?”

Hanazawa’s tone of awe makes Mob duck his head, and the duck becomes a nod. He says, almost too quiet to hear, “Yes. Um. Are you saying yes?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, yes,”

“Then—then are we…?”

“I think so. Are we?”

“Yes. Can we…?”

“Yes,”

Mob kisses him, a quick and earnest press of lips, and Onigawara whoops. Four sets of hands slap over his face at once. Mob and Hanazawa take no notice; the kiss has ended but their foreheads are still pressed together, they’re levitating an inch or two off the ground, they’re giggling and they’re smiling—Musashi thinks they’re smiling, but his vision is too blurry to tell. He’s surrounded by suspicious sniffling, though, so he doesn’t feel particularly bad about it.

The okay for cheering is given when they touch back down. Mob whispers something into Hanazawa’s ear; Hanazawa laughs, nods, kisses Mob’s cheek, then starts to make his way round to the front of the school; there’s a definite spring in his step. Mob watches him go with a tender look that melts back into shyness when he turns to the club and gives a little thumbs up.

They explode from behind the tree, tripping over their own feet and each other to dogpile Mob, take turns ruffling his hair and lifting him into hugs and slapping him on the back.

“I’m sorry I forgot all of your advice,” Mob says between jostles, “I got nervous and eager and confused and I didn’t know what to do-”

“You did great,” Musashi says, to a fervent chorus of agreement. He knows his face isn’t the kind for smiling but he honestly can’t help it. “Where did Hanazawa go?”

“I told him I’d meet him at the front gates, after I was done speaking to you.”

Some playful coos. Sagawa might be crying. “Then we’ll walk you to the gates and he can walk you the rest of the way. Come on.”

The parade starts again. Shimura and Yawamura lift Mob onto their shoulders, and Musashi is just thinking that this might be the most successful Valentine’s Day he’s ever experienced when Onigawara calls his name.

“Can you hang back a minute? I’ve got something to say to you.”

He looks unhappy–or maybe not unhappy. Maybe anxious. He didn’t a minute ago, and why should he? The plan went off without a hitch–minor hitches, inconsequential hitches–but here he is, chin jutting out and cutting down, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shadows carving deep pockets beneath his eyes. Concern bubbles up in Musashi’s gut, and all thoughts of romance flee his mind. There are more important things.

He sends off the rest of the club without them and ignores their curious eyes. And they called him nosy. “Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing’s the matter. Why would something be the matter? Can’t a guy just wanna talk to another guy? What’s the matter with that, huh?” He cuts himself off at Musashi’s raised brow, screws up his face, screws up the words in his mouth. “Ugh, sorry, that’s not what I meant to say.”

He takes a breath–Musashi breathes too–and says what he means to say.

“There was a girl, back during all that recorder crap. She told me–when we were kids, she told me she was gonna marry me. I thought if anyone would believe me it would be her. But it wasn’t. It was you.” 

“You’ve, uh, you’ve done a lot for me the past two years, even when I was being an ungrateful little shit and didn’t deserve it,”

Musashi blinks. This… isn’t what he expected this to be about. “Don’t sell yourself short. You were the one who chose to change and followed through, and you were never once ungrateful.”

Onigawara looks furious, and maybe embarrassed. “Oh my god, shut up. Do you have to be so–so fucking you all the time?”

Definitely embarrassed. Musashi’s mouth twitches. “I think I always have to be me, yes.”

“No, nope, shut up, I was talking and I don’t need your once-in-a-blue-moon sense of humor fucking this up. I was saying. I was saying, that I used to be an ungrateful little shit–do not interrupt me, I swear to god–and I don’t want you to think I’m still the same ungrateful shit I was back then, so. Fuck. So, here.”

He pulls one hand from his pocket and shoves a box into Musashi’s chest. Resting on the pink tissue paper within are slightly misshapen, undoubtedly homemade, and undeniably heart-shaped chocolates. His brain short circuits. “I–Onigawara, is this–?”

“Tenga,” Onigawara says. “Call me that from now on. If you fuckin’ want to, I guess.”

Pink rises into Onigawara’s cheeks like the dawn, and Musashi remembers, very suddenly and very unhelpfully, that they are both only sixteen. He has no idea what the hell he’s doing.

“Thank you,” he says, because he’s a fucking idiot. If looks could kill Onigawara would be a murderer. Musashi wants death. “I mean. I mean thank you for the chocolates, and yes, I will call you that.”

They stare at each other. Onigawara’s face is practically glowing, with sweat and anger and with–happiness? Is that happiness? If Mob’s heart was a hummingbird then Musashi’s is a sledgehammer, pounding away in his throat, and he thinks he might look the exact same. Does that mean he’s happy too?

He thinks that’s what that means, so he says so, and Onigawara’s eyes go wide, and then he punches him.

It’s almost a relief. This is much more along the lines of what he expects from Onigawara, except no, he was mistaken, it’s not a punch at all. It feels like a punch because everything about Onigawara feels like a punch–he’s so brutally passionate about everything he does, Musashi has never seen anything like him, he barrels forward and never looks back, with a glare like an uppercut and a smile like a left hook and a kiss like a haymaker. Because that’s what he’s doing now, kissing Musashi’s cheek with bruising force, and ding ding ding Musashi is down for the count. KO. Match over.

Onigawara shoves him away, almost gently, and immediately turns and stalks off. Musashi would say it’s more of a dead sprint if he had the capacity to think at all, let alone identify exercise techniques.

“I like you,” he blurts out after him. Onigawara—Tenga—stops, turns, and smiles. Left hook, utterly devastating. How unfair to hit a man while he’s down.

Tenga says, “You damn well better,” and then he does run. As soon as he’s out of sight the rest of the Body Improvement Club spills out from where they’d been eavesdropping behind a tree, while Musashi is left trying to blink stars from his eyes. They don’t want to go.

“Way to go, Captain,” says Kumagawa, and “Looking good, Captain,” says Shimura. Yawamura says something similar and Sagawa doesn’t say anything because he’s crying a little. Mob nudges him.

“Congratulations, Captain,” he murmurs. His smile is a soft curve on his face, except for right there at the very corner, which is just a little sly. Musashi has no idea what the fuck is going on or what the fuck just happened, but he thinks, maybe, his love life is not as dead as he thought it was. Not by a long shot, apparently.

And that’s–that’s fine. Musashi thinks he might have some dopey expression on his face and he doesn’t care. The club is still clapping him on the back, punching him on the shoulder, congratulating, smiling. The stars are still in his eyes and the chocolate is still in his hands and the whole world is dyed pink. It’s more than fine.

(“Am I really that nosy?” he asks, not too many days later. He’s appreciating the new pages of the manga Tenga has been sketching in his free time, though he loses his place in favor of nursing his pride at the answer. 

“Duh. You could give that damn student council a run for their money.” 

Musashi wilts; Tenga barks a laugh. But he adds, “Besides, if you weren’t so nosy I would’ve never joined your stupid club at all.” And Musashi thinks, well. Well, in that case, being nosy isn’t all that bad.)