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pokeexehasstoppedworking · 3 years

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Love Doesn’t Do Encores Ch11 Back To Motostoke

(Warning: Contains another fight between younger reader's mom and herself in a flashback. It was pointed out that I accidentally posted the wrong chapter by mistake. My apologies to my tumblr readers, Ill see to it this won’t happen again. Here’s the missing chapter for the events between Chapters 10-12. Enjoy.)

To say you two had a long night when you got back to your hotel room was an understatement. The boys jumped at the first chance they got asking Gloria how the dinner went to which she just let out a long drawn out 'Uuuuuhhhhh' and you had to cut in saying that he had just asked her about the gym battle and her day. Which she seemed thankful about you doing to save her the trouble. Luckily neither seemed too miffed about Glory getting to dine with THE Chairman Rose apparently, you certainly didn't enjoy the experience other than the free meal. You changed the subject by asking Hop when his battle was to which he proudly stated tomorrow. Alright! Seemed cleaned cut enough......Surprise, surprise it wasn't. The four of you ended up having to stay another two days instead for the one you all planned because Hop had lost the first battle with Nessa, visibly upset about the entire thing. Quite understandable. But to your surprise once meeting him outside the stadium he seemed...rather happy. Quickly finding out the reason not only because Nessa have him her ultra rare league card as compensation but that she offered to battle him again a second time first thing tomorrow morning to which he quickly agreed to. So the four of you agreed to spend another night in Hulbury. The next morning the four of you left bright and early for the stadium and after waiting for Hop to redo the gym challenge again, watched him battle Nessa for a second time. It was intense. It was stressful. And it was certainly rough on both parties. But you were SO glad Hop was able to win! Not only because you wanted him to win, but because you didn't want to spend another day in Hulbury. It was a close one too. With Hop winning two out of the three rounds but it was a good enough score to earn the badge! And he was proud to show it off as well when the three of you managed to meet up with him again outside the stadium by the Hulbury lighthouse.

He had smiled instantly shoving the bronze-golden badge out to you three with the same patterns that was on Gloria's water badge. "LOOK!! I FINALLY GOT IT! And on my second try too! Pretty good huh?"

"You were so cool out there!," Gloria excitedly complimented him smiling widely. "Now we're all caught up!"

"Doesn't make us less rivals y'know!"

"...Hey. Speaking of gym badges," you cut in gaining their attention as you gestured towards the badge in Hop's hand. "Do you guys know which gym you wanted to go to next?" You were really itching to get out of Hulbury by this point and just wanted to GO.

Gloria opened her mouth to speak but Hop beat her too it making all of you look back at him. "Actually, I have one on my mind."

"What is it?"

He turned to Gloria. " All right, Mate. You've got both the grass badge and water badge by now right?" She nodded confused. "In that case, we're both headed for Motostoke and the fire gym leader Kabu!"

All three of you stared shocked at him. The twins seeming at something else, and you because MOTOSTOKE. As in the city you all started in?! Hop wanted all of you to walk back ALL the way there to challenge a gym leader!? WHAT-

"What!? We have to go all the way back to Motostoke for that?!"

"KABU!?", both the twins yelled at him and you rose a brow at their reaction.

"....Ok. I feel like this is the part where someone tells me more about this gym leader."

With a slightly worried look Victor turned to you. "Kabu is the Galar Region's Fire Type Gym Leader and his gym's in Motostoke. He's also the only gym leader who's not from Galar himself."

"He's also the SECOND most powerful gym leader behind Raihan," Gloria jumped in frowning, "If Raihan and Leon weren't in the picture he could've easily gotten the title of 'Galar's Strongest Gym Leader' or the Champion itself. He's been known to make a whole bunch of trainers quit the entire gym challenge as a whole because they couldn't win against him." She turned back to Hop raising a brow. "Which begs the question on why do you want to go there next of all places?"

"Nessa suggested I go there actually." She did? That sure surprised you. "She said if I wanted more of a challenge for myself then he'd be a good canidate to battle before we reach Raihan. I thought it would be a great idea to challenge myself even more!"

.....Gloria hummed. "Actually you might be onto something. We can't get stronger unless we push ourselves..." She smiled. "Ok! Count me in too!"

"I think the both of you are in over your heads." Victor sighed. "But if that's where you wanna go then fine. We can take the train."

You felt internal relief you wouldn't have to walk again, but that begged the question. "Exactly how long would it take to get back there?"

"About another month by walking. Two weeks by corvinight taxi. And five days by train over nights too."

"Yeah..We're taking the train this time."

There was one tiny problem with that notion tho. The morning train had already passed so the four of you had to wait in the shade of the train station for at least another two hours until the afternoon train came rumbling up to the station at last! As nice as this place was, you wanted to leave as soon after you and Gloria attended the dinner with the Chairman and his assistant. After hearing he had come there often enough to have 'a usual' dish you didn't want to accidentally bump into them again especially after what you did and getting the off feeling about them. It was too weird, so you were glad to get on the train. You were slightly afraid you wouldn't be able to get on without paying but luckily you slipped through the bars quickly behind Gloria after she scanned her train pass in the slot and piled on inside with the rest of the kids and a few other people who either got on too or were leaving.

"Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. We will be leaving Hulbury Station in five minutes. Please gather all your belongings and exit or enter accordingly. Next stop shall be Nester Town. Thank you for using Galar Transportation for your traveling needs," a man's voice came through the speaker over head and you gave it a raised brow. You had to remember there was more than one town in Galar since now it wasn't just a game. ...In fact with how big this region was, it must've been home to millions of people like a region back in your world.

The four of you all settled into the train cars and gotten yourself situated into one of the seats with the table between them. The twins on one side and you with Hop facing them as you sighed into the soft seat cushions. It would be nice not having to walk somewhere for once at least. You also assumed Sonia must've had the same idea about taking the train outta here because you hadn't seem her since she excused herself and ran out from the dinner about two days ago now. Oh well. Where ever she was, you were sure she was fine. After all you slightly remembered her reappearing later in the game too, so if events were going as they were in the original game then you would most definately see her again soon. But for now you sighed content to just tug off your backpack and leave it on the floor at your feet, your sobble taken residence on the table between you all, and you just leaning back into your seat and looking out the window waiting for the train to start moving again. Not really paying too much attention to what the others were talking about-

"How about I share with you a little tip about that leader, Kabu?" Your eyes blinked back over to Hop who was glancing at his phone you assume reading something. "From what I heard, he's holed up now in Galar Mine No. 2 undergoing special training."

"What?!," Gloria gave him a look. "He's underground while the gym challenge is goin' on? What kind of gym leader does that?"

"If he's in there then we can't take him on in Motostoke even if we zip right over there, putting the breaks on our gym challenge!"

"That's what I literally just implied....Wait. How long has he been in there?"

"Uh.." Hop quickly flipped through his phone's screen. "According to this...since about three days ago."

"WHAT? Who trains in a cave for three days straight? ...What if he's not out by the time we get there? We'd be waitin' for days by that point!"

"....So I say we head to galar mine no. two ourselves!," Hop decided lowering the phone from his face. "Let's go see what all the fuss is about!"

"Uh-...NO!!" All three teens looked at you as you frowned and crossed your arms in a stern pose. "No. No. HECK NO!! I went through one mine thank you very much and was almost caught by miners chasing us because someone wanted to take a short cut. We can go and wait for him like every other person."

"...You did what!?"

"Actually Galar Mine Number two is open to the public since it's naturally a part of the Wild Area," Hop explained ignoring Victor's earlier question. "It's full of a lot of water pokemon since it's connected to an underground spring. You can also find a couple Wishing Stars if you're lucky. ..Huh. Maybe that's why he went there?"

Unconvinced you rose a brow but sighed and leaned back into your seat just as the train gave a small little lurch before slowly beginning to pull away. The kids going back to talk among themselves about mines and gym leaders. Despite not walking, you had a feeling this was going to be a long trip back to Motostoke. ...And you weren't wrong either. The world went past as the train moved along as a rapid pace, the town of Hulbury quickly disappearing from view as it did. Replaced by nature and forests, and the distant view of the ocean side within a matter of minutes. As the talking of the kids and other passengers chatting in the distance continued you pressed your forehead to the window and closed your eyes. Peace allowing you to drift off for the moment as for once you had no worries and nothing weighed on your shoulders, so you got a well deserved break for once. The next five days for the four of you were a bit uncomfortable but managable. A lot more managable than camping at least. When night fell you four decided that you'd take the two empty seats across the small walk way from the four of you so each of you could have one place to sleep comfortably(or as comfortable as you could sleep on a train) and would take turns staying up to make sure none of you missed the stop at Motostoke. Or in case something else happened. Victor volunteered to stay the first night up that rolled around which you were thankful for and the other three of you slept. The next morning you woke and you were greeted with the sight of Victor barely awake leaning his head against the table. Guess he kept true to his word. He only had time to east a couple things Gloria shoved into his hands from your food rations into his hands before he ended up falling asleep leaning against the wall. You felt a little guilty for letting him stay up for so long but it was for a good reason. The second day went as well as the first. The train rode on, Victor slept most of the day away only waking up around sunset before going back to sleeping again that second night, Gloria excitedly showed you the battle between herself and Nessa from the League's official website as well. You watched and had to agree with Gloria that it was a very close call. Managing to defeat Nessa in the first round, losing the second, and then just BARELY winning the third. Good thing it was a good enough score to pass. She was certainly stronger than Milo from what you'd seen. When it came the second night Gloria ended up volunteering to stay up that time stating that she'd use her favorite videos of the League's past battles to keep her up as she always stayed up and never missed a detail when she did watch them. This being confirmed by Victor who looked a little worried over that but was too tired from last night to argue and it was agreed. Day three rolled around and it was the same as the first two. Only this time Gloria spent most of the day leaning against a slightly annoyed Victor snoring. Did she always snore? You must've been too deep in sleep to notice before now, at least Hop found his friends' situation amusing. And then guess who got volunteered by Victor to stay up that night as revenge for laughing at him. Hop wasn't very amused after that. And thus the fourth day came and everyone was awake minus poor Hop who laid upon one of the empty seats during most of the time there. But it was a matter of fact your turn to keep watch as they all slept and agreed without hesitation. After all it was only fair. During the entirety of the trip so fair you all rationed out the food you bought from Hulbury whenever hungry, and walked up and down the walk way between all the train seats if you needed to stretch your legs. Many people coming and going and sometimes giving the one taking up a whole seat to sleep a strange look before moving on. The conductor announcing each stop and as you all came to it. So far none were Motostoke but it was only a matter of time. That night you stayed up as slowly one by one the kids and your sobble fell asleep leaving you the only one awake as the sun set and was replaced with the moon and stars in the silent night. The dark nature of forests and meadows flew by quickly only with the occasional town or house in the countryside lighting up the landscape. It was actually rather peaceful and beautiful. You could almost fall asleep. And you almost did quite a few times but you managed to jerk yourself awake each time. Gloria had offered to let you stream some shows on her phone just as she had done before but you had declined the offer.....Maybe you should've accepted because your eyes slipped closed once. And once again like in your dreams you were back home. A much younger you. Around Gloria's age of fifthteen or so. You were playing a game. The whole surroundings were fuzzy..as if you were seeing everything through a foggy telescope, being able to see things but being too blurry to see much of the finer details. Younger blurry you looked up just as angry footsteps stomped their way towards you and whatever game you were playing. BAM!! With a loud bang your door was flung open hitting the wall and younger you jumped to your feet as the blurry form of your mother standing in the doorway. Even if her face was blurry you could tell she was very angry.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU!?" She shouted angrily as you dumbly stood there. Even as she stomped over and swiped the controller from your younger self's hands. "I told you to study for your year's finals and what do I find!? You playing these stupid games after I slave away at a minimal wage job that barely covers the bills as it is!! Do you want the electricity bill getting higher!? Do you not want to get into a good college!? No daughter of mine is going to be stuck with her mind in the gutter from these dumb timewasters!!"

"HA!"

Your head snapped up colliding with the cool window of the train which in turn made you curse out as your hands instinctively shot up to clutch at where you hit your head. Groaning and looking around, it took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the dark again....And you sighed in relief seeing the sleeping figures of the kids and your sobble sleeping facedown on the table. Your hand went from rubbing your head to rubbing your face as you let relief wash over you....A dream...It was just another dream thank goodness. But one you weren't keen on revisiting. Safe to say you didn't fall asleep again that night, nor did you the fifth day despite the kids insisting you at least take a powernap before you arrived but again you refused dodging the questions and eventually they dropped it but kept giving your very tired form worried looks every so often. The day was a blur as you kept drifting in and out of small sleeping spells until nodding off that fifth night, barely remembering Victor volunteering to stay up a second time for that night before completely nodding off into a thankfully dreamless slumber.

"AH!! Y/N WAKE UP!!"

"AH!" Once again as if fate thought it'd be some funny joke, you ended up hitting your head against the window...again...and once again you cried out and clutched your head. The only difference this time was that someone was dragging your half awake butt out of the seat as your brain barely registered what was going on as you barely managed to stumble to your legs getting dragged out. Another person grabbing your other arm and pulling along with whoever was already making your barely upright body hurriedly stumble down the walk way of the train. Your brain began to finally catch up and you realized the two who were pulling your staggering form was Hop and Gloria with your sobble desperately clinging to her enormous backback. By the time you fully registered what was going on they already had you stumbling into what could only be the inside of a train station. "What the-"

"You couldn't have woken us up?," Gloria barked at someone and you blinked over tiredly where she was looking as Hop ushered your staggering form over to one of the seats. Took you a moment to realize that it was Victor who was sluggishly putting his grey beanie back on his head.

"M' sorry," he tiredly mumbled. Judging by the bags under his eyes and the tired look he gave, he was in need of some sleep. "I guess I must've dozed off when we passed the station in Motostoke."

Your blood ran cold as you stared at him and Hop made you sit down. Passed Motostoke!? Any sleepy feelings were mostly dashed out at the spike of concern. How far were you away from Motostoke then!? Were you going to have to walk a long way back there!? Take another train back!? Were you going to miss the chance to battle Kabu?!

"Actually this is better than stopping in Motostoke."

.....The three of you turned to Hop as he smiled. "....Excuse me?"

"Yeah!" He pointed towards the outside of the station. "Mine Number two is located just out of Motostoke right? We're back in the Wild Area. Which means we can go to the mine sooner and see about the hold up with Kabu!"

...Gloria slowly gained a smile. "Oh yeah! I hadn't realized that! That's why yer a genius Hop!" Hop chuckled shyly at the praise. Tho Victor very much disagreed as he frowned.

"What?! We can't just go to the mines as soon as we step off the train! What about getting a spot at Budew Drop Inn for sleep!?"

"There'll be plenty of time for that!" Gloria waved her brother off as he scowled looking like he was about ready to yell at her.

Guess you'd better step in. "Hey. Calm down you two." Both of them looked towards you as you frowned. "Gloria, Victor has a point. He's tired and probably needs some sleep....Maybe we should go back to Motostoke City and let him get a couple rooms for us-"

"THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!!," Victor yelled out reaching around to grab his backpack from the slew of seats offered too by the station.

"....What?"

Tiredly, Victor looked at the rest of you three. "You all can head to the mines and I can go reserve our rooms and wait for you. I'm tired."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." You interjected pointing a hand at him. "You REALLY expect ME to let you go into Motostoke by yourself when you barely got any sleep last night??"

"I'll be fine," he insisted regaining his composure and sighing as the weight of the very large pack settled back on his back. "If it makes you feel better, I'll wait for you guys here and we can take the noon train back into Motostoke in a couple hours."

You paused for a moment before turning towards the door outside. It looked like the sun was just starting to rise from the night and the train was starting to pull away at this moment. It was pretty early in the morning, so if you left now then the four of you could make the noon train back in time. And Victor could get a bit of rest..but you were a bit unsure about letting Victor just stay here by himself. So you looked back at him. "Are you sure you wanna stay here by yourself?"

"I spent an entire year by myself traveling before Gloria even started this journey," he confired waving his hand. "I'll be fine for a few hours...*yaaawwwnn*"

You still weren't too convinced but agreed that this would probably be a better plan than letting Victor try to go into Motostoke by himself and drop from lack of sleep, or having Hop or Gloria just run off into a mine. (especially since that worked oh so well last time.) "Ok. You win. But I at least want you to seat over here where the station master can see you in case something happens, alright?"

Victor sighed but nodded. "Fine. But make sure you guys get back before the next train otherwise we'll have to wait for the night train or walk there."

The three of you agreed before exiting the station and once again you found yourself standing in the Wild Area like you did a month ago when you were on your way to the Entrance Ceremony. It may have only been a little more than a month ago but it felt like forever ago now. It still looked the same as it did when you first arrived here minus the giant herd of wild wooloo on the tracks. Hop walked up next to you and looked around at the lovely sight. Commenting on how cool it looked. To which you agreed before turning over to Gloria who finally walked out of the station stuffing two pokeballs into her bag as she walked up to you.

"Hey. What are those?," you asked gesturing to them.

"Some people in there didn't want their eevee and pikachu. So I got both of them."

You rose a brow but decided not to comment on that, instead looking around. "Ok. So do either of you two know where this mine is? I don't remember seeing it last time we were here. ..Mostly being chased around by a giant onix and battling super powered pokemon."

"You're never going to let me live that down are you?"

"I do." Hop beamed before pointing off to the fight across the giant spacious open land to where a pretty decent area of trees were huddled together by a hill side. "It's there by those trees according to the map, and every other site where it's listed. C'mon! We can get there and be back in like two hours."

While you were weary of wondering around an area where wild animals-...Er..Pokemon could chase after you at any moment, but seeing no other option the three of you began walking. Despite you still feeling a bit tired from not sleeping the night or day before last night, you felt alert looking around you three in the grass and plants as you walked. Making sure no pokemon jumped out at the three of you as you walked and walked..and walked before the cliff side jutting out of the earth surrounded by trees. As you three approuched and managed to pass through the trees you finally came across it. A giant, dark opening within the rocks being only lit on the inside by a few lanturns strung along the walls leading down into it.

"This is it!," Hop excitedly exclaimed as he picked up his pace gesturing for you two to follow him faster. "C'mon! Kabu's close! I can feel it!"

Increasing your speed you followed him into the cave's opening and blinked as mostly darkness overtook your vision. This cave was BIG, way bigger than the last cave you and Gloria traveled through. The ceilings were high and the same gems as the last one was scattered about the wallas....as well as a few construction workers and equipment.

......You pointed at them. "Hey. I thought you said this was public area!"

"It is," Hop's voice from somewhere ahead of you called back, "But they can collect Wishing Stars here too so they come by and collect them."

Oh that made sense, you glanced at the workers for a little while longer before turning back about to ask Hop something but stopped....They were gone. "....HOP!?" You shouted getting only an echo back, and some of the workers looking at you before you took off in the direction his voice came from. Oh great! First minute in the cave and already you lost these kids!! "GLORIA!? HOP!! C'MON YOU TWO!!" You called out but surprise, surprise only got your echo back. ...Great. Well you better find them before they got in trouble again or any of you got lost. As you traveled farther in with only lanturns plastered on the walls for light, you began to notice how it was connected with the Wild Area. There was pokemon all around here. From bat-like pokemon hanging from the ceiling, a couple scraggies hopping about, and more than once in this GIGANTIC cave and it's caverns, you walked by a small cave like pond and could've sworn you saw some kind of red crustation pop in and out. But with the limited light it made it hard to see and find out for real. More than once you would call out either of the two's names but the only answers were more echoes of your voice, and the sounds of scared pokemon as they fled from your voice. Your sobble(who had regained it's spot on your shoulder after leaving the station) was staring around wide eyed with chirps, occasionally reaching out towards the sparkling stones on the wall. "Yeah. I know they're pretty. But we can't stop and look at them right now. We need to find those two before they get in trouble again." Your sobble chirped curiously grabbing at a sparkling stone from a very close stalagmite as you passed it, the rock easily plucking free as he tugged it. Looking at it curiously...before sticking it in his mouth. !? "HEY!" In an instant you grabbed him by the chin. Your other hand trying to open his mouth as like a child, the sobble squirmed and pushed away. "DROP IT!! BAD POKEMON!! SPIT IT OUT!! IT'S NOT FOOD!!" Instead of listening your pokemon turned his head cheeks puffed out as your fear of him swallowing something that could hurt him rose. "Spit that out or I'm never going to let you have bites of my curry ever again!" This time the sobble paused, looking at you for any signs of deceit, but you absolutely meant it. Holding your hand out expectantly to it.......It opened it's mouth and the sparkling stone fell right into your hand. Quickly you pulled it away from your sobble releasing it with a scowl. "Good boy. Now don't do that again! Rocks aren't edible!" He gave off a chirp in protest but didn't do any more than pout like a toddler on your shoulder. With a sigh you shook your head and looked at the small stone in your hand...Huh. This one didn't look like all the others on the wall. Maybe it was a different one-

"You!" You jumped at the sudden voice. Blinking around at who could've said it when your eyes landed on someone walking towards you in the dim light with pale features. ..Your f/c eyes widening when you realized who it was. Standing before you was Bede! You hadn't seen him a little over a week ago by now, but for some reason he was here and he frowned at you. "It's an inconvience in of itself that I run into that girl and the Champion's chatterbox younger brother, but now I run into the very lady who disrespected the Chairman's assistant as well! Are you all trying to get on my nerves or is this bad luck on my part?"

It took you a moment to respond as he rubbed his head but you frowned right back at him. "Look, Kid. I'm not the one who straight up walked up to someone who's minding their own business and rudely ask about why I was here? For all you knew I could've just been going for a walk or sight seeing the famous Mine Number Two or just exploring the Wild Area. Did I come up to YOU and accuse you of following us from Hulbury? No. No I didn't."

Bede stared at you from under his hand, brain seeming to process what you were saying before a deeper frown is what he chose to go with. "BAH!! Never mind then! I've wasted enough time as it is down here especially after running into those two again. Now if you'll move aside I'll be taking my...." He froze. Purple eyes widening at you, and you rose a brow at his all of a sudden silence. ".......You." He pointed right at the sparkling stone in your hand. "That Wishing Star! Give it to me."

...You held up the stone. "Y'mean the rock this guy tried to eat-" Hold up! Weren't Wishing Stars the magic stone thingies everyone used to gigantamax their pokemon around here!? " You already have one of these." You pointed to the band on his wrist. "Why do you need this one?"

he gave a small growl of frustration. "I don't need to explain myself to the likes of you, Woman! If you won't give it too me then I'll just take it from you!" With that he whipped out a pokeball.

"Oh for the love of- You can't be serious!"

With a toss and bright like a small Gothita pokemon exploded in black in white in front of you. .....WHY was the first reaction for everyone to just whip out a pokemon to intimidate you if you hesitated even just a little bit?? This kid absolutely had NO manners! "Gothita will make quick work of you and your sobble if you don't hand that stone over to me this instant." He was REALLY getting on your nerves. You stepped forward. He smirked. "Another challenge? Really I couldn't be more inconvenienced today as it i-" You stepped OVER Gothita who looked confused as it why you weren't standing farther away sending the sobble on your shoulder to battle. Bede seemed also rather smackgobbed as well. Guess he hadn't ever experienced someone who would physically step over his pokemon instead of battling. His eyes widening as you walked right up to him with a scowl.

You stared a moment at his frozen and confused stance before deciding to talk. "Y'know. Obviously you have no manners. The Chairman should be ashamed of himself if his endorsed challenger is so rude to someone minding their own business and demanding things like a spoiled toddler who's never been told no before."

Bede flinched. Blinking rapidly in your shadow before seeming to regain his voice. "D-Don't talk about Chairman Rose like that-"

"I WAS talking about YOU, Bede!" He flinched back as you leaned forward. "Obviously no one ever taught you manners so I'll teach you a quick lesson in them right now."

His eyes became smaller. "L-Lesson? What l-lesson you m-mad woman-"

"Is THIS what you want?,'' you cut him off holding the wishing star to his face. He paused for a moment, almost going cross eyed as he looked at the thing in front of his face...before reaching a hand towards i- You held it away from him with a scowl. "NO. You don't take things that don't belong to you without asking first. Now I'll ask again. Is this what you want?"......He nodded. "Ok. Do you know what please and thank you are?"....He nodded again. "Good. Now what do you say when you want something?"

He didn't answer at first. Looking at you with some unreadable expression. Confusion? Shell shock?...Maybe fear? ".....May I...please have that Wishing Star, Miss?" Narrowing your eyes for a moment you eventually held it up to him and he reached for it again.

"Yes, you may. But I want an apology first?"

He paused again. "....A-Apology?!"

"Yeah. For acting so rude before. If you really are the better person you will apologize because I don't think the Chairman raised a boy with no manners."

You both stood there for a moment not moving or breaking eye contact before he backed down first and looked away. "Tch! Fine! I'm.....sorry! Now can you please just give me the stone so I can leave!?"

Smiling satisfied you nodded and held it out to him...he...slowly finally took it from you. "What do you say?"

"Mmmm....Thank you," he forced out through gritted teeth as you nodded.

"Good. Now I have to go now but I don't want to be talked to rudely like that again if I ever see you again. ...And don't call me Woman. My name's Y/n. I know you're better than that, Bede." He paused....blinking and looking up at you again seeming to be so, so confused. "You said you saw Gloria and Hop right? Did they go down that way?" You asked pointing behind him. Still staring he slowly nodded. "Ok. Thanks. You be careful getting out of here ok?"

He didn't say anything and just confusedly watch you step around him silently and continue walking away down into the dimly lit cave. At least you were on the right track now. Hopefully you'll be able to catch up with the two of them soon. And by soon it meant it'd take longer than you realized, coming across a fork in the road as hey say and leaving two caverns tunnels to chose from.......You ultimately decided on going left since it was more lit and figured they'd be smart enough to also go down this passage way. As you walked you called out a few times more still getting no answers. This was getting ridiculous!! Where could those two have gone!? Surely they couldn't have gone THAT far away from you in the short time you weren't looking!

"Thank you for helping out with my training, Team Yell." You paused as the voice rang out....What was- "But I must say it's unforgivable for you to get in the way of a carkol hard at work." ...OK! THAT WAS DEFINATELY A VOICE!! Granted it sounded older and nothing like the two kids, but if someone was down here then maybe you could ask for directions or if they saw the two. You broke out in a job up the tunnel towards the voices up ahead.

"We weren't gettin' in it's way! We were tryin' to cheer it on!," a different man's voice insisted loudly. What the-

You rounded the corner as the tunnel gave way to a giant cavern and you froze....OH NO NOT THEM!!

"Still, you did a number on us in that pokemon battle so...it's time for Team Yell to scarper and give a morale boost elsewhere!," one rock star wannabe said to an older man and standing next to another rock star wannabe.

You stared dumbfounded. SERIOUSLY!? What was the chances that you'd run into them all the way down here again!?

"Cheering is one thing but one shouldn't get in the way of honest work,'' the older man scolded the two of them.

You rose a brow at them, eyes slowly going to look behind them. And widening as you saw two teens standing in the entrance of another passage way across the cavern room. ...You frowned. "HOP!! GLORIA!!" Everyone either jumped or snapped their heads over to you as you shouted at the kids' direction. "Dang nabit! Why'd you run off from me like that!? Don't you know how to wait up!?" You started walking over towards them.

...One rockstar wannabe grabbed his friend wide eyed as he stared at you walking past. "C-Crikey! Bro, it's that dame that nailed Andrew in the eyes with dirt!"

"Wha- Seriously!? Let's get outta 'ere before that sobble starts singing a sad tune yo!"

You paid no mind to the scattering footsteps as you walked up to the now gulity looking pair of kiddos. "There you are! *sigh* Do you know how worried I was running around here like a headless chicken?"

"......What's a chicken?," Gloria asked.

"We're really sorry, Y/n," Hop apologized frowning, "we thought you were right behind us and then we ran into some trouble."

"Oh yeah. So did I. Bede needed some manners taught to him."

"Wait..Ya saw the Mareep Head??"

You nodded. "I ran into him on his way out. He said you gave him some trouble."

"By trouble if ya mean kickin' his behind-"

"Nevermind that. Y/n we found him!"

"Found who?"

Hop pointed behind you and you turned with a brow raised. The old man was petting a pokemon that looked like a giant living piece of coal. "There! That's Kabu!...Man, he's wicked! No wonder he's the fire-type gym leader!"

...THAT was Kabu!? Well whaddya know. It made sense since by looking at him now, he wore an unmistakable gym suit. The old man, Kabu, looked up at you three from petting his pokemon and gave a polite smile. "Ah, you are the trainers endorsed by Leon! Hop and Gloria, am I right?"

Both pair of young eyes went wide at him. ".....You know our names!?"

"Yes. Leon has spoken about you before. And your concerned friend just literally shouted your names just now."

"......Oh. W-Well we're here to see you actually! A-About having a pokemon battle!"

"Naturally you would. I'm just training right up until the last moment so that I can guarantee the perfect match when I face you gym challengers."

"Oh really?," you asked and he nodded, "This deep in a cave?"

"I specialize in fire-type pokemon, and the water-type pokemon in Galar Mine Number Two are the perfect opponents to train against, Young Lady."....He hummed and you all watched as he looked at a watch around his wrist. "....Regardless it's getting late. I must leave if I'm going to get the gym ready by tomorrow." he looked back to the three of you with a smile. "Just go straight once you get out of this mine and you'll reach Motostoke. Get a good at the hotel, and make sure you're both in your top condition." He turned around calling to the pokemon. "Come on, Carkol. Time for you to head on home, too. I'll make sure you get there safely. We're going to be on fire tomorrow!" He began jogging off and the thing lumbered off after him with a grunt of it's own. The man looked old enough to be your grandfather and could still jog as fast as you had done earlier. Impressive.

"....I remember Lee talking about Kabu." You blinked over to Hop as he looked at where Kabu disappeared. "He said that a lot of gym challengers give up because they just can't beat Kabu. Man, now I'm getting all fired up too!"

"Yeah. Well, I'm tired out!" Both paused looking at you. "C'mon. You heard what he said. Let's get back to Victor and get to the Inn."

The three of you started making your way back out of the mine and back towards The Wild Area Station. You were tired and you could use a rest before catching the evening train back into Motostoke where you began in the first place. Surprisingly you made it out faster than it took going in the caverns.

"That carkol from before," Hop commented off in thought, "I guess it must've been here on a job. You do know about poke job by now right?" You nodded. "Course you do! I bet he hired that carkol to train with him or something!"

"You might be right, but after today I think I just want to get to the hotel and relax."

Hop nodded. ".....Oh hey. I think we found out who those guys in the punk make up were?"

You froze. Nearly stumbling over your feet as you did so before snapping your face over towards the boy. "WHAT!?"

He nodded. "Yeah. They called themselves Team Yell. Which is weird cuz I've never heard of them before and I don't remember Lee mentioning them at all. What about you Glor?" Gloria shook her head no to his question.....Team Yell?? They were team Yell?? What name was that?? Any 'team' you knew from the Pokemon franchise was evil. Team Rocket being the most obvious in your mind, but if that's true then does that mean those Rockstar wannabe's are more dangerous than they seem? Did Team Yell have a world domination scheme from the game!? You tried to wrack your brain for any and all possible villainous plots in the game that could involve a whole bunch of rockstar make up wearing hooligans....But ended up with...absolutely nothing!! DANGIT!! You couldn't remember anything from playing it years ago! ....*sigh* The only thing you could do now was push on and keep your eyes peeled for any possible trouble they'd cause you. "Now, I'm cream-crackered." Hop's voice snapped you back into reality. "I'm for the Budew Drop Inn and some sleep. Come tomorrow that Fire Gym Leader Kabu better be ready because I'm coming for him!!"

Gloria nodded in agreement. "Yeah. We better get back ta Vic before he decides on givin' us another boring lecture on being late."

You couldn't agree more either. Maybe some more sleep will help you think more clearly than normal. The three of you made your way back towards the station with the afternoon sun rising high in the sky, upon entering you discovered Victor exactly where you all left him. Fast asleep leaning back in one of the chairs. He must've been more tired than you realized, maybe it was for the best he stayed behind here. It took only an hour of your four waiting, appreciating the small break your body got, before the afternoon train came rumbling on in as per usual. It was a jumbled process of trying to wake up Victor who acted like a caffiene lacking zombie until you and Hop decided 'Screw this' and both of you picked him up by either side and dragged his half asleep, staggering, groggy butt over and onto the train with Gloria right behind. It wasn't much easier pushing him into a seat next to you and trying to wake him up for the ten minute ride back into Motostoke, before unsuccessfully doing so and resulted in both of you again half dragging Victor off the train in Motostoke station and on your way to Budew Drop Inn with Gloria trailing right behind you three. Sure it was hard, but you couldn't imagine trying to do this walking all the way back to Motostoke through the Wild Area with dangerous pokemon about, so the train was much better. It took a bit of lifting and slight yelling from Hop for Victor to wake up, getting some strange looks from other people as you went, but by some miracle the four of you somehow managed to make it into the inn you stayed at before during the entrance ceremony. The golden statue still gleaming as ever as you and Hop struggled to get the mumbling Victor up the stairs and over to the bewildered looking clerk at the front desk. WHAT THE HECK WAS IN HIS BACKPACK MAKING HIM SO HEAVY!? It was an effort to keep him up standing as Hop smiled awkwardly at the man.

"Uh hi! We need two rooms for the night please. And fast before my friend decides to drop dead on us."

The clerk blinked for a moment before slowly nodded. "Oh. Of course. Are you challengers here to battle against Kabu?"

Hop nodded. "Yeah that's us alright. Or will be once we get some sleep."

The clerk nodded in understanding smiling. "Oh yes! Wait here for a moment and I'll get you your room keys."

You rose a brow. "Don't we need to register?"

"Oh no. Mr. Kabu has graciously told us to put any registered gym challengers' stays on his tab and send him the bills. After all he doesn't know how long they'll stay before quitting and going home. He's a kind man that doesn't want them or their families stuck with any expensive hotel bills if they stay for a long time before getting stomped out," he said so casually like it was no big deal. ....You and Hop gave each other a look..before exchanging one with Gloria who just shrugged at the both of you. The clerk turned around. "Just one moment please while I check and see which rooms would be available."

"Jeez. If Kabu's this tough, Rahain and Lee's gonna be even more tough-"

"Excuse me." The three of you looked over your shoulder towards a soft polite girl's voice with an accent you couldn't place. Standing there was a teen around these guys' age in almost gothic attire and right blue eyes. At her heels was a small pokemon who you'd call hamster like. Except she wasn't looking at you or Hop or Victor. But Gloria. "Uhhh. Challenger Gloria, Right? From Postwick?"

Gloria blinked in surprise seemingly surprised, before raising a suspicious brow at the girl. "Yeah? ....And yer who?"

"Marnie." She answered politely back. "Out givin' it your all even this late, huh? Hey. Help me with somethin' for a sec. Would you?"

Gloria remained silent for a moment. "....Help you with what?"

"I want t' see if I'm ready for the next leg of the Gym Challenge."

"...Why me?"

"You're one of the challengers endorsed by the Champion. I figured the best way to see if I was ready at all was t' see if I'd be able to beat a fellow gym challenger before I leave. Would you like to battle with me?"

"Gloria. We need to get Victor to his room so he can sleep," you countered feeling the weight of Victor start to weigh down more on you.

"I know, I know but...." She looked between the girl and the three of you. "She asked for my help, and it'd be rude to just say no right?" You gave her a look. "Oh c'mon please, Y/n! It'll be quick. N' and out! Easy peasy berry squeezy."

....You groaned. You really didn't have time for this! " Fine! But please for the love of Mike hurry and get back? We've been running around all day and you need rest for the battle tomorrow!"

She beamed. "Ya got it! Get ready ta have your team beat!"

The girl smiled. "Wicked! Got some fight in you, Huh? "

"You bet! Let's do this!"

You sighed and turned shaking your head. Only distracted from them when Hop grabbed the keys from the clerk and jingled them at you to let you know you two could now go and get Victor laying down. As the two of you turned to struggle Victor towards the elevator the girls left-....!? Your head snapped around as a dash of red and black crossed the corner of your eye, but it was gone the moment you turned around.....What the-

"C'mon Y/N! He's gettin' too heavy to lug around for much longer."

...You turned back to the elevator before the doors closed behind you. It was probably nothing anyways. Right now you had a kid who needed to sleep badly. The two of you managed to drag Victor who ended up passing out in your arms to his and Hop's room, and after Hop struggled to open the door, dragged him to the nearest bed and plopped him on top of it with sighs of relief when your poor body was finally freed from heaving him around. After assuring you he'd take care of things from there, you took your own room key from Hop and went to your own room. It didn't take you too long to get settled in after taking a quick shower, and again rummaging through your pack to fish some food out for your chirping, pouting, hungry sobble. Man the little guy ate a whole lot. It was a little while later as you were eating yourself that Gloria finally showed up, knocking on the door before coming in after hearing your voice.

"Hey. How did the battle go?"

She smiled. "I'd hate to brag....But I won."

You nodded. "Hey! That's great. Glad to know it went well."

She nodded again. "Yeah....But I gotta tell ya something." You rose a brow at her curiously. "...Those Team Yell guys from earlier? They were there."

You dropped the small dried piece of fruit you were holding which your sobble was quick to snatch up and eat. "WHAT!?"

"YEAH!! There was a guy and this woman wearin' all this all this punk make up, and they were cheerin' for 'er. I almost lost cuz I they were so loud makin' it hard to focus. I guess that's why they're Team 'Yell'. Should call 'em team Scream if ya ask me."

"Team Yell was with the girl?" She nodded. "Did they try anything?! Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she assured you, "But nah. One of 'em was wavin' this flag that had Marnie's picture on it. ...Do they do that? Y'know make merch for Gym Challengers with our faces on them? If they do I'm totally buying Mum one!"

They....Team Yell was....Cheering on Marnie?? That didn't make any sense. They had said a while ago that they were trying to stop Gym Challengers. Why would they be cheering a Gym Challenger on if they were trying to stop them let alone have merch of one??? It didn't add up. Except for maybe-......You paused. Back at the bridge. When you and Victor encountered those two thugs trying to steel the poor nurse's bike!! They spoke of a lady! Could it by that the girl and 'Our Lady' they spoke of was one in the same? Or was Marnie somehow connected to the woman they spoke of?? Was she a part of Team Yell secretly? If yes then what interest did they have in the Gym Challenge?? Did Leon have something they want?? Were they just trying to cheat their way to the top??.....Or..Your eyes widened. Was there something that the Challenge league had that they wanted and were after?? Control over the Galar Region? Money? Power? Fame? Some other powerful thing you couldn't remember?? ...If she wasn't a part of them then what WAS their purpose for cheering her on?...Could the mysterious woman they spoke of be related to Marnie? Or maybe someone who endorsed her for the gym challenge? You shook your head. It was all so confusing. Too many questions and absolutely no answers at all. It made your head hurt just swimming with the many possibilities.

"Oh by the way. While I was out the battling got me thinkin' 'bout some strageties I could use to beat Kabu."

"Oh really?," you muttered half listening deep in thought.

"Uh huh. But I gotta ask. Y/n, can I borrow your sobble?"

"Sure you can-.....Wait. ..What?!"

#pokemon shield #pokemon sword #pokemon piers #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon piers x reader #piers x reader #reader x piers #Piers #reader #reader insert

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pbandjesse · 3 years

Text

After all the excitement and rushing around of yesterday, I was absolutely exhausted today. Which made me feel really sad. I tried my best to shake it and enjoy my time with James. But I was struggling a bit.

I did get everything I wanted to accomplish today. But it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. I tried my best. I think I'm just also stressed that there is much to do tomorrow.

I had trouble sleeping last night. The rest of my time at the science center last night was a lot of fun. Even if one educator kept trying to walk over me. I shut it down every time because I was leading the program. But also it was just. So out of the ordinary for how museum education goes that I was just really surprised. It's all good though. I just felt like a bitch for having to say hey I'm leading this program and not just doing what she wanted.

James came and got me and we came home. I showered and we hung out and talked until late. But even once they fell asleep it took me a while to do the same.

It was okay sleep in the end. I woke up a few times but it was okay. When I woke up for real at 930 I really, desperately, wanted to keep sleeping. But I knew I had to be awake. James joined me in bed, playing the new Pokemon game. I texted dad and he called me and it was really nice to hear his voice.

He sounded good. He said he wasn't hurting, but did say it was because he hadn't tried to move yet. I am just really thankful I can talk to him.

I would get up eventually. James made us pastries and so after I was washed up and dressed I had one of them while I did my knitting. I had to catch up from yesterday, but I am taking notes on the weather just in case that happens. Tomorrow is the end of the first month! I am excited to take a progress video. And I'll have a better idea of the full size.

The plan for the day was for me and James to go for a drive and eat at a diner and run some errands. And soon enough we were bundling up and heading out.

We drove out to Columbia in the county. I wanted to check out the 2nd Ave out there but I ended up not having as much fun as I had hoped. I think some of it was I felt like James wasn't participating like someone like Jess would. But mostly I wasn't having fun because people were just super blocking the aisles and being incredibly rude. That was part of the reason me and James weren't together a lot in the store, because they just flat out couldn't get the cart around. And would tell me to go ahead.

We did find some more wedding candle stuff. And a few little future gifts for people. But people were just making it not fun. I did find myself two bags. But we were barely there 20 minutes before we left. It wasn't fun.

I was a little upset. I wanted to be having a good time but I was upset inside and having trouble shaking it off.

We went down the street to the Marshalls. But they still didn't have the Valentine's day stuff I wanted. I was more bummed on top of everything else.

We would walk across the street to the Goodwill. This Goodwill is usually the worst. Dirty and cluttered and everything is overpriced. But we actually found brand new sandals for James and a Greta pair of boots. And I found the most darling travel jewelry box. Plus there was basically no one there. So it raised my spirits a bit.

We went to a diner next. Had a nice little meal. Talked about our hopes for the wedding week and the timeline for how we think the rest of the time outside the wedding itself will be. It was quiet but lovely to just be in that conversation. It felt like we had some control that I don't always feel like we have.

We would make a pit stop at target. But still no Valentine's day stuff. So we weren't there long.

We drove to a local park next. And while it was very cold, it was nice, I was just tired. And my ankles hurt a lot. So we only walked for like a half hour with a little break in the middle. It was still a nice time and it was fun walking on the crunchy snow.

I was really sleepy at this point. We headed home and it was hard to keep my eyes open. When we got back James was going to go for a bike ride but instead went and cut their hair. While I put away some of our purchases and laid in bed for a long time.

I got out of bed at 6, I didn't actually nap I just watched videos, but I got up to do my beading for the day.

James said I should make a black dress. So I did that and that didn't take to long. I feel happy with it. I hope I have more time to do a more complex one tomorrow though.

James warmed up some chili for me. And we ate dinner and then played the new Pokemon together.

I really enjoy it so far. It's not super battle focused, and I also love giving my Pokemon silly names. Like my first Pokemon is a Oshawott, who is a blue otter. I named them "damp". And then I have one friend named "stinky" others named "horse", "birdie", and "Amy".

I am glad we got it. It's nice to have a game we both like again.

I got a shower and feel a little better. My allergies are bothering me. But it's fine. I am very sleepy.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with Alexi about this summer. And then I am getting fingerprinted for the nursery. I hope I don't feel so tired tomorrow and I can enjoy the day fully.

Sleep well everyone. Take care of each other.

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ashiversary · 4 years

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If We're Honest - Chapter 3

Read the full fic on ao3!

It was a testament to how little Blanche knew Candela that they did not see this coming.

Blanche stared at the restaurant, which was one of the most upscale in Opal City, with dismay. The patrons glittered in suits and floor-length gowns with diamonds and sipped the most expensive wines the city had to offer. “I am not dressed for this,” Blanche said as Candela took their arm and steered them through the door.

“Don’t worry, darling, they know me here,” Candela replied. This was not reassuring, as Candela was wearing a red silk gown with a plunging neckline and golden six-inch heels. Rubies glimmered at her ears and throat, and a series of gold bangles covered her wrists. She was stunning. Blanche could not believe she kept red-carpet attire in a gym bag in her car.

They considered it extremely discourteous of her to not warn them. Or give them the chance to stop by their apartment to change into a suit.

The only comfort was that Spark hadn’t changed either, and was still in his orange tank and leather jacket.

“Candy, I thought we were going to a steakhouse!” Spark complained as Candela spoke to the hostess.

“This is a steakhouse! Yes, I have a reservation for three,” Candela said when the hostess asked.

“Just because steaks are on the menu does not make it a steakhouse,” Blanche said. Spark sent them a grateful look for taking his side, and the sense of camaraderie made Blanche feel slightly better.

Candela did not reply, and Spark and Blanche were forced to follow her and the hostess through the restaurant to the table. It was covered by a snow-white tablecloth and crystal wine glasses. Spark went to pull out Candela’s chair, which pleased her, but Blanche made sure to sit down before Spark could repeat the gesture for them. No thank you.

Their little group attracted some curious and amused glances, which was no surprise given that Candela was the only one dressed appropriately for the venue. Blanche did their best to ignore the attention as they unfolded their pristine white cloth napkin and draped it over their lap. Despite their efforts, their face and chest grew hot and sweaty at the sound of nearby laughter. It was a couple on a date who weren’t even looking in their direction, but it felt like their amusement was directed at Blanche regardless.

It could have been worse, they knew. At least Spark was in the same boat as them. He whined to Candela for misleading him about where they were going to eat, and she smirked in reply. She seemed to enjoy being the best dressed person at the table. Blanche could deal with agents of chaos, but they liked to have some warning that was what they were dealing with.

As Spark flipped his menu open, he grumbled, “They probably don’t even have chicken tenders here.”

Blanche had to stifle a laugh as they were reminded of their twin, whose tastes leaned toward juvenile.

Candela grimaced. “Definitely not. But they do have steak!” She helped Spark by flipping to the appropriate page of his menu. “Ribs too, see?”

Appeased for the moment, Spark scanned the page for his choices while Candela ordered a bottle of wine for the table. Red, of course.

Blanche scanned their own menu and winced at the prices. They had been a research assistant for the last few years, and that had not been a high-paying job. Spark must be able to read their face, because he leaned into their space while Candela was busy chatting with the server about the day’s specials. “I can cover ya, if ya want,” Spark whispered.

Blanche flushed. They could make it work with their finances. It just would have been easier if they hadn’t moved from a different region recently. “It’s all right. I’ll manage.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. Candy comes from money, so she forgets about this stuff. It’s not payday yet. Let me cover you.”

Ugh, he had such a reassuring smile. “I’ll pay you back later.” They hoped he would not argue. Soulmate or not, they did not know him well enough to accept freebies yet.

“Sure thing!”

This arrangement did make them feel better, and they were able to choose a tasty-looking seafood dish without too much guilt. Spark ordered his steak, along with vegetables and an extra side of potatoes. Blanche couldn’t imagine attempting to eat that much food at once, but Candela acted as if this were normal.

The table lapsed into silence, and Blanche felt that they ought to say something to incite conversation. After all, they were the new person being integrated into an established friendship (Blanche wasn’t sure about thinking of either of them as more than that yet). “So, Candela, were you born in Opal?” Blanche asked, fishing for a safe topic.

Something flickered across her face that told them that this topic might not have been as safe as they had thought. However, before they could apologize and backtrack, she smiled. “Oh, not at all! I’ve lived here for a couple years now, but I was born in Unova.”

“I see.” Blanche had never been to Unova and was curious about what kind of pokemon Candela saw growing up. But there was a strange tension in the air, so they weren’t sure it would be right to ask.

Spark, however, felt no such restraint. “Candy’s got four older brothers!” He grinned as he said it. “Can ya believe it? I’m an only child, so I can’t imagine.”

“It sounds boisterous,” Blanche replied.

Candela waved a hand. “It certainly was! It’s much quieter now that they don’t talk to me.”

Oh. Despite her flippant tone, there was pain in her eyes. “May I ask?” She didn’t have to tell them if she didn’t want to, but they would like to know the source of her pain if she was comfortable sharing it with them.

She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table before she picked up her wine and took a generous sip. “It was stupid, really.”

“I’m sure it isn’t stupid, if it caused you pain,” Blanche murmured.

Candela sent them a grateful look. “Thank you, darling. But how it happened was stupid.” She sighed and tapped the side of her wine glass. “Spark knows the story. My family has a long history tied to Moltres. It’s kind of like our guardian legendary. The tradition is that the oldest child will form a bond, which is like this telepathic connection, with Moltres. It was supposed to be my oldest brother Lucifel next, but I encountered Moltres while walking home one night. It recognized my bloodline and formed the bond.” She sighed again.

“And that’s bad?” Blanche asked.

Candela shrugged. “My parents were furious. In their mind, I usurped tradition and stole my brother’s birthright. It didn’t matter that I didn’t do it on purpose. I was a bad and rebellious daughter who brought shame to the family. Everyone stopped talking to me, even my Grandma. Eventually I couldn’t take it and moved in with my cousin in Alola. Her family is much less traditional than mine. One way or another, I ended up here.”

Spark reached out to rub her bare shoulder. She leaned into the touch and managed a small smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to put a dampener on our date.”

“It’s no problem, Candy. Don’t worry about it.”

The server came back with their meals, offering fresh ground pepper before disappearing to serve the next table. Blanche sampled their seafood pasta and was very pleased - it was delicious, with just the right amounts of butter and garlic.

Blanche didn’t want to detract from Candela’s story, but now seemed like a good time to mention Articuno.

“I do know about bonds with legendaries,” Blanche said. Both of the others looked at them in surprise, though Candela recovered first and took advantage of Spark’s inattention to steal a bite of his steak. Blanche ignored this and continued. “While I was travelling around Kanto and Johto with Professor Oak, I encountered Articuno.”

“And it bonded with you?” Spark asked with far more excitement than Blanche thought that the situation warranted. He shook Candela’s shoulder. “Did you hear that, Candy? Can you believe it?”

“Right?” Candela said around another stolen bite of steak. “Three for three. What are the odds, Sparky?”

“I beg your pardon?” Blanche was missing some context.

“Sparky here is bonded with Zapdos!” Candela said, laughing, draping an arm around Spark’s shoulders and pointing to his face.

“Are you joking?” Blanche wanted to make sure. They weren’t always the best at catching on to jokes.

“Nope! Met it at the power plant with my Uncle when I was a kid. Been together ever since.”

Blanche looked between them. They could understand the other two’s mirth now. What were the chances of the three of them being soulmates, team leaders of the Go Program, and bonded to Kanto’s titans? “Unbelievable.” Was all they could think to say.

“I know!” Spark said.

“Well, eat up, you two,” Candela said. “The food is getting cold.”

The date was very relaxed after that, enough so that Blanche forgot to be self conscious that they weren’t dressed appropriately for the venue. The wine made them all tipsy. Spark and Candela tried to talk Blanche into coming to Spark’s apartment to play Super Smash Bros, but Blanche wasn’t comfortable with that yet and ended up taking a taxi home. Once there, they kicked off their shoes and flopped face down on their bed until morning.

The next day, the soulmate bond between the team leaders seemed to be all anyone could talk about. By lunch Blanche was both annoyed and flustered by all the people congratulating them and the shy approaches from young interns asking if the rumours were true. It didn’t help that interest kicked up several notches when Spark and Candela showed up at lunch with grins and sandwiches.

Blanche accepted their invitation to a picnic with a sigh.

“Aw, Blanche, we’re gonna think you aren’t happy to see us,” Spark teased as they settled into a small courtyard outside Mystic Headquarters.

Blanche was squinting at their sandwich with suspicion. It was somehow their favourite, despite the fact that they had no recollection of telling Spark what kind of sandwiches they liked. They hadn’t been so drunk the night before as to have forgotten something like that. “Did Annie tell you what sandwiches I like?” they wondered out loud, for that was the only explanation they could think of. As their assistant, Annie was almost always around. She would have picked up on their tastes.

Spark’s expression turned sheepish, and he shook his head. “Um, no, about that…” he began, and Blanche turned their suspicious squint from the sandwich to him. Candela choked on her apple juice as she laughed, and Spark waved a hand. “No, no, it’s nothing weird! I just, y’know, happened to run into Noire, so I asked.”

That didn’t clear things up. “How did you run into Noire?”

“Well, they dropped by Instinct - like, literally, through the ceiling - to steal some rare pokemon eggs. I recognized ‘em as your sib, so, y’know, once I’d thwarted their plans I asked.”

Candela laughed harder. “Darling, you’re so weird,” she sighed. “You captured a Rocket exec just to interrogate them about Blanche’s food preferences?”

“Well, sure,” Spark said. “Why not?”

Blanche put their face in their hands. They could not believe Noire had not called to laugh at them about their soulmate being a major dork. In fairness, Noire was also a major dork.

“Anyway, they’re coming over tonight so I can wreck their ass in Mario Kart. Wanna join?” Spark continued.

Blanche supposed they could not complain about Noire and Spark getting along if this fledgling potential relationship was to work out. But goodness it was awkward.

“Oh, I’d love to come,” Candela said, getting her laughter under control. Her smile glittered dangerously, and there was no doubt she would also love to kick Noire’s butt at Mario Kart. “I have to pay them back for messing with my team, don’t I?” She leaned over to wrap her free arm around Blanche’s. “Do come, Blanche. It won’t be as much fun without you.”

And if that wasn’t one of the sweetest things Blanche had ever been told. Their cheeks went pink. No one had ever called them fun before. They were too serious, too awkward, too stoic. Noire was the fun, friendly one. But if they were wanted… “I’ll see if I can make time,” Blanche said, trying to play it cool.

“Great! I’ll provide snacks. All ya gotta do is show up,” Spark said, beaming.

“Very well.” Blanche was abysmal in the kitchen, so at least it wasn’t going to be a potluck. Candela was still holding onto their arm. It felt nice. Very nice.

Blanche still had not told them.

The thought of bringing up their background made their heart hammer and a lump stick in their throat. It was too hard. They did not want to. But if they did not, would it not be deceitful? Candela and Spark had both told Blanche things about their pasts, things that were difficult for them to say. Reciprocating would be the right thing to do.

“While you’re here, there was something I wanted to tell you,” Blanche began. Even those words had to be forced out of their mouth. Candela gave their arm a brief squeeze. There was so much comfort in that touch. It gave Blanche the courage to continue. Spark stopped teasing the wild pidgey that had landed on his shoulder in hopes of bits of sandwich, and was giving Blanche his full attention. He didn’t seem to notice that this gave the pidgey the opportunity to steal a large chunk of his sandwich meat and take flight for a nearby tree to eat its spoils.

“When we were children, Noire and I were found on the streets of Orre.” The memories, vague and clouded as they were, came up. Blanche pushed the back in order to continue. “We were found by Team Rocket taking shelter among stacks of pallets at an abandoned warehouse. I do not remember how we got there. Neither does Noire.” They only remembered two days prior at most, but they weren’t sure of that. They remembered twisting a spigot on the side of the building and getting a thin trickle of water. They remembered hunger, blistering hot days, and cold nights. Fear. That was all.

“That’s okay, Blanche,” Spark hastened to reassure them. “We’re all orphans, in a way.” He glanced at Candela, whose parents were still alive but had effectively abandoned her. “It’s okay.”

“Thank you. But that’s not it.” Blanche drew in a deep breath, then pressed on. “I don’t recall anything before that clearly. But I do have… I suppose I would call them *impressions* of things. Nothing clear. Locked doors. Needles. Terror. People in white coats. That’s all.”

Spark scooted until he was sitting on Blanche’s other side. He draped his arm over their shoulders and squeezed. “That’s rough. Thank you for telling us,” he murmured.

Blanche was mortified to feel tears prick their eyes. They swiped at their face with the back of their hand to wipe away the moisture, and Spark squeezed again. “Hey. It’s okay. Cry if you gotta. It’s tough stuff we’re talking about.”

Blanche hiccuped, and despite Spark’s reassurance, they were ashamed of their weakness. How stupid was it to cry over things that the didn’t even remember? “I might not be human,” they choked out.

“Of course you are!” Candela’s voice was fierce. She pushed up until she was kneeling and cupped their face in her hands. Blanche wanted to look away, but Candela wasn’t having it. “No, no, you listen to me,” she said. Her eyes were gold. Had Blanche ever noticed that before? “You are human. Absolutely. Just as human as me and Sparky over there, even though he has the mentality of a pokemon sometimes and eats weird things he finds in the forest.”

Blanche gave a wet laugh, and Candela smiled in relief. “Hey, I’m serious! He once ate this weird twisty berry and his face was paralyzed for an entire day. Who does that?”

“Hey! It was only temporary. And Go dared me. I don’t back down from a challenge, Candy.”

“But did you learn your lesson? No!” Candela shot back. “He tried to eat an apricorn the next day,” she explained to Blanche.

“Apricorns can be juiced, but they are not edible raw,” Blanche said.

“Well, I know that now,” Spark said. “Geez, Candy, you never let anything go.”

“It was only two months ago Spark!” Despite her more aggressive tone toward Spark, Candela’s hands remained gentle on Blanche’s face. She stopped frowning at Spark to smile at Blanche and give them a soft kiss on the forehead. Blanche flushed and automatically pulled away. They weren’t used to such casual affection.

Fortunately, Candela didn’t seem to be offended. “Finish your sandwich, Blanche,” she said, and settled herself back on the grass to eat her own.

Spark was frowning as his sandwich like he’d just realized there was a chunk missing. Blanche opted not to tell him about the pidgey. “Like Candy said,” Spark continued. “You’re human for sure. No matter how your life started. Okay?”

“Okay,” Blanche said.

The other two had to leave shortly after in order to make it back to their respective team headquarters in time. Blanche was sorry to see them go. They couldn’t quite see the relationship as romantic yet, but they were starting to consider Spark and Candela to be very good friends.

And maybe that was how it started. As friends. There was always the chance to move on to other things later.

Then again, given the behaviour the other two had exhibited, they clearly didn’t view this as a platonic relationship of any sort.

When they got back to their office, Annie had a stack of reports waiting that needed their review and approval. She smiled at them as they slid behind their desk. “Did you have a good lunch?” she chirped.

“Yes, thank you,” Blanche replied. They picked up the first report in the stack and grimaced, already knowing that this one was going to be a mess. This tech was brilliant in the lab, but their writing left much to be desired.

“I’m glad you’re taking proper breaks now,” she said. “I thought you were going to be one of the types that works themselves to death when you first started, so I’m glad that’s not the case.”

Blanhce grimaced at being so accurately called out. “I am exactly that type.” It was difficult to focus on a conversation and skim a report at the same time, and their attention drifted away from Annie to the report in their hands. “I haven’t been given much of a choice about taking breaks at the moment, though.” After all, it was Spark and Candela who kept showing up unannounced and making them leave work that they otherwise wouldn’t.

Because Annie no longer registered in their mind, they missed her murmured, “Is that so?” and the thoughtful gleam in her eye. Therefore, they did not expect it later when she put her hands on their desk with a smile and said, “Chief! Leader Spark is here to pick you up!”

Blanche was in the middle of working through a thorny supplier issue and it took them a second to process what she’d said, so what came out was an intelligent, “Huh?”

Annie continued to smile. “Leader Spark is waiting for you down in reception! We couldn’t let him come up because of the Pokemon snuffles outbreak among some new breeding pairs at Instinct. It’s a minor illness but highly contagious, so it’s better if he doesn’t access the elevator used to transport lab pokemon.” While she talked, Annie packed the materials she knew they would want to take him with them into their briefcase, along with some thumb drives and a malfunctioning lure Blanche had been trying to repair in their spare time.

“But why is he here?” Blanche glanced at the clock. “It’s only six.”

“It’s 6:45.” Was it Blanche’s imagination or did Annie’s smile look a bit threatening? “I heard that you, Leader Spark, and Leader Candela have plans for the evening. It’s rude to keep them waiting!”

Blanche blinked at her as she tossed their coat over their shoulders and shoved their briefcase into their hands.

Baffled by Annie’s pushiness, Blanche nonetheless logged out of their computer and complied. They did not want to be on bad terms with their assistant, and it seemed important to Annie that Blanche clear out. The warning edge to her tone dissipated when Blanche stood up and shoved their arms through the sleeves of their coat.

They eyed Annie with suspicion. “You seem to be in quite a hurry to see me out.”

“Not at all!” That was feigned innocence if Blanche ever saw it. “It’s just that Leader Spark is already here and all, and it would be rude to make him wait.”

Blanche didn’t know what she was up to, but they supposed it wouldn’t be anything nefarious. To their understanding, Annie had been with Mystic for some time and there had never been any complaints about her conduct. “All right. Have a good evening.”

“You too, Chief! See you tomorrow!”

Blanche locked the office door behind them, and with a final wave, Annie skipped off to her own, smaller office, presumably to get ready to leave herself.

Spark was indeed waiting when Blanche reached the main level. Rather than his typical leader attire, he was wearing jeans that appeared to have torn and faded through wear rather than been purchased that way and a T-shirt that said “If found, return to Go.”

“Is that a custom shirt?” Blanche asked as they approached.

Spark had been browsing memes on his phone. At the sound of Blanche’s voice, he put his phone away and leaped up to take their hands. Blanche was caught off guard and let him, though their cheeks went pink when he squeezed their hands with obvious affection. “Heya, Blanche! Ready to go?”

“I suppose. I’d like to stop by my place and change, if that’s all right.”

“No prob!” Spark let go of one of Blanche’s hands, but held on to the other as he led them to where he’d parked his car on the street. “And yeah, me’n Go had these made up a li’l while after I started with Instinct. I keep it and the jeans in a bag at work in case my clothes get yucked. You know how it is, working with pokemon.”

“Indeed.” Blanche slid into the passenger’s seat and crossed their legs. “I find your change of clothes much more practical than Candela’s.”

Spark laughed, and Blanche knew they were both thinking of the red dress and accessories from the other day. “Yeah, well, Candy’s like that. She does have a change of more practical clothes at Valor, too. And gym clothes. She says she’s gotta be prepared for any situation, her appearance included. Gotta admire that, even if it’s not for me.”

“I suppose.”

They pulled in next to Blanche’s apartment. Blanche went upstairs to stow away their briefcase and change into something more casual. They weren’t comfortable enough with the other two yet to not dress on the nicer end of casual, so they put on their nicest pair of jeans and a teal button-up shirt. After that they floundered a little, unsure what was expected of them and if they needed to bring anything else. Spark had said they just needed to show up, but did they really?

This was ridiculous. They were keeping him waiting with pointless dithering. Blanche sighed and trooped back out. Spark had passed the time by browsing memes again, and he put his phone away and headed in what Blanche assumed was the direction of his own home.

The inside of Spark’s apartment was cluttered and cozy, but also gave away the fact that a bachelor lived there. There was equipment for raising baby pokemon scattered about, dirty dishes scattered in the sink, and Blanche saw through an open door that Spark’s shower curtain was shoved straight through the rod. There was a nice smell wafting from the kitchen, and Candela poked her head out.

“Spark! I pulled the stuff in the oven like you asked!” she said, coming over to give Spark a hug. They seemed to have adjusted easily to the reality of being soulmates and had made the shift from friends to lovers without thinking too deeply about it. Blanche wished they could be so lighthearted about things.

“Thanks, Candy. Ya got it at the right temperature, yeah?” he asked, kicking off his shoes and placing them on the rack by the door. The shoes on the rack were a mess, but Blanche supposed the fact that they were up off the floor was a point in Spark’s favour as they discarded their own shoes and added them to the mess.

“Of course I’ve got them on the right temp. I know how to work an oven,” Candela said, her lips turning downward in a pout. This might be the first time Blanche had seen her without lipstick. Candela rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest as Spark passed her on the way into the kitchen. “He doesn’t trust me,” she huffed to Blanche, who smiled.

“I do trust ya, Candy! I just… gotta make sure.” Blanche could not see Spark from their vantage point, but they could hear pots clanking as he moved around.

With no idea what else to do, since they doubted they would fit in Spark’s kitchen while he and Candela were already in there, Blanche sat on the couch. Their lap was immediately invaded by a clutch of tiny Vulpix kits, who seemed to have been sleeping under a blanket until Blanche disturbed them. Delighted, Blanche scratched their little heads and was relieved that they had not chosen to sit on that blanket. If they had crushed the little babies, they would have died.

There was a knock at the door, which Candela went to answer. “Hello Rocket,” she said, managing somehow to sound both cheerful and menacing at the same time.

The response was unmistakably Noire. “Bite me.”

Noire stomped into the apartment still wearing their boots. “We brought booze- oh, babies!” they broke off with a gasp. Noire shoved the packs of beer into Candela’s arms and knelt on the floor in front of Blanche to coo at the kits.

Amelie kicked off her own boots, gave Candela a polite nod, and came in to join them.

Whatever Spark was doing in the kitchen caused the apartment to be full of delectable smells. Noire kept sniffing the air as they tried to steal all of the Vulpix kits from Blanche’s lap. Blanche kept stealing them back, and this continued until the kits began to protest loudly and Amelie confiscated them all.

Noire counted this as a victory until they realized that she did not plan to share with them, and they returned to the couch to sulk with Blanche.

Spark came out of the kitchen bearing steaming pans of food, and they all gravitated in that direction with their mouths watering. “I didn’t know you could cook,” Blanche commented to Spark.

He grinned, but there was an edge of shyness to it. “Oh, yeah, I love to cook. Feeding people is one of my favourite things.”

There was rice and stir-fried veggies, a platter of meatballs, bread that appeared home-made, though it was not fresh from the oven, and a plate of fresh-baked cookies. They all piled their plates high and settled around the living room, since Spark didn’t have enough chairs in his tiny eating area, and the chairs he did have held baskets of sleeping Pichu.

Candela and Spark opted to sit on the floor, sitting close enough to brush against Blanche’s legs. Amelie sat on the couch with Noire half lounging in her lap. Whenever Noire’s feet came too close to Blanche’s lap, and therefore their plate, Blanche would pinch Noire’s toes.

“This is delicious,” said Blanche. On impulse, they ruffled Spark’s hair, and was immediately embarrassed.

Spark twisted around to grin up at them. “Thanks! Glad you like it!” He lifted one hand to squeeze Blanche’s knee, and their face went hot. Spark blinked in surprise at their reaction, then smiled. “Hey, uh, Blanche,” he said, almost shy.

“Hm?”

“Sorry if this is sudden, but… Can I kiss you?”

Blanche flushed all over and a nervous, fluttery feeling filled their chest. It was probably too soon, but Blanche wasn’t as opposed to the idea as they thought they would be.

Blanche’s hands clenched their jeans and they bit their lower lip as they nodded. “I suppose,” they said, aware that their voice sounded small and uncertain.

Spark had not removed his hand from Blanche’s knee. He kept it there for support as he turned toward Blanche and shifted into a kneeling position. Blanche’s heart pounded against their ribs as he leaned closer. When they felt his breath on their face and his hand cup their cheek, they closed their eyes.

The kiss was soft and gentle. It was obvious that Spark was trying not to scare them away. Blanche’s hand came up to grip Spark’s t-shirt, and they only pulled away when Noire started making fake gagging sounds.

“Blanche, gross,” Noire groaned.

Blanche turned their head to glare at their twin. “Like you don’t kiss Amelie in front of me.”

Noire glared back. “That’s different. I’m eating here!”

Blanche was going to snap back, but hands on their face distracted them. Blanche looked up in surprise as Candela shoved Spark out of the way and settled on Blanche’s lap. “Aw, does little Noire not like PDA?” she purred, snuggling against Blanche’s chest and turning their face the same red as her t-shirt. She looped an arm around Blanche’s neck and smirked at Noire.

While Noire sputtered, Candela leaned in so close that her breath tickled Blanche’s ear as she whispered, “May I have a kiss too, darling?”

Half the reason they accepted was desire, but they would be lying if the other half wasn’t the need to antagonize Noire.

Whatever concerns Spark had about scaring Blanche away, Candela did not share. This was not a light, gentle kiss. It was hot and hungry, and by the time Candela pulled away Blanche was panting to catch their breath.

Candela smiled at them, softer and happier than Blanche had ever seen her.

They opened their mouth to say something, but were interrupted by Spark’s whistle. “Nice, Candy,” he said, awed.

Candela snorted.

Blanche peeked to the side to gauge Noire’s reaction. Noire was red-faced and sputtering. When their eyes met Blanche’s they snapped. “What the HELL. Did you invite me here just to watch you guys make out?”

Blanche couldn’t help it - they started to laugh. Soon the others joined in, even Amelie, while Noire whined and sputtered.

This wasn’t bad. It was quite nice. Blanche wouldn’t mind having soulmates, if it meant they could have a lot of days like this in their future.

#Pokemon Go #Ashiversary #chiiwifruit #submission #fanfiction #Blanche #Spark #Candela #Team Mystic #Team Instinct #Team Valor #If We're Honest

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projecthalemaw · 4 years

Text

The three teens were now successfully off on their adventure, and conversing amongst one another. "Alexis. Was everything okay, back at the pokemon center?" Hera asked as the three walked.

"Hm? Oh uh, yeah. My brain got overwhelmed with all of the lights, sounds, and my eyes had been hurting." Alexis admitted, adjusting her sunglasses.

"Ah. Gotcha. I experience it occasionally, although rarely." Hera nodded in understanding. "So. I'm thinking that, when we get to Nightvale city, My gran will want to have dinner with me one last time. And because shes a total sweetheart, You two can stay for dinner too." Hera spoke, slipping her hands into her jacket pockets. "So, I know Miranda's kind of a tough gym leader. Her gym is certainly eccentric, if I remember some of her battles that are televised. Three floors, each one works with a different weather effect. Remind me what they are, Lucius?"

"Sandstorm for the first floor, Hail for the second, and Sunny day for the third. The top floor, where shes located, is actually the rooftop of the weather facility in Jupiter city. It almost always rains in that city, as well. So when we head that direction, we'll wanna have our umbrella's to be easy to access." Lucius explained.

Alexis nodded, looking up from her pokedex. "I'm reading over Gible's pokedex entry, which also seems to list the ability for the pokemon, and what it does. Sand veil ups evasion in a sandstorm." She spoke. "Meaning that gible will likely be highly useful for the first floor, in my case." She spoke.

"Correct. The ability listing feature was of Professor Morgan's own design, if you're curious. Also. We should use this route, and the cave, to train our partners." Lucius spoke.

"Cave?" Hera asked.

"No. We're not going near the cave on the other path." Alexis spoke, her tone seeming to shift.

"There's a hidden cave nearby, that has pokemon that are rare elsewhere on this island." Lucius elaborated.

"Oh, okay. Sorry for my tone shift." Alexis spoke.

"All good. Yeah. That other cave, on the other path. It creeps everyone out, so mom made it illegal to go near there, at least for our towns residents." He explained, taking a pokeball out and releasing beldum. "Beldum will be harder to train, as it only learns one move until it evolves, into metang. Meaning I should get the jump on training it first, while still training Chomp, my main partner." Lucius spoke. He was going to say something, but got cut off by a girl getting his attention.

"Hey! Wanna battle? I just got a new pokemon, and wanna test it out." The girl spoke.

"You can take her on Lucius." Hera spoke, gesturing for him to go on. "Alexis and I can watch, or go train on wild pokemon."

"Y-yeah. Let's go train on wild Pokemon. Catch up with us after, lucius." Alexis spoke.

3 hard hours of training later, and one sudden thunderstorm that lasted 20 minutes

Alexis, Lucius, and Hera met back up in a Clearing in the Route. Their pokemon, had all gotten stronger.

"Anyone else hungry, or just me?" Alexis asked, as her stomach growled rather loudly. "Just realized I hadn't eaten yet."

"Well. We're close to my Gran's house, and closer to Nightvale City. It's about Lunch time at this point. We can go get lunch at a cafe, then take a few hours to relax before going to my Grandma's for the night." Hera offered.

"I got plenty of Money from the trainers I beat, meaning I can pay for lunch." Lucius nodded.

"Yeah. Let's get healed up at the pokemon center, then go get lunch. It's about another six hours or so till dinnertime, so we have plenty of time to kill at like an arcade or something. The one in Nightvale is moderately large. We can do some arcade games, if we havent blown all of our money by lunch." Hera nodded.

"What's an arcade?" Alexis questioned, not realizing she said it out loud.

"Basically, a place where you can pay money to earn tokens and play games. My dad used to own the one in nightvale city, before he sold it to the Mayor of Nightvale after meeting my mom when she joined him for a game of DDR, or rather. Dance, Dance, Revolution." Hera explained without missing a beat, as they headed toward the entrance of Nightvale city.

Once the three arrived in Nightvale city, Alexis's mouth dropped. This was one of the largest places she'd ever seen. (Not that she remembers anywhere larger.) "Woah. It's... massive." Alexis spoke, blinking slightly.

"There are bigger cities. Heck. The Island where we get our fifth gym badge, the entire place is all the city." Hera spoke.

"Ew. Sounds gross." Alexis reflexively spoke.

"Yeah. I personally enjoy places that have variety to them. I've heard Twilight Island is like a maze." Lucius spoke, as they walked into the pokemon center.

"Hi! Welcome to the pokemon center. Let me know if I can do anything for you, please." The Nurse spoke as she walked out from one of the back Rooms.

"Hi! I was wondering if our pokemon could get a quick heal." Lucius spoke.

"Can do! Just put the pokeballs on the tray here, and Blissey can take care of them for you." The nurse spoke as she put the tray on the counter in front of her.

Alexis put her pokeballs in top slots, although she was somewhat hesitant to.

Lucius put his in the middle, seeming a bit relaxed.

Hera put hers in the bottom slots.

"Blissey will bring you your pokeballs personally, after healing your pokemon. She can heal them through their pokeballs, so dont worry about her getting them mixed up. Feel free to have a seat." The nurse spoke, before turning to follow blissey to the back to work on something.

The three teens sat down, and began to converse among each other. "So. Since we're going to be traveling with each other for the foreseeable future. I guess we should get to know one another." Hera spoke, taking her hat off. "Lucius, pass me a drink?" She asked. "Gotta take my meds."

"Ah, yeah, of course." Lucius spoke as he opened his bag, and passed her a water bottle.

"Well... guess the meowth's gotta come out of the bag. I don't remember much of anything. I only know my name." Alexis spoke, rather quietly. She wasn't sure if the two would still be friends with her.

"That's quite okay." Hera spoke, as she took a couple of bottles out of her jacket, and opened the bottles. "We're not gonna look at you any differently, Alexis. Right, Lucius?" She asked, before taking her medication. Her tone had an essence of "Answer correctly, or I'm gonna smack you." to it.

"Yeah, of course." Lucius nodded.

Alexis let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks. I was feeling freaked out, and was trying to figure out how I should explain it." She spoke. "I dont even know where I'm from."

"Gotcha." Hera nodded. "Well, maybe we can make getting your memories back a side endeavor in our journey." She offered, as Blissey came up to their table, with their tray of pokeballs in hand.

"Thank's blissey." Lucius spoke, as the three sorted their pokeballs back among themselves.

"So yeah. We'll try our best to get your memories back." Hera nodded, her sunshine personality sort of showing in the instance.

Lucius nodded in agreement. "Yeah." He nodded. "So. Now that our teams are all healed up, where are we going first?" He asked as he stood up, hooking his pokeballs back onto his belt loop.

"Hm. Food and drink sound good?" Hera asked as she stood up, gesturing for Alexis to follow.

Alexis nodded. "Yeah, sounds fine to me." She spoke as she stood, and followed the others out.

Once the three were outside, Hera opened her map. "Now. If I recall correctly, theres a really good little cafe that doubles as a burger place, just up the street from here." Hera spoke. "I don't know about burgers myself, but I could definitely go for a Chocolate moomoo milkshake and fries." She spoke, as she put her map away, and began to walk right from the pokemon center entry.

Lucius and Alexis exchanged glances, and followed after Hera, who was already a good two feet away.

After a good Twenty minutes of walking, the trio arrived at a rather large building. "Used to come here all the time after school. Don't remember why I stopped." Hera spoke, grabbing the door and opening it.

Alexis and lucius followed her in, exchanging a look as they got greeted. "Hey there, welcome to Cathy's. Today we've got a deal on burger's and shakes. Buy ten dollars worth and get a third set free." The cashier spoke.

"You two get whatever you want, I'll just get a large thing of fries and a chocolate shake." Hera spoke, as she pulled out her wallet to start counting how much money she'd need to set aside for their meal.

After time passed, and the three sat down after ordering their food, a pair of women walked into the Café, looking no older then Hera. The most eye-catching feature the women had among the two of them was the orange haired girl having a mechanical arm. It wasn't audible what the two had ordered, but it didn't seem overly complicated, as it was done before the trio's meal.

The black haired girl who had it tied back and to the side walked up. "Hey, there's not a whole lot of places left to sit. Do you three care if we join you?" She asked. She adjusted her glasses, as she waited for an answer from one of them.

"Of course! We were just stopping in to get lunch ourselves. We just started our own adventure and all." Hera spoke, seeming a little sheepish.

"Ah, yeah. I remember those times." The orange haired girl spoke. "I think you and I started at the same time, right, rey?" She asked her companion.

"Yes, we did. Now, apologies, but we've seemed to have forgotten our manners. I'm Reyna, and this one here is Cassidy." Reyna spoke, nodding slightly.

Hera nodded. "The guy getting our food is Lucius, I'm hera, and I'll let her introduce herself."

"I'm Alexis." Alexis spoke, nodding gently to the two taller girls.

The two girls who had joined them nodded. "Nice to meet you too. You seem a little young to just be starting your adventure." Reyna noted.

"As much as I wish I were younger, I'm glad to be Seventeen." Hera laughed a little. "Means I dont have to see my parents again." She spoke lightly.

Lucius set their tray down on the table. "Hera, who are these two?" Lucius asked as he sorted their stuff among themselves.

"Cassidy and Reyna. They asked to sit with us as there isn't anywhere else that they can really sit." Hera explained.

"Ah. Nice to meet you." Lucius spoke, as he sat down.

Cassidy nodded. "Mind if I ask who you guys chose as starters? I've heard interesting things about this Region's starter selection." She spoke.

"Well. This year was a bit different, and the professor gave us each two starter pokemon." Hera explained.

"Interesting." Reyna noted, writing it down in her notebook after taking a sip from her drink.

"I chose this Region's variant of Piplup, and Larvitar. I'll let these two answer the question themselves." Hera spoke before digging into her food.

"Region's totodile variant, and gible." Alexis quietly spoke after swallowing the bite she had been chewing on. It was clear that she had something on her mind, but nobody could be entirely sure what it was she was thinking about.

"Cyndaquil Variant and Beldum." Lucius nodded.

"Interesting. And what are the types of your regional variants?" Reyna asked, glancing up from her writing.

"Totodile is dark and fairy, according to my pokedex." Alexis nodded.

"Cyndaquil is an Ice and Dragon type here." Lucius spoke.

"And Piplup is just a ghost type." Hera spoke, after swallowing the food she had in her mouth.

"Fascinating. We came to the region on business, mostly because someone called us here for said business." Reyna spoke.

"She still won't tell me, for whatever reason." Cassidy spoke, shrugging lightly as she stretched her legs out.

"Because if I do, you won't shut up about it. You'll find out in about a month's time. We mostly came a month early to get a lay of the region." Reyna spoke.

"Oh. Okay." Cassidy spoke. "Think we may try the gym challenge. Might be worth it after all, now that we're here. Y'know babe?"

"Yeah. Gives us an idea on how tough some of the trainers in this region are." Reyna nodded, as she looked up from her notepad.

"Ah. About that. Nobody's been able to complete the gym challenge in two years at this point." Lucius explained.

"That's a surprise." Cassidy spoke. "Why?"

"The eighth gym leader, Minerva, disappeared two years ago. Nobody knows where she went." Lucius explained, after taking a sip of his drink.

"Fascinating." Cassidy spoke.

Reyna simply nodded, marking something down in her notepad. "Seems interesting. I guess that's why Victory road looked untraversed?" She questioned.

"Yeah. And the league officials have been unable to hire a new leader to replace her, as her gym is sealed shut." Lucius nodded again.

"Oh, interesting." Reyna nodded. "I need to step outside for a moment, make a couple of Phone calls." Reyna spoke, standing up and stepping away from the table.

"Everything okay, babe?" Cassidy asked.

"Yeah. Just gotta make a couple calls correlating to our work here." Reyna nodded, reassuring her girlfriend before she headed outside.

"So. What's with the arm?" Alexis asked, finally deciding to speak up a little. She gestured vaguely to Cassidy's metal arm, before going back to poke at her food.

"Lost my arm in a fight back home. Reyna built this one for me, when she found me bleeding." Cassidy chuckled lightly, adjusting her hoodie. "What sparked the question?"

"It just looks out of place, with the rest of your attire." Hera elaborated, since Alexis had her mouth full.

"Ah, yeah. Had to unscrew it to get through the metal detector to board the boat to get here. That was not a fun experience." Cassidy admitted.

"Yeah, I imagine so." Lucius nodded. "Anyone wanna battle? Just all friendly like?" The teen asked, cleaning up the wrappers from all of their food. "We've still got time to kill."

"Yeah, sure. I'm down." Cassidy spoke, standing up, and collecting her and Reyna's drinks. "I'll meet y'all outside." She spoke as she slipped out.

"So. Those two are eccentric, to say the least." Hera noted as she laughed a little. "You can go battle Cassidy. Think I'm gonna hit the mall with Alexis, if she wants to come along." Hera spoke, as she stood up, finishing her shake.

Alexis nodded, re-wrapping the rest of her burger she still had and stuffing it in her pocket. "I figure we'll meet back up in an hour or two?" Alexis asked, remaining soft-spoken.

Hera nodded. "Here's my number Lucius, in case you need to contact us before we meet at gran's." She spoke, writing her phone number down on the wrapped and passing it to him.

The trio separated on their own paths, to do their own thing for a little while.

Following Alexis and Hera for the next little while. Lucius will pop back in later.

"So, uh. You've been pretty quiet, Alexis." Hera spoke, slipping her hands into her pockets. "Something on your mind?" She asked.

"No, everything's fine. I'm just... I don't know. It feels weird, not being able to remember things. The food was fine, If that's what you're wondering." Alexis spoke, kicking a couple rocks.

"Alright. If you need to talk to someone, you can. Y'know that, right?" Hera spoke, nodding slightly to Alexis. "Also. Is there anything you want, while we're shopping?"

"A cellphone would be nice. I didn't have one, when I woke up in that room." Alexis spoke quietly.

"Alright. Yeah, we can look at those. You can't get most places without one." Hera smiled a bit.

Alexis nodded. "I figured. I've been observing everyone, and it seems like theyve become an intricate part of everyone's lives." She spoke, looking up at her friend.

"Yeah, it's interesting." She spoke, as they walked into the Mall. "Here we are. The Nightvale Mall. I used to come here a lot. Stopped when my friends moved away." Hera shrugged. "I'm thinking we should get you a couple more outfits, because as nice as your current outfit is, it's kind of out of place seeming." Hera explained.

"Yeah. That'll be fine. I'm keeping this jacket though, to go with any outfits we get." Alexis spoke.

"Yeah. The Jacket's fine." Hera spoke, as she and Alexis walked. "Anywhere you wanna go first?" She asked.

Alexis nodded. "Uh... hm. We could go look at the books first. I think having some reading material would be nice." She spoke.

Hera nodded. "Then off to the bookshop it is." She spoke, as she helped Alexis Navigate to the bookstore on the second floor.

The two girls walked into the Bookstore, which was Relatively empty, outside of a cashier and a couple of elderly people sitting down somewhere near the back, in a couple or chairs. "Get whatever strikes your fancy. We've got a budget about Nineteen thousand, to spend here at the mall." Hera spoke.

Alexis nodded. She really didn't have any idea where to start. After all, she didn't even know if she had a favorite genre. After about fifteen minutes of wandering the store, Alexis had picked up a few mystery novels that caught her eye. "Hey Hera. Found a few books that looked interesting."

"Oh?" Hera asked, walking over to Alexis, to see what Alexis had found.

"Yeah. Just a few mystery novels that caught my attention." Alexis spoke. "Think we should probably get the phone next, then save the outfit shopping for last." Alexis nodded as she and Hera went up to the register to pay for the books she picked out.

"Sounds good to me." Hera spoke, keeping her hands in her pockets as the cashier scanned the books, taking out her wallet when it was time.

After Hera paid for the books, Alexis took the bag that the books were put in, and held it in her left hand as the two girls walked out, and headed for the next shop.

After a while of the two shopping, Hera's phone buzzed, with a text from Lucius, asking where the two were.

Hera shot him a text back, stating that they were leaving the mall right as he texted, and were on their way.

The two girls walked through Nightvale city, eventually arriving at a house, with lucius standing outside, and Cassidy having a smoke nearby. "Hey kiddos. Lucius wanted me to come with him after the battles, as he had questions. Now that you two are here, ima dip out. Maybe we'll run into each other some other time." Cassidy spoke, not giving the two time to answer, as she left.

"...that was weird." Hera spoke. "Oh well. She's probably right, that we'll run into her and her girlfriend again." She shrugged, as she walked up the steps to the front door, and unlocked it. "Gran! I'm home!" She called.

"Hey Hera, welcome home!" Hera's grandma called back from the kitchen. "Are your friends with you?" She asked.

"Yeah! Lucius, Alexis. You two, come on in." Hera gestured.

Alexis was the last to enter, and closed the door behind her. "Thank you for having us, I think." She spoke, nodding gently.

"Mhm! I figured I should feed you three before you go off on an adventure around the Islands." Gran spoke, as she was chopping onions.

"Thanks, really." Lucius spoke, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"I'm making sausage and mac and cheese, with sauteed onions." Her grandmother nodded. "Do any of you wanna help?" She asked.

"Yeah." Alexis spoke. "I may not be of much help, though." She spoke, putting her bags down, and heading to the kitchen.

TBC in another post, because tumblr decided it was too long.

#chapter 3 #project halemaw #Pokemon #mature

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pokayyyemon · 5 years

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Pokemon HC - Valentine’s Day

So for my first installment of headcanons for this fandom, I’ve decided to touch on the upcoming holiday. When doing headcanons, I will do a variety of characters. Some may be longer than others. If not a direct request, I will normally use a randomizer. I have a list of 100+ game characters. When I do these without a specific characters in mind, who knows who we will get! So let’s get into it.

WARNING: There will be some game spoilers. Sorry.

The first headcanons will be done for Sabrina, Cress, Sonia, Iris, Gordie, Lillie, Cyrus, Barry, Brawley, and Wikstrom.

Sabrina

Surprising Sabrina is incredibly difficult. Between multiple psychic abilities, she’s able to always tell what you are up to. After a while, you’ve realized the best thing to do is to not think about it. If you have no expectation of what is about to happen, she can’t figure out the future as quickly as you can change it. So, you take her on a date. She was already ready when you got to her. That much she was able to predict. When you pull out a coin, she’s confused. You flip the coin to decide to go left or right while navigating through Saffron City. You end up at a random restaurant. You flip the coin to decide drinks and food. After that, you wander the city with your magic coin that keeps throwing her off. Sabrina has an amazing time, and she eventually stops trying to see what the coin is going to do and just goes with the flow. She doesn’t often like surprises, but this was enjoyable. She is very thankful that she has you in her life.

Cress

Valentine’s Day is always a big deal for Cress. The main focus of the day is a nice meal between two people.�� He has a major debate with his brothers about whether he should take you out or cook for you himself. It was a heated debate that lasted longer and gotten louder than it ever should have. In the end, it was decided that he would take you out. He took you to Castelia City. He pulled strings to get you into one of the nicest restaurants in the city at the top of a tall building. The table had a nice ambiance of candles and scattered rose petals. He arranged to have a person playing the violin for the two of you as you enjoyed a nice meal. After dinner, he arranged for a carriage ride to the pier where you took a boat ride to get a view at the city from afar. It was beautiful. Then, he took you home. He kissed your hand before watching you walk inside. When he got back home to his brothers, he got to tell them how they were right in suggesting he take you out and enjoy a night with you.

Sonia

With Sonia, it’s up to you to plan the date. She’s far too preoccupied with her work. She hardly realized the months had changed. With her new title and training a new assistant, she remained pretty busy. On Valentine’s Day, you take her out to a spa date in Motostoke. A couple’s massage, mani-pedi’s together, facials, and hair styling. The whole shebang. After that, the two of you went shopping. You pick out an outift for each other to wear for dinner that night. You change at the hotel room you book for the two of you. You wanted to make sure she got away from the lab for an entire day. There was no excuse to go back. The two of you have a nice dinner out. On the way back, you pick up a bunch of snacks and candies. You head back to the hotel and binge out on your treats and rom-coms playing on the television. The next morning on the train ride back to Wedgehurst, she thanks you for the amazing day and knowing what she really needs.

Iris

Neither you nor Iris are fans of the idea of a mushy-gushy date day. The two of you had talked about ignoring the holiday altogether. However, it was decided that you would use it as an excuse for her to get out of her champion duties for the day. You went to Nimbasa and played around at the amusement park all day. You rode rides, ate snacks, played games, and just enjoyed each other’s company. She stayed so busy and focused on training her pokemon and other champion duties that you two rarely got this time out together to just be young and in love. When the night fell, the two of you got to watch the fireworks. You look over at her. The bright explosions reflecting in her dark eyes was absolutely beautiful, and you couldn’t look away. She looks over at you and smiles. It was rare that you got to see Iris have such a soft moment. You were very thankful that you took advantage of the day together.

Gordie

You and Gordie had known each other for a while. It was always a nice friendship. He was cute, and you really liked him. However, he was gym leader now, and there were plenty of fans fawning over him. You didn’t want to embarrass yourself by asking him out. So, when he made his way through a crowd of fans with a yellow rose over to you and asked if you would be his valentine, you almost cried. It was amazing. He picked you up on Valentine’s Day and was an absolute mess when he saw how amazing you looked. He handed you a box of chocolates and a plush of your favorite pokemon. The two of you went ice skating first. He was pretty talented and was showing off for you. After skating, he took you back to his house for dinner to meet his family for dinner. His mother took plenty of pictures and made an amazing dinner. You played a couple rounds of a dancing video game while enjoying conversations and hot cocoa. At the end of the night, he walked you back home. He told you that if you were sturdy enough to withstand the avalanche that is his family that he knew he wanted to keep doing this. At your door, you shared a kissed before you retreated away to reflect on the amazing night.

Lillie

You asked Lillie out for Valentine’s Day, and she practically passed out. You liked her and had liked her for a while, but you knew she took a while to come around to anyone. An innocent date on the day for dates seemed safe enough to ask her. She was able to agree, but her mother demanded that the date happen at the Aether Foundation. So, you took a ferry to the Aether Paradise on the day. You were greeted with skeptical looks from everyone. Gladion sulked around with glare the entire time. The only person who didn’t treat you any differently was Wicke. You were thankful for her. You had dinner with Lusamine and Gladion. It was a very awkward dinner. Afterwards, the two of you went for a walk through the conservation area. You were able to play with some of the pokemon. You took a couple pictures with Lillie. You taught her a silly dance that you saw on the internet. She smiled a lot more than normal. She enjoyed your company. At the end of the night, she hugged you and thanked you for her first date. You asked her if she’d be interested in more. She nodded.

Cyrus

It was a bad day for him. You could always tell when he seemed off. You had a big date planned for the night. It was a mostly private event, but you could tell that he didn’t want to get out. He was in his head. He was upset. Instead, you went out and got a few things from the store. You made soup. Soup always calmed him down. You bought a new blanket that was big enough for the two of you to cuddle with. You washed it with the new lavender detergent. You went all around the base and collected blankets, sheets, and pillows from everyone. When anyone wanted to fight you, you told them it was for the boss, and they were more willing to part with their items. You built a fort in your room. You bought fairy lights to hang up inside the fort. You plugged in your laptop and put on his favorite movie. You brought him into the fort, you brought him his bowl of soup, and you draped the blanket over the two of you. “The world out there is terrible and cruel, but this is a new world that’s all our own,” you told him, kissing his cheek. He smiled slightly as he took a bite of soup and watched the movie with you. As you laid down, he thanked you and reminded you how much he appreciated your existence.

Barry

This wasn’t a date. This was two people who didn’t realized what day it was. You spent the whole day playing your favorite game. You two would spot a pokemon and compete about who was quick enough to catch it before the other. You both caught about six pokemon each. The tie-breaker ran away, and you two were way too hungry to be able to catch it. You made your way back to town and decided to hit up a restaurant that you frequented at when you were around. You were both a little blown way by all the hearts and couples everywhere. They were all dressed up. You two were covered in grass stains, twigs, and dirt. You decided to leave that place and hit up a burger joint instead. You got some food and talked about life. You told him about your dream date, and he laughed and said that if you beat him to the pokemon center that he would take you on it next Valentine’s Day. You asked him what he would get if he won. He told you that you would would have to go out on a date with him sooner than that. Before any other words were said, the two of you started sprinting through the city streets. You’ll never admit it, but you let him win.

Brawley

You were excited when Brawley asked you out for Valentine’s Day. It was going to be the best day. You expected a date where you would go surfing or do some other active event. Exploring the cave on the island or attending the Lovers’ Bonfire on the beach? You were looking forward to it. You answered the door in very casual clothes, and you were taken aback by his formal attire. You don’t ever recall seeing him wear a tie ever in your life. You invited him inside as you changed as quickly as you could. When you were finally ready in more formal attire, you found him playing with your pokemon and having the best time. He took you to his house. He had a dinner set up. He hired a friend who was a chef to cook for you guys. There was a candle lit table outside. You could see the Lovers’ Bonfire across down the beach a bit. Brawley admitted that he wanted to spend this time getting to know you in his comfort zone. He was a publicly known as a cool guy, but he never really shared his personal feelings openly. So, instead of spending a night out with the world, you joined Brawley in his. You talked for hours about his life and opinions. He played music and you two danced by yourself while you told him about your hobbies and goals. It was truly a magical night.

Wikstrom

Wikstrom is an intimidating man to most people, but it was you that intimidated him when you invited him out for Valentine’s Day. He even blushed, but you would never tell anyone that. It was your secret. He came out to visit you in your city for the date. He looked dapper. Much more relaxed than he normally did. You took his hand and let him around your town. You took him around to show him your favorite places. He is pleased to hear about your history. He really enjoys it. You bring him back to your place. Instead of going out to dinner, you have all the ingredients to make everything. He’s unsurprisingly good at chopping up all the veggies and the meat. You two have a good time cooking. Sitting down to enjoy a meal you made together felt successful. At the end of the night, you agree that you’ll have to go visit him soon. He seems excited to hear that you want to see him again. You kiss his cheek at the door before closing it. It takes him a second to come back to earth and figure out how to function again.

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jeawrites · 5 years

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I was wondering if you could do a oneshot of wildcat and panda. I have no specific au in mind you can pick. I just love your writing and this ship. I hope you had a great Valentine's Day ❤

((These two,,, are legit my biggest weakness. Thank you for requesting and for the compliment! And, I hope your Valentine's day was fine as well!!))

"Hey, Tyler, psst..."

Tyler groaned into his pillow, swatting away the hand that was shaking him. "I just fell asleep," he grumbled out. "I know, I'm sorry," Anthony apologized, before shaking him again. "I just forgot about something really important, so can you get up?"

"Ant, I jus' wanna sleep," he complained. "It can wait."

"But, it cant!" Anthony insisted, "We have an hour of Valentines day left- the mood won't be the same tomorrow!" He flopped on him, getting a grunt in return. "Fine! Just get off of me," Tyler huffed, getting a small kiss to the back of his head before Anthony rolled off of him and got off the bed.

Tyler sat up, blinking a few times before he got out of bed and followed Anthony out of their bedroom and down the hall.

"So why couldn't ya just do this earlier?" Tyler asked, yawning. "I forgot!" Anthony answered with a chuckle. "I guess I was having so much fun that it slipped my mind." There was such a fondness in the truth of that, that Tyler felt his heart flutter. "It wasn't that big of a deal," he passed off, "we hardly did anything."

That was a lie.

The two had done so much.

Tyler had taken him out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and everything in between was little dates that Tyler figured would be fun! They saw a movie, they played lazer tag, walked through the park, went to an arcade, and even snacked between meals!

To top it all off Tyler had gotten Anthony a few Pokemon plushes with a candy box for each one.

He was absolutely spoiled!

And, it wasn't like Anthony didn't spoil Tyler. Yesterday Anthony cooked them a huge dinner, and before breakfast he surprised Tyler with some movies and a few new video games he wanted. Also a shit ton of candy that night, much like Tyler.

"Well, whatever," Anthony chuckled gain, "I got the best thing for ya. I called Evan, so he should be delivering it- I feel bad for leaving him with it a day," he rubbed the back of his head. "Evan had it?" Tyler asked, raising a brow. "You sure its not broke?"

Anthony paled a little and shook his head. "It better not be- otherwise I'm gonna have to kill Evan..."

Tyler decided not to touch on the darkened tone, instead began to think out loud. "Was it expensive?" Anthony shrugged. "Yeah, but they usually are."

"Will I like it?"

"If you don't, I will," he stated.

"That's sorta vague," Tyler pointed out. "Yeah, but you shouldn't expect much else. It's a surprise, Hun," he smiled.

Then, Anthony's phone rang.

He pulled it from his pocket and put it to his ear, talking with someone before hanging up. "Ev's here. I'll be right back in," he smiled and kissed Tyler's cheek before hurrying outside.

Tyler waited patiently, messing with some things they had put on shelves.

It took a few minutes, but soon the door opened and Anthony came in. "Bout time, had me worries there-" a bark cut Tyler off and he turned around quick. Anthony held a puppy. A really cute, beautiful brown puppy. "Wha..."

"Surprise! Tyler, meet Bones!" He grinned and put the puppy down on the floor. "Oh my god!" Tyler beamed, like an excited kid. Like how Anthony expected.

Evan came in the door behind Anthony, bags on his arms that were full of dog stuff. "He likes to play, careful," Evan stated with an exhausted laugh. He put the bags down and Anthony gave him a hug as thanks before Evan left.

He shut the door and turned to see Tyler laying on the floor, the puppy already taking a liking to him, playing with him happily. "I can't- I can't believe you got a dog!" He laughed, petting the puppy happily.

"Better believe it. I rescued him from the shelter," he smiled, "costed a little extra, but... I really liked him."

"I love him already," Tyler stated, grinning as the puppy liked his hand. He stood up and watched as Bones ran circles around him, barking excitedly. "He's gonna be my baby," he predicted. Anthony nodded. "Our baby," he also corrected.

"Happy Valentines day, Ty," he added. "Happy Valentines day, babe," Tyler responded, "and you too, Bones!"

#they would adopt a puppy dont even @ me #thanks for the request!#i enjoyed writing it!!!#i am panda #i am jiggly #i am wildcat #big jiggle wildcat #big jiggly wildcat #big jiggly panda #bbs #bbs au #banana bus crew #banana bus squad #request #tfd answers

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roastedlizlow · 5 years

Text

Warm Nights/Cold Nights

Prompt: HpYu/Postwickshipping Week Day 1, Warm Nights/Cold Nights WC: 1462 Pair: Hop/Gloria Notes: All of mine are probably coming a bit late :( I wanted to participate on time but alas. Either way, I adore Hop and Gloria and whole lot so! This Gloria is somewhat custom. Same look as default (unless I state that she’s changed up her style). Her starter is Sobble. Anyway, all these fics will be somewhat related, so long as I can get them all done. Hope these will all read alright!

As though the sky wishes to whisper to them a secret, the breeze brushes against their ears. Did they forget to close their tents? These softened words continue even as they groggily rise to check their own status. What if a wild Pokemon starts sniffing around? With the smells of cooked curry, placed at least at, hm, Milcery Rank, has already wagered off, there shouldn’t be any sort of thing left that could have lured them over, but one can never really predict the habits of a warm-meal loving untamed creature.

“It’s... cold tonight...”

A tremendous observation by Gloria. If she had more company, it’d be astute. How unavoidable, this is. A lonesome night builds character, and there needs to be time apart, but goodness does it chill more and more.

“I wonder... if Hop is feeling the cold too...”

She has a feeling, through these whisps, that he is. So she decides to get up for a bit, to think about what things are now, and what things could be. Gloria notices that beside her, her Intelleon gets up too.

“I know, I know,” Gloria says to it, “I think... I want to see why the air’s calling me.”

And in that statement, she hands her blanket to it and slips out of the tent. Naturally, it follows behind her, so it could put the blanket over her shoulder. Always, since it was a little Sobble, since she and it became partners, it’d support her, help her.

“Thank you,” she smiles, pulling the blanket more firmly over herself, glancing up to the sky. It’s a clear night, full of stars. If she looks close enough, maybe she could see a shooting star, and maybe she could make a wish. Even if that energy isn’t something she’d jump to collect, she’d like to think that her hopes could still get across.

Together, this journey has been about being together, even if they’re not.

“No matter what, we’re not that far apart,” Gloria tells every light in the sky, glancing then to her Rotom Phone, which is now floating beside her. It’s late, but should she try calling him? Would he answer? She pulls in her knees, and closes her eyes, imagining once more what’d feel like to be sitting next to him right now, staring up, trying to figure out home many Pokemon they can make out within the stars.

She feels warmer now. If only by just a little bit.

Her finger hover near her phone’s screen. Thinking, wondering, would it be alright? Really, she’d like it if they were camping together, she’d like it if they could step through each portion of their journeys together, but she knows, knows that they have their own paths to cross. She’s glad, glad he seems like he’s doing better now.

“Intelleon, should I have said something?” She asks, scratching her chin, a small awkward laugh in her voice, “do you think he would have let me-”

“Bzzt, call connected!”

“-hold his hand again? ...Huh?”

Upon earing her Rotom’s confirmation voice, Gloria immediately turns back to her phone screen. It’s then that she notices, and allows it to settle, that she unconsciously, actually called Hop. It must’ve been the lightest, most accidental of taps, but now, now here she is. Here they are.

“All right? Hold who’s hand, mate?”

“Oh, umm... umm! A hypothetical! Someone had a... umm... an adorable Pokemon, and I was just wondering if it would’ve let me play with it...”

“I see! Haha, friendly’s always been your push.”

“Right you are!” Gloria chirps back, hoping anything works to change the subject. She’ll succeed, somehow, because the both of them are oh so great at being unaware of the other’s deepest affections. “...Did I wake you?”

“Nah, you’re swell, Glo,” Hop answers, “I was just thinking ‘bout calling you up, actually. Didn’t know if you were awake, but I can’t sleep.”

“Cold out for you?”

“Yeah, dunno why it’s this chilly.”

Honestly, Gloria finds herself much more warm now. Almost as though he actually is right next to her. Just like back when they set out from Postwick, just like that very first night in the Wild Area, they might not be present physically, but it feels like it’s just like that all the same.

“You’ve got your sweater on, don’t you?”

“‘Course I do! Intelleon brought my blanket out too. Cinderace and Dubwool keeping you plenty cozy?”

She can see Dubwool fast asleep in the corner of the screen and Cinderace pops into view as soon as she mentions it, so her answer seems to have been received. But she wishes to hear it from him directly. Does she want to hear his voice more? Maybe, maybe, that’s the case. She’s always been able to listen to him, him and all his excited babbles about Leon and the championship and people and dreams.

There’s a place for him, and her too. He’s helped her be sure of that. So she’s glad that he’s gotten the confidence about himself back into his brain. He deserves it, and all the affection that along with it.

“Fully so!”

“I’m glad!”

What to say? What can bring them back to being able to sleep? What did the winds want them to share? Was it just that that caused them to be in this moment, just now? Gloria looks closely at his expression, seeing the gentleness in his observation of the above. Has he always looked this way?

He’s really right here, isn’t he? I’m so...

“Hey, hey, Hop, remember when-”

“We were kids, camping?” He finishes for her, causing the both of them burst into laughter. They’ve been like this... since forever, haven’t they? Who was she before she met Hop? Where even was she? There’s no answer to that, since she’s better because he’s been beside her, because they’ve supported each other, because they’re true rivals!

“Yeah, yeah! It was just me and you, and Wooloo too, then.”

“Bet I do! It was dark out, but I,” he breaks his sentence up with a bit of a flustered chuckle, “wanted to camp outside, because Lee did that and got really strong.”

“Uh-huh! Your mum almost just told us to make a tent in your room instead, but it was warm outside, so she let it slide.”

“Glad she did. That night was grand!”

“It was the first time we ever camped together, outdoors, and I hoped it wouldn’t be our last... I had a lot of fun, even though we weren’t really allowed to cook anything.”

“We leaned against Wooloo and counted the stars...”

“Wooloo sleeping made me fall asleep first...”

When another cold wind passes by, Intelleon nudges her to at least return to her tent, which she complies with, as long as she can stay on the line. The inside of it feels cozy, welcoming. Like a hug. Her gut was correct, right from the start.

With each step comes more reminiscing. A full chorus of giggles that their Pokemon fall for too. That’s just them, Hop and Gloria. Postwick’s little, adored duo. Trainers endorsed by the champion himself! One of them, one of them will be the one to usurp him. It’s set in their hearts; they’ve sworn on it!

Thus, she lays back down, taking her phone in her hand after drawing her blanket up to cover her. She rests her other hand out, and though it should have met the cold, it doesn’t. It’s like he’s right next to her, forehead-to-forehead, hand-in-hand. Just like when they were children.

This time, though, there’s no parents coming outside to pick her up while Hop groggily follows behind, grabbing at her hand with tiny fingers. It’s rather different, even if the energy is ever similar. Together, in their lives, forever.

She feels her eyelids getting heavier. She doesn’t want to stop the conversation yet. She doesn’t want to fall asleep yet. It’ll be a dream, sure, but she wants to make sure it stays in reality. “Hop... I...”

“Sleepy? Haha, we’ve both been hard at work.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Until the day they can admit it to each other, or even until the day they can really say it to themselves, they’ll just keep indirectly doing things for each other, just like this, won’t they? Staying on the phone until they’re both well and sleepy, lending the other an ear when they’re super down in the dumps, being the other’s best mate. Their Pokemon, maybe even everyone around them, know all too well that their trainers are all too unaware of each other’s feelings, even though they rely on each other so much, even though they adore each other so much.

“Night, Glo.”

“Haaa, ni-ght-night to you, too, Hop.”

“And see you soon.”

#postwick week #postwickshipping #hpyu #hop (pokemon)#gloria (pokemon)#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #my writing

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queenraikichi94 · 4 years

Text

A song to heal a tired soul 16 (Raikichi x Piers)

Rated: Teen and mature

Warning: Bad language, NSFW and a bit of gore/violence

Notes: Raikichi is around 25 years old

---------------------PART 16------------------

Glaceon woke me up licking my face as she asked for food. I opened my eyes and when I saw the time in the phone, I chuckled. “Well, we can wake these guys up” I said speaking about Piers and my uncle. “You wake up Piers and I wake up uncle Kabu”

Glaceon nodded and I went to my uncle’s room. I opened the door slowly and I chuckled when I saw his Centiskorch sleeping next to him. His Pokemon woke up and I quickly put a finger on my lips as I approached my uncle slowly as I told with a simple sign language to Centiskorch that we needed to wake up my uncle. He nodded and laid down owver my uncle, who started to feel a bit overwhelmed by the heat that Centiskorch irradiated. With a groan, my uncle opened his eyes and before he could greet his Pokemon, Glaceon jumped on his lap, making him gasp. “Oof!” he said as Centiskorch stood up “Kiddo, what’s the meaning of this?” he asked when he spotted me

“Time to wake up, uncle”

“It’s 5:00 am...It’s early including for me”

“Yes, but I wanted to do exercise with you and Piers, and it’s going to be my first day of exercise after spending those two months recovering from my pneumonia” I said “Glaceon, did you wake up Piers?”

“Yes...She did” Piers said entering my uncle’s room with my hoodie covering his thin figure, shivering a lot

“Sorry” I said hugging him and trying to kiss his lips. Piers looked away; he was a bit mad for that. “I didn’t want her to wake up like that, just only a little...Don’t be mad at me...”

“I couldn’t be mad at you” he said nuzzling me “Next time, tell her not to try to freeze me”

“Ahem” uncle Kabu said clearing his throat when I was near of kissing Piers “Alright, alright, I’m up”

I smiled and took Piers’ hand and took him to the kitchen in order to prepare a quick but proper breakfast. Uncle Kabu went to the kitchen minutes later and as our Pokemon ate their food, we ate our breakfast. “I hope you’re ready for a morning full of exercise, Piers” I said as I finished eating my breakfast

“Tell me that we’re not going to do a lot”

“Don’t worry, we won’t push you to your limits” uncle Kabu said “We have a rythim, but we can adapt it to you”

Piers nodded and once we were done with the breakfast, we went to get ready. Piers looked a bit weird with the sport clothes since he wasn’t accommodate to them, but in fact he looked really hot. “Ya know, you look too hot with every clothes you put on you” I said teasing him as I grabbed his ass, taking him by surprise

“Naughty girl” he said as he tried to bite my neck by I stopped him when I tugged him softly by his necklae “And I like it...”

“We can have fun later, babe” I said releasing him “Let’s go to do exercise”

----------------

“C’mon, Piers, just only few meters more and you’ll finish!” I cheered him

Piers looked at me, panting as he reached the place where my uncle and me were waiting for him, and when he reached it, I bounced into his arms, making both of us fall to the fround. “See? You did it!”

“Yeah...I...Did it...” he panted and then, he laughed as he kissed me “Now what?”

“Now we stand up and we stretched our muscles and then, we’ll have something to eat” I said as I stood up and helped him to get up while my uncle went to buy some food. Piers and me sat down next to a fountain, with Glaceon next to us. “So...First impression about doing exercise with me and my uncle?”

“It’s hard to follow the rythim, but I’ve enjoyed a lot” Piers replied kissing my cheek

“Keep the kisses and the hugs for later, love birds” uncle Kabu said as he approached us with the food. “Now it’s time to charge our batteries!”

We ate our lunch as we enjoyed the meal on that sunny day. I closed my eyes as the breeze played with my hair before having Piers kissing my cheek when I wasn’t seeing him. My uncle cleared his throat and both Piers and me blushed madly. Once we were done with the lunch, we returned home. While we returned home, Piers told me to go with him and stay some days with him after taking a bath after this morning full of exercises,

Once at home, Piers and me went to take that bath, and once we were taking the bath, my boyfriend kissed me with passion. “I’m glad with you spending some days with me in Spikemuth. Marnie missed you a lot, ya know”

“I know...” I whispered againts his lips before kissing him

The kiss turned tender and passionate and the same time. Piers hugged me close to me as we kept kissing until we heard a knock on the door and my uncle Kabu a bit impatient telling us to be hurry cause he wanted to take a bath. We both blussed and chuckle and once we were done with the bath, we got dried and dressed, we went to my room, cause I had to prepare my bag with the things I would take for those days and Piers had to pick up his things as well.

“Remember to text me once you arrive, okay?” my uncle said

“Uncle, I’m only going to out of Mototoske for few days” I replied “Don’t worry, ‘kay?”

“I can’t stop worrying, kiddo” uncle Kabu said with a chuckle

“Alright, alright” I said with a giggle “I hope the work in the Gym will be big enough to have you occupied”

“Have fun, and take care out there” my uncle said before laughing when Centiskorch wrapped his body around me “See? He will miss you despite you’ll be only some days outside”

“Alright, buddy, now let me go” I said petting him and once he went back with my uncle, I sighed and looked at Piers “Ready?”

Piers nodded and after saying goodbye to my uncle, we went to take a Flying Taxi that left us near Spikemuth. At the main door of the town, Tell Yell was waiting for us, with banners that said ‘Welcome, Raikichi!’. I looked at my boyfriend and he chuckled “They missed you as well”

We entered in Spikemuth and we went to Piers and Marnie’s house. Marnie wasn’t at home, so she probably was exploring Galar by herself. Piers was a very good big brother, and sometimes he worried a lot for his sister, but I couldn’t blame him. He rose his sister since she was a baby, and be worried about her was a good thing. I remembered when Marnie told me about the times she escaped from her brother cause he went overprotective with her. It reminded me when uncle Kabu went to Sinnoh to visit my family and he always was on Kangashkan mom mode on when he had to watch over me.

Once i put my bag on Piers’ room, I started to change my clothes since I wanted to put the Dark Gym uniform he gave to me. I got on my underwear when I noticed that my boyfriend was looking at me, blushing as he approached me in order to hug me before kissing me. “You’re a warrior, a survivor...” he said as his lips went to my neck in order to kiss it and then, he bite it “And my treasure” he said before biting my neck soflt and then, he kissed my neck again.

“Piers...I want to get dressed, ya know” I said with a giggle while he kept kissing my neck before sighing and letting me get dressed “And I was the naughty one here” I teased him, and he blushed madly. Once I got the Dark uniform on, and my hair pulled into a ponytail, I put my shows on and when I was going to take my hoodie, Piers decided to gave me one of his jackets. I blushed as I put it on me.

“It fits you” he said kissing my cheek and then, he gave me a VIP pass “Here, take this. It’s not only a VIP pass; it’s a high VIP pass, exclusive for my sister, some friends and of course, for you, babe”

“Thank you, babe” I said kissing him as I put the pass around my neck “Shall we go and check the concert stage and rehearse your songs for tonight’s concert?”

Piers nodded and we exited his house, with Glaceon at my side. We went to the place were the concert stage was, and once there, we started to check the things. Together, we made few changes and then, I helped Piers with the songs, and I couldn’t help but smile and close my eyes as I heard him singing. Once of the things that made me fall in love with Piers was his voice. Despite of being a rock singer, his voice allowed him to sing the most beautiful and soft songs, and also, he could sing the hardest ones.

“Did I tell you that I love your voice?” I said to him while we prepared the things for the concert

“Yes, babe, and I also love your voice” he purred kissing me before keeping preparing the things “Well, this is ready. Let’s go home and have dinner” he added and I gasped when I saw the hour “I think if happens the same like you; when I focus in something, I don’t look at the time”

I chuckled and together we went to his home in order to have dinner. I helped him to prepare some sandwiches and baked potatoes following one of my grandma’s recipes, and when he tasted it, he bursted into tears of joy as he said ‘Delicious!’ all the time he tasted a bite of them. “Babe, this tastes really good” he said as he kept eating “I need you to tell me the recipe”

“If you tell me your pancake recipe”

“Deal”

I chuckled and then, we finished the dinner. We washed the dishes as Glaceon played with Obstagoon in the living room. Once we finished, we took our jackets and we went to the concert stage, with my high VIP pass around my neck. Marnie was there, speaking with Raihan and Leon. It looked that Leon had some free time and Raihan told him about the concert, and when they saw us, they gave to us. Dragon Boy blushed a bit when he saw the clothes I was wearing, and Leon tried to hide his blush as well.

“High VIP, eh?” Raihan said smirking

“Of course, Dragon Boy” I replied with a smirk as well

“I’m going to prepare myself, babe” Piers said kissing my cheek

“Go and rock’ em all, babe” I said stealing a kiss from his lips

Piers smiled before going to the dressing room while Raihan, Leon, Marnie and me got comfy on the high VIP place, ignoring the looks from the fans that were desiring having a high VIP pass, and when they saw Piers kissing me, I was sure they were trying to kill me with their gazes. I programmed my Rotom Phone to record videos of all the concert in order to have something to focus while I thought in my contest performance ideas for his next concert.

The concert started and everyone there was ready to enjoy good music. My Rotom Phone started to record it as we enjoyed the music. Piers sang his most known songs, but also, he sang new songs, including one speaking about how he fell in love with me, and that made me blush so madly that Raihan tried to take a photo of me, but I stopped him at time.

As the concert started to approach its ending, the crowd went morw wild singing the songs. They really enjoyed the music, and that was good, since Piers was a very talented musician and he seemed to dedicated a lot to his music talent.

The concert ended and while the crowd disperssed, I took my phone back and then, I stretched a bit. Marnie told me to go to the dressing room cause Piers went there after finish the concert. It was clear that she wanted to give her brother and me some privacy cause she didn’t want Raihan disturbing us, so while she went back home and Raihan and Leon did the same, I went to the dressing room, with Glaceon at my side. I entered and I saw Piers sitting on the couch, his eyes closed and with a cold wet towel on his forehead. “Babe? Are you alright?” I asked sitting down next to him

“Yeah, just relaxing a bit” he replied removing the towel and bringing me on top of him as he laid down on the couch “Did ya enjoy, babe?”

“Of course, love” I purred “Specially that last song, the one speaking about us...”

He blushed but then he licked my lips before kissing them “It was a surprise for you, babe...And I’m glad you liked it...”

I shivered a bit when I felt his cold hands stroking my sides before going doing in order to grab my ass. I smirked and I kissed his neck before bitting it “And you say I’m the naughty here~” I purred licking his neck before kissing it again, making him moan. “You’re naughty as well~” I said moving my hips as my tights rubbed againts his now hard member.

He groaned and moaned before taking his chance to kiss and bite my neck. I moaned as he made a bit of preassure on his grip while I kept rubbing againts him. “Fuck, Raikichi...You know how to drive me mad”

“I know, babe...” I said with a purr “Wanna continue here or in your home? Cause you look that you can’t wait anymore...” I purred as I moved a bit to his side in order to stroke his hard cock over his clothes. I licked my lips as I imagined savouring it again.

I was going to pull his pants and underwear down when Piers grabbed my hand and kissed me a bit rude but with passion “Let’s go home, babe” he said with a pleasure groan

We took our jackets and we quickly left the place in order to go to his house. Once at his home, we went to his room, leaving Glaceon on the living room, where she curled on the couch in order to sleep. We closed the door of Piers’ room and without more words, we started to remove our clothes. Piers pressed again his lips againts mine once we got our torsos naked and when he leant down to kiss me again, I bite him a bit hard, making him groan in pleasure. “Piers?”

“Yes, babe?”

“Wanna go a bit rough tonight?”

“Are you sure, Raikichi? I don’t want yo to feel uncomfortable...And I don’t want to hurt you...”

“Don’t worry, babe” I said stroking his cheek “If you go too rough, I’ll ya, ‘kay?”

Piers nodded and kissed me again, rude and passionated at the same time as we finished getting naked, and once our clothes were all removed, he pulled me againts the wall with care, grabbing my wrists with one hand as the other went down, right to my folds. When he started to stroke my swallow clit, he relased one of my hands that I used to hold on him, and that free hand of his was now rising one of legs in order to have more acces to my tights. His moves were erratic, first slow, then fast, then back to slow...And then he entered his fingers. First one, then two and then three. I moaned louder, and when I opened my mouth and let my tongue out, Piers tangled his tongue against mine before exploring my mouth with his tongue as he moved those three fingers fast and deep, sometimes hitting my special spot that made me groan and moan. When he left my lips, he went to lick and bite my neck, and when I had my chance, I did the same. He was being rough, but also, he was keeping his romantic and tender side. He promised not to hurt me, and he was keeping his promise.

I started to get tight around his fingers, and Piers noticed that, cause he retired his fingers and made me lick then, tasting myself. I licked his figners with sensuality, and that made him get more aroused. I tried to make him go down again, cause I wanted to reach my orgasm, but he managed to stop me when he kissed me. His hand went down again to my folds, touching softly my clit but not pulling his fingers inside me. “P-Piers...Please...” I moan so low that it turned into a whisper

“I don’t hear ya, babe...What do ya want?” he said, teasing me as he bite my neck

“Let me come, for fuck sake!” I said with a groand and he chuckled

“And what if I don’t do it?” he said with that teasing tone and before I couldn’t complain, he slipped his three fingers at the same time inside me slowly and then, he started to move them again, fast and deep as he pressed his lips againts mine. I groaned in pleasure as I felt myself again near of my orgasm. This time, Piers didn’t deny it again; he moved faster his fingers and then, I moaned loudly when I reached my desried orgasm. My boyfriend put my leg down and grabbed me as I recovered my breath, my legs trembling. Luckily, his room was soundproof, cause I didn’t want to discover at the morning that Marnie had heard has, so thanks for that soundproof room.

“Babe?” Piers asked softly “Are you alright?”

“Y-Yeah...” I said as I recovered my breath “Don’t worry...”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked stroking the places of my neck where he bite me

“Of course not, babe~” I said with a purr as I managed to grab his hard cock with my hand “Shall we continue?”

“Y-yeah...” he moaned againts my lips, but before he could kiss me, I pulled him againts his bed, and once he sat down on the edge of the bed, I went down on my knees with sensual move, making him blush madly. Then, I grabbed his hard lenght and I licked its tip, savouring the first hints of precum before starting to suck his cock. When I didn’t have his cock on my mouth, I had my lips kissing his tights and with that, I too my chance to bite the skin of his tights before returning to suck his lenght. Piers moaned louder as he pulled my hair away gently. “Fuck it, fuck it” he groaned as I kept sucking his cock “You’re so hot, babe...So fucking hot...”

“Keep talking, babe~” I said with a purr when I pulled out his cock from my mouth, licking my lips as I moved my hand up and down, massaging his lenght and stealing more moans and groans from him “I love your voice...I love hearing ya, babe...Gimme that dirty talk of yours, babe...I wanna hear ya...”

“Fuck, Raikichi” he moaned as he bite his low lip, moaning again when I put his cock again inside of my mouth with a moan. I couldn’t put all of it inside my mouth cause it was big, but with my moves, and sometimes my free hand playing with his testicles was enough to make him moan even louder. I noticed that he was getting tense, so I decided to get a little revenge and I denied his orgasm when I put his member out of my mouth “D-Don’t do that, babe...”

“Why not? You did it to me, babe~” I purred as I bite and licked again the skin of his tights before sucking his cock again, moving faster.

Piers cried my name loudly as he came, spilling his semen in my mouth. I took his cock out of my mouth and once I swallowed it and licked my lips sensuality, I stood up and kissed him, making him taste himself on my lips. “You like it rough, don’t ya?” he asked with a groan when I pulled of his hair not too hard

“Maybe...”

Piers kissed me again before going to pick up a package. He took the condom out of it and once he put it around his cock, he put me on the bed. “Wanna keep doing this rough?” he asked

“Yeah...” I said and then, I smirked “This little naughty girl wants to keep seeing your rough side, babe~”

“Then, on your fours”

I blushed but obeyed. I was on my fours on the bed, and Piers started to kiss my neck and my shoulders, his lips leaving soft kisses on the scars and burns he found over my skin. Then, he stroked my entrance with his fingers before lining the tip of his cock againts my entrance. He rubbed it and it was so pleasure painfully that I clinched the sheets, my knuckles turning white. “P-Piers, please...” I moaned

“Please what, babe?” he teased me “I don’t hear what do ya want”

“I-I want you...” I said with a groan as he made a feint of penetrating me. “Fuck it Piers, I want your damn cock right now”

“That’s my naughty girl” Piers said pushing his lenght inside me with a moan as his hands grabbed my hips. He started to move slowly, but he turned his moves faster few minutes later. I moaned louder as I heard his dirty but also his sweet talk.

“A-Ah...Piers...” I moaned as he pulled my hair not too hard, making me groan in pleasure “Don’t stop, don’t stop...Fuck it...” I said as I leant my chest againts the sheets, and Piers leant againts my back, using one of his hands to stroke my clit as he kept rocking his hips againts mine “I want...”

“You want?”

I looked over my shoulder and I gave him a naughty and teasing gaze “I want your bite, babe...I love this rough side of you...”

He groaned in pleasure as he kept penetrating me, his teeth now on my neck, biting me the enough hard to leave another mark on my skin. He pushed harder, faster and deeper, as he licked the skin he bite before bitting my earlobe. “You’re so perfecr for me...And it seems that you want more, right? Your pussy is getting so tight around me...Only for me...My treasure, my muse...”

Damn. Holy shit, his dirty talk could get me very mad, with him talking with that sweet and sexy voice. He kept pushing faster and harder, hitting that special spot when he pushed deeper. My moans were getting louder, like his, and when I started to pant, Piers decided to go even more faster. He bite my my shoulder a bit hard as he kept moving. “Piers...I’m g-goint to...” I tried to say but I couldn’t; I finally reached my orgasm with a loud moan. Piers kept pushing until he reached his own orgasm. We stayed like that for few seconds until he stood up, kissing my neck before pulling his member out of me. I laid down on the bed, exhausted, and when Piers returned after throwing the condom to the trash bin, he laid down next to me, spooning me as he did the aftercare. “Babe?” he asked gently

“Y-yeah...?”

“Did you...like it? I mean, going rough this time...I hope I didn’t hurt you...”

“No...You didn’t hurt me...And of course I liked it...” I said turning in order to face him “We can switch between rough and sweet, ya know...Is good to experience different things, right?”

“Yeah...” he said smiling and stroking my face “I think we will have some bite marks tomorrow...”

“Well, I don’t care about that...” I replied with a yawn as I leant my head on his chest, closing my eyes.

“Good night, Raikichi...Sleep well, babe...” he said before falling asleep with me

-----------------------

I woke up when I felt Piers shifting his posture on his sleep. I yawned and I hissed a bit when I stretched, gasping when I saw some of the bite marks on my skin and some hand bruishes as well. I blushed madly when I remembered what happened last night. I told Piers to go rough, and I really enjoyed it, but now the question was the next: How I was to explain my uncle about the marks? I shook my head and I smiled when I saw him calling me on his sleep. With a lot of care, I stood up from the bed, taking my panties and putting them on before stealing his shirt and putting it on me. Then, I went to the kitchen in order to prepare breakfast. Glaceon went to greet me, rubbing her fur againts my bare legs. “Hey girl, did you sleep well?” I said stroking her before preparing the breakfast.

“Morning, Raikichi” Marnie said yawning as she went to the kitchen “Is my brother sleeping?”

“Yeah, he is” I replied as I started to bake some pancakes

“I see you both were busy last night” she said when she noticed the bite marks on my neck. Fuck it, she was clever. “Don’t worry, my brother is happy with you, so I’m happy too”

I nodded as I kept preparing the food and once I was done, I gave some food for the Pokemon. I was ready to eat my breakfast with Marnie once I sat down on the couch when my Rotom Phone started to sound. I blushed when I saw the notifications about the photos we took last night during the concert. “I see you’re getting a lot of fans” Marnie said “You should be more active in social media”

“I know, but I’ll do it when I feel ready for that” I said drinking a bit of hot cocoa “I don’t want the press to disturb me in social media”

Marnie nodded and then, we turned when we heard the door of Piers’ room opening. My boyfriend was wearing his sleeping coat and he came to the living room and sat next to me. “You really like to steal my shirts” he said kissing my cheek “Morning to both of you”

“Morning, brother” his sister said “You should use a bit more of makeup if you don’t want Raihan teasing you about those markings”

Both me and Piers blushed madly as we had our breakfast in silence, only with the sound of the TV. Once we were done with the breakfast, I went to his room to take my set of black and blue clothes, and once I took also clean underwear, I went to the bathroom, followed by Piers. Once he closed the door, we got naked and we entered in the bathtub in order to take a quick shower. My boyfriend kissed my beck and stroked my bare skin, like if he was sorry for biting me last night. I kissed him to calm him down, and once we were ready, we got dried and dressed.

“What are you going to do?” Piers asked as we exited the house once we were ready

“I was thinking on doing some performance training,l and see what ideas could fit better to your concerts” I replied “Wanna watch them?”

“Yeah, of course”

I smiled and I squeezed his hand gently as we exited Spikemuth, enjoying the soft breeze and the morning sunlight of the sunny day. Once we reached the perfect spot to train, I let my Pokemon out of their Pokeballs. “Let’s do this!”

-----------

I spent near two hours training the different ideas for the performance, with Piers watching them and suggesting new ideas or different combos. I took note of all of them, and when I was ready to continue, two grunts of Team Yell approached us running. “Piers! Raikichi! We have serious problems!”

“What have you done now?” Piers asked with a sigh

“Nothing, but there is a serious problem in the Wild Area” the girl said

“We’ve seen furtives in the Wild Area, the same that attacked that Zigzagoon than Raikichi later caught” the boy added

“And they making many fires through all the area!”

“What? Are you sure of that?” I asked and when the girl showed me the photos she have taken of the smoke columns, I took my phone and I called my uncle “Uncle, listen, this is an emergency. Call the other Gym Leaders and the Champion. The furtives are attacking the Wild Area and they’re making fires. Piers and me will meet you at Mototoske Riverbank” I said and once my uncle agreed, I hang out the call, calling all my Pokemon back to their Pokeballs except Glaceon and Charizard. I mounted on Charizard, Piers mounting behind me, and after telling the grunts to form a group of volunteers, we flew to the meeting place.

We arrived, our faces with a mixture between anger and sadness as we saw the different fires threating the Wild Area. The Gym Leaders were there, some of them dealing with some of the furtives that were using the fire to scare the Pokemon and with that, having chances to catch them. Charizard landed next to my uncle, who ran toward us as Piers dismounted, but I kept on Charizard.

“Kiddo, if you’re thinking of...” my uncle started

“I’m going to deal with them as well” I said interrupting him “I saw a big fire near the area that is next to Hammerlock, so I’m going there”

“Raikichi, please...” Piers tried to said

“Don’t worry, Piers. I’ll be fine” I said as I returned Glaceon to her Moon Ball cause I didn’t want her to get hurt by the fire “Charizard, let’s go. It’s time to put an end to those furtives” I said after letting some of my Water type Pokemon out of their Pokeballs to help them

Charizard growled and flew, in direction to the Dusty Bowl. There, the furtives made a ring of fire around a big Pokemon. It was a Corviknight, and it was too injured. I spotted a nest near it, so the Corviknight was a female and she looked that she was protecting something under her wings. With a growl, I touched my Key Stone that reacted with the Charizardite X my Charizard had. “Evolution beyon evolution...Charizard, mega evolve!!” I said and she mega evolved into Mega Charizard X in the air, taking the furtives by surprise when I ordered her to use Flametrower to create a firewall to stop their fires of spreading, and then, Charizard landed, standing between the furtives and the poor Corviknight that was trapped in the ring of fire. I dismounted, my fists clenched so hard that my knuckled turned white. “You fucking bastards” I said growling “YOU WILL PAY FOR ALL OF THIS, I SWEAR I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY FOR ALL THE SHIT YOU’RE DOING!!”

“It’s that filthy Champion that got part of us in prison” one of them said “This is over for you, bitch. Now, MOVE AND LET US TO COLLECT OUR PRIZE!”

“Over my body” I said and then, one of them attacked me, punching my face and breaking my lip, but I was quick to react and I hit him back, first on the face, then on the chest, and then on his balls. I spitted some blood on him as he cried in pain due the hard hit I gave him on his balls “You son of a bitch” I growled and then, Glaceon went out of her Pokeball, using Iron Tail to throw the bastard that attacked me away before looking to the Corviknight.

“Fucking bitch, this is your end!” one of the furtives said “Toxicroak, use Poison Jab!”

“Charizard, stop it with Dragon Claw!” I ordered and when Charizard grabbed the Toxicroak’s arm, she throw the Pokemon back to its Trainer. Then, I let the rest of my Water type Pokemon out of their Pokeballs “Charizard, cover us!” I said as I ordered my Pokemon to use their Water moves to extinguish the fire around Corviknight. Then, Glaceon and me rushed to her, only to be attacked by the Pokemon, who saw us a threat “Hey, hey, calm down” I said, approaching her slowly...We aren’t going to hurt you...Let me show you...” I knelt down next to her, putting my right hand on the left side of my chest, and my left hand touching her neck. Then, I closed my eyes, letting the Corviknight to know that we weren’t a threat, and then, she calmed down, growling when she heard the furtives trying to approach us. Glaceon used Protection to keep us safe from a Dark Pulse before Charizard got ride of the furtives. I managed to move a bit one of her wings in order to check her offspring, but it was too late. She was protecting the death bodies of three Rockidee that died suffocated by the smoke. “C’mon girl, we have to move” I said, but the Corviknight growled in response “Listen, your offspring is gone...They’re death...I know you want to protect them but it’s too late for them...They’re not longer suffering...And I’m not going to let you die here...Please...”

The Corviknight closed her eyes and I was fearing the most; she was ready to let herself die now that her mission of protecting her offspring failed, but I wasn’t going to allo that to happen. I called Delphox, Meowstic, Raichu and Ponyta and I ordered them to use Psychic to move the Corviknight, while Infernape and Zoroark took the death Rockidees cause I wanted to give them a proper bury, but when we were moving out of that place, we were attacked by the furtives. Lucky for me, the bullet that one of them only brushed my right side, and lucky for my Pokemon, the bullet didn’t hit them, hitting one of the death trees that were there. Glaceon, angry, used Ice Shard to hit the furtive that had shooted us, hurting his hand and then, she used Iron Tail, breaking his hand. “Fuck you bitch” he cursed and when he and his friends tried to attack us again, they were surrounded by Piers and Raihan’s Pokemon.

“Babe!” Piers said when he saw me bleeding, seeing the wound on my side and my broken lip “You’re injured”

“This is nothing, Piers” I replied as I removed my jacked and I wrapped it around my waist in order to stop the bleeding “This Corviknight needs our help more than me”

“And those Rockidee?” Raihan asked

“They’re death” I said and then, I looked to the one that looked as the furtives’ boss and without thinking, I punched him so hard that I broke his nose and his lips “That’s for all the damage you’ve made, you son of a bitch.”

“You’re a fucking witch for ruining our-OW!” another hit, and more blood spilled. And I was only starting.

“SHUT YOUR FUCKIN MOUTH, BASTARDS! YOU HAVE SURPASSED A LIMIT AND BELIEVE ME THAT YOU WON’T SEE THE SUNLIGHT IN MANY YEARS” I said and then, I sighed before ordering my Luxray and Jolteon using Thunder Wave on the furtives and then, Lycanroc, with Gordie’s Pokemon, used Stone Edge around the furtives, and mine and Melony’s Pokemon used Ice Beam to make that prison stronger. Then, Nessa and me ordered our Water type Pokemon to use Rain Dance in order to extinguix the fires.

“Kiddo!!” uncle Kabu said as he approached me “Are you alright?!”

“Just a broken lip and a brush on my right side made by a bullet” I said, that last thing made my uncle remove the jacked and examine the wound “Uncle, I’m fine” I said as he made a simple bandage to stop the bleeding on my side

“You are very lucky, you know” he said before hugging me and then, we turned to see the Nurse Joy from Mototoske approaching us

“All the Pokemon that you’ve rescued have been taken to the different Pokemon Centers of the main towns and cities” nurse Joy said

“Then, that Corviknight will be taken to Spikemuth” I said “I’m going to take care of her until she recovers”

“And what we will do with her offspring?” Piers said

I swallowed, trying to hold my tears back. Glaceon, who was mother like Corviknight, made a sound that made me look at her. “Let’s...Let’s allow her to say goodbye to them before we bury them...”

This was hurting me so much cause I understood how she was feeling when she opened her eyes and moved her babies with her beak, trying to wake up them. Loosing someone related to you, someone so close to you was really hard, and I knew how that Corviknight was feeling. I knelt again next to her, stroking her feathers. “It’s alright, girl...Now we’ll take you to a safe place and we’ll take care of you...Those bad people won’t hurt you anymore...I promise...”

Corviknight closed her eyes again and I let the medics to put the Pokemon on a stretcher that they handle in order to take her with a Flying Taxi. After discussing what we should do to help with the Wild Area while the police took the furtives to Mototoske, Piers and me returned our Pokemon to their Pokeballs, and together with Glaceon, we took a Flying Taxi to Spikemuth.

Once there, we rushed to the Pokemon Center, where the Corviknight was being attended and then, the medics took care of my wounds as well. After they took care of my wounds, I went to the waiting room, and Piers quickly hugged me, tears on his eyes. “I was so worried...” he sobbed before leaning his forehead against mine

“Sorry for worrying you...But as the World Champion, there are things that only me can do...” I said wipping his tears away

“You could have died...”

“But I didn’t...” I replied kissing him when he leant down, and when we parted our lips in order to take a breath and because my low lip hurted, we took a seat and I sighed “This is going to be a long recovery for that Corviknight...”

“I’ll cancel my concerts in order to help you, babe” Piers said passing his arm around my shoulders “I’m not going to leave you alone on this, Raikichi”

“Thanks, babe” I said with a soft smile as I leant my head on his shoulders.

---------------------------

A week passed since the furtives attacked the Wild Area. Piers and me went from Spikemuth to the Wild Area to help the Gym Leaders to recover the palces that got burn by the furtives. Luckily, the fires didn’t damage a lot of terrain, but the big amount of Pokemon that ran away from their homes was something to be worried about. My wounds healed, and that was good since Piers was on Kangaskhan mom mode on during the whole week. Nurse Joy told us that the Pokemon that were on the other Pokemon Center had recovered and were ready to return to the Wild Area, but it wasn’t happening the same with Corviknight.

That day, we returned after helping with the recovery of the Wild Area when nurse Joy called us. Corviknight was recovered physically, but she was so in pain inside due her loose that she had stopped eating. She was still moruning for her offspring, and that made me fear again about seeing her letting herself to die.

With a sight, I entered where Corviknight was, with Glaceon at my side. Corviknight opened her eyes and greeted me with a low sound. I smiled as I stroked her feathers. “Listen, girl, I know that is hard, but you have to know that I’m going to help you to surpass your loss...I understand how do you feel since I lost someone very close to me...” I said as touched her neck while my free hand was on the left side of my chest. “See?...And Glaceon is a mother like you...She didn’t loose her offspring, but she understands you...And now, girl I need you to eat something. Be strong, for your offspring. Don’t think that you are weak cause you aren’t. It’s clear that you were ready to give your life for them, so be proud of yourself”

The Corviknight looked at me before starting to eat the food that Nurse Joy gave to her, and I sighed in relief. At night, the Pokemon was feeling better, and ready to go back home, but it looked that she had another plans. “Well, girl, time for you to go. The Wild Area awaits for you”

Corviknight looked at me and he put her wing over me and Piers, and then, she nuzzled us. “I think she wants to be with you” Piers said “Babe, you should tell me how you do that”

“Feeling weird with the fact of me getting Pokemon only cause I’m friendly with them?” I saoid teasing him before kissing his cheek “I’ll tell you, don’t worry babe”. Then, I looked to Corviknight as I took a Luxury Ball. She touched it with her beak and entered on it.

One.

Two.

Three.

And Corviknight was mine. I let her out of her Pokeball ans she quickly nuzzled us. I giggled and then, I remembered something. “Wait me here” I said as I ran to the Pokemon Center in order to make a call. Once the call was done, the nurse Joy gave me the thing I asked my friend during the call, and after taking it, I went outside. “I’m here” I said and then, I stroked Corviknight feathers. “I know you’re still mourning and those Rockidees were you first offspring, but I think this will help you to surpass your loose” I said as I retired the cloth and revealed the incubator with a Pokemon egg inside it. “Since today I have to go back to Mototoske, I’ll give this egg to you”

Corviknight let out a happy chirp and nuzzled me before returning to her Pokeball. Thhen, we went to Piers’ house in order to take my things, and together we went back to Mototoske.

Once we arrived, uncle Kabu recieved us with a hug, and got surprised when I showed the Corviknight that now was mine. With Piers and uncle Kabu’s help, we made a nest for Corviknight in the garden, and then, we putt the Pokemon egg on it, letting her to take care of it. It was going to be a long recovery for her, but she was giving her first stepts.

After having dinner, I told Piers to stay this night with me since we were tired and he was near of falling asleep during the dinner. This week had been hard for us, waking up too early in order to work in the Wild Area, then taking care of Corviknight...But now that is was near to end since the Wild Area was near of recovering completly, and Corviknight was giving her first step of her emotional recovering.

Piers dropped himself on the bed once he got on his sleeping clothes, his long hair free of his ponytail. I laid down next to him after putting my glasses on the night table and then, my boyfriend hugged me close to him. “Mine...” he murmured as he nuzzled me. I chuckled and then, he let me lean my head on his chest. “You have a very big and kind heart, babe” he said, stroking my back “That thing of understanding the Pokemon and know their feelings...I’m really luck of having you at my side, love...You’re so kind, lovely...”

“You’re kind and lovely too, babe” I said and then, I yawned, chuckling when Glaceon jumped on the bed and curled ready to sleep. I clsoed my eyes and I smiled “Good night, Piers...”

“Good night, babe...” he said, and both of us fell asleep.

#piers x oc #piers #raihan #kabu #gordie #leon #marnie #melony #allister #bea pkmn #milo #nessa #opal #raikichi pkmn #trainersona #a song to heal a tired soul

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supernoondles · 5 years

Text

2019

The last day of 2019 was also the day I fainted for the first time--a fitting metaphor for the year.

2019 was overall very emotionally taxing. This year was emotionally defined by falling intensely, deeply in love with someone (who is a very private person so I will try to be vague to respect that) and being in a lot of pain because of situations mostly outside of our control. There were a lot of intensely joyous moments, and a lot of intensely sad ones. Throughout it all I wish I had communicated better. I also made some bad decisions with another person I really loved and cared about that resulted in us growing apart. Do I think I grew from the experiences? For sure. Do I wish I could have come upon these realizations through a different course of action? Also yes. Am I fully healed from the experiences? Not really, but I've been getting better.

2019 was also very bad in terms of research. It was the 2nd year of my PhD. After I submitted my rotation project I basically felt stuck in the swamp of my advisors rejecting new project ideas for like literally half a year. This, combined with my high emotional volatility (partially due to starting birth control), made me really sad, unmotivated, and susceptible to self-blame. I definitely had high expectations for myself and became frustrated at my lack of progress and felt a lot of pressure from myself to get my shit together. I also felt incredibly bad after most advisor meetings and not supported by one of them to the point where I had to have a conversation with him about the lack of support (which was very scary)! Things started picking up, though, near the end of the year. I published a paper in collaboration with a former post-doc/now professor elsewhere whom I learned a lot from, and started finally building out another system. I also started mentoring an undergrad who at some point told me I helped him feel like he had something important to say and belong at Stanford for the first time and those words meant a lot to me. I think I'm continuing to refine what I value as research contributions and increasingly think about what it means to build systems that aren't used outside of the lab to satisfy the annual conference publishing cycle. I'm also starting to feel the pressure of doing work that follows a narrative rather than random projects that interest me.

Oh, I guess in terms of "program requirements," I did finish taking required classes, passed qualifying exams, and got a master's degree. But honestly those weren't hard at all nor do I think are externally valued in the larger research community, so I don't really celebrate them as accomplishments beyond surface level.

In 2019 I saw two different therapists. The first one was awful, I think directly influenced some of my bad decisions, and also didn't respect my gender identity??? The second one is a lot better and I'm grateful to see her, even if 90% of our sessions are just talking about my relationship (romantic/advisor) issues, which is something I want to move away from in the future. But I also feel incredibly privileged when relationship issues are the primary stressors in my life--I am grateful I feel equipped to handle other crap, like deadlines, and don't have to worry about my own health.

Those were the main things that have colored this year. We'll now move into the section of this post where I go through my photos to jog my memory of other events.

New years started a tradition of getting dim sum with Jasper, Matthew, and Michelle dear to my heart. My high school friend was also visiting and we all attended a really awesome new year's eve party. I was also going on a lot of dates and having a lot of good sex, which made me really happy, and at the same time crying all the time at work. In February I received probably the best gift anyone has ever given me and saw Panic! at the Disco, which I said in an end of the year group meeting was a good memory of my year (it was, to relive my scene days!). In March I roadtripped both to Marin (which I had never to been before, despite all my years in the bay) and LA for Wondercon; it was nice to both see high school friends and go on a trip with the boo. In April I went on a hike with my office which was probably the start of us all becoming closer (we are the social office in the wing now, which I take pride in! Also we draw a lot of Pokemon which warms my heart). In May I went to CHI in Glasgow and then to Paris afterward, and the entire experience was very weird and bad and also too many flights were canceled and/or missed and I vowed to not return to Europe for a while, but man do I love the noodles at Trois Fois plus de Piment. In June we hosted a double apartment party with my downstairs neighbors (side note: I am really appreciative of the place I live in, for the community, convenience, and large-ass space and will be really sad to be kicked out fall 2020) and I started a friendship important to me. I cat-sat for my advisor (the one who doesn't make me feel bad) twice. I went to Redwood State Park with my family and hosted a summer solstice celebration. Over the summer a friend I met in Paris back in 2017 moved in with me. I had a much needed escape from the bay to Seattle where I was reminded how abundant the world can be. I also went to Tahoe to celebrate my parents' anniversary, and really liked stumbling upon a smaller lake with a cheap boat rental. Then I became FOMO about the highly competitive Bay Area camping and did a last minute walk-in at Redwood Basin in Santa Cruz, which made me realize that I don't actually love camping (but was nice nonetheless). I ate an expensive meal at Commonwealth before they closed. For my birthday we made a friendship quilt and I served my favorite dish of cumin lamb but it was also 90 degrees in my apartment (I felt really bad and bought two fans afterwards). I started buying many cartoon frog plush after being gifted a $3.99 on sale Safeway frog (called Baby!). I went on Tinder dates (one of which was at a quaker yard sale marketed as Harvest Festival where I got a 1970s Kermit puppet for like $2) that largely went nowhere. My high school friend visited and we were both sad about break ups. I did Inktober before I went to New Orleans for a conference on Bourbon St where everything felt like it was coated in a sticky film of alcohol. I almost missed my flight home because I fell asleep in a sculpture garden but I had the most amazing Uber driver who snaked his way through traffic (oh and the flight was delayed by like 3 hours). I went to kind of embarrassing haunted houses and pumpkin patches over Halloween, but also had the most incredible bowl of ramen at Mensho. My whole office dressed up as Zootopia characters which warmed my furry heart. I spent like $120 on a Pokemon shirt. I started playing Arkham Horror and rekindled another friendship important to me. In November went on a road trip to Big Sur because again, I had to escape it all. For Christmas Eve dinner I roasted a duck for the first time (which was delicious). Shortly after I waited in line for 2 hours for a rollercoaster at Great America, which taught me the value of buying a fast pass because at this point in my life that money is worth it, and then waited 2 hours in line at the DMV to get a RealID (I had made an appointment, which was the fast pass).

Okay, now we move to the hobby section!

I got really into sewing in 2019, having received a sewing machine last Christmas. I made a Judy Hopps (which I wore to CrunchyRoll Expo) and Korok cosplay (Fanime), several unsuccessful garments, a crab bean bag, a dice bag, a fanny pack, and put hearts nipples on a jumpsuit.

Shows! I think I went to way fewer shows this year. The ones I can remember are Elephant Gym, Thom Yorke the night before I had an 8am flight, Carly Rae Jepsen over pride weekend (also, she is my #1 artist of the year, which makes a lot of sense given my emotional space), Mitski at Stern Grove, Capitol Hill Bloc Party (which was super lame, except for Lizzo, where I cried), and the National (which was a fucking surreal experience as they played on Stanford's campus, I was the only one within earshot of myself who knew the words to Crybaby Geeks, and then the white catalog moms came up to me after to thank me for singing the song).

I also started playing my own music! I started playing viola again for the first time in 7 years (lol) in both pop-up concerts with the Awesome Orchestra (one in Golden Gate Park, one at the Exploratorium) and a string quartet through my school. Sometimes I am filled with joy and delight. Other times interpersonal tensions run high and also I am very bad at being in tune. It's life.

Media! I really liked Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 and Beastars. I feel like those were the only notable anime I watched this year? I saw the Farewell three times--first in Seattle where I sobbed for like 1 hour after the movie, the second time with my parents, and the third where Awkwafina was present for a Q&A. I thought Parasite was incredible and Promare was OK. I have spent an unfortunately large amount of my time playing Pokemon Masters. I finally beat BOTW and completed my Pokedex in Shield like 2 weeks after getting the game.

Resolutions! In my draft of my 2018 end of year post (which I never polished and posted, sorry), I said my resolutions were 1. come out to my parents 2. draw enough to table at an anime con 3. be disciplined about paper reading and have a doc. I did none of these things!!! However, for 1, I feel like I am well equipped to have this conversation but am waiting for my sibling to do it first out of respect. 2 was just bad. I barely drew this year except for gifts. 3 was okay--I did have a large doc in the beginning of the year when I was looking for ideas, but as time went on I abandoned it (I also stopped reading papers, which I don't think you're supposed to do as a grad student...)

My resolutions this year are phrased as intentions (-(c) Matthew). They span several categories. Relationships: I want to open myself to and actively seek experiences of love, because I miss that. That being said, I will only date someone if 1. they have their life together 2. they love themselves and 3. they challenge me to grow. (I do think you can experience love without dating; the thing I'm after is love in an expansive sense.) Work: I want to do enough work so I don't feel guilty about not doing enough work, and also not berate myself for taking a long time to do things. Hobbies: I want to sew at least one thing a month. Chinese: I want to improve my Chinese, especially pronunciation.

Having written this 20 days into 2020, it's not been so bad so far. But I was also really happy in the beginning of 2019. Here's to no global maxima, a monotonically increasing year!

#noon's shitty end of the year summary posts #lol i never post on here anymore but i got 8 years of summary posts so i gotta maintain the tag u get me

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nelvana · 5 years

Text

In which a birthday is celebrated

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which an agreement is reached Previous: In which a present is prepared

Impatience rarely brought a good night’s sleep. Keahi knew this well, and found herself experiencing this problem on the night before her birthday. It had been such a long time since she went and celebrated a birthday just with friends, and she found herself more excited than she could remember being in a long time.

Because of this, she now found herself laying awake in her nest, trying to catch just that last hour of rest before dawn. She would chat with Tsuki and Edgar, but Tsuki had insisted that Keahi needed to go back to sleep, so now that pair had gone downstairs as to not become distractions to Keahi trying to go back to bed.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t working out as planned, since the torchic still found herself wide awake with anticipation. Even now as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found herself staring around at the few decorations that they had set up upstairs for the celebration, or peering out the nearby window to glimpse the stars still lighting up the night sky. She could hear the faint whistle of wind outside, streaming by their window that was barely open a crack for some fresh air; a request from Alex and Tsuki that had been quickly agreed upon by everyone else, at least for as long as the nights stayed warm enough for it.

Turning over in her nest onto her belly and laying her chin on the edge of the small bed, Keahi looked over at the rest of her teammates instead. The hammock at the back of the room sagged under the combined weight of the grovyle and shiny celebi, the latter of which laid peacefully on top of the former. Alex was resting on his back, as it seemed that he always did for whatever reason, though his breathing sounded less relaxed than usual. Either a nightmare or he wasn’t actually asleep, and Keahi couldn’t decide which would be preferable at this point; Alex needed some more sleep either way.

Closer to her was the other nest where Nelvana was sleeping. Or at least Keahi hoped. The cubone was better at hiding whether she was sleeping or not than anyone else the torchic had met. Regardless, Nelvana also lay on her back, but she was a much more restless sleeper than the rest of the team, something that Keahi could see even now with the blanket that was wrapped around the cubone from rolling around throughout the night. Now that she looked closely, she also noted that Nelvana’s headgear had been tilted in her sleep, now laying slightly askew on her head, showing another thin scar on her right cheek that Keahi had only seen a few times prior.

Temptation pricked at the back of Keahi’s mind to see if she would be able to sleep better if she joined her partner, but she turned down the idea in favor of trying not to disturb anyone more than she may already have.

“Keahi?”

So much for that idea.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Keahi immediately apologized.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Nelvana murmured, “I’ve been awake for awhile actually.”

“Another nightmare?”

“Mhmm…”

Now that she had given away that she was actually awake, Nelvana lifted a hand to scratch the fur on her chest before stretching and trying to readjust the tangled blanket on it. Keahi sat up, shaking out her sleep-ruffled feathers before blinking over at her partner again.

“So, were we all just awake but trying to pretend not to be as to not wake up anyone else?” Alex’s voice pierced through the moment of silence.

Keahi couldn’t help but laugh, turning to look across the room like before, “I guess so! Ceebee’s up too?”

“Yup, I’m here!” Ceebee hummed, lifting her head up to meet Keahi’s gaze through the darkness. “Now that we know this was the case, maybe I should have checked telepathically to see who was awake earlier. Good thing Nel spoke up, huh? We would have been left here in sleepless silence until morning.”

“Why are you two awake anyway?” Keahi asked.

“Same as Nel for me,” Alex sighed, absentmindedly rubbing the scar that lay across his muzzle.

“Nice, we get to be nightmare buds,” Nelvana commented with a hint of playful sarcasm to her tone.

“Hell yeah,” Alex replied, lifting his hand to fist bump the air for a moment before dropping it to hang limply beside the hammock.

“Alex woke me up,” Ceebee added, “kinda hard to stay asleep when the person you’re sleeping on starts kicking around.”

Alex let out a quiet huff before sitting up, something Ceebee barely noticed in time to flutter up in the air before sitting down again to avoid being rolled over. Seeing that everyone else had sat up by now, Nelvana pushed herself up to a seated position as well, fixing her shifted headgear and then shuffling in place to angle herself so that she would be able to comfortably be able to continue the conversation with everyone here.

“How ‘bout you, Keahi?” Ceebee asked, “what woke you up early?”

“Impatience,” Keahi sighed, “it’s hard to sleep when you just really want the next day to start.”

“Well, we’re all awake anyway, why not just start the day early? We could take the time to make a big breakfast at the very least,” Alex suggested, already swinging himself out of the hammock, which swung back up with only the smaller celebi left on it.

“It is almost dawn anyway, right?” Nelvana added, peering over at the window she was facing, which happened to not be the one she was closest to.

“Okay! I’m not going to complain about an idea like that!” Keahi chirped, swiftly hopping out of her nest. “Hey Tsuki, Edgar! Turns out that everyone else is awake, so we’re just going to get today started!” she called out down the stairs.

“I’m hoping that they woke up on their own, and that you didn’t just wake them up to pull this off!” Tsuki’s voice came echoing back from the lower floor of the house.

“Don’t worry, we did!” Ceebee assured her before flying downstairs to meet up with the other two.

The remaining three didn’t take long to hurry to join their teammates, and soon they were all preparing their early morning breakfast together. Having all six of them in the kitchen sometimes got crowded, but when two of them could fly around instead of taking up floor space, and making sure that everyone had a proper job and space, the task passed along much easier than it could had they gone about this in a more chaotic way. They had never tried preparing a meal with everyone participating at once before, but everyone unanimously agreed that this was a fun challenge and a good way to start such an early morning. As usual, this large breakfast ended up being pancakes with fruit, since it was not only something that everyone knew the basics of at this point, but could also be made in bulk for the entire team to enjoy a tasty and filling meal. They probably would make it more often if it didn’t require so much time to make.

Just past dawn was when they had completely finished up with breakfast, now hungry for the next activity of the day. While Keahi had expressed in many events that she wanted to take place during this day, she had not set up a proper schedule. To most of the team’s surprise, Keahi told them that she wanted to do a couple missions still, instead of just having a full day off.

“I like going through dungeons with you guys and helping others!” Keahi explained, “besides, I wasn’t actually born until the afternoon, so I want to save all the really fun stuff until then!”

“Well, it’s your day, so it’s your choice!” Nelvana responded.

“Gosh, when was the last time we left for a mission this early? We’ve gotten up early recently, but we still usually wait to get to work. Probably when we went to fight Zapdos and rescue Shiftry, right?” Keahi commented as they walked outside, keeping her gaze on her partner. “That feels so long ago, but it wasn’t really! It’s just that so much has happened since then!”

“Long enough ago that it was just the two of us in this house and that fighting a legendary felt like an impossible task,” Nelvana agreed, swinging her club up to rest on her shoulder. “Yeah, a lot has happened…”

“I think we should get out in the mornings more often,” Alex said, “it’s nice and quiet out here, and you can look around for all the dewdrops.”

“And for the sunrise,” Nelvana added.

Alex nodded, “of course.”

“However, from the perspective of doing our job, there are fewer missions on the board early in the morning,” Tsuki pointed out. “I am certain that in some cases, getting that extra sleep can be more important.”

“Says the one who never sleeps,” Alex chuckled, patting Tsuki on the head and ruffling her fur.

“Says the one who thinks we don’t notice that he never sleeps!” Edgar chimed in, “are you sure we don’t talk too loud? You’re rarely actually get any rest, and Nel isn’t far behind with that problem!”

“Eh, we’re light sleepers, don’t worry about it. We already get a lot more sleep than we used to,” Alex replied, waving away the duskull lazily with a hand.

“How come? It’s because of where you’re from, right? Always staying alert? Why isn’t Ceebee a light sleeper then?” Edgar continued, circling around the grovyle as he spoke.

Ceebee giggled at the sudden endless questioning, “yes, it’s because of where we’re from. I… I found better places to sleep though, and most pokemon don’t want to go out and attack a mythical anyway, so I didn’t… have to be as alert,” she answered, her expression falling slightly as she went on.

“Oh! That makes sense!” Edgar exclaimed, “thanks for answering my questions!”

“You’re welcome, but you know, you don’t need to thank us each time we answer a question,” Ceebee responded patiently.

As they all passed through Pokemon Square, they were quietly greeted by the various shop keepers up early to fix up their stands in time for opening them up for sales. Keahi received birthday wishes from each of them, Kangaskhan being the first to mention it and then starting a chain of every citizen in the vicinity adding on now that they were reminded and the timing felt right.

The mission board outside of the Pelipper Post Office sat nearly bare. Like Tsuki had mentioned, it was hard to find much work in the early mornings. There were still a couple missions left though; an escort and an item delivery. While these were some of the least favored types of missions, it was still work. Plus, it gave promise that things were getting better for everyone. Fewer actual rescue missions just meant that fewer people were in danger.

Team Galaxy completed the two missions that they had chosen before noon, returning to their base to enjoy the rest of their day together. Keahi mentioned that they had gotten back a bit earlier than she had expected, but that it just meant that perhaps they could get started on the celebration sooner.

“Well, the cake isn’t completely ready yet, so I think I’ll be using some of that extra time for that,” Ceebee announced, fluttering over into the kitchen. “Tsuki, do you want to help me? I think you put away the icing anyway and I’m not entirely sure where that went.”

“I want to help!” Edgar chimed in.

With that, the duskull swiftly floated over to join his friend, and Tsuki calmly padded behind him.

“What about the rest of us?” Alex questioned, glancing over at the remaining two with him.

“There are still some balloons we could blow up! Oh! And remember the party hats we found the other day? We could bring those out!” Keahi exclaimed.

“I left the hats upstairs, I can go get them,” Nelvana responded, taking the initiative and began climbing up the stairs.

“Okay! Alex and I can get started on the balloons then!” Keahi chirped, directing the mentioned grovyle over to the living room area.

Keahi tugged a bag full of colored balloons off the shelf, spilling the contents out on the floor. After some struggling with trying to hold one in her wing talons, she managed to bring one over to her beak to use, but then paused and glanced over at Alex.

“Do you know what we need to do here?” she checked, accidentally fumbling with her balloon and dropping it on the floor again. “Ah, whoops!”

“We’re just filling them with air, I know. It was mentioned when we first bought them,” Alex replied, “do you need help?” he added with a snicker.

“I’m fine!” Keahi huffed, “it’s just hard to hold these at first without proper hands. I’ve done this before!”

“Alright, if you’re sure then,” Alex shrugged, turning away from the torchic in order to hide his smirk, which he also covered up by taking one of the balloons in his mouth and beginning to blow into it.

The two of them began trying to blow up the balloons, each experiencing some difficulties of their own. However, it wasn’t long before Nelvana returned, wearing a green and yellow spotted party hat, as well as carrying five other hats with her, most of them hanging off her left arm while two of them were held with her right hand. Leaping over the railing of the stairway, she hurried over to the pair, throwing the red and yellow starred hat at Alex, who easily caught it with a free hand, and plopping the green and blue striped one atop Keahi’s head, causing her to spit out her balloon in surprise, sending it spitting through the air as it deflated.

“Ta-da!” Nelvana giggled, waving her hands in the air before wandering over to the kitchen for a moment to lay down the remaining hats before returning.

“Nel! You ruined my balloon!” Keahi whined as she adjusted the hat on her head.

“Yeah, I was waiting to see how she was supposed to tie a knot with that,” Alex added, putting his hat on his head. “Ack, these are not comfortable,” he muttered.

“Sorry, you can get another balloon though,” Nelvana responded, sitting down with the others. “Aren’t we going to use them all anyway?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Keahi stuck her tongue out at her partner before crawling over to where her balloon had landed and collected it.

“Hey, Keahi, your hat looks kinda like another feather,” Alex pointed out, “if your feathers were weirdly colored and patterned, of course.”

“And cones,” Nelvana added.

“Of course,” Alex repeated.

“Would your feathers all fit under that hat?” Nelvana asked, leaning over to poke the torchic’s hat.

“I mean, they would…” Keahi replied, “wait! I’ve got a better idea! One hat for each of my larger feathers!” she suggested.

“I’ll donate my hat to that cause,” Nelvana agreed, tugging off her hat and strapping it over one of the feathers, before helping her partner strap on her own hat onto one of the other hats.

“Here’s your third one,” Alex said, tossing his hat back over to the other two. “It’s uncomfortable anyway.”

Nelvana caught the tossed hat, quickly strapping it onto Keahi with the other two hats. The strings overlapped and the rims of the hats had to bend each other to all fit, but now the torchic had a party hat over each of her three large, yellow head feathers. There was a pause as Nelvana and Alex looked their work over, before Nelvana couldn’t help but laugh, and soon the rest of this trio joined in.

“What are you three laughing about? I thought you were blowing up the balloons,” Ceebee, who had just hung her hat loosely from her neck, asked from the kitchen.

In response, Nelvana swiftly picked up Keahi from under the wings and brought her partner over to the others, showing the torchic off proudly with all three party hats on.

“It’s the birthday girl!” Nelvana giggled. “Here she is!”

“Here I am!” Keahi continued, flapping her wings about.

“Oh, that’s adorable!” Ceebee squealed, “please tell me that you’re going to keep wearing those hats like that for the rest of the day!”

“I just might! This is kinda fun!” Keahi replied, “since we’re here, how’s the cake going?”

“It’s going good! It’s really fun to decorate this!” Edgar exclaimed, “but no looking yet! Or else you’ll be spoiled! We want this to be a surprise!”

“Alright, I’ve got it,” Keahi hummed, “c’mon, Nel, let’s actually get working on those balloons.”

“Have a good time with that,” Tsuki said after setting down a bottle of frosting that she had been holding in her jaws. “But do try not to let any more of the balloons go, that noise is distracting,” she added, licking her whiskers before glancing away.

“Oh, sorry about that. We’ll try and keep a better handle on things,” Nelvana responded, turning back with Keahi towards the living room.

Once they got focused on their tasks, work went faster for everyone, even enough so that the trio that had been decorating the cake were able to joins the others in finishing up with the remaining balloons. And when the balloons were done being blown up and scattered around the house, they managed to find other forgotten decorations to pull out and use. There had already been some streamers and banners taped up the day before, but there was a confetti popper that had been hidden up until now that they used, after making sure everyone was ready for the bang, of course.

Now with all the preparation was out of the way and the sun had passed its way into the afternoon, the question of lunch arose, and whether they would start actually celebrating Keahi’s birthday now or closer to the evening instead. It didn’t take long for Keahi to answer this quick dilemma, deciding to “get the party started” now rather than later.

No one argued to this, and thus they began to prepare some food, which had been decided to be pasta and beans. Unlike breakfast, it was agreed that it would be better for just some of the team members to make this meal, those members were quickly being Ceebee and Alex, the former of which instantly volunteered with the opportunity to get to try cooking more, and the latter of which decided to join in “just because”; leaving everyone else to start up the party games, of which were mostly just some short and silly activities that Keahi and Edgar had chosen earlier.

Cooking, games, eating, talking, games…

Cake.

“Where did we put the candles?” Nelvana asked, pawing through the various cupboards.

“With the other non-food and dishes items,” Ceebee answered, adding a final frosting touch to the cake that she had just realized that she had forgotten.

“Actually, I relocated them under the sink so that they would be easier to reach,” Tsuki inputted, “I had predicted that I would have to gather them, but I was wrong, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, thanks,” Nelvana replied, crouching down to the cupboard under the sink so that she could finally find the small boxes of matches. “There we go!” she hummed to herself, approaching the cake. “Here you go, you can set them up if you want,” she told Ceebee.

“Thank you, but you can actually set those up! Just make sure that it isn’t on top of any of the designs we’ve already set up, of course!” Ceebee chirped, fluttering away from the cake and back over to the others.

Blinking in surprise, Nelvana stepped in front of the cake. She hadn’t actually seen it like this before now, all decorated up only for upcoming consumption. The frosting on top was a light-colored vanilla, and all lined up on the edge was a series truffle frosting. There was writing that had the simple message of “Happy Birthday Keahi!” along with the team’s “logo” messily drawn atop the cake. After taking a moment to look this over, bringing a smile to her face, Nelvana began carefully lining up the candles around the cake as well. She used up most of the candles in the small box, fifteen out of twenty to be exact, and then after looking it over once more, she turned around to face everyone else gathered by the island table.

“Alright, I’m done… should I bring the cake over then?” Nelvana asked.

“Yup! Bring it over here, and then you all can sing the birthday song, like I mentioned before!” Keahi chirped, bouncing excitedly on the stool she had seated herself on.

Carefully, Nelvana grabbed the plate that the cake had been set on and brought it over to the table, setting it in front of her excited partner before sitting down in the stool beside her. None of the others had decided to sit down yet, them all either being tall enough to comfortably stand without missing out on anything, or just being able to float around.

There was a pause after the cake was set down, and then Ceebee began singing the short song that, as Keahi had mentioned just moments before, had been taught to them a few times in the prior days. The shiny celebi had presumably sensed Keahi’s anticipation and decided to take the initiative, which no one else would complain about. The singing was awkward and quiet, but not off-pitched or janky. Afterwards, Keahi made sure to cheer and flap her wings about, letting the anxious tension that had built off quickly die off.

“Okay, okay! So, usually we light the candles and then the goal is to blow them all out at once, but as a fire-type…” Keahi hummed, and Nelvana could already feel the fiery heat coming off the torchic. “We go the other way around.”

With that comment, Keahi let a controlled, thin stream of flames come out of her beak; likely a compressed ember move. Carefully, she tilted her head over the cake, letting the fire follow and lick the tops of the candles. The first sweep lit most, but not all of them. With still some breath left in her, she tilted her head back the other way in an attempt to finish the job before running out of steam. She was granted success… but only for long enough to get her hopes up, where after that, one of the candles whiffed out on their own. Narrowing her eyes and letting out a huff, Keahi lit the final candle on the cake, prompting some cheering from the others.

“You going to try blowing them all out at once too?” Nelvana asked.

“Actually, I might. Back at home, usually someone get impatient and either shoves the birthday kid’s face into the cake early or someone ends up accidentally breathing too hard and blowing them all out again,” Keahi laughed.

“We can provide either of those options, if you’d like,” Alex snickered, lazily propping his head up with a hand, elbow leaning on top of the table.

“Let me try first!” Keahi snapped back, but only amusement lit up in her eyes.

Taking in a deep breath, Keahi began blowing cooler air over the candles instead, swiftly snuffing most of them out in one sweep over them. Like when she was lighting them, there are just too many candles to go through after the first sweep, so Keahi tried again, and this time getting the rest of them out; with no fake outs.

And then Alex shoved her face into the edge of the cake.

“I believe there was a chant that we were supposed to do before that,” Tsuki pointed out, disguising a chuckle as a cough.

“Yeah, but that ruins the surprise. I thought surprises were pretty important for this,” Alex shrugged with a sly smirk.

“You just wanted to shove her face into a cake,” Ceebee responded, but she too held no sternness in her tone, despite the words that came out of her mouth.

“Someone had to,” Alex replied, “Keahi told us; it’s tradition.”

“I don’t remember it being tradition,” Nelvana muttered, before looking over at Keahi, who’s face was still in the cake. “Keahi! One bite!”

“Iff r’ally goof h’ough,” Keahi said, the message muffled from her mouth still being full of the cake.

Letting out a sigh, Nelvana grabbed onto the middle party hat that Keahi was still wearing, tugging it upwards and pulling the rest of the torchic, smiling beak and fluffy cheeks smeared in frosting, with it.

“This cake is really good!” Keahi exclaimed, in case the first comment didn’t get through enough.

“Strawberry cream,” Ceebee hummed, more for everyone but Keahi, seeing at the torchic already knew what it tasted like. “Kangaskhan recommended it to us, and it sounded like something that you would like!”

“Arceus, Kangaskhan really deserves some sort of thank you gift someday for all of her help,” Keahi giggled, trying to lick the remaining food from her face.

“She got to adopt Tsuki,” Alex joked, finally taking a seat on one of the stools.

“Alright, alright, I’m going to cut the cake now,” Ceebee announced, lifting the plate back up easily with telekinesis and bringing it back to the counter.

It was easy for the cake to be cut up into sixths and then distributed to the entire team, and soon everyone was chowing down on the delicious cake. Edgar was the only one who didn’t finish his slice, and seeing as he had been trying to eat a bit of everything today despite being a ghost-type that doesn’t require eating, it made sense. Though, even if he was full, he was also fully energized and was soon zooming around the base and excitedly chattering about what they would be doing next together.

Next, as it turned out, ended up being some unexpected visitors knocking at the door.

“It looks like our B Squadron!” Ceebee chirped, her antennae flicking back and forth with a slight psychic glow to them.

Opening the door only confirmed this statement, as the rest of Team Galaxy stood at the doorway. Rayden was floating the closest to where the door had been when it was closed, so evidently they were the one who had knocked. Gathered around and behind them was the other four; Pearl and Bobo standing underneath the magnemite, close to the doorway, while Hiram and Baguette waited behind everyone else. Clearly, they were more well-versed in birthday traditions, and sang a little song for Keahi before pulling out a card.

“BZT! WE DID NOT FIND ENOUGH TIME FOR INDIVIDUAL PRESENTS, SORRY. HERE IS A CARD THAT WE ALL WORKED ON THOUGH,” Rayden explained as Pearl brought out the card and handed it to the torchic.

“Don’t worry about it!” Keahi chirped, accepting the card. “I’m glad you all decided to show up! You know, we do have some games in here, you guys could join us!” she offered.

“Ooh! Could we?” Bobo exclaimed, glancing up at Rayden before turning back to look at the others.

With a disappointed sigh, Hiram shook his head, “sadly, no. We picked up a longer escort mission, and are supposed to get started in five minutes. We’ll be out of the area for a few days on this,” he explained before looking down at the paras. “And you know that,” he hissed quietly.

“Yes, sorry about that. We would love to spend more time with you all, but the client called us to let us know that this got bumped up a day, so we’re in a bit of a rush now,” Pearl added.

“It happens!” Edgar hummed, “at least you still took the time to visit!” he continued, “good luck on the mission though!”

“Where are you escorting this ‘mon to, anyway?” Alex questioned.

“Ah! Just a lil’ bulbasaur who missed their herd going east! A shy fellow, they only bumped up the dates because they had written them wrong in the first place,” Baguette explained.

“BZZ BZZ. HE DOES NOT SEEM TO LIKE FIGHTING MUCH THOUGH. THAT IS WHY HE ASKED FOR AN ESCORT. USUALLY HE HAS HIS HERD TO HELP, BUT AS BAGUETTE SAID, BULBASAUR MISSED IT. BZZ,” Rayden chimed in, “WE HAVE AGREED THAT WE ALL SHOULD HEAD OUT ON THIS ONE.”

“Very well,” Tsuki murmured, “well, we wish you all luck out there.”

“Yes! Good luck!” Ceebee said, “and do try to enjoy yourselves out there!”

“Thank you, and we will,” Pearl hummed, “now, we should be off now. You all have a nice day, and happy birthday again, Keahi.”

Giving more goodbyes and last birthday wishes, the B Squadron was off again, heading off towards Pokemon Square to pick up their client before heading off on the mission. Now, it was just the A Squadron left in the base again as if that interaction had been taken place to begin with, aside from the new card sitting with the others on top of the bookshelf.

And with that, it was decided that the presents would be distributed next. All of them, except the one from Nelvana, had been carefully wrapped and set aside for this moment. The bracelet that Nelvana had made was too small for any box or bag, so she had decided to hide it until she had to actually give it to Keahi.

“Oh! Can I go first? Can I?” Edgar exclaimed, clearly still bouncing on that sugar high.

Keahi could only let out a laugh in response, “alright, go ahead.”

Letting out an excited cheer, Edgar dove over to collect the large box that he had wrapped up. There were a couple lines where the wrapping paper didn’t quite meet up, clearly the half-blind duskull misjudging how much he needed, but otherwise it was well-done. The box rattled with the various contents as he picked it up and brought it over to Keahi, setting it down in front of her to open up.

She paused to look it over and then smile up at Edgar, before beginning to claw it open with her wing talons. The wrapping paper fell off easily, and Keahi opened up the cardboard box to reveal all the various trinkets inside. There are much more than when Nelvana had peeked at the collection a few days ago, and she can’t help but think that moving everything to a box rather than that sack was for the best. Keahi’s beak parted open in a look of surprise, and she gingerly reached inside the box to sort through all the items.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Edgar begins speaking again, “they’re a bunch of lucky items I found for you! Look! Nel told me that the rocks with rings around them are lucky, so I found a lot of those, and Spinda said that his nephew likes feathers, so I found some of those by the cliffs!”

Keahi’s beak closed into a smile, “these are really nice, thanks Edgar. I think I’ll have to use some of these to help decorate the house a bit more,” she hummed, “spreading the luck around,” she mused.

Edgar giggled cheerfully, pleased that his gift was accepted.

Without a word, Tsuki brought her present out next. She had been unable to wrap it herself, and had enlisted Nelvana’s help to get it done, since the cubone wouldn’t be wrapping her gift anyway. It was another large box like Edgar’s, but it didn’t make any noise when moved, and when Keahi opened it up, she could see that the cooking ingredients that Tsuki had gathered for her present were neatly organized inside.

“I still don’t know that much of cooking, but I figured you would find some use to these ingredients,” Tsuki murmured.

“Oh! These are great! Kecleon doesn’t even sell some of these herbs; where did you find them?” Keahi exclaimed, doing her best not to disturb the orderliness in this present while still looking through all its contents.

Tsuki only gave a knowing smile and a shrug of her shoulders in response, silently prompting the next person to present their gift.

Ceebee took this silent prompt, heading over to where she had placed her much smaller box. It was the same box Nelvana had seen her with three days ago, and it was in the same red and orange striped wrapping paper that Alex had cut and dropped. She carefully set this in front of Keahi as well, patiently waiting for her gift to be revealed. It was swiftly opened like the others, showing the fiery red gem left inside.

“Is this… a fire gem?” Keahi asked, almost hesitant to even touch the item.

Ceebee nodded, “yup! One use item, boosts a fire-type move. We haven’t run into any close calls lately, but… just in case, you know? It’ll make for a real nice flamethrower, no matter where you end up using it!”

“I’ll have to make sure to save it then,” Keahi said in awe, closing the box again and setting it aside with the two larger ones.

After a quick glance over at Nelvana, Alex walked over to where the last of the presents that had been set out was left. Despite being just a square envelope, he had wrapped it in wrapping paper like the boxes. Ceebee had told Nelvana that Alex had thought that everything had to be wrapped, but part of Nelvana thought that he just wanted a chance to try using the wrapping paper properly. This was opened faster than the earlier gifts, only requiring a sharp slice with one of her wing talons to open up the top of the envelope, and a bit of shaking to get the TM to fall gently on the ground in front of Keahi.

“TM94?” Keahi read aloud, “that’s rock smash!”

“I figured we needed some more fighting-type moves in the party, especially since you will become one if you evolve,” Alex commented, “I figure a lot of torchics in your family have used that move before…?”

Keahi nodded, “yeah! Since we can’t really learn much better until evolution, you know? I think we even had the old HM version of it until it got lost for good a few years before I hatched. This will be really handy… I’ll actually go ahead and learn it now!”

As she had done with the last TM that she had learned, which had been flamethrower, she slammed her head down onto the disc instead of picking it up and bringing it to her forehead. Ceebee and Edgar, who had never seen this before, flinched in surprise and began worriedly checking on the torchic, but the laughter from the other three soothed any nerves from this action. The TM glowed beneath Keahi’s feathers, and then cracked.

And then it was Nelvana’s turn. Standing up, she went over to the bookshelf where she had hidden the bracelet in between the pages of her book like a bookmark. A simple hiding spot, but one she knew that Keahi wouldn’t check if she wanted to see any presents early. This was her book, and because it was written in the human language it was rarely picked up by the half of the team that still didn’t understand that tongue. Carefully, she pulled out the braided string from its place, pausing to look it over one last time before turning back around and giving it to her partner.

Keahi’s expression was hard to piece together at first. Of course, it takes a moment to register exactly what is being handed over, that’s a given for any item. Then, she carefully took the bracelet, carrying it between each of her wing talons and looking it over. One could almost see the gears moving in her mind as she continued studying the simple bracelet, her beak slowly parting open again with recognition and her brown eyes become filled with understanding.

“Did you make this?” she finally asked softly, looking back up at Nelvana.

“Yeah…” Nelvana managed to answer, crouching down beside Keahi again, tempted to give an explanation of her choice like the others but finding her voice stuck.

Keahi’s face twisted up into a familiar wide smile, and Nelvana felt relief come crashing down onto her at the sign of approval.

“It’s beautiful,” Keahi whispered, “it’s… it’s like what Combusken has, but it’s mine and you made it for me and you even went and found the right colors…” she continued, emotion bubbling up from inside. “Thank you.”

There are no more gifts after that. All the cards that were given had been gone through, and no one in Pokemon Square had managed to pull off anything more than that. They threw out most of the wrapping paper, and then that was the end of presents for this birthday.

Afterwards, there was still some time for everyone to get involved in some games before having to even think about supper. They replayed some of the better ones, but made sure to try everything that Keahi and Edgar had come up with first.

When supper did come up, they ended up simply having some corn chips with salsa, and later a card game was brought over to play while they ate. During this, Kangaskhan visited briefly like the B Squadron had done a few hours ago. She only had a few minutes before she would need to leave for her supper and then return to the storage stand, but she was able to give some kind words and more birthday wishes before leaving the group alone with each other again.

“I wish I knew how to make pozole,” Keahi mused, “that would have been really good.”

“This is still pretty good!” Ceebee responded, taking another chip and dipping it into the salsa almost as if to make an example of her statement.

“Yeah I know! But pozole is super tasty, and I really like showing you guys new dishes,” Keahi sighed, “but that’s one recipe I never managed to pick up from my mom… I guess I’ll have to wait for a couple days.”

“…what’s happening in a couple days?” Alex questioned, raising a brow before playing one of his cards.

Keahi blinked in surprise, and then began nervously laughing, “oh, I guess I was thinking about it so much that I forgot to actually tell you guys… I want to go visit my family again in a couple of days. Maybe celebrate my birthday there, maybe just… visit them again,” she explained.

“Ah, that’s fair,” Alex murmured, his expression relaxing only slightly.

“I’d just be gone for the day, I’m sure you all can handle yourselves without me,” Keahi added.

A few more hours later, and everyone was ready to turn in for the night. It would be good to get some more rest before another more work-filled day, especially since they had all woken up so early. However, while everyone else got settled down in their own sleeping spots, Keahi curled up beside Nelvana in the cubone’s nest. This didn’t happen terribly often, but often enough that Nelvana was adjusted to suddenly getting a warm bundle of feathers shuffling under the blanket beside her.

“Hey there,” Nelvana whispered, patting the hatless head feathers of her partner.

“Hello!” Keahi softly chirped, nestling up closely to the cubone.

“Would you call this a good birthday?” Nelvana asked.

“Mhmm, I had a good time,” Keahi hummed.

Nelvana smiled, “that’s good…” she mused, trailing off as several thoughts spun around in her mind. “You know, I’ve been thinking…”

“About?” Keahi prompted, blinking up at Nelvana.

“I want to do something about bringing back Gardevoir,” Nelvana sighed, “I know that we can’t do anything about it without… Shinobi, or Gengar, or whoever… but I dunno, I want to do something. I feel like there is still something we can do.”

Keahi paused, her brows furrowing as she mulled over this information, “me too… it was Gardevoir herself that said that it wouldn’t be possible without him though, right?”

“Yeah,” Nelvana confirmed, nodding.

“Hm… maybe, if you really want, we can ask Ceebee to use telepathy and get in contact with Ninetales, so we can ask more about it,” Keahi suggested, “later though. We should just get some rest for now.”

“Alrighty then, goodnight,” Nelvana murmured.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which an agreement is reached Previous: In which a present is prepared

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peachyfic · 6 years

Text

Win or Win - Youngjae

January 1st. Jackson

January 2nd. Youngjae

The next day you were still drunken with the sweet moments from the date with Jackson, so it was hard for you to focus on your next date. Your best friend told you that Youngjae is waiting for you in an arcade at 2 o’clock. You were, of course, excited, but it was hard to get Jackson out of your head. If you would have had the chance to chose, you would have gone on another date with Jackson for sure.

Your feet were hurting a little bit so you didn’t mind that this day’s date won’t be too active. You dressed up in comfortable clothes, but not too warm ones, as you were spending the whole afternoon inside.

When you arrived at first you were not sure who to look for. Youngjae didn’t tell a lot of information about himself so you just cluelessly looked at all the boys standing outside of the arcade. But then suddenly a boy started to run towards you. He was wearing dark skinny jeans, sneakers, a hoodie with a long trench coat. He definitely looked stylish for an arcade date.

“Y/n?” He asked and you nodded. His face was not as manly as Jackson’s but there was something charming about him as well. You noticed the small mole under his eye which made his appearance even cuter. “Nice to mee you, I’m Youngjae.”

“Nice to meet you, Youngjae,” you said as you shook hands.

“We should go inside, it’s a bit cold here,” he said and you followed him in. He said hi to a couple of people in there, which made it seem like he had been to this arcade a lot of times.

“Wow, this place looks super cool,” you said as you looked around the huge place with dozens of different gaming machines and all the neon lights brightening up the dark, windowless place.

“This is one of my favorite spots in the city, so I’m glad you like it,” he said and you smiled shyly. “Do you want to try the basketball game?” He asked and you nodded.

“Actually I think I’m good with this,” you said and he looked at you curiously.

“Okay, should we bet? The loser buys milk for the winner,” he replied with a smile.

“Okay then get your wallet ready, mister,” you said daringly which surprised even yourself with.

“Wow, you have a lot of confidence, I love that,” he laughed and his laugh was loud and contagious.

You started the game and actually, you got quite a few balls in the hoop. Youngjae kept on cheering for you even though your win might mean a loss for his wallet.

“I’m really good at this,” you concluded as you looked at your score. “Now it’s your turn but don’t go easy on me.”

“It’s not my intention. I like winning,” he winked at you but then he started to laugh in his embarrassment. You guessed he wasn’t used to dating and flirting that much, in which you related to him.

“Go Youngjae!” You cheered on him which made him blush and giggle even more. But once he got the ball in his hands, his attention was on the hoop only. He put on a focused look and didn’t even pay attention to his surroundings. As if he changed personalities. And of course, in the end, his score was higher than yours.

“But you don’t have to buy me milk though, if I let you, then that’s not really nice of me,” he looked concerned when you were looking for your wallet in your bag.

“It was our deal but hey you can buy food in the next round,” you shrugged and he nodded in agreement.

“I kind of want to try something else,” Youngjae said as he looked around the first floor of the arcade. There were mostly claw machines and the basketball game you just played with. There was also a lounge area where people sat down to drink and eat some snacks in-between games. On the second floor, the sign said there are more machines and games to challenge players in. But before you headed upstairs for more fun, you got tempted by the claw machines.

“Hey, Youngjae, what if we both have five tryouts on the machine and the one who doesn’t get a plush has to buy the food,” you suggested and Youngjae’s eyes brightened up.

“Great idea y/n, which machine do you want to try?” He asked and you looked at all the machines lined up with what kind of content they had inside. Then you saw a Pokemon one and pointed it at it like an excited kid. Youngjae approved your choice.

“I want to get the Eevee,” you said while eyeing the figure in the corner of the machine.

“Okay and my aim is Snorlax. It looks cute and also kind of easy to get out,” Youngjae said with a shrug, acting like as if it’s not a big deal for him.

“We will see Choi Youngjae,” you said with a confident smile which made him chuckle but also he felt challenged by your behavior.

For the next thirty minutes, the two of you kept on struggling with the machine. You took turns in trying to get the plush that each of you chose. Even though Youngjae was so sure about getting the Snorlax easily, he progressed even less in getting the character out than you did. Both of you started to lose your cool and started yelling with the poor machine. Especially Youngjae lost his mind as by the end he just slid down on the floor and couldn’t stop laughing at both of your’s misery. And then neither of you succeeded.

“Great, so we are not going to eat lunch,” you sighed and Youngjae patted your shoulder.

“I’m on a diet anyways but if you are hungry I can buy you something,” he said and you shook your head.

“Why are you on a diet though?” You asked him and for a moment he felt embarrassed as he avoided your eyes.

“Well... since I have a job where I have to have a lot of public appearances, I can’t look that overweighted,” he replied but he seemed like as if he wants to avoid the topic.

“Oh come on, what kind of overweight you are talking about? Youngjae you look great. You are handsome, you don’t have anything to worry about and diet. Dieting is the worst. I mean of course sometimes it’s good to eat healthier and taking care of yourself, but skipping meals is never a good option,” you explained to him and he listened to your words.

“Thank you y/n, that’s really nice of you to say that,” he smiled shyly and you put your hand on his shoulder.

“I mean it though, so please, eat with me. We can share the money,” you suggested and he nodded.

“But first we should go up and look at some other games,” he pointed at the stairs and you followed him to the second floor. There were even more people there and a lot more machines. But Youngjae’s eyes stopped on something else instead.

“What do you think about this?” He asked as he stood next to the air hockey table.

“Well, I never tried this before but why not,” you said and he showed you how to play the game. He stood beside you on your side of the table and he held on to your hand while showing off some movements you could do while playing the game. His hand was a bit sweaty, probably because he was nervous to be close to you. But otherwise his hand was smooth and he smelled really nice. It was comfortable to be next to him so close.

After he let go of your hand, you could see it better that his ears were red like a tomato. He quickly walked over to the other side and you started to play against each other. You had fun during the game but at one point the puck flew out of the table, hitting Youngjae on his thigh. You rushed over to him telling him endless apologies while he was rubbing the spot where he got hit.

“Thank God it wasn’t your sensitive area,” you said to him in which at first he looked at you with a shocked expression then he burst out into a loud laugh. “Oh my, I can’t believe I said that out loud,” you held your head and Youngjae kept on laughing at your reaction.

“Well, thanks for this laugh, it doesn’t hurt anymore. But you are absolutely right, this was a better spot,” he nodded. “So what do you want to play next?”

“Hm, I was thinking more about something that doesn’t involve sports for now. I feel exhausted after these two games and the claw machine misery,” you said and Youngjae got into deep thoughts.

“Let’s walk around and see what options do we have,” he said and you started to explore more the arcade. It was surprisingly even bigger than it looked on the outside. There were some hidden corners with smaller machines. Occasionally you spotted some workers who took out coins from machines or cleaned some after they had been used for a while.

Your attention was on a couple who were playing darts and they kept loudly laughing at each other. They both seemed to be pretty bad at the game but they for sure had fun. But then Youngjae gasped loudly and your attention got back to him.

“Coin karaoke!” He exclaimed. Youngjae rushed to the small booth dragging you along.

“Wait, I don’t think this is a good idea. If you hear me sing, I don’t think you will ever want to meet me again,” you protested but Youngjae didn’t listen to you.

He stepped inside the tiny booth which squeezed you both in, the two of you standing next to each other closely.

“I love to sing and people say I have a good voice, so if we do it together it might not be that scary for you,” Youngjae suggested.

“Okay, support me with this,” you sighed but Youngjae shouted ‘fighting’ to raise your spirit. He looked at the options while he fished out 500 won from his pocket.

“What do you think about Bolbbalgan4′s Galaxy?” He asked.

“Oh, great choice.” You replied while Youngjae handed you a mic.

“Take a deep breath and don’t stress. We are not on stage,” he told you with a reassuring smile and you did as he said.

The song started and Youngjae began to sing. You joined him once you felt more confident and it made you feel at ease when he smiled at you while singing. His voice was powerful but soothing.

“You see, this was so fun!” He said once you finished singing couple more songs. The two of you were heading downstairs to grab something to eat.

“Well only because you are a superstar singer,” you answered, which made him chuckle in his embarrassment.

“There is a convenience store next door, do you want to go there and eat?” He asked, changing the subject.

“That sounds good to me,” you finally arrived outside of the arcade and the fresh air made your head feel better. But when you turned around, you saw that Youngjae had a confused face.

“Before we go, I should go and use the restroom. There might be a line, so please wait for me here,” he said and he looked nervous for a second before he disappeared. It was definitely suspicious as usually in the men’s restroom there isn’t a line.

He definitely made you wait for like ten minutes and you started to get cold. Your mind was spinning with confusion and anger starting to pile up, but then Youngjae stepped outside while his arms were behind his back.

“What are you up to?” You asked him with suspicion but also with a smile on your face. Youngjae kept on giggling until he revealed the Eevee that you tried to get out so hard from the claw machine. “I can’t believe you!”

“Sorry it took me so long, I hope you were not too cold in the meantime,” he said while handing you the plush. In your happiness, you almost jumped into his arms while you hugged him tightly, with the Eevee between the two of you.

After that, the three of you walked to the convenience store next door and had some ramen to finish off the great day. Youngjae walked you to the bus stop and said goodbye to you with a warm hug. He almost left you there, but then he quickly ran back to you to ask for your number. He tripped a little and almost fell on you, but in the end, he was able to get his balance back. With a shaking hand he typed in your number then he said goodbye again.

When you got home, you really couldn’t wait to be in bed as you felt exhausted. After you washed up and checked your phone, you fell asleep while smiling softly and hugging the Eevee tight. While you were already deep in your sleep, Youngjae texted you as he could barely fall asleep, still thinking about your day and how much fun he had. ‘I hope we can have another round in which you win and I pay you back with food ^^~ Sleep tight, Eevee will protect you~’

January 3d. BamBam

#youngjae #choi youngjae #got7 #youngjae imagines #youngjae au #youngjae scenario #got7 au #got7 scenario #got7 imagines

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askguyslikeus · 7 years

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((thank you to guest writer @listentotheshityousay !!!))

The dorm kitchenette is quiet at three in the morning. There's just the sound of running water as Jeremy washes out the measuring spoons, humming to himself to drown out the drone of the microwave. It's peaceful.

Consuming baked goods at this hour won't be beneficial to anybody's health, a snide voice rings out in his head.

So much for peaceful.

“This is gonna be beneficial to Michael’s mental and emotional health, so shut up,” Jeremy responds, rolling his eyes. “And like, it can’t be worse than that time we ate fried chicken off our floor after we dropped it.”

That was truly disgusting, the Squip agrees.

“We’re college students. We eat a lot of gross shit.” He turns the faucet and shuts the water off, wiping his hands with the dishrag. “Stop judging.”

If only your eating habits were the only troubling part of your lifestyle…

Jeremy scowls. “Okay, you know what?” He isn’t in the mood to listen to another lecture about vegetables and hygiene and cholesterol. “I’m not doing this.”

He heads out of the kitchenette and walks four doors down, pushing the door to his dorm room open. Michael’s laying on the bottom bunk bed, Jeremy’s phone held above his face as he taps away intently at the screen.

“Jer? You done already?” Michael asks, tilting his head towards Jeremy’s direction. He drops the phone in his distraction and it smacks him in the face. “Ow!”

“I told you not to hold phones like that,” Jeremy says absent-mindedly. He knows Michael’s never going to learn his lesson on that anyway. He squats down to open the mini-fridge and dig out a new bottle of Mountain Dew Red. He cracks it open, ignoring the Squip’s aggrieved grumbling, and chugs half the bottle.

“Electronic Voldemort being an ass again?” Michael asks when Jeremy’s done. His tone is joking, but there’s that telltale hint of worry in his eyes, in the slight furrow of his brows, and Jeremy wants to chase it away. Michael’s already had a shitty day and he doesn’t need to be worried about the voice in Jeremy’s head right now.

So Jeremy shrugs and leans forward, folding his arms on the bed and resting his chin on them to give Michael an easy grin from up close. “More like trying to be my health coach. As if any college student ever cooks balanced meals or eats vegetables.”

“Hell no,” Michael scoffs, rolling closer to lay on his stomach, his face inches from Jeremy’s. “Not even Jake does that.” A beat. “Well, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.” Another beat. “I mean, he eats plenty of junk food and vegetables—shit, does that make it a balanced meal?”

“Depends on the ratio, I guess?”

Michael scrunches his nose. “I saw him eat, like, three pieces of broccoli once.” An ominous pause. “Uncooked.”

“Gross.” Broccoli isn’t that bad, but uncooked? Jake must be a masochist.

“‘Average person eats three pieces of broccoli a year’ factoid actually just statistical error,” Michael deadpans. “Average person eats zero pieces of broccoli per year. Jacob Dillinger, who lives in a cave and eats over ten-thousand each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.”

Jeremy starts laughing just before Michael starts to crack up, too. “A cave?” Jeremy wheezes, gasping for air. “He lives in the dorm across campus.”

“Tell me that cave is an inaccurate description of a college student’s dorm room,” Michael says between chortles.

Jeremy looks around their dorm room. “So this is our cave now?”

“Fuck yeah it is. Which reminds me.” Michael rolls away, settling onto his stomach and stuffing a pillow under his chin as he grabs Jeremy’s phone again. “I have a camp to attend to.”

Jeremy pushes himself up to sit on the side of the bed Michael just vacated and leans over to see Michael’s screen. “Did you get Kyle to come over?”

Michael scowls. “Not yet. Almost done building that fucking table, though, so his smug wolf ass is gonna be mine, soon.”

“What, my ass isn’t enough for you?” Jeremy pokes Michael in the ribs. “Plus, technically this is my phone, so his smug wolf ass would be mine.”

Michael bats Jeremy’s finger away. “Tone it down, you furry. Let me bask in my sweet, sweet upcoming victory.”

“You could’ve just downloaded Pocket Camp onto your phone,” Jeremy says, but he’s not really complaining. He’d been playing on and off for a while, but he hadn’t developed an obsession with the game the way Michael has over the past few days after trying it out on Jeremy’s phone during a fit of boredom. He doesn’t mind Michael stealing his phone for a while every day, and it’s worth it, to see the tension that’d been in Michael’s shoulders earlier all bled out, the smile on his face much more relaxed.

He watches Michael finally coax Kyle into their camp and almost gets smacked in the face when Michael flails his arms victoriously with a whoop. “Gotcha now, sucker,” Michael crows. He’s already tapping away, moving onto the next step, humming as he mutters, “Gotta catch em all.”

“That just gave me some really intense Pokemon Go flashbacks.” Jeremy blinks away the vivid memories of chasing down the whereabouts of a Dratini behind a 7-Eleven at two in the morning. Michael had announced he was disinheriting Jeremy when he found out Jeremy was Team Mystic (“Remember when I told you that you could have my Gameboy and my Magic The Gathering card collection if anything happened to me? I take it back. I’m taking you off my will, Jeremiah.”), and then promptly cancelled the disownment in favor of recruiting Jeremy into kicking some Team Instinct ass.

“Man, I walked so much for that Flareon.” Michael squints at the phone screen. “Fuck, I need more Bells. I should get somebody to buy my shit.”

Jeremy pulls out Michael’s phone from where it’s been stashed in his hoodie pocket to check the time. The screen flashes 3:14. “Michael, nobody’s going to be awake at this time on a Tuesday night.”

“Nuh-uh. PJ will sure as hell be awake,” Michael says.

Jeremy thinks about that for a sec. “You know what, that wouldn’t surprise me.”

There’s a minute of silence as Michael switches from the game to open Jeremy’s message app, tapping furiously at the phone screen, and then he’s grinning up at Jeremy with a smug slant to his mouth, the way he smiles whenever he’s having an I told you so moment. “She’s awake.”

“Why is she even awake?” Jeremy asks with a laugh. “It’s past three in the morning!”

“I don’t know, maybe she’s staying up to play Pocket Camp just like me,” Michael says with a fond snort.

Jeremy’s about to say that Michael’s up playing Pocket Camp to destress from a bad day when his brain tugs at that train of thought, derailing him from saying anything. Aren’t you forgetting something? echoes in his head, sounding eerily like the Squip’s voice.

He’s blankly staring at the wall, mystified, when Michael’s voice drags him back to the present. “Hey, weren’t you making Nutella cake?”

Jeremy blinks, then looks down at Michael, who’s giving him a curious look.

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, as his derailed train of thought is replaced back on the metaphorical traintracks, starting off slow and steady. “I was.”

Michael stares at him.

Jeremy stares back.

The thought train cranks up the speed from one to eleven, his thoughts all crashing into him at the speed of light. From the look of rapidly dawning horror on Michael’s face, he’s on the same track (ha fucking ha) of thought.

“Did you just,” Michael says very slowly, “leave the stuff in the kitchen?” Even more slowly: “In the microwave?”

“Oh fuck,” Jeremy blurts, and that’s the exact moment the fire alarm starts blaring.

See, the thing is, the microwave on their floor is a piece of shit that’s probably older Jeremy and Michael’s ages combined. It has many buttons but no settings work aside from Fires of Mordor, and its timer settings operates solely on thirty-minute intervals, for some reason. So it’s the duty of the poor dorm residents who use it to stop the microwave accordingly using their own timers.

It hasn’t been replaced because, for all it’s shitty, fire-hazard qualities, it still works and it hasn’t actually caused a fire yet.

But just because it hasn’t caused any real fires doesn’t mean it hasn’t set off any fire alarms. There’s been enough fire alarms this month that a few days ago, Rich--who had been spending the night on their top bunk--had literally clamped the pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

It’s a building full of hungry, easily distracted college students and the world’s most tyrannical microwave. It’s the worst combination possible.

So it’s absolutely normal for Jeremy and Michael to be standing outside their building in the middle of the night, surrounded by dozens of their cranky, sleep-deprived neighbors, waiting for all-clear to head back in.

A lot less normal for Jeremy to have been the cause of the fire alarm, though. Usually people set off the fire alarm trying to make popcorn. Jeremy set it off trying to make Nutella mug cake. Which is probably a scorched hell cake now.

“Holy shit,” Jeremy mumbles, still kinda in shock about the whole thing. “I almost burned down a building with a cake.”

“Good thing Rich isn’t sleeping over at our place today,” Michael says. “He’d either be really proud of you or really disappointed.”

Jeremy stares at the dorm windows, feeling indignant. “I used the last of my Nutella for that cake.”

Michael makes a choking noise from beside him, and Jeremy remembers that fuck, he’d been making that cake to cheer Michael up after a shitty day. And then he went and had the whole building evacuated instead.

“Oh my god,” Jeremy moans, dragging both hands down his face as the shame properly kicks in. “I was supposed to make you feel better, not get us kicked out of our room.” He turns to Michael to apologize. “I’m so s—Michael?”

Michael, he realizes, is doubled over and wheezing, laughing so hard that he’s nearly crying. He straightens up and hooks an arm over Jeremy’s shoulder, pulling him in, still giggling breathlessly as he leans against Jeremy, grinning as bright as the rising sun.

“Actually,” Michael says, sounding happier than any Nintendo game or baked good could make him, “this is just what I needed.”

#be more chill #michael mell #jeremy heere #askguestslikeus #im so happy jenny wrote this for me its so fucing good and i love the dialogue and goofs #a good tiME #ALSO THE microwave is so relatable oh my god

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