Cafe Plaisir: Shadow of Eclipse: Chapter 1 by Barley672 < Submission

Keywords drama 4568, glaceon 4109, ninetales 1979, emolga 1374, blind 1274, mienshao 808, linoone 740, mimikyu 573, chikorita 438, disability 109, paraplegia 9

Chapter 1:

Clarice, the Ice Queen of hired resources, sat upon her throne and surveyed the filthy peasants who dared to disrupt the profitable little routine of her kingdom of Plaisir. She judged these four ingrates who had seen fit to break her property, trouble her patrons, assault her staff, and cost her resort good money, and she found them wanting. Only one of the four was defiant enough to return her stare, and she was the worst of them all.

On her far left was Pepper, the rebellious Chikorita, who refused to sit in favor of propping herself high on her vines. In direct contrast Hastur sat nearly underneath her, hiding somewhere inside that strange disguise of theirs, properly cowed, just the way she wanted. Next to them was Sugar, chewing his nails nervously, and finally on the right lay Cinnamon facing slightly the wrong direction, unable to properly locate the angry Glaceon over the sound of her overpowered air conditioning.

Between them and her were five written reports. Four were performance reviews, and the last was a tally of damages with a rough estimate of the costs incurred by the vagrants in front of her. The number was not insignificant.

After giving her audience a good minute to stew in their own failure, Clarice finally spoke. “One day. You were here for one day, and you four managed to destroy eleven windows, shatter thirteen decorative plates, damage four tables, trip four customers, assault two other employees, freeze kitchen operations entirely and turn the entire central courtyard garden upside down!”

She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “Would any of you care to explain why I shouldn’t throw you all to the curb right now?”

Sugar knew they wouldn’t. Cinnamon was far too timid to try to explain what happened, even if it was perfectly justified. Pepper was far too proud to apologize, and Honey...was Honey. So, it fell to him.

‘Crap.’

“Uh, Ms. Clarice?” He intended to try his ‘humble and respectful’ face, the one he used whenever he was under scrutiny, but instead it made him look weak. The Glaceon turned her glare on him and the intensity almost made him shrink back into his seat. “Uh, we can explain-“

“Excellent! Let’s start with you!“ Clarice stuffed his report off the table into his face. She quoted, “Sugar and Cinnamon showed promise by cleaning the Café grounds in good time, however upon completion of their first task both employees failed to report to their manager and disappeared. Sugar was found two hours later...” Clarice leaned even closer as accusation crept into her voice, “playing video games with Neon.”

Sugar bit his lip. “...Okay, yes, I fucked up. But the others…Cinnamon can’t-“

“Oh yes, Cinnamon!” Clarice grabbed the second document, shoving it at the Linoone...who listened in confusion as the paper slid to the floor.

“...who nearly killed our most profitable waiter with a type-advantaged attack then fled through Patron-accessible zones knocking over a dozen tables and causing four different minor injuries. Injuries for which WE are liable! Thank you!”

“He’s blind! And was panicking! What do you expect!” Pepper stabbed a vine between her friend and Clarice.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone...” the Linoone murmured.

“I would expect someone who's been blind for as long as he has to have figured out the simple act of walking in a straight line! And not assaulting our staff!“

“Fuck you! She deserved it!” Pepper shot back.

“AND YOU!” Clarice’s voice rising to match Pepper’s, “Destroying our garden, endangering patrons, beating the daylights out of our masseuse and using the decor as projectile weapons in an area surrounded by glass!”

“I make no apologies.” Pepper bit back, “After what she said!? I’m glad she’s sucking potions in the infirm.”

“And I’ll be glad to finally have you out of my business!” Clarice concluded. She sat back in her chair and turned her attention to Hastur, “Compared to that, failing the simple task of washing dishes and stalling kitchen operations for half a shift is almost tame.”

Her gaze drifted over the hollow lenses of Hastur’s disguise. They were empty, the red-eyed Mimikyu inside opting to hide in the depths of the colander behind the mask, where the cruel woman’s gaze couldn’t reach.

“am sorry.”

“I don’t care.” Clarice leaned back so she could glare at all four offenders at once.

Sugar looked between his friends. Cinnamon sat in a half-crouch, his face pointing down at the floor. Hastur’s disguise was vibrating slightly in distress. He just felt kind of awkward being the least justified in his screwup. Only Pepper had the strength to look defiant.

Clarice loved the cold, but she had another reason to keep the temperature so low: It made the workforce uncomfortable; kept them off-balance. She could, and would, and did keep them unbalanced and unable to think. That gave her room to judge the defiant in relative peace and gave her an edge in every conversation. At this temperature, she had the home field advantage in any argument against everyone, even Firenze when she really needed it. Clarice occupied herself shuffling paperwork, waiting until even Pepper was starting to break down and shiver before speaking again.

“The last time a troublemaker of your caliber was allowed to work off a debt at Café Plaisir, he started down a couple expensive drinks and a single window, and it escalated to several thousand dollars in property damage, and managed to instigate conflict with some of our most profitable waiters in the process. I will not make that mistake again!” She slid four freshly printed tickets across the table. “You’re all fired, effective immediately. Tell your trainer she can keep your advance pay.”

For a moment there was silence. The four Pokémon stared at the tickets, trying to process just how quickly everything had gone downhill.

“The bus arrives in seven minutes. You’re all dismissed.”

Pepper grabbed the tickets off the table. “Pleasure doing business,” she spat, sarcastically, “I hope we never have to speak to you again.”

“Agreed.”

And just like that, their career was over. Their employment had been short, but it had certainly been...eventful. One by one, the four Pokémon trudged out the door and made their way towards ‘their’ room, for all the time they had gotten to use it, it may as well have been an oversized locker. Nobody spoke until the insulated door had slammed shut.

“...well that sucked!” Sugar concluded.

“It wasn’t...” Cinnamon trailed off.

Pepper looked behind her at the Linoone. “What? You have a good time?”

“Well, no, but I thought for sure tomorrow would be a lot of fun.”

“You talking about that other Linoone?” Sugar asked.

“He promised he’d take us on a tour tomorrow after work.”

Sugar mulled that over for a moment. “Well I don’t see any reason he still can’t. You said he had tomorrow off, right? We’ll come back tomorrow as ‘regular citizens’ and see him then!” He concluded.

Cinnamon perked up at that. “Hey...Sugar, You’re right! At least, if we can find him…and Mary doesn’t take us to another world…again.” His face fell the longer he spoke.

None of the group noticed the Ninetales passing them as they marched into the basement.

“-And Pepper, you could-“

“If I ever see this place again it’ll be too goddamn soon!” She spat.

“Oh...uh, Honey! Any thoughts?” Sugar looked back at the Mimikyu trailing behind them.

“i failed.” came the morose reply.

“Don’t even start with that!” Pepper reached their room, cracked the door open and grabbed their belongings with a vine. She slung them into the hall and threw the key back inside.

“This place is the failure, not you, not us!” She punctuated her thesis by slamming the door, locking them out forever.

They gathered their belongings and turned to the stairwell. Once again, nobody noticed the Ninetales watching them from around the corner.

“Hastur, they failed because they dumped you at a workstation without any instruction and just assumed you knew what to do and how, and then blamed you when you couldn’t do it right. Fuck ‘em’”

“Okay,” Cinnamon said, “…but I still trashed the halls-”

“Cinnamon, don’t you dare downplay the fact you were nearly raped! Just. don’t!”

There was a short gasp somewhere behind them. None of them noticed.

“-but what about the Garden?” Sugar asked.

“The less said about that Mienshao the better!”

As they left the stairwell, a white blur slipped between the doors behind them, bolting towards HR.

“The HR rep is a bitch, the management is ableist, the workers are selfish assholes, and the one Pokémon we’ve met who can explain what’s going on to Mary manipulated her into leaving us alone in a brothel for a week!” Pepper concluded.

The group burst through the door into the bar with Pepper in the lead. With head held high the Chikorita marched on all eights directly to the exit. Patrons were pushed aside; waiters’ questioning looks were ignored. As she opened the front door for her compatriots she turned and gave a parting shout for the crowd. The way the tiny starter strode high through the crowd had earned her the attention of everyone present. At that moment, Pepper truly wished she had fingers. Still, she had her voice. No one could silence her voice.

But she was never the elequent one, so all she shouted was, “Fuck Café Plaisir, and everyone in it!”

The door slammed shut among a dozen confused looks.

A minute later, the back door slammed open and Firenze came charging through the tavern with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. He weaved and ducked and at one point even shoved his way past the crowded interior, plowed through the front door with enough force to bruise his shoulder, and yelled as he sprinted across the parking lot. “Hold that bus!”

The bus’s door began to close.

“Hold that-” Firenze jammed a leg between the door and the frame, slamming his head against the glass. “...door!”

The door retracted and he squeezed up the steps.

“Got here just in time, buddy!” The driver called.

“Thank Arceus!”

“...Nah just kiddin’! We don’t leave for 9 more minutes!”

Firenze stopped to narrow his eyes at the middle-aged man, who gave him a shit-eating grin in return. “But seriously, door stays closed unless someone’s boarding. Weather’s too damn cold!”

Firenze sighed and made his way to the back of the bus, where four familiar faces sat watching the theatrics.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Pepper shot him down. “If you’re trying to convince us to stay, save it. You can’t just undo ten hours of action with ten minutes of talk.”

“I just want to know what happened. From your perspective, not Clarice’s.”

“That might take a bit longer than ten minutes.” Cinnamon said.

Firenze looked forward towards the driver. “Five for one trip on the Plaisir tab, please?”

The driver gave a lazy thumbs up.

“Alright, tell me what happened.”

* * *

“Steady… Steady...”

At Sugar’s urgings Cinnamon ceased accelerating and settled into an even sprint. The Emolga carefully leaned over from his saddle and leveled his makeshift lance. A moment passed...then with a discordant shriek of metal-on-metal and a shout of triumph Sugar speared another discarded soda can through the center and hoisted it up into the air.

“Perfection!” Sugar shifted his weight so he could ‘display’ his ‘kill’ into the sky. “Hard-left, three paces!” He called.

Cinnamon obeyed, counting out three bounding leaps before planting his claws into the grass and leaning into the turn. Any other Linoone may have spun out or been thrown flailing another forty feet into the nearby road, but careful coordination and expert riding on Sugar’s part let Cinnamon’s rear slide around to the right without his feet slipping under him or keeling over, and the duo skidded about to face their immediate left.

For the briefest moment they came to a complete stop, and Sugar took the opportunity to fling the empty soda can into a nearby bin. Then they were off again charging across the front of the Café.

This was not the most efficient way to search the grounds for litter by any stretch, but Cinnamon and Sugar had been confined to their Pokéballs for days and had been aching to let out some energy. So instead of spending the morning meandering around the Café dragging a wastebasket, Sugar elected to appropriate a screwdriver, don their riding gear, and tear up the lawn tracing concentric circles around the Facility grounds.

Ahead then was the Parking lot, which served as both Plaisir’s most dangerous obstacle and greatest accumulator of improperly disposed waste. There were a number of cars scattered about the lot of all makes and models, though being Oklahoma there was certainly a propensity for pickup trucks whose conditions ranged from rusty and neglected to ‘waxed weekly’. They made for an excellent obstacle course: just high enough to squeeze under, just small enough to provide a challenge. Cinnamon weaved between the vehicles, Sugar spearing what litter they could find and depositing it in a plastic shopping bag hanging around his neck totally stylish light-grey cape billowing behind him.

Another turn, this time over rough asphalt. Sugar made the call and stood in the saddle as Cinnamon smoothly transitioned from a plantigrade charge to a digitigrade skid that protected his paws from the harsh asphalt, just like they had practiced. Then it was past the dumpsters where Sugar ditched his accumulated garbage, around the back of the facility to the garden shed to pick up another bag, and finally around the side of the complex to start the trip again.

All in under two minutes.

Another pass through the facility parking lot, past the bemused Froslass watching the front entrance, and between the few cars scattered about revealed no further litter in the front of the facility: just a few leaky oil stains and filthy puddles from yesterday’s rain. With their task complete, Sugar called for a final turn back into the main building when-

“Look out!”

Sugar’s head snapped right towards the source of the voice just as a sedan rolled into the parking lot on his left. Brakes screeched, a horn blared, Sugar lost his balance and found himself tumbling through the air towards the...ground?

Sugar blinked. He was floating, weightless and nearly upside-down. His nose hovering a mere fraction of an inch over the asphalt. Somewhere behind him, Cinnamon was in a similar state, hanging limply in a cloud of pinkish psychic energy. Also, they were moving. Moving towards a very unimpressed Froslass.

“Next time,” she chastised the wannabe cavalry, “Please look where you are going, and perhaps watch for cars?” I may not be around to save you next time.”

“That’s good! Maybe next time you won’t distract me while I’m driving!” Sugar countered her even stare with a beaming smile and crossed arms. The Froslass dropped him to the ground. Headfirst. Ow. Then she turned her attention to the Linoone. She lifted him to eye level and turned Cinnamon around to look at the homemade saddle.

“This saddle, it is homemade?” she asked.

Cinnamon nodded, “My friend Honey made it for us. It lets Sugar steer me around on runs and stuff.”

The Froslass gave the Emolga a disapproving stare. “One would hope,” she said, “that when so trusted, they would conduct oneself with a bit more caution.”

Sugar stuck out his tongue from the floor.

The significantly less blasé party was given slightly more dignified treatment. As Sugar picked himself up, the Froslass flipped Cinnamon right side up and gently lowered him to the ground. The ever grateful Linoone immediately ran up and gave her torso a welcoming headbutt.

“Thank you for saving us ma’am!”

“Err, you’re welcome?” The Froslass floated back out of touching range.

“What’s your name? You don’t smell like se-Uh, like the others, what’s your job?”

“My name is Wraith, I am a bouncer for Café Plaisir.”

“Oh...” Cinnamon cocked his head, “what is that?”

Wraith stared at him in surprise for a moment. Sugar explained from his position prone on the floor. “He was a wild Pokémon, and our trainer’s only fourteen. He’s never been to a bar before.”

“I see...well, I am essentially the front door security. I make sure nobody enters Plaisir with a weapon, or with ill intent. I also help resolve conflicts before they can become violent.”

“Oh!” Cinnamon’s face flipped between recognition and confusion yet again, “...what does that have to do with bouncing?”

Wraith couldn’t help but bring a palm to her forehead, but at least she had the presence of mind not to sigh in front of him. “Do not worry about it. Just know it’s my job to help you when there’s trouble.”

“Okay, Thank you!”

Sugar pushed himself off the ground and grabbed Cinnamon by the reins. He tugged him towards the entrance.

“C’mon, we got places to be.”

“We do?”

“Yep!” Sugar marched through the door, letting the rein slide through his hand, though not without friction. The Linoone remained still.

“Will we be seeing you tomorrow?” Cinnamon asked.

Wraith gave the pair an exaggerated shrug. “It’s hard to say. I’m working swing shifts and this is just a temporary affair. Once the spring winds arrive, I’ll be migrating Northwest anyways.”

“Cinnamon…” Sugar gave his friend a quick tug, “It’s cold as balls out here, can we please get inside?”

“Have a nice day!” Cinnamon said.

“You too. Please, try to be more careful about cars from now on!” That last line was directed directly at the Emolga.

Sugar smiled and waved before turning and grumbling something under his breath. With a final wave, Cinnamon turned and followed his rider into the Café.

“You alright?” Cinnamon asked.

“I don’t need no know-it-all Psychic Types telling me how to drive!” Sugar mumbled. His nonchalant facade dropped like so much deadweight. “I saw that car; We would have been fine! There was only a near-collision because her powers slowed us down!”

Cinnamon hummed thoughtfully, though in truth he knew any arguments were a lost cause. Sugar was a wonderful rider and companion, but he was barely into adulthood, and his pride was still easily wounded. “Maybe she saw something you didn’t?”

Sugar led them through the main bar and into the halls, seething the whole way. “My eyes are perfect! She just can’t figure out the trajectories and momentum like a proper flying type!”

Cinnamon didn’t respond at first. He trusted the Emolga with his life, but everyone made mistakes...whether they were willing to admit it or not. Eventually he settled with saying, “Just...let’s try to look more cautious instead? So they don’t interfere.”

“Fine.” Sugar power-walked a distance ahead in an effort to distance himself from the criticism. Cinnamon decided to let the matter drop. The last thing he wanted right now was an argument with his best friend.

The two quickly made their way towards the service stairwell that led to the basement, where employee rooms were located, stopping only to shout a greeting as Pepper swung overhead with cleaning implements in-vine.

Navigating stairs for creatures twice your size or larger was difficult enough at the best of times, but to do so blind? That turned an inconvenience into an ordeal. They proceeded slowly, deliberately, with Sugar carefully tapping the edge of each stair with the screwdriver to alert his friend where to step.

He smelled it just as he approached the bottom of the stairwell. A familiarly unfamiliar scent.

“Sugar!”

The Emolga paused in his angry moping. “What?”

“There’s another Linoone here!” He nearly shouted the words. Cinnamon’s posture started to vibrate with barely restrained enthusiasm.

“...So?” Sugar asked as he pushed the stairwell door open.

“Another Sprinter! A running mate! He could show us the local trails! And we could go racing and play tag and learn about the local circuit and see his baubles and-” his rant cut off like water from a faucet, and his tone pivoted from excitement to beseeching in an instant. “...Well, maybe we could go find him? Please?”

Sugar blinked “Uh, sure?”

“YES! C’mon, the trail goes this way!” He surged forward, catching Sugar off guard. The little mouse was forced to dive onto his friend’s tail to stop him from running off without him, and received several carpet burns for his trouble. Cinnamon had made it most of the way down the hall before Sugar’s excited yelling caught up to him.

“Woah! WOAH! Buddy! Let’s at least get back to our room first and change...first...” A sound caught Sugar’s ear. Something even louder than the pounding of feet against carpet: The discordant clattering of an old keyboard. “…hold on!”

Sugar let go of Cinnamon’s tail and slid to a stop in front of one of the rooms. He quickly picked himself up and pressed his ear to the door.

*Click, Click-Clack, Clack-Clickity-Click*

“Hell-o!” Sugar leaned back and quickly tapped out Shave-and-and-haircut on the door.

“Wait a minute!” The voice was high pitched and feminine. Sugar took a step back.

“Sugar?” Said Cinnamon, quickly retracing his steps. “I thought we were going to go find the other Linoone.”

Sugar gently patted Cinnamon’s nose. “Just a minute, I wanna see what she’s playing first.”

Cinnamon frowned and sat back in silence. A minute passed and nothing happened.

“Sugar?”

“Just hold on.” Sugar stepped forward and knocked again on the door.

“Just a second! Hold on...” the clattering of the keyboard increased. “Just a minute...wait...FUCK!” A crescendo of clicks and a few frustrated whacks at the spacebar, and suddenly all noise in the room stopped. “Door’s open!”

Sugar tapped a foot on the latch and squeezed through the crack. A wave of dry heat greeted him, no doubt a consequence of the computer and lack of windows. The room was a mess. Remotes, controllers, wires and plastic detritus of all sorts were scattered across the ground and shoved haphazardly onto shelves. A small-ish bed fit for a medium quadruped lay unkempt in a corner, and in the center of it all a Jolteon, well-toned but thoroughly frazzled, lay sprawled over the carpet in front of a computer monitor with a pair of headphones hanging around her neck. A video game menu wholly unfamiliar to Sugar blinked on the screen.

She looked at the Emolga, confused. “Who’re you?”

“Sugar!”

She twitched slightly, “What’d you call me?”

“What? No, I’m Sugar! My name is Sugar!”

The Jolteon’s expression grew curious, “A man named ‘Sugar’… so you’re a pet?”

“Yep!” Sugar replied, unphased by her look or tone. He marched further into the room with all the confidence in the world. “Me and my team are working as Janitors!”

“I see.” She said, looking a tad confused, “And your trainer?”

“In town getting groceries and stuff.” Sugar waved the question away, “But enough about that! I heard you mashing on the keyboard and wanted to see what you were playing.”

The Jolteon studied him a moment longer. It wasn’t often a pseudoslave acted so nonchalant about their status as another creature’s plaything. These days, most were either ashamed, conceited or both. She shrugged and turned back to the game, “Pull up a seat kid, I’ll show ya!”

“Yes!” Sugar unslung his satchel and threw it to the floor just as Cinnamon poked his nose through the door.

“Sugar?” he asked.

“Hey Cinnamon! Meet, Uh...” Sugar gestured at the Jolteon.

“Neon.”

“Neon!”

“Hello?” Cinnamon nosed his way in, his face wrinkling as concentrated heat and sweat stink assaulted his senses in force.

Neon had already turned her attention back to the screen. “Howsit’ goin’?”

“Good thank you!” Cinnamon turned to his friend, “Sugar?”

The Emolga had turned away to watch Neon fiddle with the controls “Yea?”

“Are we still following the scent trail or...?” Cinnamon trailed off.

Sugar looked between the computer screen and his friend waiting by the door. A split-second war in his head resolved in favor of the hedonistic half of his mind. In hindsight, this was the moment when things started trending downhill for everyone.

“Tell you what!” He said, “I’ll stay here, you go on ahead and find your mystery friend!”

Cinnamon jerked in surprise. “Go ahead? As in, on my own?”

“Sure!”

Cinnamon faced the ground, looking unsure. “In the middle of this place…what if I get lost?”

“It’s fine!” Sugar's eyes were firmly glued to the screen, Neon having started another round of her game. “Just follow your nose! Go track down that friend of yours, talk to him for a bit, follow your own trail back here!”

Cinnamon sagged slightly and stammered. “I-I mean, if you think I can do it…but what if I can’t find them? Or what if…I don’t know…”

“Just ask around! There are plenty of waiters around; I’m sure one of them can help you if you ask.”

“Okay…I’ll be back soon! I think.” Cinnamon, crouching low by instinct, carefully shuffled back towards the door.

“You can do it, C’!” Sugar called, “I believe in you!” And he honestly meant it. He turned to Neon, “So how does this game work, exactly?”

* * *

“And then you ditched Cinnamon? just like that?” Pepper gave Sugar a confused look.

Sugar sat cross legged staring at his feet. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t honestly believe...but yea, I did kinda leave him cold.”

Everyone, even Pepper looked at him concerned. “That was...kind of a jerk move, Sugar. You know how much he relies on you.”

“I wouldn’t have done it if I’d’ve known what happened next!” He yelled. For a moment, his appearance of humility fell to reveal his exasperation. “Anyways, Neon showed me a few games and a few hours later I get a psychic voice in my head telling me to report to HR! And that’s the end of it, at least for me!”

Firenze lay in one of the penultimate seats listening to the team. He’d given the emolga his full attention for the entirety of the story, barely moving except to blink.

“So that’s it?” He asked. “You just finished your first chore of the day and assumed you were done?”

Sugar looked up, feeling stupid, “I... Yea, pretty much. It’s literally my first job ever, alright? I didn’t realize the reward for finishing early was more work!”

Firenze opened his mouth to speak, but the Emolga continued, “I know! I know! That was stupid. I never said I had any issues with the Café, though, that’s them!” He jerked a thumb at the rest of the team laying in various states of rest beside him. The Emolga paused a moment to collect himself, then opened his mouth to speak. Then he looked over at Cinnamon and apparently thought better of it.

“Desertion on the first day is certainly a valid reason to fire you.” Firenze said, “But given your background, I suppose it isn’t too surprising either. I imagine your trainer micromanaged much of your life?”

Sugar nodded, then slouched and stared at the rusted ceiling of the bus, trying to distance himself from judgement. Firenze decided to leave him be for now. It wasn’t the first time a former pet or battle pokemon had been flummoxed by the concept of an eight hour work shift. “So, what happened next?” He turned to Cinnamon.

There was an awkward pause as Ninetales and Linoone just sat there silently.

“...Cinnamon?”

Cinnamon twitched and turned to face Firenze, “Huh? Oh! Sorry! You’re talking to me?”

Firenze briefly ducked his head in embarrassment. “Sorry, I asked ‘what happened after Sugar left you alone in the hall?’”

Cinnamon nodded and sat up against the back of the bench. He took a deep breath, and began...

* * *

Cinnamon sat indecisively on the carpet. It was actually strange to think about, but this might actually have been the first time he had been truly alone in nearly two years! Ever since the accident, he’d always had someone nearby he could rely on to guide him around; even when it was just him and Mary, they had never left each other’s side longer than a minute. It had been such a comfort to have a friend he could rely on even at his most feeble. But now...

Okay, he wasn’t truly alone. Nothing was stopping him from turning around and returning to the safety and surety of Sugar’s side. But then the scent would go stale, and who knew when he’d pick it up again. Besides, part of him wanted to prove he could function on his own. That he wasn’t entirely dependent on his friends, as much as he loved them, to live his own life and pursue his own agendas.

Well if that’s what he wanted to do, he was failing miserably.

He leaned down and sniffed at the ground. His sense of smell had never been anything to write home about, and contrary to the stereotype his blindness hadn’t magically improved his nose and ears much at all. So he could only follow fresh scents, and this mystery Linoone’s was being overshadowed by Plaisir’s omnipresent and all-consuming stench of sex.

He hadn’t received any special training to deal with his blindness either; he and Mary and Sugar had always just muddled along together, figuring things out their own way. He had never had a home to memorize or a routine to follow. Never had time alone to build any confidence in his own senses of smell and sound and touch. Without his friends, he was as clueless and helpless as the day he stumbled out of that rusty old factory.

So he was forced to proceed slowly, following the wall, bumping into the tables, and only straying towards the center of the hallway to take fresh scents. Occasionally he’d hear another waiter walking by escorting a customer and had to suppress the urge to ask for help. He wandered down the halls, up some stairs, took a couple left turns, had to double back twice, carefully down another stairwell...and lost the scent completely near the showers before realizing he had been following the trail backwards.

‘Crap!’

He growled and stamped his feet a couple times in frustration. Of course, he hadn’t noticed the scent growing staler, because he had been too nervous about collisions to follow it down the center of the hall! And now he was stuck somewhere in the bowels of Plaisir’s maze-like hallways, too turned around to know where to go or how to get back to Sugar.

He sat down to think. And wait. He started retracing his steps in his head and then re-retracing his steps when he lost count of the turns he made. Maybe if he started walking back down the trail he would remember where his room was? Or maybe he would just get more lost somewhere without an easy supply of fresh water...

He was shaking, he realized. He was afraid. His first time alone in two years and he was huddled next to a wall twitching like a frightened pup. He was used to being pathetic, but this was a new low even for him! He took a breath and forced his body to be still, and listened.

‘Don’t think, don’t worry. Just relax. Be patient and help will come to you. Just like last time!’

Minutes passed.

He was alone.

Then...footsteps! On his right! He was saved! Cinnamon turned his head and smiled right as the scent of his savior hit him in the face.

Wow. He had smelled some of the other waiters and they all had the stench of mating season soaked into their fur. But this? This was on a whole new level. She didn’t smell of sex; she reeked of it! Sex and...fish? That was a new combo for Cinnamon. Her footfalls indicated a quadruped of middling size and steady gait so...a Vaporeon?

As she approached her pace seemed to change slightly; from casual steps to a slower, quieter saunter. Her accent was distinct, loud and brash by nature. It reminded him of some old radio plays he’d heard that took place in Unova. “Like what you see, newbie?”

‘Like what I see?’ he thought. But instead he said, “Uh, not…I mean. Ye-No?” came the confused response. He winced at his own awkwardness.

Her footsteps stopped, and Cinnamon could feel the glare she gave him. He just gave her a sheepish grin and waited for her to put two and two together.

“…Oh.” She said.

“Yeah.” He replied.

“…Whatever.” The Vaporeon started to walk away.

“Wait! Uh, could you help me find my room? I’m kinda new here, and I’m a bit lost.”

There was a pause. Maybe if he had been a little less trusting he would’ve been suspicious about her response.

“Sure~! What’s your room number?”

Cinnamon sat back and searched his memory. “Uh...Zero-Nine-Four? I think?”

“Follow me, newbie!” And with that she marched off. Had he been a little less trusting, he may have questioned why she led him in the opposite direction from where he’d come. “What’s your name, Newbie?”

“Uh Cinnamon, Ma’am.”

“Do not call Rain Flower Ma’am. You can call Clarice Ma’am, but Rain Flower is Rain Flower.”

“Yes, Ms. Flower.”

“No ‘Missus’s either! What are ya, a child?”

“Okay...So, you get a lot of work, Rain Flower?”

“Are you kidding?” Pride crept into her voice, “Rain Flower isn’t just the greatest waiter in Plaisir. Rain Flower is Café Plaisir! I make this place more money than the rest of the staff combined!” She waived her fishlike tail in front of the unsuspecting Linoone, a fresh wave of her musk hitting him square in the face and leaving him disoriented. “But ya already knew that, didn’t ya?”

Cinnamon’s face twitched, vestigial muscles trying to blink away the stench. “Uh, well, no offense, but you do smell like you’ve had...a lot of sex. Like, a lot of sex!”

“No duh! It’s my job!” Rain Flower stopped and allowed Cinnamon to almost pass her before jamming her nose in his flank.

“Woah!” Cinnamon stumbled a bit from the unexpected contact.

“Hmm, still a virgin? You must be on the cleaning staff!”

“Y-yes?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll fix that soon enough!”

“Okay?”

Rain Flower took the lead again, past a couple turns and down a hall that seemed to go on forever. Cinnamon was just starting to wonder if he’d gotten the room number wrong when Rain Flower stopped and turned in place, “...and here we are!”

Cinnamon heard the telltale clicking of a door pedal being depressed and followed his guide into the room...which smelled suspiciously fishy...

“Uh, Rain Flower? I don’t think this is my room.” He felt the whispers of doubt in the back of his head. Where was she taking him?

“I know...” She shut behind her. “It’s mine.”

‘Oh.’ “I-I thought you were taking me to my room.”

“This is just a detour. Rain Flower needed to take something real quick.”

Cinnamon relaxed a tad. “Oh, okay...what is it?”

Cinnamon felt the Vaporeon’s breath on his face as she advanced into his personal space. Her tone was suggestive. “Oooh, you know!”

“...No?”

Rain Flower pulled away. Cinnamon heard a wet smack and the Vaporeon muttering something about boys and signals. “...Alright newbie, time for some training! Rain Flower here is gunna teach you how to fuck!”

“What?!”

“You can’t work at Plaisir and not know how to fuck a girl!” Rain Flower explained, “That’s like, against the rules! Or something!”

“But I thought-woah!”

Rain Flower was marching forward into his personal space. Cinnamon leaned back onto his haunches and shuffled back in response, trying to gain some distance. It didn’t work: she kept coming.

“U-uh, hold on. I don’t think-I mean-”

“As top bitch, it is Rain Flower’s DUTY to teach newbies like you the ropes! Now! Just lay back-“ she shoved the helpless Linoone onto his back. “-And enjoy the ride!”

“H-hey wait sto-Oof!”

She was on top of him now, pinning him down with all her not inconsiderable weight. Cinnamon wasn’t remotely shy about physical contact. He loved it, in fact! He’d happily accept a good petting from any human; a hug from any friend! But this girl was making him feel claustrophobic. It was too much, too fast. He barely knew her name!

“You know how to kiss?” She was right in his face again, her warm, stinky fish-breath overwhelming his nose. He let out a whine and looked away, denying her, too scared to do much more than tense his muscles and hope for an opening.

“Hmm...We’ll work on that later!” Rain Flower took a moment to gyrate against her captive before twisting in place. Cinnamon felt that strange fish-tail hovering above him, her hind legs straddling his head.

“Let’s see what you’re hiding down there!”

He needed to stop this. Why couldn’t he speak? Why couldn’t he move? He felt slimy wet fins jabbing around between his legs, prying them apart slightly.

“Hmm, yea. This’ll do just fine!” Rain Flower started to lean down and took a long, slow lick...

He found his voice.

“W-wait! Wait, no! Stop! STOP!” His pleas were punctuated by the telltale crackle of electricity.

Rain Flower registered Cinnamon’s objections just a split second too late. Cinnamon discharged. Bright light filled the room as electricity arched into the lights, the switches, the electrical sockets, and every other appliance in the room.

All through poor Rain Flower.

The Thunderbolt only lasted a moment, but for the two occupants it may well have been an hour. As soon as the lighting bolts began to dissipate, Cinnamon started kicking and squirming in a bid for freedom. Rain Flower offered no resistance, still convulsing from the point-blank electrical attack, but her weight alone kept him pinned for a long minute.

Finally, with a mighty double-legged kick, Cinnamon managed to dislodge himself from underneath Rain Flower. In a blind panic he ran directly for the door, bounced off, ran back into the frame, bounced off, then finally found the release lever and fled into the halls, leaving that horrid jittering succubus alone to convulse on the floor.

Acting on pure instinct, Cinnamon ran for his life. He bounced off walls, kicked over furniture, burst through doors and tripped past waiters and customers alike. He didn’t even notice; all he cared about was putting as much distance between him and her as quickly as possible!

Up the stairs, around a bend and down another hall. Exclamations, yelps, crashes and admonishments followed him down the halls, feeding his panic. He acted on pure instinct, doing what Linoone did best: run as fast as possible, as far as possible, for as long as possible. Where was he going? He didn’t care. He just had to go!

A stray cord lying across the ground had different ideas. It caught on one of his hind toes and sent him tumbling down the hall to splay across the carpet. It hurt, but the disorientation gave his mind some time to catch up with his body.

“Are you okay?” Someone called.

‘Hide. I need to hide!’

“Hey! Hey buddy! Over here!” Said the mystery voice.

He really shouldn’t have listened to a stranger so soon after Rain Flower, but Cinnamon wasn’t thinking straight: he just defaulted to trusting anything and everything with a kind voice, as had served him so well for so long. The blind Linoone quickly picked himself up and scrambled after the voice.

He was in another room. A larger one, judging by the slight echo, with cooler, fresher air. But that wasn’t important. What was important was the mystery voice made no move to close the door; just beckoned him further into the room, onto some soft pillows to rest. Cinnamon collapsed, huffing. Why did he feel so tired? He had only run a few hundred meters at best!

“Alright, buddy, take a nice deep breath...”

Cinnamon opened his mouth and obediently sucked in as much air as he could.

“...and release!”

Cinnamon deflated like a balloon.

“...And again!”

He inhaled, slower this time.

“...and out.”

He sighed, feeling his mind slowly return to full working order. His friend waited patiently while he repeated the exercise a few more times.

“Hyperventilation. Not a good idea during a run.” He explained. Cinnamon just nodded and lay his head against his paws. A moment later a bowl full of water sloshed noisily as it was put down in front of him to drink.

“Thank you.” Cinnamon said.

“No problem!” the creature paused and watched Cinnamon while he drank his fill. “...Oh, wow that actually worked! Guess that training from Firenze wasn’t totally worthless! I’m Quippie, by the way!” Cinnamon felt a claw present itself in front of his nose. He leaned forward and sniffed it. It was the unmistakable scent of another Linoone.

“You!” He half-shouted. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

“You have?”

“Yeah I caught your scent this morning and thought maybe we could go running together...sometime... maybe?” Cinnamon felt his enthusiasm fading into nervousness. There was no guarantee this Linoone liked running as much as he did, after all.

He needn’t have worried. “Of course! I know all the best trails! Tomorrow’s my day off so we’ll have the whole day to run!”

“That’s Awesome! I can’t wait to tell Sugar! He’s my friend and we run together all the ti-”

“Yea, there’s these fields to the west that are perfectly flat so you can go full speed forev-”

“That’ll be perfect! I can show you this special move I found that lets me go super fas-”

“And then then there’s this spot in the hills to the East that offers an amazing view of-oh sor-”

“Itsfinemyfriendcanenjoytheviewplusifitswindywecancoolof-”

“andthenwecanvisitthetownandgetsomeicecrea-“

“Andvisitmytrainershe’sdowntheretooshe’sreallynice-“

“ANDTHENWECANRUNBACKTHROUGHTHEFORESTBECAUSETHERE’STHISONEAREAWITHREALLYSMOOTHTURNSTHAT’SREALLYGOODFORPRACTICINGCORNERS’-”

“QUIET!”

The conversation cut out like a broken circuit. Somebody, large and probably bipedal stomped into the room and made for the sink.

“People can hear you from clear down the hall! For Arceus’s sake Quippie, we’ve been over this!”

The duo watched and listened as he grabbed a glass of water and stomped away down the hall, muttering to himself about overexcitable children the whole time.

When the door clicked shut behind them, they continued their conversation at a more measured pace. Measured for Linoone, at least.

“So why were you bouncing off the walls earlier, anyways? One of the Mightyena threaten you? Or maybe a customer got too frisky or violent? Or was it-” Quippie realized too late he was scaring the newcomer with hypotheticals and cut himself off.

Cinnamon shivered. ‘Mightyenas? Violent Customers? I thought Honey said this place was safe! Should he even trust the mon’ in front of him given what happened?’ He wasn’t sure he had a choice, really. And he seemed nice. Cinnamon decided to trust his instincts. He told Quippie of his day so far: waking up in the bar, meeting the Grovyle, Pouncer, being assigned to litter duty, of following his scent trail and getting lost, and then...

“-A Vaporeon wandered by and I asked her if she could help me find my room.”

“Let me guess, Rain Flower?” Quippie’s voice lost some of its mirth.

Cinnamon nodded and shivered.

“So what happened?” Quippie prompted.

“She took me to her room, and...uh well…I didn’t…” He tried to recount what had actually happened, but in his head the whole event was just a confused mess of emotions.

Quippie gasped, “Did she rape you?!”

Cinnamon, hesitantly, shook his head

“Did she try to rape you?” He asked, slightly calmer.

He didn’t respond at first. ‘Rape’ felt too…strong? He wasn’t sure what the term was. He needed a long minute to put his thoughts together. “She...pinned me down, and I remember trying to tell her to stop, and then she started...and then I...”

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me.”

“-And then I think I hit her with a thunderbolt and ran away.”

Quippie stared at Cinnamon in shock. Then he started to laugh.

“I-I panicked! I didn’t know what to do!” Cinnamon said, frantically.

“You thunderbolt’d Rain Flower in the face?”

“Yes?” Cinnamon said, hesitantly.

“That’s amazing!” Quippie wrapped a forked foreleg around Cinnamon’s shoulder in a comforting half-hug.

“Don’t worry about Rain Flower! After a shock like that, I doubt she’ll even approach you in the future! And if she does, just give her a firm ‘no’ and she’ll listen.”

“Did I overreact?” Cinnamon wondered out loud, “Maybe I wasn’t clear enough or..”

“No. And if you did it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re alright.” He paused, and his tone grew serious, “youare all right, right?”

“R-Right.”

“Right! So after that you ran off and...?”

“And that’s when you found me!” Cinnamon started to smile. “What were the odds I’d find you immediately after all that?”

“Pretty good, considering you managed to cover half the Café in under two minutes! I don’t think you noticed but I’d been chasing you for a while. You left quite a mess, by the way.”

“Oh,” The implications of his little route started to dawn on him. Causing a resort-wide ruckus on his first day? “Oh, no.”

“Relax! I’m sure Pouncer will be willing to overlook it. Especially if it was because of Rain Flower.”

Quippie stood up and marched to the door. “Would you like me to escort you back to your room, or to your friend?”

Cinnamon stood and followed him. “Yes, please!”

And with that, the two Linoone walked out the door.

Directly into an irate Clarice.

* * *

The whole team sat in silence. Some fuming, others concerned. Cinnamon lowered his head out of shame. “…sorry I caused such a-”

Sugar’s hand on his head stayed his apology. “Your friend was right. You were right to run. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Firenze heaved a sigh, “This is… legitimately troubling. I will need to speak to Rain Flower about listening to her partners more.”

“Has she done this before?” Sugar leaned into his friend’s shoulder to comfort him.

Firenze made a point of making eye contact with him, to prove his honesty in some small way. “There have been some complaints, mostly of harassment. But never of sexual assault.”

“Is that because she’s never molested an employee, or because she’s profitable and respected and seen as untouchable?” Pepper glared at him from the side. Again, Firenze made a point to look her in the eye when he spoke.

“I believe Café Plaisir’s laxer attitude towards sex has enabled her; made her more… lackadaisical about checking consent with her partners. It is rare indeed for a waiter or even an auxiliary in Plaisir to point blank refuse intercourse within their orientation.”

“So the reason she thinks she can force herself on others is because people let her?”

Firenze flexed his claws into the seat below him. He took a deep breath and shot the group an apologetic look. “We’ll ensure this never happens again. That’s a promise, regardless of whatever else happens tonight, Rain Flower will face punishment. Formal punishment.”

“Why not just fire her?” Sugar asked. He had an arm around Cinnamon, scratching his ear. His wings serving as an undersized comfort cloak for the Linoone.

“Because I’m a big believer in second chances,” Firenze answered. “And I’m willing to give one to anyone willing to put in the effort to improve.”

Sugar and Hastur perked up at that, though Pepper rolled her eyes. Cinnamon didn’t respond. Firenze turned to Pepper. “Would you care to share your story, next?”

* * *

Pepper loved the hallways of Café Plaisir. Each hall was almost identically decorated with the same patterns of carpet, china-covered tables, vases, windowsills, and hanging lights that all had to be dusted at the beginning of the week. More importantly, they also made terrific handholds for her vines to grapple and pull and shove against, propelling her down the hallway at terrifying speeds. The identical nature of the hallways meant she could memorize the locations of every handhold, how much force it could handle before slipping, and how much china needed to be held, wiped, dusted under and set back into place.

And where other janitors saw an obscene amount of unnecessary extra work, Pepper saw a challenge! Forget dusting each hallway once per week; Pepper would dust all the hallways once per day! And she’d do it faster and more thoroughly than anyone else ever could. ‘In fact,’ she decided, ‘I’ll time myself and see just how quickly I can run the entire facility. Let’s see how ‘incapable’ I am when-’

Pepper pushed that thought out of her mind before she could finish it. ‘Those days are over. I’m not trying to prove myself to anyone. I’m doing it to improve myself! Nothing more!’

A pair of vines curled themselves around a ceiling lamp and swung her around an intersection. She spotted the usual console tables arrayed along the walls and set about tasking her many limbs.

‘Table One: First and second vine pick up the china, third vine sprays the table, fourth pushes me forward, fifth and sixth wipe the table, seventh holds me in the air, eighth grabs the second table and pulls me forward.’

She twisted mid-air to face the opposite wall.

‘Table Two: First, second picks up china, third sprays, fourth holds me up, fifth & sixth wipe, seventh wraps around the ceiling lamp, eighth vine pushes against the table to propel me forward.’ The tasks raced through her mind so quickly that they were almost subconscious. Years of practice turning what was once an impossible choreography into a routine no more difficult than breathing.

She pulled herself upward and level with the lights, bringing her fifth and third with her to wipe around the tops of the shade, then dropped down into a roll—

—right in front of Mr. Pouncer, the watch manager. The Grovyle looked rather conflicted.

“Pepper.” His voice was measured and respectful.

“Job’s done sir!” Pepper saluted the Grovyle with a forevine. She couldn’t help but be cheerful after a good run through an obstacle course.

“That was supposed to take a few hours. Possibly a whole shift!”

“Yep!”

Pouncer sighed and rubbed his snout, “Pepper, next time I’m going to have to ask you to slow down. While I appreciate enthusiasm, especially from the janitorial staff, we can’t afford to be so reckless in high-traffic zones like the halls.”

Pepper started to speak but a hand stayed the response.

“…What if a customer leaves their room and doesn’t see you coming? We can’t risk you accidentally body slamming an early riser in the head!”

“I had everything under control! Trust me, I’m very agile! -and careful!”

“Even so, you risk scaring the customers with your acrobatics, or damaging the décor with your callousness. You’re not in trouble just...slow down a little, please.”

Pepper pouted at that, but nodded her head. “What’s next?”

Pouncer‘s frown disappeared. “That was actually all I had for you today. Why don’t you go explore the Café? Familiarize yourself with the layout? I’m going to go check up on your friends and see how they’re adjusting.”

Pepper nodded and bid farewell. ‘Nice guy! Little uptight though.’ Pepper grew out her vines and made her way, at a more sedate pace, towards the west wings.

The Café Plaisir Fitness Center was a surprisingly active facility on the ground floor on the West side of the main facility, with plenty of windows for natural light and a view of plains. Theoretically, you could rest on a bench after a couple hours of hard work to watch a beautiful Oklahoma sunset. Practically, it meant that most of the exercise equipment had to be turned towards the nondescript wall facing the center of the building to keep the light out of everyone's eyes, and the televisions all had a tendency to glare over if you weren't finished working out by 5pm.

Which was ultimately fine, because nearly all the Center's 'customers' were waiters. One simply couldn't provide the services expected of a waiter without building up a healthy degree of endurance, to say nothing of looking attractive. The equipment seemed to have been collected over time, with older machines steadily shoved towards the rear to be forgotten while closer to the entrance the machines were brand-new and unhappily occupied.

Pepper surveyed the room and couldn't help but be pleased. This was a prime opportunity to strengthen herself after months of idle travel and she was not going to waste it. She had a title to keep, even if it was completely unknown to this world!

She commandeered a pair of pulley weights, some dumbbells, and a fully-loaded squat stand to herself. Pepper quickly set to work winding four of her eight vines up and down and around the weight rack until she was well and truly anchored to it with her body suspended a couple feet into the air. Her remaining vines stretched across the width of the room to the pulleys, rhythmically contracting and extending to pull the weights.

Thirty minutes later, a Meinshao arrived for her morning workout.

She took her customary position on an old running machine in the far corner of the room, as far away from any fellow waiters or customers as one could afford. So engrossed in her midmorning routine was she, and so focused on her training was Pepper, that Mienshao and Chikorita alike failed to notice each other until an overzealous yank from Pepper on the pulleys nearly toppled the squat stand entirely.

The entire stand briefly tipped forward, before slowly settling back down with a clattering of steel-on-steel. Shaken from her strain-induced trance, Pepper quickly checked around to see if anyone had noticed her embarrassing mistake. Her eye's met the Mienshao's, and the foreign ferret felt compelled to speak.

"Be careful not to overstrain yourself. Too much weight will only make you weaker."

Pepper scowled and continued pulling the weights, timing her reply with the release of the weights "I know...my limits...thank you"

"But maybe pull the weights one at a time? So if you pull too hard your rack does not fall over?" The Meinshao asked.

The Chikorita grunted...and complied. One of the vines holding her up snaking down to pick up a water bottle lying in front of them. Who was this Mienshao and why did she feel compelled to 'help' her? When the Mienshao spoke again, there was curiosity in her voice. "Why are you pulling so much weight?"

Pepper lowered her drink. "Training."

"What are you training for?"

"Battles."

"You fight for sport, then? You are a trainer's pokémon?"

Pepper paused for a moment to consider. "Sometimes…. Hold on."

With a final huff, she relaxed her vines and allowed the weights to settle at the bottom of their contraptions. Then, in a flurry of green, retracted all eight of the vines back into her collar, leaving her to fall and sprawl out awkwardly on the floor. She took a moment to let the muscles in her neck destress.

"Mary, my 'trainer,'" Pepper allowed a couple vines back out to emphasize the quotes "...isn't really into battling. But she lets me compete with other trainers sometimes."

The Mienshao actually looked confused and a little troubled at that explanation, but she didn't pry. "So why do you put so much effort into your training?" She asked.

"I like battles! I was raised for them, actually! So when I do get the chance to fight I want to do well."

"So you're a starter pokemon..." She glanced at the engraved stone hanging around Pepper's neck. "...Who doesn't want to evolve?"

Pepper’s expression hardened, "I don't need to evolve!” Her tone brightened almost immediately, “What about you? Mienshao are fighting types, right? Do you spar?"

"I was trained to fight, yes, though not for tournaments." She frowned for a moment, but quickly resumed a neutral expression.

"What for?"

The Meinshao looked away. "I would rather not speak of it. It is a sore subject."

"Alright. But what about now? Do you still fight?"

She shook her head. "Not anymore, sadly. I am afraid I have grown… soft over the years," she paused as if to recall something. Or a few somethings. "Although, I am sometimes called upon to defend my home!”

Pepper sensed opportunity! Once again, her vines emerged from their sheaths and lifted her into the air, giving the appearance of some great, green cellar spider. "Care to demonstrate?"

"Demonstrate? No, I am sorry, but I do not fight for sport - or for recognition. I fight purely to defend myself and my peers."

Dammit! Pepper wasn't about to let the chance for a proper battle - or even just a quick learning opportunity - slip away so easily. "But we could learn from each other! Tricks and tips or just good practice: everything helps!"

"Even if I agreed, I am afraid I haven't honed my skills in some time. I have become… rusty. Dull. You would learn nothing from me." The Meinshao waved her hand to dismiss the subject.

Pepper pressed on. "It's never too late to improve yourself! Take it from someone who ‘went soft’ for nearly a year; it’s never too late to try again!"

The Mienshao took a moment to consider.

“...And you do take pride in your ability to defend your friends, right? What better way to hone your abilities than live targets?" ...C'mon!

“Well, I do have an hour before my shift in the spa begins, and training against an opponent is more educational than a punching bag."

‘Yes!’

"-But what about you? Are you… capable in your condition?" Pepper caught the Mienshao glancing at the scar on her back and her expression hardened.

"I don't need my hindlimbs. I have ten others!" The Chikorita drew her vines beneath her and extended them until she towered over the Meinshao. "And I can prove it!"

"Shall we make our way to the ring then?" The fighter allowed a small smile and indicated a small arena near the center of the room, the type one would normally see fighting types making use of.

Pepper lowered herself down to head height, her expression doubtful, "That might be a little small for a battle..."

"All the better to simulate the halls and rooms of Café Plaisir, then!" The Mienshao narrowed her eyes and gave her a challenging smile. "If I am going to defend my home, then I should learn to fight within its confines!”

Pepper gave the Mienshao a skeptical look, then shrugged. "Okay, but I'm warning you, you'll be at a severe disadvantage in such a confined space."

Now it was the Mienshao's turn to look skeptical. As the two pokémon took their places at the corners of the ring she started analyzing the tiny paraplegic clambering through the ropes. Pepper made an unintentional show of pulling herself through the barrier, grabbing onto anything and everything in an effort to pull herself up and under the ropes. When Pepper looked up, she could see a hint of concern on the Mienshao's face. ‘Don't you dare give me that pity!’

"Name's Pepper, by the way! Yours?"

"My name is Elegance; I work as one of the masseuses."

"Is that your given name? It suits you."

"It is the name I gave myself." Elegance took a combat stance. "So what are our conditions? No leaving the ring, no ranged attacks..."

Pepper gave her a cocky smile, "Just try to get a solid hit on me. You'll know when I've won."

Such arrogance! The Fighting Type's expression hardened into one of determination. "Very well. Ready?"

Pepper smiled, "Go!"

Elegance charged, no doubt hoping to close the distance and strike the Chikorita before Pepper could take full advantage of her superior range. But Pepper had anticipated that. First two, then four, then seven vines emerged from their sheaths and formed a veritable cloud of plant matter between the adversaries. Elegance immediately changed course just as a couple probing strikes from Pepper's Forevines struck at her feet. The cracks and thumps of their callused tips against the floor attracted the attention of the nearby waiters.

For a moment there was a standoff: The Meinshao was too fast and too close for Pepper to risk an opening, and the grass-type's wall of limbs making counterattack impossible. Elegance's eyes flitted from vine to vine, careful to never stop moving even as the occasional probing strike forced her to give ground. Pepper had the initiative now.

All of a sudden, all seven of the active vines reared back like cobras before shooting forward, seeking to strike the Meinshao from every conceivable angle. But Elegance was faster, and jumped over her Alpha Strike an instant before it could land. She dove forward and swung into a high kick aimed right at Pepper's face.

‘Bad move!’ Pepper's eighth and final vine lay coiled against the pole at the corner of the ring like a spring. In an instant it unraveled and propelled the Chikorita underneath the flying fighting type. As Pepper ducked beneath her adversary's strike, she could see that Elegance had already realized her mistake. The floor of the arena was now carpeted with Pepper's vines, and no matter where she landed-

She landed.

Vines lashed out from every direction, coiling around her legs...her torso...her arms...and lifting her helpless and humiliated into the air. She struggled for a moment before relaxing, conceding defeat.

"You're agile…" Pepper commented as she carefully deposited the Mienshao onto the floor “But you can't change direction once you jump in the air like that. Try to stay in contact with the ground or a wall so your path isn't a predictable ballistic arc..."

Pepper noticed the Meinshao did not look particularly appreciative of the critique and immediately began to backpedal. "...but this arena isn't exactly ideal for battles anyways and I'm literally pinning you into a corner so...maybe we should find somewhere more spacious?"

Elegance glared at her for a moment before nodding her head. "I know a place. Follow me."

Elegance vaulted over the ropes and started for the door. Pepper looked around and noticed most of the room's occupants had been watching them. ‘Which means they were all watching me patronize their coworker!’ The door to the Center slammed shut. ‘Shit!’ Pepper slid under the ropes and dragged herself to the door. She didn't even bother trying to spider-walk; it was faster to just hook vines around the door handles and furniture to drag herself across the carpet.

She couldn't believe she had managed to sour their relationship so quickly.

Elegance's brisk pace made catching up a chore, and by the time Pepper had reached her they were at the door to Café Plaisir's Inner Courtyard: A maze of low plants, shrubs, and grassy paths dominated by a single massive oak tree. In the spring the garden must have looked gorgeous, although currently most of the flowers were in hibernation and the tree was little more than a tangle of naked branches.

"Eleg-"

"This is the Café Garden. We can battle here."

Pepper winced at the brevity of her statement. "Uh, sure." Once again, her vines unspooled and propped her up a couple feet into the air. "I'm sorry about earlier. I thought I was helping, honest!"

“Customers will occasionally want to make use of the garden though, so we’ll only use the far corner for now.” She continued.

Pepper quickly skittered in front of Elegance and blocked her path, "Please, I didn't realize we were being watched. I just...back when I was training, I had no one to watch but Mary, and she doesn't know the first thing about battle strategy! I thought maybe you would appreciate some constructive criticism is all!"

At her words, Elegance's features seemed to soften a little. Just a little. "It is okay. We are trying to learn from each other after all."

Pepper wasn't so sure, but instead of pursuing the matter she simply marched her way across the courtyard to take a position opposite the Mienshao.

"Ready!?" A stranger’s voice called from nearby. Pepper turned to see a small crowd had followed them outside. They stood on a raised porch that afforded an elevated view of the Garden, and by extension their match. Pepper turned back to Elegance and spoke in a voice that wouldn't carry too far. "Are you okay with an audience?"

The Mienshao looked away dismissively. "It is of no consequence."

"Ready!?" The voice came from a Machoke in the front.

"Ready!" Both fighters answered in unison.

"Begin!"

This time, Pepper led off with her forwardmost vines, trying to throw the Mienshao off-balance before she could formulate a plan. But instead of leaping out of the way, Elegance charged forward, shifting right just before the vines could make contact. With catlike reflexes, she reached forward, grabbed one of the retreating vines and pulled.

The Chikorita was caught off guard and yelped as she was pulled forward into the waiting foot of the Mienshao. The impact sent her tumbling backwards into some bushes.

"Round Two: Elegance!"

Pepper quickly rolled out of the bushes and dusted herself off. She watched the retreating form of her opponent. "Nice move!"

"Thank you!" When Elegance turned around, she was wearing a satisfied smirk. "Your vines are a lot like spears; you have great reach, but if you miss or the opponent can avoid the tip you are vulnerable."

Pepper returned the smirk, "I'll keep that in mind." ‘Now THIS is more like it!’

"Ready!?" The ref called.

"Ready!" They answered.

"Begin!"

Pepper refused to be caught off guard again. Immediately, four vines spread out in all directions and took root in the ground, giving her a strong, stable platform from which to fight. Meanwhile, Elegance was shifting her attack towards the center of the courtyard, perhaps hoping to use the tree as cover. A series of probing vines took turns whipping at her feet, each of which were easily dodged or parried with the whiplike fur on her arms. Then, as one of the vines arced in front of her she dropped to her knees and narrowly ducked beneath the attack. A fur-covered claw grabbed the vine—

—which immediately went limp before starting to curl around the Mienshao's arm. The ferret gasped and tried to extricate herself as the vine started to loop down and around her body. Behind her, another vine had caught up and managed to wind around her leg, and she could see another pair of vines snaking their way through the grass, should she escape the others. With a final yank, the Mienshao found herself suspended upside-down from the air by her leg, earning the duo another round of cheers (and a couple uncouth catcalls) from the gathering crowd.

"Round Three to the Chikorita!" The Machoke called.

Pepper took a moment to bow before addressing her opponent. "Trying the same trick twice in two rounds?"

"I just wanted to be sure you were listening!"

Pepper dropped the Mienshao and the two once again returned to their starting positions. At this point neither warrior could keep the grins of their faces. Nobody even considered stopping now. As they stared each other down, Elegance's face suddenly turned contemplative...then determined. She was planning something...

"Ready!?"

"Ready!"

"Begin!"

Again, Elegance charged and again Pepper led off with a series of vine whips, but this time the fighting-type directed her charge into the bushes lining the perimeter of the garden. ’She's using the cover of the bushes to get in close!’ Pepper immediately started pulling herself free of the ground and shifted closer to the garden’s center beneath the massive oak tree. The Mienshao stayed low, unable to hide in the bush's reduced winter state, but also untouchable through the massive tangle of barbs and branches. Or so she thought.

Pepper jammed a vine into the ground and grunted. The grass between the vine and the bushes started to shift and uplift as the old oak tree's roots came to life. Elegance realized what was happening and jumped in the air just as a massive root as thick as her neck sprang out of the ground and reached for her legs. It missed, but now Pepper's opponent was exposed, and a rain of vine whips rushed to meet the Mienshao.

Elegance shoved her feet into the wall behind her at the apex of her jump and narrowly escaped the barrage. She hit the ground, recovered, ducked under the jab of another vine then jumped over a follow-up swipe at her legs. She kept charging, parrying two more attacks from either direction then sliding beneath the combined attempts of all four vines to entrap her. All of a sudden Elegance was almost directly beneath Pepper who quickly elevated herself out of the fighting ferret's reach, pushing herself ten, then fifteen feet into the air on a trio of vines in a desperate attempt to buy time. Elegance kept running behind her.

How is she dodging all my attac-THE TREE!

Pepper started to turn a moment too late. With agility borne of decades of training, Elegance ran directly up the trunk of the Oak, jumped off, twisted around and swung her whiplike fur directly into the small of Pepper's back.

*Crack!*

The attack landed square. Pepper collapsed. Elegance hit the ground on all fours, and the crowd roared its approval.

"Round Four to Elegance!"

The victor picked herself up and rolled her shoulders. That last round had been especially taxing, and immensely satisfying!

"If you are wondering how I dodged your strikes,” Elegance turned to face the Chikorita "I realized you timed your attacks to a beat, and always favored the vines immediately clockwise to the vine you last used."

Elegance looked down at the shuddering form of the grass type...why wasn't she getting up?

"Pepper?"

The Chikorita lay prone where she fell, her forelegs twitching erratically and the vines around her neck laying limp. Her eyes were dilated and unfocused, and her mouth was locked in a snarl; teeth grinding. Elegance looked up and saw that the round-winning strike had landed square on the little pink lump in the center of Pepper's scar. Elegance put two and two together and quickly bent down to restrain the trembling creature.

"Someone call Nurse Boora!" She yelled at the crowd, who were only just starting to comprehend the seriousness of the situation. The Machoke refereeing the match turned and shouldered his way inside. Elegance felt the Chikorita start to shift beneath her hands and looked down. All around her, vines were snaking their way back into their sheaths. Pepper herself was trying to roll upright and failing miserably. Her eyes seemed to refocus on Elegance and she opened her mouth to speak.

"FfffffINE!" She spat the word out almost like a curse. "I-I-I'm f-fine!"

"Just hold still, we have a Nurs-"

"NO!"

Pepper, with some assistance from her vines, shook off Elegance's hands and pushed herself upright, wobbling slightly as she did so. "S-see? Just a little pain! I'm good!"

She turned to the crowd and raised a vine. "I-I'm good!"

Elegance sat back and sighed with relief. Pepper suspected she might find a few grey hairs in the mirror tomorrow. Her sore spot was still on fire, but she had grown resilient to the pain. Most of it anyways.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize your injury was so serious!" Elegance’s eyes trailed back to Pepper's back. Looking now, she could actually count the pokemon's individual vertebrae through the skin, up to the largest lump where the cord had been severed and improperly healed.

Pepper shifted her weight around, so her head blocked the injury from her view. "It's really not that bad! Just a bit of pain if you strike it too hard."

"A bit of pain!? You were having a seizure!"

"It's a weakness, but I'm pretty good at covering it. That was an amazing shot, by the way." Pepper started working to prop herself up on her vines, though they were still somewhat unresponsive and took a couple imprecise stabs to root into the ground.

The Mienshao shook her head. "I am sorry, but this is a bit too much. I need to go prepare for my shift."

‘What? NO!’

"But I thought you said we had an hour!"

"I'm leaving." Elegance demonstrated as much, making for the door.

"But we still have so much we could learn! What was that you said earlier? You figured out how I organize my vines? How did you — COME BACK!" Desperate, Pepper lunged after the Mienshao.

Elegance paused and turned to look Pepper in the eye. Her face stoic and slightly condescending.

"I'm sorry, but there's no honor in fighting an invalid..."

‘What?’

"...nor anything to be gained entertaining one's fantasies."

‘WHAT!?’

"You need to know your limits, Pepper. If you would like, I would be happy to show you how to work in the Café's Spa. Or maybe we could have some tea after my shift tonight?"

Pepper did not respond. She just blinked in shock.

The Mienshao eventually sighed and turned around "I am sorry."

But as Elegance reached for the door, the ground began to tremble. Roots as thick as her wrist erupted from the ground, wrapping themselves around the door and its frame, sealing it shut. Behind her, the shocked yells from the onlookers coupled with the splintering and shattering of wood hailing the destruction of the steps leading to the balcony.

"No. No, we're not done yet."

Elegance turned back to the Chikorita and almost immediately regretted it. The joy in Pepper's eyes was gone, and what had replaced it was a terrifying mixture of determination and cold rage. Her vines expanded to raise her into the air and secure nearby stones. All around her, the Garden exits were sealed, one by one. Pepper glared at the Meinshao.

"Round Five, you ableist fuck!”

* * *

Sugar whistled. “That went south real quick!”

“not good.” Hastur agreed.

Cinnamon grunted in ascent.

Firenze had turned his gaze towards the window across the aisle, his face concentrated but his eyes focused on nothing in particular. “So that’s all it took? You and Elegance seemed to be getting on just fine.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but Elegance just managed to grievously insult Pepper four different ways in three sentences!” Cinnamon said, his tone cautious.

“sensitive chikorita.”

“I am not sensitive! I’m just the only one here with the spine to call these kinda cunts out!”

Firenze and everyone else on the bus flinched at her tone. Pepper started to rant.

“She thinks she knows me? What I can and can’t do? She thinks that she of all people can determine my limits? Who the hell does she think she is?!” Pepper’s voice rose into a shout.

Firenze waited a moment to ensure she was finished. “Okay. I understand why you-”

“No, you don’t!” Pepper’s glare dared him to challenge that notion. “I will not be treated like a millstone. I do not want to be coddled. I am an equal and you will respect me as such.” Pepper’s eyes bored into Firenze.

Firenze’s eyes flicked to her other compatriots. They were switching off between nervous glances at their compatriot and skeptical looks at him. Firenze took a moment to rephrase. He had to be careful, lest he turn them away for good. But he also didn’t want to set terrible precedence for future behavior.

Then Firenze had an epiphany. It must have shown, because all but Cinnamon subtly shifted their attention to him an instant before he started to speak.

“…You are right. I don’t understand. Elegance clearly offended you on a level that I, personally, cannot understand. I just know that she did and that you see it as…utterly unforgivable.” Firenze kept his eyes glued to Pepper’s, trying to gauge her reaction. She seemed far from satisfied…but she wasn’t getting any more agitated either. “But physically assaulting her, no matter how gratifying, isn’t going to change her or anyone else’s minds about you-”

Sugar interjected. “Well maybe in this particular case, it might!”

Firenze ignored him “-it just makes you look emotionally unstable and puts innocent bystanders in harm’s way. I know friends who have tried to find societal equality through violence. Trust me, it never works out.”

Pepper’s expression shifted back and forth between rage and incredulity at being chastised. Firenze knew there was no way she would listen to him now. But it was still something she needed to hear.

“Please understand, I’m not trying to downplay your grievances. Elegance is...difficult as a coworker. She can be...tactless at times. There’s a reason she predominantly works on the least crowded shift...:”

Pepper’s glare softened, but only slightly. “I would be willing to write off one case like her…if it weren’t for Clarice, and if it weren’t for what happened to Honey!”

The little red eyes hiding behind Hastur’s lenses blinked out at the mention of their name.

Firenze cleared his throat. “Yes, about that...” he reached back and pulled a piece of paper out from between his tails. “...I don’t know how much of this you actually read, but I get the impression Clarice might have neglected a few details during today’s performance review.” He nodded at Hastur, “Feel free to interject if you have anything to add.

Hastur didn’t answer; those little red-dot eyes were still hiding deeper within the disguise. They were remembering this morning. Counting their failures…

* * *

Rub, Rub, Rub, Rub!

Hastur was happy. Their friends were safe, and still liked them. They had been given a simple task with a clear end state and explicit instructions which were his favorite kind.

Rub, Rub, Rub, Rub!

Specifically, their instructions had been to sit in the corner and “make these dishes spotless!” and the chef had pointed at a number of different platters, trays, and oddly shaped pans too large to fit in the dishwashers.

Rub, Rub, Rub, Rub!

The Mimikyu knew they had rubbed the stain on this platter exactly 43,206 times. And if their Intellectus was correct (and it always was) then as long as they kept using the friction soap they had covertly acquired from the maintenance room, the stain would be gone after just another 31,706 rubs. They knew they were cheating a bit, rubbing the platter hard enough to shave away some of the porcelain, but they knew from experience that most flesh-creatures at least didn’t care about two or three hundred billion lost molecules.

They would not disappoint. They would provide perfect dishes and the chef would be happy which would give them money which would make Mary happy which would make everybody happy.

Rub, Rub, Rub, Rub!

A shadow over the platter alerted Hastur to the arrival of the head chef. Without pausing their very important work, the Mimikyu rotated their Mareep disguise so the old gas mask forming the head was facing his new boss.

Their good mood was immediately lost. The expression on the Zangoose’s face was anything but positive. There was confusion, disappointment, and stress, but no approval. ’Not good.’

“Hastur, was it?” The Zangoose glared directly into their lenses. The Mimikyu inside retreated further under the cover of the colander and peaked through one of the wool-covered holes, somewhere the others couldn’t normally see and where they could avoid direct eye contact.

“...How many dishes have you washed today?”

The Mimikyu pointed a ribbon at a pair of trays sitting dry on a rack at the far end of the desk.

“Two?!”

Two isn’t a question word. So he was stating there were two trays, but that was already established when he pointed at them...was this one of those ‘Rhetoricals’ Sugar told them about?

Another voice, someone out of their field of view spoke up. “I’m sorry sir, I tried to tell him that when you said you wanted ‘spotless’ plates it didn’t mean literally perfect plates. I don’t think he understands...”

Hastur simply watched through the peephole as their new boss groaned and rubbed at his eyes. “...Okay...Alright.”

Hastur was envious of these other creatures. They all had so many different ways of expressing themselves that they could do it involuntarily! And they were stuck hiding underneath a pot that didn’t hold water covered in rags. To say nothing of how hard he had to work to verbally articulate his will.

“...Hastur, I don’t need these dishes ‘spotless’. Just get the dishes as clean as you can before shift ends, alright?” He pointed at an analogue clock hanging from the wall, the edges decorated with colors to indicate the beginning and end of the morning, afternoon, and late shifts.

They had half an hour. There were forty different plates and pots and pans piled on the counter, so they needed to spend no more than forty-five seconds cleaning each piece… no, wait! Some of the plates were larger than others. So what they really needed to do was determine the total area of tableware to wash and how much time he could scrub a given amount of area and then delegate the time according to the size of each pan-NO! Because certain dishes were dirtier than others! Therefore, he needed to determine how much filth was on each plate-

“Alright? …Alright!? Can he not hear me?”

“Don’t know, Sir.”

Hastur suddenly realized what a disruption they had become. They lifted and turned their disguise around and peered through the mask at the front. The entire kitchen was watching them. Studying them. Judging them. Hastur felt themselves reflexively tensing in place.

’Not good…’

A Dewott stepped forward. “Here, let me help!”

“Ples,” The Zangoose frowned, “You’re supposed to be preparing salads”

“Yea, but do you want these dishes done or no?” He pointed at the steadily accumulating backlog behind Hastur. “Because all the salad in the world is worthless if we run out of bowls to serve them in…sir.”

The boss stopped and considered.

“Just get it done!” he eventually yelled, then stormed off to his personal workspace.

‘Ples’ as he was apparently called, quickly took up position to Hastur’s immediate left and reached around to pick up a plate. “Just follow my lead, and we’ll get this done in no time, okay?” He pointed at the dish in Hastur’s hand “go ahead and put that one away; it's plenty clean enough.

Hastur tilted their disguise to approximate a nod. They watched closely as the Dewott set to work.

Ples turned on the faucet in the sink, grabbed the soap, and quickly drew a line along the top edge of the plate. After letting the running water push away any obvious crumbs, he gave the pan a few long, quick scrubs, turned it over, wiped down the bottom and threw it onto the rack to dry.

‘That was clean?’

No. Hastur knew, almost instinctively, that that pan was still covered in bacteria. It simply looked clean to those relying solely on their ocular cavities to determine sterility. Even Mary’s dishes were cleaner than that, and she cooked over a campfire and washed her pots out in creeks and rivers. But...if that’s what they wanted, Hastur would provide. They quickly yanked a pot off the top of the pile and set to work.

The two worked in silence, which suited Hastur just fine. After the fiasco earlier and with the weight of their own failure they couldn’t really muster the energy to hold a conversation right now. Not to mention any conversation they did have would be tainted by the fact they were actively wasting his time with their incompetence.

Things only got worse when they realized that the dirty pile was actually growing, thanks to the imminent arrival of the lunch rush. Suddenly cooks were pulling clean dishes straight out of Ples’s hands for reuse and he could hear voices behind him complaining about the lack of clean kitchenware.

They could feel their eyes staring at their back. Angry eyes. Annoyed expressions. Their failure was no longer personal and now it was hindering the group as a whole! They scrubbed harder and faster out of reflex, only for one of the weaker pots to buckle under the weight of his scrubbing and forcing Ples to once again stop what he was doing and calm them down.

Then a third employee, the dishwasher from the afternoon shift, joined them. Just to really rub in how far behind they’d fallen. The three menials quickly adopted an ad-hoc assembly line, with Hastur scraping off the larger remnants of food, Ples scrubbing them down and the unnamed Wigglytuff drying the kitchenware for immediate use.

When they finally finished cleaning the last of the dishes, it was nearly an hour into the next shift. Hastur didn’t wait. They practically shoved the last dish into Ples’s hands and dragged themself towards the exit as quickly as they could. They didn’t want to be here anymore. Too much failure, too many people, too much noise and activity and chaos. All they wanted to do now is find a nice dark corner to rest and meditate.

They heard Ples calling after them. They felt something heavy trip over their shell. They ignored it all and pushed themselves through the door and into the hall, and from the hall up the stairs to the second floor. Here, perhaps, they could find somewhere quiet to recuperate.

Naturally, their respite was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass and shouting. There was a shriek from another room, and soon waiters and patrons alike were filtering into the hall and milling about in confusion. ‘Not good! Too loud!’

Hastur quickly scuttled away and around a corner in search of shelter, but this hallway, too, was filled with concerned customers and waiters. Several banging noises and faint scream rang out through one of the side rooms. Hastur quickly squeezed themself under a table and waited for all the noise to stop.

But something bugged them. Something worse than a hallway full of eyes that -thank the stars- hadn’t noticed them. ‘That scream sounded like Pepper. Did Pepper scream in the past fifty heartbeats? ...yes!’

Hastur’s glowing red eyes grew to encompass their lenses. ‘Oh no.’

The crowd was starting to disperse, with waiters ushering various customers to safety, or else ducking into one of the rooms facing the courtyard below to see the disturbance for themselves. Hastur took the chance to creep across the hall and into one such room.

Café Plaisir’s customer rooms varied in quality from the slightly dingy to the obscenely opulent, allowing it to service any customer from filthy exhausted hikers in need of cheap shelter to international visitors looking for an extended vacation. This room was somewhere in the middle, or had been until a stone the size of a Pikachu had crashed through the glass door, bounced off the widescreen television and embedded itself in the opposite wall.

Hastur made their way through the broken glass to the door and shoved it open, peeking down into the courtyard.

Hastur squeaked in horror. “very bad.”

Hastur knew Pepper well enough to know the difference between a pleasant spar or exhibition match and the full fury of an angered Chikorita. Where normally she would be anchored into the ground and leisurely shifting in response to her foe’s movements, she now flew about the field of her own initiative propelled by vines which struck the ground with enough force to shred the grass and pulled on tree branches with such force they were pulled clean off. Where once she may have probed her enemy with careful whip strikes, she now picked up stones scattered across the garden and slung them with enough force to shatter the facade of the building wherever she hit. Where once she would content herself binding her opponents and releasing them immediately, now she was out for blood.

Elegance was barely keeping ahead of her. Even as Hastur watched, she was forced to jump and twist mid-air to avoid a barrage of decorative stones that shattered the glass windows behind her, then run on all-fours to escape a tidal wave of vines that followed her every move. She took cover behind some bushes only for the bushes themselves to come alive and try to ensnare her, forcing the Mienshao to jump back up into the air where Pepper herself waited to body slam her into the wall.

And Pepper was pissed. “Fight, damn you! I know you can do better!”

Elegance stumbled back into the clearing, bruised but far from beaten. Hastur wasn’t always that good at reading expressions, but he had seen that combination of worry and desperation plenty of times before. “Pepper, please, I don’t want to hurt you.” She shouted.

“You’re already hurting me!” The reply was punctuated with another barrage of rocks that forced the Mienshao to move. “Stop running and fight me!”

Pepper didn’t seem to be giving her much of a chance, though. Between her speed and the ferocity of her attacks, Elegance was having difficulty even keeping her eyes on the little green bullet bouncing around the courtyard raining whips, rocks and razor leaves on her wherever she went. Hastur watched as another rock slammed into the concrete wall and shattered, spraying opponent and bystanders alike in shrapnel. It would have been an impressive bout had it not been so terrifying.

Hastur needed to get down there. They needed to stop Pepper before she destroyed the Café and their team’s new jobs with it. The reclusive ghost turned to make for the stairs…where a dozen-odd bystanders stood blocking their way.

Eyes. Dozens of eyes. Staring at him. Watching him...Judging him. Or at least so it was to Hastur. The ghost type instinctively froze in place.

The battle continued.

A lucky strike between the shoulder blades caused Elegance to stumble. A vine quickly seized her by the leg and swung her up and around to land on her back in the grass. The impact knocked the breath out of her.

“Fight back!” Pepper roared.

“No.” Elegance wheezed.

“Then bleed!” She hissed. Elegance felt herself flung into the air and slammed face first into the ground. The Mienshao struggled to her knees and spat bloody dirt out of her mouth. She looked up at the enraged paraplegic.

“You call this defending your home?” Pepper gestured to the devastation she had wreaked, “Get up! Defend yourself! Show me some actual skill!”

“What is...” Elegance pushed herself to her knees, groaning as a broken rib protested her movements “…wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong! That attitude!”

A vine tightened around the Mienshao and tossed her against the tree. She hit at an oblique angle and tumbled to a stop in front of the porch overlooking the garden.

“Do you know how long I’ve had to deal with skeptics like you?” Pepper asked. “People telling me how I should live my life?”

’Too many people!’ Hastur looked from viewport to viewport looking for an opening, but there were just too many onlookers, their legs forming a living wall between him and the hallway. Times like these they truly hated themselves. They looked behind them…they could cut their way through the wrought iron rails along the balcony…but that would just draw more attention…he was trapped. ’Oh no.

The ground in front of the Chikorita erupted as a boulder entangled in tree roots was brought to the surface. “Well I’m done with people telling me what I’m incapable of...”

His options depleted, Hastur turned and watched as Pepper tore the boulder free of its roots and hefted it over her head. “I will not be pitied!”

‘I can’t stop her!’ They thought. ‘I should have realized this could happen. I should have checked!’

“I will not be ignored!”

The boulder was wound back for a throw. Some of the smarter Pokémon in the crowd realized what was coming and started to back up.

‘I could’ve prevented this!’

Elegance pushed herself into a crouch. She saw the size of the boulder and gasped.

“I will not.”

The boulder was launched forward. The Mienshao’s expression hardened into grim certainty.

“Be”

It soared at the Mienshao still sitting half-prone on the ground.

“Dismissed!”

‘I failed! Again!’

Then in one fluid motion, Elegance shoved herself forward and the distinctive red hue of a psychic aurora covered her head. The fighting type’s head collided with the cold grey granite. And the granite cracked.

Boom!

Everyone, fighters and bystanders alike, was instantly blinded by a shower of stone and dust. As it started to clear, only Hastur from behind his protective mask could see Pepper’s shock as the Mienshao collapsed in front of her. Clearly, she expected Elegance to dodge; not expend all of her remaining energy head-butting a boulder as wide as she was tall into pebbles no larger than a pea.

But the shock quickly faded and when the rest of the crowd finally got a look at her, Pepper hung defiantly over Elegance, a look of cold satisfaction on her face. At least until the soft voice of a little Lucario caught her attention.

“M-my Garden…what di-what did you do to my garden?” He stammered, trembling. Then he looked around and saw the Meinshao laying prone on the ground and scrambled to her aid. “Elegance! What did you do to Elegance?!” He quickly checked her heartbeat before giving Pepper a tear-stained look of horror. “...Why?”

The Garden was a mess. Decorative stones-turned projectile weapons littered the ground, the flowerbeds were trampled, and chunks of the tree at its center had been ripped free and discarded across the footpaths. The bushes, though spared of damage, had been bent and twisted at odd angles at Pepper’s command. Shattered glass and shattered stone lined the courtyard and the remnants of the staircase leading down to the ground floor rendered most of the mess inaccessible.

For a brief moment, Pepper gave the gardener a guilty look. His eyes were wide with shock, and tears were starting to flow in force.

‘I could have prevented this. I should have. I’m sorry’

Hastur’s thoughts were cut short by a disturbance across the courtyard. With a terrible cracking sound, the ground floor entrance to the courtyard was ripped open and the roots behind it shredded by shadow claws. The Nurse Elegance has called for had arrived, along with the Machoke, a pair of dangerous looking Mightyena, and an outraged Glaceon.

“My Office!” Clarice’s voice was so shrill it physically hurt to hear. “Now!”

* * *

“…And I think Mr. Pouncer’s intent in his report was to recommend assigning someone to keep an eye on them, not a reprimand or a dismissal.” Firenze finished.

“Would you be alright with that, Honey?” Sugar asked.

Hastur blinked. They hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation. They realized everyone was giving them questioning looks. Lots and lots of curious, prying eyes…

The silence started to drag. One by one Firenze and the team seemed to lose interest or give up and look away. Hastur breathed a sigh of relief.

Outside, the sun had started to set, and lights of the city were creeping over the horizon. Firenze knew they were almost out of time. He needed to make a move, or this bunch were going to go running right back into their trainer’s arms and this whole experiment of his would have backfired.

“Okay...Alright...” He raised his voice, “I think it’s clear everyone present has had something of a rough day. And if you still want to get off the bus, I can’t say I’d blame you. This is not the Café Plaisir I wanted you to see when I invited you on this morning.”

Sugar raised an eyebrow, “Is there another Café Plaisir around the corner we don’t know about?”

Firenze bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I’ve been trying to build this place up for most of my adult life. I wanted to prove that not only can a pokémon-led, pokémon-centric business be successful, but ethically sound! And for a long time, I thought I had succeeded but...recent developments have indicated otherwise. We’ve had budget issues, behavioral problems, PR nightmares, we’ve had to drive out a couple of bad apples...And it sometimes feels like this whole endeavor is riding on a knife’s edge.”

He glanced at his audience. Sugar seemed interested, and Cinnamon looked unsure, but Pepper was rolling her eyes and Hastur was as inscrutable as ever.

“So, if nothing else I want to thank you all for bringing these issues to my attention. There’s no way we can improve if we don’t know there’s a problem to begin with.” Firenze turned to Cinnamon and said, “Rain Flower will face disciplinary action for what she did to you today.”

“I don’t want to cause a fuss.” Cinnamon murmured at the floor.

“We’ll keep it quiet. Nobody has to know except you, me, your friends, and Quippie.”

“And Franklin, ” The driver chimed in. Everyone ignored him.

“She’ll never force herself on anyone like that again!” It was a declaration. Not to them but himself. Behavioral issues such as these should have been ironed out long ago. That this had happened at all was as much a reflection of his decisions as a manager as it did on Rain Flower.

“And Hastur...”

“sorry.”

“I’m sure Ples would be happy to get you better acquainted with the Café. If you’re willing to try again, I’m sure we can accommodate you.”

It was Sugar, not Hastur, who responded. “You’re giving him a second chance?”

Firenze smiled and said “Like I said, I’m a big believer in second chances. If you’re genuine in your desire to improve, I would be happy to have you back under my employ. Except…” Firenze turned to look Pepper in the eye, “I am sorry, but after what you did to the garden, I simply cannot justify allowing you to continue working at my Café.”

“I’m devastated.” Pepper said, in a most undevastated tone. She turned to look out the window.

“-However,” He continued, “I cannot let you off the bus either”

That got her attention. Enough that her head swung back around with enough force to crack her neck. “What?”

“You didn’t think I was just going to let you leave after wrecking my courtyard, did you?” Firenze allowed a hint of anger to creep into his voice. “You’re going to come back, and you are going to help fix what you broke.”

“Clarice seemed willing to cut her losses.” Pepper pointed out.

“Clarice isn’t here. And Clarice doesn’t manage the Café. I do. You have made a mess of my Garden. And you are going to clean it up.” Firenze leaned forward. “Or do we need to get the police involved?”’

Pepper held his gaze, unconcerned. Then Hastur, of all people, spoke up.

“only fair. your fault.”

“You did kinda overreact,” Sugar concurred.

“I don’t think we can afford that kinda trouble right now…” Cinnamon added.

Pepper gave Firenze a long glare…then shrugged. “Alright. Fair enough!” But then she turned to the team and continued, “But I’m going alone. Because there’s no way—“

“I want to go back!” Sugar interrupted her.

Pepper twisted around, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t want my first and possibly only real job to end because I misinterpreted my instructions!” He explained.

“Okay, great! I don’t want to be belittled while my friends get sexually assaulted!” Pepper retorted.

Cinnamon muttered. “I kinda hoped I could stay and get to know Quippie some more...”

“Cinnamon, please, if not for your sake then for Mary’s. She’ll have a heart attack if she hears what happened!”

“I’ll be okay as long as I’m with Sugar!” The Linoone’s voice grew in confidence.

“And I’m not letting him get lost again, either!” Sugar gave his friend a one-handed hug for emphasis.

Pepper’s tone grew desperate, “Honey?”

The Mimikyu remained still and silent.

Pepper looked back and forth between Firenze and her friend, “Look, I’m not—”

“need money. cannot disappoint”

“Oh goddammit.” She growled.

“sorry.”

Pepper slapped a vine against her forehead and massaged her temples. “Okay, fine! We’re all going back! But when you all get into trouble and me and Mary aren’t there to help…” She trailed off, too tired or angry or possibly scared to finish the sentence.

The silence dragged on. And on. Until finally the group started finding ways to occupy themselves for the remainder of the trip. Cinnamon curled into a ball and fell asleep. Sugar pulled out an old music player and started drumming the beat against Cinnamon’s back. Hastur produced a needle and thread and went to work reinforcing seams in the bus’s chairs, of all things. Pepper stared out the back window at the steadily receding farmland and contemplated her choices that day.

Firenze simply sat and watched the team out of the corner of his eye, more than a little curious about his new hires and their strange pseudo-family dynamic. Occasionally he’d catch Pepper looking back at him with an unreadable expression, whereupon she’d grimace and return to looking out the window at the passing fields.

The squealing of brakes heralded the end of the ride. ‘Franklin’ turned in his seat and called, “You all figure out what you're doing? Staying or going? Because I’m not opening this door unless I have to!”

Pepper let out an annoyed groan and shouted back, “We’re staying!”

“Staying at Plaisir or staying on the bus?” That got him the whole team’s attention, plus Firenze. The Bus driver jerked a thumb out the right window and said, “Because that’s the bus back east. This one’s going to the City.”

Firenze looked at the driver, then at the LED display “Northbound to Oklahoma City” over the windshield. Then he saw the bus sitting across the street. The words “Departing: Eastbound to Café Plaisir Resort” scrolling across the top. “… Aw, NUTS!”

A big white blur tore down the aisle and down the stairs, followed rapidly by a quartet of panicking Pokémon.

“Hold that bus!”

* * *

It hadn’t been easy hiding away in the Library, but Mary knew she had far more questions than could be answered in the few remaining hours left in the day after her ride into town and subsequent exploration of the city. She needed to learn so much so fast! Where were the Pokécenters, what was she entitled to as a trainer? Would her ID be of any use in this world and how? What banks were nearby, and how did she set up an account, and how long before she could turn the check in her pocket into cash?

But most importantly, where was she, and what happened here? What was the ‘Liberation’ October mentioned, and how would it affect her family?

She had managed to get most of the former questions, the most pertinent to her immediate survival, answered inside of public hours. But the final call for visitors to leave had forced an impromptu break in her research so she could run to the bathroom and climb onto the ceiling panels to hide amongst the Rattata who called this place home. Nice folk, those Rattata; they’d even offered her some of their pilfered paper once they’d established she wasn’t there to fumigate them.

She hoped those rations she gave them would last.

Now, nearly four hours later, she sat alone in the computer room, illuminated only by the twenty-year-old desktop this underfunded facility could barely afford. Her brain ached, not just from lack of sleep but from information overload, and emotional turmoil. This world was so different to her own; it’s values so similar and yet so alien, especially where Pokémon were concerned. She was ready for bed.

But first.

Something had been itching at the back of her skull for some time now. Why was the resort that now housed her Pokémon so remote? And now that she had seen a map of Oklahoma she wondered why was it located so far from any major thoroughfares? In fact, why was it called a Café?

So, one last search: C-A-F-E P-L-A-I-S-I-R.

She hit enter and waited. The ancient computer took nearly five minutes to load the results. There was an immediate link to the website, which she ignored. She didn’t want their buzzspeak; she wanted a straight up explanation of what they were and what they did. Then there were a couple forum questions that made no sense in context, and then finally an encyclopedia article. ‘Perfect!’ She clicked on the latter.

“Café Plaisir is a prominent resort/brothel located in the heart of Oklahoma 30 miles east of...”

Mary blinked. Had she read that correctly?

“Prominent resort/brothel”

She rubbed her eyes and looked again.

“Brothel”

She had left her Pokémon, her family, alone. Alone...at a pokephilia-centric whorehouse!

“October...”

Mary leapt out of her chair, hands planted on the table. The chair flying back into a bookshelf with enough force to knock half its contents to the floor.

“You deceitful sonnuva BITCH!”

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Cafe Plaisir: Shadow of Eclipse: Chapter 1

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