“{Umm, is this… safe?}” Incineroar asked as Opal worked her paws around the restraints of a… medeival torture device?
Incineroar balked the moment she laid eyes on the thing that her teacher slid out of an unmarked, olive-drab bag. It was a metal helmet of sorts, formed from a grid of welded-stainless straps, caked in a grisly mess of computer guts turned inside-out, held in place with a hundred adjustable screws clutching at her skull.
It was unnerving, and she wouldn’t have let the mad-mon put the thing anywhere near her face had it not been for the fact that she watched Opal cinch an identically vicious-looking device to her own head.
“{Of course! We’ve trained with these hundreds of times and I turned out just fine.}”
“{Right.}” Incineroar eyed the tiny, metal plate buried between her master’s ears. “{What is this thing, anyway?}”
“{They’re called ‘Experience Shares’!}” The buckles in her paws snapped into place and Opal stepped back, admiring her handiwork. “{We’d be training for months at least before I started teaching you this stuff, but we don’t have that kind of time.}”
Opal swiped at her student’s helmet and a long row of dancing lights whined to life.
“{Besides,}” she chirped, and then stood at the opposite end of a practice field painted along the Stone Crown Gymnasium floor, “{if anything goes wrong, I know you can take it.}”
Incineroar grabbed a handful of the scrap clinging to her head, tugging at it like the collar of a sweaty button-up shirt as her ears started ringing, louder and louder. “{Wait, what do…}”
She growled at herself for allowing such a meek little squeak to escape her teeth, and stood at the other side of the arena, claws brought to bear. “{You bet I can!}”
The crescendo tone in their ears reached some overwhelming, inexplicable peak.
Opal smiled and raised her paw to a panel on her head. “{Don’t blink!}” She winked and flicked the switch.
Incineroar’s steel-clad sense of self-awareness was instantly, utterly obliterated.
She wobbled and reeled as everything she ever knew about being was torn asunder. Like a seashell underfoot, the homely solitude of her mind was shattered as, for the first time in her life, she found herself entertaining guests upstairs.
It was nothing at all like the psychic assaults she’d suffered at the hands of tarot-toting hexes pretending they weren’t totally in over their heads. No matter the strength of the psychic, the feeling of your arms and legs betraying you always came at you like puppet strings, from the outside. Whatever this was, the call had come from inside the house, and she was prepared to bleed herself dry fighting.
Incineroar bit the end of her lip like she was trained, drawing a trickle of blood as it gave her a tiny sliver of control, and she raised her guard.
Her claws slickened with a smoggy blaze as her teeth bared. “{You think my mind is weak? Is this my next lesson?}” Her stomach rolled like curds of milk in a bucket of whey. “{I don’t…}”
She recoiled, but again refused to doubt Opal’s teachings, no matter what her pride inside was saying behind their backs. “{I will overcome. I promise.}”
Then her knees broke ranks and her ass crashed to the floor.
Opal quietly giggled with a perfectly-sculpted paw attempting to silence her jovial little lips, but the sleigh-bell sound of her inside-voice still managed to rattle Incineroar’s mind.
“No, silly! Your fortress is as tough as they come. Don’t fight this feeling, feel it out.”
Opal began that slow, meditative dance Incineroar recognized from the first day they met. She crumpled down to the floor, but did not fall, and kept a state of perfect stability despite her stance. Then she raised her arms to both sides of her body, as if she’d summoned a giant camphor tree from the soil, swimming through the air with motions made in perfect geometry.
“Solgaleo hiki ola mai.”
The faded, somber memory of someone’s voice bounced between them as she spoke.
“{The sun meets the sky.}”
It was as if Incineroar’s instructions for her own body had been placed up for election against some other person’s steps, but she had the tie-breaking vote…
She watched as an unfettered happiness curled around her master’s face, and heard the echoes of her… joy, having stumbled into that indescribable place between the surreality of the student realizing they’d become the teacher, and the excitement of a day spent playing with her very own friend.
So, like her master asked, she gave way, and allowed herself to feel when she thought that seeing was enough. Incineroar sprouted up from the ground, with a grace she once had thought was beyond her reach. She was too shocked to mount a single psychic twitch, let alone fight, and she flowed in perfect synchronization with Opal’s movements as she constantly voted against herself.
“Pua ka pua i ka hau.”
Incineroar’s embarrassment was quenched in an overwhelming, divine command, and the device in Opal’s skull flashed red.
“{Flowers bloom in the dew.}” Opal guided her student through the first two petals of The Plumeria, stunning each other with Incineroar’s aptitude for swift adaptation. After all, it was the movements and muscle memory the devices shared, not the balance, nor the technique. Normally those came with time, but Incineroar was such a natural that they carried on with the form in its entirety.
Incineroar blushed as she felt her hips shift with a risque, Alolan sway and her palms fluttered through some distantly fragrant, seaside breeze. What is this?she tried to say, but her mouth moved seconds later, only after the message was already received.
The two of them swirled around in ballroom-step, spinning to a stop, like a top left gazing at itself in the mirror. Incineroar looked at Opal’s face; that warm, jubilant, terrifying face…
She was hooked by the resigned stare of Master Hala’s stoic, coconut-shuck eyes.
She felt her claws pinch her own palms as her fists clenched with stress; they were smaller, tighter, stronger… cuffed in cloudy, pink fluff.
Incineroar glanced around, brushing an alien, ear-shaped curtain from her sight, and her now mocha-colored hide burned with concern as she spotted four sneaky figures, each perched atop a grinning, tiki-tower caricature of themselves.
How nice of the Tapu to tolerate one-others’ presence long enough to… sit in on that impromptu, last-minute test of her mettle. One last flip of the coin to decide her fate. Guess it only made sense they’d want to see her prove it for themselves. After all the ones that had left, they’d certainly earned the right.
Like forest leaves guiding the raindrops down, her paws brushed clouds of violet spikes to the ground. She danced with each moment, turning around just-in-time to usher yet-another volley to the ebony temple floor. Incineroar had never moved so fast in her life, nor had she ever managed to invoke that sort of divine, preternatural reflex.
The old man in the dandelion gi said nothing, but his words somehow rang in her ears like a bell.
Next movement!
“Aʻa nā lā'au,” Tapu Bulu boomed, rocking the ground with his command.
Incineroar’s feet smacked the ground in response, shoulders straight, fists locked above her hips, and opened her mouth to say, “{trees take root.}”
It was Opal’s voice in her throat; younger, exasperated, quietly afraid.
Torrential, rainstorm winds whipped storming slurries of sea and soil through the air, striking her body like a sledge. The claws at her feet tilled farmland furrows in the basalt floor as she was forced back. But she pressed her core in a psychic vice with a grunt and her paws popped back down with an earth-shattering thud. For ten straight minutes she stood against the tide, ravaged by a hungry pack of stealth-rock winds.
She did not falter, even as trickling facial wounds drowned her eyes in blood. “Hoʻi ka ua i'ke kai.” Tapu Lele stained the crying sky with an inky, unsettling howl.
Opal’s ears twitched. “{Rain returns to the sea,}” she said after shifting backwards a single inch, narrowly dodging a flock of shuriken-sharp cherry-petals that stuck into the wall, and then her body launched, spinning sideways into the air.
An incoherent, semisolid pasta of seawater vines and pretty-pink petals threatened to grate her down to a fine paste. She moved with a flexibility that Incineroar feared would snap her spine in two and yank her bones free from their sockets like taro-roots from the soil. She danced around spikes of icy liquid, samba’d through gusts of serrated wind, and drifted along clairvoyant routes of safety blazed through a massive, no-mon’s zone of death.
“Kai me ka Lunala” Tapu Koko decreed as Lunala’s light flashed in the clouds above.
Incineroar’s stomach turned as she ended her airborne pirouette, spraying The Temple of the Moone in runny streaks of blood. She sprouted back up and the light of her eyes vanished as her back went slack, held aloft by her legs like a wilting cane of grass.
“{Sea meets the Moon.}”
Thunder crashed in the sky as Opal’s trainer, like a picture in a high-school yearbook, snuck past the temple gate and stepped into the full moon light. “Times’ up,” he said with Cress slithering in his shadow.
Incineroar snapped out of her trance and let out a tiny, unprepared gasp, falling to one knee. “{Am I ready?}”
Her Master’s face sat still as Lanakila's peak. “You have to be.”
The Kahuna had spoken.
Opal’s body bent so low it made Incineroar’s guts smolder with humiliation, but her soul snapped like a twig when the man reached to his belt and she felt his treasured, dewpider-silk fan sliding onto the pads of her palms.
She choked on her own words as she looked up into his smiling face, clutching her throat. “Bun… Nee…”
She leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around his great, burly body, crying bitter tears of salt, sweat, and blood.
The Guardians of Alola cast their final judgement down,
“{Go!}” Opal shouted as a pink and umber fist came straight for Incineroar’s chest.
“{Hu-?}” Incineroar’s premonition was cut short as some undeveloped instinct brought her claws up to her own throat, catching the strike with her arms. “Aaah!” she yelled, sliding back ten feet from the force of the blow against her limbs.
Machamp must have struck her guard with every ounce of effort he could muster after her brain got rattled from a Mach Punch or something. That was the only explanation she had for the force she’d just endured. But, no, she did not wake from some mid-tussle concussion, the day had only just begun, and Machamp was busy quadruple-fisting nutrient shakes on the other side of the gym.
“{I had no idea you could move like that, Incineroar! Incredible!}”
Incineroar clenched her fists, forearms still creaking like an old house. “{Neither did I.}”
What was that?
Opal giggled and danced in place with a smile on her face. “{Sorry, I just got carried away and started going through the motions, I had no idea you’d actually keep up! It was like you’d been sparring with me for months! Like you stole my memories or something, dang…}” she hemmed and hawed for a bit before she blew the thought away with a nervous giggle. “{That’s not possible though, the Shares don’t go that deep. That would be super dangerous.}”
“{Dangerous?}”
Wait, you don’t know wh–? This is so distorted, oh my Gods!
“{Oh yeah, super dangerous. Just like in the labs. Pcheewww,” she said, making an exploding motion with both hands as her arms limbered up and she windmill-rolled her shoulders. “{Your anatomy had me thinking I had to try and teach you Sifu Bea’s style, but this changes everything!.}”
Who the fuck are you?
Incineroar thought with her eyes refusing to blink, rubbing her wrists loose. “{Bea?}”
She waved the question off with an arm full of bubblegum fluff. “{A friend in Galar. No, no no no, you’re an Alolan breed, Master Hala’s bones might roll away if we did anything else.}”
Incineroar’s jaw tightened and she raised her guard. “{What’s happening?}”
“{Hulalua!}” Opal replied with her hands on her chin like a hatchling on the daycare slide.
Her mouth lost all its tension and dropped open, fists still raised. “{Ooh-la-la-huh?}”
“{My Master’s style; Alola’s ancient ‘Way of the Warrior’.}” Opal leaned into Incineroar’s ear. “{It’s my favorite,}” she said with a whisper and a wink.
“{No offense,}” incineroar rumbled, inspecting the Lopunny’s graceful silhouette, “{but…}”
Opal looked at her dress, wondering if there was a stain or a rip, then she looked herself over and gasped with a bubbly chuckle. “{Oh! Goodness no, what I walked you through just now was ‘The Plumeria’; Lunala’s form. You’re way too clumsy to be using that in a real fight.}”
Should I tell– Hey now, that’s just rude!
Incineroar knew she was right, but darn if it didn’t hurt to hear it said so loud the cheap-seats could tune in. She shot a string of smoke from the corner of her mouth and folded her arms in frustration.
Opal gently nudged her friend’s shoulder in apology. “{Just for now! C’mon, once you get this down you’ll be walking in the moonlight with me in no-time flat.}” Opal crouched forward, smacking her knees, and brought her claws to bear, poised like a predator in the bush.
Incineroar raised her paws in the mirror, allowing Opal’s subconscious thoughts to guide her once again. “{And ‘this’ is?}”
Whatever this is. I’m gonna find out who you really are, lady.
Opal looked around at everyone that had migrated to the other side of the gym. Away from them. For the first time in far too many years she simply didn’t care, and allowed a punch-drunk smile to creep across her face as they both prepped for a very-imminent tackling.
The fateful day came, whether the members of Team Stone were ready or not.
Richard, Emil, and their quadrupedal beloveds shuffled in after a long, long morning training. Having plucked Incineroar away from that Horace guy’s Lopunny at the last possible second, dragged Machamp away from the Punching machines, they stowed the rest away in their balls and marched past the point of no-return.
Spinel’s ribbons snapped around Richard’s wrist as the first row of cast-iron gates slammed closed behind them. “Eeee… Von veee,” he moaned, scraping crusts of calcified sleep away from his eyes, rubbing his temple in hopes that it would grant him the wish of relief.
“Hey, uh… you ok, bab-uuuudy??” Richard asked with a reluctance hanging in his throat.
His Girl… Boy…… ‘Monfriend sucked his triple-shot espresso macchiato down like an icy can of discount beer.
Fuck existence and the rapidash she rode in on.
Rich nestled his thumb and forefinger around the blue and pink stripes of Spinel’s tendrils. He hadn’t learned much yet about being ‘with’ Spinel, let alone being with a pokemon. Let alone-er being with a pokemon that has ten appendages and a smart-ass mouth. However, in his kiddish tendency to push every button without a lock and a laser maze installed, he’d found a choice few zones around the little guy’s body that made him squirm and melt.
Spinel’s back raised and his hackles practically stabbed Richard in the leg.
“Aaah, I’ll stop, sorry, I’m sti-” He yelped as Spinel bit his pinky finger again.
Nu-uh-oh you most certainly will not, Ro-me-oh!
The pink thing suddenly went slack, his ears flopped back between his shoulders, and the irritable scrunch in his face settled into a case of mere extreme-exhaustion.
“Aaah, can’t resist the Stone touch, can ya?”
Everyone collectively lost their lunch inside.
Rich nudged Spinel with his foot in that way he normally did with all this ‘Mon, but it stayed against the little guy’s haunches a few seconds longer than normal. He was learning to like the way his resident Fae pushed back against him anytime he could.
Testing, testing. Is this thing on? Sorry if it’s fuzzy, not used to the, uh, brain wave stuff.
Spinel rubbed his butt against Richard’s leg.
Loud and clear, lover boy.
Rich rocked his head back and forth as the light at the end of the tunnel slowly approached.
So, uh, I know we’re gonna send the old combee packing, so no pressure, but I was wondering if you wanted to do victory dinner somewhere, um…
Spinel pried his eyelids apart. “Eee?”
Yeah, uh, somewhere more private, y’know? Considering the whole, um, yeah… you know what I mean, right? Look, I’m not used to liking someone a whole lot, ok? So behave yourself, I’m new at this.
Spinel gave his idiot a slow, tired smirk.
I dunno, I’m a real bAaAaAad boy.
Richard’s face flushed as the words made him incredibly, inexplicably aroused.
Y-yeah? Well, then you’re in for a real spanking when we get back home, mister!
Spinel shivered with a smile on his face and nuzzled his man’s knee.
That a promise, Daddy?
Richard hung that call up, sweating in an impidimpish light flashing across Spinel’s eyes.
Machamp crunched his knuckles, cracked his shoulders, and snapped any other joints with the slightest bit of cartilage-wrap left to pop.
Incineroar, who'd been training since the sun crawled from the sea, was fresh from the healing machine, wondered where in the world she’d suddenly picked up the odd turn of phrase.
She peeked over at the clandestine couples, suddenly realizing everybody was all-together too comfortable with the absolutely disgusting displays of affection. Then she peeked over at Emil nuzzling Vaporeon on the other side of the old-stone passage.
She had a thought.
Then she tried never having that thought at all.
She failed, and settled on never having the thought ever again.
It wasn’t very effective.
She breathed hot gouts of air in and clapped her yowling maw shut to keep from puking.
All four of them absolutely reeked of sex!
Each was practically marinated in the satisfaction of the other three. It burned her nostrils and left her waiting for clean wafts of air as Cinny searched for any alternative reason for the madness. Any explanation at all besides the raging, degenerate foursome starting to play out in her mind’s eye.
Had Machamp actually pounded her brain to soup this time?
Nope. He was still wolfing down scientifically-formulated heaps of pre-game slop and her teeth were still in place.
Were Spinel and- NO! That limp-fanged, sugar-frosted jellicent of an eeveelution had yet to earn more than a courtesy-glance from Her Majesty since they met. But, without a shadow of a doubt, his smell was all over the Princess. The thought nauseated her.
And why was Richard’s smell mingling with Emil’s? That thought… nauseated her way less than she expected, but she had little interest in exploring that further. If the pair of them felt like doing the two-trainer tango in their time off, they could be her guest.
The last, and most likely possibility frightened her most.
She looked at Richard. Oh Gooods, please, pleaase, pleaaase, don’t be into me too!
She looked at Emil. Ahhh… Well, actua- What?! No! Weird! That dude hides tools under the kitchen table, for Mesprit’s sake!
Incineroar shook her head and smacked her cheeks.
Not a thing. Never happened. Ain’t happening. Shut up, Brain, we’ve got a fight to win.
Richard turned to Incineroar, seeing a look of despondence on her face, and put his hand on the feline’s shoulder. “You’ve been doing a lot of training, Cinny. A whole hell of a lot. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but I trust your instincts, ok? You’re gonna crush it. Harder than anyone’s ever seen before. I can feel it in my bones.”
Then he said something no human has ever said to her in her entire life, not even Rich.
“No matter how things shake out, I’m proud of you.”
Incineroar glanced back at him. If it was at all possible for the redness of her face to show through, her head would have been indistinguishable from the bottom half of her league standard, Mk-3 Pokeball. “In, Ra. Cinni-roar,” she said, fighting to keep a tear inside.
Despite everything the human had put her through, and the mind numbing idiocy, she knew she wouldn’t wanna fight for anyone else in the whole world. For that, she supposed she could overlook the gastly suspicions in her heart today. He deserved at least one pass.
As Vaporeon watched the heart-warming, vomit-inducing display of camaraderie, Emil slipped an unmarked capsule between his lips. Then he pinched one of her obsidian claws in a way they both had silently agreed was a publicly appropriate way to hold hands.
He brushed her dewlap fins. “You ready to make the Medic call herself?”
Vaporeon lifted her head, confident in her constitution, her training, and all the diabolical tricks her mate had conjured up in the last twelve hours. What she wasn’t so confident in was her appearance and her patience. Last night might not have been the longest night of her life, but it certainly wasn’t the shortest. “One loaded healing machine, coming right up.”
“Riiiiiichard!” Bianca sang from a branching hall that met theirs half way. “Emiiiiiilio!”
The crazy, platinum-haired lady appeared with her Pokeballs braided around her neck in a heavy, japamala chain hanging below her breasts. Leaping from the shadows, with Stoutland in lock step, she wrapped her arms around both of them with a smile. “Good morning, Boys!”
Emil was stunned with prosocial paralysis as Richard laughed and squeezed her back with an enthusiasm that made up for his lack of response.
“Morning Ma’am. Ready to get your butt kicked today?” Richard loosened the top button of the dress shirt beneath his leather jacket.
She smooched both of them on the cheek and let go, skipping towards the wrought-iron portcullis separating them from victory and defeat. “Long as you’re ready for an old-fashioned school-yard whipping, youngun.”
Emil finally found something to laugh about and pointed to her chest. “What’s up there?”
“Knockers.” She swayed back and forth, bursting with sugary enthusiasm. “Oooh, this? That sweet boy Hau wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my team this time. Tied all these adorable Alolan sailing knots. They’re called wedding lei, you know. When Alolans found pearls on their voyages, they’d tie them just like this for the boy that needs it most so they can find a wife.”
Richard’s head turned aside. “In the market for a boyfriend? Real eligible bachelor right here,” he asked, shaking Emil’s shoulder with Vaporeon snarling at the mere suggestion. “Good with the ‘mon at least. Bit of a cave dweller, though.”
Emilio gawked in horror as the old woman shot him with a lascivious look.
She laughed with a white-gloved palm on her chest, then her eyes went vacant as she suddenly gazed out into the past, smiling with eyes that glistened with happy tears. “Naw honey, my heart’s spoken for.” She winked back at them with a contented smile and lobbed a big, wet, artillery-grade kiss his way with a cheeky puff. “But I’m sure Hilbert doesn’t mind a harmless little flirt now and again. Hehe.”
Now that one had Richard curious. He recognized that name. It was a popular one in Unova. For a very, very good reason. Normally he’d wave such an imposing thought off, but she was old enough that he couldn’t help but ask, “Wait, you don’t mean—?”
“Enough gum flapping.” The ancient gates of the Stone Crown Colosseum yawned open and she bathed herself in the magic of the afternoon sun. “Let’s settle this shindig, honey.”
“Gooooood Morning Laeden, Landed, and Leisured of Lumiose City!” The announcer boomed through the collective mics of the rotom swarm. “No chance of disappointment today, folks. Oh yeah, now that the openers are through, we’ve been blessed with a truly formidable lineup of league battle beasts.
Rich rolled his shoulders as the announcer went through the same theatrical motions the support crews always did. “You know them, you love them, you can predict them as far as you can throw them, it’s TEAM STOOOOOONE!”
He released his ‘mon all at once, to a euphoric chorus of applause, and Richard felt the warmth of the spotlight in his guts. It was intoxicating, something he’d only now started to crave as much as the savory taste of victory.
Yeah, he could smell the Masters League on the horizon, just a few days away.
“She’s setting the record straight as a dislocated joint. Sticks and Stones don't break her bones! Welcome with me, yet again, Team deeeee BEEEEELLLLL!”
Bianca threw the fat necklace of pokeball beads into the air and her pokemon appeared in a firework display of coalescing light.
“Honored guests, viewers around the world, keep your eyes peeled and your expectations in the air. Contestants. ARE. YOU. READY?”
“WAIT! Wait, wait, wait!” Bianca screamed.
Everyone murmured with curiosity, collectively leaning in to listen.
“What’s your concern, contestant Bianca?”
She aimed a finger across the arena. “Serperior’s feeling under the weather today. Caught himself a nasty case of something or another.”
Sure enough, Serperior’s complexion was pale and sickly and his face hung low from the weight of a couple mucusy tentacles hanging from his nose, sniffling to drag the gooey remains of his brain back into his skull.
Richard raised a brow with an insensitive smile. “Yah, and?”
She cocked her hips. “Could you do an old lady an itsy-bitsy favor and let Stoutland step in for him, Sweetie? He’s old, but he’s got pep, believe you me!”
The rotom drone zipped across the arena and then turned to Richard. “Team Stone, your opponent requests a substitution before the match begins. Will you permit the change in your opponent’s roster?”
Richard turned to Emil. “See anything wrong with this picture?”
Em didn’t respond for a few painfully-long moments, glaring across the arena as his mind warp-processed the situation in the neurochemical furnace raging behind his eyes. “Nothing but upsides, far as I can tell; aging, mono-normal-type, earth-bound, fairly narrow moveset. Go for it.”
Richard looked back across the arena, locking eyes with Bianca’s Dewott hiding between her legs, covering his ears for some reason. “Yeah, why not. Age before beauty!”
Bianca nodded with a chipper smile and gave the old boy a scritch between the ears. “Get ready to knock ‘em dead, honey!”
The announcer flew back up between them. “Judge point award, Team Stone.”
Richard popped his knuckles. “No draw-outs, no way I’m winning that way.”
Bianca waved her arm Richard’s way in a wide arc. “You ready to get your tuchus whooped by an old lady, kids?!”
Of all people, Richard did not expect to hear Emil raise his voice in response. “Long as you’re ok sinking like a rock in a pond, lady!”
Richard gawked at his wall-flower’s sudden noise. “That’s the stuff, Em. Let’s gooo!”
The start-lights lit and the announcer hovered at the center of the field. “Those sound like ready noises to me! RELEASE YOUR STARTERS!”
Richard summoned his finger forth. “Machamp, I choose you!”
Machamp leapt into the air and landed with an earth-shaking thud, wearing a long, flowing, crimson cape accompanying his shimmering champion’s belt. He threw his signature quad-peace-signs out to the crowd, blowing kisses to his many howling fans, new and old. “Chaaaaamp!”
Rich grinned. “Gonna need those EMT skills today, old woman!”
“Ooh, sorry to disappoint you baby, I’d be disqualified if I jumped out there,” Bianca said, waving her liver-spotted fingers his way with an amused giggle. “I’ll be gentle enough. Hehe. No Explosions, now.”
Richard saw a strange, morbid glint in her eyes and he shivered a little inside. “No guarantees!”
She smirked back at him, gripping the edge of her red-ringed hat. “Your funeral. Mienshao?”
An absolutely, drop-dead-gorgeous, grey-furred lovely accented in purple stripes glinted her eyes past a bashful flap of fluffy skin hanging from her arms. “Sha-foo,” she cooed, and gazed out at Machamp with a hungry curl of her little lips.
“You rea– What is that?” she asked with an irritated glare.
Mienshao snuck with her tail turned away from Bianca, shuffling her feet towards the arena, holding something behind her back. “Sha me.”
“Show me what you're hiding, Missy May!”
Mienshao chuckled and made a break for the field, and Bianca could finally see what it was her opening ‘mon was keeping secret. A long coil of scarlet rope hung hooked from her other paw, fluttering in the air as she leapt across the arena, towards Machamp. “Shao!” she chirped before Bianca could think to recall her.
Her ‘mon’s paws hit the cement, and Bianca’s cheeks puffed out with anger as she flailed her arms around with indignant fury. “IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?! I SAID TO GRAB THE GRIP CLAW, DAMMIT!”
Mienshao poked a dimple in her cheek with a hyper-innocent expression. “Ah-ou? Shaaa,” she said in an oh-so-apologetic tone.
“YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! THAT’S AN ORDER, LITTLE LADY!” Bianca’s face was pink as she kicked up clouds of dirt with the stomping of her boots.
The announcer tilted aside. “Would you… like to forfeit your first slot by ringing out?”
Bianca made a medley of flummoxed noises, and groaned. “N-NO I DON’T GAAAH!” she yelled as Mienshao walked into position with a sexy sway of the hips. “JUST YOU WAIT ‘TIL WE GET HOME! YOU’RE SOOO COURT-MARTIALED, SOLDIER!”
The audience erupted into hysterical laughter and Mienshao gave her trainer a tiny wave from the ring as she slung the rope over one shoulder. “She-me-nan.”
Machamp punched all four fists into his hips. “{Well, if it ain’t the prettiest face I ever done saw on two legs. Be a shame if something happened to it.}”
“GET READY!”
Mienshao concealed her nose behind the wings of her paws. “{Right back at you, handsome.}”
“THREE...”
Machamp swallowed a frogadier hiding in his throat as he caught the eyes of a starving predator behind her silver screen. “{Oh, well. Ha! Thanks, I uh-}”
“TWO…”
Mienshao blew him a kiss and the shedinja that crawled back down his gullet choked his big mouth shut.
Jun’s scrawny, disheveled body lurched beneath a trio of high-lumen lamps powered by a mismatched spaghetti of extension cords. Chemical canisters with intimidating cautionary diamonds had been lined up in a long row in the shadows against the wall. She worked with steady breaths, hunched over a discordant menagerie of tiny cables, metal casings, duct tape, soldering irons, and lime-green PCBs scattered around a fold out table in Stonecastle’s unfinished basement.
Fondly referred to as ‘The Dungeon’, it had no heating, no plumbing, no windows, no amenities at all except a concrete floor and a single outlet against the northern wall. Perfect for the many delicate tasks at hand.
A laptop was laid open beside her with a shadowy figure transmitting grainy video from some rural, forested location. “Long time no see, chikorita. Where are your pokemon right now?”
Jun carefully adjusted the magnifying lenses she clipped to her glasses and straightened a line of lead-silver alloy “In the Pokecenter,” she said, brushing a knotted lock of hair from her black-ringed eyes before making yet-another gut-wrenching move. “Minimum three-hundred-fifty feet from my current location, as instructed.”
The figure nodded, adjusting his navy blue polo. “Good, good. You’ve mailed your–”
“Yes!” she huffed. “Augh, sorry, one sec.”
Jun held her breath and melted a line of solder to the board, wiring it to a recycled spark plug assembly she’d found in Emil’s massive, greedent-heap of scrap out back.
“There, done. Sorry, I’m under a lot of pressure at the moment,” she said, wiping her brow free of cold, clammy sweat.
“Understandable, understandable. You’re doing Reshiram’s work, Jun.” He paused for a moment as she pecked a few more wires into place following the triple-cross-referencing of a fat stack of home-printed instructions bound with black clips. “If you have a few minutes, I have someone that would like to speak with you while they’re passing into dexnet range.”
Jun leaned back and choked down a bottle of water all at once, knocking back a half-dose of second-hand beta blockers to take the edge off her current predicament. “Oh?”
He nodded. “Yeah, let me patch him in. Nice job. Get your things packed and mailed out, aight? Gonna work out your travel arrangements to the compound. Don’t wanna be lugging bags around.” He smirked and combed a wild spike of hair back in place. “Smell ya later, nerd.”
Her face screwed up at the farewell, but she knew it was all in jest. That specific superior of hers acted that way to everyone, any time he got the chance.
Then another face popped in from a different place, dark and industrial. It was fuzzy, with extremely poor latency, but she immediately recognized him the moment his classic, Indigo-League cap depixelated and sharpened into focus. His cheeks were leathery and tight with the everlasting scowl that had hardened onto his face over the many, many years doing that which needed done.
“Sup.”
Jun quietly gasped, covering her mouth to hide the outburst. “Oh, oh my gosh, Red! I didn’t expect- I, um- It’s an honor, sir!”
“Mhm.” He didn’t say anything for a while, looking her up and down on the screen, and pointed towards her, turning his finger. “Show me.”
“Y-yeah, right. Here!” She fumbled with the laptop camera, tilting the screen so her handiwork was on display.
He hummed, grumbling with his thumb on his lips, inspecting it with his old, tired eyes. “Green wires’ wrong. Move it to R-4.”
She scrambled for her instructions, going back sixteen pages to when she set that wire in place, and sighed, removing her glasses. “Oh, Gods, sorry!”
He grunted. “Take a break.”
She nodded, leaning back into her chair with a sigh. “Y… yes sir.”
Red’s Pikachu zipped into view, leaping into his arms, peeking into the camera at Jun from a vicious matte of scarred flesh holding in place a pair of menacing, glowing-red apertures set in the sockets where his eyes used to be. “Pi-ka-chu!”
She waved, smiling with unrestrained glee. “Hi Pikachu, it’s an honor to meet you too!”
Pikachu smiled and gave her a thumbs up as Red scritched between his ears, setting him rolling around the table in a storm of comfy, tickling fingertips.
Red said nothing for a full five minutes, watching the needy expression on Jun’s face transform into raw, unchecked worry.
“Good luck,” he said, and the laptop screen went dark.
Emil is a quiet man with a well kept secret; he has little to look forward to but even less to complain about as he works his life away and puts up with his obnoxious wealthy neighbor.
That is until a once-in-a-lifetime sequence of events threatens to upend everything he has, should he go for the catch.
Incineroar FINALLY put 2 and 2 together, but it took an overwhelming amount of evidence to convince her. And wait a minute, is "Cinny" her nickname? I guess I missed that, or I just didn't remember.
Who is Jun working for now?
What happened to Red's Pikachu?! XD How could you reveal that much and nothing more? /s
Incineroar FINALLY put 2 and 2 together, but it took an overwhelming amount of evidence to convince
