Broken Souls

Rocking It Out

I don't remember most of last night, save for Minerva's resounding laughs, bursts of flame, and counting the amount of money I needed for the hotel four times before the man gave up out of pity and told me I could pay in the morning.

I wake up in a hotel like all the other hotels in Kanto. Shuttered blinds, enough decor to make it look unique and hold the town's theme, a minifridge (how did I ever live without these), and typical hotel fare. For a while I thought they might be a chain but it's more likely that everything is beginning to blend together.

Would I enjoy everything more if I was a tourist, or a normal trainer with no deadlines? If I wasn't working myself half to death every day to stay ahead of Red, how much more would I have seen? How many of my Pokemon's untimely deaths could've been avoided if I hadn't had the deadline like a noose around my neck?

I look over to my alarm and see the red letters spell out 4:00 AM. It's been an hour since I got to sleep (midnight, Minerva, my ass).

Better get back to it.

***

When I wake up, a fuzzy shape is standing on my chest, peering over me with their long, muzzle in my face. Their fur is a mixture of blues and golds, soft and familiar...

"Bronze?" I ask.

"Who?" asks Bronze.

"Arceus, damnit," I murmur. My vision clears and it's just Minerva standing over me, the shadows from the blinds making her gold fur look bluish enough to confuse my addled mind. "Forget it."

"You never told us about your old team," insists Minerva, sliding off to the side of my bed. "I'm sure I could find out anything I wanted if I just pried your mind open a touch, but that kind of feels like cheating."

"It is cheating," Reginae says, "Don't you even think about it."

"I'd be happy to share my knowledge of the old team, at least the extent that I shared the journey with Ashley." Ten suggests.

"Which one?" asks Fang.

"The last one, the one we were both on." I say. "If you don't mind, I think I'll pass on other Ashleys. Especially other dead Ashleys who were even more catastrophic fuck-ups than I am."

Hycanith puts her arms around me. She's applied a small band-aid to her bone, which lies on the edge of the bed next to Minerva.

I put a hand to the Marowak's back. "Thanks, Hycanith."

"So, what's on the menu today?" asks Reginae.

"Pancakes." Fang says.

"We should get some to Ethan. He'd love that."

"The longterm menu." Reginae says. "The metaphorical one. Do we need to train?"

"I don't know, do you have a four-times advantage over rock-and-ground and rock-and-water types, which are coincidentally the only thing Brock uses?" I ask.

"Does Minerva have a weakness to all three of those types?" Reginae counters with a smile, glancing over at the infuriated Ninetales, whose tails have clumped up and whose face is now twisted into an irate scowl.

"Rhetorical questions?" asks Ten.

"Are we going to get pancakes or not?" asks Fang.

Now this I can answer- we are.

I buy an egregious amount of pancakes with half my Soul Badge gym money. Money's no object for us even when providing for seven (one of whom is a Lugia). I doubt the pancakes will provide much legitimate comfort to him on a physical level, but emotionally, it's important that he still feels like himself.