resolve and reflection

DEFECTIVE
​Two girls. Two worlds. One lie.
​In the glass towers of Castelia University, perfection isn't a goal-it's a requirement.
​MAXINE is a storm in a tailored blazer. A girl from the dust and granite of Pewter City, she's an exchange student who doesn't belong in a world of genetic grooming and "optimized" data. She carries a mountain-stone in her pocket and a jagged resolve in her heart. She wasn't looking for a partner; she was just looking for a way to survive the semester and go home. But when she encounters a "defective" Squirtle slated for the scrap heap, she realizes she isn't the only one the University wants to break.
​CASSIDY is the University's masterpiece. As the Rank 1 prodigy, she is the golden girl destined to lead the next generation of "overclocked" trainers. Her life is a series of straight lines, silent dorms, and filtered air. But beneath the polished surface, Cassidy is suffocating. She hides a wooden charm from a grandmother in Viridian Forest and a secret fear: that the "perfection" she's being promised is actually a cage.
​When a chaotic induction ceremony forces the "Pewter Rebel" and the "Golden Girl" together, the glass begins to shatter. Bound together by a notched-shell Squirtle and a shared secret that stretches back to the forests of Kanto, Maxine and Cassidy must choose:
​Do they follow the track laid out for them, or do they go off-road?