Chapter 7
Therapy - All Time Low
Mike had no idea what to do next.
He spent the night before sitting in the Striaton Center cafeteria, emotionally spent, pouring over his Pokédex and the internet for any help with raising a Nidoran. He had fixated on video after video but could tell that he was only absorbing the most basic of details.
What little brainpower remained was grappling with the idea of a temporary teammate. After a few moments, he shoved the idea out of his head entirely. Lizzie would not be treated as temporary, in any sense of the word. The implications of that idea seemed, at best, negligent. Mike would not -- could not -- treat her as anything but his.
However, now he sat, feeling quite useless, while Lizzie nibbled his shoes, and he did his best to treat her as if she didn’t exist.
Apparently, the number one method to gain the trust of a Nidoran was to sit around with it, doing very little, and allow it to acclimate to you.
Robin sat on top of the bed, looking down at Mike, seeming to be half-awake and fully irritable. She was used to training and trekking, not sitting and watching basic cable. Mike was altogether too used to the notion, and only lamented the lack of recreational substances.
“Wanna order a pizza?” Mike’s question caused the Litwick to tilt. Her wide eyes blinked a few times, and he saw her mouth babble in silent mimicry.
“Yes,” Mike spoke, thinking hard about Robin nodding and chewing on a burnt piece of crust, “or No.” An image of Robin shaking her head, and Mike crying over a salad.
Robin shook her head almost instantly. His mental breakdown, as it were, must have been a little too humorous. Mike smiled at her progress, but not at the answer.
“You know, we should have started with ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’” Mike muttered. He wasn’t supposed to be too loud around what was essentially still a wild Pokemon. To his great surprise, Robin gave an enthusiastic nod.
“Did you understand that?” She nodded again. He tried not to get too excited.
“Is pizza a vegetable?” She nodded again. Mike realized that she thought it was a new trick; how could she understand the word vegetable, let alone the concept?
“Nooo,” Mike chided her, pushing himself onto his knees and leaning against the bed. Lizzie gave a little squeak and thumped his shoe with a foreleg, scampering under the bed. Robin giggled as Mike shook his head hard enough to send his lips flapping. “Pizza is not a vegetable, young lady.” They were nose to ‘nose’ as he shook more and more, wiping his nose - and whole face - against hers. She let out a shrill peal of laughter.
When Mike thought about it, Robin hadn’t really been conscious during true downtime before. She would usually hang out in his bag asleep, only woken up to battle, or flit around a campsite or the room they were in for the night while Mike took stock. They had time to play here and there during lunches, or if she roused herself from a nap, but Mike now saw the silver lining for his day spent ‘bonding’ with Lizzie: now he could bond with Robin, too.
“Robin, am I doing a good job?” He propped himself up on the bed, leaning on his elbows and belly, chin in his hands. She enthusiastically shook her head no.
“What!?” Mike tried to act as ridiculously offended — and as quiet — as he could. The streak of anxiety that bolted through him was almost smothered by the performance. Robin giggled. “How dare you! I should smoosh you!” He imagined himself sitting on her like he did the day after they first met. She gave a little cackle almost the same way she had then.
Robin stopped laughing and tried to deform herself that same way. The harness around her midriff caught her, stopping her from completing the change. She became stouter and much pudgier, but Mike could tell it frustrated her that she was restrained. She pulled herself back to her normal shape and tugged at the black and white straps.
“I’m sorry,” Mike spoke gently, taking her little hands away from the harness. “I don’t want to lose you, so you have to wear it.” She pouted.
Mike had an idea: he wanted to try a very long ‘intention reading.’ Holding anything in his head for too long had always been a tricky task, but something about all the exercise lately had given him both a more intense ‘fog’ during it and a sharper clarity outside of it.
He pressed his head against Robin’s forehead. She rubbed his forehead with hers momentarily, then stopped as soon as Mike began to form a mental image.
He imagined her: A happy little Litwick. The harness around her popped into pieces and fell off. He made her look around, and vanish into thin air.
He imagined her reappearing somewhere else. The little hidden glade they had seen a few days before. She ran around and played, but then she said, ‘Where is Daddy?’
She looked around some more. She got lost in the woods. The little imaginary Litwick cried and said, ‘Where am I?’
He next imagined himself, looking around Striaton. Talking to Justin at the school. Talking to a Joy at the front desk — Tiffany, even though the center was wrong. He imagined himself sitting in his room, holding her little broken harness, crying. He allowed the ‘daydream’ to dissolve.
“So that’s the bad ending,” Mike said out loud. He pulled away from Robin and opened his eyes. Her little eyes looked worried, and he could see waxy tears welling up at their bottoms. He didn’t know if this was right, or good, but he knew it certainly wasn’t nice.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, wiping her tears away. “There’s a good ending, too.” He took a breath and leaned against her again. She headbutted him as he approached, and he couldn’t help but smile.
Mike imagined a clock on the wall, next to a window. The clock spun and the sun set. Mike looked down at Robin in their room, and her harness popped off. They gave each other a hug, and she vanished.
Mike imagined the Center, and some areas very close to it. He made the pretend Robin keep tabs on where she was, making sure she could always see the Pokémon Center when she looked.
He made the sun rise. He imagined Robin going back to the Center, and finding their room. He vividly imagined her looking at the door numbers until she arrived at 42, the room they were in today.
The pretend Litwick slid through the door. He imagined himself waking up, and the two jumped up and hugged each other. The dream dissolved.
The real Robin wrapped her waxy arms wrapped around his head and squished him close. Then she pushed him away, squeaking, frantically tugging at her harness and pointing at the door. She nodded and nodded and nodded.
“No,” Mike shook his head, thinking. He might have made himself a monster. He wracked his brain for a solution. Finally, he found it.
“Okay, okay, come here.” He beckoned her back over with his hands, leaning his head forward again. She slammed into it, the not-quite-soft-enough wax forming around his forehead and hair where they connected. He laughed, took a breath, and began to think. He was running out of steam.
He imagined them with their heads pressed together. He put a thought bubble above their heads, playing an abbreviated version of the ‘good’ memory within it: Robin wandering at night with the center in view, coming back in the morning. Then he imagined a window next to them. He had to drop the thought bubble but kept their heads together.
He imagined the sun rising and setting, day and night falling, over and over. Seven times. He felt Robin nod hard against his forehead.
Just like that, he had another promise he could only hope to keep.
When he pulled away, the Litwick’s little eyes were wide and hopeful. She held up a little hand, and a single tiny blob of wax poked itself up.
“Yes,” Mike laughed, forgetting the Nidoran, “yes! Today is the first day!” He nodded, and she nodded.
And the Nidoran gave a little snorting noise. She was behind Mike now, and he turned to find that Lizzie had been eating. Had been; the Leer it was shooting their way made it clear their cheer had disturbed her.
“Okay. Get hype, get hype, get fucking hyyyype—
“…
“Let’s! Fucking! Gooooo—”
“Hey!”
“Fffff— shit, shit, I’m—”
“There are kids here!”
“I’m sorry! I’m doing a video—”
“I don’t care! Language!”
40 POUNDS LOST GET HYYYPE #TheLoserProject #Loss #LoseIt
Mike spent the next day doing… Well, very little, if he was honest. And, if he was honest, ‘very little’ felt quite good to do. It had been a long time since he simply had nothing going on.
By nothing, he of course meant ‘premeditated nothing adjacent to a Nidoran for the purposes of acclimatization.’ But it was nothing all the same.
He spent a lot of time in his room at the center, with both of his little teammates out and about, and doing his best to be a good trainer to them both.
Lizzie the Nidoran was, for better or worse, simply being a Nidoran: eating, nosing around, eating, relieving herself, and eating. Mike was perturbed at her personality, or more accurately, her lack thereof. Compared to any of the days prior she was downright boring.
It was then that it clicked in his head: this was what a wild Pokémon must be like prior to The Change. Much closer to any of its comparative, non-Pokémon species. In this case, that meant Lizzie was — for all intents and purposes — a rabbit. A little prey animal that Mike was doing his best to tame.
Robin was the opposite: restless, of course, but inquisitive, bright, almost childlike. She would push at — and through — the door, the walls, and the little window. She was much closer to an infant than Mike expected a Pokémon to ever be, with the thankful exception of not relieving herself everywhere as a toddler might. Or like a certain Nidoran was doing.
Presently, Robin whined and tugged at Mike’s backpack. She hopped inside, staring at him with wide, waiting eyes.
“No, Robin,” he soothed, reaching over and rubbing the waxy head. The ghost’s fire leapt up and surprised Mike in more ways than one. He was instantly spooked by the nasty trick, and by the temperature of the flame: icy. He hissed and flexed his suddenly aching knuckles. Robin made an indignant squeak.
“That wasn’t nice,” Mike growled. The Litwick gave a warbling little protest. She tugged at the lid of Mike’s bag, flopping it over herself as if to say, ‘Come on, let’s go!’
“I don’t think Lizzie is ready yet,” Mike replied. They both looked over to a pile of dirty laundry in the corner where the Nidoran had made herself a little nest. She had chewed herself a fluffy pile of sweaty shirt, which Mike guessed must remind her of the last time she saw Justin. Both boys had been downright filthy after the hike.
Robin shrieked very suddenly, and Mike’s ears rang with ethereal echoes.
Mike shrieked right back in a high, sharp, thin voice. The sound was brief but the response was immediate: both of his Pokémon snapped around to stare at him, each wincing. Mike took a deep breath, trying his best to calm himself. He didn’t enjoy being cooped up, either. He had been sore in all sorts of strange places yesterday, but now he ached in that strange, familiar way that begged for more exercise.
Unsure of what to do next, Mike went to grab his phone from the nightstand. He wanted to see where he might have the best chance of finding a trainer or two in the town, but…
“Robin,” Mike grumbled, “cough it up.”
The Litwick giggled, shaking her head. Mike swallowed a huge lump of anxiety and frustration, reminding himself that she probably just wanted to play.
“Is it in here?” Mike asked, pointing to the bag. She shook her head with a smile. Mike frowned hard.
“Uh, okay,” he scratched the peach fuzz on his neck, thinking. “Is it in my pocket?” He checked his shirt and pants while the Litwick giggled and shook her ‘head’ again.
And then he saw that Robin was a little more flat along her belly, which allowed for that strange distinction of ‘head’ and ‘body.’ She was flat with a few familiarly-spaced corners jutting out from within the wax.
“Robin,” he half-scolded-half-laughed, “did you eat my phone?”
A shrieking, giggling laugh was the answer he needed.
And then, altogether unpleasantly, yet with horrifying ease, the Litwick threw up the phone.
The sturdy travel case was covered in waxy, ectoplasmic residue. Mike paled as he saw the extent of the damage; the speakers were clogged with whitish wax, the screen smeared with ghostly spittle, and thin strings of drool hung from the culprit’s wide grin.
Mike decided he could go down to the front desk and ask about local trainer hotspots instead.
It turned out that, in order to have trainer hotspots, Striaton would first need to have trainers. Armed with next to no advice, Mike spent about an hour hiking out to a small preserve called the Dreamyard, where the joy at the front desk had said trainers would usually gather. Of course, with no gym and the explicit instructions from Juniper to go elsewhere, the pickings were nonexistent.
The hike itself was just as dreadful, though it wasn’t from the walking; if anything, Mike was happy to be moving. Robin was lightly snoozing in his bag, and Lizzie was trotting next to him quietly, using the thin silver chain as a slip leash with surprising ease. This left Mike alone with his thoughts.
And his thoughts dwelled, not for the first time, on a little evening at a little beach.
He had done his best to not think about her, or that night. His life had been a veritable whirlwind for over a week, but as the realization of his solitude deepened, an awful pit had formed in his stomach.
He had never told Stephanie that he wasn’t going to be in Aspertia.
He hefted his backpack off gently, set it against a tree, and slumped against it. He had made a poor decision to start hiking in the afternoon, and as he huffed and puffed and sweat, his mind swirled with several varieties of regret and self-pity.
“She thinks I stood her up,” he muttered to no one at all.
Robin whimpered from inside of his bag and poked her head out. He looked at her large, yellow eyes and tried his best to ignore the sudden, familiar bottomlessness that was growing in the pit of his stomach.
Why was this happening here? He had done so well, he thought. It frustrated him. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He saw the fire, smelled the breeze, felt her lips…
Had he thrown that all away before it started?
No, no he hadn’t; she had left him, with just a letter and nothing else.
What was even there? If anything was, was he worth it?
He had expected to wake up and see her tent the next morning. He wasn’t to blame, was he?
But she was right not to leave a number with an otherwise perfect stranger, or leave it for anyone to come along and take.
He was very clearly spiraling, and his stopping to breathe had been a fatal error.
Then he noticed a strong, ethereal tug in his chest. A violet light pushed through the corners of his eyelids, and he opened his eyes to see his Litwick hard at work. Her flame was nearly as large as she was, and she had a determined little look on her face.
The effect was two-fold: the pit of despair that had been forming, the serpentine coils of anxiety and depression, began to unwind at an alarming pace. But as the serpent died, it smoldered, and his strength went with it. This ‘instantaneous catharsis’ was coming at a steep price.
“Hold on,” he groaned, his vision swirling, “thank you, but stop.” Robin obliged, and her flame petered away. He gasped, not realizing the pressure that her feeding had caused, and the despair within him slowly eeked back from whence it had been pushed. But not entirely, and not nearly so stark.
“What on Earth was that?” Mike gave a weak laugh, scooping Robin up. If anything, it was certainly a welcome distraction. “Can you ask next time?” The little candle cocked her head slightly, uncertain.
“We’ll work on it,” Mike spoke. He pushed himself to his feet, legs shaking, and forced himself back into motion.
The aftereffects were quite difficult for Mike to describe or determine their value. He felt a blankness and easiness that he was unfamiliar with; his mind simply didn’t have the effort to chase any thoughts. Good or bad. This lasted for only a few minutes, after which he could feel his hammering heart doing its job — perhaps more so than he expected; he had been marching at quite a clip.
The Dreamyard Preserve turned out to be only a few more minutes away. Aside for a lone, bored-looking trainer, there was nobody around. Mike, whose wits weren’t enough about him for a fight, nodded to him as he passed. The man gave a short whistle that brought Mike to a halt.
“You’re not displaying,” the older trainer called lazily. Mike had completely forgotten; in the past few weeks, he had no reason to even use his Trainer ID except for at a Center. And even then, it just went back into his wallet.
“Sure, sorry,” he muttered, pulling out the metal card and sliding it into a clear pocket on his backpack’s shoulder strap. Lizzie, who had marched along without paying attention, gave a squeal as her leash went taught. “Seen anyone else out here, warden?”
“Ranger, actually,” he corrected him. Sure enough, Mike noticed their ID was entirely different from a warden’s; the screen of the dark, matte green badge on his chest flashed in the light as he tapped it. “Which means I get to whup you on or off the clock, trainer.”
“Zero badges,” Mike shrugged. The man’s face soured instantly.
“Damn,” he hissed. “Yeah, I’ve got five. Never mind then. Shame, I’ve been looking for a scrap.”
“And you expected—”
“Hell yeah, I expected some mettle,” he barked, “all you newbies shoulda been in Aspertia.”
“You’re telling me,” Mike muttered, pushing the regret out of his mind once again.
The ranger was content to allow Mike to wander, but the preserve offered very little for either of his teammates. His Litwick found no challenge in the wildlife, especially not the occasional Munna. After a few minutes of terrorizing the locals, she clambered into his backpack and fell asleep.
Lizzie had the opposite problem. First, she was still quite green. Her tendency to flee once she was off leash felt like an insulting regression, but not an unwarranted one. Once she realized she had to stay, getting her to fight was altogether impossible.
“Poison Sting,” Mike begged, “please, just once! Just try!”
Lizzie lay, ears back, eyes wide, as a curious Patrat poked at her side. Neither of the Pokémon seemed phased by the large man swearing under his breath a few feet away.
The Patrat reared up and thumped on the Nidoran’s haunch. Lizzie squeaked, and Mike was certain she would have to retaliate somehow. But, to his great surprise, the Nidoran dashed in a quick circle and lay still again. He swore that he could see her smirking.
He allowed the two to play, and play they did. They tumbled, tackled, kicked, bit, and otherwise raised an unholy ruckus. It was as close to a real fight as Mike could hope for. He almost lost track of Lizzie in the tall grass several times, but luckily Robin was on the case.
Mike would occasionally rouse the Litwick and think hard about a Nidoran. Robin, with her unfathomable senses, would point him right towards where she was playing. Their trainer, content to know where his charge was, would then try very hard not to think about anything else at all.
Especially not cute, curly-haired, short women.
Robin, none too helpful but all too observant, eventually fished Stephanie’s letter out of Mike’s bag. She must have thought that she was being helpful, but unfortunately, the reminder wasn’t what he needed at all. He tucked the little square away into his breast pocket without looking.
Mike lazed against a tree sometime later and, for the second time that day, felt himself slipping into a spiral.
Luckily for him, but unluckily for Lizzie, a strange sight appeared from behind one of the dilapidated structures dotting the Dreamyard. A very large, round, pinkish being wafted out from seemingly nowhere. Mike flicked out his ‘dex and took careful aim, only to scramble to his feet a moment later and blow a shrill whistle.
“Robin, be ready,” Mike warned, “Lizzie’s gonna need an assist, I think.” The Litwick beamed up at him, winked, and began to glide away towards the Musharna. Not unheard of around here, but not precisely common. The ‘dex warned it was much tougher than Robin, but the species was not inherently aggressive.
“Liz-zie,” Mike called in a sing-song, “you need to come back, ok?”
No response. He studied the Musharna’s paradoxically graceful bulk. It was sniffing at the air and beginning to float towards where he had last seen his Nidoran.
“Lizzie,” Mike ordered, “come.”
Nothing.
“C’mere, girl!”
Still nothing.
“Alright,” Mike warned loudly. “Suit yourself. I’m going home.”
Finally, there was a rustling from a far shrub. Lizzie pointed her snout out of it, the irritation plain on her face. She was blindsided by a thin, warbling blast of technicolor energy for her trouble.
The Nidoran very much seemed to hate whatever that attack was. And, to Mike’s shock, she decided to show the Musharna exactly how she felt about it.
The size difference alone provided significant issues. After some ineffective stinging and kicking, Lizzie swapped to her teeth, which had a much stronger effect. The ‘dex said the attack wasn’t anything yet — it was currently considered a ‘Struggle: an unidentifiable, unofficial offensive maneuver’ — but it did point out that she would learn how to properly Bite in the future.
The Musharna, unable to aim amid the onslaught, gave up the ‘prey’ and tried to retreat. Only to find Robin, who had been lazily watching from a distance. The Litwick gave one short shriek and Mike thought for a grim moment that the Musharna had been Astonished to death. It landed with a heavy thump and a thick blast of deep crimson vapor.
“Noononono,” Mike intercepted the candle, which was positively drooling. “Good job, but we won. Let it go.” Mike was thankful that he hadn’t removed the harness today, as Robin had attempted to slip through his hands to finish the job.
There was a sudden invasion of feelings and images into Mike’s head: irritability, concern, a smidge of curiosity, but mostly a motherly sense of defending her own. Mike realized that they all had inadvertently breathed in the Musharna’s mists, and now all felt what he felt: a little like a very irritated mother Musharna who was protecting her young from an unexpected ghost.
Presently there was a swirl of thick yellow gas, and as they breathed they all were blindsided by a very potent, urgent, and powerful flight response. The message wasn’t in English, but it did not need to be.
“
Too close,” Mike choked out, his voice not quite his own. He scooped up his Nidoran and felt Robin settle into his backpack. He coughed hard, and with each cough came a flash of some primal danger. Eyes in the dark. Loss of control. A guttural roar. He began to run, Lizzie tucked under one arm like a football, and he didn’t stop until a raucous laughter shook him back to reality.
“I see you met a momma,” called the old Ranger. Mike realized himself, slowed to a stop, and wiped his brow. He turned back to see the long grass from where they emerged wreathed in yellow mist. Many little Pokémon scattered in all directions, each wide-eyed and terrified. Almost ten feet above the ground rotated a large, serene, purple-pinkish lump. As they watched, the mists receded.
“What—” Mike gasped, not realizing just how hard he had been running.
“They get curious from time to time. Lucky to see one, actually,” the man smiled at the Musharna. Slowly, it began to lower back into the grass. “Almost never attack unless you’re too close to their den. What’d you do to piss her off?”
“I think she—” Mike coughed, “I think she didn’t like my Litwick.”
“Ayup, they hate ghosts.” The man pulled out a pack of tissues and shoved a wad into Mike’s hands. “Make sure you blow as much of that shit out as you can. It’ll give you nightmares.”
Mike felt like they all deserved a treat after their interesting afternoon. They sat in the Striaton Cafe sometime later, people-watching as they waited for their respective little plates. He was delighted to find that, as long as they were on the patio, his team could be happily out and about.
Robin sat on top of the table, half-dozing, feigning as if she was part of the cafe itself. Her little flame sputtered and swelled, almost like she was snoring.
Lizzie was doing her best to tangle up the thin silver chain that she had been bound to. Mike hoped it wasn’t too tight, or she wouldn’t find a way to loosen it, but those didn’t seem to be problems at all. The real problem was Lizzie’s sudden uptick in energy as the sun began to set. Mike hadn’t realized that he now had two dusk-lovers on his team, and made a mental note to train accordingly tomorrow.
As if today was even training, he thought bitterly to himself. But the thought was sharply cut off.
“Excuse me,” a crisp voice roused him from his drink. He looked up to see a somewhat familiar face framed in ridiculous, lusciously blue hair. “I was told a new trainer had arrived in town, and I wanted to make an introduction.”
“Hello, Mister Cress!” Mike was caught off-guard by the gym leader, who gave a thin little laugh at his formality. He rose and shook hands, and found the man’s grip to be delicate and short. Their handshake styles were at odds, and they disconnected awkwardly. “Uh, I’m Michael. Mike is fine, though.”
“Just Cress is fine, thank you,” the man straightened himself, and the two were caught again in an awkward beat; this time of repetition. The anxious snake in Mike’s gut squeezed at him. What did a presumably defunct Gym Leader want with him?
“Well, Mike,” Cress cleared his throat gently, “how are you finding Striaton?”
“Lovely, honestly,” Mike smiled. “A little light on trainers, but that’s my fault, I suppose.”
The look that flashed in Cress’s eyes told Mike that he probably stepped right onto a sore nerve. He briefly thought about trying to literally drown himself in his beer.
“Honestly, no,” Cress sighed, “that would be mine. It’s why I’ve come with a peace offering, of sorts.” Mike blinked up at the man, who was now smiling genuinely. “Firstly, tonight is on me. It’s the least we can do.”
“That’s, uh, very kind.” Mike was genuinely taken aback. He felt a catch coming.
“Secondly,” Cress continued, a little more business-like, “I do have an offer I would like to make.” Mike nodded, suppressing a smirk at his own intuition. “Typically we see a lot more trainers come through here, and we make a habit of hiring temporary help in and around the cafe from those that pass through. They essentially get to live and eat in town for free; We are adequately staffed, and our clientele gets to enjoy the variety and vivacity of Juniper’s latest batch.”
“‘Vivacity,’” Mike repeated with admiration, his inner English Teacher glowing. “Nice word.” Cress gave a thin, proud grin.
“Thank you. To cut to the chase, we are short-staffed. We’ve plenty of tourists in town; those who love to watch the leaves change or visit the local orchards, but we’ve also a dearth of our usual employees.” Mike was beginning to adore this man’s vocabulary, and he had already decided he would gladly take a few shifts — within reason.
“Well,” Mike took a pull of his beer and sucked his teeth. “I really need to be getting to Aspertia, or at least Virbank, as soon as possible.”
“Yes, to acquire your first badge?” Cress raised a brow. Mike nodded. “I believe we may be able to help with that. After all, the gym is only temporarily closed. And could be temporarily opened.”
Mike sat up in his chair, careful not to betray his poker face. “Cress, are you offering what I think you’re offering?”
Cress leaned in to reply. “We know for a fact we will be, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely slammed this weekend,” Cress hissed. “We typically expect to be well-staffed on this weekend and next weekend every year, and consequently we pack the place well in advance. We are not well-staffed this year, and I would be more than glad to offer you some ‘additional payment,’ as it were.”
“Two weekends for a gym battle?” Mike asked quietly, inviting Cress to sit. Cress gave a slight shake of his head, looking over his shoulders surreptitiously.
“One would be fine, honestly,” he replied. “We have secured the staff for next weekend, or otherwise canceled arrangements. Do think on it, Michael. We would need you to start on Wednesday.” And with that, Cress gave a deep bow and glided away. Mere seconds later, as if on cue, a waiter appeared with a rolling cart. It was loaded with a slew of plates that each seemed strictly better than what Mike had actually ordered.
His order of a much more modest steak was now, to his delight, a filet mignon; Robin’s bowl of minnows had been substituted for a too-fresh Arrokuda languishing on a plate, which she delighted in finishing off before the waiter cleaned, thinly sliced, and burnt for her tableside; Lizzie’s ordered trough of greens had become a delightful salad filled with fresh vegetables, fruits, and garnished liberally and beautifully with whole dandelion plants.
As he and his motley crew worked their way through the unexpected windfall, Mike couldn’t help but think that Cress was laying on the bribery a little too thickly. What made this weekend so terrifying that a Gym Leader was bending over backward to ensure Mike’s employ?
At the end of the meal, he received a simple contract along with an even simpler, hand-written card detailing their agreement. Four shifts, eight hours apiece, this Wednesday through Saturday. An hour break in each. Each beginning at three o’clock, and ending at midnight.
He had two choices to make, too: The first was his form of pay; He would be able to make nearly a third again as much if he accepted Poké, which he did without hesitation. The second was a date for their gym challenge, which he set the furthest out he could; the following Thursday, at two o’clock.
He filled in various blanks: ID numbers, names, and dates, and signed several times. He hastily scribbled down the expectations for attire and timeliness on the back of a napkin, only to later receive a copy of the contract. When all was said and done, he was so excited and bewildered that he was downright nauseous. Being absolutely stuffed for the first time in weeks was also doing its best to contribute to the feeling.
This stretch of his journey had just become much less ‘pointless’ in his opinion. Even if it had been very nearly life-changing already, in its own rights. He hadn’t realized exactly how much tension he had been carrying, and as he sucked on an after-dinner mint, he suddenly found it quite delightful.
That night, just before he went to bed, he did his best to convey his entire week’s plans to Robin, in the forms of various little dream vignettes. They pressed their foreheads together for long spans of time, Mike softly muttering under his breath, and Robin very intent on catching every little moment...
