Chapter Text
The Tillanz region has its own official starter-distributing laboratory.
Professor Persimmon is an interesting guy, I can’t help but think, blinking as digital scanners pass up and down my person immediately upon entering, I didn’t expect a full-body hug from a grown-ass man; one who’s never met me even once, at that.
Not that I mind. Persimmon has a warm and charismatic aura. He’s probably a mom-friend type. He must be somewhere in his forties. Wonder if he has a family, he certainly would do well with one, and that’s just my first impression.
I don’t have anyone who treats me like family here...but he acted like I may as well be his kid.
Not yet at least.
When you voluntarily choose to leave behind your previous existence like it never happened and start anew in an alternate reality, completely alone but silently aided by a mysterious and distant god by name of Arceus (the one who offered me the choice), you might feel a smidgen lonely initially.
Or maybe I’ve always simply been starving for relationships. Wouldn’t shock me…
Persimmon’s vividly orange eyes are watching me while I quickly walk forward to the table containing the starter pokémon. I haven’t any idea if they will qualify as “fakemon” according to my past life, or if they’re more like the pikachu and eevee situation of the Let’s Go games.
I literally only dropped into this universe yesterday.
Hazarding a guess, I blurt, “So, I open all of them…?”
“Well, yes,” Persimmon laughs lightly, and I am embarrassed. Redefining the phrase born yesterday.
I proceed to do just that, barely getting it right; pokéballs are a thing I’ve only seen utilized in anime, after all.
Out pop three creatures.
It takes a whirlwind of a moment to register the three of them, as they come alive before my eyes in perfect four-dimensional realness, neither ugly in their detail nor utterly cartoonish.
Sprigatito! Chimchar! Mudkip!
An odd combination, but then so was the starter lineup in Legends Arceus.
I don’t even need to dwell on it at all. Felines are my all-time favorite, forever.
“Hey, little spriggy,” I coo at the green, fluffy, aromatic being. I kneel to cautiously stroke one of its ears; it bounds up and fearlessly paws at my face, thrilled. There is so much human-like emotion in its face, in a normal cat Before, it would’ve been frightening and uncanny. Here, it appears natural in every sense. I adore this weed-cat without a doubt already.
Afraid the other two feel left out, I smile at them too, “Sorry, guys…”
“They’ll be fine, there are tons more people on the waiting list who want them,” Persimmon chimes in cheerfully, “What will you name him? It is a him, by the way.”
“I’ll go with Bramwell,” I answer. The name I went with in my Violet copy.
“Wonderful—I expect you two will be the best of friends!”
Bramwell mewls. I sweep him up into my arms gratefully, but carefully. Little pot-head just saw me for the first time less than five minutes ago, I don’t want to overdo it.
I have so much hope and light inside my heart right now.
The professor continues, “Now, if you’ll please sign these papers confirming your choice…”
That was flawlessly easy.
The red-and-white pokéball is clutched protectively in my right hand. The belt I wear is built specifically for holding it in place upon itself, but...not just yet. I cherish this little fella with every ounce of my heart. The hookah-puffer of my dreams.
I could go on waxing poetic about my starter choice, but I need to focus on my hotel room, which I didn’t pay for. Arceus manipulated reality itself to make it seem as if I always legally existed within the Tillanz region, a native-born resident. They told me so, to my face. I didn’t question it much.
Why should I? This is all a miracle, and if it ends up being an insane hallucination while I’m comatose or something...well, at least I had a damn good time.
I shuffle through my handbag for the room key, and my fingers brush my wallet, which holds my forged yet not fake up-to-date ID that says a couple things: name—Lunar, age—twenty-seven. I unlock the door and step in, locking it behind me again.
I can’t imagine regretting anything right now. I’m wise enough to understand that I’m not always very clever. This was a literally life-changing decision to make. I left behind so much...
I’ll be all right.
I have my trusty poké-partner with me, from now on.
My backpack is stocked with food from Persimmon meant for pokémon, specifically tailored to the diet of the sprigatito line—or so the packaging claims. I have no reason to disbelieve it. I let out Bramwell and set to feeding him. He deserves a treat, and he accepts it without fanfare.
“Cat,” I mumble, dazed with affection, watching him devour the stuff. He doesn’t so much as glance at me. Must’ve been hungry.
I used to own two cats...and a doggy…
I push the thought away. Dangerous territory.
Something I haven’t thought much about since I got here is how my appearance has been altered noticeably. The thought occurs to me as I catch my own eye in a small wall mirror’s reflection. I’m trans and genderqueer. Evidently, Arceus took pity on me for whatever reason and lessened my reasons for dysphoria. I look greatly more androgynous now in my facial features. My chest is flatter and adorned with top surgery scarring. My dark hair is buzzed short like a stereotypical man’s. Even my voice has changed, difficult to tell whether I was born biofemale or the opposite. I love it all. What a gift.
If this is naught but a fantasy, I’ll substitute the real world with it anytime.
I wonder how often Arceus pulls acts like this. Am I the only “isekai” in this world?
Arceus said my only purpose in return for all this is to be its foremost agent for certain tasks. Can’t be a bad thing, I mean, Akari and Rei did just fine. What do I care? Probably be easy sometimes. But the pokémon world never gets too dark or grisly. I hope. Maybe. Whatever, it’ll work out in the end.
Optimism is effortless when you have a magical hyper-intelligent animal as your closest companion.
I inhale, exhale, and tell my anxious brain to put a cork in it.
“What do you wanna do, Bramwell?” I ask the weedcat as he finishes his meal primly, “Not like there’s much in here.”
He meows, cute little eyes slowly blinking at me.
I wish I had been given N’s ability to comprehend pokémon speech. Aw well.
The sun hasn’t even set yet. I check my rotomphone. It’s nearly five PM in a season that feels like early autumn. (There is a rotom in my phone, but it’s...weird. It’s not counted as a pokémon on my team. It’s my phone, and that’s it. Un-nicknamed, unacknowledged. A tool. Almost harsh.)
I am seated on the edge of the hotel room’s single plush bed. Bramwell gracefully jumps up and plops onto my lap, kneading. Of course.
I sit with him and breathe evenly, watching him exist.
That’s all we do for a while.
A sudden and authoritative few knocks on the door startles us both.
I look at it, as if I can’t fathom that anything could break my spell.
Self-consciously realizing I’m being stupid and causing them to wait on me, I open the door a crack and peek out into the hallway; paranoia has been instilled in me from a young age, living in dangerous urban hell neighborhoods, growing up in dingy apartments not unfamiliar with the sound of nearby gunfire. That was all Before.
“Hi,” I swallow at the uniformed man meeting my stare, “Can I help ya?”
I feel dumb for saying ya.
He eyes me with seriousness, scrutinizing, “...Are you Drusilla Demarco?” Rigid posture. Frown.
“No?” I am thrown for a loop, “Don’t know her.”
He pauses. He’s obviously a policeman. Cops are hopefully better in this universe than they were Before. It’ll be depressing if they aren’t. “All right, sorry to bother you. I was given the wrong door number.”
“Oh, okay,” I nod politely and shut the door once more as he departs. I lock it. Again. Can’t be too careful.
Freaky. I’m still unaccustomed to dealing with other humans in this world; culturally, logically, they must be so very different than what I’m used to, but that might as well have been a completely average exchange that any two people could’ve gone through. Normal human beings do normal human things. It makes sense there’s not much variation between realities, I guess.
...Moving on.
Bramwell is unexpectedly directly beside my right foot, I find, stopping mid-step away from the door. He was clearly curious and peers up at me inquiringly. So small. So smart.
“Not a big deal,” I sigh softly, “Just random shit.”
He makes a mrrr noise.
I’ll improve in my interpreting of him as time goes on.
I stand clueless briefly, then, “Wanna sleep?”
You ever seen a cat stop to consider something and nod at you in response? Uncanny valley trope at its finest, albeit without the unnerving undertones.
Removing my shoes, I climb under the covers. We have till tomorrow evening booked here. Arceus said so. The weight of a live sprigatito resting on my belly, purring, as I close my eyes feels like a final, wordless whisper of goodbye to an existence I have abandoned and severed all ties with permanently.
I will never turn back.
I can’t now, anyway.
I wake up a few times, fitfully, in the wee hours of the pre-sunrise morning and I smother, smother, choke the bad thoughts out with all my might.
Bramwell does not notice. Cats can sleep for up to twenty hours straight. He’s dead asleep.
I have countless horrible memories lurking in the back of my mind at any given time. I don’t know how I’d ever explain it to him. It’s for the best if I don’t.
Waggoner Town is where we currently are. It’s where Persimmon’s lab is located, and it’s about what you’d expect of an idyllic small, low-populated settlement. The economy is so much better in this world than my last, that’s evident from the get-go. Everything looks well-maintained as if the locals truly care about where they live. American small towns Before had issues with drug addictions because people got so damn bored. This is the Tillanz region, and it’s looking fantastic so far.
Bramwell sticks close to me, the cool morning breeze brushing his cheek-fur, and I have to remind myself not to ogle him so intensely and watch where I’m heading. My rotomphone buzzes faintly as if to say good morning (do rotom sleep? Did it just wake up? Did it dream of electric mareep?). I can tell that’s what’s buzzing, it made the same sound when it was first booting up yesterday. I was nosy while waiting for Persimmon’s assistant to call my name. My tiny weed-cat is adorable, but I have all the time in any world to bond with and admire him further. Mustn’t be careless.
I wonder where Tillanz is based on from Before, the idea occurs to me, If it is at all.
It doesn’t matter.
There are people around me moving about their new day, carrying on business as usual. Old folks, adults, teens, children. No vehicles in sight, it’s a walkable town. We’re in the dead center of town square.
“Maybe potions,” I muse aloud under my breath, “Or max revives?”
No—breakfast! Bramwell has some in my backpack, but there’s a gnawing sensation in my gut.
I realize blankly I have no money on me left on me after the hotel stay. Whatsoever.
Well, damn, Arceus. Gotta do me like that.
Healthcare for ‘mon and humankind alike are free here. Just gotta be cautious. Survival is key! Who needs a PokéMart (or a restaurant) when there are Centers?
“Centers have free lodging,” it dawns upon me, “C’mon, Bram!”
I lead the way, following signs pointing in the healing facility’s direction helpfully. I check to see if Bramwell is following okay every now and then. A bright red roof with a lit-up, nostalgic symbol on it signals we’re on the right track as we grow nearer.
I wonder if there’s a Nurse Joy on-call right now.
The doors slide open without so much as a technological hiss as we practically rush inside.
“Welcome to the Waggoner Town Pokémon Center!” Greets a friendly automated voice at once.
"Wow,” I am amazed.
Sterile yet not uninviting. Bright colors but not garish. A stout audino and a tall blissey flanking a pink-haired woman behind the counter.
I can’t help but study her, but I don’t find what I expected. She is wearing scrubs. There are tired lines beneath her eyes, which are a grayish-blue hue and seem to be for all the world...professional?
Being a doc takes a lot out of you, I suppose. I can’t hold it against anybody.
“Hi,” I try to find my wits, “Um, this might be dumb, but do you have like free snacks for travelers?”
She appears to process my question.
I force a nervy smile during her pause, “Maybe?”
“It’s trainer starter season for Tillanz and our lodgings are quite full-up as it is,” she explains with a matter-of-fact tone, offering no apology or sugarcoating, “We have no extra things to distribute. I know this because I checked it all about an hour ago.”
“Oh…”
There’s my daily dose of realism. I feel like someone smacked me out of a stupor.
“We’ll be fine, right Bram?” I attempt to grin at the weed-cat on the tiled floor, all in good humor, “Just keep swimming!”
Meow.
“Thanks, miss, see ya ‘round!” I wave at her, and we exit. If she makes a face at us for whatever reason, I miss it. It’s just my anxiety insisting she thinks I’m an idiot. She probably doesn’t care that much, for real.
She does not call after us, like a character in a cliché animated movie would, Wait! I can come up with something! Nope. This is real life. Doesn’t happen. It’s okay.
We’re outside again.
The pavement of civilization turns into a beaten dirt path eventually. The buildings around us become foliage, tall grass, trees. The locals didn’t bat an eyelash at me as we passed them on by. Starter season, huh? Must be second nature to them to navigate the tourists and wannabe trainers. All right by me.
The path keeps leading us forth. It can’t be even ten AM. Probably?
Good thing I charged my rotomphone fully before we checked out of the hotel. My handbag slung across my shoulder, my backpack weighing against my spine, I try to be observant, I really do. It just manifests as trying too hard. I don’t know what I’m doing. I settle for trusting in Bramwell’s better senses of hearing, smell, and eyesight; mustering up what confidence I can manage. If I ooze anxiety, my poké-partner will pick up on it and become worried about things himself. I was an animal aficionado Before, I know they pick up on the moods of humans, especially domesticated critters. (I could never decide whether the fact that pokémon are so sharp intellectually means they don’t need to be domesticated...or if there were like, sustenance breeds cultivated solely for human consumption, or something. Who knows. May learn someday.)
Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I chant internally: I am an adult. I am a trainer. I am a fool who is so cool. I am—
I am hearing distinct rustling.
Oh, man.
Please don’t hurt my kitty.
...Or me.
A purple shape bursts from a bush to our left—a bush of oran berries? Are those what I’m seeing?
It’s a rattata.
Bramwell poofs up and hisses, arching his back. He is not particularly threatening, but he possesses sharp teeth and retractable hook-like claws, nonetheless. Not to mention, the superpowers.
“Oh, dang,” I whimper, probably looking cowardly but there’s no one else around so who cares.
The rattata chitters with bravado.
“Uh,” I need to instruct Bram on what moves to perform!
With frustrating slowness, I recall the three moves listed on his adoption papers. Scratch, Leafage, Tail Whip.
“Use Leafage! As best you can!” I hurriedly command.
Bramwell stiffens for the slightest second and then...holy hell, I was right to call it magic. The leaves manifest out of nothing around him and pelt the rattata with such force you’d think they weren’t an ordinary feature of plant-life, but rather bullets. I can’t imagine they hurt much. But the rattata is wincing, lifting a single forepaw to shield its own face from the onslaught. If nothing else it’s overwhelming just to witness, it must be even worse for the little thing itself.
I like rats. I used to own three fancy rats as pets.
I have no pokéballs in my ownership to snag this ‘mon with, unfortunately.
The sprigatito’s eyes are narrow with concentration and I feel a strange swell of pride in my breast.
This is my child now, isn’t it.
As if to confirm my thought, the rattata squeals in a tone that makes me think of a white flag waving. It turns tail and flees into the undergrowth it calls home. The fusillade of leaves cease. Bramwell relaxes.
There ought to be a film soundtrack playing, I swear.
“You did so well!” I praise him, “You’re the greatest!”
I have reverted to an eleven-year-old playing FireRed for the first time on a Nintendo DS Lite.
He jumps up-and-down, meow-yelling (not quite yowling), like an excited baby and my heart melts.
I pull out my rotomphone and set it to scan him. How much experience did he gain?
“Level six detected,” beeps the device, “Recently leveled up. It occurred less than two minutes ago.”
Awesome.
We are going places.
Literally. We are going someplace.
Next up, the city of Crouse. Something about that fact makes me begin to ponder where my legal documentation says I’m from originally. It wouldn’t say so on my ID, I believe…
I’m gonna be stuck on this all day if I don’t shake it off. I have no living relatives here. I am a foreign human in a deeper way than anyone else.
Figure it out later.
The fall-time colors are so gorgeous around here. I loved nature Before, and I still do now.
I—
Bram does in fact yowl this time as we are pulled off our feet by a large net springing around us from directly underneath our feet. Hidden in the dead leaves, there’s no way either of us could’ve perceived it. Fuck! What! High up off the ground and wide-eyed, my cry of shock sounds too loud in the natural quiet. Hell! Now what!
“Are you okay?!” I ask Bram, who’s clutching at my arm with his forepaws. I ignore the stinging pain of his claws piercing my flesh.
He meets my gaze and whines, an un-catlike sound to my ears, but somehow fitting for a pokémon.
“Well, shit,” drawls a man’s voice from a bit of a distance away, equally surprised as us, to my relief. A camouflage-clad man approaches us from an unseen spot between the tree trunks, “Didn’t expect a friggin’ trainer to come through here.”
He looks for all the world like a hick from the American south. Even his accent has a twang. His arms are akimbo on his hips, and he looks genuinely chagrined but not exactly remorseful.
“You’re a long way from Crouse,” he adds after a beat.
“I was following the GPS,” I gasp, “I thought—”
“Obviously it screwed up, because you’re on my property,” he raises a hand and points an index finger at the net, “You’re in the net I use to catch my food around here.”
“Please get us down?” I beg.
Bram squeaks as if to toss in his two cents.
“Of course,” he finagles with some rope and other things, gradually lowering the net until it falls flat on the forest floor around us and we are freed.
“Thank god,” I can’t help but mutter, not caring if that’s an expletive they use in this reality or not. Thank Arceus is too much of a mouthful, frankly. “Thank you. Um, which way out?”
He purses his lips, “I will lead you there.”
A normal hick Before would’ve plain shot us point blank, I think.
When everyone lives in a setting full of crazily OP monsters you might not be able to tame to not hurt you, people gotta be kinder to each other than they were back there. That’s all I can imagine.
He gestures for us to follow at his heels, and we do.
It takes like an hour or so. Damn. The exit has a signpost that I somehow missed. I am so blind.
“Take care, both of y’all,” he tips his hat to us in farewell, and I smile at him with true feeling. It’s nice to be reminded that there are good people out there after all.
My Bramwell even waves with his little pawsies at the man, but he has the misfortune of not catching it. Too bad for him. More cuteness for me. I open my GPS and try my damnedest to see what went wrong…
I took a wrong turn a way nearby-ish and it rerouted itself in a convoluted manner. Now to make amends, “Sorry, Rotom,” I tell the electric type.
It buzzes. Nothing more.
Tillanz is a very small place, just barely qualifying as its own region. That’s why its three legal, official starters are imported from other regions—they don’t have anything native that’d fit the bill.
It’s due to this smallness that we reach Crouse after nightfall, on the same day we left Waggoner. I’m glad we didn’t need to sleep in the woods. Bramwell got visibly tired during sunset, so I put him back in his ball to rest.
…Crouse announces itself before I ever see it.
First there’s the subtle shift underfoot, packed dirt giving way to old asphalt with spiderweb cracks, and then the air changes. The woods smell like leaf-mold and clean cold; Crouse smells like damp stone, warm electricity, and somebody’s dinner drifting out of a window I can’t locate. The horizon ahead glows faintly, not starlight, but streetlights. Civilization. A word that makes my shoulders unclench and tighten again in the same breath.
I whisper to nobody, to Rotom, to Arceus, to myself, “Okay. We made it.”
My rotomphone buzzes like it’s smug about being right all along. The map screen shows a little pulsing icon—Pokémon Center—and the distance number ticks down with each step. The battery percentage is low enough to feel like a threat. Rotom could help more, I think for the thousandth time, if it was a person and not…a roommate trapped in my electronics who refuses to make eye contact.
The path funnels me between two tall hedges and out onto a main street. A real one, with a sidewalk. With painted lines. With a sign bolted to a lamppost that says CROUSE in neat block letters, like it’s proud of itself. The town isn’t huge—Tillanz is small, I remember telling myself earlier—but it’s bigger than Waggoner. You can tell by the way sound behaves: it doesn’t die politely out here, it bounces. A distant laugh. A door slamming. A Pokémon cry I can’t place, sharp and bright like a bird made of coins.
I pass a closed storefront with an awning flapping a little in the night breeze. A vending machine glows in the dark, lonely and humming. My stomach makes a tight, resentful little twist at the sight of it. In my head, money is still a thing I can reach for. In reality, my wallet is a prop with an ID inside it and nothing else.
Arceus really said: New life, who dis? and tossed me into the world with the financial stability of a raccoon. No one here even knows what a raccoon is.
Streetlamps paint everything a sodium-orange that turns the autumn leaves into embers. My shadow stretches long and warped ahead of me on the pavement, thin shoulders, backpack hump, one hand clenched around a pokéball like it’s a religious object. Which, frankly, it kind of is. To me, at least.
The Center is impossible to miss. It’s the brightest building on the street—red roof, big friendly sign, windows warm with light. It looks like a promise. The doors slide open for me without a hiss, more like they recognize the shape of desperation and decide to be kind about it.
“Welcome to the Crouse Pokémon Center!” The cheerful automated voice announces, like it didn’t just catch me at the end of a day that feels like it lasted a year.
Inside, it’s…busy. Not chaotic but crowded in the way airports are crowded: everybody has a destination in their head and a tiredness in their bones, and nobody’s doing small talk unless they must. There are people sitting on benches with backpacks at their feet. A kid—no, not a kid, a teen maybe—leans asleep against a wall with a sleeping pokémon curled in their lap like a living scarf. Someone’s arguing softly with their phone in a corner. A blissey glides by carrying folded blankets like it’s done this a thousand times today alone.
Starter season.
Right.
A pink-haired nurse stands behind the counter, not the same one from Waggoner—this one’s duller-hued hair is tied back, her eyes more greenish than blue—but she has that same competent exhaustion written into her posture. Like she’s braced for the next problem before it arrives. I briefly wonder what the deal is with all the pink-haired Center nurses. They can’t all be related to one another, that’s just unrealistic.
I approach the counter and immediately feel like I’m about to confess to a crime I didn’t commit.
“Hi,” I say anyway. My voice comes out raw around the edges. “Sorry. Uh. I’m new. I’m—” I gesture vaguely at myself, at the ball in my hand, at the backpack, at the general concept of being alive. “Do you…have room?”
Her gaze flicks to my hand. To the ball. To the scuffed shoes, the dirt on my pant cuffs, the way my shoulders are riding up around my ears like I’m trying to become my own hoodie.
“You’re traveling alone?” She asks, and there’s a gentleness in it that makes something in my chest ache.
“Yeah,” I admit. “It’s just me. And my starter is in his ball asleep because he’s been—” I swallow. “He’s been good all day.”
“Mm.” She reaches out a hand. Not demanding, but expectant. “Trainer ID?”
Right. That. The thing you’re supposed to have. I fumble for my wallet and slide my ID across the counter like it might explode.
She scans it. Something beeps softly beneath the counter. Her eyes narrow the tiniest amount.
Oh no. Is something wrong?
“Lunar,” she reads aloud, then looks up. “You were registered…yesterday.”
“Yep,” I say, too fast. “That’s me. I’m—I’m super-new.”
Her gaze shifts to the side, to a second monitor I can’t see. “Have you been staying at the Waggoner hotel?”
“…Yes.”
Another soft beep. Her mouth tightens, not mean-spirited, just focused. “And you haven’t been issued a trainer card yet.”
“I didn’t know that was a separate thing,” I say, and immediately hate myself. Like I’m whining at a medical professional about bureaucracy. Like that’s her fault.
Instead of snapping, she sighs through her nose like she’s trying to keep her patience intact. “It isn’t separate, exactly. It’s linked. It’s just…” She taps something. “Starter season makes the system lag. And some people don’t finish the kiosk step.”
“Kiosk step,” I repeat, brain blank.
She points with her chin toward the side of the lobby. Sure enough, there’s a line of terminals built into the wall, touchscreens, card scanners, little glowing ports. A few people are hunched over them like they’re doing taxes.
“If you’re registered, you’re eligible for Center lodging,” she continues. “If we have it. Tonight we…” Her eyes flick over the crowded benches and then drops the bomb point-blank. “We’re full in the bunks.”
My stomach drops anyway, stupid and dramatic.
“But,” she adds, and it’s like someone loosens a tourniquet, “We have floor space in the common room, and we can issue you a blanket. Showers are still available. There’s hot water for tea. No food distribution tonight.”
My face does something I can’t control. Relief first, then shame, like relief is embarrassing.
“I can do floor,” I blurt. “Floor is great. Floor is…is a vibe.”
She gives me the smallest, most human half-smile. “Go to the kiosk first. Print your card. Then come back.”
“Okay.” I almost salute. I don’t, because I’m not that far gone. “Thank you.”
I pivot toward the kiosks and nearly collide with a guy about my age with messy hair and a backpack that looks heavier than him. He jerks aside, eyes wide, then laughs like he’s been running on fumes for hours.
“Sorry,” he says. “You too?”
“You too what?”
“Too—” He gestures at the whole Center. The crowd. The exhaustion. The starter season vibe. “Too ‘got my life started and immediately got humbled?’”
I snort, and it comes out more like a strangled hiccup. “Yeah.”
He looks like he wants to say something else—something friendly, something normal—but then a growl from the direction of his feet cuts him off. A small rockruff lifts its head from the floor and fixes me with the most unimpressed stare I have ever seen in my life.
“Yeah, okay,” the guy mutters to his Pokémon. “We’re going. Relax.”
I move on before I can start crying about how cute that was.
At the kiosk, the screen asks me for my ID. I scan it. Rotom hums, the phone vibrating faintly in my pocket like it’s gossiping with the terminal.
WELCOME, LUNAR. TRAINER REGISTRATION PENDING FINALIZATION.
Of course it is.
A list of options pops up. Orientation video. Emergency contacts. Consent and pokéball ethics acknowledgment. A checkbox confirming I understand the Center is not obligated to provide food. A checkbox confirming I understand that if I die in the wilderness, it is technically my problem only…okay, maybe not that last one, but it feels implied.
I click through with the fervor of someone signing their soul away for a chance to sleep indoors.
When the printer finally whirs, it’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard all day.
A little plastic card slides out: my name. My picture—new face, new hair, new me. A tiny symbol indicating my starter is registered to me. And a number.
A real, official number. It’s ridiculous how much it means.
I return to the counter like I’ve completed a quest.
The nurse takes the card, scans it, nods once. “All right. Common room is through the left hall. Find an open patch of floor. Keep your belongings close. Your pokémon can be out, but if he’s asleep, let him sleep.”
“Yeah,” I say, and my throat tightens. “I will.”
She hesitates, then—quietly, so the overhearing world can’t turn it into a spectacle—adds, “You look like you’ve had a long day.”
You have no idea, I think. But I just nod. “I did.”
“Welcome to Tillanz,” she says, and it lands like a blessing and a warning at once.
The common room is dimmer than the lobby, lit by softer lamps. It smells like clean sheets and disinfectants and the faint lingering sweetness of oran berries. There are people already sprawled out on cots, on mats, on blankets on the floor. Somebody’s pokémon snores gently in the corner. Somebody else is whispering to theirs in a language I can’t hear but still somehow understand.
I find a spot near the wall, away from the door, where I can see the room without being in the center of it. Old instincts. Before-instincts. They don’t leave just because the world has changed.
The blissey brings me a folded blanket and a thin pillow like it’s no big deal. Like I’m not one bad day away from being a ghost in my own story.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the blissey anyway.
I set my backpack down as a barrier, like it can protect me from the concept of vulnerability. I sit, then slowly—carefully—pull Bramwell’s ball from my pocket.
My thumb rests on the button.
“Hey,” I murmur. “We made it.”
Click.
Light spills out, and Bramwell appears in a soft green shimmer like the world is exhaling him back into being. He blinks, groggy, then immediately focuses on me. His ears twitch. He sniffs the air, processing the smells of a hundred strangers and their Pokémon, then turns and presses his forehead against my shin like he’s checking that I’m still real.
My chest aches in a way that isn’t painful and isn’t joy, but something in between.
“I’m sorry I dragged you across half a region on day one,” I whisper, and my voice wobbles. “I swear I’m gonna get better at this.”
Bramwell makes a small sound—mrrp, almost questioning—and then, with the confidence of a creature who has never once paid rent, he climbs into my lap and curls up like he’s always belonged there.
He purrs. It’s warm. It’s steady. It is, somehow, enough.
I rest my cheek against the top of his head and stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn.
Outside, Crouse keeps being a city. Cars pass. Voices drift. A siren wails faintly in the far distance and fades away.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, that policeman’s voice echoes—Are you Drusilla Demarco?—and I try not to let it root itself into me. Not tonight. Tonight is floor space and blankets and a living cat in my lap.
Tonight is survival.
“Okay,” I whisper again, into Bramwell’s fur, into the new life I chose. “Learning curve.”
And for the first time since I got here, the words don’t feel like a joke.