Frontier Town Frontier Town Outskirts

[Sinderella]

She nodded along with his explanation, offering the occasion “mhm” and “yeah” to indicate she was following along and invested in what he was saying.

“Too bad my mum’s not here,” she replied. “You and her would probably have a lot to talk about.”

She realized she probably wasn’t going to be firing off any moves any time soon, and moved to sit down on a small boulder. “She’s a Pokemon Professor; licensed in the study of Occultology and magical type Pokemon. We were far from religious when I was growing up, but she studied a lot of them just for the sake of her own research. Her whole thing was always ‘everything likely has a scientific or numerical explanation, Odette,’” she said with an affectionately mocking voice.

“Like, a lot of religions based themselves in the existence of a mortal soul. Or the fact that certain Pokemon have these abilities that we can’t comprehend, so there MUST be higher powers at play. But no. The make-up of a mortal soul can be broken down into basic naturally-occurring energies. The output of a ghost-type move can be broken down into and thus probably recreated by multiple complicated math equations and what the fuck have you. So if there’s a scientific basis for all of it, where does the God shit come into play?”

Scoffing to herself, she crossed her arms. “I wouldn’t say the existence of Arceus is verified. Up until I came to the understanding of the company I was keeping, I was no more aware of the existence or nonexistence of legendaries than the average non-religious shmuck. But now that demonic possession is on the fucking table, clearly there’s some pieces of the puzzle we weren’t aware of. Everything I do know now is what I learned from Odile—er, my legendary partner, yes. I know there’s probably a question of the merit behind what she’s told me, but…”

Another pause, this time bringing something of a fond sigh. “She’s a lot of things. She’s violent, she’s horrifying, she’s a cunt, she comes up with the most creative insults I think I’ve ever heard out of any living being, and despite everything, she’s never lied to me. Everything out of her mouth might have come with a death threat or a really nasty use of the word ‘fuck,’ but it was always truthful.” Something far more grave suddenly crossed her face, as if she were contemplating an ill-remembered memory. Then, she snickered. “And while I acknowledge my life would have been far less troubled without her, I would also likely be dead three times over had she not been around. So…I feel like the trust is obliged at this point.”

Her smile that time around was a little more pained. “I used to get sick every time we walked into an Arcean church. Without fail. Should have been my first clue something was off.” A shrug. “But I guess it’s the best case scenario in terms of how being possessed by a fucking devil could go. According to most religions, at least.”

 

[Butterfree]

Occultology? 'Magical' types? Did she just mean, like, Psychic and Ghost? Maybe they'd just retained some terminology even after they'd started to figure out the science at work? His own world did still talk about Ghost-types despite the notion they were departed spirits having been debunked a couple centuries ago.

Still, though... getting sick when she walked into a church because of the actual fucking demon legendary in her head was something. That feeling of unreality wasn't letting up. Different god, but still. What the fuck.

He'd sat down opposite Odette as she talked, quirking an eyebrow at her description of Odile. "So, she 'embodies and bottles up' the sin of Wrath? What's that mean, in practice?"

 

[Sinderella]

Odette snickered. “Probably exactly what you’d expect,” she said. “She induces anger in people. Vengeance, hatred, resentment, fits of violence, that’s all her. She’s drawn to those emotions, since it’s kind of implied she’s the reason they happen in the first place. She can sense those feelings in a person before they even realize it themselves. She also does this weird thing where she insists people have different flavors of rage that she can ‘taste’ but I still can’t tell if she’s being serious about that or not.”

Realizing she was starting to ramble, she took a breath. “So of course, as her vessel, you could probably assume that I was an extremely mild-mannered kid who got into no trouble whatsoever.” Her sarcasm wasn’t subtle, and it didn’t seem like she was trying very hard to make it so. Shaking her head, she scoffed. “I got kicked out of two schools before I was 7. Kept wailing on my classmates for some reason or other. According to my mum, as a baby, when I was fine I was fine, and when something didn’t go right, it took a lot of elbow grease to stop my tantrums. Therapy, age, and finding hobbies to channel my bullshit into helped ease it all and help me deal with urges better. But you know, when the actual raw embodiment of carnal rage is tethered to you, sometimes it simply can’t be helped.”

 

[Butterfree]

As batshit as all this sounded (flavors of rage, what the fuck), Dave couldn't help smirking at Odette's dry humour, grinning at her descriptions of her childhood. Unstable little rebel who was part Pokémon via being possessed by a demon legendary. Holy shit. He wouldn't have wanted to be her parent, what an ungodly fucking headache that must've been, but it was hard not to find a certain commonality.

...Hang on, though. "Wait, she possessed you when you were a kid?"

 

[Sinderella]

Odette brought both her hands up to rub at her face tiredly. "Oh, brother," she said under her breath as she exhaled. "Well, Christ, if you wanted me to give you the entire detailed rundown of my absolutely fucked existence then we probably could have skipped right to getting those drinks. I feel bad talking your ear off like this, but I guess I did warn you lunacy was imminent."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah. As a baby, more specifically. Freshly cut from the womb a grand two months early; got a Wrath god to keep me company in the NICU incubator. Fun times," she said drily.

She started scratching at her cheek again, eyes wandering around as if searching for the words to use. "We'll be here all fucking day if I try to explain this to you, so I'll try to keep it as concise as I can, barring your probable 'what the fuck's' in between." It was funny, she didn't remember being so nonchalant about it when she was talking about this to Koa, or Kimiko. Perhaps it was the repetition, or perhaps she saw no reason to sugarcoat herself around somebody like Dave. She barely knew him, but she got the feeling she could fully remove her filter at any given moment and he wouldn't bat an eye. Which, was nice.

She candidly explained to him how Odile--Venira being her real name--was the supreme ruler of the seven of her ungodly cohorts and was ultimately dethroned and imprisoned for a millennia or two. Odette used that to segue into a brief story about how the Gluttony legend, Gulattive, made a blood pact with the Lambourne family--a trade of powers--which resulted in subsequent Lambourne heirs being possessed by any of the free six (if they were not already occupied with a vessel) upon birth.

"My mum, in all her fucking 18-year-old genius glory, met Florent Lambourne and, after hearing whispers of his family's little affliction, decided to make a conscious fucking effort to have his kid. Lo and behold, my bastard ass popped out seven months later, tailed by Venira, who just happened to find a way out of her prison just in time to use me as her new blood bag. The end."

She looked back at him with a raised brow. “How much of a loop is all of this throwing you? I imagine you didn’t expect to come here and learn there’s a world where the 7 sins are a tangible thing.”

 

[Butterfree]

Well, this was all a fucking lot. If Forlas was a Western, Odette's world sounded like some kind of wild supernatural family drama thriller cheerfully sprinkled with cheeky blasphemy. Which was honestly a better frame of reference: just another bananas fantasy world where fiction was real. Maybe Odette was a character from some book he hadn't read or a TV show he hadn't watched, like Wes.

"Yeah, it's several fucking loop-the-loops of batshit," he said, "but I've just about got a hold of it. Are the jaws her, then? And like, does that mean you can use legendary powers over there?" What a concept. Here he'd been talking to Jade about the problems of having a class of people who can just wreak absolute havoc and no one can stop them. If Odette's world was basically fiction anyway, though, it all started to seem more abstract. Sure, why not.

"If you want to head downtown for a drink, I'm down." That Pokémon restlessness was still niggling at his brain, but she'd just given him so much other bullshit to think about that there wasn't much room left for it to complain. "Otherwise I was planning to try to work out this aura thing, if you wanted to train or something. Fucking auras. The longer I stay here the more I feel my brain disintegrating."

 

[Sinderella]

“Not…quite,” Odette said, the words sliding from the corner of her mouth. “I’ve come to deduce that it’s not her, but they’ve somehow taken on her personality, I guess,” she said. Her beak wrinkled in disdain, as if she was already aware at how asinine she sounded. “I didn’t know mawile jaws could have their own thoughts and feelings and yet here we are. Perhaps I just got lucky.”

Once again, she found herself scratching at her cheek. “And, uh…it’s complicated. She’s my partner, I train her, our partnership gives her her power and all that. But…anything more than that requires some extra ritual shit I’m not keen on humoring in this lifetime. I’ve had enough demon nonsense to last me twenty lifetimes; I don’t need to push my luck anymore.”

At the mention of going for a drink instead, she was suddenly less keen on the idea. She made that much clear by the way she eyed what was left of the tree. “Maybe in a bit…I feel like I have a couple more attempts at that move in me. If anything to just sate my own surprise about it a little more. Still feels weird to harbor a move I’ve made Odile use a million times over in training…” Shaking her head, her eyes cut back over to Dave, and up to his pointed dog ears.

“Well I don’t see any of it leaking out of your ears, if it helps,” she said, trying to ease the tension that had seemingly snuck up on them over the course of their conversation. Her lips then ticked up in a wary grin, as if hoping the light joke would land. “Though I guess a live partner would be better than a tree…what about the aura shit has you so twisted, if you don’t mind me asking?”

 

[Butterfree]

Made sense, didn't it, for the wrath legendary to have the move Betel's analytical combat network had called Fiery Wrath. Something did feel better about hearing normally she couldn't do that herself, though, that she was reluctant to do whatever ritual shit (fucking rituals involving the incarnation of a sin?) would've been involved, even if she was from some batshit fictional universe. And that the jaws hadn't secretly been a hitchhiking literal demon this whole time, just a... well, whatever the fuck they actually were. A fun, foul-mouthed echo of the literal demon.

He nodded at her explanations, exhaling, snorting at her joke, before looking back at the tree. "Well, in my world the only people you'd normally hear talking about auras are crackpots and nutcases, so every time I hear it I want to bash my head against a wall. But over here it just seems to be the general term used for, I guess, the force that powers everything Pokémon can do. Downright scientific, really, if you read up on it at the library, relatively speaking. Better understood than most everything else going on in this place, even if they like to understand it through, you know, spiritual whatever, because we're stuck in the 1800s." He waved a paw irritably.

"So while chasing after Moltres my aura" - he reflexively rolled his eyes - "went and developed what I'm presuming is what they call a 'Hidden Power'. Pretty sure it's Steel-type, guess you'd be familiar. Got to try it a few times, but, you know, then I went and evolved at the end of it, and now the bullshit itch in my brain just wants to go fucking destroy something with it. Guess that's just what it's like to be a Pokémon, huh."

He thought of the Pokémorphs with an uncomfortable cold sting in his chest, a low growl in his throat.

 

[Sinderella]

Odette pursed her lips knowingly, nodding along with Dave’s explanation. “Yeah, I’m not quite at the point of wanting to bash my head into a wall when I hear the word, but I definitely understand the sentiment,” she said. She had admittedly foregone looking too deep into the concept of “aura,” solely on the concept of it sounding just as BS here as it did back home. But, she supposed it was reassuring to hear that, at its core, aura had a scientific backing. Perhaps one she wouldn’t quite get, but a backing nonetheless.

As he launched into his Hidden Power recollection, her brow was pulled taut with a realization. “Ah,” she breathed, eyes ticking down to the healing gash on the back of her hand where Jawile had sunk their teeth into. “I’m familiar with this Hidden Power thing. I don’t think mine is very blatant but, yeah, it’s there.” Not that inflicting a wound upon herself to trigger an insane power surge was exactly subtle, but it sure as shit wasn’t whatever Dave was letting loose during that battle.

His low growl left her looking him over with a curiously pinched eye. It was like the concept of his evolution bothered him for some reason.

“I mean…” she began tentatively. “Maybe it’s not exactly a sentiment to destroy anything, but rather toughen it up so you can defend yourself and others you give a shit about. When my teammates evolved, they kinda went a little wild with their new abilities. But it was more out of a desire to, how I said, ‘test the new toys’ and figure out what they could do now to better their battle prowess rather than just pure carnal ‘let me fuck shit up.’” A thoughtful pause. “At least, that’s how they framed it.”

She didn’t know how old Dave was, but unless her ability to guess ages based on voices was shittier than she thought, or he was just an abnormally deep-voiced 20-something, he couldn’t have been much older than her own mother. She wondered if he’d trained Pokemon at some point in his life, but his demeanor and way of speech struck her more as a Professor who’d tattoo “I’m too old for this shit” on his forehead if he thought he wouldn’t look like an asshole for doing so.

“Do you have Pokemon partners where you’re from?”

 

[Butterfree]

Defend yourself and others you give a shit about. Yeah, Jack'd probably have described it that way, right before going and getting Mia and Will killed.

(Come to think of it, he'd noticed the jaws biting her arm at the Moltres fight and had a sense through the combat network that it was making her stronger. If Odile the demon legendary normally got power from her blood, that probably made sense, in whatever warped, fucked-up way your Hidden Power emerged.)

Dave exhaled through his nose. "No, I was never a Pokémon trainer. More into science than competitive sports, even as a kid."

He weighed it up, the odds of further probing and the inevitable fucking explaining and the odds of getting some kind of inane narrow-minded snob reaction. Honestly hard to imagine from Odette at this point, officially possessed by a fucking demon. All the same, he wished he had a fucking drink.

"Look, okay, you told me your life story, so here's mine. I'm a geneticist back home. About ten or eleven years ago, I worked out an exciting new method of making human and Pokémon DNA compatible with each other, which could lead to a revolution in medical science, with the proper refinement. For a proof of concept we did the crudest possible experiment to show it'd work in a generalized way, just engineering some part-human part-Pokémon embryos and showing they were viable and grew the expected hybrid structures. Only then, through a bullshit sequence of events, we get forced to keep them."

He took a deep breath. "So we end up with eight hybrid kids. Nicknamed 'Pokémorphs' by the media, because of some dumb book series about teen superheroes. And then, you know, you just try to be a fucking parent. They're great kids, but you've got to be fighting a constant uphill battle against society, which by and large thinks they're dangerous freaks who shouldn't get to be around other kids. And then there's this insane fucking cult." He spat out the word. "Long story short, they kidnap one kid as some kind of bait for the others. And they take the bait, because they want to save him, and because they're a bunch of fucking kids, but also apparently because their long-suppressed Pokémon halves are just fucking dying to rush into battle with their barely-developed attacks, regardless of sense."

He looked back at the charred tree. "The cult had guns. Two of the kids died, more injured."

 

[Sinderella]

Ah. That was why, and how, Dave was familiar with cults.

She wasn't sure why she was surprised. It wasn't like cults couldn't exist in other worlds. But to go as far as to target kids, just because they were...morphs. She was trying not to focus too hard on that aspect of the issue at hand. Hearing the term "pokemorph" immediately transported her back to her high school days, and she could practically hear the dissonant whispers of the very talented yet gently unhinged group of art students that often liked to discuss their "pokemorphsonas" amongst one another. Any one of them would have likely shit bricks over Dave's story.

But, still. The whole odd sensation she now felt, knowing morphs were a living thing in a distant universe, aside, that didn't stop the main sentiment that cults fucking sucked. Whether they were perpetuating genocidal ideals under the words of a gluttonous legendary, or baiting pokemorph children into being shot, that fact always remained the same.

"For fuck's sake," she muttered, rubbing her forehead in exasperation. "If there's one thing I'd be gung-ho to erase from the face of the multiverse, it'd be the concept of fucking cults."

She didn't know what else to say, though. She could say she was sorry, but she'd bet her Sun Stone salary that Dave had likely heard enough usages of 'I'm sorry for your loss' to fill a university-grade textbook. She could continue to commiserate, but being that she just talked his ear off, that felt oddly egocentric for the moment. She could ask him how he came up with the morphs, but that felt like discrediting the existence of the two that died.

After chewing on the inside of her cheek, and her words, for long moment, she crossed her arms. "How are the kids who were injured? Are they okay? Relatively speaking?" she asked. "Have the fuckheads bothered you again since then?"

 

[Butterfree]

"Fucking tell me about it," Dave said to Odette's remarks about cults. Odette's father and his blood pact thing sounded like essentially a goddamn cult as well, if one whose god was actually fucking real.

He took a deep breath in response to her question. "The other kids are surprisingly okay, considering. One of them's got permanent nerve damage, but at least it's her non-dominant arm." He stared down the tree as he talked, or what remained of it, pathetic charred remains.

"The kid who got kidnapped, Gabriel, part Slugma - he managed to figure out he had a shitton more power than anyone realized and take down the ringleader of the whole thing while he was in there trying to shoot them down. So that fucker's dead, and the cult kind of dissolved without him, or at least went quiet after a while. So that's one bright spot in it all. On the other hand, the conservative government activated this asinine emergency law barring the Pokémorphs from being out in public in case they go nuts and kill people, so that's about as fucked as you'd expect. I'm working my ass off to get it repealed, obviously, so the kids can have a normal fucking life with basic human rights, but it's an uphill goddamn struggle. Everything's insufferable political bureaucracies driven by whatever plays well to the lowest common denominator."

The gleaming metal sensation started in his heart and spread through his body, a tingling, gratifying pinpoint focus of pure willpower, every frustration and obstacle reduced to background insignificance.

"But I'm fucking doing it anyway."

He charged at the remains of the tree with a snarl, pinpointing a fault. The blazing chrome of his aura coalesced into a blade and cleaved it neatly in two down to the roots, smoothly as a knife through fucking butter, and lodged in the ground below with a thunk.

Dave took a deep breath as the aura faded, turning back to Odette. "So fuck cults."

 

[Sinderella]

Odette was shaking her head now. First the kids have to deal with being targeted by a murderous cults, only to have the government turn around and limit their rights in the aftermath. After going what she went through in terms of cults, she couldn't imagine being relegated to an indoor body for an indeterminate amount of time. She'd have likely lost more of her mind in the aftermath.

"I guess that's another thing that reigns true throughout the multiverse. Some governments just enjoy dropping the fucking ball," she said.

Odette tucked her fist under her chin, watching silently while Dave let loose some of his rage on the remains of the tree. Her brow went taut with a mix of surprise and admiration. She let those notes play on her face as they met eyes again.

"Fuck cults," she agreed firmly. "And you're a good dad."

Bits of her expression fell upon realizing that that might not have been the best title. He'd essentially made a bunch of designer test tube babies and was going out of his way to raise them and ensure they had a good future. That sounded about as close to parenthood anyone could get with the interesting asides thrown into the mix as well.

"I mean..." she said quickly, averting her eyes away in thought. "Doctor, scientist, whatever they call you."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave raised his eyebrows with a sharp exhale at 'you're a good dad'.

"Well, only one of them's legally mine. Her name's Jean, she's part Ninetales, she's fucking adorable and also a little hellbeast sometimes, she loves superheroes and cartoons and has about fifteen different things she wants to be when she grows up."

Not that a lot of those hopes hadn't been dashed, house arrest and all. And she hadn't been the same since the church, since half-evolving. All he could hope was that one day her spark might recover.

"The others are split between my coworkers as parenting goes, but I'm pretty involved with all of them. There's a lot of followup scientific work involved in making life smoother for them, and a lot of bullshit bureaucracies and legal hurdles to be navigated. Mostly they just call me Dave. Uncle sometimes, but mostly when they were smaller."

He glanced back at Odette. "I, uh, take it your insane fucking cult leader dad wasn't exactly a presence in your life?"

 

[Sinderella]

A light magenta pulsed across her cheeks for a moment. Of course, he was probably way too busy to deal with that many kids on his own; naturally he had help and naturally, they probably weren't calling him dad. The word 'idiot'lingered in her mind, but she coughed in order to clear it and the embarrassed flush off her face.

"Ah, then excuse me," she said. "You're a good Dave."

A grimace stretched over her lips at his follow-up question, and she found herself cutting her gaze away yet again. "No," she responded. When it didn't seem like she was going to elaborate, she huffed. "Not..." her nose wrinkled, "visibly anyway."

Discontent glazed over her eyes, and she was soon scratching at her neck. "His cult happenings were mostly underground save for some rumors and conspiracy theories, some of which I'd actually heard before. Imagine my fucking shock when I found out that not only were the conspiracies true, but the bulk of the cult happenings were happening in Kalos because he'd set up shop there to be as close to his prodigal child as possible." She gestured dramatically to herself, in a way that likely could have been seen as comedic were it part of any other conversation. "But I didn't know the man existed until I was 22. Mum made it a goal to never talk about him to me. Truthfully, I never asked. We lived with my grandfather for most of my adolescence and he took up the 'father figure' role I needed, so it never crossed my mind until I had blood 'mon running up my fucking back, literally and figuratively."

Now she was rubbing the center of her forehead, trying to coax her oncoming headache away before it could bloom into something more obnoxious. "The man knows everything about me, though. Everything. Imagine having a stalker from fucking birth, but that stalker's your fucking biological father who happens to be the world's greatest terrorist?" She shook her head fervently, following it with a violent shudder. "I can't think about it for too long. It makes me nauseous. You couldn't make up daddy issues this bad if you fucking tried, I'm telling you."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave cracked a smile at 'You're a good Dave,' though Odette looked weirdly embarrassed about it. "I mean, on some level they're all basically my kids. Wouldn't exist if it weren't for me. On paper, though, no relation."

As she explained the situation with her father, he stared, his brow furrowing. "Jesus Christ. You should file a restraining order, if you haven't already. Stalkers are bad news even when they aren't terrorist fucking cult leaders." He'd had random loons follow him or send him deranged letters once or twice, but nobody truly persistent, thank fuck. Picturing a creep like Isaac Daniels watching him since he was a kid made him want to crawl out of his skin. "So, uh, what exactly drove your mom to want to have this fucker's kid? Just dying to fuck a cult leader and have a baby possessed by a literal demon? No offense."

Though then again, she'd said her mom was eighteen at the time, hadn't she. Maybe the explanation was just 'teenagers are dumb'.

 

[Sinderella]

There was no humor in Odette's laugh.

"Yeah, that would be the proper thing to do, wouldn't it?" she asked. She evidently wasn't expecting an answer, because she kept talking. "He's the most wanted person in my world. I wish I wasn't exaggerating, but he's broken something like a hundred laws in almost every region on my planet, murder being among one of them. So I doubt he's going to mind a restraining order from his one and only daughter."

She was fiddling with one of her head tassels now, her lips pinched into a tight, thoughtful frown.

"And my mum was a wild child in her youth. Wickedly smart, disturbingly cunning, graduated top of her class both in secondary school and Professor School, the latter all while she was raising a demon like me, but she liked to party. And she liked older men. I mean. Really liked older men." There was a cringe playing on her face now, as clearing discussing the basics of her mother's rowdy sex life wasn't something she particularly enjoyed.

"Dad," she said the word like it was against the law to say, "was supposed to be one of her typical flings while she was away on an exchange program in Galar. She liked them old, he liked them young, it was a match made in fucking hell. Somewhere along the way, she caught wind of his blood 'mon shenanigans, namely from one of the sin legends that was trying to take my father down. So...she obliged this legend's request to get pregnant with me, the only apparent chance they had to get a leg up on some pending war on him and his little cult regime. At a ripe 18 years of age, I don't think she had the exact forethought to understand exactly what she was getting herself into, but at the time everything was an experiment for her. So hearing about an unknown type, and being offered a way to get involved in some worldwide conspiracy? She wasn't saying no whether it involved getting pregnant or not. In her head, it was a shoe-in to the Pokemon Professor Association."

Then, she shrugged. "I don't think ill of her. At least, not anymore. She was 18 and stupid, and ultimately, had she not done what she did, my world would have been fucked. More so than it is now."

 

[Butterfree]

Holy shit. The supernatural drama thriller that was Odette's world was fucking bananas. Literally the daughter of the most wanted creep in the world and a barely-legal student asked to have his child by a literal fucking demon.

"So, what, you personally saved the world? Or did your existence just incidentally save it?" This was an absurd fucking question to ask anyone. No singular human being ever just saves the world. But at this point, why wouldn't Odette be someone who'd saved the planet. Everything about her story was larger than life. Maybe she was bullshitting him, but with everyone else's stories from their worlds, why the fuck not?

"...Also, what the fuck is Professor School and why did getting pregnant by a cult leader creep help her at it?"

 

[Sinderella]

"No fucking way," she snickered, raising her hands in a half defensive stance. "I'm 25. I don't think I have the higher brain development to pull something like that off no matter what advantages I happen to have. I didn't even know any of this until I was 22."

She shook her head again. "No, nothing is saved yet. We don't even know where these assholes are. But, Odile was...say, the first of these legendaries, and thus considered the 'top dog.' So, had she still been with with my sperm donor by this point, there's no telling what other sorts of issues we would have been having right now. So, I suppose it's better to say that we have an advantage, rather than a shoe-in win on him. 'We' being me and the one organization that exists dedicated to finding and dismantling him. I guess you could say I 'work' with them, because I sure as shit couldn't collapse a cult-y terrorist organization solo," she explained.

At his following question, she tilted her head at him. "I take it that's not a thing where you're from, huh?" she asked. "Professor school is what you have to go through to become a Pokemon Professor. You know, like you go to medical school to become a doctor? Similar concept. Go to school, pick your field of study, take a big final exam, pass, get certified, you're a Pokemon Professor. And the punchline here is that, it didn't help her. She ended up not telling anybody about it. Just kind of kept it to herself for two decades until I made her tell me, of course after everything starting hitting the fan. Again, the wise innerworkings of a ripe 18 year old's mind are fucking foreign to me."

 

[Butterfree]

"Huh. A... 'Pokémon Professor'? Back in my world a professor is a generic position at a university. You can have a professor of a certain subject but you can't exactly just be a professor of Pokémon." Archie had also talked about professors like... like they had something to do with Pokémon training? What? Goddamn it. Surely Betel could've found a more useful translation.

"At any rate, uh, is that just one private organization working against the terrorist cult? Is the fucking police not planning to do anything? What with the hundreds of laws broken in every region deal?"