I promised Ribombee I'd free up a night and come listen to her practice with the jazz band; it never hurt to get my mind off of the constant flow of assignments, projects and drama, after all. That, and I was always up for relaxing to some jazz music, even with the many erratic stops and starts and edits Tapu Koko was known for. Finishing a particularly annoying paper kept me for about half an hour, unfortunately, but the second the final word was typed I slammed my computer shut and launched myself from the seat of my desk, still taking care to quietly shut my dorm's door behind me.

After crossing the common, bathed in gold by the evening's glow, I entered the corridor that would lead to the auditorium, expecting the band's fantastic tunes to enter earshot at any second. Strangely, they never did; instead my ears were met with loud conversation, grumbles and bursts of laughter. Curiously I pushed open the door, and peered beyond the seats at the distant stage.

A small pile of instruments sat off to the side, disregarded by the Pokémon of the band, who sat in chairs or on the floor, or, in Salazzle's case, on top of the piano blowing rings of fire and smoke and sexily chuckling at every turn of the debacle below. The rest of them sat in a circle, taking turns drawing from six huge stacks of cards in the center and holding their breath whenever one of them reached for one. When Ribombee, who otherwise had a frustrated and disappointed look on her face, noticed me, she smiled and waved me over. With no other real options, I cocked my head, shrugged and made for the vast stage.

"Where's Tapu Koko? Why aren't you practicing?" I asked as I vaulted myself over the edge of the stage, not sharply or rudely but merely with inquiry. As I looked around the circle, I noticed Pokémon that weren't even in jazz band, from Raichu to Midday Lycanroc to Crabominable and his new friend Graveler, which only made me question what was going on even more.

"Well, none of us really know," answered Decidueye after a somewhat nervous glance at Trumbeak, who was perched next to him. "He hasn't showed all evening, so Midnight brought cards."

Across the circle, Midnight smiled with his classic devilishness, something I hadn't seen from him in months. "Truth and Ideals," he explained, pointing at the increasingly sloppy piles of cards. "It's some game from Unova. You either get an ideal situation in your life or you've gotta face the cold, hard truth. Last one to die wins."

"I died in the Egg," Crabominable grumbled, showing me his only card: a rather gruesome-looking darkened Pokémon Egg. My stomach churned.

"You're in next game, Primarina. If you ask me, I'd say this round's just about up!" Raichu, who was apparently the owner of an international chain of Komala Coffee joints, glanced mischievously at the remaining players, none of whom were nearly as successful as her. I just laughed nervously and sat down next to Ribombee, not exactly clamoring to join the fray.

Within a few turns, Midday had died of starvation, Golisopod had been run over by a stampede of Tauros, and Passimian fled the region after going bankrupt and being wanted by a criminal organization, never to be heard of again. Midnight and Raichu remained, staring at each other with more intensity than friendliness as they took turns drawing cards from two different stacks; the one the Wolf Pokémon drew from was labeled "very good", while the Mouse Pokémon's was labeled "best". Back and forth they went, not much eventful happening, until Raichu took a certain turn.

She grabbed a card, and not immediately realizing what it said, her face became increasingly horror-stricken as she read more and more of it aloud. "'On the way to a meeting, you're afflicted with an extremely rare and malicious subspecies of Pokérus'—does that even exist?—that, er..." She slowly lowered the card, glared at Midnight and his spreading smile, and uttered, "...'that kills you.' Sun and moon."

Midnight and Decidueye burst out in laughter, which turned out to be contagious even for Raichu herself as she threw her cards back into the center and snorted.

Midday simply rolled his eyes, stood and stretched. "This game is stupid. It's entirely luck-based; there's no way to feel accomplished when you win."

"I dunno, bro," Midnight replied, his very eyes seeming to grin. "I feel pretty accomplished right now!"

"And that's how life is, anyway," Decidueye added, feather-hands behind his head. "Barely anything happens that's actually in your control. Think about it—I could either win a million Pokédollars or find myself dead right this instant."

Midday just sneered. "I'm going to...respectfully disagree. It's late, anyway. I'll see you all tomorrow." Without looking back, the Wolf Pokémon jumped off the stage and briskly walked up the aisle, disappearing behind the door to the common. After a few glances between him and us, Minior, who had been oddly quiet, decided to follow.

In silence, our eyes rested on the door for longer than any of us would've liked to admit, surely. Realizing that I should say something, I swallowed, looked at my peers and broke the newly formed ice: "New round, then?"

"Yeah..." Midnight said, though his voice was distant, and still his attention was affixed to the door. He blinked suddenly, and when his eyes opened again they were on me, and the haziness of the moment had passed from his mind. "Yeah. Let's start a new round! Primarina, take my brother's spot. And Salazzle, you're in Minior's; you're playin' this time, and I don't care how much ya protest!"
Salazzle rolled her eyes and crawled off the piano, smooth and elegant, dangerous and scandalous as smoke. As for myself, I blinked, taking a few seconds to realize that I had unintentionally gotten myself into Midnight's stupid game...but who would I be to quit then? So, rather begrudgingly, I moved over to where Midday had been, Salazzle sliding in next to me with a knowing glance as the band set up for a new game.

"So, uh..." Midnight looked at me, then pointed to a pile of cards labeled "no good"—the smallest among the six. "We start by each takin' a card from that pile. It determines how we come out of the Egg: usually healthy, sometimes Shiny, and there's one card in there that kills ya!"

Crabominable groaned.

I replied with a nod, and one by one we started to pick our cards from the top of the pile until each of us had one. Looking down at my card, I breathed a sigh of relief at the normal Egg that read "healthy". Apparently it was the same for the most of us, though as Decidueye took his turn we didn't have any time to savor our own fortune, for he held up his card and hooted, "Shiny! All right!"

Midnight nudged him almost to the point where he fell over, causing both Pokémon to snort, then collected himself and continued, "Okay, okay. So, if you got a healthy Egg you start takin' from the 'decent' pile, and, uh—"

"If you're Shiny you take from 'pretty good'!" Decidueye interrupted, only to be nudged by his friend just as hard as before. I sighed, concluding that I never really would find out just what went through the minds of boys; beside me Salazzle gave me a look as if to say that she knew the answer, but would forever keep it in her overflowing mental book of secrets. She really could be frustrating, I realized, and she didn't even have to say a word.

"...and the cards do the deciding from there. The higher level you go, the less likely you are to die. Got it?" Midnight continued as if nothing had happened, then looked at me so expectantly that I had no choice but to nod. "Great! Now...who should pick first but yours truly, who won the last game, may I remind you?"

He reached for the pile that read "decent", and let out a single, sharp laugh upon reading the card that he drew. "'You're accepted into a music school and graduate, your sights set on becoming the world's next great jazz musician. Move up to "pretty good"!' Sun and moon, already? Eat it, Shiny boy!"

Next to him, Decidueye only steeled himself as he took from "pretty good", only to breathe a sigh of relief the next second at its passable result of him simply taking a vacation to Hoenn. Next up was Trumbeak, who found herself a job at a Poké Mart; Raichu, who broke her arm and couldn't move for two turns, but lived; and Ribombee, who'd spend the next four turns at an eight-year academy only to take her next card from "very good". The rest of the players grumbled at her stroke of luck, only to make her more overjoyed, but as it was then my turn to pick a card I couldn't quite feel angry or happy for her.

Gingerly, I took a card from "decent" and, wanting to come across as far more relaxed than I actually was, casually read aloud, "'You become a custodian at your local theater, though you aspire to one day perform there yourself.'" I blinked at that, then let out a little something between a laugh and a sigh. "Well!"

"Fancy coincidence there, Primarina!" Raichu laughed. "Though, I can't really see you cleaning much of anything..."

"You should see our dorm," Ribombee buzzed, earning laughs from most of the other girls, myself included. "It'd make Lele faint."

"Y'know, I wouldn't be opposed to that," Midnight remarked, scratching his ear offhandedly and setting off another round of laughter.

And so the game went on (as life does, I suppose), and before long we saw the first few of inevitably many deaths. A rockslide in the canyons got the best of Kommo-o, Sandslash drowned, and even Raichu eventually went down, this time to a fatal injury (which left her cursing up and down, mind you); and in a great event of irony that left us all as humored as we were unsettled, Graveler was killed in a Graveler's Explosion. Not all was bad, though; Ribombee finished her studies and entered the medical field in "very good", much to her delight, though in actuality she majored in the culinary arts. Midnight and Decidueye drew beneficial cards just about every turn, and for a moment even I forgot about the game's inherent morbid nature and was fully invested in the fun.

Little to my knowledge, Truth and Ideals ran long—so long, in fact, that the losers began to take after Midday and retreat to their dorms after streaks of uneventfulness; a few even fell asleep where they sat, and wouldn't wake up for a Whismur's shriek. One thing was clear, though, and that was that whatever jazz rehearsal that was supposed to have happened would've been long, long over.

Decidueye's turn came again, and I was jostled to attention at the quickly souring expression that spread across his face as he read his card. "'Your prestige is known across the land,'" he began. "'...which makes it all the stranger when you suddenly disappear with little warning or reason. There's no choice but to assume you're dead.'"

Silence swept across all of us, and even the snores of the sleepers seemed to lessen. Aside from the occasional glances we'd give each other, all eyes were on Decidueye, who didn't look so disturbed as he did simply weirded out. After a moment, Midnight scratched his back with slight nervousness and quietly said, "Ah, yeah. That card. That's a weird one."

"Hm," Decidueye replied. It took another moment for him to finally set the card down and awkwardly stand up. "Welp, good game. I'm off to bed—another night of sleeping in the hall for me."

"Why's that?" Ribombee asked almost immediately.

Decidueye looked at her with uncharacteristic intensity and uttered just one name: "Naganadel."

"You ever been caught out there?" Midnight asked.

"By Bulu, once. I told him I had fallen asleep studying history with a friend." With that, the Arrow Quill Pokémon turned and jumped off the stage, shouting behind him, "Just once, though! Just once."

—————

Little by little, Pokémon by Pokémon, the game wound down, until the only conscious ones left on the stage were Midnight, Ribombee and I. I had "died" several rounds ago, in the pile labeled "fantastic", luckily of old age and nothing too gruesome; that didn't stop me from sticking around to support Ribombee despite my own fatigue, though. The only one who didn't seem fazed by the late hour was Midnight himself, who still drew from "best" as excitedly as if the game had just begun—of course, that could've just been because he never seemed to draw a negative card. He had become a world-renowned musician, with enough money to afford a place in just about every region, and the smallest chance of death possible; needless to say, Ribombee, who had only reached "fantastic" by then, was at a clear disadvantage.

"Another car? Good Arceus," the Wolf Pokémon exclaimed as he took his next card. "I've got four already, and the day I drive is the day I die, I tell ya. Who knows how the humans did it?"

Ribombee laughed as she took a card from "fantastic", and read it with intrigue: "'Perish Song! You have three turns left to live!' ...Great. Well, at least it'll be over soon."

"Sooner, if he dies first," I pointed out.

"Like that'll happen!" Midnight taunted as he drew. If his resulting smile wasn't evidence enough, his card most certainly didn't kill him.

Ribombee's remaining turns passed by like lightning, all uneventful, all closer to her doom. Eventually Midnight Lycanroc took one final card: one that'd either secure his victory or hers, but one that would end the tiresome game regardless. Reading it over, he at first feigned horror, though it didn't take long for his face to melt into a warm, oddly peaceful grin. "'Your legacy is great,'" he read. "'So you have a pup n' pass it on.' Heh. Good game, Ribombee."

My friend sighed, more of relief than any sort of disappointment. "Yeah. Time to finally get some sleep."

As we cleaned up the area and at least attempted to get the others awake, Midnight's classic energy returned to him and he barked, "Ha! If my future goes anything like that, I don't know why I'm worrying! Think about it: startin' a family up in the Canyon, jazz gigs every night after trainin' folks...yeah, I can see it now. The moon is bright for Mr. Midnight!"

"Sun and moon," Ribombee and I uttered, though deep down I knew we were both stifling laughs and cheers of encouragement from underneath our tired facades.