I don't remember most of last night, save for Minerva's resounding laughs, bursts of flame, and counting the amount of money I needed for the hotel four times before the man gave up out of pity and told me I could pay in the morning.

I wake up in a hotel like all the other hotels in Kanto. Shuttered blinds, enough decor to make it look unique and hold the town's theme, a minifridge (how did I ever live without these), and typical hotel fare. For a while I thought they might be a chain but it's more likely that everything is beginning to blend together.

Would I enjoy everything more if I was a tourist, or a normal trainer with no deadlines? If I wasn't working myself half to death every day to stay ahead of Red, how much more would I have seen? How many of my Pokemon's untimely deaths could've been avoided if I hadn't had the deadline like a noose around my neck?

I look over to my alarm and see the red letters spell out 4:00 AM. It's been an hour since I got to sleep (midnight, Minerva, my ass).

Better get back to it.

***

When I wake up, a fuzzy shape is standing on my chest, peering over me with their long, muzzle in my face. Their fur is a mixture of blues and golds, soft and familiar...

"Bronze?" I ask.

"Who?" asks Bronze.

"Arceus, damnit," I murmur. My vision clears and it's just Minerva standing over me, the shadows from the blinds making her gold fur look bluish enough to confuse my addled mind. "Forget it."

"You never told us about your old team," insists Minerva, sliding off to the side of my bed. "I'm sure I could find out anything I wanted if I just pried your mind open a touch, but that kind of feels like cheating."

"It is cheating," Reginae says, "Don't you even think about it."

"I'd be happy to share my knowledge of the old team, at least the extent that I shared the journey with Ashley." Ten suggests.

"Which one?" asks Fang.

"The last one, the one we were both on." I say. "If you don't mind, I think I'll pass on other Ashleys. Especially other dead Ashleys who were even more catastrophic fuck-ups than I am."

Hycanith puts her arms around me. She's applied a small band-aid to her bone, which lies on the edge of the bed next to Minerva.

I put a hand to the Marowak's back. "Thanks, Hycanith."

"So, what's on the menu today?" asks Reginae.

"Pancakes." Fang says.

"We should get some to Ethan. He'd love that."

"The longterm menu." Reginae says. "The metaphorical one. Do we need to train?"

"I don't know, do you have a four-times advantage over rock-and-ground and rock-and-water types, which are coincidentally the only thing Brock uses?" I ask.

"Does Minerva have a weakness to all three of those types?" Reginae counters with a smile, glancing over at the infuriated Ninetales, whose tails have clumped up and whose face is now twisted into an irate scowl.

"Rhetorical questions?" asks Ten.

"Are we going to get pancakes or not?" asks Fang.

Now this I can answer- we are.

I buy an egregious amount of pancakes with half my Soul Badge gym money. Money's no object for us even when providing for seven (one of whom is a Lugia). I doubt the pancakes will provide much legitimate comfort to him on a physical level, but emotionally, it's important that he still feels like himself.

Those of us fortunate enough to be the right size to fit into buildings sit in the Pewter City cafe. It's a prim, tidy place with mauve walls and huge, shuttered windows. It has a retro feel to it and the coffee is incredible. I've never been one for the dark, harsh liquid, but their beverages are so smooth I feel like I could drink a gallon of the stuff, easily. The buzz is even better.

Putting down my fork, I pile up fifteen more pancakes from the buffet and put them in a sealed plastic bag. The worker at the counter gives me a quizzical look and I shrug.

When we get outside, I release Ethan, which is no easy feat in a city like Pewter. It's lower to the ground, like Celadon, with a plethora of stores. Up to the north of the city is the less residential and commercial district, occupied primarily by a massive museum. Regardless of the area, there's a lot of foot traffic, and several people have to move out of the way for me to let the Lugia stretch his hand-wings out. Ethan looks around, uneasy, and asks, "What's going on?"

"We got you pancakes." I tell him, holding up the plastic bag and unzipping it. He bends down and after a rather awkward attempt to angle his neck so that I can slide the pancakes into his mouth, I give up and pick the pancakes up by myself and toss them into his mouth. He can fit all fifteen on his tongue, but he takes his time savoring the taste at the back of his mouth before swallowing.

"Thank you."

"I... we used to bake pancakes together, the first time around, when I was little." I tell him. "I thought you might like them."

"I used to get up early and cook in the morning for Lyra, but I don't think I could handle it with these hands." Ethan says. My heart drops a little at the mention of her, the girl whom I replaced by appearing on this timeline, but the message is clear enough: Don't impose your childhood onto mine.

Ten waves him off, diverting our little moment of melancholy. "Oh, if you up the precision of your Psychic a little, it should be easy. I can show you how to do it sometime."

Ethan's spikes perk up a bit. I wasn't aware they were flexible. "Yes, please."

"So, what are we up to today?" asks Minerva, impatient.

"Brock's gym. It's already ten, so they should be open by now." I say. The map places the building

"Ugh, ten? We're burning daylight." Minerva whines.

"We already burned the whole night," objects Reginae. "I'm still tired. Are we seriously going to run the next two months on five hours or less of sleep? It's going to do us a lot more harm than good in the long run."

"No, and Viridian Forest is going to be at least a two day venture. We'll get to bed early, sleep tonight in the hotel, and head out at sunrise tomorrow with camping supplies. Sound fair enough?" I say, even though we'll be going for it regardless of objections.

Thank goodness there are none.

We don't have much else to say to each other and Minerva's so full of anticipation for the battle she's not fighting that I think she might explode. To remedy both these problems, we shuffle over to the gym, which sits at a few hundred yards away from the museum like its dorky younger brother. I swing open the doors and everyone tenses, including Ethan, who manages to duck his huge neck through the door as the others flood through the entrance.

The Pewter Gym, like many of the establishments in Pewter, is small, but it makes up for it with a prim tidiness that makes the area seemed well cared for. No one's first thought upon hearing "rock gym" is "tidy", myself included, but with all the eager campers running into their battle positions and the straight paths between boulders, it does look cute and well-maintained. I get the feeling from the ages of the trainers, though, that this isn't all too serious of a gym. My old team would've been all over this, seeing as they were... somewhat less battle hungry than the new one.

The thought of Bronze swatting away a pebble to the face is almost too amusing, but I resist the temptation to laugh. Fang and Ten are both eyeing me with concern.

"Worried about someone?" asks Ten.

"I guess they've been on my mind," I reply. "Like this morning..."

"Oh, forget that!" Minerva snaps. "Let's just trash the place and get out of here."

"We're not 'trashing' anyone's gym. That's disrespectful." chides Reginae.

"Someone seems to have forgotten the Mahogany gym incident." Ten responds.

The shock and horror on Reginae's face is priceless as he protests, "I had ten Rare Candies beforehand."

"I'd give you all ten Rare Candies to stop talking." Minerva says, slapping Reginae in the hide with one tail. "Hop to it."

Reginae and I take the lead of the team, catching the eyes of the first of two trainers in the gym. He's a camper, about half a foot smaller than me, and I've lost my ability to tell one age from another at this point so I can't tell how old he is. "Hey! Trainer! Want to fight?" he asks, but throws out a Graveller before I can answer.

"Me too! Me too!" says the other camper, holding up a Poke Ball. She throws out her Graveller.

Reginae steps onto the battlefield and Hycanith joins him at his side. One Petal Dance takes care of not one but both of their Pokemon, and the campers frown. "Do you have any more Pokemon?" asks the boy.

The girl shakes her head.

Reginae looks back to me, incredulous. I flash him a thumbs up and he rolls his eyes.

Brock, the gym leader, is waiting behind his gym trainers with his arms crossed. His half-opened eyes watch us with either intensity or extreme lethargy, though I can't tell which. "Hello?" I ask.

He raises an eyebrow. "You breezed through my gym trainers. I suppose you're not aware this is a low-tier gym, usually meant as a first challenge for young children just getting a handle on battling Pokemon?"

"Oh yeah, a low-tier gym with level forty Pokemon. Give me a break." I say. "You know I have a Grass-type. I'll make it quick."

"Sure. Hornlette!" A Rhyhorn emerges onto the battlefield and thrusts its horn upwards, growling. Its armored plates lie thick on its sides, and it scuffs the dirt with its paws.

Hornlette, Fang thinks. This guy has one heck of a naming scheme.

I don't have time for this. "Reginae, go for it."

Reginae's not the fastest Pokemon in my arsenal, but even when charging, the Rhyhorn is slow as a Magcargo moving through molasses. Must be a Rock-type thing. The Meganium outspeeds him and with a flare of his neck flower, sends forth a spray of bright petals. The tornado strikes every soft spot in the Rhyhorn's armor with honed accuracy. It stops mid-charge, like an automaton run out of fuel, and Brock draws his Pokemon back.

"Helix, it's on you." Brock says, with practiced monotony.

I raise one eyebrow.

Reginae doesn't need to summon another storm, instead, the petals from his last storm pick up and cut the soft tentacles of the Omastar, which clicks its awful mouth and even attempts to put up a Protect shield but is defeated by the pink hurricane before it can even manage that.

"We're going to sweep his whole team," Minerva declares.

I nod. Reginae looks back to me, pride glimmering in his amber eyes, and I spy a smile pricking up at the sides of his face. Ethan twitches behind me and Hycanith gives Reginae a thumbs up.

The next Pokemon is a Kabutops, whose speed is far better than its slower compatriots. It runs right at Reginae, scythes extended, and Reginae doesn't manage the dodge but is instead hit across the neck by a long scour of the blade. The old scar across my face burns and I hear an awful gasp leave his mouth.

Reginae's petal tornado is heading back this way, but the Kabutops is even faster than Reginae's attack and he takes another hit from the blunt side of the scythe, right to the bottom of his head. He jerks upwards, spitting out blood, and the Petal Dance finally makes it back to him. A new cluster of petals join the old attack as he manages to summon the next round from around his neck, and the storm his the Kabutops. Regine gets a few steps back from the Kabutops, which is distracted by the sudden flurry of petals, and it flails wildly in the storm. Reginae takes a knee outside of the radius of the blast, trying not to collapse, and the Kabutops falls at his feet.

Reginae's eyes roll up in his head.

Reginae became confused due to fatigue, my Pokedex informs me with a concerned beep. The Meganium lifts himself back onto his feet.

Are you okay? I ask.

For a second, in the depths of his disorientation, he tries to fight me off, before he manages to reach out like a drowning man reaching a raft.

You can stop, you know, I say, but he shakes his head.

"Two more."

The Graveller might as well have never come out. Reginae might be half-standing at the edge of the field, but in order for Brock's Pokemon to attack him, they'd have to get there. The Graveller ducks into a Rollout and Reginae moves his antennae back, intent and still as he focuses. The entire Petal Dance storm focuses itself into a narrow beam, and the Graveller is forced out of its Rollout by the barrage. With another, downwards strike, it falls back defeated.

Brock sends out his Onix, the last of five, but it, too, cowers when it sees the Meganium. I have no doubt Brock's faced many challenges like this, where one experienced trainer comes in with a Grass- or Water-type and sweeps his team, and his Pokemon have no way to counter it. The rock snake reminds me of Pisces as it falls, struck by petals instead of stones, and the bitter irony seems fitting enough.

"Sorry," I say underneath my breath as I take the badge from Brock's outstretched hand. I still have no clue if he's glaring at me or not. He's said next to nothing the whole battle.

We didn't give him time to say much, so that might have been part of it.

"That was... astoundingly easy." Fang says giddily on the way out.

We open the double doors and Reginae collapses.