Fighting 3.13: The Long Game
Cuicatl
The winds in the meadow are calmer than the ones on the mountain. You can still feel them on the bottom half of your face where your hat can’t stretch down, but they don’t chill you all the way through the thickest clothing you could afford.
You should have some more money to spend when you get back to Hau’oli. You hate that you’re just going to spend it all on warmer clothes the instant it gets into your hands, but what else are you supposed to do? You’ll get a chance to start saving sooner or later. Then you’ll be able to buy Alice when she’s sold. It’s fine. You can play the long game.
Footsteps approach and Pixie starts growling.
“Eevee.”
{Which kind?}
“Stupid fluffy hot eevee. Pretends it is a fire-tails. It is not a fire-tails.”
{Oh no, that’s terrible.} You can feel the faint heat on your face as it approaches. {Please stop growling. You’ll get a chance to beat up its friend in a minute. That’ll show it how tough you are.}
Pixie yaps in protest but reluctantly quiets down. Good. After… everything, you were worried she’d disobey. You’ve thought about it and you don’t think she actually scared Noci off. Or that she even could. She just talked herself straight into trouble with you. Doesn’t mean you’ve apologized for making her sleep with Kekoa that night.
“You Qwhycattle?” He butchers your name, but you smile.
“Yes. Are you Cor-ay?”
“It’s Cory, actually.”
“I’m sure it is.”
He’s just a trial captain. There’s very little reason not to be petty. And being petty keeps you from panicking that a third of your team is missing.
{Nocitlālin, where are you?} You get no response. Predictable. She hasn’t answered either of her names the last two dozen times. {Unit1_374, are you there?}
A voice comes back, filled with static and pitching up and down like two signals are interfering with each other.
{Unit001_101110110 Has Been Taken Offline.}
Cold panic sinks in. What? She was made of metal? How did she get killed? {How?}
{Unit100_110010 Deemed Unit001_101110110 Insufficient For Current Assignment;
Unit100_110010 Recalled Unit001_101110110 For Upgrade;
Unit100_110010 Recalled Unit 001_1001111100 For Upgrade and Reassignment;
Unit010_100000111 Brought Online;
Hardware Check Complete;
Alarm Lvl 101: Heat Vent Malfunctioning;
Error Dismissed By Unit100_110010;
Software Checks Complete;
Integration Within Acceptable Parameters;
Reassignment: Retain Directives of TerminatedUnit001_101110110}
“Hey, you good?”
You blink. The captain was still here. That feels… irrelevant now.
“Yeah. Just. Need a minute?”
“Okaaaaaaaay. You can pull up your hat if you want. There’s light here.”
“I’m blind.”
“Yeah, but, there’s light.”
You pull up your hat and open your eyes wide. You don’t have time for this right now.
{You… evolved? You’re a metang now?}
{Affirmative.}
Great. You. You don’t really know what that means? {Do you still want to travel with me?}
{Affirmative.}
With every message the static and interference seems to get a little less obvious.
{Can you come here now? It’s important.}
{Initiate Ramming}
She’s coming back. Sort of. Not really. How does metang evolution even work? Aren’t you supposed to know about it? Or at least order it? Shit. You need to get an everstone welded onto her soon if she can just run off and evolve.
It sounds like Cory’s stumbling over his words over the blindness thing. Like you care.
“I was just talking to one of my pokémon. Psychic-type. She might come in mid-match. Is that okay—”
“She can’t interfere if you have another ‘mon out, but if she just comes in that’s fine.”
{I’m about to battle something. Don’t attack unless I tell you to.}
{Alarm Lvl ???: UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca Under Attack;
Query:ThreatLvl}
{It’s pretty important. Don’t actually ram me, okay? I’m fragile.}
There’s a much longer pause than you’re used to from Noci’s machine mind.
{Acknowledged.}
“Thank you.”
“So, uh, you can talk to your pokémon from far away, huh? That’s cool”
“She’s a metang.”
“Metang? Eyerock is a beldum—”
“She just evolved.”
Pixie grunts. “Still ugly and stupid.”
You aren’t sure how to respond to that without making someone mad.
“Oh, sweet.” The captain doesn’t seem terrified or in awe. Weird pokémon are probably just normal for him. “Saw Tsuwabuki’s metagross once in Hoenn. Scary things, you know? …not that metang are like that.”
There was a friend of—of your brother’s that the captain reminds you of. He was one of the best candidates for calmecac the town had seen in ages and he knew it. Sort of. It didn’t mean that he bullied everyone else, but he just talked to everyone like they weren’t important to him. Just some distraction for the moment before he drifted on to someone or somewhere better.
You always hated him a little. Alice liked him, and that rubbed you the wrong way. Ellas was yours and that kid already had everything else handed to him. Alice thought you were being silly; you were her sister and he was just an amusing mammal. Then she lifted you off the ground and pulled you against her belly as her head draped over yours. Ellas was warm and even if her breath smelled like meat it was Alice’s and that you were safe. Sometimes it felt like Alice’s hugs were the closest you’d ever get to hugging a mother. Even your mom’s memories were a little short on physical affection.
It had taken you a long time to realize that when Alice had lifted you off the ground, ellas had lifted you far off the ground. You’re pretty sure that you were whisked away to another province. Not that you were complaining. Father was annoyed when you got back days later, but even he wouldn’t argue with a hydreigon.
“Uh, cool. Don’t think we can wait too long, though. My ride is coming right after this trial and I won’t be out for a few days”
“No. She should be here soon enough.” And if she isn’t you can always try again. Battle is something that takes all your focus. As long as that’s coming up you won’t worry as much about your pokémon who might not still be the Noci you knew. Can’t worry about it. No brain space.
“Alright, then. Follow—uh, do you need my hand or what?”
You pull a little tighter on Pixie’s leash. “I can manage.”
“Cool. Right this way.”
[-?]
It feels like spring has finally come to Undella Town. There’s a warm sea breeze in the air and the roof of the gym is down. It feels even bigger than it did last time. The bleachers stretch upwards. Waterfalls and rivers weaving between them, all cascading down into a pair of giant pools. A single narrow beam divides the arena into salt and freshwater halves. The beam is barely wide enough for your team to stand on and it’s all the land you have. The gym leader doesn’t play fair. Being a near-invincible hardass is his whole brand and he’s not afraid to enforce it.
You pick up a few slurs from the crowd as you walk out. That’s the other part of his brand: he doesn’t hold back at all against anyone without the “look” of a trainer. You’re facing an uphill battle here, but you just can’t wait to kick his ass. Last time you weren’t prepared for a battle in the water; this time you’ll come out victorious, whatever shit he pulls.
“Ladies and gentlemen!”
The crowd roars like a furious beast.
“Today’s match pits Danielle Lee of Nimbasa,” you do your best to tune out the wave of boos, “against an all-American hero: the one, the only, give it up for Admiral Wilford!”
The admiral smirks as he walks towards his half of the platform. It’s magnified by the giant screens in the corner of your eye. “Thought I sent you packing already. Guess I’ll have to send a clearer message this time around: go home and watch the tournament on the couch, where trainers like you belong.”
The crowd begins a chant of “go home, girlie.” You ignore this, too.
“I’m going nowhere.” You enlarge Alice’s pokéball in your palm and start analyzing the battlefield, every ripple and eddy suddenly becoming far more interesting than whatever thousands of people are saying. “Draw your first and begin.”
“Hmph. Awfully arrogant for your station, girlie. Fine. We can do this the hard way. “Douglas, let’s go.”
A jellicent materializes in front of him. Same lead as last time. You unleash your zwelious and prepare to give him hell.
*
However cold the air is outside, it’s even worse in the cave. You can feel the frozen metal of the handrail through your gloves. Should’ve brought handwarmers, but they aren’t free and you’re saving them for when it gets colder. You’re not sure how cold it will get—the darkness stopped expanding well before it reached Asia, Australia or Anahuac. You’d think that would mean it wouldn’t get any colder within the darkness. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong. How cold does it have to get before they send everyone home? And then… and then what? What’s your back up plan?
You shake your head and feel hair fall into your face. A good reminder that you need to get it cut. And you need to focus. None of this helps anyone right now.
Breathe. Noci will be here soon. Everything will be fine.
The sounds of waterfalls and currents and echoes is soon replaced by that of rolling waves. The end is near. {How long until you get here?}
{Approximately 1986 seconds.}
That’s… over a half hour. You can stall that long. It might’ve taken that long even if you weren’t trying to drag things out. This is fine. You can make it work.
You withdraw Pix and take out your cane when the path evens out and the temperature warms. You’ll need to lead with Coco. It’s not that far off from your ideal plan. Just a little more drawn out.
Something begins moving in the water. Something big. You can hear it slowly hauling itself closer and closer to shore before it stops and lets out a nasty gurgling sound. About the noise you expected from a toxapex, but it’s a lot louder than you’d imagined. Maybe a half hour was way too much to hope for.
You can’t hear any other pokémon. Good. The totem shouldn’t have help on a fourth trial, but sometimes things don’t go like they should. You click the release on Coco’s ball and start the show. “Stealth Rock.” {Move and keep moving.} Coco lets out a little roar before she starts running to the side. Her clawed feet aren’t the quietest on the bare rock, which. {Can you see?}
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“The fluffy is making light!”
Flareon, then. Damn it. This match would’ve actually been easier in the dark: at least the totem couldn’t see you back. Makes it easier to stall for time. Heh. Stalling out a toxapex. Maybe not your best plan, but it could still work…
You can hear a wave break over the rocks. A wave of heat hit your ankles afterwards. The water itself was probably stopped by a barrier of some sort. Good to know that you aren’t at risk, even if it does feel a little unfair that only your pokémon can get hurt. “You hurt?”
“I’m tough,” she says. “Can I bite yet?”
{Not quite.}
The stealth rocks are important. They keep the totem pinned and mostly don’t affect you. Coco can just move the rocks to the side with elemental bullshit, Pixie won’t get close, and Noci hopefully won’t care. Still not sure how being a metang will change things. Or if she’s still Noci. Or if. No.
“Keep going at it from different angles! Pin him so he can’t move.”
Does the totem know your plan now? Yup. Do you care? Not really. Any totem has battled a lot. Probably already figured things out. And you really need to keep people from thinking that you’re a psychic. You’re on thin ice after the butterfree incident.
Another three scalding waves crash on to the shore while Coco sets up. Every time she grunts or hisses or roars, but never gives up. The point of the waves isn’t to knock her out, it’s to make her increasingly uncomfortable with her burns over time. Eventually the toxapex will outlast her just by being hard to kill. Then it will use recover to shrug off any damage it takes, leaving the totem fully healthy and you down a pokémon. The third move varies. Toxic, toxic spikes, or baneful bunker. Something to add venom to the burns. Coco hasn’t told you about a toxic slush or spikes. Probably baneful bunker, then. Makes direct hits do nothing and poisons whatever tried to attack. Annoying. The fourth could be haze or venom drench. Maybe liquidation, but probably not that and scald in the same match. Haze over venom drench. Baneful bunker isn’t a reliable way to poison a target and make venom drench really hurt.
Enough stalling. You can hear Coco’s hisses growing louder and louder. Time to attack.
“Alright, roar! Make him move!”
A tyrunt’s roar is nothing like the movies. Not even much like Alice’s. It’s a mangled, deep mess that sounds a little like a woodchipper. Disturbing and loud enough that the totem stumbles and slips, falling completely into the water. You can imagine the sharp stones Coco laid digging into its flesh. Good. You did damage and got an opening.
“What we practiced.” You haven’t had the energy to practice anything the last few days. {Thunder fang.}
Coco screeches and rushes into the shallow water. Hopefully it’s shallow enough for her to run, but she says she can swim so there’s that. But can she reach the totem before it can pick himself up and use baneful bunker. The splashing noises seem to get closer to each other. The totem’s get louder as he tries to right himself and—static. The smell of ozone fills the air.
The toxapex groans in pain for a few wonderful seconds. And then Coco growls in frustration. Baneful bunker. “Move back!” Doesn’t matter. You can feel the heat and power of the scalding water as it crashes into Coco, knocking her all the way back to the barrier by your feet. You kneel down closer to her. “Can you still get up?”
She lets out a mangled yell. That’s a yes. {Is the enemy getting better?}
“Yes.”
{Only one thing left to do.} “Roar.”
There’s more pain in this one. That only makes it more disturbing. You hear the totem crash into the water, recover interrupted. It’s time to make your move. One hand slots Normalium-Z into your bracelet while the other reaches for your pokéballs.
“I forfeit the round.” You press the recall button on Coco’s ball. “Pixie, what we planned!”
Okay, so you did plan one thing. Its’ the fourth trial, the last before reinforcements start showing up. The totem won’t hold back. You can’t do enough damage to knock the thing out in one hit. The only way you win is by taking its recovery away. Disable won’t last too long after Pix leaves, and she can’t do much of anything to harm the totem herself. But a Z-Disable… that gives you enough time to work with. Hopefully. The internet didn’t have good numbers and you hate practicing Z-moves.
You bring your hands and body through the motions, forming a big ‘Z.’ Then Pixie uses disable and energy courses through your entire body. Your arms burn as it rushes through the makeshift letter. You can feel all of your stamina rush out of you and into Pix. It feels like reality skips a beat from you standing up to being on the ground with no memory of getting there.
Arms grab you from behind. “You okay?”
“Fine. Let’s keep going.”
The captain sounds shocked. “You, uh, sure about that?”
“I’d like to get on the road. Places to be.” Money to make. Sisters to save. And you’re only a little woozy, anyway. “Nasty plot, Pix!” {Growl a little and look focused.} Because she doesn’t know nasty plot. That doesn’t matter. At all. You’re just stalling for time until Noci gets here, and if the totem thinks you’re boosting then it’ll use haze to counter. And do nothing.
“If you’re, uh, sure.” The captain finally starts to back away.
You can feel the air grow a little bit colder a few seconds later as the fog starts to roll in. Good. You guessed the last move right. Let’s see how long you can keep this going. Not like Pix can do much to the totem in the first place. Toxapex resists all of her attacks and she’s not that strong in the first place. Not without you boosting her with Z-Power or—or being surrounded by a cloud of cold, thick air.
“A.” {Blow the mist towards the totem.}
Pixie snarls and the wind picks up. You don’t know exactly what’s happening, but you hear the captain say “nice one” under his breath. Probably going okay, then?
Heat crashes through. A lot of heat. Right. It can just burn away the ice with scald. “Confuse ray, keep moving.” That way the totem has to keep shifting as well, hopefully cutting itself on the stealth rocks every time. The splashing gets a little louder. You can hear and feel more scalds crashing onto the shore. Pixie hisses when one lands, but it sounds like fewer and fewer are as time goes on. Your legs are shaking. You need to sit down. No rule against that, right?
[Arrival In 64 Seconds;
Initiate Ramming?]
Relief floods through your body. She’s back. Sort of. And the trial is going… as well as can be expected.
{No. Stand by.} “B. Time to finish things up.”
You can feel a surge of cold as Pix fires off her aurora beam. Won’t do too much damage, but any little bit helps. She keeps it going for several seconds without the totem fighting back. Then you can hear a pulse of water strike the barrier beside you. Switching from the waves to a hydro pump style attack. Bad. Even if you have to hold out for less than a minute.
Thank the gods you can use more than four moves in totem battles. “Roar!” Pixie’s roar is more of a shriek with small rises and falls. It sounds like a woman screaming with a smoke alarm mixed in. Enough to cause the toxapex to crash down into the water. More cut damage. Good. “Another B.”
You can hear Pixie’s breaths now. Poor thing is exhausted. Something lower energy? “Or A. Whichever you want.” The winds change. A, then.
[Standing by.]
A smile reaches your lips. “I forfeit the round. Good job, Pixie.”
“Metang’s arrived then?”
“Yes. Come down, Nocitlālin.” You can’t hear her descend. Still stealthy. Glad that at least one thing hasn’t changed. {You still are Noci, right?}
There’s a brief pause. {Affirmative.}
Two things, then.
“You know what to do.”
You can hear air whistling past her as she moves. The impact when she hits the toxapex. Splashing. A stream of water falling back into the sea. Noci charges, the totem braces, the counterattack (usually) misses. Need to worry about your pokémon’s temperature, though. The first message she sent made it sound like her heat vents still didn’t work.
{Let me know if you get too hot. We can try again later.}
{Internal Heat Levels Acceptable.}
{Good.}
Not a whole lot to do but wait. The most the totem can do is try to fire scalds into the air, which is a little hard when its head is tucked underneath layers of armor. Not that you’ve seen what it looks like or anything. Baneful bunker doesn’t mean a lot to a metal alien that laughs off most poisons. Still. Maybe you could do something?
{Get any new moves with evolution?}
{Affirmative: Unit010_100000111 Possesses The Following Combat Options:
-Metallic Energy-Infused Claw
-Projectile Metallic Energy
-Telekinesis
-Ramming;
Query: Continue Ramming?}
It’s so hard to find any emotion in her messages, but you think she wants to keep ramming. Strange. Would’ve thought she’d want to try out her new tricks. The steel moves—metal claw and flash cannon?—won’t do much. {No telepathy?}
{Unit010_100000111 Possesses Increased Telepathic Abilities Over Composite Units;
Telepathic Abilities Insufficient For Combat;
Query: Continue Ramming?}
{Sure.}
And then you go back to waiting.
Eventually there’s a giant slurping sound and the totem crashes into the water. You feel your entire body relax. The trial’s done. Noci is back. None of your pokémon were hurt too badly. Everything’s fine. Or as close to ‘fine’ as it gets for you.
“You need help getting up, miss?”
Right. Still on the ground. You slowly rise up, feeling your legs tremble as you do. “I’m good if I can lean on the rail?” Really, you’ve come a long way from vomiting and going unconscious when you used a Z-move. This is only like going a day or so without food.
Actually, did you eat yesterday? The last few days have blurred together. You should eat some fruit or something when you get to the Center. Start small, see if you still need to eat anything more.
“Okay… just hold out your hand.” The crystal. Right. His hand is really warm. Or are you cold? Both? You slip it into your case and take your cane out. “Meet me at the Center, Noci?”
{Initiate Ramming.}
*
There’s someone waiting for you in the lobby.
“Cuicatl Ichtaca?” The voice is unfamiliar.
“Yes?”
“Hi. Elizabeth White, Channel 3 News. Can I have a minute of your time?”
Lunch is only open for a little while. You don’t know how long this interview will take. Maybe you could miss your chance to eat something? And now that you’re thinking about the possibility of eating. You could just leave that to the gods. See if you deserve to today.
“Sure.”
You make sure to smile in the direction you think the camera is in. It starts off like you expected, talking about the butterfree capture. Miss Bell walked you through your lines for this when she called. Said she’d give you more money if you could give her a good news day. Officially you brought a butterfree to the Center, showed it the heat and light, let it go to find more friends. Most communication was through gestures with some help from Pix. It seemed the most plausible and the Center staff probably aren’t going to say otherwise to the media.
That’s how it goes for a while. You smile, laugh, ignore your stomach (now woken up and furious since you’re so near food), and do your best to keep eye contact. Anything to make a better show, because that could get you paid more. It drifts to VStar—you like them a lot and you’re pretty sure it has no harm on the environment. You haven’t heard about any trainers who died. It’s nice to still have some money to make and be able to help the pokémon move indoors.
Then, for some reason, they insist on talking about your blindness. Your smile falters for a moment. You need food and you desperately want to talk to Noci, and you’re held up over something that doesn’t matter and isn’t even related to the person paying you?
You get through the questions without telling the reporter off. Blind since birth. You learn to deal with things. A lot of products and buildings aren’t made with you in mind. (It’s always great to witness in real time as someone realizes the normal thing they do won’t work for you. They’ll apologize, but you notice that not a lot ever gets done about it. This isn’t what she wants to hear. This isn’t what you tell her.) She gets told that you trip a lot and maybe one or two of the “funniest” stories there. It’s funny since you’re laughing. Otherwise it would be a thing to be pitied over.
The moment she leaves the room you go from a straight spine and bright smile to hunched over and sulking into the dim light. Definitely missed lunch there. That’s… fine. You’ve lived through worse.
“Kept some food warm for you,” the receptionist says. “It’s in the dining room if you want it.”
You blink. “But lunch is over?”
“Four people staying here, miss. It’s not hurting anyone.”
Why would she do that? You were late. Broke the rule. You’re not supposed to have food.
Your stomach roars.
It would be rude to decline, right?
Fine. You can eat. Then it’s time to talk to your metang.
*
A warm, smooth plate of metal brushes against your outstretched hand. “Less hot than you used to be…”
{Unit010_100000111 Is a Composite Being. Errors of decommissioned units remain. Errors mitigated by properly functioning elements of other decommissioned units.}
A composite, huh? A little bit like Alice then… “You’re also another beldum, then? You’re both?”
{Negation. Self is Unit010_100000111.}
“Then you aren’t Nocitlālin, either?”
{Unit010_100000111 retains localized designation: Nocitlālin}
Another, darker question makes its way to the forefront of your mind. “You mentioned a ‘100 unit’ decommissioning you. If a 001 is a beldum, and a 010 is a metang, then that means it was a metagross, right? You’re taking orders from one?”
And isn’t that terrifying. The galaxy’s top predator has taken an interest in you. Terrifying and a little bit thrilling. …Maybe Kekoa’s right and there is something wrong with you on a deep level. Add it to the list of things you can deal with when you have enough money to buy your family back and can spend a little bit extra on therapy.
{Negation.}
“You mentioned one, though?”
{Negation.}
“I definitely remember that.”
{Negation. Terrans possess flawed memory drives.}
“Not that flawed.”
{Negation.}
You sit down and lean back. She wants to do this the hard way, huh?
“Then why’d you evolve?”
{Insufficient for current assignment.}
“And who gave you that assignment?”
{UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca.}
Trap sprung. “Who was giving orders to the other beldum?” No one owned that one, right? Does this count as theft? Does her old ball even work? You gently tap the ball’s release button and nothing happens. Great Time to buy a new ball.
{Query: Status Update?}
“Don’t change the subject, Noci.”
{Query: Status Update?}
“Annoyed that you won’t answer the question.”
{Error Resolved;
Query: Status Update?}
You can’t tell if this is a lie, a distraction, or a glitch anymore. “The error won’t be resolved until you tell me about the metagross.”
Warm metal presses against your chest. She’s trying to cuddle her way out of an interrogation. You wrap an arm around her and huff. She really is the perfect temperature for machine cuddles. Especially outside in the cold air. Can she still fit inside? You’ll have to figure that out later. Before you can ask another question everything breaks inside. You lean into Noci all the way and press your head down on top of her.
Maybe you don’t need to finish your questions today. If the metagross wanted you dead then it would’ve just killed you. If Noci spies on you for a while, oh well. You aren’t important enough to know secrets worth stealing. Maybe you’ll catch her with her guard down again in the future.
“Don’t run off again, okay?”
{Command acknowledged.}
“Okay?”
{Affirmative.}
“Good.”
A friend returned and a crystal earned. You even got to eat. It’s far from the worst today could’ve gone.
[-???]
“This seat taken?”
You glance up to see a man a few years older than you standing there. You tense up for a moment before remembering that you’re in public. Even if your team is still healing you’re far from helpless.
“No, it isn’t.”
He pulls a chair out and sits down. The more you look at him the more there is to like. He has a nice tan and a really good face. Strong jawline, eyes full of life… You shouldn’t stare, but he just smiles when he notices. “Saw your match today. Really gave the old bastard hell.”
A fan. Haven’t really had those before. “It was a good fight. My pokémon trained hard and won.” And you got to make a racist, sexist piece of shit hand you a badge in front of hundreds of people.
“Not just your Pokémon. Some of your tactics were brilliant. Sticking a conkeldurr’s pillar into the side of the pool to stay near the surface? Never would have thought of that.”
It was smart, yes. Now that the match is over you’re a little worried you’re going to get the bill for that stunt. If only so no one else tries it going forward.
“Thank you. I never caught your name?”
“Tlapoca Ichtaca.” He keeps an easy smile and extends a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Danielle Lee.” His shake is firm without being crushing. Good form. “You already knew that.” He laughs even though it wasn’t really a joke. “Are you a trainer or…”
“No. I study finance at Towers. My cousin’s uncle owns a restaurant in Undella so I sometimes come over to take shifts. He pays well enough.”
A college man. Mom would be furious if she knew who you were flirting with. He’s not that much older, though, and he seems nice.
“Can I buy you another drink?”
“Yes. Hot chocolate, please.”
It’s getting warmer every day but you still want one. It’s nostalgic and doesn’t keep you up at night.
“You know Anahuac practically invented that, right? Great ones over at the family restaurant if you want to visit.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
Mom would be furious, but she’s not here now. Journeys are all about independence, right? And you’ll just sit outside in public view. It’s just a quick date while you’re in town.
Really, what’s the worst that could happen?