Arun groaned as the alarm clock by his bedside awoke him from his sleep. His hand felt around for a while, before finally slapping downwards and stopping the damned beeping. He shifted himself up and out of bed, Zubat tumbling from his head with an indignant screech.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, though he was too tired to really mean it.

Valor was just waking up too, his little buddy was wrapped up in three of the blankets the Hotel they were staying in provided. He was curled up by the window, enjoying the sunlight that streamed into the interior.

Strange. Arun was pretty sure he offered a part of the bed.

Valor cracked one eye open, but seeing how Arun was just getting ready for the day, let it shut once more and went back to dozing off.

Arun snorted, before hopping into the shower and getting himself ready for the day. He ran his hands over his head, a flicker of annoyance at his little brother's actions causing his baldness coming back to him. Right, work.

“Valor!” Arun called, “What’s the time!”

No answer.

“Valor?”

Annoyance. I cannot read time.

“Oh. Oh yeah. What does the small hand point to, and what’s the big one point to?”

More annoyance, Expression of time hard with communication.

Hm. He should have known that already. Why was he all loopy today? Well, whatever, Arun stepped out of the shower, finishing up the rest of his routine and a quick prayer, before finding himself a clock.

1:36pm. Work started at 6:30pm.

He’d never woken up that late before. How long did he stay up last night? He tried to remember what happened…but then realized with a start he couldn’t. It was all blank. Conversation, locations, everything.

A spark of concern from Valor, Is everything all right?

“Can you two remember anything from last night?”

Neither could.

Shit. The memory modification they’d done. Did it wash away memories of the night? He remembered yesterday’s work, but he couldn’t recall the night after. He stuffed the feeling of uneasiness deep inside him, it wasn’t right that they had access to his brain like this, that he was forced to give them ownership of his own head. It made him feel vulnerable, trapped, and they weren’t good feelings.

“Soon.” He told himself, as he exited his room with his ‘mons in tow, “Soon.”

He’d made to knock on Pranav’s door, but a sticky note was plastered on, ‘At the all-expense gym, pull up after breakfast.”

A slight smile touched Arun’s lips, and he did as the note said, enjoying as much of breakfast as he could. He didn’t really know the others around him, so he stuffed himself with food (That wasn’t made from Pokémon), before heading towards the gym.

He spotted Pranav at the gym quickly enough, he had a squat rack to himself, claimed by the universal gym language of leaving your personal belongings (which included a water bottle and newspaper) nearby. Currently he was alternating between pullups and squats. Arun watched his progress for a while, a set of 10 squats with 20lb on either side, before going to maybe 2-4 pullups.

“Looking good.” He finally said, as his little brother finished another 2 pullups.

“Yeah? Well I feel terrible.” Pranav sighed, rolling his shoulders, “Everything feels like shit.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Since 10, I think. I wanted to sleep in, but that asshole–” Pranav said, jabbing a finger towards Aken, “wouldn’t let me sleep.”

Aken stuck his tongue out, hissing something back at his brother.

“Did I say wake me up early? I don’t remember that, and neither do you. So I still don't know why I’m up so early.”

Arun brought his voice to a low whisper, “So do you…?”

“Don’t worry, nobody really knows what they did last night, I asked around.” Pranav sighed, “We should start carrying notebooks, write down what we did or things we wanted to do. I know I had somewhere I wanted to go last night, but I can’t recall where.”

Arun nodded, the information that everyone was a little confused giving him slight comfort. “So what are your plans today?”

“I’m not sure yet. It was either do a little investigating or go training with Aken.”

“Investigating?”

Pranav hummed, taking a swig from his water bottle before handing Arun the newspaper he kept with him. It was actually an amalgam of different paper companies, the Eterna Weekly, Verdant Voice, Forest Frontier. All of the papers had been shuffled together with two different stories. The first praised Mayor Sablewood and his combined efforts with Galactic, showing off a plan to keep crime and Pokémon damages to a minimum.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The second was the complete opposite, bashing Galactic for intruding on Eterna’s borders, and pushing past their boundaries. It was almost patriotic, the way they talked shit about Galactic as has-been’s who were addicted to violence. Funnily enough, they offered no real solution to the problems the city faced, only talking down on Galactic.

They had one thing in common though.

“Wow, Gardenia’s name is being dragged through the mud here.” Arun whistled, reading through a particularly nasty piece, “I feel bad, I liked her fight.”

“She was pretty awesome in the anime too.” His brother agreed, “Sucks to see but I don’t think we have time to worry about that. We need to be useful, so let’s be useful.”

“What have you got?”

“Check the final page, I wrote down every news company in the city that hasn’t participated in the propaganda war, alongside the ones that are talking shit about Galactic.”

It was an impressive list, if not a little messy. He looked through the names and companies, his eyes stopping on one particular name in general.

“I recognize this one.” Arun said, tapping one of the names, “Matt Thorne.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“It might be a coincidence, but there was a trainer on the news recently that seemed to have a lot of clout. Violet Thorne.”

“Was she any good?” Pranav asked, furrowing his brow in thought.

“Probably. They specified ‘ace trainer’, so she’s probably a little famous. I gotta ask though, what’s the plan here?”

“I’d like to see if I can persuade them to join Galactic’s side of the whole propaganda war. Or at least, try to figure out why they won’t join.” Pran sighed, “But we got work in four-ish hours, and I need to train with Aken.”

His little brother looked around to see if no one was watching, before bringing his voice down to a low whisper, “There’s also that other thing I wanted to get a handle on.”

“Bezos?”

“Bezos.”

Arun nodded, considering for a moment. “Alright then, give me the addresses and names, I’ll talk, you train and handle the other business.”

Pran raised an eyebrow, “You. Really? You look like a thug.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yours.” Pran grinned, “If I remember correctly, you tried to attack me, and you got your ass beat for it.”

“Doesn’t count.” Arun growled, “You shot me with a confuse ray!”

His brother said nothing, instead holding up a hand to high five Aken, who bumped his head against it with a similar shit eating grin.

“I’ll handle it.” Arun sighed, “Just go train. Whatever we’re doing at night is probably dangerous. I…I think I fought people last night? I can’t remember much, I just felt…anxious I guess.”

“Got it, I’ll see you at work then?”

“See you at work–oh, and take Zubat with you, she needs training too.”

Pranav caught the pokeball he tossed him, and nodded before going off to hit the showers. Arun scanned the list, only to realise he had no idea where any of these streets or addresses were, and sighed.

He’d have to buy a map.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This…wasn’t going so great.

“And stay out!” A voice snarled, after a door was slammed shut in front of Arun. He made to say something, but a growl from the Growlithe on the other side had him decide that maybe getting the last word wasn’t worth it.

A spike of frustration emanated from Valor. They are mean.

“Super mean.” Arun sighed. This was the third spot he’d visited today. The first had outright denied him from entering, the second politely asked him to leave when they realized he wasn’t there to offer a story or buy any of their papers, and this one got upset as soon as he mentioned Galactic.

He wondered if he should have mentioned Galactic…but decided he’d rather not lie. It wasn’t like he couldn’t lie, but the end game here was to support Galactic in their efforts to push back Chronos. It would be better to just be truthful about his current employment than to deal with complications when they mattered.

“Do I really look like a thug?” Arun asked.

Valor shook his head left to right, before giving him the Nuzleaf equivalent of a thumbs up.

“Thanks buddy.”

Maybe he should try smiling more? Pranav said a good smile was always reciprocated in kind, it was how you put someone at ease. But it was hard to smile on command, at least for him, it looked too unnatural and unnerving.

“Maybe Pran should have handled this.” He thought, sighing. Scanning the next name on the list, it was the Thorne family, running the In the Vine newsletter.

“Here’s to hoping everything goes well, eh?”

Valor sent a wave of confidence. You can do it!

Armed with the confidence his partner had given him, and an expression on his face that made him seem like he didn’t want to murder anybody, Arun marched to his destination, zipping up his jacket as a cold wind had him shivering.

“It’s getting colder.” Arun thought, “Winter will hit soon.”

Arun feared winter. Winter was dying fires and huddling close to his brother’s comatose body for heat. Winter was not knowing if you’d be able to forage anything worthwhile or go hungry. Winter was wondering if it was worth it to continue pushing onwards to the next day.

Winter was when they’d died.

He pushed the thought out of his head, instead turning his thoughts to the building in front of him. It was nice, in that old 1980’s type of way. Being only two stories tall, it was a structure made up of beige bricks that crumbled slightly near the edges. Aside from that it looked well maintained, though the windows and door were shuttered close by blinds.

It was surprisingly out of the way, too. Closer to the outskirts of Eterna than the busier business sector. He wondered why, Violet was supposed to be an Ace trainer, no? If they were recognized enough to be labelled as such on the news, wouldn’t she be earning enough to better her location?

He knocked on the door before shouting, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

No response.

Hmmm…they were supposed to be still open, Pranav wouldn’t have listed them down if they weren’t. He opened up his mind, searching for any presences within. He found four. The first was the brightest of all of them, from how strongly he felt it, the presence must have belonged to a Pokémon, one pretty strong too. That meant the other three must’ve been people.

“Is this a bad time?” Arun asked loudly, “I can set an appointment if you’d like!”

Again, no response, but he heard the shutter of blinds being pulled down. He was being watched now.

“I don’t…mean any harm if that’s what you’re afraid of! Valor here is my only Pokémon with me today, we just have a few questions relating to Galactic.”

“We don’t want anything to do with Galactic! Quit hollering and fuck off!” A voice shouted from within. It sounded old, wary, afraid.

“Grandpa!” Another hissed. Younger, feminine.

“Not even five minutes?”

“No! Now stop hollerin’ and get out before I make you leave!”

“I just want to understand a few things!” Arun pleaded, “I’m not looking for anything, I just want to understand your stance on Galac–”

The door slammed open, Arun instantly stepped back but was not prepared for a 6 foot dog to reach out and bit him by the hem of his collar, dragging him inside. Valor let out a cry of alarm, but was silenced when the dog…no, the Stoutland, growled.

“Do you have a death wish, boy?” A man growled. He was old, very old, more wrinkles than Arun could count. Still, there was strength in his eyes, a fire that promised retribution.

“I told you to stop hollerin’, didn’t I?”

This was dangerous. Very dangerous. Arun’s first instinct was to punch the Stoutland square in the nose and gain as much distance as possible. But that would make him an enemy. He needed to do something though, say something.

What would Pranav do?

“If uh…if it helps, I’m not shouting anymore.”

Pranav always used humor in tense situations.

Stoutland and the old man both growled.

Yeah, they never worked out for his brother either.