“...trouble in paradise?” Felis asked, staring at Sirius’s broken arm.

“Shut up.” His older brother grouched, “Turns out berries aren’t just a miracle cure.”

“What do you mean?”

Finished with getting their Pokémon back, the two made their way to the mess hall for breakfast, uniforms still rumpled and a bit of a mess from their night before. Valor was tucked away in Sirius’s pocket, snoring slightly while Aken whisked away to continue exploring the grounds.

“Bones can heal the wrong way, apparently.” Sirius shook his arm at Felis, before giving his brother’s arm a look, “You feel any discomfort when you move around?”

Felis narrowed his eyes, rolling his shoulders and arms, tilting his neck from the left to the right. “Nothing unusual, I think?” He said, “I mean I’m still sore but I’m pretty sure that’s just from yesterday.”

“Get it checked out anyways, maybe Delilah unless you get a chance to go see Joy.”

“Yeah, the good Doctor’s already mad at me so we’re not doing that.”

Sirius gave him the “what did you do?” look.

Felis ignored it.

“You made a ‘delight’ pun, didn’t you?”

“I’d never.” Felis lied, not that Sirius would believe it, opening the doors leading to the mess hall, taking a tray for himself and his brother.

“Whatever, just make sure you do get checked out, we don’t want anything crippling us again if we can’t help it.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it.” Felis laughed, trying not to show how much the statement bothered him. Crippled again…no. That wouldn’t happen to him again, not if he played the game smart this time.

They took their seats, away from the prying eyes and ears of their colleagues, though he supposed they didn’t mind much either, judging from the shadowed looks they got when the Grunts thought he wasn’t looking. There was also John’s group, who looked to be living high talking with some of the more veteran Grunts.

They looked happy.

He’d fix that soon enough.

“Are they the ones?” Arun asked, glancing over at John’s little group.

“No.”

“Pran.” His brother sighed, “I don’t get why you won’t let me help you.”

“I told you I could handle it, so I’ll handle it.”

“If they did something to me, would you sit back quietly?”

Felis said nothing, tucking into his meal.

“Exactly.” Arun pointed a fork at him, “So how do you think I feel right now?”

Furious, probably. More at John than Felis, but nobody really liked being kept in the dark.

“Alright listen.” Felis relented, “I fucked up, all right? I was supposed to be making connections, I just ended up antagonizing some people in a Pokémon match.”

Arun chewed his food, giving Felis the space to explain himself, “I went overboard. Insulted someone to their face. I guess they got some of their guys to get me alone.”

“How’d they do that?”

“We went drinking.”

Arun snorted, earning a fierce glare from his little brother, “It’s not funny.” He hissed.

“You’re absolutely right, it’s not. Why the hell did you think it was a good idea to go drinking with strangers?”

“I just…I wanted to experience life again, I guess.” Felis mumbled, “I’ve been stuck for so long, Ar-Sirius. Just breathing in clean air is novel to me.” He took a deep breath, savouring the lingering smell of cafeteria chicken, “I wanted…needed more. I saw an opportunity in them.”

“Stupid.” Arun sighed, though there was no admonishment in his voice, “So? What’s the plan then?”

“The plan is to not do anything until I can handle him quietly. If I’m going to do anything it’ll be done with subtle touch, which–no offense, not your forte.”

“I can be subtle.” His older brother huffed.

This time it was Felis’s turn to snort, “Please. You’re as subtle as a truck.” He smiled a moment later, “Seriously though, I’ll play it smart this time dude. Just trust me yea? I’ll ask you for help when I need it.”

When. Not if. The wording seemed to please Arun, who hummed and took another bite of cafeteria chicken. “Alright.” He finally conceded, “I’ll let it slide for now. Anyways, talk to me about that Pokémon battle of yours.”

“Oh man, you should’ve seen it! Aken and I were going crazy, Shadow Sneak and Night Shade went insane together.”

“What’d you go up against?”

“Some Psyduck–oh yeah! The guy pulled some crazy move, ‘Confusion: Sporadic Burst’ he called it. Turned the air into a giant minefield, ended up using Curse to finish the match.”

“Move variations.” Arun nodded, “The Aurafire Grunts had some of those as well, they were extremely useful, put Quinn on the backfoot in his battle.”

“We need to get our hands on some.” Felis said, shoving another spoonful of food into his mouth.

“Or make our own.”

Felis blinked, chewing slowly. “How do we do that?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full man, but listen. What determines a move? Shut up–don’t answer that it was a rhetoric.”

“Bh-”

“Shut it. Anyways, let’s take a move like water gun. What makes it a water gun? The pressure of the attack? The stream aspect of it?”

Felis took another bite of food, watching his brother talk. There was the engineer in him showing, dad would be so proud right now.

“What if we increased the pressure of the attack before release?” Arun continued, “Or if we turned the stream into just one impactful shot.” Arun emphasised the point by slamming his fist into an open palm. “The point is, we can alter moves by taking core aspects of them and tweaking them to better suit our needs.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Therefore creating our own move variations.”

“Bingo. We’ll need to set up a time when we’re alone to figure…” Arun trailed off as a group approached.

“Ah…hey.” A voice called. Felis turned, surprised to see John’s old Cafeteria group. It was Hazel, the storyteller who had spoken up. ‘Ems’ and two others whose names he hadn’t bothered to remember.

“Can we help you?” Sirius asked, switching into serious mode.

“Yea, we uh, we just wanted to apologize.”

Felis smiled at them, “What for?”

“Jonathan was bragging about it last night.” Ems admitted, her eyebrows furrowed into a scowl as she played with the Pokeball in her hands, “We…it was disgusting just thinking about it.”

That was…hm, interesting. They didn’t look like they were lying. He kept his face cordial, polite, until he could find something that indicated they were here for anything else.

“When we found out we rushed over to help.” One of the Grunts Felis didn’t recognize said, “But uh…by the time we got there you were already gone.”

“We did see the blood though.” Another added.

“Blood?” Sirius asked, frowning at his younger brother.

He ignored him, his mind racing as he stared at the group in front of him. What did they want from him? They apologized, but why even seek out his forgiveness in the first place? Were they not part of John’s little group?

“You sure your friend’s gonna be ok with you talking to us?” Felis asked, nodding his head towards John’s direction.

“If you can excuse my language, Felis.” Hazel said, eyes narrowed, “But fuck John.”

“Hah!” Felis’s laughter came out as a short bark, “Where’d this come from?”

“It’s just an asshole thing to do.” Grumbled one of the side characters.

“Again, we just want to apologize, he was a friend and we didn’t realize he’d do something fucked up like that to get an 'in' with the older crews.”

“Of course he would.” Felis scoffed internally. Everyone would. If not for Leland then for Saturn, or even Cyrus. Everyone wanted what was best for themselves, that’s just how humans were predispositioned to act. Honestly the biggest gripe he had with the whole situation was that he didn’t see it coming.

Well, that and getting jumped. That part sucked too.

“I appreciate it, thanks. But you guys didn’t do anything wrong.” He smiled at them, and they returned the gesture, tension easing from their shoulders. He could have drove it in, thrown their apology in their face, but that would be unnecessary drama. Better to just let them have their apology and move on.

“Ah, we wanted to ask.” Ems spoke up, “The four of us are going into town later today for lunch, do you wanna come with?”

And do what? Get jumped again? Ems seemed to sense the growing suspicion and brought her hands up in surrender. “It won’t be at night! We were thinking the local arena or even just a restaurant. There’s loads of places we can take you to!”

“That sounds great, honestly, but I’ll have to decline.” Felis answered. The offer was good, a great chance to learn too. But the people were nobodies. Bottom of the barrel Grunts who’d lose to a main character’s level 5 starter. He’d do better with just his brother or people with a little more renown.

“Ah.” Hazel’s disappointment was barely hidden, “I see. No problem then, perhaps next time.”

“Yea, we’ll see. Talk later guys.”

They gave their assortment of goodbyes, many of which Felis ignored in favor of his meal, before turning back to his brother, “Alright, you were saying something about move engineering?”

“You know, you don’t have to do that.” Arun said, staring at the group walking away.

“Do what?”

“Look at people like they’re assets, Pran.”

“It’s what got us through the bomb days.” He pointed out.

“But we’re not in the bomb days are we?” Arun sighed and stared at his fork, idly twirling it as he looked for the words to say, “It’s…just, think about it. We’re not nomads, we’re not dregs, we’re people here.”

“We are literally enslaved to a terrorist organization.”

“Aside from that, Pran. It’s the damn Pokémon world, right? Fantasy, adventure, a new life. You don’t need good connections, you need friends. And those guys don’t seem like bad people.”

Felis chewed his food slowly, ruminating on his brother’s words. “I’ll think about it.” He finally said, before pointing his fork at Arun, “Find a way to reword that next time though ‘cause you make it sound like I’m some friendless loser.”

“Yea I’m not taking that shit back.”

“Like you have friends already.” Felis scoffed.

“Matter of fact, I do.” Arun said proudly, “Quinn and Joy.”

“Quinn? The guy we jumped?”

“Mhm.”

He wanted to comment more, but by then another Grunt approached them. Could they seriously not be left alone in peace?

“Saturn wants to see you.” The man said.

Sirius glanced back at his younger brother, nodding once before stepping up and joining the man. “Think about what I said, Felis. It’s a new world.”

Felis sighed, watching his brother walk away. He scarfed down what was left of both their trays, depositing them near the front before meandering through the halls once more. He didn’t really have a shift today…so the whole day was just open to him.

They still needed information. And though he had battle experience, Felis didn’t think it was a very good experience. Maybe he could check out the arena Hazel talked about?

“Fantasy, adventure, a new life.”

His thoughts mulled over Arun’s words as paused, moving to lean against the glass windows of the building looking over the city. Veilstone was beautiful, unlike anything he’d ever seen before. A quiet beautiful, the type of beauty you could see in the way a parent gazed at their child. Surreal, loving, the city oozed of the feeling with the murals Felis could even make out even from his vantage point.

“You don’t have to do that, look at people like they’re assets.”

He frowned at that. Idly tapping his finger on the windowsill. His father used to say that he never listened, that all the lessons and wisdom he’d tried to impart on his younger son fell on deaf ears. If his father had known just how much he’d taken from him, maybe the two would’ve been on better terms before the bombs fell. There was much he’d learned from him, the biggest was to figure out just how much use a person had for you.

He remembered the nights, back when their family had just immigrated. One night in particular that stood out to him, the 7th consecutive night where he’d been sent to bed early without dinner. Not by his fault, but simply because they had no money for dinner. Lunch that day had been meagre as well, chicken nuggets and bread, the driest sandwich to ever grace his tongue.

He remembered the hunger pangs, unable to fall asleep because he was just so damn hungry. He crept out of their tiny room, making sure he didn’t disturb Arun or his baby sister’s sleeping forms. Maybe he could get something from the fridge? Anything would do, even if it was one of those dry chicken nuggets again. Walking out into the kitchen however, Pranav wouldn't find any food.

He'd find his dad instead.

Pranav’s father leaned against the chair, eyes baggy and form slouched, looking older than any 30 year old man should. Though it wasn’t his defeated form, or the fact that he was eating a meal of microwaved chicken nuggets, or even the fact that he was drinking that surprised the young Pranav.

It was the fact that he was crying.

To see one’s father cry was a profound thing. Father’s were stalwart, strong. The protectors of the family, the ones that kept them safe. How could such a powerful figure cry? No, what could make such a powerful figure cry?

He found out later they were tears of bitterness. Angry at the fact he’d come to Canada for a new life, angry that he was doing worse than he was back home.

Angry that he was watching his family starve.

“You’ll see, son.” His father rumbled during one of his drunken stupors. He always tried to hide away when it happened, Pranav always found him though, “I’ll find the right people, It’s always about who you know son, not what. If I can find…no, I will find the right person. I’ll figure it out.”

And he did. An engineering company–new. Without the reputation to attract employees, desperate enough to take a gamble on an immigrant. It paid off, and from there his father had met new people, larger companies, bigger payouts. They lived better, not rich per se, but comfortable, able to take care of themselves.

All because he used the right assets.

Was it wrong to believe people were worth being around so long as they had something of value to give? Pranav never thought so, it was the natural thing. Yet…

“I died, and followed you!”

Often he wondered why his brother did so. Not just the ‘end his own life part’, but the taking care of him, part. Pranav couldn’t…do anything for him. Couldn’t even hold a conversation for more than a minute at a time, so why? Some days, when Arun thought he was too clouded to hear straight, he’d hear his brother’s stifled cries, sobbing into the night. Pranav was the cause of that, because he was useless. He remembered when death approached him, a yawning abyss of nothing that threatened to eliminate him and everything he would ever be. While his brother fought against Cynthia Pranav took in the sight of his face, the pure, unbridled joy that glowed brighter than any sun. Death was scary, and he’d done everything in his power to fight against the black tide. But when he saw his brother then, when he saw the look on his face as all his responsibility was forgotten for a moment?

He let go.

And then he was here. That always brought him to a halt as well. He didn’t even like Pokémon that much. Sure it was fun, there were thousands of memories he had linking back to his gen 4 days, but even then he more so enjoyed spending time with other people who played the game, more than the game itself.

“I enjoyed…spending time with friends, huh?” He mumbled, leaning into the windowsill.

Friends. He had friends. Ivan, David, Aman. The four were thick as thieves from way back in elementary school, building snow forts and having sleepovers to University, spending late nights talking about life while playing Mario Party. He loved them, finding out whether they lived or died was one of the first things he’d tried to do once the bombs fell. Though all he had left of them now were pictures in a dying phone.

He had ‘friends’, after. Though he was careful with them, talking to those who could help him, working on a transactional basis. It was better that way, favor for a favor, you helped, and you weren’t doing so at your own risk.

He hung with John, because John could get him what he wanted. But he never really tried knowing the guy, did he? Obviously now that was off the table, he’d tear John apart when he got the chance. But maybe if he tried things would be different.

Maybe…maybe he’d try finding Hazel and the others. It was an off day, right? He could take a break, everyone needed one of those anyways.

He pushed out from the windowsill, walking with a determined gait before pausing.

“Wait. Where the fuck did Aken go?”