“Azalea Lane, 8123. Here we are, Phanpy.” Quinn had been lucky that Mabel’s house was almost a straight shot away from the West Havenwood train station. Even then, Quinn wasn’t confident about where he was going because most of the street signs were either faded or completely missing. He only turned down the right street because someone had spray painted “Assalea” on the barely standing Azalea Lane street sign.

Sketchy was a generous term for West Havenwood, and the area didn’t get much better as Quinn got farther away from the train station. He estimated that a third of the buildings and houses in West Havenwood were abandoned and any that weren’t abandoned had bars across their first-story windows. Quinn had gotten some looks, but nobody bothered him thanks to Harper’s advice. The one thing of note he saw was a Pokemon battle between a Litleo and a Poocheyana in an alley close to the train station. Quinn didn’t slow down to watch, but he could see from the blood that the Poochyena had already lost. Quinn’s blood boiled as he heard “Poochyena, bite him!” echo off the walls about a block away.

Mabel’s house was a two-story red brick row home like the rest of the neighborhood and was probably older than she was. The house was an end unit which gave it a relatively large yard, but the house connected on the other side was completely boarded up with what looked like wet black graffiti dripping down the brick. Mabel’s place had a small porch with empty pots sprinkled in the corners and a rocking chair in the middle. A waist-high chain link fence circled the yard and the most notable sight of the house was the absolutely massive Gogoat grazing on the grass.

Quinn took a step forward to the front gate and immediately alerted the Gogoat of his presence. The Gogoat eyed him before slowly trotting over and standing in the middle of the walkway between the gate and the stairs to the front door. The Gogoat’s horns reached higher than Quinn and his lush leaf mane would make any historical king hide his ruff in shame. His horns also had a unique shape — they looped around so that the points of the horns shot vertically away from the crown of his head.

Quinn, not wanting to yell from the sidewalk, asked, “Hey Gogoat, could you let Mabel know I'm here?” and put a hand on the gate.

Gogoat immediately let out a loud snort and dropped his head, aiming his gnarly horns right at Quinn. He jumped back from the gate as Phanpy moved in between them and trumpeted out a low rumble to answer Gogoat’s snort. Gogoat then pawed at the ground with his front hoof. Quinn was under no impression that the fence would even slow down a charge.

“Gogoat! Leave them alone, they are family!”

Gogoat stopped pawing at the ground, lifted his head up and over the fence, and started to sniff curiously. After sniffing for a couple of seconds, he stopped with a look of confusion on his face but moved away from the fence and path. Behind the giant goat at the front door stood a short old woman with white hair done in two loose braids. She had a smile that was betrayed by a look of apprehension and nervousness in her blue eyes.

“Hello, I’m guessing you’re Mabel. I'm Quinn and this is Phanpy.” While Quinn appreciated Mabel calling off her tank of a Pokemon, he winced at her calling him and Phanpy family.

Quinn regretted his rage-fueled rampage in the forest, but it had given him the chance to expel enough of his anger that he could get through the day without lashing out at Mabel. He had resolved to be polite to her, but he didn’t want her acting like he was a Royal. Quinn was a Gray and no amount of blood would change that.

“Yes, you're correct. Please come in and don’t be afraid of Gogoat. Most people in West Havenwood should be and are afraid of him, but that's only because I need him to be. You can probably tell that if you can be robbed, then you will be robbed around here, so I have to give the green light to anyone who enters the yard. You could even go pet him if you want.”

Quinn opened the gate and walked down the path with Phanpy close by his side and was only tempted for a second by Gogoat’s glorious mane. “That's okay. I'm good with admiring from afar.”

Mabel continued the conversation with a nervous pace. “Most do the same. Gogoat is the best guard in all of West Havenwood. Frank, who owns the junkyard a couple of blocks away, has begged me on multiple occasions to trade Gogoat. He's nice enough and his Pawnaird struggles to watch the whole junkyard, but Gogoat is going to have to see me to the grave before he can get a more exciting trainer.” Mabel hadn’t yet moved from the front doorway, so Quinn stopped on the second stair that put him at eye level with Mabel.

“It really is amazing how much you look like Paul,” Mabel abruptly changed the subject. “Shave your head and I'd believe Dialga had warped me back 20 years.”

Quinn, not sure how to respond to that, stayed silent.

Receiving no response, Mabel turned around and walked back into the house. “No need to take off your shoes, it isn't like you could make this place any dirtier.” Quinn was grateful that Mabel hadn’t forced a hug or, heaven forbid, pinched his cheeks after comparing him to Paul.

Phanpy led the way as Quinn looked around the almost century-old house. He had first thought Mabel was exaggerating how dirty her house was since the floors were clear of dirt, but as he looked closer he could see cobwebs in the ceiling corners and a layer of dust on the furniture that he suspected Mabel couldn’t reach. The living room felt quite cramped as bookshelves of nicknacks lined any available wall space. Everything looked to have its place, but Quinn would guess Mabel was a sucker for collectibles. In the middle of the room were two loveseats facing each other with a mahogany coffee table in between.

On one of the loveseats sat a lady in her 50s with graying hair wearing a black pantsuit with a pink blouse — presumably Amanda Ward. Quinn couldn’t tell with her sitting down but he doubted she was much taller than Mabel. On the coffee table was a stack of papers next to a newspaper and some photos. Mabel had sat down next to Amanda.

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“Hello Quinn, it's nice to see you in person.” Amanda stood and reached out her hand to Quinn.

“Hello Amanda, you as well.” Quinn shook her hand before sitting down on the opposite couch with Phanpy.

“Well, we've got a lot to get through today, so if you and Mabel don’t mind, let's just jump into it.” Mabel was about to object, but before she could speak up Quinn said, “That's fine with me.” Seeing that he wasn’t interested in small talk, Mabel nodded her head in agreement.

“Sounds good. Quinn, I appreciate your patience this last week and I don’t want your questions to have to wait any longer. What questions do you have for Mabel about Paul, his death, or the Royal family?”

“Thanks, Amanda. Mabel, I appreciate you reaching out and letting me know about Paul and my mom. I know it must have been hard to know what to do, but I'm glad you searched me out.” Relief washed over Mabel’s face as Quinn pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and continued, “I wrote down my questions beforehand to make sure I didn’t forget anything. You called my mom a shining beacon in your letter so first, how well did you know my mom and how long were she and Paul together?”

“Lucy was Paul’s longest relationship, but that isn’t exactly saying much. They were only together for around six months. However, she'd often come to visit the gym where Paul worked for my husband, James. I also would help out with the gym and so we quickly got to know how amazing Lucy was. She loved seeing the different types of Pokemon that would come into the gym so she'd sit in the stands and talk to Paul and James between battles and talk to me whenever I took a break. As she got more comfortable in the gym, she offered to bring in plants to help decorate. The gym never looked better than when she was dating Paul, and half of that was just because of her presence — she brightened everyone's day with a smile,” Mabel smiled herself as she remembered the happier times.

“There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t joke about how lucky Paul was to be with Lucy. Little did we know how right we were. Toward the end, when we noticed Lucy was not her usual self, we pressed both of them to find out what was wrong. Lucy would always just smile and say everything was fine, but Paul wouldn’t even talk about it. One day, Lucy stopped coming to the gym and Paul never told us why.”

Quinn was smiling at the memory of his mom until Mabel talked about the split. He knew his mom carried a lot of animosity toward Paul until she died — he could only imagine what Paul said that made Lucy cut ties so abruptly with James and Mabel.

Quinn was tempted to ask a question about the gym, but thought better of it, reminding himself that he'd written his list to avoid getting sidetracked in the first place.

Looking back to his list, Quinn read off the next question. “In your letter, you said that you took some time deciding if you were going to reach out to me before Paul went missing. How long is ‘some time’?” Quinn was already looking at Mabel before he finished his question to gauge her reaction.

Mabel’s eyes dropped to the ground and her shoulders tensed up before she answered. “I wanted to reach out, but your father was really in a bad place with bad people, and I only found out because your father didn’t think I was listening, and I didn’t know if it was—”

“Mabel, I just want to know how long,” Quinn interrupted her, not wanting to hear any excuses and hating how she kept calling him his father.

“Five months,” Mabel said quietly.

Quinn had braced himself for the possibility that “some time” was more than a few weeks, but finding out that his only living blood relative had known about him for almost a year and hadn’t reached out brought up feelings of rejection that he'd buried long ago.

Quinn went off his scripted questions. “So for 11 months, you knew who I was, where I lived, and that my only family was dead. Why did you need Paul in a good place to reach out? Did you not want to get to know me yourself?”

“Of course, I wanted to get to know my only grandson. Your father was ruining everything and I didn’t want him to ruin any relationship that we might have. Then when your father went missing, I didn’t have any answers to where he was or what happened. Your father—”

“Stop calling him my father!” he exploded, angry tears starting to prick the corners of his eyes. Amanda and Mabel both jumped in their seats at Quinn’s booming voice.

Quinn quieted but left the vitriol in his voice. “He was never my father, he will never be my father, and as far as I'm concerned, you were too scared to even want to be my grandma.”

Mabel’s mouth hung open, but no words escaped as a different kind of tears formed in her eyes.

Quinn then felt Phanpy’s trunk wedge under his right hand and he took a couple of deep breaths while nobody made a sound. Coming back to reality, Quinn felt foolish for the outburst but not the words. He crumpled the paper with questions in his left hand. There were still answers he wanted, but he couldn’t summon the energy to ask.

“I don’t have any more questions.”

Amanda, ever the professional, jumped in to say, “Thank you, Quinn, for coming prepared, and thank you, Mabel, for answering Quinn’s questions. Now to move on to the matter of Paul’s estate. Vorunda law dictates that in cases where a person dies without a will in place, any outstanding debts are first paid from any liquid assets available. Fortunately, Paul had no debts on record. Unfortunately, Paul also had no liquid assets in any known savings or investment accounts. That only leaves the property that Paul owned as the contents of the estate.”

Amanda turned to face Quinn directly. “Quinn, Vorunda law also dictates that when a citizen dies with no will, any remaining assets are evenly distributed between the next of kin. Originally that would have been you and Mabel. However, Mabel has forfeited any claim to the estate and now everything will go to you.”

At this news, Quinn almost asked Amanda to repeat herself as he figured she misspoke. Sensing Quinn’s confusion, Mabel broke her silence. “Quinn, you're right. The Royals have been cowards for a long time and you've suffered for it. This is a fraction of what Paul should have provided and I'd never take from that.”

Quinn didn’t disagree with anything she'd said, but he was still surprised to hear that she was willing to give up money that he suspected she needed. Before he could formulate a response, Amanda moved the conversation forward again. “The property in question is located at 7575 Azalea Lane and is more commonly known as The Royal Gym.”