When I came to, my head was feeling as if it had been stuffed with cotton and there was a weird taste in my mouth. In addition, something warm and heavy was weighing my chest down, making me feel stuffy.

Shaking my head to get rid of the fog in my mind, I pushed myself up, my face scrunching into a frown. Why was there an unfamiliar woman lying in bed with me? Dusky skin, black, curly hair, it was definitely not Claire. She had her arm draped across my chest and her breath, escaping a pair of full lips, had a faint fragrance of alcohol on it.

I closed my eyes for a moment, to see if it was merely an illusion, or maybe some sort of weird dream, but when I opened them again, she was still there, letting out cute snoring noises. But with my eyes closed, memories of the prior night came back, of dancing with said unfamiliar woman, and even her name, Aila.

By the end of the night, we all had been drunk to varying degrees, with her being the worst off, to the point that Claire and I had taken her back so she wouldn’t get into an accident.

Shaking my head, I got up and walked into the bathroom, carrying Vio’s Pokéball with me. Inside the bath, I let her out and for a moment, she looked around, searching for the enemy, before focusing on the shower, making happy noises.

“I’m sorry for that yesterday. I thought you’d enjoy the atmosphere.” I quietly told her, as I stripped off my clothes to take a shower. She continued to make happy noises and hopped into the shower, clearly getting my intentions. It was rather funny, in its own way, how much she enjoyed the warm water but I wasn’t complaining. There was something satisfying about gently washing her, touching on a small, caring instinct that was buried deep within me.

With happy, giggling noises and a great deal of care and skinship, Vio and I showered, the warm water washing the last remnants of last nights’ excess from my body and mind. Realising that I had forgotten a change of clothes, I called Vio back into her Pokéball after drying her off and giving her another hug, and stepped back out into the bedroom.

On the bed, Aila had awoken and was looking around with a confused expression on her face. When she saw me, she gawked for a moment, blushing brightly, while I barely managed to keep my cool and ignore her presence.

“Good morning.” I casually greeted her, as I started to rummage through my backpack, looking for my clothes. My voice must have woken up Claire, who looked around, focusing on Aila after a brief glance at me.

“Morning, love.” Claire returned my greeting, a wicked smile on her face. A part of me wanted to facepalm, but something in her tone warned me not to spoil her fun.

“Last night was amazing, the three of us, all together…” she mused, and when I looked over my shoulder, the blush on Aila’s face was rivalling Prince Charming in shade, while the grin on Claire’s face was only wider.

“What…” Aila squeaked, forcibly clearing her throat before trying again, “What happened?” her voice sounded more than a little panicked, her eyes flickering from Claire, still wrapped in her blanket and me, who was in the process of putting on underwear.

“You don’t remember? And here I thought it would have been an unforgettable experience.” Claire pouted, her voice implying all kinds of things.

“Nothing happened.” I decided to speak up and clarify things. Making a joke was one thing, but Claire was pushing things too far, in my opinion. Claire’s pout became stronger, while Aila looked utterly confused.

“Claire, get into the shower. We’ll head out after brea…” I paused, looking at the clock, “after brunch.” I changed my wording, as it was a little late for breakfast.

“Yeeees, yees…” she grumbled, getting out of bed and provocatively stripping, in full view of Aila, causing her blush to flare up again.

“Off with you.” I chided her, slapping her bare backside to get her moving. When she hopped, quickly fleeing into the bathroom, Aila let out an amused giggle.

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“Did really nothing happen?” Ailra asked, speaking quietly once we heard the shower running.

“Nothing happened, we danced at the party, all three of us had a few drinks, you maybe a few too many, and we decided that letting you stumble off drunk wasn’t the right thing to do. So we took you with us and put you to bed.” I explained, frowning a little because I wasn’t quite sure how we had determined that she’d sleep in my bed.

“Luckily, you seem to be a happy drunk, not a vomiting one, like a certain other person I could name.” I added, glaring at the closed bathroom door.

“Oh.” Aila chuckled, and for a few minutes, there was silence as I checked my backpack to make sure everything was in order.

“Oh, shit.” Aila suddenly muttered, and when I looked up, she was staring at the clock.

“My mom’s going to kill me.” she turned pale, scrambling out of bed and only succeeding in tangling in the sheets and falling off. Luckily, I had been standing nearby and managed to catch her, holding her up as Claire came back out of the bathroom.

“You started without me!” she pouted, her voice accusing.

“Nobody is starting anything but brunch.” I denied, slowly getting annoyed at her antics.

“Aila, do you want a shower? I’m afraid we can’t really offer you a change of clothes.” I asked, trying to get things on track. We had already lost enough time and I wanted to get out of town before we lost even more.

“No, I should get home. Maybe mom’s not going to be too angry.” Aila shook her head, and now, Claire looked a little worried.

“Why would your mom be angry?” she asked, and as I helped Aila get rid of the blankets, I realised that she wasn’t dressed like a trainer, but like a local. “You are of age, right?” Claire’s voice shook a little.

“Uuuum…” Aila gave me a sly wink, one finger going to her lips. “Well, you know…” she muttered, looking everywhere but at Claire, who was now rivalling the white colour of her sheets, panic filling her eyes. Aila must have seen the same thing, when she suddenly burst out in laughter.

“Gotcha.” she grinned, her smile wicked. “She’ll be angry because I didn’t get home last night and she must have been worried. I’m an adult, don’t worry.” she assured us,

Arceus, you two are made for each other.” I shook my head, wondering if the headache I was getting had anything to do with last night’s drinking, or just with these two. Before either of them could take my statement and run with it, I held up a hand, stopping them.

“No. We are leaving. All of us.” I ordered, my voice as stern as I could make it.

As we were walking away from the Centre, Aila invited us for brunch, but I managed to decline her idea, mostly because I didn’t want to get dragged into any sort of drama or conflict between her and her mother. Instead, Claire and I got a simple brunch and beat feet out of town.

There was no official Route where we were going but the terrain wasn’t difficult or rough, allowing us to move at a quick pace, without any serious troubles. For the first two hours, we didn’t run into a single Pokémon, and even afterwards, our challengers were very manageable. They mostly served as training-dummies for Nuts, as neither Vio nor Charm would really gain anything from beating them up.

Thanks to pushing hard and only a handful of Pokémon-encounters, we reached the area we were supposed to patrol, some thirty kilometres away from town, before nightfall. There, on a small hill, we made camp and I decided to tell Claire about the warning given to me by Ivie the day before.

The longer I spoke, the worse the expression on her face got.

“Who would do something like that?!” she finally burst out, after having managed to let me speak without interruption.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” I replied, letting out an annoyed snort, “That, alongside how would someone do something like that and what can be done to prevent it going forward.”

I shook my head, before continuing on. “I’m afraid there’s little we can actually do. We are too inexperienced and, I’m afraid, still too lacking. Unless we prove that we are capable and reliable, we’re going to be seen as nothing but children, out on their own for the first time.” I paused again. “Not the type of people you’d want to have investigating something of that seriousness.”

“So what’re we going to do? Sit back and do nothing, maybe shove a thumb up our ass before sucking on it?” Claire snarled, her anger now having found a target in me.

“In the first place, we stop throwing childish temper-tantrums.” I refuted her, giving her a glare that shut her up. “And afterwards, we get strong and prove that we are reliable. If we manage that, we will be relied upon.”

What I didn’t tell her was that, if we were relied upon, we would have a burden placed on us. A burden of responsibility, that I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to carry yet. Caring for Prince Charming and Vio, for the partners I would acquire in the future? That I could do.

But was I strong enough to be responsible for an entire town, for the lives and livelihood of thousands? That, I did not know.