In just a few minutes, everyone including Lida was seated at the table as Cindy cleared her throat.
"So what's this Team MZ stuff about though? I might have only gotten to Lumiose City recently however I'm not sure the Z-A Royale has a team tournament if I'm right." Cindy said with a sigh as she took down one of the foods that had been served to her.
She had loaded up on the honey-glazed chicken and the rice on the side, cutting into one of the chicken legs with a fork and knife in proper formal etiquette... clearly used to having sit-down meals before taking a bite.
Her eyes lit up immediately and she chewed faster with the formality slipping a bit as she went for another piece.
By the third bite she had abandoned the knife entirely and was just using the fork because the chicken was that good. Lida noticed and looked pretty pleased with herself for a second before her face went back to neutral.
I think the cook in her was satisfied even if the rest of her wasn't sure how to feel about Cindy.
Honestly I was a bit confused as well especially since we weren't really doing anything as a group right now but I ain't mad at it.
Hopefully something doesn't pop up out of nowhere that leaves us running up and down the city though, it would be pretty annoying.
"Weren't you supposed to ask this before you joined?" I asked while my eye twitched, and Cindy punched me in the shoulder.
Fuck it hurt! Was she training alongside those Charizards in Charific Valley or something? Either she had been doing strength training in the valley or her arms were just built different from a regular person's arms.
I rubbed my shoulder while she shrugged like she hadn't just delivered a closed-fist punch to a man trying to enjoy his dinner... Maybe that was a Johto thing... Maybe everyone in Johto punched their friends at the dinner table and called it affection.
I made a mental note to research that later.
"I guess I was too excited when I saw somewhere to stay for cheap." She replied as she took a bit of her drink that Lida had served. "It doesn't really matter. If you do need my help especially with fighting strong opponents, you can just give me a call."
"Alright then~" Taunie propped up her cup. "I'll hold you onto that. So how have we all been doing in the Z-A Royale? Pax and I hit Rank X today."
"Considering the fact that you're barely at home, I expected you to be a bit higher." I gave her a look, and Taunie shrunk away from it before swinging away at a whole bottle of alcohol downing it in one go.
"Burp~" Taunie burped without a care in the world as she downed the whole thing in one go and dropped the bottle down onto the table before wiping her chin with her sleeve. "Hehe~ I barely get time to battle since I'm always helping people but you've already caught up with me, so I'll have to give you a bit of a gap. What about the rest of you guys?"
"I made it to Rank Y today." Félix announced and my eyes widened.
Fel actually did it? He actually did it…?
When I'd left him this morning he was still struggling with type advantages and didn't even own a TM. For him to push all the way to Rank Y in a single day with the kind of foundation he was starting from… that was real movement.
He must have been grinding the entire time I was out.
"That's what's up! Lida, pour us some drinks to celebrate Fel's advancement." I said with a grin, and Lida gave a small nod while Naveen raised up his cup as well.
"I'll have the same drink here too Lida, let's celebrate." Naveen said making Félix's cheeks redden as he looked at the table.
"Guys, you don't have to." He mouthed and looked up to see us both looking at him with disgusted looks on our faces.
Did he really have to make it gay?
Regardless Lida popped open a drink and then poured it in three of our cups, it was straight alcohol but that was peak as well.
"You all seem to be getting along better now." Lida noticed and I smiled at her, making the woman's face flush a bit.
"Fel's a pretty great guy when you get to know him." I said as the three of us clinked cups at the same time and then downed our drinks in one go finishing with burps as well.
If Taunie wasn't respecting herself then we didn't need to do so as well. The alcohol burned going down... it was the cheap kind, the kind that made you regret it about halfway through the cup but you kept going anyway because the moment was already underway and you couldn't back out now. "Nice stuff…"
"Thanks, I found them on a supersale pretty much." Lida said and then Cindy cleared her throat.
"May I request a pour as well?" Cindy asked, and Lida nodded, pouring her a drink though it was obviously more different than how it was normally done.
It was as if Lida was pouring it more aggressively, and then she pulled the bottle back. The angle of the bottle was a little too steep and the pour was a little too fast making it stop slightly short of filling Cindy's cup all the way like she had done for everyone else.
"There you go Cindy." Lida said with a twitching smile and I knew she was pissed off. I just couldn't prove it however Cindy didn't seem to notice at all as she took the cup.
"Thanks~" She lifted it up to her mouth and drank down in one go before tearing her mouth away with a gasp and just like us, the young woman tried to burp however all that came was a small hiccup, and I laughed. "It's not nice to laugh at your rival like that, dummy."
With that she punched my arm a few more times and I flinched.
"Ow ow ow~ Those hurt you know?"
"Of course, that's why I'm doing it." Cindy chuckled. "As for me, I'm Rank Y. I planned to head all the way to Rank W to maximize my prize money and rent an expensive hotel but I lost my win streak to this guy."
"For Pax to end your winning streak… He must be really good, huh?" Félix muttered, and Cindy nodded.
"Yes he is, which is why I've declared him as my rival. Congratulations on getting to Rank Y though." Cindy told him, and Félix rubbed the back of his head.
"Hehe~ Thank you very much, I hope to be half as good as him one day." Félix said and then Cindy nodded before turning over to Naveen.
"Are you and Lida participating in the Z-A Royale?" Cindy asked, and Naveen poured himself a drink and sighed.
"No, at least not me… I'm too busy with personal stuff." Naveen said and then he tapped on his floating Poképhone however at that instant, his earpod failed him yet again.
[🌟 PaxIsDrip just dropped a MEGA CHARIZARD STATUE worth 10,000 Pokédollars to Streamer Canari! 🌟]
[🎉 You are now a Tier 4 Supporter! 🎉]
The notification rang out through the dining room loud and clear.
The chime sound that played along with it was the most embarrassing part because it was that long celebration jingle they used for big donations and it just kept going for what felt like five seconds while everyone at the table stopped chewing.
Naveen frantically tapped at his Rotomphone trying to mute it. The phone's volume control was unresponsive because of course it was. The chime continued.
"…Oh so you're one of them." Cindy said, and I sighed.
Nav had somehow succeeded in spoiling his rep again... Maybe he should stop watching those streams at the table honestly. Also a 10k gift? With the username PaxIsDrip? At least he was a real one because supporting his favorite streamer with that kind of money on a night like this was actually crazy work.
The username choice though was a different conversation entirely. PaxIsDrip... like, why use a username that has my name in it? Was this supposed to be some kind of compliment? An inside joke I wasn't told about? Or was Nav just running out of ideas when he signed up? Also what happened to his other account... Did this make him gay?
Then Cindy turned to Lida.
"What about you, Lida?"
"M-me? I don't do battling exactly, I dance instead and I'm trying to go Professional with it." She said while eating up some food.
"Dance? I can dance too… like a Charizard." Lida replied, and I sighed.
Honestly I loved Charizard but apparently not up to the point that I was that obsessed with them like her.
A whole Charizard dance? That was a level of commitment I respected but couldn't relate to. Imagine introducing yourself at a dinner table by saying you danced like a flying lizard and Cindy didn't even seem embarrassed about it.
"Whatever, whatever… Stop all these boring conversations and let's drink until we're knocked out!"
"Yeah!"
"Rara~"
…
Room 202 was dark, except for the moonlight filtering through the window sills, and on the bed was Paxton hugging Ralts while giving off some snores.
He had been thoroughly knocked out by drinking so much, and on the small desk next to his table were the Pokéballs of his Pokémon however on another larger table at the corner stood Riolu's egg in its Incubator.
Slowly the egg began glowing in a small blue light that gradually spread out until it covered the entire room, and in that light, a crack appeared on the egg with blue spots with a loud sound stirring the drooling Paxton from his sleep.
The crack widened across the egg's surface and a second crack split off from it at an angle with the blue light pulsing brighter through the gaps with every passing second.
"Oh…" Paxton's eyes widened as another crack sounded and the egg cracked again. "Oh shit, it's finally happening."
Slowly the shell of the egg cracked apart and Paxton let go of Ralts.
"Rara~"
"It's happening Ralts, let's get the milk." Paxton said while reaching into his bag and pulling out nutritional milk that he had bought sometime today in between his missions.
Mable had said that baby Pokémon especially Fighting types like Riolu needed a lot of milk when they hatched to help build muscles and they couldn't exactly be thrown into battles until at least a week of solid feeding and rest.
A week for the basics to develop, longer if you wanted them to grow strong properly so Riolu was going to be sitting on the sidelines for a few days regardless of how much Paxton wanted to throw her into the Royale.
The light began to die down and the Pokémon broke through from the egg.
She was small, a bit smaller than Paxton expected... about the size of a house cat sitting upright on its hind legs. Her fur was a deep blue along her upper body and a sandy cream color along her belly and lower face.
The two black bumps on the back of her paws were already visible, and the long black tassels on the sides of her head hung down past her shoulders as a small black ring of fur around her eyes gave her this serious look that didn't really fit a Pokémon that had been alive for less than a minute.
Her ears were sharp and triangular and twitching slightly as she took in her first sounds.
"Rio~" Riolu stood on two feet and stared at Paxton right in the face, and Paxton slowly rose while approaching the baby Pokémon.
"Riolu, it's me… Your trainer." Paxton said then tilted his head. "Why am I saying that like you know me or something?"
Riolu watched the young man approaching her and then furrowed her eyes. She was trying to feel the aura in this strange person who was the first one she was seeing as soon as she got into this world.
"Riolu~" Riolu kept looking as he came closer, though no matter how long she looked, she couldn't see any kind of aura, making her a bit disappointed.
However Paxton picked her up and carried her back to the bed with one arm as though she was a Princess. "Rio rio~"
"Well, welcome to the family regardless." Paxton said as he sat down, and Ralts walked over to them. "I haven't had a baby Pokémon before but I'll certainly take care of you well… or at least I'll try."
Ralts extended the baby bottle with the feeder on top to Paxton, and he smiled at her.
"Oof, I forgot that… I was almost about to shove the real thing into her mouth." Paxton said, and then dropped Riolu on his lap before using a hand to open the baby bottle before pouring the nutritional milk into it and then closing it. "You're a lifesaver Ralts."
"Rara~!" Ralts pumped both of her hands into the air, and he held onto Riolu again lifting the baby bottle up.
"Alright open up~"
Riolu begrudgingly opened her mouth, and Paxton put the tip of the baby bottle there as Riolu sucked on it and the milk went down her throat.
Riolu brought her small arms up to the bottle and closed her eyes as she sucked harder against the tip of the bottle, and Paxton let out a small chuckle.
"Rara~"
"I know right? She's so cute… You can drink all you want Riolu, there's more where that came from." Paxton said while rocking her a bit, and Riolu opened her eyes... Now she could see it...There was some kind of energy that was coming out of him.
It was a bit invisible and it was so strong that it flooded the entire room completely.
It was aura but at the same time it was not. It was something even stronger than that... Riolu were born with the basic understanding of aura.
Every Riolu could read it from the moment they hatched but what she was seeing in this human did not fit the shapes of aura she had inherited the knowledge of... It was far bigger and more warmer.
However Riolu ignored all of it as she closed her eyes and kept sucking on the baby bottle determined to get all of the milk out of it. Whatever this strange aura was, it could be felt later.
The milk could not... The milk had a finite supply and it was very, very good. Riolu had priorities and she was less than five minutes old.
Paxton kept rocking her and she could hear Ralts standing next to him on the bed making small noises of encouragement.
The Pokémon next to her had a normal aura, a clean and kind one which made Riolu decide she liked Ralts already.
She drank the whole bottle in one sitting and then looked up at Paxton expectantly for more milk. Paxton already had a second bottle ready because Mable had warned him about this.
Baby Pokémon drank a lot after all.
…
The next morning, Félix rolled on his bed in Hotel Z.
"Alright I need to get more fit…" He muttered. He had just seen his earnings from the Z-A Royale and honestly things were looking a bit good.
The Rank Y push had paid out more than he expected and combined with the prize money from individual matches he had cleared, he was sitting on a number he had never seen attached to his own name before.
Not the kind of money that changed your life but enough that he could finally start thinking about himself the way he had always wanted to. "I want to reach his level."
He could still remember when he was a kid and when he met Red. Red had been and was very fit even back then and he wanted to get fit too.
Red had carried himself like every part of his body had been earned, like he had trained for years to look the way he looked and to move the way he moved, even as a kid Félix had noticed it.
The way Red stood, the way he picked things up without making it look like effort, the way his Pokémon followed his lead without him needing to raise his voice... That was what a real trainer looked like not a person who battled in suits or someone who hid behind a Pokémon.
Félix looked at his own arms. They were thin... way too thin. His shirt always sat loose on him because he had no shoulders to fill it out and his chest was the chest of someone who had never lifted anything heavier than a Pokéball.
If he wanted to be the kind of trainer Red was, that had to change. Pokémon training was one part of it but the trainer himself had to be a person worth following.
"I want to be the best I can be." Félix sat up with his socks touching the ground as he rolled his neck with a sigh. "And maybe one day…"
He could see himself in Indigo Plateau in the Champion's Room and challenging Red, though Fel could not see himself winning.
He could see himself getting to the room and he could see himself making it that far but standing across from Red himself with everything on the line... Félix's imagination always cut off right at that point because the next image was always him losing and he didn't want to dwell on that.
He hadn't even allowed himself to imagine the scenario where he won. It felt disrespectful somehow, like he had to earn the right to even picture it.
"I still have to—"
His door slammed open making him flinch and Paxton was at the door already dressed with both Ralts and a Riolu on his head that came from Arceus knows where.
"Alright Fel, don on your best clothes and let's head to get you a good haircut." Paxton said with a smile on his face, and Fel nodded.
"Wait, before we go… could I ask the name of your barber?" He asked, just to be sure. He did want to look fresh like Paxton after all.
"Oh? She's called the GTA Barber."
...
[Author's Note]
Thank you all for your words of encouragement and I want to say that we're back officially, I'm owing Fel's backstory so let's get that done so I can start giving goals. Phew...