Sabrina

  —

  I took a long moment to center myself after I Teleported the three girls to their Pokemon Center. I wasn't exhausted or anything like that…

  No, I was shaken to my core.

  There were certain… limits that humans experienced. Certain knowledge that was… intrinsic to reality itself. So basic and known that you never even think about the possibility of encountering them personally, because you couldn't.

  Like death.

  Erin Greenwood hadn't thought about it deeply, or for long, but even the… acknowledgement of its existence brought the experience to the front of her mind… I would be making an exception for my policy on remote sessions as well…

  Death itself wasn't a terrifying concept, in my opinion. All things end, and then begin anew. That was the crux of the issue right there… I was certain that my soul had already experienced death countless times, but I couldn't remember it. Nobody did… except Erin Greenwood.

  That abyss she had… 'traveled through' to get here… It was over in an instant, but that instant had felt like an eternity. I didn't mean that in an abstract way, I meant that literally. In that brief instant between death and life, between that light at the end of a 'tunnel' and the darkness of closed eyes, had been a silence so deafening it still pounded in my skull, a stillness that knew no motion. I had no idea what to make of it, but the sensation, the dread still pulsed through my veins, of that… glimpse.

  I'd picked up more than a little of Erin's thoughts on it when she told me of her death, of course. The only reason I would be doing remote sessions was because of that feeling, and my own compassion for those poor people, because I was a psychic. I put my natural advantage to very good use in therapy. People never realized how much their minds went through to form a single sentence.

  To say 'I want a glass of water' out loud you don't just think about… saying that you want a glass of water. There is an entire cascading process that starts from a need, a desire to express something. Then the actual need itself manifests in the mind, such as thirst or an itchy throat, before the mind practically explodes with various signals and decision making processes. How loud to be, how to inflect your tone, how you may need to breathe in slightly longer right before you speak.

  The entire process was almost instantaneous, of course. You didn't think 'Okay, now it is time to say that I am thirsty' most of the time, you just do it. A dozen trains of thought to create a single sentence. An active mind was a vast, constantly unfolding web of thoughts both grounded and abstract, and one of the most beautiful things in the world in my opinion.

  When Erin told me of her… 'journey' here? I had gotten a glimpse of what she thought that place had been… and I don't know if those trains of thought had helped or not. She might be right, but just like her view of reality, there was no real way to tell, to test it…

  Erin wasn't certain, but she thought that place might be the… source. Or Source with a capital S, I suppose. The Zero Point Field, the end of the totality, the throne of heaven, the End after the End, so many different terms blew through her mind, but they all led to the same thing: That place had been outside of time, and it had been everything. Everything, all at once, all at the same time. Like watching every episode from a TV series at once, in a literal instant. The amount of pure information had been so vast, so overwhelming, that it had felt like white noise, like deafening silence.

  I was inclined to believe her after even a brief secondhand experience, honestly…

  I shook myself out a little, still not… fine. There were certain things you understood you were getting into when you became a therapist, of course. If you couldn't compartmentalize, even as you cared about your patients, you would burn out within a year… There was no training for death, though!

  I had actually become a therapist to help myself, odd as that sounded to most people. Psychic powers sounded fun to most of the populace, for good reason. Telekinesis was fairly simple, and infinitely handy, but when you were also an empath? It was hard to deal with the volume some emotions held. Psychic powers weren't exactly the funnest to have, especially when you were powerful, and I was powerful. I often had to restrain myself during sessions, in fact. It was one thing to watch someone's memories, another thing entirely to slide into them, live them yourself.

  For a fun memory? Of course, that was usually a good time, and I had a few friends where we would occasionally share some memories, live them again… A bad one, though? Considering I was a therapist, I didn't have that many happy conversations with my patients, overall…

  Still, there was an established process, guidelines for how to deal with what you hear from patients, with your own emotional responses to what you hear, but once again, death was not included in those! That silence!

  I realized that I was thinking in circles and took a deep breath. When I let it out I was calmer… not calm, but calm enough to put that dreadful silence out of my mind… mostly.

  I usually kept my Gym quiet to aid in concentration, but today… Today, I think I would play some music over the Gym's audio system…

  —

  —

  "I told you she was crazy, didn't I?" I glared at the red-haired man smirking at me on the other end of the call.

  "You did, yes, but you never told me how…" I trailed off, realizing that he wouldn't know about the real issue I was dealing with, and sighed.

  "Well, either way, I met with them, and it is criminal the utter lack of support those children have had, all of them! Leaving Erin and her whole… situation aside, Leaf should have had a therapist before she even met Erin, and Alex? Well, that's obvious enough…" I trailed off in frustration.

  I knew for a fact that Lance regretted not being able to do more for Alex, but even for him, interfering with a child that hadn't legally been mistreated was a step too far, especially considering it was his own Clan, and the more traditional elements of it at that. Once Alex had decided, though, after a week of freedom, he had made it happen… because he was finally able to. When a child went on their Journey, their status entered a slight legal grey area. They weren't adults, but they were afforded far more freedom than a child who chose not to Journey.

  Some of the smaller regions didn't have the Journeying tradition, and compared to them, a thirteen year old out on their Journey might as well have been an adult… and legally, they were independent of their parents. It was what had allowed that damned law, the one where you could legally disown your child as soon as they were of Journeying age. It had been intended as a way of relieving financial pressure on a booming population, to expand settled areas, and in fact the legal term was 'emancipating', not disowning… Of course, that was almost a hundred years in the past at this point.

  Still, that meant that Lance had been able to demand that Alex be allowed to start therapy… which led him to step in as Alex's legal guardian. He hadn't initially, of course, but after Alex was 'emancipated'? There was no way he was letting her have nobody… even if not every Blackthorn was like that.

  Lance coughed a little, looking embarrassed.

  "I did what I could… and for now, that was finding you. Did you get a good… feel for her?" He looked so uncertain and guilty as he said that, but I knew what he was thinking even without reading his mind. It was a relatively common occurrence, actually.

  I'd only had two transgender patients, but they had both been children with their parents. One set of parents had been supportive but worried, and the other had been very unsupportive, and obviously looking for me to 'fix' their child. Both had assumptions in their minds, though, some of which I had shared until my first session with one.

  When a cisgender person heard of a child wanting to transition, there were usually a series of questions. Are they sure? How can they be sure, they're so young? Won't they regret it? Why don't they just wait until they're older? Why don't they just dress differently? It couldn't be that bad, could it?

  Was it just a phase?

  I had shared a few of those… assumptions, myself. I was comfortable with who I was, and it felt… not wrong, but off, to envision myself in their shoes. To want to change myself so drastically. To be so unhappy with myself, my own body.

  Then I had met Rebecca.

  That wasn't what her birth certificate said, but it was her actual name. I had started my sessions as I normally did, just a simple greeting and introduction…

  To me, human minds felt like… gemstones, sort of. They ran the gamut from brilliant diamonds to dull garnets, but the stone itself wasn't important, and I had never found a correlation between their appearance and any easily identifiable traits… No, what mattered was the polish and cut of the stone, along with the inner shine.

  I was aware that gender was more of a scale than a binary, and this was reflected in the gems. A heavily masculine person was cut sharper, with more angles and edges, whereas a heavily feminine person was smooth, more like a pearl than anything else, even if they weren't all spheres by any means… The one non-binary person I had met had been an interesting juxtaposition between the two, honestly…

  So when she had happily greeted me, excited and so brimming with hope, I had not been expecting the shape of her mind. It wasn't perfectly smooth, but if I was to rely only on my mental abilities, I would have thought there was a young girl in front of me.

  Because there was.

  I had found something out independently of an actual study I had looked up later on. It wasn't consistent across everyone tested, but more often than not a transgender person's brainwaves didn't align with their physical gender. They literally weren't the gender of their body, because their brain, their mind wasn't.

  I felt good about that case. Rebecca was currently attending Pokemon Tech in one of the few competent courses taught there, happily transitioning, and usually gave me little updates every couple months…

  Doug hadn't been so lucky. His parents insisted that their 'daughter' needed to 'stop her silliness', no matter what I had said. They hadn't been abusive from what I could glean, so legally my hands had been tied. Doug had left my office that day even more depressed than when he came in…

  As a random aside, Gastly and other ghost types were a constant issue in large cities, and many city governments, businesses, Pokemon Centers, and police stations employed ghost trainers just to keep them out of most mischief. Pokemon Gyms, of course, had the same issue. A Psychic Gym in Kanto's largest city? We employed two very active ones, actually, ones with many, many Pokemon, not all with Pokeballs, and Doug's shadow had been slightly bulky as he left…

  Doug may not have been able to transition yet, but when he went on his Journey next year he would have a friendly Pokemon to help him out, and if things got… bad before then? That Gastly would find us.

  I shook my head a little to clear my thoughts, refocusing on Lance.

  "Yes, Lance, she's serious about it. Which you knew, but now you know." He breathed out a sigh of relief, nodding.

  "Yeah, I believed her, obviously, I just worry… At least she finally has a therapist, even if it is Kanto's very own Ice Queen." My glare at the older man grew more piercing, especially at that damn smirk on his face.

  "What about your girlfriend? I need her phone number, I doubt I'd have a good time if I Teleported to her Ranch." I'd seen visions of it in their minds, and I did not want to mess with that many Pokemon… or Indeedee.

  Lance went red briefly before he smiled wryly.

  "Yeah, I'll send you her number. Sorry to dump four patients on you, by the way…" I snorted in amusement.

  "No thanks needed for that. Besides, you gave me four patients, but Erin gave me three more." He looked confused and I sighed.

  "The Nurse Joy of Freezingpoint, their Head Ranger, and Gym Leader Raihan. They all watched her… death, along with everything in the Lowlands." He just looked more confused, now.

  "You can Teleport that far?" I shook my head.

  "No, obviously. I'll be conducting their sessions remotely." Now he looked stunned, for good reason. I never did remote sessions. Remote therapy felt like driving a car blindfolded for me, risky for myself as well as my patient. I spoke up before he could ask.

  "Yes, I'll break my usual rule this time…" I trailed off again and he gave me a concerned look.

  "Are you okay, Sabrina?" I jerked a little, trying to ignore the silence I'd heard for a second.

  "I am… okay. Just okay, though… Lance, everything in the Lowlands aside, I saw Erin's death, and I saw… something. Everything. Nothing. I-I don't know, honestly…" I cleared my throat, deliberately ignoring the look on his face. "I'll be fine soon enough, no worries… It really is no wonder she's so crazy." He burst into laughter, even if that concerned look hadn't disappeared from his eyes.

  "I told you! How bad was it, honestly? You know, if you can share that." I shook my head at him.

  "Saying that she's crazy is an obvious statement, like stating the color of the sky, and not breaking confidentiality. Answering that question would be, though." He laughed again, but I was serious.

  She also wasn't as bad as she thought she was, from what I had seen so far. Even in her own mind, though, she realized that she had been changing, and just… tried to lean into it now.

  He looked at me with one of the more open looks I had ever seen in his eyes, even over a camera.

  "Seriously, thank you, Sabrina. I still have plenty more, but that's one worry off my mind. Well, four worries off my mind…" I smirked a little, letting a bit of playful sarcasm leak into my voice.

  "Lance Blackthorn, from Indigo's most eligible bachelor to family man, all over the course of a summer." He went red again, but he was still smiling…

  "Yes, yes, laugh it up. Alright, well, thanks for checking in with me. Oh, and Sabrina?" He grinned, and he really looked the part of a Dragon Master right then, what with its vicious, amused edge.

  "Do me a favor and kick their asses, will you? Erin especially, but they're all getting kind of cocky." I began to laugh, aware that they were aware of their issues, but a second later Dragonite had popped out and flicked his ear!

  "Ow, Dragonite, come on!" Dragonite just shook her head, grinned at him, and waved to me before returning herself. I managed to close my mouth before he turned back to the camera, bright red. He saw the look on my face, and knew that if he didn't tell me, I would just ask him about it the next time I saw him and pluck the information out of his mind. He sighed heavily.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "Patricia doesn't like me cursing, and Dragonite likes her. Not more than me, no, but I swear it's close, and they've barely interacted!" I burst into laughter again. I had picked up Erin's restriction from Hecate, hers and the other girls, but hadn't heard about that…

  I felt slightly better when I finally ended the call with Lance. Not great, but… better than I had been.

  I looked at my schedule and sighed, though. I enjoyed my work as Gym Leader, but even with training, even after years of exposure, crowds were still not the easiest thing to deal with for me… My Badge Battles were fairly popular to watch, as well, and in Kanto's largest city? I anticipated around seven hundred, easily, not even half full but still so many minds… Seven hundred loud, excited minds…

  —

  —

  I slumped backwards in my chair that evening, finally done with paperwork. There was less than you would expect from a Gym, at least that I needed to deal with personally, but every single trainer that came through was under my personal review. Not that today's challengers had been anything special.

  I'd feel worse for the thought, but it was just a fact of life. There was no discipline where everyone was equally proficient, and Pokemon Trainers were no exception, especially fresh trainers. In any given year there would be roughly fifty to keep an eye on, but this year had been slightly lacking. Other than the trio I had met today, there were only forty or so that seemed like they had what it took to keep going in their first year according to the other Gym Leaders.

  Those three were in for a rude awakening, though.

  They were aware of the issue, of course. Not that it was a complicated issue, but… everyone hit that wall, even if the wall looked different for some. My wall had looked a lot like letting my Pokemon get stronger than myself. Youthful pride in my strength, yes, but I had unconsciously been limiting my team, so full of myself and my power, a ten year old prodigy who could pulverize a tree with her mind…

  Their issue was simple, though. They certainly had some arrogance, but they didn't indulge in it from what I could tell. It was the most common wall for younger trainers to encounter, in fact, and the solution was different for everyone.

  A loss should do the trick, though. Loss was better for growth than victory, after all.

  I stood from my desk, slowly stretching. Food sounded good right about now, and maybe a drink… Definitely a drink, actually…

  I felt a light mental prod and sighed again.

  My trainers took care of the Gym Pokemon for the most part, but some of them required a more direct hand… or mind, in this case.

  I groaned slightly as I pulled my mind in, preparing to shift the world around me. Not that it was hard, even while tired, no…

  I just really hated mentally sparring with this particular Pokemon…

  Even if I liked them… Not that I would ever tell them that…

  —

  —

  An hour later I finally got to leave my Gym, but I quickly found myself with a bit of a conundrum as I walked out of the main doors.

  I was hungry, but I didn't want to deal with a restaurant and its myriad minds engaged in conversations. I wasn't a bad cook, either, but I also felt like the act of cooking, even with telekinesis, would just be too much for me right now…

  My PokeNav vibrated, and as I pulled it out I frowned. A text from Erin…

  'I could use your help with something non-urgent, please. I have added you as a trusted contact so you can find me. Thank you.'

  What the hell?

  From what little I knew of the girl, that was not how she texted, at all.

  I looked around with a frown, feeling my team grow restless. Some of my team, the ones with me… I took a moment to check, but she was basically right outside of town… Was this a trap? I honestly doubted that. If some kind of confrontation had happened, I didn't see Leto of all Pokemon being quiet about it, and I hadn't heard any emergency alerts…

  'Be ready for an ambush, but it should be fine…' I felt my Pokemon's readiness, and with a frown I focused my mind, visualizing the area.

  Remote viewing wasn't all that precise unless you made the entire affair more of a ritual, with equipment to help focus your mind, but for something like Teleportation it was clear enough. You couldn't Teleport inside something like fiction loved to depict, but you could get… shunted to the side. The problem was, when you were supposed to be standing where a tree was, you shot away from that tree like an arrow as reality tried and failed to parse two objects in the same location. The original object always won out.

  Much better to take a few moments to be sure.

  In an instant I was standing on soft grass in a large clearing, and I was not expecting what I found there under the tall trees, despite the shadowy impressions I had gotten.

  There was a stone platform formed, almost like a patio, and all three girls, plus that Nova girl, were sitting at a stone table on stone chairs with thick cushions. Off to the side, what looked like two entire butchered Tauros slowly spun on two large meat spits, while a smaller stone basin held a series of embers, huge foil-wrapped packages resting on grates. All of their Pokemon were out, of course, the dragons intently watching the meat spits.

  That was surprising enough, but the looks of shock on their faces were more surprising. Erin's voice was stunned and worried when she found it.

  "Uhh, hey Sabrina… Is something… wrong?" I lifted an eyebrow and stared at her.

  "You tell me, you asked me to come out here." Her eyes shot towards the huge Rotom hovering there… the huge Rotom who began whistling! Innocently whistling! Erin was scowling at it, now.

  "Mind telling me why you impersonated me, Dexter?" There was some tension in her voice. She might not be angry yet, but she easily could be… 'Dexter' just laughed, though.

  "Because her boss asked me to, is why. Lance figured she could use some ribs…" They all settled back at that, all but the still-confused Nova.

  Honestly, Lance… may have a point. I would have probably ended up getting some cheap takeout, going home, and spending too much time in my own head… hearing that thundering silence…

  Not that I didn't already spend a lot of time in my own head. It kind of went hand in hand with being psychic…

  "Well… ribs, you say?" My stomach rumbled a little as I asked that, and I couldn't stop the light blush that crept across my face as the kids all laughed or giggled at me. Leaf was the first to stop, and she gave me a wide smile.

  "These are Tauros ribs, Erin style! Well, they will be… in another hour or so. We've already been out here a few." She frowned momentarily, but brightened up fast enough. "It's worth the wait, even if the wait sucks…" Impatience was to be expected in a child, but the anticipation was palpable from her and Alex. Erin's anticipation was far more muted, but if this was her recipe… It must be from her world…

  In fact…

  I reached my mind out towards Erin's, and after a brief glower at me, Hecate allowed it. Her mind was one of the more fascinating things I had ever seen, actually. By all rights she should be dead, considering her mind looked more like a spider web than a piece of cloth, or something else solid… except, something had filled in the blanks. Well, it had filled most of it, because there was more blank than not… Aura, melded into a mind, tinting the entire thing with its… shade.

  I mentally shook myself a little before forming a mental bridge.

  'Yes, Sabrina?' She was annoyed, and I knew she valued the privacy of her own mind… aside from her Pokemon, of course.

  'Are you still… tempted?' It took a second for her to get it before the self-loathing briefly roared across the bridge.

  'I probably am, yes. Don't hold back on my account, though, I know you could probably use a drink…' I could, yes. Badly…

  'I just wanted to be sure, sorry.' I felt her mentally shake her head.

  'No, same as my old world, it's not like I'll never see it or be tempted, it's not like alcohol is some illicit drug… I don't want to drink, and I haven't had a craving since Looker and his little trick, either. Plus, mom and Professor Oak have drank around me. Feel free.' I felt slightly guilty, but that was a point that I would have made with her in the future anyways. Alcoholics generally couldn't escape temptation like those who used harsher drugs sometimes could, alcohol was everywhere.

  I looked around, but confirmed what I suspected.

  "I think I could contribute something to the meal. I don't see anything to drink other than water…" They all looked confused, but I held a finger up and disappeared.

  Five minutes later I was back, a small cooler with some juice and sodas in one hand, a small bottle of very expensive red wine in the other.

  If I was going to enjoy a barbecue, I might as well relax…

  —

  —

  Despite Erin's words, I had worried over the ethical implications of not only drinking in front of them, but simply… spending time with them in a casual environment. In general, you wanted a bit of separation between you and your patients, a barrier. You may care for them, but to be friends with your patients? You couldn't be objective with a friend the same way you could with a patient…

  Still, they were children, even Erin by this point, so I wasn't worried about befriending them. At the most I might grow fond of them, but not friends. Erin's mental lack of maturity had surprised me as well, but not all that much. I could still see how her mind had been that of an adult, that stiff rigidity of thought laid through it like a framework, but by this point she looked to be not much older than the other two overall, and still younger than Nova.

  I felt mildly bad for the older teen, not just because I had stolen away her helper earlier today, but also because she wasn't stupid, and had figured out that something those three had said had rattled me… She was also aware that I was aware of her thoughts, and it made her mildly uncomfortable… I was quite used to that, though. It was a rare person who enjoyed having their thoughts heard, and psychics had a bit of a reputation. Mine was in some ways worse than normal, considering my strength, but my position insulated me from the worst comments… Not someone's personal thoughts, though.

  The trio were also bothered, but barely. Not only was I their therapist, but they traveled with two psychics, and they also had fae in their heads…

  That had not been a fun thing to find out as I was handing out drinks. Stabby was a little gentleman, actually, but it had still been more than slightly startling, not to mention Hope… Alex's mind was empty of any outside influences, but they were all used to having their surface thoughts casually read.

  I took another long sip of my wine, just relaxing as I listened to an… argument between Nova and Erin.

  "Look at how squishy she is, though! She is the best hugger!" Nova didn't demonstrate, though.

  Her Sliggoo was currently sitting with the other dragons, horns waving towards the meat spits and ribs. Apparently she needed some protein because she hadn't been eating insects as a byproduct of grazing? Probably some… amino acids, too? Chitin? Something like that. I wasn't all that knowledgeable about the body, be it human, Pokemon or insect. The mind, yes, but… I had barely passed biology, honestly.

  "Listen, I won't deny that they are great huggers. Raihan's Goodra gave me a hug in Galar, and it was the best Pokemon hug I've ever had." Erin paused and stared at Nova for a moment, who looked preemptively embarrassed.

  "It was also only great for a second. Then I had to kick Raihan out of the room, strip, and take a shower…" I could have done without viewing the memory of that, honestly. What had she expected to happen, though? It's not like their mucus coat wasn't visible!

  Nova's face was red, but she rallied immediately.

  "Sure, I can't deny that it can be a… tiny bit messy, but other Pokemon have different issues! He's so pokey that I bet you can't give your Dragalge a real good hug!" I wouldn't try it, but the insane girl across the rough stone table didn't care, of course, and immediately rushed her Pokemon. The Dragalge, Kallen, looked shocked as he turned at the sound of pounding feet, only to find a teenage girl flying through the air towards him, arms and legs thrown wide.

  That would probably explain why he dodged, and Erin barely managed to stop herself from falling on her face as she stumbled into a landing, arms windmilling.

  "Kallen! Let me hug you!" The huge dragon looked amused, but bent down to let her grab his head and hug it. She was pouting a little, though.

  "That would have been so much cooler, you know? Why did you… oh, worried I would hurt myself?" He nodded, and she scoffed. "I'm not going to hurt myself badly on you, or at all! Probably… You still owe me for all the time you hung out on my arm, it's supposed to be my turn!"

  I smiled and glanced away from their discussion, focusing on the other two. They weren't arguing… with each other.

  "Unity, seriously…"

  "Morgrem, we've had this talk before…"

  They were both glaring at their Pokemon… Pokemon who didn't seem at all bothered by the glares. Of course, Morgrem was also indignant, but… he actually hadn't started it, I had seen it happen. One of Unity's syrupents had spat a tiny Syrup Bomb at his hair, and it hadn't taken long for Morgrem to notice…

  "Yes, you didn't start it, but if we ever fight at night we do it outside of camp, away from people! You know that, tell me you don't, I dare you!... That's what I thought." I'll freely admit that seeing someone discipline a Morgrem like that was rather startling, but Leaf was… An entirely different jar of trouble than her older sister, one that I would rather remain sealed until our session…

  Pokemon LeafGreen…

  "Listen, what is your problem?! Why won't you listen to Unity at all sometimes?" Alex wasn't pleading, because despite her age she was already close to being a Dragon Master, but she was frustrated as she addressed the syrupents. They were looking away from her dismissively, the larger commander towering over them with a thunderous scowl… They were an interesting species of Pokemon.

  They were each an individual, but at the same time, they were… not a hive, obviously, but not quite a gestalt, either. I had once helped oversee a mass Miltank transit, providing some extra security as the herds were moved through central Kanto, and Hydrapple reminded me of a scene I witnessed the next morning. The ranchers had large folding walls to keep the Miltank calmer and feeling safer at night, walls that were on wheels.

  That morning, ready for their breakfast, I had watched various small herds push at those walls, turning the entire field into some strange version of bumper cars before the ranchers had broken them down again. Very few had been unified in their movements, though, and some had been almost stationary as they fought each other over which direction to go.

  That was what Hydrapple reminded me of. A collection of minds penned in together, and very ununified in this particular case. The reason was also obvious to me, even if it wasn't to the dragons themselves.

  I took another sip of wine before clearing my throat. I waved off Erin and Nova's looks, facing Alex.

  "Would you like me to tell you the issue? They themselves don't realize it, but I could enlighten you." I wanted to give her the option, obviously. Some people liked to figure it out on their own… but that wasn't the case here, as Alex frantically nodded her head.

  "Yes, please! This is… it's honestly not a big deal, it's just super annoying, and I bet Morgrem agrees…" The still-angry fae nodded from the side, a section of his hair still clumped up and held far away from the rest. Unity hadn't released the stickiness from it yet… Well, Morgrem was too mad to get close enough right now anyways… Her fae, Duncan, was watching the confrontation with a too-wide smile of amusement as well. I doubted he had instigated it, but he was obviously enjoying the drama.

  I smiled at the Hydrapple, and I made sure to turn up my… 'Ice Queen' persona briefly. I might not enjoy that particular part of my reputation, but it was useful, and not… entirely inaccurate.

  "The issue is that the four subordinate syrupents would like names. Well, right now they just feel a vague sense of betrayal from you and jealousy of the commander, and they're very mad, but they don't hate you or anything." The four Syrupents looked at each other in confusion, and I smirked as I felt their minds almost panic as they realized that they did want names, and from Alex… The girl they hadn't quite acknowledged yet.

  The tail syrupents were honestly just kind of hanging out, their minds almost passive. Did they ever come out? I knew they should be able to… right? They were serpentine in shape, they weren't stuck in there…

  "Names?" The syrupents twitched and looked at Alex, before as one they hissed and turned their heads away. I let out a light chuckle at the sight, enjoying their glares.

  I leaned back on the backrest Leto had graciously crafted for me and took another sip of my wine. This was what I had needed. I didn't need to be alone, or even with just my team. I didn't need to be around adults and their responsibilities, their minds weighing down on me. Somehow I needed to be around children and their lighter, freer minds to lighten my mood.

  Lance had been onto something… I might even be nice to him the next time I saw him…

  Nah.

  —

  —

  I was perfectly buzzed by the time the ribs were ready, and that was by design. I wasn't trying to get drunk around children, and this was a small bottle. I was saving the rest for the ribs, honestly…

  I was glad I had, too, as the smell that was currently assaulting my sinuses was intense, spices charring as the huge racks of ribs sizzled on the grates, finally freed from their foil packets. Erin had told us the contents of the spice mixture, and I had picked a bit more out of her mind. She might not have truly unique food, but for Kanto? That smell was… tantalizing.

  I wasn't alone in that thought, of course. The dragons were waiting for our ribs to be done before they ate, and they were staring at them with intensity. They were also getting half of the ribs for themselves, even if it was more of a snack for most of them…

  Alakazam was out by now, finally drawn into conversation with Hecate and Grace. Delightful little psychics, the two of them… Nobody else cared to join us, though, preferring meditation in their Pokeballs, and I nudged his mind, feeling myself pulled into their link a moment later.

  There was no conversation between psychics. There could be, obviously, but it was so much faster to just… know. Understanding took longer, and young psychics had a habit of oversharing, but once you were used to it? Even among Pokemon psychics, it was… soothing, to join 'hands' with someone briefly, to know them.

  They were 'talking' about their powers right now, and how only Grace'd had any formal training. Grace wasn't the most inventive with her use of her powers, and so couldn't help Hecate train all that much. Hecate was powerful, but she felt awkward and ungainly with her powers, too direct and 'brutish'. I briefly gave them some encouragement before giving Alakazam the go-ahead. Giving advice to two Pokemon wouldn't change the result of their Battles.

  Not in the least.

  When we finally got to eat, though, I found that the wait had been more than worth it. I caught an amused thought from Leaf as Erin served up platters of ribs… because apparently Erin had finally stopped her 'pecking order' at some point. Okay, that was kind of funny, honestly… and it fit Erin quite well, that vision of a mound of pre-cut ribs…

  I noticed the trio watching me and Nova intently as we took our first bites, but all care that I may have had was blown from my mind in an instant.

  Arceus!

  I'd had barbecued Tauros ribs before, and this… was actually tougher, the first bite at least, probably because of them using embers instead of an oven, but the flavor! The crust of burnt seasonings was almost too overwhelming, but when I chewed and the juicy meat just broke apart…

  I would actually be nice to Lance the next time I saw him!

  Nova was devouring her second rib with speed, and even her surly Golduck was eating one with his eyes shining. I ignored the grins, and the feelings of amusement, from the three as I took another bite, also ignoring the sounds of crunching behind me as the dragons ate. There was practically a small buffet of non-meat dishes for the rest of the Pokemon, and us, but I had no room in my head, or my mouth, for anything but another rib right now.

  Which I had plenty of.

  I grabbed another from my platter, and discovered that these ribs paired amazingly with my wine.

  I might do something nice for Lance, actually…

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