somehow, they knew waking up was a bad idea.

nothing was exceptionally different. just the same procedures and protocols that they droned on about in the event of an emergency. exits are there. try to avoid breaking windows. leave your things behind. avoid confrontation unless absolutely necessary. barricade yourself inside with the furniture until rescue teams could arrive. whatever. the thought occurs briefly that they wouldn't really need to hear these more than once a year if the league stopped painting a target on the doors of a building that was mostly civilians.

it never really feels like they're the ones who suffer for it. no one likes to hear that.

adele idly picks at their cuticles.

their pinky bleeds a little.

it's always going to be people like them. them, and this spunky little ranger trying her best to engage patent indifference to keep them up to date. a few weeks ago, it'd been fires. last tuesday, it'd been about floods and tsunamis. yesterday, earthquakes. every eventuality was possible when you co-existed with little monsters that could reshape the earth they stood on as they knew it. monsters is thought with just a touch of fondness, still. it's fine. an hour-long seminar about safety was doable.

what wasn't is being called upon for a demonstration.

adele glances up slowly, staring down robin's index finger like it was the barrel end of a gun. "volunteers are—" voluntary, as is implied in the word. don't sigh. don't make it obvious. they step out of the crowd and shuffle towards the center of the room at her invitation. pokeballs click together as they settle in and they pluck one after another off their snap locks. upon release, each look to their owner, then back to the stranger girl beside them. "alright, now what?"

robin coello

well, they don't know anything about instinct.

"adele," to fill in the blanks.

it’s hard to not imagine the disappointment. a chatot with an attitude problem, a psyduck that never really seemed to know what was happening and a gastly that was more judgmental than she was anything else—they weren't exactly an impressive bunch to be working with. any skills that they might've had were beyond adele's knowledge. they'd grown a bit every so often when they dropped them off at the daycare when they passed through verdanturf, but it wasn't exactly a convenient day trip from ever grande.

they weren't much of battlers as much as they were pets and adele, likewise, wasn't much of a trainer.

a part of them feels just the tiniest bit bad.

anyone would've hoped for something more. helpful, to illustrate the point. most people who worked here had some vague interest in this, didn't they? "mm, i don't know about that." they jerked a thumb in luce's direction and the psyduck blinks one eye after the other, still working on puzzling out just exactly what he was doing here. he picks his beak when it looks like he decides he doesn't care after all. "he doesn't have a whole lot going on in there." but, sure, to her point: luce could theoretically use confusion or something.

he's definitely had enough headaches where their back ended up cracking the drywall.

as for their chatot? adele bites down on their tongue to resist the urge to say nothing and look uncooperative.

but, really:

"i don't, uh. know? i guess he could pull on your hair."

or. um.

"he can sing, maybe." he had an awful voice, but adone undeniably had the confidence. chiara cackles with delight. but, at the prompt sing, the chatot preens with excitement and opens his beak, cheekily sing-screeching at the top of his lungs. adele stares back at robin, level expression without falter as they vaguely gesture to their show bird with a bland flourish. "then, you'd fall asleep, or—" "twwiIiNKlKLEEE, TWINKLE LITTLE STaaaARAARRRR!" "—go blind."

robin coello