[attr="class","samjermain"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]Madd just grinned at the greeting. She wondered if Beau—her uncle’s Venusaur—had ever been this stinking cute. Since they’d been kids, she’d been a fully-evolved bulwark of warts and greenery. A surprisingly shy creature who leaned on her ‘wife’ for encouragement. "Nice to meet you, Vacuole.” Not wanting to seem dumb, the redhead didn’t ask what that name meant. Besides, she’d heard it before.

“That’s pretty similar to how I nabbed my Slugma.” Though, the guy literally shoved the egg at her. Apparently, his Magcargo and Goodra had laid a metric shit ton of eggs. So, he’d decided he’d be the Easter Bunny. By the time she processed what happened, the guy vanished from view. After convincing Yakuza it shouldn’t be made into an omelet, they took turns warming and hatching it. “She keep the heating bills down.” She was also the closest thing to a kid Madd figured she’d ever get.

The redhead listened in thoughtful silence. Her cigarette puffed out little tendrils of smoke. “Not that weird.” Her broad shoulders lifted n a shrug, her new bra pulled uncomfortably snug. “People love playing with fire. Tragedies get views.” That’s why there were so many people ogling car crashes out there. At the talk of extraterrestrials, Madd sighed. “It’s hard to trust things from outer space. I’ve seen Alien.” Ripley had been her first girl crush. They actually had a lot in common (mostly common sense). “I mean people can barely tolerate each other.”

The talk of wanting to bottle a hurricane made the redhead’s brow jerk up. It reminded her of Uncle Ethan. The man pushes the boundaries of science until reality itself might break. The way he experimented with people’s brains. “Just be careful not to get burned.”

At the compliment, the Obstagoon turned bashful. His muzzle dipped toward his chest as he turned to look at his muzzle. “He’s a beefy boy.” She reached out to ruffle his striped head, drawing a stuck-out tongue in return. “Most of that’s Doritos and soda though.” With a grumble, he mimed watermelons on his chest, clocking his head to the side. “Call me tits for brains again. I dare you.” Feigning fear, the badger looped back to duck behind Soyeon.

“My Crobat can join them. Probably carry off some of the smaller dogs.” A few of those could fit in the medium-sized kennels. At the talk of destruction, she let her eyes drift across the forest. “Yeah, I’m like that too. Teenage me didn’t touch it if it didn’t hit like a truck.” Which, as she stepped over a Drilburr bone, she regretted.

A grass whistle would make a world of difference right now.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]The redhead flushed. She’d actually already tried that. But one scuffed knee put an end to her dreams of being Tony Hawk. “I’m not trying to be anything, Milo This is all-natural.” Except it wasn’t. She didn’t like all the stuff she did. “And skateboarding stopped being cool when my dad was young.” The earrings she wore—all chunky and spiky—weren’t what she actually liked. She loved sterling silver and silly chains. Stupid t-shirts with cute sayings on them were her jam.

But she’d never let Milo see it.

She wanted her dad to hate her, but that meant hating herself sometimes. It meant making her mother cry and risking handcuffs. And, of course, it meant puffing on cancer sticks and trying to bullshit the world into thinking she liked it. Hell, some part of her was tempted to start flunking out of school next. But that probably wouldn’t even bother her old man.

“Gesundheit.” Madd’s forced roughness dropped, her face softening temporarily as she reached for a packet of Kleenex that didn’t fit this jacket. “Mom’s not too bad.” She sighed. “Just a bit of a Stepford Wife.” But, Madd had never seen Dad pull the mind control shit on her. No, she acted like a vapid housewife—obsessed with Tupperware—because she wanted to. “Pretty sure she doesn’t hate you too much.”

Wanting to prove herself worse, Madd didn’t put her cigarette away until she drew even with it. She even went so far as to roll her eyes at it, jerking a manicured thumb at the hunk of metal. It took everything in her power not to drool at the mounds of sugar, fruit, and whipped cream. She slid her hand into the pocket of her skirt, pausing at his gallantry. “I’ll have a banana one with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not too much syrup though.”

At the Jigglypuff question, Madd sighed. “She thinks you’re a bad influence.” She forced a snort. “Thinks I can't be bad by myself.”

She really wasn’t. When that guy shooed Milo forward, she wanted to apologize to the sleepy-eyed guy. But, she didn’t want to look like a suck ass in front of her boyfriend. So, squaring her shoulders, she walked toward him.

And, judging by the way the guy perked up, he was more open to a cute girl with bazongas than a shifty-looking ermine. “Hey, uh, I—” God. What should she do? “I—um—I lost my Munna.” She named one of her mom’s Pokemon. “Have you seen him?” She fought back a sneer as he replied to her boobs.

Behind her back, she gestured Milo forward for a second attempt.

At the same time, the crepe bell rang.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]The clerk is glad when the bottle’s plucked from her hands. The thing’s still cold to the touch, leaving a thin sheen on her palms. She chuckles—even if she finds Andrea’s choice of words strange. Sure, hydration was essential, but spring water wasn’t. “I think bottled water is stupid, but the tap here tastes like iron.” One of the benefits of country living, she guesses.

Yakuza turns to Andrea with a huff and a glare. He pushes himself to his full height (which is still shorter than the cosplayer). “Hrrf.” With an emphasizing point, he indicates the bloody sand where the fish lay. Then, he laid his hands on top of each other, miming the mouth of a Feraligatr. He then covered his eyes. Then, he squeezed his legs together. “He said he doesn’t need to be in the water for something to rip his balls off.” Maybe she shouldn’t have let him watch Lake Placid 27 times.


At the talk of camping, Madd felt her nose wrinkle. That was one thing she and Pop had in common. Hiking, camping, and mosquitoes? Definitely not their thing. She didn’t fancy the idea of sleeping under nylon. But she also wanted to protect her pond buddies. “Yeah. We can do that. Take shifts if we need to.” An elbow from Yakky caught her attention. He smushed his hand together in a sandwich. His freakishly long tongue snaked out to lick at his muzzle.


“Yeah, yeah.” She shrugs. “We’ll make smores.” Waving Andrea over, she moved to walk into the shop. Place had plenty of supplies they could use. Some of that stuff to disguise their scent too. “Let’s see what we got.”

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]
Madd and Yakuza took up a home near the outskirts of town. It needed a lot of work, but it was way bigger than the flat at home. Which, now that she thought about it, said a lot about the modern real estate market. The place even boasted a private courtyard with a small pond. Many nights were spent lounging in a rickety chair on the back porch. She thought about her mom. How her life’s decisions—half of them shitty—had brought her here.

But, mostly, she dreamed of nicotine.

Sure, she always said she wanted to quit smoking. But she didn’t mean like this. In horror—like someone on a kinked oxygen machine—she watched as her pack of cigarettes dwindled to nothing. The redhead even went so far as to try smoking the crumbs wrapped in cellophane. That didn’t do much for her in the end.

By the time the next month started, the redhead wasn’t a smoker.

A Year Later

This place doesn’t offer much in the way of entertainment. Sometimes she reclines in the hot springs, staring up at the ceiling. On other days, she sits down to try and finally figure out chess. She even goes so far as to give cooking—or, at least, trying to recreate Doritos—a try. Madd even indulges in her love of books, finding the misplaced library is full of modern thriller novels.

With no job or bills to worry about, she returns to her regular martial arts practices. Soon enough, that black belt mentality returns. With help from other citizens, she soon picks up on weapon use as well. She specializes in striking once and striking hard. But warrior doesn’t quite fit.

She finds herself particularly suited to first-response work. Those battles outside leave a ton of collateral damage. Gigantamax Centiskorches drip flames onto thatched roofs while the Kinger turns people’s basements into ponds. Her ability to balance calm and out-of-the-box thinking gives her an edge when it comes to the community. Soon enough, she’s a common sight at local disasters. The few shits she gave about the Rocket and League stuff vanished like her reliance on Marlboro.

Her work keeps the city stitched together.

Two Years Later

Following a hard-fought clean-up, Maddie heads to the local tavern. It’s there she meets Gerald Kaiser. They talk for a few minutes. And, they do other things for a lot longer after that. In this maelstrom of violence, a bit of human contact is welcome. Even if it’s awkward. And, for Madd, about as interested as paint drying.

She makes a promise though: she’ll never scream his name in bed. It was something that belonged in an old folk’s home. Eventually, she breaks that vow. In the end, however, Madd settles for Ger. In the morning, they head their separate ways. He to expand their horizons and her to maintain what they had.

The first time Gerald Kaiser meets the girl’s eyes, Madd smiles. She tells the girl his favorite foods and silly things that end her hero worship. Just like that, her bed buddy’s gone. In his place is a best friend. And, eventually, a niece and a nephew. Sometime after that, she welcomes a kid into her life. A fire—one she couldn’t stop—left the little girl homeless. The scar on the child’s face is said to be accursed. People say her very presence is a bad omen.

Gods, Madd has no idea how anyone survived the middle ages.

It wasn’t like the kid would be around long. She’d find a good family and settle in.

Ten Years Later

Necrozma arrives. Madd kisses her daughter goodbye. She gives Gerald Kaiser’s kids a quick peek too.

All the stitching in the world can’t fix the wound the dark beast left behind. The hoard crashes into them like a tsunami. It's the speed and sheer numbers that do them in. From the injuries of their enemies, black armor is pulled.

She watches as the blacksmith forges their tragedy into a weapon. A bristly ball-shaped thing with a long handle. It is imbued with the ability to trap and slow an entire armor—to rain cloying dirt upon a wildfire—Sand tomb. Her brain thinks back to the silhouette of the first Galarian Articuno. She wraps the entire handle in fabric four times. She’d had enough mind control for one lifetime.

It took ten years, but, as she faced her newest battle, she almost missed her dad. Maybe, with a kid of her own, could almost understand him.

MILDRED: A large Morningstar imbued with the power to use Sand Tomb. Madd named it after her grandma. Both of them are kind of prickly. This weapon is designed to plunge a large swathe of the land into jagged, damaging quicksand. It's good for slowing the army down. If Madd draws a furrow with its hilt that connects, such as a square, the attack will cover that area. Cognizant of what this metal can do, she always wears a glove using it and wraps its hilt four times.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]As the turtle top spun, Madd’s breath hitched in her chest. Her tongue darted out to nervously taste her dry, cracked lips. You can do this, Aurora. A growl reverberated deep within the Blastoise’s shell. For a second, it seemed like this would work as well as she thought. They’d just get muddy with nothing to show for it. Suddenly, the earth caved with a loud crash. Water pooled at the Blastoise’s belly as its head emerged. She looked a little dizzy—green tinting her figurative gills.

A call of approval went up from the crowd on the other side of the guest house. The roar of gushing poison subsided to a dribble as water again filled the spring. “Heh.” Madd couldn’t help chuckling. Better to let them think their hard work put an end to the tide. “Let’s keep this our little secret, all right?” She was surprised how good this success made her feel. It'd been a while since Madd felt like what she did matered.

She reached down to help the turtle from the hole. After the mud almost sent her tumbling into the canyon, the redhead pulled back. “You all right if I put you in your ball?” After a third failed attempt at climbing up, the Blastoise huffed. Then, as she stumbled for the fourth time, Aurora’s pride cracked enough to force a nod.

The moment the turtle vanished, a call of alarm erupted from the city’s borders. Reports of an army echoed from her dusty old communicator. Since when is Articuno purple? But any chance of admiring the bird vanished as it attacked. ”Yo, Oranguru here.” Gods, that was a stupid name. But teenage her thought it was funny. “I’d try throwing a ball at Cyclops. Pretty sure ye olde Galar didn’t have—oh, shit.” Communications ceased in a burst of static. The ground beneath her shook, sending the redhead to her knees.

In a shower of dirt and mess, a gigantic crab burst from the earth. Madd took a few steps back as if a few yards might fix the scaling issue. With a nod, she plucked a Pokeball from her belt. She did her best to tamp her fear down as the Kingler turned to face her, the foam on its beard hissing like a barrel of snakes. “Let’s do this.” An Ampharos erupted in a beam of light. Its beady eyes narrowed at the crab, a grin forming on its pointed snout.

Madd never really got into battling—not like Aubre McKenna-Settentrione, anyway. Father found the idea of his daughter scrapping like some schoolyard ruffian quite unappealing. So, she never really focused much on ranged attacks, instead preferring stuff that was up close and personal—a decidedly dumb decision in this scenario. “Thunder punch.”

With a bleat, the fearless Amphsros rushed the Kinger with a fist of white sparks. The smell of ozone filled the air as it threw its attack at one spindly, chitin-covered leg.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]There was no time to contemplate the state of her hometown. Or, at least, this world’s version of her old stomping grounds. As she emerged from the portal, the square erupted with panicked screams. Orange eyes watched as the peasants fought against the tsunami of sludge, instantly reminded of The Blob. But, with it being real, there was nothing funny about it.

As Cillian and the others jumped in, the redhead found herself squished into the back of the crowd. With hundreds of hands-on one deck, the entire place felt like a Twister board. But it was a bunch of Renaissance Festival people claiming for purchase on barricades. Not really the type to lead, the redhead hesitated. Sure, she was built like a bear and a black belt, but some part of her still struggled to act under pressure. Madd was kind of like a bull with a ring in its nose.

All the psychic attacks flying around didn’t help. Each burst of pink energy made her draw her jacket tighter around herself. It reminded her just how powerless her Swiss cheese brain was in a mess like this.


She glanced over her shoulder for reassurance, expecting Yakky to be there. But she quickly remembered she’d withdrawn him. So, there’d be zero orders coming from there. With a deep breath, she tossed out her Crobat. “Keep people safe, okay?” The purple bat chirped at her, swooping instantly into the fray. Its claws picked up one peasant from the slime’s grasp, ferrying him out of the way.

What the hell should I do? She needed a second to breathe—somewhere away from grasping monster hands and mind-crushing dragon-birds. It’d be nice if there was a place to chill out for a second—wait. Her eyes lifted to the hot springs. This place was important, right. It was where the dogs relaxed after their battles. A magical place of healing and recovery. One that something was trying to taint.
As another wave shot out the door, Madeline felt her heartbeat. Wasn’t all that pressure coming from somewhere? A place like this wasn’t exactly using pumps to pull water. That meant it had a source. Madd recalled the tour she’d taken once.

Without a word to anyone else, she ran toward the outskirts of the city. If she was wrong, she didn’t want to be a laughingstock. Dying here was bad enough without it embarrassing her. From her belt, she withdrew a Blastoise. A quick calculation told her this would probably be the hot water’s source. Breath puffed out in white clouds as she turned to the turtle.

“You feel the water?” It nodded, once. She imitated the gesture, moving to light up a cigarette. “See if you can hit it.” With a call, the Blastoise dug its claws in and began to spin.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]The questions are a motley mess. Half the people are obviously in it for themselves. One of the weirdoes acts like it’s a confessional. Someone else pesters the half-dead rabbit for clues to catch the apocalypse weasel. Choosing not to comment on this shit, Madd settles for taking a few puffs off a cigarette. Not able to watch the thing rot out, she turned toward Moxxie.

But the flamethrower did jack-all to the lance that followed.”Moxxie!” Madd shouted, the alarm a few seconds too late. An icy blade smalled into the Magcargo’s lava body. Already bulbous eyes bulged further as the snail was lifted up and tossed aside. With a gurgle, she fell onto her side, lantern eyes closing. Even from a foot away, the cold frosted the girl’s cigarette, turning it and her lips into an icicle. With a wince, the redhead recalled her baby girl.

For a moment, she debated on throwing off something else. But, ultimately, she decided aggainst it. The dog was keeping all of them warm, and she hadn’t had the best luck with this shit so far. And she had zero intention of putting anyone else at risk right now. It wasn’t like they chose to be here. As everyone called out their destination, she pondered hers.

Some part of her wanted to hit up Balloonlea. It’d been Uncle Joel’s favorite place to take them as kids. They’d loved exploring the glowing mushrooms and playing with the faux fairy circles. All the woods meant her dad—even an alternate universe one—wouldn’t touch the place with a ten-foot pole. But, then, her thoughts turned to her mom and little sister. It’d been ages since she’d seen them in person—even if they video-called a few times a week. And, with what she got paid, it wasn’t like she could afford to leave.

“Heroes? I am not entirely sure you’re barking up the right tree.” Or, well, whatever rabbits did. Still, if her mom was here, maybe she could put some light back in her eyes. She took a deep breath, turning away as the High King breathed his last. She watched as Cillian walked through. It was time to go home. God, ten years was a long time. “Circester.” With a nod at her temporary companions, she stepped through the portal.

Hopefully, magical hell gates worked on concussions.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]The ginger-haired woman forced a smile. It was hard with the back of her head pounding. “That’s me, yeah.” soyeon kwan ’s concern received a shrug in response. “Not much I can do about it now. I doubt the weasel dropped us near a trauma ward.” And, honestly, she was scared she wouldn’t get back up if she laid down. They’d find her frozen in an ice casket somewhere—pervy boys joking about the size of her tits.

Saki’s comments were met with a sigh. “Somebody pissed in your psych-O’s, huh?” It wasn’t like she’d assaulted her or anything. She just wanted the kid to not blow herself up.

Unlike the others, she feels no awe at Cillian. Ranks and stuff never really mattered much to her. Everyone bled and loved. Money and power were just ornamentations. “Yeah." Seeing him puff away makes her light up too. "This isn’t our Galar.” It wasn’t just that it didn’t feel like home either. There were little things here that bugged her. The way the needles lay on the trees. “Place might be a shit hole now, but it’s not this bad.”

When she finds the ground continues, Madd pauses. Blood drips between her fingers. The snow is painted pink. With a grunt, she tugs herself back onto the cliff face above her. “Yeaaaah.” She mutters, her cigarette frolicking against her lip. “Place seems to go on forever.” The explosion makes her jump. For a second, the redhead’s the scared debutante all over again. The world is a big, terrifying place. Her fingers curl into a fist at her side as she forces herself to hold her ground. Sure, she didn’t care about a big wig, but she didn’t exactly want to seem like a coward either.

That fear spiked when five bodies—powerful, self-assured people all— jerked into the air like discount marionettes. Their mouths stretched open, moving in eerie unison. This display of power took Madd back to a dark time in her life. Father’s Malamar glared at her as he forced shaking hands to pull on ballet slippers. The muscles of her face stretched into an unnatural smile.

The earlier recited riddles didn’t hold her attention, though she did acknowledge them. By the time Calyrex finished its speech, Madd was a mess. Goosebumps crawled up her arm like an ant colony. “Well, that was creepy as hell.” Though it was hard to feel bad for it after the display, its deteriorating skull was met with a wince. Not that she could kill it. Hell, the ginger struggled to kill fruit flies—much less something that spoke and begged.

Can we save you? That was the question she wanted to ask deep down. But its head started to rot, reminding Madd of a forgotten apple. Would she want to live like that? Fuck no.

“What’s with the riddles?” The earlier reading came back to her. “Will those help us find Zamazenta?”


As the glacial lances approached, Moxxie unleashed a stream of fire at them.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]That lady on the Rayquaza was awesome. Maybe she'd get an autograph later.

For a minute, it looks like the Obstruct will hold. But, then, she sees the Obstagoon’s arms. They shake behind the shield—frost and tendrils of darkness crawling up the salt-and-pepper arms. “Shit.” Madeline can tell he’s panicking. The shield begins to flicker, cracking like the windows she and @milo used to chuck rocks at. “Yakky! Hang on!” She rushes toward him, as if feeble human arms could help.

He pivots to face her, the bullet scar on his shoulder the last thing she sees as he tackles her. He crushes her against his chest as the snow washes over them. A pained groan greets her as the air around them grows tight. Something snaps in his chest—two somethings. Madd’s head slams hard against the rocks. Then, there’s blackness. The vertigo goes unnoticed.

When she wakes up, her hair is damp from a cut on the back of her head. Yakuza is sitting over her, worriedly dripping her canteen into her face. She sits up with a hiss, a hand drifting to the back of her head. “Goon?” She smirked up at him. “I’m good, bud.” She let her eyes drop to where his hand clutched his chest. “You all right?” He tried to stand, almost doubling over from the pain of a broken rib. “Guess not.” Amber eyes swept around her, surprised by the sudden quiet. It was colder than Kyurem’s teeth out here. She glanced around the courtyard, drawing her hoody closer. “I don’t think we’re in Hoenn anymore.” A joke also murmured by Colton Boythrod. “You all right?” He huffed, wincing.

A speck of black fell onto her nose—the deterioration of Galar. “Hey, uh, bud?” The Obstagoon turned. “Are we home?” The church was from the history books, as was the courtyard beneath her. Sparing a glance at the crowd at the trough, she fished her cell phone out of her pocket. ‘No Signal,’ the screen said beneath an empty Wi-Fi bar. No location data either. Bullshit. Her comms flipped to life. “Guys, this definitely isn’t Galar.”

As she moved toward the church entrance, Yakuza limped behind her. His breathing was ragged. “Yakky?” He kept coming, the shambling reminding her of an old zombie flick. “I’m getting kind of cold.” She forced herself to shiver. “Do you mind if I bring out Mox?” With a huff—pretending to judge her human weakness and not see this as an out—she swapped him for a Magcargo with long lashes and a face of fiery displeasure.

Above, Shadow Lugia and Rayquaza carve a path across the sky—reminding Madd why she always felt jealous of her cousin’s flying types.

Walking behind the slug, warmth infuses her limbs. Her breath is no longer a plume but a spritz. Seeing the parade heading toward the church, she turns in front of it, picking her way across the rocky ground to the edges of the slope. There, she lifts her eyes to the decaying horizon.

But, on the way up, her eyes catch on soyeon kwan . She knew this scientist.  They played dogcatcher together once. “You all right?” Madd asks the older woman, again lifting a hand to the back of her skull. The ground swims in front of her as she tries to shake off the landscape swimming in front of her. “I’d stay out of the church if I were you.” Above its crumpled walls, the Lord of the Land takes shape—a blast erupting. “Place’s a warzone.”

The Magcargo makes a lowing noise in its throat as the redhead sees a Metagross with a child strapped to it. Or, at least, something that looks like a kid. With a stumbling gait, she moves toward Saki Shitachi. “Hey! That death trap looks a little full.” She sticks out her arm at a right angle, shaking her head again. Blood now drips around her neck, staining the snow beneath her pink.

Just hw far did this illusion go? With narrowed eyes, she slid a bit down the mountain toward a lower path. 

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]Most days Maddie ignored Rocket summons. A cockroach like her slipped right under the big wigs radar. But these dogs were the heroes of her homeland. She felt obligated to at least swing by. The mutts she prayed to countless times after the Malamar’s influence faded. The ones that never showed up. But she wasn’t bitter about that. It didn’t take a genius to recognize who the heroes were here.



But apparently the other anarchists didn’t get the memo. They were raining hellfire on the dog. What the hell are you guys doing? The ginger thought to herself as she surveyed the battling around her. Amber eyes shifted briefly to Chien-Pao, its very presence sending shivers of her spine. That thing is literally a beast of RUIN. When she signed up, it was to give the man (aka her dad) the middle finger. It was to buck against a stupid fucking system that forgot the little guys. It wasn’t to destroy the fucking world.



Then, her eyes caught on absalom steel and Hideo Kino. Who the heck let kids out here? This isn’t a field trip!. "HEY!" Before she could make a move toward the more fragile combatants, an errant flamethrower boiled the air in front of her.


Each blow to the dog made her wince. Sorry about this bud. Her eyes widened as the earth beneath her rumbled. Right now, though, she couldn’t exactly help out. There was a giant wall of snow coming their way. But, if she timed this right, she might be able to dull the edges of those sword fangs. “Yakky!” She called to the hunking wall of skunk muscle in front of her. A look of trust was shared as she pressed her back against him. “Obstruct!”



With a snarl, he crossed his arms across his chest. A glimmering wall of translucent red erupted between them, hoping to divert the snow to either side. "GOOOON!"

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]Madd didn’t mind the wait. It gave her time to enjoy her cigarette. Something made easier by the puff-puff-pass game her and Yakky usually played. As the badger turned to face the newcomer, the redhead did the same.

Immediately, amber eyes dropped to the Bulbasaur. A smile curled pale lips upward as a sense of nostalgia filled her. Uncle Joel’s main Pokemon was a shy, nervous mess of a Venusaur. One who’d raised a dozen or so Bulbasaurs with her ‘wife’—a fiery, no-nonsense little Bellossom. The wave was met with a thumbs up and a head shake. “Don’t worry about it.” She shrugged. “I’ve got all day.” Now that she thought about it, she was never sure she’d said that and meant it before. Weird. “And kid’s stomachs don’t wait.”


At the introduction, the redhead bobbed her head. “The same to you guys.” Though looking at this prim and proper woman (not so different from how she used to be), it wasn’t clear why she was here in the first place. Why skip out on the lab to scrap in the middle of nowhere? “Space stuff sounds cool. The monsters, not so much.” Though she wouldn’t call herself a coward, the idea of Ultra Beasts filled her with dread. Those things were freaky.


Madd stared out at the woods as she pondered the question. “The locals say there’s a den nearby. I’d want to find that first.” The second question drew a grin. From her bag, she drew out a one-pound bag of lab-grown jerky. “As for bait, this jerky should work.” She shared a meaningful glance with her badger bud. “It did the trick with Yakuza.” The badger looked uncharacteristically somber momentarily, with red eyes full of love.

Not super comfy with the sappy atmosphere, the pair immediately broke eye contact. Madd’s cheeks pinkened. “Let’s head out.”

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]The redhead did her best to keep a straight face. But man that Deerling-in-the-headlights made it tough. Yakuza’s background heckling—which would be lewd if he had any idea how sex dungeous work—didn’t make things easier. Still, Madd managed to keep it mostly together. She could be McKenna stubborn when the situation called for it. Like now.

Instead of bursting out laughing, she just quirked an eyebrow. A ghost of a smile tickled at her chapped lips. “Is it?” Her arms folded, her face feigning confusion. “Huh.” She blinked innocently. “It works on Tinder.” Her nose wrinkled slightly at that one. As some one on the ace spectrum, this stuff never really appealed to her. Even if she did have a sex dungeon, it’d sit around collecting dust—just like her dad’s treadmill. And, for the love of gods, she’d never be caught dead on Tinder.

Maybe this wasn’t the best way to earn a roommate. It was like punching a unicorn in the face. The girl seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. And, as far as a Google search showed, no baby-mama drama or fetishes. But Madd couldn’t resist teasing. Probably because it reminded her of Aubre. Heck, her cousin had a kid and still struggled not to spell out the word sex.

Then, the girl asked the question. The redhead turned, her hand balanced on the doorknob. She felt her lips quiver. “Pffffft.” The dam broke as she laughed, the sound surprisingly girlish. “No. No, I—” She kept giggling. “--I don’t actually have a sex anything.” Madd tossed the bedroom door open. “See for yourself.”

The first bedroom was the ‘guest’ room. It was empty except for a bed frame and a matching dresser. The closet was decently sized. A very basic bitch lamp sat on the table—though she’d jacked the bulb from the thing ages ago. She really needed to buy more. A darkly motivational poster hung on the back wall, the only one Madd hadn’t been able to find room for.

“The landlord has no real rules for decoration.” Madd shrugged. A fact that made sense when you saw the technicolor vomit that was her home. “Just don’t gouge holes in the wall like a werewolf.”

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