In which Palmer and his coworkers have their first ever meeting... and things don't go quite according to plan.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
The blond man sighed and tapped his gloved fingers against the tabletop in an obvious display of impatience, whistling an aimless tune as he waited alone in the spacious meeting room. After a moment he glanced down at his watch, clicked his tongue in annoyance, and continued his tapping with no less vigor than before, running a hand through his tousled mop of scruffy yellow hair and exhaling loudly through his nostrils. No sooner had he closed his eyes tiredly than he heard the doors swing open with a bang, and a cheerful-looking young woman literally bounced into the room. "Hi there! Tower Tycoon Palmer, right?" she asked brightly, plopping down onto one of the swivel chairs and spinning around in it, nearly knocking over an ornate potted plant in the corner.
Palmer dove down and caught the tipping plant with one hand, forcing a smile. "Er, yeah, that's me," he said with a fake laugh. "You're... um... Delilah, right?"
"Close enough! It's Dahlia," the woman corrected with a good-natured grin. "Nice to meet ya, Palm!" The man winced inwardly at the nickname, but the matter was soon forgotten as the doors swung open again and the remaining Brains filed into the room. The first was a middle-aged woman with shockingly purple hair and a comically oversized pair of sunglasses pushed up on her forehead. Behind her came a rather snooty-looking girl, closely followed by a suited young man who appeared to be her butler. And finally, the last person to enter was a very short teenaged boy, whose half-lidded eyes were currently focused on a small gizmo he held in his hand. Dahlia reached over and mussed up his odd black-and-green hair as he sat down, giggling.
"You got last place, Factory Head," she gloated in a victorious, sing-song voice. Shorty spared her a brief glance, before returning his gaze to his machine. "I wasn't aware that we were racing in the first place," he deadpanned after a moment, and his disinterested tone made the black-haired woman frown in dismay.
"Er," Palmer said intelligently. He ran his fingers through his hair again and stood up, crossing his arms in an attempt to look authoritative. It worked—as far as he could tell, that is—and the other Brains fell silent and looked towards him expectantly. The man rubbed the back of his head and grinned. "Well, welcome to the Battle Frontier! My name is Palmer, and I am the Tower Tycoon. As coworkers, it's important that we can work together and operate under a system of trust and friendship. I thought that, to begin with, we could start by introducing ourselves and... uh... just get to know each other better."
The others looked somewhat unenthusiastic about this (in particular, the princess girl shot Palmer a rather derisive glance before flipping her hair dispassionately). Dahlia was, unsurprisingly, the first to volunteer. "Me! Me! Pick me! Hey, Palm, I'll go first! Pick meeeeeeeeeeee!" she squealed, bouncing at the edge of her seat with her hand thrust high in the air. She waved frantically, smacking the young butler in the face and knocking his glasses askew.
At this point, Palmer decided that this woman seemed to be in a permanent state of sugar-high, and privately resolved to avoid her as much as possible (for his own safety, of course). "S-sure, go ahead," he said, nodding vigorously while subtly edging his chair as far away as he could without it being noticeable. The black-haired woman beamed.
"Hi! My name is Dahlia, and I run the Battle Arcade!" she announced loudly, practically sparkling from sheer cheerfulness. "My facility relies on chance and luck. Life goes through many twists and turns, but nothing is ever set in stone. Nothing is ever scripted, or set to happen without fail. We must take hardships as they are thrown at us, like surprises from the game board. That's what I believe in."
Dahlia paused dramatically for effect, but frowned when the teenaged boy snickered slightly from behind his machine. "Got a problem with that, Shorton?" she challenged, glaring at her coworker across the table. The teen rolled his eyes.
"It's Thorton," he corrected.
"I know that, but I'm calling you Shorton because you're short! And 'cause you're annoying!" She ended her sentence by sticking out her tongue and promptly turning away. The Tower Tycoon rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginnings of a huge migraine building in his temples.
"Right then. Shorton—" (the boy sent the blond man a filthy look) "—Thorton, Thorton, sorry 'bout that... Er, why don't you go next?"
The teen stood from his chair and Palmer had to quickly disguise his laughter as a coughing fit, because the boy was indeed so short that standing up seemed to have hardly made a difference in his height. Not appearing to notice this, the teen said in a bored tone, "I'm Factory Head Thorton, and as you can all probably guess, I run the Battle Factory. I battle with rental Pokémon and I use this machine," he pulled out the blue gizmo he'd been fiddling with, "to analyze my opponent's Pokémon. I also—"
"That looks like a plain old Vs. Recorder," Dahlia interjected, leaning forward and swiping it from his hand. "What's so great about this piece of junk?"
"That 'piece of junk' happens to be a highly advanced machine capable of examining an opposing trainer's Pokémon and creating an extremely accurate report on its weaknesses, strengths, and level of power," Thorton countered, snatching it back. "With such in-depth knowledge of the opposing Pokémon, I am able to gain an edge even in disadvantageous match-ups, without having to rely on such ridiculous concepts as luck, or chance—"
"Moving on," Palmer interrupted evasively, glancing about warily as the Arcade Star and Factory Head glared at each other furiously, "who's going next?"
The silence that immediately followed his question seemed to reinforce the idea that nobody really wanted to go next. Against all odds, however, it was the young princess who then stood up, smoothing her pink dress with a careless flick of her wrist and fixing the Tower Tycoon with an impassive gaze. "I am the owner and princess of the Battle Castle, and as such I must request that I am addressed as Lady Caitlin," she said, her voice calm and carefully expressionless. Despite her innocent appearance and diminutive frame the princess managed to project an intimidating aura, and Palmer shrank back into his seat a little, quickly breaking contact with the girl's haunting, empty eyes. And he'd thought Dahlia was scary...
"I watch the matches conducted at the Castle and assess challengers based on their performances," Caitlin continued calmly. "I do not, however, take part in the battles." She seemed to pause for a moment and her butler then stood to join her, bowing politely and respectfully to Palmer. The Tower Tycoon nodded in return, in the back of his mind musing that at least one of his Brains seemed to be more-or-less sane...
"As Lady Caitlin is unable to battle, I do so in her ladyship's place. My—" the young man began, but he was very abruptly cut off when his princess whipped around and shrieked, "Who the hell said you could talk? I wasn't finished yet, you useless idiot!" Despite the fact that she was almost short enough to challenge Shorton—Thorton—and had a face as sweet as vanilla pudding, the entire room seemed to experience a sudden chill. Even Dahlia appeared intimidated, her ever persistent smile fading slightly—a feat Palmer had previously thought was impossible to accomplish. The butler cowered, bowing and apologizing profusely.
"Forgive me, my Lady! It was inexcusably rude of me to interrupt you so rashly!" he cried, wringing his hands in a worrisome manner. Practically groveling at her feet at this point, the butler's expression was one of such heartsick adoration that the Palmer nearly threw up. He resisted the urge to slap his forehead with a great deal of difficulty. 'Not sane,' he inwardly groaned. 'Definitely not sane.'
Mean-Queen-Caitlin seemed to regret her previous outburst, and her expression changed to one of demure calmness so quickly that the Tower Tycoon briefly entertained the idea that she might have some sort of split personality disorder. "My butler, Darach, is the Castle Valet. We run the facility together," she explained serenely. Apparently having nothing more to say, the princess returned to her seat with a flourish. Darach sat down as well, meeting Palmer's gaze with a rather despondent one of his own, and the blond mentally resolved to, in the next meeting, make a point to go over the consequences of emotionally abusive relationships. That, or sign the duo up for intensive therapy—he couldn't decide which.
Figuring that things couldn't possibly get any worse, Palmer pulled a forced grin as the last Brain, the middle-aged woman, stood from her chair. She seemed normal enough, despite the magenta hair and ridiculously oversized, crimson sunglasses, and he relaxed a bit, relieved that the meeting could perhaps still be salvaged if he was lucky...
"Well, hello! It looks like we have lots of fun times ahead of us! I'm Hall Matron Argenta, in charge of the Battle Hall. I'm looking forward to working with such a group of bright, shining trainers!" she declared, beaming.
Palmer was fairly sure that the majority of the group was anything but 'bright' or 'shining' at the moment—his own face was twisted in an attempt not to break down crying from this disastrous meeting. Shorton, Thorton—whatever—looked to be entirely absorbed by his analysis machine (he seemed to be reading a highly detailed report on Mudkips at the moment), Princess Caitlin was staring at the purple-haired woman blankly, and Mr. Battle-Butler Darach still looked as dejected as he had three minutes ago. Only the black-haired Arcade Star returned the Hall Matron's cheerful smile, but...
...well, it was the eternally happy Dahlia, after all.
~a few minutes later~
"A trust-building exercise?" Thorton repeated in an perturbed voice, half-lidded eyes focused on the Tower Tycoon in a display of undisguised disinterest. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"No joke! Now catch me, Shorton!" Dahlia cheered, a black cloth tied over her eyes. She proceeded to fall backwards—and promptly landed on her rear. Growling, she ripped off the blindfold and fixed the teen with an extremely hostile glare. "You're supposed to catch me, craphead!" she exclaimed in a unnecessarily loud voice. The Factory Head didn't even spare her a glance, his attention completely focused on his machine. Palmer hurried over, nearly tugging handfuls of his hair out in pure frustration, and plucked the blindfold from Dahlia's hand.
"No, no, no!" he roared, wishing he could just melt into the ground and disappear from this nightmare of a meeting. "Dahlia, Thorton... I'm sorry, but your team fails epically! Now watch carefully—here's how you do it!" He then tied the cloth over his eyes with unneeded force, posed dynamically, fell backwards, and—
—and Caitlin, his partner, gave a rather snide laugh before purposefully stepping out of the way, causing the man to drop down into the carpeted floor with a satisfying crash. "You'll have to forgive my clumsiness, Tower Tycoon," she said sweetly over the blond's loud swearing.
It did not come as a surprise that, soon after this particular incident, the meeting reached an early end.