It was seven hours until the sun set, which meant that there was no point in mentioning the sun at all. No sooner had the heterosexual protagonists of our totally not homoerotic story exited Sycamore's sexy car than did the drama flare up again like a Volcarona in heat. "Sandy," Sycamore said under his breath, trying not to arouse the attention of the others in the crowded parking lot, "your shirt is embarrassing me. Are you sure that's the ONLY thing you had in your purse?"
"What's wrong with it? And it's not a purse, it's a manbag."
"Um… right. Well, I mean, I'm no prude, but… 'It's not gay if it's in a triple battle?' Really? Like we aren't raising enough suspicion being two gorgeous men out clothes shopping together already without your shirt bringing your sexuality into question? And calling it your 'manbag' doesn't make it any straighter sounding, either. That actually sounds really dirty. Next thing you'll ask me if I want a warm drink out of your 'teabag.'"
"Don't be silly, I keep my teabag in the limo. Well, I did, before Pyr-er, the transmission fluid made it explode. And I will have you know," Lysandre added, defensively straightening his shirt across his bulging pecs, "that many of my rich friends have complimented me on this shirt, and that my rich friends are straight as the telescopic stylus on my 3DS XL. Well, most of them, at least. I'm pretty sure Eusine swings the other way, and I'm still not sure if Diantha is secretly a dude or not. But whatever."
"Wait, Diantha's a—d-damn it, never mind, I'm not getting into that again. Just be on your manliest behavior, and stop talking about XL sized telescopic styluses. If I run into any of my potential female love interests, I don't want them to think we're, like… together, you know?"
"But Morey, I thought you were proud of our love," Lysandre said loudly and sarcastically, grabbing Sycamore's hand as the Professor's face blossomed into a Blaziken-red blush, skipping along beside him as fabulously as possible. Valerie exited the majestically sliding doors of the mall at that very moment, noticed the rather misleading spectacle, stopped in her tracks, dropped her bags, then ran wildly about with tears in her eyes, screaming "I KNEW IT, I KNEW NOBODY WOULD EVER LOVE ME!" as she stumbled straight into a Hiker's oncoming Jeepokemon Cherokee.
"Goddamn it," Sycamore said, glancing down at her (still maddeningly attractive) unmoving body, "This is why we can't have nice things."
"Well, anyway," Lysandre said, casually tossing a 50,000 Pokedollar bill in her direction to cover medical expenses or funeral expenses or whatever the fuck poor people who get hit by cars have to pay as he and Sycamore strolled up to the entrance, "I'm like, totally excited. I've never been inside a mall before. Is it like Malva's strip club at Team Flare HQ? Not that I've been there or anything. I just watch the webcam on my orange laptop sometimes. As a totally normal civilian who is not affiliated with Team Flare, certainly not as their boss or anything. And I only watch when the girls are the ones stripping. In fact, I didn't even know Xerosic was one of the exotic speedo dancers until Eusine told me, rea—"
"…no, Lysandre. No, it is not like that at all, thank Arceus. It's like… well… there's over a hundred stores, all inside one building, so that's really cool. And there's a food court, of course. And an arcade. And-"
"Oh my god. So it's like my master bathroom, only with an ARCADE!? Hot DAMN this place sounds groovy!"
"You… you have stores in your bathroom?"
"And a food court," Lysandre corrected him. "It's not very big though. Just a Kentucky Fried Combusken and a Taco Weepinbell. The Taco Weepinbell ends up keeping me in the bathroom in a terrible loop of money mismanagement and bowel movements, though. Seriously, fuck Mexican food, and fuck the interns that make it. I think there's some Ponyta meat in that shit."
"…aaaaaaanyway," Sycamore said, trying to expunge the tragically unsexy mental image of Lysandre ordering a horse burrito from atop his porcelain throne, "this is the mall directory. It tells you all the stores and stuff. I'm up for anything, so I'll let you choose."
"First I just want to go to the arcade, and maybe buy it for my bathroom," Lysandre said.
"Cool, just find the number on the list, then match it to—"
"AHA!" Lysandre shouted, poking the spot with "43" written on it on the map. "Quilladin's Castle, the arcade!"
"Cool, let's g—"
But he didn't stop. Lysandre kept attacking the map with his thick, muscular finger, growing more confused and infuriated with each prod like a Zangoose and a Seviper in a poke war on Facebook. "Why the hell isn't it working!?" he shouted even louder, attracting the attention of several offended soccer moms who flipped him off while cursing him out for 'setting such a motherfucking bad example for our fucking children, you cunt.'
"Sandy, what are you trying to do?" Sycamore concernedly inquired.
"I just want to go to the arcade," Lysandre replied, "but this fucking peasant machine is broken." In his anger, he finally poked it a bit too hard, which is to say he punched it as hard as he possibly could as the whole panel shattered into a cascading HM05 of glass shards. His hand sensually ejaculated a manly fountain of blood all over Sycamore's second and only backup lab coat of the day. "Teleporter's broken, I think," he concluded calmly.
"Sandy," Sycamore sighed, ripping part of his now ruined labcoat off to wrap lovingly around his best friend's spewing wound, "normal person stores don't have teleporters. We figure out from looking at the pictures on the map where to go, and then we walk there. On our legs."
"But… but my leg hurts," Lysandre said, still oblivious to the fact that his hand was fucking bleeding all over the motherfucking place like Charmander's head in that one Pokemon Origins scene where Squirtle bites his fucking face off and he screams like a little bitch.
"I think you'll live," Sycamore sighed, tying the makeshift bandage tightly. "Now you go ahead to the 'cade and start your fun, I'm gonna' call mall security real quick to apologize for the directory and see if they need any help mopping up the blood."
"But…" a frightened expression crept like a Gengar stealthily across Lysandre's well chiseled, masculine face, "what if… what if I get lost?"
"Sandy, it's two fucking stores away. Again, I think you'll live."
Lysandre wandered independently to the arcade like a strong independent ginger woman don't need no man as Sycamore explained awkwardly to the workers that his ambiguously straight rich friend didn't mean to break the directory, but had merely hurt himself in his confusion. After a twenty minute exchange that ended with Sycamore paying the replacement costs, and cursing under his breath about how Lysandre better pay him back or he'd be sleeping with the Stunfisks, he decided he had earned some coffee before returning to his friend's antics and stopped by Starmiebuck's for a quick coffee break with his Bulbasaur.
"Bulbasaur, I just don't know," he said, sipping his coffee and looking wistfully into the distance. "I really want to be Lysandre's bestest best friend, but I feel like I'm always getting him into trouble, you know?"
"Bulba," Bulbasaur replied, gripping his latte with a vine and taking a polite sip. Translated, this meant "I have no fucking clue what you're talking about, but thanks for the coffee."
"Yeah, you're right; I guess it really is more the other way around. Seriously, who does that fucker think he is?" Sycamore took an angry gulp of coffee, scalding his tongue, but he didn't care because he was so fucking pissed off and oh my god Lysandre was such a little bitch. "Bulbasaur, do you think he's a shitty friend?"
"Saur, bulba saur," he replied, using his other vine to pour some creamer in his latte. Translated, this meant "Damned if I know, I'm just a Bulbasaur. Go to a fucking marriage counselor or something."
"Yeah, you're right," Sycamore replied, looking a bit guilty. "I guess I really was the one who got him into all this by pushing him past his comfort zone into normal civilian life. I'm sure he'll have fun at the arcade though. There's DDR, and Initial Z or whatever the fuck that manly racing game is, there's Pokemon Catch, there's pachinko, and… oh god, no… Bulbasaur, you don't think-!?"
"Saur." Translated this meant, "no, I don't think, because I don't even know who you're talking about, but the coffee was really good, we should do this again sometime, I love being outside of my Pokeball with you like this, for the first time I feel like you really do love m—"
"You're right, Bulbasaur!" Sycamore shouted, leaping from his chair and returning Bulbasaur to his Pokeball. "Lysandre is in danger of falling prey to the wiles of gambling, and as his best friend I have to stop him!" Sycamore waltzed into the arcade as fast as he could and oh god Lysandre really was at the gambling machines this couldn't be good
"Syc…a…more…" Lysandre droned demonically, turning twitchingly from his seat in front of the Diantha's Dazzling Dance pachinko machine. His eyes were black holes, like Valerie's but with even less humanity within, and his mouth was frozen in a Gengar-like sardonic grin. "…why… why do I keep putting my balls in the machine… and I don't get money…? I… I wanted money… when I… put my balls… in… the holes… "
[EDITOR'S NOTE: for our less otaku readers, pachinko is a Japanese gambling game where you buy tiny balls at a counter, put them in a machine, use them to make an in-game slot machine turn, and hopefully win more balls from said slot machine to trade for MORE MONEY. They also have them in Vegas, and I've never won them there even once, goddamnit.]
"Lysandre, we have got to work with you on using wiser word choices in everyday conversation. And pachinko is gambling, Lysandre. It's meant to make you keep putting your ba-er, round metal spheres into it, and to not give you any in return. You're wasting your money, it's statistically not going to give you any profits. I can show you spreadsheets on it in Excel, because I'm a scientist and we're nerds like that. How much have you put in?"
"Uh…" Lysandre slumped against the machine and drooled a bit, the room spinning around him. "Like… uh… one million dollars worth of balls or… uh… something."
"OH MY FUCKING—"
"It's okay, though, because I'm… uh… I'm rich. Maybe I'll buy some m—"
Sycamore bitch-slapped Lysandre across his broad, musk-scented face to break him free of his addicted trance. "Lysandre, you're not putting another ball in that machine and that's final. You're bad enough at money without being a gambling addict. Come on, let's leave this dangerous place and go clothes shopping, since that IS THE NAME OF THE FUCKING STORY, AFTER ALL."
"Sycamore, we've discussed this, I don't mention that night in Tohjoh Falls in public, and in return, you don't break the fourth wall. Unless you want me to tell all these fine people about how Giovanni showed up at our barbeque and—yeah, never mind, I won't do that. But seriously, have you ever tried one of these games before?"
Sycamore bashfully rubbed his neck with his hand. "Uh… well, no, I've, uh, I've never gambled before," he admitted, rubbing his neck bashfully with his hand in the process. "I've never even played those damn games where you try to stack the blocks on the screen to win an iPad," he continued, as his neck was rubbed bashfully by his hand.
"Sycamore," Lysandre said, rising and leaning mischievously on his friend, raising his eyebrows seductively, "you can't knock it until you've triiiiied iiiiiit…"
"Lysandre, I don't know—" Resist the temptation, Sycamore said to himself, resist the temptation, resist the temptation…
"Come on, it's fun! It has lights and sounds and stuff. Give it a try. Just one. Pleeeeaaaase? You can even use one of my balls."
…lights and sounds. Lights and sounds. Damn, it did have a lot of lights and sounds. Reaaaally shiny lights and sounds. Sycamore's resolve was waning. And the ball was so shiny… and no money out of pocket… and…
"…we really, REALLY need to work on your word choices, but fine, whatever." Sycamore lustfully slipped Lysandre's ball into the hole, gripped the shaft (we're still talking about pachinko, you pervert), and watched gleefully as it went up to the top, tumbled down the pegs, landed in the hole on the board… started the on-screen slot…
"…Lysandre, is three sevens good?"
Lysandre's face was dead. His eyes were glazed over. His shapely jaw twitched uncontrollably.
"Lysandre, look at all the balls it's giving me! Lysandre, can I trade these for money?"
Lysandre's eyelids shuddered. His spine crinkled. His liver sang a shitty N-Sync song. His heart cried tears of blood.
"Lysandre, oh my god, they're still coming! So many balls! Damn, I guess now I'm the one who needs to work on my word choice. But seriously, I've gotta be rich now!"
A single tear slid down Lysandre's face.
"Lysandre, the guy at the counter said I had the biggest jackpot he'd ever seen, and he gave me five million Pokedollars! I'm rich like you, now! I can buy another GTR!"
Lysandre laughed inaudibly, manically, insanely. His eyes rolled back into his head.
"I can have an arcade in my bathroom, too, Sandy! We can be rich buddies!"
Lysandre's sorrow mega-evolved into MegaSorrow.
"We can go on yachts together, and drink expensive Sake together at our beach mansion in Kanto, and we can go jetskiing with the Sharpedo, and I can buy out half of your shares, and we can be company buddies, and you can show me your secret base, and…"
Lysandre collapsed to the floor, catatonic, his face frozen in a shocked, half-smile half-grimaced expression. The official explanation given by the mall paramedics was loss of blood from the cut… but everyone knew better. Yes, even Bulbasaur. Sycamore learned that day that being rich doesn't mean you're okay for your friend to win the slot machine with your balls the try after said friend made you stop playing, and that being a billionaire doesn't make you any happier that you just missed out on five million Pokedollars.
WILL LYSANDRE WAKE UP?
WILL THEIR FRIENDSHIP EVER RECOVER?
WILL THEY EVER ACTUALLY SHOP FOR MORE CLOTHES?
ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS, AND MORE, TO BE ANSWERED IN CHAPTER 4