Brandon Hutchinson

It had been an interesting couple of days for Katy. Two more had passed since her party of seven had increased to, uh… had increased by two men and their teams of Pokémon. She and Christian were hitting it off splendidly. He was a talker whereas William wasn't. Katy wasn't much of a talker when there was no interesting subject to discuss. But things that interested her were Pokémon and drama. Not so much drama in the sense of "he said, she said," but drama of what was actually going on in the world. In fact, this morning she woke up before either of the men did and scrolled along on her trainer's brace of the most recent news. They had spent the night in a Pokémon Center in Bourbonville, taking one of the many cots that lined the walls for trainers to rest their weary heads. On one side of her, Christian was lightly snoring, laying on his back. Between Christian's cot and Katy's was Brutus, sleeping next to his trainer faithfully. On the other side of Katy was William sleeping with his back turned to her and a single beam of light gliding across his shoulder from the window nearby.

Katy looked up when a trainer entered with a squalling Dreepy with a bad burn, waking nearly every trainer in the Pokémon Center. Katy did a double take. The trainer looked so familiar, just the profile. Tall, broad shoulders, an attractive pair of glasses, complimenting his trimmed and well-maintained goatee. He did his best to quiet the Dreepy, promising that healing was right on the way. Katy picked up her own glasses from the tiny end table to her right and pushed them on her face in a hurry to see his features better. Big, blue eyes and an unmistakable voice when he spoke to the nurse behind the counter. Brandon Hutchinson. The Brandon Hutchinson!

"Hi, Brandon! It's so good to see you at our Center!" said the nurse in a whisper, reaching to shake his hand.

He awkwardly shifted the screaming Pokémon in his arms to shake her hand, so as to not disappoint her. "Hey, how ya doin'? Um, my Dreepy has a pretty bad burn, if you could please do your magic."

"Of course! We'd be honored to heal any Pokémon of Brandon's!" The nurse reached over the counter for the yelling Dreepy. "Is this one you're training?"

"Yeah, she's just starting out. If you could put her in my PC when you're finished, I'd be really grateful." He ran his fingers back through his short brown hair.

"Absolutely, Brandon. Thank you!"

Katy got up from her cot and approached before she even realized what she was doing. "No," she said to herself, "he doesn't need fans flogging him." But no one else who was awake had recognized him. And most had already turned over in their cots and gone back to sleep. She was the only one in the room besides Brandon right now, the way she saw it.

Suddenly, he was staring at her, waiting for a reply apparently. How long had she been standing beside him? She quickly cleared her throat and whispered. "Hi, Brandon! I—just wanted to say hello and that I'm a huge fan of yours," she said, recovering swiftly.

He put his hands together and gave a slight bow. "Thank you, thank you. Always a pleasure. I hope my Dreepy didn't wake you up, haha."

"No, no, I was already awake. I was waiting for my friends to wake up." She stuck her hand out. "Katy."

He shook her it. "Nice to meet you. You're a trainer?"

"Yes, but not one like you!" She snorted when she laughed, clapping her hand over her mouth.

He giggled. "Nonsense, I bet you're an excellent trainer. Just because I caught a shiny Pokémon doesn't make me an exceptional trainer. Just makes me really lucky."

At that moment, a Delibird flew through the doors, carrying its large sack in its feet. Katy watched the Pokémon fly past them and land on William's cot. It squawked at him and pecked his leg through the sheets.

"Ohp. I'm sorry; hold on one moment, please, I'll be right back." Katy smiled at Brandon and hurried to William's cot. "I can sign for that."

"Aahk!" The Deliberd flapped agitatedly at her. Apparently it wasn't going to let her sign for the package.

Katy barely shook William's shoulder, saying his name quietly in his ear. "You have a package and he won't let me sign."

"Mrrm," William finally turned over and looked at the bird with one squinted eye, the other squeezed closed, his hair sprigging up all over the place. "Oh. The camera." He sat up in his cot, rubbing his eyes as the Delibird produced a tablet from its bag. William took the magnetic pen and scribbled his signature before putting it back in the bag and taking his package. The logo was displayed on the outside of the box, sharp and clean.

"Hey, is that a Let's Go camera?" Brandon approached from across the Center lobby.

William looked up and blinked several times as the Delibird flapped away back through the automatic doors. "Uh… That depends… Are you Brandon Hutchinson?"

"That's me!" he said happily.

"Wow. Hi." William was suddenly very aware of his appearance and fingered through his dark layers to tame down his bed-head. "Um, yeah, it's a Let's Go camera."

"I've been looking at getting one of those. Which Pokémon are you going to put it on for battle videos?" A fuzzy Joltik, Brandon's famous Joltik, scurried out of his shirt sleeve and up onto his shoulder, squeaking emphatically as if it were happy to join the conversation it had arrived late to.

Katy and William looked at each other. They weren't about to tell him that they bought the camera to spy on a federal agency. William swallowed and nodded. "Zoroark." Well, at least he wasn't lying.

"Choice! Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you send me the videos you make with it and tell me your experience with it? I've read the reviews and I've seen the videos myself, but you guys aren't, like, professional videographers are you?"

"No," Katy said.

"Cool, that's the opinion I want." Not a whole lot of fancy editing and such, just raw action!" He pulled up his left arm where his trainer's brace was attached. "Can I register you?"

William looked surprised that the Brandon Hutchinson was interested in registering him on his trainer's brace. He blinked and shook his head as if to snap himself out of it. "Yeah, sure." He pulled up his own brace and tapped until he found Brandon's profile at the top.

"Thanks, man! Hey, it was nice meeting you both but I've godda jet." Brandon started making his way to the automatic doors. "Send me those videos, yeah?"

"I will," said William.

"Bye!" Katy waved.

"Peace!" Brandon disappeared through the threshold, talking to his Joltik on the way out.

"Fuck," William looked at Katy.

"That's okay. We'll have a battle with Houdini sometime." She smiled at him. Problem solved. "Besides, I'm not missing an opportunity to be in correspondence with the Brandon Hutchinson."

"Whosuh whatsit?" Christian turned over on his cot, rubbing his face and yawning.

"Morning. You just missed Brandon Hutchinson."

Christian crackled into a sleepy laugh. "Asshole."

"I'm not kidding. Look." William got up and showed Christian his registered friends list on his trainer's brace.

First Christian blinked a few times, sniffling as he sat up on his elbow. Then he grabbed William's forearm, his green eyes popping. "How the—?!"

"He was just in here with a Dreepy!" Katy exclaimed, but not too loudly. "You missed him for real!"

"And he registered you?!" Christian wasn't as concerned about being quiet as Katy was.

"Our camera was delivered," William pointed a thumb over his shoulder to his cot where the package still sat. "He saw it and wanted us to send him battle videos."

"… But we didn't get it to make battle videos."

"No, but we can!" said Katy.

"You better! Don't let the man down! GOD, I can't believe I missed meeting him! Did you see it?" Christian stood up. "Did you see the Beedrill?"

"No, he didn't have it out. All I saw was a Dreepy and his Joltik."

"I would have wanted a picture with it. You know you never see pictures of it. He almost never sends it out to battle!"

"Hey, genius, keep your voice down. It's like six in the morning and everyone else is asleep," William said.

"Sorry, sorry," he whispered. "Well, now we got the camera. What's next?"

"What's next is we need your gorilla to filch a keycard off of an Advancement employee." William turned his trainer's brace back off, messing with his own hair again.

"He's a monkey," Christian corrected again.

"Hey, guys? Where are we going to find an Advancement employee whose card we can take and who Houdini can copy cat?"

"I know somebody," William said, opening the box to remove the camera and all of its equipment. "And it's someone I don't care for a whole lot. It will be easy to slip it off him." He looked up. "You're both old enough to drink, right?"