1.3 Break

We walked, Quil's claws around the scruff of my neck.

I hadn't noticed it before, on account of being alone. When you walk next to a fella in Xanadu, the crunch of snow around their feet becomes strangely loud. I matched Quil's footfalls, her little pivots and stops… and like magic, I no longer bumped or scraped anyone.

"If you see someone approaching you," she told me, letting go of my neck, "just stop. Wait to see how they move."

"Got it," I huffed.

Quil sped up to a lizard-canter, slipping between twos and fours to walk. She kept glancing back at me as we walked. First glance, probably to ensure I hadn't split.

Second, to make sure I hadn't collapsed again.

Third, fourth? I had no idea. She kept turning her long snout to face me, still weaving through the paw traffic with unsettling precision. Whatever she saw, it made her sigh and increase speed each time. It took slow, funny me a moment to realize: she was testing me. On what, I wasn't sure.

She finally spoke on one of these stolen looks.

"Let me do the talking."

"Huh?"

I got a hackle-raising 'shush' from her, as an icy sandshrew fella waddled towards us. He was little more than a pipsqueak, yet he managed to shove us out of the crowd and against the wall of a grocer. Knowing how to navigate these crowded streets seemed to be a damned important skill; it was no wonder Quil was curious how I'd do at it.

The stranger huffed and looked up towards the snowfall.

"Woof. Cold."

He wasted no time, eyes set on Quil. "Heard you splashed. Tantrum, business, for fun?"

Splashed. That had to be the term for when a fella disturbed paw traffic in an area–as Quil did when she tore my ass up. The Sandshrew had a ribbon tied around his arm, a mark of service. An authority, perhaps.

"Oh, good!" I barked. "Hey, uh, a Smeargle went missing. Her name's Lora, and she arrived a couple days… um… are you seeing this? Ow?! Assault?"

Quil had gripped the back of my neck with her claws. The sharp points threatened to puncture my skin. I shot the Sandshrew a plaintive look, but it felt like I'd gone invisible to him. The dude didn't care at all.

He sighed, and wiggled over a bit–in order to block out the scene. "All of the above," he reckoned. "Splashing, traipsing, assault. I should do my job and formally fine you."

"And what would Sul say about that?" Quil shot back.

"I don't know. Perhaps, hey, sorry, she didn't know about the other wackadoodle shit going down. Willard Company wants things deathly quiet in the Waterfront District. All 'minor contracts' of the Patrollers are ordered to fuck themselves."

Bribes? Didn't need to be from a city to understand an under-the-table dela. When your allegiance is in cash, you best keep track of the numbers, and it seemed Quil had incensed a bigger magikarp with her antics.

Quillon yanked me back by the neck and stood in front of me.

"Why?" She asked evenly.

The Sandshrew looked around. "Their headquarters were attacked by some hypno. A mon in a manic breakdown."

The Salandit scoffed. "I can hardly believe one freak gave them trouble. But okay, fine. And they want to keep things quiet to look for him, I suppose."

"Oh, no. The loon's dead as a doornail. The search is for his accomplices… no one runs an attack like that alone."

I swallowed loud enough to draw attention to myself. "Whoa, wait a sec. They killed him?" I asked.

"No, pal, sheesh. They messed him up really good, then he fled into the Swirl. Body'll likely never be found."

I leaned in. The way he said it, that was a capital-S Swirl… one capable of disappearing creatures into the night. "The Swirl?"

"A newbie, eh? I'm sure Quil is really making you fall in love with Xanadu. Anyhow, Swirl's a natural hazard. Might even be behind… what did you say before, a missing Smear–"

"Enough!" Quil snapped. She lashed my chest with her tail, then stepped forward. "I haven't been to work, so Sul never gave me the news about shutting up. Are we done here, you fat fuck? I've no time for you two to hit it off."

We sat around awkwardly in the dead vibe. Not that there was much of a vibe to kill in the first place…

"Okay," the Sandshrew finally said, his tone measured. "I'll politely ignore that, for the sake of our long-term arrangements. No more wildness. Take it out alone and indoors, like a good animal."

He waltzed back into the crowd, giving her quite the stink eye.

"It is a nice jacket!" He called back, "I dig the patches–your whole look, really. You could do worse than a Patroller–your current company's proof…"

I ran a claw over one of those patches for comfort, my claw-tip poking along its stitching. The Haxorus woven together in his square looked up at me, judging me.

I shook it off and looked to Quil. "Hey," I told her, "he could have known something about Lora. Not to be your advisor, but maybe calling him a fat fuck was the wrong play?"

Her breaths broke heavily as she forced herself to settle down. "I don't require your advice." There was a desperate, regretful glint in Quil's purple eyes. She knew she did bad. "No need to waste time on him. Sul will know better. We're here."

Xanadu has three food groups when it comes to their buildings and crap.

First, there's the 'boxes.' All shapes and sizes, stacked on top of one another, and heavily compartmentalized. They're definitely more like compartments, although the designers based them on human 'apartments.' Apparently, humans lead extremely organized lives, sitting in the same particular slice of brick until called upon for work or leisure. I'd become homeless seeking anything affordable besides one of those. Living in a box scared me.

Opposite end of the living space spectrum? Tallbuildings. Huge amalgams between Mystery Dungeons and human world 'skyscrapers.' There's no real pattern to what is on each floor: businesses, party places, gardens, sites of worship… if you imagine it, there's likely a Floor 54 somewhere in Xanadu where you can find it. Only place without tallbuildings was the Breathers District. On account of the war bringing them all down, and all.

Then there's the fresh breath of air: normal brick-and-mortar shops and halls. Buildings of random design which hog space on commercial streets. Some are high, some are wide, some smell, some blare music or have herb smoke leaking out the open maws of their bead-curtain doors–Primary shenanigans. These are the places where those in the boxes and buildings go to eat, plan, and work.

(And yes, some of them are fashioned after freaking Pokémon heads. It still looks weird. Like you're skipping into the brain matter of a Kangaskhan or whatever.)

Quillon's office was a humble vertical slice on a street mostly filled with food stalls and number crunching stations. The former didn't bring nearly enough color to compensate for the latter, buildings painted gray to mark their destiny of nothing interesting happening, ever. This lone office, though, made the effort of having a signpost. The gaudy thing came with a logo–

GRIN AND "BEAR" IT!

A painting of an Ursaring with pearly whites, and below,

PROBLEM BEAR-ERS.

I peeled my eyes off the ground and looked at Quil. "Grin and 'bear' it?"

Quillon pulled a set of jangly keys from her bag. "Surprised you didn't take issue with the 'problem bearers' part."

"I understand the racket. You start problems, then make schmucks pay you to solve them."

"Is that how you feel about us?" She asked. "How are you feeling? You've been moping since we set out."

"Seriously? You went and collared me."

The stairway was quite large, meant to suit beasts well past our sizes. Between the high steps I'd need to shamble up, and her umpteenth odd look, I decided not to answer.

The scent of musty, aged dander and home.

I didn't need to ask to know this was a fun-sized guild hall. A hurricane of notes and scribbled memos,a big old map of the city on the back wall, personalized stations with bits and baubles. Even a Quillon-sized cot hanging over a bookcase, for those long nights of thinking up rude things to say. Its knots were worn, and I counted three wasted mugs with still water on the bookcase's top.

One mug in the corner, too, completely shattered. Pure ceramic heartbreak.

"I get it," I said. "Are you and Lora close friends or something?" I pointed a claw at the broken thing.

Quillon snapped back and halted me. "What do you mean? A client upset me. Unfortunately, I missed."

I shook my head. "Nuh-uh. I told you, I get it. You feel like you can't clean it up until Lora is safe. Because cleaning it up will mean time's gone on, and she'll be three days gone rather than one. If it was only business, you wouldn't feel like–"

"Okay, fine, shut up. Sul isn't here. We're going to wait." She pointed a claw at a set of purple cushions, a quasi-waiting room in a one-room office.

Us together in a silent room. It felt like an awful, awful idea.

The office clock ticked away, hands about to point towards noon. When was the cutoff, I wondered: what time of day will Quillon feel it had been four days without Lora, making her just that teensy bit more desperate? A bit more dangerous?

She hit me with another damned look. This time, at least, she accompanied it with words.

"What you did a moment ago. That was creepy."

"What's creepy about it?" I asked.

"You deduced my thoughts through a broken mug. And on the street, you navigate crowds too well for a new arrival. Makes me wonder if you're truly foreign to here."

"I'm good at keeping track of things," I told her. "I notice things, and I order them in my head. During the war, I–"

Quillon gnashed her teeth. "Why didn't you notice Lora needed help, then?"

I shouldn't have even bothered answering such a bullshit question. Bullshit question, just meant to make me feel worse. Just her tossing bullshit at me to feel better about things, like she tossed the mug.

"It's… I don't know," I said. "It's like a self-defense instinct. I'm bad with faces–"

"Okay, enough."

Quil moved fast. She slipped a claw under my chops and lifted, forcing our eyes on level. She probed for something in them, reaching deep. I could tell from her effort how important this skill was to her job: determining what others were thinking, what motivated them…

"You keep bouncing from ecstatic and snappy to a complete buzzkill," she told me. "What did I do?"

…And what demotivated them. I wrenched out of her grasp, her claws still smelt like blood. "Besides hurt me?"

She shook her head. "No. You were fine with the pain and danger. Not with a few mean words, apparently."

I looked away and admitted it out loud: "Your attitude sucks. Why don't you just talk to me? Why didn't you ask the sandshrew for help? Why do you have to be so mean?"

"Mean! Is that a joke?" She laughed, but cut it short when I didn't join her. "Really. You're this sensitive, and you picked Xanadu as the right place to live?"

"Maybe Pokémon shouldn't create places where they have to brag about how tough they are. No one's tough enough for it in the end. They throw their cup-chucking fits alone in their homes and then do make-believe outside. I heard there were crazy parties here… ones where fellas don't have any shame."

Right then, I figured out what 'homeless' meant. It meant having nowhere to hide. I'd known plenty of pokemon who spent their last moments out in the open, totally homeless. Unless someone got to burying them proper, they still were. I pressed a paw against my jacket's patch.

Quillon stopped for a moment, eyes wide. The fire relit in her pupils and she shoved me up against the wall.

"Only parties you seem to like are the pity kind." She pushed her snout closer to my face. "Gonna shut down on me and let Lora disappear, while you compensate with your leather and remarks and ego. Gonna cry and cry because you're a guilty little animal. You gigantic pussy."

I tried to draw back, but she refused to let me so much as breathe . "Let go of me," I mumbled past her claw.

"Fuck you, I don't care what you want. Your wants are forfeit until you remember where Lora went!" She gripped the tuft of fur about my chest, and slammed my head into the wall. "That help with your memory?! Where did she go?"

"I don't know," I yelped, "stop, stop it!"

The Salandit struck me across the face, then politely reoriented me to face her again. She did it again, and again, to the point where I was drowning beneath the flurry of blows–I couldn't tell her anything even if I wanted to.

"You better remember," she screamed, "you better, because I, I don't know… it's been… three days. You better…"

Quillon sobered up. She drew back, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. I slumped against the wall, my nose stinging fierce from all the hitting.

I'd mentioned how my perception is for self-defense. And here was the perfect example: if I hadn't deduced Quil was lashing out at me due to grief, I'd have fled right out the door. I'd have abandoned this crummy, stinking office and went back to careening the cold streets in search of warmth… or a boat back to where I came from.

But Lora recolored me. She added to my 'self,' so she fell under 'self'-defense. I refused to abandon her to this salandit's care.

"When your boss arrives," I told her, adjusting my jacket, "I will tell him and you everything I know. Then you're going to let me out of this office, and we will fall out of touch. Excommunicado. Even if we see each other while walking down the same street, I don't want you to wave at me. I don't want you to spare me a thought. And if you hit me again, I will officially start hitting back."

I laid down, eyes intent on the little specks of molded paint, where the wet paint drops had coalesced before drying over together. I let Quil talk at me for a bit while I gathered my composure, the minutes and words melting together.

"I need more than info. You were the last one to see her, you could scent her or spot her or… hey. Are you listening? I'm sorry. I apologize for hurting you. I'm um… from the Breathers District, and you'll need to expect this from those like me, especially if you're going to whinge in front of them. Come on, say something, I know your mouth still works–or, gah, I mean… look, there's too many bodies here for everyone's problems to be hugged out–but you'll find someone who cares, I promise. Just help me with this and I can help you find one of those moona shrinks. You can complain all about me to them. Fine. You can live in that hideout we used, if you just help me find Lora. I'll… turn myself in. I'll apologize to that fat Patroller? For Arceus's sake. Please? Don't just… damn it!"

I heard her head smack against the wall, hard. I turned around to make sure she was okay.

The Salandit had her head pressed into a new divot, eyes closed, teeth grinding. She folded her claws… but they weren't real claws. Turned out, they were prosthetic or whatever. All of them popped out as she clenched her claws, paws, hands, your pick, and shook.

"I know how I am," she worked out through gritted teeth. "Lora came here because of me, okay? Her letter ambushed me: hey, clean out a spare room, I'm getting on a boat. Two weeks passed, and I never once considered she had run away from her family, that she was alone in this city. I just sat here wagging my tail. I know how I am." She threw a hand against the wall, repeatedly. "Just… please. I don't know what to say to someone fragile like you. If I could say the right words or do the right thing, I would, I assure you, I would in a heartbeat. But I don't have it in me. Don't make someone else suffer over it. Just give me a break so I can save her life, Grungy."

A friend of mine once asked me: "What's the greatest superpower?"

"Time?" I guessed. "We can go back. Redo history, but work around the nasty bits."

My friend guffawed. "Like picking around the carrots in your rations! Yes, I noticed. Anyway, not a Legendary power. A power that transcends the idea of power. A four-digit vice of destruction or salvation, which can fit on any beast Arceus has created."

"If I knew, I would use it on the bad guys, don't ya think? Moron."

"They're not bad guys," he told me. "They're not bad guys."

We both fell silent. I knew I upset him again. He was much more of an adult than I pretended to be. My friend, he knew precisely what things to be sad over. It was why I looked up to him so much.

"So what is it?" I asked, just hoping to spark up the conversation again.

My friend smiled, happy I cared. "It's knowing precisely when a fella could use a break, Grungy. You give someone a break, you've given 'em true freedom. And you'd be surprised to hear it, but I've never seen a Pokémon misuse their opportunity."

I rubbed my clawtips along the leather of my jacket. Then I fought back up onto all fours, ears perked, wearing a crummy smile that looked as if I had scrounged it from an alley dumpster.

"Ha." I raised up my claws. "Mine are longer than yours."

Quillon looked at me for a moment, dumbfounded. She relaxed and rolled her eyes.

"Some use they were."

"You literally ambushed me, remember?" I shook my head. "Now, I… uh, gotta stick around so I can show off. Can't have my–what is it here? Street reputation? Can't have that stuff being soured by you."

She looked down. "Street cred is the term. Thanks."

"Still never want to see you after this is all done. And I'm not vouching for you on the wall." For her size, she really left a few good divots in the baby-blue wall, between my head and hers bashing against it.

"Eh. My boss has done worse."

A voice rumbled from the stairwell. I felt the vibration shoot right through my cushion, up into my tailbone.

"Do as I say," it intoned, "not as I do."

An Ursaring hulked in the doorway, his body completely blotting out the pale, natural light outside. "Who's this, Quil? You catch a break in your missing 'mon problem?"

The Salandit looked at me, then back to her boss. She told him:

"I think I might have."

And that right there, was how the Linoone got himself wrapped tightly up in a second war– imagine that.

End of Chapter 1