Epilogue : Series 2 - Reunion


After the initial briefing and formal launch of Capsule Monsters CTR's Anniversary Team, Keita and his Crawdaunt made their way along the Cove Lily Motel's hallways for their hotel room and base of operations for their upcoming project. A few things had changed since Keita last remembered them: the paint was no longer peeling and was a more subdued color than last time, and the doors to the motel rooms now sported readers for magnetic keycards. The rooms' furnishings had also changed a bit, as the televisions were built in mind for better quality video signals and different aspect ratios, even if they were still built around leaded tubes that had increasingly fallen out of favor in recent years. Why, even the glorified puddle of a pool had grown a bit and the patio furniture had gone from sun-faded to just cheap-looking, which had caught Bracket's eye on the way over. A fresh coat of paint, but in the end, the motel was much the same as Keita remembered it.

That had been a couple hours ago. Now, Keita was seated at a desk with a shoulder bag propped up against a workstation bathed in the glow of a monitor, one of those flat-panels that had started catching on around the time of his stint in Sinnoh. From its squarish aspect ratio and how dim it was, it was probably made sometime around then, too.

The developer pawed at a clamshell device with twin screens tethered to a box next to the workstation. There were a few extra buttons and a sliding pad, with a screen on the top that was a little larger than the one on the bottom, but at a glance it didn't look that different from the last devkits he'd worked with as he turned back to his monitor with his Crawdaunt.


while (&_monami_ref-ontouch) {

callback_t* callback= nullptr;

cb_args_t callback_args {};

auto add_listener = [&] (callback_t* cb) - void noexcept {

monami_listeners۔add_listener(monami_session۔event_listeners, cb);

};

switch (touch_pointer۔uielem) {

case monami_flags::IDLE:

add_listener(&monami_active_callback);

callback= nullptr;

break;

case touch_ui::TREAT_MENU:

add_listener(&treat_mode_callback);

init_treat_mode(&monami_data);

callback= nullptr;

break;

case touch_ui::TREAT_BAR_OPEN:

callback= &treat_mode_callback;

callback_args= make_tuple(touch_pointer);

break;

case monami_flags::TREAT_MODE:

callback= &mon_render_callback;

callback_args= make_tuple(monami_state, touch_pointer);

break;

case touch_ui::TOUCH_GAME_MENU:

game_menu_load();

add_listener(&minigame_menu_callback);

callback= nullptr;

break;

case touch_ui::GAME_MENU:

callback= &minigame_menu_callback;

callback_args= make_tuple(touch_pointer);

break;

case touch_ui::SELECT_EXIT:

callback= nullptr;

monami_quit(monami_state, &monami_data);

break;

case monami_flags::MON_PET:

add_listener(&mon_pet_callback);

callback= nullptr;

break;

default:

refresh_camera();

callback= &mon_render_callback;

callback_args= make_tuple(monami_state, touch_pointer);

break;

}

if (callback) {

apply(callback, callback_args);

}

}


And yet, here he was, poring over a block of code that while it shared a common pattern with any number of files from projects he'd worked on in the past, controlled processes that their team would've never been able to accomplish in a thousand years on any of the devkits he'd used to work on games prior to this one.

The programmer scrolled his mouse, stepping through the text on the screen line-by-line as he spoke up to the Water-type waiting at his side.

"Alright, Bracket, this is the main handler that manages listeners for touchscreen inputs when in the new interactive minigame mode," Keita began. "All of the cases seem to be triggering as expected, but there's something that's going wrong with the touchscreen pointer every now and then. Sometimes, when it registers as petting a monster, the monster will always react the same way regardless of if you pet it in a place where it's not supposed to like it…"

Bracket tilted his head with a puzzled chitter at the mention of 'petting' and brushed up against his trainer. Keita turned over his shoulder and noticed the sky was already turning a shade of orange. He blinked and sighed briefly, turning to run his hand over his Crawdaunt's head crest. Even patient listeners needed a break from work sometimes, he supposed.

"Not even a day in and already hitting the grind, Keita?"

Keita got up after hearing approaching footsteps and, much to his astonishment, watched Satoshi round the corner along with his Azumarill. The green-haired programmer blinked for a moment before he cocked a brow in surprise.

"Wait, you're my roommate again, Satoshi?" Keita asked.

"I might have pulled a few strings with room assignments," Satoshi chuckled. "But hey, it's not like we're both going to be here for the full eighteen months. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity to catch up for old times' sake."

Keita glanced off at the other workstation in the room and noticed there was a set of orange-and-cream dolls with teal accents that vaguely resembled a Gible and its evolutions. He supposed he should've guessed it was Satoshi's from the way he'd kept dolls of older games' monsters back in the day. Keita watched as Bracket drifted off towards Satoshi's Azumarill and couldn't help but smile for a moment, only to catch himself and shake his head back at his older colleague.

"I mean, I was busy with a bug affecting monster animations in the new minigame mode. I'd worked out most of the kinks before I came over, but there's still a couple edge cases I'm having trouble hunting down," Keita said. "I figured that I should square it away before the assignments really start piling up."

"You'll have time for that later, Keita. You just came off a ferry, relax a bit!" Satoshi scoffed. "I heard the motel renovated their pool recently, you might as well take the opportunity to let Bracket soak in it while you can."

Keita let his eyes drift towards his workstation and the terminal window on the screen, before hearing a chitter come from the door. There, Bracket was already at the threshold to the hallway alongside Satoshi's Azumarill, waving and motioning at his trainer with his claw to follow. The developer traded glances between the two Pokémon briefly, before stepping over and holding a pair of keys down on his keyboard that put the workstation to sleep. He got up and snatched his shoulder bag off the desk before turning back to his roommate with a small smile.

"... I suppose it can't hurt too much to take things a little easy on the first night."


The skies flushed burnt orange as Keita and Satoshi sat by the pool, watching their Pokémon trade splashes in the water with each other as the two trainers sipped from canned drinks—freshly purchased from a vending machine in the motel lobby. All the while, the sound of Bracket and Satoshi's Azumarill playing in the water blended into the background for Keita as his eyes drifted towards the pool patio's concrete.

"Something up, Keita?"

Keita looked up and saw his older colleague standing beside his pool chair. The green-haired man sighed, setting aside his drink can as he slouched forward and looked off at the setting sun.

"Do you think we'll be able to pull it off, Satoshi?" the programmer asked.

The graphics artist sat down on the next pool chair over, quirking a brow back in reply.

"What do you mean by that?"

"This whole project," the programmer insisted. "It sounds like it's got a much bigger scope than any of our old ones. I get that there's more people on the team now, but are we really going to be able to get the bones of everything together in eighteen months? With barely a year afterwards to actually make another finished game on top of it?"

There was a brief moment of silence between the two, before Satoshi shook his head in reply and raised his drink to his mouth.

"... We'll find a way. We always do," the graphics artist insisted. "Besides, it's a new hardware generation. It's not as if we're going to be expected to stick to a yearly release schedule forever."

Satoshi sipped from his drink as Keita sank back into his pool chair. He supposed that Satoshi's confidence had never steered him wrong in the past, but with how increasingly complex the games they'd been working on had been getting, the programmer was starting to wonder if perhaps they were getting overstretched.

Keita sighed and reached for his drink can when he noticed a shadow briefly fall over him before drifting off, and then another, and then one over the pool. Bracket and his playmate stopped splashing each other and looked up, the Crawdaunt of the pair gesturing upwards. Keita blinked and followed the Water-type's claw up into the sky… where he saw them.

A herd of Tropius, flying overhead and headed due north, as one would expect from a migratory flight in the spring.

"Oh right, it's that time of year again, huh?"

"Yeah, that's part of the reason why I suggested you take a break. I figured it'd bring back a few memories," Satoshi said. "The front desk said that since we were last here, the pool is sometimes visited by Tropius during migration season."

Keita couldn't help but quirk a brow at the comment. He supposed he'd seen wild Tropius come by this very pool firsthand in the past, but a shallow pool surrounded by concrete still felt like a peculiar choice for a stopover. Before the programmer could ask further, Satoshi caught himself briefly, before briefly raising his drink can and speaking up again.
"Or I guess it's a Tropius that visits," the graphics artist corrected himself. "They say there's one in particular that always seems to come by here."

It must've been from a learned habit or something; maybe a tourist had fed that Tropius one year and it'd associated the place enough with food to make a point of coming back. Keita supposed an explanation like that would make a sort of sense, but…

The programmer cast a glance off at Bracket in the pool as he studied the passing Tropius and clicked his claws. He wasn't sure how Bracket coming into proximity to a wild Pokémon suddenly swooping in would play out. After all, the Crawdaunt had a way of riling others up sometimes, and if he were to get into a squabble with a Grass-type...

"Not sure how well that's going to turn out with Bracket," Keita murmured. "He's mellowed a bit since evolving, but he's still a bit of a feisty type-"

A sharp call rang out from behind that made Keita trail off and look up to see a Tropius banking and swooping down in a low arc over the roof of the Cove Lily Motel. The Grass-type fluttered down, coming to a stop along an empty patch of concrete at the other end of the pool. Everyone present, both human and Pokémon, stopped and gaped at the newcomer as the Tropius fanned out its broad wings and craned its neck around.

"Wow, speak of the devil!" Satoshi exclaimed. "Talk about hitting the jackpot!"

In the pool, Keita and Satoshi's Pokémon stiffened up after hearing the Tropius' call. There was a moment of stunned silence, before Bracket hurriedly swam over and pulled himself out of the pool, scuttling over while still dripping water off his body's plates. Keita grimaced and at once reached for his bag. He knew what Bracket seeking out a challenge looked like, and even with his size as a Crawdaunt, Bracket was particularly ill-equipped for the one he was picking right now with the fully-grown Tropius on the pool concrete.

"Oh boy, you sure know how to pick your fights, Bracket…"

Keita hurriedly snatched Bracket's Pokéball from his bag and darted over. He was ready to recall his Pokémon when much to his surprise, the crustacean stopped a few paces away from the Tropius and gave a wave of a claw. The Tropius, probably a her from the Pokémon's size, seemed to perk up and gave a cheerful wave of her wings as Keita traded glances between the wild Pokémon and his Crawdaunt with a blank expression.

"... Bracket?" he asked. "What's going on?"

The Crawdaunt chittered in reply and gestured at the Tropius. Keita stopped and turned back to the Grass-type blankly for a moment, before the Crawdaunt shook his head and raised his pincers, clicking them vertically almost like quotes of some sort.

Wait a minute, quotes? It sounded crazy, but was Bracket trying to tell him that this Tropius was…?

"Paren? Is that you?"

The Tropius turned her neck around, and after seeing the green-haired man, paused a moment before having a flash of realization. She let out a joyful cry and tromped over, leaning in and nosing at Keita's chest before he could react. From the side, Satoshi walked over with a disbelieving blink as his Azumarill came up beside him with a similarly awed expression.

"... Oh, so she's the Tropius that keeps visiting the pool," Satoshi murmured. "I suppose she'd definitely have more of a reason than most other Tropius to get nostalgic over it, though talk about it being a small world."

Keita stared up into the Tropius' eyes, still incredulous at the turn of the events. Even if she'd grown a bit since they'd last met, from the way this Tropius and Bracket had interacted with each other, this was definitely Paren. Keita set aside Bracket's Pokéball and raised a hand as a smile began to creep over his face. He brought it up to the Tropius' head with an affectionate pat.

"Oh, so this place brings back memories for you, huh?" he asked. "Well it's good to see you again."

The Tropius shifted her head as something seemed to catch her eye. Keita followed along as the Grass-type lowered her snout up against Bracket's Pokéball, giving it a couple tentative nudges much to the programmer's confusion.

"Huh? Paren? What are you doing?" Keita asked. "That's just Bracket's Pokéball."

The Tropius hesitated a moment, before pacing over beside Keita's Crawdaunt and turning around. The Grass-type let out a determined cry, batting her wings out wide as the programmer and his graphics artist colleague looked on with puzzled blinks.

"... I'm not sure if I understand you there, Paren," Keita murmured.

The Crawdaunt let out a sharp, scolding chitter before moving a claw forward with a swift motion, as if he was throwing something. The programmer blinked briefly before his eyes drifted down to Bracket's Pokéball and he looked up to see Satoshi looking over at him with his Azumarill.

"I think… Paren wants to join you, Keita," Satoshi said.

Keita stiffened up briefly as his mind turned back to the time when he'd parted ways with Paren so many years ago at this very pool. A few of the details had grown hazy since then, but after a little time to try and recall it, one thing he'd said before they went their separate ways stood out in particular:

"I'm totally putting you back to work debugging the next time we meet!"

Had Paren really remembered those words after all this time?

"... I suppose I did say I'd put you back to work if we ever met again," the programmer murmured. "But it's been so long, and life's really different from what you're used to right now."

The Tropius bobbed her head briefly before walking up and nosing at Keita, giving it an expectant tilt. From the side, Satoshi gave a small chuckle and shook his head.

"Seems like Paren already knows that, Keita. And who knows? Maybe she'll wind up saving another project down the line," the graphics artist chuckled. "But it's your call. You're the one who'd be taking care of her, and Tropius aren't exactly small Pokémon."

Keita looked up at the Tropius and hesitated for a moment. He wasn't sure how on earth he'd make things work with Paren coming back into his life like this out of the blue, but hadn't working around the unexpected been the story of his life as a programmer since they'd parted ways?

What was an extra Tropius on top of it?

A broadening smile crept over Keita's face, as he brought a hand up and stroked at the Tropius' neck.

"If you're sure about this, then I suppose I can't exactly say 'no'," he said. "Just don't say I didn't warn you, Paren."

Keita reached for his bag and after a bit of rummaging around, he came across a red-and-white Pokéball. A spare he'd kept for if something ever happened to Bracket's, like him accidentally crushing it between his claws… again.

The programmer raised the ball up as Paren touched the center, and the expected flash of light followed. There was a brief moment of hesitation as the Pokéball rocked a couple times before going still. Keita tapped the center again to let Paren back out, the Tropius rematerializing in a flash and with an elated cry.

During it all, as Paren pulled him in with her neck and Bracket scuttled up cheering her on, something about Keita's unease of how the current project would go ebbed away. There would be untold trials and tribulations, but with an old friend helping at his side, all of that seemed so much less daunting.

Even if he didn't know just yet how he'd manage the space.

"We'll make it work somehow," he said, stroking at the Grass-type's neck. "I just know we will."