2. My Design

There are three rules for survival. First, separate your wants and needs. Second, when attacked: run, hide, fight, get sent to the Void, die, in that order-don't become stained. Third, smiles go for miles.

Kidding. The third rule's to never over-promise.

2.1 - Kidnapping with Consent

I knew Sul was a sharp fella from the get. He organized his desk to the nines, every bit, every bauble, arranged in military formation. Seemed his lackeys–sorry, 'employees'-arranged whatever was too teensy for his murder mitts to push around.

The Ursaring crashed down into a chair. I winced and waited to fall through the floor, but it seemed the hardwood and chair had been adequately reinforced. He leaned towards me, exhaling through his nose.

"Smells to me like ya've got a deck fulla twos and twos. Tell me what happened, and I'll tell you where the four is."

I nodded. Hard to turn down a confident offer like that. "Sure. We both boarded. It was a work ship, so we had to earn our keep or swim the rest of the way. I started to do Lora's work because she wasn't too fit."

"You took on her work?" Quil asked. "She was sick? Lora…"

Sul held up a paw. "Chill out, Quillon. Deep breaths make for deep conversations. Keep going, purple."

Filling him in felt more like a debrief than anything. Sul could do this weird, hypnosis thing with his face. If he liked what I was saying, his narrow eyes drank in every flap of my tongue. If I trailed off or hit a detail he didn't care about, he looked ready for hibernation. He soon had me on a leash, tugging me through my own memories of the voyage to Xanadu.

Finally, I ran out of room between the past and the present. He kept squeezing me with his bored look, and I kept trying to sate his curiosity.

"Some folk greeted us and handed out fliers, but they ran out. There was a tangrowth mooring dinghies–thought he'd fall in, but he used his spindly things to tether onto a post, which was pretty creative. And uh, Lora almost tripped on the ramp off?" I scratched my ear. "And, and, I tried to help her down after she fell, but a dartrix helped instead–"

Thank Arceus, it ended right there. Sul held up his paw, in a way that told me he was satisfied.

"You know what a grift is?" The ursaring asked.

I looked around the room. A really clever answer to that question occurred to me. That was, if I wanted them to make a new porthole with my face.

Instead, I shrugged. "Yeah, here or there. Like, fellas selling tyranitar piss–"

"Stop it with the piss," Quillon hissed.

Sul teetered on the edge of asking about the piss. Instead, he hung back, his frown long and contemplative. "Lora comes from a well-off family, yes? Someone informed her that work ships exist–no documentation, no cost, perfect for runaways. And she's fragile, hm? That someone promised to join her on the ship, take her share of the work. When you helped Lora, purple, that someone sat back and let you, since it would lessen the amount of time they were seen with her. When you disembarked, though, they jumped back into the picture."

I waggled a claw. "Sure, following so far."

He grunted a laughless chuckle. "Thanks, I was worried. That someone was the dartrix, and they never intended to help Lora run away. They merely wanted to shuffle her from one cage to their own. It was a kidnapping with consent up to the finish line."

It made sense. Why fight off a rich family's suspicion and guard, when you could enlist the kidnapping victim in her own disappearance? The dartrix on the ship stayed aloof; always worked her part, then disappeared into the bowels of the ship. Only when she went downstairs, did Lora peek up. I assumed because the work was done…

Sul really did know best. The ursaring took my stupid gawking as a sign I agreed with his theory. A paw slipped under his desk. He pulled out a wood chunk to whittle on. It didn't have a shape just yet, but the lil' teddy was slaving away at arts and crafts… he worked on it even though both Quil and me were on our asses awaiting his sage advice.

"Hey," I started, "uh–"

Quil whipped my back with her tail. "Shush. I mean, quiet please. Sorry."

She looked at me as if I was a pane of glass three-cracks fragile. Big surprise, after our spat–what surprised me was the way she fawned on the Ursaring. Fawned in the sense, well, she was head-over-heels for her boss's every movement.

After another lifetime of whittling, Sul put down the chunk. "They'll need to appreciate her value."

"Value?" Quil asked, her voice whispery. "Fuck, boss, are they going to sell her?"

"It'll be forced labor surrounding the thing she was born to do: recolors. But don't you worry." Sul smiled. "We'll solve your problem, get your girly back."

I snapped back to Quil. "Whoa, hey. She's your girly? Like, L.D.R., long distance relationship?"

"Are you looking to bleed?" She kindly replied.

"No, I'm not. Listen–you mentioned Lora's letter told you to clear a room. Why clear a room if you two could just share a bed or whatever? Unless you two are like, first base or whatever it's called."

She nodded. "Take a few steps off the carpet. Stand right on the wood. It'll all stain far less."

"I'm just saying," I said in a hurried bark, "if you just tell those around you details, and feelings, and things besides death threats, we could've figured this out way earlier!"

Sul laughed. "I pay Quil to wring those sorts of things out of blokes like you, not the opposite. Anyhow, no bloodletting in the office today: we'll need to budget cleaning costs if we're focusing our efforts on free work."

Seemed Quil was an attack dog, or, well, lizard. Explained why she was so 'good' at extracting information, but garbage at giving any of her own.

"For now," the ursaring said, "purple needs food and rest. He's worn down. Quil, help him to some take-out and place him in our nearest hideout."

"What?" The Salandit stepped forward. "Sleep? But then, Lora will be…"

He pulled himself up, towering over us pipsqueaks. His giant paw plopped down on Quil's head. She awkwardly crouched, fuming underneath the touch.

"I know," he told her. "It's my turn to burn the midnight oil. Both of you need rest, or you'll be catching twenty winks at the wrong time."

I licked my chops. Take out, like, food? Damn, was I famished. I could eat this whole bear. Maybe not. Meat looked too tough.

"Thanks for the help," I said, as Quil gripped my arm and dragged me to the door. I was more grateful for his attitude: he was an upstanding bear, through and through.

He did have one more question, though, coughing loudly to stop us on the steps.

Sul studied me. "You fight in the war?"

The question came as a bit of a surprise–luckily, I had readied my response on the boat ride. "No-siree. I laid some traps here and there, ran supplies mostly. I know a couple songs and dances."

"Right. Quillie, you're screwing around with a real asset. Try to treat him right."

Well, that had to be a wrench in Quil's plans for later. She groaned, pulling me forward and tossing me down the stairs. I stumbled down, shoved back into the cold. At least there was food involved in this whole cluster.

I had seen the take-out booths speckled between the real buildings, their menus flapping in the chilly breeze. Taunting me, what with those funny little numbers next to each food item, that meant I wasn't allowed to chow, eat, or even nom or nibble.

Not that these shops were all bad: the owners of a few crossed the divide to give me their surplus goods. I had pastries, some odd cheeses, crackers… none of it warm, but it all rested in my gut the same.

Quil'd dragged me to a humble one near my new home: a glitzy place with a sign that read IMITATION MEATS! A zorua patted his paws on the counter and waved the salandit in closer.

"What's up!" He yipped. "I heard you did something cool earlier today. I'm sad I missed it. It wasn't my shift yet, and…" the pup spotted me. "Whoa. That's the dude you beat up."

"Hi," I said, waving. "She ambushed me."

"Uh, it's Xanadu? Ambushing is totally allowed. Quil told me so. So… you lost."

Some freakish expression spread out on Quil's face. Her long snout sorta curved upward, deviously… I think experts referred to it as a smile.

"He knows," she said. "Double my usual." She jabbed my side. "I hope you like salami sandwiches."

The zorua slammed his paws on the counter one more time and went to work. He had several stations behind his booth. Sharp stations, at that, protected from the snow by a single flimsy tarp. Smoke billowed out of a grill as he started on his work.

"So," I said, ducking in closer to the warmth of the grill. "Name of this place is sorta morbid, kid. Don't you fellas imitate things?"

The young culinarian gasped. "I know, right! Sometimes, I have nightmares–so basically, I'm attending the booth all alone at night, there's not even a snowflake in the air. Then, a giant snorlax lumbers towards my booth, so I ask what he wants… and he says… YOU! And that's where it ends. Mom says the pun is too sacred to give up, even as her poor kid suffers night terrors. The shame! The shame… oh, and one time, a snorlax actually did come up the booth. I threw a knife at him! Simmons slapped me with community service, even though only the handle hit his head. I missed three shifts… but I got to practice throwing knives for next time."

"Congrats," Quil mumbled. "You made our order take three times longer."

But I didn't mind. It was late at night, the glow of the city on full display: rooms and lanterns, a soft yellow glow beneath, and the polytechnics of the tallbuildings, a shimmer above. I leaned against the booth, basking in the small talk, the feeling of ice against my feet offset by the cozy warmth of the grill, all nestled in the aroma of my to-be first decent meal. I couldn't complain.

"... And one time, there was this rumor that my mom transformed into different pokemon, then cut off her own limbs to sell on an illegal meat market. Like, what? Our limbs don't grow back! Although maybe if mom gave up a leg, we could afford a new knife set… lost a couple in the snow somehow... okay, done!"

Our order came in two cutesy straw boxes, Imitation Meats scrawled on the top. I tipped mine open a bit. Arceus, I fell in love with the thing. Two toasted slices of bread, sandwiching a positively-fucking artisanal portion of imitation salami and condiments. I had mayonnaise about once or twice in my life so far, and spotting the stuff running down the crust paralyzed me with excitement.

"Try not to drool!" The zorua barked at me. "It'll freeze and you'll be all covered with saliva icicles. Saliv-icles. Salicicles. Drool-cicles."

Quil snatched our food and left some money on the counter. "Thanks," she called back, fleeing the booth. "Have a good one!"

"Uh." I smiled and tipped my head. "Yeah, thanks. See you around, little guy."

"Become a regular or the 'lax will get ya!" He called back.

We fled through the thinning crowds, back to the hideout. It too was on the second floor, and needed one of those keys on Quil's keyring. This time, though, she pulled the thing off and planted it on top of my paw.

"I have copies. Still, try not to lose it."

"You're not coming up?" I asked. "Your food's gonna get cold."

She shook her head. "Nah."

We sat there in silence. Guess it made sense. I told her I wanted nothing to do with her. Still, it was a shame to let a good sandwich run cold, even if the mouth it was due for spouted expletives and screamed sometimes.

"Hey," that mouth said. "You don't really think someone's… you know, selling Lora off?"

"Ain't it sorta normal?" I asked. "During the war, my post bartered bodies all the damned time. Would sell squads off on 'duty rotations' in return for food and supplies." This system worked a ton better than distant Expedition Society members spouting hooplah orders from miles away. "It isn't too weird to think someone never kicked the bad habit. But uh, uh, look. We'll get her back before then. Hey…"

Quil wiped away the tear-cicles. "Fuck. Why did I ask? Good night, Grungy."

She scampered off, leaving me in the open doorway.

I decided, for the sake of my well-being, that I had enough of her for one day. I closed the door behind me, hoping her own place was nearby. Somewhere to cry and shout about things.

As for me, I was alone in an insulated-yet-chilly room. It wasn't a box, so I was more than happy to consider it my first home. I took care of a few chores: shoved all the random equipment and junk-boxes to a corner. Flipped the hay on my bed to avoid my bloodstains from earlier today. Made a mental note to throw out this hay and ask for some new stuff.

Eventually, I got to hanging my jacket up on a lonely hook on the far wall. The leather hung heavy from it, cutting the wood slightly with its weight. I watched it turn and dangle, my eyes set on the dear haxorus and his square patch. The silhouette started at me, red slanted eyes seemingly curving into a smile. I poked the fabric with a claw-tip, chuckling to myself.

"Hey," I whispered. "It's not a party, but you gotta admit: it's wild. It's like I am starting all over again. Just wish you were here to help. B-But." I averted my eyes. "I can do it without you. I promise."

The haxorus stared at me. There wasn't any thought to his stare. He was stitched together proud and confident, smiling… this wasn't the real thing. It couldn't criticize me. Yet it did, the doubt clear in his every woven fiber.

I shambled over to the bed, laying so I could stare at one of my paws. The purple fur hummed in the city's lights… drapes, right. I needed drapes for the windows.

And a blanket for the cold. But not really. Every night, without fail, that jacket found its way back onto my body. I couldn't take it off. Couldn't not feel it against my back.

But I did try. And when the sun came up again, I would continue trying to be myself.