Isobel woke up buried under a mountain of orange fur. It was all over the sheets, over the bed, on the floor, and who else did it belong to but Bronze, who was grooming himself in the corner of the room?

"Aw, jeez," Isobel said, shielding herself from the morning light, only to get a lock of fur stuck in her eye. "Ah!"

"Sorry, sorry!" He scurried to another corner away from Isobel's sight. "Please don't be mad."

"Nah, it's fine." She sighed, then blinked a few times to get it out. "You can't exactly help moulting, can you?"

"No, I guess not." Bronze came out from his ball of guilt and joined Isobel back on the bed. "Trevor always complained whenever I shed my fur around him. Though he was the one who always cleaned up my mess anyway." He held out his paw beans. "If I had hands, I'd gladly help pick this stuff up."

"Well, good thing I have four of 'em," Isobel said with a smile, waving her quadruple arms. "Jazz hands."

"Jazz...? Isn't that the noise someone makes when they sneeze?"

"Something like that." She snickered. "Anyway, I have just the thing for this. Once I properly wake up." She punctuated it with a yawn, then got out of bed to do some quick stretches. After she was done, Isobel got to work. First, she shook the duvet and patted at the bedsheets, sweeping the rest of the fur onto the floor. Bronze sat against the wall, watching intently, which Isobel took notice of.

"Actually, if you wanna help, I wonder if you can use that tail of yours as a brush. I could do with pushing all of this fur to one place."

"Oh, of course!" Bronze immediately leapt to the occasion and tried to make a sweeping motion with his tail. He managed to get it all to one place, though he ended up shedding even more fur, making a trail in his wake. "Sorry again…"

"Oh, come on, you don't need to keep apologising." Isobel cupped the pile in her hands and tossed it in the bin. This was certainly a predicament. What would the inspector say if he decided to pop in one day? It seemed like the hoover was the right tool for this job. Then it struck her. "Wait there, I have an idea."

Isobel fished out the vacuum cleaner from the broom closet. Turning it on gave Bronze quite the stir as his hackles raised at the noise. He gradually got used to it though, and stepped aside as Isobel scoured the carpet. He tried to say something, but his voice got drowned out by the suction noises.

Isobel turned off the hoover. "What?"

"What was your idea?" Bronze asked.

"Well, did Trevor ever groom you?"

"Yes, lots of times." He looked to the side. "If I had to say one good thing about him, he cared about how I looked."

"One good point out of a bajillion bad ones, then. Did he ever do it this way?"

Isobel gently moved the brush attachment to Bronze's coat, only for him to step back.

"W-what are you doing?

"Trust me, I've seen lots of people grooming their Pokemon with this, and they loved it."

"Wait, no, you're not gonna suck me up, are you?!"

"Of course I'm not gonna do that, I just want to try this. Hold still a sec."

She was about to turn it on again when Bronze bolted for the bathroom and tried to nudge the door shut. So he was playing hard to get, eh? Isobel simply pushed it open again. Bronze had nowhere to hide as her vacuum of justice closed in on him. He shut his eyes, possibly bracing himself for whatever impending doom came his way. She turned it on. He whimpered. Isobel briefly wondered if she went too far before the brush touched his coat. Then…

Bronze trilled as the hoover groomed his side. He flopped onto the floor, allowing Isobel to vacuum all the stray furs up. In no time, he was looking as good as new. Operation Deep Clean went better than she expected. Or at least, it would've done if the hoover hadn't suddenly whirred to a stop.

Once Bronze came down from his bliss-like state, he cocked his head at the scene. "What happened?"

"I think I overestimated how much this bad boy could take," Isobel said, smacking the vacuum cleaner in an effort to get it to work again.

"Bad boy? How is it bad in any way?"

"It's just an expression." She tried to pry the thing open to examine what was going on. "But I think the fur clogged up the filter, and it-"

Fwooooosh. Once opened, the vacuum bag blew smoke right in Isobel's face, leaving her a laughing, coughing mess.