Character: Claire Yanders
Species: Mightyena
Age: A secret known to few
Year of character creation: 2020
Story: The Wayfarers' best chef. Pancakes are $10.99. Her famed sandwiches are $15.99, discounted on combo meals. Hyper Beams come for free, an important part of every evildoer's diet. Ever since the old Wayfarers disbanded, she has taken in children who have fallen on hard times. Despite her appearance as one of the most gentle pokemon ever, she's brutal on the battlefield, when she wants to be.
Audino Agatha plopped down on the lush green earth. She caught her breath, but her muscles turned to jelly. Playing tag wore her down, too fast for her to realize before she all but collapsed.
Marill Zoogle sprawled out next to her with a smile on his face. They stared at the clouds.
"So, you're going back to Verity soon?" Zoogle asked.
She turned her head. "Yeah," she said.
"I feel like we see each other less and less… All because of our parents."
"Yeah… But, when I get a cellphone, we can talk every day! We're still cousins."
"I don't want to grow apart."
Agatha rolled on her side. "We won't."
Smoke rose in the distance. Agatha pushed up.
"Zoogle?" she asked.
Zoogle smiled. "Yah. You're right. We won't."
"Z-zoogle!?"
Agatha woke up in a sweat. She rubbed down the center of her forehead.
She had cocooned herself in a bundle of blankets to get some privacy. Sharing a room with Hannah was one thing; she never judged or even looked at her weird. Jenna did, and Natasha too, on occasion.
A phone rang through their hotel room. It sounded like corny pop music. As expected, Jenna answered. Agatha poked her head out of her blankets and stared at the ceiling. She wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, not with the nightmares and other people in the room.
"Okay ladies," Bayleef Jenna huffed. "Beach day. Get hyped."
Charmander Natasha scoffed. "Yeah, bet you're excited. But I don't exactly have a beach body."
"Oh, chill. We're spending all day on a beach surrounded by the best seafood restaurants in Valor. I won't have a beach body by the end of it."
Agatha attached her feet and unwrapped herself. She reached for her clothes, right next to her bed. She registered the problem in seconds.
She ran out of clean clothes, except the swimsuit. It finally hit her how stupid it was to bring it. With metal feet, she wouldn't even be swimming. Everything else in her bag smelled; damn summer heat…
No other options presented themselves. Everything else would be too warm, anyways. She groaned and resigned to her fate. She put it on and checked herself over.
Yeah, nope. Agatha grabbed the beach blanket out of her bag and tied it over herself like a cloak. This would do for now.
Audino Agatha, Bayleef Jenna, and Charmander Natasha walked out together.
Tables were strewn about the hotel lobby. Each had three cushions to sit at. Everyone seemed to stay with their roommates for breakfast, so they did the same. Silence hung over them. Agatha didn't notice until the end. Her giant stack of sweet chocolate chip pancakes, topped with whipped cream, engrossed her. It almost seemed like dessert for breakfast.
Once they finished, a few more minutes passed until the class set out to the mob of carriages; the same ones that would take them home to Verity when their trip ended today. It left a bittersweet taste, only because she didn't want it to end.
Group chat continued to implode from last night. Agatha spent the whole ride on her phone. She watched the chat like a movie. It kept her more than entertained.
Valor's southern beach owned a sprawling network of roads to different areas. It operated as a trading post between Valor and its southern neighbors, Kyota, Kaigan, Bogota, and far underneath, in the southern hemisphere, Vantaa. If it were any more active economically, a port city would form. At its current rate, one would sprout, eventually.
Their carriages organized into rows, in a small, dilapidated parking lot over a long section of clean beachfront. Agatha had been to the beach before, even overseas, with her parents. For most of her classmates, though, this would be new territory.
As soon as their carriage stopped. Charmander Natasha and Bayleef Jenna raced out the doors, leaving their stuff inside. Agatha sighed and followed after them.
Salty sea air tugged at her beach blanket. Agatha finagled with it to get it tight on her body. She walked between two rows of carriages, with her eyes trained down to step over small pits in the asphalt.
Past a short wall of foliage, the ocean met the sky on the horizon. A few piles of seaweed were scattered across the brown beach sand. Some tables had been set up. A frozen lemonade stand, backed by a small carriage run by a Phanphy, baited all the students closer. The teachers must have organized something. After last night, it seemed like they could do just about anything.
"Are you alright?"
The question surprised her, then the voice. She turned.
Flygon Mr. Rivers walked up next to her. He rotated his body to stretch his back.
"Uh, yeah," she said.
"Alright," he said. "You don't seem that impressed."
"Well, I've been on beaches before. With family."
"Ah, makes sense. Still, you should go down and enjoy yourself."
"Oooooh Geraaaaaaaald."
Eldegoss Ms. Wilman floated up behind them.
"Oh, hello M-Marine," Mr. Rivers said. "How do you do?"
"I be doing," she giggled. "Would you like to go for a walk?"
"Most certainly!"
Agatha grimaced. They floated away like a pair of butterflies. She turned and walked away.
A small, wooden rampway led down to the beach from the parking lot. The class lined up around the stand, which had food too, apparently. Croagunk Grant and Oshawott Sam left with baskets of fries. Bayleef Jenna left with some kind of chocolate cake that made her look fat next to it.
She smacked her lips. Even with the breeze, her beach blanket started to fry her under this much sunlight.
"Hey, Agatha."
Umbreon Walter walked past her right, in the direction of a forming mass of blankets.
It looked like everyone settled in for some kind of group sunbathing session. Agatha followed Walter over.
Most of her class sat out on towels. Slurpuff Zel and Sandshrew Thomas tried to build sand castles. Electrike Jannette and Lillipup Shenise played around with a small, rainbow beach ball. Agatha joined along the edge of the group. She laid on her back, let her towel fall, and wiggled into the sand.
Footsteps on her right screeched to a halt.
"Zoo wee mama!"
What…?
Agatha sat up.
Umbreon Walter gawked at her like an idiot. Agatha adjusted her feet upright to kick him across the face, but stopped. She wouldn't have to.
Green vines wrapped around his chest and neck. From behind, Bayleef Jenna yanked Walter up in the air. She spun her body around and chucked him.
Pikachu Simone and Deerling Belle walked side by side in the line of fire. Simone wrapped his arm around Belle's neck and guided her to the side. Her face contorted.
Walter whizzed past them and hit the sand. Belle swung her head back and forth as she finally noticed. Her eyes sparkled with admiration as Simone continued on, ignorant to it. Agatha reclined back and shut her eyes.
Five calm minutes passed. Sunlight sunk into her bones. The waves pulled her closer to sleep.
"Yo," Croagunk Grant's voice broke the silence. "We should, like, play a game."
"Like what?" Electrike Janette asked. "Tag?"
"I have one!" Cinccino Hannah said. "One hundred cartons of milk on the wall! One hundred cartons of miiiilk!"
"Pretty sure that song is to ease suffering, not have fun."
"Chess," Pikachu Simone offered.
"Nerd."
"How about the quiet game?" Bayleef Jenna asked. "First to talk dies."
"Hi," Agatha said.
Jenna sighed. Agatha heard her sit up.
"Okay," she said, "let's have a battle."
"Pass," Agatha said. "But why are you asking me to battle instead, of, like, I dunno… comparing our amounts of Chattoter likes?
"I didn't know you battled, Jenna," Umbreon Walter said.
"Not very much," she said.
"You should try out for the varsity team."
"I just said I don't do it as much. Why would I try out?"
"Might as well. Speaking of battling, where's Claire?"
Agatha didn't know, so she didn't answer, despite the invisible pressure of eyes.
"So wait," Agatha overheard Oshawott Sam say, "you're telling me a shrimp fried this rice?"
"I want seafood," Agatha blurted. "How often are we going to get the chance to eat seafood that isn't frozen or from, like, a hundred miles away?"
"There's seafood over there," Lucario Elijah said. "They have fish and chips and stuff. I'll get you something."
"I'll get it," Boltund Avery hopped in. "Going there anyways."
"It's cool, I got it, Avery."
"Relax, I'm going there anyway."
"What is that?" Cinccino Hannah cried.
Agatha sat up.
A sand castle, more like a ball of mud with some indentations on it, captured Hannah's attention. Slurpuff Zel and Sandshrew Thomas patted the top of it.
"It's a sand castle," Zel said. "You make the sand wet, and you can kinda shape it. And you shape it into castles, because… I dunno." She turned to Thomas. "Why do they shape it into castles?"
"Maybe it's a formulated story," Thomas said. "Maybe it's so that children are taught to associate kingdoms with happy thoughts in order to deify them, or a way for capitalism to condition us to be naturally inclined to support monarchies in preparation for the future."
"What."
"I want to try!" Hannah declared.
Thomas stepped back from it. "Here, go ahead."
Agatha looked around.
Growlithe Alisha unironically played a game of tag with Electrike Janette and Lillipup Shenise. A bunch of the others sunbathed nearby. During moments like these, she'd usually want to get back to progress on her schoolwork, or draw. She didn't have pencil and paper, though.
She yawned. This need to constantly accomplish something would burn her out if she let it win. If she trained all the time, her scars would cause problems. If she tried to plan and create new tools all day, she'd make mistakes and set herself back.
"Here you go!"
Lucario Elijah bent down. He set a straw basket of fish and chips on the blanket next to her. Agatha listened in. His feet vibrated against the sand. He was shaking.
"Thanks, Elijah," Agatha said.
"Yeah yeah no problem. Anytime."
He walked away on wobbly, unsure legs. an imbalanced posture.
Agatha didn't judge. He could be nervous for plenty of reasons: her prosthetics, her money… Though, he didn't seem to be nervous before.
Shade settled over her eyes. Agatha blinked.
Mightyena Claire stood over her.
"Oh, uh, hi?" Agatha said.
"Hi," Claire said, smiling. "Follow me for a minute."
'Uh, okay."
She sure seemed excited.
Agatha stood up. Other teachers called together the other students. They made their way a bit closer to the shoreline, where a small boulder seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Flygon Mr. Rivers circled around it. He picked a point and slashed straight through it with his claws.
The top of the boulder slid right off. As Mr. Rivers carried it off, the remainder looked like a table.
The class gathered around it in a circle. Agatha ended up next to Pikachu Simone. She shot him a glance to see if he knew what was going on. His smile stayed the same. He probably knew.
In fact, no one else seemed surprised or confused. It annoyed her.
Mightyena Claire gathered everyone's attention when she walked up to the opposite side of the stone table from Agatha. She waited for them to go silent.
"Ha-ppy… Birthday to yooooou."
Agatha's face fell.
Whose birthday? Hers?
Espeon Selina and Torkoal Mr. West walked side by side to the table, slowly. A massive, rectangular chocolate cake rested across their backs, with two mobs of candles on each side.
Agatha had completely forgotten. Everyone sang offkey, except for Claire. Although some of them barely tried to sing, they smiled instead. Selina and Mr. West pushed the heap of cake on the table. Agatha and Simone's names were plastered on top, in pink frosting. Agatha counted up the candles; fifteen on each side, for each of them.
Pink and blue wrapped boxes appeared out of nowhere. Mawile John carried three pink ones on his back. Other classmates pulled them out from under the table. Agatha didn't have a clue for how they hid them.
Their little tune finished.
"Alright," Claire said. "Make your wishes, you two."
Agatha thought for a second. She could only ask for closure. That seemed good enough.
Simone waited. He breathed in with her in tandem.
The candles blew out.
"What piece of the cake do you two want?" Mawile John asked.
"I'll take my name," Simone said. "Agatha?"
"Uh, y-yeah!"
"Sounds good," John said. He got to work with a small butterknife.
"Open the presents," Charmander Natasha said. "I wanna see what you guys got."
Three pink presents and three blue ones sat on the table. Everyone watched as they opened their first ones.
Simone got a cookbook. Agatha unwrapped shiny, metal prosthetic feet, two new ones. She couldn't help but wonder why.
"They're waterproof," Claire said. "Now, if you need, you can swim. And they can be modified, too."
Agatha understood now. They'd help for beach fun and dungeon-diving, if need be. It also gave a point to her swimsuit.
"Thanks, mo-"
Agatha caught herself.
Claire flinched and smiled. "O-of course."
Agatha shifted her weight from foot to foot. From past the table, outside the circle, Luxray Imani smiled with a glimmer in her eyes.
Simone pulled out a second cookbook, with the same cover and everything. He held them up on each side of his face. Umbreon Walter and Persian Romania glared at each other. Simone quietly chuckled and set them down.
Agatha peeled the plastic off carefully for her next gift. The top of it read "Fragile." She could see why.
She recognized the casing for one of John's wands as she lifted up the brown, plastic case. Two wands lay inside, along with an orb. Unlike usual, they all had a sort of glassy texture. Agatha had never seen it before.
"These are a special mix of wands," John explained. "Y'see, I don't usually focus on durability. The wands I make break down after a few years, assuming they aren't shattered or broken up beforehand. These have additional, rarer materials that won't break unless something ridiculous hits them. Got you a Slumber Orb, a Blast Wand, and a Whirlwind Wand. Consider it a thanks, for your work at the shop."
"You already pay me, you know," Agatha said.
"Yeah. You outdo yourself."
"So, uhm…" Growlithe Alisha pawed at her chin. "No Attract Wand?"
John continued to cut the cake. "Damn teenagers…" he muttered.
"Thanks for the gift," Agatha said.
"You're welcome."
John set a heavy slice of cake down in front of her, right next to Simone's final opened present, a snazzy red hat. He picked it up and set it on top of his afro, off-centered.
Agatha opened her final gift, the smallest box of the lot. Again, it had a fragile note on top of it, so she took her time.
She raised up a thin, gold chain necklace.
"Uh, how much was this?" she asked nervously.
"Pretty lightweight," Mr. West said, "especially when we all chipped in."
Midnight Lycanroc Roy patted Lucario Elijah on the back. "You can thank him for cooking it up."
Elijah rolled his eyes and shook his head. Agatha stared at him.
"Welp," Oshawott Sam clapped his paws together. "I think it's time for us to return to our obligatory beach episode."
"Pretty sure it's only obligatory in anime," Roy said.
"Don't ruin this for me."
Audino Agatha ate her cake in short bites across an hour. She set up camp with her stuff on her beach towel. Some of her classmates loitered around while she changed out her feet.
Agatha walked out to the coastline. The waves bubbled around her feet. The cold seeped up through her legs, and invaded her core. It battled against the warmth of sunlight. Her ear strands flourished in the breeze.
She swore she saw something on the horizon. It got closer, like some sort of presence. She stared.
An Eevee with white patches of fur stood out on the water, in a strange place. Her and Agatha's eyes didn't meet. She looked familiar. Agatha could reach out; touch her paw. Her fur felt harsh, and dry, unlike any of the others. It had been like that ever since her sister left. It didn't seem to matter anymore. Nothing did.
"Agatha?"
Agatha gasped. She spun around.
Pikachu Simone stood on the edge of the waves' reach. His smile faltered for a moment.
"You alright?" Simone asked.
"Yeah," she said quietly.
"Did you have a vision thing just now?"
She turned back. "Maybe."
"What did it feel like?"
"I think… something very important is coming. But I don't know what."
It wasn't very satisfying to be close, but not there. She could never really get a true handle on what she saw.
"I've been doing some research," Simone said. "I read up on those visions that run in your family, out of some really old books at the library. It looks like it takes training to interpret them."
"What kind of training?" she asked.
"Meditation, among other things. Here, close your eyes."
She did.
"First, focus on one thing: the sound of my voice. Next, add in your own breath. Feel how it rumbles through your blood. Now the waves, the cold. Remember your connections, all of the people that have bound you to this world. Claire, Walter, Hannah… Now dig deeper, into yourself. Slowly, at first. Now deeper, to your core. Now then leave yourself behind, fly up, to the sky. Return back to the home of our souls, to Stargazer Castle.
"Fall down, back to the planet. Look inside the thread of fate that overtakes them all and shines like the sun, along the path of the next Peacekeeper."
A Buneary and Togetic sailed past, in a small boat.
"You said something important is coming. Where is it coming from?"
A Dragonite with wings laced with holes.
"Look within to the fate of the three curses."
A Furret with a crown.
"Follow the thread back to our current reality."
It would happen at sunset.
"Move forward slowly to watch what happens."
"A meteor falls from the sky at sunset."
"And out."
Agatha opened her eyes. She turned around.
"And in," Simone sighed, taking a breath with his eyes closed. "And out." He released it.
"A meteor falls from the sky at sunset," she said.
Simone's eyes widened. "Oh, whoa. Really?"
"Yes."
"Wow…" his eyes glimmered. "The beach won't blow up or anything, right?"
"I… don't think so?"
"Then I'm sure we'll be fine. But more than that, we can actually test it!"
He had a point. That'd be nice.
"Hey," Simone said, "you should come play some games with us. I mean, it's your birthday. Or, uh, our birthdays… Our birthday?"
Definitely thought about that one too hard. "Yeah," she said, "sure."
"I think Hannah finished her sand castle."
Agatha tagged along with Simone. Her feet left craters over his footsteps in the sand.
More of their classmates gathered around Cinccino Hannah's sand project. It must've stopped looking like a castle ages ago. It had been transformed into a sort of forest of sand trees that surrounded a sand cabin
Hannah sat with crossed legs. Her back hunched. Her eyes seemed cloudy. Simone stopped from a decent vantage point, further away, but Agatha continued. She sat down next to her on the wet, hard sand and bent down to make eye contact.
"What's up?" Agatha asked.
Hannah glanced at her. "Uhm, the sky?"
""It's…" She sighed. "It's a figure of speech. How are you doing?"
"Well, I was fine. I just started making my old house without thinking about it."
"Oh."
"I don't know why…" Hannah said. "Every fiber of my being longs to go back there. And, despite how warm my memories of it are, it leaves me in a dark place. And every time, it feels like I'm closer to something catastrophic again."
"You 're not closer to some 'catastrophe'. You still have people who love you."
Her face lit up.
Agatha cursed herself out. This gushy crap…
"So, uh, yeah," Agatha said.
Hannah threw her weight on Agatha's side with a hug. Agatha grimaced.
"Okay," Agatha hissed out. "Yeeeeeeeeaup. There there," she patted her back. "So, how about a lemonade?"
"I have no idea what that is," said Hannah.
"It's a drink like coffee, but it doesn't taste like carriage oil."
"Sure!"
Agatha sat with Hannah for a while on her towel. She found an umbrella to give them some shade before the sun roasted them alive. Daylight rolled past them. Hannah slurped a little loud for her ears, but Agatha knew she didn't have much experience with straws.
Umbreon Walter challenged Flygon Mr. Rivers to an arm-wrestling contest. Oshawott Sam volunteered to fish him out of the ocean after Mr. Rivers all but chucked him into the ocean. Agatha wished she caught video of how he skipped along the water like a rock.
Mightyena Claire gave some pointers to the more battle-oriented students. From what she saw, none of them learned anything. It'd take a lot more practice. Agatha had to get to it, another day.
As the main event, Torkoal Mr. West told arena stories. Unlike the classroom, he could act out some of his attacks. He drew the entire class in with flames hot enough to raise the temperature five degrees. He calmed down with them after a couple. The other teacher seemed to get a little jealous and offered stories of their own. Strangely enough, not even the Principal's were as hardcore.
A strange anticipation washed over Agatha as the sun continued its path. At the first hint of orange in the sky, she didn't take her eyes off.
Somewhere in the conversation, they decided to stay late, nearly to midnight. Mightyena Claire and Mawile John left and returned with marshmallows and firewood. The entire class, Agatha included, swarmed the food carriage and the poor Phanpy running it before he left for the day.
The sunset darkened. Stars popped out, one by one, out of the deep blue sky. It could happen any minute. The air cooled, which prompted her and her classmates to move closer to a new bonfire, started with the help of Mr. West.
Agatha's skin tingled right before they passed out marshmallows.
She looked up at Pikachu Simone, past three faces around the circle. The short stack of flames added a red hue to his eyes.
"Is it close?" Simone asked.
Agatha didn't reply one way or the other. She couldn't tell.
"Is what close?" Umbreon Walter asked from across the way.
"Agatha had a vision that a meteor would fall around here at sunset," Simone said.
Everyone stopped and looked at them. A marshmallow on a stick, held by Lucario Elijah, plopped to the sand.
"You're telling us this now?" Mightyena Claire asked.
Oshawott Sam's head fell back. "Course. This is what I get for not packing my alien survival kit."
"It's just a vision, right?" Deerling Belle asked. "I mean, honestly, what are the chances-"
They all looked up. Agatha traced their gazes.
A trail of orange light curved through the sky. It seemed awfully close, all things considered… And fast. It seemed like it was accelerating.
"Uh… What do we do?" Boltund Avery asked.
"I have no idea," Flygon Mr. Rivers said. He continued to stare straight up. The other teachers glared at him. He flinched when he noticed. "I mean, uh, class, stay close to us teachers. We have plenty of defensive techniques in the worst-case scenario."
"I don't mean to be a negative Nancy, teacher," Charmander Natasha said, "but an actual falling meteor would rip us all to shreds."
"Guys?" Growlithe Alisha shouted. "Should we run?"
Midnight Lycanroc Roy traced its direction with his claw. "Nah, dude. We good. See? It's going way over our heads… Oh, wait, no, that's a star. Where'd it… Oh. Oh."
"Uh, guys!?" Walter called.
"Take cover!"
They didn't have anything to do that with.
Agatha laid flat on her belly and covered her head.
A ball of fire soared over their heads, how high above, she couldn't tell. Hot winds whipped Agatha's back. Their bonfire leaned so far to the side, the leaf on Bayleef Jenna's head caught fire. The sand chattered Agatha's teeth at the impact.
"Water!" Jenna screamed. "Waterwaterwaterwaterwatewaaaaah!"
Oshawott Sam blasted her with a high-powered jet of water. Jenna flailed like a fish and coasted across the sand. A short-lived fog swept past them. The adults formed a barricade in front of the students, between them and the impact zone. Agatha staggered up to her feet.
The noise vanished into thin air. The bonfire crackled and plumed back to its previous life. The breaths of her classmates shivered, but quieted.
The meteor had a shiny, clean surface, pure black, shaped in a perfect globe.
"Okay guys," Oshawott Sam said. "Remember, aliens always have a weakness. Experiment. Try and learn quickly."
Claire and the rest of the adults came to some kind of silent consensus. They stalked closer. Espeon Selina and Mawile John took the right. Flygon Mr. Rivers and Eldegoss Ms. Wilman floated over it. Mightyena Claire took the front.
Luxray Imani walked around the class. She checked over everyone individually, and replaced the barricade of teachers with herself. Agatha's heartbeat pounded in her head. No one dared to say a word.
A metallic click froze the air. A thin, vertical line appeared to cut straight through the sphere. It hummed like a machine. In fact, Agatha had an inkling that's what it was.
It cracked open.
White light poured out. Agatha raised her arms up.
Something popped out. Everyone flinched back.
Cinccino Hannah rushed forward. She reached her arms out in front of her.
Whatever it was, she caught it.
The machine sparked and caught fire. Agatha clenched her hands and backed away. As soon as the sparks came, they went, and left a heavy silence in her chest. All of the adults stared at Hannah. She turned around.
A white Eevee, fur like fresh snow, laid in her arms. He appeared to be in a daze. The class bundled together. Curiosity drowned out Agatha's adrenaline.
What kind of machine was that? She predicted something important would fall. Did it mean the Eevee? More than anything, though, she wanted to know just how this came to be. The machine didn't seem to have any boosters or propellers to get itself into the air. How did it get high enough to mimic a meteor in the first place?
"What's an alien?" Hannah asked. "And how do I know if this is one?"
The immediate danger seemed to pass, outweighed by curiosity. The adults drew near to Hannah first, followed shortly by her class. Agatha lingered in the back.
"Are they breathing?" Mawile John asked hurriedly.
"Yes," said Hannah. "It seems like he's waking up."
Agatha tried to stand on the tips of her toes to see past Lucario Elijah and Midnight Lycanroc Roy. She nearly fell flat on her face. Elijah noticed her stumble and stepped to the side.
Cinccino Hannah sat down and crossed her legs. The Eevee must've been half her size, or less. His round face looked familiar, right along with his dazzling white eyes. He looked like a ghost, just like the White Star.
Someone shushed all of her classmates so they could listen.
"Where… am I?" Eevee asked.
Espeon Principal Gonzalo stepped closer to Hannah than the other teachers.
"Hello," she said. "You're on the beachfront of southern Valor. What's your name?"
Eevee yelped. He hopped off of Hannah to the sand, then froze in place. Relief passed through his eyes.
"Oh…" Eevee huffed. " I'm sorry… I thought you were someone else."
Eevee looked around. Agatha's skin tingled when he stared at Hannah with a blank, curious face, his lips parted.
"That's quite alright, dear." Principal Gonzalo said. Her face settled down from her initial surprise. "What's your name?"
"My name is Lionel."
"Lionel. You gave us quite the scare. You, uh, crash landed here while I was with my class on a field trip."
"Oh." His ears fell. "I'm sorry…"
"It's quite alright. Where are your parents?"
"Oh, I've… never met them before."
"Then where are you from? Is there a way for us to help you get home?"
"I… don't have a home anymore."
It only seemed to register to him right then. Had he been kicked out recently? Agatha folded her arms.
"Where was your home planet?" Oshawott Sam asked.
Everyone glared at him. He gestured to the broken-up meteor.
"Oh, I'm not an alien," Eevee said, smiling. His face lit up like the full moon. "That's just a pod. I lived in a place far away from here, that's very different…" He fell quiet for a second. "Uhm… do you guys have any water?"
A small plastic water bottle floated over from the bonfire, and into Lionel's paws. The gem on Principal Gonzalo's forehead darkened. He lifted up, nearly vertical. Drops of water ran down his perfect fur.
Agatha looked back at the machine. Mawile John caught her eye. Through some kind of silent agreement, they both walked off to study it.
It sat dormant. Agatha gazed along its jagged edges where it had cracked open like an egg. It didn't look like anything was inside. If she were in it flying in the air, she would've bounced and hit her head enough times to crack it open even if she had on five helmets. John took a closer look at the edges himself.
"Any electronics are probably fried," John said quietly. "I have a hunch that the inside was filled with fluid."
"Uh, fluid?" Agatha asked.
"Yeah. Think of your brain. It's basically in a small pool of fluid that absorbs the impact of it bumping around. Looks like the same idea, except with a whole person. See all that on the sand?" He pointed down.
Agatha hadn't noticed. The sand around the orb was coated in… stuff. It looked like clear jello. The dead dry sand had absorbed a bunch of it, and the shadows were hard to see at night.
"Maybe he breathed through some sort of air tube," John said. "This thing wasn't built to fly, and looks annoying for any flying pokemon to carry. It fell down from already high up, really high up. Where the hell is this kid from…?" he asked himself.
Agatha looked back.
Her classmates swarmed around with questions. The adults tried to guard Lionel from them, but gave up when he didn't seem to mind. He hadn't answered most of their questions with anything important. He blended in so well, it almost looked like half of her classmates forgot he just fell from the sky in a freaking ball of metal and nearly knocked them into next week.
They introduced themselves to Lionel one by one. He nodded as he took in each name. For lack of anything else to do, they invited him to eat at their bonfire. He agreed to it. The adults circled him like hawks. Mawile John shrugged at Agatha and walked to join them.
Pikachu Simone stood in place. Agatha walked to him from behind. He seemed to shake, just standing still. Agatha scraped the sand with her foot so he'd notice her.
"Uh, you good?" Agatha asked as he turned around.
She swore she saw something bright flicker in his right eye. She blinked and it vanished.
"Yeah," Simone said. "Just, uh… In shock, cause, y'know. Giant rock."
"I mean, same, but, other than that."
"Your vision came true. Does that scare you?"
"I never questioned if they were real or not. Grew up knowing about them."
"That makes sense."
"Let's go see what they're talking about."
"Yeah."
Agatha walked over, behind Simone. They stood on the edge of the circle.
Eevee Lionel baked three marshmallows at once in the bonfire, and ate them as their edges turned dark brown. Everyone's questions stayed caught in their throats till he finished.
"What did you say that… thing was?" Deerling Belle asked.
Lionel took a moment to swallow. "It's a pod," he said. "It's not really used very often, just for banishments, and most don't survive those."
Belle's ears flickered up and down. "You were banished from your family?"
"I was. I expected it for some time now. That's how they settle arguments now." He smiled, sighed and looked down. "I'm sorry, I know this must be crazy, and like, super random. But it's just safer for you the less you know. Thank you all so much for the food and water. I don't have anything to repay you with, I'm afraid, but the metal from the pod could be pawned off for a good bit."
Lionel stood up. He stretched a bit and wiggled himself out.
"I'll take my leave," he said.
Agatha clutched her forehead. Acute pain roared to life.
"You cling to your soft heart and confuse it with strength when it is not."
"Lionel, you may not be that 'talented' at fighting or science whatever, but you have the softest heart of any of us. If anything, we wish we could understand you."
"You're brave for picking a different path than any of us to see what happens. I wish you the best of luck on the surface."
"I wish you could pack some of your supplies… Oh, I know that you can probably find more pencils and such on the surface, but… I'm going to miss seeing you."
"You should stay," Agatha said.
Eevee Lionel stopped and looked at her, and all of them. The bonfire crackled through the otherwise quiet air. The ocean waves pulled back to push again.
"You should," Principal Gonzalo echoed. "I was around your age when I left home. And I turned out fine."
Mightyena Claire pounded the back of her head with a sideways glance and shook her head slowly.
"But I could've been better, at times," she continued. "It just wasn't ideal. I won't ask questions. As long as any of our students aren't in danger, I have extra room."
"You… must be an explorer, saying things like that," Lionel said.
Principal Gonzalo tilted her head from side to side. A prideful grin plastered itself on her face. "Yes, well, that is one thing that turned out very well for me."
"If you don't have anywhere else to go, we're more than fine with it," Umbreon Walter said.
"But how can you trust me?" he asked. "I only just met you, and you don't know why I was banished."
"Well, Agatha's vision said something important would fall from the sky."
"Vision?"
"Yeah. Her family has visions of the future. The Pharaohs."
Lionel gave Agatha crazy eyes. Pikachu Simone cut in between them. He faced away from the bonfire and their classmates.
"You should stay," Simone said. "Night's falling. It's dangerous out there. Besides, we all live in Verity. It's a nice quiet place to gather yourself and your plans for the future. So, y'know. You should stay."
Lionel stopped. His eyes bounced around for a moment.
"O-okay," he said. It seemed like his surprise about the visions hadn't worn off yet. "Y-yeah."
"It's nice to meet you, Lionel," Simone said.
"Likewise… Thank you all for your hospitality. I'm not sure how long I'll stay, but it would be nice to reach Verity."
The pain stopped, just like that. Agatha let her hand fall from her forehead. Lionel walked back to his spot and plopped down.
They really took Agatha's word for it? Based on a feeling?
Her eyes glazed over everyone. No one even voiced a second thought. She looked up to the sky. The dead of night had fallen on her first birthday without her family. The bonfire crackled. Her new gold necklace glimmered under its red glow.
