This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.
[5-2] Walk
Poke.
Prod.
Pinch.
"Please stop touching me," said Ciel.
An armed guard denied his request. Ciel noted that his uniform resembled the ones worn by two agents who helped storm the Rocket complex in Mahogany, denoting them as International Police. The hands roaming Ciel's body tensed different muscles in different places, and the fibers didn't relax fast enough between each contact. Soon his everything was on high alert.
Next came a baton, waved in the perimeter around him. Then twice. Then a third time, because they weren't satisfied after he removed his Poké Balls and his belt and his jacket. Other agents swarmed like Beedrill over honey to gut the discarded items.
A hand wandered a little too low for his comfort. Ciel grabbed—squeezed—the man's wrist. "Please stop touching me."
The officer tore his hand away and massaged his arm where it was crushed, all while brandishing a piercing expression. He only held it a few seconds, before he called to his comrades, "This one's clear to go."
He passed through the reinforced checkpoint and examined the main hall of the Sinnoh League building. A black path coursing with green lights extended all the way to the opposite side of the atrium, disappearing into a dark tunnel. Gray tiling blanketed the floor, and azure panels raised countless stories into a circular tower, eventually meeting at the apex of a hollow dome. Ciel stared at the inverse peak.
"That hurt! You're being too rough," cried Laina.
His neck snapped back to the guard, who seemed keen on giving similar treatment. He tried to fight his way back through the agents, only for his sister to rapidly shake her head at him. He said, "She's twelve. You don't need to check her."
"We check absolutely everyone. I'm sure you can understand why we need to do this," said the agent.
He gritted his teeth and looked to her, who seemed to be handling it with far more grace than he did. And he did understand, but it didn't make it any easier.
"It's fine. I hate it, but whatever." Laina puffed her cheeks and consented—as much as she could—to the rough searching. Fortunately, the man gave her an easier time than him, and quickly ushered her through after only a single pat down. She collected her belongings and joined him past the checkpoint.
She drew in a long breath, her red bangs rustling around her eyes. Her eyes shot open, and she threw a powerful pointed finger at one of the agents. He didn't react until Laina stormed up to him, planted her forward foot, and held it like a knife beneath his chin. The man cranked his neck left, then right, then tipped his own finger towards his chest in question.
"You!" Her shout coated him in spit. "Take us to the Vice-Guy!"
Flinching, he wiped his face and grumbled to her, "Request denied. One must have an appointment to speak to the Viceroy."
"So take us to where we would go if we had one."
"Request denied," he said again, with a little more hesitation than before. He tapped the International Police badge on his chest. "I am not an escort."
"Then be one!" said Laina.
The agent looked past her, only to receive a shrug from Ciel. He didn't have the steel to resist her when she got in the moods nor the means to offer it to anyone else, and he was willing to let her loose when it wasn't something as trivial as cookies. He eyed the officer pair with a smirk. It was easier to bend than to break, and he was certain she wouldn't stop until he broke.
The man huffed, clicked his heels together, and fired an affirmative gaze at Ciel. "I can take you to the Council Suite, but they'll probably turn you away."
Ciel tried his best not to smirk at him. "Good enough for me."
He ordered some of his colleagues to watch the checkpoint and then rushed past the siblings, leaving them with the challenge of keeping up with him. That was fair. Ciel wasn't asking for attention, just directions.
They chased the man up the grand staircase of the building, which split around the central tunnel that he assumed led to the Champion and Elite Four's chambers according to what he knew about the Indigo League. After the steps rejoined, they curved into a spiral drilling upwards through the building. Ciel and Laina pierced the heart of the Pokémon League, marveling at the elegant decorations that sprouted from the walls once they escaped the techno-futuristic lobby.
Though he looked over his shoulder a few times to confirm their presence, the International Police agent kept silent as they climbed higher and higher. Ciel became increasingly aware of the elevator accesses each successive level. He wondered if the agent took the stairs specifically to spite them.
Their feet met blue on the topmost floor, where an azure carpet ran the upper hall of the castle. Ciel veered closer to the meters-high windows as they headed towards the far end of the hall. The city was on full display beneath the falls, which drained into a pool where downtown skyscrapers drank.
When his head snapped back forward, the agent was facing them, standing at attention at the end of the hall. He saluted them, though his grimace made clear that it was only a pleasantry. Another agent, the standing guard of the door, mirrored his gesture with more confusion than solidarity.
"Here. The Viceroy's suite." The agent dropped his salute to hold his hand to the door. It was outlined by a golden frame, a knocker hanging off-center in the shape of a Luxray's head. "The next time you ask me for something, I'll arrest you for assaulting an agent of the International Police."
Ciel tried not to meet his eye. "Uhh… that would be a note for later."
Laina raced up to the door and knocked rapidly, just as she'd done to annoy him on the way to Sinnoh. The agent left his stationed compatriot and retreated down the hall. After a short lapse of silence, a voice inside said "come in".
The siblings slipped inside, letting the door slam heavy behind them. It was a semi-octagonal reception room, draped windows wall faces that alternated with hallways leading elsewhere. The wallpaper frayed at the edges, revealing the stone beneath, and the roof was low enough to tickle Ciel's scalp through his hairs. A receptionist commanded a desk in the middle and looked up to greet them.
She had been locked in parley with a wheelchair-bound man across the desk, which was low enough to accommodate him. He was a graying fellow whose wrinkles nearly swallowed his mouth and eyes.
"Do you have an appointment?" asked the receptionist, who turned to a computer and worked magic on the keyboard. "I'll need your Trainer Card or other League-issued identification and I'll need to take a photograph of you for logging purposes."
"I actually, uhh," he said, shirking backwards. His back touched the door. "I don't have an appointment, I was looking to see if you would be willing to, or I mean, if you allow… walk-ins?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Who let you in here?"
"We need to talk to the Vice-Guy." Laina tried to fight back the authority, though she probably knew she was nothing but a pretender in this castle.
"Guard! Please take them out of here!" she shouted.
"Hold a moment," said the wheelchair-bound man. He rolled himself forward with surprisingly powerful arms that his suit jacket strained to contain. Those hidden eyes appraised him.
"I can go, if you don't allow, umm—"
"Ciel Fauder." When the man said his name, he didn't register it for a few seconds. The ridges in the carved door dug into him. The man sensed his confusion, and asked, "Am I mistaken?'
"N-no. I'm just not used to being recognized, I guess. How do you know me?"
"I watch the news, boy," he said. He slapped the back of his hand against Ciel's chest, causing him to flinch. It wasn't supposed to hurt, probably. "Are you going to continue to be humble or are you going to own up to yourself?"
"Oh!" Ciel stiffened and tried to hold his strongest expression. He made his statement, so this man was right. The worst thing he could do was neglect the newborn image he'd committed to nurturing. "I want to be famous, sir, just like I said. My name is Ciel Fauder, and I'd like to talk to the Viceroy."
"Permission granted."
Ciel held in an unsteady breath. The man's legs drew his attention—his pants ceased where iron prosthetics began, and Ciel couldn't help but imagine that the sleek metal wasn't as powerful as the man's hidden figure. One was thicker where it attached at the knee, while the other was a thin piece that began at his mid-thigh. When he realized he was staring too long, he snapped back to meet the man face-to-face.
"You're," said Ciel, "you're the Viceroy?"
"Cool legs!" said Laina. He would have scolded her if she didn't sound so… genuinely impressed. When she dove closer to get a better look, unaware of the social codes she may be violating, he jerked her back with his hand on her collar.
"Sorry, sir," he said, unsure who he was apologizing for.
"You can call me Viceroy or Mr. Nølsikker." He spun himself around and pushed past the desk. "As I said, you're free to speak. My office is this way."
"But sir," called the receptionist, "your appointment is at the turn of the hour."
"And I'm confident whatever business this boy has can be solved before then. Now come along," he said.
Ciel nodded, tried his best to avoid the receptionist shooting daggers at him as they passed. The Viceroy led them through a short, narrow hallway that bulged again into a circular niche with antique furniture. Decades had carved nicks into the room, and Ciel was certain he'd catch a splinter if he so much as ran his hand over the desk where the Viceroy parked his wheelchair.
The man locked his hands and planted them on the desk despite the danger. In his position, he was framed by the golden drapes of the window behind him.
Laina took a seat first. Ciel was almost relieved, because by failing to wait for a suggestion from the Viceroy, he had no expectation to do the same. The man gave them no pause to settle in before he drilled into them.
"As she said, I'm on a tight schedule, Ciel."
"Well, I, umm—" Ciel's mind battled his racing heart and it's inability to keep him together. He'd talked to Lance Masuta. This shouldn't be intimidating.
"Do you control the Gym Challenge, mister Vice-Guy?" his sister asked.
His eyebrow peaked at her phrasing, but he seemed to allow it after appraising her. She was just a kid, after all. "I hold authority over general operations of the entire Sinnoh League network. Specifics are delegated to my middle managers."
"Then you were the guy that stopped it?"
"I did, yes." He had never stopped watching Ciel even after Laina began. He hoped the man couldn't see the sweat on his cheek, or the flaring of his nostrils.
"And nobody can change it but you?"
"Oberon Terminus certainly could, if he chose," said the Viceroy. He properly directed his voice to Ciel this time. Impressed, he was no longer. "What exactly do you wish to ask me?"
Ciel balled his fists in his lap and summoned his courage. That's what a celebrity needed, to be brave in face of all crowds, all cameras, and all detractors. He said, "Mr. Viceroy, I'd like you to reopen the Gym Challenge, sir. If it's possible. If it's—" He slammed his mouth shut to cage his tongue.
"It's possible," said the Viceroy. "But I refuse."
Ciel felt his stomach ache where he'd been struck the day before. Somehow, it felt like more of a gut punch than the physical one he'd sustained on the plane. Despite everything it took to get to the Pokémon League, his fear was realized.
No. It was his duty to conquer that fear, not before he hadn't exercised other options and before he hadn't tapped into the mighty strength he knew was his. That interview gave him the opportunity to taste it. Own up to himself. The Viceroy said it himself.
He stood from his chair. "Sir, I stopped a plane crash on my way from Jubilife, and I travelled all the way from Johto before then. I'm not leaving here until I convince you, or at least until you tell me how I can help."
"I can appreciate your drive and your image. It's exactly what we cultivate when we train and seek Champions," said the Viceroy. "But your wishes do not, and cannot, override our efforts to keep the Sinnoh Region stable."
"First of all, why? What do you gain by closing the Gym Challenge?"
"That's a foolish question. You've encountered exactly why."
Ciel blinked. "The, uhh, the plane?"
"That man is in custody of the International Police. I assume they believed he was connected to the Masutas' murderer," he said, and a shiver seized Ciel at the casual mention, "yet he's done nothing but ramble about how he's free to do whatever he wishes and that no one will stop him. He's no one special."
"And there are riots happening in the cities." Ciel sensed what the man was thinking, having seen it himself. The Viceroy frowned.
The incident in Canalave was just one of a possible many. The people were driven into a frenzy simply by such an unsettling disappearance of their Champion, and the promise that they would be without a successor for an indefinite period of time. It was insane, but… he didn't misunderstand.
There was a hollowness inside. Maybe it was dealing with Raven's sickness, but he hadn't felt exactly like himself since the news dropped. If Laina hadn't metaphorically slapped sense into him, he might have still been moping in Canalave.
The Viceroy leveled at him. "We're preparing full examinations of our Region's strongest Trainers, but knowing what unrest is occurring, all of our Gym Leaders—and many of our other League Trainers—have been called into action alongside law enforcement to keep the peace. Until it's maintained, we can't occupy them with trivial Gym Battles."
Ciel felt the situation slipping, his goal receding further and further into the mist. The man's reasoning was solid, and Ciel had seen too much already to imagine it getting worse. He scratched at the scar on his neck.
He let out his breath and searched for another question. While he was here, he'd get as much information as he could. "Why didn't you have a candidate ready like the Indigo Plateau?"
"Because we—" The man stopped short. Ciel searched the air for the words he didn't say. "Because we didn't. We had no one on record to accept the title."
"Okay," said Ciel. He knew he was pushing his luck, but he needed to keep pushing. "How?"
"I don't owe you an explanation."
"You don't. But I do know that the Pokémon League doesn't like bad publicity, and that it would have some kind of plan for this," he said.
The Viceroy seemed to consider an explanation, his face rippling. Ultimately, however, he said nothing, even though the twitch in his eye and the quiver of his lip said that he wanted to say something. He looked back up at Ciel. Waiting.
"Fine. Then why is it taking so long?" asked Ciel.
"Do you have a habit of running out of questions?" replied the Viceroy.
"No, sir," said Ciel. "I don't believe so."
He paused. "How many Trainers do you think are fit to be Champion?"
Laina found a path to butt into the conversation and said, "I mean, our parents are Gym Leaders, and they probably could—"
"None of them."
Ciel stared blankly at him, and Laina was left squabbling by his interruption. He didn't mean that. There's no way he could.
"The type of people we seek, like that of Dr. Masuta, or Dr. Stone, or now Mrs. Morgana, are so astronomically rare that it may as well be negligible. There is a stark difference between a strong Trainer and a paragon for an entire nation, and I don't even believe Mrs. Morgana qualifies, but the decisions of the Indigo League are ultimately not mine to make. I will not offer Sinnoh an imperfect Champion."
"So what if your candidate isn't perfect?" Ciel's arms tensed at his sides, their signals exaggerating his words. "People need someone to look up to."
"No!" shouted the Viceroy. His visceral tone was the first time since maybe the back alleys of Goldenrod that truly, utterly scared Ciel. It sent him to his chair, locked and awaiting the voltage.
The Viceroy stood in his place, perhaps unsettled by being beneath a child for so long. He was massive, almost two meters, and his rippling muscles defined themselves when his sleeves descended naturally. He swiped a cane hanging beneath the desk and approached the window to view something beyond. The snow's albedo reflected so much light towards the room that he became nothing but a smudge of black in front of the white pane.
"I fought in the Coalition War," he said. When Ciel searched with his eyes for confirmation, for medals or souvenirs, he found nothing. "I don't valorize it, not like that Gym Leader fool in Kanto. It was manic kings and deluded emperors that signed us away. We knew it was wrong, but we trusted our so-called 'leaders'. Then in combat, my Pokémon trusted me to command them, as I trusted my captain to command me."
The Viceroy gripped his cane hard enough that Ciel saw it bend between his hand and its contact on the floor. "We had an opportunity to retreat from an engagement we couldn't win, and when he didn't take it, I trusted that to mean he had a plan. I only understood after I was buried in dirt and blood that he marched us to our deaths and used us as a shield for his own cowardly escape."
When he finally turned back towards the siblings, Ciel was glad he couldn't see his face. Even as a featureless smear, the wrath on the Viceroy's face kept him shackled as he waited for execution.
"Had I been responsible for myself, I would have been safe. I knew the right decision. He did too," he said, then decided suddenly to return to his wheelchair. When he emerged from the light, his face was expressionless. "The only thing worse than not being led is being led by a failure. I refuse to give Sinnoh a failure."
His words hung in his office, as gruesome as the day he had described. And Ciel knew he had nothing left, nor any reason to stay here. The Viceroy was wrong. Nothing good could come from shouldering scared people with more uncertainty. But Ciel didn't have the tactics, nor the right, to argue with a man so skilled on this battlefield.
A shuffling alerted him to the receptionist standing at the opening behind him. However long she was standing there, the contempt she held before had evaporated, and now she was too timid to speak. "S-sir, we have, umm..."
"It seems my next appointments have arrived." The Viceroy's cane returned to its rightful place. He said, "I believe I'm done here."
Ciel, silently, stood, and granted the slightest bow his Johtoan etiquette would allow. He grabbed Laina by the hand and raced past the woman in the hall. As he reached for the door in the reception chamber, it flung open on its own, revealing three figures—two vest-clad agents and a wild-haired man in a trench coat. Ciel skipped past but heard the muffled commotion after the door slammed closed.
"You don't have appointments either, do you?" asked the Viceroy
"No, sir! No, in fact, I'm a detective of the International Police, and we have suspicion that you might provide useful information in the pursuit of justice. We would, therefore, like to ask you a few questions."
The Viceroy tried to object, but it quickly quieted, leaving Ciel on the silent upper floor of the Sinnoh League. He gazed into the blue of the carpet and squeezed Laina's hand. However, she tugged on his sleeve and pointed.
Her line painted across the blue, to the worn but expensive looking sneakers, to the running shorts, to the loose shirt hanging on the girl in the center of the empty hallway. An armored International Police agent stood silent behind her. Ciel's eyes met hers.
She raised a weak hand and said, "Are you… ready for that rematch yet?"
"What are you even doing here?" she asked. She spoke in whispers, as if her voice was chained down.
Ciel immediately didn't belong. A couple things stuck out to him. One, he was inside someone's house. Breaching the private, intimate space of someone else was a lot harder than everyone else made it seem. The last time he did so, it wasn't really his choice—he woke up halfway to pneumonia in Cianwood. Two, he wasn't rich. The fine marble countertops, the treated leather couch that felt nearly alive beneath his fingers, and the calculated minimalism of the architecture were all… impossible to him.
People actually lived like this. No wallpaper left from grandparents after they moved to their condo in the upside of Goldenrod. No suspicious dark spots that no spray cleaner in the world could pick up.
"I'm not really sure," he said, peeling his eyes from the mesmerizingly clean walls. "Well, I was here to talk to the Viceroy, and I did, so now I'm just here."
"The Viceroy? Geez, even I don't do that often."
"Thanks for coming to find me, I guess," he said, still marveling at everything around the room. Laina had also taken to examining the suite and occupied herself by wiping dust off the entertainment center and windowsills only to sneeze when it blew in her face.
"Just wanted to get out of my room for a bit, I guess," she said.
"So you brought me back… to your room."
She turned to him with a displeased look, but after talking with the Viceroy, it meant almost nothing. There was no power behind hers. "I didn't exactly have a plan, okay? You were here, so I thought I might accommodate you."
"What do we do now?" he asked.
"I just said no plan."
The conversation paused, and Laina was too occupied exploring the room and getting her hands everywhere they shouldn't be. Without anything filling the space between them, Ciel stepped forward.
At the same time, Kris stepped back. "Hey…"
He closed the gap. She tensed. His arms entrapped her and held her there, her face in his collarbone. Her chest flattened as a breath escaped her and pulled them closer together. The world already felt like it was slowing down, but as they stood there, it came to a complete, tranquil halt.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
When she didn't answer, he wasn't surprised. It was a stupid question to ask. So instead he just hugged her a little tighter and waited for her to inevitably ask him to stop. When he felt her reciprocate, and her hands joined together at his back, he rejoiced a bit in his head that he did something, anything, to help.
He stayed in place until, eventually, Kris stepped away of her own accord. She decided to make acquaintance with his shoes since she evidently still couldn't find her vocal chords.
She looked strange. He couldn't place it at first, having only technically seen her twice before, but he was drawn to her forearms. He could have sworn she was much more toned when he last saw her, but her skin hugged her bones just as her shirt hung loose everywhere but her shoulders.
"You looking for something?" she asked.
Concern overwrote what might otherwise have been embarrassment. "How should I ask this?" he said. "When was the last time you ate?"
She drew in a breath, then paused. Her eyes searched the room, mirroring her brain searching for information in its archives. Eventually, she shook her head and said, "It's not like I'm keeping count. I think I had an energy bar."
"Today?" he asked.
"No, it was, um," she tried, spinning the answer in her head, "I was flying to the Grand Axis and had it on the flight because I was up so late. That was the day before..."
When she didn't continue, he cursed himself in his head. He offered to hug her again and she turned away. But beyond that, he counted the days back in his head, and it didn't compute. Well, it did, but it was beyond reason. That happened almost two weeks ago. She had to be misremembering.
Laina, after rubbing her chin while staring at the blinded windows, tugged hard on the cord and filled the suite with natural light. The sunburst made Kris jump, almost out of her shoes.
"Your sis?" she asked.
"Laina. I've been dragged around all day, to be honest," he said. She reminded him too much of Gold sometimes. "Actually, she was at the Showdown where we met, but I don't think you saw her."
"She doesn't look like you." Out of the corner of his eye, Kris adjusted her hair quickly and precisely. When a strand fell over her face, she pinched it with stiff fingers and draped it carefully perpendicular to her hairline. Her hand immediately dropped to her waist when he turned his head to her.
"My grandmother had the red hair. And she's basically my mother but younger and without any impulse control," he said.
"Wait, no, don't go in there!" shouted Kris.
Laina threw open a door on the wall. Kris leapt after her with wide eyes, failing to stop her before she waddled inside. She faltered, horrified, in the entrance, and Ciel had no choice but to feed his curiosity and stand over her shoulder.
The room looked like it hadn't been touched in years, like a bedroom for a kid that went away to college or on a Gym Challenge. He coughed from the dust stirred by Laina's intrusion. And goodness it was cold. He guessed the outer walls of the castle weren't that insulated.
Kris shivered and refused to meet his eye. Despite the size, the opulence of the veiled bed, and the massive arched window, the illusion of grandeur was shattered by the broken bedroom. He didn't know exactly how long she'd been here, but if it was long enough to gather dust, it was long enough.
Laina dove into a box and then surfaced with an expensive-looking lamp, which she planted firmly on the empty dresser. Then, she retrieved a handful of smaller items and spilled them on the floor to rifle through them.
The room's owner made a cursory attempt to stop her. She said, "You should leave."
"Ciel. Ciel. Ciel," said Laina, who looked up after emptying the box. "This room sucks. Let's fix it."
He put his leg forward, but it hung in midair. It wasn't his place to butt in, even if he told himself he'd be there for her when he got the chance. He asked Kris, "Any objections?"
She flattened herself against the door jamb and said, "...do what you want."
And so, they did. Ciel threw three Poké Balls in the air, the cluttered space coming alive in the resulting flash. Arden politely snuffed his flames when his consciousness surfaced and he realized his fragile surroundings, while Hector assaulted all of them with a bellowing roar. He searched the room for his opponent, ready to fight, and Ciel could only laugh and try to explain to the agitated Rhydon that this was a more delicate task.
Last was Raven. He had a suspicion that the chill in the room might do her some good. Absol were typically found on mountains and in alpine caves, so it was a comfort closer to her natural habitat. When she emerged from stasis, she was still wrought with tremors, so he carried her to Kris's bed and laid her limbs in what he could only assume was a comfortable manner. She rested her chin on one paw and kept one eye open to observe.
Meanwhile, Hector began to examine one of the boxes, unable to work out its purpose. He sandwiched one between his massive, triple-clawed arms and growled at it under his breath.
"Can you just move all the boxes into a neat stack on one side of the room?" he asked, picking up one of his own. "They're pretty heavy, which is why you're best suited. We'll go through them one-by-one."
Hector focused solely on the one in his arms. Then, as if the neurotransmitters finally found home after being stalled at the synapse, he lifted it above his head, trudged over to the edge of the room, and slammed it down roughly. His tail whipped on the floor with a massive thud. He was pleased.
Ciel winced at the delivery but found some solace that "fragile" was nowhere on the box. He said, "Try to be careful."
Opening another package himself, Ciel quickly got to work. An assortment of clouded trophies sat inside, which he gently arranged on the massive dresser by the wall. When he couldn't even squint to find his reflection, he took the bottom of his shirt and tried to buff the wear out of each award. Goldenrod Showdown 2010 Runner-Up. Unova PWT 2011 Masters Champion. There was even an ornate badge case inside with three challenge symbols: Johto, Kanto, Sinnoh. He stared at the latter a little too long before shutting the case and placing it, carefully, at the center of the dresser.
As he moved to another box, he noticed a pair of footsteps mirroring his own. Kris loomed behind him, saying nothing. Her left foot matched his left, her right matched his right.
"Looking for something?" he asked.
"That one." She pointed to one of the trophies, or tried. Her finger fell vaguely between two of them. "Put it, umm…"
"Put it where?"
After a second, her arm dropped and so did her head. "I think I'll just let you do it."
Ever slowly, the bedroom wore its best. Trinkets and souvenirs cluttered the tabletops, and knowledge sprouted in the bookshelves—Ciel debated asking to borrow a few things from her, but he eventually chose to note some titles for later and return to work.
Laina and Arden folded all the clothing they could find into the dresser and dumped the rest down a laundry chute at the corner of the room. A peppery lemon tickled his nose, and he saw Arden carrying an armful of glass candles. He laid a single lit scent on the nightstand for Raven before, with Laina's help, arranging them in a cupboard. Kris decided to stop shadowing him and instead cleared a spot on the bed next to the Absol, where she watched their work without further intrusion.
His sister called him over soon after she emptied the entire contents of a box. She said, "Hey, you're tall. Can we hang posters?"
After a quick appraisal of the walls—the stone exterior of the castle was a no-go, but its two adjacent walls seemed soft enough for pins—they fell into their motions. Laina rolled out each one and pierced the corners, then handed the pinned poster for him to hang. One after another, they brought civilization to the uninhabited expanse of white.
Ciel and his sister snickered at one full-body pin-up of Wallace Mikuri, who was a Gym Leader and Contest Coordinator in Hoenn. But here, he was a fine human specimen modeling for Kalos Monthly in a crop top that tried ever so desperately to reach his midriff and a pair of stylish white slacks. He glanced at Kris, who laid back on the bed and absentmindedly stroked Raven's fur.
The subsequent poster was a second spread from the same issue. Phoebe Fuyou's outfit spared even less for the imagination, a tropical two-piece dress with a top that hugged her chest a few sizes too tight. Her expression was scandalous at best. Ciel glanced at Kris again, then at his sister. They nodded in agreement.
Once the lower sections of the walls were covered with posters, Ciel realized he'd need a boost to reach the empty space above to fit the remaining stock. One thing led to another and he soon came to regret the lack of friction between his shoes and the smooth plates on Hector's shoulders. The Rhydon rumbled beneath him, barely feeling his weight and making only a passive attempt to hold his legs in place with his claws as he maneuvered the poster into place. The assembly line between Laina, Hector, and Ciel got each new design where it needed to go.
"W-whoa, keep it steady!" he called down, receiving only a grunt in reply.
He got both bottom pins in, and now he just needed to secure the top two. He leaned forward. Just as his thumbs pushed in the top pins, his left foot slipped from Hector's shoulder and the floor rushed up to meet him. Embarrassed as he was to admit it, he screamed.
Massive arms caught him bridal-style, and as he slowly opened his eyes to see Hector's horned visage peering over him. His tongue scraped across Ciel's face and forced a laugh from his gut.
"Okay, yeah, maybe that was a bad idea. But hey, we did it." He wiped his face and lathered the saliva on Hector's chest plate in retaliation.
Still in his Pokémon's arms, he and Laina marveled at the wall they painted and further at the rest of the room. Only a few boxes remained of smaller trinkets, but all of the large decorations, clothes, and other essentials were rescued from their hibernation. Color took over where once there were none, elaborate designs of wildlife and landscapes and cities and inhumanly attractive people covered the dresser wall, and an ornamental rug in the center tied the room together. It wasn't perfect, but it was livable.
Ciel held up a high five. Laina leapt as high as her short legs could manage and met his palm with equal measure.
On the bed, Kris sat with her feet up and her knees at her cheeks, occasionally flicking out an arm to stroke Raven's fur. He wasn't sure if she or the Pokémon had moved closer to the other, but Raven's convulsions seemed to have vanished.
Ciel threw back his arms over his head in a massive stretch, once again eyeing Kris's skeletal figure. "What do you say we go find something for everyone to eat?"
"Yeah, I'm starving!" said Laina.
Hector and Arden also joined their celebratory group, having worked up an appetite after a couple hours of work. Ciel offered a hand to Kris.
After a few seconds, she took it. "Sure," she said. "I could go for a bite."
I'll point out that I have a new beta reader as of this volume's publication, JhinoftheOpera, who's written a CynthiaxRed romantic drama called a Earth and Sky (primarily it's available on AO3). It's an interesting ongoing story that brings together a lot of parts of the games universe and also looks at champion figures and how they're perceived by the masses. I'm especially interested in seeing how characters positions weigh on them, since that's a lot of what I'm writing in this story as well.
Next is Volume 5, Part 3: Run. I'll see you someday!