What's good, everybody? Happy Passover and/or Easter weekend!

Work hit me pretty hard recently so I haven't had quite as much time to write as I wanted - figures that's what happens as soon as I decide I want to get more of a serious fic presence going. There's a dozen or so stories in drafting stages right now, from Fire Emblem to Splatoon and beyond, but in my funk I found myself coming back to Pokemon. So, here's part 1 in the first of a few stories I have planned surrounding the core Paldea quadruplet. This chapter has been written out for a while, but I've also finished the next few so it'll be a regular little series in the coming weeks.

Please enjoy! And don't forget to check me out on Twitter [T1meslayerFics] if you want some... Semi-frequent updates on what I'm writing.

Everyone in Paldea recognizes the Million Volt Skyline, a symbol of the region's tech scene and hopping nightlife. Levincia is one of its most cosmopolitan cities, with minimalist parks artificially seeded among a maze of glass to give families of young software developers and real estate agents more to see than flashy digital billboards. Darkness never shrouded this port town; its energy was kept alight by a constant churn of advertisements blaring from every free surface, fluorescent office lights burning the midnight oil, and spotlights surveying the sky like an Orbeetle's radar. Building codes protect from corrosion by the East Paldean Sea, so it's not hard to imagine these dazzling lights will outlive anyone who might be interested in seeing them.

Civilian centers in the north and south banks have plenty of foot traffic in-and-out of shoe boutiques and local branches of Delibird Presents, and food vendors can hock their goods at any time on the beige running brick bond-pavements. The chocolate-and-banana crepes from a cart parked behind Gastronomie En Famille on the southside was always popular this time of year, said to be the best crepes one can get outside of Kanto – lightly salted by a spritz of brine from the nearby seawall. A crowd gathers once nightfall pushes all but the most malcontent teenagers away from bonfires on the shore.

Normally the Levincia arena on its central Poke Ball platform attracted trainers like moths to its underwater cyan floodlights around the cobbled stone-and-concrete docks.

But tonight was different.

Roaring crowds could instead be heard around the base of the five Paldea Realty buildings, at which nearly every contract in modern Paldean history is stored. Designed to be Levincia's defining landmark by one of the world's foremost architects, the flagship building in the center of this man-made island impaled the stars; two bisected strips of exposed glass on either side of the hexagonal structure trimmed to resemble Victini ears so anyone working inside can capture the Mythical monster's endless wellspring of luck. The four buildings surrounding it, two on either side, grow smaller in turn and are angled to convey a sense of turning inward toward their master. Where they would normally reflect a yellow sheen from grounded spotlights on either side of the island, pastel blues and pinks currently shone.

One's eye line is forcibly drawn to a dark stretch of marble between the tips of the Victini ears as multicolored lights draw together. An ethereal logo seems to fade into existence just before the space where the spotlights settle, depicting a pink-to-blue gradient star with a play button in the center and a Pikachu's tail jutting out of its right arm. Two words come out from the void and slam into the logo from either side, blue on the left and red on the right, covering the play button:

IONO ZONE

The logo flies forward as it fades away. Collective spotlights trail down the skyscraper. Hollering cheers and claps become louder as they reach ground level, where a diverse array of citizens from across Paldea lose their minds behind a series of velvet ropes around all five of the realty buildings. They cheer for Iono, who stands in front of the gleaming gold sculpture at the flagship building's entrance. Sharp teeth glistening like the stars above, she comes to life with a twirl as the six water features around the sculpture spout off.

"Ladies and gentlemens!"

Iono calls over the crowd, voice amplified by the pastel Magnemite hair clips that double as speakers for her lavalier microphone. The audience grows even more raucous.

"Your eyeballs are MINE—caught in my Electroweb!" She winks, raising her excessive yellow raincoat sleeves like a Meowth's paws as the blue Magnemite clip wiggles. "Whosawhatsit? Iono! 'Ello, 'ello, hola! Ciao and bonjour!"

The streamer turns to wave at her captive audience, which explodes into a flail of arms and poster board as she faces the camera again.

"Welcome back to the Iono Zone! In case you've been living under a rock, we're here at the source of the Million Volt Skyline to pow-w-w-er up our annual charity livestream!" She jumps in the air and throws her hands up, letting her sleeves flap around above her. "The 'I 'unno 'bout Charity' stream!"

Iono frowns on a dime, and even her hair clips look sad as she brings both sleeves over her chin, covering the little screw accessory holding together the straps of her top.

"See, I 'unno what charity is… You lovely peoples gotta let me know what's good by voting with your donos."

She lingers on this pose, swaying her hips idly, just long enough that a disembodied Rotom voice begins reading messages from viewers to fill the silence.

"HYPE"

"Gotchu Iono"

"vote nessa's corsulacorp! save. the. coral."

As those text-to-speech donations pass, the last one causes Iono to perk up.

"Ahah, thanks for the reminder TyrogueBabu43!" The camera sweeps in close to her smirking face, capturing nary a pore with how clean her makeup was applied. "If we break last year's $1.2 million record, we gotta big 'ol incentive for you!"

As the camera pulls back, Iono follows. Her heel-clicking stride keeps her in the center of the frame while more sky behind the Paldea Realty buildings is exposed.

"We hit that, and I'll be headin' back home to-" Iono starts swaying her sleeves back-and-forth, "Jolly 'ol Galar. Where I'll getta pants my greatest rival Raihan live in front of a full stadium at Hammerlocke!"

She stops advancing and throws her hands up in a rainbow arc, giggling. The two Magnemite pins swirl around her head like twittering birds of confusion.

Rotom chimes in with more audience commentary:

"Get. His. Ass. Literally!"

"lmfao loser has it coming"

"I got a selfie with Raihan once!"

"Not as good as a selfie with Iono"

"might be if he wasn't wearing pants o,o"

Iono seems to dissuade this line of conversation by crossing her arms.

"Don't get too excited! Dependin' on how much we find down there, might hava do some live editing for TaillowTube – who knows how much it'll let us get away with!"

The streamer twirls around again so she can start walking back toward the gold sculpture, and her camera skirts in a big circle to follow her. The billboards around Levincia's Gym arena are backdrops now, flashing glances at a fan-favorite ad where Sprigatito drinks soda in a meadow, as well as a brand-new campaign featuring Tinkatink with the remote for a high-end television instead of its metal rattle.

"I'm supersupersuper excited to see what the dealio is with that guy! I 'unno if he wears boxers or briefs even!"

Suddenly, Iono stops. One could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes, which sparkled like a cresting sunset. Her fangs are exposed in a smirk as soon as those gears click into place. Iono's camera flies forward again, almost exclusively showing her mouth as she offers a message exclusively to viewers.

"Or… Do I?"

The frame zooms back out, and she starts jumping in the air repeatedly, letting her arms splay out like she was making snow angels.

"That's right all you freaks and weirdos who ship real peeps, now's your time to shine! Donate and lemme know what you think, have we put on the BIGGEST streamer collab of all time?" She stops jumping to put extra emphasis on her wink. "Mark your donos with #RaionoYes or #RaioNo to pick a side!"

Iono runs to the sculpture so she can start hyping up the crowd again, even pointing out a few of their hand-painted signs of encouragement and greetings toward various family members. Meanwhile, Rotom donations roll in:

"Oh they bangin"

"only the pure of heart could get with our goddess – hard #raiono"

"lmfao loser doesn't have this one coming, amiright?"

"#RaionoYes!"

Iono looks over her shoulder toward the camera as the next one hits:

"Iono feet pics when?"

She struts to the camera, tutting and shaking her head.

"Oh, you're a special kinda freak, eh?" She smiles sweetly, resting both sleeves under her contacts. "'preciate the money WhiteBisharp69, but mods will be escortin' you out now."

As Iono waves the commenter off, the artifice of Levincia breaks away to expose little more than a flat image on a cracked laptop screen, blurred by the bloom of the city's bright lights amid poor bitrate. All the sounds of the city and its celebrity overseer were locked to a single white earbud in the viewer's left ear, and she sighs while cracking her knuckles; right and then left.

"Some people…"

Charcoal grey hoodie up to contain the blaring sounds of the stream with her bicolored hair, Penny taps away at a keyboard with the same attention she would hacking Pokemon League systems. In some ways, she felt it was just as important to her creeps off the Internet as it was to establish Team Star for the sake of real-world bullies.

The clattering of her laptop's fluctuating RGB keys was the only noise that Penny contributed to the stillness of Uva Academy's entrance hall. This late in the evening, only a handful of people had yet to retire from the multi-tiered library – namely some stragglers studying for the next day's exams under overbearing lamp light, or small circles of friends who weren't ready to let their conversations die despite their tea cups running cold hours ago. If one looked hard enough, they could even find a couple making out under one of the second-story staircases; unaware of a wild Sableye's snickering glare from the nearby darkness.

Normally Penny would prefer to take care of work from the comfort of her dorm, packed between half-eaten noodle cups and stacked boxes of unused gizmos perfectly placed for her to lean against when her desktop's blue glow lulled her to sleep. Yet, as always, faulty connectivity in that wing of the "decrepit old castle" made it unreliable to work up there, so hiding out among musty old bookshelves was the next-best choice. Penny wasn't much of a reader if it didn't fall under the classification of manga, but there was something comforting about this public space when most of the public was gone. Even in a school this packed, the witching hours offered anonymity, especially as she slumped inside her baggy clothes.

However, the fluffy Eevee backpack slung over her seat was enough to tip off a certain trainer coming back from some late-night training.

"Hey Penny!"

The sudden (and peppy) voice coming from behind her free ear causes Penny to jump out of her skin. She nearly falls out of the seat while scrambling to look back, hand thrust into her hoodie's Kangaskhan pouch in case she needed the emergency pepper spray hidden within.

Her heavy breathing slows as Florian's smile disarms any immediate fears. She'd still need a moment to recover from the heart attack he so casually delivered, though. Her head drops, resting against the back of the chair with a groan.

"Come on, man…" She mumbles, voice huskier than usual as it broke through the rust of a dozen silent hours. "You can't do this to me in the middle of the night."

Florian exhales jovially through his nose before sitting in the chair beside her, leather pack hung behind him in the same motion.

"Well maybe if you weren't holed up in the corner like a little Morgrem, it wouldn't be so easy to surprise you."

Penny lifts her head again and pulls off her hood, exposing the fresh line marking her forehead under her red-and-blue hair. It was slightly unkempt from the pull of the fabric, but a quick sweep of her hand settles things.

"Pretty sure I'm not the one at fault here bruv." Penny pushes up her large spectacles, catching the light as in one of her anime series. "But whatever you say."

As she sets her singular earbud beside the laptop, Florian follows the muffled sounds emanating from it. That draws his eyes to her screen.

"Never took you for an Iono fan, Pen." He swings his legs to face the caustic light spilling out of the crack in her screen, illuminating Uva's standard winter uniform.

She shrugs, facing Florian even as her peripheral vision tracked the stream.

"Her content can be pretty hit or miss. But when you're the tech-savvy younger sister, sometimes it's your lot to help run a livestream or two." She props her head her hand, leaning against the desk.

Florian nods slowly, but soon adopts his 'Professor Tyme threw out a complex math puzzle' face. His head bobs between Penny and the stream in hard movements.

"Wait." He holds up one hand, motioning to her with idly wagging fingers. "You… And Iono… Are sisters?"

The only muscle Penny moves is in service of lifting an eyebrow.

"Is this really news to you, Florian?"

He scrapes his chair back to face her directly. Straightening out his back, the young trainer lifts both palms up.

"Uh, yeah!" He leans in, hands coming down hard on his thighs. Penny hardly reacts. "For most people it's a pretty huge deal to find out one of their best friends is related to a world-famous streamer!"

Penny finally graces his disbelief, even if it was little more than pulling her head off her hand so the arm can rest along her stomach. Half her face is completely eclipsed as computer light shining from the cubby draws out her pale, somewhat chubby cheek and the sleepless dark ring under her eye. The kaleidoscope of morphing colors against her skin gave a vague impression of Iono dancing in Levincia.

"Honestly, I'm baffled you weren't able to figure that out on your own." Penny turns her gaze toward the computer, now casting everything behind her ears in harsh shadow. "Did the whole red/blue hair thing really not give it away?"

Florian's eyes dart away as he rocks his head along the hinge of his neck.

"Well… They're different shades, to be fair."

Her lips tense into the approximation of a frown. Then, Penny once again looks straight at him while moving to hug her knees to her chest. Hands rub along the opaque fabric of her tights, bunching them up slightly against her charcoal-colored hiking boots.

"These things are literally her merch. I don't just wear them because I like the concept of polarity." She starts picking at one of the red plus symbols sewn into the leggings, drawing both their eyes toward them. "Don't tell anybody, but these are prototypes from one of her first product lines. That's why they're not pastel pink."

"No kidding."

Florian lets out a breath of intrigue, and reaches out without thinking about it. By the time he picks up on the hint, her entire body has tensed up from the feeling of his half-gloved hand brushing against the skintight fabric (really the only thing so form-fitting in her entire wardrobe).

He pulls his hand back with an awkward chuckle, and she promptly drops her feet back to the floor.

"Heh. Sorry."

"No, no… You're good," she mumbles back, not all that convincing.

She turns to face the screen again, trying to cover the flush in her cheeks by pretending she was needed for some moderation job. Meanwhile, Florian rests a hand on his face as soon as she isn't looking, pulling the skin down in exasperation.

Fortunately, Penny doesn't let the silence fester, saving him the trouble of having to come up with a segue.

"Honestly surprised someone can pass that Champion Assessment with such bollocks critical thinking skills." At first she appears to be staring at the computer, but as she pushes her glasses up her nose Florian is able to see her eyes glancing his way. "Guess you and Nemona really are birds of a feather."

Florian can't help but grin, leaning back with a faux-defiant pat of his hand against the desk.

"Hey, come on now!" He says between chuckles. "Not very nice Penny."

The corners of her lips perk up.

"You're right, that's not fair." Penny shrugs, and then starts typing something. "Nemona is way more dense than you."

He laughs again, cutting through the otherwise hushed mutterings that echoed around the near-empty hall. Normally she'd be embarrassed at the thought of someone drawing so much attention to her, but the thin-lipped smile highlighted by her laptop betrayed how warm and fuzzy it felt to make him happy.

Once he begins to settle down, wiping away the tear in his sleepy eyes, Florian leans his free arm over the back of the chair.

"Oh, speaking of Nemona-"

Penny struggles to resist jerking her head in his direction, expression faltering. Not the cleanest transition.

"She let me know Brassius is planning to debut a new piece in Artazon on Saturday. Wondering if you wanted to go?"

Penny's hands hover over her keyboard for a long time, unable to muster enough brainpower to type. It looked like she was a wizard trying to absorb its bountiful rainbow.

Eventually, she pulls her hands into her Kangaskhan pouch and tilts her head.

"Dunno Florian. If I have to eat another one of Arven's experimental sandwiches, I might blow chunks." Her head rolls back into place. "You guys have fun, though."

He frowns at the sight of her withering in that computer light, boots squeaking against marble flooring. The warning alarm in his head said it was time to abandon ship, but he was propelled forward by an itch.

Penny jumps to attention as his hand mats down the shoulder of her sweatshirt.

"Actually… I was thinking just you and me." Her eyes widen behind the illusion cast by her glasses, but Florian meets her with the most calming smile he can muster through his own nerves. "We didn't get much time to ourselves during Operation Starfall with Clive hanging around, you know?"

Penny wishes she had longer hair to hide behind. In lieu of that, she instinctively pulls away from his hand and curls inward, legs back up on the chair as her attention bore into the computer screen.

Her eyes close. "Mm. S-Sure…"

It was cute seeing her revert back into the shy person he'd bump into around Paldea before they really got to know one another, but Florian couldn't help himself. He wanted to draw as much as he could out of her.

"Yeah?" He asks, leaning in for the follow up. "Sure you're not just sayin' that?"

The girl's black eyes dart toward and away from him in a flash. Context made it clear this was the equivalent of cursing him out.

"I'd… Love to." She clears her throat. "… Spend some time… With you – alone, I mean. You know."

It takes every ounce of Florian's being not to pump his fist in front of her.

Instead, he decides to take his victory and go home with an ecstatic grin. He stands up, grabbing his bag off the chair and flinging it over his left shoulder. Penny was still in defense mode, but does look up once he towers above her.

"Great! We can even take a taxi together, save on air fare." He grabs the other strap of his pack, pulls it on, and then bounces on the balls of his feet.

"Looking forward to it, Penny."

She offers a soft smile and nod with the rest of her energy. So he heads off to his dorm, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Penny isn't quite ready to just sort through those however, and turns her attention back to Iono – doing some experiment where touching a Magnezone causes her hair to rise in all directions.

"Bloody idiot's goin' to keep me up all night," she mutters, slipping her earbud back in. Her sister is a perfect scapegoat for the idiot she was really stuck on.