Chapter 6: Misleading Demeanors

Mathew was never a fan of fancy meals — it just wasn't his style. To him, these sorts of lavish establishments were more of a celebratory place, one of those restaurants your coworkers dragged you to after a job well-done and you never went back again. But, if that was the kind of place Meowth was currently dragging him off to after their workday at Asulaguah Beach, he was certainly not going to complain.

The building before them was pleasant, though not the most eye catching. It was a two-story, red-bricked facility that was part of a connected block. Past those windows, Mathew could see the hallmarks of the establishment. Cloth-covered tables, a bright red checkered floor, waiters running about, families calmly eating… Wait a minute. Was that a dish of pasta on that Bidoof's table?!

The cubone's eyes leapt from one plate to the next. Alfredo, ravioli, spaghetti, breadsticks… Every table was eating something similar. What the hell? That's Italian food! "Since when was Olive Garden on Solceus…?" he muttered to himself. Mathew realized too late that he had said that too loudly. Meowth stopped walking, recoiling in confusion.

"Olive gardens? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Uuuhh…" Would Meowth know if Mathew tried to explain a food chain that only existed on Earth? He decided not to take chances. "I was just saying I bet...I'll-live this meal…?" It didn't make sense. Mathew's pun didn't make any sense and both of them knew it. Mathew just grinned awkwardly, pretending that he had made a meaningful joke, hoping Meowth would accept a reality where that was true.

"...Okay." Meowth just turned around and proceeded towards the restaurant.

Off to a great start… Mathew thought as he followed behind the gray cat that had so kindly promised him a place to speak his mind. Since he didn't want to make that mistake he looked up, hoping to memorize the restaurant's name as they went in. The sign that hung above it read:

Silvalla's: Protect Your Town, Protect Your Appetite!

"Protect your what?" Mathew whispered. This time, he asked Meowth directly. "What does that slogan even mean?"

"Silvalla's the owner of this restaurant, and he's also the owner of the Kalmwa'er Service Guild," Meowth explained as a spherical, hedgehog-like waiter came to direct them to a table for two. "This restaurant is one of the ways they fund the staff to take care of the town and deal with outside threats like the geodudes." Mathew had no idea who the 'Geodudes' were, but he didn't feel it worth asking. "Trust me, the food is better than the slogan."

The two passed by tables with families and more tables with more families. This quilladin, Mathew guessed, took them to the back of the restaurant, as all of the ones closer to the front of the building were all full. The two were seated at a table with much more space than they reasonably needed to have their meals — evidently, the catering for larger pokémon was put in the back. Meowth crawled on top of the table and sat close to the middle, prompting Mathew to do the same.

"What kind of drinks can I get you?" the quilladin asked.

"Coc—!" Mathew had to bite his tongue to stop himself. Dammit. He had almost made a fool of himself again and asked for Coca Cola to drink. This restaurant was messing with his head… "Do you have sodas?"

"Yeah!" the quilladin said cheerfully. "We've got Bubblim, Cheruya, Dragnroud…"

"I'd recommend Dragnroud," Meowth advised. "It's not the most fancy soda, but it has a nice taste."

"It does sound pretty badass…" Mathew turned to the quilladin. "I'll take that."

"Gotcha!" Then the quilladin was upon Meowth, waiting in anticipation. "And you will have…?"

"Water," Meowth said.

"Ah, the boring one! I get you," he joked as he left the table, leaving them to their menus. Meowth didn't react to the tease at all, at least not visibly.

Mathew grabbed the plastic menu and began reading the...what the heck?! All of these food names were Italian, too! How was that even possible when everything he had read up to now was English? Was there some kind of Poke-Italy out there he wasn't aware of, where they invented the Poke-pizza? Where had they even learned to make cheese, anyway? Did the miltanks milk themselves and discover it, or was there some cheese pokémon out there?

"You look confused." Meowth seemed mildly concerned for him.

Mathew shook out his tirade of internal questions. "Sorry. The food names are just, uh, something, is all."

Meowth nodded, looking down at his menu. "Yeah, I don't know what any of these mean. I don't recognize where they came from."

Oh thank god. Mathew wasn't insane — Meowth was just as confused.

The two of them sat and waited for their waiter to return. Mathew couldn't help but yawn once or twice, as he was still feeling a bit tired from getting up so early. Soon enough, the quilladin brought him their drinks, as well as a plate of garlic bread. After he left with their orders, Meowth slurped away at the drink, then took a nibble at the crust of one of the delicacies. When he noticed Mathew wasn't eating, he stopped. "Something wrong?" he asked him.

Mathew stared at the container the quilladin had delivered his soda in. "...This is a bowl."

"And? You want your drink on a plate?" Meowth asked.

"No, I wanted it in a…" Wait. If the default drink container is a bowl, then glasses, cups, and bottles must not be commonplace. That made a bit of sense — they have narrow openings that not every pokémon could make use of. "Nevermind." Mathew lifted the bowl to his — splash. He had shoved the bowl of fizzy sweetness straight into his snout. He lurched back, Dragnroud dripping from it. "Ack — dang it!" he gasped, then took a thick napkin to it. "Forgot I had that for a second." He took it more slowly this time, raising it up to his mouth and taking careful swigs.

Meowth was bemused by the class-act Mathew was presenting right now, trying to drink from a bowl like he hadn't been doing it all his life. "I'm surprised you can insert color contacts into your eyes if you can't recognize your own snout." Bizarrely, he bit into his garlic bread from the side, getting right to the chessy innards.

"Contacts?" Mathew set the bowl back on the table. "I don't wear contacts."

Meowth was stricken by the remark. "You're wearing brown color contacts, right?"

"Uh… No? I have natural brown eyes."

The cat squinted at him. "That's very unusual."

Mathew figured this was a good time to turn the conversation towards what they had came here for. "Yeah, well, my whole life's been pretty unusual recently."

"I've noticed. You got up excessively early this morning," Meowth remarked. "Why are they working you so intensely?"

"I guess to prep me for actual work hours or something? I'll be honest, I don't really know myself." Mathew took another swig out of his bowl. "There's a lot of weird things going on with the place. Like, they haven't mentioned a thing about what the hell the broader company is trying to do. I don't even know who runs the company yet! I get keeping shit in the dark, but man, they might as well be the void of space." The cubone shook his head, realizing he was getting sidetracked with this tangent. SEAS wasn't what he really wanted to discuss, anyway. "So, long story short, they really aren't helping what I'm going through right now, and that's why I need you to lend an ear."

Meowth nodded quickly. "It sounds like this 'SEAS' company acts pretty unfairly to you. What is it, exactly, that they have you and Joey doing?"

"I probably shouldn't tell you that." He wasn't interested in telling Meowth that he had been quietly NDA'd since it'd only get them more off-topic. "I mean, you know what they say…"

Meowth looked at him blankly as he finished off his garlic bread. "I don't really know what 'they' say, actually."

"Uh, curiosity killed the cat? Have you never heard of that?"

"Curiosity did what to the cat?" Meowth's expression intensified. "What are you trying to imply?"

"Nothing! It's just a saying!" he exclaimed. To calm himself down, he grabbed one of the pieces of garlic bread and wolfed the entire thing down his mouth. Chewing on the crunchy crust was therapeutic enough to satisfy him. "Anyways, none of this has to do with what I wanted to talk about. Can I start on it now?"

"Hang on," Meowth stated. "I'll listen after you explain this idiom to me."

He can't be serious right now… "Isn't it obvious? It means that you shouldn't look into something too hard because then you might not like what you find."

"Okay, that makes sense…" Meowth seemed to genuinely contemplate this. "And who is 'the cat' referring to in this situation?"

"Oh, for God's — it's a hypothetical!" Mathew exclaimed. "The cat doesn't exist. He isn't real. Can we please get to my testimony now?"

"Alright, alright…" Meowth sighed. "So, is this 'thing' you're vaguely referring to a home matter? A past job? Some other trouble?"

"I…guess you could call it a home matter?" He raked the nail of his thumb against the table. "I dunno, really. It's kind of hard to explain."

"That's fine," he said. "Maybe we could start with how your work with SEAS relates to it and try to reach the root from there."

Okay, that's enough of this. Meowth wasn't giving any care at all into what he was saying, that was very clear to him thanks to how much he keeps trying ti loop it around. "Did you actually bring me here so I could have a place to work out my problems, or did you just want an excuse to hear yourself talk?"

Surprisingly, Mathew's cutting question got results out of him. "I assure you, I'm not trying to diminish you. As soon as you answer my questions, I will gladly answer yours."

Mathew wanted to agree to that pretense, that Meowth really had good intentions. But now, what Politoed and Breloom were saying about Meowth were all too clear. "Y'know what? I don't believe you. You have a medical degree, and everyone's been saying you're half-therapist. You, of all people, should know what comes first in a conversation like this."

"That sounds pretty selfish of you."

The cubone intensified. "Do you have any idea how much I went through to even get over here? I don't have a home, I don't have half of my belongings, I don't have my s… I gave up damn near everything!" He smacked the table they were sitting on. "Maybe I deserve to be a little selfish for once."

Meowth gave him a deadpan, almost disappointed expression. "So what you're saying is, any issue that I may be dealing with at this point is entirely irrelevant to the conversation."

Mathew rolled his eyes, looking away from Meowth. "Oh my God, just forget it. I had this lunch with you because I thought you would help, but clearly this isn't working…"

The cubone looked to Meowth, and suddenly, something...changed. He felt so drowsy...so woozy… The restaurant faded out of view. It was just him and Meowth now… An overwhelming sense of persuasion flooded him, and suddenly his will to resist vanished, looking into Meowth's green...glowing...eyes.

"I guess we're doing this the hard way." Every word Meowth said permeated his senses, resonating across Mathew's entire being. "Mathew, what kind of work do you do inside of the SEAS?"

"Grunt work…" he whispered without hesitation. "They're getting me to...adjust to my...cubone body. If I do well...I get promoted into a good job."

"Your cubone body?"

"I...was a human before."

Meowth was taken aback by this revelation. "That's a shock. I knew there was something strange about you and Joey, but I can't say I was expecting a historical folklore figure to be standing right in front of me." His voice was noticeably soft, even in this state. Was anybody else even seeing this…? Meowth shook his head. "But that's beside the point. What does your work have to do with my father?"

"We work in his...basement...the Waregle. That's it… I haven't seen him outside of the...Club…"

"So you don't know. That...is a shame." Meowth gave a long sigh. "Well, that's all I had, question-wise. Really, it would've been pretty easy if you just cooperated. You can tell me about your troubles now."

Meowth snapped, and in an instant the world came back into view...and so, too, did the implications of what Mathew had just said.

"What the fuck did you do to me?!" Mathew's scream caught the eyes of everybody in the restaurant. He scrambled around, knocking over his bowl and his silverware as he crawled off of the table.

Meowth winced, not expecting such a harsh reaction. "Mathew—"

"Get the hell away!" He burst into a sprint, rushing past customers and waiters alike as he made for the door. He had to get away from him — away from whatever thing he just did to get Mathew to spill confidential information.

He had fallen straight into Meowth's trap, and it horrified him.

Well, that hadn't gone exactly according to plan.

Meowth had finally made it back to his own condo. Wrapped in one arm was a styrofoam box holding the rest of his meal — in the other, the entirety of Mathew's. He would've finished off more of his meal while it was still warm, but to put it simply, he had been interrupted. While Meowth was chewing away alone, he had been approached and dragged to an interrogation room by two members of the Kalmwa'er Service Guild in response to a report. Two familiar members of the Kalmwa'er Service Guild.

"Eheheheh!" Despite the lack of any kind of mouth, Poliwrath had a hearty, unforgettable laugh. The blue, burly toad-ish figure could've easily knocked him out, based on the sports tape-like Power Bands wrapped around both arms, but instead, he resorted to laughing his way back to the guild facility. "Well Chip, it looks like I done won this bet!" he had said.

"To be fair, sire, I did say you had the better end of the bet," Poliwrath's colorful parrot of a partner-in-crime had replied in his sing-songy tone. "If I had a say, I would've bet that Meowth would get arrested within three years out of Higher Ed any day of the week."

Meowth just reclined himself in the metal chair, getting himself comfortable. These two were one grade lower than he was, just fresh out of Higher Ed themselves, but they were just as aware as anybody else that he was a complete waste of waste. Well, at least these two told it like it was…

"Alright!" Poliwrath had plopped himself into a chair on the opposite side of the interrogation room, past the anti-move glass wall. The chatot stood next to Meowth to ensure he didn't try to escape, wearing a pair of dark type-imbued goggles that his Hypnosis move would never pierce. Meowth couldn't tell which one was supposed to be playing the bad cop. In hindsight, it was probably both of them — he apparently wasn't worth a good cop. "Meowth, every time I reckon you can't fall any farther, well, ya just go right ahead and do. Forced coercion on a dinner partner and, knowing yer line of work, a potential client? That just ain't right."

"Yeah, I get it," Meowth had said. "Do you want my explanation or not?"

"Honestly, I doubt there's a point to that, Meowth." Idly, Chip had fiddled with the pair of headphones wrapped around his neck, wired to some kind of music-playing device clipped to his side. "We know you. We know the crime. We know what you always do after something like this. Why bother, when you'll just be like…" Chip's voice suddenly deepened into a perfect vocal impression of him. "There's no poooint to aaaaanything. I'll just keep being baaaaad."

"'Ey, Chip!" Poliwrath had said. "I agree with ya, but we got a protocol to fill! It's our job to at least try to rehab 'em."

"I'm just saying what I see, sire! Nobody can make this guy behave."

Poliwrath had shot Chip a mischievous look. "Wanna bet on it?"

It took a moment of contemplation for Chip to make a decision. "Eh… Sure. We need to get another one going, after all. I'm putting a thousand on it."

At that moment, Poliwrath cackled, as if Chip had just fallen into a trap. "Oh baby, we're goin' on a win streak!"

Meowth had wished he could use Hypnosis on either of them at the time — not even to force compliance, but just to shut them up. "Are you finally going to address me now?"

"Yeah, yeah." Poliwrath had waved an arm to shake off his own distraction. "Meowth, I reckon this charge could go any number of directions. I done seen small fines, I done seen jailtime… I got options, so I got a chance to make a sentence that really puts a petty troublemaker like you on the ropes. I reckon I can do that the same way I solve my debates: with a deal!"

"A deal." Meowth had raised a brow. "Is that legal?"

"If it was illegal, I wouldn't be doin' it, now would I? I reckon I'll just have to run it by ol' Silvalla after we're done," Poliwrath said. "That victim 'o yours, the cubone? If he can come to Chip or me in a couple weeks' time, we'll scale your punishment based on the harm done. If he tells me, of his own free will, that yer a good guy after all that, we'll drop the charge and look away like it never happened. If he doesn't…" If he had a mouth, Poliwrath would've given him the most devilish grin imaginable. "Well, you can kiss that medical license goodbye. You ain't got the moral character for one!"

That threat haunted Meowth through the rest of his questioning and all the way home. His license was about the only thing of worth he had. After all, he had spent all of Higher Ed working for it. His medical proficiency was the excuse Mr. Persian used for employing him to conceal whatever his real intent was. If he lost it, would his father still be willing to keep him where he is, even if it exposed that his intent wasn't what it seemed?

On the other hand, how was he supposed to ensure that he didn't lose it? Poliwrath and Chip's deal was engineered directly against him — Meowth had never changed somebody's mind the way that they were asking of him. Whenever he forgot to consider the consequences and wronged somebody, there was no going back, whether he wanted it or not. It was an impossible task.

Meowth didn't even bother hoping that Mathew would get over it quickly — he just wanted to see how badly the cubone had been affected. So, he grabbed the key from beneath the front rug, unlocked the door, and turned it open.

Immediately, all four pairs of eyes inside were on him, and the tension in the room spiked. Mathew, Joey, Jermy, and Minichino were sitting in front of some kind of TV-like box. In their hands were sets of wired remote-things that hooked up to said box. Meowth could read the word 'paused' on the screen. Mathew had taken the couch, while the others were on the floor.

Joey was the first to speak up. "Uh, hi, Meowth."

"Hi." Meowth glanced at Minichino. "Why are you here?"

"I invited her," he spoke for Minichino. "She reckoned it'd be cool to hang out even if Politoed and Breloom couldn't train me up, so I asked her. Is...is that okay?"

I sure hope it is, Joey was certainly thinking, because I bet you'll hypnotize me too if I make the slightest of mistakes.

"Yeah, sure." The tension in the room wasn't going down at all with this small talk, so Meowth broke it off. He approached the refrigerator and pried it open by pushing his elbow against the handle. "I brought your dinner, Mathew. I thought you might want it later." He clearly set it on one of the shelves.

Mathew wasn't looking at the box. He just kept watching Meowth with those wide-open eyes. He had been since he had entered the house. "I'm not hungry."

That was bad. He kept his distance from them, keeping himself busy with the dishes. They still hadn't unpaused whatever that was. Maybe Mathew would feel a little better if he took some interest? "What are you doing?" he decided to ask.

"Um…" Jermy was the one to speak up this time. "It's this thingamabobber Mathew made back where he came from. It plays a lot of different games."

'Back where he came from'? Oh, right. He had almost forgotten. Mathew was a human, so that means he came from...the human world. What was it called? Earth? He recognized it from his textbooks, but none of his professors had actually said it aloud. How do you even pronounce that? He shook his head, trying to keep his attention on them. "Interesting. What game are you playing?"

"It's called pokémon Snapshots: McDonald's Edition." Meowth had to resist to urge to ask what on 'Earth' McDonald's was. "This clown guy needs photos of pokémon to make marketable toys, so you go around and—"

"Okay, are we going to address the elephant in the room or not?" Suddenly, Minichino sprung up, clenching her paws into fists. Seems like the tension had finally gotten to her, right as Meowth was trying to break the ice. This wasn't going to end well…

"Finally, somebody with sense," ORB, sitting against the wall, remarked.

"Seriously, Meowth, what is wrong with you?! There isn't a reason on the planet that you had to do that to Mathew!" She stomped over to the kitchen, approaching him.

Meowth just kept tending to the dishwasher, trying not to let her get to him. He lowered the door to it, ready to insert some of the unclean plates he had messily kept around. "There actually was a reason, Minichino," he said. "It probably wasn't a good reason, but—"

In a single motion, Minichino pushed Meowth away and slammed the dishwasher shut. Pay attention to me! she was crying out with her actions. "You can't treat people like this."

Meowth gave Minichino the most frank look he could muster. "Look. I don't know how Mathew saw it, but my intent was never to treat him badly. I don't like using Hypnosis on people at random, either, but I needed that information."

She rolled her eyes. "I dunno what kind of information you got, but there's nothing good that'll come out of it. You're gonna get all of us in trouble, not just yourself! And for what? Just for some fun facts?"

"The facts I'm looking for aren't fun. They're important to me." Meowth removed his emergency kit wrapped around his shoulder — the thing he had risked for all this — and smacked it on the kitchen counter. "You're the co-owner of the Pick-it Up Club. You should know this."

Minichino clutched her tattered scarf as she spoke through clenched teeth. "Maybe you should start respecting your dad's privacy. You're lucky to have one!"

Meowth got her picture. I know exactly what you're dealing with, but I just don't care. I want to see you rot because—

"Yep." Suddenly, Mathew stood up and hit a button on the box. In an instant, it shut down. "We are moving the hell out of this condo."

Jermy groaned. "Mathew, we've been over this—"

"I don't care! I am not living in the same house as this asshole." Mathew turned his attention to Meowth. "When I took up your offer, I said that I would leave and take a room in the Resort if I found out you were a piece of shit. Am I wrong?"

"I'm pretty sure you said that you would do so if I was 'scum', but otherwise, yes," Meowth said.

Mathew threw up his arms. "And would you look at that! He's a piece of shit and scum! Hell, I might get fired over the fact that you used me to leak SEAS stuff! Did you think I'd be okay, chilling at your house after something like that?"

That left Meowth with a pang of guilt. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"Well, too late. Now we're all fucked!"

And it's all your fault! Mathew was thinking.

"I feel like I should remind you…" ORB said, wheeling up to him. "Whether this cat is a loser or not, it's not like you can go back. SEAS already reserved your place in the resort for somebody else."

That didn't deter Mathew's anger. "We'll just go somewhere else then!"

"Where would that be?" the robot continued. "The Pick-it Up Club doesn't pay enough to get you rent anywhere else, and Politoed and Breloom aren't prepared to handle three guests frolicking around."

Minichino frowned. "Sorry, Mathew. I'd offer up my place, but it's too shabby. I'd never be able to fit you guys…"

Mathew's eyes darted from person to person in a concealed fit of agitation. "I… I… There has to be something we can do!" he exclaimed. "No… There will be! Do I have to repeat myself? If I stay around Meowth and keep letting this happen, who knows what SEAS will do?!"

Suddenly, Joey stood up. "Mathew, you ain't being reasonable. We don't know what SEAS is gonna do yet, so why should we figure the worst?"

"Joey…" Mathew's tone became stern and quiet as he leaned close to the totodile. "There are people from the old world with you-know-what here. We can safely assume." He shook his head. "Forget this. Nobody listens to me for shit…"

The cubone stormed off in an angered huff. Everyone was left in a stunned, awkward, depressing silence. Meowth couldn't take it — quickly, he opened the door to his room, slammed it shut...and threw his back at it. Down, down, down he slid against it, his tail pushed to the side so it wasn't crushed under his own weight, until he was sitting on the hardwood floor.

Why did he always do this to himself? Right as he was at the precipice of what he wanted, right as it seemed like everything was in perfect place, right as he was feeling on top of his calculated game...he would always make some impulsive decision that caused it to all come crashing down. He was so close to getting answers, and, at that, having a decent friendship, and now not only did he have no answers that he actually wanted, but he had destroyed that relationship.

Outside his door, the world carried on. "This day has been wilder than a dog-punting deer… It's been bad just as much as it's been good," the voice of an exhausted Joey finally spoke.

"Hey, sometimes it's just like that." Footsteps — Minichino moved from the kitchen back to the living room. "On the bright side, tomorrow we'll be able to all train up together. I promise you, we're gonna make it the most fun practice ever! We'll blow this day out of the water!"

"Yeah! But still… I don't want all of us fighting. It ain't fun." A pause. "I reckon Mathew might get over it eventually, like he did yesterday when we got mad at each other. But Meowth…"

ORB's voice cut in. "It's impressive that there are bigger disasters out there than Jermy. At least when he screws up, he has to go clean up his mistakes. Nobody's giving that guy any consequences."

"Hey!" Jermy spoke, but gave no objection.

"...I guess that's fair," Joey said.

"Guys, maybe we should lay off on all that," Minichino suggested. "It's depressing Joey. Besides, we got better things to keep us busy — Mathew left his console here!"

...Perhaps, Meowth figured, it was better that he hadn't made mention that he had, in fact, received reprimands for his misdeed. If he told them about it, anything and everything he could do to try to lessen the impact would come off as a fake platitude, only made for the sake of his license.

In that case, there was only one way Meowth could see forward: that training Minichino mentioned they were doing tomorrow. If remorse wouldn't get him anywhere, he could at least show practicality and offer to watch and provide assistance in case anybody got hurt regardless of the fight. For now though, he could only sit in silence. Joey, Jermy, Minichino...they just played the night away, enjoying each other's company. Even with their muffled cheers, cries, and laughter, the three would stay one player short — the door Meowth had shut stood in his way.

"You've known from the start, this melody is a lie. But these lyrics lurk, deep in the back of your mind."

Breloom's vocals, sloppier than her mate's but still capable of carrying a tune, reverated across the flat, open front yard of Minichino's home. With the way the strums of her electric guitar emanating from the speakers linked by a cord echoed on the walls of the cliffside surrounding the lower part of town, Joey would bet that just about everyone in town could hear this. All the more volume to batter him with — that was the purpose, after all.

"Then suuuddenly…your rhythm breaks up and contorts," Breloom kept singing. "Then suuuddenly…your style doesn't seem like yours. Aa-ah…"

The totodile wobbled on his toes, waving his arms around frantically as he tried to avoid putting his center of gravity past the chalk-drawn edge of the circular arena. He didn't want to be knocked out of the training fight so early again — that would leave Mathew alone to deal with both Politoed and Minichino. He was already having enough trouble as is, running away from Politoed with the occasional batter's swing to his beams of bubbles with his bone club. "Joey!" he called out, exasperated. "Try...throwing Minichino into Politoed, or something!"

"Mathew, what kind of plan is—" Fwish! "Waaaah!" Joey was just barely able to sidestep Minichino's swing of the tail, stumbling back into the center of the ring. There was so much to pay attention to in this fight! His attacks and positioning, Mathew's safety, the person he was fighting with, the person Mathew was fighting with in case they launched another surprise attack…

"Words so infectious! Wants so contentious! But you...you can still face the fight ahead!"

...and that dang song of Breloom's! He was supposed to be tuning it out, but it just kept distracting him. Still, Joey tried to persist. He lurched back, searching for the gurgling feeling deep in his throat Politoed had demonstrated to him, and, from it, launched a Water Gun attack at Minichino. It was weak and frail, but it was enough to get her to raise her arm in defense. Joey went on the offensive, hoping to push her out of the ring instead. He jumped forward and—

"Hyah!"

Nobody had even done anything to him. That grunt belonged to Mathew, trying to land a strike on Politoed's leg. But Joey's action of looking over to see what just happened threw off everything. He was aiming to use his long maw to his advantage to whack Minichino in the chest, putting her at the edge like she had done to him. With his maw reflexively put to the side, the actual attack ended up being a very weak and very awkward tackle right into Minichino's arms. With only a gasp and a second's hesitation, Minichino thought to grab Joey and toss him.

Joey was left sprawled out on the yard. From here, Joey couldn't tell if his new, smaller size or the fact that Minichino's yard clearly hadn't been mowed in months was what made the grass seem so tall. Knowing him, it was both. He turned himself around until he was on his rear.

In front of him was the chalk ring — the outside of the chalk ring. "Aww." He had been eliminated again.

Joey sat and watched the remainder of the fight from his seat in the grass. Mathew rammed Politoed with his skull mask, causing him to stumble back. Mathew made a step to approach and—

"All these songs to make you dread, when all this time you could instead, have written up the song to your own head!"

A second's glance at Breloom as she burst into her chorus was all it took for Mathew to be left open to Minichino's approach from his other side. He tried to bring up his club to block, but it was too late. He was pushed back by the gust, making his exit from the ring.

"Please ignore these big, loud chords, forget the verse and all the words, just show your moves and point your song forwards!" Breloom posed, letting the last chord ring out, before she spoke again. "Not bad! That's the first time you've lasted long enough for me to make it through the whole chorus. That's something like fifty-five seconds."

"Why does your song have to be so good?" Joey said. "Minichino and Politoed kick our butts on this 'situational awareness' stuff even without you playing."

That made the mushroom-kangaroo chuckle. "Thanks, I try. It'll sound better when it's a full band and not just one instrument. And with Politoed singing it instead of me."

"Should give yourself a little more credit," Politoed remarked. "That one you wrote yourself, after all."

"Well, in any case, you two are totally doing better!" Minichino exclaimed. She offered Joey a hand up. "I mean, not great, but better!"

"Thanks!" Joey exclaimed. Considering that he and Mathew had only been on Solceus for a couple of days, any signs of improvement were huge! Surely now he'd…

Nope, no dice. The cubone was sitting on the ground, knocking his bone club on the ground as if to make a crater in Minichino's yard. His eyes were fixated away from the yard, his attention consumed entirely by something else — just as he had been since that incident yesterday. Joey had never seen Mathew act so moody for this long. At this rate, he'd never feel good enough to be able to talk about Greg, Catherine, and whatever's been scaring him so much...

"I'm not sure I would exactly call that 'great', Minichino." Approaching them from the edge of the yard touching the street was Meowth. He had asked at the end of their workday if he could watch over their training session just to make sure nobody was injured, and begrudgingly, Politoed, Breloom, and Minichino had agreed. He was silent and still, up until now. "Mathew and Joey have only been lasting longer because they're learning how to run away. There hasn't been any observable progress in the realm of eliminating Minichino or Politoed from the ring."

"What are you on about, Meowth?" Breloom asked, mildly annoyed.

"Did you notice when Joey attempted to attack Minichino with Water Gun?" Meowth asked. "The attack was very weak — much weaker than any of Politoed's Bubble Beam attacks."

"Hah…?" Joey was dumbfounded by this intervention. What was Meowth trying to do here?

"So you expect us to do...what about that?" Politoed said. "It's their day one."

"That is exactly my point. Is your job not to help Mathew and Joey learn how to fight? You should spend more time teaching them the fundamentals — then you can get into extravagant exercises like this. That way, the two of them stand more of a chance at success that they can feel confident in."

"Dude…" Minichino didn't even seem mad anymore. Joey could only describe the chinchilla's expression as 'done'. "We literally invited you here. You don't get to boss us around."

Meowth's grip around his medical kit tightened. "I'm not trying to control anybody. I just want to be conscious of potential...unusual circumstances that may call for more in-depth assistance."

"Wait a minute…" Joey thought aloud. Mathew was looking all upset, and then suddenly Meowth had stepped in to help. Was he trying to do this...to be nice to Mathew?

One way or another, Politoed didn't seem to care, stomping up to the cat in annoyance. "Think we don't factor in 'unusual circumstances', Meowth? Don't know the first thing of what kind of circumstances we have to—!"

Suddenly, Breloom, having put her guitar aside, laid a shoulder on him. "Poli, chill out. Owth isn't worth it."

At her command, Politoed took a breath. "...Just let us do our thing, alright?"

Meowth said nothing for a moment. Then, he looked to Mathew. "This training is for your sake. Are you sure you don't need to take it a bit slower?"

Whack. Whack. Whack. Mathew's eyes weren't giving Meowth the time of day. "I never asked for your damn help. Just leave me alone."

Joey couldn't help but notice the slightest of winces come from the cat. He looked...hurt. "Fine. I'll let it go." Meowth just turned and walked away from them, leaving the group to continue with their exercise.

Joey's head stayed preoccupied for the rest of practice, but not because of the fight or the song. Meowth was fresh on his mind. Even if they agreed with each other, they were still wrangling each other's necks…

How were they ever going to make up at this rate?

That's why the totodile decided that he had to help. He was no therapist like Meowth, but he figured he knew a thing or two about what makes Mathew tick after seeing it for himself. If he calmed things down with Mathew back when they were in that forest, then surely he could do it again, right? Meowth just needed a little guidance on how to approach people, was all. If he could get the cat to act a little more decently, maybe…

"Okay!" Minichino exclaimed some minutes later. "I think that's about enough for one day. What do you think?"

"Yeah! Thanks a lot, y'all!" Joey turned to the yard. "Hey, Meowth, you reckon we could—?" He was talking to an empty lot. "...Where'd he go?"

Breloom shrugged. "He just left at some point. Who knows where he is now?" she said as she began to gather her things.

"Hmm…" Joey walked over to the edge of the yard. Sitting there, beside the gap in Minichino's old wooden fence, was ORB. He was there on behalf of Jermy and Demurke — there was a meeting they had to attend while they practiced, or something like that. "ORB, you didn't happen to see where Meowth's gone, did you?"

ORB took a second to reply. "What's the magic word?"

"...ORB, would you please—"

"Not the magic word. Denied."

Joey groaned. "ORB...did you happen to see how silly and bad Jermy is? And where Meowth went?"

"Access granted." ORB pointed his arcade claw-like arm down the street. "He went that way. Based on understood probability and my map of the town, his destination is most likely the gondola, so he can go and wallow in the condo."

"Alright. Thanks, ORB." Joey turned towards the exit and—

"Now hang on just a second." Somehow, Mathew had gotten in front of the crocodile. "You're not going after him to have a chat, are you?"

"Naw," Joey lied. He didn't want to worry the cubone when he was already stressed out. "I'm just going back to the condo too. Ain't you ready to relax after all that work?"

Mathew didn't seem interested in the offer. "I'm not relaxing until I find out what kind of housing options are open down here. In the meantime, please don't do anything stupid, Joey."

"Stupid?" That was a descriptor he couldn't ignore. "Are you reckoning that talking to people is stupid?"

"No!" Mathew almost sounded insulted. "Just...did I not explain what he did yesterday clearly enough?! I don't want that happening to you or anybody else!"

"The chances he's gonna hypnotize me are slimmer than a slip of paper named Jim!" Joey looked to Minichino, who was helping Politoed and Breloom pack up their equipment. "Hey, did any of y'all see Meowth do what he did to Mathew to anybody else before?"

The three looked among each other until Politoed spoke up. "Got in trouble a bunch of times for being demanding and acting suspicious...but this is the first I've heard of him having a move like that."

"That doesn't prove he's some one-hit wonder," Mathew grumbled. "People who are shitty enough to do something like that will do it again. I've seen it a dozen times. Please don't go treating Meowth like he's some innocent kitten!"

"Hey, I'm not trying to say that what Meowth did ain't wrong!" Joey said back. "I just reckon there's a reason he's acting up so much. I, for one, would rather know folks myself than jump on the wagon heading for the cliff." He walked around Mathew and took to the street. He tried not to look at Mathew's expression as he passed by — he knew what he was saying was hurtful, but doing this was for his own good. "If any of y'all really think I'll get hurt, you're free to trail me."

In the end, none of them did. Joey wasn't sure if that was proof of their trust in him or their apathy.

The path to the gondola station was quite different from the one Minichino had taken them to get from Kalmwa'er Resort to her home on the other side of town. Since the station was positioned towards the ocean front near the center, the crocodile had to make his way there from a completely different angle than he was used to. He ended up getting so lost that he stumbled into a series of homogenous, red-bricked buildings — a campus of sorts, standing out from the rest of the lower-class buildings that populated the bottom of the cliffs. It didn't take more than a few signs to figure out that he was crossing through the 'Kalmwa'er School of Higher Education'.

Fortunately for him, finding the station from there wasn't too hard once he remembered the key. All he had to do was look up! The thick cables and slender gondola car could be seen from just about anywhere. From there, he just eyeballed where the cables met with the ground and walked in that direction.

Eventually he made it to the station, where an elevated platform stood to let pokémon in and out of the gondola. Blue stanchions formed a winding path blocked the ramp towards the launching platform, shaded by a wide ceiling and the cables from which it came. For midafternoon, the traffic was surprisingly nonexistent — there was only one person waiting for a gondola. That person being…

"Hi Meowth," Joey said as he ducked under the stanchion and joined him at the front of the line.

Meowth was caught by surprise. "Joey?" he said. "Are you already finished?"

"Yep."

"Of course they did. I probably 'soured the mood' or something and they didn't want to keep going…" The cat looked past Joey, searching for somebody who weren't there. "Where's Mathew?"

He shrugged. "Mathew wanted to gander at all the houses we can't buy after we finished."

"And...you didn't go with him?"

"Why would I? I ain't the one who said I wanted to move out," Joey reminded him.

Meowth looked at him quizzically. "And you didn't wait for Jermy to come back from the meeting, either…"

Joey tried to hide how impressed he was. Meowth was piecing his reason for being here together without him even having to say a word about it! But the cat wasn't the only one who could do that. It takes two to rodeo… "You know, you can just ask if I'm following you back to the condo to talk to you. There ain't any need to be shy about it."

"Wh—!" Meowth didn't seem accustomed to people playing his own read-in game. "Alright, fine. Are you deliberately trailing me home?"

"Sure am!" he said obviously. "I got some questions for you."

Just as he said that, a gondola car arrived at the station, slowing down to allow its passengers to disembark but never stopping. "After we board," Meowth said, before climbing up the ramp to the platform. Joey followed him into the now vacant car.

It took a moment for Joey to find a good way to really start this conversation — long enough for the gondola to make its ascent. Behind Meowth's head, he spotted the campus he had walked through earlier past the glass windows. Maybe some small talk would help to clear some of the air? "While I was chasing after you, I wandered into that school over yonder. Did you happen to go there? It was real nice."

Meowth turned his head to see what Joey was talking about. "Yeah. That's the school I went to. My father paid for a dorm when I was thirteen and I was there until I was eighteen."

"Wow!" Thirteen to eighteen?! That didn't seem right. The education structure must be really different on Solceus… "You must've worked like crazy."

"Sure." There was a pause. Meowth's expression was contemplative — it seemed like he was struggling to decide if he should say what's on his mind. "You know… I don't really remember a lot about Higher Ed. Just studying all the time and getting into arguments." He laughed mildly to himself. "Kind of sad, right? I probably could have gotten a decent job as a psychologist or a doctor if my memory of what I studied wasn't a haze."

Joey cocked his head. "So you're saying the Club ain't a decent job? Then...why'd you take it?"

"Simple. I dug myself into this rut so I could get back at my father...by finding out what he has to do with you." He slumped against the glass. "I got greedy, and now it's going to cost me." When Meowth read Joey's curious expression, he elaborated. "If I don't fix my friendship with Mathew, the Kalmwa'er Service Guild is going to take my medical license."

"What?!" Joey exclaimed. "They can just do that?!"

"They can." Meowth looked directly at him. "I know why you came to talk to me. You think you can help me, can't you? Don't bother. You'd be wasting your time. I don't really care — that license doesn't matter to me, anyway."

Joey couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was no way that Meowth really did not care about his license — he's just coping with the idea that he can't secure it. That was all just… "Quitter talk!" Meowth flinched at his exclamation. "Uh, sorry. What I meant to say is…you're being too hard on yourself. You only tried once!"

"Yeah. So what?" he remarked. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the kind of person who changes opinions easily."

"That ain't because you're bad at it, Meowth. Changing minds — for real, not with some kind of magic move — isn't easy for anyone." Joey paused, making sure he was gathering his opinion correctly. "But that doesn't mean we should just sit around. If we just take things one step at a time, I bet we could get you and Mathew to patch things up."

"You make it sound so easy. Even if I got Mathew to forgive me, it wouldn't really fix anything. Like I said, I'd be acting just to get my license back. I wouldn't really mean any of the nice gestures."

"Well…" Joey needed to curbstomp this 'imposter' mindset fast. "Meowth, do you really want to be Mathew's friend again?"

Meowth's eyes went to the floor. He really couldn't hide from Joey the shame he was feeling. "...Not like we were friends to begin with, but I'd like to, yes."

"Then forget the license. We'll do it to make that happen, and that will be a bonus."

The cat just stared at Joey just long enough for him to read what he was feeling: disbelief. Then he glanced out of the gondola car for a moment. They were close to the top of the cliff now, so they were high above the rest of Kalmwa'er. "I…" Meowth began, recollecting himself. "I don't really understand why you want to help me."

"You and I are about as similar as purple and violet," he explained. "We both got memory problems, and we both want to get info about our dads from Mathew."

"Memory problems?" Meowth asked, more curious than surprised. "I noticed you were fairly oblivious to some things, but this is the first I've heard of this."

"Yup. I know a bunch of things, but everything else about my life before I became a croc? It ain't there in my brain." Joey only realized after saying that that he'd just given away that he wasn't a crocodile at one point, but he supposed Meowth had already guessed that based on what he fished out of Mathew. "Mathew though? He apparently knows all about me, but because of whatever thing's been bothering him, he ain't saying a peep about it. All I have is this scrapbook he gifted me…"

"Hmm…" Meowth straightened up — the doors were going to open to the upper landing platform in just a few more seconds. "Well, if you're offering to help me, I guess it's only fair for me to offer to help you decipher your past through Mathew. Maybe what you find could help with trying to mend the rift I made."

"Hey, that'd be great!" Look at that! Not only had Meowth not tried to hypnotize him, but now he was offering to help him right back! This had gone better than Joey had anticipated. Gleefully, he leapt out of the gondola right as the doors opened, then turned around and offered a fist. "Help Mathew Squad?"

Meowth paused for a moment, then slowly stepped down from the gondola and met his fist with his own. "Sure. Help Mathew Squad."

"This is outrageous!" Jermy slammed the desk in frustration, staring at the sheet of paper that David had laid out for him and Demurke. It was the official statement of the militia leaders, assigning a date for the recruits Mathew and Joey's final examination to determine their place of best fit in the company. The date: the Friday of next week. They had nine days. Nine! "The book clearly says that the recruitment cycle lasts a full month! Do they think we're miracle workers?!"

"Well…" Demurke said. "Usually when M…the militia sends out orders like this, it's because they r-really just want the recruits to be front-liners. They k-know we can't get them ready in time, so…"

"Surprisingly, I don't think that's the reason this time." David had propped his legs up on the desk, trying not to show any panic. "These early dates are going out to every recruit that hasn't completed training yet, whether they're ready or not. They're trying to empty out the program and pause it."

"Pause the recruitment program?" Based on past precedent, for the program to be paused… "What's going on?"

"Unfortunately, that's classified. All I can say is that it had to do with that call I got yesterday..."

Jermy tried not to hide his disappointment. Really? He was David's trusted number one assistant and not even he was allowed to know? Based on how nervous Demurke looked, he bet she knew exactly what he meant, but not him.

"Anyways," David cut in before he even had the chance to complain, "that's not something we can control. What we can control is Mathew's performance. If he works hard enough and demonstrates enough of a good character, we may be able to funnel him in even on crunch." His beak contorted into a grimace. "That, of course, is why this 'Silvalla's Incident' is a big, big deal."

"Of course…" Jermy stood up and began pacing around. Since he was needed downstairs, Mr. Persian had offered them his office space on the top floor of Kalmwa'er Resort as a makeshift, short-notice meeting room. A large window opened up towards the ocean where the late-afternoon sun could gleam through, forcing Jermy to squint a little and look down whenever he walked towards it. "First there was the housing issue… Then there was that argument I had with him… Now there's this whole thing going on with him and Meowth…! Is there any other obstacle in this stupid job that wants to rear its ugly head?"

Just then, there was a clank against the door to the office. "I come with footage," ORB announced from outside. "During the training they endured with the Club, I witnessed Mathew and Meowth getting at each other's necks again."

"Of course! There always is!" Jermy turned and gave a kick to the object in the room that seemed the most difficult to harm: a large, blue, plush bed with a bit of nest atop it.

"Jermy, calm down!" David ordered as he stood and went for the door. "Let's at least watch ORB's footage before we start acting out."

With a groan, the pikachu returned to his seat, rotating with Demurke as she went to fluff up the bed he just attacked. David set ORB on the desk and let him project onto the wall. It was an argument, alright, although it seemed more focused on Meowth than Mathew…

"Well," David bluntly said once the recording was done. "I don't really think this puts Mathew in any worse of a light than he was before, but this does help to characterize the Club as a very melodramatic work setting. Not very conductive to group work…" The decidueye crossed his wings. "This cat is going to cost us a saving grace for Mathew."

"How is this going to hurt Mathew? None of this is even his fault," Jermy reminded them.

"Consider this from the perspective of your superiors, Jermy," ORB stated, rolling towards him. "You are searching for loyal and powerful allies who will help to serve your ultimate goal. You hear that one of your recruits leaked crucial information to an untrusted individual. Would you want that recruit to obtain a high ranking after doing so? To them, the involvement of Hypnosis is irrelevant."

Jermy planted his face on the desk. ORB was right. "This is going to take...so much work to course-correct."

"Don't take this as an excuse for a tirade, Jermy, but honestly, I'm not sure if it's possible to reverse this," David said. "We can't not report what happened when the information leaked is this confidential. There's going to be a not-so-fun conversation between Mathew and Dit, and that's going to leave an ugly impression. Eight months of waiting and two months of preparation are about to go right down the drain." For once, David actually sounded defeated by the prospect of a project. Jermy was beginning to wonder if allocating so much of this recruitment into his and the decidueye's hands was such a good idea… "Do you see now why I was suggesting we should sacrifice their comfort and house them in the resort?"

Jermy and Demurke sat in silence. They didn't have any retort to give this time. This risk of theirs hadn't paid off at all.

"I feel like I should be angry that you two have nothing to say for yourselves, but…" David shook his head and rose. "We have bigger fish to fry. There's no time to waste riled up. I'm going to go set up the Waregle for our accelerated regimen before I make that report, then tend to the…other preoccupation in all this. You two just get back to work for now and prepare for the inevitable." And just like that, David was off to the next thing, as usual. The two were left alone in the office.

Demurke turned guiltily to Jermy. "I'm sorry...I-I should've said something when Meowth offered his c-condo. I just...I wanted to make everyone h-happier. Mathew, Joey… Meowth… Mr. Persian… Now things are so much w-worse for you."

"It's fine," Jermy said back. "You've known Meowth and Mr. Persian for years and you wanted the best for them. I get that. Besides, I didn't say anything, either, since I thought it'd be better for Mathew. If we want to blame anyone, we should blame Mr. Persian. He's the one who hired Meowth in the first place, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't w-wanna put it on him, either! If I was in his p-place…" Demurke looked towards the bed. "I think I would've d-done the same thing."