Chapter 1

I. Am. So. Screwed.

This thought and the constant repeat of the same four-letter expletives looped around Locke's head. It wasn't an uncommon phrase for her. Most of the time it had been reserved for occasions like missed appointments or the moments where her mother had caught her in the middle of a lie or the panicked drive to work when she had woken up ten minutes before she was supposed to start work. This moment, however, paled in comparison.

Her day had already started off not so great. First, she turned off her alarm instead of swiping the snooze button on her phone and as a result overslept her wakeup time by three hours, leaving her about twenty minutes to drop off a package at the post office before it closed. Then she got a flat tire on the way there and had to air it back up at the gas station on the drive back, only to realize she didn't have enough coins for the air pump. This caused her to be fifteen minutes late to a job interview at the Cylinders, the three aptly named office buildings known for their posh design and high-income positions. Then to top it all off with whipped cream to her already shit sundae, she had stepped into a pothole deep enough to be a small lake, making every other step feel like she was walking on a soggy pile of mushed bananas; it had been a miracle that she had even been let into the door. So, to find a note taped to her door was not ideal to say the least. At first, she assumed was another anonymous note about her pet Zigzagoon, Pumpkin, and his midnight zoomies. That was until she saw the big, glaring red letters written at the top. Then she wished to God that it had been just another passive-aggressive noise complaint.

EVICTION NOTICE

The words were like a punch to the chest, leaving the wind knocked out of her, gasping for air. Shaking fingers clenched around her mail, her palms like ice as Locke tugged the paper off the door with her free hand and began to read.

Dear Ms. Smythe,

We are terminating your tenancy and want to evict you from the following property: Apt 197

Our reason for evicting you is: violation of the lease contract by tampering with the unit's electrical breakers and illegal keeping of unauthorized pokemon.

You must move from the property or remedy our reason for evicting you by the following date: Aug 31st.

If you do not agree with this eviction notice, you have the right to legal advice and may contact a lawyer.

Name of Owner or Agent: Eli Birmingham

Address of Owner or Agent: 10 Ashwood Boulevard, Apex City, Limston - 46548

Telephone Number: 181-555-7778

Signature: Eli Birmingham

Date: 04/02

Guilt swam through her like a cheating ex-husband caught with his pants down. At first, Locke thought it was an April Fool's Day joke, but the signature date was clearly marked April 2nd. This couldn't be right. Pumpkin was energetic, sure, but he didn't bark or make enough noise to warrant eviction, and neither had any of her other pokemon. Locke tried to think of any other explanation. Had she gotten any emails? The apartment complex was notorious for having a buggy app. Sometimes she would receive the same notification for new updates five or six times an hour with no change on the webpage. Thankfully she got their emails just fine, though most were just general email blasts for everyone, reminding people to not put boxes in the trash compactor, clean up after their pokemon and to not let them dig holes in the Pal Park, drip the faucets during cold weather, etc. Locke deleted most things in her inbox that weren't about package updates about a plushie or anime figure coming in, or her daily email blast from her Pokemon Girl USA Magazine subscription, so some things got put into the spam folder by default, but she always read every email she came across when it came to her tenancy.

In none of those emails could she ever recall being directly addressed a written warning about anything, much less fined for it. Yes, her rent had been more expensive last month, but it had been right around the time where her new lease was supposed to start, involving a 2% hike in rent, which made her almost shit a brick. Most of her amenities were lumped into her rent as well, varying month to month, and winter was expensive.

After looking over the paper a few more times, Locke took in a deep breath and uttered one long, "Fuuuuuuuuuck," the word echoing loud and clear through the apartment stairwell. One of her neighbors, a reclusive, blue-haired woman somewhere in her seventies that lived adjacent to her, had picked this exact time to come out and pick up her Door-Dash order on her doormat. She could count on one hand the number of times they had met, either with the woman coming to pick up her groceries delivered at the door or when Locke had offered to watch her pokemon during the holidays when she had been forced to work at her old job. Locke wasn't sure if the old woman had heard her swear before, the woman either pretending not to have heard her or if she was secretly judging her for swearing in public and not saying anything, but this was the neighbor she suspected was leaving her all the notes on her door. It was all she had left, having spent most of her days holed up inside an apartment laced with the strong concoction of smells of old perfume, incense, and urine.

Locke, having been taught that swearing in public was not ladylike and caught in a particularly vicious and loud swear, felt a quick flash of embarrassment come over her like a bad case of acid reflux. Contrary to this, Locke actually liked swearing, though 'liked' was putting it mildly. To her, swearing was like expressing religious freedom, a vibrant comedy of opinion and passion, an Olympic sport. But this was a conservative region and being offensive, even without cursing, was almost second nature to Locke, so the heated shame on her face was a reflex at this point.

Embarrassed that her mask of emotions had slipped so easily, Locke swept back the long pillow of dark hair that always fell over one shoulder and blurted out in a rapid-fire explanation, "I just got some really bad news." Pause. "I only just got home from an already really crappy day involving a flat tire and not having money to fix it and running late to a job interview." Another long pause. "And now I have a notice on my door saying that I'm being evicted."

Locke forced herself to look at her neighbor. The brunette had lived here for over three years, and she still didn't know her neighbor's name. She thought the woman had mentioned her name once in passing when Locke had stopped to ask her if she was okay after hearing her fire alarm go off for ten minutes straight, but she couldn't recall it now. She tucked an errant strand of brown hair that escaped her low ponytail behind her ear and gave her a half-hearted grin. She'd had always been awful at reading people. She often said the wrong thing and making eye contact with someone was like staring at the sun. Her little sister Key described it as her not having a muscle that everyone else had that she had no practice with using, that she could practice good social etiquette but that the natural reflex to know what a person was thinking or feeling by non-verbal cues was a muscle she just did not know how to flex. Naturally, it was just easier to assume that people were thinking the worst about her after committing a social faux pas and try to avoid conflict when she could to prevent future issues. As a result, it caused her to over-share and talk with absolute strangers in an effort to articulate her actions in a clear and concise manner, a compulsive need to leave a good impression.

"Oh… I'm sorry to hear that," her neighbor said, but Locke couldn't help but read her tone as insincere. It was just something that you said, a default answer like 'Hi! How are you today?' and 'Fine, how are you?' when you didn't know what else to say. The longer she stood here, the more it felt like she was wasting the old woman's time. Still, she also felt like she needed to clarify why she was so upset.

"Yeah… it's a bit of a shock. I feel like I should have gotten a warning or a fine first..."

"Right… maybe…"

The lady smiled, her leg blocking the face of an obstinate Glameow trying to force its way through before it decided to start clawing and biting at her leg. Locke couldn't help remembering the way those same claws had hooked around her leg and felt a flash of sympathy for the woman. The lady then stepped back inside her hoarder apartment with her food, not even bothering to say goodbye as she shut door hard enough for her 'No Soliciting' sign to shake. Locke almost wanted to die at the awkwardness, nearly tripping over her sunflower doormat as she turned back towards her apartment door. At least she wouldn't have to worry about being neighbors with her for much longer. Then the whirlwind was back.

This couldn't be happening. Why now? She thought she had more time. She had thought that using her pokemon to supply her with excess electricity after flipping the breakers off would save her money, not hasten her exit. It was a dubious operation, sure, never having thought about turning off power to parts of the home that she didn't use like the oven or stovetop, but she never thought it was illegal in any way. It's not like it was unusual for pokemon to be used for energy. The maintenance man had a Magnemite following him around any time he tried to work on appliances. Heck, people used fire pokemon to light their stoves and fireplaces, and god only knows that having a fire type with an open flame like Slugma was more of a risk to have in the house. She thought surely that if she had been evicted, it would have been when she finally ran out of money for rent. She never thought it would have been for her desperate act to save money that would have caused it.

I guess if everyone used an Ampharos so that they could have cheaper electricity, everyone would do it. She wasn't sure what exactly had been the thing to tip the scales, whether she had crossed some moral line about pokemon rights or the fact that she hadn't unregistered a specific pokemon that had done it. The latter felt like a weak reason to kick her out. Ambrette didn't even stay with her full time. In fact, most of her pokemon stayed with her cousins on their farms in Mt. Alta; any pokemon with her on her team stayed inside their pokéballs when she left the apartment or never stayed with her longer than a week, well within the allocated time of having a guest stay over without violating the rent agreement. Unusual as everything had been in pushing the rules of the lease, Locke had never flat out broken it.

Besides, it wasn't like her apartment didn't allow pokemon. She saw her fair share of people walking their Growlithes and Furfrous, even had seen a Petilil sitting on a second story patio rail basking in the sun. She certainly would have remembered that being in the lease contract. In fact, the only pokemon that they didn't allow was Absol, but that was from unfair prejudice and superstition and most likely for insurance reasons. Then her expression went cold as her hand went to touch the red, cherish ball keychain hanging from her purse. Surely it couldn't be that pokemon that they were talking about. How would they know? No one knew about it, that is, no one who had lived to tell the tale.

Then there was the whole tampering bit. She did notice one switch for the dryer tripped when the maintenance man had come to inspect her apartment when she had been working from home a couple months ago, but she didn't use it. Aside from it being unreliable to dry all her clothes in one cycle, being tall meant that most of her pants shrank in the dryer, and she had grown up in a household full of tall women with a broken drying machine most of her life, so she was used to line-drying most of her clothes. Why spend money for electricity if you weren't even using it? It wasn't fair. The whole thing was a bunch of bullshit.

"Balls, shit, goddamnit, FUCK!" Locke swore, this time louder and clenched her fists, fueled by indignation. No, this wasn't over. This had to be a mistake. She just needed to talk to the leasing office. Locke wasn't sure if it was denial fueling her or sheer outraged stubbornness, but seconds after pulling off her tennis shoes, she started putting them back on and marching past the stone archway of her building's entrance towards the clubhouse across the street.

"Hey there, Locke. How's your day been going?"

Locke jumped in place, the voice sounding like it had been spoken right into her ear when really it had been about twelve feet away. Then she felt a flicker of impatient and a hint of wariness. It had been one of her other neighbors, a nosy couple that she lived next to for the last year and a half that she referred to in her head as "Tom and Jerry," mainly because she couldn't remember their real names, and they fought like their cartoon counterparts. "Tom" was a forty-something man with a mustache that enjoyed the old country pleasures of eating fried meats, watching sports, and chatting up the neighbors while he smoked on his patio porch, no matter what hour of the night it was; Locke had been jump-scared a couple of times by him during her nightly runs to get her mail from the clubhouse mailboxes. His boyfriend, Jerry, on the other hand, was a spirited health food enthusiast that was always looking for the next latest thing. Perky, eager, and young enough to be Tom's son, he took every opportunity to start new projects and know everybody's business and therefore was the first to make his voice known.

Judging from how earlier in the afternoon it had been to be home, however, she guessed this one to be Tom. What a shame. She liked Jerry more. Too late to pretend she hadn't heard him, she turned to give him a cursory, "Fine, how are you?" while barely containing her response of 'I'm pretty shitty, thanks for asking.'

"Good." He nodded, but then he had the tone of a man who wanted to ask a favor and continued. "Hey listen, we were wondering if you would like to take Chip out on a walk later."

Locke's flicker of impatience shifted into irritation. Chip was the couple's three-month-old Rockruff. Due to both men being flakes, Locke had often volunteered to walk him a couple of times since she had been lonely, and they had taken on quite a few Rockruff since Tom's son had to give up his hobby of breeding Lycanroc. From what she could tell, Tom's son had been breeding them to be police pokemon but having no experience with raising Rockruff or Lycanroc, he been forced to sell his land to move into an apartment that didn't allow pokemon and had illegally been housing the pokemon while foisting one Rockruff after the other on the couple the instant they had managed to find a buyer for the pedigree pups they had been training. Since both Tom and Jerry were often out of the house or decided to take last-minute business trips to the Flor Region in the panhandle of America, Locke had been designated as the fallback babysitter. An impulsive act of kindness had now turned into a responsibility.

Why didn't you just text me this when I was available instead of springing this on me out of the blue? You have my number. God only knows you'd ever use it instead making Jerry be the voice piece between us, Locke groused internally. Maybe she should have followed Key's advice and made them pay her for the trouble instead of just taking free food handouts as payment. Once in a blue moon had she been paid to watch someone's pokemon, having been the person to offer, so it felt wrong to ask for monetary compensation for something guised as a favor. In moments like this though…

"Umm, I can't right now. Could you wait a little bit?"

"I would but unfortunately I have to go install a few more solar panels for my job at two, and Jerry's mother can't watch him tonight."

Oh that's right. It was Tom's real name that I couldn't remember. Jerry was the reason I gave him that nickname.

"Uhh… sure. Just give me fifteen minutes. I need to head to the office real quick and ask a question."

"Is it about the eviction notice?" Locke stopped and turned to actually look at the man. "You're not the only one to get that," he continued. "A lot of people have been getting them lately. Rumor has it that the apartment complex is getting sold to a new owner, and they've been really cracking down on who lives here, probably so they can push out old tenants so they can hike up the rent without having to deal with rent control."

"That's…" Locke's brow furrowed, rolling that new bit of information in her head to stew over. Anger at the indignation of raising rent in a recession. Frustration at the prospect of dealing with another new owner and the new rules that would most likely follow. And then irritation back at Tom who sat there like he didn't want to be a bother to ask favors. He knew. He knew about the eviction notice, and he still asked her to babysit? "…Unbelievable."

"I know, right? Hopefully, it won't affect us too badly. Sorry to hear about you though. Chip really likes you. He'll be sad to see you go."

Locke stared at the Rockruff barking in indignation at not being let out of the house as he stared out of the broken patch of door blinds and sighed. Vicious as Chip was at times, she did like the ankle biter, even if he got a little too rough with her at times. Many sweatpants of hers had been torn up by him affectionately rubbing his stony neck against her legs like a cat. "I love him too," Locke admitted with a smile, a real one this time. Had she been able to afford it, she would have taken him and Tom's previous Rockruff, Coco, with her when they had been offered. They deserved better than an apartment life being cooped up all day in a crate, but the price they had offered to sell them at was too high, and Locke couldn't adopt every pokemon that she took care of. She had her own problems and pokemon to deal with, but after doing her errand, she could at least give the pokemon the love and support he needed, for a little while anyways. It's not like she had a real job to go back to.

"Okay. Just leave the key for me in the same place as usual, and I'll go drop him off later."

"Great! Let me go get him."

"Oh umm-" Locke started, expecting to pick him up later on her own time, but she fell silent as Tom had already opened the door, giving her a glimpse of the apartment littered with pokemon toys, the cat trees, and large crate blocking a hallway exit as he nudged Chip back with his foot. A minute or so later, Tom came back outside with a leash, a harness, a bag of treats, and, to her relief, a pokéball. Good. She really didn't want to have to walk him right this second. Then she saw him dig into his pocket and pull out a navy blue remote.

"Almost forgot the remote for the shock collar."

"Oh… you're still using that?"

"Yep. We're training him not to bark and to not chase cars, so just press the button on the left to give him a warning and then shock him with the other one if he continues. He's a bit more lively than Coco was, so you might need to use it more. He likes going after big pokemon."

Locke frowned. She never liked this method of training, but she wasn't in a position to criticize. It wasn't illegal to own a shock collar, and Chip wasn't her pokemon. Still, that timed with the pronged training collar she always saw him wearing made her feel uneasy. She wasn't sure how much it hurt him since his neck was mostly made of rock, but it couldn't be that bad if it was allowed. Rockruff were Rock type pokemon, so it was possible that he didn't feel it the same way other pokemon did and required more drastic means to get his attention, though she couldn't recall ever seeing anything like that in her research.

She took the items anyways, shuffling her mail to under her arm before shoving the remote deep into her pocket to never be used. Tom then placed the pokéball in her palm and smiled like she had just lifted fifty pounds off of his shoulders. "Really appreciate you doing this."

There it was. The praise for doing a good job. She felt her insides warm with pride at the gesture, but it was muddled with anxiety and something else. She wasn't sure what the feeling was, but it felt gross and icky. She always felt that way around Tom for some reason, some kind of unexplained aura he gave off or behavior. Maybe it was due to the fact that she wasn't used to being praised at doing a good job, or maybe it was his friendliness. Either way, she took the items, unable to go back on her word now.

"No problem," she said, almost on reflex. "What time will you get back?"

"Not sure. Might be here around six or seven, maybe later? Depends on the job."

Locke nodded and tried to believe him. Most of the time she would find Tom or Jerry home when they said they, making her feel like she had been conned into doing what they considered to be a chore. She didn't have any more time to dwell on it. A two-minute conversation had turned into a ten minute one, and Locke only had minutes before the clubhouse closed for lunch. After that, it was by appointment only that she could talk to someone, which was difficult when you had a pressing issue.

Waving her goodbyes and speed-walking the rest of the way, Locke just barely made it five minutes before the clubhouse closed for lunch. The interior was like stepping into a five-star hotel. It had high ceilings, French doors, glass everything everywhere- not to mention a full kitchen with a flatscreen TV playing the good cable stations, and a wall mirror so big, people had accidentally walked into it thinking it was another room. It was the fancy, high-life the housing complex strived to sell to their future tenants. Locke's apartment, in contrast, had virtually no natural light, terrible insulation, doors that stuck, overpriced electric bills so bad that she needed to use a microwave to boil water, and the whole place was small enough to fit in a master bathroom- but damn it if it wasn't hers. She had established her comfortable hovel for the past three years, even going so far as to plant lilies in the small garden plot the previous tenant had created that bloomed every July. Much like her perennials, as much as Locke hated change, once she put down roots somewhere, it was hard to yank her away from it.

"Hello?" Locke called out. The only sound was from the flatscreen TV, playing a few sport reels from ESPN. It wasn't until she was almost clear on the other side of the lobby that she noticed the activity in the hallway, spying a plump thirty-something woman sitting at the office manager's desk behind two French doors. "Hi, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time. You see, I found this taped to my door saying that I'm being evicted, and I was wondering what it is that I've done and if there's been some mistake or way of fixing this because I would really like to avoid doing that- being evicted, I mean."

The woman barely glanced up at her before her eyes went back to her computer, a plain, Stepford smile on her face as she typed. Click-clack. Tap. "I see... What apartment are you in?"

"Apartment 197." Click-clack. Tap.

"And what building would that be in?"

"Umm… I think it's sixteen?" Clickity-clack. Tap.

"Sixteen… Ah yes, I see you right here. It says here you were given two strikes prior to your issued letter and given warnings about contract violation that resulted in charging you an additional 500 and 1,000poke fine, which did not get paid."

"For what?! I didn't get any warnings! When were they sent?"

"Let's see…" The manager began typing and scrolling through a few files on her computer before pausing to lean in close to her monitor. "It looks like you had been issued two warnings before about unauthorized pokemon, one in November of last year on the 22nd and just recently at the beginning of March."

Locke paled before she began scrolling through her email like a mad woman, clicking the search bar for any notification for an additional charge or fine, but nothing pulled up. "I did not get any of them. Are you sure you sent them?"

"Sorry, but it says they were sent to you. Perhaps you forgot to mark your emails as safe so that they wouldn't be put in the spam folder?"

Locke scowled in distaste at the tone. A convenient response, considering her spam folder emptied itself every thirty days; she got all her other emails from them just fine, almost redundantly. And wasn't November 22nd Thanksgiving Day? She wasn't even home at the time, and neither was the clubhouse staff. No one outside of a reporting an emergency would come out here on a holiday. How would they have been able to issue a warning if no one was there to write a report? Suddenly, Tom's talk about the new owners had some merit. Locke voiced her thoughts exactly to the housing manager but she shook her head.

"Paperwork is not always turned in the day it was reported."

"Oh… well, on what grounds were the warnings for?"

"Breaking with the apartment's electrical breakers, for one."

"Breaking!?"

"Yes, you see you violated your lease by tampering with the breakers in your apartment. It's illegal to tamper with a unit in a way that might be considered hazardous or damaging to the structure."

"What tampering? I literally just switched off all the breakers to my apartment and used my Ampharos when I needed a short burst of electricity."

"A pokemon you did not have registered with us and a breaker that we now have to pay to fix the fuses for."

"This is ridiculous. I didn't burn the fuses out. I was just using my Ampharos to charge my phone as an independent generator. The only thing I did do was flip some switches off. The maintenance guy literally taught me how to use them to save on electricity that so I wouldn't have to worry about having such a high electric bill. He said it was okay."

"He was not authorized to make that call. Only he's allowed to make repairs and mess with the breakers. That's what we pay him for." Locke wasn't sure but she detected an air of condescension in the woman's voice.

"I didn't touch the breakers though, and there's nothing illegal about turning off your own power," She growled, gritting her teeth in an effort to stay pleasant.

"There is if you use your pokemon to power up the breakers without authorization. The report says there was scorch marks around one of the switches and wiring pulled out from under a partially unscrewed covering."

"I didn't do that. There was no ash when I last checked… It could be the maintenance guy. Maybe he just forgot to screw the breaker cover closed. Seriously, this is a huge misunderstanding. I just switched off a few appliances and relied on Ampharos for an hour or two to get a cheaper electric bill. That's not a crime. Besides, I'd like to see you try to have a cheaper electric bill in this place, because if you have any tips, I would love to hear them. Another company I could sign on with, perhaps?"

"Unfortunately, there is only the one energy company available to us, and we are not in charge of how they mandate their rates. There are other units that have gas in their apartment, so if you had preferred, you could have chosen one of them to reduce your electric bill-"

Yeah, and have to move to the second floor and pay twice as much for a two-bedroom apartment in addition to being forced to pay for a cramped garage space.

"-This, of course, is moot since you violated the contract."

"You keep saying that. I kind of get the misunderstanding about the breakers, and I know it looks bad, but what's this about unauthorized pokemon? We're allowed to have guests stay up to seven consecutive days before it suddenly becomes a problem, and my Ampharos is not on the list of pokemon that can't stay here. Heck, it stays in its ball most of the time. And I know for a fact some neighbors have been taking in more pokemon without notifying you, and you only fined them once for not before charging them an additional 40,000poke more a month just because it was a pokemon that could cause property damage and that was the end of it."

"We have the right to evict anyone at any time depending on the severity of the actions taken. As for the warning, the property damage to the breakers speaks for itself. Had it just been your Ampharos, we would have been simply issued you a fine for your first offense…"

Locke swallowed, her eyes flicking to the football reruns playing in the background, reviewing past footage of the Limopolis Keldeos against the Miam Palafins. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that, due to the fact that you have been caught using your apartment as an illegal daycare center for breeding pokemon, you have bypassed a fine and have violated your agreement."

"Illegal daycare center?! Wha-?"

"One of our maintenance workers found incubators holding pokemon eggs as well as two egg group compatible pokemon living on the premises while doing a surprise unit inspection. I do see your license listed on file, which is why you haven't been arrested by the authorities."

"Arrested?!" Locke's shrieked. The sheer leaps and bounds this person had jumped in speculation was astounding that Locke simply didn't have the words. Illegal. Arrested. The idea of any of these words being used in a sentence to describe her name and her actions were so far beyond Locke's thought process that the concept was almost foreign to her.

The manager continued on with nod, as if she hadn't just knocked a woman's world off her axis. "Yes. It is illegal to breed pokemon in a space without a permit."

Ah yes, the annoying rule of owning a license and permit. Locke knew it well. Years ago, she had been irritated by the number of hoops she had to jump to get her international breeding license. Not only did she have to study and pass an exam, but she had to go to the city council to get another permit after they evaluated her property and wait to get her the stamp of approval by the official Pokemon Limston Breeders Club before she was given permission to breed any pokemon at home. Since she had no property to speak of at the time, being sixteen and still in school, she was denied the permit and could only breed pokemon at daycares that already had a permit and not breed independently. That, of course, meant that she had to pay for their board, something that was not cheap over time, but she recognized that the permits were so that the pokemon were safe and taken care of in a healthy, regulated environment that was up to code. Not everyone should be given a Ditto and be told 'good luck.' That was how the worst breeding practices had started. Invasive species, in-breeding, and disease were just some of the aftereffects. The Flor Region still had yet to recover from the massive outbreak of Sandacondas in the Everglades after a breeding institute created by some reptile enthusiasts had been destroyed by Hurricane Andrew and inadvertently unleashed hundreds of them into the wild.

"But that's- you got it all wrong! I have a license to breed pokemon, yes, but I haven't done that in years. I can't afford it. The eggs I have in my apartment are a babysitting gig on the side. Check with Jerry in 195. I watch his Rockruff while he's at work. He'll vouch for me."

"Ah yes, I am aware of Mr. Blanc's previous track record of taking in unauthorized pokemon as well. They've been trying to convince us that it's the same Rockruff every time when it's a different one that registered, not to mention the two Purloins they've taken on and offsite by pretending they don't live here." Locke clenched her jaw in barely contained rage. Damn Jerry for impulsively adopting pokemon without a second thought, and damn Tom for letting him! Jerry was young, just shy of twenty years old, not even old enough to drink, but Tom was almost forty. He should have known better, done his research. He should have realized the time and energy it took to raise pokemon that weren't made for apartment life, especially difficult pokemon like Rockruff, who started off easy enough but got progressively more aggressive the older they got. Locke would know. She had offered to walk them in her spare time after seeing her neighbors' struggle of trying to keep the puppy pokemon from tearing up their apartment and had nearly gotten bit several times since- all because they didn't show any kind of restraint or teach them proper discipline. Instead, they kept taking in more pokemon that Tom's son, an amateur pokemon breeder with his own housing issues, had dumped on them and then scrambled to find trainers to sell them to once they got too time consuming and expensive to take care of. And now Locke was getting taken down with them just by mere association.

Locke's hand clenched around Chip's pokéball stashed in her pocket, a bead of sweat starting to trickle past her temple. "Trust me, I haven't bred a pokemon in over six years. I'm just storing my old incubators, that's all."

"Incubators with active eggs inside."

"Yeah, but not my eggs, not with my pokemon! I was just using them to keep an eye on some pokemon eggs for a friend of mine while she was out of town. She was going on vacation and couldn't get permission to take them with her through airport security, and I couldn't go visit where she lived to check up on them, so I was watching them for her. They're not even supposed to hatch for another three weeks."

"A likely story." Locke bit her lip. It didn't help that the pokemon eggs she had been watching were Eevee eggs, a hot commodity in the breeding community, and that she just so happened to have a female Umbreon staying at her residence. She could call her friend Briella and get her to vouch for her, but it was a paper-thin defense with so many precarious variables against her.

"And all of this coming to light, raising restrictions, has absolutely nothing to do with the new owners wanting to raise their prices?" Locke challenged, almost wanting to see if the rumor got a reaction out of her. Instead, she remained cool and professional.

"Mr. Birmingham has been in talks with selling his apartments to another buyer. However, it should not impact any resident too drastically, outside of signing new lease agreements when the assets are transferred. That is why we are giving you time to move out. It would make no sense to terminate your contract now only for a new buyer to invalidate it."

"…is there any I can do?"

"You're welcome to dispute your case with the Rental Dispute Center, but they'll likely tell you the same thing."

Suddenly, it was like all the fight had gone out of her. Silent tears were already falling down her cheeks like her face had been squeezed too tight. Locke turned her face down in an attempt to hide them, her cat-eyeglasses glinting off the LED lighting as her hands knitted and twisted the bottom of her hoodie. "I see… Thanks anyways for trying," she managed to choke out, trying to keep the quiver from her voice as she pushed her glasses back to the brim of her nose and left back the way she came, utterly defeated.

A/N: Some facts for you. The Limston Region is a region I created based on a large chunk of the Midwest United States, the name being a pun on the word "limestone," a common resource found in many of the states. Miam is based on Miami along with the Flor Region being Florida and the Spanish word for "flower" being "flor." The outbreak of Sandacondas is based on the invasive species Burmese pythons and the real life event that occurred in 1992 involving a python breeding institute that was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew that unleashed hundreds of them into the wild (though it's probable that it wasn't just this event that sparked the uptick in Burmese pythons, as there were cases shown of irresponsible pet owners abandoning them in the wild in the 1970s and 80s due to how big they got).