Perfect opportunity for a song parody. We're not doing it.

"All right!" Ms. Dendra said, looking around at her students and their partner Pokémon - Arven had brought Skwovet this time, and to Nemona's surprise, he stayed. "Today, we'll be playing dodgeball." Dendra gave them time to groan. "Hey, it's not that bad! Just once and we won't have to do this again for the rest of the year."

"Really?" said the hopeful voice of Penny, who had not gotten permission to take gym class online.

Dendra shook her head. "No, sorry. It's dodgeball, it's the root of all gym classes." She dragged out a bag full of large rubber balls in every color imaginable and turned back to the students. "Ok! Single file now!" The students reluctantly obeyed, Juliana wishing she'd followed Arven's example and left all the balls in her dorm. Dendra didn't notice. "Great! First in line, you're Team 1! Second, Team 2! Third, Team 1! Fourth, Team 2! You can figure out the rest! Go! Go! Go!"

Florian and Juliana were on Team 1, Arven and Nemona on Team 2. Penny and her Eevee were towards the back of the line, so when she joined Florian and Juliana on Team 1, they barely noticed.

Things proceeded like a normal dodgeball game at first. Penny shielded her glasses by throwing her arms in front of her face, blindly stumbling across the field and avoiding the projectiles through dumb luck and the occasional sympathy. Nemona gathered an armload of dodgeballs and declared herself the Queen of the Stadium, and it was taking everything Arven had in him to not hit his teammate in the face.

Eventually, Dendra left to refill her water bottle. Juliana was reaching for a ball when her Tarountula, who was too small to be having much fun, walked in the way and got picked up. Juliana, focused on the game, didn't process what her projectile was until she'd let it fly, at which point her horrified shriek mingled with her spider's cry of pure fun and brought the whole game freezing in place.

Except for Tarountula, who kept on going, and Arven, who barely ducked in time.

Tarountula landed, cheering, and ran back to Juliana, excited to do it again. Juliana didn't notice.

"I'm so sorry, Tarountula!" she squeaked, to his amusement. "And Arven! I'm sorry, both of you!"

Arven had already picked up Skwovet and looked him in the eye. "You know what to do, little guy."

Skwovet saluted and braced himself. Arven let him fly right back at Juliana, who squealed like a frightened Lechonk and ran. Skwovet landed on Florian, who reacted to having a squirrel in his pants as anyone would. When he shook out the Skwovet, he threw Lloyd, but Arven picked up Nemona and used her as a human shield.

Despite having a face full of Sprigatito, Lloyd didn't use his claws, so Nemona was relatively unharmed. Instead, once she unfroze after the surprise physical contact, she directed her anger to Arven.

"Do I even weigh anything to you?" she asked.

"Uh..." Arven gulped. "I know better than to discuss a woman's weight."

"Smart." Nemona kept her mouth shut about how strong he must have been - girls her age usually weighed a hundred pounds or more.

So when he put her down, she took Dendra's position and shouted, causing the game to freeze once again.

"Can we have some restraint, people?" she demanded. "Your Pokémon are your partners! Your friends! Do they really want to be used as projectiles in a game this stupid?"

There was a hum as the trainers and Pokémon involved all thought it over. Then Tarountula, the one who had started this madness, squealed and used one of his front legs to punch the air. Nemona's Pawmi tapped on her leg and asked something, bouncing in place like an excited Juliana. Nemona, who was passing languages class, facepalmed.

"Ok, so some do. But are we all going to join in on this ridiculousness just because a few Pokémon -"

Then she was hit once again by a flying furball, this one an Eevee.

"Ok, then," said Nemona. Without another word, she picked up Pawmi and launched him into the crowd, where the small Electric-type curled up like a human doing a cannonball into a pool.

"Dodge-mon!" Florian shouted, and pandemonium ensued once again.

When Dendra returned, she had no words.

Director Clavell looked down at the five students Dendra had sent to his office. "So let me get this straight," he said, sounding less like a tired and disappointed school director than they expected. "Ms. Dendra left to refill her water bottle, and in the span of the ten minutes she was gone, you started using Pokémon as projectiles?"

"Mine was an accident," Juliana defended herself. She pointed accusingly at Arven. "He threw a squirrel at me!"

"And that was wrong," Clavell agreed. "As was the rest of it - a Sprigatito, an Eevee, a Pawmi..." he shook his head. "And you didn't have to throw Tarountula again, Miss Juliana."

"He wanted it!" Juliana objected, but Clavell silenced her.

"It was still wrong. I will be contacting all of your parents about this behavior."

Arven snorted. "Good luck."

"And find an appropriate punishment for Master Arven," Clavell finished. "In the meantime, get back to class."

Sunday mornings were usually free, to give the religious students a chance to worship whatever god or legendary they worshiped. Florian used the last of the free time to check out what Diana was up to this week.

What he didn't expect was to find another mystery.

Diana greeted her audience with her usual smile. She'd traded the Decidueye shirt for a plain blue one and a sparkling snowflake necklace, and was filming outside that day.

"Welcome to Professor Freeman's 'Practical' Science! Today we'll be discussing 'gimmicks,' as Champion Victor calls them. Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax, Terastallization...which, by the way, is one of my favorites, despite having never seen it in person." She grinned and fidgeted with her necklace, making it catch the Alolan sunlight and shine bright white. "I've gotten Champion Calem to send me footage of Mega Evolution, which I will be using for the purpose of the video since the Buneary I caught on my last vacation still hasn't evolved." She rolled her eyes theatrically. The Buneary in question, her partner for the episode, squeaked happily and shoved another berry in her face, allowing Diana to pet her. "Since Terastallization was the last one mentioned, I'm going to start with that. The process was created by Professors Sada and Turo in the Paldea region, where it remains its only known location..."

Florian had already tuned out. Professor Turo? He'd never even heard of Professor Turo.

"Hey, Rotom?" Rotom exited the video, ready for action. "Do a search on Professor Turo, Paldea."

Rotom obeyed, and seconds later showed him the results. "It says he was a prominent scientist fifteen years ago," she read, as her owner studied the picture. "He was credited with helping Professor Sada with the research she needed to create the Tera Orb."

The man had brown hair and brown eyes, and the beard threw him off a bit. But the facial features were familiar to him... "He looks like Arven!"

"Yeah, it says he was married to Professor Sada at one point. He's probably Arven's dad."

"That would explain why they look alike. But why wouldn't Arven talk about him? Why wouldn't he take me up on my offer to sue him for child support?"

"I don't know," said Rotom. "All that's said is that he disappeared shortly after the divorce proceedings began."

So Turo was a deadbeat dad after all? But why hadn't he done anything in fifteen years? Where were his recent research papers?

According to his Wikipedia page, Turo had once been a student at Naranja Academy. That meant that someone interested in both science and the Academy would have answers.

Florian knew at once who he should ask.

"What happened to Professor Turo?"

Clavell froze at the name. "Who?" he asked weakly.

"Arven's dad," Florian specified, holding out the phone with the mysterious professor's image. "This guy."

Clavell stared at the image for longer than he should. Then, finally, he shook his head. "Professor Sada merely said he left her. I stopped asking questions after that."

It would have been a good enough answer, if Florian hadn't recently played Apollo Justice. He noticed how Clavell adjusted his glasses in a slightly different way than usual, pushing them up with one finger.

Time to press, Florian thought.

"Arven said the same thing," Florian admitted, "but I figured that since you're older than he is and friends with his mother..."

"We don't speak of Professor Turo. For Arven's sake and his mother's."

"But why didn't he ask for custody of Arven? Or the research, if he didn't care about his kid?"

"That is enough, Master Florian." Florian stepped back, startled by the anger in the director's voice. Clavell took notice, and fell silent until he was calm. "This is none of your concern. If your friend doesn't know the specifics behind his parents' divorce, what makes you think that I will be able to fill in the blanks?"

"I'm not asking about the divorce! I'm asking about what happened after! He was a famous scientist! He co-founded Terastallization! Why hasn't he done anything since?"

Clavell said nothing, which told Florian that he did have answers. And if he wasn't going to give them to a curious observer, then he'd have to pull some strings with Arven.

Of course, Arven had his objections.

"Why would I want to know where some jerk is? He's not my problem."

"You have his DNA. That makes him your problem."

"Not my fault."

"But what if he's not just some deadbeat? What if he got flung into another time, or got lost in space in a homemade rocket, or got abducted by aliens and got a probe shoved..."

"That's enough!" Arven interrupted. "If there's any justice in the world, then there's no reason he shouldn't have come back by now. And the less I know about what aliens are doing to him, the better."

"But he's your dad."

"Biologically." He looked down at his friend. "What's in this for me?"

"Inner peace?"

"That's for losers."

"I'll take on the first round of the next Titan alone."

Arven's hostility dropped. "You're really interested in what happened to Turo, aren't you?"

"If I wasn't, why would I ask?" Florian cleared his throat, hoping he didn't sound too desperate. "I'm into history and mysteries. You know this."

Arven sighed. "Fine," he relented. "But if the answer is simple, don't go whining to me."

"Clavell!" Arven insisted, leaning on the director's desk. "I think I have a right to know what happened. My mother never told me, but I'm sixteen years old! I can handle the truth!"

Clavell looked him over, clearly debating. "Very well," he agreed. "Your mother didn't like to talk about it, but I know enough. Have a seat."

Arven sat. Florian sat down, too.

"You don't need to be here," Clavell tried to tell him, but Arven shook his head.

"Yes, he does. Go on."

Clavell took another moment to decide where to begin, and finally settled on the beginning.

"Your parents met as students at the Academy," he began. "Young, brilliant, full of energy and enthusiasm. Your mother kept her history books close to her at all times, and your father liked to tease her about being stuck in the past. He dreamed of robots and lasers, a sight of the future inspired by science fiction movies - your mother teased him about that in retaliation. I met them once or twice when they were students. I was a researcher myself at the time, so naturally their incredible scientific abilities reached me. All that time spent together, all that time spent fighting over the Zero Book, I suppose it was natural that they fell in love."

"But it didn't work out."

"No," Clavell admitted, "but not for the reasons you may think. They loved each other, they loved their work, and they loved you. But Turo...he had difficulties."

"What, difficulties being a husband and father? In case you haven't noticed, Mom isn't that great at being a mom."

"Difficulties with reality."

Arven fell silent, eyes wide. "You're saying my dad's not a deadbeat, he's just nuts?"

"Well, you know," Florian mumbled. "Apples and trees and all that..."

Florian was ignored, as Clavell was trying to find the words to answer the question and Arven was rethinking everything he thought he knew about his life.

"It's difficult to say," Clavell said after a while. "I've been visiting him for a few years now and he's still capable of coherent thought, but insisting for fifteen years straight that your wife built a world-ending device and programmed the toaster to laugh at you does not point strongly to sanity...and the fact that his panic attacks occasionally led to violence didn't help his case. He never hurt you or your mother, but to prevent it from happening his own lawyer had him committed before the custody hearing began."

"Was that legal?" Arven asked.

"I don't know. You'd think we would have explored that loophole by now." Clavell handed him a card with an address. "This is the institution he's been in for the last fifteen years. You may visit him if you wish. They have him on strong anxiety medication - he hasn't karate chopped anyone in years."

"But you knew the whole time?"

"It was his idea to keep it hidden." Clavell went from 'serious' to 'sad' in an instant. "I can't claim to understand what your father says and does in his current state. Truth be told, I never could. But he does ask about you every time I go to visit. I like to think that it means he loves you."

"What have you been telling him?"

"The truth."

"Yikes." Arven stared at the card, even as he got up and left the director's office. Florian followed him.

"So," he said awkwardly, "I had my questions answered. Thanks for that."

Arven remained silent for a minute longer. Then, finally, he found his voice.

"It's a lot to take in, Florian," he said, barely more than a mumble. He handed him the card. "Here. I got you the story. Now you can tell the world what happened to Professor Turo."

"Arven, that's your father. Don't you want to see him?"

"I've seen his picture before."

"He might want to see you."

"He might think I'm a talking head of cabbage." Arven shook his head. "I'm not ready to deal with that."

"Clavell said he had mostly coherent thoughts. He might call you Steve, but he'll probably recognize you as his son."

Arven went quiet again. "I spent most of my life thinking he was just some jerk who cared more about himself than me and Mom. She might love her work more than she loves me, but at least she gave me some memories."

"And your dad might not be the picture of mental health, but who is?" Florian shrugged. "I come from a nuclear family, so I don't really get it. But if it were me...I'd like to at least see if my dad was someone I'd want to know before turning my back on him."

Arven didn't reply at all to that, but Florian did see him put the card in his pocket.

Juliana was lost, again. She was following her Fidough down the hall, but it turned out that the Pokémon didn't know much about where to go, either.

But at least they found Florian.

"Do you want to battle?" she asked when she noticed he seemed down. "Or is it something that a battle alone can't fix?"

"You sound like Nemona."

"Nemona wouldn't say the last thing," she said at once. She sat down next to him. "I did just battle her, though. I won. Fletchling evolved. I figured I could train some Pokémon that I don't use often."

She gestured at Fidough to make her point. Florian looked down and smiled a bit.

"I did promise Arven that I'd take on the first round of the next Titan alone," he agreed. "All right. I'll battle you."

She wondered why he'd make such a promise, but she was intelligent when she was observant and figured it had something to do with what he was thinking about. So she led with her Fidough, while he led with his Sprigatito.

And when Lloyd finally evolved, he thanked her for the distraction.

TEAMS

Juliana: Webby (Quaxwell, female) Lechonk (male) Tarountula (male) Fletchinder (female) Tinkatink (female) Hoppip (male)

Juliana's reserves: Fidough (female) Pawmi (male) Igglybuff (female) Minecraft (Nacli, male) Spoink (female) Azurill (female) Staravia (female)

Florian: Lloyd (Floragato, male) Ralts (female)