In which Brassius temporarily becomes a teacher.

After being freed from the locker, eating half a delicious candy bar, and taking a quick bathroom break, Juliana was ready to attempt languages class. She was confident enough in her English and Spanish to pass whatever test Salvatore would give her.

Then she walked into the room to see him with a Pikachu sitting on his desk.

"Good morning, students!" Mr. Salvatore was smiling, so Juliana hadn't annoyed him too much yet. "While some of you required taking the midterm more than once -"

"Cuatro," Juliana chirped, getting a laugh from the rest of the class and a disappointed sound from the teacher.

"And, yes, there was a student who had to take it cuatro times, I just didn't want to embarrass her in front of the class." He got back on track quickly. "Today will be taking on a new language entirely - the language of Pokémon."

Juliana felt Webby's ball twitch, and she placed a hand on it to calm the Quaquaval inside. She was sure Webby had a lot to say - she wasn't the only one of the pair who had eaten grass just to see what it tasted like - but she wasn't sure she wanted to know what was going through her partner's head.

Salvatore turned to Pikachu. "If you will, Pikachu?"

Pikachu nodded and straightened up. "Piggah!"

Salvatore smiled again. "Well, then! Can anyone tell me what emotion Pikachu was feeling?"

The whole class fell silent. They were all focused on facial cues, and Pikachu hadn't given them any. "Can you do it again, Pikachu?" Juliana asked, and Pikachu nodded.

"Piggah!"

No obvious body language, either. That was how she understood Webby and Koraidon. "Can you do it again?"

"Piggah!"

"Again."

On the fifth time, Pikachu clenched his tiny fists and spoke louder. "Piggah!"

Juliana nodded, finally getting it. "He's angry," she announced, and Salvatore suppressed another disappointed sound.

"Correct," he stated, "but barely above a fail."

"But it was right!" Juliana protested.

"But this was a test of listening comprehension," Salvatore pointed out. "And you provoked him."

Juliana squirmed a little in her seat, but comforted herself with the fact that she hadn't completely failed.

Hassel was happy to see all of them. Arven had shown up again, and Penny had come to class instead of turning in anime fanart and calling it her assignment. Hassel announced that they'd all passed his midterms, and Juliana tuned him out as she wondered what assignments they'd be doing now that they had 'unlocked' more difficult art lessons.

Then her jaw dropped as Gym Leader Brassius entered the art room. She'd known he was an artist, but she didn't think that he was actually willing to put up with students who were just there to get credit.

His gray eyes met her brown, and his small smile told her all she needed to know. He was here as a favor to Hassel.

Well, that certainly makes things interesting...

She jolted back to attention when Brassius spoke, completely missing Hassel's introduction.

"I do see some familiar faces," he said, as if he was answering a question. His eyes wandered to Juliana again, then to Florian. "Some of them familiar despite not challenging me themselves. I had no idea Paldea was full of such..." he hesitated. "Aspiration," he finished, noticing the very clear lack of talent some of the students had.

Hassel noticed. "Be nice, Brassie," he warned, to the guest's theatrical eye roll and reluctant smile. "You said you had a story behind Surrendering Sunflora."

"Two of them," Brassius corrected, the smile fading. "One much easier to tell than the other."

"So start with that one," Hassel suggested.

Brassius shook his head. "No, Hass. It makes much more sense to save it for last. You were there for the second story, after all." He returned his attention to the class. "Take this man seriously, my dear students. He saved my life."

Juliana's mouth fell open again, her stimming grinding to a halt. This is more than interesting now. I didn't know teachers had lives...

"There was a time," Brassius began, now avoiding looking at the other humans directly, "where I was at my wit's end. That was the source of Surrendering Sunflora."

He said it like that was the end of the story.

"Go on," Hassel instructed.

"It was, as we say, a creator breakdown. I'd made several bad decisions, I fell deathly ill, the person I'd thought was the love of my life found success in writing and left me. To top it off, my hair fell out and grew back like this." He pointed to his head, getting a laugh from several younger students. "I had it in my head that art was the only thing I was any good at, and even there, I was failing. I did what I wanted in my art, nothing sold. I focused on what would sell, chose to chase my dream as my love had done...still, nothing. All of that combined led to the creation of the sculpture known as the Surrendering Sunflora."

The class was quiet. Even Hassel was stunned speechless, staring at Brassius as though he'd never heard it before. Brassius took notice and nodded in his direction.

"Of course, that was when Hass found me. I'll spare you the details - most of which I've forgotten myself - but he dragged me out of the gutter and promoted the sculpture. I don't know how he did it. I suspect threats may have been involved." Brassius smiled, then, a wide smile that unnerved many of the students. "It worked. Suddenly the mayor himself asked me to put them up across Artazon." He chuckled. "Be careful what you wish for. I don't know how I would have survived without Hassel here suggesting I think of odd spaces to put them - hence the one on top of the Pokémon center. He's been a guardian angel and a pain in the Hass ever since."

Brassius seemed to find his own joke amusing, but the same could not be said for the teacher, who had started sniffling and then fully crying. "Brassie..." he choked out between sobs. "You...you neber...told be..."

Brassius looked at the students once more, silently telling them it was because he knew he'd act like this, before awkwardly patting the other man's shoulder. "I don't remember most of it myself," he reminded him. "And such a thing is difficult to talk about, even with someone close to you. Now why don't you dismiss your class to get a hold of yourself?"

He spoke gently, like one would with an injured Pokémon. Hassel sniffled and waved a hand.

"Class disbissed," he choked, before sobbing once more, leaving Brassius of all people to attempt to calm him down.

"We still have time, though," Florian pointed out.

"How much?" Brassius asked.

"Forty minutes."

Brassius thought for a moment. "Go get some ice cream," he decided. "And if anyone asks, tell them Hass sent you on a field trip."

"Ice cream!" a bunch of students cheered, and they ran to the door, ignoring their sniffling teacher.

"Just when it was getting good..." Juliana heard Penny sigh as they left.

She wondered what that was supposed to mean, but didn't ask. It's not like they were friends yet.

"Greetings, students. Whatever you did yesterday, it is now part of history."

Juliana didn't process what came after that, but Florian did. Naturally, he raised his hand as soon as the teacher asked who had heard the story of the Four Ruinous Treasures.

"Anyone?" Raifort asked, looking around at her students. "Preferably someone who doesn't do all the talking in class?"

Ignoring Florian, Raifort began the story.

"It's a fairy tale passed down through generations here in Paldea. In summary: 'Once upon a time, there lived a king who loved collecting treasures. A merchant from the East heard of this king, and brought him four to choose from. The king showered the merchant with gold and took all four treasures for himself. That night, a terrible curse fell on the king's castle, reducing it to rubble by dawn." She looked around, and called one student out. "Miss Juliana?"

Juliana jumped to attention. "Yes, Ms. Raifort?"

"What stands out about this story?"

"Um..." Juliana tapped her notebook with her eraser. "Greed can lead to ruin?"

"I suppose," Raifort agreed, "but what else?"

"Never buy things from the back of a van?" Florian suggested.

"Let your friend answer, Master Florian."

"Never buy things from the back of a van," Juliana repeated.

"Plagiarism, Miss Juliana." Raifort shook her head, but the bell rang before she could continue the summary. "If anyone wants to know how the story ends, come visit me after class."

Florian debated taking her up on that offer. Then he remembered that he'd promised Arven that he'd go hunt down the last Titan, and reassured himself that he knew the end of the story anyway.

"The king hired Pokémon wielders to lock the treasures away," he told Juliana as they gathered their things. "It's said that they're still somewhere here in Paldea, sealed for centuries."

As Raifort watched them go, she took special note of this boy. She'd suspected he would be useful before, but now she was certain of it.

The same five students were on the same team once again. Juliana was starting to suspect Saguaro did this on purpose to keep an eye on all of them at once.

This time, the recipe was simple chocolate chip cookies. Nemona was trusted to use the dough scooper to drop them on the tray. Arven was supervising the team again, and Juliana had decided to help out.

"Don't oversalt the cookies," Arven warned her, and she stuck out her tongue like a child.

"That happened once, in soup! I know that baking is an exact science!"

She did oversalt, slightly - a few extra pieces of salt fell over the edge of the measuring spoon. Figuring that wouldn't matter much, she dumped it in, making deliberate eye contact with Arven as she put the salt down.

"How many chocolate chips for two dozen cookies?" Penny asked, genuinely unsure.

"Half a bag," Juliana answered before Arven could.

"The directions say -" he started, but Juliana interrupted.

"This is a lot like the recipe I use when I want chocolate chip cookies. I use half a bag. Half a bag of chocolate chips, Penny."

"And why do we have to wait so long for them to bake?" asked Nemona. "Can't we just double the heat and cut the cooking time?"

"Scoopers don't get to change the recipe," said Arven.

Nemona looked to Juliana for help, but Juliana shook her head. "No, he's right. We can't do that."

"Why not?" asked Penny, before another burst of fire distracted all of them.

This time, Florian looked embarrassed. "I thought Nemona had a good idea," he admitted as Saguaro helped him put it out.

Saguaro didn't scold Arven for putting his teammate in a dunce cap this time. Florian didn't protest, either, just grumbled to himself about not going to the lake.

"You two," said Saguaro, pointing out Arven and Juliana. "You're passing this class, somehow. Why didn't you stop him?"

"We were dealing with them," Juliana protested, gesturing to the other girls.

"Nemona gave him the idea," Arven said at the same time.

Juliana nudged him to shut him up.

She needed to work on befriending Arven, too. Then she could arrange a meeting between him and Nemona to see if it was at all possible that they could be friends.

And if not, she needed to seriously rethink shipping real people. Though she should probably reconsider that anyway.