When the light subsides, he opens his eyes to a new setting.

It’s a lot more cramped than he’d been expecting. Cloth hangs far too close to the top of his head—the tent ceiling, he realizes. Light seeps through the polyester, diffusing and bathing the interior with midday warmth. All around him are strange implements vaguely reminding him of lab equipment from sci-fi films. He curiously picks one up and feels the cold glass of a beaker in his palm. His eyes trail down and see his legs, both upright and working.

The sound of a woman’s voice drags his gaze away from his tactile study. She stands behind the desk with a pressed lab coat and waves of grey hair, talking in a way that reminds him of the suits he sometimes dealt with outside of his matches. Outspoken and authoritative.

He gives the poster of unfamiliar creatures only a passing glance before settling back on the professor. He moves forwards, not giving much input on the explanation save for a vague bobbing of his head.

He stops behind the seat she offers as she finishes describing the interview as a game.

“Uh-huh, yeah, yeah... You aren’t real, are you?” It’s hard to tell. He’s not the most tech-oriented person, but logically-speaking, they wouldn’t assign anyone important to the role of welcoming new players when they’re coming in droves.

But it’s incredibly impressive—how real she looks. They’ve managed to mimic glass perfectly. If he reached out, he could probably touch her.

“Go long.” He lobs the beaker at the professor with full force.

Clink goes the beaker instead of the lovely crash he’d been expecting. His brows rise at the sight of spectral fingers sticking out of stone slabs, looking vaguely like hands. His eyes follow it as it floats there, anticipating his next move.

Kazuki’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Nice reaction time. The creature, at least.” He’s disappointed not to see how the professor defends herself, though it had answered the question he posed. He’s not the first—nor will be the last—player to try and attack her.

Her voice drones onward as he starts stepping past the chair, eyes set on the table. He’s rounding it, inching towards a spot behind the lady as if it’ll allow him to peek at the creature—the ‘Runerigus’.

“Athletics are good for you, Prof,” he hums. “You can’t always rely on others to defend you.”

He does stop before he draws close enough to raise suspicions of physical assault. And to hammer it in, he crosses his arms, tattooed serpent moving from one bicep to the other. “Do what you want. But tell me about that thing in your desk. Does it fight?”

He wonders if he should throw something else. See how far he can make a mess of this place before the game intervenes; he’s not sure how Pokemon works, but maybe he can challenge the abomination personally.

He listens and takes his own mental notes. So the professor has a team of ‘Runerigus’ or similar creatures—and the comment about being hardly a threat insinuates this is the game’s norm.

His mouth curls with displeasure. “So that’s how it works? People here hide behind random critters to survive?” He wonders if he has to return the game already. What’s the point of Pokemon if you can’t piledriver them?

But he does play along. The options after this game in terms of burning time are scant, and he’d quite frankly prefer eating lead over watching whatever is considered to be midday TV shows.

The professor goes about the rest of her tasks briskly, returning to him with a small metallic ball. The label on the tape reads, ‘Sprigatito’—which for Kazuki means gibberish.

“This,” he says, eyes dragging back to the professor with clear impatience, “had better be a dog.”

His hand clenches around the ball as if threatening whatever is inside it to be worth his while.

“Is that all, prof? If I can’t fight your desk monster, I’d rather fuck off already.”