Taylor's Pokemon Refresh

Taylor had noticed that near enough any time they had downtime and Mumble was out of his ball, the little guy seemed to default to collecting pretty, shiny pebbles. It was a cute, harmless behaviour and Taylor wondered if it was a reference to Adelie and Gentoo penguins. Either way, she had no problem with the little guy’s favourite choice of activity and saw no reason to discourage it.

Now having entered the pokemon refresh area, she released the little water-type from his pokeball and crouched down to speak to him. Her attempt was interrupted by the tiny penguin launching himself at her face, flippers akimbo in a sloppy approximation of a hug.

“Aww,” she laughed, returning the embrace, doing her best to ignore the faint, ever-present fishy odour he gave off at all times. “Hi buddy!” Lowering herself to sit on the ground, she grinned as he squirmed his way into her lap.

“Hey, so I was thinking,” she whispered conspiratorially once they were settled, happy to see him catch on and tilt his face towards her expectantly. Wide, wide eyes betrayed his excitement to hear this secret or idea. “I could really use some really, really nice pebbles, and I noticed there are a lot around here.” She bit back a giggle at the way the feathers along the Piplup’s spine rose and fluffed up in barely contained excitement. “But the thing is, I’ve got a really rubbish eye for them. I was thinking, would you mind helping me find the very, very best ones?”

<Yes! Yes yes yes! Mumble can help!> The little guy crowed, scrambling off her lap and bouncing on the spot. The way he flapped as he hopped damn near made it look as though he might miraculously achieve flight! <Mumble is great at finding the best pebbles! Come human, come!> Mumble was apparently also speaking about himself in third person now, too.

With that, the Piplup seized Taylor’s hand in his flipper, towing her in the direction of the very best pebbles with such speed that she damn near faceplanted in them.

The recent experience in the Everworld and then the questionably wise expedition into the Mistra Corruption Zone had both been rather overwhelming. Now that a few hours had past since both, she was at least a little calmer, but still, if asked Taylor might admit that she’d like some time to relax! So it was that she found herself back here, in the Pokemon refresh zone, holding Vixey’s Pokeball.

Settling herself onto the ground, she released the Vulpix from her ball and squinted in the flash of white light that lit up the area for a moment. Once she could see again, she found the small fox sitting a foot or so away, head cocked curiously in her direction.

<Who are you?> Came the melodic little voice. <How did I get here?> She sounded puzzled, but not distressed, at least.

“Hi!” Taylor beamed, offering a hand for the vulpine pokemon to sniff, if she pleased. “I’m Taylor. I’m not sure if you remember, but you were in the Everworld and I came and did a trial to get you out.” That was… a weird sentence, but she couldn’t think of any better way to put it. “I thought we might make a good team, along with my other Pokemon. Would you like to meet them?”

Vixey was silent for a moment, blinking and processing the news. She… didn’t remember anything from before the Everworld, and that was more than a little disconcerting and she didn’t know quite how to feel about it. After a beat she nodded hesitantly.

<Yes, please. I would like to meet them.>

Taylor had had Archimedes for a while now, but they hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know each other just yet. The little bird had been rather leery of accepting that he’d really been caught, given that no Pokeball was ever really thrown.

“Look, we had to get out of there, and you certainly weren’t in any condition to fly!” She insisted now, sat cross-legged on the ground before the obstinate little bird. “I wasn’t trying to bird-nap you, it just sort of happened!” Hmm… That had sounded much more convincing in her head.

<Yes, well,> The Rufflet huffed, shaking out his feathers disgruntledly. <I don’t appreciate the subterfuge.> With another little huff, he set about preening his feathers – they never had quite laid right since that day.

“Subter-“ Taylor sputtered. “Archie, I don’t even know how to spell subterfuge, little dude!” She truly seemed quite offended by the accusartion. “Look, you were being mobbed by an angry flock for some reason,” he had yet to actually explain why. “And it didn’t seem right. There was NO WAY we were winning that fight, so what would you have had me do? Should I have left you there?!”

<I just think you should have been honest about it from the outset.>

Taylor’s incoherent scream of frustration could probably be heard from miles around. It was far too easy to fuck with her.