STARTER LAB: ALPHARD

He knew his partner was… well, somewhere already in this world but it was his first time going through the motions ever since the WorldScreen had been delivered to their place. He was nervous, okay?!

He knew that the other was already somewhere waiting for him in the game, and now it would all depend on how fast (or how slow) he would take by going to the Starter Lab to pick up his… okay, he’d also spent an inordinate amount of time discussing with him which one he should go with…

Maybe the one that looked like a gecko would be nice? Though there was one that evolved into a snake that looked just as nice. All regal, too.

He could only stare at the barely human form that had glowing eyes speaking his way—yes, the blob was communicating in human speech, he was definitely not seeing or hearing things—before he realized, it really was time to rip the bandage off and get through it.

“Okay, fire away, I guess?” he would begin with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

(The way the blob spoke with the –nya prefix was weird. Didn’t his partner mention that the person who handed out Pokémon was supposed to be someone who had black hair?)

please go easy on him, is bb’s first time

Why did this feel like a practice interview for a major television—wait. Wait, wait, hold up, he could use this to his advantage! There was the faintest hint of a grin on his face when he went over the questions, though one of them hit a little too close to home.

So let’s see how much he can get away with, without revealing too much.

“Well, natural talent for maybe driving my siblings crazy, does that count? I am the youngest of us three, so I do have some kind of right to drive them up the wall! But… if we’re going to talk about actual talent? Well, does ‘becoming another person’ count? I mean—like, when you’re in front of the camera and all that.”

It was like there was a camera in the vicinity; he would turn to face… the general direction of where he felt like he was being watched, or something? Like a third-person, top-down view. He would face where the approximate view of the ‘lens’ was, give this completely disarming grin, before getting back to the rest of the questions like it was just another day in the park.

“Well, working in the business, you tend to have acquaintances more often than not. It takes a lot to upgrade from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘friend’, you know. I do have some, just that… everyone’s busy, right? It’s not like we’re available all the time to always talk about random things! We can be friends even without seeing each other for a very long time!”

Smooth, Clau—Alphard. Real smooth, there.

Ah, and the last question, he let out a noise that sounded like the world’s biggest cat making a pleased purr.

“Spending time with my partner. Just being lazy on the couch, making plans for the next week. Whenever we get hungry, he’s the one who takes command of the kitchen—I’ll let you in on a secret: I can’t cook.”

He would let out an airy laugh, wondering what was going to happen next.

crashing right through the interview