"Morning." I said as soon as I reached the lobby with my plate in hand. I had really enjoyed those pancakes.
Lida was genuinely a good cook… I would love it if she made breakfast for me every morning.
"That will be a morning to you, Paxton." AZ said.
He was standing this time and still reading that book of his… I looked at the cover again out of habit but the text meant to show the title had been worn completely off. Whatever it was, it had to be old.
"Flo~"
Floette spun around me the moment I cleared the bottom step and I smiled at the Pokémon.
"Good morning Floette."
"Rara~"
"Fletch~"
I had let Fletchling out of her Pokéball before coming downstairs… everybody needed to stretch in the morning after all and she had immediately claimed my shoulder as her perch.
Honestly I needed more Pokémon on my team.
I had Ralts and Fletchling doing most of the heavy lifting in battles with Bunnelby, Scatterbug, Weedle and Mareep sitting in reserve.
I'd have to visit more Wild Zones when I got the chance and I also hadn't opened Mable's research app yet to check my pending tasks but that could wait until later.
Lida came out of the kitchen and quickly took the plate out of my hand before I could set it down myself.
"Did you enjoy it?" She looked up at my face warmly and I smiled while nodding.
"It was amazing." I said. "I'd like it if you made breakfast for me every morning."
Her cheeks went pink and she took the plate from my hand, turning around quickly.
Such is the power of a new haircut.
"S-sure…" She said and scurried back into the kitchen. I wandered over to the dining table and found the morning already lively on this side.
"Naveen, do you think I should try out this recipe?" Taunie was asking while looking at something on her Rotomphone with her hair down for once, the bisque waves of it falling past her shoulders.
Félix was sitting next to her with pink cheeks and a dreamy expression.
"What do you want to do with that? Turn it into another witch's brew?" Naveen said while folding his hands and looking at her. "I think we should just let Lida handle all of the cooking. You couldn't cook a proper dish to save your life. I wonder how you'll ever get married like this."
"What?" Taunie giggled and pressed a hand against her chest with theatrical offense. "I could get married, you know. Like right now."
She turned and faced me.
I was taken aback alongside Félix and I wasn't going to pretend I wasn't… With her hair up she looked cute.
With it down she looked like a completely different person and that person was significantly more dangerous.
"Pax, would you marry me even if I can't cook?" She asked.
Félix stood up next to her.
"Taunie, I'd marry you without hesitation." He said, straightening up. "I'd even cook and clean for you every day—"
Naveen and I face-palmed at the exact same time. I heard the synchronized slap of both palms hitting foreheads.
I get it, Taunie was attractive, but Félix had been here longer than me and still hadn't cleared Rank Z. Couldn't he channel even a fraction of that energy into his battle strategy?
Taunie gave him a smile that was kind without being encouraging.
"I know you would, Félix." She said.
The young man sat back down and hid his face in his hand. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.
"Well Tawn, if I did…" I said, settling into my chair. "Then both of us would starve to death."
Taunie and Naveen both laughed. I was fairly sure I could cook but I just hadn't gotten into the kitchen here yet.
"Yo, my man!"
Naveen and I dapped across the table.
Setting aside his habit of watching Canari's streams which was understandable, the glimpse I'd caught of her yesterday confirmed she was a very attractive woman… Naveen and I had a natural understanding between us. Neither of us was going to allow the Simp ruin our time in the hotel and that counted for a lot
"Yo."
We nodded at each other and Taunie raised an eyebrow at the transaction.
"Right… Alright Pax, I'll be borrowing you today." She said, standing up and swaying her hair once casually. "I promised Emma I'd bring you along to Looker's Bureau so let's go. But before that…"
She put both hands on her hips. "You like?"
"I think it makes you look prettier." I said.
Her cheeks heated up a bit and she looked off to the side briefly.
"Well, I was tired of leaving it up all the time and since all of you seem to feel the same way about it, I'll leave it like this for today." She said, and then reached forward and grabbed my hand with decisiveness. "Come on, I want to show you something."
"Sure."
She dragged me back into the lobby and waved at AZ and Floette.
"AZ, we'll be off now!"
"Alright, good luck." He gave a nod. Floette, however, let out a cry before we reached the door, stopping Taunie mid-step.
"Floette~"
She hovered over to me and then turned back to AZ, hovering in place with her black flower held in both hands.
"Flo~"
"Floette, you want to come along with us?" Taunie asked.
Floette nodded.
I watched AZ's expression shift for the briefest moment before he sighed and smiled instead.
"Well then, my dear Floette." He said. "If you want to go with them, then you can."
Floette let out a happy cry and the three of us went outside, the door closing behind us. Fletchling shifted on my shoulder and Ralts adjusted her grip on my hair from up top.
There were people standing just outside on the pavement… they looked like construction workers in yellow helmets and matching high-visibility vests.
"Why hello." One of them said, stepping forward. "We were wondering who was living here."
"Morning to you guys. I think I've helped you out before." Taunie said with a smile. "I'm glad to see that back is working nicely."
"Ah Taunie, that's you?" He said with a warm smile. "You look a bit different with your hair down. And thanks to the massage you gave, my back's feeling a lot better. Anyway we came here to announce a new contest."
"Contest?"
"Flo?"
"Why yes, a contest." A different voice said as a man stepped forward from among the workers. He was a broad man with arms like someone who actually used the equipment he managed.
He had a square face and a sun-worn look on his face with a yellow helmet and a long white beard that had a band on it.
"Well if it isn't Taunie." He said with approval. "You look quite dashing with your hair down like that."
"Thanks, Tarragon." She said while twirling one strand of it. "But what contest is Daniel talking about?"
There were an awful lot of people who knew Taunie in this city and apparently every single one of them felt the need to comment on her hair. I was beginning to feel like my own complement had lost out.
"Oh, it's just a little thing." Tarragon said, folding his arms with satisfaction. "All around the city are new scaffoldings that we just finished setting up. On these scaffoldings are objects called Colorful Screws… you can gather them and bring them to the Racine Construction building to exchange for prizes."
I thought Paxton was an unusual name but Tarragon was just overdoing it entirely.
"So these prizes, what are they?" I asked.
"These." He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and produced a plushie.
It was small and round and soft looking, made in shades of deep yellow and orange, shaped to resemble a girl with twin tails and a small headset, holding what looked like a controller.
The craftsmanship was good and the face had been stitched with a cheerful expression. It was clearly Canari, or at least the simplified chibi version of her that showed up on merchandise.
"This is a Red Canari Plush." Tarragon said warmly. "Just keeping it in your bag increases the amount of experience points your Pokémon receive in battle."
I looked at it.
"How can we clarify that? How does a plushie increase the XP of a Pokémon? What's the mechanism?"
Tarragon's eye twitched.
"Because it was manufactured like that." He said.
That didn't answer my question but before I could press him further he just put it in Taunie's free hand, turned on his heel, and walked off down the street with his worker following.
"I'll see you later, Taunie!"
"Later, Tarragon!"
He turned right and disappeared around the corner and Taunie exhaled.
"He's a real nice guy, huh?" She gripped my hand and looked at the Canari Plush in her other palm. "I have no doubt that this works… but I don't really want to walk around holding a plushie of Canari."
Just then Naveen came out of the hotel wearing a completely different set of clothes… he had a light jacket with practical shoes and a bag over one shoulder, he looked like he was going exploring.
"Oh, you both are still here as well." He said, coming down the steps.
"Yeah, we just got this plu—"
I swear Naveen closed the remaining distance between us in under a second and the Canari Plush was in his hand before I finished the sentence.
"A Limited-Edition Red Canari Plush?!" He held it up with both hands, turning it in the light. "Canari announced that the Colorful Screw distributions were starting today. We can bring them to the Racine Construction building to exchange them. And this…" He looked at the plush with reverence. "This is one of the prizes."
At the end of the day, Félix and Naveen were not that different from each other.
The only meaningful distinction was that Naveen would probably be able to hold himself together if he ever actually met Canari. Félix in the same room as Taunie is always completely fried.
"You can keep it." Taunie said with a giggle.
"Alright then." He straightened immediately and tucked the plush under his arm with dignity.
"Taunie… Paxton… I'm off to hunt Colorful Screws." He said, and jogged off in the same direction Tarragon had gone.
"Time for us to go." Taunie said, and instead of heading toward the front of Hotel Z she pulled me around the right side of the building.
The path here was narrower with a thin strip of pavement running between the hotel wall and the edge of the road, and at the end of it was a metal ladder bolted to the hotel's exterior wall climbing upward toward the rooftop.
At the base of the ladder, clustered around the bottom rungs like something growing, were crystals that were pink-tinted and a bit luminescent in the morning light with each shard pressed against the next in a tight uneven cluster.
They were bigger up close than I expected and almost knee height on the largest pieces.
"Now, you see these." Taunie said, nodding at the crystals. "They're called Mega Crystals. You find them all over the city… usually around structures and along walls. They're connected to Mega Evolution somehow. They can be broken by having your Pokémon use any move against them. You don't even need a strong one since the crystals break easily."
She paused. "Or I suppose you could hit one with a shovel. Floette, could you help us out?"
Floette drifted forward with her black flower held steady with both hands.
The vines from the flower extended outward and whipped clean through the crystal cluster. The shards exploded apart and scattered across the pavement in a chiming rain of pale pink fragments, each one catching the morning light as it fell.
The ladder was clear.
"If you destroy Mega Crystals, they give Mega Shards and you can collect those." Taunie said as I crouched and began gathering the fragments off the ground. "I think Quasartico said they'd soon be setting up a place for trainers to bring the shards and trade them in, so they're worth keeping."
Fletchling and even Floette helped gather them from around my feet, picking up the smaller pieces and dropping them into my open bag with concentrated effort.
Fletchling in particular seemed to be treating it as a competitive activity.
"Thanks, you two." I smiled at them and they let out their respective cries.
"Alright, off to the rooftops." Taunie said, placing both hands on the ladder rungs. "Follow me."
She started climbing and I followed, Fletchling and Floette lifting off and floating upward alongside.
The ladder was solid with no give in it as it was connected directly to the hotel wall.
We cleared the first level quickly and reached the top of the ladder which opened onto a rooftop that was entirely different from the one the elevator accessed. It was enclosed on two sides by the hotel wall rising above it and the exterior of the adjacent building.
The surface was flat clay tile and the walls framing it on either side made it feel like a corridor rather than a rooftop proper.
Taunie didn't wait… She ran forward, dropped off the far edge, and landed on the next building below confidently as her hair swung around from the impact.
I looked over the edge.
It wasn't a catastrophic drop since the building she'd landed on was one story below with its rooftop wide and flat but the gap between the walls required a committed jump rather than a step.
"Come on Pax, don't be a Magikarp!" She called to me while waving.
Fletchling and Floette had already floated down to meet her and were waving at me as well, Floette with her free hand and Fletchling with one wing.
I jumped, landed clean on the tiles, and the impact traveled up through my knees as expected though it was not painful
"Good." Taunie said with a nod. "See? Easy."
The new rooftop was wider, with a low railing running the far perimeter.
On the left side, scaffolding rose from below street level all the way up past where we were standing… with metal pipes and platforms with what looked like Colorful Screws glinting on some of the horizontal struts.
On the right, more of the city stretched out in the mid-morning light though Taunie was already moving again.
"Come on Pax, over the bridge." She said.
Ahead was a narrow metal catwalk and it was connecting our rooftop to the one across the gap.
The far rooftop was green-roofed with wide overlapping tiles and it looked really cool though.
I crossed the catwalk steadily and landed on the other side.
Between the rooftops on this stretch there were Mega Crystal clusters growing in the gaps and along the low walls but I ignored them since Taunie was already up ahead again… standing at the top of a short staircase built into the roofline with both hands on her waist.
She was really bullying me here.
"Hurry up, you're as slow as the Slowpoke from yesterday." She stuck out her tongue.
My eye twitched and I climbed the stairs.
"Pax, I'm sure you've seen Prism Tower before." She said as I reached her. "Everyone can see it from anywhere in the city. But right here…"
She pointed to the right and I looked.
Prism Tower stood in the middle distance, exactly where it always was, rising above every roofline in the city as the clear geometric center of everything.
Up here without the buildings blocking it, it really looked amazing.
The structure was white in the morning light and it had a broad base through rising sections to a single point at the top.
The windows ran in vertical columns and were blue-tinted though each one was cross-framed in a pattern that repeated all the way up the face of the building.
"It sits right at the center of Lumiose." Taunie said. "With the city forming a big circle around it."
She tilted her head to me. "Nice spot for a rooftop date, huh?"
I looked at her.
"Are we on a date?"
She laughed.
"No silly. Anyway, let's get across these rooftops and head for the tower." She said and took off again immediately, cutting back across the rooftop and heading left toward the next drop.
"Hm." I followed at a jog,
We crossed the next section of rooftop and the tile color changed from green to a pale grey here, wider, with ventilation stacks rising at intervals and then I reached the railing at the far edge.
I looked around and I couldn't find her but I soon saw her and from this height she was small enough that I had to look twice to confirm it was Taunie.
On the street below her and slightly beyond, I could see the green-lit threshold of Wild Zone 2.
"Heyyy, this way!" She waved. "Come on, jump on down! It'll make sense, I promise! Don't worry, it'll be fine!"
I gave her the stink eye from two stories up.
"Are you trying to convince me to commit suicide?!" I called back.
Floette and Fletchling had already floated down to meet her and they were waving at me too and even Ralts was leaning forward from the top of my head to look over the edge with mild curiosity. "Ralts, are you hearing this?"
"Come on Pax, you have to be brave and take a leap of faith! You're the man between the both of us and I did it so you should be able to as well!"
"I'm a boy and I value my life!" I took a step back from the edge. "I'll go back down and take the front route—"
My foot caught the uneven tile I hadn't noticed behind me and My body came off the rooftop in a blur… I had time to grab Ralts from my head and tuck her against my chest and then I was just falling.
My Rotomphone suddenly came out of my pocket on its own and it entered my outstretched free hand as something deployed from it and the fall slowed.
We came down the rest of the way at the speed of a careful jump and touched the ground standing.
"Bzzt… Safe Landing Mode activated. Sudden fall has been detected and averted. You're welcome."
I stood there for a second.
"Whatcha think?" Taunie said, placing a hand on her waist. "Surprised?"
I exhaled slowly.
"More like afraid for my life." I said.
"Hehe." She smiled with no apology in it whatsoever. "I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I would have caught you if something went wrong."
I don't know why but the thought of being caught by Taunie specifically was somehow more alarming than the fall itself.
"Anyway, as long as you have your Rotomphone, you can jump from any height and you'll be fine." She said. "That's Wild Zone 2 right there. You can catch more Pokémon there if you find anything that interests you later."
She took hold of my hand again.
"Now come on. There's a place I wanted to show you. The whole reason I took the rooftops."
She pulled me forward and I followed with Fletchling returning to my shoulder, Floette drifting alongside us at eye level.
…
"Is that… a… a…" I stuttered.
We were currently standing at what Taunie had called the Nouveau Café which was a food truck set up on Vert Street directly adjacent to Centrico Plaza with its service window open to the morning but I was considerably more focused on the Pokémon standing to one side of it.
A Charizard.
An actual fucking Charizard…
It was standing there as if this were completely normal with its tail flame burning steadily in the morning air. It had to be the café's mascot…
"Charizard, yes." Taunie confirmed, already moving past it. "So you love Charizard, huh? I see. Anyway, let's go."
She pulled my hand and forcibly redirected my entire attention toward the truck.
The Nouveau Café was a proper café setup for a food truck with clean lines, a serving counter at window height and tables arranged at the lot where customers could sit down.
The truck itself was painted in a steel color, and on the side of it was the logo and it looked cool, I think I could see some kind of N but all this for a Café?
There were two servers with one in the truck and the other standing outside next to the service window, the one inside was a man and the woman was outside but they had similar whitish-red hair.
"Welcome to Nouveau Café." The woman said with a small curtsy. "Taunie, welcome again. Why don't both of you sit down? I'll bring the menu over to your table."
Taunie did exactly as she said, pulling me to a table not too far away from us. We took a seat and Fletchling sat on the table while Floette floated next to me.
"I don't think Pokémon can actually drink coffee." Taunie said, reaching into her bag. "But I have berries."
She produced a considerably larger pack than the one I'd bought at the market with Oran and Sitrus berries mixed together. "I had to sort through everything I had from helping people this week but there should be enough."
She distributed them… giving some to Floette, some to Fletchling, and even handed me a portion for Ralts. By the time we'd got everyone settled the woman was back at the table with the menu extended toward me.
"I expect you'll have the Ember Roast as usual, right Taunie?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Alright. And what will you be having, new guy?" She held the card up.
I looked at the list.
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
[NOUVEAU CAFÉ MENU]
[COFFEE]
[Ember Roast ......… ₽100]
[Flamethrower Roast ...... ₽150]
[Fire Blast Roast ...... ₽200]
[Burn Up Roast ...... ₽250]
[TODAY'S SPECIAL]
[Creamy Charizard ...... ₽180]
[Topped with steamed milk foam and a dusting of cinnamon. Inspired by our café mascot.]
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
"I'll have the Creamy Charizard." I handed the menu back and she nodded, turned on her heel and went back to the truck without ceremony. "So you decided to show me your favourite coffee spot?"
"Of course… Friends share after all." Taunie said, resting her chin in her free hand. "And I wanted some time with you before we head to the Bureau to talk to Emma."
She paused.
"Emma's a really good person if you get to know her. And honestly…" She glanced down the street in the direction we'd come from. "You're actually right for staring at those bonkers. I find myself staring at her boobs too sometimes."
She looked down at her own chest and sighed with genuine feeling. "I wish I had boobs like hers."
I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
The woman came back with a tray holding both cups and set them on the ledge.
"Voilà. Your order. Polish those right off and order some more if you like, got it?" She said, and while she had a strict face… Her voice was quite kind.
"Yes, Ma'am." Taunie said, and she was gone again.
Taunie immediately took hold of the Ember Roast and drank it down with her eyes closed and a quiet sigh escaped when she lowered the cup.
"I really like this drink." She said. "It has its own kind of sweet bitterness that just melts in your mouth."
"I knew it." I said. "All people who drink coffee are weird."
I picked up the Creamy Charizard and took a sip.
It was deeply and genuinely creamy with the milk foam thick enough that it got over the sides of my lips immediately and the coffee underneath it rich without being bitter.
"Well then, what are you drinking?" She raised an eyebrow and laughed.
"I'm having creamy coffee... There's a difference." I said, and reached to wipe the foam from the corner of my mouth but Taunie leaned forward.
"Hup…"
She licked the cream off the side of my lip and pulled back, she was close enough that for a moment I could see every detail of her face like the blush on her cheeks and the bisque hair falling around her shoulder.
She licked her own lip.
"You weren't wrong… This cream is actually really creamy." She said, and smiled at me with her chin tilted up slightly. "Did I tell you how cute you were up close?"
I looked at her.
Was Taunie… interested in me?
[Author's Note]
Got home from work and saw that we already passed our goal so I had to write the chapters, damn! Hope you guys enjoy this, stayed up all night and even halfway into the morning for them.
Anyway, the week is about to end so I'll be setting another goal that I hope we can reach.
250 Power Stones for 2 Bonus Chapters, I just realized 3 is a lot especially with how long these chapters tend to be but enjoy!
- Kaigiri out!