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“…I think we’re all out of time for today’s stream, everyone! Thank you all for coming around!” Iono enthusiastically waved to the camera as the live chat began blowing up with sad faces. “I’ll be live again tomorrow at 10 AM CET, so make sure you tune in! I’ve got some fun surprises planned for you guys! Until then, Adios, Arrivaderci, Au Revoir! Iono out~!” She winked to the audience, and then the screen froze as the stream ended.
Penny sighed and shut off her Rotom Phone. Great. Just when she finally had enough free time during the day to watch Iono’s streams live, she decided to only stream for two hours instead of five or six. Whatever, she resolved, pocketing the phone. Penny didn’t really have any reason to watch something right now other than to take her mind off of things, but now she was so close to her destination that it was almost futile.
The trip from Paldea back home to Galar had been a long one. Instead of taking a plane, which may have taken, what, three hours, Naranja Academy decided to make things difficult for her once again. They had plopped Penny into a train that took her from Paldea to Kalos, which took a solid eight hours, and then a boat from Kalos to Galar. And now she had to take a train all the way up to Motostoke, which was taking even longer. It was nearly sunset by now, evident by the orange tone bleeding into the previously bright blue sky.
Penny leaned her head back against the seat and tried to enjoy the gentle rumble of the train and the sight of Galar’s countryside zooming by. She hadn’t been here in well over a year…and from what she’d read on the news and what she’d been told, a lot had happened. The famously unbeatable Champion Leon had been defeated by someone no older than Penny was, her father and sister had gone on some sort of expedition down in the Crown Tundra, and, oh yeah, her Uncle Rose had brought about the Darkest Day and got thrown into prison.
Boy, that last one was a shock to learn about. Although, she kind of always expected something like that to happen. (Maybe not something as intense as literal apocalypse, but he and that little blonde asshole of his always gave her bad vibes.) But it wasn’t like they all got together as a family very often. Hell, Penny only ever knew what he was up to because he was so famous. That was fine, though; she’d rather not remember that she was related to that weirdo.
A lot had happened here, but…a lot had happened in Paldea, too.
She should be happy to be home again after so long, she should be glad to get to see her family face to face, but Penny just couldn’t muster up the emotions. It was difficult with this constant feeling of gloominess and worry looming over her. Countless questions spun round and round in her mind. Had she done the right thing in disbanding Team Star? Were all the bosses okay? How much had Director Harrington told her family?
That was a big one. Best case scenario, they didn’t know why she was being sent home for eighteen months and somehow wouldn’t ask her about it in that time. Worst case scenario, he had told them everything in the worst way possible. Maybe something like she’d put together a group of teenage delinquents whose reckless actions resulted in a number of students dropping out of the academy completely.
A deep sense of dread started pooling in Penny’s stomach at the thought. She hoped that wasn’t the case. She really, really hoped not.
—
Penny stepped off the train and stopped on the edge of the platform. She closed her eyes and took in a large breath of that musty Motostoke air. It smelled of smoke from the factories, garbage from the streets, and slightly fishy from the river running straight through the city.
She was home.
Penny hardly got to even get out of the crowd before a familiar loud voice alerted her.
“Pen-Pen! Over here!”
Penny’s head whipped around to see her dad standing across the train platform waving at her with a big grin. Penny’s face grew hot. She already didn’t love the nickname as is, but now he had to shout it in the middle of a train platform? Geez.
Penny begrudgingly made her way over to her father, who was fashionably clad in a polo shirt, cargo shorts, and a baseball cap. Classy, real classy. She hardly got within three feet of him before she was practically yanked into a hug. A very, very tight hug.
“Papa-“ She coughed out.
Her father, who had apparently not noticed that he was practically suffocating her, promptly let go and took a step back. “Sorry!” He said sheepishly, hands up in surrender. “Is it really such a crime for your old man to want to hug his darlin’ daughter after…” he counted on his fingers, more for emphasis than anything. “A YEAR of not seein’ her?”
Hm…Penny’s dad’s usual boisterous behavior often annoyed her, but even with the worries from earlier still persisting as strong as ever, she allowed herself a laugh a little.
“...I guess not,” she admitted, her irritation quickly dissolving.
“Exactly,” huffed Peony. He jutted his thumb behind him. “C’mon, we best get goin’! I’ve got a flying taxi waitin’ for us down the street, and I’m sure Nia and your mother are just dyin’ to see ya!” With that, he turned on his heel and began walking in the march-like way that he always did.
Just straight there? Well, she supposed he wasn’t exactly the type of guy to wait around while there were things to be done. Penny shrugged her Eevee bag higher up on her shoulders and started walking after him.
“So, what was your trip like?” Asked her dad. He had swiftly taken her suitcase from her and was now rolling it along the bumpy stone streets himself.
Penny, admiring Motostoke and taking note of how it hadn’t changed at all, took a second to respond. “Awful,” she groaned once she shifted her focus back. “Why couldn’t they have just put me on a plane?”
Her dad tossed his head back and laughed. “Gahaha! Come on now, Pennywhistle, it can’t have been that bad.”
Penny shrugged. “I guess. But it took way longer than I would have liked.”
“Well, you got through it, and yer done now. Let me guess: you made it through by thinkin’ about how excited you were about gettin’ to see your good ol’ Papa again, didn’t ya?”
Penny narrowed her eyes. “No…?”
“Gahahaaa!” Her dad patted her twice on the shoulder with just a little too much force. “That’s what I knew you’d say.”
They turned a corner into a small parking lot where a Corviknight Taxi was waiting. Peony put his hands on his hips proudly, “Hey, here’s our Taxi, all oiled up ‘n ready to go. Bet it’s been a while since you’ve seen a Corviknight holdin’ one of these, huh? Paldea’s got those little pink guys, right?”
Penny nodded. “Yeah. Tinktaton.”
“That’s their name! I need to catch myself one of those if I ever visit you. Well! We best get going!” He opened up the door and climbed into the taxi, with Penny quietly following him close behind.
It wasn’t too long of a trip, thank Arceus. Penny and her family lived in a moderately sized house about a twenty-minute flight from Motostoke, nestled in the countryside. On the way, she and Peony made conversation, though Penny tried her best to redirect the conversation whenever it shifted to anything related to school. She was going to try and keep those thoughts out of her head for as long as she possibly could.
When the two entered the house, Penny once again stopped in her tracks to take in a breath. It smelled exactly the same, and from the hint of paprika in the air she could tell that they were having curry for dinner. She turned her head to the left to where she knew the dining room was, and found a table set with four spots.
“We’re hooooome!” Called her dad out into the house.
Instantly, she could hear her mother’s footsteps throughout the halls before she burst into the foyer and engulfed Penny in the second of what she expected to be many hugs.
“Welcome home, sweetheart!” Her mom’s voice was as soft and sweet as ever - just like Penny, Papa used to say. “How are you? How have you been?”
“I’m good, Mama, thanks,” Penny replied, and made some attempt to hug her mom back.
Her mother quickly turned to kiss her husband, who had taken off his shoes and dropped Penny’s suitcase off by the door, before her focus was back on her daughter. She held Penny by her cheeks and inspected her as if the train might have given her any injuries. “My, you look so much older! Has it really only been a year since you left? It feels like so much has happened.”
Penny forced out a chuckle. “Yeah…”
“We’re having curry for dinner, upon your sister’s request. Oh-!” She turned to the staircase in front of them and called up it. “Niaaa! Penny’s home!”
“I’m coooming!” Her sister’s distant voice came from upstairs.
A clattering of who-knows-what was heard, and Penny’s mom turned to her with a sarcastic smile. “Tsk…I don’t know if you can still never hear people the first time they call you, but Nia hasn’t changed one bit.”
A moment later when Peonia came clambering down the stairs, Penny was actually able to brace herself for the hug this time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as forceful.
Peonia pulled away, a smile on her face before it sparked into realization. “Oh, wow, you dyed your hair again,” she observed.
She did? Oh, yeah, she did. That was a good number of months ago now. “Yeah, the purple wasn’t really going for me anymore,” explained Penny. “So I just decided to split it up instead.”
“It looks nice,” said Nia, brushing a bit of Penny’s bangs off of her forehead. She then gestured to herself with a smirk.” You had a great teacher, after all.”
The two exchanged giggles and looked back to their mother when she spoke again, her hands clasped together. “Well! We’re having dinner in about twenty minutes, so you’ve got some time to get re-settled in, Penny!”
“Oh yeah,” said Penny. She looked down at her boots. “I haven’t even taken off my shoes yet.”
“Well, definitely get to that first,” laughed her mother. “Take your suitcase up to your room when you go upstairs.”
With her suitcase in hand and shoes discarded by the door, Penny began to trudge her way up the steps. She still remembered which ones creaked and stepped over them despite how inconvenient skipping a step whilst carrying a suitcase was.
The first thing she noticed upon opening her bedroom door was how cold it was. It never was the warmest room in the house, and Penny suspected that the door had been closed for a while. It still looked exactly the same, from the posters on the walls, to the cluttered bookshelf, to the bin of plushies in the corner. Penny took in a deep breath to center herself. This was her space. This was a safe space.
She wouldn’t have a dorm room at the school she was going to be exchanging at, so she could put all the stuff she’d brought over from her precious one back. However, unpacking wasn’t exactly Penny’s favorite activity in the world, so she decided against it.
Penny opened up her backpack and took out her four Pokeballs, containing three Veevees and one Sylveon. Penny was never very focused on Pokémon battling, but the idea of a full-Eevee team kept circling around her mind. She’d have to catch some more over at Route Four.
Penny released the four Pokémon into her room to let them stretch their legs. They were all chipper and full of energy, bouncing around her room and taking in all the familiar scents. Penny sighed. She wished.
Finding nothing better to do, she sat on her bed and opened up her Rotom phone. She scrolled mindlessly through her regular cycle of apps, making sure to avoid the messaging app that Team Star’s chat rooms had been on. They were still up, mind you, but she hadn’t heard anything from them since that day. For now, Penny was actually glad.
She sat and scrolled through her phone, petting her Veevees when they came by for what felt like just ten minutes. But as she was finishing up her daily routines in one of her many mobile games. somebody knocked on Penny’s door.
“Come in,” called Penny. At home was basically the only time she would ever say that to a knock, and just being here had prompted it.
It was Peonia. “Hey, it’s dinnertime,” she said, leaning on the doorframe and scanning the room. “Oh, we probably need to set out food for your Eevees, right?”
Penny shut off her Rotom phone and turned to the four Pokémon currently cuddled up on her rug. “I take it you guys are hungry?”
At the mention of food, the three Eevees immediately shot up and their tails began rigorously wagging. Sylveon merely opened her eyes slowly, ribbons curling.
Peonia sighed. “Thought so. Alright.” She left the door frame as Penny got off her bed and smoothed out her hoodie. She heard Peonia thumping down the stairs.
“MAMA! Penny’s Eevees need food too!”
“Darling, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here!”
The dinner table was arranged nicely, with four plates set and already provided with rice. A large steaming pot of curry sat in the middle. Penny hadn’t realized until now just how much she’d missed having curry until the familiar and comforting smell wafted into her nose. Sandwiches never were a proper replacement.
“Theeere she is!” Announced her father from his spot at the table once Penny walked into the dining room. Peonia was already sitting as well, and her mother appeared from the kitchen and bent down below the table not a second after. Sylveon and the eevee, who had been at her side, all scampered off, so Penny assumed she was putting out food for them.
Penny pulled her chair out from the table and took her usual seat next to her mother. “I’ve missed curry so much,” she sighed.
“Gahahaha!” her father laughed. “That’s just what yer sister thought would happen!”
“What can I say?” Peonia shrugged. “I know her well.”
The curry was delicious. It was nothing too special, nothing added to give it too strong of a flavor, just a classic Galarian curry. However, that was exactly what she needed right now. Penny simultaneously wanted to wolf it down as fast as possible and savor every bite. (Her family seemed to be having similar dilemmas, she observed.) For the first little while, nobody said a word, all happily eating.
But then Penny started to get uncomfortable with the silence. Normally, she would love it, but her family was always so loud… it just felt wrong.
“…So,” she started cautiously, trying to think of a way to ask about the events in Galar whilst tiptoeing around anything that might be a sore subject. (See: ‘her uncle getting arrested’ for more information.) “A lot of stuff happened while I was gone, huh?”
Peonia put down her spoon mid spoonful and nodded. “SO much stuff,” she said after swallowing, holding her hands up to further display how much stuff had happened. “I mean, there were all the things you saw on the news, which -“ she turned briefly away from Penny to address both her parents as well “- Let’s be honest, that was bound to happen sooner or later. But Papa also dragged me out for one of his Adven-Tours in the crown tundra. It was, uh -“ another glance back at their father. “It was cool…! We saw ruins, and legendary Pokémon, and a lot of snow, and -“
“And this weird Pokémon with a HUGE NOGGIN that I think took over my mind a couple times?” Interjected Peony. “Oh, and our new champion - Gloria - was there. We should introduce her to you, you’re about the same age.”
So that was her name…the girl who had defeated Leon. Penny could never even dream of being able to do something like that.
“What about you, Penny?” Her mother chimed in. “We haven’t heard much from you in the recent months. How have you been?”
“Yeah. I’m not about to turn this nice family meal into a lecture, but we will need to talk about your lack of contact with us.” Her father nodded, his voice taking a rather uncommon tone. Something serious.
Penny’s insides went cold. Not fully ice, but all of a sudden it felt like she shouldn’t have eaten that last spoon of curry. She looked down at her lap and grabbed the thin material of her tights. (There was a growing hole on one of her knees. She’d been meaning to get a new pair for weeks.)
“Uhhh….How much did they…tell you?” She asked hesitantly, not quite sure what kind of answer she was hoping for.
The room was silent for a second before Peony spoke.
“Well…yer director told us that there had been an ‘incident’ at the school that you had admitted to organizing. Then he explained that you were being sent home for a year and a half of overseas study so you could take some time to rest and recover. But…” both of her parents exchanged quick glances before each giving Penny a gentle look. “…That’s all we know.”
“…Oh.” She supposed it could have been worse. At least Mr. Harrington had kept it vague, but even now, she didn’t understand if she was actually in trouble for what happened with Operation Star or not. He had promised that the other bosses wouldn’t be punished, and so Penny had assumed that being sent away was meant to be her way to make up for it but...this didn’t really feel like punishment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Her mother asked gently.
Penny shook her head and kept her voice steady. “Not right now.”
The phrasing implied that she would want to talk about it some time in the future, though once again Penny doubted herself.
“Of course, Penny. And as you already know, we’re always here for you.”
Penny didn’t respond. Her mom was genuine, she knew, but most of what she heard were the words of all her old teachers echoing in her head.
Her mama’s voice interjected her worrying thoughts. “Penny, did anyone get hurt?”
…Yes.
“…No.”
“Well, that’s good!” chuckled her father. “Though I would have certainly liked to hear that Pencake had started a brawl.”
“Peony!”
“Shannon!”
Her mother sighed in defeat and rolled her eyes, though there was a smile on her face. Penny felt herself mimic the expression, amused by her parents’ usual shenanigans.
The room fell quiet once more as the family returned to their meals, but it was quickly halted when Peonia snapped her fingers. The sharp sound sliced through the silence and immediately caught Penny’s attention.
“Oh yeah!” Peonia exclaimed, and her head whipped around to face Penny. The tone of her voice had entered ‘gossip mode.’ “Do you remember that kid Uncle Rose always had with him?”
Relieved at this change of subject, Penny gave her sister a quizzical look. “The little blonde one?” She could remember him well - poofy white hair, big purple coat, constant smug expression - but it was less out of fondness and more out of contempt.
Peonia nodded, her eyes wide. “Yeah! Apparently he’s a gym leader now! He made this big stink during the Champion Tournament and stuff!”
Huh?! The thought of that guy as a gym leader was equally perplexing and amusing. “Really?”
Peonia’s grin grew wider at Penny’s noticeable mood change. “Yep! He took over from Opal, I heard. I mean, it makes sense, considering how old she was. But I dunno why she picked him.” Peonia made a face.
Her father butted in, eager to join in on his kids’ conversation. “Well, I’m just happy that the youth of today are gettin’ involved!”
From there the chatting continued. Luckily, it seemed like her father had temporarily forgotten that they had to talk about her complete radio silence, although she fully expected it would still come up sometime in the future. But that was tommorow’s problem. BY the end of dinner, Penny wasn’t sure if the warmth in her stomach was from the curry at all. She gathered her Veevees, made her way back up to her childhood bedroom, and miraculously got to bed at a reasonable time.
It wasn’t like all that had been worrying her suddenly vanished, no. Penny knew that the worry wouldn’t subside until she could return to the academy and make things right. But until that day rolled around, at least there was a sliver of silver lining beginning to shine through.
Penny was home.