Chapter Text
“W-what do you mean you won’t be here?”
Kieran squeaked, it felt like his heart stopped and the world was crashing down around him. Here he was, in a region he had never been to(Well, practically), surrounded by people he didn’t know very well, or at all! And his only saving grace in all of that, the only reason he even came all the way out here had to leave?
“Look, I’m really sorry Kier,” Florian said while taking Kieran’s hands, looking at him as if he hadn’t just shattered all of Kieran’s daydreams about what would happen that day (and probably wouldn’t have regardless, they rarely ever did.) “But Geeta really needs Nemona and me down at Area Zero, apparently a herd of Iron Thorns started rampaging down there and if they’re not stopped it could cause major damage to the structural system of the caves.”
“I could come with you!” Kieran sounded desperate at this point, “I could help get the Iron Thorns under control! I’m strong!”
It was rare Kieran flaunted his strength out right, usually keeping his ego more on the inside than the out, but he was so terrified to be without Florian that he would say just about anything right now to not have to be without.
“I already asked if you could come along.”
Of course Florian had, why wouldn’t’ve he? If anyone believed in his strength more than himself it was ironically one of the two people consistently stronger than him.
“Geeta said she didn’t want to risk the safety of a foreigner. And yeah, I know you’ve already been to Area Zero before but she didn’t seem to care.”
“But—” Kieran was cut off when Florian gave him a big hug.
“I’ll make it up to you later okay? I promise— look there’s this really good restaurant in Medali, they have these crepes and—” He pulled away with a smile, “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? You won’t have to be alone the whole time, Penny was still planning on meeting us here and she said she’d try and get the rest of the Team Star bosses to tag along.”
Great, now Kieran’s mind was making up all sorts of unrealistic scenarios about how Florian could make it up to him and getting his hopes astronomically high. And worse, all sorts of ways meeting the Team Star bosses could go horribly, horribly wrong. What if they ignored him the entire time and only talked to each other? What if he said something wrong and they all hated him? They were Florian’s friends too, he didn’t want Florian’s friends to hate him, what if they told Florian and Florian started hating him too? What if they made fun of him and his anger got the better of him and he lashed out? What if he hurt them somehow? What if they all fell into a hole and died! Sure it was unlikely, but Kieran had heard of sinkholes that would just swallow people whole sometimes. Did Paldea have sinkholes? He didn’t know. It might if Florian and Nemona couldn’t take care of the Iron Thorns. Oh no— What if something happened down there and Kieran wasn’t there to help protect them? What if he was stuck up here and his number one friend just died without him being able to do anything? What if—
He was cut abruptly out of his thoughts when Florian gave him another quick hug. “I’ve got to go now, Penny should be here soon. If I’m out too late and Penny has to go just go back to my dorm, I’ll see you later.”
And just like that Kieran was left reeling and Florianless in the middle of the Uva Academy's lobby.
Stumbling backwards to sit on the conveniently located bench, Kieran put his head in his hands, he wasn’t really thinking about doing anything, but he supposed he was waiting for Penny.
Eventually the Eeveecentric trainer did show up, with a whole gaggle of colourful characters behind her. Kieran had to do a double take for a moment. Were those really students? He couldn’t believe the Academy would allow them to wear stuff like that. Sure, the Elite Four at his own school had modified uniforms but it didn’t even look like any of them started with a uniform, well, except for the boy with black hair, he at least had the vest Kieran had seen Florian wear a few times, but that was about as far as it went.
“Hey.” Penny’s voice was low and quiet and raspy from its rare use. Out of all the people Kieran had met he thinks Penny might be the one person in the world more introverted than he is.
“Hey.” The Kitakamian shot right back, standing up to be polite.
Great. His extrovert was gone. He had better hope one of Penny’s friends was an extrovert too or this was going to be a lot of silence and standing around until the two conversation houses were able to join them.
“Hey there, man” The boy wearing the vest spoke up first, apparently sensing the growing need for someone to talk.
“I’m Giacomo, part time DJ, full time friend to these dudes.” At that he gestured to the other four, giving them a thumbs up before continuing, “Who should totally introduce themselves.”
The towering giant of a girl stepped forwards. Kieran thought his sister was abnormally tall (Seriously, neither of their parents were tall, how come she’s the one who got to get the random tall gene?) Next to this girl though Carmine would look normal. Kieran felt like a dwarf.
“Hello! I’m Eri.” The smile on her face and the kindness of her voice were at odds with how intimidated Kieran was, causing him to blink in confusion. “You’re one of Florian’s friends right? Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to me—”
“Good day, my fellow! Before you stands Atticus, truly a pleasure to make thy acquaintance.”
Kieran was still trying to wrap his head around the previous introduction, and now he didn’t even know what he was looking at. A human figure, yes, but he was draped completely head to toe in bright purple and green fabric. He looked like a fucking ninja. Why? This was Paldea. Ninjas didn’t live in Paldea! Right? Well, maybe they did, Kieran didn’t actually know.
While he was contemplating the logistics of ninjas actually being native to Paldea too somehow and trying to figure out how that would work since he was quite certain before that they were originally from regions like Johto and Kanto and indeed even his own home region, he didn’t even notice the remaining two members not even making a move to introduce themselves.
“Mellie… Ortie… Don’t be rude!” Eri hissed the words quietly, having to bend quite far over. Kieran likely wouldn’t have even noticed she said anything if not for that.
“Ugh! Fine, fine.” The boy about his size clothed in pink rolled his eyes as he approached. “ My name is Ortega. I really thought Florian’s friend from Unova would have been… I don’t know, a little bit cooler.”
Okay, ouch? What the heck, Kieran had just met this guy.
“Uh, actually… I’m from Kikakami… Not Unova.” Kieran found his bravado at that, standing up taller at this egotistical boy. “And I could say the same thing.”
He couldn’t believe Florian hung around someone like this boy. Was he always so so so so… Pretentious? Before Kieran could get into it anymore with the boy (and likely spiral out of control in bed later for doing so) he was grabbed by the hand and given a brisk rough shake, almost causing him to fall over.
“Mela. I hope you have lots of Pokemon because I’m gonna be befriending them, not you, got it?” With that she twisted Kieran’s arm roughly before letting him go, causing Kieran to glare while rubbing his now tender muscle.
What the fuck was going on? These guys were friends with Florian?? They were all so… so weird! And abrasive! Well except for the tall one, and the one in the vest, and the ninja not ninja… okay so only the last two were abrasive but still!
“Guys. W H A T was that?? I just told you not to be rude, this is Florian’s F R I E N D!”
“Yeah. Gotta agree that was kind of uncool of you.”
“What! It’s not my fault, I just thought Florian had higher standards for his friends. You know, like us!”
“Pray tell what makes thine believe he is not worthy of his comradery, we hath not even begun to understand him yet.”
“I am not hanging out with him! He looks like a loser!”
“Mela!”
At that point the group devolved into a hurricane of conversation that quite frankly made Kieran’s head spin. Did they always argue like this or was it just because of him? Arceus he wished Florian was here.
“Yeah, this isn’t going to work.”
Penny’s voice, although low, cut through the chaos, everyone silencing within an instance.
“What do you mean?” The boy clad in pink questioned, crossing his arms.
“Look at him, he’s overwhelmed.”
Kieran’s eyes widened, was that really so obvious? I mean yeah, he was overwhelmed out of his mind right now but he had always thought he was good at hiding his emotions. Suddenly worried about what other feelings might have been broadcast without his knowledge.
Penny’s scolding seemed to get through to them, looking down with a hint of reluctant shame or sheepishness, depending on the member.
“So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re each gonna spend some time with him separately, give him some time to get used to you all.” Penny pushed her glaces up, taking control of the situation in a way Kieran hadn’t expected. “If that’s alright with everyone else, of course.” There was the backtracking.
At everyone’s mumbled agreements Penny continued. Seemingly Kieran wasn’t included in the ‘everyone else’ that had to be alright with it.
“I’ll come along with you so it’ll be three of us at a time, since I’ve already gotten to know him a little bit we should probably ai—” The Galarian girl was cut off by her phone giving a sudden ring. “One sec…”
“Yeah?”
“Oh that’s. Not good.”
“No, I’m kind of busy right now.”
“I can’t really—”
“No.”
“I—”
“Yeah…”
“Okay, I’ll be on it in just a second…”
“Hey so, change of plans.” Penny looked thoroughly done as she hung up her Rotom Phone. “Apparently one of the league’s servers went out and they’re struggling to recover the backup data. Geeta’s making it very clear I have to help so you all are gonna be on your own for a while.”
The news issued groans and grumbles from everyone involved, Kieran included. He didn’t really know who this Geeta person was but she was becoming higher and higher on his list of people he didn’t really care for.
“Momo, Eri, one of you two take him first. All of you make sure to keep your phones on, if Florian tries to get in contact with him I’ll message you since he doesn’t have a phone.”
“He doesn’t have a phone?? What kind of backwater bumpkin is he??”
Well, Geeta had at least one contender for a higher spot on his ‘people he didn’t really care for’ list that Ortega was climbing even faster. He might even beat out reigning list champion Drayton at this rate.
Penny just sighed, holding her fist against her forehead. “Ortie, you should probably go last.”
“Alright, I’m going to get out of here before Geeta decides to chew my head off.” She gave a small wave before starting to walk off. “Keep me updated, and remember, he’s Florian’s guest here so play nice if you don’t want to get on Florian’s bad side.”
Kieran wasn’t sure if Penny was being serious or not but the thought gave him a little, much needed in the moment, confidence boost. Even though he was quite certain Florian had no bad side for anyone to get on.
As soon as they had all said their goodbyes the Team Star bosses all huddled in a circle— Kieran of course, not included.
“Okay so what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to listen to what Penny said, duh.”
“She is the smartest of us.”
“Hey, what the HECK? I RESENT that!”
“Yeah but it’s true.”
“...”
“Fine.”
“Mayhaps allowing time to become acquainted to hither boy alone shall be a blessing in disguise.”
“Yeah, I guess so man. He is friends with Florian and even though Florian is a TOTAL weirdo, I don’t think he would hang out with an actual loser.”
“Okay are we all in agreement then? Penny said either me or Eri should hang out with him first, and then Ortega should be last.”
That prompted some inaudible grumbling from Ortega.
“He looked like he was about to have a heart attack when he saw me so maybe you should go first, Giacomo. I can go second, Atticus how about you go third, and Mellie you can go fourth. Does that sound good?”
“Yeah, guess so, the later I am, the more likely the chance Penny or Florian will get back before it’s my turn.”
“Thine suggestion sounds most agreeable, my lady.”
“Yeah, sounds good to me. We can meet up back here whenever we need to swap out.”
With the group huddle finished and Kieran thoroughly left in the dark, Giacomo diverged from the group, approaching Kieran with a lazy smile on his face. It almost reminded Kieran of Drayton, but not quite in the same way. Then again he had been told he himself had lazy eyes before so he probably shouldn’t judge too much based on that alone.
“Alright then man, looks like we’re gonna spend some time getting to know each other.” The boy with black hair grinned with a thumbs up. “Let’s take this outside and I’ll hail a flying taxi.”
“Uh, yeah okay.” Kieran just nodded, he was just along for the ride at this point, they hadn’t asked him for his opinion before they probably weren’t going to start now. He did wonder where Giacomo was going to take him, if they needed a flying taxi to get there.
Maybe this was a bad idea. He suddenly panicked, he didn’t have a phone and was in a region he had never really been to before with a stranger. But this was Florian’s friend… and besides, he had Pokemon with him. Strong Pokemon, championship level Pokemon even. So he should be fine.
“So, what do you like to do for fun?” the low gravelly voice pierced through Kieran’s thoughts.
“Oh uh! Well,” Kieran smiled, flushing a little and looking down. “I like Pokemon battling a lot I guess.”
His new companion just let out a chuckle. “Well if that doesn’t sound familiar my stage name isn’t DJ Vice.”
Stage name? Kieran thought with a tilt of his head.