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“Urbain?”
She’s stuck.
She’s been stuck for a while, sitting here in a chair that’s not hers in a lobby that doesn’t quite feel like home. The walls are warping, curving towards her in a way that threatens to push her down onto the floor. Shadows dance across the ceiling, forming shapes that mean nothing and everything all at once.
It’s hard to tell exactly how she’d gotten here. She was fighting in the Royale and then… then nothing. Had she gone drinking? She doesn’t usually do that, can’t recall doing that ever, actually. Not after her mother. Was she drugged by some random passer-by? A bad enough case of food poisoning that she ruptured a blood vessel in her brain? A concussion?
No attempts to rouse the memory out of the recesses of her mind seem to help. Her mouth tastes bad, metallic. Did she bite her tongue?
Her eyes are open; she can see the ceiling above her, the shadows of the ceiling moulding stretching across the painted surface, and her eyes hurt in that characteristic way they usually do when she’s been looking up for too long. She does that a lot, ends up getting stuck looking at the rooftops, yearning for them when she’s stuck on the ground. Taking to the roofs makes her feel like a bird pokémon gliding on the wind, like she’s free and that nothing can bring her down.
Now, though, she feels chained to the ground, like she’ll never grow the wings she’s been desperate to have ever since her mother left.
“Is he okay?”
The voice is unfamiliar. Did she bring someone back with her last night? It’s not like she has time for romance, so that can’t be it. One of Lida or Naveen’s friends? Yeah, that must be it.
“He gets like this sometimes.” That’s Lida’s voice. She recognises it. They haven’t talked a lot recently, she’s always out and about and Lida is practising before the new semester at dance school starts. She should make dinner for them once, actually sit down and talk about how they’re both doing. It’s been a while since she’s gotten to try out a new recipe from that food blog she doesn’t recall following.
“Is there … anything we can do?” That’s the unfamiliar voice again.
She tries to move her eyes. They don’t seem to agree with her. This feels like something that happens often, but grasping onto thoughts seem impossible right now.
“I’ll try to redirect him.” Lida’s voice is grounding, she thinks. It gives her something to focus on.
A hand suddenly waves across her visions, and it feels like it should be making her blink. She must have been blinking this entire time, on some sort of autopilot, because while her eyes are dry, they’re not killing her.
“Hm,” Lida’s voice says. “I’ll try something else.”
Something wraps their arms around her, and the pressure seems to loosen something in her mind.
Her eyes fall close and for the first time in however long it’s been, she breathes in deeply, so deeply that the muscles around her lungs seem to protest.
“I think he’s coming to.”
Taunie breathes deeply, once, twice more, a third time just for good measure and then she smiles brightly, opening her eyes. “Lida!”
Lida’s hugging her, bent down at an awkward angle, but she steps back seemingly at the sound of her voice. “Hey, you,” she says. “You gave me a scare there.”
“Ha, yeah,” Taunie says sheepishly, and she does feel a little bad about whatever that was. She rubs the back of her head, only now noticing that it’s all falling down her neck. There’s no telling when the bun fell out, or where the hair tie went. It’s no wonder she goes through over a pack a month. “Didn’t mean to scare you, promise.”
Only a second later does she notice the unfamiliar boy standing at the corner of her vision. He’s dressed in a plain white shirt and black jeans, looking as out of place as they come.
“Hi there!” She says brightly, standing up to get closer to the boy. “I’m Taunie! Nice to meet you!”
“Oh, uh,” the boy says, before reaching out his hand for a handshake. “I’m Paxton. Nice to meet you?”
“He met Urbain first,” Lida says at her side.
“Oh!” It all comes back to her. “Yeah, that’d make it confusing. We’re, uh … siblings?”
She’s only had to explain this to a couple people before, and even then it had been easier than this. Sitting down and explaining the nature of her condition to them had led to a better sense of understanding, and the first time they’d switched in front of Naveen and Lida, it had gone way better. She’s never had to explain it to anyone after they’d seen it in action.
Paxton nods like this makes perfect sense, but he doesn’t say anything.
“They share a body,” Lida interjects. “Sometimes Taunie is there, like now, and sometimes it’s Urbain. It really depends.”
Paxton cocks his head to the side, not unlike the many pokémon that have started roaming the city, and nods again. “Why not?”
“You’re allowed to think it’s weird,” Taunie says quickly, more as a defence than anything else. “I sure think it is!”
“I mean,” Paxton says, and Taunie braces herself for the rejection. Just because Urbain picked him out, doesn’t mean that he’s going to mesh well with them. Because that’s what must have happened; Urbain picking him to be a member of the team. It’s not like they have any guests that aren’t a member yet. But they won’t give up, she will pay AZ back for all the kindness he’s shown her. “I don’t think it’s that weird? You’re like twins, but the universe forgot to give you two bodies for it.”
“That’s … a really good way of thinking about it, actually.” She pulls out her phone, opens it to the notes app where they keep track of all of the information they’ve gathered on this entire thing, and types in Paxton’s comment. There appears to be something new in the file that contains the running to-do list, the only way she has of communicating with Urbain because their brain separates the two of them entirely. “Sorry, just gotta note this stuff down.”
“Take your time,” Paxton says, and he seems amused. She doesn’t know how she knows this; she’s just met him not even ten minutes earlier, and yet it still feels like she’s spent more time with him than that, come to learn his quirks and all. Maybe it’s carried over knowledge from Urbain?
The to-do list looks longer than it did last time she checked it, and it makes her wonder when she was last here. It can’t have been that long, right?
The top bullet point is spelled out in bolded, italicised all-caps. MAKE PAXTON JOIN TEAM MZ. Well, that explains that.
Phone put back away in her pocket— she really needs to change out of the outfit that Urbain insists on dressing in —she looks up at Paxton. “Welcome to the team!”
Lida claps Paxton on the shoulder. “You’re in good hands. I’ve gotta get going. Bye you two.”
“Team MZ?” Paxton asks. Taunie plops down in her chair, and pulls her phone out again to pull up Naveen’s logo, showing it off.
“Yup,” she says, gesturing to the free chair. It doesn’t belong to anyone yet, not like her chair and Naveen’s chair and Lida’s chair. She supposes that if AZ sat with them it’d be in the chair Paxton’s currently sitting at the edge of. “We fight in the Z-A Royale, trying to make our way to the top so we can get our wish granted. It’s the only way we’ll get strong enough to protect the city.”
“But, I’m just a tourist,” Paxton says, and Taunie realises that she might have been coming on a bit too strong. She has no clue what Urbain has told Paxton already, and the last thing she wants to do is scare him away. But he might be exactly what they need, and she’s not going to let this opportunity pass her by.
She tries to go for a gentle smile, but doesn’t know how well it gets across. “We were all tourists at one point, but the city’s come to be our home. I’m sure it’ll be yours, too! And even if you’re only in the Royale for a bit of money, that’s okay, too! It sure pays well, if you’re. But being a member gives you free room and board here, so it doesn’t hurt to say no!”
She imagines she’s a bird pokémon on the ground, watching a new Fletching peck at the crumbs in-between the cobblestones, guiding it away to a better food source. Feeding him so that he can soar in the sky with her.
Paxton smiles, bright yet overwhelmed. “Sure, why not.”
“Great!” She says. “Let’s get your photo taken!”
The small hope in her chest, the one she’s been nurturing since she came here six months ago, the thing that keeps her going through this, blooms a bit more.