Halfway through Emily's partially-planned and partially-disastrous spiel, the lab lady stood up. Emily had been so intimidated throughout the whole conversation that she'd assumed Tate was six feet tall at least. Even in all her five-foot-four glory, Emily easily stood eye to eye with the scary lady. In fact, Emily might have been a little bit taller. That felt wrong.

As wrong as Tate's stature felt, Emily's perception was all that had changed. Tate was still the same no-nonsense ball-buster that Emily had met... oh shoot, had it really been less than five minutes ago? The interrogation had her so off guard that it felt like it'd been hours and hours since her last moments as a free woman, outside of the lab and away from Tate's piercing gaze. "Well, I mean, I definitely want to talk to them," she began meekly. Her words quickly faded off into nothingness while Tate explained why the starter program existed in the first place. An awkward silence reigned while Tate rolled a pokeball between her fingers. Emily wanted to defend herself somehow but she couldn't think of a single way to do it. All of Tate's points thus far were valid.

The questioning resumed again a moment later and reality washed over Emily like one of Kyogre's tsunamis. Not only had Tate's points all been valid, but most of Emily's answers worked against her.

Her mouth was so dry that she couldn't find words. Her cheeks flushed at the implication that she was an outlaw and she could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears. "I'm not--I didn't flee the country," she said, a little too quickly. The statement was false at face value but true if you considered the criminal connotations of it all. She'd fled Hoenn, yes, but not because of anything illegal. "You--you can call my adviser at school. She'll tell you. I graduated, there were never any issues. Or, um, if you give me a minute, I can dig up my old syllabi. And you can call my professors. They'll all tell you, I was good. I studied and I worked hard." There was a harder edge to her voice, some long lost backbone drifting to the surface thanks to the accusation.

"I didn't even drink when I was underage, and everyone does that. Not even that, never mind... something that would make me have to flee." The hard edge was gone by the time the last sentence ended and she was all but pleading for Tate to believe her. Deny me a pokemon if you want, that's fine, was what she was basically saying. But don't call me a criminal and a failure all at once. A girl can only take so much.

It didn't take long after her tirade for the embarrassment to set in. She realized--when it was too late to take any of the words back--that Tate was only doing her job. She had to ask these things. She (probably) didn't mean it offensively. Emily was just so used to adultier adults liking her that she didn't know how to handle Tate. Adultier adults liked that she listened well, they liked that she was ambitious, they liked that she worked hard without bragging, all those things. But Tate didn't know any of that. And that wasn't Tate's fault. It was Emily's. She wasn't exactly giving off the best impression, after all. Her gut reaction was to apologize but her mouth was too dry to form anymore words just then.

Besides, Tate had asked a lot of questions. And in her uncharacteristic rush to defend herself, she'd ignored all of the others. If she wasted time apologizing, that was just more time she was spending on one line of questioning. Emily took a deep breath and unscrewed her water bottle's lid. She gripped the purple plastic so hard that her knuckles whitened while she took a sip of water, more to buy herself a moment to regroup than anything. And all the while, she could feel Tate's eyes on her, waiting for her to say something.

Emily ran over the questions again in her head. Her first thought was to only focus on the first question; that was how she got through those upper level tests at college. She took on one question at a time and methodically worked through it before moving onto another. That way, she didn't let herself get overwhelmed by tests that took two hours to finish. But she couldn't do that here. All the questions were related. Answering one at a time was redundant, pointless, stupid.

"Okay, so, um, backtracking now," she began shakily while she put the lid back on her water bottle. "Those are... they're fair questions." Her voice was quieter now, calmer. She wasn't on the defensive anymore and all the adrenaline from the mention of the ethics officer had faded away. She'd also resigned herself to the idea that she wasn't getting a pokemon today. That helped. But before she left, she wanted Tate's approval. Emily didn't know how to function with adultier adults who didn't like her and she didn't want to learn today.

"Let me... break this up a little. So. Um. Why I didn't get a pokemon from Hoenn--let's start there, I guess." Speaking off the cuff was not one of Emily's strong suits, to put it mildly. "I grew up in Mauville City, back in Hoenn. I spent my whole life in Mauville. I went to school in Mauville, I planned to work in Mauville, I planned to get married in Mauville and grow old in Mauville and die in Mauville." Her hands waved aimlessly while she spoke, reinforcing the futility of it all. "And everyone in Mauville is the same. They either stay in Mauville, or they move to Verdanturf Town--which, I don't know if you're familiar with Hoenn? But it's a fifteen minute bike ride west of the city."

She wasn't really answering any of Tate's questions but she was getting there, dangit. Just very, very slowly. "All the pokemon around Mauville are the same. They don't... They don't want to go anywhere, they don't want to explore, they don't want to see the world. They just want to be near Mauville, where it's safe and familiar. And I was that way--err, am that way," she corrected. "And the starters in the Hoenn lab... They're all basically that way too, they're just also battlers. They all want to fight in Hoenn and take on the Hoenn gyms and be champions in Hoenn." She was getting to the point about as quickly as a Magikarp in a marathon but by Kyogre, she was trying.

"I applied to medical schools back in Hoenn. And I was denied. I don't... I mean, I've never really failed at anything or tried anything else, so I didn't know how to handle it?" This was rapidly turning into more of a therapy session than an answer to Tate's questions, but Emily plowed right along, not leaving a break long enough for the critical woman to speak. She wanted to get this all over with, all laid out in the open--so that when Tate sent her home empty handed, she could at least say she tried. "Doctors need to know how to handle failure, you know? And the best way to learn to fail is to try new things, I guess? So I needed to try something new. Like raising pokemon. Because they... they can have their own opinions and desires and all that. They can force me out of my comfort zone. So I guess I'm looking for someone braver than me, but not so much braver that they charge off into battles or contests or whatever. And most established regions... breed specifically for that kind of pokemon."

For the first time, she heard the scratching sound beneath the desk. Her eyes drifted that way for the briefest moment before she carried on. "And there was a little pamphlet for Inset at school. It said the league at Inset was new--and I, I mean, I don't know how recent that pamphlet was or if that's still true or not. But a new region seemed like a good place to try something new. Maybe the starters wouldn't be so conditioned to fight, maybe the other trainers would be on the same level as me. That, uh... that sort of thing."

Fuck, that had been a lot of words. And she wasn't even done.

"So. That's why I didn't stay in Hoenn. That's why I want pokemon, that's why I'm here." She'd been talking with her hands the whole time and they finally fell back to her sides. That felt awkward, though, so she clasped her hands behind her back. Had her palms been this sweaty the whole time? Probably. "And if... If I fail here, or if I'm no good, or if I decide to try the doctor thing full time, I'd bring whatever pokemon I had back here, or find good homes for them first. I wouldn't--you know. I wouldn't just abandon them in the wilderness." And that was her final bid--her final, desperate plea to Tate, begging the lady to at least say she wasn't a terrible person, even if she couldn't give her a starter.

WORDS ► 1,561
NOTES ► fitz i'm so sorry

Silence reigned once again after Emily wrapped up her endless speech. Her blouse was a loose thing--tight clothing was not business casual--but she might as well have worn a corset for all the trouble she was having with taking a breath. Tate was absolutely, categorically inscrutable. The seconds-long silence felt like it lasted for hours and hours, and Emily waited on pins and needles the whole time. She was going to be kicked out, she knew that somewhere deep in her bones. But the how of it sent adrenaline back into her system with renewed vigor.

Would she just be asked to leave the lab and maybe come back another day? Or maybe be told to leave Inset altogether? Did the lab have hulking bodyguards for situations like this--when there were people they didn't trust with their pokemon?

And then Tate, with her short legs and harsh questions and poker faced expressions, threw in a curve ball. Good.

Emotions more similar to confusion than happiness flitted across Emily's face. Then Tate opened the pokeball in her hand, and a pokemon appeared. Perhaps the biggest relief was that she no longer had to find excuses to not make eye contact with the scary lady Tate; there was finally a legitimate reason to look away.

(But she'd done it! She'd gotten Tate's approval! The elation set in slowly and belatedly, but a genuine smile tugged at her lips by the time she redirected her attention to the pokemon.)

She'd seen Abras with trainers and coordinators passing through Mauville, but that was about the extent of her exposure to them. Psychic types were rarely interested in being studied by humans and even the brightest scientists couldn't come up with a testable hypothesis on how (or why, or when, or where) psychic abilities had arrived on the evolutionary stage. And that meant her classes had never spent much time on them.

The creature looked like it was sound asleep, but it heard Tate's order. Emily couldn't make heads or tails of it--don't strain yourself--but she left it alone. Abra landed softly on the ground. After a moment of indecision, Emily knelt down so she could be at eye level with the pokemon, just before the unfamiliar voice slipped into her mind. Emily cringed at the unexpected intrusion. It took her a moment longer than it probably should have to realize that the empathetic words were the Abra's. "Well that's... different," she said softly, cracking a small smile. She tried to picture herself talking telepathically with a starter pokemon for her whole journey--which marked the first time she really thought about what a journey would be like on a day to day basis.

People could get used to anything, though. From failure to telepathy, evolution had molded living things to be adaptable. Undergrad had taught her that indirectly; the lesson just hadn't sunk in in time for Emily to benefit from it. "And, um, thank you." It appeared the Abra had heard their whole conversation from within the pokeball. Was that normal? Emily didn't know.

"I'm trying not to be." Emily was a heartbeat away from going on a tangent similar to the one she'd given Tate--about how she needed a new challenge and all the sappy stuff--but she stopped herself. Abra had already proven that it'd heard that whole conversation and like Tate said... the goal was to prevent unsuitable matches. That was done by talking with the pokemon, not talking at them.

She set her water bottle on the ground and moved from kneeling to sitting cross legged. Once she was comfortable, she folded her hands in her lap. Okay. Talk with the pokemon. But about what? Emily took a deep breath and reached around her head to let her hair out of its ponytail. She pulled a strand of long hair around her shoulder and fiddled with it while she tried to figure out a conversation topic. As a shy introvert, it was not exactly an easy task. "If... if you don't mind my asking, you mentioned challenges. What challenges have you overcome?" She kept her voice soft and low, trying to mimic the Abra's tone.

WORDS ► 702
NOTES ► fitz this time with 112% less of emily's rambling

Emily tensed at Tate's words, as though they had been directed at her. She didn't put the pieces together until the Abra spoke out loud; she'd initially assumed Abras could only speak telepathically. Evidently that was not the case. "It's all right," Emily said, speaking more to the Abra than Tate. "For me, anyway. Can't speak for other trainers who come through here but I don't mind." She phrased it carefully, so as not to contract Tate's orders. The very last thing she wanted to do was fall onto Tate's bad side again.

Patience. That was the Abra's challenges. Huh. Emily began playing with her hair again, twirling it absently around one finger while she listened to the psychic type. Keeping her face neutral was her primary goal and she didn't know how well she succeeded. Try as she might, the Abra made her nervous. Normally she kept negative thoughts solidly to herself--sometimes she didn't even do that and simply walled the negative thoughts off from everyone, herself included, until they'd either resolved themselves or grown too large to be ignored. But that was old-Emily. She didn't want to be that way anymore.

And once again, she found herself using Tate's words as a lifeline: the goal was to prevent an unsuitable match, on either side. To prevent an unsuitable match, she had to be honest and open and forthright. Emily was an honest person by default. The other two, though? Not so much. But there was no time like the present to learn.

Emily stayed silent while the Abra kept talking. The implication of Abra's last words were that Emily was worthy and the idea made her cheeks flush happily. (Unlike Abra, she had no access to Tate's private thoughts. So it was only a compliment in her eyes.) She took a deep breath and let the twirled hair go. "Well, thank you. I hope you're right. But I'll, uh... I'll be honest. If you're impatient, I might not be the best trainer for you. I've never done this pokemon thing before, you know? Granted, I'm usually a fast learner, but that's with... book things. That's different from pokemon journeys."

That was where she planned to end until she thought over the Abra's words again. She gnawed at her lower lip and eyed the Abra empathetically. "I understand wanting to leave a place, though. Even if it's comfortable, even if it's lovely. I wanted to leave my home the way you seem to want to leave the lab. Except I could leave whenever I wanted. I can't imagine being trapped somewhere indefinitely, waiting on someone else to let you leave. That must be difficult." Perhaps that was all the Abra had meant? Perhaps she had only been impatient to leave the lab and start doing something for once in her life, just the way Emily had felt when the med school option had been taken off the table? Perhaps Abra wasn't just impatient about things on a day to day basis? To Emily's relief, she might not have to wonder long--thanks to the magic of actually communicating, there was a possibility she'd learn very soon.

Tate's next question was a much gentler one than all the others. Type preferences. Did she have any? Emily hadn't thought about it much. "That's really nice of you but honestly... no, I don't. Back in Hoenn, they only offer fire, grass, or water. I tried to pick a favorite among those, because I figured you guys'd be the same way. But clearly, that's not true." She gestured toward the Abra to prove her point. "So I'm okay with anything." She liked Tate's recommendation about focusing on desires and goals and suitable personality matches, and as far as Emily knew, those things weren't tied to types. She didn't want to say that out loud though. There was a fine line between being a kiss ass and not; chatoting Tate's words would have put Emily starkly on the former side.

WORDS ► 667
NOTES ► fitz

Emily was too passive, too unsure, to outright agree or disagree with the Abra. She settled for an indecisive shrug of her shoulders while Abra took a seat. "You could be right." Emily paused before continuing. "You never... quite told me. And I never asked, so it's not your fault," she tacked on hastily, thrusting the brunt of the blame on herself before the question had even been aired. "But what are you impatient for? Do you just want to get out of the lab, or do you want to evolve, or is it about gyms, or... what?" Outside of those three (or perhaps contests), Emily didn't have the faintest idea as to what a pokemon's ambitions might be. She'd never really thought about it. All of her experience with pokemon came from weak or sick or injured pokemon, whose only real ambitions were to be healthy.

The sound of a pokeball's click--two, actually--drew Emily's attention toward Tate. As soon as she'd opened her mouth to ask Tate a question, a yellow blur escaped the first ball and made a beeline straight for her face. Emily's eyes reflexively closed and her nose scrunched up with a smile. The adorable compliment drew a breathy laugh from Emily and she opened her eyes, getting her first good look at the bug. "I'm a cutiepie? Look who's talking," she said affectionately while she looked the tiny bee fly over. Cutiefly's appearance was a welcome relief either way. First Tate with her barrage of questions and disapproving stares, then Abra with her dismissal of most trainers and her professed impatience... Cutiefly formed a stark contrast to both of them, to put it mildly.

The third pokemon didn't make much of an impression but Emily smiled at him. "Hi." He was quiet, didn't say much, and had put a good bit of distance between himself and the rest of the group. Whether it was because he was afraid or apathetic or introverted, Emily hadn't the foggiest idea. But she decided to give him space. As an introvert herself, there was nothing more uncomfortable than people who didn't respect your personal bubble.

Tate's introduction made Emily cringe. Almost a doctor. If she were anyone else, she would've been furious at Tate for the little jab. But Emily wasn't anyone else. Emily was Emily, and all she could focus on was the fact that Tate's statement--cruel as it may have been--was still too generous. She wasn't almost a doctor. She wasn't almost anything. She had a bachelor of science degree and that was all.

Cutiefly was quite the little cheerleader. The over the top enthusiasm was very nearly too much. "Thank you," she said graciously. Once again, she opted against outright agreeing or disagreeing with the pokemon. Cutiefly was so happy, so eager, so optimistic--why ruin it by explaining that, actually, no, Emily wasn't proud of herself at all? She wanted to start fresh at Inset and she'd already been enough of a Debbie Downer to last a lifetime.

The Gastly seemed incapable of saying more than a few syllables at any given time. From Emily's crosslegged position on the lab's floor, the Gastly looked so small and so sad up there in the corner, all by himself. "Assuming Abra's translation was right," she began slowly. She wasn't quite sure who to look at while speaking--she didn't want to make the Gastly uncomfortable, if that was why he was so far away--so her gaze drifted between all three pokemon. "I was going to be a pokemon doctor, the sort that mostly works with domestic pokemon." That had been a practical decision. Wild pokemon doctors were funded by the regional government and made almost no money. Her parents had always been so proud of her career trajectory specifically because of the money doctors could make. They hadn't wanted her to be poor the way they were. So she'd put the nix on wilderness medicine early on. "Kind of like the nurses at pokemon centers, but I was more interested in chronic issues than injuries sustained from pokemon battles. Stuff that can't be cured by potions or spray bottles, you know?"

Not that her interests mattered much. Her pokemon physiology degree had taught her about the anatomy and physiology of lots of species native to Hoenn, but not how to identify or correct abnormalities. That's what medical school was for, and Emily hadn't made it that far.

She cleared her throat and focused on the two new arrivals. "So, um, Cutiefly and Gastly... Abra and I had a minute to talk before you got here, but what are you guys into? Any goals or hobbies, anything like that?" If there were a more awkward way to phrase that question, Emily couldn't think of one. She left out her personal disinterest in contest and battles this time around; she didn't want to bias them. And besides, she'd told the truth to Tate. If their personalities meshed well and her started did want to try gyms or contest halls or whatever, Emily would give it the old college try.

Not the college try she'd used for medical schools, of course. The one she'd used for undergrad, where she'd actually, you know, not fallen flat on her face.

WORDS ► 882
NOTES ► fitz

Emily's gaze lingered on the maybe-sleeping-maybe-not Abra for several long moments after she gave her answer. She understood the sentiment. That was how she'd felt all through middle school, all through high school, all through college. And if parallel universes were a thing, the Emily Bennett's who'd made it into medical school probably still felt that way. For all her alleged understanding, though, Emily couldn't think of a way to respond. So she didn't.

Cutiefly proved to be a good distraction, once again drawing a small smile from the brunette. The bug's relentless, sincere enthusiasm was rare. All her life, she'd been surrounding by serious type A workaholics--none of those people were liable to call anyone, or anything, sweet as nectar. She watched affectionately while the bee fly tried to braid her hair. (It looked like she was basically working with three strands rather than three sections but either way, it was adorable, so Emily didn't interfere.)

Emily returned Gastly's tiny gap-toothed smile with a full-toothed one of her own. If his smile was any indication, it looked like apathy wasn't his problem. He still didn't look comfortable so she mirrored his silence and opted for talking with Abra and Cutiefly instead. "Random acts of kindness, eh?" The Cutiefly seemed incapable of saying things that didn't bring a smile to Emily's face. "You really are a sweetheart." Or a Sweetiefly? But no. Puns didn't come as naturally to Emily as they did to the Cutiefly.

The interaction between Gastly and Abra sent chills down Emily's spine. A TV-loving pokemon wouldn't be one to push her, which was what she'd told herself she wanted. And even Cutiefly, with her all her adorable, cheerleading antics, wouldn't really push her anymore than her parents had. They'd been her cheerleaders for years, cheering her on towards her future doctorhood. Look how well that had worked out.

And so, by process of elimination, that left one option. And her one option looked an awful lot like a bully just then.

Emily cleared her throat. She tried to find the words to explain why Abra was wrong, but couldn't. That wasn't a good sign, was it? Maybe she didn't have the spine to deal with Abra. Maybe Cutiefly was the safer option.

But then again--maybe Abra was right. Maybe what she needed was someone to push her, someone to challenge her, someone to force her to grow a backbone that survived longer than thirty seconds.

She licked her lips and looked over the two visible pokemon and the desk, behind which the third was hiding. Maybe without a bully--or one less bully, at any rate--Gastly would benefit, too. That was a weak justification for her choice, but after the callous attitude she'd just witnessed, Emily needed all the justifications she could find. "Cutiefly," she began slowly, as though if she took long enough to speak, she'd change her mind partway through. "You're so kind, so sweet, and so genuine--I know you'll find a trainer. You won't have any problems. Anyone'd be lucky to have you." No such luck on the mind-changing front, evidently.

She reached her hand out and brushed her index finger over the bug's back to say goodbye. She offered Cutiefly one last smile and looked over at Abra. "So. Abra." She ran a hand over the tiniest braid Cutiefly had left her with. "You said you were impatient for life to begin. How about now?"

WORDS ► 577
NOTES ► fitz