Currently, Courtney and I are sitting outside of a café around a small metal table. Serena is inside ordering drinks, and Courtney is helping me with my new problem.
With my head in hand and stump, Courtney suggests, "You don't have to adopt them. You're not financially stable, and that's okay. You heard her. They were contemplating allowing each to be adopted separately anyway."
I look up at her, forcefully distressing my eyes. "But imagine how much they could bolster my team, and the fact that they were all adorable!" I feel Robin shake in her pokéball, and I'm forced to pet the ball itself to calm her down.
She raises an eyebrow. "How about this? Are you not worried about any extra eggs on your team? If I remember correctly, Eevee is a member of the Field Egg group, which is an extensive group."
I wave her comment off. "All of my pokémon are female, and all of the Eevees were female."
Her brow creases. "How do you know?" Almost as if realizing her stupidity, she face-palms. "Never mind. While they were piled on you."
"While they were piled on me," I confirm. Our conversation pauses as Serena approaches with drinks. Courtney has a Cheri smoothie, I got a Razz smoothie, and Serena got Pecha juice. I would describe mine as a smooth taste with a kick.
We sit in silence as we ruminate over my financial problems. Though, my thought process is interrupted by Serena slurping her already finished drink. She looks between us giving her The Look. "Sorry," she apologizes.
"It's fine," I reply. "Okay, what about this—" pause for dramatic effect. "How unethical would it be if I designed a few different A.I. for monitoring the stock market and investing."
"Very." "Not at all." Serena and Courtney share a Look of their own before returning to me.
Serena picks up the torch by giving me an apologetic, but admonishing gaze. "Yes, legally, you could do that, but it would undermine the people that study and work in the stock market for a living. You would be destroying an entire workforce in one move."
Courtney rolls her eyes. "If you can make one that works, then great. Publicly, during our…misguided era, we were funded by donations. Realistically, we were committing insider trading and other crimes to pay for our equipment. Guess what? So is everyone else, and everyone else is going to try and get every advantage they can."
I set down my drink and drum my fingers on the table. "You both make good points, some stronger than others." Courtney shoots a smug smile at Serena. "How about this? An A.I. that tracks changes in the stock market and only gives advice on what to trade. I'm still making the overall decisions."
Serena grimaces. "I don't like it, but I'll accept that."
Courtney looks neutral. "I'm okay with this outcome."
Continuing to drum my fingers, I look up from them to Serena. "Serena, when did you plan on continuing your journey with Ash?"
She opens her mouth, then closes it as she contemplates her word choice. "We were going to wait until we were sure you were fine…physically and mentally." Off to the side, I notice that Courtney pursed her lips slightly.
I look down towards my hands, comparing them. My mind captures the missing symmetry between them and iterates through several designs for a new hand. A few might work, but they require more experimentation with the crystals and maybe some other things that haven't quite been invented yet.
"If you were to ask my opinion, which in all honesty is probably not that great, I will be fine in the physical sense. However, I'm still contemplating killing Clemont over this egregious mistake." Serena crumples in her chair at that, but Courtney just nods.
"I'll help you hide the body." Serena and I just look at her with no words to say. My lips move, but nothing comes out. It's just a…yeah.
"Thanks," I eventually say. "I'll keep that in mind…"
"Nicole…" Serena says with slight hesitation. "Would you feel better if Clemont apologized to you?"
I purse my lips. "Mmmaybe…"
———————————————————————————————————————
"What the hell is this?" I refuse to blunt my words in any capacity right now. This… This isn't making feel better. This is making me feel a different emotion—confused!
"It's called a dogeza," Ash interjects my incoming rant. "It's a formal way of apology."
I stare at him with a few choice words floating through my head. "I get that point," I deadpan. "My real question is why is he testing the limits of public nudity, or rather, WHY IS HE ALMOST NAKED?" I shout, probably grabbing the attention of any passersby in this busy plaza.
Over to the side, I see Bonnie facepalming and Serena rubbing her temples. It looks like this was an Ash and Clemont idea. Wonderful.
Clemont is, as previously mentioned, almost naked. He's actually just wearing his boxers, but Bonnie is holding his backpack, at least. Haaaaah…I can feel an aneurism coming from the amount of stupidity in my general vicinity.
"I APOLOGIZE FOR MAKING AN INVENTION THAT CUT OFF YOUR ARM!!!" Clemont shouts with…enthusiasm. The way he's going about this is taking all of the fun out of the apology. Looking to the left, I see Courtney hiding her face, but the shaking gives me the impression that she's finding this hilarious.
Glad it's at my expense, Courtney. I'm wrapped up in this too.
"Okay," I utter with displeasure soaking my words, "I've had enough of this farce." Using a few Octillery Arms, I heft Clemont into the air, grab his jumpsuit from the backpack that Bonnie's holding, and roughly shove him into it. I don't care if I'm stretching the fabric, Clemont. You should have thought about that before pissing me off.
Elevating myself, I shift his struggling form in front of me in midair. Just so that I can look down on him. "Clemont, I am…feeling many things right now. Anger at you, anger at Team Rocket, and anger at myself for being incapable of protecting my own body. I could have made different choices, likely using all of my pokémon in battle simultaneously. That's a lesson I've learned at a serious cost—the villains refuse to play by the rules, we choose to. I think a nice lesson for you would be to pick up a manual on hazardous materials and prevent future inventions from exploding."
I squeeze him a little tighter with my arm and pull him only a few centimeters away from my face. "Do we have an accord?" I hope he understands that this is not advice, or a request, but rather a command.
He swallows. "…yes," he whimpers.
"Wonderful." Gently, I put him back on the ground where he scarpers towards Bonnie to grab his backpack. Honestly, my mood is kind of ruined now, and I think I should probably take a nap or something before this bubbling anger translates into the Arms annihilating a block.
"This has been…" I look at everyone. "It's been an event. It's been a slightly long day, so I'm going back to my room tonight. I think I'll get back to my journey tomorrow. If you need me, then I'll be back in my room at the inn, or possibly rent a room out of the pokémon center or something if they've already given my room away."
I climb over a nearby building with everyone behind me speechless. Well, except Courtney. She's giving me that quizzical stare.
———————————————————————————————————————
"You wanna do what now?" I drowsily ask, mentally checking the clock to see 5AM. I'm still wearing pajamas, but Courtney is standing in front of my inn room, completely dressed in her classic Team Magma Admin outfit except her hood is down.
Last night was not kind to me as, with the Arms now fused to my back, I'm forced to sleep on my side or face with no intermediate step in-between. I can't really turn on my back with eight metal tentacles sticking out of me.
"As I said, it would be pertinent to your health if you had someone accompany you for the foreseeable future. So, I took it upon myself to invite me to your adventure." She immediately switches from cold, calculating admin to a more child-like persona as she sheepishly looks down at her twiddling thumbs. "…If that's alright with you?"
Her doe eyes have moderate-to-severe affect on me, but my defenses still hold!
Stifling a yawn, I reply, "That's fine with me, but you should know that I plan on climbing over the forest with my Arms. That means I'll have to carry you, and I can't guarantee it'll be a comfortable ride."
She nods. "That's fine with me."
It takes everything I have not to smile.
My back doesn't hurt anymore. That's great. Not much else to say.
Thanks for reading!
"AHHHHHHHH!"
"HAHAHAHA!"
Several pokémon look up from what they're doing as two feminine screams echo through the forest. One of joy and exhilaration and the other encompasses absolute terror and fear.
As I somersault with a twist through the air, tossing Courtney through some branches, and effortlessly catching her and stabilizing us, I pull her closer towards my actual body.
"What's wrong, Courtney?" I sputtered through several laughs. "I thought you said you would be fine with high speeds?"
She shoots me the nth betrayed look of the last…15 minutes. I stopped counting past 10 looks. "I'm fine with high speeds!" She shouts over the rushing winds. "I'm not fine with being tossed around like a doll!"
"Okay." I shrug my shoulders. She yelps as she suddenly plummets towards the ground, only stopping a couple of inches above the dirt floor. However, she relaxes when she sees that I'm keeping her level, despite the computation inefficiency in such an action.
Ignoring the middle finger she sends me, I pick up the pace, really putting the actuators to the test through this gym of a jungle. There's still the other end of the limit I have to test—fragility. If I were to accidentally eviscerate several trees, the Rangers would be all over me.
I feel her actively tug on the arm, so I pull her back up to me. She looks resigned. "Do we even have to go this fast?" She's begging now, huh?
I shrug my shoulders. "Probably not. The gym leader is wandering the forest, looking for 100 challenges, and it's not like we can force her to just abandon that and battle me officially. Unfortunately, the world doesn't revolve around us, and we can't force it to move forward."
She crosses her arms, accentuating her bust, and pouts. "I wish we could. We wouldn't have to do this and could just make up time elsewhere."
I shoot her an inquisitive glance. "You mean like an amortized analysis of a pokémon journey?"
"…Something like that." Hearing her voice take on a strange tone, I check her, seeing her almost gag.
"Hey!" I indignantly shout. "If you throw up on me, you're cleaning me! Personally!"
———————————————————————————————————————
If it weren't for the smell, I'd be overjoyed right now. As it turns out, Courtney was never one for gymnastics due to having an easily upset stomach. So, I had to walk into the city covered in the remains of her lunch.
Did I learn a lesson from this? Yes. It's check if a person is prone to being motion-sick before you toss them like a Substitute doll. Will I do this again? Absolutely.
Anyway, Courtney did stick to her deal, so now we're inside the bathroom to the room we're sharing at an inn, and we're both naked, and she's cleaning me. It got over most of my back, so I'm sitting down while she scrubs my back in this deluxe bathroom that Courtney paid extra for. Apparently, it's a mixed design of a typical Kalosion and Kantonian bathroom. So, there's a shower area for washing with buckets, a tub large enough for two, and another standing shower with frosted glass.
I, most assuredly, am grabbing as many mental images as possible of Courtney. I'm not sure if Serena informed her of my tastes in partners…because she's doing this. I don't know what her reaction would be, treating me like a guy that sneaks into a women's bathroom, under a disguise or some excuse, just for sexual fulfillment.
Though…I am kind of doing that now, aren't I?
Okay. To respect her privacy, I won't do that…anymore. And…I'll tell her, either when we leave the bathroom or tomorrow at the latest.
"Did I get everything?" Courtney asks, dutifully fulfilling her promise. She…hasn't, but I can do my chest myself. I think I'm going to lose it if she…accidently brushes against my back again.
"I-I think so…" I stutter out, feeling a warmth deep within me that I'm desperate to extinguish. Looking back, she tilts her head.
"Mmm, no. It looks like I missed a spot." Before giving me a chance to respond, she presses her generous chest against my back, reaching under my arms to scrub my chest with the soapy loofa. The rough material grazes my nipples gently as she stares into my eyes. I…I can't look away. She's so…close!
I feel her other hand grasp my right breast and give it a gentle squeeze. I stifle an involuntary moan as her face grows closer. Her lips…they're so thin…and look soft. They're…smirking?
As she scrubs my left breast, her thumb flicks my nipple. Then…she stops, hugging me tightly. Leaning over, she whispers in my ear, "You think I didn't notice?"
Just like that, cold washes over me, the heat within immediately extinguished. She…saw me looking? "You…what?"
"I saw the way you looked at me when we first met…and the way you looked at Serena," she says, lips almost grazing my ear. "She asked for my help on relationship issues. It looks like she's trying to choose between you and that Ash boy."
She pulls back, releasing the hug. She moves around, now in front of me, everything in full view. Kneeling down, she grabs my chin and leans in close. "She also told me that you're having feelings for other girls, too. Personally, if I had to chose between you and that Ash boy, I would choose you." She smirks again. "I like a person with a mind."
Then she pulls back for what I think is the final time. "However, if you expect anything more of me, including this seed of a notion of a female-only relationship with multiple members, either as equals or with you as the head, you need to grow a little…in an emotional way. I need you to become a little more assertive."
With that, she walks into the shower, starting the water and filling the bathroom with more steam.
I… My mind needs to process all of…this. She wants me more assertive? She's fine with being in a multi-person relationship? That means…she wants me to take the lead in pursuing her? But, what about Serena? But…
Augh. I think I need to finish here and go to bed. My head can't take any more…
She's promoting a harem…right…?
I've been doing some thinking for the last few days about the pacing of my story, and some comments I've received have reinforced that thinking. I'd like to get as many opinions as possible on my story's pacing, so please leave a comment detailing your thoughts if you're comfortable with that.
Thanks for reading!
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