Chapter 3: David Emmons

Chapter 3: David Emmons

Boy, was Jermy in over his head.

Although he had no issues with being kind and reassuring to the two new recruits on the outside, internally, he couldn’t help but worry. This was only his second day on the job, and already things were going awry, what with them housing under the roof of Mr. Persian’s kid. It was hard to tell if he had already screwed the pooch or not by allowing that.

At least they’d managed to arrive at the Resort for their first proper training session at a good time. Dawn had yet to break, so the usually bright and active lobby was left in a dark shade and an empty, desolate atmosphere. It was almost like a visage had broken, revealing the family-friendly hotel as some kind of monster trying to…eat them, or something.

Bah, it was always tough to form a cohesive thought this early in the morning. Jermy would think a decade’s worth of early wake-up calls would change his sleep patterns enough to make it no issue for him, but that’s not how this pikachu body rolled. At least he wasn’t alone. As they approached Demurke awaiting them in the lobby, Mathew and Joey looked equally groggy.

“Good morning…!” she greeted, sounding cheery as ever. “Did you sleep w-well?”

Joey stretched his arms out. “I reckon I’ve slept better. We’re up earlier than an early-bird rooster.”

“Better get used to it,” ORB said. “Between your Club work-day and adjustment period to Solcean life, this is the optimal hour to train you, assuming you go to bed early.” Jermy was lucky to have ORB by his side to speak for him. Robots don’t get tired.

“I dunno if we all did that.” Joey gestured to Mathew, who had already collapsed into a beanbag chair and started snoring. The totodile turned to Demurke. “Did y’all ever ask around about my mom and dad?”

There was a clear guilt in her eyes as she slowly nodded. “No…signs of them anywhere. I-I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Joey’s posture drooped. “That’s okay. I reckon I shouldn’t have expected much. At least Mathew’s let me keep that scrapbook… Thanks a bunch for trying, though.”

Jermy listened to all this with a frown on his face. It was one thing for them to have recruited somebody with their memories fully intact. It was a whole ‘nother thing for them to have also summoned a boy who just so happened to be familiar with him. Jermy wasn’t warned that anything like this could happen…how was he supposed to handle it?

At least he and Demurke would have some time to train the pair on their own before any of the higher-ups get a look at them. Maybe they could help iron out this—

“Wow, I can’t believe we’ve found a more sound sleeper than Jermy!”

Both he and Mathew lurched back as a big, brown, spotted wing grazed the cubone’s chest. If Jermy wasn’t awake before, he was now. “David! What the heck are you here for?!”

Even after all these years as pokémon, Jermy still wasn’t used to his boss towering over him in size. Although David’s eyes conveyed an air of excitement, it was hard to deny that the humanoid owl looked down on all of them. “This is Mathew’s first day of training! I couldn’t miss that! Plus, I’m sure you two could use the help today.”

Upon hearing their clear comradery, Mathew stopped reaching for his bone club laid down next to the chair. “Sorry…”

“Oh, don’t you worry your little head.” David reached down with his — Fingertips? Feathertips? Jermy settled on wingtips — and patted him on the mask. “The first days are never easy.”

“So, I reckon you’re a friend of Jermy?” Joey asked.

“I’m his boss!” David pulled at the lab-coat beneath his wings. “David Emmons, head of O—SEAS’ science division! Really putting the ‘Scientific’ in Scientific Excitement and…whatever the rest is.”

Jermy tried to hide his annoyance. Some sense of formality would be appreciated.

Mathew immediately straightened his posture and masked his tiredness. “Good morning, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He bowed for the decidueye.

“I could say the same! Feels like I’ve been waiting for years.” David then turned to Joey. “And you must be the little Mr. Johdaile! Welcome aboard.”

“Uh, hi.” Joey’s bow was more hasty and less confident. “So you’re the fella who brought us here?”

“Oh, no, that’s not my division. You’ll meet them soon enough.” David peered at Demurke, and she nodded hastily. He double-checked that nobody was around before continuing. “Those blueprints of Mathew’s, however? That’s the pride and joy of my team!” He pumped an arm with vigor.

“Our team! We worked on it together,” Jermy specified.

“You worked on it?” Mathew sounded surprised. “Wow. What part of it?”

Jermy probably should have seen that question coming. His voice came out smaller than he meant it to. “Uh, a few firmware bits here and there, tightening up the design, and—”

“Jermy was the primary tester. He was literally the lab rat.”

Did ORB really have to roll up and say that?! Jermy grit his teeth. It didn’t paint the most flattering picture, he knew that. A better engineer surely would’ve been more involved with designing the thing—

“Holy shit, you were the tester?!” Mathew, to Jermy’s surprise, sounded floor. “That’s amazing! For something insane like the portal devices, I can only imagine how dangerous that was!”

Well, now Jermy felt a little bashful. He expected a gifted engineer like Mathew to rip into him for that. Of course, ORB knew better. He always did. It was the whole reason Jermy created him in the first place.

“Yes, yes, he was pretty small as a pichu,” David mumbled, more interested in the new faces. “Anyhow, how has Kalmwa’er Resort treated you? I’ve never spent a night myself, but word around the lab is that it’s pretty cozy!”

Jermy and Demurke both tensed up. David had no idea about the housing arrangement, and it looked like this was how he was going to find out.

“We didn’t?” Joey said. “Well, we were gonna sleep here, but we got an offer better than butter and batter.”

His spirited demeanor faltered a bit. “…Huh?”

“One of the regular Pick-it Up Club members offered us his condo to stay at,” Mathew explained. “Mr. Persian’s kid, actually.”

“Did he, now?” David’s eyes flicked to the recruiters with a sharp glare. “How interesting.” And just like that, he was back to chipper again. “I hope it’s a nice place! Now, we should probably get you to your training. Demurke, can you show Mathew and Joey the way to the Waregle? Jermy, ORB, and I will catch up after a quick talk outside.”

Demurke’s eyes widened. “O-Okay, sure!” She quickly ushered Mathew and Joey along.

“What the hell is a Waregle? Sounds like a horn that comes out at a full moon.” That was the last thing Jermy heard out of Mathew’s mouth. The decidueye, meanwhile, walked towards the sliding doors, gesturing him to follow with a wing.

Yep. Pooch screwed.

The moment the doors shut, Jermy mouth took off at a mile a minute. “Look, I know this doesn’t look good, but I swear I can explain why we — waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!”

Lodged tightly in David’s talons, the pikachu was abducted from the ground as the decidueye took flight. His heart thumped as they rose dozens of yards above Kalmwa’er, drifting farther from the resort as they got higher. The early morning bathed them in a darkness where they wouldn’t be seen hanging from the sky.

“Jermy, I know that you’re new at this, but come on!” David exclaimed, his voice just loud enough to carry past his own wingbeats. “Letting them house in one of the non-members’ homes? And Mr. Persian’s kin, no less!”

Jermy clutched David’s talon tightly, hoping to irritate him. This wasn’t an unusual method to isolate their conversation with, and it wasn’t like he’d ever drop him, but the least his boss could do was ask first before he gave him a balloon’s perspective of Kalmwa’er. “Hey, it’s not as bad as it looks! It’s a quick walk, it’s comfortable and convenient, it gets them bonding with co-workers…”

“That’s not what I’m bothered by, Jermy. Having an average Solcean in your living space leta them listen in on conversations about what we’re doing. That’s a huge risk!” David sounded exasperated, as if that should have been obvious. “Did they plan this behind your back? Surely you were there to step in.”

“Well, uh—”

“Meowth introduced the idea right in front of him.” ORB was clutched in David’s other talon. “ I could find no way to refuse his offer without raising suspicion.”

Gah, why did he have to say that now?! “I will turn you into scrap metal!”

“You can settle your score with Jiminy Cricket later.” David outstretched his leg, giving Jermy a better look at him. “Keep in mind that this is Mathew Walker we’re talking about. This recruitment needs to go smoothly.”

“I know that! I’m trying to make it smooth!” Jermy protested. “Demurke is on board with this, too! We can’t put them in the resort because…you know…Mathew would…” If he was talking to some other person, Jermy would be able to repeat Demurke’s point. But being in front of David — and suspended a few dozen yards in the air — really took the power out of his voice. How did he explain this to his boss in a convincing way?

David seemed curious. “Mathew would what?”

Jermy couldn’t get another stumbled word in before ORB piped up. “We have company.”

Oh, barnacles. Turned out David had drifted too close to the gondola wires as they argued. Five pokémon, illuminated in the dark by a lightbulb inside the gondola car, had front-row seats to their private conversations. Jermy had no idea if they had been able to hear them past that glass.

“Boys, circus maneuver,” David muttered, rearing his head back.

Geez, it’d been a long time since they’d done that. Hurriedly, Jermy scuttled up David’s body and precariously balanced atop his beak. He wobbled a bit, but found his balance in time. The two of them spun in opposite directions. The decidueye pointed ORB straight down at the ground, making them into a stack of three.

The performance left the audience in the gondola car bewildered but amused, prompting both wide-eyed stares and a mild applause from one or two of them. It was an embarrassing display, but the strangers were more likely to remember this than anything they overheard, so it would have to do.

As soon as the car had fully passed them, Jermy tilted over and collapsed into David’s shoulder. His boss accepted his new position, tossing ORB up to cling to his other shoulder. He glided back towards the resort. “So, what was that you were saying?”

“I’ll save him the effort,” ORB cut in. “Demurke pointed out that housing Mathew under our typical property makes it exponentially more likely that they will meet. None of us are prepared for that to happen yet.”

Jermy was close enough to see David’s eyes widen. “Oh. That’s…a good point. I hadn’t considered that.”

“Exactly.” Jermy sighed. That was what he was planning to say in the first place, yet it felt like David would have been more upset if he had been the one to say it.

“So we’re facing a risk either way, then? Demurke has more practice doing this than me, so I’ll trust her judgment. Keep them where they are right now. Once we help them get fully initiated…” David’s gaze sharpened as he looked dead ahead. “Then we’ll deal with that.”

Jermy had no objections to that plan, but it still made him nervous. Could they really bumble around all of these potential pitfalls? They had to try, at least. And that meant they had to prove their readiness as soon as possible. “We should probably go catch up with them. Can you please put me and ORB down now?”

“The correct ordering is ‘ORB and me,’” ORB said. “I’m offended that you would put yourself first.”

“Hey, you’re the one that’s fixable if you splatter all over the lower class! I have bones!”

“Don’t get cocky now,” David said as he glided down. “I’m pretty sure I could fix both of you.”

David slowly landed at the side of the Resort, allowing Jermy to leap from David’s talon with ORB in tow. They briskly walked through the quiet resort lobby and arrived at resort’s fitness. Weights, barbells, exercise balls, and sweat towels were hung from displays, and treadmills for all shapes and sizes lined the wall. This wasn’t their destination though — that would be the door in the corner with an “Authorized personnel only” sign plastered on it. Demurke had been kind enough to leave it cracked open for them.

Past the door was a long staircase winding around an open shaft for the resort’s secret elevator. This shaft was the core of the entire building, and non-employees were none the wiser to its existence. Along the staircase, there were doors to service rooms on each of the floors, but the elevator only went to three places: here, the ground floor; up, to a room very close to Mr. Persian’s office; and down. Far, far more down than any average pokémon would think to dig.

David pressed a button, and for the next minute, little creaks and whirs echoed through the shaft. When Jermy grabbed the railing, he could feel it vibrate. It sounded like it should be dangerous, but Jermy knew most of the people who designed and worked on the thing. It was safe, as long as it was well-maintenanced.

Still, the thought of it failing and crashing all the way down to the bottom made Jermy shudder. Yeesh.

The cab itself was tall enough to fit most anybody inside, but the wideness left much to be desired. Any more than four people in here at a time and it’d be awfully uncomfortable. It was a good thing he, David, and ORB had gone separately from the others.

Another minute silently passed. The cab’s descent was long, but uneventful. It wasn’t long until they arrived where Mr. Persian’s work ended and theirs began.

After spending a day taking in the salty air of Kalmwa’er, it was hard for Jermy to go back to the striking scent of chlorine that filled the entire space. Ahead of them was the massive training area housed beneath the Resort. A sprawling maze of colorful platforms, wires, walls, and slides dangled from powerful cables attached to the ceilings, creating a floating obstacle course suspended over a deep pool. Bars for climbers, hoops for flyers, dummies for punchers, balls for kickers…the pool was even surrounded by patches of dirt for burrowers. It was one of the most popular places under their banner that wasn’t a direct base of operations. The echoing roar of pokémon playing, sparring, and practicing drowned out the sound of David’s voice.

It was designed like a jungle gym in a space as big as a warehouse — hence, the Waregle.

Demurke, Mathew, and Joey were waiting for them in the side room where the portals to the other facilities were housed. Mathew was standing amazed before an active portal to the ice palace. A frigid draft blew in from it, making Jermy shiver. The cubone took one step through, putting himself in two places at once. “Wow, this is like something straight out of Portal 3.”

Joey, perplexed, looked down the row of portal frames. “There’s a bunch more than three portals here though?”

“Isn’t it neat?!” David raised his voice so all of them could here. “Portals between two places in the same world are more instant than cross-world trips! Less expensive to maintain, too.”

“Easier than…flying here from home, th-that’s for sure!” Demurke gestured to an older-looking portal labeled “Fascamile Town Hall — NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION. ENDPOINT GUARDED 24/7.”

Mathew hopped out of the portal, looking eager. “God, I am going to enjoy working here…” Demurke closed the portal behind him, letting the room heat up again.

“Well, if you want to so badly, then we better get you trained up for it!” Jermy encouraged before urging David to lead them into the facility.

Before they could go in, they had to stop by a desk to sign in. They liked to keep track of who used the Waregle, so there was always somebody there to mark who comes in and when they come out. Today, it was their local little sea otter with twin tails and a flotation sac for a collar. “Wow, big-named crowd here,” Zack remarked as he dipped a flipper in ink. “David, Jermy, Demurke…” the buizel frowned at ORB. “Do I count robots?”

“I wouldn’t risk it.”

He blinked. “ORB, and…” he peered at the two curiously. “New recruits, eh?”

“That’s right!” David draped a wing over them, as if to give them a dramatic air. “Zackary, meet Mathew and Joey. Mathew and Joey, meet Zackary.”

“Mathew, huh…” The longer Zack stared at the cubone, the more nervous Jermy got. Mathew seemed to think nothing of it. “Well, glad to welcome you both. Have fun!” He scribbled down both of their names and let them through.

They walked along the edge of the pool, leaving behind foot, talon, and wheel tracks in the dirt. The two recruits were looking this way and that, taking in the Waregle. Mathew seemed particularly mesmerized by the other workers. A spiny cacnea soared through a hoop high above them on a chair with a propeller that spun itself. When a scrawny tyrogue threw a punch at a nearby training dummy, their boxing gloves hardened into metal. A sprawny belsprout burst from the ground, propelled by a roaring drill. Jermy remembered when he was that amazed by what Solceus had to offer — good times.

Mathew came up to David as they walked. “Did the science division create all of the tools everyone’s carrying around? These all seem stronger than anything you could make on Earth.”

“Well, we can’t take all of the credit,” David said. “A lot of them are just a random objects imbued with type stones.”

“Type stones?”

“Right, you don’t know what those are.” David raised a wing and redirected their walk towards one of the walls, where a bunch of their random junk had been stacked up for exactly this purpose. “Come here, I’ll show you! Demurke, could you fetch one for me?”

“O-on it, sir!” Demurke flew off. When she returned a minute later, she was carrying a bright green stone and a piece of chalk. David had settled on an aged bugle horn that was sitting atop the pile. The two dropped the stone and the horn on the floor. The murkrow wasted no time sketching around David, forming a smooth circle surrounded by two arcs connected to it by an X shape.

Since the two of them were busy, that left it up to Jermy to explain all this to Mathew and Joey. “Alright, you two! What Demurke’s chalking up over there is a—”

“This is a Gate!” Oh, okay, David didn’t need Jermy’s help after all. The pikachu tried not to roll his eyes. “It allows Solceans to tap into the energy of the world as provided by its creator.” The decidueye held up the green stone. “And this is a type stone. It’s a powerful mineral formed here on Solceus that holds the energy of one type, particularly grass. If I was a dartrix and I cracked this open, absorbing its energy would trigger my evolution into a decidueye! But using this Gate, we can do so much more…!”

He squatted down, put his wings on the chalk outline, and closed his eyes in focus. As the Gate emitted a white glow, green energy poured out of the graying stone and flowed into the horn. Slowly, leaves began to sprout from the brass, populating the inside. Without skipping a beat, David eagerly picked up the horn and blew into it. A torrent of sharp leaves shot into the air, then floated back down harmlessly.

“Woah!” There was a sparkle in Mathew’s eye. Jermy could recognize it from a mile away — it was the look of a creator realizing the world of possibility that had just opened up to them. Not a big shocker. That’s what Jermy knew him for.

“A powerful and useful weapon, and all it takes is a stone, chalk, and your imagination. It’s a field of science straight out of fantasy!” He eagerly held the horn up, marveling in it. “Now you understand why I’m so enamored by what Solceus—”

“Why are y’all making weapons?”

Joey took the wind right out of his sails. “…Huh?” David dropped the horn.

“You called that thing a powerful weapon,” the disquieted totodile said. “I reckon all those other doodads are supposed to be weapons, too. I thought we were getting hired into some world-saving engineering job…”

If looks could kill, Jermy would have been cut into a dozen pieces by the glare in David’s eye. Sparks danced along the arm out of the recruits’ view. “You didn’t tell them?” The anger in his voice was mostly concealed.

Demurke burst into panic. “O-Oh gosh, they didn’t know?! I-I’m sorry, I thought because M-Mathew had his memories he would’ve known, a-and Joey would’ve h-heard from—”

A pat on the hat from David quieted her down. She shrunk down in shame, but he paid her no mind. The only one he was expressing his irritation towards was Jermy.

Well, isn’t this just groovy.

“Sorry. It slipped my mind.” He shot a glance at ORB, begging for a better way out of this conversation.

“We were operating on a tight time schedule,” ORB explained. “Between the wingull attack, returning to the Club, and resting with Meowth, there was no good time to establish everything in detail.”

David squinted his eyes and shook his head, but he seemed more concerned with addressing the recruits. “Yes, Mathew was brought here for an engineering job, and you, Joey, were brought here to support us in whatever way you can. But the actual purpose of your engineering and your support…is warfare.”

Joey’s maw slipped open so quickly, Jermy was surprised it didn’t snap off. “What?!”

Mathew just gave another sweeping look at the weapon-wielding members in intrigue. “What kind of warfare?”

“That, I can’t tell you until you become official members. If regular Solceans found out what our ambitions were, it would create a pandemonium. We need to know we can trust you first.” David clenched a wing-hand. “But I promise you, we really are trying to save the world here… Both worlds. That’s why we’re recruiting from Earth at such an urgent pace, even at the cost of memories — we’re going to need all the help we can get, wherever we can get it.”

Joey fingered the brim of his cowboy hat. “Did y’all tell me all this before I showed up here?”

Demurke nodded. “Technically, you already…a-agreed to it all. It’s okay to n-not believe that at first, though.”

“If you’re in such a rush, why put us through a recruitment process?” Mathew asked. “I could just get to work now.”

David clammed up a bit. “About that…”

“Let me be the bearer of bad news.” ORB put himself in front of David. Of course, for the robot, David let him talk all he wanted. “No position in SEAS is guaranteed. In order to become a part of the science division, you need to prove yourself as viable members. If you don’t…well, the army division is always hiring.”

The weight of that statement landed upon Mathew and Joey’s shoulders immediately. Joey in particular seemed rightfully nervous at the prospect. “Y’all wouldn’t just send us home at that point…?”

David shook his head. “The way you were sent here is mostly one-way.”

Surprisingly, that was the moment Mathew reached Joey’s level of panic. “We can’t go back?!”

“Not that kind of one-way!” He raised his wings defensively. “Without a frame on Solceus, Mathew, your Earth portal can’t be reached. And the person who brought Joey here is busy, to say the least. We’d have to set up a portal to and from my lab in New Hampshire, and then ship you aaaaaall the way back to your house.”

“Oh, good.” Mathew’s relief stuck out as odd to Jermy. Just last evening, he was telling him about how glad he was to be here and not on Earth. “Well, don’t worry about me. I’ll kick the ass of whatever challenge it takes to get this job!”

A reluctant Joey followed suit. “Well, even if Demurke doesn’t know, I still reckon my mom and dad are more likely to be here than at home. If this job gets me closer to finding out…” his affirmation seemed to lift Mathew’s spirits further.

“Good!” David’s stance loosened, looking satisfied now. Lucky for him, David probably wouldn’t chew him out any further. “Now, let’s get you two—”

“David!” That was Zack, calling from afar as he speedily swam through the pool towards them. When he leapt out of the water, he offered David a walkie-talkie-like device. “It’s Selena. She says it’s urgent.”

“Her, using a Phony?” The decidueye paced away from the group and raised the dripping device to the side of his leafy hood. “Selena, it’s me. I’m with the other recruits right now, so make this qui—” A muffled but panicked voice came through the receiver. “Huh? What on Earth did you do?” A look of concern came over him. “Selena… Whyyyyy would you say that?” He wingpalmed, then tightened his tone. “Okay. Do you think I can still get over there and calm things down? …Alright. Tell me where.” David nodded to himself. “I’ll be there. Hold down the fort until then, got it?”

“What’s all that about?” Joey asked.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this short. Something’s come up.” He glared at Jermy. “Can I trust you to take care of them?”

Jermy had no other option. “I’m on it.”

“Good. Zack, come with me.” David spread his wings and leapt into the air, gliding beak-first.

“Way ahead of you!” Zack leapt back into the water, trailing him.

The moment they were both gone, Jermy sighed in relief. Maybe he could finally do his job now. “Alright! Now, let’s get you on your first task!” He marched ahead, letting everybody tail his…well, tail. “You two are still new to your pokémon bodies, so we need to get you some practice. Luckily, the Waregle has official routings for obstacle courses, marked by those colored flags you see.” Jermy pointed ahead at a low-hanging platform ripe for leaping on. A red flag was attached to its edge. “To start you off, we’re gonna have ORB time you two running this route! It’s no snoozer, and if you fall, you have to start over. But that’s the idea! After we train you up, we can compare your time to when you started!”

“Seems easy enough.” Mathew nodded along as he walked up to the platform.

“But there’s a-a catch!” Demurke exclaimed. “It m-might not look like it, but the Waregle is actually…booby-trapped! Jermy and I a-are gonna control those, and…we w-won’t hold back!”

“Traps?” Joey pulled the brim of his hat back to study the route. “What kind of traps?”

“Hah! Those kinds of traps!” Joey narrowly sprung away from a torrent of flames blasting up from the floor of the platform. He slowly clawed his way up to the platform above, nearly falling through the gap between them.

Mathew was a fair bit behind Joey. After a few platforms, he had taken to crawling his way through the obstacle course. After almost slipping onto his rear due to the water-coated surfaces of the course, he wasn’t taking any risks. “Joey, wait up!”

“Maybe I’d slow down if you didn’t stick to the floor like a magnet on a fridge!” he called back.

“It’s not fair…you’re a water type! You probably have some no-slipping properties or some shit!”

Jermy pulled his mic inward. “What are you complaining for, bucko? You got the thunder thighs. It’d take some power make you keel over!”

Mathew groaned as he started climbing up a plastic rock wall. “Talk about my legs like that again and I’ll…ngh…bring you some fucking thunder—!”

The cubone’s scream filled the air as a comically large red glove sprung from the wall. He was launched away from the platform, falling down, down, down—splash.

Demurke giggled as she pulled her wing away from the button. “Y-You warned him!”

The two of them were watching all of this unfold from the comfort of the control room. Tiny cameras all over the course let them see everything through an array of monitors, and a whole console of buttons and switches allowed them to torment the recruits however they saw fit. Neither of them would finish in less than ten minutes.

Jermy had nothing to worry about now. He could just sit back and watch as Joey tried to run across those three big red balls, only to fall to his doom on the first one. As David’s remarks could be put further and further into the past.

His eyes slid away from the monitors and onto the console as he hunted for trap buttons to peck. He and David had been at odds with each other for a long, long time. It was hard to believe that it hadn’t always been this way, sometimes. Every once in a while, he remembered what life was like before Emmons Labs crossed from one world into another. Back when his apprenticeship was just about researching ways to change Earth for the better.

Back when he still had her to lean on.

Jermy misclicked, changing view to a camera pointed at ORB. It’d been a long five years since he first started working on that robot. Looking back, it felt even longer. He had desperately needed something to make him smile and laugh again. To be that voice of confidence. Nothing else in his life really played that role anymore.

Not since that night.

“Jermy. Dude.”

He had groaned as he was shaken awake. His eyes had been harder to lift than weights, but when they came open, he could see the worried look on his sister’s face. “Jane?” he had said groggily. “What time is it…?”

“About midnight, I think?” Her ears had drooped. At the time, she had been a pikachu just like him. It was still hard to confuse him for her, what with the aviator goggles and large white scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, not to mention the heart-shape at the end of her tail. “Sorry, I know you’ve always gotta get up early, but I’m on a bit of a time crunch.”

“Time crunch…?” Jermy had been confused. He remembered not being able to discern if this was a dream. “Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m sneaking out of here and running as far as I can,” Jane had said. “I…found something out. Something I bet ya knew? But now that I know, I can’t stay. They’ll come after me if they find out I snooped. I don’t really wanna stay, either.”

What she said then caused the intensity of the situation to finally hit him. “But—”

“It’ll be dangerous, uh huh. I wanted to say bye, in case I don’t make it out. So…” She reached for him and pulled him just out of bed enough to give him a warm embrace. “See ya, dude. Stay safe. And, even if they beg on their knees, don’t let them sucker you into those recruitment jobs, okay?”

Jermy knew what she meant now, but at the time, he had been entirely lost. All he had understood was that this might be the last time he’d see his sister. Her hug had felt so nice then. He didn’t even recall feeling himself falling back into his bed. He had just…

…

…

…

“Jermy! J-Jermy! Wake up!”

“Ah!” Jermy flung his body off of the control panel and back into his seat. A quick glance at the monitors showed a spooked Munchlax stumbling away from a geyser of water cascading down from the ceiling. Evidently, Jermy’s sleeping body had activated a whole bunch of traps around the top of the Waregle! “Sorry! Sorry! That’s my bad!” he called into the mic as he hastily turned them all off and refocused the camera to Mathew and Joey.

Demurke slumped back into her own chair, seeming relieved. “What was…that a-all about?”

“I dunno.” Jermy’s head sunk as he slouched over, getting back to work like nothing happened. “Guess I was more tired than I thought.”