Brandy woke up groggy, but a hot shower fixed her up nicely. Her new Steam Engine inheritance was just great now she knew it was there; all she'd need was Calcine to wrap her up in her cloak for a bit, and she could shrug off the worst aches.

With a bounce in her step and a wiggle in her hips, Brandy was excited to leave. Morgan was helping Brandy pack between sneaking glances at her butt, the only one of the three up and about. Someone had finally coaxed Calcine into her ball last night to heal, and Sparky had made a hammock out of her webs in Brandy's room and was refusing to budge. She would tip the lazy bug out if they didn't get up to pack their bag soon.

"It's a shame we won't really get to be maids again," Brandy said as she folded her maid dress. "I thought it'd be embarrassing, but everyone was so excited about it."

"I can see why your bunny friend and her partner enjoy it." Morgan folded the last of her maid dress and put it on the bed beside the others. "Do you trust me?"

"Absolutely not. You're a bigger schemer than Sparky." Brandy wiggled her fingers at Morgan. "But I enjoy your surprises, even when it means I got some coin-shaped lumps on my butt."

"It's such a nice target. How could I resist?" Morgan blushed. As she took the dress off the bed and put it neatly in her backpack, Brandy stopped to run her fingers through Morgan's arm's feathers. Just to show she wasn't actually mad about any of it. "I've got an idea of where we can use them again. We're going to do our first tournament match soon."

"You want to make it the team uniform?"

"For a bit. We may struggle to afford a new one if you catch a fourth. I saw Weber's prices."

Brandy sucked her teeth. They were doing okay on money. Second gym winnings in her pocket meant she could splash out at Hulbury a little. But they weren't that rich. "Aniseed would do you a favor. She's sweet on you."

"I am a fine-looking bird. She'd be a fool not to be." Morgan leaned over to give Brandy a peck on the cheek. "Last night was wonderful. Thank you for not teasing about me losing my head a bit."

"I like that you get passionate about what you enjoy. Schemes. Butts. Us. You put in the work. I want to inherit your work ethic."

"Says the Trainer who'll do anything for her Partners." a new voice cut in. Trinket was at the bedroom door, her arms around Velvet, their hair still wet from the shower. Trinket's key charms in her hair gleamed as her fingers teased at the fluffy white towel Velvet was wrapped up in. "I think you work just fine. Right Velvet?"

Velvet mumbled something affirmative, blowing Brandy a kiss before snuggling back up to Trinket.

"A shame you're not staying longer. The girls are going to miss you all." Trinket said with a smile as she stroked Velvet's hair. 

"We got a deadline to get to Hulbury. Sorry," Brandy stretched up, enjoying how Velvet's eyes went straight to her stomach. She hadn't done her shirt buttons up, and Velvet enjoyed the free show.

"Well, we could stay a few more hours," Morgan said thoughtfully, a gust of wind kicking up to blow back the pillow Brandy threw at her.

"We're going this morning! If we get into more trouble, we'll never get out of here."

"Then I hope the friends waiting outside want trouble. It's been a delight having you." Trinket said, "Please don't smash any person-shaped holes into my lawn."

"We'll make sure you couldn't even tell it was a person," Morgan nodded as she tugged at Brandy's hand. "Come on, let's see who it is."

---

"Do I get a chance to fight you?" Morgan said, wind swirling around her fingers as she held up her hand to the visitor. "I missed out."

"Ah! Such a pretty accent," Mardi said, the plant woman bowing to take Morgan's hand and give a kiss. "Truly beautiful. I came all this way to hear it again."

Absolutely shameless, but it worked. Mainly because for all Mardi lacked in the chest, she had a lovely set of hips, and Morgan was getting a good look at it over her bowed back. With a cluck of her tongue, Morgan shrugged, a smile on her lips. "Okay, you are forgiven."

Mardi swished her green cape around and flicked her bob of white hair back, giving Brandy a smile. "Speaking of forgiveness. Gilly is with your mother doing tests, or she would come begging for it, and Zipper..."

She held up a plush doll, a black rabbit with a white plaster over one eye, the other a bright red with a tiny bit of it cut out. It looked angry.

"Could kick all their butts." the plush rabbit harrumphed, floppy ears drooping.

"I can stitch the eye and mouth up if you're going to be like that." Mardi tutted.

"Ughhhh." it was amazing how expressive a simple plush toy could be, ears flat back as they dug their head into their paws. "I just wish I'd got to finish the fight. Now the team looks like chumps."

"I get it," Brandy said, bopping the toy rabbit on the nose. "I like a good fight but didn't have my full team. We'd have taken you apart."

"Really?" the rabbit said. "How many are you?"

"Three, all of them pretty darn cute. You're pretty cute, too, like that."

The rabbit blushed, the white plaster over the eye turning red before burying its face in their paws.

Mardi smiled and put Zipper up on her shoulder. "Zip usually possesses clothes. She gets embarrassed about having an actual body to compliment."

"I'm trying to work out how she fucks and drawing a blank," Morgan said, "How does she-"

"And spoil the mystery? Think about it more." Mardi grinned and turned her gaze back to Brandy. "The good news is, your mother thinks our bond with Poppy isn't completely broken, more like it's come loose."

"Loose?" Morgan's tone was sharp. "Bonds have to be with something. It can't just be floating about."

Mardi shrugged. "Fenny's the expert. I'm just saying what she is. It's going into something, just not Poppy."

"Someone stole it?"

"No! Do you think I'd be calm if that were the truth? I'd be cutting a path through the world to find the villain. No, when I say 'something,' I mean every bit of mystery that word has to it. We don't know what is doing this. Fenny has never seen anything like it." 

"This is good news?" Brandy shivered. "That sounds even creepier than if it was broken."

"I mean, yeah," Mardi shrugged and held up her hand with the blue flower around the cuff. "But on one hand, a broken bond and no clues why." She held up her red flower-cuffed hand. "And the other, a link to whatever did this we can follow up on."

"Still sucks," Brandy said, taking Morgan's hand. The comfort of a partner was nice right now, even if Mardi looked at the small gesture with jealous eyes. "So you're going to follow it up?"

"Gilly is doing more testing. Fenny's Cage is an impressive invention, but it's more for looking in, not out. Pix said she's sure she can come up with something that'll do it, but it'll take time. Maybe a lot of time. It'd be a huge help if you could find anyone with the same problem and send them our way. We could solve this much quicker."

"Can't the Rangers do it?" Morgan asked rather reasonably. "Not that I don't want to help, but they're meant to fix Pokémon problems?"

"We've asked! They said they'd help as much as possible, but they also didn't want the news to get out and cause a huge panic. So they can't really go around asking everyone about it." Mardi said, "Once we know the hows and whys, they'll make it public, but it'd be chaos without specifics. Everyone would take any little thing as maybe a sign and flood the centers."

Brandy had seen a bond scare in person at Turrfield, and it'd only been thanks to a helpful giant goo girl and Sparky showing off they'd managed to get people to calm down. Even then, she'd still got poisoned. Chaos was right. People got really nervous about this sort of thing, and rightly so. It was their heart that was under threat. 

"We can keep an ear out. We're going to a Tournament next. But like you said, asking everyone would be way too suspicious."

"I would love to go to a Tournament! Sharpen your Partner's thorns there!" Mardi said and held out a hand, a small blue flower blossoming in her palm. She held it out to Brandy, but before Brandy could touch it, Morgan picked it up and threaded it into Brandy's hair. "You'll never have troubles with strong Partners by your side."

"Brandy finds plenty of ways," Morgan said, "But getting her out of trouble is as fun as getting her into it."

Mardi flicked a salute to Morgan, petals drifting around her. "Don't let her rest easy."

"Cute that you think she's the one that needs rest; Joyce's are insatiable," Morgan smiled. "Go on, get going, you charming scamp."

Mardi rolled her hips at Morgan and swanned off, the bunny plush on her shoulder, watching them with baleful eyes the whole way.

"You just like her butt." Brandy said, "Do we have to watch out for you around Pokémon with big hips?"

"Humans, too," Morgan said, giving Brandy a hip bump. "You're very much my type, don't worry."

"The only type with a problem round here is my Dark Type," Brandy snorted, prodding Morgan's chest. "You pay attention to any of that?"

"I got it all, and Mardi is right. We should keep an ear out. If it's a big problem, we'll hear something. If Poppy just got very unlucky, then at least we did our part." Morgan put a wing around Brandy. "Come on, let's roll Sparky out of bed, wake up Calcine, and get going before any more surprises arise. I want to get to Hulbury."

"I thought you wanted to spend a few hours more here?" Brandy said, "Why the change in heart?"

"Where else would be best to check on Partners and their Pokémon than the beach? And I've heard Hulbury has some lovely beaches." Morgan squeezed Brandy into the hug. "You'll have to dress the part, of course."

Typical, they just wanted to get her into a swimsuit.

"And I want to meet Maple in person. She'll be there. Maybe she's heard something. We can meet her on the beach."

Maple? In a swimsuit?

...

They needed to get to Hulbury right now.