"I'm not sure I'm fully cheered up," Mardi said as she leaned on Brandy's side. Her legs were a bit unsteady as she walked up the stairs, but she smelled absolutely divine to make up for her stumbling walk.

Pretty too. The leaves wrapped around Mardi's body gave her an immaculate look. The red and blue flowers on her wrists were so soft and smelled even better than her skin. That puff of white hair was cute as heck, and the curve of her hips meant she had to hip-bump Brandy with every step. Having a pliant butt constantly bouncing against your side wasn't a bad thing at all. Still, Brandy had gotten a little used to being around hotness. She wouldn't be completely taken in by such a blatant act.

"I have a Joltik on the team. You're not going to get me with this," Brady said, giving Mardi's butt a squeeze. "Be good, and maybe later."

The Roserade's red eyes flashed bright. "And if I'm bad?"

"She really would get along well with Sparky." Calcine snorted. "Makes fewer puns too. Maybe we should swap her out."

"Calcine!"

Calcine just grinned as she scratched at the thorn scratches. The poison seemed to have worked out of her system, but she would need some time in the binding ball again later to heal up. It seemed almost unfair that Brandy couldn't touch her Pokémon as they healed. She would have loved to help nurse them back to health, but at least they could always be cheered up in other ways. Mardi was clearly angling for that, with a cocky grin plastered on her face that hadn't left ever since she came. There was certainly no hard feeling about the fight there. 

The Banette, Zipper, hadn't thrown any more giant balls of furniture at them as they scaled the stairs, so it was a relatively peaceful trudge up. If slow progress.

"Thanks, by the way," Mardi said, butting her head against Brandy's shoulder. "For caring."

"It's not so different to something we had to handle recently. It must suck to lose your Trainer like that. Of course, I'm going to help."

"We both will," Calcine added, a hint of a growl in her voice. "No one should go through that."

"The first people we tried to talk thought we just had a bad break up and well ... that really pissed us off. You're good people.  And you're really good at sucking dick." Mardi grinned, patting Brandy's arm "Really, really good. In fact, we can stop, and I can point out a few things to improve if you want? Every good Trainer should practice their technique."

Brandy shook her head and ruffled Mardi's hair. She was being utterly shameless, but Brandy was more than used to that. "I know Pokémon need bonds to stick around. Are you all really that hungry for one?"

"No, we're still a team, even if not an official one. I want them to be happy, so I make sure to drag us into situations where they can find some connections. It can be tricky. Zipper likes to puppet women while they're with us, and not everyone is into that."

Brandy was pretty sure she wouldn't be. Losing the ability to act, to help make her Partners happier, would bother her more than it'd arouse. 

"You should have her meet Trinket before you go." Calcine said, "I think her Partners would love that."

Oh damn, they would. That was a perfect idea. If they weren't all murdered for smashing the place up so bad. 

"What about Gilly?" Brandy said, "What's she like?"

"Why don't you ask her?" Mardi said, hip-bumping the crossbar on the stair door. "She's just in here."

Brandy blinked. This wasn't the control room, far too full of machinery, and it had a colossal cargo lift at the back that was curiously soaked wet. Brandy had been here fairly recently. This was Fenny's lab. The big cage in the center crackled with energy as the machines ran independently. Right! They'd come to work out if something went wrong with their bond before Poppy broke it. It made sense that they'd be here. 

"Zipper!" Mardi yelled. "We got a truce."

"WHAT!?!" the wall of Fenny's Lab lit up those red eyes with the triangle cut out of the top, a gold zipper flapping as they talked. "We said we can't trust the humans and you made friends with them? You're such a hopeless grass type."

"She sucked my dick," Mardi shrugged. "What was I meant to do?"

Brandy smiled awkwardly at the giant eyes floating on the wall. The crackling hum of the cage meant she had to speak up over it. "We heard the story about you all, and we're going to help. If you stop hiding what's going on in here. My mom's an expert at this."

The Banette narrowed her eyes, a tinny "Hrmmmm" rolling through the speakers before she huffed. "Well I don't trust them. She hasn't sucked my dick."

"Arceus, can we put the dick-sucking aside a moment?" Brandy groaned.

Calcine started snorting, trying to bite down a laugh. That earned her a useless punch on the arm, Brandy again bruising her knuckles. 

"Hard to trust people who didn't take a hint when I threw chairs at you. Mardi's too much of a softy to decide, you'll have to convince Gilly, she can be the tiebreaker." Zipper said. "She's almost done. I think. I don't actually know what half of this stuff means. I really need someone smart I can borrow."

Brandy would say Fenny was just outside, but she didn't want to put the idea of abducting someone in Zipper's head. Mardi mentioned that their Trainer, Poppy, had kept them from causing trouble. Without a Partner around, Pokémon tended to be more impulsive and reckless. Breaking into a building was a bit on the high end of that, but not unheard of. Taking a seat at a bank of computers, Brandy squinted at the information coming up and tried to puzzle it out. She'd only had a brief explanation, but the bond picture seemed? Fuzzy, like a million overlaid pictures. A horrible headache to look at.

"Hey," Brandy said. "Aren't you possessing Pix right now? She knows how to work the machine."

"Yeah, she knows how everything in this building works but doesn't know what it means." Zipper grumbled. "And I'm not letting her out of me to ask."

Ghost things. Don't question that statement too much. It was going to lead to headaches. 

"Well, the screen has images like when I did this. So I think you're done. You just need someone who can interpret the results. So, can you open the cage and get Gilly out here so she can let us go?"

"Nah," Zipper said, eyes bouncing as a kind of visual shrug.

"Nah?" Calcine crossed her arms. "We fighting again? I'll beat you both if I have to."

"Gilly doesn't need doors." Zipper grinned. "She's cool like that."

There was a crackle of electricity from the cage as the sparks ran along. It began to splutter out, and bright blue lights suspended in a dark blue fluid began pushing through the fine mesh. A few detached and floated in the air, long teardrop shapes that swirled and dove back into the watery mass that was sluicing its way through the mesh. It was big, really big, almost the same size as the cage itself. That wet cargo left made more sense now. 

"That's... concerning?" Calcine said, taking a step back from the approaching water.

"Gilly's not a normal Pokémon, is she?" Brandy said.

"I can hear you," a deep voice rumbled. It was like a slap to the face with how loud it was. It echoed around the room as the dark blue mass formed a giant arm, the brighter blue lights flowing along it, clustering where more details like fingers were needed. With one enormous pull, the whole thing came free of the cage. It rose, details filling in on its water body as parts of its mass detached. Bright teardrop shapes moved like a school of tiny dolphins, splashing along dark, watery skin as they found a place to fill out with detail. 

It was a Pokémon, a massive one. Her body was made entirely from translucent blues, brighter blue lights, and a little white froth. Her head nearly brushed the ceiling, literal waves of hair coming from her head to trial along the floor behind her like a cape. She was incredibly thick and curvy, a bit like Sparky if she was a giant, which was a terrifying thought. She was undeniably attractive. Even with such an abstract body, Brandy couldn't help staring.

"Are you Gilly?" Brandy asked, licking her lips. Her mouth was awfully dry all of a sudden. 

The Pokémon turned, the liquid making up her eyes and mouth shifting inside her face like bubbles drifting over a stream. "A tall redhead in a maid outfit? With legs like this? Mardi, you shouldn't have."

"I didn't bring her to fuck you, Gilly," Mardi said. "She knows about us and wants to help."

"You sure? The last bunch were assholes. I think we need to test this one," Gilly said though she didn't sound deeply committed to her distrust. Reaching a hand up she clicked her fingers. The clicking sound was odd, like the breaking of a wave against the rocks, but the sound of it sang through Brandy deep. She felt warm in the belly and couldn't stop her legs from rubbing together. Brandy's heart was beating so fast. She could feel herself getting wet. It had to be Soak. A lot of the bigger Water Pokémon used that move to get women ready, and this one was huge! 

Well, technically. It was obviously a Wishiwashi, a Pokémon made up of tiny, brightly lit drops of water. The lights were the real Wishiwashi's tiny cores that attracted water to themselves. Only working together were they big enough for a body, and this one had collected a whole lot of cores. Both vast and tiny all at once, 

"Demon of the sea," Calcine said, calling the Wishiwashi by a common name Sailors used for it. They were known to be particularly insatiable. "Don't use Soak on my Trainer. Or I'll tear you to pieces." 

"Oh, I like you," Gilly said, bending to look at Calcine. "Rock and Fire? That's a type of weakness practically gift-wrapped for me. Tell me I'm pretty."

Calcine reached out and stuck her hand into Gilly's neck. Her fingers sunk into the liquid, and Gilly's bright eyes spun as Calcine pulled her to eye level. Red eyes flared as they stared into the dancing lights. "Apologise."

Gilly pressed a hand to Cacline, her fingers becoming a solid rolling mass of white light that slowly pushed Calcine back, her feet scraping along the ground as she tried to hold against the tide of lights pushing down on her.  

"Ladies!" Brandy barked. "Fighting over me is silly. Calcine's already won there. We just want to help you with your bond problem."

Gilly turned to look at Brandy and then picked up Calcine by the scruff of her neck, her wave arm reforming into fingers as droplets of her splashed over Calcine's skin. Dangling her in the air, she gave Calcine a massive kiss on the cheek. "Better?"

Calcine shot her in the face with a burst of Flame Charge. Which didn't do anything but make the Wishiwashi smile wider. "See? We're getting along so nicely now."

"You don't have feathers. You're not her type. Put her down, please?" Brandy begged. "Calcine, just ignore her if she's like this."

The Wishiwashi sighed and did as she was asked, letting go of Calcine and returning to her full ceiling-brushing height. Looking up at massive breasts was way less sexy than it should have been. Right now, Brandy just felt a little frustrated with them. Her glare clearly didn't go unnoticed, Gilly spreading her arms and giving a low bow. 

"I am sorry, Calcine, I've just been told to sit in a cage and remember my Trainer. I'm a little emotionally pent up, and there's a lot of me to process it all."

"We got a whole party outside who are horny as hell," Brandy said. "If you let us out, you can probably have a lot of fun."

"Make real arguments!" Zipper squawked. "No appealing to her dick!"

Gilly chewed her giant lip, foam bursting over it as parts of her splashed around to form a huge, thoughtful tongue peeking between the gap in her lips. 

"How horny are these guests?" Gilly asked curiously.

"We've been waiting on them in Maid dresses for a while. They're desperate to chew us out of them." Calcine said. "It's been fun."

"I hate you both." Zipper groaned. 

"No, you don't. You love us." Mardi grinned. "And can't help it."

"Ugh, I know, and it SUCKS. Fine, I'm dropping the Role Play. You all can deal with the trouble. I'm going to go find a corner to hide in." 

The Banette blinked away with a burst of static along the wall-length screen. The lights in the room began to flicker, a rumbling through the building as a laugh built over the speakers. 

"Ahahahahah. AHAHAHAHAH. I LIVE." Pix cackled as her bright blue eyes filled the wall. 

"She does this every time she possesses something," Brandy whispered to Mardi. "I think she's a little power crazy."

"Foolish mortals bow to m- oh hey Brandy! How did you get in here?"

Brandy sighed. "It's a long story."

"With dick sucking." Calcine nodded, taking a step away so she couldn't be punched. Maybe Brandy should have let Gilly flatten her. She got away with far too much recently. 

There was nothing to do but explain things while everyone ran up to find out what was happening in the building. Brandy might as well get practice doing it, she was going to need to do it a lot really soon.