"Fuck me," Mardi whistled. "Look at her. You can pretty much see her stomach stretch from it. She's orgasmed herself stupid."

"I can do that," Gilly said, "Easy."

"Yeah, but you're a shapeshifting badass," Mardi said, smiling up at the Pokémon made of thick dark water and bright lights. "She only has the cock Arceus gave her."

"It's a nice one," Morgan said. "Go back to that one where she was making them orgasm on command. That was fun."

"Oh, I got a better one," Sparky said, flicking through Brandy's Poké-Dex. "She stacks these two on top of each other and, like, makes them sing songs with her fucking rhythm. It's crazy good."

So the raid ended, not with a bang, but with everyone gathered around Sparky watching those amateur porn videos Mercury kept sending Maple. Brandy had only watched a few, mainly because she didn't want her nerves frazzled when they finally met again. Mercury had a fire lit under her, and she was taking preparation for their rematch seriously.

Brandy would have joined the Pokémon porn mob, but Scoria had wrapped her daughter in a protective hug and wasn't letting go yet. There was no escaping a moth-mom hug. You just had to endure it and hope Fenny saved you eventually.

"I'm alright, mum," Brandy assured her anyway. As useless as it was to expect mercy.

"You were so reckless out there," Scoria said, her warm wings wrapping Brandy up in a squishy cocoon, rubbing her cheek to her daughters. "You tore a floor in half."

"You would have done the same," Brandy argued. "We thought they'd hurt Pix."

"No, I would have responsibly waited for help," she brazenly lied. "And not made my mother worry about me."

"You almost burned my school gym down when you saw a girl cheat against us in Volleyball." Brandy teased. "We all got soaked by the sprinklers. You had to do a morning assembly about responsibility and self-control. And you got so mad recounting it that you set the sprinklers off again."

Nobody had minded. They'd all got the morning off to clean up. Brandy had sneaked off with Cherry to the boiler room, kissing her silly while their clothes were drying. It'd been the best school day ever.

"That's not how I remember it." Scoria huffed, loosening up her wings. "But I suppose it all ended well."

More or less, the Banette was making it up to Pix by bringing her some hotdogs from Spitfire's grill. Brandy had just decided not to think about how a building would eat a hotdog. She'd had enough difficult things to deal with for today.

"People aren't upset the barbecue got interrupted?" Calcine said, sitting in an office chair. Fenny was applying a silly amount of bandages to her side since Calcine refused to go into her ball for now. A punishment for being stubborn. Or Fenny was taking an excuse to feel up Calcine's muscles. Probably the second.

"Blaze took over for you all, and there's nothing that this place lives on more than good gossip. A battle for love makes a good story, even if I'm not entirely thrilled about someone trying to Poison my daughter."

"She was into it!" Mardi yelled over, "And she got me way worse. I never saw her coming."

Scoria ruffled Brandy's hair. "That's my girl."

Quite enough of that! Brandy squirmed free to rescue Calcine from whatever Fenny was planning to do to her.

"So! What's Gilly's results say, Mom?" Brandy shouted, so the porn gang also heard.

The way Gilly moved was a trip to watch. She didn't walk over. She just melted into a stream and flowed over, dragging everyone along in her waves and dropping them in a sprawl all around Brandy's feet. The white lights in her body reshaped her out of the massive puddle to tower eagerly over Fenny.

"I am covered in you now," Sparky groaned. "Which bit of you is on me? Is it the dick part? Better not be the dick part."

"I'm all potential dick parts."

Morgan began coughing madly. Oh no, she probably swallowed some. Brandy patted her back as Fenny went over to her computers.

"She's a suspension, she's not all dick parts. I mention only so you can understand the results." Fenny said, bringing up a picture that looked like someone had thrown a mess of blue and white lines directly onto the screen. "Wishiwashi share their bonds, so they have an interconnected system to form. It's like Maple's mother. She's a Falinks with six bodies that all share an unbreakable bond. Gilly is a little more flexible. She can pass off parts of herself to other Wishiwashi by swapping bonds. Still, ultimately, she's just a big bundle of loving Wishiwashi, all doing their best."

"Put like that makes me sound weird."

"You are weird." Mardi huffed, still shaking blue goo out of her flowers. "The important thing is, does this help us with Poppy's broken bond?"

Mardi and Gilly leaned in for the answer, only to meet Fenny's stern, red-eyed stare.

"You did throw several offices worth of furniture down the stairs," she said, poking Gilly in the chest. "And broke my lift."

"Sorry, Mrs Joyce." they both mumbled." Won't do it again."

"I should hope not. You also turned an office into a garden."

"Gardens are cool." Mardi ventured.

"Not on the 19th floor, they're not. We'll get mold."

"Cool mold."

The Fenny stare deepened.

"Sorry, Mrs Joyce."

"Good," Fenny nodded. "Now be polite asking for things here. You're on thin ice."

Sparky and Morgan had gone over to fuss over Calcine, and Brandy went to join them. The bond thing seemed private, if they wanted to tell they would. Her partners were tittering amongst themselves, looking between her and Fenny. Brandy tugged Morgan's hat for a kiss before pulling in Sparky for a hug and more kisses on the top of the head. "Missed you two. The fight was rough. What are you laughing about?"

"Fenny is an assertive version of you. It's so weird." Sparky said, "But kind of hot."

Brandy squeezed Sparky as hard as she could. Which didn't discourage her one bit.

"It's fascinating seeing who raised you," Morgan added, "And it is annoying we didn't get to fight with you. I'd have liked to join in."

"It wasn't exactly planned."

Morgan shrugged. She clearly wanted to anyway; it was irrational to want to be included in a random attack, but Brandy still understood. She'd have hated not being there for them if trouble happened. Words seemed cheap to soothe her, so she settled for dragging her into the hug as well, tucking herself under Morgan's wing and sinking into her feathers. The extra soft fluff layer underneath felt as good as Wooloo wool against her skin. She couldn't promise them they'd always be able to help her, but she could make the most of the time they did have.

Scoria had gone over to join Fenny by the computer, holding her hand as she explained something softly to Mardi and Gilly. They didn't look happy about it, not one bit. Brandy held Sparky a little closer.

"Rrrrgh," Mardi went to kick a chair, then stopped dead as Fenny stared at her. "Sorry! But fuck! I knew something was up!"

"How do we fix it?" Gilly said, "This needs to be fixed right now."

"Ladies, please," Fenny held up her hands. "This'll have to go to the Rangers. It's way beyond what we can handle."

"When?" Gilly snapped, puffing her size up. "Right now?"

Scoria lit her palm with flame, and the air suddenly dried. Gilly's form wavered as heat rolled over the lab, the air getting so thick it warmed the throat just breathing it in. Brandy's skin immediately prickled with sweat.

"Back," Scoria hissed. "Sit down, or I'm throwing you both out."

Gilly stared down at her, looking at the flaming palm, and seemed to be genuinely considering her chances. It was terrifying. Brandy had seen Scoria mad plenty but never actually genuinely pissed. She looked ready to tear through Gilly if she even tried to take a step on Fenny. Only calmed by Fenny's hand running along one of her speckled wings, crushing the flame in her palm. The baking heat remained. The whole room felt like they'd just been thrust inside an oven. Brandy knew all of Scoria's Moves, but Heat Wave rarely came out. She'd thought her Poké-mom might have unlearned it, but it seemed it'd stuck around.

Mardi was soothing Gilly, trying to push her down, her flowers sinking into Gilly's body. "Come on, let her talk. Fighting isn't helpful."

"She said something broke our bond. From the outside." Gilly said, her voice the roaring mouth of a river as the white lights in her rolled about madly. "This needs to be fixed. Right now. Right. Now."

"And the Rangers will help us find her," Fenny said, hands up placating Gilly. "There have been stories about bonds suddenly weakening."

The brawl at the Poké-center in Turrfield. That had seemed like a random panic at the time, but was there a thread of truth to it after all? The thought made Brandy feel ill.

"This will be a big thing," Mardi said, gingerly tugging at Gilly's arm. "We'll get all the help you need. Come on, work with me, hun. This is good news. It isn't our fault. We can get Poppy back."

That took the bluster out of Gilly, making her sink down into a round ball of water. Her bright lights still seething inside the dark fluid.

"Brandy," Scoria said. "I think we can take this from here. Can you send up Zipper for us? And tell Blaze about this, but no one else. We shouldn't spread panic until the Rangers get here."

"People can break bonds?" Sparky said, clearly hating every word as it left her mouth. "There's just no way. Not from the outside."

"It's likely a very particular unlucky circumstance." Fenny said, "Don't worry, we'll figure this out for them. You go, enjoy the end of the barbecue. Saving the day deserves some reward."

Brandy gave her parents a goodbye hug, but they were both a little stiff in it. The news that bonds could be snapped, even by something rare, dampened the mood. She felt terrible for Poppy and her partners now. No one deserved something like that.

"Hey," Mardi said. "No looking miserable."

"I just feel-"

"Bad for us, I can tell." Mardi grinned. "But you did us a favor. We've just had some good news. The first good news in a really long time. We can take steps to fix it now. Don't get this the wrong way around because the concept of it sucks. You're my hero."

"She's pretty cool, I guess," Gilly huffed. "And her Joltik has a good taste in porn."

"Don't encourage her," Calcine and Brandy groaned as one.

"Go enjoy yourselves," Mardi said. "For real. Celebrate. You gave me a good fight and might have helped more people than you know today. If I come down and see you being sulky, I will let Gilly cheer you up. Permanently."

"Really?" Gilly said, shocked.

"Yeah, the full wash."

"The full wash?" Gilly said, popping out of her ball form back to her tall, ceiling-scraping human shape. "You're going to love it, Brandy. The last lady I did that to still can't say my name without-"

"Okay! We're going to have fun now." Morgan tugged at Brandy's arm. "I don't want my Trainer to get pressure washed until she can taste colors."

Brandy thought about it. She was still thinking about it when Calcine put her over her shoulder and carried her out.

Maybe she could catch a Wishiwashi sometime. They seemed like they came with some really nice perks.