MATTY’S POV

 

Owen, how could you?

How could you, brother? When we look one another in the eyes and say that nothing could ever tear us apart, you’re supposed to keep that promise! 

Why? Because that’s what a promise is for! And you broke it!

At first, I felt nothing but anger at my brother. White, hot fury. The fact that I’d remained loyal to Owen, refusing to betray him under penalty of whatever laws governed this underworld, should have counted for something.

But it didn’t. Instead, he’d thrown me to the wolves - or rather, these hooded creatures whom my brother referred to as Pokémon.

Give me a break!

If the aches permeating each and every one of my muscles didn’t convince me otherwise, I could have believed that this was in fact an illusion. That I was just having a nightmare, and soon enough I’d wake up in a cold sweat, relieved at the understanding that none of what I’d just seen was real.

And yet, as the minutes ticked by (not that there was any monument to the passage of time in my cell), I understood more and more that this wasn’t going to happen. I was trapped here - not by my own mind, but by a very heavy door that was tightly padlocked.

My cell did not contain anything to sleep on except a floor and a few giant, faded leaves that had haphazardly been shoved into the corner of the room. There was also a toilet in the corner, but I wouldn’t have to use it for a while if I wasn’t given anything to eat or drink.

Are they trying to mock me for that incident in the carriage? 

No. They can’t be thinking that far ahead. You’re deluding yourself, Matty. You’re seeing patterns that aren’t there, because you’re paranoid. Not everything is a conspiracy.

Then again, Pokémon weren’t supposed to exist either. 

Once more, my thoughts turned to my elder brother. At the dinner table in Wildebush, he’d often talk on and on about these mythical creatures that existed as a trading card game of sorts, as well as in video games and an anime series. There were lots of species, like Pikachu and Charizard. And the species I was supposed to be…an Eevee, right?

My brother’s oddly-wired brain would have rejoiced at this a few days ago. He’d get to live out his fantasies of being something called a “trainer”, and I’d probably be his pet. Perhaps that was indeed what he wanted: To control me. To have me under his thumb. After all, he did sell me out to these creatures.

What are they going to do to me?

Eventually I figured that sleep would help pass the time faster. The more time I spent in  that suspended state of awareness, I realized, the less time I’d need to spend thinking about what lay in store. 

I tried to lie down on my pitiful little leaf bed, but the appendage sticking out of my backside put an end to that quickly. Let me tell you, crushing your tail hurts like little else can, and that effort was over almost as soon as it began. I wasn’t going to sleep after that.

Well, if I couldn’t sleep, I figured I might as well try to keep myself occupied another way. 

The best way to keep my muscle mass, I recalled, is to do calisthenics. Sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks…those are going to work wonders for my sanity. Exercise releases chemicals that improve your mood…but is that still true in a cell?

The four chalky walls of my cell stared menacingly at me. In my state of immense worry, just about anything can seem sentient even when it’s not, determined to make your life a living hell.

There was also the minor manner of how I’d manage to do push-ups when I didn’t have any arms. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a solution to that problem, so instead I ended up doing something akin to a wall sit.

Normally, I could do a wall sit for several minutes without much difficulty. I was in good shape, after all - or at least, I had been in good shape as a human. But as soon as I squatted against the wall, my tail pointing toward the floor, my back started sliding down the chalk. I knew right away that it would be near-impossible to get that stuff out of my fur.

But the most pressing worry was that I’d land hard on my tail if I fell from the wall sit. So I had to stay in this position as long as I could to avert that.

Well, when you’ve just become a four-legged creature that you didn’t know existed until recently, it turns out that wall sits come second. Before long, I was sliding further down the wall, and the tip of my tail touched the floor.

I gulped, beads of sweat bouncing out of my facial fur, and shuffled further back up the wall. If my peers on the rowing team could see me now, they would either cry, or laugh in order to keep from crying. 

Honestly, probably a bit of both.

A few seconds after that realization, my strength left me, and I fell in a heap onto the floor, the chalky ground digging into my fur once more and creating considerable discomfort. And my tail - I’m not even going to describe how much that hurt!

I heard the locks on my cell’s only door disengaging, then saw it swing open and a familiar Cinccino barge in.

“Could you please be quiet?” Sheriff Buckle barked. “I’m trying to fill out some paperwork, and the other inmates might be trying to sleep!”

As if you care about your inmates, Sheriff!

Of course, I knew when to keep quiet about a complaint I had. The same probably could not be said of Owen if he were to find himself in this situation.

More importantly, there was Sheriff Buckle right before me, expecting an answer. And I would need to give it to him.

“Sorry, Sheriff. I need to stay in shape somehow.”

“Right,” the Cincinno muttered. “But does that really require you to ground pound on the floor like that fat Italian plumber?”

“It was an accident, Sheriff. I fell while doing a wall sit” I replied, feeling that honesty was the best policy.

“Well, do your best to ensure that such accidents don’t happen in the future” the Cincinno replied, stressing the word “accident " as though trying to humiliate me further.

“Fair enough,” I said. “But how do I get out of here?”

Sheriff Buckle gave me a quizzical look, as though nobody had ever asked him that before. 

“We have a process, you know, in the United States” I continued. “If you’re accused of a crime, you get your booking photo, then you get arraigned and might get bailed out if you can cough up enough money. And then there’s a trial - you get your day in court and whatnot.”

“Your United States are irrelevant down here” the Cincinno snapped. “It doesn’t matter what rights you have up there - if they aren’t written in the Book of Catastrophes, they don’t exist. So you might as well kiss your fantasies of bail goodbye - they never existed anyway.”

It could have just been me, but it sounded as though Sheriff Buckle took great pleasure in assuring me that there was no hope. That no matter how fervently I wished that there was some way out of here, those wishes would not be granted.

“Why am I wasting my time here talking to you, anyway?” the Cincinno snapped, his eyes glazing over with exasperation. “I should be in the next room making sure two of our inmates don’t kill each other.”

I shrugged. “Only you can answer that question, Sheriff.”

Sheriff Buckle grimaced at that, and in his evident anger, I realized that I could have used that split second to escape. I was still energetic enough that I could dart right past him and out the door - a few days down the line, I might not be.

Days. I might be here for days.

But I was in my own head, and we both knew it. Besides, escape wouldn’t be possible even if I tried. What would really happen is that I would dash through the doorway and out of the police precinct, but it wouldn’t take long for me to get lost. And then I’d be a sitting duck, practically begging for my captors to seize me again and return me to the relative “safety” of the cell. And then I’d pay dearly for my moment of fun.

In fact, I’m sure Sheriff Buckle knew what I was envisioning, and he was almost daring me to go through with this plan. No, you couldn’t even call it a “plan”, just an “idea.”

“Whatever” the Cincinno muttered after a very long silence. “Just know that your Constitution isn’t going to save you now, and neither is your brother!”

I actually agreed with that last part, though I wasn’t going to admit it to Sheriff Buckle. No help from Owen would be forthcoming. Not now, and not ever, because it was his fault I’d found myself in this predicament to begin with.

I gnashed my teeth as the door was shut and the padlocks reactivated. There were no easy answers here.

---

OWEN’S POV

“They say the people on the surface - the humans - find church a very solemn occasion.” 

That was Theseus speaking, and I glanced over at the Umbreon. It was clear, however, that he’d soon get lost in the crowd, at least from my perspective. It was a literal swarm of Pokémon!

“Well, I guess it is,” I said simply. 

“What do you mean, you guess?” Theseus replied.

“I didn’t go to church on the surface. At least, not every week.”

In the midst of our trek downhill toward the city of Ketchum, I noticed that the Umbreon’s red eyes were wide with surprise. It was as though the idea of somebody not going to church every week was a foreign concept to him.

“We have to attend down here” said a female tone coming from right behind me. “It’s not a choice. Unless you’re on your deathbed. And trust me, they’ll come by and make sure you’re gravely ill, or else you’ll get punished.”

I shivered. “How do they usually punish you here?”

Right away I wished I hadn’t asked that question. The answer would probably only remind me of Matty’s imprisonment. Thoughts of what he was being subjected to at this very moment were far from pleasant.

“They might put you to work” Theseus stated simply. “I mean, even more than usual. There’s a lot of work to be done down here.”

“Or?” I wondered aloud, fully committed to finding out the truth. No matter how painful it might be, I figured it was something I should know.

“Or they might Banish you,” the Umbreon replied. 

“Like, they’d let me go home?” I asked. Judging by his tone, however, that was not what Theseus meant. 

Indeed, the Umbreon shook his head. “No, it’s not that. You probably don’t want to know what Banishment means.”

“Right,” I responded. “I don’t. My bad.”

Our “procession” followed what I could tell was a major thoroughfare into the city, and now that I got a closer look at it, I realized that it wasn’t actually too much unlike a city on the surface. Buildings were spaced more closely together than most American cities, which, from an urban planning perspective, is actually a good thing. There were also multiple fire hydrants all over the place.

“Uh, Theseus?” I asked, as a burning question entered my brain.

“What is it, Owen?” the Umbreon enquired. 

“Do the Pokémon here, ah…mark their territory?”

As soon as those words left my lips, I wanted to take them back. Not only was that question likely considered very offensive, but it risked exposing my secret. Alas, I could not un-say what had already been said, and I noticed Cassius looming over me.

He looked ready to focus his aura and create a Bone Rush to sweep me off my feet. He iddn’t ultimately do this, but the intended implication was still clear: Owen! You’re an idiot! Stop asking such stupid questions that’ll make it obvious you don’t belong here!

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…don’t know what came over me.”

“Well, you’ll need to restrain yourself more in the future,” Cassius muttered. “You don’t want to get Banished.”

“Noted” I replied sheepishly, still wondering what, exactly, happened to someone who was Banished. Luckily, the rest of the crowd didn’t seem to have heard me. In fact, some of them were dispersing. Slowly but surely, there were fewer Pokémon around Cassius, Theseus, and myself.

“Here we are,” Theseus stated with a smile. “This is the Pub District, where most of Ketchum’s restaurants are. Most of them are jam-packed right now, but we took you to one of the best ones in town that isn’t full 24/7.”

We’d arrived on a rather dingy street. Come to think of it, pretty much all the streets were coated in dust, making my throat and eyes itch like crazy. What was more, pretty much every building I could see from here had all sorts of cobwebs attached to its facade.

“Let’s head in there” a familiar female tone announced.

I turned in the voice’s direction to find Alana Sylveon gesturing at a nearby restaurant that looked pretty hole-in-the-wall. Theseus and Cassius followed her inside. 

Well, if I don’t find some other group - and I’m not going to - I might as well go in with them. I need to have some community down here, as painful as it may be.

Inside, the restaurant’s tables were covered in dust, the floor smelling worse than a public toilet on a hot summer day. There was nobody else in the restaurant save for its owner, a Golem wearing a filthy apron.

In other words, under any other circumstance, I would not have trusted this restaurant any further than I could throw a stack of dishes. And I couldn’t throw very far; my brother would have been the one to go to for that.

Matty…

I couldn’t think about him right now. I’d only end up bursting into tears, which I simply couldn’t afford at the moment.

I wrinkled my nose. “This place stinks!” I exclaimed.

The Golem stiffened up at this insult, but hey, I meant it. If I’d had any other choice, I would have run out of the building as soon as I caught a whiff of the stench.

‘Dude, be polite’, I heard Cassius whisper through aura. ‘You don’t want to upset Ziggy.’

I glanced at the Golem. “Your name’s Ziggy?”

“That’s me” the Golem stated bluntly. “I work here.”

“You don’t just work here,” Alana replied. “You own this place. You founded it. You cook all the meals.”

“That’s right,” Ziggy muttered.

Right away I could tell that this Golem was a ‘mon of few words. I didn’t comment on this, of course; my mouth already felt swollen shut out of shame for what I’d just said.

“Sorry” I managed to mumble eventually.

Ziggy frowned. “For what?”

Alana glanced at Ziggy. “I think he’s sorry for commenting on the smell of your restaurant.”

“Oh” the Golem replied. “Okay.”

“So do you forgive him?” the Sylveon asked Ziggy.

“Yes,” Ziggy muttered. “I hear that often.”

I’m not going to lie: It felt a little uncomfortable hearing the others talk about me without offering any input myself. But I had far greater problems right now, so I was hardly going to voice that displeasure.

“Let me clean up,” Ziggy said eventually, heading to what I assumed was a closet containing a broom, dustpan, and/or other cleaning supplies. Of course, I highly doubted he’d make a dent in the filth - there was just too much of it.

“So this place is quite popular with us,” Cassius told me.

“No shit” I replied. “It seems that you like it despite everything.”

“He’s not just talking about us specifically,” Theseus replied. “He’s talking about the Pokémon who live in the guild hall. All of us.”

“Huh” I replied, squirming a bit in my seat. Fortunately I managed not to sit on my tail this time.

“It’s true, you know,” the Umbreon continued. “We’re all different from the others. What one does with that difference is up to the individual.”

“Hold up” I said. “In what ways are you all different? What sets you apart from the rest of this place?”

Alana gave me a look of what can only be described as a combination of pity and exasperation.

“Dumb question,” I muttered.

“It’s not that” Theseus insisted. “On the contrary, it’s a very good question, it’s just one that is…difficult to answer.”

Something told me that the use of “difficult” here referred not to how cryptic the question was, but rather how painful it was for the Umbreon to talk about. Of course, I wouldn’t pry.

After a few minutes, Ziggy returned from whatever he’d been doing and handed each of us a menu. “I think I know” the Golem stated, glancing at the other three Pokémon I was sitting with.

“What do you know?”

“What they want,” Ziggy replied simply. Turning to me…”and you?”

I scanned the menu, which didn’t have any dishes I recognized. Your average diner in New England might have burgers, sandwiches, and shakes, but I didn’t see any of that here.

“Uh…could I have a hamburger with fries?” I enquired.

Ziggy seemed to think about that for a moment. 

‘They don’t have that here’ Cassius muttered using aura. ‘You’d better expand your palette.’

He was right, and I knew it. If I let it be known that I was a picky eater, Theseus and Alana would have to wonder why. And that would lead to a series of uncomfortable questions. Dangerous questions.

“Right,” I muttered. “What about this…does that say pennybun special?”

“It does,” Ziggy stated. “You’d like that?”

I cast my glance around at my new companions. I figured that if I was about to order something that included pig brains, they would warn me about that. Because no warning seemed to be forthcoming, I reasoned that it was safe to order it.

“Yes,” I told Ziggy. “I would like the pennybun special.”

“Right” the Golem stated, whipping out a notepad and writing something down. Turning to the other three, he asked this question: “Same as usual?”

“Same as usual, Ziggy” Theseus replied. Neither Alana nor Cassius protested, so the Golem wrote down their orders.

“Be right back,” Ziggy said simply. He then left the dining room, presumably for the kitchen to start preparing our orders.

“And then there were four,” Alana announced. “So, Owen, how’s your first day in Ketchum going?”

Pretty shit if you want to know the truth. It fucking sucks down here, and I just want to go home!

If you’d poured some truth potion down my throat, I’d have no choice but to say that. Luckily, there was no such thing as a truth potion down here; at least, not that I knew of.

“It’s been fine, I guess,” I muttered. “There’s a lot to adjust to.”

How much should I tell them? I obviously can’t say everything.

“We get that a lot,” Alana stated. “Especially those who live in the guild hall. It’s rougher there than in the city - though make no mistake, the city limits are no walk in the park either.”

I frowned. There was no truly tactful way to ask this question, but it still needed to be asked. There were times when my curiosity got the better of me - this was one such occasion.

“What I don’t quite understand,” I began, “is why some people have to live in the guild hall? Is it a matter of money?”

Cassius looked ready to chew me out for being rude, and I started to regret my words. But before he could chastise me, Alana interrupted him.

“You could say it’s the loony bin” the Sylveon stated with a slight chuckle. “There’s a reason nobody in the city wants to associate with us, save for a few.”

“So you guys are…I dunno, neurodivergent?”

I remembered some of the things my parents had told me about how lucky I was to grow up in the 21st century. People like me, they said, had once been routinely institutionalized because the authorities thought it was unnatural for one’s brain to work somewhat differently. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t have been that long ago that my life would have been a far cry from what I’d grown to be used to.

My life sucks now. The “suck factor” was just delayed by eighteen years.

Once more, the Lucario appeared prepared to object, but Theseus stepped in.

“That’s a pretty loaded word down here. But in essence, yes, that is what we mean. That’s what makes us different.”

“Cool,” I said, forcing a smile. “My people.”

Right away I realized my mistake, and knew that there was a chance that it would blow up in my face (possibly literally.) Even if it was only a one percent chance, that was too big a risk when the stakes were so high.

Fortunately, I got lucky. Though Alana grimaced a bit at the word people, she did not ask any questions, nor did Cassius spill my secret to the rest of the group.

“By neurodivergence,” Alana said eventually, “we do not mean autism, necessarily. Or attention deficit disorder. It could be those things, but there’s something else that makes us special. It makes us different, for sure.”

Judging by Alana’s facial expression (which years of group therapy had taught me to read for cues), I could tell that she didn’t want to say anything more. So I dropped the subject.

Eventually, Ziggy returned carrying a tray piled with four plates of colorless dishes I didn’t recognize. One of them was placed in front of me, and I wrinkled my nose.

“This is the pennybun special?” I all but bellowed; at least, my voice was louder than it should have been - had I been in one of the group therapy sessions, I would have been instructed to switch to an “indoor voice.”

“Yes,” Ziggy muttered.

“But it looks like slop,” I stated. 

I was staring at what looked like a combination between salad and stew, with chunks of something I did not recognize. I couldn’t have dreamed up something less appetizing if I’d tried.

As his own dish was set in front of him, Cassius glared at me, and I got another glance at the words tattooed on his chest spike. (Not enough time to read them, sadly.)

“Drop it” Theseus advised me. “You know what they say: Eat it or wear it.”

I wrinkled my nose at the prospect of “wearing” the pennybun special, which was a euphemism for having it all dumped on my head in the shower. (At least, the only time I’d seen that saying used, in an old children’s book, that’s what it meant.)

“Right,” I muttered. “I’ll eat it. It could be a lot worse.”

“That’s correct,” Alana remarked. “Indeed it could be. Because whatever else you can say about our standard of living, at least we have one another. Without community, you have nothing.”

After Ziggy left the table, I started working on my meal. 

To my surprise, it didn’t taste nearly as revolting as the restaurant smelled. That’s not to say that it was anything to write home about, of course; the meal was hardly remarkable, and I couldn’t look past the slimy, chewy texture, but I wasn’t going to complain so long as I had any nourishment whatsoever.

“So what are pennybuns, anyway?” I asked Theseus in between bites.

“Mushrooms,” the Umbreon replied. “They grow in fields just outside the city. A dime a dozen, they are. Chopped pennybuns with the special sauce here - that’s what you’re eating right now.”

I frowned. “Special sauce?”

“That’s right,” Theseus muttered. “A very special sauce.” He said this not like he was extolling its virtue, but rather as though he were mocking Ziggy for choosing to call it special. 

“What’s in it, though?”

Nobody answered this question, which probably meant that I didn’t want to know the list of ingredients. It was just as well, too, because if I learned I was eating anything particularly disgusting, the reaction I produced wouldn’t exactly be pretty.

As small talk continued around the table, I realized that it could in fact be worse. I had friends, after all, even if they were closer with one another than they were with me. And I would still get to eat, even if the food was far from gourmet-quality or something home-cooked by my mother.

Speaking of my mother, what could my parents be thinking right now? There’d probably be a search, or maybe my body would be dead already, in which case they might already be holding funerals for me or Matty. In that case, I must have found myself in a bizarre afterlife where Pokémon were real.

I think that on some level, I was well aware of what our parents were going through right now. The reason I didn’t focus on that is quite simple: There was almost certainly nothing I could do about it.

For now, I had a community. But that was subject to change. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But someday Theseus and Alana would learn the truth about me, if they hadn’t been able to suss it out already. And who’s to say that they wouldn’t shun me then?

Moreover, I pictured Matty stuck in a cell back at the precinct, and suddenly the pennybun special tasted absolutely revolting. That will tend to happen when your brother is behind bars for no reason at all.

But it was worse than that: There was a reason that Matty had been locked away, and that reason was me.