Chapter Two
“My name is Kori; I keep telling you that! What is so hard to understand about my name?” The Witch was sitting in the middle of the bed that they had all woken up in about an hour ago. They had, thanks to Tess’s little improvisation with Lust Dust, spent the entire night in the taming room, and any time that Tess or Joan made reference to the fact that they had just spent the entire night taming one another, she would blush crimson and clam up, refusing to interact with the offender aside from a stern glare. “And I’m, I’m not a Witch. I don’t want to be. I didn’t choose to become a Pokegirl!”
Tess raised an eyebrow and sipped on another bottle of water as Joan made coffee at the complementary coffeemaker on the table in the corner. “Neither did I, but you don’t hear me bitching about it, Ice Queen.” Kori fixed Tess with another icy glare and turned away from Flowergirl sitting in front of her and looked at Joan pleadingly. “Please, you have to believe me!”
Joan pursed her lips and poured two cups of coffee, before bringing them back over to the bed and offering one to the Witch, who accepted with a brisk smile that didn’t seem to reach her eyes. “Say I do believe you. What am I supposed to do about it? You didn’t have any identifying information on you, and you yourself say that you don’t know the correct com codes to contact your father. And you expect me to believe that we couldn’t just look him up and tell him that his daughter has been loveballed by the tamer that as supposed to be escorting her to Fort Thomas? I know my father would sure as hell take that call if he got it.”
“There are rules, you have to understand. Everything in my father’s business… in life, is highly, well, particular. Things are done a certain way, and they have to be done a certain way, or everything falls apart, he’s very, very, well, complicated.” Kori accidentally splashed some coffee on the sheet she had wrapped herself up in, looking down and frowning in exasperation as she tried to keep tears from forming in her eyes.
“So… you were kidnapped. Loveballed. You escaped when your kidnapper tried to tame you, and he had taken all of your possession and left by the time you felt safe returning to where you had escaped from him.”
“And then you went feral.” Tess screwed the top back on her bottle of water and tossed it across the room and into the trash can, pumping her fist when it went in perfectly.
“And then I went feral. My father is Johnathan Staub of the Amethyst league, please, you have to believe me!”
Joan sat up a little straighter and gripped her coffee mug tightly. “Staub. As in the manufacturer Staub and Sons? The main rival to the Jehanna Corporation in the production of pokeballs and tamer equipment?”
“Yes. I keep telling you that he’s important.”
“Well, you didn’t say he was Johnathan freaking Staub!” Joan was becoming just as visibly distraught as Kori, and they began to bicker as Tess picked herself up off of the bed and wandered over to the door where Joan had hung her jacket, lifting it off of the hook and slipping it on before skipping back over to the bed.
“You mean this Staub?” Tess interrupted Kori and Joan’s argument, pointing at the little metal shield on the lapel embossed with the symbol of a snowflake inside the outline of an evolution stone.
“Yes, that Staub, you stupid flower, that’s one of the jackets our company makes.”
“Hey, let’s be civil here. Despite the fact that you’re claiming to be the daughter of one of the richest men on the planet, we can… we can figure this out.” Joan was quietly screaming at herself. Somehow, the first pokegirl she and Tess had caught on their own turned out to be the heiress to a potential fortune. “Just… let me try and understand this… you’re saying that your Father, his company, that he won’t just take a call from someone claiming to be you, even if it is you…”
“I… there have been attempts in the past to impersonate other members of my family in an attempt to conduct industrial espionage. Official contacts have to be made through personal com devices that are assigned to each employee, and to each member of my family in particular. Unfortunately, my com device is gone, taken by the guards my father hired to escort me to Fort Thomas to oversee the installation of a new satellite office next month.”
“Can’t we just go to Fort Thomas, go to the office and let your father know what happened?”
“I don’t think so. I… I’m afraid that my father might have taken this to be the last straw, as it were.”
Joan took a sip of coffee that had started to go cold, stretching her legs out in front of her. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’ve pushed my luck with my father one too many times already…. I wanted to be a tamer, like you…” Kori looked up at Joan from her mug of coffee, her hand shaking slightly. “I meet all the requirements to be a tamer in the Amethyst league, you see, but my father has forbidden me from becoming a tamer, or to even take the application exams. He refuses to allow to do anything that might jeopardize the company, and he considers having his children running off to become tamers, of being outside of his sphere of influence as a danger to his investments. He’s afraid that we might do something to jeopardize the family name, or to make him look bad. So we’re kept under lock and key, and the only time we’re let out of the estate is with an armed guard that’s there as much to keep us in line with our father’s wishes as it is to protect us.”
“So… you’re saying your father is going to think that you’ve run away, is what I’m getting from this?”
“I’ve done it before. His contacts in the Amethyst government caught me crossing the border to the north, trying to enter Azure. He kept me locked up for a year and half afterwards, not allowed to leave the mansion.”
“You have a mansion?” Tess was following the conversation, but was starting to get distracted by the lack of sunlight she had received over the past twelve hours, and her attention span was starting to stray with her increasing need for photosynthetic nourishment.
“A gilded cage. Anything we could possibly want, so long as we didn’t leave or try and communicate with anyone outside of the estate.” Kori stared down at her mug of coffee, and was surprised to find ice crystals floating in the dark brown liquid. “I never wanted this, though. I didn’t want to be a pokegirl. I didn’t want to be able to do this…” She handed the mug to Joan, who took it and then leaned back to set it on the nightstand behind her.
“So what do you want to do?”
Kori looked at her, blinking. “You mean you believe me? You’re not just going to ignore everything I’m telling you and just put me through a conditioning cycle to shut me up?”
Joan took another drink from her mug, reaching across Kori’s lap to grab her pokedex, making the Witch blush and lean back, drawing the sheet tighter around her body. “It’s simple enough to figure out whether or not to believe you.” Joan pulled up her pokedex’s search function and searched for Staub and Sons, quickly finding a picture of the entire Staub clan, consisting of the tall, white haired Johnathan Staub, his two sons, and many daughters. And there near the center of the picture in a regal white and blue gown stood a young woman who looked unmistakably like Kori, flanked by two taller women who looked enough like her to be sisters or extremely close relatives. “This is you, right?” Joan held her pokedex out to Kori, who took it and magnified the picture with practiced ease, nodding.
“This picture was taken three years ago, about three weeks before I tried to go to the Azure League. That’s my older sister Regan, and my mother Asche. We’re the only female humans in my family. I have an older brother, and one that’s younger than me.” Kori shook her head. “Regan got away from father. That’s why he’s so possessive of the rest of us. She joined the military to escape, and he couldn’t exactly go up against the government and demand her return when she had already enlisted.”
“What if we went to her, then. Would she be able to at least convince your father to accept that you are who you say you are?”
“She might, but he might also refuse to even accept her call because of their past. She would try, for me, though. She might disagree with me attempting to go back, but she would make the attempt, for me.”
“If your father is so bad, if your life was so restrictive that you were trying to escape it, then why do you want to go back?” Tess sat back down on the bed, moving so that her hip was touching Joan’s.
“Because if anyone can reverse the effects of a Loveball, it has to be my father. He has dozens of scientists in the company, hundreds of engineers, if anyone can change me back from being a pokegirl, it’s my father.”
“Kori… there is not a way to change you back. People have been trying for hundreds of years. They’re still trying today. You’re… you’re a Witch. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to explain it otherwise.”
“No! I am not going to just be your pokegirl, for you to tame me whenever you want, to fight and risk my life just because you want me to! I don’t want to fight, and I don’t want to be this way!” Kori’s face was a mask of fury and desperation, and she had begun to scoot back on the bed as Joan and Tess looked at each other.
“Then you don’t have to be.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to be my pokegirl. You can be you. You can be Kori. I’m not going to force you to do something that you don’t want to do.” Joan shrugged. “I can’t get Tess to make the bed in the morning, what makes you think that I’d be able to make you fight for me?”
Tess smiled brightly. “Why make the bed if you’re just going to mess it up again later that night?”
“And if I don’t want to tame with you, what then?”
“Then we’ll find you someone else to tame with. Or you can tame with Tess. Or you can go feral. I’ll trade you to whoever you want to be traded to. I’m not going to force you to sleep with me.”
Tess scratched her head. “Except for last night. Can’t change the past.”
“I…”
“I’ll apologize for that one. But how was I supposed to know if you yourself couldn’t know? You were feral, your mind was like an animal’s. You couldn’t speak, and you attacked us on sight.”
“You said you came looking for me, though, in the forest.”
“We did. But we didn’t know who you were then. Like Tess said, we can’t change the past.” Joan held out her hand to Kori. “I don’t know how to change you back into a human. I don’t think anyone does. But I’ll stand by you every step of the way, if that’s what you want to try and do. All I’m asking is that you give us a chance to help you.”
Kori stared at Joan’s hand, then looked up at the two women sitting across from her on the bed. “Why would you help me like that, if I don’t want to be your pokegirl?”
“You’re from the Amethyst League, right? I think you’ll find that things are done a bit differently here in Emerald. There were never a lot of people in this region, even before the War. They lived differently, and so do we. We don’t have Harems. Or well, we do, but we call them Families. And we treat our pokegirls like family as well. We survive and thrive because we have each other. Violating that trust is as taboo here as marrying a pokegirl might be in another league.”
Tess shrugged out of Joan’s jacket, dropping it in the tamer’s lap. “And even that’s uncommon here, but it’s not frowned upon, either. Joan’s father married both her mother and his other pokegirl.”
“And I know that David plans to propose to Irene and my sister, once he can afford a house for the three of them.” Joan looked back at Kori. “It’s not so bad here, you might find.”
Kori looked at Joan’s hand again, and then tentatively reached out to take it. “You’ll help me contact my sister?”
“Of course.”
“And you won’t tame with me unless I ask for it?”
“Or you start to go feral. At that point, you either have to be tamed, by me or Tess, to stave off ferality, or you have to go back into your pokeball. It’s a crime to willingly let a pokegirl go feral. In fact…” Joan turned and looked at Tess. “Didn’t you used to?”
“Mmhmm!” Tess looked back at Kori, who regarded her with curious, if cautious eyes in return. “I used to work for a Pokecenter, just for a few months, before I was enrolled in the Academy by one of the Nursejoys in town. There are usually permanent tamers on staff there who will tame Free Pokegirls for free, and they rotate who tames with who so that bonds are harder to form. If you don’t like Joan or me, we can take you to one of them. Not that you don’t like Joan and me, right?” The promiscuous Flowergirl waggled her fiery red eyebrows at the white-haired Witch playfully.
“Uh… right. That’s… good to know.”
“So, we help you contact your sister, first off.”
“Can I… can I get some clothes, first? And maybe something to eat?”
“Oh… Uh…” Joan looked over at her bag as Tess rubbed her stomach, which as if on cue began to grumble. “I did have a dress for you in my bag, I’m not sure if it will fit you, though, it’s one of my old ones. We planned on going shopping for you today, actually.” She rolled off of the bed, and Kori averted her eyes with a blush as the blonde practically mooned her as she dug through her backpack, before producing a long black and white striped dress that when she held it up to her chest, came down to just below Joan’s knees, the skirt trimmed in lace. “Will this work, at least until we can get you some of your own to wear?”
“If it’s all you have it will have to do.”
“Yeah… sorry, I guess you’re used to a bit more of a selection.”
“To be honest, yes. But I’ll take what I can get at this point.” Kori started to get up from the bed, and then stopped, blushing again. “Could… could the two of you turn around, please?”
Tess snorted playfully. “We’ve seen you naked, silly. We saw a lot more...” A slap on the back of the head made Tess stumble forward, and she turned around sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Joan shook her head and smiled, turning around beside Tess and taking her hand. “And I’m sorry for that. Here, Kori.” She held out the dress behind her, squeezing Tess’s fingers into her palm, the Flowergirl responding in kind.
A few moments later, Kori cleared her throat. “How do I look?” Joan and Tess turned around, and Joan’s jaw dropped open while Tess’s eyes widened.
“You look like you just stepped out of a beauty salon! How?”
“I… I don’t know? I just put the dress on and then went to the mirror to adjust my hair…” Kori turned back to the mirror and then widened her own eyes in surprise. “How did…”
“Maaagic!” Tess giggled and stepped up beside Kori, gently poking her face, the Witch looking for all the world like she had stepped out of a high fashion magazine, even the dress that Joan had been sure was the wrong size seemed to magically fit her like a glove.
“Wish I could do that.” Joan pursed her lips and shook her head, smiling.
Kori spun back around, brushing Tess’s finger out of her face with an annoyed gasp. “Well, I guess this will certainly fit me, it seems.”
“Looks like it.” Joan was quite impressed, the dress had been almost certainly two sizes too large when she had handed it to Kori, but now it fit perfectly. She reached over and picked her pants up from where they had been draped over the back of a chair, pulling them on as Tess stepped back and admired the way Kori looked.
“What is it?” Kori instantly picked up on the appraising look that Tess was giving her, and put her hands on her hips, irritated.
“Oh, nothing. Just wishing that sometimes my clothes didn’t turn into living foliage. I’d never be able to wear something like that. I mean, I like having flowers all over my clothing, but sometimes, you know, a little variation is nice.”
“Well, you’re a Flowergirl, yes? If you evolve, won’t you be able to choose whether or not your clothes are altered by your magic?”
Tess made a face, scrunching her nose up and pouting her lips. “We’re working on that, but frankly, capturing you didn’t help me evolve, see?” She picked up her discarded clothing, pulling the Round Stone Joan’s father had given her from the pouch hanging from the vine-like belt. “A Round Stone, so I can become a Rosebreasts. I want to fight, unlike other Flowergirls. It’s why Joan picked me at the Academy.”
“Ah. I see.” Kori scrunched her own nose up. “I was that much of a pushover, then?”
“Well, once you got a lungful of Lust Dust, it wasn’t long before you were powerless to stop my tentacle-y assault, ya’ know.” Tess winked and waggled her fingers at Kori, before moving to put her own clothing back on.
“Well, do we want to go shopping first, or head home? I know that my parents will want to meet you, I let them know that we’d be stopping by for lunch before we headed out. Though we still haven’t decided where we’re going first. We can contact your sister from practically anywhere with a Network Com Terminal, if you have her number.” Joan was pulling her socks and boots back on as she spoke, and she carefully slotting Tess and Kori’s pokeballs back into the inner lining of her jacket before pulling it on.
“I… I don’t have her com number memorized.” Kori looked slightly ashamed, but quickly brushed the expression off of her face. “We’ll just have to look it up, then.”
“In my experience, the military doesn’t just hand out the personal communication codes of its members without their express permission beforehand. We might have to end up leaving a message for her and hoping that she gets it as soon as possible.” Joan picked her pokedex up off of the bed and began a quick search for the Amethyst League military. “Yep, they don’t have a search function for individual Military Tamers. But there is a contact form that we can fill out to leave a message for her. Would you like to decide what it says?” She handed the pokedex to Kori and stood up, repacking her bag as Tess cleaned up the room, placing all of her discarded water bottles in the recycling bin and setting the used coffee mugs and carafe in the room’s kitchenette sink.
Kori nodded and took the pokedex from Joan, following she and Tess out of the room and furiously tapping away as Joan stopped at the front desk and checked out of the Taming Room. By the time they had walked a block down the street, Joan was scratching her head and looking at Kori as she continued to walk right past the restaurant she and Tess had stopped at, watching the Witch walk obliviously down the sidewalk before Tess whistled to get her attention. “Ice Queen, we’re stopping to eat, feel free to join us when you’re done writing your book!”
Kori snapped her head up and turned to look at Tess, scowling and muttering under her breath before stomping back up the street, immediately regretting the decision as road grit and dirt dug into her bare feet. She stopped and cursed, sighed, and then looked up at Joan and kept walking. It was only after she had taken three steps that she realized a pebble had gotten stuck in her shoe, and she stopped and placed one hand on the wall of the café they were stopping at to pull off the white platform heel she was wearing. The Witch stopped and stared in shock. She was wearing shoes that she hadn’t been wearing just a few moments ago. She looked up at Joan with confusion in her eyes, and the blonde just shook her head and laughed, holding up her hands and spreading her fingers. “Magic!”
Kori looked back down at her feet and then stood back up, shaking her head and marching into the café after Tess, finding the Flowergirl lounging in a sunny spot at a back table, smiling brightly and conversing with a young waitress with green hair. Joan followed Kori in, taking a menu from the counter and sitting down beside the Witch, who continued to furiously tap at the pokedex’s touchscreen. The green haired waitress smiled at Joan and twirled her pen in her fingers. “Hi, Joan! Want to actually look at the menu? Or should we just cut to the part where I bring out the usual breakfast spread that you’re eventually going to order?”
Joan looked over at Kori, who was still furiously typing away on the Pokedex. “I think we’ll just have the usual, but with an extra plate for our new friend.” Kori was oblivious as she stared intently at Joan’s Pokedex, Tess watching her with amusement.
“Two breakfast platters and a fruit plate, coming right up.” The waitress scribbled down the order and then left the table, leaving Joan and Tess to watch and wait for Kori to come up for air.
The white haired witch finally set Joan’s pokedex down and slid it in front of the tamer. “I’ve explained the situation to my sister, as best as I can. Hopefully she gets the message, and can at least believe the contents of the message. I asked her if it would be possible to meet with her somewhere so that she can verify I am who I say I am. She’s just as wary as Father is sometimes.” Kori looked down at her fingers, hair obscuring her face. “Perhaps if I was just as cautious, I wouldn’t be a Pokegirl now.”
Tess frowned and looked away. She had been a Flowergirl since birth, and so she couldn’t bring her own experiences to the table when it came to sympathizing with that kind of loss. Joan scooted closer to Kori in the booth, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t know that. Second guessing yourself, questioning the past is useless. All you can do is make the best of your present, and plan for the future.” Kori sighed and didn’t look up as Joan pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I spent years of my life preparing to become a Pokegirl, you know.” That bit of personal information made Kori look up. “It’s true. My older sister is a Doppledame, just like my mother. My father has a lot of Magic Pokegirl ancestry in his family, so I fully expected to threshold as I approached puberty. By the time I was eighteen, the doctors had decided I was out of the danger zone. But I spent nearly a decade going to bed each night, worrying about waking up the next morning with skin a different color, or growing an extra eye or limb or something. My younger sister is still living with that fear, that worry.”
Tess looked up as the waitress returned with their order, a plate of fruit for the Flowergirl, and a full breakfast for both Joan and Kori. They gratefully accepted the food, thanked the waitress, and then Tess spoke up. “I don’t think that it’s the same worry that she has, Joan.” Kori and Joan both looked up at Tess as she nibbled on a berry. “I’m just saying, things are done differently in Emerald than they are in Amethyst.”
Joan looked surprised for a second, and then realization settled in. She turned in her seat to look at Kori, and the blue-eyed, pale skinned winter witch turned to look back at her. “In the Emerald League, you have more rights, and more freedoms than a pokegirl in Amethyst. If you feel uncomfortable or unsafe around a tamer, you merely have to say something to a police officer or a pokecenter worker. You’re allowed to vote, so long as you’re of age. You can have a job that you are paid for, not your tamer. There are so many things possible for pokegirls here than there are in a lot of other leagues.” Joan placed her hand on top of Kori’s. “You’re safe here. You’re safe with me. If you ever feel like you’re not, you just have to say something. There are some general rules you have to follow, but they’re just there to keep everyone safe, and are really just based out of common sense. You can’t allow yourself to go feral, you have to submit yourself to a healing cycle once a week at a pokecenter, and if you become pregnant, you have to either have a tamer who can help you through the process, or check yourself into long-term care at a pokecenter when your due date approaches. It’s just simple things like that. The League tries to treat everyone fairly. It doesn’t always work, but it’s usually better than a lot of other places in the world.”
Kori looked down at her food, pushing it around on her plate. “Do I have to fight?”
Joan looked at Tess. They had sought to capture Kori explicitly so that they had another combatant in their family who could help protect them. “No. You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to. I would recommend that you learn how, though.” Kori looked up at her, fear in her eyes. “Just so that you can defend yourself if it becomes absolutely necessary. I’m your tamer, for now at least. I won’t make you fight if you don’t want to. But I would very much like it if you at least knew how to protect yourself, and knew how to control the attacks you already possess.”
Kori pulled her hand away from Joan’s holding it up and looking at her fingers. Her gaze shifted to Tess, who was watching her intently. “I can do magic. I… I remember making it snow. I remember attacking you. I’m sorry.”
Tess popped another piece of fruit into her mouth, chewing slowly. “I kinda just wish you had hit me harder. I want to evolve.”
Kori looked dismayed as Tess so nonchalantly expressed her desire for combat, for violence. She knew that Flowergirls were supposed to be pacifists, but even so, she was starting to realize that Tess didn’t fit the mold that the Pokedex said she should. “I… I’m sorry?”
“Not your fault. Joan and I will find someone else to fight, if you’re not capable of doing it for us.”
“What do you mean?” Kori looked back and forth between Tess and Joan.
“Joan is a combat tamer. It’s the lowest rank in the military, technically. And I’m her only combatant Pokegirl, if you’re not going to help us fight.”
“A combat tamer?”
Joan nodded and chewed her food slowly before swallowing. “Tamers in Emerald are broken into three categories. Combat Tamers, Research Tamers, and Exploration Tamers. They each belong, technically, to one of the three major pillars of Emerald League society. We each have our areas of expertise, related professions, and marks of advancement. Combat tamers are technically the lowest rung on the ladder in the Emerald League military. We’re not enlisted, nor are we paid. We’re the backups, technically. When things go so wrong that the military is stretched thin or can’t respond fast enough, any Combat Tamers in the area are required to respond to the All-Call. Otherwise, we usually are the best qualified tamers to take jobs that require some amount of combat skill or strategy. We defend cities and villages, escort caravans and travelers, and run the Gym system in Emerald.” Joan tapped her Pokedex with her fork. “My Pokedex is red. That’s the mark of a Combat Tamer. It says so on my Tamer’s license as well, but the color of an Emerald League Tamer’s Pokedex is the quickest way to identify which branch of the tamer profession that they belong to.”
“What about the other two? You said Research and Exploration?”
Joan nodded, taking a sip of orange juice, before offering the rest of the glass to Tess, who gladly accepted. “Research Tamers work closely with Exploration and Combat tamers to help identify new pokegirl breeds, devise technology that will help tamers in the field, and study pokegirls in general. They’re usually never involved in combat, unless something drastic is going on. They carry a blue pokedex, and they are usually found in cities. Sometimes Research Tamers go on expeditions with Exploration Tamers to study Pokegirls in the wild, or to help uncover ruins or archeology sites. Exploration Tamers are sort of a mix between Combat and Research Tamers. They go out into the wild and capture new pokegirls to bring back to society, they search for ancient ruins or technology, or scout out new locations that would support new villages or trade routes. They usually carry a yellow pokedex, and you don’t often see them in town. If you do, they’re probably not there for long. They make their money by, well, exploring.” Joan looked down at her plate and realized that she wasn’t hungry anymore, with only a couple of pieces of toast and some eggs left on her plate. “And for future reference, League employees carry green pokedexes, Pokecenter employees carry pink pokedexes, and members of the military carry black pokedexes, usually. There are some other variations and jobs that are denoted by other colors and licenses, but that covers everyone I’ve ever met.”
“So… you captured me in the wild because you wanted me to fight for you?”
Joan hesitantly nodded. “We did. But we’re not going to force you to fight. We could try, but we’d be running afoul of Pokegirl Combatant Laws. They usually just cover pregnant pokegirls or breeds not suitable to combat, or those that might trigger a dangerous or unwanted evolution. But there are contingencies in place to punish tamers who force pokegirls to fight for them in contests of skill or strength. Which is what we mainly plan to be doing.”
“But you…”
“We’re not going to make you fight. If you don’t want to, you’re useless to us.” Tess was dismissive in her tone.
“This coming from a Flowergirl?” Kori was both offended and incredulous. “What can you even do to fight off another pokegirl?”
“I beat you, didn’t I?” Tess looked at Kori with a smug look of satisfaction, and Joan realized she needed to step in.
“But you’re not a normal Flowergirl. I think that much is certain. And we’re not going to make you fight, Kori. We have plans to challenge Emerald League Gyms and enter into the National Championship. We don’t plan to be straying off beaten path much if at all, so if you decide to travel with us you won’t have to fight unless we run into a feral. Which is part of why I suggested you at least learn what you’re capable of.”
“Wait, if I decide to travel with you?”
“I was going to give you a choice. My family lives here in Arbon Valley. If you wish, you can stay with them until you’re able to contact your sister. My parents will be able to help you more than I would, frankly. They work for the League as instructors at the Valley Tamer’s Academy.”
“The Valley Tamer’s Academy?”
“The place where Tess and I both were trained to be combat tamers. The Valley Academy trains both Combat and Exploration Tamers, and is part of the Emerald League Gym system. Tamers wishing to enter the National Championship come through pretty often, challenging the Gym to earn advancement towards their entry into the Championship.”
“Your parents are Gym Leaders?”
Tess snorted into her glass of juice, and Joan quickly shook her head. “No, no. My father was actually approached to be one of the Gym Leaders at the Academy, but he turned them down. My parents and aunt are just instructors at the Academy, they don’t work with the Gym side of things at all, even if they do hold classes on the combat field from time to time.”
“And you’re saying I could stay with them, if I wanted. Until Regan responds to my message?”
“Mhmm.”
“And have you even asked them if they would allow me to do that?”
“Well, technically, whether either of us want it or not, you’re currently registered as my pokegirl.” Joan shrugged her shoulders. “You count against my Combatant Cap, but I’m not going to force you to fight, and neither will my parents. My mother would probably insist that you have some combat training, though. Just enough that you don’t accidentally damage the house with a technique you didn’t realize you have the power to use. And no, my father would not tame you. You’d have to go to the pokecenter for that.”
Kori blushed and looked away. She had been thinking the question, but afraid to broach the subject. “I wouldn’t want him too, but I wouldn’t know how to say it…”
“No. You just say no. He’d understand. He treats me like a daughter, even if I’m Joan’s pokegirl.” Tess had finished her plate and pushed it aside, smiling. “You might have to keep Mia entertained, though. That’s Joan’s little sister, from her father and Aunt Charlotte.” The Flowergirl smiled and leaned back in her seat, as if sharing a joke before glancing past Joan and Kori with a smile. “Speak of the infernal…”
Joan was suddenly tackled from the side by a whirling blur of blonde hair and tangled limbs, her attacker giggling and crawling up into the new tamer’s lap. “Joany!”
Joan reared back in her seat for a split second before realizing what was going on. “What are you doing here all by yourself, young lady?”
Mia Paris looked up from her perch in her older sister’s lap, smiling from ear to ear. The little girl was the spitting image of her older sister, and she rocked back and forth in Joan’s lap as she called out in a little sing-song. “I’m not alone, Mommy and I came looking for you and Tessy!”
Joan looked back over her shoulder and saw her Aunt Charlotte approaching their table, waving to the trio as she took a seat beside Tess, across from Joan and Kori. “There you are; we’ve all be wondering where you got off to after you got back to town. Megan and David said that you had returned with your capture, but then you never showed up for dinner like you had said you would.”
“I’m surprised Dad waited until morning to send out the search party, honestly.”
Charlotte smiled. “He had David watching the gate security feed, actually. He would have come after you if your pokedex had registered you as leaving the city.”
“He really thinks we would just up and leave without saying goodbye, huh?”
Charlotte smiled, tucking her short white hair back behind her tapered ears. “You’re our first child that has ever indicated wanting to leave home, Joan. Your sister never expressed wanting to leave the Valley, and when she and David met we never really had any worry about her running off into the wilderness and risking her life like you plan to do.”
Joan shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I don’t plan on risking my life, Aunt Charlotte.” She turned to look at Kori, and then smiled. “Aunt Charlotte, I’d like to introduce you to Kori, she’s a Witch. Kori, this is my Aunt Charlotte. She’s a Bramage, and just so happens to be the mother of this little bundle of energy that is currently trying to steal my jacket!” Joan made her introductions and then turned her attention back to Mia in her lap, tickling the little human girl who had been rifling through Joan’s jacket pockets looking for who-knows-what.
“Ah, so you’re the pokegirl that Joan and Tess wouldn’t tell us about wanting to capture. She was so intent that they were going to take care of themselves, they wouldn’t accept any help from her parents. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Charlotte smiled and bowed her head, and Kori blushed and bowed back.
“It’s nice to meet you to, Ma’am.”
“Oh, no need to be so formal, child. You’re part of the family now. Aunt Charlotte is fine. Chandler and Rosa treat Tess like their own daughter, and I’m sure you’ll be no different if you choose to make your life alongside Joan.”
“I…”
Joan cleared her throat and picked Mia up out of her lap, setting her on the ground and pointing at her mother, the little girl scampering around the table to climb into the Bramage’s lap. “We’ve actually got to talk to Mom and Dad, and you, Aunt Charlotte. In private, if possible.” Charlotte raised an eyebrow and looked at Joan, then at Mia, and then back at Joan. “Is there something wrong?”
“Again, in private.” Joan thought for a moment. “Actually, David is part of the City Guard. Perhaps he needs to be there too. We need to report a crime.” Charlotte took a tight hold of her daughter to keep her still, her eyes searching Joan’s face. “All right. Let’s head home, then. I’ll call Chandler and David and let them know that we’re on our way.”
“So you were Loveballed.” David sighed and shook his head, sitting down at the table as Megan sat across from the Witch taking notes about her memories of the tamer who had tried to kidnap her. “I’m so sorry, Kori. If he’s still in the Emerald League, we’ll find the man who did this to you.”
“How can you be so sure?” Kori was sitting at the dining room table with Joan, Chandler, and Rosa while Charlotte and Tess kept Mia occupied in the backyard.
“The Emerald League is just like any other when it comes to its stance on Loveballs, Kori.” Megan looked up from where she was typing, before shutting her laptop and looking at Joan. “The National Police take Loveball cases very seriously. Someone will likely be assigned to you within an hour of your case being sent in to government headquarters in Crown City. Especially one like your own. The daughter of a prominent foreign businessman being Loveballed on Emerald League soil isn’t going to go over well. They’ll want to resolve the case quickly and find the man who did this. They’ll also contact your Father so that you can go back to him as soon as possible.”
“About that…” Joan looked at Kori, who sighed.
“I don’t think contacting my father would help very much. He’s paranoid about outsiders. There have been attempts to replace some of his employees with corporate spies, and even attempts to kidnap some of my sisters from his other pokegirls and ransom them back. He… my father won’t believe that I am who I say I am unless I show up at his doorstep and take a DNA test to prove it while he’s watching.” Kori looked up at Chandler, Rosa, and David. “I’m not sure I want to go back, anyway.”
Chandler tapped his fingers on the table. “I understand your concerns. I understand that your sister went to the step of joining the military to become her own person. But we still have to let your family know what happened, even if you never go back home. In fact, the League might try to send you home anyway to avoid any further international incidents.”
“And if I do decide that I don’t want to go home?”
Joan took Kori’s hand. “What about your hope that your father might be able to reverse the Loveball process?”
The rest of the Paris family looked at each other and at Kori at that bit of information. “Your father can do that?” Chandler was incredulous, shaking his head slowly.
“No. That was wishful thinking. I think I know that now.” Kori shook her own head and smiled slightly. “I’m not sure he would even reverse it if he could. If I’m a pokegirl he could control me even more than he did when I was human. And Amethyst League law would let him.”
David leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. “So what do we tell your parents? You already sent a message to your sister asking for her to try and help bring you home.”
Kori shook her head. “I didn’t actually ask her that. I just wanted her to tell Father what happened.”
Joan snapped her head back around to look at the Witch. “You did what now? I thought you spent all that time typing a letter that would help you get home?”
“No. I’m sorry, but that’s not what I was writing.” Kori looked up at Joan. “I don’t want to go home to my father. I want what you have. Freedom to be me.” She looked down at her hands, turning them over and studying her fingerprints. “Even if that means I’m a pokegirl. I don’t know a lot about the Emerald League, but you make it sound much better than if I tried to have a life in Amethyst.”
Joan opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it when she realized she didn’t know how to respond. Chandler shook his head. “It might not be that easy. The Emerald is more permissive it it’s laws than some other nations, to be sure, but to avoid diplomatic trouble they will more than likely wish to send you home whether you like it or not. They’ll confiscate you at the first opportunity the second that your Father requests that you be returned to him. They might even arrest Joan if she refuses. Or even if she doesn’t refuse, her life and her record will be tarnished by the entire incident.”
“Dad!” Joan was staring furiously at her father, and was holding Kori’s hand tightly. “I promised I would help Kori, no matter what. Don’t try to scare her any more than she already is.”
“I’m not scared, Joan. I’m… I’m okay, I think.” She looked up at Chandler, then at David, Rosa, and Megan. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not going back to my father’s home. I would like to see my sister, and my mother again, but I’m not going to go back home just to be locked up out of sight to hide my father’s shame.”
“What do you mean, his shame?”
“Aside from my sister, I am his only human child, despite any other attempts to have a son. I’m the heir to his company, or at least I was. Regan is forbidden from assuming control of the company because she’s in the military. And he’ll write me out of my inheritance or any control of the company if he can. If his only eligible heir has become a pokegirl, then he can’t pass on control of the company unless he has another human child.”
“Your father would do that? Write you out of any inheritance?”
“Amethyst isn’t like Emerald. And my father isn’t like lots of people in Amethyst. He’s a hardliner. He barely acknowledges his non-human daughters. He goes out of his way to protect the purity of his bloodline. And he cares more for his reputation and his company than he does for his family or friends, if he even has any.”
Chandler rubbed his face and got up, going to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Rosa looked at Joan and Kori intently. “Will he come after my daughter if he thinks she is to blame for your misfortune?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. He’s just more likely to either disown me or try and force Joan to give me up, like you say that the League might.”
“And I won’t give you up, unless you want to go.” Joan squeezed Kori’s hand again. She hadn’t bargained for this much trouble when she and Tess had gone into the woods to find the Witch. She looked at her mother. “You and Dad and Aunt Charlotte raised me, raised Megan and are raising Mia to not be that kind of person. The kind of Tamer who just gives up a pokegirl because it’s inconvenient. Who sells her or trades her away or puts her into storage because I can’t cope with the difficulty. And I know it’s just how you were raised, as well. And I know that sometimes I do things that you don’t like, and you do things that I don’t like. But we’re family.” Joan looked back and Kori, and then at Tess through the wide dining room window as the Flowergirl chased her little sister around the backyard. “Tess is family. And, if she wants to be, Kori is family too.” Joan looked back at her mother. “You once told me that Dad went to the ends of the Earth for you. You need to know that I’d do the same for any member of my family, and that includes everyone whether they’re seated at this table or not.”
Kori squeezed Joan’s hand back, just slightly, but enough for the young woman to notice, drawing her attention back to the white-haired woman.
“So.” Chandler had reappeared at the doorway to the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee. “I’m not going to disagree with you, Joan. I actually agree with you, in fact. I just wish things hadn’t turned out as complicated as they seem to be becoming.” He nodded towards Kori. “If my daughter says you’re part of the family, then you are. I’m not going to question it. But, if you’re going to be traveling with her, you’re not going out there unprepared.” He looked at Rosa, exchanging a nod with his wife.
“We won’t allow you to leave, Joan, until we know what Kori is capable of. She’ll have to be evaluated at the Academy. You both need to know how strong she is, what kind of techniques she can do, what magic she has access to. Until whatever happens happens, you need to be prepared for the worst case scenario.”
Joan opened her mouth to speak, and then shook her head. “Did we mention that Kori doesn’t want to fight?”
Rosa stared at Kori for a long moment, the lines on her face seeming to grow deeper as her expression turned deadly serious. “Young woman, you must fight. You must be able to defend yourself. I don’t know what kind of life you lived before you came into my daughter’s life, but I will not allow you to leave this city with her unless you can defend her to the best of your capabilities.”
“I…” Kori looked taken aback, and she swallowed nervously before nodding. “Yes Ma’am.”
“Good.” Rosa looked at David and Megan. “You should finish your report and take it to your superiors. I would request that you be made Kori’s official league contact during this case, as well. It will allow you to safeguard this family more than having a stranger coming into our lives would.”
David looked back at Megan, who nodded and then picked up her laptop and rose from the table. “I’ll see if I can make it work. I’m not sure if they’ll allow me to remain her representative after I leave the Guard, though.”
“Chandler and I will make the necessary recommendations. You will still be working for the league, regardless of your official position. We may not be on the city council or even official gym leaders, but our words will carry weight. We have been in charge of training most of the tamers who became Arbon’s guard force, after all.”
David nodded and rose from his seat as well, following Megan out of the room as Rosa turned her attention back to Joan and Kori. “Joan, I suggest you find something in your closet for Kori to wear during her training. If need be, she can go into my closet or into the spare bedroom where some of Megan’s old clothes still are.” She looked at Kori. “I assume that you do not know how to make your own clothes magically?”
Kori hesitated, and then shook her head. “I made shoes this morning, but I’m not sure how I did it. And Joan’s dress fit me even though it didn’t look like it would.”
“Then your magic is working outside of your conscious control. All the more reason for you to train how to use it.” She looked at her husband. “Do you know if the main gym is free today?”
Chandler nodded. “There aren’t any official matches scheduled for the day. I would have been asked to referee them if there were. That doesn’t rule out the fact that the Dakotas might be training there today.”
“If they are, then I don’t think they’d mind helping see what our young Witch can do.” Rosa looked back at Kori and Joan. “Go, get ready. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”
Joan Miranda Paris
Combat Tamer
Pokegirls:
Tessanee ‘Tess’: Flowergirl
Kori Staub: Witch
Chandler Paris
Combat Tamer
Pokegirls:
Rosa Paris: Doppledame
Charlotte Paris: Bramage
Daughter: Mia Paris
David La’Croix
Combat Tamer
Pokegirls:
Irene: Whorc
Megan Paris: Doppledame