Teej was up and out of the house early the next day. He had been up all night thinking up costume ideas for himself and the Pallet twins for Halloween and was feeling positively giddy. He was in his element, crafting a cohesive team for his fellowship to go out on a quest, even if it was just a night of merriment and confection collecting. Already he had drafted over half a dozen ideas, in the hopes that he’d find the perfect match for his young friends, though he worried whether he’d be able to come up with an idea that would suit their tastes.
“Oh god what if they want to go as the same class?” Teej worried. It’s not like it mattered, this wasn’t a campaign, but Teej was nonetheless worried about their group dynamic being off if both siblings specialized in the same field. Maybe he’d have to educate them...
But no, that wouldn’t do, the point of going together wasn’t to show off their diversity but to have fun. There wouldn’t be any monsters to slay or dungeons to crawl. Teej was worried over nothing.
Or rather, worried about the wrong problem.
Viol was proving to be a bit difficult to work with, a contrarian of the utmost caliber that was unconvinced by all but the highest diplomacy rolls. Teej had soothed his concerns the previous night but he knew it would take longer for a truce between the two of them to form. And even then, given Teej’s record with the others in the house lately...
“No, I’m going to make this work,” he said with a deep breath as he looked up in the sky. “I’m tired of ending up alone, and I’m not going to do it to them as well.”
Something soon caught his attention in the sky, it looked like a superhero flying through the air with a young teen on its back. The masked figure soon landed in a clearing nearby and Teej decided to check it out, having already perceived the level of threat it might pose and taken the precaution to observe behind a boulder. To his surprise, he sees Viol climb off the masked hero’s back and yawn.
“Finally,” Viol says as he stretches and rubs his eyes. “Those assholes took forever figuring how much money to give me for all of those balm mushrooms. And having to wait for the owner of the restaurant to get checked out for his heart attack all those times really dragged out the night, eh Hawlucha?”
“Haw,” the strange figure next to Viol says, striking a pose. Was this really a Pokemon? It looked like a cross between a bird and a luchador wrestler.
“Yeah whatever, get back in the Pokeball for now,” Viol says returning it. He turns to walk towards the house and catches sight of Teej staring at him from behind the boulder.
“W-what the fuck are you staring at me for?” Viol yells at Teej, unsure if the older man is stalking him or not.
“I just saw that think you were on flying around and I wanted to see, that’s all,” Teej says a bit defensively, having realized he gave a bad impression to the adolescent. “Was that really a Pokemon just now?”
“Yeah, it was hard for me to believe when I first saw it too,” Viol says. “I thought it was fake until Vanille caught one and told me it was real. She still won’t let me live it down, just like with with fairies and wottergate. Fuckin’ bitch.”
“It’s so cool looking though,” Teej says, too enthralled to listen to Viol’s rant. “what’s its name?”
“Hawlucha, didn’t your spying tell you that much?” Viol asks while rolling his eyes.
“No, I mean what did you name it?” Teej asks. “Don’t trainers name their Pokemon?”
“Nicknames,” Viol corrects. “And only fucking autists like Vanille do that. And even if I did do nicknames, why waste one on an HM slave?”
“HM slave?” Teej asks, a bit confused on the terminology. Viol just sighs and facepalms at the older man.
“Hidden Moves, you know, things like Fly and Surf,” Viol testily explains. “An HM slave knows only HM moves so your other Pokemon are free to learn actually useful moves.”
“Like a mount?” Teej asks.
“Yeah whatever, I guess,” Teej says with a yawn.
“Oh, I see,” Teej says. “Still though, if I had a Hawlucha I’d probably give him a cool name, like Los Tiburon, The Shark of the Land!”
“That’s too many spaces you idiot,” Viol says, clearly getting agitated at this point. “Look, I’ve been out all night grinding, can we skip the lesson so I can sleep and you can get >>>/out/?”
“R-right,” Teej says, reading the atmosphere. “I was just going to go check out costumes and maybe visit /diy/. I should be back in a few hours, if you or Vanille need me.”
But Viol at this point had already walked off. Teej’s roll was in vain. He sighed a bit sadly.
“What am I going to do about him?” Teej says, reflecting on Viol’s iciness towards him. “I know there’s got to be something we have in common to break the walls he’s putting between us. Maybe…”
Teej had an idea of how to gain Viol’s trust. He wasn’t always good at talking through problems, but when the party needed him most; his actions would pull them through.
“I’m still going to need a gift from the dice gods to pull this one off,” Teej says as he heads out on his newfound quest.

“For Mew’s sake, does that autist know to read up on shit,” Viol rages as he walks to his room in the house. “He’s worse than those mouth breathers on the ladder that still don’t realize Mega Charizard X is weak to ground type moves.”
Viol rounds the corner into the hallway, not paying attention to what’s going on.
“If he wants to get so chummy with me why doesn’t he learn the basics, I’m not going to spoonfeed hi-“
His monologue is cut short when he bumps into his uncle Trevor walking down the hallway with what looks like a small robot.
“Woah there nephew,” Trevor says with his easygoing voice. “You almost made me drop my ROB. Gotta get it back to my place before your pops sees me, or else I’m as good as dead.”
“Why, what happened now?” Viol says, raising an eyebrow.
“H-hey, don’t give me that look, I didn’t do anything!” Trevor says. “C’mon little man, /v/ got in a big fight with /pol/ last night and /x/ turned him down to the ball. He’s been raging and crying all night while playing Mario Kart and bitching about DLC. I’m surprised it didn’t keep you up. His room is practically across the hall.”
“Oh, I was out all night training,” Viol says. “I needed to clear my head and keep from getting rusty.”
“Well shit, I’m glad you ran into me now dude,” Trevor says with a grin. “Get all your things back in your room before /v/ finds them. And don’t let him catch you out and about. He sounds like he’s ready to kill someone.”
“I’ll manage,” Viol says, walking down towards his and Vanille’s room.
“B-be sure to lock your door!” Trevor calls after him. “You know what shit /v/ pulls.”
Viol just waved to Trevor as he goes. He was a pretty cool uncle, and probably the closest family member Viol had besides Vanille, but Trevor never really was phased by anything and avoided negative situations. And because he was so popular with the others in the house, he didn’t really spend much time with the Pallets in recent years. /v/ on the other hand…
“You’re Viol, right?” says a voice from behind the young man. Viol turned to see the familiar tall figure of /d/.
“Yes, and you’re /d/, right?” he says, staring her down while looking up to her face. “I remember you were talking to /tg/ the other day.”
“I prefer Demona, actually,” she says with a calculated smile. “That’s quite a look you’re giving me.”
“What do you want?” Viol huffs. He knew all of the rumors about Demona, and was frankly a bit frightened by her presence, but he wasn’t going to back down and have her laugh about him with Teej later.
“Oh nothing, just passing through and saw a familiar face,” she says as she moistens her lips a bit with her tongue. “Figured I’d have a little… conversation.”
“Aren’t you worried about /v/ coming out and kicking your ass?” Viol asks smugly.
“Afraid of /v/?” she says with a short laugh. “Honey, he’s afraid of me. Besides, I’d savor him trying to beat me down.”
Viol could see the fabric of Demona’s pants move a bit as she spoke.
“In any case, this was more fun than I anticipated,” Demona says. “I’ll have to talk to you again sometime… maybe when you’re a bit more grown up.”
She held her hand out for a hand shake and Viol made sure it was an actual hand before tentatively taking it.
“If you see Tee-, I mean /tg/, before I do, let him know I’m still interested in talking once in awhile after this ball ordeal settles down,” she says. “You would be a dear and tell him that, won’t you?”
“If I see him, I guess,” Viol says, his face getting a bit red at the uncertainty of the situation.
“Marvelous,” she says. “Tootle-loo~”
She rounds the corner towards her room, leaving a small amount of spaghetti on the floor after her farewell.
“Where the hell does it come from?” Viol asks quietly to himself. However, his thoughts are put on hold when he hears a door slam nearby followed by incoherent rage and depression.
“WHICH OF YOU LITTLE FUCKING FAGGOTS LEFT YOUR CONSOLE OUT HERE IN THE LIVING ROOM!?” /v/ roared in the distance.
“Shit,” Viol hissed to himself. He did not want to have to deal with /v/’s shit right now, and he could hear /v/ stomping towards the hallway. Viol went to run to his room but slipped on the spaghetti Demona had left behind on the floor and tripped landing face first. As he scrambled to get up he knew /v/ would be on him in a matter of seconds and there was no way he was going to get in his room now if Vanille locked herself inside. He got up and reached for the nearest door to see if it was unlocked, and the RNG gods must have smiled upon him because it was. He managed to throw himself into the room and slammed the door shut with his foot before /v/ saw him.
The next few moments were tense as he heard /v/ approach. Viol wasn’t used to being sneaky, even around crooks, because he could rely on his battling, but after hearing about /v/’s fights with /b/ in the past, he wasn’t sure it would be wise to send his team out against his belligerent father. Soon /v/’s footsteps reached the front of the room Viol was hiding in, and Viol worried that he had thrown himself into /v/’s room. He’d be as good as dead at that point. But after a few tense moments, the footsteps receded further down the hallway and a door was slammed. Within a minute afterwards loud X-Files music began to blare through the house from /v/’s room accompanied by the sound of gross man sobbing.
Viol breathed a sigh of relief that the ordeal was over and got up from the floor. It was a good thing whoever owned this room wasn’t here and left it unlocked for him to use, though Viol couldn’t imagine what idiot would leave their room open for just anyone to shit up while they were out.
However, one look at the contents of the room and Viol realized who the owner of the room was immediately. He had stumbled into Teej’s room.