TEEN: Land of the Roses

[Misfit Angel]

Artwork of Andrea and Kimberly provided by Hexikron
A story co-written by Misfit Angel and stormislandgal89

"Isn't it strange how the most trivial experiences can be so unforgettable? You must think it's silly that I find wonder in the everyday things around us... the things I've seen with you."​

Hello. If you're a reader of Land of the Roses, I bet you're wondering "Why is a new thread being started? What's going on?" Well, there's a simple reason: I'm rebooting the story. Land of the Roses has been my pride and joy for two years now, nearly three, and I fully intended on riding it to the finish line... but I ran into problems with the story, where it's going and how it's going. If you're curious, I've outlined some of the major problems below that I don't believe I can fix without substantially restructuring the story, or have the heart to continue writing:

Spoiler

I admit, I'm broadly happy with how Land of the Roses was going. It's been proceeding at a reasonable pace, with chapters coming out every two or three weeks for much of its run, sometimes even weekly. The characters are discovering themselves, and are at the deepest levels I've achieved with character development. The plot is pushing along at a decent pace, with several elements, locations and ideas visited in the 40 or so chapters already written. But there's no denying that there are fundamental problems that are becoming more and more apparent as the story pushes on.

The biggest problem I'm running into is the supernatural subplot that's bubbling in the background, concerning the witch coven that's operating within Lanark. What the hell is going on with that? Where is it going, and when? It's barely started! The biggest question is, is it really important in a story about a biologist trying to get her dream career off the ground, or a wealthy heiress trying to find a purpose to fill her empty life? I had great plans with the supernatural stuff, but... It didn't really make sense in the context of those two characters, and the story of Andrea and Kimberly is what I originally wanted to focus on when I first started working on Land of the Roses. So, that's the big thing that I'm scaling back extremely heavily.

Another problem that's arisen (that I feel I've actually done a decent job in fixing with 2018's polishing project) is in regard to characterization. I started the original incarnation of Land of the Roses too quickly. I didn't have firm ideas about who the characters were. Let's look at Andrea: I had no idea what her personality was meant to be, other than I wanted her to be different than I had her back in a previous project, Storm Island. All I really had set in stone was "goth biologist can't catch a damn break". I had no idea she'd have social problems. I had no idea she'd develop trust issues. That chapter where she and Kimberly got into a heated argument and she was forced to come to terms with the fact that she's miserable because she's constantly mistreating her friends? That was actually a spur of the moment idea, an idea which really shouldn't pop up unceremoniously in chapter 22. Now that I have a solid understanding of where her character went, I hope I can more strongly establish her character and get to her development a bit more quickly.

Same with Kimberly. When we first met her, she was basically flawless. She was wealthy. She was loved by all. She had rock solid confidence and no apparent problems in her life. I tried to fix this by presenting that appearance as a facade that fell apart by the end of season 1 and was heavily expanded upon in season 2, but it didn't feel right. The idea was that she hid those problems from the other characters (as someone in her position would), but the problem was that I hid those problems from the readers as well. The most frequent bit of criticism I've gotten about Kimberly since the story started was that these problems came flying in out of nowhere. Her body image issues felt hamfisted. Her worries about her achievements being rigged came out of the blue. She showed no signs of crippling anxiety or loneliness. Such problems should have at least been hinted at during her first contest, and certainly explored in the aftermath, but they weren't.

Other characters developed in ways I didn't plan on either. Dr. Reiland was meant to show up more often. Patrick was originally meant to be a minor character who disappeared after awhile. The character of Emily piggybacked off of Patrick too well for me to just leave her as an "lol hi, have fun here" character. Now that I'm more comfortable with these characters, I'll be writing the story in a way that doesn't ignore what they're (now) meant to be.

Basically, I hope to take the lessons I learned from writing the story so far and incorporating them into a reboot. If you were a reader of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses, don't worry! This story will not be the same. The introductions to Andrea's storyline and Kimberly's storyline will be similar, but the story will diverge fairly quickly. I currently plan to cover Andrea's trip to Nettlefield in a similar manner, while Kimberly's first contest will be approached in a different manner; after that, I plan to take things in a totally different direction while sticking to the core themes that I always wanted to explore with these two characters. No doubt some scenes will be carried over into this new incarnation of the story, but I plan for this to be a (mostly) new experience starting somewhere around Chapters 10 through 13.

Why rewrite at all? The supernatural subplot doesn't feel right, so it's going. A lot of stuff in the original incarnation is tied to it in ways that aren't immediately apparent to readers as the story sits now, so I can't really pull it out with edits without radically altering the story. And I can't just solve the subplot within a couple chapters and push past it like it was never a thing; doing so would be a massive disservice to my readers, bigger than a rewrite will be. I didn't come to this decision lightly, so I hope that those of you still sticking around with this story can be patient with this process.

With all of that out of the way, let me get to a more traditional introduction:

Welcome to the Land of the Roses! This story is set in the fictional Kingdom of Lanark, a land inspired primarily by Scottish, Irish and Welsh culture and geography. The primary protagonist is an aspiring biologist who is eager to reap the results of her hard work and get her career off of the ground. The secondary protagonist is a wealthy heiress is who is looking to find her purpose in life, and explore the facets of her personality that make her truly unique. As the two work together in the interests of personal discovery, they're supported by a cast of characters with their own dreams and ambitions; a clashing mix of personalities sets the stage for love, anguish, anger and most important, fun!

An important note about this story is that, while it's set in the Pokémon universe, the focus is on its human cast first and foremost. Friendships and romance will be a key plot point of this story, but I'm hesitant to class it as a shipping story as it'll be more than just that.

As per the rules of the Writers Workshop regarding Teen/Mature rated stories, the following will crop up at some point:
[ graphic violence ] [ drug abuse ] [ alcohol abuse ] [ references to anorexia and other body image issues ] [ references to nudity ] [ sexually suggestive content ]​

Table of Contents
Season 1: Land of the Roses
Introduction

• Atlas Part 1 - Coming someday!
• Atlas Part 2 - Coming someday!
• Prologue - The Wilted Flower
  A young scientist is poised to turn her life around with a dream job interview, but she finds it hard to have faith in herself.

Part 1: First Impressions Are Everything

• Chapter 1 - The Institute
  Andrea arrives at the Reiland Institute for her interview, and her first impressions begin when she meets her potential future boss.
• Chapter 2 - The Interview
  Fourteen years of hard work has boiled down to this one moment: a high stakes interview that will determine Andrea's future.
• Chapter 3 - The Choice
  With her interview complete, Andrea is presented with a choice.
• Chapter 4 - Remember, a Rose Has Thorns
  Even the most peaceful looking countryside has its hidden dangers, and Lanark is no exception.
• Chapter 5 - The Third Wheel
  Having arrived in Nettlefield after sunset, Andrea is faced with the reality that she'll have to share a room with a couple she doesn't know.
• Chapter 6 - A Grim Task
  Andrea, Emily and Patrick investigate the mysterious and deadly plague that is spreading through a Miltank herd. (Part 1 Finale)

Interlude

• Interlude - wiltedlilacx
  Still making his decision about whether to hire Andrea or not, Patrick is presented with a potential treasure trove of information about her: her social media presence.

Part 2: The Majesty of Aughrim

• Prologue II - The Troubled Heiress
  Nearly five months after responding to a humanitarian crisis in the arctic, a young heiress prepares to resume her personal life and professional career.
• Chapter 7 - She Reminds Me Of Someone
  While on the long train ride to the city of Augrhim, Kimberly strikes up a conversation with a peculiar and familiar-looking stranger.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Artwork of Andrea provided by Hexikron
A young scientist is poised to turn her life around with a dream job interview, but she finds it hard to have faith in herself.​

May 12th
Aughrim, Kingdom of Lanark

"You can do this..." a young woman told herself as she sat idly at the vanity in her bedroom. She pushed her long blonde hair out of her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to maintain eye contact with her reflection, but it was difficult. "You have to do this..."

It was an important day for her, a day she hoped would change her life for the better. Later that day, she'd be taking part in a job interview at the Reiland Institute, a widely respected scientific research center on the other side of the country. Though she'd known about the interview for some time, she still couldn't believe it was finally happening; ever since she was a little girl, from the moment she performed her first basic science experiment in her parents' tool shed, she'd dreamed of one day working as a scientist -- pushing the bounds of current knowledge and discovering new things. Her goals and motivations had changed since then, but the dream remained the same, and after fourteen long years of intense work and endless determination, that dream was finally within her grasp.

That didn't make it any easier to have faith in herself, however.

"It's only the most prestigious research center in the kingdom, and you're only a university dropout..." Light, tingly pain radiated outward from her hands as her black fingernails dug into the hard oak surface of the vanity. Her eyes drifted upward and met those of her reflection once again. "But you can do this. Otherwise it's back to square one, and you can't afford to start there again..."

As she stared at herself in the mirror, she debated how to present herself. Her options were limited by what she had, limitations created by her limited wealth. She looked down at the basket of clothes beside her, and most of it was black; a little red here, some lavender there, a splash of grey in between, but still mostly black. Buried at the bottom of the basket was the one piece that wasn't -- the spring green off-the-shoulder skater dress that she wore to her high school prom -- hardly appropriate for a job interview at a prestigious research center, and likely didn't fit her anymore.

"Guess I'll be wearing black today..." she commented as she lifted her mascara brush and began to work on her eyelashes. "Not that I'm complaining..."

As she finished up the last of her mascara, there was a knock at the door, and a voice came from the other side. "May I come in?"

She lowered her mascara brush and smiled. "Of course!" she called out.

The door swung open and a slightly overweight young man with shaggy, shoulder length brown hair stepped in. He averted his eyes as soon as he saw how little she was wearing. "Oh! Thought you'd be more dressed than that."

"I'm still trying to decide on what I want to wear..." she answered as she carefully drew a wing shape of smoky purple eyeshadow over her left eye. "But I'm pretty sure it's gonna be my Misfit Angel Enchantress dress."

The man's face contorted with skepticism. "Uhh, Andrea? You do... realize it's a job interview you're going to, right? Not a rave down at The Lair?"

"I do. But it's the best I have. More importantly, it's who I am," she returned, starting the winged eyeshadow over her right eye. That smile returned to her face. "And who do I have to thank for that lesson, eh, ol' buddy ol' pal? 'Be true to who you are'?"

He laughed. "Okay, you've got a point. Still, you've known about this interview for a couple weeks now, you didn't think to pick up anything more... 'professional' looking?"

"You know I could only barely afford my train ticket out to the loch. And the ticket back... which I've still yet to buy, stupidly."

"If you needed a couple silver roses for--"

"Webster, please. Let's drop this," she barked with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. "You know how much being jobless for the past five months has torn me apart, and you know how much I don't like being reminded of it."

"Right, sorry."

"Ehh, forgiven. It's impossible to be mad at you." She finalized her eyeshadow and turned to look at him. "So, how do they look? Even enough? A little too heavy on the right, maybe? I always make that mistake..."

"They look pretty even to me."

"I'm surprised." She dropped her eyeshadow brush and held her hand aloft in front of her. "My hands are shaking."

"Nervous, huh?"

"Nervous..." she said with a half-hearted laugh. "That's putting it mildly. The last four years of my life have led to this -- no, the last fourteen. Those years are going to be judged, and hard. Something from my past is going to slip through the cracks and sink my interview, I just know it. If it's not the obvious fact that I dropped out of my PhD program because I couldn't handle the pressure, it's going to be something else."

He approached the bed and sat down on it. "Andi, you've gotta remember... Nobody is perfect. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet that they'd rather not talk about, even this lady that you're looking to be hired by, as well-respected as she is. You've made some... poor choices in the past, but who hasn't? I have, your father has, Toby has... You're too hard on yourself."

She sighed. "Maybe. It's hard not to be, all things considered..."

"What's really important is that you've made remarkable progress in putting yourself back together over the past couple of months. You need to keep focusing on that, or all of that progress might be lost."

Her eyes drifted to the floor. "I know, I know..."

"Think of it this way. You told me that the Reiland Institute doesn't hire people very often, right?"

"As far as I'm aware."

"Dr. Reiland invited you to come visit her research center, that alone must say something -- to me, at least. Do you really think that she's the type of person to drag you across the country to tell you that you're not good enough?"

She shook her head at the thought. "No. I'd be furious if she did."

He smiled, reached out to grab her hand and clasped it tightly between his own. "I understand that you're nervous, but you can't let that define who you are today. You're an intelligent woman with incredible potential." As he spoke, he felt her trembling diminish.

"Save it, I've heard that a dozen times from you this year! But today, I'll believe it."

"Good, because it's true."

She nodded her head slightly and slid her hand out of his grip, then turned around and grabbed her black lipstick. "Words like that make me think: I don't know if I've ever properly thanked you for everything you've done for me since the year started."

"You have, you just don't realize it."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, pausing her lipstick application.

"The best way to thank someone for helping you isn't through words, or gifts, or anything like that. No, you're doing it right now -- you're pushing yourself through that door and trying to make something of yourself, instead of getting comfortable at rock bottom. It makes all of the effort I put in to help get you back on your feet feel like it's been worth it."

She smacked her lips together as she examined herself in the mirror. Satisfied with her makeup, she pushed herself out of her chair and over to the basket of clothes. "I hadn't thought about it that way. Still... I owe you a gift for all of that. If I land this -- once I land this job, you're going to get that gift."

He laughed. "Is it odd that I dread to think what you mean by that?"

"You're always suspicious of my good will, so no, it's not odd," she said, pulling out her Enchantress dress. As she looked it over, she noticed that it was wrinkled to near ruin. "Fuck sake, how'd this wrinkle so badly?"

"Probably because you don't fold your clothes, you just throw them in the basket."

She laughed and shook her head. "Got a master's degree in biology but I'm still brainless about everyday life."

"I know. They don't teach you the basics anymore, do they? You might want to learn quick, you could be out on your own shortly."

She grumbled, digging through the rest of her wardrobe. Her flirty and revealing two piece Seductress set, with its long and flowing satin layers, were wrinkle free but clearly out of the question when it came to attempting to present herself as a professional who was worthy of consideration. Likewise, her Blood Baroness dress was in good shape, but dressing like a vampire would be far too eccentric for a job interview. She'd begun to see her roommate's point about buying a new dress for the interview, but it was too late; even worse, she didn't have the money for it because she spent most of her earnings on those designer dresses that were the current bane of her aspirations.

"What do you think..." she asked, grabbing the last of her dresses, the Spider. "If I roll up the mesh sleeves and fishnet stockings... it... looks normal enough? Hopefully?" Her voice started to squeak as she thought about it more and more.

"Umm..." He reached his finger out and poked it through the tangled mess of spiderweb-like threads below the neckline. "Don't you think you'll be showing a little too much cleavage in this thing?"

"Ehhh..."

"That aside, out of everything you've got... I think that's your best bet," he shrugged. As she slipped the dress on and made the adjustments needed, he blurted, "So, umm... Before you head out there, do you want to get breakfast together, maybe?"

"Us? Together? Who are you, and what have you done with the real Webster?" she joked. "We haven't done anything together in over a month, why the change of heart?"

"I figure it's a special day, and I get the feeling that you're not happy always being alone down at the diner."

"That's true..." She grabbed her phone off of the vanity and turned it on to check the time. "I'd love to, but... I gotta get to Camden Station soon, or I'll miss my train."

He lowered his head and spoke softly. "Morning's passing by that quickly, is it..."

She could sense his unhappiness, something he rarely displayed, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders for a hug. "Hey! If all goes according to plan, I'll be back in time for dinner, okay? I wouldn't pass up a chance to go out together."

"I was gonna play some games with the lads tonight, but... I can take a break from those assholes. It might do my blood pressure some good."

"Ha, maybe," she laughed, letting him go.

"Anyways, I'll get outta your hair. We'll talk later, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good luck, and remember: You've got this."

"Thank you."

As he left the room, she made her final adjustments to her appearance, but something was still missing... her favorite necklace. She returned to her bed and grabbed the bright silver chain off of her nightstand; it was silly, but she felt her anxiety melt away as she clasped the chain around her neck and rested the dark red tear-shaped gemstone over her heart. "Luck... you've done the trick before, and luck is what I need today."

 

[Misfit Angel]

Author's note: Hi! Are you a reader of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses and wondering if this chapter rewrite is worth the read? A list of major changes compared to the last iteration of this chapter:

Spoiler

• The train ride scene has been removed. Much of what was said there by her father has been migrated to what her roommate, Webster, said in the prologue.
• Andrea is a lot more reserved in general. She's also got a bit of an attitude streak in her when she is vocal.
• Some minor foreshadowing for some of the earlier changes to come to this incarnation of the story.
• Other adjustments to dialogue to solidify some facts about Andrea's past.

Andrea arrives at the Reiland Institute for her interview, and her first impressions begin when she meets her potential future boss.​

As the train came to a complete stop and the doors opened, Andrea took a deep breath and stepped out onto the platform. The bitter cold instantly snatched her away from her thoughts about her upcoming interview, and she gasped in shock as her arms instinctively huddled together. No amount of rubbing her arms up and down would warm her up. "Holy shit it's cold!"

She quickly found a map that was posted on the terminal wall, but it was useless to her. Rather than detail the town of Loch Alstan, it covered every community along the lakefront and surrounding countryside, from Nettlefield in the west, to Rosewater Falls in the east and Cobble Creek in the south. Her heart dropped as she studied it further; the only landmarks on the map were parks, monuments and other tourist attractions. The Reiland Institute wasn't marked anywhere.

"Ugh... T-This is off-ff to a good s-start..." she lamented, shivering uncontrollably. "Mistake number one, idiot... you checked the weather back at home, but not here!"

She quickly retreated to the terminal building; much to her relief, the inside of the train station was welcomingly warm, so much so that she was tempted to spend the rest of the day there. As tempting as the warmth was, missing her interview was out of the question, so she pulled her phone out and brought up her map. She sighed heavily as she studied it: the Reiland Institute was situated along the shores of Loch Alstan, but the train station was in the southern foothills, and a 45 minute walk bridged the gap.

"I should have brought Webster's jacket..."

With her interview hanging over her at just an hour away, she pushed herself back out into the cold to get started on her journey. Not only was it cold, but it was foggy as well; her visibility was reduced to only perhaps 50 meters, obscuring her view of the town. The cemented cobblestones beneath her feet were slick with rain and filthy with mud, and as she made her way up towards the main road, she spotted stylized graffiti on nearly every building. In the distance, the wailing of several police sirens drowned out the sound of the wind around her.

"Oh! This town is lovely!" she sarcastically remarked to herself. "What next? People shooting up in broad daylight?"

Much to her relief, she soon heard the familiar clatter of a public tram, and before long, the tracks loomed out of the fog, followed quickly by the trolley itself. Not to her relief, however, the trolley was open air and exposed to the elements; she would still be cold and the seats were wet. All she could do was grumble as her day felt worse and worse.

- - - - -​

The Reiland Institute was a lot less glamorous than she had led herself to believe. In clear contrast with both her expectations of a modern engineering masterpiece and the rest of the town's charming Edwardian architecture, the limestone structure was rudimentary in design: monolithic, sharply defined amidst the fog and separated into six distinct floors, there were absolutely no unique features about it other than the fact that it was simply boring. It lacked artistic columns, fantastic grotesques perched upon the roof, and impressive window arches, boasting only flat, featureless walls.

"Looks like a mental asylum..." she mused as she stopped short of the main entrance. She took a moment to compose her nerves, and with a deep breath, she reassured herself that her interview would go well.

The lobby was far more warm and interesting than the exterior was. The first thing that caught her attention was the large fountain in the center of the lobby, which featured sculptures of four seahorse-like creatures -- which she subconsciously identified as Kingdra -- sending jets of misty water into the air. As she wandered up to it for a closer look, she noticed that large portions of the fountain's floor were littered with bronze and silver roses. Accompanying the entrancing flow of the water was the alluring sound of smooth jazz that played throughout the lobby. Both served to calm her nerves further as she timidly approached the desk.

"Hello!" the receptionist greeted with a bright smile on his face. "Welcome to the Reiland Institute! How may I help you today?" His manner of speaking was almost robotic, as if he had said the phrase thousands of times before.

"I'm, uhh... I'm here for a job interview with Dr. Reiland," she answered.

The receptionist's expression lit up. "Ah! I heard someone would be here today for that... Name, please?"

"Andrea Dennison."

"I'll need some form of identification, too."

She dropped her purse onto the counter and dug through it. She retrieved her old student ID card from her days at the University of Aughrim and handed it over to the receptionist.

The receptionist grabbed the card and studied it. "Hmm. This card expired over the winter holidays."

Her heart dropped; it was the only form of identification she had. "I, uhh... I dropped out of university a couple months ago. The admissions board told me they were going to give me a new one before that, but I guess that got cancelled in all of the confusion."

"Mmm," he said with a nod. He looked up from the card and studied Andrea's features closely, comparing them to the photo on the card; except for the length of her hair and her weight, every detail in the photo and on the card was a perfect match. "Well... You do look like who you say you are. A moment, please." He started to furiously hammer away at his keyboard with blazing speed. "You're quite lucky, you know. I don't remember the last time Dr. Reiland had someone come in for an interview."

She let out an awkward laugh. "As if I needed to feel any more nervous. I might throw up at this rate..."

"Oh, sorry." The receptionist continued to tap away. After a moment, he continued. "Here you are! Andrea Dennison, meeting scheduled for May 12th, 2:45 PM. Someone's early!" He picked up the phone beside him and input a few numbers. "Mr. Adelaide? Yes, Dr. Reiland's prospect is here a little early. Want to come down and meet her?" A pause. "Okay! I'll let her know." He hung the phone up, grabbed a lanyard with 'VIP' written on it in gold lettering and handed it across the desk. "Okay, one of the senior staff is going to come down to meet you. How about you have a seat until then?"

She took a seat in one of the chairs that was scattered throughout the lobby and sighed. "That's one hurdle down, I guess... didn't even think about my expired ID, what else didn't I plan for?"

A few minutes went by before a door behind the receptionist opened. A man with a strikingly bright red mop of wavy hair entered the lobby and looked around. His eyes met Andrea's and he approached her, then extended his hand forward as a sign of good will. "You're Andrea Dennison, right?"

She stood up and shook his hand. "That's me."

"Yep! I remember that voice! We spoke on the phone briefly a couple weeks ago."

"Oh, uhh... Patrick, right?"

"That's right. I'm one of Dr. Reiland's senior staff members, and I'm in charge of the biology wing of the institute."

"My potential future boss."

"Correct."

He rolled up his sleeve and checked the time on his watch. "Hmm. Your interview isn't for another half hour... Would you like to visit the staff cafeteria and warm up a bit? You look like you're pretty cold, dressed like that."

She looked away awkwardly. "Umm. I don't know about that."

"C'moooon, it'll be a good way to showcase the kind of atmosphere we have around here!"

That was what she was worried about; for most people atmosphere meant socializing with like-minded individuals. For her, atmosphere meant being in a crowded room with no one to talk to. But she didn't want to appear rude. "As long as I'm not late for my interview..."

He chuckled. "I won't let that happen! Follow me, I'll show you where it is."

He led her back through the door and into a hallway that seemed to stretch into eternity on both sides. Painted on the wall was a large, artistic map that indicated the general layout of the building: West Wing South was host to the medical and biochemistry labs, while West Wing North was dedicated to radiology, genetic research and the Pokémon hatchery. On the opposite side of the building, East Wing South focused on general biology and environmental research, and East Wing North was a hub for applied physics and chemistry.

"The cafeteria is up this way, up a couple floors," he said, leading her past the map of the facility. She followed at a distance and in complete silence as they continued down a hallway towards the stairwell. As they reached the top of the first flight of stairs, he decided to break the silence. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"Only when I'm comfortable."

"Ah!" He started up the second set of stairs. "That's fine! How about some small talk, though? Help open you up before your interview?"

She shrugged.

"I'll start by saying it: that's an interesting outfit you've got there."

She looked down at her clothing and concern began to wash over her. Her attire was simple, yet kept to a strikingly dark theme: her black minidress sported a revealing spiderweb design on her chest and was paired with black and grey striped stockings that reached partway up her thighs. Bulky black leather boots covered in buckles and straps stretched up to just below her knees, and gaudy, obviously fake jewelry -- apart from her necklace -- adorned her fingers, wrists, ears and left eyebrow. Strange by the average person's standards, but by no means outlandish. The fact that some of his first commentary was about her clothing raised red flags about her upcoming interview and put her on the defensive. "And... what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing at all. It's just that most people don't dress like it's rave night when they have a job interview."

"Look, I'm fresh out of university and broke, okay? I can't afford anything nice, so I'd--"

"Hey, relax!" he said with a friendly chuckle. "I didn't mean anything bad by it, I actually like it! It's been awhile since I've seen a goth girl, and you pull it off well."

"Oh, umm... Thank you. Sorry."

"At ease, soldier. I understand that you're nervous. That means you're not stupid -- this interview is a big deal and you obviously know that. Just... loosen up a little before you meet with Dr. Reiland, okay? First impressions are very important with her, and if you go in there with an attitude, looking like that? Well..."

"You're right. I'll try," she bleated. More silence, until she eventually broke it herself. "You're not the first person to tell me that today. Being dressed for a rave, I mean. My room mate said the same thing."

"And you came dressed like that anyway, because that's 'who you are'."

He'd earned his first smile out of her. "How'd you guess that?"

"I dated a goth girl back in high school... Your type is pretty predictable."

"I guess we are."

When they reached the third floor, Patrick pushed open another door and the two found themselves atop a balcony, out in the cold again. A damp walkway stretched between the main building of the Reiland Institute and its central annex, where the faculty offices, cafeteria and other staff accommodations were. Despite the gloomy weather, several institute staff members were loitering nearby, casually chatting about their ongoing work.

"Well! At least it's not raining!" he happily said, taking in a deep breath of the fresh, cold air. "...or snowing? I think it might actually be cold enough for that today."

She grumbled quietly to herself as her hands magnetically latched onto her arms for warmth again. "I thought he wanted to warm me up..."

"Anyways, the cafeteria is this way."

He pushed open the double doors at the other end of the walkway and the two entered one of the largest rooms in the Reiland Institute, the employee lounge. The entire room was brightly lit by a massive array of windows that flanked the northwestern and northeastern sides of the room, windows that offered a glimpse of the murky lake which the town of Loch Alstan was named after. Unfortunately, the foggy weather obscured an otherwise lovely view that day.

The massive room was split into two halves. The first half was the lounge area, itself split into two floors and separated from the cafeteria by another balcony. The area they were in was filled with comfy-looking couches and chairs that circled around tables and television sets. Bookshelves were stuffed to the breaking point with all sorts of scientific publications and reference manuals. A solitary snooker table, host to a game that was already in progress, sat in the middle of the room. An old fashioned jukebox -- which Patrick took the time to point out that he had found, restored and donated to the institute -- stood in the corner, playing some less-than-current alternative rock music.

In the cafeteria, about a dozen tables were all filled to capacity by chatting researchers, engineers and medical professionals. An impressive array of on-site restaurants lined the walls, and Andrea was already familiar with all of them: the Mountain Rain Brewing Company, a coffee company which specialized in exotic brews from the world over; Jackpot's Potato Shack, which boasted over a hundred menu options for the lifeblood of the kingdom's heartland, the russet potato; Shinikara Noodle, an establishment that brought the far east to Lanark; Gyroskope, with its focus on various specialties from around the Central Sea; lastly was the Crimson Crawdaunt, one of the continent's largest and most popular sea food chains.

"Oh boy, you have a Crimson Crawdaunt here?" Andrea asked. "I applied to be a waitress at one of them in Aughrim last month... Got turned down even though I already have waitress experience..."

"Ouch, and they hire anybody..."

"Gee, thanks, I don't feel bad enough about that... asshole." she thought.

"According to your application -- which I've spent a lot of time looking over -- working there would have been a terrible waste of your achievements, anyways," he said. "But yes, we do have one. And a lot of other options, as you can see, even international stuff! One thing Dr. Reiland does well is spoil her staff; we have a lot of choice here!" He rolled up his sleeve again to look at his watch. "Interview's in 23 minutes... You mind? I'm gonna grab some coffee." He slammed his palm up and down on the table next to them. "Sit tight! I'll be right back."

She pulled out a chair at the table beside her and sat down. The cafeteria was nice and warm, but her extensive journey through the cold left her chilled to the bone; it wouldn't do much for her, but she rolled down the mesh sleeves on her dress and huddled her arms together. As she patiently awaited Patrick's return, she took the time to study the researchers situated about the lounge. While the atmosphere was no doubt warm and genial, to her, it was intimidating. She never viewed herself as much of a social butterfly, and the boundless energy in the room was already exhausting. Still, hearing bits and pieces of conversations related to the researchers' personal lives or their latest projects reminded her of her university days, days she sorely missed even if she raved about how much she hated them. It was all moot, anyways; creeping doubt in herself told her not to get her hopes up.

Behind her, a voice emerged from the dull roar of the lounge. "Oh my! Nice outfit!"

"Hunh?" she said, perking up. She turned around and spotted a young woman with a complicated twist of braids in her strawberry blonde hair stood at the other side of the table.

"Your outfit, I like it. It's very... bold!"

"Oh, thank you." Her nerves were rattled as the woman placed a mug of hot chocolate onto the table and sat down across from her.

The woman looked down at her hot chocolate and stirred it gently with a spoon. "I can tell, just by the way you're sitting -- it's your posture that's giving it away -- you're nervous about something, aren't you?"

She paused for a moment and straightened her back, then followed with a silent nod.

"What's up? Having trouble with one of your projects?"

"No, actually... I'm here for an interview."

The woman's face lit up like a holiday tree with excitement. "Ooooh! So you're the girl I've been hearing about!"

She raised her eyebrow. "You... know about me?"

"Word spreads pretty quickly about people like you. A majority of the folks who apply here don't even get a call back, let alone land an interview, and nearly a thousand people apply every year. The fact that you're actually here? That's a good sign for you!" The woman offered her hand out. "My name is Emily, by the way. Emily Winehaus. You're... Andrea, right?"

She shook Emily's hand. "I... see I have a reputation here already, I guess."

"Well, I'm friends with one of the senior staff and he seemed excited about having you in for an interview. He may have mentioned your name..."

"Hmm."

"So, Andrea, which department are you hoping to land a job with? I assume biology, based on what I've heard."

"Yes. I've applied for both general biology and environmental research. Those are the two I have the most experience with."

"I've always been curious of what happens over on that side of the institute... I'm in medical myself, and they keep me pretty busy, so I hardly ever get to visit the east wing."

Emily's friendly nature and interest in her began to chip away at Andrea's nervousness. She felt her shoulders loosen up a bit, and her posture improved slightly as well. "Medical? Are you a doctor?"

"Not yet, but once I complete a couple more months of hands on work here at the institute with Dr. Venger, and then my final exam with the Local Alstan Medical Academy, I will be!" Emily answered, holding her head high. "Almost there..."

"I was in a PhD program myself, but, umm..." she stumbled. "Uhh, well, good luck with it is all I can say."

While the two were locked in a largely one-sided conversation, Patrick returned with two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. He nodded respectfully towards Emily as he sat down. "Hey, look who it is! And you're not drenched in blood this time!"

"Careful, it might be yours soon," Emily joked.

He pointed his finger rapidly between the two. "I take it you two have been talking."

"Sure have!"

"Teach me, Emmi. I can barely get her to speak!" He offered one of his cups of coffee to Andrea. "Here, brought something for ya."

Andrea eyed the coffee cautiously as it sat in front of her. "I, uhh, don't really do coffee."

"Aww, and I went through the trouble to get it for ya," He gently shook the cup, filling the area with the aroma of freshly brewed yet slightly burnt coffee. After she hesitated some more, he added, "C'mon, it'll warm you up after walking through the cold out there."

She looked towards Emily imploringly, as if begging for some sort of intervention.

"Sorry, new kid, looks like it's yours. I can't do coffee after 2 PM anyways, the caffeine will keep me up all night." Emily stated, shaking her head. "Besides, I need to get back to work. Busy, busy!"

"You'll be done in time, right? You and I have a long afternoon ahead of us."

"Yeah, I'll be done." Emily bowed graciously. "Good luck, Andrea!"

"Thank you."

As Emily walked away, she turned around to call out, "You treat her better than the last one, Pat! You hear me?"

Andrea turned to him with a look of confused worry on her face. "What's... that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry about it, Emily and I go way back. She always trying to embarrass me," he explained.

"Right..." She raised the cup of coffee to her mouth, and just a single, bitter sip was enough to send a shiver radiating throughout her entire body, something that Patrick found amusing. "So, where is Dr. Reiland's office?"

"Pretty much right above us on the sixth floor."

"Would it help any if I showed up for my interview early?"

He swiveled his coffee cup around a bit as he thought about it. "Well, she does have a busy schedule today and likely wouldn't notice... But it certainly wouldn't hurt. Why, feeling a little claustrophobic with all of these strangers around?"

"A bit. And I just want to get this over with."

"That's fair. Let's get out of here then."

 

[kintsugi]

so I sort of dropped off the boat on the last LotR because you updated more frequently than I've done anything ever, but second time's the charm, amirite?

joking aside, I'm really excited for the chance to try to keep up with this again. I know that was probably the last thing on your mind for a rewrite, but thanks anyway!

here are some disjointed thoughts since I've ostensibly forgotten how to write coherent reviews:

prologue

Just like, a general note real quick -- there's something really reassuring about your prose. It's almost relaxing to read, and you've got a good knack for making sentences and events flow into one another. This helps give a nice relaxed tone to the intro so far (rather than making it super tight to Andrea/her general anxiety right now), while still letting us catch up with the emotions of the story properly. I like this development a lot: it makes it pretty clear that the rest of the world is chugging along, even if Andrea is panicking.

The dialogue between Webster and Andrea is really natural here, and it shows. You establish their familiarity within the first few lines, and I like the way you used it to suss of Andrea's personality later on in their conversation (how she expresses thanks, her grit in this whole situation, etc). I think the flow of this chapter gets a little off when you dive into the nuances of each dress, but on the other hand, I get it -- fashion is probably going to be a key element of the story, and it's good to introduce it early. On the flip side, as someone who's not very fashion-inclined, I'm left scratching my head about what the Seductress set is vs the Spider, and if all of my outfits are supposed to have names or if this is just an Andrea thing or if this is a Lanark thing? I think this scene is pulling double duty here already by introducing the immediate conflict (job interview) and hinting at the long-term conflict (Andrea overcoming her insecurities), so to gloss over the dresses as window-dressing (pardon the pun) feels a little disconnected from the rest of the story.

Small qualm aside, this is a fun prologue for a slice of life. I like how everyone actually gets along here; it's been a long time since I've read slice of life pokemon fanfic, but I don't think I've seen many people being friends and it's really nice to see it portrayed realistically here.

chapter one

Forgot to mention it earlier, but the idea of having the initial conflict be an interview is very clever. I love the way you get to have Andrea explaining herself to other characters; it's something that you as the author have to do for the story, but it doesn't feel forced here since, duh, it's an interview setting. I do wonder how much of this is meant to be her projecting herself vs how she actually feels, since people tend to be a little different in interview settings.

And yay! Realistic but small problems! The focus on the wardrobe feels a bit validated by the fact that, lol, it's cold outside. Andrea's decision to dress like herself is immediately called out; it's not a bad thing but it's at least relevant to the plot, so it feels less like a laundry list and more like an integrated detail in the world.

I really like how you describe the Reiland Institute. It kind of ties in with what I mentioned in the previous chapter about how your prose is really reassuring to read, but the details you've chosen to showcase here with the architecture are pretty neat. I also like the theme of "less impressive than I thought" that sort of runs through this chapter, even down to the building -- you sort of build up this expectation that everything here is going to be super intimidating, but then they end up being pretty much like normal people. It's a realistic twist that still lets you build up some drama without it feeling forced -- Andrea does seem like the kind of person who might get over-nervous about things like this, so it doesn't feel unearned.

You mentioned this in the author's note, so I know it's intentional, but pokemon really aren't the focus of this story at all, are they? haha

From a pacing perspective, I do wonder why this chapter and the prologue are split out. Usually prologues cover something that is unique from the story proper (rather than being a direct prequel to that action). I thought that maybe you were trying to showcase that Andrea acts differently around her friends/home than she does with strangers, but once she warms up to Emmi and Patrick, your skill at writing natural dialogue almost comes back to bite you here if that was your goal -- they seem pretty at ease with one another (which isn't strictly a bad thing; it just feels a little weird next to Andrea's "I'm bad at smalltalk). Needs more negative charisma if ya know what I mean.

For the most part though, I think my general thoughts here are covered by the first paragraph -- this is a tightly written, enjoyable slice-of-life start. The only thing that really gets established in initial chapters is protagonists and tone, and you've done that really well, so I'm excited to see where we go from here.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Yay, a review! I'll cover the smaller things first.

joking aside, I'm really excited for the chance to try to keep up with this again. I know that was probably the last thing on your mind for a rewrite, but thanks anyway!

That was actually on my mind while I was considering a rewrite. Most of my usual readers have left the community and my story was sitting at 40+ chapters. Who's going to read that? At least with something new and small, it's less daunting to start

I think the flow of this chapter gets a little off when you dive into the nuances of each dress, but on the other hand, I get it -- fashion is probably going to be a key element of the story, and it's good to introduce it early. On the flip side, as someone who's not very fashion-inclined, I'm left scratching my head about what the Seductress set is vs the Spider, and if all of my outfits are supposed to have names or if this is just an Andrea thing or if this is a Lanark thing?

The names on the outfits are a fashion line thing. I've not really delved too far into it, but pretty much everything she owns is expensive designer clothing, which explains the names. The nuances of what each one is and what each one looks like probably falls short when it comes to text-based description; I'm hoping to have a sort of art gallery built up over time, and Andrea's various outfits are going to be some of the first things I feature in it, to help alleviate this problem. That said, I've made a few minor adjustments to the text to help paint a... vaguely more helpful picture. I've noted the Seductress outfit is flirty and revealing while the Blood Baroness dress would make her look like a vampire.

You mentioned this in the author's note, so I know it's intentional, but pokemon really aren't the focus of this story at all, are they? haha

They won't be as major characters. I'm not that great at writing "pets" so I'm going to focus on the humans. However, I do plan to give some personality towards at least two of the pokemon characters; the rest will be minor characters who are called upon when the story requires them. That said, pokemon will still be in the spotlight from time to time: Andrea studies them and Kimberly will be focusing on her coordination.

and honestly, I'm too afraid to make this into original fiction and drop pokemon entirely, even though I legit probably could

I do wonder how much of this is meant to be her projecting herself vs how she actually feels, since people tend to be a little different in interview settings.

I guess we'll see soon! Be on the lookout for a very obvious lie in the next chapter, when the interview takes place.

From a pacing perspective, I do wonder why this chapter and the prologue are split out. Usually prologues cover something that is unique from the story proper (rather than being a direct prequel to that action).

Aaaand the one big thing: I actually got into trouble with this last time when I couldn't properly label what should be an interlude and what shouldn't, the curse strikes again! Mostly, I just wanted to separate the location (home vs far away), characters (Andrea x Webster vs Andrea x Patrick) and moods (home and comfortable vs strange location and crabby) with a hard break. What became the prologue ended up far shorter than I'm comfortable calling a chapter. Maybe I can call it a character introduction? I'll be doing another one soon, and having "Prologue 2" appear in the middle of a story probably doesn't work

Anyways, thank you for reading, and thank you for the warm words. It's very much appreciated and is pumping some extra energy into my enthusiasm for this reboot.

 

[kintsugi]

The names on the outfits are a fashion line thing. I've not really delved too far into it, but pretty much everything she owns is expensive designer clothing, which explains the names. The nuances of what each one is and what each one looks like probably falls short when it comes to text-based description; I'm hoping to have a sort of art gallery built up over time, and Andrea's various outfits are going to be some of the first things I feature in it, to help alleviate this problem. That said, I've made a few minor adjustments to the text to help paint a... vaguely more helpful picture. I've noted the Seductress outfit is flirty and revealing while the Blood Baroness dress would make her look like a vampire.

Yah, I was really on the fence about even pointing this out because it seemed like you were going to make the clothing pretty integral to the story, and on some level I think you can almost expect readers to have more of a baseline than I do (it'd be like if I barged into a fanfic thread and was angry that no one explained what a pikachu is). I do think the rephrasing helps, although I can't read it with fresh eyes and tell you exactly how much it would've helped by, haha.

They won't be as major characters. I'm not that great at writing "pets" so I'm going to focus on the humans. However, I do plan to give some personality towards at least two of the pokemon characters; the rest will be minor characters who are called upon when the story requires them. That said, pokemon will still be in the spotlight from time to time: Andrea studies them and Kimberly will be focusing on her coordination.

and honestly, I'm too afraid to make this into original fiction and drop pokemon entirely, even though I legit probably could

Yeah, I almost feel like you could! That being said, I really loved the biological lens you were viewing pokemon in last time, so I could see this working for either.

I guess we'll see soon! Be on the lookout for a very obvious lie in the next chapter, when the interview takes place.

:3

Aaaand the one big thing: I actually got into trouble with this last time when I couldn't properly label what should be an interlude and what shouldn't, the curse strikes again! Mostly, I just wanted to separate the location (home vs far away), characters (Andrea x Webster vs Andrea x Patrick) and moods (home and comfortable vs strange location and crabby) with a hard break. What became the prologue ended up far shorter than I'm comfortable calling a chapter. Maybe I can call it a character introduction? I'll be doing another one soon, and having "Prologue 2" appear in the middle of a story probably doesn't work

I think you're pretty much on the money here -- but also that emphasizing second bit (moods - home and comfortable vs strange location and crabby) would really help sell this as a prologue/chapter one split. There's a bit of a bleed across them both right now -- Andrea's a little crabby when she's at home in the prologue, and by the end of the first chapter she's a bit comfortable -- so the tone across both of them almost feels like an average of both. Part of this was probably exaggerated because I read them back-to-back, but overall the two felt too similar in tone to feel like a prologue vs new chapter thing.

 

[Beth Pavell]

These reviews are invariably going to be shorter this time around, but here it goes:

and you're only a university dropout...

Still a drama queen, I see, since she has a degree.

She looked down at her clothing and concern began to wash over her. Her attire was simple, yet kept to a strikingly dark theme: her black minidress sported a revealing spiderweb design on her chest and was paired with black and grey striped stockings that reached partway up her thighs. Bulky black leather boots covered in buckles and straps stretched up to just below her knees, and gaudy, obviously fake jewelry -- apart from her necklace -- adorned her fingers, wrists, ears and left eyebrow. Strange by the average person's standards, but by no means outlandish. The fact that some of his first commentary was about her clothing raised red flags about her upcoming interview and put her on the defensive. "And... what do you mean by that?"

This one comes across a little odd in the edit. The outfit is described as if it's completely new - and indeed much of it is - but you started to introduce it in the Prologue.

Worldbuilding's a mixed bag. I miss the travel description from Land of the Roses 1, but it's no big loss to cut it here. I would have been tempted to keep it in the prologue and present the apartment scene in flashback. The Reiland Institute comes across as a little less idealistic this time, which makes the story feel slightly more mature. Maybe I've been to one too many interviews, but I couldn't help but spot the opportunities Andrea is missing. A cunning applicant would work on impressing Patrick since he's clearly been involved in the recruitment process

 

[Misfit Angel]

Still a drama queen, I see, since she has a degree.

True! But not the one she wants or thinks she needs

This one comes across a little odd in the edit. The outfit is described as if it's completely new - and indeed much of it is - but you started to introduce it in the Prologue.

In this case, I focused on it when she met Patrick rather than when she was at home to symbolize that she's in a hurry. She needs to get out the door rather than focus on her clothes as much as she'd like.

Worldbuilding's a mixed bag. I miss the travel description from Land of the Roses 1, but it's no big loss to cut it here.

I'm trying to approach the narration with Andrea's mentality in mind. Once her mind slows down, it'll allow her to pay attention to the details. Environment description is one thing I really want to up with this rewrite, so stuff like that will be back.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Author's note: Hi! Are you a reader of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses and wondering if this chapter rewrite is worth the read? A list of major changes compared to the last iteration of this chapter:

Spoiler

• I've tried to tighten up the interview. A question relating to volunteer service was taken out and a few that are more relevant to her prospective position have been added.
• The aftermath of the interview is radically different, as is the bridge to the next chapter.
• That's all! Don't want to spoil it too much!

Another note is that I've decided on my publishing schedule: every other Wednesday and Saturday. So, ten (or eleven) days between chapters, if I have one available. This allows me to keep a reasonable pace and approach the end of the story within the next ten years (ha, me finishing a story). Hopefully it's not too quick for most of you.

Fourteen years of hard work has boiled down to this moment.​

Dr. Rebecca Reiland II, Ph.D.

It was an intimidating name, and Andrea felt a sense of dread every time she would glance up to see it etched into the plaque on the door beside her. Dr. Reiland was one of the most accomplished independent researchers in the western world, with nearly a dozen research breakthroughs tied to her name, and dozens more tied to the bright minds of her institute. Andrea's own research during her time at university paled in comparison to that of the doctor, and always found its basis in the works of others. It wasn't hard for her to question whether she was truly worthy of sharing a workspace with such a legend.

Patrick was seated across from her, sipping his coffee as he read from a magazine. Every now and then, he'd glance up at her. "You okay? You look like you're about to faint."

She looked up at him and blinked her eyes rapidly. "This has been my dream ever since I was a little girl, working at a place like this... Now that I'm here, I feel a little dizzy..."

"I don't blame you, considering how hard it is to get an interview here."

"Yes..." she blurted with a nod. She placed her left hand on her belly in an attempt to soothe her churning stomach, and grabbed the stone on her necklace with her right hand and held it in front of herself. As she stared into the deep crimson stone, she continued, "Maybe I do have what it takes, but... I can't help but shake the haunting thought that if I don't get this job, next week is six months straight of unemployment."

"Damn, that long? I used to be in that position myself, but let me tell you, there's always light at the end of that tunnel."

"I hope so."

"Just relax. That's all you can do at this point."

Five minutes passed by and the door handle to Dr. Reiland's office turned slowly. Andrea was a little bit surprised by what she saw; she knew Dr. Reiland to be only 41 years old, but the woman who came out of her office appeared to be in her mid 60s. Her wavy silver hair was neatly tied back into a ponytail, revealing her freckled, warm and motherly face. She carried a cane in her right hand and her gait was heavy, even labored. Her face lit up as her eyes met with Andrea's. "Ah! Ms. Dennison, I presume?" She swapped her cane to her left hand and extended her right outward.

Andrea was shocked by what she saw and almost missed her chance to shake the woman's hand. "This can't be right... I didn't think Dr. Reiland was some old lady..." She reached out and shook the woman's hand. "Yes. Dr. Reiland, I presume."

"Correct."

She fought the urge to raise her eyebrow inquisitively. "It's a privilege to meet you, doctor."

"Oh! Ho ho! I'm just another person, like you. There's no need to treat me like royalty," Dr. Reiland replied. "I apologize for how long it took to respond to your application. It's been so busy here lately, and we've had so many to look through!"

"That's okay, ma'am. I understand."

Dr. Reiland took a moment to critically analyze Andrea's rebellious appearance, and a faint look of worry drifted across her face. "You look... different than I expected."

"I could say the same about you..." she thought. She restrained herself from responding fiercely -- something she realized she typically did when people pointed out her attire in a critical manner -- worried about Patrick's warning about displaying an attitude. "They say not to judge a book by its cover."

"That they do! That's a valuable lesson I've learned many times in the past." Dr. Reiland motioned into her office. "Please, come! You as well, Patrick."

The office was a cozy mess. Almost every available square centimeter had been filled; nearly a thousand books about dozens of subjects rested on the bookcases and shelves, even the floor. Honors, awards and newspaper articles gobbled up what little space remained on the walls. An unorganized bulletin board, covered in old papers dating back as far as ten years, hung behind the ornate oaken desk that served as the centerpiece of the room. The desk itself was covered in a wide array of loose papers, handheld equipment, framed photographs and a dozen scattered bottles of medicine.

"Please, do not mind the mess," Dr. Reiland recommended as she walked over to her desk. "It does become difficult to tidy up around here sometimes."

"I have offered to help, Rebecca," Patrick commented.

"I can take care of it myself, I just need a little free time," she said as she sat at her desk. "Ha. Free time... I wonder what that even is anymore... Ah, please! Have a seat!"

Andrea and Patrick did just that, pulling up a pair of chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

Dr. Reiland dug through the mountain of paperwork that rested on her desk, categorizing them neatly and quickly as she did so. "Now... I had your application on this desk this morning, Ms. Dennison... Let's see... Ah! Yes! Here it is!" she triumphantly said. "Now, before we begin, I would like to thank you for coming. I understand that the train ride from Aughrim is a long and exhausting one."

"Mostly just long, ma'am. Nearly seven hours," Andrea answered.

"The fact that you made that journey despite what I imagine is a shaky financial situation shows your dedication to this. I don't think many people would travel across an entire country for something they didn't have a guarantee on."

"Dedication... Try desperation," Andrea thought. "I've always believed that you should show up to an invitation, even if it feels hopeless."

"Mmm." Dr. Reiland lifted a pair of reading glasses to her eyes. "Very well, let's begin."

Butterflies lifted off and flocked in Andrea's stomach. It was finally time to reach out for that lifelong dream of hers.

"I've looked over your application many times, Ms. Dennison, and I must say that it's quite impressive for someone your age. A bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Aughrim. A thesis on the effects of pollution on marine and shore wildlife that was published in the Lanark Journal of Science. Two years of course credit in mechanical engineering. A 3.7 GPA across four years of university study. Top marks in high school. Star pitcher for the league-winning Goldwheat Girls softball team. Two years as a part time waitress at..." she paused, retreating to the application again. "The Lair? I'm unfamiliar with that establishment."

Patrick raised his eyebrow and smirked. He appeared to know what The Lair was, but he kept quiet.

"All of those accomplishments, and you're not even 21 years old yet. I don't receive many applications from people of your caliber. Or even your age, for that matter!"

"All good words so far..." Andrea thought.

"But! Personal accomplishments are not the only metric by which a man -- err, woman in your case -- should be measured. Drive, personality and the ability to work with others are all equally as important."

"She's got a degree at her age, doctor," Patrick chimed in. "And you said it yourself: she's made the journey here despite being broke and jobless. If that's not drive, I don't know what is."

Dr. Reiland smiled. "Ah! This is her interview, Patrick, I would like her to answer the questions!"

"Right, my bad. Carry on."

Dr. Reiland lifted the application again. "My first question is in regard to your university studies. It says here that you are enrolled in a PhD program at the University in Aughrim. I assume this is no longer the case, if you've decided to apply for a position here. A full time one at that."

That first question was a painful one for her, as she felt it highlighted her inability to perform under stress. She hesitated before answering. "Yes, I am no longer enrolled in that program. Or even at the university."

"And why is that?"

"I... That's..." she paused. "After I earned my bachelor's degree, a... some... medical problems came up. I couldn't keep up with my studies during my recovery."

"You don't sound so certain about that."

"I'm very certain, it's just not a nice memory to recall. I've been trying to avoid thinking about it for my own sake. It's been a rough few months because of it."

"Ah, I understand. One last question about that, then. Have these medical problems passed?"

"Yes. I'm back on my feet again."

"That's good to hear! Next question, and perhaps the most important one: now that you're back on your feet, why apply to my research center, rather than continue your studies?"

She thought about and crafted her words carefully. "I've learned a lot during my studies. I can and will always have room to learn more, but... I read about a lot of problems, but I'm interested in helping to solve them, too. Put my knowledge to practical use. Your institute would give me the opportunity to do so, and work with others towards that common goal." She paused for a moment. "And... I feel like I need a change of pace for awhile. There's too much drama with some of my fellow students. Letting them get ahead so I can return to my studies in peace a few years later seems like the best option for my sanity."

"Hmm." Dr. Reiland jotted down some notes. "Do you have any Pokémon of your own, Ms. Dennison?"

"None of my own, no."

"As a prospective biology researcher, that's a little worrying to hear. I'm curious: why avoid Pokémon ownership, something that many in the field view as a necessity?"

"Well, between my part time job and my extremely challenging studies, I wouldn't have had the time to properly care for one. That wouldn't have been fair to whatever I owned."

Dr. Reiland smiled; a good sign. "Pokémon ownership is quite the challenge, and I'm glad you see that. Now, you mentioned 'none of your own' which leads me to my next question. What is your overall experience with handling Pokémon?"

"My roommate back in Aughrim owns a Spinarak, and used to own a Joltik. I've spent a lot of time with those little bugs during my recovery."

"I suppose that explains the very obvious spider motif on your dress," Patrick commented.

She looked down and nervously covered her cleavage with her hand. "I suppose it does... Truth be told, this wasn't the dress I planned to wear today... But, I do like spiders, despite their reputation and how creepy they look."

"So, a pair of spiders. Is that your only experience?" Dr. Reiland asked.

"It's not. My umm... One of my old friends from university owns a Herdier as well, and I'd spend weekends looking after her until recently. I understand it's not the most experience, but at least I'm comfortable handling them... and now that I have more time and some experience, I'm not opposed to owning one if the job demanded it. There's also the standard fare of what my studies required from me. You know, handling Pokémon for research purposes. I could list each individual memorable experience, but that would take awhile."

Dr. Reiland nodded and took down more notes. "Next, I'd like to ask about, well, you! Your accomplishments are indeed impressive, but someone's personality often says more about a person than what they know. I'd like to get to know you a little bit better before we consider if you're the right fit for the institute." Dr. Reiland leaned over her desk and peered above her reading glasses as she studied Andrea more closely. "I know that I said that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but... your appearance worries me, admittedly. I don't know much about... 'emo' culture, was it?"

Another quiet snicker came from Patrick's direction.

'Emo', the worst insult a goth could hear; she restrained herself. "Goth subculture, ma'am."

"Ah, yes, that's the one. What I do know is that most people grow out of that phase before they graduate from high school, and those that don't... Well... I hear that they typically aren't the most respectable or respectful people."

She tried to defy expectation and offered a smile, even if it was understandably fake. "You won't get an argument out of me about that, ma'am. But... it's just a fashion style that I like, nothing more. I don't have drug problems, I don't have a criminal record, and I don't stay up until sunrise listening to bad, uninspired music. Most importantly, I have no difficulty being a bright, friendly and professional woman. In fact, that's what I always am."

Dr. Reiland turned to Patrick. "I understand that you've spoken with her before. What would you say?"

Patrick shrugged. "I'm not sure I can make that judgment accurately, yet. She's been very quiet since she arrived. I spotted her talking to one of the medical staff earlier and she seemed friendly enough, but I think getting a feel for her personality is something that'll take some time."

"True..." Dr. Reiland added. "But, I do still have some more questions related to personality. Teamwork, specifically, is a vital aspect of being a staff member at my institute. How well do you deal with the people around you, Ms. Dennison?"

"As Mr. Adelaide already mentioned, I tend to be quiet and shy in a new environment. But, I am capable of working with others. If someone needs help, I'm happy to lend a hand. If I need help, I can accept it graciously. I can follow orders as long as they're reasonable. However, for small projects, I find that I work best alone in most circumstances. It's much easier for me to focus... And I was usually working alone anyways during my 'group' projects while I was at university."

Dr. Reiland chuckled. "I see that hasn't changed since my own days at university..."

"I guess it hasn't. But, umm, if I have to work with other people, that's fine. I understand that many problems and projects that biologists tackle are too big for one person, and I'm happy to work with others to achieve something greater than myself."

Dr. Reiland wrote down some more notes. "Now... Let's say you and a fellow staff member have a dispute about the way to move forward. Persistent arguments occur that affect not only your productivity, but the productivity of those around you. How do you deal with such a circumstance?"

"I'd ask for a supervisor's assistance. If it's gotten that bad, it's out of my control."

More notes. "Field assignments are quite common in our line of work, Ms. Dennison. Do you have any travel experience?"

"Not much, but what I do probably has me ready for most forms of travel. I've been back and forth between Aughrim and where I grew up -- uhh, Goldwheat, that is -- about a dozen times? And then I spent last summer up in Glastonfell's Lower Fringe, in a tiny town called Pebbleshore."

"Oooh! Now that's true countryside!" Patrick crooned. "I hear they don't really have roads up there, mostly just old trails that connect all of the little communities, right?"

"That's right."

"Not unlike some of the roads out here in western Alstan County..."

"I won't say that I'm an expert at travel or dealing with the wilderness, but I feel confident in saying that if I had someone watching my back to keep me safe from wild Pokémon, I've learned enough in the Lower Fringe to at least lead the way. Even better, if some of the field work happens out on the west coast, they've definitely got their roads sorted over there, and I'm familiar with a lot of them."

Dr. Reiland nodded. "What do you think, Patrick? You'll be working closer to her than I will, so I'll defer to your wisdom and opinions here."

Patrick pushed himself out of his comfortable lounging position and rested his elbows on his knees. "I like her. She's smart. She's got impressive accolades. She seems down to earth too, which I think is probably one of the most important things to consider. We do have a lot of young hot heads here that like to bump into each other and compete, she could be a nice change of pace from that." He glanced in her direction. "You've got a lot of potential, Andrea, and you can reach new heights at a place like this. I think you'd be a valuable asset if we work with you, train with you and iron out any problems that arise."

Her heart felt like it stopped cold as she listened to them speak about her. Their words were tinged with praise, and very little was critical of the numerous black spots on her record, or mistakes that were no doubt present in her application.

"Agreed." Dr. Reiland stood up and offered her hand across the desk. "This was an illuminating interview, and it has given us a lot to consider."

She felt her legs wobble as she stood up as well. "Is... Does this mean..." She reached out and shook Dr. Reiland's hand.

"Thank you again for making the time to come all this way. Patrick and I will be in touch with you shortly after we've made our decision, you've given us --"

Just like that, her cold heart dropped and shattered. She was expecting a definitive answer about whether she was hired or not, and now she would have to wait even longer for it. More damned waiting! All she could do was stare blankly ahead, and nod at the words she was hearing but had stopped processing.

"-- was nice to meet you. Thank you again for coming."

"Th-thank you for the opportunity," she said. "Is that all?"

"That is all. Dismissed." Dr. Reiland turned to address Patrick. "Do you mind staying for awhile, Patrick? I'd like to briefly discuss something with you."

- - - - -​

Her hands were trembling again. It wasn't fear or disappointment that were responsible, but anger; as she sat there in the hallway outside of Dr. Reiland's office, she wondered how she'd deluded herself into thinking that she would impress them enough to be hired on the spot, especially since she'd spent all day tearing herself down and wallowing in doubt. "Great... I spent the last of my fucking savings coming out here and that's all I get? 'You'll hear from us'? How do I even know if I will... Something tells me this was a big waste of time and money... You were a fool to believe otherwise."

She slammed her hands together in an effort to cease their shaking, and when that didn't work, she ordered through gritted teeth, "Stop twitching, you bastards..."

As she sat there, the door to Dr. Reiland's office opened up and Patrick stepped out. He saw her seated on the floor and looked surprised. "Oh! Still here, huh?"

"Yeah, just trying to... calm myself down, I guess. I felt myself crumbling and had to force myself through much of that. It took a lot out of me."

He leaned up against the wall and slid down it to sit next to her. "I can imagine. Especially being out of work for six months."

She grumbled silently.

"You seem a little grumpy, what's up? Feel like you didn't do well, or something like that?"

She hesitated to answer, but eventually tried. "I dunno. I was just expecting... I dunno."

"Expecting something? Like, a quicker answer from us?"

She shrugged. "I guess..."

He tilted his head. "Where was it you worked before again? The Lair?"

"Mmm," she nodded.

"When you got your job there, did they hire you that same day?"

"...No."

"Now, it's been a few years since I've visited Aughrim, and even longer since I visited The Lair, but... The Lair doesn't strike me as a company that cares about its reputation as much as Dr. Reiland rightfully does, and even they took the time to consider if you were the right fit, despite the fact that you obviously -- err, probably looked the part. You get what I'm saying?"

"I do. It's not that I'm stupid and think that's how it works, I'm just disappointed in myself for having such lofty expectations... Add that to your considerations about me: I have a habit of expecting too much."

He patted her on the shoulder. "Nothing wrong with that! Especially being as young as you are. That's something we could easily fix, though." He picked himself up off of the floor and paced about. "So, what's the plan now? Headin' home?"

"Guess so. I've got nothing else to do here."

"Ugh! Fourteen hours on the Silverline in one day? You're mad, woman."

She looked up at him, shrugged and laughed. "And what would you suggest a girl without a rose to her name do, then?"

"Well, I was thinking... You mind hanging out for, say... half an hour? Emily and I have business out in Nettlefield tomorrow and we were going to make the trip today. Maybe you'd like to come along and see how we do things?"

She paused for a moment. "I don't know. It'll probably sound stupid, but... I did promise my roommate I'd be back in time for dinner, and he actually wants to go out for the first time in ages... That's gotta mean something." She took a deep breath and sighed. "But... I know he's likely to take that back when I get home, and then I'll just be sitting around doing nothing like usual. I'm going to have to think it over."

"Hey, that's not stupid. That sounds like a tough call, but I'd be happy to have you along if you want a change of pace from that. Maybe you'd have an opportunity to show us what you're capable of?"

"Hmm..."

"Why don't you hang out in the employee lounge while you think it over? It's nice and warm, and your VIP pass includes a free meal."

"Does it..." She looked down and grabbed her lanyard. "Great, I could have gotten something other than that wretched, burnt coffee..."

"One last question before I get back to work. You still have my phone number, right?"

"Uhh... I think so?" she asked. She reached down and into her left stocking, then pulled her phone out of it to browse through her call log -- and found him still resting at the top of the list despite being called two weeks ago. "I do. Why?"

"Shoot me a message sometime before 3:30PM if you come to a decision."

"Okay. I'll think about it."

He reached his hand out. "If I don't hear from you again today, it was nice to finally meet you face to face. You're a very nice person."

She grabbed his hand, shook it and offered that same forced smile. "Thank you. Likewise."

 

[Misfit Angel]

Author's note: Hi! Are you a reader of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses and wondering if this chapter is worth the read? Well, rejoice! This one's entirely new!

With her interview complete, Andrea is presented with a choice.​

"Mmm, my god! These potato waffles! So good!" Andrea happily commented to herself as she took another bite. "It's bullshit that we don't have a Jackpot in Aughrim... I could get used to working here..."

She'd been thinking about how to spend her afternoon. She'd already worn herself down by riding the train, battling the cold and soldiering through the intense but short interview; she was ready to return to the comfort of her home, call it a day and relax. The other possibility involved spending several more hours navigating the country roads to Nettlefield. Based on her phone's map, it looked easy enough, but that several hours would be spent in the cold highland air, something she simply wasn't dressed for. Even worse, she didn't know how long she'd be spending in Nettlefield if she did agree to join the two, and the weather forecast for the next few days called for only slightly warmer weather.

Still, there could be plenty of opportunities to impress her would-be boss. She wasn't sure what she'd be doing if she joined, but surely if she was invited by the senior manager of the biology department, her biology knowledge would be put to use somehow. Or she could offer moral support. Display her personality. Step in to help when she could, even if she wasn't asked. Some other variable could pop up and allow her to prove herself; with so little information about what she would be doing, anything could happen.

She reached for her necklace, grabbed the gemstone that dangled from it and pressed it to her lips, hoping for some sort of guidance. "I should really go with them. I have to do everything I can to turn my life around... I've worked too hard -- and been too lucky -- to just let this slip by. That's what you would have wanted out of me..." As she spoke to herself, she felt a sense of reassuring warmth pass through her body.

The choice was made, and she reached for her phone to let people know. First on the list was Webster:

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 3:12 PM

'hey so the manager of the biology department here wants me to join him on a field assignment'
'thatd mean im not coming home tonight if i go'
'i know i promised id be back in time for dinner but is that cool with you?'
'itd give me a chance to bond with these people and see whats up with this place'
'even show off a bit who knows'​

Several minutes went by without an answer back from him, and she eventually became frustrated by his silence. "Come on, answer!"

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 3:20 PM

'hey'
'hey'
'hey'
'hey'
'buzz buzz'
'you gonna look at your phone sometime this year?'
'i keep telling you to turn up your volume!'​

Fr: 'Webster', 3:21 PM

'Sorry, was in the middle of Legends match'
'Not coming home tonight? A little disappointing but this sounds like an opportunity you can't pass up'​

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 3:21 PM

'yeah'
'rain check on dinner together? was really looking forward to it : /'
'and you promised so im not gonna let you get away with taking that back ; )'​

Fr: 'Webster', 3:22 PM

'Ha! A promise is a promise'
'Ugh next match popped already'
'Let me know how the interview went later?'​

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 3:23 PM

'sure'
'spoiler: pretty well i think if he wants me to come along'
'anyway have fun'​

She sighed. "Damn it, I was really looking forward to that! Figures that he finally starts showing an interest in me when it starts looking like we might never see each other again... You sure do know how to pick 'em, Andrea."

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 3:24 PM

'hi i made a decision'
'id be honored to come along'
'should be fun and enlightening!'​

Fr: Patrick Adelaide, 3:26 PM

'Right on! I'll tell Emily to meet us in the lounge. Her day ends in a few minutes, so we shouldn't be waiting too long.'​

- - - - -​

Andrea was quietly mumbling to herself, as if she had been afflicted by a curse of demon tongues. The chain around her neck was held lightly between her lips, and the stone that dangled from it rested against her chin. Her brows were furrowed with discontent, her attention focused on her phone; on her screen was the popular social media platform, FriendZone. She was scrolling through the timeline of a man named Tobias Kedzierski, a timeline that was filled with photos of him and a young woman with pale orange hair; at the rocky beaches of Colm Strand, in the stands at an Aughrim Defenders rugby match, participating in an environmental protection rally on the steps of Parliament, sharing dinner at a Romatti restaurant and goofing off at home over a game of Pokémon: Battle Cards. Each photo brought her closer to a boil as she continued to scroll by.

"That bitch!" she grumbled quietly. "It's not fair... Those are my happy memories!"

THUD!

She jumped in fright and nearly fell out of her chair. A large, bulky backpack branded with the Reiland Institute logo had been dropped onto the table in front of her, and behind it was Patrick.

"Oh, sorry! Did I scare you? I didn't mean to... It's just this thing is so damn heavy!" he said.

She covered her chest with her hand and breathed a sigh of relief. "It's okay. Thank you, I really shouldn't have been focusing so hard... What do you have there?"

"Supplies for Emily's project out in Nettlefield. You know: gloves, sterile containers, measuring instruments, first aid kits, all the tools of the trade."

She nodded as she readjusted her posture. "I looked into it and couldn't find a train station in Nettlefield. I take it we'll be walking there?"

"That's right. Is that going to be a problem?"

She shook her head. "No. I've been meaning to exercise more, now that winter's over... This'll be a good start."

"I like that mindset!"

"Unfortunately, I think it's more than I'm capable of at the moment... I got tired walking to Camden Station this morning..." she surmised.

Silence overtook the two as Patrick inventoried the supplies for their upcoming trip again; Andrea returned to her browsing of FriendZone, but this time focused on her own profile. She posted an update to her timeline that mentioned her job interview, her upcoming trip to Nettlefield and her hopes of proving her worth, and even included a photo of the lounge, packed with employees. The silence was broken with Emily's arrival.

"Oh good!" Emily called out. "You saved me a trip to the supply room."

Patrick bowed his head. "I expect compensation, it was so difficult!"

"Hmm! I'll have to think about how I'll properly compensate you."

Andrea cleared her throat to grab their attention. "Soooooo, umm... I probably should have asked before I agreed to join you, but what exactly are we doing out there?"

"We're going to do the heavy lifting. You're going to watch and learn," Patrick announced. "Maybe you'll get your hands a little dirty if we need a bit of help."

"I understand that, but... That doesn't answer my question."

"Are you familiar with the Briar Patch Dairy Farms over in Nettlefield, Andrea?" Emily asked.

She nodded. "I am. That's where my favorite milk comes from."

"Well, it won't be coming from there for awhile... As of yesterday, they've shut down production entirely."

"What!? What's happening over there?"

Emily reached into her folder and grabbed a sheet of paper out of it, then placed it on the table in front of Andrea. "Over the past couple of weeks, a mystery illness has swept through their Miltank pasture, and it's started killing the livestock. Their appeals for help from the Ministry of Health have gone unanswered, so they're relying on the Reiland Institute to identify the illness, identify any possible sources and if possible, deal with the problem. Whatever it is, it's burning through those Miltanks quick, and it doesn't seem to be stopping despite their attempts to quarantine the infected. There's worries that whatever is affecting the Miltank herd could possibly jump the species barrier and affect other Pokémon, possibly even humans."

"And we'll be in a lot of shit if that happens. This thing kills quick," Patrick said as he crossed his arms and nodded towards the paper in Andrea's hands. "You said you wanted to help solve problems. How's that one sound?"

"Uhh, way out of my league!" she answered. "A disease that's affecting a herd of Miltanks? This sounds more like a medical issue... Apart from doing some heavy lifting, I don't know how I'll be able to help."

"We don't know if it's a disease yet, it just looks like one."

Emily nodded. "He's right. It could be something entirely different, and thus out of my league. So, Dr. Venger is sending one of his medical staff and Dr. Reiland is sending a biologist to see what's up. But... three heads would be better than two, so if you haven't changed your mind about coming along yet... We're still here."

She studied the paper in her hand and formulated a few early theories. "Could be a problem with the cattle feed... Maybe even sabotage, the Briar Patch has been an industry leader for awhile..." She looked up from the paper to see the two staring at her. "What? I like milk, so I learned about the company that produces my favorite."

More staring.

"Look, I had a lot of time on my hands these past few months, okay?"

Patrick laughed. "Huh, hadn't thought about sabotage. We'll have to look out for that... Though who could really be that heartless?"

"Gates Dairy, on the other side of town. They're the big competitor in the area."

"Hmm. Wouldn't hurt to poke around their facilities if we can arrange that, do some recon and see if anything looks suspicious."

Emily clasped her hands together in excitement. "Sounds like a decent backup plan if we can't find anything on the medical front! We'll figure it out! You ready to go?"

She shrugged. "I guess I am."

"Didn't you bring a jacket?"

She broke eye contact and puttered about nervously. "No. It's back in Aughrim."

"But it's going to be cold!" Emily warned.

"Yup."

Patrick tilted his head curiously, but shrugged the situation off. "You're a puzzle, Andrea."

"Am not! It's pretty obvious that I'm trying to show I'm willing to step outside of my comfort zone," she thought. "I hope these two see that by the time we're done with this..."

Emily playfully smacked Patrick's shoulder with the back of her hand. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we stop by my apartment before we leave, I've still got that extra jacket you got me for my birthday a couple years ago. She can borrow it."

"That's really not necessary, but thank you."

Emily placed her hands to her hips and furrowed her brow. "Not necessary? C'mon, you're not a highlands girl, the cold will tear right through you! Besides, it's on the way out of town anyways. It's no trouble!"

- - - - -​

Barely fifteen minutes had passed since they left the warmth of the research center, and the cold had already begun to get the better of Andrea; Emily was right, she certainly wasn't a highlands girl. Though she'd been promised the spare jacket, she was already considering calling off her involvement and going home, but she refused to give up; she'd been raised to give everything she had when it came to showing off her capabilities, and quitting so soon -- regardless of a lack of a jacket -- would have reflected poorly on her. However, her burning desire to prove herself was only in her head and did nothing to warm her. She shivered uncontrollably as she huddled her arms together.

"We'll be there soon, new kid," Emily commented. "That dress is amazing looking, but I'd hate to wear it in weather like this. It looks so thin! I mean, I can see your skin through those sleeves of yours. Not to mention that spider web over your chest."

"It's May!" she barked as she continued to rub her arms to combat the cold. "Is it always this cold around here?"

"It's been a cooler spring than usual, but yeah, this is pretty common," Patrick answered. "Hell, in some years we don't even get a proper summer like you're used to out on the west coast, and it's starting to look like this might be one of those years."

"Great..."

Apart from that exchange, she was more or less silent for much of the journey to Emily's apartment, and just as she did when she first met Patrick, she kept a small distance behind the pair. She felt out of place; listening to them chat back and forth gave her the sense that the two were indeed old friends, and probably even more. The giggling, the playful physical contact, the candid details in their conversations -- as if a stranger weren't even there, listening to them -- confirmed the idea in her head: Patrick and Emily were dating, a thought which made her quite uncomfortable. The worst thing was that she was stuck in the middle of them for at least a day, and likely longer.

"Can't even land a date yourself anymore... and somehow you end up as a third wheel? Your life is a mess, Andrea," she told herself.

"So, how about you, new kid?" Emily asked, turning back to look at her. "You're awfully quiet back there. Any interesting stories to tell?"

Andrea looked up from the stones of the walkway. "Oh, uhh... no, not really."

"Really? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing interesting. Most of my time was spent studying or working, and what little free time I got was -- uhh, well, that's... only interesting to a certain type of person, I guess. I'm not sure you're those type of people yet."

"We might be," Patrick answered.

"I'd rather find that out on my own, if you don't mind. That's why I'm quiet. I'm listening. Observing."

Emily leaned in towards Patrick and quietly said, "A true scientist!" She turned back and offered some encouragement, "That's okay! Just remember that you can chime in whenever you want!" She looked up at Patrick again with a devious look in her eyes. "I might like Patrick, but I don't want to spend the whole trip talking to just him. I can't imagine a worse fate!"

She sighed quietly to herself. "I should just go home... I hate couples. Especially deeply sarcastic ones."

As they strolled through the town of Loch Alstan, the weather slowly improved. The fog lifted rapidly, allowing the bright afternoon sunlight to flood in and warm the area considerably -- not enough to comfort Andrea, but enough to keep her from shivering uncontrollably. She thought about how rude and stupid she might have appeared by trying to argue her way out of borrowing Emily's jacket, and worried that it might have already painted her as a stubborn and bullheaded individualist. She didn't want to change her personality, but she realized that Patrick would be watching her closely, and vowed to be more tactful when she could. Her first opportunity presented itself when they arrived at Emily's apartment; Emily broke from the group with a promise to return soon, leaving her and Patrick behind.

"Hey, I'm sorry... if I'm being... you know, rude."

Patrick raised his eyebrow and tilted his head. "It seems we have different definitions of rude."

"It seems we do. I always knew I picked up some bad habits and ideas since I started my university studies... This must be another one of them."

"What do you mean by that?"

She crossed her arms and leaned up against the rough brick surface of the building. "A couple years ago, a childhood friend and I grew closer. That must have changed his expectations of me, because being my usual quiet self was no longer sufficient. He gave me such a hard time about it that I've been second guessing myself every time I try to talk to people..."

"Sounds like an asshole to me."

"That's putting it lightly." She kicked at the ground in frustration over her bad memories. "I guess I haven't been the same since. I love being quiet, but I feel like I shouldn't. It tears me apart sometimes."

"Some people are just closed books, there's nothing wrong with that! I'd like to pry you open and really get to know you, but... that doesn't have to be today. Or... ever, if you don't want!"

She looked up at him and offered the faintest laugh as she thought, "Jeeze, that choice of words... Pry me open..."

The door beside them opened and out came Emily. In her hands was a neatly folded tartan jacket, primarily red in color, accented with deep green stripes and dashed with silver threads. Rough wool lined the collar and the inside to keep the wearer toasty and warm even on the coldest highlands day.

"It's probably not your style, but it'll keep you warm!" Emily said as she offered the jacket over. "You're on your own for your legs though, but those stockings do look pretty cozy..."

She grabbed the jacket and rushed it on. It was indeed warm, and she couldn't thank her new acquaintance enough. "It's a little tight, but... thank you. I'm not used to people doing me favors. Most city folk over in Aughrim are assholes."

Emily nodded and smiled. "Hey, if you get the position, you can look forward to more of it from me!" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small handheld device that looked similar to Andrea's smart phone, but a bit bulkier and with several obvious attachments on it. With a tap of the screen, it turned on and displayed the time. "Ah! Are we all ready to hit the road? We might be pushing against sunset if we don't leave soon."

"I'm ready," Andrea said.

"Me too," Patrick added.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

So, hi. I'm not the one to leave Reviews often or at all for that matter(Flaze is still technically the only one I've review for). But you've seen my feedback on the original story in the Discord plenty of times and it's about time I leave a proper review for your fic. And since you're rewriting it, what a better time to do it. I'll be reviewing Chapters 2 & 3 since they've yet to be reviewed, just prepare for it not to be as good as the rest of the reviews though.

First off, that art baby! You heard my thoughts on it in the Discord but damn the artist did such a nice job on the Character Art and the banners. The only real complaint I have is how a Kimberly's face came out a weird, but other wise it came out well, extend my courtesy to the artist. Also I love that small detail of spider webs in Kimberly's hat to go along with Andrea's new spider motif.

Chapter 2:
Looking at the previous Chapter 2 in another tab, the beginning seems about the same from when I read it with the removal of the volunteer services of course.

but the woman who came out of her office appeared to be in her mid 60s. Her wavy silver hair was neatly tied back into a ponytail, revealing her freckled, warm and motherly face. She carried a cane in her right hand and her gait was heavy, even labored.

Did you somehow predict Professor Magnolia before writing this with Dr. Reiland? The description sounds similar to Magnolia's design, now does her cane have a bird decoration on it? And is it DP?

"I can take care of it myself, I just need a little free time," she said as she sat at her desk. "Ha. Free time... I wonder what that even is anymore... Ah, please! Have a seat!"

If she needs free time, she can have some of mine! I have plenty of it!

"The Lair? I'm unfamiliar with that establishment."

I could of swore this was a different restaurant than "The Lair" when I first read it. When I look at the original, I saw it was this as well. I thought it was Crimson Crawdaunt, but guess I'm with the doctor on this one.

"And I was usually working alone anyways during my 'group' projects while I was at university."

Dr. Reiland chuckled. "I see that hasn't changed since my own days at university..."

Truer words have never been said before now. This just happen to me recently on a final project, sorry had to vent a bit.

Just like that, her cold heart dropped and shattered. She was expecting a definitive answer about whether she was hired or not, and now she would have to wait even longer for it. More damned waiting! All she could do was stare blankly ahead, and nod at the words she was hearing but had stopped processing.

Here's the biggest change from the previous version of the chapter. It makes sense from where you are going for this fic which is more realistic vibe than the regular ol' Pokemon world, since last time Andrea got the job immediately.

Well nothing else I can say here moving on to next one.

Chapter 3:
Well this is the new original chapter. I can see where some of the original story from here since it's a trip to Nettlefield, but with the addition of Emily to the fray. I remember her appearing sporadically in the original, I think I also vaguely remember you saying that you wanted to more with her but never knew where. To be frank I only remember like four appearances of her in the original; her chapter 1 cameo, and some later stuff I won't spoil for new readers.

Pokémon: Battle Cards

I remember you mentioning this name in the Discord for your substitute for the Trading Card Game. It sounds alright but a bit weird to me. Like it sounds like something the Japanese would call it just because it sounds cool if they say in English(Digimon literally has a catchphrase in Tamers Japanese dub call Card Slash so I'm used to stupid stuff like this) but it sounds awkward in English, maybe it's just me.

"Unfortunately, I think it's more than I'm capable of at the moment... I got tired walking to Camden Station this morning..." she surmised.

I know your pain so much Andrea, since my stamina isn't the greatest either.

She studied the paper in her hand and formulated a few early theories. "Could be a problem with the cattle feed... Maybe even sabotage, the Briar Patch has been an industry leader for awhile..." She looked up from the paper to see the two staring at her. "What? I like milk, so I learned about the company that produces my favorite."

Spoiler

"I guess I haven't been the same since. I love being quiet, but I feel like I shouldn't. It tears me apart sometimes."

I sympathize with Andrea here again. I can switch from extroverted from to extremely anti-social in a quick instant, which is known as an Ambivert(taking Nori's word for, blame her if it's not a thing), which may apply to Andrea here albeit to a smaller scale compared to myself. This will probably be something she comes over in later chapters as when Kimberly comes back into the fray here in the rewrite and I can't wait to see what that will be like.

Anyways, that all I have to say for these two chapters that I can think of. I hope the review was alright, I really do enjoy the rewrite so far and hope you can fix the issues you had with the original incarnation(or second incarnation if you consider the original a rewrite of Storm Island).

 

[Misfit Angel]

Sorry for the late reply! Been a difficult week for me.

just prepare for it not to be as good as the rest of the reviews though.

I have no strict metric for how good or bad a review is, so don't sweat it

First off, that art baby! You heard my thoughts on it in the Discord but damn the artist did such a nice job on the Character Art and the banners. The only real complaint I have is how a Kimberly's face came out a weird, but other wise it came out well, extend my courtesy to the artist. Also I love that small detail of spider webs in Kimberly's hat to go along with Andrea's new spider motif.

Her face makes her look like a Disney princess, which I don't think is a particularly bad thing. As far as the spider webs in her hat, it's actually supposed to be a straw hat. I wasn't expecting a hat for her, but I guess it happened in the end.

Did you somehow predict Professor Magnolia before writing this with Dr. Reiland? The description sounds similar to Magnolia's design, now does her cane have a bird decoration on it?

Gamefreak has a habit of probing my mind and stealing my ideas, so I wouldn't be surprised if this happened. But Magnolia's design isn't quite what I imagined; I always viewed Dr. Reiland in my head as what I remember Jane Goodall looked like back in the 90s. (disclaimer, I don't know if this is from the 90s but I seem to remember her looking like this back then)

I could of swore this was a different restaurant than "The Lair" when I first read it. When I look at the original, I saw it was this as well. I thought it was Crimson Crawdaunt, but guess I'm with the doctor on this one.

It was the Crimson Crawdaunt back in the original incarnation of the chapter. I think I may have changed it to The Lair back during the polishing project I did a couple years ago... or maybe sometime later. If you're curious about what The Lair is, it makes an appearance in chapter 39 of the old version of this story. If you're worried about spoilers for what's the come in this version of the story (which probably won't happen until next year at the earliest) or don't want to read it (if you already haven't) I'll save you the trouble and sum it up: Goth Hooters.

Truer words have never been said before now. This just happen to me recently on a final project, sorry had to vent a bit.

If it makes you feel any better, my experience in the trades of electrical, plumbing and HVAC have taught me that this doesn't happen like it does in school -- the master takes all the work and leaves you not learning anything!

Here's the biggest change from the previous version of the chapter. It makes sense from where you are going for this fic which is more realistic vibe than the regular ol' Pokemon world, since last time Andrea got the job immediately.

Giving her the job straight away always bugged me since I wrote it, but by the time I was editing my chapters, I couldn't make it fit. Here, I can at least have her come along as an unpaid intern and not interrupt the flow of the early story, and give her a reason to go back to Aughrim when all is said and done, a reason that isn't "go meet up with a lady who'll be kidnapped and chase ghosts for 10 chapters"

I remember you mentioning this name in the Discord for your substitute for the Trading Card Game. It sounds alright but a bit weird to me. Like it sounds like something the Japanese would call it just because it sounds cool if they say in English(Digimon literally has a catchphrase in Tamers Japanese dub call Card Slash so I'm used to stupid stuff like this) but it sounds awkward in English, maybe it's just me.

It is a little weird, but... here in the west we still adopt all of these goofy names directly from the Japanese source (which is where my TCG would have originated from), so I'm not too fussed about it. Especially since it's a minor reference that's not likely to be examined in greater detail.

I sympathize with Andrea here again. I can switch from extroverted from to extremely anti-social in a quick instant, which is known as an Ambivert(taking Nori's word for, blame her if it's not a thing), which may apply to Andrea here albeit to a smaller scale compared to myself. This will probably be something she comes over in later chapters as when Kimberly comes back into the fray here in the rewrite and I can't wait to see what that will be like.

I'm definitely excited to get the two back together shortly! I do want to change some things about their friendship from the start, so I hope I remember to do it...

Anyways, thank you for reading! Your review wasn't that bad.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Author's note: Hi! Are you a reader of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses and wondering if this chapter is worth the read? This one corresponds with "Chapter 3: Remember, a Rose Has Thorns" (if you hadn't guessed!) and hasn't been changed much:

Spoiler

• I've altered Patrick's primary Pokémon away from Flareon. Later on in the original run of Land of the Roses, I established Eevee as an incredibly rare (in the wild) and expensive (to breed or buy) Pokémon, so it doesn't make much sense for someone like Patrick to have one. Instead, he now has a new grass/fire-type rabbit Pokémon (not Scorbunny). The details and name can be found in the chapter!
• Emily's presence allows a few changes in dialogue.
• The scene where they rent the hotel room has been migrated into the next chapter and expanded upon.
• Other than that, the chapter is pretty much the same. Fire-type vs Donphan, Andrea saves the day, etc.

Even the most peaceful looking countryside has its hidden dangers, and Lanark is no exception.​

"Ahhh! It's nice to get out and stretch my legs for once..." Emily said, twirling down the cobblestone road. "I hate being stuck at a desk all day at the institute. If I weren't so deeply in debt with my medical studies, I'd definitely look for different work."

"And what would you be doing if you weren't studying medicine?" Patrick asked.

"I don't know. Park ranger? Survivalism trainer? Dance instructor?"

He roared with laughter. "Please! I've seen you dance!"

"Of course I can't dance! I spent the last seven and a half years studying medicine! But if I were actually trying to become a dance instructor..." Emily turned and looked back towards Andrea. "How about you, new kid? Can you dance?"

"She worked at a place called The Lair, I'm betting she definitely can."

Andrea laughed nervously. "Let's not."

"The Lair?" Emily asked.

"Let's not," Andrea repeated with a hint of aggravation in her voice. "I liked working there, but I don't like talking about it. If I'm going to get a career in the sciences started, I want to be taken seriously. I don't think I will if you start telling everyone I worked at a place like that."

"Relax, nobody's going to judge you! You're among friends here!"

"With all respect, no, I'm not. I don't know you two."

"She's right," Emily said. "If she doesn't want to talk about her past for whatever reason, that's fine. It's her choice."

"She's so quick to defend me... I think I'm gonna like her..." she thought. "To answer your question, yes, I can... thrash about on a rave floor. Knock people out in mosh pits. That stuff counts as dancing, right?"

"See? She can dance!" Patrick answered triumphantly.

As they rounded the bend in the road ahead of them, the skyline of Loch Alstan disappeared behind the trees; they had officially entered the wilds of Lanark. Despite the advancements in technology and society, and the rapid, sprawling development of the country's urban centers since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the wilderness looked as if it had been untouched by human hands for centuries, if not longer. Aside from the winding and partially overgrown cobblestone road that snaked its way through the foothills and a section of railway visible in the cliffs, nature was at its most pristine, unhindered state. To the north were the Dornoch Mountains, still capped with last winter's snow; to the south lay the Ivory Steppe, its usual bed of flowers absent in the presence of the lingering winter weather.

"You're in for a hell of a show, Andrea. This is one of the best areas in the kingdom for countryside views: untouched wilderness as far as the eye can see."

"Umm..." Andrea said, running her finger along the ramshackle, decaying fence beside her. "You sure about that?"

He conceded to her point with a nod. "Okay, mostly untouched, at least up here in the Northcountry. The Ministry of Wildlife doesn't open much of the land around here for agricultural development, as much as it might help feed our poor... But that's a debate for another day! Most of this area hasn't been developed since the mid-20th century. Bet you don't get vistas like these over in Aughrim!" he proudly proclaimed.

"No, we don't... I could get used to this." she said as she studied the graceful shape of the mountains.

Eventually, the road before them ended at a sea of tall grass that fluttered in the chilly wind. "Now comes the part that separates the boys from the men, the true test for those who travel the roads in the Northcountry," he said as he looked up and down the long wall of grass in front of him. His search for a way around the grass was met with failure.

"Well come on then, you so-called manly man!" Emily ordered as she fearlessly stepped into the grass.

"I was just looking for the trail... It seems to have faded over the winter," he spoke softly. He turned around and called out to Andrea, who had cautiously stopped at the edge of the grass. "Hey! I hope that dress of yours isn't too delicate! The grass around here can get a little sharp sometimes."

Andrea studied the grass with a grimace on her face. The softly serrated grass reached up to her chest and was so overgrown that she couldn't see the ground underneath it. "You sure we're going the right way? The trails up in Glastonfell were never this bad."

"Really? Now that surprises me. Heh, and you think this is bad? You should see the road on the other side of Nettlefield, over near the Bramblemurk. If you can even call it a road..."

She muttered quietly to herself as she took her first steps into the grass. "I hope there aren't any of those big bugs in here... I hate bugs!"

It wasn't as bad as she first imagined; while she could feel the serrated edges of the grass snagging against the delicate fabric of her stockings, it wasn't as sharp as Patrick had warned. Even more, the grass wasn't cold to the touch as she expected, or wet, despite the gloomy weather. More importantly, there wasn't a single giant bug in sight, but that meant little considering she couldn't see through the thick blanket of tangled grass around her; they could be hiding, ready to leap out at her. Before she knew it, however, she'd emerged on the other side of the patch of grass without incident.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "What have you gotten yourself into..."

"Well! That was surprisingly uneventful!" Patrick commented.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"What do you mean 'what is that supposed to mean'? Did they not teach you that tall grass like this is the best spot for wild Pokémon to hide in as they either await their prey, or hide from their predators?"

"Yeah, they taught me that. But it's pretty damn cold out here, and it looks like it's been raining recently. Not many Pokémon will be out in this weather. They're smarter than that."

"Fair..." he admitted. "You can never be too careful, though. In fact..."

Patrick reached into his pocket, pulled out a standard red and white Pokéball and underarm tossed it forward. The ball burst open with a shower of leaves that smoldered away into ash, revealing a cat-sized rabbit-like creature. The creature was covered primarily in short, orange fur, with accents of yellow along its underside and long stripes of red along its back. A pair of large and rigid leaf-like ears grew from a single point on its forehead, and similar, smaller leafy appendages grew from its cheeks. Its tail resembled a snipped stem, and a thin stream of smoke billowed from the tip.

Andrea gasped at the sight of the creature. "A Hopañero? It's so cute!"

"He's more than cute. This little guy's gotten me out of a fair share of bad situations."

"And into half of them..." Emily quietly commented.

"Hey, you don't need to worry! I'll keep us safe, you have my word," he assured the girls. "I may not be the most capable trainer in the world, but ol' Pepper here can usually take care of himself."

"Usually?" Andrea asked.

"Against the wild stuff, yeah. Against a dedicated and skilled trainer? Well, I've gotten lucky before..."

"Think we'll run into a trainer out here?"

He looked to the cloudy sky and took a deep breath of the chilly air. "Probably not. But if we do, I can always just tell 'em to piss off. Trainers' code is to leave people alone if they've only got one Pokémon to protect them, and most people stick to that."

"Yeah, most..." she thought. "I know one who wouldn't, especially if he saw that I'm in the group... hope we don't run into him out here."

- - - - -​

A couple of hours had passed and the terrain around them shifted. They no longer found themselves in the sparsely wooded aspen meadows that bordered the town of Loch Alstan; the road they followed had taken them up into the stoney hills until they eventually reached a grassy plateau that was flanked by moderately tall cliffs to the south and a shear drop to the north. From their vantage point, they could see the placid Alstan River glittering in the daylight and the Dornoch Mountains beyond them.

Conversation between Patrick and Emily had continued at a steady pace; as usual, Andrea was quiet and lingered behind, something that the two felt disheartened by. Patrick's attempts at prodding her for info about her social life while at university failed, so he decided to talk about his own. He wanted to break down the barriers, and thought a good way to do so would be an anecdote about his own rebel phase.

"You?" Andrea questioned. "I don't know you very well, but I can't imagine it..!"

"You better believe it! I was a wild kid when I was your age," he answered with a smile. "Long hair, leather jackets, a love of black metal and more time spent raving than studying. Lotta drugs, too."

She laughed at the thought. "I'd have never guessed. You look so... so boring! So sewn up!"

He chuckled. "Yeah... Got Emily here to thank for that. I met her just as I was straightening my life out."

"You've come a long way," Emily commented. "I'm pretty proud of that."

"Yeah, that answers that. Definitely a couple..."

"Ehh. I needed to get serious if all of my hard work was going to pay off." He turned to look at Andrea. "Not that you can look like you do and not be taken seriously, I should clarify."

"Do you still listen to any of that stuff? Go to raves?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I listen sometimes, but I'm pretty much past that phase of my life these days. I'm not 'cool enough' anymore, and I get cranky if I'm out past my bedtime."

"Aww, that's a shame... If I do get this job, it would have been nice to find someone who knows all the good spots in town. Maybe even a rave buddy."

"Heh. I could dust off the old jacket, see if I got what it takes still... But, there's a guy down in our biochemistry department, huuuuuge cyberpunk nerd. I can--"

Their conversation ended abruptly with a high pitched bellowing sound that carried across the countryside. It didn't take long for either of the three to pinpoint the source of the noise: atop a rocky outcropping sat a stubby, black and grey elephant-like creature. Most of its body was a uniform, scaly grey, but a thick set of black armored plates ran from the tip of its extensive trunk across its back, ending just short of its small tail. Deadly-looking curved tusks, one of which was broken at the tip, jutted from its mouth, and a clear look of agitation shined in its narrowed eyes.

Patrick held his arm out to slow Andrea down, accidentally brushing against her chest. "A Donphan..." he said. "Careful. Those things are nasty."

"Shh!" Andrea whispered. "Quiet! I've read about these... we have to move slowly and maintain eye contact, right?"

"Yeah... we have to let it know that we know that it's there," he added. "They're creatures of opportunity and only strike when they know they have the upper hand."

"What if that doesn't work? We're probably in its territory and we should have a plan--"

In that instance, the tried and true method of maintaining eye contact didn't work, likely due to the distance between them. The Donphan pounded its padded foot into the ground and roared loudly, a universally understood signal that it was enraged and ready to attack. The attack was swift; it hopped into the air and curled up to protect itself with its dense armor plating, then closed the distance between it and the group surprisingly quickly.

"Look out!" Patrick shouted as he pulled Andrea out of harm's way, taking care to place him in between her and the Donphan just in case.

Emily tumbled to the ground as she narrowly avoided being steamrolled; the Donphan roared past and slammed into a massive 25 meter tall oak tree at the side of the path. The trunk of the tree shattered from the force of the impact, sending wooden shrapnel raining over a wide area, and the rest of it toppling down with a rattling thud. As she picked herself off of the ground and dusted herself off, she worriedly called out, "Umm, you sure Pepper can handle something like this?"

"Find somewhere to hide, you two!" Patrick ordered. "Pepper! Park yourself in between us and the Donphan, we need to overwhelm that thing quickly before someone gets hurt!"

Pepper hesitated for a moment before rushing off towards the fallen tree. He cautiously hopped around and searched the area in an attempt to find the Donphan, but found it difficult to see through the fallen leaves and battered branches. His continued search yielded nothing; no movement, no sound, nothing out of place. It was almost as if the Donphan had simply vanished.

"Hope that thing didn't get killed by the tree..." Patrick said before he cautiously took a few steps towards the fallen oak. "Find anything, Pepper?"

Pepper let out a deep grumbling sound as he hopped around the tree.

Andrea poked her head out from behind a large boulder that rested at the opposite side of the road. "Maybe we should take this opportunity to leave?"

Before they could react, the shrill cry of the Donphan echoed out again and the tree rustled with movement. The Donphan burst out of the leaves and rolled straight towards Pepper in an attempt to catch him off guard; however, Pepper was quick on his paws and managed to avoid the attack. The smoke billowing from Pepper's tail grew thicker as he took in a deep breath; tracking the movements of the rampaging Donphan carefully, he let loose a spray of flickering flames, taking care not to catch his master, his two friends or the grass in the flaming arc. The flames simply bounced off of the Donphan's plated armor and had little effect on it as it continued to roll about.

"Keep it up, Pepper!" Patrick ordered.

Pepper continued his relentless barrage of fire breath, but it seemed pointless. All he was doing was tiring himself out while the Donphan shrugged off the fire like it was nothing. Meanwhile, the Donphan was only getting started; its attacks grew in accuracy and increased in speed with each miss. Even worse, the Donphan's movements were becoming more and more unpredictable, bouncing between aiming for Pepper and Patrick at random.

Patrick narrowly scrambled out of the way of the Donphan as it rolled straight at him, then picked himself up off of the ground. "Bloody hell..." he muttered. "Umm..."

Andrea had been analyzing Patrick's strategy from her safe spot and could plainly see that it wasn't working. "He needs to find a way through that armor... Do you know if he's actually any good at this Pokémon battling thing?"

Emily bit her lip. "He's not as good as he thinks he is... I'm a little worried about this."

"Great..." she muttered. She stood up and called out loudly, "Patrick! That armor is too tough! You and Pepper need to find a way through it!"

"And how in the bloody hell are we supposed to do that?! The bugger just keeps rolling!"

She took a moment to study the battlefield as she formulated a plan. She needed to find a way to stop the Donphan from rolling around within the protective embrace of its armored plates; a good way to do that would be to knock it off of its feet somehow. She studied the broken oak and it gave her an idea: if the Donphan were to smash into something hard enough, perhaps that could buy Pepper enough time to seize the upper hand. She slapped her hand on the fallen boulder that her and Emily were hiding behind and realized that if anything would do the trick, that would be it. She grabbed Emily by the wrist and tugged.

"Follow me," she ordered.

Patrick spotted the two emerge from their hiding spot. "What are you two doing!? Get back!"

Andrea pointed to the boulder. "Patrick, listen to me, I've got an idea. You see that boulder we were hiding behind? If that Donphan smashes into it, it'll probably stun it, knock it out of its shell and then your Hopañero can actually do something useful."

He was skeptical of the plan. "You sure about this?"

"Yes! Do it! Before Pepper runs out of energy and then we're screwed..."

"You heard the lady, Pepper!" Patrick called out. "Park yourself in front of that rock, now!"

Pepper broke his attention away from the rampaging Donphan for a brief moment, positioning himself in between it and the boulder. He kept a close eye on the Donphan, adjusting his position as needed, ready to leap out of there at a moment's notice. Exactly as planned, the Donphan began to circle around and aimed directly at him; with a swift leap into the air, Pepper had lured the Donphan right into the trap! A large crack formed down the center of the boulder as the Donphan smashed directly into it. Her plan had proven effective as the Donphan uncurled and wobbled about, dazed by the hard impact.

"Hell yeah! Light 'em up, Pepper!" Patrick excitedly ordered. "Everything you've got!"

The smoke that billowed from Pepper's stubby tail erupted into flames as a large stream of white hot fire breath blew in the Donphan's direction, and he was absolutely relentless with his attack. With the flames burning into its exposed underside, the Donphan's hostile nature shifted towards terror, and it spent every bit of energy it had on trying to make an escape. Pepper pursued the stumbling and injured Donphan into the grass, stopping every few moments to hop up above and direct a short burst of flame in its direction.

"That's enough, get him to stop!" Andrea called out. "We don't need to start a wildfire out here..."

"Pepper, head on back!" Patrick ordered. He took a moment to catch his breath and dust himself off, keeping his eye on the Donphan as it scurried up the rocky cliffs. "Hooof! That could have gone really, really badly... Those things are killing machines when they're pissed."

"Yeah..." Emily added. "I'd rather not have to deal with a medical emergency this far outside of town."

"We need to keep moving, then. All that noise probably attracted the herd," Andrea suggested.

Patrick nodded. "She's right about that. Come on, Pepper, lead the way and keep us safe. Let's keep up a light jog for about ten minutes, get us out of their territory quicker."

It was a much more cautious journey for the two after that. Chatter was kept to a minimum. Every small movement on the side of the road or in the trees and bushes was heavily scrutinized. Andrea kept close to Patrick and Emily, and they all stayed within an arm's reach of Pepper, who led the way forward quickly and cautiously. Neither of them hoped for it, but both Patrick and Andrea were ready for the Donphan to return, only this time with friends; it was behavior that both of them had learned about during their studies, behavior that most trainers were dangerously unaware of. As the landscape changed from rocky hills to open field, however, the possibility of that began to diminish, and the aura of worry dissipated as they continued on towards Nettlefield.

Emily unexpectedly patted Andrea on the shoulder and gripped her in a friendly manner. "Good work, new kid! You saved our asses back there."

"Hunh?" Andrea asked.

"She's right. That strategy of yours... I didn't even think of something like that," Patrick added.

"Oh, uhh..." she laughed nervously. "Really, Pepper did all the work."

"With your guidance and your strategy. Seriously, good work."

She couldn't help but feel the praise was unwarranted. "Was it really that good?"

Patrick and Emily looked at each other briefly; he couldn't tell if she was simply downplaying the praise as he might expect of her, or truly clueless about how good her strategy was. "Are you kidding? That was incredible! Your application said you're not a trainer, even on a hobby level, but... You ever spectate any of that top tier competitive stuff? You know, like the Rose League finals?"

She shook her head. "I'd catch a match at Jenna LeBlanc's gym every now and then when there was nothing else on TV, but I never paid much attention to it. It was just background noise for me while I studied." She paused and stumbled over her thoughts. "And I guess that asshole I told you about tried to get me into it briefly. I might have learned a thing or two from him. But no, I'm not really a professional or even a hobbyist when it comes to battling."

"Ah, a shame. You seem like you'd be good at it. Looks like you already know how to think outside of the box."

She stopped in her tracks and their eyes met when the two turned around to look at her. "If your intent is to get me to embrace the idea of becoming a Pokémon trainer, you can stop right now. I will never get into the competitive training stuff, it's cruel and barbaric!"

"Oh, no! Nothin' meant by it!" he reassured her. "Just... you could go far as like... A hired travel guide, I think. Provide security for travellers and hikers."

"Maybe..." she quietly said, following them again. "It's just that have a hard time respecting competitive training as a career. That asshole I keep talking about ruined that for me."

"Oh? Is it story time?"

She sighed. "No. Maybe some other time. It's not a nice story, and I'm not ready to get into it right now." After a moment of thinking about it, a smirk appeared on her face. "There's your first personal motivation to hire me: you'll get to hear that story some day."

"Hahaaaa... Let's worry about that later."

"Now you've done it... I don't think he liked that..." Her attention was grabbed by the loud, shrieking call that came from a large bird that circled above them like a vulture. "We should be in town soon, right? This bird is making me nervous... That a Fearow?" She squinted her eyes in hopes of getting a better look, but it didn't help. "I can't quite tell."

Patrick looked up, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. "Yep! Don't worry, though, they're carrion feeders. It won't bother us."

 

[Misfit Angel]

Author's note: Hi! Pardon if this is a little rough, I'm currently without internet at the moment, so I transcribed the entire chapter onto my phone... a lengthy, horrid process. Anyways, for those of you who were readers of the previous incarnation of Land of the Roses and are wondering if this chapter is worth the read, rejoice! This one's mostly new!

Having arrived in Nettlefield after sunset, Andrea is faced with the reality that she'll have to share a room with a couple she doesn't know.​

The sun had just retreated under the horizon by the time that the group had reached the outskirts of Nettlefield. As they pressed forward, darkness threatened to envelope them before they even reached the center of the village; lighting among the public roads was sparse, especially in the furthest reaches of the town. Andrea realized that they wouldn't be getting a start on their work in such conditions, which brought to mind another thing she hadn't planned for:

"So, uhh... we have a plan for staying overnight, right?" she asked.

"We do. We'll be staying at a place called The Roost, Nettlefield's only option for people like us."

"People like us? You mean, people who aren't registered as trainers in the Rose League?"

"That's right. As far as I know, there are a couple PokéCenters within walking distance around town, but since none of us are registered in the league... Don't worry, though! You won't have to worry about paying for it. One of the perks of working for the Reiland Institute is that hotels and meals are covered; standard procedure for all official institute business."

"That's generous."

"Well... That generosity only extends to employees. I know money is a little tight for you, so... You can share the room with me and Emily."

"Share the same room... I... don't know about that..." she thought. "But what other option do I have?"

Her anxiety spiked when they arrived at The Roost; the place had certainly seen better days, and it painted the picture of a seedy hotel in her mind. The large neon sign that announced its presence to the world -- featuring a caricature of a Hoothoot on its logo -- flickered weakly every few seconds. The once pristine white paint that thickly coated the sides of the building was cracked and peeling off in places. Several of the windows scattered amongst the complex were cracked or boarded up entirely, and thick weeds sprouted from the foundation of the building. Despite its apparent troubles, it appeared to have once been a charming place, and that charm was still present in the friendly pair of staff members who managed the establishment.

As they entered their room for the night, the first thing that hit them was the overpowering stench of mildew and bleach, locked in a fight for dominance. Andrea instantly covered her nose with her hand and gagged for air. "Ugh! What the hell!" she shouted.

Emily shared her disgust, but Patrick didn't seem too troubled by it. "Yeah, it's... it's not that great. But, hey! It's better than the student housing we all probably got!" he assessed as he ventured further into the room. "It's not as comfortable and well looked after as your bedrooms -- at least I assume in your case, Andrea -- but you'll get used to it pretty quick, ladies."

She studied the wall beside her and noticed the faint, powdery splotches that were present under the window. "I don't think so."

"Agreed. There's fucking mold growing on the walls, Patrick." Emily added.

All he could do was shrug. "Like I said earlier, this place is our only option, and there are no other vacant rooms. If you two want to camp outside, be my guest. But it's pretty cold out there, and it's nice and warm in here."

Emily grumbled a bit about the state of the room, but backed down and started to make herself comfortable -- as much as one could in such an environment. Andrea, however, was quietly stubborn about the conditions she'd be living in, and protested by standing near the door with a pouty look on her face.

"Look, Andrea, I know. This isn't glamorous. But this is the reality of the job sometimes. When you're out in the field doing real work, there is no sterilized lab to work in, and oftentimes out in the rarely-travelled countryside, no properly maintained room to return to at night. This is the real world, and unfortunately sometimes it's not so pretty. So, we're going to have to make due with what we have."

"I see your point, but... Surely hotel staff would take better care of their rooms?"

He nodded. "Lodge a complaint with the staff tomorrow morning, then. Hell, call the Ministry of Health! It might actually get them to come to this town, maybe even check out the Miltank herd!" He could sense that his humor wasn't working. "I know this isn't a great room, and I hate to say it, we could be here awhile. Sure, we could get lucky and figure out the problem at the Briar Patch within a few hours, but it's more likely that we'll be stuck here for a few days while we work out what's happening over there. Just try to live through this, then you can get back to your apartment and appreciate what you've got."

"Understood. I'll stop complaining."

He smiled. "At ease, soldier."

She sighed as she tried to put the sorry state of the room out of her mind. As they were talking, she'd taken in the rest of the details of the room. The smell of the mold growing on the wall wasn't the only thing that concerned her; there was only one bed and three people, a fact that brought her discomfort back to the front of her mind. At the very least, there was a couch in the corner of the room she could sleep on, but it didn't bring her any peace of mind. "Now I've gotta share a room with a couple? What happens if they... I really should have just gotten back on the train and gone home..."

She wandered over to the couch and sat down on it. Finally getting off of her feet after several hours of walking brought an immense sense of relief that sought to challenge her anxieties, and honestly felt like it could win. Despite the troubles of the room, Patrick was right, it was indeed more comfortable than camping out in the cold. She unbuckled her boots and slid them off, and let out a heavy sigh of relief as she threw her legs up onto the other end of the couch. The room lacked a TV, so she reached into her stocking and grabbed her phone, hoping to pass the time before she fell asleep.

"Alright, Andrea," Patrick started, with a slight pause. "Hop in the shower."

Her stomach knotted. It was such a bizarre request -- no, it sounded like an order, even -- to come from him. She couldn't think of a reason, unless he intended to somehow sneak a peek at her, or catch her in some sort of compromising situation. The mere thought made her dizzy. "E-excuse me?"

"You're not exactly dressed for a hike in the wilds like we are. It might be a good idea to scrub down, make sure you don't have any little bugs on you."

"Oh! Uhh, yeah," she nervously laughed, relieved to hear that it was a reasonable suggestion. "I guess that makes sense."

"You said you don't like big ones, but it's the small ones you should really worry about."

"Right..." She pushed herself off of the couch. "Wish I knew I'd be doing this today... I'd have brought a spare change of clothes."

With Andrea out of earshot and their conversation obscured by the sound of the shower, Patrick snickered. "Did you see the look on her face when I told her to hop in the shower?"

Emily's attention was in her notes. "No, I wasn't looking. Why, was it good?"

He nodded and chuckled. "I shouldn't laugh, but it's been awhile since we got to have fun with someone so tightly wound up as her."

"Yeah, it's fun, but..." She sighed as she leaned back against the headboard. "Just be careful, okay? Remember when you got in trouble over that business with Sonya a couple months ago? You were just being friendly, but she didn't see it that way. Making innuendos like 'hop in the shower' can backfire pretty badly. Remember, Dr. Reiland has her eyes on you now. You don't want another harassment accusation coming up or it will be the end of your career."

He looked to the floor and nodded in silence.

"More to the point, and I should have said this when I noticed you getting all flirty with Sonya... Andrea isn't me, Patrick. I get the feeling that she doesn't have the same sense of humor that I do. What helped me to feel welcome probably isn't going to work on her. It might even ultimately drive her away."

"Yeah, that's fair. I'll give her a break, unless she broadcasts that she's perfectly fine with it."

"Even if she is, be careful. From what little I've seen of her so far, she seems like a good fit at the institute, and we need everyone we can get."

"In medical, maybe... we're not quite as brain drained over in the biology department." He tilted his head in a challenging manner and smirked. "Now, I can't help but feel that you don't want to be called 'new kid' anymore."

She laughed off the comment. "Shut up. That's beside the point."

- - - - -​

"Hhhhnnnggh... Warmth..." Andrea groaned as a deluge of warm water splashed against her back. "How I missed you today..."

She'd been encouraged to spend her time in the shower checking for ticks and other dangerous small insects, but she'd already pushed that out of mind for something that felt more immediately troubling. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something strange about Patrick, and by extension Emily, and the way they were treating her. Generosity towards strangers only goes so far, she thought, and those two seemed to have crossed the line. Both of them, Patrick especially, treated her like an old friend, and she'd begun to wonder why.

"I really hope I'm misjudging him and Patrick isn't flirting with me... in front of his girlfriend, of all people! Or... What if she's into that weird shit..."

While she was uncomfortable with the circumstances, she did enjoy the positive attention on a certain level. It'd been several months since someone other than her roommate had treated her in a positive manner. If she did get the job in the end, she genuinely did look forward to Patrick's friendship, but she would have to put some boundaries in place if she was going to be working under him. She thought about the things that could go wrong if she didn't; he could become overbearing and make her feel unsafe or unwelcome at work. Others could see their friendship and rush to conclusions, and she wouldn't be taken seriously as a result. She could even end up in trouble with Dr. Reiland herself if the rumor mill spun too rapidly.

"I really shouldn't have to be thinking about this shit before I even get the damn job... I'll have to tell those two to cool it and just... be a little more aloof around me."

The worst part was that she honestly couldn't tell if their behavior was actually problematic or if she was being too harsh again. The past year and a half had been particularly rough for her when it came to her social life, and she wasn't certain what to make of the situation. Maybe the way the two were trying to include her was something 'normal' people did, and she'd simply forgotten that fact during her years of isolation.

"Not that I ever really knew... I wish I'd had a social life before I got to university... Maybe it's me who should try being more friendly."

Before she knew it, she realized the water had started to run cold despite the heat being on full blast; she'd been in the shower for longer than she thought. She shut the water off and quickly reached for her towel, and in a short time, she was fully dressed again with the exception of her stockings. She cautiously approached the door and slowly pushed it open to announce her presence to the two outside. As she stepped out, she saw them both sat at the table with a floppy slice of pizza each in their hands.

"Hungry?" Emily asked, showing off her slice. "I figured it's a bit late to go out to a restaurant, so I ordered a pizza."

"We weren't sure about your personal ethics for meat on a pizza, so we got something simple just in case," Patrick added.

She approached the table and grabbed one of the slices and gave it a cursory glance. "That whole debate doesn't really matter to me, but thank you. That's very thoughtful." She grabbed a slice, scurried back to the couch and took a bite out of it.

"You can sit over here with us, we don't bite," he commented.

"I'm fine here," she answered before taking another bite of her pizza with one hand, and grabbing her phone with the other.

The two watched her for a brief moment, then spoke quietly amongst themselves.

"You definitely need to let up on the innuendo. Look how uncomfortable she is," Emily whispered.

"Yeah... I think you're right."

"I think I'm gonna go over and try to smooth things over. You know, add a woman's touch."

"If you think it's wise."

Emily placed her slice of pizza onto the lid of the box and approached Andrea timidly, then sat down on the floor next to the couch. "Andrea, I have a question, if you don't mind?"

"She didn't call me 'new kid'..." she thought as she looked up from her phone. "Yeah?" Almost as quickly as she left it, she returned to the comfort of her phone.

"You've been distant practically all day. Maybe that's just who you are -- I frankly don't know yet. But I'm still curious about something... Are Patrick and I making you uncomfortable at all?"

Her focus drifted from her phone towards a distant spot in front of her, but she didn't turn to address Emily. She paused for a moment to think it over; she wrestled with the idea of whether she should tell the truth and risk offending the two, or keep it bottled inside and hope her discomfort would go away on its own. Rather quickly, she settled on trying to be truthful, as being honest would likely be a skill she'd need to cultivate if she hoped to work with them in the long term.

It still wasn't easy; she sheepishly blurted, "Honestly? Kinda..."

Emily nodded, as if she'd expected the answer before she even asked. "May I ask how?"

She looked up again and turned her phone off. "Umm... well... I just don't want to get in between you two, I guess."

"Get in between us?"

"I dunno, I'm just... here. I don't want to get in the way if you two... uhh... you know, being in a hotel together, and, uhh..."

A sly smile appeared on Emily's face. "Oh! Do you think we're a couple?"

"You're not?"

"I guess the deep friendship we have might look a lot like a relationship to outsiders, but no. We're just friends."

"And we're happy that way," Patrick chirped from the other side of the room.

Her posture improved slightly. "Oh! Knowing that makes me feel a little bit better... I don't really like couples, reminds me of..." She paused, then sighed. "Whatever, it's not important. I spent all afternoon disappointed that I ended up as a third wheel, but I guess I really haven't."

Emily chuckled. "Glad I could make you feel a little bit more comfortable."

She eyed Patrick for a moment, then made a gesture for Emily to listen in closely as she whispered, "While we're on the subject, I've got a question about Patrick... Do you get the feeling that... maybe he's been flirting with me?"

Emily adopted a deeply thoughtful facial expression. "I... I don't know, actually! I know that he's friendly like this with most girls he meets, and sometimes I feel like I can never tell when he's being flirty or not."

"Huh... Guess I'll have to keep an eye on him, then."

"Well, he's... single, if you're curious."

Her eyes widened as she turned to look at Emily. "Hey! Let's not get ahead of ourselves here!" she shouted in a hushed tone.

Her hushed shouting was loud enough to catch Patrick's attention. "What are you two plotting about over there? Should I be worried?"

"Nothing! We were just discussing a couple early ideas about what we might be up against at the Briar Patch, that's all," Emily calmly answered.

"Ah, ok, I won't interrupt then. Just try to keep it down a bit," he said, and groaned as he stretched. "I'm going to bed. I suggest you girls do the same soon, we've got a long day ahead of us."

"Alright, I'll join ya in a minute then," Emily replied, before turning her head towards Andrea. "Unless you want the bed tonight? Looks more comfortable than that couch. Physically, at least."

She shook her head. "No, that's okay. Thanks though."

Emily gave her a knowing wink, then approached the bed herself. "Suit yourself! I understand."

- - - - -​

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 10:32 PM

'hey'​

'kinda wishing i came home instead lol'​

'this hotel were staying at is a mess!'​

Fr: 'Webster', 10:33 PM

'Ha! Worse than our apartment was when you moved in?'​

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 10:33 PM

'somehow lol ; p'​

'hopefully ill be home soon'​

Fr: 'Webster', 10:34 PM

'Hopefully! Its kinda weird not having you around'​

Fr: Andrea Dennison, 10:35 PM

'aww miss me already huh <3'​

'well i just wanted to let you know that i made it to nettlefield safely'​

'seems like these guys want an early start so i should probably try to sleep'​

'i know i know its six hours too early for that lol but im actually tired'​

'gnight'​

Fr: 'Webster', 10:37 PM

'Good night. See ya in a few days I guess!'​

 

[Misfit Angel]

This chapter does not have an upgraded rating, but contains the following:
[ a scene focused around giving a post-mortem of a decased pokemon ]​

Andrea, Emily and Patrick investigate the mysterious and deadly plague that is spreading through a Miltank herd.​

May 13th
Nettlefield, Kingdom of Lanark

"Cuckawwwww! Cuckawwwww!"

It was the crowing of a Coocluck rooster, a sound that Andrea hadn't heard in nearly five years; for as long as she could remember, that sound was what signaled the start of a new day, and just like the old days of her countryside upbringing, it served that same purpose once more. Despite the lackluster condition of the room, the relatively uncomfortable couch that she slept on and the extreme swing in her sleep pattern, she felt reasonably well rested. She rolled off of the couch, stood up and quietly made her way across the room toward the window. The golden light of the rising sun bled in, turning her pale skin into a beacon that lit the dark room.

The change in light levels roused one of the two in the bed from their sleep. Motion under the covers preceded Emily poking her head out and glancing around in a daze. "Mmm?" she groggily mumbled as her eyes opened. "...time is it..."

"Oh, sorry if I woke you," Andrea said softly, closing the blinds. "Sunrise. A Coocluck woke me up."

"Mmm..."

"Guess that's an earlier start than you anticipated?"

"Mmm..."

She chuckled at Emily's lack of straightforward answers, then made that same quiet journey back across the room and returned to the couch. She grabbed her phone to check the time, and her groggy eyes widened upon seeing it: 5:11 AM. "Five in the morning? Are you fucking kidding me? That's usually when I go to bed..." She stretched and could feel that it was likely to be an unpleasant day; her legs were still sore from the extended walk from Loch Alstan, and now her back was acting up from sleeping on the couch. "Well... Now what? I have no idea when these two are gonna get out of bed... and I'm gonna need -- dare I say it -- some coffee before long..."

About an hour passed before there was any substantial movement in the bed. Emily was the first to get up, and she'd clearly gotten a decent night of sleep; she was cheerful, she was energetic and she was excited to get their day started. Patrick was similar when he finally got out of bed about twenty minutes after that, though much more sluggish. A short conversation about how their day would pan out happened; Emily included Andrea's opinions as if they actually mattered -- something she honestly felt was strange -- but the discussion was cut short by a horrible growling sound.

Patrick rubbed his belly. "Oh! How about we continue this discussion over breakfast, ladies?"

- - - - -​

"You look like you really enjoyed that, new kid," Emily commented. She pushed her half finished breakfast across the table until it clinked against Andrea's empty plate. "I've never seen anyone clean a plate that quickly."

"I did enjoy it. Outside of special occasions or sneaking a meal out of The Lair, I can't remember the last time I ate something that wasn't cheap, cardboard-tasting ramen," she answered with a sigh. "I've never really had any money, but I always told myself that a bad diet was the price of progress in order to make myself feel better. Always told myself that I should be happy that I even had that, and that I didn't go to class or to bed hungry."

"Yet you show up to your interview in what looks like a designer dress," Patrick commented.

"Okay, younger me wasn't the best with my money! I'd like to think I'm better about that now."

"Well, at least you're a cheap date. I like that," he quipped, earning a sharp glare from Emily.

The waiter returned to the table, dropped off their bill, and rushed off to visit another table.

She reached into her purse to gather up a few coins to pay for her part of the meal, but Patrick urged her not to. "You'd like to think, but I don't think you are. You said money's tight, and you're our guest. We'll take care of you until you're on the train back home."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I should have enough to pay for my own meals and still get home..."

Patrick looked over towards Emily and stifled a laugh. "The fact that she said 'should' tells me she's not actually sure herself." He turned back to Andrea. "I'm paying, and that's the end of that."

It was the age old 'no, I'm paying!' game she'd heard so much about. She was thrilled she'd finally gotten to experience it herself, as it signified that she was moving into the adult world, but she knew she wasn't going to win. Even more, he was right: money was indeed tight and she didn't need to be looking for excuses to spend what little she had left -- she realized she might need it in the near future.

"Very well, suit yourself. And, thank you."

"Any time," he answered habitually, then caught himself. "Well, not any time. You know what I mean."

She giggled.

- - - - -​

With breakfast out of the way, the trio started their day with the walk across town towards the Briar Patch. Andrea wasn't quite sure what to make of the day that stood before her; she wondered whether her skills would be put to the test, or if she'd be asked to sit on the sidelines and observe. She thought about how both possibilities could hint at her immediate future; if she were asked to take an active role in Emily's project, it could mean that Patrick was on the fence about hiring her, but needed to see her work ethic. If she were told to simply sit aside and observe, it painted a less optimistic picture of her chances of being hired being low, but still potentially salvageable.

Whatever the case would turn out to be, she tried to remain calm and gave herself just three simple goals for the day: offer her input wherever it felt appropriate, listen carefully, and take things one step at a time. Nice and smooth.

Their journey took them down a muddy trail that ran along a wide and extensive pasture, dotted with several distinct groupings of Miltanks. To Andrea's untrained eye, nothing seemed out of the ordinary about them; the nearly 700-member herd grazed peacefully on the muddy grass, completely unaware of the fate that potentially awaited them. Curious about getting a closer look at them, she broke away from the two professionals and leaned up against the fence. She offered her hand out as one of the massive creatures approached her.

"Aren't you adorable?" she asked with excitement, loud enough to capture Patrick and Emily's attention. "Look how beautiful you are! Yes you are! So pretty!" Her ability to form coherent words quickly fell apart as she patted and rubbed the overjoyed Miltank's head.

A short distance away, Patrick and Emily watched her, almost as if they were the parents of an excited toddler.

"Am I seeing this right?" Patrick asked. "Look at her... That girl is the opposite of what we've been experiencing."

"It is pretty strange," Emily added.

"Dr. Reiland was right, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover..."

"Ah, ah ah!" Emily called out with a clap. "Andrea, I wouldn't touch her if I were you! There's no saying what kinda crazy pathogens that thing is carrying."

She immediately retracted her hand. "Oh. Right."

At the far end of the muddy trail was the stately and extravagant manor that served as the Briar Patch's corporate headquarters, a building that dwarfed nearly every other within the village with the possible exception of the old defunct armory. Out in the front yard of the manor was a large penned off enclosure, host to over a dozen small wildfowl. The wildfowl were fat and fluffy, sporting a uniform coat of silky white feathers that obscured nearly every anatomical feature present. A middle aged man was stood beside the enclosure, casually tossing handfuls of bird seed into it. He noticed the group approaching and tipped his hat.

"Ah! Mr. Redford! We were just coming to see you!" Patrick said.

The man's face lit up. "Patrick and Emily, I recognize you two from the conference call last week!" He turned to Andrea with a look of confusion on his face. "And you are? I wasn't aware that a third person was coming along. Fancy get-up you got there, little lady. Very striking appearance."

"That's Andrea. She's... kinda here as an unpaid intern, you might say. She had a job interview yesterday and we asked her if she'd like to tag along for this assignment and see how we operate."

"Ah! I see! Hey, good opportunity for ya!" he said with a polite nod in Andrea's direction, then extended his hand. One by one, he crushed their hands in a vice-like shake. "Well these two already know me, young lady; I'm William Redford, Chief of Operations here at the Briar Patch. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"He is our contact here at the Briar Patch, he'll be showing us around and getting us up to speed about what's going on here," Patrick explained. He leaned up against the fence and looked down at the feathery creatures as they plucked around for the seeds that Mr. Redford had been dropping. "Cooclucks on a dairy farm?"

"Ahh, yeah. Owners' kids' pets. Supposed to be teachin' 'em about responsibility. Cute little things, aren't they?"

Andrea dropped to her knees. "They are!"

"Any indication that they've been afflicted by whatever's killing your Miltanks?"

A pensive expression came to Mr. Redford's face. "I think you'd have to ask the kids that, I'm pretty hands off with these little guys. But they're at school today, the missus is out of town, so I'm watching them for now. To answer your question? Not that I've heard of, and not that I can see."

Emily started to write down some rudimentary notes.

"Ah, ah! Keep your fingers out!" Mr. Redford warned as he watched Andrea gingerly reach her hand out towards the wired fence. "They like to bite strangers."

She instantly retracted her hand. "It seems I can't touch anything around here."

Emily laughed. "I'm sure biology has similar principles, but one of the things I learned during my medical training is that you aren't supposed to touch everything. Speaking of medical, Mr. Redford, perhaps we could get started?"

"Sure? What do you need first?"

"Well! Our guest of honor suggested we have a look at the cattle feed. Maybe we can start there?"

"Cattle feed, you say? Suppose it's possible, but I doubt it. Problem's only come up in the past couple weeks, you see, and we've had that batch of feed since the harvest last year."

"That long?" Andrea timidly asked. "Is that normal?"

Mr. Redford shrugged. "I don't know about that, that's not exactly my area of expertise. For that, you'd have to ask Esther, our resident veterinarian. Course, she's not in yet, so that'll have to wait."

"Hmm. Well, it wouldn't hurt for us to have a look at the cattle feed, would it?" Emily suggested.

"Sure, come along! I'll show you to Silo C, that's where our boys have been pulling the feed from for the past six weeks."

- - - - -​

It was a quick journey to the grain silo that sat at the heart of the Miltank pasture. As usual, Andrea lingered a small distance behind and listened carefully as Emily and Patrick questioned Mr. Redford about the day to day happenings on the farm. Subjects that came up included employee movements, feeding schedules, maintenance and cleaning habits, any recent Miltank escapes, and even security breaches. She was disappointed by Mr. Redford happily announcing that nothing seemed out of the ordinary related to any of those subjects, as that sunk many of her early theories and robbed her of a quick chance to prove herself. Still, it narrowed the amount of work they'd have to do.

The maintenance hatch on the silo swung open, blasting them with the musky smell of damp, old wheat. "Oof! Love that smell!" Mr. Redford said. "Well. Don't know what you're lookin' for in here, but have at it."

Almost instantly, Emily climbed into the silo and stomped around on the damp cattle feed. She reached for the purse-like object that dangled from the strap around her shoulder and held it in front of her. A screen on the object lit up as she tapped on it. "Still not entirely used to these things..." she commented as a series of lights on it began to blink and flash in a very obvious pattern.

"What is that?" Andrea asked. "I thought that was your purse this whole time!"

"It's an R-Kit."

Her eyebrow raised. "R-Kit?"

"They're the future of our profession," Patrick chimed in. "Imagine your smart phone, but several times more powerful when it comes to computation."

She giggled. "That's not hard to imagine, mine's a cheap piece of crap."

Patrick returned with a laugh. "Fine, imagine the hottest new smart phone, but several times more powerful. But the R-Kit isn't just about computation power, it's also got an advanced sensor array on it and can detect all sorts of stuff depending on how you configure it."

"Oh! Like one of those scanners in those sci-fi movies! Holy shit, that's so cool -- I mean -- nerdy, but cool."

"Unfortunately this nerdy piece of kit hasn't been very helpful," Emily said with her brow furrowed. She sighed as she dragged her finger across the screen.

"Whatcha got?" Patrick asked.

She turned the device around in her hand and showed off the screen. "Mountains of junk data... You know, the usual."

"Hmm. They still do need a little tuning, don't they..."

"They do," she answered, scrolling through the data again. "I guess once we're done here, we can take this data back to the lab and go through it..." She turned the R-Kit off and closed the cover on it. "Well! When Dr. Venger asks if we did, we can't say we didn't try to use it!"

"Hands on approach, then?" he asked, approaching the maintenance hatch.

"Mhmm."

Andrea watched as Emily and Patrick slipped on pairs of latex gloves and began to sift through the cattle feed for anything out of place or visibly wrong with it. Outside of visible spoilage, she couldn't think of what else they might find in the cattle feed that may be harming the herd. Rather, she was interested in getting her hands on Emily's fancy scanning device and looking it -- and the data inside -- over.

"You mind if I had a look at that R-Kit? I'm kinda curious."

Emily looked up at Patrick as she thought about the question. "I dunno... What do you think? This thing's pretty expensive..."

He nodded. "I doubt she'll break it."

"It's coming out of your paycheck if she does, not mine."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, lady," she thought as she watched Emily gingerly pull the strap over her head and delicately hand the R-Kit over. She took Emily's caution to heart and treated the R-Kit with care, gently handling it as if it were as fragile as a newborn baby. She flipped open the cover and inspected the R-Kit; rectangular in shape, it wasn't much larger than a trendy handbag, and the adjustable leather strap could keep it securely attached to just about anyone except for a small child. An array of multicolored lights lined the bottom of the R-Kit, while a large touch screen took up the rest. A few dials and buttons could be found along the sides, while the back was covered in a rubber pad, likely meant to make handling it easy. With a single tap on the screen, the R-Kit turned on.

She was presented with, as Emily accurately described, an unfathomable mountain of data: biological composition of the various ingredients of the cattle feed, nutritional information of said ingredients, a reasonable estimate at the age of the cattle feed, spectroscopic analysis relating to color and intensity, measurements of the barometric pressure within the silo and even radiation measurements -- all of which were thankfully negligible -- were present on the screen as she scrolled through. Her first guess was that Emily failed to calibrate the R-Kit's scanners correctly, and she was about to say as much, before she stumbled on some information that might prove useful.

"What about this?" she asked.

MICROBES_PRESENT: Yes. Tap here for a list of detected microbes.
MICROBE_WARNINGS: Inconclusive. Thorough lab analysis required.
FUNGI_PRESENT: Seven potentially different species of fungi spores detected. Tap here for a list of detected fungi.
FUNGI_WARNINGS: Inconclusive. Thorough lab analysis required.
TOXINS_PRESENT: No
TOXIN_WARNINGS: N/A
CHEMICALS_PRESENT: Isopropylamine, Ethrozine, Phenatamine
CHEMICAL_WARNINGS: Excessive isopropylamine presence indicates high level of flammability. Caution is advised.

Patrick dropped his handful of feed and hopped out of the silo to have a look. "Find something?"

"Maybe? I can't tell how reliable this information might be."

"This could be useful... Emily! Bag up some of the cattle feed and we'll analyze it back at the institute!"

"Sure thing."

"Good eye, Andrea."

A smile came across her face as she absorbed the praise. It was minor, but it was praise nonetheless. As Patrick jumped back into the silo to assist Emily, she approached Mr. Redford, who had been stood off to the side looking through his list of daily tasks. "Excuse me, Mr. Redford?"

"Howdy there, little lady! Figure anything out?" he asked.

"Nothing conclusive yet, but I have a question. Do you happen to know what isoprop...propylene?" she stumbled. "No, no, isopropylamine! Ugh, chemical names! I was never good at them. Do you know what that is?"

He looked dumbfounded. "I have no idea. Sounds like quite a nasty one, I'll have to look into it."

"Hmm. Do you happen to know what ethrozine and phenatamine are?"

Mr. Redford scratched his chin in thought. "Yeah, those are pesticides, quite common ones. Weed killer and insect repellant, respectively. Must be what Willow Acres -- that's the main source of our cattle feed -- uses on their crops."

"Do you know if they're harmful to livestock at all?"

"Couldn't say. When it comes to pesticides, we in the industry kinda figure it out as we go... But even if they are harmful, I don't think they'd be responsible for what we've been seeing happening to our Miltanks."

She tilted her head in thought. "What exactly is happening to your Miltanks? I wasn't told much before I agreed to come along."

"If you like, I can show you and your associates. Another one of them passed overnight, so... at least you'll have something fresh to look at."

She hesitated to accept the offer, especially without Emily's approval. She realized that it would likely come to an examination, but she wasn't looking forward to the experience.

"Uhh... Maybe we could put it off for a bit."

"I don't blame you if you're a little squeamish about it, missy. It's not an easy thing to look at."

- - - - -​

"Here she is, the most recent one," Mr. Redford said as he knelt down beside a deceased Miltank that was slumped over a pile of hay. Despite his assurances of it having recently passed, a horde of buzzing insects were already at work, and the stench of decay hung heavily in the air. "She looked healthy last night... Whatever it is burns through them quick. Hope they don't suffer much."

Emily shook her head as she looked over the deceased Miltank. "Hope so..." She slipped on a fresh pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask. "Well! Let's dig in."

Mr. Redford tipped his hat. "If you need anything, give me a shout. I'll be back soon, I've got a couple things I need to take care of."

"Thank you, Mr. Redford," Patrick said with a polite nod. He found a sturdy support beam in the corner of the stall to lean up against and crossed his arms as he watched Emily begin her examination. Every now and then, he'd casually glance at Andrea, who looked onward in grim fascination, but kept a sizable distance. After a few more moments, he coughed. "Emily looks like she could use a hand."

Andrea's eyes widened upon hearing it, and her facial expression did little to hide how she felt. "Uhh... Sure..? Hand me a pair of gloves and a mask?"

She cautiously approached the Miltank with great trepidation. She blocked her nasal passages, took a deep breath and knelt down; all that preparation was almost useless, as the smell of decay still pushed its way through the mask and into her nose. In an effort to put off what she was about to do for just a little while longer, she took the time to slowly roll up the web-like netting of her sleeves. "So, uhh... What should I do? I've never examined a corpse before."

Emily gave her a knowing look; despite the mask blocking her mouth, it was obvious that a sly smile appeared on her face. "I don't believe that."

"I may look the part, but, honest. I haven't."

"Just help me give her a broad look, see if anything looks really wrong and out of place." Emily gestured towards the Miltank's head. "Try to lift her head up."

She thought carefully about how to proceed with the request. Worries about ruining her designer dress -- an expensive one at that -- floated in her mind, and she tried to buy herself a few more seconds by hesitating. Conscious about how she might look if she put it off any further, she bit her lower lip and dug her right arm between the Miltank's head and the hay that it was resting on. The creature's head was massive and surprisingly heavy, forcing her to lift with her left arm as well. She tried her hardest to ignore everything around her, opting to gaze into the rafters of the barn instead. Emily slid her finger into the Miltank's mouth and lifted its upper lip; a blast of noxious air escaped the creature's mouth and was nearly enough to make her sick.

Emily shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary here..." 32 well-worn molars, divided into sets of eight, rested within healthy looking gums. "Alright, you can put her down now."

She wheezed heavily in an attempt to catch her breath as the Miltank's head impacted the hay.

Emily let out a chuckle. "Pretty gross, eh?"

"Ugh... If I knew I would have been doing this... I'd have worn that dumb ass skater dress after all..." she said quietly.

"Afraid of ruining that designer dress of yours?"

"Yeah. At least that one would have gotten all messy instead of this one. This one wasn't cheap."

Emily looked up at Patrick for a brief moment before returning her attention to Andrea. "Look, I know Patrick is kinda pushing you to do this, but don't feel like you have to. I totally understand... Besides, it's not like we gave you the best warning that we'd be doing something like this."

"No, it's fine. I'm going to have to get used to situations that make me uncomfortable if I'm going to make it as a researcher."

A nod. "That's definitely true. Good on ya, new kid." Emily grabbed the Miltank's flap-like ear and began to study it for any potential irregularities. "This is a real trial by fire, isn't it? This, the hotel... they don't tell you about this kind of stuff in the lecture halls."

"No, they don't... If they did, I'd have probably focused on a softball career instead."

"Softball, huh? Were you any good at it?"

"When I graduated from high school, my coach pulled me aside and told me how much he was going to miss me. How much he was going to miss his team making it to the national finals."

"Oh! Wow!"

"Ehh. Save your praise. I was okay, but I wasn't some sort of super star. We made it to the finals, but were always knocked out quick."

"Still, that's pretty impressive."

"I guess. I'd earned a scholarship because of it, but I didn't make the team... I didn't have time to practice because I was focused on my degree instead."

"I think you made the right choice. The sciences are in desperate need of a woman's touch."

The small talk helped to ease her nerves. She still found the work she was doing to be utterly detestable, but she also found it easier to cut through her apprehension. "Find anything?"

She shook her head as she dropped the ear. "Nothing."

"What next?" she asked. She truthfully didn't care what was next, and hoped that they were done.

She grabbed a large tuft of the Miltank's fur and began to dig her fingers through it. "Well, I couldn't find anything wrong the easy way. Now it's time to start digging deeper."

"Let's just get this over with, then..." she mumbled as she did the same.

"That's the spirit!"

Minute after agonizing minute passed by as they dug through the Miltank's pink fur. Each tug of the fur released more and more of the horrid smell, and all for nothing; they weren't even sure of what they were looking for, but whatever it was, they weren't finding it. Emily jokingly mused at the idea of packing up the Miltank into a box and shipping it back to the medical lab at the institute, but only as a last resort if they couldn't find anything in the field.

Just as they were about ready to give up, Andrea found a particularly unsightly white blister hidden beneath the Miltank's matted fur. A thick, syrupy substance that was lavender in color oozed from it. "Eww... what is that?"

Patrick perked up and walked over. "What is what?"

She pointed out the blister. "This thing... Let me look for more of these."

Emily inspected the blister. "Huh. Haven't seen anything like that before... You might have found what we're looking for."

It didn't take long before she found similar blisters all across the Miltank's lower body, hidden from sight just below its fur. They all looked more or less identical to the first.

"Any idea, ladies?" Patrick asked.

Andrea couldn't shake the feeling that the blisters looked vaguely familiar. "I swear, I've seen something like this before..." she mumbled. "I remember... remember reading about something... first... no, second year's ecology unit..."

Emily and Patrick watched on as the gears turned in her head.

She snapped her fingers. "Your R-Kit! Does it have, like, a Pokédex feature?"

"Yeah, R-Kits come with an encyclopedia function, and it's miles ahead of the Pokédex," Patrick answered. "It's actually got factual information in it! None of that 'Arcanine can run at the speed of light' garbage that looks like it was written by a child."

"Is that why those entries are always so bad and unbelievable..." Emily added.

She held her hand out. "May I see it again, please?"

"Sure," Emily answered, handing it back to her. "What's on your mind?"

She began to flip through the apps in search of the encyclopedia. "During my second year of university, we focused a lot on the delicate balance of ecosystems across the world. I remember reading about something... I can't remember its name!" she shouted. "It was some sort of fungal infection brought on by contact with toxic spores, I remember that much."

Emily and Patrick looked at each other and shrugged, unsure of what she was talking about.

"Let's see... categorize by species subtype..." she mumbled while tapping away at the screen.

"Sounds like you're onto something!" Patrick said with a smile.

"Don't get your hopes up, I'm probably completely wrong," she said. A lengthy list of hundreds of distinct fungal Pokémon species appeared on the screen, far too many for her to sort through in an efficient manner. She filtered the list based on what she remembered: a fungal species that thrived in a forest habitat and released toxic spores. To her relief, the new list was only twenty-three entries long, many of which she knew she could easily ignore. She began to whisper to herself as she scrolled through the list. "No... no... That's not it either... Is that... no... ah! I think this is what I'm remembering! Blastcap!"

"Blastcap? Never heard of it," Emily said.

"Oh, Blastcap... Every biology and history student in Lanark has heard of that one," Patrick added. "What's the article say?"

She began to read off the information on the screen:

Blastcap is a fungal Pokémon with a colony structure to its body, composed of many distinct yet physically separate parts. Unlike other colony Pokémon such as Dugtrio or Exeggcute, which operate in hivemind-like groups, all of the thought processes and decision making happen in the largest mushroom, while the rest focus on nutrient gathering, defense and expansion. When a Blastcap reaches the end of its adult life, each mushroom in the colony erupts with a cloud of spores that spread through the area and settle on a variety of surfaces, mostly wood-based. These spores then spread their roots and new colonies form.

She broke from her reading and looked back up at the rafters, noting that they, like much of the barn, were constructed primarily of wood. "Blastcap is a textbook example of why a species shouldn't be introduced to a new environment. It's a living ecological disaster, and I really hope I'm wrong about this." She began to read more from the R-Kit:

Blastcap is a species native to the tropical jungles of the Free Republic of Mangada's Andalla Basin, though it has a worldwide range today. In most areas that it has been introduced to, it is seen as an aggressive invasive species, due to a lack of natural predators and its reproductive methods. While there is no solid consensus as to how Blastcap was introduced to other regions (including other sections of Mangada), many ecologists point towards the sharp rise in international trade that the country initiated following its liberation from being a slavery vassal in the early 1950s; this sentiment is backed by numerous historians.

"Here's a section related specifically to Blastcap's presence in Lanark," she added.

The first documented reports of Blastcaps within Lanark were made in 1957, when several colonies were discovered in the forests between Steelport and Verdant Vale. By 1963, the Blastcap infestation had reached critical levels as it made its way north into the Heartland. In the following year, tens of thousands of acres of farmland were overrun and destroyed by the Blastcap colonies, and were the main contributing factor of the Goldwheat Famine, an event that claimed the lives of about 50,000 people and Pokémon. Blastcap's presence was officially declared a national emergency, and an extensive campaign was initiated by the newly established Ministry of Wildlife to contain the Blastcap population. By January 1st of 1967, the Ministry declared its campaign a success, with the last reported sighting of a colony in the autumn of 1966.

"Okay. What does any of this have to do with our dead Miltanks here?" Emily asked.

"I'm getting to it! I just felt the need to provide some context. This thing is seriously bad news wherever it goes."

While interactions between Blastcaps and other species of Pokémon are poorly documented, ongoing research suggests that the spores it releases during its reproductive cycle are highly toxic to most species that are not found within its native range. in 2002, researchers in Kalos linked Blastcap spores to an outbreak at a Pokémon daycare facility that killed eight and left dozens crippled and chronically ill. The outbreak, termed 'White Pox' due to the appearance of numerous white pustules on the afflicted, was limited to Stantlers, Swinubs, Linoones, Zangooses, Tauri and the lone Slakoth at the facility, none of which share a natural range with Blastcaps.

However, other Pokémon at the facility that shared historic ranges with the Blastcap and certain other species of toxic fungal Pokémon, as well as the human staff and visitors, were completely unaffected. Theories about evolutionary acquired defenses to the toxic effects of the spores have been put forward by various researchers and ecologists, but there is no concrete evidence -- especially in humans -- to back these theories at this time.

"Sounds pretty bad, but that doesn't make any sense! Why would a fungal infestation that was eradicated in the 1960s be killing Miltanks now, over half a century later?" Emily asked.

She stood up and started to wander around the stall they were in, checking the rafters for any obvious signs of fungal growth. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to completely control the population of an invasive species once it spreads? Especially in a country this large?"

"Yeah... There really is no way to be certain, we have too much untouched wilderness to make such a conclusion," Patrick added. "Who knows what's festering out there in some unknown corner of the country..."

With her admittedly quick and sloppy search, she didn't find any indication that a Blastcap colony was infesting the barn, and returned to the Miltank's side. "Maybe I can prove my theory... How do I scan things with this?"

"Open up the AccuScan app. It's best to calibrate the sensors, but just hit the big scan button and see what comes up. If there's any dangers we should know about, the R-Kit will tell us."

"If she's right about this, it sounds like we have a bigger problem than a few dead cows..." Emily said with a tinge of worry to her voice.

"Guess we'll see."

Before any of the other information from the scan was visible on the screen, a warning popped up:

FUNGI_PRESENT: Trichophyton verrucosum, Stachybotrys blastaria (spores)
FUNGI_WARNINGS: High levels of Stachybotrys blastaria (Blastcap) spores detected. Quarantine affected area or creature and begin decontamination procedures immediately. Details can be found here. Moderate levels of Trichophyton verrucosum (ringworm) detected. Contact a licensed veterinarian for details and treatment.

She showed off the flashing warning. "I think we've found our problem..."

Patrick grabbed the R-Kit and had a look at the data. "Phew! Those are some high levels... Ok ladies, time to split up! Search every corner of the barn and see if you can find anything that looks out of the ordinary. And remember to keep your masks on, just in case."

The group split and began to check the rafters and walls of the barn. As Andrea moved further and further down the aisle in her search, the upper reaches of the barn grew darker and darker until she could barely see: the perfect environment for a Blastcap colony to blossom. She reached for her phone and turned the flashlight on, but unfortunately it wasn't powerful enough to reach up to the roof. She next tried to boost herself up by climbing up onto the divider between two of the stalls, but abandoned the idea after feeling the wood wobble under her weight. Frustrated, she returned to the other two.

"Find anything?"

"An active Taillow nest and some spider webs. But other than that, nothing." Emily answered.

He looked towards Andrea. "You?"

"I didn't find anything, but it was pretty dark over in my area," she answered. "Maybe we should ask the staff here to have a closer look."

"Good idea... I didn't find anything either. Let's go find Mr. Redford and inform him of our theories."

- - - - -​

"Sure you're not hungry?" Patrick asked, offering a paper tray full of chunky, greasy chips to her.

Andrea was leaned up against the wall of the restaurant, rather than seated with the other two. She took one look at the unhealthy offering and raised her hand defensively. With a shake of her head, she said, "It's tempting, but I don't have an appetite after that." A few minutes passed by in relative silence, until she broke it. "So... What do we do now? Or is that it?"

Emily stretched and adjusted her posture. "I think we've done all we can for the moment. We've told Mr. Redford about our findings, we've got samples to analyze back at the lab, and we'll have to do some research on White Pox to see what kind of treatment options and preventative measures we can take..."

She nodded. She was happy their day was over so quickly, and she was thrilled with her performance. If the trip to the Briar Patch was an opportunity to prove herself, she was confident she did.

"What do you think, Patrick?"

"Sounds like a plan, but we've still got a couple hours we can make use of if we're going to head back to Loch Alstan today. I want to see if we can find the source of this infestation. What kind of environment does Blastcap live in, again?"

Emily pulled up the article on Blastcap again. "Uhh... Tropical rainforests, temperate deciduous forests, wetlands, unfinished basements, abandoned structures such as mine shafts and old ruins where human contact is unlikely and abandoned wood is plentiful." She shook her head. "I don't know what you expect to find if we just wander into the wilderness. 'Wetlands' describes most of the Northcountry, from here to Silverstream, and up north into Glahmreàgh Valley in Glastonfell."

"That is a lot of land to cover... But whatever is affecting the Briar Patch... It's gotta be close, right? Like, Nettlemarsh close?"

Emily took a sip from her straw and casually shrugged. "I don't see why not. It stands to reason."

Andrea could see the plan forming in their heads and opted to speak her mind. "You two aren't seriously suggesting we explore the Nettlemarsh, are you?"

Patrick nodded. "It wouldn't hurt, would it?"

"But would it help?" She looked down and kicked her foot outward to highlight her designer boots and exposed thighs, then looked toward the western sky. "I'm not exactly dressed for a hike through a swamp, especially in weather that looks like it's about to turn for the worse."

"She's got a point, Pat," Emily added. "Not only is she not prepared for it, the simple fact of the matter is that the Nettlemarsh is huge. We could spend days out there, and there's no guarantee that we'd find anything. Let's hand this off to the Ministries of Health and Wildlife. They have the resources to actually deal with this problem."

"Hmm," he grumbled.

"How are your legs feeling, Andrea?" Emily asked.

She leaned down and gingerly rubbed her left thigh. "I'll be honest, they're not in great shape... That's also kinda why I don't want to go... Getting back to Loch Alstan will be hard enough on its own, I really don't think I can throw a couple more hours of walking on top of that."

Emily motioned towards Andrea and nodded. "We've got our samples, we've got our data, we've got an idea of what we're dealing with, and we've got a girl who needs to get home and rest. I think that's a good enough reason to cut this project a little short and head back to the institute."

He straightened his posture and broadened his shoulders, then looked off to the side with a pensive expression. "Okay, you're the boss! Let's rest up a bit and then head home."

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Alright, let’s see if I can cheer you up after your war against this chapter with nice review of stuff.

"Aren't you adorable?" she asked with excitement, loud enough to capture Patrick and Emily's attention. "Look how beautiful you are! Yes you are! So pretty!" Her ability to form coherent words quickly fell apart as she patted and rubbed the overjoyed Miltank's head.

A short distance away, Patrick and Emily watched her, almost as if they were the parents of an excited toddler.

"Am I seeing this right?" Patrick asked. "Look at her... That girl is the opposite of what we've been experiencing."

"It is pretty strange," Emily added.

"Dr. Reiland was right, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover..."

Ah yes, the next subject of Emily and Patrick’s study, the person known as Andrea Dennison. Honestly I kinda see this becoming a running gag of Andrea completely changing her personality in light of something and then immediately changing back when called out on it.

A middle aged man was stood beside the enclosure, casually tossing handfuls of bird seed into it. He noticed the group approaching and tipped his hat.

So I put this into a Google Doc in order to type this better, and its suggestion function says the bold should be “A middle aged man stood” or “A middle aged man was standing.” No need to beat yourself more on stuff like this for the chapter, I would probably make the same mistake.

Fancy get-up you got there, little lady. Very striking appearance."

Ah, this running thing of everyone commenting on Andrea’s looks. I still remember laughing when she met Kimberly for the first time in the original and she was complaining about her commenting on the outfit like everyone’s been doing, but then Kim basically says “Oh yeah, I helped design it.”

"Ahh, yeah. Owner's kids' pets. Supposed to be teachin' 'em about responsibility. Cute little things, aren't they?"

Andrea dropped to her knees. "They are!"

Even though you were complaining earlier in the chapter about waking you up.

"I think you'd have to ask the kids that, I'm pretty hands off with these little guys. They're at school today, so I'm watching them for now. To answere your question? Not that I've heard of, and not that I can see."

Small typo there.

"What is that?" Andrea asked. "I thought that was your purse this whole time!"

"Nope! It's an R-Kit."

Her eyebrow raised. "R-Kit?"

How big in scale to you consider the R-Kits? Since I remember for Andrea it was an IPhone size watch for her. And here it’s like a purse for Emily. Or does everyone as a different model like the games do?

"They're the future of our profession," Patrick chimed in. "Imagine your smart phone, but several times more powerful when it comes to computation."

Smartphone is actually one word here.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, lady," she thought as she watched Emily gingerly pull the strap over her head and delicately hand the R-Kit over.

This was me at my first attempt at the Driver’s Permit test, as there was a giant group of officers there at the DMV that morning(like real early 7 or 8’o’clock early), and they were all assholes for some reason. Since I was waiting for my code to take the test, one asked me something I just said I was waiting for the test code and one said jokingly I was suppose to remember the code before hand. I basically said the same thing as Andrea here. Ironically enough, the officer who was probably pissed the day I took the test again was nicer apparently than the entire room of them from the first one. I’m sympathizing with Andrea a lot here in this rewrite.

"Emily looks like she could use a hand."

Such a gentleman you are Patrick.....

Emily gave her a knowing look; despite the mask blocking her mouth, it was obvious that a sly smile appeared on her face. "I don't believe that."
"Honest, I haven't."

Why wouldn’t she believe that? I doubt people are examining corpses nowadays anymore in schools, but I’m not a science major. And I doubt she be doing it cause she’s Goth, she isn’t Wednesday Adams.

A nod. "That's definitely true. Good on ya, new kid." Emily grabbed the Miltank's flap-like ear and began to study it for any potential irregularities. "This is a real trial by fire, isn't it? This, the hotel... they don't tell you about this kind of stuff in the lecture halls."

No one tells you anything about anything nowadays, it’s like life's new motto.

"Let's just get this over with, then..." she mumbled as she did the same.
"That's the spirit!"

Me in a nutshell.

"Yeah, R-Kits come with an encyclopedia function, and it's miles ahead of the Pokédex," Patrick answered. "It's actually got factual information in it! None of that 'Arcanine can run at the speed of light' garbage that looks like it was written by a child."
"Is that why those entries are always so bad and unbelievable..." Emily added.

I vaguely remember us bringing this up in Discord, and making a lot of fun out of it. I guess you found a way to squeeze the joke into here. I mean I don’t blame you for doing so, it got a laugh out of me.

"Blastcap? Never heard of it," Emily said.
"Oh, Blastcap... Every biology and history student in Lanark has heard of that one," Patrick added. "What's the article say?"

I remember reading this for the first time in the original draft, and I was turning my head at the name. I mean I understand why since Pokemon names are hard to come up with and I’m taking this too far when we have Pokemon named Seel, so yeah. I still like how you were bringing in original Pokemon, giving your feel of the original region you’re trying to deliver.

She broke from her reading and looked back up at the rafters, noting that they, like much of the barn, were constructed primarily of wood. "Blastcap is a textbook example of why a species shouldn't be introduced to a new environment. It's a living ecological disaster, and I really hope I'm wrong about this."

Yeah you’re really bringing the implications of how some Pokemon are crazy in a realistic setting like Psyduck in Detective Pikachu. I mean you made Blastcap here a Parasect on crack with the parasite thing going on.

"Sounds pretty bad, but that doesn't make any sense! Why would a fungal infestation that was eradicated in the 1960s be killing Miltanks now, over half a century later?" Emily asked.
She stood up and started to wander around the stall they were in, checking the rafters for any obvious signs of fungal growth. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to completely control the population of an invasive species once it spreads? Especially in a country this large?"

Something that parallels a lot in the real world, since something may be gone, it can come back even more powerful than it originally was or just appear out of nowhere again.

"Yeah... There really is no way to be certain, we have too much untouched wilderness to make such a conclusion," Patrick added. "Who knows what's festering out there in some unknown corner of the country..."

Uh, that actually explains a certain thing from a later chapter in the original version a bit better. You probably know what I’m talking about.

"That is a lot of land to cover... But whatever is affecting the Briar Patch... It's gotta be close, right?"

Yeah, good idea Patrick. Totally not going to put yourself and the others in danger.

"Unless... you want to go back to the Briar Patch and keep looking around? Hang out with the dead cows some more?"

Of course the simple pressure test, very rude of Patrick. It looks like you’re making Patrick a bit different with these types of lines. I think you originally said you wanted to phase Patrick out and you never did. I guess this is your way of doing so.

So that's all what I got to say for this chapter of Land of the Roses, I can say the addition of Emily to these are making these better than the original that's for sure.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Still making his decision about whether to hire Andrea or not, Patrick is presented with a potential treasure trove of information about her: her social media presence.​

May 14th
Loch Alstan, Kingdom of Lanark

"Let's see... Potential field assignments..." Patrick mumbled as he browsed through a list of e-mails that had been piling up over the past week. "Hopefully we've gotten some interesting ones this time..."

Expedition to Mount Gelzaya to save endangered Gogoat subspecies
fr: [email protected]

"Hard pass. Not sending my employees to an active war zone..."

Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Re: Reports of paranormal activity in the Doranshire area
fr: [email protected]

"Ghost hunting? Sounds fun, but not really what we do here..."

Marine biologist needed for diving expedition to Kensacola's Thousand Mile Reef
fr: [email protected]

"Oh, nice! Wish I went into marine biology... I'll forward that one down to Joe..."

Patrick: need you to coordinate biology department with biochemistry department to test effectiveness of new synthetic anti venom
fr: [email protected]

"How'd this get mixed in with my field assignments? Whatever, noted..."

Sensitive Eckhardt Steel contract. Contact me for further details.
fr: [email protected]

"No information? Tempted to pass, but they do pay well... Wonder what a steel foundry would need from the biology department, though..."

His browsing was interrupted by a knocking sound coming from his open door. "Knock knock!"

He perked up and looked toward the door. "Oh! Emily! What's up?"

She wandered into the room with a look of bemusement. "You look a little stressed. Let me guess: catching up on the past couple of days?"

"Yeah. Right now I'm working on lining up some field assignments for the next six weeks."

"Oh? I can come back later, then."

"Nonsense! Sit down!" he said. He slouched in his chair a bit and clumsily pushed the chair on the opposite side of the desk outward with his foot. "I could use a bit of a distraction."

Emily smiled and laughed to herself as she sat down.

"So! Andrea made it to her train on time, I trust?"

"Mhmm!"

"How'd it go with her last night? She seemed lost and scared when I left for home."

"It went well! She seemed a little uncertain about staying the night, but warmed up a bit once she saw how cozy my apartment is... You know, after she got done comparing it to a broom closet! She's a well mannered guest! We talked a bit, about what it's like to work here, our hopes and dreams, favorite Pokémon, stuff like that."

"You actually got her to talk?"

"Hey, don't take it the wrong way, but she's a lot more talkative when you aren't around."

"I must have made her nervous." A sly smile appeared on his face. "I have that effect on the ladies."

Emily smiled. "No you don't. You make her nervous because you are the gatekeeper that stands between her and the job she has wanted her entire life. Not because of your... 'irresistable charm.'"

"Just kiddin'."

"Be careful with that humor, you don't want to make her uncomfortable... But speaking of Andrea, I actually came to talk about her! You'll never guess what I found during my morning break."

"Hmm... Hit me with it. What have you got?"

She handed her phone over. "I found her Instaglam account."

"Did you?" He grabbed the phone and reached for his reading glasses. Bright glare flickered on his lenses as he scrolled down the page; row upon row of brightly lit and similarly angled selfies passed by, lightly sprinkled with nature photos in between.

Emily tilted her head as she waited for him to respond. "Uhhh, hello? Earth to Patrick?"

He smirked. "...Wow. This just goes on and on and on! She is very proud of her cleavage, isn't she?"

She giggled. "Well, if I had those? I probably would be, too."

"I'm surprised she only has a dozen followers with pictures like these."

"Having boobs -- covered up ones at that -- isn't the magic ticket to a massive social media following, you know. They could be her friends... Or... creeps from half the world away. You never know."

"True." He continued to scroll by until he reached the end, then handed the phone back. "Okay, I'll bite. How'd you find this? She didn't disclose any of her social media on her application."

"Isn't that optional, though?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but most applicants seem perfectly willing to do it."

"Well, finding it wasn't hard. I noticed that she was taking lots of pictures while we were on the way home, and I wanted to see if she had anything interesting. It was a stab in the dark, but I searched Instaglam for the #AspenRoad tag and her account was the first result that popped up. And, like most people, she uses the same account name for everything: FriendZone, Chatter, Bloggo... she's even got a HotShot account! And they're all linked on her Instaglam."

He leaned back and laughed. "Ah, the wonders of social media! Goodbye privacy!"

"I don't know, Patrick... Can you really have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you connect everything like that?"

"Maybe not."

She scrolled through the photos herself. "I guess I don't see anything bad here, other than her choices in cosmetics. I was just curious of what you thought about it, and if you'd like to dive into her personal life a bit. I assume you're still considering her application, I mean. You might find something useful if you poke around?"

"Yeah, I'm still thinking it over. I might take a cursory glance at her social media, see if she's bad news on the surface, but I'm not going to stalk this poor girl and scour every word she's ever written online. She may be loose with her privacy, but that doesn't mean I have to take advantage of that."

"That's fair."

He grabbed his phone and found his way to Andrea's profile. "So, Instaglam tits aside, did you find anything interesting?"

She shook her head. "Mostly roadside weeds, which I found strange. Did her application mention if she's into botany at all? She's listed a lot of scientific names for some rather unremarkable looking plants."

He shrugged. "I couldn't say. Maybe she picked up an affinity for it during her studies, but no, she didn't make a note of it on her application."

"Do you know if any of that binomial nomenclature is accurate?"

He scanned through several of the photos and took note of each scientific name that Andrea had left for them, but he was unable to make any positive connections. "Uhh... Not off the top of my head. I could have someone at the greenhouse look things over." He lowered his phone and looked back up at her. "Anyways, speaking of reports and speaking of Andrea, I've asked her to write up a report and send it to me over the next few days."

She giggled. "She's not even hired yet and you're already putting her to work, huh?"

"Anything to work less myself!" he joked. "I mostly want to see her methodology before Dr. Reiland and I make a final decision about hiring her. I want to see what her reports look like and how we can improve them if needed."

"Can you forward it to Dr. Venger when you get it?"

"Sure thing. What's he think about all this?"

"He's very intrigued that we found evidence of a nearby Blastcap colony, but also skeptical of it. Did you know that his grandfather was involved in the effort to contain the original outbreak in the 60s?"

"Oh wow, really?"

"Yeah. He swears by his grandfather's work regarding the effectivity of the eradication program, so he's not entirely convinced yet. We're trying to run DNA analysis on some of the samples we brought back for a solid confirmation." Rapid vibration and a loud beeping sound prompted her to look down at her watch. "Oh! Speaking of, I should probably get back... That's the PCR replication process, it should be done by now. Hopefully we can get started soon on determining the facts."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. I'll see ya after work?"

"Yep."

"I hope that having Andrea's social media accounts ends up being useful to you."

"I think it will be! Thank you."

She made her way towards the door, but stopped and turned around. "Umm... If it gets awkward -- you know, considering the types of photos she has -- let me know, okay? It wouldn't be quite as weird for me, so I could look through her profiles for you."

He laughed. "I appreciate it, but that's not necessary. I'll be fine."

As the door closed behind Emily, he started to look through the other social media profiles that were linked in her Instaglam biography. His first stop was FriendZone, a priceless treasure trove of willfully surrendered personal information. It didn't tell him much that he didn't already know from the previous day and a half he spent with her. She was obsessively interested in gothic fashion to the point of crazed hysteria. Nerdy hobbies that ranged from board and card games to low budget classic sci-fi movies are how she spent most of her idle time. She kept her hot button opinions to herself for the most part. While he was already aware that she previously worked as a waitress at a vampire-themed restaurant and rave club, the an immense level of enthusiasm and enjoyment was new to him; she seemed ashamed of it when the subject was approached the other day.

Other details weren't explicitly stated, but he was able to piece them together through some of her status updates. She'd apparently gone through a bad breakup at the start of the year and had been single ever since, and she clearly was not happy about it. She was fired from her job shortly before that, which raised a troubling yellow flag, but her rants and stories about her dismissla didn't offer any useful insight into why. Even further back, she appeared to have a public feud with a man named Larson; he quickly found himself siding with her based on the awful and despicable things this man was saying, but couldn't help but worry that it was easy to get under her skin, and she was downright venomous when she was angry. Those details painted the picture of a bitter and angry young woman, but also hinted that her general negativity and quiet nature was heavily influenced by her depressing surroundings, bleak circumstances and apparent terrible luck.

"Okay... If I do bring her onboard, I guess I'll have to make it clear that she'd need to be patient as she settles in..." He went back to her Instaglam account to seek out her next profile, only to find himself captivated by her selfies again. "...Maybe dress a little more modestly, too. Those pillows would distract a lot of people, especially if she wears that spiderweb dress to work."

Her account on Chatter -- a platform that challenged its users to share quick thoughts and updates with a limited amount of characters -- was anything but chatty. Across two years, she'd only sent out five messages, all of which were directed at a former Rose League Championship contender and fashion designer by the name of Nicole Spencer -- and seemingly ignored. Hoping to find something more valuable, he browsed the list of accounts she was following; various faculty members at the University of Aughrim, indie musicians, fashion experts, lewd artists, a few Aughrim-centered politicians and an arachnid facts bot all popped up -- hardly useful for getting a quick gauge on if she had any problematic beliefs or associations.

"She seems pretty normal so far..."

His next visit was to her Bloggo account, but he was met with disappointment; only those who were logged in could view her blog. Rather than spend company time setting up an account, he set it aside to investigate later when he got home. His investigation of her HotShot account -- a service for streaming video games to viewers from around the world -- also brought up very little of interest. Within five minutes, all he could tell was that she was a woefully obscure and infrequent player of Defense of the Legends, and a bad one at that. Like her Instaglam photos, she seemed to emphasize her physical assets rather than her gameplay.

"Yeah... Nothing out of the ordinary here..." he mumbled before going back to her Instaglam account for one last cheeky peek; he smirked as he shook his head. "Guess this wasn't a total waste of time, though..."

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Alright, guess it’s time to review some more chapters as I somehow become your most frequent reviewer. Ironic in some way is it?

Chapter 7:

“Don't you even!" Emily chastised aggressively. "You have a nasty habit of turning uncomfortable situations into scary ones with jokes like that. You need to stop doing that. Especially when we have a guest who isn't comfortable around us."

"Jeeze, sorry."

Yeah, it really seems like you are trying to get rid of Patrick as soon as possible with changing his personality into something a lot more socially inept and a lot more jerkish (standoffish?) since you originally mentioned you wanted to fade him out.

"We'll be careful. We've all got each other's backs. Nothing bad is going to happen, you can count on that."

Yeahhhhhhh, nothing bad at all. Nothing bad at all.

Patrick nodded. "I understand your concern, but I haven't seen anything that looks outright dangerous, and the R-Kit isn't giving us any hazard warnings. If we study it closer, we'll know what we're up against, and what we can do to fix it."

The entire swamp is freakin dying and you say there’s nothing that looks dangerous, god Patrick gained some arrogance here in the rewrite.

"Are you kidding me?" Emily challenged. "Look at this place! It's dying! How the hell are the two of us going to fix this? Andrea is right, we have to turn around. This is out of our hands."

Ah yes, two sane women and one pretty much insane man. That’s pretty much a correct mirror of real life.

"We can't be afraid of the unknown. Our ancestors --"

Well isn’t that why science exist? So we figure out the unknown, so we no longer be afraid of it.

"That's Patrick sometimes! He always wants to make a name for himself, and he's not afraid to make some bad decisions to do that. He's an ends justify the means kinda guy."

I know way too many people who would do stuff like this. It also sounds like he is really too much of a leeroy jenkins guy. I know pretty much half of science is basically leeroy jenkins in some way, but to Patrick’s calibur I feel like he shouldn’t be working at a science lab when he’s like that.

"If you do get the position and find yourself working under him a lot, just remember: sometimes you have to be very strict with him before he gets the point, and that's perfectly okay. He likes to pull rank like the institute is some sort of military academy, but you don't have to take it from him."

"Very likely you are. But I've been pretty impressed with how you're handling this so far, personally. You've taken an impromptu invitation that you weren't prepared for and done well with it."

Well since it seems like you’re trying to bring Emily into more chapters and it sounds like you are trying to give her a mentor vibe, I would totally be vibed if you make her a secondary mentor to Andrea like the main mentor Dr. Reiland is suppose to be (I think).

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Emily questioned.

He offered the R-Kit to her. "See for yourself. I've been tracking our movements on the map since we got here to help us avoid getting lost. We've clearly been through this area before."

Emily grabbed the R-Kit and studied the map; the map displayed a lengthy and winding line in the middle of the Nettlemarsh Wildlife Refuge that more or less corresponded to the official trails. Just as he said, they had been through the area before. "He's right..."

Or he could have intentionally got them lost so he can still be Leeroy Jenkins and find his discovery ooor I’m just overthinking this.

"Just to be on the safe side, I want Pepper out to respond to any trouble we come across."

I remember this Pokemon being a Flareon (since I believe it’s now a Pokémon you created) I'm blanking on its original name though, cause I swore it wasn’t Pepper.

"Textbooks really don't do this Blastcap fella justice. How can a Pokémon be this destructive? It doesn't seem possible... It doesn't seem natural."

I can kinda see where this going based on the original but I’m unsure if you’ll go down that road again. The only other thing I can guess is an unnatural breeding situation gone wrong, which has happened in real life with a type of bees.

Andrea reached into her stocking for her phone. She tried to make the best of a bad situation by taking photos of the swamp around her. "Yeah, this is... certainly something. None of my ecology studies about Blastcap said anything about this."

Like anything teaches something useful in school anyways. I had a class meant to teach me about how to do taxes in my sophomore year of high school, six months later I never learned how to my taxes after that half-year course.

She took more photos of the swamp as she moved along: goo dripping off of the trees; the mysterious pH-balanced substance eating away at the tree bark like acid; mycellial strands grasping along the muddy ground like a tangled mass of tendrils; the overall orange color scheme of the area; the lack of --

Mycelial is misspelled here. Also what kind of swamp is orange? Is it the fungi or is it a weird autumn color in your “not spring”?

"C'mon, let's get you out of there!" Patrick said, offering his hand out toward her to pull her ashore.

It should be “towards” not “toward” here I believe.

"My boots!" she lamented as she lifted her left foot up; murky, foul smelling water drained from her footwear like a leaky faucet. "I swear, if these boots are ruined... At least I've got some good pictures for you guys if you need them."

Ah yes, the running gag/thing of bad things happening to her boots that were present in the original version, happy that came back. Also, I do hope that’s some gag later on of Patrick paying for Andrea’s boots, or Emily and her trying to make him pay.

"Want a piggy back ride so you're not just stepping around in that shit?" Patrick asked.

Piggyback is one word here.

"The cynic in me says that the Ministry didn't take the opportunity to study it closely, and they rushed to contain the infestation to satisfy an angry and impatient public."

And that the public was probably still angry after it was contained because it wasn’t fast enough.

Andrea jumped in fright and hid behind one of the trees. "What the fuck is that thing?!"

Ah yes, everyone’s reaction to a new Pokemon they had never seen before.

With the scan complete, Patrick took a few steps back. "Uhh. This thing isn't a Blastcap. The R-Kit says it's an unknown species!"

I remember this from the original and remember Andrea wanting to brag about discovering it in her first week.

Pepper found it difficult to carry out Patrick's order; despite it only being knee-high for Patrick, the water reached up to his neck, and he had difficulty keeping his head above the murky surface. Tried as he might, he could do little more than flounder hopelessly and maybe spit a weak flame or two, each extinguished instantly as the water splashed around him. The creature simply ignored Pepper and continued to advance on Patrick.

This should be “Try as he might.”

She deftly dodged out of his grip and stepped back. "Don't... hug me, please. I'm covered in enough of this crap already. A simple thank you will do."

One; I understand what Patrick may be in this version according to some rumors that you wrote in the original so it could be attributed to his personality. Two; why would he try to hug her anyways? He just met Andrea, and as well she covered in swamp stuff, I wouldn’t hug in this situation.

"By all means, be my guest!" he happily answered. He turned to face the watery clearing, which was still rippling heavily and covered with a thin cloud of steam. "What do you think? Problem solved?"

Yeah let’s see Patrick: You went into swamp believing a regular old Pokémon was the source of the problem, but you realized that is an unnatural phenomenon caused by an undocumented evolution or unknown Pokémon that is growing at a alarming rate, you then encounter said unknown Pokémon and barely make it out safe, and you still don’t know how its affecting the environment. So, yeah, “problem solved.” I think Patrick needs a social psychologist.

"Mmm. Can I get your permission to go back out there and inspect the creature a little closer?"

Did you just not almost just die and not learn anything!? God he needs he needs mental help.

He was clearly disappointed, but he wasn't about to fight it. "Very well. We'll let someone more qualified handle this. We did what we could, but this is beyond our capabilities."

This would be “qualified to handle.”

Alright, that’s all I can say about this chapter. Time to move on to the Interlude and see what I can bring up.

Interlude

"Let's see... Potential field assignments..." Patrick mumbled as he browsed through a list of e-mails that had been piling up over the past week. "Hopefully we've gotten some interesting ones this time..."

Email is one word here, even though that dash was really common for so long.

Expedition to Mount Gelzaya to save endangered Gogoat subspecies
fr: [email protected]

"Hard pass. Not sending my employees to an active war zone..."

Says the guy who’s MO was basically Leeroy Jenkins into a swamp that could of been poisonous.

Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Re: Reports of paranormal activity in the Doranshire area
fr: [email protected]
"Ghost hunting? Sounds fun, but not really what we do here..."

Sounds ironic since what happened in the original regarding this, and he fails to look at the full address it looks like.

"Nonsense! Sit down!" he said. He slouched in his chair a bit and clumsily pushed the chair on the opposite side of the desk outward with his foot. "I could use a bit of a distraction."

It always looks like he’s looking for a distraction sometimes.

"Hmm... I've got nothing sarcastic to say, so, hit me with it. What have you got?"

She handed her phone over. "Your new prospective hire. I found her Instaglam account."

The first comma isn’t necessary here. I also see another of your social media expy’s, this one’s a bit more obvious than the others (I’ve been meaning to make my own, now that I think about it). I mean I don’t think it’s really that important, but I kinda wish it wasn’t so obvious and bit more original sounding but is basically Instagram.

Emily tilted her head as she waited for him to respond. "Uhhh, hello? Earth to Patrick?"

He smirked. "...Wow. This just goes on and on and on! She is very proud of her cleavage, isn't she?"

She giggled. "Well, if I had those? I probably would be, too."

Uhh, if I was an employer looking at that in front of a female employee I feel like he shouldn’t do that. Maybe just because a lot of my friends in my senior year of high school was female so I try to respect them as much as I could, maybe it’s just my values coming into this. Also Emily jealous.

"I'm surprised she only has a dozen followers with pictures like these."

"Having boobs isn't the magic ticket to a massive social media following, you know. They could be her friends."

Friends? What are those?

"Well, it wasn't hard. I noticed she was taking a lot of photos yesterday while we were in the Nettlemarsh, and I wanted to have a look at them. It was a stab in the dark, but I searched Instaglam for the #nettlemarsh tag and her account was the first result that popped up. And, like most people, she uses the same account name for everything: FriendZone, Chatter, Bloggo... she's even got a HotShot account! And they're all linked on her Instaglam."

Soooo, you might not remember this. But I remember (since I often look at backlogs of Discord) when the writing channel first started on the Discord I ask what could be a Pokémon version (Pokémon-ized?) of Twitter for another fic I had in planning before Orre: The Desert happened, and I remember you brought up Chatter. Didn’t expect it to show up all the way here.

He leaned back and laughed. "Ah, the wonders of social media! Good bye privacy!"

Mistake on goodbye here.

"Yeah, I'm still thinking it over. I might take a cursory glance at her social media, see if she's bad news on the surface, but I'm not going to stalk this poor girl and scour every word she's ever written online. She may be loose with her privacy, but that doesn't mean I have to take advantage of that. I can respect privacy even where there's very little."

At least this Patrick have some redeemable traits.

She raised her eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

So once again I put this into a Google Doc, and it says that eyebrow is grammatically incorrect and should be “eyebrows” instead, I don’t know what you intended to do with that, so do with that as you want.

hell, I nearly got myself killed. We don't need curious, clueless and frankly stupid people flocking into the wilderness to see it."

Cause of your leeroy jenkin-ings you don’t want to admit!!

"Hopefully we can prove once and for all whether this is a new species we discovered or not."

So I’m blanking of this, was this a new species in the original or was it a Blastcap mutation/evolution?

Those details painted the picture of a bitter and angry young woman, but also hinted that her general negativity and quiet nature was heavily influenced by her depressing surroundings, bleak circumstances and apparent terrible luck.

Sounds like me in real life, no wonder I like Andrea so much.

"Okay... If I do bring her onboard, I guess I'll have to make it clear that she'd need to be patient as she settles in..." He went back to her Instaglam account to seek out her next profile, only to find himself captivated by her selfies again. "...Maybe dress a little more modestly, too. Those pillows would distract a lot of people."

I mean he’s not wrong, but I don’t think he has sound perverted. Like I know he’s by himself, but he could say something like “Dress a little more modestly, we are a lab with chemicals everywhere after all.” I would think a scientist would be more respectable and not like this.

Her account on Chatter -- a platform that challenged its users to share quick thoughts and updates with a limited amount of characters -- was anything but chatty.

Sounds like me on Twitter, where I just favorite everything and tweet nothing. Barely retweet anything too.

"She seems pretty normal so far..."

Oh Patrick, no one is normal and there is nothing normal in this world.

Okay, I went through a ton of stuff so I hope this could be helpful in some way. I enjoy reviewing these and you’ll probably see more reviews from me when I’m not working on schoolwork, Orre: The Desert, my other work or just my laziness.

 

[Beth Pavell]

try." she bleated.

Comma.

The receptionist's expression lit up.

Possible nit-pick here, but if he's already wearing a customer service smile it'll be difficult for his face to light up as well. Not impossible, I suppose (Customer service smiles can visibly develop actual warmth)

The Institute feels a bit more lived-in this time round. I recall the last version of it was just too cool and contemporary for its own good. I'm also thinking - and this is more a case of my evolving opinions - that the workplace seeming to be more laid-back at first glance than it really is, is ok.

If anything Patrick seems more annoying this time. His attitude just strikes me as more fitting for a mentor of the same rank buddying up with the new hire than a supervisor. That's more than likely the point

 

[Misfit Angel]

After sitting on some responses I've written to feedback and careful deliberation, I'm cutting chapter 7 from the story. It's creating too much of a headache for me in too many ways for me to consider going back and salvaging what I can.

First, the chapter throttled Patrick's characterization more than I'm comfortable with, and too early. Patrick is a senior staff member and head of the Reiland Institute's biology department. He's supposed to be older, wiser and more experienced than Andrea. Even if he had an impulsive and brash personality, I believe that someone with a compassionate heart would see the folly in bringing an unsanctioned guest into a potentially dangerous goose chase. I want to paint him as cautious and considerate (at least at the start! We'll see where things go later), since he has a lot to lose if he makes a mistake, and many mistakes could be made if he drags a stranger into a dangerous or discomforting position. Since Patrick was the driving force behind heading into the wilderness in search of the Blastcap infestation, reeling him back completely knocks the steam out of the chapter, and this was one of the biggest reasons I made for deciding to cut it.

And honestly, while I did enjoy many aspects of the finalized chapter (particularly the description and worldbuilding), narratively it felt quite repetitive after rereading it. Patrick and the girls argue. A lot. And usually about the same thing. When I was writing it, I just couldn't make it work, so I tried to have both sides win the argument by having Patrick relent, but still had them cross through the infected swampland. I pushed the chapter out the door because I was sick of writing it, and in the end, it just didn't hold together very well. The interpersonal drama didn't feel as smooth as I'm usually capable of, and unless I spend a considerable amount of time on polishing and rewriting this chapter, I'm not sure I can squeeze enough juice out of it to make it worth it.

Another thing is that it creates some problems in the narrative that I've been struggling to get around. Both Andrea and Patrick fell face first into the slimy water! What kind of long lasting health effects might that have? Could they have tracked Blastcap spores out of the area and brought them across the country? How was Andrea supposed to get home without looking and smelling like a complete and utter mess? How would a laundromat handle the sludge, and would that also cause ecological problems? Was Patrick's pokemon exposed to toxins that are deadly to its species? These are problems I could potentially discuss and solve, but it's not the story I want to tell.

The single largest reason I decided to cut this chapter: it's simply not required anymore. When I originally wrote Land of the Roses back in 2016, I envisioned the fungal golem creature as the start of the paranormal plotline of the original incarnation of the story. In essence, the creature was intended to be a weapons test by the antagonist of the story, the immortal blood witch known as Maphesia Candlefire; how could blood magic be used to warp and twist the wildlife to serve her purposes? Supercharging an extremely potent ecological threat and unleashing it on the country seemed like a cool idea, and she would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those damn meddling kids. But since I'm not going down the dark arts road anymore, do I really need a roided up magic mushroom monster? Probably not.

To fully realize the changes to the story that come with cutting chapter 7, I'm also making some minor alterations to other chapters:

In general, Chapter 6: A Grim Task saw some minor edits and improvements to the dialogue, grammar and spelling. The biggest change came at the end, where I pivoted away from sending the trio out into the Nettlemarsh. When I stepped back and looked at it, I realized that they were effectively looking for a needle in a haystack; while Blastcap is indeed destructive to local ecosystems, without the magical aspect of it that was present in the original plotline, there's no reason for it to literally devour the land like it's candy. Instead, I took the more logical approach and sent them home to go over their data and figure out what to do next. You know, what a proper researcher would do.

Interlude: wiltedlilacx also received some edits. Most notably, I shifted the subject of Andrea's photography away from the Nettlemarsh to the flora of the countryside between Loch Alstan and Nettlefield, which gives me a thread to tug on later on if I want to (remember Andrea's mother being a judge at a horticulture show before the rewrite?). The core concept of Emily stumbling on some revealing selfies remains. As with chapter 6, this one also received a minor polishing to touch up grammar and dialogue in general.

Hopefully the build up of the threat of Blastcap and then... nothing happening doesn't bother too many readers. Removing the finale of the Nettlefield arc may have taken out too many teeth, but only time will tell I suppose.

While I'm here, I may as well announce that I have another two chapters fully written. However, I've held off on publishing them as I'm considering taking the approach I spoke about waaaaaaaay back in 2017: have an arc (or rather a specific grouping of chapters, to more accurately describe my writing) entirely written before publishing, and then roll them out once a week. It feels bad just leaving the story to sit without updates for so long, but it would be nice to see if I can avoid saying "but wait until two chapters/two months from now!" whenever someone brings up a plot point that doesn't quite connect yet. It's also allowed me to go between them and make fixes without having to worry about editing already published material, which is nice.

Hell, waiting until I was fully done with at least chapters 6 and 7 together might have prevented me from publishing something I wasn't proud of until I simply relented and pushed it out the door anyway

If I'm not happy with how that turns out, it'll be back to posting chapters as they're finished.

@Ryoma Maser, I apologize for not getting to you sooner about your feedback, and I'm humbled that you spent so much time and effort on what you've given me. While most of it is unfortunately invalidated by cutting chapter 7, I'll touch on a few key concerns you had.

Yeah, it really seems like you are trying to get rid of Patrick as soon as possible with changing his personality into something a lot more socially inept and a lot more jerkish (standoffish?) since you originally mentioned you wanted to fade him out.

To clarify, Patrick was intended to be a minor character in the original incarnation of this story, someone who showed up for the interview and showed her the ropes, but then quickly faded away as she dealt either directly with Dr. Reiland, or other staff members in the biology department. But his position in the story and relative to Andrea evolved more than I ever thought it would, and I started to actually grow to like him. There were some growing pains associated with that which I hope to solve this time around, and as such, he's definitely sticking around as a main character in this incarnation of the story.

I remember this Pokemon being a Flareon (since I believe it’s now a Pokémon you created) I'm blanking on its original name though, cause I swore it wasn’t Pepper.

Yes, originally Patrick's pokemon was a Flareon named Fang. Now it is a "Hopañero" (a chili pepper rabbit) named Pepper.

I can kinda see where this going based on the original but I’m unsure if you’ll go down that road again.

I mentioned this above, but I'm glad you spotted where I was (originally) going with it.

Also what kind of swamp is orange? Is it the fungi or is it a weird autumn color in your “not spring”?

Yeah, it was supposed to be the fungal spread that was changing the general color scheme of the swamp. Sorta like this.

Ah yes, the running gag/thing of bad things happening to her boots that were present in the original version, happy that came back.

Unfortunately with the chapter being cut, this is no longer the case. However, I won't forget this!

Ah yes, everyone’s reaction to a new Pokemon they had never seen before.

Is it really that odd when you're confronted by a 7 foot tall mushroom monster, as opposed to the knee-high cluster of mushrooms you were expecting?

Email is one word here, even though that dash was really common for so long.

Let me be an old crone, damn it! shakes cane

Sounds ironic since what happened in the original regarding this, and he fails to look at the full address it looks like.

Yep, a throwback here! I wanted an expansive list of e-mails for him to look at and figured a throwback would work, as well as a hint at another story I wanted to write (Kensacola and its Thousand Mile Reef).

The first comma isn’t necessary here.

Grammatically, maybe not. But I write dialogue as how people would actually speak. That first comma is a pause.

I mean I don’t think it’s really that important, but I kinda wish it wasn’t so obvious and bit more original sounding but is basically Instagram.

Yeah, I get that it's not too original, but since these social media things aren't going to show up a whole lot, I'm not going to worry about it too much. It saved me a few lines of having to explain what "cleavageselfieindex.com" or whatever I would have called it actually is.

(ps, pls don't let that be an actual link)

Uhh, if I was an employer looking at that in front of a female employee I feel like he shouldn’t do that.

Remember, these two are best friends (and former partners). Speaking from personal experience, a girl who is comfortable around you won't care (and might actively participate) when it comes to a smutty, inappropriate smirk.

Soooo, you might not remember this. But I remember (since I often look at backlogs of Discord) when the writing channel first started on the Discord I ask what could be a Pokémon version (Pokémon-ized?) of Twitter for another fic I had in planning before Orre: The Desert happened, and I remember you brought up Chatter. Didn’t expect it to show up all the way here.

To be fair, this one isn't exactly original either I know canisaries has a reference to Chatter, and I'm sure another story I've read also mentions it.

So once again I put this into a Google Doc, and it says that eyebrow is grammatically incorrect and should be “eyebrows” instead, I don’t know what you intended to do with that, so do with that as you want.

First mistake: trusting google!

I mean, the context here is pretty obvious. She's asking a question which hints at her being inquisitive. What do cartoon characters do as a signal for that? They raise a single eyebrow.

So I’m blanking of this, was this a new species in the original or was it a Blastcap mutation/evolution?

This has been cut, but I may as well confirm: it was meant to be an undocumented evolved form. I'm unsure still if the evolution itself would have been closer to exposure to an elemental stone or something more sinister, like Team Rocket's radio waves at the Lake of Rage.

I would think a scientist would be more respectable and not like this.

One thing you'll learn as you move into the professional and adult world is that nobody really grows up past their college habits, especially in private. I mean, hell, look at the stories you hear about prominent billionaires, celebrities and politicians, people who eclipse the general public in a variety of ways: most of them are just as dirty minded as the rest of us, they're just better at hiding it.

Comma.

Noted and fixed. I'm still trying to break this habit, so, there's probably more of this out there still.

The Institute feels a bit more lived-in this time round. I recall the last version of it was just too cool and contemporary for its own good. I'm also thinking - and this is more a case of my evolving opinions - that the workplace seeming to be more laid-back at first glance than it really is, is ok.

I did take what you said earlier to heart and tried to make it a bit more professional, but still laid back. No more Google Headquarters, where everyone looks like a caveman slob and sleeps on bean bag couches instead of working!

If anything Patrick seems more annoying this time. His attitude just strikes me as more fitting for a mentor of the same rank buddying up with the new hire than a supervisor. That's more than likely the point

Spot on analysis