PokéLove

After much grumbling to myself, I’ve finally arrived in Cyllage City. I immediately head towards the Pokémon Center and reserve a room. Once inside, I let out my menagerie of pokémon to let them breathe a little.

As I stare at my team laid across the room, an errant thought reappears in my mind. The one that says I should probably diversify my team’s typings. It’s evident that I’ll probably use Hazel the Ferroseed to carry the battle, but it rankles me deep inside at the thought of obtaining all of these pokémon and never letting them battle.

Noibat has quickly gone back to my laptop to continue her language lessons; she’s come quite a long way. As I pull out my Octillery Arms to do some, hopefully final, repairs on them, I kneel down on the ground, closing the distance between us as she sits on the bed.

“I think I’ll call you Alexandra… That seems like a nice name.” Noibat doesn’t reply, only tilting her head towards me.  I hope she understood me. I’ll probably have to remind her once she can grasp the language. It should’ve started with greetings and introductions, though.

The arms, by the way, are pretty much done. I just need to find a parts store for the stuff I can’t make by myself or want to make. Like resistors for example.

Taking Robin with me, we exit the Pokémon Center and, following an online map, find a parts store in between two other shops: a cartography store, and a glassblower.

Inside the store, it’s…dead. There’s nobody here exit for the man who I presume to be the storeowner. He’s a bald man with the roughest, curliest black beard I have ever seen. He’s arguing over the phone, and try as I might, it’s difficult to ignore the words of the only other man in the building.

He seems to be yelling to someone about mooching off of his coattails, and…he’s caught sight of me. He quickly excuses himself on the phone and turns to me with the best Customer-Service smile he can muster. It’s…not great as his eyebrow is twitching. “Hello, I’m Flimm—the owner of this establishment. Do you need any assistance today?” His bloodshot eyes stare at me, twitching slightly.

“Um,” I start, unintentionally stepping back, “I’m looking for any resistors and maybe some self-resetting fuses?”

He points at the back wall. “Individual components are in the drawers on the wall there.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I nod to him and practically run to the back of the shop. I nab the resistors needed, and a few fuses. I glance over my shoulder only to find that Flimm is back on the phone, arguing again but now in a harsh and hushed tone. He’s staring at the wall opposite me, completely avoiding eye contact with me.

With Flimm distracted, a tension I didn’t know I had relaxes. For some reason, I feel much more comfortable shopping when someone isn’t watching me. I mosey around, browsing the shelves, and finding that the electronics here are incredibly cheap.

Not looking a gift Ponyta in the mouth, I start swiping everything I might need. I probably don’t even need POE cables, but I have them anyway. Who knows when I would need it?!

Remarkably, the only empty slot on the stocked shelves is the spot where nixie tubes worth a fraction of their real price would be. Steeling myself, I wave down Flimm. He once again hangs up and interlaces his hands. “Yes, dear customer?”

“Two questions. First, why are the nixie tubes so cheap? Second, why are they the only thing out of stock?” At my question, Flimm’s face cramps, eyes locked on me as not a thought crosses his eyes.

“The store is currently having a disagreement with our supplier for nixie tubes. A supplier I have a close relationship with and makes the tubes for cheap. Though, I can’t imagine what project you have that requires wired vacuum tubes when a 7-segment display would work.”

Because they’re cool. “I can’t imagine that this supplier would be the one you were arguing with on the phone.”

He vehemently shakes his head. “Of course not! It would be inappropriate to show such a thing to a customer.”

I give him a stare of disbelief, raising only a single accusatory eyebrow. “This supplier also wouldn’t happen to be the glassblower right next door?”

Flimm closes his eyes for a hot minute, audibly controlling his breathing. “Okay, yes. I admit it. I’m having a disagreement with the glassblower, who also happens to be my brother, Flamm.”

Pointedly ignoring the lack of creativity in the names, I continue on, “Okay. I’d rather not get involved with whatever familial disputes you two have, but that seems unprofessional to inhibit supply over, what I assume to be, some minor dispute.”

Flimm throws his hands towards me. “Yes! Of course! But Flamm only sees things with his…artistic view. No respect for the economy, and if he no longer feels like making nixie tubes, then no more nixie tubes. If someone comes in requesting a wine glass, and he doesn’t feel like making a wine glass, then no wine glass! He hasn’t made a sale by himself in over a year, despite him saying that he wants to run a business. The only reason he’s still in business is because I, and my other brother Flomm, subsidize his work!”

I can’t tell if I want to tell Flimm to lay off his brother or tell Flamm that you can’t run a business if you reject your customers. “How does Flomm feel about this whole…situation?”

Flimm scoffs. “Flomm couldn’t care less. Despite being the only one of us able to control Flamm, he’d rather spend his day in his study, listening to the reports of explorers, and making maps. At least he sells them.”

I exhale slowly. This…gives me the feeling that if I follow this trail, then I’ll get derailed for a long while and won’t return to my journey due to my need to complete this task. Not that I might be able to complete it since it sounds like I need to get the attention of this Flomm, and I haven’t been anywhere exotic.

“That sounds tough. I hope you can fix your family’s relationship,” I state, dropping my items on the counter for him to ring up.

“Me too,” he sighs. “Me too.”

After paying, I sprint out of the store. I should be able to attach these things to my arms, and maybe I can make a few other things. Perhaps, I can even squeeze in some spectator battles with Grant.

flintseal

Recently, I was put into a team for a project, and we were required to make a small robot that could navigate a small maze. Basic stuff like gyroscopes, accelerometers, one of my teammates had a LIDAR (which was fun to use). Anyway, we had a team captain who doled out roles, and I was one of two serving under the programming captain he appointed. I wrote the code for the gyroscope and some indicator lights off of an Arduino. Sadly, the prog. captain decided to scrap my gyroscope code and just use predetermined commands. As such, when our professor reviewed our work, he would only see that I just wrote some indicator lights. Thankfully, the team captain advocated for me, and I showed the professor my original gyroscope code, so I didn't completely flunk the project, but it still hurt. So, I played pokemon infinite fusion to cheer myself up...and that turned into weeks.

So, yeah. I take failure hard.

Thanks for reading!