"Oh! Hey!" Umemiya's voice comes back, warm and eager. "I'll come down and fetch you. Have you already eaten? It's a bad idea to train on an empty stomach."
Mayaka has set a strict schedule for herself which includes ensuring she gets 3 square meals a day between errands. However, she omits the fact that she ate less than usual, since she was a little nervous.
The Sneasel tucks her Grumpearl away and wanders into the main hall. As she waits for the Lucario to appear, her eyes scan the ribbons and awards on display, and the other Pokemon in the guild going about their day.
Umemiya doesn't take long to get to the hall, his tail doing a wag-wag beneath his gakuran jacket. His aura-sensing tendrils are tied back with a coordinating scrap of green cloth, and he's not wearing anything else beneath it.
"Hey, Mayaka! It's really nice to meet you in person. Here, I've already picked out a room we can work in. No extra equipment, nothing."
Mayaka presses her claws together, in an attempt at a 'thank you' gesture despite how awkward it feels, especially since she's wearing gloves now.
She follows the Lucario as he leads her to the training room, her gaze floating from one side of the hallway to the other. She's not been to the Spire much, and is naturally curious about how things are laid out in the Oran Berry Guild.
"Lots happened since we last spoke. Akechi told me about how dangerous the woods were, and Ingo-san and I got into a fight with the Eevees that invaded the Canpoy the other day. He got really hurt. I've just been feeling really useless compared to everyone else," Mayaka says, feeling the weight in her heart lessen after sharing this aloud.
"Yeah, I can understand why you'd feel like that. And it seems like you don't really trust your claws right now. Got them all covered up for safety?"
It reminds him a little of how one of the guys at school with the biggest temper has a habit of sucking on lollipops to stop him from mouthing off at people.
An irritated frown flashes briefly across her face. "Yeah, it sucks having to be so careful. But at least I have these gloves Six-san gave me. Now I can prep food without worrying about poisoning the batch."
"The thing is, Ingo-san told me that to get better at controlling the poison, I need to use it more often too."
"I think he's probably right. But first thing I want you to do is to take off your gloves and shake my hand. Erm, paw." He holds his right forepaw out. There's a large sharp metal spike on the back of it.
See, he wants to prove to her that the poison isn't an issue. He's a steel type, he's immune.
Mayaka has spent most of her time in the Archives learning more about Poison-type Pokemon and their relationship to other types, if only to get a better handle on her unfortunate physiology. Still, she's somewhat cautious as she takes her gloves off and extends her claw to Umemiya.
"The last time this happened, I had to help the other guy walk out of the mountains." She says this to warn the Lucario, before taking a deep breath and grabbing onto his right forepaw.
Umemiya squeezes her hand lightly, ears perked. "Not gonna happen this time. I'm safe for you to be around, even if you aren't fully in control of those claws. See?"
And to his credit, he sure doesn't seem to be getting poisoned!
"So, follow me to the training room and we can get to work."
She exhales, feeling some measure of relief. However, Umemiya might feel her stare fixed on the back of his head as they walk to the training room, as if she's watching to see if he'll suddenly fall over.
"I've read up on moves and such, but how do you actually learn them? Does it come naturally to you when you're training?" Mayaka shifts into diligent student mode as she poses these questions.
"The people who trained me when I arrived did mostly by sparring. They forced me to react to them, to bring out my potential. But I was used to fighting back home. I'm guessing you weren't so much?"
Yeah, turns out the nice big brother figure is also a little bit of a delinquent, sorry.
Mayaka, who had been doing simple stretches one might expect before the start of PE class, freezes in place.
Umemiya, as far as she can tell, is a normal high school guy-turned-Lucario, that tailored school jacket he's got on is enough evidence. So the 'fighting back home' he's talking about can only mean one thing.
When Simon first heard of a garden--for food, for vegetables and fruits--he almost got excited about it.
Almost, because he's still new and unsure. Almost, because it's an important and essential work--but his knowledge of it hits a certain wall. A wall he doesn't know how to get around, or climb over, or tunnel under. A wall that's a little too imposing for him to face directly. At least... not at first.
At first... he shows up.
He hovers--often literally--around the periphery of the gardenspace.
Unshielded when he could--which wasn't much--in order to watch.
Shielded when he had to be--which was most of the time--to listen.
He's not really being inconspicuous. Kind of the opposite. He moves out of the way of anyone who complains, but he doesn't leave.
And eventually, finally, he catches the garden's keeper (whatever the title here for that may be) alone. Shields down, he just sort of floats his red energy core along behind the poor guy and hangs out there for a few seconds before actually speaking.
Umemiya isn't weirded out much by someone quietly lingering around him. Shit, boys at his school do that at his rooftop garden for one reason or another. Sugishita isn't good at talking, and Kusumi doesn't talk, at least that Umemiya's ever heard. If this guy has something to say, he will.
Which is why he reacts immediately when he approaches with a question, straightening up from the carrot seeds he's planting and brushing off his forepaws. "Go ahead and ask."
It might become obvious for the first time, when he speaks, that this is a teenager, not some seasoned old man who's been gardening forever. But he clearly knows his shit.
Simon has largely been classifying the people ('people?') he's met into two categories: adults and children.
The way he was raised--and the limitations of his extremely narrow experiences--doesn't really engender a midpoint. This guy doesn't sound like a child exactly, so Simon takes him to be somewhere on the adulthood side of things.
This is a good thing, really; his experiences with children here so far have been... challenging.
It's hard enough to interact with people ('people?') here, to act like nothing is as serious as it was, no desperation or imminent ending against which each human being's right to continued life must measured. Like there's no starvation for food, for water, for reason or hope or faith or life.
People are just... existing, and they're saying things to each other, and they plant gardens, and.... it's not the end of the world.
He doesn't really know how to act like that. He only knows what he wants to ask right now, and so he asks it.
"A mix of compost and shit, usually." He means actual compost. Veggie scraps from dishes cooked in all three guilds, dried leaves, remnants from pruning. He keeps his compost heap away from everyone's dwellings, to be polite.
The vermiculture's as often Wurmpleculture as anything else.
The shit, meanwhile, speaks for itself. Pokemon eat, Pokemon shit. No one usually dwells on that fact.
Simon isn't really bothered by the shit thing. It only makes sense--in his experience, every last gram of any possible resource is used and re-used in any way one can. It's the compost he's concerned about.
"What's in the compost?"
Just asking. You know. A normal question. This is a normal question.
It's not like he's acting nervous. He's not. He's serious, but he's calm--at least externally; the bright pools of light that are his eyes swirl steadily.
"Eh, whatever waste the kitchens have. Potato peels, apple cores, carrot tops--though we could do more with those if someone wanted to cook them or put them in a salad, but no one's made the effort."
Umemiya shrugs slightly, not understanding why it's even a question.
"Weeds from the gardens, those end up cut up and put in the compost, too."
The words drop out of his mouth with an edge of anger that he doesn't hide. It doesn't occur to him that he should.
This wasn't what he came for--he came to find out where the bodies came from, or how they were supplying enough nourishment for the plants otherwise. But now--
"If it goes into the compost, it's not really a waste. It helps us grow more food. We're not dealing with scarcity here--there's enough to go around."
Though that reaction makes Umemiya wonder where Simon would sit on the whole hunting debate. It's probably best not to introduce that line of thinking quite yet.
"It's food," Simon rebuts immediately. "It's--that's--"
He's not great at words, and struggles for a second before he finally finds the one he wants. "--disgusting!"
That's it, really. That's what he feels. Which, normally, wouldn't be something on offer--and he realises quickly that he probably overstepped.
"I mean--sure, there's enough, okay, I get that, and that's... that's great. It is." But.
It's still so wrong, to him.
It does, however... answer his question. In a very slowly-loading, background kind of way. His next words are quieter--almost an undertone meant only for himself.
"...I guess if there's that much, you don't need bodies...."
"Bodies?!" Right, cultural standards of disgust are very different, but Umemiya's fur all bristles when he hears that word.
"No, never. For one thing, meat rots at a very different rate, and attracts vermin--in this world, that'd be wild Pokemon from the forest--long before it rots enough to get used as compost. Vegetable matter breaks down quicker and cleaner, and also stinks less! Like, I can see using bonemeal for nitrogen fixing in the soil, but there's no way we'd use bodies just for compost."
Simon is outwardly unmoved when the blue thing (he doesn't know what to call this creature at all) riles up. Internally, he's a bit confused, but without muscles or a real meat-and-electricity body to tense up reflexively for him, he simply stares back at Umemiya, seemingly nonplussed.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2026-01-10 11:57 am (UTC)"Hey, Umemiya-kun, are you free right now? I'm outside the Spire and... I wanted to get started on training."
She sounds a bit hesitant, but after she's dragged herself all the way here, she won't allow herself to turn back so easily.
(ooc: feel free to pick this up whenever! tagging cos im interested to explore this cr :D)
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Date: 2026-01-10 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-11 01:23 am (UTC)Mayaka has set a strict schedule for herself which includes ensuring she gets 3 square meals a day between errands. However, she omits the fact that she ate less than usual, since she was a little nervous.
The Sneasel tucks her Grumpearl away and wanders into the main hall. As she waits for the Lucario to appear, her eyes scan the ribbons and awards on display, and the other Pokemon in the guild going about their day.
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Date: 2026-01-11 03:21 am (UTC)"Hey, Mayaka! It's really nice to meet you in person. Here, I've already picked out a room we can work in. No extra equipment, nothing."
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Date: 2026-01-11 12:33 pm (UTC)Mayaka presses her claws together, in an attempt at a 'thank you' gesture despite how awkward it feels, especially since she's wearing gloves now.
She follows the Lucario as he leads her to the training room, her gaze floating from one side of the hallway to the other. She's not been to the Spire much, and is naturally curious about how things are laid out in the Oran Berry Guild.
"Lots happened since we last spoke. Akechi told me about how dangerous the woods were, and Ingo-san and I got into a fight with the Eevees that invaded the Canpoy the other day. He got really hurt. I've just been feeling really useless compared to everyone else," Mayaka says, feeling the weight in her heart lessen after sharing this aloud.
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Date: 2026-01-11 02:59 pm (UTC)It reminds him a little of how one of the guys at school with the biggest temper has a habit of sucking on lollipops to stop him from mouthing off at people.
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Date: 2026-01-11 11:04 pm (UTC)"The thing is, Ingo-san told me that to get better at controlling the poison, I need to use it more often too."
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Date: 2026-01-12 02:43 am (UTC)See, he wants to prove to her that the poison isn't an issue. He's a steel type, he's immune.
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Date: 2026-01-12 03:30 am (UTC)"The last time this happened, I had to help the other guy walk out of the mountains." She says this to warn the Lucario, before taking a deep breath and grabbing onto his right forepaw.
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Date: 2026-01-12 04:12 am (UTC)And to his credit, he sure doesn't seem to be getting poisoned!
"So, follow me to the training room and we can get to work."
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Date: 2026-01-12 04:34 am (UTC)"I've read up on moves and such, but how do you actually learn them? Does it come naturally to you when you're training?" Mayaka shifts into diligent student mode as she poses these questions.
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Date: 2026-01-12 03:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, turns out the nice big brother figure is also a little bit of a delinquent, sorry.
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Date: 2026-01-13 01:17 am (UTC)Umemiya, as far as she can tell, is a normal high school guy-turned-Lucario, that tailored school jacket he's got on is enough evidence. So the 'fighting back home' he's talking about can only mean one thing.
She shoots a glare at him.
"Umemiya-kun, were you a troublemaker in school?"
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From:2026 Spring Gardening! CW: eventual horror genre compost practises
Date: 2026-04-13 02:09 am (UTC)Almost, because he's still new and unsure. Almost, because it's an important and essential work--but his knowledge of it hits a certain wall. A wall he doesn't know how to get around, or climb over, or tunnel under. A wall that's a little too imposing for him to face directly. At least... not at first.
At first... he shows up.
He hovers--often literally--around the periphery of the gardenspace.
Unshielded when he could--which wasn't much--in order to watch.
Shielded when he had to be--which was most of the time--to listen.
He's not really being inconspicuous. Kind of the opposite. He moves out of the way of anyone who complains, but he doesn't leave.
And eventually, finally, he catches the garden's keeper (whatever the title here for that may be) alone. Shields down, he just sort of floats his red energy core along behind the poor guy and hangs out there for a few seconds before actually speaking.
"Uh. Hey. I want to ask a question."
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Date: 2026-04-13 02:22 am (UTC)Which is why he reacts immediately when he approaches with a question, straightening up from the carrot seeds he's planting and brushing off his forepaws. "Go ahead and ask."
It might become obvious for the first time, when he speaks, that this is a teenager, not some seasoned old man who's been gardening forever. But he clearly knows his shit.
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Date: 2026-04-13 02:55 am (UTC)The way he was raised--and the limitations of his extremely narrow experiences--doesn't really engender a midpoint. This guy doesn't sound like a child exactly, so Simon takes him to be somewhere on the adulthood side of things.
This is a good thing, really; his experiences with children here so far have been... challenging.
It's hard enough to interact with people ('people?') here, to act like nothing is as serious as it was, no desperation or imminent ending against which each human being's right to continued life must measured. Like there's no starvation for food, for water, for reason or hope or faith or life.
People are just... existing, and they're saying things to each other, and they plant gardens, and.... it's not the end of the world.
He doesn't really know how to act like that. He only knows what he wants to ask right now, and so he asks it.
"What do feed those plants with?"
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Date: 2026-04-13 03:11 am (UTC)The vermiculture's as often Wurmpleculture as anything else.The shit, meanwhile, speaks for itself. Pokemon eat, Pokemon shit. No one usually dwells on that fact.
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Date: 2026-04-14 03:05 am (UTC)"What's in the compost?"
Just asking. You know. A normal question. This is a normal question.
It's not like he's acting nervous. He's not. He's serious, but he's calm--at least externally; the bright pools of light that are his eyes swirl steadily.
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Date: 2026-04-14 03:23 pm (UTC)Umemiya shrugs slightly, not understanding why it's even a question.
"Weeds from the gardens, those end up cut up and put in the compost, too."
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Date: 2026-04-14 07:45 pm (UTC)The words drop out of his mouth with an edge of anger that he doesn't hide. It doesn't occur to him that he should.
This wasn't what he came for--he came to find out where the bodies came from, or how they were supplying enough nourishment for the plants otherwise. But now--
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Date: 2026-04-14 07:52 pm (UTC)Though that reaction makes Umemiya wonder where Simon would sit on the whole hunting debate. It's probably best not to introduce that line of thinking quite yet.
cw here comes the corpse talk
Date: 2026-04-14 11:39 pm (UTC)He's not great at words, and struggles for a second before he finally finds the one he wants. "--disgusting!"
That's it, really. That's what he feels. Which, normally, wouldn't be something on offer--and he realises quickly that he probably overstepped.
"I mean--sure, there's enough, okay, I get that, and that's... that's great. It is." But.
It's still so wrong, to him.
It does, however... answer his question. In a very slowly-loading, background kind of way. His next words are quieter--almost an undertone meant only for himself.
"...I guess if there's that much, you don't need bodies...."
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Date: 2026-04-14 11:45 pm (UTC)"No, never. For one thing, meat rots at a very different rate, and attracts vermin--in this world, that'd be wild Pokemon from the forest--long before it rots enough to get used as compost. Vegetable matter breaks down quicker and cleaner, and also stinks less! Like, I can see using bonemeal for nitrogen fixing in the soil, but there's no way we'd use bodies just for compost."
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Date: 2026-04-14 11:57 pm (UTC)"'Just' for compost?" he echoes.
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Date: 2026-04-15 12:17 am (UTC)He's made his peace with that fact; hell, he's even gone hunting a couple times himself. But he understands why others would be weirded out by it.
"And any eggs in food, those come from Pokemon, too, though those are more often donated by 'mons living in town."
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